War in Ukraine CE: The Golf War

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(Thread IKs: fatherboxx)

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

notwithoutmyanus posted:

So this one is a question from me. Despite the Putin cameo, is this expected to have any impact on the war?

Second question, is this just 4 other countries basically agreeing with funding avoiding sanctions?

https://twitter.com/WatcherGuru/status/1641655197595213827?t=3mx9c2HSyh4ipXwlgSzdbQ&s=19

Be aware the root source is sputnik.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2023 10:13

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 10:06

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

notwithoutmyanus posted:

This is explicitly the narrative everywhere right now that I'm seeing. Echoed everywhere ftom American politics to crypto Twitter, so clearly all of the Russian propaganda is on force.

You should probably not be using "crypto twitter" as a news source generally. For example, the WatcherGuru site does zero original reporting, its twitter rarely cites its sources, and it's primarily uncritically repeating whatever source it finds.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2023 16:55

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

cinci it's your thread and all but I think maybe this isn't the best place for april fools posts.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2023 17:29

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Had a listen to some Sputnik today; they alternated between talking up France's role as a potential peacemaker and how The West had ceded its role as international statesman to China. So those are the competing narrative frames coming out of the agreement between Russia and China at the moment.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2023 00:50

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Ukraine War Plans Leak Prompts Pentagon Investigation
Classified documents detailing secret American and NATO plans have appeared on Twitter and Telegram

In brief, it looks like the documents were modified to overstate Ukrainian casualties and understate Russian ones, as some sort of disinformation in favor of Russia (not necessarily from Russia). They're not specific plans and are a few weeks old, but the release is still likely to do significant damage.

vvv happy to be corrected, I was just going off the nyt article.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Apr 7, 2023

# ¿ Apr 7, 2023 02:16

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

War in Ukraine: create separate threads for each leak

War in Ukraine: casualty reports go in #memes-general

War in Ukraine: ICIJ presents: the furaffinity files

# ¿ Apr 7, 2023 19:59

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Charlz Guybon posted:

How does that in any way safeguard national security?

Having it be normalized as a violation with potential career consequences discourages people from spreading the information and reduces the deniability of distributing controlled information that's been publicized, but less publicized than the largest outlets.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2023 16:49

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

To be clear, the interviews aren't with the leaker, they're with someone from the server where it's believed the leaks occurred. The interviewee's a minor.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2023 03:49

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

I visualize the NYT reporter and the collection feds participating in an elaborate humorous race sequence with lots of slapstick hijnx, beginning with a banana in a Hummer tailpipe and ending with the reporter and 12 fully armored agents all trying to squeeze through his bedroom door at once.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2023 21:22

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

This story includes some content from the leak.

Russia�s commando units gutted by Ukraine war, U.S. leak shows
Russia�s clandestine spetsnaz forces have been put to use alongside the infantry, suffering massive numbers of dead and wounded

quote:

The war in Ukraine has gutted Russia�s clandestine spetsnaz forces, and it will take Moscow years to rebuild them, according to classified U.S. assessments obtained by The Washington Post.

The finding, which has not been previously reported, is among a cache of sensitive materials leaked online through the messaging platform Discord. U.S. officials attributed their assessments to Russian commanders� overreliance on the specialized units, which have been put to use as part of front-line infantry formations. Those formations, like the Ukrainians, have suffered massive numbers of dead and wounded.

...
The hollowing of these units appears to be evident in satellite imagery featured among the leaked materials. Before-and-after photos � showing a base used by the 22nd Separate Spetsnaz Brigade in southern Russia, according to the document � reveal that �all but one of five Russian Separate Spetsnaz Brigades that returned from combat operations in Ukraine in late summer 2022 suffered significant losses.�

The slide includes two overhead images, one taken in November 2021, months before the invasion began, and another captured a year later. The former shows a bustling motor pool teeming with vehicles; the latter reveals what U.S. officials concluded is a state of extreme depletion months after the brigade�s return home with fewer than half of the Tigr tactical vehicles it had before the deployment. The 22nd and two other spetsnaz brigades suffered an estimated 90 to 95 percent attrition rate, the assessments say.

...

