Thanks to modern technology, it really isn’t that much harder for Russians to find the truth than it is for your typical American Fox News viewer. The question is whether they will seek it out, and if they do, will they believe it when they see it.
Putin be like this:
I both pity him and don’t. Odd feeling.
Doesn’t sound like there’s any end in sight.
Things will accelerate after Mariupol falls. Russians can attack Ukraine forces from three directions. I really hope the new weapons have been distributed to front line troops.
Live Blog. Bolding is mine.
I don’t understand why the Ukrainian numerical advantage hasn’t come to bear yet. No matter how many Russian troops are in Ukraine, doesn’t the present-populace of Ukrainians who are willing and able to fight outnumber them at least 20-to-1? Why hasn’t that led to Russians getting steamrolled by sheer numbers at this point?
If they were to approach Mariupol and engage in street warfare that would happen. But they are staying out of the city and just bombing it to hell instead. If that works there, they will try to duplicate that in Odessa and other cities. Putin must think leveling Ukraine to rubble counts as a win.
Even if the Ukrainians have enough guns and ammo to provide that amount of people - which I seriously doubt - they can only be used for defensive purposes. For offensive operations you need trained, organized troops and logistics, as the Russians have learned to their detriment.
Also, actual military technology helps, a lot.
How many firearms does the average Ukrainian own? I doubt it’s anything like it is in the US.
From the latest ongoing CNN updates, looks like NATO is finally stepping up its involvement, bolstering forces in neighbouring countries.
Just throwing warm bodies into battle hasn’t been an effective strategy since at least the Korean War. And even then it came at a horrific cost for the Red Chinese who only managed a stalemate. Artillery is still king.
This is a case where break-up by text would not only be appropriate but advisable – and send the text from another country.
Winning the hearts and minds of the populace. We should tell him how well that worked in Vietnam.
Question: While it would undoubtedly take too long to train Ukrainian pilots on, say, US warplanes, what about American former fighter pilots who have already gone to Ukraine to join the fight? I don’t know how many there are among the American former military who’ve gone over there, but Ukraine had so few of its own that surely any would be a help?
It doesn’t take cooperation. If someone hopes to use that printer, they’re going to have to refill the paper tray and hope the anti-Putin copies stop. Or the next person will. And consider, too, that the messages include instructions on how to access an open-source browser that bypasses Russian state-censored browsers. While there may be few such people, doubt tends to spread, and Putin’s support, while widespread, is apparently fragile.
Besides, Anonymous won’t be using this tactic long. It isn’t their first hacktivist attempt in this war, and it won’t be the last. I suspect that like the preceding hacks, the real targets are Russian leadership, which is bound to hear about the information dump, and the message is, “You can’t shut us–and the truth–out.”
If it were me, and I didn’t want them, I’d put just a couple of sheets in the printer, check to see if they’d stopped, and if they hadn’t figure that I just couldn’t use that printer, at least unless I could get it repaired. If it’s going to keep printing the same thing over and over, I can’t use it for anything else anyway.
Which is part of the reason why I had hoped they were distributed over thousands, not less than two hundred, locations.
And again, some people will be too pissed off to read them. ETA: especially if it turns out that they’ll never again be able to use that printer for anything else.
– I’m not saying they shouldn’t have done it. I’m saying that it’s too bad they apparently weren’t able to do it in a better version.
Yes, that is the strategy at this point; Kill as many civilians as possible, and destroy as much of Ukraine as possible. That’s all they are able to do.
Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium, atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Translation: To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire, and where they make a desert, they call it peace .
Yeah. I doubt it was the strategy at the start – I think most likely Putin thought he could effectively take over a functioning country that had taken very little damage. By now it’s clear there’s no way he can do that. The only kind of win he can now possibly claim is destruction; so, being who he is, that’s what he’s now going for.
On the Russians caught in the Hostomel-Irpin-Bucha pocket: