tazjin posted:

Yesterday afternoon I arrived in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. As soon as you taxi off the runway, it's made very clear where you are:



We ordered a taxi through Yandex to get to our hotel, but after a couple of minutes the driver sent us a message saying "Order another car!". At the same time, Tagir - an older Chechen guy with a traditional hat - was trying to sell his taxi services to us: "500 rubles to the centre! I'm not scamming you, I swear!".

Not wanting to deal with more apps, we agreed to have Tagir drive us. On the way to his car we met Dima, a 20-something year old just standing around smoking. Apparently they knew each other, and Tagir invited him to ride along because they wanted to catch up. Dima is apparently not ethnically Chechen, and prefers to speak Russian over Chechen, so fortunately for us we could follow their conversation.

Dima had just come back from one of the Chechen units at the front. He'd fought in several of the towns that you've heard about if you follow the day-to-day frontline updates, and was now home because he'd been shot by a sniper in Bakhmut. He's injured, but feels fine, and has been asking his Voenkomat (military enlistment office) to be allowed to return to Kherson (for example, as an instructor) in order to see his brother who is currently deployed there. He claimed that the (presumably Ukrainian) sniper who shot him, who they later killed, was a woman.

We heard this story while driving down the Vladimir Putin Avenue ...



(Side note: Taking pictures from the taxi didn't quite work, so we went back later after the sun was already down to snap these.)

... and looking at some of the murals they arranged there.



The rest of the afternoon was mostly uneventful. Grozny is actually a pretty nice city, with different kinds of shops selling whatever your heart desires:




As a Muscovite, it's very noticeable that Grozny and the population of Chechnya are much more connected to what's going on at the moment than people in Moscow. You see some Zs and some art related to the war in Moscow, but it's nowhere near as present as it is here.

I want to get a feel for what people here are thinking. Lets see what happens today ...

tazjin posted:

Al-Saqr posted:

thats a pretty cool story thanks for sharing

also " Putin Team Russia" what a name for a store lol

DancingShade posted:

I would walk into such a store and ask to see their finest winter jacket.

mlmp08 posted:

No, I think Hersh oversimplifies and sees connections where he wants to and sources poorly. I don’t think Hersh is antisemitic. He’s Jewish himself. I think he misunderstood Clinton and assumes without evidence that she favored a hard line with Iran due to, in Hersh’s words, “Jewish money.” I think he’s wrong, and Clinton would still be anti-Iran absent any influence from any pro-Israel lobby and absent her being elected in New York, specifically.

He said (emphasis added):

https://www.democracynow.org/2007/10/2/seymour_hersh_white_house_intensifying_plans

I can think of a lot of reasons, from Clinton’s pretty hawkish background and history, why she would be anti-Iran even without being of a senator from New York.

quote:

AMY GOODMAN: Sy Hersh, I wanted to switch gears for the last question, and this has to do with it not just being Republicans who are sounding a drumbeat for war. The three leading Democratic presidential candidates — Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards — have all declared no options off the table. This is a clip from last week’s Democratic debate. It was the day the Senate approved a controversial resolution calling on the State Department to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. At the debate, Democratic presidential hopeful Mike Gravel bitterly criticized Hillary Clinton for voting in favor.

MIKE GRAVEL: This is fantasy land. We’re talking about ending the war. My god, we’re just starting a war right today. There was a vote in the Senate today. Joe Lieberman, who authored the Iraq resolution, has authored another resolution, and it is essentially a fig leaf to let George Bush go to war with Iran. And I want to congratulate Biden for voting against it, Dodd for voting against it, and I’m ashamed of you, Hillary, for voting for it. You’re not going to get another shot at this, because what’s happened, if this war ensues, we invade, and they’re looking for an excuse to do it. And Obama was not even there to vote.

TIM RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, I want to give you a chance to respond.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: [laughter]

AMY GOODMAN: That was Hillary Clinton laughing. Fifteen seconds, Seymour Hersh. Your response?

Danann posted:

https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1623737296687177728

https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1623738130447695876



also it doesn't even exist yet lol

gradenko_2000 posted:

he's right

mila kunis posted:

the "ukrainian nazis" trope has been debunked for over a year now

tazjin posted:

CODChimera posted:

https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1623977651986628608

dunno if real. seems like the offensive might be on though

CODChimera posted:

https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1623977651986628608

dunno if real. seems like the offensive might be on though

CODChimera posted:

https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1623977651986628608

dunno if real. seems like the offensive might be on though

Weka posted:

The "mila kunis is being sarcastic" trope was debunked last year.

Al-Saqr posted:

why? its just two missiles, how is that indication of anything?

DancingShade posted:

I would walk into such a store and ask to see their finest winter jacket.

CODChimera posted:

https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1623977651986628608

dunno if real. seems like the offensive might be on though

Cerebral Bore posted:

how would that even work out purely geographically?

Weka posted:

The "mila kunis is being sarcastic" trope was debunked last year.

Ardennes posted:

If they were fired from Brest and hit south of Odessa maybe, but yeah it is a real stretch.

Megamissen posted:

launching from the black sea targeting western ukraine maybe?

quote:

A Ukrainian fighter pilot who shot down five Iranian drones in one day has said he could learn how to fly a western jet within a few months – and help his country act as “a safe shield for the world” against Russian aggression.

Maj Vadym Voroshylov, a well-known figure in his homeland, said he believed it would take “up to three months to learn all the combat tasks” given his years of experience of flying in a Soviet-era MiG-29.

Engineers could learn how to repair a jet like an F-16 in a similar time, the Ukrainian pilot added, because “ground crews can be trained simultaneously”, in an interview as part of Ukraine’s latest lobbying campaign for military aid.

Voroshylov, who uses the callsign Karaya, became a public figure in Ukraine after he was forced to eject after a dramatic 24 hours in the air on 12 October, when debris from the fifth Iranian Shahed drone he had shot down in that time “got into both engines”, smashed out the cockpit glass and left blood running down his face.

Truga posted:

this recent f16 push seems so stupid
even russians barely use their planes in ukraine due to the whole SAM problem, and russia has ukraine outgunned like 10:1, what do they think a couple planes are gonna accomplish there??

CODChimera posted:

https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1623977651986628608

dunno if real. seems like the offensive might be on though

quote:

The defense ministry of Romania, a NATO member, said on Friday that a Russian missile had come within 22 miles of its border but that it did not cross into the country’s territory, countering a claim made by the Ukrainian military.

Ukraine’s top military commander had said earlier in the day that two Russian missiles crossed into the airspace of Moldova and Romania before entering Ukraine and being directed at targets in the country.

Cao Ni Ma posted:

lmao losing to an aerial lawnmower. They have the same kill ratio on air targets as the F22, but they punched way above their weight.

crepeface posted:

imagine how bad it'll be when china gives russia the attack balloons