Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Republicans in disarray!

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 878: The Butcher’s Bill for Mykolaiv & an Attack on Izium

War for Ukraine Day 878: The Butcher’s Bill for Mykolaiv & an Attack on Izium

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A quick housekeeping note. The first is that Rosie is still doing excellently. Her next chemo treatment is this Monday. Then she has two weeks until the next week as rounds three and four are treatments every other week. Thank you all for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donation.

As of 6:30 PM EDT, the entire eastern half of Ukraine – from north to south – is under air raid alert.

The death toll from Russia’s attack on Mykolaiv early yesterday stands at four:

And overnight Russia attacked Barvinkove in Izium Raion, Kharkiv Oblast with Iskanders:

Last night, russia launched three Iskander missiles at the town of Barvinkove in the Izium district of Kharkiv Oblast, killing two civilians and wounding four others. The strikes damaged over 50 apartment buildings. In a separate incident, railroad infrastructure was hit, causing train delays.

President Zelenskyy has not yet returned to Ukraine. There are no new speeches or addresses posted. He did tweet this earlier today.

It is very important and symbolic for Ukraine and Ukrainians to have such a strong and committed partner as the United Kingdom.

With each chapter of this war, our cooperation provides more solutions to repel tyranny, and Britain’s leadership inspires other countries. We must not weaken our resolve in the future.

Ukraine’s long-range capabilities, the Maritime Security Strategy, the development of Ukraine’s Maritime Capability Coalition, and defense cooperation are the steps we can take together to bring about a just peace.

I am grateful to the United Kingdom for all the support of Ukraine and Ukrainians, and to Prime Minister @Keir_Starmer for our substantive negotiations.

The cost:

The reason:

Trump, or his caddy, finally posted a statement about yesterday’s call between President Zelenskyy and Trump. We covered what President Zelenskyy said yesterday. Here it is again:

I spoke with @realDonaldTrump to congratulate him on the Republican nomination and condemn the shocking assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. I wished him strength and absolute safety in the future.

I noted the vital bipartisan and bicameral American support for protecting our nation’s freedom and independence.

Ukraine will always be grateful to the United States for its help in strengthening our ability to resist Russian terror. Russian attacks on our cities and villages continue every day.

We agreed with President Trump to discuss at a personal meeting what steps can make peace fair and truly lasting.

Pay attention to and keep in mind that last sentence when you read Trump’s version of the call:

You’ll notice no mention of even the discussion a future meeting. There is, however, a megalomaniacal statement about bringing peace to the world.

Here are Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsberger’s take aways from the NATO summit two weeks ago:

My thoughts on my way back to Lithuania after the NATO Summit.🧵Image
The event was well organised and sent a strong message to the people of America about the respect the USA is attracting from its allies and partners.🧵 
Politically the expectations for deliverables from the Summit were low. It was clear a couple of months ago how the declaration would look. If the goal was to have a smooth event, that was achieved. What didn’t happen was any major strategic breakthrough. 
Putin used this summit to declare that his goals, methods and capabilities are unchanged – by attacking a number of extremely sensitive civilian targets in Ukraine. His timing shows he has a feeling of total impunity, that nothing can or will happen in response. 
Ukraine is still left in a grey area of insecurity. Irreversible bridges are important but not as important as actual protection. Sooner, not later, there has to be a discussion about solid and sturdy guarantees for Ukraine if we want to secure Europe’s future. 
The biggest missed opportunity was the decision not to allow deeper strikes against military targets in Russia. This would have been a major win not just for Ukraine, not just for the US, but for the whole alliance. It didn’t require logistics or money, just a political decision. 
The most significant decision for Europe is the acknowledgment that Russia is stepping up its irregular warfare and a reminder that even irregular attacks could trigger Article 5. This creates some strategic ambiguity to replace the clarity of passivity. 
It feels like we are still in denial that this war against Ukraine is a global strategic shift requiring some hard strategic decisions in response, despite Putin trying very hard to convince us. 

About those hybrid Russian threats:

Estonia:

I wanted to share with you some thoughts by Jonatan Vseviov, Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Estonia, that he voiced at Aspen Security Forum. I’ve added English subtitles for convenience.

