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What is the most powerful flying bug? This poll is closed. |
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| 🦋 |
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15 | 3.71% |
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115 | 28.47% |
| 🪰 |
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12 | 2.97% |
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67 | 16.58% |
| dragonfly |
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94 | 23.27% |
| 🦟 |
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14 | 3.47% |
| 🐝 |
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87 | 21.53% |
| Total: | 404 votes | ||
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ELON MUSK’s plan to charge users for Twitter verification could be quite the opportunity for Russia. The new owner’s subscription policy — $8 a month for that coveted blue checkmark — doesn’t start until after the midterms, but the national security world is already crafting doomsday scenarios. The dangers are much more worrisome than some of the threats of warfare from foreign adversaries, argued GLENN GERSTELL, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who served as general counsel of the National Security Agency and Central Security Service from 2015 to 2020. “I’m sure that the Kremlin, VLADIMIR PUTIN and YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN are delighted to know that for just $7.99 a month, you can sow discord and set Americans against each other,” Gerstell told NatSec Daily, referring to the Russian oligarch who admitted to interfering in U.S. elections on Monday and vowed to continue doing so. “From their point of view, that sounds like, “Wow, what a great deal. Where do we sign up?’” That may be hard for Musk to square with his ambitious goal for the platform: “Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world. That’s our mission,” he tweeted Sunday evening. One of the issues with the verification policy users have pointed out is the ability to easily impersonate an authentic person by simply changing your own profile name. Many verified users, including comedian KATHY GRIFFIN, took the opportunity to poke fun and impersonate the world’s richest man. It seemed to get his attention, with Musk announcing a new policy shortly after and suspending the comedian’s account. "Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended," Musk tweeted, pledging that violators will not be warned of the suspension. And while midterms get a pass, the lax verification policy comes as political tensions rise ahead of the next presidential election cycle. That’s a prime opportunity for foreign adversaries to spread disinformation — and it’s more likely that people will share information that comes from verified accounts. “Remember what I’ve been saying all along, about ‘look to your state and election officials, look to those trusted, authoritative sources for information,’” former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director CHRIS KREBS said during a Washington Post Live event Monday, referencing Twitter Blue’s verification policy. “If you upend that model at a time when authoritative information is absolutely critical, I think there’s a significant amount of risk." Russian trolls aren’t the only foreign adversaries to watch out for in the next two years, Gerstell said. China appears to be stepping into the disinformation game, taking a page out of Russia’s playbook. With the chance to add credibility on Twitter, “it just adds fuel to the fire.”
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Nov 8, 2022 02:13
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so im hearing ukraine is winning because they took kherson? is this true?
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Nov 15, 2022 04:16
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Ukraine’s secret planning for a military campaign in Crimea isn’t much of a secret anymore. On Saturday, Ukrainian Defense Minister VOLODYMYR HAVRYLOV told Sky News it was “possible” Ukrainian troops would move on the annexed peninsula by the end of December. Asked about this remark by POLITICO’s LUIZA SAVAGE during the Halifax International Security Forum, top Ukrainian official ANDRIY YERMAK let out a soft chuckle. “This war, it continues,” he said Saturday, adding that “I’m sure” a campaign to retake Crimea will happen. He (understandably) refused to offer a timeline for the offensive. Hours later, reporters asked Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister OLGA STEFANISHYNA if Ukrainian and U.S. military planners were gaming out what the recapture of Crimea might look like. She sat still for a long beat, prompting journalists to laugh uncomfortably. She broke the silence by simply saying “okay.” More nervous giggles. It’s no surprise that Ukraine wants to retake Crimea. One of Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY’s conditions for peace is that all seized lands come once again under Kyiv’s control. He’s vowed time and time again that his forces will make that happen. That said, one can’t discount that Ukraine’s signals of a coming campaign could be fakeout, similar to how Kyiv said it would launch a southern counteroffensive only to push into Kharkiv in the north. Either way, there’s been some skepticism that Ukraine can pull off such a move. “The probability of a Ukrainian military victory defined as kicking the Russians out of all of Ukraine to include what they define or what the claim is Crimea, the probability of that happening anytime soon is not high, militarily,” Gen. MARK MILLEY, the Joint Chiefs chair, said last week. And while U.S. officials publicly say that “Crimea is Ukraine,” privately some have told NatSec Daily they fear what happens following a drive for the peninsula. Striking Crimea with missiles is one thing, but retaking it is another. There’s a chance Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN escalates the war in retaliation — something U.S. and Western officials don’t want to see. We’ve heard a growing sentiment that Western and Ukrainian interests aren’t fully aligned when it comes to Crimea. That said, U.S. predictions about Ukraine’s military chances have been wrong throughout the nine-month war, and Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling to date hasn’t led to anything. Ukraine would like to defy America’s predictions once more.
