danieljackson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

Born to a poor ethnic Georgian family in the town of Gori [...], Stalin joined the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party [...] and raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction via robberies, kidnappings and protection rackets.

Local thugs/mafia-leaders raising to power in Russia/USSR is not a new thing.

Do you read your own links? Literally the first line is

Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum is a debated subject and remains unproven

Yes I do. You literally removed the next part of the sentence:

Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum is a debated subject and remains unproven, though multiple sources argue evidence exists demonstrating that the Russian government attempted to influence British public opinion in favour of leaving the European Union.
[...]
Data released by Twitter in 2018 identified 3,841 accounts of Russian origin affiliated with the Internet Research Agency, [...] which collectively sent over 10 million Tweets in "an effort to spread disinformation and discord" [...] with a "day-long blitz" on the day of the referendum
[...]
British Journalist Isabel Oakeshott stated in an article for the Times: "As part of my research I uncovered controversial information about links between Arron Banks and his associate Andy Wigmore and the Russian embassy in London. [...] Arron Banks was the largest donor to the Brexit campaign. Prior to the donations, Southern Rock, Banks' underwriting company was technically insolvent and needed to find £60m to meet regulations. It was saved by a £77m cash injection, [...] from another company, ICS Risk Solutions. [...] Around the same time, September 2015, Banks, along with Andy Wigmore, started having multiple meetings with Russian officials posted at the Russian embassy in London

https://www.investigate-europe.eu/en/2022/eu-states-exported-weapons-to-russia/

Regarding the french weapons. I'm not an expert on the subject. It sounds like old deals which were paid at time of delivery. Cancelling these deals right at delivery, after the weapons were manufactured, would have meant telling private companies that they can't recover costs for items already manufactured. These defense contractors would have sued the hell out of the state.

Also, this article focuses on EU countries at the time of the invasion. The UK was excluded, since it wasn't part of the EU.

The UK was by far the biggest weapon exporter to Russia before the invasion of Ukraine

They literally said there’s no risk less than 4 months prior to Russia’s invasion

The German government on Thursday declassified a top-secret security assessment on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from 2021, only four months before the outbreak of war, which claimed energy supplies “won’t be jeopardized” by increased dependency on Russian gas.

Can we stop talking about Nord Stream 2? I don't understand the fixation on Nord Stream 2. The thing was already controversial in Germany before it was even supposed to be turned on. There were pushbacks from the general population way before the invasion of Ukraine. And at the end it never got turned on! Who cares?

The controversial opinion displays an exceedingly naive view of the risks posed by Germany’s significant reliance on Russian gas deliveries, which had continuously grown in the years prior to Moscow’s war. It also rejects concerns by Eastern European partners like Poland and Ukraine, which had long warned the Nord Stream 2 undersea pipeline designed to carry natural gas directly from Russia to northern Germany would increase the risk of energy blackmail by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

First of all, Poland was also depending on Russian gas, so it was a little hypocrytical from them to call for Germany to stop the dependence.

Also, up to the begining to the war, Ukraine was still indirectly importing Russian gas, so it's the pot calling the kettle black IMHO.

Energy is a very difficult topic. Where should have Germany got their supply? It's easy to criticize with 20/20 hindsight. But given the context at the time, it was not the best decision ever, but it was as insane as people make it sound like today.

I'm not sure what any of these points have to do with my original point, but let me answer a few of them, which I think are lacking context.

Yeah, maybe if the Germans hadn’t ignored everyone’s advice against Nordstream after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

Who's advice? It was mostly the US and the baltic countries. The US because they would prefer to sell their LNG to Europe at a markup. Their advice was not without interest.

Also gas supply are 25 years contracts, Germany (at the time) could not get out of Nordstream 1 without paying heavy penalties. Getting out of Nordstream would have most likely created a EU-wide recession, which could have lead to a wave of right-wing populism, most likely fed by Russia.

This was a very difficult situation. The "germans should have gotten out of nordstream" is a very simplistic argument lacking context.

And the Ukrainians are more than a bit pissed off at the French continued supply of weapons upgrades to Russia in the period as well.

Which weapons? The Mistral-class ship sale was canceled and France paid heavy fees, and sold them at heavy discount to Egypt.

The Dutch have the same issue with Russian money as the UK does. Problem for Russia is that those funds have been seized now and will be used to repair all the material damage that Russia has done with its indiscriminate shelling.

The scale at which the oligarchs corrupted London is much bigger than what it was for the entirety of the Netherlands. Also, the Dutch didn't vote for Brexit which, in the case of Brexit, was heavily russian-influenced.

The counter offensive isn’t stalling, they haven’t put a fraction of the hardware into the battle yet.

They won't even put half of their hardware into battle, that would be suicide. They need reserves. The Ukrainians will have to cross mine-fields in front of trenches, with almost no air support. If they put even half of their hardware and men into a counter offensive today, they will just be leading their material and men to the junk-yard. This is especially true given how well Russians dug their positions. And Russia still have its aviation in reserve, underutilized, as opposed to Ukraine which has been stretching its air-power thin.

