The US DID Provide ...

 ... data for the attack on Russian bombers:

Le Monde: Ukraine's attack on Russian airfields would not have been possible without US intelligence: 

Ukraine would not have been able to carry out a large-scale attack on Russian airfields using drones without information from US intelligence. This was stated by a former high-ranking officer of the French army, Guillaume Ansel. 

Russians know this, which merely confirms what everyone with IQ above room temperature know--US will lie, cheat and stab you in the back. And here Mr. Medinsky today explaining (in Russian) why ukrops lamented that it is easy for Russians--they have only ONE boss. 404 has THREE and that makes any agreements with 404 worthless. 

Russians know the game, it is Trump and his cabal who are delusional. What did you expect from a TV personality. 

This Golden Dome Thingy.

I speak about it today in my latest video, but this requires additional elaboration. But before, harking back to halcyon days of Reagan's weapons programs, which we all saw, failed miserably in real combat, I want to point this out :

The question that now remains is: How has the US Navy managed to conceal all its glaring faults, bad policies, and weaknesses for all these years? Part of the answer is that the Navy has a history of not telling the full truth to Congress. It is well known that senior US Navy officers have a tradition of omitting information about the Navy’s weaknesses and deficiencies during public testimony. For example, in the early 1980s, wrote Scammell, Navy officers tried to conceal the shortcomings of the new Aegis system by using unrealistically easy operational tests, then by classifying the poor results: “An amalgam of sophisticated seaborne radar, computers, and surface-to-air rockets ten years in development, Aegis was built to simultaneously track up to two hundred aerial targets and to control thirty killer missiles. But in sea tests against sixteen easy targets – easy because they were lobbed in one after another instead of all at the same time, as they would arrive in combat – the supershield missed all but five…” Consequently, “The results of the sea trials were immediately classified, ostensibly for reasons of national security, and it was announced that the tests had been successful. When Congressional overseers eventually learned they had been duped –a gain because not everyone in the fiasco interpreted ‘patriotic duty’ as ‘staying silent’—the Aegis program was very nearly scuttled.” According to Representative Denny Smith, a Republican from Oregon and former F-4 fighter pilot, Navy officers deliberately deleted key passages from their initial test reports on the Aegis system to keep him in the dark on its failings. 

You see. It is a fine American tradition of embellishing everything which relates to, well, just about anything when one needs to prove that everything American is the biggest, bestest and most democratic of them all. So, oversight and ACTUAL testing for real combat, not some BS of bombing backward nation into the stone age, is not required. Well ...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision this week to cut more than half of the Pentagon’s test and evaluation office personnel was driven, in part, by concerns over the office’s plans to provide testing oversight for the Trump administration’s $175 billion Golden Dome missile defense project, multiple sources told Defense News. ... The decision sparked concerns from some congressional Democrats, including Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jack Reed, D-RI, who called the move “reckless and damaging.” “With staffing reduced to a skeleton crew and limited contractor backing, DOT&E may be unable to provide adequate oversight for critical military programs, risking operational readiness and taxpayer dollars,” Reed said in a statement. “This kind of politically motivated interference undermines independent oversight and leaves warfighters and the public more vulnerable to untested, potentially flawed systems.”

Ahh, we all know what is this all about. I am on record--the US Air and Anti-missile Defense is a joke, as is the overall development of combat missilery. The idea behind Golden Dome is fabulous--stick a bunch of satellites into orbit that they can see and track launches of hypersonic weapons. OK, that's fine, you know--detect, track and even develop (allegedly, we know it is a BS but for the sake of argument) firing solution. And here comes the issue--firing solution for what? SM-2, SM-3, what else? As the story of the US high-end weapon systems demonstrated--most of it was always a carefully tailored propaganda which lacked substance (same goes for Euro chihuahuas). To hit hypersonic weapon one needs: S-300V4, S-500, S-550 or at least S-400. US has nothing, zilch which comes even close to these systems. 

And that is where we come to this rather shocking news, the oversight is being removed because Golden Dome will yet again be a Reaganesque allocation of funds for fat cats in the US military-industrial complex, which at this stage is stuck in the realities of 1990s and no amount of money can help close the gap in missilery which was opened and is being widened by Russia (and China) as I am typing this. It will be "Star Wars" cartoons (now CGI) all over again against the background of exposure of sheer military incompetence of Washington. Read my lips: bar some poor men's attempts or deploying some shrapnel in the path of the hypersonic weapon (a dubious proposition at best) or creating some super-pooper laser (also dubious in the extreme) and given the reality of incredibly difficult technological challenges, not to mention the fact that those devious Russkies design their weapons with the capability of fake targets, one needs to have a kinetic mean to hit the hypersonic missile. The US is not in this league hence the removal of oversight and testing--to sell to graduates of the school of advanced military studies of Top Gun: Maverick a cornucopia of exciting military porn BS. Hey, may be they will get lucky and will be able to hit 5 out of 16. 