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Nov 22, 2022 04:54
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Frosted Flake posted:So, people who can't tell high and low explosives apart, don't know a Rotating Band from a Obturating Band, or Mauser rifle from a javelin for that matter, were speaking from authority about a subject I've been unable to arouse any interest in at all at dinner parties. They'd bring up artillery at dinner parties, name specific guns (well, just one, and that should have been a tell), were very interested in the CEP of specific projectiles, ranges, tactical employment. I know I've brought this up several times before, but imagine you have a job people are vaguely aware of but not really interested in. You know, IT, SysAdmin, coding. Try to picture everybody talking about it out of nowhere, using some of the right terminology but drawing conclusions that are obviously not accurate, but not random either. Everybody has suddenly discovered some facet of your job, but only so far as it serves a very obviously ginned up media narrative. They argue with you about it, repeat gibberish confidently, get upset with you, and then forget it and move on. Any thought or effort you put into addressing the claims is wasted because they've already forgotten. friendo i was a womans studies major in college and work in media writing now and youre basically describing what life is like for me any time i get called on to use my expertise to explain anything i have to carefully tiptoe around whatever stupid bullshit was on john oliver's show last week because it offends people when i imply im more knowledgeable on a subject than a guy who has a tv show
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Nov 25, 2022 13:29
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the subway korean drama episode was especially enraging because i not only have to explain that this is a fan meme that doesnt show up that often and that the literal subway advertisement that plays on the cliche is an obviously self indulgent joke i also have to explain that these kinds of advertisements also exist in american social media and its grotesquely misleading to imply that anything about them is unique to either subway or korea also anyone who buys a subway franchise contract without doing enough research to realize its a scam is a moron who deserves to lose their money i have no technical expertise on that subject it just seemed like a really obvious conclusion to me based on how the contracts were described
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Nov 25, 2022 13:48
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so what youre saying is that bugs bunny is a russian agent this is most disturbing news
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Nov 25, 2022 15:41
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Below we are reproducing a post from Ukraine Telegram, along with an assessment from Colonel Douglas Macgregor. A long-standing military colleague sent the material to Macgregor, who deems it to be authentic. One thing that is striking about the text of Ukraine gaslighting messaging points is the focus on creating dissent in the military with the intent of achieving regime change in Moscow. One thing I have inferred despite my considerable distance from Russian Telegram is the degree to which it seems to be highly critical of the Russian government’s conduct of the war. This seems to go beyond possible self-selection. Yes, ex-soldiers and other war nerds can no doubt come up with mistakes made, as well as having a general hankering for more aggressive action. Mind you, Russia is now moving into that footing with its dissection of Ukraine’s electrical grid. That is presumably be followed sometime in the winter with an increase in the tempo of the war. But Surovikin promised a grinding war. If that translates into grinding in more places, and faster loss of Ukraine/Western men and materiel, will that be kinetic enough to make these armchair generals happy? What has struck me with my limited contact with Russian Telegram is that its members seem too often to become overwrought about minor setbacks, like the loss of three Russian helicopters at an airbase due to apparent sabotage. Yes, this is bad and suggests not enough care was taken to prevent such an event (although one could easily argue given the ferocity of Ukraine intent that the level of successful terrorist operations has been comparatively modest). But the level of upset on Telegram seemed wildly disproportionate, and hence not organic…particularly given that the Western press also flogged the story. Some of the messaging in the Western press is also so uniform as to raise questions about how so many journalists can suddenly be thinking the same thing. For instance, now that they can’t not mention Russia’s destruction of Ukraine’s electrical grid, the spin is that this move is an act of desperation by Russia, a last-ditch effort to salvage its failing campaign….which will clearly fizzle into nothing when they run out of missiles. Now to Macgregor, who I hope you will thank for letting me publish his finding. Hoisted from e-mail: I am indebted to XXXX who sent this material to me this morning. The material is very revealing. The instructions below from the Kiev Government to its propaganda organs read like talking points for the Washington Post, New York Times, and most of the major western media. These points were lifted from a Ukrainian telegram channel. The stories that appear in Western media begin with the utterly false and misleading assertions on the list below. Encouraged by Western Governments, Western Journalists eagerly adopt them and present the fairy tales that proceed from them as factual. Trotsky who distinguished himself during the Russian Civil War and the Russian Invasion of Poland with the creation of similarly effective lies and fabrications would be enormously proud of Zalenskiy and the work he and his apparatus are doing. From XXX: According to the source, this is a conditional training manual for a week from the functionaries of the Office of the President and CIPSO for their bot farms and social media to work in the RU segment. Media plan, November 21-27 Topic: Problems of mobilization Search and creation of materials about the problems of providing mobilized weapons, equipment, mistakes in managing on the battlefield and during training. Use authentic videos from the mobilized, published in Russian news and military Telegram channels. Obtaining, creating and disseminating insider information about problems in the regions. Detailed