6 ms·

Russia uses civilians as 'target practice' for killer drones

24 points by quick_brown_fox 2y ago

quazar 2y ago
https://archive.ph/v5qeA https://archive.ph/v5qeA
protomolecule 2y ago
[flagged]
- webninja 2y ago
  > Testing is even more callous and meaningless hypothesis: why waste drones on civilians when there are plenty of military targets? > Why not test in Russia dropping paintball grenades? This article has numerous points that have difficulty standing up to a healthy application of common sense. Why would Russia attack its own citizens when there’s free targets next door in Ukraine instead? Can we reasonably expect any ordinary citizen to be able to identify the nationality behind a missile or a drone? They could be from any EU country. The governor of Pennsylvania was recently lambasted for spending so much of his time signing bombs and signing missiles in photo-ops instead of focusing on improving Pennsylvania and helping the zombies on Kensington Ave. I wonder if any of these munitions had his signature on them, jokingly. If the goal, as Noam Chomsky would say, to manufacture consent for war: there are better articles for that than this. It’s also somewhat too late to be pushing out articles like this when a change in the U.S. leadership will occur in less than 2 months on Jan 20th, 2025. Can you even deploy significant numbers of military-aged men on the ground over the Christmas Holidays, especially when we have no formal declaration of war through congress?
  - tim333 2y ago
    >somewhat too late to be pushing out articles like this when a change in the U.S. leadership will occur There is also the hypothesis that a newspaper is reporting news because it's happening. The FT isn't really known as a shiller of war propaganda. >Why would Russia attack its own citizens when there’s free targets next door in Ukraine Kherson is Ukraine The only bit that seems wrong to me is 'target practice.' They are making too much effort for that. I'd say deliberate murder is closer.
- mopsi 2y ago
  > Kherson welcomed Russians in the Feb 2022 Welcomed with "Go home!" chants, to be precise, and were shot at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrf0yLxViRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrf0yLxViRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=886GLfYIvpA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=886GLfYIvpA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDJ-y_bw7Uk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDJ-y_bw7Uk Russians recived such a welcome that they decided to set up a network of 26 torture centers in and around Kherson. International investigators are still working on putting together details of what happened there and locating all the people who went missing: https://news.sky.com/story/torture-24-hours-a-day-survivors-reveal-the-dark-cruelty-of-russias-detention-centres-in-occupied-ukraine-12970745 https://news.sky.com/story/torture-24-hours-a-day-survivors-... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/02/kherson-torture-centres-were-planned-by-russian-state-say-lawyers https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/02/kherson-tortur...
  - protomolecule 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - aguaviva 2y ago
      "Україна понад усе" ("Ukraine above all" in English or "Ukraine über alles" in German) Except it doesn't have the connotation of the latter among Ukrainians at all. It's more like their version of Vive la France. It has its own history, and the similarity in phrasing is entirely coincidental. Another day, another drop of disinformation.
      - protomolecule 2y ago
        Except the corresponding article[0] in Ukrainian Wikipedia as the proof that it is a "Ukrainian patriotic slogan" gives the link to the news page that shows a photo of a mob with torches and lists slogans like "Ukraine above all", "Glory to nation, death to enemies", "Bandera, Shukhevich -- heroes of Ukraine"[1]. [0] https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Україна_понад_усе https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Україна_понад_усе [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20170206104859/http://24tv.ua/slava_natsiyi_smert_vorogam__na_donbasi_vlashtuvali_smoloskipnu_hodu_n773756 https://web.archive.org/web/20170206104859/http://24tv.ua/sl...
- peutetre 2y ago
  > and using the city as a shield A shield against what?
  - aguaviva 2y ago
    What the commenter means is that when Russian/Soviet forces hold defensive positions in large cities, they're valiantly protecting them from "genocidal sieges".[0] But when Ukrainian forces do the same, they're callously sacrificing the inhabitants by "using the city as a shield". Is everything clear now? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42294630 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42294630
    - peutetre 2y ago
      Ah, so the best solution will be for Russia to show leadership by getting out of Ukraine altogether. That way there's no need for anyone to hold defensive positions or for cities to be used as shields.
