Winter is coming to Ukraine and the war

October 12, 2022 2:02 AM

As winter is approaching in Ukraine, the Kerch bridge has been heavily damaged, the day after Putin's 70th birthday. The very next day daily bombardments of Kyiv and other population centers had a massive increase in intensity, but this had probably been planned for a week already and mostly intended for the domestic audience. In a public debate where Western concerns dominate, the Ukrainian minister of defence Andriy P. Zagorodnyuk lays out the Ukrainian perspective on their path to victory.

• Bombing civilian populations into submission usually does not work historically, strengthening the speculation that this operation is more to satisfy the domestic audience.
• Sir Jeremy Fleming, head of GCHQ, said on a Radio 4 program that that the Russian mobilisation of prisoners and inexperienced men "speaks of a desperate situation".
• Jeffrey Mankoff writing for War on the Rocks about the wider consequences of the war and Russia's lackluster performance: As Russia Reels, Eurasia Rolls.

As temperatures approach the freezing point and the Russians have stepped up the bombing of civilians and civilian infrastructure, support is needed and Support Ukraine Now provides a list of ways to help.

posted by Harald74 (132 comments total)

There are efforts to provide more winter equipment for Ukraine, from Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, Denmark and others. Since Russian soldiers were suffering from frostbite already in February, and the logistics situation being what it is, this might turn out to be a war where General Winter is not on the Russian side.
posted by Harald74 at 2:09 AM on October 12, 2022 [8 favorites]

Here is a clear satellite view of the bridge damage from this weekend.
posted by Harald74 at 2:10 AM on October 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

Here's a reminder of the off ramp for Putin
posted by chavenet at 2:16 AM on October 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

Thank you for this new post, Harald74! It is much appreciated. The Kyiv Independent reports on Twitter today that "Russian troops struck the central market in Avdiivka in the morning, killing at least seven people and wounding eight, Donetsk Oblast Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko reported on Oct. 12." Just one more bloody, sucky attack.
posted by Bella Donna at 3:17 AM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

I haven't a citation handy, but I have read that the retaliatory barrage cost somewhere around half a billion USD, and that around half of the missiles were shot down (I watched a vid of someone taking out a cruise missile with a MANPADS, which astonished me).

So, yeah, arsehole move, ineptly executed. Seems consistent.
posted by pompomtom at 3:36 AM on October 12, 2022 [6 favorites]

Ukraine sends a Thank you to France. I dunno but this, in some universe, is perfect.
posted by From Bklyn at 3:52 AM on October 12, 2022 [41 favorites]

From Boleyn: Ukraine sends a Thank you to France. I dunno but this, in some universe, is perfect.

That video is something else. This conflict has really changed what I think war propaganda looks like.
posted by Kattullus at 4:12 AM on October 12, 2022 [18 favorites]

According to the byline, Andriy Zagorodnyuk is the former Defense Minister, having left that position in 2020.
posted by kaelynski at 4:13 AM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

and that around half of the missiles were shot down

October 10:

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched over 84 cruise missiles and 24 drone attacks, 13 of which were carried out with Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones.[1] Ukrainian air defense shot down 43 cruise missiles, 10 Shahed-136 drones, and 3 unspecified drones.

October 11:

The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Russian forces fired nearly 30 Kh-101 and Kh-55 cruise missiles from Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bombers and damaged critical infrastructure in Lviv, Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhia oblasts.[1] Ukrainian air defense reportedly destroyed 21 cruise missiles and 11 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

posted by Stoneshop at 4:16 AM on October 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

Retired Australian general Mick Ryan's take on current developments.
posted by Harald74 at 5:31 AM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]

Ukrainian air defences downed at least four Ka-52 attack helicopters on the southern front in a time span of 18 minutes!

The official tweet is linked from the above. That has to be something like a world record? According to Wikipedia Russia is supposed to have around 127 of them. Oryx lists 22 documented Ka-52 kills up to now. It's also a monetary loss of around USD 60 million, and eight experienced air crew (though it does have an ejection system, rare in a helicopter).
posted by Harald74 at 5:43 AM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

The FSB released a spot-the-differences puzzle consisting of an x-ray of the truck allegedly responsible for blowing up the Kerch bridge and a picture.

Ukrainska Pravda in English

FSB published a video of an "examination of the truck" and its "X-ray", which allegedly shows explosives.

Where on the "x-ray" another axle with wheels and a frame disappeared, the FSB does not specify 🤡

Also the 'explosives' in question look a lot like propane tanks to me. Which I guess could be possible, not sure what the energy released by igniting a truck load of them would be (if the x-ray were genuine, that is)...
posted by Buntix at 5:57 AM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

This conflict has really changed what I think war propaganda looks like.

From where most Mefites sit, Ukraine is absolutely dominant in the international infowar. It sounds like Russia is beginning to fail in their domestic infowar, but that's a massive ship to turn around.

Ukraine is operating on internet-meme-speed - see how quickly they issued postage stamps about Snake Island and the bridge attack. Russia is hacking crap US websites.

Obviously Russia has a big advantage with fash-leaning Westerners like (various/some-of) US Republicans, Brexit-profiteers, Pentecostals, Cookers and suchlike, but given the amount of time RU had to build up these ops, and the amount of time that Ukraine has had to counter them since Feb, I have to begrudgingly say "OMFG there exists a marketing department that isn't simply a taint on the planet".
posted by pompomtom at 6:16 AM on October 12, 2022 [26 favorites]

Ukraine sends a Thank you to France. I dunno but this, in some universe, is perfect.

It really is showing that being tied in culturally with the West has greater advantages than merely the financial.
posted by corb at 6:26 AM on October 12, 2022 [15 favorites]

Germany delivers an ultramodern air defense system to Ukraine that even Berlin doesn’t own.
posted by BungaDunga at 6:53 AM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]

Russia’s ‘irrecoverable losses’ in Ukraine: more than 90,000 troops dead, disabled, or AWOL — Meduza

More than 90,000 troops make up Russia’s “irrecoverable” military losses in Ukraine, as reported by the Russian media project iStories (or Vazhnye Istorii). One of the two sources of this information works in the FSB; the other is a former state security officer.

...

This new estimate is close to the figures stated earlier by the Pentagon and the British Defense Ministry. Last August, the Pentagon estimated that 70–80 thousand Russian troops had been killed or critically wounded since the start of the war. In September, the British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace stated that the Russian army’s total losses exceeded 80,000; of those, about 25,000 were thought to have been killed.

For perspective, Russia's initial invasion force was about 200,000.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:57 AM on October 12, 2022 [9 favorites]

Germany delivers an ultramodern air defense system to Ukraine that even Berlin doesn’t own.

The Ukrainians of course have a right and even an obligation to continue to defend themselves, but everytime we escalate this with more powerful weapons we move ourselves closer to total catastrophe. At some point, Putin's bluff about nukes is going to be called, and it means either he is removed from power or humanity is removed from itself. If I believed in God, I would be praying.
posted by dis_integration at 7:06 AM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

“Good news: we have more than half our troops left!”
posted by acb at 7:06 AM on October 12, 2022 [11 favorites]

Putin's "red lines" have been crossed maybe a dozen times now. He's still bluffing.
posted by Harald74 at 7:10 AM on October 12, 2022 [18 favorites]

BunbaDunga, there was a Perun video about how obstructively awful Germany's military procurement system is. Worse than any reasonable person could imagine. However, Germany is still capable of *making* good weapons. So they sell them or give them to other countries.

Some subjects are best covered by a snarky Australian.

I fantasize about those weapons actually be needed in Germany and them having to be smuggled in.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:16 AM on October 12, 2022 [4 favorites]

At some point, Putin's bluff about nukes is going to be called

The West would have a fairly long lead-time to know if RU are enabling nukes. I suppose SLBMs might be hidden, if the RU SLBM capabality is even real these days.

Full disclosure: check that thread about the pre-invasion build-up when I said "Russia won't invade, have you seen the number of ATGMs Ukraine are getting?".

I was right about the losses. I was wrong about the tolerance for losses.

Hast du etwas zeit für mich, dann singe ich ein Lied für dich...
posted by pompomtom at 7:24 AM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]

It had to happen (music video about the attack on the Kerch bridge.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:26 AM on October 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

At some point, Putin's bluff about nukes is going to be called

For those getting concerned about Russia nuking anyone, this article should soothe your worries (apologies if this was posted in prev thread)
posted by aeshnid at 7:29 AM on October 12, 2022 [10 favorites]

...so I'd predict that the war will grind on, the recent Russian conscripts being thrown mercilessly into the South to keep the link to Crimea, and the longer it grows, the greater risk to Putin's grip on power.

(see above for the shitness of my predictions!)
posted by pompomtom at 7:30 AM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

The Ukrainians of course have a right and even an obligation to continue to defend themselves, but everytime we escalate this with more powerful weapons we move ourselves closer to total catastrophe.

As long as it's weapons that are only useful when attacked, I don't see this as escalation, especially when deployed around a civilian population center, this only threatens Putin's ability to strike Ukraine with missiles, this doesn't threaten Russia.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 7:31 AM on October 12, 2022 [26 favorites]

Retired Australian general Mick Ryan's take on current developments.

Russian troops were then divided between the Army Groups "Center" and "South", again working against unity of command.

Not coordinating army groups sounds familiar.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:34 AM on October 12, 2022

So does 'We have only to kick in the front door and the whole rotten edifice will come tumbling down'.
posted by stevis23 at 7:44 AM on October 12, 2022

From where most Mefites sit, Ukraine is absolutely dominant in the international infowar.

Not really where I sit.

First I work with a bunch of people from North Macedonia where Russian propaganda is very prevalent and lots of people take the Russian line.

The online left seems to have wholly bought the Russian line too as others have bemoaned.

Right wing sources like Fox News seem to be echoing Russian propaganda too.

More subtly, I think the three elements of Russian propaganda Nazis, nukes and NATO have an influence in the way these issues are framed. People aren't consciously repeating propaganda, but they unconsciously recapitulate the framing of the propaganda they see.

So it's framed as "Are there Nazis in Ukraine" rather than "Are there more Nazis in Ukraine than other countries and do they have influence". Or "Is Russia afraid of NATO" rather than "Does Ukraine's ambiguous NATO status declared in 2008 explain why Russia invaded in 2022". Or "Is Russia going to launch nukes" rather than "If we let Russia have Ukraine after nuclear saber-rattling, does that make the world safer or less safe from nuclear war?"

Overall it seems to me that Russian propaganda is fairly effective given the realities of what Russia is actually doing.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:28 AM on October 12, 2022 [34 favorites]

Obviously Russia has a big advantage with fash-leaning Westerners like (various/some-of) US Republicans, Brexit-profiteers, Pentecostals, Cookers and suchlike

Don't forget the Chomsky/tankie left who consider US support of Ukraine imperialism but an actual Russian invasion of Ukraine to take over an annex the country isn't imperialism.
posted by tclark at 8:28 AM on October 12, 2022 [32 favorites]

aeshnid, Russia won't nuke Ukraine for two reasons:

Ukraine avoids concentrating their forces too much, which presumably defends against heavy bombers too, not only nukes.

Russia's commanders robbed them blind for decades, so they cannot know if their nukes were properly maintained and still work. Russia cannot risk a failed/partial nuclear detonation, or rocket accident, revealing that their nukes no longer work.

Around this, America spend $23 M reinventing Fogbank because they forgot how it worked! Russia might've larger simpler nukes without similar aerogel materials, but maintenance remains crazy expensive.

Russia incurs further risks too, like Ukrainians recovering nukes from downed aircraft, or mutiny by soldiers ordered to drop nukes, especially while Ukrainian soldiers remain inside Ukrainian.

At the same time, Timothy Snyder's arguments against Russia using nukes ring weak and fallacious: Russia could absolutely accept the limited fallout risks from limited tactical nuke usage in Ukraine, especially with a dictator running the show, especially if personally threatened.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:37 AM on October 12, 2022 [13 favorites]

The Ukrainians of course have a right and even an obligation to continue to defend themselves, but everytime we escalate this with more powerful weapons we move ourselves closer to total catastrophe. At some point, Putin's bluff about nukes is going to be called, and it means either he is removed from power or humanity is removed from itself. If I believed in God, I would be praying.

You make the steaming hot takes of a neoliberal with an IR degree look positively scholarly.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:42 AM on October 12, 2022 [18 favorites]

As for Putin's bluff being called, American weapons and oil companies, would benefit form all out conventional war with Russia, ditto Ukrainians, but really nobody else benefits from Putin's nuclear bluff being "called".

We provide weapons and intelligence to Ukraine for a fraction of the cost of fighting the Russians ourselves. It'll prove cheaper long-term too, since Russia can simply leave Ukraine, but America occupying Russia would go worse than Iraq and Afghanistan. Is anyone keen on the draft?
posted by jeffburdges at 8:43 AM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

Re: escalation

I think it's justifiable to be worried about escalation. Escalating the war by sending more weapons has been a heavy topic of discussion here in Germany. There does not exist a major political party or movement that could rightly be considered pro-war, certainly not in comparison to other countries like Britain or the US. It doesn't mean that Germany or German companies don't profit from wars by any means. But there's a general sense shared by most here that war does not solve problems — ever. There's a history here.

And yet, despite that environment, Germany is sending weapons. And most people support doing so. But it's not something taken lightly.

I'm sure everyone has their reasons for demanding their government support Ukraine with weaponry. For me it's just personal. Friends, a shared history.

My greatest fears this last February were: what would happen to my friends when Moscow reaches Kyiv? I felt hopeless and helpless. The long convoy gave me nightmares. I felt relieved when the Russian army was fought off thanks in part to St. Javelin and friends. Thanks to that, the battle has become less intense in Kyiv and other parts of the country that the Ukrainian Army has liberated. There is less death there. This is the de-escalation of the war. One kilometer at a time.
posted by UN at 8:53 AM on October 12, 2022 [23 favorites]

I see tankies and such as a hate America first contingent. For whatever reason (and I do think enemy action is part of it), tankies fail to realize that hating America for actual bad behavior is just a start. It's important to realize both that there are some good things about America and that American isn't *uniquely* evil.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:54 AM on October 12, 2022 [20 favorites]

Not coordinating army groups sounds familiar.

This is a good example from Russian history, not too long ago.
posted by doctornemo at 9:06 AM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

Hey nuke freaks, go make your own thread. Why do we have to do this every thread? JFC
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:07 AM on October 12, 2022 [28 favorites]

You make the steaming hot takes of a neoliberal with an IR degree look positively scholarly.