The documents do not say how many spetsnaz troops are estimated to have been killed or wounded in Ukraine, but the materials, citing intelligence intercepts, assess that one unit alone � the 346th � �lost nearly the entire brigade with only 125 personnel active out of 900 deployed.�

U.S. intelligence analysts tracked every spetsnaz unit that returned home to southern Russia from Ukraine � except for one: the 25th Spetsnaz Regiment. Severe personnel and equipment losses, the documents say, �could explain why there is no clear [intelligence] signature of their return to garrison.�

...

A soldier who served in Vuhledar with Ukraine�s 72nd Mechanized Brigade told The Post that while he could not confirm his unit faced spetsnaz, that was probably the case because they carried advanced body armor along with high-end night vision and thermal optics. Those enemy troops operated in small units, this soldier said, conducting traditional reconnaissance and infantry missions. He spoke on the condition of anonymity citing the sensitivity of recent operations.

The apparent death of a spetsnaz brigade commander in Vuhledar in February further illustrates the scope of problems facing Russia, Lee said. If such a senior military leader �is that far forward, there is probably something not quite right. Either losses are too heavy in that unit, or they�re being used in a way they�re not supposed to be used,� he added.

This largely underlines the problems Russia's created for itself by using whatever "elite" units it could find as speartips, over and over.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Apr 14, 2023

# ¿ Apr 14, 2023 15:38

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

I think there are probably a range of circumstances in which strikes on Russian soil could be productive, but the ones proposed here seem almost deliberately not to be.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2023 17:49

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

We won't know until further information about his particular process is uncovered, but there have been scandals over the last couple years regarding the federal background check process, which is frequently contracted out. It may be the case that it was never actually conducted.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2023 13:51

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

NTRabbit posted:

I imagine Russia only has a limited supply of the super heavy equipment required to lift a derailed locomotive and train back onto the tracks, and also to repair those tracks - they also seem to have a very limited and linear rail network, just following the thing around on google maps. If partisans keep knocking these things off, it might start making it difficult to ship troops, equipment, and supplies to where they are needed in a worthwhile timeframe.

From previous thread discussion, Russia's infra for internal rail systems is actually pretty robust, because they're aware of how necessary it is- it's supposedly one of the better-maintained systems.

# ¿ May 1, 2023 15:01

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

I'm not confident in any particular interpretation, but the delay and lack of multi-channel pushing from Russian state media makes me think a false flag is less likely.

# ¿ May 3, 2023 19:44

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Icon Of Sin posted:

I used to bullseye flagpoles with my COTS drone back home, they�re wayyyy smaller than 2 meters.

Then to your drones, and may the force be with you.

# ¿ May 4, 2023 01:08

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

funk_mata posted:

OK, thanks, that distinction makes sense. Last question: what is the benefit of allowing a private wing of the Russian military to exist (instead of subsuming it into the actual state-owned military)? Is Wagner supposed to be better trained and more capable?

Wagner was arguably better trained and more capable, but their principal utility was being nominally deniable when conducting atrocities in places where Russia wanted to claim they weren't involved. Wagner's treatment as a sort of speartip, the politicking that has emerged during the reinvasion, and the way the unit has acted since then has removed all pretense and made it more like the private army of one particularly well-protected member of Putin's circle.

# ¿ May 5, 2023 06:49

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Call it the Pacific Occidental Trans Atlantic Treaty Organization

# ¿ May 10, 2023 08:12

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Thanks very much for providing these mlmp.

# ¿ May 11, 2023 01:51

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

I've checked a few sources and it's clear this was a press release statement, but I can't find the original for full context.

# ¿ May 13, 2023 08:50

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

RT is covering this as a "Ukrainian sabotage group". I agree, they've not got much to work with.

# ¿ May 22, 2023 19:20

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Failed Imagineer posted:

Mogelson is one of the best war journalists around. His piece on the Iraqis retaking Mosul from ISIS was like Chris Hedges stuff from the 90s

Tugs at collar hopefully not on the same trajectory.

e: drat it, quote is not report! How tired am I to be loving these up? My apologies.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 09:24 on May 23, 2023

# ¿ May 23, 2023 08:43

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is explicitly genocidal.

# ¿ May 23, 2023 09:07

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Kikas posted:

This is what we call an "useful idiot" and they are as dangerous as actual propaganda spewers and should be identified and labeled as such.

I gotta correct you here, useful idiots are propaganda spewers; they just serve to mediate and better spread the propaganda, sometimes for their own ends.

