Ukraine asks ICANN to delete all Russian domains In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine last week, Mykhailo Fedorov, First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, on Monday asked the head of DNS overlord ICANN to disable country code top-level domains associated with Russia. In an email [PDF], Fedorov asked Göran Marby, CEO of ICANN, to impose sanctions on Russia, arguing …
Yes, if that's what it takes. You ignore the schoolyard bully and the only thing it does is empower him to do even worse.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
Kick him, and his constituents, off the communication network of civilized people. I'm all for it. If "But you'll harm the general population!", then that's what happens when the general population empowers a sociopath.
This begs the question of what constitutes appropriate actions to counter a move by an instigator.
Would Japan have surrendered with the conventional bombings and dropping two nuclear bombs, which combined killed between 300,000 and 900,000 civilians?
Would Germany have fallen without the bombing raids by the allied forces, which killed 570,000 and 800,000 civilians?
Today's (western) culture no longer accepts this as ethical or acceptable. Unfortunately, adversaries tend to abide by different ethics. Worse, they make the western reluctance/refusal a key part of their strategy.
As for "removing the word RUSSIA on envelopes", one would expect great support for such initiatives given the removal of anything from western societies that is even remotely linked to its troubled past.
"not taking a position in this conflict but allowing States to act accordingly, e.g. blocking all traffic from a particular state."
In its munificence, Almighty Icann will allow states to what which where??? Who the hell does he think he, or ICANN, is? In any case, blocking traffic isn't anything to do with top level domain names, it will be done by dropping BGP4 announcements and VPNs.
FYI, there are numerous DNS root servers in Russia and Belarus, and about 10 in Ukraine. https://root-servers.org/ tells all.
Who the hell does ICANN think they are?
Who the hell does ICANN think they are???!!!!!!
They are the ones who grant domains. And those who can give, can take away.
Period.
Damn you people need to grow up. Especially the downvoters and the critics of this move. People are DYING in an illegal military invasion (the International Court has just opened a war crimes investigation) and all you people can say is that your little personally-involved tech world shouldn't be touched or affected, "Because!!".
Get some mortals AND some backbone.
They are usually the top most abused registrar quarter after quarter according to Spamhaus. Registrars that are bigger aren't even in the top 20.
https://www.spamhaus.org/news/images/botnet-report-2021-q1/spamhaus-botnet-report-2021-q1.pdf
"Namecheap (again!)
After years of being #1 in this Top 20, Namecheap (US)
continues to be the preferred domain registrar for
miscreants registering botnet C&C domains.
When will this change? We don’t know. But given the
long history of abuse at Namecheap, we don’t expect it
to be any time soon!"
It is not about being the cheapest. It is about Namecheap not caring when abuse is reported. As long as the abuse didn't come from their servers, they don't care what someone uses the domain for. If the domain is on blacklist and reported, they will take action. If you send an abuse complaint to Namecheap, they won't do anything. Send the same information to the gTLD and they do something. So the issue is Namecheap.
NameCheap has actually turned over a new leaf and now has a security team that will respond in minutes if you tag them in a tweet with the domain in question.
No need to fill out abuse forms or jump through hoops. They usually respond in minutes and in most cases will nuke the domain from abort within minutes after responding.
Now if all the other registrars would do the same...
Blocking all TLD Russian domains would hurt ordinary Russian citizens and business who have nothing to do with the invasion of Ukraine more than anything to do with the government. And could even affect some business based outside of Russia who registered a RU or SU domain purely because they wanted one.
I own a .PE domain name but am not based in Peru, targeting residents of Peru or have even been to the country.
If there are specific domain names the Russian government are using for propaganda purposed in their war then sure these domains should be revoked by ICANN
"Blocking all TLD Russian domains would hurt ordinary Russian citizens and business who have nothing to do with the invasion of Ukraine more than anything to do with the government."
So so all the banking measures which have been taken. If ICANN flies in the face of the world opinion they might find they've become IWAS.
And unless you're a dummy or too young to read about WW1, you know that doesn't work. It actually has the perverse affect of rallying the ordinary citizen behind even a mad man.
If ordinary Americans and businesses were isolated, shunned, blocked and sanctioned by the rest of the world, I guarantee you the majority of suffering Americans would get behind even D.Trump to show the world.
But if you've read the History of WW2, you will also see that appeasing a mad Dictator, also doesnt end well.
Today, Putin (Hitler) is invading Ukraine (Poland), but that's ok, he wont go further. He has absolutely no need to attack further into Estonia (Belgium), Lithuania (Netherlands), Latvia (France). Or the rest of the old Soviet Union/Eastern Bloc (Holy Roman Empire).
Both madmen wanting to create and recreate old empires. Appeasement doesnt work.
Actually I was thinking about it some more and the parallels to WW1 history are pretty good, except that I would posit that the break up of the Soviet Union was the modern equivalent to the end of WW1, and that the people rallying behind a dictatorial strongman was the rise to power of Putin.
Major difference that I see is that whilst Hitler actually had pretty widespread support for his wars of expansion, Putin does not seem to have anywhere near those levels of support. At least not from the people. I wonder if that will have any effect in the coming period. Here's hoping the Russian people can have some effect to stop their Dictator...
It's worth remembering that Germany lost WW1 largely because of loss of support for their own government at home.
WW1 analogies are tough, though; neither side is clearly "the good guy" or "the bad guy", and when it boils down to it, the whole thing was essentially different branches of the ruling classes (in this case, cousins in the same royal family) fighting each other for control over the peasants.
WW2 analogies are a bit better, in the sense that there is a clear dictatorial aggressor attempting to seize the lands of others, on various historical pretexts (annexation of the Sudetenland, anyone?) in order to grow an empire.
I really hope this doesn't grow into WW3, and I think the thing that may save us is the fact that few other countries seem to be ready to stand behind Russia in this aggression. The biggest danger is China, but they know that their economy depends on the West.
No, it really wasn't. By that point, petroleum wasn't as critical to the world as it is today. In fact, it went the other way--because of World War I, petroleum became more commonly used, for example replacing coal as the fuel for most naval ships. The participants in the war weren't major petroleum producers. The closest you get is Russia, which produced it but whose production wasn't targeted, the Netherlands, which produced it from their colonies in Indonesia, and the Ottoman Empire, which didn't produce it but could threaten the place (Persia) where the British were getting theirs. The land that changed hands wasn't taken for oil wealth. It turns out that the land lost by the Ottomans had a lot of it, but that wasn't known until later.
WW1 analogies are tough, though; neither side is clearly "the good guy" or "the bad guy", and when it boils down to it, the whole thing was essentially different branches of the ruling classes (in this case, cousins in the same royal family) fighting each other for control over the peasants.
I think you're confusing WW1 with the Hundred Years War. In 1914 Britain was a parliamentary democracy and France was a republic. Neither had much in the way of peasants.
In 1914 many UK adults were still disenfranchised by the criteria for having a vote.
In 1918 a more universal suffrage was achieved - still excluding some women under 30.
It was 1928 before all adults had a vote.
Germany lost WW1 because the US was brought into WW1.
After 1916 Asquith is prepared to sue for peace but instead was deposed and replaced with Lloyd George and Balfour, who issued the Balfour declaration.
It is suggested the Balfour declaration was payment for bringing the US into WW1.
https://www.wrmea.org/005-november/special-report-the-hidden-history-of-the-balfour-declaration.html
The War bonds that financed the allies went through a single US agent, the House of Morgan, which is now JP Morgan - Also the weapons went through them.
So when it looked like the allies would lose, a lot of effort went into making that private debt now the federal reserve problem. Morgan was an agent of the Rothschilds and other Rich people, so it was private cash that was at risk
https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/feds-role-during-wwi It's notable that the Balfour declaration is addressed to the Rothschilds in the UK.
Under these circumstances, it became impossible for Morgan to find new buyers for the Allied war bonds, neither for fresh funding nor to replenish the old bonds which were coming due and facing default. This was serious on several counts. If bond sales came to a halt, there would be no money to continue purchasing war materials. Commissions would be lost at both ends. Furthermore, if the previously sold bonds were to go into default, as they certainly would if Britain and France were forced to accept peace on Germany's terms, the investors would sustain gigantic losses. Something had to be done. But what? Robert Ferrell hints at the answer:
In the mid thirties a Senate committee headed by Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota investigated the pre-1917 munitions trade and raised a possibility that the Wilson administration went to war because American bankers needed to protect their Allied loans.
https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/25783813-peter-palms/4550806-role-of-j-p-morgan-in-providing-loans-to-england-and-france-in-world-war-i-souring-of-loans
Finally there was a ship sunk while Americans were aboard, this ship was essentially delivering arms supplied to an embargoed waters, There is some dispute about the details, but that was enough to get congress over the line.
