missed this on first read
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Ukraine should hold out for removal of all Russian troops from Donbas.
You wouldn’t be a big fan of how I play CK3.
I don’t think waiting until Russian soldiers die of cancer is a very good strategy.
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Ukraine is seeking alliances with NATO countries including the UK without joining NATO. UK being important because they have nukes.
when you are a russian soldier, you have about a million ways of dying. (that’s an actual gag in russian)
they were pretty close to advancing to major ally status in the fall
If it’s what you say I love it!
The work of Bellingcat, an open-source investigative outfit , has been instrumental in exposing years of nefarious Russian activity. But, perhaps more importantly, it has also enabled U.S. officials and lawmakers to discuss Moscow’s skullduggery openly without revealing the sources and methods of the U.S. intelligence agencies.
“I don’t want to be too dramatic, but we love this,” said Marc Polymeropolous, the CIA’s former deputy chief of operations for Europe and Eurasia.
“Whenever we had to talk to our liaison partners about it, instead of trying to have things cleared or worry about classification issues, you could just reference their work,” said Polymeropolous, who retired from the CIA in 2019.
Open-source intelligence gets around that. “The advantage of having Bellingcat doing it is that you don’t have to have a sources-and-methods debate within your government,” said Daniel Fried, a retired diplomat who served as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs under former President George W. Bush.
Handy!
Russian state media have repeatedly sought to portray Bellingcat as working on behalf of the CIA or other Western intelligence agencies. Polymeropoulos was unequivocal on this point. “We have no ties to them,” he said.
What did Bellingcat report that isn’t
?
Bellingcats can and bellingcats do
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No part of that article, or any other reputable article, claims that Bellingcat is associated with the CIA. The only articles I can find that do make those claims are roughly equivalent to InfoWars.
How does it feel being a Kremlin hate figure?
It’s nice they pay attention to Bellingcat. I think we would have been disappointed if Putin had not mentioned us at his annual press conference after our Navalny scoop. Abuse from trolls is something I have come to accept in my life. What we do, revealing things, is worthwhile, despite the potential threats. I’m trying to wean myself off Twitter. People constantly accuse me of being a liar or working for the CIA. It winds you up.
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during their investigations, grozdev and navalny have both wondered on separate things, that if bellingcat/fbk were just able to search and find such extensive details about FSB’s operations and oligarchs’ assets, it is undoubtable that cia/nsa already knew all of it and more, but could not release it themselves.
https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1508517296138031104
https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1508517298226794502
https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1508517299531173895
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I guess that’s a big enough deployment that it can’t be kept secret. There are also advantages to letting Russia know they’re there, I suppose.
I guarantee you we already have one-off SIGINT platforms (EC-130, RC-135) flying along the “NATO Eastern Flank” and we probably have U-2s (capable of carrying SIGINT, ELINT, photographic collection and/or radar collection assets) flying over the area 24/7.
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they are not all young conscripts. some of them are young, others are clearly 30s/40s, just mobilized by force.
but i am sure it’s only in social media to make us think russians are evil, and definitely nothing to suggest russia is desperate. 
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Seems like a good way to get shot by your own troops.