Some of this is going to be stalled - Romania was planning on deploying the Iron Dome [0] and Spyder [1] for AD which was going to be co-produced by Volkswagen in their German factories that were on the chopping block, but Qatar (Volkswagen's largest minority shareholder with 17% voting share) blocked that deal [2].
[0] - https://www.jpost.com/international/article-861770
[1] - https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/sy1n3pcfzx
[2] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-10/qatar-blo...
How do these scams keep happening? Why doesn't anyone care how their taxpayer money is spent?
Homemade bottle rockets are a 2000s era Israel thing. Now it's Ababeel, Mohajer, Shahed, Arash and other Iranian drones deployed in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran. The same kinds of drones being used in Ukraine and operated by Iranian personnel [0][1][2] that are also the same make as the drones shot down in Romania as well as Poland.
Ukraine also gave us intel linking Iranian strike capacity with Russia [3] and Russia has previously offered to stop giving Iran geoint and strike intel in return for the US stopping geoint and strike intel sharing with Ukraine, which the US rejected [4].
[0] - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/03/10/8024839/
[1] - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/11/07/7375314/
[2] - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/10/23/7373119/
[3] - https://xcancel.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/2081074329115078813#m
[4] - https://www.politico.eu/article/putin-offers-stop-intel-iran...
China even built in insurance (check what the fuel is for the more advanced rockets, then check if Iran can actually synthesize that fuel ... heh. Weird)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-57092245
Oh and to add insult to injury, the big problem with both European and US air defense, being overwhelmed by numbers of drones and rockets, is something Israel has demonstrated how to deal with a dozen times. In fact this system was designed for that.
Therefore Iron dome, Israeli experience and Israeli tactics are exactly what's needed here.
But of course politics are more important than direct demonstrations and weapons fire showing exactly who Europe's enemies are. Sorry that I ever suggested anything remotely different. Apologies. Please continue.
1. While dragonwriter's point is not entirely wrong, I also wouldn't say I agree either. Czar Nicholas was "prosecuted" quite rapidly after the russian revolution.
2. The problem, ithkuil, is if the population does not see any other way to effectively fix things. (System capture, pareto distributions, disenfranchisement, etc.)
As an aside, I created a new account for this vs. my normal because I've wanted to speak more openly than I can on a work-associated profile for a while now, I will be keeping this account lest anyone thinks it's astroturfing.
Most positive progress has been done via hard work, sacrifice and time; most basic rights that we all give for granted now have been achieved that way and not by violence and destructions.
Yes, there are occasional counterexamples when people had to get rid of dictators via violence, but that worked because gradual, grinding, collaborative progress under such rulers was not allowed.
What we're witnessing today is not that: we don't have a strong system that systematically represses people who have a different opinion and discuss new ideas; we have a system where people are increasingly immature and want results fast because their attention span is limited, take huge achievements for granted and are willing to burn everything down because they think it's a game and they have never lived under a civil war
If a population does not believe they have more productive options, that is what will be left. This is often compounded when the existing powers have an easy time with murder BEFORE collapse, such that any moral prohibition would be hypocritical and self-defeating.
Let me be clear as well: I do not think Nicholas's murder "fixed" russia. I was precise in my wording, it was a form of prosecution previously unavailable to them. My point being that if things get bad enough, people care less about a long-term fix, and more about some semblance of recompense, and in some cases it may truly be the only option available to them to realize any concrete impact.
'It's astonishing how many people really seem to think that total collapse / destruction of a system can be an effective way for fixing things'
'Czar Nicholas was "prosecuted" quite rapidly after the russian revolution.'
The current system works better than any previous system for redress. In fac the regime is having to bypass the system/break the system in order to get away with what they are getting away with. Destroying the system will not put them in their place. Breaking the system in fact gives them more of what they want. More power. More ability to abuse the current environment.
Taking us back to the previous system, and putting in the hard and mundane work of keeping it working is the much better solution if people want redress, not continuous 'we just need to break it a little more because feelz/it's simpler/our political class (that we could, you know, work to get voted out) suck (and all we do is whine about it)'.
What, this actual system, where (even ignorign the deep violence it metes out to folks in other places) every fucking week I get to hear about how someone has been murdered by it?
It's rich to hear folks talk about "wannabe murders" out of one side of their face while ignoring long-term, violence that this system does every day.
I explicitly said I was responding to both parents, and enumerated my response to each. (To be evenhanded, I could also have been unclear that my responses were distinct)
My response to the post you quoted was '2. The problem, ithkuil, is if the population does not see any other way to effectively fix things. (System capture, pareto distributions, disenfranchisement, etc.)'
The comment you are focusing on, regarding prosecution, was in response to Dragonwriter's earlier post regarding feasibility of prosecution after collapse.
