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DoS Attacks on Estonia Were Launched by Student
As_I_Please alerts us to the fact that a 20-year-old Estonian student has been fined for participating in DoS attacks against various Estonian political and governmental websites last May. The situation was notable because it escalated tensions between Estonia and Russia when the latter was accused of initiating the 'cyber-attack'. Quoting:
"The fact that a single student was able to trigger such events is particularly ominous when you consider just how many potential flashpoints exist between various countries all over the world. The DoS attack against Estonia is an excellent example of how a cyberattack carried out by a 20-year-old student in response to real-life events further exacerbated an existing problem between two nations."
Computers launch students... into space like great hero cosmonauts!
WTF? A DDOS is a flash mob?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
it was found that the recent DoS attempt against arstechnica was launched by slashdot users everywhere
The DoS attack against Estonia is an excellent example of how a cyberattack carried out by a 20-year-old student in response to real-life events further exacerbated an existing problem between two nations.
Eh. How about the _only_ example?
So on what basis did Estonia accuse Russia of staging those attacks? This story was picked up all over the world and nobody bothered to check if they actually had anything resembling a proof?
While they may not have found evidence of any other people involved, it's unlikely that a single person could establish a botnet large enough to overwhelm anything on his own. The only answer I can think of is education - botnets exist because the owners of the zombie PCs simply don't recognize that it's a zombie. There is certainly an overall lack of regulation, too. As a domain owner, I see lots of abusive traffic and have absolutely no legal recourse to punish a perpetrator. Responsible network owners often help, but there's so few networks that are responsible that I usually assume they're not, forcing me to do what little I can at my own site to prevent further abuse.
For the student's part, he was only fined (I couldn't find how much in TFA). Not much deterrent to prevent him from doing it again. No leverage to find out who he was working with. The lack of clear laws in any country makes prosecution of such actions impossible. As a domain owner, I'd like to see civilized countries show some direction toward making prosecution of such activities a reality. Until then, it's "you hack me, I hack you" which is completely counterproductive.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
Is it just me or have there been a lot of stories about "cyber wars", "cyber-attack"... lately (especially on slashdot). Is this going to become the next big thing, "The War on Cyber-Warfare" with new laws contently coming in place to help protect everyone from evil "hacker" teenagers bent on destroying the world, which no doubt will take away even more of the dwindling freedoms the american people still have left?
"In Soviet America, Passport Stamps You!"
surely 'wargames' has been translated by now
Free kevin
In Soviet Russia, you attack Estonia!
What do you guys got?
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
How was it that the United States got involved in Iraq, exactly?
He was using a TR(A)S(H)-80 from Radio Shack, IIRC. Probably a 1200 baud modem (not even Hayes compatible!), 64K of RAM and a CLI... He was probably a Real Programmer. Sadly I was born in '84, so I don't really remember it happening.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/10/paul.newsletters/
Are racists all illiterate?? I thought that was just a myth...
Remakes of Hackers and The Net, anyone?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Also annoyed kids, maybe? There are a lot more Chinese than Estonians. Maybe it all originates in one little shit-hole village. I don't know.
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/17/1936236
And even if not, maybe national security information doesn't belong on public networks, including the Internet. Just a thought.
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
Not to knock on anyone for being frugal, but they should really upgrade to something more secure than DOS.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Do stories like this make any "Nobody cares what happens on the Internet" skeptics of Anonymous's recent communique change their minds?
in Estonia, students hack you!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Then, following a pre-agreed signal, they all simultaneously open their trench coats and show everybody a confusing web GUI full of rounded corners and running on top of a proprietary plug-in.
Well, considering that it would be rater difficult to get Windows to do it...
Only one kid DDOS'ed goverment and news sites and created that mayhem? Right. So nobody bothers to mention that the student who was arrested had a Russian name - Dmitri Galushkevich ? Sure he may have the citizenship but he's not really Estonian. Just offspring of an immigrant. And he wasn't the only kid around here who helped to DDOS.
Plausible Deniability
In other words, there is no meaningful "first", unless you want to go back around 10,000 years. Almost everything that happened after that point was in direct retribution to what had happened before. That's one reason it will take a lot of effort to calm the region down - ten thousand years is a long time to build up grdudges and resentments -- and don't think a single one of them has been forgotten.
