Russia went all in on "digital sovereignty." This is partly because the Russian government cares deeply about censoring what their citizens can see (which they can't do if those citizens consume content from American services), partly because the American services themselves cut Russia off because of sanctions-related concerns.
This makes Russian datacenters a much more attractive target for the Ukrainians. While Russia can (and does) bomb Ukrainian datacenters, the fact that Ukrainians are so reliant on US infrastructure (and could rapidly move local workloads to western clouds if the need was great enough) makes such operations far less attractive. It's much easier for Ukraine to strike some facility near Moscow than it is for Russia to strike Ashburn, Virginia.
Given the geopolitical concerns from both the east and the west, this makes the question of whether Europe should move content off of US infrastructure a lot more complicated.
China is the only true winner of that war.
[0]: https://medium.com/@hayekesteloo/china-vs-ukraine-ft-investi...
Russia is economically becoming a vassal state just like north Korea is.
Something tells me that given a choice between the EU and Russia (under Chinese boot, at that), we'll see number in favor of EU that even Putin didn't dream of for himself.
The East because they are blockaded at sea currently, if they would invade Taiwan.
And they already have huge economical leverage there.
Russia is basically falling apart. But in a dictatorship, stuff like that is only seen sudden, when it collapses.
Putin seems to be making many of the mistakes of pre 1991.
The simplest solution would be to reboot the Siberian Republic [1] as a Chinese suzerainty. Ideally after Putin dies as part of a deal to the new ascender. Maybe together with giving them personal co-ownership in some major ventures there.
> East because they are blockaded at sea currently, if they would invade Taiwan
Siberia and Outer Mongolia remain closer and thus cheaper and more-secure sources than anything coming in over ocean, which in essence means from Australia, South America or Africa.
Russia is recently bluffing a bit there, Putin had a visit for the first time recently, I think it's China related:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuril_Islands_dispute
China is already owning the area with investments and a lot of workers/projects there are already Chinese. Seems like Russia already lost control ( unofficially)
Helped Ukraine much, did it?
(Controlling Denmark would help tremendously, too, which is why Moscow once asked Berlin for Denmark during or right before WWII as a response to Berlin's asking Moscow for its consent for Berlin to take control of Romania or some such.)
And yes, I believe that continuing to be able to access the world ocean from St Petersburg has helped Russia in its war with Ukraine.
BTW, "China ends up in either nominal or practical control of almost all of [Russia]" strikes me as so unlikely as to not be worth thinking about.
The same can be said about the US <> EU/Russia in this conflict. Why bother helping Ukraine/Europe win the war if you consider them at least partly hostile? Better to let them fight your own enemy (Russia) and trade with both sides to your own advantage.
But hopefully Europe becomes more independent. The US has become too unstable
About half the country can't believe what's going on, 1/4 thinks he's all great somehow, 1/4 just wants to pretend everything is ok and they don't have to pay attention.
We are living the end of empire, like Nero metaphorically fiddling while Rome burned.
Why did Denmark sign the Greenland treaty? It's a humiliation ritual. Unrestricted access to develop the resources of the Greenland's economic zone, a perpetual veto over any foreign investment, and two new military bases, plus expansion of existing bases. With no end date. In exchange for a payment of... zero. And Denmark still needs to pay the block grant. Does that seem like a treaty between equals? What kind of country grants someone else veto power over investment in a region? What kind of country allows the hosting of foreign military bases, and still calls itself sovereign?
"Vassals" is too strong of a term. European states aren't vassals. Once in a while they give a speech against the US at the UN. And they are constantly complaining about how they are treated, as most vassals do. But they aren't allies. If the US were to file taxes, they would be listed as dependents. That is why they rage when someone who doesn't share their vision gets elected US President, but most Americans don't care who is elected in Europe.
That describes the ratio of the influence that European political leaders have on the lives of Americans vis-a-vis the influence that American political leaders have on the lives of Europeans.
And the thing about states in a subordinate position like that is that they are not respected. European political leaders like to pretend that this is a situation of equals and then complain when the US pushes them around, but it has never been a situation of equals since the end of WW2. Only the facade has been slowly dropped in the intervening years. The sooner Europe stops pretending, the better it will be for them, as not pretending is the first step towards gaining true autonomy. But each time I get my hopes up that Europe will take responsibility for their military and energy needs, I get disappointed by the resulting wave of irreality and wishful thinking.
