FancyCat

Wasn’t his passport revoked while he was in Hong Kong? China let him fly still to Russia. Why wouldn’t Russia let him fly elsewhere…oh.

A scholarly article on Norwegian resistance and collaboration in WWII looking at state institutions and their response to German and Nazi attempts to take over the administration. https://doi.org/10.1080/03468755.2020.1846075

Belarus, I see no reason why Putin wouldn't order the Belarusian military to invade Ukraine. He and the General Staff had no qualms about ordering mobilized conscripts into Ukraine to shore up defenses. If a new front can be opened, it would require forces to counter. Recall that moves have been made for the deployment of nuclear weapons to Belarus, can Ukraine actually push into Belarus or is that now off-limits? Could be another scenario where like the rest of the Russian-Ukrainian border, no units can really invade. If off-limits, if it manages to allow Putin to escape with frozen Donbas front line, then certainly a desperate Putin is probably fully willing to toss the Belarusian people into the meatgrinder.

U.S is possibly looking into persuading Qatar and Oman into letting Ukraine have their NASAMS while more are made to backfill their orders. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/01/raytheon-air-defense-ukraine-middle-east-00071687

As we see with Russian bombardment of Ukraine, it is generally counterproductive in morale terms on the affected population (tho I think the material effects are very serious) but I’m going to say that Putin is probably almost desperate to get Ukraine in very hot water with the Russian civilian population. As it stands, Russia is basically slumbering and ignoring the Ukrainian conflict, and no amount of Russian tv about Ukrainian “terrorism” (they classify tons of Ukrainian actions as terrorism) is changing the fact that many, many Russians have fled the country. Certainly not the actions of a population united in defense of their country. Ukraine of course has been very careful to wage conflict, both to protect their international image, and keep the Russian population away from being unified, but end of the day, it is my opinion that caution is best regarding long range weaponry. It’s exceedingly unlikely from my view, that Ukrainian responses on Russian civilian infrastructure even with NATO weaponry would do anything to stop Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and not simply generate very much needed boosts in patriotism in Russia. Instead of missiles, let’s think aircraft, the degradation of the Iraqi military vis the Gulf War air campaign took…2,780 aircraft, 60 percent of which are combat aircraft. The Russian Air Force cannot gain air superiority, but the Ukrainian Air Force is no where close to doing that either. Unless NATO entered the conflict, that means, what aid we provide to Ukraine must take into consideration the limit of logistics, manpower, time. There is no war winning weaponry, and I’m doubtful there is weaponry to stop missile attacks that wouldn’t be counterproductive. And of course, if NATO enters the conflict, that would be the death knell for Russia, but again, there is no appetite for war with Russia, certainly not with nuclear armed Russia. Gepards, NASAMS, MLRS, HIMARS, hell the HARMS missiles rigged for a MiG, that stuff continues to flow to Ukraine, and I would argue are certainly vital weapons shoring up Ukraine. The money, is vital, the training is essential, the safe harbor. The supplies of anti-ship missiles, led to the retreat of the Russian Navy, the opening of the grain deal, but sorta fell off the radar. The statement by Defense Secretary Austin rings true, there is no one war ending weapon, but when you look back at the course of this war, western aid is helping to bring about change in Ukraine’s fortunes. Is it slow, dear god, I want a freaking Leopard 1 with a Ukrainian trident yesterday, but from my view, the way Russia is being slow walked to its doom, I’m seeing a extremely effective policy, with plenty of off-ramps for Putin, but is slowly strangling him as he foolishly clings to his hope the west and Ukraine folds. The idiot kept Russian gas and oil flowing to Europe during the summer, as Europe was trying to fill the reserves precisely to ignore Russian pressure, Putin was happily selling it in the delusion that Ukraine would fold on the battlefield, that Europe would betray Ukraine, and by the time he realized he needed to “ freeze” Europe, the freaking depots were brimming with LNG.

RUSI report is so good… Interesting, not only does this report result from the authors entering Ukraine and spending time with military and government officials, but includes high ranking military officials as authors. The report also notes it is careful not to discuss the offensive operations that began in July, suggesting the authors, certainly from RUSI, got to get glimpses at least of Ukrainian offensives, stuff we won’t know for a bit. Tho I do wonder how much Ukrainian deception is ongoing, that would color and influence this report still. Surely, the Russians will be reading it.

