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State media have also published a number of videos with Middle-Eastern looking people who appear to have perforating bullet wounds. Obviously, hard to tell from the videos if the people are actually Iraqi refugees, whether the wounds are real, and if so, who shot them, and what guns were used. The official Belarusian version is that Lithuanians shoot at the people who try to illegally enter the country. My understanding is it's at least plausible in that Lithuanian border control are allowed to use weapons in certain situations to prevent illegal crossing. However, it's as possible that they were shot by Belarusian soldiers when they tried to illegally cross back to Belarus, which is Lithuania's position, from what I've read.
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Aug 4, 2021 16:32
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If Lithuanian border guard rules are the same as ours (95% chance they are), then, if I recall my uncle’s stories correctly - him being a senior Latvian border guard officer, the only situation where the guards are allowed to shoot without extensive warnings is if they get surprised by ambushers using weapons or attempting to run them over with vehicles. In every other situation you have to give several warning and take any other possible steps to not risk criminal charges for discharging the firearm. Considering that Lithuania-Belarus border has been reinforced with numerous Frontex guards, including patrol duty, I would be really surprised if anyone there is comfortable as much as looking past the book rules. If I had to speculate, the gunshot stuff is paid actors (or more of Lukashenko’s signature cruelty). The beaten up guy story however, albeit also an easy provocation, is substantially more plausible since you can’t really audit spent fists, and Frontex is not without spots on reputation.
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Aug 4, 2021 16:52
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They've shown the corpse now. Obviously,  .https://t.me/mediazona_by/5430 The video shows massive hematomas on arms and some less visible on lower body. The news anchor says, 'you don't have to be an expert to see that these wounds are lethal'. Would be interesting to see what actual experts can gather from all this. E: And this is the video of other immigrants with various visible traumas. The post lists gun wounds, dog bytes, and blunt traumas. Again, https://t.me/sputnikby/13035 Paladinus fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Aug 4, 2021 |
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Aug 4, 2021 17:23
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They're doing pushbacks in Greece as well, it would be absolutely unsurprising if Frontex was doing them here as well. We're losing our humanity at a terrifying speed.
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Aug 4, 2021 17:33
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https://news.err.ee/1608297255/former-defense-minister-lukashenko-will-go-further-with-lithuaniaquote:Leader of Belarus Aleksander Lukashenko is implementing a classical hybrid war on Lithuania, and is trying to escalate the situation even further, diplomat and former Minister of Defense Jüri Luik (Isamaa), said in an interview given to the ETV's current news show "Aktuaalne kaamera" Tuesday. So a hybrid war against the Baltic states and the EU, and Zapad is right around the corner.
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Aug 4, 2021 17:50
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Aug 4, 2021 17:55
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It's highly unlikely that Lithuania would shoot as it is bound by EU laws and desperately needs the EU's help, any sign of atrocities and souring of EU public opinion would mean that it's on its own. Right now it is in a good position, has been accepting people that do come through and appears as a victim of aggression, shooting unarmed people would nullify that. In addition, shooting at the border could provoke a larger conflict with the troops of Belarus in addition to being propaganda fodder (why would they leave a corpse for the Belarusians to find) Edit: thought of another one: shooting five guys will have enormous political costs and will just encourage Lukashenka to send more people Basically all our media and our officials are commenting that "we must avoid the use of weapons and wait for EU's help" It's much more likely that the people who were turned away after being promised they would get into the EU easily would get beaten by the human traffickers after having to go back and confront them, I mean the Belarusian police was doing it to its own citizens last year Somaen fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Aug 4, 2021 |
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Aug 4, 2021 17:58
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Somaen posted:It's highly unlikely that Lithuania would shoot as it is bound by EU laws and desperately needs the EU's help, any sign of atrocities and souring of EU public opinion would mean that it's on its own. Right now it is in a good position, has been accepting people that do come through and appears as a victim of aggression, shooting unarmed people would nullify that. In addition, shooting at the border could provoke a larger conflict with the troops of Belarus in addition to being propaganda fodder (why would they leave a corpse for the Belarusians to find) Lithuania does turn back anyone illegally crossing the border starting this week if they are intercepted close to the border, regardless of whether they try to request the refugee status. It is not entirely impossible that border guards had to/chose to use weapons in an altercation, I suppose, but so far there is no real evidence provided by Lukashenko. As it turns out, the dead Iraqi man is said to have been found by a local, a retired military colonel to the area, whose son is a border guard. It does smell extremely fishy to say the least. E: NEXTA's just published a phone call recording where allegedly a pro-Lukashenko activist from the White Russia organisation says that the protest they held today at the Lithuanian embassy in Minsk was ordered by some higher ups even before any reports about the dead Iraqi man, at 8PM yesterday. He also says they work closely with KGB to organise protest events like that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABi98EV9OtM E2: What's also really strange to me in all that is that Iraq barely reacts to the situation. They had some meetings with Lithuanian officials several moths ago, and promised collaborate, but I don't think they made any official statements after that. Surely, a death of their citizen would warrant some reaction? Paladinus fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Aug 4, 2021 |
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Aug 4, 2021 19:48
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And just as I was typing the last edit, it seems Iraq is now cancelling all flights to Belarus, according to the EU ambassador to Iraq. Although, there is still no official statement from the Iraqi government itself.
