The Voice of the East

Slovakia's Prime Minister, Robert Fico, has just suffered an attempt on his life via multiple gunshot wounds. He is known for having pro-Russian views. This is the reason why he was shot, and is now in a life-threatening condition. The shooter: a 71 year old member of the liberal Progressive Slovakia party. Probably wasn't acting alone (though we may never know for sure). Conclusion: Europe is following in Ukraine's footsteps: being pro-Russian is very dangerous for one's health and continuity of life. Courtesy of 🇺🇸🇪🇺 establishments.

Deleted the previous post due to irrelevancy. Rybar writes the following: Missile attack on Belbek At night, Ukrainian formations launched a new attack on the Crimean airfields. This time, the target was Belbek, which fired up to 16 ATACMS tactical missiles with cluster warheads. - The sounds of the work of the 31st Air Force and air Defense divisions were heard by the population of Crimea and Sevastopol around 2 a.m. Flashes and sounds of explosions in the sky were noted even by residents of the Black Sea. In total, about 13 missiles were shot down on the approaches to Belbek. - Unfortunately, one or two missiles could not be shot down. And the results of the arrival became known all over the world again thanks to the publication of video from a surveillance camera on the Network. How and why this is still possible in the third year of the war has long been a rhetorical question. As we and our colleagues have repeatedly noted, until criminal penalties are imposed for the publication of such videos and photos, Ukrainian formations will have no problems evaluating the results of their strikes even without the help of NATO satellites. It is not entirely clear where the missiles were launched from. The previous raids were from the Berislav area. But, as a rule, the enemy changes positions to avoid detection. And the ATACMS range of 300 km increases the combat capabilities of the AFU. At the same time, it is possible that this time the launch was carried out from the Kherson region. However, some of our sources report that the flight of missiles was recorded from the direction of Snake Island. So the launchers could be located somewhere near Vilkovo on the border with Romania. . Belbek Airfield did sustain some damage during the attack. The damage is not as severe as Ukrainian sources report. In conclusion, Russian air defences are not yet fully adapted to dealing with massed Ukrainian/NATO missile strikes. Air defences are able to shoot down a majority of missiles, but it is not uncommon for 1-2 missiles to get through and inflict some damage.

Tonight, the AFU launched another ATACMS missile attack against Crimea. 8-10 ballistic missiles were used, alongside a number of suicide drones. All targets were destroyed by Russian air defences.

Yet another batch of Su-35s has been delivered to the VKS today. This is the third batch of fighter jets this year so far. Su-35s make for wonderful UMPC carriers, and UMPCs are one of the reasons why the AFU's daily losses in manpower (according to the RuMOD) have risen from 400-600 per day during the first year of the war to 1000-1500 per day over the last few weeks. Russian aviation in general is an absolute gamechanger that Ukraine has no effective counter against.

Russia will now start producing medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles. This is the final nail in the coffin for the INF treaty (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty) "In response to the actions of the United States, Russia is stepping up the refinement and starting production of similar missile systems. Moreover, taking into account the previously announced R&D and the accumulated achievements of the Russian military-industrial complex, this process will not take much time. When making potential decisions on the deployment of such weapons, we leave the geography of their deployment at our discretion," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation said. . RS-26 Rubezh is a Russian ground-based strategic missile system that uses an intercontinental ballistic missile. It is an evolution of the Yars system (RS-24), with new combat units designed to bypass missile defenses. The Yars itself is a modified version of the Topol-M system. Compared to RS-24, the RS-26's launcher is significantly lighter, weighing less than 80 tons versus 120 tons for the Yars. The missile can reach targets at ranges of 2,000 to 6,000 kilometers, which, according to the US, violates the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.It was assumed that the ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) would enter service with the 29th Guards Missile Division of the Strategic Missile Forces in 2015 and complement the existing grouping of Yars (RS-24) and Topol-M (RT-2PM2) missiles. It was also assumed that the RS-26 mobile missile system would be deployed at the end of 2017, but only in its mobile version. These missiles were intended to replace the aging Topol complexes of the Strategic Missile Forces. On March 22nd, 2018, TASS reported, citing a source from the Russian Defense Ministry, that the RS-26 and Barguzin programs had been excluded from the State Armament Program until 2027. Instead, the Avangard missile system was included in the program as being more significant for the country's defense capabilities. The reason for this was due to the impossibility of simultaneously funding all three programs.

