The Invasion of Ukraine

[jimbob]

So basically if Vladimir Putin had been a member of Scrutable he'd have been better informed than sitting in the Kremlin listening to lies?

Maybe he is a member? Hi Vlad! You're a war criminal and history will do who-was-worse comparisons with Hitler. We would put you in the Hague, only your loyal allies will put you out an 11th storey window first.

I don't think any of us would have advocated an armoured offensive in the Rasputitsa. Or using actual paratroopers as opposed to airborne assaults.

[nezumi]

I think someone of this parish put me on to Beau of the Fifth Column on YouTube. His takes on this have been fascinating so far. There's one video in which he explains why the army is so bad, and it makes perfect sense.

Imagine, for a moment, you are a ruthless dictator. Where does your biggest threat come from, internally? It's the army, isn't it. Putin is too clever by half so he's basically dumbed down his army. If you're too clever or ambitious, you're out, conscription is easy to avoid anyway so you probably wouldn't have ended up in anyway. He basically runs the military in Russia on the Peter Principle. You kinda have to, if you're gonna get by unbecouped.

I'm finding myself getting into battle strategy and warfare which, since I'm nearly* a pacifist is a touch unusual. I am really enjoying Western propoganda right now, it's so interesting seeing the contrast (we're bringing our A game but Russia's is piss poor.). I'm also quite impressed with (touch wood lol) how noticeably absent successful Russian cyber attacks have been. I've not noticed any so clearly the West's in the zone with managing them. It's also heartening finally seeing some pushback against their bot army. Now, we can absolutely up our game - see Latvia for awesomeness (apparently they have a prime time show just debunking Russian propoganda, I would absolutely watch that!) but it is so good to see steps finally being taken.

What we have right now is Russia pretending to withdraw, in order to regroup and re-plan while Ukraine, if I understand this correctly, has a bunch of foreign veterans coming, more tanks than they started with and the definite upper hand, while easily winning the propoganda war and (ironically I suppose) putting themselves on the map.

I think Putin is too clever. All the IQ, but no trust and no boundaries. He has created (or maybe exacerbated) a system in which nobody can ever tell him the unvarnished truth, everyone all the way down is wholesale thieving and no thought has been spared at all to selfless motives - except to try and destroy them. This article claims that Russia is conscripting, as per usual, against what they said only a couple of weeks ago. But they won't go to Ukraine. No. Here's my (obvious) prediction. They'll go to Syria and Transnistria and other places to relieve those troops who will go to Ukraine. I don't actually think it matters. They do have superior numbers, absolutely, but they're overstretched already and they just don't have the demographics to backfill. Besides, they're using technicals. They don't have the equipment, the logistics or the management to bring it back.

We don't want Russia completely crippled, we want them to go home, get rid of Putin and his cronies, set up a better system and economically develop into a beautiful, Green country with happy, well-fed people in it. It totally could. Without Putin and his tosser mates.

Bit of a stream of consciousness, sorry, but I needed to offload my thoughts.

* I'm not, if words won't get people to do the decent thing then guns and bombs are a useful backup. I just really disagree with war for war's sake and think that there is a very high bar to clear before it's worth risking human lives.

[Sciolus]

Basically, many people had relied on the glamour of war, a sort of war p.rnography, to predict the outcome of Russia’s invasion of its neighbor.

So war p.rnography is to war as p.rnography is to sex.

IMHO the bias that I was also guilty of was to look at the visible modern equipment and doctrine and assume that what couldn't be seen was also up to similar standard (eg logistics and ability to coordinate). I think that assumption wasn't unreasonable as spending billions on new equipment but not investing in the training and logistics needed to use it is profoundly irrational, and isn't what most armed forces in developed countries do. But that was to project our own experience onto Russia and to assume that their decisions would be similar to those that I'm most familiar with. Which was a bad idea.

It seems everyone, both Putin and his generals and Western observers, only paid attention to the glamorous stuff, the phallic guns and the big bangs, and overlooked the essential but unglamorous and hidden stuff.
So war p.rnography is to war as p.rnography is to relationships.

[bob sterman]

We did have the example of the Admiral Kuznetsov and its deployment off Syria. Or the simple maths of how many fancy weapon systems Russia was proclaiming on a defence budget the size of the UK's

And you've got to factor in that not all of that budget gets spent on equipment...

