Russia - threadbanned users in OP

What’s so wrong about they going to China, India, Hungary and the rest of the countries that voted for RU in a recent UN resolution re condemning Ru invasion

The problem with those currently leaving are all potential informers. It’s of interest that those- assume more educated ones- who have left RU over the years are still brainwashed when a significant no of them organised these Z marches/car rallies with Russian Z marked flags. How come that there were no brave RU souls organising counter demos. They are not going to be arrested like their BRAVE men and women back home. I would trust NO, I repeat, NO Russian currently.

I would trust Natasha from the Far East.

What I have seen with immigrants in this day and age is that they typically leave their counties for higher salaries and a better lifestyle.

Once they get to their new country though, there is very little integration. Combined with that, by virtue of satellite and Internet TV they tend to predominantly if not sometimes 100% consume the same media as at home.

It's like religion. You are brainwashed from birth. No matter what anyone tells one, one will find counterpoints all based on nothing, fiction. Same with Russian media. It's all they know from birth and they can't let it go.

IPTV, YouTube, TikTok, Telegram they will go to any media to get their fix.

What I would like to know is how an ex Russian soldier who served in Afghanistan was able to come to this country in the first place and establish residency.

If he's been here 5 years or more I'm assuming that he now has Irish citizenship.

Prior to that though he would have had to arrive on some kind of visa. How did GNIB miss this and allow a former active duty soldier from a hostile country to move here.

They should all be traced by their vehicle registrations at least and charged with supporting hatred and mass murder and inciting hatred if we have such laws.

Then they should be have their residencies and citizenships revoked and made to vamonos the feck out of the country.

I have no problems with people having peaceful commemorations on the day as long as it is done in the spirit of the original event and not supporting the current regime.

However, that vehicle rally was clearly in support of the murdering baskets.

They're not viewing both Russian and Western media to make an educated & informed decision. They're viewing only the Russian tripe and living in their own brainwashed world yet enjoying the comfortable lifestyle of a western country without fear of being thrown out of a window.

How come that ,I assume , the Russians - of all ages and who were probably were never outside of Russia had the cop on / knowledge and courage to protest on the streets of some Russian cities AND yet those Russians who came to ireland for more money and a better lifestyle and who have been exposed to western media , culture and lifestyles still decided to do the Z thing

There are probably a few thousand Russians in Ireland and a small number (mostly in cars) went on that rally. I suspect they're not very representative of your average Irish-Russians tbh.

You'll also get paid stooges, at least if China's approach is anything to go by. There were various students suddenly showing up at protests in London etc who had shown absolutely no interest in politics to that point - seemed very much to be 'rent a crowd'.

It's not that difficult to whip up a band of conspiracy theorists online into a noisy visible rally somewhere. Doesn't mean that's what most Russians here are feeling / thinking about this.

Russia's also into rather loud and unsophisticated political shows of support, which I think may work in some places, but there's no context here and no traction either, so expect a few crude PR exercises. They had one or two people 'biting' online and in politics here when they were doing the show boating about their vaccine back in 2020. It was remarkable to hear the calls for Sputnik, despite the fact that we'd a copious supply of mainstream vaccines on its way from reputable companies, many of which we know very well here and even make key components here. However you could see our political system being probed for fissures that could be wedged open. They've found plenty in the US and UK. I suspect they might just be struggling somewhat here due to the way politics works - it's not that polarised due to PR-STV voting etc but you could see the same narratives suddenly emerging from nowhere...

Also the HSE / health services cyber attack coincided almost exactly with our came within a few months of our throwing our weight around on the UN Security Council...

They're unlikely to protest against it because of the FSB's reach and families at home. It's a very, very strange country.

The security services here should be keeping an eye on it though. I think we can be a little too laid back sometimes.

Some excellent news from Mariupol at last. Ukrainian deputy PM says all women, children and the elderly have been safely evacuated from the Avovstal steel plant.

Yeah London and elsewhere were already under the spotlight according to that article

The point was what happened to the probe into those properties in 2018

It wasn't characterised as "deadly". Here is the precise quote from the Pentagon transcript:

We have to remember that the US has significant offensive weapons capabilities: it doesn't really need unmanned ships with significant offensive capabilities; it needs them for surveillance and targeting, search and rescue, mine-clearing etc.

In any case no matter what system they've been sent I very much doubt it has the capability to hit the Crimean bridge; and I also doubt that the Ukrainian Armed Forces would use it for such an attack even if available.

Part of the issue is they’ve never lived in a non-oppressive regime. There’s never been anything else in their reality.

They’ve low expectations of government, low expectations of officialdom, politics, don’t feel they can trust a lot of things and side step issues / work around things, duck, dive, keep their heads down and avoid being caught out.

The same applies in places like China.

The people who would protest probably left a long time ago.

I cannot say about Germany but here in Ireland a big chunk of Russian speaking supporting Punit are not even from Russia. Many are from Baltic countries like Latvia, Estonia, etc. Some never even got proper passports when their countries became independent following the split of the USSR because despite being born there, they had to sit a language exam which they didn't know hence were never given proper citizenship but a thing called "grey passport" - document allowing them to live in the country, but that's about it. When their countries became EU member states, they didn't get to become EU citizens because they were not citizens of their countries to begin with. But that's just some. Many do have Latvian and Estonian passports.

Bottom line I certainly wouldn't assume anyone with the Russian flag is from Russia.