Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Not all heroes wear capes.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

No one could have predicted…

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Consistently wrong since 2002

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

So many bastards, so little time.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 466: Shush!

War for Ukraine Day 466: Shush!

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(Image from UA MOD Telegram)

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

The time will come when children on Earth, including those in Ukraine, will be protected from such evil as Russian – address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

4 June 2023 – 20:02

Dear Ukrainians!

The rescue operation in the town of Pidhorodne, Dnipro region, where a Russian missile destroyed houses, has already been completed.

25 people were injured, five of them children. Davyd, who is 6 years old, is in serious condition and hospitalized. Denys, 11, is also in serious condition and hospitalized. Oleksandr, 15, is also in serious condition. Liza, 17 years old, is undergoing outpatient treatment. Kira, 10 years old, has a mine-blast injury, she is undergoing outpatient treatment. It is painful to see such reports.

Liza, a 2-year-old girl, was killed by this Russian missile. Probably an Iskander missile. My condolences to the family and friends…

The Russian terror has claimed the lives of hundreds of our children, and only since February 24, during the full-scale war, we know for sure that 485 children have been killed. This is a number that we can officially confirm, knowing the data of each child.

Unfortunately, the real number is higher. Every time we liberate our land from the Russian occupiers, we learn the terrible truth about the occupation. About how many people, how many children are buried in the occupied territory – in the graves of this war, this aggression. And how many more are still under the ruins in Ukrainian cities and villages burned by Russia.

So far, unfortunately, we do not have complete information about the hundreds of thousands of children who were deported to Russia. As of today, thanks to various efforts, 371 children have been returned to Ukraine from deportation. At the same time, we know for sure about at least 19,505 deported Ukrainian children, and this is only a part of all our little Ukrainians who are still in the hands of the enemy. We must return them all.

Today in our country is the day of remembrance for children who died as a result of Russian aggression. Since 2014. Children who would have been alive if a bunch of thugs in the Kremlin, in Moscow, hadn’t considered themselves chieftains who allegedly had the right to decide the fate of nations.

Each of these bandits will be convicted. I have no doubt about it. All the necessary legal institutions are working for this result.

And today, on this day of remembrance, I want to thank everyone in the world who supports our efforts for justice. For the sake of punishing everyone who brought terror to our land, everyone who kills and deports children and adults.

I am grateful to everyone in the world who helps the work of the International Criminal Court and its team in investigating Russian crimes on Ukrainian soil. And who helps us organize a special tribunal for the crime of Russian aggression against Ukraine – for the original crime that gave rise to all the other terrible crimes of this war.

Let the verdicts against the ruscists that they will one day hear in the dock – lawful and just verdicts – be evidence that the world will still protect life, protect civilization. And that the time will come when children on Earth – in Ukraine and elsewhere – will be protected from such evil as Russian evil and from such aggressions.

That is why it is so important that the power of justice, the power of accountability, be a powerful reminder of every life that was taken by evil, by Russia.

And today part of this accountability – a mandatory part – is sanctions. Sanctions from the world that make Russia pay the price for what it is doing. Sanctions that should limit Russia’s capacity for terror to the maximum.

Today I held a special meeting on sanctions. The Main Intelligence Directorate, the Foreign Intelligence Service, the Government, the Office. We analyzed in great detail how Russia circumvents sanctions and who helps it. Different countries, different companies, without which Russia would not be able to produce terrorist weapons, including missiles. Unfortunately, the terrorist state manages to use the technologies of the world through a network of suppliers, and manages to circumvent international sanctions regimes.

We see every direction of circumvention of existing sanctions, every country whose territory or jurisdiction, whose citizens are used by Russia to continue terror. And we must close all such areas – together with our partners – to ensure that Russian missiles and weapons do not contain products of the free world. The necessary steps will be taken.

Thank you to everyone who helps us fight the evil of aggression!

Glory to all our warriors! And thank you for this day on the frontline.

Glory to Ukraine!

The Ukrainian MOD has posted a new message from Colonel-General Syrskyi on its Telegram channel.

