Image is a map of the Western Sahara, sourced from this article in the Middle East Eye. Much of the information in the preamble also came from there, as well as this article.
November 6th marked the 50th anniversary of Morocco, under King Hassan II, beginning the invasion and occupation of much of the territory of the Western Sahara. Today, approximately 80% of the territory of the Western Sahara is controlled by Morocco, with the Polisario Front - the government of the Sahrawis - controlling the rest, hugging the border of Mauritania. Between them lies one of the longest walls and one of the largest minefields on the planet, of which construction began in the 1980s.
The legitimacy of Morocco’s control over the Western Sahara is one of those long-lasting diplomatic issues which ultimately doesn’t seem to matter very much in terms of on-the-ground realities, and reveals the eternal uselessness of the United Nations especially in regard to actually helping oppressed people. Up until about 2020, the US and certain other Western countries did not formally recognize Morocco as having sovereignty over the whole territory, but in terms of providing genuine opposition to Morocco, it seems that Algeria is the major player in the region. While American, European, and Moroccan corporations exploit the fisheries and phosphate minerals of the region, protected by their minefields (and claims of merely advancing the cause of renewable energy development, AKA greenwashing), Algeria provides what aid they can to support the displaced Sahrawi people, many of whom have been forced to live in refugee camps.
On October 31st, the US put forward a resolution in the UN Security Council which was adopted (Russia and China abstained) and provided major support to Morocco, urging the Polisario Front to adopt the 2007 “autonomy plan”, which would, despite its name, be synonymous with an end to their independence movement. Such a plan was met with much jubilation in Morocco, with King Mohammed VI remarking "From now on, there will be a before and an after October 31, 2025.” Such a date was also the catalyst for the PF intensifying their guerilla struggle against Morocco, as legal avenues for autonomy and basic human rights are running out as the imperialists grow more desperate.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
MINT PRESS NEWS got
Orwelled off Instagram🚨Instagram has suspended our MintPress News account.
This is an attack on journalism and the Free Press. MintPress News is a leading 14 year old independent investigative news outlet exposing the architects of the US forever war machine. Our news outlet is run by me, Mnar Adley – a Palestinian American journalist and a survivor of Israeli occupation and apartheid.
We have an incredible team with the best investigative journalists and truth tellers from Alan MacLeod, Greg Stoker, Lowkey, Robert Inlakesh and Carlos Latuff and many more.
We had close to 300,000 followers on Instagram and we have close to 600,000 on Facebook. We don’t report on anything without receipts, citations and sources.
But we know that our journalism is a target by Meta whom we’ve exposed to have a close relationship with Israeli and US intelligence.
We’ve uncovered hundreds of veterans from Israel’s elite military unit 8200 working inside of Meta and managing content moderation. This is the same military unit that created NSOs Pegasus to spy on activists and was used by Saudi Arabia to track and kill Jamal Kashoggi.
And we can’t forget how Meta’s Israel policy chief Jordana Cutler takes direct orders from the state of Israel to target, censor and delete pro Palestine content on the platform – content that exposes Israeli apartheid and it’s crimes against humanity.
Meta did not tell us why we were suspended but luckily gave us an option to appeal but I’m not sure if that will give us our page back of about 300,000 followers. We will see what happens next.
Please pressure Meta and Zuck to get our page back .
Chinese travellers cancel hundreds of thousands of trips to Japan amid rising tensions
Chinese travellers are estimated to have cancelled hundreds of thousands of tickets to fly to Japan amid reports of suspended visa processing and cultural exchanges as a diplomatic dispute over Japan’s stance on Taiwan continues.
Under pressure from business groups, Japan has sent a senior diplomat to Beijing in an attempt to calm tensions after Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, said her country could get involved militarily if China attempted to invade Taiwan. Her comments prompted fury from China’s government, which issued warnings against Chinese travellers and students going to Japan.
At least seven Chinese airlines, including the three state carriers, said they would offer free cancellations to travellers with flights booked to the country. One air travel analyst, Hanming Li, said departure data suggested about 500,000 flight tickets to Japan had been cancelled between 15 and 17 November.
