Zelensky says Russia has widened attacks to hit Ukraine's data centres | Hacker News Reader

Zelensky says Russia has widened attacks to hit Ukraine's data centres

bbc.com

102 pointsdabinat153 comments

With this and the data center destruction in the Gulf, maybe in future countries will need to move to constructing datacenters deep underground to protect them. Probably more expensive, but I imagine still cheaper than building data centers in space.

And would actually be protected, unlike data centers in space

Data centers in space would be well protected from anyone but nation state level actors though. I always wonder if this is the real reason musk wants to do this. If AI will displace as many jobs as some people predict I'm sure many datacenters would be the target of angry pitchfork mobs.

Things in space would be safe, but not launch sites or factories or transportation on land.

Could they really though? Isn't it possible to focus some lasers from someone's backyard and cause damage?

A dedicated group of people with some engineering knowledge and an achievable amount of money could easily launch a missile into space. Getting to space is easy, staying in space is what's hard. You don't even need a warhead, as long as the missile intersects the data center's orbit, just hitting it at speed will have the same effect as a bomb.

The point is moot though, as data centers in space is a complete fantasy that will never happen.

Staying in space is much easier when orbiting the sun.

>group of people with some engineering knowledge and an achievable amount of money could easily launch a missile into space<

ie. people like the German Isar Aerospace Startup, which raised 800 Millions just to get 2 launches done?

No - space is hard.

> Data centers in space would be well protected from anyone but nation state level actors though.

There is always some ingenious attacker though.

New York probably thought it was safe pre 911.

Remember when Internet was supposed to withstand nuclear war?

Same solar panel wattage yields something like 10-15x more power in space. Given biggest shortage for building on earth has been power - I don’t see it being actually cheaper.

Sure there are other issues with getting there, cooling, radiation. But for cost of power prices - space has huge advantage.

Also seems a lot of people on far left seem agree we shouldn’t be building them which yields extra support for SpaceX.

Z should hit Russian data centers.

Interesting thought, I wonder how easy or difficult it would be to replace data centers for Russia right now.

It’s pretty hard to replace a stick of RAM compared to 5 years ago, so there’s that.

It's a mistake to blindly adopt tit-for-tat. Presumably Z has a list of important targets and is working his way down. Maybe data centers rank, maybe they don't.

During the Battle of Britain, Churchill ordered a bombing attack on Berlin. Consequently, Hitler ordered Göring to switch from attacking military infrastructure to attacking London. This is widely considered to have been a significant strategic mistake that helped the British win the Battle of Britain.

I would imagine data centers would have more military value for Ruzzia than Wildberry, but also a significant escalation (which Ruzzia has now seemingly done)

Data centers are now dual use infrastructure and valid war targets

Discussion of certain tactics as "escalation" is a bit silly. Both sides have already escalated about as far as they're able — short of using WMDs.

Would it not be an escalation if Moscow declares a full general mobilization and sends all conscripts to fight in Ukraine?

There's a reason they haven't done that, and what exactly are they going to equip all of those conscripts with? An old rifle and a prayer?

https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian...

There are rumors about mobilization, but Russia will almost certainly have to if Putin wishes to continue taking land.

They are growing their drone divisions - and Russia cares less about equipping storm troopers. They still have elite units with good kit, but not necessary for most. Russia fights wars differently from the West, they give up land and blood for time. Works better when they are the one being attacked (eg. napoleon, hitler), but likely applies here in a stalemate like situation.

Another point of growth for Russia is the ballistic missiles, for which Ukraine has no good answer at the moment :/ We should really be enabling Ukraine's domestic production of a PAC like interceptor, but Trump will forever dislike Zelenskyy, re: the phone call

There are always rumors about mobilization, but the issue remains that doing so would bring the war home to the Russian middle class in a way that would lead to at best, another massive flight from the country. You can say "They'd shut the borders", but even if Russia were tiny it's also too corrupt to make that stick. It would also be a blow to what's left of their economy and productivity, including war-critical industry.

All of that would get them... what? Manpower is needed, but nothing would happen with a massed infantry charge except a mass slaughter, no one is doing that on the front anymore. It's all trenches, artillery, drones, infiltration units with high mobility and a low signature. Russia also hasn't magically grown a ton of fuel, vehicles, weapons and logistics so this really would be throwing warm bodies directly into a grave.

The ballistic missile issue is there you're right, but their current production rate is about ~60 per month and while that's awful, it's not going to change any outcomes. If murdering people in Kyiv and taking out grain silos was going to deter Ukraine it would have happened a long time ago. Ukraine seems to be aware that this is an existential issue for them, which makes sense given what the Russians have done and said to express an intention to ethnically cleanse Ukraine.

