Before we get going with the Ukraine update, I want to note that the Evin Prison – which is where the Islamic Republic holds their political prisoners, among others – is on fire! This is not a government, let alone a regime, that is in control. And that’s especially dangerous for everyone.
More photos of Evin Prison on fire via @Vahid #MahsaAmini pic.twitter.com/P4C3qXxylH
— Holly Dagres (@hdagres) October 15, 2022
Evin Prison is a symbol of the brutality of the Islamic Republic. Countless arrests—including of prominent members of civil society—have been made since protests began on 9/16.
Fire could result in mass casualties—more blood on the hands of the Islamic Republic. #MahsaAmini
— Holly Dagres (@hdagres) October 15, 2022
More after the jump:
Just weeks ago, civil rights activist @HosseinRonaghi was arrested and taken to Evin Prison. Ronaghi's leg was broken by prison guards who viciously beat him. #MahsaAmini https://t.co/dP1E4gbMX9
— Holly Dagres (@hdagres) October 15, 2022
Narges Mohammadi was just sentenced earlier this month to 15 months on bogus charges to serve in Evin Prison. #MahsaAmini https://t.co/zjqtTqHyuh
— Holly Dagres (@hdagres) October 15, 2022
Back-to-back traffic on the road leading to Evin Prison. The narrator says it's 10pm at night and that the prison is on fire. #MahsaAmini pic.twitter.com/pUZMOA29Rs
— Holly Dagres (@hdagres) October 15, 2022
Civil rights activist Atena Daemi notes all prisoners' lives are in danger and breaks down the key parts of Evin Prison that are impacted:
Wards 241, 209; Wards 7, 8; Women's Ward; Ward 350; Ward 4; and the cultural building of the prison. #MahsaAmini https://t.co/upRxZMgXgJ
— Holly Dagres (@hdagres) October 15, 2022
As the Islamic Republic clamps down to try to regain control, the more deadly and dangerous things are going to get.
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video and English transcript below:
Dear Ukrainians! I wish you health!
We have a new defense assistance package from the United States valued at $725 million. These are very necessary things.
Ammunition for HIMARS and artillery, anti-tank weapons, anti-radar missiles. I thank President Biden, bipartisan Congress, and the entire American nation for this strong package.
We are doing everything to reduce the capabilities of the occupiers, the ability of the Russian army to carry terror through Ukrainian land. We are consistently destroying the logistics of terrorists, their warehouses and headquarters.
The total losses of the enemy in terms of killed people are approaching 65,000. So many citizens of Russia gave their lives for the possibility of a handful of people in the Kremlin to ignore reality.
And according to the way the Russian “burial operation” continues, we can say that even 100,000 dead Russian citizens will not prompt the Kremlin to think a little bit.
Only real victories of Ukraine, only real defending of itself by the free world from Russian terror and blackmail – protection with sanctions, protection with help to Ukraine – only complete displacement of the occupiers from Ukrainian land and dismantling of the aggressive capabilities of the terrorist state – all this is the way to peace.
Peace will become possible when its terror becomes impossible for Russia.
Today and yesterday, various regions of our country were targets of Russian attacks. In particular, by missiles and Iranian drones. Some of the missiles and drones were shot down. But, unfortunately, not all. Unfortunately, there is destruction and casualties.
Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv region, Kharkiv region, Sumy region, Kyiv region, Dnipropetrovsk region and some other regions of our country…
We are doing everything to shoot down more enemy missiles and drones to neutralize more strike positions of the Russian army. And the day will surely come when our state will be able to fulfill this task one hundred percent.
Today, I want to thank all our people who are promptly eliminating the consequences of the Russian terrorist attacks: our energy workers, employees of the State Emergency Service, communal services and local authorities, construction workers, employees of the National Police, government officials who coordinate the recovery process.
Although in some of our cities and districts the power companies are still forced to limit the supply of electricity to maintain the stability of the system, we are doing and will do everything to restore the technical capabilities for supply.
Also, in the liberated areas of Kharkiv region, Kherson region, and Donetsk region (in Lyman, Sviatohirsk) we are working to restore order, social and medical services, energy supply, communication and mail, water supply and gas, where it is possible.
