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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 278: What Ukrainian Cyber Defense Doing?

War for Ukraine Day 278: What Ukrainian Cyber Defense Doing?

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We’ll get to the cyber defense stuff after the jump.

Here’s President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier this evening. Video below, English transcript after the jump:

Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!

A brief report on today. The morning began with the Staff meeting. Frontline. Provision of the army. Energy sector. Communication. Points of Invincibility. Strengthening our air defense. Working with partners. The situation in the frontline areas and suppression of Russian firing positions. We keep all key issues in the focus of the Staff’s attention.

That day, as every other day, the occupiers again shelled Kherson and the communities of the region. In just one week, the enemy fired 258 times on 30 settlements of our Kherson region.

The Russian army also damaged the pumping station that supplied water to Mykolaiv.

Well, what can be said about them? This is the real essence of those random “comrades” who took over Russia. After 20 years of rule, a large part of their own state is in such devastation, as if a war had taken place there. And this is not a war – it’s just because they have come.

They are capable of nothing but devastation. This is all they leave behind. And what they are doing now against Ukraine is their attempt to take revenge. To take revenge for the fact that Ukrainians have repeatedly defended themselves from them.

Ukraine will never be a place for devastation. Ukraine will never accept orders from these “comrades” from Moscow. We will do everything to restore every object, every house, every enterprise destroyed by the occupiers.

Today I spoke about Ukraine’s needs for protection and reconstruction with the foreign ministers of seven Northern European countries. Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Norway, Iceland. I thanked them for this joint visit to Ukraine – a gesture of support and solidarity that is very important right now.

We have agreements on further cooperation in the defense and energy spheres, in the reconstruction projects of our state and in the sanctions sphere.

The Ukrainian Peace Formula was discussed with each of the delegations, in great detail – the possible participation of each state in the implementation of the points of the Formula.

We are actively working to create a Special Tribunal for the crime of Russian aggression against Ukraine. We are working at different levels.

In particular, I discussed this today with the foreign ministers of the partner countries. Head of the Office Andriy Yermak took part in the conference held in France. Members of the working group on the issue of creating a Tribunal work there. Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin and the First Lady of Ukraine represented our country in Britain today – a conference on combating sexual violence in wartime was held there. Mr. Kostin is preparing to meet with the G7 ministers of justice in Berlin tomorrow.

The main topic of all these events is Russia’s responsibility for war and terror. There will be more news tomorrow.

I spoke with Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte. By the way, the Netherlands provides substantial assistance to Ukraine in the preparation of the Tribunal for aggression and in establishing the truth about all Russian murderers and torturers. Ukraine is grateful for this.

I heard a very important signal from Mr. Prime Minister Rutte – a signal about next year. Support for our state will only increase.

I met with the ambassadors of our United24 fundraising platform. Andriy Shevchenko, Oleksandr Usyk, Scott Kelly – they were in Kyiv, and Elina Svitolina, Liev Schreiber and Timothy Snyder joined the meeting via video call. The main issue is getting through this winter, helping Ukraine with generators and other energy equipment. Detailed news will be tomorrow, but I will note: we will do everything so that Ukraine receives the maximum possible help from the world.

And one more thing.

The volume of accumulated funds for our Grain from Ukraine initiative is growing and already exceeds 180 million U.S. dollars. This is already one of the historically largest Ukrainian humanitarian initiatives. And it will be even bigger.

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Great Britain, Greece, Estonia, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Canada, Qatar, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, USA, Türkiye, Hungary, Finland, France, Croatia, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Sweden, European Union have already announced their financial, technical or logistical contribution to the Grain From Ukraine initiative – this is a significant participation. Plus the Republic of Korea. Japan – from the first days. And also NATO and, of course, the UN.

I am thankful to everyone who participates!

Thank you to everyone who helps Ukraine implement our Peace Formula! I am sure that it can be fully implemented – all points just as the point on food security.

Glory to each of our warriors! Glory to all who work for the victory of our state!

And please pay attention to the air sirens, don’t forget that.

Glory to Ukraine!

