tal

tal, 9 months ago

The CNS reports that GardService was founded by Lukashenko's decree in 2019 to engage them in countering the opposition in the event of an "unfavourable political scenario" for Lukashenko.

I guess that obtaining foreign mercenaries is one way to ensure political control over your country if things go badly.

tal, 9 months ago

Specifically, he asked him to collect the geolocations of thermoelectric power plants in Kyiv.

Reportedly, the Russians were collecting this information to prepare for new missile attacks on Kyiv in the cold weather.

How can Russia not already know that? That seems like it wouldn't be terribly secret, and seems like something they would have gathered prior to the war anyway.

Are we talking about very small generation stations set up since the start of the war, like diesel generators or something? Otherwise, I can't figure out how this would make sense.

EDIT:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-12/generators-help-shops-keep-lights-on-for-ukrainians-hit-by-war

Ukraine imported more than half a million generators in 2022, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

Maybe larger ones among those?

tal, 9 months ago

The article author doesn't know; he covers a number of possibilities.

Given that Russia is doing this with a number of their warplanes, it's probably in response to the Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian military aircraft which recently happened, but it's not entirely clear specifically what it's intended to defend against or how.

tal, 9 months ago

Perun did a video a while back entitled "Ukraine's vital ally — why Poland matters in the Russian-Ukrainian war".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSPhOWDkcPk