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(Rest of the) World News

awooga83

Coombs I mean I don't deny that US have there own issues but they were right about the Russian plans and Putin before the invasion when people were very doubtful equally thought they were just fear mongering, including the Ukrainians because everybody thought it would be crazy for someone to start such a war.

Coombs

awooga83 and I've got a bridge to sell you

Burnwinter

⚡🚨 BREAKING 🚨⚡U.S. intelligence officials have been analyzing whether Moscow intends to escalate its aggressive actions toward European allies in the near term ... possible threats range from a cyberattack on a NATO country or sending unmarked armed groups to occupy territory to a limited incursion on the alliance’s eastern flank ... time frame for any move by Russia is estimated to happen between this fall and 2029.

Sounds like it's all becoming pretty concrete!

awooga83

Well ultimately it's an intelligence assessment it's not made as this is a certainty it's made as a likelihood call. It tends not to be this is going to happen but the information available suggests this might be what they are moving towards. Nobody can tell you what Putin is actually thinking but through SIGINT etc you can see what they might be discussing or preparing for.

Whist you can point to history and say this shows where this party had been dishonest you can also point to Putin who absolutely is a gambler and done some insane things himself; deploying chemical weapons in Europe and launching a war so it's not exactly without precedent. As I mentioned they called the invasion correctly when everybody didn't want to believe so on this subject at least they've demonstrated more accuracy.

Ultimately it suggests things have progressed further then before blur doesn't mean it's going to happen. That could have seen different departments actually working up plans rather then just bring a hypothetical etc. The way these assessments are often produced is on a rolling basis and they do outline potential scenarios that could be used to inform government if areas of risk which in itself is used for contingency planning purposes

Burnwinter

awooga83 Nobody can tell you what Putin is actually thinking but through SIGINT etc you can see what they might be discussing or preparing for.

Which could be anything from a cyberattack or contras … and happen at any time from 2026 to 2029. If that's a likelihood call, it's a bit like saying "US intelligence analysts believe White's white bishop might move diagonally onto another white square before the end of the game".

Just reads as a US agency "nudge" to continue to encourage NATO to re-arm via US MIC munitions suppliers, and to bolster the social licence for it. Anyone coulda told you that without getting out of bed. @Coombs is on the money here and so's the MIC.

awooga83

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/05/the-leipzig-drone-bomb-marks-a-dangerous-escalation-for-europe

BBC News - Inside the Russian explosives plot that sent incendiary parcels to the UK
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpd83zwqlvno

Yeah but Russia equally has been increasing it's actions. It orchestrated as arson campaign against Starmer former car and a house and those above attacks one attributed to them and another looks like it could be..I think there is a real threat and history is littered with miscalculations by individuals with catadioptric consequences.

I'd say putting an explosive device on a plane travelling to Europe is a pretty reckless action along with many of the other things I listed so it's not like oh they actually don't do anything. I think a plane coming down would have been pretty disastrous but someone clearly signed that off so these idea don't sound that implausible

Burnwinter

awooga83 Russia's had very serious reversals this year, especially due to drone-based oil and gas, supply and infrastructure denial and destruction by Ukraine. So of course these have also been accompanied by plenty of Euro and US cheerleading after four years of war.

The "Putin's backed into a corner" rhetoric is a way of claiming a motivating threat is imminent at the same time as claiming the war is urgently there to be won, but there's no optimistic end in sight. The best thing that's happening is somewhat fewer deaths per day.

Though the identity of the culprits is unknown, the initial evidence points firmly towards a Russian-orchestrated plot.

Reports about incidents in this war can be a fit-up. It may not be too hard for Ukraine to cause a furore by landing a "faulty drone" on a German airstrip near its own cargo planes, and this conveniently aligns with the "US intelligence assessments" without loss of life or materiel. Germany doesn't have the perps at all.

I don't say never believe journalism, but it's worth remembering how the alleged Russian sabotage of Nord Stream at the outset of war was bollocks. Press disinformation has been a routine tactic of all sides.

Qwiss

Coombs and so the EU can justify pushing defense spending so the German MIC can make up for the fall off of the German auto industry.

awooga83

Burnwinter I'm happy to say you bad wait for the outcome, but the explosions devices on the cargo plane, the use of chemical weapons in the UK?

Of course it can be true about the west putting out their own narrative. It can equally just be as true that the country that chose to invade it's neighbour, used chemical weapons in the UK and directed bombs onto planes in Europe might not be a rational actor and could quite possibly do something further in that regard. I think what ever weight you attach to western reports you should attach as much to Russian pervious actions so it's very much in the balance even if you approach that with suspicion.

There is an awful war because one man chose to initiate an action that I'm sure many in his own side didn't think he'd do. At the time it probably seemed crazy to most but would you not say Putin has previous? His whole strategy is I can outlast you and take it further then you can stomach, this would be in line with that.

