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Kernel Developer Dmitry Monakhov Arrested For Protesting Ukraine Invasion

sfcrazy (1542989) writes, based on a report from Ted T'so, that Kernel developer Dmitry Monakhov was detained for 15 days for disobeying a police officer. The debacle came about when Monakhov decided to protest the recent invasion into Ukraine by Russian armed forces. Monakhov is using Twitter to keep people informed about his experience with the Russian judicial system; a human translator can probably do a better job than Google in this case.

205 comments

  1. 15 Days? That's all? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hell, in udots, disobeying a police officer's a hangin offence.
    (If you make i to a judge)

  2. Re:News for nerds ... by war4peace · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hey, no, this story has the following buzzwords:
    Kernel
    Ukraine
    Russian
    Invasion

    Guaranteed to bring page views. And you, you... inconsiderate clod, you think it's not a relevant story? Bah! Many buzzwords disagree with you!

    --
    ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
  3. Russia is back to totalitarism by sinij · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Russia is back to totalitarianism, the only thing that still missing for a full return to Soviet era are bread lines and mandatory people's rallies. With sanctions brought by Putin's military aggression theses are not too far away.

    1. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Russia is back to totalitarianism, the only thing that still missing for a full return to Soviet era are bread lines and mandatory people's rallies. With sanctions brought by Putin's military aggression theses are not too far away.

      We need to get an opinion of top notch oss security folk. ALEXANDER PESLYAK I SUMMON YOU

    2. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Actually, the biggest impact of sanctions has been European farmers.

      They tried to bypass sanction by selling to Austria, who would then sell on to Russia. The Russians spotting the scam denied entry (Austria is not known for producing oranges).

      The farmers were compensated by the EU. But rather than give the food to some needy Greeks, the food was destroyed.

    3. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by OzPeter · · Score: 2

      But rather than give the food to some needy Greeks, the food was destroyed.

      Destruction of food happens fairly regularly, no matter how wasteful/stupid you think it might be.

      --
      I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    4. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by superwiz · · Score: 1

      It's not as stupid as you might think. The cost of transporting it to the place where it's needed could far outweigh (in pure energy costs) the costs of growing it locally.

      --
      Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
    5. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      Why do you think there would be bread lines, totalitarianism on a strong economic base (in this case three criminal gang cartels which we could call the Three Branches of Russian Government) works very well for production and distribution

    6. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not really, usually the costs of transport are meaningless next to the cost of processing food.
      Growing things locally usually means food gets processed in smaller facilities, which are usually less efficient.

    7. Re: Russia is back to totalitarism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Depends on both the distance and on the cost of production. The costs of production are constantly falling. (Better crops, more efficient technology used in farming, etc). The transportation costs stay pretty much the same.

    8. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by sinij · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Bread lines will return because combination of sanctions and Putin's effort to Keep Up With the US Military Jonses will put Russia back into impossible economical position of high military spending out of shrinking budget.

    9. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      It's not as stupid as you might think. The cost of transporting it to the place where it's needed could far outweigh (in pure energy costs) the costs of growing it locally.

      In general it's true. We grow more than enough food to eradicate starvation through the entire world.

      The problem has never been growing "enough". We do that quite easily. The problem has always been distribution - getting the food to where it's needed is costly, and that more than a few governments do things that make it far harder than it needs to be.

    10. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Polish farmers just came to EU and gave apples away in front of EU institutions, to show their disappointment.
      Part of this food also went to some charity institutions.

    11. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by pesho · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, the biggest impact of sanctions has been European farmers.

      They tried to bypass sanction by selling to Austria, who would then sell on to Russia. The Russians spotting the scam denied entry (Austria is not known for producing oranges).

      The farmers were compensated by the EU. But rather than give the food to some needy Greeks, the food was destroyed.

      Quick geography lesson. Austria is in Europe (smack in the middle of it) and is part of the European Union. So your statement that somebody tried to go around the Russian food import ban by going through Austria is highly suspect. The way it is actually done is to go through Belarus. Russia is now importing beef from Belarus, which coincidentally is importing cattle from EU (technically the beef is produced in Belarus, as this is the place the cattle gets chopped up). Somewhat more absurd is the sudden appearance in Russian stores of shrimps originating from Belarus (Belarus is a land locked country). So yeah, if there is a ban there will always be somebody to make money by going around them. The thing is that the Russians will be the ones paying the bill.

    12. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      Russia can grow its own bread, and the regional "breadbasket" is the Ukraine. No problem there for Putin in the matters of bread.

    13. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by sinij · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Historically, Russia have not succeeded growing its own bread. Climate change may alter this, but food shortages in Russia go back to Napoleon times.

    14. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's ok, though, buckwheat is tasty too.

    15. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which military aggression are you talking about?

    16. Re: Russia is back to totalitarism by Stoutlimb · · Score: 1

      Incorrect. It is west of the geographic centre of Europe.

    17. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by edis · · Score: 1

      There is much more probable disappointment awaiting, if agreements to keep present boundaries are discarded. Mind whole big picture, please.

      --
      Servant of karma
    18. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by GNious · · Score: 1

      The farmers were compensated by the EU. But rather than give the food to some needy Greeks, the food was destroyed.

      The EU allowed for the fruits to be given to schools and hospitals, while compensating the farmers.

    19. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      food shortages are one thing, but potato and rye bread and others are traditional Russian recipes.

    20. Re:Russia is back to totalitarism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're in for a rude awakening if you think the Americans are the ones on the top of that heap. The F35 comes to mind, it's a mess. Meanwhile the Russians and Chinese have been steadily advancing.

      It's all moot, though. If this turns from a made-up-by-Washington pretend war into a real one, it will turn nuclear. At that point, we're all fucked. Every last one of us.

  4. Re:News for nerds ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Feel free to stop reading Slashdot. I've looked through your posting history and you don't offer anything constructive, informative or insightful in your comments, so we won't miss you at all.

  5. New for Despots ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Can we get stories about when kernel developers go to the bathroom as well?

    This is hardly anything that matters or belongs on slashdot. Hans Reiser slaying his wife ... okay, sure, that meant the end of reiserfs effectively. One kernel dev serving time for a basic civil disobedience charge? Who cares? Its about as important as Bennett Hasleton rants about things he utterly fails to understand.

    When the Nazis came for the kernel developers,
    I remained silent;
    I was not a kernel developer.

    When they locked up the dissidents,
    I remained silent;
    I was not a dissident.

    When they came for the musicians,
    I did not speak out;
    I was not a musician.

    When they came for the humans,
    I remained silent;
    I wasn't a human.

    I'm Vladimir Putin.

  6. News for nerds ... by Jacek+Poplawski · · Score: 0

    I completely disagree.
    Why bull**** about "global warming" is important "news for nerds" and information about kernel developer / russian invasion on Ukraine is not important?
    I think Slashdot was much more intesting 10 years ago than it is now, but your comment shows that this direction is not accidental.

  7. Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    A cultural invasion perhaps.

    Lots of huff and puff from Ukraine about a Russian invasion, but no evidence. Did you hear about the Russian convoy the Ukrainians 'eliminated'. Big recruiting potential lost only because the forgot to take a photo? hmmm

    The 10 Russian paratroopers that accidentally strayed in to Ukraine? Oh those ones who were swapped for 63 Ukrainian soldiers who strayed into Russia.

    [i]Cui bono?[/i]
    Nato has a big conference this week. Recent events should allow sensible governments to increase defense spending during a time of austerity.

    The Ukraine forces are getting the asses handed to them on a plate by a well organised farming cooperative.

    1. Re:Which Invasion? by DocSavage64109 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Interesting point of view. There seems to be a pretty major propaganda war going on over Russia and Ukraine, and I wonder which parts are truth...

    2. Re:Which Invasion? by sinij · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >>>no evidence.

      You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. Satellite images of Russian armored columns entering Ukraine, captured active duty Russian troops, secret burials of killed Russian soldiers, rebel chain of command composed entirely out of Russian citizens with ties to KGB are all disagree with you. You can account for maybe one of these by claiming accidental what-have-you, but combined they establish clear pattern.

    3. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      >>>no evidence.

      You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. Satellite images of Russian armored columns entering Ukraine, captured active duty Russian troops, secret burials of killed Russian soldiers, rebel chain of command composed entirely out of Russian citizens with ties to KGB are all disagree with you. You can account for maybe one of these by claiming accidental what-have-you, but combined they establish clear pattern.

      [citation needed]

    4. Re:Which Invasion? by horza · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The invasion of Europe by Russia is pretty big news, and will have an impact on everything from the economy to space exploration. NATO has direct evidence of the invasion, and Russia is hardly trying to hide it any more apart from the loopy puppet Sergei Lavrov (the new Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf). Ukraine has already introduced conscription, so that's already a pool of potentially talented young programmers off to get slaughtered by Russian tanks. The Russian murder of those Dutch people in the airliner also has affected air traffic.

      As Europe gets sucked unwillingly into war with Russia, this is going to get quite brutal as the Putin doesn't care how many people die on either side even his own. He's got a fair amount of cyber-warfare talent to call on too. Maybe this will be the wake-up call to start putting in place proper encryption EVERYWHERE. War with Russia is a little more important than the NSA passing on tips on drug dealers.

      Phillip.

    5. Re:Which Invasion? by sinij · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't think it is difficult to conclude that Russian state media's point of view on Russian involvement in Ukraine will closely mirror Russian government's official position. Motivations are less clear for Western media, but at least hard facts, like satellite images, or actual footage from reporters could be largely trusted.

    6. Re:Which Invasion? by superwiz · · Score: 1

      If you think that MSNBC, FOX News and CNN agree on something and it's still not true, well, you better have a helluva citation yourself.

      --
      Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
    7. Re:Which Invasion? by kav2k · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You should treat both sides as untrustworthy. Fabricated evidence, or just total lack thereof, is used by both sides.

      It's an amazing trait of modern wars. We often say that cyberwarfare is the threat of the future, but right now information wars, shaping public opinion that's malleable and not always critical enough of the fact presented, is maybe a bigger thing than actual firefights on the ground. Modern technology makes information easy to manipulate, easy to inject into public view, and far, far easier to spread.

      Unless a war goes on in your homeland right next to you, you can't really tell if you're being told the truth.

    8. Re:Which Invasion? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      This is a situation where it's instructive to look at who's posting - and note the astroturfing comments you're responding to are being posted anonymously.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    9. Re:Which Invasion? by halivar · · Score: 1

      *cough* *cough* [UID needed]

    10. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq anyone?

    11. Re:Which Invasion? by sinij · · Score: 3

      Fabrication of evidence by NATO would be much bigger news than entire war in Ukraine. As such, we are can be certain that facts that are presented by Western media are accurate. What we can't be sure about is what facts are omitted or under-reported. Like civilian casualties and humanitarian crisis in Donetsk. Was it avoidable, could it be meaningfully mitigated by ether side?

    12. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yup, the thousands of satellite images coming from countries that aren't Ukrainian is origin. Google will show you thousands with 2 seconds of searching, astroturfer.

    13. Re:Which Invasion? by Dan+East · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, but the tanks and artillery the "separatists" keep popping up with are coming from somewhere. At this late stage in the game, they certainly aren't Ukrainian remnants that the separatists have captured in those Ukrainian territories - those were used and destroyed many months ago.

