About Odessa...

 ... May 2, 2014. There is a good material in Ria on that grim anniversary (in Russian, use Google translate). What is correctly noted, for many Russians this was the event which changed everything. Later those events will be "explained" by the onset of the war in Ukraine. So, keep in mind, while SMO started in February of 2022, the conflict was ongoing for the last 10 years. It is then when I completely lost any "brotherly" feelings. Why I do not consider, as many still try (for Putin it is obvious, he has to project moderation and historical wisdom) to convince that Ukrainians and Russians are "brothers"--ethnically, yes, culturally, no--them to be largely not brotherly at all, bar people from what historically was Malorossiya, is long to explain. New generations of Ukies are people radically different from Russians and it is not just the matter of propaganda. Long story short--it is a debilitating envy and complex of inferiority which is in the foundation of Ukrainian nation. I am on record--Ukrainian nation DID happen. It is a real nation, which only now is getting the whiff of its own demise.

On May 2, 2014 if anyone had any doubts they have been dispelled by the events in Odessa. The rest are details, however horrifying, of the first major war crime of Kiev regime and its curators against Russian civilians. I just want to say--the records are well kept and updated in Russia. To understand how 404 and majority of her people have been brought down to this pathetic state, one has to look into the roots of not just banderite fascism, but read the pathetic attempt on scholarship  by former Ukie President Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine is Not Russia, to understand a sheer delusion of 404 about own existence. 

Now, about this Dugin guy. Here is he with you know the guy is:

This is Dugin's MO, hassle, and due to his very limited intellect, he uses demagoguery as his main tool. Here he "debunks" late Stephen Hawking, because you know...

This is the guy who will have difficulty taking first derivative from a polynomial function, but here he is--"debunking" Hawking and astrophysics. Life is easy when your father was general of GRU. Some continue to buy this BS.

Yes, The Guys Need Money...

 ... by now blowing up NATO armor to smithereens becomes somewhat stale, plus RuAF and Air Defense are getting envious. 

US-made F-16 fighter jets could start arriving in Ukraine as early as this month, a senior Ukrainian military official has said. Speaking on national TV on Wednesday, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Ilya Evlash predicted that Kiev could receive the first batch of the advanced jets after Orthodox Easter, which is celebrated on May 5 this year. Still, he cautioned against getting hopes up. “We are not guessing the future, because the date has been changed several times. That’s why we are waiting,” Evlash. The official stressed that the timeline for F-16 deliveries is out of Ukraine’s hands, and that Kiev’s military “will work with what it is given to it.”

Oh, come on--R 1 million buys you a lot of fun, till now;)) 

Житель Санкт-Петербурга, вернувшийся с СВО, заявил в полицию после списания с его счета почти миллиона рублей, однако, как выяснилось потом, мужчина добровольно потратил деньги на трех проституток после ссоры с супругой, передает «Фонтанка». По информации издания, он обратился к правоохранителям, потому что его заставила жена, которая не знала о похождениях мужа и была уверена, что его просто обокрали.

Translation: A resident of St. Petersburg, who returned from SVO, reported to the police after almost a million rubles were written off from his account, however, as it turned out later, the man voluntarily spent the money on three prostitutes after a quarrel with his wife, Fontanka reports. According to the publication, he turned to law enforcement because his wife, who did not know about her husband’s adventures and was sure that he was simply robbed, forced him to do so.

You see, blowing M1 Abrams up doesn't pay that much anymore. F-16, now you are talking! You can get, probably, four of five St. Petersburg prostitutes for that. That's what I am talking about! What is sad, though, Russian and US pilots would have been great at getting drunk and chasing the tail, some of them, anyway. Not anymore...

May 1st Demonstration...

 ... and on S-350. It is a monster. 

 

Open Thread...

 ... go at it. 

 

Vera, Jacques and Me...

 ... talking shop today. I was translating...

 

Standard Target...

 ... albeit the Crimean Bridge was closed for 45 minutes to make sure civilian drivers are safe. After 45 minutes normal operation resumed. 

Украинские военные ночью нанесли ракетный удар по Крыму, используя ракеты ATACMS, российская система ПВО успешно отразила атаку, сообщил глава комиссии по вопросам суверенитета Общественной палаты России Владимир Рогов. В своем Telegram-канале он указал, что украинские боевики применили несколько баллистических ракет ATACMS для удара по Крыму – перед атакой на полуострове была объявлена тревога, перекрыт Крымский мост. Российская система ПВО отработала над Джанкоем и Симферополем, отразив все ракеты ВСУ.

Translation: The Ukrainian military launched a missile attack on Crimea at night using ATACMS missiles; the Russian air defense system successfully repelled the attack, said Vladimir Rogov, head of the commission on sovereignty of the Public Chamber of Russia. In his Telegram channel, he indicated that Ukrainian militants used several ATACMS ballistic missiles to attack Crimea - before the attack, an alarm was declared on the peninsula and the Crimean bridge was blocked. The Russian air defense system worked over Dzhankoy and Simferopol, repelling all Ukrainian Armed Forces missiles.

I will reiterate (how many times now, LOL) ATACMS is a standard target for Russian AD. It doesn't mean that they cannot get some lucky shot, of course it may happen, but there is NOT a single NATO weapon system, bar nuclear weapons, which can make any operational, forget about strategic difference for Russia. None, do not exist. But yes, three important events for Russians are coming and the only thing they can dream about is to spoil those events. That's impotent rage. Not in Kiev, in Washington and London. ATACMS have been in 404 for months now. Not much success... 

I Call It A Unison...

 ... it is a sign of times, which accelerate dramatically. As James Kunstler beautifully wrote today: 

 You realize, don’t you, that what’s going on in our country is the collapse not just of an empire, or an economy, but a comprehensive paradigm of human progress. The hallmark of post-war life in Western Civ was supposed to be a return to sanity after the mid-twentieth century fugue of mass psychotic violence. The wish for just and rational order was not entirely pretense. But that was then. Now that we are going medieval on ourselves, the not-so-ironic result will be our literally going medieval, sinking back into a pre-modern existence of darkness, superstition, and penury, grubbing for a mere subsistence in the shadow of scuffling hobgoblins, our achievements lost and forgotten.

It is a clusterfuck which was unleashed, as I warned for years, the moment the US decided that it is exceptional in what it never was and here we are today. 

Russian forces, meanwhile, are getting ready for... make your own conclusions on that matter. Where will they stop?