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What sense would that make? Russians (the ones that can be reached by staged terrorist attacks on a general, at least) don't seem to need further motivation to continue prosecuting the war; fence-sitters will surely not become more inclined to stay on the fence with further evidence that internal control is weak; everyone who is against them, meanwhile, will be cheering on the attempt and consider it absolutely justified and further proof of Ukrainian pluck and skill. Any general norms against dirty tricks played on enemy leadership were long kicked to the curb by Americans and Israelis.
Killing a high ranking military official isn't terrorism. Either he was killed by the Ukranians, in which case he's a completely legitimate military target, or he was killed by the Russians, in which case it's just their ordinary procedure for replacing high level functionaries.
Oh bull shit, if Iran blew up a cabinet secretary you would be weeping tears of blood and calling for nuclear strikes.
I couldn't really care less about a random politician in whatever country you think I'm from getting killed. However, to the extent that I would favour retaliation, I would do so because it is an act of war, not because everything I don't like is magically "terrorism".
However, if my country had invaded Iran and Iran responded by killing a high-ranking military officer, who is, let's be clear, not a member of the cabinet, not a civilian, and obviously a completely legit military target, then I obviously would be off my rocker if I wanted them nuked in response.
You don't want your military personnel to get killed? Don't invade other countries lol.
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Yes, but not because it's terrorism.
Blowing up a cabinet secretary would be an act of war, and if Iran wants a war then "Bring It On" is a reasonable response - doubly so if they start it with a perfidious surprise attack rather than by declaring war.
Ukraine and Russia are already at war, at Russia's choice. It is a defensive war for Ukraine, and if they are successfully defending themselves by blowing up Russian cabinet secretaries, then Russia should either suck less or start fewer wars. As a matter of international law, Ukraine can defend themselves all the way to Vladivostok if they want to and have the military ability to.
@GBRK @The_Nybbler I still call bullshit. If that happened your response would not be “well we’ve been propping up their regional adversary and bombing the hell out of them for three years so fair play I guess”
What is the point of this obstinacy? They're all correct, it is an act of war. We constantly commit acts of war by bombing the shit out of Ukrainian residential blocks, and this gets called terrorism because civilians become collateral damage, even if terror is not the point (terror is the point in human safari and arguably in infrastructure destruction though). If Russia could surgically annihilate Ukrainian generals no matter where they are, that's be merely war.
Ukrainians do commit terrorism, but not in this case.
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If it happened I would say "Well, looks like they're fucking around so we should make them find out". But it's still war, not terrorism. The boundaries can be blurry sometimes (because it's advantageous for states to blur them) but the hypothetical here is that Iran is doing it, not one of their associated "terrorist" militias, right?
Contra MadMonzer above, I would say it's not "perfidious", but just because it's "fair play" doesn't mean the US doesn't get to respond.
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Wait, why would Iran have to declare war for it to not be a perfidious surprise attack? The US government recently bombed Iran, so Iranian retaliation would not be a strike out of the blue.
Good point. You can plausibly argue that the US and Iran have been in a state of undeclared war since the embassy siege. (Which was a perfidious surprise attack)
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The US declared a unilateral ceasefire after that bombing operation completed. Iran doesn't have to accept it, but if they choose not to they shouldn't be surprised at a kinetic response.
Sure, they shouldn't be surprised by it. My point is just that an Iranian attack would not be some Pearl Harbor style surprise attack.
The US unilateral ceasefire is in my opinion meaningless since it seems clear to me that in reality the US reserves the right to bomb Iran whenever it chooses, and if it chooses to do so will just come up with some narrative about how it was justified despite the supposed ceasefire. At most the ceasefire just means that the US would wait a bit between spinning up the narrative and launching the actual attack, in order to make it look as if it had observed the ceasefire.
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I mean, it probably depends on the cabinet member... But anyways non-nuclear strikes would be justified. Not on the basis that that's an act of terrorism, but on the basis that it's an act of war. And yes, I understand hat the trump has commited plenty of such acts on iran. If they ever use one as a casus belli I'm not going to be shocked or surprised. Mostly I'd just be wondering what took them so long.
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Yeah, because it would be an act of war.
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I think it's borderline, but insofar as the idea is to signal to the Russian upper brass that they are not even safe in their apartment blocks, it meets dictionary definitions such as Merriam-Webster's "the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion".
The problem with such a loose definition is that for example completely legal executions (which seek to deter crimes by tapping into would-be criminals fear of getting fried) fit the definition equally well.
If I said "the racist notion that black people are of higher risk of sickle cell anemia", I am technically correct, but I am also at the same time quite obviously full of shit.
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You can always use further motivation to continue the war. They're relying on volunteers, not conscripts, and this will surely spark a wave of new volunteers. They'll probably play up the "IRL action movie hero" part even more in Russian media, too.
Oh, and this general was apparently from Western Ukraine, so he's practically the perfect model for their "Ukraine is Little Rus" propaganda. He can be a useful spokesman after the fighting ends.
