Inside a US military cyber team’s defence of Ukraine
bbc.com
bbc.com
OTOH, Russia allege that they are not fighting Ukraine, backed by NATO weapons, but NATO, fronted by Ukrainian troops.
This appears to support their allegations, and IMHO maybe goes too far. We should be imposing maximum cost on their aggression, but not pushing so hard as to cause a global conflagration.
If you want to use microeconomics, sure, go for it but… NATO, Ukraine and Allies vs. Russia on a pure realpolitik plan doesn’t seem to lead to better outcomes for any Russian decision maker.
And again: there were no ties until the invasion (in 2014). After that, I’m not sure how talking about balance of power justifies overstepping national boundaries, but it’s not going to convince many people.
If Russia uses nuclear weapons, that would be after they failed to win a regional conflict that they started and that they could have stopped at any point. It’s a self-inflicted wound. There’s only so much the balance of power can do for dictatorships with suicidal behaviours.
No. You can make a moral argument in favor of balance of power. But the statement that if you do X I will be forced to do Y is not a moral argument.
>It’s a self-inflicted wound
Yes, they will be the only ones that suffer. Because that's how nuclear weapons work. Fucking incredible.
A few months later, Commenters blame nato after extorting bully invaded. It’s all natos fault!!
The global conflict already existed. It isn't just Ukraine's sovereignty that has been violated.
I fail to see how what NATO is doing now is an escalation. Unless you count "fighting back" as escalatory.
Lavrov and Putin use the language of 1960s anti-imperialism, while acting like a 1800s imperial power.
I like to start with just the raw numbers, and then the narratives used to justify the actions can be layered on top afterwards... I think this can be helpful to better see how the process works.
FWIW I'm not a citizen of either country, and my country didn't kill Iraqis because our citizens forced our government to not get involved.
In my ideal world Lavrov would be held in the same prison cell as Kissinger.
It's not whataboutism, its pointing out the absurdity that we're heading towards a nuclear showdown over the very same acts the U.S. regularly engages in, even within recent memory. It's pointing out that the moral arguments only apply when the aggressors are not the U.S. This is not whataboutism, this is pointing out hypocrisy and naked manipulation.
I don't know where you were the night & weekend that the US started bombing in Iraq, but I was in the streets marching. I spent most of my teens 20s and 30s being active against US imperialism.
So, yes, it's infantile whataboutism and strawman making. I and many others who take a stand against Russia's actions in Ukraine and elsewhere don't conform to this strawman image you and others have made.
The crimes of the US do not justify the crimes of Russia, and I for one am glad to see consequences enforced against Putin's regime. Similar limits should also exist for US actions.
This isn't an issue of your personal credence, it's an issue of the arguments used to justify our current course of action by the decision-makers and their enablers.
>and I for one am glad to see consequences enforced against Putin's regime. Similar limits should also exist for US actions.
The problem is that no one defines exactly what "consequences" are and where the lines are. These discussions never go well so let's just skip to the end: is it your opinion that the U.S. should ensure Russia fully retreats from Ukraine, up to and including a nuclear exchange?
(when the reply button isn't active you can click on the comment's timestamp and reply there)
My thinking is a bit different: I would say an even more substantial problem is the near ubiquitous phenomenon whereby people believe that what they "see" to be "the" problem is necessarily the actual problem.
Or in other words: a dangerous percentage of the population no longer has the ability to wonder about or desire to know what is true.
Do you think there might be any validity to this theory?
I will go even further: how about we don't live in Fantasyland?
The vast majority of the deaths in middle eastern conflicts were caused by locals, not US troops. Not to even mention that hardly any US troops died, but Russian troops are dying by the tens of thousands.
You’re trying to push some absurd logic that would also imply that Gavrilo Princip was personally responsible for the tens of millions of deaths caused by WW1.
Incorrect.
I disputed it here:
Instead you sunk to lazy trolling with “is anything true?? question everything!”. Yeah, you can dismiss literally any conversation like that.
