Last Wednesday was the wrong night to wake up at one a.m. and habitually check Twitter. Realising that the Russian army had started shelling the largest nuclear power plant in Europe wasn’t exactly conducive to sleep. Thoughts of Chernobyl had already been at the back of my mind during the first week of the war, even before the Russians took that notorious site over, but Zaporizhzhia seemed an even better candidate for “accidentally” turning into a giant dirty bomb. Just the fact of Russia attacking either is reason to worry very, very much.
Read more…
10 March 2022
The situation in Mariupol on the coast of southern Ukraine is desperate, with water supplies cut after days of Russian bombardment. But further north, there may be cause for hope. A Russian thermobaric bomb launcher got captured by Ukrainians because “it tried to go off-roading … in springtime”, when the ground hasn’t frozen as usual this winter. Meanwhile, poor Russian Army truck maintenance practices implied by a photo of a gun-missile system’s right rear pair of tyres have significant implications for Russia:
When you leave military truck tires in one place for months on end … the side walls get rotted/brittle such that using low tire pressure setting for any appreciable distance will cause the tires to fail catastrophically via rips. … The Russians simply cannot risk them off road during the Rasputitsa/Mud season. … Given the demonstrated levels of corruption in truck maintenance … their wheeled AFV/truck park is as road bound as Russian Army columns were in the 1st Russo-Finnish War.
Read more…
3 March 2022
It’s a few hours short of four days since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Defying his expectations and everyone’s fears, he has failed to take its capital quickly, and the valiant example of Ukraine’s president and people is rallying the world to its cause. Far from weakening them, Putin’s actions could end up strengthening NATO and the EU. But the situation remains fraught with the potential of escalating into something far worse, with Putin today putting Russia’s nuclear defences on alert in response to the West’s sweeping economic sanctions, and Belarus reportedly committing its ground and air forces to his cause. Kyiv could yet fall. Every night Europe is holding its breath.
Read more…
27 February 2022
Timely lessons on Ukrainian history from Timothy Snyder: King of Ukraine, Part I · II · III · IV · V · VI · Kyiv’s ancient normality. And on the present (before 24 hours ago, when there was still hope that Putin wouldn’t invade): What is Putin thinking? Is there a simple solution? Putin has an exit. How Putin makes his enemies do all the work: “If all one does is provoke, then all one sees is provocation.”
Having Russian military in large numbers in Belarus meant Putin had to decide to invade or go home “before those of his soldiers who aren’t incapacitated with Covid drink themselves to death after robbing his army blind leaving it unable to fight and stuck in a country they’ve trashed”.
The supposed films of Ukrainian “attacks” made by Russia’s fake factory. Bellingcat on previous Russian disinformation campaigns.
The view from Finland.
22 February 2022
The twentieth anniversary of 9/11 felt more significant than in a while, probably because the fall of Kabul to the Taliban last month had already taken the world right back to 2001. I wouldn’t add much to my comments of those early years, but some of the articles that did the rounds were worth a look.
“The Falling Man” is still you and me.
My mother died on 9/11. Every year, her absence feels larger.
9/12, by Edward Snowden.
The wildest shit from ’01 to ’06.
I also watched 102 Minutes That Changed America, which because we didn’t have a TV in September 2001 was the first time I’d seen the footage at such length. A waking nightmare.
18 September 2021
A year ago today was my last day in the office before the first lockdown, with our university telling us all to work from home a week before the prime minister did. For almost three months we’ve been in Scotland’s second lockdown, which is only now starting to ease: older primary school kids (including ours) went back to physical school full-time yesterday, and younger high school kids (including ours) have started going back a day a week until Easter.
Read more…
16 March 2021
