gandhium

> he wrongly thought they had weapons of mass destruction

They _had_ WMDs, and quite a lot of them.

Not on the scale they've believed, though.

European (and British) tea is just a version of Chinese tea, but differencies in tea culture are huge.

> How would this help with any kind of Russian insurgency, espionage, etc. at all? According to the article there is 20% of ethnic Russians and more fluent Russian speakers (94%) than Kazakh speakers (74%).

Look at the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. Russia was succeeded to instigate an insurgency there mostly because people there were heavily influenced by Russian propaganda.

And I assume after those events Kazakhstan had additional incentive to go further away from Russia.

> What is the benefit of this change?

Protecting themselves from Russian insurgency, among other reasons. Kazakhstan had protected themselves before, shutting down Russian-inspired "People Republic".

> I thought stealth aircraft is already visible on the latest Russian gear

That's just a usual FUD stuff from Russians.

From your second link:

> Medics and survivors who have remained in Douma, and others who have fled for northern Syria, ridiculed competing claims that the attack either did not take place, or did not use gas.

> F-35 as a plane is mediocre compared to say Su-57

Su-57 is still in infancy stage and judging from Russian problems, there's high chance it won't be around soon.

> What's stopping them from going this route

The same issues, that preventing them from fullfilling their promise to open Moon base in 2015.

They're behind in technology, in science, in work culture and they're plagued with corruption.

So how it should void the fact of their pact?

> their motives are grossly misrepresented

Can you please elaborate on their motives?

Random agreements? Like "hey, let's do something... maybe invade a few random countries"?

> Hitler did manage to kill more Russians than Stalin did

It's debatable. Stalin's tactics of "scorched earth" and fighting with human waves may shift the toll.

> Imagine if china, russia or any other nation acted like this.

Russia invaded and bombed Ukraine. Still meddling there, btw.

> non-aggression pact is not an alliance

Jointly dividing Poland and having a military parade there is not an alliance?

Providing secret base for U-boats - just a pact, not an alliance?

> Who does this article really work for?

Judging from number of Russian references - I'd say it's trying to whitewash recent Telegram ban. Like "See - it was all piracy, bad Telegram, bad!"

> each developer in the offshore team had created an exception class based on their own name

This is wonderful! Did they honor their work hierarchy, i.e. exceptions from junior developers will always extend exceptions from senior ones?

> For a couple of weeks, I've been trying to bootstrap an environment to read an existing database

Correct me if I'm wrong: for several WEEKS you're struggling with implementing a database read?

> Patriot: killing allies in the skies and civilians on the ground since 1990.

This quote is nowhere in the article, where did you got it?

And this link clearly says:

> It’s the _first_ time the organization has leaked (what it claims is) material directly pertaining to the Russian state.

So... first time for how many years? And as, article points out, the leak itself is rather minor.

In order to respond to accusation, I'd like to see any sources that support the accusation. But none were provided.

I think his source is plain whataboutism.

Internet is also used by terror organizations around the world. Money is also used by terror organizations around the world.

Moreover, oxygen and water are also used by terror organizations around the world.

> Hillary wanted to put a no-fly zone over Russia's sole operational naval base in Tarus, Syria.

What happened to rest of Russian operational naval bases? What did they do to them, close them out?

Odd behaviour?

Just a few months ago Russians send a government airplane (like Secret Service government) to pick up a load of cocaine in Argentina.

A few years ago they've send an AA to Ukraine and downed MH-17.

They're definitely not superheroes.

Sorry, leadership in Ukraine wasn't "deposed". President simply fled the country.

> Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was made a number of promises that really weren't kept

For example, not expanding NATO wasn't even a promise, it was a rumour.

OTOH, Russia broke several international _agreements_ and started waging wars with their neighbours.

Can you really equal those? Waging war and ephemeral promises?

Either lost control or donated it to FSB in secret. He's not exactly a knight in shining armor, judging from all that 'Facebook cloning' affair.

> On a related note, could someone explain to me how Russia manages to stay a threat with a military budget that's about 6% of the US budget?

It doesn't make sense to compare amounts directly - labour cost (and cost of life) in Russia is way cheaper.

And if we will compare %% of GDP - for the last decade Russia is spending same percentage (or even more) compared to US.

I don't think autocannon can be efficient against drones. You need to hit a small and fast-moving target - that's a job either for AA gun (which will need to spend a lot of ammo saturating the area around drone) or for high-powered precision laser.

Surprisingly, there wasn't a single word about 'NATO fueling' in that article.