Operationally speaking there’s no such thing as war crimes. The victor writes the rules and the loser, well vae victis.
The “rules based international order” is a sham and always has been. This is made obvious by the US based empire’s total disregard for other states’ sovereignty when it doesn’t suit them.
For what it’s worth I oppose this war as I oppose virtually all wars. It’s tragic and I wish it were unnecessary.
>Operationally speaking there’s no such thing as war crimes. The victor writes the rules and the loser, well vae victis.
Yawn.
Of course the victor writes the rules, but the International Criminal Court has the support of most of the UN. If you believe democratic society is fundamentally a good thing then it follows that the Pax Americana has been, in aggregate, a tremendous success in normalizing and codifying international law.
Is the current state of affairs imperfect? Of course.
"Winners write history" is such a boring, undergraduate take on geopolitics.
The period of relative peace in which we live is called the Pax Americana because it's primarily driven by US military hegemony and there's no escaping that fact.
I don’t think your rudeness is appropriate or helps satisfy intellectual curiosity. It sounds like you have some formal training in IR, how about you contribute at a level befitting your education? So much for that.
The ICC is a great example of why “international law” is a dead letter if not a total fraud. I’m sure you’re aware that the US based empire doesn’t acknowledge its authority. The US based empire permits the ICC to act only when it serves the empire’s interests. So much for normalization and codification.
Finally, I never said “winners write history.” I said they write the rules. Conflating the two is intellectually sloppy or a straw man. So much for reading comprehension.
As soon as American politicians get the same treatment... The west doesn't hold the moral high ground on anything. Wherever the US meddles, misery follows.
Some justice is better than no justice. Criticism of hypocrisy between A and B is fine in its own context, but in the context of A or B alone, it's called whataboutism, which has the appearance of justifying the unjust, and is therefore extremely detrimental to conversation.
> The short answer is simple: Ukrainians call their capital “Kyiv” (kee-yiv), the spelling, a transliteration of the Ukrainian Київ. The Russian version is “Kiev” (kee-yev).
> Not surprisingly, the Ukrainian government mounted a campaign four years ago to secure international approval for the name of its capital city. There is even a popular Twitter hashtag, #KyivNotKiev.
The Ukrainian and Russian alphabets have different glyphs and pronunciations for a few letters. In Ukrainian, it is Ки́їв, and in Russian, it is Ки́ев. They Romanize differently, and it is considered a sign of solidarity with Ukraine to use their spelling/pronunciation.
Just wanted to note that the acute accent over the и (in both Russian and Ukrainian) indicates the stress and is only used in fairly narrow contexts such as dictionary entries.
"On 17 May 2016 the Permanent Mission of the Czech Republic to the United Nations informed the UN that the short name to be used for the country is Czechia." [1]
The official full name in English continues to be "the Czech Republic". [2]
Ukraine changed the "official" way to transliterate Ukrainian words from Cyrillic to English some time ago, to closer match the way it's actually pronounced. Plus some changes from Russian to Ukrainian when the country started promoting the Ukrainian language (they're very close, but not quite the same).
Kiev -> Kyiv. Kharkov -> Kharkiv. Zelensky should be spelt Zelenskiy (as per his official social media). Vladimir -> Volodymyr, Mikhail -> Mykhailo, etc...
Solid-fueled combined with that kind of trajectory means either an MLRS or an AA missile. (neither artillery shells nor cruise missiles use solid fuels)
This cannot possibly be an MLRS rocket because they are fired in huge salvos and fall without smoke (all fuel is burnt by that point). You won't mistake that for anything else, believe me.
AA launch gone haywire for some reason is my bet. The small explosion is also telling (AA missiles have small warheads, they are all fuel). This would mean either Buk, S-300, or Strela-10 as they are I think the only AA systems in the area. Since that happened yesterday (?) in the Obolon', Kiev, my second bet is that it belongs to Ukrainian Military since it's not taken yet, or wasn't at the moment this was posted.
Remember: what you're getting right now is almost pure white noise, from both sides. The full picture will be available much later. Don't trust my words either, verify everything yourself.
While I agree with the sentiment that at the end of the day none of this would've happened without the Russian aggression, it does still matter because intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime. I'm not saying that's what happened here but let's be clear that actions have serious meaning in war. This line of reasoning reminds me of the idea that we shouldn't care about the origin of covid because it's out there and the origin isn't going to make much difference at this point. But I think a lot of people do care about these details because they might have great historical significance.
It is, because Ukraine, while not a state party to the Rome Statute, has acceded voluntarily to ICC jurisdiction for war crimes on its territory.
OTOH, ICC has no practical power to bring Russian personnel (other than those captured in combat by Ukraine) before it for trial, and the US “invade the Hague” law on the ICC might prove a model for Russia should the ICC gain custody of Russian personnel somehow.
But the accusation is not that Russia did this intentionally. It is most likely an accident, an accident caused by Russia's invasion. Russia is responsible for the death of these civilians even if the missile came from Ukrainian equipment.
USA and its Nato allies have committed huge number of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan without any repercussions. And USA does not allow its soldiers to be put on trial in international war courts so what moral authority do these courts have. Mostly they are used against poor african countries.
The Russians say: It would not have happened when Ukraine was not turned into a potential NATO country.
The Russians genuinely see it as a security issue. Ukraine is becoming a threat once part of the NATO. In some ways understandable. In the end we are talking about two enemies ,the west and Russia having a pretty serious conflict. Neither is good or bad. Unfortunately propoganda is extremely efficient these days. Either side have full support.
Nah, it is pretty clear that Russia goal is control of Ukraine. The only role membership in NATO play is that if that theoretically happened, it would be harder to attack Ukraine later on.
And there was no immenent threat of Ukraine entering nato anyway. This is just Russia using it as excuse.
Of course they want to control Ukraine. They did for 100 years. Only recently they start losing market to western companies. That is the reason why there is a war now. Russia is losing ground. NATO is gaining ground. It is that simple.
The ignorance to think that the west doesn't want Ukraine being member of NATO is beyond strange. Of course they want. It brings enormous market to NATO land. all large businesses would vote yes to get Ukraine inside their sphere. Same for Russia. For them it is exactly the same.
If only the political level of corruption would be normal. Yes then I completely agree. But it's not. Nevertheless I agree that the people of Ukraine want no Russian control.
Putin in his speech blamed Lenin for giving away the territory of the Russian empire in creating a Ukrainian Republic, and claimed that Ukraine is not a real country so does not deserve sovereignty. He later said its leaders are drug dealing Nazis, presumably including the Jewish Russian-speaking president.
Nothing the Russian state says about the origins of the conflict seems very credible. A more plausible origin is Putin’s megalomaniacal imperial ambitions and paranoid fear of being eventually displaced by a homegrown pro-Europe, pro-democracy movement in Russia.
> Nothing the Russians say about the origins of the conflict seem very credible. A more plausible origin is Putin’s megalomania and paranoid fear of being eventually displaced by a homegrown pro-Europe, pro-democracy movement in Russia.
Ideology seems to be part of it but Russian security concerns are part of it too. Suggesting that NATO expansion was a mistake is not the same thing as blaming this war on NATO.
Anyone who does blame NATO should ask themselves why Ukraine wanted to join in the first place (because the Ukrainians know the Russians won't respect their sovereignty).
This comment is getting down voted pretty hard. Im not pro-Russia by any means, but I did take a minute to imagine what it would be like to live with (more?) missile silos pointing at me at the boarder of my country. I didn't have to think too long, you can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis
This pushes the justification for Putin's response away from "unprovoked and savage".
IMO I think the US is partially responsible for this crisis. We've never stopped expanding our influence, for better or worse. Perhaps we pushed a little too hard here.
</armchair>
(edit: changed pro-russia to pro-Putin. E2: Flipped again)
Is it? I didn't want to blame the whole of Russia when Putin has more authoritative powers over the countries decisions, quite unlike the US. I'll fix it regardless since this is a nuanced difference.
I actually liked your change from Russia to Putin so apologies for me not explaining and causing confusion and another edit. My point was that you were more accurate to say that Putin is feeling threatened, than Russia is. And this change has further implications on the validity of his stated reasons.
The reasons why there isn’t actually another perspective like this:
Everything you said was true years ago as well, a form of it was even true during the Cuban missile crisis, as the US had missiles at the border of the soviet union too, there is nothing unique or newfound geopolitically about the timing here to support this “security issue”.
Russia creates contexts for invasion. It hands passports out to pro-Russian residents in parts of Ukraine, and then invades to “protects its citizens” so that it could theoretically be judged the same way as other countries that do interventions.
Adding all of that to an ideological retcon from 100 years ago, and all you have left is an irrational madman who wants to be in the footnote of a history book as attempting empire rebuilding.
Putin’s own advisors are afraid of him and cant give him a straight answer about anything, they're afraid of the international consequences of this as well.
None of this supports the idea of a leader doing anything in the interest of Russians or the concept of a Russian empire.
We’ll never even get to know what an independent Donetsk and Luhansk even means. Microstates? Districts of Russia?
This is just all way off and a mess. Its come down to just choosing a side and watching the results unfold.
Khrushchev was no match to Stalin. But he did not hesitate to fire on striking workers killing scores and later sentencing some to death and many to extended imprisonment. So I think as a human he was the same POS. Luckily for the people of USSR on a smaller scale.
>"This is going to be a disaster for the Russian people as well."
It is already disaster. Putin has basically threw Russia back to a stone age. I've no idea how long it'll take for him to go one or the other way and for Russia to recover back to anything resembling normal life.