coverage, generalization of problematic incidents for the entire mobilization process. The direct accusation of the Russian high command and leadership of the Ministry of Defense of corruption, low qualifications and neglect of the lives of their subordinates. Topic: Losses in manpower and equipment Use of numerical data of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, ISW, CIT, Oryx and other approved sources. Emphasize high casualties among mobilized, not professional Russian military. The task is to create a conflict between the career military and those called up for mobilization for further development and consistent updating. Calls to lay down arms and surrender – saving lives is more important than war for undefined goals and the Kremlin regime. Involvement of youth opinion leaders and organizations to disseminate such appeals. Losses in technology – translate the assessment into financial indicators. Emphasis: the money spent on the war, the Kremlin should have distributed among the population, so that it becomes richer. Emphasize the losses of the economy from the war and the imposed sanctions. Topic: Internal conflicts in power Key line: to strengthen the basis for the revolt of the military against the Kremlin in case of a crisis. Return to theses about conflicts in the Russian elite, among the “Kremlin towers”. The task is to undermine the trust of civil officials and security forces in each other. The accusation of officials of the Presidential Administration and the government of disagreeing with the actions of the military, in parallel to disseminate information about the violent dissatisfaction of the military with the political decisions of the Kremlin. Task: to launch information about the next conflict between the civilian and security forces of the regime. The use of defector speakers to launch information about conflicts between law enforcement agencies – the military, the FSB, the National Guard. Continuing the line: discrediting past referendums on joining Russia. The key thesis is that among the Russians, the annexation of regions does not enjoy support, their preservation as part of Russia is not considered important following the results of the war. Topic: Russia is a terrorist state Key line: The whole world considers the Russian regime to be terrorist in its essence, punishment for its crimes is inevitable. Active coverage of Russian strikes on civilian infrastructure. Emphasize the suffering of the civilian population from the power outage, the victims of the civilian population from shelling. Accents in coverage: The European Parliament recognizes Russia as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism”. The Dutch Parliament will vote on a resolution recognizing the Russian Federation as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism”. Emphasize European unity on the issue of recognizing the Putin regime as a terrorist one.”
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Nov 29, 2022 05:31
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The Russian government is coordinating cyberattacks on Ukrainian critical infrastructure with missile and other physical strikes as Russian troops retreat from formerly occupied areas of Ukraine, Microsoft said in a report published on Saturday. And the Kremlin could seek to expand cyberattacks against Ukraine’s supportive neighbors in an attempt to disrupt military and humanitarian supply chains and weaken European populations’ support for Kyiv, according to the report. Bleak outlook: Microsoft’s report comes after nearly 10 months of brutal war in Ukraine, which has seen Russia hacking Ukrainian satellite systems, energy companies and other critical infrastructure, galvanizing international worries about how Moscow will next deploy its sophisticated cyber capabilities. Expanding battlefield: In November, Microsoft blamed Russia for October ransomware attacks on infrastructure companies in Ukraine and Poland aimed at attacking companies involved in providing military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. Now, the tech giant says that campaign could be “a harbinger of Russia further extending cyberattacks beyond the borders of Ukraine,” with a focus on “countries and companies that are providing Ukraine with vital supply chains of aid and weaponry this winter.” The October attacks had limited success — Microsoft said local defenders and its own experts “helped contain the attack’s impact to less than 20 percent of one targeted organization’s network” — but Microsoft assesses that Russian hackers “almost certainly collected intelligence on supply routes and logistics operations that could facilitate future attacks.” Splintering the alliance: Russia is likely to expand its use of influence operations to “reduce support for Ukraine’s defense” by exploiting tensions in Europe over energy prices and shortages, according to the report, which cited Russian propaganda outlets’ steady promotion of European protests over issues such as inflation. Russia could also seek to stoke anti-migrant resentment as more people flee Ukraine amid power outages. Missiles and malware: Microsoft has observed Russian cyberattacks targeting the same sectors as Moscow’s recent missile barrages retaliating against Ukrainian territorial gains. In addition, the report says that destructive cyberattacks spiked in October after two relatively quiet months, with wiper malware attacks — meant to erase hard drives and make recovery more difficult — on energy, water and transportation infrastructure paralleling Ukraine’s ground counteroffensive. Fifty-five percent of the roughly 50 organizations hit by Russian wiper attacks since February are critical infrastructure companies, Microsoft said. Allies on alert: Microsoft is not alone in tracking these threats. NATO has also been keeping a close eye on developments in Ukraine, and the alliance has also seen evidence of Russia coordinating physical strikes with cyberattacks. “We’ve seen cyber being used before the actual attack started, for example through defacing government websites and spreading disinformation to try to scare the population,” David van Weel, NATO’s assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges, told reporters during a virtual briefing on Friday. He said that NATO has tracked the use of deepfakes as well, including doctored videos of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy telling troops to surrender. “We’ve seen cyber being used in conjunction with kinetic attacks, so whilst the military infrastructure was hit physically, it was also hit by cyberattacks,” van Weel noted.
