Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Just heard on CNN that Russia has destroyed the dam northwest of Kiev.

Is there another Source?

Haven't seen anything yet on my regular subscription outlets (NYT, WP, WSJ) nor on the CNN website.

Could be that I misheard or it was framed as a hypothetical or misinformation crept in from Ukranian gvt sources?

Would imagine if true we would see this story gain more traction....

Take with giant bucket of salt, but certainly if Russia were to destroy the dam would be significant civilian impacts...

Western media sources are particularly susceptible to Ukrainian govt misinformation. But I don't think this can be completely ruled out either. Fog of war makes a lot of things unclear, as you and I both know.
It is not unheard of for dams or similar things to be attacked and destroyed in times of war. I remember hearing that in 1940, the Dutch burst their dikes in a desperate attempt to keep the Nazis from sweeping through their country. Of course, that's not an apples-to-apples comparison to this, just a sign to the imaginativeness in dealing destruction that humans can wield when war occurs.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

We should sanction the hell out of Belarus too and fund a potential coop there

Doesn't Belarus still have farmer cooperatives from the old Soviet days?

Wouldn't surprise me.
Lukashenka has long tried to maintain stability relative to the Soviet status quo.

Speaking of Belarus, one drunk Belarusian soldier (accidentally?) walked into Ukraine.

<tweet snip>

Someone had too much vodka...

Evidently Putin is (likely?) planning to bring the Belarusian military into the war. Presumably its forces would be used for an attack on western Ukraine from Belarus. I can't imagine Belarusian morale is all that great currently. I'd get drunk too, to be honest.

Belarus going into the war would probably be a net negative for Russia, if we're being honest with ourselves. Friendly neutral Belarus means Russia has a safe zone that Ukraine can't go in, which could make for a lot if Ukraine does a very good job defending. Ukraine is very unlikely to provoke Belarus, so it's probably safe to assume that Belarus is only going to enter the war if Russia asks such.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Reminder:

Remain hopeful, but not naive

https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1497694724144218114

It's not really helpful that both sides in this war have many of the same equipment. (Not really surprising, since they both are descended from the Soviet Red Army)

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Reminder:

Remain hopeful, but not naive

https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1497694724144218114

It's not really helpful that both sides in this war have many of the same equipment. (Not really surprising, since they both are descended from the Soviet Red Army)

The Russians have been wearing arm bands on their arms, because both armies wear the same combat uniforms as well. I'd guess marking vehicles with white "Z" and "O" markings was done (at least in part) so that Russian and Ukrainian vehicles could be distinguished from one another.
Though one benefit for Ukraine is that they can use any Russian equipment captured since ammunition and parts are compatible.

All true, that makes sense. It seems they have no way of distinguishing planes, though...(at least visually)

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Here's something I just found that's hilarious. Pokes fun at Russia's performance in Ukraine thus far.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Here's something I just found that's hilarious. Pokes fun at Russia's performance in Ukraine thus far.

related: https://twitter.com/acitrano/status/1497705132632403971?s=20&t=1EQIyuKNHRJlT...

Lol.
I'm not even upset if that's bad intelligence or not. The memes are outright hilarious.
Memes help make moments like this not terrible to go through.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Here's something I just found that's hilarious. Pokes fun at Russia's performance in Ukraine thus far.

related: https://twitter.com/acitrano/status/1497705132632403971?s=20&t=1EQIyuKNHRJlT...

Lol.
I'm not even upset if that's bad intelligence or not. The memes are outright hilarious.
Memes help make moments like this not terrible to go through.

I want to see WBC-style memes against Russia/Putin.

Found this one off the polandball subreddit
Short, simple, to the point.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

These stories and pictures of Ukrainian civilians being given weapons create images of the Volkssturm in 1945.  They were and are still are bad idea not just because of the lives it cost but they were mostly ineffective.  German generals in 1945 often complain that the Volkssturm units were better of being disbanded and instead working in the German army itself to work on logistics and communications versus trying to fight the USSR forces in battle,

The main difference between the German Volkssturm in 1945 and Ukrainian civilians today is certainly a significantly different level in morale. My own grandfather deserted before he could be drafted into the Volkssturm.

Maybe more importantly, why do you continue to be Putin's useful idiot? Are you getting paid by him or what?

