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Kadyrov's change of tone is quite peculiar to me. I cannot help but wonder about his relationship with the newly appointed commander of the "special military operation".Marshal Prolapse posted:Well depends on if they have an operational GRIM-1 (I think that’s the designation). Hrim-2, and it's not confirmed, which I meant to accentuate. That would be a theoretical 500 km-range “wunderwaffe”, yes. Saladman posted:I don’t get why Panama Papers would be bad for him. He is legitimately wealthy through a totally acceptable and fine way to acquire wealth - by being a well-known actor. If I lived in a corrupt and unstable country like Ukraine and I had wealth, even legitimate, I sure as hell would not keep much of it in Ukraine. Not everyone in Panama papers is some corrupt schmuck. I don't think Ukrainian actors can get Panama-wealthy through their namesake craft. Lid posted:https://twitter.com/WarfareReports/status/1579235228731985921?t=XhrTKusGvtDE38NFEg2S0A&s=19 Any other sources for this? Sekenr posted:https://news.zerkalo.io/economics/23619.html Scanning the official presidential presser diagonally, this seems to be more of the same about the “threat” to Belarus from the west. PederP posted:It's hard to discuss this without getting clancychatty - but the ramping up of Russian harassment and (perhaps) sabotage against NATO countries is a significant, and dangerous, development. It is not just tit-for-tat and comparable to economic sanctions. It's yet another a violation of the Pax Europaea, where sanctions and stern letters are the upper limit to acceptable use of force. I hope Putin does not think this activity will reduce European support of Ukraine and opposition to Russia. Because I think it is more likely to cause further escalation and spillover. Yes, I would suggest abstaining from this discussion until it has more tangible substance.
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Oct 10, 2022 14:24
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https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/1579198650626240512?s=20&t=4wHHrQ0m16knmy2YOCl9dQ Kim Dotcom will repost literally anything handed to him by Moscow, won't he?
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Oct 10, 2022 14:30
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Feliday Melody posted:https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/1579198650626240512?s=20&t=4wHHrQ0m16knmy2YOCl9dQ And why should this thread care about Kim Dotcom? The topic was discussed at length yesterday already.
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Oct 10, 2022 14:32
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sent from a friend this morning https://twitter.com/echomadman/status/1579462524453679107
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Oct 10, 2022 14:43
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Yes, I would suggest abstaining from this discussion until it has more tangible substance. The power cut is confirmed to have been a technical issue - not sabotage, so that's a relief. I assume it is still ok to post articles/news about specific episodes of harassment / sabotage (like the navigational jamming) just without getting into a discussion of hypotheticals down the road? https://nyheder.tv2.dk/live/2022-10-10-nyhedsoverblik-10-oktober-2022#entry=3831694
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Oct 10, 2022 14:44
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PederP posted:The power cut is confirmed to have been a technical issue - not sabotage, so that's a relief. I assume it is still ok to post articles/news about specific episodes of harassment / sabotage (like the navigational jamming) just without getting into a discussion of hypotheticals down the road? Yeah, things that have happened are fine to post about.
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Oct 10, 2022 14:45
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echomadman posted:sent from a friend this morning So either: Russia is deliberately targeting civilians or Their missiles are such complete poo poo that they can't hit a giant power plant.
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Oct 10, 2022 14:45
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Pook Good Mook posted:So either: Seems to be a mix of both today, primarily the former, as a hissy fit in response to the Kerch bridge totally standing strong and operational.
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Oct 10, 2022 14:47
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Young woman in Kyiv recording herself just after seeing a missile when another one hits quite close to her, no blood or injury just a shocked innocent bystander going about her life:  https://imgur.com/gallery/QD7miPd The crap that gobshite Putin is putting everyone through just to satisfy his brain worms.  edit: anyone with ptsd should skip this one. Just Another Lurker fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Oct 10, 2022 |
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Oct 10, 2022 14:53
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Seems to be a mix of both today, primarily the former, as a hissy fit in response to the Kerch bridge totally standing strong and operational. It's all so stupid. These cruise missiles are not cheap, and if reporting is to be believed, they aren't going to be replaced in any useful amount of time. They just lit hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars on fire to blow up a playground. I haven't seen stories about it, but have they used these missiles on Ukrainian supply depots or anything of the sort? Is their intelligence even good enough to know where they are?