You started playing games with meanings of well defined words like “terrorism”. It’s like arguing that the sky being blue is just a matter of opinion, completely pointless.
Yes, I did.
> At no point did you attempt to present conflicting numbers.
a) False: "Another common reference is this one, which has numbers as high as 1,000,000+ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War"
b) Presenting a competing theory is not even a requirement of disputing a claim - dispute: "to question the truth or rightness of dispute a statement"
> Instead you sunk to lazy trolling with “is anything true?? question everything!”. Yeah, you can dismiss literally any conversation like that.
Do you lack the ability to see what you are doing here? Are you not literally asserting that appealing to what is actually true is necessarily ~invalid, and can only be "trolling"?
> You started playing games with meanings of well defined words like “terrorism”. It’s like arguing that the sky being blue is just a matter of opinion, completely pointless.
I often wonder: what would people like you do if someone was to ever take away your memes...do you have anything to fall back on?
I challenge you to utilize the same mode of thinking that you would apply when discussing code, processors, or that sort of thing. If you instead choose to continue with your current mode, I will continue to mock you as I am doing now (and to moderators: if people can engage in insults and bald-faced lying, is some teasing in response really that inappropriate?).
I look forward to seeing your reaction.
I say: “Distance between x and y is 10 kilometers”
You say: “Another common reference states that the distance between y and z is 10000 kilometers”
You are not disputing anything, you’re either particularly stupid or trolling.
> I challenge you to utilize the same mode of thinking that you would apply when discussing code, processors, or that sort of thing
You first.
I often wonder: what would people like you do if someone was to ever take away your memes...do you have anything to fall back on?
More memes please, I enjoy them! Go ahead, tell me how it really is, rational adult human. Wow me with your intellect.
Now you could say we should have known that possibility existed and should still get a good amount of blame from not preventing it but no one is a fortuneteller
Speaking of calculations: what data sources do you use for yours?
Iraq body count is a common reference, it paints the coalition forces in a rather good light https://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/
For Afghanistan it’s harder to find numbers, but given the vastly higher casualties among local forces, it seems fair to assume that they’d have been doing most of the fighting.
Given the doctrinal differences between US and Russian forces, it’s completely unsurprising that Russians would be killing way more people. US relies on air superiority and PGMs whereas Russia is stuck fighting WW1 style artillery battles.
Not to mention that US doctrine does not really involve terror attacks on civilian targets, whereas Russian doctrine clearly does. You don’t see US bombing power plants many months into a conflict in order to cause civilian misery to gain an upper hand in negotiations.
Another common reference is this one, which has numbers as high as 1,000,000+
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
I wonder: does it seem possible that humans might choose (and psychologically/epistemically favor) one source over another according to how well it supports their pre-existing worldview?
Similarly: might people also "calculate" causality (which directly affects attribution of responsibility for death) differently for similar reasons (assuming they don't just ignore it entirely, even when it is explicitly mentioned in a conversation)?
> For Afghanistan it’s harder to find numbers, but given the vastly higher casualties among local forces, it seems fair to assume that they’d have been doing most of the fighting.
Do you have any interest in the causality that preceded that fighting, and if so: how many years do you go back in your model, and how many variables are in your model? (Perhaps I should also ask: do you even have a model, or might you be using a different technique/phenomenon to produce your values?)
> Given the doctrinal differences between US and Russian forces, it’s completely unsurprising that Russians would be killing way more people.
Perhaps...but then there's also this rather unpopular question: what is actually true?
> Not to mention that US doctrine does not really involve terror attacks on civilian targets, whereas Russian doctrine clearly does.
"Clearly".
> You don’t see US bombing power plants many months into a conflict in order to cause civilian misery to gain an upper hand in negotiations.
You see mostly what is shown to you, and what your mind allows you to see. I recommend against the premature formation of belief, as well as being mindful of the mind's tendency to conflate belief with knowledge.
But that source does not speak of US forces.
> I wonder: does it seem possible that humans might choose (and psychologically/epistemically favor) one source over another according to how well it supports their pre-existing worldview?
