There are many factions involved in sending help to Ukraine right now. The EU, which itself is comprised of a variety of independent countries are providing massive amounts of weapons and money. Balkan countries like Croatia and Slovenia are heavily involved. Japan shipped like $200 million in aid. Canada and Australia sending rocket launchers.
What is this obsession with refusing to give agency to anyone other than the US?
We have to make sure the US is always at the center of everything so we can complain about how the US is always at the center of things.
the only new thing is the speculation that sigint specifically helped kill members of senior staff, which appears to be speculation on top of speculation that senior staff has even been hit. the russian invasion is stalled, but it appears that’s due to dwindling foot soldiers, not a lack of commanders.
we’ll just have to wait and see how many generals are never heard of again.
The fact that russian generals kept dying is what made me think they had some help with sigint.
Russia’s signal discipline has been crazy bad. I’ve read people claiming to be broadcasting their signals online like people do with police scanners.
Ukraine has basically started offensive operations in parts of the front for the last week, although they haven’t gone to take territory in order to conserve troops numbers. they also don’t want to announce anything because it creates a more difficult problem for russian intel services to figure out what’s going on. russian livestream into the war is also diminished because the whole army has been diminished.
One other point, it looks like the Transnistria mobilization and the bombing of the bridge west of Odessa are connected. ukraine currently controls a small knob of land south of moldova, and cutting the bridge means to retake it Ukraine would have to go through transnistria. that’s bold, and perhaps a small enough, and tactically feasible objective. it could at least draw some UA defensive forces away from the east. but still, russia would have to pull off a quick takeover with ~1500 stationed soldiers, and then hold enough shoreline to enable more troops to land from the sea. it seems there may exist a reserve of troops that wasn’t able to attack odessa earlier, and they now might have a new mission. it’s still very risky. can’t wait for them to meet some 155mm rounds and neptunes.
Maybe I don’t understand the rules but a general on a battlefield is a legitimate target. It’s probably not a good idea to brag about it but I don’t think anyone except the Russians would have a problem with the US or others supplying information about the location of enemy senior officers. There’s a line where you’re going after a specific person though, especially someone like Gerasimov.
I don’t think so. It’s a war zone and command and control is always a legit target.
What I mean is if you’re tracking his specific movements, following him around and waiting for him to show at a location where he’s exposed and then relaying that information so he can be targeted. Keeping in mind that he’s also a political figure, that sounds a lot like assassination to me.
You’re not wrong that it sounds like assassination, but that’s been fair game tactics forever.
us killing iran’s general is an obvious example. there were probably instances in the iraq campaign. don’t know enough to wager of how frequent or fair these tactics are.
Maybe so. If he’d been killed in the attack last week, I’d have mixed feelings but I’d have to count it as a good thing. I mean people dying doesn’t generally make me happy, but that’s what we’re reduced to.
It’s fucked up but “terrorist” gets you there in the Iran case.
That’s far more into the grey zone, as it isn’t between two combatants in a declared combat zone. Some Russian general finding out as they lead an invasion of another territory isn’t grey at all.
This post kind of threw me. Maybe I’m a ruined person, but I don’t think being happy a Russian general died because it hurts their war effort is a bad thing? Even deaths of soldiers in videos that I’ve posted don’t bother me much really. A little for sure, but not a lot.
I suppose I don’t know for sure, but there’s a good chance that no one else here has seen more people die from traumatic injuries than me. I don’t even see that much compared to other people who work in ERs honestly. Still though, it changes you. I carry some cases with me wherever I go.
Still though, a russian general dies later today, and my reaction will be positive.
I’m sorry. I don’t know how people do that kind of work, honestly. I have to look away from the evening news a lot of the time. I’m getting old enough that people I know are getting sick and dying and it’s hard to watch them suffer and be helpless. I’m afraid to check text messages sometimes. Ha, probably wouldn’t do too well on a battlefield.
https://twitter.com/tom_bullock_/status/1521598016221810690
https://twitter.com/tom_bullock_/status/1521598866545684487
ultimate troll would be using sex dolls
The surprise on the faces of the Russians when they discovered the ruse would match the dolls.
It seems that the Chechens are more likely to commit war crimes. I don’t know too much of their culture, but after so many crimes against humanity were committed on them by the Russians and no one in the world cared at all I can see how that can make their culture very indifferent to human suffering.