Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

Keep it real please, and use a VPN

The Future of Drone Tech: Long-Range Strikes

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Saturday, June 6, 2026 9:10 PM

Maybe gay boy will get lucky and he'll be right on this one. The only thing he's been right about in the last 5 years is that your stupid EVs weren't going to become a thing.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Sunday, June 7, 2026 5:39 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NATO allies weigh new €70B military aid pledge for Ukraine

Allies are currently discussing the new funding target, which would be announced as part of NATO’s Ankara summit next month.

https://www.politico.eu/article/nato-allies-weigh-new-e70b-military-ai
d-pledge-for-ukraine/

Allies are scrambling to shore up support for Ukraine more than four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion. The debate has gained fresh urgency as many experts say Kyiv is tilting the balance of the war in its favor.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, June 7, 2026 5:53 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Weekend Update #188: Ukraine Reaches Out And Touches Putin--Twice

Trump Is Helping Putin As Much As He Can

Phillips P. OBrien
Jun 07, 2026

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-188-ukraine-reac
hes

The other major story of the week revolves around the ever closer relationship between the US government and Russia. Though there was a great deal of comment about the vote in the US House on aid to Ukraine, this sadly is a non-event for now. The real story is how the Trump administration is reaching out to Putin more and more.

. . . Now this year’s forum [St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF)] was shaping up to be a truly weird one. On the one hand, world leaders were shunning the event. Only two eventually joined Putin on stage, the presidents of Uzbekistan and Tanzania. On the other hand, the Trump administration in its continuing efforts to reach out to Putin, sent a delegation led by Rodney Mims Cook Jr. who serves as the Chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and might best be described as a cut-price Albert Speer. He is one of the leading supporters of Trump’s hideous architectural plans which are threatening to deface Washington DC. This included the ludicrously grandiose new Ballroom and the proposed new victory arch, a favored memorial of empires throughout history.

There were other Americans at the SPIEF as well this year, such as fruitcake Candace Owens and alleged rapist Andrew Tate, so Trump was indeed represented officially and unofficially.

. . . Final point that needs to be understood by looking at the effectiveness of these Ukrainian long-range strike attacks is that the Ukrainians could have hit the Victory Day Parade, or at least major strategic targets in Moscow, on May 9. They have that ability now and Putin was wise to have Trump beg the Ukrainians not to attack. If the war is on next year the odds against any parade happening are rather high.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, June 7, 2026 6:47 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

“We consider it a good one”: Russian report outlines nuclear option if Ukraine conflict continues unchanged

By Jens Asbjørn Bøgen • June 4, 2026

https://www.dagens.com/war/we-consider-it-a-good-one-russian-report-ou
tlines-nuclear-option-if-ukraine-conflict-continues-unchanged

The report outlined a good, a bad, and a continued path for Russia’s future.

Two prominent Russian hardliners presented several future paths for the country at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, also known as “Putin’s Davos.”

According to the Russian business newspaper Kommersant, the presentation was made by Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, known for his affiliation with the Kremlin, and Alexander Dugin, an ultranationalist philosopher and ideologue known as “Putin’s brain” because of his influence on the Russian leader.

Before starting the presentation, Malofeev stated that “this is a scientific report prepared by a whole group of experts.” He then started the slideshow, which outlined a good, a bad, and a continued path for Russia’s future.

And one of the paths included a nuclear strike within the next decade.

A dangerous trajectory

The continuing path focused on what happens if the war in Ukraine simply keeps going at its current pace until 2036.

The outlook for this continuing track is explosive. According to the presentation slides, if the battlefield situation remains stuck in its current rut, Russia will ultimately use nuclear weapons.

“We don’t consider the use of nuclear weapons a ‘slow-fire’ scenario; we consider it a good one,” Malofeev declared.

The “good” and the “bad” scenarios

In the good scenario outlined in the presentation, Russia will have occupied most of Ukraine, including Kyiv, Odesa, and Kharkiv, by 2036.

This scenario also includes the collapse of the European Union.

The “bad” scenario outlined a Russian military defeat in Ukraine, which, according to the presentation, would lead to the “colonization of Russia” by 2050.
Walking a tightrope

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) suggests in its June 3 update on the war that these extreme ideas may actually serve a political purpose for the current government.

By allowing hardliners to voice such radical outcomes, the Kremlin can make President Vladimir Putin appear calm and moderate by comparison.

However, the think tank also suggests that the Russian government must walk a fine line. Putin relies heavily on the backing of these passionate hardliners to sustain the war effort. He cannot simply dismiss their radical demands without risking their crucial support.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, June 7, 2026 2:14 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

The Future of Drone Tech: Long-Range Strikes

There's a name for long- range drones. They're called missiles.

Here's the problem: the longer the range, the greater the fuel requirement, and the smaller the expolsive payload.

Really long range, loitering drones are useful for reconnaissance. Armed long range drones might be useful for small targets or assassinations,

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Sunday, June 7, 2026 3:04 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

The Future of Drone Tech: Long-Range Strikes

There's a name for long- range drones. They're called missiles.

Here's the problem: the longer the range, the greater the fuel requirement, and the smaller the expolsive payload.

Really long range, loitering drones are useful for reconnaissance. Armed long range drones might be useful for small targets or assassinations,

The FP-1 is NOT a missile. It is an airplane, with wings and a propeller and an internal combustion engine which breathes air, but is still long-range:

Ukraine’s drones got bigger warheads. A Russian corvette in the Baltic just found out.

The Fire Point FP-1 that struck Boikiy at Kronstadt on 3 June crossed 1,100 km to get there — and arrived with a heavier warhead than the model that started Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign.

By David Axe

06/06/2026

https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/06/fp-1-anti-ship/

The Fire Point FP-1 drone hit the corvette Boikiy. Overhead satellite imagery confirmed the strike, and a video from the adjacent pier made clear how bad the damage is. The 105-m corvette, one of the Baltic Fleet's frontline warships, "burned for hours," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter Mark Krutov noted.

The FP-1's design explains the heavy damage. "It seems that drone was carrying quite a substantial payload," Krutov mused.

It's true. Ukrainian drone-maker Fire Point has been tweaking the propeller-driven FP-1 to increase its explosive firepower, finally addressing a longstanding problem with Ukraine's deep strike drones. Fire Point claimed it produces 300 of the $50,000 FP-1s and similar FP-2s every day.

The first version of the FP-1 flew 1,000 km but, like many Ukrainian drones, carried a fairly small warhead weighing just 60 kg. The earliest FP-2s traded away fuel for explosive payload and thus struck with a 105-kg warhead, albeit at much shorter range.

It wasn't enough firepower to destroy the toughest targets. Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight blamed the "relatively small warhead size of certain Ukrainian drones" for the limited damage Ukrainian strikes inflicted on Russian refineries in 2024.

It was a serious problem but an understandable one. Ukrainian drone developers were focused on boosting the range of their drones in order to inflict some damage, even if modest, on the most distant Russian targets. "Given the long distances these drones must travel, increasing their warhead size would require adjustments to weight, fuel capacity and overall design," Frontelligence Insight explained.

With time, developers found a way to add firepower without sacrificing range. In March, Fire Point co-founder Denys Shtilerman told Army TV that the company had redesigned the FP-1 and FP-2, adding fuel tanks inside the wings in order to free up space for bigger warheads.

Now the FP-1 can strike with a 105-kg warhead. The short-range FP-2 now packs an impressive 158-kg warhead. It's not clear which variant hit Boikiy, but the heavier payload is consistent with the damage.

The FP-1 and FP-2 carry an OFB-60-type blast-fragmentation warhead, with a TNT main charge boosted by the more powerful OKFOL explosive. The combination delivers heavy fragmentation and blast effects on impact — designed to start fires and damage internal systems rather than punch cleanly through armor.

That's well-suited to anti-ship strikes. Modern warships aren't normally heavily armored above the waterline, and a blast-fragmentation warhead that ignites cable routes, ventilation channels, and the spaces between decks can do as much damage through the fire it starts as through the initial explosion.

Ukrainian defense outlet Defense Express, analyzing the strike, argued that the post-strike fire likely did more damage to the corvette than the warhead itself. Naval fires spread through cable runs, ventilation shafts, and the spaces between decks — reaching equipment well beyond the impact point. And in a dry dock, with watertight doors propped open for maintenance and automatic firefighting systems offline, the fire spreads further than it would at sea.

It's not clear that the drone that hit Boikiy inflicted maximal damage. But it inflicted enough to take the ship out of commission, possibly for good — and to demonstrate that the Baltic Fleet's home port is no longer beyond reach.

Fire Point FP-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Point_FP-1

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, June 7, 2026 5:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Maybe gay boy will get lucky and he'll be right on this one. The only thing he's been right about in the last 5 years is that your stupid EVs weren't going to become a thing.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

No reply to that one by either of you fags, huh?

C'mon, Second.

You spent two years insulting me over this issue.

How's that piece of shit Ford 150 Lightning treating you these days? I don't hear you talking much about it anymore.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Sunday, June 7, 2026 9:01 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Angry poor white trash and Russians don't buy EVs because trash mechanics can't reliably troubleshoot fuel injection. They barely understand carburetors. And certainly not EVs. But the car industry, except in the US and Russia, has adapted to change.

Global electric vehicle (EV) sales, which include both battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), exceeded 20 million units in 2025, representing roughly 25% of all new cars sold worldwide.

Industry trackers report the full-year totals as follows:

• Total Sales: Ranged between 20.7 million and 21.6 million units, representing a 20% growth over 2024.

