I have had a very long day that is still not over. And I need to walk the dogs and give them some attention as they’re feeling a bit neglected. So tonight’s update is going to be very brief – just some basics – and tomorrow we’ll hopefully be back to a more normal update.
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump (emphasis mine):
Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!
Today I took part in the meeting of the European Council. The topic of protection of Ukraine and our energy security was among the key issues at this summit. I informed my colleagues about the new terrorist steps of Russia and about our needs to protect ourselves from this form of terror directed against the energy system.
Russian troops continue to strike our power plants with missiles and drones. In the end, such Russian meanness will also fail. We are doing everything to get more modern and effective air defense and missile defense systems for Ukraine.
And there will be a day when we announce that the Ukrainian sky has become completely protected from Russian missiles, Iranian drones and any other carriers of evil.
Russia tried to blackmail Europe with gas and oil, organizes sabotage on underwater gas pipelines and critical cables in Europe, tried and is still trying to freeze people… And what happened?
Russia has only lost its weight in the European energy market, which it has been gaining since Brezhnev’s era, and will definitely be treated as the most reckless international criminal. This will remain with Moscow for a very long time even after this Russian leader.
Russia is trying to destroy the energy system of Ukraine, to make our people suffer even more, but this only mobilizes the international community to help us even more and put even more pressure on the terrorist state. And all our expenses for the protection of our energy facilities and for the restoration of our infrastructure after Russian terrorist attacks will be reimbursed at the expense of Russian assets.
Each of the terrorists will be personally responsible for what he does. Before the court. And the terrorist state will pay for its terror. With isolation, degradation and assets – both of state and quasi-private entities connected with this Russian regime.
I informed the Europeans today, during the meeting of the European Council, about the next terrorist attack, which Russia is preparing for at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. According to our information, the aggregates and dam of the Kakhovka HPP were mined by Russian terrorists.
Now everyone in the world must act powerfully and quickly to prevent a new Russian terrorist attack. Destroying the dam would mean a large-scale disaster.
Of course, we understand that the occupiers do not care what happens to the territory of Ukraine. With this terrorist attack, they can destroy, among other things, even the possibility of supplying water from the Dnipro River to Crimea. In the event of the destruction of the Kakhovka HPP dam, the North Crimean Canal will simply disappear. And if Russia is preparing such a terrorist attack, if it is seriously considering such a scenario, it means the terrorists are clearly aware that they will not be able to keep not only Kherson, but also the entire south of our country, including Crimea.
We must now all together – all Europeans, all world leaders, all international organizations – make it clear to the terrorist state that such a terrorist attack on the Kakhovka HPP will mean exactly the same as the use of weapons of mass destruction. The consequences for Russia should be corresponding.
The world must react preventively. This is key now. The principle of preventive response to security threats should finally become one of the basic principles of international politics.
Today I had a productive call with the President of Germany. I thanked him and the German people for supporting Ukraine in the struggle for freedom and for the decision to provide concrete assistance to our country.
In particular, Germany became the first country to supply us with the modern IRIS-T air defense system. We expect the delivery of other such systems both from Germany and from our other partners.
I held talks with the President of Switzerland, who arrived in Kyiv today. This shows the whole world that Switzerland does not remain morally neutral when such a terrorist war is being waged against Ukraine and the whole of Europe. Switzerland has supported EU sanctions packages and provides us with humanitarian aid.
The issues of reconstruction of Ukraine and the possibilities of Switzerland to invest in the development of our economy and infrastructure were discussed substantively today with Mr. President.
We also discussed the issue of compensation for damages caused to Ukraine by Russian terror. I am grateful that Russian assets worth $6.5 billion have already been frozen. This work must be continued. And this is something in which Switzerland must not remain morally neutral either.
The possibilities of Switzerland to help with digitization in Ukraine and restoration of telecommunications systems in the liberated territories were discussed separately and substantively.
The situation on the frontline remains difficult. Especially in Donbas – the same Bakhmut direction – and in some directions in the south. But we stand our ground. We defend our land. We move gradually, ousting the enemy. And we will definitely ensure victory for Ukraine.
In the evening, I signed another decree on awarding our warriors. 148 defenders of Ukraine were awarded orders and medals.
Today, at the request of our military command, I would like to celebrate warriors from the 7th anti-aircraft self-propelled artillery battery of the 3rd anti-aircraft missile division of the 1039th anti-aircraft missile regiment. During another Russian missile strike, the battery provided protection in the north of our country and destroyed an enemy missile in the Vyshhorod district of the Kyiv region. Thank you guys for the excellent service and consistently good results! Every downed Russian missile means saved lives of our people.
