[WonderMomma]

NO MEDIA:
"During Zelensky's phone conversation with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African president said he wants to come to Ukraine as part of a mission from several African countries with a "peace initiative" - presidential spokesman Nikiforov."

VIDEO
"At the Council of Europe summit in Reykjavik, a declaration was signed on the establishment of a Register of Damage Caused to Ukraine by Russian Aggression. The agreement was signed by 43 states. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Hungary, Serbia, and Turkey refused to sign.

This register will become part of a compensation mechanism that will help to recover compensation from Russia for the war against Ukraine in accordance with international law, including through Russian assets."

[WonderMomma]

"Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó says Budapest will block EU military aid to Ukraine until Kyiv removes Hungary's OTP Bank from the list of international war sponsors"



"Patriot air defense system sustained minimal damage after the May 16 shelling, CNN reports, citing three U.S. officials.

The system is in working order, and the Patriot radar component, one of its most important elements, was not damaged. US officials do not believe that the Patriot will need to be removed from the battlefield for repairs."



"China's special representative Li Hui visited Ukraine. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reported that his visit began on May 16. He met with Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. They discussed cooperation between the countries and ways to stop Russian aggression.

-Kuleba emphasized to Hui that Ukraine does not accept any proposals that would involve the loss of territories or freezing the conflict.

-Hui emphasized the importance of China's participation in the implementation of the peace formula voiced by Volodymyr Zelensky and in ensuring nuclear safety."

[WonderMomma]

"Yes Yes Yes.

The Telegraph writes that the drones promised yesterday by Great Britain with a range of more than 200 kilometers, which is more than two and a half times the range of the HIMARS MLRS and these kamikaze drones, can be compared to artillery ammunition in terms of power.
One of the main advantages is that they have a fairly low cost and hundreds of them are made.
They will appear in Ukraine in the coming months."

[Roosta]

[WonderMomma]

"The map of Pidor became very blue during the hostilities from May 11 to 17 in the Bakhmutsky direction."

[WonderMomma]

"The Swedish Expressen writes that one of the Ukrainian brigades underwent full military training in Sweden, including training on:

Strv 122 tanks (a licensed version of the German Leopard 2A5 tank);
BMP CV-90;
ACS "Archer".

But she has already returned to Ukraine."

[WonderMomma]

Oopsi.

"Today (17 May) the Russian Caliber also attacked Crimea. According to rosZMI, a missile of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation fell on the temporarily captured peninsula."

[marekparek]

Originally Posted by WonderMomma ↗

""
VIDEO:
Meanwhile on another planet...
"Meanwhile, Ramzan Kadyrov is driving around in a tank.

More "patriotic TikTok videos" to be uploaded soon?"

I heard opinion that Ramzan Kadyrov is the biggest midget of the world. What do you think about it?

[kellyhound]

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- The 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron completed the first round of MQ-9A Reaper ground and flight testing with the Angry Kitten ALQ-167 Electronic Countermeasures (ECM) Pod at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada Apr. 10-28, 2023.

The pod provides the MQ-9 elevated Electronic Attack (EA) capability against relevant ground and airborne threats.

This capability enhances survivability for the Reaper and other friendly forces, and complicates adversary planning efforts. The test focused on proving the concept of conducting EA from the MQ-9 to provide operational planners new force application options when confronting Pacing Challenge threats.

“The goal is to expand the mission sets the MQ-9 can accomplish,” said Maj. Aaron Aguilar, 556th TES assistant director of operations. “The proliferation and persistence of MQ-9s in theater allows us to fill traditional platform capability gaps that may be present. Our goal is to augment assets that already fill this role so they can focus and prioritize efforts in areas they are best suited for.”

The Angry Kitten Pod represents the beginning of what the 556th TES hopes to achieve with the MQ-9 in the EA sphere. Through participation in future Large Force Exercises (LFEs) such as Red Flag 23-3 and integrating with the U.S. Air Force Weapons School, the squadron aims to further develop Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) against complex target sets.

“Electronic Attack on the MQ-9 is a compelling capability,” said Lt. Col. Michael Chmielewski, 556th TES commander. “15 hours of persistent noise integrated with a large force package will affect an adversary, require them to take some form of scalable action to honor it, and gets at the heart of strategic deterrence.”

Earlier in April, the 556th TES also executed a Cold Integrated Combat Turn on an MQ-9 aircraft, which included simultaneous refueling and rearming of four hellfires.

Overall, the event took less than 25 minutes, a record that crushes the standard three-hour typical turn time for the MQ-9 and only added 4 minutes to the previously demonstrated rapid refuel procedures that did not include weapon reloading.

“The Cold Integrated Combat Turn furthers our validation efforts on the MQ-9 agile combat employment model and further maximizes the MQ-9’s relevancy across the continuum of strategic competition and the phases of combat operations in all theaters that require agile operations,” said Chmielewski.

Following the successes in April, the 556th TES is slated to work on multiple tests during Northern Edge 2023, a joint field training exercise at various locations in and around Alaska, beginning May 4, 2023.

[WonderMomma]

Originally Posted by marekparek ↗

I heard opinion that Ramzan Kadyrov is the biggest midget of the world. What do you think about it?

What do you mean by midget? Physically? I'm not sure. Mentally dwarfed? Definitely.

Power, money, and impunity will sometimes do that to a person.