Agreed entirely. "Conflict with" implies equivalent circumstances between Russia and Ukraine, which is an inappropriate implication for an unprovoked war of aggression.
I completely disagree. Conflict in this case is simply a fancier word for war, it doesn't suggest any of what you're saying.
The only case in which it wouldn't be a conflict in my opinion is if Ukraine had absolutely no intentions or resources to fight back. (In which case it couldn't be called a war either.)
The phrase is one sprung of the zeitgeist of euphemistic war-words conceived in the communion of cable news and State Department press briefings.
This trend of imprecision has been nurtured by the moral cognitive dissonance that was inherent to American reporting on our two recent Eurasian wars.
At pains to make a distinction between classical nation-state war and our adventurism, we merely achieved a degradation in the shared meaning of “war,” “invasion,” etc.
This is very much the crux of the vulnerability Russian innovation in information war seeks to exploit.
"Intervention" is maybe older than you think [0] - definitely older than America's post-war empire. I do not know what is and is not a "western propaganda kitchen," but "intervention" is likely not from one.
Granted: American has used it for basically every war since 1945, most connotation now stems from this.
I caution you - without in any way trying to argue about ideology or civilizations or historical justice! - that American political discourse is not autocratic or controlled, not even secretly. The New York Times and the CIA are both independent actors, and each is itself not a perfect information autocracy.
No oligarch has the power to exile you, and no government the power to imprison you - even informal censorship is impossible. There's no central node able censor all others in order speak without contradiction. There are not literal state propagandists, or at least not many and none effective.
Any analysis of American propaganda, or indeed of America holistically, is flawed if it refuses to accept this reality. Any analysis which seeks to expose lies must start by not lying to itself.
Chomsky writes that free speech as such does not stop Americans from lying effectively and with minimized dissonance to both ourselves and the world. I don't dispute him (couldn't competently in any case).
But there's never been an American Pravda. Blue jeans broke the USSR all on their own: the CIA doesn't know how actually to make something cool. America doesn't possess a fantastical ability to will rock 'n' roll, or color revolutions, into existence.
In this instance, to be a bit more objective about the situation, the choice of 'conflict' is reasonable.
For news headlines, 'Russian Invasion' is more appropriate, because it does communicate what is happening more appropriately.
FYI Russian government is censoring everything everywhere so as to not allow the words 'invasion', 'incursion' or 'war' (!?!?) to be used to describe the situation.
I mean, seriously ... it's not a 'war' ...
It's like Russia is borrowing from it's Soviet era days. When I was a kid that was comedy gold ...
Do you have first hand information from inside russia?
As far as I know, Putin is absolutely scared of a big scale protest. Which is why he reacted so harsh against the anti war protests so far.
And the russian system is still based on elections(with observers). Where fraud might happen, but if he loses popular support(which he still has), he will eventually loose the elections.
That actually make me chuckle. I do actually have first-hand information from inside Russia.
Election system is completely controlled by the government. Opposition members can't even register as a candidate, they are just rejected. And if that doesn't help, the well oiled machine of election fraud ensures that the 'right' candidate wins.
As for 'big scale protest', Putin has enormous internal army consisting of riot police, RosGuardia, and so-called titushkis, a class of combatants with criminal backgrounds.
And he has tanks, armoured vehicles and firearms, which he wouldn't hesitate to use against protesters. Good luck protesting against all of that.
"the well oiled machine of election fraud ensures that the 'right' candidate wins."
That machine only works with popular support (as it relys on individuals to manipulate counts etc.).
Which Putin has, as many russians are crying for the loss of their empire and would like Putin to restore the former glory. If they realize, that the new glory will be more misery, Putin will be gone. That might happen very fast, if the war goes wrong for him.
Ok smart guy, where was your wisdom the last 10 years while I and my friends were opposing Putin and his election fraud machine?
But seriously, you don't have even a remote idea how this works.
Putin's party popularity is around 25-30% now, but it has the majority of seats in parliament. But at the same time, he controls 100% of seats in the parliament. How? Because every other party permitted to take part in elections is controlled by him too!
The only way you can 'protest' him in elections is by concentrating opposition voters to vote against his main party, but even his main candidate fails, the other one is made from the same kind of shit.
And as for 'independent observers', ... It's hard even to begin describing how such observer can be simply severely beaten by several gopniks at the government's request, or thrown away from the prescint by the police for 'disturbing order' (by yelling trying to stop blatant electon fraud)
I am not debating, that there is election fraud, nor that Putin increasingly takes the role of a untouchable tsar.
"The only way you can 'protest' him in elections is by concentrating opposition voters to vote against his main party"
But I am aware of this tactic and know that in some areas this brought some embarassement for the established candidate and at least made fraud obvious.
And polls are probably hard to do accurate in this climate, but wikipedia cites some other numbers for Putins popularity in general. Allmost never under 50%
I was talking about his party's popularity, which had plummeted to the level that party members obscure their membership in it in their official materials or go as 'independent' candidates.
Putin personally seems to enjoy a slightly higher rating, currenlty at about 50%, but distributed very unevenly. His popularity among educated urban youth is at about 10-20% - and you have to take into account vast 'electoral sultanates' in the form of national republics like Chechnya, Dagestan or Tatarstan who all give him almost 100% of support thanks to tight control over both voting and polling.
Anyway, by all accounts, this war and inevitable harsh sanctions is going to cost him support instead of boosting it.
Yes, but you wish for safety and also recommend downloading some unspecified mesh network software to organize protest. That is extremely dangerous, if you don't know what you are doing. And I know a bit about IT security and I have no idea, what software I can recommend to safely organize a protest in russia.
I would imagine that the russian government is careful in picking their fights right now. Provoking the it-security-crowd (both locally and abroad) is a game-theoretical no-no :-)
Or HN is very low traffic with very little propaganda? While twitter and facebook are high traffic state propaganda operators. Check out absurd propaganda on twitter, facebook, etc.
> Provoking the it-security-crowd (both locally and abroad) is a game-theoretical no-no :-)
HN isn't "it-security-crowd". 99 out of 100 people here wouldn't know what to do with a terminal and depend on gui for most of their computing experience. Most here probably think pen-testing is checking how much ink a pen has.
Oh, that is hilarious! Partially, it's due to the low bandwidth required, but I often used it in the 2010s to gauge whether I had any western secure connectivity (e.g. VPN not working in central China) so I'm glad it's still true.
