Into the abyss: Colonel Douglas Macgregor tells us why the Ukraine war must end now.
Tag: Ukraine
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Ukraine Using Facial Recognition Software to Identify Dead Russians and Tell Their Families
AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda
streiff | RedState
Arguably, Putin’s War, that is, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is the first war that is thoroughly integrated with social media. By way of social media posts, we often get Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) while the target is still smoking. We’ve seen prisoners taken and war crimes committed, aircraft shot down, and turrets popped off tanks. The combination of geocoding media and GIS software has made it possible for private citizens to catalog equipment losses and plot the location of units. Social media has driven the narrative about the war and had much more of a role in shaping public opinion than any of the traditional media.
We also see a passive tool transitioning into an offensive weapon to help shape public opinion, even in totalitarian states like Russia. In early April, this video surfaced. The backstory is that Russian troops steal cell phones from Ukrainian citizens and use them to communicate with their families. In this case, a Russian soldier was killed, and a Ukrainian used the phone to contact the dead Russian’s parents to let them know that their son was dead. It is a bit ugly to watch and was heavily circulated by pro-Russia Twitter accounts as though hurting feelings was vaguely comparable to the sacking of cities and raping of women and children.
Still, no matter how crude the call, it still had an impact. The family knows their son is dead. They know his body is not going to be recovered. They will talk about this with other people. As the time lag between the phone call and the official confirmation grows, some of their anger will be focused on their own government. Young men will hear this story and think twice about reporting for conscription, and their parents, relatives, and friends will aid them in that endeavor.
As in so many cases, something that started out ad hoc can be organized into a coherent action program.
Ukrainian officials have run more than 8,600 facial recognition searches on dead or captured Russian soldiers in the 50 days since Moscow’s invasion began, using the scans to identify bodies and contact hundreds of their families in what may be one of the most gruesome applications of the technology to date.
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The country’s IT Army, a volunteer force of hackers and activists that takes its direction from the Ukrainian government, says it has used those identifications to inform the families of the deaths of 582 Russians, including by sending them photos of the abandoned corpses.The Ukrainians champion the use of face-scanning software from the U.S. tech firm Clearview AI as a brutal but effective way to stir up dissent inside Russia, discourage other fighters and hasten an end to a devastating war.
There are dissenters.
But some military and technology analysts worry that the strategy could backfire, inflaming anger over a shock campaign directed at mothers who may be thousands of miles from the drivers of the Kremlin’s war machine.
The West’s solidarity with Ukraine makes it tempting to support such a radical act designed to capitalize on family grief, said Stephanie Hare, a surveillance researcher in London. But contacting soldiers’ parents, she said, is “classic psychological warfare” and could set a dangerous new standard for future conflicts.
“If it were Russian soldiers doing this with Ukrainian mothers, we might say, ‘Oh, my God, that’s barbaric,’ ” she said. “And is it actually working? Or is it making them say: ‘Look at these lawless, cruel Ukrainians, doing this to our boys?’ ”
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But officials’ strategy of informing families of their loved ones’ demise has raised concerns that it could anger the same Russians they had hoped to persuade. One national security expert said other Ukrainian actions — holding news conferences with captured Russian soldiers and posting to social media photos and videos showing prisoners of war — have been seen inside Russia not as a welcomed exposure to the truth but as a humiliation by the enemy.
I don’t particularly buy that argument because Ukraine has nothing to lose. They are in a battle for the very existence of their country. If they brown off some Russians by this campaign, what will those Russians do? Invade Ukraine and attempt to erase Ukrainian identity?
Nothing is without risk. Several Ukrainian agencies are already using this facial recognition software for other reasons.
Ukrainian agencies, [Clearview AI’s chief executive, Hoan] Ton-That said, have used the app to confirm the identities of people at military checkpoints and to check whether a Ukrainian is a possible Russian infiltrator or saboteur. He argued that the system could deter Russian soldiers from committing war crimes, for fear of being identified, and said the Ukrainians are considering using the tool to verify the identities of Ukrainian refugees and their hosts as they flee for safety.
If technology has shown us anything, once it gets a toehold in society, it is there to stay. We will look back on this episode and see that the real impact of this software was less in helping Ukraine remain free from Putin’s ravages and more as a proof of concept for its use by military and population control organizations.
