Bizarre saga continues. Apparently this guy's now in the Russian navy up in the Arctic Circle.
Flyers goaltending prospect Ivan Fedotov, who reportedly was picked up by law enforcement in Russia last week ahead of a planned move to the U.S., is now at a remote military base in northern Russia, his agent told the AP.
www.espn.com
There is something political with this. Historically white Russians are able to get out of the draft quite easily. Sometimes they pay a bribe and that's it.
Looks like Russia has no shortage of artillery shells. I have read about the rifling in the barrels of their artillery probably wearing out, which will reduce accuracy, but I guess they are making up for it in volume.
I think they are running low now. They have been firing, on average 70,000 shells and rockets a day since the war started. That's vastly more than the entire world's production capacity by a large margin. They might be able to make 70,000 a month, but I doubt they even have that capacity.
A few weeks ago they completely stripped Belerus of all its artillery ammunition and they have been buying up all the artillery ammunition they can find in other countries. The dud rate for Russian artillery is around 30% and the Ukrainians have analyzed a lot of the duds. Many were made in the Soviet Union. There have also been stories of rockets and artillery shells falling short because the fuel or propellant is too old. I saw one video of a Grad where the rockets only flew a few hundred feet.
The Ukrainians have also found things like propaganda leaflet rounds with leaflets for the Chechen war.
On top of all these problems finding ammunition, the Ukrainians are blowing it up at their depots. They will probably try to set up new depots near the front, but when those get blown up too (Ukrainian recon of the rear areas is excellent and they knew where all the existing depots were when they got the HIMARS). Then the Russians will have to move their depots back beyond HIMARS range which will make the delivery trucks go much further to deliver their cargo. Instead of 3-4 round trips a day, the trucks will be making 1 trip every 2 days. And once Russian jamming and AA is reduced, the Ukrainians will be hunting individual supply trucks with their artillery guided by drones.
The Russian supply truck quantity was small before the war. They failed in the north because they got too far from the rail lines and didn't have enough trucks. They refocused on Donbas in large part because the rail network there is very dense and they could run the trains very close to the artillery batteries. But if all their supplies get blown up shortly after being dropped by a train, they are back to trucks running long distances.
The roads are now littered with debris which is bad for tires. Their surviving military trucks have been in constant use for 4 months now and are wearing out (combat increases wear on trucks 10-20X normal). They have pressed civilian trucks into use, but those are wearing out too. They are going to face a tire shortage soon with all the extra Km on the trucks over roads covered in debris. The Ukrainians will probably be helping that along dumping more debris on the roads when they don't have good targets to shoot at. The Ukrainians can also take out bridges to slow things down further.
Seems to me that Ukraine needs a lot more heavy artillery...
Russian artillery is very inaccurate. i watched a video of a Russian rocket barrage from a drone. The rockets were scattered all over a hillside. Out of ~100 rockets, only a couple got near the vehicle they were aiming for. NATO artillery gets within 5 m of the target 90% of the time. They don't need that many shells and rockets to be even more effective than the Russian artillery.
Yeah. And whatever genius thought the 4 HIMARS was a good idea . . . idiot needs to move the decimal. 40, minimum, for starters.
HIMARS are a logistical nightmare. They are the most supply intensive weapons systems in the US inventory. Sending a lot of launchers before a safe supply chain for the rockets was set up would have meant a bunch of idle HIMARS.
The Ukrainians have set up a system for the HIMARS that is like a drug operation. They have drop off spots designated. The truck drops off HIMAR pods without the HIMARS around, then goes back to the depot. Then the HIMARS comes in and picks up what it needs. Only a few pods are left in any spot and no spot is used more than once.
The Ukrainians are keeping the Russians guessing wildly about where the HIMARS are.
Anther Oligarch suicide in 'the land' of Putler. Or was it?...
Voronov's wife reportedly told police that the founder and general director of the Astra-Shipping transport and logistics company had fallen out with business partners over money.
www.newsweek.com
It's basically the mafia, Russian style.
www.hardwo.com
www.ibtimes.com
www.theguardian.com
