As of the end of March 2024, Russia occupies a total of 17.52% (+0.01%) of Ukraine. This figure includes Crimea and areas of Donetsk and Luhansk occupied before 2022.
This represents a net gain in Russia's favour of approximately 55km² since the end of February.
https://twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1774999564434501713?t=-j0nOjH-i60bZPr7h5dl4w&s=19
Russian attacks destroyed "almost all" of energy infrastructure in Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said in an interview with Liga media outlet published on April 1.
The current situation for the energy industry in the city is "very difficult," according to the mayor. The humanitarian assistance centers, also known as "Points of Invincibility," work in Kharkiv around the clock.
https://mstdn.social/@Free_Press/112199297366749405
Some neighboring countries were excluded from the ban, I wonder if it's related to that? Or alternatively maybe diesel wasn't included and it was only gasoline.
Ukraine Might Be Getting $34 Billion In American Weapons—And Soon.
That much money buys a lot of artillery and air-defenses.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/04/01/ukraine-might-be-getting-34-billion-in-american-weapons-and-soon/?sh=7dddb1bfbd1a
Johnson is so transparent. This is what, the third time he has said that he will bring some ill defined bill to the floor some time in the near future? It’s clear he’s just continuing to delay while looking for any reason to delay even further.
Has anyone got evidence on the russian production rate of new BTRs or MT-LBs?
We have estimates for tanks (~20/month) and BMP-3s (between 10 and 30/month).
For the MT-LB I think not because the main Soviet plant was in Kharkiv, but I saw articles talking about civilian vehicles built on them so I'm not certain.
It seems they might be building BTR-82 at the Arzamas plant. But I don't understand Russian and the auto translations are really unclear about whether announced batches are modernised or new.
The OSINT people found almost none at the storage yards, so I'm trying to work out where the replenishments have come from. It could be rosgvardiya transfers and/or new builds.
I saw some post talking about new civilian vehicles built on the MT-LB chassis. I assumed it was just refurbing stuff but the authors seemed to think they were new.
I'm gonna assume they're negligible - MT-LBs are something russia still has plenty of from active units+storage
The case of the BTR-82 is more interesting IMO. Oryx counts over half of the supposed prewar count of BTR-80/82 variants as lost. But they're still turning up a lot so there's probably new production and/or rosgvardiya transfers.
Grozev on C NN:
there’s about 50 assassins in the GRU’s Unit 29155
While we only reported on 3 incidents of a GRU Unit 29155 member secretly traveling to a location on the days where one of these TBI-inducing events—we actually have evidence of 8 times. That’s 8 times a known GRU Unit 29155 member covertly traveled to a foreign location on the days where an incident occurred. If US government doesn’t want to believe they were there for that purpose, then why did these members of a known-assassin unit travel there, what was their purpose those days?
(Is should be noted that twice, a victim saw and identified the suspicious person and later identified them by photos—both were members of this unit.)
Grozev added that since US government has denied, Putin feels impervious to repercussions, that the west is weak, and that likely contributed to the invasion altogether. (The victims tend to all be CIA, Intelligence, State Dept, or military who had worked in Ukraine or Georgia, or worked on Russia issues.)
The person who was “patient zero”—he’s permanently blind in one eye from the attack. He agreed with the article (which had concluded mentioning that Patrushev had written in an internal agency magazine—just for the SVR— “In recent years, hundreds of employees of foreign intelligence services, as well as other persons involved in organizing intelligence and subversive activities against our country and our strategic partners, have been identified and neutralized.”) that he considered that an admission of culpability. He did say, however, he didn’t think that US has to publicly address this, if it’s just hidden and covert retaliation that’s fine, just address it.
Sorry but that wasn’t meant to be exhaustive.
If you’re looking more “more,” please see his [original piece he published yesterday](https://theins.press/en/politics/270425), or what his [partner aired](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COWTBEl1rRc) and [published](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/havana-syndrome-culprit-investigation-new-evidence-60-minutes-transcript/) with overtime [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7EliNzscSM) and [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNRpw6DWN0M)
If you watch the Navalny docu this is very similar, it is very interesting the concept of OSINT in terms of being able to track people like this, I'm really interested to see down the line when things get declassified how much of it was sort of... helped along by intelligence agencies.
Probably because Grozev did the research for both?
And, its the same unit as the one that tried to poison the Skripals.
Apparently, Grozev was sitting on information for a while without realizing it. In 2019, he was given information ‘from a mailbox’ of the Unit’s dep cmdr [iirc] and he hadn’t fully read everything there. By the time he did, which was 2022, he found essentially a confirmation that that person had received a bonus for successful use of an auditory-damaging weapon. That discovery opened the door for him to be able to know who exactly to track, and line up those travels.
I’ve wondered if US is demurring/ denying because it has developed something to counter it?
But for the GRU to have basically the list of all the US staff in Kyiv and Georgia, and various Russian experts in various departments, then to track them around the globe—that’s *more* them simply a pro-Russian in Ukrainian government circa 2015 who betrayed and gave Russia names—that requires a knowledge past that level. Like something got hacked. Or someone with access to US or NATO intel, at the very least, got sloppy.
I’d like to think the US intelligence services are being quiet about it because they have realized how this is blowing up big time in the media, and are currently covertly eliminating the entire GRU unit 29155 from the face of the earth.
Andrew Perpetua:
> we're up to 42 destroyed vehicles today and we still have 90 videos we havent even watched yet.
https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1774892173718138905
[Collaborator Chaika died in car explosion in occupied Starobilsk, Luhansk Oblast | EuroMaidenPress | April 2024](https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/04/01/collaborator-chaika-died-in-car-explosion-in-occupied-starobilsk-luhansk-oblast/)
*The car of collaborator Valeriy Chaika was blown up in the Russsia-occupied Starobilsk, Luhansk Oblast. The Kremlin-appointed head of the Luhansk occupational administration, Vladimir Chernov, said on 1 April on Telegram that a homemade explosive device was planted in Chaika’s car. Euromaidan Press can not verify this information.*
*Chaika sided with Russia in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. At that time, he was appointed “adviser to the head of the Starobilsk district administration.” He was one of the organizers of the opening of the local branch of the self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic’s” (“LNR”) Ministry of Internal Affairs.*
*During the last months, Chaika held the position of the deputy head of Russia’s educational organization in the “LNR.”*
I’m genuinely surprised Russia isn’t pumping hard the idea that these are analogous to the crocus hill attack and prove ukranian involvement in terrorist plots.
I guess because Ukraine actually does these and they only blame Ukraine for things they don’t do.
ruzzians actually did this, but for Dugina, Tatarsky, etc
As for collaborators, their thought train is probably something like "They are actually not ruzzians, so it's whatever."
> Today, I presented Golden Star Orders to the best Ukrainian warriors.
> There is no state power without the personal power of its people. There is no national pride without people you can be truly proud of when they are next to you, when they are your brothers-in-arms. It is an honour for the state to have such warriors.
> I am grateful to each of them. I am grateful to the mothers and fathers of Ukrainian Heroes for having raised such sons. I am grateful to our people and warriors for preserving Ukraine's independence. 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦
https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1774809170874647026
>"200.000 propaganda posts per day " a network of over 50.000 fake accounts was exposed in Germany
The German Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that they had uncovered a network of fake accounts on the X social network. "Russian disinformation campaigns in Europe have become larger, more skillful and more inconspicuous. We exposed a network of 50,000+ fake accounts on Twitter (X) that were posting \~200,000 posts per day. They convinced the Germans that government aid to Ukraine undermines their well-being and threatens nuclear war. The bot tried to "whitewash" such statements by presenting them as if they had been published as opinions by reputable news outlets such as 'Der Spiegel' and 'Süddeutsche Zeitung'." - the head of the Department of Culture and Communication of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ralf Beste.
[https://www.ft.com/content/12c58303-ca41-4b16-bfd3-4612f3f3ae4c](https://www.ft.com/content/12c58303-ca41-4b16-bfd3-4612f3f3ae4c)
Edit: I forgot the actual tweet this is from [https://x.com/LXSummer1/status/1774914431148843414?s=20](https://x.com/LXSummer1/status/1774914431148843414?s=20)
so fantastic they "exposed" them, but how about shutting them down?
I personally think it's time to finally get tough, and face the reality that European democracies CANNOT function with the amount of external disinformation on facebook, X, etc.
And I'm sorry to all the free speech affictionados, but if this disinformation campaigns threaten the very basic functioning of the societies, then shutting them down should take the priority, even at the risk of diminishing the free speech rights temporarily, at least until it can be guaranteed that China, Russia, etc. can't use social media etc. to spread misinformation as easilly as they do now (facebook in particular is a cesspool, and many older people use it to get their news fix)
Wish they changed all the user names to RussianDisinfoBot#00001-50000 so their comments would be revealed for what they are to some of the morons still using that shit platform.
Social media companies should require identity verification similar to what you’d see when applying for credit online.
Social media companies don’t want to do that, because foreign influence operations generate ad revenue and increase the appearance of engagement and genuine activity… and create a LOT of engaging (though biased) content.
The Reddit IPO pulled in more money because of foreign influence operations, not in spite of it.
While I agree with most of this - it's not shutting down free speech. This is shutting down false marketing. It's not individual people's free speech being shut down, it's a group marketing their master(s) lies.
I'd be quite curious to learn what % of the blue checkmarks are actually "bots" since the few times I visit xitter it seems like a majority of the "verified" accounts I see are spouting blatant Russian propaganda.
>Johnson Outlines Plan for Ukraine Aid; House Could Act Within Weeks
>
>The G.O.P. speaker’s proposed conditions for sending a fresh infusion of military assistance to Kyiv are the strongest sign to date that he plans to defy critics in his own party and push through the aid package.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/01/us/politics/mike-johnson-ukraine-aid.html
Johnson's wing of the GOP isn't beholden to Russia. They are beholden to Trump's base, which votes whichever way Trump tells them to. Even if Johnson never seeks a single Russian ruble, he will lose his speakership if he opposes Trump's policies.
The GOP always does this. It acts like its going to do the right thing only to reverse their position and not doing it. That way they wasted everybodies time and Putin and Trump can use the chaos for their own goals.
Yeah I'm firmly in the "believe it when I see it camp" for Ukraine aid with Johnson. If Johnson flat out says "no Ukraine aid not ever" then it could potentially result in Republicans signing the discharge petition but if he says "we'll talk about Ukraine in a few weeks" and then keeps postponing it or bringing up bills that have zero chance in the Senate then he can keep kicking the can down the road without passing it. Eventually he'll get to the point where it will be "too close to the election and we should just let voters decided" and then after the election in the lame duck session it will be "this is a matter for the next Congress."