Today we have both downed missiles and downed Iranian drones. Unfortunately, we do not shoot down all of them yet. There are also hits, there is destruction. But we will do everything to provide full protection to our sky.
Terrorists always lose. Freedom always wins.
Thank you to everyone who fights and works for Ukraine!
Eternal glory to our strong people!
Glory to Ukraine!
Just to emphasize the part I highlighted:
Zelensky: Russians have planted bombs at the Kakhovska hydroelectric power plant’s dum on the Dnipro River.
Destroying the facility may flood some 80 towns and cities, including Kherson.— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) October 20, 2022
This would be a singularly large act of genocide.
Here is former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessment of the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline and the situations in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia:
NOTE: Precise charge calculations were used in the placement of purpose built linear shaped charges. These devices are capable of cutting steel as precisely as a torch. Opinions from Naval Special Warfare operators and QUALIFIED underwater demolitionists are always welcomed.
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) October 20, 2022
KHERSON/2245 UTC 20 OCT/ Sources in Kherson report that RU collaborators, dependents & officials in the occupation government are attempting to flee the city under the cover of darkness. UKR precision strike artillery has struck the pontoon crossing next to the M-14 HWY bridge. pic.twitter.com/hOzVfn1MpX
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) October 20, 2022
NUCLEAR ROULETTE: Sources within the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear plant confirm that occupying RU forces have begun to loot the apartments of plant technicians. Usually taken are appliances, washing machines, computers and TVs. pic.twitter.com/vGJLTHTBBV
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) October 20, 2022
And the undersea communication lines in northern Scotland were cut!
NOTE: The previous sabotage of the Nordstream pipeline placed allied nations on notice that their own underwater structures/cables were vulnerable to sabotage. The outage in Shetland follows an early disruption of submarine cables to the Faeroe Islands.
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) October 20, 2022
In 2018 I did a strategic assessment on Russian 21st century warfare and what the US’s policy and strategy should be to counter it. In that assessment I explained that this type of activity should be expected and that we needed to develop the ways and means to both deter and to punish should it happen. We have definitely not done the former.
That’s it for the substantive stuff tonight.
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I think the caption is pretty self explanatory.
Open thread!
Alison Rose
The news about the dam is………………not nice. If russia does this, my God. There really is no bottom when it comes to putin’s barbarism.
Thank you as always, Adam. We all appreciate the time you take to keep us informed, even when you’ve got a hundred other things going on.
Gin & Tonic
I have also read that the reservoir behind the Kakhovka dam is the source of cooling water for the Zaporizhzhya NPP.
Alison Rose
Oh, and someone last night asked if I would take some notes during the Kyiv Independent chat with Illia Ponomarenko and Rob Lee. It was an interesting discussion, to hear from two people who are in positions to understand better than most regarding putin and nukes. My takeaways (and some of this is my editorializing, neither man used any swear words in the chat :P):
On the basic question of “How likely is it that putin will use nukes,” both men essentially said “It’s possible, but not likely.” Illia did note that putin doesn’t have many options left, and that nukes may end up seeming like his only path. But he knows the backlash would be huge, and not just from the West who he hates, but also places like India and China do not want nuclear war and would likely be very vocal against such a move. In Illia’s opinion, the political effect on putin would be devastating enough so as not to be worth it. He may not be rational but he is aware of what the response could be and he is above all concerned with himself and his survival.
Rob pointed out that even if we’re talking about smaller tactical nukes, the question is, where would he deploy them? Most of the military targets would be very near russian forces, so that wouldn’t make any sense. But if they’re used on cities, that would cause an even more vehement backlash. If he uses them on or near the Black Sea, that would piss of Türkiye and others. Also, using nukes close enough to a NATO country’s land could possibly trigger Article 5, which is something putin has notably avoided thus far. Rob adds that this war broke with russia’s typical foreign policy in that there was no outside catalyst (at least not one that putin didn’t make up) and has shown time and again that putin is not always acting rationally. He conflates his own survival with the survival of russia, and is very affected by his own propaganda. But even still, he is aware to some degree of how using nukes would change the calculus from the perspective of NATO countries and others. Rob did think that if Ukraine were to take Crimea, that might cause putin to say fuck it and use nukes.
Illia added the point that if russia uses nukes on the battlefield to break through Ukraine’s lines, how would russian troops, who already have such low morale and are getting their asses kicked everywhere, respond to the idea of moving through an area where they just saw a nuclear mushroom cloud? Most of them are not going to subject themselves to that horror for putin, especially since so many of them lack the equipment, training, and skills to know what to do in that situation. And it wouldn’t be one single strike, it would have to be multiple ones, which would make the battlefield environment even worse and make russian troops even more reluctant to go stomping through a nuclear miasma.
