Eastern Europe: Olivier's sphere of influence

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Eastern Europe: Olivier's sphere of influence

TheDeadlyShoe: Feb 14, 2014

I would say the incompetence detailed in the article was ridiculous, but maybe the FSB actually likes people to know that it's them.

Having studied economics it makes me really sad that the US (per the advice of its most respected economists) mostly just aided and abetted the looting of the Russian state-owned enterprises in the nineties and the formation of the oligarchy.

# ? Aug 18, 2016 06:27

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# ? May 10, 2024 22:57

Libluini: May 18, 2012; I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...; Grimey Drawer

icantfindaname posted:

For them to be elected again would require them to have been elected once before

True.

# ? Aug 18, 2016 08:12

MikeCrotch: Nov 5, 2011; I AM UNJUSTIFIABLY PROUD OF MY SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE RECIPE

YES, IT IS AN INCREDIBLY SIMPLE DISH

NO, IT IS NOT NORMAL TO USE A PEPPERAMI INSTEAD OF MINCED MEAT

YES, THERE IS TOO MUCH SALT IN MY RECIPE

NO, I WON'T STOP SHARING IT

more like BOLLOCKnese

Young Freud posted:

No. Not at all sensationalized. The Moscow apartment bombings have been long thought of, mostly overseas but also in Russia, a false flag attack that gave pretense for the second war with Chechnya as well as allow for Putin and United Russia to consolidate power. Given the fact of unusual behavior concerning the FSB's involvement as well as the Duma denying any independent investigation has not help disprove those rumors.

Also, what doesn't help is many of the Russian sources, investigators, and journalists who have tried to look into the apartment bombings have ended up dying of mysterious circumstances, most famously former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who was assassinated in London via polonium poisoning, and oligarch billionaire Boris Berezovsky, whose death from hanging is still considered "open", or have been forced into exile.

That was the one where there was an announcement in the Duma condemning the bombings before they had actually happened, right?

# ? Aug 18, 2016 15:47

Xerxes17: Feb 17, 2011

That's the one! You'd think they would have the sense to wait until they saw a report in the wild with thier own eyes first, but lol.

# ? Aug 18, 2016 15:53

Young Freud: Nov 26, 2006

MikeCrotch posted:

That was the one where there was an announcement in the Duma condemning the bombings before they had actually happened, right?

Yep. The speaker of the Duma conflated the dates of the second Moscow bombing with one that was to happen in Volgodonsk, which was seen as proof of a preplanned false flag event. loving Zhirinovsky, like a broken clock being right twice a day, did his good deed of questioning the Duma and got his mike cut.

quote:

On 13 September, just hours after the second explosion in Moscow, Russian Duma speaker Gennadiy Seleznyov of the Communist Party made an announcement, "I have just received a report. According to information from Rostov-on-Don, an apartment building in the city of Volgodonsk was blown up last night." However, the bombing in Volgodonsk took place three days later, on 16 September. When the Volgodonsk bombing happened, Vladimir Zhirinovsky demanded an explanation in the Duma, but Seleznev turned his microphone off. Vladimir Zhirinovsky said in the Russian Duma: "Remember, Gennadiy Nikolaevich, how you told us that a house has been blown up in Volgodonsk, three days prior to the blast? How should we interpret this? The State Duma knows that the house was destroyed on Monday, and it has indeed been blown up on Thursday [same week]... How come... the state authorities of Rostov region were not warned in advance [about the future bombing], although it was reported to us? Everyone is sleeping, the house was destroyed three days later, and now we must take urgent measures..." [Seleznev turned his microphone off].

Two years later, in March 2002, Seleznyov claimed in an interview that he had been referring to an unrelated hand grenade-based explosion, which did not kill anyone and did not destroy any buildings, and which indeed happened in Volgodonsk. It remains unclear why Seleznyov reported such an insignificant incident to the Russian Parliament and why he did not explain the misunderstanding to Zhirinovsky and other Duma members.[78]

FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko described this as "the usual Kontora (KGB) mess up": "Moscow-2 was on the 13th and Volgodonsk on 16th, but they got it to the speaker the other way around," he said. Investigator Mikhail Trepashkin confirmed that the man who gave Seleznyov the note was indeed an FSB officer.

