Russia-Ukraine 4.19: Israel has a limited attack on Iran, and Ukraine shoots down a Russian Tu-22 bomber!
Original Xiao Liang Jun Wuleng 2024-04-19 20:15
Morning Mist / Repost
Original Creator: Sue Fei
Dear readers and friends, this is a series of original articles on the war situation between Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan on April 19, 2024.
Dear readers and friends, I feel better today, although I am still tired and drowsy, but the sore throat has been much better, in addition, I don't cough, my lungs should be fine, thank you for your greetings and care! There is a lot of good news in today's article, and this may be an important reason for my mental recovery.
The most important news today is that Israel has attacked Iran again, but on a small scale.
According to Iranian media FAS news agency, in the early morning of April 19 local time, multiple explosions were heard in the city of Gajawostan, northwest of Isfahan, an important nuclear industry town in Iran, and the location of the explosions was said to be close to Isfahan Airport and Iranian air base. In addition, parts of Syria and Iraq have also been hit by air strikes from the direction of Israel. There is also an Iranian military presence there.
According to Lebanese media, there is information that Iranian air defense forces intercepted about 5 targets over Isfahan, and the explosion occurred over Isfahan, "without any explosions" on the ground. But we know that this is not true, and there are images that show that the attack caused a huge explosion on the ground.
Isfahan province has several Iranian nuclear facilities, including the Natanz nuclear facility, which is at the heart of Iran's uranium enrichment program.
Earlier, Haktarabs, a key general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, warned that Iran would retaliate against Israeli nuclear facilities if they strike them.
However, the Iranians have not made any major moves so far after the attack, which should prove that Iran's nuclear facilities were not damaged in this attack.
According to US media reports, the Israeli army launched military strikes against seven targets in Iran.
The Iranian government has not issued an official statement about the attack, but state media said that calm had returned to Isfahan and that it was business as usual. At the moment, no casualties have been reported in the attack. Officials in Israel have not claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Jerusalem Post said that for strategic reasons, Israeli officials would not admit responsibility for the attack. Iran called it a "factory explosion" because they wanted to avoid escalation, the source explained. Israeli sources told the Jerusalem Post that it was unclear why the Pentagon had revealed to the US media that Israel was involved, and that they could have remained silent. This would preserve Iran's dignity and avoid escalation.
A high-ranking military source revealed that the Israeli attack was a "limited" attack.
On the international front, oil prices surged nearly 4% on fears of further escalation.
In terms of the attacks themselves, Israel did not use too many weapons and limited the scope of the attacks to a limited extent. Today is also the birthday of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Ali Khamenei. It is believed that this is all about fighting for a breath and a battle for face. If Iran does not retaliate substantively, the current round of turmoil should gradually calm down.
As far as Israel is concerned, because its advance into Rafah has been blocked, and it is also under pressure from international public opinion, it has taken the initiative to provoke a dispute with Iran, mainly to remind its ally of the importance of Israel, so it will not continue to expand the turmoil for the time being, because it is not in Israel's fundamental interests. As far as Israel is concerned, winning the support of public opinion, winning the understanding and support of its allies, and carrying out the operation to completely eradicate Hamas to the end are the key tasks in the recent period.
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Trump's stance softened: Trump posted yesterday in a change of tone, saying that Ukraine is very important, and that "Ukraine's survival is important to the United States".
On Thursday, Trump wrote about this on his social network "Truth Social". In the article, he wrote: "Why can't Europe reach the same or appropriate level of money that the United States invests in helping a country in dire need?"
In fact, although it is true that Europe does not give as much military aid as the United States, it does not give much more budget aid than the United States. Even if the total amount is calculated, the military aid and economic aid given by European countries is more than that given by the United States. Trump may have said this because he really didn't do the math seriously, after all, he spent so much energy on dealing with the lawsuit that he ignored many news reports, or it is possible that he deliberately said this to highlight the "America suffers" argument that he has been repeating.
