This "live map" makes it seem like there is some kind of war starting. There's nothing of the sort. War started 8 years ago, and this move by Putin last night actually ENDS the war decisively.
The rebel-held regions which were backed by Russia have been in constant conflict for 8 years. There's nothing new here on this map. Putin's decision yesterday to make it officially Russian-protected instead of shadow-backed actually de-escalates tensions and finally ends the 8-year long conflict. Now that Donetsk and Luhansk are officially Russian-backed, the Ukrainian army will no longer attempt to keep recapturing it (confirmed by President Zelensky today -- said we will not be fighting Russia head-on). Therefore no more Ukrainian body bags, which is great news, though not the ending we wanted.
For the record, I do not condone the annexation of Crimea, but I also do not support giving it back to Ukraine, as it just creates unnecessary tension at this point. I understand, how globally we should not just be ok with countries taking parts of other countries, but at the same time the reverse transaction will bring more misery to people of crimea.
From my point of view, it seems Canadians are team Russia here, especially our prime minister.
Oops. Your comment aged really poorly in one day. It turns out Russia wanted all of Ukraine and you are fighting them head-on.
Yesterday's moves were just the first step. Within a few days they'll escalate by doing something like claiming the entire regions, by staging a false flag, Triggering an insurrection outside the regions etc. Once they have threatred their way into making it look as if Ukraine is the aggressor, they'll move in widely.
I don't know where he'll end up, but the ultimate objective is the humiliation of the west and subjugation of Ukraine. What I think you'll see is a wide areal campaign destroying most of Ukraines military equipment, a take over of the entire black sea coast making Ukraine landlocked. Finally there'll be a "peace" treaty making Ukraine a substantially smaller landlocked country, forcing them to demilitarize, pay tribute etc.
This isn't about the humiliation of the west and the subjugation of Ukraine, this is about national defense strategy. The way the borders were set after the breakup of the USSR were based on certain assumptions that don't hold true today, and as a result Russia does not have a defensible border. With these annexations, they do. Additionally, it's a way to test what sort of response they'll get and prepare for similar responses in the future.
He achieved his political objectives by just threatening invasion, without actually invading. An actual full-scale invasion is something nobody wants, least of all most ordinary Russians who have relatives in Ukraine.
> you won't have to wait very long to see why
I'd bet you on it if you set me a date. Westerners have been raising the alarm about a potential Russian invasion since time immemorial.
Biden has said this was coming, biden has said this is complete invasion of ukraine. He's headed to kyiv.
How so? Doesn't it just turn a pro-Russian insurgency into a pro-Ukrainian insurgency? In other words, the "insurgents" and the "legitimate local militias" just switch places.
"Now that Donetsk and Luhansk are officially Russian-backed, the Ukrainian army will no longer attempt to keep recapturing it (confirmed by President Zelensky today -- said we will not be fighting Russia head-on). Therefore no more Ukrainian body bags, which is great news, though not the ending we wanted."
As long as Putin stops at the borders of Donetsk and Luhansk.
And, by the way, it's good there are no Ukrainians in Donetsk and Luhansk.
What a lot of folks in the West don't realize is that Ukrainian soldiers have been at war with Russian Mercenaries and Russian Soldiers since 2014. It's been a slow burn war and every week there have been Ukrainian KIA but it never made the news. We can only hope that you are correct about the war being over but I'm not so sure. My opinion is it will never be over as long as Putin and his mafia are in power. There is just too much at stake for them to hand over power to a new guard because of the hundreds of billions they have stolen from the Russian people.
>The rebel-held regions which were backed by Russia have been in constant conflict for 8 years.
I don't think anyone believed that the Separatists/Russians in Ukraine were some home grown group. They were funded, supplied, and reinforced with Russian Mercs and Army from the beginning, it's just that the world didn't give a shit because there was too much business going on between Europe and Russia.
I still don't believe the West is going to take this or any future aggression seriously, strongly worded disappointments is about all they can muster in the face of evil. NATO and the West are toothless, America has no appetite to take on an enemy like Russia or China and those countries know it. Even now any reaction is just theater without any real consequences. What this means for the future is that it sets a precedent, There are millions of Russians seeded throughout Eastern Europe and it leaves the door open to separatism. Taiwan is also fucked, the Chinese will take it in a day and the USA won't do a single thing. Just saying, always hoping I'm wrong.
We should remind ourselves that "taking on" such entities might well mean the end of the human race.
In many ways, we got lucky that Hitler and Mussolini appeared before the atomic bomb was invented. Since 1945, the world effectively lost the option to "take on" certain countries, even if they were to succumb to pure evil.
