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Russian invasion of Ukraine


Sonam

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11 minutes ago, alta-pete said:

Dang. I did mean to tag you. I do hope you’re raking in the overtime. 

If they were doing anything they didn't want Russia to know about they wouldn't appear on Flightradar. Unless they're bluffing of course!

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1 hour ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

My Russian is a bit rusty...

Using google translate

After two weeks of war, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a crackdown on his beloved agency, the FSB. According to journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, the so-called 5th service of the FSB came under attack. Its leadership, according to the sources of Soldatov and Borogan, was placed under house arrest. There is no official confirmation of this information. Meduza asked Soldatov and Borogan to explain what was going on.

Andrey Soldatov and Irina Borogan are journalists and writers, authors of several books about the Russian government and special services. They have been studying the FSB for many years and have an extensive network of sources.

The 5th service (officially called the Service of Operational Information and International Relations) oversees the FSB's communications with foreign partners, including with US agencies. Inside the service, there is the infamous Department of Operational Information (DPI), which performs the functions of the FSB's foreign intelligence.

 

The FSB acquired the right to conduct operations abroad in the late 1990s, when Vladimir Putin was the director of this special service. At the same time, a new department was formed within the FSB, which was instructed to conduct intelligence operations on the territory of the former USSR. (We have been following the activities of this FSB unit for a long time and write about it.)

When the “color revolutions” led to the fact that many pro-Kremlin leaders in the post-Soviet space lost power, the administration was given the task of doing everything to keep these countries in Russia’s sphere of influence.

 

In 2004, the department was upgraded in status, having been transformed into a full-fledged department - the Department of Operational Information. Soon he had a new leader - Sergei Beseda, who had previously served in the FSB department that oversaw the presidential administration of Russia, where he had excellent connections. Soon, DPI officers began to be noticed in Belarus, Moldova and Abkhazia. It turned out that their main task there was not classic espionage, but support for pro-Kremlin candidates in local elections. However, it was Ukraine in the entire post-Soviet space that occupied a special place in the priorities of the DPI.

In June 2010, we received information that a website with the telling name lubyanskayapravda.com (Lubyanskaya Pravda) appeared, where secret FSB documents were posted. Among the various intelligence reports there were published DPI reports addressed directly to Putin. One of them talked about a document that was falsified to undermine relations between Ukraine and Turkmenistan. It was about a fake report of the Ukrainian special services on the financing of the Turkmen opposition. It was a classic FSB action: the DPI leaked a fake report to the Ukrainian media, and then something unexpected happened: Russian intelligence (SVR) accepted this report as genuine and reported it to the Kremlin.

Besed was clearly proud of himself when he described what had happened in his report addressed to the first person.

 
 
 

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In April 2014, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry sent a request to the Russian colleagues for interrogation of Beseda. In Kyiv, they claimed that he was in Ukraine on February 20-21, during the revolution on the Maidan. The Ukrainian authorities considered this important in the framework of the investigation of crimes committed during mass actions in Kiev on February 18-22 , 2014 .

The FSB was forced to confirm that Sergei Beseda was indeed in Kyiv on February 20-21. But they claimed that he came only to check the level of protection of the Russian embassy - this is a version that no one believed. Since 2014, Beseda has been on the US and EU sanctions lists.

However, this story did not affect the positions of the 5th service in any way: DPI operatives continued to collect intelligence information in Ukraine, recruited sources and carried out subversive activities.

It was the 5th service that was responsible for providing Vladimir Putin with information about political events in Ukraine on the eve of the invasion. And it seems that after two weeks of the war, Putin finally realized that he was simply misled: the 5th service, afraid to anger the leader, simply supplied him with what he himself wanted to hear.

Now our sources report that General Beseda and his deputy have been placed under house arrest. Among the reasons are the misuse of funds allocated for operations, as well as poor intelligence information. And indeed: the intelligence of Putin's career intelligence officer, as it turned out, was put out of hand very badly.  

Also it's been a well known fact in FSB circles that Putin is a regular poster on a Scottish football website called Pieandbovril.com.  His love for a football club called Hearts makes this a man without a conscience.

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45 minutes ago, alta-pete said:

Dang. I did mean to tag you. I do hope you’re raking in the overtime. 

We don't get overtime. We are however, very busy. 

31 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

If they were doing anything they didn't want Russia to know about they wouldn't appear on Flightradar. Unless they're bluffing of course!

Correct. You only see them when they want you to.

If/when they're on ops, they won't squak replies to civilian radars. All the radar would see is an unidentified plot/track. 

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3 minutes ago, Trackdaybob said:

We don't get overtime. We are however, very busy. 

Correct. You only see them when they want you to.