I accept that there may be a messaging angle, even if I attach more credibility then you to these, but equally it's host at likely Russia could do something because they absolutely have some that not in a cloak and daggers way but actually launched a war. So it's not the case well how can we believe that Russia have never done something like that.

Burnwinter

awooga83 I'm happy to say you bad wait for the outcome, but the explosions devices on the cargo plane

On the cargo plane? Here's what happened according to the investigators:

Investigators said “a drone carrying an unknown explosive device was spotted by an airport employee in the security area of the cargo operations zone near the south runway” of Leipzig airport, a facility classified as “critical infrastructure”.

“A suspected second unidentified flying object collided with a cargo aircraft after it had taken off again following the previous closure of the runway. Minor damage was detected on the aircraft after it landed in Hanover,” the investigators said.

There's no forensic connection from the first drone reported to Russia, or to any particular culprit. The second object that slightly damaged the aircraft has not been found, and is not confirmed as a drone. The one clear claim of Russian responsibility comes from Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany. There are multiple rent-a-comment quotes from the IISS, a major think tank entirely funded by European and US military and aerospace manufacturers.

If there were a smoking Russian gun we'd hear all about it.

The incendiary parcels are a much murkier and more convincing story in the details, though again there's minimal forensic evidence. But at least there's a patsy they've arrested, some fires, and there seems to be a Russia-based contact.

Again, I'm not saying what to believe. Just remember that you're pushing this rather meagre evidence to affirm an "assessment" Putin may about to send contras into Europ ... or sorry, perhaps by 2029.

awooga83

Burnwinter On the cargo plane? Here's what happened according to the investigators:

I was referring to this story BBC News - Inside the Russian explosives plot that sent incendiary parcels to the UK
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpd83zwqlvno

Russian tactics are to deliberately hire intermediaries for the exact reason it's harder to attribute in open sense. They know it's more provable in intel but that's not important because that just want to create enough disinformation to dissuade public opinion.

As I said you can take the position that you distrust everything the west say or the media and that it's just to make Russia look bad because there is no evidence to the standard most people want.

I just wouldn't be rushing to take the position the Russians wouldn't do this because they've attempted to poison people on UK soil using chemical weapons, place bombs on a cargo plane and actually launched an invasion so even if you take the position the way the Russians are being portrayed is unfair there is plenty of actual evidence of them talking aggressive actions already that have been pretty reckless and in one example almost the whole world said the Americans must be fear mongering before the invasion but they weren't. This report didn't say it's a dead cert just that the likelihood had increased abs based on Putin's track record over the past 10 years accept that's probably a reasonable assessment. Just the fact it's more likely it's concerning because the track record on the Russian side isn't great on this front

Burnwinter

awooga83 I just wouldn't be rushing to take the position the Russians wouldn't do this because they've attempted to poison people on UK soil using chemical weapons, place bombs on a cargo plane and actually launched an invasion

Right, they've actually been in a war costing hundreds of thousands of lives in Ukraine for years now.

As I said you can take the position that you distrust everything the west

I don't. Listen, we have countless concrete examples of how western media and state agencies have disinformed their publics by credulous or complicit reporting. Just as we do with continual Russian lies. I'd be cautious judging a thin report about a Russian drone trying to blow up Ukrainian cargo planes at a German airport ... that seems to have zero forensics behind it ... should be taken at face value. Even the "incendiary parcels" story stops with an unknown Telegram account. Linking either report to the Skripals is peculiar.

awooga83

Burnwinter yeah but that's how states operate now intentionally for plausible deniability. The people at the bottom have no idea who they are working for they are probably just criminals for the highest bidder. But the funding and direction will come from Russian officials but they probably never meet these people and they agree right at the top.. That's why they operate like this so that people say well we can't know it's just a telegram account etc.

I brought the Skripal's up because it shows that the Russian state has a high risk threshold for it's operational activities. That's provable by what they've done so it's reasonable to suggest that they would be willing to do other reckless actions just short of full military conflict. That's why I raised it's as supporting evidence for what Russia has already done.

Equally in Ukraine the US and West were right about the assessment of what Russia was planning. Even if I'm not as sceptical as others I also thought at the time that might be over egging because I assumed why would Putin start such a conflict it makes no sense it will be disastrous. That was an example of my own bias making me take those reports less seriously.

Burnwinter

awooga83 The people at the bottom have no idea who they are working for they are probably just criminals for the highest bidder. But the funding and direction will come from Russian officials

Yeah to repeat, we don't actually know that … even less do we know that in the Leipzig airstrip case. What we have in the "incendiary parcels" case is an obfuscated Telegram communication that supposedly leads back to some acquaintance of a dodgy entrepreneur, and this acquaintance has a Russian location, but nothing else is established.

There have been a number of scary incidents in Australia in the past two years: real antisemitic terrorism, fake antisemitic terrorism, and an armed massacre of Jews at Bondi by two Wahhabist nutcases. The fundamentalists were a father and son independently "radicalised" online after a family breakdown.