# ¿ May 23, 2023 11:01

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Oracle posted:

Most of the Russian nationals I know studiously avoid the topic like the plague, though a friend of mine decided they weren�t going to send their kid back to Russia for the summer to stay with family this year.

Now the Chinese expats whoa Nelly are they hard on the �Biden warmonger why doesn�t he force them to negotiate for peace both sides commit atrocities� train.

I'd love to have a clearer sense of the media ecosystem that Chinese expats are operating in. I know that the government places an emphasis on surveillance and control over expats, so that presumably includes a parallel propaganda apparatus.

# ¿ May 28, 2023 23:29

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Agronox posted:

Ms. Nord had some bylines at MintPress, whatever that is, and got signal boosts from Max Blumenthal.

Mintpress is a proxy for a whole bunch of authoritarian regimes; it came up a lot in the Venezuela thread as a source promoting Maduro regime materials initially developed through TeleSUR, and serves as a major mediator of Syrian and Russian propaganda.

edit: some older 2018 interviews refer to her as the cofounder of Geopolitics Alert, which went inactive in 2021 and seems to have focused on pro-Erdogan and Syria messaging.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 02:09 on May 29, 2023

# ¿ May 29, 2023 02:00

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Whatever that is, it appears to now be down. Looks like it was a personal writing site based on the wayback machine, but the only dates recorded for it from that resource start on the 19th.

# ¿ May 29, 2023 05:44

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

fatherboxx posted:

This day in stupid:

https://twitter.com/donmoyn/status/1663615880435990532?t=QrqhyLfmILcFwPW5nh8exw&s=19

This tells us they�re going to likely double down on this attack during the next US election, but if she�s being mediated through the direct propaganda outlets it�ll probably be less effective.

# ¿ May 30, 2023 20:41

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Mr. Apollo posted:

I've gotten three recommended videos today on YT that claim to show Ukrainians being trained on B-52 bombers and the description says that America has announced it will be providing Ukraine with a squadron of B-52s and will be providing fighter cover for them while they go on missions.

It's just stock footage of B-52s being readied for a flight and then some footage of them flying with F-16s and F-35s.

I'm guessing this is some new disinformation story that someone is trying to push. I've never had any "fake news" stories like this recommended to me before.

Can you provide the channel names?

# ¿ May 31, 2023 22:54

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

It's weird because several videos aren't in line with Russian propaganda goals either. I have no idea what its goals are other than maybe a simple view harvesting practice.

edit: yep, reverse GISing the channel logo reveals channels with similar logos for sale.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Jun 1, 2023

# ¿ Jun 1, 2023 01:21

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Deteriorata posted:

https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1668049097012441095

"how is nobody talking about this?" he says, linking and quoting a loving wsj article. I swear, there is no clearer sign of bullshit than that Trumpian utterance.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2023 06:04

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Bar Ran Dun posted:

This is an example of the type of paper I was referring to.

Basically governments are researching control of information and how to affect the opinions of populations via social media. This isn�t new news. Way back during the Arab Spring there were articles about CENTCOM having units for this type of social media stuff. (That�s been discussed to death in older threads particularly the Russia thread from back at the start of the trump presidency) Any way what�s interesting to me about that abstract page is the mention is the mention of differential equations models, because that means controls and controls theory.

This is social network analysis or SNA- it's what I eventually wanted to get to in the media literacy thread before it got trolled into oblivion. "State" here means status, as in opinion or emotional valence, and "social network" is any form of communication interaction, not necessarily social media. If I'm following it properly it's describing a really basic spread concept that looks a bit like false consensus modeling- basically if you make some assumptions that a group of individuals has a more or less stable set of people they're interacting with, and if "leaders" within the group maintain a shared position that can't be shifted, the "followers" in the group wind up converging on the opinion. I'm a bit confused and need to read it in much greater detail because it appears to be reinventing several wheels; the outcomes appear pretty trivial and the findings are analogous to Everett Rogers stuff, which is, uh, not new. I see that a lot with SNA, folks in different academic fields rediscovering basic concepts.

I should note that while Russia may apply this degree of sophistication with some of their foreign-facing propaganda efforts, it's unlikely that they use SNA for anything but the most narrowly targeted, professional work; a lot of their stuff seems to be siloed and far less sophisticated, including the work targeting immigrant groups. A lot of the methods of propaganda don't require any math at all to be effective.