• China: The dominant market with roughly 12.9 to 13 million units sold, accounting for over 60% of global volume.

• Europe: Approximately 4.3 million units sold, driven by a 33% increase in the market.

• North America: North American sales were sluggish at 1.8 million (down roughly 4%).

• Rest of World: While other emerging markets surged by over 40%.

How stupid are Russians? Electric vehicle (EV) sales in Russia are relatively small, totaling roughly 11,200 units across the year 2025, experiencing a slowdown of about 31% compared to the previous year. Overall, EVs make up less than 1% of the total Russian auto market, with the segment heavily dominated by domestic brands and Chinese imports.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, June 7, 2026 9:45 PM

Don't care about your numbers dude. Whether or not they're fake, they don't even begin to tell the whole picture.

They sold a bunch of shitty, underperforming cars that cost twice as much to insure as a regular car does. Nobody ever bothered building any new charging stations across the nation even though billions were spent on it. When the battery goes, that'll be $25,000 or more to replace.

And there's soon to be ZERO secondhand market. Zero.

Once the people who are left holding the bag when the car dies and is barely a decade old realize how badly they fucked themselves over, they will tell everyone they know about that. And nobody is going to be buying used EVs again once that starts to happen.

People are stupid. People are trendy. Buying EVs for most of these people wasn't any different than women buying ridiculously large Stanley cups because some dipshit influencers on the internet told them to buy it.

For everybody else NOT getting paid to shill all this shit, there's nothing but a lot of regrets over their vehicle purchase.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Monday, June 8, 2026 7:19 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Ukraine Is Not Losing. Russia Is Not Winning.

A momentum shift that changes everything

By Anne Applebaum | June 7, 2026, 8 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/06/ukraine-war-momentum-shift/6
87444/

In a field outside of Kyiv last weekend, a van was parked discreetly behind some trees. Inside the van there were no passenger seats, just a long desk, two office chairs, two laptops, extra screens. Outside appearances to the contrary, this was a mobile drone-interceptor base, one of hundreds of similar vehicles now scattered around Ukraine. It’s also part of something much bigger: a set of technological advances that have changed the war with Russia, and maybe all wars, forever.

On one of the laptops, a soldier showed me a bird’s-eye view of a part of the Ukrainian countryside more than 100 miles away. His job is to identify the objects flying above it, to distinguish birds and bats from lethal Russian drones. When he sees the latter, the soldier on the laptop beside him can then direct an interceptor—a small drone that looks like a miniature rocket ship—to track and destroy the incoming Russian aerial vehicles before they hit their targets.

At first glance, the images on the screens look simple, like a video game. But this is not a low-tech operation. The AI-powered drone interceptors are made possible by a complicated network of radar systems, acoustic sensors, and other tools that hundreds of large and small Ukrainian tech companies are creating and updating every day, using data they get directly from soldiers like the ones I met. Almost none of these companies existed four years ago. They have emerged from a tech-literate civil society whose members changed their professions or their focus to help defend their country. I have met Ukrainian defense-company CEOs who come from financial services, architecture, politics. I met another one last weekend who had returned just that day from the front line. He told me he finds it useful to learn how soldiers are using his products, and how they might be improved.

Other kinds of teams across the country are connected to this constantly improving information system too, and not just in vans. Last year I was in an underground room in Ukraine where dozens of people were monitoring hundreds of miles of the front line on a series of screens. The Ukrainian defense analyst Andriy Zagorodnyuk calls this system of drones, monitors, AI-powered navigation, battle-tested robots, and interconnected soldiers “networked situational awareness,” and it explains why perceptions of this war have suddenly changed.

Ukrainian military technology has been evolving rapidly since the first years of the war. But only now are outsiders—in Europe, the United States, the Persian Gulf, and of course Russia—beginning to understand what that evolution means. Since 2022, many public arguments about the war, even in Europe and the U.S., have adopted the narrative put out by Russian propaganda, tacitly assuming that Ukraine, outmanned and outgunned, would eventually lose. Helping Ukraine was a way to stave off disaster, nothing more. When the Trump administration stopped sending military and financial aid to Kyiv in 2025, some in Washington expected (and maybe wanted) the end to come quickly.

Instead, Europeans have provided money. Ukrainian society produced networked situational awareness. And when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky toured the Gulf states in late March and signed a series of security agreements, something changed in the international narrative. The leaders of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia were talking to Ukraine, not because they felt sorry for a war victim, but because they wanted to acquire drone interceptors like the ones I saw in action last weekend. Iranians use the same drone technology as the Russians, and the Ukrainians know better than anyone how to fight it.

The Gulf leaders are not alone: Suddenly, many people have understood that the Russian narrative is wrong: The Ukrainians are not losing. The Russians are not winning, and more important, they don’t know how to win. Ukrainians and outside analysts have described this dynamic in three main theaters of the war.

1) The ground war. If the story of the past two years was one of slow, grinding forward progress for Russia, the story of this year is very different. Since early spring, at the start of its annual offensive, Russia has lost more territory in Ukraine than it has gained. Right now, it is hard to see how the Russian army can move forward, because the front line is not a line at all, but rather a broad no-go zone, some 20 miles wide. Everything inside this zone is visible to drones, which means that any Russian truck, tank, or infantryman seeking to attack new territory is instantly identified and can easily be hit. Because the Russian commanders keep attacking anyway, the Ukrainians are killing and wounding thousands of enemy soldiers, perhaps as many as 30,000, every month. They say their goal is to remove more Russians from the battlefield than can be recruited to replace them, and they may be close to succeeding.

2) The long-range war. Although they are unable to move the front line, Russians can still use drones and missiles to kill civilians and destroy civilian infrastructure in Ukrainian cities, as they did once again this week. Indeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s appetite for this kind of attack is escalating, as he has no other practical way to damage Ukraine. He also knows that the Ukrainians don’t have enough air defense to stop ballistic missiles, even if they can now stop the majority of drones. Ukraine still relies heavily on air-defense equipment from the United States, especially ammunition for Patriot batteries. A European fund was set up to purchase these interceptor missiles, although some observers fear that there are simply not enough to buy. According to Zelensky, more Patriots were used during the first three days of the U.S.-Iran conflict than have been used during the entire Russia-Ukraine war.

What Putin doesn’t acknowledge is that his side is running out of air defense, too. That has helped Ukraine’s long-range drones more reliably target Russian oil and gas infrastructure, producing spectacular explosions and reducing Russian refining capacity by at least 20 percent. Almost all major oil refineries in central Russia ?have halted or scaled back production, and some have been hit more than once.

With equal regularity, a new crop of Ukrainian drones with a range of 100 miles can target arms depots, logistical centers, and supply chains far behind the front line in Russian-occupied territories. These strikes are less spectacular than ones deep inside Russia, but they have already created crucial fuel shortages on the Crimean peninsula, and they are making it difficult for the Russians to supply their troops fighting in the East and the South.

3) The psychological war. For the past four years, the Kremlin has repeatedly told the Russian public that the war is going well, that Ukraine isn’t a real country, that victory is certain. But that’s hard to square with the panic that took hold of Moscow last month, when an annual military parade was shortened for fear it would be interrupted by Ukrainian drones. Nor does it square with the spectacular columns of black smoke that were billowing into the air on Wednesday morning, after Ukrainian drones hit a local refinery on the opening day of the Kremlin’s annual St. Petersburg economic forum. Kyrill Budanov, the former defense-intelligence chief who is now head of the Ukrainian president’s office, told me there is a lot of evidence that Russians are now finally facing the up to the falsehood of state propaganda: “They cannot understand why they have to keep fighting and why they are getting hit now, because they were told they were going to win and Ukraine is nothing.”

Not everybody thinks this means the war will end soon. One young woman, a Ukrainian civil servant, told me last weekend that she and her friends have already given up on the idea that they will ever live in a “normal” country again, because the war will last forever. She reminisced about a flight she and some friends took to Barcelona, before the war: “That beautiful life will never return.”

But there are signs that some in Moscow, at least, are preparing for the war to end. Recently, a set of slides leaked from the office of Sergei Kiryienko, a former Russian prime minister and now a senior official in Putin’s administration. They describe a plan to sell the end of the war to the country: declare victory, describe the Russian army as “the most combat-ready in the world,” portray small territorial gains as a huge success, claim that Europe suffered a huge economic blow, from which it will not recover, and that Ukraine will soon fall apart. Budanov believes that the Kremlin’s decision to cut off Telegram, the social-media platform most widely used in Russia, was a preemptive move, designed to prepare for this kind of narrative change, “so that when the time comes, they have only one official position and nothing else but that.”

Budanov also continues to believe that the negotiations started by the Trump administration could produce a cease-fire, along the current front line, as early as this year. “And then we will start resolving the other issues we have.” On Thursday, Zelensky wrote a letter directly to Putin proposing exactly that: an immediate cease-fire, accompanied by face-to-face negotiations between the two leaders. Putin publicly dismissed the idea, saying he sees “no point” in a meeting.

Russia still has other options. The Russian president, who has never acknowledged that Ukraine is a legitimate country, or that Zelensky is its legitimate president, could continue to bomb Ukrainian cities, hoping to destroy the electrical grid and make the country unlivable. He could call for mass mobilization, and continue trying to overwhelm Ukraine’s defenses, sacrificing thousands of lives. Some fear he could use this moment to widen the conflict and to attack a NATO country, possibly to test American willingness to defend allies. A Latvian general this week said that even if Russian drones can’t win in Ukraine, they have an advantage over NATO defenses that have yet to catch up with the fast-evolving technology.

