that is the curse of huge countries … once you get past the entrance barrier … there is basically nothing there to stop you (assuming you keep it under the civil-radar) as everything is spread so thinly…
Mathias Rust comes to mind (german kid who landed on the red-square in the 80ies with a cessna (with 50 hours of flying experience)
Interesting article about the war and various strategies. The Kerch Bridge continues to be a key target because it supplies Russia’s troops in Ukraine.
Link ‘No choice’: Ukraine eyes Kerch bridge in Crimea for drone attack | Ukraine | The Guardian
Even during the mighty USSR days there was that guy who landed his uninvited light plane almost in Red Square.
Which was the paragraph right after the one you quoted.
Wish I’d noticed it. I remembered his first name as Stefan for some reason and got no hits. I had to put red square airplane german into Google to find him.
The volunteers have impressive skills. Russia has dedicated cyber teams. I wouldn’t want to draw their attention. One Fist isn’t hiding. The article said they post on social media.
Ukraine needs this help.
Here is an article about the converted light aircraft Ukraine is using as drones.
@DWMarch called it in the other thread.
Ukraine’s drone attacks have borne more fruit: six Russian planes have allegedly been destroyed, and others damaged.
@Love_Rhombus’s bbc cite includes video of the earlier lightlplane strike mentioned by @Johnny_L.A just above.
In it, it sure looks like the plane overflies the building and then detonates before ground impact in the courtyard between buildings. Which seems to have resulted in a lot of broken windows and little else.
Cool tech, but not much real damage.
Drones attacking a lot of Russian airbases last night. All claims unconfirmed so far, but this one regarding Engels if true is potentially big news. Tu-95’s are the delivery mechanism for a lot of air-launched cruise missile attacks, and are not easily replaced given they’ve been out of production for ages. You may think of them as roughly in the same class as US B-52’s.
Note: for reasons unclear to me, the plane in the photo is a Tu-22, not a Tu-95. Tu-22 are also strategic bombers, more analogous to B-1B’s.
Tu-95:
The Russians are beginning a Spring counter offensive.
There’s no need to link. Look at the last week of postings from Dennys and Suchomimus. They’ve posted video of Ukrainians attacking and stopping small columns of tanks.
Now a major attempt to retake Kharkiv is expected within a couple weeks.
That would buy a lot of ammo for sure.
Haven’t seen this anywhere else:
Ukraine needs better air defense. They just lost a power plant that supplied three regions.
This came sooner than I expected. The supply shortages are acute and getting worse.
This assessment comes from General Sir Richard Barrons, former commander of the UK’s Joint Forces Command. It seems well thought out.
FPV drones really do seem to rule the battlefield. Check out this russian tank. Covered in what appears to be roofing sheet metal and festooned with EW systems.
…Is it trying to camouflage itself as a shed?
It appears to look like it could work for just that.