Atheist Forum

Seems a Russian transport plane crashed into a cliff, killing a chief war commander, Lt General Alexander Otroshchenko. Ukrainians think it may have been friendly fire.

Yeah, Denys mentioned it. Apparently, the runway was very poorly laid out, with the oceanside cliffs very close to the runway. So the slightest mistake or technical problem...and the outcome is understandable, as Denys is fond of saying. It's possible it was AA, but I haven't seen anything to confirm that yet.

Also in Crimea, a Russian Su-30 jet crashed during a training exercise. The crew ejected and survived.

Ukraine destroys Russian TOS-1 thermobaric artillery

Ukraine destroys Russian satellite communications station

Since the loss of Starlink, Russian forces have had to rely on their own technology for military communications. Their typical satellite stations are bulky and fairly easy to spot. This version is more portable and more easily concealed, so hitting it is no small feat.

Ukraine strikes Russian oil refinery near Nizhny Novgorod. Ukraine also hit a pipeline section at Primorsk.

Ukraine's allies have been warning against hitting Russian oil infrastructure due to high gas prices, but Ukraine must hit that precisely because of high gas prices - selling large amount of oil at high prices would allow Russia to repair its hobbled economy and surge its war production. Ukraine must prioritize its own defense first or there won't be any Ukraine left to pressure. Additionally, it would be wise for such countries to consider their own actions and how these actions affect the world before acting. Don't create a mess and then ask others to clean it up.

I waited to post about this because I wanted to be sure, because ships are sometimes misidentified. There's video of a Ukrainian drone slamming into a Russian kalibr missile cruiser, the frigate Admiral Makarov.



Admiral Makarov was struck by a drone shortly after firing missiles from its port location. The first drone hit the bow, which doesn't have anything important so it unfortunately wasn't a very effective blow. But it was hit by a second drone, which damaged the docking area where the Kalibr missile launchers are. So there's a good chance that the ship can no longer fire kalibr missiles. Light-moderate damage overall. Well, the Ukrainians can always try again, since it's not going anywhere anytime soon.



Also, and it's so strange that this news isn't treated as the big deal it is - in March, Ukraine retook more territory than it lost. Ukraine, not Russia, is gaining ground. Not much territory, so it's not like battle lines are shifting much, but it's evidence that Russia's spring offensive is faltering and Russia is unable to hold what it has illegally taken.

For years now, we've seen the talking heads talk up the Russian offensive as unstoppable and Ukraine's loss as inevitable - they claimed that Russian forces would carve up Ukraine quickly in 2022 and then later claimed that Russia would do it more slowly in 2024 and 2025 - but the end result would be the same. They'd show the Russians taking some town that had a population less than your average supermarket and say that Russia is some unstoppable juggernaut. They'd also show footage of flag operations - the Russians sending a very small group of soldiers to plant a flag somewhere to snap a photo and say that something is taken, when it's usually far from the truth. The result? Exaggerated gains and fictional prowess.

The reality is that every year of this war, Russia has increasingly struggled to make any headway into Ukraine to the point now where they're no longer making any real progress. And the cost of this lack of progress is not cheap. Russia takes over 30,000 casualties a month - about a thousand a day - possibly surpassing Russian recruitment figures. Russia's total casualties recently topped 1.3 million. That's almost as much as the USA's active duty military personnel. Russia doesn't have infinite reserves. And they definitely don't have infinite stockpiles to equip said troops or infinite time to train them. And when they're sent out, they walk right into a wall of drones. It's insane, it's futile, and it's utterly unsustainable.

Also, the Ukrainians are currently using 30% more strike drones than Russia. So, for every 10 drones that Russian forces launches against Ukrainians, 13 are headed back at the Russians.

And also Ukraine knows how to use their drones better. There's recent footage of the Ukrainians hitting a crowd of Russian troops. Over a dozen just lined up like bowling pins. Well, apparently, Ukraine has a fairly large wild or abandoned pig population. As Denys puts it, the results were understandable. Russia should use that footage in their recruitment ads and see how many people enlist then. Klendathu looks like a picnic compared to a Russian assault operation.

Orban is GONE!

Hungary’s opposition Tisza party, led by Péter Magyar, has won the election, bringing an end to Viktor Orbán’s 16-year grip on power, in a result that is likely to rattle the White House and reshape the country’s relationship with the EU.

