War in Ukraine: thread feedback session open unttil Saturday (i'll regret this)

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > War in Ukraine: thread feedback session open unttil Saturday (i'll regret this)

«‹›2 »

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

BTW, the previous thread has been moved to the Goodmine, thanks to Cinci for doing that! It will now be preserved as well as be readable to unregistered users, for the sake of historical preservation and records (since SA is being archived by the Library of Congress). You can find the Goodmined old thread here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3993516

Also, just curious - someone counter-toxxed me and I was just wondering if they ever paid up; I don't remember, but reviewing the previous OP had my Toxx and nurmie's countertoxx in it, so that's why I'm wondering

nurmie posted:

i propose the following conditions for my counter- to HonorableTB:

six months time span - so, no invasion before the ~~24th of June, 2022~~ 24th of July, 2022

only official or quasi-official invasion counts - so, Crimea scenario counts as an invasion, supporting DNR/LNR with "advisors" and sending ~~communist internationalists~~ weirdo russian nazis to fight CIA-backed weirdo ukrainian nazis or whatever does NOT count as an invasion

only invasion by Russian forces counts - Poland deciding to grab Lwow for itself or Turkey trying to reistablish itself within the land borders of the Byzantine empire does not count for the purposes of this toxx

HonorableTB fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Oct 12, 2022

# ¿ Oct 12, 2022 01:19

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 12, 2024 10:59

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

cinci zoo sniper posted:

They did. We had an internal conversation at the time, and the decision was that D&D's preferred toxx redemption story is a charitable donation and admitting that you're wrong.

Thanks! It's been a while so I couldn't remember

# ¿ Oct 12, 2022 01:55

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Debating whether or not the Kerch bridge is a military target seems pretty pointless after it's already been categorized as a military target via truck bomb. Ukraine's behavior in the war has demonstrated a conscious aversion to attacking non-military targets and has tried to minimize collateral damage. This also sounds a lot like the argument about whether or not civilian contractors working on the Death Star counted as legitimate military targets from Clerks.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2022 22:19

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

cinci edit: :nms:

corpses in open sight, other combat aftermath scenery
https://theins.ru/en/news/256786

A good article about some recent Russian military disasters. Hundreds of marines were killed near Vuhledar and Ukraine received new shipments of SAM systems. Pavlivka is mauling the RUAF.

article posted:

On the evening of November 6, the Russian Pacific Fleets 155th Separate Guards Marine Brigade was revealed to be in critical condition. The soldiers stationed near Pavlivka (a village in the Marinka district of the Donetsk Region of Ukraine) in the Vuhledar area handed the governor of Russias Primorye a letter complaining about the command and asking him to send a commission to stop an ill-planned and unprepared attack on the Ukrainian armys positions.

The letter was published in full in the Wagner PMC-affiliated Telegram channel Grey Zone. The Russian servicemen wrote that the 155th Brigade had lost 300 men killed, wounded and missing in action in 4 days of the offensive, and lost 50% of its equipment.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Somebody fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Nov 8, 2022

# ¿ Nov 7, 2022 23:20

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Right, they did disconnect the peninsula, but Im not sure which is the area youre speaking of. I assume that there still is a railway line Novooleksiivka-Melitopol-Fedorivka-Verkhnii Tokmak-Kamish Zorya-Volnovakha-Dolya-Larine-Dobaysk-Uspenska-Kvashino-Taganrog-Rostov, but thinking more about it you certainly have a point that some areas of that would be more than dangerous to traverse - the Volnovakha-Dolya segment in particular.

Cinci be honest, did you have that entire string of railroad station towns memorized at hand or did you have to look it up? Because that would be quite impressive

# ¿ Nov 11, 2022 20:45

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Of course I didnt, dont be ridiculous. I just spent some time looking at railroad maps of Ukraine a few weeks ago, when we had a conversation about potential first objectives on Zaporizhzhia front. Unfortunately, the map Ive been most particular to does not reflect the post-2014 state of the network.