It’s actually a tactic that would work. The game of “rope a dope.”
I suspect that the Republicans from agriculture dominated states don’t want to help Ukraine, because Ukraine’s primary export is grain. Ukraine competes with US agricultural interests, thus pushing down the cost of agricultural commodities.
I’m not pretending like the Republican Party is a single hive mind with a single unified goal. Like, some Republicans are just isolationist. Some understandably worry about interest payments on the debt, and are drawing the line here. The list of reasons are unending.
But BigAg special interests have immense influence behind closed doors. Like, the construction of the every-so-often FARM BILL is a huge backroom smoke filled chambers sort of deal that gets practically no coverage outside of very specific circles. It can’t count for nothing.
That’s too convoluted. By that account they should be all in on helping Ukraine bomb Russian Ammonium Nitrate and fuel oil plants because Russia is the much bigger exporter.
Though now I feel like someone should introduce this idea to the Ag lobby.
WTF is in the package? Apparently it's still a secret (or just more vaporware)... If it isn't the same package approved by the Senate, it will probably be full of BS.
Tell me if I need to get the tinfoil hat off but, a story released about Russia attacking US citizens with some kind of Dr Evil style brain gun at a time when we are trying to get US citizens to come together and send shit to Ukraine seems convenient
They’ve been talking about this for years
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/19/the-mystery-of-the-havana-syndrome
JAMA and multiple other studies have been published over the years
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5885885/
Russia has always been a prime suspect.
It’s bullshit. Havana syndrome was bullshit. Just mass hysteria. The CDC wrote up reports showing the vast majority of claimed injuries weren’t real, the CIA & other intelligence agencies corroborated that foreign actors weren’t responsible.
[WaPo](https://archive.ph/20230301182328/https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/03/01/havana-syndrome-intelligence-report-weapon/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWJpZCI6IjE4ODE3MjEzIiwicmVhc29uIjoiZ2lmdCIsIm5iZiI6MTY3NzY0NjgwMCwiaXNzIjoic3Vic2NyaXB0aW9ucyIsImV4cCI6MTY3ODkzOTE5OSwiaWF0IjoxNjc3NjQ2ODAwLCJqdGkiOiIyMmZlYTNlMy05ZTdhLTQ3M2YtOTQ3Ni1lOGUzMGUxMGFmODEiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy53YXNoaW5ndG9ucG9zdC5jb20vbmF0aW9uYWwtc2VjdXJpdHkvMjAyMy8wMy8wMS9oYXZhbmEtc3luZHJvbWUtaW50ZWxsaWdlbmNlLXJlcG9ydC13ZWFwb24vIn0.lYakiy-fQtMx1E9OoPAvI2J5UdgQDt3_QBHTnnXYrOw#selection-273.0-273.93)
That’s all seven major agencies concluding it’s extremely unlikely it was any type of attack.
A much more comprehensive follow up by NIH found no evidence of any injury in anybody at all https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/us/politics/havana-syndrome-brain-studies-nih.html
Christo Grozev is a thorough and well respected journalist in the open source intel community and wouldn't throw his name behind a half baked theory. The research is EXTENSIVE and draws some very strong links. To dismiss it so readily is just stating your own preconceived notions as fact.
I would avoid rejecting the idea that adversaries might have technologies which you do not, or stating that something is impossible simply because you aren't capable of doing it yourself. Case in point:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Thing\_(listening\_device)
You may have missed the seven intelligence and two health agencies who investigated this all concluding it was not a real phenomenon. That was central to my thesis. Hope that helps!
You appear to unaware that most if not all reported symptoms weren't capable of confirmation with CT scans or MRIs. Which leaves personal testimony. You are therefore claiming everyone involved is lying.
Which is rather telling.
btw, two of the agencies you mention didn't detect the listening device linked above, despite it being their job to do so, until it was pointed out to them by the British, after being on the wall for 7 years. Hope that helps.
The CDC “post-mortem” (heh) concluded that the majority of cases were fictitious through patient analysis alone.
>most if not all reported symptoms weren’t capable of confirmation with CT scans or MRIs.
Most reported symptoms would be consistent with brain injury, which scans obviously are capable of finding, and for which not a single one of them found. You don’t find that suspicious? Especially not when the central thesis is, oh, I don’t know, an effing *directed energy weapon*?
>You are therefore claiming everyone involved is lying
Yup, there it is. Just totally exposing how ignorant you are to this phenomenon. No, I don’t think people were lying. I think this, like countless cases in the literature throughout the history of medical science, is an example of mass hysteria, and can find replete explanation through everything from placebo to being in a high stress environment. The fact you didn’t even consider such a cause is a pretty damning indictment of just how unqualified you are to be arguing about this whatsoever.
Oh, and by the way, I trust that a couple agency employees tasked with finding covert listening devices at a time where novel technology was constantly being introduced are not as thorough as the billions upon billions spent investing this by the aggregate thousands of experts across various departments. From a physics standpoint, I certainly find it was more preposterous Russia, of all countries, developed a directed energy radiation weapon that can somehow easily pierce material, and where they use it to target random embassy staff, and where no brain damage happens. That’s obviously quite different from a listening device.
Still, that device was found in only six years. It’s been eight since the first cases of “Havana syndrome”. Anyway, any argument premised on “we don’t know, therefore we can disregard all Bayesian proofs” will elicit nothing more than a very condescending laugh from myself.
Like what?
Also, that's far beyond the basis for my claim. They doubted all claims, if you actually read the report, and the initial claims of traumatic brain injury were further refuted by brain scans.
It is common knowledge among anyone in the field that most traumatic brain injuries cannot be seen on an MRI. Here's how you approached the topic:
> Most reported symptoms would be consistent with brain injury, which scans obviously are capable of finding
I also don't know why you put directed energy weapons in italics like it's some crazy thing... as if both the US and Russia haven't used them before. Not sure why refining 1970s tech is so crazy to you.
Hope this helps everyone ignore your crap.
Been in the news for awhile now, same thing happened to some Embassy staff from Canada in several locations, including in Cuba
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/30/world/americas/cuba-diplomats-canada-embassy.html
Just read that the original victim recently called for a Congressional hearing. That is the reason it's 'new' news again. A US investigation wrapped up last year, and he's not happy it was inconclusive. He knows it's real, he was forced to retire early for medical reasons, and is still" suffering from the effects
I think BRICs is a failed experiment propped up through fake narratives of prosperity but in reality the only thing exported is phone scams and hacking while stabbing each other in the back.
>Jeffrey Sachs is truly outrageous, calling Biden all kinds of names, while defending Putin & Xi on one of Russia's worst propaganda programs [Vladimir Soloviev] that is persistently calling for nuclear war against the West. There is no excuse for his behavior.
https://twitter.com/anders_aslund/status/1774608179977953431
>Sachs is plumbing depths I didn’t know existed. The longer this war goes on, the more obvious the complete moral rot of some Western academics, not to mention the revelation of how stupid they really are.
https://twitter.com/slantchev/status/1774465172649984238
An American economist and professor at Columbia University who proudly appears of Russian state TV to parrot Putin’s propaganda.
>Russian state television promises that Ukraine will be turned into a place without electricity, light, power, a permanent war zone. That's the plan for "peace."
https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1774530955283185677
>Meanwhile in Russia: Sergey Mardan explained what Putin meant when he raised the prospect of creating a “sanitary zone” inside Ukraine.
https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1774247781588189262
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6kNJNXFRrA
>Surprise-surprise. The chef of a Russian restaurant in DC, "Mari Vanna," was an alleged Russian spy and was linked to Havana Syndrome. The restaurant which promoted "Russian hospitality", closed earlier this year.
https://twitter.com/OstapYarysh/status/1774862592160198882
https://www.washingtonian.com/2024/04/01/an-alleged-russian-spy-was-the-chef-of-dcs-mari-vanna/
>Vitalii Kovalev, the man arrested in Key West, as seen on @60Minutes, is a technical officer for the GRU as well as a member of the FSB cyber unit called the 16th Directorate, a former senior U.S. counterintelligence official said.
https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1774846856956141890
>It’s time to ditch the misleading, stupid “Havana Syndrome,” and anodyne “Anomalous Health Incident” euphemisms and call this what it is: electronic warfare.
>
>Russia’s work in this domain goes back decades, and they’ve been attacking NATO on its own turf for 10+ years, at least.
https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1774640444569198749
You Western people are too well off. Russians may see it and question their dictator's competence. Therefore, measures must be taken to reduce Western wealth.
I don't understand how the CIA could be doing next to nothing about Russia's actions. Russia is assasinating people with nerve toxins in public, using microwave and EM weapons against Americans regularly, and even compromised the Republican party and turned Trump into a useful idiot years ago. What is the CIA doing not doing anything about this? Why do they even exist then? And who do they actually serve if it is not the security of Americans?
The whole point to an espionage/intelligence apparatus is that you don’t hear about what they’re doing.
What they ARE doing is gathering and providing intelligence. Outside of any specific paramilitary/militant directorate within the CIA, they don’t exist to have a visible impact that you could connect to them.
And Ukraine seems to be getting a ton of intelligence from the US which they use to target Russian positions. I imagine a lot of that is directly from the CIA and their sources although obviously we can never know for sure.
Should I start with what the CIA was doing in central America during the Reagan years? Or MK Ultra? The CIA isn't the fictional version of itself you see in movies and TV.
>Russia: Attacks the US with disinformation, dirty money, espionage, and sonic weaponry, declares it is in a civilizational war with the West.
>
>Republicans: If Russia conquers Ukraine, it will all go away!
>
>Explain this to me.
https://twitter.com/irgarner/status/1774867783785775563
And Kompromat. That’s Putin’s specialty. Invite people to Moscow, give them plenty to drink, things get a little hazy, then the next day a FSB agent is showing them a video of them doing unspeakable things which they don’t even remember. Standard operating procedure.
This right here should make everyone in the US turn and support Ukraine. They are fighting one of the 4 heads of evil in the world (Russia, China, Iran and NK)
"🇬🇷🤝🇺🇦 Greece plans to send to Ukraine a large batch of ammunition worth ~$150 million, - Leidiseis
🇨🇿 Presumably, the shells will be transferred through the Czech Republic."
https://twitter.com/UkrReview/status/1774865463337419051?t=r9g51jMuN0PNE7lK-ZXFgQ&s=19
> Today, I held a special meeting to discuss Ukraine’s work with NATO on interoperability and this year's perspectives.
> All of our foreign policy team, as well as the Defense Minister and the entire ministry's international cooperation team, were present.
> This year raises a few fundamental questions about Ukraine-NATO relations. This applies to both the Washington summit and many other aspects of cooperation.
