“A third Russian airfield was ablaze on Tuesday from a drone strike, a day after Ukraine demonstrated an apparent new ability to penetrate deep into Russian air space with attacks on two Russian air bases.
Officials in the Russian city of Kursk, located close to Ukraine, released pictures of black smoke above an airfield in the early morning hours of Tuesday after the latest strike. The governor said an oil storage tank there had been set ablaze but there were no casualties.
It came a day after Russia confirmed it had been hit hundreds of kilometers from Ukraine by what it said were Soviet-era drones – at Engels air base, home to Russia’s strategic bomber fleet, and in Ryazan, a few hours’ drive from Moscow.
Kyiv did not directly claim responsibility for the strikes but celebrated them.
“If Russia assesses the incidents were deliberate attacks, it will probably consider them as some of the most strategically significant failures of force protection since its invasion of Ukraine,” Britain’s ministry of defense said on Tuesday.
“The Russian chain of command will probably seek to identify and impose severe sanctions on Russian officers deemed responsible for allowing the incident.“”
Comment: Gonna punish the poor bastards in command on the Russian side. Keep it up! pl
Ukraine Appears to Expose Russian Air Defense Gaps with Long-range Strikes | Newsmax.com
I wonder if these strikes within Russia are making the civilian population of Moscow feel edgy?
Ukrainians should capture Belgorod and annex it.
If they’re going to capture any city in Russia, I would propose Rostov-on-Don and after that Krasnodar. I’m not sure that’s the next thing they need to be worrying about, though.
My mother was director of the Anglo-American embassy school in Moscow, 1968.
She wondered why we were so worried about the USSR.
Said that nothing in the country worked and “they’re all drunk all the time.”
Well, “drunks” with nukes could be worrisome!
So, worry yourself. I say take it all away from them, now. Or forever live in fear of liars, thieves and drunks.
The Kuban would be a better annexation. Bring those Zaporozhian Cossack families back to Mother Ukraine. They were exiled to the Kuban over 200 years ago. They had helped Potemkin and Catherine beat the Turks and capture Kherson, Ochakiv and Crimea. For a reward they were disbanded and banished from their homeland. That’s Muscovite gratitude for you.
Sorry Al – this was meant for Borko who wanted tyo annex Belgorod.
TV
I recall Famke Janssen (in an interview after the Bond movie, Golden Eye, release) who said; she was at a primer in a country that was formerly Soviet, and the Russian Speaking audience members LAUGHED during the famous tank scene, not because of the chase, but because it (the Tank) STARTED and it actually RAN…
I have been looking for that interview, I know it exists; the technology would have to be converted to get it on the internet. I believe it was early Leno on the Tonight Show. It was a gem of an interview.
kj
Soviets used to have good Air Defense forces. Putin, or his MoD, messed up when they merged AD with the Air Force and the Space Force.
General Surovikin is or was recently in charge of VKS (the whole shebang: air, space & AD). Alexander Leonov, a Lieutenant General, supposedly commands the AD forces. I cannot find a bio on him. But Leonov was a famous name in the Soviet military. Not sure if he is related?
UK Intell reporting that 2 of Russia’s long range bombers were damaged in the initial strikes.
Putin must have been facepalming a lot since the start of this war.
He thought he had a Ferrari, but his military is the same old Lada only with a facelift.
A second hand Lada at that, purchased on eBay and equipped with sparkplugs made in Ohio during the 1960s, and smuggled in through Afghanistan in the 1980s.
146 million defenseless people. Led by imbecile gangsters.
In light of which we can safely say, as Americans: We have you outnumbered.
If you want to see first rate Air defense, look no further than New York City and Washington DC on September 11, 2001.
Now that – that! – was Air Defense.
I’d say 9/11 was an intelligence/coordination failure rather than an Air Defence failure. Knowledgeable professionals here can probably say what went wrong there.
In contrast to that, the Russkies have been at war with Ukraine for almost 10 months. After Saky airbase, Moskva cruiser, Kerch bridge, numerous Ukrainian cross border raids etc, they still allowed this to happen. Amazing.
