Hello everybody! My commentary on ‘this season’s’ Russian missile offensive on Ukraine of the last few days has prompted many questions. Thus, I think it’s about the time to address some of these. Today, I lack the time to address more than ‘four groups of questions’, but I’ll try to do more in the coming days.
Aside of components, there are still zero measures to stop supplies of consumables for the modern Western industrial equipment of Russian missile-producing plants.
Not easy to enforce. There'll be always lots of shady corporations to do re-export in many countries, if the price is right. Heck, we are seeing "ghost fleets" transporting Russian oil in Greek waters and christening it Indian/UAE/whatever...
It's clear that one can't completely block the export of ITs. But, letting corporations export chips almost directly to Russia - that should be stopped.
What may be the reasons for that change of targets from power infrastructure to defense industry and command nodes? Are behind just military reasons, i.e. Russians want weaken ZSU. Or maybe some behind the scene political pressure from the West (e.g. something like "if you do not stop target power grid we git Ukraine this and that"). ?
Priorities. Ukrainian power grid has survived 'even' the last campaign. So, it's on hand that a year later it's been bolstered up to the level where it would survive much more.
....but, with bolstered PSU re-deployed to protect that power grid, it's easier to hit UAV-factories, just for example - and that's having a direct impact upon developments on the battlefield, too.
AFAIK Ukrainian power grid is weaker than a year before - damage from the last year campaign would require several years to repair in a peace time. Also, some big power transformers take a year to be manufactured, they are manufactured in small numbers only and EU countries have already donated what they had in their emergency stocks .... And electricity consumption has increased a bit. E.g. see https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/world/europe/ukraine-power-grid-russian-airstrikes.html
“Not a lot has changed since then,” Victoria Voytsitska, a former lawmaker and senior member of the Ukrainian Parliament’s energy committee, said in an interview. “We’re in a much worse situation than last year.”
Thank you so much for you constant efforts to make sense what's going on in Russian-Ukrainian war. For sure I do not have complete picture but do have at least two recent examples when russians deliberately targeted civilian targets during the latest intensive air offence: a museum and a university were purposely hit in Lviv region. They do not have any military value or function, just purely symbolic one as they are connected to Ukrainian Insurgence Army that lead anti-russian effort in Ukraine during World War II. it is very unlikely that they could be hit simultaneously without targeted targeting. https://interfax.com.ua/news/general/957833.html
Oleksiy, sorry, but except for the Russians programming the missiles in question, nobody can say what were they actually targeting.
....and mistakes in programming are neither something unusual nor happening in Russia only. Do I have to remind about Ukrainian Tu-142 drone that crashed in a suburb of Zagreb, Croatia, back in 2022....?
russians hit Kharkiv with S300 missiles every few days. And no, not a military targets, not even close to it, not even in 5-10kms close to it, because there is no one in centre of the city at all. Same they were doing with Saltivka, shelling civillian buildings to the ground with artillery. Despite we don't know where exactly russians were aiming all this, we do have brains in our heads and do have a logical thinking. 1 missile/shell that hit civillians may be coincidence. 2 hits can be very, very bad coincidence. But 10+ in a row - nah, it's obvious thats was on purpose. More than 2000 damaged civilian buildings only in Kharkiv in first week of full scale war, thousands of videos where you clearly can see hit after hit after hit after hit after hit all in the same spot aimed to civilian buildings. Hell, even i saw it myself and survived few. And it's not even talking about that russians already crossed all numbers on "genocide bingo" multiple times, with multiple confirmations of many atrocities what they did. Or you really think that russians just accidentally destroyed Mariupol? Accidentally destroyed Bakhnur? Avdiivka? Marinka? Should i continue?
Didn't expected from you to play devil's advocate in question of do russians purposefuly hit civillians or not.
Russia does aim civilian targets, but not always. Targeting Kharkiv with S-300 can not be considered as targeting military facilities of any kind. Were S-300 precise enough for the latter, Russia would use it in e.g. Krynki. Therefore Russia uses S-300 to hit Kharkiv to cause any kind of damage, because it can.
