Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Democrats are back in array!

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

“woke” is the new caravan.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

Giving up is unforgivable. ~Joe Biden

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

Cancel the cowardly WaPo and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

The willow is too close to the house.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 832: The Russian Caused Power Outages Have Begun

War for Ukraine Day 832: The Russian Caused Power Outages Have Begun

by | 32 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , ,

A painting by Ukrainian artist NEIVANMADE. The words "NEVER AGAIN" are repeated over and over, from left to right and top to bottom, in a faded, washed out black against a white background. Red, the color of blood, runs and drips down across 2/3rds of the painting. "WHILE YOU TOLERATE TYRANTS" is written/painted in the bottom white corner below the three rows of "NEVER AGAIN".

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

Quick housekeeping note: Rosie is doing well 24 plus hours her last chemotherapy session. She’s eating, active, and behaving normally. Thank you all, again, for the well wishes, good thoughts, prayers, and donations!

As I start tonight’s update, at 5:35 PM EDT, air raid alerts are up over all over southern and eastern Ukraine except for Sumy, Odesa, and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts.

The power outages that are the result of Russia’s targeting of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, in this case power generation and transmission systems, have begun.

The scale of these attacks have been massive. Here is just the tally of the Russian strikes on Kharkiv in May of 2024:

This went largely unremarked last week, but I think it needs to be recognized, especially as I’ve seen references to the video clip being faked.

From The Kyiv Independent: (emphasis mine)

Ukraine recognizes both Israel and Palestine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in Singapore on June 2, calling for an end to the conflict in Gaza.

Kyiv voiced support for Israel after it came under a deadly attack by the Hamas militant organization in October 2023. Tel Aviv’s subsequent shelling and ground invasion of Gaza attracted harsh criticism from much of the international community, with the U.N. estimating the Gaza death toll at over 35,000.

When asked by a journalist about Kyiv’s support for Israel, Zelensky stressed that Ukraine also offered to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and said that the two periods should “not be mixed together.”

“Ukraine said that if Hamas terrorists attacked civilians on the first day of their attack on Israel, then Israel has the right to defend itself,” Zelensky said during the Shangri-La Dialogue conference.

“And after that, when Israel was in Gaza and there was a humanitarian crisis, Ukraine said: Firstly, we are ready to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza.

“Secondly, we must respect international law. Thirdly, Ukraine recognizes two states, both Israel and Palestine, and will do everything it can to convince Israel to stop, to end this conflict and prevent the suffering of civilians.”

The president also said that Ukraine is  a “just country that recognizes international laws and the U.N. charter.”

Ukraine invited both Israel and Palestine to the upcoming global peace summit in Switzerland as Kyiv is “ready to hear every opinion” of other countries, except for Russia, Zelensky noted.

The peace summit will be held on June 15-16 in the Burgenstock resort in Switzerland.

Ukraine hopes the summit will address several key areas, such as energy security, the exchange of captives, the return of deported children, global food security, and other topics.

President Zelenskyy is back at home. Here is his address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

It Is Only the Beginning of June, but These Are Already the Weeks That Will Define the Whole Summer, and in Many Ways This Year – the Address by the President

4 June 2024 – 19:57

Dear Ukrainians!

First of all – the Staff. There was a detailed conversation with the military, the Government, and the heads of special services on a number of issues.

First, Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi and Chief of the General Staff Barhylevych delivered their reports on the situation on the front. The main directions. The majority of the battles and the heaviest attacks are taking place in the Donetsk region. In fact, this is the main direction of Russian strikes. Of course, we also addressed the situation in the south, in the Kharkiv region, in the border areas of the Sumy and Chernihiv regions. I am grateful to every unit, every commander and soldier who helped stabilize the Kharkiv direction. We are doing everything necessary, step by step, to make Russia see that we have the means to respond to any attempt to expand the war and increase pressure on Ukraine. And we are working with our partners to improve our capabilities – to make them even more long-range.

Second. A report by Government officials on the energy sector and the possibilities for protection and recovery. Every day and at all levels, this should receive not just maximum but total attention from all responsible officials. Also today, the Minister of Defense and the Ministry of Strategic Industries reported on our production and procurement of drones. This is the area where we must constantly increase the volume. In this war, it has been proven – and especially by our warriors – that drones can give the advantage and help regain the initiative. While we were waiting for artillery supplies from our partners, the FPV drones practically saved the front line. Our long-range drones have proven Ukraine’s ability to degrade the internal strength of a terrorist state. We must continue this. We will continue. I thank everyone who works for this particular Ukrainian strength – for our warriors at the front to have the necessary drones, and for our Defense and Security Forces of Ukraine to continue to change the situation by using drones. And this is a matter of personal responsibility of the leadership.

And third. Today, I gave several instructions on the preparations for the next meetings of the Staff and the next decisions. We see the threats that exist. The State must be ready to respond accordingly. It is only the beginning of June, but these are already the weeks that will determine the whole summer and, in many ways, this year. It is about the Peace Summit and our consolidation of the world for the sake of Ukraine, it is also about Europe – our relations with the European Union, and of course it is also about our positions on the front and domestic production. We are doing our best in each of these areas to bring results – to bring them to Ukraine. I am grateful to everyone who is helping! I am grateful to everyone who is doing everything possible to ensure that this war ends and that it ends in a fair way for Ukraine.

Glory to Ukraine!

On June 4, Ukraine honors the memory of children who died as a result of russia’s armed aggression.
Since the start of the full-scale invasion, 550 children have died at the hands of the enemy, according to
@GP_Ukraine. More than 1,300 were injured.
The free world must help Ukraine put an end to the genocidal war waged by russia and achieve a just peace.

📷: Associated Press. A missile attack on Vinnytsia, July 14, 2022.

The US:

The Kyiv Independent has the details: (emphasis mine)

Peace in Ukraine means a guarantee that Russia will never occupy the country again, but Kyiv’s membership in NATO is not necessary for this, U.S. President Joe Biden told in an interview with Time published on June 4.

Biden said that he had not been prepared to support the “NATOization of Ukraine before.” A part of the condition for peace in Ukraine is the relations with Kyiv, like with other countries, “where we supply weapons so they can defend themselves in the future.”

“Peace looks like making sure Russia never, never, never, never occupies Ukraine. That’s what peace looks like. And it doesn’t mean NATO, they are part of NATO,” Biden said.

Kyiv did not receive the much-desired invitation nor a firm deadline to join the alliance during the 2023 NATO summit in Vilnius, even though NATO took steps to tighten cooperation.

Ukrainian officials have voiced hope that the Washington meeting, scheduled for July 9-11, will bring a more definite signal.

Julianne Smith, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, said that Kyiv is unlikely to receive a membership invitation at the alliance’s July summit, promising to offer a security package as a “bridge” to membership.

Biden said that when he visited Ukraine as a senator and vice president years ago, “there was significant corruption, a circumstance that was really difficult.”

“The point is, though, that if we ever let Ukraine go down, mark my words: you will see Poland go, and you will see all those nations along the actual border of Russia, from the Balkans and Belarus, all those, they are going to make their own accommodations,” he added.

Ukraine applied for NATO membership in September 2022, half a year into Russia’s full-scale invasion.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has repeatedly called on partners to issue a membership invitation to Kyiv, said that Ukraine will join NATO only after Russia’s full-scale war ends, echoing the words of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Novomykhailivka:

Between Novomykhailivka and Vuhledar:

The Vuhledar front:

The Kharkiv front:

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets today. Here’s some adjacent material.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

32Comments

  1. 1.

    Bupalos

    I’m not sure I’ve seen Adam say this, but I hope folks understand: The collective west is giving ukraine the OK to marginally go past the border with longer range fires IN REACTION to the reality that Ukraine is now in a position of potentially losing to a greater degree than the collective west is comfortable with. It’s an almost panicked reaction to the situation we’ve created by

    1. not having any strategy or vision for what we want to emerge on the post Soviet space whatsoever… that is… simply not having the democratic capacity to actively decide what it is we want…. and

    2. reacting to Russia’s nuclear blackmail as if there is some way to risk-manage our way to nuclear blackmail not existing, and by doing so creating a situation where our ultimate response to nuclear blackmail is unthinking, panicked responses

    The image here is a car going down the road with no driver, just a few passengers that notice here and there, as the car threatens to go off the road, that “oh hey, I should real quick stretch over and jerk the wheel this way!!!”

