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Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

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Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#471

Post by canadianfella »

mikrl wrote: post #437
jojobas wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not much safer now that a bunch of disposable Russians have been exposed. Russian businessmen moved to the EU and the US by the thousand per year. We won't know who of them are "businessmen" and nobody is even pretending to check.

>We won't know who of them are "businessmen" AFAIK there isn’t a clean answer to that question. The lines between businessperson, gangster, intelligence agent are very fluid. If you gain some success at one of those in Russia you need to start ingratiating yourself with the others because they will come and find you. It’s like a more brutal version of businessperson / lobbyist in the US. If you want to excel in one y…

[dead]

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#472

Post by keybored »

keybored wrote: post #237
sofixa wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world sat idly when he invaded Georgia, Crimea, Donbass. When Russian agents sabotaged facilities over Central and Eastern Europe, murdered dissidents and civilians.

I’m not sure what the opposite of appeasement is in this context. A great power state invading/annexing/assisting a “separatist group” (whatever you want to call it) does not lead any direct escalation with another great power/superpower in this day and age. In turn I don’t understand how Putin has been getting appeased any more than other great powers.

No reply. Huh.

One would have to reckon with all the wars and troubles that other great powers/superpowers make and how they are “appeased”, also. And that is awfully uncomfortable.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#473

Post by eythian »

brnt wrote: post #235
ivan_gammel wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They had to put the exit stamp on _something_? Are exit stamps a thing in Schengen area for EU citizens? I usually just pass an automatic gate after scanning the passport. It does not have any European marks. Stamp is historically a permission to leave, which EU citizens do not need: we are free to leave and return back.

As a European I've never had exit or entry stamps when leaving or entering the Union. The only stamps I ever got are from (some) non-EU countries.

I get EU stamps when I pass through Schiphol to and from non-Schengen countries, on my non-EU passport (though I'm a resident of NL.) I don't get stamps from the country that my passport is from, as I'm going through the automatic entry gates at that end anyway.

Curiously, just checking now, I didn't get any stamp on the UK side when I went to/from Scotland by plane a few years ago.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#474

Post by epistasis »

Georgelemental wrote: post #442
epistasis wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If responding to this would mean nuclear armageddon, then what is Russia doing by attacking NATO in this way? Rolling over beacuse somebody is a nuclear power only seems to come up when Russia is in the chat. If China or Israel attacks someone, nobody says "we can't respond to it because it would start a nuclear war." What is it about Russia that makes Russia so irresponsible? And if it is, isn't it time to completel…

> If China or Israel attacks someone, nobody says "we can't respond to it because it would start a nuclear war." Actually, I (and most of the world) don't want to start a nuclear conflict with China or Israel either.

Nobody wants to start a nuclear war, that's my point. But it is only when dealing with Russia that some people say, "we can't do anything in response to their aggression" whereas with China or other nuclear powers, nations can respond to aggression without the threat of nuclear war.

Its a difference in the character of the countries, and it implies that Russia is far more dangerous than China, and that there must be a vigorous international collaboration to contain Russia's apparent aggression.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#475

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

thriftwy wrote: post #420
benterix wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As it is known, Russia has only two friends: its army and its navy. This sounds a bit sad, doesn't it? Do you really believe it? Because this way of saying is typical of autocrats looking for an external enemy in order to cement their own power. The reality is that Europe had enough of wars and we made an effort to integrate and collaborate peacefully. It's not always easy but it's working better than ever. And we…

Yes Europe made efforts to integrate and collaborate peacefully between yourselves, but these plans didn't include Russia. There was literally no place for Russia in your layout other than "you stay here with your mouth shut, buy our trinkets and provide us with cheap oil and gas while we digest all of your neighbours". There was a meaningful framework of participation for Poland, for Bosnia, even for Turkey, but non…

Yes, because the EU has certain requirements. You should not kill your own journalists and so on. I believe in the early 2000s some people had some optimism about a common future but since Putin took over it looked more and more grim. I believe the tipping point was the war in Georgia where the EU more or less understood that as long as he is alive, it would be difficult to have a civilized relationship.

