Megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - March 11-13

Day 16 of the war.
My average heart rate has returned to normal. My SO is traumatized and looking for therapists, but she is feeling okay. Her sister is sleeping in her bed; met her yesterday. I skated for the first time in weeks… was very difficult for me to go back there but I’m glad I did.
I've recently completed my first aid courses; next month I'm doing advanced first aid, as well as firearm training. Thirty years of being anti-gun; I don’t even recognise myself anymore.

Here are the usual links. I will edit this post over the weekend.

Russia

Beyond sanctions, a lot of companies have stopped operating in Russia. Too many to list. This is a helpful graphic of which large brands are still operating there (As of the time of this writing, a few more have pulled out, such as Mars).
Most of them didn't have to pull out. It's helpful to think about why they're doing it.
For many, it makes economic sense: Russia is becoming a net negative market, where it costs more to operate than you'd get back due to its crashing economy.
For some others, it's a way of reducing risk. Operating in Russia carries the risks you might lose your employees to a variety of war-related or autocratic hiccups, such as conscription, civil unrest, random jailing, etc.
Social pressure / fear of being cancelled is of course also part of the equation. But there is a large group that is stopping services in Russia because they genuinely want nothing to do with it, and feel that by staying in the market they're implicitly supporting the war, especially as everybody else is pulling out.

Some major headlines of the 48 hours:

• Visa and Mastercard have now stopped operating in Russia
• Google is no longer providing paid apps via its app store, and turned off YouTube monetization for Russians.
• Scott Kelly has returned his medal to Dmitry Medvedev

Ukraine

• I'm sure you've all heard of the children's hospital and maternity ward that has been bombed in Mariupol. ICYMI:

  • https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-boris-johnson-business-europe-united-nations-bf2bcfb3a499d688e3075f2d4cf54989
  • https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/03/10/7330042/

• Canada is sending 50MM USD of military aid (offense and defense)

• IMF approved 1.4bn USD aid to Ukraine

• Ukrainians successfully defusing a bomb with their bare hands. This video blew me away. Pun not originally intended.

• An excellent article about the resilience of Ukrainian internet (Obligatory XKCD)

• Google is rolling out an air raid alert system for Android

• Russians have struck Belarus from Ukrainian airspace, allegedly to provoke Belarus further into the war

• The WSJ writes about Kharkiv. Long article with photos. https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-the-rubble-of-ukraines-second-largest-city-survivors-make-their-stand-nobody-wants-the-russians-11647013623

• Russia brings 11 engineers to Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
  

• Russia is preparing an assault on Kyiv: https://kyivindependent.com/national/russia-concentrates-military-power-for-kyiv-assault/

• Russians are trying to organize a sham separatist ‘referendum’ in Kherson (currently under Russian control), mimicking what they did in eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014

World news

• In the Czech republic, there is talk of classifying the "Z" symbol as a symbol of hate. This puts it on par with swastikas and has legal repercussions (American Tilders may not be familiar with this but in Europe, many countries take this kind of shit pretty seriously).
• Twitter has had to delete disinformation / hate posts from the Russian embassy. A sign of things to come.
• In Belgium, Flanders is refusing new applications from Russian students. This article highlights the pitfalls and the very thin line to walk on.
• Still in my country we’re having trouble processing Ukrainian refugees.
• Warsaw and Krakow now unable to accept more refugees
• Germany plans to be independent of Russian oil and coal by EOY. (This could have all been avoided…)
• EU: Website launched to inform Ukrainians fleeing war about arrival in EU

Putin is worried about his death and goes to a fortune teller. He asks: “What can you tell me about my death?”
The fortune teller responds: “I see it clearly. You die on a Ukrainian holiday.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Any day you die will be a Ukrainian holiday”.

I don't think this matters much in the short term (does Putin care about demographics?), but a bit of perspective:

Why Russia can’t afford to spare its young soldiers anymore

The incomprehensible thing about this war is that Russia is not a belligerent young nation in need of expansion; it is not filled with frustrated young men hoping to assert themselves in conflict, as with Syria, Afghanistan or the world’s other conflict zones; it is already elderly, ageing quickly and in some parts heading for oblivion. Some 20,000 Russian villages have been completely abandoned in recent years, and 36,000 others have fewer than ten inhabitants left and will follow them soon. A third of land once farmed in the former USSR has now been abandoned.

If the Russians turn out to have no stomach for this fight, it will probably be for the simple fact that the country does not have enough men to spare. The majority of those poor young men killed for Russia’s honour will be their mother’s only son, in many cases their only child; this will make the impact of Putin’s crimes even more devastating for its victims.

For the same is true of Ukraine; indeed its rate of population decline is even worse. Across huge swathes of the planet, in an ‘infertile crescent’ from Spain to Singapore, the population is aging quite rapidly, and about to begin a steep decline [...]

[...]

