FBI Most-Wanted Russian Hacker Reveals Why He Burned His Passport 124
An anonymous reader shares a report: Russian hacker Mikhail Matveev, also known on the internet as "Wazawaka" and "Boriselcin," is wanted by the FBI, which is offering a $10 million reward for information that could lead to his arrest, and has been put on a U.S. sanctions list. But, according to Matveev, his life hasn't changed much since he was outed as an alleged cybercriminal and put on the FBI's most wanted list. "We are Russian people, we are not afraid of the American government," Matveev told TechCrunch in an online interview. "My life has changed for the better after the sanctions, I don't feel them on me, as well as sanctions are a plus for my security, so sanctions help us."
In an interview where he answered both in English and in Russian, Matveev said that being sanctioned means Russia will not deport him. And to avoid getting caught outside of Russia, he won't travel anymore, and said he has "burned" his passport. His last trip, he said, was to Thailand in 2014, where he ate scorpion, which he said was "delicious." Earlier this year, the U.S. government accused Matveev of participating in "a global ransomware campaign" against victims all over the world. Prosecutors claim Matveev is "a prolific ransomware affiliate," who worked with the Hive, LockBit and Babuk ransomware gangs to carry out "significant attacks" against corporations and critical infrastructure in the U.S. and elsewhere, including hospitals and government agencies.
In an interview where he answered both in English and in Russian, Matveev said that being sanctioned means Russia will not deport him. And to avoid getting caught outside of Russia, he won't travel anymore, and said he has "burned" his passport. His last trip, he said, was to Thailand in 2014, where he ate scorpion, which he said was "delicious." Earlier this year, the U.S. government accused Matveev of participating in "a global ransomware campaign" against victims all over the world. Prosecutors claim Matveev is "a prolific ransomware affiliate," who worked with the Hive, LockBit and Babuk ransomware gangs to carry out "significant attacks" against corporations and critical infrastructure in the U.S. and elsewhere, including hospitals and government agencies.
Hard to do (Score:3)
Part of the difficulty is due to the fact that if we set up an international protocol that lets us to arrest criminals in other countries, it would also allow other countries to arrest criminals in our country, which is something that would not go well with our politics.
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The US has plenty of extradition treaties that allow either country to demand the arrest and transfer of someone in the other country. It's quite normal for ordinary criminals; high profile criminals will always be a mess, though. There are also some limits. Most countries will refuse to extradite people for offenses they don't consider to be crimes, e.g. the US won't extradite people for what we view as free speech. They can also refuse extradition if they believe the person will be mistreated by the j
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Interpol is a thing and has been around for a long time.
The situation with Russia is special. They essentially have been waging an asymmetric hybrid cyber- and disinfo war on the Western world since at least 2014.
This hacker is an asset to the Kremlin, they will obviously not apprehend him.
What does burning a passport accomplish, again? (Score:2)
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Without a passport, he cannot legally travel outside Russia should he choose
Exactly. He burned his passport like threw my cigarettes away when I decided to quit smoking: to avoid getting tempted.
Re:What does burning a passport accomplish, again? (Score:5, Interesting)
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If I'm found outside of Russia, it wasn't because I went there legally
People can still go to other countries. With all the land borders Russia has, he can cross borders voluntarily but not legally. The other thing about extradition is that it is sometimes opposed by the person being extradited. Not having a passport is not a huge hindrance to the process.
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This, also I would not bet, that sanctions might be a critical stopper to the exchange of criminals.
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Not really. Russia doesn't extradite Russian citizens anyway.
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Their laws are just like ours. They have laws which normal people have to follow and powerful people don't.
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Re: What does burning a passport accomplish, again (Score:1)
Paraphrasing Mikhail Bulgakov who said in his famous Master and Margarita novel: "Manuscripts do not burn":
Passports do not burn.