    And then once it’s righted they expect to continue as a passenger, as if that solved things.

  4. 4.

    Jay

    Wild hornets
    @wilendhornets
    3h
    A drone from Wild Hornets with target locking, machine vision, and autonomous target guidance is working on an enemy tank 🔥🐝🔥

    The BULAVA operator detected the tank, locked on, and gave the command, then the drone independently (!) did the job.

    The jamming turned out to be ineffective 😏

    There will be more such drones, and then even more!

    Invest in the future:

    💲PayPal: [email protected]
    MonoBank: send.monobank.ua/jar/E5kHzqv…

    https://nitter.poast.org/wilendhornets/status/1798083390195048893#m

  5. 5.

    Jay

    Anton Gerashchenko
    @Gerashchenko_en
    6h
    This is Roman Horilyk, a member of Ukrainian National Guard, after two years in Russian captivity.

    Roman was the senior controller of the checkpoint of Chornobyl nuclear power plant. Russians took him and the other 168 National Guardsmen hostage when they occupied the plant in 2022. 89 of these Guardsmen are still in Russian captivity.

    Warning, very disturbing photos, so much for “never again”.

    https://nitter.poast.org/Gerashchenko_en/status/1798028607434236286#m

  6. 6.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Bupalos: I have emphasized the strategic incoherence and malpractice many, many times. But this is a very good summation.

  8. 8.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jay: Every time I tried to generate a X embed code I got the following:

    Not found

    Sorry, we can’t create an embed for that. It may have been deleted or made private. Please try again.
    From eight or nine different accounts including Geraschenko’s.
  9. 9.

    Bill Arnold

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Hm, I see that as well with Anton Gerashchenko’s tweet.
    It does have a “Subscribe” button at the top.
    Also, one of my browsers stopped displaying twitter at all, telling me that I should disable privacy plugins. (Brave + a bunch of privacy plugins, and … nope.)

  11. 11.

    Jay

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I use nitter, not “Porn in Profile”, but, yeah, as far as I know, one can’t do a nitter embed. And well Felon Musk loves him some Nazi’s and ruZZian genocidealists, he loves “jamming” up pro-Ukrainian users more.

    I don’t “like” a lot of what I am seeing on the nitter instances I follow, but some times we need to bear witness.

  12. 12.

    Bill Arnold

    @Jay:
    That’s getting close to slaughterbots. I understand the tactical need. At least with this weapon system, lock-on is performed by a human being, but it could easily be (and I expect will be if it hasn’t been already) set to “loiter and autonomously destroy whatever its computer vision system is told/trained to classify as a target”, or to go into such an autonomous mode if jammed.
    People should be aware of these videos (linked previously). We’re collectively headed down these very dark paths, unless we turn aside/back.
    Slaughterbots is a 2017 arms-control advocacy video, presenting a dramatized near-future scenario where swarms of inexpensive microdrones use artificial intelligence and facial recognition to assassinate political opponents based on preprogrammed criteria.
    Slaughterbots (youtube, 7:47, 2017)
    Slaughterbots – if human: kill() (youtube, 5:27, 2021)

  14. 14.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Bill Arnold: @Jay: @Bill Arnold: I only use it for these posts. Because you can’t embed Nitter. Regardless, Musk has been screwing with the functionality of Ukrainian and pro-Ukrainian accounts for over a year even before everything now populates to x.com instead of twitter.com.

  15. 15.

    Jay

    @Bill Arnold:

    On the other hand, the ruZZians are sticking short range drone and GPS jammers on pretty much anything that can move and trying to use their handful of up armored*, cope caged T-90BM’s as mobile “drone jammers/GPS jammers”, to create a defensive “bubble” for attack groups.