There was a question about how people in Ukraine feel about the nuke threat and what preparations there are, but Illia said for the most part, Ukrainians are more concerned with drones and air alerts, with having heating and electricity available, and there isn’t really any panic or paranoia about nukes.
When asked if there was anyone in putin’s inner circle who might rein him in if he wants to use nukes, Rob thought it was possible because they would recognize the backlash as well as he would, and may not be willing to sacrifice themselves for something so certainly devastating to the kremlin and the country. Illia seemed less sure of the possibility of pushback because everyone in that inner circle is a product of the same system as putin. And as far as public backlash from russian citizens, the kremlin has such a strong grip on them, and most of them adhere to the kremlin’s view of the war and Ukraine, so that likely wouldn’t happen to any degree strong enough to matter to putin.
Illia added that one sign that putin may not actually want to use nukes is that everything he’s doing now is in service of weakening and exhausting Ukraine enough that they simply cease to be able to fight back. He wants them to crumble now, with mobilization, energy system attacks, sham referenda, etc. He is also hoping to exhaust the will of the West to keep supporting Ukraine, which is why it is key for that support to continue. As soon as putin sees it flagging, he will use that opportunity to push harder where Ukraine is unable to defend or attack in kind.
Rob noted it is paramount for international partners not just to support but to be very vocal and public about that support and to show a united front.
Mike in NC
If Republicans take Congress, Ukraine will be abandoned.
Gin & Tonic
@Alison Rose: Russia blew up a dam there in 1941 to block the Germans. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians perished in the resulting flood.
Emerald
Yes, I agree with Zelenskyy that if the Russians blow the dam it means that they’re giving up on Crimea too. Clearly they’ve given up on Kherson, perhaps the whole oblast. I’m also worried about the nuclear power plant because I’ve read that blowing the dam would cut off the cooling waters to the reactors. Once this is all over my main hope is that Russia gets broken up into small pieces. Enough of their evil.
Alison Rose
@Gin & Tonic: Honestly, at this point, I don’t think there is anything one could say russia/putin would not do. They will do anything, because they don’t care about anything, except themselves.
dnfree
@Alison Rose: Thanks for the summary!
Gin & Tonic
@Alison Rose: Thank you for your notes.
Tony G
“occupying RU forces have begun to loot the apartments of plant technicians. Usually taken are appliances, washing machines, computers and TVs.” What a train wreck Russia is at this point. Not only war crimes, but this penny ante bullshit. Looting washing machines! The U.S. is obviously screwed up in a lot of ways, but it’s hard to imagine a country that is so dysfunctional that an occupying army loots washing machines.
WaterGirl
@Tony G: I could barely believe that when I read it. Washing machines are heavy and awkward.
Alison Rose
@dnfree:
@Gin & Tonic:
You are welcome!
UncleEbeneezer
Can’t remember if Silverman is the one who turned me onto it but those Timothy Snyder Yale videos about Ukraine are really great!
Gin & Tonic
@Tony G: They have been looting washing machines since February.
Tony G
@Tony G: I have an acquaintance — who I had thought of as a friend — who I had talked to relatively frequently until about 8 months ago — who had emigrated to the U.S. with his family several years ago from the city of Omsk in southwestern Siberia. Nice guy, smart guy, interesting to talk to. “Coincidentally” he stopped returning my calls after February 24th. I can’t tell whether he’s embarrassed to talk to a non-Russian American or whether he now views non-Russian Americans as “the enemy now” (while living in the U.S.). He has a young son in Saint Petersburg who, for all I know, might have been grabbed in the latest mass conscription. What a horrifying mess Russian culture seems to be at this point. Putin is just the symptom, the figurehead.
Tony G
@Gin & Tonic: I’m sure that’s true. Somehow (to me) the pettiness of that is almost as shocking as the war crimes. An army of criminals — some major criminals, some minor criminals. Repulsive.
Tony G
@WaterGirl: Yeah, really. It’s like looting cinder blocks.
Roger Moore
@Alison Rose:
This seems like a pretty good summary. Don’t expect Putin to do what’s good for Russia; expect him to do what’s good for himself. Or rather what he thinks is likely to be good for himself. You have to consider he might be out of touch with reality and making his decisions based on propaganda and wishful thinking rather than what we assume are well established objective facts.
Tony G
@Roger Moore: That’s a good point. For a couple of decades now Putin has surrounded himself with yes-men who tell him what they think he wants to hear, so he really might be out of touch with reality. Similar to that former game-show host that was in the White House a few years ago.
Amir Khalid
@Tony G:
Your friend might have loved ones back in Siberia who could be at risk of reprisal if he criticises the Putin regime too much.
WaterGirl
@Tony G:
Sorry, war crimes are in a whole different class. Not to mention that it’s well past war crimes. It’s undeniably genocide.
dc
Are there no washing machines in Russia?
