Nah, doesn’t look like anything hinky, at least to me. I mean foreign interference hinky, anyway. Looks like a fire sparked in one production/storage area and firefighters were already on scene before it blew. Which doesn’t sound remotely like a drone strike. Munitions factories are just inherently dangerous places. I’d go with Occam’s Razor on this one - most likely just a random accident.
Yes, but how did that fire start? It’s not like there was ongoing production activity, since the plant was temporarily closed.
The Ukrainians have been attacking Russian munitions factories with drones, so it wouldn’t be at all surprising if the Russia decided to answer in kind.
Russia attacking Italy is a very different thing from Russia or Ukraine attacking one another.
True, but there’s been a Russian sabotage campaign in Europe for a while. Plus those drones at a German airport near the Ukrainian plane found recently. I would not be at all surprised at any Russian drone attacks in Europe these days.
So Russia is in the fifth year of its unsustainable war. Is either side visibly likely to falter within the next six months or so?
Russian oil production is getting hit in a way that wasn’t happening three or four years ago. Given the importance of their petroleum industry, I suspect something is going to have to happen in Russia sooner rather than later. i.e. I think Russia is going to blink soon.
On the other hand, blowing up is sort of an occupational hazard for munitions factories in general, even without enemy action.
Refineries, too.
The war is beginning to disrupt daily life in Moscow.
This report is light on facts. But it hints that the 3-day special military operation is getting personal for some of the “real” Russians—the ones that Putin cares about, and can’t ship out to die as canon fodder.
Also, Russians are pulling money out of their bank accounts for fear Putin will take the $$$ to fund the war.
Which will help all of squat if the currency is devalued (even more). ETA: “gold bugs” are usually wrong; but I would say not in Russia today.
If you can get delivery of specie.
Were I a Muscovite looking to trade roubles for gold I’d be really leery of anyone willing to take the other side of that trade.
By the time buying gold looks like a good deal, it’s too late to do so.
Funny how the ads for gold sales here in the USA track the price of gold. Gold high? Lotta ads that it’s time to buy. Gold low? Lotta ads to take that junk off your hands.
Putin says new Ukrainian strikes opened ‘Pandora’s box’
After eviscerating a score of the largest Blackberries warehouses, Ukraine is systematically moving on to the warehouses of number two Russian online retailer - Ozon. Putin responds that Ukraine has “opened Pandora’s box” by doing this and Russia will now go after civilian economic targets in Ukraine…as if they hadn’t been attempting to do that since the start of the war.
Oh, so NOW the gloves come off. Russia is going to get SERIOUS about this war. Up to now they’ve been fighting with one hand tied behind their back. I see. I’m sure Ukraine is now quaking in their boots and will promptly stop using drones to attack oil refineries and logistics warehouses.
It’s being reported that the director of the CIA travelled to Moscow for talks with, well, we don’t know who exactly he went to talk with. The plane flew from Riga in Latvia to Moscow.
My guess is whatever was discussed, it can’t be anything good for Ukraine.
I’d sooner suspect the topic had nothing to do with Ukraine and was about bad things planned for the USA. Both by the Russian regime and by the USA’s current criminal regime.
There was a time you’d never let a guy who knows all those secrets go to any potentially hostile country. Much less to our Main Enemy.
OTOH, since trump works for Putin, I guess we now all work for Putin. Even the CIA works for Putin.
Speculation I’m seeing is that Ratcliffe went to warn Russia off of attacking NATO. There have been a couple spook chiefs alluding to that possibility the past year or so, but it seems pretty unlikely to me. Militarily at least. Maybe they were planning a big escalation of covert ops and needed to be told NATO would stop paying lip service to deniability.
They could have saved a lot of taxpayer dollars and just had Trump warn Russia on social media. He could have said something moronic about tariffs.
Yes, yes. I see the flaw in my idea.