France Uncovers a Vast Russian Disinformation Campaign In Europe (economist.com) 304
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Economist: Russia hasbeen at the forefront ofinternet disinformationtechniques at least since 2014, when it pioneered the use of bot farms to spread fake news about its invasion of Crimea. According to French authorities, the Kremlin is at it again. On February 12th Viginum, the French foreign-disinformation watchdog, announced it had detected preparations for a large disinformation campaign in France, Germany, Poland and other European countries, tied in part to the second anniversary of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and the elections to the European Parliament in June. Viginum said it had uncovered a Russian network of 193 websites which it codenames "Portal Kombat." Most of these sites, such as topnews.uz.ua, were created years ago and many were left dormant. Over 50 of them, such as news-odessa.ru and pravda-en.com, have been created since 2022. Current traffic to these sites, which exist in various languages including French, German, Polish and English, is low. But French authorities think they are ready to be activated aggressively as part of what one official calls a "massive" wave of Russian disinformation.
Viginum says it watched the sites between September and December 2023. It concluded that they do not themselves generate news stories, but are designed to spread "deceptive or false" content about the war in Ukraine, both on websites and via social media. The underlying objective is to undermine support for Ukraine in Europe. According to the French authorities, the network is controlled by a single Russian organization. [...] As the campaign for the European Parliament elections draws near, France is thought to be a particular target for Moscow. According to an article in theWashington Postin December, Kremlin documents show that Russia has been intensifying its effort to undermine French backing for Ukraine. It also has a clear interest in promoting division in France, at a time when Marine Le Pen is riding high in the polls for the next presidential election in 2027. The hard-right leader, who financed previous campaigns with a Russian bank loan, stands to benefit the most from France's polarized politics
Viginum says it watched the sites between September and December 2023. It concluded that they do not themselves generate news stories, but are designed to spread "deceptive or false" content about the war in Ukraine, both on websites and via social media. The underlying objective is to undermine support for Ukraine in Europe. According to the French authorities, the network is controlled by a single Russian organization. [...] As the campaign for the European Parliament elections draws near, France is thought to be a particular target for Moscow. According to an article in theWashington Postin December, Kremlin documents show that Russia has been intensifying its effort to undermine French backing for Ukraine. It also has a clear interest in promoting division in France, at a time when Marine Le Pen is riding high in the polls for the next presidential election in 2027. The hard-right leader, who financed previous campaigns with a Russian bank loan, stands to benefit the most from France's polarized politics
This comment section is gonna be good. (Score:4, Funny)
Come on out and tell us you don’t exist!
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The /. fortune at the bottom is apt just as I read the summary:
e-credibility: the non-guaranteeable likelihood that the electronic data you're seeing is genuine rather than somebody's made-up crap. - Karl Lehenbauer
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All you're going to get are the nonsolipsists. That is, people who suspect that they are imaginary.
Re: This comment section is gonna be good. (Score:5, Interesting)
So then they introduce misinformation propaganda about their political opponents
Makes no sense at all. 1) It's *The Economist*, a British newspaper without any influence on French electors, which talks about the potential political consequences. The report from the government agency (here https://www.sgdsn.gouv.fr/publ... [sgdsn.gouv.fr] the bottom link is the translation into English), makes no reference to any politician or politics or party. It quantifies the Russian influence and, as you commented, found it rather unsuccessful.
2) Please let us know which part is a misinformation about a political opponent. The Economist says Le Pen funded her political campaign in 2014/2015 with Russian loans. This is a well known fact that has been amply discussed by the party leaders themselves. Here latest declarations from Le Pen in September 2023 https://www.francetvinfo.fr/po... [francetvinfo.fr] (in French). She says they just finished paying it back.
Re: This comment section is gonna be good. (Score:5, Informative)
a few ad riddled scam domains with blatant auto-generated content isnâ(TM)t going to sway anyone.
You have no idea. Yes, people are that stupid. The average Russian disinformation campaign isn't too sophisticated, but neither are their targets.
Re: This comment section is gonna be good. (Score:3)
Re: This comment section is gonna be good. (Score:2)
Re: This comment section is gonna be good. (Score:5, Insightful)
From over here it seems that at least one party outsourced that job to Russia now.
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That's not necessarily true, but given the circumstances, a reasonable assumption.
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Nope, it's a bootstrapping system. You hook in the useful idiots with the obvious bullshit (QAnon, etc) and now you have 1-2% of the electorate sure...SURE..they are on the inside. There's no one more zealous than a recent convert. Now you come in with the deep fakes, the semi-plausible, grade A crypto-bullshit and if all the sudden hundreds of thousands of people are posting about it everywhere you see...well, its gotta be true, right? That many people can't be wrong!
