Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1512113804074790916

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1512116881481740291

Lmao, great to see the worst members of both parties in agreement.

 Horseshoe theory in action.

[2952-0-0]

Based Spanish ship captain!

https://twitter.com/olex_scherba/status/1511985384623910917

The accent seems to be Slavic from Central Europe, not Spain. It's totally understandable.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Based Spanish ship captain!

https://twitter.com/olex_scherba/status/1511985384623910917

The accent seems to be Slavic from Central Europe, not Spain. It's totally understandable.

Actually a bit weird because Central Europe being mostly landlocked countries would be an odd origin for a ship in a Spanish port. Maybe if Poland counts.

[ugabug]

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1512202757163335687

Here's what Politico has to say on the matter.

A decision on the matter was initially expected this week. But it’s now in limbo as the Social Democrat chancellor — much to the frustration of his governing coalition partners — argues Germany should first reach a common position with Western allies on the subject before delivering such heavy military equipment, the officials said.

“We’re setting in motion everything that’s right and sensible,” the chancellor told the Bundestag on Wednesday when asked about tank deliveries. Yet Scholz added that it was important for him to coordinate among EU and NATO partners to ensure “that we provide such military support in the same way, and that no one is rushing ahead — including Germany.”

He added: “I believe that this is precisely an issue where it would be a grave mistake for Germany to take a special role and a special path.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/scholz-holds-up-german-tank-delivery-to-ukraine/

[Antonio the Sixth]

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1512202757163335687

Here's what Politico has to say on the matter.

A decision on the matter was initially expected this week. But it’s now in limbo as the Social Democrat chancellor — much to the frustration of his governing coalition partners — argues Germany should first reach a common position with Western allies on the subject before delivering such heavy military equipment, the officials said.

“We’re setting in motion everything that’s right and sensible,” the chancellor told the Bundestag on Wednesday when asked about tank deliveries. Yet Scholz added that it was important for him to coordinate among EU and NATO partners to ensure “that we provide such military support in the same way, and that no one is rushing ahead — including Germany.”

He added: “I believe that this is precisely an issue where it would be a grave mistake for Germany to take a special role and a special path.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/scholz-holds-up-german-tank-delivery-to-ukraine/

Absolutely vile. I hope the German press crucifies him tomorrow.

[DINGO Joe]

Airborne troops are sitting ducks when the other side knows you're coming. There's a reason the allies dropped airborne forces within 15 minutes of the Navy starting to shell German defenses.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1512146421084008449?s=20&t=XE0D7CWLxpVH81...

Yeah, for all the attention on the atrocities committed by lesser quality Russian forces,   it's quite a big deal that the Russian A teams took such a beating through a combination of extremely accurate intelligence, a Ukrainian army skilled at using the weapons they have, and a really, really bad Russian strategy that basically left these troops out to die. 

[DINGO Joe]

A NYT article via yahoo (thus free to read) on the Russian shift to the East, the loss of the A team and how they're trying to scrap up troops and mercs for the Eastern push

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-recruiting-mercenaries-syrians-ukraine-115514041.html

At the risk of being too glib for an actual war, it almost feels like the plot for "Blazing Saddles"  when every villain in the West (and then some) was signed up to attack Rock Ridge.   It's a pity that the Ukrainians can't build a fake town for the Russians to attack, because they might actually fall for it.

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/lapatina_/status/1512125400620621833
https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1512138780966326281

[Frodo]

If Russia loses its war in Ukraine, then its position in Moldova will also become untenable (being surrounded on all sides with hostile powers), and it will have to withdraw its troops from Transnistria...perhaps to Crimea by sea.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Ukraine has announced that it'll shoot down any Russian military planes headed toward Transnistria: https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3451569-ukraine-to-down-russian-military-aircraft-flying-to-transnistria-general-staff.html

Transnistria is probably finished.

[AndyHogan14]

Ukraine has announced that it'll shoot down any Russian military planes headed toward Transnistria: https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3451569-ukraine-to-down-russian-military-aircraft-flying-to-transnistria-general-staff.html

Transnistria is probably finished.

If Moldova has the capability, they should take back Transnistria as soon as possible.

[NOVA Green]

Surprised that nobody has yet posted anything regarding the whole Clearview facial recognition technology now being used against "Russian Spies and Soldiers".