China is the second largest source of tourists to Japan, and its students form the bulk of Japan’s international student cohort. Shares in Japanese retail and travel companies slumped on Monday in response to the measures. Li told the Guardian it was the largest mass cancellation of flights he had seen since early in the Covid pandemic but would probably have little impact on China’s domestic industry.
Go
wokefash, go broke, Japan.If you look at the last election result, it’s very clear that many Japanese dislike Chinese tourists. There is a clear rise in anti-China sentiment for quite some time now, especially since the Japanese yen exchange rate has fallen over the past few years.
But zero-dollar tourism is a real issue, especially for the poorer Southeast Asian countries like Thailand.
Basically, if you have ever joined a Chinese tour group (popular with the older folks), they’ll bring you to Chinese-owned hotels, Chinese-owned restaurants, Chinese-owned shops, Chinese-owned transportation, etc. The entire loop is Chinese owned.
By creating such loop, Chinese tour agencies have been able to drive the prices down (and killing off the other competitors) and they get their profit back by earning commissions when bringing the tourists to Chinese-owned shops. If you’ve ever been in one of those Chinese tour groups, you CANNOT skip the shopping part, the tour guides will literally coerce you (emotional and psychological manipulation, begging, etc.) to buy from those shops, or you won’t be allowed to leave, because that’s where they actually earn their profit. It’s one of the worst parts of those tours lol.
As a result, the local economies of those countries barely benefit from Chinese tourists, and Chinese tour agencies drive the prices down and kill the profitability of local tourism. You can imagine why there are countries who really do not like Chinese tourists flooding their countries.
This sounds no different from American resorts among the global south
🟢 NEW: Hamas Says It Reached Out to China, Russia, and Other UNSC Members
Hamas official Osama Hamdan confirmed in an interview with Al Jazeera Mubasher that the movement had been in direct contact with China, Russia, and “most Security Council members” as part of a diplomatic push to block the U.S. proposal for an international force in Gaza.
He said Hamas and other factions sent detailed memoranda warning that the plan would “impose guardianship” on Gaza, sideline Palestinian institutions, and fail to protect civilians from renewed Israeli attacks. Hamdan added that the outreach also included the Arab and Islamic blocs, urging them to back an alternative framework grounded in Palestinian sovereignty and civilian protection.
this information makes the absolutely inaction at the proposal even more pathetic
Hamas is too hamstrung by Qatar and the existence of the Palestinian Authority. The latter of which is very much detrimental - as the West Bank needs to get organized on the same scale as Gaza does, sadly the feudal aristocracy collaborator class is much stronger there.
Ukraine is currently under the biggest cruise missile attack of the entire year. Russia had 10 strategic bombers airborne (6x Tu-95MSM and 4x Tu-160) for this attack. That is a maximum potential salvo of 96 Kh-101 cruise missiles (12x per Tu-160 and 8x per Tu-95MSM), though it’s unlikely we’ll see that number, but we’ll still see a large salvo of cruise missiles. I can’t remember the last time Russia had 10 bombers airborne for a single attack, I think that’s noteworthy enough for posting.
Amk mapping, English translation of Ukrainian and Russian sources
Ukrainian air raid monitoring channel
NATO is conducting combat air patrols and defensive counter air operations in Polish airspace on the Polish border visible on public flight trackers (for AWACS and mid air refueling aircraft, not fighters), as contingency if any missiles or drones enter Polish airspace.
as contingency if any missiles or drones enter Polish airspace.
Have nato aircraft intercepted Russian munitions going into Poland before?
Only Gerbera drones, styrofoam drones usually used as decoys. But they can also potentially carry a small warhead of a few pounds or kilograms.
There were photos of the drones (some intact, some damaged) and AIM-120 AMRAAM missile debris in Poland, and a Dutch F-35 sported a kill marking. Apparently you need advanced radars and optics to track the slow moving low flying drones from an aircraft and visually identify them effectively, they travel at similar speeds to motor vehicles, so visual identification is necessary. There was a very good article on that.
aim-120s for geraniums is an insane trade, let alone decoy geraniums
When the Key Bridge in Baltimore got bonked, I set up news alerts because I fucking knew they were gonna do this. They originally quoted $1.7 billion and construction completed by late 2028. Just got revised to $5.2 billion and construction completed by late 2030.
https://www.wbaltv.com/article/key-bridge-rebuild-cost-increase-opening-timeline-delayed/69463952
I call it the Musk Construction Model, overpromise and never deliver.
