Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[NOVA Green]

https://twitter.com/Fevanhill/status/1495873540578594818

[NOVA Green]

https://publish.twitter.com/?query=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fevanhill%2Fstatus%2F1495873540578594818&widget=Tweet

I've been sympathetic-ish to the "the US isn't necessarily that much better in the grand scheme of things" position in the past, NOVA Green, but now--as in both today and the current geopolitical lay of the land in general--is really not the time any more.

Wasn't what I was posting.... had an issue with embedding a tweet from one of NYT guys who does the satellite analysis and geolocation type stuff.   

[NOVA Green]

Switzerland is non-neutral


https://twitter.com/SwissMFA/status/1495882827208052742

Switzerland voted in favor of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 68/262 which affirmed the UN's commitment to Ukraine's "internationally recognized borders" in 2014. It's still good for a famously neutral nation with a strong reputation internationally to publicly support Ukraine at this critical moment.

All of Europe (including Turkey and the Caucuses) voted for the resolution except for five. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia were absent (I guess their representatives were out for lunch, heh). The three others were Russia, Belarus, and Armenia which unsurprisingly voted against the resolution.

Will Switzerland force financial institutions to seize assets linked to Russian individuals targeted by a hypothetical sanctions list?

Can't recall where or when I read about how senior Putin linked assets were considered to be targeted, but yet no financial assets were placed "on hold".

[NOVA Green]

Folks need to be very careful right now, especially posting unverified Twitter reports.

Most of y'all likely weren't covering some of the Twitter Drama going on regarding Afghanistan some 9 Months back, but actors will attempt spin, so personally would chill on posting "live updates" from random Twitter sources at this moment....

[NOVA Green]

Folks need to be very careful right now, especially posting unverified Twitter reports.

Most of y'all likely weren't covering some of the Twitter Drama going on regarding Afghanistan some 9 Months back, but actors will attempt spin, so personally would chill on posting "live updates" from random Twitter sources at this moment....

Bump---

Maybe time to shut down Twitter on this Atlas thread?

Everyone needs to be careful about spreading fake news at this point....

[NOVA Green]

https://twitter.com/holmescnn/status/1496712564335599626

Is that a MOAB?

Really looks like a massive strike on a fuel depot / chemical warehouse type gig, possibly hitting the Airport (Presumably attempting to take out Jet Fuel Depots) or possibly a military chem storage facility with Diesel Fuel to shut off Ukranian Tanks / APCs, and Mobile Artillery Units from moving towards the current fronts.

The Russian strategic and tactical actions and intentions are not yet discernable, since naturally Russian Modern Armored Units with Mech Infantry / APC support could easily drive straight to the Capital driving through the ruins of Chernobyl, with combined Paratroopers and Helicopter Gunships which could theoretically easily secure Kiev within a few short days.

Still if "Mother Bear" decides to go ahead and follow-up with a full scale occupation and invasion, Guerrilla Warfare in Ukraine will likely cause a much more significant amount of Russian casualties and expense than even their failed attempt doing a Peacekeeping Operation in Afghanistan.

If Putin goes "all in", he might well seal his own fate as yet another failed Russian Imperial leader from the history of Catherine The Great... later on the dayz of Stalin... and now yet another failed leader.

I'll back down a bit on Stalin, since at least he was Ethnic Georgian during the days of the strikes and labor unrest in his factory town back in the '10s, and now Putin has actually served longer as the supreme leader of Russia than even Stalin, and obviously there are significant differences with compare / contrast.

[NOVA Green]

Anybody else leaning towards the concept that Russia is moving towards a full scale invasion and occupation?

Could be a great Putin bluff, but why go all out unless you are looking for the best position on the chessboard?

[NOVA Green]

Anybody else leaning towards the concept that Russia is moving towards a full scale invasion and occupation?

Yes. Ukraine will no longer be a sovereign country from here on out. Russia will control and own it. NATO will ensure that Russia faces massive punishments for doing this, but they won't send in troops to actually stop it from happening.

So bit of devil's advocate here a bit, thinking about it from a military perspective, why hasn't Russia just gone ahead and grabbed Kharkiv yet, since after all a large majority of pop speaks Russian and is a City of 1.4 Million just a handful of Kilometers over the border with Russia?

Is it simply that this might be more of a difficult "urban combat" scenario which wouldn't fit Mr. Putin's narrative presented to his own people?