- tim333 2y ago
  >if there is anything in this article besides atrocity propaganda? Some of use dislike atrocities and feel reporting them is a good idea so they stop. By propaganda are you suggesting the FT is lying and the Russians aren't killing civilians with drones on purpose? There is also a bbc article on the same stuff https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c207gz7key6o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c207gz7key6o
  - protomolecule 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - tim333 2y ago
      Well there are a lot of direct interviews with locals telling about being attacked by drones. Here's a mum of two who was cycling home and was followed and attacked by one https://x.com/ZarinaZabrisky/status/1841820891245609111 https://x.com/ZarinaZabrisky/status/1841820891245609111 Where the thing maybe a bit propagandised is I looked at a Russian channel and it seems the policy is to stop all movement by basically attacking anything that moves rather than going after civilians in particular. Although even so I feel trying to kill unarmed girls going around town on a bicycle is a bit out of order. It's a bit reminiscent of the whole war - the Russians saying they had to invade Ukraine because their security was threatened which seems a bit of a stretch with Ukraine being basically a peaceful democracy looking to join the EU and Russia being a famously aggressive dictatorship with the worlds largest nuclear arsenal and tank reserves. I mean it's possible they feel threatened by peaceful democracies and unarmed girls on bicycles but I feel it doesn't fit very well with reality.
      - protomolecule 2y ago
        >Here's a mum And "Nayirah" "saw" Iraqi soldiers murdering babies. >I looked at a Russian channel Which one? >the thing maybe a bit propagandised It wouldn't be the first time in Ukraine either. Far from the first time. "He [the deputy chairman of the parliament regulatory committee] also accuses her [fired human rights chief Lyudmila Denisova] of having focused too much on media work, and on describing sexually motivated crimes in gratuitous detail as well as the raping of children in occupied territories. However, some of these accounts, he said, had not been verified, which had harmed Ukraine's reputation and distracted media attention from other, proven crimes and problems."[0] If western media is telling us that something like the events from Brereton Report [1] (where Australian special forces were killing Afghani civilians) are happening in Kherson, there better be proofs. [0] https://www.dw.com/en/why-ukraines-human-rights-chief-lyudmyla-denisova-was-dismissed/a-62017920 https://www.dw.com/en/why-ukraines-human-rights-chief-lyudmy... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brereton_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brereton_Report
- cherry_tree 2y ago
  One has to wonder why you are spending your time here offering counter-propaganda for the Russian military.
  - tim333 2y ago
    If you look at his comments they are basically all shilling for Russia apart from one on Rust. The most recent being "what took him so long" on Putin raising defence spending to a third of Russia's budget. I'm not sure that's really what you are supposed to do on HN? Also you might think Russia could find something better to do that spending all their money and tens of thousands of their men on trying to kill the neighbours and steal their land. It's not even really profitable these days.
    - aguaviva 2y ago
      Actually it can be more profitable than you might think. It turns out the resources that Putin's forces are sitting on are both quite valuable and strategically significant: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/natural-resources-ukraine-war-1.6467039 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/natural-resources-ukraine-w... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/climate/ukraine-lithium.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/climate/ukraine-lithium.h... (https://archive.md/OkQ2a https://archive.md/OkQ2a) Though the war was launched primarily for ideological reasons, it's safe to assume that the plunder aspect factored into whatever deranged cost-benefit analysis he made at the time.
      - tim333 2y ago
        Maybe but Russia is not exactly short on natural resources and does seem like it could do with more manpower which it's depleting both through war deaths and young people leaving. Also the war is apparently costing ~500m-1bn per day and looks like dragging on into another Afghanistan like situation. I think the thing started a bit because Putin was reading 19th century books on invasions and similar during covid lockdown and imperial invasion used to kind of make sense back then - I'm a Brit and we had quite an empire. But now when the economy is dominated by tech I'm not sure it pays.
tim333 2y ago
The Russian side seems quite proud of being evil. It's like year sure we murder and torture civilians, that's what makes us great.