If accuracy of a missile is some few kms - can we call it 'targeting facilities' at all?
Sometimes I just wonder what is actually going on. Sometimes their missiles hit some valuable targets. Sometimes the same missiles hit something waaaaay far from it.
On May 25, 2022, cruise missile hit trading mall in Zaporizhzhia. There is nothing of a military value around. Nothing. Tram depo 1km away? Train station 1 km away?
The closest thing that may be a target is 2 km away.
Another fact. I know about four missile explosions which were quite close to each other in Zaporizhzhia. Residential buildings and yards were damaged. Seems like Russians were targeting something around. But... there is nothing around except... TV tower.
My parents live in a village not far from Zaporizhzhia. It is de-facto a suburb. It has nothing but residential buildings (most of them are one-story buildings). No industry at all. Nothing at all that can be a target.
The only large business is some agriculture facility nearby. Nothing there but agricultural machinery. It was hit by a missile once.
One house was ruined by another missile. If that missile was targeting for something - it missed its target for several kms.
Once the village was targeted by rocket artillery salvo. A lot of private houses had been damaged. What was their target? I have no idea. There is literally nothing but houses.
Legally, it's the intention that matters - at least as much as result. For example: it's one thing to machine gun a civilian car, full of women and kids, and an entirely different one to target an enemy 'command node' or 'weapons storage depot', and then hit civilians living nearby...
Sorry, Tom, but after reading your report somebody may think that Russia is not targeting civilians in Ukraine and the damage is involuntary. As we know very well from 2014 Russia constantly bombed Donbass villages from Russian territory, is now bombing Kherson and every town or city it can reach. Although to send missiles to the power grid may be now considered a waste, to make every possible damages with cheaper weapons is everyday Russian practice.
I often see comments that it is difficult for Ukraine to provide air defences everywhere because it is a large country also has a long front line to defend plus insufficient air defence systems.
Presumably Russia which is a much larger country has the same problem but maybe not so severe as they have more AD systems, is this correct?
Also is it possible the Russians have ramped up production of AD systems? With their increased military budget seems they are able to produce most things in large quantities. I thought by now they would have gotten serious issues replacing them considering how many they lose regularly and how good a job the Ukrainians have done of destroying them or pieces of them.
The guys are hitting Ukraine with S-300 missiles regularly. I knew they had a huge surplus estimated at 10k such missiles but still seems a bit wasteful.
I doubt very much they are able to produce as many AD systems to replace their loses. They just had many AD system before the war and have pulled them form all parts of Russia to or near Ukraine. E.g. see https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2023/08/54a2f12d1a6e-russia-has-moved-missiles-off-isles-disputed-with-japan-expert.html and you can find other proofs how they pulled out of other borders (even from NATO, Noway and Finland, borders (because they feel pretty safe to be NATO neighbor.)
Great write up as always. The West is very disappointing really, in totality. European countries should move quickly to form blocs that develop weapons if the EU cannot.
Cruise missiles:
A cruise missile a day is ~$360mn a year for each major EU power(Italy, France, UK, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Poland) and ~3bn euro a year. That would be 210 cruise missiles a month and 2520 a year. Just sending 10-30% of this to Ukraine would be 252-756 such missiles that can be used to hit radars, ships, etc. on Ukrainian territory!!! Half this production rate and the impact is still significant.
This would give Ukraine the respite it needs to produce more of its own cruise missiles and air defence missiles. But right now they have to spend a lot of resources to hit Crimea while begging for the West to supply such missiles.
But in all this is where is the Western production capacity? The benefits are enormous axiomatic.
The Nordic countries should make their own bloc as well and start similar weapons production schemes and send 10-30% of this to Ukraine. Its not rocket science if you're not a politician.
As for the Nordic countries, the problem is not the will nor the money. To the best of my knowledge neither country has any cruise missile developed by themselves, nor is any licence production of such missile taking place. It takes several/many years to build such production facilities alone, before even production of any cruise missile itself can start. The start up process takes time as well, early production has to be tested/verified to make sure that everything works/functions as intended. You don’t want any malfunctions in such weapons!
