Snowdens Secret posted:

Quoting tweets is such a pain in the rear end


Again I have no idea how much of that is armchair BS and there's Rus tweeters in there talking about USA's 'regime protector' forces so it may all be tinfoil nonsense

E: so that'd be these guys: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4th_Guards_Kantemirovskaya_Tank_Division

And these guys: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_Guards_Tamanskaya_Motor_Rifle_Division

Also the newest ECM units: http://dumskaya.net/news/na-byvshej-ukrainskoj-baze-v-krymu-obosnovalis-n-034132/

quote:

The Division was re-formed in 2013 by order of Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu,[5] and will consist of the 5th Separate Motor-Rifle Brigade, the 4th Independent Tank Brigade and other unnamed units.[6] This order is pursuant to Russian President Vladimir Putin's intention to "strengthen the historical continuity" of the Russian Armed Forces by resurrecting the names of "famous, legendary units and formations of the Russian and Soviet armies".[6][7] Another division, the 4th Guards Kantemirovskaya Tank Division was also reinstated under the same order.

Snowdens Secret posted:

Doublepostin' so I don't have to keep editing:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles...0294243784.html


STEALTH TARPS IF ONLY WE'D BOUGHT GRIPENS

Seriously that's a doubling of publicly released estimates in, what, three days?

quote:

The U.S. believes Russia now has nearly 50,000 troops in position for possible operations, including those participating in the declared exercises along the Ukrainian border and those already inside Russian-controlled Crimea, officials said.

U.S. and Western officials previously have said there were 20,000 Russian forces along Ukraine's border, in addition to those inside Crimea, estimated at as many as 25,000.

Frosted Flake posted:

I wouldn't want to be a Ukrainian conscript right now. What would it feel like to hear an armoured division turning over their engines in the middle of the night?

quote:

Although the Pentagon has cited assurances from Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu that its troops along the border were sent for exercises and that they would not cross into Ukraine, U.S. officials have acknowledged concerns about continued Russian reinforcements to the area.

“We’ve seen no specific indications that these – that exercises – are taking place,” Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told a news briefing.

But when pressed, Kirby added: “Just because we haven’t seen an indication of exercises now doesn’t mean that one won’t occur.”

“(The Russians) made it clear that their intent was to do exercises and not to cross the border. Our expectation is they’re going to live up to that word,” he said.

Frosted Flake posted:

I wouldn't want to be a Ukrainian conscript right now. What would it feel like to hear an armoured division turning over their engines in the middle of the night?

Godholio posted:

Wait, so what are the USA's regime protection units? The Old Guard?

Kung Fu Fist gently caress posted:

i hear their hazing rituals consist of edge dressing and anuses

Kung Fu Fist gently caress posted:

silent drill team stationed at 8th and i

i hear their hazing rituals consist of edge dressing and anuses

Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:

Don't the marines do a lot of war games around DC?

Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:

Don't the marines do a lot of war games around DC?

Godholio posted:

Wait, so what are the USA's regime protection units? The Old Guard?

EVA BRAUN BLOWJOBS posted:

Really wish earth would burn down. That place sucks.

EVA BRAUN BLOWJOBS posted:

Really wish Pickett would burn down. That place sucks.

EVA BRAUN BLOWJOBS posted:

Really wish Pickett would burn down. That place sucks.

Helldump Immunity. posted:

orange juche posted:

Kung Fu Fist gently caress posted:

the way thats written it seems like they estimated 45k troops, and now theyre at 50k

quote:

The most conservative American assessments, apparently based on satellite data, say that Russia has massed between 40,000 and 50,000 troops within striking distance of Ukraine, including those already in Crimea. That total has apparently risen from 30,000 only a week ago.

quote:

Nato has appointed Jens Stoltenberg, the former Norwegian prime minister leader who once opposed the transatlantic alliance, to lead it when Anders Fogh Rasmussen, its current secretary general, steps down later this year.

