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Thread: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

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    Default Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    First, this thread can be a place for the folks in Andrew Lensky's modern pen review thread to vent.

    I would plead that we not turn this into "the usual", blaming countries other than Russia, leaders other than Putin, etc... That's easy, but partisan and we can be more responsible adults than allowing descent into that silliness.

    I suggest this is also a place to provide links to reasonable, non-partisan-pundit based news outlet. Youtube has a France24 channel that is live, and Die Welle (DW) does also.

    Lastly, we could share rational opinion on the situation. National Review is right-leaning, and normally not a source of non-partisan views; but THIS ARTICLE was shared with me and provides decent analysis. I think this sort of piece is welcome.

    As the sun goes down in Kyiv, the city has not yet fallen to the Russians. This is unquestionably a defeat for Vladimir Putin.

    It’s important to not get carried away here: The Kremlin is still favored to win this fight. But the last three days of combat should put a serious dent in the reputation of this new Russian army. We should, however, try to understand why the Russians are struggling. First, the Russian army’s recent structural reforms do not appear to have been sufficient to the task at hand. Second, at the tactical and operational level, the Russians are failing to get the most out of their manpower and materiel advantage.

    There has been much talk over the last ten years about the Russian army’s modernization and professionalization. After suffering severe neglect in the ’90s, during Russia’s post-Soviet financial crisis, the army began to reorganize and modernize with the strengthening of the Russian economy under Putin. First the army got smaller, at least compared to the Soviet Red Army, which allowed a higher per-soldier funding ratio than in previous eras. The Russians spent vast sums of money to modernize and improve their equipment and kit — everything from new models of main battle tanks to, in 2013, ordering Russian troopers to finally retire the traditional portyanki foot wraps and switch to socks.

    But the Russians have also gone the wrong direction in some areas. In 2008, the Russian government cut the conscription term from 24 to twelve months. As Gil Barndollar, a former U.S. Marine infantry officer, wrote in 2020:

    Russia currently fields an active-duty military of just under 1 million men. Of this force, approximately 260,000 are conscripts and 410,000 are contract soldiers (kontraktniki). The shortened 12-month conscript term provides at most five months of utilization time for these servicemen. Conscripts remain about a quarter of the force even in elite commando (spetsnaz) units.

    As anyone who has served in the military will tell you, twelve months is barely enough time to become proficient at simply being a rifleman. It’s nowhere near enough time for the average soldier to learn the skills required to be an effective small-unit leader.

    Yes, the Russians have indeed made efforts to professionalize the officer and the NCO corps. Of course, non-commissioned officers (NCOs) have historically been a weakness of the Russian system. In the West, NCOs are the professional, experienced backbone of an army. They are expected to be experts in their military specialty (armor, mortars, infantry, logistics, etc.) and can thus be effective small-unit commanders at the squad and section level, as well as advisers to the commanders at the platoon and company level. In short, a Western army pairs a young infantry lieutenant with a grizzled staff sergeant; a U.S. Marine Corps company commander, usually a captain, will be paired with a gunnery sergeant and a first sergeant. The officer still holds the moral and legal authority and responsibility for his command — but he would be foolish to not listen to the advice and opinion of the unit’s senior NCOs.

    The Russian army, in practice, does not operate like this. A high proportion of the soldiers wearing NCO stripes in the modern Russian army are little more than senior conscripts near the end of their term of service. In recent years, the Russians have established a dedicated NCO academy and cut the number of officers in the army in an effort to put more resources into improving the NCO corps, but the changes have not been enough to solve the army’s leadership deficit.

    Now, let’s talk about the Russian failures at the operational and tactical level.

    It should be emphasized again that the Russian army, through sheer weight of men and materiel, is still likely to win this war. But it’s becoming more and more apparent that the Russians’ operational and tactical choices have not made that task easy on themselves.

    First, to many observers, it’s simply shocking that the Russians have not been able to establish complete air superiority over Ukrainian air space. After three days of hostilities, Ukrainian pilots are still taking to the skies and Ukrainian anti-air batteries are still exacting a toll on Russian aircraft. The fact that the Russians have not been able to mount a dominant Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) campaign and yet are insistent on attempting contested air-assault operations is, simply put, astounding. It’s also been extremely costly for the Russians.

    To compound that problem, the Russians have undertaken operations on multiple avenues of advance, which, at least in the early stages of this campaign, are not able to mutually support each other. Until they get much closer to the capital, the Russian units moving north out of Crimea are not able to help the Russian armored columns advancing on Kyiv. The troops pushing towards Kyiv from Belarus aren’t able to affect the Ukrainians defending the Donbas in the east. As the Russians move deeper into Ukraine, this can and will change, but it unquestionably made the opening stages of their operations more difficult.

    Third, the Russians — possibly out of hubris — do not appear to have prepared the logistical train necessary to keep some of their units in action for an extended period of time. Multiple videos have emerged of Russian columns out of gas and stuck on Ukrainian roads.

    In the Russians’ defense, everything is hard in war. It’s extremely difficult to keep an army supplied in the field while on the move. What Karl von Clausewitz called “friction” envelops the battlefield. Friction, Clausewitz wrote, is “the concept that differentiates actual war from war on paper.” In combat, friction is what makes “even the simplest thing difficult.” So we shouldn’t be surprised that some Russian units are running low on supplies. What’s surprising is the scale of the Russians’ apparent logistical problems.

    Finally, and in my opinion, most glaringly, there is the tactical level. There is a strange, counterintuitive law of modern war that says for men to win in a fight against steel and heavy weapons, you must close with the enemy. A corollary to this law is that, if both sides are equipped in a similar manner — in this case, mechanized infantry and tanks — the side that is willing to dismount, get out of its infantry fighting vehicles, and serve as a relatively exposed infantry screen to the armor, is going to have a tremendous tactical advantage. Tanks and armored vehicles are incredibly vulnerable to modern anti-tank missiles. As the Ukrainians have proved, a two- or three-man team armed with a Javelin or NLAW anti-tank-missile system can wreak havoc on a mechanized column if it is allowed to get close enough to make kill shots.

    This video shows a Ukrainian soldier carrying a British-made NLAW after an engagement with Russian mechanized assets.

    You can see how light and portable the missile system is. These are deadly serious anti-tank weapons.

    The key to countering such weapons is to operate as a combined-arms team: Mechanized infantry must be willing to, on a moments notice, receive the order to dismount, leave the perceived safety of an infantry-fighting vehicle, and serve as a screen for the armor. The infantry can neutralize the anti-tank missile teams. The armor can then provide covering fire, supporting the infantry as they move up, while knocking out any heavy weapons a defender might emplace. The point is that the infantry and the armor must work as a team. And this takes trust. And a hell of a lot of training. Because it’s counterintuitive to leave the safety of the vehicle to close with the enemy, you must drill and drill and drill what the U.S. military calls “immediate actions.”

    Marine Lieutenant Colonel B. P. McCoy described this dynamic in his book The Passion of Command, which documents his battalion’s march to Baghdad in 2003. When 3rd Battalion 4th Marines was ambushed by elements of the Republican Guard on Iraq’s Highway 6, this is how McCoy describes the Marines’ response: “The enemy has initiated contact from as close as 30 meters, peppering the column with small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades” but “Bravo’s infantry platoon comes roaring up in three Armored Amphibious Vehicles (AAVs), slamming to a halt at the edge of the kill zone.”

    The colonel continues:
    Their heavy M2 .50 caliber machineguns and Mk-19 40 millimeter automatic grenade launchers open up to cover the Marine infantry rushing down the back ramps of the 26-ton vehicles, as a volley of RPGs is unleashed by the enemy, some sailing high while another ricochets off the hull and spins and hisses on the ground without detonating.

    What happens next is pure violence, yet elegant in its harmony. Thirty-five US Marines of Kilo Company’s 3rd Platoon rush out of the gloomy confines of their AAVs and into the teeth of the enemy fire. They know nothing of the enemy’s strength or disposition. All they know is that this is a “contact right” battle drill, and this is what we do in “contact right.” Private First Class Dusty Ladendorf, one of the platoon’s riflemen, is less than a year out of high school. In an after-action review he makes this comment on the firefight: “You come out of the back of the track and just do it like you were trained. Execute your battle drill, take cover and fire, cover your buddy’s move, and move yourself when he covers you. Find the enemy, close in on him, and kill him. Keep moving and keep killing, until it’s over.”

    Allow me to quote a little more from McCoy’s description of the fight:

    The platoon rushes straight into the teeth of the fire and gains a foothold in the palm grove, taking advantage of the protection provided by every subtle fold in the ground and clod of dirt.

    An untrained observer may look at this scene and think it no more organized than a riot. Actually, to us it is ferocious poetry. Every weapon system joins the fight, each supporting the other: machineguns, rifles, grenade launchers, and rocket launchers systematically suppress and then kill the enemy. We are now gaining fire superiority. Soon it is for the enemy to question the prospect of survival.

    To survive and win, this is what mechanized infantry must do in a force-on-force fight. But by all accounts, the Russians appear to be “noticeably reluctant” to dismount and close with the Ukrainian defenders. We should be careful to not paint with too broad of a brush here. There are examples of Russian troops performing well in the fierce combat of the last three days. But there is clearly a pattern developing.

    This is a morale problem, a training problem, a leadership problem, and a will-to-fight problem. None of these are factors that can be easily or quickly fixed. It takes months of training and trust both across the ranks and up and down the command structure to work effectively. The private must believe that, if he gets out of his vehicle and pushes forward, his mates in the tracks will have his back. Hanging back in perceived safety leads to defeat. Counterintuitively, it makes you more vulnerable to enemy fires.

    None of this is easy or simple. There’s a reason that every Marine infantryman learns from day one of boot camp that the mission of the rifle squad is to “locate, close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, or repel the enemy assault by fire and close combat.”

    Unfortunately for the Russians as they advance into Kyiv, every part of what I described above becomes immeasurably more important when the terrain transitions from woods, fields, and roads to urban combat in a major city.

    As I have written before, urban combat is hell. And as the Russians are learning, fire can come from all sides. The fog of war becomes all-enveloping. As nerves are frayed and exhaustion sets in, trigger fingers get touchy. Every window, doorway, and sewer drain is an “aperture” that can house a rifle or a medium machine gun. Streets and buildings constrict the lateral movement of an attacking force. In urban combat, units tend to drift towards the path of least resistance and “easy” avenues of approach such as major roadways — which can play right into the defenders’ hands by funneling the attackers into overlapping fields of fire.

    It takes tremendous courage and discipline to initiate a “movement to contact” operation in an urban setting. It takes effective communication both within a unit and with the units on your left and right. There can be no shortcuts. Each time a unit crosses a road or moves to a new building, it must set up its movements in the correct sequence: First, an element must possess local security. Then, once local security is achieved, the next element can provide covering fires, achieve fire superiority, and suppress the enemy. Only then can the assault element cross the street without being gunned down. Get the order of operations wrong — and a unit’s flanks will be exposed or the assaulting element will reenact “The Charge of the Light Brigade.”

    As the Marines say, “Movement without suppression is suicide.”

    The Russians do not appear to be good at the details, and their failures at the operational and tactical levels have made an inherently difficult task much, much harder. This is why they are struggling. It’s why they will now turn to brute force to try to smash their way into the capital.
    Last edited by dneal; February 27th, 2022 at 08:37 PM. Reason: updated France 24 and DW live links
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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    I understood Putin's taking of Crimea. It was "gifted" to Ukraine with no idea the USSR would ever collapse. A war was fought over it. It's historically significant to Russia, and it's strategically important as their port to the Black Sea.

    He was willing to have a serious fight over it, and no one else was. He smiled and nudged his way a little further east and took a bit of Ukraine. His polls reflected the support the Russian people had for the action.

    This action has me scratching my head. Some of the punditry is plausible (potential NATO membership, for example), but I can think of others. Ukraine has been Russian since the revolution. It's the Russian breadbasket (wheat). No one really knows. Maybe it's just a form of dementia from decades of leading the country, COVID and his reported isolation, his worrying about his legacy, whatever...

