Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
This week, 104 out of 112 Shahed drones used by Russia destroyed – address by the President of Ukraine
16 December 2023 – 18:42
I wish good health to all Ukrainian men and women!
I held a Supreme Commander-in-Chief’s Staff meeting. Various issues and diverse defense aspects. It lasted almost three hours.
The topics ranged from military concerns, veteran issues, brigade matters, fortifications, to weapon production. We are working to implement all our arrangements with partners regarding new weapon production – joint production facilities and a shared repair base. The goal is to maximize Ukraine’s strength, with each month adding power to our defense.
I want to commend our sky defenders: in just one night, they destroyed 30 Shahed drones. A potent result. Overall, 104 Shahed drones out of the 112 used by Russia have been destroyed this week – most of them. Each destroyed drone means saved lives and preserved infrastructure. I express gratitude to all the warriors in our mobile fire groups, pilots, engineers of the Air Force, and all our anti-aircraft gunners. Well done! This week also witnessed missile interceptions, including ballistic ones. Systems like Patriot, NASAMS, Gepard, and other provided by our partners are working excellently. I thank everyone worldwide who helps!
We are preparing for further strengthening air defense – we have already reached agreements on this. The theme of air defense arises in almost every meeting and talk with world leaders. There will be more systems, more protection for the sky.
And one more thing.
Christmas is approaching, and while political activity may relax in many countries, we continue to work rigorously with all partners who can help now and provide support in the future. We are preparing important foreign policy contacts until the end of the year. The entire team – our team, the team of our diplomats – is working 24/7. I express gratitude to everyone in the country who maintains the same pace, who tirelessly defends, works, and helps.
Glory to all who fight for Ukraine! Glory to all who contribute to the necessary outcome in every area where strength is so crucial for us!
Glory to our people!
Glory to Ukraine!
For those of you marking Advent on your calendars this season:
Ukrainian Advent Calendar: Day 16
Today, we want to highlight the NASAMS air defense system and thank our Norwegian (@Forsvarsdep), Canadian (@NationalDefence), Lithuanian (@Lithuanian_MoD), and American (@DeptofDefense) friends for considerable aid that secured the Ukrainian… pic.twitter.com/TQb5AmUshJ
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) December 16, 2023
Ukrainian Advent Calendar: Day 16
Today, we want to highlight the NASAMS air defense system and thank our Norwegian (@Forsvarsdep), Canadian (@NationalDefence), Lithuanian (@Lithuanian_MoD), and American (@DeptofDefense) friends for considerable aid that secured the Ukrainian sky.
NASAMS systems significantly strengthened the #UAarmy and made our skies safer.
More Weapons of Victory are coming soon! Stay tuned.
So, now even Vladimir Putin himself said it loud and clear that there can't be any "peace" until his 'special military operation' against Ukraine, which is about to enter the third year, finally meets its 'initial goals.'
Yes, it's the same vague 'de-Nazification,'…
— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) December 16, 2023
So, now even Vladimir Putin himself said it loud and clear that there can’t be any “peace” until his ‘special military operation’ against Ukraine, which is about to enter the third year, finally meets its ‘initial goals.’
Yes, it’s the same vague ‘de-Nazification,’ ‘demilitarization,’ and ‘the ‘neutral status’ of Ukraine.
Let me translate this from the Kremlin newspeak into the language of human beings for you:
– An unconditional surrender of Ukraine. Complete cessation of all forms of armed resistance to Russia’s occupational forces.
– Complete disarmament dismissal of Ukrainian armed forces as ‘illegal formations.’ Termination of all Western defense and economic aid. The removal of all Western-provided weapons (or even their acquisition by Russia as a sort of ‘contribution’ for the ‘Western aggression against Russia in Ukraine,’ along with Ukraine’s Soviet-made weaponry.
– Russian occupation of at least most of Ukraine’s territory (possibly except for western oblasts, but not necessarily – Putin’s appetite may be fully encouraged to seize Lviv as well). And in light of the laughable sham ‘referendums’ of 2022 and the formal Anschluss of Ukrainian regions that the Kremlin does not even fully control – nothing stops Putin from not only demanding that Ukraine gives up to “the new territorial reality” but simply annexing the entire the rest of Ukraine via new ‘referendums’ with 99% of ‘yes’ votes. Who needs just a ‘pro-Russian puppet regime’ in Kyiv when the insanity has gone beyond all limits imaginable?
– Sweeping ‘filtration procedures’ regarding the entire Ukrainian population (yes, just like what happened at Russian filtration camps in occupied Donbas). The manhunt for all pro-Ukrainian citizens (a.k.a. ‘Nazis’), including activists, civilian volunteers, those who ever sent or collected donations for the Ukrainian military, non-defecting officials, just ordinary people who want to be a Ukrainian in an independent free Ukrainian country, non-surrendering Ukrainan soldiers and officers (a.k.a. ‘Nazi war criminals’) etc etc etc. Naturally, also a widespread crackdown on the Ukrainian identity and civil liberties (a.k.a ‘re-education’), concentration camps, a harsh occupational regime, anti-guerilla warfare, etc etc etc.
– All sanctions and limitations lifted immediately (of course).
Russia getting full access to Ukraine’s resources (especially food production), its geographic position in Europe, infrastructure etc.
– In case of no formal annexation taking place, a puppet ‘Ukraine’ joining ‘the union state’ of Russia & Belarus, as well as the ‘customs union’ and, in the long run, also the CSTO (‘Russia’s NATO’) if it manages to create a form of a collaborationist ‘military’ on the model of ‘people’s militias’ of the ‘DNR’ and the ‘LNR’.How do you like such ‘peace’? Would you accept that for your loved ones behind your back who have already seen Russian-made mass graves and cities leveled to ashes?
In the shorter run, Putin might demand that Ukraine ‘accept the status quo’ (i.e., recognize the annexation of Kherson, Crimea, Zaporizhia, and Donbas) and then leave itself totally defenseless and broke without Western aid – in exchange for Putin giving Jack’s shit.
