Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

[Pintu]

Yeah, Chechnya is basically an independent state with Kadyrov having unlimited power (and after decades of continuous “clearing out” the opposition had either left the country or was killed, or both). And Kadyrov answers directly to Putin and no one else.

If Khadyrov is capable of doing whatever he wants there, I would not be putting it beyond him to be rigging the votes in favour for Putin via both fraud and massive intimidation of voters. It doesn’t mean people there love Khadyrov and Putin. Just too scared to organise or vote differently.

 

[lilcurt]

NATO began with onlooker status (since Ukraine is not part of NATO) - it hasn't been reduced to this. Moreover, in funnelling weapons into Ukraine and providing real-time intelligence to Ukrainian forces, NATO has moved beyond simply looking on. As for the West, sanctions have been applied that will reduce the Russian economy to ruins over the next few weeks and months - again, this is far from merely looking on.

How will it end? Most likely with the Russian military suffering daily losses for months to come, tied up in fruitlessly attempting to pacify a country that is bigger than France (and so not available for deployment elsewhere), a collapsed Russian economy, rising unrest inside Russia, rising repression inside Russia, Ukraine semi-occupied but not defeated, the West slowly weaning itself off from reliance on Russian energy supplies, NATO stronger than ever (with additional countries joining and defence spending beefed up considerably), Russia weaker than ever, with little that is sustainable that Putin will be able to point to as a "victory".

This is pretty much the same view I have settled on.

I think Putin believed he would move through Ukraine rather effortlessly with sheer manpower and air dominance. He didn't count on the level of opposition or how quick the west would be to unite against Russia and issue support and sanctions.

At this point he probably feels he is in a no win situation. He negotiates and pulls back which weakens his position at home, or he pushes on with force which damages his country more.

He does need to be given a clear ladder out of this or he will just keep escalated the conflict. If the west are hoping/relying on a Russian resolution I just can't see that happening. His grip is literally around the throat of the country.

 

[RedC]

Plenty of companies use Microsoft for convenience but no one actually depend on them, at worst this decision is a temporary hindrance but not something that can't be worked around pretty quickly.

How do you make Github not available in Russia? I kind of hope that the people using Github know how to work around geo-blocking.

I would say there is a pretty heavy dependence on Excel across the world!

 

[Revan]

He's not a religious leader bro, don't give him any undue credibility.

His father was the Mufti of Chechenia to be fair, and part of his authority came as the most senior religious leader there.

 

[choccy77]

UK UN ambassador just listed in her statement how Russia have broken various Articles and the law and basically said, don't do it again

 

[JPRouve]

I would say there is a pretty heavy dependence on Excel across the world!

People use it but you don't need it, you don't depend on it at all.

 

[IWat]

Plenty of companies use Microsoft for convenience but no one actually depend on them, at worst this decision is a temporary hindrance but not something that can't be worked around pretty quickly.

How do you make Github not available in Russia? I kind of hope that the people using Github know how to work around geo-blocking.

That's really not correct. Windows & AD etc are pretty much the most universally used technology in the business world. And it's certainly not quick to replace if you have anything more than the most elementary of infrastructure and are a Microsoft shop, which a majority are.

 

[Pintu]

I would say there is a pretty heavy dependence on Excel across the world!

But Excel is mostly hard drive based. You can’t restrict it being sold to a certain territory.

Even Cloud services like GitHub can be accessed via VPN if it becomes necessary. Is Microsoft going to restrict that?

 

[sport2793]

4 out of 100 is chilling. If any country can stomach that it is Russia but still, that is a stunning casualty rate.

 

[harms]

If Khadyrov is capable of doing whatever he wants there, I would not be putting it behind him to be rigging the votes in favour for Putin via both fraud and massive intimidation of voters. It doesn’t mean people there love Khadyrov and Putin. Just too scared to organise or vote differently.