    What's clear are two things: He underestimated the capability of his forces (but Russia's modernization has been geared toward artillery and air defense, not maneuver units), and he underestimated the resolve of the Ukrainians. Zelensky's leadership is noteworthy. I got the same feeling when I was deployed to Poland - that they were a people who would never let "that" (occupation or loss of sovereignty) happen again. It doesn't surprise me that Ukraine is exhibiting the same.

    An insurgency and urban fighting is exponentially more difficult than force-on-force in open terrain. The Ukrainians have been preparing, and working with USAREUR and NATO for 15 years or so. Russian logistics were immediately what I thought their problem would be. They don't have the logistics backbone nor "magazine depth", and rely on irregular warfare which the Ukrainians seem to have been prepared for.

    We'll see what the "peace talks" are about. Best case is it's a way for Putin to withdraw and save some face. He's got to get a win in some way though - and taking Ukranian membership in NATO off the table might be enough. That's a big ask after you just invaded them. We'll have to see.
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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Oh, if Lady Ethernaut is around... I would be interested to hear how things are in Poland right now.
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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Sadly, I wouldn't underestimate Putin and his army, capability-wise nor tactically. I doubt he thought this would be a brief encounter with minimal Ukrainian and Worldwide opposition. I believe he knew how fiercely Ukrainians would defend their homeland, and that he pre-assessed how the NATO nations would react.

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Since quite a few Russian soldiers have relatives and other ties in Ukraine, I'd think that being ordered (by an insane dictator) to slaughter their parents and brothers and sisters and cousins and seize the country has caused quite a lot of dismay and disaffection in the ranks. Simply put, I don't think their heart is in it.

    Some Russian soldiers, who knows how many, do retain a sense of human decency and justice. They are certainly ashamed and mortified at being mere tools of oppression.

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Quote Originally Posted by Chip View Post
    Since quite a few Russian soldiers have relatives and other ties in Ukraine, I'd think that being ordered (by an insane dictator) to slaughter their parents and brothers and sisters and cousins and seize the country has caused quite a lot of dismay and disaffection in the ranks. Simply put, I don't think their heart is in it.

    Some Russian soldiers, who knows how many, do retain a sense of human decency and justice. They are certainly ashamed and mortified at being mere tools of oppression.
    I certainly want to think this.

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    M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Had a thought, Ukrainians are defending and the Afghanizations didn't. Is it because the Ukrainians are democratic by choice? Are there other thoughts?

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lloyd View Post
    Sadly, I wouldn't underestimate Putin and his army, capability-wise nor tactically. I doubt he thought this would be a brief encounter with minimal Ukrainian and Worldwide opposition. I believe he knew how fiercely Ukrainians would defend their homeland, and that he pre-assessed how the NATO nations would react.

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    Russian capability has always been mass. U.S. concerns vs Russia are massed artillery protected by massed and layered air defense. It's commonly referred to as the "A2AD Bubble". You can't close with your maneuver formations because the artillery will kill you as you advance. You can't kill the artillery because it's protected by air defense.

    Technologically, Russia is overestimated. The M1 was designed to fight at a 6 to 1 numerical disadvantage. DESERT STORM surprised the U.S. and the Russians at the imbalance between the T72 and M1. Russia has been developing the T14, but most of its capabilities are hype and it's not in production mainly because of technological difficulties.

    The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) used to inspect Russian equipment sites. Russia was free to inspect ours as well. The majority of Russian equipment sat in fenced gravel lots, inoperative. On a relative scale, Russia still has an enormous numerical advantage, but nothing like the Soviet days. Their equipment is archaic by modern standards, which makes it more simple to maintain; but also requires more of that simple maintenance - it breaks down easily.