# ? Aug 18, 2016 16:00

Nenonen: Oct 22, 2009; Mulla on aina kolkyt donaa taskussa

Jesus loving Christ, Russian orthodox church is terrible even when it tries to appear tolerant of other religions
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37115746

quote:

Regional Muslim leader Ismail Berdiyev suggested all women should undergo female genital mutilation but later withdrew the remark.

But a senior Orthodox Christian priest, Vsevolod Chaplin, had backed him.

In a Facebook post (in Russian), Archpriest Chaplin expressed "my sympathies for the mufti, and I hope he doesn't retreat from his position because of the howls and hysterics which will start now".

"We Orthodox Christians have different traditions - but that never stopped us respecting the traditions of neighbouring peoples," he wrote.

He said FGM was not necessary for Orthodox Christian women "because they're not promiscuous anyway". But he approved of the mufti's statement that God had created "woman so that she could give birth and bring up children".

"Feminism is a 20th-Century lie," he added.

Now please excuse my howling and hysterics, I'm just too deep in 20th century lies to have the same level of understanding of women that a celibate man has.

# ? Aug 18, 2016 20:19

OddObserver: Apr 3, 2009

Meta-Mollusk posted:

Apparently four militants from North Caucasus were killed in a shootout with FSB special forces in St. Petersburg. Also two guys from Central Asia armed with axes were killed when they tried to attack a police checkpoint near Moscow.

One of the two attacks in Moscow is now apparently claimed to have been done by Chechens... and ISIS seems to have taken responsibility.

# ? Aug 18, 2016 22:35

HUGE PUBES A PLUS: Apr 30, 2005

It's pretty bizarre that lately I keep finding stuff relevant to this thread in the Trump thread.

https://twitter.com/AP_Politics/status/766417577786609664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

So now we know Manafort and Gates were involved with helping out pro-Russian interests in Ukraine.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/6eed1ef61eb744e1aac584f8ac1f7247/trump-advisers-waged-covert-influence-campaign

quote:

A firm run by Donald Trump's campaign chairman directly orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation on behalf of Ukraine's ruling political party, attempting to sway American public opinion in favor of the country's pro-Russian government, emails obtained by The Associated Press show. Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, never disclosed their work as foreign agents as required under federal law.

The lobbying included attempts to gain positive press coverage of Ukrainian officials in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press. Another goal: undercutting American public sympathy for the imprisoned rival of Ukraine's then-president. At the time, European and American leaders were pressuring Ukraine to free her.

Gates personally directed the work of two prominent Washington lobbying firms in the matter, the emails show. He worked for Manafort's political consulting firm at the time.

Manafort's and Gates' activities carry outsized importance, since they have steered Trump's campaign since April. The pair also played a formative role building out Trump's campaign operation after pushing out an early rival. Trump shook up his campaign's organization again this week, but Manafort and Gates retain their titles and much of their influence. The new disclosures about their work come as Trump faces criticism for his friendly overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The two men have previously said they were not doing work that required them to register as foreign agents. Neither commented when reached by the AP on Thursday.

The emails show Gates personally directed two Washington lobbying firms, Mercury LLC and the Podesta Group Inc., between 2012 and 2014 to set up meetings between a top Ukrainian official and senators and congressman on influential committees involving Ukrainian interests. Gates noted in the emails that the official, Ukraine's foreign minister, did not want to use his own embassy in the United States to help coordinate the visits.

Gates also directed the firms to gather information in the U.S. on a rival lobbying operation, including a review of its public lobbying disclosures, to determine who was behind that effort, the emails show.

