Extreme Commanders

Elvira Barry has a number of highly informative videos about Putin, Russian culture, society, etc. Definitely worth checking out.

Huge Ukrainian drone strike on Russia causes Putin to SHUT all four major Moscow airports

A HUGE Ukrainian drone strike has forced Russia to shut all four of its major airports in a dramatic show of force against Moscow.

In the second consecutive night of aerial assaults on the capital, Russia’s aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia confirmed the airports were closed “to ensure safety” and only reopened hours later.

Ukrainian strikes overnight reached within just six miles of the Kremlin and Red Square, ahead of the vast 80th anniversary commemoration of the defeat of Hitler.

All four major Moscow airports - Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky - were closed as the drones targeted the capital, with multiple diversions of incoming aircraft.

At least nine other airports were also disrupted.

Russian tourists complained about being trapped in a Nesma Airlines plane from Egyptian resort Hurghada to Moscow for ten hours after it was diverted to St Petersburg due to the drone strikes amid air chaos.

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Ukraine relies on secret weapon in its drone attacks on Russia: gamers

They’re playing the long game.

Xbox has given the Ukrainian military a deadly advantage in its war against Russia, officials said — with ordinary geeks proving to be deft drone pilots on the frontlines.

Foreigners with “a lot of gaming experience” have become a secret weapon for Ukraine in the battle that’s become increasingly reliant on drones, said Oleg Grabovyy, a New Yorker and course coordinator for enlistees at Ukraine’s 25th Airborne Brigade.

“The dexterity you get with an Xbox controller is directly transferable to flying drones,” Grabovyy, of Syracuse, told The Independent. “The best FPV pilot I ever met was a relentless gamer.”

The enlistees come from America, Britain, Canada, Australia and France, many of whom flooded the 25th Airborne Brigade since the war began in 2022 and in recent months after Western support for Ukraine slowed down.

The unit quickly saw the influx of young, video game-savvy volunteers as an opportunity to open a three-week selection course aimed at transforming the enlistees into the ace drone pilots plaguing Russia’s invasion force.

One American who identified himself as Sam, a 20-year-old from Charleston, Georgia, said he was eager to prove his skills after competing in drone-racing tournaments across the US.

“Competing, you fly through 5-foot gates at 100mph, making tight turns. It’s all about precision and reflexes. I’m planning to use everything I’ve learned to help Ukraine,” he told The Independent.

“My mom and dad aren’t thrilled, but they understand. I’ve decided to stay until victory or death — whichever comes first,” he added.

Grabovyy described Sam as the latest batch of young Americans who came in recent months following the tumultuous period where President Trump appeared to be pulling support from Kyiv.

“You’d be surprised how many are coming – hundreds and hundreds from all over the world. We’re getting a lot of young Americans, 18, 19, 20 years old,” Grabovvy said. “They think their government has abandoned Ukraine.”

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Russia’s motorbike squads may be suicidal but they are hurting Ukraine

The roar of engines rumble across no man’s land before a pack of Russian soldiers mounted on motorbikes emerge from a cloud of dust on the horizon.

Ukrainian drones spring into action and the race is on. Without any cover, the riders have just minutes to zigzag across mines and craters to reach an enemy trench-line before they are picked off.

The odds are not in their favour.

Since they were trialled over a year ago, most motorbike attacks have ended in failure, with the majority of riders killed before they can reach their target.

Yet, those that are successful solve a key tactical challenge in Ukraine: how to cross an open battlefield under constant surveillance from above – and fast.

Russia’s military is said to be planning to systematically integrate motorbikes across the front ahead of new offensives.

Plenty of lives will be lost, but Russia’s precious armoured vehicles will be saved – an apparent victory in the eyes of a military that has a steady stream of manpower, but is forced to draw on a rusting stockpile of Soviet-era tanks that have proven unsuitable for the battlefields of Ukraine.

The first reports of motorbikes squads started to appear in April 2024. It began as an informal, ad hoc response to persistent drone strikes, which now kill or maim up to 70 per cent of all soldiers and destroy more armoured vehicles than all other weapons systems combined.

Since autumn last year, there has been a considerable increase in bike-led attacks in Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region and Donetsk to the east, where Russia largely abandoned armoured vehicle usage after suffering unsustainable losses in the winter of 2023 to 2024.

The attacks are fast-paced, but deeply flawed. For months on end, drone footage has shown the remnants of such failures, which have turned the edges of fields and Ukrainian trench lines into a junk yard of twisted metal and burnt tyres.

It is not just bikes, but all kinds of unconventional unarmoured vehicles turning up at the front, including quad bikes, civilian cars, Chinese-made buggies and electric scooters.

On April 17, a huge assault on the eastern Ukrainian fortress city of Pokrovsk left 100 motorbikes, 240 Russian troops and 20 armoured vehicles destroyed, according to Ukrainian reports.

In early May, another Russian assault aimed at the village of Vil’ne Pole in southern Donetsk ended similarly. Up to 70 motorbikes, 90 troops and 60 vehicles were reportedly destroyed by a mixture of mines, drones and artillery.

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Poland intervenes after Russian 'shadow fleet' ship detected near Baltic Sea cable

The Polish military intervened in the Baltic Sea after a Russian ship carried out "suspicious manoeuvres" near a power cable connecting Poland and Sweden, Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Wednesday.

"A Russian ship from the 'shadow fleet' covered by sanctions performed suspicious maneuvers near the power cable connecting Poland with Sweden," Tusk wrote on X.

"After the effective intervention of our military, the ship sailed to one of the Russian ports."

The term "shadow fleet" is used to describe ships Russia operates under concealed means to evade sanctions.

Western countries say that Moscow is using hundreds of tankers under opaque ownership to ferry Russian oil around the world despite Western sanctions against them.

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