Just ask the Right Sector. And no, rebels are not nationalistic - they want Russian as the SECOND state language. Not as the only one.
It's actually quite simple - if somebody declares that Ukraine is for Ukrainians and everyone else lives there on sufferance, then they are nationalistic scum. If somebody tells that Russia (or DNR/LNR) is for Russians and everyone should just suck it up and learn Russian - they are nationalistic scum (and yes, Russia has plenty of them).
It's pretty simple - he really had no choice. Berkut's support is nice and all, but there were probably about only 100-200 policemen that he still controlled. And even Berkut's loyalty was questionable - as far as I remember Ternopil's and Lviv's Berkut deserted him. And then there were sniper attacks which caused EVERYONE to turn away from Yanukovich.
Again, I supported Maidan (I stood there and donated money) but I absolutely hate nationalist scum that rose to power as the result of it.
No, my point is that Buk is not a good weapon for rebel forces. It's far too large, difficult to disguise and easy to spot. It's also very vulnerable - it has no armor to speak of and can be damaged by light weapons.
It is possible that rebels managed to cobble together a working Buk, but it's unlikely. Transporting it from Russia is also not really feasible (see above about its size and difficulty to disguise).
Well, only 1994 election counts. 2004 election resulted in a rebellion (though peaceful). 2010 election was falsified - from your own words, so it also doesn't count (you can't have it both ways).
So yeah, Ukraine's democracy record is definitely not good. Mind you, Russian track record is even worse.
You can't move these complexes for long distances with armed missile launchers, and moving a rocket into an armed position takes about 15 minutes (in reality at least 30-40 minutes). Also, 5 minutes assumes that both command and launcher vehicle are linked.
ORLY? Police and military forces were deserting en-mass, several military bases were looted, regional administrations in Western Ukraine were captured, pro-Yanukovich Volyn' governor was captured and tortured, Sashko Bilyh was terrorizing local councils.
Yanukovich literally had no forces to quell the rebellion by the time he was ousted. He was even lousier a dictator then he was a president. And speaking about 'no more money to make' - all the new regional governors are oligarchs. And several of them have their own armies.
Well, what percentage of country was on Maidan? By my count, less than 1% (I supported Maidan and still do, btw).
So please, don't throw stones if you live in a glass house.
And you should note, that in Ukraine people only gain power after revolts, bloodshed and nationalism flare-ups.
My military specialty was anti-air defense. I was not trained to work with Buks (I specialized on CUB), but I saw them. They are not something that you can disguise or easily move - definitely not a good weapon for rebels relying on stealth and fast movement. Also, use of Buks requires close coordination of at least 8 specially-trained people and two vehicles. So I consider it unlikely that rebels possess a working anti-air defense system.
And here's some help from the Ukrainian military: http://www.mil.gov.ua/news/201... which says otherwise. And Ukrainian military officials never lie, don't they?
Separatists now HAVE airplanes and helicopters. Since Strelkov's blog is now considered authoritative, here's a link to it with an announcement: http://voicesevas.ru/news/yugo...
It's also worth reading voicesevas.ru in full (of course, taking into account its bias) to see the war from rebels' point of view.
You won't be able to figure out how to operate a Buk without special training. No amount of smarts will help - and your training should be fairly recent. And from all accounts (even including Ukraine's own defense dept: http://www.mil.gov.ua/news/201... ), allegedly captured Buks were not in a battle-ready state.
Buk has its own (crappy) radio location system and it generally operates independently. So it IS possible and even probable that the rebels used it to down an airplane.
However, keep in mind that the rebels also captured several airplanes and boasted about it several days before. Ukrainian army is now in a tight spot (its positions are under heavy fire with no clear routes of escape) and it's very possible that a rookie Ukrainian commander decided to play it safe and shoot down everything. After all, air defense motto is "shoot all them down, sort them out on the ground". This scenario is far less likely, but still possible.
And the third version is a conspiracy theory - Kiev decided to drum up some international support by shooting down a plane and blaming rebels for it. I consider it possible, but not probable.
No, it doesn't. Rockets have a very low radar cross-section and unless you're looking specifically at the target area, you'll likely get just a couple of blips on your radar. It might be enough to narrow down the starting point position, but unlikely to pinpoint it with enough accuracy to determine who did this.