What does the USA need/want from Russia, other than for them to stop being antagonistic against the USA? Nothing that I can see.
still far from it, but this escalation indicates Ukraine is one a right path
They don't actually guarantee that, there is no formal bar to admitting a country with active disputes to NATO; and even if there were it would take agreement of exactly the same parties as are required to admit a new member to either eliminate or modify the formal requirement.
Also, the new regions aren't necessary for that if it was a bar because of the occupation of Crimea since 2014.
There's no formal bar, but it would be politically difficult. (Because now you either need to ignore your newest member's problems, or commit to a war that you didn't even want to fight.)
The former significantly undermines confidence in the organization, the latter... Ties it to actually fighting a war (with all the nasty ways in which it can escalate), as opposed to muttering about sanctions.
Out of the US, France, the UK, and Germany, which of those four countries do you think want to fight a shooting war with Russia?
At the moment, the answer is 'none of the above'. Implementing sanctions is comparatively easy, though.
I've actually been surprised how State Department propaganda ("anonymous sources within the State Department / Pentagon / White House") is transmitted unfiltered on the media, particularly after so many incidents of it being wrong (WMDs anyone?). It's also so sad to see how pro-Imperialist the suppposed Left is. Worse is how easily so many seem to accept this narrative.
The US promised NATO wouldn't expand east in 1990 and then immediately reneged on it and has done so repeatedly since to the point where NATO is knocking on Russia's door. Russia absolutely does not want Ukraine in NATO. I guess that's the line in the sand.
This draws predictable "It's Ukraine's choice" calls but when you provide an analogy like "How would the US feel about China or Russia building military and forward operating bases in Mexico or China along the US border?" it gets dismissed like "that would never happen", which of course doesn't answer the question.
Yep, Russian troops have entered Ukraine and that's bad. But it's not a war... yet. And Putin isn't a madman. This is a high-stakes move to keep Ukraine out of NATO and the West really needs to reconsider our position on this because it's not unreasonable. More to the point, is it worth igniting a war over Ukraine? Really?
No, it didn't, at least in any way which anyone who is qualified for even an entry-level position in any diplomatic service on Earth would mistake for a binding commitment even on the then-current administration, much less indefinitely into the future. (The most commonly cited statement on this is actually a reference to deployment of troops within United Germany in the near term post-unification, and the second most commonly cited does refer to NATO expansion but is a communication of items that could be on the table for discussion if Russia was willing to come to the table on German unification, not a commitment; but there also some claims that some other private communication not reduced to a binding international agreement occurred.)
If it had made such a promise to the USSR in a binding way, we could discuss, based on the specific form of the agreement and the subsequent diplomatic action relevant to it after the fall of the USSR whether it was still binding between any parties and which nation or nations were the USSR’s successors in interest and what were the legal effects were of any potential disunity between those parties.
But since it didn't, the whole set of questions is moot.
> and then immediately reneged on it
NATO expansion to Eastern European nations beyond the former East Germany didn't occur until 1999, which is not “immediately” after an event alleged to have happened in 1990.
Russia said they wouldn't invade Ukraine because:
-Russia is holding military exercises, you're being paranoid
-Nobody invades a european country on a wednesday (ok, that's true. They did it on a tuesday)
-Russia is pulling back troops.
-Russia will pull back troops as soon as the military exercises are done. So (previous) sunday. (or not!)
-Russia isn't invading Ukraine, we're just sending peacekeeping forces into the region that we declared independent of Ukraine.
etc... These aren't negotiation tactics to resolve future NATO membership concerns. These are stall tactics to position their military.
What Russia did strengthens the resolve of Ukraine to seek an alliance with NATO although they wouldn't qualify for membership. The more likely reason is that Russia hopes to undermine NATO. By taking Ukraine and putting themselves at the border of NATO countries, they can test if there's going to be a 2 tiered NATO. Countries for which the alliance is willing to invoke art. 5, and countries they are willing to abandon to avoid a world war.
That's a very good question for Putin, try asking it and enjoy gulag or sudden inexplicable death/disappearance.
What the fuck gives one state (Russia) right to dictate what sovereign countries do and don't do? I get this cold war mentality, it was the heyday of Russia, moving pawns, fighting wars, being global badass with some serious respect unlike now, doing whatever they wanted. That's over for 30 years, and the only one to blame is Russians themselves, and their fucked up mentality. But Putin would like some 21st century version of the same.
In same way I hated US for the invasion of Iraq based on pure lies, which were clearly lies to everybody I knew even when Bush jr was presenting them in UN (remember the US senators' cries about changing 'french fries' to 'freedom fries' when France and Germany refused to support this bullshit? Look where it led Iraq and surrounding countries. Not even going into topic of Afghanistan).
