Russia

[LFC]

Anonymous is continuing to harass Putin.

According to a report from the International Business Times, Russian President Vladimir Putin's clamping down on media coverage of his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine -- which is going poorly -- is being undercut by the hacktivist collective known as "Anonymous."

With the Russian strongman threatening Russian media personalities with prison for labeling the incursion a "war" and Russian state media parroting talking points and propaganda from the Kremlin, Anonymous has created a workaround by hacking into unsecured printers and sending out statements with details of military losses and encouraging resistance to the invasion and Putin.

The report from IBT's Nica Osorio states, "The details of the latest attack against Russia were shared by Anonymous on the micro-blogging site Twitter. 'We have been printing anti-propaganda and tor installation instructions to printers all over #Russia for 2 hours, and printed 100,000+ copies so far. 15 people working on this op as we speak.'"

[pnwguy]

Mar 21, 2022 20:53:14 GMT LFC said:

More on the "Christian" Russian Orthodox Church and they're support of indiscriminate slaughter of women and children.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church has defended Russia’s actions and blamed the conflict on the West.

ss support for the invasion of a country where millions of people belong to his own church has led critics to conclude that Orthodox leadership has become little more than an arm of the state – and that this is the role it usually plays.

The reality is much more complicated. The relationship between Russian church and state has undergone profound historical transformations, not least in the past century – a focus of my work as a scholar of Eastern Orthodoxy. The church’s current support for the Kremlin is not inevitable or predestined, but a deliberate decision that needs to be understood.

A deliberate decision to obtain power, nothing more, nothing less.

It worked for the Catholic church for centuries in the Dark Ages.

[jackd]

Courtesy of the Emperor Constantine who got the ball rolling.

[LFC]

Mar 21, 2022 23:45:42 GMT pnwguy said:

Mar 21, 2022 20:53:14 GMT LFC said:

More on the "Christian" Russian Orthodox Church and they're support of indiscriminate slaughter of women and children.

A deliberate decision to obtain power, nothing more, nothing less.

It worked for the Catholic church for centuries in the Dark Ages.

And again during WWII.

[andydp]

I wonder if the Russians have something like "unpaid intern" to blame.   


WSJ: Recriminations And Finger-Pointing In Moscow As War Turns Into “Embarrassing Morass” For Russia

Recriminations and finger-pointing have begun within Russia’s spy and defense agencies, as the campaign that Moscow expected to culminate in a lightning seizure of Ukraine’s capital has instead turned into a costly and embarrassing morass, U.S. officials said.

The Journal writes U.S. officials believe reports are credible that “the commander of the FSB intelligence agency’s unit responsible for Ukraine had been placed under house arrest.” Colonel-General Sergei Beseda is the head of the Fifth Service of the FSB intelligence service. He and his deputy are reportedly being detained.

The FSB was responsible for providing intelligence on Ukraine to Vladimir Putin in the run up to Russia’s invasion. A U.S. defense official also told the Journal that bickering had broken out between the FSB and the Russian Ministry of Defense.

www.newsandguts.com/wsj-recriminations-and-finger-pointing-in-moscow-as-war-turns-into-embarrassing-morass-for-russia/?fbclid=IwAR0CsHFSjQOUo6njg2ecIqdOCnDx5Y5uFZh29oEuS6fYI9kQIoKTHFPBUpg

[LFC]

Yet more on the evil that is the Russian Orthodox Church and, in particular, their bloodthirsty leader. Bold mine that shows Putin acting exactly like an abusive spouse or parent. "This is YOUR fault! Stop making me hurt you!"

Beneath the gold onion domes of the Danilov Monastery a few miles south of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin’s chief shaman explains why Russia is hell-bent on destroying Ukraine.

“If we see [Ukraine] as a threat, we have the right to use force to ensure the threat is eradicated,” Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill recently preached to his church’s 90 million faithful followers. “We have entered into a conflict which has not only physical but also metaphysical significance. We are talking about human salvation, something much more important than politics.”

The wartime coalition between Putin and his patriarch is called symphonia, an ironclad alliance between church and state that assures reciprocal reverence, with neither institution presuming to dominate the other. Theologians have spent centuries bickering over the fine points, which have now impaled 44 million Ukrainians as the victims of a bloodthirsty land-grab that Putin and the Patriarch have packaged as a holy campaign to cleanse souls.

“A new world order is born before our very eyes,” is how Putin described the relationship in a statement published at the start of the war, later warning those who disagreed with him “inflict maximum damage on people.” He said: “The Russian people will be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and spit them out like a midge that accidentally flew into their mouths.”

To be sure, the only lingering question is how far into repression and hideous cruelty can Putin and his patriarch descend before the means no longer justify the ends.

Rod Dreher is still insane, of course, and has desperately tried to separate Orthodoxy (and Catholicism) from their long strings of corrupt, morally bankrupt leaders but he did make one interesting point. Russia is so desperate now that they're starting to send mercenaries from both Chechnya and Syria, MUSLIM mercenaries. When you play the religion card that hard and then bring in infidels to murder Christians you get into some tricky territory. Of course most Russians won't hear the truth of it but if this gets out to them it could be faith shaking.

