Ukraine Bookmarks
Bookmarks to help me understand what's going on in Ukraine.
#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
The Imperialism Has no Clothes
We need to help Ukraine.
If we allow Russia to win in Ukraine, or to achieve an unjust peace, it will be a matter of years before Russia attacks the European Union, leveraging its territorial gains in Ukraine, and US indifference. -- It's time for Europe to join the war
It's time for Europe to join the war
Less artillery, less armoured vehicles, more drones, more motorcycles and more quads‽
Both Russian and Ukrainian forces deploy only a small portion of their troops to frontline positions. Offensives are typically carried out by small assault teams of three to ten soldiers. Several such groups may target positions with a similarly sized number of defenders, often just a few dozen troops. … Russia continues to lose more hardware (based on verified footage) than it can produce from scratch. Still, it’s increasingly moving away from armored fleets. Instead, it’s relying on nimble, lightweight units on motorcycles and quad bikes — which, surprisingly, are less vulnerable to drones than heavier, slower vehicles packed with troops. Ukrainian forces, too, are now regularly deploying motorcycles in counterattacks. – Peace, postponed As Trump fails to push Putin toward a ceasefire, what comes next for Ukraine?, by Meduza
Peace, postponed As Trump fails to push Putin toward a ceasefire, what comes next for Ukraine?
Nobody is interested in stopping the war.
Ukraine is counting on Europe to shield it from potentially dramatic changes in the war’s course resulting from waning U.S. military support. Ukraine also knows that the situation on the frontlines is not as dire as many suggest. In December 2023, Russia controlled approximately 42,000 square miles of Ukrainian territory. In December 2024, that figure had grown only slightly, to around 43,600 square miles. In the time since, Russia’s holdings have remained effectively flat. As of late May, Russia held approximately 43,650 square miles of Ukrainian land. – The Delusions of Peacemaking in Ukraine, by Dmytro Kuleba, for Foreign Affairs
The Delusions of Peacemaking in Ukraine
The state of the war:
Russian forces have advanced an average of only 50 meters per day in such areas as Kharkiv, slower than during the Somme offensive in World War I, where French and British forces advanced an average of 80 meters per day. … Even Russia’s rate of advance in parts of Donetsk Oblast, averaging 135 meters per day, has been remarkably slow. … Russia’s seizure of approximately 5,000 square kilometers of territory in Ukraine since January 2024 has been paltry—amounting to less than 1 percent of Ukrainian territory—and has occurred mainly in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv Oblasts. … Since January 2024, for example, Russia has lost roughly 1,149 armored fighting vehicles, 3,098 infantry fighting vehicles, 300 self-propelled artillery, and 1,865 tanks. Even more noteworthy, Russian equipment losses have been significantly higher than Ukrainian losses, varying between a ratio of 5:1 and 2:1 in Ukraine’s favor. … Overall, a high of 250,000 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine, with over 950,000 total Russian casualties … Russian fatalities in Ukraine (in just over three years) are 15 times larger than the Soviet Union’s decade-long war in Afghanistan and 10 times larger than Russia’s 13 years of war in Chechnya. – Russia’s Battlefield Woes in Ukraine, by Seth G. Jones and Riley McCabe, for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Russia’s Battlefield Woes in Ukraine
More on the ammunition shortage: the lack of nitrocellulose:
One especially flexible chemical compound called nitrocellulose is behind the bulk of Russia's firepower. … Cellulose is just plant matter, usually derived from cotton linten or wood pulp. When treated with nitric acid, cellulose gains an oxidant. Very crudely, it's chemically like puffing air onto a fire. While not a complicated process, nitrocellulose production leaves as waste enormous amounts of nitric as well as sulphuric acid — byproducts common across the production of TNT, RDX, and HMX that take decades to clean up. – Why can't the West match Russia's ammunition production?
Why can't the West match Russia's ammunition production?
What about Meduza?
We agree that some of the work of Russian independent journalists from TV Rain, Meduza, Novaya Gazeta, etc., can be of a high quality. Some Russian media professionals work under a constant threat to their lives and safety. However, some of the work produced by these media outlets is in perfect harmony with Kremlin propaganda and Russian imperialism. This is not journalism. It violates the profession’s values and
norms. The purpose of this book is to identify these cases. -- Deconstructors of Truth How the Russian opposition media covers Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, by Natalya Steblyna and Iryna Avramenko
Financing the war:
All roads lead back to the issue of freezing, seizing, and using the $330bn in Central Bank of Russia CBR) assets in Western jurisdictions. This money would amply finance Ukraine’s defense needs for a long war and send a powerful signal that Ukraine can ride out Putin’s long-war scenario and his own failing economy. This would increase the Kremlin’s risk in continuing its war of aggression, and quite possibly force it to the negotiating table. – Ukraine: The Coming Storm
The population does not support Trump's stance:
The Reagan National Defense Survey, released Thursday, found that 64% of Americans favor sending lethal aid to support Kyiv’s government, up nine percentage points from last year and the highest proportion since the Russian invasion began in February 2022. Slightly more (65%) support giving Ukraine long-range cruise missiles, such as Tomahawks, to allow strikes deep inside Russian territory — while 68% support selling American-made weapons to European allies, who would then provide them to Ukraine. Unlike in 2024, a majority of Republicans (59%) support sending weapons to Ukraine to fight off Russia’s invasion, up from 44% last year. Three-quarters of Democrats support aiding Ukraine, up from 68% one year ago. -- More Americans than ever want US to send weapons to Ukraine, key defense survey finds, by Samuel Chamberlain, for the New York Post
More Americans than ever want US to send weapons to Ukraine, key defense survey finds
Vier Jahre schon:
Im Juli 2025 verurteilte der Europäische Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte (EGMR) in Straßburg Russland wegen zahlreicher Menschenrechtsverletzungen im Ukraine-Krieg. Der Vorwurf des EGMR lautete, dass Russland in seiner Aggression gegen die Ukraine schon seit 2014 ein "System von Verstößen" gegen die Menschenrechte errichtet habe. Dazu zählen dem Urteil zufolge unter anderem Hinrichtungen von Zivilistinnen und Zivilisten sowie von Angehörigen der ukrainischen Streitkräfte. Auch die Unterdrückung der ukrainischen Sprache im Schulunterricht und die Indoktrination von Schulkindern erfüllen nach Einschätzung des EGMR einen Straftatbestand. Beweismaterial zu mutmaßlichen Kriegsverbrechen wird von staatlichen Ermittlungsbehörden, internationalen Organisationen, Menschenrechts-NGOs sowie unabhängigen Recherche- und OSINT-Teams gesichtet und dokumentiert. Die ukrainische Generalstaatsanwaltschaft hat Stand November 2025 über 190.000 Fälle mutmaßlicher Kriegsverbrechen registriert. … Einer aktuellen Analyse des Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) zufolge betragen die russischen Verluste seit Beginn der Vollinvasion in die Ukraine an die 1,2 Millionen Menschen. Für 2025 werden rund 415.000 Personen geschätzt, durchschnittlich also ca. 35.000 Tote und Verwundete jeden Monat. Kein anderer Staat hat seit Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges eine derart hohe Verlustrate für einen Angriffskrieg in Kauf genommen. -- Vier Jahre russische Vollinvasion in der Ukraine, Redaktion für bpb.de (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung)