Zoraptor

One of the more famous British volunteers has surrendered in Mariupol He may be in for an... interesting time since it's pretty much certain he'll be treated as a mercenary/ unlawful combatant and not a POW. The good news is at least he's likely to be worth more alive than dead and publicly surrendered.

Generally it's the moral grandstanding about aggressive wars and the like that people don't like, especially those who have had a taste of it from those pontificating. It's one thing for, say, Bhutan to get irate about people invading other countries since they really are nice and peaceful, it's quite another when it's Boris and Joe acting holier than thou when the list of invasions by the US and Britain is fairly long. Then of course there's also immediate and ongoing hypocrisy rather than just historical, like the continuing- western supported- Saudi intervention in Yemen and the silence on the number of deaths caused by that (at least 135k children in just 2017-8 via blockade induced famine, according to the UN). But they're brown and the wrong religion, not in Europe, and the perpetrator buys lots of western weapons, givers lots of political donations and lots of western investment and that trumps humanitarian concerns; and such coverage in media as there is is very much of the "oh the humanity, but this is just what happens when you're uncivilised". Dropping CW from a drone is probably the least convincing detail. Russia has few enough armed drones, they can't carry much in terms of weight (up to 200kg, but that's 4x50kg) and they'd literally literally do more damage with conventional munitions than 3 injuries. If they were going to use them it would be as described- similar to one of the warren destructions in Watership Down. Block up most exits, pump in (probably) tear gas*, and have a bunch of 'ferrets' waiting by the exits which are left open. For that you wouldn't actually use munitions at all, just pump it from a big pressure vessel(s) via hose(s). Or you could just do it the 'legal' way, and suck out/ burn all the oxygen with thermobarics or flamethrowers. *still technically a war crime, since while tear gas isn't banned for use against civilians it is banned as cw when used against the military.

Come on now, Julian Lennon sang 'Imagine' and Ursula and friends pledged 11.2bn Euro; and it "sounds like even more if you convert it to dollars!" What's that you say? They're pledges, not actual money? My goodness, how very cynical. You just have to look back to other such disasters to find that the international community always, always supplies the money that is pledged and it certainly isn't actually a load of competitive virtue signalling where the expectation is anything from half to a tenth of the pledges actually come through. (In practical terms it probably depends a lot on how well/ long the sympathy for refugees lasts and, well, how lucrative the porkbarrelling is. It's a lot easier to spin pledges to reality when the money is actually spent on your companies etc)

Which is also almost always bad for the country the credits are generated in. We've had loads of areas just put into pine forest which is fine if it's plantation and for timber but a lot of it is for cheap zero maintenance carbon credits where the pines will literally not even be managed. Pine plantations here are basically green desert since they're exotic/ introduced, and unmanaged an invasive pest to boot where everyone else has to pay to stop them invading nearby areas- and they grow far faster than in areas they're native to (for Pinus radiata plantation forestry plant --> cut can be as short as a 20 year cycle here). They've recently and belatedly changed it so if you want it to be permanent forest it has to be native because large areas of good food growing land was getting converted with a big net loss to the country. Now they just need to make it retroactive as well, and enjoy the squeals. (Kind of funny though, politicians here utterly baffled by rising food prices when they've spent the past 20 years putting houses crappy low density McMansions on all the good horticultural land and pines on all the good pastoral lands. Oh yeah, and let there be a cosy non competitive supermarket duopoly. Who would have thunk two companies that control the market would only compete by building more supermarkets and operate mostly on making it impossible for anyone else to enter said market?)

That's the updated one from today. There are definitely some PR videos/ interviews from Russian media in the southern yellow part too, though I'm not sure exactly what ISW are using for their criteria for geolocation/ verification/ definition of control.

To quote the great philosopher Blackadder "You'd shoot a man in the back?" "I'd shoot a man if he was on the job. It was just a shame he was awake" Yeah, if being hit by a mortar is a measure of control then Ukraine has literally no control in Mariupol since the range is ~3.5km for even a small one. The spotter is a drone too, so can't draw any conclusions from that either. The port itself is at this point pretty obviously in Russian hands and relatively secure since they're staging a lot of media stuff there.

Poland is due to get replacement Abrams this year anyway via an already existing order. That would just be accelerated. The US can also provide older models from reserve, if needed. The issue is more that Ukraine doesn't actually use T-72s themselves, they use T-64s and T-80s since that's what the Kharkov Tank Factory can make; so getting them isn't quite as much of an advantage as you'd think. Don't think anyone has T-64s and T-80s to give though, unfortunately, all the ex WP countries have T-72s.

We'll likely never know. Given what is known, most likely a combination of typical poor Paradox management of external projects and Hardsuit not being a good fit for the project; which in terms of what practically went wrong could mean just about anything from Paradox changing their minds on stuff day to day (not likely, historically if anything they've been too hands off) or developers and writers not talking to each other to it just being... boring. The engine was UE4, so plenty well supported. There's a quarterly report due from Paradox next month, there may be some news then, if they're asked about it. That would be... 15 months, since it was taken off Hardsuit? so it's getting to the point where there ought to be more news. Though anything they do say will likely be in corporate speak like last time.