      So one of two things are happening. Either Putin and friends are blatantly lying and calling for peace talks and negotiations while they are pouring heavy military equipment into Ukraine, or Putin has no control over his military and anybody can just hop in one of his tanks and leave Russia in it. Either way, he looks like a fool with such obvious blatant lies, or due to his weakness as a military leader. I think we know which of those two is more likely.

      Oh, and everyone seems to have quickly forgotten all the civilians that died on a passenger jet because of Russia's antiaircraft missiles. It blows my mind in this day and age that a country that is supposedly a big part of the world community can get by with shooting down a plane and the rest of the world does absolutely nothing about it.

      --
      Better known as 318230.
    14. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      My second purpose today is to provide you with additional information, to share with you what the United States knows about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as well as Iraq's involvement in terrorism, which is also the subject of resolution 1441 and other earlier resolutions.

      Colin Powell, 4 Feb 2003. (Senior fucking guy in NATO)

      http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/feb/05/iraq.usa

    15. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you saw any T90 around there?

    16. Re:Which Invasion? by Rhywden · · Score: 2

      But, hey, a tank needs holidays, too!

    17. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Fabrication of evidence by NATO would be much bigger news than entire war in Ukraine. As such, we are can be certain that facts that are presented by Western media are accurate. What we can't be sure about is what facts are omitted or under-reported. Like civilian casualties and humanitarian crisis in Donetsk. Was it avoidable, could it be meaningfully mitigated by ether side?

      Not if you were on the "other side".

      To "Westerners" the idea that the facts could be omitted/under/mis-reported is a terrible thing that should be avoided and rooted out. But to most of the world, the idea that the facts could be omitted/under/mis-reported is considered to be a given.

      But to (most) non-"Westerners", the media is just a propaganda tool controlled by the government to convince the public to do whatever they want. Freedom of speech? Freedom of the press? HA! Thats just American propaganda. All this talk about civilian casualties and humanitarian crisis? Nothing more than a "Western" excuse to stop Mother Russia from protecting innocent would-be Russians in the Ukraine from their evil Ukranian warlords.

    18. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It became also a huge story once the whole thing was debunked. I look at media coverage as follows:

      1. There has been numerous clear fabrications by the Russian media and the state. For example actors have been posing as different people (you can find these on youtube). In addition, pictures have been from different places than claimed. These have been used as evidence for their version of the story.

      2. The only sort of pictures that I've seen fabricated by Western media was the one video on the MH17 falling down, which turned out to be some clip from Syria. The main difference was that the clip was never shown to prove anything, only to generate "clicks" by having people visit the site for some exclusive footage. The motive was money, not to mislead.

      As an example of verifiability the presence of a BUK in rebel territory was easy to verify from a video released by the Ukrainians. It didn't take long before people used Google Maps to pinpoint the precise location and anyone can verify by going to Google Maps that this is the correct location. The location was firmly within rebel held territory. Similarly, most other interesting pictures have been located on Google Maps, so anyone can verify the location.

    19. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Do you think they're so stupid to send in the newest equipment they have, which anyone can spot from a mile away being 100% Russian as in owned by the Russian military. The point is that the separatist seem to have access to lots of ammo and material and there simply wasn't enough of it in the depos located on the rebel controlled area.

    20. Re:Which Invasion? by ehiris · · Score: 2

      I don't know that I'd compare KGB-style fabrication of news with a western-style free press.
      Ever since MH17, we are all part of this war. It doesn't have to be within some imaginary lines.
      Ukraine's only fault is giving up its nuclear weapons and throwing off the balance.

    21. Re:Which Invasion? by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      There are even youtube videos showing separatists getting museum tanks running. And seriously, I don't think several hundred tanks were destroyed in that conflict. I'd be surprised if so much as ten were.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    22. Re:Which Invasion? by CODiNE · · Score: 1

      Isn't it a show of power to be able to blatantly lie and yet nobody calls you on it?

      If global leaders know exactly what you're doing and can't simply say it in public, does that not show fear?

      --
      Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
    23. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but for time immemorial and unto eternity, information war

      FTFY.

      Remember the Maine.

      Carthage must be destroyed.

    24. Re:Which Invasion? by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yes, but the tanks and artillery the "separatists" keep popping up with are coming from somewhere. At this late stage in the game, they certainly aren't Ukrainian remnants that the separatists have captured in those Ukrainian territories - those were used and destroyed many months ago.

      Really? I was reading in the Guardian (which has proven itself to be woefully biased in the past few months) that the separatists were surrounding and capturing Ukranian army units just last week. What's more, in the past days we've been reading about waves of deserters from the Ukrainian army. Nobody is claiming the separatists are armed only with stuff they got months ago. They're claiming, and so is Kiev, that they've been able to obtain large quantities of arms from the fleeing, conscript-based Ukrainian army.

      Meanwhile Poroshenko is trying to claim that there's an Russian army rolling around in his country ...... yet so far nobody has been able to actually find it. An entire army! Over 1000 soldiers and 100 tanks! Such a unit requires support vehicles, a tent town, supply lines .... so where is it? Maybe it's sort of like invasion by aid convoy.

    25. Re:Which Invasion? by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 3, Informative

      You mean these satellite images? The ones that have the following quotes attached to them?

      At a press conference on Thursday, August 28, Dutch Brig. Gen. Nico Tak, a senior NATO commander, revealed satellite images of what NATO says are Russian combat forces engaged in military operations in or near Ukrainian territory. NATO said this image shows Russian self-propelled artillery units set up in firing positions near Krasnodon, in eastern Ukraine.

      This is an extremely misleading way to phrase things. Krasnodon is not just "in eastern Ukraine". It's right on the border. So being near it can also mean in Russia. The above comments from NATO mean nothing, assuming CNN is reporting them accurately. What about the others .... hmm let's see.

      Image 2 is from inside Russia and they say so. Image 3 is also in Russia. Image 5 is captioned twice, once with "Russian self propelled artillery unit inside Ukraine" and again, but this time it's again "near Krasnodon", which is practically in Russia. If there's an obviously demarcated border in this area it's hard to see based on the Google satellite images. The last image doesn't even claim to be of anything in particular, the caption is merely summarising story in general.

      Both Russian and Ukranian troops appear to regularly cross the border without realising it - there have been repeated reports of Ukrainian forces entering Russia and then being redirected back across the border, with no obvious blowback. Given these things, and the fact that western media is in full-blown propaganda mode and not even hiding it, I'm going to want way stronger evidence than this.

      But honestly, even if Russia did invade, this would merely make it on par with the USA and UK, both countries that practically revel in invading other countries and wading into other countries civil wars. So a part of me couldn't get too excited even if it did happen. It's definitely NOT worth a serious, major conflict between Russia and the west.

    26. Re:Which Invasion? by DocSavage64109 · · Score: 2

      If you think that MSNBC, FOX News and CNN agree on something and it's still not true, well, you better have a helluva citation yourself.

      I'm pretty sure someone powerful enough to be putting on a global misinformation campaign has no problem feeding those three news outlets whatever press releases or "news" they want. Not saying that this is happening, but the WMD misinformation wasn't all that long ago.

    27. Re:Which Invasion? by DocSavage64109 · · Score: 1

      A good cyberwarfare department could easily post lots of fake satellite imagery to google from multiple sources. Kind of like how people game Yelp.

    28. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are retarded like many looking for WMD in Iraq or mass graves in Kosovo.

    29. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In the main Finnish newspaper from today, reporters on the scene took a photo of the aftermath of just one single attack on a formation and there were probably more than 10 destroyed tanks.

    30. Re:Which Invasion? by avgapon · · Score: 1

      You mixed cause and effect. The separatists became capable of defeating the Ukrainian army after the influx of heavy armor and weapons. Before that they were losing and retreating all the time.

    31. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The first influx of heavy armor came from the Ukraine Donbass army. This is a civil war, so there are ex ukie soldiers fighting with the "rebels".

      25% of ukrainian population is composed from ethnic russians. They want to be russians not europeans or americans. These people are the one who Yatseniuk called "subhumans". Obviously they're pissed now ( also because the regular army is shelling them night and day ).

    32. Re:Which Invasion? by qpqp · · Score: 1

      but at least hard facts, like satellite images, or actual footage from reporters could be largely trusted

      Following this conflict from the beginning, as I have ties to both countries and the EU, I'm still waiting for any hard evidence. Unfortunately, only thing I see is populism and war rhetoric on all sides and a bit of irony.

    33. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sattelite imagery is just a tool, and as a tool it can't tell you who owns that vehicle, nor it can give someones identity nor nationality. Those images published by NATO is clearly a misuse, claiming something that can't be derived directly from the image itself. Damn, I can even take a White house sat image that way, and claim that O'banana having fun with some hookers right now! Do you remember sat images of some buildings in Iraq when some blockhead claimed that WMDs is surely there?

    34. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As an example of verifiability the presence of a BUK in rebel territory was easy to verify from a video released by the Ukrainians

      So, what tells you on these pictures that this is not a ukrainian BUK? That this was a place under the militia's control? It's not like it could have been transported there to frame the militia, right?

    35. Re:Which Invasion? by qpqp · · Score: 1

      Oh, sure, you keep believing that you have a free press, which is not tied to the military-industrial complex or other interest groups. Or that there's any free media at all. Or that there's a democracy anywhere in the world.

    36. Re:Which Invasion? by qpqp · · Score: 1

      Not really, they just changed their tactics and formed bigger units instead of guerrilla squads.Obviously there's also a ton of mercenaries and volunteers fighting on all sides.

    37. Re:Which Invasion? by qpqp · · Score: 1

      Oh, and everyone seems to have quickly forgotten all the civilians that died on a passenger jet because of Soviet antiaircraft missiles produced in the Ukraine .

      FTFY.

    38. Re:Which Invasion? by qpqp · · Score: 1

      western-style free press

      Please show me one independent outlet that is not publishing satire and not tied to some corporate or political interest. Why do people still believe in these fairy tales?

    39. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1st link: where are the satellite images?
      2nd link: forgot about the 400+ Ukrainian personnel that surrendered and went to Russia?
      3rd link: there's many who have dual citizenship.
      [citation: go look for yourself]

    40. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which invasion ?

      What about taking care of the whole middle east, Afgan-Pak by 'Murrica ?

      This problems is totally expected. If hero can do shitty things and get away, villian can do far shittier things and try to get away.

      So, suck it up 'Murricans, the world is not a just place as you claim it to be.

      Only problem is poor innocent citizens world over becoming causalities for big powers as it was in cold war era. This is cold war era in a new botttle.

    41. Re:Which Invasion? by edis · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You will be waiting yet, as Putin's denial and conspiracy is the way he invents this war. There are massive amounts of messages about weapons both moving into Ukraine, shooting from Russia side, troopers from Kostroma captured on territory of Ukraine or those from Pskov buried after killed in this war. It is obvious how almost settled war has turned over end of August after Russia activated its involvement. There's even Malaysia airliner, shot down from BUK-M system, that was supplied to terrorists by nobody else, but helpful Russia - you still don't believe all those dead dutch? It all goes on, has no stop, but you are still "waiting for evidence". I hope you at least have registered unidentified "green people" of Crimea now, that this land has "suddenly decided to proceed with Russia" after them visiting and helping with things. This is dirty war, and major supply of its dirtiness comes from particular source, which makes problem somewhat better solvable.