Here is former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessments of the situations in Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Bakhmut:

Also, if this is correct, and the imagery certainly suggests that it is, then it is going to be another long night Ukraine:

As does Ukrainian military intelligence:

Now the Ukrainians, and those of us watching and keeping good thoughts for them, wait…

Here’s a great thread on the Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure:

What Ukrainian Cyber Defense doing? The Carnegie Endowment tells us in their fairly recently published report:

Western leaders have been unequivocal that they will not commit military forces to fight in Ukraine. Yet in the digital sphere, Western governmental, military, and commercial actors are directly engaging Russian attackers and taking on a swath of responsibilities for defending Ukrainian networks and data. This ad-hoc coalition confronted an intense campaign of Russian cyber attacks in the first six months of the war.1

Notwithstanding the heightened rate of cyber attacks, Russia’s much-feared cyberwar has failed to materialize the way that many experts anticipated it would. The international effort to bolster Ukraine’s cyber defenses has featured prominently among the wide range of theories put forward to explain the relatively limited impact of cyber operations in the war. But experts are divided on the significance of almost every aspect of the cyber campaign, including the claim that international assistance has been instrumental in enabling a relatively small country to fend off one of the world’s leading cyber powers. This article investigates what has been done to assist the defense of Ukrainian cyberspace in order to evaluate what, if any, strategic effect has followed and to identify the broader implications for the value and feasibility of collective international defense in cyberspace.

It would be premature to draw definitive conclusions based on eight months of war, but nonetheless the activity in cyberspace has developed to the point where important lessons are emerging. It is hard for any outside observer to form a comprehensive picture of activity, and so this article draws on interviews with representatives of some of the organizations that have participated in the defense of Ukrainian cyberspace. I wish to thank the people listed below, who gave their time to assist my research. The views expressed are entirely mine and may not reflect the policies of any of the organizations listed.

The article focuses on the defense of Ukrainian digital networks against Russian attacks since the ground invasion began. It is important to note that this represents only a part of the international effort to support Ukraine in cyberspace, activity that has additionally included combating disinformation, generating open source intelligence, and harnessing digital platforms for humanitarian assistance and civil defense. Inevitably, the analysis is skewed to those activities that participants are willing to discuss; readers should assume that the measures described are complemented by a substantial amount of covert operational activity.

The common view that emerged from my interviews was that the defense of Ukrainian cyberspace is an exceptional response to a unique set of circumstances. Therefore it would be premature to identify a template for enduring or more widespread collective defense partnerships. Nevertheless, the war prompted one CEO of a large cybersecurity company to call for a “Tech NATO,” and Microsoft President and Vice Chairman Brad Smith has stated that the war has demonstrated the requirement for a “coordinated and comprehensive strategy to strengthen [cyber] defenses.” The war in Ukraine may not have revealed a ready-made blueprint for collective international defense in cyberspace, but it has tested the concept of multistakeholder collaboration and, in the process, demonstrated five key lessons.

  1. Cyber defense at scale relies on the involvement of the largest commercial technology and cybersecurity companies. This is because of both the deep dependence on the services of a small number of providers and the fact that national scale cyber defense relies heavily on automated protection of millions of targets.
  2. Politics and geopolitics count in cyberspace just as everywhere else. The response to the Ukraine war has not involved a strategic and operational construct akin to a “Tech NATO,” relying on an accumulation of efforts conducted within national government strategies. There is a long way to go to evolve from the Ukrainian response to an enduring foundation for international alliances in cyber defense. Devising such mechanisms will require national governments to confront the fact that the most indispensable commercial partners for cyber defense are American. Even European governments, let alone those who view Washington less favorably, might be uncomfortable relying on the decisions taken in a handful of boardrooms in America. For their part, those American companies generally do not want to take positions on global political issues, preferring to focus on protecting users and networks.
  3. Shared values are as important as shared interests. Commercial entities’ reasons for engaging in the defense of Ukrainian cyberspace are commercial (demonstrating capabilities and benefits), reputational (outwardly, to governments, customers, investors and so on, and inwardly, to employees), and normative (protecting values and preventing harm). The normative component might easily be dismissed as insignificant when compared to the commercial interests of huge corporations, but the practitioners I interviewed displayed a genuine sense of commitment to shared values of conduct in cyberspace, especially in defending civilian targets against state cyber attacks. Sustaining a high tempo of cybersecurity operations has tested all the entities involved, and the motivation to protect Ukrainian democracy and thwart Russia’s aggression has been a key factor in maintaining effectiveness over a prolonged period.
  4. Government can be a catalyst and sponsor of large-scale cyber defense involving commercial entities. Technology and cybersecurity companies might be motivated to engage in international cyber defense, but large-scale action can only come from governments exercising their abilities to convene and confer legitimacy. This process is much easier where mutual trust and understanding are already in place between governmental and commercial organizations. Nevertheless, the culture and values of the technology sector mean that these companies might eschew the type of symbiotic relationship with government that has evolved for defense contractors. They are likely to seek less formal relationships that emphasize shared values as opposed to hard power objectives.12 Additionally, although commercial entities might be willing to absorb some costs and foregone revenue, they will require some form of financial compensation for their commitment of resources. The use of public finances to sponsor this activity could be eased by the fact that defensive cyber operations create a wealth of evidence that demonstrates their impact.
  5. Capacity building is valuable, but it is no substitute for capability reinforcement. Through its years of being targeted by Russian cyber attacks, Ukraine has closely followed best practice advice for cybersecurity and resilience from international partners and has greatly benefited from participation in joint training exercises.13 Inevitably, though, the speed of implementation and development varied across sections of the public and private sectors, such that by the time of the ground invasion there were major uncertainties and known weaknesses in the national cyber resilience. The most prominent example was the government’s concentrated dependency on potentially vulnerable, on-premises servers, a dependence that had to be quickly remedied by migration to data centers beyond the combat zone, generally operated by foreign cloud service providers. The experience of this war suggests that international cyber resilience is built on a foundation of capacity building but also relies crucially on the ability to rapidly surge capabilities to reinforce allies under attack.

