"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (7 Viewers)

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The mapper reports a big fire on Crimea.

Seems a military plane crashed at Belbek airport. Some said it was a mig-31

 


Here is a paradox. Westerners tend to hugely underestimate the level of passive compliance which a ruler in Kremlin enjoys (nearly total). At the same time, they tend to hugely overestimate the level of the *active* support he enjoys. Most of it is very, very passive. Yes, Putin has lots of supporters. And yet, almost no one of them would choose to spend their free time coming to the Red Square and listening to his speech. So he is forced to ship there government employees en masse, to serve as his audience. Russia is a country of extreme, unthinkable passivity. It goes both ways though. Very few would make a choice to lift a finger against regime. But even less people would make a choice to lift their finger *for* regime. That's why Russian political structure is super fragile.
 
Seems a military plane crashed at Belbek airport. Some said it was a mig-31


Looks to me like the putative crash set something else off. There's no way all that is coming from a single-seat fighter on its own. The thick black smoke implies POLs burning. The paucity of grey or white smoke (which is usually steam, not smoke) indicates that they have little water on it at the time the video was shot.

ETA: The article mentions several explosions, which supports what I'm thinking. Debris from the crash probably set something else off.
 
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Looks to me like the putative crash set something else off. There's no way all that is coming from a single-seat fighter on its own. The thick black smoke implies POLs burning. The paucity of grey or white smoke (which is usually steam, not smoke) indicates that they have little water on it at the time the video was shot.

ETA: The article mentions several explosions, which supports what I'm thinking. Debris from the crash probably set something else off.
Different view of what appears to be the same crash:
 
From the article above if you never read it..."Russia's Defence Ministry claimed to have inflicted damage on Ukrainian forces in battling to hold Lyman, but said outnumbered Russian troops were withdrawn to more favourable positions. Kyiv's air force said it moved into Lyman, and Zelenskyy's chief of staff posted photos of a Ukrainian flag being hoisted on the town's outskirts." I'm thinking a more "favourable position" right now would be Moscow.
 
Does Ukraine now have the largest army in Europe? After the US and China, is Ukraine #3 in the world?
Last I heard, the Ukraine Army's strength (as of July of this year) was at 700,000.
This doesn't include their National Guard.

Their Navy has about 15,000 personnel, including about 6,000 Naval Infantry.
 

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