Two points from @vseviov ‘s thoughts:

◾️Putin “has to derail us at all costs this year. The two tools that he uses against us – fear and false hope.”

◾️ “He’s not interested in peace. He’s interested in derailing our policy. The way it would work, similar to Minsk 3 or Minsk 2 on steroids or the getting the chemical weapons out of Syria case, where he creates a diplomatic process that ties us down, derails all alternative politics or policies and eventually doesn’t fulfill any of the promises he gives.”

I’ve written it before and, unfortunately, I’m sure I’m going to (have to) write it again: Putin is constantly probing for mush in the EU, in the US, and in NATO. And he constantly finds it instead of steel. As a result he keeps doing what he’s doing because the states, alliances, and leaders that could give provide him with real consequences that would lead to a change in behavior consistently fail to do so.

The leaders in the Baltic states, Poland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Romania, and Moldova are the most clear eyed regarding the threat and what needs to be done. Unfortunately, they cannot get the larger and more powerful states, as well as the leaders of those states, to do what needs to be done.

Here’s a detailed analysis of Russian military equipment. The author, Richard Vereker, is a contributor to the Tracking Russia’s losses website:

1) The Economist magazine has published an article about Russia running low on military equipment, To my surprise they mention me as an open-source analysis. So I thought I would do a thread about it.

2) The main thrust of the article is that Russian stocks of stored equipment are deep, but not bottomless. And I would agree with that sentiment. I will go further and say that some of the best equipment is near the end of stored equipment. 
3) I should say that I mostly look at data that others have gathered, especially when it comes to assessing Russian stored equipment. @Jonpy99 @HighMarsed @CovertCabal are all practically prolific and worth following. 

@Jonpy99 @HighMarsed @CovertCabal 4) First I am going to look at IFV/APC and here I can recommend a ‘Google sheet’ made available by @Jonpy99 who has done the counting. It shows that overall Russia has removed more (6756) than it has left in working condition (5781)

