I would bet we have special ops ("little blue men?") there advising, if nothing else on cyber but probably also on urban counter measures learned from when we were the bad guys.
In a dramatic escalation of East-West tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian nuclear forces put on high alert Sunday in response to what he called “aggressive statements” by leading NATO powers.
The order to put Russia’s nuclear weapons in an increased state of readiness for launch raised fears that the crisis could boil over into nuclear warfare, whether by design or miscalculation.
Amid the mounting tensions, Ukraine announced that a delegation would meet with Russian officials for talks. But the Kremlin’s ultimate intentions toward Ukraine — and what steps might be enough to satisfy Moscow — remained unclear.
The fast-moving developments came as Russian troops drew closer to Kyiv, a city of almost 3 million, street fighting broke out in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, and strategic ports in the country’s south came under pressure from the invading forces. Ukrainian defenders put up stiff resistance that appeared to slow the invasion.
Putin, in giving the nuclear alert directive, cited not only statements by NATO members but the hard-hitting financial sanctions imposed by the West against Russia, including the Russian leader himself.
Protesters in Minsk have encircled the building of the General Staff of the Defence Ministry of Belarus and are chanting "Glory to Ukraine"
The road to Basra 2.0The art of translation: just tryin to capture the spirit of the thing.
Double u tee eff did he think was going to happen??Putin, in giving the nuclear alert directive, cited not only statements by NATO members but the hard-hitting financial sanctions imposed by the West against Russia, including the Russian leader himself.
Double u tee eff did he think was going to happen??
In the early days of the conflict, the use of cluster munitions even appear to have impacted sites around schools and hospitals.
Cluster munitions are a type of weapon that deploy a large number of smaller sub-munitions over a target. These sub-munitions then spread and explode over a larger area, increasing the potential for damage and casualties.
Due to the wide harm they can cause, cluster munitions are widely criticised as weapons that pose “an immediate threat to civilians during conflict” and for the “long-lasting” problems they can cause if sub-munitions do not explode upon first impact.
More than 100 countries have banned their use and signed up to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. However, neither Russia nor Ukraine (which also possesses cluster munitions) has put their name to this agreement.
Russia has continued to use them, most notably in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and later in Syria.
Ukraine strongly denied using cluster munitions during the conflict with Russian-backed separatists in the east of the country in 2015, despite a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report that stated they likely had.
In recent days, social media images and videos have allowed Bellingcat – along with other conflict monitors and open source researchers – to geolocate the impact sites of several cluster munitions to civilian areas within Ukraine.
We have also been able to determine the probable direction from which the missiles came, providing a clue as to who may have fired them.
In some instances, the number of casualties appears to have been significant.
For example, HRW have investigated and verified use of cluster munitions that landed just outside a Ukrainian hospital, pointing the finger of blame at Russia and calling for Russian forces to “stop using cluster munitions and end unlawful attacks with weapons that indiscriminately kill and maim”.
Jake Tapper
@jaketapper
Interesting from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fl, vice chair of Senate Intel Committee, who notes that Putin “has created a system of people not telling him bad news or facts that contradict his preferences. “He also appears to have some neuro/physiological health issues…