re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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Neither France nor the UK uses F-16's if memory serves me correctly.

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Correct they do not.

The way I am looking at it is that the US seems to be taking a back seat in terms of giving bigger toys through the conflict and letting countries like the UK, Poland and now France take the lead as this gives them the ability to not to appear escalatory, as others have mentioned it gives them an "out" for any handshakes given to China.

It also gives the impression that Europe is being given the lead to start to ween them off from their reliance on the US for security, not that Europe is likely to do that overnight but it may be foundation work for what happens after the war ends. Europe is going to need to be solid in the aftermath, win or lose Russia isn't going to go away.

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Air defence downs all Russian missiles and drones flying over Ukraine overnight, including 6 Kinzhal missiles
Iryna Balachuk — Tuesday, 16 May 2023, 08:33

The Russian invaders attacked Ukraine with 18 missiles of various types and a number of Shahed drones on the night of 15-16 May, with all Russian targets shot down by the defenders.

Source: Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on Telegram; Mykola Oleshchuk, Commander of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on Telegram

Quote from Zaluzhnyi: "At around 03:30 on 16 May, the Russian invaders attacked Ukraine from the northern, southern and eastern fronts with various types of air-, sea- and land-based missiles - 18 in total.

Six Kh-47M2 Kinzhal aeroballistic missiles were launched from six MiG-31K aircraft, 9 Kalibr cruise missiles were launched from ships in the Black Sea, and three land-based missiles (S-400, Iskander-M).

All 18 missiles were destroyed by Ukrainian Air Force air defence."

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It certainly looks like Russians were trying to overwhelm the target zone to get a kill shot on the Patriot battery.

The only other reason I consider is they may have just wanted waste missile stocks for later strikes. My understanding is that a Patriot missile is US$2-4 million a pop which makes last nights fireworks display around US$60-120 million considering 30+ missiles appear to have launched going out. How much of the package with the Patriots was allocated to ammunition?

One thing that I found interesting was how quickly video purportedly of the Patriot battery under attack was circulated once the strike happened. Yes I know social media but it was picked up by ALOT of accounts very quickly.

Anyone with experience care to comment on whether it is a Patriot battery in the current video making the rounds?

Twitter- @sentdefender - Video

It is very much a case of counter claims thus far on whether anything got through and if it took out the Patriot battery, if that is what we saw in action.

We will probably only know for sure once there is another strike at Kyiv and Patriots are seen again or not since, as far I can gather, only one has so far been deployed in Ukraine.

British Defence Intelligence
INTELLIGENCE UPDATE
UPDATE ON UKRAINE 16 May 2023

Wagner Group forces continue to make gradual progress in clearing Ukrainian positions in the town centre of the contested Donetsk Oblast town of Bakhmut. However, over the last four days, Ukrainian forces have made tactical progress stabilising the flanks of Bakhmut to their advantage.

As well as progress to the south of town, Ukrainian assaults have forced back the Russian frontline to the north-west of the town. This has likely enabled Ukrainian forces to re-establish more secure use of the key 0506 supply road.

Ukraine is holding Russia's western advances along the line of Donets-Donbas Canal, turning the waterway into an obstacle as part of a deep defensive zone around the town of Chasiv Yar.

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Anyone with experience care to comment on whether it is a Patriot battery in the current video making the rounds?

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@noclador

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Saw tweets saying "Last night's interceptions were not Patriot. The angle was too steep."

1) Patriot launches at a 38° angle (see pic)
2) PAC-3 interceptors can immediately maneuver after launch
3) PAC-3 M902 launchers hold 16 missiles, NASAMS only 6

It was a Patriot launch.

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Also, a PAC-3 CRI interceptor was photographed on the street in Kyiv this morning.





Pro-Russian accounts are using this video to say that there was an impact. But the video cuts, and there are no secondaries, so it's not clear what, if anything was hit. (Side note: he's wrong about the cost, as these were not PAC3-MSEs.)

LINK

Other Russian accounts have supposedly linked the full livestream of that, and they say that there is a six-minute interval from the firing of the missiles until the impact on the ground. But the Youtube of the livestream has been taken down. I'm sure it will resurface somewhere on Telegram, but I don't mess around a lot in Telegram.

But I do think that the Ukrainian report of everything shot down is not true. It's important to say, though, that a Patriot system is spread out over a very large area and has redundancies. So, even if one radar or one launcher were hit, the system should still be functional.

EDIT: lots of accounts saying that the explosion on the ground is likely not a Kinzhal, but rather one of the Patriot interceptors that malfunctioned. I don't think that there's any way to know, and (absent another Jack Teixeira) we may not know until the end of the war.

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Russia hit the Kyiv Zoo.

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The KGB got some bad intel. They thought they were attacking where the Leopards were being stored.

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The KGB got some bad intel. They thought they were attacking where the Leopards were being stored.

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Clever

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Some Ukrainian sources have Russian casualties in and around Bakhmut at 100,000 alone.

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Even by the standards of Ukrainians, that seems totally ridiculous. C’mon man

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Pro-Russian accounts are using this video to say that there was an impact.

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In the comments to the tweet you posted, many are saying the impact was from a malfunctioning interceptor that went up and came back down. Says there is a different video, but I've only been able to find a picture so far.


ETA: Sorry, missed your edit.

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No prominent leader calling for peace talks - its obscene.

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I mean Xi has

Putin has, but said Ukraine has to withdraw from all of the new Russian land first

Zelensky has, but said Russia has to withdraw from all of Ukrainian land first.

So what's your peace plan given the above

Things that adults should stop believing in...

The Tooth Fairy
Santa Claus
The Easter Bunny
Peace with Russia