5) Being a bit over halfway may not seem that good. But if you look at the numbers, some equipment is almost all gone, MT-LBs in particular. These have been heavily used, on the front line. Equipment like BRDM-2 and BTR-60 & 70s still have lost left, but little of this old stuff is used on the front line.Image
6) The most important of the IFV/APCs are the BMPs. which you will see sit in the middle of the pack when it comes to how much has been taken from storage. But if we look at what @Jonpy99 has counted in more detail, we see of the remaining 1382 useable BMPs, most, (about 893) are the oldest BMP-1 and (about 650) are specialist artillery support vehicles. It is hard to be totally confident with satellite photos but perhaps only a few doses are BMP-2s or later.Image
7) This time I’m using data from @WarSpotting and I’ve created a chart of the % of each type of BMP lost each month. The BMP-3 is still in production about 140 made last year. the BMP-2s have been the most numerous, at least if you take losses as a proxy for use. Don’t worry too much about July 2024, we don’t have a full month’s worth of data, but for almost a year the share of BMP-2s has been increasing, perhaps that’s because they have been prioritising getting them out of storage, if they are now gone, that matters. It’s also possible that Russia has been importing BMP-2s but I won’t go down that rabbit hole now.Image
@Jonpy99 @HighMarsed @CovertCabal @WarSpotting 8) Next, I will look at tanks. @CovertCabal produced a youtube video recently based on a hout by him and @HighMarsed I recommend this. 
9) That couting effort produced these numbers. Showing that over half the total remains. but most of the best tanks are gone. All of the T-90s 3/4 of the T-80s and over half of the modernist T-72s. They used a slightly different way to grade the condition of the tanks, but again most of the tanks in decent condition have gone and most that remain are poor or worse.Image
10) Now we will come to artillery. This table is 6 months old but shows what has been taken. 5525 towed guns and 1489 SPGs. so a lot more towed. overall it’s less than half but look at the pattern some types have hardly been touched M-46 130mm, while others like the 2A36 its over 3/4 gone. It’s also harder to asses the conditions of guns from satellite photos.Image
In the Economist article, it quotes my theory that perhaps some of the Twed guns have been removed to move their barrels to working SPGs. which I say based on the loss patterns, here again from @WarSpotting showing many more SPG losses than Twoed Guns. This is only a theory I, its possible that SPGs are easier to spot, hit, and photograph because they are generally bigger than towed guns. the visually confirmed losses may not match the proportions on the battlefield. Throughout the war, the losses of Artilly reported by the AFU have been much higher than the confirmed losses. and the difference is much more stark than with Tanks and IFVs. But as the proportions of losses are not changing much, it would suggest that barrel swapping might be happening, at least with some types.Image
12) The article also mentioned ammunition, and I think this is most likely the overall limiting factor on Artillery, not Barrels. And I partly say that looking at the loss patterns again. Russia brought some calibers back into service like the 240mm 2S4 and the 152mm Gianstant, when they still had a lot of standard 152mm guns left. I think this was to use up that ammunition, and I think there recent decline is indicative of that ammunition now coming to an end.Image
13) Russia started with about 14-18 million artillery shells in storage. they were firing constantly over 20,000 a day and at times 60,000 a day, which uses up a lot. Especially when you add maybe a million shells lost in ammunition explosions. The article states Russia can now make about 2 million a year, which would be 5,500 a day, close to the 5,000 Russian fires on a typical day. 
@Jonpy99 @HighMarsed @CovertCabal @WarSpotting 14) Russia imported a lot of shells from North Korea that were in very bad shape late last year. Firing pore-quality shells uses up the barrel life, with a low probability of a hit, So I think that Russia would only have used them if there principle limiting factor was Barrels. 
15) Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), are another type of artillery, and Jompy has done a count of those in storage. Showing 3/4 and 2/3 of the main 2 types have gone. so quite high amounts, it’s possible that MLRS will become another pinch point if the quoted numbers of new rockets made are accurate. but not yet.Image
16) When counting equipment from satellite photos it requires there to be photographs, and with some of the bases, the photographs are quite old. generally, this will mean more equipment has been taken than realised in the overall numbers. It’s also possible that some of the equipment left is in better or worse condition than it seems from the photos. 
@Jonpy99 @HighMarsed @CovertCabal @WarSpotting 17) Counting equipment from satellite photos is hard and I want to again thank those who do this. I also want to thank @warspotting and their team, for the work they do counting destroyed equipment. 
18) There have been people claiming Russia is about to Run out of equipment since day two of the war, and they were Wrong. However, I come back to the point from the start. Russia’s store of equipment is deep but not bottomless, We don’t truly know how close to the end we are, but for some significant types at least it might be close. 

19) To finish off, I want to restate that the way to fight Russia is not to try to fight them to the end of an attritional war, where Russia pulls every last thing from storage and imports what it can. Instead, the West should give a surge of equipment, and ammunition now in one big wave, to let Ukraine win a decisive victory.

A victory for themselves, and a victory for Liberalism, Democracy and Freedom, that ring around the world for all to hear. 

Not sure where in Ukraine this is, but the BUK has gone boom:

Kyiv:

The Pokrovsk-Kostiantynivka axis:

In Donetsk region, the Russian army is advancing to the most important highway between Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka: “Cutting the highway means huge losses in logistics for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, as it is the only way near the front line.”

The 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade “Magura” is holding these lines, and the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle crew is repelling Russian assaults on the mentioned area. Oleh, the commander of the American IFV, says that if it wasn’t Bradley, he and his crew “would have met with the archangels more than once.”

According to the crew, their vehicle went into combat against three Russian IFVs/APCs at once, and also hit a Russian T-80 tank with a TOW BGM in a one-on-one battle. According to the driver, Bradley is very easy to drive: “If you have a driver’s license, you can sit and drive it right away.”

📹: Radio Svoboda

Russian occupied Crimea:

Radio Svoboda has published satellite images of the aftermath of a strike on a Russian military base on Lake Donuzlav in Crimea.

The images show traces of a fire after the Ukrainian strike on the Russian military base. One of the fire centers is on the territory of the Donuzlav wind power plant, but the naval base suffered the major damage.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Ukrainian surface kamikaze drones were destroyed in the area on the night of July 18.