I used to believe the same thing, or I had started to in the last 24-48 hours, i.e. that Putin is “crazy” and such. Until, by chance, I stumbled on the Wikipedia page [1] of his main ideology from the last 10-15 years, Vladislav Surkov, and noticed a few quotes from an interview he gave in February 2020, just as the pandemic was beginning:
> He claimed that "There is no Ukraine", adding that "coercion to fraternal relations by force is the only method that has historically proven its effectiveness in the Ukrainian direction. I do not think that some other will be invented
The “there is no Ukraine” quote is exactly what Putin said in the speech he made at the start of the week, the one where he discussed history and the general situation on those lands. Also, mentioning “brotherly violence” as the only solution to the Ukraine situation, two years before this week’s invasion, is highly revelatory. It made me more at ease, to be honest, I realized that Putin is not “crazy”, he’s just following through a system and a doctrine that had been put in place years before. It might be a bad system, a bad doctrine, but we’re not at the mercy of a single person whose mind was negatively affected by the pandemic (as the Western press is sometimes alluding), the invasion doctrine had already been in there for some time, and is not a creation of only Putin the man himself.
The thing is, the only difference between a crazy ideology and one that works is whether it works.
The Ukrainians have been independent long enough that "crazy" seems to be a reasonable adjective to apply, for the following reason: Putin seems to think that Ukraine will join Russia, rather than launch a years-long insurgency in the best case (let alone win the war in the worst case, apparently).
Ideology only works if you can pull it off. Otherwise, is the world really mistaken for attaching labels like "unhinged"? Almost every fanatic believes they're acting for good reasons. They pretty much have to believe it by definition.
> Putin is not “crazy”, he’s just following through a system and a doctrine that had been put in place years before
Consistency doesn’t absolve delusion. People have believed in transgender space alien conspiracies for decades. That doesn’t make them sane.
> whose mind was negatively affected by the pandemic (as the Western press is sometimes alluding)
Nobody serious claims this.
Putin is doing what every despot does. Consolidation among cronies leads to inefficiency, inefficiency to slower growth. Falling quality of life leads to a doubling down on consolidation, weakening the country, but only in ways that will manifest later (requiring bolder grabs). It’s a classic death spiral totally independent of the pandemic.
We’ve had slow growth in Western Europe since the 1980s, basically, that is if you ignore the financial-industry-led growth of the UK (London, mostly) and the Chinese-supported industrial revival of Germany starting with the mid-2000s. Japan has been a stagnant economy for 30 years now. All these political entities are free of despots (thankfully so). All I’m trying to say is that tying economic performance with the nature of the political regime might be very dangerous for the political regime, because what happens if a democracy cannot provide for sustained economic growth?
Going back to Putin, I was trying to say that there is not only one person that is behind the recent events, a “despot”, apparently there’s an entire Russian administration apparatus that thinks the same (hence why I linked to that Wikipedia page).
You're starting at a local max as a baseline and then comparing after what happened from the sanctions of 2014 (after Crimea) paired with very low oil prices followed by the coronapocalypse when their economy was starting to kick back into gear.
This [1] page shows the yearly drops more clearly. But I think most importantly is that as the US (and increasingly everywhere in the world) emphasizes, GDP/capita often is a poor measurement of how the people themselves are doing. Here [2] is a graph of the change in real wages [2]. That is better than most places in the EU and is continuing upward in spite of ever more sanctions.
The big question is what impact the current wave of sanctions will have. And how that will jive with what may be persistently very high oil prices.
I think there is some connection between the Serbian and Russian academic strategists because the Milosevic regime used a similar playbook during the Yugoslav wars in the 90s. Step 1: spend decades encouraging your ethnic group to migrate outward, Step 2: once there is a decently sized minority (or even majority) announce it now belongs to the main country and use your group to stand up a resistance.
The sinister thing is that Step 1. is done very slowly over a long period of time, and can be sold as various pleasant sounding ideas such as "brotherhood and unity," becoming a modern melting pot nation like the USA where everyone is equal, etc.
I don't think Serbia ever encouraged their ethnic group to move outward. The opposite. They became the minority in their own territory (Kosovo) because Albanians had a higher birth rate. The problem was that they were mixed with other ethnic groups, but wanted to keep their own in the same country.
It's interesting that he's losing the war, too. In the worst case, Putin will have to choose whether a tactical nuke to win the war is out of the question.
I would certainly like to see Ukraine prevail, but by what measure is he losing the war? Ukraine is a large country, and moving through urban centers takes time.
Here's an infographic that shows the timeline of the German blitzkrieg vs this [1].
By any measure, this is one of the fastest and most aggressive sieges of all time. It is comparable to the speed of Desert Storm or Iraq, and those were mainly driven by air power. The land troops needed to drive straight in desert, not in a combination of urban hills in winter.
I've been watching this, and frankly given the high number (>dozen) of verifiably false claims made by Ukraine, it would not surprise me if they are losing badly.
In our hyperconnected world, we forget how "fast" things seemed to people without the internet.
I see that Russia has carved out a nice straight line. A very thin line.
That line carries their supplies.
You're right that things move fast. Gas runs out fast too, when you're running your tanks 24/7. Sure would be a shame if Ukraine's air force blew up the fuel trucks that they're expecting to come refill them.
And you're also right that Ukraine may be losing badly. But that was the default assumption. Everything I've seen in the last day has made me rethink. If the Russians can't even knock out Ukraine's internet, can they really take and hold Kiev?
Russia doesn't need this line to carry supplies along the border. They can just carry them on the other side of the border (through Russia or, if we're talking further west, through Belarus).
Indeed. We're on the third day of the invasion now. I'm confused by the amount of people, including many in the media, saying that things are going poorly for Russia because they didn't capture the capital city in the first two days of the war.
At the very least, Russia does not yet have air superiority and seems to have made some huge tactical blunders around attacking the airports. They lost 2 IL-76 transports yesterday which seems indicative of things going off the rails.
It all depends on what Putin told his cronies. If the story was that they would be welcomed with open arms and instead they're welcomed with live ammo, functional AA and anti-tank weapons then that is a serious setback already, if the story was that it would be over by Friday night because they'd have control of aiports, media and the capital then clearly they have failed.