The fact that the Lusitania was a passenger ship is misleading. Although she was built as a luxury liner, her construction specifications were drawn up by the British Admiralty so that she could be converted, if necessary, into a ship of war. Everything from the horsepower of her engines and the shape of her hull to the placement of ammunition storage areas were, in fact, military designs. She was built specifically to carry twelve six-inch guns. The construction costs for these features were paid for by the British government. Even in times of peace, it was required that her crew include officers and seamen from the Royal Navy Reserve.In May of 1913, she was brought back into dry dock and outfitted with extra armor, revolving gun rings on her decks, and shell racks in the hold for ammunition. Handling elevators to lift the shells to the guns were also installed. Twelve high-explosive cannons were delivered to the dry dock. All this is a matter of public record at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, but whether the guns were actually installed at that time is still hotly debated. There is no evidence that they were. In any event, on September 17, the Lusitania returned to sea ready for the rigors of war, and she was entered into the Admiralty fleet register, not as a passenger liner, but an armed auxiliary cruiser! From then on, she was listed in Jane's Fighting Ships as an auxiliary cruiser and in the British publication, The Naval Annual, as an armed merchant man.1
The suggestion is that Churchill had it sunk on purpose
One of the officers present in the high-command map room on that fateful day was Commander Joseph Kenworthy, who pre-
viously had been called upon by Churchill to submit a paper on what would be the political results of an ocean liner being sunk with American passengers aboard. He left the room in disgust at the cynicism of his superiors. In 1927, in his book, The Freedom of the Seas, he wrote without further comment: "The Lusitania was sent at considerably reduced speed into an area where a U-boat was known to be waiting and with her escorts withdrawn."
The US President at the time Wilson is selected and controlled by a guy called House.
Lloyd George, Mark Sykes, Balfour in the UK are avowed Zionists and have dealings with a guy called Weizmann - Louis Brandeis is Weizmann's US counterpart who also has Wilson's ear.
https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/brandeiss-role-in-balfour-513175
Brandeis also brought his influence to bear on the Wilson administration in the negotiations leading up to the Balfour Declaration and the Paris Peace Conference. In July 1919 he visited Palestine.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Brandeis#ZionismLater in 1919 Brandeis broke with Chaim Weizmann, the leader of the European Zionism.
So the working evidence seems to support the idea that a confluence of interests made it possible for rich men to push the US into war to avoid losing their investment, and the go between got Palestine for their trouble.
https://www.wrmea.org/005-november/special-report-the-hidden-history-of-the-balfour-declaration.htm
Has a nice time line
The Balfour-Weizmann agreement of October 1916 was and remains entirely secret.
The Sykes meeting served as a sort of decoy.
In the few months between these two events, the following had taken place:
The civilian head of codebreaking “Room 40” in London had been replaced by the director of Naval Intelligence.
Von Jagow, who had served since 1913, was replaced by Zimmermann as German foreign secretary.
Asquith, who had served as British prime minister since 1908, was removed from power, and a new War Cabinet was formed, in which Lloyd George was prime minister and Balfour foreign minister—both friends of Zionism since 1903.
The key to German code 7500 was betrayed to Room 40.
A draft of the ZT was concocted in London and presented to Zimmermann by one of his subordinates in Berlin.
The ZT was transmitted by cable from Berlin to Washington on Jan. 16, 1917. It was copied by Room 40 and promptly de-coded. Note that this is incompatible with Tuchman’s story but entirely consistent with Dugdale’s account.
Thus, by the time of the Sykes-Zionist meeting of Feb. 7, 1917, the Zionist part of the bargain had been accomplished, and America was as good as at war. All that remained was for the British to find the best time and method for revealing the contents of the ZT to President Wilson and for him to convince Congress and the American people to go to war.
Brandeis gets lots of blame, but it seems a lot of work was done to pull it off https://firstworldwarhiddenhistory.wordpress.com/category/zionism-2/louis-brandeis/
Today, Putin (Hitler) is invading Ukraine (Poland)
Czechoslovakia would be a better comparison rather than Poland i.e. the Munich agreement, Chamberlain's "peace for our time" etc., as Putin invading the Ukraine will (hopefully) not kick off WW3, but invading a NATO country inevitably will, as happened last time with Poland and WW2...
There was no political support in UK during the Munich crisis for starting war.
The British armed forces weren't in a position to fight either - RAF and Army expansion and equipping was underway but not yet complete.
In that sense Appeasement worked to prevent a war at that time. And had the Battle of France not gone wrong, perhaps WWII would have played out more like WWII - but counter-factuals are difficult to assess.
Russia invaded Finland in 1939 - and were surprised by the effectiveness of the resistance. A Finnish minister told me that the problem was that they eventually couldn't stop the tanks coming across the relatively flat terrain in the south. He also added "If the Russians invade again - we will fight again even if overwhelmed". That is their national spirit of "Sisu".
The Russians were impeded by their poor quality coding of tactical information. The British could read it and passed the information onto them.
However, bear in mind that although that war seemed irrational there were rational reasons for it. The reason the war(s) started is that Finnish territory was adjacent to the big Kronstadt naval base outside Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and so threatened it and Finland refused to give guarantees of neutrality to Russia. As it turned out Finland became a de facto German ally and participated actively in the siege of Leningrad.
"As it turned out Finland became a de facto German ally [...]"
It apparently had little material impact. It was forced on Finland by the refusal of the UK and France to give any formal assistance. A few UK armed service volunteers did go to Finland.
IIRC Mannerheim negotiated with Germany in such a way that his own future resignation automatically made the treaty void.
Finland eventually removed any German troops on the Norwegian access - and took great pride in finally paying off all the war reparations that were laid on them.
@martinusher
That was a lot of rubbish, all of it, "like Finland refused to give guarantees of neutrality " and "Finland became a de facto German ally" and "participated actively in the siege of Leningrad.".
Not even the Russians claim stuff like that, educated Russian that is.
Who are you?.
Your analogy of Poland is correct, but Hitler did not invade France, Belgium and the Netherlands until AFTER England and France declared war on Germany
Just like NATO Article 5 states that any attack on a NATO country will result in a response from all NATO Countries, England and France had that same arrangement with Poland. It is interesting that they did not declare war on the USSR who also invaded Poland.
England and France had no justification to declare war on Germany prior to the Poland invasion. I do agree that economic isolation may have gone a long way to stop the German military buildup prior to the war. That did not happen because too many people in the west were making a lot of money from Germany in a time of economic depression. (Prescott Bush for one, father and grandfather of 2 US presidents)
So a more apt comparison would be if Putin attacked the Baltic states, then NATO would have no choice but to respond. But today we have nuclear weapons, which puts the west between a very hard rock and a very dangerous hard place!
No, appeasement doesn't work, but neither generally do sanctions. It's not an either/or.
With respect to sanctions, they usually impact the general public, pushing them to further support the regime, while having little impact on the rich and powerful who still have access to numerous resources. That's why to be effective sanctions must be targeted at things used exclusively by the rich and powerful... International travel and property ownership, finance, luxury goods.
With respect to 'appeasement', not getting tough on Putin will simply encourage him to go further (and also encourage China to take over Taiwan). For example, the response to the Russian annexation of Crimea was not strong enough.
Having said that, it's utterly insane of NATO countries to publically consider including Ukraine, since they were poking the bear with a sharp stick while clearly not committed enough to declare war on Russia over the invasion of Ukraine.
But if you've read the History of WW2, you will also see that appeasing a mad Dictator, also doesnt end well.
Sure. But the question is, is maintaining the .ru domain (etc.) the equivalent of appeasement? What would the 1930s equivalent have been? Blocking mail service to/from Germany?
Even during WWII, mail service continued via neutral countries (I knew soomeone n the US who received mail from a German relative... yes, the letter was presumably read, and the envelope endorsed by both German and US censors).
If you've a nodding acquaintance with the events of WW2, you'll remember that it was an American embargo on oil and metal to Japan that provoked the Japanese to strike Pearl Harbor, staking everything on a very-long-shot war against a much larger power.
Appeasement doesn't work, okay. But sanctions have a much longer history of not working, going back to the Continental System of 1806-1814. More recently they haven't worked against Cuba, Iraq, Iran or Syria. Maybe this time is different, I don't know. But I don't see why.
You are completely off the mark you buffoon. The USA ( check the Washington Post .. ( FOX not being a news outlet that has shown ANY credibility but a relay for Russian propaganda and right wing extremism )) is behind Biden and the world condemning and acting to make Russia pay for their agression. Trump is considered a traitor and a tool of the soviets.
Show me a newspaper that doesnt....
There is not a single agenda free newspaper, much like the bible choose one that fits your political leanings and read between the lines
That said fox is the drizzling shits, seriously do they only employ hosts whose eyes are too close together?
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"you do know Trump never won the "popular" vote"
The Presidential election isn't decided by a popular vote so no candidate conducts their campaign with that as a target.
Somebody did a nice topo map of votes by party for the 2016 US election and while Hillary won the popular vote, all of her votes were concentrated in the largest cities. By land mass, she lost by a wide margin and lost via the Electoral College, which is the metric for a win.
These sorts of arguments are just like saying the losing player in a chess match had more remaining pieces on the board. It doesn't matter.
"The Presidential election isn't decided by a popular vote".
My response was to a guy who claimed Trump was "popular", get it perhaps.
The American tragedy is that you came to copy an idiotic outdated system from the British who also suffer from the same idiocy.
In democratic countries the presidency is won with the popular vote, how else.
And that is perhaps harder to get.
"In democratic countries the presidency is won with the popular vote, how else."
The problem is the US is huge and not all that homogeneous. With a popular vote, The President would be elected by one handful of the largest cities.There has to be some way to elect a President that represents the wishes of a large swath of the country. In California the Governor is mostly elected by San Diego, Los Angeles and San Fransisco. Those are the three largest cities. The trouble is they are a very poor cross section of the state.
The Electoral College isn't perfect, but a strictly popular vote is entirely the wrong direction.
Neither it seems, do we underestimate the nonsense spouted by those who see the world in terms of 'us vs the right ;)
I mean, it beggars belief that someone who was so obviously and catastrophically a borderline right wing extremist can at the same time be accused of being supportive of what has now effectively returned to being dictatorship led by a died-in-the-wool left wing extremist!
