ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

If Putin had any hopes that the Ukrainian army would fold immediately a la the Afghan National Army, presumably he has been disabused.

Maybe it was smart. I'm not blaming them. Just saying Ukraine army seems to maintaining morale in the face of the Russian assault. Thats an important first test.

No matter what happens on the ground, Russia has already lost:

Russia kicked out of 2022 Eurovision Song Contest by the European Broadcasting Union following Ukraine invasionhttps://t.co/pZ7uOWtOMU pic.twitter.com/ihqQPcbki5

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) February 25, 2022

Interesting that Putin is now openly calling for the Ukraine army to overthrow Zelensky and negotiate with him directly. Seems perhaps a tacit acknowledgment that they are more of a force to be reckoned with than he may have initially hoped.

Or that the demands are politically impossible, so would have to be implemented by an undemocratic military junta.

The fierceness of the Ukrainian defense does at least seem encouraging for the prospects of an effective insurgency if Ukraine falls. I guess I shouldn’t be talking about this as a foregone conclusion, just feeling grim rn.

They know the land, and they have the motivation - Russia might have a massive army, but it doesn't seem like Ukraine has a small one

This is something indeed.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky: "We're all here. We are in Kyiv. We are defending Ukraine."#StandWithUkraine https://t.co/iBJpFarqSL

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) February 25, 2022

wow

the CIR created a map showing russian military activity based on twitter searches

https://maphub.net/Cen4infoRes/russian-ukraine-monitor

A lot of footage is being posted online of Russian military movements along the Ukrainian border. We’re working with the #OSINT community to document, verify & map this information. You can find our map of verified movements here: https://t.co/2uqsSML5Qe pic.twitter.com/ToGku2xX8G

— Centre for Information Resilience (@Cen4infoRes) February 9, 2022

UKRAINE: fear amongst western officials now is that Russia will start bombing Ukrainians indiscriminately and even with thermobaric weapons, if their progress continues to be impeded.

— Alistair Bunkall (@AliBunkallSKY) February 25, 2022

this was kind of my thought as i read reports of the Ukrainian army defensive effectiveness

This is a good feed to follow for some in-depth analysis of how international payment systems work and how severe or not the announced sanctions so far have been (not that I have independent knowledge to verify this information):

https://twitter.com/Frances_Coppola

It seems its a lot more complicated than just "Ban them from SWIFT". One thing I take away is that there is clearly a lot further that sanctions could go, and if Russia starts levelling Ukrainian cities, I think some of these other options will come on the table.

Thanks for the links o. nate and Punster.

Something might be up

Strengthening sanctions, concrete defense assistance and an anti-war coalition have just been discussed with @POTUS. Grateful to 🇺🇸 for the strong support to 🇺🇦!

— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 25, 2022

'concrete defense assistance' is what they currently need, but getting it in there might be difficult

Zelenskyy has come across very impressively. He's proven very good at standing up for himself and his country, especially given his total lack of political experience.

fear amongst western officials now is that Russia will start bombing Ukrainians indiscriminately

the Ukrainian army is without effective air support. at some point the plan has to be for the armed resistance to scatter into multitudes of smaller units that don't present easy targets from the air. indiscriminate bombing of Ukrainians is kind of baked into that cake.

Sadly there is some precedent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grozny_(1999%E2%80%932000)

Ukrainian MP, former COO of the local branch of Amazon’s Ring https://t.co/KSF3v0vJ4h

— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 25, 2022

hashtag kalash

"Take these seeds so sunflowers grow when you die here!!"
This woman is a badass:

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-60525996

That is incredible.

The use of thermobaric weapons (referenced in the tweet above) is one of the bleaker scenarios: a weapon that sucks the oxygen out of a particular area -- a bunker, a subway station, and so on.

Also, this may come to nothing, but:

Document from Ministry of Health shows Russia is clearly preparing for a major medical event where doctors have to be drafted from across the country. The letter is signed by Deputy Health Minister Plutnitsky.

— Emma Burrows (@EJ_Burrows) February 25, 2022

x-post. Sunflowers? Yes, great footage. Bravery.

(I'd just read that many Russian soldiers don't want to be there and have been threatened and something about that clip also made that seem believable).

Sunflowers are Ukraine's national flower.

yeah I've seen some footage of Ukrainians helping the badly wounded Russian soldiers, who appear to be like 19 and don't really look like they wanna be be there

Thanks for that Eazy - I didn't know that and found something incredibly moving about it.

Grain of salt, etc.

The #Anonymous collective has leaked the database of the Russian Ministry of Defense website. #Ukraine

— Anonymous (@YourAnonOne) February 25, 2022

bummed that "Ghost of Kyiv" thing was a fake apparently

there's a fucking video of a tank driving on a highway, there being a sole car being driven by an elderly man nowhere near the tank, and the tank swerves and runs over the car.

the man survived the initial event and was extricated from his vehicle, hoping he remained ok....don't watch the vid, but this video making the rounds to fight the obvious peacekeeping propaganda. just sickening video.

what was that ghost of kyiv thing about? i saw it getting mentioned on reddit a bunch, so assumed it was stupid.

Apparently some Red Baron fighter jet ace

yeah legendary Ukrainian Fighter pilot that took down a bunch of Russian aircraft on the first day

but i think some of the footage used to verify this was from a video game smh

this whole thing is making me sick to my stomach

Searches for “how to make a molotov cocktail” spiked in Ukraine in the last 24 hours, according to Google search data.

I've struggled to listen to the news in the morning (UK, Radio 4, generally), AndytG.

xp

Molotov cocktail production pic.twitter.com/zdKLyq4rDL

— C O U P S U R E (@COUPSURE) February 25, 2022

Alex Vindman (the Ukraine-born expert that Trump hated so much) has suggested something akin to Lend/Lease, where we sent all these weapons & vehicles to the USSR before we officially joined WWII as a active combatant - I think we should do nothing less

it seems safe to think that weapons and other aid will be forthcoming from the western powers for as long as the Ukrainians are able and willing to resist. but by the time major military aid could be assembled and shipped it's likely there would be some difficulty finding safe points of entry for anything larger than Stinger missiles.

From what I gather, we are already talking about more than Ukraine, because arms are reportedly being sent to other nearby NATO countries who are rightly nervous, not to mention other countries (like Finland and Sweden) that Putin also explicitly warned against joining NATO. I can't even fathom what his end game is, or why he decided to do this now.

it's because Brandon is weak! geez keep up

Oh yeah, forgot about Brandon.

god the "this never would've happened under Trump" argument drives me up the fuckin wall, as though he didn't give Putin every single thing he wanted

And took shit away from Ukraine! That's why he was impeached the first time!

Anyway:

“Why should our government entertain your presence here when you’re acting as an apologist for slaughter?” @mcculld asks Russia's ambassador to Ireland. @rtenews
pic.twitter.com/SujhiqatGE

— Donie O'Sullivan (@donie) February 25, 2022

New Polling!!

It said 92% of Republicans had a negative view of Biden, while 81% had a negative view of Putin

god the "this never would've happened under Trump" argument drives me up the fuckin wall, as though he didn't give Putin every single thing he wanted

― frogbs, Friday, 25 February 2022 21:36 (one minute ago) link

I think that's their point, right?

Um, you guys talking about the US running guns to Ukraine, I don’t you’ve fully thought this out.

Comrade Calz would have something saltier to say if here were here probably.

I've thought it out, send them arms

America has a rich, glorious history of arming belligerents in conflicts that have nothing to do with us, why stop now