In the 1930s, when Spain erupted into war, the median age was half of what it is now. In the early 1990s the median age in Bosnia was less than 30, while today it is over 40. When Lebanon’s civil war began the average Lebanese man would have been one of six children and three brothers. Today he is one of just two siblings. That is at least partly why recent political instability and financial crisis has not led to a repeat of the war. Morland cites ‘studies of decade-long periods reveal[ing] that there is almost no civil war in countries where 55 per cent or more of the population is aged over thirty.’

‘While it cannot be said that youthfulness “causes” war,’ he writes, ‘or that maturity “causes” peace, a society’s age structure creates background conditions against which other things either do or don’t spark conflict.’ Like with a dry forest, conditions on the ground will determine whether a spark proves disastrous.

In Ukraine, tech platforms abandon the illusion of neutrality (Washington Post)

Just two months ago, the privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo was trending on Twitter because conservative pundits and activists were hailing it as an unbiased alternative to Google. Specifically, they appreciated that DuckDuckGo surfaced results that espoused a conspiracy theory pushed by a recent guest of the podcaster Joe Rogan, whereas Google’s results were mostly debunkings.

They may not have realized that DuckDuckGo’s results, which are supplied in large part by Microsoft’s Bing, weren’t “unbiased” on purpose. They were merely less effective than Google’s at surfacing more reliable sources of information. DuckDuckGo knew that, of course. But over the years, it had encouraged such misunderstandings by promoting its search engine as “neutral” and “unbiased.”

On Friday, DuckDuckGo found itself trending among conservatives again, but this time it was on the wrong end of their ire. The reason: DuckDuckGo CEO and founder Gabriel Weinberg had announced that the search engine would begin down-ranking sites associated with Russian disinformation.

[...]

The reality, as all major search engine providers have long privately understood, is that there is no such thing as an unbiased search algorithm. The whole point of search engines is to rank results according to some subjective set of criteria, which typically include things like the relevance of the page, the reputation of the source, and feedback from users and testers about the quality of the results. Surfacing reliable information over disinformation has always been the goal.

Like so many others I am sickened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the gigantic humanitarian crisis it continues to create. #StandWithUkraine️

At DuckDuckGo, we've been rolling out search updates that down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation.

https://twitter.com/yegg/status/1501716484761997318

Internet has opinions. News at 11.

Putin’s pre-war moves against U.S. tech giants laid groundwork for crackdown on free expression (Washington Post)

Russian agents came to the home of Google’s top executive in Moscow to deliver a frightening ultimatum last September: take down an app that had drawn the ire of Russian President Vladimir Putin within 24 hours or be taken to prison.

Google quickly moved the woman to a hotel where she checked in under an assumed name and might be protected by the presence of other guests and hotel security, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The same agents — believed by company officials to be from Russia’s FSB, a successor to the KGB intelligence service — then showed up at her room to tell her the clock was still ticking.

Within hours, an app designed to help Russians register protest votes against Putin could no longer be downloaded from Google or Apple, whose main representative in Moscow faced a similarly harrowing sequence.

[...]

Moscow deployed new devices that let it degrade or even block Russians’ access to Facebook and Twitter, imposed fines totaling $120 million on firms accused of defying Kremlin censors, and ordered 13 of the world’s largest technology companies to keep employees in Russia and thus exposed to potential arrest or other punishment for their employers’ actions — a measure that U.S. executives refer to as the “hostage law.”

[...]

Even after the threat to its executive, Google kept its employees in Russia and continued to negotiate with the Kremlin on ways to comply with the so-called landing law putting company officials there at risk of arrest or other punishment, according to industry executives familiar with the discussions. Those talks were still underway, one executive said, even after U.S. officials were warning that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was imminent.

Apple has similarly kept employees in Russia and taken other steps to placate the Kremlin. The company last year began configuring iPhones sold in Russia to promote Kremlin-backed social media companies, enabling users to activate them with a single click. It is an accommodation Apple has rarely made elsewhere and advances Putin’s goal of migrating Russian people to platforms controlled by the government, according to Russia analysts.

[...]

The war in Ukraine has scrambled those calculations, and, at least in some corridors of Silicon Valley, led to bouts of second-guessing.

“There is concern about the employees we have there,” said an executive with one of the companies that has been a target of pressure by the Kremlin. “There may come a point where [my] company decides it’s not worth it anymore and just completely pulls up stakes.” He and others spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the situation’s sensitivity.

The White House is briefing TikTok stars about the war in Ukraine

Another breakdown of how no-fly-zones get real complicated real quick - I think the Russians might not do us the favor of keeping this on the limited scale as the iraqis did. Part of me really wants to quicksave and see how this would play out though. If NATO started enforcing a no-fly-zone in Ukraine, sure the Russians would shoot back over Ukraine. But would they actually attack us over NATO territory? With all his military tied down in Ukraine, I can't imagine Putin wants to get Article 5'd.