Guess what happens next if today’s masters of escalation management force Ukraine into such a ‘peace for our time’ under Putin’s terms.
It’s a complete mystery why those silly Ukrainians just don’t see that as a possible option.
It’s not a fucking soccer championship (‘well, you will lose, but it’s not the end of the word, really…’).
It’s about a 40-million European nation and a democracy that does not deserve to die in a pit with a bullet in the back of its head because the wealthiest and the most powerful community of nations in the history of mankind was too obsessed with petty politics and phobias.
The elimination and subjugation of Ukraine is Vladimir Putin’s lifetime project, which he has pursued in various forms since the very beginning of his rule in the early 2000s.
It is especially personal now that Putin’s easy-cheezy triumphal march to Kyiv turned into a 2-year-long bloodbath with a long list of insanely humiliating defeats and blows upon Russia’s imperial pride.
He will not leave Ukraine be unless he is made to. Or unless he loses power or dies.
Oh, by the way, do I have to say that the fall of Ukraine means the Russian military being empowered with Ukrainian resources and standing at the gates of Central Europe?
Putin can formally stay in power until at least 2036. And before and after that, he and his successors in the Kremlin will be knowing that war, territorial grabs, and nuclear intimidation do work.
That the West will do little to nothing in response. And that war works perfectly well to keep their power over Russia consolidated as long as the ‘besieged fortress’ combats ‘the entire NATO’ in a new ‘global confrontation of superpowers.’
THEY NEED WARS. AGAIN and AGAIN.
So, really, the ONLY way to put this to an end in Ukraine is to provide Ukraine with everything it needs to defeat the biggest European war of aggression since Adolf Hitler.
To render the Russian war in Ukraine so critically costly and failing that it will make Putin seek a way out of it, with Ukraine & the West speaking from the position of power in negotiations.
And (which is also extremely important) to keep Ukraine, its eastern European allies, and NATO itself strong and resilient enough to keep Russia deterred and contained.
Putin will stop where and when he’s made to. Not by begging, not by giving him a chance to save face, or by appealing to his common sense or ethics, or by trying to please him into not siding with China in a future confrontation with the United States.
The free world’s obsession with escalation management, lack of leadership, half-hearted measures, and reluctance to go beyond its comfort zone do not work. Giving Ukraine a handful of missiles and tanks for such a large-scale war against Russia and then hoping for a miracle to happen at a low price also doesn’t work.
The free world has already given Putin TWO YEARS to unfold Russia’s military production and adapt itself to sanctions.
We all know how many tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have died as the West keeps waiting for heaven knows what, making the solution increasingly costly.
The BBC has the details on a long running Russian Information Warfare campaign that was partially responsible for bringing down former Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov.
A Russian propaganda campaign involving thousands of fake accounts on TikTok spreading disinformation about the war in Ukraine has been uncovered by the BBC.<Its videos routinely attract millions of views and have the apparent aim of undermining Western support.Users in several European countries have been subjected to false claims that senior Ukrainian officials and their relatives bought luxury cars or villas abroad after Russia’s invasion in February 2022.The fake TikTok videos played a part in the dismissal last September of Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, according to his daughter Anastasiya Shteinhauz. The BBC has uncovered nearly 800 fake accounts since July. TikTok says it was already investigating the issue and says it has taken down more than 12,000 fake accounts originating in Russia.
‘Villa in Madrid’
Ms Shteinhauz told the BBC she found out about the Russian disinformation campaign when she received a surprising call from her husband while on holiday.
OK, so now you’ve got a villa in Madrid,” he told her, before sending a link to a TikTok video narrated by an AI-generated voice that claimed she had bought a home in the Spanish capital.
Ms Shteinhauz initially dismissed the video as a one-off, but the following morning she was sent a similar TikTok clip alleging she had bought a villa on the French Riviera. The videos had been circulating among her friends before finally reaching her husband.
Ms Shteinhauz says she does not own property in Spain or France or “anywhere else outside Ukraine”.
BBC Verify also traced the pictures of the houses in Madrid and Cannes to two local property websites and they were both still for sale.
Other videos directly targeted her father.
Co-ordinated effort
The videos sent to Ms Shteinhauz belong to a vast Russia-based network of fake TikTok accounts posing as real users from Germany, France, Poland, Israel and Ukraine.
Using a combination of hashtag searches and TikTok’s own recommendations, BBC Verify was able to trace hundreds of similar videos targeting dozens of Ukrainian officials.
The accounts that posted them used stolen profile pictures, including those of celebrities like Scarlett Johansson, Emma Watson and Colin Farrell.
With only a handful of exceptions, they posted just one video each – a tactic TikTok says is new and aimed at evading detection and manipulating the platform’s system for recommending videos to users.
The effort appeared to have been co-ordinated: sometimes videos were released by different accounts on the same day and featured identical, or very similar scripts.
During the investigation, BBC Verify found consistent, circumstantial evidence pointing to a possible Russian origin of the network.
This included linguistic mistakes typical of Russian speakers, including some Russian phrases that are not used in other languages. Also, many of the videos contained links to a website previously exposed by Meta as part of a Russian-linked network impersonating legitimate Western news websites.
Many of the videos analysed by BBC Verify targeted Mr Reznikov, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials, portraying them as obsessed with money and uncaring about ordinary Ukrainians or the war effort.
They avoided direct allegations of wrongdoing, but implied politicians had bought luxury property or goods during a time of war – claims that, when checked, always turned out to be false.
Ms Shteinhauz believes this steady drip of innuendo played a role in her father’s dismissal: “It affected the life of my dad and his career.”
Previously praised as a key figure in Ukraine’s efforts to lobby Western countries for arms supplies, Mr Reznikov was sacked from his job as defence minister in September.
One video on its own may not have had any effect, Ms Shteinhauz said, but “when it goes like five times from different parts of the world and from inside the country, it starts to work”.
Mr Reznikov lost his job amid an anti-corruption drive and a number of scandals at the defence ministry involving the procurement of goods and equipment for the army at inflated prices. However, he was not personally accused of corruption.