Bakhmut:

Kyiv:

Not quite sure where in Ukraine this is, but honestly, the geolocation really doesn’t matter for this:

Marinka:

Zaporizhzhia Oblast:

More of the butcher’s bill from Dnipro:

Belgorod Oblast, Russia:

 

There is active fighting near Novaya Tavolzhanka. Putin’s troops continue to cover houses with civilians with heavy artillery.

We urge the locals not to come out of their shelters.

Soon we will bring peace to the whole of Russia together with our brothers from the RVC! In the meantime, let’s keep fighting.

Here’s the full text of Dmitri’s translation by tweet:

Terrorist reporter Voenkor Kotenok claims out of 40k pop, only 500 people remaining Shebekino. He calls it a genocide of the Russian people in a separate post. Well, what goes around comes back around. The time for little green men to return to Russia has come.

“One small indication is the fact that a real war has been unleashed against Russia, no matter how the phrase about the “Special Military Operation” reassures other citizens, no matter what pictures the zombie box [TV] offers to the mind of the layman.

Shebekino is a long-suffering worker-city on the border of the Belgorod region. The regional center with a population of 40 thousand people is regularly shelled by the enemy, where at the moment, 500 people remain. The city has been evacuated. Patrols of the military and the National Guard operate in city blocks in order to prevent looting.”

The cross border incursion at the end of May was definitely a raid. Both the Liberty of Russia Legion/Legion Svoboda and the Russian Volunteer Corps (that’s the one founded and led by the white supremacist) got in, created fear, chaos, and confusion, and got out. This time, however, I’m not sure. Perhaps they realized during the end of May raid that there was not only no real resistance, but that the Russians couldn’t actually mount any real resistance. And, as a result, they changed their planning under the belief they can actually take and hold significant portions of Belgorod Oblast. To a certain extent, to paraphrase Lenin, they probed with bayonets, found mush, and correctly decided to advance. It may also be that their plan has multiple sequels to it. For instance, if they find only minimal resistance keep going. Once they find significant resistance, unass the battlespace as quickly as possible back across the border with Ukraine. If the planning is good it will include both of these sequels, as well as sequels for other contingencies. At this point all we can do is watch, wait, and see what happens.

The reasons they have no clue what to do is that everything in terms of governance, law enforcement, criminal justice, the military, what we’d call national security has all been top down. The people in charge in Bilhorod – the mayor and city officials and law enforcement – are in a situation they have not previously experienced. What they’re now living through is no one who has the authority and the responsibility to respond actually responding. They’re out of their depth. This isn’t about providing essential services to a small town or policing it. This is about needing a response from the equivalent of Russia’s national command authority. My guess is there’s a pretty solid news reporting blackout in the rest of Russia on what is happening in Belgorod, especially in Moscow and St. Petersburg. And the situation is going to get worse before it gets better. Chris Owens with a translation from Astra’s Telegram channel. First tweet in the thread followed by the rest from the Thread Reader App:

2/ The ongoing fighting at Shebekino, on the border with Ukraine, has meant that many of its inhabitants have been evacuated to temporary shelters elsewhere in Belgorod and the neighbouring regions. However, the behaviour of some of the evacuees is evidently causing problems.Image
3/ Numerous complaints have been posted in Belgorod State University student chat rooms and on WhatsApp. “It turns out, at the moment, everything is allowed in the dormitory! Drinking, smoking and partying,” says one student. 
4/ Another student says: “The corridors in the dormitory smell of alcohol, yesterday there was an incident in the smoking room when drunken men harassed foreign female students, security guards came up, said something to them – and left without informing anyone. 
5/ “When we approached the guards and asked what was going on, they replied that, if you want, you can make it public yourself, we would not do anything. This is how students are being guarded. 
6/ “Anyone can enter the campus now by typing something resembling a pass and saying that he is from Shebekino. Students are in danger from refugees in an inadequate state, the security of the whole campus is in great doubt.” 
7/ A student says it is “gnawing” them that “female students have been deprived of basic security with these drunken men. Why they don’t talk about it, I don’t understand.” 
8/ “Is the sale of alcohol allowed on the campus? Get together as a group, find those men and smash their faces in,” one student commented. “Let’s assemble a squad of tough guys from the university,” suggested another. 
9/ The students were also incensed by being moved out of their rooms and into dormitory accomodation, with their belongings being packed into trash bags and left in a separate room. /endImage
Source:

That’s enough for today.

