The unnamed officials told Insider: “Because things are going badly [Russian generals] have to go closer to the front to guide their troops in operations.”
“They need to provide more close-up supervision, going further forward and becoming vulnerable to enemy action.”
The officials also cited “very, very low morale among the Russian forces” as a possible reason that top commanders felt obliged to get closer to the front.
i.e. the so called special forces needed to be babysat by the higher brass
Or maybe after your artillery and missiles have done their job, which seems to be the tactic in Mariupol, I heard a report this morning where the interviewee was saying that Mariupol was being used as an example to the rest of Ukraine’s cities.
4th week of a 48 hour stroll in the park. Russia’s incompetence due to it being a griftstan is showing them to be so very much weaker than everyone thought. This is going to have consequences for them going forward around the globe.
A lot of allies and friendlies are going to look at diversifying their options.
It is actually plausible that the ‘Ukrainian’ color flight suits are in fact “Bauman University” color suits.
i for one am glad they can show solidarity with ukraine - because no one in their right mind wouldn’t know what those colors mean right now - and still have plausible deniability when they get home.
This sort of thing has been possible for a while but to see it in action is frightening.
Copied from the video description.
Watch a modified DJI drone drop a grenade on a car in Ukraine
In Ukraine, a local UAS company used a modified DJI drone, reportedly a DJI Phantom 4, to drop a grenade on a vehicle.
On Twitter, the following short video was shared by Calibre Obscura that shows a grenade being dropped on a car from about 400 feet in altitude.
“A local UA company developing a way to drop payloads onto Russian vehicles simply from COTS drones; here an F-1 grenade is dropped from a DJI Phantom 4 onto a car from 100m,” Calibre Obscura tweeted. “Note that this is civilians developing this for defense, not the Ukrainian Army.”
The video was recorded by the drone so while we can see the modified DJI drone gaining altitude, positioning itself over the vehicle, and dropping the explosive, we cannot see the drone itself.
The video seems to show a test of the modified DJI drone being able to drop a grenade as we do not see an explosion at the end of the clip.
It is remarkable to see how seemingly easy it is to accurately drop an explosive from about 400 feet high.
The video is very short and no additional information was provided. We do not know the exact location of the event, nor do we have a date and time of the recording.
Using an off-the-shelf, DJI drone, and modifying the aircraft so that it can be used to drop grenades is nothing new. In recent years, we have seen numerous examples of DJI drones being used this way in the Middle East.
This is why anyone with half a brain and even a smattering of history is against war. Here’s a COTS (Cheap Off The Shelf) way of killing anyone who can’t order a military to keep the airspace around them clear – and this sort of thing could be pre-stashed on rooftops and ledges around a city in the thousands. It’s only one of hundreds, maybe thousands, of ways modern technology, the stuff we give to our kids as toys and can be had in nigh-unlimited quantities at your local big-box store for cash, can be used as a weapon. There’s a TED talk about the effects of converting a small, disposable drone into an assassination weapon, used on crowds and against political dissidents that’s horrifying in its implications; if the Ukrainians and Russians are not both already stockpiling these types of devices in a variety of killing options, they are certainly researching them. And that’s on top of all the millitary drones, sensors, smartbombs, and other purpose built hardware. If a general war, a WWIII or similar overall conflict, or even a major civil war in a developed country such as the US, Russia (sigh, I almost typed USSR there out of habit,) China, or the EU, the fallout and disruption to civilization would be devastating even in the areas not directly involved in the war, even if nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons are not used. Which seems unlikely.
Boris Johnson has been criticised for comparing the struggle of Ukrainians fighting the Russian invasion to British people voting for Brexit.
In his speech to the Conservative spring conference in Blackpool, Johnson said it is the “instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom”, with the Brexit vote a “famous recent example”.
The comparison was condemned by Tory peer Lord Barwell, who pointed out Ukraine is seeking to join the EU.
SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said: “Boris Johnson’s comments comparing Ukraine’s life-threatening situation with Brexit was crass and distasteful, and shows just how dangerously obsessed the Tories are with Brexit.”
I can imagine that they would know to use the Bauman University excuse as cover, to make sure they didn’t fall out of any windows after returning to Russia.
So the jury’s still out for me, on whether this is happenstance or deliberate.
There are drones without geofencing and DJIs can be altered to remove geofencing but then you’re no longer using an off the shelf drone and someone with a little know how would have to do the hacking.
As far as jamming you can always fly without GPS but then you need a skilled operator.
As another poster said, I’m sure this is all being researched even as we type.
