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Another one out of the window. This time it's Andrey Badalov, vice president of Russias oil pipeline company Transneft.

Ukraine is systematically destroying the Russian air defense, which allows it to strike at critical infrastructure and, more importantly, the Russian air force. The latter is worn down badly already, with most of the panes having been very old when the war started and now having seen three years of heavy use. Ukraine, on the other hand, has received Western fighter jets and AWACS. This could give them the upper hand in the airspace over the battlefield, which would profoundly change the war on the ground.

Doesn't look like they were dogfighting. When I first saw the video I thought the thing had just disintegrated under the G-force when turning but another version of the video seems to show it was fired on after all.

Well, somebody will be punished, but probably not the person responsible.

I wouldn't be so sure. They probably don't pay any actual money but give him shares of their company, of which they say they're worth that much. As for Ive's role at Apple, he created the exterior design but none of the technology. And his designs had the tendency to make the products less useful (laptops without ports, etc.).

If the figures on Wikipedia are to be believed, either side maintains between 500 and 600 combat and attack aircraft, though some of them are quite old.

Lots of speculation about that battle. Apparently, a Pakistani official has told news agencies that 125 aircraft were involved, which would be massive. Pakistan claims to have shot down five manned Indian aircraft: three Rafale, one Su-30, and one MiG-29. If true, this would be a big thing. There's speculation about the long-range air-to-air missiles used, as there was no close combat. All aircraft stayed in their country's own air space. Wreckage of a Chinese-made PL-15 missile was found, which can be fired by the also Chinese-made J-10 fighter airplane. Now, everybody wonders how the Chinese gear performs relative to Western equipment.

Apparently, this was a complete surprise. Given the nature of the coalition, there has to be a certain number of disgruntled MP, of course. Either because they didn't get the government office they hoped for, or because they thought their party gave away too much in the coalition talks. Then there's the Merkel faction in the Christian Democratic Party. Merkel pushed Merz out 20 years ago, now he's back. Not everybody is happy about that.

So, Merz hasn't been elected chancellor in the first round. No new government today. Scholz gets a few more days in office. ETA: He made it in the second round. Still, not the best start for the new coalition.

Luxemburg is one of the Eurozone's financial hubs. Dublin is another. A lot of investment funds are registered there.

They aren't building a cruiser. It's an amphibious assault ship. Russia doesn't have much shipbuilding capacity. Much of their navy is old soviet stock built in Ukraine. And as long as the war is ongoing, they can't bring warships into the Black Sea through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits.

Bith rates don't really matter as Russia only drafts a fraction of the available men. Putin sets the number of conscripts to be drawn. Full mobilsation would be another matter but that wouldn't be very popular.

Russia has a population of 140 million, they could easily mobilise a couple of millions. Eqipment and training might be an issue, though. And of course it would be vastly unpopular. So far Putin is still clinging to his fiction of a local "special military operation" that doesn't affect the Russian mainland. Obviously, that keeps getting harder to maintain as the war drags on.

The BBC gets tax money for its World Service, which was funded 100% by the foreign office until 2014. The government has reduced its share of funding but still gives some.

Everybody in Europe is scrambling to increase their defense budgets. Germany's has to be doubled, which will be a big issue in the formation of the next government, as Scholz has been kicking the can down the road for three years now.

The Treaty of the EU has a clause on mutual defense (Article 42.7), and the wording is stronger than NATO Article 5 (which is pretty vague).

It's February now and they are still up there. They were supposed to have returned after a week. It's eight months now.

If there is one thing US administrations fear, it's high oil prices. The Biden administration wanted the Russian oil in the market. They just wanted to force Russia to sell at a discount. Refineries produce for the domestic market, so destroying them is fine.

Isack Hadjar replaces Lawson at Racing Bulls.

Elon Musk endorses the AfD. Not really surprising.

It's official: Perez is out at Red Bull. https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/articles/cq5ljdx2d43o

It's a trick. The German constitution doesn't really allow early elections. Except... The chancellor can ask for vote of confidence. If he loses that then the president can dissolve the Bundestag. He doesn't have to, though. Last time he was asked he said no. That was after the 2017 elections, when coalition talks broke down.

Isn't he still in Moscow?

Turns out the missile was a new type of IRBM named Oreshnik, as stated by Putin himself. From the video footage, it carries six warheads (rather than the RS-26's four). It seems to be a shorter range version of Russia's existing ICBM. Probably just a prototype at this point. It's the type of missile that was banned under the INF treaty before the US withdrew from it after accusing Russia of cheating.

Russia has fired an RS-26 Rubezh ballistic missile at the city of Dnipro. This type of missile can deliver nuclear warheads at distances up to 5800 km. The distance it was fired from is much shorter and the payload was conventional. Apparently, this is a response to the use of Western-made missiles against targets in Russia.