In the UK if your employer cocks up or delays your pay and you incur costs as a result then your employer has to pay those costs ie overdraft fees or penalties for not paying your mortgage.  I assume no similar provision in US law?

In the UK if your employer cocks up or delays your pay and you incur costs as a result then your employer has to pay those costs ie overdraft fees or penalties for not paying your mortgage. I assume no similar provision in US law?

Not in defence. Some of the workplace protections that exist in civvy street do not exist in defence. Even less so in US Defence. We’re positively liberal compared to their terms of service.

What I should add is we have mechanisms to ensure pay issues are rectified. The chain of command can authorise advances of pay to cover any gaps, paid via BACS into serve persons accounts.

The days of people not getting any wages has long passed, these days pay cock-ups tend to be around extra allowances, etc, rather than the baseline salary.

IIRC there’s some sort of special pleading like in the event of a shutdown the government just doesn’t exist til it restarts, so it’s more like having a company go out of business than it is like you just getting paid late. I’m not sure how much basis it has in law vs just being a thing you can do if you’re the US government.

In the end it shouldn’t have too much impact on the ukraine situation I think? Obviously there’s quite a lot of unpredictability in US politics, things are too finely balanced and too many people are mental or stupid or both. But while it’s been spun as “no money for ukraine” it feels more like “let’s separate out issues so we can get the govnernment working and then address other things”, and hopefully that alone is going to provide more stability.

This is brilliant!  Ukrainian tankers using a captured T72 were having some mechanical issues. So they called the manufacturer’s tech support line in Russia, who actually tried to help, not realising they were Ukrainian!

A fire at a uniform depot.
Does this mean that lying, cheating, invading Russia’s pants are quite literally on fire now?
https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1708918968692375816?s=20

Some more statistics on day 586 of a three day invasion

Some more statistics on day 586 of a three day invasion

Current joint casualties in the region of 1/2 million.

Reality sinking in for Russia, Crimea is a white elephant that is just a huge suck on their resources.

"Russia has withdrawn the bulk of its Black Sea Fleet from its main base in occupied Crimea, a potent acknowledgment of how Ukrainian missile and drone strikes are challenging Moscow’s hold on the peninsula." https://t.co/Rj8WR4yp2F

— Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) October 4, 2023

Mehdi Hasan once quoted Grayzone. Now he’s on a first-name basis with Tom ***ing Nichols.

https://twitter.com/KvotheTheArcane/status/1710091148058911114

Another act of terrorism from the Russians.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/67018505

I also listened to Radio 4 last night who had on a Swedish(?) security lead for Europe. He was expressing that even if US decide to step back from as much support, Europe had the finances and will to do this – but the politics of it all were difficult…

And Putin says that Ukraine will have a week to live if they run out of ammunition.
It really is just terrorism and ethnic cleansing as an aim now.

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1710017768152616970?s=20

Wot no subtitles?

A new undersea gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia has been damaged, possibly a deliberate action. The adjacent data cable took a hit too but the two lines are some distance apart; the pipeline was damaged in Finnish waters and the cable in Estonian waters

Unclear seismic recordings seem indicative of an explosion

European gas prices are rising on the news https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/finnish-government-hold-news-conference-suspected-pipeline-leak-media-2023-10-10/

seems like Russia launched a failed attack, costing them huge numbers of armour & personnel

https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1712187526985736241?t=OWM0gQpnDQqjDiA-KOmoWQ&s=19

the Russian elections are happening soon.  even though we know who will win I reckon they are looking for a victory of some description for the propaganda 

I came to post about Avdiivka – horrid loss of life from a Russian side now moving into the desperate perhaps?

Also came to say that there’s the first reports of rain and frosts – I assume this is the start of mud and then winter.

A couple of days ago Russia launched a successful attack southwest of Avdiivka, their problems seem to be more to the north

Avdiivka is well-defended and has been on Russia’s to-do list for 9 years, that’s a long time to build Ukrainian defences

The first snow has been seen in the mountains, but don’t forget that the front is 500 miles which is a lot of climatic variation

GeoConfirmed UKR.

Based on our -almost hourly- updated https://t.co/Cazyk7nfsK map.

The Russian offensive in Avdiivka and Makiivka seems to be suffering from heavy vehicle losses. Based on the amount of footage being spread with visible vehicle losses this could become the most… https://t.co/LzHzu48X9a

— GeoConfirmed (@GeoConfirmed) October 12, 2023

That link is interesting, had a bit of a look – looks like ukr lost a jet to a uav strike a couple of days ago,

Ukraine – Geoconfirmed

[deleted]

looks like ukr lost a jet to a uav strike a couple of days ago,

Considering the situation and predictions when all this started I’m still slightly in awe that Ukraine still has any military jets to lose.

Book after book is going to be written telling the story of the Ukr airforce over the last 18 months. Now the F16’s are in the pipeline the worst is hopefully over but their mere survival in 2022 was incredible.

Tha map link from the X-crete above is interesting if not just to show where places mentioned in reports are in relation to whats happening.

https://geoconfirmed.org/ukraine

Takes a moment to load.

hatter
Full Member

Considering the situation and predictions when all this started I’m still slightly in awe that Ukraine still has any military jets to lose.

They lost 5 of those in a week last year and a bunch more in the weeks following so they had to get really smart about using them, really fast. Which mostly just meant “use them in standoff and carefully” I think. Kind of the perfect counterpoint to all the neckbeard A10 fanboys

But they also had a load of them inoperable before the war- according to some estimates, they had 70 in total of which 15 were operable and 55 stored or derelict, they’ve lost 10, and 15 minus 10 turns out to be about 30, because they got some more from Bulgaria and refurbished others. So having loads of ex-soviet planes sat around has probably turned out to be a massive advantage and maybe if they’d had less parked and more flying they’d have ended up just losing more of them in those bad weeks and would have less now.d

Russia has got better with drones

Russian channels recently posted videos of Lancet loitering munition strikes on Ukrainian MiG-29 and Su-25 aircraft at the Kryvyi Rih airfield. One of the Russian sources claims the range is now up to 120km. https://t.co/0QzeFff8f0https://t.co/spCTpoDjnv pic.twitter.com/nsH9DgTXfd

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) October 11, 2023

Ah, ‘Downfall’, the gift that keeps on giving! 🤣
This is well worth a read through, an interesting article about new offensive drones that Ukraine has been developing, called Wild Hornet.
They’re a small machine, FPV, no GPS, with significant range, are cheap and can carry a 2kg explosive device, they can be used for surveillance, repeated bombing attacks or kamikaze strikes if needed.
Wild Hornets: Ukraine’s Tiny Armor-Busting, Trench-Clearing Secret Weapon

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/19227

Russia’s Pavel Derzhavin vessel was struck in the Black Sea near the port of Sevastopol in Crimea, Pletenchuk (Ukrainian Navy spokesperson) told Radio Svoboda, the Russian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Allegedly a sea-mine was responsible, probably made in…

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-black-sea-fleet-ship-damaged-pavel-derzhavin-1834163

Ukraine’s Tiny Armor-Busting, Trench-Clearing Secret Weapon

Not so secret now.

I presume this is the same one that timba linked to

Sevastopol, a Russian Buyan-class corvette was spotted billowing smoke at the mouth of the bay, with casualties reported. pic.twitter.com/CTRczMDRY7

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) October 13, 2023

how many ships are left at sevastopol now?

how many ships are left at sevastopol now?

I was wondering that myself. I assumed that Russia had given up on the place and moved them all out. Glad to see I’m wrong.

I presume this is the same one that timba linked to

It may be the same one. If it is a Buyan-class corvette then it’s a different ship altogether. Buyan is a design name

If it’s Bykov-class then it’s likely to be the same; that name comes from the first one that was launched, Vasily Bykov

The problem is that identification isn’t clear and both “Buyan” and “Bykov” are used in the thread

seems to be far fewer reports of ru using missles, so either pushing the fleet back has slowed them down, or more ominously they are stockpiling them like they did last winter and will look to take out the grid.

Its the subs they need to catch in port.  The surface ships are much more vunerable to counter measures

I think that it’s clear that if Russia had stumped up the rental money for Crimea in 2017 under the Kharkiv Pact and stayed there then everyone would have been better off, but they terminated the agreement unilaterally in 2014

they are stockpiling them like they did last winter and will look to take out the grid.

Sadly, I think that’s probably true

Seems Ukraine, a nation without a navy, has once again struck the Russian Black Sea fleet..

Ukraine attacks 3 Russian Black Sea naval ships in 2 days.

SBU confirms damage to a Russian "Buyan" missile carrier warship this morning in Sevastopol Bay, says it also attacked "Pavel Derzhavin" naval patrol ship two days ago, and attempted to attack "Alrosa" submarine using… pic.twitter.com/9W04JVJhwx

— Dmitri (@wartranslated) October 13, 2023

seems like Russian advance on Avvdiivka is grinding to a halt with huge losses

meanwhile Ukraine struck a Russian airfield last night

Now confirmed, NASA's FIRMS detected a number of fires at Berdyansk airport at around 0300 local time.

The airport, heavily used by Russian rotary wing assets, was burning. https://t.co/T9IJaebU1h pic.twitter.com/BQGv5ObeFs

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) October 17, 2023

Footage reported to be showing non-stop explosions at Berdyansk Airport last night following Ukrainian ATACMS strike. pic.twitter.com/3p97mU7uTb

— Clash Report (@clashreport) October 17, 2023

Crimean airbases suddenly looking very vulnerable.

Whilst the world’s attention has (understandably) been drawn to Gaza Ukraine continues to make slow but dogged progress.

Apparently last month they overtook Russia in terms of volume of artillery fire for the first time since the conflict began, as argued above Russia could be building up reserves ready for a big effort but considering the stockpiles they started the war with even having to temporarily reduce use is a big downgrade to what we’re used to.

Over a year of very effective counter battery fire, targeting of ammo dumps etc may mean that the artillery tide is slowly, starting to turn.

As for the ammo that’s arrived from North Korea, anyone else seen the video of Russians  having to rig up a crude battering ram in order to force clearly not to spec rockets into the back of a grad launcher? I suspect soon this ammo will be taking out almost as many Russian artillery crews as the Ukrainians.

Looks like alot of helicopters in that image.  Actually spaced out though, so not all parked next to each other like earlier in the war.  Thats going to really blunt the russian offensive, several mentions of rotary wing support on the ISW reports.

Additional: Just seen the news about Berdyansk air base.

This is big for 2 reasons.

A: if it really was ATACMS then they’ve been deployed incredibly quickly, the US only agreed to send them on Sept 24th. I guess they’re pretty ‘plug and play’ with the HIMARS / M270 platforms which helps.

B: Russia’s fleet of KA-52 attack choppers has been a major factor in slowing Ukraine’s advance, especially by attacking armored columns, something they excel at.  Russia started the war with 133 of them and at least 43 of them have already lost in action.

If Ukraine just took out another 5-10  with that strike that’s still a massive chunk of Russia’s entire remaining fleet. Berdyansk would also have been the main base where they’d be supporting the Zaporizhia/Tokmak front from.

Russian telegram channels are reporting that this is the most serious single loss of  Russian aviation so far in the war, obviously we don’t have the details yet but this could turn out to be a huge deal.