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TL;DR
Re:This comment section is gonna be good. (Score:5, Insightful)
In my opinion, and it is just that, such sites don't need to be vastly expensive or large.
What they need to be is something for trolls on social media to point at as sources. If there's a list of three, people don't even click the links to read the content.
See Tucker Carlson (Score:4, Insightful)
See Tucker Carlson's recent sycophantic interview with Putin, where they both spread mountains of disinformation. This shit is has spread on the right. I'm deeply saddened that Trump will likely betray the people of Ukraine the second he enters office, judging by the propaganda he's been repeating, like the idea we're running out of ammo or that the war is expensive for us.
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I really do not get the right-wing adoration for Putin. Is that not basically betraying their own core values? Or is Putin not seen as a socialist leader?
Well, anyways, the more Trump fucks up the US-Europe relations, the more the Europeans have to get their shit together. Hence it would not be all bad. It would be pretty much the end of the US as the leading western power though.
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I really do not get the right-wing adoration for Putin. Is that not basically betraying their own core values? Or is Putin not seen as a socialist leader?
Putin is a fascist, not a socialist, so he is solidly aligned with their actual core values. They claim to be in favor of free speech, but then they fight free expression that they don't agree with, so we know they don't actually believe in that.
Re:See Tucker Carlson (Score:4, Informative)
That's rich coming from the left that literally cried when Twitter undid bans.
Twitter bans leftists for sharing facts about Elno, this is not the argument you are looking for
Re:See Tucker Carlson (Score:5, Interesting)
I really do not get the right-wing adoration for Putin. Is that not basically betraying their own core values?
They have no core values beyond gaining power. Russian money and Russian botnets can influence people and put or keep them in power. It's why they despise democracy; block voting by non-GOP voters, disregarding voter amendments, etc. There's no better bedfellow than someone who also despises democracy.
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Ah, yes. "Conservatives without Conscience", I remember. Basically the scum of the scum and no actually conservative values to be found anywhere. Real conservatives still have moden values and you can find a compromise with them. These people? Not so much.
Re:See Tucker Carlson (Score:5, Insightful)
I really do not get the right-wing adoration for Putin. Is that not basically betraying their own core values? Or is Putin not seen as a socialist leader?
The Russian Ministry of Truth is acutely sensitive to social tensions in the US and the West in general. Every time an opportunity presents itself, they fan the flames of discord and polarization through official social media channels backed up by bot farms.
Popular topics: immigration, the Woke movement, BLM... the Russian side presents itself as the last bastion of conservative values: a strong-man leader taking care of his own people, with complete contept towards "societal degeneration" presented as gays and wokes. This clearly appeals to conservative and right-wing circles in the West.
It's all bullshit of course, since Putin is really a former KGB turned mafia boss, whose inner circle is bleeding the country dry with corruption - ordinary Russians struggling to cope, while the ruling class spends their time in yachts and palaces. The ruling class who by the way send their children to the "degenerate West" to live and be educated - it's where they own most of their palaces and where they spend their leisure. Not even they want to live in Russia.
Then there's of course the full spectrum authoritarian rule - Italian mafia style. Real journalists and political opponents are in exile, in prison or murdered. There is barely a country with a higher murder rate against journalists in the world. Russia is on the lowest ranks in any type of freedom - speech, press, religion - but conservatives turn a blind eye because they admire strongman Putin.
It's a hypocrisy that is simply staggering in its scope and implications. But it already begins with Trump, who is an admirer of such anti-democratic, authoritarian strong-men, would probably like nothing more than becoming one himself, and is about as far away from traditional, conservative values as you can get, but still the far-right and conservatives love him. There is simply no reconciling all of it. People have been successfully propagandized to the fullest, and its utter madness from there.
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You have to differentiate between con artists and dupes. Just like priests and parish aren't in it for the same, neither are the right wing drum majors and their patsies.
The former are in it for the money and power. They see what Putin got in Russia, the freedom to use any kind of power he pleases, the availability of money and amenities for his cronies, and they of course want that too. This is sold to the dupes as a way to get back to the "good old days", you know, when women were property and so were the
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It comes down to partisan politics. Biden supports democracy in Ukraine, and opposes Russia.
So naturally, the Right must oppose those things. This is how our political parties make all decisions now.
Re:See Tucker Carlson (Score:5, Insightful)
Usually, in America, any mention of "commie", "red" or even "russian" gets you cancelled faster than you can say "comrade". For some reason though, a man, who once said "I think Putin and I would get along very well", who is openly talking about not aiding Ukraine so that "peace can be restored", is a potential president, and polls suggest people actually want him (versus being a crackpot no one wants). I'm not sure how the two things can reconcile as well as they seem to be.