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Oct 10, 2022 14:59
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Pook Good Mook posted:It's all so stupid. These cruise missiles are not cheap, and if reporting is to be believed, they aren't going to be replaced in any useful amount of time. They just lit hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars on fire to blow up a playground. They have used them on ammunition depots, especially early in the war (remember those really apocryphal-looking gigantic explosions - those were artillery/missile ammo dumps or fuel facilities), and their surveillance satellite network is at worst the third best after US and China. Sure, missiles may not be the most accurate kind, both intrinsically and with better stocks already spent or kept in strategic reserve, but things like hitting a pedestrian bridge or a park in downtown Kyiv are absolutely not near misses on suspect tank factories or whatever. Edit: https://twitter.com/nicupopescu/status/1579392919785857026
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Oct 10, 2022 15:02
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cinci zoo sniper posted:They have used them on ammunition depots, especially early in the war (remember those really apocryphal-looking gigantic explosions - those were artillery/missile ammo dumps or fuel facilities), and their surveillance satellite network is at worst the third best after US and China. Sure, missiles may not be the most accurate kind, both intrinsically and with better stocks already spent or kept in strategic reserve, but things like hitting a pedestrian bridge or a park in downtown Kyiv are absolutely not near misses on suspect tank factories or whatever. Thank you for this response. My point wasn't necessarily that these are arguable misses, but more that since these weapons are not cheap nor really replaceable, it seems like such an expensive waste to use them on terror targets. Pook Good Mook fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Oct 10, 2022 |
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Oct 10, 2022 15:05
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Herstory Begins Now posted:That said, lol if they big brained it 'what if we combined a train full of fuel and a truck full of AN.' Hell, you could even use a separate source of ignition. maybe neonen's shitpost was right that it was an 'all of the above' attack
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Oct 10, 2022 15:11
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Chalks posted:An empty children's playground isn't going to have a morale impact - like this is such a perfect photo op for Ukraine I'd suspect a false flag if it wasn't so impossible. Also the strike on the completely empty pedestrian bridge is comical since it failed to actually damage it. That looks like its primary charge failed to explode, it doesn't look like there was any crater from that like you would expect, just scorching and large fragments.
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Oct 10, 2022 15:14
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Pook Good Mook posted:Thank you for this response. They’re carried out for the domestic audience primarily, I would say, because the Kerch bridge is the symbol of “Russian spring” and “Crimea is ours” political movements. Their primary objective, then, would be to look impressive enough on Russian television to appease domestic hardliners and people buying wholesale into Kremlin’s propaganda. Case in point, the man himself giving decidedly pompous “I’m a tough guy, you better not give me reasons to touch you” presser. https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1579416708355592192
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Oct 10, 2022 15:15
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Pook Good Mook posted:So either: Hitting the power plant is vile too, and people who say otherwise are smoothbrained by NATO bombing campaigns. It's about to be freezing weather. Power plant offline would make the city unlivable.
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Oct 10, 2022 15:27
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What kind of missiles are Russia using to make these strikes? Does Ukraine just not have any to make similar strikes but on actual military targets? Yes, I know they just recently got the bridge.
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Oct 10, 2022 15:50
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Rockker posted:What kind of missiles are Russia using to make these strikes? Does Ukraine just not have any to make similar strikes but on actual military targets? Yes, I know they just recently got the bridge. Kalibr cruise missiles, it seems. Ukraine doesn't have anything similar. There might be a few anit-ship missiles that could be fired at ground targets but nobody's seen them. The US/NATO has all sorts of stuff but they're not sharing for now for whatever reason.
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Oct 10, 2022 15:55
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Ukraine do have long range missiles, but they don't have very many of them and they tend to use them extremely sparingly for that reason. They definitely don't have enough to launch waves of them the way Russia can, regardless of the type of target.
