Meet Zhe Wu and His Low Orbit Balloon Program

It went with almost zero attention that between our US Commerce Department added a handful of companies to a so-called Entity List last week, restricting them from obtaining US technologies in a move blasted by Beijing on Monday as “illegal unilateral sanctions”, almost as soon as the first balloon was shot out of the sky off the coast of South Carolina. Now, just exactly how did our officials know to do that so fast? Now we have to wonder why Treasury has not done the same.

At least someone was paying attention and knew of Zhe Wu and his work…yet no other part of any Federal agency or any part of the military was on their game for the last several years?

Okay…sounds about right.

Beijing Nanjiang Aerospace Technology

Established in 2015, Beijing Nanjiang is controlled by a subsidiary of Shanghai-listed real estate company Deluxe Family Co Ltd, which also invests in materials and robotics projects.

The state-run Science and Technology Daily in 2015 hailed the firm’s development of a large silver helium airship as the country’s first “new near-space platform with capabilities for both military and surveillance use”.

State media said the company’s steerable, reusable and continuously powered airship was equipped with broadband communications and “high-definition observation” gear.

China Electronics Technology Group Corporation 48th Research Institute

Part of a state-owned IT giant, the research institute specialises in building power systems and solar energy components, as well as semiconductor equipment.

The institute has worked to develop flexible solar power cells suitable for both military and civilian aircraft, the China National Space Administration said in a document in 2017.

Parent company China Electronics Technology Group Corporation also funds Hikvision, a surveillance camera maker that has been implicated in intensified monitoring of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang.

Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group Co

Founded by military aircraft expert Wu Zhe, the group specialises in research and development of stealth aircraft technologies.

Eagles Men is “devoted to becoming a benchmark business for China’s (strategy of) military-civil fusion”, according to the company’s profile page on the official Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics website.

The company in 2013 filed a patent for making airship skins stronger.

Wu told state media in 2019 that his team had developed a stratospheric airship able to “fly around the globe”.

Dongguan Lingkong Remote Sensing Technology Co

Set up in 2019, the company counts among its investors a branch of the state-run Beihang University, as well as Eagles Men Aviation.

Public records show Dongguan Lingkong has received licences from local market supervisors to conduct research on remote sensing technology, which allows aircraft to detect conditions on the ground from a high altitude.

Guangzhou Tian-Hai-Xiang Aviation Technology Co

The company was originally established by the Chinese military to develop “vehicle-mounted unmanned reconnaissance aircraft”, according to its official website.

Specialising in surveillance drones, the company was reorganised in 2006 with its current name and under the control of military veteran Li Yuzhuang.

Tian-Hai-Xiang says it has received multiple defence science awards, with its website boasting that the company was “the first unit in the domestic drone industry to equip our military’s first digitalised troops”.

Shanxi Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group Co

A wholly owned subsidiary of Eagles Men Aviation, the company was set up in 2012 with a focus on chemical products, according to Chinese business database Tianyancha.

As report in part from The Wire:

On an October morning in 2007, Wu Zhe, an aircraft design expert at Beihang University, gave a lecture about the “military value of balloons.” He described why it was an area of key scientific research for China and explained different solutions for powering these unique aircraft. When he concluded, according to a university press release, his “erudite knowledge and brilliant speech” received multiple rounds of applause.

Nearly two decades later, Wu and his business partner, a tech investor and executive named Wang Dong, are at the center of a military-linked program that has sent balloons over the U.S. and other nations, setting off a diplomatic crisis in Washington. After days of intense media coverage, on February 4, the U.S. shot down one Chinese balloon off the coast of South Carolina, and has since shot down three more unidentified objects floating in American and Canadian airspace.

On Friday, the Commerce Department announced that they were leveling sanctions against six Chinese companies involved in the balloon program — which U.S. officials say aims to intercept communications and surveil the ground below, including sensitive military sites.

Records show that Wu and Wang are linked to four of the six sanctioned firms. The two men, according to data from WireScreen, have a complex network of companies involved in balloon and aerospace technologies, some of which are closely affiliated with the Chinese military but are not sanctioned by the U.S. government.

In a statement on Friday about the sanctions, Alan F. Estevez, the under secretary of commerce for industry and security, said that “today’s action makes clear that entities that seek to harm U.S. national security and sovereignty will be cut off from accessing U.S. technologies.” Neither of the two Chinese men, through their companies, responded to requests for comment.