📹: Radio Svoboda

Shroma, Abkazhia, Georgia:

Today marks the 31st anniversary of the heroic capture of the village of Shroma. During the Abkhazian War, the volunteers from the Ukrainian battalion “Argo” demonstrated exceptional bravery. One memorable episode involved the use of ropes to descend a 200-meter cliff, allowing them to transport weapons and equipment unnoticed. This daring maneuver brought them within striking distance of enemy positions, leading to a successful surprise attack at dawn.

On July 19, 1993, the Ukrainian volunteers, together with Georgian forces, launched a night operation to bypass heavily defended positions and successfully captured Shroma. The Russian garrison in Shroma consisted of around 600 troops.

We also remember “Tsviakh”, a Ukrainian hero who was buried with military honors in Sukhumi. After the city fell, Russians desecrated his grave, exhumed his coffin, and threw it into the sea. The waves brought it back, and they then destroyed it with a grenade launcher. Such acts remind us of the ongoing struggles and the sacrifices made.

For their courage, bravery, and heroism in defending the territorial integrity of Georgia, Ukrainian volunteer soldiers were awarded State honors by the Georgian Republic.

Order of Vakhtang Gorgasali II Degree:

Serhii Obukh (“Dibrova”)
Roman Halazyk (“Bagryany”)
Volodymyr Krutyk
Leonid Tkachuk (“Tsviakh”)
Roman Muzyka
Oleksii Dovhyi
Volodymyr Bilyi

Order of Vakhtang Gorgasali III Degree:

Valerii Bobrovych
Andrii Babii
Serhii Hladkevych
Eduard Bilous
Oleh Benha
Serhii Hram
Volodymyr Hushlia
Anatolii Yelkin
Mykola Karpiuk
Yurii Kolesnikov
Vasyl Kukharchuk
Oleh Marchuk
Viktor Movchun
Ihor Mazur
Mykola Polishchuk
Serhii Zholud
Andrii Slukhnian
Ruslan Suhachenko
Andrii Tymu
Ihor Tkachuk
Ihor Shypshyn
Viktor Kharchenko

We shall forever remember and honor the fallen Ukrainian soldiers who sacrificed their lives in Abkhazia.

Fifteen years later the members of the 13th Shavnabada Battalion asked for our help: “You’re coming, right? We came for you, you’re coming. We go and get started, you come.”

Unlike the Ukrainians we did not go and help.

Millerovo air field, Rostov, Russia:

/3. The Milerovo airfield is located 20 km from the border with Ukraine, which guarantees complete safety from western weapons systems.

Despite the fact that it is located relatively close to the front line, 150km. For example, Belbek military airfield, which was targeted by ATACMS, is located 230km from the frontline.

Moscow:

A heavily propagandized and indoctrinated ethnic Russian population gets you to this.

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

First, something from the Lithuanian Foreign Minister:

And now on to the birthday boy!

Today, I am 5. I haven’t decided yet whether it’s a lot or a little. But I am grateful to have lived to this age, that Ukraine is still strong and wonderful, and that I have you—my entire world.
If you would like to give me a gift, I will use it to raise funds for my fundraiser for the treatment and prosthetics of sappers.
Here is the link to the fundraiser and my PayPal : [email protected]

https://send.monobank.ua/jar/4bdwGMrSxm

Or you can make a triple gift: buy a Patron Box in my store, and it will bring me joy. All profits will go to help sappers, and the boxes themselves will go to children who need such a surprise (perhaps even to the kids at Ohmatdyt) and I will deliver them personally.

https://patronshop.com.ua/en/product/1721219430/1721219590

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

20Comments

  7. 7.

    YY_Sima Qian

    I think the point Vereker made in post post #19 is important. That is the way to bring the war to a relatively early (but certainly not in 2024 even in the best case) conclusion, with a just & relatively durable peace.

    The clear evidence for 2+ years that Russia is mainly drawing down Cold War era stock to sustain the war, shows how decrepit the Russian defense industry has become. All of the dual use components & machinery purchased from the PRC, all the dual use goods sourced from the West & others via proxies, have not actually revived the Russian MIC to the degree that one might have expected, if the mental model is still that of the Cold War era Soviet juggernaut.

