Will Putin Invade Ukraine?

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AI chatbots pushing Russian propaganda slop to users

around 18 percent of all prompts, languages, and LLMs returned results linked to state-funded Russian media, sites "linked to" Russia's intelligence agencies, or disinformation networks, the research says.

The ISD's research claims that the chatbots displayed confirmation bias: The more biased or malicious the query, the more frequently the chatbots would deliver Russian state-attributed information. The malicious queries delivered Russian state-attributed content a quarter of the time, biased queries provided pro-Russian content 18 percent of the time, while neutral queries were just over 10 percent. (In the research, malicious questions to chatbots "demanded" answers to back up an existing opinion, whereas "biased" questions were leading but more open ended).

Multiple reports this year have claimed a Russian disinformation network dubbed "Pravda" has flooded the web and social media with millions of articles as part of an effort to "poison" LLMs and influence their outputs. "Having Russian disinformation be parroted by a Western AI model gives that false narrative a lot more visibility and authority, which further allows these bad actors to achieve their goals," says McKenzie Sadeghi, a researcher and editor at media watchdog company NewsGuard, who has studied the Pravda network and Russian propaganda's influence on chatbots.

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That Moscow AA pickup truck has state-of-the-art eyeball sensors.  Can't be jammed except by two rapidly approaching fingers.  :P

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Ukraine launches another barrage of drones.  Man, they're really sparing no expense.



Updated version:



The dense concentration of drones depicted in the first image was no error or optical illusion.  There are indeed lots of drones flying over Belgorod and Tula and other nearby Russian regions.

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Ukraine kills Russian deputy commander accused of war crimes

Ukraine said Wednesday it had assassinated a Russian officer responsible for war crimes, targeting him with a car bomb inside Russia.

Veniamin Mazzherin, who died at the weekend, was the deputy commander of a Russian military police unit in Kemerovo, southwest Siberia, according to Ukrainian Defense Intelligence.

The Russian Guard special unit he helped lead was allegedly involved in "war crimes and genocide against the Ukrainian people" in Kyiv during Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the intelligence service said.

In the summer of 2024, Ukraine shot down an Oreshnik missile that Russia launched against Ukraine on Russian territory.  This information was just now published, so even though it didn't recently happen, it is recent news.

Running Out:  Russia has lost 48% of Pantsir AA systems

We don't know exactly how many Russia had to start with, so getting a precise reading is very difficult, but we do know for a fact that Russia has lost at least 35 of them so far - and these are just the documented ones verified by OSINT.  In January 2022 - just before the invasion - Russia reportedly had 116 Pantsir systems in service.  So, that'd be ~56 in total destroyed.

Also, I'm a little unclear on exactly how many systems went pop since a Pantsir system is composed of a missile launcher, a radar, and a command post.  Reportedly, Russia has much more launchers than radars for its AA - so the radars are the weak link and are prioritized by Ukrainian forces.  Without the radars backing them up, the launchers are effectively neutralized whether they're blown up or not.

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Venezuela asks for military aid from Russia

And specifically for aircraft, radars, and missiles - all of which are in very high demand right now and Russia has already lost a lot of them to Ukrainian strikes.

This is like asking the North Koreans for steak.  It's not a certainty that they even have it, and if they do, they're highly unlikely to share.  It's just absurd.

Maduro earlier said the country has about 5,000 Russian-made Igla-S portable air defense systems.

lol, let me know how that works out.

I've seen videos of Igla in action.  They're not bad against Shaheds and the occasional Russian cruise missile in the hands of a well-trained soldier.  But there's a lot of stuff they can't defend against, and suffice it to say, the US has a bunch of that stuff.

That said, I'm not in favor of any sort of military escalation in South America.  But when bad things are going to happen no matter what, I'm in favor of them happening to dictators instead of decent people, though it rarely works out that way.  But every now and then, there's some really great news.  Let's just say that I continue to watch the front page for obituaries.

[Cassia]

One thing that Ukraine has going for itself is intimate knowledge of Russian gear and tactics. After all they produced much of the Soviet equipment and provided millions of soldiers.

