Machor

even better:
 

This. When you look at all variables, there are two that scream out: Covid, and full Russian control over Belarus. I do suspect Covid and isolation played a role in terminally messing up Putin's already troubled psychology - just recall his 'Ukraine doesn't exist' speech right before the war. But it was Belarus that was the most significant geopolitical change since the annexation of Crimea. However, I will make a correction. 
It's even more recent than that - Putin took control only after the 2020-21 protests against Lukashenko were effectively suppressed.
Here's Lukashenko 'blasting' Putin in January 2020:
Belarus' leader blasts Russia for pushing merger of 2 states
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/belarus-leader-blasts-russia-for-pushing-merger-of-2-states-1.4782437?cache=mgxrihoykb%3FclipId%3D89925
"The president of Belarus on Friday accused Moscow of pressuring his country to merge with Russia, and vowed not to let it happen.
Talking to workers of a paper plant in eastern Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko lambasted Russia, the country's main provider of cheap oil and gas, for halting oil supplies in order "to dissolve Belarus ... in the brotherly Russia."
The statement comes amid stalled talks on further strengthening economic ties between two countries, seen in Belarus as Moscow's plot to swallow its post-Soviet neighbour.
"We have our own country, we're sovereign and independent. With our brains and hands, we earn what we can, we're building our own country. And we can't be a part of some other country," Lukashenko said. "I can't betray you and dissolve Belarus, even in the brotherly Russia."
Russia stopped supplying oil to its post-Soviet neighbour after Dec. 31. The two nations had failed to renegotiate an agreed oil price for this year during drawn-out negotiations on deepening the integration of their economies.
The Russian suspension did not affect oil crossing Belarus to Europe or the supply of natural gas, but had consequences for Belarus, which relies on Russia for more than 80% of its energy needs.
Lukashenko has since vowed to find alternative oil suppliers and said Friday that Belarus is currently negotiating additional supplies with the United States, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.
Earlier this week, Minsk announced the import of oil shipments from Norway.
"Americans, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates... I have a brilliant relationship with them, they say they will supply as much oil as needed," Lukashenko said, insisting that his intention not to concede to Russia's demands is "not a bluff.""
And more 'blasting' from August 2020, when Belarus caught Wagner operatives on the eve of the elections:
Belarus ruler Lukashenko says Russia lying over 'mercenaries'
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53648640
"Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has accused Russia of lying about a "mercenary" group arrested in Belarus last week and says another such group has infiltrated his country.
"Today we heard of another unit sent into the south," he said in an address to the nation. "We'll catch them all."
Russia has denied that the 33 Russians held were plotting terrorism and were linked to anti-Lukashenko activists.
Anti-Lukashenko protests have grown, as he seeks re-election on 9 August.
Russia has said the 33 - claimed to be members of the shadowy Wagner mercenary group - were only transiting via Belarus en route to Istanbul. And Russia insists they had no mission to interfere in the Belarus presidential election.
"All this about Istanbul, Venezuela, Africa and Libya - it's a lie. These people - they have already given testimony - were sent into Belarus on purpose. The order was to wait," Mr Lukashenko said, in his televised annual address.
He said the Russians could have flown directly to an overseas destination - there was no need for them to enter Belarus to do so.
"So far there is no open warfare, no shooting, the trigger has not yet been pulled, but an attempt to organise a massacre in the centre of Minsk is already obvious," he alleged."
Thus, taking 25 March 2021 as the 'official' end of the protests as per Wikipedia, the invasion of Ukraine began one month short of one year after that date.

This. When you look at all variables, there are two that scream out: Covid, and full Russian control over Belarus. I do suspect Covid and isolation played a role in terminally messing up Putin's already troubled psychology - just recall his 'Ukraine doesn't exist' speech right before the war. But it was Belarus that was the most significant geopolitical change since the annexation of Crimea. However, I will make a correction. 
It's even more recent than that - Putin took control only after the 2020-21 protests against Lukashenko were effectively suppressed.
Here's Lukashenko 'blasting' Putin in January 2020:
Belarus' leader blasts Russia for pushing merger of 2 states
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/belarus-leader-blasts-russia-for-pushing-merger-of-2-states-1.4782437?cache=mgxrihoykb%3FclipId%3D89925
"The president of Belarus on Friday accused Moscow of pressuring his country to merge with Russia, and vowed not to let it happen.
Talking to workers of a paper plant in eastern Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko lambasted Russia, the country's main provider of cheap oil and gas, for halting oil supplies in order "to dissolve Belarus ... in the brotherly Russia."
The statement comes amid stalled talks on further strengthening economic ties between two countries, seen in Belarus as Moscow's plot to swallow its post-Soviet neighbour.
"We have our own country, we're sovereign and independent. With our brains and hands, we earn what we can, we're building our own country. And we can't be a part of some other country," Lukashenko said. "I can't betray you and dissolve Belarus, even in the brotherly Russia."
Russia stopped supplying oil to its post-Soviet neighbour after Dec. 31. The two nations had failed to renegotiate an agreed oil price for this year during drawn-out negotiations on deepening the integration of their economies.
The Russian suspension did not affect oil crossing Belarus to Europe or the supply of natural gas, but had consequences for Belarus, which relies on Russia for more than 80% of its energy needs.
Lukashenko has since vowed to find alternative oil suppliers and said Friday that Belarus is currently negotiating additional supplies with the United States, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.
Earlier this week, Minsk announced the import of oil shipments from Norway.
"Americans, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates... I have a brilliant relationship with them, they say they will supply as much oil as needed," Lukashenko said, insisting that his intention not to concede to Russia's demands is "not a bluff.""
And more 'blasting' from August 2020, when Belarus caught Wagner operatives on the eve of the elections:
Belarus ruler Lukashenko says Russia lying over 'mercenaries'
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53648640
"Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has accused Russia of lying about a "mercenary" group arrested in Belarus last week and says another such group has infiltrated his country.
"Today we heard of another unit sent into the south," he said in an address to the nation. "We'll catch them all."
Russia has denied that the 33 Russians held were plotting terrorism and were linked to anti-Lukashenko activists.
Anti-Lukashenko protests have grown, as he seeks re-election on 9 August.
Russia has said the 33 - claimed to be members of the shadowy Wagner mercenary group - were only transiting via Belarus en route to Istanbul. And Russia insists they had no mission to interfere in the Belarus presidential election.
"All this about Istanbul, Venezuela, Africa and Libya - it's a lie. These people - they have already given testimony - were sent into Belarus on purpose. The order was to wait," Mr Lukashenko said, in his televised annual address.
He said the Russians could have flown directly to an overseas destination - there was no need for them to enter Belarus to do so.
"So far there is no open warfare, no shooting, the trigger has not yet been pulled, but an attempt to organise a massacre in the centre of Minsk is already obvious," he alleged."
Thus, taking 25 March 2021 as the 'official' end of the protests as per Wikipedia, the invasion of Ukraine began one month short of one year after that date.

This. When you look at all variables, there are two that scream out: Covid, and full Russian control over Belarus. I do suspect Covid and isolation played a role in terminally messing up Putin's already troubled psychology - just recall his 'Ukraine doesn't exist' speech right before the war. But it was Belarus that was the most significant geopolitical change since the annexation of Crimea. However, I will make a correction. 
It's even more recent than that - Putin took control only after the 2020-21 protests against Lukashenko were effectively suppressed.
Here's Lukashenko 'blasting' Putin in January 2020:
Belarus' leader blasts Russia for pushing merger of 2 states
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/belarus-leader-blasts-russia-for-pushing-merger-of-2-states-1.4782437?cache=mgxrihoykb%3FclipId%3D89925
"The president of Belarus on Friday accused Moscow of pressuring his country to merge with Russia, and vowed not to let it happen.
Talking to workers of a paper plant in eastern Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko lambasted Russia, the country's main provider of cheap oil and gas, for halting oil supplies in order "to dissolve Belarus ... in the brotherly Russia."
The statement comes amid stalled talks on further strengthening economic ties between two countries, seen in Belarus as Moscow's plot to swallow its post-Soviet neighbour.
"We have our own country, we're sovereign and independent. With our brains and hands, we earn what we can, we're building our own country. And we can't be a part of some other country," Lukashenko said. "I can't betray you and dissolve Belarus, even in the brotherly Russia."
Russia stopped supplying oil to its post-Soviet neighbour after Dec. 31. The two nations had failed to renegotiate an agreed oil price for this year during drawn-out negotiations on deepening the integration of their economies.
The Russian suspension did not affect oil crossing Belarus to Europe or the supply of natural gas, but had consequences for Belarus, which relies on Russia for more than 80% of its energy needs.
Lukashenko has since vowed to find alternative oil suppliers and said Friday that Belarus is currently negotiating additional supplies with the United States, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.
Earlier this week, Minsk announced the import of oil shipments from Norway.
"Americans, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates... I have a brilliant relationship with them, they say they will supply as much oil as needed," Lukashenko said, insisting that his intention not to concede to Russia's demands is "not a bluff.""
And more 'blasting' from August 2020, when Belarus caught Wagner operatives on the eve of the elections:
Belarus ruler Lukashenko says Russia lying over 'mercenaries'
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53648640
"Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has accused Russia of lying about a "mercenary" group arrested in Belarus last week and says another such group has infiltrated his country.
"Today we heard of another unit sent into the south," he said in an address to the nation. "We'll catch them all."
Russia has denied that the 33 Russians held were plotting terrorism and were linked to anti-Lukashenko activists.
Anti-Lukashenko protests have grown, as he seeks re-election on 9 August.
Russia has said the 33 - claimed to be members of the shadowy Wagner mercenary group - were only transiting via Belarus en route to Istanbul. And Russia insists they had no mission to interfere in the Belarus presidential election.
"All this about Istanbul, Venezuela, Africa and Libya - it's a lie. These people - they have already given testimony - were sent into Belarus on purpose. The order was to wait," Mr Lukashenko said, in his televised annual address.
He said the Russians could have flown directly to an overseas destination - there was no need for them to enter Belarus to do so.
"So far there is no open warfare, no shooting, the trigger has not yet been pulled, but an attempt to organise a massacre in the centre of Minsk is already obvious," he alleged."
Thus, taking 25 March 2021 as the 'official' end of the protests as per Wikipedia, the invasion of Ukraine began one month short of one year after that date.

I am strongly of the opinion that the situation in Belarus heavily influenced the timing of the war in Ukraine. Putin only got real and effective control of Belarus in the last couple of years. It was being able to start the invasion a hundred miles from Kyiv that convinced Putin he could pull off the coup/decapitation fast enough to avoid a truly large western reaction.

We knew this while we were still there, which made prosecuting a war a little difficult.  I can recall being at the outdoor market in outside the airfield in Kandahar in '07 and seeing old Martini-Henrys (likely knock off), Lee Enfields (Indian knock offs) and real Soviet AK 47s and guys joking "in ten years there will be M4s and Canadian C7s hanging up there for sale".
Why and how the Afghanistan mission failed could fill a thread of its own so I will summarize:
- The West was never going to either do or stay enough to make the changes we were looking for stick.
- The Afghans had no interest in making the changes that were need to stick either.  It is impossible to heal a patient who does not want to live.
- "Forget it Jake, its Chinatown"...we picked the wrong side in a country where there was no right side and likely will not be for some time.
At best, we were keeping people busy who would cause trouble elsewhere and killing the right people who needed it (most of the time) - global custodial work: keep sweeping the garbage into the right piles, make sure the fires stay small and shoot the odd rat to keep their population down.

Considering Russia supplies and supports Islamic terrorist organizations all around the world incl. Hezbollah and Taliban - you may be very very wrong about their actions towards ISIS.
In fact had Russia not "intervene" in Syria - that would've been a stable country in just months, probably a moderately negotiable one like Qatar or Kuwait with ISIS getting a good beating instead of using the chaos and suffering Russia has caused to get in there and use Syrians towards their goals.
Assad was nearly done and the guys beating him weren't ideological.

We know what their troops did in occupied towns, I myself can hardly imagine the suffering russians cause in other places they occupy for more than 3 months now. I mean - near Mariupol there are already huge mass graves that cannot be hidden from satellites even if russians tried and that's the biggest city they captured during the full scale invasion - what happens in smaller towns is anyone's guess - but it's not a happy guess at all.

The other thing we need to be careful of is seeing this through our own lenses.  I have no doubt the Ukrainian government published these dramatic numbers in order to reinforce their very real continued need for support; however, they may have misjudged the western reaction because we see this war through a very different lens.
The West has been human security focused for about 30 years - and this does not matter which side of the political house you are within - it is the natural evolution of highly powerful (and entitled) societies, to value the security of the person as the highest priority.  And even though human security is a key consideration within this war (e.g. war crimes, displacement, food security) it is not the key consideration.  [Oh dear, I can hear the collective shudder in some circles.]  Definitely for the Ukraine, and in a lot of way for the West this war is about collective existence and is therefore existential collective security focused in nature. 
We must avoid our own Western baggage with respect to casualties and war because the framework we use to make those assessments does not apply here.  This is the Old Red God - many hoped had fallen asleep forever, which was naïve wishful thinking.  He has woken up groggy and angry and decided on the old-school option to shake out the cobwebs.  Ukrainians taking 500 causalities per day may seem shocking when looking through a human security lens, which we then project into "Ukraine is losing...human tragedy...they should negotiate!  However, in the annals of warfare this is solid 5/10 of intensity (e.g Jul 1st 1916 - 57k UK casualties and on average 6k per day in WWI -  http://www.100letprve.si/en/world_war_1/casualties/index.html).  
Existential wars are on an entirely different level and as such we should not focus on "500 casualties per day" but instead on what those 500 troops are buying for their side.  Is Ukraine upside down in expenditure of people for what it is gaining losing...based on Russian speed of advance I have to go with a "no".  Now, Russia is likely losing more than 500 per day on the basis that it is still the attacker - is it upside down on its cost-to-benefits?  Much more likely.  And why it is trying desperately to have a lot of other people doing the dying besides actual Russian's right now.  Russian is losing at the same or worst rate and gaining literally feet of ground of seriously questionable operational value. 
Finally back to a central premise of mine - who is spending lives for options right now?  Who's option spaces remain sustained or expanding while the other side is in a losing equation?  The calculus of an existential war is absent of drama.  I have seen a lot of western media playing up the human drama in this war and it is counter-productive.  We can unpack the drama of this war for decades after it is over - this is about colder harder metrics where the value of a human life is only relative to what it is doing to your opponent.  What is chilling about all this is that this is one thing the Russian's already know, and we are just finding out.  Anyone think that Putin is having trouble sleeping at night right now?  If he is, it is not over the "good boys lost at Severodonetsk". 
We need to accept and understand that we, the West, are invested in killing Russians right now...in fact we are part of the kill-chain to do so and we cannot rationalize our way out of it.  We also need to become more cold blooded and objective focused and a less human security focused (obviously within reason) because the cost of this war is already high.  If we want to ensure that the 500 teenagers who die/hurt today did so for a good reason then it is on us to finish this thing on our terms, definitively.   
 