Your final statement implies that you took my statement directed entirely at the US system vs. at a generalized statement (Warning?) on when people see revolution as a legitimate option.
I chewed over and decided to not touch too much more on the US aspect because I think it distracts from the original point I was trying to make, but I will say statements such as: 'The current system works better than any previous system for redress' are apt to my initial warning, as the US is clearly in a period of local retreat, (both as I think you touch on elsewhere in your comment, and not for the first time in history, to be clear) especially if the redress you seek is against political or white-collar crimes, and addressing that requires urgency, awareness, and action, including Voting, as you say, that I worry I don't see with the proactivity that is needed.
Just think the small Cessnas and pipers littered around that could be used for a similar task.
https://youtu.be/GrzzYTXgnMQ?is=zChAgYfc5ZEi25gt
Edited out bad grammer
I think the next natural step in Russia's defense against Ukrainian drones countermeasures like this, shooting them down with shotguns, will be to arm the drones. Then it will be up to Ukraine to counter that threat and the cycle continues as always.
Unfortunately it's been long discontinued and it's successor Skyranger is still facing some technical difficulties as of recent reports.
- At one-a-day scale, political and risk considerations probably favor the expensive solution.
- Using F-16's reveals nothing about your current anti-drone defenses. (Yeah, it's also a real-world basic competence test for your air force - for better and for worse.)
- If your intel people want more data on the drones, an F-16 can haul a whole lotta intel-gathering equipment to the show.
- If you're dealing internally with some head-in-the-sand traditionalists dragging their heels on updating your doctrine/equipment/training to deal with drones, then "real world, right now" examples are probably useful.
(BTW - do the articles say "a2a missile" anywhere? F-16's typically mount a 20mm cannon, a cheap drone is not a hard target, and cannon rounds are dirt cheap by compare.)
https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2026/02/09/ukrainian-f-16am-...
Also, Wikipedia gives a 3km effective firing range for the M61 - but it'd be no surprise if the F-16's standard targeting optics can't achieve that against small airborne targets.
Hopefully a decent defense contractor or few sees business opportunities here.
Though most French commercial media are not bad, either.
In a democracy, how is this a bad thing?
Explain to me why reading news from the state is a good thing? Kinda shocked that people here applaud state-owned media (there is no difference between "government-owned" or "state-owned").
Your comment makes only sense if you follow the narrative that state is bad, private companies good. In most European countries, we are rather happy with having a part of the media market owned by the state.
The best advice I can give here is to mix different sources. As a Belgian, I have a few local newspapers and the VRT news for Belgium, NOS, BBC, CNN, and Al Jazeera, which are all checked at least weekly. Each one has its own blatant biases and blind spots. There are still big missing gaps, e.g. a Chinese and an African perspective. There is clearly Gell Mann Amnesia going on. Even so, I started to look very different to the world.
I’m not saying it’s good or bad, just observing the language.
I personally don't know enough about BBC or France 24 to go beyond "government-funded", so I would want more details about their governance before using the terms mentioned before to describe them.
In a democracy, how would state owned be different from public?
Do you also call libraries state-run?
IMHO both terms are heavy with bias depending on context.
What ever it truly is, America is called a 'democracy', and it had Project Mockingbird, which some, myself included, say never ended. And even being maximally fair, I must question whether democracy has any meaning in the context of media after Ellison buys half of it. Does he not own CNN? No point in mentioning who, or what owns Fox. And Bezos?
I know it comes off offensive, despite being unintended, but 'democracy' means nothing to me. We have some useful principles of it, which I value, but as a thing, I don't see it.
When you get your news from RT, BBC, France24, DW, PressTV, NPR, Gulf News, DD, Al-Jazeera etc. you get "official" political propaganda from the respective governments that run these outlets. Political propaganda can be based on falsehood or factual truth(s) with a "biased" analysis on it. Government news outlets have to show some journalistic integrity to earn trust. Thus, most of their propaganda tends to be based on facts than on falsehood. So reading them all or reading about the same subjects from these different outlets really gives you a larger political perspective with some great political insights.
I know that the BBC in the UK, SVT in Sweden, the ABC in Australia go to great lengths to listen to both sides, whatever they may be, to a fault. They are often criticized for giving minority views too much coverage for this reason, and rarely for saying what the government would want them to say uncritically.
When there's a news channel funded by the state (instead of ads), most other private news are forced to keep up the quality and they also have the opportunity to call out any bad news and biases published by the state channel. This way no news outlets stray too far from the truth or become unreadable slop. It's better overall.
France is executive heavy democracy similar to US and Latin American States. This is a very big flaw and state owned media might be contribute to.
Because democracy is effectively mob rule, which means minority voices may get shut out.
Which means that everything leads to the status quo, and the majority voices get shut out in favor of the most entrenched minority.