A bus in Belgorod region was attacked by multiple AFU FPV drones. 6 dead, 35 wounded. Yet another, absolutely intentional and targeted attack of civilians. I repeat, a civilian bus driving ordinary rural folk to work was attacked with precision weapons, multiple times. There is absolutely no way to "accidently" hit such a target even once, let alone multiple times. There is absolutely no way such a target can be confused with any remotely military-related target either.

Multiple Russian military-oriented TG channels are reporting a large presence of French and Polish troops (PMCs) in Ukraine, namely in Slavyansk and Kharkov. Apparently, some of them got smoked by Russian ballistic missiles last night.

@treugolniklpr reports that another AFU ballistic missile attack was planned against some target in the southern direction (presumably Crimea) this night, but was prevented due to a Russian first strike. If so, blowing up the Kerch Bridge is now a total fantasy.

Russian sources report that 4 ATACMS were used to strike Crimea last night, alongside what appear to be 13 decoys. All intercepted by Russian Air Defences. It is interesting to note the sudden decrease from using ~12 missiles per strike to only 4 missiles. There is speculation that this may be because the AFU does not have many ATACMS left - in which case, the destruction of even a part of the Crimea Bridge is now a complete fantasy. It's also reported that the launchers of these ATACMS were detected, and targeted. It is unclear if any launchers were actually destroyed or if they had time to get away before being hit, but in any case this is very bad news for the AFU, as it means that even ballistic missile strikes against the Russian rear carry a real risk of losing the launchers.

According to the RuMOD, the AFU's losses over the previous day (March 2nd) amounted to the following ➖ ➖ ➖ ⏺ 1,220 military personnel ⏺10 armored vehicles, including 2 tanks, including one "Abrams" in the Avdeevka direction ⏺19 artillery systems, including 5 SPGs ⏺ BM-21 MLRS Grad combat vehicle ⏺ 16 special purpose vehicles ⏺ targeting and guidance radar and two launchers of the S-300PT anti-aircraft missile system ⏺1 launcher of the IRIS-T anti-aircraft missile system ⏺ 40 UAVs ⏺ electronic warfare station "Nota" ➖ ➖ ➖ I find the figures of 1,220 military personnel, as well as 19 artillery systems + 1 MLRS (20 total), to be particularly interesting. Even if one assumes that the RuMOD is exaggerating its successes and giving 3x or so larger numbers than is actual, this still points towards a situation that is utterly unsustainable for Ukraine. The losses in artillery systems are reported to amount to: ▪️1 BM-21 Grad (122mm MLRS) ▪️1 AHS Krab (155mm SPG) ▪️1 DANA M2 (152mm SPG) ▪️2 M109 (155mm SPG) ▪️1 Akatsiya (152mm SPG) ▪️3 M777 (155mm towed howitzer) ▪️1 M198 (155mm towed howitzer) ▪️2 M119 (105mm towed howitzer) ▪️1 L119 (105mm towed howitzer) ▪️1 Msta-B (152mm towed howitzer) ▪️1 D-20 (152mm towed howitzer) ▪️1 D-30 (122mm towed howitzer) Note the growing portion of western systems among the pool of destroyed equipment. Whether or not you believe the numbers as an absolute value, the fact that roughly 1/2 of all equipment is western-made, clearly indicates that the Soviet-made equipment is running out - which in turn, clearly indicates high losses in said equipment. And of the equipment which is Soviet, remember that an unspecified (likely large) portion is donated by NATO, or brought from 3rd parties.