Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Raoul said:
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Does that mean the state department only endorses the Kyiv embassy's use of such language, but doesn't want it to be seen as the official US government's stance? Or that the embassy in Kyiv went off script so to speak. I think the latter is more likely, but then it's surprising they still haven't taken down that tweet
 
Just came home to find the UK fund to help the Ukrainian people has hit £55m in one single day. Absolutely phenomenal when the population itself is just over 60m.
 
do.ob said:
What's the context of this? I mean it doesn't exactly sound like a statement Putin would want to be known?!
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Sounds like she is speaking out against Putin. Nexta is Belarusian media by the way, and has apparently been classified as an extremist organisation in their country since their coverage of the anti-government protests in 2020.
 
Boavista said:
Does that mean the state department only endorses the Kyiv embassy's use of such language, but doesn't want it to be seen as the official US government's stance? Or that the embassy in Kyiv went off script so to speak. I think the latter is more likely, but then it's surprising they still haven't taken down that tweet
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I think USA doesn't want to accuse Putin on war crimes just yet, because then there would be no off ramp until he's out of power. You just can't do business with a war criminal (well obviously you can, but you must not admit it). To me it seems like the US still believes they can get Putin to back off and normalize relations later.
 
choccy77 said:
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.
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Obviously a Ukrainian will consider the reaction as inadequate - how could they not when their country is being destroyed? - but objectively the sanctions have definitely been powerful. It's not fair to talk about 80% hype and 20% action, unless the action involves Nato engaging Russia in direct combat. And then on top of the sanctions you have a much strengthened EU, and huge shifts in policy such as Germany's decision to send weapons (and Norway). This is never going to be enough for a Ukrainian, but it's still a lot.
 
Jotun said:
I think USA doesn't want to accuse Putin on war crimes just yet, because then there would be no off ramp until he's out of power. You just can't do business with a war criminal (well obviously you can, but you must not admit it). To me it seems like the US still believes they can get Putin to back off and normalize relations later.
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Yeah that's what I think too, but I wonder if that means that whoever tweeted that from the US embassy in Kyiv did so without permission, or if the US allowed it and their message to other embassies just gives them plausible deniability.

Surely the tweet would have been taken down by now. Or would that look worse?
 
Boavista said:
Does that mean the state department only endorses the Kyiv embassy's use of such language, but doesn't want it to be seen as the official US government's stance? Or that the embassy in Kyiv went off script so to speak. I think the latter is more likely, but then it's surprising they still haven't taken down that tweet
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Its the latter. Someone running the Embassy social media got ahead of their skiis and posted something they weren't authorized to, which has resulted in the State Department scrambling to squash it.
 
flameinthesun said:
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.
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Yeah, for us I also think it would probably be quicker to burn it all down and start again than it would be to attempt to get rid of AD while trying to maintain everything else the way it is. Nice to see another techie!

Jotun said:
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.
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We're at the moment a weird mix of on-prem AD and Azure AD. Windows licensing ain't my strong point, but if they can't buy further users CALs and they want to add more machines etc I can see that being a problem, if you've got no upgrade path from whatever version of Windows Server they're running, again a bit a problem - Domain Controllers are one thing you really don't want to be not up to date and patched.

I guess thinking you could try doing something with Samba and go that route, but with complex environments, I think pretty quickly it would be found it can't do a lot of stuff they'd want.

I am getting a bit away from Ukraine aha so I will reign it in now.
 
choccy77 said:
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.
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There are some loopholes, but the impact on the Russian banks has been colossal. The damage to the Russian economy more broadly has been unprecedented.
None of that was Nato though.
 
nimic said:
Obviously a Ukrainian will consider the reaction as inadequate - how could they not when their country is being destroyed? - but objectively the sanctions have definitely been powerful. It's not fair to talk about 80% hype and 20% action, unless the action involves Nato engaging Russia in direct combat. And then on top of the sanctions you have a much strengthened EU, and huge shifts in policy such as Germany's decision to send weapons (and Norway). This is never going to be enough for a Ukrainian, but it's still a lot.
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I understand that, but if you are in that situation and the west are holding out a carrot one minute publicly but in reality are pulling it away privately, you are going to call them out on it when your life is on the line.
 
Raoul said:
Its the latter. Someone running the Embassy social media got ahead of their skiis and posted something they weren't authorized to, which has resulted in the State Department scrambling to squash it.
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This probably means that there are still some diplomatic channels going on. Pentagon already mentioned that they already have set up a backchannel with Russian ministry of defense.
 
MTF said:
That doesn't line up with what I'm able to see on Bloomberg. Largest shareholder of Sberbank is Russia's Sovereign Wealth fund.
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Maybe second largest foreign shareholder. Unless I'm looking at the wrong listing (SBER:RU) Vanguard is number 2. Kentucky could have the exposure via outsourced management.
 
