(I do not remember where I found this)
As I write this the first light of dawn is beginning to break over Ukraine and the fourth day of the war caused by Russia’s reinvasion of Ukraine begins. By the time I hit post day four of the war for Ukraine will be fully underway.
As dawn comes to Kyiv and the other Ukrainian cities, the defense and the defenders are holding!
⚡️After 3 days of Russia's war, the fighting is where it began, the Russian army has not been able to advance, but is attacking Kyiv.
“We totally control everything that happens in the regions of Ukraine,” Advisor the the Chief of Staff of the President Mykhailo Podoliak said.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) February 27, 2022
It has not been without costs. The Russians significantly ramped up air attacks overnight, including blowing up a fuel depot, a gas line, and, apparently, attempting to blow up a nuclear waste containment facility.
The fire can be seen from 20 miles north in Kyiv. https://t.co/QoirSKTyaP
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) February 27, 2022
The footage shows a gas pipeline on fire in Kharkiv after a Russian attack.
Video: State Special Communications Service of Ukraine pic.twitter.com/owuSoKqoFA
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) February 27, 2022
⚡️Ukraine's State Emergency Service has clarified that the shelling on a radioactive waste disposal site in Kyiv did not lead to depressurization of the storage of radioactive substances.
The hit was on the fence and the building itself and the tanks remain intact.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) February 27, 2022
And the United Nations is reporting 240 Ukrainian civilian casualties, which is most certainly an undercount.
United Nations: At least 240 civilian casualties in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began on Thursday.
The U.N. believes “real figures are considerably higher” because many reports of casualties remain to be confirmed.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) February 27, 2022
And while the defenses and defenders have held, the attacks are not over.
⚡️Six people, including a seven-year-old girl, killed in Russian shelling of Okhtyrka, in Sumy Oblast the Governor Dmitry Zhivitsky said.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) February 27, 2022
⚡️Air raid alert in Rivne region & Lutsk.
People should go to the nearest shelter.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) February 27, 2022
The good news is that the US and our EU partners have decided to severely ratchet up the pressure. From the European Commission:
Joint Statement on further restrictive economic measures
We, the leaders of the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States condemn Putin’s war of choice and attacks on the sovereign nation and people of Ukraine. We stand with the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian people in their heroic efforts to resist Russia’s invasion. Russia’s war represents an assault on fundamental international rules and norms that have prevailed since the Second World War, which we are committed to defending. We will hold Russia to account and collectively ensure that this war is a strategic failure for Putin.
This past week, alongside our diplomatic efforts and collective work to defend our own borders and to assist the Ukrainian government and people in their fight, we, as well as our other allies and partners around the world, imposed severe measures on key Russian institutions and banks, and on the architects of this war, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
As Russian forces unleash their assault on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, we are resolved to continue imposing costs on Russia that will further isolate Russia from the international financial system and our economies. We will implement these measures within the coming days.
Specifically, we commit to undertake the following measures:
First, we commit to ensuring that selected Russian banks are removed from the SWIFT messaging system. This will ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally.
Second, we commit to imposing restrictive measures that will prevent the Russian Central Bank from deploying its international reserves in ways that undermine the impact of our sanctions.
Third, we commit to acting against the people and entities who facilitate the war in Ukraine and the harmful activities of the Russian government. Specifically, we commit to taking measures to limit the sale of citizenship—so called golden passports—that let wealthy Russians connected to the Russian government become citizens of our countries and gain access to our financial systems.
Fourth, we commit to launching this coming week a transatlantic task force that will ensure the effective implementation of our financial sanctions by identifying and freezing the assets of sanctioned individuals and companies that exist within our jurisdictions. As a part of this effort we are committed to employing sanctions and other financial and enforcement measures on additional Russian officials and elites close to the Russian government, as well as their families, and their enablers to identify and freeze the assets they hold in our jurisdictions. We will also engage other governments and work to detect and disrupt the movement of ill-gotten gains, and to deny these individuals the ability to hide their assets in jurisdictions across the world.
Finally, we will step up our coordination against disinformation and other forms of hybrid warfare.
We stand with the Ukrainian people in this dark hour. Even beyond the measures we are announcing today, we are prepared to take further measures to hold Russia to account for its attack on Ukraine.
The White House posted and then tweeted the exact same announcement after allowing the EU to post it first.
More after the jump including analysis.
