Daily megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - March 6

Day 11. Are you tired of these recaps yet? Are they still useful? Anything else you’d like to know or follow, would want me to post?

News

Israel has been playing mediator the past day. Good news maybe, they are well positioned.
https://www.brusselstimes.com/world-all-news/209618/israel-mediates-between-ukraine-and-russia-to-stop-the-war

“They are planning to bomb Odessa”
https://mobile.twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1500428877138739202

US trying to supply fighter jets to Ukraine (via Poland because the jets need to be usable for Ukrainian pilots without training):
https://mobile.twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1500430551265599492

Yesterday, Russia broke the ceasefire (the sister is safe):
https://mobile.twitter.com/Reevellp/status/1500064966740697091

War in Ukraine: Zelensky urges Ukrainians to go on the offensive
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60636337.amp

SBU kills member of Ukrainian negotiations team suspected of treason.
https://mobile.twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1500078019192496129

High quality articles and longer form posts

An excellent twitter thread on the famous 67km column:
https://mobile.twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1499894935209795594

Great article on Putin and Russia:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2022-03-03/will-putin-lose-russia

A photoarticle from the Kyiv Indeendent, 10 days of war:
https://kyivindependent.com/national/10-days-of-suffering-russias-war-against-ukraine-in-photos/

Full Zelenskyy speech from March 4th with translations:
https://youtu.be/kW9w7ZAFxvc

Translated speech from last night (couldn’t find an original subtitles source):
https://youtu.be/95SdxxHkrxk

Finally, to European tilders, I invite you to prepare a survival kit, just in case. It doesn’t cost much to have one, and it’s harmless not to need it but life saving if you do. The US govt has an excellent guide:
https://www.ready.gov/kit

Russia warns NATO not to let Ukraine use NATO airfields. Because that would be akin to an act of war by that country against Russia.

Meanwhile, Russia uses Transdnistrian territory to conduct a CM strike against Ukraine air bases. Well, is that an act of war too then?

I mean, I shouldn't even bother finding hypocritical Russian propaganda, but it's funny that those two popped up within an hour of one another.

U.S. and allies quietly prepare for a Ukrainian government-in-exile and a long insurgency

During an official visit, a Ukrainian special operations commander told Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and other lawmakers that they were shifting training and planning to focus on maintaining an armed opposition, relying on insurgent-like tactics.

Ukrainian officials told the lawmakers that they were frustrated that the United States had not sent Harpoon missiles to target Russian ships and Stinger missiles to attack Russian aircraft, Moulton and Waltz said in separate interviews. The United States diverted some military aid to Ukraine that it had planned to send to Afghanistan, but that package mostly included small arms, ammunition and medical kits meant for a fight against the Taliban, not Russia, said Waltz, who served in Afghanistan as a Special Forces officer.

As the Russian military struggles with logistical challenges — including fuel and food shortages — Waltz anticipates that the Ukrainians will repeatedly strike Russian supply lines. To do that, they need a steady supply of weapons and the ability to set improvised explosive devices, he said.

“Those supply lines are going to be very, very vulnerable, and that’s where you really literally starve the Russian army.”

Moulton, who served in Iraq as a Marine Corps infantry officer, said that he is in favor of sending Harpoons and Stingers — the administration has decided to send the latter weapons, according to a U.S. official and a document obtained by The Washington Post — but that using them also will require training.

“You can’t ship them to Ukraine at the last minute and expect some national guardsman to pick up a Stinger and shoot down an aircraft,” he said. Continuing a resistance campaign will require continued clandestine shipments of small arms, ammunition, explosives and even cold-weather gear.

More than 4,500 antiwar protesters arrested in one day in Russia, group says

Authorities on Sunday arrested at least 4,640 people across 56 cities in Russia, reported OVD-Info, which was declared a foreign agent by Russian authorities last year during Putin’s sweeping suppression of activists, rights groups and opposition figures. The group reported multiple instances of excessive force against protesters, including beatings and use of stun guns. Among those detained were 13 journalists and 113 juveniles.

[...]

Footage from reporters in Russia showed a large police presence at demonstrations across the country, many clad in riot gear or driving armored trucks. Journalists with Western outlets — citing Russia’s newly-passed law restricting discussion of the invasion — spoke elliptically about the “situation” in Ukraine as they narrated protesters’ arrests.

[...]

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, antiwar protests have occurred daily, OVD-Info reported. Russia has detained at least 13,000 protesters in 147 cities.

Interesting if true - here in a analysis (translated by Some Guy) allegedly from inside the FSB.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1500301348780199937.html.

