Invading your neighbor and killing their citizens is pretty ####ing illegal too, so I think it's safe to say Russia doesn't care about international law.
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I was just thinking the same thing. You really want to arm a bunch of POWs. Can you say "friendly fire"?
Guessing those Ukrainian POWs are going to be dispersed with the recent prisoner/murderer recruit units. Make it hard for them to organize when you have to watch your back getting shanked in the back or eaten by cannibals. That'd be the smart/evil thing for Russians to do.
I made it out of Russia. Apparently the hardest part was finding tickets, as everything was nearly bought out. Borders are still open. Much to my surprise I had zero issues getting through the border. I wasn't even questioned. Then I took a long journey on several shuttle trains until making to to Shymkent in the south Kazakhstan. Now I will stay in Kazakhstan for 3 weeks while my wife and two kids are preparing and gathering documents for Israeli citizenship. Then we will fly to Israeli together.
Last edited by Pointman; 09-26-2022 at 11:34 PM.
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Borders are still open. Much to my surprise I had zero issues getting through the border. I wasn't even questioned.
There are millions of people fleeing for the same reason. My guess is the border guards aren't asking questions as they are tired of the random excuses.
Also, glad you got out PM, and I hope you and your family stay safe.
Thanks for checking in, Pointman. The last thing I expected was for you to post here, given everything you've had to go through, so it's much appreciated. We're pulling for you!
Shymkent to Moscow is about the same distance as Calgary to Toronto. That's a crazy long train trip, glad you made it and looks like you went through the smartest and timely way.
So, funny thing. Both pipelines (nordstream 1&2) that deliver gas directly from Russia to Germany have developed leaks within hours of each other. The other actually developed two separate leaks, so the total number of leaks is three.
The odds of this being random are basically zero, and the explanation seems to lean heavily towards sabotage.
It's not clear who would benefit from this and how, especially since both pipes are currently closed (although they do still have some gas in them). While Russia is naturally the first suspect, there's no obvious reason for them to do this. After all, they do want to get back to selling that gas eventually.
Since these are underwater pipes running at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, sabotaging them is far from a trivial operation, which limits the realistic options.
There are of course plenty of parties that would like to put a total stop to the gas trade between Russia and Germany, from Russian and German hawks to aggressively anti-Russian countries like Poland, but considering how damaging it would be to a country's reputation if they got caught (the leaks are a non-trivial safety hazard currently), it's kind of hard to imagine who would take such a risk.
Swedish national seismological center reports that it registered two explosions at about the right time and place for them to be possible explanations for the leaks.
Interesting sideshow in any case.
Last edited by Itse; 09-27-2022 at 08:31 AM.
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Meanwhile in Russia, Niki nonchalantly describes how hard getting out of the country is for those partially mobilized. He genuinely thinks he is not going to be mobilized and while not 100% brainwashed you can tell how deeply rooted propaganda is hard to shake out. He even went to Georgia a few weeks ago (met NFKRZ there who smartly fled to Georgia at the start of the war) and shows how difficult it was to get in at the time...and he just drove back as if it was a normal summer vacation trip.
This comment truly describes him and a lot of Russians who unfortunately may find the hard way that you can be not interested in politics as much as you want, but politics will find you.
Quote:
I believe you are suffering from what is called “normalcy bias”. It’s the reason people at the beach stand around while a tidal wave is approaching, obviously coming in but still far away. Since nobody (or a few rare people) are running for the hills, everyone just stands around because everyone else is just standing around and it’s socially acceptable to just stand around. Only at the last minute as the tidal wave starts to grow and is maybe 60 to 30 seconds to impact people as a whole start screaming and running, mostly drowning. The few people who ran a few minutes earlier often live.
You’re in normalcy bias now. You should have fled long ago. I hope you get out.
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I made it out of Russia. Apparently the hardest part was finding tickets, as everything was nearly bought out. Borders are still open. Much to my surprise I had zero issues getting through the border. I wasn't even questioned. Then I took a long journey on several shuttle trains until making to to Shymkent in the south Kazakhstan. Now I will stay in Kazakhstan for 3 weeks while my wife and two kids are preparing and gathering documents for Israeli citizenship. Then we will fly to Israeli together.
I don’t even know you and I’ve been thinking about you for days. Thanks for the update.
I don’t even know you and I’ve been thinking about you for days. Thanks for the update.
Meh, you kind of do, though.
Bit off topic here, but we can't deny there is something to being forum comrades on a site like CP where a lot of us spend a ton of side time here just shooting the breeze. We all know a lot of small details about each other that over time has formed a reasonably solid picture.
I hung out with I-Hate-Hulse for a few minutes a week or two ago, and it's definitely not a stranger experience when you meet somebody else from here. There's a familiarity that's kind of neat. I don't think there's a word for it yet...I mean, it's true we're not all friends or anything, but we're not strangers, either.
Anyway, I get what you're saying, of course, but you do kinda know Pointman moreso than if he was just a passing mention in, like, a newspaper article or something. I think it's reasonable to have been concerned for him. I always think about you guys in different contexts or whatever.
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I made it out of Russia. Apparently the hardest part was finding tickets, as everything was nearly bought out. Borders are still open. Much to my surprise I had zero issues getting through the border. I wasn't even questioned. Then I took a long journey on several shuttle trains until making to to Shymkent in the south Kazakhstan. Now I will stay in Kazakhstan for 3 weeks while my wife and two kids are preparing and gathering documents for Israeli citizenship. Then we will fly to Israeli together.
Awesome man! You were definitely in our household's thoughts on your journey. Must be stressful being apart from your family and still lots of logistics to figure out to be together again. Fingers crossed for you guys!
So, funny thing. Both pipelines (nordstream 1&2) that deliver gas directly from Russia to Germany have developed leaks within hours of each other. The other actually developed two separate leaks, so the total number of leaks is three.
The odds of this being random are basically zero, and the explanation seems to lean heavily towards sabotage.
It's not clear who would benefit from this and how, especially since both pipes are currently closed (although they do still have some gas in them). While Russia is naturally the first suspect, there's no obvious reason for them to do this. After all, they do want to get back to selling that gas eventually.
Since these are underwater pipes running at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, sabotaging them is far from a trivial operation, which limits the realistic options.
There are of course plenty of parties that would like to put a total stop to the gas trade between Russia and Germany, from Russian and German hawks to aggressively anti-Russian countries like Poland, but considering how damaging it would be to a country's reputation if they got caught (the leaks are a non-trivial safety hazard currently), it's kind of hard to imagine who would take such a risk.
Swedish national seismological center reports that it registered two explosions at about the right time and place for them to be possible explanations for the leaks.
Interesting sideshow in any case.
I dunno, they are marked on nautical charts. Drop an anchor(maybe modified with more pointy bits) and start dragging.
I made it out of Russia. Apparently the hardest part was finding tickets, as everything was nearly bought out. Borders are still open. Much to my surprise I had zero issues getting through the border. I wasn't even questioned. Then I took a long journey on several shuttle trains until making to to Shymkent in the south Kazakhstan. Now I will stay in Kazakhstan for 3 weeks while my wife and two kids are preparing and gathering documents for Israeli citizenship. Then we will fly to Israeli together.
Great news. I shared your story with my wife.
If Israel becomes a problem, is America an option because of your US-born kids?
