"I am very unhappy with the openly hostile policy of the USA toward my country."
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Russia’s space chief is “very unhappy” with “hostile” US policy
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Some photos I've see show that fibre does show quite clearly in certain lights, eg at dusk with setting sun behind it. Think classic 70s glamour back-lighting shot.
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I imagine it to be like the wires they use for invisibly suspending things for stage performances. Light them one way and they are effectively invisible. Light them wrong and the audience is like "hard to suspend disbelief when the wires are so obvious." But in a theater you control the light and know where the viewers will be.
I would also note that such FO is usually not treated in a way to help make it less noticeable, since historically the uses were not trying to be visibly covert and there would be interest in keeping the material as lightweight as possible. But going forward, coating fiber in a thin layer of something to avoid the most obvious reflections/refractions could help.
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Ukraine's messaging is (once again) on point
DeepL Translate said:
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Wednesday morning's missile/drone attack report from Ukraine:
That's a particularly bad night for Ukranian air defence, with nearly 1/4 of the Shaheds getting through.
- 1x Iskander-M TBM
- 57x Shahed aerial torpedoes & decoys (29 intercepted, 14 decoys crashed)
That's a particularly bad night for Ukranian air defence, with nearly 1/4 of the Shaheds getting through.
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Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur suggests that a freight fee could be introduced for vessels transiting in and out of the Baltic Sea; the proceeds would be used to increase the resilience of undersea cables and pipelines.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...ea-cable-protection-says-estonian-2025-01-29/
https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...ea-cable-protection-says-estonian-2025-01-29/
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Apparently Ukraine hit another Russian oil refinery last night
Ukrainian drone strike hits second Russian oil refinery in a week (BBC News)
Ukrainian drone strike hits second Russian oil refinery in a week (BBC News)
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I look forward to comments claiming this violates UNCLOS, without referring to any particular article in the convention.
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So apparently in the past week of Trumpistan 2.0:
Only that last bullet point is bad for Ukraine. I am cautiously optimistic that Trump is indeed throwing all the Russophiles under the bus, at least for now.
This may have to do with the fact Trump doesn't need Russian help to get re-elected, he is much more powerful this time around, and he doesn't need to give a fuck about the Russian real estate market given the huge flock of opportunities for grift available to him now.
- The US halted international aid pending review and immediately continued aid to Ukraine, which indicates it was immediately reviewed and passed.
- Israel has possibly started shipping munitions to Ukraine. Or possibly it's US stocks being moved from Israel, but that's kind of the same thing, no way they'd move without Israel agreeing.
- The incoming Commerce Secretary wants to tighten sanctions, and Trump is promising taxes and tariffs on Russian trade (he probably doesn't know what those words mean, so sanctions is likely what he's talking about).
- Trump hasn't contacted Putin, and Putin is putting out communications sucking up to Trump.
- The Russian press is despondent.
- Hegseth got confirmed for defence despite fucking McConnell voting against him.
Only that last bullet point is bad for Ukraine. I am cautiously optimistic that Trump is indeed throwing all the Russophiles under the bus, at least for now.
This may have to do with the fact Trump doesn't need Russian help to get re-elected, he is much more powerful this time around, and he doesn't need to give a fuck about the Russian real estate market given the huge flock of opportunities for grift available to him now.
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[conspiracy theory] Ukrainian commandos captured the pee tape. [/conspiracy theory]
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Fine. It violates article 38. "Passage shall not be impeded" has a very broad interpretation both in the treaty and in subsequent interpretations by courts, and the only exceptions are listed in article 42, which makes no mention of fees.
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Holy cow, who leads the majority in the Senate and dared approve a candidate that McConnel did not approve ?
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Depends on how thick it is. The drones probably use a very thin single mode fiber to save weight and to increase range. I'm thinking the tradeoff is how thin it can be before it will just snap from tension during a normal flight.
The type I once encountered in an alarm system (setting it up, not breaking in) was certainly wider than that used in a drone, and it could be cut with a razor blade or scalpel easily. A little force was needed, but just a little. It cut much more easily (less force) with a heated scalpel, which is what the manufacturer supplied in the kit. (Corded pen type soldering iron with a scalpel tip. Really. That wasn't about cutting more easily, but providing a way to make a smooth surface on the cut end so that there would be less signal loss at the junctions.) Which brings us full circle back to heated metal as a deterrent against plastic fiber optic cable, because heat + sharp will cut better than either alone. Needs more power though, because the heat dissipation from the surface of razor wire would certainly be much higher than from a single thin wire.
