Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Red Velvet]

Russia embracing it's Soviet past on occupied territories.

https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1646198316688982026

So....do conservatives actually believe this is a good thing? Like today the modern right actually wants to celebrate the Soviet Union's historical legacy?

XXI century alignments have nothing to do with XX century ones because the world changed. I never understand why people cannot let go of cold war days and accept they are over, in the past. The narrative of XXI century so far is China and the rise of multipolarity order.

In the world of today, social issues have gained a much bigger predominance in the public debate, for instance. And that makes a lot of difference.

As an economic leftist and progressive nationalist, sometimes I have way bigger disagreements with the liberal sector of the left than with some nationalist conservatives for example.

People get confused as hell with communists and the far-right aligning on some matters these days but forget that both are side by side on the top half of the political compass.

XX century logic: left-right on political compass
XXI century logic: auth-lib on political compass

Which is how liblefts became popular with the mainstream, they’re mixed with a bunch of neolibs. No wonder media loves the hell out of them.

[Virginiá]

Brazil only has a handful of systems Ukraine both needs and could realistically get from them. Countries like Bulgaria, Cyprus and Pakistan have way more (relatively speaking). Algeria and some other North African countries as well, but those aren't necessarily viable options for political or other reasons.

[Cassius]

Russia embracing it's Soviet past on occupied territories.

https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1646198316688982026

Some other stand out names on that list are: Red Army and Red Fleet, Frunze (after the early Soviet military theorist and general), Voroshilov (presumably after Kliment), Kirov (after Sergei, the former Leningrad party secretary and the eponymous Petersburg based ballet company), Blyukher (after Vasily Blyukher, another early Soviet military commander) and Gaidar (which could be named for either Arkady Gaidar or his son Timur. Highly unlikely to be named for the grandson, Yegor Gaidar of shock therapy fame).

[Middle-aged Europe]

Russia embracing it's Soviet past on occupied territories.

https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1646198316688982026

Some other stand out names on that list are: Red Army and Red Fleet, Frunze (after the early Soviet military theorist and general), Voroshilov (presumably after Kliment), Kirov (after Sergei, the former Leningrad party secretary and the eponymous Petersburg based ballet company), Blyukher (after Vasily Blyukher, another early Soviet military commander) and Gaidar (which could be named for either Arkady Gaidar or his son Timur. Highly unlikely to be named for the grandson, Yegor Gaidar of shock therapy fame).

As usual, The Simpsons were completely accurate with their predictions...

[NOVA Green]

Looks like the recent leaker of classified US Docs worked on a military base.

Do we have anybody on Atlas who might fit this description?

Anyways tons more in the original article linked at bottom of the post.

The man behind a massive leak of U.S. government secrets that has exposed spying on allies, revealed the grim prospects for Ukraine’s war with Russia and ignited diplomatic fires for the White House is a young, charismatic gun enthusiast who shared highly classified documents with a group of far-flung acquaintances searching for companionship amid the isolation of the pandemic.

United by their mutual love of guns, military gear and God, the group of roughly two dozen — mostly men and boys — formed an invitation-only clubhouse in 2020 on Discord, an online platform popular with gamers. But they paid little attention last year when the man some call “OG” posted a message laden with strange acronyms and jargon. The words were unfamiliar, and few people read the long note, one of the members explained. But he revered OG, the elder leader of their tiny tribe, who claimed to know secrets that the government withheld from ordinary people.

The young member read OG’s message closely, and the hundreds more that he said followed on a regular basis for months. They were, he recalled, what appeared to be near-verbatim transcripts of classified intelligence documents that OG indicated he had brought home from his job on a “military base,” which the member declined to identify. OG claimed he spent at least some of his day inside a secure facility that prohibited cellphones and other electronic devices, which could be used to document the secret information housed on government computer networks or spooling out from printers. He annotated some of the hand-typed documents, the member said, translating arcane intel-speak for the uninitiated, such as explaining that “NOFORN” meant the information in the document was so sensitive it must not be shared with foreign nationals.

OG told the group he toiled for hours writing up the classified documents to share with his companions in the Discord server he controlled.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/12/discord-leaked-documents/

[Hindsight was 2020]

Looks like the recent leaker of classified US Docs worked on a military base.

Do we have anybody on Atlas who might fit this description?

Anyways tons more in the original article linked at bottom of the post.

The man behind a massive leak of U.S. government secrets that has exposed spying on allies, revealed the grim prospects for Ukraine’s war with Russia and ignited diplomatic fires for the White House is a young, charismatic gun enthusiast who shared highly classified documents with a group of far-flung acquaintances searching for companionship amid the isolation of the pandemic.

