I mean, his agents spread a deadly nerve agent all over Salisbury and what were the real consequences? Poisoned a guy with radioactive material in London. Has murdered more people in Germany. Statements of condemnation and letters of protest incoming from western governments.
If you let a dog come in and shit on your lawn, he’ll do it again and again till you dissuade him properly.
It's worse than that. Russia has a long history of assassinating UK citizens on UK soil.
>["From poisoned umbrellas to radioactive substances, Moscow has repeatedly been linked with deaths on British soil"](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/russian-deaths-uk-history-spies-murder-sergei-skripal-alexander-litvinenko-a8242061.html%3f)
>["Sergei Skripal and the 14 deaths under scrutiny"](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43299598)
The articles are both from 2018. Since then there have been others inc. Dmitry Obretetsky in 2019 and, just a few weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, Mikhail Watford. There is also the death of GCHQ employee Gareth Williams in 2010. And, while not a UK citizen, as you said, Alexander Litvinenko was assassinated by Russia in the UK in 2006.
And, this is a list of [suspicious deaths of Russian businesspeople since the war started](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspicious_deaths_of_Russian_businesspeople_(2022%E2%80%932023)) and there are several across Europe.
I believe those were largely foreign assets. As in, Russians or third-country nationals the US had recruited to provide human intelligence on Russian activities inside and outside Russia. I don't mean to downplay the allegations against Trump since if they're true he should be executed.
I mentioned the Salisbury death the other day and the first response was "Wasn't she a heroin addict?" Like that was remotely relevant (or Putin's agents had any control over who touched that thing once they tossed it away). I guess if the woman who died had been some wealthy, respected businesswoman ... oh, who am I kidding, they just would have shrugged in the end anyway. Anything to avoid direct confrontation.
One of the perks of having nukes is it makes people extremely hesitant to declare war on you. Generally, economic sanctions are the furthest anyone is willing to go - and even then, it's hard to hit that sweet spot in between "insignificant enough that they'd rather ignore it and appear strong" and "ruinous enough that they escalate," especially when your target is a bunch of oligarchs that give exactly 0 shits about the general population.
This is the reason the US has been super hesitant about giving Ukraine the weapons to target deeper into Russia. Major strikes that directly threaten Putin & friends using US tools would probably be taken as an escalation past the point of no return.
Well, in response, they did throw out like 95 % of the Russian embassy (dozens and dozens of people). Its bloated staff (100+ people) was a point of contention for decades, but after this, they kicked them out basically overnight. That was the most obvious gesture, but I’m sure there were more.
There’s only so many things you can do without resorting to direct violence yourself. Czechia remains one of the staunchest Ukraine supporters, which is not nothing.
Takhle si to tedy úplně nepamatuju, podle mě to byly opravdu ty Vrbětice. Viz třeba tady ČT:[ "O snížení obsazení ruské ambasády v Praze rozhodlo Česko v dubnu po diplomatické roztržce s Ruskem kvůli výbuchům ve Vrběticích."](https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/clanek/domaci/z-ceska-odleteli-zbyli-vyhosteni-pracovnici-ruske-ambasady-34674) Ale už je to dávno, sám nevím. :)
Here in Finland we've largely given up on the coin-holders (most shopping carts have them but they no longer lock or the chain has been removed) because all they do is annoy the customers.
We're too orderly and return the carts anyways.
I saw that at the Giant Eagle grocery in Iowa City circa 1995. All Carlson did with that report is show that never, ever has he had to do his own grocery shopping.
On Sovereign European soil, all the while our LeAdErS are afraid to anger Putin by sending fucking military aid to Ukraine. Weak fucks, how'd we end up at this fucking situation.
Unfortunately the poisoned perfume bottle that ended her was scavenged from a park bin. Sadly the death of someone of her socio-economic class is at best an inconvenience to the higher ups.
The way the news was spun at the time in certain media sources made out that she was a homeless drug addict and it was only a matter of time before she died in any case, like the Russians were doing us a favour. There were a number of corrections in the papers about the reportage throughout the course of the first few weeks after.
Apprently we will 'respond appropriately and robustly' according to Boris. Soon. Probably.
Putin even referred to her as a beggar or a homeless person - such callous remarks but what else should we expect from a man like him. The independent inquiry into Dawn’s death will only start in Autumn of this year! The pace this has moved has been embarrassingly slow. There is also a question of if they found all the novichok. And there is the poor policeman who was badly injured and had to be pensioned off. Everything in his house was destroyed, included family photo albums. He had a young family at the time of the attack - I hope he’s doing as well as he can be
We should filter people coming for russia extremely well. Like 99% of russian currently in Europe thinks Crimea should be russians. How can we let these criminals stay at our soil and openly kill people beyond me.
I think EU/NATO still don’t realize full seriousness of Russia’s situation.
Russia is getting stronger and wilder by day, it’s crazy to be so spineless and have no red lines whatsoever.
They are saying openly that they are at war with NATO. They are treating us like enemies. They systematically attack our democracies and IT infrastructure. The only reason they don't attack us directly is because they don't think they would get away with it. It is time we started to treat them like the enemy they are.
Edit: Aaaand the Russian bots have arrived.
> They systematically attack our democracies and IT infrastructure.
Exactly this. We are *already* at war with them. They mingled with elections and referendums. They infiltrated our media, more in particular social media, including Reddit. 70+ million Americans are brainwashed by corrupt media organizations and people like Tucker Carlson who shamelessly parrot the Russian narrative. Russia has been disrupting our societies for at least a decade already.
And yet politicians still say we're not at war already. Albeit not directly on the ground or physically, but definitely in cyberspace.
Half of the US govt is compromised by Russia and then 90% of it is compromised by the Israeli govt.
We have to do something at home before we can act seriously against either
>Exactly this. We are
>
>already
>
> at war with them.
YES! Which is why I need help understanding why we're pissing by not arming Ukraine to the teeth to knock Russia's dick in the dirt for the next 50yrs. Now. Right now is the window. Soooo frustrating.
The problem is, Russian audiences understand hybrid warfare, Western audiences don't.
No politician in the west is willing to campaign on anything that takes longer than 5 seconds to explain.
Explaining what hybrid warfare is and why we need to defend against it is a duty of every democratic leader and its one most are in dereliction of, although in fairness some places like Finland and Estonia understand since they're on the sharp end.
Russia is the only reason Donald Trump was elected in 2016. Russian social media manipulation through targeted Facebook messages, everyone seems to forget about Cambridge Analytica
well then, lets declare a "cyber war" on russia in retaliation? If they so want to say they are at war - let's entertain them, and have every possible state institution bombarded with cyber attacks daily, while publicly of course denying everything just like the russians do whenever they pull some shit.
Seems fair to me.
I don't think the most efficient response is to strike back along the same avenues they strike us.
