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RU diplomats allegedly mapped US fiber-optic networks
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The state department can track them, but they cannot stop them from doing that in the end - it is not illegal to drive around the country as diplomat ultimately, and the only law in question that might apply in some cases is trespassing, which barely gives a fine in middle of nowhere, KS.
The Americans would do the same in Russia, but the networks are widely following very simple paths (railway, power lines, highways, sea cables have to be internationally registered anyway like the one to Crimea now if passing through international waters) or are known (used by private ISPs, bribes, built by US companies/supplies...) so it is rather... pointless...
Locking diplomats in their compounds/embassies is generally frowned upon, and not even the Chinese or Iran do that (though North Korea limits them to Pyongyang mostly.)
EDIT: lol'd at the point that the Russians follow the US embassy staff in Moscow while the article basically describes that the US does the same in DC, though beating up a CIA agent on a diplomatic passport (if that is the case, not stated) is pretty blunt.
I think some of these agents are paranoid, in the clinical sense, so their point of view on anything is not really useful. Perspective is still a thing, right?
us-americans committed the most unspeakable crimes in human history, such as - needlessly! - throwing nukes on major japanese cities, they are starting one war after another, usually based on lies, etc ... but the Russians are the evil guys. Yeah, right.
Ohh look, it's the guy who defended the joining of crimea to russia in the previous thread because the vote was supposedly legit and definitely neither polls, nor people were influenced upon voting. Anything you say is bullshit.. at this point I can deduct that without having to read CNN/BBC crap.
Youre so biased hardliner theres no even point of discussing with you. In my opinion, both countries are equally shit. What about the atrocities Russia commited? If you go all the way back to WW2 in order to look for excuses, theres an entire wikipedia article larger than the one featuring potato about russian war crimes during that time.. I also suggest you look into the word "Russian Partisans during the WW2" or as we call it in the motherland "Партиза́н"..
too bad that there was never evidence for evil Russia faking or enforcing the referendum outcome. Funny btw because even utterly western entities like carnegie foundation failed; they made their own polls in crimea and came to roughly the same results.
Even assuming that you were right with evil Russia raping and stealing Crimea - does that somehow make all the nukes and wars of the us of a go away?
Even assuming that you were right you'd have "Russia - annexed small peninsula" vs "us of a - nuking japan, starting dozens of illegal wars, and killing millions and millions of civilians".
You are wrong anyway because if Crimea was annexed then it was annexed by Putin himself and he will convert the whole peninsula to one big fat multi-billion $ palace!
There was enough suspicions and hints in every single media out there, including the kommersant. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it most likely is a duck.
If you go all the way back to WW2 in order to look for excuses, theres an entire wikipedia article larger than the one featuring potato about russian war crimes during that time.. I also suggest you look into the word "Russian Partisans during the WW2" or as we call it in the motherland "Партиза́н".. The amount of Finnish villages that were leveled, the amount of people that were murdered, the amount of children that were beaten, raped, tortured and then shot?
Remember about georgia? Ukraine? And who are those millions of civillians? Afghani people? The Soviet union/Russia were as much involved as USA was.
Funny you ask, well of course because its already part of russia, why would he not invest into it and further solidify his rights on it. If i were a
dictatorleader of russia, that's what I would also do.We can debate entire night on this.. It's only 3 am here. I'm excited to see what the so called putin trolls can come up with. I suggest we take this over to the cess pit?
Which was internationally not condemned and is widely agreed, even by modern Japan, to have ultimately saved millions of lives on all sides.
They do not, unless the country is very shady, even the North Korean diplomats to the UN can move pretty much freely through NYC - this is also supported by the case of Chinese diplomats being involved in illicit weapon dealings on the West coast.
The US, as pretty much any other country, does monitor/follow them but movement on diplomatic (and service + official, for that matter) passports is not restricted to a specific city or similar.
"suspicians", "hints" in some media are not evidence, let alone proof.
FACT is that there were many attempts to show the referendum being fake or forced, some of those attempts even being made by purely western entities doing polls themselves - and failing because no matter when and who asks the Crimeans, the response is always an overwhelming majority being pro Russia and very happy about being "annexed".
