Na Vaske

There is no Russian "Biggest Loser" but there is a Ukrainian version.

Russian media, as I am a Russian I have no understanding in how Americans view their media.

While I understand your point, and agree with the spirit of it, its not completely true about Russian media. The Russian version of 'reality TV' in your scenario is probably foreign TV series streaming on the internet. However, the people who 'want to think' as you put it, don't pay attention to the mass media - they get news from many different independent media outlets in the country. The Russian media sources I see quoted by the Western media are often the least trusted, always ridiculed, and generally viewed as completely unreliable by the general public. You can talk all you want about the Russian media, but don't forget about the audience of it - a people who have never had a media that could be trusted. Nobody here views the news as the news - it is viewed as the version of events somebody else wants you to believe. It is a different culture here, you can't use an American POV to judge how a Russian understands his or her own media.

No, this is more.. I don't even know the word for it, the idea of what Putin's actions would be or the kind of things he does gets greatly exaggerated and sometimes things are just said and believed because you know, he's Putin - of course he is a mainaical crazy man twirling his mustache waiting to nuke the world... The truth about Putin and the way things work in my country are people like him are concerned about their personal power. Toss a nuke and his power is gone. Really being president is a show off thing for him. He's not an idiot and he is not going to destroy his kingdom by throwing a hissy fit and launching nukes, certainly not over Ukraine.

The idea of freely using nuclear weapons 'in desperation' especially against a nuclear armed power 'daring a full scale nuclear war' is quite silly. Doctrine or not - (which is a misunderstood doctrine) the scenario put forth in this game does not. Hegemony over Ukraine or the independence of Novorossiya is not worth the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons. Step foot on Russian soil, different story. In reality, war with NATO over Ukraine is not worth the consequences much the same for NATO, But the idea that Russia will just willy nilly throw around WMD (including chem) is just silly. Especially at a nuclear armed foe.

This is my favorite misconception/stereotype about my country.

I never said it was, in fact I know it wasn't. I was just replying to the statement 'the B-52 doesn't even carry a targeting pod' in the present tense.

The B-52 has integrated use of the Sniper since 2013 and before that had the LITENING II pod starting in the mid 00's, the same time B-1 was fitted with the Sniper pod.

A post-Vietnam pre-Reagan setting would be really interesting, say 1976. The clashes between M113 inf and BMP inf would lead to some interesting situations.

He himself attributed the quote to Voltaire, though who originally said it is up for debate I'd imagine.

No, he is not.

Another problem I have come across is translation/interpretation. I read or hear a statement in the original language and completely understand the intended meaning, then I see it in English interpreted incorrectly. BBC has even issued retractions on more than one occasion because of poor translations. One major reason for this is that these people (Kiev paramilitaries, separatists, civilians being interviewed etc.) aren't exactly speaking Pushkin's Russian and that combined with using a lot of colloquialisms and military jargon - so much meaning and context is being lost in translation and a lot of misunderstanding is occurring. Back in maybe May, before the media (outside of Russia) became aware of what Груз 200 meant, I saw it reported as 200 soldiers killed on more than one occasion.

I have read the entire thread, I have also read his sources in the original language, my native tongue. Inforesist has been a quite deceitful source since the beginning of its existence. Citing this site as a source is no better than using Cassad as one. Yes, all sides in this conflict have been equally deceitful. Probably the only truth in this whole affair is everyone is twisting the truth if not outright telling lies.

As a veteran of this conflict, I'd wouldn't disagree with what is written: only that it was a quite broad and general overview. We used tanks as mobile direct fire support, though admittedly my experience was mostly limited to blockpost duty and patrolling with little to no contact. Though I don't see the 2nd Chechen War having much in common with a war between the Russian Federation and NATO in 2017. Different forces, different objectives, different eras.

He is referencing the Inforesist site link that Steve posted.

I would caution against using Inforesist as a source when developing a narrative.

Did anyone ever actually think he was credible?

The difference is the Ukrainians were legitimized by the government allowing their paramilitary units to be absorbed into the ATO, however I think this was a political measure as they were poorly trained and suffered high levels of casualties thus cutting down the number of possible militant vocal trouble makers drastically when their extreme nationalist concerns are subsequently ignored by the government.

