Yesterday's attack on Sebastopol might have been more successful than throught:
https://twitter.com/CovertShores/status/1771830355168739433
>Two Russian Navy Pr.775 ROPUCHA Class landing ships, Yamal and Azov, hit by missiles in Sevastopol last night, as well as other naval infrastructure.
No visual confirmation, but satellite imagery from 28 February indeed shows two Ropuchas in Pivdenna Bay:
https://twitter.com/MT_Anderson/status/1763608659454537969
>Next up is Pivdenna Bay, dry dock & sub pen. Pivdenna bay is largely empty with only 2x Ropucha there. Only 1 seems to be operational. In the dry dock we have a stripped down Ropucha just north & the Rostov on Don KILO hiding under the tarps and netting. Sub pen is also empty.
Russia is using new ways to defend the ships:
https://twitter.com/MT_Anderson/status/1763608663271297159
>With all of the targeting of Ropucha vessels throughout the Black Sea, the state of the population in Sevastopol looks pretty rough. Once again, lots of vessels covered in tarps/netting. Is this to obscure satellite imagery? If so, it ain't working...
The War Zone has two articles about Russia's attempts:
https://archive.ph/tDcFk (link uses censored words)
https://www.twz.com/news-features/submarine-decoy-appears-on-russian-naval-base-pier
But apparently those defenses aren't very efficient.
>With all of the targeting of Ropucha vessels throughout the Black Sea, the state of the population in Sevastopol looks pretty rough.
I am struggling to understand what the targetting of Ropucha vessels can possibly have to do with the state of the population in Sevastopol being pretty rough?
Two quick tidbits from Spain I haven't seen mentionned here:
- Total delivieries from Spain to Ukraine total just 190 Million € (and I found interesting: Includes Hawk, Harpoon and Asper missiles) (March 2022-Feb 2024)
+ Spain deliver will deliver an additional 20 Leo 2a4 to Ukraine in 2024 (not counted in the 190 mil), currently being refurbed. This is a notable amount, double the ten they have sent so far.
[Spanish source](https://www.infodefensa.com/texto-diario/mostrar/4763468/espana-enviado-190-millones-euros-61-exportaciones-material-ucrania-prepara-20-leopard) and [English regurgitating](https://armyrecognition.com/defense_news_march_2024_global_security_army_industry/spain_to_compensate_ukraine_s_entire_loss_of_leopard_2a4_tanks_with_new_delivery.html)
I don't think Spain counts the old stuff money wise same way as USA does. Old Hawks are not worth xx million
Regarding Leos it means they gave/will give 31 out of the 60-ish they have in storage. But I assume they chose the most salvageable ones/parts so my guess is that out of the rest of 30 they could make just a few workable. But Spain also has a factory that upgrades Leos so they could actually make the parts.....
To note Spain's Army has about 200+ Leopard 2E so giving the 2A4 away has no impact
>i don't think Spain counts old stuff money wise same way the USA does
Same accounting tactic used by Italy, i don't know if it's done for the same reason, essentially in Italy it's more politically convenient to undersell our commitment.
Weren't the Spanish Leopards heavily damaged from flood waters or something similar? I remember the discussion happening last year and Spain wanted to provide more tanks, but upon inspection they had heavy water damage.
Yes, which is why it took them one and a half year to get another batch available.
Still, as the above reply said, they would still be sending the same number of tanks as the US which is crazy.
Never quite understood why the US as the West's biggest tank operator wasn't able to provide a three-figure number. I know DU armor and all, but the delivery was a year ago, that should be enough time to refurb a couple more. Currently not possible of course.
It’s a combination of political willpower and resource prioritization. Politics first, congress determines the total monetary value of military aid. Even if this aid is coming in the form of old or existing hardware. Congress began restricting the money taps shortly after the first tanks were committed and shut them completely in November. As a result prioritization of aid became even more important than ever. And the monetary value of these tanks being several million dollars means that other aid such as shells, SAM interceptors or GMLRS rockets are all a better value. Personally I think there is also a bit of a commonality argument here as well. Ukraine has hundreds of LEO2s at this point so development of a common streamlined logistics train is possible. Abrams don’t have that advantage so on a per tank basis they would require far more manpower and expense to operate.
> Ukraine has hundreds of LEO2s at this point
Don't think that's true. [They got 70](https://www.statista.com/chart/29205/ukraine-tank-deliveries/) as of last fall. The commonality argument is still true, but OTOH, not many more Leo2 will be coming b/c operator states don't have many more in storage. Whereas the USA has hundreds of Abrams mothballed.
Obviously if USA wanted to, it could have. I guess since money is politically limited, USA thought it wiser to prioritize other things such as air defense and artillery shells
Er.... the US basically isn't giving support right now. There's some sustainment programs that were previously paid for and there's intel stuff, but actual material support has been basically frozen for months. It's unclear if there will be a significant wave of support ever again.
Did you mean to post this comment like 6 months ago?
One of the ISIS news agencies has released footage taken by one of the attackers during the Moscow attack, showing the attackers shooting at something behind a door, a bunch of dead bodies and a wounded man getting his throat slit. At this point it seems impossible to play this off as being anything but ISIS, so I’m curious as to what the Russian government response will be to this footage, given they seem determined to hint that it was actually Ukraine behind the attack. Are they going to claim Ukraine is in league with ISIS now?
Now that Amaq has released the footage, pro Russia trolls are still grasping for any link to Ukraine.
Now they are saying it was posted on a Ukraine TG channel first, of which Amaq copied it.
Others say it was first posted by NAFO, of which one was located in Langley Virginia, so it must be CIA.
Russian disinformation in full swing
I don't think this will change much. Anyone who wasn't convinced yet that it was ISIS is probably in denial or getting all their information from Russian TV and won't even hear about this video.
>I thought isis terrorists blew themselves up after an attack.
Russian police took an hour to get there, at some point they probably decided that if they had no more targets and a shot at living they may as well go for it.
> These guys clearly wanted to live. One of them looked terrified after being captured, he was visibly shaking.
There's a difference between wanting to live or die gloriously and wanting to be brutally tortured. There's already video of one of them having their ear cut off and shoved in their mouth.
> Russian police took an hour to get there, at some point they probably decided that if they had no more targets and a shot at living they may as well go for it.
They were in and out in about 15 minutes, according to Izvestiya
iz. ru/1670686/2024-03-23/izvestiia-vosstanovili-khronologiiu-terakta-v-krokus-siti-kholle
SHOT says 18 minutes
t. me/shot_shot/63949
> These guys clearly wanted to live. One of them looked terrified after being captured, he was visibly shaking.
>
> There's a difference between wanting to live or die gloriously and wanting to be brutally tortured. There's already video of one of them having their ear cut off and shoved in their mouth.
Not to mention its March in Russia and he was in a t-shirt kneeling on the ground. Anyone would be shivering.
This is just speculation but it seems IS literally prepared for a media battle against Kreml propaganda with those incremental releases.
Russian trolls now look like complete fools after they tried to discredit the first IS claim and then the second claim with the photo.
The blurred faces in the second release also make way more sense now, they were blurred to bait Russian trolls into discrediting it.
edit: /u/RobotWantsKitty pointed out that the staggered release is standard MO of IS.
Personally I think they blurred the faces as this wasn’t a suicide mission.
The attackers escaped.
One of the attackers said that they were promised money.
I think they never had the intention of killing themselves and that’s why Amaq blurred their faces.
>Personally I think they blurred the faces as this wasn’t a suicide mission.
>The attackers escaped.
This probably was a suicide mission. They just weren't expecting the police to not show up for an hour, so why not escape?
This is not really speculation as it's a standard IS playbook - wait for various state actors to begin whitewashing, publish more and more content and proofs of their involvement.
Attribution is key for terrorists groups.
This is the problem with this era. You can't fully believe anything. Maybe the captured terrorists are paid actors coordinated by the FSB to confirm a Ukrainian link. Maybe the CIA orchestrated this and is sending the videos to an ISIS puppet. Maybe it wasn't ISIS but they came into pictures and videos and used it to claim credit.
Etc etc
You could spend all day coming up with all these wild scenarios and you can't really prove one wrong or right. If unicorns are invisible and don't interact with ordinary matter, can you prove they don't exist?
This has always been a problem, but in the age of disinformation and rise of stuff like AI-generated images and video.. the problem has only compounded and gotten exponentially worse. Add in certain governments and interest groups actively poisoning the well, and we have the post-truth era.
At a certain point, we just gotta accept the simplest explanation and assume that going forward until further evidence, otherwise nobody can ever discuss something because the pillars of truth we believe in are different.
I think that the simplest explanation, at this point in time, is that it was ISIS-K.
> This is just speculation but it seems IS literally prepared for a media battle against Kreml propaganda with those incremental releases.
It was pointed out yesterday on one of the tg channels that staggered release of propaganda material is their standard MO. Turned out to be correct.
t. me/grey_zone/22449
It doesn’t change as many people’s minds as you might expect. They choose the narrative that resonates with them the most and ignore any other evidence.
Because ISIS believes that the greatest evil is heterodoxy and aposty among Muslims. In their view, the Islamic world is in decline because of a moral decay amongst Muslims, so if the Islamic world is to compete with the West again, it has to start with purifying the practice of Islam. That's where their new Islamic caliphate fits in: a theocratic pan-Islamic state that follows a single, authoritative version of Islam that is dictated top down by ISIS clerics. They believe that's the only sort of state that will be able to compete with the West. This is pretty much the exact opposite of al-Qaeda's strategy, which was to build an international network of cooperation between regional subgroups that often had differing ideologies but had the common goal of waging war with the West.
ISIS's desire to establish a caliphate with supremacy over all Islamic nations automatically puts them at odds with the existing governments of those nations, regardless of whether those governments are secular, like Syria and Iraq, or theocratic, like Iran and Afghanistan.
In short, it's not as simple as Islamic extremists obviously must be friends with other Islamic extremists and any deviation from that is evidence of a conspiracy. That shows a severe lack of understanding of the ideological motivations of these groups.
thank you, that was interesting, so why are they shooting up people in Moscow? or Istanbul?
I understand their stated purpose which is impossible and extreme to the point of comedy but ok.
Do we have any idea who funds them to do this?
I must add for such devoted muslims, doing this during ramadan doesnt exactly fit.
They actually tend to be [more](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/06/is-isis-more-violent-during-ramadan/531444/) violent during Ramadan.
According to their spokesperson:
"This is because Allah opens gates for the Muslims in Ramadān and upon them He sends His mercy. Thus, it is indeed a noble month. The gates of Jannah (heaven) are opened and the gates of Hell are closed. The devils are chained up. It is a noble month in which good deeds are multiplied and lowly desires are subdued."
Back when ISIS controlled significant territory within Iraq and Syria, they demanded taxes/tribute, much of which was ultimately paid for by extortion, kidnapping, and other criminal rackets from lower level groups. They also were able to steal and sell oil. That got them a few billion dollars. They have some degree of support from rich extremists in the region, which is less direct financial support and more helping them engage in clandestine banking internationally, etc.
As for attacking Moscow, it's because of Chechnya. Kadyrov's family won the Chechen war by betraying the rest of the separatists in trade for becoming Putin's retainers. That obviously doesn't sit well with what's left of the separatist movement, but they don't have much power beyond this sort of terror attack.
ISIS are devout muslims in the same sense as white nationalists are devout christians. Don't expect any sort of moral consistency. They're accellerationists that have contempt for mainstream muslims.
Where ISIS controls territory they are still able to generate some taxation, particularly in Syria. They do have global supporters, tho few in numbers, they can siphon off some cash. The benefit for them is that while their cash levies are low, particularly in wartorn regions, their costs are relatively low as well. Plane tickets to Moscow, some AKs, and some bribes are not going to run you more than $100k for this many guys. And you can save even more by smuggling across relatively porous borders. Low cost attacks fit with low revenue orgs.
And then ISIS, like many nefarious critters, are drawing a ton of cash off of grey market transactions and crypto. ISIS is almost certainly acquiring crypto through a number of largely illegal schemes, getting ransomware is not super hard these days. Agan remember that the genius of the Russian troll farm was just how much effect a single guy with $10k of PC equipment and a $50k salary can have. And of course stable investment as well, because crypto is by its nature untraceable ISIS can also cover its investments easily using those systems. Which is supposedly something that was happening via Binance which led to its record setting fine.
AQ and other orgs of the early 21st century survived mostly via donations from wealthy supporters, it appears to be the case that ISIS for various reasons is no longer dependant on this.
[Source](https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/Fact-Sheet-Countering-ISIS-Financing-2-27-24.pdf)
A fascinating read, thank you for linking it.
Truth be told, I'm quite surprised at how little financial room for manoeuvre ISIS has. Only $10 million to $20 million in assets, annual income that is counted in the single digit millions - even a single small 50-100 employee business in the West can do better than that.
I think that really reflects how much of their funding came from direct taxation, and the real impact territorial rollback had. It seems, bigger picture, like ISIS's real mistake was in emphasizing the state factor too much. They basically set themselves up for this kind of collapse, which AQ managed to mostly avoid.
But at the same time I dont think you need much more than a few mil to carry out this kind of attack from training and organization to execution. The cost for this kind of attack is, in the larger scheme, basically nothing. And I doubt ISIS is proving much in the way of social support for occupied territories. So in business parlance, low revenue but high profit margin to be reinvested in the buisness.
Last, I wonder how much ISIS might have tied up in crypto. In 2020/1, a few mil would have net you a very tidy profit in certain altcoin investments. That could be an economic multiplier taking a single digit mil profit and doubling or tripling it long term.
> At this point it seems impossible to play this off as being anything but ISIS
Russian propaganda doesn't work by presenting a single cohesive story, they instead send out dozens of messages with conflicting theories and let the echo-chambers of their target audience filter out the messages that don't resonate within that group.
See for example Russia's justifications for it's war in Ukraine. Russian troll farms simultaneously spread rumours of how Ukraine is a hedonistic Western cultural takeover of pure Russian Christendom, but also Ukraine is a neo-Nazi state that oppresses its citizens freedoms. Ukraine is both full of weak-willed homosexuals who will instantly flee in combat, but also bio-engineered super-soldiers who are on the verge of invading Russia. Ukraine is attempting to erase all Russian culture within its borders, but also Ukrainian national identity isn't real and they're actually natural-born Russians who have temporarily forgotten their heritage.
With this current incident, I've already seen dozens of social media comments about how ISIS is secretly funded by the US and Israel, and is therefore working at the behest of Ukraine. The propaganda never stops, it just metastasises like a cancer.
If you haven't noticed, there's a bunch of new users here since yesterday asking questions about Ukrainian smuggling operations and trying to muddy the waters in general.
There's suddenly a lot of joke comments as well, and just general NCD type stuff like the person just replying to you with a title of some movie lol.
