Ukraine: Unsubstantiated rumours and speculation

[Cloo]

The whole 'Putin is sick/dying' thing has a feel of psy-ops/desperate hope about it that seems improbable to me.

 

[DaveCinzano]

No, I'm on at 10pm, tune in and check it out.

This is what I got when I googled 'sexy Spitfire'

 

[spitfire]

This is what I got when I googled 'sexy Spitfire'

View attachment 313217

smee

 

[WouldBe]

If it’s that major there should be some substantiation out there by now?

No because of the ban on disinformation.

 

[bimble]

unsubstantiated rumour :



Interesting but technical article here about this 'great firewall' and Russian State's work towards readying the internet for further state control and separation from 'the west's : archive.ph

 

[platinumsage]

This would be a huge blow to the Russian Airforce:

 

[frogwoman]

unsubstantiated rumour :



Interesting but technical article here about this 'great firewall' and Russian State's work towards readying the internet for further state control and separation from 'the west's : archive.ph

Half my Russian fb friends seem to be getting on using a VPN though. I think this will be very difficult for him to enforce at least at first.

 

[two sheds]

I'm surprised it's not easy(ish) to block VPNs. The BBC blocks mine - surely each vpn offers a limited number of ip addresses so it's just a matter of blocking them. Or no?

 

[bimble]

Unsubstantiated rumour :

 

[LDC]

Some palace coup, Putin's has an accident, a ceasefire, and then withdrawal of Russian troops is clearly the best short term possible option.

 

[bimble]

I think if your coup is on twitter before it happens then it’s kind of not going well .

 

[LDC]

I think if your coup is on twitter before it happens then it’s kind of not going well .

Have you not seen Shoygu's TikTok dance?

 

[DaveCinzano]

Have you not seen Shoygu's TikTok dance?

He's probably not looking forward to his ice bucket challenge

 

[Raheem]

This is what I got when I googled 'sexy Spitfire'

View attachment 313217

I'd put safe search on if I were you.

 

[DaveCinzano]

I'd put safe search on if I were you.

Too late, already had bandits at six o'clock when I was angels one five

 

[zahir]

This claim has been made by a couple of accounts.

 

[Dogsauce]

This is from a senior Bellingcat person, so fairly likely to be genuine.



Reportedly at a meeting which was attacked with grad rockets. Ukraine obviously getting good intel from somewhere If true.

 

[strung out]

This is from a senior Bellingcat person, so fairly likely to be genuine.



Reportedly at a meeting which was attacked with grad rockets. Ukraine obviously getting good intel from somewhere If true.

Confirmed after an intercepted Russian communication made on a local SIM card rather than a secure line, lol



This was the general who led the Crimea invasion in 2014, and leaves 10,000 Russian soldiers without leadership.

 

[Dogsauce]

This was the general who led the Crimea invasion in 2014, and leaves 10,000 Russian soldiers without leadership.

It‘s been reported that they’ve been sending Generals up front to improve morale of the cold and hungry footsoldiers. This is the third one lost. Rumours that this guy is the nephew of the chief of staff of the Army, which may be true given family connections may have helped his career. It’ll be noticed.

 

[stdP]

Half my Russian fb friends seem to be getting on using a VPN though. I think this will be very difficult for him to enforce at least at first.

It's already fairly standard for "Great Firewalls of X" to stomp on VPNs though - China does it with remarkable effectiveness. Depending on how much disruption you're willing to put up with, it's fairly trivial these days to do packet/protocol inspection in real-time and just throw away anything that looks like an encrypted protocol that you can't read. Many of the "currently working" VPNs can either be broken or coerced in to using compromised encryption that the gatekeepers such as the state can intercept (if they haven't already done so). Wikipedia article here with some of the Russia-specific developments.

 

[zahir]

From a few days ago.

 

[2hats]

Confirmed after an intercepted Russian communication made on a local SIM card rather than a secure line, lol

A potentially really juicy bit is further down the thread (and would partly explain why most mobile telephony is still up in many places):

The idiots tried to use the Era cryptophones [Russian secure comms network] in Kharkiv, after destroying many 3g cell towers and also replacing others with stingrays [IMSI catchers]. Era needs 3g/4g to communicate.
The Russian army is equipped with secure phones that can't work in areas where the Russian army operates.