Oh, that’s implied. I don’t think that there’s a need to falsify the votes because everyone knows who voted for whom and if you voted the wrong way…

Still, simply because every opposing voice had been brutally shut down, I’d say that most of Chechens are genuinely loyal to Kadyrov.

 

[Raoul]

I thought the US had to withdraw all troops after the Iraqi government decided to ask them to leave?

Those were the surge troops, a smaller number stayed in country to “advise and assist” fighting ISIS and continue to be there to support the government dealing with Iranian backed militias.

 

[Mihai]

She’s been surprisingly outspoken over the course of this war. Her late husband was Putin’s boss in Leningrad’s administration and Putin owed a lot to him, so she’s in a bit of a privileged position, although it still takes some guts to openly criticize what’s going on from the inside.

I think she doesn't give a feck anymore. But, yeah, surprising, nonetheless.

Btw, what is Ksenia doing these days?

 

[Pintu]

That's really not correct. Windows & AD etc are pretty much the most universally used technology in the business world. And it's certainly not quick to replace if you have anything more than the most elementary of infrastructure and are a Microsoft shop, which a majority are.

The real question is can Microsoft really prevent Russian entreprises form using their already bought Power BI services? And if they want to bypass future sales via VPN, can Microsoft restrict that, do they want to restrict that ?

 

[calodo2003]

A red state’s government investing in a Russian bank. I’m shocked

Moscow Mitch’s, no less.

 

[Jotun]

Ukrainian MP just said on BBC all the planes promised from various countries have been postponed and that countries are buying more oil and gas from Russia now than before the attack.

Also he said that only 7 of Russias smallest banks have been banned on Swift, the rest are still functioning.

This is the problem with Nato and the other countries in general, 80% all hype and only 20% of actual action.

Money is everything, lives are worthless.

Unfortunately, we need gas, he can't really expect for half the europe to be without heating and electricity!?! Regarding planes, no country wants to give their MIGs up. But they should, because it's better to stop Putin now. Get an agreement with the US to send more of their planes to europe, at least temporarily and sell/give those MIGs to Ukraine. Unless there's been backchanneling that Russia might consider that an act of war and someone got scared. But I assume the planes still need to be adapted to be usable for Ukranian airforce. Unfortunately, that's just not that simple, but we should be working on it ASAP.

Regarding SWIFT, I don't think that can be true. Sberbnak was hit very hard with sanctions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sberbank#International_presence

On 28 February 2022, Sberbank Europe was facing bankruptcy as a consequence of the sanctions. Deutsche Börse suspended trading of Sberbank stock[51][52][53]. Two days later, Sberbank Europe declared that it was leaving the European market[54].

Obviously the Ukrainians are the good guys, but they have keep harping and asking for help. They have to keep making noise. I don't think everything they do or say is accurate. There will be (is) a lot of propaganda.

What we know is that sanctions are hitting Russia hard. Russian posters here confirmed it. They haven't even opened their stock exchange yet.

 

[antsmithmk]

4 out of 100 is chilling. If any country can stomach that it is Russia but still, that is a stunning casualty rate.

I suspect the number who have been killed or wounded in action is not 96. I would guess a significant percentage have just down tools and fecked off home...

 

[Mihai]

4 out of 100 is chilling. If any country can stomach that it is Russia but still, that is a stunning casualty rate.

There was an interview with a russian woman the other day (albeit not confirmed) and the figures were similar. 18 alive from 150. I think the casualties might be a lot closer to figures released by Ukraine than a lot of people think.

 

[MTF]

Arguments against a no-fly zone, from 2 retired USAF officers: https://warontherocks.com/2022/03/the-dangerous-allure-of-the-no-fly-zone/

 

[IWat]

The real question is can Microsoft really prevent Russian entreprises form using their already bought Power BI services? And if they want to bypass future sales via VPN, can Microsoft restrict that, can they restrict that ?

I mean there are always ways for those willing to make an effort. But if you block payments from Russian cards and geo-block the services it's a bit of a PITA for a legitimate business. Proper, reliable VPNs for potentially thousands of users if you're a large company is going to be expensive. You could put in a split tunnel so only the Microsoft traffic goes out over the VPN but then that's also more software they'll need licenses for if they don't already have that for all their machines.

 

[TMDaines]

 

[choccy77]

I would say there is a pretty heavy dependence on Excel across the world!

Google sheets is your broke friend

Unfortunately, we need gas, he can't really expect for half the europe to be without heating and electricity!?! Regarding planes, no country wants to give their MIGs up. But they should, because it's better to stop Putin now. Get an agreement with the US to send more of their planes to europe, at least temporarily and sell/give those MIGs to Ukraine. Unless there's been backchanneling that Russia might consider that an act of war and someone got scared. But I assume the planes still need to be adapted to be usable for Ukranian airforce. Unfortunately, that's just not that simple, but we should be working on it ASAP.

Regarding SWIFT, I don't think that can be true. Sberbnak was hit very hard with sanctions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sberbank#International_presence


Obviously the Ukrainians are the good guys, but they have keep harping and asking for help. They have to keep making noise. I don't think everything they do or say is accurate. There will be (is) a lot of propaganda.

What we know is that sanctions are hitting Russia hard. Russian posters here confirmed it. They haven't even opened their stock exchange yet.

I do understand, I just think that as always the element of truth is in there somewhere.

I know that Swift themselves have given dates towards end of march for Swift bans to come into affect, it isn't an immediate turn off.

I know the UK on their sanctions also do not come into affect immediately and they have allowed several get out of jail cards whereas other countries have taken immediate action.

 

[JPRouve]

That's really not correct. Windows & AD etc are pretty much the most universally used technology in the business world. And it's certainly not quick to replace if you have anything more than the most elementary of infrastructure and are a Microsoft shop, which a majority are.

Quick is relative, it's fairly quick to replace any of these things, people may not want to do it but it won't take you too much time.

The Intel-AMD news is a lot more problematic in terms of cost and availability but softwares aren't a big issue.

 

[Jotun]

This is pretty much the same view I have settled on.

I think Putin believed he would move through Ukraine rather effortlessly with sheer manpower and air dominance. He didn't count on the level of opposition or how quick the west would be to unite against Russia and issue support and sanctions.

At this point he probably feels he is in a no win situation. He negotiates and pulls back which weakens his position at home, or he pushes on with force which damages his country more.

He does need to be given a clear ladder out of this or he will just keep escalated the conflict. If the west are hoping/relying on a Russian resolution I just can't see that happening. His grip is literally around the throat of the country.

People keep talking about him needing a ladder. To me it's simple. Reintegrate LNR and DNR with Ukraine, with amnesty for separatists. Organize a proper referendum in Crimea (it would still probably vote for Russia) that Ukraine and everyone will accept. Ukrainian independency guaranteed by NATO/USA.

Putin can claim a win by claiming he legalized Crimea. Also he can claim a win by providing amnesty for LNR and DNR separatists that he insured the safety of Russians in Ukraine. If I were Putin, I'd accept that deal, if I were Zelensky I'd accept it too. Nobody gets what they really want, but at least it's peace and trading can resume. Putin loses Ukraine from sphere of influence, but gains Crimea legally and he gets to stay in power.

If he keeps going, he might lose the grip on his country and with the sanctions and military backing of Ukraine by US/EU, he might even lose the war.

 

[harms]

I think she doesn't give a feck anymore. But, yeah, surprising, nonetheless.

Btw, what is Ksenia doing these days?

Left the country. Before that — a weird mix of political blogging and scandalous scoop-exploiting.

 

[MadMike]

They are correct, based on my experience. I am from Moldova and we have a big russian ethnic minority. It's quite widespread that Russian speaking people don't bother to learn Romanian, which is the official language.

