Russia's War Against Ukraine

[al_infierno]

Putin 'has placed the head of the FSB's foreign intelligence branch under house arrest because he is furious at security services for failing to warn him' that Ukraine could fiercely resist invasion

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10603045/Putin-places-head-FSBs-foreign-intelligence-branch-house-arrest.html

I guess Putin is getting a lesson in surrounding himself with Yes Men. 

[MengJiao]

Putin 'has placed the head of the FSB's foreign intelligence branch under house arrest because he is furious at security services for failing to warn him' that Ukraine could fiercely resist invasion

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10603045/Putin-places-head-FSBs-foreign-intelligence-branch-house-arrest.html

I guess Putin is getting a lesson in surrounding himself with Yes Men. 

Putin used to be in charge of the FSB (according to the article). 
i guess the "repressions" are the "repressions" of the FSB director and his assistant.  I guess embezzling funds intended for subversion has a subversive aspect all its own.
I'm puzzled that Putin would believe in the "token resistance" thing -- but clearly he did.  I quote some more of the article:


   Putin is said to blame the agency for intelligence which assured him ahead of the invasion that Russian forces would face only token resistance from the Ukrainian army and that Ukrainians themselves were eager to be rid of their leaders.

Among the reasons for the repressions are the embezzlement of funds allocated for subversive and undercover work in Ukraine, as well as deliberately false information about the political situation in Ukraine.

The FSB security service allegedly handed him intelligence suggesting that Ukraine was weak, riddled with neo-Nazi groups, and would give up easily if attacked.

[bobarossa]

Perhaps he's setting up his escape plan for Ukraine?  "I was mislead into attacking by my security services. It was an unfortunate misunderstanding." 

[ArizonaTank]

Putin 'has placed the head of the FSB's foreign intelligence branch under house arrest because he is furious at security services for failing to warn him' that Ukraine could fiercely resist invasion

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10603045/Putin-places-head-FSBs-foreign-intelligence-branch-house-arrest.html

I guess Putin is getting a lesson in surrounding himself with Yes Men. 

There was also that strange story a week ago where the Ukrainians were claiming that FSB agents tipped them off about the attempted assassination attempt on Zelensky by the Chechen hit team. Could just be the Ukrainians trying to play head games with Putin, or it might be true.

[MengJiao]

Putin 'has placed the head of the FSB's foreign intelligence branch under house arrest because he is furious at security services for failing to warn him' that Ukraine could fiercely resist invasion

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10603045/Putin-places-head-FSBs-foreign-intelligence-branch-house-arrest.html

I guess Putin is getting a lesson in surrounding himself with Yes Men. 

There was also that strange story a week ago where the Ukrainians were claiming that FSB agents tipped them off about the attempted assassination attempt on Zelensky by the Chechen hit team. Could just be the Ukrainians trying to play head games with Putin, or it might be true.

  Maybe the FSB is not particularly fond of Chechens.  Maybe the FSB set this all up as an extremely sneaky way to remove Putin from power and nab all the cryptocurrency on the planet in one
fell swoop.

[al_infierno]

What's really amusing about all this, from a Groghead perspective, is just how much Putin proved himself to be a total armchair general.  Watching the invasion of Ukraine play out is like watching somebody try to play a John Tiller game for the very first time while attempting to apply StarCraft tactics, getting frustrated that they don't work, and refusing to engage with any game systems beyond "move units" and "attack enemies".

I could imagine him as a once-in-a-while regular here who pops in every few months to post about DCS or War in the East, drop a hot take about Russian military supremacy based on some obscure and poorly documented engagement that happened in Afghanistan or Georgia or somewhere, and then vanish again not to be seen until months later - rinse and repeat.   :nerd:

[Uberhaus]

I didn't watch all of Russell Brand's video, but I did read Greenwald's article.  https://greenwald.substack.com/p/victoria-nuland-ukraine-has-biological?s=r

Any attempt to claim that Ukraine's biological facilities are just benign and standard medical labs is negated by Nuland's explicitly grave concern that "Russian forces may be seeking to gain control of" those facilities and that the U.S. Government therefore is, right this minute, "working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces." Russia has its own advanced medical labs. After all, it was one of the first countries to develop a COVID vaccine, one which Lancet, on February 1, 2021, pronounced was " safe and effective" (even though U.S. officials pressured multiple countries, including Brazil, not to accept any Russian vaccine, while U.S. allies such as Australia refused for a full year to recognize the Russian COVID vaccine for purposes of its vaccine mandate). The only reason to be "quite concerned" about these "biological research facilities" falling into Russian hands is if they contain sophisticated materials that Russian scientists have not yet developed on their own and which could be used for nefarious purposes — i.e., either advanced biological weapons or dual-use "research" that has the potential to be weaponized.

