When you recruit criminals into your army you shouldn’t be surprised that your army acts like criminals.
Igor Girkin has reportedly been sent to the front to serve his sentence. here’s hoping the Ukrainians are able to unleash some justice on his ass. 👀 Igor Girkin-Strelkov leave the colony and go to war. His imprisonment was allegedly replaced by service in the "special operations" zone, - SHOT pic.twitter.com/s9jXMKQAfs— MAKS 24 🇺🇦👀 (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) September 6, 2024
I've heard of cases where pilots were rumored to be re-assigned after making mistakes (or at least being blamed for them), but not just straight up re-assigning them. It sounds like Russia is very desperate to make these offensives successful. Russia has infinite fuel and plenty of aircraft, at least for the kind of war they are conducting. A large percent of the Russian air force is strictly air-to-air, and they exist to protect the large borders. There isn't really a place for that kind of mission in this conflict. Russia has been removing border guards and SAM sites to bring them into the war - I guess this is their way of bringing those pilots into the war.
Speaking of SAMs.. Moscow reportedly has 22 SAM sites around it.. turns out, maybe not. Satellite analysis indicates that some of the sites are missing SAMs entirely, while others are missing anywhere from 1 or 2 launchers to 1-2 batteries. only a handful are fully populated. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1832026134663553254.html
Iranian ballistic missiles have reportedly arrived in Russia. https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/06/politics/iran-transfers-ballistic-missiles-russia/index.html The West is currently debating what sanctions to add because of this, and I'm sure they will be devastating. It will probably take hours for some paperpusher in Kazakhstan to totally undo. Poor Talgat is going to miss his cat's feeding time.
Peripherally related: There is something of a scandal going on in Hungary right now. The Roman Catholic priest Father Gergő Bese is very active politically, being the one to consecrate Viktor Orbán's office. He was noted in the media for this virulent anti-LGBT position and his promotion of "family values" for which he receives a lot of government money. He frequently supports Orban in the media and attacks Orban's rivals. He even went to CPAC. Turns out Bese was in a long-term gay relationship, took part in gay orgies, and even appeared in online gay porn. Orban is currently wiping all references to Bese from his social media.
I heard the strong complaint e-mail will start with per my last email in bold Per Oryx losses it seems like Russia is using like half of their airforce the newer part The only old jet they use are Su25 which has a purpose they don't a new one for. No Mig 29 losses, only Su27 loses (2) were on the ground and a friendly fire incident so they using their most modern Su-30 and Su34 and Su35 They use MIG 31 but those never exit Russia proper
I'm just confused how this troll thinks Trump would sell Puerto Rico when, according to the felon, he'd have to find out who the president of PR is and get their permission first and purchase PR from that person, then sell to Denmark. It's amazing just how dumb that guy truly is.
The President of Puerto Rico is currently Joe Biden. The Governor is Pedro Pierluisi. Jennifer Gonzàlez is their Representative on Capitol Hill.
When Trump was president, that's a fact he didn't know. During a press conference around the hurricane, he complained about not speaking to the president of PR to coordinate relief.
The instant you read "noted in the media for his virulent anti-LGBT positions and his promotion of "family values"" you always know what's coming. Even those so-cons who simply think, being so-cons, that gay rights is a bad idea are rather calm about it and move on to the next topic. It's the ones in the closet that are hung up about it. Always
Last night's Ukrainian drone attack targeted the large ammo dump in Soldatskoe, Voronezh oblast. It burned all night and there were lots of little forest fires around it in the morning from exploding rockets being sent quite a ways out.
Don't forget the time the orange idiot said he spoke to the President of the US Virgin Islands , which would have been himself.
Reportedly these are 200 Fath-360 missiles, roughly similar to the HIMARS-launched GMLRS missiles that Ukraine uses. In one important way they are identical. They are both only allowed to be used inside Ukraine.
Frankly, I believe Putin is planning to get rid of him. There is no other reason to send such a high profile prisoner to the frontlines. There had been a pattern of murders/accidents for Russian operatives involved in the initial take-over of Donbas in 2014, and Girkin might be the last one left. Probably he knows too much.
Still burning this evening and the neatby village is being evacuated. A lot of north Korean rockets & missiles there, apparently, especially KN-23 ballistic missiles. With substantial fires all over the facility, we're looking at a near total loss of the whole installation and its military equipment and ammo.
Update on the Russian sovereign wealth fund. As you all know it was mostly Western cash before the war, and for the last year has been roughly half and half gold and Chinese renminbi. Because it's so gold heavy, it moves with the price of gold. So even though Russia has sold 60 tons this year, the market value of what they have remains stable because the price of gold keeps going up. If gold were to go down, it would be really bad for Russia's bottom line. While the budget for soldiers seems to have stabilized, the budget for weapons is increasing, and at an increasing rate. They can still build what they need, but every tank they pull out of storage takes that much more work than the ones they pulled before, every circuit board for a drone needs an ever more circuitous path for purchase and payment. But if the price keeps going up then in essence Russia can have it's cake and eat it too.
Ehhh.. The price of gold is hiding a lot of the underlying issues with Russia’s wealth fund. Russia’s reduced the amount of gold they have by 18%, which also happens to be roughly the amount gold has gone up. However, outside of that, Russia isn’t increasing the wealth fund, so they are on a knife’s edge for funding. Also, it seems like Russia pushes off a lot of bills until the end of the year and they make a balloon payment. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1832504896894963969.html As you said, if it weren’t for gold’s increase, they’d be worse off than they were, but they’ve also spent about $90b of the $144bn wealth fund they had at their peak in July 2022 and we’re coming up on another $20b-$30b payment in a few months. If that happens, that leaves Russia with a $35b-25b wealth fund, or about 1 more year of funds before they wipe out the wealth fund and no one interested in funding their debt.