who will be very well funded.
Enidigm
4425
Stories of civilian heroism are awesome but don’t sound at all like “Ukrainian army counter attacks at a bridgehead” which seems indicate that whatever Ukrainian army still exists is already scattered or disbursed into the civilian population.
Russia using Belarus is huge because it prevents the Dnieper from being a geographic obstacle - in theory Ukraine could have blown some bridges and divided the country in half, more or less, given enough time. I’m not sure the Ukrainian government can relocate to Lviv or some Carpathian mountain stronghold and survive long enough to organize the material being sent from overseas into anything like a coherent military organization.
Every time this happens, an Arma dev gets his wings.
Boom.
Yesterday FIFA tried some weak-ass middle-ground “solution” to keeping Russia in the World Cup, and I guess they heard from pretty much everywhere: “No.”
As fictional law-enforcement officer Buford T. Justice once said: “THAT was an attention-getter.”
CraigM
4428
Just catching up since my morning is just getting going, so maybe this was brought up, but Japan at the very least is highly motivated and interested in keeping an eye on Taiwan.
This morning the Japanese government was considering a request for US nukes to be stationed there. Which is a huge deal, both practically and historically. They have an understandably different perspective on nukes, so this implies a level of seriousness and resolve that is hard to overstate.
More about crazy civilians. A little guide on how to use abandoned military vehicles.
Thrag
4432
That is the best thing I’ve seen so far. Her cheerful instruction is wonderful.
That is a one way ticket to getting blown up I would have thought…
Yeah, I’m not sure driving around in a BTR in a warzone is, you know, a good idea.
(Squad players will also be reminded of this)
It would be quite the scoop if someone could prove it. The fact that the Russians aren’t presenting any evidence means that either they don’t have it, or they do have it, and their sources are too good to give up.
Obviously the US has an interest in a free and democratic Ukraine that’s capable of resisting Russian influence, but that doesn’t say much for how far the CIA would go operationally to make that happen.
The most common thing is influence ops (now psyops). I get the sense that today we’re more focused on social media, but in the old days both sides would be trying to work journalists and people who participated in the national debate, to help further their views in media around the world.
That’s also why we have to be pretty careful about who we trust and what we believe, even today. The Russians have shown themselves to suck at faking videos, but I suspect we’re a lot better.
Here in Denmark we’ve had a number of revelations of ties by journalists to East German and American intelligence during the cold war, some of it pretty serious stuff, like Danish journalists aiding terrorists from the Rote Armee Fraktion.
It’s difficult to speculate about, because the greatest victories of intelligence agencies are the ones that never make it onto the news, but certainly looking at the past, the greater the involvement, the more likely we are to know about it.
That is true, of course. But @Timex is right in the sense that Russia needed for this to go as fast as the Iraq war was supposed to go. The difference being that, at the time, most of the rest of world did not view invading Iraq as such a terrible thing to do (regardless of what any of us here personally felt about that operation at the time or after learning about the total fiction of WMDs).
It’s a lot easier to get support for sanctions with real teeth while the fighting is ongoing.
Thrag
4441
From the TASS telegram feed:
The World Curling Federation intends to remove Russian athletes from participation in the world championships within three days.
Any news on hockey?
antlers
4443
I think Putin’s strategic goals are still in reach, because resistance to Russian rule will not be uniform across the country. He will use the threat of humanitarian catastrophe to dictate the terms of the peace, which will be a Ukraine with nominally the same borders but where everything east of the Dnieper is entirely controlled by the same thugs who control the separatist regions now, and the central government by law can’t do anything without consent of the eastern provinces. With the Ukrainian army smashed and his cronies in charge of half the country, he’ll be able to withdraw Russian troops and wait for Europe to forget the current moment and grow tired enough of high energy prices to ease the sanctions.
Enidigm
4446
If Putin really is a history nerd and can’t annex the whole country he’ll demand Kiev + the “left bank of the Dnieper” (left following the flow of the river southwards.)
MikeJ
4448
AFAIK, Russian forces attacked from Belarus and have been on the west side of the Dnieper from the start. In fact, the most immediate threat to Kiev is from the north, on the west side of the river.
That dude has been fire throughout. It’s such a pleasure to hear skilled diplomats speak when the UN heats up.
Enidigm
4450
Right, that’s why I’m sure he stationed troops in Belarus before the invasion.