    It also drives home how imperative it is for Ukraine & its supporters to, w/ carrots & sticks, prevent the PRC from going all in w/ Russia by providing lethal aid. Russia is struggling to produce 2M artillery shells a year. The PRC had manufactured 100M howitzer shells for the 152 mm caliber alone, a caliber the PLA has mostly retired, having shifted to the NATO 155 mm caliber. There must still be ten of millions in storage, of little use to the PRC unless there is WW III. The PRC had also produced thousands of towed 152 mm & hundreds of self-propelled 152 mm artillery pieces, currently in storage or in a few 2nd line units. More importantly, there are probably tens of thousands of spare barrels that are available. Presumably the quality of the shells & barrels are better than what NK has been willing or able to furnish. That is just for a single artillery caliber.

    Ukraine, unfortunately, has been even more resource starved, so as things stand Putin holds strong position to consolidate his current gains. The Ukrainian strikes into Russia is inflicting pain, but probably not enough to convince Putin to even pause the war.

  8. 8.

    Bill Arnold

    I would wager money that [the felonious fleshy entity that calls itself Donald J. Trump] did not write that (uhm) “Truth” about the Zelenskyy call on Trump’s TS account. Guessing Scavino as well.
    Remember this three-tweet thread from realDonalTrump twitter, Jul 15, 2018 ?

    Heading to Helsinki, Finland – looking forward to meeting with President Putin tomorrow. Unfortunately, no matter how well I do at the Summit, if I was given the great city of Moscow as retribution for all of the sins and evils committed by Russia…

    …over the years, I would return to criticism that it wasn’t good enough – that I should have gotten Saint Petersburg in addition! Much of our news media is indeed the enemy of the people and all the Dems…

    …know how to do is resist and obstruct! This is why there is such hatred and dissension in our country – but at some point, it will heal!

  9. 9.

    Adam L Silverman

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    Ukraine, unfortunately, has been even more resource starved, so as things stand Putin holds strong position to consolidate his current gains. The Ukrainian strikes into Russia is inflicting pain, but probably not enough to convince Putin to even pause the war.

    Until or unless Ukraine can bring the war to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Yekatarinburg – the places where ethnic Russians either live or vacation, which are the places Putin cares about, they will never inflict enough pain for Putin to stop. Hundreds of Russian villages got flooded a month or so ago. Bridges and roads washed out. Homes washed away. Putin did nothing and neither did anyone else in the Russian government. For the past couple of days hundreds of Russian villages and towns have been without power. People came out and demonstrated asking for help. The police arrested them. Putin only cares about ethnic Russians, the places that the more educated and economically well off ethnic Russians live or visit, and reestablishing some made up alternative historical Russian borders. The only way to hurt him is to kill the few people he cares about and take the war to Moscow and St. Petersburg.

  10. 10.

    dirt_first

    Thanks for all you do here Dr. Silverman.  And your last two sentences in comment #9 really hit me ring true for me today.

  12. 12.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: Yep, not enough pain to the relatively well off in Moscow & Saint Petersburg. But how to inflict that pain w/o violating the laws on armed conflict & risk undermining Western support is a challenge.

  13. 13.

    dirt_first

    @Adam L Silverman: Well, Adam (if I may!), I’m just so fucking tired of this shit going on day after day after day (x875), and I can’t wrap my mind around some way where we don’t let all those people down (to be killed and/or russified)…plus all the other *stuff* being debated (what do you call a snipe tournament?) in the blog tunnels.  arrgh.  Thank you for letting me get that off me chest

  14. 14.

    Jay

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    There are tons of legitimate military targets in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, headquarters, barracks, factories, Generals, etc,……………………. having stuff blow up around them,…….. that’s what Adam means by pain and suffering to the Putin Clique.

  15. 15.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Absolutely devastating account by a couple of American volunteer surgeons of their brief 2 weeks in Gaza (at the now evacuated European Hospital in Rafah):

    We Volunteered at a Gaza Hospital. What We Saw Was Unspeakable.
    American surgeons who witnessed the civilian carnage of the Israel-Hamas war.
    By MARK PERLMUTTER and FEROZE SIDHWA
    07/19/2024 05:00 AM EDT
    Mark Perlmutter is an orthopedic and hand surgeon who practices in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.
    Feroze Sidhwa is a trauma and critical care surgeon who practices in Northern California.