Tony G
@Amir Khalid: Yes, he does have many relatives in Russia — including a son, daughter-in-law and grandson. Fear is probably the explanation for him “ghosting” me. (I wish him well.). I’ve never lived in a place where people are literally killed for opposing the regime, and I imagine that that leads to “keeping your mouth shut at all times” as a means to self-preservation. The likelihood that I — an Italian-American in New Jersey — would be a spy for Putin is pretty low — but from his perspective that likelihood is non-zero, so the safe thing is to avoid talking to me. What a horrifying culture.
Tony G
@dc: I just looked it up and, apparently, most households in Russia do have washing machines. So, I guess it’s the “steal everything you can” doctrine of military tactics. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1186190/survey-on-household-appliances-ownership-in-russia/
Geminid
@Tony G: He might trust you but fears eavesdropping. That’s unlikely, but where he came from it might happen a lot.
Roger Moore
@Tony G:
The theoretical advantage of a dictator over a democracy is that you don’t have to waste time with bickering. The dictator decides how things are going to go, and everyone follows along. The real world downside to this is when the dictator decides on a bad policy and there’s no bickering or trying to convince him otherwise. The country follows along straight into self-made disaster.
In practice it doesn’t really work that way. The people around the dictator have their own interests, and there’s plenty of bickering trying to convince the dictator to do things their way. That stuff just takes place behind closed doors without well-defined rules, so people who don’t want to know about it can pretend it’s just the dictator deciding on everything. If the dictator gets a really bad idea stuck in his head, though, there still isn’t much anyone can do about it.
Roger Moore
@Tony G:
Two points:
dc
@Tony G: I know there are rural neglected areas there, but not all these soldiers come from those areas. So why do they take something so heavy and large, that in reality is not all that valuable (unless you don’t have a washing machine and would never be able to buy one, I am not excusing the looting, even in that case)?
zhena gogolia
@dc: Not many.
zhena gogolia
@Tony G: Yeah, but what kind?
bbleh
The news about the dam increases my worry about the news of evacuation of citizens from Kherson.
The loss of Kherson would by all accounts be a major event, which would reverberate politically within Russia to Putin’s detriment. I can (reluctantly) see Putin “making lemonade out of lemons” by destroying the city if it is taken and portraying it as a show of ruthlessness and resolve.
I had originally thought about a tactical nuke — withdraw suddenly, wait for UA army to move in, then launch — but from this post, blowing the dam might accomplish a lot of the same sort of thing without crossing the nuclear threshold.
It’s an ugly situation. I can think of one or two ways to perhaps forestall it, but at this point I wouldn’t put something like that past Putin.
Gin & Tonic
@Tony G: Many households in the regions the conscripts come from do not (not sure if it’s “most”.) Around 25% of the population does not have an indoor toilet. Outside of the major cities, living conditions are deplorable.
Tony G
@Tony G: There’s something comical, in a sick way, about this. Washing machines were invented more than 80 years ago (exciting new technology!), and they are big and heavy. Aside from the fact that this is theft (which, obviously, nobody cares about) this means that the officers are allowing (or, probably, encouraging) their troops to waste time, effort and valuable space on trucks looting and transporting big, heavy machines. Corruption and incompetence from the highest level to the lowest private. This is not the way to win a war (sorry, I mean “Special Military Operation”).
Tony G
@Gin & Tonic: That’s a good point. Probably a huge difference in living conditions between Moscow and Saint Petersburg compared to Siberia and the Far East. (My acquaintance from Omsk — who seems to be afraid to talk to me now — used to like to talk about how terrible the roads are in Siberia.
Tony G
@Geminid: That’s right. A culture of fear. I know him well enough to like him and respect him, but fear will cause a person to be quiet.
The Pale Scot
@dc:
I’d bet that middle class could afford to buy a Western brand. I doubt that good appliances are available or affordable east of Moscow, it would just too easy to boost the trucks before they got to the store. So they have primitive appliances like the W66. which was manufactured until 2005. You could wash your clothes and boil sausage
cold war east german washing machine
sdhays
@bbleh: There often many reasons for any particular action, but I think one of the main drivers for the forced evacuations in Kherson are human shields – if Ukraine knows that innocents are on those ferries, they won’t destroy them, so the Russians can just hide amongst their human shields as they flee to (temporary) safety.
Lyrebird
@dc: I don’t have a link right now, but they are also reportedly taking the washing machines to get the electronics. The sanctions mean no imports of some electronics.
But if that’s the main thing, I don’t understand why they don’t just rip the circuit boards out of the machine rather than lug the giant thing itself.
