ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

Second, we will paralyse the assets of Russia’s central bank.
 
This will freeze its transactions.
 
And it will make it impossible for the Central Bank to liquidate its assets. pic.twitter.com/8H9eWkNCW9

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) February 26, 2022

Not sure if the US will do the same, but potentially huge.

US is as well,.

damn

seems like they have announced they will do it but are not actually doing it yet.

my wife said there was a statement from China earlier today as well, in support? has that been posted?

in support of cutting russia off from SWIFT?

to the extent that I know anything about anything, none of this looks very good for Putin in the long term. The entire world has turned their back on him. He has fewer supporters than Assad.

The only China statement I've seen was a classic say nothing PR move - we respect Ukraine's territorial sovereignty but we get Russia's security concerns, everyone should chill out.

Ok I’m starting to come around to thinking maybe he lost it after all, if the China thing is really true.

But let’s see if that actually pans out

i would be inclined to think the increasing isolation is something putin not only welcomes but perhaps planned for
partially because it allows him to continue using the “everybody against us” angle locally
and if anything it would be the internal unrest he would be more worried about

and it gives him an excuse to contribute to this isolation precisely to exercise more local control
wouldn’t be surprised if russia will be introducing state level firewall a la china soon

xps to akm: no just in support of "territorial sovereignty" but imo even saying that is distancing and on purpose

Michael Kidman posted a video purportedly showing thermobaric weaponry being deployed today

Now, I only learned what thermobaric weaponry was itt this week but fucking yikes; anyone know if this is confirmed?

KOFMAN not Kidman

classic mou tactics and imo only a matter of time before putin allows ukraine to hold on to the nukes for 72% of the time and try to do the damage on the counter

love u darragh but I cannot parse that post at all

guessing it's a footie thing

lad's feeling chuffed; his club now has a positive goal differential

my bad, i should've posted a tweet that conveyed the depth of my feeling on the situation

(yes it was a footy thing)

I've seen several reports of thermobaric weapons, but I can't say with 100% certainty. But it seems very plausible to me (a dumb american.)

not trying to poop on you, ian ian ian, but that is not very helpful

I’m not going to pretend I understand a whole lot but this seems to be going really poorly for Putin? Everything is falling apart not even a week into this

Could any Russian speaker give me information about this? It is purported to be a resource for parents of russian soldiers, with videos confirming captured soldiers.
https://200rf.com

this seems to be going really poorly for Putin? Everything is falling apart not even a week into this

maybe? he leads a much larger country that can threaten ukraine on three sides. does it really matter if it takes an extra week?

he's definitely losing the public relations/internet battle, tho

What mookie said only I’m not sure they care much about the PR battle.

oh i think it's pretty important that europe sees the sunflower seeds lady and the snake island stuff!

i mean is there a more popular person in the world than zelinskiy right now?

i think it matters if it takes another week depending on how well the Ukrainian military can disrupt the Russian supply lines; recent twitter post i saw, for example, claims that to the east of Kiev, the Ukranians blew up a tanker of fuel intended for advancing tanks. if the russians can't keep their armies moving, or fed, or supplied w fresh water, i think that the time factor becomes super important.

xp
no, he is the most popular.

I guess the time factor matters in terms of giving allies time to decide to help more and the time to actually do so.

Saw a post that basically said Russia, of all countries, should know the logistical headaches of an eastern land war in winter.

The Zelinskyy thing is wild. Dude was literally a comedian playing the President on TV and now he’s the President for real during a fucking war.

Probably ought to be careful about assumptions of how the war is going (particularly based on twitter posts, particularly after things like the Ghost of Kyiv were shown to be false). It took us a month to capture Baghdad, the idea that Putin expected few casualties or a three day ground war is a huge assumption.

If it was a movie plot it would feel hackneyed.

Xp

Also agree with milo, very much want to be hopeful but still feel pretty apprehensive and grim rn.

I think the “pr” battle does matter a lot tho. Putin has gotten away with a lot over the last decade and has suffered what I’d consider light consequences. And what it seems like now is that a lot of nations that would prefer to turn a blind eye are standing up to him. I doubt he expected Germany to agree to a swift ban or for Kazakhstan to refuse to send troops (or maybe he did factor for this, I dunno).
But probably what he fears most is looking weak in front of his people. And that’s where the pr fight can really hurt him.