In extremely good news:
Magomed Tushayev, one of Ramzan Kadyrov’s top warlords, has been killed in action in Hostomel.
??Ukraine’s elite Alpha Group is reportedly fighting Chechens in the airfield. pic.twitter.com/bPHgBPK8sL— Illia Ponomarenko (@IAPonomarenko) February 26, 2022
There are reports that the Ukrainians took out the entire convoy of Chechen fighters known as Kadyrovites named for the brutal warlord who runs Chechnya on behalf of Putin.
Also, Germany finally removed the sticks from their tuchases and reinserted their spines authorizing the transfer of German manufactured weaponry to Ukraine.
Germany has authorized the Netherlands to send Ukraine 400 rocket-propelled grenade launchers to aid in the fight against Russian invaders, according to two EU officials — marking an abrupt shift in Berlin’s military policy amid pressure from EU and NATO allies.
The reversal could mean a rapid increase in European military assistance for Ukraine, as large portions of the Continent’s weapons and ammunition are at least in part German-manufactured, giving Berlin legal control over their transfer. Yet Berlin’s changing stance does not necessarily mean all requests for arms shipments will be approved, as each case is decided individually.
Poland started sending ammunition by land, while Estonia and Latvia on Friday said they were beginning to truck fuel, Javelin anti-armor weapons and medical supplies to the Ukraine border for hand-off to Ukrainian forces. Elsewhere, the Czech Republic said it would send guns and ammunition, and Slovakia said it would send ammunition, diesel and kerosene.
On Saturday, more countries started chipping in.
The Netherlands said it will send 200 Stinger anti-aircraft defense systems to Ukraine — often the top-requested type of military aid among Ukrainian soldiers and officials (apart from Western powers sending their own planes and forces to fight with Ukraine). And Belgium announced it would supply Ukraine with 2,000 machine guns and 3,800 tonnes of fuel.
Across the Atlantic, the United States on Saturday also upped its ongoing military assistance to Ukraine, authorizing up to $350 million to help bolster Ukraine’s defenses, funding that will include “further lethal defensive assistance.”
Here’s where things are going to get dicey. As the economic responses move from sanctioning specific business and individuals to removing most of Russia’s banking system from SWIFT and going after the wealth – in dollars, pounds, euros, etc; real estate and land; yachts; jets; professional sports franchises; etc – of Putin, his key aides and agents, and the rest of the oligarchs enabling him, as well as going after the mistresses, girlfriends, and children of Putin and his cronies, pressure is going to build. Specifically the pressure by the oligarchs and other sycophants and cronies to protect themselves. Additionally, the increase in the flow of weapons to rearm Ukraine to allow it to withstand the Russian reinvasion is also going to increase pressure on and around Putin.
The war is not going well for the Russians. This was not the speed run to Kyiv to capture and kill as much of the Ukrainian national government and as much of the government of the oblasts as possible and replace them with easily controlled trusted agents. Every day that Ukraine holds out increases the pressure. And that pressure is going to get relieved in two ways. The first is that Putin will up his operational tempo. What he threw at the Ukrainians overnight was much more than he’d ordered be done over the previous two nights. And as day 4 turns into night 5 of the war what he orders will be more than what he threw at the Ukrainians today. CNN reported earlier that its reporting team had eyes on a thermobaric missile launcher just south of Belgorod, Russia near Ukraine. If things continue to go badly, I expect we’ll unfortunately see this type of weapon system deployed. The second way the pressure is going to get relieved is that Putin will begin to go after the US and our EU and NATO allies in ways that he has not yet done so. He will lash out, most likely through increased cyber attacks first, in an attempt to inflict pain to stop, or at least slow down, the resupply of the Ukrainian military.
Putin has seriously miscalculated with this reinvasion. He misunderstood the resistance his forces would face. For whatever reason he seriously misunderstood the competency of the military he’s spent over a decade rebuilding and modernizing. And he misunderstood how the US and its EU and NATO allies, as well as the vast majority of the world, would respond. The other night, while texting with TaMara, she asked what I thought was up with Putin. I replied that:
I think Putin has nursed this grievance, that the fall of the Soviet Union and everything bad that has happened to Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union, is the US’s fault. That the US, working through its lackeys in the EU and NATO, has gone out of its way to damage and harm and keep Russia down. And that he’s nursed this grievance day in and day out every day since the ate 1980s and it has consumed him. COVID has made this worse as he’s isolated himself in fear of catching the virus. As a result in his loneliness and isolation, his grievance has eaten away at him like, to use Tolkien as a metaphor, the one ring ate away Smeagol and left nothing but Gollum. That now all he has left is that grievance and the belief that he could set it all right, just as at the end all Gollum had was the desire for the ring and the belief that he could once again possess his precious.
This morning I read an excellent and thought provoking essay by Max Seddon in The Financial Times that makes a similar point:
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https://www.ft.com/content/c039db89-7201-4875-b31f-b41a511496f1Already a distant figure before the pandemic, the lengths the former KGB officer takes to avoid coronavirus have limited his human contact. Western visitors are forced to sit around a comically huge table. Allies toast champagne from opposite ends of a massive carpet. Even Putin’s closest advisers are rarely allowed to come within 10 feet without weeks of quarantine and testing. People who have known him for decades say this has deepened a pent-up resentment of the west and a fixation on Russia’s shared history with Ukraine — making him more aggressive and unpredictable than ever. “He’s even more isolated than Stalin,” says Gleb Pavlovsky, a former adviser. “In the last years of his life, Stalin didn’t come to the Kremlin and lived in his dacha, but the politburo came to see him and they talked and drank. Putin doesn’t have that. He’s as isolated as he can be. And in that situation rational issues become irrational.”
Things are going to get worse now before they get better. I don’t think it will belong before President Biden and his allies are faced with a decision that I don’t think they want to make: at what point do they enter the war on behalf of Ukraine. You all know my views on this so I won’t repeat them again, but that decision point is approaching. Whether it is in days or weeks I don’t know. At some point, however, the calculus has to change to one that recognizes our ability to end the suffering being visiting upon the Ukrainian people because we have the capabilities to end this war in under a day.
I’ll leave you all with two items, one serious and one more whimsical, about Ukrainian President Zelenskyy:
Once upon a time, four sons were born to Jewish Ukrainian parents. Three sons were murdered by the Nazis. One son survived.
The survivor’s grandson is now an international hero fearlessly confronting his country’s invaders. He is Volodymyr #Zelensky, President of #Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/Evb3ePMso3— Steven Goldstein (@StvenGoldstein) February 26, 2022
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
here's the full three minute video. (I used a vpn to find it — not sure if it's accessible without one)https://t.co/vkXwJ63HSA
— Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) February 27, 2022
Open thread!
Adam L Silverman
I’ll be back later. It’s been a very long day here and I need to go offline for a bit.
Fair Economist
Anxiously awaiting morning news from Ukraine. Never thought I’d be doomscrolling Twitter to find out about Zelenskyy but here we are.
Martin
I’m getting the feeling that Ukraine is going to hold. It might be a VERY fragile hold, but I’m not sure how Russia overcomes some of these problems. Russia doesn’t have air superiority, something that the US usually secures in a couple of hours. They have clear logistical problems. They sent in paratroopers as though they had air superiority and lost a shit-ton of them. Watching civilians immolate a couple of armored personnel carriers. And the messaging in Ukraine to civilians seems really smart. If you see tanks go by, destroy the road behind them so they can’t get supplied.
I’m not sure we’d be accelerating arms into Ukraine if the analysts thought that Ukraine was doomed. Usually you turn off the tap and direct them to the adjacent regions that you fear might fall next. Seems like some US or NATO generals don’t think that’s a matter of throwing good money after bad.
Emma
I know Kadyrov is a very nasty piece of work, but is there any chance of him going “fuck this, not sending anything else”? Or even independence down the line, given that from what I know, Chechnya is only part of Russia because Putin and Kadyrov have (had?) a good thing going?
Sanjeevs
Thanks Adam.
I watched China flip the Philippines in 2016 using troll farms.
We’ve seen Russia influence US elections, Brexit etc with devastating effectiveness
We’re four days in to this war and they’ve decisively lost the propaganda war on a level comparable to the Iraqis in 1990.
I’m shocked.
Yarrow
That compilation of clips from Zelensky’s time on DWTS is so good. At this point it feels like there’s nothing he can’t do.
Calouste
@Emma: I think Kadyrov has already said something along those lines (not sending more troops), but Definitely something to keep an eye on as a bellwether, same as Kazakhstan not sending any troops. That wasn’t a good sign for Putin either.
Geoduck
@Martin: Apparently the molotav cocktail footage you mention is from 2012 riots in Ukraine, not the current war. Unless there’s been some new stuff released.
