Ukraine

[LawBeefaroni]

That's all they want. Bodies to put in occupied Oblasts.

[malchior]

Relying on the subtitles here mostly but LOL. Also balls of steel - these guys are on Navalny's team. I hope they aren't in country.

[Daehawk]

I was wondering if Navalny would be able to take over after all this.

[El Guapo]

That's all they want. Bodies to put in occupied Oblasts.

Is it, though? Seems like they need more guys to do actual fighting, not just rear guard occupying.

[El Guapo]

I was wondering if Navalny would be able to take over after all this.

If Putin is eventually toppled, and Navalny survives (big ifs), then he would likely be a front runner in any eventual election.

But I'm skeptical that he would survive. Kind of think the odds of him falling out a prison window go up considerably if Putin starts to worry more about his hold on power.

[LawBeefaroni]

That's all they want. Bodies to put in occupied Oblasts.

Is it, though? Seems like they need more guys to do actual fighting, not just rear guard occupying.

That's not going to be the rear. It's going to be border territory they're looking to defend from a Ukraine offensive.

[Alefroth]

And I don't think that it's great that only the rich get an escape pod. They helped create the mess. But whatever hurts his efforts is a positive as far as I'm concerned. The war usually has to be deemed unwinnable before the pitchforks and gallows start coming out.

NPR was talking to a Russian who fled to Armenia and he thinks many that can't leave will run to the countryside and hide.

[LawBeefaroni]

And I don't think that it's great that only the rich get an escape pod. They helped create the mess. But whatever hurts his efforts is a positive as far as I'm concerned. The war usually has to be deemed unwinnable before the pitchforks and gallows start coming out.

NPR was talking to a Russian who fled to Armenia and he thinks many that can't leave will run to the countryside and hide.

Not sure that will help much, most of the conscripts, and thus most of casualties so far, have been from the countryside. Why would they harbor the urban elites while all their own men are fed to the meat grinder?

[LawBeefaroni]

Word.is that many of those arrested in the protests were conscripted directly into the army. Now that's the way to build an effective fighting force.

[Daehawk]

Ya thats more a way to get your commanders 'accidentally' shot or run over.

[Isgrimnur]

Ex-Putin Ally Plunges to His Death ‘From a Great Height’ at Moscow Aviation Institute

Anatoly Gerashchenko, the former head of Moscow’s Aviation Institute (MAI), died in a mysterious fall inside the institute’s headquarters in the Russian capital on Tuesday.
...
Russian news outlet Izvestia, citing an unnamed source, reported that Gerashchenko “fell from a great height” and careened down several flights of stairs. He was reportedly pronounced dead at the scene.

[Apollo]

I wonder what the Russian translation of "Fragging" is?

[Isgrimnur]

осколочных

[Apollo]

осколочных

Oh, OK, just as I thought...

[Scoop20906]

Ex-Putin Ally Plunges to His Death ‘From a Great Height’ at Moscow Aviation Institute

Anatoly Gerashchenko, the former head of Moscow’s Aviation Institute (MAI), died in a mysterious fall inside the institute’s headquarters in the Russian capital on Tuesday.
...
Russian news outlet Izvestia, citing an unnamed source, reported that Gerashchenko “fell from a great height” and careened down several flights of stairs. He was reportedly pronounced dead at the scene.

That is number 14 so far this year. Is it any wonder Putin sits at tables 50 feet from anyone else?
2022 Russian businessmen mystery deaths

[Isgrimnur]

[malchior]

They are really looking like their plan is to push unprepared people with no will to fight to the front and say 'run forward or be shot or imprisoned. If you surrender, you will be imprisoned.' The idea that Putin is some strategic mastermind is dead as a doornail.

[LordMortis]

Makes me ill. May they get the courage and find the will depose Putin and his regime sooner than later. I say that thinking about how our last president wanted tanks to roll through DC to honor him.

[Alefroth]

And I don't think that it's great that only the rich get an escape pod. They helped create the mess. But whatever hurts his efforts is a positive as far as I'm concerned. The war usually has to be deemed unwinnable before the pitchforks and gallows start coming out.

NPR was talking to a Russian who fled to Armenia and he thinks many that can't leave will run to the countryside and hide.

Not sure that will help much, most of the conscripts, and thus most of casualties so far, have been from the countryside. Why would they harbor the urban elites while all their own men are fed to the meat grinder?

I'm not sure, but I figured he had better insight than I did.

[LawBeefaroni]

And I don't think that it's great that only the rich get an escape pod. They helped create the mess. But whatever hurts his efforts is a positive as far as I'm concerned. The war usually has to be deemed unwinnable before the pitchforks and gallows start coming out.

NPR was talking to a Russian who fled to Armenia and he thinks many that can't leave will run to the countryside and hide.

Not sure that will help much, most of the conscripts, and thus most of casualties so far, have been from the countryside. Why would they harbor the urban elites while all their own men are fed to the meat grinder?

I'm not sure, but I figured he had better insight than I did.