Has this higher priority than, let’s say, increased artillery shell production? Such production facilities are if not identical, but at least very similar. They need the same type of basic resources, like skilled labour, advanced tooling, production test equipment, etc.
Not true! RBS 15 from SAAB is an example of a very capable already developed Nordic cruise missile that can attack ships and targets on land as well as maneuver past Russian air defence. They wouldnt need the R&D budget you think they do. Just to produce more right now. Just 1 or 2 per day for the whole Nordic bloc would be great. As well the Taurus is a German Swedish development. Developing smaller models as well is not an R&D challenge at all, its well established technology.
You're right artillery shells are more important but I gave cruise missiles as a simple example because how important they are as well and fact its actually absurd that Ukraine has to spend a lot of its hard to come by money on Neptune missiles to hit Crimea instead of Russia.
The West which has refused Ukraine to strike Russia with its weapons should at least provide long range precision munitions to strike Crimea. Gen Hodges amongst others have repeatedly said how important it is to take out crucial systems in the rear especially in Crimea. Russia has a lot of radars, ships, storage depots, command HQs outside GMLRS range in occupied Ukraine and Crimea. These should be struck day and night by all sorts of cruise missiles from the West. Its absurd we havent provided them with this capability to strike so deep in the rear. We have seen how SCALP has performed well but its not enough.
You’re right. I just didn’t think of the RBS15 as a cruise missile, only as an anti ship missile. It has not been in production for a while, though. The next generation of it is still under development, and I doubt that it has reached any production phase yet. But yes, you definately have a point! Its production facilities could and should be used to aid Ukraine.
The RBS 15 in whatever model is good enough. Its better than the Neptune that Ukraine used to hit Moskva and S-300 sites. Ukraine has only gotten some help recently from the West with the tracking algorithms for the guidance system on the newer Neptunes, but RBS 15 is till better! They just need to start producing right now. You can place it on a ship, drone, manned aircraft, ground launcher, the options are large. Just start producing now with target of 1 per day. Give Ukraine 1/3 of annual production and account for the real world data and use as R&D expenses. Russia wont stand a chance if it ever touched Gotland.
But consider that the longer the way prolongs while Russia copies Ukrainian innovations, possible attacks against Nordic countries will be with smaller more intelligent systems. The time to start production is now for Nordic countries. Just make a bloc and start producing, artillery, cruise missiles, drones, CUAS, CV90s with High Energy Lasers. Time is now.
One further consideration: Sweden is not yet a formal member of NATO. It is not yet protected by such a membership, and could therefore still be attacked by Russia. On the island of Gotland for example.. Sweden has therefore to be careful with regards to its capabilities.
Actually this is all the more reason fro Sweden to immediately, latest yesterday start producing more weapons. Not to wait until its part of NATO. Nordic countries should draw up a production plan and start producing weapons in large quantities as a production bloc. With this they can produce 1 or 2 cruise missiles per day. Ukraine which is at war is producing a few missiles per month. The benefit is that Sweden can look at what's working in Ukraine and start producing that. For example artillery shells, spaags of all types, medium range air defence systems, cruise missiles, unmanned combat aircraft, loitering drones. Now is the time not after joining NATO.
Has happened - dozens of times - in this war already (and many earlier wars, too).
EXACTLY: the attack on Pearl Harbor...."49 civilians were killed and 35 wounded during the attack on Oahu" "Many of the 5-inch anti-aircraft rounds fired at the Japanese aircraft did not detonate properly and landed in civilian areas around Pearl Harbor and Honolulu, exploding on contact with the ground." (https://www.nps.gov/perl/learn/historyculture/civilian-casualties.htm)
BTW Tom, still have not heard if you are familiar with the book WEHRMACHT WAR CRIMES BUREAU, 1939–1945...kinda curious.
Regarding point 3), the goal of the S-300 attacks on Kharkiv was pure terrorism of the civilians. One cannot possible find any alternative rationale behind them.