[LFC]

More oligarchs are losing their yachts.

Finland Has Detained 21 Yachts Potentially Belonging To Russian Oligarchs

Finnish customs officials have put a freeze on more than 20 luxury yachts docked or stored in Finland suspected to belong to Russian oligarchs, according to Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s largest newspaper.

You can follow our “Yacht-Watch” here.

[goldenvalley]

Mar 22, 2022 18:58:17 GMT LFC said:

More oligarchs are losing their yachts.

Finland Has Detained 21 Yachts Potentially Belonging To Russian Oligarchs

Finnish customs officials have put a freeze on more than 20 luxury yachts docked or stored in Finland suspected to belong to Russian oligarchs, according to Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s largest newspaper.

You can follow our “Yacht-Watch” here.

Obviously I am not acquainted with any super wealthy people so I know little of luxury yachts.  If these things ultimately are confiscated by governments or maybe repossessed by lending institutions who will be left to buy them?  I understand Bezos already has a mega yacht. Not sure if Gates is into yachting. These look like big useless things unless some cruise line buys them up for tourism.

[LFC]

Mar 22, 2022 19:54:22 GMT goldenvalley said:

Obviously I am not acquainted with any super wealthy people so I know little of luxury yachts.  If these things ultimately are confiscated by governments or maybe repossessed by lending institutions who will be left to buy them? 

Hulls and engines get repurposed all the time. One fishing boat I used to go out on is now working as a New York ferry. An oil rig supply ship and worker ferry from the Gulf Coast is a fishing boat I still use. The swanky stuff has a very limited number of customers for sure but a good, fast hull with a state of the art power plant at the right price would be snatched up, ripped down to the decks, and rebuilt for a different purpose, much to the chagrin of the oligarchs.

[AnBr]

Linking to this, Dan Rather's "News And Guts":

Is an American-made weapon the difference maker in Ukraine? It would be ironic if the the anti-tank missile that Donald Trump tried to withhold from Ukraine would end Vladimir Putin’s career.

www.nbcnews.com/news/world/us-made-javelin-missiles-are-vital-ukraines-fight-russia-experts-say-rcna20878

[LFC]

The PM of the Czech Republic has a view of Russia formed by having seen their tanks roll into Czechoslovakia.

Petr Fiala has powerful early memories of tanks. In August of 1968, the Soviet Army invaded Czechoslovakia and crushed an uprising against the Soviet Union’s dictatorial rule. More than 100 people died in the street while resisting the soldiers.

Back then, Fiala was just 4 years old, but he can still recall his parents’ shock and distress, which lingered long after the Soviet soldiers had withdrawn to their nearby barracks.

Now, Fiala is 57 and prime minister of the Czech Republic, which split peacefully from Slovakia in 1993. The Soviet invasion that went down in history as the “Prague Spring” has left Fiala extremely vigilant when it comes to Russia.

This is why Fiala did not hesitate when the idea of going to war-torn Kyiv to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky came up at the European Union summit in Versailles.

“I saw the Soviet tanks in the streets of Prague and I know very well what it did to my country for the next 20 years. I don’t want to see Russian tanks here or anywhere else in Europe again,” Fiala said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast.

“If we don’t beat him [Putin], he will not stop in Ukraine. He will roll on and will recreate the USSR.”

[pnwguy]

A great analysis of the balancing act Biden faces with Putin

www.wired.com/story/biden-putin-russia-lose-ukraine-war/

[andydp]

Vlad should study his history.  (I may say the US has NOT learned from this either.)

[LFC]

Mar 23, 2022 20:13:15 GMT pnwguy said:

A great analysis of the balancing act Biden faces with Putin

www.wired.com/story/biden-putin-russia-lose-ukraine-war/

Wow. The paragraphs on Eisenhower being pushed by military men to use nukes is scary as f***. Bold mine.

Few leaders in American history know modern war more intimately than Eisenhower—both how hard and costly it is to win one and how difficult it is to stay out of one. He understood procedures, organization, logistics, and the need for decisive decision-making in times of crisis. As president at the start of the Cold War, he sat in the White House and doodled as his own generals—junior pip-squeaks in his mind, men who had been young officers when he led the Normandy invasion in 1944—recommended using nuclear weapons to settle now forgotten international crises: Kaesong, Quemoy, Matsu, Formosa, Berlin. At the end of his two-term presidency, asked what he was most proud of, he didn’t hesitate: “We kept the peace,” he said. “People asked how it happened. By God, it didn’t just happen—I’ll tell you that.”

Part of Eisenhower’s insistence on maintaining peace was his knowledge that the laws of physics apply to war, too: Objects in motion stay in motion. War has a natural momentum; it’s easy to start, easy to escalate, and hard to turn off. And once it’s underway, commanders use the weapons at hand. Facing defeat, they’re unlikely to leave even extreme weapons unused if they’re available. Most worrying of all is the fact that wartime leaders tend to dramatically misunderstand the circumstances they face, increasing the risks of miscalculation or accidental escalation.