      --
      Servant of karma
    42. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yup, the thousands of satellite images coming from one corporation under US influence.

      There you go, fixed that for 'ya.

    43. Re:Which Invasion? by quantaman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Interesting point of view. There seems to be a pretty major propaganda war going on over Russia and Ukraine, and I wonder which parts are truth...

      Claims from the West should be treated with healthy skepticism.

      Claims from Russia should be treated with howls of laughter.

      --
      I stole this Sig
    44. Re:Which Invasion? by edis · · Score: 1

      I am observing media of both sides. This can be told: it is only one side, that is eager to deliver picture, for money or for ideals, this varies trough the media. However, you also have only one side, where at least 90% of media is controlled in the manner, that suits "vertical of power", where interviewed person will be beaten very soon after uncovering disagreements with mainstream position, where editors would be fired quickly after similar incidents. You can play if everything is the same both sides, but it isn't. Somebody strives to meet some values, and somebody doesn't bloody care.

      --
      Servant of karma
    45. Re:Which Invasion? by ultranova · · Score: 1

      A good cyberwarfare department could easily post lots of fake satellite imagery to google from multiple sources.

      A good cyberwarfare department does what it's told. Gaining foreign hostility is likely one of Putin's goals in all this, because he can use the resulting siege mentality to concentrate more power in his hands. For that matter, economic sanctions work in his favour too, since they get Russians used to lower standard of living which gets blamed on West, thus allowing Putin to move economic resources to military.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    46. Re:Which Invasion? by qpqp · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Nothing you have said about the current conflict (which does not include Crimea, that's a different can of worms, however "suddenly decided to proceed with Russia" is wrong) has been provided proof for.
      "massive amounts of messages" - mostly from the Ukrainian state media and ministries, copy-pasted to western outlets and some alleged satellite imagery, which doesn't really show or proof anything.
      "shooting from Russia side" - no proof whatsoever, except for the same "reports" from Ukraine and some imagery without crucial information and wrongly placed shadows. Ukraine, however, was shooting the border posts, while the OSCE was there.
      "troopers from Kostroma captured on territory of Ukraine" - those 10 guys? That's a massive invasion. First it was 10 km, then it was 20, next day it was 50 km from the border. What about the 400-something Ukrainian troops that were on Russian territory?
      "There's even Malaysia airliner, shot down from BUK-M system" [citation needed], "that was supplied to terrorists by nobody else, but helpful Russia" [citation needed]. Btw, did you know that BUK missiles are from the soviet era and are (also) produced by a Ukrainian company?

      Even many clues don't create a single piece of evidence, which is still missing. I'd like to see it, so I can form an educated opinion about what's happening, but until I do (and I doubt that will happen), I'll just form my opinion on the basis that I know: media outlets are manipulating public opinion everywhere, not just Russia.

    47. Re:Which Invasion? by qpqp · · Score: 1

      should have proof-read a bit. Sorry : )

    48. Re:Which Invasion? by qpqp · · Score: 1

      eager to deliver picture

      You must be talking about RT, because I don't see pictures of the war zone in any western outlets.

    49. Re:Which Invasion? by OhPlz · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't trust anything coming out of a country that requires its bloggers to register with the state.

    50. Re:Which Invasion? by edis · · Score: 1

      You do know, that it is routine now in Russia to call military for "urgent trainings", transfer them to Rostov bases, change clothing and delete all recognition signs from machines and uniforms, paint white circles on top and have bands on clothing instead (explanation: to mark competing teams), then proceed to "train" into the depth of Ukraine? For, say 3 days or whatever. If you do not yet know, you can search for "soldier mothers", this is now source, that has accumulated plenty of actual information about where their sons are. Or are no longer, in worst sense.

      There was amazing piece of primary information afloat recently on subject, if you can translate it well:
      http://nvua.net/opinion/gelman...

      In short, if to believe literally, goal of Putin clique is to prove to Ukrainian President, that he can't win this secreted war. To make him sit down, and negotiate with those terrorists, that are supplied with arms and all kind of vaguely masqueraded support from Russia. Then they will tell what they want it to be resolved like, what they would be happy with. However, this is crippled plan, as you have KGB professional of neighboring "hyperfriendly" country negotiating with the President of sovereign state. Shocking blatancy is easy recognizable. It is also horrible to observe similarity in the thinking, moving, massive local support of rising Hitler. From now on we are all kidnapped by KGB agent - stability, economies, as you can observe, everything is now challenged.

      --
      Servant of karma
    51. Re:Which Invasion? by richlv · · Score: 1

      that's a russian lie machine line.
      their approach is to lie a lot, then claim that you can't trust either side and just try to have some middle ground.

      sorry, after "no russian soldiers in crimea" and lots and lots of other cases if you actually care to read about them - i can't see how an honest and informed person could trust that large terrorism sponsor state. no wonder "terrorussia" is used more and more often.

      --
      Rich
    52. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      eager to deliver picture

      You must be talking about RT, because I don't see pictures of the war zone in any western outlets.

      Hmm, here we have several documentaries during the week. Journalist talking to people at Russian border. Journalist investigating those trucks. Journalist with refugees at the see. Journalist in the Krim. Journalist with Spanish dudes fighting with the Russians. Journalist talking to people in shelter in Donetsk, ...

      I wonder what outlets you watch. In case you want to verify: http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuw and search on Oekraine, order video by date.

    53. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you think that MSNBC, FOX News and CNN agree on something and it's still not true, well, you better have a helluva citation yourself.

      I'm pretty sure someone powerful enough to be putting on a global misinformation campaign has no problem feeding those three news outlets whatever press releases or "news" they want. Not saying that this is happening, but the WMD misinformation wasn't all that long ago.

      Yes, and not believed by most of the EU and other parts of world, with their analysist seriously doubting the information. But they went ahead. This time there is no disagreement in the West.

    54. Re:Which Invasion? by Archwyrm · · Score: 2

      1000 soldiers is hardly an army. A battalion to brigade at best. 100 tanks are crewed by about 300 soldiers. So, if there are 1000 soldiers, then you have up to 700 available as support (this number would almost certainly include other types of combat troops such as motorized infantry). Furthermore, such a force would have up to 50000 km to disperse in as the current situation certainly does not call for concentrating in one place.

      That means if there are 1000 additional Russian soldiers rolling around in Ukraine, then they would be very hard to pinpoint.

      --
      Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power. -- Mussolini
    55. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Satellite images for your enjoyment. (Civilian ones. NATO is awfully shy. They tend not to release images from military spy satellites.)

      http://www.businessinsider.com/nato-satellite-photo-evidence-russia-lying-about-ukraine-2014-8

    56. Re:Which Invasion? by edis · · Score: 1

      You must be talking about RT, because I don't see pictures of the war zone in any western outlets.

      No, based on observations, I treat RT as a shame to the media. If they show "pictures of the war zone", it is only to deliver horror of consequences to your eyes, actually hiding, that it was caused by Russian support to people (with key people being exactly Russian citizen) operating in another sovereign state. I can't judge your selection of western media to check with poor results, but I happen to live in the country, expressing strong support to Ukraine due to own historical lessons, received from the same imperial aggressor. We have no lack of reports, some bias can be observable, but it is not big deal to shave off, while there are also occasional media of those Russian, who feel slightly more, than unquestionable support to the "smartest Russia president ever".

      --
      Servant of karma
    57. Re:Which Invasion? by Xest · · Score: 4, Informative

      Russia had plausible deniability by only supplying things like T-64s to the rebels, but as the rebels were losing it seems Putin couldn't accept that and now there are numerous photos of T-72BMs in the Ukraine and the Russian military is the only military in the world to have access to and operate these:

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl...

      Similarly, Russian mothers are beginning to ask why their sons are coming back in coffins due to unexplained deaths from a "training exercise" on the Ukrainian border, and where reporters attending their funerals are attacked by mobs that have nothing to do with the funerals in question but magically turn up at them to keep journalists away all the same. Then of course there's the actual Russian soldiers who were outright captured in Ukraine:

      http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

      Of course, we have history, just this year too, where Crimea was filled with "rebels" who Putin eventually admitted were Russian soldiers, so it's obviously well within Putin's realm of willingness to pass of serving soldiers as civilians until their mission is complete, which, by the way, is a war crime for what it's worth - yes, that's right, admitting this tactic makes Putin a self-admitted war criminal.

      When MH-17 was shot down, and it was just T-64s and modern machine guns the rebels had it seemed a bit of a stretch, yet still plausible that this was just a rag tag bunch of individuals fighting on behalf of Russia. Now, with more recent evidence you'd have to be exceptionally retarded to not recognise that Russia is very clearly in the Ukraine with full serving units (hell, the 10 captured soldiers prove that as an outright fact by itself whether you really believe they were lost or not, you don't just allow your soldiers to stumble into a war zone accidentally unless you want them to end up in a potential fight). This is why the tide of battle has changed too from being strongly in the Ukrainian military's favour to now being in the Russia's favour - the Ukrainians are no longer fighting relatively lightly armed insurgents, they're fighting full blown armoured battalions backed up by professionally precision launched artillery strikes all of a sudden - that doesn't just get organised out of nowhere by rebels in a couple of cut off towns with little remaining access to the outside world and dwindling numbers, that requires state level planning, implementation, and financing over an extended period of time to implement - i.e. it requires a professional army.

      At this point the only hope is that enough Russian soldiers are killed such that Russians themselves start asking what the fuck they're doing in someone else's country that has done absolutely nothing wrong to Russia (other than hurting Putin's ego) when there's a simple solution of leaving that country the fuck alone and letting it get on with becoming a modern nation even if it does mean Putin's little big man syndrome takes a knock. Thankfully that already seems to be happening to some degree with the Russian soldier's rights institute that's compiled a list of the 400 dead Russian soldiers it believes have been killed in this war already - putting that into context that's very nearly as many lives as the British have lost in 13 years in Afghanistan so thankfully there is a high cost to Russia for this stupidity, and thankfully it is beginning to be noticed by ordinary Russians themselves.

    58. Re:Which Invasion? by qpqp · · Score: 1

      You do know [...]?

      No, as a matter of fact, I don't know. I've successfully avoided being drafted 1.5 times (had to undergo basic training once and was then "released").
      Do you know? Do all these soldiers miraculously also loose their cell phones?

      And NVUA is probably really objective and stuff, being a Kiev-based newspaper. And with their financiers and editorial team... Hmm...
      The submission is from a Mr. Gelman, who's a "gallery dealer and art-manager." I'm sure Mr. Lukin (former Yabloko member) and the mysterious "other person" told him everything he knew.

      Seriously, did the thousands of soldiers, tanks and other heavy machinery move through underground tunnels over the border, or why is it so hard to find satellite imagery that unambiguously, conclusively proves troop movements?

    59. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm the AC who put in [citation needed] and I am just too lazy to log in.