Gin & Tonic
@Tony G:
As long as we’re on the subject:
phdesmond
@UncleEbeneezer:
i’ve been following that course weekly since i heard about it here!
Nettoyeur
@Roger Moore: In cities with indoor plumbing, I would think that people have washing machines (they did even in 1977 when I lived in Moscow). But note that 20-30% of Russians do not have indoor plumbing, so setting up an automatic washing machine is kinda hard. Of course on could sell one….
catclub
I think we really already knew that. quick google search for “Russian atrocities chechnya” gives you an idea. But those were committed against muslims.
Geoduck
Yeah, the vague impression I’ve gotten about Russia is that the big cities are like what we have in the US and Europe, but you get out into the countryside and you’re back in the 19th century at best.
Carlo Graziani
The thing about cutting undersea cables, if it is confirmed as a Russian hostile act against the UK, is that it’s incredibly reckless, and invites retaliation. Which could easily be in the in the cyber domain. NSA could probably wreck the Moscow cell phone network beyond hope of repair. What they hope to accomplish by this kind of petty bullshit is beyond comprehension.
bbleh
@Carlo Graziani: I kinda wondered the same, but some possible explanations that also occurred were (1) as a “proof of concept” — “if we can/will do this, imagine what else we can/will do” — and (2) as an internal political exercise — some more militant office/faction stirring the sh!t without really thinking through the implications.
Or maybe I’m overthinking it …
Torrey
Another request for the Ukrainian speakers. With apologies, in view of the unusually disturbing and distressing topic of this post (even more than usual, I mean, with the discussion of the possibility of destroying the dam), I hesitate to ask about something a bit lighter, but I would be grateful for a bit of help regarding one of Zelenskyy’s statements from the October 2 address (Day 220). It’s at 1:58 in the YouTube video. I’m just putting that in for reference, in case you want to check it, but there’s no need to. The line is delivered in truly expert deadpan: Щось у когось пішло не за планом.
It’s translated in the video as “Something went wrong with someone,” but as far as I can tell, it seems to be more literally “something went not according to plan [with?/in?] someone.” The “not according to plan” has to be a reference to VVP’s constant insistence that everything was proceeding according to plan, no? But, recognizing that prepositions are the work of the devil his own self and absolutely do not stay put and behave like good little language elements (not that any language elements ever do), is the sentence suggesting that VVP isn’t right in the head, or simply saying that his plans are not, y’know, going according to plan?
Thank you for any insight you can offer.
bbleh
@sdhays: I was under the impression that it was a material depopulation of the city, far more than necessary to provide “cover,” but maybe I misinterpreted.
bbleh
@Torrey: prepositions are the work of the devil his own self. Lol.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Carlo Graziani: Putin is just upping the cost of supporting the war.
Tony G
@Geoduck: Back in March I read an “essay” by Ted Rall (crummy cartoonist, crummier writer and thinker) about a vacation he took at that time for a week or so in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, hanging out with rich people there. (Somebody paid for the vacation and provided him with interpreters. Not sure who.). He described the fact that people bought him drinks as evidence that there was widespread support in Russia for the Special Military Operation, and he concluded that NATO really should not interfere with this internal affair. Somehow he never made it to Omsk or other places in the east. (I guess he ran out of time before having a chance to visit Ukraine also.)
Origuy
I stayed with a friend of a friend in Moscow in 2013. The woman had a small combination washer/dryer in the bathroom. I think it was probably typical since Moscovites often have small apartments. I imagine it’s very different out in the country. Looting something like that, though, indicates that the chain of command is in on the take. It’s not something you could put in your pocket.
Gin & Tonic
@Torrey: It is a pretty straightforward statement that things didn’t go according to plan for someone. But Ukrainian can be very indirect at times, so that щось у когось, or something within someone, can be interpreted variously by the listener. Notably it’s not щось комусь, which would be something for someone.
Marc
@Lyrebird:
Embedded systems of this type is my field of expertise. That is total BS, about the only thing any circuitry extracted from washing machines is useful for is making other household appliances. If the Russians so desperately need parts to build useful weapons systems (or household appliances), they can still easily order them from Alibaba like anyone else.
There is nothing to understand, except perhaps the possibility that this is Ukrainian propaganda intended to make the Russians look that much more stupid and venal.
Repatriated
@Lyrebird:
If the return-trip truck is full of washing machines, there’s no room left open for troops to hitch a ride to the rear.
Chetan Murthy
@Lyrebird: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/special-report-as-russian-missiles-struck-ukraine-western-tech-still-flowed
Another story, this time about stripping down dishwashers, etc: https://sofrep.com/news/russia-is-using-us-made-microchips-semiconductors-and-dishwashers-for-their-weapons/
Marc
@Chetan Murthy:
No one uses FPGAs in washing machines, they are far too expensive. They either use mask programmed gate arrays (which can’t be reprogrammed) or $0.25 8 bit microcontrollers.
