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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned that it was "inevitable" that "war" would come to Russia after authorities there were forced to temporarily close a busy Moscow airport following an overnight drone attack on the capital.

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[-] ExiledElf@lemmy.world 147 points 1 year ago

Russia seems to be under the impression that they can invade and not be retaliated against. Wonderful to see Ukraine proving them wrong.

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[-] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 105 points 1 year ago

Ah, the little known "true flag operation". Very sophisticated psyop technique wherein you attack a country you are already at war with, and then admit it. Often has a powerful psychological effect.

[-] Chee_Koala@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago

It's a real forgotten classic warfare tactic, dating back to the ancient pre-corona times. What a spectacle, truly.

[-] Hyphlosion@donphan.social 12 points 1 year ago

There was a time before covid?

Pics or it didn’t happen.

[-] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

You heard it here first folks. The universe began with a respiratory virus.

[-] Screeslope@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I think you refer to the often discussed "big cough" origin theory of the universe?

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[-] hoodlem@hoodlem.me 45 points 1 year ago

This would have been unthinkable six months ago. I’m glad the Ukrainians are taking care of business.

[-] randon31415@lemmy.world 37 points 1 year ago

Russia already has gaps in their air defense ON THE FRONT LINE. Getting Russia to pull back enough antiair to protect Moscow would win the antiair war in Ukraine. Also, if this war is all about projecting strength, what would the inability to protect Moscow be considered by the population?

[-] Noobg@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

The Russian population will continue to ignore any and all imperialistic geopolitical ambitions perpetrated by their political elites like ostriches with their heads in the sand. As is tradition.

[-] Lenins2ndCat@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

I don't think it's fair to blame the civilian population, much like I don't really think the civilian population of america is blameable for iraq or afghanistan. These are things that leadership does and the civilian population are very easily led to follow in the moment. They get no say in the matter.

[-] kokesh@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago
[-] Ecksell@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

I keep seeing “drone attack” in the headlines. Does this mean they are launching missiles from remotely flown aircraft, or are these guys just smashing small drones into each other’s buildings kamikaze style?

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[-] sudneo@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Honestly, I don't get the point of calling a small attack like this on a civilian target a victory. I understand bridges and other infrastructure with military value, military targets in general etc., but this is a basically random building. The fact that the ministry owned it seemes a very stretched motivation, not to talk about "several ministries have offices in this district"... I mean, it's Moscow city, like the city of London, it's basically just offices.

I feel like we should not cross the line where we justify attacks on civilians, and let Russia be the only one committing war crimes by doing that (and hopefully paying the price).

[-] ghostBones@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There has never been an airport without military value. Because of this, they are often the first assets that are attacked or seized when besieging a city.

[-] sudneo@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Completely agree, and in fact I mentioned myself that attacks on infrastructures from my PoV would be justified, as they have military value.

[-] bossito@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago

Why should Ukraine be Jesus? Always being hit and strictly hitting back only within their borders. Makes no sense. Russia destroyed airports, dams, energy plants, schools and hospitals for more than a year. A drone attack in an airport in Moscow is more than justified at this point.

Wake up Russians, don't want war then stop it now while you can.

[-] sudneo@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

It is not an airport, it is a building "near" an airport. I said myself that I would understand attacks on infrastructure as this is used to support the war efforts.

Also, the reason I guess is because attacks on civilian targets give by definition no military advantages whatsoever in the war.

"Waking-up" the population seems to be a potential reason, but then again why not doing it while attacking actual military targets? And this whole argument is anyway debatable as I doubt you can own the spin of the news when all the information is anyway in the hands of the government, which means that what the actual effect on the population will be is not under your control.

[-] mea_rah@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

From what I've seen so far, I'm willing to give Ukraine the benefit of the doubt here. They were so far very much focussed on military targets. Even in this case they seem to be attacking office buildings night time when they're presumably empty. This looks like an effort was made to minimize civilian casualties. And if we trust russia, we don't know what the targets were, because they claim they intercepted all of the drones.

Russia is attacking apartment blocks during night and shopping centres daytime for over a year now. They are aiming to inflict as many civilian casualties as possible it seems.

So much for facts. Now what military purpose could these drone attacks have? To me it seems like one expected outcome is to force russia to move some of its air defence back to Moscow. So far russia felt safe enough within its own borders to the point where they used their S300 systems in ground attack mode to terrorize Ukrainian cities. Due to the nature of these AA rockets, these were also hard to intercept. So the only defence from these might be to force russia to actually start using them for their intended purpose. It seems that in some way Ukraine already tried this approach when they attacked military bases deep in the russian territory, but in those cases russia just moved strategic bombers further away and continues to lob missiles from there. Also military base is much smaller than Moscow and likely already had some AA defence present there.

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[-] the_wise_wolf@feddit.de 32 points 1 year ago

Russia's Defense Ministry called it an "attempted terrorist attack" and claimed that one drone had been shot down and two others jammed, leading them to crash into Moscow's prestigious Moskva-Citi business complex.

We don't know what the targets were.

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[-] Willer@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

a small attack like this on a civilian target

was it really though? Doesnt anybody else wonder who the actual target was?

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[-] Chalky_Pockets@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

The only people who know why the target was chosen are probably not hanging out on Lemmy.

But really there's no reason whatsoever to put restrictions on the smaller weaker country who is being invaded. War is hell. Russian civilians can rise up against Putin if they don't feel safe in their own country. 100% of this is on Putin.

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[-] the_wise_wolf@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago

Russia's Defense Ministry called it an "attempted terrorist attack" and claimed that one drone had been shot down and two others jammed, leading them to crash into Moscow's prestigious Moskva-Citi business complex.

We don't know what the targets were.

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this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
551 points (96.5% liked)

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