The Kremlin has apparently had enough of various milbloggers complaining about the performance of the Russian army (translation of telegram post in the replies to linked tweet, but basically a bunch of prominent milbloggers are under investigation for Discrediting the Russian Armed Forces):
I am somewhat sad about this. A lot of the best timely information about recent rapid Ukrainian advances came from people like Rybar and Wargonzo. The Ukrainians tend to have much better op sec and don’t report on things until they’re more fait accomplis.
Doubtful. They’ve been doing that all along and no one has cared until now. More likely it’s because they’ve become very critical of Shoigu, MoD, and other senior armed forces leadership, preferring the leadership of guys like Kadyrov (Chechens) and Prigozhin (Wagner) with their private armies. There’s very likely internal fighting between these semi-private actors, the MoD, and possibly the FSB in a third corner. I’m seeing speculation from people who know a lot more about Russian affairs than I that this is a move by the military establishment in that tussle.
Characters, not words. Twitter has a 280-character limit. One day, we’ll learn to speak entirely in emojis so as to pack as much information into a single tweet as possible.
Tweet saying “not seeing any rebar” is mostly indication of blindness? There is clearly rebar running horizontally behind the obnoxious watermark, and vertically roughly in line with each edge of the steel structure above. This pedestal is utterly fucked, of course, and needs to be removed and replaced, but there seems to be a wealth of Twitter structural engineers these days. No doubt they all had recent stays in a Holiday Inn Express.
Yeah, I see what you’re seeing there. I’m more interested in what appears to be major cavities and fracture lines in the 'crete. All the rebar in the world won’t help badly poured concrete.
It’s unlikely to ever be targeted by Ukrainian artillery. It’s 150km from any part of Ukraine outside Crimea, and even most of Crimea is a long way from the bridge. Most likely if the Ukrainians get into artillery range it’s because the Russians have completely withdrawn from the peninsula. At that point if they want to bring the bridge down they’d use demolition charges rather than wasting shells on it.
Dangerous ground, to be shooting at Belgorod – assuming the Russian propaganda machine hit a bump and actually said a true thing. No casualties reported, AIUI.
It’s fun to be snarky about Russian incompetence. But it’s also dangerous to underestimate your enemy.
The bridge has been standing for 7 years carrying its full load with no problems. If it had no rebar (a physical impossibility) it would have collapsed under its own weight during the process of construction… If it has badly poured concrete, it may have developed cracks collapsed maybe 10 or 20 years from now, who knows.
But it seems to be a perfectly good , well-engineered and well-constructed project, which does what it was designed to do. The engineers didn’t design it to withstand a massive explosion combined with burning fuel tankers.
Yes, Russia has been amazingly incompetent in handling this war. But not everything in Russia is inferior. Some of their technology is very good. And that may include all those thousands of nuclear devices.
Let’s not forget that.