For everybody posting as well as the non-posting, I suspect many of y'all y'alls are already aware of their controversial history and gained a bit of notoriety back in the dayz of the BLM when it came to providing support to LEA to identify activists that might have been involved in Anti-Police Brutality Movements near locations where "Trump's Goon Squads" were operating.

In the weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine and images of the devastation wrought there flooded the news, Hoan Ton-That, the chief executive of the facial recognition company Clearview AI, began thinking about how he could get involved.

“I remember seeing videos of captured Russian soldiers and Russia claiming they were actors,” Mr. Ton-That said. “I thought if Ukrainians could use Clearview, they could get more information to verify their identities.”

In early March, he reached out to people who might help him contact the Ukrainian government. One of Clearview’s advisory board members, Lee Wolosky, a lawyer who has worked for the Biden administration, was meeting with Ukrainian officials and offered to deliver a message.

Mr. Ton-That drafted a letter explaining that his app “can instantly identify someone just from a photo” and that the police and federal agencies in the United States used it to solve crimes. That feature has brought Clearview scrutiny over concerns about privacy and questions about racism and other biases with

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/07/world/ukraine-russia-war-news/ukraine-uses-facial-recognition-software-to-spot-russian-soldiers-and-spies

This is the "Tip of the Tip" and so much more coconut juice flowing for anyone interest in sitting in a relaxing hot tub with a mixed drink in the hands.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Ukraine has launched small counterattacks near Izyum which is further holding up the big new offensive Russia want to do towards Sloviansk

https://mobile.twitter.com/criticalthreats/status/1512204165526827010

[NOVA Green]

Might seem a bit irrelevant to most of you younger folx (Not disrespect intended), but looks like Pink Floyd just released their first new song in (30) years in solidarity with Ukraine.

Pink Floyd, the 1970s psychedelic rock band, is releasing its first new track in almost three decades on Friday to raise money for the people of Ukraine, the band said on Thursday.

The recording, “Hey Hey Rise Up,” is a reworking of a protest song from World War I and features the Ukrainian rock star Andriy Khlyvnyuk of the band Boombox.

Mr. Khlyvnyuk was on tour in the United States when the war started and returned to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, to enlist in his country’s army. The vocals on the Pink Floyd track come from a viral video the Ukrainian singer posted three days into the war of himself clad in combat gear, carrying a rifle and singing a Ukrainian protest anthem in Kyiv’s Sofiyskaya Square.

The anthem, “The Red Viburnum in the Meadow,” was written during World War I and has been sung at Ukrainian solidarity rallies around the world since Russia’s invasion. Pink Floyd gives it a soaring rock treatment, with David Gilmour providing an anguished guitar solo and Nick Mason’s steady drums driving it forward. Guy Pratt plays bass and Nitin Sawhney adds keyboard. Roger Waters, who left the group in 1985, was not involved.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/07/world/europe/pink-floyd-ukraine.html

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1512138780966326281

I'm not sure what the higher-ups are so bummed about. If they had read this thread over the last few weeks, they'd know that Russia will inevitably win out and that Ukraine's good fortunes were coming to a close

[NOVA Green]

Grain Harvest Update from Ukraine...

Uhhm... this is a BFD.

Continued Russian boycotts of Ukrainian Grain exports naturally might involve a "No Ship Zone" almost akin the the reflagging of Kuwaiti vessels around the time of the Reagan-Iranian hostilities which ended up with a US Cruise Missile shooting down a domestic Iranian Airline back somewhere around '87.

The grain Ukraine produces is found everywhere. Much of the bread in the Middle East is made from it. Much of what aid organizations distribute to stave off famine in Yemen is made from it. Much of what feeds Chinese livestock that in turn feeds people worldwide is made from it.

Even with a calamitous war about to enter its seventh week, Ukraine is on track to harvest most of its vast grain fields this summer — though there are mounting concerns that war-related supply shortages may reduce output by as much as a third. The country has 30 million tons of wheat in storage, too.

“Ukraine is actually full of grain. Our stocks are full," said Dmytro Grushetskyi, an industrial farmer with nearly 30,000 acres of cropland near the central city of Uman.

“But now we can’t get the grain out,” he said, putting his finger on the problem that may lead to an enormous spike in grain prices and exacerbate hunger around the world, “which means Ukrainian farmers, and the rest of the world, are screwed.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/08/russia-ukraine-war-news-putin-live-updates/#link-4TVXHQT3HFA4LNDMW34FO7D7J4

[NOVA Green]

Really good WSJ Story about Bucha with new reporting details.