If you want a larger, more powerful Russia: vote trump.
Re:See Tucker Carlson (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not to mention his recent comments about encouraging Russia to "do whatever the hell they want" to NATO countries that he feels aren't pulling their weight.
The Orange Asshole is one to talk about paying his way. Rules for thee, but not for me!
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Re:See Tucker Carlson (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest things to come out of that:
1. Trump is telling all the chickenhawks in the GOP that he really will sell out our allies
2. We have the most ironic piece of audio ever recorded: Trump telling people that they have to pay their bills, without even a hint of self-acknowledgement that he has dodged paying his own bills through numerous "strategic" bankruptcies.
Re:See Tucker Carlson (Score:5, Interesting)
According to recent reports, Russia is losing the same amount, if not more, of its tanks every month than it can replace either by building them or pulling T-60s out of mothball (yes, T-60 is the correct model). This is on top of having to forcibly "enlist" people to fight who are given a week or so of training then sent as meat waves to assault Ukrainian positions.
As more and more reports come in of Russian units refusing to assault [businessinsider.com] as well as beating to death [newsweek.com] their own commanders, Russia will crack. Even with blocking troops, units will break and at some point the lines will collapse. This will be especially true once Ukraine takes out the Crimean bridge.
With the passage of the Ukrainian aid package last night they will have new life breathed into them, no matter what that other Russian agent says about Putin being assassinated [fortune.com] when Ukraine wins.*
* Most of this aid isn't being given directly to Ukraine. It's being used to pay for munitions and equipment being built by American companies. Apparently Cheeto and Carp don't like American companies getting paid for the work they do.
Re:See Tucker Carlson (Score:5, Informative)
It all depends on how much support they get and how soon it comes. You saw how long it took the West to supply them with 200-250 tanks for the counter-offensive, of which only 16 were from the US. Meanwhile Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Bulgaria between them must have sent upwards of 500 and a similar number of armored vehicles. And rashistan is still the biggest equipment supplier, even though the front line hasn't moved much.
But Ukraine is trading lives and land for time the "collective West", as putin calls it, is wasting to make up their mind, and that is an unacceptably expensive trade.
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Letting putin's rashistan win in Ukraine will virtually guarantee an attack on the smaller Eastern European countries. russia's non-military economy is badly hurt and is poised to remain so for the foreseeable future. The only obvious way to deal with it for the regime is more war, especially given the preparations for moving to mobilization and total war economy after the elections in March.
The weaker the West, the more certain the attack is, and the more likely the usage of a nuclear weapon.
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Lol wut?
Re:See Tucker Carlson (Score:5, Interesting)
Russia isn't producing enough shells. It's importing them from North Korea [voanews.com]. The supposed second largest army on the planet and it can't even make enough artillery shells so it has to resort to another dictator.
As for the rest of your comments, most are typical Russian sewage. Having to use 50+ year old tanks is not "doing fine". It shows a complete lack of arms production, ability to repair equipment, and overall general ineptitude.
No one said anything about using railroads for moving troops or supplies. Armies have been doing that since right after railroads are created. What people are talking about is the abysmal usage and offloading of supplies BY HAND. Explain how a supposed country like Russia still can't figure out how to properly pack, load, then unload supplies from a train in the 21st century.
So please, spare us your Russian drivel how everything is giong according to plan. This was supposed to be over in two weeks, three years ago.
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It both produces seven times more https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org] AND imports from allies. For tank production, look into the same.
As for the hand-loading of trains, and also the age of the tanks tell me, what kind of tech would you want to use for your war effort? Because Russia will definitely say: as low-tech as possible, as cheap as possible, and as easy maintenance as possible. When you are taking damage, you will approach that level anyway. Might as well get good at it from the start. And this is wh
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Every fact can be interpreted e.g. a glass can be half empty or half full. The US since Biden has been helping Ukraine immensely. In terms of money indeed EU is giving more, however disregarding US help is foolish. Complaining that it's not enough - maybe, but remember that US has to take care of it's own security first and things are not looking good for the coming years, additionally fallen Russia is not in the US interest as lots of nukes would end up in the hands of various terrorist groups mostly enemi
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the Polish government has been warning EU for decades about the danger of dependency on Russian resources - they've been laughed at. Most of the world till this day does nothing, even profiting by getting cheap resources from Russia.
Never forget that during a presidential debate between Obama and Romney in October 2012, Obama smirked “When you were asked, ‘What’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America,’ you said ‘Russia.’ Not al Qaeda; you said Russia. And, the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
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Yeah, then Obama shamefully refused to arm Ukraine against Russia for years, enabling Russia's 2022 invasion. Trump, too.
