Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

The lights are all blinking red.

White supremacy is terrorism.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

When I was faster i was always behind.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fear and negativity are contagious, but so is courage!

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

“But what about the lurkers?”

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Giving up is unforgivable.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War For Ukraine Day 169: A Master Class In Strategic Communication In One Tweet & Your Daily Patron!

War For Ukraine Day 169: A Master Class In Strategic Communication In One Tweet & Your Daily Patron!

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Another brief post tonight as I’m still playing catch up.

Ukraine’s MOD provided a master class in strategic communication in a single tweet:

That’s going to leave a mark!

Your daily Patron!

And a new video from Patron’s official TikTok:

@patron__dsns

Усім любові!❤️🥰 #песпатрон #патрондснс #славаукраїні

♬ L O V E – Michael Bublé

The caption translates as:

Love to all!❤️🥰 #pespatron #patrondsns #slavaukrain

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

45Comments

  1. 1.

    dmsilev

    Some other defense-related news:

    The Army is making its first uniform bra.

    Four prototypes of the bra, known as the Army Tactical Brassiere (ATB), are in development at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Soldier Center in Natick, Mass., and final concepts will be presented to the Army Uniform Board for approval in the fall. The designs all offer flame-retardant protection and vary in other features, which include pullover and front-closure styles, structured and contoured seams, adjustable straps, padded cups, mesh venting and an inner dog-tag pocket.

    (yes, a worthwhile and overdue project, but I have to admit to being highly amused at the way the story is written in standard military-industrial-complex-ese)

  2. 2.

    Carlo Graziani

    A one-shot, followed by maximum media drama. Bravo. Definitely a pure, straight-up psy-op. These guys are geniuses. I’ll lay 10:1 it was a local Ukraine SOF op, but they have the Russians crapping their pants and watching the skies.

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    @Dan B: Yep.

    Classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence on Monday, according to people familiar with the investigation.

    Experts in classified information said the unusual search underscores deep concern among government officials about the types of information they thought could be located at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and potentially in danger of falling into the wrong hands.

    The people who described some of the material that agents were seeking spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. They did not offer additional details about what type of information the agents were seeking, including whether it involved weapons belonging to the United States or some other nation. Nor did they say if such documents were recovered as part of the search. A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department and FBI declined to comment.

  11. 11.

    Chetan Murthy

    @SiubhanDuinne: I find the media campaign around the sweet pooch to be magnetically attractive, too.  And, gotta say, he’s a very, very, very good boy.  But stepping back for a moment, it’s interesting to me how the Ukrainian info ops has been so much better than Russian info ops.  I mean, the Russians simply don’t even *bother* to portray their soldiers as attractive or worthy of admiration in any way at all.  So unlike the Ukrainians, who work to make every aspect of their society attractive and admirable to foreigners.

    I mean, concretely, we all know that not all Ukrainians are the beautiful men and women we see in tweets and video clips.  But they’re working hard to find the ones that are, and putting them forward.  And the best Russia can manage is that “Winter is coming” video.  I mean …. *c’mon*.

  14. 14.

    Feathers

    @dmsilev: Bras are very tough to design and make. I sew a fair amount of my clothes. My fave pattern company, Cashmerette, has introduced a bra pattern and I’m debating giving it a try. It would be a new experience to have a bra that actually fits, rather than being a compromise. But it will probably mean making quite a few that don’t fit and a fair amount of frustration.

    Will be intrigued to see what the Army comes up with.

  17. 17.

    Dan B

    @Mike in NC: Bubbly is in the house chilling for Friday, Nancy, Dark Garland, Dark Brandon, Chef Jose, President Zelensky, etc. etc!

    And thanks to Adam.  Glad he’s taking it easy.

  18. 18.

    Laura Too

    Adam, I rarely get to say thank you in a timely manner. I so appreciate your updates and wanted to let  you know how much I appreciate  your sharing your expertise.

  19. 19.

    Bill Arnold

    @dmsilev:
    Clearly Genius Mr D.J. Trump (his late uncle was a MIT Professor!) needed these documents as part of his research towards invention of a method/apparatus to defend the USA against the Chinese Hurricane Gun[1][4]. If you’ll recall, for a couple of forecast cycles the center of the forecast cone for Hurricane Dorian (2019) went over ​Mar-a-Lago[2]3]. That surely grabbed his attention.
    [1] Trump Kept Asking if China Was Shooting Us With a ‘Hurricane Gun’ – The then-leader of the free world also inquired whether the U.S. could bomb China in retaliation for the alleged hurricane attack (ASAWIN SUEBSAENG & ADAM RAWNSLEY, MaY 10, 2022)
    [2] Hurricane models are exquisitely sensitive to inputs.
    [3] For real, as a CAT 5 Dorian stalled for a day+ over Grand Bahama, then turned hard right and missed Florida. It did jog right around Puerto Rico earlier though, after DJT made a rude comment about it hitting Puerto Rico.
    [4] It is not China. Just saying. :-) (Though China is providing much of the GHG/forcing ammunition.)