Lyrebird
@Marc: Thanks for the clarifications. And the precise wording on “that much more stupid and venal”!
@Repatriated: Sad but possibly true with the “there is no bottom” army!
Anyhow, I read the article that @Chetan Murthy: found about FPGAs. (Hi CM!) I think I had seen tweets based on that article before.
It’s also true that AliBaba sells washing machine circuit boards! Products I have never shopped for…
Another Scott
@Tony G: It seems to be what one does when one comes back to russia.
Newsweek:
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Carlo Graziani:
TheRecord.media – Fishing vessel not sabotage to blame for Shetland Island submarine cable cut.
FWIW.
There are lots and lots and lots of undersea cables. Breaks are common.
Subtelforum.com has an interesting submarine cable map and shows laying/repair ships as well.
Cheers,
Scott.
Torrey
@Gin & Tonic: Thank you. It sounds like the sentence might be intentionally ambiguous, then. Or at least intentionally flexible.
Carlo Graziani
@Another Scott: Well, that makes a lot more sense.
Ksmiami
@Alison Rose: we need to destroy them
Ksmiami
@Tony G: Russia is a sick nation with a sick culture. It really can’t be allowed to continue in its current incarnation. We need to send long range missiles, planes, etc. To Ukraine
bjacques
The Russian soldiers are thieves and their armies are armed mobs. I suppose it’s possible the high command put the word out to collect any household goods with circuit boards, but I haven’t been impressed with their logistics so far, and I’m skeptical they’re very well organized about it. They could be offering bonuses, or the officers are and figuring to flog them for big bucks across the border. Or soldiers are just stealing everything shiny and not nailed down, obviously not thinking very far ahead about how to get that stuff home or even whether they can use or sell it. I expect a lot of the heavier stuff will be found abandoned and probably trashed one or two mustering points down the road. Looters don’t overthink these things and they’re unreasonably optimistic about profiting from their pelf. It reminds me of Carlo M. Cipolla’s essay “The Basic Laws Of Human Stupidity”.
Urza
Stealing machines for the FPGAs sounds crazy to me. We’re about to stop using millions of the damn things at work cause they’re to finicky and we don’t get much out of it.
And I did look, contrary to the other comment, washing machines do use them. That actually makes sense for stealing them, but why not just take the boards is the confusing part. Maybe they can sell the rest for something if it is being harvested for FPGAs.
Marc
From the SOFREP article provided by @Chetan Murthy:
China has been making its own semiconductors for decades. They currently manufacture FPGAs, 8, 32, and 64 bit microcontrollers, memory, GNSS (GPS) receivers, cellphone chipsets, etc.,. They can’t achieve the same efficiencies of scale as Taiwan, so they produce only a fraction of the semiconductors used in-country and buy the rest from offshore suppliers. What they can’t manufacture is equivalents (or clones) of the latest Intel and NVidia CPUs/GPUs, and certain kinds of sophisticated sensors, as they don’t have the latest generation of chip manufacturing equipment.
I suspect the real problem for Russia is that much of their current weaponry was designed decades ago. They can’t produce new units of their existing designs as many of the components are simply no longer available and would be far too expensive to reproduce. Re-engineering the hardware and software to use current technology requires significant time and money. In addition, there is also likely lack of top engineering talent, as many with useful skills have already found higher-paying jobs in the west.
Marc
Where did you see this? Many of the online articles are simply wrong, there is no need for FPGAs to control something as simple as a washing machine. Some older designs may have used one-time programmable (or masked) gate arrays back when microcontrollers cost tens of dollars, but the latest ones use a few microcontrollers now that they cost pennies each.
dr. luba
@Torrey:”Щось у когось пішло не за планом” simply means that “something didn’t go according to plan for someone.” I assume he is referring to Putin, and I’d have to watch the video to know, but it’s late and I need to go to bed.
dr. luba
There were photos a few months back showing soldiers in Belarus shipping their loot back home. Flat screen TVs, washing machines, whatever.
Whether to keep or sell, these were being shipped home whole. Like in ancient times, plunder was the point of the war for them.
Marc
For those who don’t know what is being discussed here, a field programmable gate array is a single chip that contains some number (now up to 10s of millions) of simple logic gates that can be connected to each other to implement anything from a high-speed counter to multiple full-fledged CPUs. They are programmed using specialized hardware description languages, and can be reprogrammed more than once. They are useful for weapons systems as they can implement various kinds of digital filters for processing radio signals, target recognition algorithms, etc. They are not useful for normal household appliances as FPGAs with more than a few gates just cost too damn much. Some engineers do end up using them for simple stuff as they don’t know how to write decent microcontroller code.
