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Reported that Russian missiles/rockets land in Poland, killing 2.....UPDATE: November 16 overnight
Not to alarm, but you should be aware and may choose to monitor the "whatevers" as the event and verifiable information becomes refined. The Polish government will likely have a full press release, sometime after their emergency meeting.
At 1pm, U.S. equity markets took a downward hit from an otherwise very nice up day.
Lot of speculations. From gas explosion to truck explosion to the remnants of a Russian missile shot & deflected by Ukraine. Almost everybody is at G20 in Bali, Indonesia to resolve this there or fight it out.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian missile barrage on the Ukrainian power grid sent the war spilling over into neighboring countries Tuesday, hitting NATO member Poland and cutting electricity to much of Moldova.
The strikes plunged much of Ukraine into darkness and drew defiance from President Volodymr Zelenskyy, who shook his fist and declared: “We will survive everything.”
It was Russia’s biggest barrage yet, and some of the missiles crossed into Poland, where two people were killed, according to a U.S. official. It marked the first time in the war that Russian weapons have come down on a NATO country.
Polish government spokesman Piotr Mueller did not immediately confirm the information from a senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the situation.
A second person confirmed that apparent Russian missiles struck a site in Poland about 15 miles from the Ukrainian border.
BNN update: Watched the Latvian defense minister speak several hours ago, but this is the first online mention. He discussed protecting air space, which I don't find in this write.
From other news sources: Russia is denying everything, as would be expected, and so far all other major nations are observing a very interesting silence.
From other news sources: Russia is denying everything, as would be expected, and so far all other major nations are observing a very interesting silence.
"Interesting silence." Ya. The word for that is: chickenshit. The current Russian regime is holding the rest of the world hostage.
@Crash So, what kind of knee jerk reaction would you make,if you didn't yet have all of the facts; if you were the "Decider"??? Would you not want the forensic information that will be available at the site. It's about 3am in Poland. Full darkness doesn't lend to ideal conditions to gather forensic evidence. What is your input to NATO???
Verification may come from satellites passing over that area, or geosynchronous satellite, if over that area. This may take hours/days and the info may not even be released. There is already confusion over the debris.
Sure: collect all the evidence, get the ducks all in a row. Yogi Berra would say: "I got two words for you: Gotta haveit."
But the territorial offense is already clear, into Poland. Not Wermacht this time, but missiles. The territorial integrity of a NATO member has been breached. It wouldn't have happened if the Poot-brain had not already unjustifiably invaded a next-door, friendly country.
Collect the facts. Make the hard decisions. Just, let's not pretend that those Polish deaths happened in a vacuum. The deciders should be leaning-into THAT fact.
One by one, European countries joined the fight that became WWI. And The Kaiser, the King and the Tsar were all blood relatives! We don't want THAT. Any non-military strategy will be porous, because we're not going to get every other country in the world to treat Russia the same way South Africa was sidelined on account of apartheid. And American hegemony has already been declining for decades. I can think of a few angles that I've heard nothing about yet in the news...
My characterization is not by definition a knee-jerk, eh?
Crash I don't think it's as simple as scrambling a bunch of jets and/or cruise missiles and having a go. The human cost could be huge and Putin might possibly obliterate Ukraine with a nuke or two because he's that crazy. I'd like to think that we (US, NATO) are prepared to protect Ukraine if that happens before responding. I know what I'd like to do but I don't know the right answer here despite 2 years of combat duty.
I mean this facetiously, but I do sometimes wonder what would happen if the global community, not Ukraine obviously, treated such behavior by Russia not as acts of war but as criminal acts with individuals responsible as opposed to entire nation states. In this case, the criminal is Putin himself. What would happen if Europe and the U.S. put an actual bounty on his head, wanted dead or alive and promising to reward his own citizenry or anyone with a king's sum if they bring him to justice? Given the relative uselessness of cryptocurrency for anything but untraceable crime, I'm surprised bounties haven't already been put on various dictators' heads already. Putin is so entrenched the above scenario is relatively absurd, but it actually wasn't in the case of Osama Bin Laden. If his terrorism was treated as a criminal act engendering a Bin Laden man hunt instead of as an act of war by the entire nations of Afghanistan and Iraq, we might have been able to save ourselves a few trillion dollars and many less lives would've been lost.