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Dec 4, 2022 02:56
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Horseshoe theory posted:You know who else went nuts for Wagner... sorry i dont know who this fellow is could you tell me his name that i might google him
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Dec 4, 2022 03:02
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Starsfan posted:The ground around Kherson is very unfavorable for attacking over (wide open) and it was unclear if Ukraine was ever going to be able to directly capture the city, if you take the Russian's word on it their calculus on holding that ground changed when it became apparent that the dams up the river were being threatened by Ukrainian artillery and a potential flooding situation could strand the Russian combat group in the city away from the rest of their forces and supplies. ukrainians committing war crimes on their own people just to own the russians??? thats crazy talk when has this ever happened
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Dec 5, 2022 10:35
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Danann posted:I can read your post OP and you weren't just talking about France and Germany. fondly remembering how one of our brilliant plans to stop the russian invasion of ukraine was to ask china to do it for us
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Dec 5, 2022 15:21
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mlmp08 posted:Yup, and the US Navy was unsuccessful in criminally pinning the blame on one young sailor. They've a bad habit of hunting for one dude they feel like blaming for generally mismanaged safety disasters. https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2022/09/30/sailor-found-not-guilty-of-setting-fire-that-destroyed-ship/ geez can you imagine what an awful position we'd be in if the whole country worked like this just blaming one guy for literally every problem and acting like all our problems are solved once hes gone
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Dec 6, 2022 05:10
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Orange Devil posted:What is half-Jewish anyway? I though Jewishness was a matrilineal thing, so either your mom is Jewish means you is Jewish or she ain't so you ain't unless you go through a very long and tedious process involving a whole bunch of rabbi's? people sometimes use this phrase to mean a non practicing jew no idea whether thats true in regards to zelenskyy though
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Dec 8, 2022 00:06
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Frosted Flake posted:Over-reporting aside, this touches on a thing in British reporting of the Boer War, Battle of Mons and Malaya Emergency I had to pick through once. Basically at typical combat ranges a soldier can’t differentiate between a soldier going prone, as in taking cover or advancing in bounds, and being killed. It led to massive inflations of estimated enemy dead, not even at the cooking the books level, which happened too of course, but because the soldier saw an enemy in their sights, fired, and saw them drop. It just happens to turn out with records from the other side that they missed and - understandably - the person being shot at took cover. is there any reason to believe reporting on enemy casualties has improved since world war two or are these also likely to be inflated because we have broad definitions as to what constitutes being dead or being an enemy combatant
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Dec 8, 2022 00:39
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Dixon Chisholm posted:He's literally a career member of the Canadian armed forces. well i was fine with frosted flake when i knew his wife work for the cato institute but this is going too far!!!
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Dec 8, 2022 03:13
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what exactly did yall think frosted flake did for a living that would lead to him marrying a woman from the cato institute having uselessly specific pedantic knowledge about artillery hardware and also weirdly complex opinions about internal canadian military politics
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Dec 8, 2022 03:20
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Ardennes posted:Admittedly they threw the book out at her, a regular tourist would have either just have it confiscated or just be deported on the next flight. In general, Russian cops/border patrol prefer not to arrest foreigners because it is simply too much hassle. it wouldnt at all surprise me to learn that this was exactly what they were going to do then she started having a DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM meltdown which was about the dumbest thing she could have done for a lot of reasons
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Dec 9, 2022 02:11
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Dawncloack posted:I always thought that Star Trek tried to depict a more enlightened humanity. next generation is worse than either of them politically imo it tricks you by making picard and friends seem so friendly and reasonable but this is only in contrast to major alien races who are always being psychotic assholes for no reason the klingons are retconned into being fundamentally irredeemable noble warrior nazis but we have to pretend that theyve always been like this and its good that theyre like this because theyre federation allies now anyway in a completely unrelated subject thank u zelenskyy for leading the war against soviet tyranny heres to another year of noble war
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Dec 10, 2022 01:34