I have no idea what this means, but I'm continually astonished we are so ready to be blasé about how incredibly close we are to total mobilization of the world into war (again, after 77 years since 1945). War never goes the way anyone wants it to, plans for it to, or reasons it will based on calm and careful realpolitik. We're on the edge of disaster, and NATO thinks this is a great opportunity to bog Russia down in a quagmire that will finally end the Putin regime, while Putin, for reasons that aren't at all clear to me, is fighting a war that is not strategic, but existential. We should be scared of the consequences this war will bring, because none of them will be good.
posted by dis_integration at 9:14 AM on October 12, 2022 [9 favorites]

At the same time, we have empirical evidence on what happens when Putin's behavior is checked by insufficient means. Abkhazia, then Crimea, then Donetsk and Luhansk all taught him that taking the whole of Ukraine was going to be met by little more than economic pressure and wagging fingers.

Do we risk a far wider war by pushing back now? Indeed, we do. But I contend that not pushing back now, and not returning every square millimeter of Ukrainian soil taken since 2014 to the government and people of Ukraine invites far worse, and at best only delays the inevitable (whether it's war or regime change in Russia).
posted by tclark at 9:24 AM on October 12, 2022 [23 favorites]

I have no idea what this means, but I'm continually astonished we are so ready to be blasé about how incredibly close we are to total mobilization of the world into war (again, after 77 years since 1945).

No. We aren't. Ukraine is basically able to keep Russia at bay with only NATO materiel, no troops. For there to be a world war there needs to be a bloc joining Russia on their side as a co-belligerent and nobody is volunteering. If Russia tries a unilateral attack on NATO there's going to be pierogis in Królewiec by lunch time and a push on Moscow before the end of the week. The mythical two million Russians with AKs fighting a Great Patriotic War 2: Electric Boogaloo is a meat grinder for the Russians, not NATO at this point and everyone knows it.

What was probably intended was for Russia to mop up Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova and then turn back towards the Baltics. At that point China invades Taiwan and the US is in a two front world war. With Ukraine holding off the Russian army? China has suddenly developed cold feet because they know they can't fight a unipolar war against the United States. If the US isn't tied up in Europe it can bring its entire force to bear in the Pacific theater.

Ukraine fighting off Russia has most likely stalled out the push for Russia and China to start WW3 (or at least grab their imperialist objectives as part of a fait accompli daring the West to start WW3 over it) because one of the co-belligerents in that potential alliance has been left exposed as utterly incapable of waging a war of aggression. Russia's military might has been hollowed out by decades of mafia state corruption and hypercapitalism.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:26 AM on October 12, 2022 [49 favorites]

I for one am sick of the world having to tiptoe around the massive ego of an entitled manchild. Fuck Putins feelings. We don't have to be his enablers. We are not responsible for his atrocities.
posted by Ansible at 9:27 AM on October 12, 2022 [14 favorites]

I am entirely sympathetic to people who worry about escalation and the potential of incredible suffering -- but that horse has left the barn, and we have what is literally a genocidal war being waged, right now.

Russia's aims in Ukraine are genocidal -- there can be no dispute on this. RIA Novosty published in the early days an explicitly genocidal manifesto.

And while the west has in general done far more than I expected it to in support of Ukraine, the fact remains that in practice we continue to force the Ukrainian forces to fight with one arm behind their backs, unable to effectively attack military and logistics infrastructure inside Russia while bombs continue to fall on playgrounds in Kyiv.
posted by tclark at 9:31 AM on October 12, 2022 [35 favorites]

NATO thinks this is a great opportunity to bog Russia down in a quagmire that will finally end the Putin regime

Counterpoint: some people take the phrase "never again" quite seriously
posted by allegedly at 9:32 AM on October 12, 2022 [17 favorites]

Some subjects are best covered by a snarky Australian.

Ah, a fellow PowerPoint appreciator.
posted by charred husk at 9:35 AM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

Handful of today's news - Putin is meeting Erdogan this week in Astana in what may be another mediation attempt. Re World War 3, I remain stunned that even Kazakhstan, so recently propped up by Russian special forces, remains neutral to facepalming and openly hosts mobilisation refuseniks.

Also some details of Ukraine's demands for new EU sanctions: deSwifting remaining Russian banks, banning Russian ships from EU ports, no visas for Russians and banning or price limiting sales of natural gas. Sounds like a good start.

Meanwhile Ukraine is getting ready for winter. Most housing in cities is warmed by municipal heating plants pumping hot water underground, and the temperature of this water will be drastically lowered. Flats will be 16-18c in winter (61 to 65 in American money), which is a shock in the eastern wing of "if I can't wear a tanktop and boxers around the house it's too cold", but it's a hardship the Ukrainians are ready to suffer...
posted by I claim sanctuary at 10:32 AM on October 12, 2022 [12 favorites]

“At the same time, we have empirical evidence on what happens when Putin's behavior is checked by insufficient means. Abkhazia, then Crimea, then Donetsk and Luhansk all taught him that taking the whole of Ukraine was going to be met by little more than economic pressure and wagging fingers.”

Yes. This is painfully true.

“Ukraine is basically able to keep Russia at bay with only NATO materiel, no troops. For there to be a world war there needs to be a bloc joining Russia on their side as a co-belligerent and nobody is volunteering.”

Right.

However, while I agree that we're not on the brink of another conventional world war, I do think the concerns and fears about nuclear escalation are entirely warranted and relevant. I argued repeatedly and emphatically in Feb/Mar that warmongering about this was dangerous and irresponsible because the nuclear threat was present; I believed then as I believe now that NATO's and the world's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine should be extremely well-considered. And I think that it's because a massive multilateral conventional war would go very badly for Russia that the spectre of nuclear weapons is a completely reasonable and justified fear. Unlike centrist interventionists, I am very far from comfortable with NATO/US involvement (in any form) justified as a check on Russia's imperialism and Putin's hold on power. Those are, by themselves, not goals that justify any involvement in such a precarious, fraught situation.

On the other hand and contrary to many on the left, what I never believed, and certainly never urged, was that any sort of appeasement or even passivity was the best response. There is, foremost, the moral imperative of the defense of a European democracy against the invasion of a ruthless imperialistic power.

Nor have I ever countenanced the claim that some carefully considered material military support of Ukraine was itself destabilizing or even escalatory. Given what Russia has done in occupied territory, it's offensively deluded to think that were it to have successfully and quickly occupied all of Ukraine, things would have been "better"!

(For that matter, look at Chechnya! Putin's playbook has been to be utterly ruthless with vanquished foes!)

There is no question that I am utterly terrified of a nuclear escalation, particularly because I don't believe that a tactical deployment wouldn't lead to escalation — and, even if it didn't, that genie would still then be out of the bottle and would practically guarantee similar actions by others in the future, especially given the destabilization and regional conflict that global warming will cause.

Nevertheless, there are compelling practical and moral reasons that Ukraine be supported in its defense as much as is prudently possible. There are no non-risky options here, only more or less fraught.

Finally, this all is why, at this point, I believe the embargo on the discussion of the possible use of nuclear weapons is outdated and incoherent, especially given that discussion that implies or involves the multitude of horrific war crimes against Ukrainian civilians has been allowed and not similarly scrutinized. Neither has speculation been prohibited that Poland or the Baltics might be drawn into this conflict.

The possibility of nukes is a fact of this war; this has been regularly demonstrated over the last two months and it's not going to change. March 2022 was a long time ago.

This war, as it has been for this year, is a frightening and terrible tragedy that should be discussed sensitively in all respects; the threat of nuclear weapons is not qualitatively distinct. It should, sadly, be among the factors we keep in mind.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:34 AM on October 12, 2022 [15 favorites]

It's a bad analogy but the whole "talk about the war without talking nukes" has really turned into "let's bake a cake but not talk about eggs".
posted by hippybear at 10:41 AM on October 12, 2022 [25 favorites]

There is no embargo about talking about nuclear weapons, just IN THESE THREADS.

If you want to talk about nukes, make a thread to explicitly talk about nukes and talk nukes as much as you like!

The mefites who are in and near the fighting have asked, again and again and again. And everyone has to be reminded to shut the fuck up about the nuke in talk in these threads every time we start a new one or even just new slows down.

TAKE. IT. TO. IT'S. OWN. THREAD.
posted by VTX at 10:44 AM on October 12, 2022 [42 favorites]

For all the people talking about "escalation" with respect to the German shipment of air defense systems.

I concur with everybody who says that escalation is a thing to be worried about. But that move in particular, that is not an escalation. The escalation was Russia's bombardment of civilian targets at rush hour on a weekday. The German move is an attempt to restore part of the status quo ante, namely that Ukrainian civilians could do civilian-life things without being killed by fires from Russian aircraft or missile launchers.

The escalations in Ukraine since this last February have all been Russian escalations, and what the West is doing is trying to restore part of the status quo where Ukrainians are not getting massacred by Russians on Ukrainian territory.

It is important to be concerned about escalation, yes, but not more important than to notice who it is that is doing the escalating, and who can start de-escalating whenever he wants but so far has chosen not to.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 10:59 AM on October 12, 2022 [32 favorites]

I've been seeing calls for a thread about the chances and effects of nuclear war for some time, and I'm not sure why it hasn't happened. Is it hard to find a good thing to link to?
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 11:05 AM on October 12, 2022

We had one in the early months of the war: April 29th thread, but that was a long time ago. I guess a new one wouldn't hurt?
posted by meowzilla at 11:07 AM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

Unlike centrist interventionists, I am very far from comfortable with NATO/US involvement (in any form) justified as a check on Russia's imperialism and Putin's hold on power.

I mean, who on the left is comfortable with a military-industrial complex?

That being said, I think the thing we need to keep in mind is what MLK said in his "Where Do We Go From Here?" speech:

“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

One of the things we do on the left is give people the benefit of the doubt. Which is fair. I think it comes from an empathetic need of not ever wanting to be written off by our fellow humans. Because of that we don't want to believe that some people are evil because then we need to deal with evil and that in itself is an exercise of power. Fights like Ukraine v. Russia should serve as a lesson to the left that we need to not turn away from power, but instead ensure that power is used wisely in the pursuit of true justice.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 11:08 AM on October 12, 2022 [21 favorites]

Put another way, if you've bought iodine tablets (or been dissuaded by the pharmacist who promises you the government will hand them out if need be, and yes there is a stockpile and it's been re-freshed), because you're within range of the fall-out this is a different conversation than if you're half a world away ... the thing is, we don't know if Putin has them or not, not really, or if he see's an out for himself if his career comes to a screeching halt, or , or anything that might actually predict the likelihood, or not, of nuclear missiles being used. We, schmoes on the internet, just don't know and unless you have clearance and can say, definitively, the Gov believes _X_, this conversation about nukes is like playing a Vuvuzela at a cocktail party.

Personally, I've decided to believe that the US' hints/threats of full NATO mobilisation should Putin launch nuclear missiles, is adequate deterrence: that Putin wants a life of some kind after all this, and setting off nukes ends that.

That's all fantasy, of course, but since the pharmacist wouldn't sell me iodine tablets I've decided to go with that.
posted by From Bklyn at 11:09 AM on October 12, 2022 [12 favorites]

From Bklyn, are you under 40 and closer to Putin than I am? I can send you some iosat. PM me.

(iodine usually does more harm than good for older adults)
posted by ryanrs at 11:14 AM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

I keep seeing reports of various moves from Russia like pushing troops into Belarus while also grabbing ammo stockpiles away from them (and other allied states), the Russians deploying tanks meant for export (to India), rehabbing T-60s and other old artillery. Old stuff can still kill, but...

I see that and the reports of missing winter uniforms, etc and wondering how far can this actually be pushed?
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:17 AM on October 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

Potassum iodine pills seem to be available where I live (US) from multiple suppliers and none of them require having a pharmacist or chemist sell them to you. Is this a different thing in other countries, where they're a more controlled substance?
posted by hippybear at 11:18 AM on October 12, 2022

Also: people who literally remember drinking Lugol's iodine after Chernobyl. We have much more direct reasons to have nuclear trauma. (I apparently threw up spectacularly but my family heroically secured another dose.)

I talked to a firefighter in Warsaw this week and apparently all units in town have been tasked with inventorying potential bomb shelters (aka all cellars and underground infrastructure) for an upcoming app with a catalogue of your nearest shelter. I much preferred the worldwide automatic defibrillator map he also showed me.

This is still too bloody close for comfort. Please discuss nukes in another thread.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 11:22 AM on October 12, 2022 [24 favorites]

And in the US there's only one brand that is actually FDA approved for radiation protection (iosat). Every other iodine pill is a "supplement".

These pills are a massive iodine overdose, and can definitely mess up your thyroid (permanently). You really don't want to take it unless you have to. So I could definitely imagine it being regulated.
posted by ryanrs at 11:22 AM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

I think in general for these serious global events it makes more sense to have one thread for "what's happening now" and another for "what might happen later" so people can tune their ingestion of facts vs opinion accordingly, but specifically in regard to nuclear talk in the Ukraine thread as has been pointed out time and again the effects of any escalation is very real and scary as fuck and intake of that kind of emotional shit needs to be carefully managed.

Also if you ask me the iodine tablet stuff is also inappropriate for this thread. Please go make a thread for dedicated nuclear wargame chestpuffery so those of us who really don't want to be thinking about the spectre of nuclear war every time we load this goddamn thread to find out how Ukraine is doing don't have to?

Please?
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:26 AM on October 12, 2022 [25 favorites]

I'll try to frame a post, but I guess I feel some kind of true envy for anyone who can interact with this Ukraine war in any way without it bringing up nuclear shadows. I hadn't had armageddon nightmares since probably the early 90s, but they've been back in force since Feb of this year. And none of that had to do with anything I read in a MetaFilter thread.
posted by hippybear at 11:32 AM on October 12, 2022 [6 favorites]

“I think it would be a good idea to have a parallel nuke thread.”

I guess I don't really see what there is to discuss regarding nukes other than the fact that Putin keeps mentioning them and that they therefore hang over the deliberations of what and how NATO, Europe, and the rest of the world responds to Russia and supports Ukraine. Eliding the simple fact of the threat from this discussion seems nonsensical since it is so very relevant.

I've almost exclusively been lurking these threads and I've not brought the nuke stuff up myself; but I feel that much (not all) of the times it's come up recently it's been because it's actually been in the news and is relevant. It's seemed to me that the situation has changed and while it was, in the past, egregiously insensitive to bring them up, more recently it's a central problem — in official circles — of the continuing war. The vehemence of comments complaining about their mention might have been justified in the summer; now it seems to me to be excessive when it's merely people discussing what is appearing on the front pages of their newspapers.

But I don't see any reason to speculate about details any more than I see any reason to speculate about the details of how, say, Putin might attempt to further "punish" Ukrainian civilians for the damage to the bridge. We're not informed enough to speculate on that and, regardless, it's insensitive and in bad taste.

“Also if you ask me the iodine tablet stuff is also inappropriate for this thread.”