Your daily Patron!

No new tweets, so I’m going to repost the Patron Box appeal tweets:

For those of you who have expressed some concerns or issues regarding ordering these, I ordered five of these, one in each age group/size group, earlier today to send to Ukrainian children. Here’s what you need to know and do. First, unless you read Ukrainian, make sure you’ve got the English language page and make sure you’ve got it showing the prices in US dollars, not Ukrainian hryvnia. Select the sizes and colors you want and the amount. Then check the box indicating they are for Ukrainian orphans and/or children in hospital. When you start doing your personal information for billing you will need to translate your first and last names into Ukrainian Cyrillic or the order will not process. Just use Google translate. Don’t do this with your email address – unless you have an email address in Ukrainian – as it will just mess things up. I included a note in the note box, which I also machine translated into Ukrainian. Then select Monobank as the option and hit proceed. It will then bring up the option to pay with VISA or MasterCard. you’ll also have the option of paying with Apple Pay or the Google equivalent or a couple of other electronic payment options. Enter your payment info, it’ll prompt to send a confirmation code, follow those instructions and enter the code, and you should be good to go.

Everything should go smoothly unless your VISA card is from an institution with such a high FraudX setting that every time you try to order something from a non-US vendor it triggers a fraud alert and shuts down your card. Which is what happened with me. I got the autogenerated popup from Patron’s shop indicating the VISA charge didn’t go through, then an automated call from my VISA card’s fraud department that allowed me to verify my card wasn’t stolen or the purchase wasn’t being made without my knowledge, then I pressed the button through to speak to a person who reverified everything, asked if I was being forced under physical duress to make the purchase – NO! – and then confirmed that I would have to replace the order since they stopped it the first time. So I went back through and did that. Took about five minutes. So other than the FraudX stuff, which I was expecting, not particularly difficult.

There are no new videos at Patron’s official TikTok today.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

59Comments

  1. 1.

    lowtechcyclist

    How does one ‘unass’ a battle space? This is a technical term I’m unfamiliar with!😁

  2. 2.

    Yutsano

    Wait…Russian universities have foreign students? I mean maybe some researchers but actual students? Is there some value in a Russian college degree I’m not aware of? 🤔

  5. 5.

    sukabi

    “Surprise Mutherfuckers!” 

     

    is a much better start of a counter offensive…

  6. 6.

    Kelly

    Relations between the Russian Army and Wagner seem to be getting spicier.

    https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1665472757696528386

    PMC Wagner detained and interrogated no other but the commander of the 72nd Brigade, Roman Venevitin. Wagner and the 72nd Brigade shared positions in Bakhmut. They detained the man, beat him, broke his nose, and forced to record a video admitting to firing at a car of PMC Wagner due to “personal animosity” towards them. They accuse him of being drunk while doing so, speaking to him as if he is a subordinate. This is a complete demoralisation of the Russian Armed Forces who should not be any close to tolerating such behaviour of a PMC.

  7. 7.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    I wondered when some strong man was going to realize that Russia has everything thrown at the edge of the conflict zone in Ukraine and is weak everywhere else. I’m surprised it took this long.

  9. 9.

    Jay

    Looting in Shebekino continuesLocals complain about the Buryats and Kadyrov's men, who, instead of saving them, loot their homes.One of the scenarios for the development of the situation inside Russia may be a rebellion or military confrontation, – Yusov— Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦 (@Heroiam_Slava) June 3, 2023

  10. 10.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jay: I think those videos of the Polish Legion are from the late May raid. Which would, itself be news as I don’t recall that being reported at the time. But I’ve seen the same reports that they’re involved now.