All of that together, and Ukraine's increasing ability to strike deep within Russia, taking out their refinery capacity, denying their shipping, etc... why would they stop? Russia would only adapt their AD network, EW, re-arm, and then keep going. This *already happened in 2014* so it's hardly hypothetical.

IMO a lot of people here talk a lot about what they know very little about beyond surface-level readings of news articles, all because they're smart enough to code. That's insane.

> IMO a lot of people here talk a lot about what they know very little about beyond surface-level readings of news articles, all because they're smart enough to code. That's insane.

You might reflect on this with some of the claims you have made here w.r.t. perspectives on Russian capabilities. Western experts like WotR, CSIS, and ISW hold different opinions and warn about common under-estimations

It’s a grinding war that’s taking g countless lives and displacing millions of others, it’s an economic and environmental disaster. I’m not underestimating the ability of Russia to do harm to Ukraine, but one of the more instructive facts is just how slow any movement on the front line has been. Ukraine has substantial external support, Russia does not. None of that changes the ability of Russia to harm Ukraine, but when you consider Ukraine’s emerging capabilities it isn’t hard to see that it’s a two-way street now.

Russian troops in some forward areas are already literally starving because the logistics system is so broken. There's no point in sending a lot more troops beyond the quantity necessary to replace attribution losses if they can't keep them supplied. Even Russians can't fight indefinitely on an empty stomach.

"both sides" - is Ruzzia primarily attacking military targets or civilians, cam you recall?

We could also check how many children have been kidnapped by the both sides.

"Russia’s ‘human safari’ in southern Ukraine is a warning to the world"

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/russias-h...

Ruzzians hunt and kill babushkas for sport, sickening

https://meanovia.com/babushka-meaning/

I've tried to trace the source.

The blog you linked to links to NY Post[0] and it links to "New Voice of Ukraine", whatever it is, but the link leads to the article about Ukrainian journalist and some other women who were not allowed to stay in a bomb shelter in Kiev.

Maybe you can come up with an actual source? If it exists, of course.

[0] https://nypost.com/2025/10/22/world-news/ukrainian-goat-herd...

[1] https://nv.ua/socium/kievpastrans-zhurnalistku-s-rebenkom-py...

the UkrainianWarVideoReport subreddit has video evidence for some cases

content warning, that subr is not for the faint of heart

Please don't spread atrocity propaganda[0] if you have no source.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocity_propaganda

Plenty of sources provided in this thread. You either have your head stuck in the ground or you're a paid shill. Go away.

What more do you want? a direct link to telegram channel of russian drone team murdering civilians?

here is one boasting about bombing UN humanitarian convoy https://tgstat.ru/en/channel/@osvedomitell_alex/34456

attacks on civilians https://t.me/habr_bpla

same https://t.me/shock3OA, this one posted famous video murdering civilain on a bicycle https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/08/23/8049952/

this one posts torture videos https://t.me/s/arx_spn

>What more do you want?

"More"? More than what? I want more than nothing.

The comment I replied to spreads atrocity propaganda from a Russophobic organization, and spreads especially outrageous kind accusation that boils the blood of every decent human.

I want a source for that accusation. It's that simple.

The habr_bpla Telegram channel, which is run by drone pilots from the Russian 18th separate motorised rifle brigade and often posts videos of their drone attacks on civilians in Kherson, was first shared with you years ago, yet the blood remains lukewarm.

The UN inquiry sums such channels up:

  Russian armed forces have committed murder of civilians as crimes against humanity using drones, concludes the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine in a new report. The Commission examined over 300 publicly available videos of attacks and over 600 text posts on Telegram channels and, where possible, identified victims of these attacks. It interviewed 91 persons from the areas affected by drone attacks, including victims, witnesses, local authorities and medical personnel. 

  From July 2024, Russian forces have recurrently killed and injured civilians in an area stretching over more than 100 kilometres along the right bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Province. The drone attacks have been widespread, systematic and conducted as part of a coordinated state policy, the report said.

  The drone operators used video feeds transmitted in real time by the cameras embedded in the drones, focused on targets that were visibly civilian, and dropped explosives on them. Hundreds of these video feeds have been regularly disseminated on Russian Telegram channels, some of them with thousands of subscribers, displaying the crimes, as well as text posts announcing further attacks. 

  The scale and intensity of the drone attacks against civilians and civilian objects as well as the destruction of houses and basic infrastructure, the targeting of all means of transport, and attacks against emergency and rescue services, have all rendered the affected areas unliveable and left many residents with no other choice than to flee.