Getting back to the main topic, just as an aside, this is why societies can't survive for very long on a diet of paranoia, fear and resentment. Sooner or later, you'll get people who hate each other less than they hate some imagined collective enemy, and the shit will hit the fan at a speed approaching mach 2. I'm surprised that this sort of thing doesn't happen more often - students get an even rawer deal than most, even at the best of times, naturally form into groups, and generally have significant combined intellect and skills. This is probably the worst group to infuriate and should really be the first group to focus on getting support from.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Someone should create a mockumentary where a couple of hackers destroy worldwide economy and bring about the end of civilized life. They should do so using only tools that any hacker would know to be completely inadequate to do the job. Use vim, show screenshots of obfuscated perl scripts (especially variants of "Hello, world!"), and explain the dangerous uses behind commands like `kill|killall`, `dos2unix` (= denial of service 2 US networks integrating x86), mogrify and crash (because they sound menacing), and of course `php` (preferred hacking protocol). Make the whole thing extremely serious, demand that governments do something to protect citizens against these vulnerabilities, and see how much chaos you can cause.
Just as I said when original discussion happened, Russian government was not responsible. Now, is Pentagon still ready to bomb cyberattackers? If yes, then next student with a grudge will finish off a country or two before we have a chance of intelligent machines or human-made bacteria to kill us all.
Hyperom.com
Quote: "The fact that a single student was able to trigger such events is particularly ominous when you consider just how many potential flashpoints exist between various countries..."
What nonsense. If governments put important messages on such "secure" places as roadside billboards, for example, then they should expect "hacks" like moustaches drawn on them, etc.
Others are not to blame if the government is clueless. The fact that it was so easy to do is a great indication that the government was in fact clueless. If they want to put something important somewhere and keep it "secure", then they are responsible for taking at least minimal measures to make sure that it is, in fact, secure.
They are just looking for someone to blame for their own incompetence.
Now they are trying to back out of an international embarrassment by blaming the geek. Classic...
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
Well, considering that a breeder would have rater too little time on his hands to do it... with his wife and all his kids.
THis is what they want us to believe.
Sacrifice one student to the great god of world peace.
Once, the damage that young men could cause was limited because weapons were limited. Mind you, a machete is a pretty hazardous weapon. But give them RPGs or botnets, and the ability to cause a lot of damage escalates.
At the end of WW2, a lot of allied soldiers were traumatized because they had to shoot adolescent males. This is because they were equipped with weapons like fausts, and were totally irresponsible. They were simply emotionally and intellectually unequipped to understand what they were doing. They would surrender and then try to kill people. If they were treated kindly, they would take it as a sign of weakness and attack again. (I'm not suggesting that only adolescent males do malicious things on the Internet, but at least professional criminals want as few people as possible to know what they are up to, and are unlikely to cause public mayhem.)
The long term consequences of this could yet be that the irresponsible behaviour of the few will affect the many, when societies decide to block access to most of the Internet to all except an approved few. I don't have a clue what the right answer is, but if the IT community cannot come up with a means of regulation, governments may yet take its toys away.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Writing was not discovered, it was invented.
The saddest poem
"not loyal" as in being denied civil rigths in the country where they were born unless they positively prove they are "loyal" ?
I'm normally ready to believe most allegations against Putin, but I think we do need a little more evidence in this case - someone credible making the allegation at the very least.
Your option b) would be my favourite if there is more to this than there appears, but I remain to be convinced.
This sig all sigs devours
What on earth are you on about? Do you even know anything about the topic? No civil rights are being denied to citizens. Been listening to too much Russian media? And I must say, if you think that the fact that they have to know the language of the country they reside in is repression, then wow, that's a bit ignorant. Because that's what most of them are fighting against, having to learn the language. That's where all this 'proving they're loyal' crap comes from. And if they've been given citizenship already then no one is doubting their loyalty anyways because being loyal to the country is one demand in the citizenship law.
.. where you can hack your way out just by playing games!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Maybe they will think that all those kids learn their evil hacking ways playing too much MMPORG ...er..wait I still have an active account....
and will ban WoW,
It is also true that a lot of creativity comes from the young, especially in mathematics and the sciences. Middle aged people have children and big physical assets to manage, they don't have time to be as creative as someone who is still probably financially dependent on their parents, bursaries etc., though people who are ruthless enough manage to overcome that (Picasso, for instance.) I agree.