And Gates directed efforts to undercut sympathy for Yulia Tymoshenko, an imprisoned rival of then-President Viktor Yanukovych. The Ukrainian leader eventually fled the country in February 2014 during a popular revolt prompted in part by his government's crackdown on protesters and close ties to Russia.

The emails do not describe details about the role of Manafort, who was Gates' boss at the firm, DMP International LLC. Current and former employees at Mercury and the Podesta Group, some of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they are subject to non-disclosure agreements, told AP that Manafort oversaw the lobbying efforts and spoke by phone about them. Gates was directing actions and seeking information during the project using an email address at DMP International, which he still uses.

Manafort did not return phone and email messages Thursday from the AP to discuss the project. After AP reported earlier this week that Manafort helped the Ukrainian political party secretly route at least $2.2 million to the two Washington lobbying firms, Manafort told Yahoo News that AP's account was wrong. "I was not involved in any payment plans," Manafort said.

Gates said Thursday he was busy with Trump campaign focus groups and promised to review AP's questions in writing, then did not respond.

Manafort also said in a statement earlier this week that he never performed work for the governments of Ukraine or Russia. Gates previously told the AP, "At no time did our firm or members provide any direct lobbying support."

Under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, people who lobby on behalf of foreign political leaders or political parties must provide detailed reports about their actions to the Justice Department. A violation is a felony and can result in up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

The emails illustrate how Gates worked with Mercury and the Podesta Group on behalf of Ukrainian political leaders. None of the firms, nor Manafort or Gates, disclosed their work to the Justice Department counterespionage division responsible for tracking the lobbying of foreign governments.

"There is no question that Gates and Manafort should have registered along with the lobbying firms," said Joseph Sandler of Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock, a Democratic-leaning Washington law firm that advises Republican and Democratic lobbyists.

Manafort and Gates have said that they did not disclose their activities to the Justice Department because they did not oversee lobbying efforts and merely introduced the Washington firms to a Brussels-based nonprofit, the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, which they said ran the project. The center paid Mercury and the Podesta Group a combined $2.2 million over roughly two years.

In papers filed in the U.S. Senate, Mercury and the Podesta Group listed the European nonprofit as an independent, nonpolitical client. The firms said the center stated in writing that it was not aligned with any foreign political entity.

The 1938 U.S. foreign agents law is intended to track efforts of foreign government's unofficial operatives in the United States.

Political consultants are generally leery of registering under it, because their reputations can suffer once they are on record as accepting money to advocate the interests of foreign governments � especially if those interests conflict with America's. Moreover, registering under the law would have required Gates, Manafort or the lobbying firms to disclose the specifics of their lobbying work and their efforts to sway public opinion through media outreach.

Ina Kirsch, who runs the European nonprofit, has said the group's work was independent and its goal was to bring Ukraine into the fold of Europe. The center has declined for years to reveal specific sources of its funding.

Gates confirmed to AP previously that he was working for Ukraine's ruling party, the Party of Regions, at the time.

The chairman of the Podesta Group, Tony Podesta � the brother of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta � said his firm believed Gates was working for the nonprofit. Podesta said he was unaware of the firm's work for the Ukraine's Party of Regions, led by Yanukovych. On Thursday, his firm said it had nothing new to add.

Mercury's founder, Vin Weber, an influential Republican and former congressman, told the AP that his firm was aware of Manafort's and Gates' affiliation with Ukraine's political party and said Gates never participated in Mercury's lobbying work. Weber did not respond to questions after AP said it had obtained emails contradicting this.

HUGE PUBES A PLUS fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Aug 19, 2016

# ? Aug 19, 2016 00:55

OddObserver: Apr 3, 2009

Hmm....
https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/766598330017251328

# ? Aug 19, 2016 14:05

Xerxes17: Feb 17, 2011

Trying to create a managed democracy like Putin, but it blew up in his face I figure.

# ? Aug 19, 2016 14:08

Fabulous Knight: Nov 11, 2011

Manafort was definitely a shady dude and it's kind of relieving to know he's gone.

