The Russian Invasion of the Ukraine.

[Trebuchet]

The big An-225 Mriya airplane is reported as having been destroyed by Russian forces.

Photos here.

Senseless vandalism. This makes me very sad as I saw the aircraft in person when it passed through Everett, Washington, years ago on the way to an air show. Everyone at Boeing was wanting the company to roll a 747 over to park next to it for comparison.

 

[Andy_Ross]

That's a big step by Sweden! They are abandoning neutrality!

That's sending Putin a strong message.

 

[Andy_Ross]

BBC Rolling
Sweden to send arms to Ukraine

Sweden has announced it will send military equipment and other aid to Ukraine.

Announcing the move, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said it would be the first time Sweden had sent weapons to a country in conflict since the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939.

She said the shipments would include 5,000 single-use anti-tank launchers, 5,000 pieces of body armour, and 5,000 helmets as well as 135,000 ration packs.

"My conclusion is now that our security is best served by us supporting Ukraine's ability to defend itself against Russia," Andersson said.

 

[Ryokan]

Not that I know anything about how to win a battle, but I might make taking the enemies' mobile phone network out a priority...

Knocking out communications is supposed to be step #1 in an invasion.

 

[crescent]

That being said, it seems to me like if I were in charge of the Russian invasion, knocking out the Ukranian cell phone network would be a good idea. I'm not sure why it hasn't been done.

One of the little warning signs seen the day before the invasion was that Russian forces in the area were ordered to stop using radio. As we now know, some of the "hysterical" western intelligence prior to the invasion were dead-on correct. They might have decided that the west was somehow decrypting radio communications. Given the state of the Russian military, that's plausible - not in the idea of using massive supercomputing juju to crack the code, but more like slipping a few bucks to some Russian recruit Corporal to get one of their radios or a flash drive with the software on it.

They might have ordered the lower level troops to also stop using their cell phones, but I think the upper level guys still need them. Hoping that whatever encryption the phones have + hiding their communications in with civilian use of the network might be enough to provide some semblance of secure communications.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Russian police have arrested about 2,000 people at nearly 50 anti-war protests around the country, according to an independent Russian monitoring organisation.

OVD-Info says more than 5,000 Russian protesters have now been arrested since the invasion of Ukraine.

 

[jimbob]

How is he still unclear on the idea that Russia is an enemy?

I take it you haven't come across Peter Hitchens.

He's no Christopher Hitchens.

 

[Meadmaker]

None of that says "zero-sum thinking" to me.

It all says "caroonish Bond villain" to me.

To me, it looks like a massive miscalculation and action that cannot be successful, for a purpose that was unclear in the first place.


However, this is far from over. We'll see how it shakes out in the end. Maybe Putin will prove that he was a genius after all. Right now, it's not looking like that to me.

 

[Galaxie]

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1497987657212874756?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1497987657212874756%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2Fliveupdate%2F18hnzysb1elcs%2FLiveUpdate_fd77afd6-97f6-11ec-8794-4ee64c9c9803%2F0

A group of 10 special operations forces veterans are staging in Poland and preparing to cross into Ukraine, where they plan to take up Zelensky on his offer to join a new foreign military unit, according to a US Army veteran arranging their passage.

 

[Meadmaker]

One of the little warning signs seen the day before the invasion was that Russian forces in the area were ordered to stop using radio. As we now know, some of the "hysterical" western intelligence prior to the invasion were dead-on correct. They might have decided that the west was somehow decrypting radio communications. Given the state of the Russian military, that's plausible - not in the idea of using massive supercomputing juju to crack the code, but more like slipping a few bucks to some Russian recruit Corporal to get one of their radios or a flash drive with the software on it.

They might have ordered the lower level troops to also stop using their cell phones, but I think the upper level guys still need them. Hoping that whatever encryption the phones have + hiding their communications in with civilian use of the network might be enough to provide some semblance of secure communications.

So they're depending on the cell network for their own communications?

Could be. Outside of my realm of knowledge. It seems to me that if they have to do that, they're in a bad, bad, way.

 

[jimbob]

I remember when the Soviet Union just sort of collapsed. One day it was there with a lot of problems, the next it just seemed to have tipped over. Perhaps this Ukraine thing will be the shove that finally knocks Putin's regime over. Because even if Russia's ultimate victorious in this it doesn't sound like it'll be a clean, positive victory for them. If Putin after years of strongman flexing serves up a dog's breakfast will his subjects accept it? It's possible to win so badly it's no better than a loss.

