Ukraine: “I don’t need a ride, I need Ammunition”.

[SpaceChampion]

Vladimir Putin sits atop a crumbling pyramid of power

Quote

Now, one thing has become clear: with this war, Putin has crossed a line – a red line. The mask is off, the armor of the “enlightened autocrat” has cracked. Now, all westerners who sympathize with the “strong Russian tsar” have to shut up and realize that a full-scale war is being unleashed in 21st-century Europe. The aggressor is Putin’s Russia. It will bring nothing but death and destruction to Europe. This war was unleashed by a man corrupted by absolute power, who, in his madness, has decided to redraw the map of our world. If you listen to Putin’s speech announcing a “special operation”, America and Nato are mentioned more than Ukraine. Let us also recall his recent “ultimatum” to Nato. As such, his goal isn’t Ukraine, but western civilization, the hatred for which he lapped up in the black milk he drank from the KGB’s teat.

Who’s to blame? Us. Russians. And we’ll now have to bear this guilt until Putin’s regime collapses. For it surely will collapse and the attack on a free Ukraine is the beginning of the end.

Putinism is doomed because it’s an enemy of freedom and an enemy of democracy. People have finally understood this today. He attacked a free and democratic country precisely because it is a free and democratic country. But he’s the one who’s doomed because the world of freedom and democracy is far bigger than his dark and gloomy lair. Doomed because what he wants is a new Middle Ages, corruption, lies, and trampling on human freedoms. Because he is the past. And we must do everything in our power to make this monster remain there – in the past – for all time, together with his Pyramid of Power.

 

[Lord of Oop North]

So let me get this straight ...

The Russia that is currently not carpet bombing and unleashing massive artillery bombardment on Ukraine is all of a sudden going to ramp it up by dropping nuclear weapons, and start a thermonuclear war?

It seems like they might try less risky options first.

 

[Fez]

3 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Yeah, the nuclear escalation is particularly concerning since no one has any idea what Putin's order specifically means (if someone here does, please share). One analysis I read suggests that there are some guardrails in place during peacetime so nukes cant be deployed, so this removes those guardrails in a manner of speaking.

What I read, though who knows if it was totally accurate, was that it "connects the circuits", removing those guardrails as you mention. But's it's unclear if it's just changes in computer systems or if there might also be stuff like nuclear subs changing deploymnets, planes being prepped, etc.

It apparently also allows nukes to be launched without authorization from the Russian President, although only in cases where they can't be reached and there is confirmation that enemy nuclear weapons have detonated on Russian soil.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

33 minutes ago, Lord of Oop North said:

So let me get this straight ...

The Russia that is currently not carpet bombing and unleashing massive artillery bombardment on Ukraine is all of a sudden going to ramp it up by dropping nuclear weapons, and start a thermonuclear war?

It seems like they might try less risky options first.

 

You are presuming a rational actor.  Kalbear, and I to be very frank, are asking if that presumption is valid any longer.  Putin had always been a cany and careful actor in the past.  His build up on the Ukrainian border was disturbing but could be caulked up to a bluff.  Once he launched a full scale invasion of a nation the size of Central Europe… with full knowledge of the shitstorm it would create all presumptions of rationality are weak at best.  Hence our worry that he’s not just a little irrational… but extremely irrational and in charge of more than a thousand strategic nuclear weapons with high megaton yields.  

How may an irrational actor, as Putin has demonstrated himself, be successfully deterred from using the biggest club in his arsenal?

I really don’t know.  I hope like hell his own people will see the danger and take him out.

[Lord of Oop North]

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

You are presuming a rational actor.  Kalbear, and I to be very frank, are asking if that presumption is valid any longer.  

If Putin was not a rational actor, he would likely order his army to bomb Ukrainian cities into submission for daring to not collapse and continue defying His Greatness.

[Kalbear]

31 minutes ago, Lord of Oop North said:

So let me get this straight ...

The Russia that is currently not carpet bombing and unleashing massive artillery bombardment on Ukraine is all of a sudden going to ramp it up by dropping nuclear weapons, and start a thermonuclear war?

