Actually it was built by a Russian company owned, of course, by a Putin friend.
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
Only one lane is open so it is "one lane interrupted" and last information I saw it was taking over 12 hrs to transit, which was still faster than the ferries. Last I saw there were no trains running. It still looks like it was cheaply built, IMO.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Air pressure on Venus would crush not only the humans, but even the robots.
Germany has delivered the first of the four new IRIS-T SLM advanced air defense systems to Ukraine.
Ukraine hat deutsches Luftabwehrsystem erhalten IRIS-T
Ukraine hat deutsches Luftabwehrsystem erhalten IRIS-T
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Look at that. The Germans CAN move fast, when they put their mind to it.
Shhhhh... don't tell the politicians. "It's OK to open the hatch now, Mr Putin."
That's inaccurate, Turkish is in the Turkic languages group. Uralic and Turkic have their own distinct proto languages, and any convergence prior to that would be beyond speculative.
Poland knows that as well as anyone.
So...this might be dramatic and controversial: in 20 years, if humans survive climate change...
...who's the person and team most responsible for pushing it along?
a. Musk for starting and running Tesla + SpaceX
b. Obama for Paris Climate Accord
c. US + Europe for reaction to the Ukraine War and end of oil&gas
...who's the person and team most responsible for pushing it along?
a. Musk for starting and running Tesla + SpaceX
b. Obama for Paris Climate Accord
c. US + Europe for reaction to the Ukraine War and end of oil&gas
The Estonian mindset on this conflict is simple - anything that can be done to diminish Russian military and economic capabilities is in the service of national (existential) security. That means a Euro spent to help Ukraine destroy Russian tanks, planes, and missiles, is one that has been spent well.For those of us who might not know, Finland and Estonia share deep bonds, not least because of shared language:
Their common roots are Uralic, shared with Hungarian, although Finnish and Estonian stem from Proto-Finnic. Those ties couple with Estonia's superb educational system:
How Similar Are Finnish and Estonian?
Finland and Estonia are situated a mere 80 km apart from each other across the Gulf of Finland. The languages of these two countries, Finnish and Estonian, were the same language (Late Proto Finni…langfocus.com
For reference much of Estonian talent has produced very substantial direct benefits for Ukraine, Finland and also such things as Skype, telecommunications technologies and cryptology.
The cooperation between Finland and Estonia has been deepening as they both have historically close, not always pleasant, relationships with Russia.
In my own opinion the current events are producing even tighter cooperation than was historically the case because Finland applied to join Nato. The two share historically porous borders with Russia. Of course Sweden and Norway have those borders too, but they are not so tight,
Estonia does have a very large ethnic Russian community that used to have difficulty assimilating. That seems to be changing:
The Russian aggression has been alienating ethnic Russians in unexpected ways. That will be a threat to Putin's rule since similar changes on outlook seem to have been happening with ethnic Russian in the other Baltics, and even in Georgia and Moldova.
Another consequence, if rumors are accurate, is that the opposition in Belarus is growing rapidly as Lukashenko ties himself more closely than ever with Putin. If those rumors are indicative we'll see some interesting sabotage as Russia/Belarus joint operations expand.
All this is pointing towards much increased guerrilla-style operations against Russia/Belarus military cooperation.
This logic depends very much on the capabilities of Finland and Estonia both of which as small and underestimated, but with very deep understanding of Russia and total determination to stop Russian expansionism. Their tools are intellectual power and extensive understanding of the enemy.
I would very much like to know the point of view from @petit_bateau and @wdolson and others who know these countries. I have worked in both and have very high respect for their abilities, but their shared exceedingly laconic habits make inferences tricky.
On understanding Russia and the Russian ruling class, we do have some experience. Even in the 90s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the west took a collective sigh of relief and lost focus on Russia, Russian statesmen continued to hold on to imperialist ambitions and kept harassing the formerly occupied countries. They didn't want to pull out the old soviet forces still based in the countries for years, they kept talking about reconquering the "lost" territories, blackmailed us with gas, and never apologized for or even acknowledged to this day the illegal annexation and decades of crimes against humanity, instead branding us little nazis. So none of what's happening with Ukraine is new to us or a surprise.
Our first president after regaining independence gave a prescient speech in 1994 in Hamburg that gives some colour to this. Famously the then deputy mayor of Saint Petersburg stormed out of the room during the speech, slamming the large doors of the hall behind him. He is now the war criminal in chief of Russia, V.V.Putin himself.
Finns of course escaped occupation by taking on the Soviet Union twice in combat and prevailing both times. The Baltic states on the other hand bent to the overwhelming threat and were quickly and without a shot fired swallowed by the terroristic beast, using sham referenda as seen used now in Ukraine. A painful lesson we swore to never forget and resist with everything we have in the future.
Both Finland and Estonia are covered in forests and have limited strategic depth in contrast to Ukraine's endless open steppes, so the defence and fighting doctrines are very different. What we do have is a single minded aim in intelligence gathering with regard to Russia, and we do share with Ukraine extensively.
For current commentary and the Estonian position it's worth listening to and reading our prime minister Kaja Kallas, as she quite aptly expresses what is important to keep in mind when dealing with Russian "negotiations" and bluster. There's also an excellent Twitter presence for both Estonian and Finnish experts in various subject matters pertaining to Russia and the war.
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FWIW, the Uralic group today is primarily in Turkish, Finnish and Estonian. There are minorities who have Uralic tongues in several Northern Russian jurisdictions and in Finnmark. For practical purposes we have been discussing it is really the close linguistic connection between Finnish and Estonian that matters; they are distinct languages, not dialects, but they are analogous to Castilian Spanish and Portuguese, that share enough that well educated people whose native tongue is one or the other can readily manage routine conversation in the other.
Still, the point from our perspective is that Finland and Estonia together will have greater impact in the present than they would have been expected to.
To be explicit, without violating any confidences, there is this:
Development and application of cryptography in the Estonian public and private sectors | IBS
The objective of the current research is to give an overview of...
www.ibs.ee
Finland has been working with Estonian researchers for decades. The most advanced parts are much easier to share within NATO. Generally the Estonian contributions have been credited to the non-Estonian clients. After all, they are a very small country.
My work there fit the mold pretty well. The foreign client never did acknowledge the Estonian role.
mekberg
Member
lolachampcar
Well-Known Member
Ok, please correct me if I am wrong but, if I am correct, that pilot was an idiot and got the Darwin Award.
It looked to me like it was a second pass over an ordnance drop where the pilot rolled inverted to see his previous drop. He literally got popped watching the damage he had just inflicted. It appears this way to me as opposed to some type of evasive maneuver as the pilot was not pulling G or trying to crank or notch the missile.
petit_bateau
Active Member
They did actually have to build it first .... and persuade the client (Egypt) to allow it to be diverted to Ukraine. And the next three. Even the Germans don't have one yet.
Heck operational testing of the medium range version (this one) was only completed a few months ago "Operational testing of IRIS-T SLM was completed in January 2022"
3 more of these coming next year as per Mattia Nelles (unclear source of timeline as not in his same referenced Der Spiegel article):
As for U.S.:
The United States has approved sending Ukraine a total of eight National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) so far, with two expected to be delivered soon and six more sent over a longer time frame.
U.S. expediting shipment of NASAMS air defenses to Ukraine -White House
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Elon says he spoke last year via video conference, not the implied claim that he spoke immediately before posting the poll. The dispute appears to be if there was another chat immediately before he posted the poll (or around the same time).