Russia’s Only Aircraft Carrier Is In Bad Shape, Won’t Sail Anywhere Until Late 2023
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2021/06/rus ... late-2023/

An overhaul and modernization program began on the carrier in early 2017 to extend her service life by twenty-five years, but nearly half a decade later the ship remains at the 35th Ship Repair Plant in Murmansk and won’t even begin post-refit sea trials until at least next summer.

A number of factors have come into play including delayed equipment, while the carrier was damaged in October 2018 when Russia’s largest floating dry dock, PD-50, sank and caused one of its 70-ton cranes to crash onto the ship’s flight.

The following December, a major fire broke out, resulting in the loss of life of two workers, while the fire-related damage was estimated to be upwards of $1.5 billion. The future of the warship has been repeatedly questioned as Russia lacks a dry dock large enough to service the ship – yet work has continued, at least on paper.

In fact, corruption has been a serious problem, and just this week there were reports that the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) conducted a raid of the Murmansk shipyard and questioned yard Director Sergei Verakso. FSB officers reportedly confiscated documents and computers related to the ongoing repairs of the Admiral Kuznetsov.

Another criminal case had been opened last December against Yevgeny Zudin, general director of Shipyard No. 10 in Polyarny. He was arrested under suspicion of the theft of forty-five million rubles (approximately $600,000 USD) that had been allocated to the repair of the carrier’s fuel tanks.

[sTeamTraen]

I think Putin is too clever. All the IQ, but no trust and no boundaries. He has created (or maybe exacerbated) a system in which nobody can ever tell him the unvarnished truth, everyone all the way down is wholesale thieving and no thought has been spared at all to selfless motives - except to try and destroy them.

I think this is probably correct, although a thought that keeps occurring to me is that as ruthless dictators go, Putin is also a bit rubbish.

For example, we read about school teachers who refuse to parrot the official line about the war (perhaps because they have family in Ukraine), and the result is that they... get fired. Now obviously this isn't great, but they didn't get sent to the Gulag or taken out the back and put against the wall. The woman who stood up on live TV with the anti-war placard got a fine, or two, but again, there was no show trial, no disappearance.

And yes, there was the Novichok-ing of a few prominent opponents in the West. Nasty, but all done with some kind of attempt at deniability (compare Jamal Khashoggi, whose murder the Saudis were sufficiently unconcerned about that they did it inside their own embassy). Several generals are now apparently "under house arrest", but Kim Jong-Un would have used them as target practice for his surplus RPGs.

Putin's Russia doesn't seem to be as remotely militarised as a society as Stalin's (or Brezhnev's) Russia, or Hitler's Germany. There are no Young Pioneers or Putinjugend. He's only just cottoned on to the trope of having a logo with jagged black lines since a few people started stanning the letter Z (I hope that post-President Zelenskyy will do something very funny with that when he goes back to showbiz). Apparently the Russian army is trying to recruit people through ads on the bottom of utility bills, which hardly seems comparable to a press gang, and we're told that Putin was surprised to find that conscripts had been sent to Ukraine.

None of this is to make out that Putin is just a misunderstood version of Jacinda Ardern or Justin Trudeau, but I wonder if he actually has the capacity to tighten things down very much. Maybe 30 years of McDonald's has made Russia a bit soft, too.

[jimbob]

I think someone of this parish put me on to Beau of the Fifth Column on YouTube. His takes on this have been fascinating so far. There's one video in which he explains why the army is so bad, and it makes perfect sense.

Imagine, for a moment, you are a ruthless dictator. Where does your biggest threat come from, internally? It's the army, isn't it. Putin is too clever by half so he's basically dumbed down his army. If you're too clever or ambitious, you're out, conscription is easy to avoid anyway so you probably wouldn't have ended up in anyway. He basically runs the military in Russia on the Peter Principle. You kinda have to, if you're gonna get by unbecouped.

I'm finding myself getting into battle strategy and warfare which, since I'm nearly* a pacifist is a touch unusual. I am really enjoying Western propoganda right now, it's so interesting seeing the contrast (we're bringing our A game but Russia's is piss poor.). I'm also quite impressed with (touch wood lol) how noticeably absent successful Russian cyber attacks have been. I've not noticed any so clearly the West's in the zone with managing them. It's also heartening finally seeing some pushback against their bot army. Now, we can absolutely up our game - see Latvia for awesomeness (apparently they have a prime time show just debunking Russian propoganda, I would absolutely watch that!) but it is so good to see steps finally being taken.