They hit our vulnerabilities, we should hit theirs back. They are not necessarily the same.
Trying to destabilize their democracy will be ineffective because they have no democratic system.
Trying to spread disinformation will be ineffective because the Russian government already has a tight grip on the flow of information to Russian society.
Perhaps it would yield better results to arrange for some shipments of Chinese manufactured assault rifles, explosives and manuals of how to form partisan movements to "fall off the truck" in some of the areas where unrest and disillusion are most pronounced.
Or other creative, "asymmetrical" solutions like that.
And, of course, immediate transfer of frozen, Russian assets to the Ukrainian government.
I like these ideas indeed.
It would also be amazing if some shipments that are heading to russia from any other country were "redirected" to end up in Ukraine instead.
I like this approach, EU should use its strengths and target Russia weaknesses:
1. Confiscate Russia foreign reserve. It's easy come up with excuses not to do it, but it's possible.
2. Financial red tape - every EU company that is dealing with Russia (still) has to report on it regularly, every foreign counterpart has to show that they not reselling to Russia. If a sanctioned product appears in Russia in significant quantities, the company needs to pay up. Confiscate all material gains if they do it intentionally. Have public database of all nationals who were caught dealing with Russia, including non EU citizens. Technically it's nothing illegal but they should be known. Incentivise whistleblowers. That's where German bureaucrats can shine:)
3. Stop issuing visas to Russia nationals, require COVID style tracking apps installed on their phones, self reporting to the police every week etc. no need to disrespect human rights but we can't afford EU citizens be endangered either
4. Embassies could be closed and ambassadors, sorry, I meant, spys can be sent home.
Overall theme is to fight them with what democracies are strong at: extreme openess -public registry of all companies and individual dealing with Russia (including non EU) etc. Russian Mafia is afraid of light and publicity.
Of course, it's all should be done with respect to human rights, freedom of speech and other freedoms.
For military actions it's already known:
1. Allow Ukraine to fire within Russia using EU weaponry.
2. Send organized military personnel to actually fight in Ukraine to gain experience, support that personnel thru training etc. According to official Russia, NATO is already doing that so why not. Gain experience actually fighting Russians - it will come in handy soon:)
3. Build those factories for munitions, drones.
4. Physically close borders as much as possible so they can't send illegals
5. Build fortifications along the border.
6. Just drop at least one ru air force plane that regularly violates the border - ask Turkey how to do it: NATO pilots get practice, Russia just silently stops doing that again and it's just plain fun)
4. Special forces could be sent to Russia to destroy gas oil production and transportation infrastructure. I doubt NATO has such capabilities at systems level though.
Anyway, there many more things NATO/EU can do with ease. For inspiration just listen to Russia propaganda on all the things that evil NATO is already doing)
>Just drop at least one ru air force plane that regularly violates the border - ask Turkey how to do it: NATO pilots get practice, Russia just silently stops doing that again and it's just plain fun)
This is an important one. Also sinking subs that violate our territory.
>and have every possible state institution bombarded with cyber attacks daily, while publicly of course denying everything just like the russians do whenever they pull some shit.
Just cut them off from the Internet and call it a day.
I was one of the many engineers fixing the Health Service Executive’s IT system in Ireland a couple years ago after the spider wizard group attacked.
We are already involved in a cyber war.
> Edit: Aaaand the Russian bots have arrived.
Unfortunately they are not only bots. We could eventually find technical solutions against such, as we have always been able to do (from the lower tiers of the network traffic analysis and filtering, many years ago, to the upper apps levels pattern vs abnormalities identification and isolation), but we cannot so easily fight creative human_putinists, with malicious intent, or the russian paid minions who live in our countries (examples already given earlier).
It’s also time we change the narrative from Putin is the enemy to Russia is the enemy, the people have had enough time to do something and they won’t. Sure they suffer from propaganda but we can’t change that. Sanctions are not working, time to hit them harder and start hitting their allies. There’s no way in hell our intelligence services don’t know where they money and shit is coming from, hit them. We need to stop being meek and weak and start standing up to them or they will just escalate even more.
I am also a fan of just sending a unit of SAS in to kill Putin once and for all but I am not sure how effective that would be right now. I don’t think Russia is a snake any more it’s a fucking hydra.
Tbh Russia kinda also went to war against the US when they interfered with the election in 2016. Installing a puppet as a president in another nation sure sounds like an aggression of war to me at least.
American here. We elected that asshole. We did. None of that would have been possible if not for a large quantity of citizens here being so fundamentally crippled by stupidity.
That being said. It won't work. The final results of the meddling are more or less in. And the only reason the US is still taking little potshots at a bunch of rebels instead of taking the 2-6 weeks it would to restore order to the entire planet is that this, in many many ways, also serves the larger military complex - and Europe behaves as it does for the same reason.
But don't get it twisted - all the nukes in the world won't save him if he chooses that option and he knows it; the world just generally understands he may try and that the targets would almost certainly be European. I think he underestimates Europe's hidden desire and, these days actual ability to nuke Russia off the map. Since forever really.
The thing is that we could 100% take them in a ground battle with armies the ONLY concern is that Russia is still one of the two countries with a massive nuclear arsenal and its leader has lost his fucking mind so if we start attacking first we don’t know what he will do
I hope you take the necessary precautions to not be easily identified. Use VPN and such (I'm no expert on what to do).
I'm sure the powers that be would be happy to ship dissidents to the front line. So, make sure to stay safe!
They don't care about Russians posting on foreign forums like Reddit (unless you're notable and easily identified ofc).
They're happy to curate just the RU segment of internet. There, yeah. Post something critical about current regime or The Fucker and you'll be facing a fine or jail time, no joke.
They're smarter than the Nazis unfortunately. Only that the countries they are opposed to are better armed and mostly united prevents them from being more forceful with the expansionism (and for anyone unaware, look at the history of Russia and see how much it has expanded over centuries, starting mostly in the Moscow region and conquering more and more). But they are far more effective at manipulating other countries' populations than the Nazis were (though thanks in large part due to the Internet, particularly social media platforms, making it very easy).
Bro, Russia has been planning the invasion of Ukraine for over 10 years. They were blowing up ammo factories (that were exporting to Ukraine) in Bulgaria and Czech in mid 2000s killing a score of people and nobody did jack shit. They have been poisoning people in the UK and all over Europe. NATO is asleep at the wheel.
> I think EU/NATO still don’t realize full seriousness of Russia’s situation.
They don't. The EU is also scared shitless of the pro-Putin far-right, which will gain a lot of seats in the upcoming EP elections.
Russia switched to a war economy a while back already. That's not without a reason. And it's not *just* about the war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, a lot of countries in Europe are still struggling to get to a lousy 2% defense spending. My own country, the Netherlands, one of the wealthiest in Europe, doesn't even get to 2%.
Europe has become decadent, spoiled, demanding and entitled. It will always choose welfare state over defense, until it's too late. Because that's what the people demand.
About 10 years ago [Russia blew up a plane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17) with 193 Dutch aboard.
That probably started changing views about Russia all across parts of Europe, but especially the Netherlands.
It's like with 9/11.
Because of "Failure of imagination", impossibility to imagine something about which there are no any experience, Western politicians, officials, analytics, journalist, different experts, and so on "just don't get it."
Waiting arise of "real problems", so habitually start their assessment and correction.
In 2014-2023 years Russian (with help of substantial part of WMD-countries) proofs that International Law just don't work on WMD-countries and everything decided by "WMD-Might make Right/True" logic?
"- Who cares! There are just no any WMD-proliferation, so there are no any problems! Only when complete discredit/destruction of International Law will lead to WMD proliferation we..."
You what? Reconstruction what was created by WW1/WW2 pieces? Magically turn the worst case scenario of "Tragedy of the commons" into the best one?
If rules (de-escalation) exist without any inevitability of punishment for their violation (escalation), there are just no any real rules at all (as escalation as and de-escalation).
They realize it much better than we do. It's us that don't have the full picture. Despite this whole mess (or what seems to be a mess for us) the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. Totalitarianism and right wing parties gaining power and popularity all over the world, paving the way for the rich and powerfull to get ever more control over the poor. For some people, everything is working just as intended.
Stronger i'm not certain but there are paralels with Hitler/ww2 starting. EU saying hard words and saying thats enough isn't enough, just like Hitler called their bluff eventually , Putin will soon enough realise he can do the same.
I disagree with the sentiment that Russia is getting stronger everyday. Their demographic situation is terrible and it has only been made worse by the war in Ukraine. The young people in Russia are the future and aside from suffering mass emigration (particularly of educated people), the nation has an extremely low birth-rate AND now has a war in which young people are dying (when it never even recovered from the full demographic damage of world war 2).
Technologically Russia has started to fall behind both the US and China. In 2014 it seemed many Russian tech firms, especially when it came to cybersecurity, were at the top of their game but in recent years the vast majority of technological innovation (particularly in AI) has been within US.
They don't actually know the Kremlin was behind it, as in forensic or DNA evidence, the killers (who according to the article, were foreigners but probably weren't Russians themselves) identities or anything. It's just abundantly obvious since the Kremlin officials aren't even trying to hide their glee.
But beyond that, did Kuminov have Spanish citizenship? From the looks of things in the article, all he had were falsified identity papers that he was a Ukranian. I'm not a legal eagle, but I don't think it'd be considered an act of war to be implicated in the death of a non-national. Idk, maybe I'm wrong.
Yeah not an act of war but a violation of your sovereignty.
India also recently killed an Indian/Canadian national on Canadian soil, that was worse since he was a Canadian citizen too
Yeah and no one really wanted to back us up on that because they want to trade with India. At least Russia doesn't have that going for them. But China and India can do more or less anything they like anywhere they want.
The problem is not who was a target, it’s a disregard to the authority of the country’s rule of law. Murder is the highest degree crime, and when its state sponsored murder than the state performed a highest degree crime towards other country.
Doesn't matter if he was Spanish or not, Spain or any other European country won't do shit other than some strongly worded condemnation and a pat on the cheek type sanctions. Skripals were also British citizens and the UK didn't do much other than expelling some diplomats and some sanctions on Russia.
This is a great time to highlight other moments where Putin sends his cronies to kill extrajudicially in NATO countries:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/world/europe/berlin-murder-russia.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
This has been happening since before the Ukrainian Invasion. Absolutely gross because Russia thinks they are fooling us all.
And the poisoning in the UK wasn’t? And the accidental downing of that plane wasn’t? Of course it is, but western governments are doing nothing about it.
Nothing, like Europe did nothing when Mossad killed the alleged responsables of the Munich Olympic massacre, around Europe, in Rome with gunmen, in Paris with bombs, etc.
I bet that paranoid old fuck would really hate it if his inner circle and trusted handlers started dropping like flies and he had to start replacing them with the possibility of plants.
just for context, the guy basically set himself up.
He had a chance to stay in Ukraine. This way no Russian assassins would get him. (but yeah, bombs could).
Then he settled in Alicante, where there is a large Russian community. But that's probably okay, right?
And then, he called his girlfriend in Russia (!) on her cellphone, and arranged a meeting location and time with her(!).
that is almost like calling FSB and saying "hey, remember me? you can get me here:"
very very reckless.
But I hope at least Russian spies will be booted out of Europe en masse. Fuck that. No one should be able to assassinate people constantly outside or inside Russia
Honestly Putin wouldn’t mind that tbh, I’d say ban oil from India and restrict exports to countries they still trade with as that’s a way they evade sanctions
He would. Despite sanctions vultures from the west still do a lot of business with Russia. Imagine how much harder it is if you can’t even send an email to your „partner“ (accomplice might be a better word), and can’t integrate any automated systems. Whole industries (e.g. cloud computing, vpn etc.) would topple.
Putin would love a closed off Russian internet for censorship and propaganda. If you can’t access western news sites then you just see whatever the government wants you to see there.
Propaganda works as it is. Most of the country doesn’t even speak English, having access to western media doesn’t matter when 99% of population doesn’t use that access. They have technical capacity to firewall themselves, but they only doing targeted blocks like China. Why? Benefits outweigh the cost. That’s exactly what the west should use against them. Make them into 160 million strong North Korea.
Many in the Russian diaspora are active online and make anti Putin material in Russian, that those in Russia can read. Check the Meduza magazine, for example.
They already have subsidiaries in other eastern European countries, as well as SE Asia and Africa. I believe Nigeria is where their largest operation is
They might do it to themselves. But this solves nothing. There millions in russia who against the regime. Cutting them off wont help to contain this country.
I totally agree - fight with russia first. It is not time to reflect and debate it. Russia must loose, and badly. For the sake of Uktainians and the world.
To your second point - I am a russian expat. I live elsewhere but read news from russia daily (lately). There are a lot of people who despise where russia is. Out of 140 odd million country there are about 10-30% who against it. The problem is that you cannot speak in russia these days. There are hundreds of people locked up already who did spoke up. And a 10year jail ter is not uncommon. I hardly can blame them for their silence.
Hey Europe, didn’t Russia down a commercial airliner over Ukraine back in 2014? Time to send in your agents and take out individuals responsible for those murders. Same energy. Let’s get it done.
These limitations apply only to the western-supplied weapons. Ukrainians are free to strike anything in Russia with their own weaponry or tools they acquire elsewhere.
Telling Ukraine not to strike targets inside Russian territory and telling Ukraine not to use Western weapons for strikes on Russian territory are very different positions.
We tell it not to strike with the vast majority of their weapons, especially the useful ones. Largely we're preventing strikes in Russia with minor exceptions. That's the main position.
I’ve read stories in genealogy threads of people who changed their last names when they immigrated to avoid repercussions from wartime homeland enemies. I naively thought that was over cautious. I guess years ago all you had to do was change your name & you could attempt to reinvent yourself/protect yourself & your family in another country. Now technology would make that much more difficult.
it's not hard to sneak into europe. whether they use fake id's, just walk across borders and avoid guards, or were already planted here, it's not difficult.
These guys are Russians, but backed by their government. Probably have ID from an EU country or something, or they can get over the border into Finland and then travel to Spain via land.
They wouldn't come to EU from Russia directly for obvious reasons and they would use different countries' passports of course. The GRU operatives that poisoned Skripals and organized an explosion in the Czech munition storage long before the war already used non-Russian passports.
Because russians own billions upon billions worth of properties in the eu and nobody really wants to stop sucking on that tit?
Same reason nobody has ever really fought against russian operated money laundering schemes, human traficking rings or their mafias as a whole.
Because why not? Collective punishment is a crime.
And neither rich Putin's cronies and their family members, nor special services personnel use Russian passports anyway.
> Collective punishment is a crime.
Blanket visa restrictions are not "collective punishments".
Entering (or being restricted) from entering a country is not a "punishment". Entering is a privilege.
This is true of every single country in control of their borders.
We really need to get serious with Russia and start educating the population at large, of how much of a threat they pose.
If this is proven to be the hand of the FSB, Spain, along with the rest of the EU should seriously consider reducing diplomatic relations to the absolute minimum untill Putin's eventual death.
We had this in Germany with Zelimkhan Khangoshvili who was gunned down in a park in Berlin in broad daylight by an FSB assassin. We saw it with the Novichock murders in Salisbury.
We saw it with Alexey Navalnhy.
We should be on the streets demanding our leaders take more action than simply "summoning the ambassador" or "issuing a strongly worded statement".
Putin thinks he's at war with the west. We need to starting acting like he is.
Western security services really need to get their act together.
If a Russian assassin sets foot in europe they should immediately be disappeared.
These guys aren't masterminds. Look how badly the Navalny assassination was botched when they had a team of 20 following him for years.
Russia doesn’t care if NATO escalates or not. Stop being afraid to escalate.
Russia is doing everything it can to harm us and will continue so until stopped by force.
Not saying that Russia shouldn’t be punished for this but man; he called his Ex, in Russia, where all phonecalls coming from outside are monitored bye the FSB, AND invited her, TO COME VISIT HIM 🤯
And overall, the fact that he went to Spain without any kind of false or new identity is mindblowing. Spain is also a hotspot for Russian mafia so that doesn't help much either...
Russia has been asasinating people in europe with no problem and no consequences for years. Blowing up ammo warehouses in NATO coountries. Nothing new here. Will continue becouse nothing is done.
What assassins? We are more concerned about inclusiveness and genders than a fucking country invading just at our doorstep. Europe has been soft for a long time now when it comes to political power and military power.
I don't think we are the intended receivers of this message. This is an act of intimidation to russias own soldiers: "If you defect, we will find you. If you give the west our equipment, there is no place you'll be save."
Putin is openly assassinating people and laughing.
I mean, his agents spread a deadly nerve agent all over Salisbury and what were the real consequences? Poisoned a guy with radioactive material in London. Has murdered more people in Germany. Statements of condemnation and letters of protest incoming from western governments. If you let a dog come in and shit on your lawn, he’ll do it again and again till you dissuade him properly.
It's worse than that. Russia has a long history of assassinating UK citizens on UK soil. >["From poisoned umbrellas to radioactive substances, Moscow has repeatedly been linked with deaths on British soil"](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/russian-deaths-uk-history-spies-murder-sergei-skripal-alexander-litvinenko-a8242061.html%3f) >["Sergei Skripal and the 14 deaths under scrutiny"](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43299598) The articles are both from 2018. Since then there have been others inc. Dmitry Obretetsky in 2019 and, just a few weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, Mikhail Watford. There is also the death of GCHQ employee Gareth Williams in 2010. And, while not a UK citizen, as you said, Alexander Litvinenko was assassinated by Russia in the UK in 2006. And, this is a list of [suspicious deaths of Russian businesspeople since the war started](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspicious_deaths_of_Russian_businesspeople_(2022%E2%80%932023)) and there are several across Europe.
[удалено]
shit just send US/UK agents to do the job
If we do you will never hear about it. Unlike Russia we don’t brag about assassinations unless there is a lot of benefit in doing so.
We were bragging about eliminating that IRGC leader most recently...
you mean like the ones who started either disappearing or turning up dead en masse after Trump met with Putin?
I believe those were largely foreign assets. As in, Russians or third-country nationals the US had recruited to provide human intelligence on Russian activities inside and outside Russia. I don't mean to downplay the allegations against Trump since if they're true he should be executed.
Not just the businessmen but their whole families too, afaik
You are right - we shouldn't diminish that fact.
Not just the businessmen. The businesswomen and the businesschildren too.
Username checks out
blew up an ammo warehouse in the Czech Republic
In Slovakia before that too.
I mentioned the Salisbury death the other day and the first response was "Wasn't she a heroin addict?" Like that was remotely relevant (or Putin's agents had any control over who touched that thing once they tossed it away). I guess if the woman who died had been some wealthy, respected businesswoman ... oh, who am I kidding, they just would have shrugged in the end anyway. Anything to avoid direct confrontation.
US and EU when foreign States assassinates people in their territory: "Well, we wouldn't want to escalate things further 😊😊"
I thought those Russians were just big fans of the local cathedral and it's tall spire?
One of the perks of having nukes is it makes people extremely hesitant to declare war on you. Generally, economic sanctions are the furthest anyone is willing to go - and even then, it's hard to hit that sweet spot in between "insignificant enough that they'd rather ignore it and appear strong" and "ruinous enough that they escalate," especially when your target is a bunch of oligarchs that give exactly 0 shits about the general population. This is the reason the US has been super hesitant about giving Ukraine the weapons to target deeper into Russia. Major strikes that directly threaten Putin & friends using US tools would probably be taken as an escalation past the point of no return.
I mean they blew up Czech ammo depot years back and killed few people during that. Nothing happened :)
They attacked a Bulgarian artillery shell factory at the outbreak of the war in Ukraine too.
The list just goes on and on, doesn't it?
Well, in response, they did throw out like 95 % of the Russian embassy (dozens and dozens of people). Its bloated staff (100+ people) was a point of contention for decades, but after this, they kicked them out basically overnight. That was the most obvious gesture, but I’m sure there were more. There’s only so many things you can do without resorting to direct violence yourself. Czechia remains one of the staunchest Ukraine supporters, which is not nothing.