West of the Rockies
That ugly, little goblin Putin genuinely does resemble Gollum.
Emma
@Calouste: that’s good. Hope Lukashenko follows suit.
eclare
Kadyrov is the one John Oliver got into a spat with over Kadyrov’s lost cat.
Yarrow
This doesn’t sound good at all. If Putin really gets backed into a corner I can see him using something like this or worse.
Lums Better Half
1) How about we eliminate the sale of citizenship?
2) I am not sure I would give a damn whether the manufacturer approved of the resale of weapons I have bought and paid for.
Martin
@Geoduck: Thanks for the correction.
Martin
@Yarrow: Yeah, there’s lots of footage of them rolling in – either on trailers and some under their own power (CNN, etc. so presumably verified). They’re TOS-1s – pretty easy to spot.
I’m not sure the thermobaric rockets are the problem but the incendiary ones. There’s some footage out there suggesting they’re already using the incendiary rockets. Thermobaric has pretty specific use. Incendiary I think is more flexible. Most things respond poorly to massive amounts of fire raining from the sky. Witness Tokyo 1945.
Adam L Silverman
@Calouste: That was an edited video from 2014.
MisterForkbeard
@Yarrow: Using thermobaric weapons on a civilian population is how you get the other big powers involved. I can’t imagine theg would do it – just too nuts, even for Putin.
But really… yeah. You don’t bring these out unless you’re thinking about using them.
Adam L Silverman
@Lums Better Half: The former – sale of citizenship – is now part of the sanctions package. Sanctions is doing a lot of work these days.
In terms of weapons resale, usually the way military arms sales works is the original seller places restrictions on the customer in the sales agreements.
Lums Better Half
@Adam L Silverman: Using the word limit rather than, for example, end does not inspire confidence.
Mallard Filmore
I hope the USA – EU – NATO are better prepared for the fall of Putin than they were for the breakup of the Soviet Union.
I wonder if we are giving Ukraine live military satellite feeds. This looks like a use up ALL your resources for the West
@Martin @3 … those paratroopers are why I wonder about giving them access to our satellites.
HumboldtBlue
@Martin:
Absolutely devastating bombing attacks that came on the heels of a massive earthquake that struck, ironically enough, on Dec. 7, 1944 if I recall correctly.
A Good Woman
I got into a Twitter discussion about Putin’s fate. Some folks seen to think he will go the way of Qaddafi. I don’t. I lack Adam’s background and knowledge, but I am hard pressed to imagine Putin would be removed via a coup, although assassination might be possible.
I saw a report that Macron called Lukashenko to ask him to quit supporting Putin and reverse the decision to permit Russian nuclear missiles in Belarus. Appears Lukashenko refused. In view of that and Adam’s analysis, I am very concerned about the future direction of the conflict. I suspect many of my fellow citizens will be unwilling to put up with the inconvenience of having any real skin in the game should we get directly involved.
A friend who is a Viet Nam vet has recommended stocking up, especially water, and withdrawing lots of cash. After reading Adam’s speculation I am inclined to believe my friend is on to something.
Sebastian
Repost from below:
Here is a very good summary of economic sanctions and targets.
Will sanctions be enough to stop wealthy Russian oligarchs? (news.com.au Murdoch site?)
Two names stuck out:
Oleg Deripaska … Hi Mitch McConnell! Can you explain the deal you did recently with Uncle Oleg?
and
Alisher Usmanov
Remember this name, he’s Putin’s guy in Facebook (Meta).
“A vicious thug, criminal, racketeer, heroin trafficker, and accused rapist”
When Zuck fucked up FB and was about to go bankrupt, Usmanov bailed him out with a $200m Series D (= a loan to meet payroll) and invested an additional $700m until the eventual IPO, where everyone made out like fucking gangsters.
Let this sink in, jackals.
Here is a super quick&dirty primer on startups:
That is the dream of Silicon Valley.
Here is Zuck’s journey:
2004-09-01 Angel $500,000
2005-05-01 Series A $12,700,000 (Silicon Valley big shots)
2006-04-01 Series B $27,500,000 (Silicon Valley Institutional Venture Capitalists)
2007-10-24 Series C $240,000,000 (Microsoft)
2007-11-30 Series C $60,000,000 (Li Ka-shing, Richest dude in Asia. Name’s real, I swear)
2008-01-28 Series C $15,000,000 (European Funds)
2008-03-27 Series C $60,000,000 (Rich Asian dude again)
You have to understand, one doesn’t take on funding unless you need the money or want to artificially balloon the (perceived) valuation of the company = small funding is to boost, large funding is to meet payroll or pay bills.
