Not only is it small (like you pointed out) AA missiles also tend to focus on fragmentation damage (expanding metal rings, directed frag etc).

Source: I used to be an explosives expert in the military.

Edit: Completely forgot to mention fuzing systems. This missile detonated on contact with the building. I have yet to come across an AA missile that detonates on contact with an object. All (effective) AA missiles use proximity sensors (radar, thermal, etc) to detonate near their target.

Also, if it was a misfire, most modern missiles have fail safes that disable the detonation of the main charge in case of an accidental firing.

Again, I could be wrong and this could be an AA missile, but all signs point to no; it isn’t.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-13_rocket

EDIT: typos

Not saying I don't believe you, but I'd caution everyone during this time to take what they see online with a grain of salt. It's propaganda season.

I know my comment is ad hominem, but track records count for something, and while they have no bearing on the value of an argument, they sure should affect your degree of suspicion and scrutiny of said argument.

Personally, the red flags from your post were that you have hardly any post history, you came out claimed to be a munitions/explosives expert, usually you don't have to do that, the knowledge speaks for itself. Your rebuttal didn't seem to be as strong compared to GPs reasoning, and it ended with a conclusion that seemed to be more of an opinion, not objective reasoning.

--

I don't think the ad hominem attack by (epgui) and (jaquesm) is warranted, it definitely isn't "Fact". I reply to many topics both political and technical, as does everyone. If I have such a consistent track record of "patently unreasonable comments" then you should be able to support your argument.

Again, I did not mean any offense by my initial statement.

I'm not claiming to be anything.

> Why should they not?

There's no rule against it, it's just a red flag

> But it gives context.

Not really anymore than going into the details of explosives.

> That's your opinion.

Yes it's my opinion, I never claimed it as fact. That's why I used "seemed".

No, it really isn't. If someone is an expert in some field then that is good context to have.

If there was something that you disagreed with in that post you should have engaged with that like others did instead of trying to discredit the poster based on your personal idea of what is an accounts credibility status.

Personally, orbital-decay's reasoning was more sound and expansive than master_crab's. The source drop that provided no context was a red flag in my eyes combined with the direct countering without sound reasoning. I did NOT want to share my personal reasoning though as I'm not an expert.

Again, I simply wanted to caution others without attacking the GP. I did later have to expand on why I was cautioning in replies, which could be viewed as "discrediting", but I didn't want to divulge those opinions in the first place because it's distracting.

- EDIT because post limit -

> @jacquesm: The irony.

Not really. I initially didn't want to share it, that paragraph was my personal opinion and the last sentence of the paragraph was me saying I didn't want to share it, but I had to in later replies because of the fuss.

You left out the context of:

> I simply wanted to caution others without attacking the GP. I did later have to expand on why I was cautioning in replies.

> I did NOT want to share my personal reasoning though as I'm not an expert.

The irony.

As you said though, the full picture will come out later. Hopefully they'll find some identifiable weapon fragments eventually.

https://twitter.com/ASBMilitary/status/1497518912287789059

Russia MOD: “In attempts of repelling a rocket attack on the military infrastructure of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, failure occurred in the missile guidance system of a Ukrainian AF Buk-M1 medium-range air defense system and the missile hit the corner of a residential building."

These things don't have a set price. They have a price of "How much can you afford?"

That's actually a "normal" question when thinking of it in terms of one saas company to another, but I actually think that question is almost nonsensical when thinking of it as a company selling to a major government. "Err, what is this 'afford' word you use? I do not think it means what you think it does."

"How much can we charge to ensure we are not leaving money on the table?"

'How much can you afford' has a deeper meaning. It's not how much money is in your wallet definition of "afford". It's more like how high can we push that number before your backside no longer clinches. It's a sales person's wet dream situation. It was never meant to be understood as "we can't afford your asking price, so give us a lower rate'.

The overall missed point is that there is no set price. The prices are negotiated per purchaser.

This is the M270 system which was developed in the 1970s and 1980s to meet the US Army’s Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) requirement. It was just a way of naming the requirement, kind of like “JSF”, and it stuck.

