Trent Telenko Profile picture
Aug 19, 2023 8 tweets 4 min read Read on X
While "first reports are always wrong," there is more good news here than possibly two Backfire bombers (Tu-22m3) detonating under this reported AFU drone strike.

Russian missile tech🧵⬇️
1/7
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While some media sources are claiming that either Tu-22m3 or a fuel depot were hit. The smoke rising from is the wrong color for that.

Burning jet fuel is black.

The smoke rising from the VKS Soltsi military airfield isn't black. What's burning?
2/7
en.defence-ua.com/events/a_drone…
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The answer is a bunch of these. These are Kh-22 (or X-22) anti-ship cruise missiles used on Cold War Backfire bomber to hunt USN Carriers.

Their warheads use the plastic explosive known as RDX.

The smoke over Soltsi military airfield is consistent with burning RDX.

3/7
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While my "Google-fu" is weak. It is good enough to get a map of Soltsi military airfield.

There are dozens of Kh-22 & Kh-22 sized cylinders racked in the open to the left of the close up image below - a sitting duck target.

4/7
google.com/maps/place/Sol…

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The Kh-22 are usually stored unfuelled, because it has the same hypergolic propellent as the S-200's 5V28 SAM.

Propellant:

Storable Hypergolic Fuel: Tonka (TG-02) aka R-Stoff ( 50% triethylamine and 50% xylidine )

Oxidizer: AK-20K aka red fuming nitric acid (RFNA)

5/7 Image
The TG-02/AK-20K propellent mixture burns black as coal, just like jet fuel.

And since there were no reported evacuation orders at Soltsi.

Which is a absolute requirement for a TG-02/AK-20K fire, because no one is going to survive breathing unfiltered RFNA particulates.

6/7
Unfuelled Kh-22 missiles were destroyed in this drone strike at Soltsi military airfield.

Given a range of more than 650 km from the border with Ukraine for this strike.

We are seeing a new generation of precise AFU drone munitions arriving.

7/7 End
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-22
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More from @TrentTelenko

Oct 16
While much has been said about US targeting support for these past Ukrainian oil strikes, and future Tomahawk strikes, much of this appears to be "role inflation" and grandstanding by Deep State parties briefing US media.

1/
Ukrainian cyber penetrations of Russian industry provide them with a deep knowledge of the Russian POL / LNG industrial base.

Additionally, we know from numerous Ukrainian disclosures that they are programming One Way Attack Drones and routing flightpaths...

2/
...around the seriously thinned out Russian VKS SAM batteries.

This is something the Ukrainians have been doing successfully and unaided for their OWA Drones going on for at least a year.

3/4
Read 5 tweets
Oct 14
The inability of Western elites to understand how Putin regime reflexive control propaganda locks everyone there into "WW2 Russian exceptionalism" just boggles the mind.

The Putin Regime lives in a George Orwell 1984-like present, with no past or future.

1/
The Putin Regime always lives in the current moment.

Literally every major Putin decision over the last 20 years was on impulse, AKA this is Russian exceptionalism incarnate.

Consequences _CANNOT_ matter in this 1984-ish culture, ONLY THE NEXT DELUSION. 😱😱

2/
Denial & delusion are extremely powerful psychological forces. So powerful that it means you cannot help the delusional.

Russians will fight you to maintain delusions & hate you for shattering their deeply held identity beliefs if you do.

This is loser behavior incarnate
3/3
Read 4 tweets
Oct 3
I've made a point about the Russian killed to wounded ratios a lot.

This is off scale:

"The AFU 7th Rapid Reaction Corps of Ukraine's Air Assault Forces published some stats. In August, Russia suffered 928 KIA and 528 WIA, i.e. 1.76:1,

1/3
and in September, 1,202 KIA and 649 WIA, i.e. 1.85:1.

These numbers strongly exceed any previous campaigns dating back to the Crimean War, and do not include non-combat deaths due to disease or exposure."

2/3
Late 20th Century combat saw one dead for every four wounded.

Russia is suffering between one and 3/4 to one to something like one and 4/5ths to one killed to wounded at Povrovsk.

This is without historical precedence.

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Oct 2
Gosh, remember all those 2023 US Navalist accounts that denied - DENIED, I tell you - that drones from containerships would ever, ever, be a threat and that I personally was delusional for saying so publicly.

Who looks delusional now 😱⬇️

1/
One in every five US Naval vessels are defenseless to Chinese drones, surprise launched from Chinese merchant & fishing vessels, because the
every CNO since 1989 didn't want USN logistical officers to get a captaincy and compete for flag ranks.

2/
Instead of dealing with reality, the USN flags send out minions on X to say "de-lu-lu" things like this⬇️

Because the USN Flags from the Aviation, Surface and Sub communities don't want to have logistical officers get flag ranks and spotlight their professional delusions🤮🤮
3/3 Image
Read 4 tweets
Oct 1
Phalanx was replaced by the SeaRAM, AKA RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile, on almost all new US combatants for the last ~15 years.

The SeaRAM Wiki states:

"The U.S. Navy plans to purchase a total of about 1,600 RAMs and 115 launchers to equip 74 ships.

1/3
The missile is currently active aboard Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers, Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, Wasp-class amphibious assault ships, America-class amphibious assault ships, San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ships,
2/3
Whidbey Island-class dock landing ships, Harpers Ferry-class dock landing ships, and littoral combat ships (LCS).[6]"

This was a US Navy procurement disaster in the age of drones.

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Oct 1
There are good reasons Russia is now looking to purchase gasoline from abroad to replace what they can no longer produce and deliver internally.

Russia is in the middle of a refinery damage & overuse failure cascade🧵

1/
Let us start with basics.

This was the pre-Russo-Ukrainian War Russian pipeline infrastructure Russian refineries were attached too.

2/
This is another view of the same infrastructure courtesy of the @AndreasSteno account.

3/
Read 10 tweets

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