Day 903 of Ukraine War

Alexandra Mulkevych died in the drone strike on the ambulance.

A working, occupied ambulance was struck by an FPV drone, which means the Russians knew exactly what they were aiming at! Alexandra, one of the medical personnel killed, was one day away from returning home.

Another Su-34 destroyed.

Ukrainians are using every British weapon in their possession except for the long range Storm Shadow missiles.

Russian trench-diggers are getting the equivalent of $2,250 per month.

Russia sending conscripts to defend against the Ukrainian Kursk incursion. There are alleged rules concerning how to deploy conscripts. Russia is ignoring those rules. Not many signs that Russians are letting up on some parts of the front in order to stop Kursk incursion. We’re seeing “scores of young Russian conscripts thrown at advancing elite Ukrainian airborne units.”

This would be a very good time to increase ammunition deliveries.

Air assaults on Sumy have primarily come from Kursk region.

Ukrainians are seeing to humanitarian needs of Russian citizens caught behind Ukrainian lines. “Russia has abandoned these communities without essential supplies,”

Starlink doesn’t work in Russia, so communications are a bit challenging for the Ukrainians.

Drones attack three major airbases.

Videos of airfields being hit by drones at night.

https://balloon-juice.com/2024/08/14/war-for-ukraine-day-903-another-day-another-horrific-russian-war-crime/

Day 899 of war in Ukraine

So there are apparently no meaningful “red lines,” so why isn’t Ukraine given permission to use ATACMS missiles in Russian territory?

Russians attacking with drones instead of the usual missiles.

Identifying bodies from the supermarket in Kostiantinivka.

Ukraine has still not received clearance to use US missiles in Russia.

Kursk offensive by Ukraine into Russia appears to have been joined by second strike into Begorod oblast. Russia’s defenses once you break through the border area are quite weak.

General sense being chaos & abandonment [on Russian side] by Moscow. "I want to understand where our state is at all? Where is the administration?”

Russians describe military response to Ukrainian invasion “as a “counterterrorist operation,” giving them the same legal status as law-enforcement actions against Islamist extremist groups in the northern Caucasus.” Russia’s military is NOT in charge of counteroffensive against Ukrainians. Counteroffensive is handled by “the Federal Security Service, Russia’s domestic intelligence agency” FSB will loyally handle the job, but is unlikely to be successful.

Question as to how to secure border as conscripts are currently used.

Ukraine uses marine kamikaze drones to take out Russian naval targets.

Iran will be sending ballistic missile systems to Russia

https://balloon-juice.com/2024/08/10/war-for-ukraine-day-899-belgorod/

Day 887 of war for Ukraine

First Olympic gold medal for Ukraine goes to the fencer Olga Kharlan!

Russian drones are going after individual civilians in Kherson. About 50 civilians have died.

the situation in the Pokrovsk direction remains critical, and some areas of defense have started to collapse.

Commanders being threatened with dismissal.

US sends $200 million aid package.

Progress made in French rail saboteurs. Far-left French anarchists are the main suspects, but they’re looking at everyone. Too many attacks to be happenstance. This is a coordinated attack.

Tuareg rebels defeated Russian state-funded Wagner mercenaries, then took picture of themselves with a Ukrainian flag.

The Pokrovsk front is buckling.

Reserves are getting short, so units cannot be pulled out of the line for rest and relaxation. Good news is that Russians are also in poor shape.

Russia has accelerated its destruction of Ukraine’s front-line cities in 2024 to a scale previously unseen in the war using the glide bombs and an expanding network of airstrips

Russian boat with infantry hit by drone. No survivors.

...officials said the Russian government is engaged in a "whole-of-government" effort to influence the U.S. presidential election and that it favored Trump,

Iran is working for Democrats and against Trump.

West looks at Ukraine-Russia situation.

https://balloon-juice.com/2024/07/29/war-for-ukraine-day-887-russia-is-using-drones-to-hunt-civilians-in-kherson/

 

Day 869 War in Ukraine

 

Since May 10, almost a thousand civilians have either died or have been wounded in Kharkiv.

