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Cont: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine part 9

Kirillov's death comes less than a week after a prominent Russian weapons expert was shot dead near his home in Moscow.

Bringing the war home to Muscovites
 
It's not just riverine vessels sinking at sea.

Their seagoing tankers also appear to be having problems

Yesterday the tanker Mercury broke down near the Kuril Islands in the Pacific and had to be towed to Rubin
on the night of December 16th, a distress signal was given by the Volgoneft 109 tanker, which was near the port of Kavkaz with 4000 tons of fuel oil on board. The ship's captain reported a breach of the seal of the fourth cargo tank and leakage of fuel oil, which got into the ballast tank.

On December 15, two tankers the Volgoneft 212 and Volgoneft 239 collided in the Kerch Strait. One person died, 11 people were hospitalized, more than 4.2 thousand cubic meters of oil products spilled into the sea and the coastline of the Krasnodar region was covered with fuel oil. Municipal state of emergency was declared in the region.
 
Ukraine takes out another of Putin's oil refineries, Novoshakhtisk in the Rostov region with 173,000 barrels/day capacity, the 10th largest in Russia, went up in flames after an attack overnight.
 
I should have invaded Ukraine earlier, Putin tells Russians in TV marathon

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia should have launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine earlier and been better prepared for the war.

In his end-of-year press conference on Thursday, Putin said, with hindsight, there should have been "systemic preparation" for the 2022 invasion, which he refers to as a "special military operation".

 
I should have invaded Ukraine earlier, Putin tells Russians in TV marathon

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia should have launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine earlier and been better prepared for the war.

In his end-of-year press conference on Thursday, Putin said, with hindsight, there should have been "systemic preparation" for the 2022 invasion, which he refers to as a "special military operation".

I assume he means before the 2020 US Presidential election.
 
Who executes an invasion without systemic preparation.
I believe the technical term is "losing side". Seriously though Sun Tzu wrote about the basics centuries back.
"By Method and discipline are to be understood the marshalling of the army in its proper subdivisions, the gradations of rank among the officers, the maintenance of roads by which supplies may reach the army, and the control of military expenditure."
 
From ISW...
Ukrainian forces conducted drone strikes against Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan on December 21. Footage published on December 21 shows several Ukrainian drones striking large apartment buildings and other unspecified buildings in Kazan, reportedly after Russian electronic warfare (EW) disabled the drones.[7] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces destroyed six Ukrainian drones near Kazan and downed one drone over a nearby river and that one drone struck near an unspecified industrial enterprise in Kazan.[8] Russian President Vladimir Putin called Republic of Tatarstan Head Rustam Minnikhanov after Minnikhanov visited damaged residential areas of Kazan.[9] Russian opposition media suggested that Ukrainian forces were likely targeting a gunpowder production facility, an airfield, a military base, or a helicopter production facility near Kazan.[10]

I believe this is the referenced footage...


These strikes are said to be well over 400 miles inside Russia. Let 'em have it, Ukraine!

More here...
 
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I should have invaded Ukraine earlier, Putin tells Russians in TV marathon

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia should have launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine earlier and been better prepared for the war.

In his end-of-year press conference on Thursday, Putin said, with hindsight, there should have been "systemic preparation" for the 2022 invasion, which he refers to as a "special military operation".

There's no need for preparation when your generals tell you it'll be all over in three days.
 
Russia continue to commit war crimes at an increasing rate

The Ukrainian prosecution service says that at least 147 Ukrainian prisoners of war have been executed by Russian forces since the start of the full-scale invasion, 127 of them this year.


The source of the information is Ukraine but summary execution of prisoners of war is certainly "on brand" for Russia.
 
There's no need for preparation when your generals tell you it'll be all over in three days.
It's the short sharp raids that require the utmost preparation, to be successful.

Putin's problem is not that his generals told him there was no need for preparation. His problem is that his generals told him all the necessary preparations had been completed.
 
It's the short sharp raids that require the utmost preparation, to be successful.

Putin's problem is not that his generals told him there was no need for preparation. His problem is that his generals told him all the necessary preparations had been completed.
That can happen when your primary selection criteria for your generals is their loyalty.
 
Information starting to emerge about a Ukrainian attack on Russian positions near the village of Lyptsi in the Kharkiv region. The attack used dozens of uncrewed ground combat vehicles supported by drones. It forced a retreat by Russian forces.
 
Information starting to emerge about a Ukrainian attack on Russian positions near the village of Lyptsi in the Kharkiv region. The attack used dozens of uncrewed ground combat vehicles supported by drones. It forced a retreat by Russian forces.
Interesting. Ukraine has already shown mastery of unmanned air and sea vehicles, why not land as well?
Unfortunately they may have less than 30 days before US support is cut off.
 
