Fragrag posted:

New Hitman level looks really good

Ynglaur posted:

https://www.ft.com/content/c5ce76df-9b1b-4dfc-a619-07da1d40cbd3

I'll risk the probe for Clancychat since it's the Financial Times doing Clancychat. They don't cite sources (for obvious reasons), but if true this is pretty significant. I think we've suspected this for a while but I haven't seen it reported in the past year-and-a-half: apparently the US, UK, and France told Russia very directly that if Russia used tactical nuclear weapons then NATO would hit Russian forces directly with conventional weapons. That's kind of a big deal. (And yes, FT kind of buried the lede.)

WarpedLichen posted:

I don't know if I should feel relieved that the IAEA is taking Ukraine's claims seriously enough to investigate or nervous that the on site investigators couldn't immediately go verify explosives being on the roofs.

I think there are only two people on site, so I don't imagine they are able to monitor everything with a daily walkthrough, but not having full freedom of movement in the facility was a surprise to me at least.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Can we still report people for JAQ and disingenuous posting, then? Because this was a very strange development from "wow, I sure do wonder why my American friends are so excited about Ukraine" to "why are people being mean to this specific theory of international relations that incidentally is trumpeted by anglophone pro-Russians?"

WarpedLichen posted:

I think there are only two people on site, so I don't imagine they are able to monitor everything with a daily walkthrough, but not having full freedom of movement in the facility was a surprise to me at least.

Nenonen posted:

Couple of weird/interesting headlines that popped up:

Reuters and AFP tell that one person died and two were injured in a Kyiv district court explosion. The interior minister says that a man had walked into the court with an explosive device and blown himself up, injuring two cops. By the sound of it it's not directly related to the war, although I don't have any peace time district court explosions stats at hand right now.

jaete posted:

This seems like the kind of message that would be more effective if it were more officially communicated, but I'm not a diplomatic expert

Fragrag posted:

New Hitman level looks really good

Moon Slayer posted:

This is actually the way a lot of government-to-government messages are communicated, especially if you know it's something the other side doesn't want to hear.

fatherboxx posted:

https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-171-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine

New IAEA update, requesting additional access to check the mining reports

quote:

Not uncommonly for total wars, the civilian-military distinction has broken down. “A huge role was played by the local population,” says General Nikolyuk. Locals hid mobile phones from Russian troops and revealed the location of their equipment by dropping virtual pins on Google Maps (a dedicated government app, eVorog, now offers a way for civilians to pass on intelligence).

quote:

Britain’s chief of defence intelligence at the outset of the invasion, armies tried to make every soldier and platform a sensor. “What’s happened is that so many people have become sensors.”

jaete posted:

Mm, that's interesting.

Found some related articles:
From 22 Sep 2022: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/22/russia-nuclear-threat-us-options/
From Oct 2022: https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/online-analysis/2022/10/russia-is-unlikely-to-use-nuclear-weapons-in-ukraine

So USA has warned Russia previously against using nuclear weapons, also in private according to Washington Post. Second link has some additional analysis.

Radio Prune posted:

RockWhisperer posted:

The Economist: Technology is deepening civilian involvement in war



^ Interesting article y'all

Radio Prune posted:

Zhenya content

https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1676708216938328065

https://twitter.com/michaelh992/status/1676657987367084056

Radio Prune posted:

Zhenya content
https://twitter.com/michaelh992/status/1676657987367084056

Discendo Vox posted:

What's the text on the sledgehammer?

Ynglaur posted:

https://twitter.com/noclador/status/1676278761342345216

While Thomas Theiner is definitely on the optimistic side of OSINT analysts, he's also been fairly realistic in terms of expectations and timing. That is, his optimism is mostly in the long-term, and his adjectives tend to be more grandiose than the specifics of his predictions. At any rate, this is a good thread for anyone wondering why the Ukrainian offensive seems to be taking as long as it is, what it might mean, etc. Personally, I'd call the current phase "Phase 2", or I'd add a "Phase 0" to his model to reflect shaping operations prior to the current broad-based attritional, pressuring fight, but it's a decent analysis.

I'd note, too, that Ukraine is in some ways out-Sovieting the Russians. Part of the Red Army's doctrine was to launch offensives on very broad fronts, and use that to identify a weak point, and then slam that weak point with a heavy force.

OddObserver posted:

"In case of important negotiations".
(Huh, clicking on the link worked for me).

quote:

"Don't underestimate the Biden administration's priority to keep Americans out of harm's way and reassure Russia that it doesn't need to escalate," the senior intelligence officer says. "Is the CIA on the ground inside Ukraine?" he asks rhetorically. "Yes, but it's also not nefarious."

quote:

"In some ironic ways though, the meeting was highly successful," says the second senior intelligence official, who was briefed on it. Even though Russia invaded, the two countries were able to accept tried and true rules of the road. The United States would not fight directly nor seek regime change, the Biden administration pledged. Russia would limit its assault to Ukraine and act in accordance with unstated but well-understood guidelines for secret operations.

