perestroika

A journalist asked Iranian Kurdish parties. Nobody could confirm receiving any weapons.

Let's not assume something is true because Trump says it it. He has a long track record of lying about every issue and changing his words daily.

Kurdish Iranian opposition groups deny claims of receiving weapons from US

Mohammed Nazif Qaderi, a senior official from the opposition Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), told Rudaw that “those statements made are baseless and we haven't received any weapons.

/.../

Kako Aliyar, a member of the leadership committee of the Kurdish Iranian opposition party Komala, told Rudaw that "as our own party, no weapons have come to us and we haven't received anything, we're not even aware of the matter.

/.../

Amjad Hussein Panahi, head of communications for Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan, also told Rudaw, “We assure you we haven't received a single bullet or weapon from any country or place, and we're not aware of the existence of such a thing; what we have is our own.”

/.../

Hamno Naqshbandi, a member of the general command of the Kurdistan National Army affiliated with the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), said that “Donald Trump's message is unclear to us. What is there is that we as our army have in no way received weapons from the US or any other country, not even a single bullet."

Thanks, I didn't know that and accidentally provided an over-estimate.

In this case, I would advise them to simply ignore the law, or protest to have it revoked. It does not make sense.

Material losses include two C-130 planes and two Little Bird helicopters abandoned on ground.

I don't know if they had human casualties, but it seems they spent about 200 million dollars to rescue the pilots.

Pretty expensive.

These "robots" are actually ground drones, and the term "robot" is being widely misused.

They can't identify the allegiance of a soldier. The operator will see, consider and then shoot. It's better than going out there and getting shot at.

If you don't know the state of the art, it's easy to think they are robots, but they have the same autonomy level as an FPV drone. They are automated to the degree that you can tell them "drive 50 clicks north-east and stop".

Really advanced versions will have a local algorithm to track and shoot an aerial target, once the operator decides that it's a target. Because in air defense, latency means losing.

However, swarming weapons are a cause for concern in near future, because in those cases, one soldier may end up controlling 100+ weapons and likely won't have a good overview of the situation.

One viewpoint: in-flight refueling over Iran in plain view of civilians. If even a single air defense unit sees a procedure like this, it will be carnage (possibly 3 aircraft down with one shot).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWpgrpQmEhQ

Yes, I have seen video of an Ukrainian interceptor blow up a Shahed strike drone above a city where people speak Arabic (and I've seen an US fighter plane fail the same task).

Ukraine needs missile defense. Missile defense is hard to come by and slow to develop.

However, Ukraine has the most advanced antidrone defense in the world, thanks to endless practise... in part due to Iran supplying Russia with blueprints for Shahed-136 production about 3 years ago (Russia has since surpassed Iran in both volume and skill, again due to endless practise against Ukraine).

Thus, Ukraine tries to bargain with Arab countries to get whatevever remains of available Patriot PAC-3 supplies. In return, it offers cheap interceptors, advise about how to use and make them, how to jam navigation and communication, how to use PAC-3 more efficiently, etc.

I am not aware of any Ukrainian attack on Iran.

Overall, Iran should have absolutely no reason to complain about Ukrainian involvement, since they have supplied Russia. And besides, Ukrainian involvement is not limitless - so far Ukrainians have been helping defend third countries (which made the mistake of hosting US bases, but regardless have reasons to defend their airspace).

Yes, it's a mess. I hope it ends, as there is no positive outcome from continuing. Currently the best way of ending it seems like the US ceasing its campaign (not happening, a third aircraft carrier is moving towards the Middle East) and Arab countries negotiating with Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz for traffic. But all of this involves the orange person admitting a big mistake. He is currently doubling down instead.

Ukraine has its own interests (get missile defense supplies from anywhere) and will pursue them anyway. Can't buy from China or South Korea, supply from Japan is tiny, supply from Germany is of the wrong type or not yet started up, supply from France and Italy is very limited - they will find any missile defense anywhere and try to see if it can be bought (while rushing to make their own based on the Soviet S-300).