The US has no capability for infrastructure building anymore.
This is not new at all. Back in 2011, the (then) new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge had to be built by China. That’s nearly 15 years ago.
The original bridge cost $141 million to build, about $743 million in 2024 dollars.
It did take about five years to build, but seven times the inflation-adjusted cost? We’re totally fucked as a nation if we can’t fix the rampant cost disease.
insha’Allah you never fix it
you laugh, but this is exactly how the US regime buys loyalty from the labor aristocracy and petit bourgeois/(or just bourgeois) types. Instead of a social safety net, the state provides literal welfare for the less-rich, the government transfers wealth to the greediest piglets to wet their gullets and to allow a percentage of that money to “create jobs” while an inordinate amounts of cash provides an opulent standard of living for a few rich folks while everyone else is either held hostage by the grift, or “learns to live with the change”
but brooooo free market efficiency broooo noooo you cant just use the government to build things, think about the efficiency brooooo
.
efficiency in stealing money from the public, that is
Isn’t this just par for the course for … checks notes … everything that gets built in North America?
Yes, I’m just sick of being lied to.
Yeah. The union square garage in San Francisco took years and a $50 million “improvement project” to add metal paneling to the elevators and make the pay machines sound a chime when you pay
and make the pay machines sound a chime when you pay
That is awesome tho. Do they also have a huge lever that you pull when you pay?
Ukraine’s PATRIOT air defence system upgrades: what do they mean?
Today it was announced that Ukraine was receiving upgrades to it’s PATRIOT air defence systems, worth over 100 million USD.
So why now and what are the upgrades?
To answer the second part of the question first, there’s a key hint: the upgrade of the launchers from M901 to M903 configuration. This is important, as the M901 only allows for the loading of PAC-2 variant missiles/interceptors. The M903 launcher allows for the loading of the latest PAC-3 MSE and regular PAC-3 CRI hit to kill/kinetic anti ballistic missile interceptors. Because of the altitude control system (consisting of 180 lateral thrusters in the nose of the interceptor), PAC-3 interceptors can engage ballistic targets at significantly higher altitudes than PAC-2 interceptors, as they can still maneuver with a high amount of authority in the upper atmosphere, where the air is thinner and aerodynamic control surfaces have less authority. This will significantly increase the maximum range of the upgraded PATRIOT batteries against ballistic missiles, as to engage a ballistic target at greater range, you have to engage it at greater altitude due to the nature of a ballistic trajectory. Public numbers for maximum range against ballistic targets: PAC-2: 15km, PAC-3 CRI: 45km, PAC 3 MSE: 60km. So this upgrade will effectively triple or quadruple the range of the upgraded PATRIOT batteries against ballistic missiles, significantly increasing their defended area. Magazine capacity is also tripled or quadrupled vs PAC-2. An M901 launcher can carry 4x PAC-2, an M903 can load 16x PAC-3 CRI or 12x PAC-3 MSE, or a combined loadout. Classified upgrades are likely to do with the radar and command systems to support the new interceptors.