How about this guy though:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_T._Flynn

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/michael-flynn-trump-classified-briefing_us_57b3939fe4b0edfa80da28ca

quote:

WASHINGTON ― Donald Trump will bring Michael Flynn ― a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency who was paid by a Russian state-funded television network to speak at its 10th-anniversary gala ― to his first national security briefing on Wednesday.

quote:

In retirement, Flynn was described by the Washington Post as "not hostile to Russia,"[23] while Michael Crowley of Vox described Flynn as having "an odd affection for Russia and its authoritarian government."[24]

After retiring from service with the U.S. government, Flynn began appearing semi-regularly as an analyst on RT, a Kremlin-aligned English-language news outlet.[23][24][25] In 2015, Flynn attended a gala dinner in Moscow in honor of RT, where he was seated two seats away from Russian president Vladimir Putin.[25] Before attending the event, Flynn gave a paid talk on world affairs to a group; Flynn defended the Russian payment in an interview with Michael Isikoff.[25][26] Journalist Michael Crowley of Politico reported that "At a moment of semi-hostility between the U.S. and Russia, the presence of such an important figure at Putin's table startled" U.S. officials.[25]

# ? Aug 19, 2016 17:26

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

"Kremlin-aligned"

I'm still having to remind people not to cite RT as a source.

# ? Aug 19, 2016 17:33

Warbadger: Jun 17, 2006

Discendo Vox posted:

"Kremlin-aligned"

I'm still having to remind people not to cite RT as a source.

It's progress, a few years ago a lot of news would reprint RT reporting at face value.

# ? Aug 19, 2016 17:38

A Pale Horse: Jul 29, 2007

I think the turning point for reasonable people was when RT's anchors started quitting live on air because they didn't want to shill that sweet Kremlin propaganda anymore.

# ? Aug 19, 2016 17:47

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Dave Weigel (our own Joementum) had a great article (linked to an even better one, iirc) about how RT successfully infiltrated the press corps for a time, and was eventually outed. Let me see if I can find it.

Here's Weigel piece 1,
from 2011 when some media folks still trusted the company and politicians from the mainstream were leveraging it. He visited their studios.

An excellent overview of internal politics at the organization from CJR. Read it. It's great, and illustrates the weirdness of Russia's not entirely top-down propaganda system.

Weigel piece 2, from 2014, describing the disenchantment with the company as folks realized what was going on, and importantly, a concise summary of the goals of the organization.

The excellent Buzzfeed article, How The Truth Is Made At Russia Today. This is worth reading, the article that summarizes the final implosion of the network's credibility (and did a lot to sink it) in media circles. An extended interview with the anchor who left mid-recording, and a discussion of how they preyed on journalism graduates.

# ? Aug 19, 2016 18:50

Young Freud: Nov 26, 2006

Discendo Vox posted:

Dave Weigel (our own Joementum) had a great article (linked to an even better one, iirc) about how RT successfully infiltrated the press corps for a time, and was eventually outed. Let me see if I can find it.

Here's Weigel piece 1,
from 2011 when some media folks still trusted the company and politicians from the mainstream were leveraging it. He visited their studios.

An excellent overview of internal politics at the organization from CJR. Read it. It's great, and illustrates the weirdness of Russia's not entirely top-down propaganda system.

Weigel piece 2, from 2014, describing the disenchantment with the company as folks realized what was going on, and importantly, a concise summary of the goals of the organization.

The excellent Buzzfeed article, How The Truth Is Made At Russia Today. This is worth reading, the article that summarizes the final implosion of the network's credibility (and did a lot to sink it) in media circles. An extended interview with the anchor who left mid-recording, and a discussion of how they preyed on journalism graduates.