Zuck is still more than four years away from his IPO, he is bleeding cash like crazy. A month after getting $60m from his Asian sugar daddy, he takes a loan of $100m.
2008-05-01 Debt Financing $100,000,000
A year later Usmanov offers $200m, silent investor, doesn’t want any votes. Zuck accepts.
2009-05-26 Series D $200,000,000 (Usmanov)
2009-06-28 Secondary Market $120,000,000 (Californian Fat Cats getting in on the ride)
2011-01-21 Private Equity $1,500,000,000 (Usmanov and Goldman Sachs)
Zuck doesn’t need to be told what to do, he does it in anticipative obedience to his masters.
Calouste
@Adam L Silverman: Ah, I stand corrected.
Still, Putin has a problem if his vassals think that either it is going to be too costly to support him or that he is losing too many troops that now no longer can be used to keep them under control.
Alison Rose
The tweet from Goldstein made me cry.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Sobering thread from a scholar of urban warfare at West Point
A Good Woman
The Kyiv Independent, on Twitter, is reporting Russian troops have entered Kharkiv. It borders the separatist area, so I suppose inevitable.
Sebastian
@Emma:
Already happened. Kadyrov is already talking about not fighting in Ukraine (but hedges that they will protect Donbas).
Mere hours after his “general” and the entire column of 56 tanks/PACs got wiped out by Ukrainian NLAWs.
Sebastian
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
LOL
I mean I am sure he means well but is this guy really trying to teach Kyivans how to street fight? Jesus Christ, they and Hong Kong are the reigning world champs.
The Dangerman
@A Good Woman: Seems to me there are only two possible outcomes.
Lets not talk about the BAD one.
Other one is Putin is assassinated by some Russian. I can’t think of a bigger miscalculation regarding War And Peace in the last 150 years. Maybe Hitler telling Stalin he wanted it all but Germany and Russia were always getting it on so that was inevitable.
I don’t see arrest and he clearly has no hope of digging them out of the shitter he pushed them into with this miscalculation.
Jinchi
I keep seeing reports like this.
56 tanks in a single group!? Those losses seem insanely high. How many of those can Russia sustain?
prostratedragon
As mentioned last thread, the Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York opened for the SNL show this week. Prayer for Ukraine.
Leto
Imgur link of the tweets, so you don’t have to go on Twitter.
HumboldtBlue
@A Good Woman:
Yeah, I’m seeing the first reports of that as well.
From all available videos it looks like a Russian column of vehicles made an accidental thunder run into Kharkiv.
eclare
@Leto: Excellent work, thanks for posting.
Morzer
@Jinchi:
It depends on they were using as tanks. There have been credible reports of Russian troops using hardware from the 80’s and 90’s. If they got careless and tried to move a bunch of tanks without air cover or infantry, sure they could lose a lot of them quickly. I suspect that Putin didn’t give the Chechens the good stuff, possibly because there isn’t anything like enough of it.
On the Russian army overall: it looks to me as if the Russian army has a few solidly maintained elite units that they use for carefully staged operations – and then a bunch of conscripts who probably don’t want to be anywhere near the front line and may not have been paid for months.
eclare
@prostratedragon: That performance was very solemn and moving.
Morzer
@A Good Woman: There’s some dispute as to whether the Russians entering Kharkiv are actually doing so as part of an operation – or have wandered into the suburbs by accident.
Kent
@Jinchi: The Chechens were an infantry force not an armored division. It seems much more likely that they were a column of armored troop transports and trucks rather than actual tanks.
Tanks don’t really carry passengers. At least not many of them. So if the Ukrainians destroyed a column of Chechens it was more likely a bunch of lightly armored vehicles not actual tanks.
eclare
It would not surprise me at all to have a conversation among conscripts like the Do Long Bridge scene from Apocalypse Now. “Who’s the commanding officer here?” “Ain’t you?”
I can’t link but if you search on YouTube it’s there.
RaflW
On a domestic note, it seems the GOP’s early (and disloyal – the “water’s edge” trope is dead) effort to use Ukraine as a bludgeon against Biden seems to be failing. For which I think we can be quite grateful.
