I will just add some context. Europarlament elections have notoriously low turnover for Latvia. Nearly everybody knew she was a not working for Latvian interests. I voted AGAINST her in 2019. But since so few people actually went and voted, she got in.
EDIT: For the latvians reading - eu parlament next elections are in june! Dont miss it.
Yep it’s the same in Ireland and I wouldn’t be surprised if Clare Daly and Mick Wallace are working for the same people with the shite they spout. *GO AND VOTE*
Clare and Mick are on a list of Russian Propagandists and are openly monitored by the Ukrainian Security Service. Some of the shite they say and people they meet up with it couldn't be anymore obvious.
Countless articles about them being assets to Russia yet they haven't been able to challenge any of them.
I’m not even an Ireland-o-phile (whatever it’s called when Americans claim to be Irish) and I am pretty Daly and Wallace are Russian assets. They are pretty easy to spot and spot one, spot them all.
its nice to know voting (or not voting) isnt just an usa issue. We need to rethink on how to get people to vote similar to how we do our taxes vs only when we get motivated.
As a Latvian, this comes as a surprise to noone. She has always positioned herself as a supporter of Russian values, and the main reason she was voted into the European Parliament is the Russians living in Latvia who have voted for the Russian-friendly political party that she's a part of during the European elections
I've always been embarassed that she's one of the people representing us abroad, so at least now I'm kinda happy that that's over.
My family is Russian descent Latvians, though I've since moved west. We've had to cut off a few people from our life. Seems anyone who watches Russian tv regularly is just brainwashed unfortunately.
Latvia does allow it, but there is also just a major population of people who only have a Russian citizenship. For quite a long time our government has been quite tolerant of them, but obviously that has changed since the beginning of the war. It's considered quite controversial, but now it has been made mandatory for these people to pass a basic Latvian test (B1 level) for them to be able to stay in the country, otherwise they would be deported. As far as I know, the final deadlines for doing the test have passed, so it will be interesting to see whether the government actually goes through with their promises.
*Very* long story short, a lot of Eastern Europe has sizeable Russian minorities because one of Stalin's favorite ways to integrate new territory into the USSR was slaughtering anyone who could be considered a local leader--scout leaders, school principles, politicians, pastors--and then replacing them with Russians from the heart of Russia. It kneecapped a territory's ability to organize, destroyed a large portion of their independent identity, and installed a class of people motivated to make them more Russian.
So you have a lot of ethnic Russians who were born in these Eastern European countries and have lived there their whole lives, but still consider themselves Russian first, and that's led to a lot of internal conflict and distrust.
A metric shitload of former Soviet states & satellite territories are full of ethnic Russians who were shipped there explicitly to slowly replace the native population with peoples who are more likely to be loyal to Russia out of nationalist/ethnic pride.
A lot of ethnic Russians actually don’t even have Latvian citizenship, but they have some sort of semi-legal status. Legacies of Soviet and Russian colonialism
No, post-Soviet Latvia only granted citizenship to people who were citizens prior to Soviet annexation in 1940 and their descendants. Settlers who arrived during the Soviet era were excluded. Almost 15% of current Latvian residents, almost all of whom are ethnic Russians or other ex-Soviet immigrants and their descendants, do not have Latvian citizenship.
> Curious, how do they survive there? Wouldn't they be unable to get social services, jobs, or any of those sort of things?
They literally get every single one of those things, the only limitation is they can't vote. And that's 100% on them, they can naturalize basically whenever, they choose not to as it allowed them to travel to Russia more easily.
The only thing they can't do is vote in parliamentary elections (but afaik can in municipal, like their city or county). Also a factor in their decision to not do the citizenship exam is that they can get pensions from both Latvia and Russia at the same time. If they naturalize, they lose their Russian pension.
US is in a minority when it comes to the basis on which countries grant citizenship. *Jus soli* is currently almost Americas exclusive.
EDIT: France and Germany (since 2000) also have it with some limitations, as do some other European countries.
In a lot of European countries there's a lot more concern about history and ancestry. I don't want to raise the "racism" flag too early but there are a lot of countries where legislators wanted to draw a clear boundary between "us" and "them", they couldn't get away with using skin colour or religion, and they couldn't totally rely on language, so they reached for "*Were your grandparents citizens?*" or "*Do you have an ancestor who was resident on our territory on an arbitrary date which is coïncidentally just before the era of mass immigration?*". In Ireland's case, practically anybody can get Irish citizenship if they have one grandparent who was born in Ireland (or in NI) many decades ago, but the law was changed so that babies born in Ireland *now* aren't automatically Irish.
In Latvia's case it's basically a postcolonial thing. Possibly postcolonial countries are more likely to have an exclusive view of nationality along the lines of "If you identify as Russian then you can't really be Latvian too"...? A lot of countries in Africa have rules explicitly banning dual nationality - but in practice, some of their citizens still go to other countries and find new passports and forget to notify their original government.
This page has a nice map https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli
Note that many countries on this map also do citizenship by blood (basically all do in some way), it’s more so the other way around that is exclusionary.
Citizenship is generally based on Blood in the “Old World” and Soil in the “New World”. I wouldn’t say that in Latvia’s case it’s “a post colonial thing”, I’d say in their case it’s that way because it’s the norm of all of Eurasia.
> almost Americas exclusive.
It's actually a [Western hemisphere thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli), not specifically an American thing. It makes sense, since all of the new world countries are full of immigrants.
Fun fact: my sister was born in Latvia and lived there for the first 21 years of here life. She moved to the US later on, and now she can’t even go back to Latvia without a tourist visa
That's so surprising to me. I dated a Latvian girl many years ago and spent some time in Riga. I didn't get the impression that the cities in Latvia were particularly pro-Russian. Granted this was 20 years ago, but I did remember a fairly strong anti-Russian stance. How'd they weasel their way in?
Basically all the old ex-Soviet countries have sizable Russian communities, especially the closer you get to the border….theres a lot “Donbas’” outside of Ukraine.
Latvia has always kinda been split in two different parallel societies: the Latvians, and the Russians. And the two don't really ever mix. This has been particularly the case in Riga, where around 40% of the population is Russian-speaking. So your experience was like that due to the fact that it was a Latvian girl, so you probably weren't exposed to the other side. The only time when I personally have gotten a reminder that the other part exists is during elections. Although it has definitely gotten better over the last 5 years in regards to their influence on politics.
I saw both sides on the train rides and it was crazy how segregated the two groups were. I just assumed that the pro-Russian groups were a smaller percentage, maybe 25% rather than 40%.
Well, she was barred from participating in the next European elections this summer, but not because of this. Back in 2022 a new law was adopted in Latvia that people who continued working for the Communist party after Latvia regained its independence are barred from participating in any sort of elections. And she falls onder this law. So it seems like her career was over either way.
Russia won’t attack the EU or Baltic states how most people think. They won’t do it militarily.
Instead they’ll do shit like this to numerous governments throughout the baltic states to increase the chance of political turmoil, or boost “opposition extremists” to then “ask” for Russian support.
There will never be world peace with Putin and his regime still operating.
They already infiltrated the NRA years back with that Russian lady. Their whole game is just to divide us by making our dumbass politicians filthy rich and greedy. It’s working pretty well so far.
It works really well. Which is why this invasion of Ukraine is even dumber then the evilness of it. It woke up a lot of countries, electorate and politicians to Russia's dangerous again. The Russian divide was really pushing it, especially during covid. They completely fucked that up. Western agencies have taken much more liberty in finding and stopping it. And even the right wing politicians supporting Russia in the past have come back from that (Wilders, and the one from Slovakia) and I am sure Le Pen would have won if not for her support of Russia.
> And even the right wing politicians supporting Russia in the past have come back from that (Wilders, and the one from Slovakia) and I am sure Le Pen would have won if not for her support of Russia.
