History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [487]


Yes maybe you should learn from the Italians, who always seem to be on the winning side regardless of where they started?

Russia switched sides once, but only after the Kaiser sent us Lenin on a train.

The Kaiser's man, made us sign the terrible treaty of Brest Litovsk, where Poland, Finland, the Baltics, and Ukraine were all lost.

Our "great" allies, a year later - when they defeated Germany finally - didn't give us back any of these spaces.

No... instead they invaded us from all sides (after wrapping up with Germany), and made our civil war last three times as long as it could have.

It's a miracle that Russia emerged alive from that experience.

History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [487]

It's too bad Paw is not here to witness Kania's miraculous metamorphosis...

He would be proud!

I do hope he's okay out there, sleeping on his sumo mat, and planting squashes.

History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [487]


Germany protecting Poland against Russia - is something I need to see.

Catherine and Alexander will be spinning in their graves. Ribbentrop and Bismarck will be doing somersaults.

History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [487]


Thanks for the dictionary entry, Fritz. Now go back to polishing your sandals with mustard, Hans.


Make peace with the Ukrainians - fine! But to forgive the Anglos their perfidy - never.

Off-Topic / PF Poster Polonius3 - Sad news [21]

@jon357

I always thought he had something to do with the owners of the forum, was that the case?

@Novi

I think it's two different people. He wrote differently from the Poloniusz which is still around, and had entirely different interests.

Off-Topic / PF Poster Polonius3 - Sad news [21]

RIP Polonius

News / Polish-Russian war? Drones entering Polish airspace. [254]


Tell this to a Polish soldier, and see if he feels happy about it.

In the same way, in Ukraine there is a huge divide between civilians (who love to talk about mobiks, orcs, and slaves)... and soldiers (who have to fight mobiks, orcs, and slaves).

-//-

As a rule, a soldier anywhere on the planet wants a few simple things:

1) Competent commanders.
2) Adequate opportunity for rest.
3) Confidence that he or his family will be taken care of in the case of a wounding or death.
4) Sufficient supply.

He doesn't need so much, a Korvinus sitting in the rear, telling tall tales about how he can fight 49 Russians off with his bare hands.

News / Polish-Russian war? Drones entering Polish airspace. [254]

@Korvinus

What's this kind of homeopathic dose of soldiers supposed to do?

If Russia doesn't invade (99.99999999% probability) - then you wasted several hundred million zloty for a PR stunt.

If Russia does invade - these 40,000 will end up in a rapid encirclement - faster than you can say "Bialowieza".

-//-

Conclusion - action was performed for retarded reasons like "European Readiness" and "Demonstration of Resolve" that only people in Brussels can comprehend...

To be honest they are geniuses in Brussels, when it comes to the art of inflating some token force rotation into something that sounds instead like Caesar's legions moving into Gaul.

To help them and you Poles, I will come up with some potential "Brussels-approved" labels for the next time you send a 200 person contingent to some Lithuanian airbase:

Security themed:

1) Shield of Unity
2) Operation Eternal Guard
3) Forward Freedom Facility (alliteration!)

More geographically focused:

1) Baltic Sentinel
2) Danube Watch
3) Nordic Horizon
4) Carpathian Resolve

Values oriented:

1) Operation Democratic Shield
2) Guardian of Liberty
3) Lawful Dignity Deployment

Poetic and Wistful:

1) Aurora Spear
2) Praetorian Presence
3) Eagle's Watch

This way... while your soldiers may still feel very stupid, and utterly unprotected by their irresponsible governments - they will at least have nice shoulder patches to gift to their kids.

BB, as talented artist, can handle the graphic design. I suggest a liberal use of eagles, lightning bolts, and that part of the world map which shows the North Atlantic Ocean.

News / Polish-Russian war? Drones entering Polish airspace. [254]


The Gerbera is smaller, and much, much lighter than the Geraniums.

Ukrainian specialists that catalogue and study Russian drones, claim the Gerbera has a wingspan of about 2.5 meters, and that it weighs around 20-50 kilograms. It's powered by a small pusher engine that can be bought in any hobby shop, while its construction is mostly foam/plastic around plywood formers.

Contrast this to the Geran-2 or Geran-3, which has a 3.5 meter wingspan, and a weight of 250 kilograms and 350 kilograms respectively.

The Gerbera is basically a large model airplane, like children make in high school.

It's simultaneously quite big and very light. After hundreds of uses in Ukraine, there is tons of photo proof of them landing largely unharmed, in the same way they landed in Polish fields.

So Velund's idea that the Ukrainian's could be gathering them and fixing them up is quite reasonable.


