Ukrainians claim they gathered information about Ivanovs corruption via hacking of some russian servers in March. Either they used this information in propaganda and russians picked that up or the russians found them during investigation of the hack...
You're right. Our politicians in Europe fell back into some kind of appeasement policy vs Putin. Did not work just like it failed pre-WW2 with Hitler.
This kind of policy never works vs dictators, they'll always outplay you and results in a way bigger boom than if you had stood up to them earlier.
Ukraine claims to have shot down that Tu-22 with a S-200 rocket.
I'd speculate that was a heavily modernized version or some kind of FrankenSAM
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/ukrainian-soldiers-destroy-russian-tu-22m3-1713513570.html
I bet the Israelians will set up a retaliation strike. Some good targets would be iranian drone/rocket manufacturing sites, maybe (dangerous) uran enrichment sites.
a larger part of the middle east seems to be at high alert and closing its airspaces due to a reported massive iranian drone launch towards israelian targets. That's in addition to a pirate action capturing a container vessel.
The friends of russia are really asking for retaliation strikes.
But they lost ~50% of their most important asset - their AWACS-equivalent (only servicable frames counted). So a massive loss in detection and coordination capability.
And its hideout was probably destroyed (hopefully with it inside)
https://mstdn.social/@noelreports/112241413088613249
That thing looks like T-52ish made into an infantry battletaxi
Ukrainians are not dumb, they would not risk a nuclear spill especially at its own soil. Maskirovka is likely behind this.
If they really attacked something then the russians must have place snipers or surveilance complexes on roofs there.
Unveiling the long-range light-aircraft drones that hit tartastan factories. the light blue color reminds me of the F-5/F-6 strat recon a/c of WW2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ewuJmx5VRQ