at worst a war crimes
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Tuesday, 4 October 2022 16:14 (one year ago) link
Any thoughts on why the US has released to NYT info that it believes Ukraine was behind the Dugina assassination?
I didn't think Ukraine was behind the assassination (and this particular release doesn't necessarily mean it was either). No idea why this was release (and released now), or even if it was intentional release
anyone with a hot take?
― anvil, Thursday, 6 October 2022 11:01 (one year ago) link
Letting Putin know that we're not in the business of assassinations on Russian soil? Gotta be on his mind.
― death generator (lukas), Thursday, 6 October 2022 16:59 (one year ago) link
yeah, we're too busy sabotaging pipelines to assassinate his cronies' children
― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, 6 October 2022 17:13 (one year ago) link
I'm trying to get my head around the large numbers of torture sites in Ukraine that we're still probably only scratching the surface of. Particularly the seemingly unco-ordinated and purposeless nature of them. Is this ingrained in some way, an extension of Dedovshchina?
Its difficult to imagine going from zero to hundred so quickly, from regular life in Russia to this, unless it was already part of life to some degree. And if it wasn't...a lot of the torturers will be going back to everyday life in Russia eventually
― anvil, Saturday, 8 October 2022 13:47 (one year ago) link
They might be not be "going back to Russia" though. There's anecdotal evidence that some of the worst behaviour has been by separatists from Russian controlled areas of Ukraine.
― Fronted by a bearded Phil Collins (Tom D.), Saturday, 8 October 2022 14:28 (one year ago) link
Even if thats the case, the fact these sites seem to be all over and in places where the separatists aren't deployed (or are they? not sure) suggests its across the board, or at least fairly standard
That being said, I'm not all that clear who the separatists are, or what the dividing line between separatists and little green men is, or how much that line has changed between 2014 and 2022
― anvil, Saturday, 8 October 2022 14:49 (one year ago) link
This is a really weird line of thought, the notion that abhorrent behaviour in war and justifications for it is linked to national origin or whatever is not supported by most of recorded history.
― barry sito (gyac), Saturday, 8 October 2022 20:21 (one year ago) link
Yeah, maybe, I'm not sure what to think either really. It might be that in other wars this is standard too, I know there was Abu Ghraib and others so maybe its just being reported more with the unprecedented level of access we have?
― anvil, Saturday, 8 October 2022 22:30 (one year ago) link
I mean, to pick one example from about a million in history…we know about some of the atrocities committed by the British in Kenya before independence because there were survivors and there are some surviving documents. But before leaving the country they dumped huge amounts of documents in the Indian Ocean rather than handing them to the new Kenyan government. What do you think was so bad that they couldn’t risk it being discovered?The difference is whose torture is considered torture, and whose is considered an unfortunate if understandable cost.
― barry sito (gyac), Saturday, 8 October 2022 22:38 (one year ago) link
I think the thing they couldn't risk being discovered was evidence of atrocities. Quite possibly directly ordered but maybe unfocussed and random as is seemingly the case today in Kharkiv and other oblasts
I'm not sure there is a difference, but if there is it would be the role of conscripts, regular Russians that weren't even troops a few months ago. How does one go from working in a cafe in January to torturing people in March?
You may well be right, that this is something intrinsic, that the exception isn't Russians, its Ukrainians - and the story isn't "why are Russians torturing?" at all, but "why aren't Ukrainians torturing? (unless of course they are too and we're not seeing the reports)
― anvil, Saturday, 8 October 2022 23:01 (one year ago) link
I will say this as nicely as I can.A while ago I was unfortunate enough to encounter a free soldier F event in central London. All around me were men on motorbikes being cheered by huge numbers of people. Ordinary people cheering for the right of a British soldier to kill Irish civilians and walk free, because to kill us in cold blood in the streets is less of a crime than to be held accountable for it. How do you think I feel that I live somewhere where people voted for a government that included that as part of their policy agenda?
― barry sito (gyac), Saturday, 8 October 2022 23:06 (one year ago) link
No people is uniquely monstrous. Given opportunity, a lot of people will excuse the worst atrocities, there’s really no more to it than that.
― barry sito (gyac), Saturday, 8 October 2022 23:07 (one year ago) link
I think its essentialist to think any particular people are intrinsically more or less monstrous than any other people. We shouldn't pursue that line of thinking. I think a large percentage of any country is completely fine with killing in theory and enjoy seeing it on tv. I think a smaller but still large percentage of people would kill without even thinking abuot it. Doing torture...probably starting to drop off a bit but still higher than we would like
I think what you're suggesting is that the people who are ok with this, are actually able to jump right into torture - without having some level of it already being present in society? I think this is true for some, but still seems a big step for people without prior experience to some degree. Its not something I'd feel ready to step up to without some level of desensitization first
― anvil, Saturday, 8 October 2022 23:33 (one year ago) link
Stanley Milgram to thread.
