danielboon
TB Fanatic
Duduman penned it well " The Russian leader said they need to be kicked out of Europe too then we can do as we please "
WAR trouble brewing again in ukraine
- Thread starter danielboon
- Start date
jward
passin' thru
Rim Gilfanov
@guilfanr
Breaking: Czech Republic expels 18 Russian diplomats allegedly linked to Russian military intelligence GRU and SVR. Czechs say they all are connected to organizing in 2014 an explosion at military ammunitions depot in Vrbetice. #putinism
View: https://twitter.com/guilfanr/status/1383479010286465034?s=20
@guilfanr
Breaking: Czech Republic expels 18 Russian diplomats allegedly linked to Russian military intelligence GRU and SVR. Czechs say they all are connected to organizing in 2014 an explosion at military ammunitions depot in Vrbetice. #putinism
View: https://twitter.com/guilfanr/status/1383479010286465034?s=20
jward
passin' thru
Mladen Obrenovic
Phoenix
BIRN
April 16, 202110:32
Serbs who fought for Moscow-backed militias in the conflict in eastern Ukraine say they are ready to take up arms again as a massive Russian military build-up on the border raises fears of more violence.
This article is also available in: Shqip Macedonian
As the simmering conflict in Ukraine heats up again, there have been indications that volunteer fighters from the Balkans have been heading back to the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine again to fight for Russian-backed separatist forces.
Amid the rising tensions, Serbian volunteer Dejan Beric, who served with Russian-backed forces in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic as a sniper several years ago, said he is returning to eastern Ukraine.
“I own a Donetsk People’s Republic citizen’s passport - it is not just a piece of paper, but an obligation too. This is my republic and I am obliged to protect it,” Beric told the Donbas Today website.
Since the middle of March, there have been numerous reports of a massive Russian military build-up near Ukraine’s eastern border and on the Russian-occupied peninsula of Crimea, sparking warnings of a potential escalation in the seven-year conflict in Donbas between Ukrainian government forces and fighters aided by Russia.
In response, the Ukrainian defence ministry has called on reservist soldiers to attend training sessions and has conducted defensive military drills near Crimea. Kyiv says that 28 of its soldiers have already been killed this year.
Beric claimed that many Balkan volunteers are heading to the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics – areas of Donbas which have been outside the control of the Ukrainian government since the conflict began in 2014.
“If an offensive starts, I expect a large number of casualties. It will be worse than in 2014,” he predicted.
The Union of Volunteers of Donbas, an organisation operating in separatist-held eastern Ukraine that is involved in recruiting fighters, has also said it is getting ready for a potential escalation.
Dozens of pro-Russian military volunteers who came to Ukraine from Serbia and Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska have already fought under its umbrella in eastern Ukraine.
The Union’s leader, Alexander Borodai, who was also the first prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, predicted that if the situation heats up further, “Russian volunteers will arrive”.
‘Impunity for Balkan fighters in Ukraine’
Serbian fighter Dejan Beric with the passport of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. Photo: Facebook/Dejan Beric.
Bratislav Zivkovic, who describes himself as a Chetnik commander and claims he was one of the first Serb volunteers to go to Crimea when it was annexed by Russia in 2014, also said he believed that the warring sides in eastern Ukraine “are indeed on the edge of renewing their conflict”.
“People here are absolutely against the war, not only in the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, but also on the other side, especially in the frontier zone. People whose relatives stayed on the Ukrainian side are talking about that,” Zivkovic told BIRN from eastern Ukraine.
Legislation in both Bosnia and Serbia prohibits going to fight abroad, and Zivkovic has previously been investigated in Serbia for taking Serb nationalist Chetnik volunteers to Ukraine. However, the investigation was dropped.
He claimed that there have been troop movements on both sides of the ‘line of contact’ between Ukrainian government-controlled territory and rebel-held areas, and that “shelling has also increased”.
Zivkovic cited allegations that a Ukrainian armed drone killed a five-year-old boy in the separatist-held village of Alexandrovskoye earlier this month. The killing has been denied by the Kyiv government. Zivkovic claimed that after this, “many people have come forward and expressed interest in the situation on the front”.
“There is an increased interest in this region now, not only in Serbia and Republika Srpska, but also in Montenegro, [North] Macedonia and even Bulgaria,” he added.
The trials that have been held so far may not have acted as a deterrent. Of the scores of Serb volunteers who have fought for Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine, few have been severely punished. Serbia has convicted a total of 29 individuals of fighting abroad, but most of them were given suspended sentences after admitting guilt.
According to a report by the Security Ministry of Bosnia and Herzegovina, over the past seven years, 11 Bosnian citizens have taken part in combat activities in Ukraine.
“At present one Bosnian citizen is away in the war zone in Ukraine,” stated the report, which was based on data from the police, intelligence service and other such institutions.
Of the 11 volunteers said to have gone to fight in Ukraine from Bosnia and Herzegovina, only one, a man called Gavrilo Stevic, has been put on trial. However, he was acquitted on appeal last year.
The dean of the Faculty of Criminal Justice, Criminology and Security Studies at the University of Sarajevo, Jasmin Ahic, said that the acquittal, as well as the failure to prosecute the remaining ten volunteers, showed that there was impunity for those who went to fight in Ukraine, while other Bosnians who went to fight for Islamic State in Syria have been jailed.
“This implies a distinction between those who fought in Syria and in Ukraine. This only goes to show that Bosnian citizens are not equal before the law and that there is no justice,” Ahic said.
Stevic’s trial did however show how some volunteers from the Balkans made their way to the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine. They travelled via the Serbian capital Belgrade to Moscow, from where they were transferred to Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, near the Ukrainian border, then across to separatist-held territory in Donbas.
The indictment alleged that Stevic received help from a Chetnik association called the Ravna Gora Movement, and that Bratislav Zivkovic travelled from Belgrade with him and a group of other volunteers. In Rostov-on-Don, they were met by Russian military volunteers who recruited people to fight in Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as a private company that was looking for guards for a “humanitarian convoy” to eastern Ukraine, the indictment also claimed.
The Bosnian state prosecution told BIRN that it is still working with police and security agencies on several cases of Bosnian citizens going to fight abroad in places including Ukraine, but declined to provide further details for operational reasons.
Ukraine warns Serb fighters
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky (centre) visits the conflict zone near Donetsk on April 9. Photo: EPA-EFE/PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE.
Ukraine takes a stern view of foreign fighters arriving to join the conflict on its territory and has warned that could face prison or death.
The Ukrainian ambassador to Belgrade, Oleksandr Alexandrovych, said that this is “not an internal conflict in Ukraine, it is a war waged by the Russian Federation against Ukraine. The International Criminal Court back in 2016 defined it clearly as an armed conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine.
“So, anyone, including Serb mercenaries, who will enter Ukraine illegally and with arms with intent to shoot at Ukrainians, can and shall be killed or captured, in full compliance with the Ukrainian and international law,” Alexandrovych warned.
“It is futile to appeal to the conscience of those mercenaries, but I appeal to their relatives and loved ones here in Serbia – please hold them back or you may lose them,” he added.