Putin's credibility is what is at stake here, not the absolute speed of the invasion. The double crossing at the negotiation table last week had only a few hours of shelf life, that gave them an advantage but that has already been eroded. The supply lines are quite long and the roads leading South are littered with abandoned columns of Russian vehicles. Already Chechen troops have been put into play.
My guess is that even though in an absolute sense this is developing very fast that on a relative scale it failed on several key objectives and that those failures are starting to add up.
It's extremely fast and aggressive because it is desperate. Putin doesn't have any time and he knows it, the West was slow to formulate a response but it is getting there, sentiment is turning and before long there will be a different wind blowing.
Internal support for this war is already wavering - see the video of the Russian security council meeting -, it won't take much in terms of deviation from Putins plans as communicated to his lieutenants before his own position becomes untenable. And that can't come soon enough because at the moment that is the only way forward that is still left to us without major bloodshed.
I really hope it is true, that internal support is wavering.
I have a tendency to believe our western media's over expression of news stories that make it look like the Russian forces are having a hard time.
I can't place my finger on it (maybe I just am afraid of the worst) that we need to be told things are worse for the "enemy" than they really are to avoid sentiment that causes WW3. The spark has been lit in my eyes.
> I have a tendency to believe our western media's over expression of news stories that make it look like the Russian forces are having a hard time.
Well, they are certainly not having an easy time, casualties are mounting, some troop transports have crashed, the most reliable estimates about casualties on the Russian side that I've seen are now approaching 1,000, which if true would be extremely high already. But wars aren't typically won or lost in a day and Russia has far more resources than the Ukraine has. But indirectly, whether Putin wants it or not he's already fighting the West.
> I can't place my finger on it (maybe I just am afraid of the worst) that we need to be told things are worse for the "enemy" than they really are to avoid sentiment that causes WW3.
What you and I are told doesn't really matter. What matters is:
(1) what happens in Putins inner circle
(2) what happens in the security council
(3) what happens in the Whitehouse
That's where the decisions are made. Ukraine is going to do what they can but they are only able to hold out for so long.
> The spark has been lit in my eyes.
You probably meant the fuse, but yes, it has been lit.
> I've been watching this, and frankly given the high number (>dozen) of verifiably false claims made by Ukraine
Would you be willing (for the education of myself at least) express some of the more egregious false claims? I am a layman in this stuff so I just go with what media has to say, so I’m curious what I a layman am likely misinformed about.
There are a few reasons I say this. At first, I wasn't sure whether it was just propaganda or reality.
The reality is, Russia has failed to take any objectives. It does take time to move through urban centers -- but that's exactly the wrong thing to do. The correct decision would be to destroy Ukraine's air force, and then move in. That didn't happen.
So when the Russians moved in, they discovered that their supply lines were extraordinarily vulnerable. There are several videos circulating of Russian convoys being out of gas. Again, I was suspicious it was propaganda.
What changed my mind is the fact that even Ukraine's internet is still up. Not only is Russia failing to take objectives, but they're failing to even damage Ukrainian infrastructure.
Combine that with a Ukrainian leader who is a hero (in the classic Greek sense), and Putin is facing a stiff headwind.
It's too early to tell. The next several days will be key. But it no longer feels impossible for Ukraine to win -- which implies that Russia would therefore be in the process of losing.
That all assumes he's trying to invade and take over Ukraine, which I don't think is the case at all. Hence why they're not destroying the air force, internet and other civilian infrastructure.
One hypothesis making the rounds on Twitter is that Putin’s bombing campaign was targeting US funded biolabs in Ukraine [0][1] which the Russians have previously complained about [2]
I agree, bombing labs from the air doesn't warrant boots on the ground, so it's obviously not the full explanation. I shared the hypothesis because grandparent comment asked what other reason there could be - this was one.
They don’t want to destroy Ukraine. They want to make it a puppet state that they can extract value from economically. Smashing everything is counterproductive if that is your goal.
There is a large amount of people that believe that Russia can't keep the war mobilization for a long time, for economical and political reasons. If that is the case, Ukraine is on the road to prevail.
Personally I don't know the region to get to form my own opinion. Does Russia has any powerful separatist movement? Can public opinion impact the government? Can the west actually harm the Puttin supporting elite enough to divide them? Those are all relevant and I don't know the anwser to any of them.
I'm inclined to believe that people would opt for condensed versions of history as brief generalities than being aware of the overall context as well as nuances that may have potentially or conveniently ignored for expedience.
I know Rep. Dan Crenshaw is unpopular on HN but he recently interviewed [1] Jon Huntsman Jr, the former ambassador to both China and Russia.
Extremely lacking in historical analysis. Putin is not a socialist or a Soviet - in fact Putin is reportedly very anti-socialist - and Russia's aggression has little in common with the tendencies of the Soviet Union.
Also he lived his first 38 years under the Soviets, working in one of their most emblematic institutions, the KGB.
He is not only a product of the inhumane ideology that drove the USSR, he embodies it. You can see it in his disregard of human life, in his placing of the crushing powers of the state over individual freedoms.
It's also the ideology of the PRC, and NK indeed. It's simple: communism needs dictatorship to survive and it attracts and enables the most powerful dictators: madmen and psychopaths.
It was clear to me that the original comment's purpose was to associate North Korea's interest's with that of the Soviet's.
It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that the original commenter was trying to associate Putin's actions with those of North Korea and therefore the Soviet Union.
> “So you have this kind of bottom-up movement that happened in the ‘90s, with thousands of local ISPs routing these small cities - for example, it's very normal in Russia to have an ISP just for a city of 50,000 inhabitants,” Limonier said. As of 2015, there were 15,433 ISPs registered with the Russian accounting chamber.
It was quite common in several countries in and around the Middle East, SE/E Asia, to have not just ISPs for small towns but several ISPs in medium towns that appeared and disappeared, for myriad reasons like finances or cat and mouse games with authorities. Oftentimes the only way to know which latest, working ISP to use was through word of mouth. It gave the early days of the internet an additional unfettered, unexplored kind of feeling.
The article seems to hint that the block is made by Russian government, not from Twitter themselves, is there any way of confirming this either way? The title here on HN is a bit unclear as well if the block is made by Twitter or if the block is made by Russia.
The handful of independent media that are still allowed to exist in Russia all got a written warning this morning requiring them to use the term "special operation" and not "war", "attack" or "invasion".
Twitter has been a great source of information during this invasion. There are a few lists of reliable journalists that produce content around the clock.