Original Here
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Destination Disaster: Russia’s Failure At Hostomel Airport
By Stijn Mitzer and Joost Oliemans | Oryxspioenkop.com
Six weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine it can be argued that the full array of issues affecting the Russian military and its operational planning have been laid bare. Setting out to first seize Kyiv within days in order to have a strong position in negotiations with the West about the future status of Ukraine in exchange for a reduction of sanctions, it suddenly finds itself a month past that deadline with meagre territorial gains, an army in tatters and severe reputational damage, not to mention an economy buckling under some of the heaviest sanctions ever instated on a nation. [1] Having lost more than 2.500 military vehicles and heavy pieces of military equipment, including at least 480 tanks, Russia has meanwhile been forced to adjust its ambitions to conquering just the Donbass territories of Donetsk and Lugansk with the aid of its proxy forces, aside from the southeastern part of Ukraine that had already been largely secured. [2] Though Russia maintains that its offensive on Kyiv was merely a ruse to keep Ukrainian forces busy while degrading their combat capabilities and advancing elsewhere, and that the retreat from the Kyiv operational zone was to give space for negotations, it doesn’t take a skeptic to point out that these are mere face-saving excuses for grave military failures. [3]
Hostomel Airport, located 10 kilometres northwest of Kyiv, played an important part in Russia’s plans to cut off Kyiv. Hostomel is the home of Antonov Airlines, the cargo division of the Antonov design bureau, and notably also housed the An-225, the world’s largest aircraft, at the time of the Russian assault on the city. Sadly, this awe-inspiring aircraft could not be evacuated in time, and was destroyed during the fighting. The Russian plan entailed the rapid occupation of Hostomel Airport (popularly known as Antonov Airport) so that it could be used as a staging area for the subsequent encirclement and conquest of Kyiv. In keeping with its important role, Hostomel was taken with much fanfare by a heliborne assault using VDV forces on the 24th of February. Even though Ukraine had been made aware that Hostomel was a target by CIA director William J. Burns in January 2022, the speed with which Russia’s heliborne operation was conducted still appears to have caught Ukrainian troops by surprise. [4]
During the assault, Mi-35 and Ka-52 attack helicopters operating out of Belarus softened up the airport’s defences so that Mi-8 transport helicopters carrying VDV airborne troops could safely land. Over the course of these manoeuvres one Ka-52 was hit by MANPADS before making an emergency landing just outside the airport’s perimeter. [5] However, Ukrainian defences were left largely intact and without any meaningful air support, the VDV was soon facing counterattacks by Ukrainian forces.
A Ukrainian serviceman walks by an Antonov An-225 Mriya aircraft destroyed during fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces at the Antonov airport in Hostomel, Ukraine, Saturday, April 2, 2022. At the entrance to Antonov Airport in Hostomel Ukrainian troops manned their positions, a sign they are in full control of the runway that Russia tried to storm in the first days of the war. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda) As the VDV troops battled it out with Ukrainian forces for control over the airport, Russia’s ground push from Belarus managed to break through Ukraine’s defences near Ivankiv and raced towards Hostomel, running into several Ukrainian ambushes on the way. Nevertheless, Russian troops managed to fully secure Hostomel Airport on the 25th of February. The Russian Army and VDV then set out to turn Hostomel into a forward operating base from which the push on Kyiv could be initiated. It was at this time however that Russia’s offensive into Ukraine began to bog down, leading to the forming of the infamous 40-miles-long convoy and complete units that had to halt their push due to a lack of fuel.
Not to be deterred by setbacks elsewhere, newly arrived VDV and Russian Army units attempted to break out of Hostomel Airport into the nearby town and press their advance into Bucha and Irpin. However, these poorly coordinated pushes ran into ambushes in Hostomel and Bucha with significant losses in manpower and equipment as a result. Though the Russian military had prepared for an easy lightning takeover of Ukraine, it now found itself in a situation it had not bargained for, with Russian forces seemingly clueless about where to expect its enemies and how to best combat them. The ambushes in Hostomel and Bucha not only inflicted substantial casualties, but also set in a stark realisation of what was to be expected when advancing further on Kyiv.
The next developments turned out to be crucial. Rather than adapting to the new reality, and looking for ways to deal with it, the VDV and Russian Army around Kyiv largely became a static force, waiting for additional supplies and for the 40-miles-long convoy to advance and complete the encirclement of Kyiv (which would never occur). Faced with poor or absent leadership, a lack of supplies, daily shelling and significant casualties and low morale, the VDV and Russian Army were forced to bunker down, digging in on the roadsides to defend themselves against Ukrainian artillery and drone strikes. Increasingly they began to be pestered by such drones (often scouting targets for artillery) and SOF inflicting heavy casualties during the night, against which Russia is poorly prepared, having invested little in night equipment for its soldiers. All the seeds for an army that would soon turn its guns on civilians and begin looting were planted.What remains of a Russian convoy that got ambushed by Ukrainian forces in Bucha. The situation was entirely analogous in Hostomel, where the VDV and a sizeable Russian Army contingent was stationed waiting for the order for a push on Kyiv that never came, while under constant shelling. On the 4th of March, Russian state-owned television channel Channel One Russia aired footage that already showed large amounts of destroyed Russian equipment struck by Ukrainian artillery scattered around the base. [6] Russian forces stationed here had essentially become sitting ducks, with no order given to advance and no order to retreat.
Relief came only when such an order finally was given on the 29th of March, after which Russian troops at Hostomel began their retreat from Kyiv Oblast. [3] Damaged equipment that couldn’t be taken along was blown up, while Ukrainian artillery shelling covered the flight. At Hostomel, such equipment included 16 of the VDV’s most modern AFVs, the BMD-4M, and a 1L262E Rtut-BM EW system. Their position indicates they were either destroyed while they were staging to retreat or blown up by the Russians themselves. After Ukrainian troops reentered Hostomel, they encountered evidence of Russians having left in a hurry everywhere, including anything from unopened packages of food, passports, bank cards and even captured Ukrainian armoured vehicles that couldn’t be taken back. [7] A video of the carnage can be watched here.Carnage at Hostomel Airport. A detailed list of destroyed and captured Russian vehicles and equipment at Hostomel Airport can be seen below. This list only includes vehicles and equipment destroyed or abandoned on the perimeter of Hostomel Airport. The total amount of equipment captured and destroyed in and around Hostomel itself is far larger than recorded here.