They won’t be a loyal opposition, but I think they’re getting the message that pissing on Biden is genuinely coming across as pissing on the whole US of A (and, in a fashion, on Ukraine). I’m sure a third of the R caucus will throw that memo aside, but they are vulnerable right now.
This window of wising up may (will) not last, so Biden also – unfortunately – has to add that to his very complex calculus of how much aid, how lethal, and how directly involved we may become in the days and weeks ahead.
eta: It certainly seems like many Americans remember what a shitstain Pompeo is, and that his harping on Biden is blowing back badly. That’s cool comfort, since he was central to Trump’s crapping around in Ukraine.
Morzer
@Kent: It’s certainly more likely that the Chechens had relatively lightly armored APCs of some sort. If they tried to schlep them around without air cover/infantry escort they’d be hella vulnerable. No tears for the Chechens – they have a well-deserved reputation as war criminals and scum.
Morzer
Re:Kharkiv, this is the latest from the Guardian liveblog:
HumboldtBlue
@eclare:
It’s there.
counterfactual
@Morzer: To my untrained eye, the vehicles in the Guardian vids are an armored car and a tank truck. From other reports, it seems like a supply column that took the wrong exit on the interstate (equivalent). I would not bet on them getting back to Russian lines.
TaMara
For Gin & Tonic:
eclare
@HumboldtBlue: Thanks! I’m on my phone.
Morzer
@counterfactual: Could well be. They certainly don’t look like an elite battle group. The Ukrainians have every incentive to big them up and talk about how they kicked an elite force’s ass.
Kayla Rudbek
@Lums Better Half: yeah, even intellectual property rights tend to die off with the first sale of the item
Amir Khalid
Wait, I need something explained. Why attack a nuclear waste containment site? How would that help achieve an invading army’s military objectives? Or was it just a dumb and pointless waste of ammo?
RaflW
Very small potatoes, but it looks to me like Iceland refused to allow tonight’s Aeroflot flight from JFK to Moscow to fly over the country. I don’t know what ICAO rules are, but it’d be nice to think they also refused to be an ETOPs alternate, though the 777 can schedule flights a long-ass time between alts.
I did also see news that S7, a Russian carrier with much more of a leisure focus, already cancelled all flights outside Russian federation destinations at Friday or earlier. I’m hoping that many of the emerging airspace closures make oligarch private jet flights too complicated, or at least really freaking long and annoying. Preference would be that they just can’t get out of RU at all.
eta: Seeing now that the EU has banned all Russian airlines/flights (Iceland isn’t in the EU but likely cooperating as it’s in the next circle out of European economic cooperation)
Morzer
For what it’s worth, I notice that the Ukrainians are claiming to have destroyed over 500 APCs, which makes the theory that the Chechens were using them rather than tanks even more credible.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Kicking them out would be a real slap shot across Putin’s face
Morzer
@Amir Khalid: Might be that the Ukrainians were dug in there and blocking access to a road/some other objective.
Captain C
Would you want to be the rare honest colonel to tell Putin that the readiness reports he sees are complete bullshit?
HumboldtBlue
More Ukrainian bravery, and remember, those machines gulp fuel in huge quantities, so racing through an area like that means you may likely find them stopped a mile or so later to conserve fuel and awaiting resupply.
Morzer
@Captain C: I wonder whether the official unit strength bears any relation to actual strength in the Russian army. Putin might think he’s massed 150,000 men to take out Ukraine – but what is/was the actual number?
Jinchi
I doubt is was his plan, but Pompeo looks about 10 years older and very unhealthy after his massive weight loss regime.
Fair Economist
OSINTechnical is posting videos supposedly of a Russian infantry assault on Kharkiv.
Jinchi
I assume that satellite imagery gives a good ballpark estimate of the number of troops on the ground.
Adam L Silverman
@RaflW: I knew I left something out of the update. It was reported this afternoon by German news sites that the EU member states have come to agreement so that member states can close their airspace to Russian commercial and private flights. This won’t be done as an EU effort, but by each member state.
HumboldtBlue
The refugee crisis has many faces, Ukraine just the latest.
Morzer
My question is more: Putin thought he had 150,000 troops at the start of the operation. What if the true number was, say, 120,000?
eclare
@HumboldtBlue: I watched for a while, made me too nervous.
Adam L Silverman
@Morzer: They’re feral.