I’m not gonna lie, for years I thought you were Macedonian. Only when you said you also have a Romanian citizenship did I think “maybe he said Moldovan not Macedonian”

 

[IWat]

Quick is relative, it's fairly quick to replace any of these things, people may not want to do it but it won't take you too much time.

The Intel-AMD news is a lot more problematic in terms of cost and availability but softwares aren't a big issue.

We have 1,000+ applications, 70%+ the permissions are managed by AD/LDAP. A lot of SSO is via ADFS. It would take a project years to find ways to get them all to work without AD. Quite a few don't have any option other than to use AD. And that's just me thinking about identity & access management, never mind anything else!

 

[Boavista]

That doesn't line up with what I'm able to see on Bloomberg. Largest shareholder of Sberbank is Russia's Sovereign Wealth fund.

It's obviously not true. How could they possibly be 2nd largest shareholder of the largest Russian bank if they only had 13 million USD worth of shares pre-sanctions.

 

[Raoul]

 

[::sonny::]

 

[::sonny::]

 

[Jotun]

The real question is can Microsoft really prevent Russian entreprises form using their already bought Power BI services? And if they want to bypass future sales via VPN, can Microsoft restrict that, do they want to restrict that ?

Can Microsoft really prevent them from pirating? You can't pirate Azure, because it's cloud (but you migrate to another one), but if it's pc software it's free pickings. Now if Google and Amazon decided to block, to restrict available cloud computing and then we ban Yandex from anything in the west (I actually don't know if Yandex has cloud services?!) with the Intel and AMD ban, I can't see Russia's IT operating in any capacity.

 

[Organic Potatoes]

Arguments against a no-fly zone, from 2 retired USAF officers: https://warontherocks.com/2022/03/the-dangerous-allure-of-the-no-fly-zone/

Thanks. As I opined before, the NFZ term is thrown around a bit casually. It is a serious escalation that involves NATO engaging Russian forces.

Not to say it should be completely off the board as the situation deteriorates, but it is not a decision to be taken lightly.

 

[Mihai]

I’m not gonna lie, for years I thought you were Macedonian. Only when you said you also have a Romanian citizenship did I think “maybe he said Moldovan not Macedonian”

 

[flameinthesun]

We have 1,000+ applications, 70%+ the permissions are managed by AD/LDAP. A lot of SSO is via ADFS. It would take a project years to find ways to get them all to work without AD. Quite a few don't have any option other than to use AD. And that's just me thinking about identity & access management, never mind anything else!

Just echoing this, I work for one of the largest stock brocking platforms and we recently went through a full review of our bcp process and despite having multiple failovers and disaster recovery in place, AD still came out as massive risk for the above reasons. Almost every fabric of the company (and a lot of companies) is intertwined with AD from finance systems, laptop logins to inter system accounts, file transfers you name it. Certainly would be far from a quick and easy fix. I would imagine for a company like mine it would be close to game to over.

 

[Spoony]

For years I thought Moldova was a state made up by Hollywood.

 

[Rightnr]

Any context for this?

 

[do.ob]

What's the context of this? I mean it doesn't exactly sound like a statement Putin would want to be known?!

 

[MTF]

Any context for this?

I get the impression it is always deployed, but Guam is a lot more helpful for US power projection into East Asia (N Korea, China).

 

[choccy77]

Met Police War Crimes department asking for people involved in war crimes in Ukraine to come forward.

Just on BBC now.

 

[Jotun]

We have 1,000+ applications, 70%+ the permissions are managed by AD/LDAP. A lot of SSO is via ADFS. It would take a project years to find ways to get them all to work without AD. Quite a few don't have any option other than to use AD. And that's just me thinking about identity & access management, never mind anything else!

But that's probably on an internal server? Or maybe on a cloud, but could be migrated to an internal server or at least no Azure managed one. It's been years since I did work with AD, so maybe I'm missing something.