Ukraine Notes
I'm going to try to post these twice a week, Monday and Thursday, so they don't get too long.
BoJo gets banned, the significance of the loss of the Moskva, José Andrés gets bombed, and a steak house in Kentucky?!
Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the UK, has been banned from Russia for his close ties to Ukraine. I expect this list to quickly grow and be as meaningless then as it is now.
Russia has renewed missile strikes on Kyiv in retaliation for the sinking of the Moskva, or just because. They also bombed a missile plant outside of Kyiv which will hamper Ukraine’s defensive capacity. And Russia has started using long-range strategic bombers in its reduction of Mariupol.
The loss of the Moskva is a big one for navy operations off the Black Sea. While tThe ship was a missile cruiser and carried cruise missiles, its main job was to provide air defense against missile attack for the rest of the fleet. With its loss, the fleet is a lot more vulnerable and will have to pull much further away from the coast, greatly reducing the accuracy of their missiles - as a rule, accuracy goes down with rockets, missiles, and artillery as range increases - in order to stay out of range of Ukraine’s anti-ship missiles and drones.
Zelenskiy announced that between 2,500 and 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died in the conflict thus far. He has also asked the USA to designate Russia as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, which would put Russia in a unique club of North Korea, Syria, Iran, and Cuba.
Canada and Japan are giving big financial aid to Ukraine.
Ukraine’s richest man has pledged to help rebuild Mariupol. He has two “vast” steelworks there. A decade ago he was worth over $15 billion US, that’s now down to just under $4B.
This is an interesting one! Men from Belarus - a Russian ally - are defecting from their country and have formed a unit and are training up to fight the Russians! It should be noted that it is probably more accurate to say that the leader of Belarus is a Russian ally, and if the people in that country could get rid of him, the war might be rather different.
A guy owns a steak house in Kentucky. His adopted son is Ukrainian. So he takes down one of the TEXAS flags in front of HIS, not a chain, but HIS restaurant and puts up a Ukrainian flag. And boy, does he get bombed in reviews! 1 star reviews on Facebook, Yelp, and Google. People saying they won’t come back until he puts the American flag back up, etc. Keep in mind that Kentucky is technically a Southern state, which means it’s Trump-friendly, so the area may well be Putin-friendly. Still, utterly ridiculous. The man says he’ll take the flag down when the war is over.
Back at Chernobyl, radioactive “coins” are missing after Russian troops left the area. These coins are highly radioactive and used for calibration of dosimeters and other equipment. Officials at the site are afraid that soldiers stole them as souvenirs and are at significant risk of radiation poisoning for themselves and others around them.
Serbia accuses Ukraine and an unspecified EU country of making bomb threats against its commercial aviation and airports, causing a dozen flights to return to Moscow and Belgrade for evacuation and inspection. Serbia is entirely dependent on Russia for oil and gas and is also in the middle of applying for EU membership.
World-known chef and humanitarian José Andrés runs community kitchens in places that need disaster relief, such as Puerto Rico when that hurricane took out the radio telescope, etc. the organization is known as World Central Kitchen, 30 sites are running in Ukraine. He had a kitchen running in Kharkiv. The Russians plonked a missile into it and destroyed it. No one was killed, four injured.
The Russians have used flechette rounds in city combat. Flechettes are little darts, about 3 centimeters in length (3.54 cm to the inch, IIRC) and look pretty much like a nail. They are not massively deadly but can kill. They are typically fired by an artillery shell that fires a bursting charge in the air, scattering the rounds over an area indiscriminately, and if targeted against a city area can easily hit your own troops. If you’re under any sort of hard cover they’re completely ineffective. If you’re not under hard cover, they could tear you up pretty good. Soldiers normally wear thick enough clothing that if they have their helmet on are fairly safe. There are no treaties against flechette rounds as they’re not a hugely effective weapon.
Meanwhile, Russian troops that are not very tech-savvy who have stolen tech equipment such as smart phones and similar things are having their locations tracked as they continue to move around the country and concentrate their forces for their new offensive in the east. I still say this is a good use for the thermobaric weapons that the Ukrainians have captured from the Russians.