In sum, these lessons indicate that collective defense is not only demonstrating its operational potential in Ukraine but also revealing strategic tensions that would have to be addressed in any more enduring arrangements. At the heart of the challenge for democracies are the integration of commercial actors as agents of foreign and defense policies and the reality that a handful of American companies are indispensable to large-scale cyber defense. Designing mechanisms for collaboration would therefore expose profound issues of national sovereignty, accountability, and burden sharing in cyberspace. This is a daunting agenda, but navigating it could be eased by the fact that the protagonists in Ukrainian cyber defense believe the scale of effort has demonstrated a powerful commitment to shared values in cyberspace.

Much, much more at the link!

I think that’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new tweets or videos posted tonight from Patron’s accounts. So here are some more Ukrainian military dogs and cats:

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

45Comments

  1. 1.

    Spanky

    The US is already part of a (sorta) Tech NATO. Five Eyes. Plus, there is a lot of formal and informal cyber cooperation between the US and various European states. But I would think we would be skittish about agreeing to anything involving sharing techniques with something approaching a NATO-sized org, or anything close, really.

  2. 2.

    oldster

    It amazes me that we can photograph ruzzian bombers getting loaded up on their own airstrips.  This must be open source satellite photography? I assume that the US would not publicize its own sekrit satellite photos — only a moron like TFG would do that.

    It also sickens me that this means more cruise missiles coming to Ukrainian cities. I hope that every one of them is intercepted and shot down. I would also love to see a bomber or two shot down, but I’m sure that they will not venture within 20 miles of the border. That’s the point of stand-off cruise missiles, after all.

  4. 4.

    Carlo Graziani

    I had hoped to learn something about the role of NSA in that report. Remarkable, there really is No Such Agency.

  5. 5.

    Mike in DC

    Ukraine needs to resume their surface to surface missile program and build hundreds of Hrim-2 and Sapsan missiles.  Hitting targets deep inside Russia is the only way to deter or stop these attacks on civilian infrastructure.

  6. 6.

    oldster

    @West of the Rockies:

    Yeah, I feel mixed about it on that level. If using stand-off cruise-missiles were intrinsically cowardly or dishonorable, then it would follow that a lot of US pilots were cowardly and dishonorable. I don’t believe that. But the US has done a fair bit of this kind of lobbing-at-a-distance.

    So, I’m not going to criticize the pilots for cowardice. I will blame them for fighting an evil war under the orders of extremely evil masters. I’ll blame them for being on the wrong side of history, and for inflicting loss and suffering on innocent people.

    And I’ll pray to all of the gods there aren’t, that our US soldiers will never again fight evil wars under evil masters and find themselves on the wrong side of history.

  7. 7.

