Russia v Ukraine

[Cartermrc]

Those Russian people longing for the old USSR have forgotten it's serious flaws. They're older now and what happens when they can't get medicine, decent medical care and have to stand in long lines for basic necessities? Plus, there are at least 2 generations who never had to deal with the bad old days or were too young to remember it. A lot has changed since the first Cold War.

[trixie]

^ I say that all the time, people think it can't happen here, like they never thought something like 9/11 would happen here either. Repubs act like Jan. 6 was a big nothing, nah not an attempt to overturn a democratic election, nothing to see here. Trump has everyone's best interests at heart, he's not a fascist at all.

[Sarzy]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky today channeled Winston Churchill as he delivered a historic address to the House of Commons. 

Mr Zelensky was given a standing ovation by MPs both before and after his speech in which he compared Ukraine's fight against Russia to Britain's World War Two struggle against Nazi Germany.

Drawing on Churchill's iconic rallying remarks, he said Ukrainians will fight against Moscow's forces on land, sea and in the air. 

Mr Zelensky said: 'We will not give up and we will not lose. We will fight to the end, at sea, in the air, we will continue fighting for our land, whatever the cost.

‘We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.’

He said Ukraine is fighting a 'war that we didn't start and we didn't want' as he told MPs 'we do not want to lose what we have, what is ours'. 

Comparing Ukraine to the UK in World War Two, Mr Zelensky said Ukrainians are fighting to save their country 'just the same way as you once didn't want to lose your country when Nazis started to fight your country and you had to fight for Britain'.

He also said more than 50 children have now been killed in the invasion, telling the Commons: 'These are the children that could have lived, but these people have taken them away from us.'  

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10590233/Volodymyr-Zelensky-delivers-historic-address-House-Commons.html

[Sarzy]

BBC News Twitter: Russian strikes hit maternity and children's hospital in Ukrainian city of Mariupol, officials say t.co/0tnc9Y3kYk

Evil bastards. 

[kittylady]

Putin has passed a new law to make it easier for Russians to adopt Ukranian orphans. The bastard isn't just out to take the land; he wants to take their children too, and turn them into good little Putin-bots.

[dolem]

The power to Chernobyl has been damaged and they're running on a generator now. Not at all stressful for those poor 100+ staff that are being held hostage while working 24/7 for 2 weeks.

[greysfang]

www.cnn.com/2022/03/11/tech/russia-internet-backbone-cogent-lumen/index.html

'This is different': Why internet backbone services are cutting off Russia

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business

Updated 1:48 PM ET, Fri March 11, 2022

Big tech platforms have joined the global backlash against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, with Facebook (FB), Google (GOOGL), Twitter (TWTR), Spotify (SPOT), Netflix (NFLX) and others placing at least partial restrictions on Russian content — if not exiting (or getting themselves blocked) altogether.

In the past week, however, the severing of Russia from the global internet went one layer deeper. Two of the world's largest internet service providers, Lumen Technologies and Cogent Communications, said they would block Russian customers from their networks over fears that their networks could be used by the Russian government for cyberattacks against the West. But a knock-on effect is that it will be even harder for citizens in the country to use the worldwide web.

The move highlights the tension over Russia's effort to erect what's being called a digital Iron Curtain to close its citizens off from outside information, much like China has done for years. Companies find themselves caught between helping Russians freely access the internet and ensuring their services are not used by the Russian government to spread disinformation, propaganda or worse.

The implications are massive. Lumen and Cogent collectively preside over nearly 600,000 miles of optical fiber that forms the piping for the global internet, with each boasting operations in more than 50 countries, according to their websites.

Fear of cyberattacks

Both companies insist their moves were squarely directed at the Russian government and not the Russian people, and any impediment to the latter's ability to access outside information is an unfortunate side effect.

"We as a company are a very strong believer in an open and uncensored internet," Dave Schaeffer, Cogent's CEO, said in an interview with CNN Business. "This was a very difficult decision."