At the time rocket launchers were most commonly referred to as Multiple Rocket Launchers (MRL) and were mostly simple truck-based variants.

However MLRS had been used to refer to the capability by others in the past and it was never trademarked or limited to the US requirement and the M270. Over time it became common to refer to any modern integrated multiple rocket launcher as an MLRS, leaving the MRL naming only for less sophisticated types.

'MLRS is a registered trademark of Lockheed Martin Corporation.'

https://trademarks.justia.com/759/79/mlrs-75979459.html

But for some reason as trademark class 28, toys and sporting goods, with the statement 'toys, namely scale models of military vehicles'.

After some searching: apparently, they mean this:

https://www.brickmania.com/mlrs-multiple-launch-rocket-syste...

Trademarks only apply to their registered class—did they seriously trademark the term just to limit who could sell toys named with it?

That is quite a bizarre trademark and I didn't expect it.

https://trademarks.justia.com/search?q=mlrs

https://trademarks.justia.com/search?q=multiple+launch+rocke...

I'm amazed that they were granted those trademarks. As I said, MLRS has become a very generic term and from the start it was a US Army name, not invented by Lockheed-Martin.

So whatever the direct cause the responsibility for all this lies with the Russians.

This should be remembered, those responsible in its operation should be reprimanded, and those civilians and their families should be compensated by the Ukrainian government. It should not be used as propaganda, it should be admitted as a mistake.

Taking into account how the Russians handled MH17, as a Dutch person I may be a bit biased but I think this is wholly on them.

Russia is responsible, no matter how you want to dress it up. RCA. Or do you actually believe that reparations payments take into account which party did the damage?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_reparations

These are just the basic facts. No special expertise needed, of the sort the "I can tell what kind of missile this was by observing the smoke it makes" guy must possess. Shifting moral responsibility for collateral damage from the aggressor to the defender based on the limitations of the defender's arsenal does not seem right.

Now the only question remains: are you spreading this propaganda intentionally?

Edit: following guidelines

your argument is:

1. US deployed nukes to Turkey, 2. to which USSR responded symmetrically by attempting to deploy nukes in Cuba, 3. to which US responded with blockade 4. and therefore Russian invasion to Ukraine is justified 5. because NATO may deploy nukes in Ukraine

4. simply doesn't follow from previous 3 points because the assumption in 5. is incorrect in three ways:

1. Ukraine is not in NATO so NATO doesn't have the capability to deploy nukes there 2. If NATO needed nukes close to Moscow - they ALREADY HAVE where to do that - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland 3. US was responding with blockade to ACTIVE DEPLOYMENT PROCESS of nukes, which isn't happening in Ukraine

Letting a megalomaniacal dictator that has clearly lost command of his senses run amok, especially when in control of a large nuclear arsenal is a risk we can not really afford, and appeasing such a person will only feed into the cycle of demands.

But what exactly do you propose?

this is bullshit. NATO is not expanding, NATO is not the actor that is able to perform that action, rather it's emergent property of sovereign countries choosing to join NATO.

So who is Putin to tell what sovereign countries can or cannot do? If he's so unhappy with a choice that sovereign country is making with regard to joining a defensive alliance, maybe he should offer something better instead and not behave like a crazy lunatic dictator?

There is nothing valuable in "look at it from Putin's perspective" argument when his perspective is tyrannical.

Believe me I know where you are coming from.

Edit: Oh, assuming we all know location - NE of Sikorsky Int Airport, next to novus supermarket.

A widely circulated video showed a Ukrainian jet that was shot down in Kyiv at night by Russian AA less than 48 hours ago. The odds are not great on your second bet.

(genuine question - are there not other kinds of missiles in use?)

Ground to ground is either MLRS (doesn't look like it at all) or ballistic (absolutely not)

AT missiles are typically obturated, don't have that amount of smoke either, and won't cause that kind of damage (they are designed to leave a small hole)

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1497532522556624903

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Thanks for your concern, but I'm doing just fine.

