War in Ukraine

[ursus arctos]

What's more interesting is how the US knew, but the Russians refused to believe them.

My guess on this is that the US had "signals intelligence" as to planning for/chatter about an attack or series of attavks, but were (understandably) unwilling to share anything other than their conclusion with the Russians.

[Satchmo Distel]

The Muslim population is growing for similar reasons to that in the west: an ageing population means they need migrant labour, which in Russia comes from Central Asia and is predominantly Muslim. Source: US State Department Office of International Religious Freedom:

According to Mufti Ravil Gaynutdin, chairman of the Religious Board of Muslims of the Russian Federation, there were 25 million Muslims in 2018, approximately 18 percent of the population. Immigrants and migrant workers from Central Asia, which experts estimate at six to seven million, are mostly Muslim. Most Muslims live in the Volga-Ural Region and the North Caucasus. Moscow, St. Petersburg, and parts of Siberia also have sizable Muslim populations.

https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-r...reedom/russia/

18% is higher than the 7% reported in polls but the latter apparently tend to underestimate the number for various reasons, most obviously the desire to evade surveillance and thus a suspicion of pollsters and census officials.

ISIS might just have seen Russia as an opportunity because of its focus on Ukraine rather than the threat of Jihadism. The pretexts could be Russia's decadence, corruption or its historical wars against Muslim regions (and Putin's expansionism being a throwback to that), but they are essentially pretexts. Global Jihad has the end goal of eliminating all infidels.

[anton pulisov]

Hasn't really made the news, but Russia targeted the hydroelectric dam upstream from Dnipro with missile attacks last night. The generators are offline but fortunately the dam is intact. If the dam had broken then Russia would have created yet another ecological and humanitarian disaster in Ukraine.

[Antepli Ejderha]

https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/af...ed-in-ukraine/

This is a fascinating article on the effect of the war on one Turkic minority.

[Patrick Thistle]

BBC News - War a real threat and Europe not ready, warns Poland's Tusk https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68692195

I listened to a discussion about this on the way to the football today.

[Johnny Velvet]

Immediately before and after the Crocus City atrocity, Russian forces continued their assault on Ukraine, firing missiles, dropping bombs, destroying power stations, killing civilians, killing Ukrainian troops, sacrificing the lives of their own. All told, adding together Chechnya, Syria, Georgia and Ukraine, soldiers and civilians, the number of violent deaths directly attributable to Putin’s wars easily surpasses 100,000.

[Moonlight Shadow]

I caught an article in a Swiss paper about Crocus City, relating that Moscow was hoping the French secret services were not involved in the attack...Talk about gaslighting.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Sobering: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68778338

[Mr Delicieux]

Watched something a while ago that went into Russia's debt to GDP (15.4% in 2022), and how they could keep this war going for 45-50 years before they reach the rates of those they are currently fighting, the USA being at 120% and the UK at 85% for example, which was a sobering thought.

[Lang Spoon]

The Russian economy has structural problems that make the UK shitshow look like les Trente Glorieuses.

[Sean of the Shed]

The graphics in this BBC article really don't do the weaponry justice.

[Nocturnal Submission]

The graphics in this BBC article really don't do the weaponry justice.

Heh!

The howitzers basically just spit out their shells on the targets from a great height!