Even without negotiations, Russia and Ukraine may be heading toward a new status quo. The transparent frontline zone may now be 20 miles wide, but as drone technology improves, it could soon be 30 or even 40 miles wide. At some point the front line will become not just a no-man’s-land but a de facto demilitarized zone, similar to the one that separates North and South Korea, regularly patrolled and maintained by drones.

After that, it could become a border—a temporary border, one that will not be recognized by either side—but a border nevertheless: no different from a river or mountain range, impossible to move, difficult to cross. This would not be a clear victory for Ukraine, but it would be a major defeat for Putin, whose central goal—the destruction of all of Ukraine, the removal of Ukraine from the map—would never be realized.
_________________________________

Anne Applebaum is a staff writer at The Atlantic. She is also a senior fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and the School of Advanced International Studies. Her books include Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine; Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944–1956; and Gulag: A History, which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Her most recent books include the New York Times best sellers Twilight of Democracy and Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World.

Download these books for free from https://annas-archive.gl/search?q=Anne+Applebaum

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, June 8, 2026 8:10 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

ANALYSIS: Russia’s Air Defense Problems Are Growing

Moscow did not expect such a war at the start of the full-scale invasion. Now many Russians have gone into panic mode as they watch Ukrainian drones hit targets in Russia almost at will. It seems the tables have turned and Moscow is now on the back foot, forced to adapt to how Ukrainians have managed to scale up quantities of relatively cheap drones to inflict heavy damage on Russia’s air defense capabilities.

By David Kirichenko

June 8, 2026, 1:38 pm

https://www.kyivpost.com/analysis/77743

The roads to Crimea are beginning to tell the story of Russia’s defensive dilemma. Burned trucks, stranded convoys and air defense systems hit while being transported suggest that Ukraine’s drone war is reaching deeper into the logistical arteries that sustain Russia’s occupation.

. . . while Moscow focused on offense, Ukraine was forced into defensive adaptation, building layered drone defenses that gradually evolved into an offensive drone campaign of its own. Russia, by contrast, invested far less in cheap drone interception, continuing to rely heavily on expensive surface-to-air missiles that Russian milbloggers increasingly warn are in short supply.

“With its dwindling stocks of these expensive assets, Russia has little choice but to develop and rush new interceptors into service,” said open-source analyst Roy Gardiner . . .

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, June 8, 2026 2:17 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The long-time leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has rejected the idea of sending his soldiers into Ukraine. “Should we go fight in Ukraine according to [Putin's] someone else’s will? Do we want to be cannon fodder there? No, we do not want that,” Lukashenko said.

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/77671

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, June 8, 2026 3:42 PM

Keep it real please, and use a VPN

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

The Future of Drone Tech: Long-Range Strikes

There's a name for long- range drones. They're called missiles.

Here's the problem: the longer the range, the greater the fuel requirement, and the smaller the expolsive payload.

Really long range, loitering drones are useful for reconnaissance. Armed long range drones might be useful for small targets or assassinations,

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

What's going on in Ukraine comrade? Check out the video around the last 6 minutes. Before that it's about Iran.

T

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Monday, June 8, 2026 3:45 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Have you noticed, SECOND, that you've resorted to posting "Kiev says" and notorious neocons like ISW/Kagan- Neuland and Anne Applebaum?

You're digging the bottom of the barrel.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Monday, June 8, 2026 4:14 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Have you noticed, SECOND, that you've resorted to posting "Kiev says" and notorious neocons like ISW/Kagan- Neuland and Anne Applebaum?

You're digging the bottom of the barrel.

Open Letters, from Anne Applebaum
Putin's War Comes Home
Even Muscovites feel it
May 11, 2026

Four years ago, President Vladimir Putin offered Moscow and its business elite a de facto deal: support my war in Ukraine, and in exchange you won’t have to think about it. In the past week, that deal was broken.

https://anneapplebaum.substack.com/p/putins-war-comes-home

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, June 8, 2026 4:19 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

More muck from the bottom of the barrel.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Monday, June 8, 2026 5:17 PM

Keep it real please, and use a VPN

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

The Future of Drone Tech: Long-Range Strikes

There's a name for long- range drones. They're called missiles.

Here's the problem: the longer the range, the greater the fuel requirement, and the smaller the expolsive payload.

Really long range, loitering drones are useful for reconnaissance. Armed long range drones might be useful for small targets or assassinations,

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

Long-range drone: An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) that can operate at extended distances from its launch point. It may be remotely piloted or semi-autonomous, carrying sensors for surveillance, reconnaissance, or weapons for strikes united24media.com+1.

Missile: A guided or unguided projectile designed to travel a long distance at high speed to deliver a payload (explosive, kinetic, or other) to a specific target thisvsthat.io. Missiles are typically launched from fixed platforms, aircraft, or ships.

2. Size, Speed, and Maneuverability

Drones: Generally smaller, more maneuverable, and slower than missiles. Long-range drones can still be agile for evading threats or adjusting course mid-flight thisvsthat.io.

Missiles: Larger, faster, and often supersonic or hypersonic. They are less maneuverable once launched, relying on pre-programmed or mid-course guidance thisvsthat.io.

3. Guidance and Control

Drones: Can be remote-controlled or autonomous, with real-time operator input for complex missions Wikipedia.

Missiles: Usually pre-programmed or mid-course guided, with final guidance often from terminal seekers or command updates.

4. Payload and Role

Drones: May carry surveillance sensors, electronic warfare gear, or weapons like bombs or missiles. Long-range drones can loiter over targets for extended periods Wikipedia.

Missiles: Primarily designed for precision strike delivery of explosives or other payloads over long distances thisvsthat.io.

5. Range and Cost

Drones: Long-range UAVs can cover thousands of kilometers, but they are generally more cost-effective and reusable thisvsthat.io.

Missiles: Designed for one-time use and often more expensive per unit thisvsthat.io.

6. Strategic Use

Drones: Versatile for reconnaissance, surveillance, and precision strikes; can be reused for multiple missions.

Missiles: Specialized for high-speed, long-range attacks, often in strategic or tactical strike roles.

In summary: A long-range drone is an unmanned aircraft optimized for extended surveillance or strike missions with flexibility in control and reuse, while a missile is a guided projectile focused on delivering a payload quickly and precisely over long distances thisvsthat.io+2.

There are a lot of differences comrade. Another name for a long range drone is not a missile.

T

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Tuesday, June 9, 2026 1:26 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

First of all THGR, your article is about long- range STRIKES.
Not surveillance.

So, what is the best vehicle for a long-range STRIKE, given the trade-off between payload and distance?

I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing. The advantage of drones is that they're relatively CHEAP. Once you start configuring them for longer distances and higher payloads, they start approaching cruise missiles and getting $$. In fact, the Flamingo "missile" looks more like a long distance drone. Or maybe drones look like the Flamingo.

Or you wind up with something like the Reaper drone. The Reaper is $$, it fires missiles, so it's more like an unmanned turboprop.

Anyway, in the end, they're both airborne modes of munitions delivery.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Tuesday, June 9, 2026 2:08 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Don't care about your numbers dude. Whether or not they're fake, they don't even begin to tell the whole picture.

They sold a bunch of shitty, underperforming cars that cost twice as much to insure as a regular car does. Nobody ever bothered building any new charging stations across the nation even though billions were spent on it. When the battery goes, that'll be $25,000 or more to replace.

And there's soon to be ZERO secondhand market. Zero.

Once the people who are left holding the bag when the car dies and is barely a decade old realize how badly they fucked themselves over, they will tell everyone they know about that. And nobody is going to be buying used EVs again once that starts to happen.

People are stupid. People are trendy. Buying EVs for most of these people wasn't any different than women buying ridiculously large Stanley cups because some dipshit influencers on the internet told them to buy it.

For everybody else NOT getting paid to shill all this shit, there's nothing but a lot of regrets over their vehicle purchase.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

I guess I won this one, huh Second?

What a rarity for you not to either post easily debunked stats and/or quote me and reply with something completely unrelated and/or remind me that I dropped out of college 4 times and/or call me a redneck Nazi who you want to see dead.

I guess we'll consider the topic of EVs forever closed in this forum now.

You were wrong. You were wrong from the beginning.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, June 9, 2026 6:26 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Ukraine Tests Tomahawk Style Drone Navigation Module Across 3000 Kilometers of Trial Flights

By Ivan Khomenko | Jun 08, 2026 18:05

https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/ukraine-tests-tomahawk-style-
drone-navigation-module-across-3000-kilometers-of-trial-flights-19617

A European-made navigation module designed to guide drones without relying solely on satellite signals has completed more than 3,000 kilometers of flight testing in Ukraine, including autonomous missions exceeding 50 kilometers.

According to information published by Defense Express on June 8, citing Delian Alliance Industries representative Mark Melhorn, the company’s Osiris navigation module is being developed as a low-cost visual guidance system for drones. https://defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/rozkrito_detali_jak_v_ukrajini_
na_midlstrajk_dronah_testuvali_analog_dsmac_jak_u_tomahawk_chi_storm_shadow-23241.html

The technology is designed to provide capabilities similar to the terrain- and image-matching navigation systems used by long-range weapons such as the US Tomahawk and the Franco-British Storm Shadow cruise missiles.

Melhorn said the company initially conducted 15 test flights in Europe before deploying a team of specialists to Ukraine in March to evaluate the system under operational conditions. According to Defense Express, Ukrainian military personnel provided technical feedback during the trials, helping accelerate development of the navigation module.