According to Rob Lee's twitter it appears Grand Parent's deduction is correct because previously a Ukranian Su-27 that blew up in Kiev was being falsely reported as Russian jet.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1497083662814244864

I have to note how difficult it is right now. "Ukranian side" (it is not clear who the original disseminator network is) appear to be using footages of ARMA 3 and DCS: World overlayed with voice and artifacts from Twitter's compression algorithms really can fool many to believe Ukraine is putting up fierce resistance.

The latest disinformation seems to be a seemingly staged conversation between a Ukranian driver and a Russian APC squad. I don't know who stands to benefit from these disinformation campaign but :

1) Ukranian side can raise morale by selling perception that Russia is poorly equipped and suffering from poor morale.

2) Russian side would purposefully allow such disinformation to spread for an element of surprise, might even be the one manufacturing it.

It is probably a combination of the two but from today's executive order from Putin to launch an all out offensive from all direction will be telling.

Send in the poorly equipped, inexperienced troops in first to feign false sense of security and send in your regular well equipped army.

White noise on all sides and I am noting too, just how difficult it is to get the real story but it seems Twitter makes this extra difficult and its not clear who is leaking these fake disinformation stories and to whom it is aimed to ultimately benefit.

We simply do not know what is happening but I am leaning towards #2, today's encirclement and seige of Mariupol, which was long touted as putting up effective resistance by pro-Ukraine twitter accounts, seems to have collapsed in a matter of hours, sort of like the "Ghost of Kiev" myth

> https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1497083662814244864

It's Russian Su-27. Text is in Russian language on the plane. Ukrainian army uses Ukrainian language only for 20+ years.

all text is in russian on that plane, in fact, you can see the same text on that picture (top right corner) and the picture from the tweet.

Rob Lee, who has been independently reporting about Ukraine since 2014, is fairly credible and does not appear to stand to gain anything from accusations that he is pro-Russian

what do you mean with "taken"? who takes what?

This would not have happened in an alternative universe where Putin is a good leader who was actually trying to improve the lives of Russians.

This is going to be a disaster for the Russian people as well.

[1] https://www.voanews.com/a/icc-may-investigate-possible-war-c...

OTOH, ICC has no practical power to bring Russian personnel (other than those captured in combat by Ukraine) before it for trial, and the US “invade the Hague” law on the ICC might prove a model for Russia should the ICC gain custody of Russian personnel somehow.

It is already disaster. Putin has basically threw Russia back to a stone age. I've no idea how long it'll take for him to go one or the other way and for Russia to recover back to anything resembling normal life.

Everything you said was true years ago as well, a form of it was even true during the Cuban missile crisis, as the US had missiles at the border of the soviet union too, there is nothing unique or newfound geopolitically about the timing here to support this “security issue”.

Russia creates contexts for invasion. It hands passports out to pro-Russian residents in parts of Ukraine, and then invades to “protects its citizens” so that it could theoretically be judged the same way as other countries that do interventions.

Adding all of that to an ideological retcon from 100 years ago, and all you have left is an irrational madman who wants to be in the footnote of a history book as attempting empire rebuilding.

Putin’s own advisors are afraid of him and cant give him a straight answer about anything, they're afraid of the international consequences of this as well.

None of this supports the idea of a leader doing anything in the interest of Russians or the concept of a Russian empire.

We’ll never even get to know what an independent Donetsk and Luhansk even means. Microstates? Districts of Russia?

This is just all way off and a mess. Its come down to just choosing a side and watching the results unfold.

Putin in his speech blamed Lenin for giving away the territory of the Russian empire in creating a Ukrainian Republic, and claimed that Ukraine is not a real country so does not deserve sovereignty. He later said its leaders are drug dealing Nazis, presumably including the Jewish Russian-speaking president.

Nothing the Russian state says about the origins of the conflict seems very credible. A more plausible origin is Putin’s megalomaniacal imperial ambitions and paranoid fear of being eventually displaced by a homegrown pro-Europe, pro-democracy movement in Russia.

Ideology seems to be part of it but Russian security concerns are part of it too. Suggesting that NATO expansion was a mistake is not the same thing as blaming this war on NATO.

Anyone who does blame NATO should ask themselves why Ukraine wanted to join in the first place (because the Ukrainians know the Russians won't respect their sovereignty).

But none of that matters, it's just a figleaf to justify an attack, if not for 'NATO' then for some other bullshit reason.

This pushes the justification for Putin's response away from "unprovoked and savage".

IMO I think the US is partially responsible for this crisis. We've never stopped expanding our influence, for better or worse. Perhaps we pushed a little too hard here.

</armchair>

(edit: changed pro-russia to pro-Putin. E2: Flipped again)

And there was no immenent threat of Ukraine entering nato anyway. This is just Russia using it as excuse.

Nothing obvious about Russia needing to annex surrounding countries again.

>The 13 guards telling the Russian naval ship to fuck off (turns out they surrendered)...

... while I'm open to this being what actually happened, I can't find anything that suggests this. Even Reuters is still saying Zelensky says they died. Can you provide a source for this?

Edit: TASS, a Russian news agency, appears to report what you're saying, but that's quite a biased source and seems to be the only one I can find[1].

[1]https://tass.com/politics/1410761

This means you cannot take any sides claims at face value. At the same time, you shouldn’t just ignore them and close your eyes to propaganda, as you’ll miss important nuggets of truth that are sprinkled throughout the narrative. The more information you get, from all sides, the more likely you will be to be able to piece together what actually is going on.

Hence why the comment above said “Russian media reports”, without five paragraphs of disclaimers that this is not gospel truth, as it assumed that people are able to think for themselves, and take Russian media reports for what they are, which is, while obviously an aggressor’s propaganda, not necessarily a falsehood.

I also didn't need "five paragraphs of disclaimers". I didn't even need five words of disclaimers. A simple "They're biased but..." at the start of that original comment and I wouldn't have felt the need to respond.

You don't need to overanalyze my comment. I simply think that if someone asks for a source and your only response is a source of questionable accuracy, that you should acknowledge that the source is not authoritative. I found it funny that this was happening in a conversation that was already about how many sources can't be trusted so I commented to point these two things out. It isn't any more complicated than that.

Ukraine is busy fighting for survival.

It looks like they look equal in your eyes, so RF is very weak and Ukraine is very strong.

That said, since I live in the west, I’m overwhelmingly exposed to pro-Ukraine propaganda, and very little to pro-Russia propaganda. Almost none of it is, of course, paid for by Ukraine.

The site you've linked also has an article saying Biden is considering WW3 as a possible alternative to sanctions.

https://m-lenta-ru.translate.goog/news/2022/02/26/3rd/?_x_tr...

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3413919-state-border-gu...

The site seems legit despite the .net domain (cross-check with the Wikipedia article, where the URL has not been modified recently). Doubtful it got hacked as the latest articles do not have a pro-Russian angle.

RUS strategy is to flood the zone with conflicting information so as to create a 'wilderness of mirrors', create infighting in the opposition, and/or get people to give up on finding the truth.

Seriously, a broken analog clock that is correct twice per day is more trustworthy.

Indeed, but this is also Ukrainian strategy. It is in Ukrainian interest to push morale-increasing stories. Of course everything Russian media and government say needs to be taken as propaganda, but doing that while taking Ukrainian sides claims as highly accurate, is just wishful thinking.

But I will say that they are likely to be more accurate - after all, the Russians are the undisputed world champions of dezinformatsiya for at least 15 decades; Ukranians are at best their students.

And as for who is in the right and who is wrong in these events, it is 100% clear - Putin's govt and military are 100% wrong. He is an autocrat attempting to undermine a neighboring democracy, because the very idea of proper democracy at home, Putin sees as a threat to his power. He is happy to kill and gail opponents, from Navalny, to Magnitski, to Litvenienko, and the list goes on...