Afghanistan again proved itself to be the "Graveyard of Empires" for Russia, English, and Americans...

Iraq 2.0 showed the limit of American power to successfully occupy with overwhelming support against a determined Guerrilla Resistance.

[NOVA Green]

https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1496730367881269257?s=20&t=DyOwc1hZ7lk6ub...

Rest in peace.

Not seeing it on the Wall Street Journal (and I have a paid subscription).

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news

Unless it's on the podcast gig or hasn't been updated yet....

[NOVA Green]

I would sincerely like to know how the US intel got this so right and got Afghanistan so wrong... Is it different people? Did Biden clean house or something?

^^^
Big part of why I was so skeptical of the CIA reports here. Something big maybe changed internally?

No... decades of US failures in Afghanistan (including Intel failures) have 0% correlation with Ukraine.

One could also make a strong argument about how various intelligence agencies reports about Iraqi military capabilities were manipulated so that "The Vulcans" could have their war and remodel the Post Cold War Middle East order....

I digress...

0% correlation with Ukraine is the correct answer for a $500 square on the board.

[NOVA Green]

NYT: 5 Mins back live feed

Video verified by The Times shows smoke rising from Kherson International Airport on Thursday morning. The airport is situated in the south of Ukraine, in a region bordering Crimea where a build up of Russian forces was observed in recent weeks.

[NOVA Green]

Washington Post:

In speech, Putin warns opponents of grave consequences
Return to menu
By Paul Sonne1:00 a.m.

Putin said Russia didn’t plan to occupy Ukrainian territory but made references to the right to self-determination by local peoples, suggesting that Moscow could be planning to organize referendums in areas of Ukraine after the military campaign.

The Russian leader made mention of the referendum that Russia held in Crimea in 2014, subsequently annexing the piece of Ukrainian territory located on the Black Sea.

Putin also directly addressed members of the Ukrainian armed forces, calling on them to lay down their arms and refuse to take orders from their superiors in Kyiv.

He also warned anyone considering interfering with Russia’s plans of grave consequences, appearing to threaten the use of nuclear weapons.

“Whoever tries to interfere with our actions should know that the Russian response will be immediate and will lead to the kind of consequences you have never experienced in your entire history,” Putin said. “We are ready for any scenario of events.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/23/russia-ukraine-updates/

[NOVA Green]

NYT:

Ukraine’s interior ministry says that the villages of Horodyshche and Milove in the Luhansk region were captured by Russian forces.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/24/world/russia-ukraine-putin

[NOVA Green]

Will Ukraine be able to use its supply of Turkish drones well?

Likely depends upon where they are located...

If reports are correct and Russia has basically taken out all Ukranian Military Airports then where would the Command and Control centers be operating out of?

The Turkish drones are generally from my understanding more of anti-tank, APC, etc type hardware, so yeah if they are still operable might be able to slow down a potential Russian armored convoy from Belarus towards the Capital, but at the same time even if there are operational capabilities in various areas they would be a bit split between what is now an extremely large front against a much larger and developed military machine.

[NOVA Green]

https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1496740935522451457

So looking further at the Tweet sounds like "Geo-Location Gurus" might have been able to actually map to location?

Would love to see this confirmed doing a comparison of geography and plus the exact coordinates if true.

Earlier this evening posted about surprised that Russian Armored Convoys weren't moving towards Kharkiv in the event of a full scale invasion, but maybe they were just softening key targets up before bringing the heavy armor across the borders.

[NOVA Green]

Wall Street Journal update headlines all within the past 15 minutes  (Sorry can't share small articles bcs of copyright, ToS issues, etc...)   

Boris Johnson Says U.K., Allies Will 'Respond Decisively' to Russian Attack on Ukraine

Russian Central Bank Announces Currency Intervention After Ruble Plunges to Record Low After Ukraine Attack

German Foreign Minister Pledges More EU Sanctions on Russia

Australia Hits Russia With New Round of Sanctions After Ukraine Operation



https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news

[NOVA Green]

https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1496740935522451457

So looking further at the Tweet sounds like "Geo-Location Gurus" might have been able to actually map to location?

Would love to see this confirmed doing a comparison of geography and plus the exact coordinates if true.

