Correct. China has been instrumental in keeping russia supplied and online for the duration of this war.

Even some pro-russian war bloggers are critical of Putin's decision to start striking data centers:

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...

Russia started *somewhat* bombing civilian dual-use infrastructure only after Ukraine started bombing random warehouses in Russia this summer.

It's hilarious how clueless people are in this thread, I guess it's only pro-ukraine bots and incompetent western warmongers.

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.

For every Ukraine's attack Russia can slam back ten times as hard. So, I guess, previous escalations were futile. I guess after this day Russian retaliation dial will be advanced two-three degrees up.

I think Taras Chmut(head of Come Back Alive) mentioned that they got a ~20 million donation from the undisclosed European governments

Come Back Alive was founded around 2014 and has operated continuously since. This is a conflict where long-term investments pay off. Also not saying they and others don't do short-term keep-up work - they do. But it's also important to develop education facilities and care for veterans.

That's what people at most other foundation thought in 2022, yet here we're in 2026, and the war is still going.

And to be fair not all Come back alive projects are long term, they provide cars, cables, laptops, portable power stations etc., but these do not engage public enough, so their media team focuses on more interesting projects.

What "long term" means is also differs, they put a lot of effort into their training centers, but now the training cycle of one person is several months (I assume, I don't know exact terms), which is not that long.

I am a top Russian CS degree alumna (HSE). I left Russia even before the war, but now most of my uni peers live and work abroad (US, EU, UK, Serbia, Armenia, Georgia, etc.). It is similar for the alumni of the other top universities there. And we made the right choice, both ethically and financially/career-wise, imo.

There were several waves of Russians fleeing [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_emigration_during_the_...

(This is incomplete, I think there is a fourth or a fifth wave, probably since about summer 2026.)

It means you shouldn't invade your neighbours and conscript your young people or you will ruin your economy.

I was in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan not too long ago (both countries just to the south of Russia, for those not savvy of geography). Met plenty of young russians who moved there recently. I didn't have to ask why. Many of them used to work in the tech sector, it's easy for them to find new work.

A lot of people who could get out of Russia after the war started, did get out.

That anyone with a few brain cells and enough rubels has left the country

Ones who didn't are asking stupid questions...

Cyprus, Georgia, UAE

And do most Americans who leave the US condemn American soldiers for murdering a million Iraqis and continuing to colonize their country? At a certain point just not engaging in these pointless wars should be enough.

I have?

> On the first anniversary of the invasion, rallies took place in the main cities where Russian exiles settled, including Tbilisi, Vilnius, Berlin, Barcelona, Paris and London, with turnout in the hundreds. In Yerevan, protesters burned a picture of Putin.

> In November 2024, at least a thousand people marched through central Berlin behind Navalnaya, Yashin and Kara-Murza, with parallel rallies in cities including Prague, Vilnius, Yerevan, Lisbon and San Francisco.

> Another Berlin march followed in 2025, after the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion.

And not just EU/US but moreso in other countries, where the migration wave was much bigger, eg Georgia and Armenia; after those protests many Russians were banned from entering Georgia after a visa run, yet others continued protesting anyway. Just google it for christ sake?

Also to me, as a Russian immigrant, protesting from another country doesn't make a lot of sense.

Anyway, at this point your comments in this thread are pure ragebait and not worth spending time replying to.

Does the fear of being poisoned have an affect on Russian ex-pats from being very vocal?

Are you kidding? E.g. in Berlin there are major protests every couple of months. They are not destructive (why would we destroy Germany‘s infra and police?), so maybe you do not hear about them as much. But they are quite numerous and regular. Ideally they should be in Russia AND destructive, but most normal people fled, yes.

> have you seen mass protests against Russian aggression in EU/US by those who left?

What are you talking about? Just look at the amount of humanitarian visas getting by Russians. We like literally talking about hundreds per country on average (not hundreds of thousands, HUNDREDS). So participation in mass protests is like the fastest way to be deported back in Russia and get 8 years in jail.

I know a couple of people who do that, but unless you settled in a really cheap country (for Russians that would likely be Armenia or Kazakhstan), you would really struggle to make ends meet with a Russian salary. And IT-folks who are used to luxury in Russia do not like that :) Also in countries with structured laws for social security, residence permits, pensions etc., you will most likely be caught for doing shady things (not paying local taxes or not paying social contributions). And if you do pay them, you are even more financially screwed. E.g. in Germany an employed person who is not supported by a local employer in paying social security would give away well over a half of their salary. So… either you REALLY live a shady life / life in a “developing” country with no tax control or you have to integrate and find a local / unsanctioned job. Maybe not right away, but it has been >4 years, most people have done this already. There are really little incentives to stay employed in Russia. Of course, there are companies who moved themselves (ex-Yandex parts, Jetbrains, etc). But they are now registered / taxed / employing elsewhere. Even if operating partially in Russian language.