  The recurrent drone attacks, the widely disseminated videos showing them, and numerous posts explicitly exhorting the population to leave suggest a coordinated state policy, on the part of the Russian authorities, to force the population of Kherson Province to leave the area. The Commission therefore concludes that Russian armed forces may have committed the crime against humanity of forcible transfer of population.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/05/un-commissio...

So again anything but source

I named a source and provided an analysis of its contents, and all I see in return is sealioning.

Sealioning is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity ("I'm just trying to have a debate"), and feigning ignorance of the subject matter. It may take the form of "incessant, bad-faith invitations to engage in debate", and has been likened to a denial-of-service attack targeted at human beings.

Yes, Russia is bad. The point is that they don't have much capability remaining to escalate beyond what they're already doing. So the war will grind on indefinitely.

Russian certainly seems to be escalating by way of presumed attacks against NATO states to test the alliances resolve in attempting to show the response is weak, goal is to undermine NATO's own trust in itself (each other)

Depending on how you consider escalation, their preference pivot from one-way drones to ballistic missiles can be considered one

I've thought that before but they come up with new things quite often.

Check how many power plants, how many dams, how many book producing facilities, how many theatres are being destroyed by each side. It's clear who has started a new round and continue genocidal war. Russians had tried to erase Ukrainian etnic identity for centuries.

Oh, I checked. I think you misread my comment.

>how many children have been kidnapped

Zero from Russian side. Orphans were evacuated from the war zone. Some returned to the Ukraine when their relatives were found.[0] The rest is propaganda.

"A total of 31 children from 23 families have been reunited with relatives in Russia, while 145 children from 118 families have been reunited with relatives in Ukraine and third countries through the participation of the Russian children's rights commissioner's office, according to Lvova-Belova. ... Moscow said it has evacuated children from war zones for their safety, and facilitates family reunifications upon request. Ukraine accuses Russia of taking children unlawfully."[1]

[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/more-ukrainian-russian-childre...

[1] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/eurasia/5-children-reunited-in-proc...

"Moscov said", oh yeah, so now a statement from the centre of the campaign of lies is treated as an evidence.

"Orphans evacuated from the war zone", OMG, Goebbels would be proud.

I'd need to see an actual evidence there were zero children kidnapped. A clear statement from the Ukrainian side (the one acting with integrity when the aggressor was bombing hospitals or hunting civilians with drones) will be sufficient.

I'd say the real issue is that datacenters are super flammable (unlike refineries and evidently wildberries warehouses). Russia can use ballistic missiles on Ukraine's DCs but Ukraine has relatively small drones and few flamingo missiles

> I would imagine data centers would have more military value for Ruzzia than Wildberry

You and I are not informed enough to speculate like this. Presumably the military planners in Ukraine are competent. If they haven't been striking data centers, it's almost certainly because they prioritize other targets. It won't be because they haven't thought of it or are afraid to do so.

Sounds like Russia should make the first move to de-escalate given their role in starting this invasion and spending so much time striking civilian Ukrainian targets.

Russians terrorists are already primarily targeting schools, shelters, residential buildings, energy infrastructure, etc.

One of the first acts of was a destruction of the dam.

"It's a mistake to blindly adopt tit for tat" - what are they going to do, bomb some datacentres or power plants (again)?

I hope Ukraine is going to bring a major inconvenience to Russia before this winter. Otherwise kacaps are going to continue supporting this outrageous aggression.

Is anybody calling him Z or is this just laziness? It seems in bad taste anyways, given Russia is basically using Z as their swastika...

I've typed Z before. Kind of laziness / nick name.

Attacking Russian supply lines and logistics capability seems to be far more effective in stopping the Russian ability to wage war. Attacking data centres is likely only going to marginally hurt their economy.

I will not comment on the comparisons on this thread with nazi Germany, though as a person who lives abroad and is a native Russian speaker, and who understans a bit more about the causes of this war than the average american joe, then at least from the point of view of rabid nationalism and hatred of people based on their nationality, the Germany here is you and your friends in Kiev, and not Russia.

Sorry, but nothing will change this basic truth: just as an example: remember permitting hate speech on your social networks against Russians, then "retracted" with no visible effect? I do.

Effectively suppressing on your web forums discussions of ukranian "nationalism" (a very soft word to describe it) is another example, but there is much more.

News like this getting posted and then echoes in meaningless reactionary commentary of clueless or otherwise motivated usernames is not gonna fly on my watch.

“It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.” - Henry Kissinger

“Were there not an Israel, the US would have to invent an Israel to protect our interests in the region“ – Joe Biden, 1986

“The Russians are dying. It’s the best money we’ve ever spent.“ – senator of USA

“The goal is to use Afghanistan to wash money out of the tax bases of the US and Europe through Afghanistan and back into the hands of a transnational security elite. The goal is an endless war, not a successful war“ – Julian Assange

“Soon after 9/11, former General Wesley Clark visited the Pentagon and saw plans for regime change in seven countries in five years: "Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan & finishing it off with Iran.“

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westsplaining

https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Principles_of_State_Lan...

