Was tempted to put this in the “Full Self Driving Cars” thread, but it fits better here: Full remote not driving at all by courtesy of Elon Musk!
If he can do this to Kadyrov he can do this to everyone, anytime.
It would have been better IMO to tell the Ucranians exactly where the truck (aka DepLorean) was moving along.
Admittedly, I squealed and giggled like my neighbor’s 3-year old when I saw that news.
Tripler
The phrase “Tee hee!” was also uttered amongst adults.
The Elephant in the room is obviously Tuesday, November 5.
Can’t say anything more here. Permission would be needed to open a thread in Politics. I’m willing to wait until after Nov 5 and see what happens in Ukraine.
Negotiations are still crucial. Plans for the near future need to start now. Missile stockpiles can be quietly positioned for quick delivery. Ukraine probably has targeting lists already prepared.
An interesting and mildly encouraging argument from a now-exiled Russian dissident on the potential instability of Putin’s hold on power.
He’s a historian, so he draws parallels with previous Russian regime failures, using them to argue that when Putin loses his grip, it will happen very, very suddenly, and, further, that such a collapse is more likely than Westerners seem to believe.
I’m sort of skeptical about his rosy view of Russia’s political future, to be honest. Historical analogues can be instructive, but they’re never perfect; every new situation is unique. On the other hand, he’s Russian, and I’m not; and he’s a historian, and I’m not.
In any case, I thought it was interesting and worth reading.
All dictatorships are brittle and live or die on the perception of solidity. Even if that’s mere wallpaper disguising an avalanche in progress backstage.
As a separate matter all Soviet-era men have short life expectancies compared to Westerners of the same age cohort.
Putin’s sell-by date is approaching. But what comes next is definitely not guaranteed to be better from our POV. Or that of the long-suffering Russian public.
Slovakia has decided it doesn’t want to buy 12 AH-1 Cobra helicopters after all and Ukraine is now interested in them.
Not everything is going according to plan for Russia’s military:
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russian-missile-failed-during-test-researchers-imagery-indicate-2024-09-23/
I hope the rest of their nukes are also quite obsolete and rusty.
Failure when testing a new design is much more likely than failure in an old and well tested design.
But as I understand it, they’ve put rockets of the new design into silos without any kind of significant testing. Previous rockets had been tested 20 or more times before being fielded. This one, they’re testing it after and it isn’t passing the tests.
I’m reminded of this guy:
Uh, what guy?
I’m a smidge surprised the newest Russian ICBM is liquid-fueled. I suppose they have valid design reasons, but solid fuel always seemed to be the more reliable option for systems that have to respond at seconds’ notice.
The Czech President is probably right, but it’s not helpful to express it publicly. 
Especially with President Zelensky in Washington trying to gain support for his plan to end the war.
Even Ukrainians are beginning to realize Washington isn’t willing to see Russia defeated. Some kind of negotiated compromise is required.
I was merely commenting on the idea that a failure of new missile during a test indicated that old well tested missiles might fail as well.
I don’t know if this is the right thread for this (hopefully its not a highjack) but from this article
Is it really a good idea to Tell Putin’s best friend your war plans?
This is specifically about the fighting in Ukraine, but since it is unclear when it was shot, I’m posting it here.
The Ukrainian drone drops a grenade near the injured man but fails to kill him.
Later, the drone returns to the trench to discover that the injured soldier has crawled away from the earth arch and is now lying on his back, begging to be spared.
The Ukrainian drone operator takes pity on the injured Russian soldier. The drone dumps its grenades onto the battlefield, flies back to base and then returns with a bottle of water and a note with instructions on how the injured Russian soldier can reach Ukrainian lines and safety.
The Russian soldier crosses himself and waves “thank you” to the Ukrainian drone operator before he gulps down the water.
The drone guides the Russian toward Ukrainian lines, where he surrenders and is roughly taken away.
Of course the new missile would fail because it was untested, while the old missile would fail (so I hope) because it was not properly serviced and the responsible technicians/officers/janitors/whoever-was-able-to took the money for maintenance and some bribery on top of that instead of fulfilling their duty.
Depends if you tell him the “real” plan or not…
Zelenskyy continues to surprise and impress me. Focusing on a just peace instead of defeating Russia is a good strategy.
I notice more confidence in his tone. The speeches he made in previous years were more focused on aid and Ukraine’s survival. Which was in jeopardy.
I believe Zelenskyy is projecting a position of strength. Ukraine has taken everything Putin can throw at them. Ukraine is stronger than ever. That’s the right position to negotiate a lasting peace.
Guardian live feed
They’ve done like three or four attacks on large arsenals over the past week. I heard that just one of those attacks took out 30,000 TONS of ammunition. That’s equal to one year of Russia’s munitions production during peacetime. I gather that the cumulative effect of the arsenal attacks is that they’ve deprived Russia of several months worth of ammo. My guess is this is going to have strategic implications. I bet for starters Russia’s big 2024 offensive grinds to a halt now.
The war is hurting Russia’s nuclear science, as CERN ends colaboration with Russian scientists.