However, it is still true that adolescent males, through no fault of their own are more likely to have hormonal problems and a lack of knowledge of the world that makes them potentially more dangerous than other groups. If my original post is flamebait, then explain to me why insurance premiums for young male drivers are so high? It isn't old men forcing them to drive dangerously. And why do we use the term "script kiddies"?
The Estonian is not unique. We have just seen an IT guy (read the reports) in his twenties in a French Bank lose nearly 5 billion Euros after he, apparently, disabled the controls on the upper limit of his trading. Now tell me that events like this will not cause the (middle aged) bankers and politicians to start considering how this kind of downside risk can be minimised. Good for creativity and technical progress? No. Good for security? Apparently yes. Does the IT industry need to get its head out of the sand over botnets, Internet crime and general malice and find a fix before the politicians think they've found one? I think yes. And I would think you actually agree with me, except that anyone who thinks we have got this far just fine obviously doesn't read what's going on.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Last time I checked, which was during the early '90s, getting Estonian citizenship depended on passing some sort of language test, and that despite the fact that there are Russians on the territory currently controlled by Estonia ever since the Swedes lost it to Russia 200 years ago.
"this 'proving they're loyal' crap" is exactly what is happening now: you raise up some hell, then have your subjects choose sides. There is no other way anybody can "prove" loyalty to anything. Unfortunately for the Estonians that speak Russian at home even if their family lived in what is now Estonia for 12 generations, and for those whose families lived there only for four generations, too, there is no human being on God's Earth that has only one set of loyalties, and by messing up with the monument for the army that pretty much prevented them from being exterminated as "untermensch" the Estonian government demands of them to renounce a part of their identity and choose sides. Only somebody who does not understand at all, or somebody who understands it perfectly, what did the WWII mean for any Russian (Veliko-, Malo- or Bielo-, or living in any other part of the Europe that was occupied by the Nazi), would mess with a symbol of their survival.
The Estonian government it very lucky indeed not to have faced French-style rioting and mass migration of Russians out of Estonia: that would shoot down the "Baltic tiger" sooner than the currency pegged to the Euro or the export oriented economy would. Right now, I guess Russia would be extremely grateful for an influx of skilled laborers that already speak Russian and have legitimate reasons to have a grudge against their previous homeland.
During WW2, Estonia was annexed by the Soviet Union under the Molotov-Ribbintrop pact, which carved up eastern Europe between Stalin and Hitler. Hitler later reneged, and invaded the area assigned to Stalin, taking over the Baltic States (Estonia, Lativa and Lithuania). The Russians later retook Eastern Europe, and re-occupied the Baltics. They didn't leave until the early 90s. Many Russians resettled in Estonia during the occupation, mostly taking lower level jobs - the standard of living has always been better there than in Russia. They now form about 1/3 of the population.
In central Tallinn (the capital of Estonia) the Soviets set up a war memorial to the Soviet 'liberators' who died driving out the Nazis. To the Estonians, however, the 'Bronze Soldier' just commemorated a second occupation - one that went on for nearly 50 years. In 2007 the now-independent Estonian government decided to move the statue to a Soviet military cemetary in the edge of town. The ethnic Russian Estonians objected, as did Russia, and Putin personally called it a desecration. There were riots, and even one death in Tallinn.
The statue was moved, and it was at this point that the cyberattack was launched.
The kid accused is a Russian Estonian. It remains unclear who ordered the attack - Putin's gang could easily have provoked otherwise uninvolved hackers in the Russian diaspora to act.
The attack certainly served Russia's interests at the time, punishing a tiny, resented upstart for daring to act with sovereignty. That there is plausible deniability doesnt clear Putin and his ex-KGB cronies.
I remember all too well one of our apprentices who had what I can only describe as a remarkable car at the age of 21. How he afforded the insurance I have no idea. Then for some reason a remarkably attractive girl took a fancy to him. Six months later he was presented with an ultimatum, and a week later he turned up for work in a Renault Clio.