Too lazy to even bother posting quotes especially having to determine "% of news articles" and "total words per article" type stuff...

Banned from the Roxy.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-invasion-war-crimes-horrors-of-ukraines-bucha-laid-bare-on-yablunska-street-11649365202?mod=hp_lead_pos7

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The Transnistria situation is interesting. For one Transnistria provides like zero benefits to Russia, zilch, the only reason Russia cared about it initially was to exert influence on Moldova and force it into the CIS, it's a complete backwater even by Moldovan standards (and Moldova was the third to last country in Europe to get any McDonald's when it did in 1998, the second one was Bosnia and Herzegovina which did in 2011, and the final country in Europe with no McDonalds is unsurprisingly Albania), and its entire economy is basically being a Russian-funded welfare state. In 1992 when Russia helped seize it Ukraine was under a pro-Russian regime, so Russia had no issues getting troops and supplies there. Since that's changed Russia now doesn't have easy access to it, in fact I read the main way Russia sent troops there was literally to fly into Chisinau on commercial flights and then get picked up by civilian vehicles and driven out there.

Of course the Moldovan military is unsurprisingly a complete joke. So the question then remains of who else could take it. Romania would probably be interested in backing Moldova on this, the problem is that if Romania is a NATO member but if they started the war couldn't implement Article 5, so Romania would open itself up to a Russian attack if they hit it. Ukraine could probably take it under normal circumstances without breaking a sweat though. The Transnistrian "military" after all is an even bigger joke, they're actually more like the forces of a Mexican drug cartel than any real country's military (appropriate analogy since basically every business in Transnistria is a front for or heavily extorted by the Russian mob and/or corrupt local politicians [there aren't any other type in Transnistria]), so without the Russian troops Transnistria wouldn't last a week. Russia probably can't sustain there for much longer if they keep this up.

Speaking of the extreme corruption, Transnistrian "elections" are almost darkly comic in how much of a joke they are, traditionally a lot of the country wouldn't even engage in ballot stuffing, the local authorities would just toss all the ballots and then make up numbers (still done in Belarus and Chechnya), and everyone knew this and of course no one is allowed to run who isn't owned by Russia or some of the oligarch-owned companies operating there, so turnout is dirt bottom and any type of opposition doesn't even bother. In the last "election" the ruling party ran unopposed in a majority of seats, a couple "independents" won, but in those districts your choice was either: a puppet of the ruling Russia-backed regime belonging to a "party" that's directly affiliated with United Russia or: a puppet of an oligarch-owned company that holds monopolies in most of the country on everything from gas to groceries and gets so much from the national budget in graft it's practically a branch of government in itself. Unsurprisingly this resulted in turnout <30% and 20% of votes being cast for the equivalent of "none of the above", and that's just results that were actually reported as such. This place really needs to go, it's not often that joining Moldova would be such a huge step up, but here we are.

[Logical]

Bushmasters are excellent all terrain vehicles and can withstand a direct hit from an RPG or mines.
https://twitter.com/hqjoc/status/1512241239567085571

[Middle-aged Europe]

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1512202757163335687

Here's what Politico has to say on the matter.

A decision on the matter was initially expected this week. But it’s now in limbo as the Social Democrat chancellor — much to the frustration of his governing coalition partners — argues Germany should first reach a common position with Western allies on the subject before delivering such heavy military equipment, the officials said.

“We’re setting in motion everything that’s right and sensible,” the chancellor told the Bundestag on Wednesday when asked about tank deliveries. Yet Scholz added that it was important for him to coordinate among EU and NATO partners to ensure “that we provide such military support in the same way, and that no one is rushing ahead — including Germany.”

He added: “I believe that this is precisely an issue where it would be a grave mistake for Germany to take a special role and a special path.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/scholz-holds-up-german-tank-delivery-to-ukraine/

Absolutely vile. I hope the German press crucifies him tomorrow.

So far, German media tends to attack the government for the lack of a gas embargo but not so much for a lack of a tank delivery. I saw articles to the effect though that German tanks (due to issues of logistics and training of personnel) wouldn't be operational in the Ukrainian military until next winter anyway. This Politico article here mentions these issues too.

It's true however that being very cautious and taking things slow is often Olaf Scholz' standard mode of operation, not only when it comes to Ukraine but in general.