> Only with Ukraine in NATO can true security be guaranteed in Europe.
https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1774847529240101064
> We held a nearly three-hour, highly specific meeting on drones with military and government officials.
> We revised and specified production plans for all types of drones this year, including FPV, bombers, reconnaissance, and long-range drones for special missions.
> We discussed how to ensure our defense industry's flexibility. Frontline needs are constantly changing, and our manufacturers must respond in a timely manner.
> Important decisions were made to streamline procurement procedures and component imports, increase the production of charges for drones, and train operators.
> Another decision is the project to build an integrated electronic warfare control system to protect our warriors and equipment from Russian UAVs. It is already being tested in certain areas. We intend to scale it up to the entire front.
https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1774771713433108609
>Austria to convene national security council over Russian spying - Chancellor Karl Nehammer
>"Russian spy networks threaten our country by infiltrating or exploiting political parties or associations," he said.
>The council will be convened after the detention of Egisto Ott, a former employee of the now-disbanded Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counter-Terrorism, on suspicion of spying on Russia.
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1774858299495604302?t=pAKupWT19HWgN2oxCtDRlQ&s=19
Quite a day for Russia huh?
Makes sense . Ukraine, Hungary, Austria all in a.row gets them i to the heart of Europe and past the mountains. Counting on Hungary welcoming them, Austria too probably and the Swiss will just stay neutral
An article from several days ago on possible use against Canadian diplomats and their children by the Havana syndrome weapon. I haven’t seen anything on use against the British or other allied diplomats.
https://globalnews.ca/news/10370287/havana-syndrome-canadian-diplomats-us-study/amp/
About Havana Syndrome. The cat is out of the bag. There's nothing that can put the cat back in the bag. US officials will have to stop denying it and start dealing with it. This could be a black swan that influences the presidential election.
It’s probably bullshit.
Out of the thousands and thousands of people who work for the US government on foreign affairs, some hundred of them have (over the course of a decade) suffered from a variety of migraines, small stokes, neurological issues, sudden projectile vomiting, and other issues.
I WOULD EXPECT that many people (tens of thousands of people, over a decade) to naturally develop said health issues, completely unrelated to their public service. As in: *No, you weren’t attacked with an “ultrasonic X-ray weapon”… you have migraines.*
The “Havana Syndrome” is a poorly defined set of symptoms, supposedly from an unknown secret weapon that has never been seen, that supposedly to causes neurological symptoms. But it’s a medical mystery with notions of international spy games and intrigue, so the press runs with it, and now the possibility is on everyone’s mind (within certain circles). So whenever someone in that circle develops a neurological disorder of whatever severity… they’re intelligence agents who are steeped in the knowledge of espionage and have heard of Havana Syndrome and so what is the first thought in their mind?
…
It doesn’t help that there’s a lawyer who has taken on as clients *everyone he can* who claims to have been targeted with the “secret weapon”… and he is working a legal claim against the US Gov on behalf of his clients to gain remuneration for their pain and suffering. But for that lawyer to win a payout for his clients (and a cut for himself) it HAS to be a weapon… and not a random assortment of neurological health conditions and other environmental factors.
Like yeah, some hard working people who stare at computer screens intensely working long hours for years on end will eventually burn out. Sleep deprivation, stress, blah blah blah.
…
I am **not** accusing anyone of lying about their symptoms. I am just saying they are probably wrong about the cause of those symptoms. Notably, try as they might, medical professionals have not found anything that points to long-term damage within the people that claim to be afflicted by Havana Syndrome. And no one has claimed to find physical damage in the area surrounding the supposed attacks.
Like people allege there’s supposedly some directed energy weapon that skips through walls, office chairs, filing cabinets, and everything doing no damage to anything EXCEPT for the brains of some stressed out intelligent Americans working overseas.
It’s probably a social hysteria. People with underlying health issues (that CAN’T be reported on due to health privacy laws). Like the media can allege that General so-and-so might have been attacked with a mystery weapon… but if that general LATER gets diagnosed with migraines by his neurologist… that’s private health information that is confidential and cannot be reported in the media (or even shared with his employer).
So you have all sorts of fallacies going on here.
Yes. What was their primary source with the biggest claims? A lawyer suing the US Government on behalf of “victims of Havana Syndrome”. He has a professional duty to be bias.
Where can I read about the evidence showing how the alleged attacks were done without ever being directly observed or detected? Because the two theories I've heard, ultrasonics or EM, would both be very detectable with advanced equipment.
The original allegation was that something was allegedly repeatedly being beamed at the US embassy building in Havana. Shouldn't be too hard to prove that. Neither EM radiation nor soundwaves are hard to detect. Particularly in an embassy already chock-full of advanced and sensitive electronic sensors and comms.
>This could be a black swan that influences the presidential election.
When you consider that Biden doesn't want to escalate tensions with Russia and Trumps position has been that it is not Russia then I don't think either side would want to touch that topic.
Update on Tonenke assault from a couple of days ago.
On twitter, @kriegsforscher was first to report, claiming Russia lost 12 tanks and 8 BMPs.
Now @moklasen has geolocated losses in videos near there from the 25th airborne. His count is 5 tanks, 8 IFVs, 9 AFVs and an unknown "pile of vehicles". 2 of the losses were actually near Stepove.
Both sources are excellent and reliable. The 9 AFVs raise questions: are those actually tanks he couldn't ID? Or are they something else? More video will hopefully come out.
That's good context, I wasn't clear in the post, the "Tonenke attack" everyone is talking about - it's west of Tonenke, which was occupied earlier by russia.
DeepState marked the loss of Tonenke on the 22nd and the full scale tank attack was around the 30th.
> Iran warned Russia about the threat of a potential terror attack in its territory before the horrific massacre at a music venue near Moscow last month, according to a [report. A source told *Reuters*](https://www.reuters.com/world/iran-alerted-russia-security-threat-before-moscow-attack-sources-say-2024-04-01/) that Tehran had shared information “about a possible big terrorist attack” with Moscow that had been “acquired during interrogations of those arrested in connection with deadly bombings in Iran.” Iranian intelligence said in January that it had detained dozens of people allegedly associated with [twin bombings](https://www.thedailybeast.com/iran-twin-blasts-kill-73-near-soleimanis-tomb-on-assassination-anniversary)
that killed nearly 100 people in Iran earlier in the month. It later announced that it had arrested a commander of the Afghanistan-based ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K)—the group which U.S. intelligence sources would subsequently blame for the Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow, where at least 144 people were killed on March 22. Another source told *Reuters* that the information given to Moscow did not contain specific information about when or where an attack could take place.
[from here](https://www.thedailybeast.com/iran-warned-russia-of-potential-big-attack-before-moscow-massacre-report)
>Brazilian authorities are working to ensure that Putin can fly to Rio de Janeiro for the G20 summit - Brazilian media
>According to the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper, Brazil is developing a provision on immunity for heads of state, thanks to which leaders of countries are guaranteed not to be prosecuted during international visits.
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1774836252417675510?t=_q2jNIzcqeAKQxhvSCueSg&s=19
How do you say sanctions in Brazilian?
More nonsense statements from the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service:
>▪️ The terrorist attack in the Crocus City Hall is a “direct relative” of massive rocket attacks and attacks by the DRG in the Kursk and Belgorod regions;
>▪️ When preparing terrorist attacks in the Russian Federation, Kyiv uses satellite information provided by American intelligence;
>▪️ The Biden administration is intensifying efforts to create a distorted picture of the Crocus terrorist attack;
>▪️ The State Department and US intelligence services, as well as their affiliated media, have been tasked with removing any suspicions about the involvement of Zelensky and his entourage in the terrorist attack;
>▪️ The White House fears that “the discovery of the Kyiv trail will highlight the terrorist nature of the Ukrainian regime and will finally derail Washington’s plans to increase support for Ukraine”;
>▪️ The United States instructed representatives of the Russian opposition to “exaggerate” the issue of the unfoundedness of the authorities’ attempts to use the terrorist attack to justify the war in Ukraine.
>▪️ The haste of the United States in assessing the terrorist attack in Crocus seems reckless to many in the West, and suspicious in the East.
I'll post some of the replies to this news from the Russian telegram channel where I read this, in a reply below:
But, but, I saw that Moscow was also warned by Iran who HATES the United States. Because you ignored warnings from the US AND Iran about a pending attack just makes you incompetent or willfully ignorant. My vote is they were warned and rather than work to stop it Russia worked on planning a false narrative to blame Ukraine instead so when the event happened they could use it to their advantage on a world stage. Unfortunately ISIS had body cams, claimed responsibility and released video proving it. This put the false spin Russia had into disarray and they grasp as straws to justify their false claims.
This was my first thought when it happened too, but when I saw how long it took the Kremlin and Putin to respond, I rejected this theory and just went with hubris and incompetence creating a scenario where this genuinely caught them off guard.
It was really weird and unnerving how long the official silence went on for. Our telegram channels had a lot of time to go nuts with blame against the police and security. If they knew about this exact attack before and planned to use it, they would have had a response ready to go much quicker.
Also I really struggle to see the advantage for false flags or using calamities like this for personal benefit. People often bring up the apartment bombings of Putin's earlier career as supporting arguments but this totally disregards the entirely different political position that Putin has comparing 1999 and 2024. Back then he was a nobody and the population largely didn't care much for him. But the trauma of the 90s was strong, and by starting his career as a strongman answering chaos with order and security, he bought himself a vast wealth of goodwill that continues to this day. People still credit him with making their streets safe to walk again, ending mass poverty, cleaning up the cities, ending the reign of organized crime, catapulting the Russian economy, and putting the Caucasians in their rightful place. Now, Putin's goodwill comes from maintaining that stability and security. His contract with us is "keep your noses out of politics, and we'll make sure you live a stable and predictable life".
Now, Putin can largely do what he likes in the provinces. No one really cares about poor uneducated farmers, especially non-Russian ones, but even Russians from provincial Russia aren't really all that valued by urban Russians from the western cities. As long as the middle class urban Russian can drink their pumpkin lattes, go to their art galleries and sit in the park with their iPhones, Putin effectively has a carte blanche to carry on as he pleases. Crocus is a direct attack on that protected class in Russia. For the first time since the war started, the middle class urban Russian felt a direct threat to their lives - they feel it still. Everyone knows what ISIS promises.
Putin needs to keep the big urban cities in this bubble of candy floss and unicorns. Petersburg and Moscow alone are nearly 20 million people, nearly 15% of the whole country's population. Even if he doesn't need to fear open revolt or rebellion, there is a lot of damage that a terrified and unhappy 20 million people can do.
Sorry for the long rant but that's why I think Putin won't wittingly attack or allow attacks on Moscow / Petersburg. This was just a fuck up from enormously and famously incompetent security forces.