It's not as ridiculous if you have ever encountered a community of hardcore train enthusiasts or people who play train sims and see what they're capable of as far as that goes

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1590458468502323200?s=20&t=LBfj9jRfcpTtHeq5xQYM-A

I wonder if this would explain the chaotic retreat from Kherson. It would make sense if the decision was hinging on a large GOP majority so the execution would need to be able to start on a whim, but as it seems that nobody got around to informing the troops that they were retreating before Surovikin and Shoigu announced it, it appears that Russia's military is not capable of this level of coordination. This is an organizational catastrophe

HonorableTB fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Nov 11, 2022

# ¿ Nov 11, 2022 21:48

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Herstory Begins Now posted:

I can not emphasize enough how not grounded in reality 'and nothing significant happened' takes are when it comes to geopolitics

Christ I forgot we aced the leader of Quds Force in a parking lot under false negotiation pretenses

# ¿ Nov 16, 2022 01:19

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Warbadger posted:

You might be surprised about the wide gamut of things tungsten balls flying extremely fast consider "soft". An IFV or APC are decently likely to be holed from above. An actual tank hit by that sort of thing is likely to be mission-killed if not outright destroyed through the loss of optics, engine, guns, fuel tanks, etc.

I wonder if a relatively modern tank (let's be generous and say T-80 and above?) would have enough armor to keep the crew alive even if the tank itself is mission killed or rendered useless. Tungsten is a lot more dense than most metals so armor penetration is going to work differently on tank armor than traditional anti-tank munitions would. On the whole, I'd rather be the one shooting those HIMARS than the ones wondering if my tank armor is going to hold up against 180,000 shotgun pellets from a missile

# ¿ Nov 18, 2022 18:04

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Hah, I was checking out Perun's channel and I had no idea he used to be an exclusively video game channel until the war started. Since then he's done exclusively war related videos

# ¿ Nov 25, 2022 07:40

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Charlotte Hornets posted:

It's obvious that Russia has scaled back its ambitions e.g trying to encircle Slovyansk and Kramatorsk already failed in May.

But losing Bakhmut will mean the Siversk-Solder-Bakhmut will collapse
Losing Bakhmut will take the front to Kostiantynivka
Losing Bakhmut means losing Toretsk/New York

Also the situation is critical in the Donetsk front.
Marinka is pretty much under Russian control
Pavlivka buffer was lost, so Ugledar line is in dire straits now from south and east
South of Avdiivka Russians have claimed lots of fortified positions and can cut the major road through Orlivka which feeds the general area.

Situation is not good by any means.

I was extremely confused about the "New York" part of your post until I scoured a map and saw, sure enough, there is a Ukrainian New York :o

Charlotte Hornets posted:

The lacklustre military support and invisible red lines (e.g the same Belgorod can't be meaningfully touched)
Basically providing Ukraine with the bare minimum to make sure they won't collapse but also making sure they can't go on the offensive or at least achieve parity.
Talking about some national security interests why ATACMS can't be provided yet at the same time signing future deals to provide the same missiles to Lithuania, Australia and Estonia.

Basically hold the line and hope Russia comes to it's senses seems to be the tactic if there is any tactic at all to help Ukraine get some actual leverage.

The key thing here is that the US has formal, legal defense treaties with Lithuania, Australia, and Estonia. It has no such obligations to Ukraine. It's an important distinction to make.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2022 18:56

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Charlotte Hornets posted:

Exactly, they have no obligations. So let's just provide enough not to die but also not enough to live. So everything is half assed hence Ukraine won't get any leverage through the battlefield to avoid an inevitable poo poo deal.

Saying Ukraine won't have any battlefield leverage is an odd thing to say coming off the heels of two very successful offensives that liberated Kharkiv and Kherson oblasts, including the city of Kherson itself. I would say that is a great deal more help than "enough not to die"

# ¿ Nov 28, 2022 19:22

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

To kind of get away from the grisly talk of a targeted artillery assassination (skill of the Ukrainian artillery men notwithstanding), if it's okay to talk about what seems like a likely outcome in the near future, what happens when Ukraine retakes Donetsk or Luhansk cities?