What we have right now is Russia pretending to withdraw, in order to regroup and re-plan while Ukraine, if I understand this correctly, has a bunch of foreign veterans coming, more tanks than they started with and the definite upper hand, while easily winning the propoganda war and (ironically I suppose) putting themselves on the map.

I think Putin is too clever. All the IQ, but no trust and no boundaries. He has created (or maybe exacerbated) a system in which nobody can ever tell him the unvarnished truth, everyone all the way down is wholesale thieving and no thought has been spared at all to selfless motives - except to try and destroy them. This article claims that Russia is conscripting, as per usual, against what they said only a couple of weeks ago. But they won't go to Ukraine. No. Here's my (obvious) prediction. They'll go to Syria and Transnistria and other places to relieve those troops who will go to Ukraine. I don't actually think it matters. They do have superior numbers, absolutely, but they're overstretched already and they just don't have the demographics to backfill. Besides, they're using technicals. They don't have the equipment, the logistics or the management to bring it back.

We don't want Russia completely crippled, we want them to go home, get rid of Putin and his cronies, set up a better system and economically develop into a beautiful, Green country with happy, well-fed people in it. It totally could. Without Putin and his tosser mates.

Bit of a stream of consciousness, sorry, but I needed to offload my thoughts.

* I'm not, if words won't get people to do the decent thing then guns and bombs are a useful backup. I just really disagree with war for war's sake and think that there is a very high bar to clear before it's worth risking human lives.

It's hardly a new problem. One can't have a rule based on personal fiefdoms and favours without these percolating down and corruption seeping in. And most of the time the corruption will not affect those at the top... until the time comes to rely on them. See the Royal Navy in the time of Pepys for example.

And he seems to have been pretty bad at taking bad news, which again is not going to help.

[WFJ]

I think Putin is too clever. All the IQ, but no trust and no boundaries. He has created (or maybe exacerbated) a system in which nobody can ever tell him the unvarnished truth, everyone all the way down is wholesale thieving and no thought has been spared at all to selfless motives - except to try and destroy them.

I think this is probably correct, although a thought that keeps occurring to me is that as ruthless dictators go, Putin is also a bit rubbish.

For example, we read about school teachers who refuse to parrot the official line about the war (perhaps because they have family in Ukraine), and the result is that they... get fired. Now obviously this isn't great, but they didn't get sent to the Gulag or taken out the back and put against the wall. The woman who stood up on live TV with the anti-war placard got a fine, or two, but again, there was no show trial, no disappearance.

And yes, there was the Novichok-ing of a few prominent opponents in the West. Nasty, but all done with some kind of attempt at deniability (compare Jamal Khashoggi, whose murder the Saudis were sufficiently unconcerned about that they did it inside their own embassy). Several generals are now apparently "under house arrest", but Kim Jong-Un would have used them as target practice for his surplus RPGs.

Putin's Russia doesn't seem to be as remotely militarised as a society as Stalin's (or Brezhnev's) Russia, or Hitler's Germany. There are no Young Pioneers or Putinjugend. He's only just cottoned on to the trope of having a logo with jagged black lines since a few people started stanning the letter Z (I hope that post-President Zelenskyy will do something very funny with that when he goes back to showbiz). Apparently the Russian army is trying to recruit people through ads on the bottom of utility bills, which hardly seems comparable to a press gang, and we're told that Putin was surprised to find that conscripts had been sent to Ukraine.

None of this is to make out that Putin is just a misunderstood version of Jacinda Ardern or Justin Trudeau, but I wonder if he actually has the capacity to tighten things down very much. Maybe 30 years of McDonald's has made Russia a bit soft, too.

It's because he is a modern populist, rather than an old-school iron fist dictator. His popularity is important for him to remain in power, and a rule-by-fear model would not work for him in modern Russia. He needs to maintain the facade that he is the saviour of Russians against outside forces. Even with his power, information cannot be contained and negative media silenced like in the past. He is much closer to Trump. Or rather a left-leaning American's view of the furthest extent Trump would have gone had he not been constrained by US media reporting, the constitution and the last remaining dregs of Republican decency.