Announcing the decision to replace Mr Reznikov, President Zelensky said “the ministry needs new approaches”. Although he made no mention of corruption in his statement, some in Ukraine welcomed the resignation that followed multiple accusations of corruption which involved Mr Reznikov’s subordinates.
Roman Osadchuk from the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, who investigated the network in collaboration with the BBC, said that the fake accounts targeting Ukrainians were trying to undermine their trust in the country’s leadership.
“They’re trying to make Ukraine less resilient in a way and [make] Ukrainian society stop fighting the Russians,” he said.
Renee DiResta, technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory, says the videos’ focus on corruption in Ukraine’s war effort was particularly aimed at the West.
“All of these different things they’re alleging [about Ukrainian officials] as the forms in which the corruption becomes grift, it would be to undermine continued support, particularly by European countries for the Ukrainian war effort.”
When we reported our findings to TikTok, a spokesperson said: “We constantly and relentlessly pursue those that seek to influence our community through deceptive behaviours, and we have removed a covert influence operation originating from Russia, as part of an investigation initiated by TikTok and to which the BBC has contributed.”
TikTok said it was still investigating who was behind the network and had found fake videos in two additional languages – Italian and English.
Despite TikTok’s efforts to shut down the network, in the weeks since BBC Verify reported the accounts, the app has recommended us dozens more videos that appear to be part of the same network.Some of them were posted as recently as late November and covered recent events.
There are lots of images that will help you all make sense of the reporting at the link!
Everyone is going to key into the wrong thing in the BBC reporting: TikTok! I’m not suggesting there are not problems with the fact that a major social media platform is ultimately controlled by the PRC’s government. That’s a major problem. But rather than deal with the actual issues between the US and the PRC, senior American officials begin during the Trump administration have decided that the real issue is TikTok or other Chinese companies regardless of whether they are directly owned by the PRC or just controlled. The real issue here is that over decade into Russia’s Information Warfare campaign, which is just one part of Russia’s world war, against the US, the EU, NATO, our other allies and partners, and any state, organization, and/or group that Putin thinks either should be Russian/Russian controlled or is in his way, we DO NOT HAVE ANY ACTUAL EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS TO THIS PROBLEM SET!!!
The Pentagon wrote a 23-page report about a single meme it created, which took 22 days to make and was ultimately RTed 190 times.https://t.co/uG9qsS2ZVr
— Katie Drummond (@katiedrumm) March 23, 2021
Your tax payer dollars at work:
The Pentagon is bad at making memes, but it still tries. On October 29, 2020, U.S. Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force—a DoD team that “ensures commanders can maintain the freedom to operate in the cyber domain”— posted a picture of a Soviet bear dropping a Halloween candy bucket full of malware. Candy labeled with words like “X-Agent,” “XTunnel,” and “ComRat” flew from the poor bear’s candy basket. The tweet got 364 likes and was retweeted 190 times. Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act Request filed by Runa Sandvik, a senior advisor for Norway’s Armed Force Cyber Defense, we have a 23 page report detailing Cyber Command’s creation of the image.
The Pentagon doesn’t meme like you or I. Before the DoD’s cyber warriors can shitpost, images must be approved, tweets drafted and redrafted, and everything has to go through the chain of command. From conception to deployment, the picture of the Soviet bear dropping malware candy took 22 days.
The first email to mention the image comes from a redacted email sent on October 7, 2020 at 11:24 A.M. “Intended date of disclosure is 29 OCT,” the heavily redacted email said. The message contains the rough sketch of an idea—to tell the public about specific kinds of malware.
The next email is more explicit and comes on October 20, 2020. Both the sender and receiver are redacted. “Good morning, graphic team extraordinaire,” the email started. “[Bottom line up front]: Requesting a quick turn of three graphics, as described below. We are requesting the graphics [no later than] two days before the final request date, so we have time for commander review.”
The first requested meme is completely redacted, but the second and third are detailed. “Graphic concept: Cartoon bear in soviet uniform costume holding Halloween candy basket with malware names,” the email said. For the second picture, it wanted “image of the same bear in soviet uniform costume holding Halloween candy basket, now tripping with ‘treats’ (malware names) spilling out of candy basket.” In advance of the images going live on October 29, members of Cyber Command met on October 28 to workshop the tweet that would accompany it. The FOIA contains several emails detailing the drafting of the tweet.
The bumbling bear is part of an effort by U.S. Cyber Command to make Russian hackers look uncool online. “We don’t want something they can put on T-shirts, we want something that’s in a PowerPoint their boss sees and he loses his shit on them,” an anonymous U.S. official told CyberScoop in November, 2020.
The FOIA’d report on the creation of the bear mentions the CyberScoop article. “The article, while a bit tongue in cheek, is mostly accurate and does highlight the core purposes for the malware disclosures.”
Cyber Command’s response to the report contained a detailed explanation of why it’s making bad memes. According to Cyber Command, they “impose costs on adversaries by disclosing their malware,” and the graphics “are used and included to increase engagement and resonate with the Cybersecurity industry.” Though it did admit that “the graphics may not be shaping adversary behavior.”
Here’s the link to the FOIAed After Action Report.
Obligatory!
Last summer, after he was killed, one of Prigozhin’s key agents in undertaking Wagner’s part of Russia’s Information Warfare campaign stated in an interview that they actually started in 2009. Prior to that the earliest dating was sometime in either late 2011 or early 2012. This has been going on for over fourteen years and we are no better at responding to it now than we were in 2009! There is a war, we have been in it for over fourteen years, we refuse to admit this reality exists, which is WHY WE ARE LOSING!!!!
