Ukraine Conflict - conflict continues

[pmp10]

Must have done too good of a job avoiding tea, windows and hotel laundry service. 
But as an insider he should have known better than count on forgiveness. 

[Malcador]

That would be an amusing twist to everything.

[Mamoulian War]

The plane crashed in Tver. The rumours are flying around in Russia, that the Prigozhin and Utkin were ordered to be assassinated. If they indeed were on board, we’ll see soon. But some RU pro-invasion Telegram personas are already getting very very angry, and are predicting very bad outcome for the person, who ordered the assassination, as the mood in the army is more in favour of these two ****.

[Gfted1]

...aircraft was shot down by air defences in the Tver region, north of Moscow.

Those would be Russian air defenses?

[Mamoulian War]

And Wagnerites already released the statement, that if Prigozhin was really in the plane, they will march on Moscow again

[Malcador]

55 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

And Wagnerites already released the statement, that if Prigozhin was really in the plane, they will march on Moscow again

Doubt they're going to have much success with that.

[kanisatha]

Is anyone here surprised? My only surprise is that Prig was that naive and stupid as to fly in Russian airspace.

According to US intel, the plane carried the entire upper leadership of Wagner. Yay for Africa!!

Btw, I can even believe that Prig and his buddies were told by Putin this is how it's going to be, along the lines of how the generals who conspired against Hitler in that bomb plot were given the "option" of poison.

Edited August 23, 2023 by kanisatha

[Lexx]

Who knows, maybe they are still alive and hiding in argentinia or something.

[BruceVC]

6 hours ago, Malcador said:

US has a strong history of doing that sort of thing though, so wouldn't fault people for at least having some US involvement cross their mind. Although I guess the fact it wasn't a total failure is a sign of little US involvement.

 

Yes during the Cold War we witnessed surreptitious regime change from all sides, Im  not sure since then how much regime the US has secretly been involved in?

But I am not talking about that, Im talking about the last 10-15 years in numerous places where there has been rejection of an autocracy or citizens unhappy with certain  draconian developments  and they protest then you have a group of people who are anti-US\anti-Western and suggest that  the reason why people want leadership change is because the US\CIA  is telling them or responsible for the protests.  And often the governments themselves who face  these protests claim the US is behind it as a  form of cope  and a way to handwave the legitimate grievances . And several examples come to mind that include

 

• the Arab Spring : allegations that the US was behind the widespread protests
• Iran hijab protests
• Zimbabwe protests 
• Ukraine and the 2013 protests 
• Venezuela with many citizens wanting a new political system

And that doesnt mean the US\West doesn't support the idea of  leadership change in many cases but they not the main reason citizens want to see a change 

 

[BruceVC]

38 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Is anyone here surprised? My only surprise is that Prig was that naive and stupid as to fly in Russian airspace.

According to US intel, the plane carried the entire upper leadership of Wagner. Yay for Africa!!

Btw, I can even believe that Prig and his buddies were told by Putin this is how it's going to be, along the lines of how the generals who conspired against Hitler in that bomb plot were given the "option" of poison.

Im not surprised at all, if its true his time on this earth was always numbered 

Not that it bothers me in the slightest, Wagner is responsible for some of the worst cases of brutality in Ukraine 

[Zoraptor]

If Prigozhin getting shot down is a psyop then it would be far more likely it was all a psyop and they pop up again attacking Chernigov or Sumy in a few weeks time. He doesn't seem the type to fake his own death so he could retire to the Bahamas.

 

[Malcador]

48 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

According to US intel, the plane carried the entire upper leadership of Wagner. Yay for Africa!!

GRU will keep that going, I believe

[Zoraptor]

Name change (or two*, perhaps something educational sounding after the musical name?) for Wagner and then status quo for Africa, assuming Prigo is actually dead. Which he probably is, but that guy loves/ loved a good troll. In any case nice deniable groups are far too much use for geopolitical shenanigans and Wagner was far too successful to be wound up as a concept.

*I will never fail to be amused by Jabhat al Nusra/ Al Qaeda in Syria and Blackwater using the exact same strategy to whitewash themselves

Edited August 23, 2023 by Zoraptor

[Mamoulian War]

Russia has released list of passengers on the plane:

Propustin Sergey
Makaryan Evgeniy
Totmin Aleksandr
Chekalov Valeriy
Utkin Dmitriy
Matuseev Nikolay
Prigozhin Evgeniy

 

I am really curious, how this will affect the situation in Niger.

[Mamoulian War]

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

Doubt they're going to have much success with that.

No need to be very successful if they ****up enough with Russian army. The Wagner media have also said, that they had orders in case of something like this happening. We’ll see in next few weeks, if they go against army, or get new jobs in new PMCs.

[kanisatha]

7 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

I am really curious, how this will affect the situation in Niger.

Just a few days ago the Niger junta met with Wagner to coordinate military planning, and the coup leader openly stated he was counting on Wagner to safeguard the coup from any military threat. Now would be a good time for ECOWAS to act, if they were going to be doing something anyway.