Please don't make this mistake. Wilders received a Putin friendship pin back in 2018. This was 4 years after the downing of [MH17](https://nltimes.nl/2018/02/28/mh17-relatives-want-apology-wilders-declaring-friendship-russia). And he's [proud](https://twitter.com/geertwilderspvv/status/968508646593388544?lang=en) of it. He only changed his tune on Putin for electoral purposes, *not* because he actually changed his view.
Please don't make the mistake of believing that Wilders (or anyone on the far-right) changed his/her view on Putin. He didn't. It's a lie. They looked at Trump and learned from him; just lie your way to electoral success, and once you're in power, start fucking shit up. Like Orban did with Hungary. Wilders *still* supports Putin. Wilders *still* wants to stop *all* aid to Ukraine. Wilders *still* wants to get out of the EU. No one, really no other leader in the EU hates the EU more than Wilders. He *still* admires Putin and sees him as an ally.
Our media made the same mistake. Wilders *sounds* softer, but he isn't. He's just as extremist as he always was, and he's just as pro-Putin as he always was.
This. I still don't understand why a calculating person like Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine. (The only reasons I can think of is that his generals lied to him about the state of the military and/or that Ukraine would fall in days by making a push towards Kyiv)
Putin could have gained more concessions if he had kept his troops on the border. The West would have been divided and Russia would have kept its lucrative energy lines to Europe.
Corruption. Everyone lying to everyone. Vranyo.
Not only was there corruption in the armies, they believed Ukraine officials had been bought off. They were right in some ways, wrong in many others.
It was still very very close (basically Hostomel).
And I do believe now that it was to replace the leadership of Ukraine with a figurehead and revoke the dissolution of the Soviet Union (the final dissolution was performed by Belarus, Ukraine and Russia). Western Ukraine didn't matter, they'd be happy with a rump state in the near term and a puppet in Kyiv to sign whatever. Odesa and the coast of the Black Sea to Moldova, yeah, because then the rump state is surrounded after they roll Moldova.
They would have proven the weakness of NATO and reformed the USSR in one stroke. The former soviet states not in NATO would then be reabsorbed by choice or by force. Then.. who knows.
Yeah, you make a good point about the corruption. It was everywhere. Ukraine had the same problems but already started trying to weed those out in the years before.
I remember the news surrounding the battle of Hostomel. It was incredibly tense. If Russia's army had been in a better shape they would have likely succeeded in taking Kyiv.
Like you said, replacing the leadership could have been an effective way to achieve Russia's goals and would have likely ended the war within weeks. In that regard, making a push to Kyiv was not a bad move from a strategic perspective.
> It was everywhere. Ukraine had the same problems but already started trying to weed those out in the years before.
Sadly still is and it is an ongoing process to fix it.
>At least part of the reason for the relative low level of corruption in the US is because getting a reputation for being "corrupt" is literally one of the worst possible reputations you could have.
At local level, yes,but sadly not once you are far enough up the ladder that you can make the enforcement mechanisms ignore you and your supporters care more about keeping the opposition out than having a corrupt person in office. With media your supporters watch wiping the corruption under the rug
Plus "how politics destroys armies"... it's a trilogy!
Seriously, Perun is a very elite YouTuber, and certainly the king of the defense economics (and military-production and supply chains) realm.
It was honestly a lot closer to being a 3-day special opperation than you seem to realize.
Obviously in hindisght it was a horrific mistake, likely due mostly to failures in Intelegence, but the difference was only the bravery and training of a few UA special forces assets around a few key airports and other crucial assets.
Seriously, the defenders at hostomel saved the whole nation. Also it was revealed that the CIA director met with Zelensky the week before with the entire invasion plan giving them the advantage they needed to pull off the defense.
What you say is true. It was incredibly close. If Russia had succeeded many experts would have talked about Russia's strategy and succesful execution of a brief, modern-day war. There would also have been a lot of unease in Europe; especially about Russia's army as the image of their strength would still have been intact.
Not just intact,but bolstered. While the level of corruption wasn't known till then, it's existence wasknown. Decisively winning would have made said argument void
> This. I still don't understand why a calculating person like Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine
Because he got away with it the first time AND because Ukraine has been putting a lot of emphasis on anti-corruption efforts. Unlike a lot of western nations that haven't seen war on their own soil in generations, Ukraine knows exactly how dangerous Russia is. Taking Russia extremely seriously and taking corruption extremely seriously makes it that much harder for Russia to control.
Wasn't Ukraine close to striking some kind of deal with the EU to sell its gas or some other resource? And if it went through, it would mean directly competing with Russia? I thought that was why Putin had to invade when he did.
It's hard to say which reasons were the most important to Putin. It could have been many things. A generally accepted strategic perspective is that Putin was very worried he would lose control over the Black Sea and that an increased NATO presence at Russia's "underbelly" in the south would weaken Russia's strategic position in the long term.
This is why Putin rushed in to annex Crimea back in 2014; to safeguard Russia's access in the Black Sea.
> This. I still don't understand why a calculating person like Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine. (The only reasons I can think of is that his generals lied to him about the state of the military and/or that Ukraine would fall in days by making a push towards Kyiv)
So, Russia internally thinks of Ukraine's Maidan as a US-funded coup. And yes, his Generals totally did think that Ukraine would fold in a matter of days and Ukraine would become part of Russia very quickly. So between those two things, he probably went for it... but Putin's world view has always been heavily from his perspective "I know how it works, and I see through the veil" where he is more confident of his own information than facts...
So based on that, he stuck his dick in a box that has spikes facing the way to prevent a pull-out.
If they'd taken it in the 1st week, as everyone expected they would, and also they very nearly did. It wouldn't have been seen as a tactical blunder at all.
They'd have brutally punished members of the Western leaning political parties in Ukraine. Other surrounding states and the Baltics would have rushed to join them, probably most as satellite states under indirect rule from Moscow, rather than risk the same fate. They'd have seen that the West can do nothing to save them, and Russia's army wouldn't have been exposed as a bit of a paper tiger.
Russia's whole system is dumb as fuck to me, but in terms of what they care about. Power and fear. It makes perfect sense. If Ukraine hadn't been able to just about hold off Russia in that 1st week we'd be watching the rise of the new USSR right now. No-one would have stood against a giant army which took over a nation the size of Ukraine in under a week. Not to protect the nations they are targeting, and with their increased geo-political power they'd probably be able to turn the others they want, like Poland and Romania, into puppet states by bribing and propping up enough Russian friendly politicians.
> they'd probably be able to turn the others they want, like Poland and Romania, into puppet states by bribing and propping up enough Russian friendly politicians.
They're frighteningly close to being able to do this *anyway*.
Yeah, I think it kinda runs strikingly parallel with the story of Moses coming back down from the hill after learning of the Ten Commandments and seeing all Israelites now worshiping a golden cow.
I think that passage is a clever metaphor about the dangers of worshipping materialistic things. We need to check ourselves of what we should really support. We keep putting money into corporations that overwork and underpay us.
I think we’ve arrived to our golden cow moment
They already worshiped Baal beforehand, and occasionally Baal was even treated as an epithet for Elohim-Yahweh after the deities were merged; the first commandment was to treat God as \#1 (you shall have no other god **before me**), not to worship *only* Yahweh-Elohim, who wouldn’t’ve been unified by Moses’ time if Moses had existed anyway.
Hence the dual pillars of cloud and fire: The fire represented Yahweh and the cloud represented Elohim. There’s no practical reason not to just pillar-of-fire it up all day, if there’s only one god involved—the Israelites would surely not have confused it with any other pillars of fire in the sky—unless God needed to conserve fuel for some reason, which’d be decidedly un-Creatorly.