    Tactically, Russia has a DOTMLP-FP problem (Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership, Personnel, Facilities, Policy) that's laid out pretty well in the National Review article. Where they excel is cyber, electro-magnetic, information and other irregular operations. Their ground forces are more of an extension of information ops than actual close combat formations. In Crimea, the presence of large formations were as much as a bluff as anything; a bluff that could be costly to call. It's much safer to fold - which is why he "won that hand". This appears initially to be much of the same. A large threat as a bluff that's too risky to call. Ukrainian forces were handily beaten during the Crimean incursion. Russian EW capabilities identified and targeted command and control nodes, air defenses, and pretty much every conventional unit. It was a relative cakewalk. Ukrainian TTP's have changed. They don't leave their air-defense radar on. They minimize their EW signature for C2. They also have javelins and stingers now.

    Did Putin expect this level of resistance or ineffectualness? I don't think so. It's much more likely that he has a problem similar to Hitler at the end of WWII - subordinates afraid to tell him the truth, contradict him, etc...
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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Subordinates unwilling to tell the truth sounds familiar right now in the Republican Party. Not trying to infect the thread at all, but it caught my attention, nonetheless.

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    STOP IT CHUCK! This is NOT the thread for partisan American political crap. A country has been invaded. People are being killed.
    Last edited by dneal; February 28th, 2022 at 09:10 AM.
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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Quote Originally Posted by dneal View Post
    STOP IT CHUCK! This is NOT the thread for partisan American political crap. A country has been invaded. People are being killed.
    People could die in the US if TRump is elected and people have died due to disinformation from people like you regarding the virus. Why such a sudden concern from you? Damn hypocrite!! What a complete fucking ass you are @dneal.

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Chuck, STOP. There are plenty of threads for that shit. This isn't one of them.
    "A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Back on topic...

    Quote Originally Posted by Chip View Post
    Since quite a few Russian soldiers have relatives and other ties in Ukraine, I'd think that being ordered (by an insane dictator) to slaughter their parents and brothers and sisters and cousins and seize the country has caused quite a lot of dismay and disaffection in the ranks. Simply put, I don't think their heart is in it.

    Some Russian soldiers, who knows how many, do retain a sense of human decency and justice. They are certainly ashamed and mortified at being mere tools of oppression.
    I think you have the right idea, but some of the reasons aren't correct.

    Ethnic Russians are concentrated on the eastern border, so you're right with that in that portion. But considering the second point (about being "hesitant to slaughter"...) it's not the ethnicity that's the factor. It's the humanity - which gets to your last two sentences, and I agree.

    Dave Grossman points out in his book On Killing the number of G.I.s that would shoot over German's heads during WWII. It was hard for a man to shoot another man even in that environment. Add to that the lack of training previously mentioned, the realization of personal risk to follow orders, etc... weighs heavily on initiative and morale.
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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Quote Originally Posted by dneal View Post
    Chuck, STOP. There are plenty of threads for that shit. This isn't one of them.
    I am sorry, but your sudden concern for human life cannot be ignored or sweep under the rug. Death by any means is important.

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Some of my fathers family lives in Poland 40 miles west of Ukraine. They are experiencing refuges and empty store shelves.

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    The Hill’s Kim Iversen has a good piece on erroneous information. It’s going to happen, for all sorts of reasons and motivations, from innocent sharing of what is believed to be accurate to deliberate information operations (although those are designed to be difficult to attribute).

    Point being that a healthy amount of skepticism is never a bad thing.

    Last edited by dneal; February 28th, 2022 at 07:59 PM. Reason: fixed video link
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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    @dneal wokiening!! LOL

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Chuck, something is wrong with you. Seriously.

    Go over to the ad hominem and grandstanding thread. I'll play there.
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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    I found this article interesting.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/techn...ussia-ukraine/

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    M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
    A: It can be.
    M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
    A: No it isn't.
    M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
    A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
    M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
    A: Yes it is!
    M: No it isn't!

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    Default Re: Ukraine outrage and analysis.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lloyd View Post
    I found this article interesting.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/techn...ussia-ukraine/

    Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk
    Pretty good article, but behind a paywall. I found the article through my AppleNews account. Text below, and I bolded what I think is the key portion. Just another example of Ukraine's lessons learned from Crimea and corrected for.

