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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   7900 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026

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Zelensky and Trump's arm twisting competition

Ukraine is bombing Russian refineries. Good for them but maybe not so good for the price of diesel and thus for Trump. Trump has been very vocal about how Zelensky needs to stop using the targeting data that the US supplies them. Recently he's stepped up his threats, proclaiming a diesel deal with Russia just a couple months after the Lindsey Graham Memorial Sanctions Bill, and announcing an energy ceasefire that Russia doesn't seem to know about.

Republican congressfolk have been fairly supportive of the Iran conflict but Russia is much more polarizing. Zelensky seems confident we won't see a repeat of the early administration snafu - no need for groveling and thank yous - due to this pressure. On the other hand, another winter without sufficient air defense will prove extremely painful, though we said that last year too.

Just as a coincidence there some absolutely unverified claims by pro-UA accounts in twitter that starlink has imposed speed limits that had disrupted some Ukraine drone strikes.

Fog of war, grain of salt, etc. etc., but it seems worse than that at this point. No just "claims by pro-UA accounts", but e.g. the Wall Street Journal quoting Ukraine officials. Not just ordinary Starlink (which isn't supposed to be used for military weapons, or with terminals in-motion on any standard plans) but rather Starshield (the military-grade hardware with dedicated satellites, etc., which is supposed to already be disabled inside Russia but which was donated to Ukraine by the Pentagon for military use there, including in Russian-captured areas). Cut off with no warning while missions were in-flight.

Could be a misunderstanding, an attempt to cut off Russian use of captured terminals that accidentally impacted Ukrainian terminals as well ... but given the lack of warning and the timing, I highly doubt it.

Ukrainian habit to litigate everything in twitter may eventually play a nasty trick on them. I wonder if USA starts messing with starlink latency (that can always be technical issue) and just keep it functional but ineffective with plausible deniability - what would Ukraine do then.

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