US intelligence discovered Russian plans to assassinate a German industrialist who was actively supporting Ukraine. Russia has also been carrying out acts of sabotage across Europe. At what point does sabotage and undercover actions become warfare that demands an appropriate response? Further problem with an appropriate NATO response is: Will it deter future action or will Russia be encouraged to commit still more actions or will it start acting in a more restrained fashion?

Interesting. Russia is saying through false news sources “that the Americans are secretly hiring Latin American criminals to fight in Ukraine.”

Zelenskyy again asks that long-range missiles be used to attack targets in Russia. Russians, of course, warn the West against doing that.

Things are better on the battlefield than they were earlier, but Ukraine still has a ways to go.

“Ukraine is very low on ammunition for legacy Soviet systems, whereas Russian drone and missile production rates have increased significantly.” Glide bombs are an increasing problem.

Norway sends air defense system.

“Lithuania's support to Ukraine is long-term & amounts to €1 bn “

Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands all step up to deliver more to Ukraine.

Ukrainians describe being tormented by Russians while they were captives.

https://balloon-juice.com/2024/07/11/war-for-ukraine-day-869-russias-wetwork-program/

War for Ukraine Day 865

 

Hmm, a most interesting alliance.

Air raid alerts all over Ukraine.

Zelenskyy and the UK Secretary of State for Defence visit wounded troops in the hospital.

French left wing wins Parliamentary election. Heh! “split-screen of Team Democracy vs the far right.”

Story of a 102-year old French resistance fighter who was selected to carry an Olympic Torch. She’s unhappy about how much of the vote the far right was able to get.

Blogger: “anyone who tells me they’re not going to vote is if that’s the case then you need to read everything you can about the French partisan underground in WW II, the Bielskys, and Bernard Fall’s Theories of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency. Fall was a member of the French partisan underground.”

An Estonian soldier: “the window of opportunity for russia to achieve anything on the front in 2024 is steadily narrowing.” During Speaker Johnson’s blockade of Ukraine aid was Russia’s best opportunity. With aid now arriving, that window is shrinking.

Statistics on horrendous Russian losses. “Russia is strong but also rigid, and no one knows her breaking point — including Putin since his own people lie to him.”

The Ukrainian drone campaign is a thorn in Russia’s side.

A Russian milblogger examines his own social circle since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Most have died or have been incapacitated.

Another Russian Su-25 jet shot down!

Film clip on how many Russian tanks remain. The easily-repaired ones are long since sent to the front. Those harder to repair were left behind, so it’s likely that their reserves will get more and more useless.

9k square meter ammunition depot set ablaze by drones. The ammo dump continued to detonate hours later.

https://balloon-juice.com/2024/07/07/war-for-ukraine-day-865-all-of-ukraine-is-under-air-raid-alert-russian-missiles-are-inbound/

War for Ukraine Day 823

 

There are several corpses burned beyond recognition after Kharkiv is bombed. 8-year old Mykhailo gives DNA so that they might be able to identify if one of them is his missing father.

An 80-year old picture of a toddler handing another child a flower as they're in line to be gassed. Unfortunately, this resembles many, many other children in today’s world, living life while not realizing their circumstances.

A 12-year old girl finds her father dead in the hospital after Kharkiv is hit with nearly two dozen bombs.

Zelenskyy puts out a film where he asks whether Russia desires to negotiate.

“Ukraine has the world’s greatest experience of deception by Russia in negotiations. Deception, which, in particular, was Russia’s cover for the preparation of this war.”

Sweden gives Ukraine permission to use its weapons to directly strike Russia. US and Germany now have to either follow or get out of the way. The British realize: “International law is quite clear- Ukraine has a right to defend itself & that includes striking cross border”

Baltic countries and Poland will send their troops to Ukraine in the event of serious successes of the Russian military at the frontlines

Biden is engaging with both Russian and Israeli aggression “with only the most tepid and minimal pushback.” Putin is “probing with bayonets. Other than the Ukrainians themselves, he has yet to find steel.”

Sumy Oblast struck with 28 separate attacks.

Somehow, Russia considers itself entitled to have a safe zone.

Short film clip of a scene inside a home when a Russian missile strikes nearby.

Battle assessment.