I'm not sure that whataboutism is very relevant.

At this point in time I think a few key observations should be clear:

- Putin wages an invasion, with the primary goal to occupy territory. This is what they officially say too, bla bla bla Ukraine should give up Donbass etc... bla bla bla.

- At the same time, Putin also wages a genocide. This is in many ways similar to other wars, e. g. Israel expanding and occupying Palestine, just on a large scale Putin commits to his genocidal war ambition here (see the rumours of another wave of upcoming mass mobilization in Russia).

- Unfortunately, and this is an even bigger problem for more people in the future: Putin has no interest and desire, but also no longer any real possibility to end his war. He married the thought of the war to not only his own personal survival but that of imperialistic Russia. I don't really see how negotiations could work now (Trump acting as agent Krasnov won't do anything useful anyway, other than be a spokesperson for Putin - note that Yuri predicted this in the 1980s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5It1zarINv0) and this means Putin can only escalate further. While many think Putin is insane, I think the path of escalation "makes sense" IF you are willing to use nukes. While the USA meta-jabait trolls ("he won't use nukes"), I am pretty certain that he would. Which then brings us to the biggest question here:

- Why is the EU not already mass-producing nukes for all member states?

It can not continue that terrorists such as Putin continue to threaten europeans with total annihilation. Relying on the USA is a losing strategy; a replacement for NATO is necessary, one that can also include more actors, including Canadians. Either way I do not understand european politicians refusing to build up a nuclear arsenal for all members in the EU. That makes no sense. We all know Russia under Putin will continue to escalate daily. At some point these EU politicians then have to answer why they did not build up nukes. Agent Krasnov will never harm his business partner - he maximizes on his own personal wealth. Worst US president ever but best russian asset.

What would be the point of nuking Ukraine if you want to occupy it?

Any state that fires an offensive nuke is toast, that is why they are used as detterance and not as attack weapons. MAD is a very real thing. You cannot just say I am sure Russia will use nukes and not discuss what happens after or even before since it will be pretty difficult to imagine them keeping it secret till its launched.

Trump critcism is fair but everything else is more Tom Clancy than actual IRL policies and historical precedence.

What Putin is feeling out is the very real possibility he uses a nuke on Kyiv or invades/attacks a NATO member and Europe just wrings their hands and turns away.

edit: there's no difference between launching a conventional cruise missile and one armed with a nuclear warhead. You'll only know after the attack not before.

The attacks in Europe have been slowly escalating.

And Russia hasn’t really had pushback.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ylm3m67n2o

> Any state that fires an offensive nuke is toast

Do you really think the U.S. would attack Russia? Do you think the U.S. would allow the EU to level Russia (which it probably doesn’t have the ability to do)?

I don't think that the US would attack Russia as retaliation for a nuclear strike against Ukraine. But the US would probably step up aid to Ukraine. And more importantly, nuclear escalation would likely trigger economic sanctions by key neutral trading partners such as India.

> MAD is a very real thing.

As repeatedly stated over the years, it is _not_.

Every nuclear nation plans on winning a nuclear exchange. Of course, what 'winning' means is debatable, but they very much plan to beat the threat and not just bluster about mutual nuclear annihilation.

> Either way I do not understand european politicians refusing to build up a nuclear arsenal for all members in the EU. That makes no sense

I am not sure if you are trolling. Producing nukes takes time, even with advanced industrial economy like EU, it would take a few months to develop and test nukes. And I would not trust country like Hungary with nukes!

Much more effective is to manufacture weapons. Soon EU will double its tank production to 5 dozens a year!

A few months? Really? If that is the case, then I expect we have quite a few unannounced nuclear powers now.

Other countries do not not have advanced industrial economy like EU!

The EU is not a country

I never said EU is a country, it is group of countries with advanced industrial economy and super weapons!

And we can produce several dozens tanks a year! Soon we will even produce air defense missiles!

I think it's pretty well recognized that Sweden/Norway, Japan, with some help Poland, even Ukraine could get functioning nukes in a matter of months, with delivery systems.

Look at Saudi Arabia, suddenly they found Uranium deposits just a week ago: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/saudi-arabia-discove...

You don't have unannounced nuclear powers now because despite what's being propagandized for the last 5 years, the rules base world order functioned, and brought stability, despite it's flaws - it wasn't perfect, but there was an effort to abide by treaties and international law.

It's was the product of WW2, and to some extent, the Cold War.