(Click on the numbers to get a picture of each individual captured or destroyed vehicle)Armoured Fighting Vehicles (7, of which destroyed: 5, recaptured: 2)
- 1 T-72 Obr. 1989 MBT: (1, destroyed)
- 1 BMD-1KSh-A command vehicle: (1, destroyed)
- 1 Unknown BTR-D/BMD-2: (1, destroyed)
- 1 RKhM-6 Povozka CBRN reconnaissance vehicle: (1, destroyed)
- 1 GAZ Tigr-M IMV with Arbalet-DM turret: (1, destroyed)
- 2 Kozak-2 IMV: (1 and 2, captured by Russia and recaptured by Ukrainian forces)
Infantry Fighting Vehicles (23, of which destroyed: 20, damaged: 1, recaptured: 2)
- 1 BMD-2 IFV: (1, destroyed)
- 16 BMD-4M: (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, destroyed) (6 and 7, destroyed) (8, destroyed) (9, destroyed) (10, destroyed) (11, destroyed) (12, 13, 14, 15 and 16, destroyed)
- 1 BTR-82A: (1, destroyed)
- 5 BTR-3: (1, captured by Russia and subsequently destroyed) (2, captured by Russia and subsequently destroyed) (3, captured by Russia and subsequently damaged) (4, captured by Russia and recaptured by Ukrainian forces) (5, captured by Russia and recaptured by Ukrainian forces)
Armoured Personnel Carriers (3, of which destroyed: 3)
- 1 BTR-80: (1, destroyed)
- 2 BTR-MDM ‘Rakushka’: (1, destroyed) (2, destroyed)
Towed Artillery (2, of which captured: 2)
- 2 152mm 2A65 Msta-B howitzer: (1, captured) (2, captured)
Anti-Aircraft Guns (1, of which captured: 1)
- 1 23mm ZU-23: (1, captured)
Jammers And Deception Systems (1, of which destroyed: 1)
- 1 1L262E Rtut-BM: (1, destroyed)
Helicopters (3, of which destroyed: 2, damaged: 1)
- 1 Mi-8 transport helicopter: (1, destroyed)
- 2 Ka-52 ‘Alligator’ attack helicopter: (1, destroyed) (2, damaged)
Trucks, Vehicles and Jeeps (67, of which destroyed: 64, captured: 2, recaptured: 1)
- 13 Ural-4320: (1, destroyed) (2, destroyed) (3, destroyed) (4, destroyed) (5, destroyed) (6 and 7, destroyed) (8, destroyed) (9 and 10, destroyed) (11, destroyed) (12, destroyed) (13, captured)
- 31 KamAZ 6×6: (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, destroyed) (6, 7, 8 and 9, destroyed) (10, destroyed) (11, destroyed) (12, destroyed) (13, destroyed) (14 and 15, destroyed) (16 and 17, destroyed) (18, destroyed) (19, 20, 21 and 22, destroyed) (23, 24, 25 and 26, destroyed) (27 and 28, destroyed) (29, destroyed) (30, destroyed) (31, captured)
- 1 UAZ-452: (1, destroyed)
- 1 MAZ: (1, captured by Russia and subsequently destroyed)
- 1 Armoured MAZ 6317: (1, captured by Russia and recaptured by Ukrainian forces)
- 20 Unknown truck: (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, destroyed) (11, destroyed) (12 and 13, destroyed) (14, 15, 16, 17 and 18, destroyed) (19 and 20, destroyed)
Battered and bloody Hostomel stands as a monument to Ukraine’s struggles against Russia’s invasion force. Like a true David against Goliath, it broke the back of the Russian assault on Kyiv, in the process sadly losing its own gentle giant. Yet like the dream of a Ukrainian nation free from enemies and oppressors, the An-225 Mriya lives on in its unfinished sister airframe. [8] Perhaps its construction, like the construction of this free Ukraine, will someday soon be accomplished.
The second (unfinished) An-225, which Turkey has shown interest in completing. [1] Putin thought Russia’s military could capture Kyiv in 2 days, but it still hasn’t in 20 https://www.businessinsider.com/vladimir-putin-russian-forces-could-take-kyiv-ukraine-two-days[2] Attack On Europe: Documenting Equipment Losses During The 2022 Russian Invasion Of Ukraine https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html[3] Russia in retreat: Putin appears to admit defeat in the Battle for Kyiv https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/russia-in-retreat-putin-appears-to-admit-defeat-in-the-battle-for-kyiv/ [4] Vladimir Putin’s 20-Year March to War in Ukraine—and How the West Mishandled It https://www.wsj.com/articles/vladimir-putins-20-year-march-to-war-in-ukraineand-how-the-west-mishandled-it-11648826461 [5] https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1504790211011571714[6] https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1499643176998641664
[7] https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1510936820736999424[8] Sky Giant: Turkey Mulls To Complete The Second Antonov An-225 Mriya https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/01/sky-giant-turkey-mulls-to-complete.htmlOriginal Here.
Editors note: The list of large equipment losses maintained by Stijn Mitzer, Joost Oliemans, Kemal, Dan and Jakub Janovsky at oryxspioenkop.com is easily the most reliable source of that information. All losses are visually confirmed and cross-referenced with images.
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Latvia Becomes the Newest Target for Russia’s Denazification Program
Russian Presidential Press Service via AP
STREIFF | RedState
Though Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was nothing more than your basic landgrab, Putin felt obliged to tart up his justification with a noble purpose. First, he cited the plight of the people living in Donbas without bothering to mention that their plight is a direct outcome of Putin’s policy of violating Ukrainian sovereignty by setting up two feeble, bullsh** “republics” whose sole purpose was to create a perpetual casus belli with Ukraine. Then he brought up the necessity for denazifying and demilitarizing Ukraine and bringing the perpetrators of “genocide” in Donbas to account.