Re:See Tucker Carlson (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, then Obama shamefully refused to arm Ukraine against Russia for years, enabling Russia's 2022 invasion. Trump, too.
I think it's more complicated: ..."
1. During 2014 Crimea invasion Ukraine Navy Chief surrendered to Russians - not a very trustful military to give heavy or advanced weaponry to.
2. Obama did provide assistance to Ukraine's military: "... By March 2015, the US had committed more than $120 million in security assistance for Ukraine and had pledged an additional $75 million worth of equipment including UAVs, counter-mortar radars, night vision devices and medical supplies, according to the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency. That assistance also included some 230 armored Humvee vehicles.
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Also, had Obama responded with real, heavy aid, it's very likely Russia would have been deterred early.
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The thing with Ukrainians is that they were already betrayed long ago. Right from the start the US never committed to winning the war. Banning Poland from sending their planes to Ukraine and never making any attempt to clear the skies.
I agree the west has been way too slow to give Ukraine weapon systems, generally waiting until "oh, they really could have used that before".
Sending in BoJo to scuttle the peace deal Ukraine and Russia had negotiated...
Huh? Russia was never interested in any deal but surrender.
And now, whether the US is running out of ammo or not, who knows?
Running out no, but the US doesn't have the reserves they'd normally like so needs to scale up production.
But the correlation of Ukraine having been known to be running on fumes ever since Gaza hit the fan is there.
That has more to do with the GOP cutting off funding to Ukraine.
And judging by what has been going on on the frontline, esp Avdiivka, in the recent weeks, they are all but out.
In the words of Kissinger, "To be an enemy of the US is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal". The US always ends up betraying their friends.
I wouldn't have said that in the past, but it's definitely proving to be the case right now.
Cutting off a friend in the middle of a defensive
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The two big problems I see are:
A) Biden is a pussy and is afraid of Putin's empty sabre rattling on nukes. Even if they used them, they'd have little tactical effect on the battlefield, and would spell Russia's end. The U.S. would not respond in kind, but would respond by sending in the U.S. Army, which could not then be labelled an escalation.
B) Terrible American leadership. Biden's administration is extraordinarily bureaucratic, and unwilling to listen to opposing points of view, like the minority repo
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The two big problems I see are:
A) Biden is a pussy and is afraid of Putin's empty sabre rattling on nukes. Even if they used them, they'd have little tactical effect on the battlefield, and would spell Russia's end. The U.S. would not respond in kind, but would respond by sending in the U.S. Army, which could not then be labelled an escalation.
Possibly. I think the US has been ridiculous when it comes to talk of holding back weapons (or putting restrictions on them) for reasons of "escalation". Like what's Russia going to do? Use more POWs as human shields?
But I think there are good non-Nuke reasons why other countries don't want to fight directly. Just as a rule of thumb it stops wars from getting larger.
B) Terrible American leadership. Biden's administration is extraordinarily bureaucratic, and unwilling to listen to opposing points of view, like the minority report out of State regarding a hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan. He is arrogant, senile, and unable to stand up to the leftists in his administration. Trump can't stand up to the tiniest perceived slight to him personally, so I don't see him making smart or brave decisions, either.
The Afghanistan withdrawal was a screwup, but I'd lay that more at the feet of the military, it would have been their plan. Ideally Biden would
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The Afghanistan withdrawal was a screwup, but I'd lay that more at the feet of the military, it would have been their plan.
If an administration gives the military an unworkable set of requirements you can't be surprised when a bad plan comes out the other end. It's not like the military push back with a response of "we understand that the commander and chief has ordered us to withdraw, but we can't come up with a good plan that can be enacted on the defined timelines so we refuse."
I don't know enough of the situation to say with high confidence where exactly fault lies. As with so many things both the administration(s) and
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The Afghanistan withdrawal was a screwup, but I'd lay that more at the feet of the military, it would have been their plan.
If an administration gives the military an unworkable set of requirements you can't be surprised when a bad plan comes out the other end. It's not like the military push back with a response of "we understand that the commander and chief has ordered us to withdraw, but we can't come up with a good plan that can be enacted on the defined timelines so we refuse."
I don't know enough of the situation to say with high confidence where exactly fault lies. As with so many things both the administration(s) and military both bear some responsibility.
No, but the military could say "this is the best plan we could come up with, but we still think it would be a disaster".
Ultimately this is one of those questions where you really need good investigative reporters to investigate and distill the facts.
Whose plan was it? How did they think it would work? Why did it go wrong? Why didn't they anticipate that?
