Ukraine

[ötzi]

Zelensky categorically denies it and ISIS claims responsibility. I'm inclined to take those cards at face value.

[ex-powderbroker]

isis hates iran
isis hates assad

fuck russia

[Bunion 2020]

So ISIS is now an ally?

[The Reverend Floater]

The very possibility that Russia is at a point of depletion upon where warning is given, a van full of terrorists show up to a theatre, execute, and get away, and yet the state doesn't have enough resources to even slow it down is unreal. And by unreal, I mean hard to believe. Are their SWAT equivalents and special forces so depleted or dead that they truly couldn't do anything? If so, this illustrates a point of weakness so acute that said terrorists are going to go bananas.

Gotta think the Ukes are even raising their eyebrows at the possibilities.

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[dunfree]

Rosgvardia is raping teenagers in occupied territories and arresting schoolchildren and beating up grandmas it’s not hard to believe at all. Fucking internet conspiracy brainworms.

[LongShortLong]

So ISIS is now an ally?

Supposedly, a few months ago the US provided air support for a Taliban attack against ISIS-K. So if the US is Taliban's ally, maybe some pretzel logic says ISIS-K got the US on its side too. Not to be confused with ISIS.

My bet is a inside job. It's Putin's MO to stage terror attacks against Russia then blame someone he wants war against. Staging the "Chechen" apartment bombings was a key early step in his transition from president to czar.

For those wondering about ISIS-K - they are trying to re-establish an ancient Islamic empire (Khorasan) in parts of modern Iran and Afghanistan. I think it also includes some parts of the central Asian oases, like Samarkand, and maybe as far as Tashkent. I haven't followed whether they beef with Russians or why. Don't much understand ISIS-K at all, as it seems like Khorasan could only exist by taxing the silk road, and that's not coming back.

eta: a source I tend to trust rates the apartment bombings as "alleged false flag"

[RoooR]

So ISIS is now an ally?

Not according to Pyreglide. ISIS is the enemy of basically the entire world.

[The Reverend Floater]

Supposedly, a few months ago the US provided air support for a Taliban attack against ISIS-K. So if the US is Taliban's ally, maybe some pretzel logic says ISIS-K got the US on its side too. Not to be confused with ISIS.

My bet is a inside job. It's Putin's MO to stage terror attacks against Russia then blame someone he wants war against. Staging the "Chechen" apartment bombings was a key early step in his transition from president to czar.

For those wondering about ISIS-K - they are trying to re-establish an ancient Islamic empire (Khorasan) in parts of modern Iran and Afghanistan. I think it also includes some parts of the central Asian oases, like Samarkand, and maybe as far as Tashkent. I haven't followed whether they beef with Russians or why. Don't much understand ISIS-K at all, as it seems like Khorasan could only exist by taxing the silk road, and that's not coming back.

eta: a source I tend to trust rates the apartment bombings as "alleged false flag"

I don't disagree. But why would Pooty want to war against ISIS K? Simply on the Uke escape route angle?

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[Toadman]

The very possibility that Russia is at a point of depletion upon where warning is given, a van full of terrorists show up to a theatre, execute, and get away, and yet the state doesn't have enough resources to even slow it down is unreal. And by unreal, I mean hard to believe. Are their SWAT equivalents and special forces so depleted or dead that they truly couldn't do anything? If so, this illustrates a point of weakness so acute that said terrorists are going to go bananas.

Gotta think the Ukes are even raising their eyebrows at the possibilities.

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I wouldn't be shocked that there aren't already several UAF SOF's in country ready to raise holy or unholy hell on strategic military targets within Russia's borders.

[PB]

I find hard to believe that they've captured all of the perps alive.
Sounds like the usual suspects, and they will confess to being Ukrainian agents.

[Meconium]

[schuss]

I mean, US even warned Putin and Co of chatter. Plenty of islamists have a bone to pick due to chechnya, Syria etc.
Not to mention Afghanistan.

[Meconium]

Eventually the Russian misinformation/narrative will become a domestic trainwreck. One would hope)

[jono]

"The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they're lying, they know we know they're lying, but they keep lying anyway and we keep pretending to believe them."

Elena Gorokhova

[summit]

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

[jono]

See "A Mountain of Crumbs" (page 172 or 181).

[subtle plague]

Leroy TGR jenkins. Because he's the only one who Sees through everything.

[summit]

See "A Mountain of Crumbs" (page 172 or 181).

Her work is 2010

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn predates that work by decades

[jono]

Her work is 2010

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn predates that work by decades

So far I've never seen a published work where he said that, though, just attributions without a source. Have you seen one?

[summit]

So far I've never seen a published work where he said that, though, just attributions without a source. Have you seen one?

I recently read the Gulag Archipeligo. That's how I knew to attribute the quote. It was an audio book so I can't give you a page number. My brain remembers hearing it. It's a fucking long book. Is it possible I read it elsewhere around the same time as I researched it and am misattributing? Could be

[jono]

It's been widely attributed to him in the last couple years, including in this thread and maybe by me. I had seen people complain about the sourcing so I went looking and apparently people doing text searches (myself included, though I'm not very thorough) haven't found it in his prominent works yet. Or I haven't found where they've found it, anyway. The sentiment certainly dates to the czars, one way or the other.

[ex-powderbroker]

unbelievably, this is not the first time this has been discussed. there are a lot of variants:

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2023/1...now-lie/?amp=1

[Casey E]

Traced back to Dostoyevsky, and beyond!

““In his essay, ‘A Word or Two about Vranyo’, Dostoyevsky tried to uncover why ‘everyone lied in Russia down to the last figure’. True, he believed that women lied less, but among the intellectual classes ‘a non-lier is an impossibility’; even completely honest people can lie in Russia , which he was convinced only scoundrels did in other nations. He noted that vranyo was greeted with ‘delicate reciprocity’ at all social gatherings of his day, making the lie a two-way collaboration; and as he felt vranyo and lozh were largely interchangeable, the perpetrator and victim colluded in serious forms of lying as well.” — Daphne Skillen in her book Freedom of Speech in Russia: Politics and Media from Gorbachev to Putin, 2016”

https://glossophilia.org/2018/09/vra...-russian-word/

Anyway, folks over there expect no less…

This is a laugh, just not Russian!

https://open.spotify.com/track/4VMR8...lie%2Bso%2Bbig

[jono]

Vranyo and Virtue Signaling have more in common than just the V.

[MultiVerse]

Ukrainians put 8,000 cellphones connected to microphones on 6-foot poles around the country to detect incoming Russian drones. They detected 84/84 and shot down 80 of them with AA guns. Cost: $500ea

--- Gen James B Hecker, Commander US Air Forces, Europe