They're the capital hotbeds of separatism and Donetsk is what, 40ish km from the frontline? Retaking these major cities is within sight based on Ukrainian operations recently. Would losing a center of separatism make the Russian collapse happen faster? Would it complicate things by Ukraine having to do anti-insurgency occupation work while also fighting a frontline war? It's not something I thought we would have to be thinking about if you had asked me in February.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ¿ Dec 8, 2022 19:45

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Just Another Lurker posted:

Seconding that it's a must watch.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2022 20:00

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Willo567 posted:

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1607568234873556992
loving clown. Russia has been losing to Ukraine over and over

Lmao, an ultimatum?? "Or its army would decide the issue" I can't stop laughing

the army has been trying and failing to decide the issue since february, oh my god

# ¿ Dec 27, 2022 08:59

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Vietnom nom nom posted:

There certainly are escalation concerns, and you could argue this is a way to "boil the frog slowly" so that Putin doesn't get shocked into something drastic.

I think it's more this than anything else. Think back to the start of the war and consider whether anyone would have ever believed the US would give Ukraine a battery of Patriots. Now we're seriously discussing delivery of western tanks that are currently being delivered. Ramping up the weapons aid given was deliberate because if all you've been giving is Stingers and Javelins then suddenly you start supplying tanks and advanced air defense systems overnight, your opponent is going to freak out and assume the worst. That's never a good idea when dealing with escalation chains

# ¿ Jan 10, 2023 21:48

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Willo567 posted:

What's the range of the S-400 missiles? From Kyiv to Moscow it's around 800KM, so I'm wondering of they would actually fire missiles from Moscow if they can actually reach Kyiv or another part of Ukraine since they're putting the S-400 there

S-400 has a range of 250km for aerial targets, no possible way it could hit Kyiv from Moscow

# ¿ Jan 17, 2023 21:30

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Antigravitas posted:

Pretty sure Bulgaria is an active producer of that ammo.

You're correct. The Bulgarian arms industry is a huge producer of Soviet caliber ammunition and equipment.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2023 20:14

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

OddObserver posted:

Turkey had some crazy hyper inflation, IIRC,(like three digits, IIRC?) so in a Democracy would would expect Erdogan to be in trouble..

There may be some conditions involving F-16s which he may find compelling.

For people who aren't aware of the F-16 thing OddObserver mentioned, it's this:

https://www.defensenews.com/global/2023/01/18/turkey-f-16-sale-in-limbo-amid-lockheed-backlog/

# ¿ Jan 23, 2023 22:06

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Knightsoul posted:

Sure thing ..... just wait the next weeks/months when the newly trained 200k/300k russian troops will be deployed in ukraine.
At that point, the comedian zelensky what will ask in despair to his masters here in the west? some nukes to launch towards moscow?

the Circus of Madness keeps goin' on.

What the gently caress is this lol

# ¿ Jan 23, 2023 23:44

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

LRADIKAL posted:

I feel like at this point, if the west let Ukraine's economy fail, it would be a huge amounts of deaths and misery as a losing war turns into a bloody occupation. Jeez, is it better for RUSSIA to lose this war? yuck.

It was always better for Russia to lose this war.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2023 09:02

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Hey Cinci, are Girkin statements still okay to post here? If so, he is quite sad today:

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1630175329422655489?s=20

Some good quotes:

Igor Strelkov-Girkin posted:

"Days, like grains of sand in an hourglass, flow away and flow away...."

Igor Strelkov-Girkin posted:

"Decision making centers" in Kyiv make decisions in the most comfortable and safe way, no one even tried to endanger them so far..."

Igor Strelkov-Girkin posted:

"And the only 'entertainment' for angry patriots dumbfounded by reality is the public mutual scuffle paid for by gentlemen Shoigu and Prigozhin..."

# ¿ Feb 28, 2023 02:02

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Was fine, for that statement on the last page at least.