Lada from ebay, indeed.
I just remembered the stunt Mathias Rust pulled in 1987.
https://simpleflying.com/mathias-rust-cessna-moscow-bridge-landing-1987/
Qui audet adipiscitur
Who audits the auditor? Or , who gets the bugler up?!
Indeed. Beat me to it.
I’d predict that they will hit Moscow soon enough because the capability seems obvious now, but hesitate because I suspect, with zero evidence other than absence of certain things and a paranoid outlook, that there has been some negotiated deal concerning hitting Capitol cities – Kiev and Moscow. That is purely a personal conjecture. The power failure due to an “attack” in Moore County North Carolina sure is interesting. This board so far is taking Sgt Schultz of Hogan’s Heroes approach to that which is probably a wise idea.
F&L,
Why would Ukraine waste their limited supply of these old Soviet era drones on Moscow? They want to strike the cruise missiles and the aircraft used to deliver those missiles. They will be pragmatic in their choices.
I’ve deliberately stayed quiet about the sabotage on the Duke Power substations. I notice the media and authorities have also stayed away from exactly how it was done. That’s as it should be. This is an instance where free speech would be dangerous. There are too many simple minded wackos out there capable of implementing similar trivially easy sabotage attacks.
That Moore County power station strike is about 90 minutes E/SE of me. Even our local people can’t get much detail except to say the perp(s) knew what and where to hit causing the most havoc. Moore County is not heavily populated but there is a lot of retired money in the area because of the top notch golf courses. Otherwise, details are few and many may only get power on today.
F&L,
The word you are looking for is sabotage. Rather easy to do in a complex industrial society like ours.
The question: are these Ukrainian capabilities limited in terms of volume? Can they deliver hundreds of these drones on targets or is this it?
Col. Lang or TTG
AM I guessing along a plausible direction to think that this TU-160 might have got so far into Russian territory because the RM could be/are using similar?
kj
The TU-160 is a Russian strategic bomber.
Thank you for the clarification –
kj
KjHeart,
The Ukrainians have been using these old Soviet drones since 2014. As far as I can tell, the Russians are not. A better explanation of Russian failure is incompetence. They have some decent AD systems with the Pantsir, S-300 and S-400. There should have been a near impenetrable ring around these strategically important airfields. The Russian operators were either drunk or too busy selling critical critical parts of those AD systems to buy more vodka.
TTG
Thank You for making it more clear what an obvious mess up this was.
I had thought they could not possibly do that bad a job – you have cleared away that ‘benefit of the doubt’ I had wished to give them..
I keep looking for that Russian Military Prowess I kept hearing about in literature and well, lately, not seeing that prowess..
And they (the Russians) are not seeing large flying objects either it seems…
kj
And why is that Blinken and DoS deny all the time that they would provide long range wepons to the Ukrainians to avoid attacks inside Russia, and evne deny that it is NATo who is providing satellite data for these attacks, while this guy states just the opposite and that it has been happenning all along….
https://twitter.com/SquawkCNBC/status/1600132720763568132
One would think that the MIC and DoS should meet more often so that to agree on the narrative, or is it the “deep state” going full in the open showing they are who are really in charge?
May be all these contradictions, like Biden lacunae, are just to create confussion in the enemy….
Lorraine B,
The US has been consistent about supplying real time intelligence to Ukraine from the start. I’m sure they let the Ukrainians know that the Russian bombers at those two airfields were gearing up to launch another cruise missile strike. They were probably providing intel well before the war started, too.
The Ukrainians struck those airfields with Soviet era recon drones modified into cruise missiles by the Ukrainians themselves. That capability is home grown.
TTG,
You probably already saw this but if not try to take a look -only 1 minute.
I bring it to your attention not for the textual content but for something else which is not easy to put into words. Ok, I’ll try anyway .. . Let’s see. Ok. Hmm.
“The old boy seems to be having a grand old time of it .. .”