Ukraine has repeatedly complained that Serbs who travelled to Donbas to fight and were arrested on their return home have not been adequately punished.
“As ambassador of Ukraine, I am not satisfied with the efforts of Belgrade to prosecute those criminals. There are quite a lot of them – a few hundred since the beginning of the war. They often serve as snipers posing grave danger to the Ukrainian military and civilian population,” Alexandrovych said.
He insisted that the Ukrainian authorities provide “regular information about their identities” to Serbia, but said he did not know how this information has been used.
“So far, I am not aware of a single person being judged and sentenced to real prison terms. Suspended sentences are obviously not an adequate punishment, because many of them come back to Ukraine to repeat their crimes. Sometimes, they brag about it openly on social media. This is outrageous,” he said.
‘Money isn’t the main motive’
Serb Chetnik fighter Bratislav Zivkovic. Photo: Romanian Intelligence Service.
Russian journalist Julia Petrovskaya, who reports on Russia’s influence in the Balkans, said that more potential volunteers can be expected to show interest in going to fight in eastern Ukraine because of the increased tensions between Moscow and Kyiv.
Petrovskaya recalled that after the beginning of the armed conflict, following the occupation and annexation of Crimea by Russia, the Security Service of Ukraine said that it had information that there were several hundred fighters from the Balkans, “mostly Serbs (from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro), who were fighting in Donbas”.
“Some of them behaved exactly as they liked there and even sought media glory, like [former Serbian anti-terrorist police spokesman] Radomir Pocuca, who was later convicted for his mercenary activities, or Dejan Beric, who published a book, worked for a small TV station and even appeared at a press conference in Moscow which was held by [Russian] foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova,” Petrovskaya said.
She said that Serb volunteers are “usually recruited through organisations typically posing as humanitarian, religious or veterans’ organisations”.
“There are many such shady organisations, although there are also some well-known ones, like the Kosovo Front or the Balkan Cossack Army, which have strong anti-Western and pro-Kremlin propaganda and anti-Ukrainian and nationalistic conservative rhetoric. Their financing mechanisms are unclear, but judging by many indicators, the finances originate in Russia,” Petrovskaya said.
Maria Kucherenko, an analyst with the Kyiv-based Centre for Civil Society Studies, said that money is not the main motive for Serb fighters going to Donbas.
“An ordinary Serbian or any other foreign mercenary is not paid much,” Kucherenko said.
“An opportunity to create a completely new biography, but also the aura of a ‘hero and martyr for the Russian world’, is a much more important motive,” she argued.
The foreign fighters also play an important role in Russian media myth-making, Kucherenko added.
“Russia needs people like them as heroes for propaganda stories on its TV, because allegedly ‘the entire world’, represented by those foreign fighters, ‘supports Russians’ and comes to ‘fight against fascism’,” she explained.
However, she said that interest in fighting in eastern Ukraine could be affected by the case of Slavisa Mitrovic, a Serb who was not granted Russian citizenship despite the fact that he went to fight in Donbas and subsequently obtained ‘citizenship’ of the separatists’ self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, “which would theoretically grant him the right to get a Russian passport”.
Mitrovic told Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda last month that when he was fighting in the Bosnian war in the 1990s, he met a Russian who had volunteered on the Serb side. The volunteer asked Mitrovic what would happen if there was a similar conflict I the area that the Russian came from. Mitrovic told the newspaper: “I promised that I would also come [to fight].”
The newspaper contrasted the case of Mitrovic, who it described as one of the “real defenders of the Russian world”, with that of Milos Bikovic, a Serbian actor who has appeared in comedy films and has been given Russian citizenship. Its headline asked the question: “What kind of Serb does Russia need more – a comedian or a volunteer from Donbas?”
Kucherenko said that the story feeds into the “Russian propaganda line” about Serbs coming to the aid of their Slavic brothers on the frontline in Donbas.
Passports are a crucial issue in the developing conflict in eastern Ukraine. Moscow has given Russian passports to hundreds of thousands of residents of the separatist-controlled areas, and Dmitry Kozak, deputy chief of staff of President Vladimir Putin’s administration, said on April 8 that Russia could step in to “defend” its citizens there.
Kozak compared the situation in the separatist areas to the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, more than 7,000 of whose male Bosniak residents were killed by Bosnian Serb forces in 1995 in massacres that have been classified as genocide by international courts.
“If, as our president says, there is a Srebrenica [in Donbas], we will probably have to come to their defence,” he said.
Putin originally made the Srebrenica reference in December 2019, although there has been no evidence of ethnic cleansing or planned massacres by Ukrainian government forces.
Meanwhile Moscow has denied that it is using its recent large-scale troop movements to threaten Ukraine, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying that Russia “is free to move its own forces across its own territory”.
Ukraine-Russia: the conflict in brief
Russian-backed rebels in front of the war-damaged international airport building in Donetsk in October 2015. Photo: EPA/ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO.
In November 2013, Ukrainians began the Euromaidan mass protests in Kyiv, demanding closer integration with the European Union, after President Viktor Yanukovych abandoned an Association Agreement with the EU and decided to strengthen ties with Russia instead.
After attacks by security forces left scores of Euromaidan protesters dead, Yanukovych fled the country for exile in Moscow in February 2014. The same month, Russia deployed troops in Ukraine’s southern peninsula of Crimea and then formally annexed it in March 2014 after a disputed referendum.
Conflict also erupted in February 2014 in eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists battled Ukrainian government forces and established the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, with Russian military support. Scores of volunteers from the Balkans are reported to have to joined the separatist militias.
Two ceasefire agreements were signed in September 2014 and February 2015, but sporadic violence have continued since then, and soldiers are regularly killed on the frontline. More than 13,000 people have died in Ukraine’s conflict with Russia and the separatist militias so far.
Sasa Dragojlo, Balkan Insight’s Serbia correspondent, also contributed to this article.
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Phoenix
BIRN
April 16, 202110:32
Serbs who fought for Moscow-backed militias in the conflict in eastern Ukraine say they are ready to take up arms again as a massive Russian military build-up on the border raises fears of more violence.
This article is also available in: Shqip Macedonian
As the simmering conflict in Ukraine heats up again, there have been indications that volunteer fighters from the Balkans have been heading back to the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine again to fight for Russian-backed separatist forces.
Amid the rising tensions, Serbian volunteer Dejan Beric, who served with Russian-backed forces in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic as a sniper several years ago, said he is returning to eastern Ukraine.
“I own a Donetsk People’s Republic citizen’s passport - it is not just a piece of paper, but an obligation too. This is my republic and I am obliged to protect it,” Beric told the Donbas Today website.
Since the middle of March, there have been numerous reports of a massive Russian military build-up near Ukraine’s eastern border and on the Russian-occupied peninsula of Crimea, sparking warnings of a potential escalation in the seven-year conflict in Donbas between Ukrainian government forces and fighters aided by Russia.
In response, the Ukrainian defence ministry has called on reservist soldiers to attend training sessions and has conducted defensive military drills near Crimea. Kyiv says that 28 of its soldiers have already been killed this year.
Beric claimed that many Balkan volunteers are heading to the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics – areas of Donbas which have been outside the control of the Ukrainian government since the conflict began in 2014.