This is exactly what you are doing, yes. You’re picking a number intended to quantify something entirely different and comparing it against mine.
> "Clearly".
What else would you call Russia repeatedly using low precision missiles to strike population centers? They’ve done this with fucking MLRS, an area denial weapon.
What else could you call Russias extensive campaign against the power infrastructure in Ukraine? This can’t possibly achieve any military goals this long into the war, the only purpose is to hurt the civilian population.
Rumour has it that the US Military had some involvement in the Iraq war.
> This is exactly what you are doing, yes.
Technically, this is your perception/interpretation of what I am doing.
> You’re picking a number intended to quantify something entirely different and comparing it against mine.
I'm not asserting "my number" (actually, it is just one example among many on that page) as factual, but I get the impression that you present yours as such.
Am I mistaken in that? Do you actually wonder what is true?
>> "Clearly".
> What else would you call Russia repeatedly using low precision missiles to strike population centers? They’ve done this with fucking MLRS, an area denial weapon.
I was just teasing a bit about the phenomenon where humans tend to believe that what is "clear" to them is synonymous with what is true. Feed incorrect training data to a neural network and then ask it questions, and it will give incorrect answers, but to it, the answers would be "clearly" true.
> What else could you call Russias extensive campaign against the power infrastructure in Ukraine? This can’t possibly achieve any military goals this long into the war, the only purpose is to hurt the civilian population.
I would call it: an unfortunate turn of events...yet another consequence of ongoing human folly, and in this case: a cultural inability (reinforced and enforced in numerous places) to desire to speak truthfully.
Yes but their point is that the US army didn't kill most of those civilians. Now you can make moral arguments that we deserve some to most of the blame for destabilizing the country but its still pretty different from killing the civilians
Is it overzealous imperial ambition, or the reverse, fear of being marginalized or even overrun?
I remember at one point after the fall of Soviet Russia the new CIS being cheered at the Olympics. It seemed they could be part of a greater Europe, and everything would be great.
I wonder why that fell apart. Did USA decide that would detract from US power, and 'encouraged' everyone to shun Russia? If that's the case, who's really the bad guy?
The point is, there's much more history and politics and ambition going on than the crass headlines.
Putin and his strong men moved in to "clean up" that mess, and forced a slightly more responsible kleptocratic regime in. And replaced Soviet era Stalinist ideology with intense conservative nationalism that -- alongside super high energy sector profits -- stabilized Russian society. Except it has done so with an explicitly anti-western focus.
There's no chance of hugging and getting along here. Too many competing interests. But it need not have been this hostile. NATO's expansion into Poland and the Baltics etc. can be seen in many ways, but if I were living next to Russia I myself would probably welcome it.
Official ideology in Russia is explicitly imperial and ethno-supremacist in an open and brutal way that clearly requires containment. NATO has a complicated history and structure that I can't always support, but it is the only tool that is going to work at this time.
You all need to check this racist rhetoric.
The facts on the ground are that over the last 30 years the only country that has consistently carried out military death dealing operations (we talking in the order of 100 operations) throughout the world and far from their own borders are the US and their NATO military alliance.
This whole situation is nonsensical and it's more likely to get us all incinerated in nuclear hellfire than achieve anything the majority of the world population want.
Why would you wonder that, and not that Russia continue to have the ambition for a Russia Empire, with surrounding countries as their vassal states, and being part of Europe doesn't serve that goal?
Perhaps in sheep's clothing, that's a possibility.
But maybe our end ambition for what's happening now should be exactly this, a Russia integrated into the west, and not a seething pariah (with nukes) cozening up to the equally 'affronted' (as they seem to feel), but much more ambitious and powerful China.
This persecution complex is bizarre.
Dunno about Paris, but the UK now has a "unexplained wealth order" law in place, e.g. see case of the head of an Azerbaijan bank's wife - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexplained_wealth_order
It's not as if the US had never interfered or spied on elections abroad...
Listen to what you're saying. Russia don't need to fight anyone. Just stop. Withdraw back to within Russia's border. End of story. They wouldn't have to fight Ukraine, let alone NATO.
