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Ghost of LL · January 21, 2022

3 hours ago, Shady Ray said:

Well, I guess it is Friday, and apparently some of y'all find this stuff interesting, so I figured what the hell, I will just go straight to the best that I got.

Wife's mother is not even close to the most interesting story.

Wife's mother's father is.

Spoilered for those who don't care, and it is a bit off topic.

TLDR: Between the years 1941-1948, wife’s maternal grandfather was a Red Army conscript, a German POW, a Wehrmacht soldier, a US POW, and a US Army employee. And he was the baddest motherfucker that I have ever met.

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Let’s just call him Klaus. He was born in the late 1910s outside of Prokrovsk, Russia (Kosakenstadt in German), which is now known as Engels, in the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. He was the 3rd oldest of 9 children…the oldest male. Here is the location of the Volga German ASSR.

As a young man in his early 20s, he worked in Engels as a heavy machinery mechanic, but with war breaking out in Europe, and being the Soviet cannon fodder demographic that he was, he was called up to the Red Army in late 1940/early 1941. When Hitler invaded, he was thrown towards the front and was eventually taken POW by the Germans at the Battle of Smolensk in July of 1941. As he used to say, up until that point in his life, the day he was captured was the most unfortunate day of his life, and for the rest of his life, it was the luckiest.

Three weeks later, Stalin purged the Red Army of its Volga German elements (along with the Black Sea Germans) and sent them to Soviet work camps in Kazakhstan. During those same days, the Soviets came to the Volga German ASSR and forcibly deported the entirety of the Volga German population, including his family. They had less than 3 hours to prepare for the forced removals. His father was killed during this process, and his mother and sisters and his youngest brother were sent by open air train to Siberia in the most inhumane conditions imaginable, while his other brother, 3 years younger, was sent to the Soviet work camps in Kazakhstan. His mother didn’t survive the deportation and died in the cold en route to Siberia. They apparently threw her dead body off the train without stopping.

Of course, he didn’t learn any of this until much, much later in his life, which we will get to.

They didn’t speak at all Russian growing up, as the Soviets allowed the German ASSR full independence to maintain their language, religion and culture. They didn't intermarry with the Russians and they were as German as anyone in the Reich. However, after Klaus had already left, Stalin decreed in the Fall of 1941 that German was banned and the use of Russian was made obligatory. Throughout his long life in Bavaria, he learned Russian because he maintained some type of far-fetched dream that he would some day meet his siblings again, even though those odds were essentially zero. Even when I first met him, he would regularly practice his Russian with others in the area, even going to a Russian Orthodox church from time-to-time down the street to keep sharp, and I always found it to be heartbreaking. My mother-in-law would always talk about what a waste of effort that was, particularly as he was never going to go to Russia, as until his last breath he feared that he would be forcibly detained if he ever visited, pursuant to Stalin’s almost rabid obsession to see all former Russian Germans returned from the west. Even when we talk about him now, years after his death, every single time my in-laws say, "Outside of Josef Stalin, nothing and no one ever scared him."

Anyway, by late 1941, his status as a German POW had changed, and he had been conscripted into a Wehrmacht division comprised primarily of captured Red Army/Red Army deserter ethnic Germans from the Volga region and other non-German volunteers (Hiwis) and, while fighting as part of the Wehrmacht as they moved through Eastern Europe, he took a bullet through the right side of his upper chest, and one across the front of his neck, leaving a bad scar and a really raspy voice. Fortunately for him, he sustained those injuries within a month from Stalingrad kicking off, a battle which - given his regiment - he would have been in. He slowly recovered from his wounds away from the lines back towards Central Europe, and was then put back to work through the later stages of the war fighting through the Balkans.

When the war was clearly a lost cause, he said “fuck this” and found his way to Vienna, where he had a terrible time trying to connect with a distant relative whom he had never met, and then ultimately came on up to Bavaria. I never understood what caused this decision and I can’t figure out why he made this move. I hate that I don’t know. I have almost all of the records required to verified this entire deal, but why he chose Bavaria was one of the few things I never got the chance to clarify. All I know is that he hated the Austrians for how they treated him in Vienna during the latest stages of the war, and I imagine that perhaps moving on to Germany was a better choice for a volksdeutscher (Volksdeutsche being Germans from outside the Reich, Reichsdeutsche being Germans from within it).

Anyway, at Stunde Null ("Zero Hour"), which is what the Germans still call midnight of May 8th, 1945 - the moment the war was over - he was in a new city, he had no home city to return, no way to know what happened to his family, and he now occupied the lowest of the German post-war caste… refugee Volksdeutsche. Stalin had revoked the citizenship of Russian Germans in the West, and the Reich hadn't ever bestowed it to them, so he was a stateless (until 1948), family-less man - in a country where there wasn’t enough food and housing situation was all blown to hell (German residents were forced by the transitional authorities/caretaker Allies to house and board other Germans, which was a socially tedious situation at the beginning, and it was even worse for those ethnic germans streaming in from Czechoslovakia, Poland or Russia, as no one wanted them).

Klaus surrendered to the US Army in Landsberg, Bavaria in 1945, where he was held as a POW along with thousands of other ex-Wehrmacht. He was eventually transferred and spent 6 months in the displaced persons camp there before being hired by the US Army to do support tasks in the newly established heavy machinery shops in Bavaria. He had the mechanical skills and, due to his status as a Volga German, was deemed to be at very low risk of needing de-Nazification in the time before the de-Nazification process petered out, as to be honest, the Volga Germans didn’t really have a connection to the Reich the way the Sudeten did. They were just kinda fucking around over there just bein’ Germans in damn-near Kazakstan growing watermelons, as they had been doing since Catherine the Great.

He worked for the US Army for three years, striking up close transactional relationships with some black GIs stationed there, where he basically thrived off of some type of side-hustle where he traded cigarettes that were rationed to him by the US Army (he didn’t smoke) for extra food, as calories were in terribly short supply for German men at the time. He said it was some kind of three way deal where gas/cigarettes and food were shuffled around on a barter economy between the black GIs and the local employees…I never quite got the full scope of that, as my German wasn’t completely proficient when we discussed this, but I do know that he really liked the black dudes that he met from the US and always spoke fondly of them. He said they were the first black guys he had ever met and they were apparently real characters.

He appreciated the Americans more than we can even imagine...they saved his life, as he said, and with his US Govt paycheck and food rations, he went from the lowest of the low in German society, to a big swinging dick around the Displaced Persons scene in Landsberg, where he met his wife - my wife’s grandmother - who as mentioned had been displaced from the Sudetenland with her sisters and mother. He was a really funny guy who swore that the food the black dudes gave him was the key to get any woman in the camp.

Klaus was a born hustler and found his way to a BMW when it re-opened after the war and after his work for the Americans ended. He started there in 1948 when they started building motorcycles. He got a job on the shop floor, where he worked until he retired in 1980, rising to floor management and he counted his greatest achievements as working on the rollout of the BMW 502, which he said gave him the first real sense of pride he ever felt. He talked about the 502 as though it was the child that he himself birthed.

Here is the 502. Fucking sharp looking ride.

On the home-front, Klaus was the only man who wasn’t completely mind-fucked in his entire familial orbit after the war. He took care of a shitton of random little Sudetendeutschers that passed through his house for long extended stays from his wife’s side, as their dads were either dead or mindfucked. He worked like a sharecropper during the day, only to then come home and fix neighborhood cars for extra cash. The garage at his place, which is down the street from my own house, has a maintenance pit dug underneath with a ladder so he could pull neighborhood cars in and change their oil and do some limited maintenance, just like at the auto shop. Dude was relentless.