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The US Justice Department has charged five Russian nationals and two US nationals for allegedly conspiring to violate US sanctions by smuggling US-made equipment to the Russian military, according to a recently unsealed indictment. According to the 16-count indictment, the defendants were associated with two Moscow companies that worked with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) to purchase and smuggle sanctioned items – including semiconductors and other electronic equipment – from the US to the Russian military. The seven individuals, Yevgeniy Grinin, Aleksey Ippolitov, Boris Livshits, Svetlana Skvortsova, Vadim Konoshchenok, Alexey Brayman and Vadim Yermolenko, “unlawfully sourced, purchased and shipped millions of dollars in military and sensitive dual-use technologies from US manufacturers and vendors located in the Eastern District of New York and elsewhere for Russian end users,” the indictment said. “As alleged, the defendants perpetrated a sophisticated procurement network that illegally obtained sensitive U.S. technology to facilitate the Russian war machine,” Breon Peace, US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement Tuesday. “Our Office will not rest in its vigorous pursuit of persons who unlawfully procure U.S. technology to be used in furtherance of Russia’s brutal war on democracy.” The Army test fires a Patriot missile in 2019. The Patriot missile defense systems are designed to counter and destroy incoming short-range ballistic missiles, advanced aircraft and cruise missiles. Exclusive: US finalizing plans to send Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine According to the indictment, Russian nationals Grinin and Skvortsova would receive requests from Ippolitov, also a Russian national, for sanctioned items from the US. Grinin and Skvortsova would allegedly map out shipping routes while Livshits – through shell companies and US bank accounts – would allegedly purchase the items from US companies, according to the indictment. Grinin, Skvortsova, Ippolitov and Livshits remain at large, according to the Justice Department, while Brayman, a permanent resident in the US, Yermolenko, a US citizen, and Konoshchenok, a Russian national, are in custody. Based in the US, Brayman and Yermolenko would allegedly “fabricate shipping documents and invoices” to ship items around the world before they would eventually be sent to Russia, according to the DOJ. Konoshchenok, who the Justice Department believes is an officer for the FSB, was allegedly one of their smugglers. The alleged FSB officer was arrested in Estonia last week after allegedly attempting to smuggle twenty cases of US-made sniper rifle ammunition into Russia in late November. According to the indictment, Konoshchenok was also stopped by police at the Estonian border with thousands of additional US-made bullets as well as “semiconductors and other electronic components,” some of which were controlled by the US government “for reasons of anti-terrorism.” When Estonian law enforcement searched a warehouse allegedly used by Konoshchenok they discovered 375 pounds of US-made ammunition, according to the Justice Department. Proceedings to extradite Konoshchenok to the US will begin soon, US officials said. The two US nationals, Brayman and Yermolenko, are scheduled to be arraigned in federal court Tuesday. “At this stage Mr. Brayman has only been charged, he has not been convicted of anything,” Brayman’s attorney, David Lazarus, told CNN. “Like all defendants, Mr. Brayman is entitled to the presumption of innocence.” No attorney for Yermolenko was listed on the public docket. The defendants face a 30-year maximum sentence if convicted, according to the Justice Department.
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Dec 14, 2022 01:48
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Ytlaya posted:It's really frustrating, especially as someone who has devoted his entire life to understanding Ukrainian geography and climate. im pretty sure they have great ski slopes because that was the main thing everyone did there in the first act of the noted jackie chan documentary police story four first strike
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Dec 14, 2022 07:52
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come for the ukraine stay for the australia
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Dec 14, 2022 07:52
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Nikita Chibrin says he still remembers his fellow Russian soldiers running away after allegedly raping two Ukrainian women during their deployment northwest of Kyiv in March. “I saw them run, then I learned they were rapists. They raped a mother and a daughter,” he said. Their commanders, Chibrin said, shrugged when finding out about the rapes. The alleged rapists were beaten, he says, but never fully punished for their crimes. “They were never jailed. Just fired. Just like that: ‘Go!’ They were simply dismissed from the war. That’s it.” Chibrin is a former soldier from the Russian city of Yakutsk who says he served in the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, the notorious Russian military unit accused of committing war crimes during their offensive in Bucha, Borodianka and other towns and villages north of Kyiv. He deserted from the Russian military in September and fled to Europe via Belarus and Kazakhstan. Troops from Chibrin’s brigade were labeled war criminals by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense in April after mass graves containing murdered civilians and dead bodies lying in the streets were discovered following the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Kyiv region. Chibrin’s military documents, seen by CNN, show his commander was Azatbek Omurbekov, the officer in charge of the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade. Omurbekov, known as the “Butcher of Bucha” is under sanctions by the European Union and the United Kingdom. The United States have sanctioned the entire brigade. The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the mass killings, while reiterating baseless claims that the images of civilian bodies were fake. In a move that sparked outrage across the world, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded the unit an honorary military title and praised it for its “heroism” and “bold actions.” Chibrin said he didn’t see any of the supposed heroism, but many of the crimes. Speaking to CNN in a European country where he has requested asylum, he detailed some of the crimes he says he witnessed and heard accounts of, and said he’d be prepared to testify against his unit at an international