People continue to post satellite photos from some guy's blog (Amerikanets, no less) of Yuzhmash. Mind you, somebody allegedly "bought" these photos and now, after three weeks since the event analyses it. Immediately, deferral to Ted Postol and his "analysis" should raise the red flag in terms of any validity of speculations on the physical nature of Oreshnik. So, here are some photos. One:
And two:
Now, for those people who still don't get it, let me remind you what was this all about and I quote myself in the immediate wake of strike at Yuzhmash.
But many people, with the memory span of a guppy fish still continue to ignore what was told to them from the get go. Moreover, read the whole post, which also partially explains that charred remnants of obvious fuel tank for some missile have nothing to do with Oreshnik. Anyone, like Ted Postol and a bunch of Western media cretins aka "journalists", who bought this BS from 404 have no understanding of the physical principles on which hypersonic weapons with maneuvering blocks operate. For starters, small Oreshnik MIRVs do not have this type of fuel tank, if any. Secondly, the boost phase and cut off (burn out) of the booster launched on suppressed trajectory from Kapustin Yar and separation of the bus with MIRVS which begin to travel completely on their own and maneuver highly likely happened over the territory of Russia which completely precludes Ukies getting their hands on anything Oreshnik related. Ukie exposed merely a dug out remnants of whatever the shit (Grom ballistic missile) they have been working on underground with NATO's technical specialists. All that infrastructure is not there anymore--it is all gone.
Above is the range representation--launch from Kapustin Yar to Dnepropetrovsk. Slashed red line is approximately the territory of former 404 controlled by Russia. By then, the boost phase of hypersonic MIRVs would have been over and all remnants of a booster would have landed on Russian territory. In other words, what Ukies have shown as Oreshnik are the remnants of their own missile program. Moreover, anyone who posts photos of RSD 10 Pioner missile system telling that it is Oreshnik are full of shit. Oreshnik is a completely new thing and likely incorporates in itself many technological finds from many weapon systems. So, here it is--my last attempt to shake some sense into people, who continue to see things which are not there.
Thanks to Larch for translating this to us. My sources, very credible ones, also tell that it is apocalyptic.
Hazel Strike Damage Report-Anecdotal, Unofficial
As
residents of Dnepropetrovsk now tell us, there were practically no
explosions, but the earth's vibrations, like during an earthquake, were
felt even a kilometer away from the plant — this was especially
surprising: the explosions are almost inaudible, and the earth shudders.
In
the morning, the territory of Yuzhmash was already tightly cordoned
off, any detailed and significant information was blocked, and no one
knew about what was happening at the plant. However, there is nothing
secret that would not become clear — information began to arrive from
Dnepropetrovsk. We have collected the maximum amount of information
available to you, literally from crumbs, from the words of different
people.
We are well aware that the degree of reliability of this
information is not absolute, but here is the invoice that is "from
there" today: the blow fell on the territory between workshops No. 7 and
8, in the area of turning and blacksmithing industries. All
ground-level buildings and structures on this territory have been
reduced to rubble, in some places-to small concrete rubble. There are no
large craters, there are a dozen holes in the ground with a diameter of
about two meters. Eyewitnesses describe the scene as creepy,
apocalyptic. Security around the perimeter and on the territory
withdraws all means of photo and video recording, even pens and
notebooks are taken away. People tell us that "officials" who speak
English, Polish, and French constantly arrive at the plant's territory
in tightly tinted minibuses. They say that unknown ammunition hit just
those underground production facilities that Vladimir Zelensky boasted
about, telling about the imminent appearance of some "formidable missile
weapons"in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. From the fragmentary
conversations of rescuers, it seems that up to the 4th floor there is a
zone of continuous destruction, below which rescuers have not yet been
able to descend.
This is the information we have today from the
scene of the event, the obvious absurdity and hyperbole of "classic
witnesses" we tried to weed out, leaving only what we found similar to
the truth.
TSIPSO and butt-hurt fanboys from the West are already in full arms on all forums declaring that they have seen satellite photos of Yuzhmash and that... ranging from "we saw 6 charred entrances" to "nothing was really damaged". Totally expected. For those, just in case, who still didn't get the message--MAIN activity of Yuzhmash was UNDERGROUND, as it would be in Soviet times if, God forbids, USSR and the US would go to war. Those underground facilities are gone, together with production and research facilities for NATO-404 joint missile programs. They are gone together with the shift and those NATO military and civilians present there. That is why SBU immediately classified the whole thing (showing some decrepit hut with broken roof as "real evidence") and some "debris" of allegedly Oreshnik. Here is one such "evidence" published by VSU.