To this end, we will seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.
The term “nazi” has a very particular meaning in Putin’s Russia. Putin crony Sergey Karaganov says nazism isn’t about antisemitism, “[i]t is about hating and suppressing all other nationalities.” In Russian parlance, “all other nationalities” is a set of one: Russia. Russia doesn’t seem all that concerned about the presence of actual fans of the Third Reich so long as they are singing Putin’s song.
For Russia, May 9 is a huge thing. That is the day they take credit for single-handedly defeating Nazi Germany. In their mythos, Normandy, North Africa, and Italy didn’t happen. There was no strategic air campaign. No convoys made the Murmansk Run carrying untold thousands of Studebaker trucks, P-40 fighters, and millions of pounds of Spam. It was just Stalin fighting the forces of evil while FDR and Churchill played tiddlywinks. The millions of dead Russian soldiers owe much more of their fate to their leadership’s tactical and operational stupidity and political commissars directing NKVD murder squads than to some German gefreiter in a bunker.
In the Baltic States, which have a substantial Russian population transplanted to colonize and “Russify” those countries after Stalin’s deportations and purges, Russia uses May 9 festivities to increase cultural awareness and a sense of separateness from the legal government of those countries. Last Thursday, Latvia took steps to squash pro-Putin pomp.
On Thursday, 8 April, Latvia’s Saeima passed in the final reading the Law on the Day of Commemoration of Victims Who Died in Ukraine, providing that 9 May becomes a day of mourning.
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In addition, the parliament also decided to pass the proposal from Mārtiņš Šteins to prohibit sales of fireworks on 9th and 10th of May 2022.
The goal of this law is turning Latvian residents’ attention towards Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine and demonstrating solidarity with Ukrainian people in the fight for Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. With this law 9 May in the entirety of Latvia becomes a day of commemoration of victims in Ukraine, honouring the civilians and armed forces personnel who died as a result of Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine.
During this day of commemoration it will be required to hoist the flag of Ukraine next to Latvia’s flag at all public buildings, buildings owned by private legal persons and associations, as well as apartment homes, Riga Castle, the State President’s Residence, Saeima and Cabinet of Ministers buildings.
Law does not allow the organisation of any public festivities and celebrations and for municipal administrations to not issue permits for public events.
The law also provides for municipal administrations to annul permits issued for this year’s 9 May events if they were issued before the law has come to force.
This law will lose its power on 11 May 2022.Russia, as you might well imagine, shat itself. Part of the so-called “Putin doctrine” is that Russia is the guarantor of security for Russian communities abroad. A quarter of Latvia is ethnic Russian, down from over 40% when the nation regained its independence in 1991. Estonia, recognizing the danger of a large and unassimilated Russian population that looks to Moscow for inspiration, requires Estonian to be used for instruction in public and private schools, and anyone whose family arrived in Estonia after 1940 had to take a citizenship test and show proficiency in Estonian to hold any government and many professional positions. In addition, since the invasion of Ukraine began, Estonia has blocked Russian television and other media influences. The policies in Estonia guarantee that within a generation, the Russian ethnic minority in Estonia will be like the Italian, Irish, and other ethnic minorities in the United States. They will be Estonian while retaining some Russian cultural influences. It is pretty much like how America operated before our “melting pot” became “a bowl of salmonella, listeria, and e. coli infected mixed salad.”
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova went on an epic rant.
According to Kremlin-backed media, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the decision ‘an attempt to humiliate the Russian-speaking community living in Latvia, which cherishes the memory of the exploits of anti-fascist heroes’.
She added: ‘The blasphemous decision of the Latvian parliamentarians is subject to strong condemnation by all sensible forces not only in Russia, but throughout the world.
‘At the same time, this legislative act is not surprising, since the ruling regime in Latvia has long been well known for its neo-Nazi preferences and attempts to whitewash the atrocities of Nazi Germany ‘s henchmen.
‘Just as Riga in every possible way covers the crimes of the Kiev regime against civilians in Ukraine and Donbas. We are convinced that that history will put everything in its place.’
Latvia knows the danger posed by the rapacious regime in Moscow. It was conquered and colonized once, and doesn’t want it to happen again. It had to look at the first Russian invasion of Ukraine when Crimea was annexed, and an insurgency created the “republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk with foreboding because a disloyal Russian-speaking population demanded to be separate and Russian troops arrived to back up the demand. Back in 2014, I wrote about the danger that Russia’s behavior posed not only to the Baltic States but to NATO by American weakness (Obama’s Tallinn speech probably guarantees peace in our time and How Putin Dismembers NATO Without Firing A Shot. A Scenario From the Cold War).
The silver lining to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is that he has done what was previously thought impossible, expand NATO to Finland and Sweden and wean part of Europe from cheap Russian gas. He has also convinced countries that were once afraid of Moscow to take positive actions for their own security because everyone now knows Moscow’s demands are non-negotiable.
Original Here.
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Ukraine says it’s holding the bodies of *7,000* Russian soldiers
ALLAHPUNDIT | HotAir Apr 08, 2022 11:21 AM ET
AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda
This claim is tucked away halfway through a WaPo story about Russia leaving its fallen soldiers behind, as though it’s common knowledge and not a newsworthy fact to mention up front.
Uh, it was news to me. And I follow reporting on the war reasonably closely.