No official info from Roscomnadzor, and I wouldn't expect them to be shy about announcing it (in fact they already throttled twitter a few months ago).
If Ukrainian statistics are to believed [1], Russia has lost 3500 troops in the past 2 days. That's almost as many as the US lost in Iraq since 2003. Let that sink in.
Another thing, is that reports from Washington Post [2] suggest most of the 102 Russian tanks popped by Ukraine have been T-72's: although modernised, the T-72 is a 48 year old design (!!). What does this say about Putin's plans for soaking up Javelin fire - perhaps he's not wasting his best tanks. Possibly militarily sound, but wow - the human cost..
If this information is correct, it's no wonder Russia is shutting down social media to stem the flow of info back home.
Indeed. This is war and at war nobody is interested in telling truth - that would only help the enemy. So far Ukrainians have been really good at propaganda, churning out high-quality memes at a good cadence and achieving almost total "social media superiority". Later their reports turn out to be exaggerated or outright false (it is crazy, but they posted a dogfight clip from a video game like it was a real thing), but people just want to like and retweet what they want to believe, so they accept it uncritically. By contrast, Russian trolls have been relatively quiet.
Interesting discussion, I personally don't think so. Truth is important. If one claims some kind of moral high ground, it is important to base one's actions on accurate information whenever possible and encourage others to do the same, otherwise it will only lead to some kind of "are we the baddies" moment down the line.
It has been very disheartening to see some of vocal propaganda critics on my twitter timeline turn into unabashed propaganda machines for the content that they like.
I love truth with all my heart. Though I'm not flawless, I'm sometimes honest to a fault.
But the question, I think, is whether you save any lives by gathering popular support and foreign political will, if that translates to an extra influx of money and equipment.
Would you lie to save a life? A hundred? Zero?
Consequentialism upsets me very much, because I really wish 'doing the ethical thing' actually meant doing the right thing, every time.
All philosophy has given me is more questions. I would like to be told this is all wrong and propaganda is bad, if you please.
Look to the history of the world. Nearly every single awful tragedy in our world has been motivated by (from the perspective of the person doing such actions) good intentions. The grand utopia said villains had in mind when carrying out their misdeeds never came to pass, but the horrible actions done in the name of it most certainly did.
You cannot predict the future; your actions will often have consequences far outside that which you intend. And there's an extremely good chance that what you intend to happen will never happen anyhow! This ultimately makes Machiavellianism somewhat of a non-starter. The ends cannot logically justify the means when you cannot even truly know what the ends ever will be. All you can be certain of is that we will experience the "means."
Make the world as you would have others make it for you.
I've been following the development of this war closely on Reddit and Twitter, and even if it's clear there's a ton of Western and Ukrainian propaganda, I wholeheartedly welcome it. The more it seems Ukraine is doing well, the more it'll help the Ukrainian morale and it's going to spread in Russia and possibly lead to the toppling of Putin and his sycophants. Maybe even leading to a democratic Russia.
Because the only chance for Ukraine and possibly NATO is for the Russian regime to crash and destroy itself. Putin won't become any saner than this, and the worse case is a war with NATO, which is unthinkable.
So I welcome the Ghost of Kyiv, the Snake Island 13, the Sunflower Babka and the Zelensky gigachad memes. The videos of Russian kids surrendering, normal people making molotovs and fighting for their liberty. May these memes spare us any more bloodshed. There's not much more us Western civilians can do.
Casualties in warfare is typically used to measure the lose of the fighting force. Not only does it include killed and wounded, it typically also includes troops lost to disease and starvation.
It is pretty common for people to misinterpret casualties as deaths. Especially when people who are not familiar with the terms try to repeat the information to others.
I honestly have a hard time believing that right now, but I'm open to the possibility. Maybe wars are different than protests, but when there was protesting in the states, there was multiple 24/7 livestreams of people on the ground.
So far, all I've really seen are recycled videos that seem to get reposted everywhere and used in the media, but very little engagement. I have a feeling that either:
- The resistance in Ukraine is actually very little, so the goal is to try to get people from other countries contacting their politicians to provide assistance. I've seen some news about certain groups being banned from leaving and being encouraged to join the army and about how they are providing information on state media about making molotovs.
- Try to make it seem like they are somehow winning by providing high estimates to try to hurt the morale of Russian soldiers.
It does seem like thus far Russia has mostly been focused on strategic targets, with some isolated civilian incidents. This makes the most sense right now considering that multiple superpowers are monitoring the situation and if Russia makes a wrong move by decimating civilians, then this could quickly turn into a world war.
Both sides are appealing their population, troops not to film or post anything so that they won't give out vital information. Still plenty floating around telegram accounts, but wars sure are different than protests.
I obviously don't have any data of my own, but Arestovich is one of the people who deliver military briefings to the nation on behalf of the Ukrainian President's office[1]. I have the greatest respect for both Wikipedia and the BBC, but it's almost certain that their reporting is downstream of his and therefore more likely to be inaccurate.
The takeaway from the last 2 years is that you can't trust the media. It's all propaganda and lies. Unbiased, objective news died a long time ago if it ever existed.
I got more "info" and "context" from Putin's speech than I did in the first 5 news articles I read about this "incident".
All the "news" articles were full with unprofessional and for lack of a better word, angry or childish comments on the part of the journalists. It's as if the collective effort of the news media was to do their best to "stop" this thing, rather than report it, and to do so by generating negative sentiment.
I haven't seen instances of Wikipedia being that wrong before, but in their defence they did state their source, which was Ukrainian military facebook page via BBC, and that fb page did say that (even if it was later clarified that that wasn't what was meant in a comment).
Are you able to find the comment, screengrab, and put it on imgur? I had a quick scan but couldn't spot it. You're absolutely right that it makes a massive difference.
Skepticism is fine, but the undisputed fact is that Kyiv is still in the hands of the Ukranians, the first all out assault has failed and barring a strategy change (for instance: paratroopers) you have to wonder how they plan to go about this.
Probably by sheer force of numbers and firepower. I think it’s very likely Russia will win in the end, they’re just going about it in the most half assed way possible that drags this out and increases their own casualties.
> they’re just going about it in the most half assed way possible that drags this out and increases their own casualties
You're saying that they purposefully as dragging this out and purposefully want as many casualties on their own side? What purpose could that serve?
Putin wants Ukraine to be a part of Russia again, I'm sure he'd want it to be as little damaged as possible and aims to replace the government first and foremost. Anything else is collateral damage.
