Slashdot Mirror
Finland To Fly "Open Skies" Surveillance Flight Over Russia
jones_supa writes Inspectors from Finland will conduct an observation flight on March 23-27 over the Russian territory within the framework of the Treaty on Open Skies. During the flight that will be conducted along the mutually agreed route, Russian specialists on board of the aircraft will ensure strict compliance with the agreed flight schedule and monitor the use of the equipment stipulated by the treaty. The flight will be conducted on a Swedish SAAB 340 observation aircraft that is not equipped with any weaponry. Both the plane and the equipment installed in it have been examined by the international inspection, including Russian specialists. The treaty on Open Skies is designed to enhance mutual understanding by allowing unarmed aerial surveillance flights over the territories of its 34 current member states.
For thousands of gallons of explosive fuel.
Banzai!!!
Is very important part of treaty!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Spying is so useful that sometimes nations agree to it.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Really? Surveillance flights along predetermined routes, with people from the country being surveilled on board the aircraft? Besides wasting fuel, what does this accomplish?
Meanwhile, Russia flies its planes (and sails its ships) wherever it dang well pleases, even if that means cutting a few international airspace/waters corners into territorial airspace/waters, only getting a friendly scrambling+escort while they fly about responding to no hails (radio / visual signals)
http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
https://www.google.com/search?...
I'm sure similar events take place the other way around, which makes this completely orchestrated and observed flight only worthy in mention because of how rarely those happen.
"...And I approved this message."
Seriously
I suspect that both flights will either disappear without a trace or will be reported to be "downed by Ukrainian troops" that somehow snuck missiles into the heart of Russia.
Pardon me if this is a stupid question. What is it specific that can be seen from aircraft, nut not satellite. I'm assuming all the spying anyone ever wanted could be done from satellites without any permissions. Is it about the optics on satellites not powerful enough to see from that distance? Or something else I'm missing?
"The flight will be conducted on a Swedish SAAB 340 observation aircraft that is not equipped with any weaponry."
Didn't 9/11 teach us that any sufficiently sized plane is a weapon? Can this ever really be safe?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
Sorry for being blind, but TFA doesn't say what they are 'observing'...
Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
Making those Russian observers ride in a Saab 340 has got to be some sort of Geneva Convention violation.
This makes as much sense as the email i got telling my office that they'd be doing surprise pee testing for drugs at the end of may 2015...
Russian specialists on board of the aircraft will ensure strict compliance with the agreed flight schedule
Over Soviet Russia, the observed observe you!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
russia and europe will exhaust themselves
then china will "discover" an old map that "proves" all of siberia used to be chinese territory, like the bullshit about the filipino islands china is stealing, or the territory it is stealing from india, vietnam, etc... all chinese neighbors are victims of han imperialism
there are 10 chinese for every 1 russian. the chinese economy is soaring while russia is tanking. china needs resources badly. every single russian hinterland town has more chinese than russians already. russia's military simply won't keep up, but military won't even matter. china will take siberia the way the usa took texas from mexico: enough population shift, and it becomes a fait accompli
congratualtions putin: you degraded georgia and ukraine, your slavic brothers, and ignored the far east. russia is the most obvious territory for china to take, not the tiny bits in other directions. despite the historical hesitation from cold war era aggression between the two, siberia will become chinese in this century
all hail outer manchuria, qing glorious chinese state reclaimed from barbarian eluosi ren!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...
Outer Manchuria (known as Priamurye in Russian)[1] is an unofficial term for the territory formerly claimed by the Qing Empire and now belonging to Russia. Russia officially received this territory by way of the Treaty of Aigun in 1858 and the Treaty of Peking in 1860. The northern part of the area was also in dispute between 1643 and 1689. The area comprises the present-day Russian areas of Primorsky Krai, southern Khabarovsk Krai, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast and Amur Oblast. Another Chinese claim also adds the island of Sakhalin. Currently, the People's Republic of China has no claim to this territory.