They are the one who invade Ukraine, do they expect Ukraine not to fight back, and other countries not to support Ukraine? Russia sound a lot like a bully.
Normally this sort of admission comes after the fact. Decades later when everyone who was there is dead, we would learn that the British, Americans, and probably other NATO countries were all-but pressing the button on the war against Russia.
But now we seem to be openly bragging, daring Russia to retaliate against the actual powers fighting behind the thin veneer of Ukraine. Poke, poke, poke, the nuclear bear.
At the same time, I would not be surprised if in time we'll learn that many of those "accidents" in key American industry this year have been successful Russian-aligned cyber attacks. But note that the Russians are not openly bragging and advertising it.
How is that "pressing the button on a war"?
Joking aside - it's not as simple. For one thing in modern times nobody actually declares wars, and Russia isn't abiding to all the conventions anyway. So the rules are very fuzzy.
For another - selling weapons or providing volunteers was never considered "joining a war", even according to the strictest reading of the conventions assuming they applied.
> Gen Paul Nakasone, who leads both the military's Cyber Command and the National Security Agency confirmed offensive missions have also been undertaken against Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.
This person has likely fallen for the propaganda they push.
There are valid, reasonable concerns on both sides.
Such as the US backed coup in 2012, the shelling on the Donbas for almost a decade, corruption in high levels of the Ukraine government, questions over Russia’s democratic integrity, etc…
None of those are propaganda, they were in the New York Times. Which is a fairly respected news source in the west.
Discounting everyone who disagrees with you as propagandists is intellectually lazy and keeps people from understanding the nuance of a very complex situation.
Nobody’s hands are pure here, now we are discussing whose hands are dirtiest.
What?
If you study big corruption in Europe this is pretty much the effect/leftovers of the Soviet Union/communist system. I really doubt the US increased corruption in Ukraine. There was not much room left for the corruption to increase anyway.
As far as Donbas is concerned you have to ask yourself how did it come that Ukraine had to shell its own territory. It's not about whose hands are pure. For some reasons Russia does not understand that nobody in Europe wants Soviet Union back. The rejection of Russia is not due American interference. It's due Russia's broken backwards policies. Russia it's a beacon of corruption and waste and now it started a new war in Europe. Even Russia's closest neighbours and "allies" are starting to reject Russia(i.e Kyrgyzstan). It's clear that Putin/Russia not only failed become more attractive as an ally/example to follow but lost the plot entirely. Compare that with Germany and the EU.
Might I remind you that Putin is the richest person in the world? And that Russian state has a fund for bribing Ukrainian army officers? Which was defrauded by Russians before 2022 invasion :)
If you think Russia will save anybody from corruption you are really beyond saving.
No, we're discussing the idea that there is something wrong with defensive cyber warfare implemented by the US on behalf of Ukraine.
You see how that's wild right?
I pointed out that making personal attacks that somebody is only spewing propaganda takes away the agency of said person.
That a healthy debate does not arise from essentially claiming somebody is brainwashed.
Not very wild, right?
> I pointed out that making personal attacks that somebody is only spewing propaganda takes away the agency of said person.
But instead you went on to talk about other events and lay down some whataboutism, and talk about the dirtiest hands. That's where you diverted.
If you are going to walk that back and stick to just criticizing my presumption on the source of their argument, then fair enough. However, my statement wasn't a blind malicious assumption. Defensive actions shouldn't be compared to 'poking the bear.' If the bear has already attacked, how can you consider fighting back a provocation? How can you consider "cyber defense", specifically, provocative? The only place I've yet to see that comparison is in troll propaganda, and for good reason: it doesn't make sense, and it works in favor of the aggressor.
When I see someone spouting statements that make no logical sense, and those statements mirror those of propaganda trolls, I'm not doing some horrible disservice to discourse by pointing out a potential relationship.
I walk back nothing.
This is what happens, without exception, is it?
> This person has likely fallen for the propaganda they push.
Of course. Americans never fall for propaganda, only their geopolitical rivals do. All of them, all the time.