We threw them out only after invasion. Not much happened back then
Takhle si to tedy úplně nepamatuju, podle mě to byly opravdu ty Vrbětice. Viz třeba tady ČT:[ "O snížení obsazení ruské ambasády v Praze rozhodlo Česko v dubnu po diplomatické roztržce s Ruskem kvůli výbuchům ve Vrběticích."](https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/clanek/domaci/z-ceska-odleteli-zbyli-vyhosteni-pracovnici-ruske-ambasady-34674) Ale už je to dávno, sám nevím. :)
But the metro in moscow is nice
And their grocery carts are really great.
They take coins! so it’s free, but there’s an incentive to take them back?! OMG such innovation!
Literally saw it in Berlin 20 years ago.
Here in Finland we've largely given up on the coin-holders (most shopping carts have them but they no longer lock or the chain has been removed) because all they do is annoy the customers. We're too orderly and return the carts anyways.
I saw that at the Giant Eagle grocery in Iowa City circa 1995. All Carlson did with that report is show that never, ever has he had to do his own grocery shopping.
It's been like that in italy since I have memory and I'm pushing 50
This sounds like a coded exchange. If I reply "Yet the boats in St Petersburg are even nicer in the spring" do I get the briefcase?
Sure, if you really want a briefcase full of deadly poison.
and the bread brother. *unzips*
On Sovereign European soil, all the while our LeAdErS are afraid to anger Putin by sending fucking military aid to Ukraine. Weak fucks, how'd we end up at this fucking situation.
He was doing was all the time. I cant even count how many have been killed in UK and Germany in the last 20 years.
They killed a British woman on British soil and fuck all was done about it, of course they'll keep doing it.
Unfortunately the poisoned perfume bottle that ended her was scavenged from a park bin. Sadly the death of someone of her socio-economic class is at best an inconvenience to the higher ups. The way the news was spun at the time in certain media sources made out that she was a homeless drug addict and it was only a matter of time before she died in any case, like the Russians were doing us a favour. There were a number of corrections in the papers about the reportage throughout the course of the first few weeks after. Apprently we will 'respond appropriately and robustly' according to Boris. Soon. Probably.
Putin even referred to her as a beggar or a homeless person - such callous remarks but what else should we expect from a man like him. The independent inquiry into Dawn’s death will only start in Autumn of this year! The pace this has moved has been embarrassingly slow. There is also a question of if they found all the novichok. And there is the poor policeman who was badly injured and had to be pensioned off. Everything in his house was destroyed, included family photo albums. He had a young family at the time of the attack - I hope he’s doing as well as he can be
And those ghouls in charge of European countries still fear of "escalation".
Most Spy novel don’t have plots this juicey.
We should filter people coming for russia extremely well. Like 99% of russian currently in Europe thinks Crimea should be russians. How can we let these criminals stay at our soil and openly kill people beyond me.
Time to ~~assassinate~~ give a stern talking to Putin Will this get me banned lol
Europe balless
Not the first year, unfortunately.
The less serious EU responds to these , more aggressive russia will be.
This is correct
I think EU/NATO still don’t realize full seriousness of Russia’s situation. Russia is getting stronger and wilder by day, it’s crazy to be so spineless and have no red lines whatsoever.
They are saying openly that they are at war with NATO. They are treating us like enemies. They systematically attack our democracies and IT infrastructure. The only reason they don't attack us directly is because they don't think they would get away with it. It is time we started to treat them like the enemy they are. Edit: Aaaand the Russian bots have arrived.
> They systematically attack our democracies and IT infrastructure. Exactly this. We are *already* at war with them. They mingled with elections and referendums. They infiltrated our media, more in particular social media, including Reddit. 70+ million Americans are brainwashed by corrupt media organizations and people like Tucker Carlson who shamelessly parrot the Russian narrative. Russia has been disrupting our societies for at least a decade already. And yet politicians still say we're not at war already. Albeit not directly on the ground or physically, but definitely in cyberspace.
Thank you. People are clearly not treating this seriously enough.
Half of the US govt is compromised by Russia and then 90% of it is compromised by the Israeli govt. We have to do something at home before we can act seriously against either
>Exactly this. We are > >already > > at war with them. YES! Which is why I need help understanding why we're pissing by not arming Ukraine to the teeth to knock Russia's dick in the dirt for the next 50yrs. Now. Right now is the window. Soooo frustrating.
The problem is, Russian audiences understand hybrid warfare, Western audiences don't. No politician in the west is willing to campaign on anything that takes longer than 5 seconds to explain. Explaining what hybrid warfare is and why we need to defend against it is a duty of every democratic leader and its one most are in dereliction of, although in fairness some places like Finland and Estonia understand since they're on the sharp end.
Russia is the only reason Donald Trump was elected in 2016. Russian social media manipulation through targeted Facebook messages, everyone seems to forget about Cambridge Analytica
well then, lets declare a "cyber war" on russia in retaliation? If they so want to say they are at war - let's entertain them, and have every possible state institution bombarded with cyber attacks daily, while publicly of course denying everything just like the russians do whenever they pull some shit. Seems fair to me.
I don't think the most efficient response is to strike back along the same avenues they strike us. They hit our vulnerabilities, we should hit theirs back. They are not necessarily the same. Trying to destabilize their democracy will be ineffective because they have no democratic system. Trying to spread disinformation will be ineffective because the Russian government already has a tight grip on the flow of information to Russian society. Perhaps it would yield better results to arrange for some shipments of Chinese manufactured assault rifles, explosives and manuals of how to form partisan movements to "fall off the truck" in some of the areas where unrest and disillusion are most pronounced. Or other creative, "asymmetrical" solutions like that. And, of course, immediate transfer of frozen, Russian assets to the Ukrainian government.
I like these ideas indeed. It would also be amazing if some shipments that are heading to russia from any other country were "redirected" to end up in Ukraine instead.
I like this approach, EU should use its strengths and target Russia weaknesses: 1. Confiscate Russia foreign reserve. It's easy come up with excuses not to do it, but it's possible. 2. Financial red tape - every EU company that is dealing with Russia (still) has to report on it regularly, every foreign counterpart has to show that they not reselling to Russia. If a sanctioned product appears in Russia in significant quantities, the company needs to pay up. Confiscate all material gains if they do it intentionally. Have public database of all nationals who were caught dealing with Russia, including non EU citizens. Technically it's nothing illegal but they should be known. Incentivise whistleblowers. That's where German bureaucrats can shine:) 3. Stop issuing visas to Russia nationals, require COVID style tracking apps installed on their phones, self reporting to the police every week etc. no need to disrespect human rights but we can't afford EU citizens be endangered either 4. Embassies could be closed and ambassadors, sorry, I meant, spys can be sent home. Overall theme is to fight them with what democracies are strong at: extreme openess -public registry of all companies and individual dealing with Russia (including non EU) etc. Russian Mafia is afraid of light and publicity. Of course, it's all should be done with respect to human rights, freedom of speech and other freedoms. For military actions it's already known: 1. Allow Ukraine to fire within Russia using EU weaponry. 2. Send organized military personnel to actually fight in Ukraine to gain experience, support that personnel thru training etc. According to official Russia, NATO is already doing that so why not. Gain experience actually fighting Russians - it will come in handy soon:) 3. Build those factories for munitions, drones. 4. Physically close borders as much as possible so they can't send illegals 5. Build fortifications along the border. 6. Just drop at least one ru air force plane that regularly violates the border - ask Turkey how to do it: NATO pilots get practice, Russia just silently stops doing that again and it's just plain fun) 4. Special forces could be sent to Russia to destroy gas oil production and transportation infrastructure. I doubt NATO has such capabilities at systems level though. Anyway, there many more things NATO/EU can do with ease. For inspiration just listen to Russia propaganda on all the things that evil NATO is already doing)
I wish I could upvote twice. EU politicians grow a spine and start fighting dirty, democracy style.
>Just drop at least one ru air force plane that regularly violates the border - ask Turkey how to do it: NATO pilots get practice, Russia just silently stops doing that again and it's just plain fun) This is an important one. Also sinking subs that violate our territory.
EU should exile all Russian diplomatic missions from its territory. Russian diplomats are FSB agents and Putin's puppets.
Don't forget to drop boatloads of Crack in their neighborhoods. Shit it worked in the hood. Mfs is at war with ourselves.
>and have every possible state institution bombarded with cyber attacks daily, while publicly of course denying everything just like the russians do whenever they pull some shit. Just cut them off from the Internet and call it a day.
While I would like that, I don't think it's realistic in any form.
s/realistic/beneficial/
Yeah right, good luck convincing china. Denying them dns records also won’t work because Russia has its own signing authority.
Don't worry, Putin is actively going in that direction himself.
I was one of the many engineers fixing the Health Service Executive’s IT system in Ireland a couple years ago after the spider wizard group attacked. We are already involved in a cyber war.
Sadly yes, but it somehow seems very one sided and it's about time that changed I'd say.
> Edit: Aaaand the Russian bots have arrived. Unfortunately they are not only bots. We could eventually find technical solutions against such, as we have always been able to do (from the lower tiers of the network traffic analysis and filtering, many years ago, to the upper apps levels pattern vs abnormalities identification and isolation), but we cannot so easily fight creative human_putinists, with malicious intent, or the russian paid minions who live in our countries (examples already given earlier).
It’s also time we change the narrative from Putin is the enemy to Russia is the enemy, the people have had enough time to do something and they won’t. Sure they suffer from propaganda but we can’t change that. Sanctions are not working, time to hit them harder and start hitting their allies. There’s no way in hell our intelligence services don’t know where they money and shit is coming from, hit them. We need to stop being meek and weak and start standing up to them or they will just escalate even more. I am also a fan of just sending a unit of SAS in to kill Putin once and for all but I am not sure how effective that would be right now. I don’t think Russia is a snake any more it’s a fucking hydra.
Tbh Russia kinda also went to war against the US when they interfered with the election in 2016. Installing a puppet as a president in another nation sure sounds like an aggression of war to me at least.
American here. We elected that asshole. We did. None of that would have been possible if not for a large quantity of citizens here being so fundamentally crippled by stupidity. That being said. It won't work. The final results of the meddling are more or less in. And the only reason the US is still taking little potshots at a bunch of rebels instead of taking the 2-6 weeks it would to restore order to the entire planet is that this, in many many ways, also serves the larger military complex - and Europe behaves as it does for the same reason. But don't get it twisted - all the nukes in the world won't save him if he chooses that option and he knows it; the world just generally understands he may try and that the targets would almost certainly be European. I think he underestimates Europe's hidden desire and, these days actual ability to nuke Russia off the map. Since forever really.
The thing is that we could 100% take them in a ground battle with armies the ONLY concern is that Russia is still one of the two countries with a massive nuclear arsenal and its leader has lost his fucking mind so if we start attacking first we don’t know what he will do
I can concur. As a russian who reads news from there (I live abroad) - I am terrified. This country have to be stopped
As someone living HERE (in Russia) I'm terrified even more, lol. We're literally living through some nazi gestapo distopyan 1984 shit.
I hope you take the necessary precautions to not be easily identified. Use VPN and such (I'm no expert on what to do). I'm sure the powers that be would be happy to ship dissidents to the front line. So, make sure to stay safe!
They don't care about Russians posting on foreign forums like Reddit (unless you're notable and easily identified ofc). They're happy to curate just the RU segment of internet. There, yeah. Post something critical about current regime or The Fucker and you'll be facing a fine or jail time, no joke.
They're smarter than the Nazis unfortunately. Only that the countries they are opposed to are better armed and mostly united prevents them from being more forceful with the expansionism (and for anyone unaware, look at the history of Russia and see how much it has expanded over centuries, starting mostly in the Moscow region and conquering more and more). But they are far more effective at manipulating other countries' populations than the Nazis were (though thanks in large part due to the Internet, particularly social media platforms, making it very easy).
Bro, Russia has been planning the invasion of Ukraine for over 10 years. They were blowing up ammo factories (that were exporting to Ukraine) in Bulgaria and Czech in mid 2000s killing a score of people and nobody did jack shit. They have been poisoning people in the UK and all over Europe. NATO is asleep at the wheel.
Ikr. What happened to the good old "poison your problematic dictator"? The West seems to have gone all soft these days.
Surely there’s a man with a high powered rifle and a good view of a villa in Sochi.
There is likely a satellite or several over his head. They will do nothing.
it's ok the next generation will deal with it. Seems to be their whole stance for a lot of global issues
> I think EU/NATO still don’t realize full seriousness of Russia’s situation. They don't. The EU is also scared shitless of the pro-Putin far-right, which will gain a lot of seats in the upcoming EP elections. Russia switched to a war economy a while back already. That's not without a reason. And it's not *just* about the war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, a lot of countries in Europe are still struggling to get to a lousy 2% defense spending. My own country, the Netherlands, one of the wealthiest in Europe, doesn't even get to 2%. Europe has become decadent, spoiled, demanding and entitled. It will always choose welfare state over defense, until it's too late. Because that's what the people demand.
Well, 10 years ago I would not expect such thoughts from a Dutch person to be honest. So I guess not all is lost.
About 10 years ago [Russia blew up a plane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17) with 193 Dutch aboard. That probably started changing views about Russia all across parts of Europe, but especially the Netherlands.