Anyway, before we do something silly, consider that we'd have to pretty much eliminate Russian air defenses in Ukraine. Here's an illustration of how that might look. It's probably not totally accurate, but the gist should be about right, assuming Russia brings long-range SAMs in position in/around Ukraine... which I don't doubt.

Life Underground in Bomb-Shattered Kharkiv

Station staff estimate that between 1,000 and 3,000 people stay in the station each day, down from more than 5,000 people a week ago, since many have managed to flee. Some have lived in these conditions since the first day of the war.

The other day I was wondering about NATO Electronic Warfare capabilities in the air near Ukraine. - I might have found an explanation of how the ground-observation parts of that (GlobalHawk, E-8) work. Though of course that doesn't give us a good estimate of range capabilities of this system. 250km is the number the Air Force gives for the E-8. That'd be only halfway from Poland to Kyiv, in a region with very little action. Who knows what the actual real-world number is.

Despite risks and official warnings, U.S. veterans join Ukrainian war effort

Perkins emphasized that many volunteers are headed to noncombat roles, underscoring the need for specialties that reach beyond fighting. Some are focused on first aid. Others volunteered to pluck children and the elderly from besieged areas and spirit them to safety across the border.

Finnish govt agency warns of unusual aircraft GPS interference

Finland's Transport and Communications Agency, Traficom, has issued a public announcement informing of an unusual spike in GPS interference near the country's eastern border.

The origin of the interference remains unknown, but based on numerous reports submitted to the agency from various sources, it has started during the weekend and is still ongoing.

[...]

Notably, on Sunday, several Transaviabaltika planes flying to Savonlinna, Finland, were forced to return to Tallinn, Estonia, due to a failure in the onboard GPS navigation system.

[...]

There have been previous reports of navigation problems of several ships in the Black Sea, linking Russia to the 2017 incident.

In December 2017, Norwegian authorities accused Russia of widespread disruption of GPS navigation during military drills. In November 2018, NATO military exercises in Finland faced similar problems.

This time, the interference coincided with the meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Finland's President Sauli Ninisto. At this time, the country mulls joining NATO, which is not met with enthusiasm in Kremlin.

According to reports, the interference isn't limited to Finland but also affects Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and the broader Baltic region.

These are the Cluster Munitions Documented by Ukrainian Civilians (Bellingcat)

In recent weeks, Bellingcat has documented these weapons landing near schools, hospitals and in residential areas of Ukrainian cities such as Kharkiv, Odesa and Kherson, seemingly often far away from noticeable military targets.

[...]

Identifying the type of cluster munitions being used can, in some cases, help provide clues as to who is using them. How and where they land can also help identify where they are being fired from.

Below are the types of cluster munition we have seen so far. We encourage readers who have noticed uses of these, or other types of cluster munitions, to reply to our Twitter thread here to help us collect, archive and investigate further.

A drone crashed in croatia. Presumed to have come there from Ukraine. Quoted speed info does not match the Ukrainian-employed Bayraktar drone. Like, at all. Since the distance is substantial and the drone must be quite large, I think it's safe to say it's not one of the countless civilian drones pressed into Ukrainian service recently. So presumably Russian, or a TU-141? I can't find much info on what kind of drones Russia operates, so hard to say which type, if it's theirs.

Anyone taking bets on whether NATO electronic warfare led that ship astray? Or just more incompetence?

(Also, would that be an act of war? Remote-abducting an UAV that is? The Iranians did it once, and their nation is still intact.)

Edit: Bit more reading and it seems that experts on the ground think it's a TU-141, but with soviet/russian markings? Color me confused.

A top Wikipedia editor has been arrested in Belarus

Zerkalo also reports that Berstein had been accused of editing Wikipedia articles about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, none of the information in the Telegram channels clearly specifies exactly what, if anything, Bernstein has officially been charged with. In an activity log of Bernstein’s purported Wikimedia username, you can see that he’s made over 200,000 edits to Russian Wikipedia articles. Currently, his account is described as “blocked indefinitely.”

In the Russian Wikipedia channel on Telegram, users in Belarus and Russia were also advised to hide personal data and to only edit articles about the war from other accounts.

Does anyone know of ways it’s still possible to send money to people in Russia? My grandma is 86 and lives in Moscow, I’d like to make sure she can still afford to buy groceries, and my Russian language teacher can no longer receive payments through the platform we use.

Civilians got through most humanitarian corridors, Ukrainian deputy prime minister says

Nine of the 14 proposed corridors worked as designed, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said, a notable development after officials had repeatedly reported that Russia was violating cease-fire agreements designed to provide civilians safe passage out of bombarded cities. Vereshchuk said nearly 13,000 people were moved Saturday, nearly twice the amount who had made it out of a smaller number of cities the day before.

“Which of course very, very much gives us hope,” she said.

Nearly 8,000 were evacuated from Sumy in northeastern Ukraine, while the corridors leading from Enerhodar, Vorzel and Irpin were not clear, Vereshchuk said.

One of the highest-profile evacuation attempts, from the southeastern port city of Mariupol, remains impeded.