captured, wealth destroyed, and populations and land annexed with hardly a shot fired.

The old saying about military prone to fight the last war, and being unprepared for the new methods of warfare seem pertinent.

Tuesday 27 June 2017 15:43 BST

...

The cyber attack – a day before Ukraine marks its Constitution Day - struck hours after a high-ranking intelligence officer was assassinated in a car bombing in Kiev.

Police said Colonel Maksim Shapoval, a member of the defence ministry’s main intelligence directorate, was killed in the “terrorist act” on Tuesday.

Ukraine has blamed Russia for repeated cyber attacks targeting crucial infrastructure during the past three years, including one on its power grid that left part of western Ukraine temporarily without electricity in December 2015.

Relations between Kiev and the Kremlin collapsed in 2014 following Moscow's annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, where fighting continues despite a ceasefire agreement.

...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-cyber-attack-hackers-national-bank-state-power-company-airport-rozenko-pavlo-cabinet-a7810471.html

What are the chances they misplace some unexamined containers... just fucking great.

A widespread cyberattack appeared to hit Europe on Tuesday, with major companies in Ukraine, Russia and Britain among others reporting system issues.

Russia's top oil producer Rosneft said a large-scale cyberattack hit its servers on Tuesday and computer systems at some banks and the main airport in neighboring Ukraine were also disrupted.

Ukraine's prime minister says that a cyberattack affecting his country is "unprecedented," but "vital systems haven't been affected." A Moscow-based cyber security firm, Group-IB, said it appeared to be a coordinated attack simultaneously targeting victims in Russia and Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Britain's WPP, the world's biggest advertising agency, said it had been hit by a cyber attack. In Germany, postal and logistics company Deutsche Post said systems of its Express division in the Ukraine have in part been affected.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/cyberattack-hits-oil-giant-banks-russia-ukraine-n777161?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma

...

According to the defence ministry, Shapoval was a colonel in military intelligence. The Ukrainian Pravda newspaper quoted law enforcement sources saying he had headed a special forces unit.

Yury Butusov, editor of the Censor.net news website, said in a Facebook post that Shapoval’s unit had fought in eastern Ukraine, where a conflict with Russia-backed separatists that broke out in 2014 has killed more than 10,000 people. He claimed Russian intelligence could have killed Shapoval.

Shapoval’s death comes almost a year after prominent journalist Pavel Sheremet was killed by a similar explosion in Kiev as he drove to work. A documentary film released last month revealed evidence suggesting that Ukraine’s spy agency may have witnessed the planting of the car bomb that killed Sheremet. No one has been brought to justice in the murder case.

A number of other public figures have also been assassinated in and around Kiev in recent years. Denis Voronenkov, a former Russian MP who fled to Ukraine, was shot dead in central Kiev in March. Pro-Russian journalist Oles Buzina was shot in a drive-by in 2015, and lawyer Yuri Grabovsky, who had represented a Russian soldier captured in Ukraine, was found dead with a gunshot wound in 2016.

...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/27/ukraine-colonel-maksim-shapoval-killed-car-bomb-kiev

It is full of Ukrainian folk songs.

There is a reason Russians used to call Ukraine "Little Russia."

Now they want it back.

And the Baltic States soon after. Putin wants to reform the country in the borders of the former Soviet Union and he senses weakness in the West with Grump in the White House.

Putin knew no other politician who was as corrupt and venal as Drumpf, who was as ripe for picking as Drumpf and who had a history of not giving a shit about anything except his personal power and $$. He carefully selected and cultivated him then promised him the moon if he'd only remove sanctions and destroy NATO's ability to stop him from invading Ukraine and the Baltics. he also used the stick of releasing the pp tape if don the con crossed him and releasing information showing that he took money and information from Russia and used it in his and other repugs' campaigns.

Putin knew he could count on Trump to weaken or even completely disrupt NATO. This would allow Putin a great deal of latitude to act in Eastern Europe without any real opposition. Trump's also cool with weakening the UN, which I'm sure Putin would support.

What do you want to bet we're going to see motion in Chechnya, Georgia, and maybe some of the other breakaway republics like Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan? I think maybe the -stans are a few years off, but Chechnya and Georgia are likely.

of the order of the countries/areas Russia will invade
1 - Ukraine
2 - Baltics (Estonia, Latvia and I forget the other 1). I'll even go further and guess at Estonia first since there's already rumblings there.
3 - Scandanavian countries
4 - Asian former USSR countries, the "stans".

in exchange for Putin's support of his presidential campaign, that serves as a guarantee of loyalty.

Trump may have developed from a blackmailed money-launderer into a willing lieutenant.

Of course the reunified Germany, those pesky nordic states.

Since the USofA is crippled by the repuglican leadership and their faux-president, who's going to stand in the way? Surprisingly China may be rather concerned (again) since it is now somewhat on the way to Capitalism (large C) and a bit of democracy (small d).

However it plays out - forces on the ground, non-nuclear, nuclear, and of course sabotage and financial mayhem - the regular people across the globe will lose. Lose bigly. A dinosaur-killing asteroid may look like a fun-filled day compared to the hell that may happen.

And
Advertising giant WPP
Government departments in Ukraine
Dutch logistics firm Maersk
Kiev airport
Russian oil firm Rosneft
Mondelez, the confectionary firm which owns Cadbury, has also reported IT issues
The Madrid office of law firm DLA Piper
US pharmaceutical firm Merck
There's an early report suggesting the Ukrainian nuclear plant Chernobyl has "switched to manual" radiation monitoring due to the attack

http://www.businessinsider.com/wpp-shares-drop-after-ransomware-attack-2017-6