bickster

Oh and in other news. The Russians fired S-300 anti-aircraft missiles at Israeli aircraft on a mission in Syria, something which they've never done before. As much as Russia has been protecting Assad, they haven't intervened in Israeli operations there before. Another sign that Russia is becoming icreasingly isolated, even the Russian State talking head in AWOL's post, acknowledged that even China and India have only spoken in support but not actually acted in any way

This appears to very under-reported and may have played a part in the change of rhetoric The story appears to have originated ib the paywalled New York Times but has been repeated on other sites For context it needs to be realised that this was a live televised event and 4 of the six countries in the CSTO did not mention Ukraine in their addresses at all. Lukashenko publically criticising the other 4 countries will actually have served to ram the point home, which is not what he was trying to achieve but he is idiot so that will hardly be a shock. Not only that but he didn't send his own troops either, there were many rumours the military of Belarus actually refused to go and refused to go from the very top.

Imagine the level's of hilarity if this actually happened Putin will really have achieved the impossible

Rhetoric and actions appear to be changing. Azovstal Steelworks has been evacuated (of troops) there's no way the Russians would have done that last week Putin (Via Spokesperson) also saying he now has no problem with Sweden and FInland joing NATO Reuters

It's the allergens and other warnings they should have read

Erdogan doesn't have a veto he's just after something as usual

Why would you think I'm going to stop you starting a topic? This isn't Russia... Mind you the Russians were rather fond of them

We do not have a specific B**tles Thread

China is currently thinking of Russia as a future vassal state

Strange how selective that concept is at the BBC They've reported quite extensively on Starmer being investigated for a second time by Durham Police So a £50 fixed penalty offence is fine to report on prior to the conclusion of an investigation but a £200 million fraud case can't be mentioned

Oh now there's a Marmite band. I know a number of people who absolutely cannot stand Van Der Graaf Generator One person who may own a certain record shop I frequent even claims it was the first band she ever walked out on before the end of the gig I've never paid them much attention if I'm honest so I sort of have them on a "to explore at a later date" list

Is "Under the radar" a euphemism for completely ignored? The BBC are even refusing to answer questions at to why they aren't covering it

Minister for the Detachment from Reality

That's just a part of it Their entire military doctrine is outdated. An example of what I mean is the way they use tanks, they just send them right in with nothing in front of them, that leaves them vulnerable to small numbers of soldiers equipped with personal anti-tank weapons. If those weapons are of the latest generation and your tanks are Soviet Era design then you have a huge problem Then you need to add in that Russian military doctrine also doesn't seem to be able to combine different arms of the military. The Air Force does what the Airforce wants, the Navy does what the Navy wants andd the Army on the ground doesn't get the support in needs. Russia has also failed miserably to achieve Air Superiority because again, Ukraine's forces are equipped with large numbers of MANPADS of the current generation that the older Russian / Soviet aircraft that Russia is using can't cope very well with and there are no AA Batteries to target Ukrainians with MANPADS could be anywhere It;s also very noticeable that Russia is using very few of its Modern Tanks and Aircraft, it's becoming increasing obvious that they just don't perform as previously claimed. And they don't have that many of them anyway. Russia's supply issues that you mention are huge. There's a good number of factors here. Corruption means that the reserves aren't what they were supposed to be and those mothballed vehicles etc just haven't been looked after and have had parts plundered for vodka. Sanctions means they don't have the parts to either produce or repair their vehicles.Russia's road network is dreadful, to move stuff about, you need to do it by train, rail networks are easy to target and Ukraine seems to have been doing that well. Also, its worth noting that Russia has pretty much run out of land based precision artillery shells, they are now down to just the plain dumb shells. Guess where Russia used to get a number of the components for their precision shells from? Yup, Ukraine, they declared war on a key supplier of their weaponry. If you want to write a book about how not to declare and fight a war, don't bother. Russia are writing it

Last time I looked at these figures France and Germany’s numbers benefited by having their share of what the EU has donated as a whole added to them

You mean the weather bit that's on at the end of the news? Well that kind of involves people being engaged with the news and for the full length of the programme, that's two major hurdles Erm, hate to break it to you... That is a Sat Nav

Interesting thread on what the failed River Crossing the other day really means

Wordle 330 3/6*

Plus an absolutely great accoustic cover of Perfume by the Paris Angels

I have no idea about his current crop of musicians but that definitely wouldn't have been the case up to the demise of Beady Eye. Andy Bell and Chris Sharrock are both very talented musicians

There are supposedly 19 BTGs in Belgogrod just over the border from Kharkiv, everyone now suspects they are not combat effective even by Russian standards Also stories emerging today that Russia is having to make makeshift prisons to deal with the amount of soldiers refusing to deploy or redeploy

Daily Kos (They've been right about a lot of things so far) TL:DR Ukraine has chucked a rather large amount of troops at an area that if succesful will isolate a rather large chunk of the Russian Army from it's supply lines If they pull this manoeuvre off Russia is f***ed

They refer to proper back bacon as Canadian Bacon because American pigs clearly have no back

Who in their right mind eats bacon with weeds? Lettuce, the ultimate sandwich killer

Probably about six or seven years ago, I'm on the approach to Liverpool Airport. I was possibly speeding but not more than 50 (in a 40). The Police pull out of the side road immediately before the airport roadabout (Dunlop Road), I saw them approach the junction as I was going past so knew they weren't parked up with a speed gun. Nonetheless they followed me into the car park, let my passengers get out and pay me then asked me to step out of the car. "How fast were you going?" 40 "No, you weren't" "Do you have any actual evidence that I was speeding, being as your car was travelling along Dunlop Road as I approached it, which means any evidence you have is from the point of Dunlop Road into the Airport" "Is this relevant?" "It's highly relevant Officer, for one, it shows I was aware of the current road conditions so you have no evidence for without due care and attention and secondly from the point of Dunlop Road into the airport isn't a public highway as evidenced by the doule red lines". "The double red line means no stopping at all" "Sorry officer, you are incorrect. Double Red lines are only legal in the UK inside the city boundaries of two cities. London and Birmingham. It requires an act of Parliament for them to be used on a city by city basis and so far only two cities have the relevant act of parliament. Hence the only places they are used outside those cities is on private property" Second officer now comes out of the vehicle having obviously done a PNC check" "This vehicle doesn't have an MOT" "Correct officer, it doesn't need one, it's an exempt vehicle as it is plated, as you can see the correct affixed plate is correctly displayed on the rear of the vehicle and in the front window both of which state that it isn't due to be tested for another 11 months" This continued for a bit until they radiod in for advice A bit more verbal exchanges went on but they knew they were on to a loser and let me go. My final comment. "It's a long walk into the terminal" *bemused look* I went on my way and obviously they followed me. I paid to exit the car park went through the barrier and stopped. "I told you it was a long walk into the terminal, the intercom is broken" Off I went