LadySuzy
I agree with President Zelinsky: if they blow the dam, it should be considered equivalent to the use of a WMD, thus a RED LINE. The US and NATO should inform the Russians that the response would be the same. Same thing too if Russians destroy the nuclear plant… Enough of this terrorism.
Heck, if Putin continues to destroy Ukraine’s infrastructure at the same rhythm that they have done in the last couple of weeks… there should be a red line too.
sab
@Marc: Why i love Balloon Juice. Where else on the internet could this argument even happen?
Ruckus
@Tony G:
“Putin is just the symptom, the figurehead.”
He’s more than that. This is not a reasonable country. Don’t forget that vlad was a KGB officer for a rather long time, and he’s become a billionaire without any obvious way to do so – the fix is in. And he’s used to getting his way. And most if not all of the Russian billionaires likely support him as long as he’s not hurting them too badly. Now given Russia he may be able to get along without their support, but there are limits to everything.
My point is, that there are limits to most everything. Including his power. If his efforts and methodology start really hurting his buddies badly, financially or otherwise he may start to lose their support and that might not go well for him. The actual type of government he runs usually ends with the person in his position causing too much an issue for one or more of his supporters, who turn on him. It likely won’t be pretty.
Ruckus
@Tony G:
Russia is not a country like you live in. Many/most people barely scrape by, while the elite are rather wealthy by any standard. Sure we have very wealthy here and many of them are shit, but we have a reasonable middle class. It should be more reasonable but far more people here do better than there. I make more on Social Security than the average wage in Russia. (and am extremely fucking pissed at the rethuglicans who want me to die because they want to end Social Security) But you don’t live in a country run like Russia. Think smart trumps, all of whom have their hands in the cookie jar. We may not be all that we can be, but we are far better than them. Stealing household goods rather than shooting all the civilians is a reflection on their country, not necessarily on them.
Tony G
@zhena gogolia: “The Putin-5000 Patriotic Washing Machine”. It works for a whole month before breaking. https://www.grooves.land/sonic-youth-washing-machine-geffen-lp-pZZa1-2097329874.html?language=en¤cy=USD&_z=us&gclid=Cj0KCQjwhsmaBhCvARIsAIbEbH7Acj9cnmrMyNLgiwdRFKqed5xwoMrmifLj2aRXkBLlNXlJgd7X5TwaApWgEALw_wcB
Tony G
@Ruckus: Yeah, a level of poverty and fear that most of us never experience here. My father (long since deceased) came to the U.S. as a five-year-old immigrant with his family from Calabria, Italy about 100 years ago. He had only vague memories of his village, but whenever he was asked about it he said something to the effect that he was “glad to have escaped that hell-hole”. Maybe that’s like Russia today.
Tony G
@Ruckus: Bad choice of words on my part. (“English, do I speak it???” ) Certainly Putin has a lot of power, and is not just a figurehead. What I meant was that in a country and culture that was not so dysfunctional, a thug like Putin would not have become so powerful. In the same way that the deep dysfunctionality of German society during and after the First World War led to the conditions that allowed Hitler to be elected in 1933.
Tony G
@WaterGirl: Yes, of course, very bad choice of words on my part (again). Of course war crimes and genocide are a couple of orders of magnitude worse than looting. What I meant is that this crude looting is an indication of an army, and a society, that (with the glaring exception of the nukes) has already failed. They are using their scarce resources — undoubtedly with the cooperation and instigation of the officers — to steal bulky appliances rather than to fight their “enemies”. They’re losing, and I hope that they go ahead and lose soon.
lowtechcyclist
@The Pale Scot:
We adopted our son from Samara, a decent-sized city about 800 miles (IIRC) ESE of Moscow, not that far from the Kazakhstan border. That involved three trips there of several days each. It didn’t look or feel different from a midwestern American city, similar stores with similar merchandise, stuff like that.
Clearly there is a division between places in Russia where people, at least up until the beginning of this year, had lifestyles not that different from us Westerners, and those parts of Russia that as G&T points out, lack basic amenities like indoor toilets. But if there’s a clear dividing line, it’s not Moscow and St. Pete versus everything else, or Moscow and everything west of it versus everything east of it.
The part that gets me about the looting of washing machines is, how the fuck do the Russian soldiers get them back home?!
I’d think that given the problems Russia already has with logistics, moving heavy loot like washing machines out of Ukraine just wouldn’t be happening. Yet it must be, otherwise they would have realized the pointlessness of looting major appliances months ago.
Which is also a clue about the importance of the mass deportations to the Russian leadership. That has to be a huge operation, yet it’s happening in the middle of a war where supply and troop movement issues are a real challenge for the Russian military.
