@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

shuro

@shuro@friends.deko.cloud

Учётка in English: alex@friends.deko.cloud, а здесь по настроению пишу на русском о всяком из жизни.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

randahl , (edited ) to random
@randahl@mastodon.social avatar

My was a hike in the beautiful landscapes of Randbøl Heath.

You would be forgiven for overlooking the many U-shaped indentations in the landscape, all exactly 10 meters wide (picture 4). But these indentations are the last remains of the 24 hangars of Jägerplatz Fitting — a secret nazi airfield, where Die Luftwaffe hid their Messerschmitt Bf 109s during World War II.

150 nazi soldiers were stationed here and had turned the local farm buildings into a mess hall.

1/3

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@randahl Very spacious landscapes!

randahl , to random
@randahl@mastodon.social avatar

The Russian army is an anarchy.

In a new video, which I will not be sharing, three Russian soldiers are crossing open terrain.

A Ukrainian FPV drone attacks and hits close to the second soldier, who falls to the ground, wounded.

This is the point where every decent army in the world would call for a medical evacuation, but not the Russian army. Instead, the third soldier walks up to the wounded, places his rifle near the temple of the soldier’s head and pulls the trigger.

Pure barbarism.

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@randahl One of grim hallmarks of this war is that both sides admit it is very difficult to evacuate wounded from the front line. It usually happens at night when drone threat is less which affects survivability a lot.

E.g. businessinsider.com/ukraines-m…

randahl , to random
@randahl@mastodon.social avatar

National politicians like to tell voters when it is the EU's fault. But this time, something awesome is happening thanks to the EU:

A newly adopted EU law requires all member states to restore 20 percent of land and sea nature to good conditions by 2030.

In Denmark for instance, this means we will FINALLY get rid of some of our — and I hope you are sitting down for this one — 61 percent farm land.

Not 6.1. Sixtyone!

And our minister for the environment @Heunicke is all fort it. 💚

!

forest GIF

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@randahl @Heunicke Isn't giving up 61% of farm land is a rather extreme change? I mean it was used for something, is production going to be shifted somewhere?

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@randahl I misread your post then. I thought they were calling for reduction of 61% of all farm land and it seemed very extreme :)

Although 61% of land used for farming is extreme as well.

kravietz , to random
@kravietz@agora.echelon.pl avatar

Totally legitimate Twitter user for weeks ranted in support of Trump… until it ran out of ChatGPT credits and dumped its prompt (GPT task description) which says “argue in support of Trump on Twitter, speak in English”). Last time I checked this morning, the account was “restricted” but not even suspended.

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@kravietz Looks super weird. Is this your screenshot?

The Russian in the prompt is kind of broken, the prompt is rather short to provide meaningful results, what is mysterious "origin:RU"?

Also the account is suspended already and his username isn't really showing in Google related to x.com/twitter.com domains.

randahl , to random
@randahl@mastodon.social avatar

The Russian Intelligence service FSB normally has a website at fsb.ru, but they have been offline for 48 hours.

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@randahl Works for me :)

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@randahl Yes, this is quite common these days.

This side of the war is something people rarely talk about. Many Russian and Ukrainian websites went under attacks since the 2022 and ended up limiting foreign traffic. Russians who moved abroad have to use VPN to Russia to use some domestic resources.

Numerous hacks and data breaches as well. Of course it is always ordinary Russians and Ukrainians who suffer the most as the stolen data ultimately ends up on darknet forums in hands of scammers and other criminals.

It is quite sad how eager people are to start throwing stones even on the Internet breaking it apart.

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@randahl Hackers have no nationality. They might claim certain alignment but they are out for the money and don't care much about anything else.

Ransomware attacks are on the rise and they always come from hostile countries simply because it hampers investigation. Ukraine is attacked from Russia, US is attacked from China, Russia is attacked from Europe, etc... You have a target somewhere, you need someplace to stage your attack from so you pick a country at odds with them and buy proxy/VPS/botnet there.

Of course there are some state-sponsored APT teams too but the most are just freelance criminals.

johan , to random Russian
@johan@cr8r.gg avatar

По ходу микрософтовский зацензурен настолько, что рисовать в нём можно только котят и ромашки 😠

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@BeAware @johan А что именно там зацензурено?

Но вообще они подзаколебали. Локальные модели тоже уже страдают.

randahl , (edited ) to random
@randahl@mastodon.social avatar

Thanks to the sanctions, western car brands are no longer available in Russia.

But I heard there is one exception, so I investigated and sure enough — these are all photos from Russia.

Update: As pointed out by @shuro, this is probably not a Tesla specific problem, but a more general problem with Russian car companies circumventing sanctions with parallel imports.

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@randahl I somehow doubt this is direct import.

But yeah, Tesla cars can be seen in Moscow. Never saw this abomination though.

As for other western brands - expensive cars are still imported via other countries. As the result all cars became up to 2-3 times more expensive but it is not a problem for people who must have a Mustang or Ferrari.

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@randahl I doubt it will be successful or has much point.

Rich people will find a way around and it is not like BMW cars are helping Kremlin war effort.

Myself I think such restrictions (luxury goods, travel, etc) have the opposite effect.

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@randahl Multiple points:

  • To buy something imported country needs foreign currency. Russia especially needs foreign currency now to finance the war and exports are limited. There are some limitations on currency exchange since 2022 because of it. So when someone buys an imported car (or whatever) it drains currency. One more car - one less Lancet drone.