    Chetan Murthy

    @oldster: Two thoughts:

    1. Martin van Creveld has written about the corroding effect on soldiers, of fighting a war in such a way that they themselves are never at risk.  It is indeed cowardly, and soldiers know it.
    2. We know that the “drone pilots” sitting in trailers in Nevada suffered various psychological problems, b/c of precisely this.
  8. 8.

    Eolirin

    @Spanky: What they do and what is necessary for robust national cyber defense are not the same thing.

    Five Eyes isn’t going to be able to stop hospitals and oil refineries and key nodes in the electric grid from running unpatched outdated systems vulnerable to being shut down by ransomware attacks. And mass attacks like that can cripple a country.

  10. 10.

    MobiusKlein

    Imagine the difference of cyber-security if money transfer entities ( Visa, PayPal, Stripe, Patreon, etc) were not US based / Nato Based.

    Would the trust around electronic payments for Ukrainian donations exist?  Would there be any confidence those payments would be secure at all?    Thinking about that, I better get back to looking at logs for weird shit.

  11. 11.

    Carlo Graziani

    Hm. Well, it’s one of those fantasy scenarios.

    We do know that SBU operates agents deep in Russia. They could easily watch airbases, note departure times of raid squadrons, and report those back to Kyiv. Those bombers have well-known flight characteristics — speed, altitude, payload release, etc. It might not be impossible to mass a counter-raid of MIG-29s armed with whatever air-to-air munitions they have at their disposal — a Google search is surprisingly vague about this part — and meet them in or near Russian airspace before release. At least once.

  12. 12.

    Gin & Tonic

    I’m glad Brad Smith gets a shout-out in that Carnegie report. It’s easy, and it’s been fashionable (maybe less so now?) to criticize MS, but of all the major tech companies, they are the leader in this particular sphere by a very large margin.

  13. 13.

    Alison Rose

    God, I just want to cry. Everything they’ve already been through, everything they’re about to go through, everything they will continue to go through while the rest of us sit comfortably at home and watch…I truly don’t understand how this is considered just.

    In my corner of Judaism (and most others), we don’t really have hell, at least not in the same way Christianity envisions it. But God help me, I’d like it to exist just so putin and all his genocidal, maniacal, sick and twisted minions can be sent there. It’s so impossible for my brain to comprehend their level of evil.

    For now, I do my best to bear witness and help Ukraine in whatever tiny ways I can.

    Thank you as always, Adam.

  14. 14.

    Another Scott

    "The Pentagon is considering a Boeing proposal to supply Ukraine with [the 150 km range] Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) … It combines the GBU-39 SDB with the M26 rocket motor … GLSDB could be delivered as early as spring 2023." https://t.co/Q3HPBskeHb pic.twitter.com/FQYddTYf1M— Guy Plopsky (@GuyPlopsky) November 28, 2022

    The GBU-39B has a 250 pound warhead (same as the 120 kg HIMARS, which is presently limited to 80km/50 miles in Ukraine).

    (via Oryx)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  15. 15.

    Geminid

    @Mike in DC: Ukraine tested one Hrim-2 missile in 2018. Since then the program has more or less “gone dark,” and has made almost no news beyond an announcement last year that the government would fund the program with a projected deployment in 2022.

    The Hrim-2 is designed to deliver a 500 kilogram warhead 300 or more miles, and accurately. I’ve read that Sapsan, the outfit building them, has a Cold War-era hardened, underground factory to build them in. The US will not deploy fighting formations in this conflict, but that doesn’t keep us from providing technical assistance. I expect to see Ukraine firing Hrim-2 missiles at Russian military assets before too long.

  16. 16.

    rekoob

    When I lived in Chicago, I learned that the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales intersect at -40. To provide some context to the temperatures above, here are some conversions:

    -40 C/-40 F

    -30 C/-22 F

    -20 C/-4 F

    -10 C/14 F

    0 C/32 F

    10 C/50 F

    20 C/68 F

    30 C/86 F

    40 C/104 F

    As we know, it’s 10C = 18F (in either direction)

    There are a couple of palindromic relations (airline pilots use these a lot):

    16 C/61 F

    28 C/82 F

  17. 17.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Carlo Graziani: Justin Bronk gave a long interview (I linked to it here a week-or-so ago, but I don’t have the link anymore) wherein he talked about the state of the air war, and that even while RU pilots can’t venture over UA-controlled territory (for fear of air defense), the converse is also true: RU air defense is pretty strong.  From this we can pretty much conclude that there’s no way UA could send a sortie of MIGs to attack deep into RU territory: they’d all get shot down.