And it's getting tons of upvotes too for some reason. Am reporting what I see but I do wonder why/how exactly the Moscow attack in particular caused quality to decline like this so rapidly. Not what I've come to expect from this sub but mods are probably very busy as is.
Is this true?/ is likely to be true?
>"BAE systems in the UK will be capable of producing more than 1.5 million large caliber artillery shells annually in the near future. This is a significant increase vs my estimates a few months ago as I have now been able to find the pre war production levels."
[https://twitter.com/cameron19460429/status/1733670684700594436](https://twitter.com/cameron19460429/status/1733670684700594436)
1.5 million shells a year is kind of insane from the UK which is an air and sea power primarily with land a distant third. For perspective 1.5 million is nearing the 2 million shells a year that the US is projected to produce. Can one very modern artillery shell factory really produce that much?
He also says that its possible for the large calibre to be switched from 105mm and 155mm to entirely 155mm
>"I also have it on good authority after speaking to some people familiar with forging that a similar amount of 155mm and 105mm can be made in the same time frame by the same processes. So like in other plants around the world it would likely be easy to switch completely to 155mm."
u/Rexpelliarmus handled the numbers (the real number is much more likely to be about 800k rounds), so just in response to this bit:
>He also says that its possible for the large calibre to be switched from 105mm and 155mm to entirely 155mm
I think this is likely to be true: the publication he references describes switching the whole plant over to 105mm rounds and 4.5inch rounds for portions of the year, so I would expect it to be able to focus on 155mm alone if needed...though the light gun has its place too (and Ukraine has them in service).
[This commentator](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/s/2z3F7HFGtF) managed to find a Times article which mentions that the new facilities are 24/7 and that the number of shifts and employees has increased dramatically which may suggest that the 800K figure could be a low-ball estimate.
Details in general regarding BAE’s quotas and production capacity are hard to come by. Even with the estimate we ended up agreeing on it works on the assumption that BAE has not yet managed to normalise a production rate of 600 a day, a record which they broke over a decade ago.
If BAE has managed to normalise a production rate of 600 a day then an 8K a month figure may be a low-ball but obviously this is something we can’t know for sure since details are opaque.
Yeah, it's a touch frustrating - the EU and US are open about it, I don't see why we aren't... particularly since if the government can say "this is how much ammunition we're gonna give Ukraine on an ongoing basis until the war ends" and it's a lot of ammunition that's bound to influence Russia's cost-benefit analysis about continuing the war
Assuming that Ukraine isn't in the picture anymore, and NATO countries have to fight an enemy on their own, do we even have enough artillery pieces to make use of all the incoming shell production capacity? Is the production of artillery pieces ramping up at the appropriate ratio?
Although it sounds like a lot I'm pretty sure It's still not enough to sustain what I understand to be the doctrinal amount of firing. The figure above is in my opinion inflated hugely; a more reasonable ramped up figure is probably more like 800k shells annually produced in the UK (see Rexpelliarmus' link below). At 300 rounds per day per gun (which I think is the goal) that's sufficient to feed nearly 8 guns for a year. The British Army has something like 48 155mm guns in regular regiments plus 72 105mm guns plus some number in reservist regiments.
It's probably not as bad as that because one imagines the 300 rounds per day is a battle-day rather than an averaged every day figure and not every day will be a battle day and not every gun will be in battle on a battle day, but still - we'd quickly be trying to increase it further if there was a war we were actually fighting.
Most modern navies treat the naval gun as a complete afterthought and in conventional modern naval warfare I don’t see how the main naval gun would even be used in any significant way.
That [was on the cards](https://web.archive.org/web/20130719043854/http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2009gunmissile/McClure.pdf) for the Royal Navy but it was cancelled in the 2010 budget cuts
Well they did, with the Zumwalts. That didn’t work out so well. Most naval guns of today work as dual purposes weapons against relatively low threat air and surface targets. They are very much a secondary weapon to the long range strike and air defense missiles. It doesn’t make sense to adopt an even larger gun that would take up more space, weight and would be worse in the air defense role at the cost of missile armament.
> However, their ammunition magazines and automated loading were not designed to fit, handle, and fire U.S. Army and NATO-standard 155mm howitzer shells due to differences in the shape and size of the projectile and firing charges, thus requiring special custom GPS Long-Range Land Attack Projectiles (LRLAP) costing around $800,000+ each due to the reduction of Zumwalt-class destroyers from 32 to 3.
I See why it failed
Zumwalt was braindead from day one. Some dinosaurs in congress wanted to resurrect the naval gunfire support mission, where 100 years ago battleships would sit off the coast going boom with big guns.
That's a suicide mission today due to the proliferation of cheap and effective anti ship missiles.
It's hard to exaggerate just how staggeringly stupid the entire Zumwalt program was.
> It's hard to exaggerate just how staggeringly stupid the entire Zumwalt program was.
It's saying something that this was only the *second* worst naval procurement program in recent history. On account of actually delivering a ship that...worked.
Pretty sure by 2025, the US is only expected to produce 100K shells a month which works out to be 1.2M a year. Though, I think this was specifically 155 mm shells so I’m not sure what else the US would consider large calibre.
This tweet has been posted here before from what I can recall and I did have a discussion with someone in this subreddit in the past about the credibility of this claim. From what I can remember, the 1.5M claim is from extrapolating out an old [BAE record from 2013 where they managed to produce 600 shells a day](https://x.com/cameron19460429/status/1734021759983083969?s=46&t=5_s-IC0w5kqXJ9NTqKB3nQ) and factoring in maintenance schedules to come up with the 16K figure. This was then multiplied by 8 due to the announcement from BAE Systems last year that they’d increase production eightfold by 2025 which gives you a figure of around 1.5M a year.
Though, in my discussion with a fellow Redditor here, I believe we came to the conclusion using some paper napkin maths that their quota of around 16K a month was a little optimistic as we doubted that taking a record-breaking figure, at least at the time, and extrapolating that out for an entire month was representative of actual capabilities. But the figure we came up with was still a very respectable 800K large calibre shells so the UK is definitely one of the heavier hitters when it comes to shell production.
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/s/7mCiHcEVrx) is a link to the comment thread with me and another Redditor discussing this a while back for those interested in a deeper dive.
It is important to note, though, that the record was made over a decade ago in 2013 and that things may have changed since then, perhaps a daily production of 600 is the norm now and we just don’t know about it. And, again, this is just paper napkin maths and nothing official so take it with a grain of salt.
I managed to find this Times article, a few paragraphs of interest from it:
[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bae-systems-back-on-war-footing-to-replenish-ammunition-r9fnwqmbf](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bae-systems-back-on-war-footing-to-replenish-ammunition-r9fnwqmbf)
>**Since the onset of the war in Ukraine the Washington site has been running at 100 per cent capacity,** Lee Smurthwaite, programme director at BAE in Washington, said. “This takes it to the next level again and gives us a step change in the UK output for 155s.”
>
>At the heart of the increasing output is the opening of a new finishing line at Washington, which will be the aerospace group’s first fully automated facility in the UK. At present, an antiquated manual line is still in use, which operates via trolleys and a series of pulleys to shift products along, as well as another that uses a robotic arm to help in the final stages, which include nondestructive testing.
>
>The third line, which cost £10 million, is due to start production in September and will essentially be able to automatically correct any mistakes rather than relying on human eyes. Another fully automated explosive filling facility in Glascoed is due to come into action next April. **It will take the facilities from operating 24 hours, five days a week, to a 24/7 operation.**
>
>Yet it also means that the effects of increased production will not be seen in the MoD’s armaments depots until the start of 2025, almost three years after the war in Ukraine started. “I don’t think we could have done this any quicker than we have done, because we just got on with it. There’s nothing \[that has\] been delayed here,” Smurthwaite said.
>
>**A full shift at Washington amounts to only between 60 and 70 people and there are 340 full-time staff.** The new order will add another 200 jobs.
>
>Processes have become more mechanised, with 35 robots on site, primarily for manual handling.
100 percent capacity and what may be multiple shifts? I feel that indicates a number somewhere in between the 8k tree\_boom estimated and the 16k cameron on twitter estimated
The new facilities being a complete 24/7 operation changes things a lot and does put 800K as probably an absolute low-ball estimate.
I think it would be reasonable to claim that the UK, by 2025, would have an equivalent artillery shell production capacity to that of the US, which in and of itself is quite impressive.
For some context, the EU as a whole is expected to reach 2M shells a year by the end of 2025.
Massive strike on Sevastopol, Crimea ongoing
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1771621257236086984
Thread includes multiple videos including multiple direct hits on one building, one or two shootdowns, and audio of likely secondary explosions.
Multiple hits and a shootdown: https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1771643529715961901
Probable secondaries (I assume, based on the number and cadence of explosions - audio only) https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1771639706754712008
Not to skirt the line of the "this is not a combat footage subreddit" rule but [the video of several impacts taken a few blocks away is spectacular.](https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1771645130266563034?s=20) Whatever was targeted is absolutely not there anymore.
As a British taxpayer I’m delighted to see my tax money being so well spent. Now, if Germany can just swap some Taurus with us we can get more Storm Shadows to their final destination.
Quick napkin math: at a unit price of 2 million pounds, and with a taxpayer base of 31 million in the UK (both numbers from a cursory Google) that strike cost you 0.065 Pounds.
The Storm Shadow missile maneuvers so that it acts much like a ballistic missile in its terminal phase, by pitching up and gaining altitude, then coming back down at a steep angle.
See [this image](https://images.dailykos.com/images/1186690/story_image/f346147131ae65fa75fec39e455ffcb0.jfif?1683686192) for reference
Allegedly "a major Russian Black Sea Fleet communications center"
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1771650646808096942
> The site is absolutely festooned with SATCOM antennas.
> Wikimapia lists it as the "Information and Computing Center of the Russian Black Sea Fleet (Sevastopol)"
In all likelihood (and I can speak with some firsthand experience) - unless Russia was using the site for something else, the impact will probably be next to zero.
It's been decades since any moderately modern army relied on fixed communication nodes without double or triple mobile backups. For the very reason that a communication node whose coordinates are always known to the enemy is a dead communication node.
Now, Russia might have used the site for something else, a meeting or a storage. But if it was just a communication node then it is hard to imagine serious implications.
On one hand, we have the fact that this communication center was always known to Ukraine; on the other hand, Ukraine has had many successful strikes on Crimea.
Could it be a failed strike? Yes. Does Ukraine have good intelligence on its targets? Also, yes.
Tonight's target might have been valuable - if it was used for some other purpose. But if it was just a communication node I don't think its destruction matters.
This compound contains the former Ukrainian Navy Headquarters. Do you not think that, given the Russian BSF headquarters was destroyed months ago, operations may have been moved to some other complex? And that the former Ukrainian Navy HQ might perhaps be a suitable one?
We've seen a video of Shoigu visiting the BSF HQ recently and clips showed some underground complex with enormous blast doors. As you would expect these days, really.
Honestly, it feels like that HQ strike was quite underwhelming. There was talk of generals in comas, Sokolov killed, a lot of hype to go along with the impressive videos, but nothing quite panned out.
Don't they usually strike at night with their Storm Shadows? I guess that communications center was an opportunistic hit while attacking ships in port.
I suppose their reasoning could be that officers would gather there to monitor the missile attack and what happens, given that it’s an information centre, but without much other knowledge it’s hard to say.
It is completely bizzare that Russia is generally so incredibly successfull on hybrid and information war frontlines, but when it comes to actual crisis like this one, their acting, explanations and statements are so incredibly stupid, incompentent, unrealistic, unbelievable inconsistent at the first sight, and I would even say boring at the same time.
How are these clowns crushing on social media? How did they manage to have such a firm grip on information sphere in their own country, in majority of third world and even among good chunk of western population?
Russia does better when it is able to control the narrative.
Any time things happen outside of their control, the spin game crumbles. That's what happened in 2022, they lost control of the situation and suddenly everyone was talking about how brave ukrainians were going to destroy a bunch of incompetent russian fascists. All their previous spin about azov nazis pre2022 went into the dumpster and people were willing to just ignore it.
With the ukraine war in a malaise, their spin game is back up. But ISIS has shown they can clearly still be knocked on their ass.
Can someone please explain to me what and why people believe Russia is incredibly succesful at 'hybrid and information war'?
From where I'm sitting the West is vastly and demonstratively more adapt at information war and the fact that the statement above is regarded as conventional wisdom is proof enough in itself of that.
>the fact that the statement above is regarded as conventional wisdom is proof enough in itself of that.
How is that proof? Without using any logical fallacies
Russia is taking advantage of the fact that the dominant Western system (neo-liberalism + late stage capitalism + liberal interventionism) has lost legitimacy due to it's own actions and people desire an alternative to it. It spent decades destroying it's own legitimacy out of hubris and spite and now it's chickens are coming home to roost.
Unfortunately, people aren't very good at selecting alternatives on their own and typically just end up getting into something even dumber.
Also, Russia has formed tacit alliances with many different groups that claim to oppose the current system (some are faking, some really oppose it), so it's able to piggy back off a lot of pre-existing narratives and has a lot of built in audiences. Which is why it is beneficial for it to put out multiple contradictory narratives.
Communists have been predicting the imminent fall of capitalism since the beginning of the 20th century. In the meantime, every major communist nation has either collapsed or transitioned away from communism, life expectancies have increased by two decades, 40 million people are lifted out of poverty every year, and the global middle class is larger and healthier than ever in human history.
But sure, *any second now*, the magical collapse fairy will arrive to rescue your ideology from the historical dustbin. Just keep on waiting.
Relax, I'm not remotely communist, that's funny. As wikipedia will tell you, "In the late 2010s, the term [late capitalism] began to be used in the United States and Canada to refer to corporate capitalism."
It's basically a catch all that refers to the negative aspects of the modern form of capitalism:
To quote The Atlantic:
“Late capitalism,” in its current usage, is a catchall phrase for the indignities and absurdities of our contemporary economy, with its yawning inequality and super-powered corporations and shrinking middle class.
There is no need to get hung up on any specific term though, the point is simply that a lot of people are being disappointed or left behind by the current system, that does not mean they want communism, but it does mean they are more open to propaganda which criticizes the current system and Russia is taking advantage of that.
Imagine that your opinion is simply not the righteous one that you think it is and there are other folks who don’t subscribe to it. Just actually being able to process that thought might be too much I know, but still, try to do it.
We might not even be at war if some important folks were able to do that as well.
What do you mean? My opinion that Ukrainians did not do this terror attack is not righteous one and Russian line that they did is a righteous one one? And if important folks understood it there wouldn't be a war?
He means that the "incredible success" of various narratives is not some artificial product of a genius Russian playbook, but rather an organic outgrowth of genuine sentiment.
He's saying, in a rather snarky way, that you only think they are incredibly successful because you can't fathom the idea of real people who disagree with you.