Those clever founders.
There've been many treatments of this: Jerry Mander's Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978), Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent (1988), Neil Postman's Amusing OUrselves to Death (1985), Hamilton Holt's Commercialism and Journalism (1909) <https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holtuoft/page/...>.
That last is particularly good for a number of reasons, including that it's short and information dense, and lays out the clear conflicts inherent to advertising-driven media just at the time it was first gaining influence, and at a fraction of its present size and influence.
If you prefer video, media critic Isadore F. "I.F." Stone gave an excellent 1973 interview on the PBS series Day at Night on the state of newspaper journalism in the United States, contrasting the relative independence of big-city dailies vs. rural papers. The former were large enough that no single advertiser could threaten editorial independence.
Link will offer a choice of instances to redirect to: <https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=qV3gO3zxQ1g> (video).
As for your question, Russia is nominally a democracy but I wouldn't trust the veracity of their state media reports.
In a parliamentary democracy the "government" is the prime minister, president (whatever the titles are), cabinet ministers and the party that happens to be in power at any given time. The "Government" might be a coalition of 2, 3, or 4 medium sized political parties that have come to some sort of arrangement to have enough votes to pass a budget and laws. The "state" are the persons who perform the longer term functions of the state not directly controlled by the whims of any political thing that might happen in a specific year.
For instance when France made a decision to build its previous series of nuclear powered, missile carrying submarines, and the decision to build a new series that will enter service some time in the 2030s, that's implemented by the civil servants who run the state. Various political parties have waxed and waned and leadership has come and gone since the French nuclear program began, but various successor governments have continued it.
Less specific than that program, the state implements other basic services for the people of the country, all the things that have their day to day work done by people who aren't elected members of parliament. The parliamentarians who happen to be occupying various seats at any given time are the government.
In a more specific Canadian example: The government funding that comes to the CBC each year is actually from what would we would call the state. https://cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/impact-and-accountability/fin...
You'll see terms used like "the government has collapsed as the result of a non confidence vote" or "there's been a leadership challenge inside the government (eg: how Trudeau lost power recently)", it doesn't mean the functions of the state have collapsed.
The State would be the organization that uses governments as the branch of executive power (and also organizes a legislative activity, and a judiciary activity...). The kind and amount of power held by the Head of the State and the Head of the Government can vary.
So I think the best thing is to get news from everywhere Russia, China, the US, Europe, but that's a lot of work..
The block is only DNS level, IIRC, and doesn't affect VPNs.
The first drone on 24.07 took ~80min to intercept and shoot down, well into the country. The other 2 were shot down within kilometers of the border so they’re paying closer attention.
And they would need to train anyway.
But for a real conflict, sure, more economical solutions are on the way.
Like bro... you got a GPS. Get the fuck out of here.
Not World War 3 though, currently.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/26/ukraine-war-br...
Iran is even more closely linked. Arguably the real reason for the American attack on Iran is to reduce their contribution to the Ukraine conflict.
Plus Russia's various Toadies (which included Hungary, an EU nation, until recently)... It's a pretty sizeable bloc.
It's not yet an all out Axis and Allies situation, but it's definitely not just Russia against the world.
How nice of Trump and Netanyahu, thinking about the world peace and Europe's well-being.
whatever the rationale for starting hostilities against Iran, the situation we are currently in is best described as an individual temper tantrum.
Europe doesn't even really support Ukraine, it just hates Russia for defeating it in WWII. Thank God France has nukes, or Germany would be invading it again for not showing enough support for Ukraine and Israel.
edit: Poland is starting to remember what the Ukrainians did back then, too. And to notice that the psychotic Ukrainian nationalist minority (that we funded and armed) are proud of having done it, and would do it again.
One is a nuclear power, so the reaction is not what it would be otherwise.
This is the same as Russia invading their neighbours like they have since Peter I.
In 2014-15 they started shelling civilians in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, then used that as a pretext to increase their military presence by pretending it's all local militias fighting back the shelling the ruskies themselves started.
The pretext was fully fabricated, the militias theatre was fully fabricated. Nothing made sense. To anyone with a pinch if intellect the truth was obvious...
Yet, the legend of Ukrainians murdering other Ukrainians for using russian language has rooted so much, even now some ppl believe that bs.
In case of Bulgaria, ruskies could attack, then attack again pretending russian-speaking population needs protection in the light of the first attack.
And right-wing nutheads in EU gonna believe that, and blame NATO for offensive expansion
No
Logic
Whatsoever
Russia's pretexts were largely true.
Ukraine did ban Russian language schools. That's technically a human rights violation. Native language education has been considered a human right since the late 1800s.
It's a common violation. Belarus did the same thing for Polish, Poland for German. Etc. Lots of Muricans want Murica to be an English-language Christian nation too, and laws sometimes reflect that. Certainly Murican education standards favor English speakers.