More seriously speaking, it's fine, and statements themselves from him or various other Z-bloggers and propagandists are also in themselves fine. What I'm not a fan of the more repetitive genre of posting that can be reduced �lmao they're dumb� or �wow they're evil�, when you start cycling that stuff as this weird Kremlin scryer porn or whatever even would the term be here. But that has to be a pattern of behaviour, and there are plenty of genuinely interesting conversations to be had around significant messaging changes seen in Girkin's or similar programming. Especially with the ascendant, as there must be quite the Hunger Games going in the army and the security circles.

It's a joke post.

I'm glad that Girkin's posts are allowed at least (personally, I could do with or without Solovyov and Simonyan, they are largely wind bags) because I have always interpreted Girkin to be the mouthpiece of the FSB in the Kremlin's internal posting wars. Wagner has Prigozhin doing the PR himself, and I guess the RU Ministry of Defense is represented by a combination of Peskov and MoD releases, with..I guess Kadyrov being the mouthpiece for the hardliners? This reminds me a lot of the same kind of Kremlinology that was everywhere in the Cold War. I lived in RU, have degrees in this area, speak Russian, and what the Kremlin is doing is still largely a mystery. I have no idea how people did it in the past without the flow of information we have now

# ¿ Feb 28, 2023 02:23

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

cinci zoo sniper posted:

It's getting late for me to reply to the full post, but I want to address the start of it, as it makes it seem like there's a ream of topics forbidden to post about. Maybe I'm reading too much into your phrasing, but if it's not restricted in the thread rules, you can just post it without reservation*. Furthermore, the language of the rules is deliberate, e.g., �discouraged� does explicitly not mean �forbidden�.

* common sense and D&D/SA rules still apply

I did not mean to imply that there was a lot forbidden, that was definitely meant more of a "I am particularly glad this is okay to discuss" manner

# ¿ Feb 28, 2023 02:44

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Not sure I fully agree with you, to circle back to this post.

Peskov is like this immortal, untouchable herald-lich of Putin himselv, since it's a bit beneath Putin's blue blood to, you know, randomly talk to people in his country. I would very explicitly not consider him to represent any faction, since factions in Russia exist inasmuch as Putin deems them useful.

Girkin-FSB sure, why not. Can't say I'm particularly invested in this angle, but he definitely has friends (and certainly not in MoD, which also is a distinct faction from FSB), and he's worked for FSB for decades, and not on the dullest things either.

MoD is, well, MoD. Shoygu is the face of both the MoD and the MIC (recall, he replaced the last minister whose failure was angering MIC), and going to lower level than that lands you basically immediately into various Z-bloggers (which themselves are split like 50/50 between the MoD faction and the hardliners)

Hardliners now, as in "global nuclear war, nao" types, would be Patrushev and Gerasimov (and kind-of logically overlapping with MoD, especially when MoD is doing well enough). This is where you get another bunch of Z-bloggers, and giants of literary thought like Medvedev or Rogozin.

Kadyrov, on the other hand, represents the amalgamation of interests of the Caucasus region and Russia's Muslims*. And, most importantly, his own interests. He's historically been a Putin's man, but, well, 2022 saw some changes in the political landscape in Russia, and I'm personally interpreting his ascension within Rosgvardiya as an attempt at strengthening his relationship with the hardliners.

* We're not going to dissect Caucasian local politics in this thread.

Thank you for this breakdown, very informative

# ¿ Mar 1, 2023 03:14

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

saratoga posted:

FWIW the battle for Bakhmut started in early August, and long range fire on the city before then. They've been fighting over it for half of the entire war, so it didn't suddenly become important.

Not quite true. The "Battle of Bakhmut" started on August 1 and is defined by the Russian push from Popasna and is a really weird date to mark the start of that conflict. Using August 1 (as found in the wiki) is for some reason ignoring the months of fighting in Bakhmut that had been ongoing since May when Popasna fell and Ukraine retreated to Bakhmut. By the time August 1 came around Bakhmut had long already looked like the Somme

E: not saying this is your doing or anything to be clear, the wiki is just inaccurate in my view

# ¿ Mar 2, 2023 04:12

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

That story of Jihad Johnny is so insane that it has to be true because nobody could make up such a crazy sequence of events. Personally I found it absurd that they didn't kick him out after the ISIS thing but hey.

