[RD] The Russia News Thread

[Verbose]

Call it by its proper name, "Greater Germany" !
Ukraine should be more worried about Trumps moves to lift sanctions on Russia without any concessions. At least Russia should have to pay some rubles for Crimea and acknowledge its wrong doings
Then move forward on normalizing trade, fixing up corruption and stabilizing the region

Currently the Russian government might have more pressing concerns about its legitimacy at home...

 

[Yeekim]

Because risks would far outweigh possible benefits.
Current hysteria about "Russian hacking" serves only internal US purposes, for us it's just popcorn time.

Which risks? What was there to lose? Russia was already diplomatically isolated and a target to sanctions. Now that it has ostensibly been "caught", what has happened? Nothing has, and nothing will.

Possible benefits, on the other hand, were considerable. Even if Trump (who definitely was not a favorite before elections) has not brought about the turn in relations Russia clearly expected (as was apparent by jubilant reactions to his victory), his bare status as POTUS is quite clearly a horrible liability to the West. If he ends up impeached (a big if), Russia has still lost nothing.

 

[red_elk]

Which risks? What was there to lose?

Mainly, risks of reciprocal actions. I'm sure, US intelligence perfectly knows what Russia did and what it didn't do. Media sh*tstorm is one thing, hostile cyberwarfare actions is another matter and can have much more serious consequences. So, while it's possible that Russia might have released intelligence info through wikileaks and other sources, but direct interfering into elections or coordinating actions with Trump would be too risky and ineffective.

Russia was already diplomatically isolated and a target to sanctions.

If you mean relations between Russia and the West are pretty much destroyed, then I agree. It's not the same as diplomatic isolation, though.

Now that it has ostensibly been "caught", what has happened? Nothing has, and nothing will.

My point is, being caught by NSA and being "caught" by NYT are very different things.

 

[FriendlyFire]

If they flew into Russian airspace for 5 seconds or so, then it would feel ok - since they do it all the time anyway.
If they head for a large city or important military target, without replying to repeated calls, they would likely be shot down.

No wonder why Nato have been on edge, Ivan nearly collided with civilian airliner packed with civilians.
Maybe just Maybe the Russian are the aggressors ?

On May 25 NATO fighters intercepted one an Il-20 Coot spyplane flying from mainland Russia to Kaliningrad in international airspace over the Baltic Sea. The Il-20 intelligence gathering aircraft did not have a filed FPL, did not maintain radio contact and did not use the onboard transponder, a kind of behaviour that has raised some concern in the past, when Russians spyplanes flying in the vicinity of busy airways have almost collided with civilian traffic in the region as happened for instance on Mar. 3, 2014, when SAS flight SK 681, a Boeing 737 with 132 people on board from Copenhagen to Rome almost collided with an Il-20 Coot, about 50 miles to the southwest of Malmö, Sweden.

https://theaviationist.com/2017/05/29/russian-activity-in-the-baltic-leads-to-spike-in-alert-scrambles-by-nato-interceptors-supporting-bap-mission/

 

[red_elk]

Maybe just Maybe the Russian are the aggressors ?

Either you consider flying in international airspace as an act of aggression (who is the victim, btw?)
Or you think NATO spyplanes fly near Russian borders with transponders turned on.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

No wonder why Nato have been on edge, Ivan nearly collided with civilian airliner packed with civilians.
Maybe just Maybe the Russian are the aggressors ?

USA military spending 650 billion$; Russia 65 billion$

If NATO is on the edge in spite of its single albeit most important member is outspending militarily Russia by 10 fold it likely means that its headed by douchebags who perhaps think that Putin is another Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great coming to kick their arses.

 

[FriendlyFire]

USA military spending 650 billion$; Russia 65 billion$
If NATO is on the edge in spite of its single albeit most important member is outspending militarily Russia by 10 fold it likely means that its headed by douchebags who perhaps think that Putin is another Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great coming to kick their arses.

Thats great news, Sweden and the West can stop worrying about soviets old spyplanes colliding with civilian liners packed full with civilians then
I'll let all the small surrounding countries that Russia has annexed that are trying desperately to join NATO while Russia is trying to stop them from join NATO know that Russia isnt a douchebag with no territorial claims anymore.

Nato is on edge since the whole Crimea incident
The rest has been slowly escalating since then

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Thats great news, Sweden and the West can stop worrying about soviets old spyplanes colliding with civilian liners packed full with civilians then
I'll let all the small surrounding countries that Russia has annexed that are trying desperately to join NATO while Russia is trying to stop them from join NATO know that Russia isnt a douchebag with no territorial claims anymore.

Nato is on edge since the whole Crimea incident
The rest has been slowly escalating since then

O.K. So what you believe then is that in fact Putin isnt genius like said J. Caesar but a plain idiot instead since he decided without reason to breake the well developing relation with the West for MORE TERRITORY?
You believe that Russia preferes to play power games and isolation with West over business with the West in spite of being economicaly 30?x weaker and inspite the fact that its economy heavily depends on the West.
You are a great believer if you think Russia is an agressor and not almost exclusively on defense. A GREAT believer-- I give you that.

 

[red_elk]

Lvov, 7-th largest city in Ukraine has problems with garbage.
In fact, quite serious problems - take-out services don't work properly and rat infestations are widespread:


http://observers.france24.com/en/20170508-rubbish-piles-rats-roam-ukrainian-city-lviv

One would think - what it has to do with Russia?
But it's not that simple - some Ukrainian parliament members are confident that the problem was created by Putin's agents
https://lenta.ru/news/2017/06/22/semen_semen/

 

[Hrothbern]

Lvov, 7-th largest city in Ukraine has problems with garbage.
In fact, quite serious problems - take-out services don't work properly and rat infestations are widespread:


http://observers.france24.com/en/20170508-rubbish-piles-rats-roam-ukrainian-city-lviv

One would think - what it has to do with Russia?
But it's not that simple - some Ukrainian parliament members are confident that the problem was created by Putin's agents
https://lenta.ru/news/2017/06/22/semen_semen/

The devil is omnipresent
quite a busy guy actually

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

So I gather you don't believe these allegations. May I ask why?

