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Rita Konaev

@RitaKonaev

Feb 26

What is happening tonight in Kiev is why I've been droning on about urban warfare for the last month. Because urban warfare is horrific in general and Russia's approach to urban warfare is particularly destructive. A few points about civilian casualties & displacement:

Urban warfare in general is predominantly and particularly hard on civilians:
- ICRC data shows that war in cities accounted for 70% of all civilian casualties in Iraq & Syria.

- Other NGO data from recent conflicts also shows that when explosive weapons w/ a wide impact area like the large bombs, missiles, & artillery that Russia is using are used in populated urban areas, more than 90% of those killed are civilians.

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Rita Konaev

@RitaKonaev

Feb 25

Two positive developments and what to watch for as the invasion unfolds.
1. The protests against the war across Russia should tell you that many Russians oppose this war despite Kremlin propaganda. 1/4

If protests spread, we'll hear about how these aren't really Russian citizens, and that these 'riots' are being organized by disruptive, anti-Russian foreign agents from the West, esp. CIA. This rhetoric will be used to justify a crackdown & deter larger mobilization. 2/4

2. Positive statements from Polish and Moldovan leadership about accepting Ukrainian refugees. If the war escalates, and there are more attacks on cities, we'll see massive displacement & more refugees. 3/4

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Rita Konaev

@RitaKonaev

Feb 24

If you are trying to make sense of Russian messaging, you have to do 2 things:

1. hold 2 contradictory thoughts in your head at the same time and dispense of any need for logical consistency. 1/6

2. understand that the messaging is not meant to make sense to a western crowd that is only capable of seeing things through its US or European lens. 2/6

The messaging is aimed primarily at a Russian audience — the power players who need to keep believing Putin is in charge, the broader public who need to stay afraid so they won’t mobilize against the war. 3/6

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Rita Konaev

@RitaKonaev

Feb 21

A few words on Russian disinformation, false flag ops, & general propaganda. I see smart people commenting on how transparently fake, false, & dumb the entire production seems. Timelines, actors, statements, signatures, nothing lines up. Thats true, but none of it matters. 1/6

The quality of disinformation is not what matters. It's the audience and the circumstances around it. If the audience is international, then the aim is to pollute the info environment b/c when people have access to too much information, its hard to decipher whats true. 2/6

If the audience is domestic, or anyone in the world with access to RT (or even Fox News now), then the task is even easier since people who have been fed a steady diet of half-truths and outright lies, don't care about timelines & OSINT investigations. 3/6

Read 6 tweets

Rita Konaev

@RitaKonaev

Jan 27

I work on military technology and I swear if I read another article counting the number of Javelins arriving in Ukraine my head is going to explode. Here is what I want to know:
- How many viable bomb shelters do they have in Kyiv, Kharkiv & Odessa? 1/4

-How many hospitals ready for a massive influx of trauma casualties? Are they calling for blood donation? What's the doctor/nurses to population ratio?
-Are the local authorities preparing for food, fuel, clean water & medicine shortages? 2/4

-What is the contingency for mass displacement? What are Ukraine's neighbors going to do if there is a refugee crisis? Is the US getting ready to issue emergency visas to Ukrainians in high-risk of Russian targeting and/or relatives of US citizens & nationals? 3/4

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Rita Konaev

@RitaKonaev

Jan 20

Here is something I keep thinking about. Russian military posture & troop movements increasingly point toward a major ground offensive into Ukraine. Geography, politics, operational reality all suggest that it will be hard to avoid urban warfare. This is a nightmare scenario.1/8

I want be clear here - if this happens, we are going to witness massive destruction, displacement and death. I say this for 3 reasons.

1. Urban warfare is devastatingly violent, resulting in very high numbers of casualties, especially among civilians. 2/8

2. Russia’s way of urban warfare—whether besieging Grozny or bombarding Aleppo—does not prioritize precision, differentiating between civilians & combatants, or protecting civilians & minimizing collateral damage. 3/8

Read 8 tweets

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