I ask because 25+ years ago my Bachelor in History thesis was on the subject. The subject of specific war crimes perpetrated against the Germans by the Western Allies: if I recall granting of no quarter and the killing of prisoners at the time they surrender of afterwards. Considering it is so ancient I would actually like to hear your opinion on it if you have the time. Needless to say my Professor was shocked at my topic.
Considering this thesis and a paper of 'The Dichotomy of Thomas Jefferson" actually got History dept. to try and recruit me for the Masters Program I was and am proud of them. But I am no author. I would however be VERY interested in you opinion of the work...but more importantly about the subject matter. If you are curious let me know how I could email or snailmail you a copy of it.
Considering this thesis and a paper of 'The Dichotomy of Thomas Jefferson" actually got History dept. to try and recruit me for the Masters Program I was and am proud of them. But I am no author. I would however be VERY interested in you opinion of the work...but more importantly about the subject matter. If you are curious let me know how I could email or snailmail you a copy of it.
Tom: I thought you might be interested in the Atomic Testing Film Library from Lawrence Liverermore National Laboratory that were declassified (498 videos for testing):
Is it possible to intercept Kh-22 while it flies in phase 4-5 on the picture? I understand it is probably too high altitude for SAM to reach, but can it be intercepted by some kind of missile launched from F-16 (or Su-27/MiG-29) ?
Aside of components, there are still zero measures to stop supplies of consumables for the modern Western industrial equipment of Russian missile-producing plants.
Oh, there are. Block exports to countries that might re-export them.
Not easy to enforce. There'll be always lots of shady corporations to do re-export in many countries, if the price is right. Heck, we are seeing "ghost fleets" transporting Russian oil in Greek waters and christening it Indian/UAE/whatever...
It's clear that one can't completely block the export of ITs. But, letting corporations export chips almost directly to Russia - that should be stopped.
What may be the reasons for that change of targets from power infrastructure to defense industry and command nodes? Are behind just military reasons, i.e. Russians want weaken ZSU. Or maybe some behind the scene political pressure from the West (e.g. something like "if you do not stop target power grid we git Ukraine this and that"). ?
AFAIR, VKS commander was changed last year, so perhaps the new commander proposed a new strategy.
Priorities. Ukrainian power grid has survived 'even' the last campaign. So, it's on hand that a year later it's been bolstered up to the level where it would survive much more.
....but, with bolstered PSU re-deployed to protect that power grid, it's easier to hit UAV-factories, just for example - and that's having a direct impact upon developments on the battlefield, too.
AFAIK Ukrainian power grid is weaker than a year before - damage from the last year campaign would require several years to repair in a peace time. Also, some big power transformers take a year to be manufactured, they are manufactured in small numbers only and EU countries have already donated what they had in their emergency stocks .... And electricity consumption has increased a bit. E.g. see https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/world/europe/ukraine-power-grid-russian-airstrikes.html
“Not a lot has changed since then,” Victoria Voytsitska, a former lawmaker and senior member of the Ukrainian Parliament’s energy committee, said in an interview. “We’re in a much worse situation than last year.”
On the other hand, with gas and oil it seems better, see https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraine-braces-for-another-winter-of-russian-attacks-on-power-grid/
(Maybe Russia will change targets later when PSU changes locations of their SAMs and mobile teams.)
Thank you so much for you constant efforts to make sense what's going on in Russian-Ukrainian war. For sure I do not have complete picture but do have at least two recent examples when russians deliberately targeted civilian targets during the latest intensive air offence: a museum and a university were purposely hit in Lviv region. They do not have any military value or function, just purely symbolic one as they are connected to Ukrainian Insurgence Army that lead anti-russian effort in Ukraine during World War II. it is very unlikely that they could be hit simultaneously without targeted targeting. https://interfax.com.ua/news/general/957833.html
Oleksiy, sorry, but except for the Russians programming the missiles in question, nobody can say what were they actually targeting.