The anti-air defense system in question doesn't have capacity to receive civilian transponder signals. Its radar is also pretty primitive - it's hard to tell what exactly you're seeing. It's easy to mistake a military transport or bomber for a civilian airplane, especially if visual contact can't be established.
As to being careful, Buk has only about 2 minute window in which it can shoot down an airplane at this height at speed. If you're fighting for your life, you'll probably be _just_ a little bit trigger-happy. Especially since almost no civilian airplanes are flying there.
And he boasted the day before yesterday that rebels downed two another planes. It's a war zone, with uncertain communication and lots of misunderstandings.
It probably went like this:
- Hey, comrade, observers saw an airplane going down!
- Great, another fascist airplane is down! Write an update!
- Few minutes later an update is posted.
30 minutes later:
- Oh shit!
I'm following http://voicesevas.ru/ to see the rebel's point of view. Over-exaggerations and intentional disinformation are common. Ukrainian news services are no better, though (I follow Korrespondent, Euromaidan and Censor.net.ua).
Several Ukrainian army are encircled by rebels nearby and transport planes are used to drop supplies to help the military. Rebels claim that they've downed two airplanes the day before yesterday.
Premiums went down in NY where insurers had to offer the same premiums regardless of your health. And of course, insurers have to raise the premiums to cover high-risk people that they earlier simply kicked away. I certainly prefer to pay more and always be able to get insurance then to live in constant fear of losing insurance _forever_ in case of a serious illness.
Slashdot Mirror
Just ask the Right Sector. And no, rebels are not nationalistic - they want Russian as the SECOND state language. Not as the only one.
It's actually quite simple - if somebody declares that Ukraine is for Ukrainians and everyone else lives there on sufferance, then they are nationalistic scum. If somebody tells that Russia (or DNR/LNR) is for Russians and everyone should just suck it up and learn Russian - they are nationalistic scum (and yes, Russia has plenty of them).
Sorry, I don't believe a word from Tymchuk without a corroborating video evidence (nothing personal, they were caught lying for too many times).
This picture appeared on Jun 30, so it's not new. BTW, this is a launcher vehicle, it also needs a command vehicle to operate.
It's pretty simple - he really had no choice. Berkut's support is nice and all, but there were probably about only 100-200 policemen that he still controlled. And even Berkut's loyalty was questionable - as far as I remember Ternopil's and Lviv's Berkut deserted him. And then there were sniper attacks which caused EVERYONE to turn away from Yanukovich.
Again, I supported Maidan (I stood there and donated money) but I absolutely hate nationalist scum that rose to power as the result of it.
No, my point is that Buk is not a good weapon for rebel forces. It's far too large, difficult to disguise and easy to spot. It's also very vulnerable - it has no armor to speak of and can be damaged by light weapons.
It is possible that rebels managed to cobble together a working Buk, but it's unlikely. Transporting it from Russia is also not really feasible (see above about its size and difficulty to disguise).
Well, only 1994 election counts. 2004 election resulted in a rebellion (though peaceful). 2010 election was falsified - from your own words, so it also doesn't count (you can't have it both ways).
So yeah, Ukraine's democracy record is definitely not good. Mind you, Russian track record is even worse.
You can't move these complexes for long distances with armed missile launchers, and moving a rocket into an armed position takes about 15 minutes (in reality at least 30-40 minutes). Also, 5 minutes assumes that both command and launcher vehicle are linked.
ORLY? Police and military forces were deserting en-mass, several military bases were looted, regional administrations in Western Ukraine were captured, pro-Yanukovich Volyn' governor was captured and tortured, Sashko Bilyh was terrorizing local councils.
Yanukovich literally had no forces to quell the rebellion by the time he was ousted. He was even lousier a dictator then he was a president. And speaking about 'no more money to make' - all the new regional governors are oligarchs. And several of them have their own armies.
Well, what percentage of country was on Maidan? By my count, less than 1% (I supported Maidan and still do, btw). So please, don't throw stones if you live in a glass house.
And you should note, that in Ukraine people only gain power after revolts, bloodshed and nationalism flare-ups.
Ukraine?
