Ukraine Notes
Let's face it, there's always lots happening.
The chancellor of Austria had a private meeting with Putin at Putin's house outside of Moscow. He said it did not go well.
Putin has said that the peace talks are over. Like there was a good chance they would be successful? Considering how the pace of the war never slowed down, despite Russian assurances, they were nothing but a cover for Russian redeployment and re-concentration of forces for a new offensive in the east to try to consolidate their holdings there.
Netherlands sent four F-35 jets to Bulgaria as part of a NATO rotation to maintain a high level of surveillance in the area.
Ukraine is receiving tanks from the Czechs! A dozen refurbished T-72s along with “several” infantry fighting vehicles and howitzers have been loaded on trains and are headed to Slovakia, which borders Ukraine, and thus on in to the country. Russia is also using T-72s, but a slightly more advanced model.
The EU collectively has expelled more than 200 Russian diplomats in the wake of what happened in Bucha. And calls are being made in the United Nations not only to kick Russia off the Human Rights Commission, but to revoke its veto on the Security Council.
Update: Russia has been removed from the UN Human Right Commission!
The Boston Marathon has banned all Russian and Belarus nationals from competing this year. I would expect other marathons to do likewise.
German Intelligence has intercepted radio traffic that has geo-located Russian communications to specific locations in Bucha where people were murdered and mass graves. For example, one such traffic - paraphrasing a soldier radioing another soldier 'I just shot a guy on a bicycle' tied to the location of a dead person on a bicycle. Der Spiegel reporters interviewed people saying that Chechen soldiers were brought in, replacing "young soldiers" - presumably soldiers from the original invasion - and that is when the atrocities began. Chechens have been used in previous conflicts for this specific purpose. Also present were Wagner Group mercenary soldiers, whom I have written about previously.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/possible-evidence-of-russian-atrocities-german-intelligence-intercepts-radio-traffic-discussing-the-murder-of-civilians-in-bucha-a-0a191c96-634f-4d07-8c5c-c4a772315b0d
Remember the Twitter bot that tracked russian oligarch private jets? Then one started tracking their yachts? Well, one started tracking Russian oil tankers, it was created by Greenpeace data scientists. And some tankers have been going dark, turning off their AIS sensors. They did this during the height of the Syrian wwar when they were making illegal oil transfers to other ships. Now they're doing it again.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/twitter-bot-tracks-russian-oil-tankers-in-advance-of-sanctions/
Viktor Medvedchuk, a Putin friend and leader of a Ukrainian pro-Russian political party, escaped house arrest but a special task force has succeeded in recapturing him. Rumored that he may be traded back to Russia for Ukrainian POWs and a first round draft pick to be named later.
This just in from the Payback Is A Bitch Department. Remember the hacker collective Anonymous saying they were going on the offensive against Russia? They struck Roscomos, Russia’s version of NASA, with a ransomware attack. An analysis of the code reveals that 2/3rds of it is Conti’s code! Conti, being a very infamous Russian ransomware operation, who declared their total support for Putin, who also got gutted by Ukrainian or Ukrainian-friendly security researcher(s) who published GIGABYTES of their internal data, including chat logs and bitcoin wallet addresses. Anonymous did nothing nasty to the Roscomos servers, just stole and published tons of files, but proved they were in deep.
The governments of Sweden and Finland are very close to voting to join NATO, which Russia is calling a big mistake. Flow, my tears. Extremely likely the votes will pass in both countries in time for a summit to be held in June, IIRC.
I thought I had posted this previously, but apparently not. This is quite awesome! The Ukraine government is offering a bounty for Russians to defect with their weapon platforms! Do you have a jet or ship? $1,000,000! Tank? Well, if you survive surrendering, not quite as much but they'll still try to make it worth your while. The Ukraine government will also help you get to a third country with false identity papers and on your way to a new life!
The chancellor of Austria had a private meeting with Putin at Putin's house outside of Moscow. He said it did not go well.
Putin has said that the peace talks are over. Like there was a good chance they would be successful? Considering how the pace of the war never slowed down, despite Russian assurances, they were nothing but a cover for Russian redeployment and re-concentration of forces for a new offensive in the east to try to consolidate their holdings there.
Netherlands sent four F-35 jets to Bulgaria as part of a NATO rotation to maintain a high level of surveillance in the area.
Ukraine is receiving tanks from the Czechs! A dozen refurbished T-72s along with “several” infantry fighting vehicles and howitzers have been loaded on trains and are headed to Slovakia, which borders Ukraine, and thus on in to the country. Russia is also using T-72s, but a slightly more advanced model.
The EU collectively has expelled more than 200 Russian diplomats in the wake of what happened in Bucha. And calls are being made in the United Nations not only to kick Russia off the Human Rights Commission, but to revoke its veto on the Security Council.
Update: Russia has been removed from the UN Human Right Commission!
The Boston Marathon has banned all Russian and Belarus nationals from competing this year. I would expect other marathons to do likewise.
German Intelligence has intercepted radio traffic that has geo-located Russian communications to specific locations in Bucha where people were murdered and mass graves. For example, one such traffic - paraphrasing a soldier radioing another soldier 'I just shot a guy on a bicycle' tied to the location of a dead person on a bicycle. Der Spiegel reporters interviewed people saying that Chechen soldiers were brought in, replacing "young soldiers" - presumably soldiers from the original invasion - and that is when the atrocities began. Chechens have been used in previous conflicts for this specific purpose. Also present were Wagner Group mercenary soldiers, whom I have written about previously.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/possible-evidence-of-russian-atrocities-german-intelligence-intercepts-radio-traffic-discussing-the-murder-of-civilians-in-bucha-a-0a191c96-634f-4d07-8c5c-c4a772315b0d
Remember the Twitter bot that tracked russian oligarch private jets? Then one started tracking their yachts? Well, one started tracking Russian oil tankers, it was created by Greenpeace data scientists. And some tankers have been going dark, turning off their AIS sensors. They did this during the height of the Syrian wwar when they were making illegal oil transfers to other ships. Now they're doing it again.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/twitter-bot-tracks-russian-oil-tankers-in-advance-of-sanctions/
Viktor Medvedchuk, a Putin friend and leader of a Ukrainian pro-Russian political party, escaped house arrest but a special task force has succeeded in recapturing him. Rumored that he may be traded back to Russia for Ukrainian POWs and a first round draft pick to be named later.
This just in from the Payback Is A Bitch Department. Remember the hacker collective Anonymous saying they were going on the offensive against Russia? They struck Roscomos, Russia’s version of NASA, with a ransomware attack. An analysis of the code reveals that 2/3rds of it is Conti’s code! Conti, being a very infamous Russian ransomware operation, who declared their total support for Putin, who also got gutted by Ukrainian or Ukrainian-friendly security researcher(s) who published GIGABYTES of their internal data, including chat logs and bitcoin wallet addresses. Anonymous did nothing nasty to the Roscomos servers, just stole and published tons of files, but proved they were in deep.
The governments of Sweden and Finland are very close to voting to join NATO, which Russia is calling a big mistake. Flow, my tears. Extremely likely the votes will pass in both countries in time for a summit to be held in June, IIRC.
I thought I had posted this previously, but apparently not. This is quite awesome! The Ukraine government is offering a bounty for Russians to defect with their weapon platforms! Do you have a jet or ship? $1,000,000! Tank? Well, if you survive surrendering, not quite as much but they'll still try to make it worth your while. The Ukraine government will also help you get to a third country with false identity papers and on your way to a new life!