Ukraine reacts to fears of Russian invasion as troops build up at the border

[Ralin]

I saw something elsewhere about him saying Ukrainian children should be drowned. When it looks like Russia is planning to blow a dam.
He's pro-rape, while Russia is recruiting prisoners with HIV and hepatitis.

It looks like he was fired for saying the quiet part out loud.

If you watch the clip the other guy on the show kept trying to switch to more acceptable stuff like "Well maybe we can just beat the children with sticks," but he kept doubling down with "No, we have to drown them. In this specific river. Here I worked out the best traditional way of doing it and the logistics check out," etc.

[Ralin]

You know, that's what I don't get about this: What do the Russian leadership think they stand to gain from allowing or even encouraging their troops to shoot for a full house in War Crimes Bingo? Even if the last of the men who remember the Nazis firsthand are all long retired or dead, you'd think they'd retain some institutional memory of how well that worked when it was Mother Russia on the other end of it. Unless they're absolutely committed to the systematic genocide of every Ukrainian who's not "ethnically Russian", of course, and I have no idea what they stand to gain from that either. In the increasingly likely event that Russia makes any permanent gains, a lot of oligarchs are going to be very annoyed that they don't have any peasants to farm the lands they've been gifted in return for all those backhanders.

I dunno, maybe Putin's also coming down with dementia and everyone who could talk sense into him has been sacked or worse.

The Russian military and the Russian government has always had a reputation for brutality. The hope was more that they wouldn't be as bad as usual since they presumably thought Ukranians were just funny sounding Russians.

More specifically:

Even if the last of the men who remember the Nazis firsthand are all long retired or dead, you'd think they'd retain some institutional memory of how well that worked when it was Mother Russia on the other end of it

How it worked back in the day was that Russians dominated the Soviet Union and Ukranians were a part of that and damned well did what they were told or else. Given how many Ukrainians were famously killed by the Soviet government, uhm...yeah if there's institutional memory at work here it's going to add to the atrocities, not reduce them.

Unless they're absolutely committed to the systematic genocide of every Ukrainian who's not "ethnically Russian", of course, and I have no idea what they stand to gain from that either. In the increasingly likely event that Russia makes any permanent gains, a lot of oligarchs are going to be very annoyed that they don't have any peasants to farm the lands they've been gifted in return for all those backhanders.

Genocide doesn't mean they're all dead. 'Just' that they're brutalized and regimented until they don't consider themselves Ukranian anymore and lose most of the culture that made them Ukranian.

That's the thing, though. Putin always struck me as a somewhat deeper thinker than that. After all, one doesn't get to be rather senior in the KGB, enter politics in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet Union imploding and ultimately manouevre oneself into becoming Tsar in all but name without picking up a pretty good understanding of human psychology along the way.

But like I said, maybe old age is finally catching up to him.

I'd thought that too. Guess no one is immune to dictator brain.

[Alferd Packer]

You know, that's what I don't get about this: What do the Russian leadership think they stand to gain from allowing or even encouraging their troops to shoot for a full house in War Crimes Bingo? Even if the last of the men who remember the Nazis firsthand are all long retired or dead, you'd think they'd retain some institutional memory of how well that worked when it was Mother Russia on the other end of it. Unless they're absolutely committed to the systematic genocide of every Ukrainian who's not "ethnically Russian", of course, and I have no idea what they stand to gain from that either. In the increasingly likely event that Russia makes any permanent gains, a lot of oligarchs are going to be very annoyed that they don't have any peasants to farm the lands they've been gifted in return for all those backhanders.

I dunno, maybe Putin's also coming down with dementia and everyone who could talk sense into him has been sacked or worse.

It's the same mentality that requires initiate gang or crime family members to stab a civilian or shoot a cop before they become full members. By deliberately turning them into war criminals, they can say "If you surrender, you will be handed over a Western tribunal and hanged for your actions. Your only recourse is safety with Russia."

Whether or not this is actually true is irrelevant; it's merely about making sure that the soldiers are complicit in the crimes of the state, and therefore will be forced to rely on that same state for protection from retribution.

