Peter Todd

That looks like a minibits error. Not an error on my side.

Weird. Should be fine. What error?

Russians are genocidal imperialists right now. As for Israel, they are clearly not that and have never been.

Iran has been funding violence against the West for a long time. Oct 7th for example. They are already the aggressor and have been for a very long time. As for "de-Nazifying Ukraine", that's objectively a blatant lie. Comparing that to Venezuela is whitewashing Russia's crimes.

Fuck Russia.

IIRC Ukraine publicly confirmed the use of storm shadows. But they did not say if that was the only weapon used. There's a good chance they used more than one weapon type at once to defeat Russia's anti-air defenses cost effectively. Also, there's speculation that the reason why storm shadows were approved for this usage is that Iran was found to be using shahed drones with components made in that factory. Basically, that pissed off the US and UK, who were happy to let Ukraine use overwhelming force to attempt destroy the factory.

"but to what end?" Obviously, Ukraine can collapse the Russia economy and military production sufficiently that Russia can no longer effectively fight, and take back all the occupied territory. In the long run, it doesn't matter what happens inside Russia it their economy is in ruins and they can't afford to fight. How they deal with that is their problem. Anyway, the problem isn't Putin, it's Russian society: they're genocidal imperialists who have been invading their neighbors and taking land for hundreds of years.

I didn't realize your cases were so nice looking! If I actually lived in one place I'd be tempted to buy one to hang it on a wall. 😂

I'm writing this from a coffee shop in Kyiv that has a spent artillery propellant charge tube holding up a flower pot... Pretty typical decoration around here. I think you are a great example of how Dubai could easily lose _very_ badly in this war, even though objectively there isn't all that much hazard. Because Dubai has attracted so many people for tax and business reasons who don't really like the city, and have never put down real roots there, they have a large population who have no interest in supporting Dubai when times get a bit tougher. That's not a slight on you. It's just rational: why put up with that for Dubai? In Kyiv even after the worst winter in the entire war, with power cuts so severe that you might get two hours a day of power, and hundreds of buildings had to turn off the water due to frozen pipes, there's still lots of _new_ businesses opening. Like the coffee shop I'm in right now. The population still here cares about winning and sees a future in Ukraine. And Ukraine is worth saving. I think there's a high chance this ends relatively quickly because the US and Israel have the military capabilities to really crush Iran's ability to fight. In that circumstance Dubai can probably bounce back. But if this doesn't end quickly, e.g. maybe due to some bullshit pseudo-ceasefire from Trump losing interest, all it would take is for Iran to keep launching a few attacks a week at Dubai and the wider UAE to keep businesses and the airports fucked up.

Letting Iran get nuclear weapons would be an absolute disaster; letting them build shahed drones by the tens of thousands, both themselves and in partnership with Russia, was already a disaster. I personally have seen the results of that here in Ukraine. "Who started it" doesn't even matter. They're extremist Jew-hating, Russia allied, islamists who have directly and indirectly killed tens of thousands of good people this year alone. The faster Iran's islamists are wiped out the better. Hopefully that doesn't need to involve destroying all of Iran in the process. But that's ultimately up to the people of Iran to reject extremist Islam. If they fail to do that soon we should permanently crush their economy to ensure they won't be a threat in the future.

Crazy thing is even though the factory was 110km inside Russia, Ukraine still managed to have a surveillance drone flying above it returning video! Russian air defenses aren't doing so well:

Ukraine's recent air strikes on the Russia's Kremniy El microelectronics factory managed to kill 4 and wound 37. Including this guy: It's underappreciated how important it is to not just destroy factories, but also to kill and maim the Russian's working at those factories. It's a lot harder and more expensive to replace a skilled worker than it is to replace a tool bought from China. Cutting off his hand will probably prevent the deaths of dozens of Ukrainians. To that end, Ukraine should copy Russia's highly effective double tap strategy to discourage rescue operations. That man might still be able to train his replacement, or successfully work with his remaining hand. It'd be better if he had bled to death waiting for a rescue that never came.