Revan said:
This probably means that there are still some diplomatic channels going on. Pentagon already mentioned that they already have set up a backchannel with Russian ministry of defense.
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I'm sure there are, otherwise Biden's rhetoric and NATO's behavior would be far more aggressive. All of them are taking the position that Putin can be talked down from his ledge with enticements of sanctions relief.
 
ooeat0meoo said:
United Security Council LIVE

Russia denying the attack on the nuclear power plant

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They've gone full alternative-world where facts are stupid things. I know that the Western leaders do this all the time, but at least they try to be a bit believable and make movies (like the war in Iraq). Russians are just making plain lies knowing that everybody in the room knows that they are lying.
 


That 2nd woman reaction. Unconditional support for Putin.

@harms I know you to be a sensible guy. But some of these reactions make my blood boil. I've visited Moscow about 10 years ago. Fell in love with it. I've had great respect for Russia, but now all that is gone. I'm .... No, I'm not goint to say how I feel about Russia right now. And I know not everyone is like some of these people. I also admire the courage some folks had to say what they believe.

But I'm just left with a sour taste in my mouth.
 
Maticmaker said:
Flying over occupied areas will be difficult, risks confrontation. If NATO is establishing no fly zones for Russian aircraft, outside Ukraine then you can guarantee any areas in Ukraine captured by the Russians, will also become no fly zones for NATO/West aircraft.
If the 'safe corridors' are established to let refugees out, this will be along the main roads West/S/West and such roads will be heavily trafficked and will delay imports, especially if the Russians control the full length of such corridors.

It is very grim indeed. Putin has had a long time to plan this and although the 'blitzkrieg' everyone was expecting hasn't materialized (as yet), the Russians seemed to be taking the 'strategic ground' in the South.

The West, NATO in particular is being gradually reduced to 'onlooker status'. If Putin gets away with this then we can expect the 'domino-theory' to take effect and there will be little if anything the West can do then to help anyone, even themselves, we will be 'baying at the moon'.

Where are the leaders of the West/NATO who can match Putin? Macron seems to be making a try, but its not inspiring confidence, more confusion.

Actually it isn't so difficult to see how it will end, Putin will stay well away from contact with NATO and subsequently get everything he wants, in terms of his 'land grab' into Ukraine and also including (over time) Nordstream 2.

Its back to the drawing board for the West and NATO in particular.
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I’m not sure, you’re seeing potential countries at risk of the domino effect hastily try to insulate themselves from Russian aggression, e.g. Moldova applying for EU membership/Finland and Sweden looking for immediate NATO membership.

“Putin will get everything he wants” is also highly unlikely, as demilitarising Ukraine will now mean a long term commitment similar to the US in Afghanistan (and the Soviets before them). Coupled with being blocked off the international financial system, it’s going to get very expensive very quickly. China might help out in the background, but that comes with its own difficulties and concessions that’ll undermine Putin’s ultimate goal of dragging Russia to superpower status (impossible without an economy).

Ukraine’s border with the west is vast. Yes there are a lot refugees now, but it’ll decrease over time and the west will not stop supplying until there’s a diplomatic breakthrough with Putin. They’ll be looking for an off ramp, but Russia (or anyone) will never get a veto over NATO membership no matter how much they cry. So it’ll require compromise of some description and that’s where it’s difficult to see where it’ll come from.

What definitely won’t happen is Putin getting everything he wants. He’s committed one of the biggest and most dangerous strategic blunders ever, in my opinion.
 
Jotun said:


That 2nd woman reaction. Unconditional support for Putin.

@harms I know you to be a sensible guy. But some of these reactions make my blood boil. I've visited Moscow about 10 years ago. Fell in love with it. I've had great respect for Russia, but now all that is gone. I'm .... No, I'm not goint to say how I feel about Russia right now. And I know not everyone is like some of these people. I also admire the courage some folks had to say what they believe.

But I'm just left with a sour taste in my mouth.
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You are incredibly naive if you think they are all speaking their minds. The second woman could easily be thinking feck this is a trap.

Hell, I would act the same way if a journalist asked me to talk bad about my president. And I cant stand him.
 
Jotun said:


That 2nd woman reaction. Unconditional support for Putin.

@harms I know you to be a sensible guy. But some of these reactions make my blood boil. I've visited Moscow about 10 years ago. Fell in love with it. I've had great respect for Russia, but now all that is gone. I'm .... No, I'm not goint to say how I feel about Russia right now. And I know not everyone is like some of these people. I also admire the courage some folks had to say what they believe.

But I'm just left with a sour taste in my mouth.
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Yeah, it's horrible. There are a lot of interesting psychological studies on how propaganda works — people that experience a traumatic event would adopt the first simple concept that would allow them to forget about it. The woman around the 4:00 mark is the perfect example — the way that she got caught on the second question (defend from whom?).

