421–430 of 502 posts
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I don't think that Russians are obliged to act imperialistically, especially to their loss. It's just I don't view the creation of Russian Empire in a bad light - quite contrary, most other historical options would likely been worse, up and until 1917 at least. And as a Russian I believe that Russian Empire is a part of essential legacy of the humankind. Same with USSR despite its tragic and cruel history. So when I…
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"Evidence" is such a strong word to use for what that investigation revealed, but I suppose it goes a long way of revealing the nature of articles like that
Christo, Michael and Bellingcat have done more to make Europe safe than most intelligence services on the continent. In fact many of those have shown to be compromised by the Russians from the right extremism side - Maassen in Germany, The Wirecard dude in Austria, etc.
If it was only the Maršalek guy im Austria, we literally had an intelligence agent on Russian payroll, police walking out of the Russian embassy with cash gifts... And of course a certain party that is all too fond of the Russian corruption money, literally saying the want Austria to turn into a second Orban regime.
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Those in-Schengen checks for buses and so on are largely just "do you have a valid passport?" and I'm not aware of any real checks of visa status, overstay checks, etc. If you get caught without a passport, you get detained though. If you've forgotten your passport somewhere, someone else can take it to an airport (or a physical border) and the border control at the airport can then confirm your identity.
You only need to show an id, not a passport, right?
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How about actually vetting them, even if post factum? Bellingcat, The Insider et al uncovered fake identities and actual biographies of agents with a tiny fraction of resources Western security agencies have. It's actually why these agencies get tax money.
Russians, even not GRU spies, are incredibly good at working around any possible regulation. If need be they will come with Kyrgyzstani or some Balkan passports and whole life histories thoroughly faked. Just for lulz. In Russia, if you google (well, yandex) for "make a rubber seal from imprint", you get hundreds of offers - with providers for this - 100% criminal in Russia, of course - service operating with proper…
Fabricated personalities can and do get exposed.
There's no point explaining the Russian corruption to me, I lived there for a long time. In this case, however the corruption machine works against Russian agents.
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That doesn't make much sense. If you have suspected spies, the first you'd do is pull their entry into the country. It wouldn't take long to realize the similarity between passport numbers. Even in the 1950's.
You cannot draw any conclusions from this similarity alone. The scheme is common and sequential numbers were likely used in many other legitimate cases. You think this is a flop only because The Insider has found very close numbers of passports for people in the same military unit. But there are just 4 numbers of 100 in the same range. Is there any evidence that the remaining people belong to the same unit, are spies…
You catch 3 spies in 1950. Someone shuffling through their paper files notices the numbers are close in range. You have a suspected 4th, and interestingly the passport number is clustered with the prior 3.
You use a super computer to analyze passport numbers and compare them to 3 known spies. The computer spits out a pattern. [...] You have a suspected 4th, and interestingly the passport number is clustered with the prior 3.
As per the original post it "is part of a numerical range reserved exclusively for members of Unit 29155".
I could see if it wasn't a numerical range, but rather a reserved pattern (e.g. the 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 8th numbers were always sequential), then sure, a super computer could help you analyze known number to find a pattern. But it's just a group of number close in series? That seems discoverable by mere humans.
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> Brits don't insult your intelligence too greatly in their [..] shows That's a very way to express that idea. I'll be reusing that, if you don't mind.. :-) I've always expressed it more crudely as having the feeling of being forcefully lobotomized by the producers..
As in, British shows don't necessarily explain or show everything? I'm a bit lost here.
You'll know when you see a show or a broadcast that gives you the impression your brain is leaking out of your ears.
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How about actually vetting them, even if post factum? Bellingcat, The Insider et al uncovered fake identities and actual biographies of agents with a tiny fraction of resources Western security agencies have. It's actually why these agencies get tax money.
Russians, even not GRU spies, are incredibly good at working around any possible regulation. If need be they will come with Kyrgyzstani or some Balkan passports and whole life histories thoroughly faked. Just for lulz. In Russia, if you google (well, yandex) for "make a rubber seal from imprint", you get hundreds of offers - with providers for this - 100% criminal in Russia, of course - service operating with proper…
These people are not very smart at all, when you look at recent investigations done on shoestring budgets, many got exposed by extremely simple tradecraft errors and information that can be straight bought from Russian data brokers.
These people are not smart, it’s the western European services that are incompetent, ideologically blind and outdated.
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Your pay is whatever job you have as a cover pays you. If you were getting additional pay to that, then it would be a red flag when the various agencies investigate you.
If your pay is less than your cover, do you have to give it back? How does health insurance work for spy stuff? If the GRU agent gets exposed to novachuck, do they get to see a Russian specialist or do they just have access to the providers in their cover plan?
you also have a bank account in your home country, and that gets a salary, too.
your insurance is through your cover job, or the country's healthcare system (if socialized). which also means you have crappy insurance salesman coverage :/ twenty years later when you return to the home country to retire you can sup on your pension and any retirement healthcare coverage, but until then it's on you.
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I want to give some advice: Don't judge it by its first few episodes. When I first checked it out, the basic setup seemed rather inane and I stopped watching. Then, a couple years later, I needed something to watch during long exercise sessions and I checked it out again. It was getting much more interesting by the end of the first season. And every season got better and richer. By the very end, I experienced it as a…
Try this: look up the most highly rated episodes on IMDB and watch only those. Missing the crummy episodes usually does not interfere with understanding the story arc. Often, I set a minimum IMDB score that I will watch, like 8.5 or 9.0 to capture only the best. This works well with series that: - take a year or two to find their footing or - have a large cast (some mediocre) that get their own story lines of no cons…