Erick Muller

Unico superviviente del ataque de un Panda, Chihuahuense por nacimiento y convicción, sencillito y carismático... y mi tío si baila shedo.

[Erick Muller @Megatherium100]

Pinning this to the top again, I want to laugh react at them summer next year.

[Saint Javelin @saintjavelin]

PRESENTING

Saint Javelin “Summer in Simferopol 2023”

Join us on Crimea’s beaches next summer as we celebrate a vatnik free peninsula

Cocktails by the beach, boat rides in the Black Sea, scuba dive to the Moskva and a special set by
DJ Lil Fella

https://t.co/1swekRInMO

[EventsInUkraine @EventsUkraine]

A calculation today of the terribly low drone success rate from the Ukrainian military telegram DroneBomber:

We parsed the main Russian monitoring channels tracking drone shoot-downs in Moscow and the Moscow region. We logged around 1,500 reported interceptions.

To put the scale into perspective:
In July alone, according to Moscow Mayor Sobyanin, 6,225 drones flew toward the Moscow region. Of those, 780 were shot down on the near approaches to Moscow.

Now for the results of our sample. To put it mildly, they’re disappointing:
🔴~1,400 drones (≈93%) were shot down at the 1st and 2nd air defense lines in the region.
🔴~100 drones (≈6%) were shot down within the 3rd defense line (the MKAD ring).
🔴Within Moscow itself — a grand total of 1 (0.07%). One. A single drone.

And what about actual targets hit over the past two months?

Here’s almost the entire list:
🟢The Dubna Space Communications Center
🟢Wildberries warehouses and logistics hubs
🟢Oil storage depots
🟢The Kapotnya oil refinery (several times in June)
🟢A couple of industrial zones and residential buildings hit by debris
That’s it.
Against the backdrop of thousands of launches, this isn’t even a drop in the bucket. It’s almost laughable.
If the tactic was to “draw out all the air defense missiles in this area,” it has failed. They appear to be in good shape, they have sufficient stocks, and the air defense ring is functioning effectively. If the goal was to identify routes for a breakthrough, the maps show they tried from every direction. There are no open corridors.
Draw your own conclusions about whether that’s acceptable or not.

[EventsInUkraine @EventsUkraine]

A record number of Ukrainian drones attacked Russia in July — 9,800. This, at least, is the number of drones the Russian ministry of defense reported intercepting. Though record numbers of Ukrainian drones may sound like Kyiv’s capabilities are developing, the truth is less clear.

It is a popular refrain that drone strikes are far cheaper than missiles. However, Ukraine is currently unable to intercept any of Russia’s ballistic missiles. Even if the cost of each drone is much lower, the total cost can become quite onerous if the drones are easily shot down, requiring massive numbers to be launched.

This is precisely the problem faced by Ukraine’s relatively slow, large drones and cruise missiles. Keeping in mind the 9,800 interceptions in July, Ukrainian media triumphantly displays about 5-10 successful hits daily, implying an interception rate of 97-98%. Similarly, the Ukrainian military blogger Bohdan Myroshnykov today gave an average long-range drone success rate of 1.5-2%.

A few hours ago Ukrainian military telegrams sadly posted, for instance, this video of an intercepted unmanned sea vehicle near the Russian city of Novorossirsk.

On July 31, Ukrainian sources glumly shared photos of a missile intercepted over the Rostov region (pictured)

Pro-Ukrainian military analysts reported that over the course of May and June, six of the 39 Flamingo cruise missiles launched actually hit their target. This is just based on open source data, and I suspect that Fire Point is less keen to share videos of Flamingos it unsuccessfully launches than it is of successful hits. The Flamingo has a maximum speed of 900 kilometers per hour, about 10 times slower than Russian ballistic missiles.