It seems like they might try less risky options first.

 

You would think that, and that seems entirely reasonable!

And the idea here is that Russia leadership is not acting in a reasonable way.

Now, there's another aspect to this - the economic sanctions. We simply do not know what is going to happen now. This is very much unprecedented territory. The world has effectively caused the Russian ruble to be an accounting gimmick and make it go from something that could be used to purchase anything in the world to something that can only be used in Russia.

What happens to Russians who want to buy stuff on the app store? Or Amazon? How do you participate in a lot of global life when all your money is worthless? It might not be bad, it might be okay, or it might cause a massive run on banks and credit and another recession as bank after bank calls for Russian loans to be paid for by currency that isn't worthless.

Add to this the shock that disruption of supply chains in Ukraine will cause and it may not be great for the next few days for all of us, but especially Russia. 

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Lord of Oop North said:

If Putin was not a rational actor, he would likely order his army to bomb Ukrainian cities into submission for daring to not collapse and continue defying His Greatness.

Guess we will know more today. To be clear that is what standard Russian doctrine normally would suggest anyway, so we are already dealing with someone who doesn't want to do that but also wants to do a massive invasion. It's very weird!

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

3 minutes ago, Lord of Oop North said:

If Putin was not a rational actor, he would likely order his army to bomb Ukrainian cities into submission for daring to not collapse and continue defying His Greatness.

Maybe.  But if he demands his prize not be broken (for now) he may see that as rational.  The longer his prize is denied him what else will he be willing to do.  Will he deny it to the world by smashing us all?

God, I hope not.

[briantw]

 

Biggest one day drop since the collapse of the Soviet Union according to the follow-up tweet.

[karaddin]

1 hour ago, Lord of Oop North said:

So let me get this straight ...

The Russia that is currently not carpet bombing and unleashing massive artillery bombardment on Ukraine is all of a sudden going to ramp it up by dropping nuclear weapons, and start a thermonuclear war?

It seems like they might try less risky options first.

There's a difference between saying something is likely and saying that it's possible, and its mere possibility is enough to make me concerned. I absolutely agree with you that it isn't likely to happen, it doesn't make sense for achieving what appears to be his objectives and its not a rational follow through from the current situation. But the last 6 years, and especially the last 2, have robbed me of any confidence that just because something is obviously dumb and not at all reasonable then it won't happen.

But to explain my rationale for a hypothetical chain of events that could lead to such an escalation: Putin has spent the last 20 years cementing himself in power, wielding those reigns for his own personal enrichment and (imo) will do anything to hold on to said absolute power and "build a legacy". He appears to have gone into this war motivated by rebuilding the Russian empire and expecting Ukraine to roll over without much resistance and so restraint matches his initial objectives. He doesn't want to destroy these cities that, in his view, are part of Russia and mass slaughter people he wants to be working away for his own gain in a month and he didn't think it was going to be needed. So...restraint.

But having embarked on this war under those assumptions, he now finds himself in a situation where if the war genuinely stalls and he finds himself unable to scrape away a sufficiently large victory that can justify the cost of lives, money and sanctions, then he very well may feel like his back is against a wall and he needs to amend his goals to both wrap the war up and send a message about this sort of resistance. At that point, "making an example" of some of the smaller cities may be a choice he decides to make. I'd probably expect him to try it with those thermobaric rockets we've seen a lot of chatter about before stepping up to nukes of course, but those launch systems seem shorter range to really flatten a city and he may one of the cities in the west are better options - they're both geographically and culturally further from Russia after all, and a bomber would be able to deliver the 1 bomb needed for that particular act. So he rationalizes nuking a city to tell the rest of the country "give up now or this will be you as well".

I don't think it would work, I don't think its likely, I think its a horrifying idea but I don't think its impossible from where we currently are if Ukrainian forces continue to perform at the level they have been so far.

