3225

Russia annouces “partial” blocking of Facebook.

3226

In other good news, Germany has loaded the 5000 helmets and they are on their way. But not too Ukraine b/c of the war but close to the border where Ukraine can make arrangements to pick them up
per the DPA news agency

3227

We we get in on some of that Facebook blocking action? Surely that is one thing that east and west can come to terms on.

3228

So apparently one other issue with cutting Russia off from swift is it moves Russian transactions onto China’s alternative (Cross-Border Inter-Bank Payments System - Wikipedia) and thus helps bolster Chinese influence.

3229

IMG_20220225_180905_399
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Here’s Ukrainian map with today advances.

3230

Yeah, was just going to post this. Amazing but good news is the driver lived - saw another video of him being pulled out alive if shaken.

3231

That’s great news. Poor guy.

3232

I really hope Zelensky lives through this.

3233

Just to clarify: in two days Russians haven’t managed to capture any city. The biggest advancement was in the Southern empty steppes but today it halted.

3234

Public service announcement in wartime.

Also

3235

I think it is time to turn into a Jet and bomb the Russians.

By the way the endgame for this invasion is fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked.

3236

FIFA may be forced to yank the Russians out of world cup qualifying. All of their last opponents are refusing to play in Russia. (Poland/Sweden/Czechs)

Ukraine is in the competition too.

3237

NATO Secretary General giving a press conference now

3238

I am going to galaxy brain strategize here based on my meager strategy game play tactics.

Ukraine should continue to bolster Kyiv’s defenses, as that is the obvious target of this attack.

But I also think that if they have the troops it might be prudent to look to strike at Russian held territories of Ukraine, or attack sites inside Russia itself. Put Russia on the backfoot a bit. I don’t think that they fully mobilized their military for this operation. These would need to be tatical strikes at military facilities obviously supporting the Russian advances, but I think pushing back somewhere outside of Kyiv would really hurt morale.

This has the drawback of Russia getting evidence of the tyranny of Ukraine, attacking Russia! See, they are the bad guys we said!

But it also further bloodies the nose of the Russian strongman rhetoric. It might push Russia to the negotiation table sooner. It is very clear that this invasion has not been as easy as they expected. Push harder and bring heavier losses and it becomes a slog.

Again, this is armchair generaling here, but all we can do at this point is speculate.

3239

My armchair generaling is given the unpopularity of the war in Russia, they need to make Russians bleed in invading. We need to help this happen by supplying our own little green men, and plenty of arms/info. The conscripts in the Russian army will likely act like American conscripts in Vietnam as well with enough death done to them.

3240

exactly.

It is also fairly clear that the arms we sent to Ukraine have been very effective.

3241

First F1 racing, then Eurovision, now Rick Steves tours

3242

So you’re saying that entire reddit thread might not quite accurate?

3244

Except in the south and the narrow drive towards Kyiv, those are not impressive gains. I am very surprised so far. The Russians have launched less than 200 missile strikes, and they certainly don’t seem to be launching as nearly devastating an air campaign as the U.S. would have from all the accounts I have read.

I have read from Russian apologists that this is because the Russians are trying to minimize Ukrainian casualties, but I’m not buying that - the longer the war goes on, the harder resistance will become, I think. But with fog of war, propaganda on both side, and battle in a constant state of flux, it’s not easy to make assessments

3245

Note that this was answered casually as (paraphrasing) “countries in nato have and will continue to provide support including anti air” not so much as an announcement of new shipments.