[Sixstrings]

Okay I don't mean to spam, one last bit of interesting Russia news.

There's a bill in the duma that will set up "bio-cards" and Russians being fingerprinted and also DNA samples kept on file with the State.

Russians' DNA would be kept for 150 years, then destroyed.

The DNA sampling would be voluntary, except if you want a gun permit or drivers license, also it will be mandatory for all civil servants and also convicts.

Bill to have all Russians fingerprinted and DNA profiled submitted to parliament

MPs from the populist nationalist party LDPR have prepared and drafted a motion requiring universal fingerprinting and DNA profiling of all Russian citizens for reasons of security.

The main sponsor of the bill is Roman Khudyakov, known for previously wanting the urban population of the country, including visitors and foreigners, to be fingerprinted. This time the lawmaker opted for the “biometrical registration” of all Russians, which essentially means fingerprinting and DNA-profiling of everyone. The information would be held in a central government database and each citizen would be provided with the details on a so called “bio-card.” The bill suggests the setting up of a special federal agency in charge of the biometrical scanning, reporting either to the Interior Ministry or to the Federal Security Service, the FSB.

In comments to the popular daily Izvestia, Khudyakov urged his plan be put into practice as soon as possible saying that it would help law enforcers and society. The politician said that in the near future the program would allow the scrapping of other forms of ID and significantly cut red tape. In addition he assured reporters that ordinary Russians should not fear over the security of their personal data.

“All information will be protected. It is like a bank card. We will also toughen the criminal responsibility for officials who have access to the data. When people face three years in prison for leaking the data no one would be tempted to do this,” he said.

Khudyakov also suggests keeping the data for 150 years from the date of collection, and then it would be destroyed. The biometric cards of the dead could be kept by state agencies for the same period of time and then disposed of.

The bill allows for voluntary biometrical registration by citizens, and by parents for their children, in which case the applicants will have to pay for it. However, the procedure will be obligatory and free for all civil servants, law enforcers, military and security personnel, convicts, firemen, rescuers and people applying for a driving license or gun permit.
http://www.rt.com/politics/206899-russia-fingerprinting-biometric-database/

Now, here's the only problem with this kind of thing:

* what if its used against dissidents, you're talking about a dictatorship now having biocards with everyone's DNA

* what if say, there is a crime somewhere, and what if you had shed some skin cells or whatever, so then the FSB is busting down your door when really you know nothing about the darn thing and had nothing to do with it.

This is a tricky one. It kind of makes sense. If the gov has everyone's DNA on file, then sure that makes crime easier to solve, but -- what if the DNA info is misused, so that's why folks are uncomfy about the idea.

[Withnail]

News roundup from Moscow Times.

British Embassy Tweets Diagram to Help Russia Spot Its Tanks in Ukraine


http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/british-embassy-tweets-diagram-to-help-russia-spot-its-tanks-in-ukraine/511492.html

Ukraine on Thursday June 9, 2011, agreed to a deal with Ethiopia for the supply of more than 200 modernized
T-72 main battle tanks for over $100 million (800 million Ukrainian Hryvnas), UKRINFORM news agency reported.

Ukrainian modernized T-72B main battle tank with Kontakt ERA reactive armour
at Defense Exhibition IDEX 2011

The tanks are a relatively new type of military hardware. The T-72 is equipped with a modernized power plant, guided weapons and armor system.





http://eastafro.com/Post/2013/11/01/eth ... tle-tanks/

Ethiopian Military Receiving T-72 Main Battle Tanks

Written by defenceWeb, Friday, 01 November 2013

It appears that the Ethiopian military is receiving T-72 main battle tanks from the Ukraine, with a consignment delivered last month.

According to IHS Jane’s, satellite imagery taken on August 24 at the Otkyabrsk port in the Ukraine showed 16 tanks and other equipment waiting to be loaded. Apparently, the tanks were loaded onto the Ocean Power cargo vessel, which departed on September 7 for Djibouti.

