re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict.

If Ukraine is able to make Russia withdraw from the occupied areas, which seems less impossible with each passing day for various reasons, they will be accepted... though Orban (if he manages to stay in power) will fight it. Ukraine will strengthen the alliance and be an asset at this point.

Russian media view of Bryansk strike

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U.S. Army Deploys Ukrainian Merops Anti-Drone System Against Iranian Shahed Drones in the Middle East

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I'm sure our military R&D can come up with some great anti-drone tech, but it is hard to beat cheap and effective born of necessity on the battlefield.

LINK
Interesting take from Average Infantryman (Cappy) on YouTube about the Starlink situation and how big of a deal it is. Here's a few bullet points:

1) the Ukraine counter offensive in the fall of 2022 was actually going better than most realized. The entire Russian army was in retreat and on the verge of a collapse. Putin called Biden and said, in no uncertain terms, that if his army collapsed and he was faced with a humiliating defeat, he would use tactical nukes. Full stop. So suddenly Starlink stopped working. And targeting data stopped flowing from US intelligence. And Ukraine's advance ground to a halt. That was way more orchestrated than we were lead to believe.

2) this past winter, Russia was set to make some decent gains. But Starlink terminals kept showing up in drones that were targeting civilians. And the drones that were used to try and assassinate Zhelensky while he was in Poland. This pissed off Musk because Putin had essentially promised him he wouldn't use them for those kind of strikes.

3) Both sides are hopelessly dependent on Starlink. Which is a major vulnerability for each side. Because neither side really controls the technology.

4) Not only did Musk shut off Russian access to Starlink. But he did the Ukrainians one additional solid. He let them interface with Starlink technical support!!! So these Russians called the Starlink 800 number to complain that their terminals weren't working. And they were connected to Ukrainian intelligence officers. First thing they did was get their credit card numbers. Which they promptly used to max out their cards. And then they got the serial number to their terminals. Which allowed them to locate them, and send air strikes back down the line and blow them up while still on the phone with guys they thought were trying to help them fix the problem.


Straight gangster shite.

More on the Kremniy El strike -

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They're pissed -




And the reviews are in -

A very interesting development in Moscow. Sergei Shoigu's tribe within the FSB is being isolated by having their internet access cut and with the arrest of Shoigu's close ally and friend. Accusations of a coup attempt are being made.

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Vladimir Putin is said to be concerned about a possible coup by the Russian military following the arrest of former First Deputy Defence Minister Ruslan Tsalikov. Mobile Internet in the centre of Moscow has been turned off for the past week, with no official explanation.

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Tsalikov's arrest last week was the culmination of a long-running corruption investigation (see thread below). Investigators have reportedly found that the former minister and his family had amassed property worth over 4 billion rubles.

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Tsalikov is a close friend and ally of former Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, who was sacked in 2024 after numerous allegations of corruption and mishandling of the war in Ukraine. Shoigu has a long history as a close ally of Putin, but has since fallen out of favour.

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Since 5 March 2026, a mysterious shutdown of Internet access in central Moscow has plagued the city's inhabitants. Only certain whitelisted websites are accessible, and restrictions have also affected Wi-Fi in the metro.

Russian mobile network operators insist that they're not the cause of the problem. VimpelCom says it's "due to external restrictions", while T2 says the restrictions are "not on the operator's side". This seems to make it clear that they have been imposed by the government.

There has been no explanation from the Russian government of why the restrictions – which it has not acknowledged – are in place, nor why they have lasted so long. Restrictions have occasionally been imposed during Ukrainian drone attacks, but there have been none recently.

However, the Russian outlet VChK-OGPU says that according to a source they are linked to Tsalikov's arrest: "The restrictions on mobile phone service and internet access in central Moscow and some districts of Moscow suspiciously coincided with the start of investigative actions against Shoigu himself and those closest to him.

The attempt to imprison former Defense Minister Tsalikov, a close friend and associate, in Lefortovo was accompanied by some kind of mad scramble at the top. And it ended with Tsalikov never being sent to Lefortovo.

"It was limited to charges and house arrest. The only person next in line after Tsalikov could be Shoigu himself. And he retains considerable influence, both in the highest echelons of power and in the security services and the Ministry of Defence.

"By a 'strange coincidence,' the Lubyanka, the Presidential Administration, the Security Council, Moscow-City, and several Defense Ministry and FSB departments, as well as the locations of Alpha and Vympel security forces and the operational staff of the FSB's Constitutional Order Service, and the residences of security service representatives, were affected by the poor cellular, internet, and VPN service.

"It's impossible to completely cut off cellular service in Moscow, as the entire infrastructure of housing and communal services and other operational services in the capital rely on cellular data.

"Therefore, such restrictions could only be caused by very serious reasons, given that no serious UAV attacks on Moscow were observed during these days."

VChK-OGPU also reports that Putin has not visited any military command posts so far this year, in marked contrast to his frequent visits last year. A source sees another link to a possible security threat:

"This isn't just a conspiracy theory; the Kremlin is genuinely afraid of certain events, and they're not related to Ukraine, but to internal processes in Russia.

"I don't know if they're afraid of a coup, a conspiracy, or something similar, but they're definitely afraid of something serious."

Another source links the lack of visits to Putin getting increasingly tired of the war: "No progress on the front lines, exhausting negotiations, and Putin's own cooling toward the topic of war."

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Ukraine will strengthen the alliance and be an asset at this point.

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How? Because they have stuff that they will sell to us anyway?

They aren't going to sell it to Russia.

Adding them makes a broader war more likely, not less. And If we feel that they are important enough to defend with US troops should they be attacked, we should just send our troops in now.

Plus, we like Ukraine right now (well, some of us do) but that might not always be the case. We are committing to their defense indefinitely if we let them in. Would you want Orban's Hungary in right now if they were a "free agent"?

Not to mention with their demographic crisis they will be a nation in flux over the next few decades. We aren't committing to the Ukraine of 2026 that we know, we are committing to the Ukraine of 2056 and have little idea of what that looks like.

And my point isn't even that we should never defend them under any circumstances. We can still choose to do so. There was plenty of warning about this invasion and we chose not to in 2022. If that future Ukraine is worth defending, by all means do it. But I don't like being locked in bed with a historically unstable and corrupt country, sorry.

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How?

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Because they can add a million man army that will fight and has fought.

Having said that I’m not for Ukraine in NATO right now.

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The past 4 years have shown us that the number of men matters less than ever.

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Right, but it still means something.

Again, I stated I wasn’t in favor of letting them in NATO right now even though their military would be a plus.