But he still wrote a very important sentence in the article, he said: "Everyone agrees that the survival and power of Ukraine should be much more important to Europe than to us, but it is also important to us!"
Considering that Johnson has previously proposed a plan to aid Ukraine and is ready to resort to a vote on Saturday night, as long as Trump does not strongly oppose it and calls on Republican House members to oppose it, it means that he has acquiesced to the facts.
This shows that Trump agrees that aid to Ukraine should continue immediately, whether it is a grant or a loan.
The day before, Polish President Andrzej Duda met with Trump at the Trump Building in New York during a visit to the United States. During the meeting, Duda told Trump that U.S. assistance to Ukraine is extremely necessary.
Duda said in a later interview that Trump asked him to share his views on the situation in Europe and how he assessed the situation in Ukraine.
Duda, for his part, told Trump that Ukraine urgently needs the help of the United States: "Today, it is very important to provide support in any form, because the truth is that no one can help Ukraine as much as the United States."
I think Duda pointed out that because the United States has long spent more than twice as much on military spending as its European allies combined, there is no substitute for the U.S. capacity and potential in military assistance. If the United States continues to jam the "neck" of aiding Ukraine, my judgment is that Ukraine will never be able to win this war.
I think Duda's persuasion changed Trump's mind to a certain extent. Because, Trump can communicate with Duda like this, to a large extent, he is ready to give himself a step to get off the horse. It is also possible that Trump himself recognizes that the stalemate cannot last any longer, and if the United States continues to turn a blind eye to the crisis in Ukraine in the midst of the war, this in turn will affect his election.
In any case, Trump and Johnson now seem to have made up their minds to come to Ukraine's aid.
Trump instructed Johnson to "stuck" the aid bill for 6 months, first saying that foreign aid must first be secured, and then directly adopting delaying tactics, but in the end it was still unrealistic. In fact, the United States cannot give up its huge overseas interests and cannot abandon its security commitments to its European allies, so it still has to go back to assisting Ukraine.
Countless yellow geese on the Chinese Internet have repeatedly claimed that Ukraine is an outcast, saying that the "United States and the West" will throw Ukraine down when they see that the situation is not good, but now the reality is obvious: the real outcast is only Russia. As long as Ukraine has the slightest hope of defeating Russia, and as long as there is one person in Ukraine who wants to resist to the end, Ukraine's allies in Europe and the Americas will not abandon Ukraine. Victory must belong to Ukraine!
Ukrainian Prime Minister Shmyhal also announced good news. He said he has been in close communication with allies, including the United States. He said that American partners assured Ukraine that they would immediately transfer military assistance, including much-needed anti-aircraft weapons, to the mainland within weeks of the signing of the relevant law.
Therefore, the air defense weapons, including the "Patriot" system, which Ukraine urgently needs, should be able to be satisfied, or partially satisfied, within a few weeks.
The future of Ukraine is bright because the aid to Ukraine bill is about to be passed!
Shmyhal also said that he heard assurances from the leaders of both parties in the US Congress that they were determined to vote on a package that included support for Ukraine.
At present, the House committee has approved bills on aid to several countries and regions, including Ukraine, which allows the House of Representatives to start a debate on the three bills, culminating in a vote on the evening of April 20.
Members of the House of Representatives have proposed as many as 137 amendments to the aid to Ukraine bill. Only two of them are from Democrat Jared Mosowitz, and the remaining 135 are from Republicans.
Of course, this is not enough to mess up the big picture. But let's see what the Republican extremists are.
Among these 135 items, the vast majority came from Marjorie Taylor Green, a lawmaker who is extremely hostile to Ukraine. In particular, she recommended asking any country receiving U.S. financial assistance to provide funding to the United States for the construction of a wall on the border with Mexico, a ban on funding NATO forces in Ukraine, an order for the president to withdraw the United States from NATO, a ban on funding for Ukraine until the country lifts "restrictions on the right of minorities, including Hungarians, to use their mother tongue in schools," among others.