BoJo gets banned, the significance of the loss of the Moskva, José Andrés gets bombed, and a steak house in Kentucky?!
Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the UK, has been banned from Russia for his close ties to Ukraine. I expect this list to quickly grow and be as meaningless then as it is now.
Russia has renewed missile strikes on Kyiv in retaliation for the sinking of the Moskva, or just because. They also bombed a missile plant outside of Kyiv which will hamper Ukraine’s defensive capacity. And Russia has started using long-range strategic bombers in its reduction of Mariupol.
The loss of the Moskva is a big one for navy operations off the Black Sea. While tThe ship was a missile cruiser and carried cruise missiles, its main job was to provide air defense against missile attack for the rest of the fleet. With its loss, the fleet is a lot more vulnerable and will have to pull much further away from the coast, greatly reducing the accuracy of their missiles - as a rule, accuracy goes down with rockets, missiles, and artillery as range increases - in order to stay out of range of Ukraine’s anti-ship missiles and drones.
Zelenskiy announced that between 2,500 and 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died in the conflict thus far. He has also asked the USA to designate Russia as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, which would put Russia in a unique club of North Korea, Syria, Iran, and Cuba.
Canada and Japan are giving big financial aid to Ukraine.
Ukraine’s richest man has pledged to help rebuild Mariupol. He has two “vast” steelworks there. A decade ago he was worth over $15 billion US, that’s now down to just under $4B.
This is an interesting one! Men from Belarus - a Russian ally - are defecting from their country and have formed a unit and are training up to fight the Russians! It should be noted that it is probably more accurate to say that the leader of Belarus is a Russian ally, and if the people in that country could get rid of him, the war might be rather different.
A guy owns a steak house in Kentucky. His adopted son is Ukrainian. So he takes down one of the TEXAS flags in front of HIS, not a chain, but HIS restaurant and puts up a Ukrainian flag. And boy, does he get bombed in reviews! 1 star reviews on Facebook, Yelp, and Google. People saying they won’t come back until he puts the American flag back up, etc. Keep in mind that Kentucky is technically a Southern state, which means it’s Trump-friendly, so the area may well be Putin-friendly. Still, utterly ridiculous. The man says he’ll take the flag down when the war is over.
Back at Chernobyl, radioactive “coins” are missing after Russian troops left the area. These coins are highly radioactive and used for calibration of dosimeters and other equipment. Officials at the site are afraid that soldiers stole them as souvenirs and are at significant risk of radiation poisoning for themselves and others around them.
Serbia accuses Ukraine and an unspecified EU country of making bomb threats against its commercial aviation and airports, causing a dozen flights to return to Moscow and Belgrade for evacuation and inspection. Serbia is entirely dependent on Russia for oil and gas and is also in the middle of applying for EU membership.
World-known chef and humanitarian José Andrés runs community kitchens in places that need disaster relief, such as Puerto Rico when that hurricane took out the radio telescope, etc. the organization is known as World Central Kitchen, 30 sites are running in Ukraine. He had a kitchen running in Kharkiv. The Russians plonked a missile into it and destroyed it. No one was killed, four injured.
The Russians have used flechette rounds in city combat. Flechettes are little darts, about 3 centimeters in length (3.54 cm to the inch, IIRC) and look pretty much like a nail. They are not massively deadly but can kill. They are typically fired by an artillery shell that fires a bursting charge in the air, scattering the rounds over an area indiscriminately, and if targeted against a city area can easily hit your own troops. If you’re under any sort of hard cover they’re completely ineffective. If you’re not under hard cover, they could tear you up pretty good. Soldiers normally wear thick enough clothing that if they have their helmet on are fairly safe. There are no treaties against flechette rounds as they’re not a hugely effective weapon.
Meanwhile, Russian troops that are not very tech-savvy who have stolen tech equipment such as smart phones and similar things are having their locations tracked as they continue to move around the country and concentrate their forces for their new offensive in the east. I still say this is a good use for the thermobaric weapons that the Ukrainians have captured from the Russians.