I agree; but it's ironic that they were mentioned by way of supporting the argument that we shouldn't be talking about that kind of thing here.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:32 AM on October 12, 2022 [7 favorites]

Until Putin actually uses nukes, any discussion about a potential nuclear strike is speculation. Speculation in general increases the noise:reporting ratio in these threads dramatically, and thus should be avoided so we can keep an eye on the existential war for democracy.
posted by thebotanyofsouls at 11:38 AM on October 12, 2022 [12 favorites]

Okay, I'm entirely for the reduction of speculation in these threads. Let's stick to reporting of events and discussion of those. There is a fuckton of speculation in these threads that isn't nuclear war related, and let's get rid of all of that, because these threads are most useful when they're about the events of the war, and not armchair wargaming.
posted by hippybear at 11:53 AM on October 12, 2022 [11 favorites]

I actually read the Foreign Affairs article and the defense minister himself is speculating about nuclear war. I am fine with not having a nuclear discussion thread at this time, but it is problematic to use nuclear discourse as a proxy for one's implicit politics. For example the claim that people close to the war don't want to discuss it when the Ukrainian official in the OP literally wrote an argument that incorporates it in his analysis. It's valid to want discussions to go certain ways, but it is not reasonable to use such rhetoric to e.g. platform the Ukrainian political leadership's position and not let it be open to criticism because doing so would involve referring to several paragraphs in that essay. There's a distinction and it needs to balanced.
posted by polymodus at 11:57 AM on October 12, 2022 [6 favorites]

That defense minister isn't in the room with you. The people who are asking everyone to please shut up with the nuke talk are here and they're asking YOU to please take it to another room. None of the other arguments matter regardless of how much merit they might have.

People in the room have asked for this, please listen to the other people in the room who are asking you to knock it off. It's just that simple. Choose to listen to your fellow mefites or ignore them like a jerk.
posted by VTX at 12:04 PM on October 12, 2022 [22 favorites]

Ivan Fyodorovich: now it seems to me to be excessive when it's merely people discussing what is appearing on the front pages of their newspapers

I realize that this war is very far away when you live in North America. Some days, many days in fact, it feels far away to me. But then I turn on the TV news or glance at a newspaper, and I'm reminded that Russia is a neighboring country, and that while Finland is relatively insulated from the effects of the war, compared to say Poland or Georgia or Uzbekistan, it's still something that affects my life.

Lots of people here in Finland have complex personal, familial and historical relationships with Russia. My wife's great-aunt ended up on the wrong side of the post-WW2 borders and disappeared into the Gulag. A friend, who happened to visit and stay at my apartment days after the invasion began, had met Putin a few times back when he was a mid-level functionary in St. Petersburg. I've helped someone out who had to travel between Russia and Iceland for family reasons. These aren't particularly unique examples, it's just normal stuff here.

This isn't just the front pages of our newspapers, this is our everyday life.
posted by Kattullus at 12:05 PM on October 12, 2022 [31 favorites]

Ansible> I for one am sick of the world having to tiptoe around the massive ego of an entitled manchild.

You'll maybe prefer this alternative: America imposes a no-fly zone, and bombs Russian positions, killing another 100k Russian soldiers, but avoids nuclear confrontation somehow. Russian regional militias become dominant as Putin's regime gradually collapses. Russia's 6000 mostly non-functional decommissioned nuclear warheads wind up under diverse regional authorities, many of whom sell them abroad, especially to middle eastern buyers.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:07 PM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

I'm not triggered by nuke talk, but I have been reading these threads and it seems there has been a consensus about not doing it in these general Ukraine war threads. There is also what seems to be a really easy and reasonable path forward suggested for people who do want to talk nukes, which is to start a thread for that. Yet here we are, with a handful of people dominating the thread with nuke talk, while refusing to make a thread for it. It is behavior that seems disrespectful, insensitive and honestly, jerky. And I don't think you guys are usually jerky, so I'm not sure what's going wrong here exactly. Do a nuke thread and fill it up with all your comments about why nuke talk is necessary. It's so easy!
posted by snofoam at 12:10 PM on October 12, 2022 [35 favorites]

You'll maybe prefer this alternative: America imposes a no-fly zone, and bombs Russian positions, killing another 100k Russian soldiers, but avoids nuclear confrontation somehow. Russian regional militias become dominant as Putin's regime gradually collapses. Russia's 6000 mostly non-functional decommissioned nuclear warheads wind up under diverse regional authorities, many of whom sell them abroad, especially to middle eastern buyers.

Sounds like the early 90s. But that didn't happen then did it? We face risks with Putin or without Putin.
posted by Ansible at 12:52 PM on October 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

Reviewing the thread, the subject was brought up by someone bolstering their argument that escalation is scary. That particular reference wasn't necessary, though I'm willing to grant that the comment was well-intended and heartfelt. But I do think it was unnecessary and needlessly provocative — especially because there does seem to be a disturbing pattern of certain people on the left raising this spectre as a way of arguing for, well, some kind of appeasement. The combination, I think, is likely especially offensive to Ukrainians and the nearby people who directly face Russian attack. It's a rhetorical cudgel that's being wielded by people who, if not malicious, are at the very least obtuse.

Six or more people responded — in good faith, I think, because it's been in the news. My only argument has been that insofar as it's actual news, e.g. Putin or other decision-makers are publicly discussing it, that it's reasonable that it's mentioned (with care) here.

That said, it really needn't have been brought up in this instance and I think the fact that someone having done so resulted in discussion that was unnecessarily detailed and extended is problematic and we'd (I) had have best worked harder to avoid it.

Speaking as someone who has read, daily, every comment in every one of these threads but who has (excepting today) not much commented, I do think that the issue has lately arisen in the discussion much more organically and frequently, and from more people, than it has in the past and that it's arguably untrue to say that it's only a few commenters. Therefore I don't expect this issue to go away; but I certainly do think we can be more cautious (perhaps especially because it's now so much more frequently discussed in the news and thus easier to be cavalier). As for me, I've said my piece about the meta-issue and, regardless, I personally don't have anything specific to say about the issue itself. I don't particularly think there's much to say other than that it's something that the decision-makers are grappling with.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:10 PM on October 12, 2022 [7 favorites]

Until Putin actually uses nukes, any discussion about a potential nuclear strike is speculation.

These threads have consistently been absolutely rife with speculation. The only speculation that's ever called out is about nukes. And why? As far as I've been able to ascertain, the excuse was "People in countries near Russia are worried!"

Worried about what? Speculation that Russia is going to invade you? Russia is not going to invade you. They've got their hands waaaaaaaay more than full. But anyway, why does that mean it's appropriate to avoid discussion about nuclear weapons?

Or worried about speculation that Russians are going to nuke you? Russia's nukes don't have any relevant maximum range. We're all in danger from them.

They exist. They have a fundamental and large impact on the shape of this war, whether they wind up being used or not. It's just absolutely silly to collectively bury our head in the sand about them. This ridiculous requirement of these threads, plus the whole "Hey, go make your own thread" (i.e. the "Ukraine war but we're not forbidden to talk about a particular huge relevant aspect" thread) has really, really become tiresome. It's inane, and it should stop.
posted by Flunkie at 1:13 PM on October 12, 2022 [7 favorites]

It is not. Nuclear weapons are called mutually assured destruction for a reason, and Putin is aware of that. There is no going backwards from their use. No scenario where he nukes The Ukraine and remains in power.

It's equally crappy to suggest that random Middle Easterners (also vaguely racist) are going to use them. Life is not a cheesy Tom Clancy movie.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:17 PM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]

It is not.