Euromaidan was a bit anti-rule-of-law.
Many Russian minority groups were mistreated in Ukraine.
All of that is true.
None of it merits an invasion.
Best propaganda is usually all true but selective of facts. In any group of more than a million people, some will do something bad. There are instances of Poles assaulting Ukrainian refugees, and vice-versa. It sounds bad, but with over a million refugees, it's statistically impossible for it to not happen. It makes for good propaganda for Russia too; both sides are starting to be riled up.
Good propaganda has elements of truth. Even if you read Hitler, you'll see a mixture of truth and fiction. The verifiable facts lend credence to the fabricated ones.
The dumb thing is Ukraine has doubled down on all of that since the invasion. The right thing to do would be to:
1) Open up a Russian-language elementary school
2) Don't mention Bandera, or better yet, apologize to Poland and open a park recognizing Polish victims or something similarly symbolic.
That's the right thing to do, and with that, the credibility of the propaganda simply disintegrates. If you're ever falsely accused, the trick is to do the exact opposite.
However, this is an extraordinarily hypocritical claim, because this has followed a time when for various durations, between a half of century and two centuries the Russians have mistreated the minorities of those places in a much more ferocious way, inclusively by robbing them, murdering them or sending them to forced labor in Siberia.
In Ukraine, there are many places with Russian colonists who have been installed after WWII in the houses that before the war belonged to various other nationalities, which were then killed or dispersed to Siberia by the Russians.
Yes, Russians have been mistreated after the separation of the Soviet Republics, but this is much, much less than what their fathers have done around WWII and before it, and many of them have still inherited what their fathers have stolen from the other nationalities.
Had the Russians treated better the others when they had the power, they would have not been so hated, so they would have been much more likely to be treated correctly.
The fuck you're talking about?! Mistreated how?!
Give a specific example
When a toddler does something inappropriate, "but he did it to me" is not an excuse. If both kids did something bad, I want both to apologize, and both to move on. It's also not a contest for who did something worse. I want Ukraine to apologize to Poland. I want Poland to apologize to Ukraine. I want both nations to move on.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
Indeed, that's doubly the case when it's nations -- a civilian hit in a retaliatory strike often has nothing to do with an atrocity. I don't know where you are, but I'll pretend the US. If someone whose father died in Guantanamo, or whose child was killed in an airstrike in Afghanistan, killed your mother, would they be "right"? Would it be hypocritical of you to complain?
Or if you want to punish a dictator, does it make sense to starve the people in his nation -- most of whom probably want him out even more?
I am perfectly aware of all of Russia's wrongs. You missed most of the big ones, from holodomor, to about a half-millennium of other torment of people in Ukraine.
You try to do right for your own soul. Apologizing doesn't weaken you.
And you don't punish children for the sins of their fathers.
This seems a trivial detail but I think it's a profound mechanism of the current disinformation climate
There were others as well. Most have at least some basis as well. For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/422nd_Unmanned_Systems_Regimen...
And yes, it is still a really shitty set of pretexts.
You see, I've been in Ukraine in 2014, and I've been observing everything from the front seat, so to say.
Generally what ruskies say does not matter. Not a single word.
But specifically, the pretexts they may be stating now (I don't follow what they say), may be different from what they stated in 2014.
It baffles me that after so much bs spewed by russian propaganda, people waste their effort trying to synthesize a coherent story.
The only rock fact: ruskies say whatever gives them tactical advantage at the moment.
Also bad for the world. The lesson, as with Iran and Iraq, is: you’d better have nukes and never give them up. This is the opposite of the lesson we want if we want to contain proliferation.
The global taboo on use remains. If someone breaks that and gets away with it we are into civilization ending danger territory.
Russia claims those assurances ended with the US actively advocating on the ground in Ukraine for the overthrow of their government in 2014, as the assurances included not interfering in domestic politics or using economic coercion. But the US also sanctioned and was working to overthrow Belarus as far back as 2006, so those assurances had been pretty much dead for a long time.
Outside of that I completely agree with everything else you said, especially with people not appreciating how far back these conflicts go. The whole Bandera stuff has no real parallel in the West, so I think most people wouldn't really be able to 'get it' even if they had the facts, which they overwhelmingly do not.
Choosing to not do this to avoid a hypothetical external aggression was a bad choice, because they were invaded anyway.
And Ukraine's where they're at today because of bad decisions. Russia's negotiations to end the war started on literally day 2. And they involved absolutely no land concessions or anything like that - the big issue was not joining NATO. Such offer would now be labeled a crushing to defeat for Russia, given how the war is going.
You've been there, right?
And do you know the meaning of the word "literally"?
Jeez, you russian clowns.