Earlier this evening posted about surprised that Russian Armored Convoys weren't moving towards Kharkiv in the event of a full scale invasion, but maybe they were just softening key targets up before bringing the heavy armor across the borders.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1496750145806864386

Thx!

[NOVA Green]

China calling for restraint in Ukraine: (23 Minutes ago post)

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news

[NOVA Green]

Ukraine's National Guard just beat VDV Spetsnaz at Hostomel? Are ya kidding me?

It's a delay of the inevitable, but that's incredible!

So not only does Putin face crippling sanctions but his army is getting beat by a bunch of Slav squatters with Jean jackets and stingers!

I get your point but 7 years into the war, the Ukrainian army is very well supplied and more than a capable fighting force. Not just some loose cannons with AKs.

I know it's a joke. But it's still incredible that National Guard units beat the VDV.

Just working my way through the thread having recently returned from work, so apologies if this has already been mentioned.

Ukranian Males of a certain age did experience mandatory military conscription back in the USSR days.

The % of Ukranian Males with formal military training is much higher than in most European countries.

I would imagine much of the Ukranian Senior Officer Corp were in fact well versed and trained in Russian Military tactics and technology (at that time).

[NOVA Green]

As someone who considers myself firmly on the left and has stood against escalation and belligerence from the start on either side; f**k this warmongering imperialist Putin to hell and back.

Ukraine is not a NATO country and we should still not get directly involved in any manner whatsoever. That being said, I am all in favor of sending huge amounts of aid to Ukraine and crushing Russia's economy through sanctions. Certainly a better use of money for weapons than our bloated defense budget.

Motion seconded (Although I do not believe in the current variation of a Christian God, but perhaps more like an Irish Curse in the 400's AD, while reading and writing were saved during the final collapse of the Roman Empire).

[NOVA Green]

The site froze for a while.
Did the Russians hack Virginia's system for a while?
RussianBear must have told the Kremlin how pro-Ukraine our small family is.

I assumed there was some major change of events and that the site overloaded.

Most likely a reverse scenario... Atlas servers were hijacked by pro-Ukranian hackers closely linked with Anonymous and briefly our server bandwidth experienced a short term hiccup, while meanwhile a key Russian base in Belarus just briefly went off-line for about 30-40 minutes. 

All good now.   

[NOVA Green]

Not sure if this true considering it is a UK Gvt source, but if true likely good Anti-Russian Propaganda Material, and if false pretty decent Anti-Russian Propaganda material:'

Konstantin Buynichev, head of RU tactical unit surrendered together with his comrades.
“We didn’t want to kill anyone…”.

https://twitter.com/olex_scherba/status/1496881782750425091

[NOVA Green]

Anonymous has claimed responsibility for hacking Russian Gvt websites just a short time ago, as my joking may have referred to very recently here on Atlas,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/25/ukraine-invasion-russia-news/#link-FOVYOBZOEJEFTF7JMDFHXIWMCY

[NOVA Green]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/25/ukraine-russia-chips-sanctions-tsmc/

"Computer-chip industry begins halting deliveries to Russia in response to U.S. sanctions"

I wonder if Russia might launch counter-sanctions of C4F6,  gases neon, and palladium which is critical to making semiconductors.  If they do that the entire world chip industry might fall into crisis and massively hit supply chain issues related to products that need chips.  I guess like SWIFT on the collective West side, unless Russia gets desperate they will not play this card.

We will do just fine in our Fabs thank you very much.

As it is we are already looking for ways to change our manufacturing processes and facilities with roadmaps designed to significantly reduce the amount of various inputs, which will do all sorts of cool things from GhG Emissions and Hazardous Chemicals and Hazardous Waste streams.

Pretty sure our Fabs will be able to manage any such supply chain issues, even if the costs might be marginally higher....

[NOVA Green]

So looking like street to street fighting is occurring close to the City Center:

In fierce street fighting in Kyiv, bursts of gunfire and explosions echoed through several areas of the city. Early Saturday morning, Ukrainska Pravda, a Ukrainian news site, citing eyewitnesses, reported combat in Victory Square, a little over a mile from the city center, Maidan Square. Fighting had also raged nearby around the city’s train station and along a central thoroughfare leading from Victory Square toward the city center, Bohdan Khmelnitsky Street, the site said. Along that street closer to the city center, bursts of gunfire could be heard through the night.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/25/world/russia-ukraine-war