Eastern Europe: Olivier's sphere of influence

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

Nitrox: Jul 5, 2002

woodenchicken posted:

Reminds me of that old tweet by Babchenko: Countless Jets, Satellites, Submarines, Buses, a Dry Dock and even a Choir: Is Russia Secretly Building an Underwater Empire?

considering their success at building a land empire, not very likely

# ? Aug 16, 2019 13:33

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# ? May 28, 2024 19:05

Mozi: Apr 4, 2004; Forms change so fast
Time is moving past
Memory is smoke
Gonna get wider when I die; Nap Ghost

The only remaining reasonable explanation that matches with all the known facts: the Russians discovered the lost city of Atlantis in the Arctic Circle, and encountered difficulties while attempting to restart the harmonic power generatrix.

# ? Aug 16, 2019 14:14

Dark Off: Aug 14, 2015

https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/1162004761719107584
https://twitter.com/ckoettl/status/1162056543732469760

Im guessing that the whole thing will be forgotten quite soon, which is a shame because who knows what kinds of long term effects will pop up.

https://twitter.com/ctbto_alerts/status/1160130156922642433
its bit unclear to me why it was picked up by seismic/infra sound sensors?
i assumed that the explosion wasnt big enough to do that + it happened at sea so most of the power should have been absorbed by water .

Dark Off fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Aug 16, 2019

# ? Aug 16, 2019 15:43

Serjeant Buzfuz: Dec 5, 2009

Water doesn't absorb the energy much, it's a very efficient conductor relatively for sound and shock waves.

# ? Aug 16, 2019 16:50

Dark Off: Aug 14, 2015

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/08/16/exclusive-russian-doctors-say-they-werent-warned-patients-were-nuclear-accident-victims-a66896

quote:

According to three of the doctors, including both senior sources, one of the doctors flown to Moscow was found to have Caesium-137 � a radioactive isotope that is a byproduct of the nuclear fission of uranium-235 � in their muscle tissue. One of the sources said the affected doctor had told him so directly, though he was not informed about the amount or concentration of the isotope found.

quote:

The doctors said that after two groups flew to Moscow the rest of the flights were cancelled. They also said after the results had come back radiation experts were flown to Arkhangelsk to carry out the tests there instead.

quote:

According to the doctors, the operating theater, located on a third-floor wing of the hospital, was sealed off until Aug. 13. They said that Russia�s consumer safety watchdog Rospotrebnadzor and the Emergency Situations Ministry inspected the hospital over the following days.

quote:

They said that security services officers who visited the hospital on Aug. 9 recovered and deleted all of the information about the incident that was in the hospital�s records.
�It�s as if the event no longer exists,� one of the doctors said. �With no documentation the staff couldn�t try to take anyone to court, even if they wanted to.�

# ? Aug 16, 2019 20:46

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Lou Takki posted:

Water doesn't absorb the energy much, it's a very efficient conductor relatively for sound and shock waves.

On top of that, the sensors are extremely, well, sensitive.

# ? Aug 17, 2019 08:00

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Forensic Architecture has just published a fantastic new platform that maps multiple incidents of Russians forces in Ukraine, and it's like an open source investigation wet dream. Bit of background here:

quote:

New evidence emerges of Russian role in Ukraine conflict

Newly collated evidence documenting Russian military involvement in the conflict in Ukraine will be used to bolster legal claims against the Russian state by Ukrainian volunteer fighters.

Forensic Architecture, a London-based research group, has collected and catalogued evidence of Russian military involvement in the battle of Ilovaysk in August 2014, including the presence of a model of tank used only by the Russian armed forces at that time.

The evidence will be appended to a case to be ruled on by the European court of human rights (ECHR) and has been released on a publicly viewable online platform.

The evidence includes numerous satellite images of Russian armed convoys inside Ukraine and multiple sightings of the T-72B3 tank, a new model which at the time of the battle was operated only by the Russian armed forces.