Long term large scale training of the Ukrainian military in Europe is anything *but* letting Ukraine bleed out and the conflict to freeze. The U.S and Europe need to ensure Russia does not panic and reach for the big red Nuclear button, bluffing or not, precisely once we reach that point, it will become very hard to keep escalating tensions supporting Ukraine vs sacrificing Ukraine for peace. We reach that point, we will already have lost, and Russia will likely get its frozen conflict simply cause I doubt any western leader wants to risk nuclear war over Ukraine or risk bluffing with Russia. Anything that keeps Russia from hitting the panic button, while allowing Ukraine to prep and gradually destroy Russia and retake all of its territory is undoubtedly good. A example, Russia was faulted by many, including most of this thread very early in the war for refusing to mobilize when its first phrase of the war ended in failure, Putin did not break and order mobilization until it was grossly late, costing Russia vital time and unrecoverable losses, precisely due to Putin feeling like he could pull thru without mobilization and force the West, force Ukraine to sue for peace. I think the same principle, of letting Putin boil slowly to death in his own mistake is the set course for the West, instead of full scale support that may cause him to panic. Also, it's very important to understand, once Ukraine is provided the long-range weapons, it is unlikely that Ukraine can choose to obey western wishes regarding targets, precisely due to the pain being inflicted on Ukraine. And certainly, no one can fault Ukraine for hitting eye for a eye, meaning the long term weaponry can not be provided, not yet else we risk galvanizing the Russian population for war. The best thing to do is set the stage for Ukraine to liberate its occupied regions, so that when the day finally comes Putin panics, the West cannot actually stop Ukraine.

Wagner has affiliated entities claimed to have interfered illegally with U.S elections to start. Also corruption, etc. Good place to start drawing up a broad government action against Wagner which I believe is already underway. If confirmed, I guess that is one benefit of extremely poor conscripts and soldiers, you can pay them with land. Houses. The property of the native inhabitants. Certainly for these people, if they stay on past Ukrainian liberation, they should get deported no question if they don't accept some sort of loyalty oath to Ukraine. This person's followup tweet I was not aware of, many Ukrainians were encouraged/pressured? to go to the Russian controlled portion of Outer Manchuria, with the result of a abortive attempt to create a "Green Ukraine" republic during the Russian Civil War.

A very lovely video laying out the terrain of Eastern Ukraine including history from both WWII and presently to explain why offensives have occurred where they have in Kharkiv and rest of the fronts. Broad overview but I like how the ww2's 4 battles of Kharkiv are explained why and how they occurred with visuals and it dovetails nicely with how Kharkiv and the urban Donbas factors now.

Big difference between the Korean War and this war....mainly that Americans are dying in the former, and the latter, are merely throwing spare change at Ukraine.

I'm sure Ukraine is suffering demanding issues in Bakhmut. Unless it's the author misinterpreting the reinforcements, I am unsure how special forces and lesser trained TDF being moved into Bakhmut is good. Low experienced formations being moved to hot spots is probably not a great situation, and depending on the type of special forces, aren't they better suited for other work than holding a front line? Tho in hindsight, before the Kharkiv offensive, Ukraine had amassed a good cadre of units to launch that, they may well be doing it again waiting for Spring. A article on Kherson resupply until Russian occupation. Very interesting, how civilian networks kept supplies flowing thru the front lines. https://kyivindependent.com/national/how-volunteers-helped-kherson-residents-survive-through-the-occupation

There were reports of conscripts getting robbed, either by their instructors or by more senior enlisted (including one instance where a brawl occurred and the newly conscripted won) so unless Russia has managed to stamp this out, which isn't likely, I would wager since cities and their inhabitants are generally more powerful, wealthy, and connected (overall rather individually), personnel connected from urban regions will have greater voice in maintaining the connections needed to push back on corruption and lack of supply vs personnel from rural regions, which are generally poorer overall and with less connections to power structures that might keep corruption from sapping their supplies. No supporting data, just conjecture on my part.

