Ukraine Invasion: Part 32

[MagicFox]

Gosh, that last one filled up quick! Welcome to 32, all 🇺🇦

I'm seeing more and more credible discussion that the increased Russian attacks on civilian targets and infrastructure in Ukraine had already been planned and may well be part of Surovikin's brief. The aim is rhetoric at the top is still to 'de-nazify' Ukraine - so defeat / regime change. The Kerch bridge explosion gave some excuse, cover and opportunity to rage.

Surovikin is also being called General Armageddon, e.g. here:

military.pravda.ru/news/1758202-armageddon_svo/

Straight Google translation of the latter part of that in image.

What there isn't in Ukrainian media/social media (and only residual in Russian at the moment) is talk of any escalation to nuclear. Western media/social media is still WAAAAAHHHHHH!

⚡️ UK intelligence: Russia's new commander to lead 'poorly resourced' army against Ukraine.

Mayor: Russia hits Lviv, power outages reported.
Russian forces struck Lviv on Oct. 11, hitting critical infrastructure again and leaving 30% of the city without electricity, said the city mayor, Andrii Sadovyi. Two neighborhoods are left without water.

💸 The Ukrainian edition of Forbes estimated the cost of Russian missiles fired at Ukraine on October 10 at $400-700 million.

📌 Some of the largest U.S. airports have been targeted for cyberattacks by hackers from the Russian Federation, ABC News reports, citing a senior U.S. official
Airport systems cannot manage air traffic, internal communications and airline coordination do not work.
More than a dozen sites were affected by the hacker attack, said John Hultquist, Vice President of Intelligence Analysis at Mandiant.
According to Hultquist, the pro-Russian hacker group Killnet is behind the attack.

🚨The Russian army opened an emergency stock of missiles – expert
Such a command could have been given by General Sergei Surovikin, Roman Svitan believes. [if this is true, then it's hard to see that they expect to gain any advantages by using them since the targets were civilian not military]

India will not trade with Russia in rubles and rupees, the currencies for settlements will remain global – dollars and euros, – Times of India.

Ukraine has turned the tide of the war and is confronting Russian troops that are in a state of exhaustion, Jeremy Fleming, head of the UK Government Communications Center (GCHQ), said on Tuesday, BBC reports.
The main theses from the speech of the head of the special services:
▪️ Despite a massive missile attack on the territory of Ukraine, the Russian military is running out of ammunition, and the decisions of Russian President Vladimir Putin turned out to be wrong.
▪️ Russia's spending on the war in Ukraine in terms of people and equipment is staggering, but all the successes of Russian troops on the battlefield in the first months of the war are now nullified.
▪️ Russian commanders on the ground know that their supplies and ammunition are running out.
▪️ In the absence of effective internal resistance, Vladimir Putin's decisions turned out to be erroneous. This is a high-stakes strategy that leads to strategic errors in judgment.

👥 Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Grossi will meet today in Moscow with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin

The news today in Finland is telling us to stock iodine for anyone under 40, saying this is because of the WHO's recommendations from 5 years ago... odd timing to suddenly decide now is the time to tell us to stock up when the recommendations are 5 years old!

Also in the news is the Bank of Finland saying that the Russian economy is suffering nicely from sanctions and the costs of war, contracting 4% this year and next. Proof sanctions work despite the trolls often saying otherwise :)

What does iodine do @Natsku? Is it readily available? Hope you're all ok.

If you are still growing or breastfeeding, it prevents development of thyroid cancer from radiation. We have some, govt issued, as we live near an aging nuclear power plant.

Apparently its not much use for adults but helps for growing people.

They say here its no use over the age of 40 (unless pregnant woman over 40, for the sake of the baby) but under that age it is helpful if there's radiation, to protect the thyroid (although there isn't anything suitable for under 3s here, apparently they're going to try to source something, I guess liquid iodine, for them). I bought some back in the spring when I was panicking so already got it in stock (though I have thyroid issues so not sure if its helpful for me anyway?)

@JacquelineCarlyle they sell it in pharmacies, so readily available

Lavrov's comments are interesting. Apparently Russia is ready to speak with the West but has not received any offer of engagement. He also says that Putin would be open to meeting Biden on the sidelines of the G20 (can't see that happening some how). Also confirmed that Putin will meet Erdogan on the sidelines of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia. Expected to discuss Ukraine but very much framed as West-Russia discussions.

Lots of people reading that Putin is desperate to engage with the West in order to find an off-ramp. Assume, and hope, however that Western leaders won't agree to discuss Ukraine without Ukraine actually being at the table.

The idea is that you have them at home but you never take them until directed to by the authorities. They are only needed for children and young people (DH says under 30 ish) who've been exposed to high radiation doses.

Here in Sweden we haven't been told to have them in but you still can't buy them as everywhere is sold out anyway.

Trouble is whatever is decided peace terms wised, Russia cant be trusted to stay on their own side of the border.

also what is happening re Belarus, if they join in as feared Ukraine will be fighting on another front.