So we all imagined president kompromat's commie bromances, requests for russian help for hillery emails, asskissing putin, high fiving kim jong il swapping "love letters".
Fair enough his playground tactic of be mean to whoever you fancy to show them you care didnt really work with china.
But what about Bolsonaro and Duterte they aint lefties, no but both have nice coast lines begging to be ruined with a golf course and tacky hotel.
And yet now we do live in times where America First idiots chant putin, while decrying the left LOL!!!
"led by a died-in-the-wool left wing extremist!".
Yes that is confusing, but when we from our western view look at dictators we call them "left wing" to the east (that is to the right of us) while we call them "right wing" to the west (that is to the left of us) (South America and such).
Indeed confusing, but there is really no difference in methods and aims.
Rupert Murdoch is an interesting example of this confusion.
"Murdoch studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Worcester College, Oxford in England, where he kept a bust of Lenin in his rooms and came to be known as "Red Rupert". ".
And now it would be hard to call him a leftist with his love for guys like Trump.
It must indeed be confusing for a guy like him to choose dictator when the ideal is simply full control, and a dictatorship.
If you go far enough to the left you end up on the right, and visa versa (down side of living on a sphere sorry flat earthers).
Actually lolled when i heard about the pro putin chants and some right wing conference in merikas retirement state. Do the fucknuts not understand putin is all about the restoration of the USSR and misses the good old days of communism ya know (ok i doubt he really belives in the communism that the people have to follow, but certainly in the power and greed of being at the top of a communist state), the most lefty leftist leaning of left wing politics
And unless you're a dummy or too young to read about WW1, you know that doesn't work. It actually has the perverse affect of rallying the ordinary citizen behind even a mad man.
I take it that you just read the bits about the fighting at the front during WW1, and skipped the wider geopolitical and socioeconomic aspects relating to WW1?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Revolution_of_1918
Result:-
Abdication of Emperor Wilhelm II
Monarchy of Germany and its 22 constituent monarchies abolished
Suppression of leftist uprisings, including Spartacist uprising
End of the First World War
Establishment of the Weimar Republic
Sanctions - in the form of naval blockades of Germany - were used in both WWI and WWII.
In WWI it affected support for the war inside Germany, to the extent that an armistice was called ending the fighting before the Allies had to fight their way into Germany itself which prevented some casualties.
In WWII, they stopped Germany from getting raw materials it needed.
"you know that doesn't work. It actually has the perverse affect of rallying the ordinary citizen behind even a mad man."
Maybe if the average Russian person believes they're the ones being attacked and need to defend themselves against Western Devils they'd rally and put up with hardships. In this case the average citizen is a victim much like those in Ukraine (not to the same extent, obviously).
In this case, the loss of Apple Pay, Google Pay, Netflix, foreign currency and goods, etc etc might be more of an impact to what was just a couple of weeks ago, life as usual. I expect that all of the Russian sellers on eBay that have been able to flog off cheap wares that sell into the West due to their being unique aren't going to be very happy. I've bought from them before and have been very happy with the purchases. I was able to get parts for my movie camera that was removed from a Mig-15 along with a manual. So much for any further collections of that sort of thing.
>> would hurt ordinary Russian citizens and business who have nothing to do with the invasion
>Yes. That's usually how sanctions work.
Just today I heard on the Russian state TV in some Two Minutes Hate talk show, 'We have too many self-restrictions regarding the civilian population and civilian infrastructure.'
Do you understand that the Russian people protesting the war are being detained across the country for simply holding "Stop the War" signs for "illegal gatherings" and more than 7'000 were detained already including children? That the Russian authorities threaten the Russians with treason (20 years in jail) for any help to Ukraine including humanitarian? That the Russian TV and newspapers are being censored and are not allowed to call the invasion "a war", only a "special military operation" and several of them were closed already in the past few days for not being obedient enough? That there are special classes now introduced across Russian schools where pupils are taught that Russia is "liberating" Ukraine? That there is a new Russian draft law with up to 15 years jail time for "spreading fake information about Russian military operations"? The Russians have been oppressed internally for the past decade but no other country dared to meddle with Russia's "internal matters".
Now you can see the results. If the Russian people are further isolated from the rest of the world as you seem to wish for, what stops Putin from preying on them? If they see that the West abandoned them, who do they turn to? It is like the opposition radio station, Echo of Moscow, yesterday being censored and disconnected by the Russian authorities for "spreading fake news about the military operation in Ukraine" and the same day banned by Youtube/Google for being "sponsored by Gazprom". A wonderful day for the Kremlin.
There are millions of Russians being held hostage by the Russian regime, risking jail time for simply going out to protest again the war. Please remember about it when trying to de-humanize Russia as a whole.
Peace to all, war criminals will forever burn in hell.
One of the goals of the sanctions is to make the ordinary Russian citizens (and the oligarchs) realize that continuing to support this kleptocracy is probably not in their best interests.
I had been in favour of cutting them off from the internet entirely, but I have a different idea now. Any connection coming out of Russia will be redirected to a Russian language news site giving them the actual facts of what is going on
Given that the term "invasion" or "war" has been banned from the Russian general public and they are being shown prewar footage of Kyiv before Russia started bombing it misrepresented as being current footage with "see, no invasion..." followed by "reports that Russia is bombing Kyiv is false, as you can see" then I'd suggest that's a much, much more productive idea.
I am getting the strong impression that the Russian general public is genuinely under the impression that there is a minor peacekeeping exercise in the east of Ukraine, with a small minority of the younger types who can read English and whom have smartphones and whom are evading censorship getting the full picture.
They also don't know that anybody has been killed; let alone a death toll of six thousand on their side, and rising fast. The really, really scary thing? That actually appears to extend to good parts of the Russian army.
In the Russian army, the people operating the tanks are conscripts. Navigation is done by officers; there are enough videos of Russian conscripts floating saying they are on exercise when confronted angrily by Ukrainians for it to make sense why there an awful lot of Russians just run away when confronted with serious resistance. There are reports of an invasion force staging a mutiny when they realised they were doing a hostile invasion when they started taking fire and another video floating around of a couple of blokes parking a tank in front of a police station and wandering in without any form of weaponry and asking basically "hi, we're here to liberate you and have run out of fuel, could we have some more please" only to break down in tears when gratuitously abused for invading them.
It's genuinely possible that the majority of the people in the Russian army who aren't on the front lines may well actually not know that they are invading somewhere, and others might actually be under the impression that they are coming as liberators with the support of the public; which is a bit disturbing in the information age.
I am reminded of the old trope in (usually comedic) film where a news presenter from a communist bloc nation is shown reading news of some event in the film as filtered through propaganda censors while an arm holding a pistol pointed directly at the presenter's head is clearly visible on-camera.
They also don't know that anybody has been killed; let alone a death toll of six thousand on their side, and rising fast. The really, really scary thing? That actually appears to extend to good parts of the Russian army.
Russian conscripts captured by the Ukrainians have been prompted (asked? forced?) to call their family back home to tell them of their predicament. Which has been received with surprise, anger and grief, with people not even knowing there was an invasion going on, and obviously not the reason for it either.
Even those soldiers themselves often didn't know where they were exactly, or why..
If you were fighting a war and had been captured, wouldn't you want to phone home? That's a pretty natural reaction, especially if you hadn't been allowed to speak to your family for the last month or so by your own army.
On the other hand, it's quite clear that the Ukrainian's are basically telling them that "we'll let you phone home if you ask your parents to spread the word about the fact that Russia is invading" so they are being used. However, that's not particularly unreasonable given the circumstances.
The Russian administration is very adept at spreading misinformation and using the 'fog of war' to confuse 'the enemy'. There is a Russian term for it маскировка (maskirovka).
BBC: How Russia outfoxes its enemies
Wikipedia article: Russian military deception
As a result, I would not be surprised if some of the combatants had been briefed with the story to give if they were captured: That they are unwitting participants. It has several effects - it makes people feel sorry for the dupes, encourages people to underestimate the Russian military capability, and confuses analysts. It's a strategy that costs little, and can have good effect. The story might even be true, but that is irrelevant - the point is to confuse the enemy so much that the enemy does not know what is true and what isn't, and can therefore fail to recognize something significant.
It's war. All 'information' is suspected propaganda. Historians in a few decades might come to a consensus about what was actually happening.
Meanwhile, the satellite imagery clearly shows who the aggressor nation is here.
NN
More on маскировка (maskirovka).
Since its 2008 incursion into Georgia (if not before), there has been a remarkable evolution in Russia's approach to propaganda. This new approach was on full display during the country's 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula. It continues to be demonstrated in support of ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Syria and in pursuit of nefarious and long-term goals in Russia's “near abroad” and against NATO allies....
We characterize the contemporary Russian model for propaganda as “the firehose of falsehood” because of two of its distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions.
...
Contemporary Russian propaganda has at least two other distinctive features. It is also rapid, continuous, and repetitive, and it lacks commitment to consistency.
More in the article, which is also available in Russian.
Once you hold the levers of power and can corrupt the election processes then you don't need the consent of the people.
It is happening in many countries - even the USA and UK are showing signs of crypto-dictator behaviours.
Read the manifesto of the British Union of Fascists from the 1930s. A majority in Parliament would have then implemented rule by one man and his cronies. MPs would be elected from very selected candidates as opposition parties would be banned. Parliament would only be able to debate some issues - it would have no power to overrule the Executive.
