Some Off The Cuff Remarks.

Regarding some news today. Just finished the podcast with PolitWera and Vladimir Trukhan. We spoke about this too. 

1. Snake Island: purely political decision to remove Ukie "argument" about grain "blockade". Now Ukies started to de-mine approaches to Odessa and it will be very difficult for them to use the silly argument of Snake Island as an excuse. Militarily, VSU will not be able to place there anything because it will be immediately annihilated. The distance between Snake Island and Sevastopol is 260 kilometers--peanuts for P-800 Onix or any of the Kalibrs. VSU knows it and already stated that they have no intent to place anything there. They can't, even if they wanted to. I will omit here purely operational issue of Snake Island affair, which weakened the Odessa grouping of VSU dramatically. 

2. Per this (thanks to Larch who pointed this out):

(Bloomberg) -- A flight test of a hypersonic missile system in Hawaii ended in failure due to a problem that took place after ignition, the Department of Defense said, delivering a fresh blow to a program that has suffered stumbles. ... It didn’t provide further details of what took place in the Wednesday test, but said in a statement sent by email “the Department remains confident that it is on track to field offensive and defensive hypersonic capabilities on target dates beginning in the early 2020s.” “An anomaly occurred following ignition of the test asset,” Pentagon spokesman Navy Lieutenant Commander Tim Gorman said in the statement. “Program officials have initiated a review to determine the cause to inform future tests.” he said. “While the Department was unable to collect data on the entirety of the planned flight profile, the information gathered from this event will provide vital insights.”

But the funnies part is this. They cannot even hide the fact of being sore losers. 

Russia debuted a hypersonic air-to-ground missile in its attack on Ukraine. Adversaries don’t have to meet the rigorous standards set under the US defense acquisition system or face public scrutiny over delays and failure.

Obviously no normal people work for most US establishment media, but can they at least hire the ass-holes who have a clue, instead of the full o'shit ignoramuses? Don't hold your breath. But I am on record and I repeat:

a. Eventually the United States will be able to create a some sort of quasi ballistic (air-ballistic) hypersonic weapon akin to Russian Kinzhal. When? Who knows. Relatively soon--a few years. 

b. The US is nowhere near a hypersonic cruise-missiles such as 3M22 and it is not even at the start. Those technologies are deployed as fully functional weapon systems ONLY by Russia. 

c. US media, full of shit as always, continue to obfuscate the issue of hypersonics throwing into the mix two very different technologies: hypersonic air-ballistic missiles like Kinzhal and fully powered in flight surface launched anti-shipping and land attack 3M22 Zircon. There is a chance they simply do not understand a difference. 

3. Here are poor poor dears from the West crying about the SMO. The video is still full o' shit, including pseudo-"tactical" baloney spewed by all those "veterans". 

But as I already stated--these guys thought that learning how to shoot and read couple of combat and field manuals makes them such "professionals" in war. Right. 99% of them never heard of how operations are planned and why people attend military academies. Here is a simple explanation (I did it in one of my videos) from the US Naval War College:

None of those "soldiers of fortune" has any clue what operational and strategic level is and how wars are fought. But sure, they know how to do "tactical shit" and because of that think (or, at least, thought) that they know the war. Right and I am Mother Theresa. Which brings me to this issue:

4. For those who continue to refer to all those Colonel Cassads and their ilk: there is a reason I do not take them seriously. They are NOT military professionals, never were and will never become ones. Most of them are into this whole thing for personal reasons, much of which are related to self-realization and money. I also get paid for what I do, but at least I served almost 11 years in the Armed Forces, including at the Brigade Staff position. Just keep this in mind. 

Operational and Strategic level of war are very complex and require a very serious background not just knowledge of "tactical shit" and ability to read maps and knowing how to use ballistic tables (smart phones' apps, here we come) or understanding what mil is. 

In related news: 

Electricity prices in Europe are soaring again as the market starts to fear that energy shortages this winter would be much larger than expected a few weeks ago. The German power prices for next year, a benchmark in the European electricity market, have surged by 12 percent so far this week and were rising by 2 percent early on Thursday, according to Bloomberg estimates. Europe is grappling with filling gas storage in time for the winter, after Russia slashed supply to major EU consumers, including Germany and Italy, citing “technical reasons.” Germany and Italy dismissed Gazprom’s reasons for the lower flows and said the move was politically motivated.At any rate, the low Russian gas deliveries and the two-week maintenance on Nord Stream which will halt supply via the pipeline in July are making European governments and electricity market traders and participants nervous about gas and power supply.

That is a strategic level and as BTO sang: you ain't seen nothing yet. 