What is this referring to?
posted by Flunkie at 1:18 PM on October 12, 2022

Ukraine. It's the name of a country. "The Ukraine" is outdated language and is itself vaguely racist.
posted by hippybear at 1:20 PM on October 12, 2022 [6 favorites]

Gaslit Nation’s latest episode Putin’s Nuclear War Tourist Trap dissects some of what’s up with this persistently recurring talking point - worth a listen to understand why it’s repeatedly been requested to please trot it out elsewhere.
posted by progosk at 1:21 PM on October 12, 2022 [4 favorites]

It is not.

A difficult or wild requirement to refrain from speculating about them.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:21 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

Of course it's not difficult. That doesn't mean it's not inane.
posted by Flunkie at 1:23 PM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

Any and all speculation in these threads is useless because it's all people with no effect on the situation trying to say what is going to happen. It's Fox News Prime Time, all commentary, no news.
posted by hippybear at 1:24 PM on October 12, 2022 [6 favorites]

Do I have to point out that not everyone (even most everyone) on the left is a "tankie" - "tankie" is literally a word coined by people on the left aghast at Russia invading other countries with tanks
posted by mbo at 1:25 PM on October 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

Any and all speculation in these threads is useless

I don't see what's wrong with speculation, but in any case, as I've said, these threads are absolutely rife with it. Should we call it all out, ban it all? OK. Let's start with the second sentence of the post itself.
posted by Flunkie at 1:28 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've found these threads are a good way for me to keep tabs on events, Harald74, and I guess I look forward to this one falling off the front page.
posted by figurant at 1:28 PM on October 12, 2022

(...nuclear threat is a ...)particular huge relevant aspect

It is an aspect of the diplomacy and of Putin's machinations but it's actual potential as a thing that might happen is raw, unbridled speculation.
The difference with speculating about nuclear missiles vs. who bombed the pipelines (for example), is that the nuclear thing is speculating about the potential death of a bunch of the commenters in this thread. Yes, potentially the death of all of us, but also maybe it'll be a 'limited' attack and then it's just those of us who are not all that far. And, frankly, that's ... morbid at best. It's not what I look to these threads for (speculation about our imminent demise, or the demise of myself and a handful of others) - I look for links to reporting and _informed_ insight.

Please.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:39 PM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]

the nuclear thing is speculating about the potential death of a bunch of the commenters in this thread. Yes, potentially the death of all of us, but also maybe it'll be a 'limited' attack and then it's just those of us who are not all that far.

Yet some of the most fervent "Don't talk about nukes" people sure seem to want to speculate about Russia invading their countries.
posted by Flunkie at 1:42 PM on October 12, 2022

If you want to hash out what other kinds of speculation are also pointless, why not do that in your nuke talk thread that you keep not making? Just make the thread and take it over there and everyone can be happy.
posted by snofoam at 1:49 PM on October 12, 2022 [12 favorites]

Presuming that's directed at me, I'm not the one saying speculation is pointless. I'm saying the reasons that I have been told why we should not discuss nuclear weapons are not sensible given other things that we are perfectly fine with discussing.
posted by Flunkie at 1:54 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

We should proooobably start a new thread to talk about the war in Ukraine.
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:56 PM on October 12, 2022 [41 favorites]

this ridiculous requirement of these threads, plus the whole "Hey, go make your own thread" (i.e. the "Ukraine war but we're not forbidden to talk about a particular huge relevant aspect" thread) has really, really become tiresome. It's inane, and it should stop.

Read the fucking room. Y’all nuke commenters are outvoted. The Americans get to run MetaFilter almost all the damn time but you do not get to run this particular fucking goddamned thread.

It may annoy you, you may find it illogical, it may make you unhappy. That doesn’t mean you get to stroll in and be in charge. We have established, over the months, a protocol that is largely respected when it comes to the discussion of the war in these threads. If you don’t like it, you can leave. You can start your own thread. You can discuss it elsewhere. You can debate our horrifying refusal to allow speculation about nuclear annihilation on MetaTalk even.

People are telling you that this line of discussion is painful to us and several commenters here just want to blithely steam roll over our feelings. Go piss in your own pond if you are unwilling to adhere to community norms in this particular set of threads that respect the strong preferences of many European MeFites. No nuke speculation, that’s the deal.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:59 PM on October 12, 2022 [32 favorites]

That doesn’t mean you get to stroll in and be in charge.

Who exactly is doing this? Might it be you?
posted by Flunkie at 2:02 PM on October 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

I made a >>>>>>> new thread <<<<<<<<< for talk about war in Ukraine, without nuclear speculation.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:07 PM on October 12, 2022 [14 favorites]

Flunkie: Let's start with the second sentence of the post itself.

That particular sentence was not speculation by the poster, but an assessment by several intelligence agencies and independent analysts, condensed. If you consider that speculation, you need some serious recalibration of your assessment what speculation is.

Similarly, a lot of actual speculation in these threads is along the lines of "why is X happening/has Y happened (or not)/has Z not claimed responsibility". Etcetera. Stuff that directly follows from an event, or from info that has become available.

Anyway. PEOPLE HAVE ASKED TO CUT OUT THE NUKE TALK. THEN FUCKING DO SO, WHATEVER MOTIVATION YOU (the ones persisting) MAY HAVE TO IGNORE THAT.
posted by Stoneshop at 2:10 PM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]

Thanks for your service, seanmpuckett!
posted by Bella Donna at 2:10 PM on October 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

If there needs to be another thread to address this, it should be a MeTa rather than a dupe imo.

(Or give the mods time to get to it under revised expectations.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:11 PM on October 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

That defense minister isn't in the room with you.

You have missed my point entirely. I'm HK and Taiwanese Asian American, I know exactly what it's like when people on Metafilter "in the room" talk about China vs. HK and Taiwan. That is not the sort of dynamic I am talking about. I'm saying it's inconsistent and unreasonable to post media, such as in this OP, that raises a topic then ask that this topic not be discussed in the thread. You can't have your cake and eat it. Doing so makes you politically prejudiced (what I referred to in my comment as problematic). That distinct dynamic then has nothing to do with listening to one another anymore, it goes beyond that.
posted by polymodus at 2:21 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm thinking maybe metafilter needs fanfare-style tags. "Events Only", "Nukes Included", etc.
posted by phooky at 2:21 PM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

Does anyone know of a good explainer on the strategic energy situation facing Europe? I've heard varying things from "everyone freezes in the dark" to "electricity is free from wind power in the North Sea" and want to sort all that out. Am particularly interested in how the Russian infrastructure / terror strikes and jerkery around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant play into that.
posted by Sauce Trough at 2:26 PM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

My apologies for getting all sweary and losing my shit. Will take a break.
posted by Bella Donna at 2:26 PM on October 12, 2022 [4 favorites]

There's been enough recent reporting on issue of elevated nuclear threat (or the risk of proliferation should the Russian Federation split up) to support a separate thread if someone cares enough to make it. I'd participate in it, but I'm not motivated to assemble one because I don't personally think there's all that much to say that hasn't been said before.