The victorious opposition leader used to be a member of Orban's party, but left in 2024 during the Presidential pardon scandal. Wikipedia gives a succinct summary:

In February 2024, Magyar released a voice recording of his wife that he had secretly made without his wife's knowledge or consent in which it was revealed that the president of Hungary, Katalin Novák, had granted a presidential pardon in April 2023 to Endre Kónya, the deputy director of a state-run children's home near Budapest. The deputy had coerced children into covering up sexual abuse by his superior, János Vásárhelyi, the home's director. The scandal resulted in anti-government protests demanding that Novák resign; she did so on 10 February 2024. The same day, Magyar's ex-wife Judit Varga, the former justice minister who had countersigned the pardon, also announced her resignation from the National Assembly and her role leading the Fidesz party list in the June 2024 European Parliament election.

Hours after his ex-wife's announcement of her withdrawal from politics, Magyar published a Facebook post declaring that he would resign from his positions in two state-owned enterprises and relinquish his seat on the board of a third, MBH Bank. He wrote that the past few years had made him realize that the idea of a "national, sovereign, bourgeois Hungary" stated as the goal of Viktor Orbán's rule was in fact a "political product" serving to obscure massive corruption and transfers of wealth to those with the right connections

To put it simply, covering up sex abuse combined with massive corruption. Man, that must be really sucky to deal with. Can you imagine living in a country where something like that is going on?

Corruption is a very serious problem in Hungary, and Hungary ranks dead last in the EU and this problem has only gotten worse under Orban's 16-year reign.

And where there's corruption, there's Russian influence. Last October, Orban volunteered his services to Putin, “I am at your service” and comparing himself to the mouse in the Aesop where a lion is trapped in a net and a little mouse gnaws on the rope to free it. No doubt Orban planned for prosperous years ahead in continued servitude under his Tsar.

Ever since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine started, Orban went out of his way to bash Zelenskky and the EU, not only blaming the victim of this horrific war, but doing everything in his power to halt aid to the victim and to come to the aid the aggressor. He was Putin's main "man of the inside" in the EU. He even ordered the seizure of two Ukrainian banking vehicles in some sort of provocation - the Ukrainian bank employees were reportedly blindfolded (why?) and handcuffed and one was given an injection akin to old Soviet "truth serum" methods, but they screwed even that up because the guy was diabetic and had a bad reaction to the injection and had to be rushed to the hospital. Orban eventually let the Ukrainians go, but pointedly kept the money - essentially robbing Ukraine - declaring that the money would be returned when the oil pipeline was back on - blatant blackmail.

Orban has attempted all sorts of theatrics, including putting out a pity-farming video where he's supposedly filmed candidly (it was staged, of course) calling his wife and crying about how Zelenskyy's attacking him and he fears for his family's safety and Orban never did a thing to deserve such treatment. *rollseyes* Orban also put up big posters of Zelenskyy in an attempt to vilify him:



These posters were largely torn down a day before the election by Hungarians who have long-since tired of these sort of cheap political games.

In the end, Orban lost because Hungarians care more about Orban's cronyism and mismanagement than whatever beef he has with Zelenskyy and the EU. Know your audience.

And here's what the audience wants:

Good for Hungary. JD Vance seems to be a big failure.

Cassia wrote: Mon Apr 13, 2026 1:24 amGood for Hungary. JD Vance seems to be a big failure.

IIRC, it was estimated that Orban lost 3 percentage points from Vance's visit (where he railed against foreign influence in Hungary's elections, which was rich coming from him). The Trump regime has no idea how despised they are around the world.

And it's great because it pushes back against the push to "Orbanize" Europe - to link anti-immigration sentiment to far-right politics and euroskeptism in an attempt balkanize or at least limit EU power. And also of course to damage it from the inside, which is why Orban never left the EU.

In election after election, European voters are showing that they don't want to be like the USA and actually see the value in being a part of the EU and working together. That's great, but pro-EU leaders can't rest on their laurels - they have huge messes to clean up, people who need their help, and a very antagonistic power at their doorstep who is still interested in conducting ongoing hybrid warfare operations against european powers.

If you saw 'A Clockwork Orange' it is interesting how the dialect used Russian words when doing a movie about "the ultraviolence".

Nadsat is a fictional, constructed slang used by teenagers in Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange and its film adaptation. It blends English with Russian-influenced words, Cockney rhyming slang, and archaic terms.

Russia cannibalizes tank units:



Skilled tankers are sent on suicide assaults because Russia can't use tanks effectively anymore and they're running out of tanks regardless.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian tanks are either held in reserve or used sparingly, typically against infantry without anti-armor weapons (I believe the technical term is "overmatch") in a strike-and-return fashion. What happens when one side runs out of armor and the other side doesn't?