For example, they began to restore gas supply to Izium – the first 500 families of the city already have gas in their homes again. Just yesterday, more than 3,000 houses in the Izium, Kupiansk, Chuhuyiv and Kharkiv districts of Kharkiv region were connected to the gas supply. Work is ongoing in other directions as well.
I’m thankful to everyone who is returning normal life to Ukrainians!
Active operations continue in various areas of the front. A very difficult situation persists in Donetsk region and Luhansk region. The most difficult is the Bakhmut direction, as in the previous days. We hold our positions.
In general, in the east and south, we do everything to make the occupiers feel that they have no prospects. No matter who they send to fight against us, it will only end in defeat for them.
Well, I will once again remind the citizens of Russia, who do not want to participate in this criminal war, but who are sent to war, of one possibility. All who surrender themselves to Ukrainian captivity will save their lives. Anyone who continues to fight in the Russian army or among mercenaries does not have such an opportunity.
Ukraine will definitely return everything that belongs to it.
Eternal glory to all who fight for our country! Eternal honor to everyone who helps us overcome Russian terror! Eternal gratitude to all who work for our victory!
Glory to Ukraine!
Former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer brings us some updates on what Russian “air defense doing?”
SEAD STRIKE: On 15 OCT, UKR announced the destruction of three S-300 surface to air missile complexes in the coastal city of Berdyansk. This Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) mission follows the interdiction of 3 Russian S-300 air defense complexes in Tokmak on 12 OCT. pic.twitter.com/D9HL8ebYgA
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) October 15, 2022
And a correction:
NOTED: The photograph previously inserted was erroneously attributed by an in theatre news source to the 14 OCT SEAD missions near Tomak. The details and location of the strike are confirmed as reported. pic.twitter.com/d64MaAneRF
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) October 15, 2022
Well this is a shame…
An oil depot is on fire in Bilhorod region (RU). pic.twitter.com/sGbBI31pXC
— Michael MacKay (@mhmck) October 15, 2022
Not really.
You may be asking how the mobilization is going? The AP has some answers:
MOSCOW — Two volunteer soldiers on Saturday fired at other troops at a Russian military firing range near Ukraine, killing 11 and wounding 15 others, before getting killed, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
The ministry said in a statement that the shooting took place in the Belgorod region in southwestern Russia that borders Ukraine. It said that the two volunteers from an unnamed ex-Soviet nation fired on other soldiers during target practice and were killed by return fire.
The ministry called the incident a terrorist attack.
I’ve seen RUMINT, at best, that an entire Russian unit killed its leadership and surrendered to a Ukrainian unit somewhere in the Donbas. But I’ve seen nothing confirming it. So I’ll keep an eye out.
Deutsche Well brings us the details of another Russian national arrested for seeming to be using a drone to conduct reconnaissance in Norway:
A Norweigan court on Friday ordered a 50-year-old Russian national held in custody for two weeks as he admitted to flying two drones over the country, potentially over critical energy infrastructure.
In recent weeks, there have been numerous drone sightings near the country’s offshore oil and gas platforms.
Security has been ratcheted up following explosions that targeted gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea last month.
What do we know about the suspect?
The identity of the Russian male was not made public, only that he was detained on Tuesday with three passports in his luggage, two Russian ones and one Israeli, according to local Norweigan media.
Authorities also seized four terabytes of data, some of it encrypted.
Customs officers reportedly located two drones and numerous electronic storage devices during a routine check at the border crossing in Storskog, the only border crossing between Norway, a NATO member, and Russia.
The border between Russia and Norway is 198 kilometers (123 miles) from Arctic land.
Prosecutor Anja Mikkelsen Indbjor told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that the Russian man is suspected of violating sanctions that were put in effect following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
Under the measure, Norway prohibits aircraft, including drones, operated by Russian nationals or companies “to land on, take off from or fly over Norwegian territory.”
The VG newspaper reported that the suspect told the Eastern Finnmark District Court in Vadso that he had been in Norway since August and flew the drones across the country.