When I met him he was in his 80s and strong as an ox, as he was until the day he died. He had no hesitancy talking about the war and, in fact, almost every story over dinner started with, “In 1940-something, we were in blah blah blah.” It was awesome and it drove my wife and in-laws crazy, but I could only imagine how jam packed with experiences those 4 years must have been, so I encouraged it and we would talk for a couple of hours after every meal, which usually occurred a couple of times per week. Every time, after his last bite, he wold put down his silver, wash it all down with a big gulp of weißbier, sigh, and say, “phhhhhh...In 194X, I was in...” and off he would go with a story that would lead to God knows where. Wife and mother-in-law would pull the “sigh…papaaa/opaaa, bitte nicht” and he would just calmly and lovingly respond “be quiet, mädchen", which they obediently did...because he was Motherfuckin' Klaus and he had a story to fuckin' tell. I loved it.

In his mind, his "people" had nothing to do with all of the shit that went on, so he was just a participant in it and felt no guilt. He was completely resilient and spoke about the war as though it was just something one experienced. He would tell you a story about getting free ice cream at some spot along the Eastern Front in the same exact tone as he would tell you a story about burying a captain who had hung himself overnight. But he took me through his maps and his records and all of his awards and commemorative items and I loved every minute of it.

But I will close this out with the part of the story that I got to witness, which was one of the wildest things I have ever experienced.

On his 90th birthday, three years before he died, we had a huge lunch for him at his house. All of the family came from all over Germany…all those little Sudetendeutschers who came in and out of his house in the 50s and 60s who had now become grandparents in their own rights and all their kids…it was a great experience. Klaus was so happy and was in his element…holding court in one corner of the house, only to then move to another corner and hold court a little more with the relatives from another place, only to go to his garage and show the men some vintage BMW hub caps that he took from the factory. Whatever he did, it was fun and it was interesting. There were probably 35, 40 people there. What Klaus didn’t know was that the Red Cross had contacted my mother-in-law two months before this party with the information that his younger sister, one of the ones who had been sent off to Siberia, had survived the whole fuckin’ Cold War in the Russian East and had migrated back to Germany as part of the German government’s initiative to allow them to come to Germany after the USSR collapsed. She had contacted the Red Cross to help her find him, which they did.

After the party ended (it was a daytime ordeal), the immediate family along with a couple of the closer-knit “Münchener” branch went to a very nice local bierhall for dinner. We had a private room and when we walked in, my mother-in-law had set it up that his sister, along with her only child, a son, would be in there waiting for him. He walked in, saw her, wondered who the fuck the old lady was crashing his birthday party room, and then was told who it was. Klaus seemed to be happy every minute of his life…but that minute that he saw his sister who had been separated from him for 65 years was the happiest I had ever seen him. They laughed and cried and talked and talked forever… in Russian, thus vindicating his efforts to learn the language over all those years, as the Volga Germans were prohibited from speaking German and most of them lost the ability to do so. For the next three years until his death they spoke almost every day by phone, in Russian, meeting up multiple times per year. He learned what happened to his family, and he even was able to speak regularly by phone to his younger brother who had been shipped off to the Kazak labor camps, who the sister had previously found. The brother had remained in Kazakhstan after being released from the work camps and settled there, like many of the Volga German men who were sent to the camps did. He even got a picture of him in the mail and it was framed on his bedside the day Klaus died. I am lucky enough to have photos of the entire deal and it was one of the most noteworthy things that I ever experienced.

But what I will remember most about that day was the drive home from the bierhall. We had taken two cars and I was driving my wife and mother in law. On the way home, everyone was tired after that long day and it was quiet on the ride. When we got closer to the house, I asked my mother-in-law if Klaus' sister and her son would be staying with my in-laws/Klaus at their place, as they have plenty of space for guests.

And in her little voice coming from the back seat, “Of course not. They’re Russians…they’ll steal our shit.”

That was a fantastic read--thank you for sharing.

Klaus was goddamned lucky to have that job with the U.S. Army, and not at all for the Zigaretten. The U.S. and the U.K. agreed at Yalta to repatriate any Soviet citizens captured as POWs or taken as forced laborers to Germany. On its face, that's not unreasonable--we wanted our POWs to be repatriated as well.

But Stalin viewed anybody who allowed himself to be captured as a traitor. And certainly anyone who joined up with the Wehrmacht or Waffen SS was a traitor. Many thousands of Soviet citizens (and quite a few people who had fled Russia during the Revolution and Civil War and who consequently had never been Soviet citizens) were forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union. Those who, like Klaus, had fought with the German forces were uniformly executed.

I can only assume that he escaped the forced repatriation to the Soviet Union by dint of having a job with the U.S. Army.

. . . unless--the U.S. and the U.K. did not deport a number of POWs because they deemed them useful to future anti-Soviet operations (notably, the 14th Waffen SS). Perhaps Klaus had some other covert reason for learning Russian after the War.

SimonBolivar · January 21, 2022

1 hour ago, Caponata said:

Watched the whole thing. I'm going to have to watch his entire body of work now.

BabaYaga · January 21, 2022

1 hour ago, Caponata said:

Pretty sure that is 100% filmed in College Station...

Shady Ray · January 21, 2022

1 minute ago, Ghost of LL said:

That was a fantastic read--thank you for sharing.

Klaus was goddamned lucky to have that job with the U.S. Army, and not at all for the Zigaretten. The U.S. and the U.K. agreed at Yalta to repatriate any Soviet citizens captured as POWs or taken as forced laborers to Germany. On its face, that's not unreasonable--we wanted our POWs to be repatriated as well.

But Stalin viewed anybody who allowed himself to be captured as a traitor. And certainly anyone who joined up with the Wehrmacht or Waffen SS was a traitor. Many thousands of Soviet citizens (and quite a few people who had fled Russia during the Revolution and Civil War and who consequently had never been Soviet citizens) were forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union. Those who, like Klaus, had fought with the German forces were uniformly executed.

I can only assume that he escaped the forced repatriation to the Soviet Union by dint of having a job with the U.S. Army.

. . . unless--the U.S. and the U.K. did not deport a number of POWs because they deemed them useful to future anti-Soviet operations (notably, the 14th Waffen SS). Perhaps Klaus had some other covert reason for learning Russian after the War.

You are very well-read on this.

He told me he was spared the fate of those poor SOBs at Plattling due his employment with the Army. But I will say that our decision there was obviously something that he was disappointed with, which I know our own side struggled with significantly.

I honestly have never once thought about the possibility of your last point until your post. From a physique/mental aptitude/street-wise/resourcefulness/social intelligence perspective, he was unlike anyone I have ever met and would have certainly fit the bill of someone who could have been valuable in anti-Soviet operations. Interesting thought.

Ghost of LL · January 21, 2022

58 minutes ago, Shady Ray said:

You are very well-read on this.

He told me he was spared the fate of those poor SOBs at Plattling due his employment with the Army. But I will say that our decision there was obviously something that he was disappointed with, which I know our own side struggled with significantly.

I honestly have never once thought about the possibility of your last point until your post. From a physique/mental aptitude/street-wise/resourcefulness/social intelligence perspective, he was unlike anyone I have ever met and would have certainly fit the bill of someone who could have been valuable in anti-Soviet operations. Interesting thought.

Yeah--ask your wife tonight "say--you ever wonder if Opa Klaus was CIA?". That might be a fun conversation.

SimonBolivar · January 21, 2022

I'm not sure if this has been posted as we make our way through The Great Patriotic War, but love me some Baltics.

Quote

Defense Minister of Latvia: The Baltic states will send "Stinger" and "Javelin" systems, as well as various individual equipment to help Ukraine to strengthen its defences. I strongly urge Russia to de-escalate situation at the border with Ukraine and respect its sovereignty

Quote

Germany is blocking NATO ally Estonia from giving military support to Ukraine by refusing to issue permits for German-origin weapons to be exported to Kyiv as it braces for a potential Russian invasion

Edited January 21, 2022 by SimonBolivar

Txzen · January 21, 2022

1 hour ago, SimonBolivar said:

Watched the whole thing. I'm going to have to watch his entire body of work now.

He's really, really good. Knows the history of the area, speaks the language fluently and is somehow able to befriend everyone he comes across (minus a few babushkas here and there).

Homercles · January 21, 2022

8 minutes ago, Txzen said:

He's really, really good. Knows the history of the area, speaks the language fluently and is somehow able to befriend everyone he comes across (minus a few babushkas here and there).