Extremely good point that we have missed in the discussion of war crimes and whether they are systemic or ad hoc and degrading of the Russian military. Certainly on the civilian side, actions like the forced seizure and displacement of Ukrainian civilians and kids, the erasure of Ukrainian language in occupied territories, the violence enacted against Ukrainian nationalism, do indicate that war crimes occurring against the population will be accepted by the civilian population, who are primed to think: end of the day, they are Russians who betrayed Russia and are adopting western degeneracy and so Russia needs to stamp it out, to protect Russia and save Ukraine. On public television, pundits openly say that bombing civilian infrastructure of Ukraine to force them to freeze to death is just punishment for fighting Russia. That obviously does not sound like a society that will be repelled by war crimes being done in Ukraine.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/11/22/russian-colonel-placed-under-house-arrest-for-washing-machine-bribe-a79464 A few days ago, a report came from Russian opposition media stating that a Colonel was arrested for threatening a bad inspection for a military conscription office unless they bribed him with a washing machine. It is just one example, so who knows if it's isolated or not, but why is a Colonel in the Russian military asking for a washing machine? Why not just money? Why is a senior officer who is in command of several hundred men at least not more incorruptible? If we recall the frequent reports of corruption in the Russian military, it is corrosive as hell, impacting every rank from the very top to the very bottom. Russian conscripts, contract soldiers engage in corruption, stealing from each other, we have reports of mid and senior level personnel stealing from the pay of the enlisted, doing false reports that allow them to skim off profits or hide their backs. Something that struck me was the reports from Belarus when Russian soldiers were bringing back their loot, here is a report on that, https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/18/russia-atrocities-ukraine-soldiers/ Again, data is scarce but it indicates organized looting, coordinated, involving large numbers of personnel, who are then allowed to proceed so far as to ship the loot back home to places like Siberia. In some instances the loot gets disappeared en route even. We are acting like the enlisted may not care about the war but surely the officers do? I would argue it is also hard to tell if that is true, the plentiful reports of actions like stealing of supplies, falsified reports, stealing of pay do not indicate regard for the war or their fellow soldiers or even fellow officers but only for attaining as much loot as possible. Pre-war, reports of officers using the enlisted akin to indentured labor, we should perhaps review with more accepting of it's truthfulness. Looting in prior warfare fell along the same lines, give your cut to your boss and he will let it slide. How do we know the Russian officers aren't asking their enlisted for their cut? How do we know the more senior officers arent asking the same of the junior officers? As for the APCs being abandoned vs washing machines, you can't sell the APC to pay off your superior, but you can certainly do so with the washing machines, and once your superior covers for you, the money he gets can be used to bribe the next senior officer and so on. As for acceptance of war crimes and corruption and brutality, it is notable the Wagner group is gaining numbers, equipment, and does so with publicity and without hiding the conscription of men from prisons or the brutal statements issued by Prigozhin. There isn't much stopping Wagner from gaining except from the viewpoint of new groups to compete for the money.

International humanitarian law by the very nature of its principles and integration and promotion by the rules based international order and its institutions means the degradation of IHL degrades the rule based international system and vice versa. Putin hates the rules based order. He spends a lot of time in speeches condemning it. Review of Russian government actions, including the foreign ministry, as well as the military actions since the beginning of the invasion have basically been broadsiding the system in rhetoric, in action, with violence, with near shamelessness and disregard. I will bring up the fact that Putin ordered the invasion to begin, announced via speech and began bombardment of Ukraine in the middle of a UN Security Council meeting to lower tensions and resolve the issue diplomatically. For a permanent member, one of the Big Five, to do that and basically attest to its disregard of the international order that it benefits hugely from, was in my opinion always supposed to be a clear message heralding the end of the international system, with the cake being the annexation of Ukraine. That it failed, hides the fact that Russia both in rhetoric, in actions, with long history, with buy in from both the civilian (including foreign office, usually the more peaceful and level headed people) and military structures of the Russian government speaks to it being a driving goal of Russia. It is no surprise that Russian forces commit war crimes, it is a testament to the strength of Russian hybrid warfare and it's government that it has hidden that war crimes, brutality and destruction of the principles of IHL is approved and sanctioned and is a strategic arm of Russian geopolitical power. They concealed it enough to prevent unified and concise action by the West up until the invasion.