  20. 20.

    Bill Arnold

    Does anyone know of a decent open source/public analysis of Russian-language pro-war-with-Ukraine [echo chambers], including analysis of evidence of efforts to manipulate them?  Or pointers to careful open source analysts?

    Ukraine’s Western-facing game is very very good.  (Russia’s coverage world-wide seems to be better.)

  21. 21.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Bill Arnold:

    Russia’s coverage world-wide seems to be better.

    Do you have pointers for this?  I haven’t been able to find anything other than unhinged rantings and obvious bafflegab.

  22. 22.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Bill Arnold: Open source and public are not synonymous here. I know people who are doing open-source analysis in this area but are all under NDA.

  24. 24.

    Origuy

    It seems like Russia’s propaganda has been directed towards Africa and South Asia, based on what I see on Twitter and Facebook. Either their troll factory is using African and Asian names or there are locals who support them. They’ve probably given up Europe and North America as a lost cause.

  25. 25.

    Tony G

    @Chetan Murthy: I’ve never been to Russia, nor do I speak any Russian — but I’ve known several people who emigrated from Russia both during and after the Soviet era.  They describe a system that is full of corruption, in which obedience — not excellence — is coerced by fear.  In that system the incentive is to do the minimum at one’s job and, above all, to keep one’s self out of view of the authorities.  A system in which there is no incentive to make any extra effort to do one’s job well.  Mediocrity is a good way to remain anonymous, so mediocrity is pervasive in military as well as civilian life.

  26. 26.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Tony G: Yep, that’s what I’ve read elsewhere.  It’s interesting though, isn’t it?  The Ukrainians really *are* good at this info ops stuff, and they do it at all levels of their society.  I’ve read many people saying that after Ukraine wins this fucking war, the country will experience a real flowering and will become a leading country in Europe.  I can see that happening: they have immense technical resources (they used to be a major arms producer, exporting a ton to RU) and this war has really produced a cohesive society: I’d like to believe that the advantages of a large country whose people all trust each other and pull together might be quite large.

    Who knows.  But boy howdy, they’re good at a lot of things.

  28. 28.

    Jay

    @Tony G:

    so, an entire society from almost the top down, government, law, military, industry, etc, all based on Box Store Retail,……

  29. 29.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Chetan Murthy: Ukraine, especially since 2014, has been an open, dynamic and creative society. The generation that Timothy Snyder says do not have a hammer and sickle on their birth certificate are really invested in being like Europe, and, as we see, will give their lives if necessary. This toothpaste ain’t going back in the tube.

  32. 32.

    Carlo Graziani

    Oh, and Adam? I really hope this is R&R, and that you take as much as you need. You have a lot of it coming. I don’t take these updates for granted, and I don’t think it’s presumption to say that nobody else around here does either.

  33. 33.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Well, Ukrainian information warfare has been top notch, but the main reason it has been that effective are the successes on the battlefield. Now that the Russian Army has been reorienting form Donbas to the south to shore up the defenses, I don’t see them taking Sloviansk & Kramatorsk any time soon.

  34. 34.

    Carlo Graziani

    @YY_Sima Qian: That’s true. I feel completely confused about the shape of the upcoming campaigns, though. In a sense the Ukrainians have the initiative, having forced the Russians into a large rebalancing from East to West, and into a cratering of the Eastern campaign, essentially by means of no more than loudly threatening a Kherson counter-offensive that never seems to materialize, plus effective use of HIMARS. But now what? It’s like a perfectly-executed head-fake, with no follow-through.

    So far, the Ukrainians are a bit reminiscent of the UK in 1940-41, in the sense that they’ve mastered deception and intelligence warfare operations, but perhaps are relying on their success in those because they feel too overmatched on the battlefield to take the initiative there. So they play head games instead until they are “ready”, whenever that may be (for the UK it was the US entry to the war).

    They surely know that such games cannot substitute for actual commitments. But I’ll be damned if I can tell how, where, or when they plan to commit.

  35. 35.

