Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[martinuzz]

CNN, Bloomberg, the German ZDF and ARD, the Dutch NOS and RTL followed the example of the BBC and stopped their work in Russia, to protect their journalists from 15 years prison.

[martinuzz]

Putin just said that any country that tries to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine will be considered as participating in the war.
Putin also said that a lot of the sanctions look like a declaration of war to him.

EDIT: Inb4 'cancel sanctions or we will nuke your mother'

[Laterigrade]

yes, I think the Russian hate is way out of line. For sure the Russian troops, and even their commanders, are getting lied to, and believing the lies doesn’t make them bad people. It’s the people at the top who are at fault.

Seriously?
Do you mean that Russian pilots who drop unguided munitions on cities are just... misguided? Do you mean that MLRS crews that unload cluster munitions on residential areas are doing so because of some lie that turned their brains off and they can't know the result of their actions?
Do you mean that those Russians who celebrate Ukrainian civilian deaths on social networks are, in fact, decent people?

I was thinking of the Russian infantry, really, pushing hopelessly in, told so little and told to do so much, but you make a good point with the bombers.

As for the deaths being celebrated, I haven’t seen Russians on social media doing that, although I believe it, but those guys are just fuckers; every country has some. Something someone wrote about some of the American right, at the height of the Red Scare, I think, wearing “nuke ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out” or similar pins has really stuck with me as an example of political idiocy from non-politicians.

[martinuzz]

Putin also added that if Ukrainians keep fighting back, they 'risk losing their statehood, and they will have themselves to blame'.

So, no more 'limited operation to demilitarize and denazify', he dropped his mask and showed his true intent, to annex Ukraine.

[Random_Dragon]

Meanwhile, Mariupol and other cities evidently being shelled again, in particular the evac corridors.

[McTraveller]

(toad-edit: deleted various posts before this post)

There comes a point where you do indeed have to decide to risk self and family to fight evil.  That whole "all it takes for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing" quote.  Of course I realize it's easy to say that from the comfort of my desk, but the reality is with nuclear missiles there's not really anywhere that's "comfortable."  So what I can I do? Will sending money actually do anything? I don't know how to physically get food or electricity or water to the people that need it, and it's not a question of money - how will it actually get there?

I think the big tension right now is that Evil has nuclear weapons and is apparently hell-bent on finding an excuse to use them.  I'm sure the military leaders of the world are trying to figure out how they can use the force that would end this easily without having Putin call for nukes.  I can only imagine the discussions between the Russian generals and the other counterparts - I'm sure the question "would you really launch the nukes if the order came?" has been asked.

I can't even imagine what it would be like to be a Russian general or nuke operator - that's some serious stress, to wonder if you'd be asked to be a part of such destruction.  One can only hope that it would be stressful, and that those posts aren't filled with people who just love to see explosions even if they'll lose too...

[The_Explorer]

I think everyone is on edge really. Like last night in ameripol I posted info without even looking into it until way after, and it turns out it was from like 2012 and super old info being spread as new stuff. But it really got me last night cause I really thought it was new development. But I think a situation like this brings out a lot of tension on all sides.

My opinion is I see a huge amount of unhappiness with the war with russians, risking prison (or worse) to demonstrate against it. But in the end, its probably really the oligarchs who can actually do anything. Its equivalent to in gaming terms...the shareholders at blizzard never kicking out bobby kotick and he'll probably work at microsoft next, despite everyone being unhappy about it, the people in power (is my point) is who to blame inside russia and it is up to them to do anything, more than the people themselves. If its like bobby kotick, he is gonna probably end up at microsoft despite all the "little" people against it, despite large (online) protests against him and how much hate he gets. Same with most situations in most nations, people can rise up, but in the end most of the time the top people in power are the ones who can do anything in the end (I'm sure people can revolt and rise up successfully, but its a very hard long bloodbath on both sides, and you really need the military to be on your side, and the military is (almost) ALWAYS for the government so its almost a nonfactor unless the military itself revolts, which is another thing all together and kinda brings its own issues with military rule and all that).

Or in other words...like I don't blame north koreans for their nation, but the people in power over there.

[TamerVirus]

There’s a report going around saying that one of the Ukrainian negotiators at the Belarus peace talks was killed by the Ukrainian intelligence agency after he resisted arrest on the suspicion of treason.
Like what

[Starver]

Also isn't this Russophobic backlash kinda a bit startling to anyone else?
This university in Italy was going to 'postpone' a course on Dostoyevsky because he was Russian ffs.
Liquor stores are refusing to sell Russian vodka..
Hollywood refuses to open its biggest films in Russia
I mean... I hate Putin and his mafia-state kleptocrat buddies as much as anyone else with a brain but this is reminding me of the burst of anti-Asian hate that cropped up at the beginning of the pandemic.