There was a raid on Bryansk by volunteers that were apparently Russian neo-nazis or something. They crossed the border and took selfies in Bryansk and it made Girkin begrudgingly admit that was pretty good and start talking about how he's afraid of consequences for his words. It's a weird post even by Girkin standards.

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1631388469351030785?s=20

"Alternative success in Vuhledar" got a good chuckle out of me

# ¿ Mar 2, 2023 21:34

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Eric Cantonese posted:

Ukraine has to withdraw from Bakhmut soon, right? It just seems untenable in the long term and it looks like the forces there have done more than their fair share of attritional damage to the Russians.

Fresh reinforcements were just deployed to Bakhmut and with how things have been shaping, it seems very likely that Bakhmut's sudden strategic importance is directly proportional to how many Russian troops it can pin down in a constant attritional buzzsaw so that they can't be deployed to counter the upcoming Ukrainian counteroffensive in Zaporizhzhia

# ¿ Mar 3, 2023 03:47

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1631711474241482753?t=xruzAkfZ8dl3IV3x173Wpg&s=19

Khodakovsky also thinks that Bakhmut is intended to be a pinning action to support a Ukrainian counteroffensive elsewhere

# ¿ Mar 3, 2023 19:18

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Chalks posted:

Do they have enough time before the ground thaws to launch a counteroffensive? Seems unlikely they'd be able to hold Bakhmut until things dry out in the spring.

Unless the mud season also halts the Russian advances on Bakhmut I guess.

The south of Ukraine thaws and dries earlier than it does in the east/northeast regions. It's not super significant (about a week's difference more or less) but if you gently caress it up like Putin did, it can be very bad for you. It's possible the south will be dry enough to launch a counteroffensive while the mud's still a problem further northeast. In my view, the counteroffensive is going to be in the Zaporizhzhia oblast area and likely aimed at severing the land bridge between Crimea and Russia so the likely target for this next particular counteroffensive will be Melitopol, probably not Mariupol this time. Melitopol would be a reasonable target; it's strategically important, threatens the Russians further south with being caught in a pincer between Melitopol and Kherson, makes Russia decide whether to defend Mariupol direction or Crimea direction, leaves Ukraine a lot of flexibility in what to do next.

HonorableTB fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Mar 3, 2023

# ¿ Mar 3, 2023 22:26

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

I don't think Kadyrov's poisoning is outlandish anymore. MSN has picked up the story

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/top-putin-ally-ramzan-kadyrov-seriously-ill-from-suspected-poisoning/ar-AA18dOku?li=BBnb7Kz

MSN posted:

Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov � a close ally of Vladimir Putin � is reported to be seriously ill with kidney problems amid fears of �poisoning�.

The fanatical pro-war zealot who has advocated using nuclear weapons against Ukraine is rumoured to have summoned a leading doctor from the United Arab Emirates because he �does not trust� Moscow doctors.

Several opposition sources have claimed kidney illness accounted for Kadyrov�s surprising absence from Putin�s state of the nation speech on 12 February, and a recent �bloated� appearance, as seen at a recent meeting in his palace in Chechen capital Grozny with Denis Pushilin, head of the invaded Donetsk People�s Republic.

The Chechen�s leader�s luxury private jet was known to have made several trips recently to the UAE, and he has been less visible than usual in recent weeks.

While Kadyrov, 46, is one of Putin�s closest allies, the Chechen strongman � reportedly a father of 14 with three current wives � has strongly attacked the running of the war, especially by the Russian defence ministry and certain generals.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2023 06:06

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Fair enough, I should improve my media literacy. My mistake!