If somebody will need to prove that dead namesake of the famous writer is dead outside the country for "natural" reasons, the passport will materialize if needed
Ukraine (Score:5, Insightful)
Just sayin' (Score:2)
Since basically western Russia seems to be rather aswarm with UKR explosive drones flying with impunity, maybe Zelensky could do us a solid on this one considering the $100bn we've already sent?
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$77 Billion. Please try to keep up.
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$113bn. Maybe google better next time. Or understand that Google is likely deliberately soft-pedaling the amount to UKR due to their political leanings.
"Washington has sent the Kyiv government $113 billion in security, economic and humanitarian aid since Russia invaded in February 2022."
https://www.reuters.com/world/... [reuters.com]
Do they let apparently ANYONE post? I mean, it used to be fun arguing on the internet but it's like fish in a barrel now. Do they let people post from special kid schools or something?
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Not only can they post, most of them have mod points.
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It's cute to have an AC stalker, like a little retarded kid that plays hide-and-seek.
"Washington has sent the Kyiv government $113 billion in security, economic and humanitarian aid since Russia invaded in February 2022."
https://www.reuters.com/world/... [reuters.com]
10-90 split? (Score:2)
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And what exactly are you offering that a $0.10 phone call can't deliver far more cheaply?
Re: 10-90 split? (Score:2)
so... why not just kidnap him? (Score:1)
Not scared? (Score:2)
"We are Russian people, we are not afraid of the American government," he says while doing anything he can to prevent the American govt from being able to get to him. Because he is scared. A scared little pussy hacker.
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trapped in hell (Score:1)
Sounds like the makings of a decent punishment to me, being stuck in that fucking hellhole russia. Sure, it's probably not so bad unless you live in one of the highly mobilized areas, or places that are basically ghetto's, which seems to be everywhere except the two ivory cities, but give it a minute, no wait give it your WHOLE miserable fucking LIFE! Welcome to your prison, lifer.
Any day now, someone is going to grow some balls and light moscow on fire, then st. penisburg, and then the world will experienc
Re:another example (Score:5, Insightful)
"American Treasure" is an instant tell for a propagandist posting. No American would state it that way.
Re: another example (Score:4, Insightful)
+1
Apparently Russian troll farms are running low on manpower.
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The best move China could make now to eventually take Taiwan is convincing Americans that supporting allies is a futile waste of money better spent at home.
Re: another example (Score:5, Insightful)
The best move China could make now to eventually take Taiwan is convincing Americans that supporting allies is a futile waste of money better spent at home.
Absolutely true. In fact, the Chinese and Russians have been doing this for years. Instead of lobbying leaders to support their interests, they "lobby" unwitting American citizens via subconscious methods to vote in leaders that support Chinese and Russian interests. The most impact thing that Russia does right now is to use social media to influence Americans to support politicians that will kneecap Western monetary and military support for Ukraine.
Ironically, such "America-first" politicians are just unwitting pawns for Russia.
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They know their hero Donald supports Vlad. They see it as their duty to support Trump and stick it to the dems. They don't care if the world burns as long as democrats burn first. They just don't care.
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They are in full-lockstep union and I will not be convinced otherwise unless some drastic shit were to unexpectedly happen.
Just look at this entire shit-show in the House right now. That's 100% distraction on russia's behalf. There is no other way of seeing it. Nothing else makes any sense, but you fucking sheep are too stupid to believe it. Not entirely anyway. Fucking election is what, half a year away? ..and saving diaperboy from prison isn't enough of a reason.
I've known a few compulsive liars in my yea
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The only way to see a handful of R getting together with every D to kick out the speaker is Russia! Russia! Russia!?
Really?
There's absolutely no other possibilities?
You need to get out more and stop reading so many conspiracy sites.
He got kicked out for breaking several promises he made to his own team to get the seat.
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The only way to see a handful of R getting together with every D to kick out the speaker is Russia! Russia! Russia!?
It's the Democrat's fault Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot?
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I disagree. With everything, including your name. In fact it would be better if 'ya'll' stopped using words entirely before you ruin them all.
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Ironically, such "America-first" politicians are just unwitting pawns for Russia.
A well educated populace would be proof against such attacks... but yeah, a well educated populace is also a threat to the current regime. Meh. The USA is doomed in the long term through stupidity of its 'leaders'. Maybe the NSA/CIA will take over. *shrug*
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Don't worry, AI will save them!
Re: another example (Score:4, Interesting)
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"American Treasure" is an instant tell for a propagandist posting. No American would state it that way.
I saw actual Nazis marching around central FL a few weeks ago. You severely underestimate how far the right-wing rabbit hole goes.
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I'd argue you saw Neo-Nazis unless these people you saw marching around were 90. Just as despicable but likely not German senior citizens.
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You mean a group that popped up out of nowhere that no one had ever heard of that picketed at Disney's front door carrying DeSantis signs?
Occam's Razor is knocking at your door.
Real Nazis really like DeSantis or the whole thing was bullshit?
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Sorry, I forgot being more aware than a dumb mod of what actually happens on the planet makes me a troll.
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Re: another example (Score:2)
https://qz.com/1059436/blood-a... [qz.com]
I have heard the phrase plenty, but not phrased exactly as OP phrased it. It is political lingo regarding war though.
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"American Treasure" is an instant tell for a propagandist posting. No American would state it that way.
That does sound like a very "Slavic" way of saying it. I'm pretty sure Americans, like Brits would use the term "national treasure" and even then, it has a slightly different meaning for us here in the UK. A person is more likely to be described as a national treasure (I.E. a very well liked entertainer like Stephen Fry) than an object, I understand the American version is an artefact that is well revered like your (physical) bill of rights.
American Treasure sounds like a low budget movie from the 90's w
Re:another example (Score:5, Informative)
EU countries and institutions have committed to €68 billion in total -- nearly the same as Washington.
But when it comes to humanitarian aid, the EU actually gives twice as much as the US - €7.6 billion compared to €3.6 billion.
On the other hand, the US has provided far more military aid – €43 billion, while the EU has pledged €28 billion euros to Ukraine.
In terms of financial aid such as loans and subsidies, the EU has provided Ukraine with €33 billion euros.
The US, however, has given less - €24 billion euros in financial aid to Kyiv.
Some European governments are making larger financial contributions to Ukraine relative to the size of their own economies.
Topping that list are Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Tallinn contributes 1.5% of its GDP towards helping Kyiv.
Riga and Vilnius follow closely by donating 1.3% and 1.2% of their GDP.
In short, in terms of percentage of money available... the US is lagging quite a bit relative to other countries.. (ie: If I have 5 dollars and give them 2, vs. you have 10 and give 2, I have given a larger share of what I do have available).
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A couple things wrong with your assertion.
* The EU has 'committed' to give 68 billion, they haven't given it.
* Much of what has been given has been equipment the US has funded either first or second hand. This counts towards their 'pledge'.
* Doesn't include the extensive logistic and training support the US is providing, which isn't even being disclosed. Eg. there are several USN carrier strike groups.
I'm not sure how loans and pledges do much when what they're asking for is munitions...
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Can't have Ukraine win too decisively, there wouldn't be enough destruction to draw things out for increased military-industrial complex funding.
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Can't have Ukraine win too decisively, there wouldn't be enough destruction to draw things out for increased military-industrial complex funding.
OTOH the west has an interest in stopping the damage quickly, because as nice it would be to see Russia pay for all the reconstruction with seized assets, they just are not worth that much, and being a pariah in the free world economy makes future reparations unlikely. Rest assured us (assumed) civilized folks will be paying to rebuild Ukraine too. I'm fine with that. Greater generation than now did so after 2 World Wars. There are a lot more whiny people today.
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Your thoughts on:
First Gulf war?
Afghanistan?
Iraq?
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We had a direct interest in stability there.
Europe will not be destabilized by Russian controlled Ukraine.
The US does not benefit from an independent Ukraine, if anything it would give us even more leverage in the market place for our agricultural products and energy resource to have Ukraine back behind the iron curtain or otherwise non-productive.
There is no justifiable reason under "promote the general welfare...secure the blessings of liberty to OURSEVLES and OUR POSTERITY...."
Support for Ukraine at this
Re: another example (Score:3)
"Europe will not be destabilized by Russian controlled Ukraine."
It did before, why wouldn't it now?
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First, due to globalisation Ukraine has become a part of the world economy in the past 30 years. It wasn't before. Second, the last time Ukraine has actually been controlled by Russia was over a century ago. A lot has changed since then.
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This whole conflict started with Ukranian citizens wanting to become more involved in the global economy by opening trade agreements with the EU versus joining the Russian trade agreement.
Ukraine was part of the USSR up until 1991 whereupon Russia agreed to it's borders then and also made security guarantees in exchange for Ukraine giving over the nukes (which would have made it the 3rd largest nuclear power, knowledge on how to use them notwithstanding) it was left with in 1994, which Russia has not broken
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NATO brought peace to Europe and the EU cemented it together into an unbreakable block.
Europe is not peaceful because Russia gave up Ukraine.
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Europe is not peaceful because Russia gave up Ukraine.
That's not the point, is it? The point is that Russia taking Ukraine doesn't make Europe more peaceful. It just gets Russia closer to NATO, while Russia is simultaneously claiming NATO is trying to get closer to it.
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Biden got us out of Afghanistan
Biden all but ended the drone war in other nations.
Biden got Korea and Japan to open talks and pave the way for a Pacific alliance.
Biden through support of Ukraine and US leadership in NATO has brought the USA back into the forefront as a leader to it's allies.
You can call the man a neocon all you want, it doesn't make it so or the word means nothing besides "person i don't like"
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But we do have a direct interest in instability in Russia.
Right now we're gutting the remains of one of the three global military superpowers for a price of pennies on the dollar.
That gives us correspondingly more power on the global stage as we move towards a bipolar world with China - who will likely take a much-weakened Russia under its wing to bolster its own relatively weak conventional military.
Given the chaos likely to unfold over the next century as climate change devastates global water and food su
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This is all pretty true and the important part is Russia could have avoided pretty much all of it by simply not invading.
In the hard times to come Europe *definitely* wants it to be part of NATO rather than a Russian puppet.
True but more importantly Ukraine more than the EU is going to want to be part of NATO, assuming they come out of this war a sovereign nation. It's all but inevitable at this point once Ukraine gets stabilized and no longer has any conflicts within it's borders. The Baltics have proved being in NATO is a guaranteed "don't fuck with us" card.
That's the part many people get wrong, NATO d
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And they could stop the hemorrhaging at any time by withdrawing.
But it seems like, for whatever reason, Putin is committed to continuing this travesty until he either runs out of men to throw into the grinder, or gets himself assassinated.
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Re: another example (Score:2)
Youâ(TM)re looking at this with eyes of the Cold War, but times have changed. Ukraine going Russian will increase Russiaâ(TM)s global influence, even if itâ(TM)s just through controlling wheat production and distribution. The BRICs, the Global South,
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-Syria
-Vietnam
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He'd be rolling in his grave.
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There are multiple ways to look at this.
Is a weaker Russia good? Sure. In a simple world.
But maybe it would have been nice in some fantasy world to have Russia opposing China instead of buddies with them. Obviously too late for that now because we did everything possible to piss off both but it was an option at one time.
How weak should Russia be, anyway? They're already a joke. They don't stand a chance against NATO in a real fight. They can barely hold the line in a defense against Ukrainian counter
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Just think of the poor Russian children!
Not those Russian children though, not the ones Putin is training up as child soldiers. The ones stolen from Ukraine he's trying to turn Russian.
It's just one man Putin causing all this. Regular Russians are jolly nice chaps.
Do you hear yourself?
we did everything possible to piss off both
If only we'd appeased Putin a little bit harder. We could have disbanded NATO, then the Baltic states could also get the Ukraine treatment. What a great idea that would be. How many more countries should we hand over so th
Re:another example (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, poor Putin. All he did was to invade a sovereign country, after assuring everyone he wasn't going to do it.
So why should anyone take him at his word at this point? Anything he promises is hollow. Power is all he understands. He and his people see any attempt at negotiation as a weakness.
There's no point in giving him anything.
And by the way, economy wise, Ukraine is an amazing deal for the US. Russia's equipment is being destroyed. They don't have anything to sell. Meanwhile every bit of US equipment that smashes a Russian invader is an excellent advertisement. The HIMARS order queue is already a mile long, and that's just a single thing. The US will make huge $$$ on this in the end. Not only is Russia getting smashed for peanuts, but in the process the military weapons market shifts towards the US as well.
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Let us not get into multiple S-400 air defense systems being blown to smithereens [reuters.com] by the very items, drones,
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One thing that the invasion has shown is that the Russian military was only powerful on paper. In reality, there are many things wrong with the military and Russian government. Corruption and mismanagement has made evaluating equipment difficult. For example is Russian body armor as advanced as NATO armor as Russia claims? It is hard to determine as very few soldiers actually got them. It appears that they were stolen and replaced with Paintball/Airsoft versions some time ago.
Their flagship of the Baltic
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I remember early on the Ukrainians were showing videos of them opening packs of captured Russian explosives (similar to C4) and finding nothing but blocks of wood.
Other videos have come out showing said body armor, or lack thereof, and more recently, a Russian video showed a soldier pissed off at the lack of potatoes in the "soup" they were supposed to eat. He opened a brand new cannister, put the label in and found 2-3 chunks of potatoes. The rest looked like a thin liquid of herbs and that was about it.
So
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One thing that the invasion has shown is that the Russian military was only powerful on paper. In reality, there are many things wrong with the military and Russian government. Corruption and mismanagement has made evaluating equipment difficult. For example is Russian body armor as advanced as NATO armor as Russia claims? It is hard to determine as very few soldiers actually got them. It appears that they were stolen and replaced with Paintball/Airsoft versions some time ago.
Their flagship of the Baltic Fleet, Moskva, was sunk by two missiles that should not have sunk it given the ship's defenses on paper. Rumor is that the lack of maintenance meant the ship's advanced missile defenses had not been working for some time. That and their fire suppression systems were reduced to hand fire extinguishers that had to be locked up to prevent theft.
Yes, Russia's military is a weaker than folks thought. But western military is designed around air superiority, which Ukraine is entirely missing, so you're still seeing a decent testing ground.
There's a few useful things that the war has shown western militaries.
1) Drones are REALLY important for surveillance, and for offence. And outside of drone planes NATO has kinda ignored them.
2) Being visible, stationary, and in range of enemy artillery means you're dead in ~10 minutes.
3) Mobile artillery is really r
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Uh, your testing ground and weapons show case has already resulted in a few hundred thousand casualties and millions of displaced civilians.
Think about that next time before gloating about the sales figures for American weapons. We're already far and away the biggest weapons provider to the world. It is an embarrassment not a thing to be proud of.
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Uh, your testing ground and weapons show case has already resulted in a few hundred thousand casualties and millions of displaced civilians.
Think about that next time before gloating about the sales figures for American weapons. We're already far and away the biggest weapons provider to the world. It is an embarrassment not a thing to be proud of.
a) I'm not an American (the fact I was talking about NATO and not the US should have been a clue).
b) I have friends in Ukraine and I definitely understand the horrific cost of Putin's invasion.