That's the falsehood that history keeps telling us to believe: that dictators / despots / corrupt government never "needs the consent of the people".
The system is make UP of "the people". A "dictator" yelling "war!" at the top of his [her] lungs is just a maniac without the hundreds officers who lead thousands, if not millions, of blindly-loyal troops to the front line. An Army is utterly useless and defenseless without millions upon millions of workers behind them that create armaments; grow, package and transport their foodstuffs; design, sew and ship their specialized military uniforms; technicians that design and create their military technologies...
Believing that these sociopathic malcontents manage to destroy the peace of the world for us, do so alone, is what has caused humanity to suffer for millennia. It is easier to point a finger at one person and say "He did it!" than it is to point fingers at all of ourselves and say "We allowed it!".
The consent of a certain proportion of a population will be needed to allow dictatorial rule to happen in a democracy. Once it is in place then it will rely on a Hobbesian structure to keep everyday things running.
Until the new rulers get a full grip on the media, judiciary, police, and armed services - then they will try to maintain their popularity with their particular electorate. Once they have an iron grip then they are free to do as they wish. Anyone who puts their head over the parapet is quickly disposed of - "pour encourager les autres". In that circumstance organising resistance becomes very difficult - people just keep their heads down or pay at least lip service to the new rules.
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"Once you hold the levers of power and can corrupt the election processes then you don't need the consent of the people."
Until it's too late. I remember the images of Ceaușescu and his wife on a balcony, looking panic stricken and trying to pacify the crowd. He was on the end of a rope shortly afterwards.
Ceaușescu lost the support/protection of the police and army. IIRC that was also a factor in the revolution against the Russian Tsar.
The danger then - is who fills the power vacuum. Too often - when the oppressed gain power then they eventually resort to their oppressors' methods to hold on to it.
The danger then - is who fills the power vacuum. Too often - when the oppressed gain power then they eventually resort to their oppressors' methods to hold on to it.
There's a precedent for that:
Wikipedia article: The Reign of Terror in the French Revolution
That bit about harming "ordinary Ru citizens" is utter bullshit. The average Russian is only going to do something about their reigning lunatic when their own pockets start to hurt. Every single Russian bank must be disconnected from SWIFT, instead of this selective disconnection of banks.
Severe sanctions against the whole of South Africa was the only thing that brought around the end of Apartheid. (I am South African).
And the bit about letting the Russian Athletes compete at the Paralympics is equally garbage. South Africa was TOTALLY banned from the Olympics during Apartheid (and rightfully so).
We weren't even allowed to watch British TV/comedy... now THAT was a tragedy ;-)
Putin has already secured the Domain Servers internally, so disconnecting the DNS wont have much affect. other than to lock the Russian public DNS access to overseas websites. The Russian Firewall was tested several years ago. So its only a matter of time before he activates it.
There is also a BIG CYBER attack about to occur against both UA and the rest of the world by the FSB.
Root servers are only queried when a closer server doesn't have the answer cached. Your computer queries your router, which queries your ISP, which queries their upstream, which eventually reaches root.
So if any of those provide an answer, you don't hit root.
And this is done for domain components, top-down. So for theregister.co.uk, only the .uk bit is of interest to root, which would direct requesters to nominet.
All they would have to do is get the ISPs to add a zone to their DNS that says "ru. IN NS x.x.x.x" and then for all their users, any requests for a .ru domain would be directed to x.x.x.x
OK, the rest of the world would miss out, but I doubt that they would care.
any requests for a .ru domain would be directed to x.x.x.x
you mean that to circumvent this DNS blockade, all that the Russians would have to do is to use generic .com domains ? Gee, they'll *never* think of that. And I'm also sure they've never heard about VPNs to some friendly neighboring countries.
I hope for the Ukrainians that they have cleverer people in their country than those asking for such trivialities, or I wouldn't bet much on their future.
I'm old school (and getting "old"), but the original email from NameCheap certainly looks unprofessional. It reads more like an angry, fist-shaking forum post by a whiny keyboard warrior than an actual missive from a corporate entity. Maybe I'm just jaded by the constant, excessive use of the "11" position on the volume knob related to whatever the Social Cause of the Day is, so when something actually serious comes up, it doesn't stand out as much from the background noise. Or maybe I'm just getting old and need to turn-in my acoustic coupler and drop off the Internet...
The world's Woke are backing sanctions against Russia. The Woke claim this is a war against LGBT. Head of MI6 clamed that LGBT rights is what made us better than Putin. Not sure who US is, could be MI6, UK or the west but he boldly asserted it was a war of the Woke against Putin's Bigots.
Is it any wonder the email was an emotional response to a violent war on LGBT rights?
First, I unreservedly support Ukraine against the unprovoked Russian invasion.
But ICANN blocking the internet is a slippery slope that I don't want to start sliding down. Besides which, they have no authority to take compliance action against ccTLD (country code Top Level Domain) operators.
Namecheap, OTOH, is fully capable and authorized to take down individual domains. Furthermore, they have the information to only take down Russian domains which are register by someone in Russia and not a non-Russian company which has a domain to do business in Russia.
P.S. I wouldn't mind if somebody loaned the Ukrainian government a data wiping zero day.
The problem is Putin, the oligarchs, and the military that support him. The common Russian is as much a victim as the common Ukrainian in all this, because Putin and his cohorts don't care about them any more than the Ukrainian people.
They're all just resources to be pillaged as far as they're concerned. This isn't about nationalism or freedom, but power and greed, the same as always.
That sounds suspiciously like the theory that ordinary Germans were the first victims of the Nazis. I don't buy it for them and I don't buy it for the fascist regime in Russia. Putin's repression, like Hitler's, can only happen with the support of innumerable ordinary Russians.
Also by volunteers, like the SS Galicia division. It's history that Ukrainians sided with Hitler, and participated in massacres and ethnic cleansing. Goal was the creation of an independent Ukraine, free from cultural contamination. Ukrainian nationalists also ended up as partisans fighting against the Nazis as well.
But that also lead to some oddities, like the Nurenburg trials criminalising SS membership. But for some reason, many of Galicia's members were allowed to emigrate to the UK and settling there. But such is politics.
It's also one of the complaints Russia made in the past, ie Ukraine revising history to deny their own past. So currently Ukraine is using Babyn Yar for propaganda, and glossing over how Ukraine helped fill that cemetery in the first place. Which I guess is similar to 'war crimes' claims, and hypocrisy. Large numbers of civil buildings and civilians have been killed in places like Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Gaza etc etc, which haven't been treated as war crimes.
Not entirely!
Just like Russia in the 1990's, Germany in the 1920's was an absolute mess! Corruption, rampant inflation, political upheaval. Hitler brought stability, jobs, economic growth, just like Putin did for Russia. Also, Germany was a new country with great nationalistic pride that Hitler exploited. Putin also used Russian nationalism, blaming much of the problems of the Yeltsin years on the west.
Putin had great support among the lower and lower middle class (if there really is such a thing in Russia) just as Hitler did. The old saying is true for both, "He made the trains run on time!"
And Putin is squandering that support just as Hitler did with international adventurism. Unlike Hitler and the Germans, I don't think the Russian people will support the coming death tolls, not to mention facing possible extinction if the unthinkable should occur!
Not to go all "history lesson" on you, but I'm pretty sure Hitler's war machine was fuelled by slave labour, and conscription.
To some extent. But - to take one example - it wasn't slave labour or conscripts who drove trains of cattle trucks to Poland, who operated the signalling system, who sold the tickets (third class, one way, group discount - seriously), who maintained and fuelled the locomotives.
I'm afraid that you are repeating the "Germans were Hitler's victims" myth.
Did you know that German troops - even conscripts - could request not to work at the camps and that there is no record of those requests ever being refused?
Of course there were German victims of the Nazis, but the current myth is that the German people as a whole were victims and bore no responsibility for what happened. Which is utter tosh; not only did they elect Hitler but they collectively supported the NSDAP to the bitter end.
To be precise, Paul von Hindenberg was elected as President (in 1932); he appointed Hitler as Chancellor, but then Hindenberg died whereupon Hitler assumed the presidency and created himself Fuehrer. It has been argued that the politicians around Hitler thought they could harness the Corporal's charisma to their own ends and found out too late they were wrong. Which has some resonance with our current unhappy situation.
The Wikipedia article charts the rise to power of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NAZI party) within the electoral system of Germany at the time (the Weimar Republic).
Wikipedia: National Socialist German Workers' Party - Rise to power: 1925–1933
In 1933 the NSDAP got 43.9% of the vote, and became the largest party in the parliament. After that, with the cooperation of other parties the parliament passed the Enabling Act of 1933, which gave the cabinet the right to enact laws without the consent of parliament. In effect, this gave Hitler dictatorial powers.
So a large (not a majority) number of Germans voted for Hitler's party, and the machinations of party politics at the time allowed Hitler to assume dictatorial power. So certainly, not all Germans voted for Hitler, but it wasn't zero. One can argue whether they knew what they were voting for, but Hitler didn't suddenly appear and start giving orders - it was a long campaign, supported by a fair chunk of the German people, and a warning to everyone who thinks votes don't matter, and think that extremists don't mean what they say.
That's the second time that I have seen you use the word 'fascist' in relation to the current controllers of Russia.
Either you need to carefully look up the meaning of the word 'fascist', or you need to research the 20th and 21st century history of Russia more carefully ;)
@nobody who matters, look up the meaning of the word 'fascist',
"Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism[1] characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and the economy[2] that rose to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.[3][4] The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I, before spreading to other European countries.[3] Opposed to anarchism, democracy, liberalism, and Marxism,[5] fascism is placed on the far right-wing within the traditional left–right spectrum."