P.S. Ah, yes, to test Golden Dome you need REAL hypersonic weapons. The US doesn't have any. 

Rachel And Yours Truly...

 ... spoke today about the events of the last 72 hours. Did they change anything in the larger scheme of things? Absolutely nothing. Media circus is a media circus and once the hype (and BS) recedes, which is happening already, things are back to normal--beating combined West into utter defeat. 

George Galloway certainly went a bit overboard comparing a loss of two and the damage of three strategic bombers to Pear Harbor because the parallel is invalid. First, the scale of the damage, secondly--response which doesn't change. Either Russia's way, or highway with all that it entails. 

As You Can See ...

 ... yourself, Russia just capitulated. 

The peace memorandum developed by Russia and presented to the Ukrainian delegation during the talks in Istanbul, Türkiye, on Monday calls on Kiev to withdraw its troops from the former Ukrainian territories that have joined Russia and confirm its neutral and non-nuclear status, according to the text of the document seen by RT. The proposal consists of three parts, which include the conditions for a comprehensive settlement of the Ukraine conflict, steps toward achieving a ceasefire, and a peace roadmap that includes some unilateral steps by Russia. The “final settlement” of the conflict would require international recognition of the former Ukrainian territories as parts of Russia. The two Donbass republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, officially joined Russia following a series of referendums in autumn 2022. Crimea voted to rejoin Russia in 2014 in the wake of the Western-backed Maidan coup in Kiev. Ukraine would also have to withdraw all its forces and armed groups from those territories, the document said.

Same ol', same ol'. 

Correct.

Larry summarizes it well. 

In my opinion, none of these attacks could have been planned and executed without assistance, if not the direct involvement, of Western intelligence and NATO officers. The drones likely were activated by a remote signal made possible by Western satellites and/or systems like Starlink. Those systems also played a critical role in enabling the drones to navigate to the targeted airfields.

While this is clearly a PR victory for Ukraine, it is a classic example of a Pyrrhic victory–i.e., a tactical win, leading to a strategic defeat. The Trump administration is denying any knowledge of the attack. I take that disavowal with a big grain of salt. People within the CIA and USEUCOM offices, who are providing assistance to Ukraine, likely knew about the plan, and may even have provided intelligence support to get the drones to their targets. Like any covert operation, they may have tried to give Trump plausible deniability, but the Russians know how this game is played.

I expect Russia will launch a massive retaliatory strike after the talks in Istanbul on Monday conclude. The Ukrainian attacks on the bridges, the train and the airfields have done nothing to alter the situation all along the line of contact in Ukraine. News continues to pour in from the front, from both Ukrainian and Russian news outlets, painting a picture of growing desperation, even panic, among Ukrainian forces, as Russians capture more territory and kill more Ukrainian troops.

As I posted in the previous thread--I only now recognized that I don't know math and warfare. 3 TU-95 MC and 2 TU-22M3 destroyed AND damaged (meaning some of them will return to service) is roughly (among active, there are more in reserve) 70 heavy + 90 middle =160 bomber aircraft: so 5/160= 3.125%. That's it, Russia lost the war. Tomorrow Russian delegation will accept 404 and EU's "conditions" and that will be it. 

Important.

While ukrops and their supporters masturbate to grossly (grotesquely, in fact) exaggerated claims of attacks on Russian bombers, somebody remembered that it was terrorism before. Lavrov and Rubio spoke just now. 

РУБИО ВЫРАЗИЛ ЛАВРОВУ СОБОЛЕЗНОВАНИЯ В СВЯЗИ С ЖЕРТВАМИ В РЕЗУЛЬТАТЕ ПОДРЫВОВ Ж/Д ИНФРАСТРУКТУРЫ В БРЯНСКОЙ И КУРСКОЙ ОБЛАСТЯХ - МИД РФ

Translation: RUBIO EXPRESSED CONDOLENCES TO LAVROV IN CONNECTION WITH THE VICTIMS OF THE RAILWAY INFRASTRUCTURE BOMBINGS IN BRYANSK AND KURSK REGIONS - RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY 

A rather welcomed change of posture, unlike it is the case with London, Paris or Berlin where they ejaculate from seeing Russian civilians being killed. They don't even hide it. 

It Is All About Istanbul.

And while many discuss grossly exaggerated (as always) attack on Russian bases. Reality of terrorist acts against civilian targets conveniently "disappears". I explain here, why the events of the last 48 hours are in "preparation" to Istanbul "meeting". 

Per RAND latest paper--it is sad, it is incompetent, it is delusional because the USAF and its main "think tank" never encountered serious enemy in the skies since 1950 and in Vietnam this was Air Defense which shook USAF to the core. So, I explain why they will, again, learn absolutely nothing. 

UPDATE on numbers: damaged 3 TU 95MC and 2 TU-22M3. One old An-12. Evidently some of the 5 damaged bombers will be repaired.