Russia has continually denied military involvement in Ukraine despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In the battle of Ilovaysk, which came to a head at the end of August 2014, Ukrainian army units and volunteer battalions on one side were pitted against separatist and Russian military forces on the other, resulting in hundreds of deaths on both sides.

Many of the Ukrainian casualties happened after their forces were encircled and then attacked when they tried to retreat after a ceasefire had been agreed.

The survivors included 25 Ukrainian volunteers from the Donbass Battalion, which fought alongside the regular army during the war in 2014. They were among a larger group captured at Ilovaysk by men they believe to be from a regular Russian army unit.

While Ukrainian soldiers were handed back to the Ukrainian military, the volunteers were turned over by the Russians to separatist fighters, and many of them were held for several months. The men allege they were tortured and subjected to forced labour, and they now want Russia to be held accountable and are seeking damages at the ECHR.

For the duration of the conflict, which is now largely frozen but still sees sporadic fighting and has currently claimed over 13,000 lives, there has been ample evidence that Russia financed, trained and armed the separatist fighters.

At key moments in 2014 such as Ilovaysk, a decision appears to have been taken to send in regular army units. Russia also sent in hardware such as the Buk missile system believed to have shot down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 a month before Ilovaysk.

However, because Russia denies all involvement, establishing Moscow�s responsibility beyond doubt is key for court cases. For this reason, the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC), which is helping the claimants to bring the case, commissioned Forensic Architecture to put together hard evidence of Russian involvement at Ilovaysk.

�Evidence of Russian military involvement needed to be as strong as possible � if you just look at online videos you don�t quite know if things have been manipulated, so in complex cases like this it�s incredibly useful,� said Jessica Gavron, EHRAC�s legal director.

For the first time, Forensic Architecture used machine learning to speedily sift through about 2,500 hours of footage posted on YouTube from the region at the time of the battle, looking for frames in which there was a high probability of a tank appearing. Researchers could then view the frames and investigate further.

�In its current form, this kind of technology can help us find a couple of things we might have otherwise missed, but we hope it will evolve into a game-changing tool,� said Lachlan Kermode, of Forensic Architecture.

In the future it could be that the technology will be able to pinpoint specific models of armoured vehicles or other weaponry in long videos, saving hours of online research, though Kermode cautioned that it would never fully replace proper verification by human researchers.

Gavron said: �There are a lot of problematic uses of this kind of technology when it comes to the violation of human rights, so it felt important to show how it can also be used to help identify rights abuses.�

The volunteer fighters are also bringing a case against Ukraine at the court, accusing Kyiv of negligent planning of a military operation. The court has said it will first rule on interstate cases brought by Ukraine against Russia before dealing with individual cases relating to the conflict. This case is just one of around 4,000 linked to the annexation of Crimea and the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Russia has a troubled relationship with the ECHR, part of the Council of Europe of which Russia is a member, and is frequently forced to pay out compensation to victims of torture in Chechnya or opposition politicians who say their rights have been infringed by Russian law enforcement agencies.

A Russian law implemented two years ago allows for domestic courts to overrule ECHR decisions if they are deemed incompatible with Russia�s constitution, meaning it is possible that payments in the cases would not be made, given Russia�s denial of its involvement in the war.

You can find the platform here, and if you have even the slightest interest in open source investigation or how technology can be used to understand conflict then watch the 8 minute video:
https://ilovaisk.forensic-architecture.org/

# ? Aug 18, 2019 18:41

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.

Thanks BM! You're a service to the forums!

# ? Aug 18, 2019 21:02

Dark Off: Aug 14, 2015

https://twitter.com/SinaZerbo/status/1163179404136210433

# ? Aug 18, 2019 21:13

Nitrox: Jul 5, 2002

Russia apparently shot down the radiation measuring sites, because of course

https://www.newsweek.com/skyfall-burevestnik-nuclear-missile-russia-zerbo-1454954

# ? Aug 20, 2019 12:55

Hizawk: Jun 18, 2004; High on the Lions.