[EACLucifer]

It's because he is a modern populist, rather than an old-school iron fist dictator. His popularity is important for him to remain in power, and a rule-by-fear model would not work for him in modern Russia. He needs to maintain the facade that he is the saviour of Russians against outside forces. Even with his power, information cannot be contained and negative media silenced like in the past. He is much closer to Trump. Or rather a left-leaning American's view of the furthest extent Trump would have gone had he not been constrained by US media reporting, the constitution and the last remaining dregs of Republican decency.

And much like a typical modern populist, he doesn't rely on mass mobilisation of fanatical supporters, rather he seeks to induce general distrust and apathy, such that a smaller cadre of supporters is still decisive.

[EACLucifer]

The woman who stood up on live TV with the anti-war placard got a fine, or two, but again, there was no show trial, no disappearance.

Marina Ovsyannikova has subsequently done western media appearances to complain about sanctions and "russophobia", so it's worth questioning whether she did anything to oppose Putin at all, rather than working for Putin in an op that trades a little disruption of their narrative at home into an attempt to split the west and reinforce the "It's just Putin not Russians" nonsense* to try and undermine the case for crippling sanctions.




*Some Russians are good on this. Some are very brave and decent people taking great risks to do the right thing, but Putin could not do what he does without the collaboration, consent, or at least the obedience, of a lot of Russians.

[EACLucifer]

Drone footage showing Russians are out of Hostomel, the target of their Market Garden style offensive right at the beginning of the war

I'm actually having trouble keeping up with all the settlements liberated today. We're mostly talking small villages, but the overall picture is that Ukrainians are recapturing territory on both banks of the Dnieper south and east of Zaporizhzia, east of Kyiv and south of Chernihiv, and west of Kyiv, while the Russian withdrawal in areas to the west of the Dnieper north of Kyiv is happening under fire, and it may well be that the Russians intended to hold ground there even after the decision to redeploy troops east, but are not able to do so. There's a genuine possibility of Russian units either getting encircled, or losing all cohesion and routing or surrendering. There's also enormous amounts of damaged war materiel left behind, meaning our earlier estimates of Russian vehicle losses are almost certainly quite an underestimate.

[wilsontown]

So is Putin's threat to cut off gas supplies to Europe an example of "escalate to de-escalate"? It doesn't look like it's working at this point, so what next?

[dyqik]

So is Putin's threat to cut off gas supplies to Europe an example of "escalate to de-escalate"? It doesn't look like it's working at this point, so what next?

It's a pretty badly timed threat, just as spring makes Europe less vulnerable to gas costs.

I can't help but think that this whole operation would have gone easier if it had been either six months earlier or six months later.

[nekomatic]

The resilience of Ukrainian resistance is embarrassing for a Western think-tank and military community that had confidently predicted that the Russians would conquer Ukraine in a matter of days.

I had been under the impression that most people didn’t think Russia was really going to invade Ukraine until they actually did, so I’m inclined to feel glad that we overestimated Russian capabilities rather than underestimated them. Or am I missing something?

[Woodchopper]

Interesting discussion on the long and short term effects of sanctions: https://twitter.com/drradchenko/status/ ... XUQyeaTmuQ

[Woodchopper]

The resilience of Ukrainian resistance is embarrassing for a Western think-tank and military community that had confidently predicted that the Russians would conquer Ukraine in a matter of days.

I had been under the impression that most people didn’t think Russia was really going to invade Ukraine until they actually did, so I’m inclined to feel glad that we overestimated Russian capabilities rather than underestimated them. Or am I missing something?

I can't say for others but I thought that Russia would attack Ukraine but in a much more limited way. I also assumed that in a more limited attack Russia would be successful against Ukrainian regular forces, but that they might face major difficulties with an insurgency in areas they had occupied.

So I was wrong about the capability of Russian army and air force and the scope of the attack. Though on the latter my assumption was that they wouldn't try a general invasion as they didn't have enough forces in place, so at least that bit was correct.

[Woodchopper]

IMHO the bias that I was also guilty of was to look at the visible modern equipment and doctrine and assume that what couldn't be seen was also up to similar standard (eg logistics and ability to coordinate). I think that assumption wasn't unreasonable as spending billions on new equipment but not investing in the training and logistics needed to use it is profoundly irrational, and isn't what most armed forces in developed countries do. But that was to project our own experience onto Russia and to assume that their decisions would be similar to those that I'm most familiar with. Which was a bad idea.

