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[anewaname]

Anything is possible, but there is nothing to suggest that MQ-9 aircraft was conducting anything but a routine operation as it has been doing for close to a year, and Russian pilot flying off the handle. Here is the flight path from the day before:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

https://www.itamilradar.com/2023/03/13/another-week-begins-in-the-black-sea-theatre/

Take out the "Russian pilot flying off the handle" statement... because that is a construct designed to support someone's story. Those Russian pilots are making the same flights, feeling the same emotions, and following the same orders. That first dumping of the fuel, a pilot could get away with that without reprimand, the second dumping of the fuel also might have been acceptable... because the pilots could argue to their superiors that there is value to knowing if these drones are susceptible to this method of attempting to down them, but following the failed attempts to use dumped fuel to down the drone, they got so close the craft collided? That is not something a pilot unless they were under orders. Every combat pilot knows their leash has more slack in it than most, but they don't forget the leash is there.

[King Zultan]

It seems like this isn't the first time Russia has done something like this, but I can't remember what they broke so they could steal info from it last time.

[martinuzz]

Assad has offered Putin to help him with the war in Ukraine, in a meeting between the two leaders today in the Kremlin.
According to Assad,'in Ukraine, Russia is fighting neonazis and old nazis, supported by the West'. Assad told Putin that he wants to help him win the war.

[scriver]

...Isn't Assad still dependent on help from Russia to win his war

[martinuzz]

Indeed he is. So no surprise there really that he parrots Russian propaganda

[da_nang]

Russian leadership approved aggressive actions of jets that damaged U.S. drone, U.S. officials say

EDIT: US releases footage of Russian jet crashing into drone

[bloop_bleep]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/03/16/russian-wagner-group-places-15m-bounty-italian-minister-guido/

What is Wanker Group thinking?

[scriver]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/03/16/russian-wagner-group-places-15m-bounty-italian-minister-guido/

What is Wanker Group thinking?

...I feel this is a timely time for the good old headslap comment.

But on a sidenote I've never seen a minister look more like a mafia don in my life

[Frumple]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/03/16/russian-wagner-group-places-15m-bounty-italian-minister-guido/

What is Wanker Group thinking?

Probably that it costs them nothing to do, and not much beyond that. It's not like they're particularly likely to pay up even if someone was stupid enough to try to collect.

On the flip side, signore "migrants are hybrid warfare against us" can kinda' rot, so I guess a pox on both their houses on this one? The ukraine support is good but also fuck this guy, y'know?

[bloop_bleep]

What is the viability of putting a bounty on Prigozhin, speaking of which? It's not like mercenaries are known for their loyalty.

[King Zultan]

Nobody's gonna go after a bounty if they know they won't get any money from it.

[jipehog]

Perun: Russia's Winter Offensive in Ukraine - From Bakhmut to Vuhledar, outcomes, lessons, and costs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPhycuLAtaw

[Loud Whispers]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/03/16/russian-wagner-group-places-15m-bounty-italian-minister-guido/

What is Wanker Group thinking?

Probably coming from a much more desperate and aggressive position given how spicy things are getting between them and Shoigu. But it's also interesting to note that after Prigozhin claimed that Russian army commanders were giving his forces ammunition and he had allies within the Russian army, ammunition supplies were given back to his units

*EDIT
I think it's also worth drawing to that Poland is breaking the taboo on sending fixed wing fighter aircraft to Ukraine. It seems like only a matter of time before western jets are sent

Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman leader of Chechnya, was upset at the losses elite Chechen paratrooper units sustained during an assault on Hostomel airfield outside capital. Meanwhile, ultranationalists with ties to Russia's separatist proxies in the Donbas thought the army's grinding tactics had led to needlessly high casualty rates in eastern Ukraine.

Senior figures in Russia's military shared some of Prigozhin's disdain for Shoigu and Gerasimov, according to the person close to him and a senior Ukrainian official.

Most prominent among them were Sergey Suroivkin, who favoured tactics that better factored in Russia's battlefield limitations when commanding the invasion last autumn, and Mickhail Teplinsky, head of Russia's paratroopers, who had also sustained huge casualties in Gerasimov's assaults.

"Gerasimov's tactics are to throw paratroopers at the most dangerous flashpoints and they really just get killed," said Vadim Skibitskyi, deputy head of Ukrainian military inteligence.

Skibitskyi pointed to the fate of Russia's elite 155th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade, which Ukraine and Russian nationalist bloggers with ties to the military said suffered devastating losses during attacks on fortified positions in the Donbas over the winter.

For a reminder; the naval infantry were sent into Pavlivka even though Pavlivka was already surrounded by Ukrainian forces. Gerasimov got a medal for this brilliant encirclement

[jipehog]

Russia's internal politics are peculiar, the only constant is that there is always someone to blame and it isn't Putin.

The ICC's war crimes charges have landed just prior the Crimea annexation spoiling yet another anniversary for him.

Meanwhile China's glorious leader XI is on his first state visit to Russia since the invasion, this is high stake lets hope nothing comes out of it.

[Lord Shonus]

Footage is emerging of tanks being hauled out of Russian storage and heading West.

T-54s - which entered production in 1946. The ones I've seen pictures of on trains look like fairly early models as well.