Absorb impact of high tech armaments until Ukraine runs out of those after which they could send in more valuable troops. Armies are like pyramids, tons of 'cannon fodder' on the lower branches, what photos I've seen of the actual Russian troops in Ukraine are mostly scared kids aged 18 to 20 or so, hardly any seasoned troops.
Do you have sources that this is an actual (modern army) doctrine anywhere?
Russia has a demographic crisis. Their population of young men (20-34) will go from 14M to 11M in 5 years. Around a 20% reduction. They won’t have enough men to man their massive borders or maintain their massive infrastructure. Every soldier lost in this war cannot be replaced. Throwing men into the meat-grinder would be the most retarded strategy ever.
That would explain a lot of things, but what the Russians are doing is even more inexplicable, with a mix of good and bad tactics and cheap assets and valuable assets. It’s amateur night in some places, but at least one reporter accidentally discovered that the airport they were reporting from had been taken by Russian paratroopers. (“How far are the Russians?” “We’re the Russians!”)
There’s more nonsensical stuff, but I have the feeling some - but not all - important people on the Russian side really, seriously believed the crazy idea that Ukrainians would all immediately surrender, and acted accordingly.
> That would explain a lot of things, but what the Russians are doing is even more inexplicable, with a mix of good and bad tactics and cheap assets and valuable assets.
Another explanation is that it could be simply a probe to see what the readiness of the Ukrainian forces is. They should know that by now, so you can expect an imminent change in tactics.
> It’s amateur night in some places, but at least one reporter accidentally discovered that the airport they were reporting on had been taken by Russian paratroopers. (“How far are the Russians?” “We’re the Russians!”)
Yes, lots of confusion, but that is to be expected, similar stuff happened during the (former) Yugoslavian war.
> There’s more nonsensical stuff, but I have the feeling some - but not all - important people on the Russian side really, seriously believed the crazy idea that Ukrainians would all immediately surrender, and acted accordingly.
This is a distinct but remote possibility. For sure they underestimated the resistance.
There are a few things that can only be explained by total incompetence on the part of a Russian planner or a belief there’d be no resistance (which I suppose amounts to the same thing).
I don’t have a huge frame of reference since war is not something I normally read about, but it’s striking even to me that the humble Ukrainian Air Force was (still is, one hopes) able to offer the resistance they did. On paper the Russian military is capable of destroying all their airfields and SAM sites the night prior to the invasion, and knowing where those Ukrainian jets were was someone’s job. It seems crazy to say “those fighter pilots will switch sides when they see us coming and there’s no way they would engage our fighters, bombers, or troop transports. Why would we even want to destroy that perfectly good airfield where they are located?” I wonder what the actual conversation was like.
If it’s part of some master plan it’s not exactly brilliant. We are talking about primitive WW2 style doctrine here, which is completely unsuitable for this type of aggressive war and current Russian demographics. The simplest explanation (occam’s razor) is that the Russian army is not as good as many thought.
Your family and friends have personally witnessed 3500 killings themselves? In that case, the total number over Ukraine has to be a lot larger. Or, you misunderstand how much information your family and friends can confirm.
I hope everything will end up OK with your friends and relatives, may they experience peace as soon as possible.
If the witnessed info matches the news in different parts of the city and country - the reported numbers are obviously close. Sure there is some exaggeration but in this situation it must be supported as it helps reduce aggression and lowers invader's morale. We will of course find the true numbers later, but now is not the time for that.
At the very least, Russia lost two gigantic IL-76 last night (confirmed by US). We don’t know how many people were aboard, but each one could easily have 200-400. A figure of 3500 casualties (KIA + wounded) does not seem unreasonable.
Russia had some trouble[1] recruiting for this mission. Pay is a joke, and they had to hire a bunch of aging convicts with nowhere else to go:
>> Two Meduza sources referred to the formations taking shape in the “people’s republics” as “Dirlewanger brigades,” because they actively enlist former inmates. “Those [joining up] in Luhansk were in prison,” said an individual personally acquainted with members of the new unit. “And then suddenly they turned up in this detachment. They’re real criminals, and besides that they’re no spring chickens [aged 45 and up].”
it gets worse:
>> Indeed, Meduza’s sources believe that those who accepted the recruiters’ offers likely have a rather low level of training. “All the rest are [on combat trips] in Africa or in the sands [Syria],” explained a Russian security agency veteran familiar with the recruitment campaign. “Nobody’s raring to go to the ‘field of spoil tips’ [the Donbas].”
>> “They just don’t want to go there, because there’s a regular army [the Ukrainian Armed Forces]: it’s difficult to fight against it,” said a former Wagner Group mercenary. “If there’s a regular army, there will be big losses.”
There is another[2] recent article that suggests Russians aren't going to Donbas/Luhansk voluntarily. If so it could explain the losses and shocking morale.
that is important yes. Navalny is a populist. In light of a totally absent opposition all counter arguments that go against a dictator are by definition biased.
Regarding captives, Ukraine claims they've captured 200. Here's the full quote. Note that while it comes via the BBC, it's merely taken from an official Ukrainian facebook page [1]:
> The Ukrainian military has published what they claim is a breakout of Russia's losses. According to a post on its Facebook page, more than 3,500 Russian soldiers involved in the invasion have been killed and almost 200 taken prisoner.
As I pointed out elsewhere in this thread, there may be some misunderstanding/misreporting going on. According to Alexey Arestovich (a military advisor to the office of the Ukrainian president), the 3500 includes both killed AND wounded.
As I mentioned in another thread, when leaders no longer ride alongside their officers into the battlefield, this kid of human cost is what happens, decided between a couple of tea cups.
Right, I don't know a great deal about the guy but his response to a US offer of evacuation was pretty impressive: "The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride"
Superhero media has been trendy for a while now, and now there's a real life leader and real life fight for liberty against a supervillain.
It's quite uncanny, but among all this senseless massacre I find there is something immensely beautiful and human in people all over the world united towards the same ideal, even if we're safe in our houses and they're dying under the bombs. "The next war will be livestreamed" has been a common meme intended in the negative sense, but to me there might be something positive about it being shown raw, in real time what kind of absolute hell war is, from your next door Tiktoker.
I also expect worldwide catharsis when this fucking war ends, hopefully a small moment of hope and respite for humanity as a whole. We've been needing that.