Jens Bernhard Herstad, the defense attorney for the Russian national, has said his client acknowledged flying drones across Norway but has not told the court why he is in the country other than as a tourist on vacation.
Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl said it was still “too early to draw conclusions.” After police review the seized material, charges against the Russian man could be expanded.
Enger Mehl told the broadcaster NRK, “It is known that we have an intelligence threat against us which has been reinforced by what is happening in Europe.”
Much more at the link!
There’s an old sarcastic saying that the difference between crazy and eccentric is having a million dollars. Unfortunately, our Starlink Snowflake is on the wrong side of that balance sheet. He’s also demonstrating that he’s dumb as a rock. Elon, who has got to be the most gullible person alive, has fallen for this:
Is this list real? What’s the URL?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2022
Josh Marshall has the goods on Elon’s “source”
Wow musks new source on “Ukraine kill lists” has a pretty lit telegram channel pic.twitter.com/HH0qkZ0JzS
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 15, 2022
Shall we go to the debunking?
I'll take "Stupid Things People On Twitter Actually Believe" for 1000 rubles, Alex.
This screenshot getting widely circulated is not from a "Ukrainian government kill list", but rather the website "Миротворець" (Myrotvorets, "Peacemaker"):https://t.co/9xfFMDRy4X https://t.co/Fd1gc5eiZg
— Nafnlaus 🇺🇦 🇮🇸 (@enn_nafnlaus) October 14, 2022
A sort of "OSINT Wikileaks", Myrotvorets was created in 2014 by Roman Zaitsev, a former employee of the SBU in Luhansk oblast, based on an idea from a MoD employee, Matyuha Eduard Andriyovych, to gather intel on people believed to be working against Ukraine for law enforcement.
— Nafnlaus 🇺🇦 🇮🇸 (@enn_nafnlaus) October 14, 2022
The site is of course controversial, as it's basically mass doxxing of people that a private, crowdfunded org considers criminals.
What it is not? A "government kill list".
Law enforcement and military intel do make use of the intel posted, but in no way "take orders" from it.
— Nafnlaus 🇺🇦 🇮🇸 (@enn_nafnlaus) October 14, 2022
So he was on a "kill list", right? You already know the answer to this: Of Course Not. It's just a private OSINT website. He wasn't even doxxed – the only info posted was his birthdate, and address "USA".
But don't let that ruin a good conspiracy theory.
— Nafnlaus 🇺🇦 🇮🇸 (@enn_nafnlaus) October 14, 2022
..about you on Myrotvorets is akin to having something posted about you on Wikileaks or BellingCat. The info is out there. Officials may end up investigating you if it raises suspicion you committed a crime. But they have no actual power, beyond the power to doxx.
— Nafnlaus 🇺🇦 🇮🇸 (@enn_nafnlaus) October 14, 2022
Obligatory:
I think that’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
Animals of the war.
(Photo – FACEBOOK MINISTRY OF DEFENSE OF UKRAINE, author ALINA KOMAROVA) pic.twitter.com/kBtmVLmuew
— Patron (@PatronDsns) October 15, 2022
And a new video from Patron’s official TikTok:
@patron__dsns Ось такий знімальний процес🤭 #песпатрон #славаукраїні
Apparently he’s an Old Spice guy!
The caption machine translates as:
This is the filming process 🤭 #PatrontheDOg #SlavaUkraini
Open thread!
lowtechcyclist
I’d be totally in favor of the U.S. using its eminent domain powers to nationalize Starlink.
Steeplejack
That cat in overalls gets me every time. Okay, now to read the post.
Another Scott
[ Thought it looked strange. Gotta read the thread before posting these things. It’s from a game. ]
St. Javelin has been busy.
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack: I never tire of “Oh Christ, it’s this Asshole again.”
Never.
Or Patron. Especially when he’s singing.
Alison Rose
They wouldn’t need Musk’s address, because you can see his ego from space.
