Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Threviel]

The states as actors or companies inside the states?

[Tamas]

The states as actors or companies inside the states?

In Hungary's case the distinction is superficial. There's a company doing the dealings, but not only under very close Orban ties, but it is the government itself negotiating the contracts with the Russians and they are very happy to take credit for it.

[The Larch]

The states as actors or companies inside the states?

The graph mentions countries, but I haven't yet seen the article it is from, which might bring more details.

[Threviel]

The states as actors or companies inside the states?

The graph mentions countries, but I haven't yet seen the article it is from, which might bring more details.

Yes, because the German state at least are not doing this, but rather companies in Germany. The west (beside Hungary) are stil democratic, if the companies are doing legal stuff they are allowed to do it.

[Josquius]

Video - by a Danish navy guy - suggesting that the Moskva failed to stop the Neptune attacks potentially due UXUI issues and not because of some sort of "distracted by drone" distraction technique. I find it interesting and plausible. Curious what grumbler and Josq think, as our resident Navy and UXUI experts.

Curious to see a bit of a UX angle on it. I noticed the thread you posted the other day about the boxes too.

It definitely sounds possible.
This is a big problem you see in systems that haven't had any UX attention- the programmer/engineer was just given a list of requirements and put together something that ticks all the boxes with zero consideration for how it will actually be used.
Far more often than not UX problems won't be that something can't be used, more that they create unnecessary friction and (when there's a choice) make it more likely someone will choose not to do something.
When its a corporate system where people have no choice but to use it, then it'll often lead to work arounds; your hyper complex password written on a postit taped to the monitor to get around the ridiculously strict password rules for instance.

Even if you do apply some basic ergonomics when designing an object, this can then forget the next step of validation within the actual context it will be used. Everyone knows about accessibility requirements for people in wheelchairs, the blind, etc... but situational accessibility problems are usually forgotten- e.g. needing to assemble your baby's pushchair whilst you have the baby in one arm. And the effect of looking at a light on dark screen for hours on end really isn't great for ones eyes, the Russian sailors looking at the radar screen were probably seeing lots of phantom blips and had learned to ignore them. I wonder whether the Ukranians actively researched when shifts were due to change and timed their attack to maximise the least competent and most tired guy on duty.

Anyway, yep, making stuff as simple as possible such that a child could use it is a good idea in the bulk of situations (sometimes you do want to make things complicated), especially when you know tired people are going to be working with it. And come on, there's a reason we don't do green on black screens anymore despite for a long time it being the established norm and thus having a big case for continuing even once the technology went past it being necessary.


This has got me thinking about UX in the USSR now- I know there was a fair bit of socialist interest in big picture stuff, cyberyn in Chile et al, but I've heard nothing about the smaller scale bits. Given the infamous stories of baths with no plugs I somehow expect this requirements led, zero consideration for the user, approach was the norm particularly in the military, with detached agencies delivering what was asked, nothing more, nothing less. I will have to see if there's any literature on this.

[Threviel]

On the gas payments:

https://www.bbc.com/news/58888451

The EU said last week that if buyers of Russian gas could complete payments in euros and get confirmation of this before any conversion into roubles took place, that would not breach sanctions.

Seems they can get off on a technicality.

[grumbler]

Video - by a Danish navy guy - suggesting that the Moskva failed to stop the Neptune attacks potentially due UXUI issues and not because of some sort of "distracted by drone" distraction technique. I find it interesting and plausible. Curious what grumbler and Josq think, as our resident Navy and UXUI experts.

He does an excellent job of describing a real problem.  In the USN, we switch people from station to station every hour or less because we have discovered that just taking a new station (e.g. going from being the port lookout to the starboard lookout) "re-sets" the boredom factor.  The key to that, of course, is having people trained to do all the jobs available, and enough people to have the spares that can be transiting between stations while keeping them all manned all the time.

He also points out something I have mentioned elsewhere:  the Ukrainians wouldn't want to "distract" the Moskva with a drone, because the presence of the drone would put the ship on alert and increase the chances of them detecting the Neptune missiles. 

We saw from the pictures of the sinking Moskva that all of the visible fire control radars were in their "stowed" positions, meaning that the ship almost certainly never saw the missiles coming.  Anders Nielson is probably correct that the first warning they had was the EW system alarm when the seeker warheads went active, in which case there was not enough time to even have the CO/OOD order the ship to engage (and we can be confident that no subordinate had the authority to do so).

An excellent video.  I'm subscribing to this guy.

[ulmont]

We just reached the "Tsar Takes Command" space on the Russian Revolution tracker: https://twitter.com/mij_europe/status/1520020783967444993?s=21&t=OgszeCuYnuG8-F4VCXtRlA

[Zanza]

@Sheilbh:
The cover of this week's Der Spiegel.



"The Olive-Greens: Bring peace with more weapons, the mobilization of the eco party." 

[Sheilbh]

Amazing. As I say I really like Germany's Greens on almost everything (not nuclear).

I could be wrong, but I think it's been a development for a while? I really liked Joschka Fischer. I think with Kosovo, with their stance on China and with Ukraine, that they have really considered what is the cost of our values and decided that they accept it. Their view (and I agree) is that the cost is worth bearing for those values.

There's a kernel of realism at the heart of their policy which I really admire because it isn't the cynical - and wrong - realism of pretending there is no cost to our values and that we can maintain them while increasing our dependence and engagement with authoritarian regimes or of submitting to "sphere of influence" thinking. They acknowledge that our values and our politics has a cost. It means there are choices we have to make.

I think that non-cynical, accurate realism is something that was I'd say almost a post-war German tradition. There was clear-eyedness that underpinned the Federal Republic's approach to the Cold War and the USSR and GDR - it's weird but I think the Greens who still have that. They're probably the European political party I admire most from what I've read and heard.

No doubt it'll turn out that they're vastly problematic in some way or other and I'll have to row all this back.

[crazy canuck]

We just reached the "Tsar Takes Command" space on the Russian Revolution tracker: https://twitter.com/mij_europe/status/1520020783967444993?s=21&t=OgszeCuYnuG8-F4VCXtRlA

If the timeline holds, not long now until the political collapse. 

Another big if - if Russia descends into the same chaos as the early 90s, will the response from the West be any different?

[celedhring]

We just reached the "Tsar Takes Command" space on the Russian Revolution tracker: https://twitter.com/mij_europe/status/1520020783967444993?s=21&t=OgszeCuYnuG8-F4VCXtRlA

Lots of rumors that Gerasimov has been sent to Ukraine, too.

[Tamas]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-rockets-hit-kyiv-un-chief-visits-besieged-mariupol-main-target-2022-04-29/

[Barrister]

Story going around Twitter that Ukrainians were opening a weapon shipment from Spain when they found Spanish sausages and a note reading "I wish you victory! With love, Letizia".

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1520119018539175936

[Habbaku]

Sounds fake.