I can only shake my head at these extremists.
Interestingly, Green also said that he asked all members of the House of Representatives who agreed to aid Ukraine to go to Ukraine to carry guns to fight. Seeing this, I couldn't help but laugh, could it be that all the parliamentarians who oppose aid to Ukraine have helped Russia carry guns and expand its territory?
Briefing on the overall situation of the war between Russia and Ukraine:
1. Overall battle situation: On the 786th day of the war, according to the report on the results released by the Ukrainian General Staff this morning local time, in the past day, a total of 86 battles took place on the entire front, and the Wehrmacht repelled the enemy's offensive in the Bakhmut direction.
2. Russian army losses: As of yesterday, the Russian army has accumulated 457,830 casualties, and 870 new losses were added yesterday.
There are no pictures today.
The Ukrainian army also destroyed a total of 7,205 Russian tanks, with 9 new ones, 13,852 armored vehicles, 17 new ones, and 11,658 artillery pieces, with 21 new ones.
3. According to the Ukrainian and Polish authorities, a Polish citizen suspected of collaborating with Russian military intelligence was arrested on suspicion of attempting to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
4. News on air raids:
There is also very good news today: a Russian Tu-22 bomber crashed: Ukrainian Air Force Commander Oreschuk posted on his social media on April 19 local time that the Ukrainian Air Force anti-aircraft missile forces cooperated with the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine for the first time to destroy a Russian Tu-22M3 bomber. In addition, in the early morning of the same day, the Russian army launched 22 missiles of various types and 14 attack drones into Ukraine, and the Ukrainian air defense forces destroyed 14 attack drones and 15 missiles.
As Oreshchuk said, this morning Ukraine was once again hit by large-scale Russian airstrikes.
In Dnipro, an enemy missile hit a five-story building - at least six people were injured. At another site, two children, aged 8 and 14, were killed by a Russian missile strike.
As of 10:30 a.m., the death toll from the Russian army in the Dnipropetrovsk region has increased to nine, including one wounded child who died in hospital.
The Tu-22 bombers, as Oreschuk speaks, took part in the air strike. It crashed 300 kilometers from the Ukrainian border on its way back after launching a missile.
According to the Ukrainian Intelligence Service, the Ukrainian army shot down the Russian Tu-200M3 using an S-200 anti-aircraft missile modified with NATO technology.
The S-200 anti-aircraft missile is large and thick, it is a medium-altitude ultra-long-range surface-to-air missile system developed by the former Soviet Union, the main target is a high-altitude strategic bomber, the maximum flight speed is Mach 8, the maximum range is 400 kilometers, and the maximum launch altitude is 40 kilometers.
It is said that the A50 AWACS aircraft of the Russian army was also shot down by this missile.
Whether the Ukrainian army really shot down this Tu-200 with S-22 missiles is now impossible to judge. If Ukraine really has this capability, and there are enough S-200 missiles, then there is no need to worry about the Su-34 that drops gliding bombs on the front line.
This video of the crash of the Tu-22 must be watched by everyone, after all, we don't see the crash of a strategic bomber every day:
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It can be seen that the tail of the engine compartment of this huge bomber caught fire, and it rotated horizontally. This situation means that the plane has lost all power and will not fly forward and fall vertically.
Technically, this state is called tailspin. In most tailspin cases, the aircraft rotates along a spiral track of a small radius and descends sharply on the other, making it dangerous. Every pilot has been trained to fly an aircraft to change its tailspin state, but in actual combat, due to the different aerodynamics of various aircraft, the different specific circumstances of each failure, and the different psychological quality and technical level of the pilots, many planes that have entered the tailspin state cannot be changed out, and thus crashes.
We should remember that not long ago, at the end of March, a Russian Su-27 fighter was shot down by the Russian "Pantsir" air defense system in the port of Sevastopol, and the Su-27 also entered a similar tailspin state before it crashed.