“If an offensive starts, I expect a large number of casualties. It will be worse than in 2014,” he predicted.
The Union of Volunteers of Donbas, an organisation operating in separatist-held eastern Ukraine that is involved in recruiting fighters, has also said it is getting ready for a potential escalation.
Dozens of pro-Russian military volunteers who came to Ukraine from Serbia and Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska have already fought under its umbrella in eastern Ukraine.
The Union’s leader, Alexander Borodai, who was also the first prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, predicted that if the situation heats up further, “Russian volunteers will arrive”.
‘Impunity for Balkan fighters in Ukraine’
Serbian fighter Dejan Beric with the passport of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. Photo: Facebook/Dejan Beric.
Bratislav Zivkovic, who describes himself as a Chetnik commander and claims he was one of the first Serb volunteers to go to Crimea when it was annexed by Russia in 2014, also said he believed that the warring sides in eastern Ukraine “are indeed on the edge of renewing their conflict”.
“People here are absolutely against the war, not only in the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, but also on the other side, especially in the frontier zone. People whose relatives stayed on the Ukrainian side are talking about that,” Zivkovic told BIRN from eastern Ukraine.
Legislation in both Bosnia and Serbia prohibits going to fight abroad, and Zivkovic has previously been investigated in Serbia for taking Serb nationalist Chetnik volunteers to Ukraine. However, the investigation was dropped.
He claimed that there have been troop movements on both sides of the ‘line of contact’ between Ukrainian government-controlled territory and rebel-held areas, and that “shelling has also increased”.
Zivkovic cited allegations that a Ukrainian armed drone killed a five-year-old boy in the separatist-held village of Alexandrovskoye earlier this month. The killing has been denied by the Kyiv government. Zivkovic claimed that after this, “many people have come forward and expressed interest in the situation on the front”.
“There is an increased interest in this region now, not only in Serbia and Republika Srpska, but also in Montenegro, [North] Macedonia and even Bulgaria,” he added.
The trials that have been held so far may not have acted as a deterrent. Of the scores of Serb volunteers who have fought for Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine, few have been severely punished. Serbia has convicted a total of 29 individuals of fighting abroad, but most of them were given suspended sentences after admitting guilt.
According to a report by the Security Ministry of Bosnia and Herzegovina, over the past seven years, 11 Bosnian citizens have taken part in combat activities in Ukraine.
“At present one Bosnian citizen is away in the war zone in Ukraine,” stated the report, which was based on data from the police, intelligence service and other such institutions.
Of the 11 volunteers said to have gone to fight in Ukraine from Bosnia and Herzegovina, only one, a man called Gavrilo Stevic, has been put on trial. However, he was acquitted on appeal last year.
The dean of the Faculty of Criminal Justice, Criminology and Security Studies at the University of Sarajevo, Jasmin Ahic, said that the acquittal, as well as the failure to prosecute the remaining ten volunteers, showed that there was impunity for those who went to fight in Ukraine, while other Bosnians who went to fight for Islamic State in Syria have been jailed.
“This implies a distinction between those who fought in Syria and in Ukraine. This only goes to show that Bosnian citizens are not equal before the law and that there is no justice,” Ahic said.
Stevic’s trial did however show how some volunteers from the Balkans made their way to the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine. They travelled via the Serbian capital Belgrade to Moscow, from where they were transferred to Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, near the Ukrainian border, then across to separatist-held territory in Donbas.
The indictment alleged that Stevic received help from a Chetnik association called the Ravna Gora Movement, and that Bratislav Zivkovic travelled from Belgrade with him and a group of other volunteers. In Rostov-on-Don, they were met by Russian military volunteers who recruited people to fight in Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as a private company that was looking for guards for a “humanitarian convoy” to eastern Ukraine, the indictment also claimed.
The Bosnian state prosecution told BIRN that it is still working with police and security agencies on several cases of Bosnian citizens going to fight abroad in places including Ukraine, but declined to provide further details for operational reasons.
Ukraine warns Serb fighters
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky (centre) visits the conflict zone near Donetsk on April 9. Photo: EPA-EFE/PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE.
Ukraine takes a stern view of foreign fighters arriving to join the conflict on its territory and has warned that could face prison or death.
The Ukrainian ambassador to Belgrade, Oleksandr Alexandrovych, said that this is “not an internal conflict in Ukraine, it is a war waged by the Russian Federation against Ukraine. The International Criminal Court back in 2016 defined it clearly as an armed conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine.
“So, anyone, including Serb mercenaries, who will enter Ukraine illegally and with arms with intent to shoot at Ukrainians, can and shall be killed or captured, in full compliance with the Ukrainian and international law,” Alexandrovych warned.
“It is futile to appeal to the conscience of those mercenaries, but I appeal to their relatives and loved ones here in Serbia – please hold them back or you may lose them,” he added.
Ukraine has repeatedly complained that Serbs who travelled to Donbas to fight and were arrested on their return home have not been adequately punished.
“As ambassador of Ukraine, I am not satisfied with the efforts of Belgrade to prosecute those criminals. There are quite a lot of them – a few hundred since the beginning of the war. They often serve as snipers posing grave danger to the Ukrainian military and civilian population,” Alexandrovych said.
He insisted that the Ukrainian authorities provide “regular information about their identities” to Serbia, but said he did not know how this information has been used.
“So far, I am not aware of a single person being judged and sentenced to real prison terms. Suspended sentences are obviously not an adequate punishment, because many of them come back to Ukraine to repeat their crimes. Sometimes, they brag about it openly on social media. This is outrageous,” he said.
‘Money isn’t the main motive’
Serb Chetnik fighter Bratislav Zivkovic. Photo: Romanian Intelligence Service.
Russian journalist Julia Petrovskaya, who reports on Russia’s influence in the Balkans, said that more potential volunteers can be expected to show interest in going to fight in eastern Ukraine because of the increased tensions between Moscow and Kyiv.
Petrovskaya recalled that after the beginning of the armed conflict, following the occupation and annexation of Crimea by Russia, the Security Service of Ukraine said that it had information that there were several hundred fighters from the Balkans, “mostly Serbs (from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro), who were fighting in Donbas”.
“Some of them behaved exactly as they liked there and even sought media glory, like [former Serbian anti-terrorist police spokesman] Radomir Pocuca, who was later convicted for his mercenary activities, or Dejan Beric, who published a book, worked for a small TV station and even appeared at a press conference in Moscow which was held by [Russian] foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova,” Petrovskaya said.
She said that Serb volunteers are “usually recruited through organisations typically posing as humanitarian, religious or veterans’ organisations”.
“There are many such shady organisations, although there are also some well-known ones, like the Kosovo Front or the Balkan Cossack Army, which have strong anti-Western and pro-Kremlin propaganda and anti-Ukrainian and nationalistic conservative rhetoric. Their financing mechanisms are unclear, but judging by many indicators, the finances originate in Russia,” Petrovskaya said.
Maria Kucherenko, an analyst with the Kyiv-based Centre for Civil Society Studies, said that money is not the main motive for Serb fighters going to Donbas.
“An ordinary Serbian or any other foreign mercenary is not paid much,” Kucherenko said.