Like the OP claimed a dissenting view came from the State department. Was that improperly overlooked? Why?
It could be that Biden pushed hard for that rapid
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State always presents their recommendation, and a minority report. Biden's administration appeared never to have read it because it predicted everything that happened.
This came down to Biden, His nonexistent leadership. He made the decisions, and he set the conditions the military was ordered to follow.
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So you want the US President to be more reckless when dealing with other nuclear powers? Let's just roll the dice on the 3rd offensive use of nuclear weapons in human history and see what happens?
extraordinarily bureaucratic
Yeah, that's important in foreign relations, you want to lean on your State Department and your Ambassadors, you want to forge alliances and good working relationships with the regional allies, you don't want the President going off on their own and making simplified decisions about complex situations with multiple
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So you want the US President to be more reckless when dealing with other nuclear powers? Let's just roll the dice on the 3rd offensive use of nuclear weapons in human history and see what happens?
If Putin tomorrow said we must stop helping Ukraine or he may start using nukes, would you say it's "reckless" not to withdraw? Or would you look at the threat rationally and ignore it?
At every point, Putin has made constant nuclear threats in order to scare Biden into delivering military aid slow enough that he can draw the war out long enough so his propaganda efforts could build steam and Ukraine's small military aged population could be eliminated and their ability to win reduced.
It's worked.
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If Putin tomorrow said we must stop helping Ukraine or he may start using nukes, would you say it's "reckless" not to withdraw? Or would you look at the threat rationally and ignore it?
He has said that already, several times. The fact that they telegraph is a good sign that they do not intend to use them recklessly. There is a certain balance and dance of statements in geopolitics. There are spoken and unspoken lines. I think Biden was very prudent when from the very outset of this conflict he said that US troops would not be on the ground or directly involved. This telegraphs to Russia that nukes are basically off the table. You are agreeing with me that Biden's foreign policy wit
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Both countries/governments are now allowing the supply of modern weapons but in the US it has stopped again due to an other old guy that is friends with Putin.
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Totally agree. Ukraine's only real chance to win is with massive aid, yet Biden has made no effort to convert any factories to producing artillery shells. He's refused to lead by example, delaying every move for so long as to be useless.
People on our side have been saying all along that Russia "can't win," but that was only true if we gave it a knockout punch early. We're running this war from afar the same way we ran Vietnam: by committee.
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Thanks for a nice summary of the Russian propaganda. We are not running out of ammo. It is not expensive.
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If you want to go that route, Biden betrayed Ukraine (and all of NATO) by removing sanctions on Nordstream 2 and then doing nothing but biting his fingernails while the Russians spent weeks lining up on the Ukrainian border.
W proved in Georgia over a decade ago that all the US has to do to halt a Russian advance is to move some State Department officials into harm's way. It's not a permanent solution, but it certainly buys enough time for locals to mount a defensive posture. Biden could have stalled the Ru
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I get my compensation by giving blowjobs to Putin, obviously.
Now is there something incorrect, wrong or false in my post, or is it just that it makes you feel bad?
Re:See Tucker Carlson (Score:4, Insightful)
Sending in BoJo to scuttle the peace deal Ukraine and Russia had negotiated...
Well, here's an outright lie.
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So you mean the land for peace deal that the Ukrainians have said from the get go that they are massively against?
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/07... [cnn.com]
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Wow, Boris must have been terribly convincing if he not only scuttled the peace deal Ukraine wanted but he also convinced them all to rule out land for peace deals in all future contexts.
Give me a break, if Ukraine wants land for peace they only need to get Russia on board with the trade.
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What "European assholes", the ones that have been arming and fueling the Ukrainian army and paying for their civil and military administration, while the putinists in the US republican party have been sabotaging the war effort?
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Russia has always had an advantage in manpower.
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If they want land for peace they can ask Russia for it at any time. Only they arent because they dont want to surrender parts of their country to a country who is killing their citizens and who can blame them?
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Right, the problem is they're stupid. What an amazing conclusion.
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Nice deflection, but I did not see anything about the peace deal Ukraine and Russia had negotiated .
There were, instead, russian demands for Ukraine to give up claims to Crimea, surrender of the occupied territories, and for a change of the Ukraine's political system into a russian-controlled puppet state.
Had the Soviet Union accepted a similar deal with Hitler, as the russians say, they would still be drinking Bavarian beer.
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So here's what you offered:
- A stink peace by the Quincy Institute, an Iranian-backed front that tries to advocate for isolationism in the USA to promote Iranian regional objectives.
