re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

what an ignorant meme

Swedes as usual on top of shite in the tech sector. Now they have camouflage nets that radio and gps can still transmit through so soldiers don’t have to leave the covering to transmit and risk being spotted. The net also greatly reduces any thermal signatures to loitering munitions.

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For the first time the Javelin will be produced outside of the U.S. by PGZ in Poland.

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Never thought I would read this but there’s a possibility Russia is running short on anti tank land mines making minefields less dense in places. They have warehouses full of these things it’s crazy to imagine that if they were running short just how many of those mines are planted in Ukrainian soil.

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In Bryansk, a fire started in the building of the microelectronics plant "Kremniy El" after a drone attack

Residents heard two explosions.

At the same time, local authorities claim that Russian air defense forces shot down the drone.

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Man, Russians are so unlucky.

They fall out of windows, they have terrible smoking accidents and even when they shoot down drones, the damned things fall down and hit electronics plants that power their military.

U.S. sending 190 more MRAPs to Ukraine.

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ABC News

US likely to send long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine for the first time: Officials

"They are coming," one U.S. official told ABC News.

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The Biden administration is likely to send Ukraine long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, to help in its fight to repel the Russian invasion of its territory, according to U.S. officials.

"They are coming," said one official who had access to security assistance plans. The official noted that, as always, such plans are subject to change until officially announced.

A second official said the missiles are "on the table" and likely to be included in an upcoming security assistance package, adding that a final decision has not been made. It could be months before Ukraine receives the missiles, according to the official.

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A few notes about the timing:

1) As numerous pro-Russian accounts have noticed, Ukraine hasn't hit anything in a while with a Storm Shadow/SCALP. That strongly suggests that they are out, either because they simply used all the missiles that they had, or perhaps that a Russian missile attack on a stockpile was successful. ATACMS is different from Storm Shadow (a ballistic missile instead of a cruise missile), but they both obviously can strike at distance.

2) The Kerch Bridge is scheduled to fully reopen next week. Ukraine would obviously prefer for it not to reopen.

3) The eventual US replacement for ATACMS is the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM). Last month, the Army gave Lockheed an extra $175 million to accelerate PrSM production and expand the initial batch of missiles. Nine days ago, the Army announced that recent testing has been successful, and that PrSM is "on track and meeting benchmarks." All that indicates that the US Army may be more willing to part with ATACMS than in the past.

4) As I mentioned a couple of days ago, some $6 billion in Presidential Drawdown Authority for Ukraine is set to expire at the end of the month. Right now, the new proposal from the Biden administration to give Ukraine another $20 billion of aid ($13 billion of which would be military aid) is going nowhere in the House, because there is one group of Republicans that is against any aid to Ukraine, and there's another that's upset that Biden isn't giving Ukraine the stuff they need to win. In fact, at least one Republican has insisted that he won't vote for any more aid unless Biden sends ATACMS. To say the least, Biden has been feeling political pressure from McConnell and others to send ATACMS.

5) Germany almost certainly wanted the US to send ATACMS in order to pledge its Taurus missiles. The situation seems to have shaped up very similarly to the tank situation, when Biden had to promise Abrams to get Scholz to commit Leopards.

I would hope Ukraine would have been smart enough to store the Storm Shadows in underground bunkers or hardened shelters and not to put them all in one place. I think they probably were given about 250 or so Storm Shadows between the UK and France so they have no doubt burned through a lot of them but I would bet money they still have a small stock somewhere in case big targets of opportunity present themselves. Even if Biden allows ATACMS they will still only send a small amount. I would rather they send M26 cluster rockets for their HIMARS since we already have a large stockpile just waiting to be destroyed. Those could help the guys on the ground storming trenches a lot more than a handful of ATACMS in my opinion. Both would be ideal of course.

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cuck

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The most overused/misused word in the entire English language the last decade.

If the tech is so critical for military operations that we're spending $40B on a critical national security issue, we shouldn't be giving someone who amounts to a contractor a veto over its use. He deserves to be compensated fairly, but he shouldn't be able to turn it on and off on his whim.