Indeed.

Putin is only secure as long as he can convince his potential challengers that he's in control and in touch with reality so any coup would be dangerous.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

...
Here is a video taken from inside one of the houses of the vehicles arriving.
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1497838808104116227

No spacing between the vehicles, guns down/not at the ready, terrible situational awareness, packed in narrow street with no visibility.
They have no training on securing a position, dispersal, patrolling or conducting operations in enemy or contested territory, they got destroyed

People are sending the locations of Russian vehicles to the military to organise strikes against them!

It looks like the "invasion stripes" have switched from a Z to a V today.

 

[Oystein]

None of that says "zero-sum thinking" to me.

Hmmm.
For a sum of two summands to be zero, there are two possibilities:
- Both summands are zero
- One summand is <0, the other is >0

Corrolary: If both summands are >0, the sum cannot be zero; if both summands are <0, the sum cannot be zero.

I gave two examples where Putin appears to believe, contrary to common understanding that it is not possible that both sides could win (both summands >0) or both sides lose (summands <0).
This is consistent with him believing that politics, econonics and war (or, taken together, statesmanship) is a zero-sum game: If the other side loses, then automatically his side wins. That's why he refuses cooperation and engages in war.

Does that clear it up a bit?

 

[crescent]

There's an interesting side story in all this: Indian students in Ukraine.

Apparently, there are thousands of Indians attending university in Ukraine. India has always had pretty good relations with Russia (and had pretty good relations with the USSR before that while attempting to also have good relations with the U.S. - that was not an easy line to walk during the Cold War).

The current Indian government is a bit more pro-Russian than the average Indian position. So when Russia was denying any intent to invade, the Indian government took that at face value and did not encourage Indians in Ukraine to evacuate - not until it was too late.

Now there is a bit of panic among Indians still stuck in Ukraine and their families back home. Doesn't seem to be enough to change overall Indian opinion on the matter though.

Here's a tweet on the subject, no the only one.

 

[theprestige]

Have you seen the picture of him riding a bear through a forest?

Yes. What's your point?

 

[jimbob]

https://metro.co.uk/2022/02/26/anon...se-in-major-victory-during-cyberwar-16179039/

Just hours after declaring cyberwar on Russia, hacker group Anonymous has claimed a significant victory.

They managed to breach the Russian Ministry of Defence’s database and posted it online for the world to see.

Among the information are emails, passwords and telephone numbers.

 

[theprestige]

If he wasn't zero-sum then he'd want to trade with Ukraine rather than invade it.

That analysis seems overly simplistic to me.

 

[Andy_Ross]

It looks like the "invasion stripes" have switched from a Z to a V today.

There will probably be a number of unit markings in use. Each battalion or regiment will need to identify itself. I wouldn't have expected the Z to be on all the vehicles involved.

 

[ThatGuy11200]

EU announce new sanctions

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc would, for the first time in its history, "finance the purchase and delivery of weapons and other equipment to a country that is under attack".

She also said that three new tranches of sanctions would be introduced. They are:

Banning all Russian aircraft from its airspace
Prohibition on all Russian-owned, Russian-registered, and Russian-controlled aircraft from landing, take off, or overfly of the territory of the European Union.

Banning the "Kremlin's media machine"

State-owned Russia Today and Sputnik, as well as their subsidiaries, will no longer be able to "spread their lies to justify Putin's war,"

Widening its existing sanctions to target Belarus
"Lukashenko's regime is complicit in the vicious attack against Ukraine,"

And, apparently, Boris Johnson has threatened to watch a different news channel from now on.

 

[Galaxie]

https://twitter.com/michaelh992/status/1498005454202544132?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1498005454202544132%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2Fliveupdate%2F18hnzysb1elcs%2FLiveUpdate_2f862146-97fd-11ec-85c6-fef3aadce35a%2F0

I am wondering if the Mayor of Kyiv is speaking literally when saying that the city is "surrounded". We've been mapping out the Russian offensive, and it seems to me that areas southwest of Kyiv only saw sporadic clashes during Vasylkiv assault yesterday

The mayor says Kyiv is "encircled" & "at the border of a humanitarian catastrophe."
"The infrastructure is destroyed to deliver the food and medication.”