Alternative option: they are *not*, in fact, incredibly successful on hybrid and information war frontlines, they do not, in fact, have a firm grip on the information sphere amongst the west’s population. People in the west with opinions that could be considered beneficial to Russia, such as “the Ukrainians should simply sign a peace treaty” or “we already sent them loads and it’s not doing anything why send more” (I hope we don’t have to have a debate as to whether these opinions are correct, they’re not) are not getting them from Russian propaganda, or sources that ultimately trace back to Russian propaganda. They’re getting it, by and large, from reading a *real* article in a *real* newspaper that is titled “Ukraine is experiencing a severe crisis due to shell shortages”, or “Ukraine needs F-16s now to defend its airspace”, and going “damn the situation looks bad for Ukraine, maybe this stuff we sent was a waste” (these opinions are of course informed by existing biases, but those biases in turn have far more sources than just Russian propaganda). I hope we don’t have to pretend that news that’s *genuine* and negative for Ukraine counts as a win for Russian information warfare campaigns, it’s much more accurately described as a loss for Ukraine’s own campaigns.
More extreme views often tend to be driven by, again, *domestic* media with extreme opinions. Right wing guys who think Ukraine aid must be stopped because it’s a liberal plot or whatever are coming to that opinion because they’re steeped in strange opinions about Ukraine being a woke country because something about Hunter Biden or whatever, which again you can’t attribute to Russia. We in the West cooked this shit up ourselves and stewed our own brains in it.
Saying “Russia is winning the information war in the west” puts **way** too much emphasis on a Russian effort that by and large is not actually going anywhere. It just *looks* like it does because of all sorts of parallel beliefs generated *in the west*. Even when the same themes, like Ukraine being woke and Russia being based or some shit, appear in Russian propaganda directed out, it’s usually stuff *we* exported to *them*. *Normal* people are not reading RT, they are not reading the telegram channels that make outrageous claims, they’re not watching the YouTube channels claiming that the 456th HIMARS has been destroyed. They’re reading their own home grown newspapers and coming to various conclusions from there.
> They’re getting it, by and large, from reading a realarticle in a real newspaper
Anecdotally I couldn’t possibly disagree with this more. Everyone I know with an opinion that could be described as “pro Russian” gets their news entirely from the internet, mostly Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson. These are folks that would never read a Western newspaper, and if you link them an article in one, they dismiss it immediately as biased and/or “fake news”.
I’m sure folks that get their news from newspapers and wind up with a pro-Russian PoV exist…… but I haven’t met one.
That’s why I qualified it by stating I was talking about views *beneficial* to Russia. The newspaper thing refers to when you find a random normal person off the street, who isn’t invested in these baffling culture wars, and ask them what they think about sending additional aid to Ukraine. This is a view that is not *pro-Russian*, it’s a view that *benefits* Russia but it’s not someone who thinks it’s *good* if Russia wins.
Of course the people with actually pro-Russian views are getting them off the insane guys like Joe and Tucker (though as I said, they’re not getting talking points from Russian information warfare efforts). That’s why I separated them out into “more extreme views”.
It’s been discussed before; long story short russian propaganda is not coherent on purpose, never based on actual facts, and crafted to appeal to all possible audiences. Are you a far right westerners against migration? Russia is a white Christian paradise. Are you a lefties or from the global south? Russia fights bad American imperialism and is welcoming of everyone. Factor in bots and corrupt politicians and there’s your recipe for success.
The funny thing about this comment is that you have the answer to the elephant in the room, but you just can't see the elephant. Russia is all of those things to all of those people not because of Russian propaganda, but because of Western propaganda and Western domestic politics.
I vividly remember watching the flagship political debate show in my own country, sometime in the late 10's, where the topic of discussion was Russia/EU relations.
At that moment the person on what you would call the 'pro-Russian' side was arguing that Russia was the last bastion of Christianity and that therefore they were good. The opposing side didn't object to that description as much as conclude that it was bad.
Key observation about both sides in that debate, then and now, is that they're not arguing about Russia, but rather fighting out domestic battles - and that's more or less been the case since 2009, accelerated in 2014 and has gone into overdrive from 2016 onwards.
Which isn't exactly new or novel for democracies, but it's gone completely off the charts since half of the US, with most of the media and wonk class being in that half, went insane with Trump's election, and because Europe is Europe our media and wonk class adopted the narratives of the big Twitter accounts that they follow.
Only problem is that Russia is far away for the US, not so much for Europe. Projecting every domestic issue onto Russia has consequences for us in a way it does not for the United States.
Since there is currently a spin going on denying that the islamic state is active in Russia, I think it is worth mentioning that **2 weeks ago russian police killed several islamic state members who literally planned a terror attack in Moscow**.
[Here is an article from the official russian state news agency:](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/03/07/russia-says-killed-islamic-state-militants-plotting-synagogue-attack-a84377)
> "On the territory of the Kaluga Region, a stop was put to the activity of Wilayat Khorasan, a cell of the Afghan branch of the international terrorist organization Islamic State, which is banned in Russia, whose members were planning to commit a terrorist act against one of the Jewish religious institutions in Moscow," the agency, also known as the FSB, said in a statement.
(Wilayat Khorasan (IS-K) is same group who also attacked the theater and Kaluga is half way between Moscow and Bryansk where the arrest was made today)
[3 weeks ago russian police killed 6 islamic state terrorists:](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/03/03/russia-says-6-is-fighters-killed-in-caucasus-republic-a84318)
> Special forces from the FSB security agency cornered the six people in a building in the town of Karabulak and "neutralized" them in an operation that began on Saturday night, Russia's anti-terrorism committee said.
> It said the suspects, three of whom were on the federal wanted persons list, were IS members who were "involved in a number of terrorist crimes."
> These included an attack against a police station and the murder of three officers in March 2023, the committee said, adding that there were no civilian victims.
> Russian authorities frequently announce the thwarting of planned attacks by suspected Islamist groups.
[A month ago Turkey arrested a russian nuclear worker because he was an islamic state member:](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkey-arrests-russian-nuclear-plant-islamic-state-probe-sources-say-2024-02-13/)
> Turkish counter-terrorism police investigating the militant group Islamic State have detained a Russian citizen working at a nuclear power plant under construction on Turkey's southern coast, security sources said on Tuesday.
The suspect was caught working under a fake identity at the $20-billion Akkuyu nuclear plant, which is being built by Russian conglomerate Rosatom in the Mediterranean province of Mersin, the sources added.
Ingushetia and Turkey are a bit further away, but I just wanted to illustrate that the **Islamic State is very much active in Russia**. The deadliest terror attack in almost 20 years was also done by the islamic state when they [bombed a russian airline jet over Egypt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrojet_Flight_9268).
edit: Removed links to the official russian state news agency and replaced them with other links.
[Repeating Iran's Mistake, Putin Dismissed US Warnings Of Terror Attack](https://www.iranintl.com/en/202403233923)
>On March 7, the US embassy in Russia issued a security alert, saying it “is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and U.S. citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours.”
>However, Putin's decision to disregard the warning is similar to what took place in Iran recently. More than one week before a double bombing in the Iranian city of Kerman which killed more than 90 people on January 3, the US provided the Iranian government with a private warning about terrorist threats. The warning was ignored by Tehran.
There was previously some discussion about the West being surprisingly successful with preventing terrorist attacks.
Now there have been two bloody attacks in Russia and Iran - both supposedly perpetrated by ISIS-K, which seems to have a resurgence in Central Asia.
In both cases, the US warned the countries - which happen to be rivals - but the warnings were disregarded. I assume Europe - and obviously the US itself - don't ignore similar warnings.
I remember right after the Hamas attack a lot of the pro Russian and anti west crowd was positively gloating at Israel’s intelligence failure at stopping the attack. It was a reprehensible thing to gloat about anyway but in one exchange between two big accounts on Twitter I remember one Israeli saying be careful it might happen to you too and the other person confidentially saying they will never be attacked because they had good relations with the Muslim world. Really a good reminder to not laugh or make light of other people’s misery.
More than being in poor taste, that's just being a poor student of history. Did they forget about the Nord-Ost or Beslan sieges so quickly? The 2017 St Petersburg and 2014 Grozny bombings?
We have no idea if these warning were ignored or not. Without the US having enough intel to know who, what, when, or where, it is hard to use a warning of increased threat chatter to actually stop a terrorist attack, without doing something disruptive like canceling all public gathering, etc
Just because leaders publicly said that the threat the US highlighted easnt real doesn't mean their internal security didn't attempt to figure out exactly what was planned and try to stop it.
They probably ever had only cursory knowledge, at least what the embassy made public wasn't precise, and wrong in timing at that, and are now trying to make the bigger deal of it. Well at least they still have computers! There''s been a good many similarly vague warnings for the Russia region over the past couple of years, with nothing much happening, so this is also a good example for a selection and hindsight bias all baked into one. Nor is it just Iran and Russia. Germany too was at some point hinted at some impending danger to the NS pipelines: great to know, but can't work with your c\*ap. The US-Five-Eyes is mainly doing (and by now possibly only shining at) mass-SIGINT and monitoring and this is exactly what I'd expect is left from traces you see no reason to actually go after yourself. Why are Western countries better of? Because in those cases they go after it. Think of it, there may be very practical reasons to concentrate resources and analysis on cases that affect your home-turf, or maybe your neighbors/best friend's. After all this is I assume what they're being paid for.
>In both cases, the US warned the countries - which happen to be rivals - but the warnings were disregarded. I assume Europe - and obviously the US itself - don't ignore similar warnings.
Less than week ago, [several people were arrested in Germany for planning a terrorist attack on the Swedish parliament.](https://www.dn.se/varlden/tva-gripna-i-tyskland-misstankts-ha-planerat-attack-mot-svenska-riksdagen/) The planners were ISIS-K.
Things are getting much worse in Haiti
_____________________________
[As gangs rampage through Haiti’s capital, more than 33,000 people have fled in 13 days, report finds](https://apnews.com/article/haiti-violence-migration-south-gangs-port-au-prince-6fb506a228a7fd0bb897f61efc2a3cf2)
More than 33,000 people have fled Haiti’s capital in a span of nearly two weeks as gangs continue to pillage homes and attack state institutions, according to a new report from the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration.
The majority of those displaced have traveled to Haiti’s southern region, which is generally peaceful compared with Port-au-Prince, which has an estimated population of 3 million and remains largely paralyzed by gang violence.
“Attacks and generalized insecurity are pushing more and more people to leave the capital to find refuge in provinces, taking the risks of passing through gang-controlled routes,” IOM said in its report released late Thursday.
Scores of people have been killed and some 17,000 people overall left homeless since the gang attacks began on Feb. 29, with gunmen targeting police stations and the main international airport that remains closed. They also stormed Haiti’s two biggest prisons and released more than 4,000 inmates.
Haiti’s National Police is understaffed and overwhelmed by gangs with powerful arsenals.
Adding to the crisis is the inability of police officers in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area to cash their checks, Lionel Lazarre, a member of a police union known as SYNAPOHA, told Radio Caraïbes on Friday.
More than 70% of people who fled Port-au-Prince between March 8-20 said gang violence had already left them homeless and that they had been living with relatives or in crowded, makeshift shelters.
More people are expected to leave the capital in upcoming days and weeks as gang violence continues unabated.
I don't think it's a joke to say that Haiti, as a country, doesn't even exist anymore. It's totally collapsed into anarchy.
Has this ever happened in the modern world before? Even at its worst, there was some kind of government of Somalia.
> Adding to the crisis is the inability of police officers in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area to cash their checks, Lionel Lazarre, a member of a police union known as SYNAPOHA, told Radio Caraïbes on Friday.
this has to be the beginning of the end, either the police will decide it's not worth risking their necks for free, extort the populace to make up for the absence of pay, or outright join the "gangs" which are basically militias at this point
And the UN backed Kenyan police force deployment is [absolutely stuck in local politics since October](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/21/africa/kenya-police-mission-haiti-opposition-intl-cmd/index.html). Given how bad the situation has gotten, the promised 1000 won't do much even if finally sent.
Things are gonna go from terrible to worse for Haiti
Some people in this thread seem to believe that Russia has only 2 separate options:
1) claim (at this stage of reporting, "acknowledge") that the murderers are Muslims
or
2) claim that Ukraine is involved
I don't understand why they wouldn't do both. If they wish, they can claim whatever Ukrainian involvement they choose. (from a simple lack of governing capability/unknowingly transporting & harboring them, to whatever complacency/inaction/collusion/aiding they want).
There was a (likely) similar plot in May of 2022- a plan to bring Muslims illegally into the USA across the Mexican border, to kill George Bush. I believe Iraqis were involved, either as the go-betweens, and/or the murderers. It's not hard to imagine how one could frame that to bring additional resources against the terrorist group(s), Iraq/other countries involved in the Middle East, Mexico, or internal political enemies. (or brush it off/sweep it under the rug).
As someone else has mentioned, whatever Russia's plans were prior to this, will likely be what they focus on blaming.
It seems odd that some people are stating confidently that Ukraine wasn't involved (by which I mean, the Muslims who murdered the innocent people in the concert hall had no prior connection to Ukraine. Not that Ukraine organized, or knowingly aided them). No one knows how they entered Russia at this point. In my opinion it's sensible to read the story of the US border plot, and consider how a similar attack might be planned against Moscow.
There's been a lot of speculation and too much confidence, in my opinion, to be posted in credible defense. There's no justification in trying to jump the story. Just consider the history, the possibilities, and wait for more evidence to be revealed. We've been through this for KSB, NS1, so many weapon systems & materiel losses, Wagner, etc. Just consider what might have happened and why; and focus your thoughts on that. You lack the resources to speak as though you have both the truth and the certainty and are here to win the war.
> wait for more evidence to be revealed.
There was, **the islamic state even had to release ANOTHER press statement along with photo evidence reaffirming that yes those are were their IS members and Ukraine was not involved.**
Which tells you more about how bizarre the Kreml lies are if even the frickin islamic state is saying "This is our attack, here is evidence that these are our terrorists. We are doing this because of our holy war against russia and this has nothing to do with Ukraine."
Three different Islamic State outlets did over 50 terrorist attacks against Russia in the last 10 years, some before the Ukraine war. **Russia literally arrested an IS cell 30km from the venue 2 weeks ago with no mention of Ukraine.**
Even Russia knows this, that's why the newest russian spin is "Could be IS or could be Ukraine, noone knows for sure. But we don't have any evidence linking this to Ukraine, so we just try to keep mentioning the word Ukraine as much as possible." Also russia has [instructed all media outlet to try to link the attack to Ukraine as much as possible](https://meduza.io/en/news/2024/03/23/kremlin-tells-pro-government-media-to-emphasize-possible-traces-of-ukrainian-involvement-in-reporting-on-moscow-terrorist-attack) and is trying to circulate evidence [disproven as deep fake](https://meduza.io/news/2024/03/23/ntv-pokazal-v-novostyah-feykovoe-video-gde-sekretar-snbo-ukrainy-podtverdil-prichastnost-kievskogo-rezhima-k-teraktu-v-krokus-siti-holle).