PATRIOT PAC-3 flight test. Note the lateral thrusters
In case anyone is wondering, the Russian S-400 works in a similar way. You need the new launchers, called 51P6A, to launch the 9M96 family of anti ballistic interceptors, which also feature an altitude control system of many lateral thrusters, and are miniaturised to increase magazine capacity. The new launcher is also needed to launch the longest range missile, the 40N6, similar to the USA’s SM-6. This is why initially the S-400 was called the S-300PMU-3, as the first units were delivered without the new launchers, and the new launchers are required to launch the new missiles. Almost all photos you’ll see online of the S-400 are of the old launchers. So I’ll post some of the few with the new launchers below:
S-400 in Turkish service. Older 5P85SM2-01 launcher on the left, newer 51P6A launcher on the right. Note the quad packed 9M96 missiles:
51P6A in Russian service, quad packed 9M96 missiles and possibly a single 40N6:
9M96 missile launch video, note the lateral thrusters re-orientating the missile
So why now, don’t Ukraine’s PATRIOT batteries already have this capability? Yes, those delivered earlier. We have seen PAC-3 debris in Ukraine and videos of hit to kill intercepts and attempts. So Ukraine has already got this capability for some of it’s PATRIOT batteries. This is not a new weapon being delivered. However, Ukraine recently received new PATRIOT batteries. Some from Israel and 2 from Germany. The Israeli batteries were not capable of loading PAC-3 interceptors, they were PAC-2 only. I’m unsure about Germany’s contribution, but it’s possible that they only sent over older batteries with M901 launchers as well. So these batteries are likely being upgraded to use the PAC-3 interceptors, as it’s the cheapest way to increase Ukraine’s capacity to defend against ballistic missiles given the systems they have currently. This is relevant because Russia is firing a lot of ballistic missiles at Ukraine in recent air raids, lots of Iskander-Ms and Kinzhals. And PATRIOT is the only system Ukraine really has to defend against ballistic missiles, outside of a very small number of S-300V batteries still operational with very limited ammunition from Soviet era stockpiles. Purchasing a brand new PAC-3 MSE capable PATRIOT battery would be significantly more expensive than upgrading existing batteries/fire units Ukraine got from Israel or possibly Germany to PAC-3 MSE specification.
NEW: Jeffrey Epstein pursued a plan to fund Israeli cyberweapons firms with money raised from the storied Swiss banking family Rothschild Group
spoiler
The years-long private discussions focused on using Rothschild as a vehicle to create a donor-advised venture capital fund intended to fund the growth of “offensive cyber” startups linked to Israeli intelligence. Epstein pushed forward the plan to build a global surveillance empire with former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak by leveraging his own close personal ties to Ariane de Rothschild, now CEO of the firm.
Rothschild Group also has an ongoing historic relationship with the state of Israel through a tax-exempt foundation that manages the Israeli locality of Caesarea, over which Epstein and Barak attempted to help resolve a dispute with the Israeli government.
Antisemites are gonna have a field day with this news.
So these files are gonna be completely censored right?
The only saving grace is that the people doing the redactions so far seem pretty bad at their jobs and will likely miss more stuff in the new releases
They probably asked Grok to redact the information
I asked Gemini to identify Xs on a pdf and the fucking thing just wrote new Xs all over the place and circled them
Well, it did indeed identify Xs
god i love living in the future
It was like talking to a 4 year old who understood what I said but didn’t actually know wtf I meant by it
Hey Grok, what did you redact?
Likely all names scrubbed except for Democrats. Then those people will be jailed. (At least my prediction)
Then those people will be jailed
they cant go around setting a precedent for arresting pedophiles, if the republicans want to mass arrest democrats it’ll be a much more ridiculous excuse
Get the democrats in congress to vote for a bipartisan bill that makes being a democrat illegal
i swear to god that’d actually work
Of course it would. Democrats can’t risk being seen as unwilling to reach across the aisle.
It would pass by like 2 votes, and then libs would scold people who were fighting against it
(sorry, I’ll stop now before I speak this into existence)
Over a dozen martyred in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain Al-Hilweh.
Death to America, death to Israel
☭ 𝙈𝙖𝙧𝙜 𝙗𝙖𝙧 𝙖𝙢𝙧𝙞𝙆𝙆𝙆𝙖, 𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙜 𝙗𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙎𝙎𝙧𝙖𝙚𝙡 ☪☫
For what its worth, I think it is best to not repeat the zionist claims of assassination attempt. This is just the US-israel bombing a refugee camp. Plain and simple.
A hospital is a “hamas command center”, a primary school is a “Hezbollah weapons cache”, a Ramadan gathering is a “Houthi military drill”, and a refugee camp is a “Hamas training site”.
I believe it was the martyr Basil al Araj who pointed out the principle of not sharing the narratives of the enemies.
Anyway thanks for sharing the update. Free Palestine, glory to the martyrs, and death to israel.