ETA: I did not really have this on my mind until his decision last night (my time) to put the nuclear deterrence on alert, my fears are a direct follow on from his actions 

[JGP]

I get the arguments on both sides, I've swung back and forth on it myself.

Is Putin irrational, or did he miscalculate.

Not knowing which or where he's at is ripe for the imagination. It's perhaps [too?] easy to assume he's the thin skinned autocrat type, huge fits of ego, unable to handle being told no, incapable of withstanding humiliation. And if that's what he is, then I suppose it's easy to imagine he might be far gone enough to spit in everyones' eye with his last breath because it goes to that type. 

The other side however, is that he's always been a shrewd operator. The propaganda, the asymmetrical warfare [ie: information, by proxy] the assassinations, poisonings, the kompromat. I think it likely he assumed [or was led to believe] that the 'West' might look away, again, and that invading Ukraine actually was a miscalculation.

In which case, yeah ok, maybe we don't know exactly how he's going to react, but the base assumption imo should be that though Putin's a scary, lazer-nippled motherfucker he remains rational. And, if diplomats give him enough offramps without losing too much face he'll likely tread a blustery back-off.

Like even China is distancing itself [I read somewhere that the Bank of China's Singapore wing was divesting of Russian assets, iirc] so Russia is more or less alone now.

The nuclear talk is concerning but he invariably pulls that bullshit, right, it's a probable chit [Iran, N. Korea] that he's conjuring from thin air to pad the forthcoming bargaining table, in the same vein as this bullshit with Belarus changing their constitution. Feels like a hedge to me.

But I'm just guessing. Pretty much everyone is guessing right now, which is no help to anyone's state of mind given the possible ramifications.  

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I suspect the Russians will unleash their cyber warfare units against the west today in retaliation against the sanctions.  They’ll try to use Ransomware attacks and other exploits to push back.

Hope we’re ready to fight back.

[JGP]

 

Quelle surprise

 

 

[IFR]

To further the point Kalibuster and karaddin are making, even experts on the issue of strategy and policy are reevaluating how Russia will utilize nuclear weapons for furthering its goals.

This editorial and this editorial both argue that employing nukes for strategic purposes beyond deterrence can no longer be considered far-fetched or theoretical. It is unlikely that Russia will use nukes in this conflict, but it is no longer inconceivable either.

[karaddin]

11 minutes ago, IFR said:

It is unlikely that Russia will use nukes in this conflict, but it is no longer inconceivable either.

Wow way to go and make me look terrible by saying in 1 sentence what I took 3 paragraphs to get across, yes - this.

[Kalbear]

To @JEORDHl - the thing i would say that I'm most worried about is that putin may be a rational actor based on an entirely different belief and fact system. As an example - someone may be entirely rational and also believe 100% in, say, the apocalypse happening next week.

And if you believe 100% that the world is ending, what would a rational person choose to do?

To me, so far, that's what putin has behaved like. His attacks on Ukraine indicate a theory of the world largely not based on facts but entirely rational. If he believed that Ukraine was run by drug dealers and the people hated those leaders and would welcome Russia with open arms, having massive restraint makes a ton of sense. Having all the press releases that indicate how Ukraine is now free from these things is another example. 

What scares me is that when you are dealing with someone with their own set of facts it's very hard to know where they're going to go with it.

[JGP]

I get it, and that's not an unreasonable fear. I mean, it's not like we haven't had thousands of examples of the same, ie: all them alternate facts fuckers. 

It worries me too, man. I barely fucking slept last night. Doubt I will tonight.   

[Week]

Of course, to be taken with a grain of salt -- pretty significant even if exaggerated by 4x or 5x though...

 

 

 

[Ran]

@Week

TASS, the Russian state news agency, actually shared very similar numbers briefly before they were taken down and replaced with a more general thing. It's unclear if hackers put it up or if there's a struggle at the state agency about what to report and someone went rogue.

 

[Mindwalker]

So... while he was incarcerating his enemies or poisoning them, even outside of Russia, and persecuting LGBQT+ people etc. made people think he was an "enlightened autocrat?" Mmmmkay.