    For all of the horrors described, this part gutted me the most (emphasis mine):

    …
    While touring the hospital we walked through one of the ICUs and found multiple preteens admitted with gunshot wounds to the head. One might argue that a child could have been injured unintentionally in an explosion, or perhaps even forgotten when Israel invaded a children’s hospital and reportedly left infants to die in a pediatric intensive care unit.
    Gunshot wounds to the head are an entirely different matter.
    We started seeing a series of children, preteens mostly, who’d been shot in the head. They’d go on to slowly die, only to be replaced by new victims who’d also been shot in the head, and who would also go on to slowly die. Their families told us one of two stories: the children were playing inside when they were shot by Israeli forces, or they were playing in the street when they were shot by Israeli forces.
    …

    Anyone who runs cover for Israel or makes excuses for Israel is complicit in enormous crimes against humanity, probably genocide, as much as if anyone is doing the same for Russia.

  17. 17.

    YY_Sima Qian

    So, the Houthis hit Tel Aviv w/ a long range drone, killing 1 Israeli civilian & wounding several more. In response, The IDF bombed Hodeidah Port in Yemen, putting it largely out of commission. It is the main conduit for the vast majority of the humanitarian aid to all of Yemen. The IDF also bombed a power plant near by, the only one for the province.

    The Houthis are cynical actors taking up the Palestinian cause to reinforce its own legitimacy & influence, not “good guys” by any stretch of imagination. However, the scope of the IDF strikes are clearly aimed at collective punishment of the entire population, thus war crimes. Very much on brand for Israel, though.

    However, just like the US led coalition strikes against the Houthis have not diminished the threat against Western civilian shipping in the Red Sea, & there is no politico-military strategy to achieve such outcome, I doubt the IDF playing tit for tat will deter the Houthis from launching more attacks against Israel. All the intensive US aerial bombing campaigns did not cow the North Vietnamese, either.

    There aren’t purely military solutions to what at the roots are political problems. Israel can perhaps ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians (at the cost of rupture relations w/ Egypt & by extension the Sunni Arab states), it can’t do the same in Southern Lebanon, or Yemen, or southern Syria, or western Iraq.

  18. 18.

    wjca

    @Adam L Silverman:  The only way to hurt him is to kill the few people he cares about and take the war to Moscow and St. Petersburg.

    Ukraine has demonstrated the ability to do amazing things with drones. I wonder if they might charter (buy?) a small ship, sail it around Europe to the Baltic sea, and use drone strikes to hit the Russian Baltic fleet and military targets near St Petersburg.  It seems like it would be more feasible than getting a strike to somewhere near Moskow.  And could have a significant psychological impact.

  20. 20.

    Jay

    @wjca:

    I would buy one of the grounded passenger jets that litter African airports because of a lack of service, bring it back into service. Update the avionics. You can buy them pretty cheap, but getting title is often a PIA requiring lots of small bribes.

    Strip the passenger and cargo spaces, set it up with computer controlled racks and doors to drop Guided (GPS/Inertial) glide bombs. Load up the racks. You can probably get 1 250kilo glide bomb for every passenger the aircraft was rated for.

    Put a drop hatch in the cockpit.

    File a flight plan and fake cargo manifest, from Africa, across the Med, across the Black Sea into ruZZian airspace and a border hugging route to Saint Petersburg.

    Over the Black Sea, the pilots set the autopilot, programmed with the route and altitudes, fire up the LLM “radio” to interact with air control, fire up the target/drop computer, and bail out.

    They have O2, wet suits, glide chutes and basically HALO as close to Ukraine as they can, then swim.

    The aircraft proceeds on it’s non-stop flight towards Saint Petersburg, dropping off it’s little precision guided presents for ruZZia along the way, as far out from the flight path as 60km.

    If it makes it, it makes it, and self destructs, if it gets shot down, (not likely) it get’s shot down.

    If the ruZZians ever figure out what actually happened, and they don’t want it to happen again,  or for a second time, or third time, or,………they have to close their airspace, period. Nothing flies except military aircraft.

Comments are closed.