Ukraine Notes - a little bit of military news
I started writing this Saturday, I think it was. So there's going to be some updates in places.
As usual, under a cut.
Russia has committed 95% or more of the troops that it built up in Belarus and Ukraine's eastern border. No indication of other troops within internal Russia being moved west to reinforce the invasion. Meanwhile Poland is giving Ukraine its Soviet-era fighter jets. Specifically, 28 Mig-29 jets, which is a very capable jet, albeit older than what Russia is fielding now. In exchange, the USA will be giving Poland F-16s. The USA is trying to avoid giving Ukraine such weapons as jets, which is smart, plus the Ukrainian pilots don't know how to fly F-16s, whereas they do know how to fly Mig-29s. I'm wondering how their supply of air-to-air missiles and bombs are holding out, much less spares.
In other actual war news, Russia has lost another major general, killed in combat along with a lot of his staff. That's two in a week. This is a major blow to also lose his staff, since that is a big hit to operational planning. And Russian encrypted communications for the military has failed, this was a system that was supposed to go online last year and has proven to be a complete disaster. Troops are using commercial and hobbyist walkie-talkies and cell phones for communications, which are easily intercepted.
Oracle has shut down its cloud operations in Russia. I previous reported that Microsoft and Apple did likewise, but I haven’t seen if they also shut down their cloud services. And no word about Amazon’s cloud operations in Russia.
PayPal has stopped processing inRussia, but will allow withdrawals for a limited period of time. I haven’t heard anything about Discover, or the other big credit cards stoping transactions. Reuter’s reports AmEx stopping operations in both Russia and Belarus. The Russian central bank doubled interest rates when it was cut off from the international SWIFT network, so you know its hurting. And Russians are fleeing to Finland! And being welcomed! Be very clear that this is Putin’s war, not Russia’s.
A clarification from The Guardian says that Visa and MasterCard transactions still work fine within Russia. What is blocked are international transactions and access to foreign funds from within Russia, and cards will be dead when they expire.
Calls are out to boycott Coca-Cola, Pepsi and McDonalds as they continue business as usual in Russia. Ukrainian supermarkets are pulling all Coke and Pepsi products from their shelves, and those two companies own A LOT of brands aside from their signature labels. UPDATE - McDonalds is closing 850 stores in Russia.
While Shell Oil has cancelled contracts with Russian oil companies and is divesting from other projects and partnerships -vans things like this can take time to complete - they just bought several million $$$ worth of crude from Russia, their excuse being that refineries are a continuous process operation and interruptions in supply are extremely disruptive. The fact that the Russian economy is completely busted right now and their crude is really cheap, entirely beside the point. And we all know that oil company executives are completely trustworthy and honorable gentlemen, so surely this must be the case. UPDATE - Shell has apologized (for receiving the blowback) and says it won't buy any more inexpensive Russian crude.
Premier architecture/engineering firms are putting projects in Russia on hold. Which is a little strange, as a lot of these firms have worked for despots for years.
Trump, the ever-flowing font of wonderful ideas of amazingly best quality, suggests painting USAF planes with Chinese flags, bombing Russian forces, then sitting back and seeing what happens. He left out the very, very minor details of planes having distinct radar characteristics, the ability for radar to watch where the attackers come from and return, oh, and, VISUAL IDENTIFICATION. “Gee, comrade, when did China start flying F-35s and A-10s?” Not to mention bomb and missile fragment analysis. When the bits say Northrop Grumman, that’s a bit of a clue. Remember, that’s why Scarlet Witch went after Tony Stark!
This is hilarious. A teenager wrote an app that broadcasts the location of Elon Musk’s private jet. This is public information, you buy a special receiver for a couple hundred $$, write some software, and lots of people can do this. Musk got PO’d, said it threatened his personal security - again, public information to look up flight plans of aircraft if you know how. He offered the kid $5,000. Kid said he wants a Tesla. And an internship. Since then, the kid has updated his software to track every known Russian oligarch’s private jet. And now luxury yacht! YOU GO, KID! I hope Stephen Colbert puts him on tv.
