Thrag
4758
9am Moscow time. I see the MOEX is not opening today.
Those TB2s need bigger payloads
I saw the video of the Ukraine Ambassador reading this. It’s one of the most gut wrenching things I ever heard in my life.
About an hour ago…missile takes out a government building in Kharkiv. Probably lots of death.
So, the gloves are off then.
If the damned Russians lay siege to Kyiv to try to starve it out there should be a “Kyiv Airlift” akin to the Berlin one in 1948.
Of course who am I kidding, Putin is less concerned with bad PR than even Stalin was, apparently.
Dejin
4763
UK Ministry of Defence Update
Missed, but I daresay you know that by now. For those that don’t, it was a close shave. Assume that building now evacuated etc.
Tim_N
4765
For those of you hopescrolling, here is something that I would very much like to be true but who knows. I only posted it when I saw a CNN correspondent retweeted and commented on it.
I mean, if true, this is 1000x more satisfying than watching russian stuff get blown up. Russian soldiers who don’t want to fight in Putin’s war desert and might escape with their lives, Ukraine might pick up something they can use themselves, win win.
Another tweet that allegedly shows Russian troops abandoning their equipment in Sumy and leaving, but there could literally be 1000 explanations for this video that isn’t desertion:
This is a very illuminating interview. Her analysis seems spot on and a must-read for anyone puzzled by Putin’s motivations.
Initially I thought the ‘failure’ to subdue Ukraine quickly (make no mistake, Russia will accomplish that but at great cost) would spare any more declarations on neighboring states. I’m not so sure now. One thing we learned from trump is that people with that personality profile cannot fail and that they just double down instead.
Tim_N
4768
You probably already know this but the long tables are due to his strict COVID protocols. I remember reading with Macron, that he could have had a more intimate meeting if he agreed to do a PCR in Russia before the meeting. Of course he didn’t want to give up his DNA to be cloned by Russian scientists, so he refused and they did the long table.
Can’t they grab DNA off pretty much anything you touch (such as a water glass), or did the Ethan Hawke/Uma Thurman vehicle Gattaca steer me wrong?
As to Putin, I think that table in the second picture bespeaks paranoia about something other than COVID. Like that maybe one or two of those guys has a sharpened toothbrush in his lapel and might try to recreate an Ides of March scenario.
Soma
4770
Yeah but look at how bunched up people are at Putin’s opposite end of the table. So those people can get covid from each other, but just don’t spread it to Putin?
Do you have a link with Macron? I’m more thinking Macron doesn’t want some Russian dude sticking something up his nose or throat including goodness knows what (Polonium at the extreme end of nastiness), rather than not wanting to give out his DNA.
Quaro
4771
That is what the Russians said for the Macron meeting, but it doesn’t explain why he also uses the tables when meeting with high level Russian officials. That photo above is his top generals, right? Surely he can order them to take a COVID test?
And if it is about COVID how about some masks? The whole thing looks absolutely bizarre. I assumed the images were photoshops at first.
Lurb
4772
A tangential gaming angle. Escape from Tarkov is like the quintessental russian game. The devs have been in total radio silence since last week, but the game servers are still up and running, though people wonder how long it will take until they are affected by the sanctions. I’m certainly not very inclined to play or even watch it played right now, but I was curious about any impacts and found this thread:
(tl,dr: The in game USD/EUR/Ruble exchange rates loosely reflect the real world ones, so the ruble is falling, and the player base starts going through thoughts and behaviours that eerily mirror the real life consecuences)
Tim_N
4773
I read about it here. The sources are Macron’s entourage, and DNA was the stated reason to not get the PCR (although poisoning might have been in the back of his mind too):
Hmm, well I vaguely remember reading about Putin’s procedures to avoid getting COVID and they sounded very extreme. I can’t find the source I remember but here’s one:
Although, this article makes it sound like he has been in close quarters with people without masks at a bunch of public events:
Soma
4774
Thanks. Because that DNA excuse is kinda weak. You get DNA from hair as well, and it is pretty clear Macron would have had hair fallen out of his head in goodness knows how many visits he had in Russia. Or saliva on utensils in state dinner.
Good news! The Russian ministry of defense announces the first International Congress of Antifascists this august.
Just want to point it out it can’t be the case both that Russia had legitimate worries about NATO expanding into Ukraine and that Russia could see that Ukraine was never going to be allowed into NATO.
We aren’t, but apparently the media are, and they can’t seem to tell us anything other than the length of the thing. The basic media story is “gosh this was huge and now it’s gigantic OMG!”
That was the complaint from me, anyway.
