RIP the AN-225

[scooter]

I've been watching Putin &, after a week of the Ukrainian invasion not achieving much & worrying whether NATO might react to some act, you could see the stress & anxiety building in him.

Now, at day 10 (11?) & the world doing nothing of any real consequence, you can see his confidence growing again & in a couple/few months you can say goodbye to the Baltic states, as Putin forces a direct link to Kalingrad by expanding Greater Russia.

Watch the stress and anxiety rebuild as the Russian economy continues to collapse.  Boeing, Airbus, and SABRE have cancelled all support for Aeroflot and other Russian airlines.  The ruble is worth less than a US penny (this is a live index, so the expect to see changes daily).  The oligarchs are sanctioned and NATO nations are seizing their yachts.  Despite his crackdowns, there are still antiwar protests going on.  NATO is rushing massive amounts of materiel aid.  Ukrainian forces haven't collapsed, and Zelenskyy is still free (and among the living) man.  The EU has accepted Ukraine's application for membership.

Lukashenko screwed up and revealed Putin's future war plans on a televised broadcast of his cabinet showing an invasion of Moldova - and *they've* submitted an application for EU membership.

Putin's bot and troll farm activity have been severely curtailed, by their getting cut off from the rest of the world, thanks to the sanctions.  And that has changed the algorithms on the Book of Faces and Chirper away from "conservative" media pages, because of decreased pageviews.

If NATO gets involved militarily, that reinvigorates Russian morale.  Because the threat that Soviet propagandists have been railing against for the past 70 years will come to pass.  What we're watching is the successful application of soft power against a BRIC nation after they invaded a sovereign nation.  If anything, Biden and the EU are handling this magnificently, by not committing one of the greatest blunders in history: getting involved in a land war in Asia.

[Hobbes]

I thought that the Chinese were building the An-225 and An-124s.

There were some plans to do that (this was being talked about around 2014) but I've never seen an indication that the Chinese are actually building any.

[Weaver]

Guys, I'm going to say it before Chris does, since it's my thread: please remember the NO POLITICS rule.

The point of this thread is to discuss the loss of the AN-225 and the immediate circumstances/consequences of it, not to broaden it out to a general political discussion. Honestly, I totally understand the temptation to do so since I live on my own and don't have many people to talk it over with myself, but the No Politics rule is there for a very good reason which I completely support. There's a number of other Ukraine-related threads that I've thought about posting but decided not to for exactly this reason.

[mat]

I took this picture of the An-225 in Billund, Denmark, just before take-off 14:25 CET on February 5th for its very last fligth!

[jcf]

Billionaire Richard Branson could help Ukraine rebuild the world's largest cargo plane

https://interestingengineering.com/richard-branson-could-help-mriya

[Old Wombat]

Good.

But, first, we need to get the Russians out of the entirety of Ukraine.

[KiwiZac]

I took this picture of the An-225 in Billund, Denmark, just before take-off 14:25 CET on February 5th for its very last fligth!

That made me clap my hand to my mouth. How incredible.

[Dizzyfugu]

The An-225 might return!

https://designtaxi.com/news/421054/World-s-Largest-Airplane-Destroyed-By-Russia-To-Be-Rebuilt-After-War-In-Ukraine/

[Captain Canada]

Guess where I saw her ?
 You cannot view this attachment.

[sandiego89]

Guess where I saw her ?
 

She must have been used for topping off Captain Canadas stash!

[Captain Canada]

I heard it was delivering a new warhead to that giant ICBM in the background