“An opportunity to create a completely new biography, but also the aura of a ‘hero and martyr for the Russian world’, is a much more important motive,” she argued.
The foreign fighters also play an important role in Russian media myth-making, Kucherenko added.
“Russia needs people like them as heroes for propaganda stories on its TV, because allegedly ‘the entire world’, represented by those foreign fighters, ‘supports Russians’ and comes to ‘fight against fascism’,” she explained.
However, she said that interest in fighting in eastern Ukraine could be affected by the case of Slavisa Mitrovic, a Serb who was not granted Russian citizenship despite the fact that he went to fight in Donbas and subsequently obtained ‘citizenship’ of the separatists’ self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, “which would theoretically grant him the right to get a Russian passport”.
Mitrovic told Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda last month that when he was fighting in the Bosnian war in the 1990s, he met a Russian who had volunteered on the Serb side. The volunteer asked Mitrovic what would happen if there was a similar conflict I the area that the Russian came from. Mitrovic told the newspaper: “I promised that I would also come [to fight].”
The newspaper contrasted the case of Mitrovic, who it described as one of the “real defenders of the Russian world”, with that of Milos Bikovic, a Serbian actor who has appeared in comedy films and has been given Russian citizenship. Its headline asked the question: “What kind of Serb does Russia need more – a comedian or a volunteer from Donbas?”
Kucherenko said that the story feeds into the “Russian propaganda line” about Serbs coming to the aid of their Slavic brothers on the frontline in Donbas.
Passports are a crucial issue in the developing conflict in eastern Ukraine. Moscow has given Russian passports to hundreds of thousands of residents of the separatist-controlled areas, and Dmitry Kozak, deputy chief of staff of President Vladimir Putin’s administration, said on April 8 that Russia could step in to “defend” its citizens there.
Kozak compared the situation in the separatist areas to the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, more than 7,000 of whose male Bosniak residents were killed by Bosnian Serb forces in 1995 in massacres that have been classified as genocide by international courts.
“If, as our president says, there is a Srebrenica [in Donbas], we will probably have to come to their defence,” he said.
Putin originally made the Srebrenica reference in December 2019, although there has been no evidence of ethnic cleansing or planned massacres by Ukrainian government forces.
Meanwhile Moscow has denied that it is using its recent large-scale troop movements to threaten Ukraine, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying that Russia “is free to move its own forces across its own territory”.
Ukraine-Russia: the conflict in brief
Russian-backed rebels in front of the war-damaged international airport building in Donetsk in October 2015. Photo: EPA/ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO.
In November 2013, Ukrainians began the Euromaidan mass protests in Kyiv, demanding closer integration with the European Union, after President Viktor Yanukovych abandoned an Association Agreement with the EU and decided to strengthen ties with Russia instead.
After attacks by security forces left scores of Euromaidan protesters dead, Yanukovych fled the country for exile in Moscow in February 2014. The same month, Russia deployed troops in Ukraine’s southern peninsula of Crimea and then formally annexed it in March 2014 after a disputed referendum.
Conflict also erupted in February 2014 in eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists battled Ukrainian government forces and established the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, with Russian military support. Scores of volunteers from the Balkans are reported to have to joined the separatist militias.
Two ceasefire agreements were signed in September 2014 and February 2015, but sporadic violence have continued since then, and soldiers are regularly killed on the frontline. More than 13,000 people have died in Ukraine’s conflict with Russia and the separatist militias so far.
Sasa Dragojlo, Balkan Insight’s Serbia correspondent, also contributed to this article.
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Posted For Fair Use
As Ukraine Conflict Intensifies, Serb Volunteers Prepare for Battle
Serbs who fought for Moscow-backed militias in the conflict in eastern Ukraine say they are ready to take up arms again as a massive Russian military build-up on the border raises fears of more violence.
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TB Fanatic
Russia arrests two alleged Belarus coup plotters
Russia's main security agency says it arrested two Belarusians who it claims were preparing a plot to overthrow Belarus' government and kill authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko
By The Associated Press
17 April 2021, 13:14
The Associated Press
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko listens to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin during their talks in Minsk, Belarus, Friday, April 16, 2021. (Alexander Astafyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
MOSCOW -- Russia’s main security agency says it has arrested two Belarusians who it said were preparing a plot to overthrow Belarus’ government and kill authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
One of the men arrested, Aleksandr Feduta, was Lukahsenko’s spokesman when he was first elected in 1994, but later joined the opposition. The other, lawyer Yuras Zyankovich, has dual Belarusian-U.S. citizenship.
The Federal Security Service said Saturday that the two have been handed over to Belarus. Russian authorities were alerted to information about the men’s plans by the Belarusian security service, the KGB.
The Russian agency said the two suspects came to Moscow to meet with opposition-minded Belarusian generals, whom they told that “for the successful implementation of their plan, it was necessary to physically eliminate practically the entire top leadership of the republic."
"They detailed the plan for a military coup, in particular, including the seizure of radio and television centers to broadcast their appeal to the people, blocking the internal troops and riot police units loyal to the current government,” the Russian agency said.
Lukashenko told Belarusian television Saturday that investigators found evidence of foreign involvement in the alleged plot, “most likely the FBI, the CIA.”
After nationwide protests against Lukashenko broke out last year after his disputed election win, he repeatedly blamed Western countries for allegedly plotting his downfall or even preparing for a military intervention.
The protests, some of which attracted as many as 200,000 people, started in August after an election that official results say gave Lukashenko a sixth term in office. Opposition members and even some poll workers said the results were fraudulent.
Security forces then cracked down hard on the demonstrations, arresting more than 34,000 people, many of whom were beaten. Most prominent opposition figures have fled Belarus or have since been jailed.
Russia arrests two alleged Belarus coup plotters - ABC News (go.com)
Russia's main security agency says it arrested two Belarusians who it claims were preparing a plot to overthrow Belarus' government and kill authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko
By The Associated Press
17 April 2021, 13:14
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko listens to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin during their talks in Minsk, Belarus, Friday, April 16, 2021. (Alexander Astafyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
MOSCOW -- Russia’s main security agency says it has arrested two Belarusians who it said were preparing a plot to overthrow Belarus’ government and kill authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
One of the men arrested, Aleksandr Feduta, was Lukahsenko’s spokesman when he was first elected in 1994, but later joined the opposition. The other, lawyer Yuras Zyankovich, has dual Belarusian-U.S. citizenship.
The Federal Security Service said Saturday that the two have been handed over to Belarus. Russian authorities were alerted to information about the men’s plans by the Belarusian security service, the KGB.
The Russian agency said the two suspects came to Moscow to meet with opposition-minded Belarusian generals, whom they told that “for the successful implementation of their plan, it was necessary to physically eliminate practically the entire top leadership of the republic."
"They detailed the plan for a military coup, in particular, including the seizure of radio and television centers to broadcast their appeal to the people, blocking the internal troops and riot police units loyal to the current government,” the Russian agency said.
Lukashenko told Belarusian television Saturday that investigators found evidence of foreign involvement in the alleged plot, “most likely the FBI, the CIA.”