Nitrox posted:

Russia apparently shot down the radiation measuring sites, because of course

https://www.newsweek.com/skyfall-burevestnik-nuclear-missile-russia-zerbo-1454954

I'd believe your typo version too.

# ? Aug 20, 2019 15:00

Warbadger: Jun 17, 2006

Elukka posted:

The US didn't suddenly grow sense, they just figured out ICBMs and found they were a much better way to nuke people. Russia's thing is about diversifying (or pretending to, who knows how real this is) their arsenal because they're concerned about the US development of ICBM defenses. Currently US defenses are small scale, but there's no treaty limiting them anymore so they could choose to scale it up.

That's not really accurate. The US and USSR both put a lot of work into developing and successfully deploying long range, nuclear armed cruise missiles both before and after Project Pluto. The AGM-28 and Kh-20 went into service a few years before Project Pluto, for example, and remained in service long afterwards until replacement by a host of newer and increasingly long range models. Project Pluto was just unnecessarily dangerous and potentially unreliable/expensive compared to conventionally powered air and ship/sub launched nuclear armed cruise missiles.

# ? Aug 21, 2019 14:28

Dark Off: Aug 14, 2015

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2019/08/22/there-s-no-danger-get-to-work more details of that nuclear incident its pretty much :wtc:

# ? Aug 22, 2019 20:39

HUGE PUBES A PLUS: Apr 30, 2005

I learned that the company involved with the explosion in Russia is the same company building the nuclear power plant in Belarus.

# ? Aug 22, 2019 23:00

Nitrox: Jul 5, 2002

Navalny is alive and well apparently. There is a translate button on Instagram page, fyi

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1gCUpClOqB/?igshid=12qpk2x7pdmuc

# ? Aug 23, 2019 14:21

HUGE PUBES A PLUS: Apr 30, 2005

Thanks for the timely notification to the rest of planet, Russia.

https://twitter.com/guardiannews/status/1165971463892951040

# ? Aug 26, 2019 14:28

Dwesa: Jul 19, 2016; Maybe I'll go where I can see stars

HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:

Thanks for the timely notification to the rest of planet, Russia.

https://twitter.com/guardiannews/status/1165971463892951040

When I read that Russian politicians are not happy with HBO Chernobyl series, I didn't expect them to make a reality show sequel.

# ? Aug 26, 2019 17:09

OhFunny: Jun 26, 2013; EXTREMELY PISSED AT THE DNC

https://twitter.com/politico/status/1166896511927685120?s=19

# ? Aug 29, 2019 17:37

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

So is bellingcat going to figure out who "Vadim S." is? Allegedly did a bicycle drive by shooting on a Georgian dissident in Germany while there on "vacation".

# ? Aug 29, 2019 18:11

RaffyTaffy: Oct 15, 2008

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/29/intel-says-russian-explosion-was-not-from-nuclear-powered-missile-test.html

quote:

A U.S. intelligence report says the mysterious explosion off Russia’s northern coast occurred during a recovery mission to salvage the Kremlin’s nuclear-powered missile from the ocean floor.

Would make sense that recovery of something that had impacted the water would involve more risk. Previously I was thinking they had an accident with some sort of preparation on the reactor that was new or something else to require the scientific staff. But I guess they would want to be around after recovery to maybe safe it or figure out what went wrong.

quote:

The tests apparently showed that the nuclear-powered heart of the cruise missile failed to initiate and, therefore, the weapon was unable to achieve the indefinite flight Putin had boasted about.

Launches from platform on the starter and failed to light the main. Fell right into the water near coast.

Rough picture of one possibly for this event but with the amount of misinformation Russia has to be putting out I don't expect any agreement on the story.

# ? Aug 29, 2019 19:20

HUGE PUBES A PLUS: Apr 30, 2005

"We didn't get poo poo done."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9wet1-TF4U

# ? Aug 29, 2019 22:43

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Scaramouche posted:

So is bellingcat going to figure out who "Vadim S." is? Allegedly did a bicycle drive by shooting on a Georgian dissident in Germany while there on "vacation".