Besides the fact that I don't trust wikipedia, I have no problem with your statements. Probably they are quite onesided/biased anti Russia, but no matter for me because my interest is not to hail Russia no matter what. Did Russia commit war crimes and other very bad things (e.g. gulags)? Yes, they did.
Indeed, I do. As for georgia, even their own government admits that that war was started by georgia, more precisely by sakashwily, whom they've put on a wanted list.
As for ukraine, there simply was no attack or involvement of Russia. No matter how much lies and allegations are spread, there exists no credible evidence of Russia attacking or being militarily involved. Plus there exists a very powerful argument for Russia not being involved: If it were, ukraine would be annihilated in less than a weekend. Says not me but some ukrainian officers.
As for Afghanistan, your are 3/4 right. The one quarter I subtract is the fact that Russia was asked by the Afghanis to come in. But granted, the situation was complex and vague and there were different factions in Kabul, some pro, some anti Russia entering. Plus, it was anyway an intervention war Russia led there and they created much damage there (and also lost many soldiers themselves). At best that russian war operation was stupid and legally questionable.
But that still doesn't balance out. The us of a wars created by far more dead civilians, us of a started by far more wars, and the us of a is the only nation so far doing the evilest of the worst, namely to nuke major cities.
Plus Russia (today), the RF, != USSR. Russia today, i.e. the Russian Federation that came into existence after the fall of the USSR has started no war at all.
But I accept that you count the USSR, too, as it was the predecessor to the RF and if we are looking at 50 years we must be fair and lump RF and USSR together.
Wrong. There is plenty evidence, even us-american officials stating it themselves, that Russia (like the USSR before) was and is limited. Leaving the district of dc requires formal paperwork and the us of a reserves the right to - and often does - deny requests.
Which, btw. is not even shady. Being a diplomat does not mean you can go and do wherever, whenever, what you want. It rather is an international legal construct to grant immunity during, for, and within the frame of normal work; usually that work simply doesn't require to travel everywhere within the host country.
This is not correct - Russia is, same as Turkey for the Ottoman empire, the legal successor to the USSR; taking all liabilities as well as all other things from them (eg. foreign debt). For this to be possible Russia as federation had to exist before the USSR ceased to or started to exist right in this moment, but not after.
Only due to this Russia also has the UN security council seat of the USSR - this was part of the Minsk & Alma-ata protocols which also regulated the return of nuclear weapons and the baltic question.
Yugoslavia on the other hand broke apart and had no legal successor (including Serbia, then still as Serbia and Montenegro) - mostly due to the debt it had (net minus, unlike USSR) and nothing to gain from it.
Russian diplomats are not limited in movement more than US ones in Russia in any way; sure there is technically formal requirements, however this law (or any other) is not really relevant, the diplomats can entirely ignore it and at most be deported - there is literally zero more the US can do.
Your statement is generally formally wrong as there are, obviously, diplomats of Russia permanently in NYC (posted to the UN) which are unrelated to the DC staff in operation/living arrangements but still fully Vienna convention protected, including their compounds and offices.
Maybe so, but it wasen't entirely one sided.
Yeah, say that to the families of death russian soldiers who died in Ukraine. Plus all the russian equipment and teams that are involved in the war. President Petro Poroshenko even waved the russian military passports at the high level meeting that were confiscated from captured russian soldiers inside west ukraine borders.
This is pure shit, as the Taliban fought both sides equally harsh. Russia/Soviet was just another invader like USA in their lands.
The living standards and influence of Japan are very high, so USA did not harm them in long term by ending the war with nukes. Hell, it was best for everyone concerned that USA had the nukes first, had it been the nazis or stalin, we'd be speaking russian or german now in everywhere.
Russia today is getting more and more like soviet union every day.. Tsar Putin is not only waging war in ukraine, but is also annexing foreign land by taking in Crimea and establishing a puppet goverment in east ukraine.
Then change the fucking leadership or follow the international rules by not invading or annexing foreign countries. Right now I even see the actions of North Korea less threat for the international community than Russia.
@William
Sorry, you are boring me with obviously being driven by some anal "I must be right, no matter what" going into formalities or minute or even intentional "misunderstanding".