According to Schaeffer, cutting Russia off is a preventative measure against cyberattacks that may be perpetrated through Cogent's network by the Russian government or individuals linked to it. The company, which is based in Washington D.C., has limited its action to around 25 customers that are incorporated in Russia and are directly on Russian networks, he said. That means Russian businesses that use Cogent's network outside the country through non-Russian state entities can continue to do so.

"We felt that the downside of having the possibility that these connections could be used offensively outweighed the negative of terminating some services," he added.

An unprecedented decision

Lumen, headquartered in Los Angeles, cited similar reasoning for its decision, which came a few days after Cogent's.

"We decided to disconnect the network due to increased security risk inside Russia," Mark Molzen, the company's global issues director, said in an email. "We have not yet experienced network disruptions but given the increasingly uncertain environment and the heightened risk of state action, we took this move to ensure the security of our and our customers' networks, as well as the ongoing integrity of the global Internet."

It's also an unprecedented decision in some ways. Schaeffer said Cogent has previously taken down certain websites and addresses at the requests of governments in several countries, including Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States, as long as the requests have a lawful basis.

"This is different," he said, describing it as the first time the company has made a proactive move. "We don't look inside of our customers' pipes, what they do with them is their business. In this case, we terminated the entire pipe."

Wow, they're basically shutting off Russia's internet entirely.

[chaz]

These companies are American. Other countries have their own internet & entertainment services.

[greysfang]

Yeah no shit. This article talks about the companies that Own the actual optic fibers . No fibers no internet. Unless and until they can get enough satellites up.

[ravenna]

The news has been particularly awful to read these last couple of days. I feel sick and choke back tears. How people can be so inhumane is something I will never understand.

[louiswinthorpe111]

^^And all over NOTHING but the whim of a madman!

[chaz]

Putin doesnt want NATO in Ukraine.

[ravenna]

Well, of course.  It makes it harder for him to act on his imperial nostalgia.

I found Stephen Kotkin's interview in The New Yorker very interesting.  Here's what he had to say about Nato's eastward expansion:

The problem with their argument is that it assumes that, had NATO not expanded, Russia wouldn’t be the same or very likely close to what it is today. What we have today in Russia is not some kind of surprise. It’s not some kind of deviation from a historical pattern. Way before NATO existed—in the nineteenth century—Russia looked like this: it had an autocrat. It had repression. It had militarism. It had suspicion of foreigners and the West. This is a Russia that we know, and it’s not a Russia that arrived yesterday or in the nineteen-nineties. It’s not a response to the actions of the West. There are internal processes in Russia that account for where we are today

.

[lindsaywhit]

Apr 6, 2022 3:12:26 GMT ravenna said:

Well, of course.  It makes it harder for him to act on his imperial nostalgia.

I found Stephen Kotkin's interview in The New Yorker very interesting.  Here's what he had to say about Nato's eastward expansion:

The problem with their argument is that it assumes that, had NATO not expanded, Russia wouldn’t be the same or very likely close to what it is today. What we have today in Russia is not some kind of surprise. It’s not some kind of deviation from a historical pattern. Way before NATO existed—in the nineteenth century—Russia looked like this: it had an autocrat. It had repression. It had militarism. It had suspicion of foreigners and the West. This is a Russia that we know, and it’s not a Russia that arrived yesterday or in the nineteen-nineties. It’s not a response to the actions of the West. There are internal processes in Russia that account for where we are today

.Thanks for posting this, Ravenna. 

[waterslide]

I don't know if this is the best place for this article, but I find the whole lack of willing Russian troops fascinating.  The Wagner Group is a lot...

AUGUST 25, 2022
IntelBrief: Russia Leans More on Wagner Group in Sign of Growing Desperation


Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP

Bottom Line Up Front

• As the Russian military is beset by significant troop losses and sagging morale, struggles on the battlefield in Ukraine have forced the Kremlin has to turn to the private military contractor Wagner Group to fulfill some critical functions.
  