According to the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689, the China–Russia border was the Stanovoy Mountains and the Argun River, which established Outer Manchuria as a part of Qing dynasty China. After losing the Opium War, a series of treaties were forced upon the Qing dynasty that gave away land and ports to the European powers; these were known as the Unequal Treaties. Starting with the Treaty of Aigun in 1858 and the Treaty of Peking in 1860, the Sino–Russian border was realigned in Russia's favor on the Amur and Ussuri rivers. As a result, China lost Outer Manchuria, as well as access to the Sea of Japan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
Russian newspapers began to publish speculation that between two and five million Chinese migrants actually resided in the Russian Far East, and predicted that half of the population of Russia would be Chinese by 2050.[29][36] Russians typically believe that Chinese come to Russia with the aim of permanent settlement, and even president Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying "If we do not take practical steps to advance the Far East soon, after a few decades, the Russian population will be speaking Chinese, Japanese, and Korean."[37]
Some Russians perceive hostile intent in the Chinese practise of using different names for local cities, such as Hishnwi for Vladivostok, and a widespread folk belief states that the Chinese migrants remember the exact locations of their ancestors' ginseng patches, and seek to reclaim them.[7] The identitarian concern against the Chinese influx is described as less prevalent in the east, where most of the Chinese shuttle trade is actually occurring, than in European Russia.[27]
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"During the flight that will be conducted along the mutually agreed route, Russian specialists* on board of the aircraft will ensure strict compliance with the agreed flight schedule and monitor the use of the equipment stipulated by the treaty."
*every time I read this, 'specialists' rhymes with schmostages.
-Styopa
It's getting increasingly hard for me to differentiate our real world from the political landscape of House of Cards.
I now think that Petrov looks more like Putin than Putin!
and Happy May Day !
The Americans will find a way to pervert it and screw all goodwill up as usual.
The Finnish overflight of Russia, scheduled and approved by the Russians, was shot down today. The missile was fired from Russian territory, from a Russian military base. The missile itself was Russian and the incident happened deep inside Russian territory, far from Finland or any other non-Russian country.
Russia denies all knowledge or involvement. Russia claims that they are "working diligently to identify the culprits" and blamed either Finland, the US or Georgian terrorists. The Russian specialists aboard were hailed as "Heroes of Russia whose sacrifice will long be remembered."
Finland, the US and Georgia responded in a joint news release that can be summarized as: WTF??
Why is this on slashdot?
But good for Finland!
Finland has a very long history of living with Russia on its borders, and unlike our hysterical neighbours in the West and South, we actually know how to communicate with them to defuse conflicts. Comes with being a neutral European state with huge border with Soviet Union that isn't a part of NATO, as well as fighting USSR off twice during 1939-1944 period.
Actually in the 1939-40 Winter War Finland briefly defended itself from a crippled Soviet Army that had its professional officer corp severely purged and replaced by men loyal to Stalin and devoid of military competence. It took the Soviets three months longer than planned to defeat Finland. Finland surrendered more territory to the USSR than the USSR originally demanded before the invasion. 11% of its land and 30% of its economy.
Finland then allied itself with Nazi Germany and participated in the Nazi invasion of the USSR, leading to the Continuation War of 1941-44. Thanks to the Nazi invasion Finland was able to retake the territory it had just surrendered. After fighting the Nazis for several years the Soviets then retook the previously surrendered territory from Finland.
In 1944 Finland was defeated again, was ordered to fight their Nazi allies to remove them from Finland, was ordered to clean vast minefields placed by the Germans -- i.e. remove defenses and make their frontier easily traversed by the Soviets once again, had to surrender additional territory to the USSR beyond what was already surrendered in 1940, and had to lease additional territory to the Soviets so they could have a Naval base on Finish soil.
The idea that Finland successfully fought to maintain its independence is a myth. Members of the Finnish General Staff publicly admitted that they knew the Soviets ambitions in Finland were limited, that the complete conquest of Finnish territory was never a Soviet goal.
Finland's post-war neutrality, it reluctance to ally with the west, was strongly "encouraged" by the Soviets.
They never invaded the USSR, stopped at the original border.
You are quite selective in your history. You ignore the Finish Waffen SS units.
Wikipedia is your friend.
Funny you mention that. That is were I double checked everything I wrote.