    60. Re:Which Invasion? by qpqp · · Score: 1

      but I happen to live in the country, expressing strong support to Ukraine due to own historical lessons, received from the same imperial aggressor

      So either one of the Baltic states or Poland, I figure? I'm in Germany and German media carbon-copies Ukraine's press releases. I have quite an array of outlets and sources I compare, and all I see is that most either leave out facts, contradict each other, use vague, suggestive terms and formulations, etc. Recently I started preferring to watch and read the actual primary sources, like statements of foreign ministries, UNSC meetings, etc. Still sucks.
      My conclusion is that we should be mining minerals on the moon and exploring the stars, instead of waging wars against each other. That's just utterly stupid.
      Oh, and the US should keep to themselves, NATO disbanded, lawyers chained to the bottom of the sea, lobbyists sent to work in sweatshops and neo-cons and other war mongers sent to death matches for the amusement of the population.

    61. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This time there is no disagreement in the West.

      But there is, only not in the mainstream media. Specific to Germany: Unlike 2003 there are no general elections now, and anyway, in 2003 Merkel was sucking Bush's dick and now she's doing the same for Obama.

    62. Re:Which Invasion? by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      It was also Colin Powell, not NATO and not speaking for NATO. Yes, it was the US administration's viewpoint that it was trying to push, though there is evidence that the administration was fooling itself though bias to see only what it wanted to see rather than trying to fool the world. And the US administration also is not NATO and not even dictator of NATO, it still has to do a lot of wheedling and diplomacy to get NATO to act.

    63. Re:Which Invasion? by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Actually the media is almost subverted now by social networks perhaps. People in the West may ask "why isn't this being reported on" in various cases, when those stories are indeed being reported but they're not becoming popular stories because they don't make waves on the social media. People are tired of war, they skim past those stories in the paper (if they still bother to read papers), or if they self-select their news online then they don't select those stories. We're basically permanently removed from the style of news in the 60s and 70s when most Americans sat down to listen to the full half hour of broadcast news which covered a range of topics, where enough watched it that even Walter Cronkite reporting negatively on the Vietnam war was enough to affect the war and get the administration moving towards pulling out. Instead today people are in a bubble of news that is only what they want to hear or that reinforces that they think they already know.

    64. Re:Which Invasion? by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      So you're basically saying no evidence is enough evidence for you, if it's reported in the west.

    65. Re:Which Invasion? by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Why is it hard to believe Russia would invade? They did exactly the same thing in Crimea and actually admitted that this is what they did after the fact.

    66. Re:Which Invasion? by edis · · Score: 1

      Sorry to be rude, but you talk playful, yet cheap. NATO disbanded, when our countries here have it as only realistic hope to find protection from KGB-legacy politicians, reviving friendships-as-usual? You are at a comfortable distance from that mad creature, most likely you never even got whole sense of that KGB-as-the-core architecture in the past. I see only one good cure for you - being German (supposedly), if you are ashamed of Hitler and heritage of related madness, you may succeed being ashamed of that mister smartass of today.

      statements of foreign ministries, etc.

      - these are superficial, made up statements, they are not even direct reflections of reality events, they are positions. Russia's official position is lie - so what do you do with that?!

      --
      Servant of karma
    67. Re:Which Invasion? by fnj · · Score: 1

      Can you produce a link to the photo? Without even seeing it, I doubt all of what you call "tanks" were even tanks. Probably some or all of them were BMPs, armored cars, or something else. But that's just a wild ass guess; we can settle the facts if we see the photo.

      A tank is a thickly armored tracked vehicle with a fully revolving turret mounting a large bore gun. Anything with a tiny looking gun, usually in a tiny turret, is something else.

      T-72. A tank. Treads. Large turret. Big scary gun. Thick armor up to 28 cm. Takes suitable anti-tank weapons to knock out.

      BMP-2. Not a tank. Treads. Tiny turret. Comparatively puny gun. Thin armor, 2.3-3.3 cm tops, . Can be knocked out easily.

      German WW2 armored car shown in top photo. Runs on rubber tires but can have a gun as big as a contemporary tank. Not a real rotating turret. What looks like a turret is actually a fixed shield. There are certainly armored cars used by modern armies.

      OK, Here is a current Russian model. Wikipedia's main picture is lousy. This is a good picture.

    68. Re:Which Invasion? by fnj · · Score: 1

      You got that right. Credible citations are bloody well needed. And satellite photos are useless as hard evidence. They don't show what nationality is manning the vehicles. For example, supporting rebels with hardware and training is emphatically NOT mounting an invasion.

      "Secret burials" is an absurd assertion. Either nobody not involved knows about them, or they were not secret. Elementary logic. Sorry, but just asserting there were secret burials does not count as genuine evidence, let alone proof.

    69. Re:Which Invasion? by fnj · · Score: 1

      If you think that MSNBC, FOX News and CNN agree on something and it's still not true, well, you better have a helluva citation yourself.

      OK, they all agreed on the evidence of WMDs in 2003, and they all (as well as the administration and numerous other agencies) turned out to be wrong.

    70. Re:Which Invasion? by fnj · · Score: 1

      Needs more work. Links to google searches are not the same as direct links to credible documented proof.

      I'm not saying the proof doesn't exist; just that I have not seen it ANYWHERE. Double-damn certainly not anywhere in this discussion.

    71. Re:Which Invasion? by edis · · Score: 1

      Do you know? Do all these soldiers miraculously also loose their cell phones?

      These, and their documents, are promptly collected and stored in safe yet at Rostov base.

      Why you emphasize something unimportant and rather distracting as "gallery dealer and art-manager"? I don't get your reading habits. It is about conversation with the Putin surrounding insider, who presents answers to more interesting aspects of the matter, pretty soundly threading what is happening and what expectations are. Can't get how it turns into "told him everything he knew"

      Seriously, did the thousands of soldiers, tanks and other heavy machinery move through underground tunnels over the border, or why is it so hard to find satellite imagery that unambiguously, conclusively proves troop movements?

      So, you didn't see no satellite images with troops moving? Or they did not impress you? Are you able in general to envision what those borders are, and surrounding situation is? Where are you lacking tunnels? There are stationary and moving troops on both sides of border. There are activities going on around all the time. There is no fence nor anything to limit moving trough forests or fields, being at some point several kilometers deep in the other country, being met there immediately by those, whom to support you came. Have you looked at the map, that separatists concentrate along the border with Russia? Putin himself explained, when caught, that his troopers "got somewhat lost" (in Ukraine by coincidence). There is desire of Russia to keep military activities as sporadic and atomic, as to prevent from stating that they are indeed involved in war. Did you know, key figures of separatists were actually Russian citizen, some removed by Russia just recently to cleanup that mess, and fled back, of course? If you still did not get, that you are observing principally new kind of hybrid war, what were you observing? You missed Crimea action, for some reason put it into tight other box? Only wait for undeniable proof now? Then mister Putin has got your balls very well, since he is acting much more dispersed, than you can imagine or notice. Or are you only playing fool, actually being one of his plot?

      --
      Servant of karma
    72. Re:Which Invasion? by edis · · Score: 1

      Have you seen pictures from battlefields? Did you completely miss military in them? Signs of destruction from military activities? Can you differ separatist with weapons and machines from Russian soldier dressed somewhat more loosely as separatist with weapons and machines? All recognition signs are purposefully removed and replaced (white circles, bands on arms, legs), before entering area.

      According to the committee of soldier mothers of Russia, their data (about their sons) show 10.000 - 15.000 soldiers being involved, not a 1000. Please, google it.

      --
      Servant of karma
    73. Re:Which Invasion? by qpqp · · Score: 1

      I've had my fair share of KGB exposure, thank you. That's one of the reasons, why I'm for privacy: we were constantly monitored with every call wiretapped, because of the positions some of my relatives held. (We were also too honest, so when everyone ran to buy an oilfield for a ruble, we were feeding Bosnian refugees instead, thus, unfortunately, I'm not one of the people on the sanctions list.)
      So, as you can guess by now, I was born in the USSR. I have relatives all around that area, the EU, Asia and US.
      What you're saying about needing protection from Russia is utter nonsense. We're not in the 19th century, "expansion" is based on economic principles these days, not military.
      All this FUD about Russia marching onto europe is totally illogical and made up. It costs too much! I'd be more afraid of the USA, who spends more than the entire world on military and is defending the petro-dollar to the end (which is drawing close, it seems).
      In any case, their power projection and interventions are definitely not for altruistic reasons. At the behest of the US, NATO dismisses the UN and the role it is supposed to have. They just do whatever suits their current strategy (which seems to be: don't let Eurasia integrate. At. All. Costs.), for a really good example, you can look up the war in Yugoslavia.

      Grybauskaite is a war mongering hardliner. Tusk et al. are just using this anti-russian rhetoric as populist tools.
      You're talking of Hitler, aren't you ashamed of what went on (and is still happening) in the Baltic states destroying WWII memorials and attempting to rewrite history? I certainly am, as this is a complete disgrace.

      If you're old enough to remember, the different nations lived together in the USSR, quite peacefully too. Maybe it was because there weren't enough luxury goods (and other things) and people had to improvise and thus work together, maybe because of an oppressive government, whatever the cause, we had peace! Well, suddenly it's "everyone for themselves" and you see countries running to become part of NATO and the EU (while totally demolishing their economies on the way by privatizing everything they have to a select few) and enslave their people to the IMF/WTO.
      Divide et impera at its best.
      It's a shame, IMO.
      By now, we should be living in a different society, focusing on what brings us forward as a species, on sustainable economies, medicine, promoting a culture of peace and harmony. Instead look at what's going on in the world: look at Africa, the Middle East, Ukraine, South America... If it's not military, then it's economic aggression all for the well being of a few corporations that gamed the system to transcend above the law, to make the law themselves. I'm fucking afraid of them and the government without cojones that enables them to spread their rule of terror.

      these are superficial, made up statements, they are not even direct reflections of reality events, they are positions.

      There's a lot to be read between the lines, if you know what they are talking about. You don't think you're getting "direct reflections of reality events" in the media, do you?

      Russia's official position is lie - so what do you do with that?!

      Nothing, I'm used to that. In fact, I don't know a single country, except maybe Finland, that is honest on the global arena.
      Just have a listen to Psaki from the US department of state... You think she's telling the truth? Miss "Oh yeah, we have conclusive evidence, but we can't show you." WTF?!; )

    74. Re:Which Invasion? by qpqp · · Score: 1

      Oh, in addition to the other post, regarding the "expansionist policy" of the "evil Putin" I'd highly recommend reading: this articles published by the CFR (Council on Foreign Relations, one of the leading think tanks specializing in FR in the western world http://www.cfr.org/about/).
      The article is behind a registration or paywall (that's nice of them), but you may use a2072188@trbvm.com as login and slashdot as password to access it.

    75. Re:Which Invasion? by superwiz · · Score: 1

      WMD information didn't happen in a vacuum. It happened after Iraq repeatedly violated the terms of the cease-fire agreement by denying WMD inspectors access to sites they wanted to inspect. The fact that there was additional intelligence indicating that he might have been trying to procure WMD's made it look like he was. He wasn't? Ok. But he made it look like he was and that is why it got reported the way it did.

      --
      Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
    76. Re:Which Invasion? by superwiz · · Score: 1

      If you gonna post nonsense like this, post it under a name. Otherwise, you are just another KGB monkey with a keyboard.