• Given Wagner’s reported human rights abuses, recruiting violent felons and prisoners into the organization seems likely to increase the repeated occurrence of similar incidents in the future.
• Typically operating from sub-Saharan Africa to the Middle East, Wagner members have been redeployed to the frontlines in Ukraine to bolster the Kremlin’s lackluster war effort.
• As Wagner lowers its standards to facilitate the recruitment of more fighters, it will have a direct impact on the morale of Russian forces fighting in Ukraine, as well as on the organization’s brand.
  

As the Russian military, beset by significant troop losses and sagging morale, struggles on the battlefield in Ukraine, the Kremlin has turned to the private military contractor (PMC) Wagner Group to fulfill some critical functions, including logistics, as well as augmenting heavy fighting on the front lines in some cases. Once an organization clouded in rumor, the Wagner Group has recently emerged from the shadows and has been featured on Russian state television, lauded as heroes; while Moscow continues to deny formal affiliation. The coverage is partly to drive recruitment, a necessity now that Russia has lost so many troops in combat (some estimates suggest more than 40,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since February). But the search for quantity has reportedly lowered the quality of recruits, with Wagner now actively recruiting from Russian prisons.

An advertisement on Vkontakte, a popular Russian social media site, proclaimed, “Do you want to spend an unforgettable summer with new friends and get profit? Travel company ‘Wagner Group’ offers tours in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.” Given Wagner’s history of reported human rights abuses, recruiting violent felons and prisoners into the organization seems likely to increase the reoccurence of such incidents in the future. There are also new billboards in Yekaterinburg seeking to reach out to new fighters and the Group has opened new recruitment centers across Russia, in dozens of cities, towns, and villages. To many outside observers, these new Wagner recruits appear little more than mere cannon fodder, provided with minimal training and sent immediately to the front lines to fight against well-equipped and battle-hardened Ukrainian forces.

Typically operating from sub-Saharan Africa to the Middle East, Wagner members have been redeployed to the frontlines in Ukraine in an effort to bolster the Kremlin’s sagging war effort. Wagner forces are now reported to be integrated into the Russian military’s command-and-control apparatus in Ukraine and its fighters are operating alongside conventional Russian forces in the Donbas. Wagner reportedly even has its own aviation unit in Ukraine, where its members operate fighter jets and is said to boast an impressive arsenal of tanks, sophisticated air defense systems, and heavy artillery. Wagner units have also been observed fighting in Popasna, where the group allegedly has established a headquarters, and in Severodnestsk and Lysychansk, captured by the Russians in early July. Wagner units have more recently been identified fighting in Bakhmut.

The fighting in Ukraine has been fierce and much different than the kind of action that a Wagner operative might experience in Mali, the Central African Republic (CAR), or Sudan, several countries where the group is also active. In those cases, Wagner fighters operate at the behest of the respective country’s leadership, and the opposition they face consists of bandits, militias, or poorly armed insurgents. Approximately 5,000 Wagner fighters are currently deployed to Africa, where they frequently engage in scorched earth tactics against local populations in order to gain access to valuable natural resources.

As the Wagner Group lowers its standards to facilitate the recruitment of more fighters, many of them reportedly subpar, it will have a direct impact on the morale of Russian forces fighting in Ukraine, as well as on the organization’s brand. This could have serious repercussions on its operations abroad, from Libya to Syria. Fewer countries are likely to seek training or partnerships with Russia more broadly, even as dictators, warlords, and strongmen in Syria, Libya, and Mali have brushed off such concerns in the past. Wagner Group operatives have been connected to several high-profile massacres in various African countries and it remains to be seen if other states would be attracted by the ‘no-strings-attached’ arrangement that Wagner seems to have negotiated with Damascus, Bamako, and Bangui.

The Soufan Center