"There are clandestine rules of the road," says the senior defense intelligence official, "even if they are not codified on paper, particularly when one isn't engaged in a war of annihilation." This includes staying within day-to-day boundaries of spying, not crossing certain borders and not attacking each other's leadership or diplomats. "Generally the Russians have respected these global red lines, even if those lines are invisible," the official says.

quote:

Now, more than a year after the invasion, the United States sustains two massive networks, one public and the other clandestine. Ships deliver goods to ports in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Poland, and those supplies are moved by truck, train and air to Ukraine. Clandestinely though, a fleet of commercial aircraft (the "grey fleet") crisscrosses Central and Eastern Europe, moving arms and supporting CIA operations. The CIA asked Newsweek not to identify specific bases where this network is operating, nor to name the contractor operating the planes. The senior administration official said much of the network had been successfully kept under wraps, and that it was wrong to assume that Russian intelligence knows the details of the CIA's efforts. Washington believes that If the supply route were known, Russia would attack the hubs and routes, the official said.

quote:

"The CIA learned with the attack on the Crimea bridge that Zelensky either didn't have complete control over his own military or didn't want to know of certain actions," says the military intelligence official.

quote:

A senior Polish government official told Newsweek that it might be impossible to convince Kyiv to abide by the non-agreement it made to keep the war limited. "In my humble opinion, the CIA fails to understand the nature of the Ukrainian state and the reckless factions that exist there," says the Polish official, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly.

whydirt posted:

Isn’t Newsweek a crank brand coasting on its old print reputation these days?

Bizarre Echo posted:

Where in the world is Yevgeny Prigozhin?

Hannibal Rex posted:

https://www.newsweek.com/2023/07/21/exclusive-cias-blind-spot-about-ukraine-war-1810355.html
Good article that tell you a lot about what the CIA is doing wants to be known it is doing in Ukraine.

quote:

Although opinion pages in ostensibly nonpartisan, mainstream publications promote political opinions, sometimes controversial ones, Newsweek stands alone among such brands in its willingness to elevate such figures as Jack Posobiec, known for promoting the Pizzagate disinformation campaign, and Dinesh D’Souza, whose film 2000 Mules researchers roundly debunked for spreading conspiracies about the 2020 election. Under Hammer’s leadership, Newsweek has also aired bigoted views, like appearing to call for the state to deny adults access to trans-affirming medical care and supporting a ban on all legal immigration into the U.S. They have also spread baseless conspiracies about COVID-19, with one of Hammer’s collaborators describing vaccines designed to fight the virus as a “bioweapon.”

Newsweek has also failed to disclose potential conflicts of interest emerging in the content published through Hammer’s opinion section and his Newsweek-branded podcast, “The Josh Hammer Show.” Hammer donated to the campaign of Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters and at least four times published the work of a man who ran one of Masters’ fundraisers. On his podcast, Hammer told Newsweek’s audience to “go ahead and vote for Blake Masters.” Hammer also promoted hard-right Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán in a Newsweek dispatch authored from Hungary, without disclosing that he arrived there in collaboration with a group directly affiliated with the Hungarian government. Hammer also claims membership in a number of reactionary activist groups, and regularly publishes people who are also affiliated with them. He will appear on behalf of the New York Young Republican Club alongside Posobiec and QAnon influencer-turned-congressperson Marjorie Taylor Greene in December.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Yeah, the Ukrainians are the ones breaking all the rules here! Sure! That sounds right! Let's go with that, comrade!

Mr. Apollo posted:

As others have said, Newsweek went off the rails after WaPo sold it.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Yeah, the Ukrainians are the ones breaking all the rules here! Sure! That sounds right! Let's go with that, comrade!

i say swears online posted:

do we know if that kerch bridge guy realized he was a suicide bomber?

Saladman posted:

No, and doubt we'll find out for many years if ever. Makhir Yusubov was the driver and the vehicle was owned by Samir Yusubov, his ... nephew? There is no clear evidence he was a willing Ukrainian agent, except that circumstantially whoever triggered the bomb had impeccable timing, so either the driver did it, someone driving at the same time had eyes on it, or it was remotely detonated by an INCREDIBLY lucky person with a GPS tracker, in that a fuel train was just so happening to pass by at the same time.


E: Here's a pretty good, as far as I can tell, summary: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/who-really-blew-up-the-kerch-bridge/ which makes the case that the driver was murdered.