T-64BV mod.2017 also equipped with Nizh ERA, but packed in Kontakt-1 boxes

Had a spare time and checked interview of T-80 tanker from the tweet above and I think it is interesting.
Author:
— A question about the mobility of the tank: GTD [Gas-Turbine engine] – "hell for suppliers" or a thing? Are they reliable enough? Problems on the fuel march? Smooth running, shaking, acceleration in comparison with diesels. What are the main disadvantages of the T-80 BVM?
Tankman:
— It all depends on what role the tank group plays. As practice has shown, the speed of the "box" directly affects its survival. The T-72B and T-72B3 had very impressive losses during the battles in urban areas, while the group of the 80s lost only one tank in 3 months of operation.
Of course, serving mixed groups is hell for rear echelon, but there is no need for them [mixed groups]. In the later stages of the operation, the machines were used for completely different tasks. There were no complaints about the reliability of the machines, they withstood more than they should have. The movement on the T-80 BVM is much quieter and smoother, which made it possible to carry out lightning attacks.
The main drawback of the tank is an outdated thermal imaging sight on which any landfill makes excessive background noise, and high fuel consumption.
 
Author:
— Nuances in use? Ammunition? Was the ammo put only in mechanized laying [autoloader]? Typical composition of ammo (proportion: HE, HEAT, APFSDS)? Or were they filled in for a specific task? What type of ammunition was used most often? Is the main APFSDS still 3B42?
ATGM — a suitcase without a handle or a really useful thing? Is it really possible to implement the "long arm" [feature] of our tanks in the conditions of combat in the current theater of operations [Not sure what he means as usually long arm of RU tanks is barrel launched ATGM with range longer than NATO cannons range, but given answer from tanker he might mean indirect long range cannon fire to counter NATO ATGMs]? Have you ever used it? If yes, then the nuances, reliability, were there any failures of guidance and what is their reason? From personal experience: what kind of ammunition would need to be modified or created?
Tankman:
— There have never been more than 10 shells in the armor [means inside tank]. From the experience of fighting around Donetsk airport, I know what happens to a combat vehicle when it is packed to capacity with ammunition. When a shell from an RPG arrives from the building above into the commander's hatch,  the turret flies to the 3rd floor of the [Donetsk airport] terminal. Our counterparts decided to ignore this simple truth and were always packed to capacity, for which they were nicknamed among the [men of our] unit "lemming herd".
There was nothing but Mango at the beginning of the operation, ammunition was spent so quickly that it was not possible to replenish it. As for the "long arm", I will answer as concisely as I can.
You can, but it is difficult. It is extremely inconvenient to make a calculation in order to hit a hidden standing target (God forbid, also moving), and forces you to invent a bicycle on the spot, based on the terrain features.
Concrete-piercing types of weapons are urgently needed, taking into account the NATO guidelines for the construction of fortifications.
 
Author:
— Observation. Did you perform any tasks at night? How does the commander conduct surveillance at night? How did the sighting equipment manifest itself? At what distances, on average, was it possible to detect the enemy?
Tankman:
— Performing tasks in the dead of night by armored formations is effective only when working from closed [hidden] positions. In an ideal scenario, if a tank group is advancing to the assault, it is better to do it at 2-3 o'clock in the morning and reach the point of the beginning of the battle by dusk. The sighting equipment is outdated, needs to be replaced. But for the fight against the tanks of the USSR, although modernized, this is not critical. Thanks to the infantry and the coordinated work of "Akhmat" [I think he means Chechen battalion Akhmat], we always knew where the enemy was and how he moved.
 
Author:
— General awareness of the situation. Connection. Communication in combat with an infantry unit? Were automated control systems used (according to the ESU TK type) or all only through radio communication?
Tankman:
— I'm not disclosing the communication details.[It may be because Comms are always real embarrassment for Soviet/RU army]
 
Author:
— Tank duels? Or are tanks not fighting tanks (with)[It is RU historical meme which caused a lot of arguments in RU mil history community]? Are there any problems with the defeat of enemy tanks? How do you assess the resistance of the T-80BV M to modern anti-tank weapons? What is the opponent's skill?
Tankman:
— Tank duels in this theater are very much in demand from our side, and we are trying to impose them. The superiority in reverse speed and the ability to enter the enemy's sides gives us the opportunity not to lose these duels at all ever. And since the Ukrainian tanks are completely packed with ammunition to the point of failure, you do not need more than one hit.
As for resistance against domestic weapons — a solid 5 [top mark]. As for the Western ones, it is more difficult, since we did not give the opportunity to use them against us. But, it seems to me, tandem shells could be a problem for us, but there is always a good old grid [mesh armor] for this.
Fortunately for us, competent Ukrainian tankers are gone, most of the experienced commanders and gunners were knocked out as a result of the fighting of the 14-15s.
Author:
— And the last question. How did the additional fabric screens perform [The egg shell armor but obviously he means working one not empty]?
Tankman:
— By the current moment, there are no more of them left on our tank. [RU Addon side armor packages are easily damaged and tend to fall off quickly]  But, apparently, we were hit with something during the cleaning of the village of "Z.", and they saved us. Works.

[Pfarrer] SIEVERODONETSK /1600 UTC 15 JUN / RU continues to commit to a bloody urban fight-- sacrificing its advantages in maneuver warfare. FEBA reported as stable. Reports indicate ~500 civilians are sheltering under the AZOT chemical plant. RU would prefer to capture AZOT intact
1.  Rust belt maze from hell.  And another one is waiting across the river, the refinery complex at Novodruzhesk, now heavily fortified. And there's another further back at Siversk.
2.  And here again are the Big Red Arrows of Doom! (Those are the ragtag separs I showed 2 days back using antique RCLs and LMGs)
 
3. Foreign legion still east of the river? My guess is no. 
 
 

Since we've had a lot of discussion about Russia's ability to replace its materiel losses and in particular its dependence on foreign microchips, here's a relevant WaPo article from yesterday:
U.S. probing how American electronics wound up in Russian military gear
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/15/us-computer-chips-russian-military/
"FBI and Commerce Department agents are visiting tech companies to ask about computer chips found in drones, other weaponry"
"Russia manufactures few computer chips or electronics of its own, forcing it to rely on imports.
The United States for decades has tightly controlled sales to Russia of the highest-tech chips and those designed for military use, requiring exporters to obtain a government license. But sales of electronics below that threshold — including the kind commonly found in commercial products — were not widely restricted until 2014, when the United States began requiring exporters to obtain licenses before selling a broader range of chips to the Russian military.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the U.S. and many allies have prohibited all chip sales to Russian military buyers, and placed restriction on chip sales to other Russian buyers in an effort to prevent the country’s armed forces from accessing western high-tech."
"A single piece of radio-jamming equipment revealed computer chips from a dozen U.S. companies, including Intel, Analog Devices, Texas Instruments and Onsemi, according to a report RUSI published in April. The gear also contained components from half a dozen chipmakers in Europe, Japan and Taiwan.
The report published the part numbers for the components, which The Washington Post used to identify the chip companies.
The radio-interference equipment, named Borisoglebsk-2, was designed to interrupt the enemy’s communications and was probably manufactured around 2015 or later, Nick Reynolds, one of the report’s authors, said in an interview.
None of the Western chips was specifically designed for use in military equipment, according to two electrical engineers who reviewed the component list. The parts were developed for general commercial use, and many were relatively outdated, manufactured between 2000 and 2010, the engineers said.
“A lot of these components are very general purpose and could be used in wide range of devices,” said Peter Bermel, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University. “Most of the items they are listing are available through any commercial computer parts supplier or digital parts supplier.”
“A non-trivial fraction of these parts are now considered obsolete by the manufacturers,” Bermel added.
Reynolds, a research analyst for land warfare at RUSI, said Russia’s technical demise in recent decades, partly sparked by a large post-Soviet brain drain, has forced it to use Western chips. “Its defense industry has struggled to attract and retain talented young engineers, who have often chosen to move abroad instead,” Reynolds said by email."
"The RUSI researchers also reported inspecting a U.S.-manufactured component that the Ukrainian military found inside a Russian 9M949 guided rocket. The rocket uses the component — a type of electronic device called a fiber-optic gyroscope — for navigation, RUSI said.
The British researchers declined to name the U.S. company that made that component, saying RUSI was continuing to research that and other parts."