It is believed that these tanks are part of a contract for 200 T-72s signed in June 2011 with state controlled arms exporter Ukrspecexport SC. The deal, worth more than $100 million, was one of the largest contracts signed by the Ukrainian arms exporter in more than 15 years.

The T-72 was first produced in the Soviet Union in the 1970s but the tanks that will be supplied to Ethiopia were to be modernised with a new engine, guided weapons and reactive armour.
- See more at: http://eastafro.com/Post/2013/11/01/eth ... baeuZ.dpuf


Tank claimed to be Russian by British Embassy with same armour and large sights: (Image too big to post)
http://static.businessinsider.com/image ... /image.jpg

[AgentR11]

Putin says everything possible must be done to prevent a Ukrainian-style "color revolution" in Russia. He talks about "radical extremist sites on the internet," but what's he mean by that, does that mean British papers and BBC and Euro stuff and Canadian media and New York Times?

You're the one constantly noting that Putin is lieing. It is quite true. Putin lies about everything, in this weird, obvious, Russian way; and doesn't care that the listener knows that he is lying. The above is yet another example. Put yourself in the position of a Russian patriot; even if you accept that your executive office holder is a liar (Obama fits too), when they speak and suggest foreign powers are trying to destabilize or subjugate your country, you'll get a twinge; and if you have some verifiable associated fact (sanctions, Georgia, Ukraine) to go with it; you'll be all in pretty much. Which is what Putin is getting now from his folks; he has FDR winning WWII type approval ratings, and they will not be going away. He doesn't even have to use government forces to suppress any attempted color revolution, gang thug / nationalists will suppress with far more force and immediacy.

As to what he means, its not the MSM press, but fringe blogging. BBC does not work to create a color revolution, BBC works to shape British opinion. Bob the Blogger who hates Putin and wants blood in the streets of Moscow, on the other hand, will bust his butt to make it happen.

We do need to worry though, the track this is going, even if the Russian public doesn't want to go all-in and crush Ukraine; the drumbeat can put Putin in a position where he can say, "We must invade Ukraine and force regime change to prevent the torture and slaughter of ethnic Russians in Ukraine"; and his electorate will say, "I wish we didn't have to, but.. lets make it happen."

Poroshenko's warlords aren't helping the issue either; doing some real stupid stuff with prisoners. They've essentially insured that separatist forces will not generally surrender in any engagement in which they should (thus creating substantial unnecessary costs in blood and treasure for Kiev); while also insuring that the Russian public on the other side of the border is likely to believe any asserted malevolent claim about them, when the time comes, giving Putin a free hand.

I don't know why I complain, this war is idiocy incarnate, conducted in the most incompetent manner possible from Kiev. I should be amazed someone hasn't been able to sack Kiev with a Tonka truck. If Kiev would just slice off Donbass/Crimea and forget it exists, they'd have a fairly uniform, moderately prosperous, albeit corrupt European democracy; kinda like Italy but with worse food. Actually, that sounds pretty bad, an Italy with bad food. erk.

They really are fighting a war they can not win, a war with the objective of recapturing territory that was a horrible drain on their treasury and which doesn't like the people giving them the money anyway. Can you get more stupid? I mean seriously, cut the rail, roads, electrical; leave the pipeline to Europe or Germany will have a conniption, and leave a rail line open to Crimea for outbound cargo, and charge the Russians a fortune for overland transit of supplies to Crimea. Kiev could name their price, any price would be cheaper than building the Kerch bridge (or an even more horrible idea, a tunnel).

[Keith_McClary]

You're the one constantly noting that Putin is lieing. It is quite true. Putin lies about everything, in this weird, obvious, Russian way; and doesn't care that the listener knows that he is lying. The above is yet another example. Put yourself in the position of a Russian patriot; even if you accept that your executive office holder is a liar (Obama fits too)

There are thousands of US "little green men" busy around the world.
Obama doesn't have to lie about them because the MSM are well trained not to ask awkward questions. If they ever did they would not be invited to press conferences and would get no more of those confidential briefings by unnamed "officials".