Morzer
@Adam L Silverman: That seems over-generous to the vicious scum of Chechnya.
Fair Economist
@Amir Khalid:
The Russians don’t have much precision missles. Likely they were shooting at something else and either missed or didn’t know where it was.
MagdaInBlack
It is extra horrifying to see that with swing-sets in the foreground, in the second clip of Kharkiv
I screwed up my @ Fair Economist
HumboldtBlue
@Adam L Silverman:
Any estimate of what sort of direct aid the US is providing whether it’s intel, personnel on the ground, satellites and such? How that happens, how it manifests in real time?
Morzer
@IAPonomarenko
Carlo Graziani
Insofar as increased cyber attacks on the West are concerned, I think that what has been insufficiently recognized so far is the fact that the nation with the largest investment in cyberwarfare, by assets and personnel, is the US, by a very large margin. The NSA and CyberCommand have operations that dwarf those of the rest of the world combined. One never hears of them, except when someone like Snowden or Manning does a Doc drop on them. But that is also significant, compared to the attributability of the malware from Russian and Chinese and Israeli (for example) sources.
So we don’t know the NSA’s cyber capabilities, exactly, but we can be pretty sure that they’ve been quietly gaining access to critical systems. One can speculate about what might happen if unrestricted cyber warfare were declared. Personally, I don’t think the Russians would much like that scenario. I think they’d lose control of their border routers, for starters. And you know what happens in a petroleum refinery when valves start opening and closing at random? You can see the results by naked eye from low-earth orbit, in the daytime.
These are the sorts of games that the Israelis played with Iranian U235 centrifuges. There’s a lot more mischief possible in the CRADA space, but not all of it threatens us. The Russians might be able to shave a few percentage points off the US GDP. But Russia is a petrostate. The NSA could probably take Russia’s GDP down to noise level, if it were given that task.
Putin is an idiot, and clearly incapable of calculating his national interest rationally. So these sorts of scenarios are not impossible. But every such move makes his position even more tenuous.
Sebastian
@RaflW:
Private jet flight ban is gonna hurt bad.
Russian oligarchs have -just- started to become socially acceptable in Western Europe. Not sure if you know or can imagine the disdain Russians faced in high society, they were only accepted for their money and they knew it.
What’s happening now is effectively a long awaited total shunning of the Russian kleptocrat cohort. The Europeans are now jumping on the opportunity to show them what they REALLY think of them while they have a perfect legal opening to take ALL their ill-gotten assets away, fair and square.
Abramovich knew the score and saved Chelsea. Everyone else is fucked.
Putin is a dead man walking.
rikyrah
Never been so anxious to get to Monday and see the financial ramifications of what has been done to the Russian economy.
rikyrah
@Morzer:
Wow?
eclare
@Morzer: Ah…I googled. LOTR reference.
eclare
@rikyrah: I know, this is moving so fast.
Egorelick
@Amir Khalid: cover for a tactical nuke? I have no idea.
MattF
I’ve seen the claims that the Russian military has been modernized and rebuilt, but I’m skeptical. What matters is the military culture and that was dysfunctional and exploitative, particularly at the lower levels. They’d have to get rid of a large part of the old guard, and I don’t see Putin doing that.
JoyceH
@Jinchi:
Bariatric surgery. Yeah, yeah, I know – Pompeo claims to have lost the weight by Eating Sensibly and spending 30 minutes a day in his basement home gym, but come ON! 90 pounds in six months? Give me a break, please.
The unhealthy look is also a dead giveaway. The upside of bariatric is that you lose a lot of weight really fast. The downside is that you lose weight too fast for your skin to keep up with the body shrinkage, resulting in that kind of saggy melted look.
I don’t know why guys always lie about bariatric (women don’t, usually), but they do.
WaterGirl
@Yarrow: He contains multitudes. (Zelensky)
WaterGirl
@Mallard Filmore: Why wouldn’t we give Ukraine access to live military satellite feeds?
WaterGirl
@Leto: Thanks for that. I added it to the War in Ukraine in the category bar up top.
Can anyone recommend the top 5 twitter accounts to follow for this invasion
Or newspapers in addition to Kyiv Independent and Financial times?
JPL
Sobs are the same no matter the language https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand
An interpreter for German newspaper
breaks down in tears while translating Zelensky’s latest video message.