[HoonDing]

How many doubles did Blofeld have?

[xzar_monty]

What an absolute nightmare for a pilot of a private jet to see Prigozin get on your plane.

[pmp10]

13 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

And Wagnerites already released the statement, that if Prigozhin was really in the plane, they will march on Moscow again

It's unlikely Putin would pull this trigger without feeling secure.
I mean they didn't even bother with an accident.

[xzar_monty]

55 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

It's unlikely Putin would pull this trigger without feeling secure.
I mean they didn't even bother with an accident.

Putin felt secure enough about a complacent west to start a war in the first place, so it's not as if he hasn't made horrendous miscalculations before.

[Mamoulian War]

Ukraine performed successful landing at Crimea, near the place, where they destroyed S-400 day or two ago.

 

[xzar_monty]

@BruceVC: Here's a good example of a question posed to a Russian around the theme of evil American conspiracies and all the rest of it. The question was posed by a Finnish diplomat who has met Putin several times and whose knowledge of both Russia and the US is is quite extensive.

"The world that we used to live in until February 2022; was that world really intolerable for Russians to such an extent that breaking it was worth everything that it entailed?"

The Finnish diplomat received no answer at all.

[Mamoulian War]

Analysis by Slovak security expert, who is specialized into interconnection between Russia, politicians and security services in the country. Radovan Branik. Translated by DeepL. It is pretty long waal of text, but one of the most interesting parts is the last few paragraphs, talking about the second plane, which landed in Moscow after the crash of the first one.

Quote

THE DAY THAT SILENCED SOLOVYOV
In the case of the plane crash in the Tver region, more and more testimonies and video footage are emerging indicating that an air defence system may have been activated and used against an aircraft directly belonging to the Wagner group. A still camera video has also emerged, which has not yet been independently verified, showing the firing of two missiles followed by an explosion in a sky partially obscured by clouds. The videos that have proliferated during the night also show the sound effects of the launchers and the characteristic condensation trails left by anti-aircraft missiles: the fact that virtually the entire fuselage of the aircraft was in one piece during the crash and that its total destruction occurred only after the impact with the ground also argues against the theory of a bomb on board. Usually, the air defence missiles only damage the aircraft, and it suffers fatal damage only after impact.

Although the tail section does not look like it has been attacked by a missile and its partial separation occurred while still in the air, dozens of holes resembling mechanical projectile marks can be seen in the nose section and on the remains of the ****pit. Similarly, the condition of the bodies found outside the burning wreckage was more consistent with injuries from impact than from a bomb blast, with virtually no signs of burns or exposure to high temperatures. If it was a bomb, it could theoretically have been attached externally after the cabin had been sealed; indeed, it should be remembered that before each flight this aircraft was also thoroughly checked for the presence of explosive systems on board. The relatively small amount of fuel that was on board at impact and exploded on the ground also suggests that most of it was released during the crash without ignition or explosion - again supporting the theory of a mechanical rather than explosive mechanism of damage leading to the crash; the bomb would very likely have caused ignition and subsequent explosion while still at its original flight altitude, and only a fireball would have been hurtling towards the ground.

But what is really important in this case now?
There was total confusion in the telegram channel of the Kremlin's court propagandist Solovyov yesterday. First, shortly after the crash, he published without comment an agency report on the plane crash in the Tver region. He had no idea that it was the Wagner plane. When he found out, he launched a live broadcast with guest Sergei Karnaukhov, where the first details of the crash, theories about a technical error or a bomb on board, emerged. But he ruled out Prigozhin's death.

Later, in the continuation of the show, he called the speculation about Prigozhin's death just out of place.
He then published a vulgar criticism of the Rossiya 24 television station, which was the first to report openly on Prigozhin's death, and urged people not to be fed ****. By that time, information about a possible missile attack had already begun to proliferate, and Solovyov was furious.
He then referred to the information about Prigozhin's death as a Ukrainian intelligence game, urging the population to "observe information hygiene and rely only on official sources" - as if Rossia 24 was not just such a source. In the meantime, the indications of a shoot-down were multiplying and could no longer be ignored. Even pro-Kremlin war experts increasingly spoke of a shoot-down as the likely cause of the plane's downing.

And then something unprecedented happened.
When Solovyov finally understood what had really happened, he published one last post before midnight, with a grand challenge to his media accomplices: 'Colleagues, I am deliberately silent, and I advise you to do the same. Silence is now more precious than gold." And indeed, even the otherwise perpetually shouting propagandists were silent as never before since the war began. They will only start shouting again when they have got their notes in tune and received instructions from the Kremlin. The Russian authorities cannot be trusted with anything from now on; think of the downing of the Malaysian plane by the rebels and the many forgeries with which they have tried to deflect responsibility at all costs and which they still deny to this day. Girkin has already been convicted in absentia by a court for that attack and will never be extradited for prosecution.

