In Lugansk and Donetsk, in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia until Monday you can vote for the referendum on the annexation to Russia wanted by Putin, or rather you have to vote because it is the military who, with shotguns, are looking for citizens house by house to cost you. : there are no seats, you vote on the street, in gardens and courtyards, in kitchens and on the stairs of buildings, in bars and shops, in markets and on the roofs of cars. No booths, any pen is fine. The cross must be made under the eyes of the electoral commission and a couple of hooded and armed men. The card does not fold and ends up in portable glass urns, just like it happened in 2014 in the Crimea.
As Corsera says there would be 542 accredited journalists to follow the phases of the vote, we do not know if they are real journalists or stand-ins put there to witness the votes that everyone knows to be a colossal farce whose outcome will not be recognized by the UN, the EU and the G7. .
On the front, the military in Kiev are trying to consolidate their positions beyond the course of Oskil River, in the Kharkiv Oblast, however, as Margelletti explains in La Stampa, they will have to move numerous units as well as various military vehicles and equipment, an operation that could take a few days. For their part, the Russians try to prevent the Ukrainians from crossing the river, but the limited intelligence and reconnaissance capabilities of the Russian forces could prevent them from identifying all the crossing points established by the Ukrainian troops, thus facilitating the operations of the forces. of Kiev.
In these days Moscow would have used the Iranian kamikaze drones (observers speak of the Shahed-136) in Odessa and close to the river to try to counter the Ukrainian supremacy due to Western intelligence and weapons.
The Shahed-136 is a drone designed and built by HESA, an Iranian weapons manufacturer. It is a variable ammunition UAV that can be programmed on board or controlled on the ground, has a propeller propulsion and a delta wing. It has an autonomy of 1200 miles.
It can be used for RECON, but is designed to be a suicide drone capable of carrying a 10-pound explosive load which makes it similar to the American killer drone, Switchblade. Field information speaks of 5 Shahed-136 drones launched simultaneously from the roofs of simple trucks and were used in the Kharkiv Oblast.
Military cooperation between Russia and Iran is increasingly evident. After the launch of the Iranian satellite via a Russian rocket, Iran has started training Russian pilots in the use of its drones. We are talking about highly lethal drones already successfully used by Tehran in Syria, Yemen ed Saudi Arabia. The United States and Israel have always accused Iran of using its drones during attacks on the oil industry of Saudi Arabia, American forces in Syria and ships in the Persian Gulf.
According to US intelligence, the Iranians have already started training their Russian colleagues for several weeks to subsequently finalize the terms of an agreement that provides for the sending of hundreds of Iranian drones to Moscow. Another news circulates among the secret rooms of Western intelligence: there would be a hypothesis of exchange that provides for the sale of several Russian Su-35 fighters in favor of the Iranians as a counterpart to the more than one hundred drones covered by the agreement.
Faced with the news of American intelligence "declassified" last July, Russia and Iran have not commented, rejecting the accusations to the sender. The Iranian foreign ministry has denied that the country is involved in the supply of drones to Russia. The United States, as evidence, has released images that immortalize Russian officials visiting an Iranian military base where the drones forming part of the agreement are kept. Iran allegedly showed the Russian delegation two different types of drones: lo shahed-129, a Predator-style drone that can fly more than 1000 miles, armed with missiles, and it shahed-191, a drone capable of carrying missiles for about 300 miles. In negotiations there is also the kamikaze Shared-136 drone which can fly for 1200 miles in full autonomy.
Both drones would provide Moscow with new and valuable firepower to use against Ukraine which, as is known, used Turkish drones against Russian forces, enjoying a huge tactical advantage.
The United States has not stood by and is sending over 500 small kamikaze drones to Ukraine. Turkey, on the other hand, has already supplied Ukraine with 50 advanced drones which the military used to destroy Russian convoys and warships. The Turkish drone Bayraktar it was so effective that the Ukrainians wrote a folk song to celebrate it. Turkish media reported this week that Baykar, the Turkish company that makes Bayraktar, is building a drone factory in Ukraine.