The company reported that Osiris-equipped drones carried out dozens of autonomous flights at distances exceeding 50 kilometers. Flight altitudes ranged from 70 to 2,000 meters, while the system demonstrated an average positioning error of less than 20 meters compared with civilian GPS references, according to the report.

According to Defense Express, Delian used the Ukrainian testing campaign to advance the system from a prototype stage toward full operational maturity. The outlet reported that the company has since expanded the Osiris development team, established a Ukrainian subsidiary, and launched cooperation with a local manufacturing partner.

Ukraine has increasingly become a testing ground for next-generation defense technologies. According to Business Insider on May 27, hundreds of international defense companies have applied to evaluate new systems through Ukraine’s state-backed “Test in Ukraine” program, using battlefield conditions to accelerate development of drones, AI software, navigation systems, and other military technologies.

Companies participating in the program receive operational feedback from Ukrainian military personnel, allowing products to be refined at a pace rarely possible in peacetime environments.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, June 9, 2026 6:38 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Zelenskyy Urges UK, France, and Germany to Build European Alternative to US Patriot System

By Ivan Khomenko | Jun 09, 2026 11:50

https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/zelenskyy-urges-uk-france-and
-germany-to-build-european-alternative-to-us-patriot-system-19639

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the United Kingdom, France, and Germany had agreed to help Ukraine strengthen its defenses against ballistic missile threats following talks in London on June 7 with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and French President Emmanuel Macron.

The Patriot system remains one of the few Western air defense platforms able to intercept ballistic missiles, particularly when equipped with PAC-3 MSE interceptors. According to The Guardian, Zelenskyy said each Patriot interceptor costs approximately $4 million, while Ukrainian stockpiles have come under increasing pressure amid continued Russian missile strikes.

Europe currently fields one air defense system with anti-ballistic missile capability, the Franco-Italian SAMP/T system equipped with Aster 30 interceptors. Ukraine received a SAMP/T battery in 2023 and has used the system operationally, although production volumes remain limited compared with demand.

At the same time, Ukrainian defense companies are pursuing domestic alternatives. Ukrainian manufacturer Fire Point recently released footage of tests involving its FP-7.X interceptor missile. Fire Point aims to develop a complete air defense system capable of engaging ballistic targets by 2027.

Fire Point co-founder and chief designer Denis Shtilyerman said the company is targeting a cost below $1 million per interceptor. He noted that defeating a single ballistic missile often requires multiple Patriot interceptors, significantly increasing the cost of each engagement.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, June 9, 2026 6:40 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Ukrainians under occupation don't have a real choice whether to stay or to leave

By Dinara Khalilova | June 8, 2026 6:04 PM

https://kyivindependent.com/ukrainians-under-occupation-dont-have-a-re
al-choice-whether-to-stay-or-to-leave/

Some names have been changed to protect the identities of those featured in the story

As a war crimes researcher at the Reckoning Project, my job was to listen to Ukrainians who had fled the occupation. What they had to say reshaped how I understand life in Russian-occupied territories.

Simplistic outside judgments about people living under occupation often feel deeply unfair to Ukrainians who escaped it. From a safe distance, it is easy to say, "Why didn't they stay and resist?" or "Why didn't they leave earlier? That must mean they are pro-Russian." But neither one of these options is easy or safe.

Ihor Serdiuk, a 60-something educational worker from occupied Kherson Oblast, refused to switch the college he directed to the Russian curriculum. For that, he spent two weeks in prison.

In the same facility, there was a young man brutally beaten by occupation forces for throwing a grenade at military personnel, though no one was injured, and a woman who had refused to give a haircut to a Russian soldier. Serdiuk was released only after agreeing to apply for Russian citizenship, which he did, and immediately fled abroad.

"If you disagree with them (Russian forces), you'll simply die in prison — that's it… Either you leave, or you'll rot here, or they'll make sure you rot here. Because you can't live like this for long," Serdiuk says when asked if he had a real choice whether to stay or to leave.

Staying often means either openly supporting the occupation authorities or giving up your freedom of speech and expression to increase your chances of survival.

"You mimic the majority because you never know what might trigger an unwanted reaction — when all you're trying to do is live normally, to exist," says Vadym from Crimea, who was 13 when Russia annexed the peninsula.

"My inability to remain silent and my clear position could lead to problems for me personally, for my wife, and for my relatives."

For those who are trying to escape occupation, the journey out is long, complicated, and often dangerous.

Since late 2022, the only viable route has been through Russia. A ticket with a private carrier can cost several hundred dollars, and volunteer evacuation capacity is limited. Travelers pass through multiple checkpoints where Russian forces search, interrogate, and sometimes detain people on fabricated charges.

Crossing from occupied Kherson Oblast to Crimea, Serdiuk recalls 500–800 people standing for hours in the heat waiting for inspection by border officers. The only relief was a nearby bucket of water.

"Right in front of your eyes, they turn someone's suitcase inside out and kick it with their feet. Younger men are taken away — where to, nobody knows. Sometimes soldiers simply come and take people," he says.

Those who make it out and find safety must now deal with the trauma of occupation and start over from nothing.

"If you try to run, we’ll shoot you."

Their homes and former lives are gone. Some lost loved ones, and many lost their communities, which are now scattered across the world. It is almost impossible to plan for the future because of the constant fear of losing everything again. Immigration feels temporary, but at the same time, no one can promise you will ever be able to return home.

"In my 35 years, I've already seen everything. What kind of plans for the future can there even be?" says Maryna from a village in Kharkiv Oblast near the Russian border, occupied within hours of the full-scale invasion.

When Russian soldiers discovered her mother served in the Ukrainian army, they abducted Maryna and held her in captivity for days in a completely dark room with an empty bottle instead of a toilet. During interrogations, they threatened her: "If you don't tell us what we're asking, we'll cut your fingers. If you try to run, we'll shoot you."

Maryna eventually escaped and now lives in Latvia. Her relationship with her family has deteriorated, and she does not want to return to Ukraine. Maryna hopes temporary protection for Ukrainians will be extended, so she will not have to rebuild her life elsewhere. She says it is deeply stressful for her to plan anything.

Liberation is not just about taking back land. It is about restoring people's ability to live as human beings who can control their own lives. It means being able to move freely, speak openly, raise your children in line with your values, and choose your future.

Freedom is often discussed in abstract geopolitical terms. But for those living under occupation, it becomes something very real and concrete.

"You cross the border, walking along a battered road from the Kalanchak checkpoint to Kherson. Everything is rusty and old, but you keep going — and you feel relief, because here you can watch whatever you want, say whatever you want, think whatever you want," Vadym recalls of his trips from Crimea to the state-controlled territory before 2022.

He left the peninsula for good shortly after the full-scale invasion, burned his Russian passport, and now lives in Romania with his wife.

When asked about his hopes for the future, he says: "Coffee in Podil and a plane in the sky. A civilian plane taking off from Boryspil. For me, that's the quintessence of peace and a good life."

Editor's note: The text was created in collaboration with The Reckoning Project, a global team of journalists and lawyers documenting, publicizing, and building cases of atrocity crimes. The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, June 9, 2026 9:06 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Not so long ago, the American far right celebrated Putin’s macho posturing and his supposed military invincibility.

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/far-right-idealized-russian-milit
ary-ukraine-exposes-all-ways-theyre-wrong

For years now, Russian President Vladimir Putin has learned how to court the far right and tap into their shared disdain of democracy and liberalism. To that end, Russia has made common cause with right-wing political movements in the United States and Europe, as well as through “indirect” support to Western extremist groups. Putin is now in search of fault lines to challenge the cohesion and resolve of the international response to his actions in Ukraine.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, June 9, 2026 10:07 AM

Keep it real please, and use a VPN

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

First of all THGR, your article is about long- range STRIKES.
Not surveillance.

So, what is the best vehicle for a long-range STRIKE, given the trade-off between payload and distance?

I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing. The advantage of drones is that they're relatively CHEAP. Once you start configuring them for longer distances and higher payloads, they start approaching cruise missiles and getting $$. In fact, the Flamingo "missile" looks more like a long distance drone. Or maybe drones look like the Flamingo.

Or you wind up with something like the Reaper drone. The Reaper is $$, it fires missiles, so it's more like an unmanned turboprop.

Anyway, in the end, they're both airborne modes of munitions delivery.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

The Future of Drone Tech: Long-Range Strikes

No, it's not about long range strikes. It's about the future of Drone Technology. Long range Drones are a part of that discussion because technology is advancing. He discusses what that means. How the Middle Eastern countries are putting money into Ukrainian development of Drone tech.

He suggests by mid-summer we should be seeing daily strikes into the hundreds across Russia. I don't recall him speaking about Missile's. Only about how much trouble the Russian energy infrastructure is in. How in order for Russia to stop them from being blown up, Russia will have to shut down much of its oil producing wells and how it will take years to get them functioning again. I'll add to that that Ukrainian Drones are killing anything that moves as Russia tries unsuccessfully to resupply everything to everyone.

You tried to spin it into something else; Drones' vs Missiles. You're still trying to spin it into nothing more than long range strikes and what kind of munition you should use. Obviously, you didn't watch the video, or you did, and are trying to deflect away from its content. How the future looks dim for, and the fact that Russia is getting its ass kicked. How Ukraine has the edge. And that soon, Russia will not be an oil producing country. That's the point made in the video, and the point of my post. I told you a long time ago, Russia's fucked.

The other thing you guys never seem to realize is that you aren't arguing with me. You're arguing with the experts' opinions that I post. And you always lose.