I mean they may be doing that out of desperation but all accounts say it's safest in Moscow and St. Petersburg. They're instituting "soft" ethnic cleansing by rounding up ethnic minorities in the rural and outlying areas. It's battle royale with those two cities at the center of the safe zones.

[LawBeefaroni]

Makes me ill. May they get the courage and find the will depose Putin and his regime sooner than later.

Ideally they get to the front line, have a quick chat with the UA army and turn around and lead the van to Moscow.

[Max Peck]

I mean they may be doing that out of desperation but all accounts say it's safest in Moscow and St. Petersburg. They're instituting "soft" ethnic cleansing by rounding up ethnic minorities in the rural and outlying areas. It's battle royale with those two cities at the center of the safe zones.

That sounds about right.

One thing to consider is that Russia's minority populations in the east will be disproportionately affected by any forced conscription. Many there appear to understand that reality.

<Video, Captioned: "Residents of Buryatia report that now such a car line has formed to leave for Mongolia through the Kyakhta checkpoint.">

For those wondering about location, this is the Khyagt Border crossing in the Republic of Buryatia, Russia. Geolocated- (50.328498, 106.484137)

[Defiant]

On the other hand, we might start seeing more deaths by penguin.

[Daehawk]

The Red Hat Murders......new in stores..soon.

[Carpet_pissr]

Ex-Putin Ally Plunges to His Death ‘From a Great Height’ at Moscow Aviation Institute

Anatoly Gerashchenko, the former head of Moscow’s Aviation Institute (MAI), died in a mysterious fall inside the institute’s headquarters in the Russian capital on Tuesday.
...
Russian news outlet Izvestia, citing an unnamed source, reported that Gerashchenko “fell from a great height” and careened down several flights of stairs. He was reportedly pronounced dead at the scene.

Ok, we are well past ‘cartoons’ phase on murder via window. Damn you Putin for making me almost snicker when I see yet another gravity-based death.

I wonder if he has ‘a guy’ that’s like the master Defenestrator.
‘This motherfcker has defied me for last time! Get Bill on phone, I need window cleaning service.’

Alternative: no one is ‘falling out of windows’…they’re all being shot at point blank range and this is just a weird quirk.
‘How should we tell them to report his death, sir?’
‘Just ahhhh, say he…fell out of window’
‘Again?!’
‘Yes…it amuses me. You have problem with this?’

[malchior]

I mean they may be doing that out of desperation but all accounts say it's safest in Moscow and St. Petersburg. They're instituting "soft" ethnic cleansing by rounding up ethnic minorities in the rural and outlying areas. It's battle royale with those two cities at the center of the safe zones.

I'm becoming convinced this is half the reason they are "mobilizing". They might lose the war but they can quell the threat of domestic strife by using these poor bastards as cannon fodder.

[Scoop20906]

They are really looking like their plan is to push unprepared people with no will to fight to the front and say 'run forward or be shot or imprisoned. If you surrender, you will be imprisoned.' The idea that Putin is some strategic mastermind is dead as a doornail.

That vid of the child crying for his papa killed me. Such a waste it all is.

[Grifman]

Life under occupation - in the words of the Russians themselves:

[dbt1949]

I see where Putin is drafting 60 year olds. Can you imagine 60 year olds going off to war. If in the US that would include a lot of you here. Can you imagine applying for exemption for hemorrhoids?

[Max Peck]

As I understand it, the federal government set out criteria for eligibility but local authorities are ignoring them in favor of simply sweeping up every warm body they can find in order to fill quotas.

[hepcat]

At this point, the myth that Russia has a strong military is just ruined. Putin has painted a target on Russia’s back. I have to wonder if nearby countries might just aim at that target now that they know Russia has a shit army.

[Blackhawk]

I see where Putin is drafting 60 year olds. Can you imagine 60 year olds going off to war. If in the US that would include a lot of you here. Can you imagine applying for exemption for hemorrhoids?

Sounds an awful lot like Germany in the spring of '45. How long until they arrive at the front and immediately form lines to surrender?

[Max Peck]

Apparently Russia is also mobilizing people in the occupied territories. You can guess how that'll go...

We went to the first Ukrainian checkpoint after Russian-held territory in Zaporizhzhia. All the men we spoke to said they were fleeing mobilisation into the Russian army. A few things:

As of Thursday, men between 18-35 are banned from leaving Russian-held Zaporizhzhia to Ukraine OR to Russia / Crimea. Some still managed to bribe their way out.

Even neutral / pro-Russian people we spoke to by phone inside the occupied territories said they would try to escape mobilisation. Not pro-Russian enough to die, as one person put it.

Zaporizhzhia and Kherson have only been under occupation since this spring. The situation is different to Donetsk and Luhansk. People still have Ukrainian TV and, while internet connections are bad, they can get information from outside the Russian state media universe.

Almost everyone we spoke to estimated (this is obviously very vague) that around 60% of people still in occupied Zap/Kherson are pro-Ukrainian, 20% don't care, 20% are pro-Russian. But again: not pro-Russian enough to die.

Nataliya, a young woman we met at the checkpoint, told us that the men in her village had decided that if the Russians were stupid enough to mobilise them and give them guns, they'd turn them against the occupiers.