If you want to know the real turning point and the tl;dr of those articles, it was Euromaidan. RT would cover Occupy and other American protests, but something major happening right next door and involving protests and the fall of the Russian-backed government was met with silence and then slander. Then when Yanukovych was overthrown and the little green men start showing up in Crimea and Donbass and a bunch of folks just couldn't support them anymore.

# ? Aug 19, 2016 19:18

Fabulous Knight: Nov 11, 2011

No but really, do you guys figure it is a coincidence that Manafort and Flynn, both guys with more or less suspicious connections to Russia/Yanukovych-era Ukraine ended up so close to a guy who eventually became the nominee of the Republican party for the President of the United States? Now Flynn is an established former military figure even nominated by Obama at one point to lead poo poo. But both of them at the same time, in the same campaign is just very suspicious to me. Especially when you hear all the talk about Putin financing the National Front in France and so forth.

# ? Aug 19, 2016 19:27

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Young Freud posted:

If you want to know the real turning point and the tl;dr of those articles, it was Euromaidan. RT would cover Occupy and other American protests, but something major happening right next door and involving protests and the fall of the Russian-backed government was met with silence and then slander. Then when Yanukovych was overthrown and the little green men start showing up in Crimea and Donbass and a bunch of folks just couldn't support them anymore.

I don't think that's accurate on the media side. While renewed public interest in response to the annexation produced a new wave of articles and refutations, the first two articles I cite are from 2011 and 2010. By that point, RT stopped being cited in the mainstream US press, and the Pauls had started backing away from the channel as they realized the platform could become a political liability.

# ? Aug 19, 2016 19:40

Young Freud: Nov 26, 2006

Fabulous Knight posted:

No but really, do you guys figure it is a coincidence that Manafort and Flynn, both guys with more or less suspicious connections to Russia/Yanukovych-era Ukraine ended up so close to a guy who eventually became the nominee of the Republican party for the President of the United States? Now Flynn is an established former military figure even nominated by Obama at one point to lead poo poo. But both of them at the same time, in the same campaign is just very suspicious to me. Especially when you hear all the talk about Putin financing the National Front in France and so forth.

Not a coincidence. Manafort and Flynn are actually just two Putin-connected advisers, you still have Carter Page as well, who is connected through his petroleum links to the oligarchs. Also another Donbass cheerleader.

Discendo Vox posted:

I don't think that's accurate on the media side. While renewed public interest in response to the annexation produced a new wave of articles and refutations, the first two articles I cite are from 2011 and 2010. By that point, RT stopped being cited in the mainstream US press, and the Pauls had started backing away from the channel as they realized the platform could become a political liability.

I think people started realizing it during the Arab Spring, but it really didn't come to a head until Euromaidan for it to utterly come down as a Kremlin propaganda mill. Wasn't Lizzie Phelan part of the RT network?

# ? Aug 19, 2016 19:56

Fabulous Knight: Nov 11, 2011

Young Freud posted:

Not a coincidence. Manafort and Flynn are actually just two Putin-connected advisers, you still have Carter Page as well, who is connected through his petroleum links to the oligarchs. Also another Donbass cheerleader.

Yikes. Somehow Page had slipped under my radar almost completely. Well yeah, in the words of Mr. Trump himself "there is something going on" (and someone should probably look into it). In the very unlikely event that the Trumpster is victorious in November, I sure hope the worst that comes out of these connections is a relationship like the one between Berlusconi and Putin.

# ? Aug 19, 2016 20:09

Young Freud: Nov 26, 2006

Fabulous Knight posted:

Yikes. Somehow Page had slipped under my radar almost completely. Well yeah, in the words of Mr. Trump himself "there is something going on" (and someone should probably look into it). In the very unlikely event that the Trumpster is victorious in November, I sure hope the worst that comes out of these connections is a relationship like the one between Berlusconi and Putin.