After nationwide protests against Lukashenko broke out last year after his disputed election win, he repeatedly blamed Western countries for allegedly plotting his downfall or even preparing for a military intervention.
The protests, some of which attracted as many as 200,000 people, started in August after an election that official results say gave Lukashenko a sixth term in office. Opposition members and even some poll workers said the results were fraudulent.
Security forces then cracked down hard on the demonstrations, arresting more than 34,000 people, many of whom were beaten. Most prominent opposition figures have fled Belarus or have since been jailed.
Russia arrests two alleged Belarus coup plotters - ABC News (go.com)
jward
passin' thru
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@EndGameWW3
2m
Update: Over 80,000 Russian soldiers are now stationed within striking distance of Ukrainian positions (via Kyiv Post)
@EndGameWW3
2m
Update: Over 80,000 Russian soldiers are now stationed within striking distance of Ukrainian positions (via Kyiv Post)
northern watch
TB Fanatic
northern watch
TB Fanatic
northern watch
TB Fanatic
Lurker
14
northern watch
TB Fanatic
Lurker
14
Ahh....that's calming.
Doomer Doug
TB Fanatic
They would need to take our grid down and that would mean an emp pulse, from high altitude nukes. And china would need to NEUTRALIZE our pacific bases and strike back ability.
The LESSON China learned from Pearl Harbor was Japan had a tactical victory and a strategic failure.
No oil tanks, no carriers and no subs meant FAILURE. China will unleash such a massive attack we will be unable to respond, except some missiles from subs. Xi will YAWN and play another round of go.
They are PSCYOPATHS: THEY DON'T CARE. Mao is quoted as saying 200 MILLION dead is ok if he wins, and that was in the 1960's.
Seriously, what would we do if EVERY single military asset we had, maybe some subs and silos, were destroyed in a few hours?
You all remember Clinton changed the launch response to absorb a first strike and then respond.
Who actualy has the nuclear football anyway?
We might spend time floppong around trying to figure out if we even HAD been attacked?
We are in LETHAL DANGER with biden as potus and neo con traitors in charge.
Our cities are burning and people think our woke military could launch a coherent response?
The LESSON China learned from Pearl Harbor was Japan had a tactical victory and a strategic failure.
No oil tanks, no carriers and no subs meant FAILURE. China will unleash such a massive attack we will be unable to respond, except some missiles from subs. Xi will YAWN and play another round of go.
They are PSCYOPATHS: THEY DON'T CARE. Mao is quoted as saying 200 MILLION dead is ok if he wins, and that was in the 1960's.
Seriously, what would we do if EVERY single military asset we had, maybe some subs and silos, were destroyed in a few hours?
You all remember Clinton changed the launch response to absorb a first strike and then respond.
Who actualy has the nuclear football anyway?
We might spend time floppong around trying to figure out if we even HAD been attacked?
We are in LETHAL DANGER with biden as potus and neo con traitors in charge.
Our cities are burning and people think our woke military could launch a coherent response?
Doomer Doug
TB Fanatic
Biden. They know Trump wouldn't murder his family for God's sake. Who is this clown making a statement like that. CAN YOU SAY SOROS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
jward
passin' thru
Emp to take down our grid? Why not just use those solar wind hack/code/thing-a-ma-jigs? I suspect it is far easier to accomplish than we realize or have the courage to face, actually.
ETA: this new thread on main speaks to our fragility here:
www.timebomb2000.com
ETA: this new thread on main speaks to our fragility here:
WTF?!? - NDIA Policy Points: SCADA Missing from Cyber Certification Regime
Posted for fair use..... https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2021/4/16/scada-missing-from-cyber-certification-regime NDIA Policy Points: SCADA Missing from Cyber Certification Regime 4/16/2021 By Joshua Walker “The United States cannot afford to be islands of light with regard to...
Last edited:
Old Gringo
Senior Member
Here is how Xi the merciless thinks, which is the same way Mao Tse Tung thought.
He nukes Guam, Okinawa, Pearl Harbor, the Trident base, San Diego, along with North Korea hitting japan and south korea.
Finally, EMP's on conus and most of nukes are neutrons. Russia and Iran pile on. Venezuela and after 3 months he goes red dawn.
The USA under biden would do what? Nothing at all, except nuke. Shanghai or whatever. Xi doesn't care how many chinese we kill. He would get it ALL, everything of value we have: land for food, water etc
And THAT IS HOW THEY THINK. And we got this brain dead fool as potus and a woke country and military, at least 50% anyway.
So they bait us with Ukraine and Taiwan and once we wasted ourselves, both in conus and in theater they nuke us and game over.
Lurkey, now THAT is some serious DOOM.
neutrons ?
John Deere Girl
Veteran Member
A cyber attack would be much more likely.They would need to take our grid down and that would mean an emp pulse, from high altitude nukes. And china would need to NEUTRALIZE our pacific bases and strike back ability.
The LESSON China learned from Pearl Harbor was Japan had a tactical victory and a strategic failure.
No oil tanks, no carriers and no subs meant FAILURE. China will unleash such a massive attack we will be unable to respond, except some missiles from subs. Xi will YAWN and play another round of go.
They are PSCYOPATHS: THEY DON'T CARE. Mao is quoted as saying 200 MILLION dead is ok if he wins, and that was in the 1960's.
Seriously, what would we do if EVERY single military asset we had, maybe some subs and silos, were destroyed in a few hours?
You all remember Clinton changed the launch response to absorb a first strike and then respond.
Who actualy has the nuclear football anyway?
We might spend time floppong around trying to figure out if we even HAD been attacked?
We are in LETHAL DANGER with biden as potus and neo con traitors in charge.
Our cities are burning and people think our woke military could launch a coherent response?
Henry Bowman
Veteran Member
Imagine Ukraine/Russia kicks off the same day they Acquit Chauvin 
Lurker
14
Imagine Ukraine/Russia kicks off the same day they Acquit Chauvin
Yes, yes.....I like the way you're thinking. I'm gonna keep my eye on you, yes sir'ree.
northern watch
TB Fanatic
While we have skills and equipment to live like the 19th century I have no desire to, whether you want it or not, it is coming
Last edited:
northern watch
TB Fanatic
SolarWinds hacking campaign puts Microsoft in the hot seat
The sprawling hacking campaign came to be known as SolarWinds, for the company whose software update was seeded by Russian intelligence agents with malware to penetrate government and private networks
By FRANK BAJAK AP Technology Writer
17 April 2021, 08:04
The Associated Press
FILE - In this Feb. 23, 2021, file photo Brad Smith, president of Microsoft Corporation, speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington during a hearing on emerging technologies and their impact on national security. Federal lawmakers are insisting Microsoft swiftly upgrade security to what they say it should have provided in the first place _ and without fleecing taxpayers. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
BOSTON -- The sprawling hacking campaign deemed a grave threat to U.S. national security came to be known as SolarWinds, for the company whose software update was seeded by Russian intelligence agents with malware to penetrate sensitive government and private networks.
Yet it was Microsoft whose code the cyber spies persistently abused in the campaign's second stage, rifling through emails and other files of such high-value targets as then-acting Homeland Security chief Chad Wolf — and hopping undetected among victim networks.
This has put the world’s third-most valuable company in the hot seat. Because its products are a de facto monoculture in government and industry — with more than 85% market share — federal lawmakers are insisting that Microsoft swiftly upgrade security to what they say it should have provided in the first place, and without fleecing taxpayers.
Seeking to assuage concerns, Microsoft this past week offered all federal agencies a year of “advanced” security features at no extra charge. But it also seeks to deflect blame, saying it is customers who do not always make security a priority.
Risks in Microsoft's foreign dealings also came into relief when the Biden administration imposed sanctions Thursday on a half-dozen Russian IT companies it said support Kremlin hacking. Most prominent was Positive Technologies, which was among more than 80 companies that Microsoft has supplied with early access to data on vulnerabilities detected in its products. Following the sanctions announcement, Microsoft said Positive Tech was no longer in the program and removed its name from a list of participants on its website.
The SolarWinds hackers took full advantage of what George Kurtz, CEO of top cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, called “systematic weaknesses” in key elements of Microsoft code to mine at least nine U.S. government agencies — the departments of Justice and Treasury, among them — and more than 100 private companies and think tanks, including software and telecommunications providers.
The SolarWinds hackers' abuse of Microsoft’s identity and access architecture — which validates users' identities and grants them access to email, documents and other data — did the most dramatic harm, the nonpartisan Atlantic Council think tank said in a report. That set the hack apart as “a widespread intelligence coup.” In nearly every case of post-intrusion mischief, the intruders "silently moved through Microsoft products “vacuuming up emails and files from dozens of organizations.”
Thanks in part to the carte blanche that victim networks granted the infected Solarwinds network management software in the form of administrative privileges, the intruders could move laterally across them, even jump among organizations. They used it to sneak into the cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes and to target customers of Mimecast, an email security company.
The campaign’s “hallmark” was the intruders’ ability to impersonate legitimate users and create counterfeit credentials that let them grab data stored remotely by Microsoft Office, the acting director of the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency, Brandon Wales, told a mid-March congressional hearing. “It was all because they compromised those systems that manage trust and identity on networks,” he said.
Microsoft President Brad Smith told a February congressional hearing that just 15% of victims were compromised through an authentication vulnerability first identified in 2017 — allowing the intruders to impersonate authorized users by minting the rough equivalent of counterfeit passports.
Microsoft officials stress that the SolarWinds update was not always the entry point; intruders sometimes took advantage of vulnerabilities such as weak passwords and victims’ lack of multi-factor authentication. But critics say the company took security too lightly. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., verbally pummeled Microsoft for not supplying federal agencies with a level of “event logging” that, if it had not detected the SolarWinds hacking in progress, would at least have provided responders with a record of where the intruders were and what they saw and removed.
“Microsoft chooses the default settings in the software it sells, and even though the company knew for years about the hacking technique used against U.S. government agencies, the company did not set default logging settings to capture information necessary to spot hacks in progress,” Wyden said. He was not the only federal lawmaker who complained.
When Microsoft on Wednesday announced a year of free security logging for federal agencies, for which it normally charges a premium, Wyden was not appeased.
“This move is far short of what’s needed to make up for Microsoft’s recent failures,” he said in a statement. "The government still won’t have access to important security features without handing over even more money to the same company that created this cybersecurity sinkhole.”
Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., had pressed Smith in February on the security logging upsell, comparing it to making seat belts and air bags options in cars when they should be standard. He commended Microsoft for the one-year reprieve, but said a longer-term conversation is due about it “not being a profit center." He said "this buys us a year.”
Even the highest level of logging doesn't prevent break-ins, though. It only makes it easier to detect them.
And remember, many security professionals note, Microsoft was itself compromised by the SolarWinds intruders, who got access to some of its source code — its crown jewels. Microsoft’s full suite of security products — and some of the industry's most skilled cyber-defense practitioners — had failed to detect the ghost in the network. It was alerted to its own breach by FireEye, the cybersecurity firm that first detected the hacking campaign in mid-December.
The intruders in the unrelated hack of Microsoft Exchange email servers disclosed in March — blamed on Chinese spies — used wholly different infection methods. But they gained immediate high-level access to users' email and other info.
Across the industry, Microsoft’s investments in security are widely acknowledged. It is often first to identify major cybersecurity threats, its visibility into networks is so great. But many argue that as the chief supplier of security solutions for its products, it needs to be more mindful about how much it should profit off defense.
“The crux of it is that Microsoft is selling you the disease and the cure,” said Marc Maiffret, a cybersecurity veteran who built a career finding vulnerabilities in Microsoft products and has a new startup in the works called BinMave.
Last month, Reuters reported that a $150 million payment to Microsoft for a “secure cloud platform” was included in a draft outline for spending the $650 million appropriated for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in last month's $1.9 trillion pandemic relief act.
A Microsoft spokesperson would not say how much, if any, of that money it would be getting, referring the question to the cybersecurity agency. An agency spokesman, Scott McConnell, would not say either. Langevin said he didn't think a final decision has been made.
In the budget year ending in September, the federal government spent more than half a billion dollars on Microsoft software and services.
Many security experts believe Microsoft's single sign-on model, emphasizing user convenience over security, is ripe for retooling to reflect a world where state-backed hackers now routinely run roughshod over U.S. networks.
Alex Weinert, Microsoft's director of identity security, said it offers various ways for customers to strictly limit users’ access to what they need to do their jobs. But getting customers to go along can be difficult because it often means abandoning three decades of IT habit and disrupting business. Customers tend to configure too many accounts with the broad global administrative privileges that allowed the SolarWinds campaign abuses, he said. “It’s not the only way they can do it, that’s for sure.”
In 2014-2015, lax restrictions on access helped Chinese spies steal sensitive personal data on more than 21 million current, former and prospective federal employees from the Office of Personnel Management.
Curtis Dukes was the National Security Agency's head of information assurance at the time.
The OPM shared data across multiple agencies using Microsoft's authentication architecture, granting access to more users than it safely should have, said Dukes, now the managing director for the nonprofit Center for Internet Security.
“People took their eye off the ball."
SolarWinds hacking campaign puts Microsoft in the hot seat - ABC News (go.com)
The sprawling hacking campaign came to be known as SolarWinds, for the company whose software update was seeded by Russian intelligence agents with malware to penetrate government and private networks
By FRANK BAJAK AP Technology Writer
17 April 2021, 08:04
FILE - In this Feb. 23, 2021, file photo Brad Smith, president of Microsoft Corporation, speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington during a hearing on emerging technologies and their impact on national security. Federal lawmakers are insisting Microsoft swiftly upgrade security to what they say it should have provided in the first place _ and without fleecing taxpayers. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
BOSTON -- The sprawling hacking campaign deemed a grave threat to U.S. national security came to be known as SolarWinds, for the company whose software update was seeded by Russian intelligence agents with malware to penetrate sensitive government and private networks.
Yet it was Microsoft whose code the cyber spies persistently abused in the campaign's second stage, rifling through emails and other files of such high-value targets as then-acting Homeland Security chief Chad Wolf — and hopping undetected among victim networks.