It’s been reminding me of the way Hitler kept the trains to the death camps running even as the war was clearly going against him: the Final Solution was even more important than salvaging something less than total defeat in the war. And the same here: this genocidal deportation operation is of paramount importance, right up there with their success or failure on the battlefield.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
Discussions/arguments like this were quite common at my old online home at the Straight Dope Message Board. Probably still are, but when they changed formats a few years back, the new format made it much more of a challenge (for me, at least) to follow complex discussions. Which is why I’m mostly here rather than there these days.
dr. luba
@lowtechcyclist:
This is one way.
Jinchi
Definitely, but the idea that the Russians have done all that to …. steal a bunch of used and war damaged appliances? It doesn’t make sense on even the basest level.
The loot that the Russians have been taking from the ruins are worth far less than the cost of the war.
Jinchi
@dr. luba: @lowtechcyclist:
Odds are that this loot gets stolen several more times along the way, and I’m sure the original thieves are furious that someone would pilfer “their” stuff.
Geminid
From today’s Jerusalem Post:
Carlo Graziani
@Jinchi: This is probably one of the oldest recurring themes of human warfare.
Another Scott
@dr. luba: Relatedly, ForeignPolicy.com (from May 18):
Grr…,
Scott.
randal m sexton
@Marc: As I am sure you are aware some FPGA’a are one time programmable, ( the anti-fuse based ones ). The reprogrammable ones are usually 2 chip solutions. Kinda rare to see these things in consumer level stuff. If the russians are really harvesting chips from things they loot I would guess that its the micro controllers, maybe the sram,ram,flash chips.
Urza
@Marc: I agree its stupid to use an FPGA in a washing machine. But I did find several examples on google. Its for “smart” washing machines that maybe might actually update the software once in awhile. Which is still rather stupid unless it can help recover lost efficiency from use and aging of the machine.
Urza
@randal m sexton: Do you have a theory on why they aren’t just taking the boards though? If it is just for the chips then even taking the machine out of the house seems like alot of effort wasted unless they just aren’t carrying a tool to cut inside. Or maybe command doesn’t want anyone to realize what they’re doing so they’re ordered to take the whole thing.
randal m sexton
@Urza: I think my theory is that there is no sensible reason — I find it hard to believe that such a disorganized force as the Russian army appears to be- that orders have come down ‘grab all the washing machines’ would be obeyed. I think its mindless looting. So much of what the Russians do seem ill conceived at all levels.
Urza
@lowtechcyclist: Given the number of generals killed off or replaced during the war, its possible the looting is being run separately from the war itself. That doesn’t make sense to us as our military would not consider looting a goal. But if it is a goal and no one steps in to take those resources and put them towards the war?
Tony G
@randal m sexton: I don’t know, of course, exactly what’s going on. Maybe it’s some combination of soldiers being ordered to loot (with a big portion of the stolen goods being kicked up the hierarchy, Sopranos-style) and officers just not giving a damn about bothering to control their troops. My limited understanding of European warfare in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period is that looting (and of course, rape and murder) were tolerated and encouraged because the practice allowed the rank and file soldiers to be paid so little. The “good old days”. It’s also my understanding (just based on me being alive for 66 years) that once an organization (military or civilian) shows that it tolerates criminal behavior, there’s a strong incentive for everybody to get in on the act, in a big or small way. So, the hypothetical Russian soldier who is not an actual sadist will maybe loot but not rape or kill civilians — because everyone else is doing some kind of criminal behavior. When an army becomes a looting machine, that degrades their combat readiness. That’s why successful armies have regulations that are enforced by MPs.
Tony G
@Tony G: My maternal grandfather (who died before I was born) had been a U.S. Army MP in France in 1918. (A better gig than charging German trenches, I’m sure.). He left behind a diary, which I read as a kid. Much of the time he had spent arresting at gunpoint drunken American soldiers who had robbed, raped or otherwise attacked French civilians. The U.S. Army, in their wisdom, recognized that that type of criminal behavior had to be nipped in the bud, lest it degrade the combat effectiveness of the whole army. I guess the Russians never learned that lesson.
Bill Arnold
Tooling for suppression of dissent in Iran. (Russia has its own internal surveillance; similarly spotty.)
Domestic Kitten campaign spying on Iranian citizens with new FurBall malware – APT-C-50’s Domestic Kitten campaign continues, targeting Iranian citizens with a new version of the FurBall malware masquerading as an Android translation app (Lukas Stefanko, 20 Oct 2022)
(Strongly believed to be an Iranian domestic surveillance group, back to 2018 at least)
Torrey
@Gin & Tonic:
@dr. luba:
Thank you both for your helpful comments. Very useful information.