I am well aware of the meaning of the word, but thank you for confirming it.
Fascism is indeed applied to authoritarian oppressive dictatorship of the political 'extreme right'
Putin, as very much an integral part of the authorities of the former USSR, is on the extreme left, and is therefore the absolute opposite of a fascist!
Putin, as very much an integral part of the authorities of the former USSR, is on the extreme left, and is therefore the absolute opposite of a fascist!
Putin's affection is for Russia, not the USSR, whose passing he laments only because it allowed Russia to exercise power. He fits the definition of "fascist" perfectly.
@Ian Johnston
We are all children of our surrounding and our opinions are based on the information we get.
Dictators use that to their advantage. Two party systems aren't much better either just look at the USA and Britain.
Right now the Russians are at war with each other, some have the Putin "radio" and some have a lot more than that.
It would not surprise me if Putin would like the internet to take a pause right now, actually.
All it takes is ONE of his close associates...to do the dirty deed. Only one. They tried on Hitler and failed, but even then is was well after the war had started - read: not a single person had a single moral fiber in their backbone to even bother to question themselves, "Is this really a good thing to do??!".
As I've said before, "Putin" is not a singular. Putin is a lone man. It takes hundreds to thousands of co-conspirators to make systems like this work, from his bootlicking generals 'down' to his "Prime Minister". Not a single ethical bone in any of their bodies, they are only interested in themselves, their egos, their selfish gains, the world be damned.
And that's what the WORLD needs to start calling out, the power structure that allows egomaniacs to grow and prosper in positions of power. Here in America we have plenty of people currently fighting anything and everything that isn't themselves, seemingly forming a cult of personalty around a single, egotistical fool (from my eyes, at least). Start calling all the people out.
How does Russia get its internet connectivity and why does it still have it?
you're reading ElReg and you ask such a question ? Even I can set-up a "local" Internet and then have a gateway to the "outer" Internet and the NSA would be able to do anything about it, so imagine the Russian hackers !
I'm genuinely interested and no, I don't know how an entirely country gets internet access. I presume it's through a limited number of very high capacity connections and therefore slightly different from the 192.168.x.x network in my house and its fibre link to the outside world.
Pretty much. All countries pretty much have a historical incumbent, plus internal and external competitors. Incumbents tend to have the most customer & network infrastructure, competitors tend to chip away at the incumbent's market share.
But the process for becoming a Russian ISP is pretty simple. Create a Russian company with office, bank account and staff. For some countries, it can be possible to run from outside the country, but it can be better to have a local entity to handle paperwork, taxation etc.
Then apply for a Russian telecoms license, which sets out the obligations for companies offering public networks. Like many countries licenses, there are clauses requiring cooperation with law enforcement, including turning stuff off. Failure to comply might mean fines, loss of license, and possibly some jail time.
With license in hand, then it's PoP time. So rent space in a Moscow or St Petersburg data center, install a couple of routers or switches, and sort out the plumbing. There are multiple fibre routes into Russia, and neighbouring countries. Then get some peering and transit going, and you're a Russian ISP.
So pretty simple, with the right local support. Current events potentially make it more complex. So the EU or US sanctions Russia, or Russian entitties. If you're a US or EU entity, then you're obligated to obey those laws. So suppose you're BT, and the UK says it's illegal to do business with Russia. Then to comply, BT would have to shut down it's service to and in Russia, or risk punishment.
Which is probably why some businesses are making PR out of the situation. If the sanctions say you can't do business with or in Russia, you have to stop doing business. It can make life challenging though. There's been a couple of times where I've worked on jobs where the US had export bans or sanctions, but the EU or UK didn't. Which basically meant US staff couldn't look or touch those projects. Which can get interesting if your CEO is American, and the deal could land them in jail.
Same can also be true running government or classified networks, ie contracts for those can require only fully vetted staff restricted by nationalality can touch those networks. Or sometimes be aware of them. That can be fun sometimes, eg doing 3rd line support for networks I may not have been vetted for. Luckily, most of the time those can be solved without needing to know what those customers might be doing.
I think ICANN could take compliance action. Kind of. If it dared. And possibly assuming CCTLD.RU could be found non-compliant. Internet policy docs often have 'good neighbour' clause though, which would kinda exclude bombing them.
But the Internet kinda routes around problems. So anyone using resolvers that had .ru's original IP could see no change. So it'd have more of an effect outside Russia than inside.
But I kinda agree with ICANN wrt neutrality, namely Ukraine's asking them to essentially attack their opponent.
What compliance action? ICANN has no legally binding agreements for the Russian TLDs. It can't take action if it wanted to. Besides, ICANN rarely takes action against naughty registrars who *do* have legally binding agreements with ICANN.
Assuming there was some sort of contract in place, it's unlikely to have any TLD compliance requirements that would have been violated by the invasion of Ukraine. Take a look at ICANN's gTLD contracts.
Compliance action would be something like editing the root zone to point .ru authority somewhere else. I don't know what the policy is between ICANN and ccTLD operators currently is, but there probably is one. In the old days, it was done by convincing Jon Postel.
There was another comment on a different article that raises other policy questions. So Donbass declared independence, and Russia recognised them. So theoretically, both could apply for ISO and Internet country codes. But I suspect that'd be a 'nope' until the new countrys have been officially recognised.
There's also what to do in the event of a change in control. So could a Ukrainian government in exile remain the authority for .ua? I'm guessing that would also depend on recognition.
There's so much lack of clue here.
1) Messing with the root's delegation for .ru is not any sort of compliance action.
2) ICANN/IANA has no compliance T&Cs (or contracts) for ccTLDs.
3) Changes to a TLD's delegation can only be initiated by the technical contact for that TLD.
4) The Ukrainian government has never been the authority for .ua - check the IANA database.
5) Changes to the ISO 3166 list go hand-in-hand with UN membership. Apart from a handful of historical anomalies.
Agree wrt clue.
1) It would be. Or if you prefer, ICANN would need some cause for action before it could ToS* Russia.
2) You really believe that? You think there's no paperwork between ICANN and whoever the ccTLD was delegated to? Especially the technical or reputational damage a rogue ccTLD could do.
3) There are procedures to deal with tech or admin contacts that are unresponsive, or AWOL.
4) So you're saying Ukraine would be ok with me pointing .gov.ua at a pron site, because ICANN said I'm the .ua ccTLD, and domains are sold to the highest bidder. I'm pretty sure Ukraine has some say over how their country's online presence is managed.
5) I figured it'd be something like that.
Again I think a lot of this is historical. From memory, I think .uk was delegated by Jon Postel to JANET around the mid-80's, possibly involving Peter Houlder. Made sense because at the time, the Internet was mostly academic. Then it exploded, largely self-regulated while regulators figured out what to do. Nominet manages them ok, and generally hasn't interfered too much. ICANN's perhaps trickier given they're a US entity. There have been suggestions that it should be made neutral, and ported across to the ITU, which is not a fate I'd wish on my worst enemy.
But the problem is if ICANN is seen as political, it could lead to the Internet fragmenting, and balkanisation. It's a bit like SWIFT. Get kicked out of that? Just create an alt.SWIFT and invite your friends. So alt.nets already exist, and could be expanded.
* Perhaps an unfortunate acronym given TOS-1a launchers have been seen in/around Ukraine, and are very nasty. And no, Bbc, they're not 'vacuum bombs', they're thermobaric. More newspeak from the entity that gave us George Orwell, and doesn't see the irony in having a disinformation team doing it's 'fact checking.
/flame off
I have tried (and failed) to apply clue. So, for the final time...
1) ICANN has *no* contracts with ccTLDs. That means there is no legal basis for taking action against a ccTLD unless US law is violated. The operator of the ccTLD has nothing to comply with as far as ICANN is concerned either. Pretty much everything ICANN does is in the public domain, including these alleged "contracts" with ccTLDs.
2) I know there is no paperwork. Some ccTLDs have an MoU or exchange of letters with ICANN. These are not legally binding on either party and just document each others' roles in the Internet governance pantomime. Go and read them. And for bonus points, find the contract between the UK government and ICANN/IANA concerning .uk.
3) Ukraine's government seems happy with the current arrangements for .ua. If not, they would have taken action to address that.
4) The procedures you mentioned are irrelevant to "removing" .ru. Their tech and admin contacts are presumably responsive and have not gone AWOL. That goes for .ua too. AFAIK there have been very few instances when the tech/admin contacts have disappeared - typically in banana republics and other failed states.
5) If there was an attempt to replace the current .ua registry, ICANN/IANA would of course consult the Ukrainian government, just like they'd do for any ccTLD and the relevant government
And once again, I suggest you read the ICANN CEO's response to Ukraine's recent letter. It could hardly be any clearer.
Yes, US foreign policy has indeed been dodgy, pretty much since that country's inception (and not just the last 80 years). However, this is classic whataboutery.
I don't see the US engaging in a land war with its neighbours. For example, at no point has any US president said, "The Baja peninsular used to be part of the US, so historically it's ours, and we're invading it to prevent genocide", like what Botox Hitler is doing.
> However, this is classic whataboutery.
AC demanded action based on a set of criteria. It's not "whataboutery" to point out another nation to which those same criteria apply.
> I don't see the US engaging in a land war with its neighbours.
Moving the goalposts. The OP AC said nothing about "land war" or "neighbours".
It's the absolute textbook definition of it.