Also consider that WWI was a terrible thing that killed millions of people, it's also known for a war where technology radically changed how war was fought.
And again, WWII was an even more terrible thing killing even more million that WWI, and again, it's know as a war where technology completely upended many of the l
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I don't understand the relevance and popularity of the "without any navy" argument.
1. Ukraine has a navy (6,500 personnel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] and it was first in the world to use unmanned surface vehicles in combat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
2. We are centuries past the time when ships fired guns side to side. Pearl Harbor was attacked from the air. In the Iran-Iraq war, Iranian helicopters sank 15 ships, and Iraqi air force severely damaged the USS Stark (also showing how the US Navy w
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Ukraine may have a navy in a broad sense, but they do not have the quantities of surface ships Russia does. Nor submarines. This is not a knock on Ukraine, they lost what they had when Russia invaded in 2014, but for a supposed world power such as Russia to not control the high seas against a country without a formalized navy is an indictment against Russia, not Ukraine.
And the same applies to Russia's air force. To not have complete air superiority after 20 months of war is to use the only word possible
Re: another example (Score:3)
My support for Ukraine has nothing to do with US politics. Not everything is about the democrat/republican kerfuffle.
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Because they aren't Russian.
Ukrainians and Russians are both slavic people, many Ukrainians speak Russian since the Soviet Union pushed the use of Russian and disparaged the Ukrainian language.
Simply put, there in no such thing as an ethnic Russian in Ukraine.
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Unfortunately, after Russia's military is destroyed, there's nothing standing between China and Siberia except nuclear weapons. I don't really think that the CCP would mind trading 100-200 million people for Siberia. Those abandoned cities you hear about in China make a disturbing sort of sense in that case - "oh, Beijing is a glass crater? We'll just move the survivors into this ready-built city over here!"
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Now there's a hypothesis, if China invades Russia does the US and its Allies assist Russia? I would say probably yes, it's still an unprovoked invasion of another nation. China doing that would probably have the consequence of Putin absolutely being ousted and Russia being on the track of being folded into alliance with NATO. We're basically talking about WWIII at that point with two nuclear powers fighting eachother.
That's all China needs is to discard one of its few allies in the region of which there
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Why the fuck would the US support Russia...against China?
Because unanswered Chinese aggression is a bad thing for the world in general and also bad for US hegemony and the other nations in the region (SKorea, Japan, Vietnam, etc)
And Russia would be a pushover to take militarily, and a tiny country economically.
Maybe but we've never had 2 nuclear powers in a hot war with each other, ever until now. Also this is Russia defending it's land against aggressive invaders. Russia is for sure the underdog but the calculus is different than Russia/Ukraine.
You really think we'd give enough of a fuck about Russia to go up against the far militarily superior China, and much much larger Chinese economy?
It's not about just Russia, just like the
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Hold up, hold up, hold up, you're the one suggesting a Chinese invasion of Siberia and I'm the one with "unrealistic dreams"
Bro, you are lost in the sauce and now you've gone full incoherent. Good luck bro!
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Because all the moralizing about the actions of nation states is a bunch of crap. The only thing that matters on the world stage is raw power. Power comes in many forms but being morally right is not a source of global power.
Being on the right side, morally, didn't save the Melians. They were in the moral right but still got invaded, smashed and their culture destroyed by Athens.
Nothing has changed today.
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No more American Treasure for Ukraine - until Europe's direct contributions exceed ours...
Of course they are spending more on Ukraine than us now https://www.ifw-kiel.de/public... [ifw-kiel.de] .
Don't worry, I dont expect your opinions to change with new data.
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You should give serious consideration to killing your own bitch ass because it has to be done for you.
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I'd be fine if we closed our bases, stopped subsidizing the defense of countless nations and minded our own business.
Europe would have to spend a lot more on their military which is fine. They've got the tech, just need to build more of it.
Shrug.