(Not read other opinions about this yet... this is just flash opinion from me, which a little more thought might change - or pursuasive arguments otherwise. But it covers the "why are we doing this", whether it's ultimately good or not.)

Spoiler: ...and it turns out to be long (click to show/hide)

Some things with 'western' refusal to sell 'russian' things are probably business-related. Not even counting the chance of public boycotts leaving vodka unsold on the shelves (or, worse, public disturbance resulting in stock being destroyed), the retailer that doesn't stop the sales might lose business (in other matters) to those that do. Which seems like it's a knee-jerk reaction to the public knee-jerk action.

...but with actual financial sanctions out there, there's probably no possibility of continuing trade in many cases. On the extremely short-term, that might just mean that sale-or-return moneys can't be paid (at best "oh, shame... we'll have to keep it", but that probably doesn't apply to the retailer who has already paid/promised-to-pay the intermediary wholesaler this side of the main transhipment equation, and finds little benefit to the situation), and even if they wanted to buy in more, it's going to be difficult.

Combine reputation and actual internalised business-sense, best to move the detested product back to the warehouses, suck up any disadvantages, drag it out again when public sentiment isn't as hostile/has become more amnesiac about the issue. And if there's still a supply-problem then you've got a load of goods (in the case of indefinitely-storable goods) that can fill the demand that the supply can't yet support.


For the things like refusing services/products to Russia, similar problem with renumeration mechanisms, but this time Russia can't so easily pay anything to the western supplier (or might refuse). Also, bad exchange-rates means the returning value is going to go down, and/or the cost in Russia might become unattractive to potential purchasers. All that and the 'goodwill' effort of making a stand and shutting down business, or at least making a gesture that looks like it (there'll be copies of the films over there, somebody may make use of them... any Bentleys that are already shipped there will still find a handy demi-oligarch ready to buy them, etc).


Refusing to do 'Russian' things (with little or negative advantage w.r.t. Russia itself) is more akin to the more reactionary aspects of Cancellation Culture. I'm not sure I agree with that kind of thing as anything other than an easily-ignored message. Refusing to compete with Russian teams in <your sport> might do something. Refusing to accept Russian <cat/bee/whatever> breeds as valid in <cat shows/beekeeping> is more of an appearance/solidarity thing and (as far as I can tell) any valid positives other than 'conspicuous morality' that harms no-one but the local cat-breeder or beekeeper who has invested heavly in working with what happens to be ultimately a Russian lineage. Though could put the kibosh on some of the sneaky cross-border business that might be a scant loophole in the rest of the iron-hard trade-boycott. (/imagines Russian mafia smuggling bees at the behest of a desparate oligarch!)


In some cases, it might be counterproductive. And I'm not talking about less Westerners having knowledge of Russia so that they might (to the West's benefit) involve themselves in Russian matters. But forgetting that there are valid counter-examples to the Soviet myth in the likes of Dostoevsky's/whoever's works (though you could find more actually Soviet-critical people from the more modern Soviet era to study, if such is your desire). But "know thine enemy" is still as useful, so to throw the detka out with the voda dlya kupaniya is...

...but this is just gut-feeling. Uses a lot more words to explain than it seemed to internalise as.

And I'm not sure if I've been a witting or unwitting consumer of anything Russian (actually or metaphorically) that I could actual boycott right now. Possibly some gas that happened to be in the pipes, by general intermixing and diffusion, if it's not just all gas that isn't elsewhere because the Russian gas is there.

[da_nang]

Christo Grozev from Bellingcat claims to have received a letter from an alleged FSB whistleblower. Authenticity is uncertain, but Grozev claims to have checked it with FSB and ex-FSB contacts, who think it's genuine.

I grabbed a translation from Reddit:

Spoiler: Letter (long) (click to show/hide)

I’ll be honest right away: I hardly slept all these days, almost all the time at work, my head is slightly floating, as if in a fog. And from overwork, sometimes I already catch states, as if all this is not real.
I can't tell you what guided those above when deciding on the operation, but now they are methodically lowering all the dogs on us (the Service). We are scolded for analytics - this is very in my profile, so I will explain what is wrong.