....and mistakes in programming are neither something unusual nor happening in Russia only. Do I have to remind about Ukrainian Tu-142 drone that crashed in a suburb of Zagreb, Croatia, back in 2022....?
russians hit Kharkiv with S300 missiles every few days. And no, not a military targets, not even close to it, not even in 5-10kms close to it, because there is no one in centre of the city at all. Same they were doing with Saltivka, shelling civillian buildings to the ground with artillery. Despite we don't know where exactly russians were aiming all this, we do have brains in our heads and do have a logical thinking. 1 missile/shell that hit civillians may be coincidence. 2 hits can be very, very bad coincidence. But 10+ in a row - nah, it's obvious thats was on purpose. More than 2000 damaged civilian buildings only in Kharkiv in first week of full scale war, thousands of videos where you clearly can see hit after hit after hit after hit after hit all in the same spot aimed to civilian buildings. Hell, even i saw it myself and survived few. And it's not even talking about that russians already crossed all numbers on "genocide bingo" multiple times, with multiple confirmations of many atrocities what they did. Or you really think that russians just accidentally destroyed Mariupol? Accidentally destroyed Bakhnur? Avdiivka? Marinka? Should i continue?
Didn't expected from you to play devil's advocate in question of do russians purposefuly hit civillians or not.
Russia does aim civilian targets, but not always. Targeting Kharkiv with S-300 can not be considered as targeting military facilities of any kind. Were S-300 precise enough for the latter, Russia would use it in e.g. Krynki. Therefore Russia uses S-300 to hit Kharkiv to cause any kind of damage, because it can.
If they aim at these, that's 'targeting military facilities'.
....whether their missiles are then much too unprecise but to hit anything, that's a different pair of shoes. But, no 'targeting civilians'.
If accuracy of a missile is some few kms - can we call it 'targeting facilities' at all?
Sometimes I just wonder what is actually going on. Sometimes their missiles hit some valuable targets. Sometimes the same missiles hit something waaaaay far from it.
On May 25, 2022, cruise missile hit trading mall in Zaporizhzhia. There is nothing of a military value around. Nothing. Tram depo 1km away? Train station 1 km away?
The closest thing that may be a target is 2 km away.
Another fact. I know about four missile explosions which were quite close to each other in Zaporizhzhia. Residential buildings and yards were damaged. Seems like Russians were targeting something around. But... there is nothing around except... TV tower.
My parents live in a village not far from Zaporizhzhia. It is de-facto a suburb. It has nothing but residential buildings (most of them are one-story buildings). No industry at all. Nothing at all that can be a target.
The only large business is some agriculture facility nearby. Nothing there but agricultural machinery. It was hit by a missile once.
One house was ruined by another missile. If that missile was targeting for something - it missed its target for several kms.
Once the village was targeted by rocket artillery salvo. A lot of private houses had been damaged. What was their target? I have no idea. There is literally nothing but houses.
Legally, it's the intention that matters - at least as much as result. For example: it's one thing to machine gun a civilian car, full of women and kids, and an entirely different one to target an enemy 'command node' or 'weapons storage depot', and then hit civilians living nearby...
Should there be any doubts: ask the Israelis...
thanks Tom, accurate always . . ..
Regarding 2 - there was also a report they've hit factories/warehouses of a tactical gear/clothing brand: https://www.epravda.com.ua/news/2024/01/3/708344/
Also, the missile has demolished a workshop where UAVs were produced.
https://antikor.com.ua/ru/articles/675784-vraheskaja_raketa_porazila_ukrainskuju_masterskuju_gde_razrabatyvajut_i_modernizirujut_bespilotniki
Sorry, Tom, but after reading your report somebody may think that Russia is not targeting civilians in Ukraine and the damage is involuntary. As we know very well from 2014 Russia constantly bombed Donbass villages from Russian territory, is now bombing Kherson and every town or city it can reach. Although to send missiles to the power grid may be now considered a waste, to make every possible damages with cheaper weapons is everyday Russian practice.
Спасибо
I often see comments that it is difficult for Ukraine to provide air defences everywhere because it is a large country also has a long front line to defend plus insufficient air defence systems.
Presumably Russia which is a much larger country has the same problem but maybe not so severe as they have more AD systems, is this correct?
Excellent questions. I'll address this in the next Q&A.
Also is it possible the Russians have ramped up production of AD systems? With their increased military budget seems they are able to produce most things in large quantities. I thought by now they would have gotten serious issues replacing them considering how many they lose regularly and how good a job the Ukrainians have done of destroying them or pieces of them.
The guys are hitting Ukraine with S-300 missiles regularly. I knew they had a huge surplus estimated at 10k such missiles but still seems a bit wasteful.
I doubt very much they are able to produce as many AD systems to replace their loses. They just had many AD system before the war and have pulled them form all parts of Russia to or near Ukraine. E.g. see https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2023/08/54a2f12d1a6e-russia-has-moved-missiles-off-isles-disputed-with-japan-expert.html and you can find other proofs how they pulled out of other borders (even from NATO, Noway and Finland, borders (because they feel pretty safe to be NATO neighbor.)
Interesting! thanks for the share. Fingers crossed they lose a lot more of them.
Great write up as always. The West is very disappointing really, in totality. European countries should move quickly to form blocs that develop weapons if the EU cannot.
Cruise missiles:
A cruise missile a day is ~$360mn a year for each major EU power(Italy, France, UK, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Poland) and ~3bn euro a year. That would be 210 cruise missiles a month and 2520 a year. Just sending 10-30% of this to Ukraine would be 252-756 such missiles that can be used to hit radars, ships, etc. on Ukrainian territory!!! Half this production rate and the impact is still significant.
This would give Ukraine the respite it needs to produce more of its own cruise missiles and air defence missiles. But right now they have to spend a lot of resources to hit Crimea while begging for the West to supply such missiles.
But in all this is where is the Western production capacity? The benefits are enormous axiomatic.
The Nordic countries should make their own bloc as well and start similar weapons production schemes and send 10-30% of this to Ukraine. Its not rocket science if you're not a politician.
As for the Nordic countries, the problem is not the will nor the money. To the best of my knowledge neither country has any cruise missile developed by themselves, nor is any licence production of such missile taking place. It takes several/many years to build such production facilities alone, before even production of any cruise missile itself can start. The start up process takes time as well, early production has to be tested/verified to make sure that everything works/functions as intended. You don’t want any malfunctions in such weapons!
Has this higher priority than, let’s say, increased artillery shell production? Such production facilities are if not identical, but at least very similar. They need the same type of basic resources, like skilled labour, advanced tooling, production test equipment, etc.
It is not easy to get those priorities right!
Not true! RBS 15 from SAAB is an example of a very capable already developed Nordic cruise missile that can attack ships and targets on land as well as maneuver past Russian air defence. They wouldnt need the R&D budget you think they do. Just to produce more right now. Just 1 or 2 per day for the whole Nordic bloc would be great. As well the Taurus is a German Swedish development. Developing smaller models as well is not an R&D challenge at all, its well established technology.
You're right artillery shells are more important but I gave cruise missiles as a simple example because how important they are as well and fact its actually absurd that Ukraine has to spend a lot of its hard to come by money on Neptune missiles to hit Crimea instead of Russia.
The West which has refused Ukraine to strike Russia with its weapons should at least provide long range precision munitions to strike Crimea. Gen Hodges amongst others have repeatedly said how important it is to take out crucial systems in the rear especially in Crimea. Russia has a lot of radars, ships, storage depots, command HQs outside GMLRS range in occupied Ukraine and Crimea. These should be struck day and night by all sorts of cruise missiles from the West. Its absurd we havent provided them with this capability to strike so deep in the rear. We have seen how SCALP has performed well but its not enough.
You’re right. I just didn’t think of the RBS15 as a cruise missile, only as an anti ship missile. It has not been in production for a while, though. The next generation of it is still under development, and I doubt that it has reached any production phase yet. But yes, you definately have a point! Its production facilities could and should be used to aid Ukraine.