But has he ever gotten lost in his own museum?

Mach 1 · January 21, 2022

Interesting thread. Lots of cool stories and insight.

I might as well add some anecdotes from another time in German history.

I was a DDS student in the early 80s, lived in Mannheim, Frankfurt (Rhein Main) and Munich (McGraw Kaserne). It was a very volatile period, as Reagan's election triggered the German far left and ramped up anti American sentiment. We had bomb threats at our school all the time, and they'd usher us all in to the gym to wait it out until the bomb dogs could sniff around. I think alot of Germans were frustrated/angry being smack dab in the middle of two superpowers threatening each with nukes. And since they were, at least in the West, effectively occupied by Americans, we took the heat, since they couldn't exactly take it out on Russia.

Things ramped up to 11 when the Pershing nukes were announced to be placed in the country. Protesters stationed themselves in front of the base gate quite often, and throw rocks and eggs at our bus (and I assume other cars). The remnants of the Red Brigades got active again also, and kidnappings and various threats to military personnel and German politicians increased. Everyone was told repeatedly to be cautious off base.

One poor Airmen didn't listen. He was kidnapped from a bar and killed. The RB took his uniform, ID and loaded his car with explosives. They drove it on base and parked it at Rhein Main HQ. My mom worked for the SJA and parked in the same lot. Bomb went off at 7:30 am, exactly when everyone was arriving for work. Killed a handful of people, injured a bunch more. Mom was early that day and in the bathroom, so very lucky. Later, when she was able to return to her office, there were pieces of metal from the blown up cars (including hers) that had ripped through the window and stuck in the drywall like buckshot. She would have been killed.

I played football in HS and we had a game against Fulda, near the E German border. On the way there our coach said, "Let's beat these fuckers and get the hell out of there. When World War 3 starts, it's going to be there." We had some time to kill before the game and I wandered up a hill to look around. In the valley below were nothing but American tanks, line, after line, after line, as far as I could see. Had to be a thousand or more.

We did as coach said, beat those fuckers and hauled ass out of there.

Shady Ray · January 21, 2022

Olaf straight wildin'.

German chancellor turned down Biden invite to discuss Ukraine crisis - Der Spiegel

BERLIN, Jan 21 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz turned down an invite at short notice from U.S. President Joe Biden to discuss the Ukraine crisis, German magazine Der Spiegel said on Friday.

Scholz did not accept the invitation due to a full schedule, including a trip to Madrid, as well as the desire to show that he was present as Germany grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Der Spiegel.

A government spokesman declined to comment on the report.

Both sides hoped now to organize a meeting by mid-February.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/german-chancellor-turned-down-biden-invite-discuss-ukraine-crisis-der-spiegel-2022-01-21/

956 Worldwide · January 21, 2022

Lavrov and Blinken cut their planned meeting in Geneva short. Blinken promised to respond to Russia’s written demands next week. I’ve taken the liberty to mark up a possible draft of that response.

956 Worldwide · January 21, 2022

31 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:

I'm not sure if this has been posted as we make our way through The Great Patriotic War, but love me some Baltics.

What’s crazy is that the howitzers in question were made in the USSR, inherited from the former GDR at reunification, and then exported to Finland before ending up in Estonia. So Germany is preventing one former Soviet Republic from sending another former Soviet Republic weapons that were manufactured in the Soviet Union. Because of “historic responsibilities.”

staboner · January 21, 2022

2 hours ago, SimonBolivar said:

Watched the whole thing. I'm going to have to watch his entire body of work now.

fantastic channel. highly recommended. been subbed or a while

Shady Ray · January 21, 2022

2 hours ago, SimonBolivar said:

Watched the whole thing. I'm going to have to watch his entire body of work now.

Oh, don't worry...you'll see a body of work if you keep watching.

Caponata · January 21, 2022

2 hours ago, SimonBolivar said:

Watched the whole thing. I'm going to have to watch his entire body of work now.

I've been watching for the last few years but his channel didn't blow up until a year ago. It's a lot of content with a wide variety of places. He's fluent in Russian & Hindi and conversational in several other languages. There is a pretty extensive catalog of him traveling though India plus he also had the balls to tour Dagestan and parts of the Caucasus region.

Caponata · January 21, 2022

19 minutes ago, Shady Ray said:

Oh, don't worry...you'll see a body of work if you keep watching.

Alright last post

Shady Ray · January 21, 2022

I've been watching for the last few years but his channel didn't blow up until a year ago. It's a lot of content with a wide variety of places. He's fluent in Russian & Hindi and conversational in several other languages. There is a pretty extensive catalog of him traveling though India plus he also had the balls to tour Dagestan and parts of the Caucasus region.

We first started watching right after HBO’s Chernobyl series, when we went to YouTube to watch other stuff about it.

I think that he got really lucky that his Chernobyl videos were blessed by YouTube’s Omnipotent Algorithm at the perfect time and then was just a matter of the quality of his content driving the growth.

TexasEd · January 21, 2022

1 hour ago, Mach 1 said:

Interesting thread. Lots of cool stories and insight.

I might as well add some anecdotes from another time in German history.

I was a DDS student in the early 80s, lived in Mannheim, Frankfurt (Rhein Main) and Munich (McGraw Kaserne). It was a very volatile period, as Reagan's election triggered the German far left and ramped up anti American sentiment. We had bomb threats at our school all the time, and they'd usher us all in to the gym to wait it out until the bomb dogs could sniff around. I think alot of Germans were frustrated/angry being smack dab in the middle of two superpowers threatening each with nukes. And since they were, at least in the West, effectively occupied by Americans, we took the heat, since they couldn't exactly take it out on Russia.

Things ramped up to 11 when the Pershing nukes were announced to be placed in the country. Protesters stationed themselves in front of the base gate quite often, and throw rocks and eggs at our bus (and I assume other cars). The remnants of the Red Brigades got active again also, and kidnappings and various threats to military personnel and German politicians increased. Everyone was told repeatedly to be cautious off base.

One poor Airmen didn't listen. He was kidnapped from a bar and killed. The RB took his uniform, ID and loaded his car with explosives. They drove it on base and parked it at Rhein Main HQ. My mom worked for the SJA and parked in the same lot. Bomb went off at 7:30 am, exactly when everyone was arriving for work. Killed a handful of people, injured a bunch more. Mom was early that day and in the bathroom, so very lucky. Later, when she was able to return to her office, there were pieces of metal from the blown up cars (including hers) that had ripped through the window and stuck in the drywall like buckshot. She would have been killed.

I played football in HS and we had a game against Fulda, near the E German border. On the way there our coach said, "Let's beat these fuckers and get the hell out of there. When World War 3 starts, it's going to be there." We had some time to kill before the game and I wandered up a hill to look around. In the valley below were nothing but American tanks, line, after line, after line, as far as I could see. Had to be a thousand or more.

We did as coach said, beat those fuckers and hauled ass out of there.

We were in Scotland at that time. Everything got tight and the side gate between the secure base and base housing was locked down. I think that Shaq was at Fulda about that time.

SimonBolivar · January 21, 2022

13 minutes ago, Shady Ray said:

We first started watching right after HBO’s Chernobyl series, when we went to YouTube to watch other stuff about it.

I think that he got really lucky that his Chernobyl videos were blessed by YouTube’s Omnipotent Algorithm at the perfect time and then was just a matter of the quality of his content driving the growth.

It's pretty worrying in that recent one where he gets pretty close to the front speaking what I assume is a more Russian than Ukrainian dialect (although with a heavy accent) and the Ukrainians weren't really all that bothered by him being there with a camera and asking a ton of questions about the war and locations haha.

Edited January 21, 2022 by SimonBolivar

Nice Guy Eddie · January 22, 2022

3 hours ago, SimonBolivar said:

Watched the whole thing. I'm going to have to watch his entire body of work now.

Very entertaining guy. Especially like his Belarusian girl.

Shady Ray · January 22, 2022

Macron floating new security pact between EU and Russia, and heading to Berlin on Tuesday for direct talks re Ukraine with Scholz.

