Yeah, Chechnya is basically an independent state with Kadyrov having unlimited power (and after decades of continuous “clearing out” the opposition had either left the country or was killed, or both). And Kadyrov answers directly to Putin and no one else.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
I thought the US had to withdraw all troops after the Iraqi government decided to ask them to leave?
Agree with your assessment.
Nah - but I think that he knew he would not have it as easy with her than with the others as Merkel knew Russia and Russians since early childhood and grew up near a Russian military garnison...
There is much talked about that "relationship" in the recent days. You all know the story with the dog - Merkel was bitten by a dog sometimes early and her fear of dogs is legendary - so her assistant phoned Russia before a meeting and begged that Putin's big dog should be kept away. That meeting Putin did but put up a stuffed dog near her chair... But in later meetings he had the dog with him and tried to frighten her with it... (That probably tells you a lot about Putin...)
This is absolutely bizarre…
…we’re in a simulation aren’t we?
That's the wrong kind of slip of the tongue.
He's not a religious leader bro, don't give him any undue credibility.
She’s been surprisingly outspoken over the course of this war. Her late husband was Putin’s boss in Leningrad’s administration and Putin owed a lot to him, so she’s in a bit of a privileged position, although it still takes some guts to openly criticize what’s going on from the inside.
Plenty of companies use Microsoft for convenience but no one actually depend on them, at worst this decision is a temporary hindrance but not something that can't be worked around pretty quickly.
How do you make Github not available in Russia? I kind of hope that the people using Github know how to work around geo-blocking.
I’d expect that in an unlikely scenario where Kadyrov abandons Putin, his whole region would follow him without a question.
Sadly he kinda occupies this role as well, often commenting on religious practices etc. with the church (not sure if it’s the right word; the religious institution) leaders answering to him directly.
Sorry for offtopic, but I thought his father was one of the religious authorities in the country during wars and assumed that Ramzan inherited that too. I'm not that informed on chechen wars. I just remember the news of shelling Grozny in the 94/95, but afterwards completely forgot about it.
Somewhat absurd to see Putin reject proof of Russia bombing Ukraine cities
AMD and Intel Halt Processor Sales to Russia and Belarus (Updated)
https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/news/intel-amd-nvidia-tsmc-russia-stop-chip-sales-ukraine-sanction
https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/news/intel-amd-nvidia-tsmc-russia-stop-chip-sales-ukraine-sanction
Ukrainian MP just said on BBC all the planes promised from various countries have been postponed and that countries are buying more oil and gas from Russia now than before the attack.
Also he said that only 7 of Russias smallest banks have been banned on Swift, the rest are still functioning.
This is the problem with Nato and the other countries in general, 80% all hype and only 20% of actual action.
Money is everything, lives are worthless.
Also he said that only 7 of Russias smallest banks have been banned on Swift, the rest are still functioning.
This is the problem with Nato and the other countries in general, 80% all hype and only 20% of actual action.
Money is everything, lives are worthless.
If Khadyrov is capable of doing whatever he wants there, I would not be putting it beyond him to be rigging the votes in favour for Putin via both fraud and massive intimidation of voters. It doesn’t mean people there love Khadyrov and Putin. Just too scared to organise or vote differently.
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This is pretty much the same view I have settled on.
I think Putin believed he would move through Ukraine rather effortlessly with sheer manpower and air dominance. He didn't count on the level of opposition or how quick the west would be to unite against Russia and issue support and sanctions.
At this point he probably feels he is in a no win situation. He negotiates and pulls back which weakens his position at home, or he pushes on with force which damages his country more.
He does need to be given a clear ladder out of this or he will just keep escalated the conflict. If the west are hoping/relying on a Russian resolution I just can't see that happening. His grip is literally around the throat of the country.
I would say there is a pretty heavy dependence on Excel across the world!
His father was the Mufti of Chechenia to be fair, and part of his authority came as the most senior religious leader there.
UK UN ambassador just listed in her statement how Russia have broken various Articles and the law and basically said, don't do it again 
People use it but you don't need it, you don't depend on it at all.
That's really not correct. Windows & AD etc are pretty much the most universally used technology in the business world. And it's certainly not quick to replace if you have anything more than the most elementary of infrastructure and are a Microsoft shop, which a majority are.
But Excel is mostly hard drive based. You can’t restrict it being sold to a certain territory.
Even Cloud services like GitHub can be accessed via VPN if it becomes necessary. Is Microsoft going to restrict that?
4 out of 100 is chilling. If any country can stomach that it is Russia but still, that is a stunning casualty rate.