Paladinus fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Aug 4, 2021 |
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Aug 4, 2021 21:11
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Vasukhani posted:I missed the "with us" so I reported this, pls ignore. it'll be like it is with the UK: really bad but not enough to actually make the dickheads think they made a mistake we're about to have actual food shortages in the UK and absolutely no brexiter is thinking 'lol maybe we shouldn't have left that giant trade block that also has lots of drivers who can freely travel within our borders to deliver food' the only people that would think that didn't vote leave.
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Aug 4, 2021 21:15
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Paladinus posted:Lithuania does turn back anyone illegally crossing the border starting this week if they are intercepted close to the border, regardless of whether they try to request the refugee status. It is not entirely impossible that border guards had to/chose to use weapons in an altercation, I suppose, but so far there is no real evidence provided by Lukashenko. We might find quickly out thanks to everyone having a phone and if any osint researchers pay attention https://mobile.twitter.com/Den_2042/status/1422848458965331968 No shooting videos so far but maybe something will come out quote:E2: What's also really strange to me in all that is that Iraq barely reacts to the situation. They had some meetings with Lithuanian officials several moths ago, and promised collaborate, but I don't think they made any official statements after that. Surely, a death of their citizen would warrant some reaction? It's a country of 40 million people that deals with internal terrorism among other problems, if a few thousand people want to try to leave and have a go at a better life in the EU who is going to care? I'm pretty sure our foreign minister was laughed at there when he came there without something to offer and expected someone to solve his problems for free. This cancellation of flights for 10 days is 100% EU pressure Somaen fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Aug 4, 2021 |
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Aug 4, 2021 21:32
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the combat gays are now running for office! https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1423014828612931594
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Aug 5, 2021 02:42
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https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-rule-of-law-eu-legal-battle/ Largely unsurprisingly, Poland is backing down from their judiciary reform bullshit, casting it as a win by saying “EU bad”.
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Aug 7, 2021 20:26
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CMYK BLYAT! posted:the combat gays are now running for office! The only candidate out of Партия Жуликов и Воров that can be voted for. And than  among the rest of them.
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Aug 8, 2021 22:59
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39-35-87 border crossing incidents from Belarus into Latvia in the past 3 days respectively, we’re declaring a state of emergency.
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Aug 9, 2021 12:02
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cinci zoo sniper posted:39-35-87 border crossing incidents from Belarus into Latvia in the past 3 days respectively, we’re declaring a state of emergency. Over 300 in the last 3 days for Poland, too.
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Aug 9, 2021 12:03
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Total number of people who crossed Latvian border unlawfully in 2019 was 52, and half of that volume was on the account of an organised flow of Vietnamese nationals. The flow eventually got choked from the Russian side, and they’re now trying other routes. They wouldn’t even try to seek asylum - once they learned about how fun Latvian detention centres for arrivals’ identification are, they began to cross our border with passports and enough cash to book themselves a plane home.
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Aug 9, 2021 12:12
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Can you explain why this is happening? Are they just trying to spite Latvia?
