Segal has been fanboying for Russia for like 20 years now, this is completely expected.
I knew he was a Russian apologist for a long time. But flat-out producing state Russian propaganda, claiming that Russian war crimes were actually done by Ukraine, seems like a couple steps beyond what he’s done before.
Russia won the Battle of Stalingrad by absolutely refusing to surrender. Freezing cold, starvation, shelling for most of the winter would have caused most governments to give up. Stalin even had farmers fields burned and let Russians starve because the Germans starved too.
Putin is the same way. He just denies how many are dying. I’ve read the military has mobile incinerators to burn soldiers bodies. Cover up some of the casualties.
That’s why Ukraine needs more offensive weapons. Russian troops won’t withdraw from occupied territory unless they are totally defeated. Imho Ukraine may win some battles but that won’t get their cities back.
Russia has been attempting to use counter-battery radar to find HIMARS launching sites and launch artillery at those sites before the HIMARS can scoot. Basically, the Russian radar picks up the Ukraine rocket in the air. A computer linked to the radar analyses it’s flight path and calculates where it was launched from, providing a grid coordinate. A radar operator then calls in a fire mission to an artillery battery, or even a ground attack aircraft, to blow up the HIMARS unit. Theoretically, if everything’s working right and all involved are ready, the Russian counter-battery fire can be launched before the rounds from the initial Ukrainian attack have hit the ground.
But the radar needed to detect the rockets sends out a very big signal. So either it’s used sporadically, it’s used as part of a network of radars that are switching on and off and moving around, or it’s vulnerable to detection. Point detection can be ground based via triangulation if there are observation points with altitude, or aircraft based. When that happens, conventional artillery can be used to go after the radar. (The radar can also calculate probable strike sites for the enemy fire, which would make things interesting if it was incoming on the radar, depending on how far dispersed it was from the operator’s box.) However, the location of the radar may only be approximate, or it could be simply directional. Anti-radiation (radar) missiles are useful in those situations in that they will detect the radar while airborne and then home in on the radar signal.
Counter-battery radar can be extremely effective. Your enemy’s counter-battery radar is definitely something you want to kill if you’re an artillery commander.
Here’s a Forbes article on counter-battery radar.
By the way, in the brief reading of links I’ve just done, I’ve not seen anything about a ground-to-ground anti-radar rocket. It certainly seems feasible, but a quick google check doesn’t come up with anything.
New BBC article:
Ukraine bureau chief for The Washington Post:
The nice thing is it doesn’t even matter if that article is true.
It makes sense to attack the planes on the ground. Russia has been firing missiles from within Russian and Belarus airspace.
It would be a bigger provocation to shoot the planes down and kill the air crews.
picked up an interesting thought on twitter:
there was sabotage’d ordinance infiltrated into the stockpiles - and it was set to go off (and take a lot of stuff with it) … this is the reason why nobody seemed to have seen 2 big-ass rockets/cruise missiles flying at 3.20pm during daytime over the krim peninsula
does pass my personal smell test … as it is a very low tech/low key way of accomplishing things while everybody is searching for the new secret super-weapon of ukr.
again - pure speculation … but would fit the ukr. “smartness” they have shown so far
Heh. I just thought of the cigarette and the matchbook in Stalag 17 (1953).
It’s a reddit video in Russian showing the mighty S-400 missile systems guarding the Kerch bridge in Crimea. 
They’re ready for Operation Bouncy Castle.
… and mostly importantly - at least claimed in twitterspace - not only the hardware, but also some 60 or so pilots neutralized
Whether killing air crews are a provocation factored into this attack not one iota.
Exactly. “provocation”? What’s Russia going to do? Finally admit they’re at war?
AFAIK Russia hasn’t lost any aircraft flying inside Russia or Belarus. They use that air space to fire cruise missiles deep into Ukraine and go home.
It seems like small teams of men could position themselves to shoot down the planes as they take off. They’re more vulnerable and at lower altitudes. The men probably wouldn’t survive many missions. Depends on taking Russian ground forces by surprise. They probably feel safe and over confident inside Russia.
I hope it’s true Ukraine found a way to attack a airfield in Crimea.
Operation Bouncy Castle will fail if not followed quickly by Operation Hot Tub Party.
I mean, why not? The front line is massively long, and I’m guessing that it’s highly porous. It should be quite easy for small teams of infantry to conduct raids deep into enemy territory, if they have the proper training for it.
Thanks for the link
Sounds strictly worse than back in the good old days of Stalin…