Jimmy_D

Very sad news How he dealt with losing all four engines of the plane he was flying will always be legendary. RIP

Incredibly strong position taken by Macron today, making it clear that sending in troops is an option that’s on the table and not considered a red line for France.

An Il76 crashed earlier near Moscow, apparently due to a bird strike. Unconfirmed Russian reports it was carrying a crew to one of the A50s they still have.

Significant Ukrainian counterattacks today. Widespread drone strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, and there are reports that (likely Ukraine backed) Russian separatists have occupied/liberated large parts of Bilhorod and Kursk in Russia.

Another A50 apparently destroyed by Ukraine, on the ground this time by long range drone strikes.

Automatics now just about technically back in our own hands, albeit it needs wins away against Ipswich, Leeds and Leicester, as well as a hefty (but not impossible) swing in goal difference with Leeds to take it out of their hands. EDIT: As NewYorkSaint had already pointed out above.

Great set of results today!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68506223 Excellent news for NATO, that’s an extremely capable military that’s just joined the alliance.

Should find out tomorrow whether it’s going ahead. Have to think they’ll make it as early in the day as possible for the sake of the Sunderland fans travelling down the day before.

Not that one!

Would depend on whether there’s toxic residue on everything in the stadium from having smoke going across it for hours.

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/24170078.southampton-confirm-no-fire-damage-st-marys-stadium/?ref=rss No fire damage to St Mary’s confirmed, still checking for smoke damage, and Saturday’s game still not confirmed to be going ahead.

Probably not worth it, just got a bad feeling that we’re just not going to turn up tonight…

The Sergei Kotov is one that Ukraine have been after for a while, it’s been able to survive a couple of previous attacks. Apparently it’s been used as part of what Russia have assigned to try and protect Kerch Bridge.

Russia's A-50 fleet reportedly grounded due to needing time to figure out how to prevent them being shot down. (Probably they're still trying to figure out how they were shot down.) With the loss of AEW&C capability and at least 14 aircraft reported downed in the last two weeks, seems there have been long stretches of a few hours with no Russian aircraft seen in Eastern Ukraine at all.

Football. Bloody hell.

This was a free hit and we gave it a bloody good swing. A bit of the luck they had with their first goal or some finishing like our offside goal and we’d have been right in the game. Just didn’t pan out for us when it could have.

We go in 1-0 down but it’s certainly not down to the team or tactics selected. Excellent performance not rewarded so far.

Massively unlucky there.

That’s a bloody excellent save, even better than it looked. Especially considering it’s the first shot on target he’s had to face.

Blimey. Hell of a start we’ve made here.

Very sad news RIP

Looks like it’s anti-air having that range then, or at least that’s what Ukraine are claiming. Seems they used AA missiles from an S200 system, that have longer range than the missiles from the Patriot system, and integrated them with a Patriot system for launch, targeting and control to bring it down from 700km away. That’s an extremely significant capability.

Probably not a bad shout. While I’ve no doubt they could figure a way to retrofit meteors to Soviet jets, might explain why Ukraine were so keen to get hold of Gripen jets. It’s possible they’ve quietly got hold of some. Something has been causing a lot of losses for Russian aviation recently.

Indeed. Appears this may have been an A-50U too, one of the A-50s that’s been upgraded. All of the apparent explanations seem unlikely, especially with it going down in the same area. Anti-air having that range, Ukraine having F16s operational already, Russian anti-air being that incompetent, Russian anti-air being compromised somehow by Ukraine or Russian rebels? Assuming Ukraine actually have a repeatable ability to take them down… if another one goes down things start to become extremely tricky for Russia, especially once F16s start appearing for Ukraine. Between Russia’s ability to maintain them, losing two full crews, as well as three A-50s being destroyed now, including the one that was destroyed on the ground, their AEW capability is likely already severely compromised.