[helpseeker]

Information from either side is to be taken with a grain of salt, although Ukraine is winning the social media ops-game hands down.

I think since after the 1st week of troop movements it's pretty clear:

- Russia aims at encircling cities, draining the resistance there, forcing them into negotiations and so that enemy combatants can evacuate into western Ukraine (like they did in Syria)

- Ukraine aims at short-term luring them into cities (e.g. preventing humanitarian corridors, creating negative pr) and long-term building up an insurgency (turning Ukraine into Russia's 2nd Afghanistan).

A recipe for humanitarian disaster.

The upside: Russia doesn't seem intent to even set foot in western Ukraine.

[kspacewalk2]

>Ukraine aims at short-term luring them into cities (e.g. preventing humanitarian corridors,

In what way is Ukraine "preventing" humanitarian corridors? Ukraine is requesting them daily, but Russian troops keep bombing them and disrupting the evacuation of civilians, daily.

[thiagoharry]

In Mariupol there are accusations against Azov Battalion that they are preventing people to leave the city. For the defensive side it is useful to have human shield preventing attacks. In the Internet there are also videos of people being shot trying to leave the city.

https://twitter.com/oulosP/status/1498365157747081218

[terafo]

Russians shelled civilian infrastructure(water supply, power plant), and shoot everyone who was trying to fix it, they didn't let in humanitarian convoy. They shelled evacuation meeting point. Twice. And placed landmines on evacuation route. They resorted to similar tactics in previous conflicts.

And if you look at how Russians have been behaving themselves ever since this war has started, then you will realize that Azov don't need civilians as a human shield since Russians are willingly shelling and bombing civilians, and have been doing it ever since this war started. Human shield won't stop Russians.

[guelo]

That's the Russian propaganda. The Ukrainian propaganda says the Russians are the ones preventing people from leaving.

[thiagoharry]

Using civilians as shield makes more sense for defenders, not for attackers. Civilians makes harder to shell and bomb places. The exception is if attackers force civilians to march in front of their troops, which is not the case apparently.

[piva00]

Russia mined the path they themselves had designated as a humanitarian corridor before. To target civilians. This is reported from Mariupol.

Please, don't come with conjectures about Ukrainians using civilians as a meat shield, this is either utterly bollocks or you need a pretty convincing source for that statement.

[dTal]

>Civilians makes harder to shell and bomb places

Not if you're Russian.

[manicdee]

The (reports are that) Russians are using civilians for target practise and hostages, not human shields.

[dTal]

Reports? There's video all over the internet. Yesterday I saw a video of a solitary civilian car being lit up by machine gun fire before taking a couple shells. I'm told there were accompanying photos of a dead couple in their 80s, which I didn't look at because I want to sleep at night.

[dzikimarian]

>Ukraine aims at short-term luring them into cities (e.g. preventing humanitarian corridors

I'm living relatively close to Ukrainian border, and helped moving Ukrainians further into the country. That's really weird not single one mentioned, that he has issues leaving due to other Ukrainians. Actually exact opposite.

Even weirder multiple people are parroting this today on HN.

[keewee7]

>Even weirder multiple people are parroting this today on HN.

HN is read by many influential Silicon Valley people. It's definitely the target of Russian psyops.

[AlwaysRock]

100% this. I remember the USA's "Mission Accomplished" line/speech and the years of American propaganda that followed which said we were doing great things in the middle east. In reality we blew up a lot of people (soldiers and civilians), cities, and spent a shit load of money to accomplish what?

I'm very skeptical of any news coming from either side currently.

[SiNiquity]

There's a limit to open mindedness. Ukraine is not "luring [the Russian military] into [its] cities," they're defending their cities from an invading force.

[AlwaysRock]

Sure. I'm very skeptical that Ukraine is luring the Russian military into their cities. That is my point. I'm skeptical of news from both sides because there is a lot of propaganda involved in war news.

[frankharv]

I would say we toppled a dictator. It is a role we fulfilled as world police. High strength aluminum tubes speech was just an intelligence blunder.

[euroderf]

It was a war of aggression.

[s1artibartfast]

>Information from either side is to be taken with a grain of salt, although Ukraine is winning the social media ops-game hands down.

At lest in the west where our information is censored to provide a Pro-Ukrainian perspective.

I can only guess at how the social media ops-game is playing out in Russia and China within their own propaganda bubble.

[oezi]

Can you clarify how are our information censored in the west? Like specifically what kind of information is actively suppressed by a government actor?

[s1artibartfast]

I don't have any evidence of government action so I assume it is voluntary. A simple example is I tried to Google search Ukrainian troop locations last weekend and got zero hits.

A number of Wikipedia articles for historic events are also actively being revised

[thesmok]

> A simple example is I tried to Google search Ukrainian troop locations last weekend and got zero hits.