🔬🔭 I found something 🔬🔭
Objective:
So, I was playing around with Google Trends to see if I could find a meaningful comparative statistic for Google searches from Russia using "в Украине" ("in Ukraine") and "на Украине" ("in the Ukraine"), and that didn't bring anything up. Instead, I stumbled upon this.
Methodology:
I looked up Google Trends data from Russia for Google searches for the last three months using "в Украине" ("in Ukraine") and "на Украине" ("in the Ukraine").
Findings:
Here are the top five subregions of Russia searching for "в Украине" ("in Ukraine") on Google for the last three months:
1. Chukotka Autonomous Okrug
2. Belgorod Oblast
3. Buryatia
4. Bryansk Oblast
5. Jewish Autonomous Oblast [It is Russian populated; Jews are only 1% of the population today.]
Here are the top five subregions of Russia searching for "на Украине" ("in the Ukraine") on Google for the last three months:
1. Chukotka Autonomous Okrug
2. Kostroma Oblast
3. Buryatia
4. Kamchatka Krai
5. Belgorod Oblast
Moreover, Moscow and St. Petersburg ranked 56th and 55th among Russia's 83 subregions searching for "в Украине" ("in Ukraine") [Since this is the politically correct form, this would include searches by liberals and dissidents.], and they ranked 58th and 75th among the 83 subregions searching for "на Украине" ("in the Ukraine").
Discussion:
Since Belgorod and Bryansk border Ukraine, heightened interest in the war is to be expected. Otherwise, we see that those most actively searching for information on events in Ukraine since the start of the war are far-flung regions where a large percentage of the population are professional military [Kostroma isn't far-flung, but it's piss-poor, and home to a VDV regiment that got wiped out early in the war.], and also the ethnic minority Buryatia and Chukotka, where at least the former are known to have taken very heavy losses in Ukraine. That these regions are actively searching for information on Google can be seen as an indication that they do not trust and/or are not satisfied with the information from the Russian press, and search results from Yandex.
Conversely, Moscow and St. Petersburg seem to have relatively little interest in the war beyond the official channels, in spite of their large populations.
Conclusion:
The war is having an unequal impact on Russian society and Russia's diverse regions, and this is already manifesting itself objectively via online data.
@LongLeftFlank

All right, folks; first, two confessions:
1. When the Canadian Parliament declared that Russia was committing genocide in Ukraine, I thought it was overkill, even though I've never doubted Russia's war crimes.
2. Unlike many folks on the forum and in agreement with Steve, I've been opposed to NATO openly entering the war on the side of Ukraine, for all the reasons that Steve has argued + avoiding a nuclear war.
Now, if this latest BBC piece can be verified, that all changes. Again, I do demand verification before going ahead with anything, but if all this is true, NATO has to go in - else, it means we were building our own Potemkin village since the Nuremberg trials:
[I tried to pick parts of the article to quote but it didn't make sense, so I'm quoting the whole thing with the hope of reaching a wider audience who may not want to or cannot open the BBC website.]
Electrocution and beatings: The horrors of Russia's 'filtration'
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61683513
"Ukrainians who want to leave cities under Russian occupation cannot do so without undergoing a terrifying process known as filtration. Phones are searched, social media accounts scoured. Anything deemed incriminating can lead to beatings or even electrocution, civilians say, and many are forcibly sent to Russia.

Andriy watched anxiously as Russian soldiers connected his mobile to their computer, apparently trying to restore some files. Andriy, a 28-year-old marketing officer, was trying to leave Mariupol in early May. He had deleted everything he thought a Russian soldier could use against him, such as text messages discussing Russia's invasion of Ukraine or photos of the devastation in his city caused by weeks of relentless shelling.
But the internet in Mariupol, a once bustling port in southern Ukraine, had been cut off as part of the siege imposed by Russia, and Andriy had not been able to take down some of his social media posts. He remembered the first days of the war, when he had shared some anti-Russian messages and speeches from the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. "I'm screwed," he thought.
The soldiers, Andriy told me, already had their focus on him. When he first joined the queues for filtration in Bezimenne, a small village to the east of Mariupol, one of the Russians noticed his beard. The soldier assumed it was a sign Andriy was a fighter with the city's Azov regiment, a former militia which had links with the far right. "Is it you and your brigade killing our guys?" Andriy was asked. He replied he had never served in the army, he started working directly after graduating, but "they didn't want to hear it".
As the soldiers went through his phone, they turned to his political views, and asked his opinion of Zelensky. Andriy, cautiously, said Zelensky was "okay", and one of the soldiers wanted to know what he meant by that. Andriy told him Zelensky was just another president, not very different from those who had come before, and that in fact, he was not very interested in politics. "Well," the soldier replied, "you should just say you aren't interested in politics."
The soldiers kept Andriy's phone and told him to wait outside. He met his grandmother, mother and aunt, who had arrived with him and had already been given a document that allowed them to leave. A few minutes later, Andriy said, he was ordered to go to a tent where members of Russia's security service, the FSB, were carrying out further checks.
Five officers were sitting behind a desk, three wearing balaclavas. They showed Andriy a video he had shared on Instagram of a speech Zelensky had given, from 1 March. With it was a caption written by Andriy: "A president we can be proud of. Go home with your warship!" One of the officers took the lead. "You told us you're neutral to politics, but you support the Nazi government," Andriy recalled being told. "He hit me in the throat. He basically started the beating."

Like Andriy, Dmytro had his phone confiscated at a checkpoint as he tried to leave Mariupol in late March. Dmytro, a 34-year-old history teacher, said the soldiers came across the word "ruscist", a play on "Russia" and "fascist", in a message to a friend. The soldiers, Dmytro told me, slapped and kicked him, and "everything [happened] because I used that word."
Dmytro said he was taken, with four other people, to a police station in the village of Nikolsky, also a filtration point. "The highest-ranking officer punched me four times in the face," he said. "It seemed to be part of the procedure".
His interrogators said teachers like him were spreading pro-Ukrainian propaganda. They also asked what he thought about "the events of 2014", the year that Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula and started supporting pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. He replied that the conflict was known as the Russo-Ukrainian war. "They said Russia was not involved, and asked me whether I agreed that it was, in fact, a Ukrainian civil war."
The officers checked his phone again, and this time found a photo of a book which had the letter H in its title. "We got you!" the soldiers told Dmytro. Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, claims his war in Ukraine is an effort to "de-Nazify" the country, and the soldiers, Dmytro said, believed he was reading books about Hitler.
The next morning, Dmytro was transferred with two women to a prison in Starobesheve, a separatist-controlled village in Donetsk. He counted 24 people in the four-bunk cell. After four days and another detailed interrogation, he was finally released, and eventually reached Ukrainian-held territory. Weeks later, he still does not know what happened to his cell mates.

Back inside the tent in Bezimenne, Andriy noticed two other people with their hands tied behind them, who had been left in a corner while the officers paid attention to him. "They started to beat me way harder," Andriy told me, "everywhere". At one point, after a blow to the stomach, he felt as if he was about to faint. He managed to sit on a chair.
"I wondered what would be better," he said, "to lose consciousness and fall down or tolerate the pain further."
At least, Andriy thought, he had not been sent somewhere else, away from his family. Ukrainian officials say thousands of people are believed to have been sent to detention centres and camps set up in Russian-controlled areas during filtration. In almost all cases, their relatives do not know where they are being held, or why. "I [was] very angry about everything," Andriy said, "but, at the same time, I know it could've been much worse."
His mother tried to get into the tent, but was stopped by the officers. "She was very nervous. She later said they had told her that my 're-education' had started," Andriy said, "and that she shouldn't be worried." His ordeal, he told me, continued for two and a half hours. He was even forced to make a video saying "Glory to the Russian army!", a mockery of "Slava Ukraini!", the Ukrainian slogan.
The final question, Andriy said, was whether he had "understood his mistakes", and "I obviously answered yes". As he was being released, officers brought in another man, who had previously served in Ukraine's military and had several tattoos. "They immediately pushed him to the ground and started to beat him," Andriy said. "They didn't even talk to him."