He's using this to make progress towards his goal of a Europe with "strategic autonomy" from the US.

Quote

The European Union needs a new collective security pact to deal with NATO and Russia, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday.

"Europe today is confronted with escalating tension on our borders," Macron said in a speech at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

"As Europeans, we need to collectively make our own demands and put ourselves in a position to enforce them," he added.

The French proposal intends to "create together a European power of the future ... an independent Europe that has given itself the means to decide its own future and not rely on the decisions of other major powers," he said.

https://www.dw.com/en/macron-proposes-security-pact-to-make-europe-a-power-of-the-future/a-60482625

Quote

BERLIN, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Chancellor Olaf Scholz will discuss Russia with French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, said a German government spokesperson, as major Western powers aim to resolve tensions with Russia regarding Ukraine.

A spokesperson for the German government declined to comment on a report saying Scholz turned down an invite at short notice from U.S. President Joe Biden to discuss the Ukraine crisis.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/german-chancellor-discuss-russia-with-frances-macron-tuesday-2022-01-21/

Sawbonz · January 22, 2022

19 hours ago, Parliament said:

Quite a few Volga Germans (often called Germans from Russia) settled in North Dakota. Hardy people, they. Every generation of them saw some wild shit.

In ND they refused to send their kids to public school. I guess the Russian Czar's would go to the schools and taked their kids. When they immigrated here they said "Won't be fooled again."

Didn’t they know how close they were to Montana?

Gatorubet · January 22, 2022

US non essentials getting the fuck out. It's going to get .
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/21/politics/us-embassy-ukraine-nonessential-personnel/index.html?s=09

InkaUtexas · January 22, 2022

I spent a lot of time growing up in Embassies. Been evacuated twice. Peru and El Salvador. Shit has to be real for State to contemplate removing families. It is very expensive since everyone heads back to DC, lives in Hotels and goes on a per diem. I do not know the size of the US dependents in Ukraine, but we are talking about $250 a day per person. Everyone counts as well. So an adult spouse receives the same rates as a kid. Damn I loved being evacuated. meant a few months of no school, good cash in my pocket and a room at the Key Bridge Marriott.

bolverk · January 22, 2022

Britain Says Moscow Is Plotting to Install a Pro-Russian Leader in Ukraine
In a highly unusual public statement, backed by U.S. officials, London named the putative head of a potential puppet government but few other details.

KYIV — The British government said Saturday that the Kremlin was developing plans to install a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine — and had already chosen a potential candidate — as President Vladimir V. Putin weighs whether to order the Russian forces amassed on Ukraine’s border to attack.

The highly unusual public communiqué by the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, issued late at night in London, comes at a moment of high-stakes diplomacy between the Kremlin and the West. Russia has deployed more than 100,000 Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders that could, according to American officials, attack at any moment.

“The information being released today shines a light on the extent of Russian activity designed to subvert Ukraine, and is an insight into Kremlin thinking,” Liz Truss, Britain’s foreign secretary, said in a statement. “Russia must de-escalate, end its campaigns of aggression and disinformation, and pursue a path of diplomacy.”

The communiqué provided few details about how Russia might go about imposing a new government on Ukraine, and did not say whether such plans were contingent on an invasion by Russian troops. British officials familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the intent was both to head off the activation of such plans as well as to put Mr. Putin on notice that this plot had been exposed.

In Washington, officials said they believe the British intelligence is correct. Two officials said it had been collected by British intelligence services. Within the informal intelligence alliance known as “Five Eyes,” Britain has primary responsibility for intercepting Russian communications, which is why it played a major role in exposing Russian interference in the 2016 elections.

Emily J. Horne, the spokeswoman for the U.S. National Security Council, said in a statement that “this kind of plotting is deeply concerning. The Ukrainian people have the sovereign right to determine their own future, and we stand with our democratically-elected partners in Ukraine.”

But the Russian foreign ministry denied the British accusation.

Spoiler

“The spread of disinformation by the British foreign ministry is one more piece of evidence that NATO countries, led by the Anglo Saxons, are escalating tensions around Ukraine,” it said in a statement. “We call on the British foreign ministry to stop its prevocational activities.”

Ukraine is in a state of high anxiety. In recent weeks several reports have emerged about plots and schemes aimed at destabilizing the government and tipping the country into war.

This month, the United States accused the Kremlin of sending saboteurs into eastern Ukraine to create a provocation that could serve as a pretext for invasion. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said Russia has recently sent hundreds of mercenaries into two rebel eastern Ukrainian regions, and last November President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian intelligence had uncovered a Russian-backed coup plot involving a prominent Ukrainian oligarch.

At a security conference in Kyiv on Saturday, participants, most of them high ranking members of Ukraine’s political opposition, spoke darkly of fifth columnists and enemy collaborators.

“We are not just talking about large-scale aggression by Russia,” said Pavlo Klimkin, a former foreign minister. “We are talking about the wish of Russian officials, including Putin, to destroy Ukraine as such.”

The British communiqué provided no evidence to back up its assertion that Russia was plotting to overthrow the Ukrainian government. The communiqué also named four other Ukrainians, accusing them of maintaining ties to the Russian intelligence services, including Russian intelligence officers involved in the planning for an attack on Ukraine.

Of the five Ukrainians named, four fled Ukraine for Russia in 2014 following a popular uprising that ousted the Russian-backed government in Kyiv and touched off the separatist war in Ukraine’s east that continues today.

According to the British assessment, Russian planners were considering installing a former member of the Ukrainian Parliament named Yevgeniy Murayev as leader of a pro-Kremlin puppet government in Kyiv. Once a member of the Russian-backed Party of Regions, Mr. Murayev is now head of a political party called Nashi, part of a constellation of opposition parties opposed to Ukraine’s pro-Western parties. Last September, a massive banner with his photograph was hung on the facade of Federation of Trade Unions building on Kyiv’s Independence Square with the slogan “This is our Land.”

In a recent Facebook post he accused the current government in Kyiv of selling out to the United States, which he said was whipping up war hysteria to reap financial rewards from the sale of weapons.

“The hawks are looking forward to a feast,” he wrote.

It is not clear from the British statement whether Russia had informed Mr. Murayev that he was being considered as a possible future leader of Ukraine. But after a journalist with a British newspaper tipped him off about the revelations, he posted a photo of himself to Facebook posing as James Bond with the comment, “Details tomorrow.”

Russian spies maintain extensive networks of agents in Ukraine and contacts between Ukrainian officials and intelligence officers are not uncommon, according to Ukrainian and Western security officials

All four of the other Ukrainians named in the communiqué once held senior positions in the Ukrainian government and worked in proximity to Paul Manafort, former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign manager, when he worked as a political adviser to Ukraine’s former Russian-backed president, Viktor F. Yanukovych. After Mr. Yanukovych’s government fell in 2014, they fled to Russia.

One of those named, Vladimir Sivkovich, was among four Ukrainians targeted last week with sanctions by the United States Treasury Department for their ties to Russian efforts to destabilize Ukraine.

If the British assessment is accurate, it would not be the first time the Kremlin tried to install a pro-Russian leader or interfere in Ukraine’s government. In 2004, Russian efforts to fraudulently sway a presidential election set off what became known as the Orange Revolution, which forced a redo election that led to the defeat of Mr. Yanukovych, who was the Kremlin’s favored candidate.

In 2013, when the Kremlin pressured Mr. Yanukovych, who eventually was elected president, to back out of a trade pact with the European Union, Ukrainians again poured into the streets. Mr. Yanukovych was eventually driven from power, prompting Mr. Putin to order the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and instigate a separatist war in eastern Ukraine.

Russian officials have repeatedly denied any intention of launching an attack against Ukraine, dismissing such accusations as “hysteria” and claiming without providing evidence that it is the government in Kyiv that is seeking to escalate tensions. Even so the buildup of Russian troops on the border has continued. At least 127,000 soldiers now surround Ukraine to the north, east and west, Ukraine’s military intelligence service says, with additional troops from Russia’s Eastern Military District now pouring into neighboring Belarus.