Betty
@Lums Better Half: I am praying that effort to clean up Russian dirty money has a wide-ranging impact, including on the cabal in this small country with its sale of passports and various Russian associates.
debbie
Did Putin ever serve in the military? I don’t think so, and I also don’t think he would listen to anyone who didn’t mirror his beliefs. I hope this misadventure serves to warn other wannabes.
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: Another independent newspaper: https://english.nv.ua
Gin & Tonic
I’ll be off-line most of the day, so play nice, OK? And Glory to Ukraine!
Brit in Chicago
I read of other nations sending or committing to send materiel to Ukraine. Does anyone know how long it will take for the promised weapons to actually reach the hands of those who need to use them? My fear is that it will take a long time, and may be too late.
mali muso
@WaterGirl: MisterDancer mentioned Terrell Jermaine Star yesterday, and I have been checking his feed throughout.
Also Illia Ponomarkenko is a reporter for the Kyiv Independent and posts frequent updates to his own Twitter feed.
JPL
@mali muso: That’s who I follow. Putin is now saying he was talks without conditions. We’ll see what happens throughout the day.
Ken
Is he still saying the talks should be in Belarus? If so, counteroffer with the Netherlands; the Hague to be specific.
Gin & Tonic
Ukraine’s public broadcaster now in English: https://suspilne.media/211514-russia-invades-ukraine-live-updates-suspilne/
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Added to War in Ukraine in the category bar up top.
Starfish
@Sebastian: How familiar are you with Silicon Valley funding? This comment seems off.
Users of a lot of these online products are not “customers.” Many of them are users, and they are not paying directly for the product.
Burn rate will be affected by the computer services needed to serve the user base. When you have more users, you are collecting more data, and spending more money on cloud services to hold all that data.
WaterGirl
@mali muso: I put up the one from MisterDancer yesterday, but I didn’t know about the Kyiv Independent reporter. Thank you!
Check out the War in Ukraine link in the category bar up top. It has recommended sources for information, a list of ways people can help, and all the Ukraine posts, of course.
mali muso
@WaterGirl: Thanks for all that you do to make this a top 10,000 blog! :)
Kay
All of these people were hugely and publicly wrong a week ago about whether he would attack and that enormous error hasn’t informed their patronizing, scolding lectures to the world at all- it’s like it never happened.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Also added to the resource list under War in Ukraine in the category bar up top. thank you
Starfish
@JoyceH: Thanks. You just made the world make so much more sense.
Kay
If I had told everyone that the US was inventing intelligence on Russian ambitions in order to start a war and then Russia invaded a neighboring country and killed hundreds of civilians, I think I would take a week off from the Russia/Ukraine analysis and advice business and reexamine whether I understood this at all, but then I don’t have the nearly God-like wisdom and foresight of a Tulsi Gabbard or a Tucker Carlson.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
True statement, but (1) they have no shame; and (2) they’re counting on their followers having lesser memories than goldfish, which appears to be a reliable estimation.
debbie
@O. Felix Culpa:
I’d like Joe to take a moment during the Ukraine portion of his SOTU to counter the GOP’s blathering about his indecisiveness with a moment of musing as to why their delegation saw fit to visit Moscow over the Independence Day weekend. All this kind of garbage needs to be said out loud for all Americans, if not the world, to hear.
Eolirin
@Kay: Tucker knows he’s mostly spewing bullshit, there’s nothing to reevaluate since it’s all lies anyway. He’ll say the exact opposite of what he’s saying on his program when he’s interacting with people in private.
But I think it’s deeper than that. Conservatives don’t care about truth, they care about defending their side and attacking their enemies. See also Satanic Panic; lots of the people pushing and repeating that stuff knew damn well it was bullshit but it hurt their enemies and acted as a signal of membership in their tribe so they stuck to it, violently. Being wrong but supporting the cause is much much better than being right to these people.
Kalakal
Putin’s brilliant strategic plan to fracture and demoralise a weak Europe to enable his invasion of Ukraine has now achieved what many thought impossible – a Germany commited to serious rearmament
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/27/germany-set-up-fund-boost-military-strength-ukraine-putin?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
The man has more teeth than brain cells
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
Just a hypothesis, but to invading troops it probably looked like an expensive industrial facility — in other words, whoever first fired had no idea what they were shooting at.
The fact that only a few rounds were fired at the fencing suggests that once someone who knew what the facility was spoke up, they quit shooting and scurried away ASAP.