Yes, and that helped turn the US into the global hegemony it is today. No wonder China wants a wack. Power doesn't need a conscience.
That’s a kind of neutrality.
And now the US has joined them: https://apnews.com/article/trump-russia-diesel-midterms-12ba...
Turns out digital sovereignty is a bad idea in terms of state security.
Don't put all eggs into one basket they told ya!
> this makes the question of whether Europe should move content off of US infrastructure a lot more complicated.
Which was equating outside of Ukraine with USA, which is a logical error. Moving the goalposts does not invalidate the point. I have zero interest in discussing those probabilities (0 vs 0). The argument stands. This is hn
3/ "This summer, faced with the inability to conclude a war that began nearly five years ago, Putin opted for a new round of escalation.
4/ "In June, the Russian Armed Forces began systematically targeting warehouses belonging to the Ukrainian company Nova Poshta, prompting a retaliatory strike on Wildberries warehouses; in September, strikes on Ukrainian data centres began, and a response followed swiftly.
5/ "In other words, one shouldn't assume that no one had thought to attack data centres before; it is simply that Putin decided to take this step right now.
6/ "This move effectively lifted the constraints that had previously bound Ukraine – a country that generally adheres to certain rules of engagement and, with few exceptions, does not initiate attacks on clearly civilian targets.
7/ "Ukraine had been prepared for this scenario almost from the very start of the war – and even before that. Even prior to the invasion, when it was clear to everyone that it was virtually inevitable, a law was passed allowing for the temporary storage of state registries abroad.
...
47/ "The issue is therefore extremely serious — far more so than the strikes on Wildberries, which result in economic damage but do not threaten the functioning of the state itself.
48/ "I believe Putin may have committed his second-biggest blunder since the invasion of Ukraine. He has literally started throwing stones inside a glass house without realizing how fragile that house is. The very system he built prevents him from grasping this;…
49/ …he makes decisions without consulting or listening to anyone, living in his own cozy bubble.
https://bsky.app/profile/chriso-wiki.bsky.social/post/3mxgts...
But sure, let me try that tinfoil hat on.
Imagine for a second that you've been magically transformed into Putin, the president of Russia. You decide to stop the war. You whip out your pen and sign a piece of paper. The Duma obligingly votes all-in-favor the next day, like the good lap dogs they are.
But wait. The world hates Russians now. This comment will be downvoted into oblivion (which is why it's from a throwaway). People all over the world now hate Russian athletes, business people, scientists, and tourists. The country will remain isolated. Next, the EU's been sending all this money to Ukraine in hopes that they will get paid back with reparations. Will they suddenly play nice? Nah, you just saddled your country (remember - you are Putin) with crippling debt. Third - you made a good chunk of your population fight a war for the past 4 years, and told them it was just. Suddenly you have to do an about-face. What did they fight for?
So the Duma might just not play lap dog this time, and put someone else in charge...
If you're digging a hole the best thing you can do to improve the situation is to stop digging. Compare to a year ago: russia would have been in much better shape if they had ended the war then. Same two years ago. And so on. The results a year from now will be far worse than they are today. Within a month or two russia won't have a financial system any more, most likely telecommunications will fail. You can't run a society like that, even a relatively low tech one like russia. And never mind the fuel situation.
> Given the geopolitical concerns from both the east and the west, this makes the question of whether Europe should move content off of US infrastructure a lot more complicated.
The argument is Europe can decide to move servers out of USA and Ukraine is fine because Ukraine does not need servers in USA. They need servers in other countries. That was the logic issue with OP.
Your post is completely unrelated to mine or the above. Maybe wrong thread
> the text I quoted says Ukraine mirrored some of its critical data abroad, something russia decided against
My only point was op was confusing Ukraine hosting abroad with hosting in the USA, and wrongly concluding this affects EU hosting in the USA from this. To this you contribute that Ukraine decided to host abroad and Russia did not.
So what? That is not bringing any new facts or argument to the conversation. But the bluesky account is interesting nonetheless.