[dissident]

BTW, Six$ the Russian blogosphere has been covering the supply of Russian equipment to the rebels in Ukraine for months. This includes tagging the T-72B3s first. The western media is way behind the curve.

I applaud Russia for helping the rebels against the regime butchers. The regime parks its artillery and MLRS 20 km from a population center and launches random attacks 24/7. This is a total war crime without any excuses. The rebels are still outgunned and outmanned by the regime forces.

Not a single shred of evidence has been presented by NATO and its quislings in Kiev of the Russian Army in Ukraine. It must be supernatural stealth to be able to hide hundreds of pieces of equipment and logistics columns so that not a single photo or cell phone video is made. But it is rather obvious that the Kiev regime and its NATO media parrots are full bore lying when it attributes its failure to defeat the rebels by appealing to phantom Russian forces. If the rebels need the Russian Army to be able to counter 60,000 regime troops with over 2000 tanks, APCs, BMPs, trucks then you would expect there to be similar numbers of Russian troops and equipment in Ukraine. Where is it you lying sacks of sh*t?

[Sixstrings]

BTW, Six$ the Russian blogosphere has been covering the supply of Russian equipment to the rebels in Ukraine for months. This includes tagging the T-72B3s first. The western media is way behind the curve.

I applaud Russia for helping the rebels against the regime butchers.

So what are you saying, Russia's been shipping in tanks and weapons after all? For months?

So who is right here, is Withnail wrong? Do I believe the British government, or Withnail, or you -- and you apparently just agreed with the British government.

Well I knew this all along, because I have common sense and a good hunch about things, I have no reason to mistrust my President and the state department, and the Canadians, and Europeans.

So good, that's all settled I guess, Russia really has been shipping things in.

The regime parks its artillery and MLRS 20 km from a population center and launches random attacks 24/7. This is a total war crime without any excuses. The rebels are still outgunned and outmanned by the regime forces.

I think there have been atrocities on both sides. Like the Battle of Iliansk (sp?) and how retreating Ukrainians were promised safe passage and then fired on.

To be fair, yep, it looks like Kiev side is hitting too many civilian things.

All I can say -- I'm not Ukrainian, but if a town in the US ever flies the Mexican flag and rebels, then the place is gonna get leveled with everything the US military has, if they won't surrender. But that's here. I can't speak for Ukraine. But if you think of it that way, maybe that helps explain Kiev. For example, what will Putin do if a region in Russia rebels?

Not a single shred of evidence has been presented by NATO and its quislings in Kiev of the Russian Army in Ukraine.

What about the Mothers' Groups in Russia that say things are getting covered up, they say their sons in the military are fighting in Ukraine, some fall in combat.

What about the graves of Russian soldiers. (I hate talking about soldiers graves, I'm not being flip about this, it's sad) but what about that, there is no other war that Russia has going on, so what else is causing Russian military deaths.

What about the duma member that said paratroopers from his district had been sent to Ukraine, and then he got beaten up and put in the hospital (by the way, what ever happened to him, do you know?)

Upshot on it: the whole world believes Russia has paratroopers and other Russian military in Ukraine. So if Russia isn't there, then it may as well put some in because everyone thinks it's there anyway.

Where is it you lying sacks of sh*t?

Why is this even an argument.

Russians care about east Ukraine and feel invested in it, same as people in the West feel invested about Kiev.

It's okay there are Russian troops in the east, I understand, I get it. This thing just needs to get resolved.

What do you think the solution is, dissident. Can we have just a normal real conversation around here, for once.

You know the US position, it's not going to give up on Kiev, and Russia isn't going to give up on Crimea and the east, so what do we do here.

[Sixstrings]

A wounded economy
It is closer to crisis than the West or Vladimir Putin realise



VLADIMIR PUTIN is not short of problems, many of his own creation. There is the carnage in eastern Ukraine, where he is continuing to stir things up. There are his fraught relations with the West, with even Germany turning against him now. There is an Islamist insurgency on his borders and at home there is grumbling among the growing numbers who doubt the wisdom of his Ukraine policy. But one problem could yet eclipse all these: Russia’s wounded economy could fall into a crisis.