That’s why the most important thing is not getting into a superpower war in the first place.

[jackd]

A minor quibble with the Wired piece: Eisenhower avoided war with the Soviets, yes, but he also initiated our involvement in Vietnam.

[LFC]

Mar 23, 2022 21:48:25 GMT jackd said:

A minor quibble with the Wired piece: Eisenhower avoided war with the Soviets, yes, but he also initiated our involvement in Vietnam.

Per this timeline it actually looked like Truman got the ball rolling but successive presidents, including Eisenhower, kept ratcheting up our involvement. Interestingly it's a nearly textbook case of the part that I quoted above.

Part of Eisenhower’s insistence on maintaining peace was his knowledge that the laws of physics apply to war, too: Objects in motion stay in motion. War has a natural momentum; it’s easy to start, easy to escalate, and hard to turn off. And once it’s underway, commanders use the weapons at hand. Facing defeat, they’re unlikely to leave even extreme weapons unused if they’re available. Most worrying of all is the fact that wartime leaders tend to dramatically misunderstand the circumstances they face, increasing the risks of miscalculation or accidental escalation.

I guess Eisenhower understood the concept when dealing with the Soviets but for some reason forgot it when it came to a smaller conflict like Vietnam. That was an awful blind spot.

I'm glad that Biden broke the cycle in Afghanistan. Obama and Trump both talked about it but Joe pulled it off.

[goldenvalley]

Mar 23, 2022 21:48:25 GMT jackd said:

A minor quibble with the Wired piece: Eisenhower avoided war with the Soviets, yes, but he also initiated our involvement in Vietnam.

Was this his way of doing what his critics wanted...engage Soviets in a proxy war?  I think it is.  


It is a good thing that Eisenhower was president at the time.  He at least understood what a nightmare war is even if he might have thought it was inevitable, us being humans...

[jackd]

Well, Eisenhower had a few faults (don't we all) such as warning about the military industrial complex as he was leaving office and could no longer do anything about it.

[indy]

Interesting story regarding a meeting between Russian and US military officials last week: www.cnn.com/2022/03/23/politics/us-russia-general-meeting/index.html

[LFC]

Ukraine is paying us back with an intelligence windfall.

[andydp]

Mar 24, 2022 14:53:06 GMT LFC said:

Ukraine is paying us back with an intelligence windfall.

"Goldmine" isn't enough to describe what they got.  Aside from the Intel, they can analyze circuits for vulnerabilities, see who is on the distribution list, know the operating frequencies of their equipment.  Not to mention spoof their systems.

[LFC]

Mar 24, 2022 16:23:54 GMT andydp said:

"Goldmine" isn't enough to describe what they got.  Aside from the Intel, they can analyze circuits for vulnerabilities, see who is on the distribution list, know the operating frequencies of their equipment.  Not to mention spoof their systems.

Putin's war just keeps getting more and more expensive for him and Russia on multiple fronts.

[LFC]

Let the finger pointing begin! If there's one thing history has shown us it's that despots know how to collect the heads of scapegoats to make themselves feel better.

One month into the invasion of Ukraine, some Russian and pro-Russian figures are casting about for explanations and people to scapegoat as they attempt to justify why things may not be going entirely according to plan.

The reality of the war’s progress remains obscured by propaganda and fog of war, though NATO officials said on Wednesday that up to 40,000 Russian soldiers have either died, been injured, captured, or are missing in action. Russia assembled a force of around 200,000 along Ukraine’s borders in the run-up to the invasion.

Kremlin officials strongly deny that anything could possibly be amiss with the campaign, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying on Tuesday that “everything has gone strictly according to plan.”

But others close to the operation apparently feel the need to tell a different story.

I think things are just getting started here. The question is how Putin will reaction, either by taking the scapegoats' heads, silencing those who criticize the war at all, or a bit of both.

[AnBr]

Mar 24, 2022 20:35:12 GMT LFC said:

Let the finger pointing begin! If there's one thing history has shown us it's that despots know how to collect the heads of scapegoats to make themselves feel better.

One month into the invasion of Ukraine, some Russian and pro-Russian figures are casting about for explanations and people to scapegoat as they attempt to justify why things may not be going entirely according to plan.

The reality of the war’s progress remains obscured by propaganda and fog of war, though NATO officials said on Wednesday that up to 40,000 Russian soldiers have either died, been injured, captured, or are missing in action. Russia assembled a force of around 200,000 along Ukraine’s borders in the run-up to the invasion.

Kremlin officials strongly deny that anything could possibly be amiss with the campaign, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying on Tuesday that “everything has gone strictly according to plan.”

But others close to the operation apparently feel the need to tell a different story.

I think things are just getting started here. The question is how Putin will reaction, either by taking the scapegoats' heads, silencing those who criticize the war at all, or a bit of both.

[indy]

Russian missiles in Ukraine have failure rate of up to 60%, U.S. officials say