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Aug 9, 2021 16:11
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Nitrox posted:Can you explain why this is happening? Are they just trying to spite Latvia? something like that. Belarus' neighbor states are among the strongest supporters of the opposition, and significant advocates of EU sanctions. Lukashenko has some thought that this will annoy them enough that they'll back down, but IMO 80% spite ed: overall the belarusian plan to discourage sanctions is going _very well_ https://twitter.com/HannaLiubakova/status/1424734391511748615 Qtotonibudinibudet fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Aug 9, 2021 |
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Aug 9, 2021 16:26
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Nitrox posted:Can you explain why this is happening? Are they just trying to spite Latvia? I don’t have a solid explanation, and no one in local politics seems to have one either. I would be wholly unsurprised if this is a belated “warning shot” to deter Latvia from continuing to provide assistance to Lithuania or Belarus IT entrepreneurs seeking to relocate their companies into EU. Could be a number of other things, like them considering to pound us now, or some senior apparatchik just flexing at the northern border.
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Aug 9, 2021 16:29
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Turkey not to long ago realized it could use its border position to basically adjust the flow of refugees in order to send neighbors into crisis while their far right anti-immigrant groups made them look like hypocrits
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Aug 9, 2021 17:04
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It's a way of moving target countries to the right bc western societies can't seem to come up with a way of dealing with refugees that isn't cranking the brutality dial
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Aug 9, 2021 17:13
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https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1424734523519025152
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Aug 9, 2021 23:49
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i was prepared to roll my eyes at severe hyperbole, but if this stuff is legit then i don't think they're exaggerating by using those terms. still, it's got to be supremely embarrassing for the government, but i wonder if it actually lead to anything
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Aug 10, 2021 00:43
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:i was prepared to roll my eyes at severe hyperbole, but if this stuff is legit then i don't think they're exaggerating by using those terms. still, it's got to be supremely embarrassing for the government, but i wonder if it actually lead to anything The government are just not going to acknowledge it, or will try to understate the scale of the hack. They've been doing this for an entire year now. Considering Lukashenko doesn't trust anyone but the police and the army anymore, and his understanding of anything to do with computers is severely lacking, if the generals tell him it's all fake, he might not even realise what a massive security breach this is. It's a perfect self-perpetuating system!
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Aug 10, 2021 01:08
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On one hand - that is loving massive on the other - let's take a long, hard look at the history of things mattering...
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Aug 10, 2021 08:47
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cinci zoo sniper posted:I don’t have a solid explanation, and no one in local politics seems to have one either. I would be wholly unsurprised if this is a belated “warning shot” to deter Latvia from continuing to provide assistance to Lithuania or Belarus IT entrepreneurs seeking to relocate their companies into EU. Could be a number of other things, like them considering to pound us now, or some senior apparatchik just flexing at the northern border. If this investigation by reform.by is true, (https://reform.by/243337-kto-stoit-za-potokom-migrantov-iz-belarusi-v-litvu-rassledovanie-reform-by) looks like a significant amount of people coming from the planes avoid the police and go to the border themselves, some of them analyzed where people were getting caught and chose areas which seemed to be easier to pass, all this without working with any traffickers. Not to say that Belarussian forces aren't involved, but it's possible that groups of migrants realized they won't get through Lithuania and are trying their luck passing through Poland and Latvia and this won't become as systematic as it was with Lithuania. In any case the borders are getting reinforced, flights from Iraq stopped and are taking people back to Iraq from Minsk, looks like this won't continue Yesterday a whole bunch of sanctions were placed on the Belarussian economy and connected oligarchs, looks pretty bad for him. He also had a 9 hour conference, were there any pee breaks
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Aug 10, 2021 14:49
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Somaen posted:Yesterday a whole bunch of sanctions were placed on the Belarussian economy and connected oligarchs, looks pretty bad for him. He also had a 9 hour conference, were there any pee breaks No, it was non-stop pissing and moaning for all 9 hours.
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Aug 10, 2021 15:04
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The Lithianian and Polish borders are useful as illegal crossings for a very limited time. The forrests consist of tall trees and shrubs and when they loose their leaves late September, anyone will stick out. Later in the winter, the temperature falls down to -30 C or you get waist high snow or both.
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Aug 10, 2021 16:38
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Early elections in Poland here we go! (pis let go of a coalition partner) I’m taking bets.