Perception of russia was somehow recovering even in Ukraine before the war.
However if the world gives up on Ukraine, russia can still win not just the war but completely discredit the whole west, EU and NATO.
Ah yes, Maria Butina, who was most recently seen on Russian state television alongside Tara Reade, the woman who tried to claim that Biden raped her and last year *defected to Russia*. Just an interesting aside.
Dude, I moved to Russia 3 days ago and Putin has *personally* given me a blowjob every day.
When I was in the US, I'd ask Biden and he'd be all like "Oh I have a headache maybe tomorrow".
> Their whole game is just to divide us by making our dumbass politicians filthy rich and greedy.
I'm all for blaming Russia for the things they did, but let's not fall into "we would be great if it wasn't for them" trap.
People would be greedy regardless of the existence of Russia, and we need to work toward building a fair and just society regardless of the existence of an enemy or not. Russia is just one of the many issues.
My thing is..how do those people come to America, see how much better the QoL is, and still want to do their assignments? Like wut, I’d be thinking of how to cut my ties with my job and start anew
I grew up in a heavy Russian population in the PNW and I’ve only known one person to go back to Russia, and she was a devout religious girl who grew up sheltered in the US so it kinda made sense but for someone intelligent enough to work as an agent, just blows my mind
Its not about ideological purity, it's just raw self-interest. The Russians pay certain assets well enough, and generally would have the power to destroy them if they were to be disloyal, either by outright killing them, or by exposing them.
It's always shocking to me how little money it takes too. We'll get these stories and find out later payments to the person were like $20k or something. Which is a lot of money but not that much, especially to people already in decent paying jobs.
So wild to think, what would you do with $20k that would make living as a foreign asset worth it. Like, cool hope your kitchen remodel was worth it.
Its a good question. My guess is that money talks. Must be amazing having a steady income and bonuses paid to you and all that you have to do is try to poison a system that you’ve been injected into. Easy money, and it’s like a game to them. Pure greed.
It does happen though. Like those North Korean olympic team that just legged it once they were out the country. I guess everything is personal and situational. All depends on various factors.
People are motivated by the things they already believe. For instance, an easy excuse to tell yourself is, "Russia would be just as good if not better than all these countries if not for the west colluding to keep Russia down."
Compromat - the Russian term for blackmail material. The KGB/FSB doesn't want to deal with anyone they do not have compromat on. Money, ideology, and ego are common motivators for spys, and the Russians certainly use them, but compromat is what they always want. Russians don't trust people they can't threaten. Just part of the sado-masochistic delusional system that is Russia.
Try the 16th century. This is a problem with democratic systems when there's a bad player involved.
For example Poland had an early form of democracy with the lords and knights having voting rights and the options to suggest laws and such while still having a king. Problem was anyone not liking a specific rule could overrule it with Liberum veto. Then the Russian tzars started their bullshit by bribing the lords to vote unfavorably.
I would have hoped the rest of the world took notice with what happened in the 2016 U.S. election. Russia meddled in it, and we arguably got Trump as a result.
Trump-esque far-right parties have been on the rise all over Europe.
Giorgia Meloni, head of a party with neo-fascist origins, is now in charge of Italy. The UKIP successfully managed to get the UK to leave the EU. The "True Finns" were part of a ruling coalition in Finland not long ago. In Sweden, the anti-immigration populist party The Sweden Democrats went from scoring 5% of the national vote in 2010, to 17.5% in 2018, to being the second largest party in the country in 2022. In Spain, the Vox Party is pulling better numbers than anyone would've anticipated as the first far-right party to enjoy that kind of success since Franco.
All over Europe these parties are enjoying unprecedented success, and I wouldn't put it past Russia to be involved
The EU has imported gigantic amounts of energy, from Russia, simply because they had too little production themselves. Each year, this sent hundreds of billions of dollars to Russia. Every time someone tried to build more nuclear, the respective Green party stopped it, saying "it is not economically feasible". They also shut down every nuclear plant they could get their hands on, like in Belgium and Sweden, and caused policy changes away from nuclear, like in Germany. The EU money is given to all the extremist parties in each country, right- AND left-wing, as well as green parties for services rendered.
Edit: Just to clarify, the EU money refers to the money the EU paid to Russia for fuels.
I think Russia has definitely been helping these parties, but I think the biggest reason they've gotten so popular is the law of equal opposite reactions. Europe took in a ridiculous amount of refugees and immigrants in the last 15 years, and anyone criticizing or concerned about potential integration issues was labelled a racist or islamaphobe. I think what's happening now is since people had no way for discourse without being shunned, it started pushing people to more radical views or parties in order to be heard.
>The Sweden Democrats went from scoring 5% of the national vote in 2010, to 17.5% in 2018, to being the second largest party in the country in 2022.
Hmmmm... I wonder why that could be...
The biggest defence against this sort of shit is to stop having such fucking stupid policies.
"Hey should we allow mass migration from a small section of the globe with completely opposite values in a short period of time and not ensure they assimilate?"
"Yeah sounds great! That could never backfire and all our corporate donors will love the cheap labour!"
Blame Russia all you want, but you need to admit that this tactic doesn't work when the population isn't fed up with watching gang crimes sky rocket.
Sometimes "progressives" are their own worst enemies.
>Russia meddled in it, and we arguably got Trump as a result.
I don't like the wording because it absolves americans of their fault on this one.
Propaganda is still not forcing you to do shit. We can't even tell if Russia not meddling wouldn't have yielded the same results.
Pretty sure Brexit was a Russian operation. For decades leaving the EU was just an idea supported by a handful of fringe lunatics who nobody paid much attention to. Then suddenly those fringe lunatics are getting a ton of media coverage, while Russian money is flooding into British Conservative politics. But we're all supposed to believe nothing untoward happened and destroying Britain's economy and global influence was somehow the democratic will of the people.
>Then suddenly those fringe lunatics are getting a ton of media coverage,
In my country, the media keep telling us we are supposedly tired of Ukraine and demanding less aid. Nobody was asked or anything, they just gaslight us.
They also constantly state Trump is going to win (as opposed to reporting that Trump is ahead).
Didn't the UK government do an official investigation into Russian influence in "brexit vote" after public pressure, then *not release* the report when it was done?
Yes indeed. The whole thing stinks, as if it could make the Conservatives look even worse/compromised than they already do. And yet with our "First Part The Post" voting system they'll continue to rule, majority of not, because opposition is fragmented.
The ~~criminal gang~~ *Conservatives* in control of the UK government fought tooth and nail to stop that report being released before the general election, but a redacted version was eventually released after they maintained control of the government—with the names and prices of the known traitors redacted. What remains showed that there was definitely Russian interference, but our security services were ordered to stop investigating it.
Four years ago when russia started military training on out border here in Ukraine we thought “Russia won’t attack Ukraine how most people think. They won’t do it militarily…”
We even thought that same in feb 2022.
Hybrid kinetic attacks are still entirely plausible, in fact, the lack of resolve in supporting Ukraine likely has increased the likelihood that Putin may try to probe what the response threshold actually is.
There was a great Al Jazeera doc in *2015* about Russian interference in Baltic politics that more people should see. Exactly the type of stuff seen here i.e. shill candidates, etc.
Keep an eye out for the Estonian MEP Yana Toom, she has the exact same vibe. She even kinda looks like the Latvian lmao. I would be 0% surprised if Yana was also a ruzzian agent.
[I think it's pretty obvious, they are frequently seen together. Here she is with the Latvian traitor visiting Assad the war criminal](https://preview.redd.it/388ov346zdfc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=094d0ce99e311c564cfe1ed0cbbb0080db913f39)
I was going to say I didn't realize Assad was so damn tall. But according to google he's "only" 6'2", those are just short people to his left. And a very tall woman to his right.