It also carries a danger. My grandmother lived through WWII in a very conscious way, and to her death many decades later she would not so much as look at anybody from Germany, that ran extremely deep. And she was the most gentle person you can imagine, but not on that front. By exposing the whole world to what is happening here in real time you pretty much guarantee that Russia as a country will be isolated for years to come, which in and of itself carries risks.
Very true, though the public opinion seems to be overwhelmingly against the Russian government, while being sympathetic to the Russian civilians, recognising they're being lied to, brainwashed, and don't care for this war either.
The question has to be asked if Russian State friendly media (like RT.com) which keeps disseminating RU propaganda on twitter, and has been influential in pushing "alternative narratives" needs to be made harder to access for people. There is certainly an asymmetry when RT gets to continue shaping the narrative in the West, while Russians at home are unable to access that same service. The least that should be done is disallowing them from broadcasting as long as Russians are also unable to access services.
Twitter labels all tweets as state sponsored already but they should do more. Not giving them a platform in the first place would be a good idea. Requiring the viewing of each and every tweet of these outfits by having to consent would be another hurdle. Make it so hard to engage that users simply won't be bothered to interact or share.
I don't have answers other than immediately shutting down these companies posing as journalistic outfits because they aren't journalists when they blatantly do Putin's bidding.
Censorship doesn’t win hearts and minds. If that’s the best we can come up with, we are no better than China - don’t tell me what I’m allowed to see or read online, or make it deliberately unpleasant - those amount to the same. That’s how you get me to antagonize you for the rest of my life.
I don’t need corporations or the state to filter data before it gets to me in any way shape or form. They can’t possibly do a good job at it anyway.
This approach works very well for those that are capable of getting their news from multiple sources and are capable of critical thinking, but in many places the majority of the population is not like this.
If you look at some interviews of people in some regions of Ukraine and Russia you'll see that folks are convinced of what the fake stories that Russian state media has pushed along the years, namely that Ukraine is being controlled by Nazis.
It's not very difficult to see how the same propaganda could spread to other countries quite easily and become a threat to national security - one of the reasons why Moldova blocked off the sputnik.md domain today.
It's a touchy subject indeed, but when you have state controlled media that is spewing outright lies, I think countries have an obligation to block off those sources of fake news in order to protect the citizens that are most vulnerable to this sort of manipulation, especially in an age when people believe everything they see on social media.
I agree censorship is bad. But there should be rules that apply to all. If Russia blocks access to twitter then shall RT be allowed to continue posting for their Western audience while Russians are unable to evaluate the same content (or are totally prevented from using the platform)?
What I'm opposing here isn't that ordinary Russians are prevented from having their voice be heard but RT which is financed by Putin is somehow allowed to continue posting. If the playing field would be level then they would also be prevented from posting until they restore access to the rest of Russians citizens.
Would that be a fair compromise? What else is there that twitter can do to not have blood on their hands by enabling such an asymmetry? (keep in mind that information pushed into these networks is also seen by combatants and will shape morale, so the argument that twitter is somehow neutral is hard to justify)
Your argument is built on the idea that people are stupid and that they should be protected from propaganda. This is the same argument some make to justify regulating what English professors can teach in universities. I would not want to live in a country that outlawed RT.
The whole premise of Western freedom is that people can think for themselves. It's useful to practice looking at some different sources to practice how to think.
Unfortunately I've met people who think RT is more trustworthy than CNN. Not a lot but I've also had people send me links from there to prove some argument etc.
Still not sure if banning it is the right answer.
I wonder if a solution is to iframe these sites with a warning about disinformation at the top of every page.
Maybe browsers will eventually have fact checkers analyzing content and guiding the reader but still letting them read if they choose?
> Unfortunately I've met people who think RT is more trustworthy than CNN..
Like Abby Martin, a former journalist whom previously worked for RT? It's so easy to allege nowadays that people coming from working with a state media to be labeled a propagandists by them, guilt by association style.
> The question has to be asked if Russian State friendly media (like RT.com) which keeps disseminating RU propaganda on twitter, and has been influential in pushing "alternative narratives" needs to be made harder to access for people.
That is a decision every country should make for itself. If American and European countries don't want RT poisoning the minds of their citizens, they should black hole the domain and take the channel off the air within their country. Trying to prevent RT from reaching any audiences at all, such as in Africa or Asia, will be seen as an act of setting a singular global narrative for the conflict, the one crafted in Washington and London.
They should use an app that respects free speech like parlor or gab or whatever the freedom respecting Twitter alternative of the moment happens to be. Twitter is far from “open” and so blocking it is sort of redundant; it’s already tightly restricted. It’s not like they are blocking the free press.
Both mobile internet (yota/megafon) and home internet (mosnet) can access twitter just fine without any VPN.
Probably a technical issue.
Also, netblocks seems to make false assumptions regarding censorship. Funny thing is that they seem to do it on purpose, as it is evident from the article that they are aware of Roskomnadzor.
Unless there is an order from RKN, claiming that each technical issue is an act of censorship is misinformation.
This is very important to remember as these issues will be more common right now, due to ru-net being under heavy load, caused by both heavy internal consumption and external DDoS attacks.
I go to sleep every day hoping for Western/NATO military action against Russian military units in Ukraine. Specifically, a large scale aerial operation to annihilate concentrations of Russian forces inflicting maximum and unsustainable casualties forcing Russian withdrawal.
There’s a distinction between attacking Russia and stoping an invasion by eliminating military forces of the aggressor in the sovereign territory of another country.
A Ukrainian military is heroically fighting a much larger and better equipped invasion force, Ukrainian civilians are hiding in subways, fleeing across the border, Ukrainian people are dying, Ukrainian government is asking for help from the neighboring countries of the liberal West.
Let’s not escalate the situation or a war might break out.
> Let’s not escalate the situation or a war might break out.
You are being pithy, but is this not the truth? We are on the first rung of a ladder that leads up to the end of the world.
The NATO strategy so far seems to be to isolate and damage Russia economically and politically and provide weapons (and one can assume intel) to Ukraine. I think it makes sense.
One of the major problems with escalation is that Russia is weak - so weak that any direct NATO intervention will almost certainly provoke some kind of nuclear response.
Go enlist in your military's combat arms and put your life where your mouth is. If you aren't personally willing to sacrifice yourself, why are you so eager condemn others to death or life changing injury?