    Carlo Graziani

    Here’s a “Senior Ukranian Official” showing a little leg to the NYT in an article. The relevant paragraph:

    The senior Ukrainian official said the attack  involved partisan resistance forces loyal to the government in Kyiv, but he would not disclose whether those forces carried out the attack or assisted regular Ukrainian military units in targeting the base, as has sometimes occurred in other occupied Ukrainian territories.

    The official also says that “a device exclusively of Ukrainian manufacture was used”, for what that’s worth.

    I still like the silenced mortars lobbying shells from next door theory.

  36. 36.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Carlo Graziani: The craters are far too big for any kind of mortars that are portable. & the attack took place in broad daylight, in an environment where the population is not likely to be overwhelmingly pro-Kyiv. I think it is far more likely that partisans played a supporting role in targeting. In fact, I think the mentioning of Crimean partisans maybe the head fake, seeding doubt in Russian minds about the solidity of their rule there.

  37. 37.

    Chetan Murthy

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    @Carlo Graziani: Those crater indeed are large.  I wondered what size of warhead would make craters that big in runways, and what sort of delivery system would be needed to deliver that size of warhead.  It seems like many of the candidates mooted about (those suicide drones, small mortars, etc) might not be enough.

  39. 39.

    Geminid

    @Chetan Murthy: The Grim, or Hrim missile is a possibility. An article in yesterday’s Kyiv Post by Stefan Karshak is titled “Evidence mounting that weapon used in Crimea airfield strike may be Ukraine-made missile system.”

    The article is tentative in its conclusion, with experts weighing in pro and con. The author points out that manufacturer Yuzhmash has a facility where the Grim was developed that is a Cold War-era hardened, underground factory.

    The Wikipedia entry for the Grim says the missile has a 500kg warhead, with date of service: “TBA.”

  40. 40.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Geminid: I don’t know why people keep coming back to the ballistic missile idea. It seems to me clearly ruled out by the footage. The absence of descending heated plumes from the supersonic terminal ballistic trajectory of the warheads over the airbase should be conclusive. If it was a remote attack, it’ would have to be some kind of cruise missile(s) or drones, and those still strike me as far-fetched.

    The evidence is self contradicting, I agree. I still lean towards “special effects”.

  41. 41.

    Gin & Tonic

    @YY_Sima Qian: Given the ongoing persecution of the Crimean Tatars, I’m pretty sure the russians are well aware of the degree of their support there. The Tatars are firmly pro-Kyiv.

  42. 42.

    Geminid

    @Carlo Graziani: I think one reason people come back to the ballistic missile theory is the craters at the base seen in satellite imagery. There appear to be three, all of the same size and shape.

    The Kyiv Post article is as I said tentative about ascribing the attack to the Grim, and could easily be more misdirection.

    I don’t know how visible the plumes would be, though. I never read about V-2 rockets making plumes, although maybe they did and it wasn’t remarked upon.

  43. 43.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Gin & Tonic: That is true, but I thought Crimea Tartars make up just over 10% of the population, after Stalin artificially changed the demographic profile of the region post-WW II. In any case, I can’t conceive of a reason SFs or partisans would mount a large strike against a major installation in broad daylight, in a highly populated area.

  44. 44.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Geminid: Whether there is a trail depends on the reentry speed of the ballistic missile. The V2s were relatively slow compared to modern missiles.

  45. 45.

    Carlo Graziani

    @YY_Sima Qian: @Chetan Murthy: OK, agreed, not small portable mortars. But SOF on-site to do “targeting” makes no sense either. And Mr Senior Ukranian Official claims that “…a device exclusively of Ukrainian manufacture was used”, per NYT.

    So, suppose you were at war, had a small R&D budget — not cruise missile scoped, but OK for SOF special ops —  and wanted a way to lob a moderately heavy  shell containing submunitions from a dump truck or trash truck. Basically a largish potato gun, possibly even compressed air-powered — the shell onle has to travel a few hundred meters of horizontal distance, and maybe 40 vertical.  You could work out the bugs of it back in Lviv, and design the shell and munitions back there, and practice the op. Maybe $1M overall? You also somehow have to smuggle the parts into Crimea, and assemble the rig there.

    The operation is as before–a preliminary explosion in a direction away from the truck (consistent with the smoke at the beginning of the video) to provide a few seconds of distracting pandemonium while the potato gun discharges. Then it drives off, and maybe even picks up some trash. Meanwhile everyone is looking for rockets, cruise missiles, or drones. And Mr Senior Ukrainian Official practically calls the Russians idiots to their faces in the NYT by describing  a “special device”, knowing that they’ll be convinced it’s an air attack and frantically shooting their air defense officers.

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