With the amount of equipment both sides are using that are the exact same (save for a swipe of IR paint) I can't imagine how much blue-on-blue incidents are happening right now
I'm seeing Ukrainians using yellow/green tapes while Russians are using white/red. Russians are also painting 'Z', 'V' and 'O' on their vehicles. Z being from Russia and V from Belarus.
I was wondering what the Z meant and after searching other people would too, and there were multiple theories. One of it was that Z stood for the main target - Zelenskyy. But that was just as likely as the other theories, but now that you said there are also V and O do it is for his full name: Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy then that's def it.
With the amount of chaos happening around I don't think anybody knows for sure. It's not taken yet, that's all I know from my brother who lives in the neighboring area (he has more important things to do than missile identification though...)
The Russians have deployed SAMs in Belarus and has an operating radius that covers almost the entire theater.
According to Rob Lee's twitter it appears Grand Parent's deduction is correct because previously a Ukranian Su-27 that blew up in Kiev was being falsely reported as Russian jet.
I have to note how difficult it is right now. "Ukranian side" (it is not clear who the original disseminator network is) appear to be using footages of ARMA 3 and DCS: World overlayed with voice and artifacts from Twitter's compression algorithms really can fool many to believe Ukraine is putting up fierce resistance.
The latest disinformation seems to be a seemingly staged conversation between a Ukranian driver and a Russian APC squad. I don't know who stands to benefit from these disinformation campaign but :
1) Ukranian side can raise morale by selling perception that Russia is poorly equipped and suffering from poor morale.
2) Russian side would purposefully allow such disinformation to spread for an element of surprise, might even be the one manufacturing it.
It is probably a combination of the two but from today's executive order from Putin to launch an all out offensive from all direction will be telling.
Send in the poorly equipped, inexperienced troops in first to feign false sense of security and send in your regular well equipped army.
White noise on all sides and I am noting too, just how difficult it is to get the real story but it seems Twitter makes this extra difficult and its not clear who is leaking these fake disinformation stories and to whom it is aimed to ultimately benefit.
We simply do not know what is happening but I am leaning towards #2, today's encirclement and seige of Mariupol, which was long touted as putting up effective resistance by pro-Ukraine twitter accounts, seems to have collapsed in a matter of hours, sort of like the "Ghost of Kiev" myth
> According to Rob Lee's twitter it appears Grand Parent's deduction is correct because previously a Ukranian Su-27 that blew up in Kiev was being falsely reported as Russian jet.
Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian use the Cyrillic alphabet and I don't trust a random burner twitter account making that claim.
Rob Lee, who has been independently reporting about Ukraine since 2014, is fairly credible and does not appear to stand to gain anything from accusations that he is pro-Russian
I think it's absolutely splendid the way a 17 day old account with just 2 posts here, both about the Ukraine invasion, has such insight about the deceptive propaganda uses of simulation games! Could you please show us some examples?
This is complex. There is plenty of evidence of false flag and other trickery going on from the Russian side including changing into the uniform of the Ukranian forces before attacking vehicles and such.
It's been filmed from several angles, these videos were circulating in Telegram previously. No plane or helicopter was seen or heard around. Unguided air-to-ground missiles fired from helicopters don't usually have that kind of thick white smoke, and also fired in salvos. (I don't think a pilot even has an option to fire just one)
Ground to ground is either MLRS (doesn't look like it at all) or ballistic (absolutely not)
Rockets get fired in salvos. Air to ground missiles are regularly fired individually. Think the US maveric or hellfire lines. "Missile" generally means a guided rocket. "Rockets" are generally unguided, although there are laser-guided FFARs that are still called rockets.
The missile in point descends in a straight line - that means either the launch happened in the air or it was boosted into the air upon the ground launch.
AT missiles are typically obturated, don't have that amount of smoke either, and won't cause that kind of damage (they are designed to leave a small hole)
Russia MOD: “In attempts of repelling a rocket attack on the military infrastructure of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, failure occurred in the missile guidance system of a Ukrainian AF Buk-M1 medium-range air defense system and the missile hit the corner of a residential building."
I don't disagree with the broader point you're supporting, but...
>The 13 guards telling the Russian naval ship to fuck off (turns out they surrendered)...
... while I'm open to this being what actually happened, I can't find anything that suggests this. Even Reuters is still saying Zelensky says they died. Can you provide a source for this?
Edit: TASS, a Russian news agency, appears to report what you're saying, but that's quite a biased source and seems to be the only one I can find[1].
Russian media has a huge interest in discrediting the story to break morale though. I wanted to check the link saying the Russian DoD has footage of the prisoners, but it just links to a tag list of all their articles about the Russian DoD.
The site you've linked also has an article saying Biden is considering WW3 as a possible alternative to sanctions.
I'll admit I have no idea if the story is true, but it is just hilarious to me that in a thread about questioning the stories being reported that you actually tried to point to Russian state-owned media as a source of authoritative truth.
Knowingly posting an untrustworthy source without any remark on its untrustworthiness implies that you believe that source. It is hard to imagine a more untrustworthy source than state-owned media coming from the aggressor nation in a war that basically all neutral parties agree is unjustified.
As I said in my other comment, of course Russian media and gov is untrustworthy, but so is Ukrainian government and media. Both have incentive to push specific narrative: Russians wants to be seen as chivalrous liberators, which requires them to blame civilian casualties on Ukraine as much as possible, while Ukraine wants to be seen as putting up strong resistance in order to keep morale high, and point to civilian deaths as proofs of their invaders savage barbarism.
This means you cannot take any sides claims at face value. At the same time, you shouldn’t just ignore them and close your eyes to propaganda, as you’ll miss important nuggets of truth that are sprinkled throughout the narrative. The more information you get, from all sides, the more likely you will be to be able to piece together what actually is going on.
Hence why the comment above said “Russian media reports”, without five paragraphs of disclaimers that this is not gospel truth, as it assumed that people are able to think for themselves, and take Russian media reports for what they are, which is, while obviously an aggressor’s propaganda, not necessarily a falsehood.
I don't know what you are going on about. I started my first comment with "I'll admit I have no idea if the story is true" so it should have been clear that I was not siding with either Ukrainian or Russian sources on this specific issue.
I also didn't need "five paragraphs of disclaimers". I didn't even need five words of disclaimers. A simple "They're biased but..." at the start of that original comment and I wouldn't have felt the need to respond.
You don't need to overanalyze my comment. I simply think that if someone asks for a source and your only response is a source of questionable accuracy, that you should acknowledge that the source is not authoritative. I found it funny that this was happening in a conversation that was already about how many sources can't be trusted so I commented to point these two things out. It isn't any more complicated than that.
I assumed you need a thorough explanation, considering your statements like “Knowingly posting an untrustworthy source without any remark on its untrustworthiness implies that you believe that source.”. No, this is simply untrue. That’s not how it ever worked. Western media will happily relay Russian claims without adding disclaimers about trustworthiness of Russian media in each and every instance. The main reason to add disclaimers like these is to in fact signal allegiance to opposing side.
No, they don’t “look equal” in my eyes. I was only talking about the incentives of each side, not how successful their efforts are.
That said, since I live in the west, I’m overwhelmingly exposed to pro-Ukraine propaganda, and very little to pro-Russia propaganda. Almost none of it is, of course, paid for by Ukraine.
The site seems legit despite the .net domain (cross-check with the Wikipedia article, where the URL has not been modified recently). Doubtful it got hacked as the latest articles do not have a pro-Russian angle.
Nice. And if you believe RUS media, I'd like to talk to you about a bridge I have for sale, or some rare oceanfront property in Kansas ;-)
RUS strategy is to flood the zone with conflicting information so as to create a 'wilderness of mirrors', create infighting in the opposition, and/or get people to give up on finding the truth.
Seriously, a broken analog clock that is correct twice per day is more trustworthy.
> RUS strategy is to flood the zone with conflicting information so as to create a 'wilderness of mirrors', create infighting in the opposition, and/or get people to give up on finding the truth
Indeed, but this is also Ukrainian strategy. It is in Ukrainian interest to push morale-increasing stories. Of course everything Russian media and government say needs to be taken as propaganda, but doing that while taking Ukrainian sides claims as highly accurate, is just wishful thinking.
What excellent fakes are you talking about? A lot of claims by each side are just that, claims. For example, Ukraine claims to shot down two huge Russian IL-76 planes, but I haven’t seen any photos or videos of these yet, fake or real. In this case, I think we’ll find out if it’s true soon enough. Similarly, Russia claims that the high-rise in Kiev has been hit by Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile. That’s also just a claim, with no evidence as of yet.
You've been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly. Would you please stop doing that so we don't have to ban you again? It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.
We need something objective to go on. Someone else disagreeing with your view is not evidence that they're a bot. The vast majority, in my experience, are simply people with different backgrounds disagreeing with each other for what must in the end be similar reasons.
Users are much too quick to assume that someone they don't like on the internet is a bot, spy, shill, astroturfer, foreign agent, you name it. This is pretty much the most common thing people throw at each other in online arguments. That's why we don't allow it here—see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. If you or anyone thinks they have evidence of abuse, they should send it to hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. Plenty of past explanation is at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... For example, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27398725 is one in-depth post on the topic.
Btw, pointing a finger at others isn't a great way to respond when asked to stop breaking the site guidelines. I know emotions are running high, but that applies to everyone, and unless I'm mistaken you have a history of breaking the site guidelines here and being banned for it, and that tends to lead to getting banned again unless you take conscious steps to fix it.
And in case it helps at all, none of that means that I don't feel for your situation.