    Bronk makes a strong case that we need to get UA better fighters for precisely this reason: so that UA can start running sorties over RU-controlled territory, fighting back against RU fighters.

  18. 18.

    Geminid

    @Carlo Graziani: You wouldn’t need a mass of Mig-29s. How about a couple of SU-25s flying at tree top level until they close with the bombers? They might be able to knock down two bombers each and still get away.

  19. 19.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Gin & Tonic: As a Linux guy from the paleolithic era, MS loathing is a baked-in thing for me. I still get hives whenever I have to use Windows, and the O365 lock-in at my employer is a matter for both technical exasperation and philosophical rage. That said, MS in the Brad Smith era is a different animal from the baby-knifing, wounded-shooting, spaghetti-coding, utterly sociopathic, technically-incompetent-whilst-economically-and-legally-ruthless entity that Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer foisted upon the world.

    The fact that Smith himself is not a sociopath probably explains a good deal of the transformation.

    And to my utter shock, I actually like Visual Studio Code, a MS product that they inexplicably open-sourced.

  20. 20.

    Another Scott

    I don’t know what to make of MT Anderson’s tweet and photo. But I’m reminded of this report from Ukraine’s Intelligence Ministry on October 10 (Google Translate):

    The Russians have been planning missile strikes on the Ukrainian capital and infrastructure since the beginning of October

    October 10, 2022

    The Russians have been planning missile strikes on the Ukrainian capital and infrastructure since the beginning of October

    According to the military intelligence of Ukraine, the Russian occupying forces received instructions from the Kremlin to prepare massive missile strikes on the civilian infrastructure of Ukraine on October 2 and 3.

    Military units of strategic and long-range aviation received orders to prepare for the task of massive missile attacks. The objects of critical civil infrastructure and central areas of densely populated Ukrainian cities were identified as targets.

    On October 8, seven Tu-160 strategic bombers were transferred from the Engels airfield to the “Olenya” airfield and equipped with Kh-101 cruise missiles.

    6 cruise missile carriers with 40 Kalibr missiles were deployed on the external raid of Sevastopol.

    The main goal of the terrorist country was to destroy the TPP, create panic among Ukrainians and intimidate the European public.

    I don’t see anything comparable from them today about Engels, but I do see this (Google translate):

    An attempt by Belarus to enter a war against Ukraine would be suicide for it

    November 28, 2022

    An attempt by Belarus to enter a war against Ukraine would be suicide for it

    Andrii Yusov, a representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, explained whether Alexander Lukashenko is dangerous for Ukraine. The information that Belarus is allegedly preparing an offensive is spread specifically.

    On the FREEDOM broadcast, Andriy Yusov noted that such fakes are beneficial for Russia. This is how the aggressor country tries to scare Ukrainians.

    “Informational and psychological special operations very often pursue several goals at the same time. And in this case, we see different goals, that is, on the one hand, to sow panic among the population, among Ukrainians, including residents of border regions and regions. And to disorient the Ukrainian defense forces, disperse the forces, transfer the forces from other directions. And also the object and goals of this special psychological information operation is Belarus itself and Belarusians, that is, incitement. To make it spark, and still involve Belarus itself in a full-scale war, which has never happened before,” Andriy Yusov said.

    He noted that it is now very important to understand what the enemy’s goals are. You cannot give in to this kind of provocation.

    “We are not talking about the fact that there is no threat from Lukashenka’s regime. It exists, and Lukashenko helps Putin with weapons, ammunition, and armored vehicles. It provides its airspace for strikes on Ukraine, but today we cannot talk about the fact that a full-scale invasion will take place in the near future and Belarus will be involved in a ground operation,” added the representative of Ukraine’s military intelligence.

    I guess we’ll see. :-(

    Slava Ukraini!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  23. 23.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Chetan Murthy: It’s entirely possible that he is correct about this in general. As I said, I’m spinning a fantasy, largely to keep spirits up.

    It is noteworthy, however, that a timed encounter is a bit different from a sortie. As @Geminid: points out, there can be stealthy aspects to the mangement of the affair. It’s not entirely clear how good Russian radar coverage is at the Ukrainian border. The original Soviet air defense radars were much farther west. There may be some holes in latitude, longitude, altitude, or timing that the Ukrainians know about.