Recently, we have been increasingly pressed to customize reports to the requirements of management - I once touched on this topic. All these political consultants, politicians and their retinue, influence teams - all this created chaos. Strong.
The most important thing is that no one knew that there would be such a war, they hid it from everyone. And here's an example for you: you are asked (conditionally) to calculate the possibility of human rights protection in different conditions, including the attack of prisons by meteorites. You specify about meteorites, they tell you - this is so, reinsurance for calculations, nothing like this will happen.

You understand that the report will be just for show, but you need to write in a victorious style so that there are no questions, they say, why do you have so many problems, did you really work badly. In general, a report is being written that when a meteorite falls, we have everything to eliminate the consequences, we are great, everything is fine. And you concentrate on tasks that are real - we don’t have enough strength anyway. And then suddenly they really throw meteorites and expect that everything will be according to your analytics, which was written from the bulldozer.

That is why we have a total piz_ets - I don’t even want to pick another word. There is no protection from sanctions for the same reason: well, it’s quite possible that Nabiullina will be sewn up with negligence (rather, the switchmen from her team), but what are they to blame for? No one knew that there would be such a war, so no one prepared for such sanctions. This is the reverse side of secrecy: since no one was told, then who could calculate what no one told about?

Kadyrov is going crazy. And the conflict almost started with us: perhaps even the Ukrainians threw in misinformation that it was we who handed over the routes of Kadyrov's special forces in the first days of the operation. They were covered there on the march in a terrible way, they had not yet begun to fight, but they were simply torn to pieces in some places. And off we go: it was the FSB that leaked the routes to the Ukrainians. I do not have such information, I will leave 1-2% for reliability (it cannot be ruled out at all either).

Blitzkrieg failed. It is simply impossible to complete the task now: if Zelensky and the authorities were captured in the first 1-3 days, they seized all the key buildings in Kyiv, they gave them the order to surrender - yes, the resistance would subside to the minimum values. In theory. But what's next? Even with this ideal variant, there was an unsolvable problem: with whom to negotiate? If we demolish Zelensky, well, with whom should we sign agreements? If with Zelensky, then after we demolish it, these papers are worth nothing.

Opposition Platform for Life refused to cooperate: Medvedchuk is a coward, he fled. There is a second leader there - Boyko, but he refuses to work with us - even his own people will not understand him. They wanted to return Tsarev, so even our pro-Russians turned against him. Return Yanukovych? But as? If we say that it is impossible to occupy, then any of our authorities will be killed there in 10 minutes, as we leave. Occupy? Where are we going to get so many people? Commandant's offices, military police, counterintelligence, security - even with minimal resistance from the locals, we need 500 thousand or more people. Not counting the supply system. And there is a rule that by covering the poor quality of management with quantity, you only spoil everything. And this, I repeat, would be with the ideal option, which does not exist.

What now? We cannot announce mobilization for two reasons:
1) Large-scale mobilization will undermine the situation inside the country: political, economic, social.
2) Our logistics are already overstretched today. We will drive a many times larger contingent, and what will we get? Ukraine is a hefty country in terms of territory. And now the level of hatred towards us is going through the roof. Our roads simply won't be able to handle such supply caravans - everything will come to a standstill. And we won’t manage to pull it out - because chaos.
And these two reasons fall out at the same time, although even one is enough to break everything off.
Losses: I don't know how many there are. Nobody knows. The first two days there was still control, now no one knows what is going on there. You can lose large units in communication. They can be found, or they can dissolve due to being attacked. And there, even the commanders may not know how many of them are running around somewhere nearby, how many died, how many are in captivity. The number of deaths is definitely in the thousands. Maybe 10 thousand, maybe 5, or maybe only 2. Even at the headquarters they don’t know for sure. But it should be closer to 10. And now we don’t count the LDNR corps - they have their own accounting.
Now, even if Zelensky is killed, captured, nothing will change. There is Chechnya in terms of hatred towards us. And now even those who were loyal to us are opposed. Because it was planned from above, because we were told that there would be no such option, unless we were attacked. Because they explained that it was necessary to create the most credible threat in order to peacefully agree on the right conditions. Because we were initially preparing protests within Ukraine against Zelensky. Excluding our direct entry. Intrusions, to put it simply.
Further civilian losses will go exponentially - and resistance to us will also only increase. They already tried to enter the cities with infantry - out of twenty landing groups, only one had a conditional success. Remember the assault on Mosul - after all, this is the rule, it was the same for all countries, nothing new.
Keep under siege? According to the experience of military conflicts in the same Europe in recent decades (Serbia is the largest testing ground here), cities can be under siege for years, and even function. Humanitarian convoys from Europe there - a matter of time.
We have a conditional deadline of June. Conditional - because in June we have no economy left, nothing remains. By and large, next week there will be a turning point in one of the sides, simply because the situation cannot be in such an overstrain. There are no analytics - it is impossible to calculate the chaos, here no one can say anything for sure. Act intuitively, and even on emotions - but this is not poker for you. Rates will rise, in the hope that suddenly some option will shoot through. The trouble is that we, too, can now miscalculate and lose everything in one move.
By and large, the country has no way out. It’s just that there is no option for a possible victory, and defeat is everything, sailed at all. They 100% repeated the beginning of the last century, when they decided to kick weak Japan and get a quick victory, then it turned out that the army was in trouble. then they started the war to the bitter end, then they began to take the Bolsheviks for "re-education" into the army - after all, they were outcasts, uninteresting to anyone in the masses. And then, the Bolsheviks, who were not really known to anyone, picked up anti-war slogans and it started like this ...