P.S. Somebody on interwebs "accused" me of "loving BTO". I never experienced more severe attack on my character than that. I never even liked sons of bitches, I abhor their sound. What I said was: they surely can play. And they can--great musicians. Just wanted to clear this blemish on my musical tastes. Same goes for Molly Hatchet--horrible sound, awesome musicians. 

Evidently, There Was a "Slaughter"...

 ... of VSU air-assets during their latest (disastrous) attempt at Snake Island. As Russian MoD reports:

«Замыслом операции киевского режима предусматривалось нанесение массированных воздушных и артиллерийских ударов по острову Змеиный с последующей высадкой десанта и его захвата. В воздушном налете было задействовано более 15 украинских беспилотных летательных аппаратов в ударном и разведывательном исполнении, наведение которых осуществлялось двумя беспилотными летательными аппаратами «Байрактар ТБ-2», – говорится в официальном Telegram-канале Минобороны.«Кроме того, в воздушном пространстве в районе острова Змеиный российскими средствами был зафиксирован на больших высотах стратегический разведывательный беспилотный летательный аппарата ВВС США «Глобал Хок» RQ-4.

Противовоздушное прикрытие украинских БПЛА обеспечивалось зенитными ракетными системами «С-300» с боевых позиций в районе Тузлы и Очакова.Ракетные и артиллерийские удары по острову Змеиный наносились украинскими баллистическими ракетами «Точка-У», реактивными системами залпового огня «Ураган» и 155-мм гаубицами М-777 с огневых позиций западнее Одессы и на острове Кубанский», – сообщил Конашенков.«Российскими средствами ПВО: зенитным ракетно-пушечным комплексом «Панцирь» и зенитным ракетным комплексом «Тор» все средства поражения противника, выпущенные по острову Змеиный, были уничтожены.Сбиты в воздухе: 13 беспилотных летательных аппаратов, четыре ракеты «Точка-У» и 21 реактивный снаряд системы залпового огня «Ураган». Ни одно из украинских огневых средств не достигло цели на острове Змеиный. 

Translation: “The plan of the operation of the Kyiv regime provided for the infliction of massive air and artillery strikes on Zmeiny Island, followed by a landing and its capture. More than 15 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles in strike and reconnaissance versions were involved in the air raid, which were guided by two Bayraktar TB-2 unmanned aerial vehicles. “In addition, in the airspace in the area of ​​​​Snake Island, Russian means detected a strategic reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle of the US Air Force Global Hawk RQ-4 at high altitudes. Air defense cover for Ukrainian UAVs was provided by S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems from combat positions in the Tuzla and Ochakov areas. Rocket and artillery strikes on Zmeiny Island were carried out by Ukrainian Tochka-U ballistic missiles, Uragan multiple launch rocket systems and M-777 155-mm howitzers from firing positions west of Odessa and on Kubansky Island,” Konashenkov said. “Russian air defense systems: the Pantsir anti-aircraft missile and gun system and the Tor anti-aircraft missile system destroyed all enemy weapons fired at Zmeiny Island. Shot down in the air: 13 unmanned aerial vehicles, four Tochka-U missiles and 21 Uragan multiple rocket launchers. None of the Ukrainian munitions reached the target on Zmeiny Island.

This explains frustration and attack on... civilian oil rigs in the Black Sea after that. Typical. Well, now some videos of those M-777 being blown to smithereens are also provide by MoD (in Russian). 

As I am on record for years, neither Pentagon nor, let alone, NATO lapdogs can provide any serious operational advice to VSU due to the fact that they never fought anything like this. The United States altogether has no experience of fighting under the fire impact from the enemy to the operational depth. In fact, and I am also on record, all this Iraqi and Afghanistan experience is useless for the modern combined arms warfare. Per Global Hawk and, now traditional, ISR support by the US of VSU's disastrous attempts at fighting war of the 21st century--any US air asset (from strategic bombers to F-35, to UAVs) in the Black Sea theater is an easy target and, in case, God forbids, real war wouldn't be flying there. Not to speak of slow and "stealthy" Global Hawks one of which was an easy target for Iranian Air Defense in 2019.   

It is clear that Pentagon and NATO are trying to gain some kind of insight into the operations in Ukraine, including by being directly involved into operational planning for VSU, but the truth is--NATO militaries, led by the US, are not configured for protracted and extremely painful and brutal combined arms operations against the opposition which is not only "peer" (a condescending BS invented in Pentagon) but is fully capable to disrupt NATO's C4ISR and has air defense which is simply the best and most advanced in the world. Situation with the Snake Island and VSU's utter failure there exposed a complete obsolescence of Western fighting doctrines which are designed for one thing only--intimidation and bombing with impunity of the third world defenseless nations. And that is the main lesson of yet another Ukie failure.