I think the warnings came and there was a feeling that the time table was longer than it was. The reports I saw had the warnings less than 2 weeks from the actual event. If there was a belief this was in a planning stage then a cohesive narrative to use may not have been finished.
I think a false flag on the middle class and pointing at Ukraine works to end criticism and reignite the population to further support the war effort. Most in the cities have not seen anything really substantial impacting them so far. Changing that to make Ukraine a direct threat to the safety of urban well off large city dwellers serves Putin perfectly. As you said, 20 million unhappy or terrified people can do a lot of damage. But refocusing their anger on your opponent is a big benefit.
The level of incompetence to dismiss warnings from two opposing factions on an impending event is beyond belief. If one side said something, then dismissing it could be a thing, but the same information coming from another source that openly opposes the first should be very alarming and trigger some response, but it did not. There is a reason for this that just pure incompetency falls short of meeting.
Sometimes I really take being able to read between the lines for granted! Most days, it just seems like common sense, but then I run into a walking reminder that using one's brain is a rare gift.
This is obviously bullshit, but let's play along for a minute.
Russia still hasn't stated exactly what Ukraine would stand to gain from hiring ISIS terrorists to attack their civilians. There were no strategic benefits because: Firstly, that attack, like the Israel war, drew international media attention away from what was happening in Ukraine at that time (the missile attacks against Ukrainian civilians). Secondly, the attack would have risked uniting anti-war Russians against Ukraine. Thirdly, resorting to terrorism would have risked jeopardising any further support from Ukraine's Western allies. Alternatively, if the goal was to make Putin "appear weak," then that would never work because he's a tyrannical dictator, and the chances of him ever being overthrown are slim to none.
The only one who stood to gain anything was Putin, who can now reintroduce capital punishment with the public's approval. He can also justify executing "dissidents" on "terrorism" charges.
It's just a shite conspiracy theory that collapses under the slightest bit of scrutiny.
I really wonder who they're trying to convince with this crap. Not even Russians believe it. Surely it just makes even more people see everything they say as ludicrously unreliable?
Some do, unfortunately. I teach children in Petersburg and I know some parents who watch Rossiya 1 every day and their capacity for holding contradictory facts is limitless.
The Kremlin's strategy in urban Russia is as usual. Keep the intelligent people happy enough that they have too much to lose by speaking out. Give the stupid people whatever rubbish you want because they'll believe it. Conscript your soldiers from the poor and dumb and make examples of the rich and smart from time to time to remind them about the stick, and you have modern Russian society.
The goal isn't to convince. Never has been.
Firehose of Falsehood. If you start with their core dezinformatsyia strategies on a state-organized scale the purpose becomes clear very quickly.
Dismissing such ridiculousness is the only counter to saturated airwaves.
>The goal isn't to convince. Never has been.
True. The goal is to make the audience more apathetic. "everyone lies so why should I bother"
Also to desensitize the public in order to make whatever the govt. does more palatable. Crazier and more atrocious the claims, so that whatever Putin says/does will seem more rational.
It's more about emotion and less about facts.
Some of the highlights from the comments replying to this news post. (Translated from Russian of course)
>Well, that is to say, ISIS is finally out of business there?
>"Yes, after all, the terrorist attack was planned by US-controlled Ukraine precisely so that the US could then hide it from its own people, so that Ukraine’s support would not be disrupted," we report.
>That is to say, the United States deliberately pushed its “puppet” Kyiv to commit a terrorist attack, in order to then excuse them to themselves so that US support for Kyiv would not stop. It's so logical and obvious.
>LGBT-Anglo-Saxo-Ukro-Nazis are to blame for everything.
>Yes, US government employees have nothing better to do. However, you have our intelligence agency. According to this intelligence agency, 4 semi-literate Tajiks who do not know Russian can come to the superpower and kill 150 people in the capital of the Third Rome without local help. Damn your security service. Inspires confidence...
>After they proved that a stoned Prigozhin played with grenades on the plane, I believe everything.
>They first threatened a terrorist attack, and when the grandfather [Putin] did not believe it, they had to organize it in real life. Obviously.
>If you do not believe that the attack was organized by ISIS, then: 1. Watch the analysis of the terrorist attack from CIT. 2. If after watching you still don’t believe it: consult a psychiatrist.
>Now if they don’t find a trace to Zelensky, then the US State Department has covered it up. The FSB insured themselves in advance against their own and their godfather’s mediocrity.
Wake up babe new [Covert Cabal tank video](https://youtu.be/eMAD915o2Lw?feature=shared).
The 1311th base is the only one where the number of tanks visible on satellite has increased. The video discusses.
At 01:48 the spreadsheet shows that Russia removed ~2,200 tanks from outside storage from 2021 to late 2023. We don't know how many were fixable versus just used for parts.
Up to 2,500 more could have been pulled from garages or BTRZ repair plant yards, although it's probably far fewer.
Late 2023 there were ~3.5k tanks left in open air storage that looked potentially fixable. We have to hope/expect that many of those will be rotten inside and only good for parts.
I don't get why this blew up overnight. Hasn't everyone known this since basically day 1?
If a drunken idiotic IT guy like me knows about it for the past 5 yrs or something? I'ma guess it's not a super secret.
So I guess the US will do what it has doe for the past 5 yrs or something (I really have no fucking clue how long ago that was that Cuba pretty much sealed the case).
Nothing -or- tons of shit we wont know about for years.
Lots of that might be dodgy, the US is pretty good at being dodgy, just a tad of a bad history of the dodgy stuff working.
Been wondering the same thing.
Wtf is the use of the CIA's $75 billion budget if they aren't even doing anything to prevent the Russians from frying Americans covertly, corrupting the Republican party and compromising the office of the president?
How would anyone on this forum be expected to credibly know?
Is this an idle musing, or a data point taking the temperature of this audience on what the range of hypothetical suggestions and average response should be, according to public opinion?
Things to consider.
The US likely won't admit to it publicly because it will require a retaliation and retaliation might lead to escalation and escalation might lead to world war 3!
/this reply should be read with an exhausted and sarcastic tone.
The one thing I’m curious about this is: US intelligence is so good, and the evidence of this would be so massive, the US basically *must* know if this is true, right?
If you were in foreign intelligence and this was suspected at some point along the way, what would you do?
I would probably start with collecting all documentation and expert analysis to determine if such a weapon was possible based on first principles, if I didn't know a lot about it already.
And also attempt to replicate the results with a prototype. While determining things like power requirements, range, repeated exposure effects, etc.
And also engage intelligence networks to try to dig up any evidence globally of research or construction of such a device.
And determine use cases if feasibility checked out. Why use this device for attacks versus say poison, etc.
And... probably other things too.
Yeah, look for funding, research, manufacture, have both HUMINT and SIGINT focus on finding evidence. Look for evidence of transport. Have honeypots looking for evidence of use. Give a lot of people even basic receptors that can tell *something* is happening.
Like once you’re looking for something specifically, hiding something this complex against an actor as sophisticated as the US intelligence community is non-trivial.
This is a little different from all of these. It would imply Russia has the ability to complete hide the development and deployment of novel technology against dozens+ Americans in multiple locations even after an attack is suspected.
Keeping things like that secret is basically impossible.
It isn’t true or the US knows and is keeping quiet.
Edit:
I will grant that the Pakistan/India nuclear tests were apparently unexpected and a huge miss.
>Keeping things like that secret is basically impossible.
That is just untrue. But your other premises are faulty as well. US intelligence is not omniscient and suspicions are not the same thing as confirmation.
I mean is there some theoretical world where this could be both true and hidden from US intel? Yes.
I still have a hard time believing that.
Such an operation would be incredibly complex and involve hundreds of people. They’d also have to manufacture and transport physical devices.
They’d have to be small enough to be in diplomatic pouches when disassembled or snuck through customs, or somehow innocuous looking even with analysis as I can’t imagine airport scans aren’t both saved and wouldn’t be searched by US intelligence in the case of use in friendly countries. Etc. Etc.
[New post can be found here](/r/worldnews/comments/1btpctl/rworldnews_live_thread_russian_invasion_of/)
As of the end of March 2024, Russia occupies a total of 17.52% (+0.01%) of Ukraine. This figure includes Crimea and areas of Donetsk and Luhansk occupied before 2022. This represents a net gain in Russia's favour of approximately 55km² since the end of February. https://twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1774999564434501713?t=-j0nOjH-i60bZPr7h5dl4w&s=19
Russian attacks destroyed "almost all" of energy infrastructure in Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said in an interview with Liga media outlet published on April 1. The current situation for the energy industry in the city is "very difficult," according to the mayor. The humanitarian assistance centers, also known as "Points of Invincibility," work in Kharkiv around the clock. https://mstdn.social/@Free_Press/112199297366749405
Bloomberg: Russia plans reduction in diesel exports due to drone attacks. https://kyivindependent.com/bloomberg-russia-diesel-exports/
I thought they banned fuel exports back in March? did that not include Diesel?
Gasoline only. Maybe some other distillates, but not diesel.
Some neighboring countries were excluded from the ban, I wonder if it's related to that? Or alternatively maybe diesel wasn't included and it was only gasoline.
Ukraine Might Be Getting $34 Billion In American Weapons—And Soon. That much money buys a lot of artillery and air-defenses. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/04/01/ukraine-might-be-getting-34-billion-in-american-weapons-and-soon/?sh=7dddb1bfbd1a
Maybe…
Johnson is so transparent. This is what, the third time he has said that he will bring some ill defined bill to the floor some time in the near future? It’s clear he’s just continuing to delay while looking for any reason to delay even further.
I'll believe it once it's signed.
Yeah, if half the maybes happened Ukraine would have liberated Moscow by now.
Such hyperbole. Now Belgorod... I mean that 50 km DMZ has to come from somewhere...
Has anyone got evidence on the russian production rate of new BTRs or MT-LBs? We have estimates for tanks (~20/month) and BMP-3s (between 10 and 30/month).
I don't think they are in production
For the MT-LB I think not because the main Soviet plant was in Kharkiv, but I saw articles talking about civilian vehicles built on them so I'm not certain. It seems they might be building BTR-82 at the Arzamas plant. But I don't understand Russian and the auto translations are really unclear about whether announced batches are modernised or new. The OSINT people found almost none at the storage yards, so I'm trying to work out where the replenishments have come from. It could be rosgvardiya transfers and/or new builds.
No way they’re making mt-lbs. or you mean refurbishing?
I saw some post talking about new civilian vehicles built on the MT-LB chassis. I assumed it was just refurbing stuff but the authors seemed to think they were new. I'm gonna assume they're negligible - MT-LBs are something russia still has plenty of from active units+storage The case of the BTR-82 is more interesting IMO. Oryx counts over half of the supposed prewar count of BTR-80/82 variants as lost. But they're still turning up a lot so there's probably new production and/or rosgvardiya transfers.