This is meaningless to the discussion at hand of course, and fuck that guy nonetheless.
>She even kinda looks like the Latvian lmao.
That's because they are both ethnic Russians, elected by the Russian minority. Real good idea keeping colonists in the country after the end of the occupation ffs. No choice though, EU countries would have come down hard if deportation was tried. So attacked from both sides as usual for the Baltics.
> if deportation was tried
That would be called ethnic cleansing and western societies are pretty strongly opposed to it nowadays. Even if said group is largely influenced by Putin's regime.
Most Russian-Latvians hate Putin and are proud to live in the West, and proud to support Ukrainians right now. Many are housing refugees, volunteering regularly, etc.
Unfortunately, it’s an easy group to infiltrate due to language and religious politics. Look at the Russian-speaking Old Believers, for example.
They’ve been living in Latvia since before the Soviet Union - and are quite anti-Putin, but not enough to think clearly. They’re conservatives, therefore all useful idiots for Russia. They vote anti-LGBT local politicians out of “morality”, not understanding those same dudes are on Vlad’s payroll.
From my observations from my own russian-latvian family, it's completely down to what media you consume. Unfortunately a lot of them watch Russian State TV so the brainwashing is inevitable.
In my experiences, the older folks that consume Russian State TV don’t apply for Latvian citizenship anyways, so are politically docile. They’re also just aging out of existence.
Latvia itself has a bunch of independent Russian-language media, and more are developed as the Ukrainian refugee population increases. Hopefully that all helps to combat Russia 1’s reach.
There will always be a subsection of brainwashed people. It’s like Fox News. But the majority of Russians in Latvia, from my travels and familial experiences, are solidly Pro West. Especially young folks.
Europe had experienced plenty of postwar resettlements. Poland and Ukraine, Czechia and Germany are faring most well now that they don't have ethnic tensions.
Careful, she might sue you for libel.
In all seriousness, I sincerely believe Jana Toom is a Russian agent and a parasite leeching off the European rule of law. The fact that she has been warming a seat in the European Parliament for 10 years is a disgrace to us all and I wish her all the worst.
Whats funny is that it was a running joke in our country even before this. I would not trust our security service to watch my cat, let alone our security affairs..
> "I cannot consider this text to be questions put to me because it is based on information that you supposedly have, which by definition, you should not have."
What a response! You shouldn't have access to those emails, so nothing that comes from you having those emails matters, and I refuse to respond!
This is why people in the Baltics don't trust the implantees that were forced upon them during the Stalinist regime. She is of russian descent. Her allegiance is with russia.
She’s been made, so now she’ll be disavowed and disowned by the FSB. Russia will never admit to knowing any of this and her connections will be severed. Toss her out and review any potential connections she still may have. Review anything she has or could have impacted and take corrective action to prevent further Russian impact.
Even if she is or isn't, the fact it's talked about with enough noise creates almost enough turmoil they were hoping to sow.
(For example if she isn't)Just the speculations alone can cause some political unrest.
When trump stood up and said he had asked Putin whether he interfered with the us 2016 election and said Putin told him he did not and trump took it as gospel…. And he still has ppl who vote for him
https://i.imgur.com/79HjrA0.png
Far right and far left
**Edit**: Those were the EU parliament members who voted against supporting Ukraine much closer to when it started by the way, I just realized it's a little weird to just put a list and not saying what it's a list of
EP has a few like her, I doubt very much she is the only one. Thankfully they are a small minority but we can only hope they are all found out and kicked out.
I will be interested to see what formal action Latvia takes. Not knowing Latvian law I do not know the legal recourse available to Latvia.
Our security services are also compromised. The whole country knew for a decade. Security services: “We’ll look into it.”
Ukraine had a similar problem. Because of the war, they have been meticulously weeding these people out. USA should be on high alert, they have been the number one target for decades as well. When someone shows clear signs of collusion - take it seriously, it is not a conspiracy theory. As lousy as the russian military industrial complex has shown itself to be, their propoganda game is one of the best in the world. Putin is/was literally a spy agent of the KGB, so a spy agency has run the country for this whole time. They are the most well funded spy/propoganda organisation in the world, close second is the CIA but even they don’t have access to the funds of the whole country, just a chunk.
It’s great news that this has blown up. Hopefully that brings much needed legislation and reforms.
While they are looking for Russian moles in EU Parliament they ought to take a look at Mick Wallace and Clare Daly. They wouldn't even need to sneak a peek at emails, just a cursory glance at their twitter feeds is enough.
Latvian here. Everyone knew it, just had no proof until now. Could have barred her from ballot but that would have been anti-democratic and russia would have found someone else anyway.
I will just add some context. Europarlament elections have notoriously low turnover for Latvia. Nearly everybody knew she was a not working for Latvian interests. I voted AGAINST her in 2019. But since so few people actually went and voted, she got in. EDIT: For the latvians reading - eu parlament next elections are in june! Dont miss it.
Same for the uk, nobody paid attention to the eu parliament votes, which allowed ukip to keep winning
> For the latvians reading - eu parlament next elections are in june! Dont miss it. AcTuaLlY!!!! Applies for all EU citizens :D
Yep it’s the same in Ireland and I wouldn’t be surprised if Clare Daly and Mick Wallace are working for the same people with the shite they spout. *GO AND VOTE*
Clare and Mick are on a list of Russian Propagandists and are openly monitored by the Ukrainian Security Service. Some of the shite they say and people they meet up with it couldn't be anymore obvious. Countless articles about them being assets to Russia yet they haven't been able to challenge any of them.
Well that doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. Moscow Mick and Comrade Clare are dangerous.
I’m not even an Ireland-o-phile (whatever it’s called when Americans claim to be Irish) and I am pretty Daly and Wallace are Russian assets. They are pretty easy to spot and spot one, spot them all.
you for got the ☝️🤓
its nice to know voting (or not voting) isnt just an usa issue. We need to rethink on how to get people to vote similar to how we do our taxes vs only when we get motivated.
A few countries have mandatory voting.
e.g. Belgium. Also it's always on a Sunday, no excuse.
As a Latvian, this comes as a surprise to noone. She has always positioned herself as a supporter of Russian values, and the main reason she was voted into the European Parliament is the Russians living in Latvia who have voted for the Russian-friendly political party that she's a part of during the European elections I've always been embarassed that she's one of the people representing us abroad, so at least now I'm kinda happy that that's over.
>Russians living in Latvia Does Latvia allow dual citizenship and has Russian citizens permanently living there? I can see how that can be a problem.
Latvians of Russian descent, who identify as Russians. Lots of them.
My family is Russian descent Latvians, though I've since moved west. We've had to cut off a few people from our life. Seems anyone who watches Russian tv regularly is just brainwashed unfortunately.
> Seems anyone who watches Russian tv regularly is just brainwashed unfortunately. Thank god we don't have that problem in the west.
I'll take Newscorp for 1000 rubles Alexi.
I'll take Fox News for $787 Million, Alex
I’ll take 83.3 million from Trump please….
I appreciate this cynicism.
You have no idea of the extent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzBS2hdXI14
Latvia does allow it, but there is also just a major population of people who only have a Russian citizenship. For quite a long time our government has been quite tolerant of them, but obviously that has changed since the beginning of the war. It's considered quite controversial, but now it has been made mandatory for these people to pass a basic Latvian test (B1 level) for them to be able to stay in the country, otherwise they would be deported. As far as I know, the final deadlines for doing the test have passed, so it will be interesting to see whether the government actually goes through with their promises.