Again, if you won’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe Fiona Hill:
“This is the tipping point where the United States and Ukraine and everybody loses.” Russia expert and fmr US National Security Council official Fiona Hill says delayed aid for Ukraine is a “winning ticket” for Putin. pic.twitter.com/amf7Y0De6X
— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) December 16, 2023
The Ukrainians are not going to stop defending themselves:
Just back from the front line. The mood: The war will drag on for much longer. Russian troops attacking daily. Ammo running low. US military aid is stalled. EU's money blocked. But Ukrainian soldiers say they'll continue to defend their land no matter what https://t.co/Y2SFO6lGRE
— Abdujalil A (@abdujalil) December 16, 2023
Kyiv:
Sixth air attack on Kyiv this month. Following three days of ballistic threats, Russia launched Shahed drones, echoing mixed tactics used in May 2023. Now, it’s drone strikes, missiles from strategic bombers, Iskanders, Kinzhals – all targeting Kyiv one after another. pic.twitter.com/xJ3L252RwM
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) December 16, 2023
Avdiivka:
Today, Russians attempted another attack on Avdiivka front.
Deepstate about today’sattack:“Today, Russians again marched in a column in the area of the Avdiivka Terekon.
About 15 AFVs with infantry drove through Krasnohorivka to the south to Terekon, dropped the infantry… pic.twitter.com/eKWwjcV9ld
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) December 16, 2023
Today, Russians attempted another attack on Avdiivka front.
Deepstate about today’sattack:“Today, Russians again marched in a column in the area of the Avdiivka Terekon.
About 15 AFVs with infantry drove through Krasnohorivka to the south to Terekon, dropped the infantry and drove back. Thanks to the combined efforts of all the brigades on the site more than half of the equipment was destroyed. The infantry is now concentrated in the windbreaks, its destruction continues. Expect a video of Russian equipment destruction from the Ukrainian brigades in the coming days.
Tactics generally do not change. Regular column attacks in the hope of a quick operation. Again, we are talking about the important role of observing the frontline from drones and other UAVs, which reduce to zero the possibility of any blitzkrieg on an operational-tactical level.”
https://t.me/DeepStateUA/18342
Avdiivka.
Russian fields of death for nothing. pic.twitter.com/brTdkBMtnn— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) December 16, 2023
Bakhmut:
I wrote a lot in my book about living and working in Bakhmut before the war and returning to the city during the heaviest fighting. If you want to know more about Bakhmut and the Donbas before 2022 — but also since — I recommend reading The War Came To Us. https://t.co/aVAkG18QsO
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) December 16, 2023
I highly recommend Miller’s book.
This is older/archival video, but I figured I’d include it.
Newly published archive video. Rare footage of a tank battle: a Ukrainian T-64BV fires at a Russian T-72B3. Bakhmut Front. pic.twitter.com/PGsi50AFiG
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) December 16, 2023
Krynky, left bank of the Dnipro, Russian occupied Kherson Oblast:
Magyar’s Birds continue their hunt. I’m not posting the tweet with the embedded video even with a content warning. I’ve seen it, the rest of you don’t need to as well.
Dnipro:
Dnipro street art gallery: here Russian propagandists are already jailed pic.twitter.com/xm7NIJJbGb
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) December 16, 2023
Somewhere in the Russian occupied Donbas:
Brief review of a Ukrainian artillery position that uses a British-supplied L119 light towed howitzer. Eastern direction. 80th Air Assault Brigade.
Source: https://t.co/Xi06G4UIEE pic.twitter.com/29jmMAkQDA
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) December 16, 2023
Here’s the full video from the Ukrainian Army YouTube channel:
And a machine translation from the videos description posted below the video:
Lightweight, rapid-fire and accurate – that’s what Ukrainian paratroopers from the 80th separate airborne assault brigade of Galician Galician have to say about the L119. This 105-mm howitzer entered service with the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the summer of 2022 and has been demonstrating good performance in destroying the enemy since then.
According to the artillerymen, the advantage of the British gun is its active-reactive projectiles, which increase the range to 19 km, as opposed to 15 km for the Soviet D-30 gun. Other advantages include a wider firing angle, mobility, and ease of deployment.
We are Army TV. Our team consists of career soldiers, volunteers and mobilized soldiers who have been fighting since the first days of the war in different areas and in different units. Most of us have combat experience. Before the Russian invasion, we worked as directors, cameramen, presenters, and editors. Now we combine our military service with our media work.
We are constantly on the contact line. The channel’s studio, from which we also broadcast online streams, is also located near the frontline.
Synkivka, Kharkiv Oblast:
Recent days, Russians have been carrying out attacks involving a large number of AFVs and infantry in the Synkivka area, Kharkiv region. There is still little information about the results of the attacks.https://t.co/JazX7BTxzmhttps://t.co/T756q4ZQ4r pic.twitter.com/YXY2vWtUrZ
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) December 16, 2023
For you drone enthusiasts:
/2. Short video with a bit more view on the AQ 400 Scythe UAV pic.twitter.com/UohSNyqwh0
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) December 16, 2023
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
There are no new Patron tweets, so here’s an adjacent one from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
Good morning! pic.twitter.com/jHJ6EtdhG6
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) December 16, 2023
And a new video from Patron’s official TikTok:
@patron__dsns Мій муд, коли Михайло не бере мене з собою на роботу 🤨🤨 #песпатрон
Here’s the machine translation of the caption:
My mood when Mykhailo doesn’t take me to work with him 🤨🤨 #песпатрон
Open thread!
Gin & Tonic
I don’t like that machine translation of Patron. “Mykhail” is a russian name – Patron says “Михайло”, which is Ukrainian, commonly Romanized as “Mykhailo” or “Mykhaylo.”
rekoob
Saw the full interview with Fiona Hill on CNN. She continues to speak truth to power.
Alison Rose
That post from Ponomarenko is excellent, thank you for sharing it. As far as I know, I don’t have any friends on FB in the “Ukraine should just give up some land” idiot camp, but they might have friends or family who think that way, so I’m gonna share it for their use at the Christmas dinner table or something.
I’ve seen so many memes, tweets (or whatever the fuck they’re called now), comments, etc, stating exactly this. These dopes/bots seem to think that when you see a dollar amount on an aid package, it means we’re airdropping that exact amount in actual cash in overstuffed briefcases into Kyiv, and Zelenskyy is squirreling most of it away in his private accounts. And then I wonder how people this abjectly stupid manage to operate a phone.
