"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (9 Viewers)

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I've yet to see any evidence that the missile was operated by Russia. It seems pretty clear it was an S-300 missile but whether it was operated by Russia, Belarus, Ukraine or someone else remains an open question. The origin of the missile will dictate whether it was being used in surface-to-surface mode by Russia/Belarus or if it was being used defensively with unfortunate collateral damage results.
 
From the BBC, I could not get it to link so here is a summary:

"Ukraine accuses Russia of pushing Africans to fight

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has accused Russia of pressuring imprisoned Africans to join the war against Ukraine.

In a tweet, ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko said: "Putin is sending African citizens imprisoned in Russia to the war in Ukraine. A former Zambian student was killed.

"We call on African Union and all African states to demand that Russia stop press ganging their nationals. Africans shouldn't die for Putin's sick imperial ambitions."

It comes after the death of a Zambian student in the fight against Ukraine.

Lemekhani Nyirenda, a 23-year-old Zambian student at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, had been serving nine years in jail for a drug offence.

Nyirenda died in September fighting in Ukraine, but Russia has only now informed Zambia's government.

The circumstances of his release from prison are unknown, but Russia has offered freedom to some prisoners in exchange for fighting in Ukraine."

and:

"Ukraine war: Zambia demands answers for death of student Lemekhani Nyirenda"
 
Note that the missile that hit Przewodow, Poland was tracked by a NATO surveillance aircraft, and the track information has been communicated to Poland for use in its investigation of the missile strike.

Note that Biden only said that there is plenty of evidence that the missile was not launched from Russian territory.

Note that Belarus has a SAM complex at Brest, and the SAM complex includes the S-300/SA-10 Grumble.

Note that Przewodow lies on a straight line between Brest and Lviv.

Note that I could be wrong.
 
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Poland's Prime Minister is saying that the explosion in Poland likely came from an air defence missile launched by Ukraine.

Kyiv needs to get on-message with this quickly. They can't just deny that they were responsible. I'm not saying it was intentional....but saying "it wasn't us" won't cut it. Kyiv risks losing a lot of goodwill in the West if they don't acknowledge this.
 

BRUSSELS, Nov 16 (Reuters) - NATO's Secretary General on Wednesday said the blast in Poland was likely caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile but that Russia was ultimately responsible because it started the war.

"They are responsible for the war that has caused this situation," Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference after an emergency meeting of NATO ambassadors. "Let me be clear this is not Ukraine's fault."

Stoltenberg said the incident proved the risks of the war in Ukraine but had not changed the military alliance's assessment of threat against its members. He added that there was no indication Russia was preparing offensive military actions against NATO allies.


Meanwhile Poland signalled it may in the end not invoke NATO's article 4, which provides for consultations among allies in the face of a security threat, since the blast was likely caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile and not by Russia.

www.reuters.com

NATO says Poland blast likely caused by Ukrainian missile, but Moscow bears responsibility

NATO's Secretary General on Wednesday said the blast in Poland was likely caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile but that Russia was ultimately responsible because it started the war.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com
 
The Russian military likely used a substantial portion of its remaining high-precision weapon systems in the coordinated missile strikes on November 15. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian air defenses shot down 73 Russian cruise missiles and all drones on November 15.[4] Ukrainian air defenses had previously shot down 43 cruise missiles out of 84 and 13 drones out of 24 during the October 10 coordinated Russian missile strikes.[5] Ukraine's increased shoot-down percentage illustrates the improvement in Ukrainian air defenses in the last month, and the Ukrainian General Staff attributed this improvement to the effectiveness of Western-provided air defense systems. ISW also assesses that Russian forces are greatly depleting their stock of high-precision weapons systems and will likely have to slow the pace of their campaign against critical Ukrainian infrastructure.[6] Russian missile strikes continue to pose a threat to the Ukrainian civilian population with Ukrainian Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko stating that the energy situation is rather "critical" in Ukraine.[7] Damage to Ukraine's energy infrastructure is unlikely to break Ukrainians' spirit, however, given Ukraine's improving air defenses and recent ground victories in Kherson Oblast.