[bilateralrope]

Russia threatens a retaliatory strike against US commercial satellites

"Western actions needlessly put at risk the sustainability of peaceful space activities."
ERIC BERGER - 10/28/2022, 4:56 AM

Russia has made some of its most provocative comments yet about Western commercial satellites, which have provided valuable imagery and communications data to Ukraine this year, suggesting they are appropriate wartime targets.

In comments made Wednesday, a deputy director in Russia's foreign ministry, Konstantin Vorontsov, said the use of Western commercial satellites by Ukraine is "an extremely dangerous trend." While Vorontsov did not specifically name any satellites, he almost certainly was referring to SpaceX's Starlink satellite constellation, which has been used by Ukrainian soldiers for communications, and synthetic aperture radar satellites that have tracked Russian troop and tank movements. Vorontsov said:

We would like to specifically stress an extremely dangerous trend that goes beyond the harmless use of outer space technologies and has become apparent during the latest developments in Ukraine. Namely, the use by the United States and its allies of civilian, including commercial, infrastructure elements in outer space for military purposes. Apparently, these States do not realize that such actions in fact constitute indirect participation in military conflicts. Quasi-civilian infrastructure may become a legitimate target for retaliation. Western actions needlessly put at risk the sustainability of peaceful space activities, as well as numerous social and economic processes on Earth that affect the well-being of people, first of all in developing countries. At the very least, this provocative use of civilian satellites is questionable under the Outer Space Treaty, which only provides for the peaceful use of outer space, and must be strongly condemned by the international community.

This is not the first time Vorontsov has made such comments, as he made similar remarks last month to the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs working group. However, it is not clear to what extent Russia might be able to follow through on its threat to target commercial satellites.

Resilience through proliferation

Russia certainly has the ability to shoot down Starlink satellites or other vehicles in low-Earth orbit. It demonstrated that capability last November when it fired a Nudol missile from the ground, striking an aging Russian satellite at an altitude of 480 km and blasting it into more than 1,000 trackable pieces of debris. The test occurred just three months before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"Some commentators said that it was meant as a warning against the US to not interfere in Ukraine," Brian Weeden, director of Program Planning at the Secure World Foundation, told Ars. "I disagreed with that assessment, but even if it was true, that threat completely failed."

This is because such a tactic, of a direct-ascent missile against a single target, would not be effective against a distributed network of hundreds or thousands of satellites in low-Earth orbit like Starlink. "They're only really effective when facing small numbers of large, expensive satellites that are hard to replace," Weeden said.

Derek Tournear, director of the US Space Force’s Space Development Agency, made similar comments this week when talking about the development of a "proliferated constellation" of satellites to deter attacks. Tournear said SpaceX's 3,500-satellite constellation has validated the concept during the conflict in Ukraine.

"There’s obviously operational resilience through proliferation," Tournear said at a Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event. Even if the Space Development Agency network were to come under attack, he said, "we expect to be able to absorb a certain amount of attrition."

Space mercenaries?

Earlier in the war against Ukraine, Russia directly targeted commercial space capabilities, including launching a cyber attack against Viasat that crippled thousands of the company's satellite communications terminals across Europe. Additionally, SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk has said there have been "repeated" jamming attacks on Starlink satellites. These appear to have had limited effect on the Starlink Internet service.

But a physical attack on a commercial satellite, likely through a direct-ascent missile, would represent an escalation. In a communiqué issued last year, NATO officials said that attacks on space-based assets could lead to the invocation of Article 5, which means that members of the NATO alliance would consider it an armed attack and assist the ally.

Nevertheless, it now seems clear that the perception of "commercial space" assets in space is changing. Russia's comments and similar remarks from China show that the countries see Western commercial satellites as military assets rather than as separate entities. For decades, of course, commercial satellites have carried US military communications, but these were viewed as independent entities whose capabilities the Department of Defense could call upon.

Now, America's adversaries see little to no difference. "It's almost like they see companies like SpaceX as a branch of the US military, a mercenary in space, if you will, which changes how you view the lawfulness of attacking them," Victoria Samson, Washington Office Director of the Secure World Foundation, told Ars.

It doesn't sound like Russia has enough missiles to do any significant damage to Starlink, unless they trigger kessler syndrome. Which would anger India and China.

Though I do worry that they will give Musk enough of an excuse to cut Ukraine off from Starlink.

[His Divine Shadow]

Then watch as Space-X is nationailzed.

