Currently the 10th Moscow Conference for International Security is taking place. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin gave a speech there during which he painted the big picture of international dynamism that is driving the war in Ukraine and elsewhere:
The situation in the world is changing dynamically and the outlines of a multipolar world order are taking shape. An increasing number of countries and peoples are choosing a path of free and sovereign development based on their own distinct identity, traditions and values.These objective processes are being opposed by the Western globalist elites, who provoke chaos, fanning long-standing and new conflicts and pursuing the so-called containment policy, which in fact amounts to the subversion of any alternative, sovereign development options. Thus, they are doing all they can to keep hold onto the hegemony and power that are slipping from their hands; they are attempting to retain countries and peoples in the grip of what is essentially a neocolonial order. Their hegemony means stagnation for the rest of the world and for the entire civilisation; it means obscurantism, cancellation of culture, and neoliberal totalitarianism.
They are using all expedients. The United States and its vassals grossly interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states by staging provocations, organising coups, or inciting civil wars. By threats, blackmail, and pressure, they are trying to force independent states to submit to their will and follow rules that are alien to them. This is being done with just one aim in view, which is to preserve their domination, the centuries-old model that enables them to sponge on everything in the world. But a model of this sort can only be retained by force.
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They need conflicts to retain their hegemony. It is for this reason that they have destined the Ukrainian people to being used as cannon fodder.
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It is obvious that it is only possible to reduce tensions in the world, overcome military-political threats and risks, improve trust between countries and ensure their sustainable development through a radical strengthening of the contemporary system of a multipolar world.I reiterate that the era of the unipolar world is becoming a thing of the past. No matter how strongly the beneficiaries of the current globalist model cling to the familiar state of affairs, it is doomed. The historic geopolitical changes are going in a totally different direction.
In parallel to the conference the Army-2022 International Military-Technical Forum, an international weapon sales show, is taking place.
Next to Russian weapons, all battle tested in real wars, the exhibition showed a few pieces weapons that visitor should better not buy.
Here is a U.S. M-777 howitzer in very pristine conditions. It was most likely purchased for little money from some Ukrainian patriot.
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A short video of the gun can be seen here.
There was more such captured or otherwise acquired stuff, partly in a bad state, on display:
Maya @MayaSashenka - 4:34 PM · Aug 16, 2022They have opened an extra exhibition dedicated to the captured weapons today. It will be soon open for public too.
Sadly I missed it, but RIA made a short video for public.
Video
I am pretty sure that multipolar visitors will make some fine jokes about those unipolar exhibition pieces.
Posted by b on August 16, 2022 at 16:31 UTC | Permalink
Comments
I am pretty sure that multipolar visitors will make some fine jokes about those unipolar exhibition pieces.
... and I’m pretty sure that anyone who did a tour of the recent strike sites in Crimea would see similar damaged Russian equipment
Posted by: observer | Aug 16 2022 16:45 utc | 1
US arms development history in last 70 years, and especially last 30 yrs back is full of this "wunderwaffe" projects than usually fail before single test item is even built. Purpose is not to make functioning, effective systems, but something that can be charged enormous sums of money for protracted development, purchase and maintenance costs.
Fact that US specialized in "asymmetrical" warfare (read: attacking weak or unarmed opponents only) since breakup of USSR only strengthened their degenerate development approach.
Their system must be complicated, exotic, reinvent wheel, use numerous untested technologies and buzzword friendly solutions.
NATO/EU systems sometime have some rationale for technically unsound decisions (eg. reduce man requirements -> peacetime costs -> so build over complicated automated artillery systems that fail in real war), but US devel. decisions are bats hit insane and serve only to fill MIC shareholders pockets, per tradition of never having to actually defend own country with those tools.
TLDR: artillery is technology refined for centuries through wars. Using light alloys in arty piece only yield one crappy M-777 result.
Posted by: Abe | Aug 16 2022 16:54 utc | 2
Observer #1
.. and I’m pretty sure you won’t be seeing any Russian equipment damaged in Crimea on display at an international trade show anytime soon.
Posted by: Krypton | Aug 16 2022 16:59 utc | 3
Russians also displayed a Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drone.
I wonder if it has been captured intact, or was it glued together from the bits and pieces that fell down?
(That is what I would have done. Plus a paint job.)