“The Ministry of Culture, referring to the regional mass media, noted that before the International Day of Music on October 1, the occupiers and collaborators planned to hold a “holiday concert” with the participation of the famous Hileya chamber orchestra. With this concert, the occupiers wanted to show the “restoration of peaceful life” in Kherson. Yuriy Kerpatenko was the chief conductor of the Hileya Chamber Orchestra.
After the start of a full-scale war and the occupation of Kherson, Yuriy refused to leave the city and openly demonstrated his pro-Ukrainian civic position.”
Good God, they really are completely detached from reality. I hope very soon they will also be completely detached from Ukraine.
Thank you as always, Adam.
Cameron
Sounds like Iran is coming apart at the seams. I guess it’s about time for America to find a spare Pahlavi and establish him/her/it as Maximum Leader.
Alison Rose
Dag nammit, my comment went to mod/spam. Please could someone rescue it?
dmsilev
Musk backed down on the Starlink thing, and because of course he did, threw a temper tantrum on Twitter about it. Presumably either Gwynne Shotwell or someone in SpaceX’s legal department explained to Musk using suitably small and simple words that having an entire building’s worth of pissed-off DOD accountants and purchasing agents crawling through SpaceX’s books to determine their actual costs would be a Bad Thing given how obviously inflated his claimed costs were and maybe shutting the fuck up would be a better approach.
Via Ars Technica so I don’t have to link directly to Manchild’s Tweet,
Cameron
@dmsilev: Hmmm….is that DJT-brand cologne I smell in the air? Rich…stupid…..an intoxicating fecal aroma…..
Raoul Paste
@dmsilev: “… even though Starlink is losing money and other companies are getting billions in taxpayer dollars…”
Whining Musk sounds like TFG
dmsilev
@Raoul Paste: It’s kind of eerie isn’t it.
Adam L Silverman
@Alison Rose: I’m not seeing it, but I’ll check again. I found it. Should be free in a minute.
Alison Rose
@Adam L Silverman: Thank you!
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: SpaceX is already overcharging the DOD and the Polish MOD, as well as just everyday Ukrainian, which are where the bulk of the units and the subscriptions are coming from.
Adam L Silverman
Off to walk the dogs, back later.
Leto
FRESH AIR: A New Generation Of Resistance In Iran
Pardis Mahdavi spent time in Evin and speaks about it in this interview. It aired about a week ago, and was really good/informative. It’s about 44 mins.
SpaceUnit
Coming soon to a disaster near you . . . . TrumpLink!
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah, that’s part of the problem. Apparently Musk got his $400 million per year number because SpaceX is accounting each terminal at $4500/month, which is a level of service that they do provide elsewhere, for customers like cruise ships that need to split one connection between hundreds or thousands of users. Which is not all what the Ukrainians asked for or needed for the vast majority of the terminals they’re using. Real retail price for the requested service level is about a tenth as much.
Add ‘war profiteer’ to Elon Musk’s set of descriptors.
Anoniminous
Russians are actually and Fer Realz supplying their newly mobilized with rusty Soviet era S-60 57mm single-barreled, towed, anti-aircraft guns to go with the T-12 100-mm anti-tank guns and T-62 tanks already in combat. I don’t know what they expect their untrained rabble to do with this junk except die.
This is unfucking real.
Mike in NC
@Cameron: I’m old enough to remember that the Shah was a huge clueless dickhead, yet still superior to the religious fanatics that took his place.
Anonymous At Work
Astros game is keeping my attention but wanted to ask about Chuck Pfarrer’s claim earlier this week that a newly deployed squad, just arrived on the front lines, immediately shot their officer(s) and surrendered (EDIT: Kherson, not Donbas). How should we react, is it a sign of things to come more than pressganged and armed men shooting each other in Moscow or at base?
J R in WV
Our rural network connection is via Starlink, and doesn’t cost anything like $4,500 a month!
Wife uses it to watch Bogart and Hitchcock films.
Anonymous At Work
@Cameron: If it is true that the guards are murdering the prisoners, it both means the ruling clerics and/or leaders of the guard regiments are taking this as a possible uprising but also that a lot of potential leaders for the uprising are being murdered before they can get out.
Anoniminous
@Anonymous At Work:
It was widely reported in the Ukrainian twitter-sphere. The people being kidnapped … er …. “mobilized” … have zero motivation to die for Putin. We know some of the mobilized were career criminals, not the best strata of society to be given automatic weapons. So there’s no doubt it could have happened. Did it happen? Only the people on the ground know.
Speaking of “own-goals,” supposedly a “Russian military draft officer Roman Malyk was found hanging on a fence in the town of Partizansk (near Vladivostok)” (source: @francis_scarr)
Anonymous At Work
@Anoniminous: “All local witnesses said the officer tripped on his own shoes and was hanged by his own tie.” I can imagine.
But units starting to organize with a “As soon as we get within shooting range of the Ukrainians, we shoot the enemy and surrender to the Ukrainians” is a scary thing that has a way of spreading. It’s what I was watching and hoping for.
Ken
Sniff… It brings a tear to my eye, seeing an immigrant so enthusiastically adopting the culture of his new country.
Alison Rose
Geminid
@Mike in NC: The Shah’s son is active in Iranian ex-pat affairs, and has a modest following outside of Iran. But I think that Iranians will choose leaders from within the country, if they succeed in toppling the Islamic Republic.
The regime is ruthless and may be desperate, so it’s possible that they intentionally staged the fire and shootings at Evin prison in order to eliminate a few hundred potential leaders. Accounts coming from Iran are very fragmented, but there were reports that the fire had been burning for an hour and fire trucks had yet to arrive.
Tehran is 7.5 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight time, so it will be morning there in a few hours and we may find out more then.
Adam L Silverman
Adam L Silverman
sdhays
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah, I’ve never believed that SpaceX is actually “donating” anything. Elon Musk doesn’t roll that way, and it’s a lot simpler and more reliable to just assume everything he says is a lie.
Anoniminous
@Anonymous At Work:
Newly mobilized are basically civilians. They still think and act civilian. They haven’t had the – frankly – brutalization that turns any average guy off the street into a killer. It takes a certain, and not altogether pleasant, mind set to purposely hunt somebody down to kill them and then actually kill them. I wouldn’t expect a widespread outbreak of fragging in the near future.
HinTN
@Cameron: We fucked it up the first time. I think Joe has the good sense and cojones not to interfere this time.
Argiope
@Adam L Silverman: I don’t mean to be dim, but what does this signify?
HinTN
@J R in WV: I like my Starlink but have yet to cut off Dish in favor of steaming. Starlink is the first ISP that has made that consideration feasible. HughesNet, not so much.
Cameron
@Mike in NC: I actually lived in Iran in the early years of my life (my dad was a chemical engineer for what was the Esso). The Shah was a gazillion time worse than the elected president we overthrew. Even into the 60’s and 70’s, when I was living in Saudi Arabia (how lovely!), I remember getting on airplanes with Savak agents plainly visible. Yes, the mullahs suck (as I said, I grew up in Saudi Arabia) but the other alternative – which was more left-wing than I suspect the US could swallow – was either exterminated by the Shah or by the mullahs. No, don’t bring back the Pahlavis.
Urza
@Adam L Silverman: Do you have a theory yet on what this means? I was wondering if Ukraine has started moving troops towards the border with Belarus since Russia has been massing troops there which are north of Kyiv.
Also, it was Neil Degrasse Tyson saying it so its probably somewhat trustworthy, on Real Time he was talking about how tactical nukes don’t leave behind alot of radiation the way Hiroshima did. That would mean one would have to use a large nuke on purpose to contaminate to a great degree. Probably why we’re not threatening anything specific because there’s variation in how bad it could be.
Anoniminous
Will Putin Use Nuclear Weapons? Watch These Indicators
Cameron
@HinTN: Joe personally probably is like that. American foreign policy is not. Shah-in-shah Pahlavi, second verse, same as the first. When in doubt, support the leader who you can control.
Bill Arnold
@Cameron:
Boneheads in the Iranian government are supplying Russian Imperialists with drone-ish cruise missiles. They made some enemies among the Djinn. :-)
Jinn Are Influencing Iran’s Decision-Makers, Says Conservative Politician (Monday, 25 Jan 2021)
Adam L Silverman
@Anonymous At Work:
As I indicated in the post, I’ve not seen anything else on it, but am continuing to look.