Thank you as always, Adam.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Fixed. My fault, I wasn’t paying attention to it. I read enough Ukrainian now that I should’ve caught it.
Jay
@Alison Rose:
Sadly, that was how it was done in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Luckily, we have NAFO. Apartheid Clyde blew up Xshitter, so NAFO now has a Truth Social Division, I expect them to take on TicToc soon.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: No need to apologize. You do enough around here.
Alison Rose
This made me smile:
That’s a good man.
Martin
Frankly, that’s a problem with the terminology we use. We don’t differentiate between an aid package which is just airdropping cash and one which is in-kind aid, or ‘$1B spend hiring Americans to produce arms for Ukraine’ etc.
It’s not a difficult bit of wordsmithing and the media would probably parrot it if the administration adopted it. Use some b-roll outside the Scranton Munitions Plant to make clear who benefits from that cash.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin:
The people who think that way are choosing to do so.
Alison Rose
@Omnes Omnibus: My thoughts exactly.
I mean…whenever an aid package is announced, there is a clear list of what it includes. And none of those lists have ever, to my knowledge, said “Samsonites stuffed with crisp Benjamins”.
VeniceRiley
I cannot believe we are wasting this opportunity.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: No, I’ve talked to quite a few people who support Ukrainian aid but didn’t understand how that ‘money’ was helpful to them.
But your explanation is a cop-out. If you give them terminology that makes it easy to make this case, then you’ve made it easy for them to make this case. It’s a lot better to make it hard for them to make this case. Make it so every Republican on TV has to be challenged on this point. You also make it harder for the aforementioned Russian influence campaigns to work which are really good at capturing low information voters.
I mean, it’s a small change in terminology. Why would you oppose it? It’s literally free to do.
Martin
@Alison Rose: Just to let you know – when Republicans fundraise off of this shit, they don’t include the list – just the dollar amount. When the media mention a new aid package, they just mention the dollar amount, and rarely include the list. They almost NEVER talk about the jobs that are supported by this, what cities they are in, etc. I doubt people in Harrisburg are even aware that a lot of that money is being spent in Scranton.
Omnes Omnibus
I guess it’s because I am not as enlightened as you are and I lack your expertise in all subjects. But do go on.
Bill Arnold
Re Russian Information Warfare, here is an extract from some raw notes I typed up a few weeks ago. Dropping it here even though it’s raw.
…
(1) One complicating factor is that Russia amplifies arguments between political factions in target countries, and visible active defenses against such influence-operations can rile up domestic politics.
(2) Also, the polities in many countries, including the USA, are allergic to government capabilities for running influence operations (because the might become internally-directed), especially including capacities to counter foreign influence operations. (These allergies can easily be encouraged by foreign/malevolent influence operations; no significant published evidence. Need to poke.) (“Gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail.” is the classic case.)
(3) Another complicating factor is the academic camp that attempts to show that such methods do not work well (or at all), and more generically, that media does not have significant influence. That camp has influence. (Much more than they deserve, IMO.)
(4) Some of the defense work can be done by the private sector. E.g. Social media companies have full access to their own databases and can (and some do. Twitter/X, not)) identify and shut down networks. Even highly motivated hobbyists (and groups) can map out influence networks and operations (not just social media – news/news sites, etc), in real time, and disrupt them. API costs are an issue. (E.g. Twitter/X.)
Alison Rose
@Martin: I am aware. This might come as a shock, but I have access to the same internet that you do.
I trust that YOU are aware there is nothing whatsoever Biden could say about the aid to make certain sectors of the public approve of it, and if, as you say, the problem is that the GOP and MSM don’t give the details, then how is it you expect the admin to change that?
If someone out there in Peoria thinks “gee why are we filling a jet liner with sacks of money and sprinkling it over Kyiv like a crop duster” they could always do a modicum of research and find out what exactly we are sending, how the money is being used here, the benefits it is giving US society, and you know, the fact that stopping a genocidal maniac is kinda in everyone’s best interest. People choose to be ignorant because it serves their pre-existing prejudices. Biden can try to correct their erroneous thinking all he wants, but with most of them, it’d be like talking to a brick wall.
Martin
@Alison Rose: I never suggested that Biden could make it so everyone accepted it. That’s a straw man.
I focused on low information voters who see headlines but not the list. And again, why is there opposition to a simple change in terminology to differentiate between cash aid and in-kind aid?
Why are you and OO opposition doing this? Again, it’s simple and free to do and would make it harder for certain kinds of voters to make this mistake. Understand that half of DEMOCRATS think we’re sending cash to Ukraine. They support sending cash. They aren’t believing something wrong because it furthers an ideological narrative, they believe it because it’s poorly communicated.
Martin
Ok. Let me ask this question differently: Why should we frame the Ukrainian aid in terms of dollars? It’s not actual dollars being sent. It’s not even increasing the deficit in terms of in-kind aid. So why frame it that way? Someone make the argument why that’s better.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin:
I said that people believe it because they want to believe it. I am not “so opposed” to anything. Don’t read into what I wrote. Massaging the messaging will do no harm and I don’t oppose it. I just don’t expect that it will move the needle very much.
Another Scott
@Martin: We, the EU, Japan, and others are (also) sending money to Ukraine (to support their budget, etc.). We’re also sending them weapons. We’re also sending them non-weapons stuff.
It’s complicated. A 5 word headline isn’t going to cover even a portion of the nuance of what is being done.
People who are interested can easily get more information, like this December 6 summary from the State Department. Or they can visit the White House Briefing Room for summaries of the day’s Presidential actions.
I don’t think it’s a messaging problem, myself. People have to make a modicum of effort to be informed.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Alison Rose
@Martin: So if you don’t think it’s the Biden admin who needs to do this, then who? I don’t get what you’re saying here. “It’s simple and free to do” – what is?