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Oct 10, 2022 15:57
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mobby_6kl posted:Kalibr cruise missiles, it seems. Ukraine doesn't have anything similar. There might be a few anit-ship missiles that could be fired at ground targets but nobody's seen them. The US/NATO has all sorts of stuff but they're not sharing for now for whatever reason. the general philosophy of what the US/EU/NATO is providing is to limit it to stuff that can be used in-Ukraine but not to supply stuff that is mostly useful for striking targets in Russia. cruise missiles would seem to fit mostly in that latter category and it makes sense those are not being included given that philosophy.
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Oct 10, 2022 16:00
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Tochka-Us are like 100-odd km, and are badly imprecise (like 200m error)... And US forbids use of HIMARS GMLRS, which is both shorter range (90km, IIRC?) than that, but has like a 5m error (so it can hit a military target in a dense area without directly affecting civilians) on targets in Russia.
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Oct 10, 2022 16:01
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mobby_6kl posted:Kalibr cruise missiles, it seems. Ukraine doesn't have anything similar. There might be a few anit-ship missiles that could be fired at ground targets but nobody's seen them. The US/NATO has all sorts of stuff but they're not sharing for now for whatever reason.
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Oct 10, 2022 16:01
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cinci zoo sniper posted:I don't think Ukrainian actors can get Panama-wealthy through their namesake craft. I don't think you have to be a billionaire to open a Panamanian bank account, although I couldn't figure out if there was a minimum amount for people setting up accounts with Mossack Fonseca. But e.g. a non-resident non-EU foreigner can open a Swiss bank account for "only" $500k, which certainly seems within the ballpark of what a Ukrainian actor can make from their namesake craft. He was a founder of in 2003, and still owns a 25% stake, in the production company that did Servant of the People, and he was already a producer for that company by 2011. He starred in a 2009 film with a $11m box office (budget: $3.5m), a 2010 film with a $13m box office (budget: $2.5m), and his 2011 film where he was a producer had a $12m box office (budget: $5m), and he also starred in it. Being a 25% owning producer and lead actor on a $12m box office film with a budget of $5m in 2011 would jive really well with opening up an offshore account in 2012. Also it's worldwide box office so it's not like he was getting that money in hyrvnia and exporting it to Panama in briefcases. Maybe he's super corrupt, I see his estimated wealth has vastly increased from 2018 to 2020, but his opening an account in Panama in 2012 after making low millions on being a movie producer seems normal, especially for someone living in a corrupt country with shaky financial foundations.
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Oct 10, 2022 16:04
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Zelenskyy may or may not have been corrupt prior to the war, but after this war, he (and his wife) will in all likelihood be able to make an extremely good living as through board membership, consultancy/advisory services or even just marketing/lobbyism if they fall on hard times. The 'brand' of that pair is worth billions. Companies will pay through the nose for the most tenuous of associations with them - unless the war takes a massive and unexpected U-turn. While it may be of academic interest to historians how much tax evasion and/or corruption he engaged in, I really doubt that their pre-war wealth will be relevant for their future economic prospects. As for 'Panama-papers-wealthy', you don't have to be particularly wealthy to engage in tax evasion via offshore entities. Some of the people who do it are almost broke. Finance is a wonky world.
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Oct 10, 2022 16:11
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That Timothy Snyder talk popped on my YT recommendations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU3JE4ucX2A It's really good, goes into modern imperial Russian mindset, and similar topics.
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Oct 10, 2022 16:18
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Barrel Cactaur posted:That looks like its primary charge failed to explode, it doesn't look like there was any crater from that like you would expect, just scorching and large fragments. From the footage of the strike itself (cctv showing the explosion, a guy is present in the footage but he's unharmed) it's just that they missed the target, hitting the grass underneath. It's not surprising, the thing is maybe 10 feet across, 20 feet above the ground. There's very little chance Russia could land a hit on it so I have no idea why they'd humiliate themselves trying. Chalks fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Oct 10, 2022 |
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Oct 10, 2022 16:50
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PederP posted:Zelenskyy may or may not have been corrupt prior to the war, but after this war, he (and his wife) will in all likelihood be able to make an extremely good living as through board membership, consultancy/advisory services or even just marketing/lobbyism if they fall on hard times. The 'brand' of that pair is worth billions. Companies will pay through the nose for the most tenuous of associations with them - unless the war takes a massive and unexpected U-turn. While it may be of academic interest to historians how much tax evasion and/or corruption he engaged in, I really doubt that their pre-war wealth will be relevant for their future economic prospects. Except putin will have to be dead to cash in on any of that, otherwise they'll spend the rest of putin's life in hiding from assassins.