I am not eager at all. I am not calling for aggression against any country. I have been ideologically opposed to much of the military action of the countries I resided in.
Are you not aware of death and life changing injuries mounting as you observe? Whose people and how many of them need to meet that fate until you think I may have a point hoping for an intervention?
I happen to think that a decisive, overwhelming and united military action against the forces of the aggressor may prevent a larger bloodshed. History seem to offer some evidence that backs that conclusion.
> I go to sleep every day hoping for Western/NATO military action against Russian military units in Ukraine.
You stated you want Western militaries to intervene, which is an act of aggression. If you’re not willing to join your local military in a combat role, don’t state you want them to get involved in a war. Unless you post proof of your rank and MOS (or equivalent) in a NATO military, it sounds like you’re a coward who wants others to die so that you can feel good about yourself and get good boy points on the internet.
I don’t hold military ranks, and I am not a particularly brave person. Quite the opposite - I often seek conflict resolution by trying to appeal to peoples better nature, find a compromise, and turn around and leave if I have to, to try another day.
But I don’t really see how hoping for military forces to protect innocent people who are being killed by an immoral aggressor and expressing these feeling publicly requires passing some sort of a bar of approval from you?
If you don’t mind, I think you and I have spoken for the last time on this subject.
Because you are willing to send other, much braver people to their deaths, so that you can feel good about helping people in a war in a country you don’t live in. You admit that you are not willing to put your own life on the line, yet you are willing to carelessly sacrifice the lives of your own countrymen without a second thought. If you want to help the innocent people of Ukraine, be willing to help them yourself. I suggest you read Starship Troopers as a light read to gain some more perspective and that you learn not to be a chickenhawk.
You are the “Fortunate Son” mocked in the famous song: someone privileged who advocates war knowing that they won’t ever be asked to pay a price.
I’ve just read in the news that Kadyrov’s Chechen forces of islamist murderers are going to be deploying to Ukraine to assist Russian forces. Should the West continue to wait and see?
Isn't that just Cold War 101? Both sides are supposed to know where the other side's red line is. And both sides are supposed to avoid creating ambiguous situations, where the other side may no longer know the red line. If the enemy does not know your red line, it's your fault. And if you don't know it yourself, your existence may be enough to start a nuclear war.
This is absolutely correct! I've been watching Putin's public briefings for over 10 years and have to say that when he expressed his concern over NATO Allies invoking Article 5 to the reporters, he was out of his normal character (calm, collected, and thoughtful)...meaning that he was NOT KIDDING about using his hypersonic nuclear arsenal on anyone that wanted to interfere!
I can’t imagine why you’re confused by this. The redline is aggression against a NATO member. Hint: it’s why the potential for Ukraine joining NATO was such a contentious issue. (It’s why troops and fighters are, one hopes only symbolically, moving in to reinforce those NATO states with their presence right now)
There's a very good reason the parent may be confused about it. The NATO red line is fraudulent, a lie.
Russia goes into Sweden and Finland and it's not a red line? Yeah right.
The case is actually that people are deciding Ukraine isn't as valuable - that the lives are not as valuable - as Finland and Sweden and they're too great of cowards to say it outright.
> Russia goes into Sweden and Finland and it's not a red line? Yeah right.
This was a confusing comment but I don’t think the US would fight WWIII for Finland if they weren’t a NATO member (and they’re not). Do you?
> The case is actually that people are deciding Ukraine isn't as valuable - that the lives are not as valuable - as Finland and Sweden and they're too great of cowards to say it outright.
I guess that’s possible, but you’re entirely confused about its import. The NATO countries denying membership to Ukraine because they do not want to defend Ukrainians is an indication that NATO member countries take the “red line” associated with NATO membership seriously.
I'm not a politician and my red-line will always be no war, only peace! However, I also realize that we do not live in a fantasy and humans are not perfect.
Lets put a pin in this conversation which we can pick up when Baltics are invaded and I fully expect to hear explanations how while it’s a very regretful turn of events, they are materially different from, let’s say if it was Germany or France that was attacked.
The Ukrainian life is less valuable than the Finn life (surely we'd respond to an invasion of Finland)? Where shall we finally call Putin's bluff? Putin is destroying a large country in Europe out of conquest and empire building, like the tsars of old. The Ukrainians deserve better than the modern, weak version of America they have 'helping' them. There were so many ways we could have easily helped them over the prior seven years and yet failed to do so.
If the US is truly a superpower (that has no qualms picking fights with far weaker nations), let it begin acting like it.
If not, then lie down, cower and fade from the pretension of superpower relevancy. It's either or and it's time for the US to demonstrate whether it still has the grit and strength of past generations or not, to demonstrate that it deserves the global position it has possessed post WW2.
We'll bomb the hell out of numerous weaker nations. We'll shock and awe Iraq, bombing them back in time, invade and occupy Iraq and Afghanistan for two decades. We'll help destroy Libya and Syria because it's viewed as a convenient, low risk move on the global chess board. Then when it comes time to deal with a context involving a strong opponent where we'd have moral standing to act in the defense (no-fly zone over Ukraine) of innocent people that are being attacked, what do we do? Wave our hands furiously in the air and throw around impotent sanctions.
What if enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine leads to a full nuclear exchange a.k.a. end of the world?
We are actually seeing some strong early results from the soft power approach. The US under Trump all but abandoned this powerful and necessary tool. Give it a chance.
This is something I never get. I go to Youtube I can watch russian and chinese propaganda channels easily, RT, CGTN, Global Times etc. Why does this exist at all? Like why does an american company allow that? Do people in China and Russia can watch US propaganda easily? To me it's just doesn't make sense. ESPECIALLY that feels like Google takes more care about US stuff (see any republican, Trump etc. videos) but hey we don't care about chinese or russian propaganda. Let everyone have free access to those!
You’re touching on a huge topic, and I can’t do it justice, but the simplified answer is that blocking voices “fairly” is nearly impossible.
If you choose to block some voices, you inevitably have to draw a line regarding what is allowable versus not. But voices don’t exist on a one-dimensional spectrum where you can simply block everything to one side. Someone has to decide what is allowable, but who gets to decide that? Who decides who gets to decide? Regardless of whoever ends up becoming the decision maker, reasonable people will disagree, creating more conflict.
On a similar line, we often hear about Russian, Chinese, NK and Iranian cyberattacks on US and EU infrastructure, on a regular basis. But it's very hard for to find information on what kind of attacks our actors are regularly carrying out against them.