The standoff is redolent of an old-fashioned Cold War showdown between Moscow and the West, with both sides trading accusations of war mongering and jockeying for geopolitical advantage. Though the confrontational tone was muted when Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met his Russian counterpart for the latest round of talks in Geneva on Friday, there is as yet no end in sight.

Britain’s unusual disclosure comes at a time when it is trying to assert itself in the crisis on military and diplomatic fronts. It has delivered shipments of antitank weapons to the Ukrainian military, dispatched its senior ministers to NATO countries under threat from Russia and begun to engage directly with Russia.

Britain’s defense secretary, Ben Wallace, accepted an invitation from his Russian counterpart, Sergei K. Shoigu, to meet in Moscow, while the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, may meet with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov.

The disclosure also comes amid a swirling political scandal over Downing Street garden parties in 2020 that violated lockdown restrictions, which has mushroomed to such a degree that it threatens Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s hold on power.

Critics have suggested that Mr. Johnson may try to exploit the tensions with Russia — and Britain’s more assertive diplomatic and military role — as a way to deflect attention from his political woes.

RDCanecutter · January 23, 2022

On 1/20/2022 at 5:01 PM, Ghost of LL said:

Maybe I'm missing the timeline here, but . . . how on earth did your father catch malaria in the Ardennes in the middle of winter?

Cold Malaria. Known to the French as le cul gelé. Carried by double-horned musk oxen, and thus fairly uncommon outside the Ardennes.

BabaYaga · January 23, 2022

45 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

Cold Malaria. Known to the French as le cul gelé. Carried by double-horned musk oxen, and thus fairly uncommon outside the Ardennes.

Mentioned a few other threads, but a good friend of mine. Now a Plano LEO now. His g-father was the medic Roe portrayed in Band of Brothers.

Shameless plug for a good guy and his memoirs of his g-father. It's a great, great book so everyone get a copy. He's met all the actors and surviving BOB soldiers that go back each year to Europe. They've all become a tight group and it's pretty cool how invested the actors are in the survivors.

How Easy Company became a Band of Brothers

TwiceHorn · January 23, 2022

On 1/20/2022 at 1:59 PM, 956 Worldwide said:

The U.S. Navy has decided to tell everyone who might be interested that there’s a guided missile submarine in the eastern Mediterranean that can rain Tomahawks on targets 1,000 miles away.

And, uh, isn't that an SDV on there? And "personnel" meaning a SEAL Team?

Shady Ray · January 23, 2022

This is slowly turning into a huge diplomatic shit show with everyone going their own way.

First, in the biggest story of the weekend in national German papers, the head of the German Navy, which I assume is a made up of a few rusty boats on the North Sea, had to step down yesterday after being caught on camera in India essentially saying what most believe the German Government is actually thinking...specifically that the ministries do not fear that Russia is going to invade (he calls it "nonsense") and that "Crimea is gone...it will never come back. This is a fact".

He then goes on to discuss the importance of showing more respect to Putin due to Russia's status as a great and historical power and says over and over "we need Russia, we need Russia". Plus some weird religious stuff regarding his own Catholicism.

Here is the Deutsche Welle article on it in English, along with the video of some of his more significant statements:

https://www.dw.com/en/german-navy-chief-schönbach-resigns-over-comments-on-putin-crimea/a-60525709

And now the Austrian Foreign Ministry is publicly insisting that Russian oil and gas, as well as NS2, are explicitly excluded from any sanctions, which of course will make the Germans (and likely the French) happy.

Quote

Austria's chief diplomat wants to exclude gas from Russia sanctions

Sanctions may yes, but please not in the energy sector: The Austrian government is speaking with a proposal. Meanwhile, the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs accuses the Russian government of exerting political influence in Ukraine.

Interjection from Vienna: In the Ukraine crisis, Russian natural gas supplies should not be subject to EU sanctions from the point of view of Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg. The Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 2 should also be excluded, the conservative politician made clear in an interview with the "Press on Sunday".

Schallenberg pointed out to the Austrian newspaper that Nord Stream 2 is not yet in operation. Therefore, no threat backdrop can be built with the pipeline. "We in Europe depend to a certain extent on energy from Russia," the chief diplomat also argued. We will not be able to change that overnight if we want heat and electricity.

However, the minister emphasized that intensive work will be done on extensive economic and financial sanctions of the European Union in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. "There will be a very clear, unambiguous and quick answer to an escalation," Schallenberg said. He did not rule out an exclusion of Russia from the Swift bank payment system.

Austria traditionally strives for good relations with Russia. Energy also plays a role in this: The Austrian oil and gas company OMV is one of the Nord Stream 2 investors. In addition, there is an important natural gas hub near Vienna that distributes Russian gas to European countries.

https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article236411619/Ukraine-Konflikt-Oesterreichs-Chefdiplomat-will-Gas-aus-Russland-Sanktionen-ausklammern.html

Edited January 23, 2022 by Shady Ray

Onboard 2.0 · January 23, 2022

3 minutes ago, Shady Ray said:

This is slowly turning into a huge diplomatic shit show with everyone going their own way.

First, in the biggest story of the weekend in national German papers, the head of the German Navy, which I assume is a made up of a few rusty boats on the North Sea, had to step down yesterday after being caught on camera in India essentially saying what most believe the German Government is actually thinking...specifically that the ministries do not fear that Russia is going to invade (he calls it "nonsense") and that "Crimea is gone...it will never come back. This is a fact".

He then goes on to discuss the importance of showing more respect to Putin due to Russia's status as a great and historical power and says over and over "we need Russia, we need Russia". Plus some weird religious stuff regarding his own Catholicism.

Here is the Deutsche Welle article on it in English, along with the video of some of his more significant statements:

https://www.dw.com/en/german-navy-chief-schönbach-resigns-over-comments-on-putin-crimea/a-60525709

And now the Austrian Foreign Ministry is publicly insisting that Russian oil and gas, as well as NS2, are explicitly excluded from any sanctions, which of course will make the Germans (and likely the French) happy.

https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article236411619/Ukraine-Konflikt-Oesterreichs-Chefdiplomat-will-Gas-aus-Russland-Sanktionen-ausklammern.html

Has Germany just started putting estrogen in all it's municipal water systems ?

Immaculate Vibes · January 23, 2022

I thought this was interesting assessment by a man with a lot of experience.

Immaculate Vibes · January 23, 2022

On 1/21/2022 at 10:18 AM, Shady Ray said:

Well, I guess it is Friday, and apparently some of y'all find this stuff interesting, so I figured what the hell, I will just go straight to the best that I got.

Wife's mother is not even close to the most interesting story.

Wife's mother's father is.

Spoilered for those who don't care, and it is a bit off topic.

TLDR: Between the years 1941-1948, wife’s maternal grandfather was a Red Army conscript, a German POW, a Wehrmacht soldier, a US POW, and a US Army employee. And he was the baddest motherfucker that I have ever met.

Reveal hidden contents

Let’s just call him Klaus. He was born in the late 1910s outside of Prokrovsk, Russia (Kosakenstadt in German), which is now known as Engels, in the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. He was the 3rd oldest of 9 children…the oldest male. Here is the location of the Volga German ASSR.

As a young man in his early 20s, he worked in Engels as a heavy machinery mechanic, but with war breaking out in Europe, and being the Soviet cannon fodder demographic that he was, he was called up to the Red Army in late 1940/early 1941. When Hitler invaded, he was thrown towards the front and was eventually taken POW by the Germans at the Battle of Smolensk in July of 1941. As he used to say, up until that point in his life, the day he was captured was the most unfortunate day of his life, and for the rest of his life, it was the luckiest.

Three weeks later, Stalin purged the Red Army of its Volga German elements (along with the Black Sea Germans) and sent them to Soviet work camps in Kazakhstan. During those same days, the Soviets came to the Volga German ASSR and forcibly deported the entirety of the Volga German population, including his family. They had less than 3 hours to prepare for the forced removals. His father was killed during this process, and his mother and sisters and his youngest brother were sent by open air train to Siberia in the most inhumane conditions imaginable, while his other brother, 3 years younger, was sent to the Soviet work camps in Kazakhstan. His mother didn’t survive the deportation and died in the cold en route to Siberia. They apparently threw her dead body off the train without stopping.