You may.

Or is that simply a kneejerk reaction of yours "the Americans are telling something, so obviously it is a lie!"?

Since "the Americans" here was really short for "the American traditionally anti-Russian globalist political and capitalist elite, their dogs on a wage and some random Russophobe parrots and just paranoids from the general population who can't imagine their life without red alert", yes, anything about Russia from them is obviously a lie. Because even when something is true it will go ten thousand times larger. And also when you do that so easily without back thought and when people do eat this horsehockye so easily, you really don't need to tell any truth at all. You just take any stupid phrase (like any phrase you get while fingering your nose) and make a very scary news out of it or just repeat what you heard to get some profit or attention. You don't even need a tweet as a starting point.

And the most obvious thing here is that even if there were Russian or any other hackers, it would be no big deal at all, something miserable and unimportant, totally not worth of so much noise and activity there is. It is just hype.

And the fact that so many people both in USA and outside do seriously eat that BS and repeat it, is very disappointing. It's like global ritualistic nose fingering or masturbation.

 

[FriendlyFire]

O.K. So what you believe then is that in fact Putin isnt genius like said J. Caesar but a plain idiot instead since he decided without reason to breake the well developing relation with the West for MORE TERRITORY?
You believe that Russia preferes to play power games and isolation with West over business with the West in spite of being economicaly 30?x weaker and inspite the fact that its economy heavily depends on the West.
You are a great believer if you think Russia is an agressor and not almost exclusively on defense. A GREAT believer-- I give you that.

First of all Stalin time bombs, not modern Russians of post soviet eras fault but the legacy of Stalin still loam's over Russia and former soviet protectorates
Second miscalculations in Crimea by both the West and East. Putin banked on the West not interfering with the annexation, EU banked on Putin to act rationally to Ukraine wanting to join the EU
Thirdly, its not like Russia (and the West) havent made huge mistakes in the past. Russia has inflicted damage on itself many a times

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

First of all Stalin time bombs, not modern Russians of post soviet eras fault but the legacy of Stalin still loam's over Russia and former soviet protectorates

Irrationality. If anything the West should be jumping with joy that Russia is no more an ideological enemy. Truth is the common folks are not the elites with their schemes for world domination.

Second miscalculations in Crimea by both the West and East. Putin banked on the West not interfering with the annexation, EU banked on Putin to act rationally to Ukraine wanting to join the EU

I mostly agree but speaking of lack of rationality the problem doesnt lie solely with Russia. Telling arogantly Russians to mind their business wasnt paritculary brightes moment of recent EU diplomacy....

Thirdly, its not like Russia (and the West) havent made huge mistakes in the past. Russia has inflicted damage on itself many a times

The thing is that clearly itsnt the safety which gets priority in the matter but some kind of empire bulding. Russia is not without blame but if you ask me its heavily dependent on the West and truth of the matter is that with the present EU douchebag leadership the prospects arent very hopeful.

 

[red_elk]

Second miscalculations in Crimea by both the West and East. Putin banked on the West not interfering with the annexation, EU banked on Putin to act rationally to Ukraine wanting to join the EU

The West didn't interfere with Crimea. If you look at the list of sanctions, the only more or less serious ones were imposed only after civil war in Donbass started. And they are linked to implementation of Minsk agreements, which is possible, unlike returning of Crimea. About Crimea, there were only individual sanctions against people "responsible for annexation", excluding of course top officials and Putin himself
Putin essentially banked on the West resorting to half hearted face-saving measures intended to discourage him from invading all Ukraine and Baltic States (which he wasn't planning to do). And this is precisely what happened.

 

[red_elk]

Russia has started hybrid war in Narva:

Now, in Latvia too. This is clearly a pattern...

 

[red_elk]

Graduation party last Friday in Gorky Park, Moscow:

Spoiler :

More pictures here:
http://vitus.livejournal.com/2741107.html?media

 

[Takhisis]

For those who might think that criticism of the actions of the Russian state and its Soviet predecessor, you should remember that this is the thread for Russian news. We have approximately half of OT for discussing the shortocomings of the U.S. of A.
(I'll grant that FriendlyFire seems to have a fixation).

What you mean? Did he say something spectacularly homophobic recently?

All that stuff about not sharing showers with homosexuals in order not to ‘provoke’ them.

Most Ukrainians can speak Russian fluently. And languages are quite close, you can understand like 70%-80% of what other person is saying.

They are that close? Wow.

 

[red_elk]

For those who might think that criticism of the actions of the Russian state and its Soviet predecessor, you should remember that this is the thread for Russian news.

It seems you've missed something in the middle of the sentence. I can guess what you mean, but not sure about it.

All that stuff about not sharing showers with homosexuals in order not to ‘provoke’ them.

Ah, yes that one was a bit distasteful.

 

[Takhisis]

It seems you've missed something in the middle of the sentence. I can guess what you mean, but not sure about it.

I'll simplify.
Some people complain about how Russia is criticised here.
This is the thread for discussing the actions of the Russian state (favourably or otherwise), so it's not out of place. I will grant, though, that some people are making an effort at attacking Russia (the state, perhaps the people too) than making criticism and so there is no discussion, just an exchange of blows.

 

[red_elk]

Of course, people who want to offer constructive criticism are welcome to do it.
I'll explain why they are wrong