Russia

[LFC]

Gee, I wonder who could be behind this.

Ukraine said it was the target of a “massive cyber attack” after about 70 government websites ceased functioning.

On Friday morning targets included websites of the ministerial cabinet, the foreign, education, agriculture, emergency, energy, veterans affairs, and environment ministries. Also out of service were the websites of the state treasury and the Diia electronic public services platform, where vaccination certificates and electronic passports are stored.

“Ukrainians! All your personal data has been uploaded to the public network,” read a message temporarily posted on the foreign ministry’s website. “All data on your computer is being erased and won’t be recoverable. All information about you has become public, fear and expect the worst.”

Viktor Zhora, deputy head of Ukraine’s state agency in charge of special communication and information protection, told journalists on Friday that it was “the most powerful attack in four years” with about 70 central and regional government websites taken down.

“I want to note that as a result of the attack on the sites, the personal data of Ukrainians have not been distorted in any way, important data has not been leaked, the site’s content has not been damaged, and some sites have been forcibly shut down,” he said.

“As soon as we make sure that there are no third parties in the system, there is no malicious code and we will gather all the necessary evidence, the work of these sites will be restored,” Zhora said.

[LFC]

Putin wants another piece of Ukraine.

Russia is planning a false-flag operation in eastern Ukraine to set up a pretext for an invasion, according to U.S. intelligence.

A U.S. official told CNN that Russia has prepositioned operatives trained in urban warfare and explosives to sabotage their own proxy forces there, echoing claims made Friday by Ukraine's Ministry of Defense, which accused Russian special forces of preparing provocations intended to frame the nation.

"The Russian military plans to begin these activities several weeks before a military invasion, which could begin between mid-January and mid-February," the U.S. official said. "We saw this playbook in 2014 with Crimea."

[andydp]

Jan 14, 2022 16:55:56 GMT LFC said:

Gee, I wonder who could be behind this.

That STUXNET malware and its progeny are going to show up and really mess up the world.  Look at the mess when Amazon went down for a day or so.  

They call it the "internet of things" and its ALL things.  My Nest thermostat is very handy, but what if someone sets it permanently to 40 degrees in the middle of a polar vortex ?

[goldenvalley]

Jan 14, 2022 20:17:21 GMT andydp said:

Jan 14, 2022 16:55:56 GMT LFC said:

Gee, I wonder who could be behind this.

That STUXNET malware and its progeny are going to show up and really mess up the world.  Look at the mess when Amazon went down for a day or so.  

They call it the "internet of things" and its ALL things.  My Nest thermostat is very handy, but what if someone sets it permanently to 40 degrees in the middle of a polar vortex 

Or shut down the electrical grid(s)....yeah cybersecurity in this country sucks.  

[LFC]

With Trump it became pretty clear that Putin has the Republican Party on a leash. Tuckums is now showing his obsequious fawning for him and his idiots fans are screeching on command.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson's regular pro-Kremlin rants are apparently having a big impact on his viewers' takes on American foreign policy.

Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) on Monday revealed that "my office is now getting calls from folks who say they watch Tucker Carlson and are upset that we're not siding with Russia in its threats to invade Ukraine."

What's more, says Malinowski, these callers "want me to support Russia's 'reasonable' positions" when it comes to potentially invading and annexing a sovereign nation.

Carlson for the last several weeks has accused the Washington foreign policy establishment of trying to gin up a war with Russia, despite the fact that President Joe Biden has repeatedly ruled out sending American troops to help defend Ukraine from a Russian invasion.

Last week, for example, Carlson said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has served no legitimate purpose since the fall of the Soviet Union, and he also compared Ukraine's relationship with NATO with a hypothetical scenario in which the Chinese government took direct military control over Mexico.

As The Daily Beast's Julia Davis reports, Carlson's anti-NATO rants have even become staples on Russian state TV.

[goldenvalley]

Here's an opinion piece from Fiona Hill who testified in the 1st impeachment trial and has been involved in intelligence for a long time. This partially answers my "why" question.