Given that we are discussing a medium sized KAMIKAZE drone, I don't think the normal fail-safe or return-to-base logic applies.

This is not a big reconnaissance drone with an expensive payload, that you need to be able to land safely if you lose control.

In fact, the Geran-2/3 and Gerbera probably don't possess any safe way of landing at all.

Probably once control is lost, the drone continues flying along the last known GPS waypoints.

If GPS is spoofed, it may switch to inertial navigation (have no idea if the German's possess suitable equipment for this).

If GPS and INS are both f*cked - I think the drone will simply continue to fly straight until it runs out of fuel and crashes.

News / Polish-Russian war? Drones entering Polish airspace. [254]


Maybe the Ukrainians borrowed a lesson out of their Hizbollah pager operation book...

... or maybe this really was done intentionally by Russia.

Perhaps... it was effective, based on the reactions of everybody in this thread, who is writing "oh gosh, our air defenses really do seem quite weak!".

Maybe Putin's cunning plan, was to make Europeans so worried about their patchy air defenses, that they decide to withhold further shipments to Ukraine and instead arm themselves.

News / Polish-Russian war? Drones entering Polish airspace. [254]


In 2011, Iran spoofed an RQ-170 Sentinel drone into landing in Iranian territory. Until that incident, the drone was unknown, and represented the pinnacle of American stealth and drone engineering. Its capture gave Iran a huge boost in the development of its indigenous drone industry.

So if Iran could do it in 2011, then Ukraine can certainly do it in 2025.


1) Easiest - exploit the command link. Most small drones used in this war, rely on radio links for operator control. If you identify the frequency and protocol used, then break or bypass the encryption - you can inject your own commands.

This is super easy to do with the consumer grade drones used, from companies like DJI - because they use standard and lightly protected links. That's why tens of thousands of these drones are hacked monthly on the frontlines.

Both the Russians and Ukrainians upgrade these drones to encrypted frequency hopping control channels, and this helps, but they are still hackable.

In any case, this does not apply to this recent case in Poland.

2) Harder - GPS spoofing. Larger drones, like the one used in Poland, don't just rely on stick controls, but have autopilots keyed to GPS/GLONASS. By spoofing GPS signals, you can make the drone think it's somewhere else. Instead of realizing it's in Poland, you can make it think it's still making its way westwards toward Lvov.

If you combine spoofing with a loss of data link (by jamming the control channels), the drone may switch into a fail safe mode where it will be even easier to fool.

3) The hardest - This would be some more Israel-level business, involving hacking into Russia's actual ground infrastructure. It could mean inserting malware into the maintenance or mission planning software. Hacking into ground control software. Maybe even exploiting a poorly secured satellite uplink.

In true Israeli fashion - they could have maybe inserted agents at the factory level, who implemented back doors in the software. This seems a bit fantastical, however.

-//-

Finally - it could be as banal as a Ukrainian double agent, quietly sabotaging missions by inserting malicious code. No need to over complicate something, when it just as easily could have been done through some good old fashioned human sneakery.

News / Polish-Russian war? Drones entering Polish airspace. [254]


This is why Poles are our brothers.

Project of my life currently - is to show Poles that there are minimal differences between them and Russians - however unpleasant it is for Poles to consider this notion currently.

News / Polish-Russian war? Drones entering Polish airspace. [254]


Same when Russia under Medvedev began buying Western equipment, especially that huge French piece of sh*t that we never received - the Mistral Class helicopter carriers.

Also Iveco fleeced us on the armored patrol vehicles.

Thales sold us thermal vision sights for our tanks, at prices that rivaled the price of the whole tank.

Medvedev was an idiot for more reason than one.

News / Polish-Russian war? Drones entering Polish airspace. [254]


Ukraine definitely does not see Poland as a "silly younger cousin".

It sees Poland as an "avaricious Pan", who sees in Ukrainians only niewolniki and czeladz.

News / Polish-Russian war? Drones entering Polish airspace. [254]


You will never prove it - because Russian UAVs were used.

Germany has literally, right now, in their custody the man that masterminded the Nord Stream explosions. They still don't want to tie it Ukraine.

Poland had one of the divers, and Germany demanded extradition, but Poland didn't do anything - until the man peacefully left in the vehicle of the Ukrainian military attache in Poland. Unfortunately, the man died afterwards on the frontlines...

Your governments are not stupid. They see Zelensky's game, and they tolerate it - because right now Russia is the bigger threat.

The hope is that you are carefully taking notes, and formulating some pragmatic way of dealing with Ukraine in the future. They are slippery f*ckers...

