Russia is offering to freeze the sperm of the troops they’re sending to war.
Asterisk and fine print: “By cryobank, we mean a ditch alongside the approach to Kyiv, and the freezing will be a natural consequence of winter, occurring after your death.”
Some first-person kamikaze drone footage:
(Video quality better at source)
There are also third-person videos of kamikaze drones used against human targets, which I won’t post here.
Looks like the ill-fated late fall/early winter Russian offensive on Bakhmut may have reached culmination. Too bad, Vlad.
Russia Running Out of Troops in Battle for Bakhmut, Battalions Split Up—ISW (msn.com)
Unconfirmed - 2 additional NASAM systems have been delivered to Ukraine. If true, they’d be from Middle Eastern countries (Oman Qatar) as Raytheon production is still ramping up. Reports are the two currently in country are very accurate. The missile generally used, AIM-120, has no supply problems.
Why wait to get to the front?
Daily Beast 28-Dec 2022
Drunk Russian Soldier Beats His Commander to Death
- A Russian man called up under Vladimir Putin’s “mobilization” order for the war against Ukraine drunkenly beat his commander to death on a military train.
Yet another prominent Russian has died mysteriously. General Alexei Maslov died the day after Putin cancelled a planned visit to the tank factory he was in charge of.
Has anyone seen any news about cargo ships sinking? AFAIK the grain treaty has not been broken.
What cargo ship losses?
Cite Insurers end war-risk cover for shipping across Russia, Ukraine and Belarus | Insurance industry | The Guardian
Since that’s more of a deity thing, I would settle for returning the children he stole.
And paying reparations to UKN of course. Every last dime to fix the damage.
Anyone catch Paul’s video yesterday about the mass desertion that recently took place?
Mobilized Russian Troops REFUSE Orders, Leave Base! - YouTube
‘Mass’ is of course a relative term, and one could easily dismiss this - as I’m sure Russia will - as some sort of isolated incident, but it seems the tempo and quantity of these isolated incidents are increasing since the mobilization was announced. Taken as a whole, there are a lot of cracks showing. Six months ago I would have dismissed the likelihood of a widespread Russian morale collapse as a fantasy, but the notion of a Ukrainian winter offensive successfully directed at a critical weak point triggering such an event, is suddenly not implausible.
The Kherson offensive was successful largely because the Russians had way too few men on the ground allocated in a critical part of the line, and they also allowed the Ukrainians to concentrate their mobile forces in the area unchallenged. Russia recognized what went wrong after the fact, hence the ‘partial mobilization’ call. For the time being, the mobilization has largely solved most of their manpower shortage issues but hasn’t solved their logistical or c & c problems. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a breakthrough occur in Luhansk some time in January.
More humanitarian aid is always needed.
Another Vlad propaganda fail as members of Ukraine’s hard-White-wing Azov Battalion are seen happily dancing with Jews.
I think the article missed the patriotic advertising blurb:
March 2023 headline:
“Mysterious Fire Destroys Cryogenic Storage Warehouse at Russian Military Base.”
Abe is the sausage KING. No one would dare. You come at the king, you best not miss.
> The Atlantic has an article about the number of Russian businessman deaths.
Here is a list of people you should not currently want to be: a Russian sausage tycoon, a Russian gas-industry executive, the editor in chief of a Russian tabloid, a Russian shipyard director, the head of a Russian ski resort, a Russian aviation official, or a Russian rail magnate. Anyone answering to such a description probably ought not stand near open windows, in almost any country, on almost every continent.
Its interesting that they are across the world. Wouldn’t think that would happen in America but clearly I was wrong!
There’s one thing the author of that article got wrong. It probably doesn’t matter whether the windows they are standing near are open or closed.
It is amusing to think these deaths signal something amiss in Russia, but has a statistical analysis been run to assess how unusual this number/manner of deaths has been? (Sorry, didn’t sign in to Atlantic.)
I’m thinking of those “Bible codes”, where if you conduct enough searches without sufficient parameters, you are bound to turn up some apparent patterns - which are, in fact, merely coincidences. How disproportionate is this rate of wealthy Russian accidental deaths compared to the years prior to 22?
It sure sounds like a lot of wealthy Russians falling out of windows,
numbers will be too small to get some meaningfull statistic statement from it …
you might be able to say something like “there is a 10 - 70% chance that the falls are not by chance, given a confidence intervall of 95%”
so kind of a DOH! statement