From the pros: we did everything so that even a hint of the mass sending of "penalty boxes" to the front line did not pass. Send convicts and "socially unreliable" political prisoners there (so that they don't mess with the water inside the country) - the morale of the army will simply go into the negative. And the enemy is motivated, terribly motivated. He knows how to fight, there are enough middle-level commanders there. There are weapons. They have support. We will simply set a precedent for human loss in the world. And that's it.
What we are most afraid of: at the top, they act according to the rule of overlapping the old problem with a new problem. Largely for this reason, the Donbass of 2014 began - it was necessary to divert the attention of Westerners from the topic of the Russian spring in Crimea, so the Donbass crisis, it seems, should have drawn all the attention to itself and become the subject of bargaining. But there were even bigger problems. Then they decided to push Erdogan into 4 pipes of the South Stream and entered Syria - this is after Soleimani gave deliberately false inputs in order to solve his problems. As a result, it was not possible to close the issue with Crimea, there are also problems with the Donbass, the South Stream has shrunk to 2 pipes, and Syria has hung with another headache (if we go out, they will demolish Assad, which will make us look like idiots, but it’s also difficult and useless to sit).
I don't know who came up with the "Ukrainian Blitzkrieg". If we were given real introductory information, we would at least indicate that the original plan is controversial, that we need to double-check a lot. A lot of things. Now we got into shit somewhere up to the neck. And it is not clear what to do. "Denazification" and "demilitarization" are not analytical categories, because they do not have clearly defined parameters by which one can determine the level of accomplishment or non-completion of the task.
Now it remains to be seen that some fucking adviser will convince the top to start a conflict with Europe demanding to reduce some sanctions. Or reduce, or war. What if they refuse? Now I do not rule out that then we will be drawn into a real international conflict, like Hitler in 1939. And then our Z will be compared to us with a swastika.

Is there a possibility of a local nuclear strike? Yes. Not for military purposes (it will not give anything - this is a defense breakthrough weapon), but with the aim of intimidating others. At the same time, the soil is being prepared to turn everything to Ukraine - Naryshkin and his SVR are now digging the earth to prove that they secretly created nuclear weapons there. Damn, they are now hammering on what we have long studied and dismantled: you can’t draw evidence here on your knee, and the presence of specialists and uranium (Ukraine has a lot of depleted isotope 238) is nothing. There the production cycle is such that you can’t do it imperceptibly. You can’t even make a “dirty” bomb imperceptibly, but the fact that their old nuclear power plants can produce weapons-grade plutonium (plants like REB-1000 produce it in minimal quantities as a “by-product” of the reaction) - so the Americans introduced such control there with the involvement of the IAEA, that sucking on the topic is stupid.