Of course, he didn’t learn any of this until much, much later in his life, which we will get to.

They didn’t speak at all Russian growing up, as the Soviets allowed the German ASSR full independence to maintain their language, religion and culture. They didn't intermarry with the Russians and they were as German as anyone in the Reich. However, after Klaus had already left, Stalin decreed in the Fall of 1941 that German was banned and the use of Russian was made obligatory. Throughout his long life in Bavaria, he learned Russian because he maintained some type of far-fetched dream that he would some day meet his siblings again, even though those odds were essentially zero. Even when I first met him, he would regularly practice his Russian with others in the area, even going to a Russian Orthodox church from time-to-time down the street to keep sharp, and I always found it to be heartbreaking. My mother-in-law would always talk about what a waste of effort that was, particularly as he was never going to go to Russia, as until his last breath he feared that he would be forcibly detained if he ever visited, pursuant to Stalin’s almost rabid obsession to see all former Russian Germans returned from the west. Even when we talk about him now, years after his death, every single time my in-laws say, "Outside of Josef Stalin, nothing and no one ever scared him."

Anyway, by late 1941, his status as a German POW had changed, and he had been conscripted into a Wehrmacht division comprised primarily of captured Red Army/Red Army deserter ethnic Germans from the Volga region and other non-German volunteers (Hiwis) and, while fighting as part of the Wehrmacht as they moved through Eastern Europe, he took a bullet through the right side of his upper chest, and one across the front of his neck, leaving a bad scar and a really raspy voice. Fortunately for him, he sustained those injuries within a month from Stalingrad kicking off, a battle which - given his regiment - he would have been in. He slowly recovered from his wounds away from the lines back towards Central Europe, and was then put back to work through the later stages of the war fighting through the Balkans.

When the war was clearly a lost cause, he said “fuck this” and found his way to Vienna, where he had a terrible time trying to connect with a distant relative whom he had never met, and then ultimately came on up to Bavaria. I never understood what caused this decision and I can’t figure out why he made this move. I hate that I don’t know. I have almost all of the records required to verified this entire deal, but why he chose Bavaria was one of the few things I never got the chance to clarify. All I know is that he hated the Austrians for how they treated him in Vienna during the latest stages of the war, and I imagine that perhaps moving on to Germany was a better choice for a volksdeutscher (Volksdeutsche being Germans from outside the Reich, Reichsdeutsche being Germans from within it).

Anyway, at Stunde Null ("Zero Hour"), which is what the Germans still call midnight of May 8th, 1945 - the moment the war was over - he was in a new city, he had no home city to return, no way to know what happened to his family, and he now occupied the lowest of the German post-war caste… refugee Volksdeutsche. Stalin had revoked the citizenship of Russian Germans in the West, and the Reich hadn't ever bestowed it to them, so he was a stateless (until 1948), family-less man - in a country where there wasn’t enough food and housing situation was all blown to hell (German residents were forced by the transitional authorities/caretaker Allies to house and board other Germans, which was a socially tedious situation at the beginning, and it was even worse for those ethnic germans streaming in from Czechoslovakia, Poland or Russia, as no one wanted them).

Klaus surrendered to the US Army in Landsberg, Bavaria in 1945, where he was held as a POW along with thousands of other ex-Wehrmacht. He was eventually transferred and spent 6 months in the displaced persons camp there before being hired by the US Army to do support tasks in the newly established heavy machinery shops in Bavaria. He had the mechanical skills and, due to his status as a Volga German, was deemed to be at very low risk of needing de-Nazification in the time before the de-Nazification process petered out, as to be honest, the Volga Germans didn’t really have a connection to the Reich the way the Sudeten did. They were just kinda fucking around over there just bein’ Germans in damn-near Kazakstan growing watermelons, as they had been doing since Catherine the Great.

He worked for the US Army for three years, striking up close transactional relationships with some black GIs stationed there, where he basically thrived off of some type of side-hustle where he traded cigarettes that were rationed to him by the US Army (he didn’t smoke) for extra food, as calories were in terribly short supply for German men at the time. He said it was some kind of three way deal where gas/cigarettes and food were shuffled around on a barter economy between the black GIs and the local employees…I never quite got the full scope of that, as my German wasn’t completely proficient when we discussed this, but I do know that he really liked the black dudes that he met from the US and always spoke fondly of them. He said they were the first black guys he had ever met and they were apparently real characters.

He appreciated the Americans more than we can even imagine...they saved his life, as he said, and with his US Govt paycheck and food rations, he went from the lowest of the low in German society, to a big swinging dick around the Displaced Persons scene in Landsberg, where he met his wife - my wife’s grandmother - who as mentioned had been displaced from the Sudetenland with her sisters and mother. He was a really funny guy who swore that the food the black dudes gave him was the key to get any woman in the camp.

Klaus was a born hustler and found his way to a BMW when it re-opened after the war and after his work for the Americans ended. He started there in 1948 when they started building motorcycles. He got a job on the shop floor, where he worked until he retired in 1980, rising to floor management and he counted his greatest achievements as working on the rollout of the BMW 502, which he said gave him the first real sense of pride he ever felt. He talked about the 502 as though it was the child that he himself birthed.

Here is the 502. Fucking sharp looking ride.

On the home-front, Klaus was the only man who wasn’t completely mind-fucked in his entire familial orbit after the war. He took care of a shitton of random little Sudetendeutschers that passed through his house for long extended stays from his wife’s side, as their dads were either dead or mindfucked. He worked like a sharecropper during the day, only to then come home and fix neighborhood cars for extra cash. The garage at his place, which is down the street from my own house, has a maintenance pit dug underneath with a ladder so he could pull neighborhood cars in and change their oil and do some limited maintenance, just like at the auto shop. Dude was relentless.

When I met him he was in his 80s and strong as an ox, as he was until the day he died. He had no hesitancy talking about the war and, in fact, almost every story over dinner started with, “In 1940-something, we were in blah blah blah.” It was awesome and it drove my wife and in-laws crazy, but I could only imagine how jam packed with experiences those 4 years must have been, so I encouraged it and we would talk for a couple of hours after every meal, which usually occurred a couple of times per week. Every time, after his last bite, he wold put down his silver, wash it all down with a big gulp of weißbier, sigh, and say, “phhhhhh...In 194X, I was in...” and off he would go with a story that would lead to God knows where. Wife and mother-in-law would pull the “sigh…papaaa/opaaa, bitte nicht” and he would just calmly and lovingly respond “be quiet, mädchen", which they obediently did...because he was Motherfuckin' Klaus and he had a story to fuckin' tell. I loved it.

In his mind, his "people" had nothing to do with all of the shit that went on, so he was just a participant in it and felt no guilt. He was completely resilient and spoke about the war as though it was just something one experienced. He would tell you a story about getting free ice cream at some spot along the Eastern Front in the same exact tone as he would tell you a story about burying a captain who had hung himself overnight. But he took me through his maps and his records and all of his awards and commemorative items and I loved every minute of it.

But I will close this out with the part of the story that I got to witness, which was one of the wildest things I have ever experienced.

On his 90th birthday, three years before he died, we had a huge lunch for him at his house. All of the family came from all over Germany…all those little Sudetendeutschers who came in and out of his house in the 50s and 60s who had now become grandparents in their own rights and all their kids…it was a great experience. Klaus was so happy and was in his element…holding court in one corner of the house, only to then move to another corner and hold court a little more with the relatives from another place, only to go to his garage and show the men some vintage BMW hub caps that he took from the factory. Whatever he did, it was fun and it was interesting. There were probably 35, 40 people there. What Klaus didn’t know was that the Red Cross had contacted my mother-in-law two months before this party with the information that his younger sister, one of the ones who had been sent off to Siberia, had survived the whole fuckin’ Cold War in the Russian East and had migrated back to Germany as part of the German government’s initiative to allow them to come to Germany after the USSR collapsed. She had contacted the Red Cross to help her find him, which they did.

