I read this recent think tank report on the German arms industry viz a viz Russia's

https://www.ifw-kiel.de/fileadmin/Dateiverwaltung/IfW-Publications/fis-import/1f9c7f5f-15d2-45c4-8b85-9bb550cd449d-Kiel_Report_no1.pdf

The exec summary and chapter 2 is worth reading, otherwise the main takeaways are that Clausewitz was right about industrial war and attrition, ukraine is getting rinsed, nato is not prepared for industrial war. A few other specifics:

• the authors estimate that the Russian military industrial complex can build the equipment of the current entire German army about 3 times a year

• on interception of missiles: Sample interception rates for commonly used Russian missiles in 2024: 50% for the older Kalibr subsonic cruise missiles, 22% for modern subsonic cruise missiles (e.g. Kh-69), 4% for modern ballistic missiles (e.g. Iskander-M), 0.6% for S-300/400 supersonic long-range SAM, and 0.55% for the Kh-22 supersonic anti-ship missile. Data on interception rates of hypersonic missiles is scarce: Ukraine claims a 25% interception rate for hypersonic Kinzhal and Zircon missiles, but Ukrainian sources also indicate such interceptions require salvo firing all 32 launchers in a US-style Patriot battery to have any chance to shoot down a single hypersonic missile. By comparison, German Patriot batteries have 16 launchers, and Germany has 72 launchers in total.

• the authors estimate that any slowdown of tank build out rate due to running out of older Soviet era chassis won't begin until 2026 earliest

Democratization of advanced strike abilities via proliferation of drone and missile technology is a big deal. It is so much more expensive to defend against these munitions than attack with them. The significance of current world wars are akin to Agincourt, with missiles and drones playing the role of the long bow

"This election doesn't fucking matter bro because we still run this joint lmao" - Larry Fink

OP @SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net it's Pridnestrovie, not 'Transnistria.' 'Transnistria' is what the imperialist and neo-colonials in "the west" call it, to refuse the status of the country because it just means "[the Moldovan territory] past the Dneister (river)," as well as to treat it as simply a historical legacy, not of the USSR, but of its previous adminstrators: the Nazis.

Pridnestrovians don't want to be called that, consider it a grave insult actually, because it's literally the name the Romanian and German Nazis used for their occupation government when they carried out the Holocaust there (Transnistria Governorate). Pridnestrovie was deeply impacted and affected by the Holocaust, and the Nazi-occupied administrative territory of the "Transnistria Governorate" served as a junction point where Jews from surrounding areas were deported to in 'processing' for enslavement or liquidation or later transfer elsewhere.

It is a point of deep national consciousness, this experience, and of national pride that they did as much as they did to resist Nazism and to shield Jews in the territory ^[^^sci-hub^ ^link^^]^; an uncommon phenomenon in most of Europe which saw huge collaborations and pogroms against Jews.

They by and large do not connect with the legacy of their previous occupiers who lay claim to them. During Catastroika leading to the breakdown of the USSR, which caused the vicious resurgence of right wing nationalism, there grew large radical movements of Moldavian and "Greater Romania" fascists, who began demanding things such as the removal of all languages but Moldovan/Romanian, change to latin script, and expulsion of Slavs from the country and eventually in 1990 acquired power in the central government of the Moldavian SSR and started to implement their policies. It is in this environment that the Pridnestrovians had organized ad-hoc independence referendums, which were met with violent resistance by these fascist groups (just as we saw a much more drawn-out version of in the DNR/LNR in Ukraine) and declared independence

because they feared an independent Moldova led by these people would not only directly abuse them as they had already begun to, but also align and possibly even unite with the core country of their previous occupiers and exterminationists in Romania. Pizzachev annulled their independence but they in practicality maintained it and after the failure of the August coup in 1991 they declared independence in secession from the USSR as well as Moldova. They even fought a 2 year long low-intensity war from 1990-1992 to maintain their independence (and in which Ukrainian Nazi volunteers fought against Moldova, but for trying to annex Prednestrovie into Ukraine) resulting in the death of over a thousand people.

And so they do not wish to be called anything but Pridnestrovie, or the full name Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic.

Brazilian Liberal Media has made some claims that the Lula Government will be against the inclusion of Venezuela into BRICS. Considering that all joinings require a consensus on the part of member countries, this would be a spanner in the works. I don't know if this is true or not, but it doesn't actually strike me as surprising. The Brazilian Government has a difficult relationship with Venezuela since Cháves.

On the one hand, there's the electoral issue. We are marching towards the second round of the municipal elections and any support for Venezuela galvanizes the right and the far right which are the majority of the country.

But on the other we do have the leaked CIA cables from way back when that claimed Lula had a difficult personal relationship with Hugo Cháves. Behind closed doors, the Venezuelan Government was considered difficult to influence or pin down, and a difficult partner to be had. What some might claim is a sign of sovereignty, others in the Brazilian side would say is a difficulty in cooperating in a time of american hegemony. As such, Brazil's government feels a bit miffed with the way their brokered deals were the solution to the electoral crisis in Venezuela.

I guess we'll see the truth of things when during the next couple of days.

"Training mission" lol sure

God Bless the Yemeni Armed Forces.

It turns out the IOF scum who offed himself was bragging about bulldozing Palestinian homes a few months ago:
https://xcancel.com/malsaafin/status/1848471577135853978

Jfc Kamala is really doubling down on having Liz Cheney as her hype woman. Apparently they were campaigning together in Michigan today. I swear I’ve seen Liz Cheney have a more prominent role in this campaign than Tim Walz over the last couple weeks.

I saw a poll the other day that showed both Dem voters and independents are really turned off by the idea of having a Republican in Kamala’s cabinet

Kamala has worse political instincts Hilldawg, and that’s saying something.

Aparently the One Direction guy was drugged out of his mind.

Shoot the Boer. Shoot the Zionist.

Ok since it's looking as if Israel are in their final preparations for their attack against Iran, I will be posting the leaked US spy documents on Israel's preparations, along with trying to make sense of what they mean. This is going to be a long and detailed post (lots of potentially terrifying details), so I'll be completing it inside the spoiler tag below.

The documents themselves, and what does this potentially mean?

I'll start by just posting the two military documents, they are written in a lot of military jargon that I'll try and explain to the best of my ability, I have no real expert knowledge, but I'll do my best. Feel free to provide any corrections where you see fit, I apologise in advance for any errors.

In short, preparations for a large attack on Iran have been taking place at Hatserim airfield, involving loading Air Launched Ballistic Missiles (ALBM) onto at least six F-15I (Israeli version of the F-15E Strike Eagle) aircraft at the base, likely of type "Golden Horizon", but not certainly. A minimum of 56 ALBMs have been taken out of storage so far by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) in total at all air bases. 40 of type "Rocks" and 16 of type "Golden Horizon". More on that later. ALBMs being taken out of storage and loaded onto aircraft was also spotted at Ramat David airfield and Ramon airfield.

Israel have also been spying on Iran, within Iran itself, using some sort of stealth UAV of type "RA-01", operating out of a hangar at Ramon airfield. More on that later.

Israel also conducted a large scale practice exercise for their attack on Iran, involving one AWACS aircraft and three aerial refueling aircraft. The AWACS and refueling force is of a similar size to that which was used to conduct long range strikes on Yemen during September. No word on the size of the fighter aircraft force component though.

Israeli air defense systems in Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 continue to be deployed, along with the Navy being deployed.

Lastly, Israel likely has deployed the nuclear armed Jericho II Medium Range Ballistic Missiles (MRBM) in a defensive position since October 1 2024, the date of Iran's retaliatory ballistic missile attack. There is no indication that this is an offensive deployment or that they will be used in the upcoming Israeli attack. But this is as close as we'll get to the US acknowledging the Israeli nuclear arsenal, and shows that nuclear weapons are in play.