"This bad thing is happening."
"Yeah, well what about THIS OTHER BAD THING that also happened?!"
Ok. So what about the other bad thing? Does that negate the first bad thing? Because that's exactly what the "whataboutery" argument suggests.
I don't see the US engaging in a land war with its neighbours. For example, at no point has any US president said, "The Baja peninsular used to be part of the US, so historically it's ours, and we're invading it to prevent genocide", like what Botox Hitler is doing.
A US president might not have said those very words. But they have expressed similar opinions and carried them out. Check out the ~200 year old Monroe Doctrine. Or the Mexican-US war. IIUC the USA actually invaded the Baja Peninsular in that war,
I don't see the US engaging in a land war with its neighbours
Why is a land war with a country - many countries actually - that is (are) far away more acceptable ? Invading your neighbor is bad, bad invading the neighbor(s) of your neighbor(s) is OK : what sort of logic is that ?
I didn't say that it was. Not endorsing Putin's war doesn't mean that I endorse any other war, past or present. Just because pretty much every country has done dodgy things in the past (most recently, I think our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan probably apply) doesn't excuse Putin's actions in any way.
Have you ever heard the expression, "two wrongs don't make a right"?
Also, did you fail to read my first sentence, where I explicitly stated that I know the US has done dogy things in the past and I don't excuse them?
ICANN should stay the hell out of it... I'd bet that there are a lot of Russian domain owners who do not support the Putin regime actions. IF you knock out one country in fairness you must knock out both.... IF honest polling could be done it would be interesting to see how much support for a war is in Siberia or the Baltic region?
And how long will it take for some enterprising bordering country to say register here and we will redirect traffic to your ru domains. One day or two... or maybe 10 minutes after an announcement... Its a lot harder to police 0&1 than hard physical borders.
"in fairness you must knock out both....
Why on Earth do you need to be fair in this case??? Russia INVADED Ukraine. It was completely unprovoked. Russia are now bombing cities in Ukraine and killing innocent civilians. Ukrainian Soldiers are not killing anyone, but invading soliders.
This is about as clear cut as you get in War. One side ARE the evil aggressors and the other, the innocent victims. Hell even China, is rowing back it's support of Russia in this case. Fairness is neither required or appropriate in this case!
to be petty (though I genuinely hope they beat off the Russians), Ukrainian soldiers and self-defence, on top of killing Russians, are also killing Ukrainian 'marauders' (that word has been popping up in Ukrainian media a lot in the last 2 - 3 days, marauders and looters). Shot on sight, nothing new, same with any war.
Also, it was _very_ uncomfortable to watch on ukr state tv a radio call from Odessa, where local authorities announced a, quote, 'safari', to hunt down Russian saboteurs. There's a reward, 800 USD, quote, 'per head'. All spoken in a funny-haha, wink-wink you know what I mean style, but if you know the history of WW2 in those parts of Europe, the overtones are pretty dreadful. And if you don't, perhaps remember the 'conflict' in ex-Yugoslavia.
Sure, Ukrainians are absolutely on the right, sure, it's propaganda war delivered via mass-media, so 'economical with the truth', and both sides trying to intimidate the opponent and boost morale for their own audience, but it's not just a simple black and white, Ukrainian soldiers killing Russian soldiers, v. Russian soldiers killing Ukrainian civilians and soldiers. This war is already moving very fast away from the, sometimes, ridiculous and absurd (not past Monty Python script), to the most brutal and violent :/
And I don't see any realistic prospect of it to stop. Unless gaspadin Putin has an accidental accident, which is not impossible, but highly unlikely, he's far from stupid...
I can understand why it was, but the author did have a legitimate starting point; "How do you know it was unprovoked??".
I am with those who see Nato reneging on their promises not to advance to the east, not to put their weapons and troops up against Russia's borders, as much a provocation to Russia as the Cuban Missile Crisis was to America. But these days that has one quickly labelled as a traitor and enemy of the people, even if one does not support what Putin has done.
I have never witnessed such a Cancel Culture campaign, heard so much anti-Russia rhetoric, seen so much demonisation and propaganda, "evidence" which even those presenting it admit is only "belief".
It is "with or against us" at a level I have never experienced in my lifetime. It has even turned Germany and the EU against Russia, has China undecided.
It seems too me to be the inevitable culmination of where things have been going in recent years, the shift to tribalism, division and polarisation. Welcome to the world we have created.
You must understand what is always lost in the history of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The Soviets were attempting to place missiles in Cuba "as a response" to the Americans placing nuclear missiles in Turkey. The crisis was averted when Kennedy agreed to remove those missiles from Turkey.
The difference today is, the Soviets were willing to negotiate and change their approach if they got what they wanted. I was a supporter of taking Ukraine NATO membership off the table as a negotiation with Putin, but as this war has progressed, I'm starting to believe that would not have worked. Putin's actions in Georgia and Chechnya only pushed the Eastern countries into NATO. They saw it as their only hope for survival. NATO could have said no, and at the time I would have supported that, but now I believe that if they did, this would be a wider war than just in Ukraine.
pushed the Eastern countries into NATO. They saw it as their only hope for survival
As far as Hungary is concerned, this is wrong. Many well-written articles say that the NATO provoked the current situation, and what we are witnessing in reality is the end of the US world domination. The beginning of that end is the US/UK lead 2003 war on Irak, followed by the collapse of the western financial world in 2008. The "west" thought that the temporal weakness of Russia during the drunken Eltsin times were the real face of Russia, and they got that-one wrong.
All else is poetry.
Example if you can read Hungarian : https://index.hu/velemeny/2022/02/26/puzser-robert-publicisztika-orosz-ukran-haboru/
I read it that he / she meant Kaliningrad? Although, who knows, perhaps some people still think that the Baltics are a part of Russia, albeit with some 'issues', etc. In fact, I don't think much can surprise me in people. The other day, a tv presenter (not in the UK, but in Europe) asked her 'guests' why we can't close airspace over Ukraine to Russian airforce? She didn't mean an a NATO enforced no-fly zone, nosir, she meant it like, you know, asked civilian air planes to stop flying, why not ask Russian airforce to stop flying, problem solved! And she's no bird-brain. Or so I thought (obvious comments were along the lines of 'yeah, let's ask Russians to stop using leathal weapons while they're attacking Ukraine, etc').
The area around Kaliningrad/Königsbergen is only Russian by "right" of conquest at the end of WWII. It never before was part of the Russian empire and during the USSR it should administratively have been attached to Belarus (like happened with Crimea under Ukraine, but that is a different discussion).
When this whole ugly business has been done, it will be probably be named Kalininsk and attached to Poland (or renamed back to Königsbergen and become German once again).
A better option would be to offer the people of Kaliningrad a referendum process to choose whether they want to be part of any of the three countries that surround them, to stay in the Russian Federation, or to become a new Baltic state.
The days of large states deciding which states have what territory should be over. The people who live in the relevant territory should have the power to decide.
A better option would be to offer the people of Kaliningrad a referendum process to choose whether they want to be part of any of the three countries that surround them, to stay in the Russian Federation, or to become a new Baltic state.
The days of large states deciding which states have what territory should be over. The people who live in the relevant territory should have the power to decide.
While I agree with you, I am afraid the people of Kaliningrad lack the experience with democracy (through no fault of their own) to make a well thought out decision. On the other hand, I know some other people that were supposed to have somewhat more experience with democracy and I am not sure they got the expected results in their last referendum (and yes, I am referring to Brexit).
The problem with that is that Stalin cleared out the entire population of Königsberg and populated Kaliningrad with Russians. So you'd be asking Russians if they want to be Russian.
I don't see a real problem once you tell them they will have Vladimir Vladimirovitch as head of government.
Apparently there were points where both Lithuania and Poland could have integrated Kaliningrad but declined, possibly because they didn't like the idea of that many ethnic Russians joining them. The Germans long ago gave up Koenigsberg, just too toxic an issue except for the usual small collection of nutters.
One might feel slightly sorry for the Kaliningraders, gone from Chilly Baltic Cruise Destination to Next WW3 Flashpoint overnight.
Pretty much what happened in Schleswig-Holstein after First World War. The Germans that had migrated to Holstein and Southern Schleswig in the previous years voted to remain German. There's still a set of agreements over how the Germans and Danes treat the language minorities in each country. Danish nationalists still get fired up over the situation.
This invasion has been ongoing for a few days and we have people calling for total isolation of one country and all its people from the rest of the planet.
The conflict in Myanmar has been ongoing for years with thousands dead and well over a million refugees. The world turns a blind eye.
Iraq ? Libya ? Afghanistan? Bombed back to the stone ages, invaded, Probably a million dead and many millions of refugees, causing social unrest throughout Europe for years. Have we cut off their internet???
Conflicts are never solved by more conflict (unless through total extermination of one side). Solutions need discussion. Talking. Seems that diplomacy failed in Ukraine, but that is no reason to pull that plug. The only way back to "normality" is with cool heads and dialogue.
Maybe not, but, Zelenskyy talking about Ukraine rebuilding their nuclear weapons to defend against Russia was probably not the best way of managing ones relations with Vladimir Putin.
The Russians would have lists of at least some of the stuff that went "walkies" when Ukraine disarmed!
That word doesn't really mean anything.
It's basically a made-up word, like the phrase "cancel culture", invented by people who are unable to articulate a considered, rationale, logical argument and so rather than engage in discourse, they just trot out a meaningless phrase and think that they've therefore won the argument simply by invoking such.
I think, to be fair, it was initially used by people to refer to themselves as a shorthand for "people who aren't complete dicks to everyone".
The "war on woke" is thus essentially "a war on people who think that not being a dick to other people is a good thing," and anyone pursuing it is putting their head above the parapet, and saying "I am a dick to other people."
It's not a compelling argument, but then when you look at those pursuing it, it does tell you all you need to know about them.
By the way, the accepted shorthand for someone who self-identifies as "anti-woke" is "cunt".
Yeah totally a war on not being a cunt
Funny how the people who howl loudest about wokeness seem to be put out by the fact they are (generally boomers) being called out for bigotry and dont like it,
"how dare the entitled little shit tell me im wrong, dont they know i went without a banana until i was 6!!!!, i cant be a bigot i was a teenager in the 60s, its just how it was back then poofters had the decency to hide away, ethnics weren't uppity and women could take having arse pinched as a greeting back then, unlike you ungrateful shits, who cant even save enough to buy a house before your 30, need to stop your frivoulous spending blah blah blah blah"
Total apples and oranges!
Myanmar is a civil conflict. We can't really call it a war as it is a military coup! Intervention there could get very bloody and could possible draw the Chinese in. Certainly not worth it.
Afghanistan made their own bed and they had to lie in it. Killing 3000+ civilians of the most powerful nation in the world is not smart, so, they got burned, but in the long run, they are back to where they were.
Iraq? Well I think we can all agree on that one.
Libya? Another example of "Don't trust the west"! Qaddafi gave up all his weapons programs after he saw what happened to Hussein. He attempted to make peace with the west. Look what it got him. All because of the Obama regimes "adventurism" in the middle east. You cannot impose democracy on people who just don't want it!
Ukraine should have never trusted to west, they should have never given up their nuclear arsenal. This war would not be happening if they had not done that. We gave them guarantees with no teeth! No assurances that we would be obligated to defend them.
Because they are a white Christian Caucasian country, you could get to cheaply on a budget airline for a city break and look oh so relatable compared to the other atrocities and brutal regimes you mention
Makes you sick, especially how quickly things have moved to help them compared to Afghanistan or Syria, not that i begrudge any and all assistance we can give to anyone, i fear they just happen to be right colour of refugee for the uk political charlatans to open the doors to (and distract from partygate and other consequences of the russian funded brexit campaign) :-(
Citing old conflicts isn't relevant unless you mean that those events in the past should be fixed first. Please press the history rewind button. Oh, if you do please stop Germany invading Poland. It pretty much decimated my family. The invasion of Poland was a conflict that was solved by more conflict so I humbly disagree with your conclusion since history has plenty of examples that prove the opposite.
Perhaps we have simply learned, perhaps not but there is no reason to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Hmm. Namecheap urgently needs to put that statement in effect on China because Uighurs.
What's happening to Ukraine is not good in any way, but reacting now kinda demonstrates a certain level of bias that doesn't really look good when you take a step back and think about it.
But hey, let's go and punish Russia every way we can (while studiously ignoring that every statement can likely be applied to China as well). What's the worst that could happen ?
Unfortunately, China and Russia have been protecting each other by using the doctrine that whatever happens in your own territory is no one else's business. That's why the UN has never been able to sanction China for what happens/is happening in Tibet, Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Ditto Myanmar, and a dozen other Dictator/military regimes killing their own people.
Putin invading another sovereign country though has ripped up the playbook. Even China is not supporting Russia in this case (they must also be more than a little p%ssed that all of that lovely free publicity they were getting from the Olympics and hoping to get from the Paralympics has been wiped out by Xi's "best buddy" Putin).
So whilst the effects are same for the innocent people on the ground, No-one in the world supports invading another sovereign nation. And unfortunately, too many nations have a personal interest in maintaining the "What happens at home is none of your business" attitude that prevents more sanctions against the Despots who focus on (killing) their own people. It's not right, but it is how it is.
BUT just because someone else is also bad, doesnt mean you shouldnt condemn the more evil one.
I have a vague suspiction, that China has gently steered Putin towards this war, in the sense that it gave him a false sense of their full support, while in fact, they just wanted to weaken Russia further (success!), but primarily, to test how the West is going to react in a hypotetical scenario, of a big, fast-growing country with aspirations to become THE World's Empire, were to liberate a small island with population suffering and subjugated to the international dictatorship of imperialist western warmongers. Watching intently and drawing conclusions, and regardless of Western response in Ukraine, China's conclusions and actions overall are not going to be to our benefit :(
well, Ukraine is just a symbol of human hypocrasy. Tragedy, torture, murder, distraction, starvation, mass / force migration / economic disaster - all very well, blah blah blah, but NOT IN OUR BACKYARD.
p.s. it's been a rude awakening, better late than never, but after our excitement levels go down... business as usual? :(
It's very sad to see commenters on various platforms claiming that Ukrainian refugees can come here, whilst "those scummy boat people" should stay out.
Refugees are refugees, and those coming from places such as Syria and North Africa are just as worthy as those coming from Eastern Europe, whatever their skin colour and religion.
As for those who claim "this country is full"; this country has as almost as much land area devoted to golf courses as it does to housing. The housing may be full, but that is due to government housing policy (and not building social housing), not due to any inherent "fullness" of the country.
So, to those who say "we are full", I say "get in the sea, and that'll make some room for those more deserving than you".
It's very sad to see commenters on various platforms ...
It is not just some arsehole "commenters", it is our politicians saying it, by advocating that we should now bend every rule they themselves put in place to keep the brown people out!
Yes, well, if I have to say "don't vote Tory", those who need to get the message won't be listening anyway.
What can you do about people who vote against their own best interests, and actively for those who wish to enrich themselves at the expense of their very voters? Political beliefs are never based on reason, or they'd not be beliefs, they'd be evidence-led policy...
"[...] now bend every rule they themselves put in place to keep the brown people out!"
Priti Patel (currently Home Secretary) campaigned for Leave in some constituencies with the promise that it would replace EU migrants with "Empire entitled" ones from the Indian subcontinent. She has kept that promise. The current UK trade deal negotiations with India are apparently also including India's demands for more access for their people to come to the UK.
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On the one hand, we absolutely want to do everything possible to hamper and disrupt a despotic dictator intent on invading his neighbours.
On the other hand, a country is not its leaders, and Russia's civilian population are not to blame for this war.
It is, of course, not a simple matter to disentangle the Russian state from the civilian population, but on balance I think making these changes would disproportionately affect the lives of ordinary people and do little to disrupt their government. If anything, it will cut them off from the rest of the world more and subject them to state propaganda as their only source of information.
It is becoming a racist like campaign against anything Russian. Like the EU bimbo van der Leyen won't notice the terrible inflation that Europe will experience as a result from this sanction hysteria, the Russian elites won't miss a thing as a result from the sanctions. It is the ordinary people which do, like ordinary people were killed in the NATO terror bombings of Serbia in the 90's when NATO did the same thing, except NATO was too much a coward and did not send soldiers to mess with the Serbian army.
We are lucky the East European leaders keep a cool head, and don't let them selves being seduced by the war mongering USA. It is one thing when USA terrorizes Libya, Syria or Afghanistan, fishing for a war with a nuclear power 1500km away from ones doorstep by enticing Ukraine to show middle finger to Putin is another. We saw what happened in 1939 when Poland got "security assurances" from England and France, making it do the same to Germany over 50km of roads to the Königsberg enclave.
In the end, what is marketed as "Putins war", results in a response making the ordinary Russian people the true victims.History shows that war crimes against civilians to speed up the end a war, like the flattening of German cities in WW2 with phosphor bombs, don't work.
There's a lot of bollocks in that post of yours.
First off, NATO very much got involved in the Balkan conflict in the '90s.
Then, let's talk about Syria and how it's a civil war, with Russia propping up the incumbent dictatorship by supplying weapons. I'm not sure what the US involvement is here, but I don't think it's significant. It's pretty obviously part of Putin's strategy to destabilise Europe by sending lots of innocent refugees our way.
Then let's look at whether anyone is suggesting bombing Russian civilians. Anyone? Anyone at all. That's a "nope" then. The victims here, at present, are the Ukrainian people, who are being targeted in an indiscriminate war by a crazed aggressor. By all accounts, Putin cares as little about his own troops as he does about his victims, and let's not forget the arrests of thousands of protesters in Russia over the last week.
Syria invited Russia to help against regime change and it's civil war. Syria was invaded by the ISIL nutjobs, Kurds, Turkey, and the US. Which has a large air base on Syrian territory, 'protecting' Syria's oil, and a good chunk of Syria's agriculture.
This is legal, because might makes right. It's also risky because Syria becomes a flash point, if conflict escalates there.
As for indiscriminately bombing Russians, that's been Donbass, with artillery going both directions over that front line. OK, that's complicated by the Russians also being Ukrainians, but that's been the problem with ethnic tensions and divisions within Ukraine, since it gained independence. But that's politics. Ukraine's had a long history of territorial changes due to being desireable, and surrounded by Great and lesser powers. So Ottomans, Cossacks, Poland, the Austria-Hungarian Empire, Russian Empire, Germany and more. It's said that Ukraine's soil is so rich because of all the blood spilled on it.
But there's also propaganda. Yes, Russia has hit civil and civilian targets. Some could be considered legitimate targets, eg the transmitter tower, or civil admin building and police station. But it hasn't been indiscriminate or 'crazed', at least not yet. If it was, Kiev would be looking increasingly like Grozny after the 2nd Chechen war.
