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:
Unless they want an unpleasantly hot summer break, we advise our valued russian guests not to visit Ukrainian Crimea.
Because no amount of sunscreen will protect them from the hazardous effects of smoking in unauthorised areas.
🎶Bananarama pic.twitter.com/NnWnpZqMhR— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 11, 2022
That’s going to leave a mark!
Your daily Patron!
If there were peace now, I would be with @DariiaAstafieva , lying on the shore of the Black Sea or the Dnipro. Maybe next year. And you? What do you do for this weekend? Show me 😊 pic.twitter.com/IvmVwLHFUZ
— Patron (@PatronDsns) August 6, 2022
And a new video from Patron’s official TikTok:
@patron__dsns Усім любові!❤️🥰 #песпатрон #патрондснс #славаукраїні
The caption translates as:
Love to all!❤️🥰 #pespatron #patrondsns #slavaukrain
Open thread!
dmsilev
Some other defense-related news:
The Army is making its first uniform bra.
(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)
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.
Dan B
OT: WaPo reports DOJ was searching for Nuclear Docs.
dmsilev
@Dan B: Yep.
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
I saw that tweet earlier and cackled so hard. A thing of beauty.
Also, Chef José Andrés visited with Zelenskyy today! Two heroes together :) Love this photo, too.
Another Scott
@Dan B: Why do I have a feeling that karma is going to eat TFG’s dogma??
Cheers,
Scott.
prostratedragon
@dmsilev: Game on.
SiubhanDuinne
@prostratedragon:
Yep. Bring it.
Also, I am more in love with Patron every day 🥰
Mike in NC
@Dan B: Friday is going to be awesome.
prostratedragon
@SiubhanDuinne: Patron has helped me find my inner dog person. Ukraine should name its teams the Terriers or something.
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*.
patrick II
I don’t believe it was missiles either.
Ken
@patrick II: Oh geez. Um… Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine? Or maybe one of the Coburn In Like Flint movies?
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.
The Pale Scot
@Ken:
The Mike Myer’s movie with the B-52 hairdos and gas emitting bras.
patrick II
@Ken:
Lady GA GA on the cover of RS. Sophia Vergara,Machete Kills. Any Austin Powers movie.
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.
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.
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.)
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.)
Chetan Murthy
@Bill Arnold:
Do you have pointers for this? I haven’t been able to find anything other than unhinged rantings and obvious bafflegab.
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.
Jay
@Dan B:
https://mobile.twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1557660617300910080?cxt=HHwWgICx7YOF9p0rAAAA
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.
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.
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.
Bill Arnold
@Gin & Tonic:
Sorry, I was sloppy. I meant open source and public.
Jay
@Tony G:
so, an entire society from almost the top down, government, law, military, industry, etc, all based on Box Store Retail,……
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.
Adam L Silverman
@Bill Arnold: Julia Davis’s Twitter feed.
Adam L Silverman
@Laura Too: You are most welcome.
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.
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.
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.
Carlo Graziani
Here’s a “Senior Ukranian Official” showing a little leg to the NYT in an article. The relevant paragraph:
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.
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.
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.
Barry
@Chetan Murthy: I assume that the explosions were from ammunition, so whatever started them would not have to be that large.
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.”
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.