Ukraine Invasion: Part 35

[MagicFox]

We're still here, on 35 🇺🇦

@MissConductUS I've started the Thanksgiving mashed potatoes. I make them with butter, sour cream, and cream cheese, then bake them with cheddar on top. The recipe is available if you ask nicely. 😀

Yes please. That sounds lush. Cheddar is sneaking in a nice Brit touch to Thanksgiving 😋

@MissConductUS

P.S. “Helicopter ASW is normally done from ships with towed array sonars that can detect and provide bearings to the submarines. Operating from land, they'd have no idea where to look”

I have a work colleague who was an ex RN S-61 ASW captain…he’d be quite upset if he read that …😊

He certainly used to tell some interesting (but for obvious reasons not very detailed tales) about the joys of operating over the Barents Sea during the Cold War …..shades of the Hunt for Red October…

Yes..well... that may have been good enough in March April etc but it seems to me that Russia is escalating constantly and i doubt what Sunak or Macron says to the Russian Ambassadors makes any difference to Putin etc, the latest musing from the Russian in London a few days ago was Putin wanted a way out.... yes def looks like he does... not.

The channels that matter are those between the USA and Moscow.

I agree Russia is more than Putin but atm he represents Russia.. we didn't have diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany and Putin is behaving in much the same way as Hitler did, imho Russia has the means to bomb Ukraine from a far for many years to come... Are we to put up with this?

@notimagain, my apologies then to your friend from the RN. There is also SOSUS to provide targets. It picks up a lot of Russian subs leaving port and tracks them out to the North Atlantic. The Hunt for Red October is a fabulous book.

@blueshoes, I've PM'd you a link to the recipe, and it is lush. I'm using Vermont cheddar, but it's good to know that it adds a British touch.

I forgot to say, enjoy the potatoes…sound yummy.

I raged about this fecker being given airtime to justify their evil. Why is he being given this platform and not a one way ticket back to Moscow? DH says the fecker needs to be heard. Because nothing will strengthen wavering resolve to defeat the bastards than hearing him speak and smirk when confronted with details of horrific war crimes.

I've started the Thanksgiving mashed potatoes. I make them with butter, sour cream, and cream cheese, then bake them with cheddar on top. The recipe is available if you ask nicely. 😀

Please? It sounds delicious! :)

Thanks, notim. They are a crowd pleaser. There would be consequences tomorrow if I didn't make them. Ducks, I've PM'd you the link.

Now, back to the war. Turkey has provided Ukraine with 150km range rockets, similar to HIMARS. This may explain a recent attack deep within Crimea.

twitter.com/ColbyBadhwar/status/1595130495012306944

There's no word on how many of these systems Ukraine has, but it's almost irrelevant. The Russians will now have to move critical assets much further from the front and much of Crimea is within range. This supports Ukraine's ongoing and very successful strategy of targeting Russian logistics and high-value targets like ammo storage sites, command posts, airfields, etc.

The Turkish weapons get terminal guidance by laser illumination, which would require a drone or aircraft nearby. I'll do some research about their known characteristics.

Now I'm confused. The manufacturer of these missiles states a maximum range of 70km.

www.roketsan.com.tr/en/products/trlg-230-laser-guided-missile

Which is a bit less than HIMARS. We'll have to see better evidence of their use at longer ranges before coming to any conclusions. They do have sat nav guidance and would at least supplement HIMARS in that indirect fire role.

Thought you might find this one interesting, and probably not come across it in your normal travels:

www.timesofisrael.com/holding-russia-in-check-ukrainians-look-to-capture-chess-glory-at-jerusalem-tourney/

I can't believe the Russian embassy are tweeting links, as if they think it was a good interview

That bastard Kelin needs to be sent packing. VD was excellent I thought, at showing him up

It's a shame it was recorded before they posted the anti semitic cartoon of zelensky. I would have loved her to ask him about that too

Naem · Yesterday 22:49
Thought you might find this one interesting, and probably not come across it in your normal travels:
www.timesofisrael.com/holding-russia-in-check-ukrainians-look-to-capture-chess-glory-at-jerusalem-tourney/

Thank you. How interesting that is. I hope they do well in the tournament. May they enjoy a break from the horror at the same time as representing Ukraine too.

Reading this, it shows the terrible strain they must be under. This is beyond normal endurance. A few weeks back MissConductUS posted an army document that is for a course on how to avoid combat stress in the soldiers. This soldier’s account shows conditions that are not giving space for this advice at all. (What MissConduct had posted:
ephc.amedd.army.mil/HIPECatalog/Uploads/DownloadableProds/124_TG320.pdf)

The hardest thing is that there is no rotation,” he says. “I was there 70 days in a row, without a break. Fifty of those days I spent on constant day and night duty. When this psychological and physical exhaustion accumulates, it turns you into a zombie. And this is the scariest part, because you’re just on survival mode, and you get irritated, you get annoyed, you need to hold yourself together. This is the hardest — not having one terrible day, but knowing the fact that tomorrow you cannot rest and recuperate, you just have to keep going.”