YY_Sima Qian
I think the US embassy in Kyiv has already urged all Americans to leave Ukraine on 10/10, due to the Russian missile strikes against civilian targets across the country. Maybe China & the Central Asian Republics are belatedly following suit, rather than acting on inside information of an impending assault in the north. Or maybe they do, & there will be another ground offensive in the north, or a further escalation of attacks against infrastructure & civilian targets. For proper context we need to see advisories of the embassies of other nations over the past several days.
Cameron
@Bill Arnold: Hey, it’s as good a working theory as anything else, right?
Bill Arnold
@dmsilev:
Presumably either Gwynne Shotwell or someone in SpaceX’s legal department explained to Musk using suitably small and simple words that
I was thinking maybe she (Shotwell) threatened to walk with her key engineers to Jeff Bezos’s company (or similar), but your’s is probably closer to accurate. Or maybe both.
Adam L Silverman
@Argiope: Could just be demonstration to divert Ukrainian attention. Could be an attempt to make another push at Kyiv.
Bill Arnold
@dmsilev:
SpaceX has backed away from Musk’s proposal to be approximately as unreliable and beholden to Putin as Gazprom.
(Good, to be clear.)
Adam L Silverman
@Urza: Best case is just demonstrating to divert Ukrainian attention. Worse case is they try to make another attempt on Kyiv from Belarus.
Steeplejack
@Bill Arnold:
“Shotwell” is a good name for the president of a rocket company.
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: Unless the Russians use tactical nukes, how would an offensive this time go better than the one in Feb.?
Anoniminous
Belarus Army is even more of a joke than the Russian Army. My guess, based on Machiavelli, is it exists for internal oppression but more as a counter-balance to his armed security forces: Special Operations Forces of Belarus. And if Lukashenko sent either or both into Ukraine he’d face the very real & high probability of a popular revolt.
Villago Delenda Est
The death of the Islamic Republic of Iran would be a good thing, as would be the death of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Regressive, reactionary regimes where the despots think God is on their side. Not unlike the utter scum of the fundigelicals in this country.
cain
@Villago Delenda Est:
As a group .. all of them .. they all suck. Add the Hindu nationalists as well.
Amir Khalid
@Villago Delenda Est:
In particular, the Saudis need to be stopped from bankrolling the effort to spread Wahabism throughout the Muslim world. The only thing I’d let them keep doing is their custodianship of Islam’s holy sites.
Adam L Silverman
@YY_Sima Qian: Even using a low yield nuke in an attempt to achieve a tactical effect wouldn’t work any better. Ukraines forces aren’t in garrison, on base, or all bunched up in one place. They’re distributed in different parts of Ukraine doing different things. And this holds within Ukrainian divisions, brigades, and battalions. So you’d have to both have good intel on where each echelon and element is and then you’d have to hit all those positions with a low yield nuke. All at roughly the same time.
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks for the insight! great point.
Using tactical nukes may cause panic among the Ukrainian troops for a time, but it will also invite devastating conventional strikes from NATO. Of course, Russian Army may no longer be trained to operate on a contaminated battlefield.
Adam L Silverman
@YY_Sima Qian: The Russians are not. Give thus a read:
Jay
Jay
dmsilev
@Jay: At least if Wikipedia can be believed, the S-60 is in current service in a whole bunch of militaries, including the Ukrainian army. May not be all that useful for defending against missile attack, but it’d probably make some helicopter pilots pretty nervous and if nothing else might make an ok-ish short-range ground-attack artillery piece.
Dan B
@Urza: My quick research indicates that Russias tactical nukes are 15 Kilotons, same as Hiroshima. I’d trust Neil deGrass Tyson but want to know more.
Jay
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
So tactical nukes wouldn’t help Russia on the battlefield. But attacking Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure with missiles hasn’t helped either, and that hasn’t stopped them doing it. I still have a lingering worry that Putin might order a nuclear strike out of sheer spite.