 

[Ming]

Stupid post warning: I think we're going to end up with nuclear war.

Putin is ideological. Which makes him irrational.

He's backed into a corner and he has nukes.

And he's already indicated if it's the end of Russia or the world then it's the world.

And of course his 'cornered rat' story.

 

[The39thStep]

Civilians training to use weapons. Why don't you know what to make of it?

The BBC has a useful l page expalining the real context of photos claiming that the war is a hoax

 

[co-op]

This is from a senior Bellingcat person, so fairly likely to be genuine.



Reportedly at a meeting which was attacked with grad rockets. Ukraine obviously getting good intel from somewhere If true.

I'd think this is one of the most under-reported aspects of this war so far, from the warnings coming from the US/UK that an invasion was imminent to these kinds of targeted strikes aimed at the top brass.

The degree of cyber fucking around will be unbelievable too - I assume that anything that's reported as being the work of - eg Anonymous or "Belarussian pro-democracy hackers" etc - is effectively being done by the US, albeit possibly using these externalised groups making these things technically non-state actions which makes them both deniable and also contributes to the headfuck war that will be going on behind the scenes. The US is now deploying the kind of greyzone tactics that Putin has always been very good at.

There have been a lot of fairly major computer failures internationally ranging from BA to Taiwanese power stations etc going on (I'd list them but I'm too lazy to go and round them all up on the internet) - these have literally all been hugely down-played in the UK media and attributed to mere technical issues but I'm guessing there's been a lot of sabotage games played.

It seems likely to me that quite a lot of the stories about very poor logistics support for the Russian forces which are being attributed to over-confidence/incompetence will be partly due to targeted cyber attacks on Russian logistics - there seems to be a real attempt to try a war of demoralisation via cyber warfare - to imbue Russian forces with a sense of mess and confusion.

I've put this in this thread as obviously by its nature this whole subject is basically pure speculation.

 

[kabbes]

Stupid post warning: I think we're going to end up with nuclear war.

Putin is ideological. Which makes him irrational.

He's backed into a corner and he has nukes.

And he's already indicated if it's the end of Russia or the world then it's the world.

And of course his 'cornered rat' story.

You have a very simplistic narrative of human psychology, full of labels and pathologised characteristics. Real people are more complicated than just being "ideological" or "irrational" or, for that matter, "psychopathic". They exist in complex social structures that shape and reshape how they interpret meaning from one context to the next. I doubt Putin is "irrational"; it's just that his intentions are clouded to you and the tools he uses in order to act towards these intentions are unfamiliar.

 

[Bus Honeygun]

This is neither rumour or speculation, but I couldn't think of anywhere else to mention that three military cargo planes have flown over me in Exeter this morning. Guess it's Ukraine related.

 

[emanymton]

You have a very simplistic narrative of human psychology, full of labels and pathologised characteristics. Real people are more complicated than just being "ideological" or "irrational" or, for that matter, "psychopathic". They exist in complex social structures that shape and reshape how they interpret meaning from one context to the next. I doubt Putin is "irrational"; it's just that his intentions are clouded to you and the tools he uses in order to act towards these intentions are unfamiliar.

He is prick though? Right?

 

[A380]

You have a very simplistic narrative of human psychology, full of labels and pathologised characteristics. Real people are more complicated than just being "ideological" or "irrational" or, for that matter, "psychopathic". They exist in complex social structures that shape and reshape how they interpret meaning from one context to the next. I doubt Putin is "irrational"; it's just that his intentions are clouded to you and the tools he uses in order to act towards these intentions are unfamiliar.

And also of nuclear weapon command and control. There are going to be a small bit significant number of people between Putin and the blue touch paper. Any one of whom could say ‘ you know what, fuck this shit, I want to go home to an unradiated house’ and stop Armageddon.

 

[JimW]

He is prick though? Right?

You have a very simplistic narrative of male genital anatomy. He is more accurately both bell end and bawbag.