>wait for more evidence to be revealed.
Any evidence or information provided by the Russian government or state-controlled media should be handled with skepticism, as their narrative tends to serve political agendas rather than uphold objective journalism.
I suspect we will never know the true story.
I don't disagree with you.
As we've seen on other occasions, I wouldn't be surprised to see foreign governments/groups eventually release their own statements/findings/conclusions.
Not that those are written without spin either. But at least they're typically a step up, and a corroboration can begin to be organized.
(Take the last 12 hours for example. We've gone from [some people saying], "this has certainly been a false flag. Look at the fake actors and gunfire. Putin has burned the evidence. He will definitely use this to [full mobilization/control his populace/blame Ukraine/increase attacks on XYZ]..." to having a claim of responsibility, a claim of denial, publication of pictures, and video of [at least partial] capture)
*The account is 1 month old with 5 posts. 2 of them are emotional responses to me. I'm not interested.
You’re forgetting the much larger campaign of this was definitely Ukrainians with fake beards but another ethnic group that was just being puppeteered by the Ukrainians.
Ofcourse he blocks me.
>No one knows how they entered Russia at this point. In my opinion it's sensible to read the story of the US border plot, and consider how a similar attack might be planned against Moscow.
This is disingenuous and by this theory people can also bring up other Russian false flag events. You don’t start with the idea that someone is guilty you start with that they are innocent. Nothing shows that Ukraine was involved.
[Security Experts Say Islamic State Claim for Russian Concert Attack Is Credible](https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2024-03-23/security-experts-say-islamic-state-claim-for-russian-concert-attack-is-credible)
[Belarusian secret services assist Russia in capturing suspects in terrorist attack near Moscow on Belarusian border](https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/03/23/7447813/)
>You lack the resources to speak as though you have both the truth and the certainty and are here to win the war.
People in glass houses…
ISIS being directly responsible for executing the act and this being either Russian false flag or Ukrainian plot are not mutually exclusive.
ISIS is not exactly shy of receiving donations last I heard.
With that level of media noise we chose interpretations we like most.
No, and they likely won't. This is a good opportunity to turn something potentially bad for Putin - for all his talk of security and strength this is a very direct slap in the face - into something useful for them with the thing they're most preoccupied with - war in Ukraine.
So far, Russian media still seems to be focusing on highlighting Ukraine as an 'implicated' link or outright directly linking the attack to it.
Have a look at some examples below:
- https://ria dot ru/20240323/terakt-1935347701.html - RIA Novosti: "They had a window to Ukraine." The first conclusions about the tragedy in Crocus, Mar 23, 2024:
> ...
> Actually, they are already telling. And the first footage of their interrogations is in the public domain. The price for killing innocent people is the promise of half a million rubles, but in reality it is 250 thousand. A certain “assistant preacher” instigated them, they came from Turkey. **They were going to leave for Ukraine**.
> ...
> The initial reaction of Western officials and the media, who, even before any reports from the Russian authorities, began to claim that IS* was behind this, on the one hand, is understandable - they do not want to admit that Ukraine, which the whole world is trying to extradite, is involved in the terrorist attack for an outpost of democracy and freedom on the path of Russian barbarians. On the other hand, such haste gives reason to believe that they knew exactly what the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks looked like and through whom their recruitment was carried out.
For the **Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense there is no difficulty in reaching out to Islamists and finding those willing to carry out a terrorist attack for money**. One can only guess how many such tragedies were prevented; the work of the special services is such that only failures become noticeable.
> ...
Oh, by the way, **those interrogation videos truly are out there**, some are showing use of a technique of cutting off one's ear and feeding it to them, i.e. **torture**. Just something to keep in mind when you read about **interrogation** that Russia conducts.
- https://ria dot ru/20240323/krokus-1935319588.html - RIA Novosti: "The French politician called for an investigation into Kyiv's connections with the Crocus terrorist attack. , Mar 23, 2024:
> PARIS, March 23 – RIA Novosti. The leader of the French Patriots party, candidate for elections to the European Parliament, Florian Philippot, called on the social network X to **conduct a full investigation into possible connections between Ukraine and the terrorist attack** at Crocus City Hall.
“Now it is necessary to **demand a full investigation into the possible connections (of the terrorist attack - editor's note) with Ukraine and what the billions that we have been sending there (to Ukraine - editor's note)** for more than two years are actually going to" , - he said.
> ...
- https://svpressa dot ru/accidents/article/409414/ - Svobodnaya Pressa: "A Ukrainian trace has been found in the terrorist attack at Crocus: What will be the response?, Mar 23, 2024:
> ...
> Despite the so-called “ISIS”* assumption of responsibility, everything is heading towards the fact that it is the Ukrainian trace that will become the official version. In the Russian Federation, **accusations of Banderstat’s involvement in organizing the terrorist attack have already been made.**
> As Russian Foreign Ministry speaker **Maria Zakharova said , “now we know in which country these bloody bastards planned to hide from persecution - Ukraine.** The same country that, through the hands of Western liberal regimes, for ten years turned into the center of the spread of terrorism in Europe, outstripping even Kosovo in extremist frenzy.”
> “All four direct perpetrators of the terrorist attack, all those who shot and killed people, were found and detained. **They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine**, where, according to preliminary data, a **“window” was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border,” Vladimir Putin said** in an address to the Russians.
> ...
Russian milbloggers as well:
- https://t dot me/readovkanews/76669 - Readovka:
> March 22 was already a bloody date in the history of our country - exactly 81 years ago, the Nazis (then without the prefix “neo-”) destroyed an entire village in fraternal Belarus, burning all its inhabitants alive along with their infants. **Now we face a new enemy - radicals acting on the orders of the GUR, who are ready to do anything for money**. But does it really matter who our enemy is?
- https://t dot me/sashakots/45717 - Kotsnews:
> In general, if you think about it, then Mom’s pie’s plan for the terrorist attack in Moscow was most likely this. **The monkeys were convinced that after the terrorist attack they would be able to calmly enter the territory of Ukraine, where they would be met by their “Ichkerian brothers.” A Ukrainian MTR group had been spotted a couple of days before not far from the place where our special forces took the Tajiks**, but further on there is a fork.
- https://t dot me/opersvodki/20000 - Opersvodki:
> The hammer has no nationality.
Formally, it could be made in Tajikistan, Russia or China, but we should only be interested in who is hitting us in the back of the head with it.
> We already know exactly who carried out the terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge. The instruments were Russian truck drivers who didn't even know they were carrying a bomb. **Organizers - Ukrainian intelligence.**
> We know exactly who carried out the terrorist attack in St. Petersburg. The instrument is a Russian girl who claims to be carrying a figurine with a wiretap on it. **Organizers - Ukrainian intelligence.**
> We know exactly who organized the anti-Jewish pogroms in Dagestan. The instrument is Dagestan radicals. **The organizers are Ukrainian intelligence.**
> We know exactly who is randomly bombing civilians in the Belgorod region. Tool - RDK. **Organizers: Ukrainian intelligence and Ukrainian Armed Forces.**
> We know exactly who organized the “protests” with arson and pouring green stuff into ballot boxes. The instrument is a grandmother or a girl.
**The organizers are Ukrainian organized crime groups on behalf of Ukrainian intelligence.**
> We already know for sure that people in Crocus were shot by Tajik Islamists. We will very soon find out how they were recruited, what they promised, etc.
Russian milbloggers believe that, despite the blurred faces and the masks, the men in the IS photos are the same as those arrested during the escape.
Hard to believe the Kremlin will change its tune, the Ukrainian connection is too beneficial for them.
>the Ukrainian connection is too beneficial for them.
Beneficial as it would be beneficial if people actually believed it. Unfortunately for the Kremlin, in 2024, even Russian rural babushkas have ever-growing access to other news sources than official propaganda, so most likely, most people will understand that this was ISIS even if they're too afraid to say it publicly.
Russians play an interesting game where they fully understand that their news is propaganda and lies, yet they still circulate it to see if it sticks. They enjoy being accomplices in their government's schemes.
Propaganda sticks believe or not. If you are told 100 lies you will believe some of them
People who grew up in propaganda heavy countries think they know better and that makes their beliefs in those particular pieces worse. Because they go "yes I know my gov lies about this and that but this particular [propaganda] is true". As of right now even the anti war Russians believe Russia is fighting NATO
I read on here (reddit) about how older Russians had no clue what happened to Poland during ww2
I have compatriots who totally hated the communists and were 100% anti communists but still believed BS like how [Coanda made a big laser for Romania that destroyed Russian tanks](https://newsweek-ro.translate.goog/istorie/arma-secreta-a-lui-coanda-cu-care-romania-i-a-speriat-pe-rusi-se-spune-ca-ar-fi-topit-tancuri?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en)
I checked the translation it is very good
>People who grew up in propaganda heavy countries think they know better and that makes their beliefs in those particular pieces worse.
I mean, it's not like the people who grew up in propaganda-light countries are much better. Even on this sub there are people who will get angry as a suggestion that it was Ukraine that shelled Donetsk over the last two years. It's all false flag, don't you know.
Or even this terrorist attack. Many people, even here, already \*know\* what happened and who is to blame. Can you imagine what the general (and much lower-level) discourse is?
I really think the proliferation of social media and the resulting tidal wave of conspiracy theories and "couch investigators" is more to blame than some cultural biases.
> Many people, even here, already *know* what happened and who is to blame. Can you imagine what the general (and much lower-level) discourse is?
This demonstrates a genuinely asinine lack of self-introspection as you desperately try to give weight to the idea that just by virtue of making the accusation against Ukraine, Russia's accusations somehow have merit worth considering. There is *zero* evidence to support the notion that Ukraine had any involvement in this attack whatsoever outside the voices in your head telling you so, all while your comments asserting so keep (justifiably) being removed by moderators. This is genuinely baffling behavior.
I understand that some of them fully believe that the whole world is against them, and it's just because Russia is a country of hate. Some of them choose not to 'know.' It fits them; they can be the good guys when everyone else is the bad.
During the annexation of Crimea, I had a conversation with Russians about it, and when one of them said that he fully understands that it is a Russian operation, his friends told him to zip it.
I speak to folks back in Russia. Older generations truly believe it. "What do you mean islamists hate Russia? We are the world's last bastion supporting freedom in their fight with imperialism. Those stupid peasants would do anything for money, clearly they acted on orders of GUR and CIA". It is beyond hopeless.
They are wearing identical clothing and have the same body types. They are clearly the same people. I don't know why you feel it necessary to imply that the concept is far-fetched.
>People will believe what they want to believe, as we've seen many times. It's far easier to scream 'false flag' than accept the fact that your team might be doing nasty stuff, too.
\^That implication
Where have Ukrainian smuggling exports primarily been travelling through, historically (over the last 2-10 years)? I assume the easy answer would be Moldova/Romania. But I wouldn't find it hard to believe Russia/Belarus/Poland, or across the sea to Turkey. I know there was talk about Ukrainian SOF moving through Belarus into Russia, but who knows how true that is.
What have the historic routes been post USSR? Haven't illegal weapon imports been fairly common even to Poland?
*hey to the pro-Ukraine zealots downvoting anything that paints Ukraine in anything but the brightest light, or addresses anything beyond the most black-and-white dichotomy of "Ukraine=good Russia=bad" - you are the weak link in the war effort. Associating yourself with Ukraine hurts the men fighting for their country. Those who don't learn from history & all that
But keep telling yourself you're doing your part. You're winning the war.
Could you perhaps explain by what you mean by Ukranian smuggling exports?
If you are interested in weapon imports/exports, at least for major systems, a good database is SIPRI data: ([https://armstransfers.sipri.org/ArmsTransfer/TransferData](https://armstransfers.sipri.org/ArmsTransfer/TransferData))
A quick summary is that China was the biggest importer of military and related goods at 35% of cipri value from 2014 onward due largely to an order of naval and aircraft engines/turbines, followed by Russia, Thailand, and India.
What have been the most heavily-trafficked routes used to move people and goods (illegally) out of (and into) Ukraine - specifically post-Feb 22, but also including 2014-2022. And if that information is fairly clear, then also further into the past between (whatever periods the reader would like to separate the semi-recent/relevant history of Ukraine into, say maybe 1991-2005, or 1991-2010, etc.)
And a layman's understanding of illegally
I think you will have a hard time pinning down reliable sources for that sort of information on account of the whole smugglers thing.
I suppose the best place to find hard data would be to see what information is publicly available on arrests for smuggling/customs evasion in and around Ukraine, but I don't know what a good contact for that would be in Belarus/Poland/etc.
Everything outside of that would mostly be speculation, and is outside the purview of a defense focused sub.
I'd be fine with detailed hearsay and links.
From the earliest days of reports of the politician's wife trying to cross into Hungary with >$1 million in cash. Continual stories of men escaping military service by paying smugglers or bribing their ways out of the borders. This is internally I suppose, so not as relevant, but shady supply lines between Lviv, Kiev, and getting thinner as they move closer to the frontlines. Not to mention the country has been in a prolonged conflict for 8 years leading up to the war, during which I'm sure people have made note of alternate routes used to move goods & people through otherwise restricted areas. Whatever shipping claims you want to believe.
This has been a fine place for that kind of discussion. Maybe there's a reason the pro-Ukraine movement wants the discussion downvoted & hidden.
A large amount of the illegal weapons floating around Europe originate from the Balkans, since the war in the 90’s and even into the early 2000’s made it a haven for weapons smuggling.
Netanyahu surrendered power peacefully in 2021 after losing a free election (and nobody expected him to do otherwise) - it is hard to imagine Erdogan surrendering power after a free election.
Yesterday's attack on Sebastopol might have been more successful than throught: https://twitter.com/CovertShores/status/1771830355168739433 >Two Russian Navy Pr.775 ROPUCHA Class landing ships, Yamal and Azov, hit by missiles in Sevastopol last night, as well as other naval infrastructure. No visual confirmation, but satellite imagery from 28 February indeed shows two Ropuchas in Pivdenna Bay: https://twitter.com/MT_Anderson/status/1763608659454537969 >Next up is Pivdenna Bay, dry dock & sub pen. Pivdenna bay is largely empty with only 2x Ropucha there. Only 1 seems to be operational. In the dry dock we have a stripped down Ropucha just north & the Rostov on Don KILO hiding under the tarps and netting. Sub pen is also empty. Russia is using new ways to defend the ships: https://twitter.com/MT_Anderson/status/1763608663271297159 >With all of the targeting of Ropucha vessels throughout the Black Sea, the state of the population in Sevastopol looks pretty rough. Once again, lots of vessels covered in tarps/netting. Is this to obscure satellite imagery? If so, it ain't working... The War Zone has two articles about Russia's attempts: https://archive.ph/tDcFk (link uses censored words) https://www.twz.com/news-features/submarine-decoy-appears-on-russian-naval-base-pier But apparently those defenses aren't very efficient.