The situation of the aircraft on the picture today is even more serious, because it completely rotates around the center of its gravity, the tail spin radius is zero, and the nose of the plane does not tilt downward. Once this happens, it will be difficult to change the tailspin even if the aircraft recovers power.
Russian media called the plane a "mechanical problem". Russian media added that both pilots ejected and escaped and are currently in good condition. The crash occurred after bombers fired Kh-22 missiles at Odessa.
But let me say that this is what I have hinted at in my previous article. As I said earlier, the Tu-22 is not in a good state of maintenance due to its age of production (the earliest Tu-22s were all decommissioned, and most of the batches currently in service were produced after 1995), and because many parts of the Tu-22 have been discontinued. In more than two years of war, the Russian army has used these bombers at a high intensity, which has long overconsumed them, so it is not surprising that such a major accident occurred. On the contrary, if it does not appear, it is called abnormal.
It can be expected that the Russian army will next ground the Tu-22 fleet for inspection and maintenance. In the coming period, the pressure of air strikes on Ukraine will be slightly reduced.
This is good news for Ukraine.
But the good news is not over. There is also a potentially even greater piece of good news, that is, during today's air strike, the Ukrainian army intercepted two Kh-22 cruise missiles!
The Kh-22 cruise missile was originally designed to attack the American aircraft carrier battle group. To achieve this, it was designed as a truly heavy anti-ship missile, capable of carrying a warhead weighing up to a ton, capable of flying at speeds of Mach 2.5 to 3 and capable of flying to an altitude of 1.5 to 20,000 meters. As a result, it is very difficult to intercept and, if it hits its target, it can cause extremely heavy casualties.
The Kh-22 can be called a "heavy weapon" even for the "Second Army of the World", its manufacturing and maintenance costs are very high, and the conditions of use are harsh, so its unit price is very high. It is estimated that the price of each Kh-22 missile is equivalent to the price of one Su-27 fighter. Such a cost is also a large expense for Russia.
I clearly remember that a Kh-22 missile hit an apartment building in the Dnipropetrovsk region last year, and I don't have time to verify the exact number of casualties, which should have killed dozens of people and injured more than a hundred, and all civilians.
Because the Kh-22 is heavy, fast and high-flying, the Ukrainian army has been helpless against it, at least last year, the then Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Ignat said that the Ukrainian army does not have the ability to intercept such cruise missiles.
And today, the commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, Lieutenant General Oreshchuk, said that this is the first time that such a missile has been intercepted.
For the time being, it is not known how the Ukrainian army intercepted this powerful missile, and if this tactic can be repeated, it should be very good news for Ukraine! In a sense, this is much more important than the loss of a Tu-22 bomber by the Russian army!
In terms of air defense, there is also a lot of good news.
Helmut Rauch, CEO of the German company Deere Defense, said that another IRIS-T SLM air defense system will arrive in Ukraine in the coming weeks.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said yesterday: NATO partners can supply Ukraine with six Patriot systems.
For his part, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba revealed that the Netherlands is not the only country that is now ready to buy Patriot systems from any country in the world.
Judging by these signs, Ukraine will soon receive a batch of powerful air defense systems again to enrich their air defense network.
In the month or two before, since the fall of Avdiivka, I think all of us have gone through a phase of worrying about Ukraine. We have seen that due to the lack of artillery shells on the ground, the Ukrainian army has fought and retreated, while the Russian army has launched continuous air strikes in the air, blowing up many power stations in Ukraine and injuring many civilians.
But now the haze can be swept away: with the passage of the US aid bill in a day or two, Ukraine will receive strong aid support, which I believe will help the Ukrainian army gain a foothold, annihilate more Russian troops, intercept more missiles, and allow the Ukrainian army to continue to achieve offensive success!
Russia and his lackeys will never laugh again!
And Ukraine will fight more and more until the final victory is obtained!
Information source: 2024-04-19 WeChat official account Wuleng
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