Russia claims first use of hypersonic Kinzhal missile in Ukraine
bbc.com
bbc.com
In addition to planes and helicopters, Ukrainians yesterday first time shot down by a Stinger Russian ballistic missile Tochka-U.
And Russian helicopters are forced to use new tactics of firing unguided missiles of close ground attack - now they launch them from large distance onto ballistic trajectory while running helicopter at high angle of attack. Naturally these missiles hit everywhere except the intended target.
In the other news Russia, due to high losses, started calling of some reservists while "Russian Guard" (an organization functionally similar to Nazi SS) has been stepping up pacification of the occupied territories including massive arrests - using prepared lists as well as randomly on the streets - and unknown fate of the arrested.
It is exactly what was feared will happen when Russian invaders get control.
I think that they might be fabricating a pretext to justify the use of tactical nukes, as a nuclear response to a claimed chemical attack. Yesterdays they declared the use of hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, so that is also a kind of lowering of the nuclear threshold. News on Kinzhal missile: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60806151
I mean a lot of people prior to the 24th of February thought that it won't come to a war (me included) now everything is possible...
Definitely. I can see how Russian propaganda will be shouting that they had to do that to save Ukrainian lives the same way like they have been hammering again and again that they had to do that "special operation" to liberate Ukrainians. I'm worried that NATO has shown itself as being too vulnerable to blackmail of "don't get involve otherwise you'll be at war with us, a nuclear Russia".
The chemical attack on a Russian city would be a pretext pretty similar to apartment building bombings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings which served as pretext to the Second Chechen war:
"The Russian apartment bombings were a series of explosions that hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, killing more than 300, injuring more than 1,000, and spreading a wave of fear across the country. The bombings, together with the Invasion of Dagestan, triggered the Second Chechen War.[1][2] Then-prime minister Vladimir Putin's handling of the crisis boosted his popularity greatly and helped him attain the presidency within a few months.
...
On 13 September, Russian Duma speaker Gennadiy Seleznyov made an announcement in the Duma about receiving a report that another bombing had just happened in the city of Volgodonsk. A bombing did indeed happen in Volgodonsk, but only three days later, on 16 September. "
I was still in Russia back then and i remember how bombings immediately stopped when vigilant tenants of one of such buildings caught some people bringing the explosives into the building basement - these people with explosives happened to be FSB agents and officials claimed it is a training exercise. (and if you look into attempts of independent investigations of the bombings - the people who tried to investigate, provided info, etc. (like Yushenko, Litvinenko, Politkovskaya and others) ended up assassinated or dying from mysterious poisons or disappearing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Yushenkov#Investigation... )