  11. 11.

    Jay

    The Russian army does not control Shebekino, – RDC Chief of Staff Alexander "Fortuna".💬 "People are leaving en masse, they are given a corridor, but they do not ensure the safety of these corridors. Looters are running amok in the city, there is chaos. pic.twitter.com/aawqY4JRwp— Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦 (@Heroiam_Slava) June 3, 2023

  14. 14.

    Jay

    @Adam L Silverman:

    there, or not,

    a big chunk of these raids are “information warfare”.

    but the Polish Legion would really like to kick Ruzzian ass, that’s what they are there for,…….

  15. 15.

    Alison Rose

    Jeez, Ukraine, I already love and support you, and then you go all Depeche Mode on me?? Maybe now instead of saying I have some Ukrainian heritage, I’m just gonna call myself Ukrainian-American. I mean…it’s one-eighth true. I’M ONE OF THE DEVOUT, DANG IT.

    I will never ever understand how even the soulless sociopaths in the kremlin can claim that murdering children makes them the good ones in this war. I mean, I know they would blame Ukraine in a “grabbing your hand and slapping your face with it and asking why you’re hitting yourself” kind of way, but JFC. I guess more than that, I will never understand people outside of russia who agree with them about it. Or label it a “territorial dispute”, FFS.

    The video of the soldier thanking Americans…when he said “for not leaving us” I got choked up. Because that’s what it would be, if we weren’t helping, or if we stopped. We wouldn’t just be “not helping”, we’d be leaving them, abandoning them. And I don’t know how anyone who thinks that’s what we should do can consider that the act of a great and powerful nation.

    Thank you as always, Adam.

  16. 16.

    Another Scott

    @Kelly: Early in the re-invasion, Galeev on Twitter made the point in one of his giant threads that the military is not respected at all in VVP’s russia.

    Given that, this story about “the musicians” does not surprise me at all.

    [ Insert standard disclaimer that Galeev has his critics and I’m in no position to evaluate whether he’s right about this. ]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jay: I am very aware that that’s what they’re there for. It does not surprise me to find out they were involved in May, nor will I be surprised to find out they’re involved now.

  18. 18.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Alison Rose: When we were kids (in the 70s), references to “what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” evoked an entire shared history.  Just as Depeche Mode lyrics do today.  *grin

  19. 19.

    Another Scott

    @Kelly: Some additional 8-part commentary on the video:

    🧵Thread:

    The news of the arrest of the senior officer, who serves as the commander of the russian 72nd brigade, by Wagner, took many by surprise. However, this situation has been unfolding for some time now, as I mentioned in a thread over a month ago.https://t.co/jmBoMshPxc pic.twitter.com/fcBJ9rB6Ah

    — Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) June 4, 2023

    Interesting.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  20. 20.

    Anonymous At Work

    I’d feel better if the Ukrainian and Russian raiders were doing some infrastructure damage, as well as just raising hell.  I understand that irregular raiders are both raiders and irregulars but the bushwhackers on net hurt their own cause by just causing chaos and burning people out of farms (and into the military).

    Any chance that these guys can do something better than terrorize small towns?

    PS: The virtually unguarded nature of the region, as well as wide-open space, is why I thought this summer’s offensive might target Belgorod.

  21. 21.

    Caravelle

    I very rarely listen to the radio these days but it was on a few days ago while journalists (in France) were discussing the upcoming offensive, asking guests “so there’s gonna be a D-day, right? Is D-day coming? When is D-day” and aside from the disgusting sense that these people were looking at this like an exciting movie (which I can do because I’m a random nobody but I try and not be too obvious about it, you’re journalists on public radio, be more seemly) I was just like YOU GUYS REALIZE THEY DIDN’T ANNOUNCE THE ACTUAL WWII D-DAY IN THE NEWSPAPERS BEFORE IT HAPPENED RIGHT ffs

  22. 22.

    Another Scott

    There apparently was some “excitement” in DC not too long ago – sonic boom from an F-16 being scrambled.

