1/ The Russian army's use of dazzle camouflage in an attempt to confuse Ukrainian drones is unlikely to succeed, according to sceptical Russian warbloggers. They point out that it's not the First World War, and trucks on roads aren't ships at sea. ⬇️
"Ukrainian channels published a photograph of a Russian Kamaz truck repainted in zebra camouflage. This was done to confuse American Hornet UAVs, which have AI-assisted final-track lock-on.
3/ "However, if the drone is controlled manually, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a Hornet, repainting it won't help. In that case, it could serve as a temporary solution. Long-term, road protection and an interceptor system are needed."
4/ 'Informant' makes the connection with First World War tactics, but is sceptical about its usefulness:
5/ "It should be noted that a similar approach to ships can be seen in archival images from World War I. This trend began to fade during WWII due to technological advances, but ships in similar camouflage were still occasionally seen during WWII.
6/ "The purpose of camouflage in this case is to interfere with machine vision target acquisition and/or disrupt the military/civilian target selection process, assuming such algorithms are available.
7/ "Whether this would work in the current environment is, frankly, unlikely; at a minimum, the camouflage would need to be tested and significantly disrupt the silhouette.
8/ "It might work against the aforementioned military/civilian target selection algorithms in automated mode, but given that the vehicle is marked as a target by the operator, it's unlikely to be of much use. Although the lines of thought are quite interesting."
9/ The unrelated 'Military Informant' channel notes that the Soviets also used dazzle camouflage, but implies that the current appearance is merely an amateur imitation:
10/ "Essentially, straight black and white lines against the underlying ground, or even greenery, are a way to disrupt the automatic tracking correlator, especially if it's a modern enemy drone's correlator equipped with state-of-the-art AI.
11/ "In the scientifically based Soviet school of creating camouflage paints and patterns for this purpose, it was customary to use decoration based on second-order mathematical curves. These stripes are definitely not second-order curves."
'Two Majors' is very sceptical:
12/ "Such a solution can only help if the Kamaz is traveling in a herd of zebras.
They used to try to camouflage ships on the water surface during the First World War. It didn't work." /end
1/ Sevastopol is effectively under siege from Ukrainian drones, prompting some Russians to make comparisons with the sieges of 1855 and 1942. Others compare it to J.R.R. Tolkien's Minas Tirith. However, unity is lacking among the inhabitants, says a Russian warblogger. ⬇️
2/ 'Near the War' describes a recent visit to Sevastopol:
"I confess, I thought several times before driving from Donetsk to Sevastopol. Military acquaintances had long warned me that the enemy might attempt to blockade the Crimean Peninsula."
3/ "And since early May, the R-280 "Novorossiya" highway has been under attack by Ukrainian Hornet drones.On the way to Sevastopol, we saw the aftermath of these artificially intelligent hornets' hunt:…
1/ Former Roscosmos CEO and current Russian Senator Dmitry Rogizin has a novel suggestion for deterring Western countries from seizing 'shadow fleet' tankers. He advocates turning them into giant bombs by rigging them to explode if they're captured. ⬇️
2/ Commenting on the British seizure of the Russian shadow fleet tanker SMYRTOS at the weekend, Rogizin – like many other Russian commentators – likens it to an act of piracy. He suggests:
3/ "I believe we should mine the tankers we use. Initiation should occur when appropriate commands are received or when a tanker deviates from its route and is forced to enter a foreign port.
1/ Russian warbloggers have rushed to disclaim blame for the attack on the historic Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. They claim the Ukrainians did it themselves, argue that the church isn't sacred to the Ukrainians, and say Ukraine just wants Russia to look bad. ⬇️
2/ Damage, what damage?, asks Andrey Medvedev, claiming that the whole thing was faked for the cameras:
"There's no need to restore anything in general. There's no damage. It's just a vivid night picture. Which suggests a deliberate arson for the sake of a photo."
3/ Lev Vershinin says the church was a legitimate military target:
"My busy schedule prevented me from commenting on the strikes on Kyiv this morning, and thank God for that, because I might have said something stupid in the heat of the moment."
1/ Iran has reportedly assessed that Donald Trump is "mentally incompetent" and has incorporated psychologists into its negotiating team to adapt the wording of the proposed agreement "as if the recipient were a [mental] patient ... whose capacity is limited." ⬇️
2/ The Russian 'Political Report' says that "Iranian authorities have included leading psychologists in the negotiating team to review drafts of all messages before sending them to Trump."
3/ "This is not a supplementary measure, but a direct consequence of an internal assessment that the American president is mentally incompetent, whose reactions cannot be predicted by conventional diplomatic methods.
1/ The news at the weekend that the British Royal Marines have seized a Russian shadow fleet tanker in the English Channel has aroused anger and expressions of shame from Russian warbloggers. They demand that the Russian government should take action. ⬇️
2/ 'Alex Parker Returns' characterises the seizure as "Captain Price landing on a tanker of the Russian shadow fleet. I remind you that you can get revenge on the Brit who is causing trouble by voting for United Russia and rallying more strongly around the president. Be good!"
3/ 'Novorossiya militia reports' declares:
"The British have openly entered into war with Russia, no longer hiding behind either the "law" or their proxies."
1/ Russian commanders routinely make false claims to have captured territory, in order to win awards and personal bonuses. However, the army is reportedly stepping up efforts to uncover instances of "painting over" the map of the front line in Ukraine. ⬇️
2/ Russian warblogger Vladimir Romanov highlights how the practice is causing mass casualties among Russian soldiers, with some commanders maintaining two parallel maps – one of the true line of contact, and a more flattering 'painted over' version to show to their superiors.
3/ "Returning to the paint-overs, the higher-ups periodically conduct compliance checks on the personnel data.
In some places (like in the Kupyansk sector), this is purely formal.