I never said that one had to take every UKR claim as accurate
But I will say that they are likely to be more accurate - after all, the Russians are the undisputed world champions of dezinformatsiya for at least 15 decades; Ukranians are at best their students.
And as for who is in the right and who is wrong in these events, it is 100% clear - Putin's govt and military are 100% wrong. He is an autocrat attempting to undermine a neighboring democracy, because the very idea of proper democracy at home, Putin sees as a threat to his power. He is happy to kill and gail opponents, from Navalny, to Magnitski, to Litvenienko, and the list goes on...
It is wrong, that is all there is to it. Stop trying to justify it, or play whataboutism games. Have a deep rethink.
Russian media and the Russian negotiators said there would be no attack on Ukraine. Why would you still give them the benefit of the doubt after that? If they lied about that then there is absolutely no reason to believe them about anything else as long as Putin is in power.
It's not confirmed yet, but this is from the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service:
We got strong beliefs that all Ukrainian defenders of Zmiiniy Island may be alive... The SBGSU and the Armed Forces, like the whole of Ukraine, have received hope that all of Zmiiny's defenders are alive.
So, in essence, you're doing the same thing you were trying to caution people about doing. People may, in fact, be spreading a story that's false, but you're also spreading a false story by saying "turns out they surrendered" when your own citation suggests they're still trying to confirm their surrender.
We all need to be diligent about confirming word-of-mouth stories and allowing time for their accuracy to be verified.
Some of the coverage of this is almost at the level of Baghdad Bob, where it is more about uncritically reporting success than actually reporting what is happening.
You just quoted word-for-word the tweet that you linked to without attributing it, then you don't link any uncritical media reports that the tweet is referring to.
Why on earth should I put more weight on your comment (a 39-day-old account), the tweets of Tucker Max, or the Tweets of some so-called former CIA officer that I've never heard of? My bullshit alarm is sounding.
it's incredible just from this thread alone the confusion and inability to tell what is going on.
In 2003, we just saw whatever CNN was feeding us but now anybody can become a CNN and you don't even need to be at the place of war.
Can I just point out how freaky this all is? We have never been more connected and have low barriers to access unlimited information, yet despite this, we have no bearing.
Information war is a thing. Though, you can find information from people on the ground on Youtube, social media and small websites (mainstream media you can completely forget, there are enough leaks to show that the likes of BBC and Reuters engage in propaganda to turn people against Russia (and I don't even mean local/international outlets but in Eastern European nations specifically and even in Russia itself)). Ah, of course, you should be able to distinguish footage from a video game from real life footage (referring to the large amount of people who apparently can't do that).
On the topic of video game footages being used seemingly by unknown actors with various intent, if a gamer like me can be tricked, how gullible is the average user?
I LEGIT thought the whole Ghost of Kiev video was REAL the first time I watched it. It was only when the whole scene did not make sense——why would the Russian jet slow down and slowly ascent with a pursuing Ukranian jet and why would it use AA missile instead of opting for guns at such close range moving slowly?
It was only after this exercise in logic did I take a second look at the video and saw the person holding the camera was moving way too stable without the artifacts you normally get from software stabilization.
Many, many people saw that video and retweeted it thinking it was legitimate. I almost did too until I saw it a second time and realized Twitter's compression algorithms degraded the quality in an authentic manner that hides anti-aliasing and uncanny valley.
Games are increasing becoming photorealistic where I can't tell from preview thumbs (ex. Ride 4) and we are probably witnessing the cusp of a new type of war. Our morales can be influenced by the hour now thanks to social media and advancements in light ray tracing.
Like in 2011 I was certain that photorealism was far off because of the computation difficulties with real-time ray tracing, I had not anticipated the leaps in GPU, AI, Deepfake technologies as well as software advancements like Nanite and Lumen in UE5
There are a lot of bogus pictures. There are "live webcams" which are clearly showing pre-war recordings. CNN has identified some video as being replays from other wars.[1] Some of this is disinformation, and some of this is people trying to get likes on social media.
Right now, you have to check Reuters, the BBC, CNN, Fox News, Tass, People's Daily, and whatever is still up in Ukraine to get a sense of what's going on.
People's Daily, which represents the official positions of the CCP, is making vague general statements, but not endorsing Russia's position.
Your claims about those 13 - you provide no evidence, just sow baseless doubts. That's a russian playbook, saw them doing this and much more over past 20 years all around former warsaw pact countries to weaken them, with some success actually. From an account started 39 days ago...
Its obviously not a smart move to trust for example numbers of either side, that never worked in any conflict (unless you average them, but even then its just a guess).
As another user pointed out, there are videos of SAM vehicles passing villages near Kyiv, so it could have well been a russian one (but nobody here really knows). Anyway blame lies solely on invading russians for this one
I wouldn't say it's baseless. This is from the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service:
We got strong beliefs that all Ukrainian defenders of Zmiiniy Island may be alive... The SBGSU and the Armed Forces, like the whole of Ukraine, have received hope that all of Zmiiny's defenders are alive.
That's actually a "normal" question when thinking of it in terms of one saas company to another, but I actually think that question is almost nonsensical when thinking of it as a company selling to a major government. "Err, what is this 'afford' word you use? I do not think it means what you think it does."
"How much can we charge to ensure we are not leaving money on the table?"
'How much can you afford' has a deeper meaning. It's not how much money is in your wallet definition of "afford". It's more like how high can we push that number before your backside no longer clinches. It's a sales person's wet dream situation. It was never meant to be understood as "we can't afford your asking price, so give us a lower rate'.
The overall missed point is that there is no set price. The prices are negotiated per purchaser.
This is the M270 system which was developed in the 1970s and 1980s to meet the US Army’s Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) requirement. It was just a way of naming the requirement, kind of like “JSF”, and it stuck.
At the time rocket launchers were most commonly referred to as Multiple Rocket Launchers (MRL) and were mostly simple truck-based variants.
However MLRS had been used to refer to the capability by others in the past and it was never trademarked or limited to the US requirement and the M270. Over time it became common to refer to any modern integrated multiple rocket launcher as an MLRS, leaving the MRL naming only for less sophisticated types.
I'm amazed that they were granted those trademarks. As I said, MLRS has become a very generic term and from the start it was a US Army name, not invented by Lockheed-Martin.
That kind of damage would
not be caused by an AA missile.
Not only is it small (like you pointed out) AA missiles also tend to focus on fragmentation damage (expanding metal rings, directed frag etc).
Source: I used to be an explosives expert in the military.
Edit: Completely forgot to mention fuzing systems. This missile detonated on contact with the building. I have yet to come across an AA missile that detonates on contact with an object. All (effective) AA missiles use proximity sensors (radar, thermal, etc) to detonate near their target.
Also, if it was a misfire, most modern missiles have fail safes that disable the detonation of the main charge in case of an accidental firing.
Again, I could be wrong and this could be an AA missile, but all signs point to no; it isn’t.
That was my own thought. It wasn't an attack at you, just a PSA to think about what you see online.
Personally, the red flags from your post were that you have hardly any post history, you came out claimed to be a munitions/explosives expert, usually you don't have to do that, the knowledge speaks for itself. Your rebuttal didn't seem to be as strong compared to GPs reasoning, and it ended with a conclusion that seemed to be more of an opinion, not objective reasoning.
--
I don't think the ad hominem attack by (epgui) and (jaquesm) is warranted, it definitely isn't "Fact". I reply to many topics both political and technical, as does everyone. If I have such a consistent track record of "patently unreasonable comments" then you should be able to support your argument.
Again, I did not mean any offense by my initial statement.
No, it really isn't. If someone is an expert in some field then that is good context to have.
If there was something that you disagreed with in that post you should have engaged with that like others did instead of trying to discredit the poster based on your personal idea of what is an accounts credibility status.
You're taking my initial warning too personally. I was simply cautioning everyone to think about what they see online during this time especially.
Personally, orbital-decay's reasoning was more sound and expansive than master_crab's. The source drop that provided no context was a red flag in my eyes combined with the direct countering without sound reasoning. I did NOT want to share my personal reasoning though as I'm not an expert.
Again, I simply wanted to caution others without attacking the GP. I did later have to expand on why I was cautioning in replies, which could be viewed as "discrediting", but I didn't want to divulge those opinions in the first place because it's distracting.
- EDIT because post limit -
> @jacquesm: The irony.
Not really. I initially didn't want to share it, that paragraph was my personal opinion and the last sentence of the paragraph was me saying I didn't want to share it, but I had to in later replies because of the fuss.
You left out the context of:
> I simply wanted to caution others without attacking the GP. I did later have to expand on why I was cautioning in replies.
Don't bother with hunterb123, this user (hunterb123) has a consistent track record of posting patently unreasonable comments on a variety of different topics.
I know my comment is ad hominem, but track records count for something, and while they have no bearing on the value of an argument, they sure should affect your degree of suspicion and scrutiny of said argument.
It could be a Russian S-13 unguided rocket [0] used by Su-25 close air support airplane. They detonate on impact and have up to 33 kg (73 lbs) warhead that can cause the damage seen on the photo.
I used to work in aerospace, but not in defense so I don't actually know much, hence the warning in the end. (that's a problem with confident-looking comments on the net - people are always assuming you are competent when you're just a random guy speculating on the limited knowledge and information)
That's a lot of damage against a reinforced concrete structure for an anti-air weapon. I think it's at least as likely to be an impact from an air-to-surface weapon, which would also have solid propellent. The flight profile looks much more consistent with a helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft launch than a surface-to-air launch (especially since, as you mentioned, it's clearly in the early-ish stages of flight). A Buk launch could be vaguely plausible (the Strela series has VERY small warheads), but I don't see the S-300 having that kind of failure mode early in flight.