- A BBC video, accompanying text saying There is "absolutely no sign" that Russia wants to reach a deal with Ukraine, and it could not be trusted even if one was on offer, Boris Johnson has told the Commons. The former prime minister warned against a "land for peace" deal, and said he doubted Volodymyr Zelensky or any Ukrainia
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I don't know how pro-russian is pravda.ua, my impression is not much, but most of us still remember what really happened.
Namely, that russians in the north got their nose bloodied badly and understood they can't take kiev for 2 days, so instead they decided to withdraw, regroup and press on with attacks in the south, where the plan was to extend the "land corridor" to Crimea all the way to "Transnistria", the stretch of russia-controlled territory of Moldova.
A plan that is so far failing.
Re:See Tucker Carlson (Score:4, Funny)
Since I might have one of the few to know this available, whose is bigger, Putin's or Trump's?
Re:See Tucker Carlson (Score:4, Insightful)
Banning Poland from sending their planes to Ukraine and never making any attempt to clear the skies.
Because the tens of billions in weapons and arms we've sent them is completely canceled out by us objecting to a small handful of planes being sent to them because we got cold feet early on about too much aid flowing to them too soon thus starting a possible conflict between NATO and Russia which everyone wants to avoid? That's absurd, never mind the fact that those planes have since been sent over with our blessings as well.
The US always ends up betraying their friends
Any knowledge of history would show this is very clearly not true
Sending in BoJo to scuttle the peace deal Ukraine and Russia had negotiated...
Going by your links later in the post that was a land for peace deal and Ukraine has always said they are against such resolutions.
Just to go over a few of your ridiculous claims.
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The handful of planes would have had an outsize effect in the beginning of the war, when there was much more to protect. The tens of billions of dollars of help on the other hand did not amount to the nice ring they had to them, because they were spent on basically insulin prices, because the US arms industry saw the opportunity and jacked up the price to match the aid money to existing stocks.
But more importantly, getting cold feet really was the way to show Putin who's boss. Right in the beginning of the
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The handful of planes would have had an outsize effect in the beginning of the war, when there was much more to protect.
More to protect? The battle lines really arent that much different than what they were at the start of this current invasion and Ukrainian infrastructure is just as important now to protect as it was at the start of the war. What more was there to protect?
The tens of billions of dollars of help on the other hand did not amount to the nice ring they had to them, because they were spent on basically insulin prices, because the US arms industry saw the opportunity and jacked up the price to match the aid money to existing stocks.
I'd be fascinated in seeing a source for your claim given that much of our military aid has been in the context of direct gifts of weapons and not cash.
Right in the beginning of the war he was sent the message loud and clear that the US was not willing to risk anything, and therefore, that Russia was allowed to do whatever it wanted. And he has been doing whatever he wants, and will continue to do so.
So we should have what? Entered the war directly? What a great way to start a nuclear war.
Betraying friends - did you actually look up that Kissinger quote? Go ahead, I'll wait. Was he not basing his quote on knowledge of history? He was. He was one of those who made that history. Look up the friends he was talking about, and see what has become of them. Look up the friends who have put their lives on US promises later, and see what has become of those, too...
Hahaha, what?
Re:See Tucker Carlson (Score:5, Informative)
The tens of billions of dollars of help on the other hand did not amount to the nice ring they had to them, because they were spent on basically insulin prices, because the US arms industry saw the opportunity and jacked up the price to match the aid money to existing stocks.
Lie.
We've been sending them munitions that are approaching their "use-by" date, which we would have been paying money to dispose of anyway. The money being appropriated is to buy new munitions to replace what left the warehouse, and that money is going directly to US manufacturers, staying right here in North America.
We basically spent a single-digit percentage of the defense budget to clear out old expiring stock and replace with new - which we were going to have to do anyway - while totally dismantling a genocidal Russia's ability to project military power and collapsing their economy. And somehow this isn't the best value-per-dollar in National Security spending in the last 50 years?
Remember, Russia started this bullshit. And they can end it any time they like by rolling out of Ukraine and fucking off back to Russia.
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Yes and as I pointed out in literally what you quoted we have refrained from ramping Ukraine up too quickly and limited what arms we've given them so we dont provoke Russia too much and start a nuclear conflict. If Russia gets beaten too bad in all this or feels too cornered they might just try using nukes and then we all have a much bigger problem to contend with.
So in other words, of course NATO could have waltzed in and bulldozed the Russian army in a second if they wanted to but that's a not a smart thi
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Right, why dont you quote me where i "admitted" that.
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No, that's not what was "basically admitted" at all. That's what you got from what they said, because you completely lack the ability to understand nuance of any kind; or possibly because you are arguing in bad faith and intentionally want to misrepresent what they said.
Either way it shows that you are either stupid or disingenuous, possibly both, which isn't a good look for you.
