Megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - March 23-24

Good afternoon Tildes. Tomorrow marks the first month of the war.

It's been a tumultuous month. My SO and I have both aged 10 years, and her sister three times that. As a couple people are aware already, it's put strain on an already difficult relationship and we broke up. (It's not exactly the first time we do so either, and we're still in regular contact and helping each other out, there's no bad feelings there).

Biden is coming to Brussels tomorrow, half the city is closed off. Estimations are a cost of 2000€/minute in fact. It's kinda neat.

The Associated Press marks 1 month of the war in Photos here: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-zelenskyy-europe-5095691ab6a2c0b12874aa4fa30e23cf

Other news…

• Nestlé is finally pulling out of Russia. They were a pretty significant holdout, and there were some good justifications for it (they provide essential products). Resolution seems good IMO.
• Belarus has expelled Ukrainian diplomats. In general, Belarus has been preparing to actively enter the conflict, but it seems like its citizens are absolutely not on board with this, so they're stuck.
• A grim status report intercepted from Russia
• Analysis of NYT graphics - this is just a neat thing.
• An article about Ukrainians in Spain
• Russian defense minister not seen in almost two weeks. Russia cites "heart problems".
• Oh yeah, also, Russians have started using more chemical weapons. These. In general, the indimidation keeps amping up. They're sending more planes, they're targeting more civilians, they're using worse weapons.

Tonight, the Kyiv Independent is holding a Twitter Spaces talking about the first month of the war.
https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1506620624306901011

I'll edit this with more later.

Putin Adviser Chubais Quits Over Ukraine War, Leaves Russia

Chubais, 66, is one of the few 1990s-era economic reformers who’d remained in Putin’s government and had maintained close ties with Western officials. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Known as the architect of Russia’s 1990s privatizations, Chubais gave Putin his first Kremlin job in the mid-1990s and initially welcomed his rise to power at the end of that decade. Under Putin, Chubais took top jobs at big state companies until the president named him envoy for sustainable development last year.

Chubais announced his resignation in a letter to colleagues and friends Tuesday, according to people who saw it. Last week, he hinted at a darkened outlook, saying in a post on Facebook on the anniversary of the death of Yegor Gaidar that the fellow economic reformer “understood the strategic risks better than I did and I was wrong.”

In his 2006 book, “Death of Empire,” Gaidar warned of the temptations of imperial nostalgia for the Soviet Union he saw growing under Putin. “It’s not difficult to convince society that a state that collapsed so suddenly can be just as quickly rebuilt,” he wrote. “That’s an illusion, a dangerous one.”

I posted this in the last megathread too, but IMO it's worth repeating again here:

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.

Another important news is that an online tool has been created for everyone who can and wants to help with humanitarian goods for Ukraine.

In the last two weeks alone, our country has received more than 100,000 tons of humanitarian aid.

These cargoes are quickly distributed through special hubs for the regions. But there are even more appeals. Even more opportunities. Even more work.

Therefore, to simplify the process as much as possible, the website help.gov.ua was created.

On the website you can learn how to buy, how to send and whom to address humanitarian aid. This is for everyone who wants to join. For anyone who can help. In Ukraine and in the world. So that the aid is sent constantly, 24/7.

President Zelenskyy tells NATO to never say that Ukrainian army doesn’t meet the alliance’s standards again.

https://mobile.twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1506955120885604356

I thought this was hilarious.

Russian warship destroyed in occupied port of Berdyansk, says Ukraine
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60859337.amp

Russia Central Banker Wanted Out Over Ukraine, Putin Said No (Bloomberg)

Nominated for a new five-year term last week, Nabiullina’s current views couldn’t be learned. She is left to manage the fallout from a war that’s quickly undone much of what’s she’s accomplished in the nine years since she took office. The people said departure now would be seen as a betrayal by the president, with whom she has worked closely for nearly two decades.

[...]

Some central bank officials describe a state of hopelessness in the weeks since the invasion, feeling trapped in an institution that they fear will have little use for their market-oriented skills and experience as Russia is cut off from the world. At one point, the pace of departures was intense enough that the IT department was short of hands to terminate accounts. Arrows plastered along passageways steered employees through the final bureaucracy on their way out.

[...]

Before the invasion, officials modeled scenarios that included a possible cut-off from the SWIFT financial messaging service but considered the possibility of sanctions on the central bank’s reserves too extreme to be anything but hypothetical, people familiar with the situation said.

In Ukrainian town, reality doesn’t match government boasts of victory over Russian forces (Washington Post)

“The military doesn’t control all of Makariv, only partially,” said Mayor Vadim Tokar, standing on the town’s outskirts shortly after the shells landed. “It’s 100 percent no-go for civilians to return.”

[...]

Senior government officials have continued to declare that Makariv is no longer occupied by Russians. “From official sources, we received information that a small city, Makariv, and almost all of Irpin are already in the control of Ukrainian soldiers,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told reporters Wednesday.

Tokar, the mayor, said the reality on the ground was different. As of Wednesday, he said, Russian forces were still in control of roughly 15 percent of the town, an area they have held for nearly three weeks with little shifting of the front lines. There were no signs Wednesday that any of the roughly 15,000 residents who have fled since the Russian invasion began last month were returning to the town.

[...]

Tokar also put up the Ukrainian flag. On March 14, he said, a Russian shell landed near the municipal building and destroyed the flagpole, but left the flag more or less intact. Two days later, he put the flag back when the bombardment subsided. It was a symbolic gesture, he said.