As you said though, the full picture will come out later. Hopefully they'll find some identifiable weapon fragments eventually.
> my second bet is that it belongs to Ukrainian Military since it's not taken yet, or wasn't at the moment this was posted.
A widely circulated video showed a Ukrainian jet that was shot down in Kyiv at night by Russian AA less than 48 hours ago. The odds are not great on your second bet.
You may well be right about all of that. And then you will have to consider that if Russia had not invaded Ukraine this would not have happened regardless of which party fired the rocket. You can take it as read that Ukrainians would not willfully take out their own apartment buildings.
So whatever the direct cause the responsibility for all this lies with the Russians.
Not all of it. If there isn't some responsibility on proper operations of munitions then you're saying it's okay for them to keep blowing up apt buildings on accident because Ruskies are there.
This should be remembered, those responsible in its operation should be reprimanded, and those civilians and their families should be compensated by the Ukrainian government. It should not be used as propaganda, it should be admitted as a mistake.
Munitions can and do fail, rockets can and do go off territory.
Taking into account how the Russians handled MH17, as a Dutch person I may be a bit biased but I think this is wholly on them.
Russia is responsible, no matter how you want to dress it up. RCA. Or do you actually believe that reparations payments take into account which party did the damage?
Anti-aircraft weapons are inherently dangerous to the cities they protect. Shells are fired upward and many follow a ballistic path back down to earth, missiles are fired and quite often miss. Successfully deployed weapons cause airplanes, and all their fuel and ordnance, to fall out of the sky onto the landscape below. All of this is understood by the militaries who rely on these weapons.
These are just the basic facts. No special expertise needed, of the sort the "I can tell what kind of missile this was by observing the smoke it makes" guy must possess. Shifting moral responsibility for collateral damage from the aggressor to the defender based on the limitations of the defender's arsenal does not seem right.
Ah yes, the “NATO will deploy nukes in direct vicinity of Moscow”, completely demolished by the fact that Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland are already NATO members on border with Russia and just as close to Moscow.
Now the only question remains: are you spreading this propaganda intentionally?
the last question is the most critical part of my comment. it's war and everybody who is malicious - is my enemy that has to be eliminated by any means necessary.
1. US deployed nukes to Turkey,
2. to which USSR responded symmetrically by attempting to deploy nukes in Cuba,
3. to which US responded with blockade
4. and therefore Russian invasion to Ukraine is justified
5. because NATO may deploy nukes in Ukraine
4. simply doesn't follow from previous 3 points because the assumption in 5. is incorrect in three ways:
1. Ukraine is not in NATO so NATO doesn't have the capability to deploy nukes there
2. If NATO needed nukes close to Moscow - they ALREADY HAVE where to do that - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland
3. US was responding with blockade to ACTIVE DEPLOYMENT PROCESS of nukes, which isn't happening in Ukraine
No, I never said it’s justified. More over, this war is highly unpopular in Russia itself (dictatorship countries can be engaged in unpopular wars). But to understand it you need to look at it from Putin’s perspective: “NATO is explicitly was anti-Soviet, and now is anti-Russian organization. It continues to rapidly expand right next to Russia’s borders. It is a security threat. It deployed nukes in close proximity in the past.” The point is that something unjustified from your perspective is justified from Putin’s perspective.
What Putin's perspective is doesn't really matter though, he will do whatever he wants to do for whatever misguided/crazy reasoning is going on in his head. In the end the only thing that matters is how the rest of the world reacts.
Letting a megalomaniacal dictator that has clearly lost command of his senses run amok, especially when in control of a large nuclear arsenal is a risk we can not really afford, and appeasing such a person will only feed into the cycle of demands.
> It continues to rapidly expand right next to Russia’s borders
this is bullshit. NATO is not expanding, NATO is not the actor that is able to perform that action, rather it's emergent property of sovereign countries choosing to join NATO.
So who is Putin to tell what sovereign countries can or cannot do? If he's so unhappy with a choice that sovereign country is making with regard to joining a defensive alliance, maybe he should offer something better instead and not behave like a crazy lunatic dictator?
There is nothing valuable in "look at it from Putin's perspective" argument when his perspective is tyrannical.
I think something to keep in mind here too is that whether that was a Russian missile or not (I expect it was, but grant that it might have been friendly fire), it's a certainty it wouldn't have been fired if Russia hadn't invaded Ukraine.
Not sure if I can add some info that helps, but looking at the footage, I'm seeing trajectory coming from west, even south west, it's big, 5-6 m, travelling around 1200 m/s - so, mach 3-4 (based on 25fps), angle (in the actual image from cctv footage) starts at 39 degrees and dips further down to 43 degrees (in my crude analysis 90deg would be straight down), I guess that sounds like a Buk then, but I'd love anyones feedback. Will add tho, that even if this was a stray from Ukrane's forces, there are russian missles just sitting around in the streets, so they're not exactly being precise with their targeting, I'm just interested in knowing what is exactly the truth, don't care so much the implications in short term, as op said all noise for a long time, but figuring it out helps interpret what you see in the news.
Edit: Oh, assuming we all know location - NE of Sikorsky Int Airport, next to novus supermarket.
Founder and creative director of Bellingcat (definitely not pro-russian) advises being careful with this one:
> Some claims that the missile strike on the apartment building in Kyiv could be from a Ukrainian S-300 air defense missile, so its still worth keeping an open mind about what munition was responsible.
> Also, you can look at my comment history if you think I'm pro-russian
It's a sad state of things where someone asking a legit question has to add this disclaimer.
As someone in an uninvolved third country, I don't understand why hackernews is cheering for one side: Politicians and diplomats executed some realpolitik type moves and it backfired into a hot war.
From my uneducated perspective on the other side of the world, this looks like a mostly unilateral act of aggression by Russia against Ukraine. Is that not the case?
From my equally uneducated perspective, I understand that this started with the 2014 revolution that the Russian government calls a coup.
A conventional war several thousand kilometres away shouldn't affect me regardless of the outcome but media has been trying to project this as world war 3, more and more countries are seemingly getting involved (and GitHub issues are being created to block Russian users). Makes it scary.
I mean, Putin has made a number of nuclear and 'significant' threats in the past week. It shouldn't be surprising that this would concern a great number of people.
> A conventional war several thousand kilometres away shouldn't affect me
Think of it as sort of akin to the very early days of COVID-19. There were far more unknowns than known facts, it immediately became politicized which poisoned the discourse, and multiple historical precedents demonstrate how much worse it could have been. (And of course, it also isn't over...)
Today this is Russia attacking Ukraine. But Europe is deeply interconnected, war is definitionally out of control, and there are multiple historical precedents demonstrating how bad this can get.
I do hope your faith that this stays "just" a regional disaster holds true, but right now do not see reason to share it.
How does a coup in literally another country justify invading it? (Add: sorry, I should not have phrased it so sharply since you state it as an uneducated perspective.)
Funny how you could call it either a "revolution" or a "coup", and they both mean more or less the same thing, but "coup" delegitimizes it, while "revolution" legitimizes it.
Anyway, the revolution overthrew a pro-Russian, anti-EU president. So there you go.
Thanks for supporting my point. Additionally, 'coup' in my view has the connotations of a regime overthrow by a militant minority, which does not seem to have been the case.
Interestingly enough I had the same understanding as you and it appears to be wrong (unless the definition has changed as they seem to be wont to do in recent years). I was under the impression that a coup was when the military seized power from the civilian government and a revolution was when the civilian populace tore down the current government. This is the current definition that google returns and it does not support that understanding:
.
a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government.
And if you look at the Ukrainian resistance right now, it seems they prefer a democratically elected leader over a Russian puppet dictator. Strange, right?
If you dont understand the impact that wars in east europe affect everyone’s life everywhere you havent paying attention to history since world war 2. Several thousand kilometres are basically next door.
Oh, please, since 1990 there were multiple wars in Europe and literally next door nobody gave a fuck about. Serbia/Kosovo, Bosnia, Moldova, Libya, Syria.
Putin is a madman that should have been deposed long time ago, but current media hysteria is on the next level.
I would add cutting of Crimea from water supply. All I heard here in comments was reasoning about making cost of possessing it higher for Russia not about suffering of people in Crimea.
The Nazi's certainly didn't think of themselves as evil. They called the other side evil/Jews evil.
Same with Stalin's USSR.
> The whole world thinks that Russia is doing an evil thing
100+ countries abstained from voting in the resolution condemning Russian actions. That includes India and China which account for 30% of the world population. So the "world" clearly isn't part of whatever propaganda echo chamber you're in.
The world, like me, doesn't care what happens in a distant corner in Eastern Europe.
In any case, geopolitics isn't good vs evil: countries just pursue their strategic interests. Realpolitik
The grandparent of this sub-thread was talking about "cheering for one side". That is a far far long way from "stifling debate".
I agree with your sentiments totally but no debate is being stifled. HN on the whole is supporting the side that the vast vast majority of the world is siding with. There are good reasons to in most people's minds.
Supporting one side and allowing others to disagree is compatible with no censorship.
We are seeing, however, that Russia is doing what China is doing and enacting stronger censorship. Is that a positive sign or not? I would say that it is a sign of a repressive regime.
A discussion is also different from a debate. Its an important difference in how you approach conversations online.
I'm sure Ukraine has done some bad things. But Russian invading is worse than anything Ukraine did, so most people on HN are mad at Russia.
>But this is geopolitics we're talking about: There isn't a good side and an evil side.