My military specialty was anti-air defense. I was not trained to work with Buks (I specialized on CUB), but I saw them. They are not something that you can disguise or easily move - definitely not a good weapon for rebels relying on stealth and fast movement. Also, use of Buks requires close coordination of at least 8 specially-trained people and two vehicles. So I consider it unlikely that rebels possess a working anti-air defense system.
That's OK, since Ukraine also claims that rebels don't have anti-air defense system: http://www.mil.gov.ua/news/201...
And here's some help from the Ukrainian military: http://www.mil.gov.ua/news/201... which says otherwise. And Ukrainian military officials never lie, don't they?
What a crap. Get a clue and drive to Slavyansk or Kramatorsk. Nobody there likes Kiev.
And I was in Kramatorsk to help my friend to relocate his family to a safer area. I also was in Crimea during its independence referendum.
People there REALLY REALLY don't want to live in the same country with Western Ukrainians.
Also, it's a military axiom - a successful rebel operation is not possible without wide support of native citizens.
Separatists now HAVE airplanes and helicopters. Since Strelkov's blog is now considered authoritative, here's a link to it with an announcement: http://voicesevas.ru/news/yugo...
It's also worth reading voicesevas.ru in full (of course, taking into account its bias) to see the war from rebels' point of view.
Maybe we should go further and sanction EU and US who are responsible for overthrowing a legitimately elected president of Ukraine?
Funny enough, Ukrainian military claimed the same: http://www.mil.gov.ua/news/201... Rough translation: "terrorists only got obsolete and broken junk"
You won't be able to figure out how to operate a Buk without special training. No amount of smarts will help - and your training should be fairly recent. And from all accounts (even including Ukraine's own defense dept: http://www.mil.gov.ua/news/201... ), allegedly captured Buks were not in a battle-ready state.
Buk has its own (crappy) radio location system and it generally operates independently. So it IS possible and even probable that the rebels used it to down an airplane.
However, keep in mind that the rebels also captured several airplanes and boasted about it several days before. Ukrainian army is now in a tight spot (its positions are under heavy fire with no clear routes of escape) and it's very possible that a rookie Ukrainian commander decided to play it safe and shoot down everything. After all, air defense motto is "shoot all them down, sort them out on the ground". This scenario is far less likely, but still possible.
And the third version is a conspiracy theory - Kiev decided to drum up some international support by shooting down a plane and blaming rebels for it. I consider it possible, but not probable.
No, it doesn't. Rockets have a very low radar cross-section and unless you're looking specifically at the target area, you'll likely get just a couple of blips on your radar. It might be enough to narrow down the starting point position, but unlikely to pinpoint it with enough accuracy to determine who did this.
The anti-air defense system in question doesn't have capacity to receive civilian transponder signals. Its radar is also pretty primitive - it's hard to tell what exactly you're seeing. It's easy to mistake a military transport or bomber for a civilian airplane, especially if visual contact can't be established.
As to being careful, Buk has only about 2 minute window in which it can shoot down an airplane at this height at speed. If you're fighting for your life, you'll probably be _just_ a little bit trigger-happy. Especially since almost no civilian airplanes are flying there.
PS: my military specialty was anti-air defense.
And he boasted the day before yesterday that rebels downed two another planes. It's a war zone, with uncertain communication and lots of misunderstandings.
It probably went like this:
- Hey, comrade, observers saw an airplane going down!
- Great, another fascist airplane is down! Write an update!
- Few minutes later an update is posted.
30 minutes later:
- Oh shit!
I'm following http://voicesevas.ru/ to see the rebel's point of view. Over-exaggerations and intentional disinformation are common. Ukrainian news services are no better, though (I follow Korrespondent, Euromaidan and Censor.net.ua).
Several Ukrainian army are encircled by rebels nearby and transport planes are used to drop supplies to help the military. Rebels claim that they've downed two airplanes the day before yesterday.
Yes, we're barely competitive. We can vastly improve our competitiveness by using outsourced labor. What do you think we should do?
Dashcams were introduced much later. About the only changed factor was a much larger risk pool.
Premiums went down in NY where insurers had to offer the same premiums regardless of your health. And of course, insurers have to raise the premiums to cover high-risk people that they earlier simply kicked away. I certainly prefer to pay more and always be able to get insurance then to live in constant fear of losing insurance _forever_ in case of a serious illness.