The power of love. And sex...from what I heard from the other apprentices, lots and lots of sex.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I'm sorry, but basing your statement on 15-year-old info, that I'm not entirely sure is correct does not make your point valid. I do not understand why it seems so strange for you that people have to pass a language test to become citizens of a country. (of course, the test has other parts, for example questions about history etc, but the language part is the most important. Also, if you are born in Estonia then you are automatically granted citizenship, the people who claim to be oppressed right now are the workers and their families that came to Estonia during the Soviet times. (Their kids who were born after Estonia became independent have citizenship by default). So the problematic group are the people who have come to Estonia, lived here for 20+ years and have not bothered to learn the local language (some can't even manage at the shop). I'm sorry, but I do not see why they should be given citizenship! About the bronze soldier. That was pure provocation. I'd suggest you look over some news about the meetings of the Russian government, for example how they felt threatened by the fact that Estonia was making the effort of reburying their soldiers whose coffins were directly under a bus stop. (What was what the bronze soldier actually marked.) The 'messing' with the soldier meant, that Estonia identified the bodies (since Russians weren't sure who were actually buried there) and buried them to soldiers' cemetery where I honestly feel they belong. And the statute was moved there, to the cemetery, where it belonged to guard over them. I don't see error in that. And what the WWII means to Russians? Do you know what the aftermath of WWII meant to Estonians? Thousands upon thousands sent to Siberia, murders, constant fear, talking Estonian was forbidden, etc. Surely you must see that Estonians do not see Russians as 'liberators'. Also, riots? The thought makes me laugh. Have you heard about Putin's program to bring back Russians who reside in other countries? it does apply to the Russians who live in Estonia too, the Russian government is willing to pay the fees of moving back to Russia. Yet only a few hundred (200) people have applied for it, though Estonia has a Russian population of 400 000. Seems they do like it after all, if they have the chance to go back but choose not to. Mustn't be too bad here then!
For those of you who don't know, about 25% of the population of Estonia is ethnically Russian. These people do not see themselves as Estonian citizens, but as Russians who happen to live in Estonia. Russian is no longer an official language there. Note that the Russian population doesn't want to leave as life in the EU has a lot of advantages over life in Russia, but they hate the Estonian government. The Russians conveniently overlook the fact that their government forcibly incorporated Estonia into the USSR and the locals actually actively resisted with a guerilla movement into the early 1950's (look up Forest Brothers sometime at Wikipedia). The USSR resettled Russians and Ukrainians into Estonia to dilute the local nationalism and made Russian the official language. So it's no surprise that upon gaining independence that the Estonians dropped Russian as an official language. To become Estonian citizens, people had to take a test in Estonian, which kept a lot of Russians away from citizenship as they never bothered to learn Estonian in the USSR days. I would bet almost anything that the student involved is an ethnic Russian student. If you ever have a chance to talk to Russians from there, it's quite amazing what lengths they will go to to justify the USSR's barbaric policies against Estonia.
Yeah, I heard that argument a lot in my life when I did not agree with the common opinion: if you don't like it, why don't you leave to your country, whichever that is (the oldest mention of my surname, which is quite rare, is in a marriage contract in Sweden in 1840, then some places in Austria, then Austrian Poland, then ...).
So, 200 people chose to part with their friends, with their homes and jobs, to go to a place they have not yet seen or seen 30 years before ... yeah, that's relevant. Did Putin promise them jobs and new homes in place of those they left ?
The Baltic states are expecting their Russian-speaking minority to give them positive proof of their loyalty (yes, the language and history exam is requiring positive proof, since I don't think they can choose interpretations, and my guess is they would fail the exam if they would quote from Ernst Gellner or Eric Hobsbawm or Georg Iggers) instead of letting them prove disloyal first, and this makes it evil. If the system was not much different from what happened in my country, those "Russians" that ended in Estonia did not choose to go there, but were given the choice to take that job there or starve. I wonder, did Estonia take it's share of the Soviet Union foreign debt? Since it did not dismantle the factories built there during the SU time and did not burn the railway wagons built in other parts of the Soviet Union and did not invalidate the diplomas the true Estonians got in SU universities, I wonder why would they question the right of Russian speaking people that lived in Estonia in 1990 to be considered true Estonians by default.