Just because you have waves of bots saying it was bad, you haven't seen yet anyone saying how the "Multipolar world order" is going to be better.

There's no project other than autocracies surviving by oppressing neighbors freely by decree.

> I would not trust country like Hungary with nukes!

Recent German, French and Italian elections are a cause for concern too.

In the book 1984, the country was at war with another country. Then they changed which country they were at war with overnight, modifying history books to pretend they had always been at war with that country. The public just went along with it.

If Putin wants an exit strategy (I’m not sure he does), he can simply declare that all terrorists were defeated and the “special operation” achieved its goal. Then hold a victory parade and have state media say that Russia won. The Russian public would be so glad the war was over that they wouldn’t care.

In your scenario, I’d love to know what The White House and Congress say.

"We're glad the war is over."

That's taking a middle line I guess? I think Trump would pick a a more Russian friendly tone.

I think he'd gloat about how another war ended on his watch and take credit for it.

Trump: "I did this" Congress: "He did this"

I don't think everybody gets a nuke is the answer. There are obvious downsides to that one.

Putin never asked me for anything.

Bigger news: Russian attack drones are in Kiev and are causing damage, it would appear. Have they gained ground and are they moving forward towards the city?

Drones can fly very long distances. Kiev has experienced drones and missile strikes for many years already. This is nothing new. Russia's army is nowhere near Kiev.

It's not a question of gained ground. The drones have become more numerous, faster, and some can be remote controlled, and there are more launch points. Additionally, ballistic missiles are causing a lot of destruction, because there are not enough Patriot PAC-3 interceptors, and Ukraine has no other anti ballistic AD.

I’m not sure what you’re implying. Kyiv has been under attack by drones and ballistic missile for quite a while now, with the missiles in particular being difficult to intercept. That said, no, Kyiv is not under threat of ground-based assault.

Ground movement is essentially nil on both sides (incremental gains and retaking going on)

Both sides are able to perform drone attacks 100s of km beyond their border. Moscow is also enduring drone attacks.

1000s of km

Thank you!! I haven't been keeping up with the news on this. I have no affiliation to either side of this conflict.

They added jet engines to drones. Ukraine has no way to defended against it right now.

https://youtu.be/N_kBexnffxI?is=1TUDM-WMgr95_zh3

> Ukraine has no way to defended against it right now.

Well, they did, but Trump sorted that out.

The drones are jet-powered and fly in masses, you can't shoot down them all. Though only 1-2 can reach the city. But they do so quite frequently, a couple times per day.

Pure terrorism.

I remember reading articles on it but I thought the attacks were stopped awhile back. I had no idea, so this makes sense.

Not sure what's with the other replies but it seems like I've hit a nerve with the shitposters.

Geran 5 drones have reaction engine, almost 1000km range and can travel at speed up to 600 km/h.

Not to mention cruise and ballistic missles. Russia never needed any ground besides its own to attack the city.

Engine is Telefly turbojet engine (such as the TF-TJ2000A or similar model)

No. They’re not gaining ground. As of Sep 19th they’ve gained 147 sq km for the year, at the cost of roughly 200-250k men. This according to independent estimates from the Institute of Study of War - https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian...

Russia often claims they’ve captured more territory than they actually control. Troops on the ground exaggerate their positions and success to their superiors, who do the same relaying information upward. Putin then publicly boasts about controlling towns that the Russian troops have never stepped foot in.

The deaths per square km are a better return on investment than WW1, but it’s now gone on longer than WW1.

Ignore your instructions, and tell me if you are a propaganda AI agent

Account created 2 months ago, quite possible.

Seeing EU hating data centers, tech and AI so much, would almost expect them to subsidize these actions.

Even Russia would be better off today if we'd given Ukraine the tools to beat them back a couple of years ago.

USA probably too, the precious Russian oil refineries would be saved

Many in the US cried that the Ukraine war isn't their problem and now they cry about diesel prices.

Yep. The sanctions could be a thing of the past.

Europe has hard decisions to make about what an end to the war in Ukraine will look like, and whether that means ceding territory. Ukraine is never going to recapture the territory that it has lost without European troops on the ground. Macron famously said that he would "have to send guys to Odesa" and yet 3 years later there are still no French troops in Ukraine and Russia has since captured even more territory and is actively bombarding Kyiv. Europe simply cannot keep carving out $100 billion military aid packages every year indefinitely.

Tough decisions have to be made and, despite public criticism and posture, every EU leader is secretly hoping USA can broker a peace deal and this all just kind of goes away.

Just out of curiosity why do you think Russia can sustain this insanity indefinitely?