The true number of Russian KIA has been a subject hotly debated since the start of the war. The Ukrainians’ latest estimate is north of 18,000; Russia has acknowledged 1,351 but hasn’t updated that number recently. If Ukraine has the bodies of 7,000 Russians in its possession, we’re forced to assume that their estimate is fairly close to the true number. Figure that for every Russian that’s died on the battlefield whose body is unrecoverable, another has died and their body has been retrieved by their comrades to be returned to Russia.
So, 14,000 dead — equivalent to the number the Red Army lost in a decade in Afghanistan. Maybe more?
Do note: Ukraine isn’t refusing to return those 7,000. They say they’ve offered to do so multiple times, only to be rebuffed by Russia. We can guess why.
Ukraine has about 7,000 unclaimed Russian corpses in morgues and refrigerated rail cars, according to Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to the head of Ukraine’s presidential administration. He said his government’s figure of 18,600 Russian dead was based on Ukrainian reports from the battlefield and intercepted Russian military communications.
Ukraine tried to return the bodies of 3,000 Russian service members on the third day of the war, he said. “They said, ‘We don’t believe in such quantities. We don’t have this number. We’re not ready to accept them.’ ” Ukraine proposed an exchange several times, he said, but “they won’t discuss this at all yet.”…
Keir Giles of the London-based think tank Chatham House said the difference between Western and Russian military attitudes about their war dead was “night and day … in exactly the same way as their attitude to civilian casualties and collateral damage is utterly unrecognizable from how Western militaries operate.”
That figure doesn’t include Russians who died and were abandoned in parts of Ukraine where the morgue may be overwhelmed and refrigerated cars aren’t available. Those bodies need to be disposed of quickly: “In nearby Bashtanka village, Mayor Oleksandr Beregovyi said dead Russians were buried in mass graves after their documents were collected.” Add those to the unknown but swelling number of KIA.
As for why the Kremlin doesn’t want them back, each body that’s returned to Russia for burial is further evidence that the “special military operation” has been costlier than the Russian public may have assumed it would be. We’ve already reached the point where Russian casualties are sufficiently high that Putin’s own spokesman feels compelled to acknowledge it. Repatriating thousands of dead soldiers would increase domestic chatter that the war is going badly and risk public unrest. Better to leave those bodies behind and assure the parents of the fallen that they’re MIA or “in the field” and currently indisposed.
No wonder the Russian army’s morale sucks.
As for Ukrainian casualties, no one knows but we’d have to guess that they’re higher than 18,000 given that the Russians are attacking civilians, not just Ukrainian troops. Ed wrote earlier about the horrible Russian missile attack on a crowded train station in the Donbas, which killed 39 people and counting as I write this:
Here’s a detail that shouldn’t go unnoticed, though:
It’s usually hard to prove genocidal intent but writing “for the children” on your armaments as you bomb civilians helps clarify things.
Meanwhile, there’s a too-good-to-check story circulating about a tactic the Ukrainian army has supposedly been using to frighten Russian soldiers. A former Zelensky advisor told MSNBC yesterday that Ukrainian troops are outfitting commercial surveillance drones “to look like something out of the worst Terminator movie, so it looks incredibly scary.” Why do that? His answer:
What would you do if you’re a Russian soldier and you see something that belongs to Skynet? You run. Where do you run to? You run to your mama. Because you don’t have your mama, you run to your base.
That way they lead us to their bases and no camouflage works against that, and then our artillery shoots at the base and that way we protect, you know, our civilians, we protect, you know, the land of Ukraine from any collateral damage, and we don’t waste any shells. So, you know, if there’s a major problem, just be creative.
I’m skeptical that a Russian on the ground could see a drone in the air in such fine detail as to be terrified by its appearance. The truth is probably much simpler: The Russians know that Ukraine is now getting lethal anti-personnel Switchblade drones from the U.S., and so if they happen to encounter a drone overhead they might reasonably conclude that they’re about to die. And so they run.
And sometimes they do end up running right back to their base. That much of the story is true. I’ll leave you with this, which probably resulted in the need for another refrigerator car.
Original Here
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Did Russian state media just publish a Putin genocide manifesto?
AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko
Ed Morrissey | HotAir
Suuurrrre looks that way. RIA Novosti, a state-owned Russian domestic media outlet, published a lengthy essay today about Russia’s attempts to “de-Nazify” Ukraine. Analyst Sergej Sumlenny first alerted Twitter users to this eye-popping essay:
When Vladimir Putin announced that as his chief war aim in invading, the argument was that the government in Kyiv had been taken over by a Nazi clique and that the people needed and would welcome liberation. Now the people are the problem, RIA Novosti declares, lumping them all together as Nazis (translation via Google):
The Nazis who took up arms should be destroyed to the maximum on the battlefield. No significant distinction should be made between the APU and the so-called national battalions, as well as the territorial defense that joined these two types of military formations. All of them are equally involved in extreme cruelty against the civilian population, equally guilty of the genocide of the Russian people, do not comply with the laws and customs of war. War criminals and active Nazis should be exemplarily and exponentially punished. There must be a total lustration [purification — Ed]. Any organizations that have associated themselves with the practice of Nazism have been liquidated and banned.
