It's good to see Russian supply infrastructure being hit, but I can't help but feel a little disappointed in the damage being done by Storm Shadow / SCALP. As I understood it, these were intended to hit bunkers and bridges, yet three(?) strikes on Chongar later and it doesn't seem to be seriously damaged. Part of that is that might be that the missiles seem to have hit over the land portion of the bridge instead of over the water (maybe intentional?).
At least the Henichesky bridge seems more damaged. It seems like they'll at least have to replace that span.
The pictures are actually of the Henichesky bridge, whereas the confirmed SCALP was actually for the Chongar bridge; I'm only guessing that they were both SCALPs.
Here's a Reuters article on the strikes.
Oh that is helpful. I'd heard about Unilever, but Carl's Jr? Guess I'm a Wendy's guy now. Subway, Dominos, Steam, and Riot also stand out to me.
I realize this is a parody of my attitude, but idc, I'm not buying a single damn thing from Russia anymore.
We will destroy them with sick guitar riffs and a poor understanding of solar system distances!
...wait, there was a movie? :P
Ah, there it is. That'll definitely cause problems, though I do wonder if this is going to work for them for very long.
The usual (more-or-less internationally accepted) way to do a blockade is to intercept ships of a neutral flag and order them to turn around. Just shooting them with anti-ship missiles would be totally out-of-line and upset China, so I'm not surprised that Russia didn't do that.
Even if they did, I don't think the next rung on the escalation ladder is just shooting at the RU ship ourselves. If it were me in charge (very non-credible take incoming), I'd probably have US-gov-insured ships sail under Turkish flags with Turkish escorts go get the grain, and/or send Ukraine some goodies to make it too risky for Russia to occupy the western Black Sea.
I mostly expected them to try something intermediate, like intercepting with fast torpedo boats, subs or jets. Presumably they gamed that out and concluded it wouldn't work? Then again, this is Russia so maybe they just fucked up.
I sure didn't. I had elaborate ideas about how we could help the Ukrainians sink the black sea fleet on our behalf. And even then I figured we'd have to subsidize their insurance. Turns out they were just going to back down lol
Source Article (Forbes)
Doesn't Costco do 6 pieces by default? That's always struck me as a good size.
Ah, you see, they're going to send the Belarusian military! You know, the guys who are absolutely not wildly disloyal to Lukashenko and would never turn on him the second he asks them to fight.
"The designers felt the gun would be improved by a larger caliber, so they also reworked it to fire .50 BMG."