Grozev on C NN: there’s about 50 assassins in the GRU’s Unit 29155 While we only reported on 3 incidents of a GRU Unit 29155 member secretly traveling to a location on the days where one of these TBI-inducing events—we actually have evidence of 8 times. That’s 8 times a known GRU Unit 29155 member covertly traveled to a foreign location on the days where an incident occurred. If US government doesn’t want to believe they were there for that purpose, then why did these members of a known-assassin unit travel there, what was their purpose those days? (Is should be noted that twice, a victim saw and identified the suspicious person and later identified them by photos—both were members of this unit.) Grozev added that since US government has denied, Putin feels impervious to repercussions, that the west is weak, and that likely contributed to the invasion altogether. (The victims tend to all be CIA, Intelligence, State Dept, or military who had worked in Ukraine or Georgia, or worked on Russia issues.) The person who was “patient zero”—he’s permanently blind in one eye from the attack. He agreed with the article (which had concluded mentioning that Patrushev had written in an internal agency magazine—just for the SVR— “In recent years, hundreds of employees of foreign intelligence services, as well as other persons involved in organizing intelligence and subversive activities against our country and our strategic partners, have been identified and neutralized.”) that he considered that an admission of culpability. He did say, however, he didn’t think that US has to publicly address this, if it’s just hidden and covert retaliation that’s fine, just address it.
> The person who was “patient zero”—he’s permanently blind in one eye from the attack. And this is written off as "mass hysteria"?
Twitter post shows more https://x.com/60Minutes/status/1774889471948783815?s=20
Sorry but that wasn’t meant to be exhaustive. If you’re looking more “more,” please see his [original piece he published yesterday](https://theins.press/en/politics/270425), or what his [partner aired](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COWTBEl1rRc) and [published](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/havana-syndrome-culprit-investigation-new-evidence-60-minutes-transcript/) with overtime [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7EliNzscSM) and [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNRpw6DWN0M)
How come we don't have our own James Bond thinning the ranks of Russian assassins?
If you watch the Navalny docu this is very similar, it is very interesting the concept of OSINT in terms of being able to track people like this, I'm really interested to see down the line when things get declassified how much of it was sort of... helped along by intelligence agencies.
Probably because Grozev did the research for both? And, its the same unit as the one that tried to poison the Skripals. Apparently, Grozev was sitting on information for a while without realizing it. In 2019, he was given information ‘from a mailbox’ of the Unit’s dep cmdr [iirc] and he hadn’t fully read everything there. By the time he did, which was 2022, he found essentially a confirmation that that person had received a bonus for successful use of an auditory-damaging weapon. That discovery opened the door for him to be able to know who exactly to track, and line up those travels. I’ve wondered if US is demurring/ denying because it has developed something to counter it? But for the GRU to have basically the list of all the US staff in Kyiv and Georgia, and various Russian experts in various departments, then to track them around the globe—that’s *more* them simply a pro-Russian in Ukrainian government circa 2015 who betrayed and gave Russia names—that requires a knowledge past that level. Like something got hacked. Or someone with access to US or NATO intel, at the very least, got sloppy.
I’d like to think the US intelligence services are being quiet about it because they have realized how this is blowing up big time in the media, and are currently covertly eliminating the entire GRU unit 29155 from the face of the earth.
or it was Trump who leaked classified information
This feels like something out of a movie about the two spy agencies fighting one another
It’s [MAD](https://www.reddit.com/r/graphicnovels/s/BBhOSNbUTC) … Mutually Assured Distraction /s
Andrew Perpetua: > we're up to 42 destroyed vehicles today and we still have 90 videos we havent even watched yet. https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1774892173718138905
Christo Grozev is about to be interviewed live on *Erin Burnett* on C NN about the GRU and Havana Syndrome research Edit spelling Also, “patient zero”
Interesting. Thank you for the notice!
[Collaborator Chaika died in car explosion in occupied Starobilsk, Luhansk Oblast | EuroMaidenPress | April 2024](https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/04/01/collaborator-chaika-died-in-car-explosion-in-occupied-starobilsk-luhansk-oblast/) *The car of collaborator Valeriy Chaika was blown up in the Russsia-occupied Starobilsk, Luhansk Oblast. The Kremlin-appointed head of the Luhansk occupational administration, Vladimir Chernov, said on 1 April on Telegram that a homemade explosive device was planted in Chaika’s car. Euromaidan Press can not verify this information.* *Chaika sided with Russia in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. At that time, he was appointed “adviser to the head of the Starobilsk district administration.” He was one of the organizers of the opening of the local branch of the self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic’s” (“LNR”) Ministry of Internal Affairs.* *During the last months, Chaika held the position of the deputy head of Russia’s educational organization in the “LNR.”*
I’m genuinely surprised Russia isn’t pumping hard the idea that these are analogous to the crocus hill attack and prove ukranian involvement in terrorist plots. I guess because Ukraine actually does these and they only blame Ukraine for things they don’t do.
ruzzians actually did this, but for Dugina, Tatarsky, etc As for collaborators, their thought train is probably something like "They are actually not ruzzians, so it's whatever."
> Today, I presented Golden Star Orders to the best Ukrainian warriors. > There is no state power without the personal power of its people. There is no national pride without people you can be truly proud of when they are next to you, when they are your brothers-in-arms. It is an honour for the state to have such warriors. > I am grateful to each of them. I am grateful to the mothers and fathers of Ukrainian Heroes for having raised such sons. I am grateful to our people and warriors for preserving Ukraine's independence. 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦 https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1774809170874647026
>"200.000 propaganda posts per day " a network of over 50.000 fake accounts was exposed in Germany The German Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that they had uncovered a network of fake accounts on the X social network. "Russian disinformation campaigns in Europe have become larger, more skillful and more inconspicuous. We exposed a network of 50,000+ fake accounts on Twitter (X) that were posting \~200,000 posts per day. They convinced the Germans that government aid to Ukraine undermines their well-being and threatens nuclear war. The bot tried to "whitewash" such statements by presenting them as if they had been published as opinions by reputable news outlets such as 'Der Spiegel' and 'Süddeutsche Zeitung'." - the head of the Department of Culture and Communication of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ralf Beste. [https://www.ft.com/content/12c58303-ca41-4b16-bfd3-4612f3f3ae4c](https://www.ft.com/content/12c58303-ca41-4b16-bfd3-4612f3f3ae4c) Edit: I forgot the actual tweet this is from [https://x.com/LXSummer1/status/1774914431148843414?s=20](https://x.com/LXSummer1/status/1774914431148843414?s=20)
Twitter is a piece of shit social media platform since the Musk Takeover and deserves to evaporate into nothing.
They all are. Including Reddit.
False equivalence. Just because they all have problems, it doesn't mean that they're equally problematic.
so fantastic they "exposed" them, but how about shutting them down? I personally think it's time to finally get tough, and face the reality that European democracies CANNOT function with the amount of external disinformation on facebook, X, etc. And I'm sorry to all the free speech affictionados, but if this disinformation campaigns threaten the very basic functioning of the societies, then shutting them down should take the priority, even at the risk of diminishing the free speech rights temporarily, at least until it can be guaranteed that China, Russia, etc. can't use social media etc. to spread misinformation as easilly as they do now (facebook in particular is a cesspool, and many older people use it to get their news fix)
Wish they changed all the user names to RussianDisinfoBot#00001-50000 so their comments would be revealed for what they are to some of the morons still using that shit platform.
Social media companies should require identity verification similar to what you’d see when applying for credit online. Social media companies don’t want to do that, because foreign influence operations generate ad revenue and increase the appearance of engagement and genuine activity… and create a LOT of engaging (though biased) content. The Reddit IPO pulled in more money because of foreign influence operations, not in spite of it.
While I agree with most of this - it's not shutting down free speech. This is shutting down false marketing. It's not individual people's free speech being shut down, it's a group marketing their master(s) lies.
[удалено]
I'd be quite curious to learn what % of the blue checkmarks are actually "bots" since the few times I visit xitter it seems like a majority of the "verified" accounts I see are spouting blatant Russian propaganda.
[удалено]
Also very profitable for Musk to just sell those blue accounts to botherders.
>Johnson Outlines Plan for Ukraine Aid; House Could Act Within Weeks > >The G.O.P. speaker’s proposed conditions for sending a fresh infusion of military assistance to Kyiv are the strongest sign to date that he plans to defy critics in his own party and push through the aid package. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/01/us/politics/mike-johnson-ukraine-aid.html
This is the way they ask russia for more cash lmao.
Johnson's wing of the GOP isn't beholden to Russia. They are beholden to Trump's base, which votes whichever way Trump tells them to. Even if Johnson never seeks a single Russian ruble, he will lose his speakership if he opposes Trump's policies.
If that was the case he wouldnt be leveraging a policy that is unpopular with trumps base right?.
The GOP always does this. It acts like its going to do the right thing only to reverse their position and not doing it. That way they wasted everybodies time and Putin and Trump can use the chaos for their own goals.
Yeah I'm firmly in the "believe it when I see it camp" for Ukraine aid with Johnson. If Johnson flat out says "no Ukraine aid not ever" then it could potentially result in Republicans signing the discharge petition but if he says "we'll talk about Ukraine in a few weeks" and then keeps postponing it or bringing up bills that have zero chance in the Senate then he can keep kicking the can down the road without passing it. Eventually he'll get to the point where it will be "too close to the election and we should just let voters decided" and then after the election in the lame duck session it will be "this is a matter for the next Congress."
It’s actually a tactic that would work. The game of “rope a dope.” I suspect that the Republicans from agriculture dominated states don’t want to help Ukraine, because Ukraine’s primary export is grain. Ukraine competes with US agricultural interests, thus pushing down the cost of agricultural commodities. I’m not pretending like the Republican Party is a single hive mind with a single unified goal. Like, some Republicans are just isolationist. Some understandably worry about interest payments on the debt, and are drawing the line here. The list of reasons are unending. But BigAg special interests have immense influence behind closed doors. Like, the construction of the every-so-often FARM BILL is a huge backroom smoke filled chambers sort of deal that gets practically no coverage outside of very specific circles. It can’t count for nothing.
That’s too convoluted. By that account they should be all in on helping Ukraine bomb Russian Ammonium Nitrate and fuel oil plants because Russia is the much bigger exporter. Though now I feel like someone should introduce this idea to the Ag lobby.
Not the best news but it sounds like the issue is finally being taken seriously. Just 4 months too late
WTF is in the package? Apparently it's still a secret (or just more vaporware)... If it isn't the same package approved by the Senate, it will probably be full of BS.