As I have seen over two decades of observing Mr. Putin, and analyzing his moves, his actions are purposeful and his choice of this moment to throw down the gauntlet in Ukraine and Europe is very intentional. He has a personal obsession with history and anniversaries. December 2021 marked the 30th anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when Russia lost its dominant position in Europe. Mr. Putin wants to give the United States a taste of the same bitter medicine Russia had to swallow in the 1990s. He believes that the United States is currently in the same predicament as Russia was after the Soviet collapse: grievously weakened at home and in retreat abroad. He also thinks NATO is nothing more than an extension of the United States. Russian officials and commentators routinely deny any agency or independent strategic thought to other NATO members. So, when it comes to the alliance, all of Moscow’s moves are directed against Washington.

In the 1990s, the United States and NATO forced Russia to withdraw the remnants of the Soviet military from their bases in Eastern Europe, Germany and the Baltic States. Mr. Putin wants the United States to suffer in a similar way. From Russia’s perspective, America’s domestic travails after four years of Donald Trump’s disastrous presidency, as well as the rifts he created with U.S. allies and then America’s precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan, signal weakness. If Russia presses hard enough, Mr. Putin hopes he can strike a new security deal with NATO and Europe to avoid an open-ended conflict, and then it will be America’s turn to leave, taking its troops and missiles with it.

Ukraine is both Russia’s target and a source of leverage against the United States. Over the last several months Mr. Putin has bogged the Biden administration down in endless tactical games that put the United States on the defensive. Russia moves forces to Ukraine’s borders, launches war games and ramps up the visceral commentary. In recent official documents, it demanded ironclad guarantees that Ukraine (and other former republics of the U.S.S.R.) will never become a member of NATO, that NATO pull back from positions taken after 1997, and also that America withdraw its own forces and weapons, including its nuclear missiles. Russian representatives assert that Moscow doesn’t “need peace at any cost” in Europe. Some Russian politicians even suggest the possibility of a pre-emptive strike against NATO targets to make sure that we know they are serious, and that we should meet Moscow’s demands.

And the answer to the why now question:

Mr. Putin is a master of coercive inducement. He manufactures a crisis in such a way that he can win no matter what anyone else does. Threats and promises are essentially one and the same. Mr. Putin can invade Ukraine yet again, or he can leave things where they are and just consolidate the territory Russia effectively controls in Crimea and Donbas. He can stir up trouble in Japan and send hypersonic missiles to Cuba and Venezuela, or not, if things go his way in Europe.

Mr. Putin plays a longer, strategic game and knows how to prevail in the tactical scrum. He has the United States right where he wants it. His posturing and threats have set the agenda in European security debates, and have drawn our full attention. Unlike President Biden, Mr. Putin doesn’t have to worry about midterm elections or pushback from his own party or the opposition. Mr. Putin has no concerns about bad press or poor poll ratings. He isn’t part of a political party and he has crushed the Russian opposition. The Kremlin has largely silenced the local, independent press. Mr. Putin is up for re-election in 2024, but his only viable opponent, Aleksei Navalny, is locked in a penal colony outside of Moscow.

He had Mr. Trump denigrating NATO and the US involvement in it for 4 years and now Tucker Carlson is carrying his banner.  

[pnwguy]

And we wonder why Dumpster, the RW media, and the GOP base now love Putin? Birds of a feather.

Newt was already salivating about a GOP House takeover giving them ability to jail their political opponents. I'm waiting for him to suggest Polonium.

[goldenvalley]

The Brits released some info on potential plans to replace the Ukrainian president with a more pro-Russian one.

The British government said Saturday that the Kremlin was developing plans to install a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine — and had already chosen a potential candidate — as President Vladimir V. Putin weighs whether to order the Russian forces amassed on Ukraine’s border to attack.

The British communiqué provided no evidence to back up its assertion that Russia was plotting to overthrow the Ukrainian government. The communiqué also named four other Ukrainians, accusing them of maintaining ties to the Russian intelligence services, including Russian intelligence officers involved in the planning for an attack on Ukraine.

Of the five Ukrainians named, four fled Ukraine for Russia in 2014 following a popular uprising that ousted the Russian-backed government in Kyiv and touched off the separatist war in Ukraine’s east that continues today.

Hmm Ukraine...2014...sounds familiar.  

All four of the other Ukrainians named in the communiqué once held senior positions in the Ukrainian government and worked in proximity to Paul Manafort, former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign manager, when he worked as a political adviser to Ukraine’s former Russian-backed president, Viktor F. Yanukovych. After Mr. Yanukovych’s government fell in 2014, they fled to Russia

But Mr Manafort is doing time so he won't be around to help.  But maybe Putin doesn't need as much help as he once did because he's already helped to weaken American and European resolve on free countries in Europe.