Without doing a big essay explaining SNA, it has limited value unless you have a really complete map of the influence or communication network in question. iirc the US military has mostly used it to identify who to target for assassination in, e.g., terrorist groups. I can go into some of this stuff in further detail if it's of interest. I do not have access to, and would not be disclosing, any classified information, ofc.

edit: yeah, I see the use of fractional order and control theory here, which isn't part of the SNA I studied, but it seems to be massively complicating the evaluation for no gain based on a ludicrously simplified social network, producing very obvious and old results (the network they use for modeling being from the 70s isn't a coincidence). If you assume a group has a set of leaders whose opinions influence everyone else and whose own opinions don't change...

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Jun 18, 2023

# ¿ Jun 18, 2023 04:43

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Rust Martialis posted:

Yeah based on the first page of the article, "state" has nothing to do with governments. It's basically an article saying your future opinion depends on both your current opinion and the opinions of the people you link to.

Looking at the author list, the first guy wrote the paper and the last guy was the senior scientist - the work was done in his lab. A quick search shows he's chair of the Nonlinear Controls and Robotics group at Clemson.

The fact you are somehow nervous about the use of differential equations to model a network is probably the strangest thing about this.

The author is now a professor in China

https://ustc-icr.github.io/

I do wanna be clear, it is an article about influencing or manipulating opinion in social networks, and pays reference to social media- it's just not, at first glance, a very good one. I think the methods they're writing about are pretty much shoehorned into the social network analysis methodology.

SNA-based propaganda manipulation is, however, the sort of thing the Chinese are likely to do in a sophisticated manner domestically. That's pretty much the only place that has the systems, resources and dedicated social control resources for it.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 08:23 on Jun 18, 2023

# ¿ Jun 18, 2023 08:21

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Boris Galerkin posted:

You use differential equations to model literally anything and everything that changes in one way or another (eg, over time). In terms of modeling, differential equations is like �basic math�. It�s not a scary thing unless you�re afraid of Greek letters for some reason.

E: Do you need differential equations for controls systems? Yes probably. But you need �algebra� to �make a dirty bomb� as well.

Again, not to defend the paper, but Bar Ran Dun is correct that it's using control theory.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2023 12:33

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

fatherboxx posted:

Everyone, act surprised

https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-russias-vast-sanctions-evasion-secures-us-european-tech-weapons-1807939

FWIW this story is sourced entirely to this report, which is publicly available despite being "exclusive" to Newsweek. It's basically a press release and summary.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2023 22:35

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Nelson Mandingo posted:

If Prigozhin gets his pound of flesh he's pretty much the actual leader of Russia. The idea Putin isn't on TV right now condemning this, trying to suppress this has me asking questions.

Say, has Jeffrey posted lately?

# ¿ Jun 24, 2023 06:28

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Comstar posted:

Surly taking 25000 men out of the front line is going to allow Ukraine a chance to break through a lot easier.

Where's Brown Moses and a geo-location when you need him.

Bellingcat's here. Brown Moses last posted in May, and last posted in the thread in late April. This may have been related to the modloss.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2023 06:42

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Somaen posted:

# ¿ Jun 24, 2023 15:41

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

It is at a minimum beneficial to identify and characterize the context and credibility of any mediating sources. If you've got three mediators, say who they are and why they make the claim more credible.

You should also give as much info about the root source as possible. Both are necessary.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Jun 27, 2023

# ¿ Jun 27, 2023 22:38

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Maera Sior posted:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/27/us/politics/russian-general-prigozhin-rebellion.html

Did I miss this earlier or is it actually new? NYT, citing anonymous sources, says that Prigozhin had some senior military officials on his side (no surprise) but specifically points to Surovikin.

It always made sense that Prigozhin had some degree of backing or collaborators, and Surovikin is certainly one of the more plausible ones, so not too surprising.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2023 04:35

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 10:06

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

D-Pad posted:

Doest Putin have a wife or mistress or some kids or something? It's also possible he sent them and stayed himself.

That being said I still lean towards it being him who fled.

Putin has an ex-wife and, reportedly, several mistresses and kids, and a couple grandkids. It's unlikely he would put any of them on an escape plane over himself.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2023 22:29

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