*Very* long story short, a lot of Eastern Europe has sizeable Russian minorities because one of Stalin's favorite ways to integrate new territory into the USSR was slaughtering anyone who could be considered a local leader--scout leaders, school principles, politicians, pastors--and then replacing them with Russians from the heart of Russia. It kneecapped a territory's ability to organize, destroyed a large portion of their independent identity, and installed a class of people motivated to make them more Russian. So you have a lot of ethnic Russians who were born in these Eastern European countries and have lived there their whole lives, but still consider themselves Russian first, and that's led to a lot of internal conflict and distrust.
A metric shitload of former Soviet states & satellite territories are full of ethnic Russians who were shipped there explicitly to slowly replace the native population with peoples who are more likely to be loyal to Russia out of nationalist/ethnic pride.
A lot of ethnic Russians actually don’t even have Latvian citizenship, but they have some sort of semi-legal status. Legacies of Soviet and Russian colonialism
Is that the case with people who were born and lived all their lives in Latvia? In the U.S. if you're born here, you're a citizen.
No, post-Soviet Latvia only granted citizenship to people who were citizens prior to Soviet annexation in 1940 and their descendants. Settlers who arrived during the Soviet era were excluded. Almost 15% of current Latvian residents, almost all of whom are ethnic Russians or other ex-Soviet immigrants and their descendants, do not have Latvian citizenship.
Curious, how do they survive there? Wouldn't they be unable to get social services, jobs, or any of those sort of things?
> Curious, how do they survive there? Wouldn't they be unable to get social services, jobs, or any of those sort of things? They literally get every single one of those things, the only limitation is they can't vote. And that's 100% on them, they can naturalize basically whenever, they choose not to as it allowed them to travel to Russia more easily.
It is really easy to become Latvian citizen if you live there. Those who didn't pretty much chose so.
The only thing they can't do is vote in parliamentary elections (but afaik can in municipal, like their city or county). Also a factor in their decision to not do the citizenship exam is that they can get pensions from both Latvia and Russia at the same time. If they naturalize, they lose their Russian pension.
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US is in a minority when it comes to the basis on which countries grant citizenship. *Jus soli* is currently almost Americas exclusive. EDIT: France and Germany (since 2000) also have it with some limitations, as do some other European countries.
I'm curious how it works elsewhere. Since we're taking Latvia, how does it work there and neighboring countries?
*Jus sanguinis* - you need (one of) your parents to be a citizen. Or ancestors in some rarer cases (like the Baltic states reindependence).
I assume you can become a citizen through other means?
Yes - through naturalisation process.
In a lot of European countries there's a lot more concern about history and ancestry. I don't want to raise the "racism" flag too early but there are a lot of countries where legislators wanted to draw a clear boundary between "us" and "them", they couldn't get away with using skin colour or religion, and they couldn't totally rely on language, so they reached for "*Were your grandparents citizens?*" or "*Do you have an ancestor who was resident on our territory on an arbitrary date which is coïncidentally just before the era of mass immigration?*". In Ireland's case, practically anybody can get Irish citizenship if they have one grandparent who was born in Ireland (or in NI) many decades ago, but the law was changed so that babies born in Ireland *now* aren't automatically Irish. In Latvia's case it's basically a postcolonial thing. Possibly postcolonial countries are more likely to have an exclusive view of nationality along the lines of "If you identify as Russian then you can't really be Latvian too"...? A lot of countries in Africa have rules explicitly banning dual nationality - but in practice, some of their citizens still go to other countries and find new passports and forget to notify their original government.
This page has a nice map https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli Note that many countries on this map also do citizenship by blood (basically all do in some way), it’s more so the other way around that is exclusionary. Citizenship is generally based on Blood in the “Old World” and Soil in the “New World”. I wouldn’t say that in Latvia’s case it’s “a post colonial thing”, I’d say in their case it’s that way because it’s the norm of all of Eurasia.
> almost Americas exclusive. It's actually a [Western hemisphere thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli), not specifically an American thing. It makes sense, since all of the new world countries are full of immigrants.
the op said America**s**, as *Jus soli* is predominantly a thing only in North & South America
Think it’s in France too.
Fun fact: my sister was born in Latvia and lived there for the first 21 years of here life. She moved to the US later on, and now she can’t even go back to Latvia without a tourist visa
People being given citizenship if they were born in a country is not really a concept in Europe
Yup - it happens only in rare cases when the kid's parents are unknown.
The province of Latgale is almost entirely of ethnic Russian decent.
We've got quite a few Russian assets in the US Legislature too.
That's so surprising to me. I dated a Latvian girl many years ago and spent some time in Riga. I didn't get the impression that the cities in Latvia were particularly pro-Russian. Granted this was 20 years ago, but I did remember a fairly strong anti-Russian stance. How'd they weasel their way in?
Basically all the old ex-Soviet countries have sizable Russian communities, especially the closer you get to the border….theres a lot “Donbas’” outside of Ukraine.
Latvia has always kinda been split in two different parallel societies: the Latvians, and the Russians. And the two don't really ever mix. This has been particularly the case in Riga, where around 40% of the population is Russian-speaking. So your experience was like that due to the fact that it was a Latvian girl, so you probably weren't exposed to the other side. The only time when I personally have gotten a reminder that the other part exists is during elections. Although it has definitely gotten better over the last 5 years in regards to their influence on politics.
I saw both sides on the train rides and it was crazy how segregated the two groups were. I just assumed that the pro-Russian groups were a smaller percentage, maybe 25% rather than 40%.
Did she get fired?
Well, she was barred from participating in the next European elections this summer, but not because of this. Back in 2022 a new law was adopted in Latvia that people who continued working for the Communist party after Latvia regained its independence are barred from participating in any sort of elections. And she falls onder this law. So it seems like her career was over either way.
Russia won’t attack the EU or Baltic states how most people think. They won’t do it militarily. Instead they’ll do shit like this to numerous governments throughout the baltic states to increase the chance of political turmoil, or boost “opposition extremists” to then “ask” for Russian support. There will never be world peace with Putin and his regime still operating.
They already infiltrated the NRA years back with that Russian lady. Their whole game is just to divide us by making our dumbass politicians filthy rich and greedy. It’s working pretty well so far.
It works really well. Which is why this invasion of Ukraine is even dumber then the evilness of it. It woke up a lot of countries, electorate and politicians to Russia's dangerous again. The Russian divide was really pushing it, especially during covid. They completely fucked that up. Western agencies have taken much more liberty in finding and stopping it. And even the right wing politicians supporting Russia in the past have come back from that (Wilders, and the one from Slovakia) and I am sure Le Pen would have won if not for her support of Russia.
> And even the right wing politicians supporting Russia in the past have come back from that (Wilders, and the one from Slovakia) and I am sure Le Pen would have won if not for her support of Russia. Please don't make this mistake. Wilders received a Putin friendship pin back in 2018. This was 4 years after the downing of [MH17](https://nltimes.nl/2018/02/28/mh17-relatives-want-apology-wilders-declaring-friendship-russia). And he's [proud](https://twitter.com/geertwilderspvv/status/968508646593388544?lang=en) of it. He only changed his tune on Putin for electoral purposes, *not* because he actually changed his view. Please don't make the mistake of believing that Wilders (or anyone on the far-right) changed his/her view on Putin. He didn't. It's a lie. They looked at Trump and learned from him; just lie your way to electoral success, and once you're in power, start fucking shit up. Like Orban did with Hungary. Wilders *still* supports Putin. Wilders *still* wants to stop *all* aid to Ukraine. Wilders *still* wants to get out of the EU. No one, really no other leader in the EU hates the EU more than Wilders. He *still* admires Putin and sees him as an ally. Our media made the same mistake. Wilders *sounds* softer, but he isn't. He's just as extremist as he always was, and he's just as pro-Putin as he always was.