  24. 24.

    Lyrebird

    Adam, let me add to the chorus of thanks for your work.

    This is a small thing, but thanks to your updates, I was able to include a comment about their solemn rememberance of the Holodomor in a message to a Ukrainian Etsy seller.  Seems like it meant something to them to receive that greeting.

  25. 25.

    Ksmiami

    Protect Ukrainian airspace and if Russia truly wants full scale annihilation, well they fucking deserve it. There can be no peace while the current Russian regime exists. I’ll probably get booted for this comment but allowing Ukraine to take the body blows for the rest of the western world seems cowardly and unjust and Putin and his alcoholic, criminal pathetically backwards country needs to be defeated.

  28. 28.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Ksmiami: I agree with Carlo, and I’m not snarking.  It does feel cowardly to let UA take the body blows for all of us.  Thing is, there’s a reason for that: nuclear annihilation.  No Western leader has the right to risk that.  I’d like to write “no leader”, but … well, there are some crazies out there, ah well.

  29. 29.

    Alison Rose

    @Chetan Murthy: What I want to know is why so many other leaders still seem certain putin would go nuclear. Even if he did it in a way that didn’t also destroy his country immediately, he would get destroyed very slightly less immediately by other countries joining the war and kicking the everloving shit out of them.

    I’ve said many times that putin is nowhere near as smart as people make him out to be, but he’s not that much of a dipshit that he doesn’t see that. Or at least, I assume he isn’t.

  30. 30.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Correction: the SU-25 is a subsonic ground attack plane that is not suited to intercepting bombers.

    The SU-27 is and Ukraine has them, or at least it did when this war began. The SU-27 has a range of 2,000 miles and a top speed of 1600 miles per hour at higher altitudes, 830 mph at sea level. These interceptors were first introduced in 1985 and were designed to shoot down B-52 and B-1 bombers.

  31. 31.

    Another Scott

    About the headlines of that russian colonel that committed suicide by shooting himself 5 times… YahooNews reprint of a story from Ukrainska Pravda:

    […]

    Quote from Yulia’s letter: “The inspectors openly informed Colonel Boyko that he would be held liable for over 100 million roubles for the loss and damage of state property and would be held criminally liable for confiscation of property.”

    The body of her husband was found on the morning of 16 November. According to his wife, her husband went from the training ground to the building of the Naval School in the city of Vladivostok and entered the office of his superior.

    Quote from Yulia’s letter: “Yes, he enters his [superior’s] office, and not his own, as all the media write, sits in his chair and fires five bullets using a service weapon, but does not aim at his head, does not aim to end it all as soon as possible.”

    Meduza noted that this is probably the first case of such a suicide in Russia, which was, in fact, self-execution.

    Yulia Boyko believes that by his actions, her husband “clearly wanted to attract the attention of the leadership of the Russian Federation and give them a signal that there is a problem, that something needs to be done, that the Motherland is in danger”.

    The body of Vadim Boyko was found on 16 November, with several gunshot wounds, at the Naval School. Media reported that five bullet casings and four Makarov pistols were found at the scene. Law enforcement agencies did not comment on this.

    It’s such a monstrous system under VVP…

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  34. 34.

    Alison Rose

    @Shalimar: Well, isn’t there also at least a 5% chance he’ll have some bad kasha one morning and decide to start flinging nukes anyway? He’s a madman, he doesn’t operate based on logic or rationality.

    I’m not saying the US Army ought to go storming into the Donbas or anything. But there is more we could be doing as far as weaponry and such. And for me, myself, personally, seeing what Ukrainians are going through and telling them to just keep going through it and maybe eventually it’ll all stop feels pretty damn cruel. I don’t want to make assumptions, but I’m guessing most of us here and most people in the Western world have not been through anything like this. Ukraine shouldn’t be having to go through it, either.

  35. 35.

    Amir Khalid

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Actually, even the crazy leaders have no right to risk the nuclear annihilation of their country.

    You were asking about Anwar Ibrahim and his political background. Sorry to fob you off on Wikipedia, but its rundown of his career from student activist to PM hits all the main points and should be helpful.

  36. 36.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Shalimar: @Chetan Murthy: Actually, I think Alison’s intuition is rather on the mark.