After the party ended (it was a daytime ordeal), the immediate family along with a couple of the closer-knit “Münchener” branch went to a very nice local bierhall for dinner. We had a private room and when we walked in, my mother-in-law had set it up that his sister, along with her only child, a son, would be in there waiting for him. He walked in, saw her, wondered who the fuck the old lady was crashing his birthday party room, and then was told who it was. Klaus seemed to be happy every minute of his life…but that minute that he saw his sister who had been separated from him for 65 years was the happiest I had ever seen him. They laughed and cried and talked and talked forever… in Russian, thus vindicating his efforts to learn the language over all those years, as the Volga Germans were prohibited from speaking German and most of them lost the ability to do so. For the next three years until his death they spoke almost every day by phone, in Russian, meeting up multiple times per year. He learned what happened to his family, and he even was able to speak regularly by phone to his younger brother who had been shipped off to the Kazak labor camps, who the sister had previously found. The brother had remained in Kazakhstan after being released from the work camps and settled there, like many of the Volga German men who were sent to the camps did. He even got a picture of him in the mail and it was framed on his bedside the day Klaus died. I am lucky enough to have photos of the entire deal and it was one of the most noteworthy things that I ever experienced.

But what I will remember most about that day was the drive home from the bierhall. We had taken two cars and I was driving my wife and mother in law. On the way home, everyone was tired after that long day and it was quiet on the ride. When we got closer to the house, I asked my mother-in-law if Klaus' sister and her son would be staying with my in-laws/Klaus at their place, as they have plenty of space for guests.

And in her little voice coming from the back seat, “Of course not. They’re Russians…they’ll steal our shit.”

CSB

thanks for sharing

Armybrat · January 23, 2022

17 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

Cold Malaria. Known to the French as le cul gelé. Carried by double-horned musk oxen, and thus fairly uncommon outside the Ardennes.

I don’t think my dad would’ve fucked a double-horned musk oxen.

A unicorn musk oxen.... maybe.

InkaUtexas · January 23, 2022

2 hours ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

I thought this was interesting assessment by a man with a lot of experience.

Reminds me of what a buddy told me when he was in Kuwait. "We don't move this many people and all this equipment just for show." If Putin was going for a diplomatic victory he may have overplayed on the home front. I think they are going in.

If Putin pulls off Ukraine he goes for the Baltic. There is some interesting stuff on Twitter about the movement of more equipment into Western Russia. Serious stuff, like main battle tanks. But also all the support apparatus you need to sustain them.

@Shady Ray I realize the EU is in a jam due to their reliance on Russian energy, but do they realize it is a weapon against their head unless they stand up at some time? And I really appreciate your posts. Please keep them up.

Brisketexan · January 23, 2022

How much of/how viable is a response strategy of asymmetrical attacks by Ukrainian commandos/infiltrators within Russia?

As in, it’s surely not hard for Ukrainians with fake Russian passports or whatnot to get into Russia, blend in, and wreck shit. A car bomb outside the Kremlin, an attack on the Moscow subway, attacks on cell towers and communications facilities. It doesn’t take much, and Russia can’t secure the whole country. If Russia decides to go all-in in Ukraine, what’s to stop Ukraine from taking the war to the Russian home front?

InkaUtexas · January 23, 2022

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

How much of/how viable is a response strategy of asymmetrical attacks by Ukrainian commandos/infiltrators within Russia?

As in, it’s surely not hard for Ukrainians with fake Russian passports or whatnot to get into Russia, blend in, and wreck shit. A car bomb outside the Kremlin, an attack on the Moscow subway, attacks on cell towers and communications facilities. It doesn’t take much, and Russia can’t secure the whole country. If Russia decides to go all-in in Ukraine, what’s to stop Ukraine from taking the war to the Russian home front?

They could, but not as easy as everyone thinks. You need a network to even start planning. Saw a few weeks ago some of the hard line Islamic groups from the Caucus say they are on the Ukrainian side. Those dudes (and dudettes) already have a network.

Brisketexan · January 23, 2022

They could, but not as easy as everyone thinks. You need a network to even start planning. Saw a few weeks ago some of the hard line Islamic groups from the Caucus say they are on the Ukrainian side. Those dudes (and dudettes) already have a network.

Thanks.

My wonder is….based on the pattern of Crimea and Donbas…might they have already started planning and putting things in place some time ago? Asymmetric disruptive attacks are low-cost, so it wouldn’t have required a lot.

And white guys who look and speak fluent Russian aren’t going to get many questions about their activities within Moscow etc. Thats an advantage they might have over the Muslim types.

Onboard 2.0 · January 23, 2022

When plasma, and blood supplies move into place look out.

InkaUtexas · January 23, 2022

FSB knows their shit.

Yes, they could, and hope they have been planning. Just saying that it is not as easy as people like to think. What would you suggest they hit? The best defense Ukraine has right now is they are not the aggressor. They start blowing up train stations they become terrorists.

InkaUtexas · January 23, 2022

1 minute ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

When plasma, and blood supplies move into place look out.

Already done and reports of designated burial sites. VICE did a good story about looking for Russians killed in the Ukraine in 2014. Hard to find.

Onboard 2.0 · January 23, 2022

Just now, InkaUtexas said:

Already done and reports of designated burial sites. VICE did a good story about looking for Russians killed in the Ukraine in 2014. Hard to find.

Yeah was given that bit of intel recently from an anonymous source.

InkaUtexas · January 23, 2022

Secretary Blinken today on Meet the Press was pretty damn good. Will spoiler the narrative, but an interesting defense of Germany.

Spoiler

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

QUESTION: Joining me now is the Secretary of State. Secretary Blinken, welcome back to Meet the Press, sir.

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thanks, Chuck. Good to be with you.

QUESTION: Let’s start with that intelligence from the British. How reliable is it, as far as you’re concerned, and why was it necessary to go public with it?

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, Chuck, I’m not going to comment on specific intelligence reports, but what I can tell you is this: We’ve been concerned and have been warning about exactly these kind of tactics for weeks, and we’ve talked about that publicly, that Russia would try to in some way topple or replace the government. Just a few days ago we sanctioned four Russian agents in Ukraine who were engaged in destabilizing activities. This is very much part of the Russian playbook. It’s important that people look at the whole range of things that Russia could and may be preparing to do in Ukraine.

QUESTION: I gotta go – last week you – the U.S. Intelligence Community released information that he was trying to create a – sort of a false flag operation. This is from British intelligence. Again, this seems to be an unusual move to make so much of this stuff public. Who are you trying to send a message to? And I’m not going to be subtle here: Is this sending a message to our other European allies that this is real and this is serious?

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Chuck, it’s mostly making clear, first of all, to the Russians that we know all of the tactics and techniques that they can bring to bear. They’re massing a huge number of forces on Ukraine’s borders. People are rightly very focused on that. But there are a whole series of other actions that they’ve taken in the past and are preparing to take potentially in Ukraine, and it’s important they be put on notice. It’s also important that people around the world, whether it’s in Europe, the United States, or beyond, understand the kinds of things that could be in the offing – a false flag operation to try and create a false pretext for going in. It’s important that people know that that’s something that’s in the playbook, too.

QUESTION: What does an exit ramp for Putin look like that allows him to save face and have the United States not compromise Ukraine’s independence?

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well look, ultimately you’d have to ask that of President Putin. But what we’re doing is two things. Even as we’re building up deterrence, even as we’re building up defense for Ukraine, we’re also engaged in diplomacy and dialogue. And I met, as you know, with the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva just a few days ago to try to find out if there is a real path forward on diplomacy and dialogue. The Russians have put concerns on the table that they say they have about their security. We’ve exchanged some ideas. We’ll be sharing with the Russians in writing not only our concerns but some ideas for a way forward that could enhance mutual security on a reciprocal basis.

