Russia

**Kirkland Laing** · 05-21-2023 08:26 PM

Russia Fields Increasingly Desperate War Machines Cobbled From Spare Parts

The Russian army is innovating its tanks by turning them into artillery placements and outfitting them with anti-aircraft and naval guns.

Russia is fielding tanks outfitted with anti-aircraft guns first deployed during the Cold War. Pictures of an S-60 anti-aircraft gun fitted onto a BTS-4, which is based on the World War II era T-55, circulated on Twitter and Telegram this week. Over the past few months, ancient tanks fitted with naval guns, artillery cannons, and other parts that don’t normally go together have also been spotted on the battlefield. Moscow’s military is stretched thin ahead of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, short of armor and low on ammunition, it’s innovating by cobbling together what it has.

Open source intelligence outfit Oryx monitors Russia’s war in Ukraine and keeps a list of vehicles it spotted, but have not yet been destroyed. The list is getting weirder. There’s a Russian ATS-59G artillery tractor equipped with a 25mm naval gun, MT-LB armored personnel carriers from the 1970s outfitted with various kinds of naval guns, and BTS-4 tank chassis equipped with both artillery cannons and anti-aircraft guns. Some were spotted in the field, others were spotted on transport on their way to the frontline.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/4a3x...om-spare-parts

Look at it. Just look at it. Even the Soviets wouldn't have come up with something so shameful.

Also:

https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/statu...13749293035526

X · 05-23-2023 07:18 PM

I’m sure Russian soldiers are as brave and patriotic as anybody else.

It’s also hard to know what the truth really is as everyone concerned is just lying out of their back teeth. Some of the Russian news briefing have been laughable, the Ukrainians are not the innocents they are being portrayed as.

What does seem to be true is that Russia is a gangster state, run by criminals and cronies who have bled the country dry to line their own coffers. How could so many people become quite so wealthy quite so quickly, when their economy is a ruined basket case, the general standard of living has not improved as fast an anyone else’s and there is certainly no free press or freedom of speech……

There was such optimism for the country a few decades ago and they have gone backwards really.