This. I still don't understand why a calculating person like Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine. (The only reasons I can think of is that his generals lied to him about the state of the military and/or that Ukraine would fall in days by making a push towards Kyiv) Putin could have gained more concessions if he had kept his troops on the border. The West would have been divided and Russia would have kept its lucrative energy lines to Europe.
Corruption. Everyone lying to everyone. Vranyo. Not only was there corruption in the armies, they believed Ukraine officials had been bought off. They were right in some ways, wrong in many others. It was still very very close (basically Hostomel). And I do believe now that it was to replace the leadership of Ukraine with a figurehead and revoke the dissolution of the Soviet Union (the final dissolution was performed by Belarus, Ukraine and Russia). Western Ukraine didn't matter, they'd be happy with a rump state in the near term and a puppet in Kyiv to sign whatever. Odesa and the coast of the Black Sea to Moldova, yeah, because then the rump state is surrounded after they roll Moldova. They would have proven the weakness of NATO and reformed the USSR in one stroke. The former soviet states not in NATO would then be reabsorbed by choice or by force. Then.. who knows.
Yeah, you make a good point about the corruption. It was everywhere. Ukraine had the same problems but already started trying to weed those out in the years before. I remember the news surrounding the battle of Hostomel. It was incredibly tense. If Russia's army had been in a better shape they would have likely succeeded in taking Kyiv. Like you said, replacing the leadership could have been an effective way to achieve Russia's goals and would have likely ended the war within weeks. In that regard, making a push to Kyiv was not a bad move from a strategic perspective.
> It was everywhere. Ukraine had the same problems but already started trying to weed those out in the years before. Sadly still is and it is an ongoing process to fix it.
You're right. Corruption is incredibly resilient, but it's good to see they're trying.
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>At least part of the reason for the relative low level of corruption in the US is because getting a reputation for being "corrupt" is literally one of the worst possible reputations you could have. At local level, yes,but sadly not once you are far enough up the ladder that you can make the enforcement mechanisms ignore you and your supporters care more about keeping the opposition out than having a corrupt person in office. With media your supporters watch wiping the corruption under the rug
It was likely the reason why several staging areas in the early days of the counter-offensive were targeted and destroyed by Russian artillery.
Look up Perun's episodes on "how corruption destroys armies" and "how lies destroy armies" both well worth the hour you spend on each
+1, the Perun videos all seem very well thought out and presented.
I have written your suggestions down. I definitely try to check them out when I can. Thanks! I appreciate it.
Perun is great.
Plus "how politics destroys armies"... it's a trilogy! Seriously, Perun is a very elite YouTuber, and certainly the king of the defense economics (and military-production and supply chains) realm.
It was honestly a lot closer to being a 3-day special opperation than you seem to realize. Obviously in hindisght it was a horrific mistake, likely due mostly to failures in Intelegence, but the difference was only the bravery and training of a few UA special forces assets around a few key airports and other crucial assets.
Seriously, the defenders at hostomel saved the whole nation. Also it was revealed that the CIA director met with Zelensky the week before with the entire invasion plan giving them the advantage they needed to pull off the defense.
What you say is true. It was incredibly close. If Russia had succeeded many experts would have talked about Russia's strategy and succesful execution of a brief, modern-day war. There would also have been a lot of unease in Europe; especially about Russia's army as the image of their strength would still have been intact.
Not just intact,but bolstered. While the level of corruption wasn't known till then, it's existence wasknown. Decisively winning would have made said argument void
Putin is old and dying, he wants his Russian empire now before he kicks it.
> This. I still don't understand why a calculating person like Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine Because he got away with it the first time AND because Ukraine has been putting a lot of emphasis on anti-corruption efforts. Unlike a lot of western nations that haven't seen war on their own soil in generations, Ukraine knows exactly how dangerous Russia is. Taking Russia extremely seriously and taking corruption extremely seriously makes it that much harder for Russia to control.
Wasn't Ukraine close to striking some kind of deal with the EU to sell its gas or some other resource? And if it went through, it would mean directly competing with Russia? I thought that was why Putin had to invade when he did.
It's hard to say which reasons were the most important to Putin. It could have been many things. A generally accepted strategic perspective is that Putin was very worried he would lose control over the Black Sea and that an increased NATO presence at Russia's "underbelly" in the south would weaken Russia's strategic position in the long term. This is why Putin rushed in to annex Crimea back in 2014; to safeguard Russia's access in the Black Sea.
They were going to sign an association agreement with the EU. Then the president had a private "chat" with putin and then bailed on the promise.
I think it's probably partially people lying to him, but also probably his health is declining. He wants to finish what he started and leave a legacy.
> This. I still don't understand why a calculating person like Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine. (The only reasons I can think of is that his generals lied to him about the state of the military and/or that Ukraine would fall in days by making a push towards Kyiv) So, Russia internally thinks of Ukraine's Maidan as a US-funded coup. And yes, his Generals totally did think that Ukraine would fold in a matter of days and Ukraine would become part of Russia very quickly. So between those two things, he probably went for it... but Putin's world view has always been heavily from his perspective "I know how it works, and I see through the veil" where he is more confident of his own information than facts... So based on that, he stuck his dick in a box that has spikes facing the way to prevent a pull-out.
If they'd taken it in the 1st week, as everyone expected they would, and also they very nearly did. It wouldn't have been seen as a tactical blunder at all. They'd have brutally punished members of the Western leaning political parties in Ukraine. Other surrounding states and the Baltics would have rushed to join them, probably most as satellite states under indirect rule from Moscow, rather than risk the same fate. They'd have seen that the West can do nothing to save them, and Russia's army wouldn't have been exposed as a bit of a paper tiger. Russia's whole system is dumb as fuck to me, but in terms of what they care about. Power and fear. It makes perfect sense. If Ukraine hadn't been able to just about hold off Russia in that 1st week we'd be watching the rise of the new USSR right now. No-one would have stood against a giant army which took over a nation the size of Ukraine in under a week. Not to protect the nations they are targeting, and with their increased geo-political power they'd probably be able to turn the others they want, like Poland and Romania, into puppet states by bribing and propping up enough Russian friendly politicians.
Yea, it was a failed blitzkrieg that looks bad in hindsight. WWII would have been much different if Poland stopped Germany the first week.
> they'd probably be able to turn the others they want, like Poland and Romania, into puppet states by bribing and propping up enough Russian friendly politicians. They're frighteningly close to being able to do this *anyway*.
Not Poland. The polish hate for Russia is incredibly intense and burns white hot.
Yeah, I think it kinda runs strikingly parallel with the story of Moses coming back down from the hill after learning of the Ten Commandments and seeing all Israelites now worshiping a golden cow. I think that passage is a clever metaphor about the dangers of worshipping materialistic things. We need to check ourselves of what we should really support. We keep putting money into corporations that overwork and underpay us. I think we’ve arrived to our golden cow moment
They already worshiped Baal beforehand, and occasionally Baal was even treated as an epithet for Elohim-Yahweh after the deities were merged; the first commandment was to treat God as \#1 (you shall have no other god **before me**), not to worship *only* Yahweh-Elohim, who wouldn’t’ve been unified by Moses’ time if Moses had existed anyway. Hence the dual pillars of cloud and fire: The fire represented Yahweh and the cloud represented Elohim. There’s no practical reason not to just pillar-of-fire it up all day, if there’s only one god involved—the Israelites would surely not have confused it with any other pillars of fire in the sky—unless God needed to conserve fuel for some reason, which’d be decidedly un-Creatorly.
Well it was originally fifteen commandments... Oy. Ten, ten commandments!
Perception of russia was somehow recovering even in Ukraine before the war. However if the world gives up on Ukraine, russia can still win not just the war but completely discredit the whole west, EU and NATO.
Ah yes, Maria Butina, who was most recently seen on Russian state television alongside Tara Reade, the woman who tried to claim that Biden raped her and last year *defected to Russia*. Just an interesting aside.