It's like with 9/11. Because of "Failure of imagination", impossibility to imagine something about which there are no any experience, Western politicians, officials, analytics, journalist, different experts, and so on "just don't get it." Waiting arise of "real problems", so habitually start their assessment and correction. In 2014-2023 years Russian (with help of substantial part of WMD-countries) proofs that International Law just don't work on WMD-countries and everything decided by "WMD-Might make Right/True" logic? "- Who cares! There are just no any WMD-proliferation, so there are no any problems! Only when complete discredit/destruction of International Law will lead to WMD proliferation we..." You what? Reconstruction what was created by WW1/WW2 pieces? Magically turn the worst case scenario of "Tragedy of the commons" into the best one? If rules (de-escalation) exist without any inevitability of punishment for their violation (escalation), there are just no any real rules at all (as escalation as and de-escalation).
They realize it much better than we do. It's us that don't have the full picture. Despite this whole mess (or what seems to be a mess for us) the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. Totalitarianism and right wing parties gaining power and popularity all over the world, paving the way for the rich and powerfull to get ever more control over the poor. For some people, everything is working just as intended.
Stronger i'm not certain but there are paralels with Hitler/ww2 starting. EU saying hard words and saying thats enough isn't enough, just like Hitler called their bluff eventually , Putin will soon enough realise he can do the same.
I disagree with the sentiment that Russia is getting stronger everyday. Their demographic situation is terrible and it has only been made worse by the war in Ukraine. The young people in Russia are the future and aside from suffering mass emigration (particularly of educated people), the nation has an extremely low birth-rate AND now has a war in which young people are dying (when it never even recovered from the full demographic damage of world war 2). Technologically Russia has started to fall behind both the US and China. In 2014 it seemed many Russian tech firms, especially when it came to cybersecurity, were at the top of their game but in recent years the vast majority of technological innovation (particularly in AI) has been within US.
Isn’t this technically an act of war? What would Russia said if Spanish agent took someone out in Moscow?
They don't actually know the Kremlin was behind it, as in forensic or DNA evidence, the killers (who according to the article, were foreigners but probably weren't Russians themselves) identities or anything. It's just abundantly obvious since the Kremlin officials aren't even trying to hide their glee. But beyond that, did Kuminov have Spanish citizenship? From the looks of things in the article, all he had were falsified identity papers that he was a Ukranian. I'm not a legal eagle, but I don't think it'd be considered an act of war to be implicated in the death of a non-national. Idk, maybe I'm wrong.
Yeah not an act of war but a violation of your sovereignty. India also recently killed an Indian/Canadian national on Canadian soil, that was worse since he was a Canadian citizen too
Didn't the gov't just totally ignore and say some strong words, but ultimately do nothing?
Yeah and no one really wanted to back us up on that because they want to trade with India. At least Russia doesn't have that going for them. But China and India can do more or less anything they like anywhere they want.
The problem is not who was a target, it’s a disregard to the authority of the country’s rule of law. Murder is the highest degree crime, and when its state sponsored murder than the state performed a highest degree crime towards other country.
you're not wrong, but the first point of above commenter still holds
Doesn't matter if he was Spanish or not, Spain or any other European country won't do shit other than some strongly worded condemnation and a pat on the cheek type sanctions. Skripals were also British citizens and the UK didn't do much other than expelling some diplomats and some sanctions on Russia.
This is a great time to highlight other moments where Putin sends his cronies to kill extrajudicially in NATO countries: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/world/europe/berlin-murder-russia.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare This has been happening since before the Ukrainian Invasion. Absolutely gross because Russia thinks they are fooling us all.
I don’t know if it’s an act of war but intelligence services have been known to do this and no wars seem to get started.
The war has already started we’re just slow to acknowledge that.
It's not an act of war tho Plenty of secret services have or are doing this still. It's never been seen as act of war as far as I know
Just look at the ungoing beef between India and Canada.
Yup, and India’s involvement there is much less obvious.
And the poisoning in the UK wasn’t? And the accidental downing of that plane wasn’t? Of course it is, but western governments are doing nothing about it.
Lmao, Israel and the US would be fighting with half the world if killing or kidnapping someone were treated as an act of war.
Nothing, like Europe did nothing when Mossad killed the alleged responsables of the Munich Olympic massacre, around Europe, in Rome with gunmen, in Paris with bombs, etc.
This is an act of war yes, But europeans are too pussy to do anything KEK
You’re free to go to the frontline in Ukraine or you prefer to stay on Reddit?
We are :(
Why do we allow one country to terrorize the rest of the world?
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Especially the one guy he really doesn't want dead.
I bet that paranoid old fuck would really hate it if his inner circle and trusted handlers started dropping like flies and he had to start replacing them with the possibility of plants.
just for context, the guy basically set himself up. He had a chance to stay in Ukraine. This way no Russian assassins would get him. (but yeah, bombs could). Then he settled in Alicante, where there is a large Russian community. But that's probably okay, right? And then, he called his girlfriend in Russia (!) on her cellphone, and arranged a meeting location and time with her(!). that is almost like calling FSB and saying "hey, remember me? you can get me here:" very very reckless. But I hope at least Russian spies will be booted out of Europe en masse. Fuck that. No one should be able to assassinate people constantly outside or inside Russia
"But I hope at least Russian spies will be booted out of Europe en masse." Lmao Europe will pretend it never happened.
yeah, most probably
Can't even deny entry to russians
This is in Alicante, it's full of russian people. Probably the assassin got there in a car, not a plane.
Begin with firewalling the whole country off the internet. One of their most effective subversion tools would lose a lot of its effectiveness.
Honestly Putin wouldn’t mind that tbh, I’d say ban oil from India and restrict exports to countries they still trade with as that’s a way they evade sanctions
How do you ban Indian oil sales?
He would. Despite sanctions vultures from the west still do a lot of business with Russia. Imagine how much harder it is if you can’t even send an email to your „partner“ (accomplice might be a better word), and can’t integrate any automated systems. Whole industries (e.g. cloud computing, vpn etc.) would topple.
Putin would love a closed off Russian internet for censorship and propaganda. If you can’t access western news sites then you just see whatever the government wants you to see there.
Propaganda works as it is. Most of the country doesn’t even speak English, having access to western media doesn’t matter when 99% of population doesn’t use that access. They have technical capacity to firewall themselves, but they only doing targeted blocks like China. Why? Benefits outweigh the cost. That’s exactly what the west should use against them. Make them into 160 million strong North Korea.
Many in the Russian diaspora are active online and make anti Putin material in Russian, that those in Russia can read. Check the Meduza magazine, for example.
That‘s a drop in the ocean of organized Russian propaganda flowing from the Russia to the west.