Zhe Wu has published at least 23 scholarly papers of his work and they are found here..quite chilling actually. For instance: (note the date)

Hovering control for a stratospheric airship in unknown wind

A novel hovering control methodology for a stratospheric airship is presented by using path following approach in the presence of unknown wind by expressing the wind field in the state equation, which avoids the difficulty of guaranteeing system stability in strong wind for other stabilization methods.

In late 2022,
noted –>

Mystery airship spotted over Philippines near South China Sea

  • Images of an unidentified craft near Subic Bay have sparked speculation it could have been collecting military intelligence
  • There is no evidence the airship was from China, though its design appears similar to types on display at the Zhuhai air show

Images of the stratospheric airship – allegedly taken in Pangasinan province, about 100km (62 miles) from Subic Bay in the northern Philippine island of Luzon – were first posted on Facebook last weekend. The pictures were deleted, but not before they were also shared on Twitter.

There is no evidence that the airship was from China, although its design appears to be similar to several unmanned types developed by the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China’s Special Aircraft Research Institute and other scientific academies.

Images of a stratospheric, long-endurance airship, said to have been taken near Subic Bay in the northern Philippines, were shared on social media. Photo: Facebook
The we hear that the objects in the airspace of North America were cylindrical.
Could it be? Below reported from Poland in reference to the same object.
Philippines. A stratospheric airship over the disputed South China Sea -  Polish News
I have asked several out there smarter than me about the connection of the objects with clustered ground hubs..or if ground hubs were dropped by the balloon or objects….I did not need an answer.. Seems there are several that have the answers and we are collaborating AGAIN with China?
An Observation Scheduling Approach Based on Task Clustering for High-Altitude Airship
by Jiawei  Chen, Oizhang Luo and Guohua Wu.

1
School of Computational Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
2
School of Traffic & Transportation Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China
3
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119260, Singapore
Sensors 22 02050 g001 550

You but the judge….

 

There is Never Going to be Adequate Consequences for Putin

The list is long…his war crimes in Syria…his approval for poisoning dissidents and the blasting of a passenger airliner out of the sky…those are just a few.

MH17 probe links Putin to missile that brought down plane


DW: Prosecutors in The Hague said Wednesday that Russian leader Vladimir Putin approved the transfer of missiles to Russian-backed rebel forces in eastern Ukraine who were later responsible for shooting down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17.

MH17 was struck down by a BUK missile over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014 as it flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. All 298 people on board MH17 died.

The Missile Launcher that Shot Down MH17 - War on the Rocks source

Investigators in the Netherlands said there were “strong indications” based on intercepted phone calls that Putin had personally approved the weapons transfers to its proxy forces in the east of Ukraine.

Russia has long denied any involvement despite a mounting body of evidence to the contrary.

Despite the evidence, the probe is being halted as “all leads have been exhausted” and no further prosecutions could go forward.

The latest announcement comes weeks after a Dutch court convicted two Russians and a Ukrainian of mass murder for the loss of life aboard the flight.

What did investigators say?

In a statement, the Joint Investigation Team of six nations probing the incident said, “There are strong indications that the Russian president decided on supplying the Buk TELAR to the DPR (Donetsk People’s Republic) separatists.”

The Joint Investigation Team consists of investigators from the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Ukraine and Malaysia.

Investigators also said Russian officials were said to have delayed a decision on whether or not to send weapons to its proxy forces in the east of Ukraine while Putin was at a D-Day commemoration in France in June of 2014.

They played a recorded conversation of an aide who said, “There is only one who makes a decision,” later adding, “the person who is currently at a summit in France,” a reference to Putin.

As head of state, however, Putin enjoys immunity, investigators noted. They also hedged and suggested that “although we speak of strong indications, the high bar of complete and conclusive evidence is not reached.”

MH17 flight debris on fire in a field in Ukraine
Investigators said all investigatiive avenues in the deadly incident had been exhaustedImage: Dmitry Lovetsky/AP/dpa/picture alliance

Previously, investigators sought to name those responsible for firing the BUK missile that brought down MH17 and those whose responsibility extends to the chain of command. However, investigators conceded there were few avenues left to investigate the catastrophe.

In 2019, investigators released phone calls showing contact between Russian proxy forces occupying part of eastern Ukraine and a Kremlin aide at the time, Vladislav Surkov.