Unfortunately, this is rather typical and dangerous and I've argued so in the R&P section.  Greenwald doesn't implicitly state gain of function is being done but it most likely was happening at the labs.  Also on page 79 of this thread, from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists article, I quoted Robert Pope, the director of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, as saying "Some labs, he said, may hold pathogen strains left over from the Soviet bioweapons program, preserved in freezers for research purposes."  These are both very bad situations especially in a warzone and of concern to everyone.  Is it bioweapons research or just justifiable medical research?  Well it's dual purpose even without malign intent.

The indisputable reality is that — despite long-standing international conventions banning development of biological weapons — all large, powerful countries conduct research that, at the very least, has the capacity to be converted into biological weapons. The work conducted under the guise of "defensive research" can, and sometimes is, easily converted into the banned weapons themselves. Recall that, according to the FBI, the 2001 anthrax attacks that terrorized the nation came from a U.S. Army Research scientist, Dr. Bruce Ivins, working at the U.S. Army's infectious disease research lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland. The claim was that the Army was "merely" conducting defensive research to find vaccines and other protections against weaponized anthrax, but to do so, the Army had to create highly weaponized anthrax strains, which Ivins then unleashed as a weapon.

All of this illustrates that research that is classified as "defensive" can easily be converted, deliberately or otherwise, into extremely destructive biological weapons.

Greenwald makes very good points of the dangers of these technologies, and it is possible, however unlikely for Ukraine to produce a Bruce Ivins.  So, Russia may have genuine grievances about dual use experimentation but why are they bringing it up today?  Russia initially justified its aggression on the basis of self-defence/protection from genocide.  I have not found any demands put before the UN prior to invasion for inspection of Ukrainian facilities whether biological or whatever.  Russia could easily have asked for a UN Special Commision like Iraq had from 1991-1998 to search for WMD.  I have no evidence of such a demand before the UN, and then rejection by the same until today. Truly, if Russia is genuinely concerned about the release of pathogens, destroying civilian infrastructure and cutting off power isn't going to be productive to prevent release.

If bioweapons truly are a concern, surely the Russian ambassador to the UN could have asked for a ceasefire today, seperation of warring parties by peacekeepers from Ireland, Ghana, Fiji, wherever, and then protection/restoration of facilities, followed by inspections of all of Ukraine for any kind of potential WMD. 

[MengJiao]

What's really amusing about all this, from a Groghead perspective, is just how much Putin proved himself to be a total armchair general.  Watching the invasion of Ukraine play out is like watching somebody try to play a John Tiller game for the very first time while attempting to apply StarCraft tactics, getting frustrated that they don't work, and refusing to engage with any game systems beyond "move units" and "attack enemies".

I could imagine him as a once-in-a-while regular here who pops in every few months to post about DCS or War in the East, drop a hot take about Russian military supremacy based on some obscure and poorly documented engagement that happened in Afghanistan or Georgia or somewhere, and then vanish again not to be seen until months later - rinse and repeat.   :nerd:

  Until the invasion of Ukraine, I thought the Russian Government and Putin had a moderately good grasp of basic reality.  Now I hope they are no more inept than a contextually-challenged wargamer, but
that may be far over-estimating them.  For example, their own S-300 air defense systems, designed and built in Russia and now used by Ukraine, seems to be more than they can handle.  How is that
possible?  Are all the good technicians in Syria?  Next, what was the point in attacking Ukraine?  They already had Crimea and Luboshevki and Duskoslavinko.  Why do anything with the risk of confirming
everybody's worst assumptions about Russia?  Even if Ukraine had surrendered and even if the Ukrainian Army took over what possible benefit could balance the stunning loss of credibility?  And now where are they?  Even if they eventually destroy Ukraine -- how is that better?  The will have simply multiplied and unified the very threats they might have feared, and wrecked their economy and gotten a lot of their stuff destroyed.  And who is going to buy Russian gear except at bargin prices after all this?  Will Pakistan become the sad junkyard of Russian junk while India buys better gear from Europe?  There is just no end of the downside to attacking Ukraine.  It seems far beyond any folly any wargamer could have devised.