# ¿ Mar 5, 2023 07:47

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Okay if people can't post the article in the post as a quote then are we still allowed to post archived versions of paywalled articles? Because restricting good discussion behind a paywall is dumb in the age of the internet. And given that this is D&D where we are expected to back up our claims with citations, we will need a way to actually do that unless it's expected that everyone posting here pay for a subscription to whatever news service. Many people have said here they don't tend to click-through to other links. It just makes sense to be able to cite your source in the post you make using that source without expecting someone to link-out of the app or browser to another site, especially in the Debate forum.

HonorableTB fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Mar 8, 2023

# ¿ Mar 8, 2023 22:27

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

There is definitely going to be the issue cropping up of selective editing to present things out of context or intentionally misconstrued as mr anus just said. There will not be any way of really verifying or fact checking that unless posters go out of their way to find a non-paywalled version and read it, and by the time they've done that and posted, the thread's moved on. Anyways last I will say about it to not continue the derail

# ¿ Mar 8, 2023 23:15

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Avian Pneumonia posted:

Jokes aside, how is the war going generally?

I understand that this thread is pretty overwhelmingly pro-ukraine and that's cool but I'm interested in a more objective picture.
On one hand it seems like Russia with their massive military should have had no problem with this.
And the fact that this has not turned out to be the case is kind of nuts.

But they're also effectively fighting much of the western-world and their hardware and (more importantly) logistical support.

Will Russia take Odessa and make a land-bridge with transnistria and call it a day?
Moldova and Romania don't seem too keen to get involved but they also might have cause to?
Will Ukraine push Russia out entirely but for the small regions that are overwhelmingly pro-Russia anyway?

It's really hard to tell because there's next to no news or information to base one's opinion on that isn't so drenched in propaganda that it can effectively be discarded.

Russia has overwhelming systemic issues with their military that they are unable to rectify in time to matter in this war, from mobilization to equipment to sanctions and manufacturing to import substitution to literally everything. Ukraine never had enough of things to begin with, but western weapons and aid have made such a difference that Ukraine is winning the war in sense of they are actively retaking territory (they undid an entire year of Russian gains around Kharkiv and Kherson in 3 weeks), and now the Ukrainians have held off another major Russian offensive. The next action is likely to be an offensive by Ukraine aimed at severing the land bridge to Crimea and likely targets are Melitopol and Mariupol.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2023 06:07

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Crossposting my own post from the GBS thread because I am interested to see what D&D makes of this:

HonorableTB posted:

Interestingly, Prigozhin seems to have been hacked. He seems to be conducting tax evasion and LOL, ordering Wagner candidates to undergo polygraphs to ascertain war enthusiasm and whether or not recruits have ties to the FSB. The last bit is especially interesting to me.

https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1637449382894219264?s=20

https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1637456485910212608?s=20

https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1637459442340974592?s=20

https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1637464532716072962?s=20

https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1637466153789403139?s=20

https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1637526569706045440?s=20

Dossier Center is a reputable OSINT/opposition watchdog source, if they are reporting this then it's more than likely true.

More about them:

https://khodorkovsky.com/dossier-center/

And I have provided translatons too:

Dossier-Central posted:

In early autumn 2022, unknown hackers gained access to more than 1 million documents of Yevgeny Prigozhin's structures . For several months, the group maintained access to the network, pumping out all the fun from there. Some of the files from the #Wagnerleaks archives were at the disposal of journalists from Die Welt, the Dossier Center, Insider, Paris Match and Arte.

For five years now, the Dossier Center has been investigating the murder of three journalists in the Central African Republic who were trying to make a documentary about the Wagner PMC. We managed to study the internal structure of Prigozhin�s business empire, including the so-called �Troll Factory� (Lakhta project), the Concord group of companies, the so-called Wagner PMC and other business activities of the Kremlin chef: school meals, construction, hotel business, chocolate trading, media business, mining of gold, diamonds, oil and other minerals, international political consulting, a meat processing plant in the African jungle, a car wash - and more.