Oh, that’s implied. I don’t think that there’s a need to falsify the votes because everyone knows who voted for whom and if you voted the wrong way…
Still, simply because every opposing voice had been brutally shut down, I’d say that most of Chechens are genuinely loyal to Kadyrov.
Those were the surge troops, a smaller number stayed in country to “advise and assist” fighting ISIS and continue to be there to support the government dealing with Iranian backed militias.
I think she doesn't give a feck anymore. But, yeah, surprising, nonetheless.
Btw, what is Ksenia doing these days?
The real question is can Microsoft really prevent Russian entreprises form using their already bought Power BI services? And if they want to bypass future sales via VPN, can Microsoft restrict that, do they want to restrict that ?
Moscow Mitch’s, no less.
Unfortunately, we need gas, he can't really expect for half the europe to be without heating and electricity!?! Regarding planes, no country wants to give their MIGs up. But they should, because it's better to stop Putin now. Get an agreement with the US to send more of their planes to europe, at least temporarily and sell/give those MIGs to Ukraine. Unless there's been backchanneling that Russia might consider that an act of war and someone got scared. But I assume the planes still need to be adapted to be usable for Ukranian airforce. Unfortunately, that's just not that simple, but we should be working on it ASAP.
Regarding SWIFT, I don't think that can be true. Sberbnak was hit very hard with sanctions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sberbank#International_presence
Obviously the Ukrainians are the good guys, but they have keep harping and asking for help. They have to keep making noise. I don't think everything they do or say is accurate. There will be (is) a lot of propaganda.
What we know is that sanctions are hitting Russia hard. Russian posters here confirmed it. They haven't even opened their stock exchange yet.
I suspect the number who have been killed or wounded in action is not 96. I would guess a significant percentage have just down tools and fecked off home...
There was an interview with a russian woman the other day (albeit not confirmed) and the figures were similar. 18 alive from 150. I think the casualties might be a lot closer to figures released by Ukraine than a lot of people think.
Arguments against a no-fly zone, from 2 retired USAF officers: https://warontherocks.com/2022/03/the-dangerous-allure-of-the-no-fly-zone/
I mean there are always ways for those willing to make an effort. But if you block payments from Russian cards and geo-block the services it's a bit of a PITA for a legitimate business. Proper, reliable VPNs for potentially thousands of users if you're a large company is going to be expensive. You could put in a split tunnel so only the Microsoft traffic goes out over the VPN but then that's also more software they'll need licenses for if they don't already have that for all their machines.
Google sheets is your broke friend
I do understand, I just think that as always the element of truth is in there somewhere.
I know that Swift themselves have given dates towards end of march for Swift bans to come into affect, it isn't an immediate turn off.
I know the UK on their sanctions also do not come into affect immediately and they have allowed several get out of jail cards whereas other countries have taken immediate action.
Quick is relative, it's fairly quick to replace any of these things, people may not want to do it but it won't take you too much time.
The Intel-AMD news is a lot more problematic in terms of cost and availability but softwares aren't a big issue.
People keep talking about him needing a ladder. To me it's simple. Reintegrate LNR and DNR with Ukraine, with amnesty for separatists. Organize a proper referendum in Crimea (it would still probably vote for Russia) that Ukraine and everyone will accept. Ukrainian independency guaranteed by NATO/USA.
Putin can claim a win by claiming he legalized Crimea. Also he can claim a win by providing amnesty for LNR and DNR separatists that he insured the safety of Russians in Ukraine. If I were Putin, I'd accept that deal, if I were Zelensky I'd accept it too. Nobody gets what they really want, but at least it's peace and trading can resume. Putin loses Ukraine from sphere of influence, but gains Crimea legally and he gets to stay in power.
If he keeps going, he might lose the grip on his country and with the sanctions and military backing of Ukraine by US/EU, he might even lose the war.
Left the country. Before that — a weird mix of political blogging and scandalous scoop-exploiting.
I’m not gonna lie, for years I thought you were Macedonian. Only when you said you also have a Romanian citizenship did I think “maybe he said Moldovan not Macedonian”
We have 1,000+ applications, 70%+ the permissions are managed by AD/LDAP. A lot of SSO is via ADFS. It would take a project years to find ways to get them all to work without AD. Quite a few don't have any option other than to use AD. And that's just me thinking about identity & access management, never mind anything else!
It's obviously not true. How could they possibly be 2nd largest shareholder of the largest Russian bank if they only had 13 million USD worth of shares pre-sanctions.