Ukrainian authorities say Russian forces and Russian-backed separatists have carried out filtration in occupied territories as an attempt to establish residents' possible links with the military, law enforcement and even local government, as the invading forces try to restore services and infrastructure.
Men of fighting age are particularly targeted, checked for bruises that could suggest recent use of weapons, such as on the fingers and shoulders. Strip searches are common, witnesses say, even for women. Oleksandra Matviychuk, the head of the Center for Civil Liberties, a Kyiv-based human rights group, said the process, even when not violent, was "inhuman". "There's no military need for this... They're trying to occupy the country with a tool I call 'immense pain of civilian people'. You ask: 'Why so much cruelty? For what?'"
Maksym, a 48-year-old steelworker, said he was forced to strip naked while officers in Bezimenne checked even the seams of his clothes. He was asked whether he was from the Azov regiment or was a Nazi sympathiser - he denied being either - and why he wanted to leave Mariupol. "I said, 'Actually, it's you who are on Ukrainian soil.'" One of the officers, who he said were all Russian, reacted by hitting Maksym with the gun butt in his chest. He fell.
"I leaned my head on the ground, holding my ribs. I couldn't get up," he said. "It was very painful to breathe."
He was taken to what he described as a "cage", where others were being held. He noticed that one man, a weightlifter, had a tattoo of Poseidon, the Greek god, with a trident. The soldiers, Maksym said, thought it was the Ukrainian coat of arms. "He explained it to them but they didn't understand." Those detained in the "cage" were given no water or food, and had to urinate in a corner in front of everyone, Maksym told me. At one point, exhausted, he tried to sleep on the ground. An officer came in and kicked him in the back, forcing him to stand.
People would be taken to be interrogated and, when they returned, "you saw the person had been beaten", Maksym said. He witnessed a woman in her 40s lying in pain, apparently after being hit in the stomach. A man, who seemed to be around 50, had a bleeding lip and red bruises on his neck. Maksym believed he had been strangled. No-one in the "cage" asked or said anything to each other. They were afraid that FSB officers could be disguised as prisoners.
After about four or five hours, Maksym was released and allowed to leave Mariupol. Days later, he reached safety in Ukrainian-controlled territory, and went to a hospital to treat the persistent pain in his chest. The diagnosis: four broken ribs.

Yuriy Belousov, who leads the Department of War at the Ukrainian general prosecutor's office, said his team had received allegations of torture and even killings during filtration. "[It seems to be] a Russian policy which was designed in advance, and pretty well prepared," he told me. "It's definitely not just a single case or [something] done by a local military guy."
He acknowledged it was difficult to verify the cases, or estimate the scale of the violence. The Ukrainian authorities are unable to carry out investigations in occupied territories and most victims remain reluctant to share their stories, concerned that relatives in Mariupol could be targeted if their identity is exposed.
Vadym, 43, who used to work at a state-owned company in Mariupol, said he was tortured in Bezimenne in March. Separatist soldiers had questioned his wife after finding out she had "liked" the Ukrainian army page on Facebook, and restoring a receipt on her phone of a donation she had made to them. "I tried to stand up for her," he said, "but was knocked down." He got up, but was beaten once more. A pattern, he said, that happened again and again.
When Russian soldiers realised where he worked, they took Vadym to a different building. There, Vadym said separatist soldiers asked him "stupid things" and started to beat him. "They used electricity. I almost died. I fell and choked on my dental fillings, which had come out from my teeth," Vadym said. He vomited and fainted. "They were furious. When I recovered consciousness, they told me to clean everything up and continued to give me electric shocks."
The torture, Vadym said, only stopped after Russian officers intervened. They carried out another round of questioning before finally freeing him. As Vadym left the building, he saw a young woman, who had been identified during the process as a court clerk, being carried out.
"A plastic bag was put on her head, and her hands were tied," Vadym said. "Her mother was on her knees, begging for her daughter not to be taken away."
Vadym's release came with a condition: he would have to go to Russia. About 1.2 million people in Ukraine, including thousands of Mariupol residents, have been sent to Russia against their will since the invasion began in February, according to Ukrainian officials. Russia denies it is carrying out a mass deportation, which would constitute a war crime under international humanitarian law, and says it is simply helping those who want to go. Ukraine rejects this claim.
Some of those sent to Russia have managed to escape to other countries and even return to Ukraine. How many, remains unclear. Vadym, with the help of his friends, moved to another European country - he did not want to reveal the exact location. He had lost some of his vision, he told me, and doctors said this was a result of head injuries from the beating. "I feel better now, but rehabilitation will take a long time." I asked him what he thought about filtration. "They separate families. People are being disappeared," he said. "It's pure terror."
Russia's defence ministry did not respond to several requests for comment on the allegations. The Russian government has previously denied it is carrying out war crimes in Ukraine.

Andriy said his mother was told by a Russian soldier that he was going through "re-education"
Andriy and his family have now settled in Germany, after also having been forced to go to Russia. Looking back, he believes the occupying forces seemed to be using filtration to show their "absolute power". Soldiers, he said, acted as if it was a "type of entertainment", something to "satisfy their own ego".
I told him about another Ukrainian I had met - Viktoriia, a 60-year-old retired engineer. A soldier found out she had added a Ukrainian flag to her profile photo on Facebook, she told me, and the message "Ukraine above all."
She said that he pointed his gun at her and threatened: "I'll put you in the basement until you rot!" He then kicked her, she said. Viktoriia could not understand why he had acted like that. "What did I do? What right did they have?"
Andriy said he could not explain such behaviour. "I even try to justify the process somehow. Try to convince myself there's some logic."
But, he said, "there's no logic"."

All right, folks; first, two confessions:
1. When the Canadian Parliament declared that Russia was committing genocide in Ukraine, I thought it was overkill, even though I've never doubted Russia's war crimes.
2. Unlike many folks on the forum and in agreement with Steve, I've been opposed to NATO openly entering the war on the side of Ukraine, for all the reasons that Steve has argued + avoiding a nuclear war.
Now, if this latest BBC piece can be verified, that all changes. Again, I do demand verification before going ahead with anything, but if all this is true, NATO has to go in - else, it means we were building our own Potemkin village since the Nuremberg trials:
[I tried to pick parts of the article to quote but it didn't make sense, so I'm quoting the whole thing with the hope of reaching a wider audience who may not want to or cannot open the BBC website.]
Electrocution and beatings: The horrors of Russia's 'filtration'
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61683513
"Ukrainians who want to leave cities under Russian occupation cannot do so without undergoing a terrifying process known as filtration. Phones are searched, social media accounts scoured. Anything deemed incriminating can lead to beatings or even electrocution, civilians say, and many are forcibly sent to Russia.

