First ATACMS strike is far smaller and far closer to Ukraine than the big munitions dump explosion of Sept 18 - and similarly blew up explosives Russia was saving to drop on Ukraine - defensive only

And what will Putin do? Nothing. Just ignore it

You can get a good first idea of this debunk by just looking at the graphics and reading section titles

The result of the ATACMS strike last night is that there are very slightly fewer bombs for Russia to drop on Ukraine and as a result the Ukrainians are a little SAFER. That is what is really happening.

Nowadays anyone who lives in Ukraine gets air raid sirens every night, at least in the big cities and then they have to decide whether to go and shelter in the subways, many do that, or to stay at home and risk being hit by a bomb.

We don't have those difficult decisions. They do.

And they wanted the ATACMS to protect them from these bombs. And they will help to some extent, there are now a few thousand or tens of thousands of tons of bombs less for Russia to drop on Ukraine than there were this time yesterday because of the ATACMS. The ATACMS will help in many other ways too and that is why they need them.

It wasn’t even that unusual it was a rather run of the mill munitions dump explosion as those go nowadays. I would never even know that this first ATACMS missile strike in Russia was ATACMS if they hadn't said.

Ukraine has blown up MUCH LARGER amounts of Russian explosives MUCH FURTHER AWAY from Ukraine earlier in the war.

[Using CAPS LOCK here not to “shout” but just for emphasis so panicking people can see the key words quickly]

These are ALL EXPLOSIVES that the Russians would have fired at Ukrainian soldiers or at Ukrainian cities or dropped on Ukraine as glide bombs etc. This is TOTALLY DEFENSIVE.

There is NO WAY that the Russian Federation is threatened by Ukraine blowing up explosives that Russia is keeping in massive stockpiles close to the front line to make it easier for them to drop the explosives on Ukraine.

This map may help put it in perspective. Suppose I asked you,

“Where were the biggest explosions ever in the Ukraine war?”

I think less than 1 person in 100 would know, as it barely hit the Western news.

Geeks who follow the war closely, like I do (to help scared people), would likely answer instantly.

“Toropets munitions dump!”

This graphics compares the two:

First use of ATACMS

Run of the mill nowadays

Ukraine sets of explosions like this often with its drones.

19th November 2024.

Far closer to Ukraine and smaller than the Toropets explosions.

Ukraine blew up far more of the Russian explosives earlier in the war on 18th September 2024.

NOT ATACMS

Largest explosion ever in the war.

The Toropets explosions blew up a total of 30,000 tons of Russian explosives.

Many explosions of 1000 tons of Russian ammunition going off at once

Total equivalent to 30 Bierut explosions

This is defensive

- all those explosives would otherwise have been dropped on Ukraine.

No Putin does NOT have to do ANYTHING and DOESN’T do anything because he just lied when he bluffed

Background: Google map

Russia is only doing this because it worries about losing in Ukraine - the last thing it would do is to attack NATO!

If these ATACMS made no difference to the war and weren't going to help Ukraine as many of the Western analysts keep saying, Russia couldn't care less.

But they obviously do and are pulling out all the stops to try to get Biden to reverse his approval - obviously because they worry that this will mean they start to lose and their slow advances they have been doing all summer will stop and that they won't find it so easy to destroy the Ukrainian power grid or to drop glide bombs on their cities.

It is the only reason Russia cares about this.

It is NOT because they worry that Ukraine would take over the Russian Federation - that is absurd.

It is NOT because they want an excuse to use nukes which would be insane.

It is because they worry they may start losing in the war in Ukraine.

If they are so worried about losing in Ukraine it makes no sense that they would take on the far stronger NATO.

It is like 12 year old kid losing a fight with another 12 year old kid saying

"Okay if you continue to win this fight, I'll fight you and your dad as well, both at once so just stop fighting and let me knock you out"

• when their dad happens to be the world heavyweight boxing champion.

There the two 12 year old kids are Russia and Ukraine.

The dad who is the heavyweight boxing champion of the world is NATO, by far the strongest military in the world.

This is a graphic I did comparing Putin to a midget trying to attack a mammoth with soap bubbles:

TEXT ON GRAPHIC:

NASA, huge and powerful but very timid

Russia knows it can't use nukes in reality

Russia tiny and weak, bluffs as meaningless as soap bubbles

Even the Soviet Union had no way to win a war with nukes

Imagine if your team was invisible - how easily you could win a game of football.

That is how much better NATO's F-35 jets are than anything Russia has.

300+ F-35s (USA), 100+ F-35s (Europe).

Russia's 5th generation fighter jet is not ready for war and may never be (expensive technology to develop).

NATO's technology is vastly superior (one of many ways)

NATO: Population 967 million

[it's 631 million leaving out USA]

Russia: Population 144 million

NATO: 3.5 million soldiers

Russia: 1.32 million soldiers

Ukraine: 900,000 soldiers

US defence spending $883.7 billion, 3% of GDP

NATO European allies $380 billion, 2% of GDP

Russia: $112 billion, 6% of GDP.