    DC friends: that was an authorized F16 scramble due to an errant Cessna whose pilot was unresponsive. They did not shoot down the plane. This is appropriate response to unknown situation. Joining @cnn https://t.co/HcKh1P1Mu3

    — Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) June 4, 2023

    If I heard it in the NoVA suburbs, it didn’t register.

    FlightRadar24 track of N611VG.

    The track ends near Montebello, VA, west of Richmond. :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  23. 23.

    moops

    It is pretty remarkable how shocked and sheltered the university students are.

     

    You are 80 km from a city that your country has bombed into complete rubble and murdered tens of thousands of its inhabitants.   Retaliation was pretty frickin’ likely.

     

    You are war-zone-adjacent.   There is going to collateral damage.    Your belongings in garbage bags and drunk refugees is one one-hundredth of the pain they felt in Kharkiv.

  25. 25.

    YY_Sima Qian

    The utter collapse in discipline of at least some Russian units, into omnidirectional banditry, is pretty incredible. Especially since the units sent to Belgorod are probably part of the operational reserve. Perhaps the Ukrainian Army should seize Belgorod & hold it as a bargaining chip.

  27. 27.

    PaulWartenberg

    @Anonymous At Work:

    Ukrainian forces dare not cross the Russian border lest Putin unleash low-yield nukes into Ukraine as retaliation. This is why the Pro-Ukrainian Russian volunteer forces can go in and perform these raids.

    One thing this could do is free up Ukrainian forces along the Russian border to turn south into the Donbas as part of the counter-offensive (whenever that starts).

    By the by, social media is full of requests from Ukrainian outlets to stop talking about the counter-offensive. It may happen soon.

  28. 28.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Another Scott: A Cessna went way off course and overflew the DC no fly zone. They scrambled a pair of F-16C/Ds. The pilots of the F-16s reported they had visual confirmation that the Cessna’s pilot was unconscious (at least). Rather than shooting the Cessna down they let it run out of fuel and crash in a remote area.

  29. 29.

    Jay

    @Anonymous At Work:

    these “guys” are not terrorizing small towns.

    The Ruzzian’s have started evacuating people at the slightest hint of a raid. They then pummel the suspected place with arty and air, then send in Chechens and the VDV, who loot anything not bolted down,………

    There are a bunch of home security camera shot of Ruzzian troops looting, as well as “locals”,

    #Ruzzia is a Terrorist State.

  30. 30.

    Anonymous At Work

    @PaulWartenberg: “Ukraine and its allies dare not do X lest Putin unleash low-yield nukes” is the theme song at times.  The only thing that would put a hard stop to it is US/NATO cutting off support if they do so.

  31. 31.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Jay: They aren’t dismantling highways, railways, bridges or airports.  No industrial or agricultural processing centers have been demolished and no actual pillaging is occurring.  What are the raiders doing if simply spreading chaos (what I am calling “terrorizing”, as opposed to “war crimes/terrorist actions”)?

  33. 33.

    Lyrebird

    @Yutsano: ​
     

    LOTS at least in earlier times. This is one of the ways they built or kept up connections with Global South countries. China too. In both places you can read about which foreign students feel least welcome. My utterly unscientific survey says, ones from African countries, but I don’t know.

  34. 34.

    ARoomWithAMoose

    @Another Scott: Sonic booms don’t register if you are indoors, except for the weird quick double bounce on the windows.  In Tampa we get them if there’s some sort of Navy or Air Force exercise going on in the gulf.  Until the end of the program, we’d get those when the shuttle would come in for a Kennedy landing.

  35. 35.

    jackmac

    I’m an avid daily reader of Adam’s reports and even make an occasional comment. But mostly I lurk.

    Tonight I wanted to again thank Adam for his comprehensive and highly informative reporting. But I also wanted express gratitude to the many smart people whose comments add perspective (and even snark). You all are great!

  36. 36.

    Jay

    @Anonymous At Work:

    the only people they are “terrorizing” are mobliks, VDV, police and state officials, who are r-u-n-n-i-n-g-o-f-t at the first hint that they are in the neighborhood.

    Telegram is flooded with posts from locals, pissed off that “the people who were supposed to protect us, pissed off first”.

    They ran away faster than elected  Oregon Rethugs,…

  38. 38.

    Chetan Murthy

    It’s impressive how UA has managed to turn the entire media conversation into one about shit happening in Belgorod (and Russia in general) just as they’re preparing for their counteroffensive.  Don’t give the media a chance to catch their breath and start poking around for tidbits about AFU.  Not even a smidgen.  Seriously, it’s lovely being kept in the dark like this.

    And meanwhile, that ex-race car driver Igor Sushko posted a vid of a big-ass brawl on the Primorskiye Highway in St. Petersburg.  I wonder if that’s for real,  if it’s current, if it’s indicative of things.  So much heat and light everywhere.

  40. 40.

    PaulWartenberg

    @Anonymous At Work:

    true. any use of a nuke would isolate Russia completely (total sanctions, and NATO/US seizing all money and properties in their countries as a huge blow to the oligarchs). And yet, the threat is real. If pushed too hard, Putin will lash out to cause as much pain as he can before he falls.

  41. 41.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Lyrebird: Russian/Soviet universities actually had good reputations, especially in the sciences & engineering, coming out of the Cold War, & into the 90s & 00s. Not sure about their current state.

    For the past decade+, Chinese universities have all been trying to attract international students from across the Global South. They have set up scholarships & established programs w/ Global South governments to funnel students to Chinese universities. These international students (as well as those from Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau, & ethnic minorities from Tibet & Xinjiang) are often graded on a much lower curve compared to Chinese students, so that it is almost impossible for them to fail, lest a reputation for being difficult to graduate from curb the flow. Aside from the higher soft power motivations out of Beijing, Chinese universities are motivated by more parochial concerns: percentage of international students in the student body is one of the key metrics in international rankings (such as the QS or Times Higher Learning).

  42. 42.

    Bill Arnold

    @PaulWartenberg:

    If pushed too hard, Putin will lash out to cause as much pain as he can before he falls.

    He does not have direct control over Russia’s nuclear weapons, though. Like in the US, the response (using the Russian equivalent of the US nuclear “football”) if Russia was seeing an incoming first strike, but an order to attack Ukraine using tactical weapons would be very deliberated and could itself result in Mr. Putin’s removal by people opposed to using nuclear weapons in a first strike. Not something to be counted on, but Mr. Putin is very very paranoid (justifiably) so he probably worries about this.

  43. 43.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Chetan Murthy: It’s either some really deep intelligence work to know both HOW RU lacked defenses and how’d their response force would actually respond.  Or UA was like “Sure, you can stir shit up and we’ll even through in some MREs and spare clips” and it turned into something more serious.
    RU is diverting significant reserves from the UA battlespace, though, so UA does have a better window.

  46. 46.

    Jay

    @Bill Arnold:

    This is the 187th time “Ruzzia” has drawn a red line at which point they will “use nukes”, just since 2000.

    It’s an empty threat, that has had EU/NATO/US policy makers cringing.

    It’s losing it’s effect.

  48. 48.

    Carlo Graziani

    The Belgorod thing is really amazing. When they started, I was sure that these raids would get mopped up in short order—by reason, they should have a life expectancy of a pogo stick tester in a minefield (to paraphrase Pratchett). But as Adam implies, you apparently cannot go broke by shorting Russian military performance compared to any expectation going in.

  49. 49.

    Carlo Graziani

    So Ukrainian ops are warming up in (at least) Bakhmut, Donetsk suburbs, and Zaporizhzhia. Some presumably diversionary, other “shaping”.

    As a reminder, we are just past full moon in Luhansk Oblast. Saturday June10 will have a little over 4 hours of full dark, 50% illumination Moonrise at about 1 AM. From there, conditions for night ops become rapidly more favorable to the side with better/more available night imaging gear.

  50. 50.

