Comments on: Pirates, Tanks and Conspiracy Theories

By: Ali Elmsllaty

Ali Elmsllaty — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:06:17 +0000

I`m Ali from Libya I realy love Mrs Timoshenko please tell her stop

By: Milan

Milan — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:34:20 +0000

The weapons were not for the legitimate Sudanese army, they were going to south Sudan – the rebels?

(BBC Monitoring Service, Interfax)

“The leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Petro Symonenko, has accused Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko of being involved in illegal arms supplies to Georgia and the Horn of Africa.

“The shipments of Ukrainian weapons to the Horn of Africa were carried out on Yushchenko’s direct order and in agreement with US Vice-President Dick Cheney, who, as co-owner, helps the American oil company Halliburton to seize oil fields in Sudan,” the press service of the Communist Party quoted its leader as saying.

Symonenko said: “Using Yushchenko’s mercenary interest in earning dividends from illegal arms trade, they make the Ukrainian president a blind executor of hegemonic plans of Washington’s Republican oil lobbies, while Ukraine and its citizens are hostage to these gambles and dragged into international armed conflicts.”

He added that Ukraine has twice shipped arms to the Horn of Africa since Yushchenko was elected president.
“It was using the services of intermediary companies which, using contracts with Kenya as a cover, sent Ukrainian weapons to the African countries where pro-American governments are in power and get ready for war with Sudan for its oil, whose deposits make up 20 per cent of the world’s deposits,” he said.

“Led by President Yushchenko, the Ukrainian authorities who are involved in illegal arms supplies both to Georgia and Africa are doing what they can to cover up the traces of their crimes. This is why they are doing almost nothing to release the crew of the ship Faina captured by Somali pirates,” he added.

He said that certain officials more and more often suggested that force must be used [to release the crew], which proves that they are indifferent to the fate of the people and seek to destroy the evidence of their crimes.”

By: Venik

Venik — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 20:39:48 +0000

Defensive jammers on the Backfire are a way of reducing threat – not eliminating it. Since only one such aircraft was downed and we don’t know how many were used and to what extent, we are in no position to make any conclusions about effectiveness of its ECM suite.

Said is being thorough as usual in his analysis. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that this operation was a snap response to Georgia’s attack. Time – not safety of a few Su-25s – was of the essence and could not be wasted on pre-engagement SEAD operations. Ossetians managed to hold on long enough for the Russians to make it through the tunnel. Had the Georgians reached Roki before the Russians, the war might have had a very different outcome.

True, Russia lost several aircraft on the first day of the war (other reported losses – Su-24s – are possible, but there are no details available), but it was also able to suppress and completely eliminate Georgian air defenses within several days almost exclusively using local air assets. And this is impressive, considering that Osa and Buk are highly mobile and in Yugoslavia in 1999 Osa proved to be particularly elusive.

By: Peter Coates

Peter Coates — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 05:37:41 +0000

Hi Venik

On another matter a mysteriously anonymous analyst of Russian weaponry has written the following regarding performance of various systems in South Ossetia:

“note the number of heavily upgraded former Soviet systems employed and how the ECM carried by the Russians failed to perform. Interesting that the SPS-171/172 defensive jammer on the
Backfire was quite ineffective against these systems. An interesting
question is how well wolud our older EW systems perform against this
generation of upgrades. These were only Ukrainian upgrade packages – not
the Russian and ByeloRussian products.”

This was in the contect of Said Aminov’s, “Georgia’s Air Defense in the War with South Ossetia” http://mdb.cast.ru/mdb/3-2008/item3/article3/

I’m no specialist on electronic warfare but I thought conclusions about weapons performance in the Georgian War may be an interesting topic.

Regards

Pete

By: Venik

Venik — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 23:08:19 +0000

Well, neither British not US naval vessels routine carry special forces aboard. American ships, for example, will have some Marines aboard, but not necessarily SEALs. Russian ships also do not have Spetsnaz aboard as a matter of operational procedure. The US and British ships currently near “Faina” were already at sea when the pirates attacked. They were no on an anti-pirate mission and so presence of special forces on board is not likely. But possible, I agree.

By: Peter Coates

Peter Coates — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 13:26:48 +0000

That’s amazing Venik – 3 or 4 smaller posts about related subjects in one mega-post

With reference to the first post on pirates you’ve said “None of the US or British naval vessels in the area have special forces aboard,”

This may be what the US and Brits would like the world to believe because they don’t want their specialist boading parties to be seen to be “attacking” an Israeli-owned cargo ship with Russian and Ukrainian crew”. They’d leave the risk of shooting members of the crew by mistake to a RusKy boarding party.

BTW Julia sure looks hot (smarter And better looking than Palin). I wish Australia had such a good looking Prime Minister.

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com