The USSR stole important territory from the Fins which they still hold.
Agreed. The Soviets were absolutely in the wrong for originally invading Finland. However that was not the topic being addressed, the myth of Finland successfully defending itself and knowing how to handle the Russians was. Both wars ended with Finland ceding territory to the Soviets.
(Are you Russian? If so then realize that virtually all you were taught at school is a fabrication.)
The Finns need to do as Germany has done. Admit its defeat. Admit its sins. Not build myths (or as you say, fabrications) to cover up both.
I am not a Russian, the Russians have an entirely different fabrication of events from what I offered. I am just someone who saw a western documentary on Nazi collaborators. Finland was covered in one episode so I had a basic familiarity with the history. I then went to wikipedia (as you now suggest) to get the details and double check my recollection.
Since you are hinting about my motivations I will share them. I believe it is best not to let people who put on Waffen SS uniforms perpetuate "lies" pretending they were not defeated. Such myths must be challenged. The reality is:
- The Finns fought well and slowed the Russian down but were defeated and ceded territory.
- They grossly compromised their ethics by collaborating with the Nazis to invade Russia. They had prior knowledge of Barbarosa and their retaking of previously ceded territory was part of Barbarosa. They further collaborated with the Nazis by supplying Waffen SS troops that fought in German campaigns against Russia.
- They were again defeated, ceded even more territory, paid reparation, removed border defense and leased still more territory to the Soviets for a Soviet navy base.
- Successfully preserving an "independent" Finland is a myth. The Finnish General Staff admitted the Soviet intentions were always limited, they Soviet plan was only to take part of Finland.
That said, as things turned out, the Fins would have been much better off just giving Stalin what he demanded, even if the demand was unreasonable.
Very sadly, yes.
What you write, drnb, is mostly utter bullshit. You base your commentary on one very questionable television "documentary" about nazi collaborators and some selective reading of Wikipedia. The document in which you base your expertise in European war history is widely considered to contain many factual error and missrepresentation in all of its episodes, not only the one about finnish collaborators. Some of the producers have also done equally questionable documentaries on different subjects, so the factual value of the tv-show and your commentary is close to zero. You migt try to read up on on your sources. And what comes to wikipedia, you seem to only read the parts that are written about the very questionable view of the wars by so called "soviet historians". As we all know, that is where the real and fact based history comes from. Not.
Are you really so naive, that you think that the finnish-russian wars could have been avoided if Finland had given the areas for free to Soviet Union. Show me a conflict in history that was avoided by one side giving free parts of its sovereign territory to other nation. Do you think that what happened in Sudetenland and Krim de-escalatedthe situation. You don't seem to grasp the very fact that all land has certain price in blood and iron, and if you give something for free, the blood and iron saved in that deal, will be used get some more. I hope you don't ever get to the point you are negotiating anything worhwhile to your people.
When you claim in your other post that Sweden was neutral in the conflicts, you again write total bullshit. During the WWII Sweden sold iron ore for the nazis to make more furnaces to the destructon camps, and I bet they got paid in gold that was melted from the Jew teeth. Yeah, really neutral. And I don't think that's in any way questionable. In war time, it is every nation for itself. If Finland could have remained out of the war by selling all of its forrest to Russia/Germany, that would have been ok by me, but that was not position for Finland during those times.
And what comes to the Soviet plans about Finland, and your bullshit claim about finnish general staff admitting that soviets limited agenda was know is simply not true. This is ofcourse the claim made by "famous soviet historians" and eaten up by the so called "documentarist" and you. Do you really think, that Stalin made the Molotov-Ribbentrop deal and then thought that "OK, I will invade every other country on the list, but not Finland, because that would be rational thing to do". And why on earth would the Soviets from the beginnig of the Winter War form a puppet goverment for Finland called "Terijoen Hallitus", if they didn't plan to invade the whole of Finland. Do you really think the Soviets would have needed a puppet Goverment for few square kilometers of originally demanded territory.
Now go back to your trollhole, and try to read articles about checking your sources and media critique and try to heal the wounds of your own military incompetence, so you don't have to air your feelings of inadequacy in public forums.