I come from eastern Europe. We were invaded overnight by russian (and V4, but mostly russian) troops in 1968 for the great sin of wanting to live in freedom from communist terror of previous decades. Just like Hungarians a decade before. This ain't something to forget. Even if I wasn't alive back then, my parents were and its very good to listen to elders in such cases, they have good stories to tell, lessons to learn. Hard earned lessons of oppressed lives which could never reach their potentials.
But I do understand that Donetsk and Luhansk both have petitioned for more autonomy in an amended Ukranian constitution (that would give all administrative-districts more autonomy). This has failed but apparently Ukraine is in the process of becoming more decentralized with their own constitutional amendments, pursuing a concept of Federalism/Confederacy similar to Switzerland, which Donetsk and Luhansk would benefit from but that idea of satisfying those districts has long passed, now that they handle their own affairs and also receive Russian passports now.
So because the desired constitution has failed, when that chance for diplomacy was available, and they already receive Russian passports, what exactly is the goal here?
Are they supposed to be on the map as their own countries? Are there two new countries on the map? Is there an accession to Russia?
I get Putin's words look more like a piecemeal approach of chopping territory back from Ukraine, until it and all former soviet states are simply Russian states. But I think most of that is just grandstanding to sound cool to his own people. I also think any opportunity of affinity towards Russia will be seized upon, especially when there is a direct border.
I'm purposely avoiding the discrimination against Ukrainian-speaking people and actions against dissidents, given the area is reported as being lawless for some time now. And focusing on the geopolitical element.
So with that in mind, what does recognition as independent even mean? They get Russian passports and citizenship and freedom of movement and work in Russia already. Are they simply saying that civil and criminal justice can't be appealed to either Ukraine or Russian higher courts? Going to go with the autonomous region concept until a future referendum of accession into Russia?
I can't get an answer from my Ukrainian friends either, "its just hybrid war, American news making it bigger than it is, Biden making misinformation". I watched Putin's speech, but okay, maybe my translation was wrong, seems like denial to say Biden is just making a big deal though, but I guess I too wouldn't care about a border region full of people that aren't interested in my country's values. This last point seems to be what another comment from someone transplanted to Ukraine is saying.
It depends who's map you're looking at.
> I'm purposely avoiding the discrimination against Ukrainian-speaking people
Bear in mind that it's not as simple as discriminating between those who speak Ukrainian and those who speak Russian. A significant proportion of the Ukrainian population speak Russian primarily, but otherwise have no political affinity for Russia.
> Going to go with the autonomous region concept until a future referendum of accession into Russia?
This is most likely it, though it could further escalate into an even more egregious invasion, which would trigger a military response from Ukraine, which would then give Russia the casus belli they are looking for.
The best counterpoint for most westerners to understand is this: most Irish people speak English as their primary, if not only, language. Yet English-speaking Irishmen were (and still are) vehemently against being part of the UK.
I've seen it as well. My guess is that Covid made a huge dent (Low gas prices and economic problems). Putin has to direct this anger somewhere.
This is the swan song of the Russian state. People living in the Soviet sphere see how other countries are developing. Ukraine had a higher GDP per capita than Poland - now it's 4x lower. It's true for every single place from Kaliningrad, Caucasus to Vladivostok. They are worse off than their neighbours for purely political reasons.
Only thing that holds everything together is the authoritarian regime with strong military and natural resources. The problem is the world will become less dependent on fossil fuels and mining in Siberia is more expensive than pretty much everywhere. Russia won't be able to pay for the army.
This is an existential threat to the Russian state. My prediction is that around 2030 there will a civil war, 2nd Chechnya.
its about the choice Ukranian ppl made in 2014 and strong independent Ukraine is a direct threat to russian kleptocracy as russain ppl might have ideas they could make this push too
Putin desperately had to be seen, in Russia, as doing something that seemed to indicate strength, in order to be able to retain power. Facing off against NATO, and getting them to offer him concessions, served that purpose. Invading another country served that purpose. Holding bits of Ukraine, and the fates of people in them, are very much incidental. The concessions were not necessary, but the offers of concessions were all-important.
Crimea was an autonomy. The outcome you know.
Like with Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, &c the central actor is Russia, not the regions themselves.
The Dissolution of Czechoslovakia (Czech: Rozdělení Československa, Slovak: Rozdelenie Česko-Slovenska) took effect on January 1, 1993, and was the self-determined split of the federal republic of Czechoslovakia into the independent countries of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Both mirrored the Czech Socialist Republic and the Slovak Socialist Republic, which had been created in 1969 as the constituent states of the Czechoslovak Federal Republic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_Czechoslovakia
Edit:
Also Catalonia:
The Catalan independence movement (Catalan: independentisme català;[a] Spanish: independentismo catalán) is a social and political movement (with roots in Catalan nationalism) which seeks the independence of Catalonia from Spain, along with in the movement supporting the independence of Northern Catalonia from France, and Alghero from Italy (among other Catalan-speaking areas, referred to as the Catalan Countries).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence_movement
Also Euskara:
The Basque conflict, also known as the Spain–ETA conflict, was an armed and political conflict from 1959 to 2011 between Spain and the Basque National Liberation Movement, a group of social and political Basque organizations which sought independence from Spain and France.
