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### Author:  [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2022, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3126 "2022-03-23T14:37:39Z")
A coworker asked an interesting question this morning.
For the last several years, we’ve heard all kinds of stories about the Russians’ hacking prowess – interfering with power grids and supply chain networks, infiltrating the DNC in 2016, etc. Why aren’t they retaliating against us by crippling our power grids and/or defense systems?
Is it beyond their capabilities, or are they keeping it in reserve?
Or, are the Russians behind the prior mischief more likely private agents acting on their own than an arm of Putin’s operation?
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2022, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3127 "2022-03-23T14:46:35Z")
> [@Akaj](#):
>
> For the last several years, we’ve heard all kinds of stories about the Russians’ hacking prowess – interfering with power grids and supply chain networks, infiltrating the DNC in 2016, etc. Why aren’t they retaliating against us by crippling our power grids and/or defense systems?
>
> Is it beyond their capabilities, or are they keeping it in reserve?
It appears the FSB is continuing to work on tools for cyber attacks and has tried using them against Ukraine, as I noted here:
> [@How concerned are you about a cyber-attack, and what safeguards can you take against one?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-concerned-are-you-about-a-cyber-attack-and-what-safeguards-can-you-take-against-one/961508/15):
>
> It’s not “nebulous”, it’s quite real, and the least we can do – as we have been – is track what the Russians are up to. For instance …
I read that one reason they may not (yet) be retaliating against the US or other western allies is the belief that if they start this game of cyber warfare, they’re quickly going to end up on the losing end of it. And they have more pressing things to worry about right now.
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### Author:  [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2022, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3128 "2022-03-23T14:49:56Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#):
>
> Is he just trying to scare the west into not helping Ukraine, or does he genuinely believe that Russia would collapse that easily and in that manner?
I suspect that he’s trying to scare the west into not helping Ukraine, but ISTM that he’ll be scaring the west in the opposite direction.
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### Author:  [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2022, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3129 "2022-03-23T14:50:37Z")
[As Russia Stalls in Ukraine, Dissent Brews Over Putin’s Leadership](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/world/europe/putin-russia-military-planning.html) (NY Times link, probably paywalled)
A few notable passages:
> In Russia, the slow going and the heavy toll of President Vladimir V. Putin’s war on Ukraine are setting off questions about his military’s planning capability, his confidence in his top spies and loyal defense minister, and the quality of the intelligence that reaches him. It also shows the pitfalls of Mr. Putin’s top-down governance, in which officials and military officers have little leeway to make their own decisions and adapt to developments in real time.
>
> The failures of Mr. Putin’s campaign are apparent in the striking number of senior military commanders believed to have been killed in the fighting. Ukraine says it has killed at least six Russian generals, while Russia acknowledges one of their deaths, along with that of the deputy commander of its Black Sea fleet. American officials say they cannot confirm the number of Russian troop deaths, but that Russia’s invasion plan appears to have been stymied by bad intelligence.
>
> The lack of progress is so apparent that a blame game has begun among some Russian supporters of the war — even as Russian propaganda claims that the slog is a consequence of the military’s care to avoid harming civilians. Igor Girkin, a former colonel in Russia’s F.S.B. intelligence agency and the former “defense minister” of Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, said in a video interview posted online on Monday that Russia had made a “catastrophically incorrect assessment” of Ukraine’s forces.
> Throughout Ukraine, Russian forces have now largely stalled. But analysts caution that the military setbacks will not deter Mr. Putin — who has cast the war at home as an existential one for Russia, and is increasingly signaling to the Russian public to prepare for a long fight.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2022, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3130 "2022-03-23T14:54:08Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#):
>
> [Who is Alexei Sharov? 15th Top Russian Commander Killed in Ukraine War](https://www.newsweek.com/alexei-sharov-russia-ukraine-kyiv-mariupol-general-putin-death-1690834)
When I saw this, I thought of this toy. I wish I were an editor. I’d superimpose crosshairs at the top of the slide, and add a gunshot sound effect when a penguin reaches the top.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QyB8PAZKlA)
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2022, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3131 "2022-03-23T15:01:00Z")
> [@ShadowFacts](#):
>
> But analysts caution that the military setbacks will not deter Mr. Putin — who has cast the war at home as an existential one for Russia, and is increasingly signaling to the Russian public to prepare for a long fight.
However, this is so obviously inconsistent with the purported “special military operation” with the implication of specific and limited goals that it’s hard to understand how Putin can maintain the fiction that this is anything other than an all-out war of brutal conquest, and one that is going very badly. Maintaining a web of lies through draconian censorship is one thing, but directly contradicting yourself requires an Orwellian level of thought control. And it will soon become obvious, if it isn’t already, that thousands upon thousands of Russian soldiers are never coming home.
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2022, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3132 "2022-03-23T15:07:52Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> Maintaining a web of lies through draconian censorship is one thing, but directly contradicting yourself requires an Orwellian level of thought control. And it will soon become obvious, if it isn’t already, that thousands upon thousands of Russian soldiers are never coming home.
Directly contradicting yourself when no one is allowed to point that out is a display of power in itself. I believe that is part of what the former administration was doing when giving deliberate indifference to both the English language and the truth: they were saying “yep, I just said that. What are you gonna DO about it?”
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### Author:  [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2022, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3133 "2022-03-23T15:33:15Z")
It is an existential crisis for Putin. So expect Russia to behave like it is an existential crisis for Russia until he is removed.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2022, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3134 "2022-03-23T15:39:46Z")
That’s certainly the impression I get from the increasingly hostile rhetoric coming from Putin and his minions, which seems to be driven by desperation. I fear that we’re going to see an escalation of violence by Russian forces, and should be prepared to respond in kind. One could argue that this would drive Putin to further escalation. One could also argue that all the evidence so far suggests that Putin is emboldened by the West’s lack of more direct intervention. He’s created a major humanitarian catastrophe based on no provocation at all. Two equivalents I can think of are Stalin’s _Holodomor_ and Hitler’s unprovoked invasions and war crimes.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2022, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3135 "2022-03-23T15:51:10Z")
> [@Akaj](#):
>
> For the last several years, we’ve heard all kinds of stories about the Russians’ hacking prowess – interfering with power grids and supply chain networks, infiltrating the DNC in 2016, etc. Why aren’t they retaliating against us by crippling our power grids and/or defense systems?
Mostly, I suspect, because they want to keep us _out_ of the war, and directly attacking us like that is more likely to bring us _into_ it.
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### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2022, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3136 "2022-03-23T15:54:40Z")
I’m still concerned about fuel and food. I hear little about that being supplied, and only lots of talk about missiles, even though fuel and food may be even more vital for Ukraine than munitions.
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### Author:  [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2022, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3137 "2022-03-23T16:00:48Z")
I’ve heard that Russia outsources it’s hacking needs. Money problems equals less to pay the hackers. I’ve also heard that they are overestimated due to publicity, and that the real deal hackers that are out there, you know nothing about. Essentially that we have way better white hats than their black hats, but we just don’t hear about ours very much. By design I’m sure. Plus Anonymous is waging a full on cyber war against Putin and Russia. So there are much bigger guns in this fight than Russia’s rent a hackers.
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### Author:  [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2022, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3138 "2022-03-23T16:07:19Z")
Anonymous are currently mass printing information about the war on unsecured printers around Russia and have sent seven million texts to Russian phones.
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### Author:  [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2022, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3139 "2022-03-23T16:10:27Z")
I have a mental image of people who are loyal to Putrid and/or scared to get caught with anti-Putrid literature trying to discreetly dispose of the printouts like a teenager trying to prevent his parents from finding his porn stash.
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### Author:  [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2022, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/3140 "2022-03-23T16:11:12Z")
> [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#):
>
> Anonymous are currently mass printing information about the war on unsecured printers around Russia and seven million texts to Russian phones.
I hadn’t heard that, but OMFG … is that great !
[https://www.hackread.com/anonymous-hacks-unsecured-printers-message-russia/](https://www.hackread.com/anonymous-hacks-unsecured-printers-message-russia/)
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