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Thursday morning's missile/drone attack report from Ukraine:
One Shahed hit an apartment block in Sumy, killing 3 people and wounding 9 more
- 81x Shahed aerial torpedoes & decoys (37 intercepted, 39 decoys crashed)
One Shahed hit an apartment block in Sumy, killing 3 people and wounding 9 more
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Reuters: Russian maritime oil exports to China and India are grinding down as the latest round of sanctions against the tanker fleet kicks in.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/com...sanctions-drive-up-shipping-costs-2025-01-28/
https://www.reuters.com/markets/com...sanctions-drive-up-shipping-costs-2025-01-28/
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Russian and Ukrainian sources are reporting an overnight attack by Ukrainian drones on a Druzhba-pipeline oil pumping station near Novozybkov, Bryansk oblast. Russian sources such as Neftegaz are playing down the damage while other sources including NASA's FIRMS monitoring show a rather substantial fire at the location of the station.
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Didn't downvote. We fight to retain law 'n order, democracy, "Western values", while putin reverts to the law of the jungle, "might is right". That gives him one hell of an advantage.
So do we bend our rules accordingly? I don't know.
It's similar to the discussion about Ukraine parading captives. A moral maze I can't exit.
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international agreements like this work under the assumption of good faith, because Putin is not acting in good faith, they need not protect him
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One of the issues is that one of Russias goals in this conflict is to undermine the rules based international order and return to a state where big countries can bully small ones around (and it seems like a recently elected president in another big country largely agrees). Ignoring UNCLOS, or the alternative solution where Estonia and Finland simply withdraws, might seem like a small price to pay, but it plays right into Russias hand. I still think that the environmental standards rule is the best idea. It targets the Russian shadow fleet pretty well without affecting much other traffic, and it's in line with the treaty. I don't think Russia can afford to bring the fleet up to modern emissions standards, and finding confirming ship would be very difficult.
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"might seem like a small price to pay, but it plays right into Russias hand."
Agree with that.
"the environmental standards rule is the best idea"
This is the way! ✔
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Vezhen is only three years old, and Eagle S is less than twenty. You could use environmental standards to target the shadow fleet, but that's not going to eliminate the issue.
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Three years old and the anchor just "fell off" in a force 5 wind? The owners should sue the shipyard for selling them a lemon...
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Trump could have also just decided he’s tired of being called a Putin puppet. Or could have decided he liked the feeling of forcing Columbia to back down, and wants more of that.
The only thing we can be sure of is that any change of attitude about Russia by Trump is not a result of due reflection on current events and what is best for the U.S.
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A couple of oil related news.
Ukraine shows a way to deal with the Shadow Fleet (from Bloomberg):
And another refinery was hit (from Astra Press):
Ukraine shows a way to deal with the Shadow Fleet (from Bloomberg):
And another refinery was hit (from Astra Press):
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North Korean troops have apparently been removed from the front line:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/...ytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Can't read it, just going by headline. It's the NYT, so huge grain of salt - especially since it contradicts previous rumors that NK was sending more troops into the meat grinder.
Still, there's another thing floating around: apparently, Russian telegram channels are full of soldiers complaining that red tape has just exploded. Everyone wants everything cataloged, tracked down, and properly documented. The idea here is that this sort of things happens when military operations are being wrapped up: all the commanders are trying to look good, and paperwork that's in order is the way to go for that.
Assaults are apparently down by about a quarter in January compared to December, so... maybe there's something to it?
Either way, weird stuff is happening at the front.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/...ytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Can't read it, just going by headline. It's the NYT, so huge grain of salt - especially since it contradicts previous rumors that NK was sending more troops into the meat grinder.
Still, there's another thing floating around: apparently, Russian telegram channels are full of soldiers complaining that red tape has just exploded. Everyone wants everything cataloged, tracked down, and properly documented. The idea here is that this sort of things happens when military operations are being wrapped up: all the commanders are trying to look good, and paperwork that's in order is the way to go for that.