I don’t know. 1- The Arthur Godfrey Show with guest Uncle Milton Berle? No. 2- Filling in one night on the Johnny Carson Show when Bob Newhart missed his plane back from Novosibirsk? Yes. Got it. That’s it. Did you see those episodes? I don’t remember seeing them but maybe Youtube has a complete archive. How many guesses did it take you?
It’s A Long Process. Putin Discusses escalation ..
https://youtu.be/Vio2MNgNf5E
F&L,
I missed all those episodes. I was never a fan of late night TV until I retired. I’m seeing some old TV series now in reruns that I never knew existed. TV was just not part of my life.
Putin does seem rather upbeat in that clip, more like a late night host delivering his monologue. I’d rather see him like this than being angry, frustrated or playing the victimhood card. Either that or he’s a suicidal person reaching the stage of contentment before doing the deed.
TTG,
Astute observation. I’m looking at some Russian taped TV shows using auto translate. They’re saying he finally used the word “war” during the Human rights council address. Rather than “special operation.” Fairly silly I guess. The US never officially referred to Vietnam as a war, did it? I think North Korea is officially a democracy. That’s no doubt why they remain at peace. They have to answer to their citizens. Just like Joe and Kamala listen. Putin, I believe is the democratically elected president of his country. It’s a relief to know that money has no influence on the political affairs of state in any country I’ve learned of. So there’s possibly a war now over there, but probably not entirely. Just probably a long war. Is a long war a war? Is Hopalong Cassidy really Hop Cassidy? No he isn’t. Glad that’s settled. A long war is not a war, just as Hopalong Cassidy is not Hop Cassidy. But who was or is Hop Cassidy? I don’t know. Maybe we have Hop Cassidy and no one else does. So it’s not a war. Sorry to bring it up.
F&L, a while ago I wondered about one of your comments. But overall your recent (???) contributions here remind me of the time I was asked to declare irony in my comments on SST. Suddenly I had to concentrate on what irony (as lighter version of sarcasm) may or may not be ending up with whatever semi-ironical or percentages of irony alerts. 😉
Still feeling abused?
Yes, one has always have to wonder about F&L comments, to the point it’s getting tiresome:
Is there any valuable idea behind the puns and words play?
Sometime THERE IS, sometimes… Ha! not this one! 😀
I was confused about the irony declaration verdict. Abuse, mental misuse, concerned different matters. Being in unboundedly good company helps.
LeaNder,
My goodness, the cruelty of my inconsiderate lack of irony versus sarcasm labels. I am considering not sharing with you the answer we secretly discovered concerning a certain rumor that a high official of the executive branch whose first name begins with K, was not confused at all by the acronym TPOTY which I mentioned to Fred in my gracious response to his comment on a character referred to in the yellow journalism of our day as Brandon and GOTV.
The rumor is she, without an instant’s hesitation said concerning TPOTY: The Pony or the Yak?
In the future I will add the label “salacious” with “ironic” and “sarcasm” along with NAHDCOTP (no animals harmed during ..), “Gender dysphoria whimsy psychosis suspected but unconfirmed” and several others. I apologize and swear to never repeat the atrocious error of one of our founding fathers by the name of Thomas Jefferson, when he wrote:
All men are created equal.
But omitted the helpful labels Irony and sarcasm and also made no mention of several other helpful possibilities, including even “first draft” and “wrong”
Being as he was a great man and universally recognized as being so, can it be that he didn’t think it necessary?
I see that your handle, read from right to left, spells out “red leNa” if the last (or first) four letters are slightly rearranged. Would you care to explain why you didn’t include a helpful label regarding the capitalized “N” and why it is confusing to cryptographic specialists? Red. Interesting.
Thanks for bringing the necessary mirth to these increasingly dark times, F&L.
the N stood for No, once upon a time, I needed something fast, when I discovered there are really crazy people on the internet. But while none of my friends ever called me red, why not? You may twist, bend or rearrange it whatever way you like. 😉
What would you like to be called?