United by their mutual love of guns, military gear and God, the group of roughly two dozen — mostly men and boys — formed an invitation-only clubhouse in 2020 on Discord, an online platform popular with gamers. But they paid little attention last year when the man some call “OG” posted a message laden with strange acronyms and jargon. The words were unfamiliar, and few people read the long note, one of the members explained. But he revered OG, the elder leader of their tiny tribe, who claimed to know secrets that the government withheld from ordinary people.

The young member read OG’s message closely, and the hundreds more that he said followed on a regular basis for months. They were, he recalled, what appeared to be near-verbatim transcripts of classified intelligence documents that OG indicated he had brought home from his job on a “military base,” which the member declined to identify. OG claimed he spent at least some of his day inside a secure facility that prohibited cellphones and other electronic devices, which could be used to document the secret information housed on government computer networks or spooling out from printers. He annotated some of the hand-typed documents, the member said, translating arcane intel-speak for the uninitiated, such as explaining that “NOFORN” meant the information in the document was so sensitive it must not be shared with foreign nationals.

OG told the group he toiled for hours writing up the classified documents to share with his companions in the Discord server he controlled.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/12/discord-leaked-documents/

Oh…..my……….god…….LouisvilleThunder is the leaker?!?!

[NOVA Green]

Looks like the recent leaker of classified US Docs worked on a military base.

Do we have anybody on Atlas who might fit this description?

Anyways tons more in the original article linked at bottom of the post.

The man behind a massive leak of U.S. government secrets that has exposed spying on allies, revealed the grim prospects for Ukraine’s war with Russia and ignited diplomatic fires for the White House is a young, charismatic gun enthusiast who shared highly classified documents with a group of far-flung acquaintances searching for companionship amid the isolation of the pandemic.

United by their mutual love of guns, military gear and God, the group of roughly two dozen — mostly men and boys — formed an invitation-only clubhouse in 2020 on Discord, an online platform popular with gamers. But they paid little attention last year when the man some call “OG” posted a message laden with strange acronyms and jargon. The words were unfamiliar, and few people read the long note, one of the members explained. But he revered OG, the elder leader of their tiny tribe, who claimed to know secrets that the government withheld from ordinary people.

The young member read OG’s message closely, and the hundreds more that he said followed on a regular basis for months. They were, he recalled, what appeared to be near-verbatim transcripts of classified intelligence documents that OG indicated he had brought home from his job on a “military base,” which the member declined to identify. OG claimed he spent at least some of his day inside a secure facility that prohibited cellphones and other electronic devices, which could be used to document the secret information housed on government computer networks or spooling out from printers. He annotated some of the hand-typed documents, the member said, translating arcane intel-speak for the uninitiated, such as explaining that “NOFORN” meant the information in the document was so sensitive it must not be shared with foreign nationals.

OG told the group he toiled for hours writing up the classified documents to share with his companions in the Discord server he controlled.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/12/discord-leaked-documents/

Oh…..my……….god…….LouisvilleThunder is the leaker?!?!

Hmmm... well not particularly familiar with that poster.

Still sounds like OG was a bit more of a Cult Leader for his "flock", since those individuals interviewed by The WaPo are still sticking up for him.

Few more titbits...

Thousands of military personnel and government employees around OG’s age, working entry-to-low-level positions, could plausibly have access to classified documents like the ones he allegedly shared, according to U.S. officials and experts who have seen the documents reported in the media. Despite what his young followers thought, OG would have had no special knowledge compared with his peers. He possessed no special power to predict events. Rather, he appears to have persuaded some highly impressionable teenagers that he’s a modern-day gamer meets Jason Bourne.

The member, as well as the OG follower who corroborated his account, found no fault in their leader’s actions and instead said they blame the teen who posted the documents on the wow_mao server for wrecking their community.

He insisted said he will not divulge OG’s identity or location to law enforcement until he is captured or can flee the United States. “I think I might be detained eventually. … I think there might be a short investigation on how I knew this guy and they’ll try to get something out of me. They might try to threaten me with prison time if I don’t reveal their identity.”

[NOVA Green]

According to a WSJ story today based upon some of the leaked US documents, tensions between "Putin's Chef" from the Wagner Group and the Russian Military were causing serious splits within the regime.

Also FSB numbers estimate 110k+ KIA or WIA in Ukraine.