We've just published a piece we've been working on in collaboration with Spiegel and The Insider, Suspected Assassin in The Berlin Killing Used Fake Identity Documents . While we've not got his real ID, yet, we have managed to find a lot of information that shows his passport and ID is totally fake. It raises some questions about exactly how he was issued a visa to travel to Europe in the first place, as none of his background information checks out. It might be something to do with what we wrote about in Spies Without Borders � How the FSB Infiltrated the International Visa System back in 2018.

# ? Aug 30, 2019 12:07

Ruffian Price: Sep 17, 2016

what the actual gently caress

# ? Sep 1, 2019 12:36

Elias_Maluco: Aug 23, 2007; I need to sleep

Whats written on that logo?

edit: VVVV no, I mean the one with the german/nazi flag

Elias_Maluco fucked around with this message at 13:04 on Sep 1, 2019

# ? Sep 1, 2019 12:51

Nitrox: Jul 5, 2002

Center of national culture

# ? Sep 1, 2019 12:58

szary: Mar 12, 2014

Entsch�digung means compensation, ordnung muss sein means "there must be order", I have no idea how they come together but the minds of the Polish right work in mysterious ways

# ? Sep 1, 2019 13:36

Shy: Mar 20, 2010

Who's in charge of Czech republic nowadays? Are they insane too?

# ? Sep 2, 2019 18:44

Doctor Malaver: May 23, 2007; Ce qui s'est pass� t'a rendu plus fort

szary posted:

Entsch�digung means compensation, ordnung muss sein means "there must be order", I have no idea how they come together but the minds of the Polish right work in mysterious ways

"There must be order and compensation"? I've heard worse slogans.

# ? Sep 2, 2019 18:47

steinrokkan: Apr 2, 2011; Soiled Meat

Shy posted:

Who's in charge of Czech republic nowadays? Are they insane too?

The PM - Andrej Babis, a mega wealthy and corrupt rear end in a top hat.
The president - Milos Zeman, an alcoholic contrarian whose hobby is to pursue personal vendettas and courting authoritarians.

# ? Sep 2, 2019 19:39

anilEhilated: Feb 17, 2014; But I say fuck the rain.; Grimey Drawer

steinrokkan posted:

The PM - Andrej Babis, a mega wealthy and corrupt rear end in a top hat.
The president - Milos Zeman, an alcoholic contrarian whose hobby is to pursue personal vendettas and courting authoritarians.

As for which of them is in charge, it is actually a pretty interesting question since Zeman has just stepped on the parliamentary coalitions' right to appoint ministers, presumably exchanging PM's compliance for a future amnesty should he actually end up being charged and sentenced for the really obvious fraud.

And they're both pretty much insane, just in their own ways.

anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Sep 2, 2019

# ? Sep 2, 2019 19:52

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

Not sure if that's what brought this on, but the PM just had charges dropped in one of his fraud cases:

https://news.google.com/articles/CB...CA&ceid=CA%3Aen

# ? Sep 2, 2019 20:48

Private Speech: Mar 30, 2011; I HAVE EVEN MORE WORTHLESS BEANIE BABIES IN MY COLLECTION THAN I HAVE WORTHLESS POSTS IN THE BEANIE BABY THREAD YET I STILL HAVE THE TEMERITY TO CRITICIZE OTHERS' COLLECTIONS

IF YOU SEE ME TALKING ABOUT BEANIE BABIES, PLEASE TELL ME TO

EAT. SHIT.

Aside from, well, personally being a moderately corrupt rear end in a top hat who benefited from looting of the communist state and also helped demolish the left wing of social democrats, his government has not been all that bad from a leftist perspective. He's mostly a liberal in a coalition with the (albeit gutted) social democrats.