The problem with the claims of full units of the Russian military fighting openly in Ukraine comes down to the units that have been said to be fighting. By the very nature of the conflict Russian leadership would never commit regular contractors to fight in a clandestine war they want to have deniability about. I was a contractor for 6 years in a motorized infantry unit. We don't have any code of secrecy indoctrinated into us. We talk. A lot. Russians as a society is very guarded with secrets and the rank and file are not trusted. Regular army brigades are not going to be committed to a clandestine war. It just goes against the Russian soul. Now, I am not an idiot - I'm convinced there was aid given by the military - training, planning, equipment, intelligence, probably leadership at the unit level. I have no doubt that men were probably granted leave to go to Ukraine and fight - though I also don't doubt that they were indeed volunteers. I don't doubt that artillery was fired into Ukraine - it was part of the mutual provocations on the border (the captured VDV guys were part of this) There were patrols by both sides beng done on both sides of the border and both Ukraine and Russia fired artillery (several incidents of Russian soldiers killed in Russia by Ukrainian artillery were ignored by BBC and the like). My educated opinion: Was the uprising in Donbass orchestrated by Russia - No, but inspired by Russian actions. Were/are the Rebels controlled by Moscow? Um murky, but yes-no. Too many loosely aligned factions. Some were proxies, some were 'legitimate' rebels, some were volunteers from abroad inspired by the cause. The initial senior leadership was not. The current more than likely is. Were/are the Rebels supplied with arms, equipment including tanks and IFVs, intelligence, leadership etc. by the Russian government? Yes. Were/are the Rebels also funded, armed, and supplied by normal citizens of the Russian Federation? Yes. Did Russian soldiers fight in Ukraine? Yes. Did entire units of regular soldiers fight in Ukraine? No. Did rebels train in Russia with the blessing of the government? Yes. Were rebels trained in Russia by a cadre made up of active duty Russian soldiers? I can't say, but more than likely yes. Did rebels stage out of Russia for their August counter-offensive? More than likely, though not certain if they started the march from inside Russia. Was the counter offensive planned by Russian leadership? More than likely completely planned. I've come to these conclusions based on my personal experience and reading countless reports from many different sources and watching hours up on hours of video in the original language. I'm not saying I'm 100% right, just my feeling about it all.

That doesn't happen on RT because it is a government mouthpiece, I'm convinced it was created solely to troll foreigners anyway. I'm not aware of anyone who watches this station, I'm not even sure I have it. Believe it or not we do have news that is critical of the current government, though I must admit I, like most my age and younger (I'm nearly 40) don't watch the news, other than sports maybe. You also need to look at Russian news from the frame of reference of a Russian - it is hard to find a Russian who is not cynical about mainstream news or one who believes they are getting the truth or at least the entire truth. I don't think there has been a time in this country's history where the news has been trustworthy or trusted. Discounting and not trusting the news is part of the culture.

Bringing up RT, CNN, BBC, or whatever has nothing to do with the fact that Elena Vasilyeva is crap, always has been and always will be. All of her information is discredited and proven false quite quickly. She is actually a detriment to Russians with dissenting opinions. BTW, not everyone with a dissenting opinion is harassed or jailed. I have a large bookmark list of dissenting blogs by authors that do not attempt to hide their identity. They have been posting for years, and have not been beaten, jailed, etc. While there is certainly a lot to be desired in the realm of freedom of speech in this country - it is not the police state cracking down on anyone that dissents that seems to be portrayed in western news sources.

I think the origin of her football club list was VK, one of the countless lists of 200s that were being copy pasted on everybody's page. On a side note, when these lists began appearing, suddenly the European and American media began to explain what груз 200 and груз 300 meant, though they often translated it as the literal meaning and not the colloquial meaning.

No, that is not what the Kremlin alleges, it is what reality shows. There are plenty of credible and legitimate activists (whom are not jailed, btw) but Lenka Vaska is not one of them. If you want to play conspiracy theorist you might think she was actually an agent of the Kremlin working to discredit dissident activism. That is how untrustworthy anything she says is.

As for 3, it is a bit off topic, but state pension funds are being 'borrowed' from to bring Crimean infrastructure and administration up to the RF standard, which is not an incredibly high standard. By all accounts though things were ignored completely in Crimea and now must be fixed all at once, mainly for political reasons. Already low pensions have been in some cases lowered or in most cases frozen, despite coming inflation. It is an unfortunate situation.

I live in Russia and am not what some one would call a supporter of the Russian government, and completely disagree with the annexation of Crimea- (it has nearly destroyed the Russian domestic tourism industry with the government trying to pressure companies to convince people to visit Crimea, it lead to the bankruptcy of several long standing tour companies.) As well as many other economic hardships that aren't even connected to the diplomatic spats over sanctions I must tell you - Yelena Vasilyeva is an awful, awful source to use, as well as censor.net.ua. It seems that you are using sources that are definitely skewed one way that are not fully trustworthy (which is typical on all sides) It is the same as reading a report from Motorola that his unit destroyed 20 enemy tanks in 15 minutes (a common report) and taking it as the truth. I could list plenty of stuff from the other point of view (with the same level of reputation of the sources you posted) that are going to say completely different things. I guess it boils down to this, if you are convinced of a certain narrative - you are going to believe those sources. Edit: As a side, Steve since you are an administrator, could you tell me why to access any BF page no matter where I am trying to access it from I must use VPN software and change my IP to outside of Russia?