Andriy watched anxiously as Russian soldiers connected his mobile to their computer, apparently trying to restore some files. Andriy, a 28-year-old marketing officer, was trying to leave Mariupol in early May. He had deleted everything he thought a Russian soldier could use against him, such as text messages discussing Russia's invasion of Ukraine or photos of the devastation in his city caused by weeks of relentless shelling.
But the internet in Mariupol, a once bustling port in southern Ukraine, had been cut off as part of the siege imposed by Russia, and Andriy had not been able to take down some of his social media posts. He remembered the first days of the war, when he had shared some anti-Russian messages and speeches from the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. "I'm screwed," he thought.
The soldiers, Andriy told me, already had their focus on him. When he first joined the queues for filtration in Bezimenne, a small village to the east of Mariupol, one of the Russians noticed his beard. The soldier assumed it was a sign Andriy was a fighter with the city's Azov regiment, a former militia which had links with the far right. "Is it you and your brigade killing our guys?" Andriy was asked. He replied he had never served in the army, he started working directly after graduating, but "they didn't want to hear it".
As the soldiers went through his phone, they turned to his political views, and asked his opinion of Zelensky. Andriy, cautiously, said Zelensky was "okay", and one of the soldiers wanted to know what he meant by that. Andriy told him Zelensky was just another president, not very different from those who had come before, and that in fact, he was not very interested in politics. "Well," the soldier replied, "you should just say you aren't interested in politics."
The soldiers kept Andriy's phone and told him to wait outside. He met his grandmother, mother and aunt, who had arrived with him and had already been given a document that allowed them to leave. A few minutes later, Andriy said, he was ordered to go to a tent where members of Russia's security service, the FSB, were carrying out further checks.
Five officers were sitting behind a desk, three wearing balaclavas. They showed Andriy a video he had shared on Instagram of a speech Zelensky had given, from 1 March. With it was a caption written by Andriy: "A president we can be proud of. Go home with your warship!" One of the officers took the lead. "You told us you're neutral to politics, but you support the Nazi government," Andriy recalled being told. "He hit me in the throat. He basically started the beating."

Like Andriy, Dmytro had his phone confiscated at a checkpoint as he tried to leave Mariupol in late March. Dmytro, a 34-year-old history teacher, said the soldiers came across the word "ruscist", a play on "Russia" and "fascist", in a message to a friend. The soldiers, Dmytro told me, slapped and kicked him, and "everything [happened] because I used that word."
Dmytro said he was taken, with four other people, to a police station in the village of Nikolsky, also a filtration point. "The highest-ranking officer punched me four times in the face," he said. "It seemed to be part of the procedure".
His interrogators said teachers like him were spreading pro-Ukrainian propaganda. They also asked what he thought about "the events of 2014", the year that Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula and started supporting pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. He replied that the conflict was known as the Russo-Ukrainian war. "They said Russia was not involved, and asked me whether I agreed that it was, in fact, a Ukrainian civil war."
The officers checked his phone again, and this time found a photo of a book which had the letter H in its title. "We got you!" the soldiers told Dmytro. Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, claims his war in Ukraine is an effort to "de-Nazify" the country, and the soldiers, Dmytro said, believed he was reading books about Hitler.
The next morning, Dmytro was transferred with two women to a prison in Starobesheve, a separatist-controlled village in Donetsk. He counted 24 people in the four-bunk cell. After four days and another detailed interrogation, he was finally released, and eventually reached Ukrainian-held territory. Weeks later, he still does not know what happened to his cell mates.

Back inside the tent in Bezimenne, Andriy noticed two other people with their hands tied behind them, who had been left in a corner while the officers paid attention to him. "They started to beat me way harder," Andriy told me, "everywhere". At one point, after a blow to the stomach, he felt as if he was about to faint. He managed to sit on a chair.
"I wondered what would be better," he said, "to lose consciousness and fall down or tolerate the pain further."
At least, Andriy thought, he had not been sent somewhere else, away from his family. Ukrainian officials say thousands of people are believed to have been sent to detention centres and camps set up in Russian-controlled areas during filtration. In almost all cases, their relatives do not know where they are being held, or why. "I [was] very angry about everything," Andriy said, "but, at the same time, I know it could've been much worse."
His mother tried to get into the tent, but was stopped by the officers. "She was very nervous. She later said they had told her that my 're-education' had started," Andriy said, "and that she shouldn't be worried." His ordeal, he told me, continued for two and a half hours. He was even forced to make a video saying "Glory to the Russian army!", a mockery of "Slava Ukraini!", the Ukrainian slogan.
The final question, Andriy said, was whether he had "understood his mistakes", and "I obviously answered yes". As he was being released, officers brought in another man, who had previously served in Ukraine's military and had several tattoos. "They immediately pushed him to the ground and started to beat him," Andriy said. "They didn't even talk to him."

Ukrainian authorities say Russian forces and Russian-backed separatists have carried out filtration in occupied territories as an attempt to establish residents' possible links with the military, law enforcement and even local government, as the invading forces try to restore services and infrastructure.
Men of fighting age are particularly targeted, checked for bruises that could suggest recent use of weapons, such as on the fingers and shoulders. Strip searches are common, witnesses say, even for women. Oleksandra Matviychuk, the head of the Center for Civil Liberties, a Kyiv-based human rights group, said the process, even when not violent, was "inhuman". "There's no military need for this... They're trying to occupy the country with a tool I call 'immense pain of civilian people'. You ask: 'Why so much cruelty? For what?'"
Maksym, a 48-year-old steelworker, said he was forced to strip naked while officers in Bezimenne checked even the seams of his clothes. He was asked whether he was from the Azov regiment or was a Nazi sympathiser - he denied being either - and why he wanted to leave Mariupol. "I said, 'Actually, it's you who are on Ukrainian soil.'" One of the officers, who he said were all Russian, reacted by hitting Maksym with the gun butt in his chest. He fell.
"I leaned my head on the ground, holding my ribs. I couldn't get up," he said. "It was very painful to breathe."
He was taken to what he described as a "cage", where others were being held. He noticed that one man, a weightlifter, had a tattoo of Poseidon, the Greek god, with a trident. The soldiers, Maksym said, thought it was the Ukrainian coat of arms. "He explained it to them but they didn't understand." Those detained in the "cage" were given no water or food, and had to urinate in a corner in front of everyone, Maksym told me. At one point, exhausted, he tried to sleep on the ground. An officer came in and kicked him in the back, forcing him to stand.
People would be taken to be interrogated and, when they returned, "you saw the person had been beaten", Maksym said. He witnessed a woman in her 40s lying in pain, apparently after being hit in the stomach. A man, who seemed to be around 50, had a bleeding lip and red bruises on his neck. Maksym believed he had been strangled. No-one in the "cage" asked or said anything to each other. They were afraid that FSB officers could be disguised as prisoners.
After about four or five hours, Maksym was released and allowed to leave Mariupol. Days later, he reached safety in Ukrainian-controlled territory, and went to a hospital to treat the persistent pain in his chest. The diagnosis: four broken ribs.

Yuriy Belousov, who leads the Department of War at the Ukrainian general prosecutor's office, said his team had received allegations of torture and even killings during filtration. "[It seems to be] a Russian policy which was designed in advance, and pretty well prepared," he told me. "It's definitely not just a single case or [something] done by a local military guy."
He acknowledged it was difficult to verify the cases, or estimate the scale of the violence. The Ukrainian authorities are unable to carry out investigations in occupied territories and most victims remain reluctant to share their stories, concerned that relatives in Mariupol could be targeted if their identity is exposed.
Vadym, 43, who used to work at a state-owned company in Mariupol, said he was tortured in Bezimenne in March. Separatist soldiers had questioned his wife after finding out she had "liked" the Ukrainian army page on Facebook, and restoring a receipt on her phone of a donation she had made to them. "I tried to stand up for her," he said, "but was knocked down." He got up, but was beaten once more. A pattern, he said, that happened again and again.
When Russian soldiers realised where he worked, they took Vadym to a different building. There, Vadym said separatist soldiers asked him "stupid things" and started to beat him. "They used electricity. I almost died. I fell and choked on my dental fillings, which had come out from my teeth," Vadym said. He vomited and fainted. "They were furious. When I recovered consciousness, they told me to clean everything up and continued to give me electric shocks."
The torture, Vadym said, only stopped after Russian officers intervened. They carried out another round of questioning before finally freeing him. As Vadym left the building, he saw a young woman, who had been identified during the process as a court clerk, being carried out.
"A plastic bag was put on her head, and her hands were tied," Vadym said. "Her mother was on her knees, begging for her daughter not to be taken away."
Vadym's release came with a condition: he would have to go to Russia. About 1.2 million people in Ukraine, including thousands of Mariupol residents, have been sent to Russia against their will since the invasion began in February, according to Ukrainian officials. Russia denies it is carrying out a mass deportation, which would constitute a war crime under international humanitarian law, and says it is simply helping those who want to go. Ukraine rejects this claim.
Some of those sent to Russia have managed to escape to other countries and even return to Ukraine. How many, remains unclear. Vadym, with the help of his friends, moved to another European country - he did not want to reveal the exact location. He had lost some of his vision, he told me, and doctors said this was a result of head injuries from the beating. "I feel better now, but rehabilitation will take a long time." I asked him what he thought about filtration. "They separate families. People are being disappeared," he said. "It's pure terror."
Russia's defence ministry did not respond to several requests for comment on the allegations. The Russian government has previously denied it is carrying out war crimes in Ukraine.