So yes, please try it!

[LadyTevar]

Space mercenaries?

Earlier in the war against Ukraine, Russia directly targeted commercial space capabilities, including launching a cyber attack against Viasat that crippled thousands of the company's satellite communications terminals across Europe. Additionally, SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk has said there have been "repeated" jamming attacks on Starlink satellites. These appear to have had limited effect on the Starlink Internet service.

But a physical attack on a commercial satellite, likely through a direct-ascent missile, would represent an escalation. In a communiqué issued last year, NATO officials said that attacks on space-based assets could lead to the invocation of Article 5, which means that members of the NATO alliance would consider it an armed attack and assist the ally.

Nevertheless, it now seems clear that the perception of "commercial space" assets in space is changing. Russia's comments and similar remarks from China show that the countries see Western commercial satellites as military assets rather than as separate entities. For decades, of course, commercial satellites have carried US military communications, but these were viewed as independent entities whose capabilities the Department of Defense could call upon.

Now, America's adversaries see little to no difference. "It's almost like they see companies like SpaceX as a branch of the US military, a mercenary in space, if you will, which changes how you view the lawfulness of attacking them," Victoria Samson, Washington Office Director of the Secure World Foundation, told Ars.

It doesn't sound like Russia has enough missiles to do any significant damage to Starlink, unless they trigger kessler syndrome. Which would anger India and China.

Though I do worry that they will give Musk enough of an excuse to cut Ukraine off from Starlink.

Considering Russia's dependence on Mercenaries, and also Putin's tendency to assume "The West" is doing the same things he himself would do, that attitude makes sense.

[LadyTevar]

So... FIRST Putin watches the Annual Missile Testing (see bottom of Page 58 if you missed my post), and NOW he's declaring this decade is dangerous?

Putin Claims World Facing "Most Dangerous Decade Since WWII"

The world faces "probably the most dangerous" decade since the end of World War Two, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned.

In a wide-ranging speech on Thursday, he sought to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a move that has left his country internationally isolated.

Mr Putin also accused the West of nuclear blackmail against Russia to force allies to turn away from Moscow.

The West has denounced recent veiled nuclear threats by the Kremlin.

Earlier this week, the Nato military alliance condemned unsubstantiated claims by Russia that Ukraine might use a "dirty bomb" - conventional explosives laced with radioactive material.

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said alliance members "reject this allegation" and "Russia must not use it as a pretext for escalation".

President Putin was speaking to the annual Valdai forum after a series of recent military defeats in Ukraine and growing public anger at home over a drive to mobilise some 300,000 Russians for the war effort.

The day before his address in Moscow, he had overseen routine nuclear exercises that involved a supposed nuclear strike in retaliation for an enemy's massive nuclear attack. "We've never proactively said anything about Russia's possible use of nuclear weapons. We've only responded with hints to comments voiced by the leaders of Western countries," he told his audience.

President Putin singled out former UK prime minister Liz Truss for suggesting during an August campaign event that she would be ready to press the nuclear button if circumstances required her to do so. He said he was surprised the UK's allies did not object: "What were we supposed to do? Keep silent? Pretend that we didn't hear it?"

However, he has himself repeatedly warned that Russia would use "all available means" to protect itself, in what has been widely seen as a clear nuclear threat.

US President Joe Biden accused the Russian leader of engaging in "very dangerous" rhetoric around the potential use of nuclear weapons.

"Why is he talking about the ability to use a tactical nuclear weapon?" Mr Biden asked during an interview with US media. "If he has no intention, why does he keep talking about it?"

He repeated his recent attacks on the West, and what he called its "dangerous, bloody and dirty game" of denying countries their sovereignty and uniqueness. The West's "undivided dominance" over world affairs was now coming to an end, he asserted.

"We're at a historical frontier. Ahead is probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and at the same time important decade since the end of World War Two."

The West was no more able to be in charge - but was "desperately trying" to do so. He said a "future world order is being formed before our eyes", and accused the West, led by the US, of trying to destroy Russia. No evidence was provided to back up his claims.

The World According To PUTIN is a very insane twisted version of reality. At this point, I'm very sure he's planned out how to do everything he's claiming The West/Ukraine is doing. He will have a dirty bomb. He will have nukes aimed. He will blow the dam. And he'll do it because it will Make Russia Great.