Off-Topic / Random Chat Thread [919]

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History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [487]


Hahahaha! *cough cough* Ahahahahahahahahaha! *catches breath* Muwahahahahahahahahaha!

History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [487]


Who's us? Are you gonna live forever?

History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [487]


I hope so.

When Poles and Germans and French go extinct - because their amazing development gave them an allergy to having children - I hope Russians will still be around because we were more like Nigerians and Tajiks.

Unfortunately, I think you are wrong, and we are still headed for your wonderful level of development that will send us all the way of the dinosaurs.

History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [487]


May God preserve us from ever reaching your levels of development.

History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [487]


Because they are Papuans, with no history of statehood or experience at diplomacy.

They behave as any other Cargo Cult (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult).

They believe that if they cast the right incantations, march in the correct formations, and provide the necessary sacrifices - then the white man from the sky will come and drop more Euros and more Dollars.

When they do everything correctly (to their mind), and the White Man is still upset - they don't understand why.

"Did we not say we are Atlanticists?"

"Did we not confirm our belief in Western liberal democracy?"

"Did we not pray to the Gods of 'Strong Institutions' and 'Checks and Balances'?"

"Did we not profess our hatred of Russians and Chinese, from the mountains, and the valleys, and from the depths of the sea?"

"Did we not host ten million national prayer breakfasts where we showed we are all good Christians?"

They don't understand why... after all this... somebody would keep bringing up awkward questions about massacres and missing money and... about a realistic plan for victory.

The current generation of Ukrainian leadership all grew up on Soros grants, British Council grants, USAID grants, and various "developmental workshops" in places like Princeton and Oxford.

Pygmies. Hobbits. Papuans.

In contrast - Russia has a 1,200 year history of developing independent policy - without looking into the White Man's mouth for the next morsel.

News / Taxes, taxes everywhere [35]


That's f*cking insane.

History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [487]


The soul that sinneth, it shall die.
The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father,
neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

Your hatred of Russians, has disconnected you from humanity's core principles.

News / Taxes, taxes everywhere [35]

To be honest, I was in the camp of those people that advocated Russia must borrow like crazy, and run up our debt to at least 80-100% of GDP.

I wanted Chinese style investment into infrastructure at 25-30% of GDP. Use American and German money to build all the railroads, dams, and highways that our economy is in desperate need of. God knows we could service a debt load like that easily, with the money coming in from oil and gas (while the planet still needs it - one day the Klondike will be over).

But Putin, and the uber-fiscal conservatives around him, were and are allergic to foreign debt. He paid back the Paris Club ahead of schedule, and the IMF and World Bank - even though he didn't need to. He very carefully issued Eurobonds (which are now all in technical default), but preferred to rely instead on internal financing.

Maybe he knew he was gonna declare war on Ukraine all along, and that's why he kept us on some kind of debt hunger diet... but even that seems an erroneous explanation.

We still could have run up the debts, and then when he invaded Ukraine - those debts would be declared in default just like the small existing ones. It would be Western problem.

I would like to see Western politicians force write offs on their funds of not several hundred billion, but $2 Trillion dollars of Russian bonds. Haha! They would not do it. We might have been in a better negotiating position now, if we really ran up our debt.

News / Taxes, taxes everywhere [35]


Pensions' and state salaries' growth has not kept up with inflation - true - so real income for many people has stagnated. But across the economy at large, wage growth has exceeded inflation.

Perversely, this is driving further inflation, because we have a demand side problem with inflation in Russia. People are earning more money than ever, and are trying to buy more goods than ever - but Russian industry can't keep up, whereas imports have been drastically curtailed.


There's literally hundreds of billions of dollars of FX pouring in annually. The restrictions in place in 2022 are gone - you can buy as many dollars as you want. You can go, and get $10 million in new dollar bills, and no one will bat an eye. The problem is - there isn't much to buy with that FX. Europe and America won't sell to us, so everything is going to China. In a matter of years, the automobile market has become dominated by Chinese players - for example.


Invest in government bonds (if you have a view on inflation going down), in equities, in real estate, in precious metals, into private equity, into private credit - whatever you want. So long as it's in Russia, or a country on the list of "friendly countries".

News / Taxes, taxes everywhere [35]


Yes you are.

Russia represents a fiscal fortress. What really matters is our overall debt burden, which is tiny compared to both Poland and the United States (20% vs 50% and 120%).

The bond yields may seem extreme, but the primary driver for this is inflation (which is stubbornly above 15% in Russia since the war started).