From the Guardian (12 days ago): "Kyiv’s decision to honour second world war fighters who killed about 100,000 Poles has revived simmering tensions". Bandera was a Nazi collaborator and today's Ukraine politics worships Bandera. Lots of streets are renamed to honor him. Eastern Ukrainians are considered second class - or as some politicians said: "There are 2 million people too many".
The US (look up Nuland and her quote about 'fuck the EU') fueled with $5B the nationalism in Ukraine. Now imagine, the US would fuel with $50B the nationalism in Belgium and the the flemish would attack wallonie. You know what would happen? France would support the wallonie. Nothing to see here.
2) Poland is not your concern, Vasily
If you want Ukraine to win the information war then this isn't that helpful?
Unless of course you are actually pro-Russian and you're just playing this game at a higher level in which case... congrats because that is effective
EDIT: I won't pretend to know much about the history of the conflict. But the thing that made me lean towards supporting Ukraine was the widespread Russian rhetoric that "Ukraine doesn't exist, the Ukrainian language doesn't exist, they are just Russians". Such imperialistic attitude and the resulting asymmetry is incompatible with any attempt to shame Ukraine at not being perfect in the treatment of Russian minorities in Ukraine. All while ukrainian children are kidnapped and resettled in Russia to become Russians.
But since you seem to care
- there were russian schools even after 2022. No one was closing them the way the troll implies. Anecdotes are not the evidence.
- ask the troll how many Ukrainian schools are in russia, and whether that's a violation if human rights.
- ask the troll, why ruskies burn Ukrainian books on the territories they occupy, while Ukrainians after 2022 merely donate russian books to libraries.
You see, that's how russian trolls operate. They pull a fictional story out of their ass, and "invite for a discussion".
And while you waste your time trying to prove anything, they
- loot your country
- destroy your culture by precisely targeting museums, universities
- murder your people
- r*pe 6 yo kids
Maybe ask the troll what does he think about all that.
I know what he'll answer, so I'm not willing to waste any of my time. I would've responded differently elsewhere, but I want to keep visiting HN under my account.
I seriously thought this was the case, but looking at the post history, it's probably a question of Hanlon's Razor.
Poster appears to be Ukrainian, and clueless.
Russian trolls feed on these types, unfortunately, and they end up polarized quickly enough.
That's the amplification in these disinformation wars.
We have IMO, an informational stalemate, with russians having much better positions, unfortunately, thanks to their network of agents covering entire planet, and huge investments over the last two decades (and even before that: the entire Bandera horror-story is their work from soviet times, because Bandera been fighting russian soviet colonizers).
Those a bit smarter have figured that you can not trust a single word coming from russians. Their methods have been studied, described, and presented.
Those who keep repeating russian propaganda, will continue doing so until russia is defeated militarily (and I'm not saying that's gonna happen soon, or even during my lifetime, those folks in EU better prepare).
Based PM, from one of your neighbors just North of the Danube.
He's not wrong - this is a war of attrition and Russia is about to raise 500K-1M soldiers - if they can do that, and keep Ukraine on their backs, it's possible Russia could break through.
Unlikely but possible.
Ukraine has difficulty recruiting and equally high desertion rates.
'Eventually something has to give'.
I think it's unlikely and that Ukraine will be able to hold out.
Is this true for non-decoy non-foam drones and basically everything else that flies, even things with solid boosters? Seems like a strange part to add here as it basically applies to aviation in general, replace "fuel" with "stored energy" and literally all type of "vehicle" fits basically.
For the case of a hot war, knowing the detection and destruction capabilities of your future enemy is valuable.
I don't know if it's to try and circumvent Ukrainian defenses or to provoke a reaction to sell to domestic audiences though.
Turkey didn't think twice before shooting down a Russian Su-24 in 2015 for violating Turkish airspace for about 17 seconds. This is how you "negotiate" with the Russians: first you break their nose when cross some red line, then appologize.
https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IN/HTML/IN124...
Anyway, the key to securing the Black Sea is Türkiye with the other smaller NATO allies.
Escalating tensions between Russia and NATO is in Ukraine's, not Russia's, interest.
No one wants to be blamed when they can’t defend themselves when Russia attacks.
Conversely, Russia(n leadership) would probably love an overreaction by NATO to unlock the use of its conscripted army for "defense," which is not feasible in the current war of aggression.
Claims to such effect has been made in public by reputable persons but they are not very credible nor has any supporting evidence been shown in public.
Drones getting lost due to GNSS jamming is happening.
But intentional misdirection towards a target would require GNSS spoofing capabilities over an impractically large area and that the drones would be susceptible to simple spoofing. They have satellite navigation, inertial navigation, terrain following cameras and listen to ground based radio sources like cell towers and are designed to operate in hostile RF environment. Just sending a fake GPS signal (several of them) won't make the drone divert to a specific target or direction.