We don't need this sort of toxicity in here. Cut it out.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

These stories and pictures of Ukrainian civilians being given weapons create images of the Volkssturm in 1945.  They were and are still are bad idea not just because of the lives it cost but they were mostly ineffective.  German generals in 1945 often complain that the Volkssturm units were better of being disbanded and instead working in the German army itself to work on logistics and communications versus trying to fight the USSR forces in battle,

The main difference between the German Volkssturm in 1945 and Ukrainian civilians today is certainly a significantly different level in morale. My own grandfather deserted before he could be drafted into the Volkssturm.

Maybe more importantly, why do you continue to be Putin's useful idiot? Are you getting paid by him or what?

We don't need this sort of toxicity in here. Cut it out.

No.

Instead of engaging what jaichind said (including the question as to whether civilians can fight properly), you throw accusations of him being paid by Putin?
Good lord. What a disgrace. We don't need any of that here, and he is owed an apology.
That is all.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

While I 100% do support boycotting products made in Russia right now, I do hope we don’t start seeing Russophobia from this. I’m guessing the overwhelming majority of the Russian diaspora aren’t even in favor of this and are pro-Ukraine, I hope Americans don’t use this as an excuse to be idiots…but they will won’t they?

America is a country of 350+ million people. An increase in Russophobia is sadly inevitable if this is a sustained conflict.
We can probably only hope for a smaller increase, not no increase at all.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Ukraine Gvt now official requesting assistance from the "Fifth Brigade" in the form of computer hackers to target Russia per CNN (25 minutes ago)

Here is a link provided for anybody (including Atlas Posters) to help fight the cyberwar:

https://t.me/itarmyofurraine


Ukrainian official calls on "an IT army" to join the "fight on the cyber front"

"Ukraine Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov tweeted Saturday that Kyiv was “creating an IT army” to “continue to fight on the cyber front” as Russian forces continue their assault on Ukraine.

Fedorov tweeted a link to a channel on the messaging app Telegram that encouraged hackers to conduct cyberattacks on key Russian energy firms and financial firms. The proposed target list includes natural gas giant Gazprom and big Russian banks Sberbank and VTB. The Biden administration sanctioned the two banks on Thursday over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Telegram channel promoted by Fedorov was translated into English to appeal to “all IT specialists from other countries,” the English version said.

..."


https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-news-02-26-22/index.html

Yet still more evidence Ukraine's doing a great job in asymmetrical warfare. That's an area Russia is better than us at, but Ukraine is doing roughly even with Russia here.
You know what they say - necessity is the mother of invention.
EDIT: how the cloptad did that get bolded. Whatever

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This, along with Russia strategic bombers using unencrypted HF radio, makes me wonder how much of Russia's plans NATO intelligence agencies already know about. They predicted the false flag operations in the Donbas and even knew the exact time of the invasion.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1497717413542088708?s=20&t=EseR2H9...

Also, secondary question: does Russia plan this with less secrecy from Western intelligence because it can afford to? After all, if the West knows exactly what Russia has planned, what can it do with that info that it isn't already able to do without knowing?
It's not like they plan on actually going to war with Russia after all.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

One does wonder if there's a point where the cyberhacking front of this war actually is a net negative for Russia. It certainly isn't the huge win that the Russians were probably hoping for.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The main difference between the German Volkssturm in 1945 and Ukrainian civilians today is certainly a significantly different level in morale. My own grandfather deserted before he could be drafted into the Volkssturm.

An infinitely less noisome and likely much more relevant analogy from German history would be the Landwehr regiments of 1813-15. They might not have been as effective as regulars, but they were still useful, as motivation and morale were high enough to partially overcome their deficiencies in training and equipment.

But that was before the era of motorization and ariel support.  Another one I can think of would be the 2003 Iraq Fedayeen but in that case, they did get some training months in advance and mostly turned out to be ineffective.

Speaking of which, how is the Ukrainian air force doing? Do we have any idea?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If it is, in fact, MLRS, the question is whether what is happening in Kharkiv will be swiftly extended to multiple fronts or whether Putin intends to wreck one city first as an example.

How useful MLRS’s are on a strategic level provided its psychological usage can be overcome?

I started writing a post on this, but I'm going to keep this short and would really prefer for someone with a military background to weigh in. My understanding of them from studying past conflicts is that they are generally more destructive than regular artillery in the short term (because multiple rockets are fired at once - they make up for worse accuracy by covering an area in explosions) but slower to reload in the long haul.

Thermobaric weapons (the most devastating after nukes) are used by other countries, but only the USSR and Russia have manufactured thermobaric MLRS (Ukraine has some older, weaker Soviet ones), and these have even higher payloads than the regular MLRS. In urban warfare, these have been used to solve the problem of urban combat by removing the urban areas. What happened to Grozny is a case in point.