Autumnnewname· Yesterday 23:13
Re: the Russian ambassador’s interview with Victoria Derbyshire on Newsnight (Tuesday).

I can't believe the Russian embassy are tweeting links, as if they think it was a good interview

The Russian ambassador seems almost like a parody. He could be in a James Bond film. He doesn’t really seem
like a normal, sophisticated, articulate diplomat which is what you’d expect an ambassador in London to be.

I was just watching near the start of the interview again. Unbelievably he says, “May I just say that it was a great mistake for Ukraine to start a fight with Russia. To start a fight with the Russian language and with Russia.”

On countering the drone threat, yesterday's announcement of $400 Million in Additional Assistance for Ukraine includes

• 150 heavy machine guns with thermal imagery sights to counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS);

Surface-to-air missile systems are designed to track faster-moving targets with a larger radar signature, so they aren't optimized for targets like the Iranian drones. It sounds like these are.

There is a video of the Turkish GMLRS firing in Ukraine.

twitter.com/TpyxaNews/status/1595150005333299202

but unfortunately, they haven't yet supplied a lot of missiles for them. Let's hope many more are coming.

twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1595380269023989763

I haven't found any clarification on the range issue.

I was just watching near the start of the interview again. Unbelievably he says, “May I just say that it was a great mistake for Ukraine to start a fight with Russia. To start a fight with the Russian language and with Russia.”

I missed that little gem. They think we're idiots and we're buying this nonsense don't they.

@MissConductUS

Firstly Happy Thanksgiving..

Secondly:

150 heavy machine guns with thermal imagery sights to counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS);

In the absence of any other obvious candidates some suspect the mystery the 125 anti-aircraft guns promised by the UK PM a few days back might be something similar.

The trouble is, that whilst we see through his awful rubbish, many others wont... imho he shouldn't be given air time, actually he shouldn't be in London, we are legitimising Russia & giving it equivalence.

Similar to what the UN did by stating Ukraine tortured Russian prisoners.

I wonder if the UK tax payer is subsidising the Russian Embassy energy bills?

Happy Thanksgiving

@MissConductUS

Sky News reporting that the US are concerned that Russia may use chemical weapons in Ukraine if it continues to lose ground.

Watching the Victoria Derbyshire interview and getting the rage so bad.

Happy Thanksgiving @MissConductUS those mashed potatoes sound amazing

I hated that interview, and personally I didn't think VD was tough enough with him, I agree with Alexandra2001 that we shouldn't be giving him airtime and allowing him to, for example, suggest that the number and severity of war crimes is equal on both sides. When every occupied town or village is revealing several torture chambers where civilians, including children, are tortured to death there is no equivalence.
But I suppose that's living in a democracy for you

I have just seen this map showing all the Russian airbases, including in Belarus, from which Russia attacks Ukraine with impunity. It is ridiculous.
twitter.com/AlexKokcharov/status/1595471680486383616?s=20&t=H_ft1x0_y9dWP9ue3tvEYA

Agreed ScrollingLeaves Ukr are fighting with one hand tied behind their back. There's also this argument from Jason Jay Smart on Twitter:

The West puts 🇺🇦 in an impossible situation by not allowing attacks within 🇷🇺.

If 🇺🇦 retakes all occupied territories & not one Russian is left in Ukraine; but 🇷🇺 continued launching missile/drone attacks from its territory on 🇺🇦's critical infrastructure, then how can 🇺🇦 win?

One thread response:
I've been saying this for months. How can Russia truly lose if they can continue indefinitely, and with impunity, terrorizing their neighbours and making large parts of that country uninhabitable? But Ukraine using NATO advanced weaponry to attack Russia also deeply worrisome.
And I have no doubt that this is why Putin thinks he can outlast the West. Even if he doesn't win back territory he likely believes he can, over time, effectively turn Ukraine into a failed state.

Link to thread:

twitter.com/officejjsmart/status/1595432447059140609?s=61&t=IWbqF4fmtNbnVIOrn6YDWA

Nikol Pashinyan (PM of Armenia 🇦🇲) refused to sign a declaration following the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit.

In fact, it means that the CSTO has collapsed completely.

Putin dropped his pen, Lukashenko is shocked.

twitter.com/gerashchenko_en/status/1595720663427334144?s=61&t=IWbqF4fmtNbnVIOrn6YDWA

Note the files with the Ukrainian flag colours placed to the right of Putin 😀

Looks like Putin & Pasinyan cozied up together afterwards though 😒

www.aa.com.tr/en/world/putin-meets-with-pashinyan-after-armenian-premier-refuses-to-sign-csto-declaration/2746701