"We put up the flag not to show that Makariv is liberated but to raise the morale of the citizens and the soldiers who are defending Makariv,” he said. “It is part of our identity and we need to have it. All the Ukrainian cities have it and only those which are occupied don’t.”

Even without the propaganda, Makariv, roughly 30 miles west of Kyiv, has in many ways been a success story for Ukrainian forces. The Russians are trying to use it as a possible entry point to topple the national government in the capital. And so far, as in other areas around Kyiv, the Russian advance has stalled because of the Ukrainian forces’ remarkably successful guerrilla-style tactics.

[...]

On Wednesday, fewer than 1,000 residents were still living in the town — out of a prewar population of about 15,000. Those whose houses were destroyed in the shelling are spending nights in the basement of the town’s hospital, Tokar said. On Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, shells that fell near the facility destroyed a few cars but did not cause any injuries, he added.

Mexico’s ruling party boosts Russia ‘friendship’ committee

A half-dozen legislators from Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Morena party joined Wednesday in creating a congressional “Mexico-Russia Friendship Committee,” almost a month after Russian troops invaded Ukraine.

It was the latest in a string of events that suggest there is some sympathy for Russia in Mexico’s ruling party, despite the invasion.

About two dozen congress members from Morena and the allied Labor Party applauded Russian Ambassador Viktor Koronelli Wednesday after he addressed the committee, which met at Congress.

“For us this is a sign of support, of friendship, of solidarity in these complicated times in which my country is not just facing a special military operation in Ukraine, but a tremendous media war,” Koronelli said. “Russia didn’t start this war, it is finishing it.”

Russia has outlawed calling the invasion by that name, and instead calls it “a special military operation.”

Morena Congressman Armando Contreras Castillo said: “We are always ready to do everything we can to increase the friendship, relations and cooperation between Mexico and Russia in every aspect of the world and life.”

DIY Volunteers Are Repairing Ukraine’s Destroyed Internet Infrastructure
https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjbapv/diy-volunteers-are-repairing-ukraines-destroyed-internet-infrastructure

I know I've read about this in a few places in the recent past. Sorry if it has been posted on Tildes already.

How Ukraine’s Outgunned Air Force Is Fighting Back Against Russian Jets (NY Times)

(This is a link with an unlock code shared on Twitter but I don't know if it will work for others.)

Nearly a month into the fighting, one of the biggest surprises of the war in Ukraine is Russia’s failure to defeat the Ukrainian Air Force. Military analysts had expected Russian forces to quickly destroy or paralyze Ukraine’s air defenses and military aircraft, yet neither has happened. Instead, Top Gun-style aerial dogfights, rare in modern warfare, are now raging above the country.

“Every time when I fly, it’s for a real fight,” said Andriy, who is 25 and has flown 10 missions in the war. “In every fight with Russian jets, there is no equality. They always have five times more” planes in the air.

The success of Ukrainian pilots has helped protect Ukrainian soldiers on the ground and prevented wider bombing in cities, since pilots have intercepted some Russian cruise missiles. Ukrainian officials also say the country’s military has shot down 97 fixed-wing Russian aircraft. That number could not be verified but the crumpled remnants of Russian fighter jets have crashed into rivers, fields and houses.

The Ukrainian Air Force is operating in near total secrecy. Its fighter jets can fly from air strips in western Ukraine, airports that have been bombed yet retain enough runway for takeoffs or landings — or even from highways, analysts say. They are vastly outnumbered: Russia is believed to fly some 200 sorties per day while Ukraine flies five to 10.

[...]

Dave Deptula, dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and the principal attack planner for the Desert Storm air campaign in Iraq, said the impressive performance of the Ukrainian pilots had helped counter their disadvantages in numbers. He said Ukraine now has roughly 55 operational fighter jets, a number that is dwindling from shoot-downs and mechanical failures, as Ukrainian pilots are “stressing them to max performance.”

[...]

Most of the aerial combat in Ukraine has been nocturnal, as Russian aircraft attack in the dark when they are less vulnerable to air defenses. In the dogfights over Ukraine, Andriy said, the Russians have been flying an array of modern Sukhoi jets, such as the Su-30, Su-34 and Su-35.

U.S. will accept 100,000 Ukrainians fleeing war, Biden says

Administration officials said they are still working out the details of how the Ukrainians will be admitted, but their goal is to admit up to 100,000. They would be brought into the United States through a variety of legal pathways, including the conventional U.S. refugee program as well as more agile mechanisms such as “humanitarian parole,” which the Biden administration used for tens of thousands of Afghans last year during Operation Allies Welcome, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.

Humanitarian parole provides newcomers with temporary work authorization but not a pathway to citizenship, unlike the formal U.S. refugee program, which carries more legal benefits and protections.

Biden raised to 125,000 the number of refugees the United States is willing to admit during the current fiscal year, but his administration is on pace to receive only 15,000 as a result of processing backlogs and what officials describe as pandemic-related limitations.

NYT Video - Under Fire, Out of Fuel, No Air Support: What Intercepted Russian Radio Chatter Reveals

The Times’s Visual Investigations team analyzed dozens of battlefield radio transmissions between Russian forces during an initial invasion of the town of Makariv, outside Kyiv. They reveal an army struggling with logistical problems and communication failures.