Dutch prosecutor Digna van Boetzelaer told a news conference, “The investigation has now reached its limit, all leads have now been exhausted, the investigation is therefore being suspended.”

The BUK missile that took out the Malaysian Airlines flight was brought from a Russian military base located in the city of Kursk.

Victims of MH17 came from 10 countries, with 196 Dutch, 43 Malaysians and 38 Australian residents on board at the time of the missile strike.

Australia vows to hold Russia accountable

Australia pledged to hold Russia accountable for shooting down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, after a team of international investigators halted its probe into the disaster.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said Russia had repeatedly tried to thwart the investigation, making it “impossible” to collect proof.

However, they added that Australia would “hold Russia to account for its role in the downing of the civilian aircraft.”

ar/jcg (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)

 

Now Ukraine Militarily has to Battle both Russia and Iran

With credit in part to Bellingcat:

In the early hours of Monday, 10 October 2022, Russia pummelled Ukraine’s largest cities with missiles killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 100, according to Ukraine’s national emergency service. Russia has boasted about the surgical precision of its cruise missiles and claimed the attacks on 10 October targeted Ukraine’s military, security command centres and the national energy grid. However, open-source evidence shows that multiple missiles struck non-military targets, damaging residential buildings and hitting kindergartens and playgrounds.

The 10 October attacks marked Russia’s largest coordinated missile strikes since the beginning of the war. Yet the destruction didn’t end there. Missile strikes continued the next day with at least 28 launched on 11 October. The strikes left large numbers of civilians in Kyiv, Lviv, Vinnytsia, and Dnipro with no or sporadic access to electricity.

Cruise missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure continued into a second week on 17 October 2022, when Ukraine reported shooting down three cruise missiles flying towards Kyiv. On the morning of 18 October, new missile attacks were reported in at least three cities leaving some of them with no electricity. As of 18 October 2022, international prosecutors were investigating the targeting of civilian buildings and critical civilian infrastructure as potential war crimes.

Remnants of a Kalibr missile found near impact craters on 10 October in Konotop, Ukraine, (Source: Ukraine’s Defence Ministry). The fuselage wreckage shows the Kalibr’s tell-tale black broken stripes (top right image) and the bottom shows partly the 3M-14 inscription that adorns the weapon and can be seen in greater detail here).

Visual evidence and photographs of remains of the missiles show that many that were launched on 10 and 11 October 2022 were winged cruise missiles, of the sea-launched Kalibr (3M-14), the land-launched R-500 (9M728) for the Iskander system, and air-launched Kh-101 types. These missiles are touted by Russia as high-precision weapons that only destroy relevant military targets. However, since the start of Russia’s invasion, long-range cruise missiles have repeatedly destroyed civilian infrastructure and caused hundreds of civilian deaths and injuries – for example when a cruise missile hit residential areas in Odesa and Mykolaiv earlier this summer. More here.

Now enter the manifest relationship between Russia and Iran.

In late November, U.S. media outlets quoted unnamed intelligence sources as saying that, in early November, Iran and Russia reached a definitive agreement under which Russia will produce Iran-designed armed drones in Russia proper. The agreement builds on recent deals under which Iran has delivered several hundred drones to Russia, which Moscow has used in Ukraine, primarily against civilian infrastructure targets such as power plants and water supply facilities. Iran has also reportedly agreed to transfer unknown numbers of its short-range ballistic missiles to Russia, for use against similar targets. Most of the Iranian drones that are part of the production deal are known as loitering munitions, which are capable of circling the skies until a suitable target is identified, providing greater reaction time and flexibility in target selection. These single-use systems, which use mobile launch platforms, are inexpensive, easy to operate, and have minimal maintenance costs. Low airspeeds allow the drones to travel long distances, sometimes flying below the radars of Ukrainian air defense systems, to reach their targets. This low and slow approach, however, has allowed Ukrainian forces to intercept many of the drones with short-range air defense weapons like heavy machine guns and the German-produced Gepard.

Moscow’s turn toward Iran for armed drones confirms that Russia has previously underinvested in its uncrewed aerial system (UAS). Despite this, Russia maintains a large and capable industrial base, and the production deal will grant Moscow greater control over the manufacturing process and possibly allow it to expedite and increase production of these simple but effective weapons. An alternative Iranian drone production facility in Tajikistan, inaugurated by Iran’s Defense Minister in May 2022, has unknown production capacity, and much of that factory’s output may be destined for other recipients, such as Iran’s regional allies and other armed drone customers, such as Sudan and Ethiopia.