10 minute video from Anders Puck Neilsen about how broken the Russian economy is:


Reportedly they've got "stagflation" - inflation combined with stagnation in the wider (non-war) economy. This may not be such a problem in the short term but in the medium to long term the economic damage may very likely accrue.
 
Other signs of economy problems from ChrisO_Wiki

Russia's worsening economic problems are causing Russian pharmaceutical manufacturers to abandon production of some medications, due to fixed prices making it unaffordable. The country is now reportedly short of 20 million units of saline solution, a vital medication.
 
Ringer's solution productions have been unable to meet demand for decades in the US. Back in 2014 when I had cancer it was all the nurses could talk about.
 
That can happen when your primary selection criteria for your generals is their loyalty.

I keep repeating this, but it was even worse. It wasn't choosing the most loyal general out of actual generals. The reason Shoigu got put at the top was BECAUSE he was an incompetent civilian promoted straight to general, so he was hated by the army. The idea was that nobody would side with him if he tried a coup, and that he knew that loyalty was the ONLY thing that kept him in power. Well, until it didn't.

So yeah, it's more like that can happen when you deliberately promoted someone incompetent.
 
Another Russian merchant ship sinks, this time in the Med.

A Russian cargo ship, Ursa Major, has sunk in the Mediterranean between Spain and Algeria after an explosion in the engine room, Russia's foreign ministry has confirmed.

It said 14 members of the crew were rescued and taken to the Spanish port of Cartagena but two others were missing.

Ursa Major left port in St Petersburg 12 days ago, according to Russian news agency Interfax.

The ship's owner said it was on its way to Vladivostok in Russia's Far East carrying two cranes for the port weighing 380 tonnes apiece, although the destination could not be confirmed independently.

 
Russian-style efficiency is really sweating the assets; making do with what you already have (because the money to replace it went on dachas and yachts).
 
Big difference between damaged and shot down.
Hit by shrapnel from an anti-aircraft missile and destroyed when it hit's the ground because it can't be controlled.
It got shot. It went down.
What do you think "shot down" means?
 
Unless the Kasakhs bow to unusual pressure from Russia, they'll find the data recorders and will get that data out to international authorities, and then it will be pretty straightforward to figure out what happened.

Voice: Surely pilots talked to Air Traffic Contol and reported exactly what the problem was from their point of view, and that will bei on the Cockpit Voice recoreder.
There is a reason why the flight diverted to Kasakhstan, that, too, will have been discussed between pilots and ATC.

FDR data: should yield plenty of clues which controls were damaged, where and when. There are surviving witnesses, I already read about one who reported an explosion he belived to not have come from inside the plane; and reports of shrapnel damage (e.g. a damaged life jacket) within the fuselage while the plane was still airborn.

Flightradar24 shows that the plane was going up and down +/- 8000 ft multiple times, with corresponding variability in air speed and vertical velocity. Clearly the pilots could no longer trim the plane and had only limited control over pitch.
FR24 also reports that GPS was unreliable after a certain moment in time, that the plane sent (unreliable or incomplete) positional data only intermittently for like 1.5 hours, and only the last 28 minutes until crash, as it was already heading East above the Kaspian Sea enroute Aqtau airport. The path looks strangely wobbly, but I am not sure if that perhaps has to do with ongoing GPS jamming.

Videos taken from the ground: show this erratic up and down, several times you think it will stall any moment, before going downward again.

Wreckage: Peppered with ominous holes that look an awful lot like high-speed stuff (tungsten projectiles...) and not at all like what might happen from the crash itself.

----

ETA: The countries involved in the investigation of plane crashes include the seat of the aircraft manufacturer. The plane that crashed today was an Embraer E190AR. Embraer is a Brazilian company. So the FDR & CVR data will be shared with Embraer and whatever authorities in Brazil are in charge of such stuff.
While Brazil, as the "B" in "BRICS", is somewhat cozy with Russia, I'd think that Embraer, which needs to keep its non-BRICS customers happy, surely is incentivized to let the world know the plane was shot down (if indeed it was) and the manufaturer bears no blame whatsoever.
 
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Azerbaijani government sources have confirmed that Flight 8432 of the Azerbaijan Airlines was shot down by a Russian missile. This was reported by Euronews.

Also according to Azeri government sources the damaged aircraft was not allowed to land at any Russian airport despite the pilots' requests for an emergency landing, and it was ordered to fly across the Caspian Sea towards Aktau in Kazakhstan.

Forcing the damaged Azeri plane to fly all the way to Kazakhstan would perfectly fit into an attempt in having this plane crash into the sea.
 
I think that's ascribing a level of co-ordinated evil beyond Russia's usual competence. I suspect we'll find they were in a panic over Ukrainian drones and wanted the plane gone, and failed to grasp how badly damaged it was as ATC didn't know it had been attacked. The bits of transcribed radio traffic I've seen suggest (if true) the crew thought they'd suffered a bird strike and had control problems but both engines were still okay. And other claims include a passenger saying they'd aborted 2 landings due to fog.