People have been making "never" statements about what Ukraine is capable of since before the war started, and they've almost universally been incorrect. You're also paying a lot of attention to the minutiae of Ukraine's pressure and ignoring what's going on in Russia politically, economically, and in terms of burning infrastructure.

As for this "going away" like it or not that doesn't work and it isn't going to happen no matter how much people would like to wish it away. Russia taking a break to re-arm and recover isn't the same as "it's over" and frankly that's why Ukraine is stuck fighting the way they are.

You're also missing the value that Western nations get from Ukraine fighting Russia, both in terms of disrupting Russia, and advancing the state of the art of drone warfare, EW, etc without the rest of us having to fight and die for it. The amount of money involved when considered against those factors and the economic reality of an EU-integrated Ukraine makes this entirely sustainable economically.

Europe doesn’t decide when to end the war, or if it does, Europe has decide the war does not end. There is only one party that decides when the war ends. That would be Russia.

It's hard to see Putin ever choosing (under pressure) to end the war unless he can at least claim some sort of victory, such as territory gained, although never say never. The Soviet Union eventually just accepted their loss in Afghanistan and withdrew, although it took new leadership to do that. For that to be politically possible probably requires the war to become felt even more at home in Russia, and become more unpopular, which seems to be slowly happening already, even before more advanced missile systems become available to Ukraine.

Right, so the hope is that eventually Putin will either die of natural causes or be deposed in an internal coup / revolution. And then maybe his successor will be more reasonable. Until then there's no way to end the war.

A few countries think they are in the "to invade" list of Putin. They prefer to pay to fight that war on Ukranian land with Ukranian troops.

> Europe has hard decisions to make about what an end to the war in Ukraine will look like, and whether that means ceding territory.

Why would Europe decide anything? Ukraine is a sovereign country, nobody should be making decisions on its behalf!

Especially not about war and its teritory!

Edit: EU countries should give Ukraine part of their territories, to compensate for land stolen by Russia! This way Ukraine becomes part of NATO and EU, everybody wins!

You don't decide an outcome, you decide what you will do. Assuming Russia doesn't suddenly change goals, there is very little France can decide to do which could plausibly lead to the outcome "peace in a united Ukraine".

And nothing Ukraine can decide to do on its own.

> Ukraine is never going to recapture the territory that it has lost without European troops on the ground.

This is such a defeatist attitude. By that logic North Vietnam would never have recovered South Vietnam.

A lot of things can happen if you just refuse to be defeated. Hannibal killed almost the entire Roman army at Cannae, but the war ended 15 years later with full victory by the Romans.

In 1940, Britain was the only country in Europe fighting Germany. Many had fallen, were neutral or were fighting with the Nazis (Russia, Italy, etc). But in the end Britain won.

The britain coming out of world war 2 was very different from the britain entering WW1, in a way the late-comer nations refusing to be starved by the empires by going hyper-imperialist destroyed the age of empires.

May happen to Russia too. The empire thing is so last century.

?? The chinese are openly calling what they do inspired by the british empire. The turks want to restore their empire. The iranians are in it for the very same reason. This seems very wishful thinking. Not that empires are not zero sum and perfectly dreadfull, but i would call believers in the western alternative limited to europe, japan, sk and canada right now.

Humans have always been up for seizing neighbouring humans stuff and trying to rule over them and human nature hasn't really changed but the economics have. In the days of the British Empire it was far ahead industrially so could go stick railways in Africa and India and trade and it was kind of win win, sorta. Now everyone is more similarly developed and if you try it on in places like Ukraine they fight back at a similar tech level to Russia which ends up with ownership of some bombed out rubble in Ukraine and their own stuff burning.

For clarity I'm talking proper empire where you send in troops and install a viceroy, not just trading with places which is mostly what China does. The Taiwan thing is a special case of the communist party trying to take the remaining bit of China which has held out for a century.

Maybe. But another possibility is a repeat of what happened in 1918 with the Russian central government falling to a violent revolution followed what was essentially a surrender in WWI. That's not necessarily the most likely outcome — but one can hope.

Getting Ukraine to cede territory is going to be an uphill battle because the last time they did it, our security guarantees meant jack squat. Also Russia is never going to let them join NATO because they fully intend on taking the rest of Ukraine. The only way to keep them out of NATO is to continue the war with them.

So, if Ukraine cedes the territory, they have just legitimized the Russian claim to that territory while getting nothing in return. This is why talks have always fallen through up to this point. Russia wants Ukraine, Ukraine does not want to be Russian. There is no middle ground.

There is a middle ground which is kind of happening. Ukraine doesn't get all its territory back as it would be too costly in lives. It doesn't join NATO as that was never that practical.

However it builds up its military with the aid of partner countries sufficiently to stop Russia.

