Seems the latest trend on TikTok is Ukrainian civilians giving instructions on how to operate abandoned or stolen Russian military equipment. I love it. Also, in case the embed isn't working right, here's a direct link to the video.
@nastyatyman Если вам попадётся свободный или брошенный БТР - держите лайфхак как его запускать☝🏻 #настятуман #авто #бтр #автознания ♬ оригинальный звук - Туман Настя
Instantly wins the internet for me.
Another local place I love that I'll take time to tip my hat to, is Gossner Foods up in Logan, Utah. They are a local dairy with a fancy for a European flair in their logo and local outlet store, with the farms located in the famous Cache Valley area.
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| Nice little Alpine-looking storefront. |
The phrase takes on a whole new meaning in Ukraine. Beauty queens are generally the least likely topic I would bring up here, the only one of note I can think of off the top of my head would be Miss Utah Jill Stevens from 2007. She was more than cool because she was not only not your typical contestant, she was an Army vet who served in Afghanistan. It's still the only time I could be bothered to ever watch the Miss America Pageant.
But the wife recently pointed this newer story out to me, so it's funny how I missed it. It appears that a certain Anastasiia Lenna, who had competed to win the title of "Miss Grand Ukraine" has taken to twitter to announce she has kitted up to join the fight on the ground there. Looks like Jill found an unlikely successor to her awesomeness, and I hope Anastasiia manages to live to see the end of the conflict out there.
Another interesting thing to note, is that since arming the citizenry and creating a reserve out of them, Ukraine now has 36,000 women serving in the military, which is now the most women of any current military.
It's been a hot topic in the news for quite some time, between inflation, quarantines, production issues, hoarding, and everything else going on in the world, it has resulted in some interesting shortages. Across the nations there are all sorts of people posting empty or near empty shelves in stores and supermarkets.
One small thing that has been impacted that I find particularly odd, is that is darn near impossible to find a solid grape soda anymore. Soda companies in general have been affected, but it seems most of the companies, big or small can get their primary ones on shelves, except for anything grape flavored. The only thing I can find is Crush and Sunkist grape, which isn't too tasty to me. As for the actually tasty brands, Welch's no longer makes a grape soda, Mountain Dew discontinued it's Pitch Black and it's grape Kick Start, Arizona stopped their grape lime rickey line, and Fanta is supposedly discontinuing their grape flavor as well.
I mean, it's totally a first-world problem, but why is it that all my favorite stuff always ends up going away?
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| A Ukrainian MiG-29 Fulcrum taking off |
I know it's old news by now, but I can't help but post about it. The "Ghost of Kyiv" is a solitary MiG-29 pilot, who on the night of the Russian invasion of Ukraine managed to be come the first ace in day in the last 57 years.
Aided by his ground controllers to identify and intercept his targets, he had come back to base multiple times to rearm and refuel, continuing his mission all day. By the end of the day, he had reportedly downed six Russian aircraft in total. His kills consisted of 2 SU-35 Super Flankers, 1 SU-27 Flanker, 1 MiG 29 Fulcrum, and 2 SU-25 Frogfoots, which earned him the moniker “Ghost of Kiev” by Russian pilots.
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| The Su-25 Frogfoot ground attack aircraft |
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| A Russian Su-27 Flanker fighter. The Su-35 is an advanced variant that looks almost identical. |
Initially this was considered propaganda and spin and this idea was obviously promoted by Russian propaganda. However, earlier the Ukrainian president confirmed the name of the pilot to be Vladimir Andonov and posted a picture to twitter.
As cool as all of this is, the real benefit for us in America is all the memes:
They are tough. Just saw this on SNAFU Solomon's blog:
According to a recording obtained by Ukraine World and shared to Twitter, an unidentified Ukrainian woman reportedly confronted Russian troops, asked why they were there, and suggested they place sunflower seeds in their pockets so that flowers may bloom where they fall on the soil of her country.
I'm pretty picky when it comes to tales of the paranormal, partially because I am very skeptic of not very well documented things, but also because there's a lot of people who love to hoax the stuff. I'm also lumping in UFO stories in this category as well. Anyway, here's a short list of some I find more than a bit interesting. Just don't forget to put on the music before reading!
Operation Washtub, also called STAGE, (not to be confused with the Operation Washtub in Nicaragua) makes for some interesting reading. Declassified (or released) sometime around 2014, it was a detailed, joint program between the USAF and the FBI to train and keep intelligence agents in Alaska to maintain a network of informants, rescue, and saboteur agents in the event of a Soviet invasion and/or occupation of Alaska.
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| Picture from Wikipedia showing the Air Force notes on the chain of command for the operation. |
The program specifically requested agents chosen for the operation needed to be locals, be mobile, not be obvious targets for Russian invaders, and not be military personnel. The released documents specifically mention that fishermen and bush pilots would likely be the best candidates. The agents were then all trained separately to avoid any other agent's identity being compromised in the event one is captured. $3,000 (nearly $29,000 in today's money) of yearly pay was given to all agents, with it promised to double in the event of an actual invasion/activation. In total, at the height of the program, there were 89 agents in the program, with the median age among them being 50.
It's also funny to note that several people covering this info in news outlets or other mediums have accused both the USAF and FBI of racism because Eskimo and Aleut peoples were avoided in agent selections because the document states "their prime concern is with survival and their allegiance would easily shift to any power in control.” Which I think is a broadly accurate assessment, but just funny to see people get bent out of shape about it.
By far the most fascinating part of the mission to me, is that most of the equipment issued wasn't directly given to the agents themselves, but were stored in predetermined caches spread across the Alaskan wilderness. They included a 30-06 rifle with optic (I assume a Springfield), suppressed small caliber pistol (likely a .22), 150 feet of climbing rope with crampons and petons, snow shoes, commercial skis, explosives (likely Comp B), along with $500 in gold or silver. From what I gather, the caches are still out there and according to an official military historian of the OSI, they were converted to "survival caches", but I don't see how that would really change the contents.
Here's a link to the FOIA released documents from the FBI on it (some of it still redacted). They detail far more than what is in the Wikipedia article and list the types of equipment/supplies, both issued and cached, how communications would be conducted, how resupplies would occur, and much more.
In the end, the program was officially cancelled due to budget concerns over maintaining the agents peacetime pay, as well as concerns over maintaining the caches.
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| The FOIA request also contains letters of recommendation for specific agents such as this, but with names redacted. |