Do we know if this is actually true that war crimes are a symptom of Russian military discipline collapsing or is it modus operandi? Chechnya, Syria, where undoubtedly a campaign of bombing IHL protected sites and personnel occurred meaning high command approval and authorization, Ukraine, when war crimes were occurring in the first days of the invasion despite the rosy picture falsely painted of Ukraine. Are we sure this isn't the Russian way of warfare? It would explain why the Russian military has not seemingly fell over and collapsed completely amid Ukrainian advances, and why Russia still has defensive capability. The practice of brutality in the Russian military remains, the heralded reforms and professionalization of the Russian military seem to have been lies, corruption has and is ravaging it, it might be time to ask if Russian warcrimes are approved and sanctioned at the highest levels of government. Except we know the answer to that. They are. Putin awarded medals and commendations to those units accused of warcrimes in Bucha. Therefore we need to actually toss the idea the Russian military is collapsing due to lack of military discipline and instead ask whether the brutality of the military internally and against who it fights is a integral part of the way it functions.

Is Crimea really more defensible? I mean Russia can't use naval assets to defend it. If Ukraine manages to seize the access to Crimea from the north and hits the bridge, with naval resupply in danger from anti-ship and AD possibly able to stop air resupply, is Crimea really a fortress that would hold Ukraine off?

This is the Russian opposition, liberal. It is important to understand that the failure of the West to stop this invasion occurred precisely cause the West gave Russia too much rope, too much deference in Syria, Georgia, Ukraine in the hopes of paving the way to democratic Russia and European unity and inadvertently allowed a wolf to sneak in with no intent but to destroy that. Since the precursors for aid to West Germany in the Marshall Plan cannot occur at all with Russia (occupation), and EU precursors like the European Coal and Steel Community (integration) are also unlikely, despite this message being oriented domestically, it's very important for all parties internationally to see that Russia is unlikely to adopt any of the measures Germany, defeated at the end of the Second World War did to regain standing. The idea that Russia, literally untouched by war deserves aid while Ukraine fights off the winter and darkness brought by Russian missiles is deeply troubling and a poor look...tweet below is a Twitter thread elaborating on the same marshall plan, from a member of Navalny's team.

If you recall, this war has seen continued Russian aggression and distain for international institutions and in general, international law, including IHL. That Russia is assuming if true, about to fold to the IAEA, represents a turning point, I was wondering when Russia would start to curry international favor again, as that would allow Russia to at least internationally look better when accusing Ukraine of preventing peace, and in the past, I’ve been stuck dumbfounded by Russian self-sabotage at currying this favor.

Past few pages are filled to the brim with interesting stuff, my thanks to those who took the time to write or bring it up. Winter is in full swing in Ukraine, to all posters there, may you be warm and healthy throughout. https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1593823808246489089?t=getb5qsSX3TZ7YSAzeG6BQ&s=19 https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1594456414583398402?t=lORAJIEozcBaCwwRG_NR0g&s=19 Hmm, looks like the embed went awry. they showed snow in Ukraine with tanks moving forward, and a MRAP having trouble in Southern Ukraine in the mud. Should not be a surprise movement on maps slows or stops.

It's important to ensure complete review of the incident. Ukraine requesting info and providing it's info is part of that process.

A bit zealous I suppose but ultimately Ukraine is dealing with (check tweet below) And I saw someone make a good point, a furor over the polish deaths, from one missile tho obviously tragic, must be prevented, is important, is overshadowing the fact Ukraine is fending off hundreds of missiles and drones without the ability to strike launch platforms or command and center in Russia and Belarus. Hope these are false alarms or that the amount of missiles is lower but I feel like Russia may decide to capitalize on Ukraine misfires, is entirely possible for them to pursue to drive a wedge into the Polish - Ukrainian unity and will seek now to cause further damage by focusing missiles on western Ukraine. I hope all our posters here from Ukraine are safe and remain so.