This means that every year, Russia's debt becomes devalued by 15% in real terms. Since we don't need external rollover financing, we don't care if foreigners discount that debt. In fact, foreigners can't buy our debt anyway, because their governments forbid them.

Together, this means that every 7-8 years or so, we inflate away the lion's share of the previously accumulated debt.

Further, it may seem like paying a 15% coupon is very expensive, but you have to remember that the primary buyers for government debt in Russia are state owned banks and pension funds. We essentially have a captive buyer, that has no choice but to buy Russian bonds. Effectively, the government's left pocket, pays its right pocket - in the same way as happens when the Fed begins to buy trillions of dollars of Treasuries.

In short:

1) Russia has a closed capital account (meaning Ruble debt is trapped inside a domestic cage).

2) Russia has a tremendously healthy current account surplus from commodities (even as the ruble depreciates, the river of FX keeps flowing in).

3) We have a population that has little choice but to hold Ruble-denominated financial assets

4) This combination lets the state use inflation as a stealth tax, eroding liabilities quietly. What Novichok constantly brings up - inflation as a tax.

For the Kremlin, high ruble inflation is great, because it allows them to meet their obligations much easier. Each barrel of oil brings in more and more rubles, whereas pension and state salaries' growth do not keep up.

News / Taxes, taxes everywhere [35]


At least you're not doing as badly as Romania. Those idiots run a suicidal deficit of 9.3% of GDP, and are only planning to reach the EU target of 3% somewhere in the mid 2030s.

However, you are not far from France, which actually runs a slightly tighter ship than you (5.6% vs 6.1%). On September 8th their government will collapse, and borrowing costs will soar further. Yesterday they were at Italian levels (for the first time ever). In two weeks, they'll probably be at Bulgaria levels.

For the time being, the problem is more political in nature, but can quickly turn into a full blown crisis.

Francois Bayrou says that there is a very real possibility that France will need an IMF bailout, if the parliament doesn't support his cabinet's program. There's practically a 100% chance at this point that his government will collapse, since the Front National and Socialists have already said they won't help him.

I never thought I would read such a sentence in my life. FRANCE! A founding member of the IMF! A board member! The country that has supplied more IMF Directors than any other (Lagarde and Dominique Strauss-Kahn most recently) - will be bailed out by the organization.

Truly crazy times we live in.

But back on topic - Poles really are running a kamikaze budget. What on Earth were you thinking, putting together budgets that are €65Bn in the red?

History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [487]


I'd argue they did more harm than good to Ukraine.

They drown out the voices of pragmatists that want Ukraine to secure a realistic settlement. They make anybody speaking out for peace feel like a quisling, whereas they themselves propose no real path to securing a victory.

Hiding behind the shoulders of the Ukrainian army, they taunt the Russians. Meanwhile, real Russian soldiers and real Ukrainian soldiers only speak about each other in terms of respect, in this third year of the war. Obviously there is hate, but there is almost no one left who makes fun of "mobiks" or "slaves".

These Shiba Inu dogs, meanwhile, are spiraling into ever more grotesque forms of xenophobia. Recently, they were celebrating the anniversary of the death of Daria Dugina. Enough said.

History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [487]


Ok Boomer.


lol, it's not PR segmenting. All the Ukrs, Brits, Germans, and Americans of Twitter are piling onto the Poles that dare make a peep in support of Nawrocki or Kominiak-Kamysz.

These people were not sophisticated to begin with, seeing as they all adopted an avatar of a Shiba Inu dog as their mascot. They see the world in black and white - elf good, orc bad.

So when someone within their ranks begins to make questioning noises regarding Ukraine's angelic status, they all go after them like a pack of dogs.

I've seen with my own eyes, how these Uber Ukraine supporters, scare off people that live in neighboring countries (Romania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia) from supporting Ukraine.

They make no allowance for nuance, and treat anybody that questions Ukraine's actions as a Kremlin agent or even a fascist.

Posts like the one below, for example:

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History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [487]


Uhhhmm, they most certainly are.

Poland has all but ceased help to Ukraine. Now, even the refugee benefits are on the chopping block.

One, little, tiny, illustration of how Polish-Ukrainian relations have gone downhill, is the radicalization of a Twitter account called "War Vehicle Tracker".

This guy has spent the past three years tracking vehicle losses for both sides. The databases he has contributed to, have been used as sources by the NYTimes, FT, WSJ, and others. He has hosted literally DOZENS of fundraisers for troops in Ukraine, that included drone purchases, excavators, PPE, etc.

Now this guy has turned into a Roman Dmowski, after 3 years of experiencing Ukrainian ingratitude. His posts yesterday:

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