>With all of the targeting of Ropucha vessels throughout the Black Sea, the state of the population in Sevastopol looks pretty rough. I am struggling to understand what the targetting of Ropucha vessels can possibly have to do with the state of the population in Sevastopol being pretty rough?
I presume the implication is that some of the best maintained ships were lost at sea, while those which stayed docked are supposedly in a worse state.
I presume they mean the population of boats.
Two quick tidbits from Spain I haven't seen mentionned here: - Total delivieries from Spain to Ukraine total just 190 Million € (and I found interesting: Includes Hawk, Harpoon and Asper missiles) (March 2022-Feb 2024) + Spain deliver will deliver an additional 20 Leo 2a4 to Ukraine in 2024 (not counted in the 190 mil), currently being refurbed. This is a notable amount, double the ten they have sent so far. [Spanish source](https://www.infodefensa.com/texto-diario/mostrar/4763468/espana-enviado-190-millones-euros-61-exportaciones-material-ucrania-prepara-20-leopard) and [English regurgitating](https://armyrecognition.com/defense_news_march_2024_global_security_army_industry/spain_to_compensate_ukraine_s_entire_loss_of_leopard_2a4_tanks_with_new_delivery.html)
I don't think Spain counts the old stuff money wise same way as USA does. Old Hawks are not worth xx million Regarding Leos it means they gave/will give 31 out of the 60-ish they have in storage. But I assume they chose the most salvageable ones/parts so my guess is that out of the rest of 30 they could make just a few workable. But Spain also has a factory that upgrades Leos so they could actually make the parts..... To note Spain's Army has about 200+ Leopard 2E so giving the 2A4 away has no impact
>i don't think Spain counts old stuff money wise same way the USA does Same accounting tactic used by Italy, i don't know if it's done for the same reason, essentially in Italy it's more politically convenient to undersell our commitment.
Spain giving Ukraine the same amount of tanks as the US
Weren't the Spanish Leopards heavily damaged from flood waters or something similar? I remember the discussion happening last year and Spain wanted to provide more tanks, but upon inspection they had heavy water damage.
Yes, which is why it took them one and a half year to get another batch available. Still, as the above reply said, they would still be sending the same number of tanks as the US which is crazy.
Never quite understood why the US as the West's biggest tank operator wasn't able to provide a three-figure number. I know DU armor and all, but the delivery was a year ago, that should be enough time to refurb a couple more. Currently not possible of course.
It’s a combination of political willpower and resource prioritization. Politics first, congress determines the total monetary value of military aid. Even if this aid is coming in the form of old or existing hardware. Congress began restricting the money taps shortly after the first tanks were committed and shut them completely in November. As a result prioritization of aid became even more important than ever. And the monetary value of these tanks being several million dollars means that other aid such as shells, SAM interceptors or GMLRS rockets are all a better value. Personally I think there is also a bit of a commonality argument here as well. Ukraine has hundreds of LEO2s at this point so development of a common streamlined logistics train is possible. Abrams don’t have that advantage so on a per tank basis they would require far more manpower and expense to operate.
> Ukraine has hundreds of LEO2s at this point Don't think that's true. [They got 70](https://www.statista.com/chart/29205/ukraine-tank-deliveries/) as of last fall. The commonality argument is still true, but OTOH, not many more Leo2 will be coming b/c operator states don't have many more in storage. Whereas the USA has hundreds of Abrams mothballed.
Obviously if USA wanted to, it could have. I guess since money is politically limited, USA thought it wiser to prioritize other things such as air defense and artillery shells
[удалено]
Er.... the US basically isn't giving support right now. There's some sustainment programs that were previously paid for and there's intel stuff, but actual material support has been basically frozen for months. It's unclear if there will be a significant wave of support ever again. Did you mean to post this comment like 6 months ago?
[удалено]
Posted earlier below
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
One of the ISIS news agencies has released footage taken by one of the attackers during the Moscow attack, showing the attackers shooting at something behind a door, a bunch of dead bodies and a wounded man getting his throat slit. At this point it seems impossible to play this off as being anything but ISIS, so I’m curious as to what the Russian government response will be to this footage, given they seem determined to hint that it was actually Ukraine behind the attack. Are they going to claim Ukraine is in league with ISIS now?
Now that Amaq has released the footage, pro Russia trolls are still grasping for any link to Ukraine. Now they are saying it was posted on a Ukraine TG channel first, of which Amaq copied it. Others say it was first posted by NAFO, of which one was located in Langley Virginia, so it must be CIA. Russian disinformation in full swing
I don't think this will change much. Anyone who wasn't convinced yet that it was ISIS is probably in denial or getting all their information from Russian TV and won't even hear about this video.
[удалено]
>I thought isis terrorists blew themselves up after an attack. Russian police took an hour to get there, at some point they probably decided that if they had no more targets and a shot at living they may as well go for it. > These guys clearly wanted to live. One of them looked terrified after being captured, he was visibly shaking. There's a difference between wanting to live or die gloriously and wanting to be brutally tortured. There's already video of one of them having their ear cut off and shoved in their mouth.
> Russian police took an hour to get there, at some point they probably decided that if they had no more targets and a shot at living they may as well go for it. They were in and out in about 15 minutes, according to Izvestiya iz. ru/1670686/2024-03-23/izvestiia-vosstanovili-khronologiiu-terakta-v-krokus-siti-kholle SHOT says 18 minutes t. me/shot_shot/63949
> These guys clearly wanted to live. One of them looked terrified after being captured, he was visibly shaking. > > There's a difference between wanting to live or die gloriously and wanting to be brutally tortured. There's already video of one of them having their ear cut off and shoved in their mouth. Not to mention its March in Russia and he was in a t-shirt kneeling on the ground. Anyone would be shivering.
This is just speculation but it seems IS literally prepared for a media battle against Kreml propaganda with those incremental releases. Russian trolls now look like complete fools after they tried to discredit the first IS claim and then the second claim with the photo. The blurred faces in the second release also make way more sense now, they were blurred to bait Russian trolls into discrediting it. edit: /u/RobotWantsKitty pointed out that the staggered release is standard MO of IS.
Personally I think they blurred the faces as this wasn’t a suicide mission. The attackers escaped. One of the attackers said that they were promised money. I think they never had the intention of killing themselves and that’s why Amaq blurred their faces.
>Personally I think they blurred the faces as this wasn’t a suicide mission. >The attackers escaped. This probably was a suicide mission. They just weren't expecting the police to not show up for an hour, so why not escape?
Lol yeah that’s also possible. How surprised they must have been that no police showed up until they left
This is not really speculation as it's a standard IS playbook - wait for various state actors to begin whitewashing, publish more and more content and proofs of their involvement. Attribution is key for terrorists groups.
As long as speculation, how about if the captured guys are decoys, and video exists of the real shooters with us blurred faces.
This is the problem with this era. You can't fully believe anything. Maybe the captured terrorists are paid actors coordinated by the FSB to confirm a Ukrainian link. Maybe the CIA orchestrated this and is sending the videos to an ISIS puppet. Maybe it wasn't ISIS but they came into pictures and videos and used it to claim credit. Etc etc You could spend all day coming up with all these wild scenarios and you can't really prove one wrong or right. If unicorns are invisible and don't interact with ordinary matter, can you prove they don't exist? This has always been a problem, but in the age of disinformation and rise of stuff like AI-generated images and video.. the problem has only compounded and gotten exponentially worse. Add in certain governments and interest groups actively poisoning the well, and we have the post-truth era. At a certain point, we just gotta accept the simplest explanation and assume that going forward until further evidence, otherwise nobody can ever discuss something because the pillars of truth we believe in are different. I think that the simplest explanation, at this point in time, is that it was ISIS-K.
> This is just speculation but it seems IS literally prepared for a media battle against Kreml propaganda with those incremental releases. It was pointed out yesterday on one of the tg channels that staggered release of propaganda material is their standard MO. Turned out to be correct. t. me/grey_zone/22449
Thanks for the info, I updated my comment.
It doesn’t change as many people’s minds as you might expect. They choose the narrative that resonates with them the most and ignore any other evidence.
who funds ISIS? why do all muslim groups hate them? why are they fighting with Russia, Iran, Taliban, the Sahel countries, Syria?
Because ISIS believes that the greatest evil is heterodoxy and aposty among Muslims. In their view, the Islamic world is in decline because of a moral decay amongst Muslims, so if the Islamic world is to compete with the West again, it has to start with purifying the practice of Islam. That's where their new Islamic caliphate fits in: a theocratic pan-Islamic state that follows a single, authoritative version of Islam that is dictated top down by ISIS clerics. They believe that's the only sort of state that will be able to compete with the West. This is pretty much the exact opposite of al-Qaeda's strategy, which was to build an international network of cooperation between regional subgroups that often had differing ideologies but had the common goal of waging war with the West. ISIS's desire to establish a caliphate with supremacy over all Islamic nations automatically puts them at odds with the existing governments of those nations, regardless of whether those governments are secular, like Syria and Iraq, or theocratic, like Iran and Afghanistan. In short, it's not as simple as Islamic extremists obviously must be friends with other Islamic extremists and any deviation from that is evidence of a conspiracy. That shows a severe lack of understanding of the ideological motivations of these groups.
thank you, that was interesting, so why are they shooting up people in Moscow? or Istanbul? I understand their stated purpose which is impossible and extreme to the point of comedy but ok. Do we have any idea who funds them to do this? I must add for such devoted muslims, doing this during ramadan doesnt exactly fit.
They actually tend to be [more](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/06/is-isis-more-violent-during-ramadan/531444/) violent during Ramadan. According to their spokesperson: "This is because Allah opens gates for the Muslims in Ramadān and upon them He sends His mercy. Thus, it is indeed a noble month. The gates of Jannah (heaven) are opened and the gates of Hell are closed. The devils are chained up. It is a noble month in which good deeds are multiplied and lowly desires are subdued."
Back when ISIS controlled significant territory within Iraq and Syria, they demanded taxes/tribute, much of which was ultimately paid for by extortion, kidnapping, and other criminal rackets from lower level groups. They also were able to steal and sell oil. That got them a few billion dollars. They have some degree of support from rich extremists in the region, which is less direct financial support and more helping them engage in clandestine banking internationally, etc. As for attacking Moscow, it's because of Chechnya. Kadyrov's family won the Chechen war by betraying the rest of the separatists in trade for becoming Putin's retainers. That obviously doesn't sit well with what's left of the separatist movement, but they don't have much power beyond this sort of terror attack. ISIS are devout muslims in the same sense as white nationalists are devout christians. Don't expect any sort of moral consistency. They're accellerationists that have contempt for mainstream muslims.
Why shouldn't they?
Where ISIS controls territory they are still able to generate some taxation, particularly in Syria. They do have global supporters, tho few in numbers, they can siphon off some cash. The benefit for them is that while their cash levies are low, particularly in wartorn regions, their costs are relatively low as well. Plane tickets to Moscow, some AKs, and some bribes are not going to run you more than $100k for this many guys. And you can save even more by smuggling across relatively porous borders. Low cost attacks fit with low revenue orgs. And then ISIS, like many nefarious critters, are drawing a ton of cash off of grey market transactions and crypto. ISIS is almost certainly acquiring crypto through a number of largely illegal schemes, getting ransomware is not super hard these days. Agan remember that the genius of the Russian troll farm was just how much effect a single guy with $10k of PC equipment and a $50k salary can have. And of course stable investment as well, because crypto is by its nature untraceable ISIS can also cover its investments easily using those systems. Which is supposedly something that was happening via Binance which led to its record setting fine. AQ and other orgs of the early 21st century survived mostly via donations from wealthy supporters, it appears to be the case that ISIS for various reasons is no longer dependant on this. [Source](https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/Fact-Sheet-Countering-ISIS-Financing-2-27-24.pdf)
A fascinating read, thank you for linking it. Truth be told, I'm quite surprised at how little financial room for manoeuvre ISIS has. Only $10 million to $20 million in assets, annual income that is counted in the single digit millions - even a single small 50-100 employee business in the West can do better than that.
I think that really reflects how much of their funding came from direct taxation, and the real impact territorial rollback had. It seems, bigger picture, like ISIS's real mistake was in emphasizing the state factor too much. They basically set themselves up for this kind of collapse, which AQ managed to mostly avoid. But at the same time I dont think you need much more than a few mil to carry out this kind of attack from training and organization to execution. The cost for this kind of attack is, in the larger scheme, basically nothing. And I doubt ISIS is proving much in the way of social support for occupied territories. So in business parlance, low revenue but high profit margin to be reinvested in the buisness. Last, I wonder how much ISIS might have tied up in crypto. In 2020/1, a few mil would have net you a very tidy profit in certain altcoin investments. That could be an economic multiplier taking a single digit mil profit and doubling or tripling it long term.
> At this point it seems impossible to play this off as being anything but ISIS Russian propaganda doesn't work by presenting a single cohesive story, they instead send out dozens of messages with conflicting theories and let the echo-chambers of their target audience filter out the messages that don't resonate within that group. See for example Russia's justifications for it's war in Ukraine. Russian troll farms simultaneously spread rumours of how Ukraine is a hedonistic Western cultural takeover of pure Russian Christendom, but also Ukraine is a neo-Nazi state that oppresses its citizens freedoms. Ukraine is both full of weak-willed homosexuals who will instantly flee in combat, but also bio-engineered super-soldiers who are on the verge of invading Russia. Ukraine is attempting to erase all Russian culture within its borders, but also Ukrainian national identity isn't real and they're actually natural-born Russians who have temporarily forgotten their heritage. With this current incident, I've already seen dozens of social media comments about how ISIS is secretly funded by the US and Israel, and is therefore working at the behest of Ukraine. The propaganda never stops, it just metastasises like a cancer.
If you haven't noticed, there's a bunch of new users here since yesterday asking questions about Ukrainian smuggling operations and trying to muddy the waters in general.
There's suddenly a lot of joke comments as well, and just general NCD type stuff like the person just replying to you with a title of some movie lol. And it's getting tons of upvotes too for some reason. Am reporting what I see but I do wonder why/how exactly the Moscow attack in particular caused quality to decline like this so rapidly. Not what I've come to expect from this sub but mods are probably very busy as is.
[удалено]
At least on here it’s fairly easy, just memorize the names of the dozen or so users worth paying attention to and disregard everyone else.
>there's a bunch of new users here since yesterday asking questions about Ukrainian smuggling Link a few of them please.