Just a few hours ago, all 5 of the latest Flamingo flight towards Russia were shot down, despite flying at very low altitudes along rivers to avoid detection. Perhaps all the rumours about the massive state privileges and graft characterizing Fire Point were true.
The Flamingo is a large and relatively slow target📷

I recently reported on the claims in the Ukrainian media that defense minister Mikhailo Fedorov was dismissed in July precisely because he wanted to reduce the share of Fire Point drones in long-range strikes from 80% to 25%. Not that this stopped European companies from investing billions into the enterprise, with le Figaro reporting in early July that Flamingo missiles feature French automatic guiding systems. But while automatic guiding is useful to overcoming electronic warfare, it is irrelevant if the drone is so slow and large that it can be easily shot down with other means.
Anyway, https://t.co/9oNEm5Zi49 recently calculated that Ukraine’s air campaign against Russia costs around a billion dollars a month. The main drones that Ukraine uses are the Liutyi ($200,000 per unit), the Beaver ($100,000), and the FP-1 ($60,000). These costs are estimates, all around the cost of Russia’s Geran drones (though generally much less advanced than the new Geran models when it comes to evasion and speed).

Assuming an average cost of $100,000 to $120,000 (depending on how many Flamingos are used), the 9,800 drones shot down in July would have cost Ukraine $980 million to $1.18 billion USD. Annually, that’s $12 billion, more than 12% of the entire defense budget. It’s also necessary to factor in spending on intelligence, operational planning, and other infrastructure on the ground needed for these operations.

This also probably accounts for why Ukraine has been rather illogically changing the target of its operations. If the goal is to destroy the economy of the opponent, one would not take switch from target to target. Instead, Ukraine spent March and April focusing on Russian oil and gas port infrastructure, then shifted to oil refineries for a few months, and now, since July 18, has been targeting the warehouses of online marketplaces.

Recent strike on a Russian Wildberries e-shopping warehouse📷

There have been some more strikes on oil refineries in the past few weeks, but this changing focus allows Russia to repair damaged facilities. Following the spring strikes, Russia’s Baltic ports fully restored shipping operations. During the pause on oil refineries, most of the damaged plants were either fully or partially restored. According to the Financial Times, only 7 of the 26 refineries that suspended production remained completely idle as of July 27. Eight had returned to full capacity and another eleven had partially resumed operations.

As a result, Russia’s fuel shortages have been easing, with restrictions removed or relaxed in much of the country, apart from Crimea and other territories close to the frontlines. Even Kuban, a region close to Crimea, has lifted fuel restrictions for vehicles. Contrary to Ukrainian hopes, there have been no mass anti-government uprisings due to the shortages, even at their peak.
The conclusion is that Ukraine keeps on changing targets because it lacks sufficient drones to overcome the Russian air defenses that are developed once one set of targets is struck. This also indicates Ukraine will also eventually run out of unprotected targets.

All this was hinted at recently by former commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny, who wrote that Ukraine’s long-range strikes, despite all the hype, ‘are expensive, technologically complex, and ultimately provoke countermeasures’.

[doomer @uncledoomer]

congratulations, you went from a part that can be laser cut and bent in 5 minutes to a part that needs to be milled from a solid block of metal. you cut 50% of the weight and 10x'd the cost.

[Russians With Attitude @RWApodcast]

On the one hand, the town of Ceuta (the name itself comes from Septa, shortened from its Roman name Septem Fratres) has been in European hands from AD 40 until the 8th century and again from 1415 until now. The population was speaking Latin well into the 5th century. Ceuta was liberated almost a century before the Reconquista was completed on the mainland; before Granada, Málaga and Almería. It is quite obnoxious seeing Americans, particularly self-declared "right-wingers", espouse actual Third Worldist "decolonization" rhetoric and demanding the annexation of sovereign Spanish territory just because Morocco sucks up to Israel and Spain doesn't.

On the other hand, Spain has sent BILLIONS in weapons and cash to the Kiev regime and pledged even more mere months ago. They sent dozens of tanks and armored vehicles and mortars and artillery shells and anti-ship missiles and other weapons for literally no reason whatsoever, to a war that does not concern them in the least, for the sole purpose of killing Russians, a people living on the other end of the continent that has never done anything to the Spanish. So: they can get fucked

[Korobochka (コロボ) 🇦🇺✝️🇷🇺 @cirnosad]

Only deepseek got it right.

[Nostra, House of Gold @Nostre_damus]

last minute negotiations at the request of Saudi Arabia

[Clint Russell @LibertyLockPod]

OK get your tinfoil ready.

Graham inspected a drone factory in Ukraine yesterday. Russia blew up that facility today. Then, tonight, it is announced that Graham is dead from a "sudden illness". No more details

I'd say there is a decent chance that Russia blew up Lindsey Graham.

[Just Me @failure1991]

Some footage from towards the end of the battle of Konstantinovka and it is about as horrible as you can imagine. The so-called pro-UKR people on this site do not know, or liklier still, do not care what the VSU is going through.
Warning: 18+ distressing images

[Dr. Clown, PhD @DrClownPhD]

POV: You go to the movies, but the seat next to you is a female cop.

[KJGD | ᑭK @PkMemez0]

“If you're not buying GTA 6 just because you can't have a disc then you weird af”

Translation:

[Cheems Rojo @cheems_rojo]

Cualquier Ciudad de México después de un partido de la selección en el mundial:

[LogKa @LogKa11]

Ukrainian government try to hide their electrical infrastructure with concrete and nets, but drones always find a way. An autotransformer of a 330 kV substation was destroyed by an FPV drone in Sumy.

[Olga Bazova @OlgaBazova]

> be Zelensky
> have an undying desire to involve NATO in his war
> try all kinds of provocations with NATO neighbors and try to blame it on Russia
> fail
> piss off all the neighboring countries but Romania and Moldova
> only Belarus left to try to expand your war
> threaten Belarus with military action about transmitters that have been there for years
> get ignored
> on the last day of the ultimatum back out of military action making up a story that Belarus dismantled the transmitters, they didn't
> for some unknown reason order mandatory evacuations in 12 settlements bordering Belarus in Chernigov region
> what?!

[Mûriëlo @LordMurielo]

Ninguna IA jamás va a poder hacer una película así.

[Silly Little Guy @Czar_Of_Silly]

Show them who belongs in North America, Mexico

[Erick Muller @Megatherium100]

If you punch me and my completely mesure, legitimate response, according to me, was to nuke you, your entire family, friends, neighbors and close associates, then by this completely reasonable standard of behavior it only makes sense what israel is doing right now.

[Dr. Pepper Texan @DrPepperTexan]

Well, if every single day you faced the prospect of rockets, missiles, drones, and terrorists trying to kill you, and these threats were all coming from one group, I rather suspect you’d feel the same way. Nothing happens in a vacuum.

I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me why what Ben Gvir said is so horrible, but what Hamas and Hezbollah said in their charters about killing every Jew in Israel is OK. I suspect I’ll be waiting a long time…..

[Jota. @jota_snchez]

El Jetson ONE, un vehículo aéreo personal, cuesta 128.000 $.

Puedes pilotarlo sin licencia tras un curso de solo 5 días.

Reserva con 8.000 $. Lleva baterías de emergencia, paracaídas balístico y radar con aterrizaje automático.

Velocidad máxima: 102 km/h.

[Erick Muller @Megatherium100]

@Waidwml1 @MatthewPHoh Hoh is talking about something greater than just drones, he's referencing that the entire battlefield, all the way into the deep operational rear are completely visible to the enemy, 24/7, which has deep implications on how you can operate a military operation.

[Maximum Secrecy @AgeOfSecrecy]

There are a lot of pro-Russian and pro-Ukro sources claiming the “correct” KIA numbers. Filtering out the bias is challenging, but key data include obituaries, amputations, body exchanges, MIA (all likely KIA) and cemetery expansions. My estimates:

RuAF: 190k KIA
AFU: 1.4M KIA