Tatarigami and his Frontelligence Team have published a new investigation into Russian missile manufacturing.

https://balloon-juice.com/2024/05/26/war-for-ukraine-day-823-the-butchers-bill-for-kharkiv/

War for Ukraine Day 818

 

Tucker Carlson now has a show on “Russia 24.”

Kharkiv is being pummeled by missiles. Ukraine’s soldiers tell me that they cannot adequately fight back without striking inside Russia.” US refuses to permit Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia. We’re essentially asking Ukraine to fight with one hand tied behind its back.

Zelenskyy is getting impatient. Says weapons are arriving, but too late.

Small weapons deliveries have allowed the Russian foe to adapt to Western aid.

The Russian advance toward Kharkiv has slowed down. Detailed summation of what the advance has been able to achieve.

“Here is Tatarigami’s take on The Economist reporting above” What Russian strategy suggests is that they wanted to get within artillery rance of Kharkiv and to reduce the city.

Short film clip demonstrating effect of glide bombs.

Woo hoo! Another Russian ship, a Corvette, converted to a submarine!

Ukrainian naval drone launching unguided missiles in the direction of Russian positions on the Kinburn Peninsula, Mykolaiv/Kherson region.

Russian authorities have made a unilateral decision to change the sea borders of Russia with Lithuania and Finland in the Baltic Sea.

Now we wait to see what Lithuania and Finland do.

https://balloon-juice.com/2024/05/21/war-for-ukraine-day-818-kharkiv-is-bombarded-while-the-biden-administration-equivocates/

War in Ukraine 6May2024

 

Wow! Zelenskyy in Easter outfit! So rare to see him in anything but Army green. “We pray for all our cities and villages, that should feel the Lord’s grace, not the constant terror of evil, and which have black clouds hanging over them, and bombs and missiles coming from those who belong in hell, not in the Ukrainian sky.”

Russia hits Kharkiv with glide bombs, hitting the city center and apartment buildings. Sumy suffers massive fires.

Drones used to send Easter cakes to front-line troops.

A while ago, Russia was jamming GPS signals so that planes couldn’t safely land in the Baltic States. Seems that Russian sabotage is spreading. European intelligence agencies, especially those of Sweden, Germany and the Czech Republic, report an increase in Russian sabotage activity. “Russia has attempted to destroy the signalling systems on Czech railways, the country’s transport minister told the FT last month.” and “Putin is currently feeling “emboldened” and will seek to push lines as hard as he can in Europe”

Again, our blogger feels World War III began in 2007, it’s just mostly been a “non-kinetic” war. General Hodges examines things that the West fears about there being an active World War. First thing to understand is that deescalation has been tried and has decisively failed. Russia is “a militaristic adventurous regional power.”

The Russia Black Sea Fleet was dealt with, not through diplomacy, but by force. Force worked and that fleet is not a threat today. Let us not overstate Russia’s willingness to use nuclear weapons. NATO nuclear deterrence appears to be working fine.

Russia doesn’t ratchet down operations for Easter.

Pictures of what used to be the city center of Bakhmut.

Russians do their best to destroy n M1A1 Abrams tank. The tank went down fighting and “went out like a warrior!”

Russian approaching strategic highway.

Easter celebrated on the front lines.

Russian AFVs stored in an open field. The vehicles are more or less outdated and useless.

https://balloon-juice.com/2024/05/05/war-for-ukraine-day-803-russia-bombards-continues-its-bombardment-of-ukraine-despite-the-holy-day/

War in Ukraine 25Apr2024

France’s Macron defends Ukraine as being essential to Europe’s security. Russian pundit Solovyev “throws a tantrum” over what Macron has said.

Russia trying to destroy as much of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as possible before US aid arrives.

Now Russia’s hitting railways.

Zelenskyy thanks everyone who has helped.

Piece on why Europeans are reluctant to part with Patriot missile systems. These systems take a long time to produce.

The House vote [to resume aid to Ukraine] stops the hemorrhage of US credibility that had thrown US allies into varying degrees of alarm and demoralized Ukrainians…

Is the aid package enough? Ehh, it’s a good start. Can they get another one through? Hard to say. Blogger feels Biden Administration is too “risk averse.”

