Gurgeh

There've been mixed opinions on what kind of drones were used based on the footage, but the majority are saying it was a "Beaver" drone which are known to be used by Ukraine, and have plenty of range. The Russians already have the systems in place around Moscow to shoot drones down, or to ECM them - Putin will always prioritise his own protection, wherever he is. If Ukraine had their own missiles with the range to hit Moscow then the Russians would divert more S-300s, but they won't bother just for little drones. What they will care about is how far the drones flew before they were detected. Reading between the lines where the Russians have talked about making "improvements" to their defences after the attack, it sounds like they'll station more radar systems between the capital and Ukraine. While those systems likely won't come from the front lines. they'll become unavailable to replace any lost in action in Ukraine and put further strain on Russia's limited production of high tech equipment.

Both sides might regard this as "job done". The Russians can claim they achieved what they set out to do, without admitting the horrendous cost to them. The Ukrainians can say they tied down the most effective military units in the Russian army for months, fighting over a city with little strategic value. I suspect though that the Russians have decided enough is enough trying to push any further, as they'll be needing the troops elsewhere.

We don't know for sure exactly what has happened. There are rumors that part of one Patriot system was damaged in the last mass attack. Did a missile get through, or was it debris, or is it not damaged at all? Was it a hypersonic missile that hit, and if so, why did it only damage the system? Are they inaccurate? Given the sequence of events, it seems very probable that a Patriot can take out a hypersonic missile, which led the Russians to fire a volley of them the following night. Those missiles are scarce and expensive; they wouldn't fire several of them unless they had do, and if they fired six in one go, that's more than a tenth of their entire stock. If a Patriot can take out several hypersonic missiles then it puts the shelving of NATO hypersonic missile development over the last couple of years in a new light. The West may have figured that if we can shoot these things down with current tech, the Chinese can probably do the same, so maybe the better, and likely cheaper option is to improve missile stealth rather than improve speed. A single Khinsal hypersonic missile costs five or six times as much as a stealthy cruise missile, not counting the billions in development costs. Speaking of development costs, you can bet every piece of those hypersonic missiles that were shot down will be in the USA very soon. The Russians are still pretty good at developing missiles (their manufacturing let's them down), so there's likely plenty to learn from the wreckage.

'Ambushed' is an interesting term for two planes and two helicopters being shot out of the air. Presumably it means the Ukrainians were waiting for them with some kind of AA system that the Russians didn't know was there. While the planes are more expensive than the copters, apparently one of the copters was fitted with specialised jamming equipment that will be hard to replace. Makes you wonder if that one was the real target, with everything else being a bonus.

I think you could call the peace that came afterwards a missed opportunity. We didn't make things worse, but we could have made things better. In terms of regional influence, the people who really did benefit from the invasion of Iraq was Iran, as their most powerful and hostile neighbor ended up under their influence. It wasn't hard to foresee that being the outcome, but the depressing thing about that war is our leaders didn't seem to have thought about what would happen afterwards, other than good PR footage of a victory parade. Ukraine will be a different peace, probably more of a ceasefire. Putin likes to leave conflicts unresolved, it leeches resources away from countries he views as hostile, and he knows countries with ongoing border issues aren't allowed into NATO. When the fighting ends, we're going to have to arm Ukraine to the teeth, because Putin will rebuild his army as fast as he can and try again, no matter what agreements he signs. He's laid out his world view: Ukraine never existed, it's always been a part of Russia, NATO needs to be pushed back to the 1980s membership with eastern Europe acknowledging Russia as their protector, and Russia and China (and we all know who would hold the power in that partnership) opposing the US around the world.

Or get the guy who made the bust of Ronaldo to make one of Dan

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/may/13/russia-ukraine-war-live-russian-retreat-in-bakhmut-highlights-shortage-of-credible-combat-units-say-uk-officials Guardian foreign correspondent Luke Harding reporting from Kyiv. There are unconfirmed reports that another plane and helicopter has crashed, in what appears to be a disastrous day for Russian aviation. Moscow Telegram channels reported that an SU-35 warplane had been shot down too, together with a second Mi8 helicopter. Another military helicopter crashed on Friday in Crimea. It was unclear whether the two aircraft and two helicopters were downed on Saturday because of friendly fire, or if the Ukrainians targeted them with missiles.

