ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

in case there was any remaining doubt about russian aims, pretty well spelled out there

wonder how "accidental" that really was

Another miscalculation Putin may have made is confusing calculated, cautious cooperation with allegiance or alignment. The only leaders that can't afford to turn their backs on him are the ones he props up, just like his oligarchs at home. Belarus, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela ... with friends like these, you need new friends. Even China and Hungary have hedged their bets.

US Embassy in Moscow says: “US citizens should consider departing Russia immediately.”https://t.co/598gdcQIqD pic.twitter.com/uu8a88yXbQ

— Cliff Levy (@cliffordlevy) February 27, 2022

You think?

Ah, this is good.

Kyiv Mayor @Klitschko says on his official Telegram channel that info spreading online of the capital being surrounded and closed off on all sides is disinformation pic.twitter.com/O5BWrhKccR

— Alex Ward (@alexbward) February 27, 2022

But again, seems like further confusion in the follow-ups. Who knows, sadly.

xp i think it’s important to maintain distinction between russian goals and putin’s goals

If sanctions and freezes on Swiss etc. accounts, other international resources, really put a squeeze on oligarchs and Kremlin officials who are involved in running and/or getting big money from conglomerates, seems like possibly Putin could be removed or pressured to find some compromise---and retired later, esp. as fallout from present moment, incl. compromise, left lingering problems for Russia,
But cutting off oil and gas deals could bring on a recession in the West, maybe elsewhere outside of Russia too---would be worth it vs. rolling warfare etc., but some more of that (already in progress) would have to motivate the public to accept, if they did.
Elections coming up in France, for inst, midterms in US---could be a wave of Right candidates, blaming libs for weakness, pledging to work something out with Putin---

I'm sure Putin has his personal security staff, other circles within circles, hardcore, but, like their boss, ultimately out for themselves, as much as possible. (Though also with x number of true believers, for whom strongmen are magnets, also those too scared to change sides)

Lookin' good, Russia!

Dammmnnn https://t.co/RE9ZIN1ffp

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) February 27, 2022

tiiiiiiight

An Ukranian sailor has been arrested in Mallorca after sinking the yacht of his Russian wealthy boss.
Boat owner is Alexander Mijeev, an executive at Rostec, a Russian state owned company manufacturer military equipment and tech
Source @UHmalllorcahttps://t.co/FexzbDbhkD

— Ignasi Guardans (@iguardans) February 27, 2022

My brain has again died

From Z's old comedy troupe Kvartal 95. The song is called "Cossacks," about gay Cossacks. "Let's become gay! ... Tomorrow we're going to have a dance-off against the Russians! Ukraine has not yet perished, while we still have lard! Lard, borshch, onion, horseradish, let's drink." https://t.co/V6ok0g7Jpi

— Talia Lavin (@swordsjew) February 27, 2022

This is an epic thread but full of fascinating stuff about Russia and how we got here:

Why Russia will lose this war?

Much of the "realist" discourse is about accepting Putin's victory, cuz it's *guaranteed*. But how do we know it is?

I'll argue that analysts 1) overrate Russian army 2) underrate Ukrainian one 3) misunderstand Russian strategy & political goals🧵 pic.twitter.com/pXpfIcq3Zs

— Kamil Galeev (@kamilkazani) February 27, 2022

Pretty good

People are asking me why I endorsed the use of "We're Not Gonna Take It" for the Ukrainian people and did not for the anti-maskers. Well, one use is for a righteous battle against oppression; the other is a infantile feet stomping against an inconvenience.

— Dee Snider🇺🇸 (@deesnider) February 27, 2022

This guy gets around. What a guy:

People of the World…Reporting from the Ukraine border! This is one of the places @WCKitchen has hot meals. It is below freezing tonight & I am meeting so many refugees, families who are escaping & don’t know what’s next…We will do our best not to let them down! #ChefsForUkraine pic.twitter.com/YiEemUfLlC

— José Andrés (@chefjoseandres) February 28, 2022

The part about special operations vs war was interesting in the link Josh shared.
I’d always assumed Russia’s army was experienced and well updated; and while not wrong - that might not nec help them in Ukraine.