I'm not going to defend the decision to send a plane in distress across the Caspian, but out of a war zone to an airport with better visibility would be less crazy.
 
Nato has said it will enhance its military presence in the Baltic Sea, and Estonia has sent a patrol ship to protect its Estlink1 undersea power cable, after Russia was accused of sabotaging its main power link in the Gulf of Finland.

A ship named as Eagle S is suspected of damaging the Estlink 2 cable and Finnish coast guard crew have boarded the oil tanker and steered it into Finnish waters.

The EU said the Eagle S was part of "Russia's shadow fleet" and the failure of the undersea cable was the "latest in a series of suspected attacks on critical infrastructure"

The damage to Estlink 2 is the third incident in little more than a month in the Baltic Sea.

Last month, two data cables were severed: the Arelion cable between the Swedish island of Gotland and Lithuania on 17 November, and then the C-Lion 1 cable was damaged between the Finnish capital, Helsinki, and the German port of Rostock.

A Chinese ship, the Yi Peng 3, was suspected of dragging its anchor over the cables in a separate act of Russian sabotage.
In October 2023, another Chinese ship ruptured an undersea gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia.

 
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Back to the crashed Flight J28243:

Flightradar24 has put out a probable flight path for part of the time the Embraer could not send valid position data, based on the Heading and Indicated Airspeed readings that it did transmit via ADS-B data. Look for the map below "Annotated and inferred flight path" here:


Map: https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/...-Flight-Path-J28243-Flightradar24-scaled.jpeg

So here is the timeline (UTC)

03:55 Takeoff from Baku; path goes along the Caspian Sea coast.​
04:25 Last valid position transmitted, as plane has just crossed the beach into Russian land near Makhatshkala.​
04:37 Plane appears to go have gone straight and normal for another 12 minutes, but now data becomes unusable.​
FR25 says that GPS interferrence is common in the area, and it is not unusual for planes flying in areas with jammed GPS to be sending degraded and corrupt data.
05:13 (36 minutes later) FR24's inferred flight path resumes South of Grosny, going North and soon flying a 360° loop counterclockwise before going North again, passing Grosny airport by. The runway there goes west-east. At no point is flight J28243 lined up with the runway, so apparently no attempted landing during that time frame (there may have been attempts earlier)​
05:25 North of Grosny airport, the flight turns East and appears to be heading straight for Aqtau on the other side of the Caspian Sea. Notice the straight path for several minutes.​
05:37 The plane had drifted towards a more Northerly course, and now again turns East. From here on out until crash-landing, the path is wobbly and erratic.​

Here is my interpretation:
Until 04:37, all is fine. I conjecture that flying with wrong GPS position is business as usual for the pilots
However, flight appears to have trouble finding or landing at Grosny for reasons not clear yet - a combination of GPS jamming/spoofing, fog on the ground and incompetence all around is certainly in play. However, plane appears to be controllable still.
Decision to divert to Aqtau then is based on Grosny not being fit for landing. But why not back to Baku? Does the crew depend on better visibility because of some unknown problem at this point? Unclear.

The ca. 8 minutes of straight flight from 05:25, followed by a rest of the flight with ever changing heading, suggests that controllability was (suddenly?) compromised at ca. 05:33, when the plane was over the Russian republic of Dagestan (coincidentally near a village named "Rossya" ("Russia").

This scenario suggests to me two possible time frames when the plane was shot at and damaged by some SAM:
a) Either prior to 05:13 while trying to approach Grosny airport. Pilots may have lost some of their ability to navigate by sight or by instrument (or both), but the bad flight control issue only developed later; perhaps some tecnical system was damaged in a way that it kept working for 15 more minutes, then failed; I am thinking something like a leakage of hydraulic fluids, or an electrical engine running hotter and hutter until failing.
b) SAM struck over Dagestan as plane was already heading for Aqtau. Although I am not sure why there would be SAMs in that particular area. Peraps to protect the Makhatshkala area?

-----------------------

Grosny and the larger Russian North Kaukasus area has been under Ukrainian attack not for the first or second time this Christmas. As FR24 points out, GPS has been out "commonly" in recent times. Surely, protocols are in place on how to deal with civilian traffic. I wonder:
Has the reroute to Aqtau been done before? Perhaps even routinely?
Or if this was the first time, perhaps SAM operators in Dagestan did not expect a civilian plane to come from the West (whence more typically, perhaps, Ukrainian vessels would approach) and thus considered it to be hostile?
Did J28243 actually experience trouble with fog and/or birds, and then additionally got struck by a SAM ("if you think you had a bad day at work...")

Whole affair seems to to be a confluence of three or more factors.
We'll find out from the data and voice recorders.
 
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