Yeah that's been rumored for a while now. It's the limited range export version, so it'll reach about twice the range of their HIMARS. Just knowing Ukraine has them will make the Russians pull critical targets further back from the front lines. However it's also air-launched, which makes things a little risky for the Ukrainian air force to use close to the front lines: ""Our biggest enemy is Russian Su-35 fighter jets," says another MiG-29 pilot with the call sign Juice. "We know positions of [Russian] air defence, we know their ranges. It's quite predictable, so we can calculate how long we can stay [inside their zone]. But in the case of fighter jets, they are mobile. They have a good air picture and they know when we're flying to the front lines. Russian air patrols can detect a jet's take-off deep inside the territory of Ukraine. Their R-37M missiles can hit an aerial target at a distance of 150-200km (93-124 miles) ..."Our jets don't have a system to warn about [Russian rocket] launches," says a pilot of an Su-25 attack jet with the call sign Pumba. "It's all visual-based. If you see them, then you just try to escape by firing off heat traps and manoeuvring." Russia's air superiority means that Ukraine can afford only a limited deployment of its military aviation close to the front line, which can have a major impact on the success of any future counter-offensive operations. According to Juice, they carry out up to 20 times fewer sorties than the Russian Air Force." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65461405

"When you're overqualified for the job"

You'd have to add the Chinese being in on it as well, as one of their lunar missions took pictures of some of the Apollo landing sites.

Former head of Roscosmos now thinks NASA did not land on the Moon During his four-year tenure at Roscosmos, Rogozin wrote, he asked his leadership team to look into whether NASA had actually landed a dozen astronauts on the Moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s. After all, Rogozin reasoned, "It was not clear to me how the United States, at that level of technological development of the '60s of the last century, did what they still cannot do now?" In response to these queries, Rogozin wrote, he received angry responses from academicians and "fans" of NASA at Roscosmos who did not want to undermine cooperation with the US space agency on the International Space Station. As evidence for the landing, Rogozin claims he only received a copy of a book by cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. Accordingly, at the end of this "investigation," Rogozin said he does not believe Americans landed on the Moon but rather that they had succeeded in infiltrating the "establishment" of the Russian space program. ...[in fact] the Russians observed the lunar landing in real time from the ground—and even had a spacecraft in orbit around the Moon. The Luna 15 spacecraft was in orbit around the Moon at the time Apollo 11 arrived there and when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin went down to the surface. There were even some backchannel discussions between NASA and the Soviet space program to ensure that the two spacecraft did not interfere with communications between the Moon and Earth. In short, the Soviets were watching the American Moon landing closely and knew fully well what NASA had accomplished. https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/05/former-head-of-roscosmos-now-thinks-nasa-did-not-land-on-the-moon/

It's been noticeable that in the most recent wave of Russian missile and drone attacks nothing seems to have got through the defences around Khiv. Meanwhile Ukraine has imposed a two day curfew in Kherson. In the context of reports of them having made progress across the river, this could be significant, although a major assault across such a wide river would be extremely risky. ‘This will be different’: Kherson’s ruined villages come to life with counteroffensive preparation | Ukraine | The Guardian The evidence that more war is coming to Ukraine – and soon – is supplied by the roads, full of military traffic. Troop transports and newly supplied vehicles from western allies are moving, apparently confirming the statements of senior officials that the counteroffensive will come imminently and that they are “almost ready”. ...Along the southern Dnipro river around Kherson, Ukrainian artillery batteries have stepped up targeting of Russian positions on the far side of the river, while in a number of locations Russian military correspondents and bloggers say they have seen reconnaissance-in-force assaults designed to probe for weak spots. ...Oleksandra Viernenko, aged 76, is aware of what any counteroffensive is likely to involve for many Ukrainians still under occupation. Examining her ruined flat in a village near the town of Snihurivka, abandoned by Russian forces in the last offensive, Oleksandra is moved to tears. “At my age this is a hard thing. I still don’t know how I am going to live, but every day I pray to God, and I pray for liberation.”