In his youth Mr Stoltenberg, now 55, objected both to Nato and the European Community, two organisations that he eventually came to support, and as a long-haired teenager he threw stones at the US embassy in 1973 after Washington's bombardment of Haiphong in North Vietnam.

quote:

His early radicalism is an initial red flag: While serving as a minister of industry and energy, he joined a 1995 bicycle rally from Oslo to Paris to protest French nuclear-weapons testing. His defenders might object that many a responsible European politician—think Joschka Fischer —spent his youth in Europe's far-left fever swamps.

Fair enough. But with Mr. Stoltenberg, it appears that his radical notions have been merely diluted with age—but not altogether discarded.

In 2006, during Mr. Stoltenberg's second premiership, Norway's State Pension Global Fund divested from three U.S. companies— Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Honeywell - because they help produce nuclear weapons. "One-hundred percent of [companies] found guilty of serious or systematic human rights violations . . . are American," the U.S. ambassador to Norway complained at the time. "Is it reasonable to believe that among the pension fund's 4,000-plus companies from all over the world, the process has revealed that only American companies are unethical?"

Then there is Russia, which has once again emerged as NATO's chief adversary in Europe. In his first term as premier in 2001, Mr. Stoltenberg declared that "under no terms will Norway allow any foreign military activities on its territories," according to an account of his remarks published by the Nordic press, adding that "his country had never allowed military bases or nuclear weapons on its territories as it can be regarded as a threat to neighboring countries." He didn't specify which neighboring states he had in mind, but perhaps that was unnecessary, since he was speaking to an audience at the Russian Foreign Ministry's Diplomatic Academy.

quote:

A majority of Germans, according to two recent opinion polls, are opposed to significant new sanctions. In addition, one poll suggests that a majority of Germans sympathize with Putin’s desire to protect Russian national interests in Crimea.

At the same time, profound skepticism of the United States after spying revelations by Edward Snowden last year has added to the pressure here. For a vocal minority, the breach of trust exposed by U.S. eavesdropping on the German leader has cast doubt on any initiative advocated by Washington.“A positive image of Russia has grown in Germany, which is a mixture of culturalism and admiration of Putin as the strong man standing up against the U.S.,” said Stefan Meister, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
...
In a mid-March poll for the German public TV network ZDF, only 26 percent of those asked supported economic sanctions beyond the limited visa bans and asset freezes already imposed. A poll published last Saturday by the German news magazine Der Spiegel, meanwhile, indicated that 55 percent of respondents showed either a lot of or some “understanding” for Crimea being part of a Russian zone of influence.

Those numbers suggest the more nuanced view of Russia in Germany, where the misdeeds of Moscow are still colored by World War II-era guilt and a deep-seated sense of pacifism. On the political right, voices are warning that tough measures might not work even as they damage the German economy. On the left, meanwhile, there are voices that share Moscow’s contempt for the new Ukrainian government, which contains far-right elements, anathema in modern Germany.

iyaayas01 posted:

lol

Remind me again why NATO is still a thing?

iyaayas01 posted:

lol

Remind me again why NATO is still a thing?

psydude posted:

Germans feeling sympathetic toward nations conquering the territory of other countries to protect ethnic descendants? That's a new one.

Whip Slagcheek posted:

We must secure the existence of our people and a future for Russian children.

Casimir Radon posted:

I don't think Russian children have much of a future.

Citations: Youtube

quote:

Not only do ethnic Muslims account for 21–23 million of Russia’s total population of 144 million, or 15 percent, but their proportion is fast growing. Alcoholism-plagued ethnic Russians are said to have European birth rates and African life-expectancy, with the former just 1.4 per woman and the latter 60 years for men. In Moscow, ethnic Christian women have 1.1 children.

In contrast, Muslim women bear 2.3 children on average and have fewer abortions than their Russian counterparts. In Moscow, Tatar women have six children and Chechen and Ingush women have ten on average. In addition, some 3 to 4 million Muslims have moved to Russia from ex-republics of the USSR, mainly Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan; and some ethnic Russians are converting to Islam.

psydude posted:

Worked out well last time.

orange juche posted:

That is why you do not start wars in the winter.

That is why you don't start a war during the winter, right after getting rid of your best generals in favor of political cronies.

Courthouse posted:

Also, small ethnic enclaves on Russias borders seem to overall really, really, not want to be part of Russia. See; Finns, Chechens, Dagestanis.