Writing from Estonia, Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian ports of Ust-Luga and Primorsk (on the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea), whereby they export at least 30% of their oil, but perhaps even 40% in recent times - have indeed been very intense during the past week.

Day after day, large swarms go and many hit their targets despite heavy-handed air defense. The smoke of burning oil is visible to 70 km distance and some confused "birds" end up landing here (one hit a concrete smokestack, another fell in an empty field). The traffic jam of cargo ships and oil / gas tankers on the Gulf of Finland is considerable, sailors describe it "like a new city appearing on water".

If this is what it takes to force Putin to end his war, I have no complaints.

But we should be aware that due to Trump's simultaneous adventure in the Persian Gulf, which was entirely avoidable, and has entirely predictable results, a global economic recession is currently a realistic outcome.

If I were in the shoes of Zelensky, I would advise Trump: "please, do save the global economy by ending your adventure in the Persian Gulf, we cannot have a pillow fight with Russia, they are extremely serious and not easily dissuaded (have been attacking 4 years)".

Meanwhile, his statemement does offer a pathway to somewhere...

"If Russia is ready not to strike Ukraine's energy, then we'll respond by not attacking theirs."

...it's merely that Russia has shown willingness to cause a humanitarian crisis in Ukraine by destroying their energy infrastructure in the winter that passed, and Ukrainians now have very little reason to believe mere words that it won't repeat next winter. There will have to be at least ink on paper to assure it won't happen again.

PrSM is not mysterious. It's a boring old (boring new) ballistic missile.

But both of them missed the obvious target in the area by several buildings' distance. :(

It's not unprecedented, a KMT leader has visited the mainland at least once before, about 10 years ago.

But the sad reality under this move currently seems to be: Trump has shown that the current US administration is not only unwilling to defend allies based on principle (mostly dumping Ukraine), but also fairly incapable of defending allies (Arab countries), and certainly not effective at defending a place on the doorstep of the PRC, against the PRC.

Taiwan has poor options: dependence on imported energy (vulnerability to blockade), limited distance from China (within drone swarm reach), no strategic deterrent (no nuclear weapons).

The PRC views gaining control over Taiwan as an important thing to do - to the point of building a replica of the Taiwanese presidential compound for special forces to practise in, holding air force trainings with over a hundred of planes in a threatening flight pattern, and practising a naval blockade. It continues to build up military capabilities, and some of these are really convincing, even if sea introduces a factor of luck (seas have ruined invasions before).

In such conditions, Taiwanese politicians will likely view it as reasonable to start up diplomacy with the PRC to reduce tensions and also buy time to adapt - in the hope that their strategic ally recovers (e.g. gets a sane president and reliable foreign policy) and independence can be retained against pressure and threats.

If the US does not get over Trump and develop sane administration practises and predictable principles soon, Taiwan may find itself negotiating favourable terms of surrender. Currently, it's not so bad yet - they will be negotiating to normalize relations.

It's really sad. The US population was manipulated to elect an insane president, and this individual has already caused irreversible global damage to long-standing alliances and partnerships.

They did, but the ship... well, its crew painted a Russian flag on the hull, lacking one in their inventory. That's not how a flag change is supposed to happen even in the wildest case.

The current one is called Anatoly Kolodkin and has been Russian for a while according to Ukrainian sources. It't practically in Cuba now, they let it through - 4 hours ago, it reported position tangential to Bahia de Moa (outside the island Cayo Moa Grande), probably in territorial waters, some 20 km off the coast, less from the island.

I cannot really disapprove because Cuba is undergoing a humanitarian crisis due to fuel shortage.

Sources:

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:5090590

https://war-sanctions.gur.gov.ua/en/transport/shadow-fleet/158

My opinion: one may not like a country, one may even oppose its existence, but one should not try choking it to death.

Blockade is usually considered an "act of war". That is, something comparable to war.