[ugabug]

A nice article where it's admitted that the US has been providing real time intelligence to Ukraine's forces and just how much equipment we've been providing to Ukraine.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Austin was asked whether the US was providing intelligence to help Ukraine carry out attacks against Russian forces in the separatist-controlled Donbas region or Crimea.
"We are providing them intelligence to conduct operations in the Donbas, that's correct," Austin said in response to the question from Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

Milley testified that US and NATO countries have provided roughly 60,000 anti-tank weapons and 25,000 anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine. He said that the US is looking at how it can provide Ukraine with additional armor and artillery as the war drags on, but said that it was key to find systems that Ukrainian forces would not need to be trained on, noting many US weapons systems would require months of training.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/07/politics/us-intel-ukraine-donbas-operations/index.html

[jaichind]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-cuts-interest-rate-as-financial-system-stabilizes-11649411183

"Russia Cuts Interest Rate as Financial System Stabilizes"

Russia cuts interest rates from 20% to 17%.  RUB steady at 79

[Meclazine for Israel]

Bushmasters are excellent all terrain vehicles and can withstand a direct hit from an RPG or mines.

Australia has now committed these top class vehicles and $100M cash to halt the Russian advance.

We painted the Ukrainian flag on them at the personal request of the Zelensky guy.

[Middle-aged Europe]

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1512202757163335687

Here's what Politico has to say on the matter.

A decision on the matter was initially expected this week. But it’s now in limbo as the Social Democrat chancellor — much to the frustration of his governing coalition partners — argues Germany should first reach a common position with Western allies on the subject before delivering such heavy military equipment, the officials said.

“We’re setting in motion everything that’s right and sensible,” the chancellor told the Bundestag on Wednesday when asked about tank deliveries. Yet Scholz added that it was important for him to coordinate among EU and NATO partners to ensure “that we provide such military support in the same way, and that no one is rushing ahead — including Germany.”

He added: “I believe that this is precisely an issue where it would be a grave mistake for Germany to take a special role and a special path.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/scholz-holds-up-german-tank-delivery-to-ukraine/

Absolutely vile. I hope the German press crucifies him tomorrow.

So far, German media tends to attack the government for the lack of a gas embargo but not so much for a lack of a tank delivery. I saw articles to the effect though that German tanks (due to issues of logistics and training of personnel) wouldn't be operational in the Ukrainian military until next winter anyway. This Politico article here mentions these issues too.

It's true however that being very cautious and taking things slow is often Olaf Scholz' standard mode of operation, not only when it comes to Ukraine but in general.

Correction: A new editorial by major center-left newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung argues in favor of delivering tanks to Ukraine "fast"

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/meinung/ukraine-krieg-panzer-russland-waffenlieferung-wladimir-putin-1.5563234?reduced=true

[Antonio the Sixth]

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1512202757163335687

Here's what Politico has to say on the matter.

A decision on the matter was initially expected this week. But it’s now in limbo as the Social Democrat chancellor — much to the frustration of his governing coalition partners — argues Germany should first reach a common position with Western allies on the subject before delivering such heavy military equipment, the officials said.

“We’re setting in motion everything that’s right and sensible,” the chancellor told the Bundestag on Wednesday when asked about tank deliveries. Yet Scholz added that it was important for him to coordinate among EU and NATO partners to ensure “that we provide such military support in the same way, and that no one is rushing ahead — including Germany.”

He added: “I believe that this is precisely an issue where it would be a grave mistake for Germany to take a special role and a special path.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/scholz-holds-up-german-tank-delivery-to-ukraine/

Absolutely vile. I hope the German press crucifies him tomorrow.

So far, German media tends to attack the government for the lack of a gas embargo but not so much for a lack of a tank delivery. I saw articles to the effect though that German tanks (due to issues of logistics and training of personnel) wouldn't be operational in the Ukrainian military until next winter anyway. This Politico article here mentions these issues too.

It's true however that being very cautious and taking things slow is often Olaf Scholz' standard mode of operation, not only when it comes to Ukraine but in general.

Correction: A new editorial by major center-left newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung argues in favor of delivering tanks to Ukraine "fast"

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/meinung/ukraine-krieg-panzer-russland-waffenlieferung-wladimir-putin-1.5563234?reduced=true

Good. Even if they will take some time to be operational, there is no excuse for further delays.