[Tsundoku]

@Ment

Can't spare much, but is there any of these links or other ones you'd recommend?

https://www.news.com...6cc0e0c2773b465

Just don't want to send to an organisation and have it eaten up by "admin costs", you know what I mean.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 27 February 2022 - 04:15 AM

[Mentalist]

Tsundoku, on 27 February 2022 - 04:15 AM, said:

@Ment

Can't spare much, but is there any of these links or other ones you'd recommend?

https://www.news.com...6cc0e0c2773b465

Just don't want to send to an organisation and have it eaten up by "admin costs", you know what I mean.

I'm not very deep into the charity side of things, but I donated to "come back alive" today, on recommendation of my cousin. It's the best-known volunteer organization that's been running since 2014

[Tsundoku]

Uh, is there a button to change it from Cyrillic?

[Mentalist]

R hand corner there's a drop down to go to English

[Terez]

Mentalist, on 27 February 2022 - 03:22 AM, said:

But just as in 2013-2014, I feel part of something much greater. We are making history, and we will keep making it, and those who think they can stop us better be ready to jump out of our way, because once Ukrainians start to collectively organize to get smith done, we've been quite literally unstoppable, until we decide to spread out again ourselves.

I've been thinking about you a lot over the past several days, so I just wanted to stop by to thank you for all the insight you have given us over the years. I hope you and yours will be well.

[Macros]

Finally some the of the west waking up, Germany shipping anti tank rounds in and stinger missiles.
I get the feeling Ukraine as a people are more than ready and willing to take this fight to the Russians and doze them the fuck out, they just need some support on the equipment side, boots on the ground isn't a problem

[Aptorian]

Denmark has only agreed to ship body armor, first aid equipment and a field hospital so far but there's talk about sending our old stinger missiles to Ukraine. It's all being kept pretty quiet, probably for fear of retaliation.

[Primateus]

In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced increased expenditure on German military. A one time amount of 100 billion euros and an annual increase over 2% of Germany's BNP.

That is a pretty enormous step.

[Aptorian]

Same thing is likely to happen in Denmark and across Europe. Trump couldn't get us to uphold the 2% defense spending promise but Putin certainly can.

[Primateus]

Putin raising Russia's nuclear stance to ready. That's just what the world needs.

[HoosierDaddy]

If he doesn't get what he wants he'll take his ball and we'll all go home.

The real question is: what else does he have to try to slow down the West's response? Nothing. So he threatens what he does have.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Aptorian, on 27 February 2022 - 12:50 PM, said:

Same thing is likely to happen in Denmark and across Europe. Trump couldn't get us to uphold the 2% defense spending promise but Putin certainly can.

Hopefully the non-US NATO nations---especially the European ones---will try to build up their militaries (or NATO joint military) enough to no longer depend on the US Trumplandia before the 2024 elections... IDK about whether nuclear proliferation would be a good idea though, or how much it would actually deter Putin (for example, if France arranged with NATO nations bordering Russia to aim nuclear weapons at them) from threatening to use nuclear weapons.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'How Should the U.S. Respond to Putin's Nuclear Provocation?

[...] suggests that Putin's order—conducted on television and captured on video—is a measure aimed as much at a domestic Russian audience as it is at the West. He may be hoping to produce a kind of Cold War rallying around the flag among the Russian people. Or, at the least, to increase the sense that protest during a nuclear crisis is even more traitorous than usual.

Had Putin wanted to send a message solely to NATO, he could have merely given the order to the Russian chain of command, and Western intelligence and defense sources would have picked it up immediately. We know what such an order sounds like and what kind of activity would follow it.

[...]

[...] Putin is playing an insanely dangerous game here. He's holding a weak hand and yet threatening to go all-in. This is yet more evidence that years of isolation, in which his only contact is with sycophants and security guards, has taken its toll on his mental state.

For now, the [...] American answer should be to do nothing. This might seem counter-intuitive: The Russians have gone to an alert, and it would seem only prudent to answer this with a reciprocal raising of U.S. alert status. But this Cold War reaction is, I suspect, exactly what Putin wants. He's in a jam and he's trying to look strong[...] Putin would like nothing better than to take everyone's mind off Ukraine and focus us all on a game of nuclear chicken.'

https://www.theatlan...ocation/622943/

'If even a "small" nuclear war were to break out, tens of millions of people would die after the initial blasts. A blanket of soot would wrap the rays of the Sun and cause a nuclear winter, destroying crops all over the planet and plunging billions into famine. In the northern hemisphere, there would be such severe ozone depletion from the nuclear smoke that organisms would suffer from increased exposure to damaging ultraviolet light. While things would not be as bad in the southern hemisphere, even well-positioned countries like Australia would face the ripple effects [...]

"A large nuclear exchange would not only kill millions of people and contaminate wast areas with radioactive fallout but potentially also have longer-term climatic effects."'

https://www.alternet...022/02/nuclear/

#PutinSolvesGlobalWarming!

The 'small nuclear war' scenario they're citing is apparently based on an India-Pakistan nuclear war. Not clear if Putin could get NATO without the US to surrender after a nuclear attack without nuclear retaliation from France or the UK, or how many of the missiles would be stopped by shields.

'The group looked at several scenarios. Those range from a US–Russia war involving much of the world's nuclear arsenal, which would loft 150 million tonnes of soot into the atmosphere, down to the 100-warhead India–Pakistan conflict, which would generate 5 million tonnes of soot6. The soot turns out to be a key factor in how bad a nuclear winter would get; three years after the bombs explode, global temperatures would have plummeted by more than 10 °C in the first scenario — more than the cooling during the last ice age — but by a little more than 1 °C in the second.'

https://www.nature.c...586-020-00794-y

If the US doesn't get ready... how much of an advantage would that given Putin in a nuclear war? Unfortunately Biden seems to genuinely believe he's going to heaven. So nuclear armageddon might not seem so terrible... a clean flash, straight to the heavenly light.