[LFC]

I'm dropping this here because I believe a major reason, and perhaps THE major reason, for this move is the energy insecurity that Putin's Russia has repeatedly used to threaten Europe. I suspect there's a pretty strong "enough is enough" attitude. He may have overplayed his hand and accelerated Europe's move towards non-fossil fuels.

France is planning to build up to 14 nuclear reactors in an attempt to shore up the country’s aging nuclear fleet while also reducing the country’s carbon emissions. And while the first reactors won’t open for years, the announcement could serve to undercut Russia’s attempts to keep Europe dependent on natural gas.

President Emmanuel Macron announced the decision last week, saying that state-backed Électricité de France, also known as EDF, will build six new plants starting in 2028, with the option to build another eight by 2050. EDF estimates that six next-generation pressurized water reactors will cost around €50 billion ($57 billion). The first could be commissioned as early as 2035.

The move is a sharp reversal of Macron’s earlier pledge to close several reactors over the next decade or so. National politics almost certainly play a role—the nuclear power sector in France employs around 220,000 people, according to one estimate. “What our country needs is the rebirth of France’s nuclear industry,” Macron said at a nuclear turbine factory that EDF had just purchased from GE. “The time has come for a nuclear renaissance,” he said.

Macron also said that EDF will build a prototype small modular reactor, or SMR, by 2030. SMRs are fission reactors that are designed to be built in a factory and transported to their final destination. They generally produce less than 1 MW of power and are intended to be more economical than traditional reactors, which are constructed on-site. EDF will face stiff competition from numerous companies, from heavyweights like Westinghouse to startups like NuScale and Chinese firms like China Huaneng Group, which are pushing to commercialize SMRs.

Of course with the timeframe it could be mostly a counter-threat to Putin but who knows.

[pnwguy]

Was it Reagan who objected about the gas pipelines from the Soviet Union into Europe, because of the potential for blackmail? Or do I have my time line off?

[indy]

Nope, you are right. His administration opposed the pipelines because they thought it would make Europe too dependent on their energy.

ETA: IIRC, they even blocked sales of equipment.

[pnwguy]

Feb 16, 2022 18:43:53 GMT indy said:

Nope, you are right. His administration opposed the pipelines because they thought it would make Europe too dependent on their energy.

ETA: IIRC, they even blocked sales of equipment.

As misguided as he was about various things, Reagan's instinct was right on this.  Of course, Europe and the US hoped that Russia would "go straight" after the USSR collapsed, and trade is usually a way to cement friendly relations.  But Putin resurrected the Soviet Union within Russian borders, nullifying the potential for a different world.

Biden would need to start a 21st century version of the Berlin Airlift, for energy support to Europe.  But with the poisonous RW media and politicians all-in for Putin, it will be a divisive move if it comes to it.

MAGAts would prefer Putin to Joe Biden and will rally to undermine him.  Dumpster and Putin are brothers-in-autocracy.  

[goldenvalley]

Here is what is probably another piece of the puzzle.

Tomasz Czescik, a Polish archaeologist and television journalist, walks his dog each morning through a forest near his home here on NATO’s eastern flank, wandering along the edge of a green chain-link fence topped with razor wire.

He enjoys the fresh air and morning quiet — until loudspeakers on the other side of the fence, strung with “Keep Out” signs in Polish, English, German and Russian, start blasting “The Star -Spangled Banner” at high volume.

“I don’t know anyone who has ever been inside there,” Mr. Czescik said, pointing across the fence toward a cluster of haze-shrouded buildings in the distance.

The fence is the outer perimeter, guarded by Polish soldiers, of a highly sensitive U.S. military installation, expected to be operational this year, which Washington insists will help defend Europe and the United States from ballistic missiles fired by rogue states like Iran.

But for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, the military base in Poland, and another in Romania, are evidence of what he sees as the threat posed by NATO’s eastward expansion — and part of his justification for his military encirclement of Ukraine. The Pentagon describes the two sites as defensive and unrelated to Russia, but the Kremlin believes they could be used to shoot down Russian rockets or to fire offensive cruise missiles at Moscow.