I mean, if Russia is striking datacenters in London/Dublin/Frakfurt/Paris/Amsterdam, then we've got really big problems.
And is the US even allied to Europe, or is Europe going it on their own? They might do better to move to datacenters in China at that point.
Barring that kind of a situation, moving European data back to Europe makes the most sense.
Putting datacenters in the Baltic states might not make the most sense, tho.
Complete bullshit, Russia has been targeting civilian infrastructure from the very beginning. The only thing that changed is that Ukraine is now running out of advanced air defense, so that more of the attacks are getting through.
Both sides instead regularly frame it, for propaganda purposes, as being targeted without ever saying as such - 'A [enemy] [drone/missile] struck a beach full of civilians' for instance. That's completely accurate, but misleading because most people think that means the beach was targeted, as opposed to 'we shot down an incoming drone that was headed for a military base and it crashed into a beach'.
The reason things look so different now is because civilian facilities are being targeted. And this isn't just in Ukraine obviously, as per this topic. Ukraine has also had this capability to completely destroy civilian facilities for years. We're only getting these headlines, and likely many more to come as winter approaches, because this Pandora's Box has been opened.
Your comment doesn't really distinguish between DELIBERATE and COLLATERAL damages to civilians and their properties. I do not know what was in your other comments that were flagged, but Yandex data centers are LEGITIMATE TARGETS as they are linked to Kremlin businesses and works for them. So, they are not civilian facilities - same way as Alabuga college students that are assembling military drones - they are legal military targets, regardless of their age and not being in Army.
Nope, Ukraine only recently developed long-range strike capabilities.
[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/28/russia-militar...
Search for "Kherson human safari". Russians are deliberately targeting civilians, this is proven beyond any doubt.
How many do you think they would have managed to kill? 200 is quite easy to see happening from air defense mishaps, occasional mistargeting, and other such issues - but it's off by orders of magnitude if we assume a targeted campaign against civilians. A campaign against civilians would have multiples of that number per day in such a location.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_safari_(terror_campaign)
They killed 200 and wounded 2,000. This is information from a year ago.
> but it's off by orders of magnitude if we assume a targeted campaign against civilians.
No, it is not. It's not like they are only attacking civilian targets or concentrating all the drones allocated on that section of the front on Kherson city. Also, Ukrainians regularly eliminate such small drones, so only a fraction manages to actually get through and injure/kill someone.
There are many sources linked on that Wikipedia page extensively documenting Russian human safari in Kherson. There are many videos, such as this one:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4n03xg981o
The evidence is overwhelming.
Apart from human safari, there is also issue with hostage situation in Oleshki and thousands of dead by Russians using them for target practices and not allowing them to leave.
All I'm seeing is two sides continuing to escalate and respond to each other while the rest of the world watches.
> Wildberries (essentially Russia's Amazon)
And military supplier newly owned by Putin's buddy! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_strikes_on_Wildberri...
Ever heard of Game Theory?
Trump sucks at it. And by the looks of it, you're not very good either.
Russia bombed Ukrainian infrastructure since the start of the war. Power plants were frequently targeted last winter. The only reason why Russia is more successful now is because Ukraine is running out of advanced air defense.
> Russia could've made whole Ukraine in a literal dead state long ago -- it only takes few rockets to permanently knock out nuclear power plants and water treatment plants. Yet they didn't. I wonder why.
Because Ukraine would strike Russian nuclear power plants in response? Also, political fallout (in addition to the nuclear one) from targeting nuclear power plants would be massive. Sanctions from China and India would be on the table, which would quickly send Russian economy to the gutter.
Who started this war again?
I get that we have rules of warfare that nations (sorta, mostly, at least when it suits them) agree on, but if the choices are between ceasing to exist and doing something the rules of war prohibit, I'd choose the latter every time. Maybe I wouldn't be able to live with myself afterward, but that's likely a small price to pay when balanced against the rest of my people who'd otherwise be dead or under the oppressive regime of an occupying force.
In this scheme of things "targeting data centers" doesn't trigger my concern-o-meter at all.
(On the other side of this, the Russian government is already reprehensible for starting this war, but any time they break the rules of warfare, that's an additional black mark on their reputation. They don't have to do any of this; they choose to, for Putin's own selfish, war-mongering reasons.)