      --
      Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
    77. Re:Which Invasion? by superwiz · · Score: 1

      Oh, I am pretty sure anyone in Russia today will insist that any evidence reported by the West is the opposite of the truth (rather than less credible) because it is reported by the West. Try convincing any member of a terrorist organization that what they are doing is wrong. You'll get a long soliloquy on why they are right. Russia is waging a campaign of terror against Ukraine. They've convinced enough of their population that this campaign of terror is justified and those not convinced are simply nodding along, out of fear, now.

      --
      Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
    78. Re:Which Invasion? by superwiz · · Score: 1

      They all agreed there was evidence for it. They were all right. There was evidence. There just wasn't WMD's.

      --
      Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
    79. Re:Which Invasion? by superwiz · · Score: 1

      Of course, the evidence of WMD's was very circumstantial. In this case, there is footage. And there are 2500 dead people. And it's all because of Putin's direct orders (this part is my opinion... but it's obvious to anyone whose ego is not invested in chest-beating for Mother Russia). Russia never fails to supply the world with a good tragedy. It stood at the doorstep of becoming civilized and it decided to turn around and slam that door shot. I wish what's about to ensue could be a hilarity. But the campaign of deception that is running out of Russia is almost as depressing as the Russian campaign of terror.

      --
      Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
    80. Re:Which Invasion? by qpqp · · Score: 1
      I apologize for the following sarcasm in advance.

      These, and their documents, are promptly collected and stored in safe yet at Rostov base.

      There must have be someone smart enough to stick a phone up his ass or something.
      You know what I mean. No one runs away, no one throws a paper plane with a message to those mothers waiting in front of the gates, ...

      Why you emphasize something unimportant and rather distracting as "gallery dealer and art-manager"?

      I generally check the information I process. Why should I trust an art dealer working for a Kiev-based newspaper with either his analysis (last paragraph), or even that he didn't make all of it up? The "Putin surrounding insider" could be his maid, for all I know.

      Can't get how it turns into "told him everything he knew"

      You wrote in another reply that you're from the former USSR or Poland, so you know what "Desa" is. Especially since it's an ominous, anonymous source that talks to a Kiev based newspaper and is friends with an ex-Yabloko guy. Sure thing!
      It's an interesting take, but it fits too nicely with the Ukrainian narrative.

      So, you didn't see no satellite images with troops moving?

      No, did you? If so, please do send me the links to the images, because all I saw was some blurry shit without geo-location or anything conclusive marked on it from a civilian company in the best, and some photoshop jobs in the worst case.

      Are you able in general to envision what those borders are, and surrounding situation is?

      Quite well, actually.

      Where are you lacking tunnels?

      Oh, so there are tunnels there and nobody reports that the tanks and thousands of troops get to Lugansk and Donetsk through the tunnels...

      Have you looked at the map, that separatists concentrate along the border with Russia?

      Donetsk is quite a march from the border.

      Putin himself explained, when caught, that his troopers "got somewhat lost" (in Ukraine by coincidence).

      Yeah, those 10 paratroopers are a formidable force. Really. They took on a whole division bare-handed! What about the 400+ Ukrainian soldiers that were fed and taken care of by Russia?

      Did you know, key figures of separatists were actually Russian citizen

      Did you know that there are *a lot* of Ukrainians with Russian passports and the other way around. There are also quite a few with both passports.

      If you still did not get, that you are observing principally new kind of hybrid war

      Yes I am observing a hybrid war in the form of destabilizing intervention from all sides: US, EU and RF. An Economo-Ideolo-Info-Cyber-Military war.

      You missed Crimea action

      No I didn't, but I understand the reaction. As pointed out in the article I suggested to read in the other branch of this discussion, imagine China (or Russia for that matter) has a formidable military alliance and makes moves to have Canada and Mexico join. There was virtually no blood spilled on Crimea, the constituency was 60+% Russian-speaking or ethnic Russian population and a few other facts like them being able to vote (and it was not a gunpoint as some keep insisting. There's enough proof for that.)

      Then mister Putin has got your balls very well

      Restating something a thousand times don't make it become more or less true. And the fact of the matter is that there. is. no. evidence. At least not for us common folk.

    81. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd have to agree with Xest's comment just down from here:

      "Now, with more recent evidence you'd have to be exceptionally retarded to not recognise that Russia is very clearly in the Ukraine with full serving units"

      and he backs it up with some facts and logic... unlike you.

      One more question... Do you consider it a fact that the Americans landed on the moon?

    82. Re:Which Invasion? by Xest · · Score: 1

      "Really? I was reading in the Guardian (which has proven itself to be woefully biased in the past few months)"

      Hi, I think I can help, the problem is not The Guardian that's woefully biased, it's you. The Guardian along with the Independent and the Financial Times are the three UK papers that do a pretty good job of remaining fairly neutral, chances are if you think they're being biased about something (especially something international) then you're the problem. This is definitely the case in this particular case - you're the problem here, The Guardian's reporting has been balanced and reasonable, but what's going on doesn't support your pre-determined pro-Russian bias, that's the problem. About the only area where The Guardian does let a little bit of bias slip through is on internal UK political issues where it tends slightly towards the left, but it's a far cry from the likes of The Daily Mail, Fox News, Russia Today and so forth which are biased in absolutely everything they report.

      "Nobody is claiming the separatists are armed only with stuff they got months ago. They're claiming, and so is Kiev, that they've been able to obtain large quantities of arms from the fleeing, conscript-based Ukrainian army."

      None of which explains how the separatists have ended up with T-72BMs of course, which the Ukrainian army never has had. Who do you presume it captured them from? Did the rebels invade a Russian military base in your eyes, steal them, and get them across the border given that the Russian military is the only operator of this variant of T-72? I'm intrigued to know how you hope to pass this one off as the rebels capturing equipment.

      "Over 1000 soldiers and 100 tanks! Such a unit requires support vehicles, a tent town, supply lines .... so where is it? Maybe it's sort of like invasion by aid convoy."

      So did you just make those numbers up or what? What we know is that we have pictures of tanks only owned and operated by the Russian military in Ukraine now, how many there are dotted around we really don't know, but we do know that ever since the aid convoy Putin forced through to Luhansk which the red cross was prevented from expected at least 30 odd lorries of and which journalists previously noted were pretty much empty the rebels in Luhansk have suddenly gone from losing ground hard to having a swelling of numbers and munitions to start pushing back heavily. Maybe that's a coincidence, maybe hundreds of rebels just managed to sneak through the lines at the exact same time the aid convoy turned up, but one might wonder why Putin wouldn't let the red cross do it's job in inspecting all the vehicles that were to cross and why there were a bunch of nearly-empty trucks in the convoy (there are plenty of pictures on Google images if you care to search and it doesn't offend your pro-Putin views too much). What about the Russian servicemen that were capture in Ukraine (others were killed at the same time for what it's worth), I guess you buy the story that a professional military completely failed their map and compass drills even though that's something that even I personally managed to do just fine in the British army cadet force at the age of 13?

      Besides, your Putin apologism doesn't even tie in with what Putin himself has said, even Putin himself has admitted the tanks are mostly coming from Russia, he's just argued previously that they're old army surplus tanks in the past and that he can't possibly control his own border for whatever reason. That excuse kinda doesn't work now that some of the weapons aren't army surplus kit, but active service kit only used in the Russian military now though.

    83. Re:Which Invasion? by edis · · Score: 1

      I am off from reading you thoroughly further on, as I see too little traction with reality, as delivered per my perception. As a product of Soviet history period, Baltic countries are stuffed with Russian spoken population, you must be aware. It is anytime Russia wants to pull strings back inventive ways and cause havoc pretty close to that, it achieved in Ukraine. Where, I remember, after Crimea annexing completed, pretty loud urges for South-East were heard: why are you asleep, why you wait, why you don't act. People were living very lightly disturbed lives yet back then, were going to work and back home to family as usual. Until they succeeded urging. I remember pictures of those first blocking posts, low-numbered people of lowest intelligence gathering around them and screaming something they thought, they have to, or were told they have. It was still wasn't full-on civil war with the weapons on the level, only whole countries are armored with. But then there appeared those heavy arms and "separatists" speaking in recognizable Leningrad dialect. And it took off. What government had to do? Fight back, of course - only choice. Speaking about "contemporary economic peace", or such - Ukraine already lost good chunk of its land illegitimate ways, and is fighting back mighty neighbor to not allow further progress of territorial integrity losses. Thus, admit, you are just one nonsense delivering type with a sympathy to Putin, now operating from Germany. That's it.

      --
      Servant of karma
    84. Re:Which Invasion? by edis · · Score: 1

      There must have be someone smart enough to stick a phone up his ass or something.
      You know what I mean. No one runs away, no one throws a paper plane with a message to those mothers waiting in front of the gates, ...

      Yes, guys find their ways to sneak information where they are, when possible. As said before, Soldier Mothers committee has collected their data this way. You intentionally skip considering this known source of data, and that shows pretty well what you are after right here. OTOH, if you go to military trainings, and your commandment is taking task of isolating from phones seriously, you will have really hard time to avoid leaving it where demanded to leave, and not passing with it where you are not supposed to. Try sticking a phone up your ass before giving that particular example, besides.

      That's my last reply here.

      --
      Servant of karma
    85. Re:Which Invasion? by qpqp · · Score: 1

      That's my last reply here.

      Yeah, because you're out of arguments, apparently.

    86. Re:Which Invasion? by qpqp · · Score: 1

      Thus, admit, you are just one nonsense delivering type with a sympathy to Putin, now operating from Germany. That's it.

      Look. I presented my position, in a most clear and concise fashion. You on the other hand are just using polemics to attack anything Russian, or so it seems.
      Much in line with what I hear from my friends in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. There's no threat to your states, but if you continue to repress your ~30% Russian-speaking minority, you'll obviously have problems the reasons for which can be identified in your attitude.
      You seem to just hear what you want to hear. This is called "selective perception." I, on the other hand, do my best on getting as objective a picture as possible, which is difficult if not impossible. And until I see irrefutable evidence, I will not believe what anyone is saying, because I know how media is used to manipulate the population. Mhkey? Good.

    87. Re:Which Invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > there are numerous photos of T-72BMs in the Ukraine and the Russian military is the only military in the world to have access to and operate these:

      Actually Ukraine had a number of T-72s left from the Soviet era. Here's one behind the Ukranian president:
      http://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bte...

      Also it has been reported that Hungary has covertly sold 58 T-72s to Ukraine:
      http://truthinukraine.wordpres...
      http://www.defenseindustrydail...

    88. Re:Which Invasion? by Agripa · · Score: 1

      Russia's propaganda reminds me of some Diplomacy games I have played.

    89. Re:Which Invasion? by Xest · · Score: 1

      Yes, but not T-72BMs, it's a distinct sub-model from those sold to Ukraine or operated by anyone other than Russia.

    90. Re:Which Invasion? by avgapon · · Score: 1

      Not really, they simply didn't have such forces to both keep their positions and to attack at several different places with such large forces.Their alleged "teleporting" to Novoazovsk area is also remarkable.

    91. Re:Which Invasion? by qpqp · · Score: 1

      Their alleged "teleporting" to Novoazovsk area is also remarkable.

      The way you put it, makes this tragedy almost seem funny, but we don't know how large their forces, and what their tactics and core stratagems were. So this is just a possibility.