Our Blitzkrieg has totally collapsed. It is impossible to complete the task: If Zelensky and his deputies were captured in the first 3 days, all key buildings also captured, and they were forced to read an address of their surrender to the country,
then Ukraine’s resistance would have likely dissolved to a minimal level. Theoretically. But then what? Even in this IDEAL outcome, there remained an unsolvable problem: Who is the counterparty to our negotiations?

P.S. if you, like me, don't have a twitter account, threadreaderapp.com allows you to review twitter links, as twitter now prevents reading all but the very top of a thread, even when you come in through a link >-(

Edit: Apparently this leak (not necessarily translation) has been endorsed by an executive at Bellingcat, which is good I guess, although bellingcat has some issues.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1500196510054637569.html

I also added an excerpt.

Russian forces attack airfields in Ukraine as Zelensky pleads for fighter jets

Russian forces attacked two key aviation facilities: Ukraine’s Starokostiantyniv military air base, about 150 miles southwest of Kyiv, and a commercial airport at Vinnystia, about 70 miles to the southeast. While the damage could not be independently assessed, the attacks could deprive Ukraine of usable airstrips as the country presses Western allies to send fighter planes to combat Moscow’s invasion.

A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that the military had struck the air base with long-range, high precision weapons, effectively disabling it. Among the targets was a Russian-made air defense system owned by Ukraine, the spokesman said.

I'm no military analyst, but Stinger missiles and drones are looking like a better idea.

Pope Francis dispatches 2 cardinals to Ukraine

The pontiff said Sunday that “the Holy See is willing to do everything to put itself in service for peace.” The papal almsgiver, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, has been dispatched with aid, along with Cardinal Michael Czerny, who is head of the papal office that deals with migration, charity, justice and peace.

Francis did not say where exactly the cardinals had gone, but said they represented him and all Christian people with the message that “war is madness.”

Referring to Ukraine as “that martyred country,” Francis called for a cessation of violence, the establishment of humanitarian corridors and a return to negotiations.

“In Ukraine, rivers of blood and tears are flowing. This is not just a military operation, but a war that sows death, destruction and misery,” he said in his traditional Sunday blessing.

Ukrainian drone enthusiasts sign up to repel Russian forces

Unlike the much larger Turkish-built combat drones that Ukraine has in its arsenal, off-the-shelf consumer drones aren’t much use as weapons — but they can be powerful reconnaissance tools. Civilians have been using the aerial cameras to track Russian convoys and then relay the images and GPS coordinates to Ukrainian troops. Some of the machines have night vision and heat sensors.

But there’s a downside: DJI, the leading provider of consumer drones in Ukraine and around the world, provides a tool that can easily pinpoint the location of an inexperienced drone operator, and no one really knows what the Chinese firm or its customers might do with that data. That makes some volunteers uneasy. DJI declined to discuss specifics about how it has responded to the war.

Taras Troiak, a dealer of DJI drones who started the Kyiv retail store, said DJI has been sending mixed signals about whether it’s providing preferential access to — or disabling — its drone detection platform AeroScope, which both sides of the conflict can potentially use to monitor the other’s flight paths and the communication links between a drone and the device that’s controlling it.

[...]

In the meantime, Ukrainian drone experts said they’ve been doing whatever they can to teach operators how to protect their whereabouts.

[...]

Ukraine has a thriving community of drone experts, some of whom were educated at the National Aviation University or the nearby Kyiv Polytechnic University and went on to found local drone and robotics startups.

Food Protectionism Is Spreading as Hungary Bans Grain Exports

Protectionist measures -- which already picked up in recent years as the Covid-19 pandemic sparked worries about local supplies and high prices -- could spell more bad news for global food trade. The war in Ukraine has brought crop shipments from much of the crucial Black Sea region to a halt, heightening fears of shortages of grain and sunflower oil.

[...]

Argentina, a major grain shipper, is creating a mechanism to guarantee wheat supplies for local millers and tame pasta prices. Top flour exporter Turkey boosted the agriculture ministry’s authority over exports of an array of goods, allowing it to make “periodical arrangements” if needed.

Hungary’s ban takes effect immediately, and a government decree will soon be published, its agriculture minister said. The country had sold about 127,000 tons of soft-wheat abroad so far this season.

Elsewhere in Europe, Bulgaria -- a much larger exporter -- is working on a system to buy grain that can be used to meet its population’s needs, the government said after a meeting with producer lobby groups on Friday.

An association of grain producers in the country had said cargoes are unofficially being obstructed from leaving ports, although the agriculture minister denied any export ban. That comes as buyers flock to alternative origins with Ukrainian ports shuttered.

It seems Russia is requiring all servers and domain names to be switched to .ru by March 11.