...

In fact, a crisis could happen a lot sooner. Russia’s defences are weaker than they first appear and they could be tested by any one of a succession of possibilities—another dip in the oil price, a bungled debt rescheduling by Russian firms, further Western sanctions. When economies are on an unsustainable course, international finance often acts as a fast-forward button, pushing countries over the edge more quickly than politicians or investors expect.

...

All this spells trouble for Russia, but Mr Putin’s marauding foreign policy could accelerate things. This after all is a man who has invaded other countries and lied about it. A deeper foray into Ukraine would lead to stronger sanctions by Western countries.

...

If Russia’s economy looks likely to collapse, there will be inevitable calls in the West for sanctions to be cut back. This week Mr Putin pointed out that 300,000 German jobs depend on trade with his country. But Angela Merkel rightly stood firm. Actions, Mr Putin must finally learn, have consequences. Invade another country, and the world will act against you. And the same goes for the economy, too. Had Mr Putin spent more of his time strengthening Russia’s economy than enriching his friends, he would not find himself so vulnerable now.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21633813-it-closer-crisis-west-or-vladimir-putin-realise-wounded-economy

Here's the truth about Russia and the West.

We're actually codependent. In the West, we'll actually feel bad and sorry for Russia if that economy starts to implode. The Economist article is right, there will be calls to stop the sanctions. There's already some of that in Germany right now. Germans are really split about Ukraine, it's like 50/50, with fierce debate.

And even I'm feeling bad, for Russia.

I've been consistent about that -- you see me post about the ruble, I worry about what happens if these sanctions just turn the place upside down and it collapses. Or if the Russian people just wind up hating us, because these sanctions are hurting them.

I never did agree with the sanctions, I've been consistent on that. I always said Putin rattled sabres and wanted to move some troops around and such and we should have responded IN KIND -- you meet force with force, not a banker. Sanctions strike at the heart of the Russian state, and economy. It's actually sanctions that are so serious, it's actually better to just have some NATO troops securing west Ukraine and then Putin could get mad about that but yet he's been check-mated, and we meet in the middle and agree about something.

The sanctions though.. that never ends well..

So I don't like these sanctions, they're hurting the Russian people, I've never been happy about the sanctions, but that's all the government would do for Ukraine.

Anyhow I'm starting to feel bad for Russia.

Putin looked rattled, leaving that G20. A rattled, unsure Putin worries me more than a fleet of Russian bombers in the Gulf.

Here's what I think would be fair:

If the Russian economy gets into some more bad trouble and destabilization is a risk, then stop any sanctions that are hitting the real economy.

BUT -- we are never giving up on West Ukraine. Rather than sanctions, we should give Kiev military aid. Train their army. Send advisors. Send good gear and weapons, and money.

Biden is over there right now, and he's handled this right, and it looks like if they will do the reforms and crack down on the corruption and form a government -- "in days, not weeks" -- then it sounds like Obama will give them weapons aid.

If not Obama, then R's have wanted to do this as well, and there's the upcoming Republican majority Congress.

[dissident]

See if you can tell the difference in the above Kiev regime tank and the T-72BM being yapped about by NATO mouthpieces.

[Withnail]

Well I knew this all along, because I have common sense and a good hunch about things,

You have anything but common sense, you ridiculous tosser.

A few days exposure to you would be enough to get the Dalai Lama sharpening up the knives and strapping on a bomb belt.

[Keith_McClary]

So what are you saying, Russia's been shipping in tanks and weapons after all? For months?

Please at least read what other people say.
Do you expect others to read your ravings.

From KyivPost:
Official: Ethiopia inks $100 million deal to purchase more than 200 Ukrainian tanks
June 16, 2011

The T-72 tank (above) is one of a handful of tanks produced by Ukraine. Soviet-built factories that Ukraine inherited, including the Malyshev tank factory in the eastern city of Kharkiv, continue to churn out enough arms to rank Ukraine amongst the world’s top producers and exporters of military technology, including anti-aircraft systems, stealth detection radars, rockets, airplanes and guns.