At this point, what I expect to spark new waves of volunteers more than anything is rising compensation along with rising big expenses such as mortgages and cars, not some stale propaganda. It's been five years, infamously longer than The Most Holiest of Patriotic Wars 1941-1945.
At the very least, who's gonna be fool enough to volunteer during winter? If you're going to go to war and can pick when you go, you wait until the season of snow and mud is over.
The best time to join the war is on the end. If one was to join WWII as a Russian the best time would have been to arrive at the front when it was in Berlin and after a tiny bit of action take a selfie at the reichstag.
Russia clearly has the momentum in this war. Ukraine is losing ground faster and faster, Ukraine has rising desertion rates and the highly motivated fanatical elements of the Ukrainian military are largely spent. People want to join the winning team and Russia is clearly the team to bet on at this point.
The front line has hardly shifted for years. If a literal snail had started where the Russians did it would be halfway across Ukraine by now, and the Russians are nowhere near that. Lately the Russians have started lying about taking objectives at a greater rate because no man’s land is getting wider and wider so they can kinda get away with it. The fact that they are not attacking for the most part does not mean that Ukraine is spent. It’s a deliberate choice to remain on the defensive and win the attritional exchange. If the Russians want to send guys to die on assault, Ukraine is smart to sit in dugouts and pick them off with drones. The win condition for Ukraine is not that they reconquer their territory, it is that Russia gives up. One way to accomplish that is retaking territory to weaken Russian morale, but it probably isn’t the best one. It’s going to take time for the Russian people to sour on the war.
If you were actually paying attention, or reading sources that cover the conflict in any amount of detail, you would be concerned.
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Ukraine has been losing ground faster and faster for 5 years now, at the risk of repeating myself. I do not recall hearing about the front being in Kiev yet.
What is different about the "momentum" today that wasn't true a year ago, or two years ago, or at any other point where Ukraine was about to collapse any day now?
Ukraine essentially has no real initiative or ability to do anything larger scale. In 2022 they had two big and succesfull counter offensives. In 2023 they had a large summer counter offensive. In 2024 they did Kursk. In 2025 and into 2026 they have been losing ground at a noticeably higher rate while not being able to launch any real counter offensives.
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Aren't you engaging in Atlanticist retconning here?
I'm engaging in describing my experience with reports on Ukraine as I remember it.
Another point: the recruiters ought to have more information on how the war's going than the average potential volunteer does. If they're still offering wads of cash, then it's probably not going to be a 2 weeks walk in the park.
I reckon the last time multiple talking heads were making predictions of a swift and imminent Ukrainian collapse was in the first few days of the war. To the extent that such were still being made, they were marginal and incidental until nowadays. It also wasn't until recently that the Russians were able to capture towns and not just on a one-off basis but in a sequential manner.
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At least as of right now, the official-line-adjacent Telegram channels I know about (anna_news, sashakots, rybar) are not really giving this any priority over their daily war reporting noise, and I'm not seeing any traces of an "IRL action movie hero" framing. They are just talking about how those perpetrators that were caught admitted to being paid money by the Ukrainian secret services and the like.
Even if you think a false flag is conceivable, why would it be more likely than that the Ukrainians indeed did it? This wouldn't be the first time, unless you claim that all the assassinations of prominent Russian figures until now, including the ones that they openly took credit for, were actually false flags, and the benefits for their side are obvious without mental gymnastics (eliminating useful individuals, encumbering Russian processes with friction and fear, signalling Russian weakness to internal doubters and external supporters). It seems like you want this to be a false flag, contra LW principles.
I just thought it's odd that the man was shot 3 times at point blank range at survived, and i'm trying to think of an explanation. But I admitted that I'm biased because I've been reading spy thrillers recently. I'm really not making a strong claim here about anything, I just thought it was an odd story. Whats the point of Ukrainian secret services shooting some random general in Moscow?
If the person who shot him had no experience with firearms, it's entirely plausible. Hit a non-lethal spot the first time because you are nervous, and two more times because you underestimated recoil and now your hands are hurt and shaking.
What do you figure was the point in the 2024 case? I think I gave a reasonable enough list of benefits. High-ranking military being scared to leave their house without a bodyguard degrades military performance: people make worse decisions under stress, and more competent candidates may not want such a job.
But maybe it was actually done by a Japanese high schooler with a magic notebook - I've been reading a lot of manga lately...
Well, the true answer is I don't know. I don't speak Russian, and I'm not very well-informed about that case or the results of it.
But it seems to me that the reporting focuses on that general's role in charge of chemical weapons. Those are a huge trigger-word for western civilians. By killing him, the Ukrainians are making a big public statement that "the Russians are using chemical weapons on us." If that's true, it would significantly increase Western public support for Ukraine. Of course, I have no idea if that's true or not (I hadn't heard of chemical weapons being used anywhere else), and frankly I don't care, I think a few thousand dead from chemical weapons is much less important than hundreds of thousands of dead from artillery. But politically, they are a big deal.
Also, you know, they killed the guy. They didn't just lightly injure him by sending an assassin who had no prior experience with firearms. That seems like an important step in carrying out an assassination.
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