Ukraine

[Casey E]

Putin's folly will be increasingly hard to spin inside Russia.

The Economist says:





But Pooti has a plan, moving towards the Chinese model, with "RuWiki"

Wikipedia had faced trouble from the Kremlin before, with Russian censors threatening it almost from the start of the Ukrainian war in 2014. But it was only in late 2023, with the appearance of glitzy ads across Moscow, that a serious plan to replace it became clear. RuWiki, as the censors’ project is known, is mostly a straightforward copy of Wikipedia. But the most sensitive moments of history have been left out or rewritten. The Kremlin’s ideologues hope that millions of Russians will now embrace these new versions as the truth. The RuWiki project might be called Orwellian, if only the British author were not himself occasionally censored. The entry on “Nineteen Eighty Four,” for example, omits the regular site’s description of Winston Smith’s Ministry of Truth, where historical records are “corrected” (though Smith’s job does get a mention elsewhere). Elsewhere, RuWiki’s rewriters hack their way through the sensitive zones of Putinist ideology: lgbt rights, oral sex, Soviet history and the war in Ukraine.

Russian atrocities in Bucha, near Kyiv, in 2022 are reimagined as a “Ukrainian and Western disinformation campaign”. Kherson, a Ukrainian city being destroyed by Russian bombs, is mentioned without a word about the war. The execution of nearly 22,000 Polish officers at Katyn in 1940 is rewritten to cast doubt on the archive documents proving it was done by Soviet secret services. There is no entry on Putin khuylo!, a derogatory chant mocking the Russian president first heard on Ukrainian football terraces in 2014. And all references to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was killed in prison in February 2024, are altered to describe him as a mere “blogger”.

A forthcoming analysis of the site by Mediazona, an independent Russian media outfit, shows the vast majority of the new edits are being made during weekday working hours. They reckon that shows teams of paid writers are doing the edits, unlike Wikipedia’s volunteer model.

Earlier versions of the RuWiki site were open about how much was changed and when. In late 2023, it was possible to see that a full 158,000 symbols had been erased from an original Wikipedia text about Russian human rights. An entry on “Russian freedom of speech” was 205,000 symbols lighter. The article on “censorship” was also 71,000 symbols shorter. But recent versions of the site hide such statistics, likely due to negative media publicity.

Despite long-running disagreements, Russian authorities have not yet blacklisted Wikipedia as they have dozens of other media. For the time being the two exist side by side. But the heavy investment in RuWiki suggests that Wikipedia’s days are numbered. Sergei Leschina, a member of the original Russian Wikipedia team, who left in 2015 following earlier attempts at censorship, says the Kremlin views such resources as bricks in a Chinese-style wall around the truth. The Russian internet is slowly being cleaned of foreign sites, he said, and local search engines and ai models will soon be compelled to prioritise the new fake history. “The Russian internet isn’t yet built like the Chinese one,” he says, “but it’s the direction we are heading, and quickly.”

https://www.economist.com/europe/202...ting-wikipedia

[J. Barron DeJong]

There is no peace deal to be had:



https://x.com/yarotrof/status/181104...sR_NcRK2VkCfkg

[LongShortLong]

There is no peace deal to be had:



https://x.com/yarotrof/status/181104...sR_NcRK2VkCfkg

I agree it would be nice for western governments to recognize Russia's aims and boldly act to thwart them. However, given the structure of our governments, our leaders usually won't lead very much further than the voters desire. So, the cc must go to the voters. And they need to be convinced a seemingly faraway war bears significantly on their future. The voters need to recognize what Russia is becoming - a threat to the relatively stable peace we've enjoyed so long that we take it for granted. We take for granted that countries will largely stay in their borders, and limit coercion to non-kinetic means. Russia's starting us on the path to new rules, more violent rules.

[Meconium]

I don't have much AI enhanced typing to offer, yet I have much to think about.

[Meconium]

Hopefully fingers pointing is just that. Recalibrate and kick ass

[Meconium]

If need be, why not just rain down a bunch of ATACMS front line?

[Meconium]

F-16's, time will tell.

[MultiVerse]

Like so many systems, F-16s arrived too late, too small a quantity, and pre-announced to be a game changer but will still prove helpful in denying Russian entry in Ukraine's airspace thanks to air-to-air missiles, help degrade Russian AD thanks to anti-radar missiles, and wreck Russian infantry with the help of GPS & laser-guided bombs. The planes will also have upgraded radar, rather than their original radar.

[Viva]

Yup, from the below article it seems that the birds are going to be used cautiously for awhile in a defensive mode:

https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/...245J1898412H2J

Regarding the above link, from a different website, posted by a former military pilot:

" Doctrinally that mission set is called DCA - Defensive Counter-Air. Since they'll only have a few of them [F-16s], it's the most bang-for-the-buck. The problem with SAMs, defensively, is they aren't that mobile, and they can't cover all that much space. Russia is learning that the hard way too. Jets can move to wherever the threat is coming from. Which makes for much bigger coverage. And compared to offense, it's relatively low risk. Plus, the magazine is deep. While Patriot missiles are a slowly drying up resource, and expensive, switching to using air to air missiles for the same job, well there's lots of those available. And if they push forward just enough, just enough times, to put some of Russia's launching bombers at risk, the hope is that they pull back more. Preventing them from launching so many missiles is equally a win to just shooting them down. They don't even have to shoot down a bomber for that to work. Deterrence works at the operational scale as well as the strategic."

And from the same author:

"Nobody has ever suggested F16 will sweep aside the Russians and win the war. They're a tool. Deterrence alone is a game changer, because it literally - changes the game. If Russia has to change their tactics, move where they base, alter operations - all of that comes at a cost. And it comes with new risks, and new opportunities for mistakes. Maybe Ukraine uses Russia's probably strong desire for a propaganda win, to lure them into another trap like they did with the AWACS."

[Meconium]

https://x.com/RealJakeBroe/status/1819130887399002211

[riser4]

https://x.com/RealJakeBroe/status/1819130887399002211

Yes, Russia has nuked me!

[subtle plague]

Yes, Russia has nuked me!

Did you have a father daughter dance during the nuking? I've heard that's the most common occasion they nuke people.

[The Reverend Floater]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/03/europ...-ml/index.html

That sub has the worst luck.

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[Meconium]

https://x.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1820944628142486005.

[summit]

Eagerly await BDA. Hopefully many Orc aircraft

[MultiVerse]

The aftermath:



At least one Su-34 destroyed, two others likely damaged, a munitions depot destroyed, and lots of secondary explosions.

[tgapp]

https://x.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1820944628142486005.

Is this a second attack on the same airfield?

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[The Reverend Floater]

Hard to imagine that only one aircraft was destroyed with that much concussion and incineration. That's a serious skull-fucking right there.

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[J. Barron DeJong]

https://x.com/yarotrof/status/182122...sR_NcRK2VkCfkg

[Lvovsky]

^ yep…

https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-...-kursk-oblast/

[MultiVerse]

Wait for iiiiittttttt... M1 Abrams armor engagements against T-34s at the Battle of Kursk!?!

[The Reverend Floater]

Wait for iiiiittttttt... M1 Abrams armor engagements against T-34s at the Battle of Kursk!?!

Perhaps a few F16s dropping guided munitions on artillery? Mmmmm?

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[ötzi]

Putin accuses the Ukrainians of a "large-scale provocation". Hm.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-uk...f5a40fbc5a1db7

[Mazderati]

Let he who is without special military operation cast the first large-scale provocation.

[Meconium]

Time will tell is the only answer. But Jake is somewhat sensical.