quazar 2y ago

https://archive.ph/v5qeA https://archive.ph/v5qeA

protomolecule 2y ago

[flagged]

webninja 2y ago
> Testing is even more callous and meaningless hypothesis: why waste drones on civilians when there are plenty of military targets? > Why not test in Russia dropping paintball grenades? This article has numerous points that have difficulty standing up to a healthy application of common sense. Why would Russia attack its own citizens when there’s free targets next door in Ukraine instead? Can we reasonably expect any ordinary citizen to be able to identify the nationality behind a missile or a drone? They could be from any EU country. The governor of Pennsylvania was recently lambasted for spending so much of his time signing bombs and signing missiles in photo-ops instead of focusing on improving Pennsylvania and helping the zombies on Kensington Ave. I wonder if any of these munitions had his signature on them, jokingly. If the goal, as Noam Chomsky would say, to manufacture consent for war: there are better articles for that than this. It’s also somewhat too late to be pushing out articles like this when a change in the U.S. leadership will occur in less than 2 months on Jan 20th, 2025. Can you even deploy significant numbers of military-aged men on the ground over the Christmas Holidays, especially when we have no formal declaration of war through congress?
- tim333 2y ago
  >somewhat too late to be pushing out articles like this when a change in the U.S. leadership will occur There is also the hypothesis that a newspaper is reporting news because it's happening. The FT isn't really known as a shiller of war propaganda. >Why would Russia attack its own citizens when there’s free targets next door in Ukraine Kherson is Ukraine The only bit that seems wrong to me is 'target practice.' They are making too much effort for that. I'd say deliberate murder is closer.
mopsi 2y ago
> Kherson welcomed Russians in the Feb 2022 Welcomed with "Go home!" chants, to be precise, and were shot at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrf0yLxViRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrf0yLxViRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=886GLfYIvpA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=886GLfYIvpA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDJ-y_bw7Uk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDJ-y_bw7Uk Russians recived such a welcome that they decided to set up a network of 26 torture centers in and around Kherson. International investigators are still working on putting together details of what happened there and locating all the people who went missing: https://news.sky.com/story/torture-24-hours-a-day-survivors-reveal-the-dark-cruelty-of-russias-detention-centres-in-occupied-ukraine-12970745 https://news.sky.com/story/torture-24-hours-a-day-survivors-... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/02/kherson-torture-centres-were-planned-by-russian-state-say-lawyers https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/02/kherson-tortur...
- protomolecule 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - aguaviva 2y ago
    "Україна понад усе" ("Ukraine above all" in English or "Ukraine über alles" in German) Except it doesn't have the connotation of the latter among Ukrainians at all. It's more like their version of Vive la France. It has its own history, and the similarity in phrasing is entirely coincidental. Another day, another drop of disinformation.
    - protomolecule 2y ago
      Except the corresponding article[0] in Ukrainian Wikipedia as the proof that it is a "Ukrainian patriotic slogan" gives the link to the news page that shows a photo of a mob with torches and lists slogans like "Ukraine above all", "Glory to nation, death to enemies", "Bandera, Shukhevich -- heroes of Ukraine"[1]. [0] https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Україна_понад_усе https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Україна_понад_усе [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20170206104859/http://24tv.ua/slava_natsiyi_smert_vorogam__na_donbasi_vlashtuvali_smoloskipnu_hodu_n773756 https://web.archive.org/web/20170206104859/http://24tv.ua/sl...
peutetre 2y ago
> and using the city as a shield A shield against what?
- aguaviva 2y ago
  What the commenter means is that when Russian/Soviet forces hold defensive positions in large cities, they're valiantly protecting them from "genocidal sieges".[0] But when Ukrainian forces do the same, they're callously sacrificing the inhabitants by "using the city as a shield". Is everything clear now? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42294630 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42294630
  - peutetre 2y ago
    Ah, so the best solution will be for Russia to show leadership by getting out of Ukraine altogether. That way there's no need for anyone to hold defensive positions or for cities to be used as shields.
tim333 2y ago