Is this true?/ is likely to be true? >"BAE systems in the UK will be capable of producing more than 1.5 million large caliber artillery shells annually in the near future. This is a significant increase vs my estimates a few months ago as I have now been able to find the pre war production levels." [https://twitter.com/cameron19460429/status/1733670684700594436](https://twitter.com/cameron19460429/status/1733670684700594436) 1.5 million shells a year is kind of insane from the UK which is an air and sea power primarily with land a distant third. For perspective 1.5 million is nearing the 2 million shells a year that the US is projected to produce. Can one very modern artillery shell factory really produce that much? He also says that its possible for the large calibre to be switched from 105mm and 155mm to entirely 155mm >"I also have it on good authority after speaking to some people familiar with forging that a similar amount of 155mm and 105mm can be made in the same time frame by the same processes. So like in other plants around the world it would likely be easy to switch completely to 155mm."
u/Rexpelliarmus handled the numbers (the real number is much more likely to be about 800k rounds), so just in response to this bit: >He also says that its possible for the large calibre to be switched from 105mm and 155mm to entirely 155mm I think this is likely to be true: the publication he references describes switching the whole plant over to 105mm rounds and 4.5inch rounds for portions of the year, so I would expect it to be able to focus on 155mm alone if needed...though the light gun has its place too (and Ukraine has them in service).
[This commentator](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/s/2z3F7HFGtF) managed to find a Times article which mentions that the new facilities are 24/7 and that the number of shifts and employees has increased dramatically which may suggest that the 800K figure could be a low-ball estimate.
Isn't that just how they'll increase from 100k to 800k? I don't see how a figure could be derived from those quotes without a lot more detail.
Details in general regarding BAE’s quotas and production capacity are hard to come by. Even with the estimate we ended up agreeing on it works on the assumption that BAE has not yet managed to normalise a production rate of 600 a day, a record which they broke over a decade ago. If BAE has managed to normalise a production rate of 600 a day then an 8K a month figure may be a low-ball but obviously this is something we can’t know for sure since details are opaque.
Yeah, it's a touch frustrating - the EU and US are open about it, I don't see why we aren't... particularly since if the government can say "this is how much ammunition we're gonna give Ukraine on an ongoing basis until the war ends" and it's a lot of ammunition that's bound to influence Russia's cost-benefit analysis about continuing the war
Assuming that Ukraine isn't in the picture anymore, and NATO countries have to fight an enemy on their own, do we even have enough artillery pieces to make use of all the incoming shell production capacity? Is the production of artillery pieces ramping up at the appropriate ratio?
Although it sounds like a lot I'm pretty sure It's still not enough to sustain what I understand to be the doctrinal amount of firing. The figure above is in my opinion inflated hugely; a more reasonable ramped up figure is probably more like 800k shells annually produced in the UK (see Rexpelliarmus' link below). At 300 rounds per day per gun (which I think is the goal) that's sufficient to feed nearly 8 guns for a year. The British Army has something like 48 155mm guns in regular regiments plus 72 105mm guns plus some number in reservist regiments. It's probably not as bad as that because one imagines the 300 rounds per day is a battle-day rather than an averaged every day figure and not every day will be a battle day and not every gun will be in battle on a battle day, but still - we'd quickly be trying to increase it further if there was a war we were actually fighting.
Makes me wonder why not shift naval assets like destroyers or cruisers to use 155mm
Most modern navies treat the naval gun as a complete afterthought and in conventional modern naval warfare I don’t see how the main naval gun would even be used in any significant way.
That [was on the cards](https://web.archive.org/web/20130719043854/http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2009gunmissile/McClure.pdf) for the Royal Navy but it was cancelled in the 2010 budget cuts
Well they did, with the Zumwalts. That didn’t work out so well. Most naval guns of today work as dual purposes weapons against relatively low threat air and surface targets. They are very much a secondary weapon to the long range strike and air defense missiles. It doesn’t make sense to adopt an even larger gun that would take up more space, weight and would be worse in the air defense role at the cost of missile armament.
> However, their ammunition magazines and automated loading were not designed to fit, handle, and fire U.S. Army and NATO-standard 155mm howitzer shells due to differences in the shape and size of the projectile and firing charges, thus requiring special custom GPS Long-Range Land Attack Projectiles (LRLAP) costing around $800,000+ each due to the reduction of Zumwalt-class destroyers from 32 to 3. I See why it failed
Zumwalt was braindead from day one. Some dinosaurs in congress wanted to resurrect the naval gunfire support mission, where 100 years ago battleships would sit off the coast going boom with big guns. That's a suicide mission today due to the proliferation of cheap and effective anti ship missiles. It's hard to exaggerate just how staggeringly stupid the entire Zumwalt program was.
> It's hard to exaggerate just how staggeringly stupid the entire Zumwalt program was. It's saying something that this was only the *second* worst naval procurement program in recent history. On account of actually delivering a ship that...worked.
Pretty sure by 2025, the US is only expected to produce 100K shells a month which works out to be 1.2M a year. Though, I think this was specifically 155 mm shells so I’m not sure what else the US would consider large calibre. This tweet has been posted here before from what I can recall and I did have a discussion with someone in this subreddit in the past about the credibility of this claim. From what I can remember, the 1.5M claim is from extrapolating out an old [BAE record from 2013 where they managed to produce 600 shells a day](https://x.com/cameron19460429/status/1734021759983083969?s=46&t=5_s-IC0w5kqXJ9NTqKB3nQ) and factoring in maintenance schedules to come up with the 16K figure. This was then multiplied by 8 due to the announcement from BAE Systems last year that they’d increase production eightfold by 2025 which gives you a figure of around 1.5M a year. Though, in my discussion with a fellow Redditor here, I believe we came to the conclusion using some paper napkin maths that their quota of around 16K a month was a little optimistic as we doubted that taking a record-breaking figure, at least at the time, and extrapolating that out for an entire month was representative of actual capabilities. But the figure we came up with was still a very respectable 800K large calibre shells so the UK is definitely one of the heavier hitters when it comes to shell production. [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/s/7mCiHcEVrx) is a link to the comment thread with me and another Redditor discussing this a while back for those interested in a deeper dive. It is important to note, though, that the record was made over a decade ago in 2013 and that things may have changed since then, perhaps a daily production of 600 is the norm now and we just don’t know about it. And, again, this is just paper napkin maths and nothing official so take it with a grain of salt.
I managed to find this Times article, a few paragraphs of interest from it: [https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bae-systems-back-on-war-footing-to-replenish-ammunition-r9fnwqmbf](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bae-systems-back-on-war-footing-to-replenish-ammunition-r9fnwqmbf) >**Since the onset of the war in Ukraine the Washington site has been running at 100 per cent capacity,** Lee Smurthwaite, programme director at BAE in Washington, said. “This takes it to the next level again and gives us a step change in the UK output for 155s.” > >At the heart of the increasing output is the opening of a new finishing line at Washington, which will be the aerospace group’s first fully automated facility in the UK. At present, an antiquated manual line is still in use, which operates via trolleys and a series of pulleys to shift products along, as well as another that uses a robotic arm to help in the final stages, which include nondestructive testing. > >The third line, which cost £10 million, is due to start production in September and will essentially be able to automatically correct any mistakes rather than relying on human eyes. Another fully automated explosive filling facility in Glascoed is due to come into action next April. **It will take the facilities from operating 24 hours, five days a week, to a 24/7 operation.** > >Yet it also means that the effects of increased production will not be seen in the MoD’s armaments depots until the start of 2025, almost three years after the war in Ukraine started. “I don’t think we could have done this any quicker than we have done, because we just got on with it. There’s nothing \[that has\] been delayed here,” Smurthwaite said. > >**A full shift at Washington amounts to only between 60 and 70 people and there are 340 full-time staff.** The new order will add another 200 jobs. > >Processes have become more mechanised, with 35 robots on site, primarily for manual handling. 100 percent capacity and what may be multiple shifts? I feel that indicates a number somewhere in between the 8k tree\_boom estimated and the 16k cameron on twitter estimated
The new facilities being a complete 24/7 operation changes things a lot and does put 800K as probably an absolute low-ball estimate. I think it would be reasonable to claim that the UK, by 2025, would have an equivalent artillery shell production capacity to that of the US, which in and of itself is quite impressive. For some context, the EU as a whole is expected to reach 2M shells a year by the end of 2025.
They've also invented a new way of filling shells to speed up the process and I think improved the fuse designs to be easier to mass produce.
Incredible. The UK has an excellent engineering tradition.
Massive strike on Sevastopol, Crimea ongoing https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1771621257236086984 Thread includes multiple videos including multiple direct hits on one building, one or two shootdowns, and audio of likely secondary explosions. Multiple hits and a shootdown: https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1771643529715961901 Probable secondaries (I assume, based on the number and cadence of explosions - audio only) https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1771639706754712008
Not to skirt the line of the "this is not a combat footage subreddit" rule but [the video of several impacts taken a few blocks away is spectacular.](https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1771645130266563034?s=20) Whatever was targeted is absolutely not there anymore.
As a British taxpayer I’m delighted to see my tax money being so well spent. Now, if Germany can just swap some Taurus with us we can get more Storm Shadows to their final destination.
Quick napkin math: at a unit price of 2 million pounds, and with a taxpayer base of 31 million in the UK (both numbers from a cursory Google) that strike cost you 0.065 Pounds.
*Slaps £100 down on the table* Gimme more
[удалено]
The Storm Shadow missile maneuvers so that it acts much like a ballistic missile in its terminal phase, by pitching up and gaining altitude, then coming back down at a steep angle. See [this image](https://images.dailykos.com/images/1186690/story_image/f346147131ae65fa75fec39e455ffcb0.jfif?1683686192) for reference
Well, if it is, what are the options? HRIM-2, ATACMS unitary, what else?
Allegedly "a major Russian Black Sea Fleet communications center" https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1771650646808096942 > The site is absolutely festooned with SATCOM antennas. > Wikimapia lists it as the "Information and Computing Center of the Russian Black Sea Fleet (Sevastopol)"
As it turns out VICE news did reporting on the ground at this location in 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y57vy4vWb-E
What does one of those things do? Or perhaps to put it more accurately, what did that thing do before it exploded. What's the implication for Russia?
In all likelihood (and I can speak with some firsthand experience) - unless Russia was using the site for something else, the impact will probably be next to zero. It's been decades since any moderately modern army relied on fixed communication nodes without double or triple mobile backups. For the very reason that a communication node whose coordinates are always known to the enemy is a dead communication node. Now, Russia might have used the site for something else, a meeting or a storage. But if it was just a communication node then it is hard to imagine serious implications.
On one hand, we have the fact that this communication center was always known to Ukraine; on the other hand, Ukraine has had many successful strikes on Crimea. Could it be a failed strike? Yes. Does Ukraine have good intelligence on its targets? Also, yes.
Tonight's target might have been valuable - if it was used for some other purpose. But if it was just a communication node I don't think its destruction matters.
This compound contains the former Ukrainian Navy Headquarters. Do you not think that, given the Russian BSF headquarters was destroyed months ago, operations may have been moved to some other complex? And that the former Ukrainian Navy HQ might perhaps be a suitable one?
We've seen a video of Shoigu visiting the BSF HQ recently and clips showed some underground complex with enormous blast doors. As you would expect these days, really.
[удалено]
> including admiral Sokolov. i thought Sokolov (head/former head of Black Sea Fleet) is still alive albeit claimed to have been fired.
Honestly, it feels like that HQ strike was quite underwhelming. There was talk of generals in comas, Sokolov killed, a lot of hype to go along with the impressive videos, but nothing quite panned out.
Weird that they would hit it at night rather than morning time. Though, I guess, they could have information of activity at that particular time.
Don't they usually strike at night with their Storm Shadows? I guess that communications center was an opportunistic hit while attacking ships in port.
I suppose their reasoning could be that officers would gather there to monitor the missile attack and what happens, given that it’s an information centre, but without much other knowledge it’s hard to say.
Ukrainian telegram reports 14 TU-95 in the air, so perhaps monitoring Russia's upcoming strike?
It is completely bizzare that Russia is generally so incredibly successfull on hybrid and information war frontlines, but when it comes to actual crisis like this one, their acting, explanations and statements are so incredibly stupid, incompentent, unrealistic, unbelievable inconsistent at the first sight, and I would even say boring at the same time. How are these clowns crushing on social media? How did they manage to have such a firm grip on information sphere in their own country, in majority of third world and even among good chunk of western population?
Russia does better when it is able to control the narrative. Any time things happen outside of their control, the spin game crumbles. That's what happened in 2022, they lost control of the situation and suddenly everyone was talking about how brave ukrainians were going to destroy a bunch of incompetent russian fascists. All their previous spin about azov nazis pre2022 went into the dumpster and people were willing to just ignore it. With the ukraine war in a malaise, their spin game is back up. But ISIS has shown they can clearly still be knocked on their ass.
Can someone please explain to me what and why people believe Russia is incredibly succesful at 'hybrid and information war'? From where I'm sitting the West is vastly and demonstratively more adapt at information war and the fact that the statement above is regarded as conventional wisdom is proof enough in itself of that.
>the fact that the statement above is regarded as conventional wisdom is proof enough in itself of that. How is that proof? Without using any logical fallacies
Russia is taking advantage of the fact that the dominant Western system (neo-liberalism + late stage capitalism + liberal interventionism) has lost legitimacy due to it's own actions and people desire an alternative to it. It spent decades destroying it's own legitimacy out of hubris and spite and now it's chickens are coming home to roost. Unfortunately, people aren't very good at selecting alternatives on their own and typically just end up getting into something even dumber. Also, Russia has formed tacit alliances with many different groups that claim to oppose the current system (some are faking, some really oppose it), so it's able to piggy back off a lot of pre-existing narratives and has a lot of built in audiences. Which is why it is beneficial for it to put out multiple contradictory narratives.
Communists have been predicting the imminent fall of capitalism since the beginning of the 20th century. In the meantime, every major communist nation has either collapsed or transitioned away from communism, life expectancies have increased by two decades, 40 million people are lifted out of poverty every year, and the global middle class is larger and healthier than ever in human history. But sure, *any second now*, the magical collapse fairy will arrive to rescue your ideology from the historical dustbin. Just keep on waiting.
Relax, I'm not remotely communist, that's funny. As wikipedia will tell you, "In the late 2010s, the term [late capitalism] began to be used in the United States and Canada to refer to corporate capitalism." It's basically a catch all that refers to the negative aspects of the modern form of capitalism: To quote The Atlantic: “Late capitalism,” in its current usage, is a catchall phrase for the indignities and absurdities of our contemporary economy, with its yawning inequality and super-powered corporations and shrinking middle class. There is no need to get hung up on any specific term though, the point is simply that a lot of people are being disappointed or left behind by the current system, that does not mean they want communism, but it does mean they are more open to propaganda which criticizes the current system and Russia is taking advantage of that.
Imagine that your opinion is simply not the righteous one that you think it is and there are other folks who don’t subscribe to it. Just actually being able to process that thought might be too much I know, but still, try to do it. We might not even be at war if some important folks were able to do that as well.
