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8 votes
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US House approves $95 billion aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan
41 votes -
Russia appears prepared to create “environmental havoc” by sailing unseaworthy oil tankers through the Baltic Sea in breach of all maritime rules, says Swedish foreign minister
10 votes -
Russian honeytraps useless against French spies … their wives already know: Documentary on French secret agent culture
19 votes -
European Court of Justice annulls sanctions against Russian billionaires
8 votes -
Chechnya 'bans music that is too fast or too slow'
35 votes -
How Russian-language poets and their translators have responded to the war in Ukraine
8 votes -
Kyiv confirms Ukrainian drones destroyed six Russian planes at air base, as many as three sites blasted
38 votes -
Unraveling Havana Syndrome: New evidence links the GRU's assassination Unit 29155 to mysterious attacks on US officials and their families
40 votes -
The Ladoga was the Soviet Union’s plush nuclear-war command vehicle. A drone just blew one up in Eastern Ukraine.
18 votes -
A terrorist attack just happened in my city
TW for obvious reasons As the title says. Mass shooting in a mall/concert hall, at least 40 people dead, over 100 injured. (UPD a day later: the count is now up to 133+ dead, 145+ injured)...
TW for obvious reasons
As the title says. Mass shooting in a mall/concert hall, at least 40 people dead, over 100 injured. (UPD a day later: the count is now up to 133+ dead, 145+ injured)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Crocus_City_Hall_attack
Luckily I live on the opposite side of Moscow from where it happened, but both my girlfriend and my best friend (and a bunch of their friends as well) live near that area. Nothing happened to them, but it's still very scary and everyone's afraid that more shootings can happen soon.
Some of their friends said they heard gunshots directly under their windows. My gf had a very strong panic attack and still can't go to bed.
I'm not as scared myself because as I mentioned, I live far away from that area, but I'm still very worried for all of the people I know who live there.
That's it, I just felt like I wanted to share this with someone.
60 votes -
A retrospective on the Baltic road to NATO
8 votes -
Collecting the dead Russia left behind
6 votes -
Russian ‘dark fleet’ lacks disaster insurance, leaks suggest
6 votes -
Russia awakes to biggest attack on Russian soil since World War II
31 votes -
Masters of illusion: Ukraine’s decoy makers outwit Russia
8 votes -
Regina Spektor - What's in my (record store) bag?
6 votes -
Russia is burning up its future
21 votes -
Ukrainian forces strike Russian troops at Avdiivka coke plant using AASM Hammer guided bombs
16 votes -
Volodymyr Zelenskyy in bind over how to draft more troops as Russian forces advance
35 votes -
US prescription market hamstrung for nine days (so far) by ransomware attack
39 votes -
Inside the brazen Arctic trip supplying Vladimir Putin’s flagship energy scheme
7 votes -
The food of war and isolation - International influences on Russian sausage cuisine
10 votes -
'White party' in Sri Lanka cancelled after backlash. Organizer apologizes.
14 votes -
небо над головой - Я хотел быть космонавтом (I wanted to be a cosmonaut) (2020)
7 votes -
Ukrainian forces withdraw from Avdiivka; megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - February 17
There hasn't been a megathread for a while so I wanted to post the latest news as well as a couple other pieces of news from the past week along with a couple articles providing additional...
There hasn't been a megathread for a while so I wanted to post the latest news as well as a couple other pieces of news from the past week along with a couple articles providing additional context.
The latest piece of news is Ukrainian forces withdraw from Avdiivka to avoid encirclement, army chief says. This is very concerning and I hope encourages people to continue urging their politicians to find ways of supporting Ukraine in a larger capacity than they have in recent months.
The other day there was also this article titled Rate of Russian military production worries Europe's war planners. If you don't have time to listen to Perun's hour-long PowerPoint from 4 months ago on the same subject (Russian Defence Production 2023 - Can Russia keep up with equipment attrition in Ukraine?), then The Guardian article is a decent primer.
It also links to a Foreign Affairs article published in January of 2024 going into more detail about Russia's economic expenditures and its uneven footing: Putin’s Unsustainable Spending Spree: How the War in Ukraine Will Overheat the Russian Economy (Archive.is link). This is a particularly interesting article as it details the expenses as a percent of GDP that have recently made the rounds in the news this week, as well as how military spending as spurred growth in some industries, while others also tangentially related are lagging behind despite the government's stimulus. Additionally, Russia is spending the equivalent of billions of dollars on annexed regions of Ukraine. It then details the consequences of this substantially increased spending and increased wages that may be dislocating the civilian economy in favor of maintaining enough supplies for a further extended attritional war.
The Guardian article say that:
New analysis by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) estimates that Russia has lost 3,000 armoured fighting vehicles in the last year and close to 8,800 since the war began.
Unable to produce anywhere near that number of vehicles, Russia has mainly refurbished ageing hardware ...
Russian factories claimed to have delivered 1,500 main battle tanks this year, of which 1,180 to 1,280 had been reactivated from storage, according to IISS. Those numbers, along with reactivated armoured personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, meant Russia would “be able to sustain its assault on Ukraine at current attrition rates for another two to three years, and maybe even longer”, the group said.For reference, the landing ship that was recently destroyed by Ukrainian Unmanned Surface Vessels (Magura V5 sea drones), Caesar Kunikov, could carry 10 main battle tanks and 340 troops or 12 armored personnel carriers and 340 troops. Though it's not clear what role that ship was playing, as trains play a significant role in deploying men and materiel to the frontlines.
Finally, an article I'd meant to post several months ago to just sort of talk about in general terms: What would happen if Russia invaded Finland? I went to a giant war game in London to find out. Has anyone ever participated in war gaming, have a background or took a class on game theory, or enjoyed the history of tabletop gaming that dates back to this war-time activity? Just interested in what people have to say.
50 votes -
The US Army is slashing thousands of jobs to focus on Russia and China
8 votes -
Alexei Navalny, galvanizing opposition leader and Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, died in prison, Russia says
94 votes -
Alexei Navalny: Vladimir Putin critic dies after 'losing consciousness' at maximum security prison
14 votes -
US House Intel Chairman announces ‘serious national security threat,’ sources say it is related to Russia's nuclear capabilities in space
30 votes -
Russia has massed 500 tanks for an attack on Kupyansk. Thousands of Ukrainian drones await them.
31 votes -
Another Russian general reportedly killed in devastating Ukrainian strike on Belbek air base
22 votes -
The Ukrainian marines hit the Russian marines so hard, they blew the Russians back to 1980
16 votes -
Norway defends deep-sea mining, says it may help to break China and Russia's rare earths stronghold
9 votes -
Russian who boarded flight from Copenhagen to Los Angeles last November without ticket, passport or visa has been found guilty of being a stowaway
20 votes -
Russia State Duma to prepare statement to US Congress and German parliament regarding Belgorod plane crash
17 votes -
Alexei Navalny disappears for three weeks; reappears at isolated Arctic penal colony
29 votes -
Russia’s fabled war ally ‘General Frost’ turns on Moscow
16 votes -
4-year campaign backdoored iPhones using possibly the most advanced exploit ever
43 votes