ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

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)

Here’s a good page for sources to follow:

https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/02/follow-war-ukraine/

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?

i think this is more or less right, certainly in its conclusion. i get why you say it's perplexing - war is obviously de facto insane but it's also hard to see how Putin achieves positive long-term objectives. Otoh it's not perplexing in terms of his stated aims - reconfigure the geopolitics of Russia as a major power player in the world, establish Ukraine as effectively part of the Russian federation or an allied member of it, as it always should have been, for Putin.

The Kofman answer to the important question 'why now?' is that the US effectively posed Putin a question: how can we get stability in russia and its sphere of influence to enable us to focus on geopolitics centred round the south and east china seas. other people would point out factors of political stability at home, legacy building etc. on the political psychology of it, this ft piece by max seddon (not paywalled) is good, even though i'm wary of profile analysis, generally, which tends to select key events in the past to rationalise the present moment. However, the story is fairly compelling, in particular how initial attempts to position Russia as a world power through diplomacy failed - the Iraq war, western support for the colour revolutions.

while we're on perception of individual figures, worth noting that zelensky's general reputation outside ukraine has sometimes been of a political lightweight (in ukraine his popularity has been very high).. this ignored the difficult and quite forceful managing of the russia/EU/NATO politics in favour of the EU. there's a very good ft piece from May last year after the negotiated ceasefire had broken down that covers the history of this. Paywalled i'm afraid (ahem). No question that his leadership during the crisis has been incredible, and this coming directly after the justified criticism of him saying he was going to attend the Munich defence jamboree conference just a couple of weeks ago. emanating good cheer, bravery, steeliness etc.

but as i think someone pointed out upthread, Russia still haven't deployed the majority of their forces on the border, and there are increasing signs that a military target lightning strike (which has had only very partial success) is being replaced with hitting civilian targets. it's very difficult to see Putin 'backing down' and even then it's a question of what sort of 'defeat' is acceptable - certainly we can expect an escalation before then I think, which is unspeakably grim to consider.

On the question of what sort of defeat is acceptable and to consider NATO and Russian objectives, this scenario analysis from prior to the invasion on an eventual position of counter-insurgency is very useful. it outlines all potential outcomes from a point where the original invasion of the country concludes and some form of negotiated settlement is reached. It covers western options from COIN support to no support, and what it means for the country.

https://i.imgur.com/xidswkD.png

there are no good outcomes here - so, yes, to your point JiC, no ' returning to normal' here.

couple of other items, while i'm collecting my thoughts:

Brest, #Belarus, a few kilometers from the border with Poland, the NATO country. All equipment is marked with the letter V. We are asking Belarusians to send us information🇷🇺 troops.

By deploying the troops on the border with Poland, Putin also wants to threaten NATO pic.twitter.com/AiqSifZQOZ

— Hanna Liubakova (@HannaLiubakova) February 26, 2022

this is v concerning obviously, as it widens the points of aggression. unverified at the moment as the tweet says.

i haven't been through all the analysis at Janes, but it looks it looks useful as you might expect (lol i remember a military history fanatic at a school i worked in when i was 20, who had all the Janes annuals on his bookshelves, and having never heard of it, i was wtf is this - seemed such an odd name for the subject matter - i thought it was like country life or something).

kofman on the shift in tactics:

I think today we've seen a shift in Russian targeting towards critical civilian infrastructure, greater use of MLRS, and artillery in suburban areas. Unfortunately, my concern that this was going to get a lot more ugly and affect civilians is starting to materialize.

— Michael Kofman (@KofmanMichael) February 27, 2022

https://i.imgur.com/tK434HI.jpg

i should add, that Shari Vari is obv v much the expert in this area, but i do find it useful to have a place to order my thoughts and reading.

the targeting of not only ukranian civilian affecting infrastructure but other strategic development components that would set back ukrainian state independence was about the only thing i could see a lightning strike achieving

i think they were aiming to take control of airfields and key infrastructure to disable the military, and effectively enable the surrender of the government. hasn’t happened. to say the least.

Putin is finished, but the unravelling might take quite a while, and will probably also entail reducing Kyiv to rubble. I just can't see this ending in any way that is not horrible.

I think we’re all in the same boat of speculating and trying to figure things out.

I suspect we won’t know the ‘why now?’ bit for a while. There are lots of potential factors that could have contributed (Russian bullishness on the back of relatively successful campaigns in Syria and Libya, nervousness about Lukashenko’s long term future, Zelenskiy’s popularity dipping through COVID leading to increased government pressure on Russia-leaning media / oligarchs and the prospect of him being replaced by more hardline nationalists, etc) but there was no obvious reason we know of to escalate from recognition of the breakaway republics, and ratcheting up pressure, to full scale invasion so quickly.

It’s definitely plausible that Putin thought this would be over pretty quickly, with Kyiv forced into unpalatable concessions within a week or two. That’s still possible now, though perhaps more on the lines of negotiation than surrender. If that happens, it remains to be seen how much of the good will Zelenskiy has generated with the groups that considered him weak for talking about peace when he was elected carries over.

Things do have potential to become much worse over the next few weeks and the only hope is that the base unpopularity of the war at home provides a counterweight. Only about 45% of people supported recognition of the republics, vs 90% for Crimea. It’s reasonable to assume that fewer will have supported the war as sold (a limited police action to target nationalists, not ‘our brothers in the Ukrainian army’ / civilians, etc). The war as fought has already been substantially worse and, however hard they try to limit reporting, that’s not easy to hide. Start going down the route of mass shelling of civilians, etc, many of whom will have friends and family in Russia, and it’s impossible for there not to be domestic outrage. How much that matters…

I found this (from a Youtuber I'm already a fan of) to be highly illuminating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE

ive a tenner on ukraine got in at 15:1 so fingers crossed they get the result

Putin: "Western countries aren't only taking unfriendly economic actions against our country, but leaders of major Nato countries are making aggressive statements about our country. So I order to move Russia's deterrence forces to a special regime of duty." pic.twitter.com/AC1yHncqZc

— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 27, 2022

every time I realise Tom Lehrer is still with us, I wonder if we will truly all go together when we go...

― imago, Wednesday, 24 November 2021 16:34 (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

sorry 4 apocalypseposting lol

Ok, I’m starting to get kinda terrified now

Using nukes makes no sense, then again invading Ukraine didn’t either and I don’t exactly trust Putins judgment right now

I saw elsewhere that Putin can’t launch nukes on his own and a general would need to sign off/follow through (I’m not sure of what actual steps are involved). But I don’t think anyone is going to want to be a part of mass murder on that scale (launching an attack and then dying along with the rest of Russia/civilization) simply because Putin’s war isn’t going well.
NATO soldiers (hypothetically) marching into Russian territory is when I’d start thinking it’s a concern.