    From a 45-year experience of Cold-War deterrence, we pretty much know that nuclear weapons aren’t really weapons in the usual sense. They can’t be used. Every war game in which they are employed runs away and burns the world to a cinder. The only scenario in which a nation can rationally employ them in combat against another nuclear power is one in which it is threatened with existential annihilation anyway. Failing such a threat, a nation cannot itself make credible threats of nuclear first use, as these would amount, in effect, to suicide notes.

    That leaves the possibility of use against a non-nuclear power — as in the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings. In the current case, against Ukrainian targets. It seems to me that the Biden administration has privately communicated a red line to the Russians concerning nuclear weapons use in Ukraine — I can’t think of another reason why they wouldn’t have attempted to use them in Bakhmut, say or on Odesa, as a means of intimidation and coercion. The Russians appear to be effectively deterred from using nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

    So as far as I can see, the Russians don’t have a real nuclear use option. They only have a nuclear bluster option. That seems to impress enough people for Medvedev to keep trotting it out. It’s not a lot of kilotons, though.

  38. 38.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Carlo Graziani:

    From a 45-year experience of Cold-War deterrence, we pretty much know that nuclear weapons aren’t really weapons in the usual sense.

    Jesus Christ, how many times do we have to go over this?  The OTHER THING we know from 45 years of cold war deterrence, is that PREDICTABILITY IN ALL THINGS is what matters to prevent escalation chains from getting out-of-control.   So that each side knows what the other side will do, for all actions, and that that hasn’t changed.  So YES, Russia is deterred.  But we can’t suddenly change ALL THE FUCKING RULES and expect Russia to *stay* deterred.

    I mean, jesus people, go look up Cheryl Rofer’s writings on this, where she’s cited all the experts FFS.  She’s put up a number of posts over at LG&M about this very subject.

    Ugh.  OK, clearly I should stop commenting tonight.  C’mon, stop beating this dead horse.

  40. 40.

    trucmat

    @Yutsano

    Brilliant song that spoke to the Nuclear Freeze Movement in Germany. Of course we must avoid nuclear war but mustn’t we also ensure wars of conquest are met with the most vigorous military response? We have to call Putin’s bluff when he attempts to control other nations with nuclear blackmail.

    Some discussion was had about cowardice and letting others fight your battles. If Putin must be stopped then as the prime military power we must take as much risk as necessary ourselves to stop him.

    Yes I have children and grandchildren, however, even if it increases the risk of a nuclear exchange we cannot allow Putin’s Russia to continue setting the world on fire. They aren’t just Ukraine’s enemy. Russia has been waging war on the American people. It has already killed thousands of Americans with a cyber war of vaccine resistance and COVID misinformation to name just one fatal aggression.

    Putin must fall and we need to take on enough risk to ensure that happens.

  41. 41.

    Shalimar

    @Carlo Graziani: My primary worry isn’t that Russia will use nuclear weapons.  It is that they will do something to or fail to do something necessary for the nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhia.  That is an area where they might feel they have deniability to claim it wasn’t their fault.  I think Western nations will have more freedom to act once that area is re-taken.

  42. 42.

    Shalimar

    @Alison Rose: I agree with your feelings and goals, as I almost always do.  I just trust the Biden administration, with far more information than I have, is doing the best they can right now.  Others, like the Germans and French, I don’t trust at all on this.

  43. 43.

    Another Scott

    russian kamikaze drone attacks a howitzer, does minimal damage. The payload includes pieces of rebar, which seems a bit unusual…

    A Russian modern kamikaze drone strikes a Ukrainian howitzer.

    Ukrainian soldiers: Basically, change the wheel and it will work. pic.twitter.com/nOp9zMdQ4s

    — Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) November 29, 2022

    (via Oryx)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  44. 44.

    SteverinoCT

    @rekoob:

    Before I get called out on it, I know it doesn’t apply outside of the parameters I described. I’m offering a shorthand.

    Here’s the formula:

    Bob And Doug MacKenzie have a handy shorthand: degC -> degF : double it and add 30. 20 degC becomes 50 degF. After that it is off by a degree or two.

  45. 45.

    charon

    @SteverinoCT:

    2*20= 40;  40+30 =70

    That is pretty far off.

    Try this:

    2*20= 40; subtract 10% =36; 36+32= 68;

    20C does equal 68F

    Another example:

    2*25=50; subtract 10%=45; 45+32= 77

    (as I recall, 25C does equal 77F)

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