Major drone strike hits airfield in Pskov Russia...

 

Fire from the strikes. BBC/Telegram. 

A major drone strike has hit an airfield in Pskov Russia. BBC. Two Russian IL76 transport planes were damaged and set on fire during the attack. Pskov is 372 miles away from the Ukraine border and is closer to Estonia, raising questions on who is responsible for the attack. Russia said that the attack caused no casualties and was mostly repelled by Russian air defense. This is not the first time that Russia has been targeted in this region. Ukraine has not taken credit for the attack. 

My Comment:

For such a minor strike this incident is going extremely viral on the internet and even causing quite a bit of a panic. Not bad for a strike that only damaged a couple of aircraft, transport aircraft at that, and one that resulted in no casualties. Russia has 960 IL 76s and losing two of them will not affect the war in any way. 

But if you were to go on Twitter or 4chan or any other website where the war tends to be discussed and you would think that this was the start of World War III. The sticking point appears to be the idea that this attack was launched from Estonia or Latvia. That would, of course, be a casus belli for Russia to launch a greater war on NATO and would probably lead to a nuclear exchange.

That's the theory at least. In reality it has not been proven that these drones came directly from a NATO country. Indeed, I doubt NATO would be that blatant. I am sure that the drones were provided by NATO but the idea that they were launched from Latvia or Estonia seems pretty far fetched. 

Indeed, the only evidence I have seen is that the city of Pskov is kinda close to Estonia and Latvia. I do think it's pretty unlikely that the drones were flown the entire way from Ukraine given that I doubt they have that much range. But I think it's very possible that the attackers were able to launch from inside of Russia or perhaps Belarus as well. 

Even if the drones were launched from NATO, why would this be the thing that set Russia off? NATO has given Russia plenty of reasons to declare war. This is far from the first drone strike that has targeted Russia and we can't forget the Nord Stream bombing that destroyed a major pipeline. If that didn't start World War III, why would this? It doesn't make any sense. 

And, of course, there is the fact that about the only way Russia could possibly lose (and it's no sure thing even then) is if NATO joins the war in Ukraine. Ukraine is pretty obviously losing the war to the point that even the media is starting to admit it. Though some are trying to say that the capture of Robotyne is evidence of something other than object failure. But capturing a tiny village that is still outside the 1st line of Russian defense months after the offensive started is not really evidence of anything. Why would Russia want to screw things up by overreacting to a minor drone strike? It doesn't make any sense.