    They do this by welding a “bustle” onto the back of the turret, mounting batteries, a generator and both mid range and short range jammers onto the bustle, then creating a new “cope cage” for the bustle and another for the engine deck.

    *they replace the ERA block arrays on the turret with welded on 2″ composite/hardened steel blocks.

    The “plan” is that an FPV drone loses communication with it’s operator when it enters the “bubble” and goes into it’s “loss” mode, auto landing, returning, crashing, what ever is in it’s software when it loses communication and GPS.

    We know it works, as Ukrainian drone teams report that roughly 50% of the drones they send out, lose communication and are “lost”, but Ukraine is a very heavy EW environment.

    This adaptation allows the drone to complete it’s “mission”, even if jammed, but only works if the EW “bubble” is small/medium, LOS to the operator.

    As we have seen so far with all AI, and in particular, with Israel’s Lavender and other AI, even with “humans” in the chain, it’s GIGO. Hamas, still controls 73% of Gaza, even places Israel once claimed to have “cleared” and about 90% of the Palestinians that Israel has “killed”, (there are other words for that), were not Hamas. The top military commander of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar is still alive, and is still in Khan Yunis, which Israel has “cleared” so far, 3 times.

    I place autonamous killer drones in the same category as self driving cars, flying cars and colonies on the Moon and Mars. The first people that a killer drone will kill, will be the designers, engineers and the Military observers on the test range.

  16. 16.

    Gin & Tonic

    you will see Poland go, and you will see all those nations along the actual border of Russia, from the Balkans and Belarus, all those,

    What the fuck does this mean? It is Trump-level incoherent. None of the Balkan nations share a border with russia, and Belarus has been for three decades a russian-style personality-cult dictatorship.

  18. 18.

    Jay

    @Gin & Tonic:

    “The point is, though, that if we ever let Ukraine go down, mark my words: you will see Poland go, and you will see all those nations along the actual border of Russia, from the Balkans and Belarus, all those, they are going to make their own accommodations,” he added.

    It’s a “call back” on Putin’s and his brain trust’s “goals”. Restore the Soviet Union’s breadth and spread.

    Belarus is still Belarus, barely, but it’s not yet the Belorussian SSR. Hungary, Serbia, Georgia and Slovakia are all currently ruZZian compromised, but not all in yet. Montenegro, Moldova are resisting.

    It is an outline of the almost worst case scenario.

  19. 19.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Jay: ​

    Hungary, Serbia, Georgia and Slovakia are all currently ruZZian compromised

    Only one of those is Balkan, only one shares a border with russia. That quote is incoherent bullshit.

  20. 20.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Andrya: ​
    “Typo” by whom? Time Magazine? They quote Biden saying “Balkans.”

    It’s fucking incoherent, and I’m not buying the excuses you and Jay are making.

  21. 21.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On Zelenskyy’s continued trip through SE Asia, I posted the below in yesterday’s thread after it was dead:

    Some of Zelenskyy’s recent activities in SE Asia that have escaped the notice of Western MSM.

    C Nguyen
    @CNguyenEc

    Zelenskyy’s trip to Singapore and Manila was symbolically very significant. He affirmingly returned to Ukraine’s traditional position on Palestine. He was unhesitantly upfront with Israel and China. The Manila visit was the first time ever for an Ukrainian head of state.

    His rebuke at Israel, China, and the trip to Manila are of course all connected in the long-term for Ukraine’s relevance to 21st-century Asia. His change on Palestine was also built on mounting criticism at home and internationally; a SE Asia region anguished about Gaza.

    A SE Asia region where the Taiwan & South China Sea issues are also unabatingly heating up. Gaza may propel a world away from the liberal order, but this process is in fact slowed by the relative silence of the Arab, Russian, and Chinese states beyond UN support for Palestine.