Amended, thank you
☭ 𝙈𝙖𝙧𝙜 𝙗𝙖𝙧 𝙖𝙢𝙧𝙞𝙆𝙆𝙆𝙖, 𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙜 𝙗𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙎𝙎𝙧𝙖𝙚𝙡 ☪☫
https://english.almanar.com.lb/2537779
Reporting 13 martyrs
إِنَّا لِلَّٰهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ
15 per the cradle
https://t.me/thecradlemedia/46465
☭ 𝙈𝙖𝙧𝙜 𝙗𝙖𝙧 𝙖𝙢𝙧𝙞𝙆𝙆𝙆𝙖, 𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙜 𝙗𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙎𝙎𝙧𝙖𝙚𝙡 ☪☫
#beanwatch in light of “Coffee, tea, cocoa, spices, bananas, oranges, tomatoes, beef, fertilizers, & more are now exempt from reciprocal tariffs.” linky
cocoa has fallen to 5.5k (billions will eat chocolate?), soybean risen to 1150 (probably due to china deal tbh), coffee still at 400.
In where are they now news, here’s one on Canadian ukrainian nationalist, Chrystia freeland, who was dumped from her position as Canadian federal minister by PM Carney after her attempt at leadership of the ruling liberal party. Her disagreements with Carney seem part ideological, part personal. She seems much more dyed in the wool ukrainian nationalist while he’s a bloodless finance type. She’s also a notoriously arrogant girl boss, which seemed to suit Trudeau’s woke-bae-with-a-majority style but not Carney’s iron fisted minority, which in parliamentary terms can’t abide dissent in the caucus.
Since Chrystia Freeland was dismissed from her Canadian Cabinet ministry on September 16, she has become the “Special Representative for the Reconstruction of Ukraine.”
Freeland has no staff for her post, no office, no budget, no travel expenses, and a pay cut of $79,700. The Privy Council Office, reporting to the House of Commons, says it has “searched its financial records and did not find any costs, start-up or otherwise, related to the role of the Special Representative for the Reconstruction of Ukraine.”
Helmer posits that her travel is being funded by Soros rather than the Canadian government, who has been an ally of hers through her career. Her main goal it seems is to lobby for seizure of Russian assets in EU. Should she succeed in that, she would be well positioned to help “administer” that flow of money once she is no longer a member of Canadian parliament.
Not a bad exit plan for her. I bet her and Estonia’s kallas get along famously.
Carney is worrying, but in a more low-key yet-another-ultra-capitalist-in-power way. More technocrat shit. But Freeland is downright terrifying.
After years of being economically ransacked by America, the EU will now allow a Canadian to convince them to destroy their credibility as a safe harbor for international finance and banking and skim off the top. It’s nice of them to let imperialists from other North American countries have a go at pilfering their coffers I guess. Couldn’t happen to a nicer economic union.
My memory is foggy but I’m pretty sure her dad and/or her brother got rich gutting Ukraine in the 90’s, so she’s just keeping up important family traditions
She’s literally descended from a Nazi war criminal.
Not only that, her uncle famously hates her family, and is an anti-banderist ukrainian historian.
Every fascist family has one normal person
I think it was both her brother and mother. But I don’t remember where to find a citation for that.
MORE
FEMALE IMPERIALIST RUNNING DOGS
Increasing sophistication of Ukrainian missile attacks with Ukrainian made stand off weapons:
An hour or two ago, Ukraine launched a ballistic missile attack on Voronezh, Russia. Video of the attack shows the aftermath of the interception or interception attempt of 5 ballistic projectiles in the lower atmosphere.
Russian sources report that these missiles were not US made ATACMS, but rather Ukrainian made Grom/Hirm-2 ballistic missiles:
The old ladies at the entrance say that this afternoon the Ukrainians tried to attack Voronezh with ballistic missiles. Most likely, they were OTRK Grom-2 missiles. There were 5-6 missiles. Other old ladies claim that there were three missiles. (type be specified) That’s quite a lot. As far as I know, this is the first time since the start of the special military operation. Previously, this type of missile did not reach this far. We fought them off normally.
