Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbaijan E190tragedy

More importantly, it's not uncommon when crossing Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCC) regions (eg. from Washington Center, to NY Center) for controllers to instruct pilots to change Squawk codes. Same applies when crossing from one country's airspace to another.

One of these drones, without a bunch of extra avionics would be unable to change transponder codes in flight, and talk with controllers via relay, that would probably double the cost of the drone, or at least significantly increase it.

So even doing something creative, like spoofing the transponder Squawk code, from another aircraft, probably wouldn't help.

Also, with Mode-C, and Mode-S transponders, the later used with ADS-B, which feeds all the flight tracking websites, the transponder transmits altitude.

A SAM operator will figure out somewhat quickly if an airliner is supposed to be at 10,000ft and 250mph but isn't according to primary radar tracking, but much lower and slower, that it's spoofing it's transponder.

There is a spectrum between full scale revolution / civil war and targeted assassinations. The number of guns is also a spectrum and Russia is on par with many European countries (according to Wikipedia).

Belarus has fewer guns and they were very close to overthrowing the dictator. Unfortunately, as you said, in the west, it's enough to make yourself look like a victim and the optics will often force the oppressors to cease action. Belarusians chose to imitate the west without understanding why it works. We saw reports of police officers putting down their weapons instead of turning them on the oppressors.

Shinzo Abe was killed using a completely home made shotgun. You don't wanna go to war with one of those but it's entirely sufficient for killing a single target. You will never get close enough to a high profile one but as you said, there are many servile people in the chain of command. Russia no doubt has many parents who lost their only sons and shouldn't have much to live for, yet we don't see targeted assassinations.

I've heard reports that the rebels in Myanmar started with homemade weapons and muskets and they're getting progressively better armed as they steal weapons from oppressors they kill. But they're also predominantly young and willing to act. What I see from Russia is lethargy.

I also don't know how well the serviles in Russia are getting paid, we see reports of soldiers making appeals to Putin after not getting paid (showing that they still believe in their glorious leader).

It's all very hard to judge but the best way to get neutral "apolitical" people to act is to put them between a rock and a hard place and if they still refuse to stand for good against evil, they seeing them mowed down in infrared is a good alternative for me. Better than seeing innocent people killed.

> that's why your benevolent overlords want to take your guns away too

And this is a very worrying trend. What is more sinister is the tabooization of violence. Ultimately all real power comes from violence (usually just the credible threat of it) but the chain of logic seems to be too long for common people to understand. And when one side gives up (or is gradually slowly but systematically deprived of) their access to violence, it will lead to oppression.