The real antisemitic terror incidents have been partly explained by Australian intelligence services on a basis that interacts with the highly reluctant public support here for Israeli war against Iran. ASIS tagged the IRGC with at least two of these publicly in order to list the IRGC as a terrorist organisation here. Maybe it should be listed, but such a move has major diplomatic implications in relation to a disgraceful conflict.

Meanwhile the fake antisemitic terror incident was (non-)explained as unknown criminal actors, acting for personal gain, paid via encrypted channels with no known endpoint.

The Australian public was not invited to guess which foreign actors might have the incentive to fake antisemitic terror. But NATO publics are invited to guess that a non-exploding Semtex drone at an airstrip was definitely a Russian plot. There's a gradient to how these incidents get mobilised.

Fact is none of these incidents—not even the real tragedies and real assassinations that occur outside of conflict zones—should be setting Australian, or NATO nation military or foreign policy in relation to the war in Ukraine, or Israel's genocide in Gaza, or the US and Israel attempt at regime change in Iran. Wars have an undisputed human and economic cost that dwarfs these incidents in scale.

As @Coombs already pointed out way more briefly, the blatant beneficiaries of "US intelligence assessments" that hint Russian contras could be sent into NATO nations "maybe by 2029" are the United States imperial orientation, and the military corporations profiting from Ukrainian and NATO re-armament. That complex also funds the think tanks providing ambiguous interpretations of these incidents such as the IISS.

If you can see FIFA and its member organisations are corrupt as fuck, you can surely see it here too …

Burnwinter

awooga83 Equally in Ukraine the US and West were right about the assessment of what Russia was planning. Even if I'm not as sceptical as others I also thought at the time that might be over egging because I assumed why would Putin start such a conflict it makes no sense it will be disastrous.

Putin was factually the aggressor, but the causes of the war are more complex, which is why those debates about the chance of war were underway. Only after the war had started could the western logic become that Putin alone had started it and there were not other causes. If there's ever peace there will be new kinds of forgetting quite swiftly, likely including the negotiated resumption of EU–Russia trade relations.

This world doesn't see grand imperial aggression grounded in fabrications about either "de-nazification" or "democratic regime change", and imperial aggression doesn't get set aside based on the right to self-determination either. Those are tales told by newspaper columnists. We ought to know these things by now, but journalism above all gets in the way.

awooga83

Burnwinter Yeah to repeat, we don't actually know that … even less do we know that in the Leipzig airstrip case. What we have in the "incendiary parcels" case is an obfuscated Telegram communication that supposedly leads back to some acquaintance of a dodgy entrepreneur, and this acquaintance has a Russian location, but nothing else is established.

Yeah but that's the nature of it, it's is designed to be exactly like that it'll never be evidenced to the level you will want and it's exactly the point of the tactics. This nature of operating is pretty well establish now

https://newlinesinstitute.org/global-security-mil-priorities/tracing-the-criminality-of-russian-gray-zone-warfare/

Wars do have massive costs I don't condone them and the Iran war is one I thought was disastrous as soon as it was launched and equally illegitimate. That doesn't stop Russia being the bad actor in this case. The reason for the war is Putin whatever else was happening like you say launching a war can never be the answer.

State actors do have dividends in sewing discontent and disharmony as well.
The points you make about conflicting interests are valid but it can be true the west have done hypocritical things that you can point to as this is when they were deceptive but it can equally be true that they are correct about a threat from a country and a leader with a history of aggressive actions including launching a military campaign and war in Europe along with a number of similar actions.

awooga83

Burnwinter Putin was factually the aggressor this is not a war that helps the Russian people either.i don't believe the ordinary russian citizen was sitting around seething they didn't have Ukrainian territory. Absolutely western post cold war actions have made Putin angry just like many dictator in history fermented their own narratives about the world. But he absolutely had a choice not to launch the war I'm sorry there is no way I ever blame anyone else for the conflict it's a war of aggression nothing else that was happening justified once man launching a war because of his own personal ego and ambition. There is no redeeming story you can tell, Putin ranted that Ukraine was a made up country dvd had no right to exist that's not someone with a reasonable view.

Coombs

That Russia's enemies functionally colluded to produce the conditions for the invasion of Ukraine does not absolve, excuse, or even fully explain Putin's actions. But it very obviously did happen, and there is a clear set of financial and/or political benefits that trace it, probably rather precisely.

Putin is the actual aggressor, and that is very much the point. The guy isn't as smart as he thinks he is, or indeed, as smart as everyone else thinks he is. These types of characters rarely are.

Burnwinter

Coombs Thank God somebody rescued me from having to type a version of this out yet again.

JazzG

In more important world news

Burnwinter

JazzG Showed this to my lactose intolerant Italian partner who's always hanging out for the 30 month aged parmigiano ... that stuff is like gold in Darwin, it's about $80–90 a kilo ... this cheese would be $1000 a kilo no doubt 😆

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