So look, that is clearly the preferable path forward for everyone. It’s the responsible thing to do, and we’ll pursue it as long as we can. At the same time, we’ll continue to build up the defense and deterrence that is necessary.

QUESTION: Why do you think it’s so important that Putin is insisting the U.S. response is put into writing? And I’m curious: While you have verbally expressed that there’s no plans anytime soon to put – to have Ukraine join NATO, are you willing to put a – saying look, it won’t be considered for 10 years? Are you willing to put a time stamp on that, or is that capitulating too much?

SECRETARY BLINKEN: First, there’s no question of capitulation. The question is whether there are ways to advance our collective security. We – as part of our diplomacy, we meet with people, we talk to people, we put things in writing all the time. In this case, we’re doing it in full consultation with allies and partners, and it’s a way of being as clear as you can, putting ideas on the table. But Chuck, one thing that’s important to remember, as someone who engages in diplomacy, engaging in diplomacy doesn’t take the word “nyet” of your vocabulary.

QUESTION: I want to play what the President said at the press conference and ask you a question about it on the other side. This created a little bit of a stir. Here’s what he said: “I think what you’re going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades. And it depends on what it does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having to fight about what to do and not do, et cetera.”

What did the President say that wasn’t true?

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Chuck, we have been clear that, first, in the event that there is a renewed Russian incursion, Russian forces going into Ukraine, there is going to be a swift, a severe, and united response. But we’ve also been clear that there are other things – we were just talking about this – that Russia could do short of sending forces into Ukraine again to try to destabilize or topple the government – cyber attacks, hybrid means, et cetera. And there we’ve also been clear there’ll be a swift response, there’ll be a calibrated response, there’ll be a united response. And so what we’re doing – and I’ve been engaged in close consultations with all of our European allies and partners, including in Europe last week on the phone virtually every day, to make sure that across all of these scenarios we have a clear and united response. And we will.

QUESTION: Why does it look like America is more concerned about Europe’s security than Europe?

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Oh, I don’t think that’s the case. I think there’s – in my own engagements with my European counterparts that have been intensive and extensive over the last couple months, I think there is a deep-seated concern across the board. And by the way, this is a concern that should extend not only to Europe and the United States, but in a sense it should concern the entire world, because what’s at stake here is not simply the relationship between Ukraine and Russia or even between Europe and Russia or the United States and Russia.

What’s at stake here, Chuck, are very basic principles of international relations that have kept peace and security since the last world wars and the cold war: the idea that one nation can’t simply change the borders of another nation by force; that it can’t dictate to that country its choices, with whom it will associate; that it can’t exert a sphere of influence to subjugate its neighbors to its will. That’s what at stake here. And if you let that go unchecked, that opens a Pandora’s box that countries far away from Europe will take into account.

QUESTION: Look, I want to bring up Germany specifically because their – the head of their navy had to respond when he said at a conference essentially that Putin deserves more respect, there’s no way that Crimea is ever going to go back to Ukraine. He resigned. But it seemed to simply put a spotlight on what everybody seems to know: Germany is the sticking point here of a united, tough response against Putin. Is there something we can do to alleviate those economic concerns that Germany has to get them on board?

SECRETARY BLINKEN: First, Chuck, that’s simply not my assessment. I sat with Chancellor Scholz just last week for an hour and listened very carefully to him. I’ve been on the phone and saw my own German counterpart, Foreign Minister Baerbock. And I can tell you that the Germans very much share our concerns and are resolute in being determined to respond and to respond swiftly, effectively, and in a united way. I have no doubts about that.

QUESTION: The diplomacy – the consistent calls for meetings right now that the Russians are doing, do you think they’re genuine about diplomacy? Or do you think they’re just essentially playing out the calendar here because they – he’s not going to upset Xi in the Olympics and essentially we’re making it look more legitimate by negotiating? Are you worried that he’s playing us a little bit?

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Look, it’s – it is certainly possible that the diplomacy that Russia is engaged in is simply going through the motions and it won’t affect their ultimate decision about whether to invade or in some other way intervene or not in Ukraine. But we have a responsibility to see the diplomacy through for as far and as long as we can go, because it’s the more responsible way to bring this to closure.

But Chuck, we are not sitting still. Even as we’re engaged in diplomacy, even as we’re engaged in dialogue, we are building up defense, we’re building up deterrence. We’ve now provided to Ukraine more security assistance this year than in any previous year. We have rallied allies and partners around the world. We are preparing massive consequences for Russia if it invades Ukraine again. So you have to do both at the same time: You build up your defense, you build up your deterrence on the hand; you engage in diplomacy and dialogue on the other. That’s the way that I think it makes the most sense to carry this forward.

Ultimately, we’ve given Russia two paths. It has to choose.

QUESTION: There’s been some reports that our embassy in Ukraine has made a request to send nonessential personnel home now, begin that process. Have you approved that request yet, and what would – and if not, what are you waiting for?

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Chuck, this is something that we look at every single day. I have no higher responsibility than the safety and well-being of the folks who work for the State Department and who are under my care in a sense. So we’re tracking this very, very closely. We’re looking at it on a – really a daily basis. And if we need to make a determination that we should draw down some of the folks at the embassy, we’ll do that based on the security needs.

QUESTION: But right now you feel like Kyiv appears safe, at least in the near term?

SECRETARY BLINKEN: This is something, again, we’re tracking intensely hour by hour and certainly day by day.

QUESTION: Okay. Secretary Blinken, really appreciate you taking some time and sharing the administration’s perspective.

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thanks, Chuck.

QUESTION: Thank you, sir.

Brisketexan · January 23, 2022

FSB knows their shit.
Yes, they could, and hope they have been planning. Just saying that it is not as easy as people like to think. What would you suggest they hit? The best defense Ukraine has right now is they are not the aggressor. They start blowing up train stations they become terrorists.

Is suggest - if I was doing the operational planning - that they lay low unless and until Russian forces cross the Dnieper. Then, a very public statement about how this attack is clearly one of conquest of a free nation, and unless such forces immediately withdraw back across the river, this sovereign nation will take all action to defend against the aggressor.

Then, within the next 24 hours, have teams inside Russia use shoulder fired missiles to take down Russian military transports as they take off from various vulnerable airports/bases.

And car bombs as close to Russian govt and military buildings as possible. Maybe targeted assassinations of senior officials where I can find them.

Videos of Russian planes being blown out of the skies would be a big PR hit for Putin.

InkaUtexas · January 23, 2022

Don't see it happening. How many successful hits have happened with SAM 7's? Car Bombs? Shit, Putin is accused of blowing up his own people to prove a point justifying military action.

Armybrat · January 23, 2022

How did that work out for the Chechens?
(I really don’t know).

Edited January 23, 2022 by Armybrat

South Austin · January 23, 2022

InkaUtexas · January 23, 2022

1 minute ago, Armybrat said:

How did that work out for the Chechens?
(I really don’t know).

They kicked Russian ass and gained pseudo independence. Then opened their prisons of insurgents which became a core of ISIS.

RDCanecutter · January 23, 2022

32 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

They kicked Russian ass and gained pseudo independence. Then opened their prisons of insurgents which became a core of ISIS.

IIRC the Chechen ISIS are the ones who know what the front and back sights are for.

956 Worldwide · January 23, 2022

I can’t imagine Ukrainians going onto Russian soil even if war breaks out. Traditional military operations would be out. Covert ones would harden Russian attitudes against Ukraine and give hesitating international supporters the cover to throw them overboard. And it would not have a real effect on Russian capabilities.

Not the same situation but imagine if Iraqi commando terrorists started blowing shit up in the U.S. homeland after that invasion. No, that would not have helped them at all.

Ukraine’s best bet is to fight ferociously and pile up so many Russian bodies that even Putin will have a hard time controlling the narrative. Contrary to what you hear, the Russian public is notbaying for war.

Edited January 23, 2022 by 956 Worldwide

InkaUtexas · January 23, 2022

2 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

IIRC the Chechen ISIS are the ones who know what the front and back sights are for.

We should discuss this. Always interested me that a Sunni group never went after Assad.

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