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Megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - March 21-22
This thread is posted Monday/Wednesday/Friday - please try to post relevant content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Especially significant updates may warrant a separate topic, but most should be posted here.
Okay, some of the more interesting links from my 150 tabs, just so i can close a few...
Tweets:
Also a quick shout-out, Open Collective has set up a donation fund for Ukraine. This is especially useful for funded OSS groups to redirect money to Ukraine. Some details:
https://www.ft.com/content/63fc662c-098d-4263-b69b-34d55c9f5e0a
Twitter thread on the absolutely mind blowing work Wise has been doing to facilitate financial transfers into Ukraine.
https://mobile.twitter.com/kaarmann/status/1506259717772951554
This is why I love this company, and as a disclaimer, am heavily invested into it.
Zelenskyy, in his speech tonight, announced that the Ukrainian government has setup an official site for those wishing to send humanitarian aid to the country.
p.s. @Deimos, would it be possible to have that site added to the self-text for these recurring threads?
Ukrainian Railways Chief Says 'Honest' Belarusians Are Cutting Russian Supplies By Train
The story of Voznesensk, where the townsfolk successfully repulsed the Russians after setting a deadly ambush for them, has already been extensively covered by the WSJ, and was submitted to the topic a few days ago. However, the BBC released some pretty incredible video footage of it today, along with interviews with some of the townsfolk, and another (much less detailed) article:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHpX6_B8ArE
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60840081
How Russia’s aggression in Ukraine in 2014 and 2015 is shaping Biden’s actions today (Washington Post)
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Oh wow. To think Obama and Merkel were so clearly in the wrong foreign-policy wise and Biden had the right idea. Something something hindsight. Maybe I'm letting Biden's elderly exterior affect my judgement too much. Far as I can tell, he's been handling the Ukraine situation quite well. Meanwhile, the more conflict-averse politicians like Obama and Merkel; I'm not sure they'd do the right thing.
Remember, Biden is old-school cold war, and all in on realpolitik. Humanity is an unruly bunch and hard decisions have to be made sometimes that really, really suck. But no decision in those sometimes sucks maybe harder.
In retrospect that's true, but I'm wondering how stable Ukraine looked in 2015. Poroshenko is (was?) apparently a prominent Ukrainian oligarch. From Wikipedia:
Burger King holds a quiet stake in its Russian franchisee even as it publicly distances itself, leaked records show
cc: @skybrian since you posted a related article the other day
Why Can’t the West Admit That Ukraine Is Winning?
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/ukraine-is-winning-war-russia/627121/
(12 footable)
I think this is a mistaken argument about what experts can do for us. Predicting how a war will go is very hard and even experts are often wrong. We don't even know what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone how the war will end. What good is calling a winner when it's not over?
Instead I like reading status updates by military experts explaining what's happened in the last day or two and putting it into context. Often, they discuss a range of possibilities for what could happen next. This is more interesting than any one-line summary could be.
I think rule one of news is important here: The title is always bullshit. The article isn't about how Ukraine will win, but about how experts are systematically wrong about it's chances due to various reasons.
What I think we can take from that article though is the notion that this war's outcome will be determined by the people fighting it more than by the arms used. Russia went all-in on a bet on low Ukrainian morale, and that's ultimately what went wrong for them. (Which is not at all to suggest military aid is not important.) Morale is hard to quantify and thus often overlooked. This time, morale is certainly an important enough factor to affect the outcome of the war.
Another point I found interesting:
That's something our overly clickbaity and attention-focused news media often get wrong: Let's focus on the scary pictures of war crimes, because they drive engagement. That is part of the reality on the ground, and it's super important we look at that and know the hell-on-earth scenario that is unfolding on our doorstep. But it's not an accurate reflection of how the war is going. The 40-mile convoy made for such a great narrative of operational failures because it was so striking and thumbnailable. It was a rare case of logistics making the news. Frontpage headlines stay far clear of that kind of stuff unless it's this easily marketed. So most of the time, (unless you go dig for it at least a little bit), this kind of info stays buried in favor of refugees, shelling of cities and other humanitarian issues, or more "domestically relevant" issues like military aid or sanctions. I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about these issues, and for those interested there certainly are the sources available to learn about operations in Ukraine. But it is my impression that the general public is likely not well informed about the military situation on the ground in Ukraine.