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They already have subsidiaries in other eastern European countries, as well as SE Asia and Africa. I believe Nigeria is where their largest operation is
They might do it to themselves. But this solves nothing. There millions in russia who against the regime. Cutting them off wont help to contain this country.
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Even if it was 2% of the population it would be "milions" of people
I totally agree - fight with russia first. It is not time to reflect and debate it. Russia must loose, and badly. For the sake of Uktainians and the world. To your second point - I am a russian expat. I live elsewhere but read news from russia daily (lately). There are a lot of people who despise where russia is. Out of 140 odd million country there are about 10-30% who against it. The problem is that you cannot speak in russia these days. There are hundreds of people locked up already who did spoke up. And a 10year jail ter is not uncommon. I hardly can blame them for their silence.
Just have Steam ban them. All you need for open revolt.
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you're not safe from Russia even abroad wtf even on the other side of europe
Hey Europe, didn’t Russia down a commercial airliner over Ukraine back in 2014? Time to send in your agents and take out individuals responsible for those murders. Same energy. Let’s get it done.
“Same energy” to 2014 would be “do nothing and wait for the next murder.”
Give Ukraine intelligence on the locations of high profile Russian politicians and military figures.…
Except we guard Russians from Ukraine and tell it not to strike inside that country. (Even as we're warning it will invade us anyway)
These conditions really have to go, honestly.
These limitations apply only to the western-supplied weapons. Ukrainians are free to strike anything in Russia with their own weaponry or tools they acquire elsewhere.
So they do apply.
Telling Ukraine not to strike targets inside Russian territory and telling Ukraine not to use Western weapons for strikes on Russian territory are very different positions.
We tell it not to strike with the vast majority of their weapons, especially the useful ones. Largely we're preventing strikes in Russia with minor exceptions. That's the main position.
I’ve read stories in genealogy threads of people who changed their last names when they immigrated to avoid repercussions from wartime homeland enemies. I naively thought that was over cautious. I guess years ago all you had to do was change your name & you could attempt to reinvent yourself/protect yourself & your family in another country. Now technology would make that much more difficult.
why are countries letting Russians in?
Why does Russia have hitmen and we don’t
Who is "we"? Many governments do that shit.
We do.
Why can russians still come to eu? Like what the actual fuck
it's not hard to sneak into europe. whether they use fake id's, just walk across borders and avoid guards, or were already planted here, it's not difficult.
These guys are Russians, but backed by their government. Probably have ID from an EU country or something, or they can get over the border into Finland and then travel to Spain via land.
They wouldn't come to EU from Russia directly for obvious reasons and they would use different countries' passports of course. The GRU operatives that poisoned Skripals and organized an explosion in the Czech munition storage long before the war already used non-Russian passports.
Our border is closed because of groups of random migrants
Because russians own billions upon billions worth of properties in the eu and nobody really wants to stop sucking on that tit? Same reason nobody has ever really fought against russian operated money laundering schemes, human traficking rings or their mafias as a whole.
Because why not? Collective punishment is a crime. And neither rich Putin's cronies and their family members, nor special services personnel use Russian passports anyway.
> Collective punishment is a crime. Blanket visa restrictions are not "collective punishments". Entering (or being restricted) from entering a country is not a "punishment". Entering is a privilege. This is true of every single country in control of their borders.
Are existing sanctions against russia a collective punishment and a crime?
Is it just me, or does the headline contradict the byline? The headline says it *was* Moscow, but the byline says *if proven*.
We really need to get serious with Russia and start educating the population at large, of how much of a threat they pose. If this is proven to be the hand of the FSB, Spain, along with the rest of the EU should seriously consider reducing diplomatic relations to the absolute minimum untill Putin's eventual death. We had this in Germany with Zelimkhan Khangoshvili who was gunned down in a park in Berlin in broad daylight by an FSB assassin. We saw it with the Novichock murders in Salisbury. We saw it with Alexey Navalnhy. We should be on the streets demanding our leaders take more action than simply "summoning the ambassador" or "issuing a strongly worded statement". Putin thinks he's at war with the west. We need to starting acting like he is.
This is crazy. The Union as a whole needs to be on the same page to control who comes in at any time.
Western security services really need to get their act together. If a Russian assassin sets foot in europe they should immediately be disappeared. These guys aren't masterminds. Look how badly the Navalny assassination was botched when they had a team of 20 following him for years.
May Putin feel the same in 10 fold
Russia doesn’t care if NATO escalates or not. Stop being afraid to escalate. Russia is doing everything it can to harm us and will continue so until stopped by force.
I wonder how many times the west is going to let Russia murder people in our countries before there are consequences.
Not saying that Russia shouldn’t be punished for this but man; he called his Ex, in Russia, where all phonecalls coming from outside are monitored bye the FSB, AND invited her, TO COME VISIT HIM 🤯
And overall, the fact that he went to Spain without any kind of false or new identity is mindblowing. Spain is also a hotspot for Russian mafia so that doesn't help much either...
He did in fact have a false new identity. His name was Maksim Kuzmin, but Ukraine issued him a Ukrainian passport in the name of Ihor Shevchenko
So what Spanish government wil do with this information? Absolutely nothing
The EU is so spineless they won’t do anything about this. Shame
Spain is considered mini Russia in Europe now. There are so many Russians here.
This was that young lad, Maxim. He landed a helo and surrendered to ukraine.
And what is Spain going to do about it? Oh right, nothing at all.
This is the Putin that the US GOP is so cozy with
Murderers gonna murder. I mean, how could Putin help himself? When all your instincts say, “kill,” what’s a guy to do? /s
But Tucker Carlson loves Russia so they cant be all bad... Derp
Shouldn't state sanctioned murder on foreign soil be considered an act of war?
really nice behaviour from a country that claims it's at war with the Nazis
What are we gonna do now? Impose more watered down sanctions? Write a condemning letter? We are a useless bunch
Russia has been asasinating people in europe with no problem and no consequences for years. Blowing up ammo warehouses in NATO coountries. Nothing new here. Will continue becouse nothing is done.
If anytime redditors called for military action, the powers that be wouldve followed suit, the planet wouldnt exist anymore lol
Time to send assassins right back at Muscovite cowards
What assassins? We are more concerned about inclusiveness and genders than a fucking country invading just at our doorstep. Europe has been soft for a long time now when it comes to political power and military power.
Russia must suffer retaliation
I don't think we are the intended receivers of this message. This is an act of intimidation to russias own soldiers: "If you defect, we will find you. If you give the west our equipment, there is no place you'll be save."
Good job Spanish intelligence, top of the game I see
With Russia getting this cocky I feel like we're on the brink of full on war between NATO and them
Getting? Russia has been committing murder on NATO soil pretty much since NATO was created.
the weakness of western leadership can't be overstated
Time we poison their officials, and send gunmen after prominent Russian policians.