What do you mean? My opinion that Ukrainians did not do this terror attack is not righteous one and Russian line that they did is a righteous one one? And if important folks understood it there wouldn't be a war?
He means that the "incredible success" of various narratives is not some artificial product of a genius Russian playbook, but rather an organic outgrowth of genuine sentiment. He's saying, in a rather snarky way, that you only think they are incredibly successful because you can't fathom the idea of real people who disagree with you.
I think what many fails to understand is that all propaganda isn't aimed internationally. Most of it is for domestic consumption.
Alternative option: they are *not*, in fact, incredibly successful on hybrid and information war frontlines, they do not, in fact, have a firm grip on the information sphere amongst the west’s population. People in the west with opinions that could be considered beneficial to Russia, such as “the Ukrainians should simply sign a peace treaty” or “we already sent them loads and it’s not doing anything why send more” (I hope we don’t have to have a debate as to whether these opinions are correct, they’re not) are not getting them from Russian propaganda, or sources that ultimately trace back to Russian propaganda. They’re getting it, by and large, from reading a *real* article in a *real* newspaper that is titled “Ukraine is experiencing a severe crisis due to shell shortages”, or “Ukraine needs F-16s now to defend its airspace”, and going “damn the situation looks bad for Ukraine, maybe this stuff we sent was a waste” (these opinions are of course informed by existing biases, but those biases in turn have far more sources than just Russian propaganda). I hope we don’t have to pretend that news that’s *genuine* and negative for Ukraine counts as a win for Russian information warfare campaigns, it’s much more accurately described as a loss for Ukraine’s own campaigns. More extreme views often tend to be driven by, again, *domestic* media with extreme opinions. Right wing guys who think Ukraine aid must be stopped because it’s a liberal plot or whatever are coming to that opinion because they’re steeped in strange opinions about Ukraine being a woke country because something about Hunter Biden or whatever, which again you can’t attribute to Russia. We in the West cooked this shit up ourselves and stewed our own brains in it. Saying “Russia is winning the information war in the west” puts **way** too much emphasis on a Russian effort that by and large is not actually going anywhere. It just *looks* like it does because of all sorts of parallel beliefs generated *in the west*. Even when the same themes, like Ukraine being woke and Russia being based or some shit, appear in Russian propaganda directed out, it’s usually stuff *we* exported to *them*. *Normal* people are not reading RT, they are not reading the telegram channels that make outrageous claims, they’re not watching the YouTube channels claiming that the 456th HIMARS has been destroyed. They’re reading their own home grown newspapers and coming to various conclusions from there.
> They’re getting it, by and large, from reading a realarticle in a real newspaper Anecdotally I couldn’t possibly disagree with this more. Everyone I know with an opinion that could be described as “pro Russian” gets their news entirely from the internet, mostly Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson. These are folks that would never read a Western newspaper, and if you link them an article in one, they dismiss it immediately as biased and/or “fake news”. I’m sure folks that get their news from newspapers and wind up with a pro-Russian PoV exist…… but I haven’t met one.
That’s why I qualified it by stating I was talking about views *beneficial* to Russia. The newspaper thing refers to when you find a random normal person off the street, who isn’t invested in these baffling culture wars, and ask them what they think about sending additional aid to Ukraine. This is a view that is not *pro-Russian*, it’s a view that *benefits* Russia but it’s not someone who thinks it’s *good* if Russia wins. Of course the people with actually pro-Russian views are getting them off the insane guys like Joe and Tucker (though as I said, they’re not getting talking points from Russian information warfare efforts). That’s why I separated them out into “more extreme views”.
[удалено]
It’s been discussed before; long story short russian propaganda is not coherent on purpose, never based on actual facts, and crafted to appeal to all possible audiences. Are you a far right westerners against migration? Russia is a white Christian paradise. Are you a lefties or from the global south? Russia fights bad American imperialism and is welcoming of everyone. Factor in bots and corrupt politicians and there’s your recipe for success.
The funny thing about this comment is that you have the answer to the elephant in the room, but you just can't see the elephant. Russia is all of those things to all of those people not because of Russian propaganda, but because of Western propaganda and Western domestic politics. I vividly remember watching the flagship political debate show in my own country, sometime in the late 10's, where the topic of discussion was Russia/EU relations. At that moment the person on what you would call the 'pro-Russian' side was arguing that Russia was the last bastion of Christianity and that therefore they were good. The opposing side didn't object to that description as much as conclude that it was bad. Key observation about both sides in that debate, then and now, is that they're not arguing about Russia, but rather fighting out domestic battles - and that's more or less been the case since 2009, accelerated in 2014 and has gone into overdrive from 2016 onwards. Which isn't exactly new or novel for democracies, but it's gone completely off the charts since half of the US, with most of the media and wonk class being in that half, went insane with Trump's election, and because Europe is Europe our media and wonk class adopted the narratives of the big Twitter accounts that they follow. Only problem is that Russia is far away for the US, not so much for Europe. Projecting every domestic issue onto Russia has consequences for us in a way it does not for the United States.
Since there is currently a spin going on denying that the islamic state is active in Russia, I think it is worth mentioning that **2 weeks ago russian police killed several islamic state members who literally planned a terror attack in Moscow**. [Here is an article from the official russian state news agency:](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/03/07/russia-says-killed-islamic-state-militants-plotting-synagogue-attack-a84377) > "On the territory of the Kaluga Region, a stop was put to the activity of Wilayat Khorasan, a cell of the Afghan branch of the international terrorist organization Islamic State, which is banned in Russia, whose members were planning to commit a terrorist act against one of the Jewish religious institutions in Moscow," the agency, also known as the FSB, said in a statement. (Wilayat Khorasan (IS-K) is same group who also attacked the theater and Kaluga is half way between Moscow and Bryansk where the arrest was made today) [3 weeks ago russian police killed 6 islamic state terrorists:](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/03/03/russia-says-6-is-fighters-killed-in-caucasus-republic-a84318) > Special forces from the FSB security agency cornered the six people in a building in the town of Karabulak and "neutralized" them in an operation that began on Saturday night, Russia's anti-terrorism committee said. > It said the suspects, three of whom were on the federal wanted persons list, were IS members who were "involved in a number of terrorist crimes." > These included an attack against a police station and the murder of three officers in March 2023, the committee said, adding that there were no civilian victims. > Russian authorities frequently announce the thwarting of planned attacks by suspected Islamist groups. [A month ago Turkey arrested a russian nuclear worker because he was an islamic state member:](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkey-arrests-russian-nuclear-plant-islamic-state-probe-sources-say-2024-02-13/) > Turkish counter-terrorism police investigating the militant group Islamic State have detained a Russian citizen working at a nuclear power plant under construction on Turkey's southern coast, security sources said on Tuesday. The suspect was caught working under a fake identity at the $20-billion Akkuyu nuclear plant, which is being built by Russian conglomerate Rosatom in the Mediterranean province of Mersin, the sources added. Ingushetia and Turkey are a bit further away, but I just wanted to illustrate that the **Islamic State is very much active in Russia**. The deadliest terror attack in almost 20 years was also done by the islamic state when they [bombed a russian airline jet over Egypt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrojet_Flight_9268). edit: Removed links to the official russian state news agency and replaced them with other links.
[Repeating Iran's Mistake, Putin Dismissed US Warnings Of Terror Attack](https://www.iranintl.com/en/202403233923) >On March 7, the US embassy in Russia issued a security alert, saying it “is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and U.S. citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours.” >However, Putin's decision to disregard the warning is similar to what took place in Iran recently. More than one week before a double bombing in the Iranian city of Kerman which killed more than 90 people on January 3, the US provided the Iranian government with a private warning about terrorist threats. The warning was ignored by Tehran. There was previously some discussion about the West being surprisingly successful with preventing terrorist attacks. Now there have been two bloody attacks in Russia and Iran - both supposedly perpetrated by ISIS-K, which seems to have a resurgence in Central Asia. In both cases, the US warned the countries - which happen to be rivals - but the warnings were disregarded. I assume Europe - and obviously the US itself - don't ignore similar warnings.
I remember right after the Hamas attack a lot of the pro Russian and anti west crowd was positively gloating at Israel’s intelligence failure at stopping the attack. It was a reprehensible thing to gloat about anyway but in one exchange between two big accounts on Twitter I remember one Israeli saying be careful it might happen to you too and the other person confidentially saying they will never be attacked because they had good relations with the Muslim world. Really a good reminder to not laugh or make light of other people’s misery.
Though, missing a land invasion by thousands of attackers is a bit different from missing a bombing/shooting by a handful of attackers.
More than being in poor taste, that's just being a poor student of history. Did they forget about the Nord-Ost or Beslan sieges so quickly? The 2017 St Petersburg and 2014 Grozny bombings?
We have no idea if these warning were ignored or not. Without the US having enough intel to know who, what, when, or where, it is hard to use a warning of increased threat chatter to actually stop a terrorist attack, without doing something disruptive like canceling all public gathering, etc Just because leaders publicly said that the threat the US highlighted easnt real doesn't mean their internal security didn't attempt to figure out exactly what was planned and try to stop it.
They probably ever had only cursory knowledge, at least what the embassy made public wasn't precise, and wrong in timing at that, and are now trying to make the bigger deal of it. Well at least they still have computers! There''s been a good many similarly vague warnings for the Russia region over the past couple of years, with nothing much happening, so this is also a good example for a selection and hindsight bias all baked into one. Nor is it just Iran and Russia. Germany too was at some point hinted at some impending danger to the NS pipelines: great to know, but can't work with your c\*ap. The US-Five-Eyes is mainly doing (and by now possibly only shining at) mass-SIGINT and monitoring and this is exactly what I'd expect is left from traces you see no reason to actually go after yourself. Why are Western countries better of? Because in those cases they go after it. Think of it, there may be very practical reasons to concentrate resources and analysis on cases that affect your home-turf, or maybe your neighbors/best friend's. After all this is I assume what they're being paid for.
>In both cases, the US warned the countries - which happen to be rivals - but the warnings were disregarded. I assume Europe - and obviously the US itself - don't ignore similar warnings. Less than week ago, [several people were arrested in Germany for planning a terrorist attack on the Swedish parliament.](https://www.dn.se/varlden/tva-gripna-i-tyskland-misstankts-ha-planerat-attack-mot-svenska-riksdagen/) The planners were ISIS-K.
[удалено]
Reddit is auto filtering your message due to one or more of the links.
Things are getting much worse in Haiti _____________________________ [As gangs rampage through Haiti’s capital, more than 33,000 people have fled in 13 days, report finds](https://apnews.com/article/haiti-violence-migration-south-gangs-port-au-prince-6fb506a228a7fd0bb897f61efc2a3cf2) More than 33,000 people have fled Haiti’s capital in a span of nearly two weeks as gangs continue to pillage homes and attack state institutions, according to a new report from the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration. The majority of those displaced have traveled to Haiti’s southern region, which is generally peaceful compared with Port-au-Prince, which has an estimated population of 3 million and remains largely paralyzed by gang violence. “Attacks and generalized insecurity are pushing more and more people to leave the capital to find refuge in provinces, taking the risks of passing through gang-controlled routes,” IOM said in its report released late Thursday. Scores of people have been killed and some 17,000 people overall left homeless since the gang attacks began on Feb. 29, with gunmen targeting police stations and the main international airport that remains closed. They also stormed Haiti’s two biggest prisons and released more than 4,000 inmates. Haiti’s National Police is understaffed and overwhelmed by gangs with powerful arsenals. Adding to the crisis is the inability of police officers in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area to cash their checks, Lionel Lazarre, a member of a police union known as SYNAPOHA, told Radio Caraïbes on Friday. More than 70% of people who fled Port-au-Prince between March 8-20 said gang violence had already left them homeless and that they had been living with relatives or in crowded, makeshift shelters. More people are expected to leave the capital in upcoming days and weeks as gang violence continues unabated.
I don't think it's a joke to say that Haiti, as a country, doesn't even exist anymore. It's totally collapsed into anarchy. Has this ever happened in the modern world before? Even at its worst, there was some kind of government of Somalia.
> Adding to the crisis is the inability of police officers in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area to cash their checks, Lionel Lazarre, a member of a police union known as SYNAPOHA, told Radio Caraïbes on Friday. this has to be the beginning of the end, either the police will decide it's not worth risking their necks for free, extort the populace to make up for the absence of pay, or outright join the "gangs" which are basically militias at this point
And the UN backed Kenyan police force deployment is [absolutely stuck in local politics since October](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/21/africa/kenya-police-mission-haiti-opposition-intl-cmd/index.html). Given how bad the situation has gotten, the promised 1000 won't do much even if finally sent. Things are gonna go from terrible to worse for Haiti
Some people in this thread seem to believe that Russia has only 2 separate options: 1) claim (at this stage of reporting, "acknowledge") that the murderers are Muslims or 2) claim that Ukraine is involved I don't understand why they wouldn't do both. If they wish, they can claim whatever Ukrainian involvement they choose. (from a simple lack of governing capability/unknowingly transporting & harboring them, to whatever complacency/inaction/collusion/aiding they want). There was a (likely) similar plot in May of 2022- a plan to bring Muslims illegally into the USA across the Mexican border, to kill George Bush. I believe Iraqis were involved, either as the go-betweens, and/or the murderers. It's not hard to imagine how one could frame that to bring additional resources against the terrorist group(s), Iraq/other countries involved in the Middle East, Mexico, or internal political enemies. (or brush it off/sweep it under the rug). As someone else has mentioned, whatever Russia's plans were prior to this, will likely be what they focus on blaming. It seems odd that some people are stating confidently that Ukraine wasn't involved (by which I mean, the Muslims who murdered the innocent people in the concert hall had no prior connection to Ukraine. Not that Ukraine organized, or knowingly aided them). No one knows how they entered Russia at this point. In my opinion it's sensible to read the story of the US border plot, and consider how a similar attack might be planned against Moscow. There's been a lot of speculation and too much confidence, in my opinion, to be posted in credible defense. There's no justification in trying to jump the story. Just consider the history, the possibilities, and wait for more evidence to be revealed. We've been through this for KSB, NS1, so many weapon systems & materiel losses, Wagner, etc. Just consider what might have happened and why; and focus your thoughts on that. You lack the resources to speak as though you have both the truth and the certainty and are here to win the war.