Example: Obviously I was talking about the RF embassy, yet you search for a counter example or detail like the UN mission. And yes, Russia has consulates, too, which are not in washington - that, however, doesn't change the basic statement.
And you wrong in basically saying that all countries (in particular RF and us of a) handle that matter about equally. Nope, they don't. I'll offer 2.5 examples:
The us of a, understanding itself as exceptional, is based on the assumption that whatever they do is right and well; at the same time they expect all others to stick to the rules, be that real rules or made up ones by the us of a.
In Russia, for instance, the us of a pretty much controlled and dictated everything after the fall of the USSR. There is e.g. plenty evidence for us-americans sitting in the ministeries and agencies in Russia as "advisors". Obviously that strongly influenced their self understanding and they are shocked and apalled when Russia today "dares" to enforce standard international rules.
One relatively recent example is us-american diplomats driving with unmarked cars without license plate around Yekaterinburg expecting "we are us-american" to be good enough and Russians should just shut up.
In germany it's even worse as germany happens to actually be an occupation zone where the us of a acts arbitrarily however they like; they don't give a rats ass about international rules or even minimal politeness.
Russia, on the other hand, is rather easy going on diplomats from everywhere. And if they beat up a us american "diplomat" (read: cia criminal) that's just great. Actually they should make that into the habit.
Something you can relate to finally I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Actually, not many people know about Canada and it's history. Our previous leaders/PMs encouraged the assimilation of the indigenous children. We tortured them, abused them, and yeah... One could even say that we encouraged and pursued cultural genocide here.
I don't want to be racist, but most people think that Canada is amazing and peaceful... this is a result of the many years of suffering that we brought upon our First Nations. The epitome of this is that... the white did this. This includes the US: the very white Truman.
I don't want to dive any deeper, but my point is, we were all assholes at some point. The fact that the US is complaining about the Russians is stupid. I'd be happy to see Russia do what the US claims they have done. Kick their no-good asses.
Fixed it for you. What is stupid is the people who actually buy all that theater.
Kindly note that I said "credible evidence". porkoshenko waving "russian passports", for instance, proves nothing. There are even multiple reasons, a main one being that there are many Russians legally in ukraine. Moreover every state can create fake passports, particularly when the alleged issuer state has no chance of examining them.
Would you accept it as evidence of even as proof if, say, Putin waved some, say, us of a passport to show that the us of runs a secret war inside Russia? Of course not, and you would be right to reject that "evidence". But strangely if Russia is alleged of something, anything, pretty much everything is accepted as evidence.
Maybe the living standards in poland or france would be very high if Hitler had won WW2, too. Would you accept that as argument?
And, had Hitler won, you bet that the concentration camps wouldn't be an issue. Would that prove that concentration camps were, in fact, even very positive and good for polands evolution? Hardly.
There is a very simple rule: One doesn't nuke. Period.
Whoever doesn't stick to that rule is the worst criminal in human history.
And don't forget that Russia also tried to influence the us american and the french elections by hacking them!!1!!
Or no, wait, the french cyber security chief just said that that allegation is nonsensical and untenable. Similarly the us-americans still don't have shown any proof.
All you Russia haters are stupid because you don't see the real big thing: Putin is running slave factories on a moon base from where they hack everyone!!1!!
Sorry, but do yourself a favour and look up the term "annexation".
You will find cases of annexation, e.g. in what was formerly Yugoslavia. Or even in germany. In both cases the people were not asked and had no saying in the "unification". Yet I don't see much anger about those real annexations.
Crimea was not an annexation - by definition. The people had a referendum and they wanted - and still - want it.
Maybe that explains why I am seen by some to be blindly pro Russia. Well, I am not. I'm blindly pro truth and reality. Quite some people spreading utter bullshit about Russia is not acceptable. I would say and do the same if some idiots started to accuse, say, england of secretely mass murdering Russians or italy to secretely trying to invade poland using invisible tanks.
Risking to be seen as bloody anti-canadian, too (which I'm not): I did know at least some of those ugly ugly things.
And I agree with your conclusion, that at some point all nations were/are assholes.
Oh look, another thread turning into a political discussion. Here's my response:
Because you guys don't have enough places on the internet to discuss politics, am I right?