The 'messing' with the soldier meant, that Estonia identified the bodies (since Russians weren't sure who were actually buried there) and buried them to soldiers' cemetery where I honestly feel they belong. And the statute was moved there, to the cemetery, where it belonged to guard over them. I don't see error in that.Did they announce it in time, ask for opinion and input, even for a mixed team to do the job and perform the ceremonies ? Or just cordoned the place, started digging and bagging/tagging the bones etc. ?
(Their kids who were born after Estonia became independent have citizenship by default)Should I understand that the kids that were born in Estonia and of Russian speaking parents before Estonia became independent did not receive citizenship by default ?
The topic of relocating the bronze soldier got widespread news coverage starting in January. It was actually moved in the end on April. Announced 4 months before, so I don't think it was that big of a surprise. Also, before the 'digging' begun, priests preformed the necessary religious ceremonies. Citizenship was given to those whose parents or grandparents had been Estonian citizens during the first Estonian republic (before 1938). People who wished to be citizens were given a green card to simplify the citizenship process. No, people born during soviet time were not given citizenship by default (which I think is even legally impossible, since Estonia as a republic did not exist, it was a part of the SU), but according to Estonian laws people under the age 15 can get citizenship more easily, so the people in the gap (1939-1984) have to go through the process of getting citizenship as it's done nowadays. That means that the people who don't have citizenship have had at least 15 or more years to learn the language. Sorry, but I feel no sympathy for them if they haven't tried.
First off, harshipper is misinformed at best and overly nationalist (or a moron, I cannot tell) at worst. Children born in Estonia sadly do not become citizens automatically unless one of their parents is a citizen (and until -- I believe -- 1995 it had to be the father, go figure the paternalistic XIX century ius sanguinis system).
I also agree that citizenship should be more readily available. However, I do not think language restrictions are too harsh. Although it is decidedly wrong to point to other countries in that respect, I believe only a handful of countries agree to grant citizenship without prior language exams (Sweden and the Netherlands, but correct me if I am wrong) and even there they are turning the clock back, as they are coming to realise that the new citizens that cannot speak the language are just not participating in the society, hence invalidating their need to be a citizen. (Which almost always really boils down to the right to elect one's leaders. And having a passport that guarantees as many visa-free border crossings as possible. But I shall come to that later.)
I do not consider the requirements to be too harsh, but I do see how they can be a problem. It boils down to the Estonian governments indecisiveness in the nineties as to what to do with all the Soviet time immigrants. The right thing to do would have been to win them over, so to speak, make them feel wanted in that new social setting where they could no longer be a majority. Instead, the government slept on it and kept people in the dark. It did not help that it was the Pro Patria party that was in charge back then. So people chose their side and now it's already quite late to try to win them over once again. See, the language itself is not the problem, the issue here is the willingness to learn it or the lack thereof.
The language, however, is the bulk of the identity. If somebody from the outside of the ethnic community learns it, he or she is automatically highly regarded unless his/her actions prove otherwise. (See Dmitri Klenski.) I think it is comprehensible why Estonians so eagerly demand that every citizen be able to speak their language. Estonian culture's position in the globalising world is not overly strong, so the people cling to it.
Estonia's political elite has only recently realised that the Soviet era immigrants are in Estonia to stay, at least those who aren't using the country as a trampoline to the rich EU or USA, but they are sadly reaping the fruits of their own prior actions.
The bronze soldier debacle can be partly attributed to extremely poor PR on the Estonia's government's side. The other part comes from Russia's elite's wish to recreate a stronghold in its former occupied territory, for which the statue was reinstated as holy through a carefully orchestrated campaign that started sometime after Putin's rise to power. (The statue had been all but forgotten in the nineties.)
As for the SU's foreign debt... Do we really need to go into that? When will Croatia pay the Austro-Hungarian empire's foreign debt? Or will Namibia cough up the dough for South Africa? Probably not. The factories, yes, were built. If you compare Finland and Estonia pre-war, Finland was lagging way behind. Enter Soviet times and Soviet factories being built, but not in Finland. Finland is arguably better off these days. Military factories were installed in all SU, their workers came from Russia and the products went back there. It wasn't beneficial to the local economy and quite many of them were dismantled when the industry left.