But it's all a big clusterfunk. It'll be interesting to see if there are war crimes charges, because that might reinforce civilian protections, rather than viewing them as acceptable losses and collateral damage
the EU bimbo van der Leyen won't notice the terrible inflation that Europe will experience as a result from this sanction hysteria
I very much think that she actually *wanted* that inflation to happen, because that eases the huge mountain of debt that the financial ponzi-scheme had built up. I think that it will fly in their face, because hyperinflation cannot be controlled, but I *do* think that she'll notice.
Whatever helps to wipe Russia as a whole off the map im ok with. If that makes it tougher on them , for any reason , go ahead and don't spare any of them. If the people of Russia suffer , let them take this to their government. As far as i'm concerned Russia can disappear and im fine with it.
Targetted restrictions would make sense against the propaganda merchants. But as I've said on multiple posts elsewhere, the internet is more or less the only published information source in Russia not dominated by Putin's Propaganda teams.
There is ample evidence that plenty of Russian troopers had no clue they were going to war.
We need routes open to feed information in on what is actually going on to ordinary Russians. Outrage at their own government can produce change. How do you create that outrage? Vlad has fed relative economic success and consumer goods into people's homes. They thought they were doing well. Tear away the facade and all of a sudden there is a route for a challenge.
If they don't understand why (almost) every one else is slapping sanctions on them, then this plays into the hands of TASS who can spread messages to say NATO members are out to get them. Think why Nazi Germany managed to maintain such a hold over so many of it's own people - and despite attempts to do so - were unable to remove their leaders.
Rather than freezing Russian assets I seriously think we should now be actively seizing them. I am also inclined to remind people of the criminal funding links to cryptocurrencies, that could be playing into enabling the Putin's regime to continue. Need to cut these routes off.
I doubt that would have much effect in russia, balls up rest of world accessing/ddosing .ru's though
Nope would be far more effective to target their routing infrastructure, wide spread BGP poisoning (as they have been known to do a few times...), route 0.0.0.0 to russian military ip's and get their population to ddos themselves, inject new routes to state owned ip ranges, redirects to goatse with putins face instead of a ball etc.
Frankly im expecting shit to really hit the fan in terms of cyber warfare, not only in terms of troll farm domestic agitation (Trump/maga, Brexit, rise of the far right in eu member states all have had flames fanned by troll farms) but serious critical infrastructure shutdowns and subversion, look at the chaos caused when one oil pipeline got pwned, imagine 20 or more being attacked world wide at once
Seriously hope people have got the low hanging fruit covered patch log4j yesterday ffs etc.
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What is it with Putin and tables? Meeting with Macron - a giant elliptical white job you could get the Moulin Rouge chorus on. But then Lukashenko, a tiny little thing hardly fit for a drinks tray. On to the defence chiefs and something that looks like it came from a bowling alley. I swear those generals were expecting a game of skittles, only to be told to go home and dust off the nukes.
Friends you can sit close to, or pretend you are one.
The big table is to express power and in good old times you also wanted to sit higher up, on a throne.
It's the same with official building with lots of steps up, to show the power (where that power is).
Even in every day speech we climb and so forth.
Is that it would be perfectly possible for Russia to effectively quarantine the planet forever... if they believe that space-based communications pose a threat, then they've already demonstrated that they could shrapnel any useful orbit for several centuries to come. The only thing that might make them think twice is that they've got as much orbiting infrastructure as everyone else does.
I don't think they'd need to start in space. Most of the trans Atlantic fiber cables land in southwest England and Brittany right were there was a Russian naval exercise in January that Irish fishermen were trying to disrupt.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60130486
... a concerted collective of sorta frustrated, but somehow humo(u)rous creatures discuss how to destroy a friendly country which finds stability in Europe one of the main condition of its own well-being -
a Russian rocket "Soyuz 2.1b*" is about to launch 36 British "OneWeb" sputniks from Baikonur, Kazakhstan / March 2, 2022 / https://ria.ru/amp/20220302/baykonur-1775965542.html , please use VPN because of protection from DDos caused by the decision of the rulers of Anonymous.
Oh. Did I say "Sputniks"?
Satellites, of course, as it is clearly written in a contract in two languages.
*Soyuz / Союз (Rus) - Union.
2.1 beta
This story reminds me that HTML and DNS are merely internet protocols, the true fundamental of the internet is ipv6. Why couldn’t anybody make their own alternative dns? Seems to me Sony PlayStation hackers did exactly this to replace defunct game servers with enthusiast-hosted servers.
No reason whatsoever. Every time some fuckwit tries this it ends in some combination of tears, abject failure, insolvency and lawsuits. Or any combination of these. Meanwhile, the real DNS just keeps on working as if nothing had happened.
Anyone can create their own little bubble with a so-called "alternative DNS" if they want. Nobody's stopping them.
Eventually you will realise you've cut yourself off from the rest of the Internet and the downsides of that vastly outweigh any perceived benefit of your own private DNS. Try making this work with DNSSEC validation too: you'll be fucked because you won't have access to the private keys used to sign the real root and TLDs.
Oh, and the DNS isn't any sort of forwarding service. But don't let that inconvenient truth spoil your delusions.
A modern translation of Matthew 12:30 30 is "This is war, and there is no neutral ground. If you're not on my side, you're the enemy; if you're not helping, you're making things worse."
In the King James bible it is "“He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.”
But you get the point.
This is the first and probably the last time I'll quote the bible on a tech forum but needs must.
Communications with life-long friends and family in Moscow, ranging from "ordinary" people to university professors and company executives have become very difficult. They have beliefs which fly in the face of all evidence, the problem is that they are denied access to that evidence. The young less so but normally sensible, intelligent people of more mature ages rely solely on the heavily censored state media and don't even know that the rest of the world (apart from nut-jobs like N Korea) regard the Ukraine situation as a barbaric unprovoked act of war on the part of Putin. It's impossible to shake their belief and even attempting to only causes alienation, we just have to await the re-awakening of their rational minds.
I understand those whining that it's unfair that the wider population is going to be impacted by sanctions but that wider population is, through its ignorance of the true situation, effectively complicit.
One muscovite friend had heard reports of the violence from relatives in Ukraine and couldn't understand why they were not delighted to welcome the "liberating army" that was shelling their city. Hopefully "couldn't understand" might lead to them trying a news source other than Russian "Channel 1".
Whenever you believe everyone else is wrong, it's instructive to investigate the source of their beliefs, perhaps they have better information sources, because maybe it's you that's wrong. When your government does its best to stop you looking elsewhere for information are they protecting you or themselves? If all those other news sources are so transparently wrong, do you need your censors to tell you or are you able to draw your own conclusion?
Why is there a Russian ban on comparisons between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. How many other countries have a comparable law? Why did Russia find it necessary to introduce that law last year?
Those who are able to access uncensored news are ashamed and embarrassed about what is being done in their name. When those swallowing the Kremlin propaganda discover they are being taken for fools by Putin I expect they will be angry and find ways to express that. If sanctions lead them to question why the wheels are coming off normal life, when soldiers are coming home in body bags or maimed and the stories emerge that the Ukrainians were not welcoming their liberators. Instead they found their job was to bomb, shoot, starve their fellow slavs in the interest of expanding a deranged dictator's empire. That will further their desire to rid themselves of this warmonger. Putin needs to remind himself what happened to Mussolini when the population turned against him.
As for this story, yes it is good to be thinking about ways the internet technical community can help Ukraine but using ICANN is more knee-jerk than rational. As for Namecheap well OK, good move (after their second thoughts, the "policy update" in the story) and I hope one that will be widely replicated but it would be nice if Namecheap (and many others) were to be more selective and stop handing out domain names to crooks. (The entire domain name market needs a serious shake-up, if it doesn't get its act together the legislators will step in in their normal technically illiterate heavy handed way. It should be a lot harder to get a domain name than just a few $ and fake contact details).
As for the question: why hasn't China been sanctioned because of the situation with Uighurs, HongKong, and many more? It has but to a lesser extent, they've not sent a massive army into another country (yet, I expect Taiwan is watching and worrying) but their cyber-crimes and human rights violations have led to sanctions and visa restrictions against Chinese government officials and Huawei kit is widely blacklisted.
Sport too is rightly a target, no more is a ban on national anthem or the flag adequate. No more involvement of Russian sportsmen under any guise - or for that matter artists, entertainers, travel, commerce. Once the population realise that Russia is regarded as a worse rogue state than even N Korea perhaps they will wake up from Putin's fantasy.
If other conflicts are any guide, the participants will do their best to prevent communications from the 'other side' from reaching their own populations - not so much supporters of Ukraine cutting off Russia, but Russia cutting itself off from supporters of Ukraine, including Ukraine itself. Of course, a few connections will be left to allow properly authorised government entities to exchange messages - you don't want to be deaf to the other side saying 'I surrender'.
In the Second World War, all physical mail between the warring parties was censored, and making phone calls between the warring parties wasn't possible for ordinary citizens. Some listened clandestinely to radio broadcasts. The Russian propaganda machine is in full swing, telling Russian citizens that a minor peacekeeping operation is going on in Ukraine. Any effective contradictory messaging across the Internet will be shut down as soon as possible by the Russian authorities.
The Russians will only allow services to continue that are useful to them, so cutting off services that are useful to the aggressor nation sounds sensible - the rest, they will cut off themselves.
Finding a way of sending verifiable truth to the Russian population would be sensible, especially if the method doesn't endanger the recipients. I'm not sure what options are available.
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