“What is more, even the fresh infusion of weaponry will not wholly eliminate Russia’s advantage in terms of firepower.“ Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against assaults by air shrank during dithering by the House. It’s hard to make up for that as a great deal of infrastructure has been destroyed.

Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, warns that “’the era of peace in Europe is over’ and that Kyiv would inevitably need more help to fight off Russia. … No single package can stop the Russians. What will stop the Russians is a united front of all of Ukraine and all of its partners.”

A Ukrainian veteran now living in Texas, warns that Russian propaganda can turn a country against Ukraine at any time. Ukrainians need to be aware of this. Russians use “disinformation, bribery, and the use of ‘useful idiots.’” Ukraine needs to localize weapons production.

The constant stress of living in wartime conditions.

Long video of a Russian armored assault on Krasnohorivka.

Murders committed by Russian soldiers who return from the war is over 100.

Petroleum tanks holding 200 liters each catch fire in Omsk (roughly 1k miles from Ukraine, just North of Kazakhstan).

https://balloon-juice.com/2024/04/25/war-for-ukraine-day-793-russia-continues-its-bombardment-of-ukraine/

War in Ukraine 18Apr2024

 

Ukrainian anti-aircraft gunner defending against drones.

Russian missile strike on Chernihiv.

It’s great that the Ukraine aid bill is FINALLY going to pass, but instead of simply passing the Senate bill, Speaker Johnson is making a number of very unhelpful changes to it. It’s completely unnecessary to be frugal and to try and save money. That’s the very LEAST of our concerns!

A Ukrainian explains that US aid is a matter of life and death.

CIA Director warns that Ukraine is in a very bad position.

Representative Greene wants the US to withdraw from NATO. Makes a number of other utterly bizarre proposals.

Poland causing trouble again.

Assassination plot foiled.

Czech President urges help for Ukraine.

““The West’s emphasis on escalation management has prolonged the war in Ukraine” permitting Russia to exercise a veto over NATO actions.

The alliance to protect Israel from Iranian air assault did not go unnoticed by Ukrainians. “This pattern of delays and half-measures shows no signs of changing.”

Elon Musk comes in for some deserved scorn. Starlink Is being used by Russians, though not through official, recognized methods.

After Russia launches a big June offensive, they’ll concentrate on the US elections.

Russia ramps up disinformation, falsely claiming Kharkiv faces Russian encirclement, urging residents to flee.

https://balloon-juice.com/2024/04/18/war-for-ukraine-day-786-the-butchers-bill-for-chernihiv/

War in Ukraine 16Apr2024

 

“The first dawn of 2023" by the fallen warrior Pavlo Petrychenko

Ukraine won’t win, according to Zelenskyy, if it doesn’t get supplies from the US.

House Democrats are annoyed that Speaker Johnson isn’t just putting the Senate Ukraine bill on the floor for an up or down vote.

Ukraine defended a power plant, but ran out of anti-aircraft missiles. The plant was gutted.

Zelenskyy was interviewed by PBS. He feels the West is very concerned about the consequences of a possible Ukrainian victory, but feels the consequences of a Ukrainian defeat are very much in the immediate future and are quite dire.

Ukrainians very aware of how Israel and Ukraine get very different levels of protection from allies.

“two years of escalation management” has given Russia time to recover and to rebuild its army. Putin has no reason to stop now.

Foreign Affairs puts out a rather silly piece on peace talks in March 2022. I’ve looked into these talks myself. They had no chance of succeeding. “certain high-browed armchair strategists” were convinced that the talks had a serious chance. They didn’t. Writers from the Polish Institute of International Affairs did a debunking thread on the piece. The Russian “goal was to present the Ukrainian side with an ultimatum…”

From a piece in the Economist: “An agreement made with a compulsive liar probably means only one thing: him regrouping, rearming and trying for more in two or three years.” Putin still has maximalist aims.

https://balloon-juice.com/2024/04/16/war-for-ukraine-day-783-the-gop-house-majoritys-dysfunction-is-actively-harming-ukraine/

War in Ukraine 15Apr2024

 

Noticing the different reactions to air assault by Russia and Iran, many Eastern European states are apparently considering getting nuclear weapons.

Actually, splitting the votes on Israel and Ukraine is probably a good idea, but no, I don’t agree with Speaker Johnson that Ukraine should “stand on its own.”

Israel is determined to strike Iran, even though Biden is encouraging them to “take the win.”

Zelenskyy examines the many allies who helped to shoot down the Iranian aerial attack.

LTG Budanov, the Director of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR), sat for an interview with ICTV

Heartwarming greeting by Ukrainians to soldiers who received prosthetic legs.

Ukrainian firefighter runs half-Marathon in full fire-fighting gear.

Representative Greene again argues there’s no evidence Russian conquests will continue after Ukraine falls. Erm, remind me, what evidence was there that Ukraine would be invaded to begin with?

VP Harris tells Zelenskyy to stop bombing Russian fuel-making facilities. Blogger calls her idea “strategic malpractice.” Ukrainians are quite rightfully annoyed that they’re getting strategic imitations while NOT getting weaponry!

By the way, cutting off US aid to Ukraine did NOT result in Ukraine surrendering to Russia!

The Czech ammunition initiative has attracted onsiderable international attention. This is a positive thing.

In the village of Robotyne, ALL of the houses were destroyed!

Israel assessing whether to strike back at Iran or not.

https://balloon-juice.com/2024/04/15/war-for-ukraine-day-782-if-the-opposite-of-pro-is-con-then-the-opposite-of-progress-is-a-gop-majority-in-congress/

War in Ukraine 5Apr2024

 

US sanctions are doing some good! An oil refinery was damaged and can’t be fixed without US parts. The damaged component was producing over 400k tons a month of gasoline.

“Today, 350,000 households in Kharkiv are without electricity.” A nuclear facility in Kharkiv was also endangered.

More “double tap” bombing. Three First Responders die.

NATO is 75 years old now.

“’We have assessed over the course of the last couple of months that Russia has almost completely reconstituted militarily,’ said Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell.” Russians have lost 315k soldiers, but defense spending is up 6% of National GDP and Russians have placed their economy on a war footing. China is helping them.

Good news: “armored losses are being replaced by civilian vehicles such as vans, pickup trucks, and other unarmored vehicles.” At a minimum, according to Oryx, which counts only verified losses, Russia has lost over 15k vehicles, which includes 2,856 tanks. Ukraine has also sunk 20 Russian ships, again, Ukraine doesn’t have a Navy.

Congressman Ted Lieu and many other American officials support Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries.

When towns are evacuated, older Ukrainians often stay behind. NPR looks at those who stay behind.

Putin doesn’t believe that there are radical Islamisms in Russia, their presence must be a Western plot!

Many more details about Havana Syndrome than was presented on 60 Minutes the other day.

https://balloon-juice.com/2024/04/04/war-for-ukraine-day-771-the-butchers-bill-from-kharkiv/

War in Ukraine 31Mar2024

 

Two-year anniversary of liberation of Bucha. A mass gravesite has been established.

Ukraine hasn’t fully moved to a Western calendar yet, so their Easter is 5 May.

The last piece of the two Donetsk provinces was Avdiivka, which makes that city quite important.

Ukraine’s largest gas storage location is in Stryi, in the Western-most province in Ukraine.

Russia is trying to wear down Ukrainian air defenses, power generation and transmission and their agricultural sector.

France will deliver hundreds of armored personnel carriers.

As the US Ambassador runs to the air raid shelter along with Ukrainians, US effectiveness ebbs. Knowing the Trump may win the 2024 election adds to the gloom. An examination of Trump’s impact on NATO and the defense of Ukraine.

There’s a longer discussion in regard to the fact that Trump is out of office yet is significantly affecting US foreign policy.

...

Grenell has been acting as a kind of shadow secretary of state

.The manner in which Russia has occupied Ukraine means that stopping the war does NOT mean stopping the killing of Ukrainians.

Russians have gained 250 square kilometers since the Republican-led House cut off aid.

Russia “suspects” Ukrainian head of security service played a role in Crocus City massacre and demands Ukraine turn him over. Ukraine refuses.

https://balloon-juice.com/2024/03/31/war-for-ukraine-day-767-russia-bombarded-ukraine-again-overnight/

Latest Ukrainian Update

 First whole part of this is on conspiracy theories about the Wagner Group's Prigozhin. Pretty wild stuff. 