Russian payment systems are barely supported in the other world, so its kinda hard to work remotely and get paid in roubles

yes they can clone western companies.

very valuable, very high tech.

for nginx/intelij - you can find a few good examples in any country on earth.

does not make the country good in tech.

It's like Americans thinking thar what their president is doing is right. Nobody in there is doing anything to stop it.

Often, both are true. It's perfectly legitimate for anyone (Russian or otherwise) to have geo-political concerns (e.g. NATO expansion, Cuban missile crisis etc), but a Russian concerned about NATO expansion may also be very opposed to the extreme option of war as a solution.

War affects an ordinary Russian in very negative ways: the possibility of conscription (w/ risk of injury/death), complications for travel, sanctions on goods and services, and the economic opportunity cost (money wasted on war that could have gone to productive uses, plus reduced economic output due to drone strikes on yandex, wildberries, refineries).

> but many seem to think it's justified - different thing

Literally no one thinks that. Look at the last election in Russia.

There were like 10 pro-Putin pro-war parties and one pro-Putin maybe-we-a-lil-bit-try-to-stop-the-war joke party. And that last party was banned from participating because of copyright infringement (they used fonts from Microsoft).

imagine if Putin had said... we are slipping behind the west. They are threatening us. So... we'll double down on research & education. We'll outthink them. We'll shift our economy into an economy that thrives in the future.

It’s worth pointing out that Russia doesn’t need to “surrender” to stop the war. It just needs to withdraw.

That’s not surrender because Russia started this invasion without provocation. It wasn’t under attack and Ukraine hadn’t joined NATO.

Russia had no reason to invade except as a show of force.

If Putin suddenly declared he’d met his objectives and withdrew who’s to say otherwise?

When the pager attack happened, there was a implicity sentiment on focusing on the technical details and not focus on politics. But I didn't see the same sentiment when Iran ballistic missles did their job.

Does anyone really believe Russia will eventually just surrender and leave? I can’t imagine the rationale to believe that. When Putin leaves all indications are that the next leader will actually be much more hawkish. They will only leave if someone bombs them to death. Which is quite a dangerous thing to do. Ukraine is pushing the limits, and everyone knows it’s with the help of many EU countries. I wonder what it will take for Russia to reach desperate measures in this war.

Before the latest Russian election one of the parties opposed the war in Ukraine and was a bit too popular, so, well, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yabloko :

  Yabloko is the sole officially registered party to openly oppose the Russian war in Ukraine, openly calling "for peace and freedom". The party planned to partake in the 2026 Russian legislative election under their anti-war slogan.[29][30] However, in August 2026, the party was barred from running by the Supreme Court of Russia due to a lawsuit by Rodina.

Well, some decades ago if you were a school teacher, you were _asked_ to (1) vote "right" yourself (2) call all parents and ask them to vote "right". If you disobeyed, the school got problems and you got problems. Maybe not enough to make all people comply, but sufficient to get the right outcomes. Same goes for all government-funded workers.

Since then I think they simplified the system and just forge the results outright.

This is informative https://politics.stackexchange.com/a/27658/25206

tl;dr Other parties are Putin-like, and if/when a genuine alternative emerges, Putin deals with them ruthlessly. Example: Navalny was the charismatic leader of a small but popular rival party with anti-corruption policies. He was initially delegitimised (not allowed to partake in the 2018 elections due to [likely fake] charges of embezzlement), then poisoned (nearly died), then imprisoned, and then killed while in prison.

Consider the terrifying message that sends to would-be political rivals...

Mariupol's civilian casualties are hard to establish. Some of the upper estimates [1] run to 100,000 killed. Over just a couple of months.

[1] https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/10/06/i-m-used-to-walking-...

The number is referring to the post I replied to:

"innocent civilians every day in Kyiv is not good".

Estimations for how many civilians Russians killed in Chechnya range from 45,000 to 80,000.

I suppose they’re mixing up deaths with injuries

  From the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 to December 2025, 14,999 Ukrainian civilians were killed and 40,601 injured, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU).

Prigozhin was one of Putin's chief botmasters. He helped set up the Internet Research Agency, which was one of Russia's biggest troll farms.

> You'd have to build a fully underground cooling system that goes to a nearby river (or huge lake) and use the cold water from that, which would get costly quick.

Helsinki gets its water from the 120 km Päijänne Water Tunnel, which cost €200-250 million (adjusted for inflation) to build. Peak flow is 10 m^3/s by gravity alone and up to 20 m^3/s with pumps, which should be enough to cool a 1 GW data center. You could increase the cost by 2x (because real wages have gone up), by another 2x (because middlemen have destroyed productivity), and by yet another 2x (because everything is more expensive in America), and it would still be pretty reasonable.