Do you know what will happen in a week? Well, even after two. Now we will be so covered that we will start to miss the hungry 90s. While the auction was closed, Nabiullina seemed to be taking normal steps - but this is all like plugging a hole in a dam with a finger. It
will still break through, and even stronger. Nothing will be decided in 3, 5, or 10 days.
Kadyrov beats his hoof for a reason - they have their own adventures there. He created for himself the image of the most influential and invincible. And if it falls once, it will be taken down by its own people. He will no longer be the owner of the winning teip.
We go further. Syria. "The guys will hold out, everything will end in Ukraine - and there in Syria we will again strengthen everything in positions." And now, at any moment, they can wait there for the contingent to run out of resources - and such a heat will set in ... Turkey blocks the straits - to transport supplies there by planes, it's like heating an oven with money.
Notice that all this is happening at the same time, we don’t even have time to bring everything into one heap. We have a situation, like in Germany in the 43-44th. At the start right away. Sometimes I am already lost from this overwork, sometimes it seems that everything was a dream and it was a dream, that everything is as before.
In prisons, by the way, it will be worse. Now the nuts will begin to tighten so that to the bloody ichor. Everywhere. To be honest, purely technically, this remains the only chance to keep the situation - we are already in the mode of total mobilization. But you can’t stay in such a regime for a long time, and we have ambiguity with the timing and it will only get worse for now. From mobilization, management always goes astray. Yes, and imagine: you can run a hundred meters in a snatch, but it’s bad to go to a marathon distance and give a jerk with all your might. Here we are with the Ukrainian issue rushed like a hundred meters, and fit into a cross-country marathon.
And that's what I said very, very briefly about what's going on.
From the cynical, I will only add that I do not believe that VV Putin will press the red button to destroy the whole world.
Firstly, there is more than one person making a decision, at least someone will jump off. And there are a lot of people there - there is no "one-man red button".
Secondly, there are some doubts that everything is functioning successfully there. Experience shows that the greater the transparency and control, the easier it is to identify shortcomings. And where it is not clear who and how controls, but always bravura reports - everything is always wrong there. I'm not sure if the red button system works as advertised. In addition, the plutonium charge must be changed every 10 years.
Thirdly, and this is the most vile and sad thing, I personally do not believe in the readiness to sacrifice oneself of a person who does not let the members of the Federation Council, but his closest representatives and ministers, come close to him. For fear of the coronavirus or an attack, it doesn't matter. If you are afraid to let the most trusted people near you, then how will you dare to destroy yourself and your loved ones, inclusive?
If anything - ask, but I can not answer for several days. We are in a rush mode, and there are more and more tasks.
In general, our reports are peppy, but everything flies in the pi_du.

Shit's fucked, if true.

[Strongpoint]

(toad-edit: response to removed post removed)

Back to the actual topic. Russian advance is losing momentum. Yes, soon several cities will become Allepo-like (Mariupol is the most likely candidate) and they'll likely capture a few more strategic objects like large power stations but capturing Kyiv or invading into Western Ukraine becomes an increasingly impossible task. Their invasion force faces attrition and will need to be replaced with fresh troops, so (partial) mobilization is in order. Or Russia will start using WMD

My biggest fear is treason (or simply weakness) from the Ukrainian government. Any kind of ceasefire (apart from one that includes removal of all Russian troops) will be awful news because Russian will use this to fix their logistics, dig up, do neccesarry counter-insurgency measures, bring in reserves and prepare for the next attack.

[Svarte Troner]

Hey everyone look at what the Serbs are doing: Pro-Russia Serbs march in Belgrade as country treads ever finer line between East and West

Serbia is the only other country I've seen where they're having large, public displays of support for Russia's invasion. They want to be Putin's little lapdogs almost as badly as Lukashenko.

Back to the actual topic. Russian advance is losing momentum. Yes, soon several cities will become Allepo-like (Mariupol is the most likely candidate) and they'll likely capture a few more strategic objects like large power stations but capturing Kyiv or invading into Western Ukraine becomes an increasingly impossible task. Their invasion force faces attrition and will need to be replaced with fresh troops, so (partial) mobilization is in order. Or Russia will start using WMD

I wonder what the probability of a coup on Putin becomes as this grinds on. Lyudmila Narusova, a senator in the Russian upper house, admitted that conscripts are in the war and are taking huge losses: in one unit, out of 100, 4 survived. meanwhile, Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, encourages “everyone to unite around the president.”

(toad-edit: removed a response to removed posts)

[Strongpoint]

Gymnast Ivan Kuliak caused outrage on Saturday by wearing a Russian war symbol on his shirt while sharing a podium with a Ukrainian rival.

Former Russian junior champion Kuliak had just finished third behind winner Ukraine's Illia Kovtun in the parallel bars at a World Cup event in Doha.

And as the gymnasts were pictured standing shoulder to shoulder to collect their medals, clearly visible was a letter 'Z' taped across the middle of Kuliak's shirt.

__________

And then we hear. "Why are you kicking Russian athletes out? It is unfair! Sport isn't about politics."

[Ulfarr]

Does "z" have any specific meaning or is it just an identification mark?

[martinuzz]

Canada has called on any Canadian living in Russia to leave the country, because they cannot assure their safety.