T

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Tuesday, June 9, 2026 12:12 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I guess I won this one, huh Second?

What a rarity for you not to either post easily debunked stats and/or quote me and reply with something completely unrelated and/or remind me that I dropped out of college 4 times and/or call me a redneck Nazi who you want to see dead.

I guess we'll consider the topic of EVs forever closed in this forum now.

You were wrong. You were wrong from the beginning.

You know who else is always calling himself a winner, despite being a loser?

You know who else claims to NOT be a Nazi, despite using Nazi political techniques?
Hitler had his Lügenpresse; Trump has “Fake News Media.”

"Lying press" (German: Lügenpresse, literally 'press of lies') is a pejorative and disparaging political epithet used to refer to the mass media at large.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, June 9, 2026 1:49 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

EU’s 21st sanctions package would ban Russia’s soldiers from European soil

Latest package targets banks, oil traders, shadow fleet, third-country evaders.

By Benjamin Murdoch | June 9, 2026

https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/09/eus-21st-sanctions-package/

Sanctions already cost Russia up to $1.5 trillion, EU says

The same day, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
/ Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas told journalists that existing sanctions continue to intensify pressure on Moscow’s economy. Kallas noted that Western sanctions have already cost Russia an estimated $1.2 to $1.5 trillion, adding that “brick by brick, we are collapsing the foundations of Russia’s war economy.”

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, June 9, 2026 1:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Don't care about your numbers dude. Whether or not they're fake, they don't even begin to tell the whole picture.

They sold a bunch of shitty, underperforming cars that cost twice as much to insure as a regular car does. Nobody ever bothered building any new charging stations across the nation even though billions were spent on it. When the battery goes, that'll be $25,000 or more to replace.

And there's soon to be ZERO secondhand market. Zero.

Once the people who are left holding the bag when the car dies and is barely a decade old realize how badly they fucked themselves over, they will tell everyone they know about that. And nobody is going to be buying used EVs again once that starts to happen.

People are stupid. People are trendy. Buying EVs for most of these people wasn't any different than women buying ridiculously large Stanley cups because some dipshit influencers on the internet told them to buy it.

For everybody else NOT getting paid to shill all this shit, there's nothing but a lot of regrets over their vehicle purchase.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Tuesday, June 9, 2026 3:43 PM

Keep it real please, and use a VPN

EV's are looking better, now that Trump has the cost of gas going through the roof.

T

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Tuesday, June 9, 2026 7:41 PM

Keep it real please, and use a VPN

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Tuesday, June 9, 2026 8:11 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
EV's are looking better, now that Trump has the cost of gas going through the roof.

Until rates for electricity go up.

AFA Russian logistics across "the front" collapsing...

• Crimea is not "the front". Ukies have made life more difficult for the civilian population in Crimea, but that hasn't stopped Russia from moving forward across the entire front, including in the south.

• If drone attacks on roads and bridges were enough to collapse an army, Kiev would have collapsed two years ago. Ukraine's "drone wars" are irritating but not strategic.

It does look as if Ukraine is planning some sort of media incursion, sending in a relatively small contingent as deep as possible to video themselves planting flags. They'll be wiped out, just like the Kursk offensive, the 2023 southern offensive, and the ridiculous plays for Rabotyn and Krynky were wiped out.

----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 6:41 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Flamingo missile used rarely and with limited success despite ‘aggressive’ promotion – MP Rakhmanin

June 9, 2026, 05:31 AM

https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukraine-rarely-uses-fp-5-flamingo-missile
-says-mp-50614650.html

The FP-5 Flamingo missile is being used only rarely and not very successfully, despite the “very aggressive promotion” around the weapon, Serhii Rakhmanin, a member of the Ukrainian parliamentary committee on national security, defense and intelligence, said in a Radio NV interview on June 8.

“They (the Fire Point company — ed.) are also the creators of a project that, at least for now, has not been very successful, one called FP-5,” Rakhmanin said.

“It is better known to the public as Flamingo. If I’m not mistaken, they also made a lot of promises to us — both about the number of these missiles and the quality of their use. The statements and the real-world use differ significantly.”

Commenting on Fire Point’s statement that it plans to create ballistic missiles capable of striking Russia as early as this summer, the lawmaker said a cruise missile is theoretically easier to develop than a ballistic one. He added that he would be “the first to applaud” if the company managed, “while making it into the Guinness Book of Records,” to create a ballistic missile from scratch.

“But for now, apart from statements, we have nothing else,” Rakhmanin added.

“If it happens — great, we’ll discuss it. For now, there is only a statement. A statement must be backed by concrete things, concrete steps. So far, even the FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile is used extremely rarely and not very successfully. They explain this with objective reasons, they explain why it is so, and what they plan to do to make it more successful, more widespread, more effective. But for now, we state the fact: there is a product called FP-5 that received crazy, very aggressive promotion, but the practical results differ significantly from what was promised.”

Strikes using Flamingo missiles:

On May 5, the OSINT project CyberBoroshno reported that an FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile struck the front section of the main building of the VNIIR-Progress plant in Cheboksary, Russia, at an angle. JSC VNIIR-Progress produces Kometa anti-jamming navigation modules, which Russia uses in drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.

On March 28, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine confirmed that Ukraine’s Defense Forces had struck the Promsintez plant in Russia’s Samara Oblast with FP-5 Flamingo missiles.

On Feb. 21, the General Staff said Ukraine’s Defense Forces had hit the Votkinsk plant in Russia’s Udmurt Republic with FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles. The plant manufactures Iskander-M, Topol-M, Kinzhal, and Yars missiles. It is located more than 1,300 kilometers from Ukraine’s border.

On Feb. 24, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a previous Russian strike on the manufacturing plant had caused a delay in scaling up production of Ukrainian Flamingo missiles.

Overnight into Feb. 12, a series of powerful explosions was reported in Russia’s Volgograd Oblast. Reports said a missile strike and fire hit a military arsenal in the settlement of Kotluban. The same day, Fire Point co-owner and chief designer Denys Shtilerman showed the launch of FP-5 Flamingo missiles toward the arsenal in Kotluban.

On Feb. 5, Ukraine’s General Staff said the Defense Forces had carried out a series of strikes during January 2026 on a hangar-type building complex at the Kapustin Yar test range in Russia’s Astrakhan Oblast, where medium-range intercontinental ballistic missiles undergo pre-launch preparation. The attack used long-range strike systems of Ukrainian production, including the FP-5 Flamingo.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 6:44 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Two articles by same author on same subject, written a year apart:

[2026] Russia’s Greatest Defense Has Always Been Its Sheer Size. Ukraine’s New Drones Just Took It Away

By Harrison Kass | June 9, 2026

https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/russias-greatest-defense-has-alway
s-been-its-sheer-size-ukraines-new-drones-just-took-it-away/

Ukraine has reportedly established what some observers describe as a “logistics lockdown” across occupied territories using domestically produced mid-range strike drones capable of hitting ships, bridges, fuel depots, airfields, and refineries.

The Ukrainian strategy has shifted, in part, from trying to destroy Russian units at the front to focusing on destroying the systems that supply them.

And increasingly, the drone war is evolving from tactical support for ground forces into something like a strategic air campaign designed to affect Russia’s war economy.

_______________________________________________________

Harrison Kass is a writer and attorney focused on national security, technology, and political culture. His work has appeared in City Journal, The Hill, Quillette, The Spectator, and The Cipher Brief. He holds a JD from the University of Oregon and a master’s in Global & Joint Program Studies from NYU. More at https://harrisonkass.com

_______________________________________________________

[2025] Russian and Ukrainian Drones Have Changed Warfare Forever

By Harrison Kass | June 29, 2025

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russian-ukrainian-drones-change
d-warfare-forever-hk

The proliferation of drone warfare has had an immense psychological and strategic impact on both Russian and Ukrainian troops.

The ongoing war in Ukraine has highlighted the evolving application of weaponized drones in warfare. Both sides have become increasingly dependent upon drones, the tactics of which have evolved over the course of the four-year conflict.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 7:19 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
EV's are looking better, now that Trump has the cost of gas going through the roof.

Until rates for electricity go up.

Right?

Good luck feeding your little pussy pseudo-car when AI has a killer appetite.

California can't even keep the fucking lights on during A/C season half the time. I don't even understand how any fools like Ted and Second think for a moment that this technology is even viable unless we put nuclear power everywhere.

They still think that electric coming from their sockets is Hogwarts Magic.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 8:21 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Ukrainian Flamingo missiles strike military plant in large-scale attack on Russia, Zelensky confirms

By Volodymyr Ivanyshyn, Tania Myronyshenaune | June 10, 2026 1:45 pm

https://kyivindependent.com/russian-oil-refinery-nearly-800-kilometers
-from-border-reportedly-struck-by-ukrainian-drones/

Ukraine's General Staff later identified the target as the VNIIR-Progress plant in Cheboksary and confirmed a fire at the facility.

The VNIIR-Progress plant, which has been sanctioned by Ukraine, the U.S., and the European Union, produces satellite navigation receivers and Kometa antennas used in Shahed-type attack drones, Kalibr cruise missiles, Iskander-M ballistic missiles, and guided aerial bombs.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 9:45 AM

Keep it real please, and use a VPN

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
EV's are looking better, now that Trump has the cost of gas going through the roof.

Until rates for electricity go up.

AFA Russian logistics across "the front" collapsing...