Numerous publications in the media usually focus on one aspect of his multifaceted activities, although in reality they are all organically linked: wounded Wagner soldiers recover at a recreation center in Gelendzhik, Defense Ministry officials receive discount cards in the Eliseevsky store, Lakhta "trolls "meet in a building built by Prigozhin's companies and promote the services of PMCs from there to an international audience. Today, lawyers and financiers are considering concession agreements in St. Petersburg, and tomorrow - in Antananarivo or Bangui. The same thing happens with elections: the same political technologists work out orders in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tula, Kyiv, Tripoli, Maputo and Cape Town. Employees are regularly transferred from project to project: those who yesterday chose furniture for Prigozhin�s daughter�s apartment,

It is precisely because of this flexible structure that sanctions against Prigozhin's projects do not work well. But with all the external independence and inconsistency in the actions of individual parts, Prigozhin's mycelium is united by centralized information systems - today we will talk about some of them.

Some other bits that I found relevant (a lot of the article was supporting technical information that didn't need to be posted here):

quote:

Many employees of the Troll Factory come to St. Petersburg from other cities or countries. This is due to the long-term negative image of Prigozhin in the urban labor market.

All potential employees, even if they work in restaurants, are subject to a mandatory two-hour interrogation on the Diana-07 polygraph . Its goal is to identify potentially disloyal or dangerous characters for Prigozhin. Opposition supporters, people with contacts in the media and law enforcement agencies, drug users and debtors are weeded out.

quote:

After the start of the war, another question was added to the standard set - about the attitude towards the "military operation".

If the test subject has feelings about the war or Ukrainian relatives, he is rejected by the security service, even despite the approval of potential superiors.

Almost half of the IT people work underhand, without a work book, and officially registered employees often receive 40�60% of their salary in envelopes, follows from accounting documents. Between themselves, Prigozhin's employees discuss that in addition to the white salary in other companies, "there is something that we do not have and will not have": a flexible start of the working day, medical insurance, bonuses. Former employees also complain about the "climate in the team" - in particular, mutual intrigues. Uncompetitive working conditions may explain the low level of education among IT specialists of Prigozhin's structures. Qualified specialists can hardly withstand Prigozhin's spontaneous micromanagement and rudeness - many had moved to "unfriendly" countries even before the start of the war.

Perhaps in the coming months, Prigozhin will be able to recruit new, better employees in the IT departments. Wagner's aggressive PR campaign after the start of the war helped improve the Company's image in the eyes of the younger generation of IT students in St. Petersburg. For example, at the end of December 2022, Prigozhin held a Wagner PMC hackathon, in which talented programmers took part. Despite the criticism in social networks and the media, many of them saw nothing wrong with this. The hackathon was dedicated to drone programming and was used for recruiting � Concord structures have been actively looking for such specialists since the fall of 2021, according to internal documents. Probably, the recruitment was not only for the war in Ukraine, but also for other projects. For example, employees of Wagner PMC have been using drones and quadrocopters in Syria and the Central African Republic for several years, even negligently burned one of their expensive reconnaissance drones of the Orlan model.

quote:

What does the Troll Factory do?
An analysis of the activity of "trolls" in social networks shows that they work most actively where you can use other people's content without restrictions and buy ads using gray schemes.

Here are some examples of rather undemanding projects of the "factory" in VK.com: news projects - "Shark", "Daring Square", "How do you like it, Elon Musk", "Strip", "Trashach", "Minning", "Dirt Warehouse �, �The Art of War�, �Truth Serum�, �Curb City�, �VideoPiter�, in St. Petersburg - �Meme Horseman�, animated projects �Eagle (CheBe)� and �Spot�.

The budget also includes payment for publications and access to community administration in the VK "Arms of Russia" , for creating content for the project " Brezhnev's Eyebrows ".

In the documents of the "factory" there are mentions of payment for publications, retweets and likes from independent thousands of bloggers on political topics on Twitter. For example, here:

Radio Stydoba ;
Alexander Dedurenko ;
Leonid Degtyarev ;
Mitrofan Belov ;
Philip Maslovsky;
Drunk Twitter ;
Literature ;
https://twitter.com/vezhlivo;
TVJihad ;
News. As is .
A separate line is payment for the services of a content manager for the projects " Actual Russia " and "Actual World" .