It was a long night for them. And not only for them. In contrast, the security community in Russia was not silent, did not sleep, and there were endless debates and analyses of videos and photos among specialists. The shoot-down was increasingly identified as the most likely cause of the crash, with the prevailing opinion so far being that the RF Armed Forces had allegedly mistaken the Embraer Legacy 600 for a Ukrainian drone. Given the overwrought nationalism, support for the war and ambivalence towards Putin and Prigozhin, it was as yet inconceivable to them that the Kremlin would commit mass political murder on Russian territory using the technology of the armed forces.

Well, let's look at the weaknesses of the argument for a possible shoot-down fallacy with an unbiased eye.
The Embraer 600 is 26.33 metres long, has a wingspan of 21.16 metres and is over 6 metres high. It is a really big aircraft even by business jet standards.
And this plane started to fall uncontrollably at 15:11. At the time of the loss of control and cabin pressure, it was at an altitude of 28,000 feet (8,534km) and flying at 513 knots (950km/h) to the northeast. From 14:59:46 and an altitude of 3.54 kilometres, it also had its transponder on, so its identification was unambiguous to air traffic control, and likewise to the air defence system.

Translated into human language: the plane was climbing rapidly and heading northeast from Moscow. The damage occurred at an altitude of eight and a half kilometres at a speed of just under a thousand kilometres per hour.
None of the usable Ukrainian drones reaches anywhere near similar parameters, and there is virtually no way it could have reached this busy air route without being intercepted by air defense systems long before now.

If it were a Ukrainian drone, it would be flying at a significantly lower level, without jet propulsion, much slower, and descending in the opposite direction, towards Moscow. All the key flight and aircraft parameters would be different from those exhibited by the Embraer belonging to the Wagner group.
The only jet drone that could theoretically confuse Russian air defences is the ancient dinosaur from the Soviet era, the TU141, but it is half the length, has a wingspan almost five times smaller, and only the speed is comparable; however, it is perfectly recognisable by Russian air defence means, as it is a product of the Soviet era. And its theoretical range is a maximum of 6 kilometres, two and a half kilometres lower than that of the Embraer 600.

Any other drone used by Ukraine is many times smaller in all the size parameters mentioned above, can fly shorter distances and cannot reach anywhere near the altitude at which the damage occurred.
If it were indeed a shoot-down, a mistake would therefore be virtually impossible.

And one more important aspect is in play.
What has not yet been adequately reflected by the world media is the fact that in fact the Wagners were moving from Moscow to St Petersburg yesterday afternoon on not one, but two planes. The first to take off from Moscow's Vnukovo airport at 14:17 was an Embraer 650, often used by Prigozhin, which landed in St Petersburg at Pulkovo airport at 15:27, just a few minutes after the downing of the Embraer 600. The latter took off from Moscow some 40 minutes later.
When the passengers found out what had happened, they took off less than twenty minutes later, at 15:46, from St Petersburg in a south-easterly direction, with no destination indicated, but eventually landed unharmed, after abrupt and risky manoeuvres in low-level flight, at the small Ostafyevo airport near Moscow shortly after 17:00.

Since yesterday, the media narrative has been dominated by the story of how PMC Wagner managed to remove virtually the entire management in a hussar stunt, while completely ignoring the crew of the second aircraft, much more popular with Prigozhin for its better qualities. Combined with his ability to escape his own death and the impossibility of relying on the official conclusions of the investigation by the Russian authorities, we can therefore indeed consider the so-far "guaranteed" reports of his death as premature. And the thesis about the removal of the entire Wagner leadership detto; the second plane did not fly to Moscow empty. And on the building belonging to this gang, the cross-shaped windows were lit up tonight and the passengers spent the night there.

Prigozhin was fond of spreading the legend that although he would end up in hell, even there he would be the best. In the next few days it will become clear whether the revenge plan that should have been automatically triggered after his sudden death was not just another hoax.
But debates about the manner and perpetrators of Prigozhin's killing should not obscure the crux of the matter; whether by bomb or shoot-down, a politically motivated mass murder with ten victims took place on Russian territory yesterday.
Ugh.

 

[Malcador]

53 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

@BruceVC: Here's a good example of a question posed to a Russian around the theme of evil American conspiracies and all the rest of it. The question was posed by a Finnish diplomat who has met Putin several times and whose knowledge of both Russia and the US is is quite extensive.

"The world that we used to live in until February 2022; was that world really intolerable for Russians to such an extent that breaking it was worth everything that it entailed?"

The Finnish diplomat received no answer at all.

You have to be kind of daft to expect an answer to a question like that, though.  Just a statement with a question mark chucked in at the end.

41 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

But debates about the manner and perpetrators of Prigozhin's killing should not obscure the crux of the matter; whether by bomb or shoot-down, a politically motivated mass murder with ten victims took place on Russian territory yesterday.
Ugh.

Strange concern over an extra judicial killing, really.  I guess another irregular verb

[HoonDing]

Anyhow, CIA sure losing a lot of assets lately.