Bravado or not, clearly these guys would not be a fighting asset for the Kremlin. You hear stories like this in the liberated territories. In Izyum, we met a psychologist who told us that the "Russian" soldiers at the checkpoint by her house were (cont)

Actually pro-Ukrainian. They were miners from Luhansk who had been called off their shift and sent to become soldiers. They told her that they planned to drop their weapons and run away as soon as they heard the Ukrainians were coming. And they did.

In occupied Zaporizhzhia now, Nataliya said, the Russian soldiers were violent, drunk and lecherous. She knew a couple of women who had left their husbands for them. But this did not always turn out well for the occupiers.

One Russian soldier, mad with grief after his Ukrainian mistress left him, shot himself in the head outside a greengrocer’s.

“I walked by and thought: one down,” she told us.

Full piece in @thetimes tomorrow with pictures by @azavallis and additional reporting by Viktoria Sybir and Oleksii Kulyuk

Racing to safety: desperate men flee Putin’s conscription in occupied Ukraine

[Daehawk]

[malchior]

Let the conspiracy theories flow! A lot of people are speculating sabotage. This doesn't make much sense to me. Almost everyone want that pipeline back in the future.

I have a theory of my own that fits Occam's Razor nicely - I premise it on Russian incompetence - more below the cut.



So what do I think happened? I think it was fluid dynamics in action. As a super quick background - I oversaw a cybersecurity tabletop with a pipeline operator of LNG (liquid natural gas). During the scenario anytime we got to a situation where safety wasn't assured, the safety procedures required a shutdown of the pipeline. If that happened then a clock would start. The clock was essentially 2 days to get gas moving again. If impossible, the facility would have to flare off all stored gas in the pipeline.

What that means in layman's terms is the assumption is that they would have already cut off the source of gas. The operator's process at a high level is they would turn the pipeline into a feed of a huge torch by directing it to outlets where they could set it on fire and burn off the gas.

So why is there a two day clock? Thermal expansion. To transport natural gas, you chill it to hundreds of degrees below zero. The pipeline is usually insulated to some degree but the assumption is a constant flow of chilled LNG. My blind (but informed) guess is that when the Russians cut off gas to Europe they left the pipeline loaded to some degree. They probably didn't flare off the gas or there was a persistent leak up on the source side. In any case, over time heat from the ocean bled into the LNG and it stopped being liquid at some point and became a gas...and wanted to expand...and couldn't so it heated up...and wanted to expand...and something gave.

So I mentioned 2 days. This was a super, super conservative safety margin considering the millions or billions of dollars of damage that'd occur if the pipeline was damaged, leaked, or exploded. It's been a few weeks and gas is coming out of the pipeline...so...odds are those morons left it loaded.

[Chraolic]

Let the conspiracy theories flow! A lot of people are speculating sabotage. This doesn't make much sense to me. Almost everyone want that pipeline back in the future.

I have a theory of my own that fits Occam's Razor nicely - I premise it on Russian incompetence - more below the cut.

I really doubt it. I'm admittedly not as big an expert on fluid dynamics as you, but it seems to me that it would have to be almost impossible for three pipelines to randomly burst at the same time in the same location just outside of Swedish and Danish territorial waters. Besides, seismographs apparently picked up two underwater explosions, so someone must have wanted it to happen.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nord-stre ... -1.6597069

[malchior]

Let the conspiracy theories flow! A lot of people are speculating sabotage. This doesn't make much sense to me. Almost everyone want that pipeline back in the future.

I have a theory of my own that fits Occam's Razor nicely - I premise it on Russian incompetence - more below the cut.

I really doubt it. I'm admittedly not as big an expert on fluid dynamics as you, but it seems to me that it would have to be almost impossible for three pipelines to randomly burst at the same time in the same location just outside of Swedish and Danish territorial waters. Besides, seismographs apparently picked up two underwater explosions, so someone must have wanted it to happen.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nord-stre ... -1.6597069

It's possible but it's a far too soon to say it 'someone must have wanted it to happen'. This is bad for everyone involved. Though perhaps a 3rd party is involved. Still too early but the little information I heard so far has mirrored the shutdown pipeline discussion. Anyway, like I said it was a blind guess. I'm not at the let's jump to the sinister when we've seen that 'yes they are that stupid' is the repeat theme out of Russia lately. What's interesting is NS2 wasn't even "live" but it was clearly was charged with gas.

[LordMortis]

Besides, seismographs apparently picked up two underwater explosions, so someone must have wanted it to happen.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nord-stre ... -1.6597069

CNBC reports talk about the explosions and that is seems like bombing but that it also doesn't make sense to bomb.

[Chraolic]

CNBC reports talk about the explosions and that is seems like bombing but that it also doesn't make sense to bomb.

Nothing about this mess makes much sense, but it could be some sort of threat against the Norway-Poland Baltic Pipe which opened today. It seems way too close to be entirely coincidential.

[LawBeefaroni]

"Doesn't make sense" assumes rational actors.