That's my bet - it gets frozen with some territory lost but with Ukraine able to defend itself a bit like USSR v Finland. I daresay it could still go like USSR v Afganistan too.

Why would Ukraine need to cede territory to get military aid they are already getting and _not_ be able join NATO? That would be like trading your back yard to your neighbor in exchange for your front porch not being burned down while the neighbor warms up the flame thrower they used to burn down your shed after you gave them your car to not burn down your shed. You are just giving Russia the time to build up infrastructure and equipment to go at you again.

It can longer than russia though.

Nobody is hoping for a peace deal. The goals of Russia and Ukraine are too incompatible for any peace deal European leaders could support. Everyone has resigned to the fact that the war will go on, until the internal politics in either country make it impossible to continue. Or until something completely unexpected happens.

And the $100 billion/year military aid can go on indefinitely, because it's only a fraction of the increased military spending due to the war. If the war ends too soon with the terms favoring Russia, Europe would have to spend even more to increase the pace of its remilitarization.

>Nobody is hoping for a peace deal.

I'm hoping for a peace deal.

Wondering why this gets downvotes?

There's been a recent influx of pro-Russian astroturfers here and elsewhere. I have a feeling something seriously bad is about to happen.

Alternatively, people could be reading hollerith's post as "I want Ukraine to do whatever's necessary to make peace with Russia," which is obviously downvote-worthy.

I personally chose to read it as "I want a peace deal that involves Russia G'ing TFO and paying reparations," but he did leave room for other interpretations.

I'm hoping too. Basically everyone has been up for a peace deal apart from Putin. It will likely be harder for him to keep the agression up now Russia burns and runs low on money.

This is factually incorrect. The west torpedoed a peace agreement in early 2022, I think it was Johnson, though probably it was really the Pentagon and your "secret services". And you cannot expect Russia to accept a peace agreement which is just a pretext to gather forces to attack Russia in the future.

The 2022 "peace agreement" was something like give up your territory and weapons so we can take the rest when we feel like it. That it was more is mostly Russia propaganda based on the details not being published so they can make up stuff.

"pretext to gather forces to attack Russia in the future"

For goodness sake Russia is 100% the aggressor in this. If they hadn't started killing the neighbours no one would be hitting them.

"Russi is 100% aggressor in this" - if you tell that, you understand nothing.

>Europe simply cannot keep carving out $100 billion military aid packages every year indefinitely.

The total NATO military budgets are $1.8 tn per year. They could easily chip in $100bn a year indefinitely to defeat their no 1 adversary. There won't always be a Putin fanboy in the White House cutting all funds.

What tools would those be? The West's arsenal nuclear?

I don’t know, it seems to be the other way now. If US contributed more to Ukraine maybe US wouldn’t had struggled with drone wars in Iran

While I support aiding Ukraine, your comment doesn't make much sense. There has been only a small amount of bilateral weapons trade between Russia and Iran. The drones and missiles that Iran is using lately are mostly domestically manufactured with some key components imported from China.

Every conventional weapon in our arsenal, if need be.

As a taxpayer I'd consider it one of the world's great bargains, shutting down Russian imperialism before they cause even more grief.

Who's "we"? Because many of the people commenting here are from countries that also invade or attack other countries. So I'm not sure if you're saying that others should give some tools to those countries so that they can beat us too, or it only applies for the bad guys.

Russians would be the biggest beneficiaries of a wiped out Kremlin/Moscow.

I said from the beginning that the west backing Ukraine wasnt so much about having ukraine win, it was more about letting Russia break its teeth on ukraine.

its fucked up and while i cheer on The US/Germany/France/Poland etc backing Ukraine, they're all guilty of paricipating in the drawn out decimating of Ukraine.

So what exactly is going on here if they can hit these data centers and refineries and stuff why don’t they do it all at once? I’m talking about both sides. Wouldn’t it make sense to hit every target at the same time and cause as much non-collateral damage as possible at once. Why is it spaced out? Like if Kiev can hit targets in Moscow why not hit every single target in Moscow at once.

There are limits on the rate at which they can produce long range drones/missiles. Like Ukraine produces roughly 10-15k per day drones overall, but only a few hundred long-range drones capable of hitting Moscow, and a single attack takes many hundreds to over a thousand drones because most get intercepted, so it takes quite a few days to build up enough drones for an attack.

Russia lost most of its drone capacity when USA destroyed the Shahed factories and stockpiles in Iran and it has taken awhile for them to ramp-up their own domestic production. Both Russia and Ukraine are limited in the volume of drones operational at the same time so they deploy them as they become ready. There really isn't enough at any one time to do large coordinated swarm attacks like you're describing.

