#Ukraine #Bookmarks
The conclusion that’s reasonable to draw from these anecdotal reports is that Russian internet infrastructure was a vital part of the tool kit of people who spread misinformation. There’s a lot of pieces of this economy that are run out of Russia — bot networks, for example, networks of people who sell who buy and sell stolen credit card information, a lot of the economy around buying stolen [social media] accounts — because Russia has historically tolerated a lot of cybercrime. Either it turns a blind eye or a lot of these groups actually directly work for, or are contractors to, the Russian state. – Russia is having less success at spreading social media disinformation (for now), by Laura Edelson, in an interview with Sophie Bushwick, for Scientific American
The bottom line remains that a war involving less than 1% of the world’s nuclear arsenal could shatter the planet’s food supplies. – How a small nuclear war would transform the entire planet, by Witze, for Nature
Wayne E. Lee, a military historian in the United States, shared the following essay by a ‘Stanimir Dobrev’ on birdsite. Because it is written for people with recent military or intelligence experience, I have expanded or glossed the acronyms and linked to some Wikipedia pages. – Things I Don’t Know About the Russian Invasion of Ukraine
How a small nuclear war would transform the entire planet, by Witze, for Nature
Things I Don’t Know About the Russian Invasion of Ukraine
On Mastodon and Twitter: @bad_immigrant / @bad_immigrant, posting snippets of protests, pictures and short videos taken by people.
@kamilkazani has some great threads on Twitter.
This is a brief guide for selected threads. It will include materials on the current war and briefs useful for prognosing the future of the region once the war is over – Thread of threads
This was the first thread I had seen, but the others are good, too.
Much of the “realist” discourse is about accepting Putin’s victory, cuz it’s *guaranteed*. But how do we know it is? – Why Russia will lose this war?
Why Russia will lose this war?
Journalism
The Russians were hunting us down. They had a list of names, including ours, and they were closing in. – 20 days in Mariupol: The team that documented city’s agony
20 days in Mariupol: The team that documented city’s agony
Others:
@timkmak: Zelenskyy was urged to evacuate Kyiv at the behest of the U.S. government but turned down the offer… – Working for NPR
Ukraine support:
If we stop supporting Ukraine, then everything gets worse, all of a sudden, and no one will be talking about “fatigue” because we will all be talking about disaster: across all of these dimensions: food supply, war crimes, international instability, expanding war, collapsing democracies. Everything that the Ukrainians are doing for us can be reversed if we give up. Why would lawmakers even contemplate doing so? – Would You Sell Them Out? by Timothy Snyder
Russian assets:
Western governments are drawing up plans to issue debt to help fund Ukraine, using Russian assets as a backstop for the repayment in a move that would force Moscow to start paying for its invasion. – G7 draws up plans to backstop debt-raising for Ukraine with Russian assets, by Chris Cook, Henry Foy and Laura Dubois, for the Financial Times
G7 draws up plans to backstop debt-raising for Ukraine with Russian assets
How big is the Russian troll army?
According to leaked documents cited by the outlet VSquare, the company’s army of bots posted 33.9 million comments and created 39,899 pieces of content on social media, including thousands of videos and memes, in the first four months of 2024. – What leaked documents revealed about the Kremlin’s activities in Russia and abroad in 2024
What leaked documents revealed about the Kremlin’s activities in Russia and abroad in 2024
War:
The world has progressed beyond the economic need for warfare — China will not become richer by seizing the fabs of TSMC or the tea plantations of Sun Moon Lake. The mostly stable world created in the aftermath of the Cold War was good not just for Taiwan, but for China as well. Why topple it all chasing a dream of empire? – The Players on the Eve of Destruction
The Players on the Eve of Destruction
Aid to Ukraine costs a European 1.2 cups of coffee a month
The US has contributed $69bn, Europe has contributed $66bn, the biggest donors being Germany with $13.6bn, UK contributed $10.8, Denmark contributed $8.1, and so on.
Source:
The Ukraine Support Tracker lists and quantifies military, financial and humanitarian support by governments to Ukraine since February 2022. It covers 41 countries, specifically the EU member states, other members of the G7, as well as Australia, South Korea, Turkiye, Norway, New Zealand, Switzerland, China, Taiwan, India, and Iceland. The database is intended to support a facts-based discussion about support to Ukraine. -- Ukraine Support Tracker
Defence spending:
Worth remembering when you think how Europe might “struggle" to match Russia: UK+EU+UA defence expenditure already sits at about $400bn. That’s as much as China and Russia combined. The issue is what it's spent on, not what's spent. -- @ianb@well.com
Source: Defence Spending and Procurement Trends
Defence Spending and Procurement Trends
Notable that Germany + UK is more than Russia. Germany + France is more than Russia.
Trump is a Russian asset.
Washington has “just about” ended the freeze on intelligence sharing with Kyiv, President Donald Trump said on Sunday, according to Reuters and Bloomberg. … Trump said he wanted to do “anything we can to get Ukraine serious about getting something done.” -- Trump says U.S. has 'just about’ resumed intelligence sharing with Ukraine, Meduza
“He’s done everything to discredit and demean Zelensky on the international stage with the shameful press conference in which he teamed up with the vice president to attack Zelensky,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). He pressed Whitaker, and other State Department nominees in the hearing, over whether Trump is a Russian asset. “What else could a Russian asset actually possibly do that Trump hasn’t yet done?” Trump’s NATO nominee commits to alliance, despite MAGA opponents, by Laura Kelly, for The Hill
Trump says U.S. has 'just about’ resumed intelligence sharing with Ukraine
Trump’s NATO nominee commits to alliance, despite MAGA opponents
Starlink is a liability:
Le cours de l'action Eutelsat a plus que quadruplé depuis l'altercation publique du 28 février entre le président ukrainien Volodimir Zelensky et son homologue américain Donald Trump, à la suite de laquelle Washington a suspendu son aide militaire à l'Ukraine. -- Trois questions sur un potentiel remplacement de Starlink par Eutelsat en Ukraine, avec Reuters (Supantha Mukherjee à Stockholm et de Gianluca Lo Nostro à Gdansk, avec Michal Aleksandrowicz, version française Benjamin Mallet, édité par Kate Entringer), L'Usine Nouvelle
Trois questions sur un potentiel remplacement de Starlink par Eutelsat en Ukraine
Denmark, Ukraine, USA and Russia:
Americans might chuckle at that idea, but such arrogance is unwarranted. We are the only ones ever to have invoked Article 5, the mutual defense obligation of the NATO treaty, after 9/11; and our European allies did respond. Per capita more Danish soldiers were killed in the Afghan war than were American soldiers … and of course defending against a Russian attack is the NATO mission. But right now the United States is supporting Russia in its war against Ukraine. No one is doing more to contain the Russian threat than Ukraine. Indeed, Ukraine is in effect fulfilling the entire NATO mission, right now, by absorbing a huge Russian attack. … Denmark meanwhile has given more than four times as much aid to Ukraine, per capita, as does the United States. – The Imperialism Has no Clothes, by Timothy Snyder
