[RD] Russia Invades Ukraine: War News Thread: Round 6

[saamohod]

Explosions and UAV's over the western outskirts of Moscow.
Reports of satellite navigation signals being jammed in Moscow. The measure is associated with the attack of drones that use them for guidance. Taxi drivers and car owners complain about GPS malfunctions.

Spoiler :

https://twitter.com/x/status/1663403958537273345

https://twitter.com/x/status/1663405725257744384

https://twitter.com/x/status/1663398514477658112

 

[FriendlyFire]

This maybe Ukraine drawing away air defenses and forces from Donbas front.
Much in the same way the Russian have done to Ukraine, with a lot of air defenses assets used to defend Kyiv and Kharkov

Theres also a political element since Russia choose to launch attacks which seem almost at random, (on seems to target McDonald's) during Ukrainian Kyiv founding day
Imo Ukraine long range drones would be better spent on Military targets.

 

[Akka]

Or this might just be false flag operations to make Russian believe they are in danger from evil Ukrainians.
These drones would have to make a very long trip to reach Moscow from Ukraine.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Right.

In recent months, Russia has been blocking the U.S.-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) used by the Ukrainian army more frequently, making them less effective, CNN reported on May 5, citing people familiar with the matter. Russian forces use electronic jammers to disable the system's GPS targeting mechanism, causing the missiles to miss the target, the media outlet wrote.

CNN: HIMARS become less effective in Ukraine due to Russia's jamming

In recent months, Russia has been blocking the U.S.-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) used by the Ukrainian army more frequently, making them less effective, CNN reported on May 5, citing people familiar with the matter.

news.yahoo.com

Ummm, does not compute... Speaking from a commercial airliners point of view, just like HIMARS, modern comercial airplanes use a dual guidance system: GPS+inertial (backed by the good old radio navigation systems but that is not important here). In normal operation GPS uses to have glitches of up to several seconds and is not reliable to high precision real time guidance by itself, for instance in Cat-3 autoland GPS work is not to guide the plane ( would crash several meters off runway most of the times) but to update the Inertial system every few seconds because it is the inertial systems that can keep up position with total accuracy and reliability in real time, and it can do it by itself up to 10 seconds before having to be updated for a fresh correct GPS signal.

If HIMARS works the same way, and it probably does, jamming GPS signal near the target won't interfere that much in HIMARS precision, given that at HIMARS rocket speed a few seconds means a bunch of kilometers it would need to be jammed for long enough to make the information from the inertial system to become outdated enough to make the rocket fail for enough margin, which would mean to keep the rocket totally jammed many kilometers before it reach the target. Yes, it may work with some luck but most HIMARS are going to find the target regardless, unless Russia has jamming systems powerful enough to effectively jam GPS signal in half Ukraine, which i doubt.

Jamming GPS signal may work with drones that use GPS guidance only (that is the reason for them being way cheaper than HIMARS) but wont have much effect on dual guidance systems like the ones in cruise missiles and HIMARS rockets.

 

[red_elk]

~10 drones were attacking, two hit apartment buildings, others were shot down or fell down in suburbs.
Luckily no one was wounded.
Still no claims about "false flag"? Strange.

 

[saamohod]

others were shot down or fell down in suburbs.

Obviously those weren't drones but Russian anti-air missiles. Russia's shooting anti-air systems in residential areas endangers civilians.

Did you hear the explosions by the way? Just curious. Residents of Kyiv hear them every night.

 

[Snowygerry]

No - our informants in Moscow, pretty much confirm that..

Although they claim all were shot down and all damage was from falling debris, yes.

 

[Akka]

Hits in civilian areas ? Looks like standard Russian MO. That kinda gives more weight to false flag operation (which is, also, a standard Russian MO).

 

[saamohod]

Hits in civilian areas ?

That's not good. Look at this. Oh wait, that's actually Kyiv last night.

Spoiler :

https://twitter.com/x/status/1663464796346372096

 

[Akka]

That's obviously either Ukrainian propaganda or sad but normal consequences of a war that has been imposed on Russia against its will when its soldiers peacefully entered Ukraine and started peacefully to kill Ukrainains.