The financial terms of the production deal have not been reported, and likely constitute a mix of cash, in-kind payments, and other promises of assistance from Moscow. Both countries are subject to sweeping U.S. and European sanctions, and the extent to which Russia is able to provide Iran with hard currency payments for the drone production agreement is unclear. As an alternative, Iranian leaders may seek additional Russian assistance to boost their nuclear program. Maintaining Russia as a partner may also help in circumventing sanctions that hinder Iran’s ability to acquire components and other goods for its advanced weapons programs. Several days after the reported production deal was reached, a key Russian hardliner, Secretary of the National Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, visited Tehran. According to Iranian and Russian media, Patrushev discussed Western sanctions and “interference” against both Russia and Iran with his counterparts in Tehran. The more than two months of protests in Iran, during which Iranian authorities have killed more than 400 demonstrators, have derailed any realistic prospect for Iran to achieve sanctions relief through an agreement with the United States to resume full compliance with the 2015 multilateral Iran nuclear deal. Iran also undoubtedly is looking to Russia to keep forces in Syria – despite Russia’s urgent need for personnel to deploy to Ukraine – in order to ensure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad maintains his grip on power.

Yet, the production deal with Moscow also carries substantial risks for Tehran. On the one hand, Iranian leaders might see the deal as reducing their exposure to new sanctions because the drones would be produced in Russia, not Iran. On Friday, the Biden administration announced sanctions on three entities within the Russian military responsible for training and transfers related to Iranian drones. Russian and Iranian leaders assess that the United States and NATO have many more options to interdict Iranian deliveries of armed drones to Russia than they have options to interrupt production of the weapons inside the Russian Federation itself. However, U.S., European, and regional leaders view the drone production pact as a deepening of Iran’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict, and a demonstration of Iran’s emergence as a significant strategic threat capable of influencing a war in Europe. Iran’s active and direct support for the Russian war effort increases tensions between the United States and Iran. Iranian involvement in the Ukraine war may strengthen Binyamin Netanyahu’s arguments for increased joint retaliation against Iran between the U.S. and Israel. U.S. forces have struck Iranian targets and their proxies in Iraq and Syria in response to attacks against U.S. personnel. Direct action against Iran as a reaction to its support of Russia, however, is an escalatory step the U.S. is unlikely to take. Source is Soufan Intel.

Is Turkey About to Copy the Russian Invasion Plan?

Primer: Today as this is posted, the United States has an estimate 900 troops in Syria sharing bases with the Syrian Defense Force located in the Hassekeh and Raqqa provinces.

Erdogan does not seem to care, one NATO member country to another….

Turkey wants full control of key regions in Syria….sounds much like much like the selected oblasts in Ukraine that Russia works to control. Could it be that Iran is out of money and tired of Syria and has moved on to embellish their relationship with Moscow?

In Syria, Erdoğan is off to make war… "in the name of peace" - KEDISTAN source

FNC:

Turkey’s impending invasion of northern Syria likely results from “political reasons” rather than a national security need, and it remains unclear how officials will declare “mission success,” experts told Fox News Digital.

“This is a politically motivated military incursion rather than a sort of, you know, tactically sound or, you know, strategically oriented ambition,” Sinan Ciddi, an expert on Turkish domestic politics and foreign policy for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said. “The timing of this operation will have been much closer to the upcoming Turkish presidential election, so they can reap maximum political benefit out of it.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week ordered a series of airstrikes against Kurdish militias in northern Syria and vowed to order a land invasion of the territory as tensions surrounding border disputes peaked.

The Pentagon urged Turkey to stand down on its plan to invade Syria as U.S. officials warned that the operation could endanger U.S. troops in the country.

A spokesperson for the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C., told Fox News Digital that officials have “time and again pointed out threats against our national security, posed by the PKK/YPG terrorist network in Syria and Iraq.”

“We have always called for unequivocal and genuine solidarity in the face of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” the spokesperson said. “Notwithstanding, the terrorist organization continued its attacks, recently targeting innocent civilians in the heart of Istanbul.”

The spokesman pointed to Turkey’s commitment to help fight DAESH – the Arabic name for ISIS – and is “the only NATO ally that has put boots on the ground and fought DAESH chest-to-chest since the outset,” even though U.S. officials have warned that the invasion could lead to the release of detained ISIS members.

