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So they’re now reporting that much of the planning was carried out in a building right next door to an FSB office. On top of that, they even set the trucks to self destruct after launching their payloads. One of the kickers is that it looks like it’s crippled the Russian trucking industry for a while. Reports and footage indicate that Russia is stopping every single truck at checkpoints or a full search and inspection.
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Seperately, the latest round of negotiations ended in Istanbul. Russia and Ukraine have agreed to the repatriation of 6000 dead soldiers each, on top of unknown numbers of heavily wounded soldiers and, more importantly, youth that were kidnapped by Russian soldiers. Russia has proposed the following requirements for peace:
- Ukraine withdraw from Russian occupied Ukrainian territories
- Ukraine recognise occupied territories as Russian
- Ukraine guarantees neutrality (most likely means no EU or NATO)
- Ukraine limit the size of their armed forces
- Ukraine ban nationalistic parties
- Ukraine adopt Russian as the official language
- All sanctions against Russia are lifted
- Ukraine doesn’t seek compensation from Russia
Seems like very fair peace proposals there.
Yeah there’s a very short clip out there of some poor Ivan climbing in through the back of a truck right before it goes boomski.
Reports that Ukraine made another attempt on the Kerch Bridge with a massive bomb attached to one of the seabed supports.
Those Russian requirements are unchanged from years ago…
Since then NATO has expanded and considerably strengthened
Yep, they reportedly blew up 1100kg of explosives under one of the support struts. Unfortunately doesn’t look like they’ve done any significant damage. They somehow managed to conceal that much explosives underwater though, on one of the most heavily defended structures in the world
Russia officially updated their plane designs:
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The information operations coming out of this by Ukraine are top notch 
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So you’re just a truckie, and you’ve picked up a trailer - it’s got a mobile home on the back. Sure, fine, whatever, get on the road.
Drive along, get to your destination as instructed, pull up. All of a sudden the thing starts opening like a fucking transformer and drones buzz out, followed by explosions at what you now realise is an air force base.
How badly packing it are you?
Russia says they’ve detained a bunch of people, but they’ll just be the truckies who’ve been unwitting mules, while the Ukrainians laugh their arse off.
It’s worth restating that the Ukrainians have taken on legitimate military targets too, when they could easily have just gone to soft targets like residential neighbourhoods or business districts.
Putin has told Trump there will be a response too - probably blow up some more apartment blocks.
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Statecraft, but it’s just memes
All of this drone stuff has changed war forever. It’s essential ordnance now.
That truck just casually parked on the road outside the base and opening up like a Michael Bay transformer then unleashing is piss funny.
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Scary as fuck when you consider how it could be applied to terrorism or by lone wolf types
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Is there some level of state actor required to fly the things though? I know drones are cheap but doesn’t there have to be an expensive base where someone can pilot them?
You only need that for longer range stuff and/or to keep your pilots out of harms way. Lots of wired drones now using spools of fibre optic cable to avoid jamming too. But unwired you can still fly 5-10km.
Edit:
Even this little thing has a control range of about 10km.
Yeah the drones are 100% easy for anyone to use and purchase. Although payload wise, there will be limits to what someone can get.
You definitely dont need specialist equipment and correct, it’s easy enough to use fibre optic cables that extend for kilometers. One of the biggest pollutants now in Ukraine will be fibre optics, which will be interesting to try to remediate
Drone warfare is changing warfare like we saw Tanks change warfare at the end of WWII.
While it’s amazing what Ukraine has done, it’s terrifying with how easy this can be done. Terrorist organisations are licking their lips at hkw easy it will be to organise mass attacks using a few hundred dollar drones and some explosives.
Ive seen a number of reports indicating that Ukraine took out a military train. Destroyed 13 tabks and over 100 armoured vehicles. According to reports, the military train was connected to grain carriages. Drones flew out of the grain hoppers, destroyed the locomotive and then systematically hit everything else
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Not sure if it’s the first air-to-air kill the F-16’s have had there but one shot down an Su-35 on Saturday. Guided by an AWACS.
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The Russki’s must be running low on planes now. They seem to be losing them pretty regularly