Not a military background sort of person, but as someone with a level of interest in military strategy:
If what you say is true, it would not at all surprise me if Russia had advanced MLRS, given what I know about Russian military doctrine. If these sorts of tactics are part of their arsenal, then I don't see why they wouldn't have advanced weapons focused on really ensuring they work.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

how do you think this will effect the up coming elections in poland next year and hungary this year?

Well, I'd say the governments in both countries have adopted firmly anti-Russian (government) rhetoric in response to recent events, so in theory the impact this will have on public voting preferences should not be very large. But this is too early to forecast anything concrete.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Just heard on CNN that Russia has destroyed the dam northwest of Kiev.

Is there another Source?

I think I already read this earlier this morning or heard it on radio.

Well sounds like a Russia missile headed for the dam was shot down 11 hours ago... so not implausible since sounds like Russia has it on their target list of acceptable military options.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/ukraine-says-russian-missile-headed-for-water-reservoir-near-kyiv-shot-down/

So recent confirmation of Russian destruction of the Dam near Crimea from the Washington Post:

"Russia claims to explode Ukrainian dam that had blocked water to Crimea

By Meg Kelly, Elyse Samuels and Atthar Mirza7:00 p.m.

Video verified by The Washington Post captured a large explosion at a dam along the Northern Crimean Canal on Saturday that had been a source of increasing tensions between Russia and Ukraine over water rights.

Russian media shared the video, saying Russian military forces were responsible for the destruction. It is unclear who originally recorded the video.

The first frames of the video show that the bridge crossing the river had already fallen by the time of the explosion. Then, a large cloud of black and grey dust enveloped the area. Rubble showers down into the river.

Recent images show that the bridge was intact as recently as January.

Ukraine built the makeshift dam in 2014 after the Russian annexation of Crimea, blocking what had been a main source of water for the region. Hostilities over it increased in recent months after a drought worsened Crimea’s water crisis, and Ukraine made efforts to build a more permanent piece of infrastructure. Reports from as early as May 2021 suggested the situation was serious enough that residents in the area, roughly 10 miles from the Crimea border, were preparing for war."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/26/russia-ukraine-war-news-updates/#link-R2K3JOQR4BG6ZFMPF63DLLQLAU

One matter of relevance (and this is one that didn't get mentioned much if at all in Western media though it likely was a minor contributor to this war occurring) was the game of cat-and-mouse between Ukraine and Russia that played out after Russia's seizure of Crimea.

After Russia took the peninsula in contradiction of international convention, Ukraine (also in contradiction of international convention) built structures designed to starve the peninsula of water (kind of like how China's building lots of dams now in Tibet). Russia's been critical of this behavior of Ukraine's for years, so I'm sure that the destruction of these dams (assuming it happened thus far - I'd feel we need information to confirm this rather than taking the Russians at face value) is being celebrated in Crimea as of right now.

It's not unheard of for water to be used as a weapon in geopolitical conflicts, though. And it's not like either side in the lead-up to this conflict adhered to international law too rigorously.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It's been a while since we've had an "Ignore western media & pro-Ukraine Twitter, a dominant & successful Russian victory is inevitable" post by the usual suspects.

Even if Kiev falls & Ukraine is conquered, this 'Russian victory' looks more Pyrrhic with each day this continues:

Perhaps the Russian flag will fly over Kyiv in a couple of weeks, but then what? Putin will have to devote vast amounts of resources to pacifying almost 40 million new subjects who had been using his name as a profanity, and who had humiliated him by putting up a much stronger than expected resistance. Meanwhile, Russia's domestic economy will be imploding, and no amount of Chinese aid could save Putin from the consequences of his own recklessness. The longer that goes on, the likelier the chance that Putin will fall from a window overlooking Red Square.

I dunno who you are talking about here. But I was the first person (that I know of) who posited the possibility of a Ukrainian victory.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Anyways as wonderful as Ukrainian resistance will be, I do think Russia will learn from the mistakes and go all in, which will just be devastating for everyone. The Ukrainian people have shown an insane degree of courage and resilience, but neither can overcome logistical disadvantages in the long term. I will pray for the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian nation, and I hope we do truly stand up to this aggression sooner rather than later.

This is my take as well. Russia is trying tactics that just aren't their thing, i.e. sending in troops piecemeal and trying to avoid collateral damage by using MLRS rather sparingly on urban areas.