We did have the example of the Admiral Kuznetsov and its deployment off Syria. Or the simple maths of how many fancy weapon systems Russia was proclaiming on a defence budget the size of the UK's

Yes, Kuznetsov was a joke.

But I think that's an interesting example of bias. It was easy at the time to assume that of course that ship was crap, but Russia had invested in its land, air and submarine forces, and much more little in its surface fleet. So the Kuznetsov could be assumed to be an exception that didn't tell us much about the rest.

Whereas in fact the Kuznetsov was a smoking symbol of the rest. Designed for show and not capable of much beside brute force.

On the defence budget, there is a debate to be had when measuring the size of the budget. Its about two and a half times the UK's budget when expressed in PPP (ie taking account of lower labour and other costs in Russia). See here: https://voxeu.org/article/why-military- ... ty-matters

But even then, a budget two and a half times the UK clearly wasn't enough to buy all the new equipment and invest in things like logistics, communications or training. But it was easy to ignore that at the time.

[WFJ]

The woman who stood up on live TV with the anti-war placard got a fine, or two, but again, there was no show trial, no disappearance.

Marina Ovsyannikova has subsequently done western media appearances to complain about sanctions and "russophobia", so it's worth questioning whether she did anything to oppose Putin at all, rather than working for Putin in an op that trades a little disruption of their narrative at home into an attempt to split the west and reinforce the "It's just Putin not Russians" nonsense* to try and undermine the case for crippling sanctions.




*Some Russians are good on this. Some are very brave and decent people taking great risks to do the right thing, but Putin could not do what he does without the collaboration, consent, or at least the obedience, of a lot of Russians.

Do you mean this to sound as bigoted as it comes across? How is this comment any different to anti-American/western views that blame all westerners for the violence of their governments. Russians can at least be defended on the basis they live under extreme state-controlled propaganda. I, like many others, voted for Blair even after his invasion. Should I be crippled by sanctions? I did not take any great risks to stop the invasion. What about Bush voters and those who voted for every drone-striking US president since.

If Ovsyannikova has been arguing against sanctions that harm ordinary Russians, that would be perfectly reasonable, even if I don't agree with it. To say this suggests she is a Putin stooge, unless you have better evidence, does seem like a pretty strong case of (non-scare-quoted) russophobia.

[lpm]

Some war p.rn of the Belgorod attack. Not too explicit.

https://twitter.com/tinso_ww/status/1509805256670068736

[EACLucifer]

The woman who stood up on live TV with the anti-war placard got a fine, or two, but again, there was no show trial, no disappearance.

Marina Ovsyannikova has subsequently done western media appearances to complain about sanctions and "russophobia", so it's worth questioning whether she did anything to oppose Putin at all, rather than working for Putin in an op that trades a little disruption of their narrative at home into an attempt to split the west and reinforce the "It's just Putin not Russians" nonsense* to try and undermine the case for crippling sanctions.




*Some Russians are good on this. Some are very brave and decent people taking great risks to do the right thing, but Putin could not do what he does without the collaboration, consent, or at least the obedience, of a lot of Russians.

Do you mean this to sound as bigoted as it comes across? How is this comment any different to anti-American/western views that blame all westerners for the violence of their governments. Russians can at least be defended on the basis they live under extreme state-controlled propaganda. I, like many others, voted for Blair even after his invasion. Should I be crippled by sanctions? I did not take any great risks to stop the invasion. What about Bush voters and those who voted for every drone-striking US president since.

If Ovsyannikova has been arguing against sanctions that harm ordinary Russians, that would be perfectly reasonable, even if I don't agree with it. To say this suggests she is a Putin stooge, unless you have better evidence, does seem like a pretty strong case of (non-scare-quoted) russophobia.

I'm saying that she might be a Putin stooge, given she got the world's smallest slap on the wrist while other people get treated far worse, then immediately went to push the Kremlin line on western media.

And I'm explicitly not blaming all Russians - I'm saying the idea that it is just Putin to blame when a lot of Russians support him, enable him, or fail to in any way oppose him is nonsense.

The people protesting on the street are extremely brave and extremely principled - and an extremely small part of the population.