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Oct 10, 2022 16:50
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evilweasel posted:the general philosophy of what the US/EU/NATO is providing is to limit it to stuff that can be used in-Ukraine but not to supply stuff that is mostly useful for striking targets in Russia. cruise missiles would seem to fit mostly in that latter category and it makes sense those are not being included given that philosophy. I know and I understand the reasoning, but it still annoys me. Everything in Russia that launches missiles or planes or is a staging ground for tanks and/or troops is a legitimate target. I don't like how we support Ukraine but also let them fight with one hand tied behind their backs.
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Oct 10, 2022 16:55
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Antigravitas posted:You really don't want politicians to have the ability to fire civil servants at will. That leads to chaos, or worse. I am a civil servant in the United States, and I cannot stop myself from informing you that is is not the philosophy of most of the governmental agencies in the United States. And I mean, would you be surprised to learn that working for a state government in the United States, I have been personally told to hire X person, who I will supervise, at twice my pay, because X person was an important volunteer who ran a regional campaign office when a new governor was elected? This is how government works in the US: up to 30% of people in civil service leadership roles are political appointees, who often clear out middle management for political reasons. Contrast that with Germany where only 3% of civil service leadership are political appointees, and there are laws protecting civil service workers who aren’t political appointees. This may help illustrate how corruption works in the US, and why American governments—particularly at the state and local level—are far less efficient and effective than their European counterparts. ZombieLenin fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Oct 10, 2022 |
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Oct 10, 2022 16:57
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Chalks posted:From the footage of the strike itself (cctv showing the explosion, a guy is present in the footage but he's about 30 meters from the blast and is unharmed) it's just that they missed the target, hitting the grass underneath. It's not surprising, the thing is only 6 or 7 feet across, maybe 20 feet above the ground. There's very little chance Russia could land a hit on it so I have no idea why they'd humiliate themselves trying. It could be a symbolic target and they were dumb enough to think that the glass would shatter from a nearby explosion, without doing any of the calculations to show the actual result.
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Oct 10, 2022 17:01
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uXs posted:I know and I understand the reasoning, but it still annoys me. Everything in Russia that launches missiles or planes or is a staging ground for tanks and/or troops is a legitimate target. I don't like how we support Ukraine but also let them fight with one hand tied behind their backs. Europe and US don't want to risk their own citizens by escalating the conflict with a nuclear power which is understandable. The one thing that makes this feel better is knowing Russia can't currently replace the cruise missiles and is using them on civilian targets that don't help the war effort. Every cruise missile fired is an irreplaceable item from their ever-decreasing stock, and was not used against a military they're actually fighting. I imagine the Russian generals are already down to the emergency level of cruise missiles and that's why their use was pretty much stopped in recent months. They were probably not happy with Putin's temper tantrum to launch more of them at useless (to them) targets. Even if attacks were planned before the bridge fiasco, it's still dumb using your best long-range weapons on civilian infrastructure while you're in active combat. Also, just give Ukraine more air defense. Perfect opportunity for Israel to help here with their expertise if they weren't too busy playing both sides. Rad Russian fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Oct 10, 2022 |
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Oct 10, 2022 17:02
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Saladman posted:I don't think you have to be a billionaire to open a Panamanian bank account, although I couldn't figure out if there was a minimum amount for people setting up accounts with Mossack Fonseca. But e.g. a non-resident non-EU foreigner can open a Swiss bank account for "only" $500k, which certainly seems within the ballpark of what a Ukrainian actor can make from their namesake craft. This is a fair point, though I’ll clarify that my implication was less that he’s super corrupt, and more that I would’ve expected of him, as of any Ukrainian politician elected into a public office, to have a baseline of “funny accounting” due to the structural weaknesses of Ukrainian civic order in the relevant areas.