I guess the question I ask myself is should the entire Russian people be punished because of one man's narcissistic idiocy? Should the entire world be if we go to war with Russia as a result? But then, America is no stranger to narcissistic idiots running things either. Do we all deserve what we get for having one in charge?
November 16 overnight UPDATE: Accident. 'Course, the accident could have been avoided; if Ukraine wasn't force to defend itself from incoming missile attacks. More of the sad side of WAR. Article here.
Seems pretty clear now that it was a Ukrainian Missile, that was attempting to shoot down a barage of Russian missiles which were launched after Ukrainian speech at the G20 meeting. When Russia is launching missiles at Ukrainian cities, accidents can happen when you attempt to shoot down those Russian missiles
I saw an interesting YouTube video on that missile. I'm making up these numbers but it went something like this. Kyiv is at 20N by 40W, Lviv is at 30N by 60w. The site that got hit is at 20N by 60W (one from each city) so they postulate that whoever programed that missile messed up and took one number from each target. Sounds plausible to me as he and Zelensky are both saying it wasn't Ukraine and also they won't let Ukraine go to the site to examine the missile. Something sounds fishy to me.
@royal4 et al Would be a bit strange to not allow Ukraine officials to be part of the investigation and/or the forensics of the site. Numerous articles here about this topic. The articles listed from various sources have some conflict in their reporting, too.
Comments
Almost everybody is at G20 in Bali, Indonesia to resolve this there or fight it out.
This from AP:
Watched the Latvian defense minister speak several hours ago, but this is the first online mention. He discussed protecting air space, which I don't find in this write.
So, what kind of knee jerk reaction would you make,if you didn't yet have all of the facts; if you were the "Decider"???
Would you not want the forensic information that will be available at the site. It's about 3am in Poland. Full darkness doesn't lend to ideal conditions to gather forensic evidence.
What is your input to NATO???
https://sandefur.typepad.com/freespace/2009/06/thanksgiving-1956-by-ee-cummings.html
Sure: collect all the evidence, get the ducks all in a row. Yogi Berra would say: "I got two words for you: Gotta haveit."
But the territorial offense is already clear, into Poland. Not Wermacht this time, but missiles. The territorial integrity of a NATO member has been breached. It wouldn't have happened if the Poot-brain had not already unjustifiably invaded a next-door, friendly country.
Collect the facts. Make the hard decisions. Just, let's not pretend that those Polish deaths happened in a vacuum. The deciders should be leaning-into THAT fact.
One by one, European countries joined the fight that became WWI. And The Kaiser, the King and the Tsar were all blood relatives! We don't want THAT. Any non-military strategy will be porous, because we're not going to get every other country in the world to treat Russia the same way South Africa was sidelined on account of apartheid. And American hegemony has already been declining for decades. I can think of a few angles that I've heard nothing about yet in the news...
My characterization is not by definition a knee-jerk, eh?
I guess the question I ask myself is should the entire Russian people be punished because of one man's narcissistic idiocy? Should the entire world be if we go to war with Russia as a result? But then, America is no stranger to narcissistic idiots running things either. Do we all deserve what we get for having one in charge?
If you want a nuanced view of what the Russian people themselves think of the attack on Ukraine, here is one: https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/09/07/my-country-right-or-wrong-russian-public-opinion-on-ukraine-pub-87803
November 16 overnight UPDATE: Accident.
'Course, the accident could have been avoided; if Ukraine wasn't force to defend itself from incoming missile attacks. More of the sad side of WAR.
Article here.
The site that got hit is at 20N by 60W (one from each city) so they postulate that whoever programed that missile messed up and took one number from each target. Sounds plausible to me as he and Zelensky are both saying it wasn't Ukraine and also they won't let Ukraine go to the site to examine the missile. Something sounds fishy to me.
Would be a bit strange to not allow Ukraine officials to be part of the investigation and/or the forensics of the site.
Numerous articles here about this topic. The articles listed from various sources have some conflict in their reporting, too.