But this is at the level of politics and personal ambition of the former KGB agent. At the level of individuals, the above is total bullshit. Most Russians I meet are really, really nice people. And I'm not even talking about engineers but common people. The only thing I didn't like is the culture of drinking and being a little too pushy in this regard.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#476

Post by red-iron-pine »

BWStearns wrote: post #75
surfingdino wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All major intelligence agencies have them. Why GRU would be any different?

GRU is nominally military intelligence and SVR inherited the KGB illegals program. These programs are really hard and have a ton of overhead supporting a relatively small number of actual officers. Having duplicate capabilities for it is a waste. Especially in this case where they're used for active crimes/violence. The GRU has never been shy about just going and murdering people on a tourist visa[0], why bother with…

CIA is predominantly human intelligence, big-picture targeting, and analysis.

But, starting with GWOT, the DIA picked up its own human intelligence. They want it their way, and don't want to play with gatekeepers. The DOD also owns SIGINT via the NSA, which is a military organization headed by an Admiral/General, and they want to be able to pair their existing strengths with HUMINT.

Several NATO countries, esp. the Baltics / Central Europe have been expanding military HUMINT in the same way, esp. in anticipation of Russian infiltration and SF work that was seen in the early days of Ukraine round 2.

In other words, everyone else is doing it, even if it's fragile, expensive, and wasteful.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#477

Post by red-iron-pine »

kmeisthax wrote: post #375
surfingdino wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suvorov wrote about the Soviet practice of making GRU and KGB compete for the same goals to ensure they get the best intelligence.

How very capitalist of them.

capitalism is about the accumulation of capital; competition is not related, but the byproducts of capitalism which can be beneficial to the consumer.

Capital (big C) does everything it can to extinguish competition -- and would, if not for regulation, trust busting, etc. All large companies are trying to be monopolies to the fullest extent possible, and history shows plenty of examples.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#478

Post by thriftwy »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #475
thriftwy wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes Europe made efforts to integrate and collaborate peacefully between yourselves, but these plans didn't include Russia. There was literally no place for Russia in your layout other than "you stay here with your mouth shut, buy our trinkets and provide us with cheap oil and gas while we digest all of your neighbours". There was a meaningful framework of participation for Poland, for Bosnia, even for Turkey, but non…

Yes, because the EU has certain requirements. You should not kill your own journalists and so on. I believe in the early 2000s some people had some optimism about a common future but since Putin took over it looked more and more grim. I believe the tipping point was the war in Georgia where the EU more or less understood that as long as he is alive, it would be difficult to have a civilized relationship. But this is…

The problem is that EU needed to find a way to integrate existing Russian Federation as a neigbour, and not some "true Scotsman" Russia that only lives in your imagination.

EU didn't want to integrate with existing RF for a long list of reasons. "As much as we could" turned out tiny. And there was no political will on the EU side to expand it despite whatever Putin was doing prior 2014 or even 2011.

So in the absense of these integrations designed to prevent wars and strife, we've got strife and wars, like how you get fender benders when driving on icy roads with summer tyres. The friction was insufficient and the thing lost control.

I can see the prevailing attitude that integration with Russia was a "nice to have" thing which could be forfeited at any moment when Russia was deemed unworthy. But winter tyres are the must as temperatures drop below zero.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#479

Post by Slix »

hughdbrown wrote: post #382
xarope wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, thanks for the watching list! I agree on season 6 of House of Cards, sadly Robin Wright can't carry the series the way Kevin Spacey did. Albeit, we got bored of money heist after season 1.

If you did not make it past season one of Money Heist, then you missed out on: - outstanding performances by Spanish actresses Ursula Corbrero, Itziar Ituno, Alba Flores, and Najwa Nimri and - humming Bella Ciao to yourself for two months.

I gave up on it during season one. Is it really worth continuing it? It started to not hold my interest.

Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe

#480

Post by krab »

thriftwy wrote: post #458
krab wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you (or anyone) personally benefit from "having Crimea"?

You can obviously travel there and see all the Imperial palaces and gardens, swim the sea, visit the museums and have a really good time. In awesome weather, which is of short supply in what's left of mainland Russia. On the other hand, the usefulness of cordial relations with EU/USA is debatable. You could make a point that if Russia had good relations with Ukraine, Russians could travel there on their own by just c…

I mean, you could have travelled there even before the 2014 hostilities began. So it's not like you gained anything in that regard, right? Now if Russia loses it, the travel there might be more difficult for some time.
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