The evangelical, hands-across-the ocean Russian pitch upthread seems like something that European and American right-wingers might use along with reminders that Czar-in-training Vladimir is a Christian conservative too--reminding me of this turn in Margaret Talbot's recent New Yorker contextualization of Amy Coney Barrett:
If Barrett declines to overturn Roe in the Mississippi case, it could give momentum to conservative scholars and pundits who have already expressed disappointment in originalism. This faction would like to replace it with “common-good constitutionalism” or “common-good originalism”—approaches that make no apologies for elevating their versions of morality over others’. In a recent manifesto, the legal commentators Hadley Arkes, Garrett Snedeker, and Matthew Peterson, along with the opinion editor of Newsweek, Josh Hammer, argued for a“more robust jurisprudence rooted in the principles and practices of American constitutionalism before the last century of liberalism began its attempt to remake America.” Judges, they wrote, had to stand against a “moral relativism brooking no limits, not even those objective truths in nature that distinguish men from women.” For a time, originalists had held out against “the rapid hegemonic rise and the sweeping reach of ‘Progress’ ”—the manifesto praised District of Columbia v. Heller, in which Scalia interpreted the Second Amendment as a guarantee of an individual’s right to bear arms, and Citizens United, which equated unlimited corporate campaign spending with free speech. But originalists had relied too much on “proceduralist bromides”—asking Is it in the Constitution or not? instead of Is it right or wrong?—and thus had failed to achieve conservatives’ desired result of renewing the culture along traditionalist, or “natural law,” lines.Given the classic conservative complaint about liberal “activist judges”—that they are nakedly results-oriented—this critique of originalism represents a volte-face. Common-good constitutionalism’s biggest thinker, the Harvard law professor Adrian Vermeule—who, in 2016, announced his conversion to Catholicism—regularly summons a vision of a new order that can sound more like an authoritarian theocracy than like a constitutional democracy. In 2020, he wrote a rather ominous essay in The Atlantic, “Beyond Originalism,” which argued:

Just authority in rulers can be exercised for the good of subjects, if necessary even against the subjects’ own perceptions of what is best for them—perceptions that may change over time anyway, as the law teaches, habituates, and re-forms them. Subjects will come to thank the ruler whose legal strictures, possibly experienced at first as coercive, encourage subjects to form more authentic desires for the individual and common goods,better habits, and beliefs that better track and promote communal well-being.

"the ruler" and "subjects" is a nice inversion of the basic principles of democracy

what does the annihilation of kiev mean for roe vs wade

re: all the bogged down talk

Russia's advance has been extraordinarily rapid. For comparison's sake, here are same-scale maps of 48 hours into the US invasion of Iraq and @JulianRoepcke's estimate after 36 hours in Ukraine.

Anyone saying Russia is bogged down is nuts. https://t.co/X4iVuIW1Ei pic.twitter.com/U6pbpyvx8u

— Bazaar of War (@bazaarofwar) February 26, 2022

There is somewhat of a difference in terrain and conditions between Iraq and Ukraine.

There are huge differences - Iraq didn't have an air force at all, for one - but the idea that it's a disaster/even 'going badly' remains highly speculative and possibly more wish fulfillment than reality. It's been a rapid advance by any measure. The Russians are taking more casualties than a western democracy would accept but that doesn't mean much. If the war 'goes badly' for them it will be more about the economy tanking due to international actions than poor kids from Chechnya getting killed.

I can't take any more of these 'Here's why Russia will lose. 1/35' threads.

Derek reminds his coworkers that "Russia has stubbornly refused to Landmax" while microwaving a tray of frozen mac and cheese for lunch.

I think that these sanctions will prove cataclysmic for the Russian economy. There's no other way to state it. I suspect as many other colleagues who have studied Russia over the years, it feels like staring into an abyss of uncertainty in terms of its future. https://t.co/Sd20NyaDSA

— Michael Kofman (@KofmanMichael) February 28, 2022

getting increasingly perturbed by how frequently words such as 'uncertain', 'unpredictable', 'unstable' etc are cropping up discussions of Putin/Russia's future

It really can’t be overstated how much of Putin’s domestic appeal is based on ‘at least he fixed the economy / brought stability’. This is also a disaster for countries all the way from Moldova to Kyrgyzstan that are dependent on remittances from migrant workers in Russia.

There needs to be a rapid path to stabilisation in the event of a Russian withdrawal or a lot of stuff is going to be extremely bad.

I think we’re all well aware of how bizarre war in the age of social media is, but unconfirmed reports that the Kremlin has unfriended Shoigu and Lavrov on Instagram may have ended me.

LOL World War Three caused by Liz Truss.

According to the Interfax news agency, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a press briefing:

"Statements were made by various representatives at various levels on possible altercations or even collisions and clashes between Nato and Russia. We believe that such statements are absolutely unacceptable. I would not call the authors of these statements by name, although it was the British foreign minister."

Apparently these spokesmen are getting their lines from sitcom writers.

"I would not call the authors of these statements by name, although it was the British foreign minister."

I feel better already

🚨 Roman Abramovich of Chelsea FC fame is “trying to help” with peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, a spokesman says.

story with @ArashMassoudi https://t.co/NNwR4mGKAK pic.twitter.com/PsLMRui1pn

— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 28, 2022

Meantime

The US announces they're cutting off Russia's central bank, banning US citizens, companies from doing business w them, “effectively immobilizes any assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation held in the U.S. or by U.S. persons, wherever located.”https://t.co/8BfhyeP3J7

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) February 28, 2022

The White House says they are announcing this decision before US markets open after learning from allies that the Russian central bank was attempting to move assets and there would be “a great deal of asset flight” this a.m.