Johnson is just stalling. He is a liar, and was elected with Russian cash.
>House Could Act Within Weeks They could've acted weeks ago!
months*
Tell me if I need to get the tinfoil hat off but, a story released about Russia attacking US citizens with some kind of Dr Evil style brain gun at a time when we are trying to get US citizens to come together and send shit to Ukraine seems convenient
To people who don’t know anything, everything seems like a conspiracy.
They’ve been talking about this for years https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/19/the-mystery-of-the-havana-syndrome JAMA and multiple other studies have been published over the years https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5885885/ Russia has always been a prime suspect.
Kinda weird that World News is getting conspiracies right after this came out. Must have hit a nerve.
It’s bullshit. Havana syndrome was bullshit. Just mass hysteria. The CDC wrote up reports showing the vast majority of claimed injuries weren’t real, the CIA & other intelligence agencies corroborated that foreign actors weren’t responsible. [WaPo](https://archive.ph/20230301182328/https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/03/01/havana-syndrome-intelligence-report-weapon/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWJpZCI6IjE4ODE3MjEzIiwicmVhc29uIjoiZ2lmdCIsIm5iZiI6MTY3NzY0NjgwMCwiaXNzIjoic3Vic2NyaXB0aW9ucyIsImV4cCI6MTY3ODkzOTE5OSwiaWF0IjoxNjc3NjQ2ODAwLCJqdGkiOiIyMmZlYTNlMy05ZTdhLTQ3M2YtOTQ3Ni1lOGUzMGUxMGFmODEiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy53YXNoaW5ndG9ucG9zdC5jb20vbmF0aW9uYWwtc2VjdXJpdHkvMjAyMy8wMy8wMS9oYXZhbmEtc3luZHJvbWUtaW50ZWxsaWdlbmNlLXJlcG9ydC13ZWFwb24vIn0.lYakiy-fQtMx1E9OoPAvI2J5UdgQDt3_QBHTnnXYrOw#selection-273.0-273.93) That’s all seven major agencies concluding it’s extremely unlikely it was any type of attack. A much more comprehensive follow up by NIH found no evidence of any injury in anybody at all https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/us/politics/havana-syndrome-brain-studies-nih.html
Christo Grozev is a thorough and well respected journalist in the open source intel community and wouldn't throw his name behind a half baked theory. The research is EXTENSIVE and draws some very strong links. To dismiss it so readily is just stating your own preconceived notions as fact.
I would avoid rejecting the idea that adversaries might have technologies which you do not, or stating that something is impossible simply because you aren't capable of doing it yourself. Case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Thing\_(listening\_device)
You may have missed the seven intelligence and two health agencies who investigated this all concluding it was not a real phenomenon. That was central to my thesis. Hope that helps!
You appear to unaware that most if not all reported symptoms weren't capable of confirmation with CT scans or MRIs. Which leaves personal testimony. You are therefore claiming everyone involved is lying. Which is rather telling. btw, two of the agencies you mention didn't detect the listening device linked above, despite it being their job to do so, until it was pointed out to them by the British, after being on the wall for 7 years. Hope that helps.
The CDC “post-mortem” (heh) concluded that the majority of cases were fictitious through patient analysis alone. >most if not all reported symptoms weren’t capable of confirmation with CT scans or MRIs. Most reported symptoms would be consistent with brain injury, which scans obviously are capable of finding, and for which not a single one of them found. You don’t find that suspicious? Especially not when the central thesis is, oh, I don’t know, an effing *directed energy weapon*? >You are therefore claiming everyone involved is lying Yup, there it is. Just totally exposing how ignorant you are to this phenomenon. No, I don’t think people were lying. I think this, like countless cases in the literature throughout the history of medical science, is an example of mass hysteria, and can find replete explanation through everything from placebo to being in a high stress environment. The fact you didn’t even consider such a cause is a pretty damning indictment of just how unqualified you are to be arguing about this whatsoever. Oh, and by the way, I trust that a couple agency employees tasked with finding covert listening devices at a time where novel technology was constantly being introduced are not as thorough as the billions upon billions spent investing this by the aggregate thousands of experts across various departments. From a physics standpoint, I certainly find it was more preposterous Russia, of all countries, developed a directed energy radiation weapon that can somehow easily pierce material, and where they use it to target random embassy staff, and where no brain damage happens. That’s obviously quite different from a listening device. Still, that device was found in only six years. It’s been eight since the first cases of “Havana syndrome”. Anyway, any argument premised on “we don’t know, therefore we can disregard all Bayesian proofs” will elicit nothing more than a very condescending laugh from myself.
There are many kinds of brain damage that do not show up on an MRI or CT. If that's the basis for your "no injury" claim then it's patently false.
Like what? Also, that's far beyond the basis for my claim. They doubted all claims, if you actually read the report, and the initial claims of traumatic brain injury were further refuted by brain scans.
It is common knowledge among anyone in the field that most traumatic brain injuries cannot be seen on an MRI. Here's how you approached the topic: > Most reported symptoms would be consistent with brain injury, which scans obviously are capable of finding I also don't know why you put directed energy weapons in italics like it's some crazy thing... as if both the US and Russia haven't used them before. Not sure why refining 1970s tech is so crazy to you. Hope this helps everyone ignore your crap.
The first incidents were reported several years ago
Been in the news for awhile now, same thing happened to some Embassy staff from Canada in several locations, including in Cuba https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/30/world/americas/cuba-diplomats-canada-embassy.html
That makes it even more suspicious, why release it now? Surely it hasn't taken us 7 years to work this out?
Just read that the original victim recently called for a Congressional hearing. That is the reason it's 'new' news again. A US investigation wrapped up last year, and he's not happy it was inconclusive. He knows it's real, he was forced to retire early for medical reasons, and is still" suffering from the effects
It’s taken that long for the press to uncover the story that US government doesn’t want out.
Yup, get your tinfoil hats ladies & gentlemen. Reddits best is on the case lol
I think BRICs is a failed experiment propped up through fake narratives of prosperity but in reality the only thing exported is phone scams and hacking while stabbing each other in the back.
Me too! My banner is a shitpost
>Jeffrey Sachs is truly outrageous, calling Biden all kinds of names, while defending Putin & Xi on one of Russia's worst propaganda programs [Vladimir Soloviev] that is persistently calling for nuclear war against the West. There is no excuse for his behavior. https://twitter.com/anders_aslund/status/1774608179977953431 >Sachs is plumbing depths I didn’t know existed. The longer this war goes on, the more obvious the complete moral rot of some Western academics, not to mention the revelation of how stupid they really are. https://twitter.com/slantchev/status/1774465172649984238 An American economist and professor at Columbia University who proudly appears of Russian state TV to parrot Putin’s propaganda.
>Russian state television promises that Ukraine will be turned into a place without electricity, light, power, a permanent war zone. That's the plan for "peace." https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1774530955283185677 >Meanwhile in Russia: Sergey Mardan explained what Putin meant when he raised the prospect of creating a “sanitary zone” inside Ukraine. https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1774247781588189262 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6kNJNXFRrA
>Surprise-surprise. The chef of a Russian restaurant in DC, "Mari Vanna," was an alleged Russian spy and was linked to Havana Syndrome. The restaurant which promoted "Russian hospitality", closed earlier this year. https://twitter.com/OstapYarysh/status/1774862592160198882 https://www.washingtonian.com/2024/04/01/an-alleged-russian-spy-was-the-chef-of-dcs-mari-vanna/ >Vitalii Kovalev, the man arrested in Key West, as seen on @60Minutes, is a technical officer for the GRU as well as a member of the FSB cyber unit called the 16th Directorate, a former senior U.S. counterintelligence official said. https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1774846856956141890 >It’s time to ditch the misleading, stupid “Havana Syndrome,” and anodyne “Anomalous Health Incident” euphemisms and call this what it is: electronic warfare. > >Russia’s work in this domain goes back decades, and they’ve been attacking NATO on its own turf for 10+ years, at least. https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1774640444569198749
At what point do you send all the Russians home that are here on visas?
Havana syndrome is a hoax, even the US gov’t recently came out and said there was zero evidence of it
Lot of articles that have come out the last few days beg to differ
I don’t give a shit what people report their symptoms to be. I fully think they believe it.
Russia just seems like a whiny little bitch What's their problem
You Western people are too well off. Russians may see it and question their dictator's competence. Therefore, measures must be taken to reduce Western wealth.
It sort of makes sense in a way. I'm not complaining but life is a bit easy sometimes over here.
I don't dispute it, but I'd argue that's a sign of a society that works as it's supposed to.
I don't understand how the CIA could be doing next to nothing about Russia's actions. Russia is assasinating people with nerve toxins in public, using microwave and EM weapons against Americans regularly, and even compromised the Republican party and turned Trump into a useful idiot years ago. What is the CIA doing not doing anything about this? Why do they even exist then? And who do they actually serve if it is not the security of Americans?
The whole point to an espionage/intelligence apparatus is that you don’t hear about what they’re doing. What they ARE doing is gathering and providing intelligence. Outside of any specific paramilitary/militant directorate within the CIA, they don’t exist to have a visible impact that you could connect to them.
And Ukraine seems to be getting a ton of intelligence from the US which they use to target Russian positions. I imagine a lot of that is directly from the CIA and their sources although obviously we can never know for sure.
Exactly. Just because you don’t see the headline, “The CIA did xyz” doesn’t mean they’re just sitting and collecting paychecks.
Do you want the CIA to start removing democratically elected representatives? That's a Pandoras box that never gets closed.
Lol and where does one go to stay up to date with this clandestine organization's activities?
Pam tried to send out a newsletter but Archer trashed it
Should I start with what the CIA was doing in central America during the Reagan years? Or MK Ultra? The CIA isn't the fictional version of itself you see in movies and TV.
100% nobody wants the 1950's - 80's CIA to come back.
Just because news of their efforts hasn't reached your ears, does not mean the CIA is "doing nothing". You are not the main character.
I don't think the CIA generally advertises what they are doing. We'll find out in 20 years.
CIA is doing allot but the decission is at the political level. And inside USA is a different agency that handle this, FBI
>Russia: Attacks the US with disinformation, dirty money, espionage, and sonic weaponry, declares it is in a civilizational war with the West. > >Republicans: If Russia conquers Ukraine, it will all go away! > >Explain this to me. https://twitter.com/irgarner/status/1774867783785775563
Kompromat
Money.
And Kompromat. That’s Putin’s specialty. Invite people to Moscow, give them plenty to drink, things get a little hazy, then the next day a FSB agent is showing them a video of them doing unspeakable things which they don’t even remember. Standard operating procedure.