Starting Feb 24th, every Ukrainian knows to never photograph our troops, never post about location of our troops, and to photograph and post enemy troops as much as possible. That's why you can easily find photos of vehicles marked Z, but it's very hard to find photos of vehicles wearing pixel camo.

[s1artibartfast]

That makes sense.

That doest explain why any loosely related information was scraped from the internet from the dawn of time

[xdennis]

> A simple example is I tried to Google search Ukrainian troop locations last weekend and got zero hits.

Looks like the rumors are true: you Russians are using Google to search for targets. It's hilarious that you're complaining that this is censorship when saying "war" gets you 15 years in gaol in Russia.

[s1artibartfast]

I didn't say it was the end of the world.

Just an example of information being delisted from search engines in the west. i.e. censorship.

I don't like my government participating in a war while being censored form learning about what is going in that war from public sources. These could include statements from my own government, past or present.

[thiagoharry]

Well, if the same oligarchies that influences the government by lobby also are the owners of big media companies, you do not need the direct involvement of government to censor the information and you can keep the image of a free press.

[swagasaurus-rex]

Hint: they blame the USA and NATO for Putin invading

[s1artibartfast]

I assume you were talking about me. I think blame is a stupid and fruitless framing for discussion. I do think the Eastward advance of NATO was a strategic and moral mistake.

[frankharv]

Moral mistake to stand up to a bully?

That is the only reason NATO still exists.

We literally paid hundreds millions of dollars to prop up Russia and their nuke labs during Yeltsin.

Look what it got us. We should have snuffed them out like cockroaches. Instead we let them live. To our detriment.

We needed to keep the boogeyman alive.

[s1artibartfast]

You have to reconsider who is the bully given the number of countries invaded, governments toppled, and civilians killed by the US in the last 30 years.

The US takes the cake in all categories, but of course we aren't a bully, all the people we kill were the bullies. We are the strongest so we define who is a bully or not.

>We should have snuffed them out like cockroaches. Instead we let them live. To our detriment.

yeah, you really sound like the good guy here

[Seb-C]

The difference is that the US does not conquer, colonize, or annex the territories where they fight. It's even quite the opposite, since they usually try to give them freedom, independence and long term stability (with variable success and moral standing, but still)...

[chii]

The whataboutism is heavy. The USA aint no saints, but that doesn't absolve putin's invasion. "They did it first, so we should be allowed" isn't a defensible justification for war.

[cbdumas]

How do you think you would feel about that if you lived in Lithuania?

[pmoriarty]

What price is preventing WW3 worth?

I would say any price, as after WW3 civilization as we know it, if not all of humanity will perish.

It is WW3 that we are edging towards in this war over NATO membership.

[dTal]

If the world demonstrates that possession of nuclear weapons is sufficient to ensure safety even while committing indefensible wars of conquest and aggression, then WW3 becomes more likely, not less. Our response to unacceptable behavior by nation-states should be swift and painful.

[CRConrad]

> It is WW3 that we are edging towards in this war over NATO membership.

It's not a "war over NATO membership"; that's just the Putler-propaganda framing of it.

[maury91]

I live in Lithuania and I'm glad we are part of Nato or now we will be the ones invaded by Russia

[s1artibartfast]

If I lived in Lithuania I would probably feel very scared of Russia, and not care much about what is good for NATO, the US, and the world. If I thought I would be accepted without repercussions, I would probably want that.

[testrun]

Lithuanians disagrees. This is why they applied for EU and NATO membership as quickly as they can. The Baltic states also was the first to leave the USSR. They always wanted to be free.

[tdiff]

My personal impression is that Russian propaganda targets internal audience mostly, so its not fair to compare it to the Ukranians one.

[xdennis]

You'd be surprised. While most people here in Romania are anti-Russia, some believe their propaganda that there's no war in Ukraine. They literally think that all the videos from Ukraine are fake.

It's sort of like the Cambridge Analytica thing. We live in bubbles, and we're unaware that in some bubbles the Russians are completely winning the propaganda war.

The overzealous covid response further fragmented society and led to further distrust of the media. This created a huge opportunity for Russia.

For now, it's not significant enough to matter, but it might come to bite us in the ass.

[maxlamb]

Ukraine is not “luring” Russia into cities. Putin made quite clear he wants a regime change, so Russia must capture major cities to meet its goals. That would be like rephrasing “Thieves robbed bank” to “Bank lured thieves with cash”. That’s some bizarre victim blaming way of phrasing things.

[koonsolo]

So what are all those Belarusian military doing there at the border?

I think they officially said they were doing exercises and will not invade Ukraine. So no worries.

[CRConrad]

> The upside: Russia doesn't seem intent to even set foot in western Ukraine.

That seems to have changed since you wrote this five days ago.