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How about where you characterize Ukraine's position of not wanting to be invaded and cede land to appease their aggressive genocidal neighbor as "scuttling the peace deal" ?
Basically you're saying that Ukraine should roll over and just take the genocide, because appeasement or tyrants is easier for you to swallow than opposition to tyranny and genocide. Well I'm sorry if your sense of morality is so easily buckled, and your understanding of 20th century history is so woefully inadequate.
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What "nuclear war"?
Xi prohibited russia from even mentioning nuclear in Kazahstan 2022, and by and large since then the russian chieftans have been quiet about it.
The only exception is the drunk clown medvedev, who is the nuclear comic relief for the Z-est portion of the Z crowd.
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I'm reminded of "On The Beach" by Nevil Shute. I'm sure the pre-destruction repartee sounded a little like this.
People should really read more. "Alas, Babylon", "Canticle for Leibovitz", even "Lucifer's Hammer", they all have something.
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People should read less fiction and more history.
Alas, they won't read either.
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At least Genocide Joe still concerns himself with laws.
We know the Dorito-tinted proto-fascist coup-plotting rapist wannabe dictator isn't.
I'll take a slightly older guy who still believes in the constraints of law on his power over an old guy who doesn't, every single time. Nothing else matters.
Re:See Tucker Carlson (Score:5, Insightful)
The choice should be easy as Trump wouldnt even be making the small efforts Biden is to reign in Israel.
Yep. All you have to do is watch Trump's face when he talks about Iron Dome, he's like a kid with a new toy. There's absolutely 0% chance he would do anything about Israel. That's only about 0.5% less than Joe, who went around Congress to fund genocide in the middle east while continuing to ignore his promise of student loan forgiveness for everyone (I notice he didn't go around congress again for that shit) so frankly I wish we could put them both in the same rocket to Mars with Musk, but it still doesn't make Trump a good choice on any level.
Re:See Tucker Carlson (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd cite the Trump initiated and backed Israeli / Palestinian "peace proposal" that Kushner drafted that was clearly not at all for its claimed purpose and likely only made things worse.
I give a tiny bit more credit to Biden in all this than you do though. I think the very tiny bits of restraint Israel has at times shown is likely due to foreign pressure and we're the biggest foreign pressure there is for Israel. He's still not doing well in my book in regards to what's happening though.
Re:See Tucker Carlson (Score:5, Insightful)
You didn't have to announce you're a crossburning, neonazi fucking antisemite, but since you did...
"Never again" was supposed to be "never again for anyone" not "never again for anyone but the Palestinians, against whom we can commit genocide".
Bibi is an American citizen transplant who, in typical American style, thinks he's a better Jew than all the other Jews. You can see this tendency in Americans over and over again when they hold on to racial attitudes that their immigrant forefathers have and remain cultural cavemen even while the nations their parents came from have become more progressive.
Netanyahu has bragged multiple times about how he is funding Hamas with the end game being destruction of the Palestinian state. Most notably in March 2019, I hope that helps you find your ass with both hands and a map, or at least lets you find the evidence with google.
Hamas never attacked a non-military target until after the Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre, where a Jewish Invader/Settler murdered 29 people including children and wounded 125 more, and then the IDF followed this up by murdering 19 more Palestinians during the resulting protests.
You are pro-genocide, and accuse anyone who opposes it of anti-semitism. But the majority supports a cease fire [reuters.com], and not your hatred and support of mass murder. The modern state of Israel was created by the USA through the UN, which oh yes, by the way also supports a cease fire [un.org]. The genocide of Palestine is an American operation, planned, funded, and supported by the USA, including would-be Nazis like yourself.
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Right. Anyone who thinks the country of Israel is acting in a massively inappropriate way in Gaza must hate Jews. They couldnt possibly just be upset with how the country of Israel is killing tens of thousands of civilians https://www.oxfam.org/en/press... [oxfam.org] .
SpaceThief (Score:3)
Waahhh???? (Score:5, Funny)
You mean Russians are lying? That's unpossible! Everyone knows they are the epitome of truth and honesty. Their Russian agent said so. They even had Tokyo Carlson let them tell their truth of history.
Get serious (Score:5, Informative)
We've known about Russian actions against foreign states for a long time; the Kremlin never gave up on the Cold War.
Nobody really cared enough to stop it, even when they were using nerve agents to assassinate people on UK soil.
Russia ought to be treated like a rabid dog .. if you can't put it down, isolate it until it dies on its own.
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Russia itself is not the problem. The people running it are.