• Crimea is not "the front". Ukies have made life more difficult for the civilian population in Crimea, but that hasn't stopped Russia from moving forward across the entire front, including in the south.

• If drone attacks on roads and bridges were enough to collapse an army, Kiev would have collapsed two years ago. Ukraine's "drone wars" are irritating but not strategic.

It does look as if Ukraine is planning some sort of media incursion, sending in a relatively small contingent as deep as possible to video themselves planting flags. They'll be wiped out, just like the Kursk offensive, the 2023 southern offensive, and the ridiculous plays for Rabotyn and Krynky were wiped out.

----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

Yes, electric costs could be a problem. However, the American voter can insist that these large data centers have to provide their own power. Too late to help us but building them in the low temperature of space may be the best way forward. Cooling the chips is a lot of the problem. And they are having some success dealing with that.

As for the rest of your post regarding Ukraine; wrong. You, are heading for a major clash with reality.

T

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 10:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
EV's are looking better, now that Trump has the cost of gas going through the roof.

Until rates for electricity go up.

AFA Russian logistics across "the front" collapsing...

• Crimea is not "the front". Ukies have made life more difficult for the civilian population in Crimea, but that hasn't stopped Russia from moving forward across the entire front, including in the south.

• If drone attacks on roads and bridges were enough to collapse an army, Kiev would have collapsed two years ago. Ukraine's "drone wars" are irritating but not strategic.

It does look as if Ukraine is planning some sort of media incursion, sending in a relatively small contingent as deep as possible to video themselves planting flags. They'll be wiped out, just like the Kursk offensive, the 2023 southern offensive, and the ridiculous plays for Rabotyn and Krynky were wiped out.

----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

Maybe we can make ALL the big companies generate their own power.

Maybe we can make pigs fly.

Maybe we can make you less of a worthless, brainfucked faggot.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 11:52 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
EV's are looking better, now that Trump has the cost of gas going through the roof.

Until rates for electricity go up.

AFA Russian logistics across "the front" collapsing...

• Crimea is not "the front". Ukies have made life more difficult for the civilian population in Crimea, but that hasn't stopped Russia from moving forward across the entire front, including in the south.

• If drone attacks on roads and bridges were enough to collapse an army, Kiev would have collapsed two years ago. Ukraine's "drone wars" are irritating but not strategic.

It does look as if Ukraine is planning some sort of media incursion, sending in a relatively small contingent as deep as possible to video themselves planting flags. They'll be wiped out, just like the Kursk offensive, the 2023 southern offensive, and the ridiculous plays for Rabotyn and Krynky were wiped out

Yes, electric costs could be a problem. However, the American voter can insist that these large data centers have to provide their own power. Too late to help us but building them in the low temperature of space may be the best way forward. Cooling the chips is a lot of the problem. And they are having some success dealing with that.

As for the rest of your post regarding Ukraine; wrong. You, are heading for a major clash with reality.

The way I understand it, THGR, is that Russian military staff and policy planners view the SMO as a series of related probabilistic differential equations. Everything happens at a rate, each with its error band:

Russia marches forward at a certain rate.
Russian loses military and economic capability at a certain rate.
Ukraine loses at a certain rate.
EU economies decline at a certain rate.
USA weapons stockpiles are used up at a certain rate, and produced at a (lower) rate.
Popular opinion changes at a certain rate.

Some rates are linear, some are higher order, occasionally they experience a step change, like the introduction of new technology like drones or the change of a particular government or the opening of a new front.

I don't have information needed to make accurate predictions. But this is war, and losses are inevitable on both sides. The question is, who is losing more faster? AFAIK it's Ukraine and the EU.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 1:02 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I don't have information needed to make accurate predictions. But this is war, and losses are inevitable on both sides. The question is, who is losing more faster? AFAIK it's Ukraine and the EU.

Moscow’s latest car bombing shows Putin’s generals who the real target is

Ukraine has combined assassinations with bombings in a bid to break the logistical spine of Russia’s war effort, writes world affairs editor Sam Kiley

Wednesday 10 June 2026 10:43 EDT

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/europe/russia-ukraine-assas
sination-car-bomb-moscow-kremlin-b2993149.html

General Davydov, head of the Kremlin’s missile and artillery wing in the ministry of defence, was a prized trophy for Kyiv’s covert operators.

“Hard-targeting” the Russian general is also a triumph of psychological operations – reinforcing the already well-understood feeling that none of the Kremlin’s nomenklatura are safe.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 2:05 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Today, 10 June 2026, marks the 1,568th day of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine — the same number of days that World War I lasted.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/10/russias-full-scale-war-against-
ukraine-has-now-lasted-exactly-as-long-as-world-war-i-1568-days/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 3:35 PM

Keep it real please, and use a VPN

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
EV's are looking better, now that Trump has the cost of gas going through the roof.

Until rates for electricity go up.

AFA Russian logistics across "the front" collapsing...

• Crimea is not "the front". Ukies have made life more difficult for the civilian population in Crimea, but that hasn't stopped Russia from moving forward across the entire front, including in the south.

• If drone attacks on roads and bridges were enough to collapse an army, Kiev would have collapsed two years ago. Ukraine's "drone wars" are irritating but not strategic.

It does look as if Ukraine is planning some sort of media incursion, sending in a relatively small contingent as deep as possible to video themselves planting flags. They'll be wiped out, just like the Kursk offensive, the 2023 southern offensive, and the ridiculous plays for Rabotyn and Krynky were wiped out

Yes, electric costs could be a problem. However, the American voter can insist that these large data centers have to provide their own power. Too late to help us but building them in the low temperature of space may be the best way forward. Cooling the chips is a lot of the problem. And they are having some success dealing with that.

As for the rest of your post regarding Ukraine; wrong. You, are heading for a major clash with reality.

The way I understand it, THGR, is that Russian military staff and policy planners view the SMO as a series of related probabilistic differential equations. Everything happens at a rate, each with its error band:

Russia marches forward at a certain rate.
Russian loses military and economic capability at a certain rate.
Ukraine loses at a certain rate.
EU economies decline at a certain rate.
USA weapons stockpiles are used up at a certain rate, and produced at a (lower) rate.
Popular opinion changes at a certain rate.

Some rates are linear, some are higher order, occasionally they experience a step change, like the introduction of new technology like drones or the change of a particular government or the opening of a new front.

I don't have information needed to make accurate predictions. But this is war, and losses are inevitable on both sides. The question is, who is losing more faster? AFAIK it's Ukraine and the EU.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

Are you for real?

T

Russian Forces PANIC Amid Being Cut off From Crimea; Putin’s Frontline COLLAPSE Begins

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 5:02 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Ukrainian Flamingo missiles strike military plant in large-scale attack on Russia, Zelensky confirms

By Volodymyr Ivanyshyn, Tania Myronyshenaune | June 10, 2026 1:45 pm

New footage shows Russian defense plant in Cheboksary after Ukraine's strike

Russian defenses failed to stop the Ukrainian attack

By Daryna Vialko | Wed, June 10, 2026 - 21:58

https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/new-footage-shows-russian-defense-plan
t-in-1781116909.html

The missiles traveled more than 1,500 kilometers before striking workshops producing navigation and automation systems for the Russian military.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 5:05 PM

JAYNEZTOWN

Vladimir Solovyov complains about his shrinking stature and elections in Armenia

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 5:14 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

A Twist in Ukraine’s Drone Campaign Is ‘Really Hurting the Russians’

Midrange attacks, using upgraded drones that Ukraine produces in huge numbers, are causing fuel shortages and complicating troop rotations.

By Marc Santora Reporting from Dnipro, Kyiv and eastern Ukraine

June 10, 2026

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/10/world/europe/ukraine-midrange-logis
tics-strikes.html

First Ukraine assembled an arsenal of millions of drones that, along with Russia’s own buildup, turned a 25-mile-wide strip along the front line into a killing ground. Then Kyiv expanded its reach deep into the Russian heartland as it targeted oil infrastructure and military factories, making long-range violence in the war a two-way street.

Now, Ukraine is focusing on the middle ground — the critical roads and railways, in some cases more than 100 miles from the front, that feed Russian troops and matériel into battle. Kyiv is calling the effort a “logistics lockdown,” and it is systematically reshaping the battlefield, at least until Russian forces find a way to adapt.

Ukraine is wreaking havoc on unarmored trucks and trains in the battlefield’s rear, using drones with upgraded engines and batteries, integrated Starlink communication systems and new artificial-intelligence capabilities. The ramped-up attacks are causing fuel shortages, complicating troop rotations and reducing Russian military activity on the front.

May was the first month since 2023 in which Russia suffered a net loss of territory, according to the Ukrainian research group DeepState. On Monday, Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, the top Ukrainian military commander, said Ukraine had reclaimed in May nearly 40 square miles more than it lost.

The attacks on Russian logistics are part of a synchronized, multilayered campaign that covers the close-in “kill zone,” the midrange resupply zone in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, and the territory far inside Russia where Ukraine has hit sites producing crucial weapon technology.

“That’s what’s new, and that’s what is really hurting the Russians,” said Mick Ryan, a retired Australian general who is a fellow at the Lowy Institute, a research group in Sydney.

The coordinated campaign has made it hard for Moscow to generate momentum, with its spring and summer offensives so far failing to achieve notable results.

Ukraine produces so many drones from its own factories that it can now launch more than 5,000 mid- and deep-range strikes every month, according to Ukrainian officials. Late last week, Ukraine’s defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, said that Ukrainian forces last month carried out twice as many strikes at least 30 miles from the front line as they did in April.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, found in a recent assessment that such strikes were helping to push the conflict into a new phase.