Update: Ukrainian sources are saying that it was an ATACMS ballistic missile attack, and successful. ATACMS are US made ballistic missiles. A significant escalation if so.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine have successfully employed ATACMS tactical missile systems to carry out a precision strike against military targets on the territory of Russia. This is a significant development that underscores Ukraine’s unwavering commitment to its sovereignty.
Despite the ongoing pressure of Russian offensive actions, Ukrainians remain resilient, demonstrating determination and consistent resolve in defending their homeland.
The use of long-range strike capabilities, including systems such as ATACMS, will continue.
Facebook link to official Ukrainian military page
Specifications for the Hirm-2 are unknown in terms of range. Current range estimates are based on limits set by the INF treaty (500km) ot MTCR (300km). Like almost all ballistic missiles, it probably travels at hypersonic speeds at some point in flight, usually at burnout or the start of entering the thicker air of the atmosphere. It is said to employ a 1000lb class warhead. It’s unknown if it can conduct terminal maneuvers, photographs of mock-ups show a unibody missile with a similar construction to Iskander or an Oka missile with solid control surfaces instead of lattice fins. Given that the Ukrainians are saying this was ATACMS now, I guess Hirm-2 is not an actual capability and only exists as mock-ups and test articles.
This attack appears to have been unsuccessful, the vast majority of ballistic missiles intercepted. If a valuable target was hit, it could still be successful despite interception. However, Ukraine did launch a significantly more successful attack using Long Neptune subsonic cruise missiles and one way attack drones a few days ago. This attack involved severely damaging an S-400 battery/battalion, taking out multiple launchers, and likely the search and fire control radar, along with damaging port facilities at Novorossiysk.
This was a sophisticated attack that involved directly targeting air defence systems to enable cruise missile attacks on other targets immediately afterwards, namely port facilities. A first for Ukraine. Usually when Ukraine targets Russian air defence systems, it’s part of a seperate operation aimed specifically at those air defence systems, in Crimea via the use of human in the loop guided one way attack drones piloted by specialised units. A combined operation to enable attacks on other targets is a first. Neptune cruise missiles continue to be the most significant Ukrainian made long range threat/strike capability against Russia, as they have been since the start of the war.
You’re saying this attack is an escalation? If so, would you expect a significant retaliation from Russia or business as usual? The front seems to be going very favorably for Russia in recent weeks.
Last time ATACMS strikes were allowed by the US, Russia responded by launching an Oreshnik missile. A symbolic target was chosen, but the threat was that Russia could hit US military bases in Europe with a weapon that could not be intercepted. The ATACMS strikes fizzled out shortly after.
Is Russia going to follow through on that threat now? Almost certainly not. But a response of some kind is likely if it is proven that ATACMS was really used.
Ukraine could be lying about using ATACMS to provoke Russia, or Russia could be lying about them using domestic weapons to avoid escalation.
It’s also interesting because if this was an ATACMS shot, it was at the maximum end of it’s publicly stated range of 300km. Kharkiv to Voronezh is 295km. It’s also quite possible that ATACMS has a range greater than 300km, and the publicly available information is an understatement. Such is quite common with US weapons, the specs on Wikipedia or wherever are usually understated in this regard.
Some other pictures of the interceptions resemble S-300V engagement footage, but that’s just a guess, could be wrong.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
If it’s ATACMS, it will be the first ATACMS attack under the Trump administration.
Matthew Yglesias be like:
I love that Local Sports Team got the city to pay for their new arena and gave them massive tax breaks all while Local Sports Team rakes in unimaginable wealth while the city around their arena crumbles into disrepair
Not to pile on, but they also exploit volunteers to avoid paying concessions workers
Every aspect of professional sports is a fucking racket. Ticket prices are ridiculous, concession prices are ridiculous, merch/souvenir prices are ridiculous, and even though you’re paying an arm and a leg for the privilege of watching the game in person you’re constantly bombarded with advertising! No surface is left without some ad for beer or gambling (not the point but how the fuck can sports teams/leagues advertise sports betting, it’s wild).
Double? I paid $18 for a beer this weekend that is $3.50 at my 7/11
Yes, but don’t you feel the pride and accomplishment that comes with supporting sports team?
I didn’t really care about the game, but I sure as shit enjoyed bringing shareholder value to the concessions provider
