I don’t think the powers that be in Russia care about that. Well, maybe they care to the extent that irradiating a lot of Russians might result in increased enlistment in the army and/or excuse to start using tactical nukes.
More likely the bomb is wired such that any attempt to defuse it will set it off, including moving toward it, so that the Russians can just GTHO of there, take cover, and then blame the Ukrainiansfor blowing up the plant – the rest of the world will roll their eyes, but Russians will eat it up.
As long as the Ukrainians don’t cut the red wire, they should be safe.
I thought it was the blue wire?
Oh shit!
yes, “owning” the UKR and “sticking it to the man” seems high on the agenda … once you know you wont win the war.
…If you are unable to win, at least make the others miserable as well …
that seems to be a Leitmotiv for Russian warfare
its the red wire and the blue pill …
I know you were all very concerned, but apparently it’s business as usual for Wagner in recruiting fighters.
I have listened to an interview with an Africa expert on German radio recently, and he said the Wagner group is needed by Russia because Wagner are entrenched in Mali and the Central African Republic with their deal of propping up the two governments and minerals in return.
That Ukrainian position didn’t last long. The troops crossed the river last week.
CNN live feed
I don’t know that I’d take the Russians’ word for that. They did hit the position with a missile - there’s video of the strike floating around. But I’ve seen no corroborating evidence that the Ukrainian position has been eliminated.
Who is going to confirm it? The Ukrainians are not interested in revealing the extent of their losses, and may prefer not to under-report them at this time (surprise the Russ with how weak they are not), and most of the rest of the world is not interested in bollixing up Ukraine’s strategies.
Russians posting triumphal videos of themselves occupying the contested position on social media, same as the way we’ve been confirming everything else about this war.
looks like some of the russian forces have been issued some really old rifles. I figured high tech weapons would be limited but AK’s are cheap to make and plentiful around the world.
also it looks like the elimination of the Ukrainian forces at the Antonovsky bridge is not true.
Any military historians want to give an estimate for how old those rifles would be?
Also, the two old rifles shown appear to be different models-- Would they use the same ammunition as each other, and/or as modern weapons? Russian logistics are strained enough without having to supply several different sizes of ammo.
No and sorta. The bolt action is a Mosin-Nagant. The other weapon looks like an RPK, which is an old model but still used by Russian Police. It fires the same round as the AK47, which isn’t the same round as the modern AK74M.
Old. Mosin-Nagant, the Russian equivalent to the Garand. They were produced into the early 1970’s in Russia and are still in some limited use as sniper rifles, including by Ukraine.
Russian equivalent to the Lee-Enfield, maybe. The Garand is semi-auto.
Mosin–Nagant rifle entered service in 1891.
That’s fair. I was thinking more in terms of a historical cognate than a technical one.
I think the point was that it was the primary infantry rifle of the Red Army during WWII.