Granted, those of us following it relatively closely are already aware of some of these tensions, so I'll skip some of the backstory.

According to an image of the leaked document, which has no visible publication date but is part of a batch dating to late February, the Russian Defense Ministry in mid- to late February was struggling to counter the claims by Mr. Prigozhin, a Putin ally, because the Kremlin was making no moves to rein him in and his high profile made it difficult to discredit the narrative he was advancing on social media.

The document cited a Wagner “affiliate,” Vladislav Andriyevsky, as saying that Mr. Prigozhin was ultimately called into a meeting with Mr. Putin and Mr. Shoigu that was aimed at calming tensions between the two men.

Other documents in the apparent leak said that Wagner, short of arms and ammunition, sought in early February to acquire weapons in Turkey, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, meeting with Turkish contacts in an effort to broker such a deal. Western diplomats in Ankara said that Turkey’s government was unlikely to agree to a weapons sale to Wagner, but that didn’t rule out the possibility that Wagner operatives could try to seek weapons on the black market.

According to another purported U.S. document, Russia’s powerful Federal Security Service accused the Defense Ministry of underreporting Russian casualties in Ukraine by excluding deaths among units that don’t form part of the armed forces, such as Wagner and the National Guard. FSB officials calculated that the actual number of Russians wounded or killed in action in Ukraine was around 110,000, far in excess of official estimates.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-leak-spotlights-russian-infighting-wagners-role-in-ukraine-war-c0f14632?mod=hp_lead_pos1

[YPestis25]

Russia embracing it's Soviet past on occupied territories.

https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1646198316688982026

So....do conservatives actually believe this is a good thing? Like today the modern right actually wants to celebrate the Soviet Union's historical legacy?

XXI century alignments have nothing to do with XX century ones because the world changed. I never understand why people cannot let go of cold war days and accept they are over, in the past. The narrative of XXI century so far is China and the rise of multipolarity order.

In the world of today, social issues have gained a much bigger predominance in the public debate, for instance. And that makes a lot of difference.

As an economic leftist and progressive nationalist, sometimes I have way bigger disagreements with the liberal sector of the left than with some nationalist conservatives for example.

People get confused as hell with communists and the far-right aligning on some matters these days but forget that both are side by side on the top half of the political compass.

XX century logic: left-right on political compass
XXI century logic: auth-lib on political compass

Which is how liblefts became popular with the mainstream, they’re mixed with a bunch of neolibs. No wonder media loves the hell out of them.

Imgur/Arrested Development

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

Russia embracing it's Soviet past on occupied territories.

https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1646198316688982026

So....do conservatives actually believe this is a good thing? Like today the modern right actually wants to celebrate the Soviet Union's historical legacy?

XXI century alignments have nothing to do with XX century ones because the world changed. I never understand why people cannot let go of cold war days and accept they are over, in the past. The narrative of XXI century so far is China and the rise of multipolarity order.

In the world of today, social issues have gained a much bigger predominance in the public debate, for instance. And that makes a lot of difference.

As an economic leftist and progressive nationalist, sometimes I have way bigger disagreements with the liberal sector of the left than with some nationalist conservatives for example.

People get confused as hell with communists and the far-right aligning on some matters these days but forget that both are side by side on the top half of the political compass.

XX century logic: left-right on political compass
XXI century logic: auth-lib on political compass

Which is how liblefts became popular with the mainstream, they’re mixed with a bunch of neolibs. No wonder media loves the hell out of them.

Far left-wing socialists/communists who are also far right-wing nationalists are not something super-new and super-mysterious, they are old ordinary National Socialists, abbreviated as Nazis.

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1646193566299963411?s=20

[Woody]

These are apparently not convicts:

https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1646384178290647044

2/ This mercenary group is actively engaged in a variety of activities, including assaults, reconnaissance, ambushes, and sabotage, and is working in close coordination with assembled assault detachments and small specialized units.

3/ It is noteworthy that several hundred of these newly-trained mercenaries are expected to be deployed in the near future. Despite my inability to disclose further details at this time, it is highly probable that their existence will soon become publicly known.

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://mobile.twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1646489084737593346

[Meclazine for Israel]

Russian soldiers have made videos of Ukrainian soldiers being beheaded.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/11/europe/beheading-videos-ukraine-intl-hnk-ml/index.html

"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday condemned as "beasts" those who purportedly beheaded Ukrainian soldiers shown in two videos that emerged on social media in the past week."

Nasty affair.

