This Bombing Campaign Threw Me For a Loop

At first, I thought that I was being psyop’d again.

All of a sudden we were hearing about Ukraine losing power. What gives, I thought? Putin said that the bombing campaign would not be extended. How then to interpret the news of a sudden and large campaign targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure?

“It’s all fake and gay,” was my first reaction. Especially when I saw the Ukrainian TV hosts hosting candlelight shows and the hysterical reaction of Western media.

But, seeing as Russia hasn’t denied the accusations at this point, I suppose the idea that Ukraine was deliberately playing up the poor state of the energy infrastructure to get even more money from the West - the assumption that I was working with - has to be tabled. Sure, Kiev is going to milk this for all its worth, but that doesn’t mean no strikes have been occurring.

Politico:

Surovikin and other officials point to the targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with a massive wave of attacks the past week. Strikes at the weekend resulted in power outages across the country leaving more than a million households without electricity, the deputy head of the Ukrainian presidency, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said Saturday.

“These are vile strikes on critical objects,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. “The world can and must stop this terror,” he said. “The geography of this latest mass strike is very wide,” Zelenskyy added. “Of course we don’t have the technical ability to knock down 100 percent of the Russian missiles and strike drones. I am sure that, gradually, we will achieve that, with help from our partners. Already now, we are downing a majority of cruise missiles, a majority of drones.”

Intercepting a majority of what’s being fired by the Russians at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, though, isn’t enough to halt the disruption Surovikin is endeavoring to provoke with the strikes. The scale of the damage caused to Ukraine’s power system at the weekend exceeded what was inflicted in the first wave of strikes on energy infrastructure on October 10, according to a Telegram post by Ukrenergo, the state grid operator.

Around a third of the country’s power stations have been destroyed since the attacks started, Ukrainian authorities say.

The West is blaming the energy infrastructure attacks on Iranian drones. The Russian MoD, for some reason, doesn’t like the idea of buying drones from Iran and so, tried to suppress the fact that Russia was using Iranian drones months ago already.

Tadeusz Giczan @TadeuszGiczan

Fail of the day. A Russian defence ministry expert doesn't realise he is already on air and says: "Just don't ask too much about these Iranian drones. We all know they are Iranian, but the authorities don't want to admit it".

I often don’t know why they do what they do, but I assume it’s some sort of corruption-related cover-up. Not having enough drones leads to questions being asked about where the money for drone went, if I had to guess.

Anyways, there’s your escalation, I guess.

I certainly did not call this one. I thought it would end because it would be Putin’s MO to not escalate and because, again, Putin said that continuation and escalation was not expected.

But here we are. I mean I’m in bed because I’m sick, still, and I need a good doctor.

You know who to call!

But, in general, where we’re going seems clearer now as well. It appears that Russia can target Ukraine’s infrastructure at low-cost and with relative efficiency. 5D apologists used to say that this was impossible, for multiple reasons including bad PR, unfeasibility of knocking out Ukraine’s power grid because of Soviet redundancies (I fell for that one) and some other half-truths and squeamish lies as well. All untrue? Sure seems like it.

Now, it is unclear whether this will seriously hamper the Ukraine war effort. Getting supplies of weapons from the West to the East doesn’t seem to be a problem. Diesel works on trucks and trains just fine.

It will certainly hurt the Ukrainian civilian population. The question everyone with a brain is asking: will this make them angry at Russia or Kiev and NATO?

The answer is everyone.

People are able to blame multiple parties for their woes with no cognitive dissonance. So, Russia is to blame for hitting the power, but the energy company, the local politicians and so on are still to blame for there not being any power - they won’t get a pass, oh no. Tough situations cut both ways, luckily. Russia suffered from economic woes for much of its existence and even though people vaguely understood that America was to blame for their troubles, they still ragged on their own government. Analysts who make predictions about people’s reactions to X or Y event need to first start by pointing out that people are retarded and not rational. Only if you assume that will you be able to even approximate something resembling the true reaction/mindset of the peasants to a given event.

In general, there are many ways to exert influence on vast swaths of people.

The binary choice most people are familiar with: you can bribe them with nice things, nice words and nice gestures, which sometimes works. Or you can bully them by inflicting pain on them. A minority begins to resent, but most acquiesce and even go on to identify with their oppressor.

The duality of man.

Thirdly, and less understood, you can influence through imitation by creating an example out of yourself. Stride forth on the world arena like a titan doing your own thing and not caring at all what anyone else says. Soon, other will begin imitating you - the sincerest form of flattery.

I would prefer that Russia win friends and influence people by just doing its own thing self-confidently and winning admiration that way.

Barring that, may as well be an effective bully because in a bribing arms race, Russia is sure to lose. Speaking of which, in terms of PR in Ukraine, Russia has already lost. The Jewish-owned media in Ukraine has already propagandized many normie peasants. Those who were neutral to or perhaps leaning hostile to Russia are now rabid russophobes. The war, at this point, can’t make anything worse with these people, who hated Russia even before the hot water went out. Only winning the war and then subjecting them to counter-propaganda will deprogram them. Playing nice and fighting with one hand behind one’s back won’t make these people hate Russia one iota less. Conversely, knocking out the power wont make pro-Russia diehards switch sides. “That’s what you get, idiots!” is what these people now get to say to their friends and family who pooh-pah’d their warnings before.

And that’s all I have to say on the power strikes so far. It’s not that important a topic in the grand scheme of things from where I am sitting anyways. I’d rather just wait for Kherson to begin, because everything appears to be indicating that the fate of the war will be decided there.