Harrison Wesley
Late to the party, as usual. Is it Circular Firing Squad Night, or am I misinterpreting what’s going down?
Gin & Tonic
@Bill Arnold: Here’s a (lengthy) piece from the FT by Bellingcat’s Eliot Higgins about disinformation.
Martin
@Alison Rose: I said quite clearly I think the Biden admin need to do this. They should reframe how they discuss this.
Most people are absolutely useless at understanding basic economics. So if you put something in dollar terms, they routinely think it’s fungible with the actual dollars.
It’s led to all kinds of confusion as to what the actual value of the stuff being sent is – something I raised the other day. Why should we care what the dollar value of a missile is, when the thing we’re giving them is a missile. Is it the original appropriation value, is it the replacement value, is it the depreciated value? And so when the Pentagon says ‘our bad, we did the math wrong, we have $6B more we can send’ you can’t really fault people for thinking there are shenanigans.
Of course in the details we should outline that, but instead frame what’s being sent not in terms of dollars but in terms of capability, or in terms of what Ukraine asked for. Dollars are the administrative insider baseball measure that *really* only makes sense to the accountants. Why is that the headline? Bureaucracies do this shit all the time – they use their internal metrics because it’s easy, not because it’s useful to the public. I mean, it’s a fucking PR effort – the only party it needs to matter to is the public. And if they routinely get it wrong (and I would argue that’s the case since even us in these threads can’t quite get it right – Adam is constantly having to correct us, and I’m not 100% sure Adam has it right because he contradicts what I see at major media outlets, which is just as likely the major media outlet has it wrong).
If your PR is constantly misunderstood, either your PR is dogshit, or the misunderstanding is the goal. And I think in this case the misunderstanding is harmful to the administration.
wjca
Sadly, the reality is that a lot of people simply won’t make such an effort. (A problem not unique to Ukraine aid.) So the choices are:
— Let them stay mis-/un-informed (or, more accurately, open to being misinformed), or
— Find a way to spoon feed them accurate information. In small, easily digested, bites.
Omnes Omnibus
And a few of us are saying that there are a lot of people for whom misunderstanding is the goal.
Martin
@Another Scott: We do send some cash, but 95% of it is being spent in either red states or in red districts in red states.
And it’s not *that* complicated. The administration can point directly to where these dollars are helping local economies, which media outlets love to cover. I mean, maybe they’re worried about losing Democratic support? That doesn’t make sense to me though – it’s not something that Democrats care about. Maybe it’s a misread of Democrats support for defense spending – that we favor it being dollars but disfavor it being actual bombs?
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t refute that in the slightest. You can’t change that. But most DEMOCRATS misunderstand it. And there are a lot of people if you have an actual conversation with them (I had two such ones yesterday) you discover that they are susceptible to this kind of misinformation (Zelensky spending this money on houses, etc.) because they didn’t realize we were sending artillery rounds made in Kentucky rather than dollars.
Most people aren’t that engaged with this stuff – they don’t have time to track all this shit down so you need to take steps to immunize them from the bad actors. Democrats usually suck at this, and I think a simple change in terminology would address that.
BR
@Martin:
I agree. “Supplies for Ukraine” is a way to put it and it can be this many somethings from Anytown, PA and that many somethings else from Midville, NC, etc. Fly someone from the admin to do a stump speech at each of those factories and give the local news some footage to run.
Alison Rose
@Martin: Okay, but you — and all of us here — are viewing this from the POV of people who support Ukraine and want us to do everything we can. There are people who don’t, and no amount of word-tweaking is going to change that. Further, we’re talking about people who think Biden is some kind of crime lord who needs to be impeached, that his son is basically in the mafia, that Kamala Harris has brain damage, that Obama was/is a thug, that HRC ran a child sex trafficking ring from a pizza place, and so on. These are not people with zip codes in the planes of reality. They believe what they want to believe, and there is no amount of explanation from the Biden administration that will convince them that they’re wrong.
I’m sure you’ve seen the studies that show that when you have someone who believes an incorrect thing — such as thinking we never landed on the moon — the more facts and data you show them to disprove their belief, the more they dig their heels in. ESPECIALLY if those facts and data are coming from sources they don’t trust. Biden could visit every single diner in every small town in every state in the nation with a detailed and colorful Power Point presentation about all the nuts and bolts of Ukraine aid. It wouldn’t move the needle for the majority of them, because to them, any word out of his mouth is the rambling mendacious lunacy of a doddering old man in service of the greedy Jewish comedian who is laughing all the way to the bank.
I do think the media needed to do a far better job of this shit from the beginning, but I also think that wouldn’t help with the morons across the nation who are more devoted to Trump than Samwise was to Frodo.
Another Scott
@Martin:
It’s not clear to me who “we” is in that sentence.
As we all know, Congress determines what the DoD (and every other part of government) can do via the budget. The budget is a list of numbers. Everything the DoD does has to be charged to a funding line of some sort (there are laws against people working for free, etc., etc.), so there has to be an accounting of what is done with the allocated funds.
Being honest that mistakes were made in the previous accounting and “finding” $6B isn’t something to be ashamed of and isn’t something that should cause distrust. We haven’t done weapons drawdowns on this scale before, so of course there are paperwork issues starting it up, IMHO.
I get where you’re coming from, but there are rules about how things are paid for, how they’re depreciated (if at all), and all the rest, for the DoD as for other big organizations. People can – and have – go(ne) to prison for not following the rules about government property, even if it’s “worthless” or “obsolete”. And that’s before we consider the DoD’s continued failed efforts to successfully pass a rigorous audit.
These aren’t simple systems and policies that can be accurately simplified into a few word sound bite. Especially when the other side wants to make up crap about what is actually happening…
tl;dr – Biden’s messaging has been fine, IMHO.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
BR
@Alison Rose:
I’m with you but there’s another huge group of people who don’t understand what’s going on and don’t really care to find out. Probably at least half the country isn’t die hard partisans but instead people who pay very little attention to politics, especially foreign policy. Very few could point to Ukraine on a map let alone explain what’s happening there or why it matters to them. Folks are busy, so it is what it is. I think Martin’s comment could reach some of them, because they might hear about how Ukraine = local jobs if there’s a local interest story on it.