If to believe that what you see is actually from Yuzhmash site (a dubious assumption to start with), then this is NOT any debris from Oreshnik but highly likely of remnants of the missiles (such as fuel tank) NATO and 404 have been developing at Yuzhmash. And after that real physics kicks in which would preclude survival of any "debris" from Oreshnik's MIRVs which would simply evaporate together with the multi-storey underground guts of Yuzhmash releasing an insane amount of energy which destroyed all NATO's hopes.
From people of Dnepropetrovsk. Yuzhmash is no more, it simply ceased to exist after the visit of Oreshnik. It used to be a colossal plant which had its own bus routes. There is nothing left there, only dust. People are in shock. Apartment blocks in the vicinity of what used to be Yuzhmash are cracked. Here where it was, it was designed to continue to operate even in the nuclear war and nukes going off nearby.
SBU classified any information about the event. The whole city was feeling the event as a strong earthquake. People point out that Yuzhmash was attacked before--Kalibrs would fly in, destroy parts or whole shops and start fires here and there on the territory of the plant. Now it is just gone, including underground facilities ... This is a signal, indeed--Russia doesn't need nukes to wipe out anything. Medvedev didn't bluff when stated that Russia may unleash the weapon of a power world hasn't seen before. Here it is.
Now, French, obviously, need to be taught where their place in pecking order is--it is that of an abandoned chihuahua on the "death row" in the pound before being put to sleep. I am sure there are plenty of French targets which need to be recipients of latest Russian "technologies". There is nothing left to save in France anyway.
H.G Wells' last words to this world seem most appropriate, when one considers the reason I started this blog--when events in Ukraine came to a bloody and tragic resolution, which started a global realignment of such a scale and speed that we can not still grasp all its ramifications. Enter last weekend and my family visiting our very close friends from... West Ukraine. Yes, yes, the ones who not only could be called Bandera's sympathizers but who welcomed, despite initial reservations, a chaotic coup in Ukraine in 2014 and till recently were repeating most (with some important, and, probably, personal relations with us driven, exceptions) of the tired talking points about Russia and Putin personally being the culprit of this all. It was a hard time in our relations. Yet, things eventually returned almost to normal. We love our friends because they are simply good people and we saw and, as the last weekend demonstrated again, what a difficult task it is to face a reality.
While chatting with their very close relative I was faced with what I feared and didn't want to talk about. This old man just asked me how could it have come down to this--Russians and Ukrainians--hating each-other. The question sounded almost desperate and was, in no small measure, inspired by the fact of our decades long very close friendship, which, for the lack of better word could have been compared to family relations. Of course, it is Putin, of course it was Russian side but still, compared to three years ago, those statements sounded almost pro-forma and unconvincing. And then he brought up Yuzmash. "Russia still depends on it", he said. He needed the positive response to this, one could sense it. I couldn't oblige, I do not lie--a lesson I learned in my life a hard way. A good man, good father, man with golden hands--I hated to see him suffer and I saw this coming in him, so, I, with the help of my wife, changed the subject and convinced him to go join the party.
This, seemingly unimportant, anecdotal evidence of some turnaround, even in minds of people you would never expected to change their mind, suddenly found a much more public (and coincidental) continuation today with the interview of the second President of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, formerly a General Director of this very Yuzhmash, to Ukrainian TV Network 112 (in Russian, no less). The title of the interview is grim and correct: Neither US, nor Europe Will Help Ukraine. We Are Alone.
It is very strange to hear this realization from a man who defined Ukrainian national identity in 1990s as "Not Russia". He also was a man who supported a rabid Russophobe and Ukrainian chauvinist Victor Yushchenko in 2005 Ukraine's Presidential Elections. In other words, Kuchma was the man who is responsible to a very large degree of plotting the path of Ukraine to ruin. This lucidity is especially remarkable from a man who lied most of his political life. He also continues to lie even in this interview--you can't teach an old dog new tricks, I guess. Yet, today once mighty Yuzhmas barely exists as a viable entity and once mighty industrial and agricultural heart of the Soviet Union, after getting its independence, is being reduced to nothing more than a third world black hole right in the middle of Europe. Of course, these will be Russians, again, who are guilty of that, since refuse to depend on a highly unstable, hostile Russophobic puppet of foreign masters, next to their borders and decided to produce what Russia used to buy from Ukraine, thus supporting her high-tech industry. Those times are over. But then again, Russians are also guilty of Hurricane Katrina and Global Warming.
Yet, Kuchma still found it in him to blare out a correct diagnosis:
Мы становимся сырьевым придатком. У нас металлургия осталась, химия,
сельское хозяйство. Высоких технологических производств практически нет.
Куда мы идем? Мы радуемся свободной торговле с Европой. Чем мы торгуем с Европой?