    It helps that they aren't as network reliant as more modern militaries. We're focused on ways to defend against cyber, instead of ingraining analog backups like mapboards and overlays. On a different note, I saw that Elon Musk is sending terminals for his Starlink internet service.

    For more than a decade, military commanders and outside experts have laid out blueprints for how cyberwar would unfold: military and civilian networks would be knocked offline, cutting-edge software would sabotage power plants, and whole populations would be unable to get money, gas or refrigerated food.
    But while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has spawned all manner of cyberattacks and defenses, few are playing out the way the experts thought they would.
    As of Monday, five days after tanks moved into Ukraine, the Internet and other key Ukrainian infrastructure were still functioning, the outgunned Ukrainian military was still coordinating effectively and Russia’s vaunted disinformation capabilities were failing to persuade Ukrainians that resistance is futile.
    “We imagined this orchestrated unleashing of violence in cyberspace, this ballet of attacks striking Ukraine in waves, and instead of that we have a brawl. And not even a very consequential brawl, just yet,” said Jason Healey, a former White House staffer for infrastructure protection and intelligence officer who’s now a research scholar on cyber conflict at Columbia University.
    A vastly larger, more powerful military — one especially feared for its cyber-military prowess — has allowed Ukrainians almost unfettered access to the Internet. This has helped them get weapons to citizens and harness social media to rally global political support through direct, emotional appeals backed by stirring visuals.
    “It’s certainly not what anyone predicted,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, a longtime cybersecurity executive and U.S. government adviser who heads Silverado Policy Accelerator.
    Ukraine’s core cyberdefense has done better than expected because it focused on the issue after Russian hackers briefly knocked out power to swaths of the country in 2015 and 2016, said David Cowan, a veteran cybersecurity venture capitalist and corporate director, and because it has had help from American and European experts.
    “I would have thought that by now Russia would have been disabled a lot more infrastructure around communications, power and water,” Cowan said. “If Russia were attacking the U.S., there would be more cyber damage.”
    The absence of major disruptions predicted by cyberwar doctrine has allowed Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to deliver propaganda coups with little more than a smartphone and a data link. Images of civilian casualties, the brutal shelling of cities and also some Russian losses have undermined that nation’s claims of a limited and humane “special military operation.” A viral audio clip of Ukrainian soldiers on a tiny island telling a Russian warship to “go f--- yourself” has become a defining moment of national resistance.
    “It’s become a global participatory thing. Everybody thinks they’re part of it,” said Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis for Kentik, which tracks global data flows. “It would be a lot harder to do all that if there was a blackout.”
    Ukraine has not escaped unscathed, and some experts warn that cyberattacks or Internet outages could grow as Russia’s invasion intensifies in the face of unexpectedly stout resistance.
    Russia or its allies already have deployed software to wipe data off some Ukrainian computers, including border control offices. But such intrusions are not nearly as widespread as in past attacks such as NotPetya, in which fake ransomware attributed to the Russian government caused billions of dollars in damages, much of it in Ukraine.
    “I do not think the destructive malware had an impact of any significance,” said Vikram Thakur, head of threat intelligence at Broadcom’s Symantec division.
    Russia also may be holding back to some extent, for strategic reasons or because the timeline for the invasion was so closely held that cyber teams did not know what to target or when.
    An invading army might be expected to quickly cut backbone cables or switch them off through hacks, said Madory, a former Air Force communications engineering officer.
    But neither has happened. And Madory isn’t sure why.
    “Is it following the playbook? I don’t know if we have the right playbook,” Madory said. “So far the Internet is still up.”
    “You need to develop access and know how those targets are going to fit into the overall plan of the campaign,” said Trey Herr, director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council.
    He and other experts point to several possible explanations, starting with the possibility that the Russians thought Ukraine would fall so quickly that it wasn’t necessary to damage systems they would want operational once an occupation began. Disabled telecommunication systems — or ones that are bombed — can require costly, time-consuming repairs.
    Last edited by dneal; February 28th, 2022 at 07:56 PM. Reason: typo "mapboarfs" corrected to "mapboards"
    "A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."

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