As usual, under a cut.
Russia has committed 95% or more of the troops that it built up in Belarus and Ukraine's eastern border. No indication of other troops within internal Russia being moved west to reinforce the invasion. Meanwhile Poland is giving Ukraine its Soviet-era fighter jets. Specifically, 28 Mig-29 jets, which is a very capable jet, albeit older than what Russia is fielding now. In exchange, the USA will be giving Poland F-16s. The USA is trying to avoid giving Ukraine such weapons as jets, which is smart, plus the Ukrainian pilots don't know how to fly F-16s, whereas they do know how to fly Mig-29s. I'm wondering how their supply of air-to-air missiles and bombs are holding out, much less spares.
In other actual war news, Russia has lost another major general, killed in combat along with a lot of his staff. That's two in a week. This is a major blow to also lose his staff, since that is a big hit to operational planning. And Russian encrypted communications for the military has failed, this was a system that was supposed to go online last year and has proven to be a complete disaster. Troops are using commercial and hobbyist walkie-talkies and cell phones for communications, which are easily intercepted.
Oracle has shut down its cloud operations in Russia. I previous reported that Microsoft and Apple did likewise, but I haven’t seen if they also shut down their cloud services. And no word about Amazon’s cloud operations in Russia.
PayPal has stopped processing inRussia, but will allow withdrawals for a limited period of time. I haven’t heard anything about Discover, or the other big credit cards stoping transactions. Reuter’s reports AmEx stopping operations in both Russia and Belarus. The Russian central bank doubled interest rates when it was cut off from the international SWIFT network, so you know its hurting. And Russians are fleeing to Finland! And being welcomed! Be very clear that this is Putin’s war, not Russia’s.
A clarification from The Guardian says that Visa and MasterCard transactions still work fine within Russia. What is blocked are international transactions and access to foreign funds from within Russia, and cards will be dead when they expire.
Calls are out to boycott Coca-Cola, Pepsi and McDonalds as they continue business as usual in Russia. Ukrainian supermarkets are pulling all Coke and Pepsi products from their shelves, and those two companies own A LOT of brands aside from their signature labels. UPDATE - McDonalds is closing 850 stores in Russia.
While Shell Oil has cancelled contracts with Russian oil companies and is divesting from other projects and partnerships -vans things like this can take time to complete - they just bought several million $$$ worth of crude from Russia, their excuse being that refineries are a continuous process operation and interruptions in supply are extremely disruptive. The fact that the Russian economy is completely busted right now and their crude is really cheap, entirely beside the point. And we all know that oil company executives are completely trustworthy and honorable gentlemen, so surely this must be the case. UPDATE - Shell has apologized (for receiving the blowback) and says it won't buy any more inexpensive Russian crude.
Premier architecture/engineering firms are putting projects in Russia on hold. Which is a little strange, as a lot of these firms have worked for despots for years.
Trump, the ever-flowing font of wonderful ideas of amazingly best quality, suggests painting USAF planes with Chinese flags, bombing Russian forces, then sitting back and seeing what happens. He left out the very, very minor details of planes having distinct radar characteristics, the ability for radar to watch where the attackers come from and return, oh, and, VISUAL IDENTIFICATION. “Gee, comrade, when did China start flying F-35s and A-10s?” Not to mention bomb and missile fragment analysis. When the bits say Northrop Grumman, that’s a bit of a clue. Remember, that’s why Scarlet Witch went after Tony Stark!
This is hilarious. A teenager wrote an app that broadcasts the location of Elon Musk’s private jet. This is public information, you buy a special receiver for a couple hundred $$, write some software, and lots of people can do this. Musk got PO’d, said it threatened his personal security - again, public information to look up flight plans of aircraft if you know how. He offered the kid $5,000. Kid said he wants a Tesla. And an internship. Since then, the kid has updated his software to track every known Russian oligarch’s private jet. And now luxury yacht! YOU GO, KID! I hope Stephen Colbert puts him on tv.