💡SPOTLIGHT

How Western technology is keeping Russian stocked with drones

In spite of commonly-held beliefs that the Russian military is fighting with outdated weaponry and uncoordinated assaults, Moscow still has plenty of access to complex weaponry, even in spite of technology sanctions from the West. Ukrainska Pravda looks deeper into the gray area that is keeping Russia’s war machine running:

How many times have we heard about how Russia is forced to fight with Soviet weapons and capture cities exclusively with barbaric, uncoordinated assaults?

This is only partly true.

Russia has numerous weapons that create serious problems for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. One prime example is the Lancet kamikaze drone. It sneaks beneath radars, its electric motor does not make loud noises, and the mass of the warhead is often sufficient enough to damage heavy machinery.

Since the war began, the Russians have used some 850 Lancets. Not all of them hit their targets, but the Ukrainian military considers these drones one of the biggest causes for concern on the front line.

Back in July, Kyiv's military commanders stated that Russia had only 50 Lancets left, but the truth is that these drones are by no means running out. Dozens of kamikaze UAVs are still flying, because the Russians are still managing to produce them. And they are not doing it alone.

"Lancets" are packed with complex electronics, which are not produced in the Russian Federation. There are components that are produced in the West, which still get to Russian military factories without any problems. The flows are so large-scale that Russia can not only maintain the old rates of production of these drones, but also increase them.

While it may seem that technological sanctions are having an impact, there are still many obvious gaps in them.

The world began discussing the Lancet drones a month ago, after a video detailing the production of the drones appeared on Russian state TV. In it, the audience was shown the site of a former shopping center, which was left abandoned by the exodus of Western brands, and which had been converted into a drone factory.

The clip indicated that Russia had increased production of the Lancet UAV 50 fold since 2022. Even if Kremlin propagandists have a tendency to overestimate production figures, the video, which shows a room with dozens of "Lancet" cases, raises a logical question about technology sanctions against Moscow: How are these drones still being produced in such large quantities?

These drones are produced by the Russian company Zala Aero. Neither the manufacturers of Lancet nor its owner Oleksandr Zakharov, whose family owns a luxury apartment in London, have yet come under Western sanctions. [...]

— Read the fullUkrainska Pravda article, translated into English by Worldcrunch.

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🗞️  FRONT PAGE

French daily Libération features yesterday’s military coup d’état in Gabon, an attack which saw longtime President Omar Bongo deposed. The front page features a close-up photograph of Bongo, whose re-election had been announced shortly prior to the coup. “The military put an end to the family reign begun by his father”, they write — a lineage of power which had been reigning over Gabon since 1967.

#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS

$52.67 billion

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📰 STORY OF THE DAY

A gym's urinal shaped like a woman’s mouth: extreme sexism or upside-down art?

In the Italian city of Turin, a gym has installed urinals that appear to be shaped like a woman's open mouth. From Duchamp to Warhol to Mick Jagger, everything we see is in the eyes of the beholder, writes Giulia Zonca for Italian daily La Stampa.

🚽 A photo posted online last week has sparked outrage and debate in Italy. The now infamous image from inside the men's bathrooms of the McFit gym in Turin shows urinals that are shaped like a woman's open mouth. While some are denouncing it as sexist, others are calling it art, or simply a joke — posing the broader question of why it's so important to discuss objectification?

👄The problem lies in the starting point, in the gaze that conditions all what we see, every perception we have of this country, every single prejudice. Who said that large red lips, with a hint of teeth from a toothpaste commercial's perfect smile, are inherently feminine? Yes, there's lipstick, the heart-shaped line, but they are objects of fantasy, a creative design that doesn't belong to a specific gender: in this case, urinals that a chain of gyms has hung in its bathrooms in an attempt to use art for an easy laugh.

🧠 There is better art with far more refined ideas, but in the face of this obvious descent into the vulgar, it's better to step forward and restore a more dignified sense to a debatable endeavor. Faced with a cartoon mouth, it's not obligatory to think of a submissive woman unless one has very little imagination and a terribly sad existence. The kind of imagination that envisions transgressive sex at the gym and spends evenings in masturbatory solitude at home, forever in search of compensating for having such a small ... brain.

➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com

📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO

➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED

📣 VERBATIM

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📸 PHOTO DU JOUR

Spanish village Buñol, near Valencia, celebrated its annual “Tomatina” festival on Wednesday. Some 15,000 people attended this traditional street battle during which participants throw overripe tomatoes at each other, leaving the streets and themselves drenched in red pulp. Over 120 tons of fruit were used as ammunition this year. — Photo: Jorge Gil/Contacto/ZUMA

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