Andriy said his mother was told by a Russian soldier that he was going through "re-education"
Andriy and his family have now settled in Germany, after also having been forced to go to Russia. Looking back, he believes the occupying forces seemed to be using filtration to show their "absolute power". Soldiers, he said, acted as if it was a "type of entertainment", something to "satisfy their own ego".
I told him about another Ukrainian I had met - Viktoriia, a 60-year-old retired engineer. A soldier found out she had added a Ukrainian flag to her profile photo on Facebook, she told me, and the message "Ukraine above all."
She said that he pointed his gun at her and threatened: "I'll put you in the basement until you rot!" He then kicked her, she said. Viktoriia could not understand why he had acted like that. "What did I do? What right did they have?"
Andriy said he could not explain such behaviour. "I even try to justify the process somehow. Try to convince myself there's some logic."
But, he said, "there's no logic"."

All right, folks; first, two confessions:
1. When the Canadian Parliament declared that Russia was committing genocide in Ukraine, I thought it was overkill, even though I've never doubted Russia's war crimes.
2. Unlike many folks on the forum and in agreement with Steve, I've been opposed to NATO openly entering the war on the side of Ukraine, for all the reasons that Steve has argued + avoiding a nuclear war.
Now, if this latest BBC piece can be verified, that all changes. Again, I do demand verification before going ahead with anything, but if all this is true, NATO has to go in - else, it means we were building our own Potemkin village since the Nuremberg trials:
[I tried to pick parts of the article to quote but it didn't make sense, so I'm quoting the whole thing with the hope of reaching a wider audience who may not want to or cannot open the BBC website.]
Electrocution and beatings: The horrors of Russia's 'filtration'
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61683513
"Ukrainians who want to leave cities under Russian occupation cannot do so without undergoing a terrifying process known as filtration. Phones are searched, social media accounts scoured. Anything deemed incriminating can lead to beatings or even electrocution, civilians say, and many are forcibly sent to Russia.

Andriy watched anxiously as Russian soldiers connected his mobile to their computer, apparently trying to restore some files. Andriy, a 28-year-old marketing officer, was trying to leave Mariupol in early May. He had deleted everything he thought a Russian soldier could use against him, such as text messages discussing Russia's invasion of Ukraine or photos of the devastation in his city caused by weeks of relentless shelling.
But the internet in Mariupol, a once bustling port in southern Ukraine, had been cut off as part of the siege imposed by Russia, and Andriy had not been able to take down some of his social media posts. He remembered the first days of the war, when he had shared some anti-Russian messages and speeches from the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. "I'm screwed," he thought.
The soldiers, Andriy told me, already had their focus on him. When he first joined the queues for filtration in Bezimenne, a small village to the east of Mariupol, one of the Russians noticed his beard. The soldier assumed it was a sign Andriy was a fighter with the city's Azov regiment, a former militia which had links with the far right. "Is it you and your brigade killing our guys?" Andriy was asked. He replied he had never served in the army, he started working directly after graduating, but "they didn't want to hear it".
As the soldiers went through his phone, they turned to his political views, and asked his opinion of Zelensky. Andriy, cautiously, said Zelensky was "okay", and one of the soldiers wanted to know what he meant by that. Andriy told him Zelensky was just another president, not very different from those who had come before, and that in fact, he was not very interested in politics. "Well," the soldier replied, "you should just say you aren't interested in politics."
The soldiers kept Andriy's phone and told him to wait outside. He met his grandmother, mother and aunt, who had arrived with him and had already been given a document that allowed them to leave. A few minutes later, Andriy said, he was ordered to go to a tent where members of Russia's security service, the FSB, were carrying out further checks.
Five officers were sitting behind a desk, three wearing balaclavas. They showed Andriy a video he had shared on Instagram of a speech Zelensky had given, from 1 March. With it was a caption written by Andriy: "A president we can be proud of. Go home with your warship!" One of the officers took the lead. "You told us you're neutral to politics, but you support the Nazi government," Andriy recalled being told. "He hit me in the throat. He basically started the beating."

Like Andriy, Dmytro had his phone confiscated at a checkpoint as he tried to leave Mariupol in late March. Dmytro, a 34-year-old history teacher, said the soldiers came across the word "ruscist", a play on "Russia" and "fascist", in a message to a friend. The soldiers, Dmytro told me, slapped and kicked him, and "everything [happened] because I used that word."
Dmytro said he was taken, with four other people, to a police station in the village of Nikolsky, also a filtration point. "The highest-ranking officer punched me four times in the face," he said. "It seemed to be part of the procedure".
His interrogators said teachers like him were spreading pro-Ukrainian propaganda. They also asked what he thought about "the events of 2014", the year that Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula and started supporting pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. He replied that the conflict was known as the Russo-Ukrainian war. "They said Russia was not involved, and asked me whether I agreed that it was, in fact, a Ukrainian civil war."
The officers checked his phone again, and this time found a photo of a book which had the letter H in its title. "We got you!" the soldiers told Dmytro. Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, claims his war in Ukraine is an effort to "de-Nazify" the country, and the soldiers, Dmytro said, believed he was reading books about Hitler.
The next morning, Dmytro was transferred with two women to a prison in Starobesheve, a separatist-controlled village in Donetsk. He counted 24 people in the four-bunk cell. After four days and another detailed interrogation, he was finally released, and eventually reached Ukrainian-held territory. Weeks later, he still does not know what happened to his cell mates.

Back inside the tent in Bezimenne, Andriy noticed two other people with their hands tied behind them, who had been left in a corner while the officers paid attention to him. "They started to beat me way harder," Andriy told me, "everywhere". At one point, after a blow to the stomach, he felt as if he was about to faint. He managed to sit on a chair.
"I wondered what would be better," he said, "to lose consciousness and fall down or tolerate the pain further."
At least, Andriy thought, he had not been sent somewhere else, away from his family. Ukrainian officials say thousands of people are believed to have been sent to detention centres and camps set up in Russian-controlled areas during filtration. In almost all cases, their relatives do not know where they are being held, or why. "I [was] very angry about everything," Andriy said, "but, at the same time, I know it could've been much worse."
His mother tried to get into the tent, but was stopped by the officers. "She was very nervous. She later said they had told her that my 're-education' had started," Andriy said, "and that she shouldn't be worried." His ordeal, he told me, continued for two and a half hours. He was even forced to make a video saying "Glory to the Russian army!", a mockery of "Slava Ukraini!", the Ukrainian slogan.
The final question, Andriy said, was whether he had "understood his mistakes", and "I obviously answered yes". As he was being released, officers brought in another man, who had previously served in Ukraine's military and had several tattoos. "They immediately pushed him to the ground and started to beat him," Andriy said. "They didn't even talk to him."