The person you're replying to mentioned China and Russia - Pyongyang is in North Korea. While neither China nor Russia are particularly free or open, North Korea is on an entirely different level.
> Do people in China and Russia can watch US propaganda easily?
Don't know about China, but it's not like people don't go to youtube, reddit, twitter or other social media patfroms.
> Why does this exist at all? Like why does an american company allow that?
Obviously, because the company operates in the said country (at least in Russia), makes money, and even installs their their own hardware in ISPs datacenters. Obviously, they will be forced to comply with local regulations.
Funny thing is that more confrontations between Russian government and these companys boil down to government pressuring them if they block some Russian media for violating some "internal rules", as if they are operating in American jurisdiction and feel like they have a right for "private discrimination".
Im betting google treds lightly on content violations by state sponsored stations for fear of being shut down.
Note also you can watch dw [1](German) and France 24 news [2](oddly both in in English). I think those are “state sponsored” though right now hardly propaganda. Dw was forced to close its Russia office.
To be expected, the West has already started doing the same thing right now to websites that are seen as “promoting Russian propaganda” or such. There’s an Internet Wall that is being hastily put in place right at this moment, it’s quite interesting if you try to look at it from a neutral position.
False equivalence. There's a big difference between blocking state-owned media that are direct propaganda tools (e.g. RT, although I don't think they're actually being blocked anyway) and blocking a general social media platform that has opinions from all sides on it.
I don't suppose the structural equivalence actually makes sence here. In practice, there is simply no need to block russian social media as no one actually cares about russian social media, beside Russians and people from other CIS countries, like Belarus, Kazakhstan or Ukraine (AFAIK, Ukraine actually blocks quite a lot of large ru-net sites, both social media and news outlets).
It would be an honest comparisson if e.g. Telegram gets more popular in the West and there would be actual temptation to pressure it. We actually already see the first signs of it in Germany, where anti-lockdown protestors are using Telegram and the government doesn't like it.
And remember what had happened to TikTok as soon as it became massively popular? It was forced to surrender and get sold without a second thought.
> a general social media platform that has opinions from all sides on it.
Platforms like that exist, but are generally called despicable by people because of the multitude of generally supressed voices that are heard on platforms like that. Neither is Youtube, or Facebook. Ever since 2015 and 2017 dissident voices in the west have been banned from all these platforms.
A couple of websites that were seen as relaying Russian propaganda have been taken down in Moldova, whose president is a darling of the Western regimes. Those websites (in Romanian) were mainly targeting the Romanian audience (from where I’m from), a NATO and EU member.
Plus, at a more general level there’s the whole debacle of blocking RT (I know about the United Kingdom, maybe Germany, also, not sure).
Which websites are these exactly? And who is this "west"? Which country has blocked what?
Russia objected to Facebook fact checking and labelling (not removing) Russian state media posts. The Russian regulator (Roskomnadzor) has said it has "restricted" Facebook access in retaliation.
> Russia objected to Facebook fact checking and labelling (not removing) Russian state media posts
False. Facebook had applied restictions on the pages of these media for 90 days and ignored regulators demands to explain and lift these restrictions. That was the reason for RKN take action, not the "fact checking".
On a side note, I find the idea of "fact checking" reports on current military events, while having no actual unbiased sources, but only a huge torrent of potential misinformation, to be completely ridiculous. No one has actual facts right now.
"Sir Nick Clegg, vice-president of global affairs at Meta, said Russian authorities "ordered us to stop the independent fact-checking and labelling" the outlets' content."
Reliable enough to convey what Russians have to say for themselves. Besides, TJ is more of a blogging platform. I wouldn't trust an opinion of a (wannabe) journalist, but this particular article simply provides all the references and the auther doesn't push their opinion.
As for whom you would consider a more reliable source of the regulator's demands: the regulator itself, or a Facebook executive ex-politician -- is obviously entirely up to you.
So a Putin controlled government agency on a website under the control of the same agency and during a war. Yes, obviously the most reliable source of information. Dream on.
Look, this is rediculous. Let's just break down what's happening, I am really curious how your logic works:
1. Bob makes a demand, making a press release
2. Alice reports on the demand
3. You claim that Alice is more trustworthy than Bob himself in relaying Bob's demands -- how is that supposed to work? You realise that this is literaly gaslighting?
> Try some reliable news sources instead of Putin controlled "media" for once
Oh please, stop acting like you are not the one who is in an information bubble.
Your news sources are only "reliable" because you virtually can't (actually, just don't want to) verify any of this.
Your "for once" makes it evident that you are assuming that we don't read your "reliable" news sources, but that's not the case, dude. What you don't realise is that Russian see this clash between Western media, Russian media and an objective reality, which makes us live in an atmosphere of radical skepticism as we can see the post-truth politics from each side.
This actually made me realise that you probably don't even percieve media as we do. You probably just take journalist's opinion at face value, percieving it as a final instance of truth. Where as I couldn't care less for an opinion and am only interested in references and sources (like actual sources, not relays), so that I can research the topic myself.
I will reiterate, your perception of Russian media is unrealistic, as you haven't ever actually interacted with any of it. Otherwise, you just wouldn't be talking of "Putin controlled media" over some blog post. It's just not how it works in real life, dude.
Have you never noticed how the media in democratic countries regularly and robustly criticises their leaders and government? Leaders are even laughed at and publicly ridiculed. They are held to account. Do you never wonder why it is your state media rarely dares criticise Putin? When they do they seem to get raided by your police. A pure coincidence I am sure. Is it perhaps that Putin controls the narrative in your country? Could it be that your media sources are not generally very reliable?
So why do you think looking at an .ru domain, on a Saint Petersburg IP under the influence of Roskomnadzor on any political matter would ever be a good idea? That's before we even get into the problems of identifying who the author is, what their motivations are or whether they fear arrest for saying the wrong thing. It takes balls of steel to write anything remotely politically critical in Russia, so wouldn't you agree that's a serious problem with the neutrality of any Russian influenced source? I think it's an exceptionally odd claim to suggest that the media of every single other democratic country with a free press combined is not perhaps a better place to look.
Not sure what parent poster meant but eastern Europe countries are doing it. Also not sure if it's considered West by you.
Germany blocked RT as well months ago and Russia retaliated by banning Deutche Welle.