No matter how much you give to Russia they will demand more because they want their empire back. And people there don't want to live in this totalitarian shithole ever again.
Russian occupation isn't nice. It's not just a change of government. It means you don't have free speech, you can't vote who you want to, you have no personal liberties, there's no rule of law. You regularly have to pay bribes. Your city and your infrastructure breaks down cause everybody steal. There's conscription and you have to serve in army. And there's a war or 2 every decade so you have pretty high likelihood of actually having to go kill innocent people.
It's not about abstract values only. It's basic survival and rational self-interest. Nobody who has a choice wants that for themselves and their kids.
If you let Russia annex some part of Ukraine - they will reinforce and in a year or 3 they will be back for the rest. And then Baltic States. And then Poland. And so on.
So yes, giving up anything to Russia is a mistake - it will not create peace, it will only help reestablish iron curtain where it was. If you want to sell Baltic States, Poland, Ukraine, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary etc. to Russia again to save some money - be explicit about it. It's a valid choice, even if I (and about 100 000 000 people living there) disagree about it strongly. It's morally outrageous, but you can make it. Allies already did it in 1945. But be honest about it - you want to sell these people to Russia.
Otherwise stop giving up to blackmail cause you are only making things harder for yourself.
For example, is it actually possible to see the future? Are you sure (and if so: how) that what you're describing is actually that?
For example this part:
> Russia got away with annexing Crimea. They invaded again. They demanded that NATO gives up defending about 100 milion people in Eastern Europe (including myself).
has already happened - Russia annexed Crimea, got barely a response from the west so they invaded again and demanded NATO leaves EE countries that got accepted in 90s.
The part about what happens when Russia annexes you is based on how life looks like in occupied Ukraine and in Russia proper. There's more people imprisoned for political reasons in Russia right now than there was in USSR in 50s. And USSR had twice the population. If you call the "special operation" a war or if you take a blank page and stand with it in a city square - you get arrested. Corruption in Russia is also pretty well documented. As is the "2 wars per decade", the conscription and the "sending barely trained recruits to kill and/or die".
The part about Russia invading Baltic states and Poland after they conquer Ukraine was based on Russian propagandists and politicians (including for example Kadyrov) saying it outright in public media.
It's not that I'm skeptical, it is more of an epistemological issue.
For example, I asked you two questions about your facts (I presume?):
>> I enjoyed your story, but I have one question: to what degree is it actually true?
-
>> For example, is it actually possible to see the future? Are you sure (and if so: how) that what you're describing is actually that?
... but you didn't answer them. To me, that is a red flag.
In addition to that: there are events happening in Ukraine right now that involve people dying. If ever there was a time to be concerned about what is true (comprehensively, and actually), this seems like a fine candidate. But instead, people seem to insist on dealing in narratives, and dodge (or respond with evasive rhetoric and memes (see sibling comments in this sub-thread)) any questions about truth.
One one hand, you might just dismiss this as "people being people", and there's a lot of truth to it. But when something is presented to them explicitly and directly, repeatedly, and they behave as if they have literally not even seen it....well, at some point I think someone should point out that the emperor has wardrobe problems.
Have you anything other than memes in your kit?
No. There are other lines. This is just the relevant one here.
> Of course. Americans never fall for propaganda, only their geopolitical rivals do. All of them, all the time.
No. We fall for propaganda too.
According to whom?
In my experience, this perspective is extremely unpopular (and is usually responded to with rhetoric, memes, not-actually-factual "facts", insults, rate-limiting, etc - for examples, see the thread we are in), but I'm curious what you think?
The events in Ukraine will inform future dealings with Russia, and other regimes we think might have similar motivations, but there isn't much use in asking "how we got here" when it comes to our goals for today, or this year. We don't want an expansionist Russia, so we have to make expansionism costly.
It's like having a broken arm. Causality will inform you how to avoid a similar accident in the future, but no matter what happened, you still need to go to the doctor and get a cast today.