In Telegram, the �trolls� paid for publications from third-party Telegram channels, such as Media Technologist, �Somehow Like This� and �338�, paid for reposts in the �Karaulny� channel, bought places in collections and ratings, and purchased services to cheat subscribers .

According to former employees, about 400 employees now work at the �factory�, of which more than 30 are engaged only in writing comments on media sites, and about 30 more people write comments on YouTube. Since 2019, about 40 employees have been sent to comment on publications in the Ukrainian media as well. The estimated budget for the "factory" in 2022 was 70-100 million rubles per month, excluding "special tasks".

RYBAR IS FUNDED BY PRIGOZHIN :siren:

quote:

Another well-known military observer - Rybar, aka Mikhail Zvinchuk , - a couple of years ago, he came to work in the office of the Troll Factory and actively promoted his channel at her expense. In one of the documents of that time, Zvinchuk was listed as the head of the �international direction�, where, in addition to him, 49 other people were involved and received payments, including journalist Abbas Juma and military observer Boris Rozhin (Colonel Cassad) .

Employees of the �international direction� of the �factory� wrote analytical materials for the FAN and promoted the theses of the �trolls� through their Telegram channels:

"Wings of War";
"Lu Man: Looking East";
"Brussels snitch";
"India Today";
"American number";
"Center for Human Rights Violations";
"The Fifth Republic";
"South wind";
"Beekeeper";
"Tales from the Favelas" and others.

Prigozhin also worked closely with Dugina, Alexander Dugin's daughter :siren:

quote:

Of the famous people in the archive, you can find the deceased Daria Dugin. She joined the Patriot media group in 2018 or 2019 and worked there until the murder. Dugina was responsible for the foreign direction, including organizing Prigozhin's publications and comments in the Turkish media. In particular, according to the source, she organized a big interview with the Aydınlık newspaper and a photo of Prigozhin on the front page.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2023 06:29

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

The strike on Dzhankoi took out a trainload of Kalibr-NK missiles in transit. Kalibr NKs are the variant meant for anti-surface ships, so it seems likely that Russia is now repurposing anti-shipping missiles for land strikes in the same way that they've repurposed S-300 and S-400 SAMs for ground-to-ground strikes. That has dire implications for the state of Russia's cruise missile stocks.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2023 22:11

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Source?

zone posted:

https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1637922488175796227
They destroyed a trainload of Kalibrs. This loss is going to sting.

cinci zoo sniper posted:

So far, this looks like a cool story reported by yet another random spam account like @EuromaidanPR, @TpyxaNews, @nexta_tv, and so on.

The original source is the Ukrainian GUR:

https://t.me/DIUkraine/2108

# ¿ Mar 20, 2023 22:17

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Yeah, and I'm calling GUR statement a cool story, until there's at least some evidence.

Fair enough, was just trying to answer your source request

# ¿ Mar 20, 2023 22:20

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/russia-cannot-meet-arms-delivery-commitments-because-war-indian-air-force-says-2023-03-23/

According to Reuters, the war's causing Russia to be unable to meet its arms shipment obligations to India. This isn't the first time it's happened either, it happened with a shipment of armored vehicles and other weapons last year if I'm remembering correctly.

This will only strengthen China in the long term, especially with the trending of Russia towards being a resource colony junior partner of Beijing's. India without a Russia to buy arms from will need to get them elsewhere and China's a major producer of arms.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2023 21:30

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 12, 2024 10:59

HonorableTB: Dec 22, 2006

Quixzlizx posted:

China is the reason India wants to be armed. So the Indian/Russian relationship declining would strengthen the US, if anyone.

Goes to show how much I know about Indian geopolitics :blyat:

# ¿ Mar 23, 2023 21:39

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > War in Ukraine: thread feedback session open unttil Saturday (i'll regret this)

«‹›2 »