It’s no longer the Azov battalion to which Russia objects, but all forms of national defense. That essentially rejects any recognition of the Geneva conventions of warfare. But it gets even worse when it comes to non-combatants:
However, in addition to the top, a significant part of the masses, which are passive Nazis, accomplices of Nazism, are also guilty. They supported and indulged Nazi power. The just punishment of this part of the population is possible only as bearing the inevitable hardships of a just war against the Nazi system, carried out with the utmost care and discretion in relation to civilians. Further denazification of this mass of the population consists in re-education, which is achieved by ideological repression (suppression) of Nazi attitudes and strict censorship: not only in the political sphere, but also necessarily in the sphere of culture and education. It was through culture and education that a deep mass nazification of the population was prepared and carried out, secured by the promise of dividends from the victory of the Nazi regime overRussia , Nazi propaganda, internal violence and terror, as well as an eight-year war with the people of Donbass who rebelled against Ukrainian Nazism. …
Denazification will inevitably also be a de-Ukrainization – a rejection of the large-scale artificial inflation of the ethnic component of self-identification of the population of the territories of historical Little Russia and New Russia, begun by the Soviet authorities. Being an instrument of the communist superpower, after its fall, artificial ethnocentrism did not remain ownerless. In this official capacity, he passed under the authority of another superpower (the power standing over the states) — the superpower of the West. It must be returned to its natural boundaries and deprived of political functionality.
That’s a recipe for complete obliteration of the Ukrainian people. Oddly, it also serves as a rebuttal to earlier Russian claims that Ukrainians were being held hostage by a tiny clique of Nazis and that Putin had a duty to come to the defense of fellow Slavs. RIA Novosti now acknowledges that the Volodymyr Zelensky government is legitimate — elected by the Ukrainian people of their own will. That’s in fact the new basis for this genocide manifesto — not just some need to excise the ruling class to restore order in their neighboring republic.
That would certainly explain all of the war crimes now being exposed by Putin’s withdrawals. Indeed, this essay acts as a defense of those crimes.
How long will this genocide take? “[I]n no way less than one generation,” the essay declares:
Denazification can only be carried out by the winner, which implies (1) his absolute control over the denazification process and (2) the power to ensure such control. In this respect, a denazified country cannot be sovereign. The denazifying state – Russia – cannot proceed from a liberal approach with regard to denazification. The ideology of the denazifier cannot be disputed by the guilty party subjected to denazification. Russia’s recognition of the need to denazify Ukraine means the recognition of the impossibility of the Crimean scenario for Ukraine as a whole. However, this scenario was impossible in 2014 and in the rebellious Donbass. Only eight years of resistance to Nazi violence and terror led to internal cohesion and a conscious unambiguous mass refusal to maintain any unity and connection with Ukraine,
The terms of denazification can in no way be less than one generation, which must be born, grow up and reach maturity under the conditions of denazification. The nazification of Ukraine continued for more than 30 years, beginning at least in 1989, when Ukrainian nationalism received legal and legitimate forms of political expression and led the movement for “independence” towards Nazism.
That spells a return to Sovietification, to coin a countering term, along the lines we saw in eastern Europe for more than forty years. And for that matter in Ukraine for much longer, which also experienced a major genocide along the way (the Holodomor). How well did that succeed? It didn’t; it made the former Soviet-occupied countries more eager to unite with the West and to distance themselves from Moscow despite two generations of Kremlin “denazification.”
At the very least, though, this represents a very clear change in Russia’s public aims about the war, domestically as well as internationally. This manifesto from RIA Novosti leaves Putin no wiggle room on declaring victory by simply firming up positions in Luhansk and Donetsk. It raises the stakes impossibly high, not just for Putin but for Russians altogether. It’s a call for greater mobilization in a war that has already chewed up a large portion of Putin’s effective military forces. How many more sons will Russians sacrifice on the pyre of Putin’s dreams of empire?
And just how much longer will Russians — oligarchs and the rank and file — blithely go along with the genocide of fellow Slavs next door?
Original Here
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Putin Orders Russian Nuclear Forces on Alert Status…
Putin Orders Russian Nuclear Forces on Alert Status as His Ukrainian Adventure Stalls
Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to up the ante on his Ukraine adventure on Sunday by ordering Russian nuclear forces onto alert status.
Putin, in giving the nuclear alert directive, cited not only statements by NATO members but the hard-hitting financial sanctions imposed by the West against Russia, including the Russian leader himself.
Speaking at a meeting with his top officials, Putin told his defense minister and the chief of the military’s General Staff to put nuclear forces in a “special regime of combat duty.”
“Western countries aren’t only taking unfriendly actions against our country in the economic sphere, but top officials from leading NATO members made aggressive statements regarding our country,” Putin said in televised comments.
My assessment:
- The invasion of Ukraine is not going well. The Russian campaign plan seemed to be based on a series of what turned out to be flawed assumptions. They assumed the Ukrainian armed forces would be ineffectual if they did not totally melt away; they assumed Ukrainian feeling of pan-Slavism would see them flock to the side of the Russians; they assumed the Ukrainian government would be on the first plane out of the country on Wednesday, and they assumed that the entire affair would be wrapped up in 48-hours. None of that happened (Putin Shows Signs of Panic, as He Calls on Ukraine Military to Mutiny. In fact, the Ukrainians’ very clever propaganda campaign has succeeded in making President Zelensky into a heroic figure (Ukrainian President Zelensky Tells Russia to Pound Sand — and Hits Joe Biden’s Impotence).
- The second round of sanctions announced yesterday caught Putin by surprise. Those sanctions which impede the ability of the Russian central bank to draw on gold and foreign currency reserves will become very serious in the next few weeks. The sanctions against Putin, himself, while a null-set economically hit him in his most vulnerable area, that would be his ego.