And that's who we know about. And the Putin connections are wide-ranging: the same Russia Today dinner with Putin and Michael Flynn also had Green presidential nominee Jill Stein at the same table as Putin.

https://twitter.com/Vtechp/status/766703895800414210

https://twitter.com/Mortis_Banned/status/766704569988554754

Young Freud fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Aug 19, 2016

# ? Aug 19, 2016 20:17

Pellisworth: Jun 20, 2005

There were also some news articles floating around USPOL at some point that the Trump family businesses have a lot of connections with Russia and have received tons of Russian investment in the last couple decades.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...b7a0_story.html

quote:

�Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,� Trump�s son, Donald Jr., told a real estate conference in 2008, according to an account posted on the website of eTurboNews, a trade publication. �We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.�

quote:

Trump has long aspired to build a Trump Tower in Russia � a market that first gained his attention in the 1980s as the Cold War was ending and the Soviet Union began to open more to outsiders.

�Russia is one of the hottest places in the world for investment,� Trump said in a 2007 deposition. �We will be in Moscow at some point,� he promised.

Part of the allure was what Trump and his associates saw as a huge opportunity � the chance to market American-style luxury apartments to the wealthy elite in a place that still mostly offered utilitarian Soviet-style construction.

The Russian market had �natural strength, especially in the high-end sector,� said Donald Trump Jr. in his 2008 real estate conference speech. Moscow held special appeal because wealthy people throughout the region wanted to own real estate in the capital city, he said.

I don't think there's any sort of grand conspiracy here, Trump has a lot of Russian investors and views Russia through a business lens rather than geopolitical. Gotta get a piece of that Russian oligarch money, who gives a gently caress about NATO or Ukraine. He probably also wishes he was Putin, but Trump is a failed businessman and not a ruthlessly competent ex-KGB authoritarian.

# ? Aug 19, 2016 20:20

Baronjutter: Dec 31, 2007; "Tiny Trains"

Trump has always had a very Russian taste. Everything gold and tacky. It's what someone with no class thinks looks rich and classy. He'd probably do really well in Russia they eat that poo poo up.

# ? Aug 19, 2016 20:29

Pellisworth: Jun 20, 2005

Baronjutter posted:

Trump has always had a very Russian taste. Everything gold and tacky. It's what someone with no class thinks looks rich and classy. He'd probably do really well in Russia they eat that poo poo up.

Eastern Europe: Putin' on the Ritz

# ? Aug 19, 2016 22:28

Fojar38: Sep 2, 2011; Sorry I meant to say I hope that the police use maximum force and kill or maim a bunch of innocent people, thus paving a way for a proletarian uprising and socialist utopia

also here's a stupid take
---------------------------->

Warbadger posted:

It's progress, a few years ago a lot of news would reprint RT reporting at face value.

Now if we can just get them to stop reposting China Daily and Xinhua unironically we would be golden.

# ? Aug 19, 2016 23:22

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Pellisworth posted:

Eastern Europe: Putin' on the Ritz

I think we already did "Putin on a Blitz".

# ? Aug 19, 2016 23:49

HUGE PUBES A PLUS: Apr 30, 2005

The Netherlands will publish the official report on the MH17 crash on September 28, 2016.

http://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2016/08/19/7118181/

quote:

The first official results of the investigation into the disaster Malaysian Boeing MH17 flight near Donetsk will be released on 28 September.

On Friday, prosecutors said the Netherlands, said the publication of The Strait the Times .

"We have informed the relatives of the victims that the September 28 we will have a new meeting, during which the results of the criminal investigation will be opened", - said the representative of the Prosecutor's Office of the Netherlands Wim de Bruin.

According to the report, the report will give an exact model of the rocket, which brought down the plane.

As you know, in October last year, the Netherlands, the Security Council issued a report that the plane was shot down complex "Beech" from the territory controlled by the rebels.

In turn, the Investigative Project Balllingcat Dutch investigators have called the names of Russian troops, which probably brought "Buk" on the crash site.

On board were 298 people, all of them were killed.