2nd point, I noticed they are 25k-strong? I’m not familiar with Russia’s military but that sounds like a really small number to invade Moscow (unless the majority if the troops are committed elsewhere and only a few left to defend), or I’m overestimating Russian defensive capabilites. But I honestly don’t see how he shows how bad it could be since I don’t think he’ll be razing the city? Or I’m missing something? Maybe that’s why Putin let him be?

My prognostic (= I have no proof, only time will tell) is that this is a purge (like in 1941) with Prigozhin as the figure head. Prigozhin has been saying for a month that the regular Russian army was incompetent. Multiple German military experts have been saying that a purge was possible.

IMHO, this is a way for Putin to get rid of his army high command, which he has grown tired, and replace it with his best buddy Prigozhin, without any blame on Putin.

Again, only time will tell if I'm right. I could be totally off.

bookmyname.com

No crazy single page application, and they sell almost at cost. It's operated by the company behind Scaleway.com.

(I'm not affiliated to them in any way)

I’m not sure how “useful” it is to have a 50 thousand man strong army marching towards your capital while you’re trying to spin a “everything going according to plan” story

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the 2023 version of the 1941 Red Army Purge when Stalin growing tired of his army command executed most of his army leadership.

Of course all of these are just speculation.

As for English sources, you just need to choose well. Reuters and AP are respectable sources with no strong bias […]

Until recently Reuters used to use the Ukrainian's government inflated numbers for Russian casualties. I think English sources reuse Ukraine's information without fact-checking them way too much. At the end this is also an information war, and Ukraine has been twisting the reality a little bit in its communication (of course, much much less than Russia)

This is a British news paper. The UK has made a point to be as blindly aggressive towards Russia as possible. I think this is to compensate for Brexit and catering to Russian oligarchs for years…

I much prefer German, Dutch and French newspapers, they are much more nuanced on the situation of Russia and Ukraine.

Putin is not in the best position, but he is not in the worse position either:

• Russia is really good at defending and attrition-based war, like they did Chechnya and Georgia. They now dug their trenches, and just have to protect, this is why the counter offensive is stalling.
• Prigozhin is a useful idiot. He is here to show "how bad it could be." Putin uses Prigozhin to show himself as man of restrain, as opposed to Prigozhin who looks and sounds like a lunatic. If Progozhin was really an issue, Putin would have taken him out months ago.
• The sanctions against Russia are weakening, the BRICS are all buying from Russia without restrain, helping to fund Putin's war. The BRICS are either on Russia's side or indifferent to the war.

Of course, this is far from a success across the board. I think Russia never expected Finland's membership of NATO, this came as a blow for Putin and Russia. If Sweden candidacy is, hopefully, ratified, it's check-mate for Russia in the Baltic. I also think Russia never expected Western Europe to do that well without Russian gas. Germany is now the second biggest supplier of weapons to Ukraine. This is really a blow to Russia.

Anyway, my point is that Putin is far from being done, unfortunately.

Also I avoid British and American media on the Russo-Ukrainian War, it's becoming borderline propaganda with no nuance. We need to be realistic, and really understand the situation to vote for the politicians pushing for the right decisions.

I'm very defensive when it comes to NSFW. But I think "NSFW flag with mandatory reason from a drop down" (e.g. nudity, sex, violence, gore, explicit-language) is the best solution which satisfy both. That is actually a great idea.

Where is the line between NSFW and XXX?

Nudity? Which nudity? Are nipples NSFW but vulva is XXX?

Multiple people being nude at the same? A photo of a guy holding his penis to masturbate is NSFW, but a photo of a nudist beach is XXX?

Sexual contact? A person is kneeling in front of a penis with their mouth open it's NSFW? But as soon as they hold it, it's XXX?

I'm trying to create a healthy porn community on lemmy. And the hostility of lemmy towards it is worrisome in my opinion. People are calling for de-federating lemmynsfw, people file false reports on my NSFW-only communities, the majority of instances ban porn,…

IMHO, there should be only two tags "NSFW", "NSFL". (= Not Safe For Life, meaning gore) There was this running-joke on reddit last year "when I was younger 'NSFW' on /r/all meant boobs, now it's most likely a video of a bomb being dropped from a drone blowing up russian soldiers."

I don't think we should rate the degree of NSFW or NSFL. Where is the line? I assume a topless lady is NSFW, not porn. But is a fully nude woman or man NSFW, or porn? If it's still "just" NSFW, what about two fully naked men holding each other penises? Or a woman on her knees looking at a penis without touching it, with her mouse open? This is a very fine line.

I'm in favour of most european broadcasting laws: visible nipples are fine as long as they're not sexuality, but "16" or "18" rating is recommended. Visible anus, vulva or penis makes "18/Unrated" mandatory, whether there is intercourse or not.

I would translate this to lemmy to "anything with nipples, anus, vulva or penis visible is NSFW, regardless of intercourse" No grading of "NSFW" or "porn."

If humans have a bot-like behavior, it's okay to mark them as bot. If a human is only posting to promote products/astroturf, who cares if it's misclassified, it doesn't add anything to the discourse. IMHO, that's good riddance.

And in my solution, at the end the instance owner takes action, it's not like there is no human recourse.

Meta is playing the "we want to have an open network" the same way google used to use XMPP/Jabber for gtalk, but as soon as they will get the opportunity, they will lock it down and fuck the federation.

I'm happy that Kev told them to shove it.