What would you like to be called?
Feel free to use the spelling variant you always used.
Re the Duke Power substation attack, no sooner had I posted my above comment, this appears on my main news page:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/neo-nazis-say-attack-leaving-40-000-americans-in-dark-is-only-the-beginning/ar-AA152Xyc?cvid=624eda8022224e99b052adce15c82683
I don’t know, wackos like this article describes vs our own Federal authorities whom I trust very little.
Precisely. Will we ever know what happened? Already we hear of drones elsewhere with 1000 km range (over 600 miles). Put that in your thinking cap and stir gently for 15 minutes over a low heat while imagining how quickly a competent opponent could put them to use to black out huge sections of the country. You may rightly ask – “but I thought that would be accomplished through cyber war?” Yes. But if CW is used it can be responded to with devastating Cyber retaliation. Remember Vietnam, “Afghan hillbillies,” etc etc.
I might add that the domestic political situation is so brutally ugly that there is no telling the depths to which powerful people might stoop to discredit those presently in office.
Don’t forget we live in a place where 18 children were shot to death while 367 law enforcement officers did nothing while knowing full well what was happening. Uvalde Texas. I bet those kids said to each other: Don’t worry, the authorities are looking out for us.
F&L,
We know what happened. We just don’t know why. Holes were shot in the tanks for the oil providing cooling to the transformers. The transformers overheated and were destroyed requiring complete replacement. It’s not the first time it happened and it won’t be the last. A similar attack occurred in another county in North Carolina three weeks earlier. Duke was able to reroute power around that damaged substation within 2 hours. They couldn’t do that with the most recent attack. Maybe this was just a stroke of luck on the attackers’ part or maybe it was the result of a good target analysis of the local power grid. Or maybe it was just some drunken chuckleheads out to shoot up something other than road signs.
Why there’s no mechanism to automatically shut down the transformer before it burns itself out is a mystery. Actually it’s not a mystery. Doing something like that costs money and utility companies would much rather risk this kind of disaster than spend the money to prevent it. There’s a reason Ukraine shuts off her power grid upon warning of a Russian cruise missile attack. It prevents a lot of cascading damage.
TTG,
Thanks. A relief to get some decent information.
I wonder if they can’t bulletproof the transformer shielding? If bulletproof vests are doable and bulletproof limousines, why not?
Incredible the quantity of d**kbrains walking around. Truly remarkable. (Neither of the asterisks represents the letter u). Scale this up and you really aren’t left wondering about some things.
Thanks again.
“The Monroe county Sheriff’s office has yet to establish a perpetrator or motive…”
So let’s just blame the usual suspects to drive the narrative. Did you see the latest out of Berlin where the newest beer hall putsch was being organized by, schokingly, AfD, the political opposition party gaining votes in each national? The predictable actions of the incompetent and corrupt on display again. They really just need to cut to the chase and follow the example of Time’s Man of the Year and ban all opposition political parties, to save”Democracy” .
While savoring the winning contestants of 1936, 1938 and 1939 (it may be necessary to scroll down to winners section):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Person_of_the_Year
Don’t overlook to enjoy the contestant who won in 1975. The American Woman.
I have generously provided, through this link below, a magnification factor enhancement:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MarilynMonroe_-_YankArmyWeekly.jpg
That’s Marilyn Monroe in her incarnation as Norma Jean. Holding a largish red/tipped cylindrical object which appears to have a long electrical cord attached so it can access electrical current, but possibly so as to tie it up to a hook on the basement workshop.
There are malicious people who suspect she may have met her untimely demise due to the evil intentions of other individuals who were winners of Time’s Person of the Year Award.
Welcome to the list, President Zelensky!
Interesting that Neil Armstrong didn’t qualify, nor Buzz Aldrin or the guy who stayed up flying around the moon by himself. Michael Collins.
That, yes that simple fact alone, should tell you something about the award, not to mention some of the other winners.