The suffering of ethnic Ukrainians in unparalleled in modern history. Ethnic Ukrainians suffered twice the total casualty rate (~20% of their total population) than the Russians did in WW2 (Poland wins the terrible title for highest relative casualty rate.)
Much of the heaviest fighting took place in Ukraine. Estimates are around 7 million and up to double that many displaced.

In the 1930's between 3.5 to 7 million more were killed by Stalin by an avoidable starvation known as the Holodomor event.


Now Putin goes and does this. They can't get a damn break. 

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[Cassia]

I don't understand how the Russians are having such trouble when they have this weapon at the ready....

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Pentagon says we have enough Tomahawks to spare

Putin still says no

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Turkey cuts Russian oil imports

Not sure by how much, but their December deliveries are noticeably less Russian and one of its two main refineries will be phasing out Russian crude oil.  Sanctions matter.

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There was a pretty funny video from the frontlines.

It's two captured Russians in zip ties.  They said that they haven't slept for 3 days and that when they woke up, their hands were zip-tied together.  The Ukrainian laughs and says they'll be plenty of time to sleep in captivity.  They apparently think the Ukrainian filming them is an "ally", which gets a hearty laugh from him.  He tells them that they're captured.  They don't understand and ask for the location of their weapons.  The Ukrainian reiterates that they're captured.  They ask look at each other for long pause and then back at the Ukrainian and asks if he's serious.  The Ukrainian then sarcastically says that he's joking, but he's says it in the Ukrainian language and now it finally dawns on them that they're actually in captivity.  Stupid.  Amateurish.  Slower than an elderly sloth at a marathon.  Considering how many people smarter than them litter the battlefield in pieces, being held captive is like winning the jackpot - three hots, a cot, and lots of uninterrupted sleep.  They should be ecstatic.

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This happened a few days ago, but it's too good to not comment on.  Apparently, Ukrainian operatives infiltrated deep into Russia - in Moscow region, which is a hell of distance to travel from Ukraine - took photos of the oblivious guards "guarding" the pipeline, planted very noticeable explosives on top of all three of the pipelines, got a safe distance away, and filmed the remote detonation of the pipelines like it's a Call of Duty cutscene or something.  The balls on these Ukrainians!  I have no idea if the Russian guards were even anywhere near the area when it happened.  I want to believe that they were having a nightcap at the time.

I note this war's parallels to Red Alert, but jeez, this is too on-the-nose.  This video might as well be a Red Alert cutscene featuring Tanya Adams.  I can practically hear the "CHA-CHING!" followed by maniacal laughing as the Russian pipeline explodes.

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Venezuela asks for military aid from Russia

Update: Russia provides Pantsir AA

That's a shock considering that AA is in high demand both for use in the Russian frontline and the equally important objective of defending Putin's mansions.

"Russia is actually one of Venezuela's key military-technical partners; we supply the country with virtually the entire range of weapons, from small arms to aircraft," Zhuravlev added.

They're doomed.

[Cassia]

There was a pretty funny video from the frontlines.

It's two captured Russians in zip ties.  They said that they haven't slept for 3 days and that when they woke up, their hands were zip-tied together.  The Ukrainian laughs and says they'll be plenty of time to sleep in captivity.  They apparently think the Ukrainian filming them is an "ally", which gets a hearty laugh from him.  He tells them that they're captured.  They don't understand and ask for the location of their weapons.  The Ukrainian reiterates that they're captured.  They ask look at each other for long pause and then back at the Ukrainian and asks if he's serious.  The Ukrainian then sarcastically says that he's joking, but he's says it in the Ukrainian language and now it finally dawns on them that they're actually in captivity.  Stupid.  Amateurish.  Slower than an elderly sloth at a marathon.  Considering how many people smarter than them litter the battlefield in pieces, being held captive is like winning the jackpot - three hots, a cot, and lots of uninterrupted sleep.  They should be ecstatic.

That is telling. I saw a vid on reddit showing (pixelized) three Russian troopers walking on a path like they were going fishing down the pond. No situational awareness as they passed a stone wall. They didn't get a single shot off at the Ukrainian soldier. I have seen little kids playing "army" better than that.