― Elvis Telecom, Sunday, 9 October 2022 00:23 (one year ago) link
(even though his study is super-flawed)
― Elvis Telecom, Sunday, 9 October 2022 00:24 (one year ago) link
From what I can tell, much of this doesn't seem to fit that pattern though, much doesn't seem particularly directed (although there is that too). There's a chaotic element
― anvil, Sunday, 9 October 2022 00:49 (one year ago) link
Initially thought you were referencing the Monkey Ladder experiment, which I'd never heard of until recently (most likely also flawed, but interesting!)
― anvil, Sunday, 9 October 2022 00:51 (one year ago) link
Is that like Monkey Tennis https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSn3-fRTanipMj496Tnuqahw4WEK2zH6YwEoQ&usqp=CAU
― Lord Pickles (Boring, Maryland), Sunday, 9 October 2022 01:14 (one year ago) link
Mass shooting at a Russian training ground
A deadly shooting at a Russian military training ground in the Belgorod region has killed 11 and injured 15, according to official sources. Unconfirmed reports by witnesses say the number of casualties may be as much as twice that. The incident allegedly occurred when Russian officers made derogatory remarks about Allah to volunteers of Tajik origin. Official reports say there were two shooters, both of whom were killed. A witness says a third shooter escaped. The incident occurred against the backdrop of frequent shelling in Belgorod and complaints from soldiers about conditions at the training ground and on the front lines.
― Elvis Telecom, Monday, 17 October 2022 05:35 (one year ago) link
See pilot.. pic.twitter.com/rcAnunTRaK— ka0_nash1 🇪🇺 🇨🇿 🇺🇦 (@J4rr1N) October 17, 2022
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Monday, 17 October 2022 18:48 (one year ago) link
why?
― death generator (lukas), Monday, 17 October 2022 21:00 (one year ago) link
Will the pilot get picked up for a full series?
― Lord Pickles (Boring, Maryland), Monday, 17 October 2022 21:54 (one year ago) link
Russia has SO MUCH empty space to fly training missions, yet they chose this spot?
maybe it wasn't a 'training mission' after all
― Andy the Grasshopper, Monday, 17 October 2022 21:57 (one year ago) link
Wow, that photo
― jmm, Monday, 17 October 2022 21:58 (one year ago) link
LOL truly the Russians are just trolling us now.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-british-navy-personnel-blew-up-nord-stream-gas-pipelines-2022-10-29/
― Fronted by a bearded Phil Collins (Tom D.), Saturday, 29 October 2022 13:13 (one year ago) link
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fh0FiM7XEAYaUGY?format=png&name=360x360
Vadim Boyko, a Russian colonel who was involved in the autumn mobilisation commits suicide in his office by shooting himself 5 times!
― calzino, Friday, 18 November 2022 10:07 (one year ago) link
Funny enough it wasn't the bullets that killed him, it was the fall out of the hospital window.
― The Bankruptcy of the Planet of the Apes (PBKR), Friday, 18 November 2022 14:02 (one year ago) link
Well, it was drinking the vial of polonium that caused him to fall out of the hospital window.
― nickn, Friday, 18 November 2022 17:49 (one year ago) link
Bringing back the Purgin' Thirties.. darkness at noon and all that
― Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, 18 November 2022 18:05 (one year ago) link
Bump thread every time an oligarch dies under mysterious circumstances
Russian real estate tycoon Dmitry Zelenov passed away earlier this month after tumbling down a flight of stairs while visiting friends in the French Riviera, according to a local outlet and an independent Russian outlet.
The French newspaper Var Matin reported Sunday that Zelenov, 50, had been dining with friends in Antibes on Dec. 9 when he suddenly became unwell, falling down a flight of stairs and suffering critical head injuries. He succumbed while receiving treatment at the Hospital Pasteur in Nice.
Baza, an independent news channel on Telegram, reported that Zelenov had toppled over a railing and hit his head. Authorities informed the oligarch’s friends around 7 a.m. the following morning that he’d died without regaining consciousness.
The channel also said it was “known” that Zelenov had previously undergone vascular surgery for unspecified heart problems.
The Antibes Police Department is currently investigating Zelenov’s cause of death, according to Var Matin.
The 50-year-old was the former owner of Russian developer Don-Stroy, which constructed the 61-story Triumph Palace Tower in Moscow, one of the tallest residential structures in Europe. Before the company fell under the control of Russia’s state-owned bank VTB after succumbing to the 2008 financial crisis, Zelenov’s net worth was estimated at $1.4 billion, landing him on the Forbes list of Russian billionaires.
Zelenov is the latest in a long line of top figures in the Russian oil, gas, technology, and financial sectors to meet suspicious and untimely ends—the most recent being Anatoly Gerashchenko.
The former head of Moscow’s Aviation Institute (MAI), Gerashchenko took a mysterious fall “from a great height” at the organization’s headquarters in September. The institute’s press office called the 73-year-old’s death “the result of an accident.”
A fortnight before Gerashchenko’s death, 39-year-old Ivan Pechorin, an executive appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin to help oversee development in the Arctic, himself took a strange fall off a moving boat off the Russian coast. And two weeks before that, Ravil Maganov, the chairman of Russia’s second-largest oil company, died after purportedly falling out of a hospital window, plummeting six stories to the ground.