Yes, it's a clumsy hair to split when some of the reporting that will be linked here includes it because it's of the moment but that's the norm that's been governing these threads; and clumsy is not the end of the world. As it were.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:27 PM on October 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

It's not merely clumsiness, it is a media bias problem. The fact that the framing of this megathread includes platforming the Ukrainian leadership's open letter to the West which puts forth a specific narrative about how people ought to construe nuclear issues is itself a form of highly politicized discourse. It is valid to normalize an online discussion to not have ignorant and insensitive discussion on certain political issues as I've basically said above, but there also needs to be a way to separate that behavior from this kind of implicit politics that disseminates such content as if it were politically neutral reporting. Literally the piece was a kind of Op-Ed not written by any journalist. By choosing to make that particular piece one of the primary links, it effectively makes Metafilter discoursing about a topic, which then happens that people are asking not to be discussed. When that happens, the site ends up passively promulgating a very specific narrative about the war and the politics around it, one endorsed by certain Western and Ukrainian politicians. That is how social media platforming works, that is how a filter bubble can arise, and people ought to be aware of that as well.
posted by polymodus at 2:51 PM on October 12, 2022

Intelligence agencies have sources beyond what we do, but they were always mostly speculation or outright lies, which holds internally too. I do however agree that intelligence agencies claims constitute news, while many speculative statements wind up overly repeated.

Really this repetitiveness begins when someone says "America should do something militarily!" It's often veiled in one aspect or another, but we all know what they mean. After this happens American residents then make the thread about themselves. We also diverge from the realities of the conflict, like bridge pictures, deployed weapon ranges, etc. into speculations about future larger conflicts.

Anyways, if you want a mod crack down, then it'll be far more effective if they crack down at the point where someone bemoans the conflict not yet being widened. It's plausible this thread cannot be constrained in that way of course.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:58 PM on October 12, 2022

Maybe the solution is to ban discussion of the Ukraine crisis altogether.
posted by acb at 3:02 PM on October 12, 2022

... oooooor we could just limit ourselves to discussion of non-nuclear aspects (of which there are plenty).
posted by mazola at 3:16 PM on October 12, 2022 [4 favorites]

Mod note: Alright folks, just hopped on duty here. I won't be deleting any of the comments above but Flunkie and others... please just take it outside of this thread. This back and forth is contributing close to nothing to this thread in particular and I strongly encourage you to re-consider the space that you've taken up. I will be deleting any additional derails/arguments/etc starting now. ALSO: Please do not speculate any further about nuclear strikes. That's not welcome here. Lastly: I am going to leave the new thread up, this may change later but as of now, let's consider it a fresh start.
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 3:30 PM on October 12, 2022 [14 favorites]

travelingthyme, if the other thread is going to be left open then this one should probably be closed.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:26 PM on October 12, 2022 [4 favorites]

My personal feeling is that this particular thread should now be open to Speculations, and leave just the plain facts to the newer thread.

This War, like any War, is complex with many variables. It's impossible to predict exactly how it will evolve, even though we all hope for the best. But like any conflict, it's also useful to think forward and speculate on how to address variable outcomes, even in worst-case scenarios (which I personally don't expect).
posted by ovvl at 6:39 PM on October 12, 2022

Former NATO official breaks down the "tells" in Musk's tweets.

Edward Hunter Christie on Twitter

The "Krushchev's mistake" wording was a clear 'tell' that Musk was using material produced by someone linked to the Russian state.

A 2nd was water supply to Crimea (why that detail?)

A 3rd tell was his use of the Kosovo analogy. Typical Kremlin talk - atypical for anyone else.

Expanding on the first point:

He used the following sentence:

„- Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake).“

NOBODY except a Russian official use this language and comparison because both events are Cherry picked and not following wach other (Crimea was 🇺🇦 1917)

posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:15 PM on October 12, 2022 [11 favorites]

Has there been any analysis of what Musk's Twitter feed looks like, or who he interacts with? Given the people he considers his peers (venture capitalists, CEOs, crypto, etc.) I wouldn't be surprised if a large amount of them are friendly to Russia, or just reflexively contrarian (to American media, making them pro-Russia).
posted by meowzilla at 7:56 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

Well, apparently this thread isn't open to speculation and open discussion of the Forbidden Topic. Just had a comment deleted. Can the mods close this one up so we don't don't continue to assume we have a zone in which to discuss this freely?
posted by hippybear at 8:02 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

Gen. Petreaus has been making the rounds lately.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:13 PM on October 12, 2022

Can the mods close this one up so we don't don't continue to assume we have a zone in which to discuss this freely?

The assumption was incorrect from the start, as it has been incorrect in every Ukraine thread for months now, and it has only ever been fueled by people who either weren't receiving or weren't understanding the simple request:

Please don't speculate about nuclear escalation in these threads. You have total freedom to create a new thread specifically for that purpose.

We had one of those back in April (I think), as has been previously stated. Perhaps you will be the hero this thread needs and make a new one.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:21 PM on October 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

You have total freedom to create a new thread specifically for that purpose.

Then why was the new thread created?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:28 PM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]

Because another MeFite was concerned that this thread was going to be a total loss because of people not receiving or not understanding the request, and one of the moderators decided to leave both threads up.

That doesn't change the long-standing request.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:45 PM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]

Since there's already two threads, and the new one is explicitly "don't mention nukes", it seems sensible to keep this one open for all discussions.

You can "remove from activity" right at the bottom of the original post.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:59 PM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

Mod note: Just a note that non-MetaTalk threads cannot be closed, only deleted.
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 9:17 PM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]

it seems sensible to keep this one open for all discussions.

making it a monument to how much easier it is to bully, than to JUST. MAKE. YOUR. OWN. PRECIOUS. THREAD.? Maybe not, thanks.
posted by progosk at 9:32 PM on October 12, 2022 [10 favorites]

Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake.

and yet Chairman Voroshilov signed it.
posted by clavdivs at 9:35 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

ChrisO has a thread documenting Russia's account of where the truck that exploded on the bridge had been. Russia arrested 8 suspects in connection with the bombing yesterday. He also links to an earlier thread of his talking about Finnish explosive expert Myka Tyry and his assessment of the event.
posted by rongorongo at 1:09 AM on October 13, 2022

So we have... three open threads covering the war in general (plus two with focussed topics and one open but deprecated), and one of them is a single link to Newsweek.

Which ones are the duplicates?
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 2:21 AM on October 13, 2022

Not being able to close a thread without deleting it seems like an odd limitation. Just hide the post entry box. But I suppose that should be a pony request in MeTa.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:51 AM on October 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

This is probably something to say on the inevitable MetaTalk, but while this thread is open documentation of the snafu that just took place: this comment by hippybear leapt out at me.

I hadn't had armageddon nightmares since probably the early 90s, but they've been back in force since Feb of this year. And none of that had to do with anything I read in a MetaFilter thread.

I left MetaFilter for a long stretch of years in late 2016. This site, for whatever reason, attracts a lot of users with intense anxiety, and a lot of those users find it more reassuring than anything to openly discuss their anxieties in the rawest, bleakest way possible. I, too, am an intensely anxious person, but I'm one who's learned over the years that dwelling in the stuff I'm most anxious about is like scratching a sore to the point that it develops an infection: it's tempting but it makes things worse, and it convinces me that I'm "dealing with reality" when all I'm really doing is feeding a particularly dark compulsion that frequently disconnects from "reality" altogether.

It is really, really noticeable that some of the people who can't let nuclear go—who literally will not read the numerous comments from people closer to Russia than they are explaining, patiently and passionately, why nuclear speculation is not appropriate for these conversations—are operating from those bleak anxious places. Once you learn what that tone means, it becomes really obvious to spot. (hippybear, I've been a fan of yours for a long, long time, but your name has consistently stuck out to me in these threads as a prime example of not being able to let this go.)