As the forces operate systems “capable of disrupting Russian forces throughout their operational depth,” according to researchers at the think tank, Ukraine has a “unique and time-constrained opportunity” to mount the sort of mechanized offensives that have become very difficult because of the threat of drones.

Jack Watling, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a research group in London, wrote in Foreign Affairs that the war had reached a turning point, arguing that as Russia’s battlefield performance worsened, Ukraine had a chance to push Moscow toward a cease-fire.

In a field in Ukraine late last month, the commander of the Second Battalion of the First Separate Unmanned Aerial Systems Center said it was critical to seize the moment because the Ukrainian military’s advantage might not last.

As long as it does, “the main idea is for Russia to truly feel war, to know that distance does not provide safety,” said the commander, who under Ukrainian military protocol gave only his call sign, Whale.

As he spoke, soldiers scrawled messages of retribution on the wings of a dozen drones, each packed with thermobaric explosives.

The next day, Ukraine’s General Staff announced successful strikes on Russian oil refineries, warehouses and air-defense systems in Russia and in occupied Ukraine.

Even as Ukraine finds itself in a hopeful moment, steep challenges remain.

Russia continues to ravage the cities in eastern Ukraine that make up the spine of its defense of the Donbas, the region most coveted by the Kremlin. After an intense campaign of strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure last winter, Ukraine is concerned about a humanitarian catastrophe if the war drags into another brutal winter.

President Volodymyr Zelensky warned recently that Ukraine’s dwindling supply of Patriot air-defense interceptors had reached critical levels and that Moscow was taking advantage of that vulnerability to pummel Kyiv and other cities.

Ukraine’s ability to maintain its momentum, soldiers said, depends on continuing to scale up weapon production.

The defense minister, Mr. Fedorov, announced plans in May to spend more than $113 million to develop weapons for the “logistics lockdown” campaign.

More broadly, European nations have allocated $1.63 billion to Ukrainian drone production this year, outstripping the financing for all of 2025, according to the Kiel Institute, a German think tank.

For years, Ukraine begged its allies for weapons that could strike from a distance. But the Western platforms it received were limited by scarce ammunition, geographic restrictions intended to avoid escalation, and a technical inability to track and strike moving targets.

So Ukraine focused its energies on developing a homegrown defense industry.

An executive from the Ukrainian company that makes the Bars jet-powered drone said that in 2024, the company received a contract to produce 112 long-range strike drones that year. Its most recent contract, he said, is for 25,000 drones capable of long- and midrange strikes.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concerns for his safety, said that, critically, Ukrainian companies had all agreed to share technological and tactical advances through a mechanism set up by the Ministry of Defense.

The campaign aimed at Russian logistics is having its most visible results along the southern front, where geography favors the Ukrainians.

The area includes Russia’s so-called land bridge to occupied Crimea, and Moscow relies on a roughly 185-mile stretch of exposed highways to supply its forces. On Monday, the Ukrainian military said its drone operators had established aerial control over a section of the land route used by Russian forces, significantly complicating “logistics related to supplying the Russian Army and fuel deliveries” to Crimea.

The only other connection between Russia and Crimea is the Kerch Bridge, which has come under repeated Ukrainian attack.

At the start of this year, Ukraine formulated a plan to isolate Russian forces, the commander of unmanned-systems forces in the First Azov Army Corps said in a statement.

By spring, he said, he was able to see the captured city of Mariupol — more than 60 miles from the front — through the lens of a piloted drone.

The Ukrainians modified a drone known as the Hornet to target Russian logistics. Because Hornets carry relatively small explosive payloads, they cannot penetrate heavily fortified or underground Russian ammunition warehouses. But, unlike missiles and bombs, the drones are controlled by a pilot, allowing Azov operators to target unarmored transport trucks and trains.

Fortified sites are attacked by other weapons, like powerful glide bombs. Ukraine recently announced the first successful test of a domestically produced glide bomb, which it said was capable of hitting targets, including fortified ones, “dozens of kilometers” away. Russia has used such bombs to devastating effect as it has razed Ukrainian cities.

The Ukrainian military claims to have struck hundreds of midrange targets over the past month. An independent Ukrainian open-source investigative project, Tochnyi, geolocated 130 strikes in May on military vehicles and supply-chain structures about 20 to 100 miles from the front.

The Azov commander said it was impossible for Russia to stretch out its air defenses and soldiers over the ever-growing distances that Ukrainian piloted drones could travel.

Liubov Sholudko contributed reporting

Marc Santora has been reporting from Ukraine since the beginning of the war with Russia. He was previously based in London as an international news editor focused on breaking news events and earlier the bureau chief for East and Central Europe, based in Warsaw. He has also reported extensively from Iraq and Africa.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 5:28 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

THGR, "The Enforcer“?
Really?

Quote:
The ramped-up attacks are causing fuel shortages, complicating troop rotations and reducing Russian military activity on the front.

Not that anyone can notice. In fact Russians seem to be going faster in the past couple of weeks.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 5:54 PM

Keep it real please, and use a VPN

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THGR, "The Enforcer“?
Really?

Quote:
The ramped-up attacks are causing fuel shortages, complicating troop rotations and reducing Russian military activity on the front.

Not that anyone can notice. In fact Russians seem to be going faster in the past couple of weeks.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

Agreed, backwards...

T

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 7:17 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

In fact Russians seem to be going faster in the past couple of weeks.

In fact, Russia must be losing if it passes a law that confiscates the property of Russians who say that Russia is losing:

Russians abroad who criticize Kremlin risk losing their homes under Putin's new law

What could Russians do that would cost them their homes and savings?

By Kateryna Shkarlat | Wed, June 10, 2026 - 21:33

https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/new-footage-shows-russian-defense-plan
t-in-1781116909.html

Criticism of the war, calls for sanctions, or other actions that the Kremlin considers a threat to its interests could cost Russians their apartments, bank accounts, and other property, according to The Moscow Times. https://ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/06/10/putin-podpisal-zakon-ob-arest
e-imuschestva-relokantov-za-kritiku-rezhima-a197870

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law allowing the seizure of property belonging to Russian citizens living abroad for so-called administrative offenses against Russia’s interests.

The document is set to come into force on September 1, 2026.

Under the law, grounds for property seizure may include "discrediting" the Russian army, calling for sanctions against Russia, distributing "extremist materials," "promoting Nazi symbols," as well as failing to pay fines imposed for such actions.

At the same time, the seizure may apply not only to real estate but also to funds held in bank accounts. The value of the property subject to restrictions is not limited by the amount of the fine.

The law also stipulates that if a citizen residing abroad cannot be notified about the initiation of proceedings, the court must appoint a defense lawyer. If the case is later dismissed, the lawyer’s fees will be reimbursed from the federal budget.

According to the explanatory note accompanying the document, the law is aimed at Russians who, after leaving the country, engage in activities allegedly contrary to Russia’s interests. The authors of the initiative argue that such measures will help suppress calls to violate Russia’s territorial integrity and constitutional order.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 7:29 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Putin and Trump are both trapped in losing battles against reality

The Ukraine and Iran wars are very different, but a common authoritarian delusion unites the men who started them

By Rafael Behr | Wed 10 Jun 2026

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/10/putin-trump-ukra
ine-iran-wars-authoritarian

A strongman president, self-styled redeemer of national glory, is trapped in a conflict he can’t win but doesn’t know how to end without looking like a loser. A cult of infallibility prevents the leader admitting a strategic blunder even to himself. It could be Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin; Iran or Ukraine.

The conflicts and the regimes involved are also dissimilar in important ways. Russia’s campaign to eradicate a neighbouring democracy is nastier in conception and bloodier in execution than the bungled US effort to dislodge a dictatorship in Tehran. It has also gone on much longer. The first world war was shorter than a “special military operation” that was supposed to capture Kyiv within weeks. The Soviet Red Army repelled Nazi invasion and marched on Berlin in less time than it has taken Putin’s forces to occupy a tranche of eastern Ukraine, and they are not making any significant advances. The war has burned trillions of roubles and sacrificed hundreds of thousands of lives for no discernible dividend in national greatness.

The failure is too big for the Kremlin’s propaganda machinery to hide. Civilians hundreds of miles from the frontline see the plumes of black smoke from the oil refineries struck by long-range Ukrainian drones. They feel the depletion of their wages by inflation. They noticed how last month’s Victory Day parade, the high holy day of Russian militarism, was strangely modest. The traditional convoy of tanks and missiles couldn’t go ahead when the skies above Red Square were vulnerable to Ukrainian aerial mischief.

Official opinion polls have shown a drop in support for Putin, albeit from impossible heights to improbable ones. Since the data-collecting agencies are under state control, the blip is best interpreted as a symptom of factional jostling for influence within the regime. Pragmatists in the civilian administration might have flashed a glimpse of presidential vulnerability as a warning to hardliners in the security apparatus that their approach isn’t working. Polls tracked back towards the adulatory norm after a pause for “methodological” revision.

Any internal Russian lobby for ending the war runs into the problem that Putin sees the conflict as an existential struggle to avenge national honour against the perfidious west. He casts himself as the incarnation of national destiny, reaffirming Russian civilisational supremacy over borderlands to which it is historically entitled. Such a man doesn’t easily accept the prospect of dealing with Volodymyr Zelenskyy on equal terms as legitimate president of an independent country.

