The Invasion of Ukraine

[bjn]

So they would cost way less than £20k to build for a shed-based British enthusiast. What this country needs, more than anything else, is more shed time.

If I only had a shed, the world would tremble before me!

[Bird on a Fire]

So they would cost way less than £20k to build for a shed-based British enthusiast. What this country needs, more than anything else, is more shed time.

If I only had a shed, the world would tremble before me!

Pfft, if you can build a flying lawnmower drone you can build a shed

[dyqik]

So they would cost way less than £20k to build for a shed-based British enthusiast. What this country needs, more than anything else, is more shed time.

If I only had a shed, the world would tremble before me!

Pfft, if you can build a flying lawnmower drone you can build a shed

But you can only build a flying lawnmower drone if you have a shed, so you can only build a shed if you have a shed.

[Martin Y]

I worry about those Russian sheds where you open the door and find the door of a very slightly smaller shed...

[Woodchopper]

From Minsk schools and Gomel universities, information is received that in recent days the cleaning and preparation of bomb shelters in educational institutions of Belarus has begun

https://twitter.com/faytuks/status/1583 ... aSdFd6fBDg

General Staff: Threat of Russian offensive from territory of Belarus growing

The threat of renewed Russian offensive operations on the northern front is growing.
The direction can be shifted to the western border of Ukraine to cut off the logistical routes through which Ukraine receives weapons and equipment from international partners.

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/35 ... owing.html

[EACLucifer]

From Minsk schools and Gomel universities, information is received that in recent days the cleaning and preparation of bomb shelters in educational institutions of Belarus has begun

https://twitter.com/faytuks/status/1583 ... aSdFd6fBDg

General Staff: Threat of Russian offensive from territory of Belarus growing

The threat of renewed Russian offensive operations on the northern front is growing.
The direction can be shifted to the western border of Ukraine to cut off the logistical routes through which Ukraine receives weapons and equipment from international partners.

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/35 ... owing.html

Information seems to be really back and forth on a potential offensive from Belarus. There's obvious arguments it's a disaster for Lukashenko. Then there's the possibility he isn't really in charge any more. There's the extensive fortifications along the lines where Russia previously invaded. But then there's movement of troops into Belarus. Are they going there to be trained by the Belarusian army? In which case we should pity them. Are they going down to tie down defenders, or perhaps they really are going to invade.

Belarus should be regarded as a belligerent party already for inviting and tolerating Russia's use of Belarusian soil to attack Ukraine, including attacks solely targetting civilians.

If they are planning to attack in the west, it means their supply lines would be very long, and the only thing protecting them the entirely arbitray idea of the Belarusian border. It should be made utterly clear to Lukashenko that neither the west nor Ukraine will respect that border if it is used to shield Russian supply lines.

[EACLucifer]

Another mass grave. Lyman. A hundred and forty six bodies.

Lyman's just a small town.

[EACLucifer]

Russia is using a claim that the Ukrainians are going to blow the Nova Kakhovka dam as an excuse to deport people from occupied areas on the right bank of the Dnipro. Naturally this is something that the Ukrainians aren't going to do - indeed Ukrainian activists sometimes point out the awful loss of life after the NKVD blew the Zaporizhzhia dam in WWII without notifying or warning locals or even evacuating Red Army troops. It is a concern for two reasons, though. The first is the abduction of civilians. The second is that the Russians might do something to the dam. It would be a warcrime, of course, but that hasn't stopped them destroying multiple dams, including breeching the gates of the dam at Kryvi Rih. The loss of life that could take place if the dam holding back the third largest reservoir in Europe were to be destroyed would be horrific.

Zelenskyy is now warning the Russians have mined the dam. This is the largest reservoir in Europe west of the Volga we're talking about.

And the Russians have blown dams when retreating. Advancing Ukrainian forces also recently had to remove the explosives from a dam that had been mined but not blown.

Attacks on works containing dangerous forces has been recognised as a warcrime since just after the second world war.

[Bird on a Fire]

I've seen some speculation on Twitter that the cutting of Shetland's communication cables is possibly Russian sabotage. Anyone seen a good discussion of what we know do far?