What's interesting from these leaked documents, is that they reveal the existence of two weapons systems of which there is no public information on. The Golden Horizon ALBM, and RA-01 stealth ISR UAV.

The RA-01, based on the size of the suspected hangars and intended role, could be a propeller powered flying wing design drone, similar to an RQ 170 but propeller powered. Other suggestions involve an ISR version of the Ibis HA10 High altitude long endurance concept drone, Public research paper here, with the wings fitted on after exiting the hangar as the wingspan would be too large for the hangars at Ramon. It would also explain the US spy report providing details about a technical crew needed to prepare the aircraft after take offs and landings. I'll attach an image below to illustrate this, and yes, it's the highest quality image available. This is really obscure territory here. This UAV concept was designed with stealth and a flight time of over 24 hours in mind, so it's a viable suggestion. The twitter account that initially suggested it also got deleted, which adds some sort of credibility to the theory I guess? It's concerning that Iranian air defences have not been able to detect or engage this UAV type.

As for what this could mean in an Israeli attack, we'll start with the ALBMs. The concept of this is familiar, the most well known ALBM is probably the Russian Kinzhal, an Iskander SRBM converted for an aerial launch. Israel have a similar weapon in the Air LORA, a LORA SRBM converted for aerial launch. The "ROCKS" ALBM is weapon that we do have public information on. It's a weapon with a range estimated to be between 250-300km which gives it stand off capabilities, uses a single Sparrow booster stage (the sparrow series are a series of ALBMs that Israel uses to test it's Arrow and David's Sling air defence systems, they are designed to imitate Iranian ballistic missiles), and uses GPS and inertial guidance, along with an electro optical seeker, or anti radiation seeker. A ROCKS ALBM with an anti radiation seeker was likely used to destroy an Iranian air defence radar that was part of a S300PMU2 missile battery during Israel's April attack. Drones were used to stimulate Iranian air defences into action, giving away their position for the anti radiation missile to home in on their radar. The fact that 40 of these missiles have been deployed is very concerning and could indicate Israeli intentions to carry out a wider scale Suppression/Destruction of Enemy Air Defences (SEAD/DEAD) operation. This is a capability that Israel has already demonstrated against Iran, that Iran failed to stop last time round. We have also seen how effective this attack vector has been against US Patriot air defence systems in Ukraine, when Russia destroyed them with Kinzhals and Iskanders.

There is much speculation on what the "Golden Horizon" ALBM is as there is no public information on it, with many suggesting that it is the internal nsme for the Air LORA ALBM. I disagree, and think that it is likely a multi stage version of a Sparrow ALBM (in particular blue sparrow), readied for actual combat use. Imagery of such a weapon was posted by the IAF online a few weeks ago. It's still up on twitter actually. This would give this weapon a longer range in comparison to ROCKS, in violation of some of the missile treaties Israel publicly says that they follow, which is likely why it's been kept secret. These weapons would give Israel a great stand off capability with their long range, a range of around 2000km potentially. Israeli jets wouldn't even need to leave Israeli airspace to strike Iran. It was also theorised by some that Israel fired a few of these weapons with inert warheads during their strike on Iran in April.

What happens from here really depends on what Israel targets with their ALBMs. If they target Iran's above ground missile facilities, along with very limited strikes on air defence systems, I can see a potential road to de escalation, with Iran likely launching a limited drone or ballistic missile attack in response, similar to the April attack. If Israel carries out a large scale SEAD/DEAD campaign to open up the possibility for a further aerial campaign, and/or tries to strike Iran's underground missile or nuclear facilities, we could be on the verge of all out war. Such an attack would amount to a declaration of war, and Iran's response would likely make their October 1 attack look small in comparison. The resulting escalation ladder of such events could get really tall really quickly. I don't see Israel being able to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles over the medium to long term, which could lead to a US response if Israel is on the end of a large retaliatory strike.