Are you stating that as an absolute fact? There's never been an evil side in global geopolitics? Is it possible for there to be an evil side in geopolitics in the future?
There's a yin-yang effect going on, certainly. But, taking this metaphor further, if you look at the taijitu, there is a predominantly yin side and a predominantly yang side.
And maybe over time they transform into one another (e.g. political parties trading tactics over hundreds of years).
But still, for a given moment in time, it's possible to point to the side that's doing the majority of the evil.
Stalin wrote a lot of history after his victories. Yet he had to close his borders because everybody wanted to get out.
My family in law lived under the Soviets, while they were still "winners". You think they liked that regime? Please don't say stupid 1 liners and expect to sound smart.
The recent history doesn't seem like it backfired into a hot war. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has to have been in planning and staging for at least several months.
Operation like this takes years to plan and prepare, and if anything it comes surprisingly late, given that civil war continued for 8 years in Ukraine. You would think they would act sooner then risking losing Donabas to Ukrainians. My guess it was delayed by Covid.
That is a great point. I always figured that if this was going to happen that it would be at the moment when America was most confused, the transition period from one president to the next, but you are right, that coincided with COVID which may well have screwed up their timetable.
Scale and danger and consequences. Ukraine is a big country. Russia has nukes. It also has a huge territory, so anything significant happening in or to Russia has a high chance to be or to become important.
Also, this could be a test case watched by China for a possible invasion of Taiwan, as has been mentioned.
There also are a few more countries that Russia has thus far only targeted with rhetoric but could target for (re)annexation next, depending on their post mortem cost/benefit analysis of how it went in Ukraine once this is over.
It also shows how little the rest of the world can do when a nuke-owning nation just starts a war unilaterally.
You could call brief when Russia invaded the eastern parts of it in 2014.
Putin 3 days ago warned that any Western "interference" would have "consequences you never experienced in your history". Is Poland/Germany sending anti-tank and anti-air missiles in Ukraine now an "interference"?
> Is Poland/Germany sending anti-tank and anti-air missiles in Ukraine now an "interference"?
I think it doesn’t count as interference, according to arcane rules of international law. For example, during Cold War, US and Soviets would routinely openly arm combatants in their proxy war, and it didn’t count as actual offensive actions.
For comparison, many voices in US are calling for instituting a No-Fly Zone over Ukraine. What that phrase means is they want NATO to commit to shoot down all Russian planes over Ukraine. NATO shooting down Russian aircraft will obviously will be taken as act of war by Russians.
It is the missing white woman syndrome applied to geopolitical conflicts.[1] A war or terrorist attack affecting North American and European countries is more important and deserving of constant attention than similar things happening elsewhere in the world.
The conflict between Azeris and Armenians causes a lot of tragic death and displacement on both sides with no sign of permanent resolution, but is not imminently threatening to cause a direct fight between two nuclear powers or spark off a Europe-wide war.
If e.g. Russia occupies Ukraine and Ukrainian insurgents are supplied or based from Poland and Russians fire across the border, or if Russia/Turkey fire on each-other when a Russian warship tries to pass through the Bosporus, or if Russian warplanes get shot down over Lithuania on their way between Belarus and Kaliningrad, or if Russia responds to economic sanctions with large-scale cyber attacks against the UK or France, (or, or, or...) we could quickly end up in a situation with two great nuclear powers actively firing at each-other.
if powerful countries / economies are attacked that have a very low appetite for any form of risk then the media will treat it differently. Also the sad thing is it's not about human casualties but how much wealth is lost. If everyone would have their wealth tied up in Azerbaijan then I bet a war there would be reported on very differently.
I guess HN treats it also differently because of the real risk to nuclear escalation.
I just looked at your comment history. It's quite obvious what and who you represent so whataboutism and other discourse steering techniques are more than expected.
Yes, Russian trolls are present even here; we just shouldn't feed them.
> Politicians and diplomats executed some realpolitik type moves and it backfired into a hot war.
This has been planned for months. It didn’t backfire into anything. Putin likely made up his mind weeks ago and there was nothing anyone could do. All of his demands were completely ludicrous, and either he knows it or he really has lost his mind.
> cheering for one side
Yes, in a completely unprovoced war not far from where I live, I side with the country being attacked.
Again, from my unparticipating 3rd country vantage point, both are either dictatorships and democratic countries depending on your standards.
From another comment here I learnt that there were targeted attacks on Russian population inside Ukraine and racist laws. Not something a democratic country would do (if true)
> that the people kicked out
People don't organically get together and _successfully_ kick out a regime without foreign support.
You are parroting Russian propaganda here. I know Ukrainians personally, and the truth is very clear.
And the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is also clear.
> People don't organically get together and _successfully_ kick out a regime without foreign support.
Seems like they did, didn't they? And it also seems like they are kicking Russians ass right now, don't they?
If you cannot see the difference between the two then you don't want to see. Please show evidence of Ukrainians attacking other Russian speaking Ukrainians.
The Ukrainians presidents first language is Russian. So he's going to commit genocide against himself? Haha give me a break!
> That's a good question, what happens with an anti-air missile if it fails to hit something in the sky? Does it disable itself before hitting ground?
Even if a warhead isn't armed, a heavy missile moving very fast hitting a heavy building moving very slowly makes for a lot of impact energy. Unspent fuel (solid or otherwise) will also readily start secondary fires and be dangerous for rescuers and emergency crews.
From what I've seen it's probably a BUK instead of an s300 but most sources agree that it's ukrainian. The missile was probably trying to intercept another one and something went wrong so I doubt it's intentional
From what I've heard it's a Buk-M1 with a failing guidance system that was used to intercept a Russian missile attack on military infrastructure. Why it failed is guesswork but missing maintenance/deterioration is rather likely.
Anybody who has spent some time with simple model rockets knows that even they do not always go where they are expected. I have seen model rockets do some pretty remarkable "surprise" trajectories. It is very easy to understand how a far more complicated SAM launched in an urban environment could fly off course and into a building.
Many anti-aircraft missiles self-destruct (by triggering the warhead) if they lose their target or run out of range. I believe this is a standard feature for most modern implementations. This minimizes the possibility of collateral damage, especially if you are using it over your own soil.
Even some air-dropped munitions you might not expect, like the bomblets from cluster bombs, will self-destruct before they hit the ground if their sensors don't detect a target within their damage radius. Modern weapons go to considerable lengths to proactively auto-disable/self-destruct after deployment.
Russian propaganda mix some shady technical details with clear conclusions. You feel like you leart something but you were just mistified. They are here...
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
Dang, sorry. I cannot edit the comment, but if you could replace "Russian" with "Please remember that", than this would make my comment substantial and also side agnostic.
Putin’s committing war crimes yet Germany is blocking or slowing down every effort to stop it.
By dragging the swift ban germany is basically making sure that russia has the money to continue its massive offensive.
Germany would have been quicker to sanction poland or romania over minor disputes than it is to sanction a dictator that they have been happily doing business with.
275 comments
[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 276 ms ] threadAs with almost any legal question the answer will depend heavily on specifics not easily determined from a few minutes of video clip.
>Can Putin or whoever is responsible be charged in court for this?
Assuming it does constitute a war crime then theoretically: yes.
In actuality: no, because of course you can't just waltz in and arrest the dictator of a nuclear power.
The “rules based international order” is a sham and always has been. This is made obvious by the US based empire’s total disregard for other states’ sovereignty when it doesn’t suit them.
For what it’s worth I oppose this war as I oppose virtually all wars. It’s tragic and I wish it were unnecessary.
Yawn.
Of course the victor writes the rules, but the International Criminal Court has the support of most of the UN. If you believe democratic society is fundamentally a good thing then it follows that the Pax Americana has been, in aggregate, a tremendous success in normalizing and codifying international law.
Is the current state of affairs imperfect? Of course.
"Winners write history" is such a boring, undergraduate take on geopolitics.
The period of relative peace in which we live is called the Pax Americana because it's primarily driven by US military hegemony and there's no escaping that fact.
For what it's worth, I'm not American.
The ICC is a great example of why “international law” is a dead letter if not a total fraud. I’m sure you’re aware that the US based empire doesn’t acknowledge its authority. The US based empire permits the ICC to act only when it serves the empire’s interests. So much for normalization and codification.
Finally, I never said “winners write history.” I said they write the rules. Conflating the two is intellectually sloppy or a straw man. So much for reading comprehension.
Edit: thank you to everyone who educated me on the subject.
> Not surprisingly, the Ukrainian government mounted a campaign four years ago to secure international approval for the name of its capital city. There is even a popular Twitter hashtag, #KyivNotKiev.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/how-to-pronoun...
Normally it's just Киев/Київ.
"On 17 May 2016 the Permanent Mission of the Czech Republic to the United Nations informed the UN that the short name to be used for the country is Czechia." [1]
The official full name in English continues to be "the Czech Republic". [2]
[1] https://www.un.org/en/about-us/member-states/czechoslovakia
[2] https://unterm.un.org/unterm/Display/record/UNHQ/NA?Id=42750...
Wikipedia has a good discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_the_Czech_Republic
Kiev -> Kyiv. Kharkov -> Kharkiv. Zelensky should be spelt Zelenskiy (as per his official social media). Vladimir -> Volodymyr, Mikhail -> Mykhailo, etc...
On his Twitter, he spells it Zelenskyy
[1] https://www.president.gov.ua
Solid-fueled combined with that kind of trajectory means either an MLRS or an AA missile. (neither artillery shells nor cruise missiles use solid fuels)
This cannot possibly be an MLRS rocket because they are fired in huge salvos and fall without smoke (all fuel is burnt by that point). You won't mistake that for anything else, believe me.
