Pure Acetone @pureacetone@qoto.org

It is an attack. They should respond with artillery

North Korea has adopted a new strategy to contend with its southern neighbor: sending floating bags of trash containing “filth” across the border, carried by massive balloons, CNN reported.

The South Korean military began noticing “large amounts of balloons” arriving from the North starting Tuesday night, detecting more than 150 as of Wednesday morning, according to the country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

Local governments sent messages to residents in the northern provinces to warn of the “unidentified objects,” and advised against outdoor activities. The packages risk damaging residential areas, airports, and highways.

If you like nature, Aiden Robbins has made some really beautiful episodes about nature on his YouTube channel.

This one is about Scottish rainforests, and it is quite interesting:

https://youtu.be/0x-WUKT5hUo?si=G7Gb-275UfKjN6NO

How did we end up in a world, where all content can be viewed from anywhere, but you have to pay for a VPN subscription?

The argument: You have to pay, because some content is limited to certain regions… which is what VPN proves to be false, because with VPN all content IS available everywhere.

Should we make cars like that?

👨🏼‍🦳 Well you need a VPN app, because this car cannot drive into France.

🧔🏻 But I just tried the VPN app, and this car can drive into France just fine!

👨🏼‍🦳 Yes, but…

🧔🏻 NO!

Can it be said more clearly?

US Army General Cavoli, April 10:

“We are facing challenging times in the European theater, to say the least. Russia's brutal unprovoked War has ravaged Ukraine for over two years. Their forces are demolishing cities and are destroying innocent lives on a scale we have not seen since the second world war […]
Russia shows no signs of stopping. Nor does Russia intend to stop with Ukraine. Russia represents a chronic thread.”

Source (15:32)
https://youtu.be/XuLs6hjWcUs?si=0F0I39_VKirfP0R5

Author Steve Herman who used to have 112,000 followers on The Dead Bird, now has 58,000 followers on Mastodon.

The only way is up!

@w7voa

In Blowing Up A Russian Minesweeper, Ukraine May Have Revealed A Secret: It Has ATACMS Rockets With 470-Pound Warheads

The Ukrainian military sank another warship from the Russian Black Sea Fleet on Sunday.

The Ukrainian defense ministry claimed its forces sank the minesweeper Kovrovets in an overnight strike on the port of Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea, 150 miles south of the front line. Russian Telegram channels confirmed the loss.

“Another bad day for the Russian Black Sea Fleet,” the Ukrainian defense ministry quipped.

In 27 months of hard fighting since Russia widened its war on Ukraine, the Ukrainians have sunk or badly damaged more than a dozen of the Black Sea Fleet’s pre-war force of around three dozen large warships. So sinking a 200-foot minesweeper—one of two belonging to the Black Sea Fleet—isn’t all that remarkable.

*What is remarkable is how the Ukrainians may have sunk Kovrovets: with a pair of American ATACMS.*

The two-ton, ground-launched ATACMS isn’t usually an anti-ship weapon. It’s for attacks on land. That’s because the inertially-guided ATACMS is, according to most sources, accurate to within 30 feet of its target. That’s not accurate enough to reliably hit a ship with a single large warhead.

Some ATACMS models, including the 100-mile M39 and 190-mile M-39A1 models Ukraine has received from the United States in at least two batches totaling at least 120 missiles, scatter hundreds of grenade-sized submunitions. That mitigates a lack of pinpoint accuracy.

But while submunitions can damage a ship’s topside, they’re unlikely to sink it, as sinking it requires breaching the hull.

If Ukraine indeed did hit Kovrovets with ATACMS, it could mean two things. First, Ukraine has gotten 170-mile M48 or 190-mile M57 ATACMS with 470-pound warheads in addition to getting M39 and M39A1 ATACMs with submunitions.

Second, the M48 and M57 are more accurate than many observers assumed.

The implications are enormous.

For starters, what remains of the Black Sea Fleet that’s still anchoring at Sevastopol, well within range of the M39A1, M48 and M57, is in big trouble. “If ATACMS are taking out Russian warships in Sevastopol, hard to see the base having much utility left for the Russians,” pointed out Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

*After all, the frequently-damaged S-400 long-range air defense battery that protects Sevastopol and nearby Belbek air base hasn’t been able to intercept incoming ATACMS.*

“Russians have almost no capability to deal with them,” noted Nuno Felix, a Portuguese military consultant.

*Equally troubling for the Russians, accurate ATACMS with unitary warheads could represent a serious danger to the Kerch Bridge, which connects southern Russian to occupied Crimea.*

The same precision that would allow an M48 or M57 to hit a ship should also allow it to hit a bridge, explained Fabian Hoffmann, a researcher with the Oslo Nuclear Project in Norway.

The Kerch Bridge isn’t the Russians’ only supply line into Crimea—there’s also a railroad threading toward the peninsula through Russian-held southern Ukraine. But if Ukraine can interdict the railroad and drop the Kerch Bridge, it could cut off Russian troops in Crimea.

“ATACMS make a serious difference in making untenable the key terrain of the war: Crimea,” Felix wrote. That the rockets may have sunk a Russian minesweeper is just a bonus for Ukraine.

- David Axe, Forbes