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters, staff reports) – Ethiopia’s government has signed a deal to buy more than 200 tanks at a cost of $100 million from Ukraine’s state-owned military hardware export firm Ukrspetsexport

[dissident]

The above photo shows a Ukrainian T-72 with obsolete reactive armour. Ukraine has developed quite advanced tank defense systems (e.g. Zaslon) and still has the ability to produce the Soviet Kontakt-5 reactive armour.

http://fofanov.armor.kiev.ua/Tanks/EQP/kontakt5.html

It has deployed Thales equipment in its T-72s just like Russia in the T-72B3.

As I said before, it is not for Russia to justify why it is helping the rebels but for NATO to justify why its quisling regime in Kiev is attacking civilians 24/7 with random artillery and MLRS barrages. For the clowns, where were the "Russian" T-72s back in March, April, May, June, July and early August? The T-72s appeared after the sanctions were imposed and after the regime had lost a lot of T-64s.

[AgentR11]

You know, as I take a look at the USDRUB chart, its amazing how silent all the doomsayers have become about the currency. Which is no surprise, since Moscow has achieved a free float'ed currency, and it is trading stably at its natural value (45-50rub/$US) for almost two weeks now. This will certainly suck if you are a German exporting to Russia and reaping excess profit off an artificially inflated currency; would also be terrible to find out that Russian engineers can actually build competitive products when their Central Bank is no longer stealing half their revenue via intervention. Whatever will the world do without the meme of inefficient, incompetent Russian industry.

I love free market justice. More powerful than any government whining twit or press conference. A piece of bread costs what a piece of bread costs; and a million articles in the WSJ or NYT can do nothing about it.

So, thank sanctions and Western lust for conflict with Russia for motivating the Russian people to tolerate the discomfort of allowing their currency to enter the free market.

edit: left out time parameter.. two weeks, basically a couple days after their central bank halted intervention activity.

[Keith_McClary]

The above photo shows a Ukrainian T-72 with obsolete reactive armour.

Just wondering if they are still exporting tanks. There is this report from a year ago:

Addis Ababa — Ukraine’s state-controlled arms exporter, Ukrspecexport SC, has begun delivering the upgraded T-72 main battle tanks and related parts to the Ethiopian military.

According to local sources gathered by Sudan Tribune, the Ethiopian military has taken delivery of a first group of 16 T-72 Tanks which recently arrived at Djibouti port.

The delivery is said to be part of the 2011 deal signed between Ethiopia’s defence ministry and the Ukrainian arms firm to purchase 200 T-72 tanks at a cost of $100 million.

Officials at the ministry of defence declined to comment on Tuesday over the matter despite repeated attempts by Sudan Tribune.

The components of the T-72 tanks were upgraded with modern guided weapons, new and powerful engines, reactive armour as well as updated sighting systems and countermeasures.
http://glblgeopolitics.wordpress.com/20 ... #more-7453

and just today in the Economist (paywalled)

Ethiopia last year took delivery of the first of about 200 Ukrainian T-72 tanks. Neighbouring South Sudan has bought about half as many.
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-ea ... nd-african

For some reason they don't seem to want a lot of publicity about this booming export industry.
CBC had McCain on this morning, talked about sending arms to Ukraine.
http://www.cbc.ca/thehouse/2014/11/22/s ... h-to-isis/

[Keith_McClary]

From a transcription of an interview with Juan Cole:

The US favored the Shi’a in exactly the same way that Saddam had begun favoring the Sunni Arabs, and so they engineered not just a political revolution, but a social and provincial one. The Shi’i south became powerful, and expected to be the recipient of the oil money, and the infrastructural improvements, and the political patronage. The Sunni north and west was disenfranchised, for the most part. The US abolished the state factories because they do not believe in state factories, they expected the market and the magic hand of entrepreneurism to replace the state factories, which of course did not occur because nobody knew how to do that, and so they let the state factories be run into the ground after they took over. They acquiesced in the Shi’a nationalists’ program of what they called de-Ba’thification, which was a way of making sure that people who had been in the Ba’th party were excluded from politics and from state employment. So they fired the Ba’th party members who taught in high schools and they brought in Shi’a to replace them. They seem to have fired 70-100,000 people, many of them Sunni Arabs, at a time when there were no private sector jobs, so if you lost your public sector job you were simply unemployed. So the US policy in Iraq was extremely punitive toward the Sunni Arabs, and was openly allied with Shi’i irredentist parties ...