My opinion, which nobody else needs to share, is that it can be really unhealthy to deal with anxiety by offloading it on other people. In the context of this war, people thousands of miles away from the conflict openly talking about possible worst-case scenarios, dwelling not only on the existence of nukes but pushing towards the darkest possible outcomes well past the point that any credible analyst is predicting, feels not only irresponsible but actively inconsiderate, especially given just how loud and numerous the voices asking that this not happen are.

This is a community founded on treating other users like they're meaningfully sharing this space with you. It feels really shitty that this is a subject where people have spent literally half a year explaining, again and again, why they don't want nuclear discussion to go on here. And it doesn't surprise me, as a person who has let anxiety guide him towards poor behaviors in the past, that some of the long-standing community members doing the disregarding are doing so because of intense nuclear anxieties, but maybe it's a pattern of behavior to be aware of and push back against. The voice that says "justifiable" is—at least in my experiences—just another part of that anxious manifestation.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 4:33 AM on October 13, 2022 [39 favorites]

My opinion, which nobody else needs to share, is that it can be really unhealthy to deal with anxiety by offloading it on other people.

I am not sure who is offloading their anxiety on whom.

It would be nice to have a thread that's neither NO NUKES LA LA LA nor OMG NUKES.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:44 AM on October 13, 2022 [4 favorites]

There is thread like that, it’s the nuclear thread.
posted by Kattullus at 9:02 AM on October 13, 2022 [3 favorites]

I feel like the repeatedly-discussed-across-six-months attitude isn't "NO NUKES LA LA LA," it's "while Putin is threatening to use nukes, either sincerely or not, it is extraordinarily stressful for quite a few MeFites to hear Americans casually discussing extreme hypotheticals that involve terrible things happening to everybody they have every known, so let's not."

(With a side platter of "seriously, why are some of you so hellbent on leaving 10-15 comments apiece in which you try to outdo each other's visions of apocalypse?")

Nukes are an incredibly convenient device for people with intense anxieties to seize upon, obviously! At some point between 2016 and 2017, I had a couple of late nights where I read tens of thousands of words about various nuclear capacities yadda yadda yadda, because that was an intensely fearful time for me and I fully lost the capacity to distinguish between "real looming fears" and "imaginary looming fears." It's one thing to deal with intense fears, and to want a place to discuss nukes so that reality can be sorted out from fantasy; it's another thing to insist that all discussion of this war include lengthy discussion of nuclear threats both real and fake, while people who live close to Russia and Ukraine are trying to follow the war here without the intense and partly-imaginary terror.

Even as I'm writing this out, I'm trying to be very careful about phrasing this in ways that err on the side of abstract and unemotional language. I would not wish the intense anxiety spikes I used to experience on anybody else here. That kind of care is decidedly not what has happened in these threads, repeatedly and despite strong pushback; I don't know why the same set of people attempt the same kind of conversation at the start of each and every one of these threads, but it is seriously tiresome and it's happened literally every month.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 10:38 AM on October 13, 2022 [17 favorites]

The mods have spoken and this isn't the nuclear thread. I see no reason to continue the meta discussion here. If you want to talk about it, make a MetaTalk post.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:19 AM on October 13, 2022 [7 favorites]

If the double threading goes well, maybe it's a good approach for next* time: a standard news-focused thread, accompanied by a separate thread for people's random speculations and armchair strategies, nuclear or otherwise.

* feels weird to just assume a terrible war will still be around next month, but it seems more likely than not
posted by trig at 12:56 PM on October 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

Overall it seems to me that Russian propaganda is fairly effective given the realities of what Russia is actually doing.

I've been surprised/dismayed by this also; it seems that whatever else the Russians manage to FUBAR up, their propaganda game is still there. If not exactly strong, it's at least strong enough for people searching for some sort of figleaf to hide behind.

Though—due to my nonconsensual exposure to FNC over the last week or two—it does seem like Fox has slowed down a bit on the RT talking points in favor of just moaning about inflation and how terrible Biden is recently. Presumably someone has decided that the upcoming midterms are more important.

Re the German Iris-T SLM system, even if you set aside the moral question of giving it to Ukraine because the Russians are literally trying to do a genocide, and the Germans really should try to be on the right side of history this time, it makes sense to send it to a war zone. Particularly if the system is being marketed more for export than for internal use, there's no amount of field testing that's equivalent to an actual track record in combat. There's a reason people pay obnoxious quantities of money for systems like Patriot, and it's not because dealing with the Defense Security Cooperation Agency is fun. But there's only a small number of systems about which one can actually say "this has been used in combat and has a X% hit rate against Y targets, under no-shit unsimulated battlefield conditions". Especially against the latest generation of Russian (or Iranian) weapons.

It would be much more suspicious (and IMO indicative of Russian influence) if the Egyptians didn't let the Ukrainians skip ahead of them. If the system doesn't do what it claims, they can always cancel their order…
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:27 PM on October 13, 2022 [3 favorites]

Well, Brazil hardly has a pressing need for the Gripens being delivered to it; but they've already waited a while for them and have signaled they're not interested in letting Ukraine scoop them up for new favors. Of course, that's also Bolsonaro (at least for now).
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:31 PM on October 13, 2022

If you want to talk about it, make a MetaTalk post.

Tried that, no dice. I'm not sure we need a MeTa at this point to discuss these issues.
posted by clavdivs at 2:42 PM on October 13, 2022

ChrisO thread on how the mobilised soldiers are doing with respect to food, equipment and accommodation - not well. If any country ought to understand the risks of assembling and arming a large group of conscripts - but not properly feeding or housing them - it should be Russia.
posted by rongorongo at 3:09 AM on October 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

who ever said mefi can't do threaded conversations
posted by ryanrs at 11:21 AM on October 14, 2022 [5 favorites]

Images released of Nord Stream leak sites as Danish police confirm explosions — At least 50 metres of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline has been destroyed or buried under the seafloor following assumed sabotage, underwater images published on Tuesday showed. Denmark's police meanwhile said its investigations had confirmed the leaks were caused by explosions., The Local DK, 18 October 2022:

In videos [YouTube link and images] published by Swedish newspaper Expressen (Twitter), a massive tear and twisted metal can be seen on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline 80 metres down. According to the newspaper, the videos that were filmed on Monday show how over 50 metres of the pipeline is either missing or buried under the seabed, and long tears can be observed on the seabed leading up to the burst pipe.

posted by cenoxo at 10:16 AM on October 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

Longer video (Twitter) of the Nord Stream pipeline damage.
posted by cenoxo at 1:56 PM on October 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

These earlier comments on Nord Stream by Biden, Under Sec. State., and Sec. Blinken seem obligatory.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:42 PM on October 19, 2022

Radio Svoboda (nee: Radio Free Europe) on the Estonian border guard refusing entry to Ukrainians fleeing the war via Russia: "They say: go to war." Estonian border guards leave Ukrainians in Russia. (in Russian, but google/yandex translates it well)

They did not let in a girl and an elderly couple who were going to fly further to Ireland. They said that "the purpose of the trip does not match the specified." But everyone understands that if a 60-year-old grandmother with seven grades of education, who has lived in the village all her life, says that she is going to Ireland to visit relatives, she is not a tourist, there is no need to demand a visa and a ticket from her! The most terrible thing is to drag people from a bombed-out occupied city across all of Russia and get a turn from the gate at the last centimeter. But we are transporting them with sweat and blood, under huge external pressure, - says Elena

posted by kmt at 5:26 AM on October 23, 2022 [2 favorites]