Jay
@dmsilev:
linked to a Russian twitter account yesterday that photographed the guns being hauled on cargo trucks. There is almost no green paint on them anymore, they are covered in rust. That much rust on the outside means that much rust in the barrels, the machine screws for elevation and of course the breech and breech block.
So much for fine tolerances. Sandblasted and given a new coat of paint and they would make good “gate guards”. I’m not sure that even if cleaned of rust inside and out, they would be either reliable, safe or accurate.
Carlo Graziani
@YY_Sima Qian:
I believe that your first hypothesis nails it. Pfarrer, as usual, is going off half-cocked, adding one and one and coming up with whatever he decided was the case in advance.
Belarus is too politically unstable and militarily weak to hazard a commitment against Ukraine in the war, and Lukashenka, who is no idiot, knows this. Sending the remainder of Belarus’ junkyard arsenal of tanks east to Russia in the past month was basically a signal that he had no intention whatsoever to get entangled in the war, especially now that it’s so obviously a lost cause. And anyone who imagines that Russia has any forces to contribute to a renewed attack southward from Belarus is on crack.
Or is an overrated Twitter-celebrity war “analyst” who needs to spin a new high-energy graphic from a headline each day so as to build more followers, like Pfarrer.
frosty
@Ken: Cynic! I laughed at that one.
sdhays
@Jay: So, after Ukraine completely removes that garbage from the strait and kicks Russia all the way out of Ukraine.
Jay
Jay
Jay
Alison Rose
@Adam L Silverman: I definitely would not want to explore what “imagination” meant to Dick Cheney. I presume it would sound something like a Jordan Peele movie.
Another Scott
Cheers,
Scott.
Sebastian
@Adam L Silverman:
SpaceX is a massive money pit. Rockets and spaceports are really expensive shit, even with a captive TX Leg, gov, and AG (remember Paxton?) helping you every step they can.
SpaceX is a Frontier/Alaska Airlines/RyanAir for orbital payloads. Their savings compared to other operators are due to their willingness to operate at low margins or loss (plugging the holes with DOD and NASA money) and not so much because of the reusability of their rockets. The CommonSense Skeptic on YouTube has a whole series about it.
They aren’t making nearly enough profits to pay for all the Starlink launches and satellites plus the mindboggling costs of Starship and that spaceport in Texas
James E Powell
@Cameron:
I do wonder what will happen there if the religious fascists are taken out. I’m hoping the United States stays completely out of it.
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks for the link!
Geminid
There is not a lot of information out on Evin Prison. The fires appear to be out, and officials say 8 people were killed and the violece was in a ward where prisoners convicted of financial crimes, not political prisoners, were held.
Other reporting is that the fire and violence involved wards 7 and 8, which house political prisoners, many arrested recently. People with family members in Evin are gathered outside, but officials are telling them and the prisoners’ lawyers nothing.
Geminid
@Geminid: There is a report in the Washington Post that Iran has agreed to sell Russia more armed drones, and also short range surface-to-surface missiles:
The missiles are the Fateh-110 (range 300 kilometers) and the Zolfagher ((range 700 kilometers).
The Zolfagher’s payload weight is not given, but there is thought to be a cluster munitions warhead available. The Post reports that some models have an “electooptic” guidance system that allows missile operators to guide them in their approach to targets.
Iran’s government still denies that any Iranian weapons are being used in Ukraine, but they are also sending more drones:
The Mojaher-6 is somewhat like the Turkiyesh Bayraktar, a “loitering drone” that carries precision munitions. The Shahed-136 is a delta-winged kamikaze drone, with a range of over 1500 kilometers and a top speed of ~110 miles/hr.
Geminid
@Geminid: Iran can make a substantial (and profitable) contribution to Russia’s war effort. With a population of 85 million, the country has a decent industrial base and plenty of capable engineers. The regime has put a lot of these resources into its arms industry.
Iran does not seem to have problems of petty corruption like the Russians do. At a higher level, there is corruption in that ownership of munitions companies is concentrated among people with connections to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and/or leading politicians.