Assaults are apparently down by about a quarter in January compared to December, so... maybe there's something to it?
Either way, weird stuff is happening at the front.
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It does tend to be true that as you wrap up, people start worrying about the paperwork. Often, no one's talking about missing items in the middle of heavy combat, but then once combat is over "how did you guys misplace a thousand rifles?"
But the other time people suddenly start worrying about paperwork is when someone gets a bee in their bonnet that the poor showing on the battlefield might be because important materiel is being misappropriated. And that bee-bonnet can arise for any number of reasons.
Its also possible that the paperwork thing is just being driven by rumors there might be cease-fire. Certainly Trump is talking a a big game about being the one who can actually get a cease-fire done.
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Friday morning's missile/drone attack report from Ukraine:
- 102x Shahed aerial torpedoes & decoys (59 intercepted, 37 decoys crashed, 4 unresolved)
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Every day when I read your post I think about what it costs Ukraine to shoot down so many missiles in one night. I don't think about it as much in dollar terms (although that is definitely a factor), as I do in used-up anti-air capacity in a world where the U.S. is making noise about cutting them off from a big chunk of their military aid. Or even when I thought Harris was likely to win, in a world where the ability to replenish anti-air assets has hard limits in terms of production capacity.
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The vast majority of the long range drones are being short down with machine guns on light trucks. Missiles are only used if a drone looks like it's going to hit something important.
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Could be both. IIRC seeing 50% casualty estimates for the initial NK units. By any reasonable measure those are more than enough losses to render the units combat ineffective pending a significant reorganization.
In initial engagements they appear not to have learned much from their notional Russian trainers. Having wave 1 survivors pass lessons learned the hard way to wave 2 newbies would be a good reason to pull a significant number of wave 1 survivors back if fresh units are coming even if their units weren't pretty well wrecked already.
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ISW on Jan. 30th was about the terms of peace talks, and also mentioned that China is supplying russia with necessaries.
putin's idea seems to be that NATO withdraws from Eastern Europe to give him a temporary breather.
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Norwegian authorities detained a Norwegian-registered, Russian-crewed ship Silver Dania in the port of Tromsø. The ship was headed from St. Petersburg to Murmansk and a request to investigate was issued by Latvia, as the ship is suspect of being involved in the recent case of submarine optical cable damage between Latvia and Swedish island of Gotland.
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German media group RND recently interviewed Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský. Some highlights of the interview (the full text in German is available here but tracking cookies need to be accepted to read if you don't want to subscribe):
- Last year's Czech-led ammunition initiative enabled Ukraine to go from 10:1 ratio to parity in artillery utilization on the battlefield,
- Another ammunition initiative is possible in 2025 if funding is secured from partner countries and if there is political will - there are still sufficient sources of artillery ammo for purchase,
- Europe needs to step up its own defense and massively increase defense spending; it may be unpopular internally but it can no longer rely on dependence on the US through NATO,
- Ceasefire/peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will require Russian leadership to acknowledge elected Ukrainian representatives as legitimate, any side channels through Germany, US, or Slovakia aren't going to guarantee lasting peace; Putin needs to be forced to recognize Zelenskyy as a diplomatic partner,
- the 16th EU sanctions package could include provisions that limit movement of Russian diplomats in the Schengen area and force them to obtain a visa for cross-border travel inside Schengen; there are currently approx. 2000 Russian diplomats and their family members who can travel without restrictions and pose a significant security risk,
- Europe should do all it can to prevent a tariff war with the US, but it needs to demonstrate to Trump that it is an equal partner capable of shouldering their own responsibilities, viz. defense spending.
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It's not necessarily evidence of a full removal, but the Kyiv Independent has an article about the spokesman of the Ukrainian Special Forces saying they haven't encountered any North Koreans in Kursk Oblast for the past three weeks. An anonymous military intelligence source suggests it's a rotation off the front lines to reconstitute units due to casualties, which would seem consistent with the rumors that more troops are being sent. Two weeks ago Skyrskyi was estimating that the NK forces had suffered ~50% casualties (dead or wounded), while Western intelligence reports put the casualty level at 33% at a minimum.
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