  8. Re:News for nerds ... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Hey, guys, do you think if I include a a well demonstrated scientific fact in quotation marks, suddenly everyone will start believing in a global conspiracy with literally no point like I do?

    Science is news for nerds.
    The impact of major world events on technology is news for nerds.
    Petulant whining about what subjects you personally don't care about is comments for assholes.

  9. Which kernel? by grub · · Score: 1

    One would hope the headline would say. Linux? OpenBSD? FreeBSD? OSX?

    --
    Trolling is a art,
    1. Re:Which kernel? by fisted · · Score: 1

      It's Linux. It's always Linux, because hey, Linux is a kernel. The kernel. /THE/ Kernel.

      ...written on my NetBSD machine.

    2. Re:Which kernel? by Shatrat · · Score: 1

      That's like linux for old CS professors right?

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    3. Re:Which kernel? by fisted · · Score: 1

      No that'd be minix. NetBSD is just for people who like a sane system without any Poettering-crapware, and oh well, see sig.

    4. Re:Which kernel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "It's Linux."

      Move along, nothing to see here...

  10. Re:News for nerds ... by OzPeter · · Score: 1

    information about kernel developer / russian invasion on Ukraine is not important?

    Because it's a personal interested story about some guy protesting something that his government did and getting arrested for it .. oh and BTW he's a kernel developer.

    TFA has fuck all to do with the state of Russian/Ukraine protests - so it doesn't even count as politics
    It is barely tangentially a technology story - oh noes if a kernel developer goes to jail, what will happened to my precious ^w Linux

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
  11. First Poster is correct, this is not news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder when I'll find a technology news site that understands what is technology and what is news relating to technology. Perhaps next time I'll read a story about how a kernel dev was wiping his ass, got abit onto his fingertip, went to take a look and a sniff then got some onto the tip of his nose.

    ooohhh oohhh money want banana

    How about sticking to stories that potentially affect the future of our species because of how radically it has subtly altered the world around us.

    1. Re:First Poster is correct, this is not news by superwiz · · Score: 2

      Arrest of a Linux kernel development is not news? You are dreaming.

      --
      Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
    2. Re:First Poster is correct, this is not news by superwiz · · Score: 1

      *developer*

      --
      Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
    3. Re:First Poster is correct, this is not news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      According to Mr Torvalds most of the kernel team exhibits signs of arrested development.

    4. Re:First Poster is correct, this is not news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If he was arrested for kernel development yes. He was not, this story is nothing but monkey butt fluff

    5. Re:First Poster is correct, this is not news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This may yet happen later on - 15 years for espionage and uploads to us servers

  12. Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    SUBJECT: Ukraine and NATO

    MEMORANDUM FOR: Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
    FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

    We the undersigned are longtime veterans of U.S. intelligence. We take the unusual step of writing this open letter to you to ensure that you have an opportunity to be briefed on our views prior to the NATO summit on September 4-5.

    You need to know, for example, that accusations of a major Russian "invasion" of Ukraine appear not to be supported by reliable intelligence. Rather, the "intelligence" seems to be of the same dubious, politically "fixed" kind used 12 years ago to "justify" the U.S.-led attack on Iraq. We saw no credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq then; we see no credible evidence of a Russian invasion now. Twelve years ago, former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, mindful of the flimsiness of the evidence on Iraqi WMD, refused to join in the attack on Iraq. In our view, you should be appropriately suspicions of charges made by the US State Department and NATO officials alleging a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    President Barack Obama tried yesterday to cool the rhetoric of his own senior diplomats and the corporate media, when he publicly described recent activity in the Ukraine, as "a continuation of what’s been taking place for months now it’s not really a shift."

    Obama, however, has only tenuous control over the policymakers in his administration – who, sadly, lack much sense of history, know little of war, and substitute anti-Russian invective for a policy. One year ago, hawkish State Department officials and their friends in the media very nearly got Mr. Obama to launch a major attack on Syria based, once again, on "intelligence" that was dubious, at best.

    Largely because of the growing prominence of, and apparent reliance on, intelligence we believe to be spurious, we think the possibility of hostilities escalating beyond the borders of Ukraine has increased significantly over the past several days. More important, we believe that this likelihood can be avoided, depending on the degree of judicious skepticism you and other European leaders bring to the NATO summit next week.

    Experience With Untruth

    Hopefully, your advisers have reminded you of NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s checkered record for credibility. It appears to us that Rasmussen’s speeches continue to be drafted by Washington. This was abundantly clear on the day before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq when, as Danish Prime Minister, he told his Parliament: "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. This is not something we just believe. We know."

    Photos can be worth a thousand words; they can also deceive. We have considerable experience collecting, analyzing, and reporting on all kinds of satellite and other imagery, as well as other kinds of intelligence. Suffice it to say that the images released by NATO on August 28 provide a very flimsy basis on which to charge Russia with invading Ukraine. Sadly, they bear a strong resemblance to the images shown by Colin Powell at the UN on February 5, 2003 that, likewise, proved nothing.

    That same day, we warned President Bush that our former colleague analysts were "increasingly distressed at the politicization of intelligence" and told him flatly, "Powell’s presentation does not come close" to justifying war. We urged Mr. Bush to "widen the discussion beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic."

    Consider Iraq today. Worse than catastrophic. Although President Vladimir Putin has until now showed considerable reserve on the conflict in the Ukraine, it behooves us to remember that Russia, too, can "shock and awe." In our view, if there is the slightest chance of that kind of thing eventually happening to Europe because of Ukraine, sober-minded leaders need to think this through very carefully.

    If

    1. Re:Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity by horza · · Score: 1

      I don't get it. Germany is the most dependent on Russian gas and Angela Merkel has been the one most dragging their heels on even sanctions. Why would the open letter be addressed to her? Why all the Iraq WMD comparisons when the open letter even admits Germany didn't even want to get involved there? The Baltics states will be the only ones pushing for direct action, and Britian the only one able to take any.

      In fact reading through their previous open letters they all seem a bit confused. The only common thread appears to be Russia should be allowed to deny Ukraine access to NATO and a bunch of odd vaguely but not really related historical incidents being thrown in to make the letters appear longer. Their language such as calling the separatists "anti-coup federalists" makes the letters appear to come from a Russian rather than a non-Russian perspective.

      I think the "bury out heads in the sand and hope Russia doesn't do anything" is a little late. He's already invaded Georgia once and Ukraine twice. His home propaganda is a resounding success, with the people prepared to back future invasions, and the parliament is filled with his puppets. Ukraine joining NATO or falling under New Soviet rule seems inevitable and they probably prefer the former.

      Phillip.

    2. Re:Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity by u38cg · · Score: 1

      I've seen several versions of this letter floating around. Frankly, I think it would be interesting to learn more about the people involved and their backgrounds.

      --
      [FUCK BETA]
    3. Re:Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity by WoOS · · Score: 1

      > it would be interesting to learn more about the people involved and their backgrounds

      You mean the authors? Russian KGB.

      Note the section about Russian "shock and awe". They couldn't abstain from hurling only lightly veiled threats even when faking a letter from US intelligence. It happens if you select people based on common school education instead of competency.

    4. Re:Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity by qpqp · · Score: 1
      https://duckduckgo.com/Veteran...
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
      http://warisacrime.org/vips

      it would be interesting to learn more about the people involved and their backgrounds

      http://www.sourcewatch.org/wik...

  13. Pro Putin shills are up early by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Naff off to the lot of you !!

    1. Re:Pro Putin shills are up early by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      Putin not need sleep! Is strong like bear!

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    2. Re:Pro Putin shills are up early by qpqp · · Score: 1

      Putin not need sleep! Is strong like bear!

      That reads like Chinese accent to me, Komrad.

  14. There is no russian invasion in Ukraine. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since when Slashdot copypastes CNN headlines?

    1. Re:There is no russian invasion in Ukraine. by superwiz · · Score: 1

      Ha? Of course, there is. If you believe the satellite images come from a video game, which game?

      --
      Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
    2. Re:There is no russian invasion in Ukraine. by DocSavage64109 · · Score: 1

      How did we go from our paranoia of the NSA having back doors into nearly everything, to suddenly believing digital pictures are irrefutable proof, in the span of just one year?

    3. Re:There is no russian invasion in Ukraine. by Xest · · Score: 1

      I can answer this one for you, the NSA has refused to post photos from it's own satellites in large part because it doesn't want to give away it's capabilities, thus, all satellite photos used to show Russian military buildups and rocket launches and so forth have been provided from private and public organisations who satellite data is freely available from countries both allied to the US and neutral.

      Which doesn't mean that such images are verifiable proof of course, sure the NSA could've hacked all these organisations and slipped these images in I suppose, but at that point you're tending towards the realm of likely crackpot conspiracy theory.

      If the images were to have come from the NSA then sure they could be doctored, but these organisations provide publicly historical satellite data, so you'd have to slip it into the history without anyone who has ever cached that data noticing - it's not a simple as the NSA saying "Here's a picture, BELIEVE US!", the US has specifically used public data precisely to address the exact concern you're raising.

  15. Poor Vladimirs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As if it was not enough for them having to deal with being called dicks on account of Vlad the Impaler, now they have to deal with people who like brag about puttin their Vladimir in.
    Won't someone please think of the Vladimirs?

    1. Re:Poor Vladimirs... by davester666 · · Score: 1

      At least he hasn't [yet] completely killed a specific style of mustache.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  16. old Russia is coming back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Soon we are going to be hearing about disappearing kernel developers....

    At least we arent to that point yet

    1. Re:old Russia is coming back by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      Na, old Russia had KGB thugs. New Russia is ruled by former KGB thugs and their buddies.

  17. Re:News for nerds ... by Jacek+Poplawski · · Score: 1

    information about kernel developer / russian invasion on Ukraine is not important?

    Because it's a personal interested story about some guy protesting something that his government did and getting arrested for it .. oh and BTW he's a kernel developer.

    TFA has fuck all to do with the state of Russian/Ukraine protests - so it doesn't even count as politics
    It is barely tangentially a technology story - oh noes if a kernel developer goes to jail, what will happened to my precious ^w Linux

    So I assume you wrote similar comments to all news about 9/11 or any american politics, which is not related to technology at all? Or do you mean that Ukraine is not important while USA is?

  18. Re:News for nerds ... by OzPeter · · Score: 1

    So I assume you wrote similar comments to all news about 9/11 or any american politics, which is not related to technology at all?

    Nowhere in TFA is there a discussion of politics or the state of protests, and the only relation to technology is that the guy *happens* to be a kernel developer - which is not even germane to TFA

    If after 9/11 /. had run a story about how some random kernel developer got dirt in his computer after the towers came down (and that was the only topic of the story) I would have reacted just the same.

    If however, TFA included summary and discussion of the state of pro-Ukraine protests *within* Russia and/or use of technology to mobilize said protests, and what the Kremlin was doing to subvert said protests/technology, then yes, that would have made it worthwhile to see.

    Or do you mean that Ukraine is not important while USA is?

    That's a pretty lame attempt at trolling.

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
  19. And Nothing of Value Was Lost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Good. He should learn his place in society, and will, through reeducation. This idea that people can defy their government without consequences is ridiculous.