I disagree. I use causality on a day today basis. For example, with people I know I build a model of how they like to be interacted with, and I try to stay within a range that they will find pleasing.
I suspect I am not the only one who does this.
> but there isn't much use in asking "how we got here" when it comes to our goals for today, or this year.
I am skeptical. Can you explain why you believe this to be necessarily true?
> We don't want an expansionist Russia, so we have to make expansionism costly.
Might it have been less costly if this war didn't begin in the first place? And if so, wouldn't having a better understanding of the causality be at least possibly useful?
> It's like having a broken arm. Causality will inform you how to avoid a similar accident in the future, but no matter what happened, you still need to go to the doctor and get a cast today.
Agreed, but wouldn't it be useful to remember what caused one to get the broken arm in the first place, and then avoid that situation in the future so it doesn't happen again?
I'm also curious if you have any comments on my theory about the difference between a justification perspective and a true (!) causality perspective. Isn't it at least plausibly useful to consider both?
Is that model based on information you collected that day? Mostly no.
> I am skeptical. Can you explain why you believe this to be necessarily true?
Proactive vs reactive. Causality is good for planning or initiating, but ultimately what happens happens, and you need to respond in a way that produces the best possible outcome with the highest likelyhood. I'm not saying that as an absolute, I just believe it to be the most efficient mode of operating, and seems to reflect most geopolitical interactions.
> Might it have been less costly if this war didn't begin in the first place?
Of course, and we can learn a lot from looking at why. That doesn't really fit into this instance of cyber defense though. There is no lesson to be learned that makes you give up and hand over digital systems to an adversary.
> Agreed, but wouldn't it be useful to remember what caused one to get the broken arm in the first place, and then avoid that situation in the future so it doesn't happen again?
I pointed out exactly that. My point was that no matter what lesson you learned, you still need the cast. I'm not saying causality isn't helpful, I'm just saying it's not helpful here.
Of course not, but how is that relevant to whether causality is only(!) useful in geopolitics on extremely large timescales?
> Proactive vs reactive. Causality is good for planning or initiating, but ultimately what happens happens...
It does indeed, and that is a function of what preceded the event happening....you know: causality.
> ...and you need to respond in a way that produces the best possible outcome with the highest likelyhood. I'm not saying that as an absolute, I just believe it to be the most efficient mode of operating, and seems to reflect most geopolitical interactions.
And I agree (it's my point!)...but that is not contrary to anything I've said, at least as far as I can tell.
> Of course, and we can learn a lot from looking at why.
Do you believe we do a good job of this?
Do you believe that the US Government promotes causal thinking among the public (as opposed to encouraging them to think in other forms, such as justification)?
> That doesn't really fit into this instance of cyber defense though.
It is certainly relevant to a lot of the "facts" being laid down in the discussions here.
> There is no lesson to be learned that makes you give up and hand over digital systems to an adversary.
I don't think anyone is proposing that we "give up and hand over digital systems to an adversary".
Maximally absurd hyperbole is useful when it comes to rhetoric during internet arguments, but for clear thinking I believe it is detrimental.
> I pointed out exactly that. My point was that no matter what lesson you learned, you still need the cast. I'm not saying causality isn't helpful, I'm just saying it's not helpful here.
Can you explain why causality has zero utility here?
For example: how events unfold in Ukraine has some dependency on Vladimir Putin - do you think there is zero utility in at least considering his opinion on such matters? And to be clear: I am in no way proposing that we roll over and give into every demand he has - rather, I am proposing that we engage in clear, unbiased, truthful, "good faith" conversation, to the extent of our abilities. To me, this seems like a good idea.
I say maybe we should listen to the official Russian description of events to see what’s happening. It’s impossible for nato to be in a proxy war because Russia is not at war. In fact one can go to jail for spreading the noxious lie that Russia is at war. Yes there is a minor special military operation, but no war.
Per Russia, at most they are carrying out a special military operation that nato has interfered with. Absolute no war! Careful, don’t “lie” according to Russia and say it’s a war.