I'm not buying the misdirection story until more compelling evidence is made public.
These are Shaheds - big, slow, dumb, you can see the coming.
The one's over Europe were sneaky little FPV drones, like consumer grade ones, launched by FSB people nearby.
The other drones are probably not going to cause an explosion (unles they colide with a plane) and are already in a populated area, so it's risky to destroy them.
Oh, wait, Romania actually got hit by one. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93x4nxlkjeo
It's just a matter of numbers, both percentages and money.
"Having closely examined the technical data and tips from concerned citizens, we [DHS, FBI, FAA, and DoD] assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones. We have not identified anything anomalous and do not assess the activity to date to present a national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the northeast."
Either they were wrong about the nature of the sightings when they happened or they were wrong afterwards, there's no world in which they got it right the whole way through. So the only question is which way they got it wrong. I see no reason to believe that they were correct in the moment and wrong afterwards.
Those zany kids!
Iran has a strong stance to significantly increase influence in the Middle East if not restrained: they have many way (not just Hormuz) to project power on oil countries, and essentially force them to switch sides.
Putin cannot play the part Wilhelm played in 1914 because Russia has very little power.
Xi Ping cannot play the part Wilhelm played because he is too smart (he is one of the shrewdest and smartest leaders rn). If Xi Ping starts to lose it, then yeah, we may have WW1. Until then this is a very different situation.
It's a very extreme case, but it would get extremely messy. Putin on his own is something Europe should easily be able to handle as long as they've got Ukraine on their side. Trump's erratic disruptive attacks will hopefully end at some point. I'm not worried about Iran at all, except internally.
Seen the news of the past hours about the 2028 intention?
500+ million people and corresponding economy needs Ukraine to protect themselves? this is just plain pathetic or what's worse proof that the EU would fight Russia to the last Ukrainian
Even a victorious war is destructive. I'd like to do without, but I am just a random hobbit in this regard.
My read on the situation is that Putin knows that he's stuck, and baiting nato into some (likely tepid) response gives him an excuse to expand the next call up / draft.
FWIW, as one potential size metric: casualties in Ukraine (so far) are comparable to the Korean or Vietnam War, and an order of magnitude less than the World Wars (even though the world has roughly 4x the population now than in 1939). It's much more comparable to those conflicts than either of the World Wars.
I believe it's also the case that more Vietnamese died during the Vietnam War than the UK/US/France combined during WWII as well.
What's true though? I don't believe that I have a way to find out.
And just on first principles, how stupid would the Ukrainian have to be to do such a thing to their biggest ally? It almost beggars belief.
They would love to have a cause to involve anything NATO.
And for the first principles you are surely didn't miss: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr7xzg3dmj8o
No, not nationalists, just regular people who all wish that Russia finally ceases to exist.
From the france24 article:
> A government investigation reportedly identified the first of the three drones as a Shahed model used by Russia in its war with Ukraine.
Some other scenarios also explained in this good video
Wouldn't this make the situation much worse for Russia, and therefore for him as well? The oligarchs will know who is to blame if Putin starts a war with NATO.
russians arent excited to go die in ukraine, but defending the homeland from NATO is a different story
I think us couch experts including author of that particular video have no fucking clue what he will do and what the true state of affairs is. Had all those expert prediction materialized Russia would've already disintegrated 10 times and Putin would've lost power in a first months.
“Father Time is undefeated.” - LeBron James
In Russia yes, they project the strongman narrative.
Also, how's Ukraine war is sustainable for Ukraine? It's economy is non-existent (almost 100% dependent on western donations), it has less than 50% of population of 2022 (they don't publish any population stats directly, but if you combine available statistics, there are about 10-15 millions left most of them old retired people or young people that are too young to send them to the front lines), they are losing territory every day.
This is some weird "Ukraine is winning but front is moving in the wrong direction" logic.
As long as the EU keeps supporting them, I think Ukraine will be better able to maintain the current situation than Russia. But Ukraine is nearly as exhausted as Russia, and I think a European coalition sending real practical ground and air support would help a lot. I suspect sufficient support could force a breakthrough in southern Ukraine an liberate a very large chunk of land very quickly.
The reason that's not happening is either that NATO thinks this would give Putin the excuse he needs for large scale mobilisation, or simply because Europe is afraid to get its hands dirty. I don't think the former is nearly as big an issue as some believe; Putin has never needed any action from NATO or EU members to justify escalation, and has never responded to imagined red lines getting crossed.
The latter is more likely. I think Europe needs to remember the sacrifice that Canada and the US brought to liberate Europe in WW2, and recognise the moral obligation that creates to liberate others in a similar position. Like Ukraine today.