A lot of this is availability bias. Access to the military situation is restricted for understandable reasons. I don't think there are any reporters embedded with Ukrainian troops? Let alone Russian troops.
We see things that Ukrainians have decided it's okay for us to see and have to imagine what might be happening that we're not seeing. If it makes Ukrainians look good or Russians look bad it will be shared. Sharing videos of Russian tanks blowing up or of Russian war crimes is good and encouraged.
There is a lot of open source intelligence from satellites and the like, but it's high-level and abstract, along with bits and pieces that someone shared accidentally. Russian mistakes will be shared widely, of course. Ukrainian mistakes would be irresponsible to share publicly.
There are also things like official Pentagon statements, but they're going to be careful what they reveal. Detailed intelligence is likely going directly to Ukrainians. They're not going to share stuff like that with us, not should they. An overall summary is good enough. Hopefully they don't shade the truth too much.
But there is information out there. The stuff you mentioned. A genuine military expert can take what is available, account for availability bias, and digest that for a general audience. Sketch out a picture of Russian operations, dive into what we can learn about Russian and Ukrainian tactics. That's entirely possible, but in mass media it's not really represented.
(I assume you were referring to my last paragraph. If you were referring to my first, let me know.)
Yeah, I guess the question is what "mass media" means to you, and to what extent military experts show up there?
I have no real concept of what the mass media is anymore. Since I read it, I can say that Washington Post does have coverage of the military side of the war.
Yeah, the WaPo is the one media outlet that's specifically called out in that article above as providing good coverage of that sort of thing. I can tell you that if I stuck to my regular news channels in Germany here, I'd be "completely" in the dark, relative to what OSInt produces.
Yes, I doubt anyone would disagree with that, and this article was more about the importance of signaling support for Ukraine now and if/after they do win. I’ll post part of that here.
Yes, there is a change of subject between the beginning and end of this quote. The first paragraph is about whether observers can predict what's going to happen. Of course, the best way to falsify a prediction is to act in a way that changes the game. But the reports I read aren't saying that a stalemate can't be broken, but rather that the Ukrainian army seems to have stopped the Russian advance.
In the second paragraph, it's talking about what government policy should be. This isn't up to military analysts.
There used to be a clear distinction between the news and opinion sections of newspapers and I think that's been lost? This article talks about what opinion columnists should be advocating for, I suppose. That's a distinct question from whether they are doing a good job of explaining what's happening.
Would you mind sharing? Who do you follow?
Sure, here are some:
Institute for the Study of War - A Washington-based think tank.
Jomini of the West - No idea who this is, but they write interesting updates.
Mick Ryan - a retired Australian general. (Doesn't write status updates, but sometimes reshares them.)
Also, I see there are detailed occasional military updates at Critical Threats.
(This is a project of the American Enterprise Institute, which is a right-wing think tank. However, I doubt that makes much difference for Ukraine war coverage.)
Did Russia just admit to 10,000 deaths?
Russian air force action increases despite flood of antiaircraft missiles into Ukraine
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While there seems little news coming from the region at the moment, perhaps it is time to consider that there is more nuance in the politics around this war. Please, by no means, take from this that I am sympathetic to Putin or Russian aggression and Imperialism. But neither am I the greatest fan of American Imperialism, and am skeptical of American-based political involvement around the world.
As such, apparently Ukraine has been the "beneficiary" of American efforts.
From the Guardian some years ago:
This is referring to the Orange Revolution.
There's a lot of news coming from the region, actually. I have over 150 tabs open, purely war-related. I've had to step away from doing the updates on Tildes as it was fucking me up, but I can guarantee you, it's active as ever.
Thanks for keeping the faith.
This is not directly Russia/Ukraine related, but still relevant to how Putin continues attempting to fortify his power within Russia.
Alexei Navalny faces 13 more years in jail after court finds him guilty of fraud
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/22/alexei-navalny-13-years-more-jail-fraud
'They own the long clock’ — How the Russian military is starting to adapt in Ukraine (Task & Purpose)
A short article warning of overconfidence. The enemy is intelligent (sometimes) and will adapt.
(Though, of course, the Ukrainians can adapt too. Why don't the Stingers have thermal sights?)
Another story from the same publication:
An Army vet’s realization in Ukraine: ‘So horrible or heartbreaking that you can’t continue’
Terrible stories coming out from Mariupol. Slightly graphic text/images.
I didn’t know Black Rifle Coffee Company had a web magazine.