― Elvis Telecom, Monday, 19 December 2022 10:15 (one year ago) link
I'm seven years older than that guy? Proof positive that when you accumulate wealth past a certain event horizon, it drains you into a husk more effectively than any leech or ghoul.
― Elvis Telecom, Monday, 19 December 2022 10:18 (one year ago) link
I mean, not to make excuses for late Russian oligarchs, but he looks about 50 to me.
― peace, man, Monday, 19 December 2022 12:35 (one year ago) link
oh shit, apparently there's a war going on
RIGA, Latvia — After nearly 10 months of war, but referring to the brutal invasion of Ukraine instead as “a special military operation,” Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday finally called it a “war” for the first time, setting off an uproar among antiwar Russians who have been prosecuted for merely challenging the Kremlin-approved euphemism.“Our goal is not to spin this flywheel of a military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war,” Putin said during a televised news conference following a government meeting on Thursday. “This is what we are striving for.”
“Our goal is not to spin this flywheel of a military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war,” Putin said during a televised news conference following a government meeting on Thursday. “This is what we are striving for.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/22/putin-war-ukraine-special-operation/
― Karl Malone, Thursday, 22 December 2022 20:56 (one year ago) link
https://64.media.tumblr.com/d892e26be4d5c85bd78aad31b801fb6a/tumblr_mff7wxN8AF1rlho0no1_500.gif
― the shaker intro bit the shaker outro in the tail, hard (breastcrawl), Thursday, 22 December 2022 21:29 (one year ago) link
love Putin's whole "Look, I didn't want this either" strategy
― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, 22 December 2022 21:47 (one year ago) link
Russia’s richest MP mysteriously dies in India
In India, found the body of the richest deputy of Russia Pavel Antov. His body lay in a pool of blood under the windows of the hotel where he celebrated his 65th birthday.The Russian Telegram channel Shot reports that the body of billionaire Antov was found on Saturday in Rayagad (Odisha state). Previously, it was established that the richest deputy of the Russian Federation fell from the third floor.
The Russian Telegram channel Shot reports that the body of billionaire Antov was found on Saturday in Rayagad (Odisha state). Previously, it was established that the richest deputy of the Russian Federation fell from the third floor.
― Elvis Telecom, Monday, 26 December 2022 18:48 (one year ago) link
there is nowhere safe for these Russian billionaires on the hitlist, even if they buy a holiday on the ISS - they are going through the window.
― calzino, Monday, 26 December 2022 19:44 (one year ago) link
It's just what the tabloids traditionally called "a gangland slaying".
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Monday, 26 December 2022 19:48 (one year ago) link
when u come at the prez be careful not to fly out a window or off a balcomy
― normal AI yankovic (Hunt3r), Monday, 26 December 2022 21:56 (one year ago) link
So clumsy
― The Beatles were the first to popularize wokeism (President Keyes), Monday, 26 December 2022 22:29 (one year ago) link
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/sudden-russian-death-syndrome/ar-AA15MHof
― sleeve, Saturday, 31 December 2022 01:17 (one year ago) link
Putin is increasingly isolated 👀!!!!https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/30/putin-isolated-russia-ukraine-war/
― Lord Pickles (Boring, Maryland), Saturday, 31 December 2022 19:03 (one year ago) link
Has a special TV channel where he watches sables fight each other to the death
― Lord Pickles (Boring, Maryland), Saturday, 31 December 2022 19:04 (one year ago) link
Feel like I've been seeing variations on that article since the day the invasion started.
― Twa pehs an' an ingin ane an' aw (Tom D.), Saturday, 31 December 2022 19:14 (one year ago) link
Putin is not isolated from his secret police and state surveillance apparatus. So don't worry, he's still OK.
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Saturday, 31 December 2022 19:23 (one year ago) link
Great piece on the politics of protest in Russia and with a bit on Belarus.
I've been frustrated, depressed and alarmed at this "what's wrong with Russians for not rising up" debate, which I find dishonest, venal and dangerous. Since it's not going away, I took a stab at it. With lots of personal stories from Russia and beyond.⬇️https://t.co/E7PybmRQIs— Almut Rochowanski (@rochowanski) January 11, 2023
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 27 January 2023 14:11 (one year ago) link
I don't think anyone believes that Russians are not overthrowing their government because the population is egoistic and doesn't feel that strongly about the war in Ukraine or their own woes. Unless you know nothing of the world and where unhappy populations are controlled and repressed.
― Nabozo, Friday, 27 January 2023 14:41 (one year ago) link
One up-and-coming Ukrainian journalist tweeted in all seriousness that Russians, unlike Ukrainians, “just don’t have a history of revolutions” (I’m not linking to her tweet, because that would be unkind).
lol
― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Friday, 27 January 2023 14:43 (one year ago) link
Ha, that could either be deep sarcasm or maybe an implicit "at least not GOOD ones."
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 27 January 2023 14:46 (one year ago) link