This has put the world’s third-most valuable company in the hot seat. Because its products are a de facto monoculture in government and industry — with more than 85% market share — federal lawmakers are insisting that Microsoft swiftly upgrade security to what they say it should have provided in the first place, and without fleecing taxpayers.
Seeking to assuage concerns, Microsoft this past week offered all federal agencies a year of “advanced” security features at no extra charge. But it also seeks to deflect blame, saying it is customers who do not always make security a priority.
Risks in Microsoft's foreign dealings also came into relief when the Biden administration imposed sanctions Thursday on a half-dozen Russian IT companies it said support Kremlin hacking. Most prominent was Positive Technologies, which was among more than 80 companies that Microsoft has supplied with early access to data on vulnerabilities detected in its products. Following the sanctions announcement, Microsoft said Positive Tech was no longer in the program and removed its name from a list of participants on its website.
The SolarWinds hackers took full advantage of what George Kurtz, CEO of top cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, called “systematic weaknesses” in key elements of Microsoft code to mine at least nine U.S. government agencies — the departments of Justice and Treasury, among them — and more than 100 private companies and think tanks, including software and telecommunications providers.
The SolarWinds hackers' abuse of Microsoft’s identity and access architecture — which validates users' identities and grants them access to email, documents and other data — did the most dramatic harm, the nonpartisan Atlantic Council think tank said in a report. That set the hack apart as “a widespread intelligence coup.” In nearly every case of post-intrusion mischief, the intruders "silently moved through Microsoft products “vacuuming up emails and files from dozens of organizations.”
Thanks in part to the carte blanche that victim networks granted the infected Solarwinds network management software in the form of administrative privileges, the intruders could move laterally across them, even jump among organizations. They used it to sneak into the cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes and to target customers of Mimecast, an email security company.
The campaign’s “hallmark” was the intruders’ ability to impersonate legitimate users and create counterfeit credentials that let them grab data stored remotely by Microsoft Office, the acting director of the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency, Brandon Wales, told a mid-March congressional hearing. “It was all because they compromised those systems that manage trust and identity on networks,” he said.
Microsoft President Brad Smith told a February congressional hearing that just 15% of victims were compromised through an authentication vulnerability first identified in 2017 — allowing the intruders to impersonate authorized users by minting the rough equivalent of counterfeit passports.
Microsoft officials stress that the SolarWinds update was not always the entry point; intruders sometimes took advantage of vulnerabilities such as weak passwords and victims’ lack of multi-factor authentication. But critics say the company took security too lightly. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., verbally pummeled Microsoft for not supplying federal agencies with a level of “event logging” that, if it had not detected the SolarWinds hacking in progress, would at least have provided responders with a record of where the intruders were and what they saw and removed.
“Microsoft chooses the default settings in the software it sells, and even though the company knew for years about the hacking technique used against U.S. government agencies, the company did not set default logging settings to capture information necessary to spot hacks in progress,” Wyden said. He was not the only federal lawmaker who complained.
When Microsoft on Wednesday announced a year of free security logging for federal agencies, for which it normally charges a premium, Wyden was not appeased.
“This move is far short of what’s needed to make up for Microsoft’s recent failures,” he said in a statement. "The government still won’t have access to important security features without handing over even more money to the same company that created this cybersecurity sinkhole.”
Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., had pressed Smith in February on the security logging upsell, comparing it to making seat belts and air bags options in cars when they should be standard. He commended Microsoft for the one-year reprieve, but said a longer-term conversation is due about it “not being a profit center." He said "this buys us a year.”
Even the highest level of logging doesn't prevent break-ins, though. It only makes it easier to detect them.
And remember, many security professionals note, Microsoft was itself compromised by the SolarWinds intruders, who got access to some of its source code — its crown jewels. Microsoft’s full suite of security products — and some of the industry's most skilled cyber-defense practitioners — had failed to detect the ghost in the network. It was alerted to its own breach by FireEye, the cybersecurity firm that first detected the hacking campaign in mid-December.
The intruders in the unrelated hack of Microsoft Exchange email servers disclosed in March — blamed on Chinese spies — used wholly different infection methods. But they gained immediate high-level access to users' email and other info.
Across the industry, Microsoft’s investments in security are widely acknowledged. It is often first to identify major cybersecurity threats, its visibility into networks is so great. But many argue that as the chief supplier of security solutions for its products, it needs to be more mindful about how much it should profit off defense.
“The crux of it is that Microsoft is selling you the disease and the cure,” said Marc Maiffret, a cybersecurity veteran who built a career finding vulnerabilities in Microsoft products and has a new startup in the works called BinMave.
Last month, Reuters reported that a $150 million payment to Microsoft for a “secure cloud platform” was included in a draft outline for spending the $650 million appropriated for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in last month's $1.9 trillion pandemic relief act.
A Microsoft spokesperson would not say how much, if any, of that money it would be getting, referring the question to the cybersecurity agency. An agency spokesman, Scott McConnell, would not say either. Langevin said he didn't think a final decision has been made.
In the budget year ending in September, the federal government spent more than half a billion dollars on Microsoft software and services.
Many security experts believe Microsoft's single sign-on model, emphasizing user convenience over security, is ripe for retooling to reflect a world where state-backed hackers now routinely run roughshod over U.S. networks.
Alex Weinert, Microsoft's director of identity security, said it offers various ways for customers to strictly limit users’ access to what they need to do their jobs. But getting customers to go along can be difficult because it often means abandoning three decades of IT habit and disrupting business. Customers tend to configure too many accounts with the broad global administrative privileges that allowed the SolarWinds campaign abuses, he said. “It’s not the only way they can do it, that’s for sure.”
In 2014-2015, lax restrictions on access helped Chinese spies steal sensitive personal data on more than 21 million current, former and prospective federal employees from the Office of Personnel Management.
Curtis Dukes was the National Security Agency's head of information assurance at the time.
The OPM shared data across multiple agencies using Microsoft's authentication architecture, granting access to more users than it safely should have, said Dukes, now the managing director for the nonprofit Center for Internet Security.
“People took their eye off the ball."
SolarWinds hacking campaign puts Microsoft in the hot seat - ABC News (go.com)
danielboon
TB Fanatic
I'm expecting it will be around the same timeImagine Ukraine/Russia kicks off the same day they Acquit Chauvin
jward
passin' thru
EndGameWW3
@EndGameWW3
Russia deploys attack aircraft in occupied Crimea
View: https://twitter.com/EndGameWW3/status/1383623707466166276?s=20
northern watch
TB Fanatic
northern watch
TB Fanatic
UK warships to sail for Black Sea in May as Ukraine-Russia tensions rise- Sunday Times
Reuters
April 17, 20216:35 PM PDT
British warships will sail for the Black Sea in May amid rising tensions between Ukraine and Russia, the Sunday Times newspaper reported, citing senior naval sources.
The deployment is aimed at showing solidarity with Ukraine and Britain's NATO allies, the newspaper reported.
One Type 45 destroyer armed with anti-aircraft missiles and an anti-submarine Type 23 frigate will leave the Royal Navy's carrier task group in the Mediterranean and head through the Bosphorus into the Black Sea, according to the report.
RAF F-35B Lightning stealth jets and Merlin submarine-hunting helicopters will stand ready on the task group's flag ship, the carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, to support the warships in the Black Sea, the report added.