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Oct 10, 2022 17:39
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cinci zoo sniper posted:This is a fair point, though I’ll clarify that my implication was less that he’s super corrupt, and more that I would’ve expected of him, as of any Ukrainian politician elected into a public office, to have a baseline of “funny accounting” due to the structural weaknesses of Ukrainian civic order in the relevant areas. Agree, but this is not exclusive to Ukraine or EE It is very widespread among actors, entrepreneurs, even just upper middle class in general, to have some degree of funny accounting. Some of it may even be done by hired accountants/financial advisors without the full understanding of the client. In other words, as soon as you start accruing even moderate wealth, you are often in a position where you actively have to make an effort not to end up with funny accounting that is a little too funny as many tax systems are built on the assumption that some base level of tax optimization occurs. Of course there is a difference between optimization and evasion, but the risks and grey areas are not as clean cut as many who are unfortunate enough to not worry about this may think. This is especially true of "new money".
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Oct 10, 2022 17:52
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https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1579427807788400642?t=SPmbAZ-dHfcQWFz9TQ6vXQ&s=19 Seems the strikes were by no means limited to terror bombing. If the Russians can continue to threaten to do this winter is going to be hell for Ukraine
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Oct 10, 2022 17:54
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Hiding money in an account so you don’t get taxed by your community so they can build roads and schools makes you a defacto scumbag living off of everyone else who works. Guiding your nation and being the leader it needs in it’s time of crisis, at great risk to yourself, means you actually stand for something besides yourself. We see how this pans out. I got hope but also, rich people don’t usually have souls, maybe Paddington does.
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Oct 10, 2022 18:00
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I was just thinking about the sequence of events around the bridge attack and these Russian strikes. If we assume that Ukrainian intelligence is telling the truth that they've known about this attack being planned for a few weeks, it seems totally possible for these two things to have happened in the other order - Russia does these strikes, then Ukraine blows up the bridge. In this scenario the bridge attack would have been seen as retaliation and caused Russia to escalate further in response in order to appear strong. That scenario would be much worse than this one, since Ukraine appears to have been able to blunt the attack to some extent by knowing it was coming. Is it possible that Ukraine timed the bridge attack to come just before an expected Russian escalation to hide in its shadow to some extent? If it really is true that this attack was coming to matter what, Ukraine seems to have timed the bridge strike to avoid retaliation entirely.
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Oct 10, 2022 18:23
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A big flaming stink posted:https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1579427807788400642?t=SPmbAZ-dHfcQWFz9TQ6vXQ&s=19 This is what I can't figure out regarding the relative line in the sand drawn by allies weapon supply: If russia is bombing indiscriminately why should Ukraine not have the ability to eliminate those assets on russian soil? Short of complete national collapse, russia will be terror bombing Ukraine forever now, and the US and other allies are just hunkey dorey with all that?...
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Oct 10, 2022 18:41
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mobby_6kl posted:Kalibr cruise missiles, it seems. Ukraine doesn't have anything similar. There might be a few anit-ship missiles that could be fired at ground targets but nobody's seen them. The US/NATO has all sorts of stuff but they're not sharing for now for whatever reason.
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Oct 10, 2022 18:46
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Add additional "military target" to the list: Kyiv State university, department of ... Russian philology: https://mobile.twitter.com/adagamov/status/1579506806170099719
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Oct 10, 2022 18:51
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DandyLion posted:This is what I can't figure out regarding the relative line in the sand drawn by allies weapon supply: If russia is bombing indiscriminately why should Ukraine not have the ability to eliminate those assets on russian soil? Short of complete national collapse, russia will be terror bombing Ukraine forever now, and the US and other allies are just hunkey dorey with all that?... I imagine that Ukraine firing a US delivered missile into Russia and hitting a hospital or school in Russia would be a diplomatic disaster for the US. Regardless of what they originally aimed at.
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Oct 10, 2022 18:51
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