Drones are fairly light and are easily shipped by air. There also is available a surface route using the Caspian Sea, where Iran and Russia already have cargo traffic between their ports.
cintibud
Kherson is trending on twitter. A lot of requests going out that operational info not be shared. A lot of speculation that a major UKR offensive is imminent/ongoing
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Mike in NC: Except as I recall the Western powers basically the U S and the U K toppled the elected government of Iran in the fifties to install our puppet, the Shah. We did pretty much the same thing in Iraq in the fifties. I believe in Iraq it was because the newly elected President planned to nationalize the oil fields. But I don’t remember the details anymore.
Eyeroller
@Dan B:
Dead thread (I am not around at night so don’t usually see the Ukraine threads till morning) but the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were fission weapons, entirely based on uranium (Hiroshima) and plutonium (Nagasaki). All “modern” nuclear weapons are fusion devices. They use a small fission trigger to achieve the compression necessary to initiate fusion in deuterium and tritium.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: I hope the current government of Iran is toppled but I hope the US stays out of it. The direction Iran takes needs to be up to the Iranian people.
YY_Sima Qian
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: We all hope so, but you know that won’t happen. The temptation is too great! & not just the US, but Turkey, Israel, the Gulf States, Russia & possibly even China & India will look to influence events toward directions more favorable to each of them.
The one time I recall the US refraining from getting involved in collapse of regimes was the fall of Mubarak in Egypt & Saleh in Yemen during the Arab Spring. I give Obama immense credit for bucking that temptation to get involved to ensure narrow favorable geopolitical outcomes, & for not involving the US in the Green Revolution in Iran. Of course, when the Muslim Brotherhood proved extremely illiberal (unsurprisingly) & hostile to the US (also unsurprisingly), the Obama Administration essentially acquiesced to the military coup that overthrew the elected Muslim Brotherhood regime & returned Egypt to rule by military junta, only one more amenable to US geopolitical interests. In Yemen, the Obama Administration seemed to have bought into the Saudi narrative of the Houthi rebellion being an Iranian front, & enabled the ruinous Saudi/UAE intervention in the country. I don’t think the Houthi rebellion was initially tied to Iranian interests, but following the Saudi intervention it has developed into a Saudi-Iranian proxy war, a self-fulfilling prophecy.
OTOH, the Obama Administration acquiesced to & possibly enabled the Saudi intervention in Bahrain to put down a popular Shia uprising there. The administration also became involved in Syria (tentatively) & Libya (decisively), neither can be argued to have produced better outcomes than the status quo ante.
Anyone who has studied history should know the checkered history of interventions into the domestic affairs of other countries, but the temptation is irresistible, especially when Great Power Competition is the overriding dynamic. “If we don’t involve ourselves, our enemies/rivals will have a free hand to affect the outcome they prefer!”
Geminid
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: We deposed Iran’s new Prime Minister in 1954. Mohammed Mossadegh probably would have nationalized Iran’s oil industry, and British commercial interests would not have it.
I think that if the Islamic Rep8ublic falls, its successor will be decided by Iranians in the country. The US has little material power to affect their decisions. I think if there is a new government it will be less hostile to the US than the current one. It would be hard for it not to be.
Iran is a youthful country. I read that 45% of the population is age 35 or younger. The decades of anti-US propaganda the regime spread does not seem to have impressed most of the younger generation. The regime is so resented the propaganda may have had an opposite effect. And the regime’s diversion of resources to foreign military adventures is one of the grievances expressed by the protesters.
The Islamic Republic is shaken but it doesn’t seem about to fall. As long as it can control the formidable security forces it probably won’t. This is a very fraught and scary situation, though, and excesses by the security forces could enrage an already angry populace. Then I think all bets are off.
Bill Arnold
Multi-cultural training is important for a military in a multi-cultural/religion country, and Christian Supremacy is dangerous.
Oops, Russia. Some background on that shooting.
Note the .ru url, for those who care.
https://theins.ru/news/256069
Via google translate (the Chrome plugin):
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Bill Arnold: how can someone in charge of people from vastly different areas be such an idiot . How did he think alienating some of his troops would help. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick…