stuxneet

Loose lipped?!….you have a leading presidential candidate openly channeling Mien Kampf, how is this not a contemporary and relevant issue in this war?
In fact your level of defensiveness and offense that I dare even mention race (ethnic or religious) relations is in itself telling.  As to your wife…you brought her up in the first place!  I have to tell you this is one of the most bizarre and convoluted debates I have seen in some time.  I am not even sure what your point is beyond “take Israel from my cold dead hand”.  
I am somehow being racist by pointing out that there is a white supremacy problem in the US which was really offhand from the main point that race and ethnicity may very well be playing a role here.  Your automatic response appears to be “hey wait a minute, I am not racist…look at my wife”.  When I never inferred that you (or your wife) were racist in any way.  In fact I never inferred that all pro-Israel supports are racist either, but suddenly here we are with white “shame and guilt”?
We had Arab Muslims carry out 9/11, were fed a steady diet of Arab Muslim antagonists for over 20 years and now see another group of Arab Muslims commit more terror atrocities - which I do not even debate in the least - but it appears to be taboo in discussing the real fact that there appears to be a tendency to ignore the very real possibility of IDF warcrimes against…wait for it…more Arab Muslims?
 For  “good Christian folk” one cannot but see Jesus shaking his head and going “seriously WTF?”
 

Short answer is “Chain of Command”.  It would start with who had what authorities and who granted those authorities.  Politicians are famous for trying to push any and all illegal activities onto the military.  It is rare for political level prosecution to occur, but it does happen (eg Yugoslavia).  So in the case of the IDF the first question will be: what were the Rules of Engagement?  Who developed them?  Who authorized them?  If the ROEs were weak or outright illegal then responsibility will be much higher and wider.
Next is how were those ROEs interpreted?  So targeting in the modern era is pretty complex.  Rarely is a Bn CO given authority to call in airstrikes, especially in a counter-insurgency type scenario with this many civilians around.  It would be held at the formation or operational level.  The tactical unit can call for fire but the collateral estimates and authority is normally held at a higher level.  The Bn is responsible for its own organic fires, which are substantial and making responsible requests for support.  However, final release for aircraft would be held higher, unless that aircraft was actually directly attached to that tactical unit…again rare.
So for an individual incident, say a soldier shooting a civilian.  An investigation would include all the background ROEs and authorities, and then would look at the context of the situation.  What was happening on the ground?  Was this an isolated incident or did this unit interpret the ROEs more loosely than others?  As the incident widens, so does the investigation.  An airstrike is going to be formation level or higher.
In the case of the IDF right now, based on the levels of destruction and frequency of reports, I would expect an international investigation.  The main reason is that parts of Gaza look like free-fire zones right now.  These are areas of basically weapons free ROEs.  Airstrikes are levelling neighbourhoods and hitting all sorts of questionable targets.  This would suggest a sanctioning of illegal ROEs coming from near the top…possibly all the way up.  This speaks to more than a few units getting out of hand, it may speak to a systemic and deliberate violation of the LOAC in both the IDF and political level.  That is The Hauge type stuff.
It speaks to this.  There is a military solution - clean out Gaza and ensure the Palestinians never come back.  If one were to pursue it, the overall results would not look all that different from what we are seeing - deliberate systemic destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza with intent to ensure the place is uninhabitable.  This is a form of ethnic cleansing and has been practiced elsewhere, we have precedent.  And frankly Israel appears to be pursuing this strategy.  Unlike individuals, states are not afforded the right to presumed innocence, particularly in wartime.  Based on the levels of widespread destruction there is enough here to raise more than a few red flags.

Well it kinda is.  A furious illegal response is…illegal.  Now if we just want to throw out the law book because “furious” well then that will have very large repercussions.  For example, we will see no prosecution of Russian war criminals in that war.  Nations could in fact go right back to business as usual with Russia once the war is over because war crimes are no longer a thing.  China can pretty much do whatever because we have shut down the LOAC.
Or do we mean only our enemies have to be accountable for war crimes?  Us and our allies can get a by if we are really angry?  There has been ample evidence that the IDF is out of control, at least on a few occasions.  Investigations will need to be done and if anyone did act illegally they will need to be prosecuted.   Same as soldiers who did do dirty in Iraq.  Revenge, even righteous, does not excuse someone from conducting illegal shoots or indiscriminate killing of civilians.  
So which is it?  Do we have a law of armed conflict or not.  Because if not then legally Russian can start using chemical weapons…and send them to Hamas for that matter.  I mean if you want anarchy just be damned sure you understand what that looks like.  What I am seeing on this thread looks a lot like schoolyard justice, and that is not a basis for international law and order.  Or national law and order for that matter.

The idea that European nations are set blocs of ethnic groups is a recent, modern conceit. Britain, for one obvious example, is a melange of Irish, Scottish, German, Norman, Welsh, Cornish, etc. It only looks, if one squints hard enough, homogeneous because popular memory is short. This is true in some degree with every nation south of the Baltic Sea and more true the further east and south one goes. It is *especially* true of Ukraine. The idea that there is an unchanging "national culture" is also, on any timescale worth mentioning, an absurdity. France, as another example, had 40+ regional dialects that were only semi mutually intelligible to each other as recently as the last 150 years. "National culture" has always been effectively an elite choice of what dialect will be promoted, what traditions will be enshrined and what myths will be used to unite a particular state. And that unity, often, was achieved at the price of the toxic nationalism that tore Europe apart twice in the last 120 years and is tearing up Ukraine today. 
 

To claim that multiculturalism is "Babylon" is a universal precursor to every version of fascist authoritarianism and the idea that cultural change via immigration destroys nations runs up against the obvious example of America as a superpower. Your approach to this subject is flat out Putinist.  
 

Footage from an airsoft game, unfortunately 😉

Footage from an airsoft game, unfortunately 😉

Not how it really works.  Mainly because “the law”.  The international community has never passed laws on the use of nuclear weapons.  Restrictions and limitations on their use are all managed by treaties.  The employment of nuclear weapons is essentially off the legal map.
As JonS pointed out, striking a large dam that would lead to massive civilian casualties is against the law.
Fellas can we not drift into “let’s do warcrimes because XYZ?”  C’mon, we are supposed to be the adults in an internet of children.  No, we can not condone warcrimes because Russia did them (and oh we made a lot of noise when they blew that dam down by Kherson).  We cannot condone them because “back in WW2 everyone did it” - doesn’t freakin matter, take a look at your calendar…what year does it say.  Most international law on warcrimes were written after WW2 because everyone was doing them.  WW2 was an example of what a total war looked like when everyone sat around after WW1 and did nothing.  So we decided that was a bad thing and passed a whole bunch of laws to prevent it from happening again.
We do not do war crimes for some very good reasons:
Unity.  If Ukraine (or anyone else) starts playing fast and loose with unrighteous targeting, we risk splitting the coalition of support for Ukraine.  Canada for instance would lose its mind and likely start turning off the taps.
Escalation.  Ok, we take out a dam, kill a bunch of civilians.  Russia potato-in-the-exhaust-pipes a nuclear power plant.  You see where this goes.
Post-war justice.  You want criminal prosecution for Bucha?  Might want to skip committing warcrimes of your own.
Utility.  It won’t work.  A mass killing of Russian civilians anywhere will very likely drive enormous active support into Putin’s arms.  We will wind up with a stronger Russian Will, not a weaker one.
So can we please skip warcrimes week…again?

I have been of this view since mid 2022. This labels me as a pessimist on this forum, although I have very badly wanted the Russians to hit their 'Uncle' point first, and quit, as they did in A'Stan, then Eastern Europe and then the USSR itself.
Unfortunately, the Arsenal of Democracy doesn't exist any more. There are probably as many or more cheerful Ukrainian Vikings capable and interested in becoming skilled machinists (or CAD draftsmen) than North Americans today, at a 10x population delta.  (And those in N.A. who do try to go into these fields are overwhelmingly Asian immigrants).
...The frat boys I went to uni with in the '80s who (unlike me, no I was the 'smart guy', too clever for all that) went to the elite banking jobs on Bay Street/Wall Street, and then on to private equity. Pretty much everyone else in our age group who chose a different profession has either struggled to prosper in a world shaped by these sh*theads, or basically become one of them, or served them. Time has done the rest, most of the folks who could recreate and manage the world we lived in as of Desert Storm 1991 are retired or dead.
And they shipped all that Making Lotsa Stuff Better Faster Cheaper capacity and knowhow offshore, piecemeal and then in huge chunks, first to Mexico and then to China, the moment e-commerce made it possible to do so (c. 1998-2003, depending on sector), with the active support of pretty much ALL political parties. Took them about 15 years to bleed out the industrial base of the US of A (of which Canada is merely region 5 or 6 on most corporate logistical maps).
Short of a mortal danger (i.e. invasion!) to North America, that capacity ain't ever coming back, no sense dreaming about it. Why would the finance bros give a rats, still less tolerate all the dot.Gov meddling, if they can't model 15% EIRR, with exit margin compression door-to-door returns of 24% within 2 years of FID? Lame!
So we must pray that our Ukrainian brothers can maintain their qualitative edge long enough to break that "Russian Will", before waves of cheap-and-cheerful-made-in-China clones of last-year's tech takes 2024 to a Passchendaele level of bloody for both sides.
I would love someone to convince me I'm wrong about any of the above, cuz I haven't found anyone, here or elsewhere.
So I'm left praying for Russian weakness, or some hidden reserve of common sense, reasserting itself and ending this thing.

What air defenses? ;D
Apperently, there's less and less of them. BBC was pretty quick to report the local (my hometown) events, so you may wanna check that out.
No air raid warnings, no nothing. Nothing is happening, as always. Just bavovna and smoke. Even the announcer at the train station skips the usual "be observant and careful, careful and observant" this morning. How come, I wonder?
 
ps: I'm okay, and the windows are fine, for now.

Re: possible insurgency
1. First off, as Steve already said, things can theoretically happen. We're talking about the most likely scenario. Anyone who predicts future with 100% certainty is a fraud.
2. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of bad blood. Just as you saw a lot of Crimeans genuinely cheering up and supporting the invaders in 2014, the Crimeans saw people on mainland Ukraine cheer powerlines being blown up as 2 million people plunged into darkness, water channel being cut off, the roads being blocked for cargo traffic, with all the little nasty consequences that were actually physically felt here. The reactionary post-2014 policies, laws and rethoric weren't great either. But compared to all the mayhem what's been happening since Feb 2022, this is nothing. And people are TIRED of chaos, flying jets, drones, explosions and death. Those who are currently in the trenches or came from there are tired as well.
3. What would be "the cause" to rally behind? They can't even formulate victory conditions for the current war. Nor can they achieve anything significant, with all their men and equipment in the field. Rallying (who, civilians?) to do something a huge army can't do? That requires guts and there's none. Only stupidity and hubris. They are unable to say NO when told to do something stupid or illegal. Saying no requires guts.
4. You need to understand the reality on the ground. Pretty much all Crimeans who haven't left have Russian passports. What, 1.5-2 million people? Myself included. Because living here without one is practically impossible. Hell, I know Crimeans who left and are currently on mainland Ukraine that also have Russian passports, issued in Crimea in 2014 (illegaly, obviously). For Ukrainian government to take back control, they'll have to deal with it somehow. And bunch of other documents. There's already been laws and decrees passed aimed to make the transition back as painless as possible. There's a whole ministry that's dealing with issues like these. Refer to Ministry of Reintegration sources for more information.
5. That being said, it's been nine years, and nobody can pretict how much more time will pass before that. It can happen in two months, or in two years, or in ten. And with every single day, people are growing more tired. They are trying as hard as they can not to notice what's happening now. And there's no land warfare close by yet. When it comes, they'll have much more incentive to make it stop ASAP.
 
Re: how am I doing?
My life isn't as horrible as for some others out there. But things can change literally any minute, as for everybody else in the region. So I am trying to live in the moment while I can.
For those who don't know, I tried to get to Estonia via St.Petersburg back in September. Before Feb 2022, it was illegal (by Ukrainian laws) thing to do. I managed to contact some Ukrainian officials and learned that it is okay during the war, if your purpose is to leave the occupied areas/Russia.
But, as I also have Russian passport (issued locally after 2014, and almost impossible to get rid of without being put into danger), Russia views me as Russian citizen first, and by their laws, I had to get foreign travel passport in order to leave. I did that, and it took time. I also had to prepare money and other affairs. Thus I managed to get to the Estonian border only in September. My thinking was that it would be safer to deal with Russian documents after I cross the border, not before.
I knew that Russian passports issued in Crimea are not recognized by the EU. My Ukrainian foreign travel passport was outdated by that point. The rules are: you can apply for asylum if you have no valid travel documents. But when I got to the border, Estonian police and border guard told me that everything is fine with my Russian passport (the travel document I had to use to leave the Russian side of the border, because Russian laws) and thus I cannot ask for an asylum.
I told them many things about myself, and that I would be in danger if I return, but they did not care. They were angry and not cooperative, unwilling to listen. They blamed me for not coming sooner and for other things I had no control over. That night at the border is something that still haunts me to this day. Being rejected by the people who you considered to be good and being sent back to modern day neo-USSR. And there are things that I am not telling you here, because it is dangerous...
Anyway.. I came to St.Petersburg. Got seriously ill. Still, I got tickets to Vladikavkaz in order to try crossing into Georgia. But soon I found a lot of info online that told me the same story would happen there as well. There were no other good alternatives that came to my mind. Going somewhere else eastward wasn't looking like a good idea either, legally, logistically and for other reasons.
At that time, my little sister was still in Crimea. I've decided to come back here and deal with whatever happens to all of us together. Since then, there was a harsh winter without work. Serious depression, from which I barely managed to recover on my own, without meds or therapist. The dangers that are lurking out there are real. But I know who I am and what I stand for, and where my allegiance is.
Most importantly, I know that the bastards have already lost. I knew that back in Feb 2022. They will not succeed, no matter what happens to me personally. They can't do anything good in this world, and there's no "winning" for them in any shape or form.
I've stopped working on my Unity dev career for now. I tried to find some remote work, but failed and had to return back to working in a store. I do see a future where things go at least a little bit better. But for that to happen, a lot of people have to put in a lot of effort. There's nothing free, and freedom itself is not free. We all have to work for it.
Alright, I've already said much more than I should've. Over and out.

New feature request 😉

New feature request 😉

New feature request 😉

New feature request 😉

New feature request 😉

New feature request 😉

New feature request 😉

Photoshopping out the original Telegram channel watermark, same thing happened with the destroyed S400 command post photo which was of course taken as proof that it was fake.

Photoshopping out the original Telegram channel watermark, same thing happened with the destroyed S400 command post photo which was of course taken as proof that it was fake.

Photoshopping out the original Telegram channel watermark, same thing happened with the destroyed S400 command post photo which was of course taken as proof that it was fake.

Photoshopping out the original Telegram channel watermark, same thing happened with the destroyed S400 command post photo which was of course taken as proof that it was fake.

Photoshopping out the original Telegram channel watermark, same thing happened with the destroyed S400 command post photo which was of course taken as proof that it was fake.

Photoshopping out the original Telegram channel watermark, same thing happened with the destroyed S400 command post photo which was of course taken as proof that it was fake.

Photoshopping out the original Telegram channel watermark, same thing happened with the destroyed S400 command post photo which was of course taken as proof that it was fake.