Sinam Sherkany Mohamad, the representative of the Syrian Democratic Council mission in the U.S., said that democratic forces – located in northern and eastern Syria – remain prepared for the invasion but “hope it will not happen.”

“We don’t want war, we don’t want to create another conflict zone in the region,” Mohamad said. “We already, as Syria, suffered a lot [in] 12 years from the Syrian crisis, so we don’t want to create another conflict zone or a war in the region that is not in the interest of anyone, neither the United States nor Syrian nor Turkey.”

“We hope that the international community and the main powers, like Russia and the United States, could stop us from [facing] any ground invasion in the coming [days and weeks],” she added.

Mohamad praised the U.S. efforts to pressure Turkey to prevent the invasion from happening, echoing concerns for U.S. troop safety, and she urged U.S. officials to consider sanctions against Turkey should Erdogan authorize the invasion.

“There are many mechanisms that the U.S. administration can do to prevent Turkey from this ground invasion,” she said, stressing that any invasion would result in a “humanitarian catastrophe” with millions of displaced people.

Who Needs to be Fired or Jailed at the Pentagon?

Chinese Hypersonic Missile To Specifically Check US, Indian Threats

Is there an Inspector General on the case? Where is the DIA or the FBI?

Hypersonics refers to a range of emerging technologies that can propel missiles at greater than five times the speed of sound and potentially evade current defenses. Pentagon officials have said the United States and China are locked in an arms race to develop the most potent hypersonic weapons. “In this case the American technology is superior—we can’t do certain things without foreign technology,” a Chinese scientist whose lab conducts testing for hypersonic vehicles told the Post. “There isn’t the same technical foundation.” Using Chinese government procurement databases and other contract documents, The Post identified almost 50 U.S. firms whose products were sold through intermediaries since 2019 to Chinese military groups that work on missile technology. The Post reviewed procurement documents related to seven other sales since 2020 of Ansys technology to Chinese groups that are either on the export blacklist or have known missile links,including through three other Chinese intermediaries that had no apparent link to Pera Global. These groups include the National University of Defense Technology, which is on the Entity List, and the China Air to Air Missile Research Institute in Luoyang, which develops long-range, high-precision missiles. More here.

FB: Research groups for China’s hypersonics and missile program are buying specialized American technology produced by firms funded by the Pentagon, according to a Washington Post investigation released Monday.

The Post found over 300 sales since 2019 of advanced software products from nearly 50 U.S. firms to research groups involved in China’s missile development program. Many of the firms that developed these products received millions of dollars in grants from the Department of Defense. The companies are finding their way around U.S. export bans by selling to private Chinese middleman distributors.

“It’s very disturbing, because the bottom line is that technology that can be used for military hypersonics was funded by U.S. taxpayers, through the U.S. government, and ended up in China,” University of Colorado Center for National Security Initiatives director Iain Boyd, who conducts experimental research on hypersonics, told the Post.

The report reveals the U.S. government’s struggle to keep American military innovations out of the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. The acquired commercial software—the results of decades of research—will save the Chinese military time and resources as it strives to outpace the United States in a race to create the most effective hypersonic weapons.

The Defense Department has strict export controls designed to prevent products that threaten national security from reaching China.

“U.S. export controls require a license for the export of any type of software, hardware, or technology to China if there is knowledge that it would be used to develop a missile or other item used for weapons of mass destruction,” Kevin Wolf, a former senior official at the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, told the Post. “And that license would generally be denied.”

American firms are skirting these safeguards by blindly selling advanced software to private Chinese firms. Some of those firms openly advertise their relationships with Chinese weapon and military groups, the Post found.

“What we’ve always told companies is you cannot self-blind,” Matthew Borman, the Commerce Department’s deputy assistant secretary for export administration, told the Post. “You can’t just say, ‘Oh, I’m selling it to a distributor, I don’t know what they’re going to do with it.’ Especially if it’s a party where it’s readily ascertainable that they are a supplier to the Chinese military.”

The Post found that two of the U.S. firms—Arizona-based Zona Technology and California-headquartered Metacomp Technologies—sold software to the Chinese Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics, which played a key role in designing China’s 2021 hypersonic missile test. Both companies are also beneficiaries of the Pentagon’s Small Business Innovation Research grant program, which incentivizes development of American defense technology.