[bob sterman]

I've seen some speculation on Twitter that the cutting of Shetland's communication cables is possibly Russian sabotage. Anyone seen a good discussion of what we know do far?

Speculation Twitter vs BBC...

Shetland telecoms cable damage 'caused by fishing vessels'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland- ... d-63337473

Faeroese Telecom's head of infrastructure, Páll Vesturbú, said the damage to the mainland link, which happened just after midnight on Thursday, had affected the fibres in the cable, but "they were not cut off".

"We have reason to believe that the cable was damaged by a fishing vessel," he said.

"There was also an incident last week, and we also believe that this was caused by a fishing vessel."

[Brightonian]

Hunted round Twitter about this last night and there were suggestions it could have been a Russian fishing vessel, especially as cables are buried two metres deep (they said). So little green men or little blue men or something?

On the other hand, cables do just get chopped accidentally anyway, as I've seen news reports in the past about whole countries being knocked off the Internet (Egypt???). And/or a dodgy cable laying outfit, like the people who installed broadband at my house in the late 90s. And anyway surely countries will build in redundancy, with multiple cables to a variety of other countries in future so I doubt the Russkies would bother going down this road. I understand Shetland normally has two cables anyway, so I reckon they were just unlucky.

[EACLucifer]

Regarding the Kakhovsky dam, by the way, and the Russian claim Ukraine is going to target it with missiles, three points.

1) It would kill a lot of Ukrainian citizens. Russia does that deliberately, Ukraine tries to avoid it.

2) Ukraine wants to advance, Russia wants to defend. That generally means Russia would benefit and Ukraine would suffer, when it comes to the military side of the issue.

3) It takes a lot of force to blow a dam. To put it into context, Upkeep - the bouncing bomb - was carefully engineered to place the explosive optimally, and exactly the right explosive for the job - Torpex - was chosen. Despite that careful optimisation, Upkeep still needed to be loaded with three tonnes of Torpex to do the job. There is nothing in the Ukrainian arsenal that could come close to that. Very few things in the arsenal of any nation can deliver that sort of striking power, and the few things that can, stuff like the USA's Massive Ordnance Penetrator, can only be deployed by a very few very specialist aircraft, which Ukraine does not have.

I don't know if Russia will blow the dam. Hopefully they won't, but they are currently laying the groundwork for the information side of doing so, and, according to the Ukrainians, working on planting explosives. m

Given the stakes, it would be a good idea for NATO to indicate that the scope of response they've outlined to Russia that would follow usage of a nuke would also apply here. The number of lives at stake is similar.

[Woodchopper]

I've seen some speculation on Twitter that the cutting of Shetland's communication cables is possibly Russian sabotage. Anyone seen a good discussion of what we know do far?

Speculation Twitter vs BBC...

Shetland telecoms cable damage 'caused by fishing vessels'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland- ... d-63337473

Faeroese Telecom's head of infrastructure, Páll Vesturbú, said the damage to the mainland link, which happened just after midnight on Thursday, had affected the fibres in the cable, but "they were not cut off".

"We have reason to believe that the cable was damaged by a fishing vessel," he said.

"There was also an incident last week, and we also believe that this was caused by a fishing vessel."

Damage caused by a trawler could still be deliberate.

[TopBadger]

I wonder what would be the consequences of Ukrainian Allies, under UN charter perhaps, being invited to help defend Ukraine's northern borders where there is currently no fighting and no Russian claims... something of a humanitarian mission?

It would stop aggression in those regions and free up Ukrainian resources for retaking their territory in the South.

Risky gambit on the part of the west - but arguably worth it in terms of shortening the conflict and protecting civilians.

[EACLucifer]

I wonder what would be the consequences of Ukrainian Allies, under UN charter perhaps, being invited to help defend Ukraine's northern borders where there is currently no fighting and no Russian claims... something of a humanitarian mission?

It would stop aggression in those regions and free up Ukrainian resources for retaking their territory in the South.

Risky gambit on the part of the west - but arguably worth it in terms of shortening the conflict and protecting civilians.