[Malankazooie]

Is the Glutton of Kyiv a real person? Or is that a meme? If true, that is legend that will ring through the ages.

Also, purportedly one of those replaced road signs were replaced with: "Drop your weapons, take home a case of vodka." Classic!

[Cause]

Talks already, so does this mean Putin has basically lost or is it just going to be a distraction?

[Gwynn ap Nudd]

I would be surprised if Russia was considering pulling out already. Many of the things that are being set in motion will continue even if hostilities stopped tomorrow. E.g. trashing of European and Russian diplomatic relations, companies and countries divesting of Russian assets, Germany undoing its self-imposed military limits, a European push towards energy independence (or at least independence from Russian energy sources), Japan taking more forceful steps on sanctions than previously, etc.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Of all [...] Putin's soldiers, the most feared are his tame Chechens, the renegades who betrayed their countrymen's dream of independence and sided with the Kremlin. The Kadyrovites, loyal to their fascistic leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, have a reputation for merciless slaughter of the Kremlin's enemies that chills the heart. [...] beheadings, disappearances, torture – and when someone [...] DM'd me to say that the Chechens were coming to Kyiv, I felt a stab of fear.

So a YouTube video of a slew of burning Russian heavy metal in the streets outside the Antonov airbase [...] where the Chechens arrived [...] is the best proof yet that Putin's war against Ukraine is going badly, very badly.

[...] When a Chechen armored column left the air base and moved toward Kyiv, the Ukrainians launched a Turkish-made drone, a Bayraktar, that reportedly charred 70 soldiers alive. [...]

Word is the bangs are being made by Russian missiles targeting Kyiv's main power station[...] being blown out of the sky by the Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense. I have had continuous electricity and internet in my rented apartment for the length of the war and that's not good for Putin's self-confidence.

[...] Ukrainian social media reported that 5,000 Russian soldiers at a staging post just across the border from Kharkiv refused to invade. If so, this is mutiny.'

Russia's War Isn't Going Well - New Lines Magazine

[Mentalist]

Cause, on 27 February 2022 - 08:28 PM, said:

Talks already, so does this mean Putin has basically lost or is it just going to be a distraction?

Seeing how they're landing troops in the Azov Sea, sending out 5 k marines to try to land in Odessa, and also trying to rope the Belarussians to send their VDVs into another desperate landing attempt tonight (before Russian stock exchange opens and the ruble commits harakiri)...

I'm gonna let you take a guess.

30k people in Toronto today. THIRTY. THOUSAND.
Not all were Ukis, ofc- loads and loads of other flags. But contrary to what Russians like to say about us "bloodthirsty Nazi Banderites", anyone we can teach how to respond to "Slava Ukrayini!" automatically becomes one of us, ragrdless of their language, background, political leanings, etc.

My euphoria is constantly being tempered, but after spending all night (EST) seeing updates on how the people and soldiers of Kharkiv repelled the invaders, who surrendered in batches, along with columns of burned down armor, I can't help but feel we're doing this.

Of course, there's still problems. The fact that Belorussians have gone along with this crap is disappointing. I don't think this will make a difference in the end especially with all those shiny MiGs we're getting as a gift from the EU to drop those drop planes - with out anti-air still being functional and all those juicy stingers coming our way, it's a one-way drop into Hell. The landings are also worrying, but I have utmost faith in the people of Odessa after the events in 2014. Those marines won't enjoy their stay.

Once the ruble tanks, it'll be curious to see what happens. Also, how low will it go?

Only a few hours to go...

[Grief]

As warfare becomes more and more mechanised, the line between "providing equipment" and "direct intervention" feels blurrier and blurrier.

I am not really sure where I see that line myself.

I feel like we're living in a sort of grey zone time period, where there is still some kind of meaningful difference -- sending drones has not totally replaced sending troops -- but it is not nearly as big a difference as it used to be. Ten years from now I suspect that the difference between sending equipment and direct intervention will have more or less vanished because they'll be much the same thing in practice.

And these supplies certainly seem to be putting Russia in a difficult position at the moment.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Grief, on 28 February 2022 - 02:31 AM, said:

As warfare becomes more and more mechanised, the line between "providing equipment" and "direct intervention" feels blurrier and blurrier.

I am not really sure where I see that line myself.

I feel like we're living in a sort of grey zone time period, where there is still some kind of meaningful difference -- sending drones has not totally replaced sending troops -- but it is not nearly as big a difference as it used to be. Ten years from now I suspect that the difference between sending equipment and direct intervention will have more or less vanished because they'll be much the same thing in practice.

And these supplies certainly seem to be putting Russia in a difficult position at the moment.

Especially as they become more autonomous....

Drone footage released by Ukrainian military looks almost like a video game:

Spoiler

https://www.youtube....rts/uqPUA96CB9g

Guess time lag rules out remote operation from far away countries?... Otherwise could imagine drone pilots volunteering from around the world. Or perhaps neighboring countries?...

'Killer Flying Robots Are Here

[...] Turkish-made Kargu-2 [...] drone can allegedly autonomously track and kill [...] on the basis of [...] artificial intelligence—a big technological leap from the drone fleets requiring remote control by human operators. A United Nations Security Council report claims the Kargu-2 was used in Libya to mount autonomous attacks on human targets. [...] Kargu-2 hunted down retreating logistics and military convoys, "attack[ing] targets without requiring data connectivity between the operator and the munition."'

https://foreignpolic...s-turkey-libya/

Would Putin consider it 'sending troops' if Ghost Robotics donated some killer robot dogs (the ones with guns)?

Spoiler