The leaders of Russia and Belarus have agreed on collaborating further in the near future, according to the state-owned Belarusian Telegraph Agency (BelTA).

According to BelTA, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko agreed on deliveries — by Russia to the Republic of Belarus — of the most modern models of military equipment in the near future.



   Right, cuz who else is going to want piles of loser gear?  Probably even Pakistan is already signaling -- please don't send us any more junk.

 

[Sir Slash]

So now it's the Russians who built the Bio-Research Labs in Ukraine, then left behind strains of deadly biological warfare agents in some dark corner, completely missed for 30 years, but that Ms. Nuland has known about all along, and now fears Putin will get his blood-stained hands on, and begin the Zombie Apocalypse. Damn, I wished I'd thought of that.

Is it just me or is Brand trying to look like Jesus?  :o

[DetCord]

Me and some of the boys made the decision to join the UFL and are leaving next week to go fight.

See you cats on the flip side.

[FarAway Sooner]

As has been mentioned above, there are plenty of strains in a biological research lab that can be weaponized.  Research labs tend to focus on the stuff that we worry about, which means it's bound to have some kind of long-term potential.

While I'm not naively trusting everything I hear from the Ukrainians, the Russians have squandered most of their credibility on this topic in the last two weeks.  I could list why, but I doubt I need to.  As has been mentioned above, this does seem to be a rather awkward time to raise these concerns.

As for the Nazis in the Ukraine, I've heard mainstream media confirm that there has been a growing strain of neo-Nazi sentiment in Ukraine in recent years.  The Azov Brigade in particular is a paramilitary group (numbers about 900 strong, by estimate) that has been vigorously involved in some of the fighting against the Russian-backed separatists in the two occupied regions back before Russia invaded the rest of Ukraine.  The notion that they are therefore running the Ukrainian government seems crazy far-fetched and has been rebutted by numerous regional experts that I've heard speak.

I'm keeping an open mind on the topic, but the preponderance of evidence here is not on Putin's side.

[solops]

News flash! Dr. Anthony Fauci announced strict, new guidelines today mandating that anyone entering the Ukraine MUST wear a mask to prevent infection by deadly, engineered bioweapons. And also hold your breath for the duration of your visit.

[Jarhead0331]

News flash! Dr. Anthony Fauci announced strict, new guidelines today mandating that anyone entering the Ukraine MUST wear a mask to prevent infection by deadly, engineered bioweapons. And also hold your breath for the duration of your visit.

This is a blatant violation of our forum rule against RPFW content. This is your warning to please not violate it again.

[GDS_Starfury]

the setup for Kiev:

https://kyivindependent.com/national/russia-concentrates-military-power-for-kyiv-assault/

and heres the real meat of the article"

Speaking late on March 11, Ukraine's military intelligence chief Brigadier General Kyrylo Budanov said Russia since Feb. 24 had 18 battalion tactical groups (BTGs) rendered combat-ineffective in clashes with the Ukrainian military. Thirteen more BTGs have been completely destroyed in action, according to the official.

Upon the think tank estimates, up to a total of 45,000 Russian military personnel could have been forced out of action as killed, wounded, taken prisoner, or demoralized, after two weeks of fierce fighting.

This might correspond to up to one-third of Russia's total military contingent deployed against Ukraine, the expert suggests.

this is the real reason the russians are banging the bioweapon drum so late in the game.  its either an attempt at saving face or a reason to escalate their use of 'bigger' weapons.

[GDS_Starfury]

and todays map update.  the full thread is linked below.



https://twitter.com/JominiW/status/1502528320369569792