criminal court. He maintains he himself didn’t commit any crimes. “I didn’t see murders but I saw rapists running away, being chased (by higher-ranking members of the unit) because they committed rape,” he said. He also said that the unit had a “direct command to murder” anyone sharing information about the unit’s positions, whether military or civilians. “If someone had a phone – we were allowed to shoot them,” he said. He claims there is little doubt some of the men in the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade were capable of killing unarmed civilians. “There are maniacs who enjoy killing a man. Such maniacs turned up there,” he said. Chibrin also described widespread looting, with Russian soldiers taking computers, jewelry and anything they liked. “They didn’t hide this at all. A lot from my unit, when we left Lipovka and Andreevka in the end of March, they took cars, vehicles, they took civilian cars and sold them in Belarus,” he said. “The mentality is, if you steal something, you are good. If nobody catches you, good! If you see something that is expensive and you steal it and don’t get caught, you are good.” As for the unit’s commanders, he said they were well aware of the alleged rapes and murders and of the looting, but took little interest in seeking justice. “They reacted like: ‘Whatever. It happened. So what?’ Actually, there was no reaction,” he said. “Discipline goes [down the drain], there’s no discipline.” CNN has asked the Russian Ministry of Defense for comment on the allegations, but has not received a response. Chibrin has no doubt that Russia will eventually lose its war against Ukraine, but not until many more lives are lost. “Because Russia won’t stop until big blood is spilled, until everyone dies. Soldiers are cannon fodder to them. They don’t respect them,” he said. Having seen the fighting first hand, he said the equipment Russian soldiers have is no match for the weapons to which Ukraine has access. He says that while Ukraine is receiving some of the most advanced weaponry available from its Western allies, the Russian army is relying on Soviet-era equipment used during the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. “Of course Russia will lose. Because the whole world is supporting Ukraine. To think that they (the Russians) will win is stupid,” he said. “They thought they would occupy Kyiv in three days. What day is it now [of the war]? 260th? They thought they would come to Ukraine and be met with flowers. But they were told to f*** off and thrown Molotov cocktails at.” Men in his unit were also extremely ill-prepared for combat, according to Chibrin. He said the training his unit received consisted of commanders giving them a weapon, a target and 5,000 bullets. “Keep shooting and then you are free to go. No one was doing anything. There was no actual training. I worked with a computer, at the office, worked as a lawnmower…” he said. The lack of training became obvious once in Ukraine. The same men who were boasting about being “like Rambo” before they were deployed came back broken, he said. “Those who said they’d be shooting Ukrainians easily, when they come back from the front lines … they could not even speak to me. They saw the war, they saw defeat, saw their [fellow] combatants being murdered, saw corpses. They realized – but they couldn’t run away.” He said many of the men were poorly trained and most had no idea where they were headed. “It was a big lie. It was a military training with the Belarusian army. And they lied to us. On February 24 they just said everyone will go to war,” Chibrin said, adding that he initially refused to go. “The first thing I said was, ‘Commander, f*** you, I don’t want to go to the war’ and he said, ‘Hey you, you will have big problems, you will go to jail and your family will have big problems’ … and he attacked me and put me in a special vehicle and closed the door. And I couldn’t open [it] from inside. So, that’s how I went to Ukraine.” Chibrin went on to spend months in Ukraine, on and off. When the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade withdrew at the end of March from the area northwest of Kyiv, following the failed offensive there, he and his unit returned to Belarus. He said he was suffering from a back injury and went to a military hospital in Russia, but was forced to go back to Ukraine in May. This time he was sent to the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine, and then spent time in the forests around Izyum. It was then that he finally found a chance to escape, he said. He noticed that commanders of other units were leaving the area for Russia in a truck and jumped in. “I jump in [the bed of the truck] and I see, wow, other guys, also leaving Ukraine. And they say we don’t want to [fight the] war, we paid the commander money (to drive). And I am waiting and waiting and then we are near to the Russia border and the car is stopped and the guys are jumping off and I am also jumping off. And I go to the Russia border and I say I need the medical help,” he said. Once back in Russia, Chibrin said he spent nearly a month in hospital, most of that being bedridden with terrible back pain. But he said he was unable to get proper treatment. “They said that if I wanted to go to a special sanatorium, I needed to sign a paper that said I’d go back to war,” he said. Refusing to sign, Chibrin said he was getting ready to submit paperwork to get his military contract canceled when the Russian government announced a partial mobilization in September. “And my friends told me I needed to hide. ‘You need to find place and hide, your contract will not be canceled because of the mobilization,” he said. Knowing he needed to get as far as possible from the far east city of Khabarovsk where he was stationed, Chibrin first fled across Russia to St. Petersburg and then took a train to Belarus. Once there he was able to find an intermediary who helped him get to Kazakhstan from where he ultimately traveled to his current location. Now he is determined to speak up about the events he witnessed in Ukraine, even writing an anti-war song. “Hundreds of souls, hundreds of bodies of lost people. Hundreds of mothers without children,” the chorus goes.
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Dec 14, 2022 08:02
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what do you mean no sources that one guy says its all true what more do you tankies want?!?!
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Dec 14, 2022 08:13
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Malleum posted:you used to be able to get fancy soviet surplus winter coats and uniform pieces for cheap but then etsy banned all russian and belarusian accounts. the surviving ukranian ones are three times as expensive and you cant track them because the postal system is all hosed up what color was the cat
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Dec 16, 2022 08:32
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oscarthewilde posted:it had a lower GDP and a lower GDP per capita than loving Belarus. If Ukraine ever joined the EU (never gonna happen) it would be a blackhole in the European economy. insane that all those eurocrats are championing this corrupt loser nation this cant be right everyone knows ukraine is filled with white people
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Dec 16, 2022 15:17
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speng31b posted:i wonder if you'll see a backlash against gallup for reporting something that's not just 99% favorable the poll is six weeks old and given that the sick freaks in this thread who will believe any crazy thing hadnt seen it i get the impression it was just ignored
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Dec 17, 2022 01:02
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Ukraine’s presidential office is criticizing FIFA for refusing to show a video message from President Volodymyr Zelensky in Qatar’s Lusail Stadium ahead of the World Cup final on Sunday. The video, which was recorded in English, is meant to be an “appeal for peace,” Ukraine’s presidential office said in a written statement to CNN on Saturday. “Qatar supported the President’s initiative, but FIFA blocked the initiative and will not allow the video address of the president to be shown before the final game,” the statement said. Ukraine’s presidential office also said it will distribute the video independently if FIFA doesn’t air it and said their decision to block it would show “FIFA has lost its valuable understanding of soccer – as a game that unites peoples, rather than supporting existing divisions.” CNN reached out to FIFA but has not received a comment. The world football governing body has gone to extreme lengths to keep political messaging out of its showcase tournament in Qatar, the first Middle Eastern nation to ever stage the event. Qatar has not publicly commented on the request from Ukraine. CNN first reported on the story on Friday, when a source within Zelensky’s office said the request to deliver the message of world peace prior to kickoff had been rebuffed. On Saturday, CNN received a video copy of Zelensky’s pre-recorded speech. In the clip, Zelensky says soccer is meant to bring the world together and calls for “the World Cup, but not world war.” “This World Cup proved time again that different countries and nationalities can decide who is the strongest in the fair play but not in the playing with fire, on the green playing field and not on the red battlefield,” Ukraine’s president says in the video. The Ukrainian presidential office told CNN they were informed that FIFA regarded the message as too political and said they had sent a copy of the text of the address to FIFA headquarters in Switzerland on Friday. “There is nothing political in the president’s appeal that gives political color to the sporting event, namely, there are no subjective evaluations, political signals, and even more so no accusations,” the presidential office said, adding that there is “still time for FIFA to correct their error.” “FIFA should not be afraid that words of peace will be heard at the global soccer celebration that represents peace,” the statement said.
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Dec 18, 2022 06:15
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George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984," set in an imagined future where totalitarian rulers deprive their citizens of all agency in order to maintain support for senseless wars, has topped electronic bestseller lists in Russia. The novel is the most popular fiction download of 2022 on the platform of the Russian online bookseller LitRes, and the second most popular download in any category, the state news agency Tass reported on Tuesday. The English author's novel was published in 1949, when Nazism had just been defeated and the West's Cold War with its erstwhile ally Josef Stalin and the Soviet communist bloc he now led was just beginning. The book was banned in the Soviet Union until 1988. Orwell said he had used Stalin's dictatorship as a model for the personality cult of the all-seeing Big Brother, whose "thought police" force cowed citizens to engage in "doublethink" in order to believe that "War is peace, freedom is slavery." But some see contemporary echoes in the rule of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has eradicated political opposition and critical media from the public sphere in his two decades in power, as well as rehabilitating the memory of Stalin. His invasion of Ukraine in February prompted new laws that made it a crime to publish any information about the war that was at variance with official statements. The Kremlin shuns the very word "war," referring instead to its "special military operation". Officials in Moscow continue to assert that Russia bears no malice toward Ukraine, did not attack its neighbor, and is not occupying Ukrainian territories that it has seized and annexed. Last week, Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison on charges of spreading "false information" about the army -- for discussing evidence uncovered by Western journalists of Russian atrocities in Bucha, near Kyiv, which Russia said had been fabricated. And last month the Kremlin's spokesman said there had been no attacks on civilian targets, despite wave after wave of bombardment of Ukrainian power facilities that have left millions without heat or light in the depths of winter. However, the Russian translator of a brand new edition of "1984" sees the parallels with Orwell's novel elsewhere. "Orwell could not have dreamt in his worst nightmares that the era of 'liberal totalitarianism' or 'totalitarian liberalism' would come in the West, and that people -- separate, rather isolated individuals -- would behave like a raging herd," Darya Tselovalnikova told the publishing house AST in May.