Ah the famous "Russia was forced to invade Ukraine, rape its civilians and commit genocide against its people" line. Why doesn't Russia have a agency to just you know, not do all this terrible things?.
> But now we seem to be openly bragging, daring Russia to retaliate against the actual powers fighting behind the thin veneer of Ukraine. Poke, poke, poke, the nuclear bear.
There is no 'thin veneer' of Ukraine, it's all Ukraine with support from other countries in the form of weapons and training.
I also see the rhetoric of Russia being nuclear is coming up more and more so lately, which each decisive Ukrainian victory theres always certain people who are soooo concerned suddenly about nuclear war.
> At the same time, I would not be surprised if in time we'll learn that many of those "accidents" in key American industry this year have been successful Russian-aligned cyber attacks. But note that the Russians are not openly bragging and advertising it.
The Americans aren't bragging about anything specific either.
> The Americans aren't bragging about anything specific either.
I think calling it an “opportunity” when they blew up the NS 1+2 pipelines to silence protests in Germany ahead of winter speaks to precisely the ethics involved.
You discuss the identities of the Nordstream pipeline saboteurs with some certainty. Are you privy to some exclusive information unavailable to the rest of us, or is this another belch of semi-digested RT-pap?
Instead, they banned the Russian language and shelled those regions for a decade. Russia then invaded after those shelled-for-a-decade regions formally asked for help.
> You discuss the identities of the Nordstream pipeline saboteurs with some certainty.
I think the evidence points to a clear culprit:
- NATO conducted an exercise in that area months before (where they can map the exact location of the pipes)
- Germans were protesting the lack of gas at the time
- Russia didn’t blow up their own pipeline
- various European countries refuse to say who it was after investigating
- the US repeatedly threatened to end the pipeline
Where’s Ukraines settlement for Russia breaking the Budapest accords for the past 8 years?. According to you they should get their nukes back now right?.
> Instead, they banned the Russian language and shelled those regions for a decade. Russia then invaded after those shelled-for-a-decade regions formally asked for help.
Russia installed Russian backed agents to start a civil war, its strange that this has happened, to what 3? Post soviet states it’s as if Russia keeps doing it intentionally.
> I think the evidence points to a clear culprit:
You are correct on this there is a clear culprit but it’s russia not america.
Russia had ships in the area at the time, and Russia benefits from trying to force Germany to certify the Nord stream 2 pipeline that was left undamaged. Additionally Russia gets out of any damages for not supplying gas to countries via claiming force majeure.
You should also know that Gazprom had robots that could have quite easily transported these explosives internally in the gas pipes without needing to be in the area.
It does mention the agreements again 16 posts later, the background is really important here.
It makes sense Russia wouldn't be talking much about what they're doing.
If you assume your counter-party is rational then their expected value calculation is completely dependent on their fear of you- and if you assume they’re irrational then you should strike first.
I know you're either a paid russian troll or idiot brainwashed by their propaganda, so I don't expect to change your mind, but on the off chance you can be reasoned with - don't you see how self-contradictory russian propaganda is about this whole war?
At first it was about saving Ukrainians (who are "really Russians") from the nazi junta supposedly preventing them from joining the big brother. And Ukrainians were supposed to welcome russian army with flowers. After these supposedly ruled-against-their-will Ukrainians defend for 8 months against Russia - somehow it's still true they are ruled by nazi junta AND Russia needs to destroy their civilian infrastructure to force them to surrender AND it's really NATO army fighting Russia and Ukrainians have nothing to say in that matter.
How can all 3 of these things be true at once? If it's nazi junta then Ukrainians wouldn't be defending for so long, and destroying civilian infrastructure would just be a pointless war crime (dictator won't surrender cause some poor guy has no energy). Same if it's a NATO army fighting there against Ukraine's will. So why are Russians supporting the destruction of civilian infrastructure? The answer is obvious - nobody really believes that bullshit in Russia. Russians just want their empire back and Ukraine is in the way.
The funniest thing is - some idiots in the west actually buy this all this bullshit.
Russia spent the last 10 years pissing off NATO.