As he threatens Ukraine, Mr. Putin has demanded that NATO reduce its military footprint in Eastern and Central Europe — which Washington and European leaders have flatly refused to do. Mr. Putin has been fuming about American missiles near Russia’s border since the Romanian site went into operation in 2016, but the Polish facility, located near the village of Redzikowo, is only about 100 miles from Russian territory and barely 800 miles from Moscow itself.

This is why Putin wants to make sure Ukraine does not ever entertain being part of NATO.  He doesn't want to see any NATO/American forces in that country too.

[indy]

Feb 16, 2022 19:44:09 GMT pnwguy said:

Feb 16, 2022 18:43:53 GMT indy said:

Nope, you are right. His administration opposed the pipelines because they thought it would make Europe too dependent on their energy.

ETA: IIRC, they even blocked sales of equipment.

As misguided as he was about various things, Reagan's instinct was right on this.  Of course, Europe and the US hoped that Russia would "go straight" after the USSR collapsed, and trade is usually a way to cement friendly relations.  But Putin resurrected the Soviet Union within Russian borders, nullifying the potential for a different world.

Biden would need to start a 21st century version of the Berlin Airlift, for energy support to Europe.  But with the poisonous RW media and politicians all-in for Putin, it will be a divisive move if it comes to it.

MAGAts would prefer Putin to Joe Biden and will rally to undermine him.  Dumpster and Putin are brothers-in-autocracy.  

Whatever I think of Reagan personally (cough, cough...dumb as a box of rocks), I have always maintained his administration was a fairly decent one.

[AnBr]

Except that his administration is responsible for the runaway deficit and was the start of the huge inequality.

“ʻSupply side economics’ or ʻtrickle down’ was never an economic theory, but a political slogan dreamed up by a bunch of ʻconservatives’ who wanted to defend the rich and mighty against the poor and powerless.

“ʻTaxes are the price we pay for civilization,’ Stockman says, borrowing a quotation from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. ʻWhat they’re saying today is foolish, it’s irresponsible. How can anyone believe with the kind of deficit that we have — a trillion dollars, year after year after year — that we can keep taxes as low as they are?’”

— David Stockman
Reagan’s budget director

“Trickle-down economics was a wish, not a reality. It’s never worked. Lower taxes don’t generate more revenue. They generate deficits.‘The plan,’ David Stockman told Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan at the time, ‘was to have a strategic deficit that would give you an argument for cutting back the programs that weren’t desired. It got out of hand.’

“You see, one of Reagan’s advisers told me why the president has permitted that to happen, which makes the matter partly excusable: Reagan thinks it is impossible to persuade Congress that expenditures must be reduced unless one creates deficits so large that absolutely everyone becomes convinced that no more money can be spent.”

— Friedrich von Hayek
1985 interview in the March 25, 1985
Profil 13, the Austrian journal

Not to mention Iran-Contra.

[LFC]

Feb 18, 2022 13:29:02 GMT AnBr said:

Except that his administration is responsible for the runaway deficit and was the start of the huge inequality.

[snip]

Not to mention Iran-Contra.

Don't forget James Watt and the assault on the environment.

[pnwguy]

Feb 18, 2022 14:43:50 GMT LFC said:

Feb 18, 2022 13:29:02 GMT AnBr said:

Except that his administration is responsible for the runaway deficit and was the start of the huge inequality.

[snip]

Not to mention Iran-Contra.

Don't forget James Watt and the assault on the environment.

I do give him some credit for handling the ozone issues with chlorofluorocarbons and the Montreal Protocol.  Virtually no Republican will support any global environmental issues now.  They are all hoaxes.

[goldenvalley]

There seems to be little point in posting a whole lot about Putin in Ukraine.  I suspect all of us felt like it was inevitable that he would find excuses to move in and now he has under a pretext.  What I'm more interested in is how the right wing is going to support him. They'll talk about Biden being senile and guided by the woke group into upsetting Putin, I suspect, not about what is actually happening.

ETA: Having said the above I wandered over to The Bulwark, which Dr. Dre sometimes writes for, and which is helmed by some never Trumpers who are still more like Reagan Republicans than those that claim the name now.  I found this comment following an article by the editor Charlie Sykes:

There are two problems, neither of which you address. So let me point them out.