In other words there's a lot of crying by the opposition about more rigorous tax collection being unfair, state employees having too high wages, introduction of universal sick leave being a burden on businesses, too many university places being sponsored, FOBT regulation uhh damaging casinos or something, benefits not being policed enough, etc.

So while I don't particularly like him things could be considerably worse.

e: phoneposting

Private Speech fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Sep 2, 2019

# ? Sep 2, 2019 20:54

steinrokkan: Apr 2, 2011; Soiled Meat

He's the archetypical populist, he's throwing poo poo at the wall to keep up his support, without any cohesion, any ideology, any long term plan. By doing so, and by using his wealth / media clout, he's won over the soc dem electorate, completely destroying the old party; but that means that when he leaves, he's going to leave behind a massive vacuum ripe to be exploited by the more right wing form of populism, while the left is gonna be left bleeding to death, completely isolated on the political periphery and all his opportunistic vaguely liberal / lefty policies are going to be overturned, because they never were part of any larger projects, they were just piecemeal stop gap measures to keep up the polling numbers.

# ? Sep 2, 2019 21:11

Private Speech: Mar 30, 2011; I HAVE EVEN MORE WORTHLESS BEANIE BABIES IN MY COLLECTION THAN I HAVE WORTHLESS POSTS IN THE BEANIE BABY THREAD YET I STILL HAVE THE TEMERITY TO CRITICIZE OTHERS' COLLECTIONS

IF YOU SEE ME TALKING ABOUT BEANIE BABIES, PLEASE TELL ME TO

EAT. SHIT.

steinrokkan posted:

He's the archetypical populist, he's throwing poo poo at the wall to keep up his support, without any cohesion, any ideology, any long term plan. By doing so, and by using his wealth / media clout, he's won over the soc dem electorate, completely destroying the old party; but that means that when he leaves, he's going to leave behind a massive vacuum ripe to be exploited by the more right wing form of populism, while the left is gonna be left bleeding to death, completely isolated on the political periphery and all his opportunistic vaguely liberal / lefty policies are going to be overturned, because they never were part of any larger projects, they were just piecemeal stop gap measures to keep up the polling numbers.

Yeah that's exactly what I'm really worried about. Being fair the soc dems did cause some damage to themselves on their own (the whole scandal with the PMs personal assistant for one) but the massive election campaign targeting their key demographics, particularly in Prague, really did a number on them.

All the same I'd rather not see him replaced by an ODS-led coalition.

# ? Sep 2, 2019 21:20

steinrokkan: Apr 2, 2011; Soiled Meat

Yeah, anything is better than the ODS ghouls.

# ? Sep 2, 2019 21:26

anilEhilated: Feb 17, 2014; But I say fuck the rain.; Grimey Drawer

steinrokkan posted:

Yeah, anything is better than the ODS ghouls.

You say that but there's SPD and the new ODS offshoot with an even more nationalist rhetoric.

# ? Sep 2, 2019 21:30

steinrokkan: Apr 2, 2011; Soiled Meat

anilEhilated posted:

You say that but there's SPD and the new ODS offshoot with an even more nationalist rhetoric.

Well, I don't think those are viable at the moment... hopefully.

# ? Sep 2, 2019 21:31

anilEhilated: Feb 17, 2014; But I say fuck the rain.; Grimey Drawer

steinrokkan posted:

Well, I don't think those are viable at the moment... hopefully.

I can imagine they would be viable for an ODS-centric government especially if they want to exclude the Pirates. ODS already some pretty ugly links and people and they do have a lot of common ground with SPD, the only thing preventing them from allying being the latter's reputation as an extremist party and that is constantly shifting into being mainstream.

# ? Sep 2, 2019 21:40

RaffyTaffy: Oct 15, 2008

https://twitter.com/sl0zhny/status/1168542680495861761

# ? Sep 3, 2019 04:02

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# ? May 28, 2024 19:05

HUGE PUBES A PLUS: Apr 30, 2005

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht-g2CkinlE

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1169884144106528769

# ? Sep 7, 2019 02:09

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