    Geminid

    @Timill: Now that I saw a,picture of the plane, carbon monoxide poisoning seems unlikely. Reports are that it was flying at 30,000 feet at some point.

    The plane came down not too far from the Blue Ridge Parkway, 15 miles or so from Staunton.

  53. 53.

    Lyrebird

    @YY_Sima Qian: by more parochial concerns: percentage of international students in the student body is one of the key metrics in international rankings (such as the QS or Times Higher Learning).

    Thanks for filling in more current context!

  54. 54.

    Fair Economist

    The collapse of Russian resistance to some presumably small militia groups makes me think Putin’s regime has lost all legitimacy. Governments can just disintegrate under moderate pressure if nobody supports them; one example that pops to my mind is the collapse of the Chinese Nationalists during the Chinese civil war after WWII. On paper they had overwhelming superiority; but the populace didn’t stick up for them and authorities kept defecting to the Communists.

    It occurs to me that Russians might be relatively aware of the outcome of the Chinese civil war, and how the Communists won.

  55. 55.

    Roger Moore

    @Anonymous At Work:

    Any chance that these guys can do something better than terrorize small towns?

    I think the goal is to force the Russians to redeploy troops from Ukraine back to defending Russia.  That will enable the planned offensive.  If that doesn’t work, Ukraine should just invade with some real force and try to cut Russian lines of supply.

  56. 56.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Fair Economist: I seriously doubt Russia has that much China expertise. Russians elites had historically looked down on China, since the Russian Empire started to take pieces of Outer Manchuria from the Qing Empire in the 19th Century.

    In addition, in the 1920s the USSR & Comintern had bet on the KMT to be the vehicle to unite China from warlord, while open to take over by its Left Wing, as well as the nascent CCP. (Until Chiang Kai-Shek turned on the CCP & thr KMT’s Left Wing in 1926, in order to gain the support of the merchant/industrialist class of the Lower Yangtze & the Western Powers.

    After Nazi Germany withdrew aid to the KMT regime & favoring Imperial Japan as its ally in Asia, the USSR stepped in to help distract Japanese designs on its Far Eastern territories, & the aid lasted until Germany invaded the USSR, at which point the U.S. finally stepped in. The Communists forces in northern China never received any material aid from the Soviet Union, though the latter did provide sanctuary to remnants of Communist guerrillas in Manchuria after these forces were destroyed by the IJA.

    In the early stages of the 2nd CCP-KMT civil war, the Soviet Red Army turned over IJA weapons caches to the PLA that just arrived ahead of the KMT forces, but did not provide the PLA w/ any material support throughout the war. Even in the latter part of the war, as the PLA has scored a series of massive victories in northeastern, northern & central China w/in 5 months, destroyed most of the KMT’s operational maneuver formations, & the KMT’s position was teetering on the point of collapse, Stalin was still advising Mao to partition China along the Yangtze River.

    Stalin only agreed to equip the Chinese “Volunteer” Army a year after China’s entry into the Korean War, & had China pay for it in gold. Khrushchev thought Mao should play second fiddle in Communist World Revolution.

    OTOH, Putin might remember how the Whitist position collapsed during the Russian Civil War…

  57. 57.

    Planetjanet

    @ARoomWithAMoose: I did hear a sudden noise that sounded like an enormous object fell next door at about that time, a little after 3:00.  I have never heard anything like it.

  58. 58.

    Marc

    @Geminid: Now that I saw a,picture of the plane, carbon monoxide poisoning seems unlikely. Reports are that it was flying at 30,000 feet at some point.

    It was a Cessna Citation business jet, pretty much definitely cabin depressurization.  This does happen periodically with business jets, but not so much airliners as the rules about pilot oxygen mask usage above 25K feet are a bit more stringent.  I’ve done a couple of altitude chamber rides, the effects of hypoxia above 30,000 feet are pretty insidious, you have only 10 seconds or so of useful consciousness before your brain heads off into la-la land, after 30 seconds you’re completely unconscious.  If it’s a slow leak, you’ll probably never know.

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