Second part brings to mind a German word I learned a long time ago, schwerpunkt. It means focus of effort and is often the difference between success and failure. The invasion of France in 1940 was a marvelous example of a successful application of schwerpunkt. The German army focused upon the Ardennes (it was thought that armored vehicles couldn't penetrate the thick forests, oops!) and the German army stayed together until it hit the English Channel. The German army acted as a single armored fist that succeeded rather quickly.

The Soviet Union was NOT a good example. Der Fuhrer split up the invading army into three more-or-less equal groups and focused first on this area, then on that area, until winter caused the army to stop. The Stalingrad campaign was okay, but by then the army had been weakened, the Soviet army had regained a lot and the Germans really needed to account for the winter calling a halt to everything. 

In 2022, the Russian strategy of having four axes of advance showed rather quickly that it was simply too many axes. The Kyiv and Kharkiv axes were abandoned, and the Donbas and Crimean axes met and formed a "bridge" and then tried to advance Westward. 

According to the blogger, Ukraine has left trying to re-take Bakhmut and has focused all of its efforts to Melitopol in order to break that "bridge" between the Donbas and Crimea.  This approach is very heavily guarded but promises the biggest effect on Russian forces. 

Number of Russian tanks in Ukraine

 

The Russian army started the war in Ukraine with 3,300 tanks. Oryx counts absolutely certain losses and comes up with about 1,500 losses, 1,000 destroyed and 500 captured and put back into service by Ukraine. The Ukrainian General Staff comes up with 3,458 because their standard is “pretty sure.” There's no indication that Russia has a large number of new models rolling off the assembly lines, so how are there any tanks left on the Russian side?

Popular Mechanics says that Russia has a thriving tank industry that refurbishes old tanks. The T-62, the model was developed in 1961, is getting rebuilt and sent to the battlefield. The British Ministry of Defense estimates 800 T-62s have been refurbished and sent to Ukraine. .

Peace proposals for Ukraine

Was just talking with some buddies about the war in Ukraine. They said that the US Peace Council has advocated peace talks between Ukraine and Russia. I then looked at various peace advocates. Russian diplomat Lavrov says that Russia and Ukraine were close to a deal in April, but Zelenskyy agreed with the US and Britain that the deal should not move forward. Found a very interesting paragraph (press people call this the “nut graph,” the paragraph that sums up the most important point in the piece).

Russia has repeatedly rejected Ukrainian and Western demands that it withdraw completely from Ukraine as a condition for any negotiations. US President Joe Biden has indicated he would be willing to talk with Putin if the Russian leader demonstrated that he seriously wanted to end the invasion.

It’s very difficult to see how any negotiations can even begin with Ukraine ceding any territory to Russia. That’s not a permanent or lasting peace as the war would simply continue once Russia had rebuilt its currently devastated army.

Is the possibility of nuclear war increasing? Actually, it’s decreasing. China has made it quite clear to Russia that they won’t put up with Russia using nuclear weapons. India has said the same. The US has also stated that it would respond to a nuclear launch by Russia with non-nuclear weapons.

Update: So if I were in Putin's position and wanted peace with Ukraine, how would I begin? I'd probably agree, in principle, that Russia must leave the territory of Ukraine. Russia's doing the exact opposite,  

"I think you only have to look at Putin's own words in a recent conversation with President Erdoğan of Türkiye in which he says unless and until Ukraine accepts the new territorial realities, as he put it, there's nothing to negotiate. In other words, unless and until Ukraine acknowledges and accepts the fact that the territory that Russia has seized by force, it's not getting back, there's nothing to negotiate. That of course is in and of itself a nonstarter," [Secretary of State Antony Blinken] added.

Should we have government control of social media companies?

I haven’t finished reading this interview “Fiona Hill: ‘Elon Musk Is Transmitting a Message for Putin’”, but it answers the objection of the “tankies” quite well. This tanky doesn’t use the Trumpian term “Deep State,” but she means something quite similar. The US is run by people who want to centralize the media under Washington DC’s control. Elon Musk is a brave, brave hero who dares to resist the Deep State that wants everyone united against Russia.

As Fiona Hill makes clear, Musk is just repeating, word for word, the line that Putin wants him to put out there. Seriously, does anyone believe Musk put any time and effort into studying the relationship between Russia and Crimea? Or is Musk simply responding to Putin appealing to Musk’s ego?

A big problem is that Musk doesn’t really appear to understand how social media platforms work. That’s why he wants to cut 75% of Twitter’s work force! He doesn’t have an appreciation as to how society at large versus a social media platform work, how the First Amendment is insufficient to content regulation online. As Regulatory Review puts it:

As they currently stand, social networks are self-regulated. Because of private content moderation, most social media platforms employ a combination of algorithmic and human action to determine what kinds of content to eject from their sites.

This is clearly not a sustainable state of affairs. As social media sites are not simply “The Press,” but are instead sites where abuses need regulation. Content moderation is something Musk just doesn’t appear to understand.

So yes, it’s good that Musk will continue the Starlink service for Ukraine, but yes, the US needs to seriously look at whether large social media platforms like Twitter can remain unregulated. Musk is currently putting up $44 billion to buy Twitter. There appear to be some foreign investors that are contributing to that.

Amnesty Internation & Ukraine

 Reuters:

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International's secretary general...called on the Ukrainian government to ensure that its forces were located away from populated areas or for all civilians to be evacuated from those areas first.

I dunno, that seems pretty difficult. Recall that Russia attacked Ukraine from several directions in February and that they’ve fired missiles so that they land all over the country. A real problem with the Amnesty report is that Russians hits civilian targets all the time. 

Balloon Juice blog:

Ukraine responds strongly to criticisms by Amnesty International.

Russian abuse of civilian populations (example: Bucha) means many Ukrainian civilians feel more secure being close to their military.

Amnesty deliberately ignored the opinions of their Ukrainian staff.

The Secretary General of Amnesty International gives a very highly defensive reaction to being criticized.

President Zelenskyy takes very strong issue with Amnesty’s claim. 

And also:  

Russians distributing weapons and ammunition among civilians in the city of Kherson, in violation of the laws of war.

 

The BJ piece also looks at: 

Russian spies look for missile targets in Ukraine.

Brittney Griner’s fate.

Alternative demo

In addition to the demo being held by the Granny Peace Brigade, Code Pink is sponsoring anti-war demos at Dilworth Park at 1:00pm and at Independence Plaza at 4:00pm.

Personally, I think Code Pink offers a “BothSides” platform “We oppose the Russian invasion and call for the immediate withdrawal of all Russian troops. We recognize that the expansion of NATO and the aggressive approach of Western states have helped cause the crisis and we demand an end to NATO expansion.“ I've addressed the charge of aggressive NATO expansion here.

Fundamental to the Code Pink recommendation is the idea that we and the Russians should open negotiations immediately. Problem with that is that successful negotiations are dependent on what's happening on the battlefield.

When the North Vietnamese attacked South Vietnam in 1975, they made a breakthrough very quickly and after a few weeks, it was clear they were going to roll over what was left of the South Vietnamese army. The US offered to negotiate. The North Vietnamese figured, yeah, they could do that, but as the South was going to soon fall into their laps anyway, why bother?

TFG (The Former Guy) or the former President Trump, offered to begin re-opening negotiations with Iran over the nuclear deal of 2015. Iran didn't see any point in that as Trump wasn't offering any positive incentives. TFG was simply offering a way for them to make unilateral concessions and to get nothing in return. They passed on that.

Is there any reason to think that negotiation with the Russian President Putin will produce positive results?

Tweet by Natasha Bertrand - “Putin told Emmanuel Macron that he will continue military operations in Ukraine during a 90-minute call initiated by Putin, an Élysée Palace source told reporters today.   Putin told Macron he will 'continue military interventions and go all the way,' the source said. “

And from Kevin Rothrock - “Russian lawmakers have introduced legislation that would conscript into the military anyone arrested for protesting against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. These people would be forced to fight in the invasion itself. What the fuck is happening to Russia. This is absolute madness. “

Putin thinks he's on a roll. He has absolutely no reason to seek to negotiate. The Granny Peace Brigade has a better idea. Putin's at fault. Period.