The thing is, this has never been their thing. Soviet doctorine has always been:

1. Bomb the area until it's a wasteland
2. Bumrush with men & equipment until the "problem" is solved

Now, with people like Kadyrov calling on a change of tactic as well, we can only hope Putin has some sense left & is not prepared to turn Ukraine into a wasteland.

If even Kadyrov, a Putin loyalist to put all Putin loyalists to shame, is calling for a change in strategy, I would be surprised to see it not happen.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I'm sorry but Kadyrov and Putin need to die ASAP. High time for the CIA to show what it can do. I'm pretty sure that using nuclear weapons is not beyond those monsters.

Ah yes, a situation with a potentially very unstable Russia and an unstable Chechnya, with intelligence services probably itching for revenge against us by engaging in a game of tit-for-tat, is in the West's interests...how?
I mean, I guess it's in the interest of China, which will have a better bargaining hand against whoever sits in the Kremlin...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If even Kadyrov, a Putin loyalist to put all Putin loyalists to shame, is calling for a change in strategy, I would be surprised to see it not happen.

 
That's my fear as well.

Russians will either change tactics to what they're actually trained to do & simply overwhelm the Ukrainians, or lose tens of thousands while making relatively modest gains.

The problem is, this didn't start out as an all out war, with many people simply staying home & Russian tanks being blocked by people simply standing in the street, which would never happen in a "by all means necessary" situation.

So, if the tune suddenly changes, many won't have the chance to flee before everything is unleashed upon them.

Again, best we can do is hope for the best & that Putin has some semblance of mercy for Ukrainians.

It would quite likely be in the interests of all parties if we had an instant, total cease-fire and then diplomatic negotiation.
Unfortunately, that looks unlikely at this stage.
There also exists the unfortunate possibility that the sanctions placed on Russia will make the Russian leadership more inclined, not less, to escalate, because they think they have less to lose and/or they might have to gain more bargaining chips.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Putin fires top general

https://twitter.com/BillNeelyReport/status/1497989705903788036

Remember Rubio's tweet?

Maybe they received orders to change tactics & he wasn't supportive.

Rubio is ranking member of the US Senate Committee on Intelligence. It's not surprising he might have some nuggets of exceptional truth about this all (though his takes can only be as good as the intelligence he is seeing).

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/stopped-assaulted-at-ukraine-border-say-some-indian-students-2793334

"Stopped, Assaulted At Ukraine Border, Say Some Indian Students"

Indian students are on live NDTV TV saying Ukrainian border guards are torturing (their words) Indian students trying to escape to Poland.

It's interesting, but not surprising, to see the media environment in India being so hospitable to Russia. I can't imagine news stories like this are going to help Ukraine much in India.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/stopped-assaulted-at-ukraine-border-say-some-indian-students-2793334

"Stopped, Assaulted At Ukraine Border, Say Some Indian Students"

Indian students are on live NDTV TV saying Ukrainian border guards are torturing (their words) Indian students trying to escape to Poland.

It's interesting, but not surprising, to see the media environment in India being so hospitable to Russia. I can't imagine news stories like this are going to help Ukraine much in India.

What the Indian students are saying on live TV is hard to believe and understand.  They are saying that the border guards are letting Ukrainian escape to Poland but not Indians.  It does not make any sense why the Ukrainian guards will have an incentive to do this.  This is bad PR for Ukraine since NDTV is exactly the type of media in India that would want to back Ukraine over Russia.

It seems that for all the competence Ukraine has shown in cyber-warfare, they are completely incompetent in trying to get the sympathy of the Indian public. The Indian public could be quite important in deciding how this goes long-term; Modi will go where the public wants to go, and Modi is an important power-broker in this. A friendly India could be the break Russia needs to avoid international isolation, worse come to worse.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/b_nishanov/status/1498008314218745861

How can it be that the Russians were pushed back and are still 30km from the city (per US) and they some encircled it including from the south west now?

Who’s lying and why

I trust Klitschko here much more than I trust propagandists like Ponomarenko. Why would the mayor of a city falsely say the city is under siege?

(Note than when I say "propagandist" I'm not saying Ukraine is bad or evil or equating them to Russia. I've been using "propaganda" as a value neutral term for source anslysis. To me it simply means someone whose primary aim is something other than spreading accurate information. Booster accounts that spread morale for their side are an example of this.)

My two cents here:
I agree with all of this.
Also, propaganda is not an evil word. It's a morally neutral thing. Propaganda is a tool, like everything else. Tools can be wielded for good OR for bad.