Now, when they finally can damage the Russian economy enough to make the war unsustainable for them, there is a chance we can get an end to this confict.
Ukraine has been gaining some open fields, while losing major urban areas. Kostyantynivka just fell and Russian troops are securing the high ground overlooking the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk urban conglomerate. Pokrovsk also fell faster than expected, suggesting that Ukraine increasingly lacks the infantry manpower density to defend urban terrain.
> As long as the EU keeps supporting them, I think Ukraine will be better able to maintain the current situation than Russia.
European support doesn't rectify Ukraine's critical vulnerability: manpower...or a lack thereof. Although Euro governments seem like they might start deporting military-age Ukrainian males back to Ukraine so they can be forcibly conscripted....because sending men to their deaths against their will screams "Western liberal values", or something.
> I think a European coalition sending real practical ground and air support would help a lot
Russian analysts have been coming on Western alt-media outlets warning that Russian hardliners are increasingly advocating for striking logistics and military production sites in Europe. HistoryLegends has a good video about how France, one of the more experienced and expeditionary European countries, absolutely struggled to even get a brigade into Romania for an exercise. Europe could definitely send air support.....but do you think European citizens are ready for their cities to eat Oreshniks (at a minimum) as a response?
> I suspect sufficient support could force a breakthrough in southern Ukraine an liberate a very large chunk of land very quickly.
There isn't enough combat engineering vehicles in all of Europe to clear lanes through the Surovikin Line. The Ukrainians already learned this the hard way in summer 2023.
Has it finally fallen? Because Russia has been trying to take it for ages now, against staggering losses, and keeps claiming they control it when it turns out they don't. They do that a lot. Mostly because they desperately want to have good news to report to Putin. They are advancing, but incredibly slowly, and at enormous cost, and Ukraine regularly does take land back.
But you're absolutely right that Ukraine is short on manpower, unlike Russia which seems to have endless reserves of people to send to very rapid deaths. Ukraine is doing a lot to fill their manpower gap with drones, but their lack of manpower is exactly why I think Europe should come to their aid.
Their tactics have settled to extremely-small infantry infiltrations across almost the entire frontline. Warfare has evolved and concentrated mechanized assaults have been abject failures for both sides; it's far too easy to mass fires than it is to mass maneuver forces (see additional commentary (1) at the bottom). Russia's ground strategy is probably the least-risky way for them to keep pressure on the defenders and husband their own resources.
> their lack of manpower is exactly why I think Europe should come to their aid.
Be the change you want to see in the world: https://ildu.mil.gov.ua/news/how-join-armed-forces-ukraine
(1) Normally I would blame both air forces for lacking the capacity to systemically disrupt the defender at all depths.....but if we look at the Israeli aggression against Lebanon, the Israeli air force has total air dominance and their heavy mechanized forces are still struggling to advance. FPV drones basically quadruple the range of every ATGM team at 10% of the price.
There could be a total collapse in Eastern Europe, but the total collapse will be in Moscow due to an unsustainable war.
You're right that Putin believes he's infallible, and the Nielsen makes the point that Putin often picks the most stupid option. But it also emphasizes that Europe needs to be ready to act if Putin decides to escalate, and if the US chooses to abandon NATO.
Why make it more difficult if the current situation is unsustainable? Does not make sense.
It is Anders Puck Nielsen who is a serious military researcher and commentator. He is a go-to by any television channel in Denmark and has been from the start of the war.
He very much passes the smell test :)
It’s one of those “let’s see how much we can get away with” probes to try to establish a new status quo. I wonder how Russia would respond to NATO drones doing the same.
These are probes. Judging responses and response times.
Rumor is Polish GROM have been inside Russia for months.
Edit: See sources in my comment below. I bring receipts.
Some, yes. Many are merely defective units. These weapons are being manufactured in enormous quantity and deployed rapidly with minimal quality control: based on the reported numbers over Ukraine, the net manufacturing rate is about 10 per hour. Inevitably, some are defective and fail to follow waypoints. Romania is on a line through numerous targets in Ukraine from the Kursk region where many Russian drone flights begin, so Romania ends up being the unintended destination.
The good news is that the defects likely represent resource problems for the manufacturers. The same phenomena has been noted with increasing failed missile launches from Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RBY1cY-GF8
> Poland's elite GROM commandos have become legendary (...) in this episode, we explore (...) the covert war between Poland and Russia, and why Polish-speaking commandos are appearing inside Russian territory.
Basically GROM getting "leave" and then ending up with their whole team inside Ukraine as "contractors", just with deniability.
https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/polish-mercenaries...