[wautd]

Russia now admits its deporting, I mean, "adopting" Ukrainian children to Russia where they will get a patriotic education.
I think I need to vomit at this level of depravity

Also, during his yesterday's speech at the Valdai Discussion Club, Putin claimed Russia isn't attacking anyone, but merely defending itself in an anti-terror campaign (pointing towards the dirty bomb hoax his troll factories made up)

[LadyTevar]

Russia now admits its deporting, I mean, "adopting" Ukrainian children to Russia where they will get a patriotic education.
I think I need to vomit at this level of depravity

Hopefully, now that they've ADMITTED it, the West might be able to start charging them with kidnapping and ethnic cleansing? (one hopes, but it'd be like trying to stop China from what they're doing with the Ughurs)

Hopefully Russia kept better records of where the kids went than the US has of the migrant children gone missing

[madd0c0t0r2]

Article in LRB looks at the switch of Russian tactics to cheap drone swarms: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n21 ... short-cuts

It suggests it marks different points in the war.
1) It may be Russians are conserving their expensive cruise missiles, especially if Ukraine has natively and secretly (hem hem) developed a long range missile of their own, as one of their generals has suggested.
2) it's a temporary exploit intended to target infrastructure like power plants in basic swarming attacks to keep Ukraine cold and miserable over winter. The thing here, is I can't see much advantage to Russia, even for the cheap cost. It perhaps buys time to train their conscripts up. Perhaps they want to inflict misery to encourage Ukraine to attack over winter, or suffer grating loss of morale?
3) The author notes that these drones are hilariously cheap, each one costing 1/20 of the German interceptor missiles, so it may just be Russia trying to recalibrate the economic war to their favour.
4) More worryingly, the author also points to this being an 'endstate'. Rather than Russia keeping some territory/vassals and suing for peace, it might keep the battlelines, and just bombard Ukraine indefinitely.

[KraytKing]

Regarding point 2, I think it's a valid wartime strategy. Brutal and cruel, yes, but such is the nature of war. Bombing power stations will increase the logistics load for keeping frontline, or more often second-line, troops warm if they can't just piggyback a space heater off the grid. The Ukrainian government has been shown to care about its people, as well, so it will spend resources to keep large numbers from freezing to death--resources in the form of soldiers, or at least trucks and gasoline that soldiers could have used. It will take away from the military, for sure, though not in so great a fashion considering how much of their military is coming from outside their country.

Regarding point 4. I can, unfortunately, see sense in that. I don't want to, but that author could be right. The one ray of hope is that so far the UA seems to be the one dictating terms, and so what the Russians want for their endstate might have to be run by Zelensky first. Russia doesn't seem able to maintain their battle lines. But, of course, they'll never lose the border, so if this is what they want then they'll get it.

[Solauren]

I'm surprised that Russia hasn't started targeting power lines as well.
In addition to cutting of power to an area, you also have to send out repair crews. Crews that would be vulnerable to further attack.

It would also mean attempting anti-drone coverage in a larger area.

[madd0c0t0r2]

I'm surprised that Russia hasn't started targeting power lines as well.
In addition to cutting of power to an area, you also have to send out repair crews. Crews that would be vulnerable to further attack.

It would also mean attempting anti-drone coverage in a larger area.

nah. these are mostly truly stupid GPS trackers with a preset coordinate target that can be taken down by AA guns, so need to loiter in enough waves to overwhelm defences. If you wanted to be able to follow up on the repair crews, you'd need eyes on the ground to let you know when the repair crew are heading out to the repair site in order to have enough time to fly a remote control drone there, to time exactly when you hit them. Repairing pylons and powerlines isn't a super skilled role and I would be surprised if Russia could degrade Ukraine's sparky population meaningfully. (unlike a power plant technician, where knowing that specific plant's quirks is important).

[Zaune]

Pylons also aren't that good a target, except maybe an opportunistic one, because to cause serious disruption the Russians would have to destroy a hell of a lot of them to overcome the redundancy built into the grid. They get taken out by extreme weather often enough that if a transmission line goes down there's enough spare capacity to direct the needed energy through alternate pathways, or have a plant in one region increase its output to compensate for another that's been cut off, and with modern telecommunications that process barely even requires human intervention. Losing a whole power plant or even a large substation is much harder to compensate for.