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
It's agitprop, of course. But it's agitprop for both external and internal consumption, and the latter parts are very telling.
So their best chance is to push back and to look for allies who could help put Putin back in place that he belongs - near the latrine.
I think concessions from the West would be better for Russia. But since they aren’t giving them any, Putin seemingly had to go in with his “peacekeeping force” or be called on his bluff.
I think Putin might plan to invade Ukraine to the point of making a land bridge to Crimea. Because I don’t see how Russia’s position has been improved with this move, even if Ukraine backs off from Donetsk and Luhansk completely.
Their best bet is probably to <pay the Danegeld>, in hopes <the Dane> will not <return with further demands>.
I rather suspect that this is deliberate, to allow for flexible interpretation as needed. On one hand, it's obvious justification for pushing beyond the actual territory controlled by DNR/LNR. On the other, if they don't actually do that, or try and are stopped, they can always claim that that was the plan all along, and "mission accomplished".
[1] http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/00012022022200...
[2] http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/00012022022200...
Ironic, given Ukraine wouldn’t be in this situation had it not given up its nuclear weapons on the back of promises—from the U.K., U.S. and Russia—that its territory would be respected [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
It would have become the russian version of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Western media portrayed Trump as "pro-Putin", but if you look at the actual decisions by administrations, he was the one who really pushed back against Putin, compared both to Obama and Biden.
This is not quite high resolution data however - in the 10 to 20 meters per pixel range, i.e. medium resolution. Sentinels are not reconnaissance satellites, but are rather tasked for mapping and collecting large amounts of data globally, for which the main use cases do not necessarily need high resolution imagery (agricultural monitoring, deforestation, natural catastrophes...).
Reconnaissance satellites have much finer ground resolution (sub-meter per pixel, down to a couple dozen centimeters... from what is publicly available), and some constellations feature daily revisit cycles.
(Ukrainian IT community already raised around $100k in a last few days)
I'm not sure if there's a name for this strategy (beyond "whataboutism"), but it's annoyingly effective and can be used by both the left and the right. An example of the latter would be claiming that all racial justice protesters (and Democrats generally) are Antifa rioters and looters.
It seems to work by exploiting the "ultimate attribution error" bias in human psychology.
NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/world/europe/ukrain...
Centre For Information Resilience: https://maphub.net/Cen4infoRes/russian-ukraine-monitor
from: https://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-russian-inv...
This one seems much better than the original link. Probably the best "live" map I've seen so far.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2022/02/27/follow-the-russia...
I've not seen this kind of visualization of a developing situation publicly available before, and a cursory glance shows that the data sources are at least one level beyond 'naked propaganda'...
Bookmarked!
But, the immediate reflex on HN is to downvote such tools into oblivion. When I 'vouched' for this submission, it was flagged, I assume for immediate deletion.
It's quite interesting that 'free speech' advocates are so, eh, limited in what they actually consider to be such...
An (non-existent) international institution to analyze and take action is the other part of the puzzle.
That said, one can correlate the passes of imagery satellites (optical, radar) with other spaceborne RF sensors, and sensors on airplanes & drones (optical, radar, RF etc.), and data from implanted sensors on the ground, to construct a real-time view of the battlespace.
The Full Monty of these capabilities, especially data fusion from disparate platforms, would never be released to the world.
Fun fact: US overhead systems (NRO satellites) are sometimes quietly used to aid search & rescue activities. A friend of mine, a USAF E-9 who had been read into many compartments during his career, used to do this with the Coast Guard after he retired from the Air Force. Pretty cool stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geospatial-Intelligen...
Like you mentioned, they do use their capabilities for some things other than just GEOINT:
>In addition to using GEOINT for U.S. military and intelligence efforts, NGA provides assistance during natural and man-made disasters, aids in security planning for major events such as the Olympic Games,[9] disseminates maritime safety information,[10] and gathers data on climate change.[11]
https://liveuamap.com/en/2022/22-february-22222buffalo-fd-wo...
mmmmm
We know in the past, the CIA has worked through traditional international and national media sources. I'm curious what they are up to in the era of data journalism.
(Edit: okay it's definitely up. It was my extremely democratic country blocking the access. Accessed throung VPN now)