Uh, must run. We can continue later. By e-mail, even.
Even if this guy had no close conspirators, which isn't known at this point, it's been reported previously that there were a lot of participants that got riled up by some of the maybe more influential people. This article says that there were a bunch of script kiddies who took their cues from more experienced attackers. Dmitri Galushkevich probably did not mastermind all of that stuff. It's still unclear what exacly went on, as far as I can see.
This space reserved for administrative use.
I have no bone with Estonia wanting it's citizens to speak Estonian. The issue is what is reasonably to expect from those that were trapped in Estonia when SU broke down: damned if the left (become homeless and be rejected by the other Russians as "Estonians", the way it happens with the Transylvanian Hungarians in Hungary, or with Moldavians in Rumania), damned if the remained in Estonia (become second-class citizens at best, with their loyalty permanently questioned). All over Europe minorities (still not sent packing or sent digging their own graves) are used that way: when there is some sacrifice to ask, they are fine citizens, when there are benefits to distribute, they are foreigners who have to prove their loyalty.
What ticked me off was the knee-jerk reaction: D.G. has a Slavic name, so he must be Russian, so he must be used by KGB in their attempt to ... do what ? Seriously annoy Estonia ? I have not found any details about what kind of DDOS attack Estonia was subjected to. Was is syn flooding ? Were there attempts to gain access? Were they simply bombarding the servers with ping requests ? Or maybe what really happened was the "Slashdot effect" when the whole world became interested in the fate of the poor small Estonia in it's conflict with it's big and bad neighbor and servers that did well servicing less than 2 mil. people buckled under the curiosity of 20 millions ?
The Baltic states are perfectly justified to regard Soviet Union as a conqueror and the occupation as illegitimate, but I think the rest of the former SU subjects, including the Russians, can raise the same claims: that they were enslaved by the Communists against their will and against their fierce resistance. After all, the Russians provided the bulk of the resistance against the Communists during the Civil War of the 1918-1921, and suffered the most because of Communism. Maybe it would be more appropriate for the Estonians to blame France and England for their suffering: had not the Antante insist on Russia staying in the war, Lenin and it's pals might have been known only to historians interested in the Socialist movement of the early XXth century, since most of the people that at first volunteered for the Bolshevik armies only wanted to get away from the meaningless slaughter of the Eastern front.
When will Croatia pay the Austro-Hungarian empire's foreign debt?If I am not mistaken, it got discounted from the war reparations owed to Serbia :-P.
Enter Soviet times and Soviet factories being built, but not in Finland. Finland is arguably better off these days. Military factories were installed in all SU, their workers came from Russia and the products went back there.The products went not only to Russia, but also to the Korean war, the Vietnam war and the Afghanistan war ... when I see the Americans weeping their eyes off because they lost the Vietnam war, I can only think about the resources our countries wasted there and smile ... bitterly, since in fact the Communist camp might have won one battle, but it lost the Cold War: the Communists built mostly military industry because they were permanently supporting one war or another, and in doing so wasted resources they could not really afford to waste.
Proof that Putin was involved in the Estonia attacks or proof that Putin plots against and assassinates his opponents?
Given Putin's other sneaky behavior, it seems reasonable to infer that Putin's government may be involved. And even if he's "innocent", who cares? Russia deserves serious sanctions for Putin's other atrocities, so if this is what gets him, GREAT.
OK, you used plural, so name two of Putin atrocities.
fine, I'll be generous today: name one, I'll name the other. Still, I bet you're just improvising.
Growing up across the fence (for those not in the know, there were and still are fences - double fences + barbed wire + plowed ground so the tracks will be seen if somebody crosses - on the borders between the communist countries) from SU, I am as Russophobic as the next man, but get a grip of yourself. If you want your allegations to stick, make sure you provide arguments, and unfortunately I am afraid you have not much arguments.
Rigging elections.
The political assassinations of Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko, as well as numerous other journalists and political opponents.
Mass killings, rape, torture, and other atrocities in Chechnya.
Elections still pending, so you have to wait a bit before making up your mind.
The political assassinations of Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko, as well as numerous other journalists and political opponents.Have you got any proof ? Besides articles in BBC News, I mean ...
Mass killings, rape, torture, and other atrocities in Chechnya.