And pylons might be a somewhat softer target for Special Forces or fifth columnists, but the Russians managed to get a lot of their best paratroopers killed early on and I doubt they've got many sympathisers left in the local population so that's probably not really an option for them.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

From another board I frequent:

So it is looking like weapons are getting pretty scarce on the Russian side, a lot of the videos appearing now in Russia are showing the new recruits are turning up at the frontline with the AKM assault riffles as their main weapon. This is a weapon from the 1950's, though it was still being made till the mid 70's. While the weapon itself isn't bad, the Russians have been using the AK74 and AK74M since the mid 70's, no the main issue as I see it is that they both use two totally different sized ammo, the 74 uses a 5.45×39mm cartridge while the AKM uses 7.62×39mm cartridge. This means they will have to supply two different kinds of ammo, and they are currently having issues supplying just the one right now, also they will use two different kinds of magazines due to the different ammo size, which in itself will cause issues.

[Solauren]

There is a reason most armies use standard ammo sizes whenever they can (possibly as far as standard clip sizes). It makes maintaining supplies, and reloading from someone elses gun/ammo, easy.

Here is hoping more stupidity like this occurs, and eventually, Russia burns Putin out.

[Broomstick]

To me it smells not so much of stupidity as desperation.

[Zaune]

To me it smells not so much of stupidity as desperation.

Russia wouldn't be this desperate if they hadn't done a number of very stupid things earlier in the war, so I say a little of Column A, little of Column B.

[LadyTevar]

To me it smells not so much of stupidity as desperation.

Russia wouldn't be this desperate if they hadn't done a number of very stupid things earlier in the war, so I say a little of Column A, little of Column B.

To me, it sounds like Putin should have done a physical audit of his Military before he set off a war. It's mindboggling how fast they ran out of supplies -- in less than 9months Russia is down to 1950s weaponry, 3rd rate tanks, and borrowing/buying drones from IRAN, of all places. Where did the Modern Warfare Weaponry go?
Or was it ever there in the first place?

[Lord Revan]

To me it smells not so much of stupidity as desperation.

Russia wouldn't be this desperate if they hadn't done a number of very stupid things earlier in the war, so I say a little of Column A, little of Column B.

To me, it sounds like Putin should have done a physical audit of his Military before he set off a war. It's mindboggling how fast they ran out of supplies -- in less than 9months Russia is down to 1950s weaponry, 3rd rate tanks, and borrowing/buying drones from IRAN, of all places. Where did the Modern Warfare Weaponry go?
Or was it ever there in the first place?

I think there was a 1 or 2 modern weapons to show to the press and the rest were never made as the funds to make those faded into a people's pockets.

[Solauren]

First, it looks like Putin couldn't have trusted the results of a physical audit, unless he oversaw it himself.

Second, since Russia likely manufactured alot of their own hardware, which is more likely -
That it was never manufactured (someone pocketed those funds), or the hardware was manufactured, showed a few times, and then sold off (for more then the manufacturing cost).

[Zwinmar]

I'm waiting for them to pull out the old t34's and I suspect they also have some lend lease tanks in storage

[Lord Revan]

I'm waiting for them to pull out the old t34's and I suspect they also have some lend lease tanks in storage

If they start bringing the T-28s or T-35, then we know the Russian army is truly desperate (at least the T-34 was somewhat successful). Seriously though yeah the Russian army (and especially their logistics department) isn't exactly wowing us with their success here.

It seems the Russian high command ignored all conventional wisdoms about invading another country due to wishful thinking.

[Ralin]

I've heard people speculating from the beginning that Putin was counting on a quick victorious war, but I'm increasingly thinking it was more like a Russian version of Bush's "Our troops will be greeted as liberators."

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

I've heard people speculating from the beginning that Putin was counting on a quick victorious war, but I'm increasingly thinking it was more like a Russian version of Bush's "Our troops will be greeted as liberators."

The difference between what happened in Iraq and what happened in Ukraine is that... yeah, Bush was partially right in Iraq (a fairly good sized portion of Iraq wanted Saddam gone and worked with the US, though the later screwups made that moot), while Ukraine knew exactly what would happen if they capitulate.