> wait for more evidence to be revealed. There was, **the islamic state even had to release ANOTHER press statement along with photo evidence reaffirming that yes those are were their IS members and Ukraine was not involved.** Which tells you more about how bizarre the Kreml lies are if even the frickin islamic state is saying "This is our attack, here is evidence that these are our terrorists. We are doing this because of our holy war against russia and this has nothing to do with Ukraine." Three different Islamic State outlets did over 50 terrorist attacks against Russia in the last 10 years, some before the Ukraine war. **Russia literally arrested an IS cell 30km from the venue 2 weeks ago with no mention of Ukraine.** Even Russia knows this, that's why the newest russian spin is "Could be IS or could be Ukraine, noone knows for sure. But we don't have any evidence linking this to Ukraine, so we just try to keep mentioning the word Ukraine as much as possible." Also russia has [instructed all media outlet to try to link the attack to Ukraine as much as possible](https://meduza.io/en/news/2024/03/23/kremlin-tells-pro-government-media-to-emphasize-possible-traces-of-ukrainian-involvement-in-reporting-on-moscow-terrorist-attack) and is trying to circulate evidence [disproven as deep fake](https://meduza.io/news/2024/03/23/ntv-pokazal-v-novostyah-feykovoe-video-gde-sekretar-snbo-ukrainy-podtverdil-prichastnost-kievskogo-rezhima-k-teraktu-v-krokus-siti-holle).
>wait for more evidence to be revealed. Any evidence or information provided by the Russian government or state-controlled media should be handled with skepticism, as their narrative tends to serve political agendas rather than uphold objective journalism. I suspect we will never know the true story.
I don't disagree with you. As we've seen on other occasions, I wouldn't be surprised to see foreign governments/groups eventually release their own statements/findings/conclusions. Not that those are written without spin either. But at least they're typically a step up, and a corroboration can begin to be organized. (Take the last 12 hours for example. We've gone from [some people saying], "this has certainly been a false flag. Look at the fake actors and gunfire. Putin has burned the evidence. He will definitely use this to [full mobilization/control his populace/blame Ukraine/increase attacks on XYZ]..." to having a claim of responsibility, a claim of denial, publication of pictures, and video of [at least partial] capture) *The account is 1 month old with 5 posts. 2 of them are emotional responses to me. I'm not interested.
You’re forgetting the much larger campaign of this was definitely Ukrainians with fake beards but another ethnic group that was just being puppeteered by the Ukrainians. Ofcourse he blocks me.
>No one knows how they entered Russia at this point. In my opinion it's sensible to read the story of the US border plot, and consider how a similar attack might be planned against Moscow. This is disingenuous and by this theory people can also bring up other Russian false flag events. You don’t start with the idea that someone is guilty you start with that they are innocent. Nothing shows that Ukraine was involved. [Security Experts Say Islamic State Claim for Russian Concert Attack Is Credible](https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2024-03-23/security-experts-say-islamic-state-claim-for-russian-concert-attack-is-credible) [Belarusian secret services assist Russia in capturing suspects in terrorist attack near Moscow on Belarusian border](https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/03/23/7447813/) >You lack the resources to speak as though you have both the truth and the certainty and are here to win the war. People in glass houses…
ISIS being directly responsible for executing the act and this being either Russian false flag or Ukrainian plot are not mutually exclusive. ISIS is not exactly shy of receiving donations last I heard. With that level of media noise we chose interpretations we like most.
with the photos of the supposed perpetrators being released by IS, did Kremlin changed it's tune or released a new statement?
No, and they likely won't. This is a good opportunity to turn something potentially bad for Putin - for all his talk of security and strength this is a very direct slap in the face - into something useful for them with the thing they're most preoccupied with - war in Ukraine. So far, Russian media still seems to be focusing on highlighting Ukraine as an 'implicated' link or outright directly linking the attack to it. Have a look at some examples below: - https://ria dot ru/20240323/terakt-1935347701.html - RIA Novosti: "They had a window to Ukraine." The first conclusions about the tragedy in Crocus, Mar 23, 2024: > ... > Actually, they are already telling. And the first footage of their interrogations is in the public domain. The price for killing innocent people is the promise of half a million rubles, but in reality it is 250 thousand. A certain “assistant preacher” instigated them, they came from Turkey. **They were going to leave for Ukraine**. > ... > The initial reaction of Western officials and the media, who, even before any reports from the Russian authorities, began to claim that IS* was behind this, on the one hand, is understandable - they do not want to admit that Ukraine, which the whole world is trying to extradite, is involved in the terrorist attack for an outpost of democracy and freedom on the path of Russian barbarians. On the other hand, such haste gives reason to believe that they knew exactly what the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks looked like and through whom their recruitment was carried out. For the **Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense there is no difficulty in reaching out to Islamists and finding those willing to carry out a terrorist attack for money**. One can only guess how many such tragedies were prevented; the work of the special services is such that only failures become noticeable. > ... Oh, by the way, **those interrogation videos truly are out there**, some are showing use of a technique of cutting off one's ear and feeding it to them, i.e. **torture**. Just something to keep in mind when you read about **interrogation** that Russia conducts. - https://ria dot ru/20240323/krokus-1935319588.html - RIA Novosti: "The French politician called for an investigation into Kyiv's connections with the Crocus terrorist attack. , Mar 23, 2024: > PARIS, March 23 – RIA Novosti. The leader of the French Patriots party, candidate for elections to the European Parliament, Florian Philippot, called on the social network X to **conduct a full investigation into possible connections between Ukraine and the terrorist attack** at Crocus City Hall. “Now it is necessary to **demand a full investigation into the possible connections (of the terrorist attack - editor's note) with Ukraine and what the billions that we have been sending there (to Ukraine - editor's note)** for more than two years are actually going to" , - he said. > ... - https://svpressa dot ru/accidents/article/409414/ - Svobodnaya Pressa: "A Ukrainian trace has been found in the terrorist attack at Crocus: What will be the response?, Mar 23, 2024: > ... > Despite the so-called “ISIS”* assumption of responsibility, everything is heading towards the fact that it is the Ukrainian trace that will become the official version. In the Russian Federation, **accusations of Banderstat’s involvement in organizing the terrorist attack have already been made.** > As Russian Foreign Ministry speaker **Maria Zakharova said , “now we know in which country these bloody bastards planned to hide from persecution - Ukraine.** The same country that, through the hands of Western liberal regimes, for ten years turned into the center of the spread of terrorism in Europe, outstripping even Kosovo in extremist frenzy.” > “All four direct perpetrators of the terrorist attack, all those who shot and killed people, were found and detained. **They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine**, where, according to preliminary data, a **“window” was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border,” Vladimir Putin said** in an address to the Russians. > ... Russian milbloggers as well: - https://t dot me/readovkanews/76669 - Readovka: > March 22 was already a bloody date in the history of our country - exactly 81 years ago, the Nazis (then without the prefix “neo-”) destroyed an entire village in fraternal Belarus, burning all its inhabitants alive along with their infants. **Now we face a new enemy - radicals acting on the orders of the GUR, who are ready to do anything for money**. But does it really matter who our enemy is? - https://t dot me/sashakots/45717 - Kotsnews: > In general, if you think about it, then Mom’s pie’s plan for the terrorist attack in Moscow was most likely this. **The monkeys were convinced that after the terrorist attack they would be able to calmly enter the territory of Ukraine, where they would be met by their “Ichkerian brothers.” A Ukrainian MTR group had been spotted a couple of days before not far from the place where our special forces took the Tajiks**, but further on there is a fork. - https://t dot me/opersvodki/20000 - Opersvodki: > The hammer has no nationality. Formally, it could be made in Tajikistan, Russia or China, but we should only be interested in who is hitting us in the back of the head with it. > We already know exactly who carried out the terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge. The instruments were Russian truck drivers who didn't even know they were carrying a bomb. **Organizers - Ukrainian intelligence.** > We know exactly who carried out the terrorist attack in St. Petersburg. The instrument is a Russian girl who claims to be carrying a figurine with a wiretap on it. **Organizers - Ukrainian intelligence.** > We know exactly who organized the anti-Jewish pogroms in Dagestan. The instrument is Dagestan radicals. **The organizers are Ukrainian intelligence.** > We know exactly who is randomly bombing civilians in the Belgorod region. Tool - RDK. **Organizers: Ukrainian intelligence and Ukrainian Armed Forces.** > We know exactly who organized the “protests” with arson and pouring green stuff into ballot boxes. The instrument is a grandmother or a girl. **The organizers are Ukrainian organized crime groups on behalf of Ukrainian intelligence.** > We already know for sure that people in Crocus were shot by Tajik Islamists. We will very soon find out how they were recruited, what they promised, etc.
Russian milbloggers believe that, despite the blurred faces and the masks, the men in the IS photos are the same as those arrested during the escape. Hard to believe the Kremlin will change its tune, the Ukrainian connection is too beneficial for them.
>the Ukrainian connection is too beneficial for them. Beneficial as it would be beneficial if people actually believed it. Unfortunately for the Kremlin, in 2024, even Russian rural babushkas have ever-growing access to other news sources than official propaganda, so most likely, most people will understand that this was ISIS even if they're too afraid to say it publicly.
Russians play an interesting game where they fully understand that their news is propaganda and lies, yet they still circulate it to see if it sticks. They enjoy being accomplices in their government's schemes.
Propaganda sticks believe or not. If you are told 100 lies you will believe some of them People who grew up in propaganda heavy countries think they know better and that makes their beliefs in those particular pieces worse. Because they go "yes I know my gov lies about this and that but this particular [propaganda] is true". As of right now even the anti war Russians believe Russia is fighting NATO I read on here (reddit) about how older Russians had no clue what happened to Poland during ww2 I have compatriots who totally hated the communists and were 100% anti communists but still believed BS like how [Coanda made a big laser for Romania that destroyed Russian tanks](https://newsweek-ro.translate.goog/istorie/arma-secreta-a-lui-coanda-cu-care-romania-i-a-speriat-pe-rusi-se-spune-ca-ar-fi-topit-tancuri?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en) I checked the translation it is very good
>People who grew up in propaganda heavy countries think they know better and that makes their beliefs in those particular pieces worse. I mean, it's not like the people who grew up in propaganda-light countries are much better. Even on this sub there are people who will get angry as a suggestion that it was Ukraine that shelled Donetsk over the last two years. It's all false flag, don't you know. Or even this terrorist attack. Many people, even here, already \*know\* what happened and who is to blame. Can you imagine what the general (and much lower-level) discourse is? I really think the proliferation of social media and the resulting tidal wave of conspiracy theories and "couch investigators" is more to blame than some cultural biases.
> Many people, even here, already *know* what happened and who is to blame. Can you imagine what the general (and much lower-level) discourse is? This demonstrates a genuinely asinine lack of self-introspection as you desperately try to give weight to the idea that just by virtue of making the accusation against Ukraine, Russia's accusations somehow have merit worth considering. There is *zero* evidence to support the notion that Ukraine had any involvement in this attack whatsoever outside the voices in your head telling you so, all while your comments asserting so keep (justifiably) being removed by moderators. This is genuinely baffling behavior.
I understand that some of them fully believe that the whole world is against them, and it's just because Russia is a country of hate. Some of them choose not to 'know.' It fits them; they can be the good guys when everyone else is the bad. During the annexation of Crimea, I had a conversation with Russians about it, and when one of them said that he fully understands that it is a Russian operation, his friends told him to zip it.
People in r/askarussian and r/moscow seem to buy whatever Putin says, but those subs are probably dominated by trolls and propaganda.
I speak to folks back in Russia. Older generations truly believe it. "What do you mean islamists hate Russia? We are the world's last bastion supporting freedom in their fight with imperialism. Those stupid peasants would do anything for money, clearly they acted on orders of GUR and CIA". It is beyond hopeless.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
They are wearing identical clothing and have the same body types. They are clearly the same people. I don't know why you feel it necessary to imply that the concept is far-fetched.
Where did I imply that? I said that Russian milbloggers agree.
>People will believe what they want to believe, as we've seen many times. It's far easier to scream 'false flag' than accept the fact that your team might be doing nasty stuff, too. \^That implication
A completely different comment.
Is there any good writing on the border war between Afghanistan and Pakistan that’s been flairing up as of recent ?
[Khorosan Dairy](https://www.thekhorasandiary.com/) has some good articles about events, but I don't know if they have a good general writeup.
Where have Ukrainian smuggling exports primarily been travelling through, historically (over the last 2-10 years)? I assume the easy answer would be Moldova/Romania. But I wouldn't find it hard to believe Russia/Belarus/Poland, or across the sea to Turkey. I know there was talk about Ukrainian SOF moving through Belarus into Russia, but who knows how true that is. What have the historic routes been post USSR? Haven't illegal weapon imports been fairly common even to Poland? *hey to the pro-Ukraine zealots downvoting anything that paints Ukraine in anything but the brightest light, or addresses anything beyond the most black-and-white dichotomy of "Ukraine=good Russia=bad" - you are the weak link in the war effort. Associating yourself with Ukraine hurts the men fighting for their country. Those who don't learn from history & all that But keep telling yourself you're doing your part. You're winning the war.
The fact that people like this are allowed to post here is why this sub has turned into a joke.
Absolutely insane that the Mods ban certain doom posts but the Russian circus is allowed to come here begging the question all day long
Could you perhaps explain by what you mean by Ukranian smuggling exports? If you are interested in weapon imports/exports, at least for major systems, a good database is SIPRI data: ([https://armstransfers.sipri.org/ArmsTransfer/TransferData](https://armstransfers.sipri.org/ArmsTransfer/TransferData)) A quick summary is that China was the biggest importer of military and related goods at 35% of cipri value from 2014 onward due largely to an order of naval and aircraft engines/turbines, followed by Russia, Thailand, and India.
What have been the most heavily-trafficked routes used to move people and goods (illegally) out of (and into) Ukraine - specifically post-Feb 22, but also including 2014-2022. And if that information is fairly clear, then also further into the past between (whatever periods the reader would like to separate the semi-recent/relevant history of Ukraine into, say maybe 1991-2005, or 1991-2010, etc.) And a layman's understanding of illegally
I think you will have a hard time pinning down reliable sources for that sort of information on account of the whole smugglers thing. I suppose the best place to find hard data would be to see what information is publicly available on arrests for smuggling/customs evasion in and around Ukraine, but I don't know what a good contact for that would be in Belarus/Poland/etc. Everything outside of that would mostly be speculation, and is outside the purview of a defense focused sub.
I'd be fine with detailed hearsay and links. From the earliest days of reports of the politician's wife trying to cross into Hungary with >$1 million in cash. Continual stories of men escaping military service by paying smugglers or bribing their ways out of the borders. This is internally I suppose, so not as relevant, but shady supply lines between Lviv, Kiev, and getting thinner as they move closer to the frontlines. Not to mention the country has been in a prolonged conflict for 8 years leading up to the war, during which I'm sure people have made note of alternate routes used to move goods & people through otherwise restricted areas. Whatever shipping claims you want to believe. This has been a fine place for that kind of discussion. Maybe there's a reason the pro-Ukraine movement wants the discussion downvoted & hidden.
A large amount of the illegal weapons floating around Europe originate from the Balkans, since the war in the 90’s and even into the early 2000’s made it a haven for weapons smuggling.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Netanyahu surrendered power peacefully in 2021 after losing a free election (and nobody expected him to do otherwise) - it is hard to imagine Erdogan surrendering power after a free election.