The RBS 15 in whatever model is good enough. Its better than the Neptune that Ukraine used to hit Moskva and S-300 sites. Ukraine has only gotten some help recently from the West with the tracking algorithms for the guidance system on the newer Neptunes, but RBS 15 is till better! They just need to start producing right now. You can place it on a ship, drone, manned aircraft, ground launcher, the options are large. Just start producing now with target of 1 per day. Give Ukraine 1/3 of annual production and account for the real world data and use as R&D expenses. Russia wont stand a chance if it ever touched Gotland.
But consider that the longer the way prolongs while Russia copies Ukrainian innovations, possible attacks against Nordic countries will be with smaller more intelligent systems. The time to start production is now for Nordic countries. Just make a bloc and start producing, artillery, cruise missiles, drones, CUAS, CV90s with High Energy Lasers. Time is now.
One further consideration: Sweden is not yet a formal member of NATO. It is not yet protected by such a membership, and could therefore still be attacked by Russia. On the island of Gotland for example.. Sweden has therefore to be careful with regards to its capabilities.
Actually this is all the more reason fro Sweden to immediately, latest yesterday start producing more weapons. Not to wait until its part of NATO. Nordic countries should draw up a production plan and start producing weapons in large quantities as a production bloc. With this they can produce 1 or 2 cruise missiles per day. Ukraine which is at war is producing a few missiles per month. The benefit is that Sweden can look at what's working in Ukraine and start producing that. For example artillery shells, spaags of all types, medium range air defence systems, cruise missiles, unmanned combat aircraft, loitering drones. Now is the time not after joining NATO.
We are starting...
Yeah, sure they are not targeting civilians on purpose, because we all know that in this world only Israel can do such thing 🙄
Congratulations: you won the prestigious 'Most Stupid Commentary in this Month' -award.
Hey, isn't sarcastosaur supposed to be able to recognize sarcasm?..
When it comes to mass-murdering civilians, there's no sarcasm.
Has happened - dozens of times - in this war already (and many earlier wars, too).
EXACTLY: the attack on Pearl Harbor...."49 civilians were killed and 35 wounded during the attack on Oahu" "Many of the 5-inch anti-aircraft rounds fired at the Japanese aircraft did not detonate properly and landed in civilian areas around Pearl Harbor and Honolulu, exploding on contact with the ground." (https://www.nps.gov/perl/learn/historyculture/civilian-casualties.htm)
BTW Tom, still have not heard if you are familiar with the book WEHRMACHT WAR CRIMES BUREAU, 1939–1945...kinda curious.
Yup. And nope: not familiar with that book. Have a family history of enough suffering during the WWII: we've closed that chapter long ago.
Regarding point 3), the goal of the S-300 attacks on Kharkiv was pure terrorism of the civilians. One cannot possible find any alternative rationale behind them.
I ask because 25+ years ago my Bachelor in History thesis was on the subject. The subject of specific war crimes perpetrated against the Germans by the Western Allies: if I recall granting of no quarter and the killing of prisoners at the time they surrender of afterwards. Considering it is so ancient I would actually like to hear your opinion on it if you have the time. Needless to say my Professor was shocked at my topic.
Considering this thesis and a paper of 'The Dichotomy of Thomas Jefferson" actually got History dept. to try and recruit me for the Masters Program I was and am proud of them. But I am no author. I would however be VERY interested in you opinion of the work...but more importantly about the subject matter. If you are curious let me know how I could email or snailmail you a copy of it.
Considering this thesis and a paper of 'The Dichotomy of Thomas Jefferson" actually got History dept. to try and recruit me for the Masters Program I was and am proud of them. But I am no author. I would however be VERY interested in you opinion of the work...but more importantly about the subject matter. If you are curious let me know how I could email or snailmail you a copy of it.
Tom: I thought you might be interested in the Atomic Testing Film Library from Lawrence Liverermore National Laboratory that were declassified (498 videos for testing):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWpqGKUG5yY&list=PLvGO_dWo8VfcmG166wKRy5z-GlJ_OQND5
I've got a question regarding Kh-22 interception.
Is it possible to intercept Kh-22 while it flies in phase 4-5 on the picture? I understand it is probably too high altitude for SAM to reach, but can it be intercepted by some kind of missile launched from F-16 (or Su-27/MiG-29) ?