I'd certainly support such a move. So long as it was accompanied by enough air defence to blatt the various Russian/Iranian weapons, and appropriate reprisals against Iran to deter/render-impossible-by-destruction-of-manufactories the use of Iranian weapons.

And should a Russian plane need to be shot down, there would be something darkly satisfying about turning to the Russians and saying "Surface to air missile? Of course not - it was a Ukrainian Mig-29!"

[jimbob]

I wonder what would be the consequences of Ukrainian Allies, under UN charter perhaps, being invited to help defend Ukraine's northern borders where there is currently no fighting and no Russian claims... something of a humanitarian mission?

It would stop aggression in those regions and free up Ukrainian resources for retaking their territory in the South.

Risky gambit on the part of the west - but arguably worth it in terms of shortening the conflict and protecting civilians.

Early in the war, I was advocating similar, and still see more benefits than downsides

[Woodchopper]

From Minsk schools and Gomel universities, information is received that in recent days the cleaning and preparation of bomb shelters in educational institutions of Belarus has begun

https://twitter.com/faytuks/status/1583 ... aSdFd6fBDg

General Staff: Threat of Russian offensive from territory of Belarus growing

The threat of renewed Russian offensive operations on the northern front is growing.
The direction can be shifted to the western border of Ukraine to cut off the logistical routes through which Ukraine receives weapons and equipment from international partners.

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/35 ... owing.html

Information seems to be really back and forth on a potential offensive from Belarus. There's obvious arguments it's a disaster for Lukashenko. Then there's the possibility he isn't really in charge any more. There's the extensive fortifications along the lines where Russia previously invaded. But then there's movement of troops into Belarus. Are they going there to be trained by the Belarusian army? In which case we should pity them. Are they going down to tie down defenders, or perhaps they really are going to invade.

Belarus should be regarded as a belligerent party already for inviting and tolerating Russia's use of Belarusian soil to attack Ukraine, including attacks solely targetting civilians.

If they are planning to attack in the west, it means their supply lines would be very long, and the only thing protecting them the entirely arbitray idea of the Belarusian border. It should be made utterly clear to Lukashenko that neither the west nor Ukraine will respect that border if it is used to shield Russian supply lines.

Yes, it’s a difficult one. UK MoD seems to think that it’s a diversion designed to compel Ukraine to deploy forces to the North. https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/15 ... DJqgUxnndQ

[dyqik]

Hunted round Twitter about this last night and there were suggestions it could have been a Russian fishing vessel, especially as cables are buried two metres deep (they said). So little green men or little blue men or something?

On the other hand, cables do just get chopped accidentally anyway, as I've seen news reports in the past about whole countries being knocked off the Internet (Egypt???). And/or a dodgy cable laying outfit, like the people who installed broadband at my house in the late 90s. And anyway surely countries will build in redundancy, with multiple cables to a variety of other countries in future so I doubt the Russkies would bother going down this road. I understand Shetland normally has two cables anyway, so I reckon they were just unlucky.

Both of Shetland's cables have been broken inside a week.
A major cable was also broken off the south of France yesterday, and a undersea power cable supplying the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic was broken last week.

So there's four known cable incidents around Europe in a week, which seems unusual, but maybe it isn't. News reports say that power cable had been damaged multiple times before.

[Woodchopper]

Hunted round Twitter about this last night and there were suggestions it could have been a Russian fishing vessel, especially as cables are buried two metres deep (they said). So little green men or little blue men or something?

On the other hand, cables do just get chopped accidentally anyway, as I've seen news reports in the past about whole countries being knocked off the Internet (Egypt???). And/or a dodgy cable laying outfit, like the people who installed broadband at my house in the late 90s. And anyway surely countries will build in redundancy, with multiple cables to a variety of other countries in future so I doubt the Russkies would bother going down this road. I understand Shetland normally has two cables anyway, so I reckon they were just unlucky.

Both of Shetland's cables have been broken inside a week.
A major cable was also broken off the south of France yesterday, and a undersea power cable supplying the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic was broken last week.

So there's four known cable incidents around Europe in a week, which seems unusual, but maybe it isn't. News reports say that power cable had been damaged multiple times before.

A cable to Svalbard was broken back in January: https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/secur ... disruption

[dyqik]

Someone has told me that the cable to Bornholm wasn't damaged, but the failure was elsewhere.

And the Shetland cable sees to have been damaged by UK flagged trawler.

[TimW]

Those funny old Russians just can't help themselves...

Russian envoy blames damage to civilian facilities on Ukrainian attacks on drones

UNITED NATIONS, October 22. /TASS/. Ukrainian civilian facilities have suffered damage only when Russian unmanned aerial vehicles veered off course following attacks by Ukrainian territorial defense units, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Weaselly Nobendya* said at a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine.

According to the Russian envoy, "our Western colleagues are hysterical" over the situation. Nobendya noted that Western countries were unwilling to see the truth and admit that "civilian facilities have suffered damage only when unmanned aerial vehicles were attacked by Ukrainian territorial defense units and veered off course right before hitting their intended target, or when those facilities were hit by Ukrainian air defense missiles, unable to intercept their targets." "Lots of such incidents have been recorded, particularly on videos. Anyone can see them on the Internet," he added.

*Vasily Nebenzya

[bjn]

Courtesy of Barmaglot on Arstechnica, translations of several telegram tweets for what they Russians are thinking about with their infrastructure attacks on Ukraine. Sickening and infuriating.

https://t.me/BeregTime/6446

Today is another morning in which Russians continue the destruction of Ukraine's critical urban infrastructure. Some a..holes working for the Kremlin's liberal tower, which wants to come to an accommodation with Zelensky, are lying that Ukrainians aren't facing death from cold, hunger and lice (as they won't have water). They're saying it's just media hype. Listen: this is a lie. For the sixth day straight, we are destroying the very objects that are necessary for living. And afterwards, we hit those who are repairing them. Little Russia will be Russian - or completely depopulated.

https://t.me/BeregTime/6447

A very good sign are repeat strikes on the same targets, 7-8 hours after the first hit. That's precisely the time at which repair crews deploy, and we kill them. Ukraine may run out of power station repair specialists before it runs out of power stations themselves. This winter, Ukrainian cities must die.

[Martin Y]

Those funny old Russians just can't help themselves...

Russian envoy blames damage to civilian facilities on Ukrainian attacks on drones

UNITED NATIONS, October 22. /TASS/. Ukrainian civilian facilities have suffered damage only when Russian unmanned aerial vehicles veered off course following attacks by Ukrainian territorial defense units, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Weaselly Nobendya* said at a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine.

According to the Russian envoy, "our Western colleagues are hysterical" over the situation. Nobendya noted that Western countries were unwilling to see the truth and admit that "civilian facilities have suffered damage only when unmanned aerial vehicles were attacked by Ukrainian territorial defense units and veered off course right before hitting their intended target, or when those facilities were hit by Ukrainian air defense missiles, unable to intercept their targets." "Lots of such incidents have been recorded, particularly on videos. Anyone can see them on the Internet," he added.

*Vasily Nebenzya

If you redefine "civilian facilities" to exclude things like power facilities supplying electricity to civilians, then that magically becomes true. The Russians probably did not intend to expend a cruise missile blowing up a children's playground. Rather than denying Ukrainian children access to swings, they wanted to deny them access to electricity, so they can freeze to death for the glory of Russia.

[philbo]

So they would cost way less than £20k to build for a shed-based British enthusiast. What this country needs, more than anything else, is more shed time.

If I only had a shed, the world would tremble before me!

I could build an awesome missile
And scheme and cackle: this'll
Leave everybody dead
I would see to construction
Of weapons of mass destruction
If I only had a shed

[bjn]

So they would cost way less than £20k to build for a shed-based British enthusiast. What this country needs, more than anything else, is more shed time.

If I only had a shed, the world would tremble before me!

I could build an awesome missile
And scheme and cackle: this'll
Leave everybody dead
I would see to construction
Of weapons of mass destruction
If I only had a shed

Chapeau!