Iron Mountain does it but they used an existing limestone mine with a large water reservoir [1][2]

Edit: I guess the scale isn't comparable to a, for example, Google data center though.

[1] https://www.ironmountain.com/data-centers/colocation/our-dat...

[2] https://betterbuildingssolutioncenter.energy.gov/showcase-pr...

They already run liquid cooling loops - compute density is way beyond what could circulate through air. Adding more pipes is probably trivial on the scale of datacenter expenses

So they want to build it in space. Trade one heat problem for another, but put it completely out of range (for most attackers).

Pionen in sweden is a datacenter in a bunker. The Pirate Bay used to be hosted there.

neat. why can't you put the heat in the mountain?

Lots of people have built commercial, non-military, boutique scale stuff in hardened facilities, nobody I'm aware of has done it at scale. There's certainly money to be made from selling expensive "we put datacenter stuff deep down inside a mine" maybe to some weird enterprise and government customers, so the revenue per rack (or per theoretical 208V 30A circuit?) is probably a lot more than commodity colo. But I would very much like to see the aerial photos, if anyone can link them, to a claimed large scale underground or hardened datacenter.

It's a severe engineering challenge to hide massive heat exchangers on the scale of the datacenters built in the industrial area near Dulles (coordinate example: 38.9817915,-77.417775). Find those on a map and observe the scale of their cooling and generator systems and then try to find anything comparable that's been built underground.

It's sad that we have moved away so far from the decentralized web from the 90s and the P2P boom of the 00s. Just like solar panels on every house as a source of energy are much harder to take out than just a few power plants, local P2P storage, messaging, source management, etc. are much harder to take out.

But yeah, the economic incentives are creating unicorns and centralizing compute/capital/etc.

Ukraine are hitting targets 2,500km away

https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/ukraine-hits-russia...

dunno, Moscow to Novosibirsk is around 1,800 miles straight-line distance. The war would be probably over by the time Ukraine would have developed those capabilities.

Buried fiber, hard to attack. Fiber repeater shelters, easy to attack. Their locations are public information, and any non public are trivial to find, in my experience as a cybersecurity professional who seeks out infra vulnerabilities for reporting for fun. Public records, satellite imagery, all OSINT one can do from a workstation.

You could potentially bury them in the ground, assuming you don’t use a generator for backup power. To my knowledge, this is not done today except in urban areas where an underground vault is used for power and comms.

https://www.decommsystems.com/resources/what-goes-into-an-il...

Russia is hitting everything in Ukraine… DC, power plants, rail, road housing

Ukraine has a very targeted response but notably tries to minimise civilian casualties

> For 200 kW, you would need a system 12.5 times larger, about 531 square meters—2.6 times larger than the solar array. The satellite would be enormous, larger than the ISS, and all of that for only three racks.

Starlink gen 3 satellite is designed to dissipate 250 kW. You are talking about an already solved issue, with real hardware already being built today.

Are you asserting that we must use the exact same heat rejection architecture the ISS uses for data centers?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_droplet_radiator

> Space is a near-vacuum, so it's hard to get rid of the heat.

It's not that hard, Starlink constellation already dissipates around 100 MW of heat, split over many satellites. Any orbital datacenter would use similarly distributed satellites.

It would be cheaper for most businesses to just go on prem again.

A single EMP would be enough without causing excessive space debris. It's not like someone will simply fly in and swap some hardware.

SpaceX has a de facto monopoly on space now. And they are 10-20 years ahead of even China. No nation now has a response to Falcon 9 - sth SpaceX built over 10 years ago.

> but heat dissipation at scale in space is an insane engineering challenge, the tech to make giant radiators work doesn't exist yet, and even if it did it would extremely costly to develop and deploy

Different problem.

Cooling can be done in space, it's a normal problem; not easy, nothing in space is easy, but on the scale of space it is normal.

However, at the temperature you would run a chip at, a radiator you make for space will just work better, reject more heat, if you leave it on the ground.

We get convective cooling down here as well as radiative. At operational temperature, convection more than makes up for the atmosphere being a heat bath at ~20 C or whatever.

> t's not that it can't be done at all, but heat dissipation at scale in space is an insane engineering challenge, the tech to make giant radiators work doesn't exist yet, and even if it did it would extremely costly to develop and deploy.

You are overstating the engineering difficulty. Starlink constellation already dissipates around 100MW.

My information may be outdated, but the others are much smaller and less relevant

Well, tomorrow we will be hearing about the 4th DC being struck.

Yes, that's why I wrote dual-use.

Direct attacks on civilian infrastructure can be war crimes. Data centers that host military workloads are not civilian targets.

I didn't misinterpret, you are using incorrect terminology.