1. You vastly misunderstand what 'America First' means. To the modern American right, America as it current exists is the enemy. This is because the right is not simply against Democrats, but against pop culture itself in all its forms. It's why despite the fact that not one police organization was defunded, they still scream about it. Why despite there being no vast transgender conspiracy, they are openly trying to turn the clock back to the past. In this vein, there's a logical reason why America First is so anti-American.

The project of the American right is to bond itself closer to Putin or Orban-like figures; to destroy America as it is in order to make the America they want. In this viewing, nothing would help their chances of instituting the policies they want than causing chaos at home and abroad. We think of them as reactionaries, but we might better think of them as would be revolutionaries, looking for the right moment to seize control of everything and going to war not just with their political rivals but with the culture they despise and detest. Thus, America First, as they see it, is best suited by the destruction of America.

2. We meet this moment of Putin's invasion with a stark reality: Americans do not actually want to fight for the Ukrainians. I detest the structuring of 'elites' vs 'normal people' because it is lazy and so rarely are the elites defined, but in this case we can define them. The 'elites' of the foreign policy establishment have vastly overestimated their political capital and vastly overestimated the trust people have in them. For twenty years they were given free reign in the middle east, and for twenty years they achieved nothing. For twenty years, Americans were told to trust them, and they repaid that trust with failure.

We can debate what that failure really means. But in the end, what was promised by them, an impossible lift of a democratic and western style middle east, was not brought to fruition. But beyond that, they destroyed the trust that the public had in them. And nothing has been done to fix this.

They have not argued publicly about WHY the public should support actions in Ukraine. They have not explained, in PLAIN ENGLISH, why Americans should care. They have talked a lot about freedom and democracy and systems and morals and ideals, and none of it matters one bit because they are not speaking the language people care about. They are not talking in the lingua franca of the people.

The security establishment likes to talk like it's 1960; they like to talk in euphemisms and with grand gestures of freedom and liberty. But Americans don't speak that language. They need to be open and direct: Putin's invasion is an attack on Americans. Why? Because it will drive up prices of gas, it will destabilize the global social order that allows Americans to have cheap goods and services. You hate inflation now? You'll really hate it when Putin makes it worse. The national security establishment is very, VERY reluctant to talk like this, because it makes them feel like they're the same as their enemies. And in many ways, they are. But if you want Americans to support your cause, you need to talk to them in the language they understand.

Most Americans cannot find Ukraine on a map. You want them to fight for it, you need to explain that the system we built needs to be reinforced if they want to keep reaping the benefits of that system. You want cheap goods? You want cheap gas? Then you gotta be willing to fight against the people who would threaten that.

So people should be talking more about this invasion.

[jackd]

Lindsey Graham must not have gotten the memo. He called Putin a thug. I'm curious about how American voters will react when gas prices inevitably rise in part due to sanctions.

[AnBr]

No problem. It'll be Biden's fault.

[jackd]

That's my concern.

[LFC]

Feb 22, 2022 21:34:54 GMT jackd said:

Lindsey Graham must not have gotten the memo. He called Putin a thug. I'm curious about how American voters will react when gas prices inevitably rise in part due to sanctions.

Weather vane Lindsey shifts in 3, 2, ...

[LFC]

Russia is flexing all over the place, both physically and digitally.

Hackers for one of Russia’s most elite and brazen spy agencies have infected home and small-office network devices around the world with a previously unseen malware that turns them into attack platforms that can steal confidential data and target other networks.

Cyclops Blink, as the advanced malware has been dubbed, has infected about 1 percent of network firewall devices made by network device manufacturer Watchguard, the company said on Wednesday. The malware is able to abuse a legitimate firmware update mechanism found in infected devices in a way that gives it persistence, meaning it survives reboots.

[pnwguy]

Sadly, humanity seems to be headed into a "Game Of Thrones" world where narcissistic lunatics will rule by violence and kleptocracy. Civilization and democracy was nice while it lasted.

[goldenvalley]

Feb 24, 2022 17:57:08 GMT pnwguy said:

Sadly, humanity seems to be headed into a "Game Of Thrones" world where narcissistic lunatics will rule by violence and kleptocracy. Civilization and democracy was nice while it lasted.

Americans didn't retain the lessons of post WWII.  We didn't beat the Germans and then go home to take advantage of the GI Bill and produce a bunch of kids.  We invested in Europe to try to produce stable democracies.  Somehow modern Americans decided that after the USSR disintegrated the work of supporting stable democracy was finished.