You're essentially looking at Germany in the 1930s. Same deal. And yes, a lot of propaganda will result in a lot of support. But I think we have by now seen that even Germans can change if you show them in no uncertain terms that militarist conquest is a thing of the past and that they should be more selective when it comes to their leaders, so why shouldn't it be possible with Russia?
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In terms of international relations, the fact that some Russians are decent doesn't matter. It's not stopping Russia from invading neighbours or spreading agitprop.
Article shows how little it knows French politics (Score:4, Insightful)
promoting division in France, at a time when Marine Le Pen is riding high in the polls for the next presidential election in 2027
Marine Le Pen may be riding high in the polls, she'll never become president anymore than her racist, extreme right, antisemite presidential candidate of a father did.
The presidential election in France is a runoff voting system, in which two candidates are chosen from a plethora of candidates in the first round, and the winner of the two remaining candidates takes all at the second round. Both rounds are direct elections - i.e. the people vote for the candidates directly, unlike the US.
There's a bewildering number of candidates - sometimes several dozens - in the first round ranging from ridiculous extreme left to ridiculous extreme right (that's Le Pen essentially). Historically, the French use the first round as a vehicle to express their discontent of the current administration by voting for some wild candidate, trusting that two "reasonable" candidates will emerge for the second round, in which the French stop being silly and vote for the most pragmatic president.
Usually the traditional social democrat and the traditional conservative candidates end up battling it out at the second round, but not always:
In 2002, Le Pen's father made it to the second round. The French were so horrified by what they had done, they voted the defender Jacques Chirac in with a score worthy of a banana republic dictator.
In 2022, Le Pen (daughter) also made it to the second round, and again the French voted in her opponent Emmanuel Macron by a wide margin. Because really, when it comes down to it, most French people know it would be an absolute disaster if someone like Le Pen (father or daughter) was elected.
Le Pen will never become president. If there's something you can count on with the French, it's that.
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In 2022, Le Pen (daughter) also made it to the second round, and again the French voted in her opponent Emmanuel Macron by a wide margin. Because really, when it comes down to it, most French people know it would be an absolute disaster if someone like Le Pen (father or daughter) was elected.
Le Pen will never become president. If there's something you can count on with the French, it's that.
That's what people thought about the US and Trump. Granted, she has a lot more ground to make up, but simple familiarity means she'll look a lot more "normal" this time around. And if you manage a couple well-times scandals the unthinkable starts looking possible.
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That's what people thought about the US and Trump.
Trump can't happen in France: France has a working education system. By and large, the French are well beyond educated enough to vote a French Trump in.
In fact, that's how Marine Le Pen manages to do better than her father: Jean-Marie Le Pen was a crass racist and antisemite who only garnered votes from people like him. He started making inroads in the polls when he started pretending he had sophisticated and well thought-out policies, and started to fool more educated voters into believing he might be a se
Re: Article shows how little it knows French polit (Score:3)
You might be surprised. All of Europe is moving rapidly to the right. There are various reasons, but by far the biggest is the massive illegal immigration (as well as many "asylum seekers" with no legitimate grounds for asylum).
The leftist politicians have let this get totally out of control. The right is leveraging this for all it's worth. Le Pen may very well be elected.
Nazi Leader Hermann Göring Quote (Score:5, Informative)
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."
"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."
"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." Source [mit.edu]
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I'm not clear what your point is supposed to be.
The quote is about manipulating the public into fighting in a war.
It applies to Russia, since a lot of their pretext is this fantasy that they must defend oppressed Russians in other countries (even though those folks aren't Russian and they aren't oppressed), but the story is about Russian disinformation in Europe so it's not really relevant.
The quote also doesn't make sense applied to Ukraine since they pretty obviously are being attacked and don't have much
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Brexit (Score:3)
Wait! What? (Score:2)
The French are only discovering the Nazis now? Ninety years late?
Hint: That Maginot Line thing isn't by going to work.
This is a low-information story (Score:5, Insightful)
And I think the comments thus far back that up.
A story is "low-information" if it has:
- Vague, but alarming language: check
- Uses a pay walled news source: check
- Is politically oriented: check
- Contains few facts that can be directly debated: check
- Supports "The Current Thing/The Establishment": check
What makes comments similarly "low-information":
- Knee-jerk reactions to the narrative, not the details: check
- Me-too-me-too comments, very little debate: check
- Politically oriented: check
If Slashdot is ever to regain its shine as a place for technical people to discuss the world, the editors are going to have to do a lot better than this example. There are so many wonderful technology stories out there, there's no good reason whatsoever that we have to wade through politics. Bring back the hard sciences to Slashdot! It was really good there, for a nice, long time. Now, not so much.
Re: This is a low-information story (Score:3)
Definition of "disinformation" (Score:3)
Why worry? (Score:3)