Good night!

It occurs to me that those green-packaged Ukrainian MREs seem to have almost entirely dried up on the front line. I hadn't seen them for months until I noticed a bunch in a video that came out today. The AFU seems to have largely regressed to its logistical situation of last summer when they were handing out raw food and civilian canned goods to feed the troops in the field. Now the odd thing is that MREs should be among the easiest military items to source, and there's multiple factories in Europe that should be producing them. Makes me wonder about the status of those factories now.

I'm pretty sure the various NATO armies in Europe are out of field rations by this point anyways, most of those got donated early last year and I doubt they've been replaced. Maybe there's no money for it?

Of course given the average combat lifespan of a Ukrainian soldier on the front line these days it's a wonder they're feeding them at all...

So in other news the Ukrainian connoscription system apparently just imploded after Zelensky decided to fire the people in charge of running it - and, corruption aside, who have been doing an excellent job at shoveling Ukrainian manpower into uniforms and off to the front - for "corruption." Of course this is nonsensical, corruption is a fact of life in Ukraine and officials cannot be expected to not wet their beaks. They're apparently to be replaced with combat veterans, probably the most fanatical Azov types that can be found.

Most Ukrainian politicians and officials are deeply corrupt as a rule and this situation cannot be news to Zelensky. So corruption is obviously a pretext and there's something deeper going on.

This goes back to my earlier post about the point at which a society at war hits military collapse due to excessive casualties burning through the supply of acceptable military manpower. Ukraine is, right now, entering the national equivalent of hemorrhagic shock from losing a huge amount of its military-aged men, and there are likely few acceptable recruits left. The recruiters are probably not meeting their targets and have not been for some time - hence the radical solution of firing them all in the hopes that more hardened and ideological characters can make the numbers.

Of course there's far more to connoscripting people than simply being brutal enough to force the unfit into uniform. It requires real administrative skills that none of these goons will have, which is going to lead to a rapid collapse in intake numbers and will degrade the AFU's fighting power all the quicker.

This has a close historical parallel with the Third Reich, as Hitler increasingly replaced technocrats and (relatively) apolitical soldiers with Nazi zealots in positions of responsibility as the war turned against Germany. It did nothing at all for German war prospects and was generally counterproductive, but they could be counted upon to do exactly what Hitler wanted and brutalize a lot of the right kind of people in the process.

In line with the above this move would tie in directly with recent talk of conducting a national mass mobilization in Ukraine, without regard to age, sex, disability, etc. Simply masses of bodies being driven at the Russian lines in the hopes of staving off what will be a brutal peace by a few more months.

This suggests the Ukrainians may have cued in on the use of graveyard expansions by analysts as a proxy for AFU casualties. Easy enough to dig up existing ones rather than expand. This would also serve a secondary ideological purpose by physically destroying the memorials of Soviet and Imperial Russian soldiers who seem to be targeted in these latest moves.

I'd like to note that this is literally how you get cursed by the restless dead.

Unless I'm mistaken this is one of a very small number of privately owned MiG-23s in the United States. Thank God they maintained the ejection seats properly and they got good canopies.

Possibly the same two-seat model that's been featured on YouTube a number of times recently: https://youtu.be/hW_ujVX4a-0

Confirmed it was that specific MiG-23: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrDWpQMRK2U

Vibe:

Night!

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Unique footage of the separation and opening of the wings of two FAB-500M62 glider bombs with UMPC from the Su-34 bomber.

The very moment of the bombs opening can be seen from 0:10 seconds of the video. Also pay attention to the drop height.

American sneering at the Russian Air Force once again comes around to bite us as their extensive aerial capabilities have allowed them to dominate the battlefield.

I think this was largely based on the Russians being unwilling to do NATO-style deep air raids into the teeth of "double-digit" SAMs and instead using missiles for deep strikes while using their air force for closer work? God forbid the Russians not want to lose hundreds of aircraft and pilots against a layered Soviet-style air defense system, apparently this is cowardly and real air forces think the air campaign against Vietnam was a success to be emulated.

Or perhaps this was the Russians not providing close air support by setting up leisurely orbits around the battlefield in the optimum engagement envelope of every surface to air system in existence and instead minimizing their exposure with standoff weapons and low-altitude tactics? I suspect the USAF would quickly learn to operate similarly if faced with an enemy with more formidable AA systems than machine guns.

Pure projection at work here.

There is massive and absolutely incontrovertible evidence of systematic Ukrainian violations of the Geneva Conventions re: treatment of Russian POWs, to include public humiliation, torture, and murder.  These violations appear to be sanctioned at the highest levels.  Last I checked they do not provide the Red Cross access to their prisoners.

Noteworthy that the image in the article appears to be one of Ukrainian POWs held by Russia, who have generally been treated reasonably well and are monitored by the ICRC.