>if there is anything in this article besides atrocity propaganda? Some of use dislike atrocities and feel reporting them is a good idea so they stop. By propaganda are you suggesting the FT is lying and the Russians aren't killing civilians with drones on purpose? There is also a bbc article on the same stuff https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c207gz7key6o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c207gz7key6o
- protomolecule 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - tim333 2y ago
    Well there are a lot of direct interviews with locals telling about being attacked by drones. Here's a mum of two who was cycling home and was followed and attacked by one https://x.com/ZarinaZabrisky/status/1841820891245609111 https://x.com/ZarinaZabrisky/status/1841820891245609111 Where the thing maybe a bit propagandised is I looked at a Russian channel and it seems the policy is to stop all movement by basically attacking anything that moves rather than going after civilians in particular. Although even so I feel trying to kill unarmed girls going around town on a bicycle is a bit out of order. It's a bit reminiscent of the whole war - the Russians saying they had to invade Ukraine because their security was threatened which seems a bit of a stretch with Ukraine being basically a peaceful democracy looking to join the EU and Russia being a famously aggressive dictatorship with the worlds largest nuclear arsenal and tank reserves. I mean it's possible they feel threatened by peaceful democracies and unarmed girls on bicycles but I feel it doesn't fit very well with reality.
    - protomolecule 2y ago
      >Here's a mum And "Nayirah" "saw" Iraqi soldiers murdering babies. >I looked at a Russian channel Which one? >the thing maybe a bit propagandised It wouldn't be the first time in Ukraine either. Far from the first time. "He [the deputy chairman of the parliament regulatory committee] also accuses her [fired human rights chief Lyudmila Denisova] of having focused too much on media work, and on describing sexually motivated crimes in gratuitous detail as well as the raping of children in occupied territories. However, some of these accounts, he said, had not been verified, which had harmed Ukraine's reputation and distracted media attention from other, proven crimes and problems."[0] If western media is telling us that something like the events from Brereton Report [1] (where Australian special forces were killing Afghani civilians) are happening in Kherson, there better be proofs. [0] https://www.dw.com/en/why-ukraines-human-rights-chief-lyudmyla-denisova-was-dismissed/a-62017920 https://www.dw.com/en/why-ukraines-human-rights-chief-lyudmy... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brereton_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brereton_Report
cherry_tree 2y ago
One has to wonder why you are spending your time here offering counter-propaganda for the Russian military.
- tim333 2y ago
  If you look at his comments they are basically all shilling for Russia apart from one on Rust. The most recent being "what took him so long" on Putin raising defence spending to a third of Russia's budget. I'm not sure that's really what you are supposed to do on HN? Also you might think Russia could find something better to do that spending all their money and tens of thousands of their men on trying to kill the neighbours and steal their land. It's not even really profitable these days.
  - aguaviva 2y ago
    Actually it can be more profitable than you might think. It turns out the resources that Putin's forces are sitting on are both quite valuable and strategically significant: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/natural-resources-ukraine-war-1.6467039 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/natural-resources-ukraine-w... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/climate/ukraine-lithium.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/climate/ukraine-lithium.h... (https://archive.md/OkQ2a https://archive.md/OkQ2a) Though the war was launched primarily for ideological reasons, it's safe to assume that the plunder aspect factored into whatever deranged cost-benefit analysis he made at the time.
    - tim333 2y ago
      Maybe but Russia is not exactly short on natural resources and does seem like it could do with more manpower which it's depleting both through war deaths and young people leaving. Also the war is apparently costing ~500m-1bn per day and looks like dragging on into another Afghanistan like situation. I think the thing started a bit because Putin was reading 19th century books on invasions and similar during covid lockdown and imperial invasion used to kind of make sense back then - I'm a Brit and we had quite an empire. But now when the economy is dominated by tech I'm not sure it pays.

tim333 2y ago

The Russian side seems quite proud of being evil. It's like year sure we murder and torture civilians, that's what makes us great.