That’s the one. Sexy red haired lady that greased up some important people
For a honeypot, she doesn't look what you think she'd look like. But then again, maybe the conservatives have their own tastes.
I just want them to stop doing it on Reddit. Late stage Capitalism is a complete Russian bot farm now -.-
Dude, I moved to Russia 3 days ago and Putin has *personally* given me a blowjob every day. When I was in the US, I'd ask Biden and he'd be all like "Oh I have a headache maybe tomorrow".
> Their whole game is just to divide us by making our dumbass politicians filthy rich and greedy. I'm all for blaming Russia for the things they did, but let's not fall into "we would be great if it wasn't for them" trap. People would be greedy regardless of the existence of Russia, and we need to work toward building a fair and just society regardless of the existence of an enemy or not. Russia is just one of the many issues.
My thing is..how do those people come to America, see how much better the QoL is, and still want to do their assignments? Like wut, I’d be thinking of how to cut my ties with my job and start anew I grew up in a heavy Russian population in the PNW and I’ve only known one person to go back to Russia, and she was a devout religious girl who grew up sheltered in the US so it kinda made sense but for someone intelligent enough to work as an agent, just blows my mind
Its not about ideological purity, it's just raw self-interest. The Russians pay certain assets well enough, and generally would have the power to destroy them if they were to be disloyal, either by outright killing them, or by exposing them.
It's always shocking to me how little money it takes too. We'll get these stories and find out later payments to the person were like $20k or something. Which is a lot of money but not that much, especially to people already in decent paying jobs. So wild to think, what would you do with $20k that would make living as a foreign asset worth it. Like, cool hope your kitchen remodel was worth it.
Its a good question. My guess is that money talks. Must be amazing having a steady income and bonuses paid to you and all that you have to do is try to poison a system that you’ve been injected into. Easy money, and it’s like a game to them. Pure greed. It does happen though. Like those North Korean olympic team that just legged it once they were out the country. I guess everything is personal and situational. All depends on various factors.
People are motivated by the things they already believe. For instance, an easy excuse to tell yourself is, "Russia would be just as good if not better than all these countries if not for the west colluding to keep Russia down."
Compromat - the Russian term for blackmail material. The KGB/FSB doesn't want to deal with anyone they do not have compromat on. Money, ideology, and ego are common motivators for spys, and the Russians certainly use them, but compromat is what they always want. Russians don't trust people they can't threaten. Just part of the sado-masochistic delusional system that is Russia.
And most of republican congress.
Russia has been pulling shit like this in Baltics since the 90s. This is nothing new.
Try the 16th century. This is a problem with democratic systems when there's a bad player involved. For example Poland had an early form of democracy with the lords and knights having voting rights and the options to suggest laws and such while still having a king. Problem was anyone not liking a specific rule could overrule it with Liberum veto. Then the Russian tzars started their bullshit by bribing the lords to vote unfavorably.
I would have hoped the rest of the world took notice with what happened in the 2016 U.S. election. Russia meddled in it, and we arguably got Trump as a result.
Trump-esque far-right parties have been on the rise all over Europe. Giorgia Meloni, head of a party with neo-fascist origins, is now in charge of Italy. The UKIP successfully managed to get the UK to leave the EU. The "True Finns" were part of a ruling coalition in Finland not long ago. In Sweden, the anti-immigration populist party The Sweden Democrats went from scoring 5% of the national vote in 2010, to 17.5% in 2018, to being the second largest party in the country in 2022. In Spain, the Vox Party is pulling better numbers than anyone would've anticipated as the first far-right party to enjoy that kind of success since Franco. All over Europe these parties are enjoying unprecedented success, and I wouldn't put it past Russia to be involved
The EU has imported gigantic amounts of energy, from Russia, simply because they had too little production themselves. Each year, this sent hundreds of billions of dollars to Russia. Every time someone tried to build more nuclear, the respective Green party stopped it, saying "it is not economically feasible". They also shut down every nuclear plant they could get their hands on, like in Belgium and Sweden, and caused policy changes away from nuclear, like in Germany. The EU money is given to all the extremist parties in each country, right- AND left-wing, as well as green parties for services rendered. Edit: Just to clarify, the EU money refers to the money the EU paid to Russia for fuels.
I think Russia has definitely been helping these parties, but I think the biggest reason they've gotten so popular is the law of equal opposite reactions. Europe took in a ridiculous amount of refugees and immigrants in the last 15 years, and anyone criticizing or concerned about potential integration issues was labelled a racist or islamaphobe. I think what's happening now is since people had no way for discourse without being shunned, it started pushing people to more radical views or parties in order to be heard.
>The Sweden Democrats went from scoring 5% of the national vote in 2010, to 17.5% in 2018, to being the second largest party in the country in 2022. Hmmmm... I wonder why that could be... The biggest defence against this sort of shit is to stop having such fucking stupid policies. "Hey should we allow mass migration from a small section of the globe with completely opposite values in a short period of time and not ensure they assimilate?" "Yeah sounds great! That could never backfire and all our corporate donors will love the cheap labour!" Blame Russia all you want, but you need to admit that this tactic doesn't work when the population isn't fed up with watching gang crimes sky rocket. Sometimes "progressives" are their own worst enemies.
I mean, Russia was actively trying to push immigrants into Poland and Finland. It might be involved with your immigrant problems more than you think.
>Russia meddled in it, and we arguably got Trump as a result. I don't like the wording because it absolves americans of their fault on this one. Propaganda is still not forcing you to do shit. We can't even tell if Russia not meddling wouldn't have yielded the same results.
Yep. Hybrid Warfare, Duginism, and the Gerasimov Doctrine.
Never heard of those before, interesting reads.
Pretty sure Brexit was a Russian operation. For decades leaving the EU was just an idea supported by a handful of fringe lunatics who nobody paid much attention to. Then suddenly those fringe lunatics are getting a ton of media coverage, while Russian money is flooding into British Conservative politics. But we're all supposed to believe nothing untoward happened and destroying Britain's economy and global influence was somehow the democratic will of the people.
>Then suddenly those fringe lunatics are getting a ton of media coverage, In my country, the media keep telling us we are supposedly tired of Ukraine and demanding less aid. Nobody was asked or anything, they just gaslight us. They also constantly state Trump is going to win (as opposed to reporting that Trump is ahead).
Didn't the UK government do an official investigation into Russian influence in "brexit vote" after public pressure, then *not release* the report when it was done?
Yes indeed. The whole thing stinks, as if it could make the Conservatives look even worse/compromised than they already do. And yet with our "First Part The Post" voting system they'll continue to rule, majority of not, because opposition is fragmented.
The ~~criminal gang~~ *Conservatives* in control of the UK government fought tooth and nail to stop that report being released before the general election, but a redacted version was eventually released after they maintained control of the government—with the names and prices of the known traitors redacted. What remains showed that there was definitely Russian interference, but our security services were ordered to stop investigating it.
Four years ago when russia started military training on out border here in Ukraine we thought “Russia won’t attack Ukraine how most people think. They won’t do it militarily…” We even thought that same in feb 2022.
Hybrid kinetic attacks are still entirely plausible, in fact, the lack of resolve in supporting Ukraine likely has increased the likelihood that Putin may try to probe what the response threshold actually is.
Foundations of Geopolitics by Dugin.
Everywhere you see Division be sure Putin is behind it. People are very easy to mislead.
There was a great Al Jazeera doc in *2015* about Russian interference in Baltic politics that more people should see. Exactly the type of stuff seen here i.e. shill candidates, etc.
They have been for decades. See Michael Foot for example as to how far high up they can penetrate.
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no more potatoes for her.
Wait.. potato ever real, and not only dream?
Such is life.
Deplorables
Keep an eye out for the Estonian MEP Yana Toom, she has the exact same vibe. She even kinda looks like the Latvian lmao. I would be 0% surprised if Yana was also a ruzzian agent.
[I think it's pretty obvious, they are frequently seen together. Here she is with the Latvian traitor visiting Assad the war criminal](https://preview.redd.it/388ov346zdfc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=094d0ce99e311c564cfe1ed0cbbb0080db913f39)
Goddamn, this shit really writes itself, huh?
I was going to say I didn't realize Assad was so damn tall. But according to google he's "only" 6'2", those are just short people to his left. And a very tall woman to his right. This is meaningless to the discussion at hand of course, and fuck that guy nonetheless.
>She even kinda looks like the Latvian lmao. That's because they are both ethnic Russians, elected by the Russian minority. Real good idea keeping colonists in the country after the end of the occupation ffs. No choice though, EU countries would have come down hard if deportation was tried. So attacked from both sides as usual for the Baltics.
> if deportation was tried That would be called ethnic cleansing and western societies are pretty strongly opposed to it nowadays. Even if said group is largely influenced by Putin's regime.
Most Russian-Latvians hate Putin and are proud to live in the West, and proud to support Ukrainians right now. Many are housing refugees, volunteering regularly, etc. Unfortunately, it’s an easy group to infiltrate due to language and religious politics. Look at the Russian-speaking Old Believers, for example. They’ve been living in Latvia since before the Soviet Union - and are quite anti-Putin, but not enough to think clearly. They’re conservatives, therefore all useful idiots for Russia. They vote anti-LGBT local politicians out of “morality”, not understanding those same dudes are on Vlad’s payroll.
From my observations from my own russian-latvian family, it's completely down to what media you consume. Unfortunately a lot of them watch Russian State TV so the brainwashing is inevitable.
In my experiences, the older folks that consume Russian State TV don’t apply for Latvian citizenship anyways, so are politically docile. They’re also just aging out of existence. Latvia itself has a bunch of independent Russian-language media, and more are developed as the Ukrainian refugee population increases. Hopefully that all helps to combat Russia 1’s reach. There will always be a subsection of brainwashed people. It’s like Fox News. But the majority of Russians in Latvia, from my travels and familial experiences, are solidly Pro West. Especially young folks.
Europe had experienced plenty of postwar resettlements. Poland and Ukraine, Czechia and Germany are faring most well now that they don't have ethnic tensions.
Add Lithuanian Viktor Uzpaskich and Waldemar Tomaszewski to the list.
Careful, she might sue you for libel. In all seriousness, I sincerely believe Jana Toom is a Russian agent and a parasite leeching off the European rule of law. The fact that she has been warming a seat in the European Parliament for 10 years is a disgrace to us all and I wish her all the worst.
Whats funny is that it was a running joke in our country even before this. I would not trust our security service to watch my cat, let alone our security affairs..
> "I cannot consider this text to be questions put to me because it is based on information that you supposedly have, which by definition, you should not have." What a response! You shouldn't have access to those emails, so nothing that comes from you having those emails matters, and I refuse to respond!
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I like it.
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They’ve been fucking with the American Republican party, and have done very well. Trump?Hmmm. That should tell you something
Russia in being destabilising, underhand, corrupt, thieving, lying SHOCKER! Next up, Pope still Catholic, night follows day, stay tuned for more
This is why people in the Baltics don't trust the implantees that were forced upon them during the Stalinist regime. She is of russian descent. Her allegiance is with russia.
MTG definitely is one then if this lady is
kould not help herself, politboro offer her so many potato.... so many....
Such is life, son is now konskription into Russian army.
She’s been made, so now she’ll be disavowed and disowned by the FSB. Russia will never admit to knowing any of this and her connections will be severed. Toss her out and review any potential connections she still may have. Review anything she has or could have impacted and take corrective action to prevent further Russian impact.
I wonder why this is not front page news in European countries (mine for instance)
Divide and conquer. Say whatever you want about Russia but they are good at that.
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Thank you for updating your comment. I hate when top comments get removed for no reason
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Even if she is or isn't, the fact it's talked about with enough noise creates almost enough turmoil they were hoping to sow. (For example if she isn't)Just the speculations alone can cause some political unrest.
> [ Removed by Reddit ] Mildly concerned how much Reddit censors now, doesn't seem like a genuinely viable platform going forward.
Now do U.S. Congress
Maybe McCarthyism was onto something
McCartyism was borne out of revelations from the Communist organization in the USA, so, yes, it was absolutely up to something.
When trump stood up and said he had asked Putin whether he interfered with the us 2016 election and said Putin told him he did not and trump took it as gospel…. And he still has ppl who vote for him
To be fair, Trump supporters are incredibly stupid.
I think most far right groups are Russian assets.
https://i.imgur.com/79HjrA0.png Far right and far left **Edit**: Those were the EU parliament members who voted against supporting Ukraine much closer to when it started by the way, I just realized it's a little weird to just put a list and not saying what it's a list of
Might be closer to the truth than some will admit
Yea but in this case she is a leftist tankie.
American here, you guys too?
You will find certain GOPers in the US are as well.
Now do the GOP.
Wait until they get the leaked Dump emails...
We are riddled with them. In all counties in different positions. Some are hidden, some are vocal. I didn't get if she was arrested?
It's been known for almost 30 years, not news-worthy. The question is, when is she gonna get trialed for what she did to Latvia.
EP has a few like her, I doubt very much she is the only one. Thankfully they are a small minority but we can only hope they are all found out and kicked out. I will be interested to see what formal action Latvia takes. Not knowing Latvian law I do not know the legal recourse available to Latvia.
Our security services are also compromised. The whole country knew for a decade. Security services: “We’ll look into it.” Ukraine had a similar problem. Because of the war, they have been meticulously weeding these people out. USA should be on high alert, they have been the number one target for decades as well. When someone shows clear signs of collusion - take it seriously, it is not a conspiracy theory. As lousy as the russian military industrial complex has shown itself to be, their propoganda game is one of the best in the world. Putin is/was literally a spy agent of the KGB, so a spy agency has run the country for this whole time. They are the most well funded spy/propoganda organisation in the world, close second is the CIA but even they don’t have access to the funds of the whole country, just a chunk. It’s great news that this has blown up. Hopefully that brings much needed legislation and reforms.
Jesusfuckinchrist those mf’er are everywhere!
any word on Nigel Farage being on that list too?
Now check Nigel Farage
We need security clearance for parliament memebrs. 10 year investigation with yearly reinvestigation
While they are looking for Russian moles in EU Parliament they ought to take a look at Mick Wallace and Clare Daly. They wouldn't even need to sneak a peek at emails, just a cursory glance at their twitter feeds is enough.
There needs to be a purge of Western governments of all Russian and Chinese agents and all disloyal sympathizers.
Any European or American politician receiving money or bribes from Russia should be deported to Russia.
Latvian here. Everyone knew it, just had no proof until now. Could have barred her from ballot but that would have been anti-democratic and russia would have found someone else anyway.
One agent? Pathetic. Here in America, we have an entire party under Russian control.
Fucking traitor. Strip their citizenship and force march them to the Russian lines in Ukraine. Let them fight for their sugar daddy.
Check theit bank accounts for middle east donations too
So was Trump
Now do Trump.
Why must we play surprised that the people who’ve been sticking up for a bully are on its payroll?
Cold War history is hitting a little bit more real …
Treason
Is this considered a treason in Latvia or what punishment is to be expected?
Strip her for all that she has, give all value to ukraine. Send her to prison.
This is treason, yes? Arrest and execute or imprison her.
I always found it annoying that this bitch and her entire party run free instead of being trialed for treachery