"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (1 Viewer)

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Jan 27 (Reuters) - Ukraine's SBU security service said on Saturday it had uncovered a corruption scheme in the purchase of arms by the country's military totalling the equivalent of about $40 million.

The announcement of mass procurement fraud, confirmed by Ukraine's Defence Ministry, will have a huge resonance in a country beleaguered by Russia's nearly two-year-old invasion.
The fight to root out endemic corruption remains a major issue as Ukraine presses its bid to secure membership in the European Union.

The SBU said an investigation had "exposed officials of the Ministry of Defence and managers of arms supplier Lviv Arsenal, who stole nearly 1.5 billion hryvnias in the purchase of shells."

"According to the investigation, former and current high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Defence and heads of affiliated companies are involved in the embezzlement."

The embezzlement, it said, involved the purchase of 100,000 mortar shells for the military.

The SBU said a contract for the shells was clinched with Lviv Arsenal in August 2022 - six months into the war - and payment was made in advance, with some funds transferred abroad.

But no arms were ever provided, the statement said, with some funds then moved to other foreign accounts.

The statement said five individuals had been served "notices of suspicion" - the first stage in Ukrainian legal proceedings - both in the ministry and the arms supplier. One suspect, it said, was detained while trying to cross the Ukrainian border.

Corruption within the military has been a particularly sensitive issue in Ukraine as it tries to maintain wartime public morale and present its case to join the 27-nation EU.


 
I just started this so don't know how relevant it might be, but it may well be so:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEkeCcVZUFo

GrauGeist / Thump,

I watched this video and agree with the vast majority of it. The particular part that I don't agree with is the situational awareness attributed to the Russian pilots by the LtCol F35 test pilot. I think their SA for the most part is well below that of the equivalent NATO / US fighter pilot. Also, F35, F22, Typhoon, Rafael pilot will have extraordinary SA as compared to his Russian counterpart.

What I will stress from the video is the Command and Control (CnC) of the Russians drives their methodology and or lack of initiative of their pilots. We have the exact opposite mentality, with the focus being on our pilots immersed in a system that allows them to plan a strike, work around or through SAMs, deal with counter air, and change the plan on the fly as the scenario dictates. This system is the top of the pyramid, with all our training, mentoring, exercises, equipment, ETC supporting it.

Previously we saw a Flanker hit a drone. Just to be clear that wasn't planned. A drone flying in the high 20s will be slow (as compared to what speed a fighter will cruise around at). Doing an intercept is easy until it's time to fly formation as the Flanker couldn't fly slow enough. Also, and this is important, the plane flies like shit on the edge of a stall at higher altitudes. The engines aren't as responsive, flight controls are sluggish, and you don't fly much. Add you are sitting alert, getting scrambled, losing experienced guys, shit for sleep and unsurprisingly you run into a drone. That accident is indicative of how not to prepare for war.

We also saw Ukraine take out four or more fighters in a few day span. WTFO. Is their Radar Warning Receiver equipment not working (then they shouldn't be near hostile SAMs). It's almost as if they didn't believe their equipment. Neither is a good sign for the Russians.

Its interesting times in which we live.

Cheers,
Biff
 
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Comments such as "...criticized the Baltic States over human rights ..." makes one think he is laying groundwork for attack of Baltic states

A small detail here is that the Baltics have no airforce, so NATO is providing the necessary capability. There is a permanent deployment where NATO countries keep rotating to provide such service.
An attack to Baltic states means directly attacking those deployments. Until November it was a Spanish and Italian Deployment. Since November its Belgium+France+Poland. I don't think it will be any good for Russia to mess with Poland.
 
We also saw Ukraine take out four or more fighters in a few day span. WTFO. Is their Radar Warning Receiver equipment not working (then they shouldn't be near hostile SAMs). It's almost as if they didn't believe their equipmen. Neither is a good sign for the Russians.

US/NATO intel believes most of the Russian combat aircraft cannot detect the modern low observable S&T/TWS phased array radars - for whatever reason (it is presumed due to expense) most their systems have not been updated. Most of their combat aircraft can detect high power search and/or SAR/CW/PD lock-ons depending on the aircraft type and purpose. Unfortunately for most of today's Russian combat aircrew, systems like the Patriot use low observable phased array radars to search for and track their target, and to indicate the target. When you combine this with the ability to launch some variants of the missile without lock on before launch and use mid-course guidance to send the missile into the terminal basket - whereupon at longer ranges the targeting radar will 'blip' at high power to indicate the target, allowing the missile to lock on to the selected target with its onboard active terminal homing radar. At short to medium ranges the 'blip' may not even be needed, only a mid-course signal, and the first thing the target aircraft's pilot or REO will know of an incoming missile is the RWR signal from the missile's onboard active radar lock-on. The time from when the RWR goes off to impact when this is done well can be less than 2 seconds.
 
Thanks for weighing in, Buff - much appreciated.

I've seen recent comments about how the A-10 and F-16 would be in trouble in the current situation in Ukraine, but to be entirely honest, I do not think the Russian Air Force would be able to counter Western trained Ukrainian pilots in Western equipment.
Their SAMs would be the threat.
 
A small detail here is that the Baltics have no airforce, so NATO is providing the necessary capability. There is a permanent deployment where NATO countries keep rotating to provide such service.
An attack to Baltic states means directly attacking those deployments. Until November it was a Spanish and Italian Deployment. Since November its Belgium+France+Poland. I don't think it will be any good for Russia to mess with Poland.
That's assuming rational thinking is happening and there aren't other things involved including actions designed to make the likes of NATO tear themselves apart.
 
🌈 от клоун :rolleyes:

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