Ah yes, the glories of the 90s era Silicon Graphics workstation monitor (Onyx?) that felt like it was literally made from neutronium. When they were phased out I bought an SGI Indy for $50 on the proviso that I also had to take its monitor because the tech guy didn't want to bother with them, and they took up so much space. (Kind of wish I'd managed to snag an Indigo2 when they were discontinued to see if its case could be rigged for a PC. Lot more charisma than the standard beige/ white/ black/ windowed box)

It's best to just use 'unit' unless you're sure of the size. A division is a proper military term for a unit which has a lot of men (iirc something like 12k for a Russian one), far more than even the largest estimate for the number of Wagner members. Based on the more credible estimates Wagner might scrape together two understrength battalions, if deployed monolithically, which even combined are an order of magnitude smaller. Probably not for the Port proper. The port residential area being taken seems pretty well supported though.

I was always amused by Zhironovsky's party being the Liberal Democratic party like he just picked it by random generator rather than to reflect any actual belief. Fun (?) fact, Zhiro contested the 'original' Russian Presidential election way back in 1991, coming 3rd. He only missed one election campaign since then (2004)

I'm just going to assume that you're working on the Epic side of 'Witcher 4' then, because that would be cool. (was going to say please be adding a shopping cart to Epic Store so everyone would shut up about it, but apparently one was added some time ago)

Rwanda was more or less understandable, since the US was getting most of its information from the French who were backing the Hutus politically, and training their militia. Key take away: don't get all your information from an interested party or you may end up embarrassed; see also, outsourcing research on the 'moderate Syrian opposition' to, lol, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. (The million deaths from sanctions claim was always shaky as it came from demographics, and demographics inevitably includes people who, well, never actually lived (like most of the babies who 'died' in the infamous quote). But, demographic analyses are fine when they show what you want. The classic example being that demographic analysis of Churchill's Bengal Famine is Unscientific because you can end up with something extraordinary like 8-10 million deaths, because to quote Churchill "Indians breed like rabbits" while demographic analysis of Stalin's Famine is perfectly Scientific because you 'want' a high death toll for that, and you certainly don't want Churchill to look worse than Stalin!)

That doesn't really fit what happened though. If they wanted it publicised to frighten others into submission or whatever they'd have, well, publicised it. As it is it's only come out after they've withdrawn. Wagner's certainly more of a "let's do something monumentally stupid, and let's film ourselves doing it so we get a reputation" sort of group when it comes to violence given some of their conduct in Syria and CAR. But that doesn't fit Bucha well at all.

Doubt it was Wagner. Certainly not because they're incapable of atrocities though, they most certainly are. Mostly because they seem to only pop up in Ukraine when a boogie man is needed and all the intelligence on them is mutually contradictory. eg I think someone else linked Wagner casualties as being 4000 dead weeks ago, which is more than they even have employed. Indeed British Intelligence has them only deploying about 10 days ago, and to eastern Ukraine. That's not the only report of them deploying though, to be fair.

And they were only trying to shoot at it in the first place because the operator had managed to assign it a grounded F-14's transponder because he didn't know how to work his system properly. The really 'funny' thing is he (Scott Lustig) got a medal for his conduct as well despite being flagrantly and obviously incompetent. (Have to admit I do rather like that as an example of debunked propaganda as it was the first example I really remember as such. Flight wasn't scheduled! Yes it was, your ship was on Bahraini time though, which isn't the same, and you didn't take that into account. They ignored our hails! Strange that they ignored hails addressed to "Iranian warplane", and which... got the flightspeed incorrect (used groundspeed, or v/v I forget), and were mostly on a military channel the plane literally could not pick up (and occasionally Guard, but meh if you're giving wrong identifying info anyway). But it wasn't broadcasting a civilian transponder! Yeah it was, and the other US warships confirmed it, you just managed to associate an on ground F14 with it instead because you're an idiot. Well I guess at least the Vincennes was in international waters, eh! Uh, yeah, about that, wonder why the report map was redacted in the declassified version... oh yeah, you were in Iranian waters even as recognised by the US, and not marginally either) Plenty can be said about that too, but KAL-007 really was a very, very long way- around 500km- off the course it was meant to follow. Pretty easy to see why, though.

The depression in winter thing has a proper medical term: Seasonal Affective Disorder. Though technically it applies if a mental illness is regularly/ cyclically worse in any season, not just winter.

Neither side constantly flies near civilian aircraft, it's rare enough to get some comment when it happens non incidentally. When it does they are usually either brief (ie making sure they aren't a spy plane with a rigged transponder) or, well, incidental. Kind of have to clarify that though, as military <--> military interceptions can be... theatrical. You have to be behaving very oddly to get one of those treatments as a civilian jet. More detail is needed to know how serious it was. Say it every time it comes up but actual intrusions into airspace are not at all common except around St Pete's where the airspace is complicated- and you're still talking a few incidents a year level- it's usually intrusions into either ADIZ (which have no legal standing whatsoever) or civil air controller areas (which typically project well outside territorial airspace over water)- or resolve to 'approached our airspace but turned around before reaching it' when over land. All the english language sources I could find have it as an actual intrusion, and since it's Russia/ Latvia it would have to be over land; but, that's not exactly conclusive. It does however appear 'close' is a bit of a misnomer, since Vukcic is at least quoted as saying it was 1000m- a full flight level- below the passenger jet which should be perfectly safe.

If it had been released a year later after the success of Baldur's Gate had had some time to set in it may have been an RPG, but it came right at the tail end of the RPG decline of the late 90s. At least it was set well outside the book continuity which made the... divergences there a bit easier to cope with.

Wheel of Time released. Guess I probably ought to clarify WoT (1999), since there's meant to be a new game in (early) development. Far better than it had any right to be really, and one of the more interesting Quake/ Unreal clones of the ~2000 glut.

Eh, at the time of the Winter War Germany and the USSR were (technically, kind of if you squinted) allies under Molotov-Ribbentrop so Finland got zero help from Germany. Continuation War though, sure. (Churchill at least was very keen to declare war on the USSR in 1939, but in this case at least fortunately Chamberlain was still PM. Then again Churchill was also very keen to invade... Norway, at more or less the same time. Well, protectively occupy even if the occupants objected. Practically there wasn't anything France or Britain could do to help anyway, and if there had been a campaign Churchill would have been in charge- and while his speeches were great his military campaigns tended to be awful. Indeed, the actual Norway campaign run by him was an almost unmitigated disaster, the almost part being pretty much solely Warspite sinking half the Kreigsmarine's total of destroyers at Narvik. Churchill's plan for helping Finland was... Dardanelles 2.0, of course, just run a big fleet and invasion force through to the Baltic, what can go wrong? Not like Britain was also at war with Germany, and Germany could invade Denmark at any time bottling the British fleet up wholesale and forcing them to run a narrow strait dominated by the Luftwaffe. Then again, Churchill being Churchill, maybe he was going to invade Denmark too...)

Eh, Russia would 'lose' a normal war very quickly and always would. The Soviets might not have won a non nuclear war, and the Russians have less than half the power the soviet bloc had, with a fair bit of that lost half swapping sides outright. It's not even a debate. It just wouldn't be a 'normal' war. It's particularly funny when you get people talking about the 'lessons' to be learnt from the current war then proceeding to completely ignore them by saying that anyone and his dog could invade Russia- because, presumably, Russians aren't as patriotic as Ukrainians? Not as willing to sacrifice? Really just pining for some tough love from their western superiors? I mean, it's not like there's a recent example of a country being invaded with the aim of chopping it up where things went very badly when the people living there objected. It's not like there have been multiple examples in the past 20 years of things going very badly when someone isn't even trying to annex bits of a country. I guess it's different when they're Russians though, they just lack the spine and fortitude of the invading westerner with their superior values- is it genetic, is it cultural, who knows, but it's just self evident and the mere knowledge of westerness gives me a chub thinking of all the people I'm superior too- and will no doubt welcome the invaders with flowers and cheers. Or maybe not, but that would just be because they've been misinformed or are stupid, hate us for our freedoms; and irrelevant because what are they going to do against the serried and glorious undefeated legions of Senatus PopulesQue Americam. And no, to paraphrase the great philosopher Otto from 'A Fish Called Wanda', "They were all draws, and we weren't trying anyway". Really, it was just a stupid idea. It could (almost certainly would) have been executed flawlessly and failed. The entire invasion force was marginal for taking a city of 3.2mn people. The only way it makes some military sense is if they thought the Belarusians were going to invade alongside them since at least that guards their flank

Eh, it's pretty much the same pattern it always is: older, poorer, more conservative, and more rural --> more enthusiastic; and for the poorer less to lose anyway. Middle class and educated urban young people --> not. For enthusiasm, and susceptibility to propaganda, Goering is still relevant: “Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or fascist dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

New Blood is... mostly very good. Suppose I should post the Strange New Worlds Trailer, despite it being blocked in NZ (lol)

They can't build them but they do have some capacity to maintain/ upgrade them, and have for example exported T-72s to 3rd parties. Though that was a decade ago now and under Yanukovich when purchase of any required Russian parts would not have been so much of a problem. They inherited ~1000 from the soviets, though the vast majority were never mothballed properly so may as well be junk so far as use for replacements go. Their tank plant in Kharkov makes T-64s and T-80 variants, and since they can't be supplied by anyone else (well, except Russia for the T-80) that is pretty irrelevant. You'd also have to assume that it's not in the best shape at present. [if it's replacement tanks for Poland there's heaps of options. If nothing else the US has a load of older Abrams in reserve- and Poland is meant to be getting new Abrams this year(?) anyway so it wouldn't be a long term shortage]