It is wrong, that is all there is to it. Stop trying to justify it, or play whataboutism games. Have a deep rethink.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Users are much too quick to assume that someone they don't like on the internet is a bot, spy, shill, astroturfer, foreign agent, you name it. This is pretty much the most common thing people throw at each other in online arguments. That's why we don't allow it here—see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. If you or anyone thinks they have evidence of abuse, they should send it to [email protected] so we can look into it. Plenty of past explanation is at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... For example, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27398725 is one in-depth post on the topic.

Btw, pointing a finger at others isn't a great way to respond when asked to stop breaking the site guidelines. I know emotions are running high, but that applies to everyone, and unless I'm mistaken you have a history of breaking the site guidelines here and being banned for it, and that tends to lead to getting banned again unless you take conscious steps to fix it.

And in case it helps at all, none of that means that I don't feel for your situation.

Thank you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenta.ru

according to Western media who again has an interest in portraying Russian media as bad

We got strong beliefs that all Ukrainian defenders of Zmiiniy Island may be alive... The SBGSU and the Armed Forces, like the whole of Ukraine, have received hope that all of Zmiiny's defenders are alive.

https://www.facebook.com/100066866381279/posts/2850135637375...

But you said:

> ... turns out they surrendered...

So, in essence, you're doing the same thing you were trying to caution people about doing. People may, in fact, be spreading a story that's false, but you're also spreading a false story by saying "turns out they surrendered" when your own citation suggests they're still trying to confirm their surrender.

We all need to be diligent about confirming word-of-mouth stories and allowing time for their accuracy to be verified.

Every article I’ve read has been heavily couched in “allegedly”ies, “claimed”s, “reportedly”ies, etc.

Can you provide examples of the uncritical stories you’re alleging?

Right now, you have to check Reuters, the BBC, CNN, Fox News, Tass, People's Daily, and whatever is still up in Ukraine to get a sense of what's going on.

People's Daily, which represents the official positions of the CCP, is making vague general statements, but not endorsing Russia's position.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/26/politics/fake-ukraine-videos-...

You just quoted word-for-word the tweet that you linked to without attributing it, then you don't link any uncritical media reports that the tweet is referring to.

Why on earth should I put more weight on your comment (a 39-day-old account), the tweets of Tucker Max, or the Tweets of some so-called former CIA officer that I've never heard of? My bullshit alarm is sounding.

Its obviously not a smart move to trust for example numbers of either side, that never worked in any conflict (unless you average them, but even then its just a guess).

As another user pointed out, there are videos of SAM vehicles passing villages near Kyiv, so it could have well been a russian one (but nobody here really knows). Anyway blame lies solely on invading russians for this one

We got strong beliefs that all Ukrainian defenders of Zmiiniy Island may be alive... The SBGSU and the Armed Forces, like the whole of Ukraine, have received hope that all of Zmiiny's defenders are alive.

https://www.facebook.com/100066866381279/posts/2850135637375...

In 2003, we just saw whatever CNN was feeding us but now anybody can become a CNN and you don't even need to be at the place of war.

Can I just point out how freaky this all is? We have never been more connected and have low barriers to access unlimited information, yet despite this, we have no bearing.

I LEGIT thought the whole Ghost of Kiev video was REAL the first time I watched it. It was only when the whole scene did not make sense——why would the Russian jet slow down and slowly ascent with a pursuing Ukranian jet and why would it use AA missile instead of opting for guns at such close range moving slowly?

It was only after this exercise in logic did I take a second look at the video and saw the person holding the camera was moving way too stable without the artifacts you normally get from software stabilization.

Many, many people saw that video and retweeted it thinking it was legitimate. I almost did too until I saw it a second time and realized Twitter's compression algorithms degraded the quality in an authentic manner that hides anti-aliasing and uncanny valley.

Games are increasing becoming photorealistic where I can't tell from preview thumbs (ex. Ride 4) and we are probably witnessing the cusp of a new type of war. Our morales can be influenced by the hour now thanks to social media and advancements in light ray tracing.

Like in 2011 I was certain that photorealism was far off because of the computation difficulties with real-time ray tracing, I had not anticipated the leaps in GPU, AI, Deepfake technologies as well as software advancements like Nanite and Lumen in UE5