If/when they're on ops, they won't squak replies to civilian radars. All the radar would see is an unidentified plot/track. 

Same with maritime traffic, apparently the only ships on the Black Sea at the moment are the odd tug and cargo ship. :)

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Right then, If we're going to nick Abramovich's $600 million boat, we better get going. By my calculations it will arrive at Porto Montenegro, just outside Tivat, tomorrow lunchtime. The crew will be rat arsed by midnight and comatose by 3am. There's a 6.05 connecting flight from Edinburgh arrives mid afternoon, see you there.

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I’m not suggesting that the US should get directly involved in Ukraine but Biden saying specifically that they won’t is sending out the wrong message.  “We are keeping all options open” would be a far better position.

 

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18 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

I’m not suggesting that the US should get directly involved in Ukraine but Biden saying specifically that they won’t is sending out the wrong message.  “We are keeping all options open” would be a far better position.

It does rather imply that they've reason to believe that Russia will actually start chucking nukes about if they think direct NATO intervention is on the cards. You'd only reiterate something like that if you're trying to reassure the aggressor.

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4 minutes ago, BFTD said:

It does rather imply that they've reason to believe that Russia will actually start chucking nukes about if they think direct NATO intervention is on the cards. You'd only reiterate something like that if you're trying to reassure the aggressor.

GD appears to be the latest in a line of people who can't seem to grasp that the NATO countries have absolutely zero intention of getting involved in direct conflict with Russia over Ukraine. It isn't our responsibility to actively defend Ukraine and, harsh as it may seem, if the alternative is the very real possibility of a nuclear weapon exchange, then Ukraine is expendable to all except Ukraine.

Putin can do what he likes to Ukraine, and that stance won't change. So long as he leaves NATO countries alone, that will be reciprocated. There's no benefit in making him feel even the slightest bit threatened by direct NATO action in case he decides to blink first and pre-emptively send a few ballistic miles our way.

The sanctions are an attempt to strangle him enough to force him to take what he can in Ukraine and pipe down.

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17 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

GD appears to be the latest in a line of people who can't seem to grasp that the NATO countries have absolutely zero intention of getting involved in direct conflict with Russia over Ukraine. It isn't our responsibility to actively defend Ukraine and, harsh as it may seem, if the alternative is the very real possibility of a nuclear weapon exchange, then Ukraine is expendable to all except Ukraine.

Putin can do what he likes to Ukraine, and that stance won't change. So long as he leaves NATO countries alone, that will be reciprocated. There's no benefit in making him feel even the slightest bit threatened by direct NATO action in case he decides to blink first and pre-emptively send a few ballistic miles our way.

The sanctions are an attempt to strangle him enough to force him to take what he can in Ukraine and pipe down.

Yup.

ThIs war was over as a public health emergency in August 2020. 

No need for these NATO masks now.

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34 minutes ago, BFTD said:

It does rather imply that they've reason to believe that Russia will actually start chucking nukes about if they think direct NATO intervention is on the cards. You'd only reiterate something like that if you're trying to reassure the aggressor.

Yeah, I’m not sure if reassuring an aggressor is a sound policy.

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3 hours ago, virginton said:

Ukraine has two realistic options on the table: either a concession of Luhansk/Donetsk + Crimea (possibly a land corridor to the latter), or a ceasefire and frozen conflict based on current occupation which truncates its borders by more than this. For all the resistance, there's no prospect of actual counter-attack driving the Russians back any time soon.

The sane thing to do is for both sides to recognise that they've got a shite hand to play and wrap things up with Option 1. That doesn't mean normalising relations with Russia, but does involve accepting what is already an irreversible reality.

But once you combine nationalism with blood spilled it becomes very difficult for people on any side of a conflict to see the bigger picture. This is where third parties (Turkey, maybe China) need to act as go betweens. 

Agree with this. The 'realistic' scenario is having to let go of Donbas/Crimea., in return for a withdrawal of Russian troops/ceasefire. 

Its not a happy situation for anyone to have their country divided up, but the alternative is more human and structural damage until they are ground down militarily. 

$14 billion is on its way from America, and would imagine serious cash from the EU as well, which should help with reconstruction. Haven't seen Russia say that Ukraine can't be in the EU, just not NATO, so EU membership could follow.

Shows again that the UK has picked the worst possible time to be out of the EU. Still being in now would have meant the chance to reconfigure economies away from Russian dependence, and be part of a strong trading block and defence area which in time is less reliant on America as well, but no, have to be carping on the sidelines.

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Not this shite again.

Everyone involved in this conflict knew that NATO were not going to intervene if Russia invaded Ukraine (beyond arming them, which has been going on since 2014). 

"We're keeping all options open"

No you fucking aren't m9.

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