It's not an excuse though. People should take responsibility, especially in the times like this. The pragmatist in me thinks that the disastrous outcome of economic sanctions may work better to instigate their activity than the suffering of their neighbouring country's population.
 
harms said:
Yeah, it's horrible. There are a lot of interesting psychological studies on how propaganda works — people that experience a traumatic event would adopt the first simple concept that would allow them to forget about it. The woman around the 4:00 mark is the perfect example — the way that she got caught on the second question (defend from whom?).

It's not an excuse though. People should take responsibility, especially in the times like this. The pragmatist in me thinks that the disastrous outcome of economic sanctions may work better to instigate their activity than the suffering of their neighbouring country's population.
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Do you think they were worried the reporting might be a cover up to get them to share views that could land them in trouble?

Asking as I really felt for the young guy who talked about abstaining from sharing his views because of the consequences.
 
Jotun said:


That 2nd woman reaction. Unconditional support for Putin.

@harms I know you to be a sensible guy. But some of these reactions make my blood boil. I've visited Moscow about 10 years ago. Fell in love with it. I've had great respect for Russia, but now all that is gone. I'm .... No, I'm not goint to say how I feel about Russia right now. And I know not everyone is like some of these people. I also admire the courage some folks had to say what they believe.

But I'm just left with a sour taste in my mouth.
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Many must have an inner conflict going on. The person at 3.30 admits it, cant say anything for consequences
 
Jotun said:


I've visited Moscow about 10 years ago. Fell in love with it. I've had great respect for Russia, but now all that is gone.
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Yeah, I think that video should be an absolute must watch for everyone on Earth tbh…

It shows the complexity of the situation that’s going on, and also makes it clear that the Russian public is largely either deluded or too afraid to even offer an opinion.

I think we could gain a lot of understanding by simply looking at Brexit, and how, in a relatively free nation, just a few years of propaganda and nationalism can seduce a nation to illogically handicap itself with no gain whatsoever - so imagine what TWENTY YEARS of Putin mind feckery has done to that country.

They’re all, without exception, either clueless or helpless - as in, the people who can see through it daren’t express that and can do utterly nothing about it so better to just get on with their lives.

Russia should really now be seen as another North Korea. It’s beyond reform and Putin will not be ousted.

Really sad, and I especially feel for the intellectuals there.

I think globally, we really need to start consciously dismantling this toxic nationalism that has risen during Putin’s era (in other countries) and is leading the World down a very dark path.

We need to shut down and stop giving legitimacy to the avenues that allow ideas like Putin’s to develop.

We need to make sure such ideology is immediately sniffed out and removed.
 
Rhyme Animal said:
Yeah, I think that video should be an absolute must watch for everyone on Earth tbh…

It shows the complexity of the situation that’s going on, and also makes it clear that the Russian public is largely either deluded or too afraid to even offer an opinion.

I think we could gain a lot of understanding by simply looking at Brexit, and how, in a relatively free nation, just a few years of propaganda and nationalism can seduce a nation to illogically handicap itself with no gain whatsoever - so imagine what TWENTY YEARS of Putin mind feckery has done to that country.

They’re all, without exception, either clueless or helpless - as in, the people who can see through it daren’t express that and can do utterly nothing about it so better to just get on with their lives.

Russia should really now be seen as another North Korea. It’s beyond reform and Putin will not be ousted.

Really sad, and I especially feel for the intellectuals there.

I think globally, we really need to start consciously dismantling this toxic nationalism that has risen during Putin’s era (in other countries) and is leading the World down a very dark path.

We need to shut down and stop giving legitimacy to the avenues that allow ideas like Putin’s to develop.

We need to make sure such ideology is immediately sniffed out and removed.
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Putinism in Europe should be treated same way as communism in sixties-eighties. Completely unacceptable. Prosecute the leaders of those parties by checking where does the money come from.
 
Vidyoyo said:
Do you think they were worried the reporting might be a cover up to get them to share views that could land them in trouble?

Asking as I really felt for the young guy who talked about abstaining from sharing his views because of the consequences.
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Most likely.
 
Revan said:
Putinism in Europe should be treated same way as communism in sixties-eighties. Completely unacceptable. Prosecute the leaders of those parties by checking where does the money come from.
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Completely agree. It really needs to become ‘a thing’ where any sniff of it is immediately loudly called out and the public are taught about it and how to spot it.

It simply must be weeded out at this point, at the very least that’s what should come out of this awful invasion (in other countries - Europe and America).

It’s all well and good sanctioning Russia - but it’s Putin’s revolting and dangerous influence and meddling that needs to be removed most of all.
 
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