Ukraine: $43.23 billion, 22.1% of GDP

Based on this image created by Dall-E via Bing Chat Generated by Microsoft Copilot

American football photo from: US Navy 090608-N-3283P-018 The Yokosuka Seahawks face off against the Yokohama Harbors during the U.S. Forces Japan-American Football league at Yokosuka Field - Wikimedia Commons

Putin head from this graphic flipped Vladimir Putin (2017-01-17)

Details for the figures on the graphic, see: For Russia to attack NATO is like a midget attacking a mammoth with soap bubbles - it can't do it

Or it’s like an ant fighting a mammoth

The Toropets explosions on 18th September - NOT ATAMCS - 30,000 tons of Russian explosives blew up in a munitions dump in the largest explosions in the war and 500 km from Ukraine

Ukraine used long distance drones to drop small explosives on a badly maintained Russian munitions site and the whole thing blew up with 30,000 tons of explosive in a series of explosions through the night often with 1000 tons of explosives or more going off at once - that’s one kiloton of conventional explosive.

This was 500 km from the Ukrainian border.

This is an example tweet with video for the Toropev explosions. Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) on X

The explosions were so big it set off multiple magnitude 2.8 earthquakes (small but measureable). The largest bangs were larger than the Bierut explosion and equivalent to about 1000 tons of explosive going off at once.

In total this blew up 30,000 tons of explosives that would otherwise have been dropped on Ukraine in the form of missiles and shells. Or equivalent to over 30 Bierut explosions in total explosive yields, or 30 kilotons - but conventional not nuclear of course.

For some reason this barely hit the news in the West. But anyone who follows the war closely like I do to help scared people) will remember it as one of the most extraordinary events in the war so far.

Here is my short debunk for the Toropev explosion which got enough attention to need a debunk in our Doomsday Debunked facebook group, but most people never knew it happened.

SHORT DEBUNK: Ukraine used its OWN small drones in SELF DEFENCE to set off over 1 kiloton OF CONVENTIONAL RUSSIAN EXPLOSIVES in a sloppily designed Russian depot - shows how defenceless Russia is - won't be able to escalate if US lets Ukraine use ATACMS in Russia

The 19th September explosion set off by the ATACMS - far closer to Ukraine - a little over 120 km - not yet known how many tons of explosives were set off

This is a smaller explosion much closer to Ukraine. It is another big munitions dump, the 67th Grau arsenal. But Ukraine already targeted it before in October blowing up two of the warehouses already.

Here is a tweet for the Karachev explosions:

Screenshot from this tweet:

. Ukraine Battle Map (@ukraine_map) on X

More details here:

. John Hardie (@JohnH105) on X

Ukraine hit it before on October 9th with its drones:

. Mila.Alien 🇺🇦 (@mila__alien) on X

Obviously it is too soon to get before and after images for the first ATACMS strike.

So what will Putin do?

Nothing!

No Putin does NOT have to do ANYTHING and DOESN’T do anything because he just lied when he bluffed

Putin has set NUMEROUS red lines in the past. When Ukraine's allies cross those red lines he doesn't have ANY obligation to act. Because he just lied when he made those bluffs. When the red line is crossed he pretends he never said anything.

Typical responses after a red line is crossed:

1. Hides it from the news in Russia as long as he can.

2. Rubbishes whatever Ukraine just got. E.g. says the F-16 cost too much and are just a waste of money. Says Russia has far better systems than the HiMARS.

3. Claims that Russia has already destroyed many of the systems before they even get to Ukraine sometimes. In some cases these are wooden decoys built by the Ukrainians - e..g Russia has destroyed dozens of wooden imitation HiMARS system which they claim are the real thing.

4. Most common - no response. He just never mentions the system again. Never refers to his previous bluffs.

Right now he continues to bluff because Ukraine hasn't yet used ATACMS against targets in Russia.

As soon as they actually use them any bluffs are useless so he will then switch to one of those responses.

Try looking at it like this:

Would it make sense for Putin to try to find an excuse to use nukes against NATO? Obviously not, ever.

Would it make sense for Putin to bluff to try to get the US to tell Ukraine not to fire its most powerful intermediate-range missile at Russia?

Yes obviously.

So they are bluffs.

Ukraine did NOT need US supplied coordinates to do this attack

Ukraine can easily target a munitions dump with sufficient accuracy for ATACMS even with the level of detail of the satellite images used for Google maps.

Here is a closeup of the arsenal on Google Maps. See the 10 meter scale at bottom right. This is high enough resolution easily to target the ATACMS and it is even a photograph from 2024. Though likely not bang up to date. This is just one of a very large number of warehouses covering the area.

Zooming out a bit

. Google maps

And the whole thing

For more about it here:

This is one of the closest arsenals to Ukraine. It is located near the city of Karachev in Bryansk Oblast, approximately 114 km from the border. Satellite images from several years ago show that some of the ammunition was stored in the open air. The total area of this arsenal is about 3.5 square kilometers.

. russian GRAU Arsenal Spanning 3.5 Square km, 114 km from Ukraine, Hit by Drones Attack

Ukraine would have NO PROBLEMS TARGETING THIS even using commercial satellite photos but it has its own “People’s Satellite” and a whole network of other satellites connected to it which it has time on, a commercial satellite infrared observation network. This is easily good enough for what it wants to do.

For more on this see my earlier debunk:

The US would NOT become a combatant if it did supply Ukraine with coordinates so long as it is Ukraine that does the decisions about what to target and when. But there is no reason to suppose the US is involved at all. It was in 2022 but not once Ukraine got its “People’s satellite”.

SEE ALSO

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