Ukrainian authorities say Russian forces and Russian-backed separatists have carried out filtration in occupied territories as an attempt to establish residents' possible links with the military, law enforcement and even local government, as the invading forces try to restore services and infrastructure.
Men of fighting age are particularly targeted, checked for bruises that could suggest recent use of weapons, such as on the fingers and shoulders. Strip searches are common, witnesses say, even for women. Oleksandra Matviychuk, the head of the Center for Civil Liberties, a Kyiv-based human rights group, said the process, even when not violent, was "inhuman". "There's no military need for this... They're trying to occupy the country with a tool I call 'immense pain of civilian people'. You ask: 'Why so much cruelty? For what?'"
Maksym, a 48-year-old steelworker, said he was forced to strip naked while officers in Bezimenne checked even the seams of his clothes. He was asked whether he was from the Azov regiment or was a Nazi sympathiser - he denied being either - and why he wanted to leave Mariupol. "I said, 'Actually, it's you who are on Ukrainian soil.'" One of the officers, who he said were all Russian, reacted by hitting Maksym with the gun butt in his chest. He fell.
"I leaned my head on the ground, holding my ribs. I couldn't get up," he said. "It was very painful to breathe."
He was taken to what he described as a "cage", where others were being held. He noticed that one man, a weightlifter, had a tattoo of Poseidon, the Greek god, with a trident. The soldiers, Maksym said, thought it was the Ukrainian coat of arms. "He explained it to them but they didn't understand." Those detained in the "cage" were given no water or food, and had to urinate in a corner in front of everyone, Maksym told me. At one point, exhausted, he tried to sleep on the ground. An officer came in and kicked him in the back, forcing him to stand.
People would be taken to be interrogated and, when they returned, "you saw the person had been beaten", Maksym said. He witnessed a woman in her 40s lying in pain, apparently after being hit in the stomach. A man, who seemed to be around 50, had a bleeding lip and red bruises on his neck. Maksym believed he had been strangled. No-one in the "cage" asked or said anything to each other. They were afraid that FSB officers could be disguised as prisoners.
After about four or five hours, Maksym was released and allowed to leave Mariupol. Days later, he reached safety in Ukrainian-controlled territory, and went to a hospital to treat the persistent pain in his chest. The diagnosis: four broken ribs.

Yuriy Belousov, who leads the Department of War at the Ukrainian general prosecutor's office, said his team had received allegations of torture and even killings during filtration. "[It seems to be] a Russian policy which was designed in advance, and pretty well prepared," he told me. "It's definitely not just a single case or [something] done by a local military guy."
He acknowledged it was difficult to verify the cases, or estimate the scale of the violence. The Ukrainian authorities are unable to carry out investigations in occupied territories and most victims remain reluctant to share their stories, concerned that relatives in Mariupol could be targeted if their identity is exposed.
Vadym, 43, who used to work at a state-owned company in Mariupol, said he was tortured in Bezimenne in March. Separatist soldiers had questioned his wife after finding out she had "liked" the Ukrainian army page on Facebook, and restoring a receipt on her phone of a donation she had made to them. "I tried to stand up for her," he said, "but was knocked down." He got up, but was beaten once more. A pattern, he said, that happened again and again.
When Russian soldiers realised where he worked, they took Vadym to a different building. There, Vadym said separatist soldiers asked him "stupid things" and started to beat him. "They used electricity. I almost died. I fell and choked on my dental fillings, which had come out from my teeth," Vadym said. He vomited and fainted. "They were furious. When I recovered consciousness, they told me to clean everything up and continued to give me electric shocks."
The torture, Vadym said, only stopped after Russian officers intervened. They carried out another round of questioning before finally freeing him. As Vadym left the building, he saw a young woman, who had been identified during the process as a court clerk, being carried out.
"A plastic bag was put on her head, and her hands were tied," Vadym said. "Her mother was on her knees, begging for her daughter not to be taken away."
Vadym's release came with a condition: he would have to go to Russia. About 1.2 million people in Ukraine, including thousands of Mariupol residents, have been sent to Russia against their will since the invasion began in February, according to Ukrainian officials. Russia denies it is carrying out a mass deportation, which would constitute a war crime under international humanitarian law, and says it is simply helping those who want to go. Ukraine rejects this claim.
Some of those sent to Russia have managed to escape to other countries and even return to Ukraine. How many, remains unclear. Vadym, with the help of his friends, moved to another European country - he did not want to reveal the exact location. He had lost some of his vision, he told me, and doctors said this was a result of head injuries from the beating. "I feel better now, but rehabilitation will take a long time." I asked him what he thought about filtration. "They separate families. People are being disappeared," he said. "It's pure terror."
Russia's defence ministry did not respond to several requests for comment on the allegations. The Russian government has previously denied it is carrying out war crimes in Ukraine.

Andriy said his mother was told by a Russian soldier that he was going through "re-education"
Andriy and his family have now settled in Germany, after also having been forced to go to Russia. Looking back, he believes the occupying forces seemed to be using filtration to show their "absolute power". Soldiers, he said, acted as if it was a "type of entertainment", something to "satisfy their own ego".
I told him about another Ukrainian I had met - Viktoriia, a 60-year-old retired engineer. A soldier found out she had added a Ukrainian flag to her profile photo on Facebook, she told me, and the message "Ukraine above all."
She said that he pointed his gun at her and threatened: "I'll put you in the basement until you rot!" He then kicked her, she said. Viktoriia could not understand why he had acted like that. "What did I do? What right did they have?"
Andriy said he could not explain such behaviour. "I even try to justify the process somehow. Try to convince myself there's some logic."
But, he said, "there's no logic"."

One can only hope that these images have found their way to screens in Kostroma and are resulting in questions being asked [There were even more shocking videos posted by 666_mancer, but the tweets have now been deleted.]:
Disturbing content!
 

The ACE Models (Ukrainian model kit maker) homepage

1.  From a pro-RU feed, separs using recoilless guns (what's the Soviet calibre of these? 76mm?) and a DP28. Dense woodlands, looks a lot like Western Europe.
2.  And yup, the Russians are using the infamous 'butterfly' mines.
3.  Kornet team.
 

Thanks! Yes, that rings a bell now that you mention it. Hasegawa even did a "what-if" special edition release of their venerable 1:72 scale A-10 model kit in a hypothetical UAV configuration .

Tbh it’s just a flag being waved, I hope her village recognizes her regret and isnt too harsh on her. Tho I saw Ukraine has been investigating pro-Russian social media postings by Ukrainians. On one hand, on the other, you do need to ensure they aren’t stirring the pot. War always make these questions impossible to answer vs in peace. 
I believe the soldier who stomped on the flag in the video wished that she won’t be too socially punished for her actions. Also, apparently they made up in a sort of way after the incident, but the video spread out anyway. 
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05/16/maybe-the-lord-himself-sent-me
 

Yeah, and some of those beautiful girls in camo are dying for their country as well. 🇺🇦
 

Here's the EDM4S:   https://www.armedconflicts.com/Lithuanian-anti-drone-jammer-EDM4S-Sky-Wiper-portable-equipment-REW-t249674
EW is interesting...especially Russian use. Handheld jammers, like the EDM4S, are difficult to counter. However, they are similar to (early) MANPADs in that they are not kept turned on. They're only used AFTER a drone has been identified. (Manpads are limited by their IR targeting/seeker needing to be cooled, by boiling off cryogenics or using limited battery power.) The question remains...how would the jammer-user know when to use it?
Stand-off UAVs are undetectable without radar, IR, or staring focal arrays.
Russian area-jammers are useful to deny areas...  It would be great if they start using them. Nothing is easier than guiding a missile onto an active transmitter. Targeting beacons make for simple solutions. 

That's a very interesting way of looking at current events.
metadata don't lie.