That worked out great in Iraq, lets try it in Ukraine. This time we'll call it "lustration".

[Sixstrings]

Please at least read what other people say.

How did I misread what dissident said?

the Russian blogosphere has been covering the supply of Russian equipment to the rebels in Ukraine for months. This includes tagging the T-72B3s first. The western media is way behind the curve.

I applaud Russia for helping the rebels against the regime butchers.

That's in english, how am I misreading that, he just said Russia's been sending stuff into Ukraine "for months," and that actually western media is way behind on it, and the t-72b3 tanks. And then he said he's glad Russia sends the weapons in.

What am I missing, that's what he said.

We ought to just stop the clown car / chinese fire drill game. Let the diplomats play that game, we all know what the real deal is (and the diplomats do too, but they have to do that kabuki dancing stuff).

Bottom line on it: Dissident is right, Russia's been sending tanks and stuff in "for months," of course they have, we all know this. Let's move on.

The crux of it is they won't give up the east and crimea, and we won't give up Kiev.

So what is the solution, from there. That is all there is to talk about.

[AgentR11]

The crux of it is they won't give up the east and crimea, and we won't give up Kiev.
So what is the solution, from there. That is all there is to talk about.

Solution. The real solution is to recognize the independence of the Donbas on the line of control+airport and down through Debelsteeve; and Crimea as part of Russia. That would give peace. Unfortunately, that's impossible. No government that is pretending to be a democracy can survive in Kiev that makes such a compromise at this point in time, they'll have to bleed a lot more, like we did in Vietnam, before they accept their defeat and the consequences of that defeat. Unfortunately for them, just as in Vietnam, victory is impossible, because they lack the means to defeat the source of their military opposition, and their military opposition is playing defense. (eg, sacking Moscow is outside of their capabilities; and D&L win simply by not moving the line of control)

Realistic analysis. US sanctions Russia more, EU gets more squeemish about sanctions, Putin's popularity holds or improves further; after SWIFT sanctions, Russia can openly provide military aid to D&L in the form of weapons that can reach Karkov and maybe Kiev. Lights go out in Kiev like they have in Luhansk because rebels really will type in the coords of civilian power and water infrastructure (and all theirs is mostly destroyed anyway). THEN Kiev accepts that D&L will not be ruled, and halts their military attempt to reassert control. At that point, (my guess 2 more years), a peace treaty with D&L and Crimea could be signed, recognizing what should have been painfully obvious to anyone the moment the separatists pulled back to D&L and halted the Kiev offensive.

The facts are rather simple.
Russia can and will pay any price the West can inflict, and Putin will only grow stronger as a result.
D&L forces will never surrender to a government they believe wants to capture, imprison, torture, then execute them.
Russian support, financial and military, to the forces in D&L will not stop regardless of Western desires.
Russian forces will defend Crimea with all means necessary, including tactical nukes if required.
On the other side....
Kiev believes they are safe and secure, only subject to modest sabotage & recon.
Kiev is broke financially.
Oligarchs loyal to Kiev have interests they do not wish to lose in Donbas,.
Kiev forces are catastrophically ill lead. And poorly trained.
Kiev forces equipment is good, but the above poor leadership causes much of it to end up blown up uselessly or surrendered.

The above guarantees that D&L will never be controlled by the Kiev government.
The above guarantees that Russian troops will never leave Crimea.

We can accept what can not be changed, or we can engage in a few years of low intensity homicide for recreational purposes until the people of Western Ukraine decide they've had enough, because they will be the ones bleeding their sons and daughters off into an unwinable conflict to recapture a region they claim is a giant liability in the best of times. They will get tired of it, much sooner than Putin will.