US, Europe formally blame Russia for data wiper attacks against Ukraine, Viasat The US and the European Union have officially blamed Russia for a series of destructive data-wiping malware infections in Ukrainian government and private-sector networks – and said they will "take steps" to defend against and respond to Kremlin-orchestrated attacks. Beginning in January, and continuing after Russian troops …
I do feel there is no way back for him this time around considering he's about to labelled a war criminal - disk wiping malware accusations will be the least of their problems. It will be an interesting summer as all his friends at the Duma watch their private jets gather dust in Dubai, their yachts rot in the various European ports where they've been seized and watch helplessly as their country is time-warped back to 1991 and their hard-won energy foreign currency reserves are used to re-build the country they've just destroyed... not to mention in 2 years they'll have no more gas/oil customers in Europe anyway... oops.
I just saw Ukrainian counter attacks reached the border of Russia last night north of Kharkiv and are 15km outside Kherson in the South. Still time for someone to serve him a cup of polonium tea...
It's not that simple a dynamic.
My take:
Putin's been cleansing the Eastern portion of Ukraine. The only people left are the pro-Putin populace, with large numbers moved into Russian prison camps and filtering camps and a lot have fled across the borders. He'll try to run a poll of that cleansed subset of the populace and claim they want to be Russian and be saved from 'Nazi Ukraine'..
Over in the West, his agents there (think Tucker Carlson and the Fox News crew, Josh Hawley, Gaetz, Trump, Ron Johnson, Rand Paul etc. and over in Europe, Le Pen, Orban, Vucic... there are many) will try to sell it as "trying to find a peaceful democratic solution" to buy them a ceasefire, with time to hold the fake poll, and to sell the poll as the wishes of those Ukrainian people.
Putin wants the gas and oil Ukraine has yet to tap, not its people. This is why he has no issue bombing schools and hospitals to drive those people out, he does not need a compliant populace at the end, he needs a wasteland. Tucker's lot, want the dark money, hacking tools, intel, laundering, and all off-books election help Putin can give them, things not available to candidates who don't side with Putin. Each group's motives are clear.
So, the best scenario is that Ukraine drives out Russia, keeps going, cripples the Russian army, makes Russians realize the line they crossed, can be crossed both ways. Russia can never be a threat to Ukraine again, Putin falls on his sword, Ukraine settles with whoever replaces him and Ukraine returns back to safety and withdraws to its border. But this scenario is unlikely.
More likely a scenario, IMHO, Ukraine will drive them back, and stop at the border, Putin will remain in power (killing opponents), keep attacking, withdrawing, attacking, withdrawing over a period of years. His puppets over in the west will sell it as a never ending war that needs a peaceful democratic solution (i.e. a fake poll that hands Ukraine oil and gas over to Putin). They'll aim to get Trump in in 2024, to end US support and if they succeed, US will be a military intelligence feed to Russia, help them attack Ukraine, and primary driver of the "peaceful"/"democratic" carve-up solution.
So I would hope: Ukraine does not stop at the border and does not slow down before the finish line. Republicans clean house of their Putin puppets, a difficult job given Trump is spiking their primaries to put his pro-Putin nutjobs in. Democrats tackle their Kyrsten problem, she's blocked all their key legislation, lay blame where blame is due, at Sinema's door. Europe, has to do as much damage as it can to Russia as quickly as it can. None of that Macron weakness, paint the missiles in Ukrainian colors and sink every Russian ship and sub you can. Strike every military base you can, even inside Russia, especially at the Belarus border in places like Smolensk. Aim to get Russia crippled and Belarus flipped. You cannot let them regroup and re-arm.The window to do that is shrinking, they need to be less complacent and double down *through* the finish line.
But that's just my opinion.
As to this hack, well criminals and governments will always hack. It doesn't matter whether its Russia or Australia or Germany (or a Putin friendly US hacking its former allies), they will hack and your kit needs to be secure enough not to get hacked. No backdoors, no crippling of encryption, never ever.
So where is the "finishing line" to which you want the Ukrainians to fight? Moscow? Vladivostok?
Napoleon and Hitler tried to invade Russia. Their best generals fought back - Generals Janvier and Février - who didn't even have nukes.
Besides, Putin is a street thug, who relates that he learned his most important lesson from a rat that he cornered when he was a kid. Inexplicably, I got downvoted for pointing that out before.
Слава України! nevertheless.
Then of course there are russian 'members of parliament' (or put another way paid sham merchants) who have stated publicly on video that Ukraine should cease to exist, Ukrainians should cease to exist and it should be expunged from history (I guess including the part where russia tried to starve the entire population to death after ww2)
Having been banned from linked in and quora for pointing this out and even for them pointing to the video on youtube I wonder how long before I am banned here.
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