AA launch gone haywire for some reason is my bet. The small explosion is also telling (AA missiles have small warheads, they are all fuel). This would mean either Buk, S-300, or Strela-10 as they are I think the only AA systems in the area. Since that happened yesterday (?) in the Obolon', Kiev, my second bet is that it belongs to Ukrainian Military since it's not taken yet, or wasn't at the moment this was posted.
Remember: what you're getting right now is almost pure white noise, from both sides. The full picture will be available much later. Don't trust my words either, verify everything yourself.
This would not have happened in an alternative universe where Putin is a good leader who was actually trying to improve the lives of Russians.
This is going to be a disaster for the Russian people as well.
[1] https://www.voanews.com/a/icc-may-investigate-possible-war-c...
OTOH, ICC has no practical power to bring Russian personnel (other than those captured in combat by Ukraine) before it for trial, and the US “invade the Hague” law on the ICC might prove a model for Russia should the ICC gain custody of Russian personnel somehow.
And there was no immenent threat of Ukraine entering nato anyway. This is just Russia using it as excuse.
Nothing obvious about Russia needing to annex surrounding countries again.
Putin in his speech blamed Lenin for giving away the territory of the Russian empire in creating a Ukrainian Republic, and claimed that Ukraine is not a real country so does not deserve sovereignty. He later said its leaders are drug dealing Nazis, presumably including the Jewish Russian-speaking president.
Nothing the Russian state says about the origins of the conflict seems very credible. A more plausible origin is Putin’s megalomaniacal imperial ambitions and paranoid fear of being eventually displaced by a homegrown pro-Europe, pro-democracy movement in Russia.
Ideology seems to be part of it but Russian security concerns are part of it too. Suggesting that NATO expansion was a mistake is not the same thing as blaming this war on NATO.
Anyone who does blame NATO should ask themselves why Ukraine wanted to join in the first place (because the Ukrainians know the Russians won't respect their sovereignty).
This pushes the justification for Putin's response away from "unprovoked and savage".
IMO I think the US is partially responsible for this crisis. We've never stopped expanding our influence, for better or worse. Perhaps we pushed a little too hard here.
</armchair>
(edit: changed pro-russia to pro-Putin. E2: Flipped again)
But none of that matters, it's just a figleaf to justify an attack, if not for 'NATO' then for some other bullshit reason.
Everything you said was true years ago as well, a form of it was even true during the Cuban missile crisis, as the US had missiles at the border of the soviet union too, there is nothing unique or newfound geopolitically about the timing here to support this “security issue”.
Russia creates contexts for invasion. It hands passports out to pro-Russian residents in parts of Ukraine, and then invades to “protects its citizens” so that it could theoretically be judged the same way as other countries that do interventions.
Adding all of that to an ideological retcon from 100 years ago, and all you have left is an irrational madman who wants to be in the footnote of a history book as attempting empire rebuilding.
Putin’s own advisors are afraid of him and cant give him a straight answer about anything, they're afraid of the international consequences of this as well.
None of this supports the idea of a leader doing anything in the interest of Russians or the concept of a Russian empire.
We’ll never even get to know what an independent Donetsk and Luhansk even means. Microstates? Districts of Russia?
This is just all way off and a mess. Its come down to just choosing a side and watching the results unfold.
It is already disaster. Putin has basically threw Russia back to a stone age. I've no idea how long it'll take for him to go one or the other way and for Russia to recover back to anything resembling normal life.
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1497532522556624903
According to Rob Lee's twitter it appears Grand Parent's deduction is correct because previously a Ukranian Su-27 that blew up in Kiev was being falsely reported as Russian jet.
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1497083662814244864
I have to note how difficult it is right now. "Ukranian side" (it is not clear who the original disseminator network is) appear to be using footages of ARMA 3 and DCS: World overlayed with voice and artifacts from Twitter's compression algorithms really can fool many to believe Ukraine is putting up fierce resistance.
The latest disinformation seems to be a seemingly staged conversation between a Ukranian driver and a Russian APC squad. I don't know who stands to benefit from these disinformation campaign but :
1) Ukranian side can raise morale by selling perception that Russia is poorly equipped and suffering from poor morale.
2) Russian side would purposefully allow such disinformation to spread for an element of surprise, might even be the one manufacturing it.
It is probably a combination of the two but from today's executive order from Putin to launch an all out offensive from all direction will be telling.
Send in the poorly equipped, inexperienced troops in first to feign false sense of security and send in your regular well equipped army.
White noise on all sides and I am noting too, just how difficult it is to get the real story but it seems Twitter makes this extra difficult and its not clear who is leaking these fake disinformation stories and to whom it is aimed to ultimately benefit.
We simply do not know what is happening but I am leaning towards #2, today's encirclement and seige of Mariupol, which was long touted as putting up effective resistance by pro-Ukraine twitter accounts, seems to have collapsed in a matter of hours, sort of like the "Ghost of Kiev" myth
> https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1497083662814244864
It's Russian Su-27. Text is in Russian language on the plane. Ukrainian army uses Ukrainian language only for 20+ years.
Rob Lee, who has been independently reporting about Ukraine since 2014, is fairly credible and does not appear to stand to gain anything from accusations that he is pro-Russian
all text is in russian on that plane, in fact, you can see the same text on that picture (top right corner) and the picture from the tweet.
Thanks for your concern, but I'm doing just fine.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(genuine question - are there not other kinds of missiles in use?)
Ground to ground is either MLRS (doesn't look like it at all) or ballistic (absolutely not)
AT missiles are typically obturated, don't have that amount of smoke either, and won't cause that kind of damage (they are designed to leave a small hole)
https://twitter.com/ASBMilitary/status/1497518912287789059
Russia MOD: “In attempts of repelling a rocket attack on the military infrastructure of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, failure occurred in the missile guidance system of a Ukrainian AF Buk-M1 medium-range air defense system and the missile hit the corner of a residential building."
>The 13 guards telling the Russian naval ship to fuck off (turns out they surrendered)...
... while I'm open to this being what actually happened, I can't find anything that suggests this. Even Reuters is still saying Zelensky says they died. Can you provide a source for this?
Edit: TASS, a Russian news agency, appears to report what you're saying, but that's quite a biased source and seems to be the only one I can find[1].
[1]https://tass.com/politics/1410761
The site you've linked also has an article saying Biden is considering WW3 as a possible alternative to sanctions.
https://m-lenta-ru.translate.goog/news/2022/02/26/3rd/?_x_tr...
according to Western media who again has an interest in portraying Russian media as bad
This means you cannot take any sides claims at face value. At the same time, you shouldn’t just ignore them and close your eyes to propaganda, as you’ll miss important nuggets of truth that are sprinkled throughout the narrative. The more information you get, from all sides, the more likely you will be to be able to piece together what actually is going on.
Hence why the comment above said “Russian media reports”, without five paragraphs of disclaimers that this is not gospel truth, as it assumed that people are able to think for themselves, and take Russian media reports for what they are, which is, while obviously an aggressor’s propaganda, not necessarily a falsehood.
I also didn't need "five paragraphs of disclaimers". I didn't even need five words of disclaimers. A simple "They're biased but..." at the start of that original comment and I wouldn't have felt the need to respond.
You don't need to overanalyze my comment. I simply think that if someone asks for a source and your only response is a source of questionable accuracy, that you should acknowledge that the source is not authoritative. I found it funny that this was happening in a conversation that was already about how many sources can't be trusted so I commented to point these two things out. It isn't any more complicated than that.
Ukraine is busy fighting for survival.
It looks like they look equal in your eyes, so RF is very weak and Ukraine is very strong.
That said, since I live in the west, I’m overwhelmingly exposed to pro-Ukraine propaganda, and very little to pro-Russia propaganda. Almost none of it is, of course, paid for by Ukraine.
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3413919-state-border-gu...
The site seems legit despite the .net domain (cross-check with the Wikipedia article, where the URL has not been modified recently). Doubtful it got hacked as the latest articles do not have a pro-Russian angle.
RUS strategy is to flood the zone with conflicting information so as to create a 'wilderness of mirrors', create infighting in the opposition, and/or get people to give up on finding the truth.
Seriously, a broken analog clock that is correct twice per day is more trustworthy.
Indeed, but this is also Ukrainian strategy. It is in Ukrainian interest to push morale-increasing stories. Of course everything Russian media and government say needs to be taken as propaganda, but doing that while taking Ukrainian sides claims as highly accurate, is just wishful thinking.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Users are much too quick to assume that someone they don't like on the internet is a bot, spy, shill, astroturfer, foreign agent, you name it. This is pretty much the most common thing people throw at each other in online arguments. That's why we don't allow it here—see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. If you or anyone thinks they have evidence of abuse, they should send it to hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. Plenty of past explanation is at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... For example, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27398725 is one in-depth post on the topic.
Btw, pointing a finger at others isn't a great way to respond when asked to stop breaking the site guidelines. I know emotions are running high, but that applies to everyone, and unless I'm mistaken you have a history of breaking the site guidelines here and being banned for it, and that tends to lead to getting banned again unless you take conscious steps to fix it.
And in case it helps at all, none of that means that I don't feel for your situation.
But I will say that they are likely to be more accurate - after all, the Russians are the undisputed world champions of dezinformatsiya for at least 15 decades; Ukranians are at best their students.