Regarding efforts to provide deniability for their operations, a Polish officer informed him: “we worked out a formula for our presence in Ukraine … we were simply sent on paid leave. Politicians pretended not to see this.” The Polish Volunteer Corps has appeared to use the same model to provide cover for the mass deployment of Polish Armed Forces personnel, who are technically former personnel when entering the theatre, with their presence having for years been widely reported on multiple frontlines. In February 2026, the lower house of the Polish parliament adopted legislation to provide legal cover to Polish citizens who fought in the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian War.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/07/03/russia-pla...
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/07/12/8043770/
https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/baltics-poland-w...
Edit:
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/military-watch-magazine-bias/
It's even more amusing when you see pictures like this https://i.redd.it/ex4jgoqir4qg1.png
If I helped a friend fight off their enemy am I “using” the friend? I saw with my own eyes the thousands of Ukrainians who lined up to fight (and continue to do so) to defend their home country. Sure NATO is supporting us because that’s what allies do, and of course we wish for their increased support. However NATO is not “using” us against our will — they have no ability to compel us to do that.
Sure NATO is already waging war against Russia, but Russia started it.
I don't know how I feel about that, on one hand, we are helping you defend, on the other we are just going "well, at least it's not our civilians and soldiers dying".
But, either way, thank you!
As for the fact that the West could've sent troops but chose not to, yes, that does hurt a lot of Ukrainians, and some do feel used. But we'll fight and win anyway, to defend our homeland, because we have no choice - material support from the West is better than nothing.
First of all, the Minsk agreements did not state that Ukraine could not join NATO, this is Russian propaganda:
https://mythdetector.com/en/was-ukraine-refusing-to-join-nat...
Second, NATO was not "going to enter Ukraine". Ukraine wanted to join NATO. Ukraine is a sovereign country. If they want to join NATO, they can solicit membership. The rest of NATO can accept or refuse.
Though given that your account is new and mostly pro-Russian propaganda, you are probably just a Russian troll.
As for Merkel and Hollande — if you think the Minsk agreements or other agreements were in bad faith, then was the invasion of Crimea and Donbass “in bad faith”? There can be no “good faith” agreements when a neighbor chooses to invade you.
> it did not want to start this war
This is such twisted logic it’s insane. If Russia didn’t want to start this war then why did they start it? Who forced them?
As for legitimization of murders of Russian people, I remind you the Odessa pogrom and the "anti terrorist operation" (there was not "just" this).
"Such twisted ligic.." Russia started the war with the main purpose to make the current Ukranian government fall, and to stop NATO from entering Ukraine. It did not succeed.
Now you agree that Russia started the war to topple Ukraine and and failed in its purpose. So we agree!
I should also add that I still read Dostoyevsky and respect Tolstoy and other high Russian culture. But killing Ukrainians? I don’t respect that. In fact I believe that if Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy were alive today they would oppose the Russian government of today just like they opposed the Russian government of their time. Both were nearly killed and imprisoned by their own government.
I hope you understand that (but to people such as yourself, this rarely matters, in my experience).
Most of my friends are from Crimea and the Donbass because my roots are from the Donbass myself. The Ukrainian army is full of people from Crimea (Tatars) and the Donbass who fight willingly to defend Ukraine. Look up the Donbass battalions of the Ukrainian army. Izyum and Kupyansk were cities I visited in 2021 — perfectly safe until Russia invaded and destroyed.
I should also add that I still read Dostoyevsky and respect Tolstoy and other high Russian culture. But killing Ukrainians? I don’t respect that.
In fact I believe that if Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy were alive today they would oppose the Russian government of today just like they opposed the Russian government of their time.
As for the second part of your comment, your point is that Russia occupied and committed a genocide against that 'fake' country, when they became free tried to exercise soft power, failed, then invaded, but yet it's NATO that is waging war there?
The only part where you're right is that it is in NATO's interest that Ukraine keeps fighting, since it only costs us money, not people, while still killing the enemy. And that's why we're (and I include the EU here) giving them money, because we're terrified of what will happen when Russia is done with Ukraine.
You know, I used to have this style view when reading and commenting Slashdot, pre-9/11 about anything other than "the tech".
Afterward, in high school, I began to feel that understanding the foundations of geopolitics can help you maintain an advantage in the business world.
Seems ths qualifies in spades.
Why is this thing so difficult to name and you need to describe it in such a roundabout way? "Drones might be shot down a lot"? It's neither new nor an intellectual curiosity. "Drones are used for war" also not. It's been happening for years now. What is so interesting? Can you name it without references to generalizations of expressions of other references?
Because it is a multifaceted thing. Where, how, how much, why, what next... And the rest of the "W"s.
Read the posts: we find them interesting.
Aside from strategic targets, a lot of the civilian infrastructure is quite vulnerable to drone attacks as there's a huge border to cover and definitely not enough anti-drone tech deployed. An apartment building was hit months ago with no casualties: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/apartment-building-hit-...
[1] https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2026/06...