# ? Aug 20, 2016 00:42

steinrokkan: Apr 2, 2011; Soiled Meat

A Pale Horse posted:

I think the turning point for reasonable people was when RT's anchors started quitting live on air because they didn't want to shill that sweet Kremlin propaganda anymore.

no, that was the point when the RT was purged of all the cia plants

# ? Aug 20, 2016 08:29

Sergg: Sep 19, 2005; I was rejected by the:

Weren't the bombings done with a chemical that was only made in one factory in Russia?

# ? Aug 20, 2016 10:01

Grouchio: Aug 31, 2014

Baronjutter posted:

Trump has always had a very Russian taste. Everything gold and tacky. It's what someone with no class thinks looks rich and classy. He'd probably do really well in Russia they eat that poo poo up.

What would someone with high taste/class think looks rich and classy then?

Also that Caspian Report was sublime. Puts a bit of weight off my shoulders knowing my intuition was right about Putin being trapped by his own rhetoric.

# ? Aug 20, 2016 13:05

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:

The Netherlands will publish the official report on the MH17 crash on September 28, 2016.

http://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2016/08/19/7118181/

I'm very interested to see how far they go with the information they've got, supposedly it'll be at least the type of missile used and the launch site. We've been saying for over a year which both were, so hopefully the police agree. Although I'm not holding out any hope for it, it would be good if they also said where they thought the missile launcher came from. I'm tempted to pop over for the press conference.

# ? Aug 20, 2016 13:15

Scaramouche: Mar 26, 2001; SPACE FACE! SPACE FACE!

I don't think the Netherlands needs a coup right at this moment

# ? Aug 21, 2016 00:34

Punkin Spunkin: Jan 1, 2010

Scaramouche posted:

I don't think the Netherlands needs a coup right at this moment

It worked for Erdogan, it can work for the republic of black petes

# ? Aug 21, 2016 00:40

lollontee: Nov 4, 2014; Can't post for 10 years!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT4sK36cU3Y

# ? Aug 22, 2016 13:33

Anne Frank Funk: Nov 4, 2008

That''s a repost from the other page, but still quality.

I've been following Shirvan for some time and he churns out top work especially explaining geopolitics of the middle east and various proxy wars therein.

There's this on Russia too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL_09mazZs8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMv9EvthOrQ

Of course he's a CIA shill according to yt comments, so par for the course in our thread.

# ? Aug 22, 2016 14:06

steinrokkan: Apr 2, 2011; Soiled Meat

Friendly Humour posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT4sK36cU3Y

Many hurt feelings of the Russian people in the comments.

# ? Aug 22, 2016 14:06

cinci zoo sniper: Mar 15, 2013

It is time. Essentially, Russian domains issued by state, important Internet infrastructure in Russia owned solely by Russians (20% co-ownership by foreigners being debated), the Great Firewall of Russia, and backbone for poo poo to work if it's isolated from rest of the world.

# ? Aug 22, 2016 14:16

BattleMaster: Aug 14, 2000

kalstrams posted:

It is time. Essentially, Russian domains issued by state, important Internet infrastructure in Russia owned solely by Russians (20% co-ownership by foreigners being debated), the Great Firewall of Russia, and backbone for poo poo to work if it's isolated from rest of the world.

In English please

# ? Aug 22, 2016 14:18

Regarde Aduck: Oct 19, 2012; c l o u d k i t t e n; Grimey Drawer

I think it means they want their internet to be self sufficient. No outside connectivity needed. This will evolve into no outside connectivity desired. They are going to hardwire themselves out of the rest of the worlds internet. Or at least have the capability to.

# ? Aug 22, 2016 14:24

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# ? May 10, 2024 22:57

Cat Mattress: Jul 14, 2012; by Cyrano4747

It'll prevent Russians from looking at foreign lies, and also more importantly will prevent British bloggers from looking at the VKontakt pages of Russian soldiers. It's simpler than teaching your army how to do OPSEC.

# ? Aug 22, 2016 14:40

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Eastern Europe: Olivier's sphere of influence

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