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Aug 10, 2021 18:45
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Anne Frank Funk posted:Early elections in Poland here we go! (pis let go of a coalition partner) I’ll just blindly hope that Tuskminator takes Sejm by storm. Please don’t tell me how microscopic the odds of that actually are.
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Aug 10, 2021 18:53
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aaaand done and dusted. 228 for and 216 against. they had to re-do and buy the votes from Confederacy dimwits to get what they wanted. jesus loving christ this is beyond the pale
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Aug 11, 2021 20:41
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Somaen posted:Yesterday a whole bunch of sanctions were placed on the Belarussian economy and connected oligarchs, looks pretty bad for him. He also had a 9 hour conference, were there any pee breaks
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Aug 11, 2021 21:06
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Cugel the Clever posted:What the gently caress is it with dictators and ludicrously long, rambling press conferences? Have any leaders from liberal democracies been known to do such a thing? Normally, there is no point doing that in non-authoritarian countries, because independent or opposition journalists normally have access to all key government figures basically whenever they appear in public. One counter-example that comes to mind is Zelenskyi, I guess. His first press conference was held at some shopping centre and was several hours long.
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Aug 11, 2021 21:25
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Paladinus posted:Normally, there is no point doing that in non-authoritarian countries, because independent or opposition journalists normally have access to all key government figures basically whenever they appear in public. One counter-example that comes to mind is Zelenskyi, I guess. His first press conference was held at some shopping centre and was several hours long. If you listen to the Russian media, he's basically Hitler so the theory checks out
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Aug 11, 2021 21:29
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laserghost posted:aaaand done and dusted. 228 for and 216 against. they had to re-do and buy the votes from Confederacy dimwits to get what they wanted. jesus loving christ this is beyond the pale The TVN vote? gently caress.
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Aug 11, 2021 22:01
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Cugel the Clever posted:What the gently caress is it with dictators and ludicrously long, rambling press conferences? Have any leaders from liberal democracies been known to do such a thing? No one's going to tell them they look like a crazy person.
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Aug 11, 2021 22:40
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There’s a lot going on right now. The TVN vote passed, but after the plenary session was ended by another vote. PiS used a legality that doesn’t apply - if a vote was “obviously flawed”, 30 parliamentarians can motion a resumption. This vote wasn’t “obviously flawed”, so somewhere down the line the Sejm marshall Ms. Witek will be seriously legally hosed. On top of that, the nutsos from Konfederacja did something good for once and somehow appended a regulation that will change how the State Media Control Comission is elected, effectively meaning that from 2022 PiS will loose one of their main tools of controlling state media. The lexTVN as its known will now go to the senate for 30 days and come back to the Sejm for a second vote. In 30 days, things will be completely different and on top of that PiS might have to scrap the law altogether because of the aforementioned change. Even if it passes, the law doesn’t change much. TVN can switch the signal to their second news channel, or use an EU permit for satellite stations - they’d lose out on the air bands but who gives a gently caress except your dziadzia na wsi. And the kicker is the cost for all this nonsense is immense. Poland might loose US troops stationed here and any goodwill from Biden, if there’s any left. The EU will now happily limit Corona financing. Hell, PiS actually lost it’s majority. Madness!
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Aug 11, 2021 22:41
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Cugel the Clever posted:What the gently caress is it with dictators and ludicrously long, rambling press conferences? Have any leaders from liberal democracies been known to do such a thing? The primary audience is themselves, and for the secondary audience of the people under them, the fact that they can feel free to speak uninterrupted and say absurd, audacious things is itself the message.
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Aug 12, 2021 02:02
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Mokotow posted:And the kicker is the cost for all this nonsense is immense. Poland might loose US troops stationed here and any goodwill from Biden, if there’s any left. The EU will now happily limit Corona financing. Hell, PiS actually lost it’s majority. Madness! I don't think US will move the troops from Poland - that's also their field of interest - but we will be certainly hosed w/r/t investments here. Like, for example, the possible nuclear power plant project: https://www.energetyka24.com/news-e24-polska-chce-atomowego-tandemu-usa-maja-wspolpracowac-z-francja https://twitter.com/tygodniknie/status/1425577972824748039
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Aug 12, 2021 08:13
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