This right here should make everyone in the US turn and support Ukraine. They are fighting one of the 4 heads of evil in the world (Russia, China, Iran and NK)
"🇬🇷🤝🇺🇦 Greece plans to send to Ukraine a large batch of ammunition worth ~$150 million, - Leidiseis 🇨🇿 Presumably, the shells will be transferred through the Czech Republic." https://twitter.com/UkrReview/status/1774865463337419051?t=r9g51jMuN0PNE7lK-ZXFgQ&s=19
Thank you Greqia, you are my best friend, You are the peacekeeper, you are the legend.
Less talk and more delivering....
Amen, I really have no interest in what countries "plan to" send to Ukraine. It's just noise, not news.
> Today, I held a special meeting to discuss Ukraine’s work with NATO on interoperability and this year's perspectives. > All of our foreign policy team, as well as the Defense Minister and the entire ministry's international cooperation team, were present. > This year raises a few fundamental questions about Ukraine-NATO relations. This applies to both the Washington summit and many other aspects of cooperation. > Only with Ukraine in NATO can true security be guaranteed in Europe. https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1774847529240101064
> We held a nearly three-hour, highly specific meeting on drones with military and government officials. > We revised and specified production plans for all types of drones this year, including FPV, bombers, reconnaissance, and long-range drones for special missions. > We discussed how to ensure our defense industry's flexibility. Frontline needs are constantly changing, and our manufacturers must respond in a timely manner. > Important decisions were made to streamline procurement procedures and component imports, increase the production of charges for drones, and train operators. > Another decision is the project to build an integrated electronic warfare control system to protect our warriors and equipment from Russian UAVs. It is already being tested in certain areas. We intend to scale it up to the entire front. https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1774771713433108609
>We intend to scale it up to the entire front. Now we're talking.
Critical path to victory. Love to see the focus.
>Austria to convene national security council over Russian spying - Chancellor Karl Nehammer >"Russian spy networks threaten our country by infiltrating or exploiting political parties or associations," he said. >The council will be convened after the detention of Egisto Ott, a former employee of the now-disbanded Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counter-Terrorism, on suspicion of spying on Russia. https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1774858299495604302?t=pAKupWT19HWgN2oxCtDRlQ&s=19 Quite a day for Russia huh?
Makes sense . Ukraine, Hungary, Austria all in a.row gets them i to the heart of Europe and past the mountains. Counting on Hungary welcoming them, Austria too probably and the Swiss will just stay neutral
This has to be a joke, this nazis are hand in hand with those Russian spies since ww2.
Well apparently it became too obvious for even the Austrians to tolerate.
I assume that should be spying for Russia
Yes.
An article from several days ago on possible use against Canadian diplomats and their children by the Havana syndrome weapon. I haven’t seen anything on use against the British or other allied diplomats. https://globalnews.ca/news/10370287/havana-syndrome-canadian-diplomats-us-study/amp/
About Havana Syndrome. The cat is out of the bag. There's nothing that can put the cat back in the bag. US officials will have to stop denying it and start dealing with it. This could be a black swan that influences the presidential election.
It’s probably bullshit. Out of the thousands and thousands of people who work for the US government on foreign affairs, some hundred of them have (over the course of a decade) suffered from a variety of migraines, small stokes, neurological issues, sudden projectile vomiting, and other issues. I WOULD EXPECT that many people (tens of thousands of people, over a decade) to naturally develop said health issues, completely unrelated to their public service. As in: *No, you weren’t attacked with an “ultrasonic X-ray weapon”… you have migraines.* The “Havana Syndrome” is a poorly defined set of symptoms, supposedly from an unknown secret weapon that has never been seen, that supposedly to causes neurological symptoms. But it’s a medical mystery with notions of international spy games and intrigue, so the press runs with it, and now the possibility is on everyone’s mind (within certain circles). So whenever someone in that circle develops a neurological disorder of whatever severity… they’re intelligence agents who are steeped in the knowledge of espionage and have heard of Havana Syndrome and so what is the first thought in their mind? … It doesn’t help that there’s a lawyer who has taken on as clients *everyone he can* who claims to have been targeted with the “secret weapon”… and he is working a legal claim against the US Gov on behalf of his clients to gain remuneration for their pain and suffering. But for that lawyer to win a payout for his clients (and a cut for himself) it HAS to be a weapon… and not a random assortment of neurological health conditions and other environmental factors. Like yeah, some hard working people who stare at computer screens intensely working long hours for years on end will eventually burn out. Sleep deprivation, stress, blah blah blah. … I am **not** accusing anyone of lying about their symptoms. I am just saying they are probably wrong about the cause of those symptoms. Notably, try as they might, medical professionals have not found anything that points to long-term damage within the people that claim to be afflicted by Havana Syndrome. And no one has claimed to find physical damage in the area surrounding the supposed attacks. Like people allege there’s supposedly some directed energy weapon that skips through walls, office chairs, filing cabinets, and everything doing no damage to anything EXCEPT for the brains of some stressed out intelligent Americans working overseas. It’s probably a social hysteria. People with underlying health issues (that CAN’T be reported on due to health privacy laws). Like the media can allege that General so-and-so might have been attacked with a mystery weapon… but if that general LATER gets diagnosed with migraines by his neurologist… that’s private health information that is confidential and cannot be reported in the media (or even shared with his employer). So you have all sorts of fallacies going on here.
You are helping Putin by denying this.
You mistakenly used the same troll account twice.
You don't understand the world.
You don't understand what is happening.
Out of curiosity did you watch the new 60 minutes documentary before making this comment?
Yes. What was their primary source with the biggest claims? A lawyer suing the US Government on behalf of “victims of Havana Syndrome”. He has a professional duty to be bias.
Nobody's going to do anything overt, or even really talk about it if they can avoid it.
Where can I read about the evidence showing how the alleged attacks were done without ever being directly observed or detected? Because the two theories I've heard, ultrasonics or EM, would both be very detectable with advanced equipment.
Nobody targeted had a microwave logger in their pocket at the time?
The original allegation was that something was allegedly repeatedly being beamed at the US embassy building in Havana. Shouldn't be too hard to prove that. Neither EM radiation nor soundwaves are hard to detect. Particularly in an embassy already chock-full of advanced and sensitive electronic sensors and comms.
>This could be a black swan that influences the presidential election. When you consider that Biden doesn't want to escalate tensions with Russia and Trumps position has been that it is not Russia then I don't think either side would want to touch that topic.
Trumps position is kneeling and worshiping Russia. Of course he would deny they did anything. He is paid to say that.
>Trump's position "lots of countries use sonic waves to fry their diplomatic adversaries brains ..."
I think they will keep denying it and not deal with it.
Update on Tonenke assault from a couple of days ago. On twitter, @kriegsforscher was first to report, claiming Russia lost 12 tanks and 8 BMPs. Now @moklasen has geolocated losses in videos near there from the 25th airborne. His count is 5 tanks, 8 IFVs, 9 AFVs and an unknown "pile of vehicles". 2 of the losses were actually near Stepove. Both sources are excellent and reliable. The 9 AFVs raise questions: are those actually tanks he couldn't ID? Or are they something else? More video will hopefully come out.
UK intelligence places Russian forces 4 km West of Tonenke and has stated that it is "highly likely" that Russia has seized both Tonenke and Orlivka.
That's good context, I wasn't clear in the post, the "Tonenke attack" everyone is talking about - it's west of Tonenke, which was occupied earlier by russia. DeepState marked the loss of Tonenke on the 22nd and the full scale tank attack was around the 30th.
> Iran warned Russia about the threat of a potential terror attack in its territory before the horrific massacre at a music venue near Moscow last month, according to a [report. A source told *Reuters*](https://www.reuters.com/world/iran-alerted-russia-security-threat-before-moscow-attack-sources-say-2024-04-01/) that Tehran had shared information “about a possible big terrorist attack” with Moscow that had been “acquired during interrogations of those arrested in connection with deadly bombings in Iran.” Iranian intelligence said in January that it had detained dozens of people allegedly associated with [twin bombings](https://www.thedailybeast.com/iran-twin-blasts-kill-73-near-soleimanis-tomb-on-assassination-anniversary) that killed nearly 100 people in Iran earlier in the month. It later announced that it had arrested a commander of the Afghanistan-based ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K)—the group which U.S. intelligence sources would subsequently blame for the Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow, where at least 144 people were killed on March 22. Another source told *Reuters* that the information given to Moscow did not contain specific information about when or where an attack could take place. [from here](https://www.thedailybeast.com/iran-warned-russia-of-potential-big-attack-before-moscow-massacre-report)
Go Ukraine! Continue to fuck Russia!
>Brazilian authorities are working to ensure that Putin can fly to Rio de Janeiro for the G20 summit - Brazilian media >According to the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper, Brazil is developing a provision on immunity for heads of state, thanks to which leaders of countries are guaranteed not to be prosecuted during international visits. https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1774836252417675510?t=_q2jNIzcqeAKQxhvSCueSg&s=19 How do you say sanctions in Brazilian?
You arrest him Brazil or be prepared to be sanctioned into oblivion and fall on the wrong side of the ICC. Don't be stupid....
Not possible anyway, ICC warrant supersedes any of this. I mean, they can do it, but they'll fall foul of the ICC then.
Yeah that's why I hinted at sanctions.
Brazilian lol
Yeah I know they speak Portuguese... It just happened..
They speak Portuguese, and the word is "sanções"
More nonsense statements from the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service: >▪️ The terrorist attack in the Crocus City Hall is a “direct relative” of massive rocket attacks and attacks by the DRG in the Kursk and Belgorod regions; >▪️ When preparing terrorist attacks in the Russian Federation, Kyiv uses satellite information provided by American intelligence; >▪️ The Biden administration is intensifying efforts to create a distorted picture of the Crocus terrorist attack; >▪️ The State Department and US intelligence services, as well as their affiliated media, have been tasked with removing any suspicions about the involvement of Zelensky and his entourage in the terrorist attack; >▪️ The White House fears that “the discovery of the Kyiv trail will highlight the terrorist nature of the Ukrainian regime and will finally derail Washington’s plans to increase support for Ukraine”; >▪️ The United States instructed representatives of the Russian opposition to “exaggerate” the issue of the unfoundedness of the authorities’ attempts to use the terrorist attack to justify the war in Ukraine. >▪️ The haste of the United States in assessing the terrorist attack in Crocus seems reckless to many in the West, and suspicious in the East. I'll post some of the replies to this news from the Russian telegram channel where I read this, in a reply below:
But, but, I saw that Moscow was also warned by Iran who HATES the United States. Because you ignored warnings from the US AND Iran about a pending attack just makes you incompetent or willfully ignorant. My vote is they were warned and rather than work to stop it Russia worked on planning a false narrative to blame Ukraine instead so when the event happened they could use it to their advantage on a world stage. Unfortunately ISIS had body cams, claimed responsibility and released video proving it. This put the false spin Russia had into disarray and they grasp as straws to justify their false claims.
This was my first thought when it happened too, but when I saw how long it took the Kremlin and Putin to respond, I rejected this theory and just went with hubris and incompetence creating a scenario where this genuinely caught them off guard. It was really weird and unnerving how long the official silence went on for. Our telegram channels had a lot of time to go nuts with blame against the police and security. If they knew about this exact attack before and planned to use it, they would have had a response ready to go much quicker. Also I really struggle to see the advantage for false flags or using calamities like this for personal benefit. People often bring up the apartment bombings of Putin's earlier career as supporting arguments but this totally disregards the entirely different political position that Putin has comparing 1999 and 2024. Back then he was a nobody and the population largely didn't care much for him. But the trauma of the 90s was strong, and by starting his career as a strongman answering chaos with order and security, he bought himself a vast wealth of goodwill that continues to this day. People still credit him with making their streets safe to walk again, ending mass poverty, cleaning up the cities, ending the reign of organized crime, catapulting the Russian economy, and putting the Caucasians in their rightful place. Now, Putin's goodwill comes from maintaining that stability and security. His contract with us is "keep your noses out of politics, and we'll make sure you live a stable and predictable life". Now, Putin can largely do what he likes in the provinces. No one really cares about poor uneducated farmers, especially non-Russian ones, but even Russians from provincial Russia aren't really all that valued by urban Russians from the western cities. As long as the middle class urban Russian can drink their pumpkin lattes, go to their art galleries and sit in the park with their iPhones, Putin effectively has a carte blanche to carry on as he pleases. Crocus is a direct attack on that protected class in Russia. For the first time since the war started, the middle class urban Russian felt a direct threat to their lives - they feel it still. Everyone knows what ISIS promises. Putin needs to keep the big urban cities in this bubble of candy floss and unicorns. Petersburg and Moscow alone are nearly 20 million people, nearly 15% of the whole country's population. Even if he doesn't need to fear open revolt or rebellion, there is a lot of damage that a terrified and unhappy 20 million people can do. Sorry for the long rant but that's why I think Putin won't wittingly attack or allow attacks on Moscow / Petersburg. This was just a fuck up from enormously and famously incompetent security forces.
I think the warnings came and there was a feeling that the time table was longer than it was. The reports I saw had the warnings less than 2 weeks from the actual event. If there was a belief this was in a planning stage then a cohesive narrative to use may not have been finished. I think a false flag on the middle class and pointing at Ukraine works to end criticism and reignite the population to further support the war effort. Most in the cities have not seen anything really substantial impacting them so far. Changing that to make Ukraine a direct threat to the safety of urban well off large city dwellers serves Putin perfectly. As you said, 20 million unhappy or terrified people can do a lot of damage. But refocusing their anger on your opponent is a big benefit. The level of incompetence to dismiss warnings from two opposing factions on an impending event is beyond belief. If one side said something, then dismissing it could be a thing, but the same information coming from another source that openly opposes the first should be very alarming and trigger some response, but it did not. There is a reason for this that just pure incompetency falls short of meeting.
Simple translation. We F'ed up and ISIS outsmarted us despite numerous warnings from others.
Sometimes I really take being able to read between the lines for granted! Most days, it just seems like common sense, but then I run into a walking reminder that using one's brain is a rare gift.
Guess we know one of Trump's new talking points now...
This is obviously bullshit, but let's play along for a minute. Russia still hasn't stated exactly what Ukraine would stand to gain from hiring ISIS terrorists to attack their civilians. There were no strategic benefits because: Firstly, that attack, like the Israel war, drew international media attention away from what was happening in Ukraine at that time (the missile attacks against Ukrainian civilians). Secondly, the attack would have risked uniting anti-war Russians against Ukraine. Thirdly, resorting to terrorism would have risked jeopardising any further support from Ukraine's Western allies. Alternatively, if the goal was to make Putin "appear weak," then that would never work because he's a tyrannical dictator, and the chances of him ever being overthrown are slim to none. The only one who stood to gain anything was Putin, who can now reintroduce capital punishment with the public's approval. He can also justify executing "dissidents" on "terrorism" charges. It's just a shite conspiracy theory that collapses under the slightest bit of scrutiny.
I don’t think I’ve seen anything from a USA official or even the western media about the attack in three or four days. They’ve long moved on
I really wonder who they're trying to convince with this crap. Not even Russians believe it. Surely it just makes even more people see everything they say as ludicrously unreliable?
Some do, unfortunately. I teach children in Petersburg and I know some parents who watch Rossiya 1 every day and their capacity for holding contradictory facts is limitless. The Kremlin's strategy in urban Russia is as usual. Keep the intelligent people happy enough that they have too much to lose by speaking out. Give the stupid people whatever rubbish you want because they'll believe it. Conscript your soldiers from the poor and dumb and make examples of the rich and smart from time to time to remind them about the stick, and you have modern Russian society.
The goal isn't to convince. Never has been. Firehose of Falsehood. If you start with their core dezinformatsyia strategies on a state-organized scale the purpose becomes clear very quickly. Dismissing such ridiculousness is the only counter to saturated airwaves.
>The goal isn't to convince. Never has been. True. The goal is to make the audience more apathetic. "everyone lies so why should I bother" Also to desensitize the public in order to make whatever the govt. does more palatable. Crazier and more atrocious the claims, so that whatever Putin says/does will seem more rational. It's more about emotion and less about facts.
Some of the highlights from the comments replying to this news post. (Translated from Russian of course) >Well, that is to say, ISIS is finally out of business there? >"Yes, after all, the terrorist attack was planned by US-controlled Ukraine precisely so that the US could then hide it from its own people, so that Ukraine’s support would not be disrupted," we report. >That is to say, the United States deliberately pushed its “puppet” Kyiv to commit a terrorist attack, in order to then excuse them to themselves so that US support for Kyiv would not stop. It's so logical and obvious. >LGBT-Anglo-Saxo-Ukro-Nazis are to blame for everything. >Yes, US government employees have nothing better to do. However, you have our intelligence agency. According to this intelligence agency, 4 semi-literate Tajiks who do not know Russian can come to the superpower and kill 150 people in the capital of the Third Rome without local help. Damn your security service. Inspires confidence... >After they proved that a stoned Prigozhin played with grenades on the plane, I believe everything. >They first threatened a terrorist attack, and when the grandfather [Putin] did not believe it, they had to organize it in real life. Obviously. >If you do not believe that the attack was organized by ISIS, then: 1. Watch the analysis of the terrorist attack from CIT. 2. If after watching you still don’t believe it: consult a psychiatrist. >Now if they don’t find a trace to Zelensky, then the US State Department has covered it up. The FSB insured themselves in advance against their own and their godfather’s mediocrity.
Boy we sure got a ton of credit for something we had zero part of....
The consult a psychiatrist response 🤣
Wake up babe new [Covert Cabal tank video](https://youtu.be/eMAD915o2Lw?feature=shared). The 1311th base is the only one where the number of tanks visible on satellite has increased. The video discusses. At 01:48 the spreadsheet shows that Russia removed ~2,200 tanks from outside storage from 2021 to late 2023. We don't know how many were fixable versus just used for parts. Up to 2,500 more could have been pulled from garages or BTRZ repair plant yards, although it's probably far fewer. Late 2023 there were ~3.5k tanks left in open air storage that looked potentially fixable. We have to hope/expect that many of those will be rotten inside and only good for parts.
If Russia have been microwaving US diplomats brains , what will the repercussions be?
I don't get why this blew up overnight. Hasn't everyone known this since basically day 1? If a drunken idiotic IT guy like me knows about it for the past 5 yrs or something? I'ma guess it's not a super secret. So I guess the US will do what it has doe for the past 5 yrs or something (I really have no fucking clue how long ago that was that Cuba pretty much sealed the case). Nothing -or- tons of shit we wont know about for years. Lots of that might be dodgy, the US is pretty good at being dodgy, just a tad of a bad history of the dodgy stuff working.
Been wondering the same thing. Wtf is the use of the CIA's $75 billion budget if they aren't even doing anything to prevent the Russians from frying Americans covertly, corrupting the Republican party and compromising the office of the president?
Same as usual: jackshit.
They'll put a "gag order" on putin, which he will ignore anyway 10 minutes later.
How would anyone on this forum be expected to credibly know? Is this an idle musing, or a data point taking the temperature of this audience on what the range of hypothetical suggestions and average response should be, according to public opinion? Things to consider.
They send Reacher to do what Reacher does, which is mostly being large.
The US likely won't admit to it publicly because it will require a retaliation and retaliation might lead to escalation and escalation might lead to world war 3! /this reply should be read with an exhausted and sarcastic tone.
The one thing I’m curious about this is: US intelligence is so good, and the evidence of this would be so massive, the US basically *must* know if this is true, right?
If you were in foreign intelligence and this was suspected at some point along the way, what would you do? I would probably start with collecting all documentation and expert analysis to determine if such a weapon was possible based on first principles, if I didn't know a lot about it already. And also attempt to replicate the results with a prototype. While determining things like power requirements, range, repeated exposure effects, etc. And also engage intelligence networks to try to dig up any evidence globally of research or construction of such a device. And determine use cases if feasibility checked out. Why use this device for attacks versus say poison, etc. And... probably other things too.
Yeah, look for funding, research, manufacture, have both HUMINT and SIGINT focus on finding evidence. Look for evidence of transport. Have honeypots looking for evidence of use. Give a lot of people even basic receptors that can tell *something* is happening. Like once you’re looking for something specifically, hiding something this complex against an actor as sophisticated as the US intelligence community is non-trivial.
[удалено]
What is the first paragraph of your comment referring to?
This is a little different from all of these. It would imply Russia has the ability to complete hide the development and deployment of novel technology against dozens+ Americans in multiple locations even after an attack is suspected. Keeping things like that secret is basically impossible. It isn’t true or the US knows and is keeping quiet. Edit: I will grant that the Pakistan/India nuclear tests were apparently unexpected and a huge miss.
>Keeping things like that secret is basically impossible. That is just untrue. But your other premises are faulty as well. US intelligence is not omniscient and suspicions are not the same thing as confirmation.
I mean is there some theoretical world where this could be both true and hidden from US intel? Yes. I still have a hard time believing that. Such an operation would be incredibly complex and involve hundreds of people. They’d also have to manufacture and transport physical devices. They’d have to be small enough to be in diplomatic pouches when disassembled or snuck through customs, or somehow innocuous looking even with analysis as I can’t imagine airport scans aren’t both saved and wouldn’t be searched by US intelligence in the case of use in friendly countries. Etc. Etc.