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Dec 18, 2022 06:20
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speng31b posted:there's never been any rule against quoting stuff from in cspam, and you can even quote stuff from other subs if you're using someone's fairly recent (like not years old) and directly relevant post history against them smdh at this den of savages that openly doxxes people
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Dec 20, 2022 02:06
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:
i dont understand what the hell this is even supposed to mean person of the year is like ok the guy we wrote the most articles about i get it but what was happening in malawi in 2020 that everyone is supposed to remember
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Dec 21, 2022 15:00
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this is how we know we live in a democracy all of our parties are united in wanting to fight good just wars
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Dec 21, 2022 15:01
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Frosted Flake posted:It's come up ITT that the Ukrainian border was extremely porous before 2014. In Western Canada in the mid 1800s, half of Canadians were American born and a quarter of Canadian born men emigrated to America. To make the 48th a "hard border", there was a massive effort to create this artificial linguistic and "racial" distinction with the US. It's a big reason for why the RCMP became a national symbol of Canada. Their first expeditions were to chase out Americans who were living in the western territories and to create a border to keep them out. why its almost as if borders are an abstract concept that are used to maintain power relations between sovereign states and dont actually have anything with local culture or the people who live near them
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Dec 24, 2022 02:35
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Frosted Flake posted:Also, if I can tie together Japan, Thailand, the Occupation of Germany and France, Mercenaries and Lyndon Johnson's "More Flags": The Hiring of Korean, Filipino and Thai Soldiers in the Vietnam War is about the American effort to legitimate the Vietnam War through SEATO, which came up recently ITT. It mentions that the Americans had coerced West Germany into agreeing to send troops, US officials had signed off, and then someone pointed out that the large number of Germans in the FFL during the Indochina War had thoroughly poisoned the Vietnamese against Germans. America also expected the rest of NATO to send troops and was frustrated that the existence of SEATO precluded invoking NATO. Which is maybe why natsec people want NATO to include Asia rather than a new alliance. The Americans were willing to undermine the Japanese constitution to send Japanese troops under SEATO but again, someone realized the Japanese troops occupying Vietnam would reflect poorly on America among the population. Finally, their efforts to bribe/coerce Britain and Canada were interesting, as was how they managed to get Australia and New Zealand to send forces. fun fact taken as a proportion of the overall population south koreans actually had a higher participation rate in the vietnam war than the americans did to the point kim il sung talked about invading south korea at an obvious moment of weakness to which the soviet union and china replied lol no
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Dec 25, 2022 01:50
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Gripweed posted:So this is at best on par with Russia thinking supporting Texas and California separatist organizations will actually produce anything? hey everybody look at this reality denying trumper rear end in a top hat who thinks putin isnt interfering with our elections!
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Dec 27, 2022 09:28
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still mad at majorian for explicitly making this thread the war thread when the old thread was explicitly the former soviet bloc megathread i expressed my displeasure by not posting in here an act which im sure brought great pain and suffering to everyone which is why i had to stop
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Dec 27, 2022 09:31
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Endman posted:I thought they made this to stop us making GBS threads up the Eurasia thread that was the original reason yes so originally it was the war thread but i asked nicely for the scope to be expanded so we could discuss things unrelated to the war too there is of course no reason why we cant do that and in fact people do that all time like frosted flakes effortposts on galicia im just being a silly pedant because the word "war" is in the thread title
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Dec 27, 2022 09:43
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Tankbuster posted:please do. we already have mlmp clones pooping right now so your soviet effortposts will be an improvement. i think youre confusing me with someone else when i say i want to make posts about russian things unrelated to the war im referring to stuff like this clip from the russian dubbed version of batman the animated series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiENxjE_xEU
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Dec 27, 2022 10:02
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PhilippAchtel posted:In my experience, to the extent that most people part attention to politics at all, they just repeat what they see on television. thats not true sometimes they repeat things they read on the internet
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Dec 30, 2022 01:04
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crepeface posted:*mlmp08ishly* why do you just assume the US would just do whatever blackrock wanted, the whitehouse senior advisor to ukraine on economic issues is actually only the FORMER director of blackrock. i forget was there a time period under trump when libs acted like blackrock was bad or did it just not come up because trump didnt hire anyone from blackrock
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Dec 30, 2022 01:24
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Lostconfused posted:https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/87914 lol at the lede quote:It’s true that Ukraine’s oligarchs corrupted the Ukrainian state and undermined effective reform and development, preventing it from escaping from its post-Soviet stagnation. But they were also a key protective mechanism against anyone else usurping power.
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Dec 30, 2022 01:26
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