Trump’s worldview is less cluttered with antique mythology, more pumped with celebrity narcissism, but the effect is the same. He shares Putin’s concept of alpha powers whose interests override any sovereignty claims of lesser nations in their neighbourhoods. He was easily persuaded that Ukraine’s cause was hopeless and that Putin held all “the cards” because it would have offended his own sense of majesty to believe that someone in Zelenskyy’s geopolitical class could be a winner.

If the US president had been interested in the reality of Ukraine’s defensive campaign he might have observed the levelling effect of drones, allowing a smaller force to thwart an apparently overwhelming onslaught. He might even have considered the relevance of that asymmetry when judging whether Iran could be bombed into unconditional surrender. He might then have taken advice from people in the state department and CIA who had war-gamed an all-out campaign against the Islamic Republic under previous administrations. They concluded that regime change couldn’t be achieved from the air and that closure of the strait of Hormuz was a viable Iranian countermeasure with devastating economic consequences.

That would have required a capacity for strategic analysis that recognised practical constraints on what the US can achieve. Since Trump sees no boundary between himself and his country’s power, and treats every interaction in zero-sum terms, factoring Iranian advantages into the military equation would be like admitting limits to his personal potency. Intolerable.

Like Putin, Trump is marooned on an island of autocratic delusion, surrounded by advisers and ministers who are too cowardly or too blinded by ideology to survey the distant shore of reality and suggest a way back. For the Russian president there might be some compensation in seeing the US humbled in the Middle East, but the gains are fewer than they appeared at the start of the war. The revenue boost from higher oil prices has been largely cancelled out by the costs and logistical impediment of Ukrainian drones landing on industrial infrastructure.

Meanwhile, a Trump administration bogged down in negotiations with Tehran has no bandwidth for Ukraine. That shifts the odds against Putin in his bet that Zelenskyy can be bullied by the White House into conceding territory that Russian soldiers haven’t been able to seize on the ground. It also creates a space for more proactive involvement of Ukraine’s European allies. They feel the need to check Kremlin aggression more urgently than anyone in Washington.

That agenda has become easier to pursue since Viktor Orbán’s defeat in Hungarian elections earlier this year. The removal of Putin’s favourite spanner from the European works led to a prompt unblocking of aid to Kyiv. There are signs of momentum behind a Europe-led peace initiative. At a recent meeting of EU foreign ministers there was discussion of candidates to lead negotiations with Moscow. This week, Keir Starmer hosted Zelenskyy, along with Germany’s Friedrich Merz and France’s Emmanuel Macron for a summit in Downing Street.

These displays of solidarity gloss over the gap between what Ukraine needs in terms of military hardware and what Europeans are ready to provide. It still isn’t clear what a “coalition of the willing” would really be willing to do to keep the peace in Ukraine without the US. But Putin’s confidence that the decadent west would not stay the course when confronted with Russia’s inexhaustible supply of manly valour has also not been vindicated.

This is something else he has in common with Trump, or that Russian ultranationalism shares with Maga mania. Both movements view Europe as a decrepit civilisation in the death throes of cultural suicide by overdose of immigration and liberal degeneracy. It is a diagnosis repeated by many nationalists and mainstream conservatives across Europe, assisted on their ideological journey by campaigns of overt and covert online influence originating in Russia and the US.

It is also an underestimation of liberal democracy’s defining strength, which is the resilience afforded by pluralism and institutional acceptance of legitimate opposition. The authoritarian strongman, seeing no difference between his will and the nation’s destiny, treats dissent as an assault on his authority, tending towards treason. He sits atop an edifice of power that promotes loyalty at the expense of truth, until reality itself is banished from his court.

In the US that process can still be corrected by constitutional checks and balances, fair elections, a free press and independent courts. Not in Russia. That is why European democracies must prove that their system of government is not only better in principle, but stronger in practice. And the way they do it is by embracing Ukraine’s struggle as their own.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026 7:40 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Europe Plans to Crack Down on Russia—but for Real This Time

Trump and the Iran war gave Russia a boost. Brussels is fed up.

By Keith Johnson, a staff writer at Foreign Policy covering geoeconomics and energy.

June 10, 2026, 12:45 PM

https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/10/europe-russia-sanctions-package-t
rump-putin/?tpcc=recirc_latest062921

The European Union has proposed its 21st package of sanctions on Russia, a bid to finally bring the Russian war economy to heel, in a war that has now lasted as long as World War I.

The latest sanctions package is especially important because Moscow has received a shot of relief this spring, thanks to the Iran war and the Trump administration’s easing of sanctions. Russian energy revenues are now at more than two-year highs.

That explains why the European Commission is targeting energy this time, with measures meant to curtail Russian oil earnings; sanction more “shadow fleet” tankers; take aim at ports and refineries that allow Russia to do business even still; and limit the future sale of specialized gas tankers to Moscow. The latest proposed package also sanctions several more Russian banks, seeks to limit trade in items that can aid Russia’s defense industry, and will ban from Europe any Russian who has participated in the “special military operation” in Ukraine, as the Kremlin refers to it.

“Brick by brick, we are collapsing the foundations of Russia’s war economy,” European Union foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas said Tuesday on X.

The latest EU sanctions are just a proposal and still need to be refined into final form and then passed by unanimous consent among the 27 EU states. The last 20 times, that was challenging because Hungary, previously Russia’s handmaiden inside Europe, sought to water down almost every attempt by Brussels to increase pressure on Moscow or offer relief to Kyiv. But Hungary has come in from the cold, leaving only a handful of possible objectors, such as Slovakia.

The package is timely because Russia is raking in money due to the fallout from the U.S.-Iran war, which drove up oil and natural gas prices. Additionally, the Trump administration has repeatedly offered Russia relief from previously levied sanctions to keep oil prices from exploding. The result has been a windfall for Moscow.

“The conflict in the Middle East and disruptions to global energy supply chains have eased some pressure on Russia,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement. “So, the objective of our package could not be clearer. We want to maintain the full intensity of our sanctions.”

In May, Russia’s energy export revenues climbed another 2 percent over the already-high levels of April to 726 million euros per day, according to the Finland-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), which tracks Russian energy earnings during the war. Crude oil loadings at the key Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga, which Ukraine hammered in March and April with drone strikes, were up almost 50 percent in May.

“Russia is sailing in terms of earnings from oil and natural gas,” said Isaac Levi, the head of Russia research at CREA.

“The sanctions were having a big impact before February of this year,” he said, but then the gulf between the price of discounted Russian crude oil and global benchmarks closed, as countries everywhere scrambled to replace missing barrels of oil due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. waivers in particular cleared up a backlog of stranded Russian tankers and allowed Russia to ramp up production at its oilfields.

“The Trump administration has basically dealt [Russian President Vladimir] Putin a blank check,” Levi said.

That sudden premium for Russian oil is one reason that one of the proposed EU measures—a tweak to the system it uses to try to cap the price at which Russia can sell its oil—is unlikely to do much, according to Levi. “The oil price cap is basically dead in the water,” he said.

But there are plenty of positives in the latest EU sanctions package. The moves to sanction ports and refineries that traffic in refined petroleum products from Russian crude is a step in the right direction, Levi said, since prior efforts to curtail the trade in gasoline, diesel, and other products have suffered from lax enforcement.

“If they go after refineries that violate sanctions, that could discourage countries that are buying Russian oil,” he said.

Another encouraging move is the addition of 30 vessels to the 632 “shadow fleet” tankers already on the EU’s black list, though that measure would be a lot more effective if it were coupled with action from the United States, which has a much better global enforcement capacity. (The Trump administration has not taken any steps to increase sanctions on Russia’s shadow fleet since January 2025.)

But one glaring hole in the EU’s sanctions regime is Russia’s natural gas trade. Brussels sought to curtail the trade of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) in earlier sanctions, but it hasn’t found the formula yet. Through May, European imports of Russian LNG from the Arctic were up nearly 18 percent, a multibillion euro bonus for Moscow, with Spain the biggest consumer, according to data compiled by Urgewald, a German environmental and human rights group that tracks Russian energy finances.

“From 2027, there will be a complete ban on Russian LNG, but in the meantime, everybody is trying to get as much gas as they can,” said Sebastian Rötters, a sanctions analyst at Urgewald.

And while the EU is proposing to restrict the sale of new LNG tankers to Russia—it is a real vulnerability, since the country cannot make the sophisticated ships on its own—Russia so far has found ways to keep its growing Arctic gas operations afloat. And it may have found even more: Novatek, the big Russian gas company, is reportedly in talks to acquire as many as 10 ice-class LNG tankers from Japanese and South Korean suppliers. (Ice-class tankers are important because Russia’s natural gas export facilities, and some of its export routes, are in the actual Arctic.)

“This would undermine the whole EU LNG tanker sales ban and would allow Novatek to increase exports a lot,” Rötters said.

Ultimately, the fact that the world’s largest economic bloc has already tried 20 times to tighten the screws on Russia’s seemingly vulnerable economy suggests that Brussels, if not the West as a whole, has moved too timidly to sanction Russia over the past four years, allowing the war to drag on.

“That we are still buying more Russian LNG than before is ridiculous. The sanctions have been incremental, and in many cases have had limited impact, because the windup is so slow and Russia can often find workarounds,” Levi said.

Seen from another angle, though, “you could say it is a miracle they passed so many packages before,” said Rötters, noting the EU’s requirement that sanctions get unanimous sign-off from all 27 member states, even those that are friendly to Russia. Now may be the first chance to really clamp down on Moscow’s warmaking ability.

This 21st package, he said, “will be the first discussed without [former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orban, so now there is nobody to hide behind. Right now is a moment of truth for some member states.”

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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