    Zelenskyy has a tendency to be a point of laughter among too many around the world. Whatever your political disagreements about Ukraine’s trajectory, these times is not a point of laughter for many Ukrainian people who are enduring worsening Russian bombardments. /End

    I think it is very astute for Zelenskyy to shift on the topic of the War in Gaza. He had been vocally supportive Israel immediately after 10/7 (rightly so), but has been quite mum on Israeli atrocities in Gaza that are often quite reminiscent of Russian ones in Ukraine (& often worse). As the majority of Western governments embraced Israel w/o reservations, Zelenskyy tried to play up the “clash of civilizations” narrative w/ the “democratic West” (traditional West + Israel + Ukraine) on one side & “despotic Russian centric coalition” (Russia + Iran + Hamas/Hezbollah) on the other. It was an understandable move from a realpolitik perspective, & surely Ukraine sought to exploit the opportunity to move Israel from its “straddling” position on the War in Ukraine to one that more favors Ukraine.

    However, Israeli conduct in Gaza in the months since has made Ukraine’s calculation untenable. Most parts of the West (the US 1st among them) has suffered significant damage to their credibility in the ROW due to their blatant hypocrisy on Gaza, Ukraine cannot afford to suffer the same. To too much of the cynical/jaded Global South, Zelenskyy is already seen as a puppet of the US/the West, & Ukraine’s struggle against Russian aggression a proxy conflict meant to bleed Russia. To continue the embrace w/ Israel, in line w/ the US’ hypocritical stance, would have fatally undermined any sympathy Ukraine might have been able to find outside of the West. Especially since Ukraine was getting nothing out of its embrace of Israel, it does not appear that Bibi & his coalition want to embrace Ukraine.

    The visit to Manila is intriguing. For the past year, the Philippines has been locked in tense confrontations w/ the PRC around shoals/reefs/rocks/low tide feature in the South China Sea. The Philippines has received strong support from the US, Japan & Australia in its stance, but the rest of the ASEAN has been notably quiet. So, Zelenskyy will certainly find sympathetic ears in Marcos, Jr., but not sure the maneuver is a net positive in the region. Reporting from the other ASEAN capitals seem to indicate that there is little sympathy for the Filipino position on the disputed features (where the confrontations have been taking place) specifically, nor the Filipino strategy of bringing in the US/JPN/AUS to counter PRC weight. Vietnam & Malaysia have competing claims w/ the Philippines over some or all of the Spratley Islands, & the other 9 members of the ASEAN want to see the Sino-US rivalry reduced rather than intensified. Not that there is any sympathy for the PRC’s position wrt the disputed features or PRC CG’s aggressive tactics against Filipino vessels specifically, or the PRC’s nebulous claims over the South China Sea & efforts to push US influence out of the region in general.

  23. 23.

    Jay

    @Gin & Tonic:

    So, if the US, NATO and the EU abandon Ukraine, which nations will enter ruZZia’s orbit or reach some “detente” with ruZZia and which ones will fight with out support?

  25. 25.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Gin & Tonic: BTW, any progress w/ further mobilization in Ukraine? The manpower shortage is no less dire than the munitions shortage, & this is entirely w/in Ukraine’s control.

  26. 26.

    Andrya

    @Gin & Tonic:  It could be a typo by Time, much more likely it was accidental verbal substitution by Biden.  (Biden was known for that kind of thing long before he was old.)  The mention of  Belarus is a bit disturbing, but he may have meant that rather than being a satellite, Belarus would be irrevocably absorbed into russia.

    I might be a bit biased to be sympathetic to Biden, because I have a significant typo problem myself.  :-)

  27. 27.

    Jay

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    1.5 million registered, since they opened the online portal.

    The gating issue is that between Ukraine and NATO, they can train up to 34,000 new recruits to barely basic every 6 months.

    That is why a couple of NATO members are engaged in talks with Ukraine to send/resend NATO training missions to Ukraine, along with Logistics and Repair teams, which would free up both trained manpower in Ukraine and allow more new recruits to take combat roles.

  31. 31.

    bjacques

    With permission to hit targets on Russian territory only as counterstrikes, I hope Ukraine interprets that to include, e.g., bombers and weapons systems that had already attacked them. “It’s a counterstrike, Jake, honest, only we’ve been keeping track awhile and we owed them a few. We’re just catching up 😁”

Comments are closed.