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[Random_Dragon]

Unless they land on something important that a handful of soldiers can single-handedly exploit to render the city vulnerable, it's probably going to be a waste.

[martinuzz]

Germany has now also allowed Estonia to supply Ukraine with German howitzers

[LordBaal]

German artillery are mayor words.

But, I think Russia will actually just surround the city and shell it/bombard it until a surrender is asked.

[Lord Shonus]

Reports of more paratroopers going into Kiev. Not sure how they expect these to do better than all the other minimally-supported paras they've sent in.

This turned out to be a false report - the people making it mistook AA barrages for parachutes.

There are now reports of two more Il-76 aircraft being shot down, no solid confirmation yet.

This, however, is quite real:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/02/26/joint-statement-on-further-restrictive-economic-measures/

Fourth, we commit to launching this coming week a transatlantic task force that will ensure the effective implementation of our financial sanctions by identifying and freezing the assets of sanctioned individuals and companies that exist within our jurisdictions. As a part of this effort we are committed to employing sanctions and other financial and enforcement measures on additional Russian officials and elites close to the Russian government, as well as their families, and their enablers to identify and freeze the assets they hold in our jurisdictions. We will also engage other governments and work to detect and disrupt the movement of ill-gotten gains, and to deny these individuals the ability to hide their assets in jurisdictions across the world.

We are approaching maximum sanctions.

[da_nang]

A select few Russian banks will be cut off from SWIFT, according to von der Leyen.

Debate on more sanctions tomorrow.

[Random_Dragon]

I'm not sure the Russians are going to last long enough to siege Kyiv if that's the only way they expect to win this, given how it's been going already. Likely the only way they're going to get anything resembling a timely result is if they escalate to trying to make it like Warsaw after the Uprising. Which is definitely going to test the UN's ability to ignore war crimes to exciting new extremes.

[LordBaal]

They will gladly ignore them because" hurd drrr cheap gas, me gotta win next election" stupid politics.

[da_nang]

Unsubstantiated rumors of 5000 Russian soldiers in Belgorod refusing orders.

Another night attack or bombing run in Kyiv, oil depot possibly on fire.

[martinuzz]

CNN reports two huge explosions near Kiev that illuminated the whole sky.

Elon Musk has activated the Starlink network for Ukraine to provide broadband internet, and is also sending receiver stations to go with it.

[Random_Dragon]

Expand Musket actually doing something useful, that is a surprise.

[Flying Dice]

I give it a month until we get "Introducing the revolutionary new MuskET, a never-before-seen development created by Elon Musk which employs chemical reactions to propel small projectiles at very high rates of speed."

[EuchreJack]

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if someone started selling Drone Mercenaries.
For just $500, you too can fight the Russians in the Ukraine from the comfort of your own home far far way from the conflict.

[Starver]

With sanctions against Russia, I was already thinking about Musk possibly getting a lot more business in the satellite delivery sector.  But when I consulted the lists, I'm not sure how much slack he can/would pick up.

From (arbitrarily, i.e. how far I went back in the lists before I had seen enough to get me going) 31/Jan/2022 until now, there was a Russian launch of a military recon sat (optical, ground and orbit viewability) on 5th/Feb and an ISS resupply Soyuz on 15/Feb. There was also a OneWeb[1] Soyuz package atop a rocket at the ESA launch-site on 10/Feb. Compared to three Starlink launches (SpaceX's Falcon 9, different US launch sites) and SpaceX also doing an Italian earth-observation constellation and a classified NRO satellite (2/Feb).

A cubesat/drag-deorbit demo was also launched by Astra and an ISS resupply by Northrop, both from the US.

Add to all that an Indian radar-observation mission and two Chinese ones (one definitely radar, the other "earth observation and experiments", which could mean anything..!)

Coming up, from New Zealand the Curie launcher is sending a Japanese radar-sat up, there's a weather-sat (US) going on SpaceX, plus three more Starlinks (as far as I looked, but it's 6/7 days gap between them - though an 4-18 day gaps happened in Feb).

A Russian launch of a OneWeb pack is scheduled for 4/Mar (iffy, now?) and an ISS Crew mission is due on 18/Mar (yeah... interesting to see if that goes to schedule, too - too short a notice to prep. a Dragon and transfer/replace the planned crew for a US launching, I suspect).

Assuming there's no big secret plans involved, I imagine that anything already set up (people/items already in place) have a chance of launch as expected or merely delayed for bartering reasons. By the time the 18th comes round we'll perhaps either know roughly how the future relationship looks or we'll know that it's currently impossible to know.

And assuming that the COSMOS 'Observation' satellite isn't anything more than that and there's no attempt at space-piracy or other strange and unpredictable developments. Time will tell, but I'm in agreement with the assessment that we'll be well on the way to the current 2031 ISS retirement/deorbiting schedule before deliberate actions result in either shortening or completely changing the plans. It won't happen tomorrow. Fingers-crossed.


[1] Tricky, OneWeb. Bought into by the UK government, perhaps for a jury-rigged post-Gallileo capability thanks to Brexit, but largely launched by Russian rockets, or at least payload-tops. There's got to be some friction in that arrangement, now. And definitely room for a big-budget technothriller/intrigue movie plot!

[martinuzz]

Japanese billionaire Hiroshi ‘Mickey’ Mikitani donated 1 billion yen (about 7,5 million euros) to Ukraine government to be used for humanitarian aid.

Meanwhile, Zelenski said that Russians have now deliberatly targeted civilian targets. He compared the situation in the cities with WW2.

[da_nang]

Russia may be in for a bank run due to sanctions.

BBC has reported that the Central Bank of Russia is calling for calm.

Unconfirmed video of people rushing to ATMs.