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Comment by themodelplumber | Hacker News Reader

Russia is doing a lot of fearmongering in the run-up to the US elections. I stumbled across some agitprop on Twitter yesterday, where I read that Russia was recalling all students who were studying abroad. Out of curiosity (to say the least) I tracked down the source article, which was a) not available in English, and b) just Russians criticizing privileged Russians who sent their kids abroad to study. Looking around the rest of the agitprop stuff that I could find at a cursory glance, there is a ton of literal FUD going around right now, to the tune of "WWIII imminent."

Wonder who they're trying so hard to influence?

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And yet American citizens were unable to influence either party enough to have them submit a viable candidate.

Or, the interplay of all relevant existing processes and system dynamics do not easily facilitate "viable candidates"[1] from being nominated.

Of course, this doesn't tell us what is need to repair these processes and system dynamics. Hopefully we eventually achieve some new breakthroughs in governmental systems in the coming decades.

[1] insert personal definition of "viable candidate" here

Seems like I see a lot more fearmongering ABOUT Russia.

given this is "Russia sub ship loitering near Syrian undersea cables."

its probably fud aimed at the strong russian syrian government relationship.

Putin recalled Russian military family members. For those that don't understand Russian culture that's Defcon 3.

The western media has been fed a story that Russian diplomats' families have been recalled. No proof of that yet. No leaked emails, memos, letters, boarding passes of families, people moving out of their apartments, motorcades of diplomatic people rushing to the airports... nothing.

Who benefits from putting that story out there?

Why would you believe that story?

I have read some translated-from-Russian media that the recalling's stated purpose was to reduce the ability of foreign intelligence services to recruit young college age Russians.

I am not fluent in Russian so I can't confirm.

Wait, so a garbled story that tries to convince people Russia is threatening ends up in western media (not just Twitter) ... and that's Russias fault?

What amazes me is that they think that getting the far right in power in the West is going to be good for Russia. Because, you know, things went so well for Russia the last time these people were in power...

Actually it did went ok for Russia - they got half of Europe and became one of world's two dominating powers.

Then collapsed into poverty, recovered slightly, got put under harsh sanctions, and are currently experiencing poverty again.

And there was that whole "20 million dead during the war" bit. I'd think they'd want to play it safe!

(Edit: I guess that by "they" I mean "Putin and company" -- they have a lot of popular support, but it's hard to say how much is real and how much is self-seeking or the like.)

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