    1. Re:And Nothing of Value Was Lost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How has Poe's Law not claimed this one?

  20. Re:News for nerds ... by Charliemopps · · Score: 2

    Can we get stories about when kernel developers go to the bathroom as well?

    This is hardly anything that matters or belongs on slashdot. Hans Reiser slaying his wife ... okay, sure, that meant the end of reiserfs effectively. One kernel dev serving time for a basic civil disobedience charge? Who cares? Its about as important as Bennett Hasleton rants about things he utterly fails to understand.

    Yea, a war between 2 of the largest countries in Europe isn't "news that matters" at all. The imprisonment of Kernel developers for their political beliefs, nah... who cares right?

  21. Response on why we should care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1. Technology does not exist in a vacuum. Slashdot readers sometimes pretend this is the Online Journal of Bits and Bytes, but it ain't so. What happens in the outside world directly affects what practically every company, university, and engineer works on from day to day; not to mention our quality of life apart from work.

    Yesterday we had a story of a major iCloud hack. This would've been somewhat interesting if the victims had been, let's say some sorority sisters attending college in the southern part of the USA. The fact that the victims were Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst and Kate Upton made it a story of front page importance, not just on Slashdot but on general newspapers and news sites worldwide; and a much more difficult problem for Tim Cook and Apple.

    The NFL thought that the issue of domestic violence was completely unrelated or orthogonal to its mission of organizing professional football games. They just found out otherwise, big time. When a major social or political issue shows up on your doorstep, it's generally a bad idea to stick your head in the sand or some other dark place.

    2. This *is* a technology story, and not just because Monakhov works on the Linux kernel. Monakhov has chosen social media as the vehicle for his dissent. While the internal infrastructure of Twitter may not be super interesting, the disruptive effects of social media on nearly all major industries, and on governments, is profoundly interesting, worthy of ongoing discussion here on Slashdot.

    3. The effectiveness of civil disobedience depends on support from lots of people outside the region in which the incidents are taking place. Monakhov has identified himself as a kernel developer and is specifically asking for support from the FOSS community. Others may be appealing to their respective external communities as well. If they're ignored, the Russian authorities will feel no risk in shutting them down, or worse.

  22. Relates to safety and knowledge. News for Nerds by Etherwalk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The more people who know about the developer, the safer he is, at least while he is being harassed by relatively minor officials. We should be happy to accept a post or two about a nerd who is under threat by a government seeking to hide the truth about a military invasion.

    Science is done best when it is done with the free exchange of truthful information and ideas. A nation which hides the truth is operating in a way fundamentally contrary both to the ideals of the open source community and to the spirit of intellectual exploration.

    Nerds who don't care about that aren't nerds at all. There are a lot of diatribes about the authenticity of geekdom or nerdery. Most are just people trying to identify with one group or another and somehow believing the label affects their status in a way that people around them care about. But at the core of all Slashdot-related identities lie knowledge, intellectual expression, and the taking of joy in the exchange of information.

  23. Re:News for nerds ... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 0

    Oh shut-the-fuck up asshole. You know full well the fact that human factors are undeniably warming the atmosphere is completely distinct from the minutia of the models.

    You just want to "correct" me.

  24. VC by pr0nbot · · Score: 3, Funny

    Was he arrested for subversion? He should assure them he's a git user! *rimshot*

  25. Re:Relates to safety and knowledge. News for Nerds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    But at the core of all Slashdot-related identities lie knowledge, intellectual expression, and the taking of joy in the exchange of information.

    I knew that bastard TJ was a nerd. Kidding aside, there's the old expression that knowledge is power. The NSA, et al monitoring, then, is the sort of unbridled power that would make the founding fathers scoff in disgust. There's a reason why Putin's connections to the FSB is so frequently pointed out and this whole situation with Russia is good reason to scoff, minimally. But, then I guess Putin is just another example of power going to one's head and corrupting. This is precisely why action should be taken in the US now before we actually do have the sort of de facto dictatorship that Russia is experiencing. And, as you say, it's predicated on knowing about these things.

  26. Re:News for nerds ... by mi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is a far bigger story — as far as humanity is concerned — than some thug being shot by a wannabe-cop fearing for his life. At least, it has an open-source developer in it. And he is doing a noble thing too — a rare thing among Russians lately, I must add.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  27. Re:News for nerds ... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    And we drop the pretense nuanced of understanding the models for boring denier talking point that reflects a piss-poor understanding of both the measurement methods and the most basic attributes of climatology(like inter-annual variation).

    Yeah, okay, so you didn't want to "Correct" me out of some more detailed understanding, but instead we're #2 or 3 ranked item in pseudoscientist tactics. You were trying the "It's complicated so any scientific attempt at understanding is foolhardy compared to my outright absurd forgone conclusion" line.

    Do you like being like the creationists? Like the Homeopaths? Engaged in the same inanity? Does that make you feel good about yourself?

  28. Huh? by s.petry · · Score: 1

    I'm not trying to claim that Russia is 'good', but did you notice "Monakhov is using twitter to keep people informed about his experience with the Russian judicial system."? I don't know any people in the US that are allowed to keep their cell phones and tweet when arrested. I have seen people told to turn off their phones or be arrested, I have seen cops threaten to kill journalists (see the cop in Fergusson that was suspended for doing so), and I know that protestors that are arrested have their devices confiscated. The only reason we ever see wrong doing in our jails/prisons is due to leaked video from surveillance cameras, not because someone tweeted something.

    So is the US a more totalitarian system than Russia? Before you "but the Ukraine" remember that US agencies spent over 5 billion dollars to help the revolt in the Ukraine so bears at least some responsibility for what's happening. Is the Ukraine going be be that much better off under EU control? Has not turned out so well for many in the EU (Greece/Spain/France, and the anti-EU party is huge in the UK today) so you will have to really sell me on that one. That, and this should be the choice of the Ukrainians as a whole.

    These are complex issues so the answers are complex. Something to consider is that since I have been alive the US has been involved in more wars and killed more people than any other country on the planet. Many of the known conflicts were started on complete fabrications (Vietnam, 2nd Iraq). Would ISIL be as big of a problem today if the US was not funding and arming rebels in Syria, had not armed and funded rebels in Libya (and even provided air cover and bombed targets? Would we have so many problems if we were not continually killing innocent people when trying to assassinate alleged terrorist leaders? Would we have so many problems in the middle east if we had not armed, funded, and trained the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan in the late 80s?

    The point here is that the US is not just an altruistic police force, simply helping those in need. We should be questioning these issues at a much deeper level than just repeating talking points.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  29. Re:News for nerds ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not by very much at all, what with 1998 being the warmest year and all.

    Aside from 2005, 2006 and 2010, of course. And unlike 1998, those years didn't even have the benefit if a strong El Niño . Yes, 1998 is certainly warmer than any previous year on record, but that fact doesn't exactly support your position.

    And note Arctic ice percentage climbing again in last two years.

    From a all-time record low. Hasn't really made much of a recovery from before that dip, unfortunately.

    Hmm, the mainstream models are not panning out.

    I'm not aware of any mainstream models in which Arctic ice decreases strictly monotonically each year. Could you please provide some citations?

  30. Nazi junta? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ever so slowly the anti-Ukraine revolution folks quietly slither off to dark corners as Russia compounds its crimes in Europe. Gone are claims of "nazi junta" — the youth of Eastern Ukraine that fought off Putin's puppets are looking wiser with each passing day. Unlike Putin's subjects, they at least aren't subject to political "reeducation."

  31. Re:News for nerds ... by rubycodez · · Score: 1, Troll

    Sorry, you're using multi-year averaged graphs (and probably the IPCC which go higher than NASA's).

    Yes, Arctic ice making year on year recovery for now, but sure that can change. I just like reality rather than hoopla.

    Ice minimum not decreasing, is increasing, your last sentence contains fallacy.

  32. Does *anyone* have a link to a news story? by whitroth · · Score: 1

    Or anything other than this? I mean, "detained for 15 days" - is that like "arrested and jailed for two weeks (or whatever) for disobeying a police officer", that happens in the US all the time? And at least he didn't put his hands up and yell "I'm not armed", and get shot down by the police officer.....

    Now, for you slashdotters who have no clues whatever, who've never actually, you know, gone out to a protest in the RW, in their meat bodies, here's what actually happens: a) there's the folks in the legal protest area; b) if it includes this, there's the civil disobedience area, where they sit down, and the cops arrest them and put them in a holding tank in jail, c) there's the roving civil disobedience, and d) there's the crazies and agents provocateurs who break windows, or (rarely) burn cars, etc.

    Now about a news story: where was Dmitry, and how did he happen to face a police officer, and what happened? The story, as posted, is not a story, just a few tweets by the guy in question.

                        mark

    1. Re:Does *anyone* have a link to a news story? by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Protests in US don't typically get you a 15 day detention for no reason and no trial. Non violent but resisting orders to disperse might get you an overnight stay, and it makes it to the local media.

    2. Re:Does *anyone* have a link to a news story? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or you could be shot if, for instance, you accidentally sneezed while disobeying a policeman's orders.

  33. Re:News for nerds ... by rubycodez · · Score: 1

    You are being silly, just talking of preference of one of infinite number of methods of averaging. That's fine but don't claim that one particular one has to be intrinsic to "climatology" (perhaps one major university in the world has field of study recently created named that, normally degree that would be in a couple other realms for a serious scientist, instead "climatologist" mostly a tag for agenda driven pseudo scientists at the IPCC).

    You sure are a source of amusement for those of us who have studied geophysics (not "climatology")

  34. Re:News for nerds ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "We" means the collective readership of Slashdot. If you can't figure that out, you are very dumb. If you think war4peace is a positive contributor to Slashdot, you are even dumber.

  35. Re:Relates to safety and knowledge. News for Nerds by ChipMonk · · Score: 2

    If you think Vladimir Putin cares how many people know about this guy, you are sadly mistaken. Look how long Pussy Riot members were imprisoned. The only thing Putin cares about is showing people how powerful he is.

  36. Re:Relates to safety and knowledge. News for Nerds by qpqp · · Score: 1

    Ok, this being offtopic aside, please tell me how long you think Pussy Riot would have been imprisoned, if they'd have "performed" in St. Patrick's cathedral, or, better, in another somewhere in the bible-belt?

  37. Re:News for nerds ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why aren't you Poles so mad about Germany? You're not getting your kingdom back anyway.

  38. Re:News for nerds ... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

    Haha. "Geophysics."

    Geophysics

    Priceless. That's a great word to use in a "you don't know what you're talking about" speech.

    I don't get you guys. You have no clue exactly how mindlessly you're parroting things that you read on a blog somewhere, and me pointing it out is going to result in another angry tu quoque. I can't even imagine what series of thoughts that you might have had that lead you to go "I got you now!" with geophysics. But they aren't anywhere near sane.

    Here's what people who actually study geophysics focus on in case you still don't grok why you reached peak stupidity.

  39. Re:News for nerds ... by qpqp · · Score: 1

    What's important is that people are dying there for the profit of a a few people. What's not important is your belief, implanted in you by the mass-media that there's an "invasion" going on, which you so gladly jump on, because of your personal, hostile attitude to Russia. Go eat an Apple, fucker!