- The outpouring of popular pro-Ukraine activity across Europe, like pulling a soccer tournament from Russia, street demonstrations, most of Western Europe closing its airspace to Russian aircraft, etc., caught Putin by surprise. As this exercise was supposed to showcase Russia’s power, it has backfired spectacularly in making Russia a pariah in Europe.
- The number of European countries openly arming Ukraine has to have come as a shock to Putin and his advisors (Ukraine Responds With an Attack in Russia, and More Weapons Are on Way to Ukraine); the fact that the Germans have joined the effort has to have set off alarm bells in the Kremlin.
Unlike the United States, which tends to observe treaties, the requirements of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty have largely been ignored by Russia. As a result, Russia retains battlefield nuclear weapons, and their open-source doctrine says they believe they can use those with impunity because the US does not have comparable weapons, and escalation would be to an ICMB exchange.
At this point, I think we should all look at this order for what it is. Putin is on the verge of being humiliated, and he’s trying to return what has become a widespread governmental and popular backlash to the Ukraine invasion to a battlespace he controls. If the war persists for another week, which will mean the Russian Army in Ukraine is on the cusp of a spectacular failure, if not outright collapse, the calculus changes. February 27, 2022 https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/02/27/putin-orders-russian-nuclear-forces-on-alert-status-as-his-ukrainian-adventure-stalls-n528892
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Russian Sanctions
The Biden administration announced sanctions in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions target financial institutions, several individuals and the russian tech sector. The White House fact sheet details the sanctions.
- Severing the connection to the U.S. financial system for Russia’s largest financial institution, Sberbank, including 25 subsidiaries, by imposing correspondent and payable-through account sanctions. This action will restrict Sberbank’s access to transactions made in the dollar. Sberbank is the largest bank in Russia, holds nearly one-third of the overall Russian banking sector’s assets, is heavily connected to the global financial system, and is systemically critical to the Russian financial system.
- Full blocking sanctions on Russia’s second largest financial institution, VTB Bank (VTB), including 20 subsidiaries. This action will freeze any of VTB’s assets touching the U.S financial system and prohibit U.S. persons from dealing with them. VTB holds nearly one-fifth of the overall Russian banking sector’s assets, is heavily exposed to the U.S. and western financial systems, and is systemically critical to the Russian financial system.
- Full blocking sanctions on three other major Russian financial institutions: Bank Otkritie, Sovcombank OJSC, and Novikombank- and 34 subsidiaries. These sanctions freeze any of these institutions’ assets touching the U.S financial system and prohibit U.S. persons from dealing with them. These financial institutions play a significant a role in the Russian economy.
- New debt and equity restrictions on thirteen of the most critical major Russian enterprises and entities. This includes restrictions on all transactions in, provision of financing for, and other dealings in new debt of greater than 14 days maturity and new equity issued by thirteen Russian state-owned enterprises and entities: Sberbank, AlfaBank, Credit Bank of Moscow, Gazprombank, Russian Agricultural Bank, Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Transneft, Rostelecom, RusHydro, Alrosa, Sovcomflot, and Russian Railways. These entities, including companies critical to the Russian economy with estimated assets of nearly $1.4 trillion, will not be able to raise money through the U.S. market — a key source of capital and revenue generation, which limits the Kremlin’s ability to raise money for its activity.
- Additional full blocking sanctions on Russian elites and their family members: Sergei Ivanov (and his son, Sergei), Nikolai Patrushev (and his son Andrey), Igor Sechin (and his son Ivan), Andrey Puchkov, Yuriy Solviev (and two real estate companies he owns), Galina Ulyutina, and Alexander Vedyakhin. This action includes individuals who have enriched themselves at the expense of the Russian state, and have elevated their family members into some of the highest position of powers in the country. It also includes financial figures who sit atop Russia’s largest financial institutions and are responsible for providing the resources necessary to support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. This action follows up on yesterday’s action targeting Russian elites and their family members and cuts them off from the U.S. financial system, freezes any assets they hold in the United States and blocks their travel to the United States.
- Costs on Belarus for supporting a further invasion of Ukraine by sanctioning 24 Belarusian individuals and entities, including targeting Belarus’ military and financial capabilities by sanctioning two significant Belarusian state-owned banks, nine defense firms, and seven regime-connected official and elites. We call on Belarus to withdraw its support for Russian aggression in Ukraine.
- Sweeping restrictions on Russia’s military to strike a blow to Putin’s military and strategic ambitions. This includes measures against military end users, including the Russian Ministry of Defense. Exports of nearly all U.S. items and items produced in foreign countries using certain U.S.-origin software, technology, or equipment will be restricted to targeted military end users. These comprehensive restrictions apply to the Russian Ministry of Defense, including the Armed Forces of Russia, wherever located.
- Russia-wide restrictions to choke off Russia’s import of technological goods critical to a diversified economy and Putin’s ability to project power. This includes Russia-wide denial of exports of sensitive technology, primarily targeting the Russian defense, aviation, and maritime sectors to cut off Russia’s access to cutting-edge technology. In addition to sweeping restrictions on the Russian-defense sector, the United States government will impose Russia-wide restrictions on sensitive U.S. technologies produced in foreign countries using U.S.-origin software, technology, or equipment. This includes Russia-wide restrictions on semiconductors, telecommunication, encryption security, lasers, sensors, navigation, avionics and maritime technologies. These severe and sustained controls will cut off Russia’s access to cutting edge technology.