[Woodchopper]

Some war p.rn of the Belgorod attack. Not too explicit.

https://twitter.com/tinso_ww/status/1509805256670068736

It may be that the biggest effect will be that Russia moves air defence units out of Ukraine to protect areas inside its borders. Which may end up shooting down Russian aircraft as they don't seem to be good at coordinating.

[EACLucifer]

Some war p.rn of the Belgorod attack. Not too explicit.

https://twitter.com/tinso_ww/status/1509805256670068736

f.cking hell. An treetop height attack helicopter raid into Russia. It is difficult to get across how against expectations that is, and it raises questions about the previous incident in Belgorod - specifically an ammunition dump going up in flames.

[lpm]

It's amazing war p.rn. Looks like the 3rd out of 4 missiles blew the thing. Then the two helicopters getting the f.ck out of there lower than some of the rooftops.

[WFJ]

I'm saying that she might be a Putin stooge, given she got the world's smallest slap on the wrist while other people get treated far worse, then immediately went to push the Kremlin line on western media.

And I'm explicitly not blaming all Russians - I'm saying the idea that it is just Putin to blame when a lot of Russians support him, enable him, or fail to in any way oppose him is nonsense.

The people protesting on the street are extremely brave and extremely principled - and an extremely small part of the population.

Just as US/UK leaders, Likud etc get lots support, but it's not fair to blame all supporters for the evils of those governments. As I said, I was able to vote for Blair in 2005 because I was able to compartmentalise foreign and domestic policy and think "at least he's not a Tory". This is despite being a Guardian-reading, Channel 4 News-watching liberal who was well aware of the deaths he helped cause in Iraq.

I know quite a few expat and second- or third-generation Russians, some of whom are Putin supporters. Or at least they were prior to the invasion, but I know people who supported or at least excused the Crimean annexation. Although I strongly disagree with them, I would not say they are evil people, any more than I consider myself evil. For Russians in Russia, who consume largely russian media, this is even more true and I do not think it is fair to say the only good Russians are those who do not support Putin and are willing to risk their lives or freedom by publicly protesting. Russophobia is definitely a real issue that will likely grow in the coming months and years.

[EACLucifer]

Some war p.rn of the Belgorod attack. Not too explicit.

https://twitter.com/tinso_ww/status/1509805256670068736

It may be that the biggest effect will be that Russia moves air defence units out of Ukraine to protect areas inside its borders. Which may end up shooting down Russian aircraft as they don't seem to be good at coordinating.

It is genuinely very hard to stop an attack like this, especially with helicopters. Flying very low and using the terrain can enable aircraft to sneak under ground based radar, and while it can be done with fixed wing aircraft - the few bits of footage of Ukrainian MiG 29s are when they are flying shockingly low - helicopters are slower and more agile, and can stay even lower to the ground. That takes large radar based air defence systems almost completely out of the question.

Then there's SHORADS and MANPADS, but the problem there is coordination and friendly fire, and - the clue's in the name - short range, meaning to cover a large section of front loads of them are needed, or they have to be placed at potential targets in advance of any attack. The friendly fire issue is huge, because both sides use the same models of helicopter - in this case Mi24 "Hind"s. Trying to pick out the markings at night while something whizzes past at up to two hundred miles an hour is impossible, even picking out the model of helicopter would be difficult. Russia would have to either abandon its own helicopter operations, or warn all its SHORADS/MANPADS operators when their helicopters are coming through, and that means reliable radios, not ones that can be hijacked with heavy metal or angry Ukrainians telling you you are a used condom.

Airborne radars offer another option, but they have to be capable of picking the helicopter out from the clutter of the terrain itself, which is quite challenger, and even if the helicopter can be detected, good lookdown/shootdown radar and missiles are needed. Exercises have shown that if fighter jets try and get in close with helicopters, the helicopters actually have the advantage - they have extreme agility and flexibly mounted cannon, and are usually capable of carrying short range AAMs.

[EACLucifer]

This is one of these things that's very hard to document and isn't getting much coverage, but some point in the future the details of what Belarus's partisans have been up to may come out, and it's going to be fascinating. There's hints out there - mostly railway sabotage, things like burning signal relay boxes to slow down Russian reinforcements over Belarusian metals.

Lukashenko is very far from popular, and it's likely he refused to get his troops directly involved because he needs them for possible domestic repression. There's definitely Belarusians doing things to hinder Russia's war against Ukraine - and not just those in Ukraine fighting for Ukraine - but those things are by necessity very murky.