Tensions between Moscow and Kyiv have been rising amid a build-up of Russian troops along the border and clashes in eastern Ukraine between the army and pro-Russian separatists. read more
Officials at the UK Ministry of Defence were not immediately available for comment.
A ministry spokesman told the newspaper that the UK government was working closely with Ukraine to monitor the situation and continued to call on Russia to de-escalate.
"The UK and our international allies are unwavering in our support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity", the newspaper quoted the spokesman as saying.
UK warships to sail for Black Sea in May as Ukraine-Russia tensions rise- Sunday Times | Reuters
Reuters
April 17, 20216:35 PM PDT
British warships will sail for the Black Sea in May amid rising tensions between Ukraine and Russia, the Sunday Times newspaper reported, citing senior naval sources.
The deployment is aimed at showing solidarity with Ukraine and Britain's NATO allies, the newspaper reported.
One Type 45 destroyer armed with anti-aircraft missiles and an anti-submarine Type 23 frigate will leave the Royal Navy's carrier task group in the Mediterranean and head through the Bosphorus into the Black Sea, according to the report.
RAF F-35B Lightning stealth jets and Merlin submarine-hunting helicopters will stand ready on the task group's flag ship, the carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, to support the warships in the Black Sea, the report added.
Tensions between Moscow and Kyiv have been rising amid a build-up of Russian troops along the border and clashes in eastern Ukraine between the army and pro-Russian separatists. read more
Officials at the UK Ministry of Defence were not immediately available for comment.
A ministry spokesman told the newspaper that the UK government was working closely with Ukraine to monitor the situation and continued to call on Russia to de-escalate.
"The UK and our international allies are unwavering in our support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity", the newspaper quoted the spokesman as saying.
UK warships to sail for Black Sea in May as Ukraine-Russia tensions rise- Sunday Times | Reuters
Doughboy42
Veteran Member
Fish in a barrel.
jward
passin' thru
| DEFCON 5 – Green This is the standard peacetime alert level. All is quiet. There are no known imminent nuclear threats. Updates will be given the 1st of every month (except for April 1st or if the day falls on a Saturday, in which case the update will appear a day later) with immediate updates issued as the situation warrants. * Where do you get your information? Over the years, The DEFCON Warning System has grown to gain some contacts within government and military agencies. However, most of our information is public knowledge and can be easily searched for. We often post news article links on our message board for commentary. 
About - The DEFCON Warning SystemAbout DEFCON Warning System There is quite a lot of confusion about The DEFCON Warning System, so we put together this FAQ […]
defconwarningsystem.com
|
DEFCONWarningSystem
@DEFCONWSALERTS
There is no threat of nuclear conflict at this time. We remain at DEFCON 5
https://twitter.com/DEFCONWSALERTS/status/1383576304973275145/photo/1
Countrymouse
Country exile in the city
Here is how Xi the merciless thinks, which is the same way Mao Tse Tung thought.
He nukes Guam, Okinawa, Pearl Harbor, the Trident base, San Diego, along with North Korea hitting japan and south korea.
Finally, EMP's on conus and most of nukes are neutrons. Russia and Iran pile on. Venezuela and after 3 months he goes red dawn.
The USA under biden would do what? Nothing at all, except nuke. Shanghai or whatever. Xi doesn't care how many chinese we kill. He would get it ALL, everything of value we have: land for food, water etc
And THAT IS HOW THEY THINK. And we got this brain dead fool as potus and a woke country and military, at least 50% anyway.
So they bait us with Ukraine and Taiwan and once we wasted ourselves, both in conus and in theater they nuke us and game over.
Lurkey, now THAT is some serious DOOM.
The one thing I would take some schadenfreude in--whether I see if from earth or watching it from heaven---
is the reaction of the woke left, the pampered college-age arrogant-asses, and the BLM / welfare crowd as the Communist troops (Russian, Chinese, and those in league with them---in which group I put the traitors within our own country and govt who've been trying to bring about America's fall to Communism for over 50 years)---
as their new Russian and Chinese OVERLORDS tell them to get their fat black asses and svelte vegetarian LGBTQXYZ asses out there in the fields and WORK! or get their asses SHOT!
And THEN they will FIND OUT the MEANING of slavery.............
Doomer Doug
TB Fanatic
Yes kill the people and leave the stuff intact.
Doomer Doug
TB Fanatic
Tucker Carlson NAILS IT. We are going to go to war with Russia over lies, neo con warmonger 
, greed, corruption, treason in the USA, and especially Obama, Biden, Moochle and the Clinton Crime Cabal, along with all the neo cons scam grifters.
The video is 10 minutes or so and explains what is really going on
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HCFv6CX2H8
, greed, corruption, treason in the USA, and especially Obama, Biden, Moochle and the Clinton Crime Cabal, along with all the neo cons scam grifters.The video is 10 minutes or so and explains what is really going on
Hognutz
Has No Life - Lives on TB
They have been pushing for this for a looooong time. May they all die in a nuclear holocaust...Tucker Carlson NAILS IT. We are going to go to war with Russia over lies, neo con warmonger
The video is 10 minutes or so and explains what is really going on
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HCFv6CX2H8
jward
passin' thru
Dean O'Brien - BA (Hons)
@DeanoBeano1
6m
Breaking At Sakhanka in the south of Donetsk at 7:30 am the Armed Forces of Ukraine started shelling using 120mm mortars. A total of 15 shells have been fired so far. #Donbass
Doomer Doug
TB Fanatic
But the ukies are the good guys. 
Let's see here. the ukies are sucking up to biden the brain dead grifter. The ukies are extorting NATO membership or they will restart their nuke program. they are making threats to Russia on a daily basis. they worship at the altar of the Waffen SS from world war two. The ukies engage in war crimes against civilians any chance they get. The ukies hate Jews, going back to world war two. They hate Russians, going back to Stalin.
Yep, they are sucking in US and NATO troops for the great Russian buzz saw. The US is now involved due to lies and neo con warmongers, just watch the Tucker Carlson video. and yes, Putin may very well NUKE US and take us out once and for all.
And NOBODY in CONUS has a clue any of this deadly, lethal imminent threat is possibly going to happen by April 30th because one half of the USA population is too IGNORANT to realize biden has baited the Russian bear once too often.
Let's see here. the ukies are sucking up to biden the brain dead grifter. The ukies are extorting NATO membership or they will restart their nuke program. they are making threats to Russia on a daily basis. they worship at the altar of the Waffen SS from world war two. The ukies engage in war crimes against civilians any chance they get. The ukies hate Jews, going back to world war two. They hate Russians, going back to Stalin.
Yep, they are sucking in US and NATO troops for the great Russian buzz saw. The US is now involved due to lies and neo con warmongers, just watch the Tucker Carlson video. and yes, Putin may very well NUKE US and take us out once and for all.
And NOBODY in CONUS has a clue any of this deadly, lethal imminent threat is possibly going to happen by April 30th because one half of the USA population is too IGNORANT to realize biden has baited the Russian bear once too often.
northern watch
TB Fanatic
northern watch
TB Fanatic
But France wont on its own.