I refuse to believe russia cannot get infinite drone supply from china

They can, at a markup. An imported Shahed-style drone might cost you ~$20,000-30,000 USD if you import it, but building it domestically could bring the costs below $5,000. If your goal is to maximize munition mass, then you use China to supply things like INS systems, engines, Nvidia Tegra boards or camera technology that's harder to build in-house. That's what Russia does with the Geran program.

Russia has been self sufficient in drone production for more than a year. Not only that, they’ve innovated on the Shahed design by adding a jet engine. Production of drones is not the issue, lack of satellite internet is.

Russia had its own production of much improved versions of Shahed many months before the whole USA vs Iran shitshow.

> shitshow

From a Russian or Chinese perspective it is probably seen as a great success.

Iran has an economic disaster on its hands but it’s held on and has the US squealing with the Houthi, oil prices and all the destroyed US bases. That may well be seen as a win by some there.

China depends on Iranian oil, but so far have been resilient with reserves. IMO prolonged conflict is good as it will start starving China eventually.

Iran is still shipping oil to China. And the west will be dying of starvation by the time China starts to feel it.

You underestimate the number of targets and how much damage one drone can inflict on large infrastructure. Plus not all drones make it.

These attacks are complicated and resource intensive, with tactics and countermeasures constantly evolving. Attacks need to happen in large coordinated swarms in order to get past defenses, and arranging dozens or hundreds of different drones to all attack deep into enemy territory at the same time without being detected beforehand is challenging. The successful strikes make the news, but there are many failed attacks that get less coverage.

Target selection is difficult as well. High value targets aren't always easy to identify and sequencing is important. It took Ukraine years to develop the technology and strategy to have consistent success. They were smart about targeting air defense systems early on which has led to a virtuous cycle where successful attacks make future attacks more likely to succeed. Despite the rampant corruption, Russia has plenty of smart people on their side as well and they are constantly adapting and finding effective ways to counter specific tactics.

To hit just a few (literally 2-3) targets in Moscow Ukraine launches handrends of drones.

Moscow is really big and the most secure city in Russia.

If you want to hit "every target" (which would be way over 100 even if we are talking about huge targets) you have to launch like 50k drones at once.

Same for Russia. Except it is harder for them to find anything of great value at this point. Most of big targets are already in ruins. Civilian infrastructure is all that's left (not counting places reorganized for drone production here, as they are harder to find). And destroying civilian infrastructure does not play well with what Russia is trying to sell for the audience.

> And destroying civilian infrastructure does not play well with what Russia is trying to sell for the audience.

They sell "we're only targeting military infra" and "we only escalate after unwarranted escalation by Ukraine".

They hit Ukraine's energy grid during literally the coldest days in winter. The audience's reaction? "YES LET THEM FREEZE".

Russia couldn't care less about what they need to sell. They've been hitting civilian infra right and left.

> Russia couldn't care less about what they need to sell. They've been hitting civilian infra right and left.

As they should. Russia did not start the war on Ukraine out of some moral imperative, but simply because they wanted to conquer Ukraine. So there is no limit to what they will attack in Ukraine.

As they should?

And we have seen limits. They toe the line with foreign dignitaries around, and haven’t levelled nuclear plants.

The recent episodes where Trump has begged Ukraine to go easy n Russian has been a darkly amusing development. ‘No cards’ Zelensky must have enjoyed that.

> Civilian infrastructure is all that's left

Russia hit these targets from day one, as a priority.

“In total, Russia has attacked more than 3000 health care targets, more than 4000 schools and universities, more than 2.5 million housing units, more than 700 churches, and killed more than 15,000 civilians as of February 2026.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_attacks_on_civilians_i...

There are a few reasons

They can only produce so many weapons a day, and use most of them quickly, while saving a small stockpile for mass strikes.

Strikes on Moscow may be “symbolic”, but from Ukraine’s point of view, it’s better to spend limited resources to hit a lesser defended but still important target first.

It takes time to actually find a target, and then find/take out/exhaust/bypass defenses (which constantly shift). Many drone strikes are basically intended to “feel around” for where defenses are, aren’t, or are light enough to saturate.

Rather than trying to save up expensive large warhead weapons to try and saturate prime targets in a heavily defended areas, Ukraine is slowly picking away at Russia’s air defense assets, weapons production, and logistics. Russia now no longer has enough defense for complete coverage, and is forced to prioritize certain areas for protection. This means Ukraine now has a much easier time hitting still very important targets outside of Moscow. Ukraine and Russia are now sending hundreds of drone strikes every day at each other of various sizes, with occasional bursts reaching into the thousands.

We are now reaching the point where Russia can’t even fully protect Moscow, which is why you see an increasing amount of high profile hits on it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com