WSJ: The Russian Military Moves That Have Europe on Edge

In 2021, before the invasion, Russia made about 40 of its main battle tanks, the T-90M, according to Western intelligence estimates. Now it is producing nearly 300 a year. A senior Finnish military official said almost none are being sent to the front line in Ukraine, but are staying on Russian soil for later use.

Russia is tailoring its rearmament plans to meet the needs of the new troops to be stationed along its NATO border. Those units will get much of the new equipment. Most of what is being sent to the front line in Ukraine is old and refurbished Soviet-era arms.

The U.S. estimates that around 30,000 Russians are signing up each month, up from about 25,000 last summer. Some Eastern European intelligence officials say the ranks are now swelling by some 40,000 soldiers a month.

The article is written to push the narrative that Russia is inexplicably preparing to invade NATO, just because they can. Of course, Russia does need to remain prepared for war with NATO in the event of some serious provocation (say, something involving Kaliningrad).

That said, I think this information also fits my theory that Russia is basically preparing an entire separate, fresh, and modernized army to swiftly end the war in Ukraine, once the age of attrition is over.

I do wonder if we’ll see many more vehicles at the Victory Day parade this year.

Power is back on in some parts of Portugal. I’m getting word that apparently amidst mass suspicious of a russian attack provoked by an image of a fake news CNN Portugal article shared around whats app people were filling up supermarkets to buy non-perishables, water and toilet paper, same thing happened when covid started because of a whats app message saying covid caused extreme diarrhea.

Around me everything was pretty chill, a lot of work was canceled and it seems most people took it as a chance to touch grass and socialize, I walked around and a lot of cafes were well attended. Overall the blackout lasted 8 hours.

As for me I busted out my pirated nintendo 2ds to play kid icarus and I watched Jackie Brown. Since work was canceled today and Friday is worker day this will be a 3 day work week.

C919 is going to take a few more years before European approval https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3308546/chinas-c919-stuck-tarmac-europe-certification-timeline-extended

U.S. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth: ‘Message to IRAN: We see your LETHAL support to the Houthis. We know exactly what you are doing. You know very well what the U.S. military is capable of — and you were warned. You will pay the CONSEQUENCE at the time and place of our choosing.’

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Wholesome content: Vietnamese kids reenact the liberation of Saigon
https://xcancel.com/CarlZha/status/1917558597615247819

Big news from Iran, with the suspension of negotiations between the USA and Iran. Iran has unveiled a new Anti Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM) called the Qassem Basir. This is the ASBM version of the land attack Haj Qassem ballistic missile, with a range of 1400km for the land attack version, Iran claims a range of either 1200km or 1300km for the anti ship version (conflicting information currently). Yes, these missiles are named after Qassem Soleimani. This is big news as the current longest range dedicated ASBM in the Iranian arsenal (and potentially Yemeni arsenal) is the Zulfiqar Basir, with a range of 700km, so we’re looking at nearly double the range.

Qassem Basir ASBM variant:

View of the target in the bottom half of the image from the missile’s electro-optical seeker:

Haj Qassem land attack original variant:

Now, the Zulfiqar, Dezful, and Qassem missiles are all part of the same family of ballistic missiles (which I will call the Zulfiqar family), in that they all use a Maneuverable Re-entry Vehicle (MaRV) of similar design, with Dezful and Qassem being ways to extend the range of the Zulfiqar MaRV, from 700km, to 1000km with Dezful, to 1400km with Qassem. With an ASBM version of Zulfiqar already in existence, it makes sense to use the Qassem as a longer range ASBM platform.

How this missile works and acquires it’s target is similar to how other Iranian shorter range ASBMs work, and an extension of the Pershing-II concept (first ever MaRV equipped land attack ballistic missile). The missile is targeted at an appropriate re-entry point, near the actual or predicted location of a ship. During re-entry, the MaRV performs a “pull up” maneuver, then a “glide phase”. During this glide, the electro optical seeker, likely an infrared camera, acquires it’s target using image matching techniques (Iran calls this AI now, yes the AI mind virus is everywhere), and them plans a trajectory towards it, before performing a final dive to the target, ideally with an impact velocity above Mach 2.

The big breakthrough here is getting the seeker to survive the higher speed and higher altitude re-entry associated with longer range. The Zulfiqar Basir had a burnout and initial terminal velocity of over Mach 7, and the Raad-500/Tankeel of Mach 8. So that was the previous limit. The land attack Haj Qassem had a peak velocity of Mach 12. With the range being reduced slightly for the anti ship version, likely to reduce velocity to ensure survival of the electro optical seeker, peak velocity is likely not as high. But I’d guess a safe estimate is that the seeker can now survive Mach 10+ speeds, a noticeable improvement.

Iran has unveiled this very covertly, under the guise of a “new missile to target Israel and evade THAAD”, but the Basir designation (means to see or perceive in this context, used for Iranian ballistic missiles with electro-optical seekers,), and presence of an electro-optical (likely infrared) seeker on the MaRV, tells a different story. This is an ASBM that works in the same ways as other Iranian ASBMs. Yes it can be used to strike land targets in Israel with higher accuracy in GNSS jammed environments (like shorter range Iranian missiles have done in the past versus US military bases, but now at long range versus Israel, solving the accuracy problem for long range Iranian ballistic missile attacks), but that’s a dual use capability that could make a hypothetical “Operation True Promise III” counterforce attack more viable in future. The real question for now is, if Ansarallah/the Houthis in Yemen will get their hands on it.

This is a card that Iran has had up it’s sleeve and is now being played, the question is, how will they play it. Exclusively for themselves, or will Yemen get it to strike US Navy warships. Without further modifications to increase range involving lighter payloads and suboptimal minimum energy trajectories, it’s not viable to hit targets in Israel from Yemen (2000km range is needed for that), and I can’t see the electro optical sensor surviving re-entry under those conditions.

4 minute long video is included in the article:

Iran unveils its latest ballistic missile ‘Qassem Basir’, May 4 2025

H.R. 867—a bill that would punish Americans for supporting boycotts of Israel—has been removed from this week’s US House of Representatives schedule.

https://xcancel.com/DropSiteNews/status/1919195123360948346

related to this https://hexbear.net/post/4804836

Middle East Spectator (Telegram):

Israel is currently bombing dozens of targets across Syria in key HTS gang strongholds such as Idlib, Hama, Homs, and Damascus. This is likely to take advantage of the current tension between Jolani’s forces and Druze communities in Southern Syria, some of whom have appealed to Israel for military support to remain autonomous of Damascus.

Reports of Turkish jets being scrambled to confront the Israelis, exchanging verbal threats in aerial standoffs. Meanwhile Russian jets have scrambled from their air base in Lataika.

A Turkish TB-2 drone was scrambled to monitor syrian airspace.

The Houthis appear to have struck Israel’s Ben Gurion airport with a missile.

The missile launched from Yemen by the Houthi armed group has struck about 550 metres (1,804ft) from the main control tower of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport and about 650 metres (2,132ft) from the nearest aircraft parking area, according to Al Jazeera’s fact-checking unit, Sanad.

Rules Based International Order

It’s looking like US GDP decline in Q1 was in part due to tariff frontrunning (since imports reduce GDP Growth, exports increase it).

It’ll be worse when consumption and investments starts declining. Combine that with low government spending, it’s not good.

Well shit. That’s why we haven’t heard from Medhurst in a while. They nabbed him (a second time) in Austria, and have stolen all his equipment and data and kept legal cases open against him in both countries to silence his journalism.

• The Chris Hedges Report: The West Serves as Israel’s Police (w/ Richard Medhurst)

Al-Quds Brigades announce two operations against Israeli occupation forces

In a statement, the Brigades reported that their fighters, upon returning from the frontlines, confirmed the detonation of an MK84 bomb—originally left behind by the Zionist enemy—which had been pre-planted to target an enemy military convoy in the same area last Saturday.

The group also claimed responsibility for the precise bombing of an Israeli military D9 bulldozer as it advanced east of Al-Tuffah, emphasizing the operation’s high accuracy.

MK84 is a 2,000lb bomb. Congratulations to Palestine on their new space program

Estonia increased its military spending to 5.4% of GDP from 3.4% (an increase of €750M).

This is enough money to provide a significant amount of funding to Rail Baltica, further improve public transport, or even build a nuclear power plant that can make Estonia self-suffifient in complementary renewables/nuclear energy (or even make Estonia an energy exporter).

But you know,

sounds of the Riigikogu collectively chowing down beet and onion slop and polishing horse cocks

The U.S. says that Iran continues to assist the Houthis with ‘crucial intelligence’ needed to bomb Israel and attack American aircraft carriers in the region, with satellite imagery showing Iranian military-affiliated ships, likely acting as IRGC Navy forward bases, anchored off the coast of Yemen in the Red Sea. The Americans have previously threatened to sink these Iranian vessels if they continue to provide Ansarallah with intelligence that disrupts ‘international shipping’ and assists in the guidance of missiles headed for Israel or U.S. vessels.

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