Alison Rose
@Harrison Wesley: We can have disagreements and discuss them, can’t we? It’s not a firing squad to have differences of opinion.
Holofcener
Maybe the United States should focus on taking care of Americans.
Another Scott
@Martin:
Biden’s October 20 Fact Sheet on the Supplemental does what you ask – lots of words, very few $ numbers.
Cheers,
Scott.
Carlo Graziani
@Bill Arnold:
May I just say, I dislike everything about how this is framed. As I dislike Adam’s implication (perhaps not intended, but definitely received loud and clear) that the West should learn to become as good as the Russians are at political disinformation.
We are different. Our politics are different. And the things that make us different, and which make our politics morally superior to theirs—and ultimately more attractive and resilient than theirs—is the fact that our political theories are founded in the enlightenment, and place a supreme value on evidence-based truth.
This is not to say that our politics or our politicians always live up to that ideal—obviously that would be an absurd claim. But the ideal is important. It is what makes us distinctive, and better, and is our only real claim to historical destiny. And, in my opinion, among the many such claims made on behalf of various geopolitical groupings, it is the only one with any objective credibility and power of persuasion.
To give that up for the tactical advantage of creating our own effective disinformation arm would be so absolutely destructive of what makes us special as to constitute the most tragic strategic own-goal that I can imagine. It would be tantamount to defending the West by undermining the very ideas that make it worth defending in the first place.
Another Scott
@Martin:
For the same reason why polls get so much attention in the news; or why the DJIA (now called “The Dow”) is reported daily.
Because reporters seem to think that numbers are objective and numbers are meaningful. Even when they supply no context – at all – with those numbers.
That’s why “$BigNumber Billions” is almost always a big part of the story.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Sally
I had the probably impractical suggestion a few weeks ago that President Zelenskyy could tour a few of the (red State) factories, places where equipment and munitions are being produced, to thank the workers and the communities for their support. This would at least make headlines, and so bring some light to the reality of jobs being created. I said then, tongue in cheek, he could do this as he has nothing else to do, but maybe it is becoming sufficiently critical that this would be a productive use of his time. Maybe some billboards put up to indicate the jobs that are dependent on Ukrainian aid, and the amount of money being spent in that area in aid of the war. I realise probably not practical, just a thought.
Martin
@Another Scott: We means the public.
And I’m familiar with how the appropriations work, that they’re structured in terms of dollars, but I’m also wiling to bet that almost nobody in Congress actually understands what that dollar figure means. And I think it’s incredibly ignorant to assume that if you say ‘$1B in Ukraine aid’ that the public won’t interpret it as ‘we’re going to have our taxes go up by $1B to pay for that’ when in most cases, at least for in-kind stuff, we spent that $1B ages ago. If I spend $20 on a gift for my wife, and she takes that $20 gift and gives it to my daughter, who in turn gives the $20 gift to my son, we didn’t spend $60 in gifts. We spent $20.
So you have all of these different things that are all accounted for in the same terminology, that all actually mean different things to the public. Some can be looked at as local stimulus spending. Some can be looked at as modernization of US inventory. Some is just cash being sent. Some is current spending. Some is not.
And in a world where weaponized disinformation is an increasing problem – you have to meet that problem. You can’t fall back on ‘well, this is how the bean counters track this stuff’ as an excuse to not do that. You can put those details in the small print at the bottom of those that do want to know it – I’m not saying to hide it, but when you’re doing PR, do fucking PR. This is precisely the same message that Adam is saying above with how the US is bad at countering Russian disinformation.
Carlo Graziani
@Another Scott: Yes, but. The absurdity that such accounting lends itself to is laid bare when chin-stroking pundits opine on the madness of shooting down a (say) $200 drone using a (say) $1M missile.
Who gives a shit? The missile is protecting millions in property and yielding un-valuable benefits in saved lives. There is an affordability issue, but that issue is not sanely addressed by comparing the cost of defense to the cost of offense. Which is precisely the comparison that addled journalists make a beeline for as soon as they can secure weapon systems budget numbers, however prorated.
Martin
So if you know the media has this bias, why feed that bias? If they want numbers, give them different numbers. Give them % of Ukraines requests satisfied. There’s no limit to how many different ways you can quantify this. Do it in terms of weeks of ammunition. We know the media is going to be lazy and pick up their framing, so control the framing.
Alison Rose
@Holofcener: Good news! It is actually possible to do things for Americans and people in other countries.
wjca
I think it’s necessary to distinguish THREE different groups. There are, as you say, 1) those of us who want to support Ukraine, and 2) those who flat out oppose supporting Ukraine — who, as you say, aren’t going to change no matter what.
But critically, there are those who are not invested in Ukraine one way or the other. They are persuadable. The message needs to be clear, understandable, and focused. But it’s doable.
Bill Arnold
@Gin & Tonic:
Thanks. That’s a sprawling piece; the parts where he talks about spreading skills for identifying and disrupting disinformation (and influence operations) through more of the populace are especially interesting.
Here’s an archive.ph link, for those flustered by the FT paywall: What to do about disinformation
“the grassroots approach offers a glimmer of hope.”
“Hope” is the thing with feathers (BY EMILY DICKINSON)
Another Scott
@Martin:
It seems to me that State, DoD, and the White House are pretty-much already doing what you’re asking.
E.g. Defense.gov from December 6.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
@Holofcener:
You mean like abortion bans, dead women, child labour and more people in jail?
Alison Rose
@wjca: That’s true. I do want to believe there are persuadable people out there. I guess I just feel that by this point in the war, if they haven’t woken up to what putin is trying to do, it’s because they either can’t or won’t.
Harrison Wesley
@Jay: What’s not to like? Merka – FUCK YEAH!
Yutsano
@Jay: You forgot moar gunz!!!