Посмотрите статистику. Пшеница. Кроме сельского хозяйства практически
более ничего нет. Квотирование идет жесткое. За первый квартал мы
практически все квоты выбрали. А теперь вы смотрите, как европейцы
ставят нас на колени – "давайте лес рубите и везите к нам". Где какая-то
конкретная помощь Украине, чтобы мы становились на ноги?! Если мы будем
бедными, как сегодня, мы никому не нужны!
Translation:
We are becoming a raw materials appendix. What's left is metallurgy, chemical industry and agriculture. We practically do not have any high tech industries. Where are we going? We rejoice at the free trade with Europe. And what do we offer for this trade with Europe? Look at the statistics. Wheat. Other than agricultural products there is nothing more to offer. Quotes are rigid, we filled practically all of our quotes in first quarter of this year. And now observe how Europeans put us on our knees--"harvest your forests and bring timber to Europe". Where is any concrete help to Ukraine, to put her on her feet!? If we remain poor nobody will need us.
Get it, boys and girls? Everyone owes it to Ukraine to "put her on her feet". Russia owes her gas transit, buying everything Ukraine (less and less) produces. And, of course, Ukraine's main idea about Europe, as even her former President still thinks so, is to get to EU, get a truck load of free money (aka investments) and start living as European upper middle class. I am not exaggerating. Of course, the fact that Ukraine became what it became by 1990 was largely thanks to the Soviet economic system somehow got lost on such people as Kuchma, not to speak of very many average Ukrainians. The scale of de-industrialization and of de-modernization Ukraine achieved in short 26 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union is nothing short of mind-boggling and unprecedented. The same as the scale of de-Sovietization, which is a euphemism for de-Russification. Yet, the more the scale of the failure to utilize even a small part of a remaining Soviet industrial, scientific, military and educational potential was becoming evident, the more hatred of everything Russian was growing. In the foundation of this hatred, coupled with a bizarre sense of entitlement and self-proclaimed Europeanness (after all, Ukrainians preceded ancient Greeks in developing... everything) were simple envy and jealousy of those dirty backward, dramatically not-European, Asiatic Russians.
Ukraine wanted to be "independent", she got it. Obviously, nobody explained to Kuchma, let alone other "Europe-oriented" politicians that it is advisable to be careful with what you wish for, since some desires may come true and that there are no free lunches. Ukraine is needed for Europe (and US) merely as raw materials source and as a ram against Russia, through fomenting troubles at her borders, no matter how many Ukrainians may die from war or even starvation. And it is true that Ukraine doesn't have anything to offer to the world other than some raw materials and wheat. Nobody in Europe or US, or, for that matter elsewhere, needs anymore anything produced in Ukraine and many Ukrainians begin to understand this, especially when they begin to look at those backward Asiatic Russians and their Russia, where millions upon millions, including from this very Western Ukraine, Ukrainians travel to each year in hope to find a seasonal job to sent some Asiatic, dirty Russian money home. It is a sad end and it was predictable, too bad very few listened, including in the US who financed and, together with Germany, and others, unleashed a bloody coup in Kiev. Did they even know what they were getting themselves into? Did they read what I wrote almost three years ago?
Today, Ukraine is finished as a modern industrialized country. Short of hundreds of billions of dollars (or euros) given to her, a scenario which can only be called ludicrous, and even then under the assumption that those funds will not be stolen, there is nothing Ukraine can do to return to the rank of even moderately developed nations. What is, probably, most disturbing for Ukrainians is the fact, that Russia doesn't care that much about Ukrainian feelings anymore. Eventually Nord Stream-2 will be built and Ukraine's blackmail of Europe by gas transit will be over. She will become even more grim and desolate place but surely free from those ghosts of Soviet and Russian past. It is a sad end, but in this cynical world of ours, real power is the only commodity which makes one a real player globally. I think every reader of this blog by now knows Correlli Barnett's superb definition of national power. Ukraine made her choices and it will not get any better. But it was predicted, it was this Wellsian "Goddamn You All: I Told You So" moment from the get go. Couple of years ago, Russian delegation to one of the world's large air shows (don't remember which) gave interview in which they talked about the embarrassment they felt for their former colleagues from once great, in fact, legendary Antonov's Design Bureau, which was purged of everything Soviet and Russian so thoroughly that, instead of continuing with manufacturing world's largest cargo planes, was reduced to producing trams and obsolete small aircraft such as AN-178. This contrasts dramatically with what today was presented by United Aircraft Company in Le Bourget, that is after MS-21 flew for the fifth time yesterday.
I guess it is true as they say in Russia--Those born to crawl can not fly. Too bad it took so long and so many lives to figure that out.