PR battle does matter but there's a wide gulf between "surprisingly resistant" and "turning the invaders back". hoping like hell for the Ukraine but there's probably a lot of ugliness ahead.

mostly I'm just reading what's being posted so keep it coming please (very helpful)

I get the horrible feeling that things going poorly for Putin translates into Putin flattening Kyiv with tens of thousands of civilian deaths. There is no way Putin is not going to take Kyiv, even if it means Berlin-level destruction

things going badly for putin sure but they've got way more bodies/weaponry at their disposal to throw at whatever this is and the ability to make adjustments

not trying to doomsay but it's only been a couple of days
minute to minute twitter updates can be misleading as to where things are headed
doesnt give you the scope of the whole thing which is kind of what is needed

xpost which would be irredeemable. not that he's currenrlty in any position to be much more than a pariah the rest of his life.

i don't think nato was honestly ever going to invite ukraine -- there was no way for nato to really defend it short of extreme badness -- but tbf flirting with it was a mistake

that said, vlad has now kinda shit the bed? the world thinks the ukrainians are heroes, finland is thinking 'that could be us', and probably the EU is as united as it's ever been. he can still scour ukraine from end to end but that will only make those positions worse

Whether or not Putin successfully takes over let alone holds Ukraine, the fact that he's attempting it at all is the most perplexing. He got away with Crimea, he's been making minor incursions or threats for years. But making good on those threats in this manner, let alone doing so while intimating further aggression, doesn't seem to get him more than he was getting before, and in fact probably leaves him with less, since he's in a much weaker position, possibly at home but certainly internationally. How can anything go back to normal after this? The best Putin could do is withdraw all the troops right now and claim they achieved their objections, whatever those invented objections might be. But he's still be a pariah, and further he does not seem like the kind of guy willing to accept such a blatant humiliation on a global scale. Which means ... he's stuck trying to invade and hold Ukraine? Which leaves him no way out except to further menace and threaten. But that's no way to run a country that wants to be a world player. North Korea, Iran ... they know better than to brazenly invade a neighbor, let alone a neighbor with NATO aspirations, however unrealistic.

Man

Ukrainian soldier to Chechen soldiers who are helping Russians. "The best of you died fighting Putin. The worst, who come to Ukraine to fight us - we are going to play football with your heads". #Ukraine #Russia #Putin #NATO #Kyiv pic.twitter.com/OAlPQ18nob

— Russia-Ukraine Latest News (@RussiaUkraineNs) February 26, 2022

and they're all doing it in the name of this guy

so apparently Zelenskyy won the Ukrainian version of Dancing with the Stars in 2006 and the tape is even better than whatever you're imagining pic.twitter.com/L1gnKD2ISr

— Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) February 27, 2022

Black and South Asians in Ukraine (some naturalized, others on visa as students) being kept from crossing into Poland as part of refugee migration. https://t.co/SS3yVSuGhK

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) February 27, 2022

Zelensky says Ukraine wants peace but can't negotiate in Belarus, which Russia is currently using to attack it.

"Warsaw, Istanbul, Baku – we offered Russia to hold talks in these cities, or any other city where missiles aren't being launched at Ukraine," he says.

— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 27, 2022

Somebody upthread said Terrell Jermaine Starr isn't a good source to follow, but they didn't say why. Anybody elaborate?

He’s a completely bizarre fake-it-til-you-make-it pundit famous for asking people on Twitter to recommend good introductory books on nuclear weapons policy, deleting the tweet and appearing as a ‘nuclear weapons policy expert’ on TV the same week, hanging out with neo-Nazis - leading to the memorable instagram caption “Pravii Sektor in the hizzouse!” and writing a piece called something like “A cop in Kyiv told me he stopped me because I’m Black, and I appreciated it”.

Ok, that kind of makes sense, thanks! I've found it difficult to know with the kinds of accounts you only see after something is happening so you have no real conception of who they are or what they're level of trustworthiness is

I didn't follow a ton of people in Ukraine before, really only the JS developer Stas Klymenko, who's tweeted a little bit about situation in a smaller city SE of Kyiv

retweets are not necessarily endorsements tbf

frequently endorkments tho

retweets are not necessarily endorsements tbf

True, I'm just wary of things that aren't true (especially when difficult to know)