Institute for the Study of War

This page collects ISW and CTP's updates on the conflict in Ukraine. In late February 2022, ISW began publishing daily synthetic products covering key events related to renewed Russian aggression against Ukraine.
www.understandingwar.org www.understandingwar.org
 
Thumpalumpacus said:
The Russian military likely used a substantial portion of its remaining high-precision weapon systems in the coordinated missile strikes on November 15. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian air defenses shot down 73 Russian cruise missiles and all drones on November 15.[4] Ukrainian air defenses had previously shot down 43 cruise missiles out of 84 and 13 drones out of 24 during the October 10 coordinated Russian missile strikes.[5] Ukraine's increased shoot-down percentage illustrates the improvement in Ukrainian air defenses in the last month, and the Ukrainian General Staff attributed this improvement to the effectiveness of Western-provided air defense systems. ISW also assesses that Russian forces are greatly depleting their stock of high-precision weapons systems and will likely have to slow the pace of their campaign against critical Ukrainian infrastructure.[6] Russian missile strikes continue to pose a threat to the Ukrainian civilian population with Ukrainian Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko stating that the energy situation is rather "critical" in Ukraine.[7] Damage to Ukraine's energy infrastructure is unlikely to break Ukrainians' spirit, however, given Ukraine's improving air defenses and recent ground victories in Kherson Oblast.

Institute for the Study of War

This page collects ISW and CTP's updates on the conflict in Ukraine. In late February 2022, ISW began publishing daily synthetic products covering key events related to renewed Russian aggression against Ukraine.
www.understandingwar.org www.understandingwar.org
Click to expand...

Y'know, I've been hearing for months now that Russia doesn't have many high-precision weapons left. I'm starting to wonder if that's a legitimate assessment or if it's more wishful thinking by analysts.
 
GrauGeist said:
Keep in mind that Hiroshima, Kokura (primary) and Nagasaki (secondary) had a large a large military presence, both in infrastructure and command and control.
Click to expand...
Wasn't one of the reasons Tokyo wasn't target was that there would then be no one to negotiate a ceasefire with? Of course that didn't stop the fire bombing.
buffnut453 said:
Y'know, I've been hearing for months now that Russia doesn't have many high-precision weapons left. I'm starting to wonder if that's a legitimate assessment or if it's more wishful thinking by analysts.
Click to expand...
Me too. Mind you, with the exception of the drone attacks, has Russian fielded much high-precision weaponry? Its ballistic missiles seem more likely to crash into non-strategic buildings.
 
buffnut453 said:
Y'know, I've been hearing for months now that Russia doesn't have many high-precision weapons left. I'm starting to wonder if that's a legitimate assessment or if it's more wishful thinking by analysts.
Click to expand...

Given how many civilian targets have been hit, can we be sure they were hit by PGMs at all? Or is this a failure of intel analyzing Russian numbers?

The other thing is, as we all know, is that they've resorted to using low-yield SAMS for ground attack. Analysts clamed this was evidence of low stocks of PGMs. But what if the Russians were husbanding the latter for either 1) possible war with NATO or 2) the winter offensive we're seeing now aimed at freezing civilian morale?

I tend to believe they're running low on PGMs.
 
Admiral Beez said:
Mind you, with the exception of the drone attacks, has Russian fielded much high-precision weaponry? Its ballistic missiles seem more likely to crash into non-strategic buildings.
Click to expand...

Well, they're taking out the electricity grid pretty effectively, and many of those targets are pretty small.

I can't help thinking that Russia is using less accurate weapons, like the S300 in surface-to-surface mode, as "SAM sinks" to increase the likelihood that the PGMs will hit their targets without being engaged. This comes back to manta22 manta22 's comment about saturating the IADS. The fact that the non-PGM weapons are causing civilian casualties is perhaps just a "bonus" from the Kremlin's perspective.
 
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