Martin
@Holofcener: Imagine how much we could pull back defense spending for domestic if Ukraine can very inexpensively neuter the Russian military.
Bill Arnold
@Carlo Graziani:
I agree with this; it is however possible to conduct influence operations without use of disinformation, especially if the target population is already being fed a domestic disinformation diet.
E.g. Voice of America/VOA has always been (or tried/tries hard to be) truthful. The same truth-only approach could, in principle at least, be used for more-directed influence efforts. There would need to be a carefully written charter and good oversight, and some insulation from partisan politics.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … AP via HuffPo:
1914. Wilson was president then:
All this stuff is connected. It’s good the symbols are finally, finally, being taken down.
Cheers,
Scott.
YY_Sima Qian
Do people actually believe that the US & other Western governments have not engaged and do not engage in influence operations around the world, including at times targeting their domestic populations?! Have we really forgotten the grey zone warfare both sides waged during the Cold War? Just a few months ago Twitter had shut down a network of US DOD run fake accounts spreading negative sentiments about the PRC in Central Asia. (Most of them had low engagement, so probably not very effective). We have seen much more prominent coverage social media companies shutting down PRC run networks of fake accounts that campaign to smear critics of the CPC regime & promote positive images of the PRC. Russia is much more brazen about it, though. The USSR was pretty brazen back in the day, too.
Information warfare is not new, offense or defense. If the U.S. is now doing poorly in defense (versus during the Cold War) against Russian information warfare, it is because half of the US political establishment & a large minority of the population either embrace the false information or would rather leverage the false information to further their domestic political gain.
In that sense, the issues w/ the mis-information campaign on TikTok is the same as the campaigns we have seen on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc., & not just by Russia. These social media companies, wherever they are domiciled, have neither the capability nor the inclination to suppress dis-information, which at a fundamental level requires censorship. That TikTok is a wholly owned subsidiary of a PRC domiciled company, & thus subject to pressure from the CPC regime, is incidental at least as of this moment. Had the Trump Administration forced ByteDance to sell TikTok to Oracle, or shut it down in the U.S. altogether, I do not think the dynamic would be any different today.
YY_Sima Qian
@Bill Arnold: VOA does avoid outright fabrications (even if there is an editorial slant), but RFE & RFA are particularly careful about sourcing. Some of the latter two’s reporting are informative, some are so thinly sourced as to be indistinguishable from fabricated propaganda. Then again, one could at the same about some of the reporting out of MSM.
YY_Sima Qian
OT, the IDF just killed three Israeli hostages in Gaza, who had somehow escaped from their captors, thinking they were Hamas. All 3 were unarmed, shirtless, waving a white flag, & one had called out for help in Hebrew. Even if they were Hamas militants, such apparent executions are war crimes. Just a couple of weeks ago an IDF soldier executed an Israeli civilian who had just shot dead two Palestinian terrorists who had attacked a bus stop, even after the Israeli civilian had disarmed himself, opened his shirt to show that he was not wearing a suicide vest, knelt on the ground, & identified himself in Hebrew. Even in the aftermath of the 10/7 attack the IDF had published drone footage & photos that suggested execution of unarmed/disarmed Palestinians (who could have been Hamas/PIJ terrorists, or civilians who tagged along).
Either there are some serious issues w/ IDF ROE, or atrocious discipline among the ranks, or both. & imagine how many Palestinian civilians have fallen victim.
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: In an army organized without NCOs and primarily reservist, isn’t such poor discipline almost inevitable? It is also inexcusible to continue that organizational model 75 years after achieving independent nationhood.
AlaskaReader
@Holofcener:
… ‘focus on taking care of the needs of Americans’.
That’s your attempt to steer a narrative?
Stopping Putin’s illegal invasions and ending Russian war crimes most definitively is, taking care of the needs of Americans.
Helping Ukraine defeat Putin is perhaps the greatest need facing Americans,
…well, that and removing every single Repubican from every single public office in the land.
AlaskaReader
@Holofcener:
Maybe the United States should focus on taking care of Americans.
Stopping Putin’s iimmoral illegal invasions and ending his war crimes is taking care of the needs of Americans,
…one of every American’s primary needs,
…and you can add removing each and every Republican from any and all positions of public trust.
We get that done and all American’s lives will be exponentially improved. Not to mention being able to get on with the business of doing collectively that which we cannot achieve individually, …in other words, governing.
sab
@sab: They are killing their own people and people under them because they cannot even recognize white flags.
They are supposed to be a modern country. Instead they are a badly organized armed militia.
Drowning their own people held hostage. Because their own citizens mean less to them than the illegal settlers on the West Bank.
ETA : As always, local politucs prevails.
wjca
That’s because you care. But most of them could wake up to it. IF it is brought to their attention properly. It’s just that, for many people, concerns closer to home, to their everyday lives, soak up just about all of their bandwidth.
If something like Dobbs comes along, that does get thru. But otherwise, all that registers is occasional snippets.
So they catch the dollar value of aid to Ukraine, but not where the dollars are actually spent. Also not what is actually happening in Ukraine, beyond that there is a war on. (One of many here and there around the world. Most of which, e.g. Yemen, are totally irrelevant to them. So why should this one be different?)
The trick is to explain in the kind of short, sharp, repeated tidbits that will filter thru. Perhaps something like Ukraine Deals Putin [Russia] Another Setback. With the first sentence being “Using xxx equipment built in [nearby city], [state], Ukrainian forces….”
Chris
@Carlo Graziani:
Also, let’s call a spade a spade: the fear that new government powers or policies against “influence operations” would become internally directed is completely reasonable. Everything we know about our security state suggests that that’s exactly what would happen: give them new powers and they’ll be using them to spy on Occupy and BLM and environmentalist movements, while completely ignoring the Russian influence operations because those happen to agree with their politics.
The entire reason we’re in this mess in the first place is that the FBI, when shown evidence of a Russian influence operation, chose to become a part of it rather than suffer the indignity of having people think that, if given a choice between a Russian asset and Hillary Clinton, they’d side with Hillary Clinton.