Gruelling cat and mouse fight along Ukrainian river poised to escalate | Ukraine | The Guardian Least accessible of the frontlines, details of the war on the river have emerged from brief snippets from Ukrainian army press officers and Russian military bloggers, as well as material posted on social media channels and accounts supplied by local residents. What is clear is that fighting for the Dnipro delta’s islands, marshes and inlets has been very different from the gruelling battles on the eastern front. Here, combatants have moved in ribs (rigid inflatable boats) with powerful engines. On Velykyi Potomkin, the biggest island, which sits opposite Kherson’s Ostriv or Island district, Ukrainian troops have been slowly pushing forward, their progress tracked by geolocation. Once a pleasant spot where people from the city would visit their dachas or go to picnic, the island splits the river into two smaller branches to the immediate west of Kherson, making it a strategically important stepping stone. These days it is a battlefield. The smaller islands – some of which are no more than specks on the river – matter because they can be used as bases for firing mortars on the city. Every scrap of land is bitterly contested.

There's the name of the new owner's team band.

Not many QBs have been taken in the second round the last few years. I think if Hooker's there in the second, he'll be there in the third.

I believe you're right that the offensive can't be launched from there for the reasons you state, plus the fact that the whole area there is just marshland. Any heavy vehicles would be restricted to a handful of roads even assuming they could be landed. After the Ukrainians retook the west bank of the river and commentators were asking "what next?", the river delta area was described as a "special forces playground" suitable for small boat raids and elite infantry. However, for much the same reasons it will be difficult for the Russians to use their usual tactics of mass bombardment and expendable waves of conscripts to clear away the Ukrainians. Likewise the supply lines to their own troops stationed there are now threatened. Do they stick it out, or pull back and surrender the marsh? Apart from forcing the Russians to relocate defenses, the Ukrainians might be able to use small to medium size drones launched from that area to reach further behind Russian lines than before, and not just for strikes but for reconnaissance.

As always it's going to depend on who's available at our spot that someone else needs, and it's not a high pick. And we aren't trading with three of the teams below us in the first round. Maybe if one of the teams at the bottom would jump up to get Bijan to compete now, and we offer better terms than the Steelers.

You're right, but IIRC the knock on Howell was his footwork and that became a bigger deal when he struggled in his last year. Coaches always say they can improve footwork, so maybe spending most of a year on the sidelines has allowed Howell to get the work in.

Ukraine has crossed the Dnipro river south of Kherson. The land there is marsh with few roads, ideal for infiltration but not easy at all for vehicles. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 22, 2023 | Institute for the Study of War (understandingwar.org) Russian milbloggers have provided enough geolocated footage and textual reports to confirm that Ukrainian forces have established positions in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast as of April 22 though not at what scale or with what intentions. Geolocated footage published by a Russian milblogger on April 22 shows that Ukrainian forces have established positions on the Dnipro River bank north of Oleshky (7km southwest of Kherson City) and advanced up to the northern outskirts of the settlement on the E97 highway, as well as west of Dachi (10km south of Kherson City). This footage also indicates that Russian forces may not control islands in the Kinka and Chaika rivers less than half a kilometer north of the geolocated Ukrainian positions near the Antonivsky Bridge. Russian milbloggers claimed on April 20 and 22 that Ukrainian forces have maintained positions in east bank Kherson Oblast for weeks, established stable supply lines to these positions, and regularly conduct sorties in the area—all indicating a lack of Russian control over the area. Another milblogger’s battle map claimed that Russian forces do not control some Dnipro River delta islands southwest of Kherson City as of April 22, suggesting possible Ukrainian advances on these islands. Some milbloggers complained that the slow rate of Russian artillery fire due to the over-centralization of the Russian military command allowed Ukrainian forces to land on the east bank.

Both sides have been using tanks as artillery in the war, and yes tanks aren't really meant for that. IIRC the biggest issue is tank barrels wear out much faster than barrels specifically designed for artillery - I think they might get only a couple of hundred rounds from a tank compared to a couple thousand for an artillery barrel. Replacing barrels is one of those under-reported problems that both sides have. but especially the Russians because of their heavy use of artillery.