For real true deep satisfaction superior to any fine whiskey or smoking tobacco (!!!) – please pass our final exam and notice the ONLY PERSON TO HAVE WON TWICE!
Yes. You got it:
Lyndon Baines Johnson.
There’s an old saying that comes to mind. Four words.
Nice Guys Finish ___.
F&L,
That’s incorrect, FDR won twice and then a third time for icing on the cake. LBJ, he sure helped the Black American Family didn’t he? No one ever thought he was a nice guy though.
Fred,
Thanks for trying to ruin my comfortable evening. I was about to call a taxi to take me to the nearest high bridge over the river when a little voice said, no, no, don’t do it! Why I said, That is really embarrassing. But you said only person to win it twice, and FDR won it 3 times not twice, you get to live! But Fred will say that after FDR won it twice he was a person who won it twice too. Hmm. You’re right. But why not have some fun first, sailor, huh? Marilyn, Marilyn, is that you? It wasn’t. It wasn’t even Norma Jeane Dougherty. It was the copyright desk of Yank magazine where the picture appeared. So I spoke with them and the nice lady said she was a lawyer. She said she might be able to work out a deal.
LBJ was a magician who had a mean disappearing act. Ask the Democratic party.
FDR won four times. Truman finished his last term and then he won in ’48 beating Dewey.
F&L,
Landslide Lyndon couldn’t hold a candle to Brandon’s GOTV.
Fred,
Brandon can handle a 4 letter acronym? We’re in more trouble than I suspected if so.
He thinks, in my estimation, that that stands for: Get Over That Virus!
We should stop this fooling around and open a side business. We feature quizes where the audience guesses first what Brandon thinks a given acronym stands for, followed by photos of what Kamalon thought they stood for as evidenced by memos to her staff and funny tape recordings.
Kamalala says it means Got Only Three Vicky?
We need to know a) Who’s Vicky? b) Three what?
Bill Roche,
FDR indeed won the Presidency 4 times. We were discussing his victories as Time Person Of The Year, or TPOTY. Thanks though. Now we have another test question for “Brandon and Kamalalalala Solve Acronyms at 6!”
F&L,
Norma Jean is holding a laminated wooden propeller for that small two cylinder engine behind her. I have no idea what kind of flying craft that engine and prop are for.
TTG,
You know, I suspected it was something like that. Yank Magazine indeed. I’ve had insufficient weapon straining for too long. It may have been an unused propaganda leaflet for Tokyo Rose if the main island was invaded. Thus the outboard motors in garish camouflage. Twas 1945. Maybe captured Japanese soldiers were interviewed and found susceptible to redheads with laminated wooden propellers. “Look, a million happy vacationers in recreational boats come to visit!” “Yes, and with a pretty redheaded lady leading the way!” “Oh look little boy, is her name Enola?” “You better hope not, Mommy, you better hope it’s Norma Jeane.”
What a pleasant happy time it was. Look at all those outboard motors. Look at the beautiful smile. Gender dysphoria whimsy would wait for Myra Breckenridge.
The US’s first UAV.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioplane_OQ-2
Mark Logan,
Thanks for finding that. It’s an aerial gunnery target drone. It looks very much like an oversized version of the balsa and tissue model airplanes of my youth. I found a video of the engine. It definitely has a lot in common with the gas engines of those model airplanes. It required a lot of fiddling just like those model airplane engines. The counter-rotating props were a surprise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HruyTW7c_4o
Mark Logan & TTG,
Incredible find.
My idea late last night that Marilyn as Norma Jean was actually posing for unused OSS propaganda leaflets in case the main island was invaded now seems not far off the mark. “Hey, Tokyo Rose! Ever see one of my Propellers? – Regards, Norma Jean”
I guessed the threat was 100,000 recreational boats with garishly painted motors.
Somebody really, really didn’t want to put a long prop on those things. I suppose the biggest problem they were dealing with was clunky controls.
“… appears to have long electric cord…” to the propeller Monroe is holding?
Fred, your eyesight is very poor. Or, perhaps, fantasies running wild!