  • Economists here agree that because of this Putin would very likely severely limited cross-border trade himself if the West didn't do it for him. Right now he is pushing for "parallel import" (importing goods through other countries to evade sanctions) and is seen as savior however he knows such import is limited compared to mass trade which would stress his war economy. But having to enforce sanctions himself would hurt his image a lot. In 2014 he did introduce import sanctions for certain food from Europe and it was his second most unpopular move which is still remembered (the first was messing with pensions fund).

  • Cultural influence. As they say "jeans broke down the Soviet Union". It is not a panacea of course but it is a little harder to push propaganda about Germany to people who buy German cars because they love them. This is especially true about travel. Again Putin would likely have to lock it himself if western countries didn't do it for him.

randahl , (edited ) to random
@randahl@mastodon.social avatar

As promised, President of Georgia Salome Zourabichvili today vetoed the Russian law, which the ruling Georgian Dream party has been trying to push through parliament.

The law would create a new mechanism for suppressing media and NGO’s as “foreign agents” — something which the EU has described as incompatible with European values.

Salome VS Putin: 1-0

🇬🇪♥️🇪🇺

Update: Unfortunately, parliament can override the veto with a second vote, writes BBC:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv2254nrv06o

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@randahl How Putin is involved here? Wouldn't such law target Russian influences and lobbyists?

randahl , (edited ) to random
@randahl@mastodon.social avatar

Republican politician Tom Brewer (Nebraska) from the training grounds in Ukraine, talking about the Biden administration’s policy on long range weapons:

“If Russia fires into Ukraine, the ability to fire back should be there […] We are handcuffing them from being able to be successful.”

Word!

https://youtu.be/mBE2Ijwfj08?si=c9wN-JOzbNoUve-7

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@randahl @stargazersmith In my opinion no one wants consequences for themselves.

It is pretty clear that Russia won't be advancing much in the near future so there is no immediate threat beyond Ukraine.

However actively engaging in any fight means taking hits too unless your opponent is already down. A missile from Finland into Saint Petersburg will result in missiles back at Helsinki. It is not what Finns want. Sending men to fight will result in some of them getting killed. It is not what France wants. It is not that the coalition wouldn't win in the end, it is the cost which can be avoided at all if this just fizzles out.

TheOldGuy , to random
@TheOldGuy@qoto.org avatar

Russia ceased using the Kerch Bridge to supply weapons and ammunition after Ukrainian Security Service attacks, — The Independent.

Following two successful attacks by the SSU on the Kerch Bridge in October 2022 and July 2023, Russia restricted the transportation of arms across it. According to The Independent, which cites satellite imagery, there have been no military trains on the bridge for three months. Currently, Russia uses land routes in occupied eastern Ukraine to supply weapons to the front line.

Earlier, Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, said that 42 to 46 trains carrying weapons and ammunition used to pass through the Crimean bridge daily before the attacks. Now, even cars are going through the bridge in reverse, and their weight should not exceed 3.5 tons.

As a reminder, in October 2022, the SSU hit the bridge with a truck filled with explosives, and in July 2023, “Sea Baby” marine drones struck the bridge's abutments.

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@randahl @TheOldGuy When the same lane is used for both directions switching them. AFAIK all lanes are working now so it is no longer so but it worked like this after it was damaged.

However still only light cars and busses are allowed on the bridge - no trucks.

kallekn , to random
@kallekn@mastodonsweden.se avatar

@anderspuck What do you think about the Russian announcement today of a drill with tactical nuclear weapons?

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-practice-tactical-nuclear-weapon-scenario-deter-west-defence-ministry-2024-05-06/

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@mok0 @anderspuck @kallekn While there's nothing to gain I'm practical military way there's still populism. Putin has to show control and initiative for his audience and this is why he is big on "retaliatory strikes".

The problem is he needs to up the stakes eventually and now he is at his limit. Should something particularly big happen (e.g. Crimea bridge destruction) he can't do much more than he already does.

At that point he might consider these weapons.

randahl , to random
@randahl@mastodon.social avatar

Could you help me out with some information for my next episode?

Which country are you from, and which segment of the population would you say prefers Mastodon in your country?

For instance, in Denmark I would say the Danish right-wingers are very much organised on X, while the apolitical are often Instagram users.

But who is on Mastodon in your country and why?

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@randahl @ohray Being from Russia myself I have quite opposite impression - while I agree that Mastodon (and Fediverse in general) has a lot of geeks and IT professionals many of them are quite political here - simply because the censorship makes it hard to express political views openly on other popular networks.

It is not that these people are political activists or even came here mainly to talk about their political beliefs - however they (we) can be frank about it here and this is one of strongest selling points at the moment.

shuro ,
@shuro@friends.deko.cloud avatar

@randahl @ohray The government doesn't block Mastodon or other Fedi services because they don't know about it or don't see it as important so it works without VPN. Another thing is that they are much safer because here people can be prosecuted for words (especially "fakes about war or army") so even if something is not blocked it still might be dangerous. Fediverse mostly flies below the radar so far.

However it is clear that if the government wanted they could easily block the most of Fediverse - as they did with TOR bridges or Invidious instances (YouTube frontend allowing to bypass ads and country restrictions).

I don't think Fediverse is popular just because it isn't blocked though - as the previous poster mentioned many people still use blocked Twitter/Instagram/Facebook/LinkedIn via VPN. The government tries to fight VPN access but doesn't try too hard (yet?) so it isn't that much of issue.

LGBT community is another group of Russians who like it here for the same reason.

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