  40. Re:Relates to safety and knowledge. News for Nerds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    30 days

  41. Re:Relates to safety and knowledge. News for Nerds by Penguinisto · · Score: 1

    Apple != Oranges - In your example, the band would likely get busted for trespassing on private property, then would go to court and have at least some semblance of due process. In TFA, dude got locked up for "disobeying a police officer", which is a bit more ephemeral (and way too generalized) than trespassing would be.

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  42. Re:Solution. by qpqp · · Score: 0

    Ms. Timoshenko, could you please go and get laid?

  43. Re:Relates to safety and knowledge. News for Nerds by qpqp · · Score: 1
    Weren't we just talking about pussy riot? What "dude"? My comment was in reply to

    Look how long Pussy Riot members were imprisoned.

  44. Re:15 Days? That's all? by ScudBee · · Score: 1

    In Russia, disobeying a police officer (more exactly "disobeying a legitimate order by a police officer") is the most common charge against people who dare to criticize official policy on public. Basically, if they can't charge you with anything significant for some reason (or just don't want to), they use the "disobeying..." charge. It does not mean that person charged actually violated any law.

  45. Invasion? by X.25 · · Score: 1

    Oh, why didn't you say so.

    War of words is escalating, I see, need to get people ready for next step.

  46. Re:News for nerds ... by war4peace · · Score: 1

    In the quiet words of Virgin Mary... come again?
    You might wanna read this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
    That, to start with. Of course, if "lately" doesn't mean "last 6 months" or something like that.

    When many other people get flat-out killed in too-many-to-count conflicts all around the world, you'd think this is a big story?
    To me, a death is bigger than an imprisonment, regardless of person. The idea of "celebrity" is artificial, as far as I'm concerned.

    --
    ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
  47. Re:Relates to safety and knowledge. News for Nerds by war4peace · · Score: 1

    Would you say he'd be safer because the story appeared on Slashdot? Come on...

    --
    ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
  48. Re:News for nerds ... by war4peace · · Score: 1

    Yey, I have a stalker! Woo-hoo!

    --
    ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
  49. Re:Relates to safety and knowledge. News for Nerds by fnj · · Score: 1

    got locked up for "disobeying a police officer", which is a bit more ephemeral (and way too generalized)

    In the US they call it "disorderly conduct" or - wait for it - "disobeying a police officer", and people are frequently taken into custody for it. 15 days lockup is fairly harsh, overnight would be more usual, but I doubt it would be difficult to find people locked up for that long in the US on equivalent charges.

  50. Paid propaganda in action. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So what is the actual date of invasion?

    With so many conflicting stories, most are nonsensical claims by Ukraine TWTR users cited as official news, it's hard to keep track.

  51. Facts! Lets have them! by s.petry · · Score: 1

    I fully agree with you, but searching all over I can find exactly 1 satellite photo claiming to be Russian made armor. Of course the huge problem in claiming this is actually Russian is that nearly every country in Eastern Europe uses Russian made tanks, artillery, helicopters, aircraft, etc... I have see no satellite images that tracked any movement from Russia to the Ukraine.

    Don't speculate on the few exceptions to the rule about Russian weapons, you said we can't argue with different facts. I want facts proving that these 10 whole vehicles are both A) Really from Russia and B) really are in the Ukraine. 10 vehicles does not constitute a "full scale invasion" either, no matter what you try to claim. If you are using facts, where is this full scale invasion? Facts please!

    Lets also not speculate on Russia building up troops next to the Ukraine. If Mexico was undergoing a massive revolt with lots of military action you can bet your ass that the US would have troops along the Texas and Southern California borders. As a soldier in West Germany (pre-unification) I saw Russian troops all along the East German border, because NATO built up a massive force for an 'exercise' and was operating near the border. So again, these types of activities are _normal_ and _expected_. If you have any doubts ask yourself why every time something happens near a friendly country the US sends huge naval forces into the zone.

    I'm not claiming there are no shenanigans by Russia, I'm claiming that you are following the political hype and not looking at facts either. Facts show no such massive invasion, facts show less activity than the US has been using in the Middle East. I have seen no Russian bombers attacking Ukrainian positions, I have seen no columns of mobilized armor like we saw in Georgia, I have seen no cruise missile or rocket attacks.

    After I weigh your 'facts' I'll be happy to hold a rational dialogue on opinions. Just remember however that there are numerous 'facts' that don't necessarily back your opinion. Such as Blackwater being in Kiev prior to the coup, and the sniper rounds that were shooting at both the pro government and rebel forces was the same weapon and same armor piercing rounds. A US official was caught collaborating to choose the new leader a few days before the coup. The endowment for democracy spent over 5 billion dollars in the Ukraine prior to the protests starting, etc... etc... In other words, there are plenty of shenanigans to go around.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  52. Re:News for nerds ... by knarf · · Score: 1

    And he is doing a noble thing too â" a rare thing among Russians lately, I must add.

    No rarer, nor more common than in other times. There are more than 143.000.000 Russians living in Russia after all...

    I don't know what forces lie behind the current push towards portraying Russia - the country - as enemy of the 'West' again and the similar push to portray 'the West' and NATO as enemies to Russia but I can only hope that, intelligent as those who frequent this site are supposed to be, you don't give in to this pressure. While the course currently taken by the Russian leadership shows a clear lack of historical insight and will eventually lead to their downfall (with great risk of lives to many, both actively engaged in the pipe-dream of Novorossiya as well as those who just happened to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time) this does not mean they have the moral support of all of those 143.000.000+ Russians. Just like bad decisions by other governments don't turn their subjects into boogeymen.

    It is a strange game, the only way to win is not to play.

    --
    --frank[at]unternet.org
  53. Re:News for nerds ... by mi · · Score: 1

    No rarer, nor more common than in other times. There are more than 143.000.000 Russians living in Russia after all...

    Yes. And the support for Putin rose from around 50% to 90+% among them all, when he invaded Ukraine at the end of February and annexed Crimea. That cut down the number of decent Russians from (roughly) 71.5 mln to 14mln. Dmitry Monakhov is among them.

    I don't know what forces lie behind the current push towards portraying Russia - the country - as enemy of the 'West' again

    These forces are pro-Kremlin Russians (see above), eager for a revanche over USSR's loss of Cold War. They are joined by those Westerners, who are paying attention.

    this does not mean they have the moral support of all of those 143.000.000+ Russians

    Putin is very popular in Russia today. The handful, who — like Mr. Monakhov — oppose him, are noble. The rest are not...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  54. Re:News for nerds ... by mi · · Score: 1

    You might wanna read this list [List of Nobel Laureates]

    This is funny... Nobel was a last name of the man, who set up the annual prize. Becoming a laureate does not automatically make one noble (Yassir Arafat and Barack Obama are two most obvious examples.)

    Of course, if "lately" doesn't mean "last 6 months" or something like that.

    Yes, it does mean something like that. Support for Putin in Russia shot up , when he invaded the "brotherly nation". Thus, the vast majority of Russians today are rather ignoble... Even the "liberals" among them (referred to as "liberasts" by the pro-Kremlin majority), who acknowledge, that seizing Crimea was illegal, still feel, that it was nonetheless just somehow.

    That Mr. Monakhov is not only opposing Putin, but is not afraid to make it known, makes him an outstanding Russian indeed. That he also happens to be an open-source developer, makes the story new /.-worthy.

    When many other people get flat-out killed in too-many-to-count conflicts all around the world, you'd think this is a big story?

    Neither this story, nor the earlier one I referred to, are about people killed in conflicts around the world.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  55. Re:News for nerds ... by war4peace · · Score: 1

    " Support for Putin in Russia shot up when he invaded the "brotherly nation"."

    Same was for Bush support when he decided to send troops to Irak.
    Average people rejoice when they smell blood. It's the same for pretty much every nation out there.
    When YOUR people invade OTHER people, it's a good thing. When OTHER people invade YOUR people, it's a bad thing. When neither are YOUR people, you support the ones who you like more (or hate less, or bring you more power, or are allied to, etc)

    --
    ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
  56. Re:News for nerds ... by mi · · Score: 1

    Same was for Bush support when he decided to send troops to Irak.

    Are you equating Iraq with Ukraine?!... Wow... Let's see. You confused Mr. Nobel with "nobility". And you spell Iraq with a "k". Must be a Russian...

    When YOUR people invade OTHER people, it's a good thing.

    It was a good thing — Saddam Hussein did to Kuwait, what Putin is doing to Ukraine right now, and under very similar pretexts.

    We kicked him out with his tail between his legs, but did not pursue so as to "give peace a chance". A chance, which Saddam Hussein has blown over the course of 10 years. We were justified in resuming hostilities much earlier than that, but Clinton didn't have, what it takes. Bush did.

    When neither are YOUR people

    What? Ukrainians are not "our" people? That's a relief. At least, you aren't claiming, the Maidan revolt was organized by American spies... Maybe, not all is lost in Russia after all...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  57. Re:News for nerds ... by war4peace · · Score: 1

    I'm Romanian, and I hate Russia more than any US citizen does, because we were directly affected by communism for almost 5 decades. And yes, in my language it's "Irak". Sorry if that offends you.

    Also that feeling of entitlement "USA should be police of the world" is the sole reason so many countries hate the USA with a passion.
    Civil wars are civil wars. Dictatorships are dictatorships. Yes, that sucks for the population, but it's an internal affair. No foreign country has any right to set foot on any other country's sovereign territory unless the latter attacks another country and the attacked one officially asks for support. Furthermore, once the invader has been driven off, the activity should stop there. Yes, impose sanctions if you wish, embargo the shit out of them, but don't set foot on their territory.

    The USA has meddled with too many countries' internal affairs for unilateral reasons. "We think you're uncivilized so we're gonna civilize you according to our views". No. That's wrong. It might uplift them (or so you'd think) but it would trample their (probably weird and backward, to you) way of living. Let them be "uncivilized" if they wish so. But no, you haven't, and billions of people dislike you now, and it will take decades for that dislike to wear off, provided, of course, the USA would stop further meddling activity completely.

    I think there's more people in the world who dislike the USA than people who dislike Russia. Think about that.
    Freebie food for thought: http://thomasswan.hubpages.com...

    (Disclaimer: I don't hate, dislike, loathe USA. I surely hate, dislike, loathe Russia)

    --
    ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
  58. Russian trooper from Pskov describes death of 80 by edis · · Score: 1

    Intercepted conversation was published in local Pskov media, editor was heavily beaten for these activities,
    snapshot from cache, original publication was taken down:
    http://web.archive.org/web/201...

    Authentic rude Russian language, swearing every second word, sorry it may be hard for automatic translators.
    Describes to caller activities of his team of about 90 troopers on territory of Ukraine at 10AM of August 20th, with about 80 killed on spot.
    For those, who still can't see war going on: nothing new - you are supposed to continue your way.

    --
    Servant of karma
  59. What invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do you mean the humanitarian aid convoy that the Nazis in Kiev want to halt at all costs? Just cut the bullshit already and stop trying to sell this as a fucking invasion.

    If Russia wanted to invade Ukraine, there would be no pretext, and it would be over in a matter of hours.

  60. Re:News for nerds ... by rubycodez · · Score: 1

    We who have studied geophysics know it includes climate drivers such as insolation.

    You are ignorant, educate yourself before spewing first.