And as for who is in the right and who is wrong in these events, it is 100% clear - Putin's govt and military are 100% wrong. He is an autocrat attempting to undermine a neighboring democracy, because the very idea of proper democracy at home, Putin sees as a threat to his power. He is happy to kill and gail opponents, from Navalny, to Magnitski, to Litvenienko, and the list goes on...
It is wrong, that is all there is to it. Stop trying to justify it, or play whataboutism games. Have a deep rethink.
Thank you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenta.ru
We got strong beliefs that all Ukrainian defenders of Zmiiniy Island may be alive... The SBGSU and the Armed Forces, like the whole of Ukraine, have received hope that all of Zmiiny's defenders are alive.
https://www.facebook.com/100066866381279/posts/2850135637375...
But you said:
> ... turns out they surrendered...
So, in essence, you're doing the same thing you were trying to caution people about doing. People may, in fact, be spreading a story that's false, but you're also spreading a false story by saying "turns out they surrendered" when your own citation suggests they're still trying to confirm their surrender.
We all need to be diligent about confirming word-of-mouth stories and allowing time for their accuracy to be verified.
You just quoted word-for-word the tweet that you linked to without attributing it, then you don't link any uncritical media reports that the tweet is referring to.
Why on earth should I put more weight on your comment (a 39-day-old account), the tweets of Tucker Max, or the Tweets of some so-called former CIA officer that I've never heard of? My bullshit alarm is sounding.
In 2003, we just saw whatever CNN was feeding us but now anybody can become a CNN and you don't even need to be at the place of war.
Can I just point out how freaky this all is? We have never been more connected and have low barriers to access unlimited information, yet despite this, we have no bearing.
I LEGIT thought the whole Ghost of Kiev video was REAL the first time I watched it. It was only when the whole scene did not make sense——why would the Russian jet slow down and slowly ascent with a pursuing Ukranian jet and why would it use AA missile instead of opting for guns at such close range moving slowly?
It was only after this exercise in logic did I take a second look at the video and saw the person holding the camera was moving way too stable without the artifacts you normally get from software stabilization.
Many, many people saw that video and retweeted it thinking it was legitimate. I almost did too until I saw it a second time and realized Twitter's compression algorithms degraded the quality in an authentic manner that hides anti-aliasing and uncanny valley.
Games are increasing becoming photorealistic where I can't tell from preview thumbs (ex. Ride 4) and we are probably witnessing the cusp of a new type of war. Our morales can be influenced by the hour now thanks to social media and advancements in light ray tracing.
Like in 2011 I was certain that photorealism was far off because of the computation difficulties with real-time ray tracing, I had not anticipated the leaps in GPU, AI, Deepfake technologies as well as software advancements like Nanite and Lumen in UE5
Right now, you have to check Reuters, the BBC, CNN, Fox News, Tass, People's Daily, and whatever is still up in Ukraine to get a sense of what's going on.
People's Daily, which represents the official positions of the CCP, is making vague general statements, but not endorsing Russia's position.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/26/politics/fake-ukraine-videos-...
Its obviously not a smart move to trust for example numbers of either side, that never worked in any conflict (unless you average them, but even then its just a guess).
As another user pointed out, there are videos of SAM vehicles passing villages near Kyiv, so it could have well been a russian one (but nobody here really knows). Anyway blame lies solely on invading russians for this one
We got strong beliefs that all Ukrainian defenders of Zmiiniy Island may be alive... The SBGSU and the Armed Forces, like the whole of Ukraine, have received hope that all of Zmiiny's defenders are alive.
https://www.facebook.com/100066866381279/posts/2850135637375...
Every article I’ve read has been heavily couched in “allegedly”ies, “claimed”s, “reportedly”ies, etc.
Can you provide examples of the uncritical stories you’re alleging?
These things don't have a set price. They have a price of "How much can you afford?"
That's actually a "normal" question when thinking of it in terms of one saas company to another, but I actually think that question is almost nonsensical when thinking of it as a company selling to a major government. "Err, what is this 'afford' word you use? I do not think it means what you think it does."
"How much can we charge to ensure we are not leaving money on the table?"
'How much can you afford' has a deeper meaning. It's not how much money is in your wallet definition of "afford". It's more like how high can we push that number before your backside no longer clinches. It's a sales person's wet dream situation. It was never meant to be understood as "we can't afford your asking price, so give us a lower rate'.
The overall missed point is that there is no set price. The prices are negotiated per purchaser.
This is the M270 system which was developed in the 1970s and 1980s to meet the US Army’s Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) requirement. It was just a way of naming the requirement, kind of like “JSF”, and it stuck.
At the time rocket launchers were most commonly referred to as Multiple Rocket Launchers (MRL) and were mostly simple truck-based variants.
However MLRS had been used to refer to the capability by others in the past and it was never trademarked or limited to the US requirement and the M270. Over time it became common to refer to any modern integrated multiple rocket launcher as an MLRS, leaving the MRL naming only for less sophisticated types.
'MLRS is a registered trademark of Lockheed Martin Corporation.'
https://trademarks.justia.com/759/79/mlrs-75979459.html
But for some reason as trademark class 28, toys and sporting goods, with the statement 'toys, namely scale models of military vehicles'.
After some searching: apparently, they mean this:
https://www.brickmania.com/mlrs-multiple-launch-rocket-syste...
Trademarks only apply to their registered class—did they seriously trademark the term just to limit who could sell toys named with it?
That is quite a bizarre trademark and I didn't expect it.
https://trademarks.justia.com/search?q=mlrs
https://trademarks.justia.com/search?q=multiple+launch+rocke...
I'm amazed that they were granted those trademarks. As I said, MLRS has become a very generic term and from the start it was a US Army name, not invented by Lockheed-Martin.
Not only is it small (like you pointed out) AA missiles also tend to focus on fragmentation damage (expanding metal rings, directed frag etc).
Source: I used to be an explosives expert in the military.
Edit: Completely forgot to mention fuzing systems. This missile detonated on contact with the building. I have yet to come across an AA missile that detonates on contact with an object. All (effective) AA missiles use proximity sensors (radar, thermal, etc) to detonate near their target.
Also, if it was a misfire, most modern missiles have fail safes that disable the detonation of the main charge in case of an accidental firing.
Again, I could be wrong and this could be an AA missile, but all signs point to no; it isn’t.
Not saying I don't believe you, but I'd caution everyone during this time to take what they see online with a grain of salt. It's propaganda season.
Personally, the red flags from your post were that you have hardly any post history, you came out claimed to be a munitions/explosives expert, usually you don't have to do that, the knowledge speaks for itself. Your rebuttal didn't seem to be as strong compared to GPs reasoning, and it ended with a conclusion that seemed to be more of an opinion, not objective reasoning.
--
I don't think the ad hominem attack by (epgui) and (jaquesm) is warranted, it definitely isn't "Fact". I reply to many topics both political and technical, as does everyone. If I have such a consistent track record of "patently unreasonable comments" then you should be able to support your argument.
Again, I did not mean any offense by my initial statement.
I'm not claiming to be anything.
> Why should they not?
There's no rule against it, it's just a red flag
> But it gives context.
Not really anymore than going into the details of explosives.
> That's your opinion.
Yes it's my opinion, I never claimed it as fact. That's why I used "seemed".
No, it really isn't. If someone is an expert in some field then that is good context to have.
If there was something that you disagreed with in that post you should have engaged with that like others did instead of trying to discredit the poster based on your personal idea of what is an accounts credibility status.
Personally, orbital-decay's reasoning was more sound and expansive than master_crab's. The source drop that provided no context was a red flag in my eyes combined with the direct countering without sound reasoning. I did NOT want to share my personal reasoning though as I'm not an expert.
Again, I simply wanted to caution others without attacking the GP. I did later have to expand on why I was cautioning in replies, which could be viewed as "discrediting", but I didn't want to divulge those opinions in the first place because it's distracting.
- EDIT because post limit -
> @jacquesm: The irony.
Not really. I initially didn't want to share it, that paragraph was my personal opinion and the last sentence of the paragraph was me saying I didn't want to share it, but I had to in later replies because of the fuss.
You left out the context of:
> I simply wanted to caution others without attacking the GP. I did later have to expand on why I was cautioning in replies.
> I did NOT want to share my personal reasoning though as I'm not an expert.
The irony.
I know my comment is ad hominem, but track records count for something, and while they have no bearing on the value of an argument, they sure should affect your degree of suspicion and scrutiny of said argument.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-13_rocket
EDIT: typos
As you said though, the full picture will come out later. Hopefully they'll find some identifiable weapon fragments eventually.
what do you mean with "taken"? who takes what?
A widely circulated video showed a Ukrainian jet that was shot down in Kyiv at night by Russian AA less than 48 hours ago. The odds are not great on your second bet.
So whatever the direct cause the responsibility for all this lies with the Russians.
This should be remembered, those responsible in its operation should be reprimanded, and those civilians and their families should be compensated by the Ukrainian government. It should not be used as propaganda, it should be admitted as a mistake.
Taking into account how the Russians handled MH17, as a Dutch person I may be a bit biased but I think this is wholly on them.
Russia is responsible, no matter how you want to dress it up. RCA. Or do you actually believe that reparations payments take into account which party did the damage?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_reparations
These are just the basic facts. No special expertise needed, of the sort the "I can tell what kind of missile this was by observing the smoke it makes" guy must possess. Shifting moral responsibility for collateral damage from the aggressor to the defender based on the limitations of the defender's arsenal does not seem right.
Now the only question remains: are you spreading this propaganda intentionally?