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) February 28, 2022

Abramovich is believed to have recently instructed his lieutenant Kepa Arrizabalaga to attempt to heal Europe's divides via the medium of physical comedy

Speaking of the “wish fulfilment” reporting - I do feel like too many are taking the Ukrainians numbers at face value. I think the number of Russian KIA they are putting out there is astronomical and should be treated with much more skepticism than they are receiving.

And certainly Russia has made decent progress - but I agree (I forget if it’s upthread or elsewhere I saw it) that their objective and timing were different than what the US’s were in Iraq. This definitely looks like they were hoping to have the eastern cities and kyiv under control (or at least occupied) by now. The only way this makes sense is if they were able to do this lightening fast.

The European Union is preparing to grant Ukrainians who flee the war the right to stay and work in the EU for up to three years, Reuters reports.

This seems good. Almost half a million Ukrainians have already crossed into the EU I believe.

all these photos of putin sitting at one end of a table and his generals/ministers sitting 30 feet away are so weird and pathetic

it would honestly make more sense if he were on a raised throne and they had to sit on stools in front of him

I realize I am being a total arm chair and may be way off.

^ xpost

i wonder if those pics are current, or just older pics people are recycling.

Current, I gather they’re coming from streams/broadcasts.

Yep. Some are from the meeting with the economic advisors this morning. It’s meant to be a COVID countermeasure.

It’s definitely A Thing. Could be a weird power flex as well. Or some combination of the two.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t3drzw/phone_of_terminated_russian_soldier/

That's so sad.

Last message: Mom I'm in Ukraine. Here we have real war. We are attacking everyone, even civilians. They told us they would meet us with flowers, but they block our forces and Don't let us go further. They call us fascists. Mom it's really hard here.

Sad whether it's fake or not, tbh. This is all so unnecessary.

all these photos of putin sitting at one end of a table and his generals/ministers sitting 30 feet away are so weird and pathetic

I'm wary of reading too much into this, it could just as easily be "get me a ridiculous table, lets make them think I'm losing it"

This idea he's suddenly irrational and no longer cautious doesn't ring all that true, there's lot of evidence he goes for risky bets, going right back to the way he came to power in the first place

Reading a lot of stuff that rings true, and then something that counters it all that also rings true, on just about every angle, so its kind of disorienting

Russia's army seems to have bungled the opening, but from my amateur armchair perspective it still seems at least 50% likely that their overwhelming advantages will allow them to eventually prevail, at least in the sense of capturing the major cities and forcing the Ukrainian defense into an insurgency mode. Yes, its a major reversal for EU countries to step up and supply lethal aid to an active war zone, but its not clear to me if the on-the-ground impact will match the symbolic impact. Also, I think its easy to overrate how quickly these sanctions will impact the real Russian economy. Financial markets always react quickly, but for the concerns of the average Russian, it may be a while before we start to see the effects, and we probably won't see effects to the extent of people not being able to buy groceries or put gas in their cars. Yes, some higher unemployment, some higher than usual inflation, but maybe not quite the economic Armageddon that we are hearing about.

even if it’s just a covid protocol, it’s nice that the visitors are welcome to give each other their germs as long as vlad’s clear

xp oh i don’t think it’s a sign of him ‘losing it’ — i think it’s a sign of him eternally being, as someone said, ‘a 5-foot-6 guy who tells people he’s 5-foot-7’

A piece I don't really understand is whether the economic sanctions have any impact on military logistics - is there enough short term impact to make refueling and supply lines more difficult? If not, my fear is that Putin won't see any choice but to keep stepping up aggression, unable to back down, and eventually the Russian army's superior force would defeat Ukraine. Then of course Russia is mired in an untenable occupation with a likely prolonged insurgency supported by western powers, but that situation still feels like a tragedy for everyone, hard to feel good about it. I don't think Putin can emerge from this stronger, but in the meantime I fear a lot more destruction.

Good thread on Putin's history of taking risky gambles:

There are many people right now who are arguing that Putin has somehow changed/lost it/gone mad and is not the man he used to be.

I couldn't disagree more. They have simply not been paying attention. This is who he has *always* been 🧵

— Dmitri Alperovitch (@DAlperovitch) February 28, 2022

beyond fuel, it will definitely effect their ability to produce new weapons/vehicles in oder to replace what is getting destroyed. raw materials, electronics and just buying power is going to be much more limited for them going forward. i am certainly skeptical of the numbers we are hearing from Ukraine – but Russia is definitely losing their fair share of equipment there.
xpost