[Woody]

80% of Bakhmut (Soon to be Artyomovsk) is under Russian control.

https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1646239870640173058?cxt=HHwWhMC9iZacz9...

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://mobile.twitter.com/ukraine_map/status/1646513806712127489
Happy anniversary 🎉 🥳

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

80% of Bakhmut (Soon to be Artyomovsk) is under Russian control.

https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1646239870640173058?cxt=HHwWhMC9iZacz9...

Oh wow after, what is it now, 9-10 months, during which times massive amounts of occupied territory were lost, they’ve taken 4/5ths of a minor town 5 km from the front.

Pyrrhus would be proud.

[Middle-aged Europe]

German government authorizes delivery of Polish MiG-29s (who originally belonged to the German Air Force until 2003/04) to Ukraine. So far, Poland had only supplied MiGs from non-German sources:


https://twitter.com/NahayatT/status/1646523366826987523

[CumbrianLefty]

Woody was declaring Bakhmut "effectively" taken by Russia several weeks ago.

[Cassius]

Woody was declaring Bakhmut "effectively" taken by Russia several weeks ago.

I mean, if 80% of the city, bar some ruined suburbs, is in Russian hands, it effectively is.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Woody was declaring Bakhmut "effectively" taken by Russia several weeks ago.

I mean, if 80% of the city, bar some ruined suburbs, is in Russian hands, it effectively is.

As other have pointed out though until the Ukraine leaves it’s not taken as Germany controlling 90% of Stalingrad can attest to

[Cassius]

Woody was declaring Bakhmut "effectively" taken by Russia several weeks ago.

I mean, if 80% of the city, bar some ruined suburbs, is in Russian hands, it effectively is.

As other have pointed out though until the Ukraine leaves it’s not taken as Germany controlling 90% of Stalingrad can attest to

Yes, if they can launch a major counterattack that will rescue what’s left of the AFU inside Bakhmut. But given that they seem to have had to postpone the big southern offensive due to ammunition and equipment shortages (and possibly loss of personnel) then that seems unlikely. Obviously, that could be misdirection, but I think it would be very hard to hide a major offensive designed to push the Russians back out of Bakhmut.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Woody was declaring Bakhmut "effectively" taken by Russia several weeks ago.

I mean, if 80% of the city, bar some ruined suburbs, is in Russian hands, it effectively is.

As other have pointed out though until the Ukraine leaves it’s not taken as Germany controlling 90% of Stalingrad can attest to

Yes, if they can launch a major counterattack that will rescue what’s left of the AFU inside Bakhmut. But given that they seem to have had to postpone the big southern offensive due to ammunition and equipment shortages (and possibly loss of personnel) then that seems unlikely. Obviously, that could be misdirection, but I think it would be very hard to hide a major offensive designed to push the Russians back out of Bakhmut.

Well they did apparently hide the Kharkiv counterattack pretty well lol

[Woody]

Russia has been gaining more air superiority by the day. It's increase of precision bombs are evidence of it. Only option left for Ukraine to counter this are F-16s and drastic increases of new Patriots. Even some of it's ground-to-air defenses like S-300s it has left can't counter the bombs as they are fired from SU-34s several kilometers away, just out of range.

This is probably the biggest obstacle to Ukraine's counteroffensive. Russians have been using this to bomb several supply towns in Zaporizhzhia as Ukraine is trying to build up it's assault forces.


https://eurasiantimes.com/russian-su-34-su-35-jets-checkmate-ukraines-air-defense/

“Enemy aircraft are active. The enemy is deploying guided bombs, which can travel dozens of kilometers (up to 70).

“The enemy deploys 10–15, and up to 20, such bombs each day along the entire line of contact dropped from Su-35 and Su-34 jets outside the range of our air defense systems.

“This is a threat to us, and we have to respond to it urgently,” said Yurii Ihnat, spokesman for the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

He further said that, as of present, the Ukrainian military lacks the equipment that would enable its forces to respond to this threat effectively, noting the need for Patriot air defense system and advanced warplanes to keep the Russian fighter jets away.

In early January, an image surfaced online, shared by the pro-Russian Fighter-bomber Telegram channel, of what appeared to be a FAB-500M-62 bomb with a mysterious wing kit attached to it, reportedly loaded onto a Russian Su-34 Fullback combat jet.

https://mobile.twitter.com/KyivPost/status/1646096157775364098
https://mobile.twitter.com/WSJ/status/1645347149704491009

[Damocles]

Woodbury and spouting RuZZian propaganda while holding the rules-based international liberal-democratic order in contempt. Name a more iconic duo.