 

[red_elk]

Obviously those weren't drones but Russian anti-air missiles

That's not good. Look at this. Oh wait, that's actually Kyiv last night.

Very bad. Obviously those were Ukrainian air defense missiles, because last night "all Russian drones and missiles were shot down".

 

[Verbose]

~10 drones were attacking, two hit apartment buildings, others were shot down or fell down in suburbs.
Luckily no one was wounded.
Still no claims about "false flag"? Strange.

Not really. It is in Ukraines interests to bring home the message to Russia, most of all Moscow, that this is a real war, and they are engaged after all. Sow the storm – reap the whirlwind.

 

[red_elk]

Not really. It is in Ukraines interests to bring home the message to Russia, most of all Moscow, that this is a real war, and they are engaged after all.

I agree that the attack had mostly propagandist value.
Wasting a dozen of long range drones which ultimately break couple of windows doesn't have sense from the military point of view.

But even from info-war point of view, as one blogger put it:
"The main outcome of today's attack is that the Ukrainians looked at beautiful houses, clean streets and perfect roads"

Атака беспилотников на Москву

Фоторепортаж

www.kommersant.ru

 

[Sarin]

I agree that the attack had mostly propagandist value.
Wasting a dozen of long range drones which ultimately break couple of windows doesn't have sense from the military point of view.

But even from info-war point of view, as one blogger put it:
"The main outcome of today's attack is that the Ukrainians looked at beautiful houses, clean streets and perfect roads"

Атака беспилотников на Москву

Фоторепортаж

www.kommersant.ru

And so did all the millions of Russians that don't live in big cities, and at least some of them had to ask: "why don't we have anything like that"?

 

[red_elk]

And so did all the millions of Russians that don't live in big cities, and at least some of them had to ask: "why don't we have anything like that"?

They do have. Not as good as in Moscow, but much better than they had it 10-20 years ago.

 

[Sarin]

They do have. Not as good as in Moscow, but much better than they had it 10-20 years ago.

Just a few random examples from Google maps....

Spoiler :

Of course, that's only where Google actually had access. Plenty of places in Russia without any such coverage. Imagine how better would such places look if the money wasn't spent on places like this:

Spoiler :

 

[MrRadar]

They do have. Not as good as in Moscow, but much better than they had it 10-20 years ago.

They do, do they? Or do they? Or are you just saying that because, you know, you must do the Lord's work?

There are a couple of channels, only in Russian and for Russian speakers, but there's a possiblity to turn on auto-generated subtitles and automatic translation in English. Not entirely reliable translation, but enough to get the gist.
Somewhere in the second part of their videos they usually put some video reports from deeper Russia where you can see how much 'better' they have it. Hundreds of videos, respectable number of views, feel free to browse them at your leisure, I'll post just a couple of the newest ones, to introduce the channels.

 

[red_elk]

They do, do they? Or do they?

There is a saying "A pig will find dirt anywhere".
If you have a goal to show bad sides of a country, there is no problem to find them, be it Russia, Ukraine or any other.

Better have a walk in Alexander's Garden on a beautiful sunny day.
Watch angry people protest and demand coca-cola, after 9 years of sanctions.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

But even from info-war point of view, as one blogger put it:
"The main outcome of today's attack is that the Ukrainians looked at beautiful houses, clean streets and perfect roads"

what's the point of this?

 

[Sarin]

There is a saying "A pig will find dirt anywhere".
If you have a goal to show bad sides of a country, there is no problem to find them, be it Russia, Ukraine or any other.

Better have a walk in Alexander's Garden on a beautiful sunny day.
Watch angry people protest and demand coca-cola, after 9 years of sanctions.

And couple hundred kilometers from there, people live in run-down cottages I have shown a few posts above. That's Russia. The big cities are Potemkin's villages, especially the areas where the rich live. Go off the beaten path, and you'll see the other side of Russia, which you ignore. Ever thought why your surroundings look like that while Russia doesn't even make it into the top quartile in HDI? It's the tens of millions of Russians living outside the Potemkin's garden that are pulling the average down.