Edit: following guidelines
Believe me I know where you are coming from.
your argument is:
1. US deployed nukes to Turkey, 2. to which USSR responded symmetrically by attempting to deploy nukes in Cuba, 3. to which US responded with blockade 4. and therefore Russian invasion to Ukraine is justified 5. because NATO may deploy nukes in Ukraine
4. simply doesn't follow from previous 3 points because the assumption in 5. is incorrect in three ways:
1. Ukraine is not in NATO so NATO doesn't have the capability to deploy nukes there 2. If NATO needed nukes close to Moscow - they ALREADY HAVE where to do that - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland 3. US was responding with blockade to ACTIVE DEPLOYMENT PROCESS of nukes, which isn't happening in Ukraine
Letting a megalomaniacal dictator that has clearly lost command of his senses run amok, especially when in control of a large nuclear arsenal is a risk we can not really afford, and appeasing such a person will only feed into the cycle of demands.
But what exactly do you propose?
this is bullshit. NATO is not expanding, NATO is not the actor that is able to perform that action, rather it's emergent property of sovereign countries choosing to join NATO.
So who is Putin to tell what sovereign countries can or cannot do? If he's so unhappy with a choice that sovereign country is making with regard to joining a defensive alliance, maybe he should offer something better instead and not behave like a crazy lunatic dictator?
There is nothing valuable in "look at it from Putin's perspective" argument when his perspective is tyrannical.
Edit: Oh, assuming we all know location - NE of Sikorsky Int Airport, next to novus supermarket.
> Some claims that the missile strike on the apartment building in Kyiv could be from a Ukrainian S-300 air defense missile, so its still worth keeping an open mind about what munition was responsible.
https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1497501462447984642
That's a good question, what happens with an anti-air missile if it fails to hit something in the sky? Does it disable itself before hitting ground?
Also, you can look at my comment history if you think I'm pro-russian.
It's a sad state of things where someone asking a legit question has to add this disclaimer.
As someone in an uninvolved third country, I don't understand why hackernews is cheering for one side: Politicians and diplomats executed some realpolitik type moves and it backfired into a hot war.
A conventional war several thousand kilometres away shouldn't affect me regardless of the outcome but media has been trying to project this as world war 3, more and more countries are seemingly getting involved (and GitHub issues are being created to block Russian users). Makes it scary.
I mean, Putin has made a number of nuclear and 'significant' threats in the past week. It shouldn't be surprising that this would concern a great number of people.
Think of it as sort of akin to the very early days of COVID-19. There were far more unknowns than known facts, it immediately became politicized which poisoned the discourse, and multiple historical precedents demonstrate how much worse it could have been. (And of course, it also isn't over...)
Today this is Russia attacking Ukraine. But Europe is deeply interconnected, war is definitionally out of control, and there are multiple historical precedents demonstrating how bad this can get.
I do hope your faith that this stays "just" a regional disaster holds true, but right now do not see reason to share it.
Anyway, the revolution overthrew a pro-Russian, anti-EU president. So there you go.
. a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government.
Putin is a madman that should have been deposed long time ago, but current media hysteria is on the next level.
Because sometimes there is an actual good side and an actual evil side. Not all good and evil is relative.
There's no good vs evil in international diplomacy.
The simplistic version of the Nazi's rise to power is that they did so by labelling Jews and other minorities as evil.
That reinforces my point. Doesn't it?
(And were the British any better? See: Bengal Famine)
The whole world thinks that Russia is doing an evil thing, just as the whole world thinks Nazi's did an evil thing.
You claimed literally "There's no good vs evil", while there clearly is.
Same with Stalin's USSR.
> The whole world thinks that Russia is doing an evil thing
100+ countries abstained from voting in the resolution condemning Russian actions. That includes India and China which account for 30% of the world population. So the "world" clearly isn't part of whatever propaganda echo chamber you're in.
The world, like me, doesn't care what happens in a distant corner in Eastern Europe.
In any case, geopolitics isn't good vs evil: countries just pursue their strategic interests. Realpolitik
So they didn't vote in favor of Russia, did they? Even friendly China didn't vote in favor of Russia.
> The world, like me, doesn't care what happens in a distant corner in Eastern Europe.
Just because you don't care, doesn't make it right.
> they didn't vote in favor of Russia, did they?
In a resolution like this, abstaining is effectively the same as voting against.
> Just because you don't care, doesn't make it right.
You're just trolling at this point
I agree with your sentiments totally but no debate is being stifled. HN on the whole is supporting the side that the vast vast majority of the world is siding with. There are good reasons to in most people's minds.
Supporting one side and allowing others to disagree is compatible with no censorship.
We are seeing, however, that Russia is doing what China is doing and enacting stronger censorship. Is that a positive sign or not? I would say that it is a sign of a repressive regime.
A discussion is also different from a debate. Its an important difference in how you approach conversations online.
But this is geopolitics we're talking about: There isn't a good side and an evil side.
>But this is geopolitics we're talking about: There isn't a good side and an evil side.
Are you stating that as an absolute fact? There's never been an evil side in global geopolitics? Is it possible for there to be an evil side in geopolitics in the future?
And maybe over time they transform into one another (e.g. political parties trading tactics over hundreds of years).
But still, for a given moment in time, it's possible to point to the side that's doing the majority of the evil.
My family in law lived under the Soviets, while they were still "winners". You think they liked that regime? Please don't say stupid 1 liners and expect to sound smart.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021–2022_Russo-Ukrainian_cr...
Excuse me, what? How is that not blindingly clear who the aggressor is here?
Like the Azerbaijan Armenia war that happened last year or the Saudi Yemani war sometime ago?
I'm really wondering why this one is different.
Also, this could be a test case watched by China for a possible invasion of Taiwan, as has been mentioned.
There also are a few more countries that Russia has thus far only targeted with rhetoric but could target for (re)annexation next, depending on their post mortem cost/benefit analysis of how it went in Ukraine once this is over.
It also shows how little the rest of the world can do when a nuke-owning nation just starts a war unilaterally.
I saw this as a headline from several news websites already. So are you sure you weren't influenced by that?
Reality is that the Taiwan situation is very different from the Ukraine situation and China itself thinks of it that way.
> Russia has nukes.
India and Pakistan, TWO nuclear weapon weilding countries, had a brief air engagement a few years ago. Nothing on HN. No sides. No GitHub issues..
You could call brief when Russia invaded the eastern parts of it in 2014.
Putin 3 days ago warned that any Western "interference" would have "consequences you never experienced in your history". Is Poland/Germany sending anti-tank and anti-air missiles in Ukraine now an "interference"?
I think it doesn’t count as interference, according to arcane rules of international law. For example, during Cold War, US and Soviets would routinely openly arm combatants in their proxy war, and it didn’t count as actual offensive actions.
For comparison, many voices in US are calling for instituting a No-Fly Zone over Ukraine. What that phrase means is they want NATO to commit to shoot down all Russian planes over Ukraine. NATO shooting down Russian aircraft will obviously will be taken as act of war by Russians.
Yemen is too. https://upload.vaa.red/2hjyom#565284ae60ef9dfd699d3810c00600...
It is the missing white woman syndrome applied to geopolitical conflicts.[1] A war or terrorist attack affecting North American and European countries is more important and deserving of constant attention than similar things happening elsewhere in the world.
[1] Missing white woman syndrome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_white_woman_syndrome)
If e.g. Russia occupies Ukraine and Ukrainian insurgents are supplied or based from Poland and Russians fire across the border, or if Russia/Turkey fire on each-other when a Russian warship tries to pass through the Bosporus, or if Russian warplanes get shot down over Lithuania on their way between Belarus and Kaliningrad, or if Russia responds to economic sanctions with large-scale cyber attacks against the UK or France, (or, or, or...) we could quickly end up in a situation with two great nuclear powers actively firing at each-other.
I guess HN treats it also differently because of the real risk to nuclear escalation.
Yes, Russian trolls are present even here; we just shouldn't feed them.
This has been planned for months. It didn’t backfire into anything. Putin likely made up his mind weeks ago and there was nothing anyone could do. All of his demands were completely ludicrous, and either he knows it or he really has lost his mind.
> cheering for one side
Yes, in a completely unprovoced war not far from where I live, I side with the country being attacked.
I'm sorry, but what the actual fuck man?
From another comment here I learnt that there were targeted attacks on Russian population inside Ukraine and racist laws. Not something a democratic country would do (if true)
> that the people kicked out
People don't organically get together and _successfully_ kick out a regime without foreign support.
And the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is also clear.
> People don't organically get together and _successfully_ kick out a regime without foreign support.
Seems like they did, didn't they? And it also seems like they are kicking Russians ass right now, don't they?
If you cannot see the difference between the two then you don't want to see. Please show evidence of Ukrainians attacking other Russian speaking Ukrainians.
The Ukrainians presidents first language is Russian. So he's going to commit genocide against himself? Haha give me a break!
Even if a warhead isn't armed, a heavy missile moving very fast hitting a heavy building moving very slowly makes for a lot of impact energy. Unspent fuel (solid or otherwise) will also readily start secondary fires and be dangerous for rescuers and emergency crews.
Well, sure. But it is also worth keeping in mind that SAMs wouldn't be flying in the first place if Kyiv wasn't being attacked by Russians.
Even some air-dropped munitions you might not expect, like the bomblets from cluster bombs, will self-destruct before they hit the ground if their sensors don't detect a target within their damage radius. Modern weapons go to considerable lengths to proactively auto-disable/self-destruct after deployment.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
By dragging the swift ban germany is basically making sure that russia has the money to continue its massive offensive.
Germany would have been quicker to sanction poland or romania over minor disputes than it is to sanction a dictator that they have been happily doing business with.