I do question if they would rather be seen as to give concessions to the west as opposed to Ukraine itself. Obviously the caveat would have to include a full retreat from Ukraine in any deal (this would be the only way to do a deal that didn't involve Ukraine themselves) I'm sure there would be some agreement on nuclear weapons and NATO expansion etc. Who knows to be honest. I do think over the winter more diplomacy will start as both sides will struggle to make huge advances for about 4 months.

To be fair though the only way for that would be a regime change in Russia that even if Putin went we can't guarantee. If there is a way to expel them from Ukraine right now then that has to be seen as an option. The only other option to achieve this is full regime change which would involve WW3, unless the Russian people rise up.

You're welcome, @DrBlackbird. I understand the concern with Elon Musk. There's an old saying that you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want. Musk was able to step in and augment their communications infrastructure. I don't know if there was a similarly commercially available offering. To his credit, he's accepted some donations for the hardware but hasn't charged the Ukrainians for the rest of the kit or for the ongoing service.

I think that Musk also knows that if he pulled the plug, even he would not be able to stomach the backlash.

>Lots of people reading that Putin is desperate to engage with the West in order to find an off-ramp.

Such as?

Deep in Putin's backstory are issues with Ukraine and Crimea in particular. He has seized Crimea after the Maidan Revolution and started a war in Donbas that led to a cease-fire establishing two Russian-proxy statelets. This year he tried to replace the leadership in Ukraine by rushing in decapitation forces, failed and has made military advances, withdrawals and suffered losses. He recently annexed to his satisfaction four oblasts - in their entirety or not (there are contradictory statements).

Now he wants an off-ramp from his actions.

I don't know what that might be. Truly. Does he?

Was anyone else mildly amused by the Russian student on University Challenge last night, doing a PhD on Military History?

Part of me does feel now if he was offered Crimea for a full retreat he would take it. As much as Ukraine shouldn't have to concede and land, if they can get back to 2014 area and then have NATO garuntees about any future aggression that this may eventually be what we are looking at for an peace deal. Both sides will go in with the ultimate terms but concessions are normally made from both sides in the end. Zelenskey signing a decree to make peace talks illegal I think is symbolic to get Russia to cede things they wouldn't have normally wanted to to get Ukraine to the table.

I really don't know how much influence the west would have on any concessions from the Ukraine side. However European resolve is already showing very small signs of diminishing. The west will want an end to the conflict before it becomes devided on support for Ukraine.

Lots of people reading that Putin is desperate to engage with the West in order to find an off-ramp.

I recall an interview I saw with a Russian political dissident early in the war (March or April, I think) who scoffed at the notion of Putin needing an off-ramp. His point was that when he decides that when the situation becomes sufficiently dangerous for him, Putin is perfectly capable of finding his own justification for ending the war.

Putin doesn't need an off ramp. If he wanted an out he could just pull out and announce any old bullshit he wanted to justify it. 'Ukraine? Nah we were training in Belarus, don't believe this anti Russian NATO propaganda.'

I saw a similar/same interview around that time, MissConductUS, probably on CNN.

IIRC the interviewee said: "When Putin wants an off-ramp, he'll let us know."

Just for clarification not for a second saying Putin should be given one or that he would stick to any agreement made, simply feeding back what I've seen reported.

I think media in the West chattering about finding Putin an off-ramp is at some level buying into Putin's original message that his invasion is somehow the West's responsibility.

The idea that "Russia is ready to speak with the West but has not received any offer of engagement" also sounds very familiar. Real ring of Putin's previous line of "When are you going to invite Russia to join NATO?"

He never puts himself in the subordinate position of asking for something – which might risk being turned down. He always speaks as though the onus to request something is on the other party – then he gets to choose whether to turn them down or to claim he's doing them a favour by accepting.

Yep, absolutely, Igotjelly, and thank you for reporting on that stuff.

Oh absolutely I don't think we should be giving into Russia what so ever. However if we can have a diplomatic solution that at the very minimum gets Ukraine back to pre 2014 levels with further security garuntees, I at least think it should be explored. Thing is we can't trust Putin now and we can't trust him in the future when he's not in Ukraine. But I'd much rather be not trusting him while he's not bombing the shit out of Ukraine.

Logically, Putin would need at the very least, keep Crimea & gain Donbas and Luhansk. Sure he can BS & control his population but the people around him?

No, Putin knows no reverse gear, he has to keep going and trust/hope that the West will crumble under financial pressure (not helped in the UK by an idiot who is making matters worse than they already were, with international economic implications) if we don't and he fails, then he is as good as dead, he is fighting for his life.

Ch4 News had an interesting interview last night with a guy involved in someway with Lavrov, basically, Russia believes in "rules of engagement" e.g what is a valid target and what isn't... so Russia has avoided bombing all of Ukraine's infrastructure, such as power rail water sewage, in return, Ukraine doesn't attack Russian infrastructure e.g. bridges.... he also acknowledged the war (he called it a war) isn't going well for Russia but believes the mobilisation may be a game changer!!!

Its some leap of logic considering what Russia has attacked & destroyed so far but there must be a reason why, considering Russia has the means, it has not (yet) tried to destroy all the infrastructure, unless its purely down to having a country to take over?

mobile.twitter.com/berlin_bridge/status/1579805486828130306