The sanctions fall short of denying access to the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) system and sanctions on Putin himself. Nor is the Russian oil sector affected.
- Severing the connection to the U.S. financial system for Russia’s largest financial institution, Sberbank, including 25 subsidiaries, by imposing correspondent and payable-through account sanctions. This action will restrict Sberbank’s access to transactions made in the dollar. Sberbank is the largest bank in Russia, holds nearly one-third of the overall Russian banking sector’s assets, is heavily connected to the global financial system, and is systemically critical to the Russian financial system.
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War in Ukraine
As you should know by now, Vladimir Putin let slip the dogs of war last night US time/ this morning eastern european time after months of build-up. The initial attacks came as the UN Security Council was meeting to discuss the situation. Just before the first missiles impacted, and likely after they had launched, a prerecorded address by Putin was played on Russian state media. In that address he announced his plan for a special military operation aimed at disarming and de-nazifying Ukraine.
Before I go any further, I caution you about the news and reports coming out of the warzone. Not only do you have to wade through the typical fog of war misinformation, you need to deal with active Kremlin disinformation and PSYOPS. If it gets reported by me, it is as close to the truth as I can get from here. Again, be very wary of the information you’re consuming and sharing, spreading disinformation about this can cost lives.
Starting around 2130 EST Russian cruise missiles, short and intermediate range ballistic missiles and air launched precision munitions started hitting targets in Ukraine. Among the first targets were airports and ammo depots. However, not all targets were military in nature as several sites within the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv and Mariupol were hit.
Shortly before 0700 local time the ground offensive kicked off with armored columns moving out from Crimea, the Donbas region and the Belarus border. The Crimean column made good headway into Ukraine, but that’s to be expected, given that column consists of mainly elite VDV paratroopers.
The attacks from the Donbas and Belarus have not made nearly as much progress, though reports indicate that the Belarusan front has captured Chernobyl and most of the exclusion zone.
Things are looking grim for the Ukrainians, however it is not all bad. It seems the Ukrainians have slowed if not stopped the assault from the Danbas. And there are multiple, though unconfirmed, reports that the Ukrainians have shot down several Russian aircraft today. There are also many images and video of disabled and destroyed russian tanks and armored vehicles.
As I write this Ukrainian forces are fighting to take back Hostomel airport, just 15km from the capitol of Kyiv. Russian airborne forces landed there earlier today and managed to push back the defenders. As of 1515est at least part of the airfield is back under Ukrainian control.
I will try to keep you updated as much as possible, however the speed at which this is unfolding may not make that possible. Look for a separate piece about the western reaction to this naked aggression by Putin later today.
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Ukraine or How I Learned to Love WWIII
Most of you know that this Editor is a history type guy. I also consider myself a student of war and the causes thereof. So it’s through that lens I have been watching the events unfolding in eastern Europe.
Maps courtesy ISW The alarming Russian buildup on the Ukrainian frontier continues with around 130,000 troops and their equipment now within 50km of the border. That buildup consists of around 100 battalion tactical groups of the Russian ground forces, several VDV paratrooper regiments and at least two army level headquarters.
Many of those units are part of the Far East military district, meaning they travelled more than 5,000 miles.
What hasn’t been seen, yet, are the medical and logistical units that generally presage an invasion. Although, recent report say those units are starting to move.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes
Samuel Clemens AKA Mark TwainWhy did I choose that particular quote? Simple, the world is sleepwalking into another world war. With the weak (yah, it’s understatement) US leadership and the feckless behavior of some NATO countries (I’m looking at you Germany), Vladimir Putin thinks he can do as he wishes in regards to Ukraine. The amount of appeasement going on brings to mind Neville Chamberlain and Peace in Our Time. Add to that the odd layers of treaty obligations a la WWI and it is becoming a toxic brew that will only have one outcome.
Before we go any further, I am compelled to bring up the Budapest Memorandum. That document gave security assurances to newly independant Ukraine in exchange for nuclear disarmament. At the time of the agreement, Ukraine had the third most nuclear weapons in the world. The document when signed in 1994, laid out 6 international obligations.
- Respect Belarusian, Kazakh and Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.
- Refrain from the threat or the use of force against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
- Refrain from using economic pressure on Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to influence their politics.
- Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine if they “should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used”.
- Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
- Consult with one another if questions arise regarding those commitments
For twenty years the Budapest memorandum was upheld as a beacon for nuclear disarmament. However in 2014, Russia abrogated it’s obligations when it invaded and annexed the Crimean peninsula.
So, what happens when Russia invades? Really that depends on Putin’s goals. If he wants to annex the majority ethnic Russian areas that are currently disputed, there isn’t much anyone can do. If he wants to topple the existing government, well, that’s a different Kettle of borsht.
The US and UK have supplied Ukraine with thousands of anti-tank missiles, the US Javelin and the UK NLAW. Both are capable of taking out a T-72 or T-80 tank and their crew. In addition, Ukraine’s Baltic neighbors have supplied Stinger MANPADS and large amounts of artillery and small arms.
That leaves us with the question of when. Given what I’ve seen of the buildup so far, I don’t think it will be long. The last pieces of the puzzle, the medical and logistics units, are moving into place. Expect some sort of Russian false flag before the invasion kicks off. There are unconfirmed reports that Spetznatz units are planning to dress in Ukrainian uniforms and attack a separatist held position in Luhansk Oblast.
1 T-72 Obr. 1989 MBT: 
2 Kozak-2 IMV: 
