I wonder if this stuff actually help them much?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_...
Edit: I guess all the downvotes are from totally "domestic" groups and not Russian bots, right? Get fucked Ruskies.
Have I missed any - very brazen!
I suppose with the distances we're talking about and the resistance of steel this isn't visible without a whole bunch of signal generators?
Edit: Be sure to read jiggawatts' reply below.
I also remember reading about an application of fibre optics where a long strand is placed directly under each rail. Pulses of light through the fibre are reflected at the points where axles press down on the rail and compress the fibre. Similar techniques can be used to detect accidents and (completely) broken tracks.
With the fiber scheme they are using optical TDR.
I can tell when and where we have significant wind storms, because it oscillates the fiber lines on the poles in a particular way which in turn generates a graph with specific signal oscillations.
Say some dictator lived through a trauma that he projects onto some group of people. Or that he considers himself a spiritual successor (perhaps even the reincarnation) of Ivan the Great, the Collector or Lands. Once you ease yourself into this mindset you see the logic.
The point of the "special operation" was that there would not be a culturally-adjacent functioning democracy next door, because that might give the Russian people ideas.
For the record, it was me. I committed terrorism to bring awareness to Rust's excessive use of punctuation marks.
What are the chances that the high-speed rail crash that occurred in Spain a few weeks ago was also caused by them? [4]
[1] https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-shadow-war-against-wes...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRU_Unit_29155
[3] https://m.youtube.com/@thechristofiles/videos
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Adamuz_train_derailments
Social media should be the main target of all these defense groups, but sadly politicians themselves derive their power from it so it’s unlikely anything tangible will be done.
If anything, the fact we’re not seeing random drones carrying explosives and diving into groups of people on a daily basis shows the vast, vast (99.999%) majority of people is actually well-meaning and has no desire to kill or hurt anyone.
If you’re legitimately baffled by a random guy being able to fly a quadcopter around without any kind of government approval or oversight, I encourage you to buy one and play around (without explosives please!), just make sure to not fly it over places where people could be standing - terminal velocity is real and even a light one could cause serious injury if it were to lose control and fall on someone’s head.
As someone who works in the industry: quite slim.
Why? They've been developing a system of "single-use agents" to overwhelm European governments and keep them on their back foot.
This is likely a test run.
A lovely article on this was recently published in The New Yorker that you may enjoy: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/02/09/to-build-a-fir....
Israel responds to words with words. They respond to force with force. And they are busy enough dealing with the trouble that Iran keeps stirring up, they're not going to do anything to Spain. (Not to say that it would be out of the question for them to go after terrorists who were in Spain, but it would be very focused. Look at what happened after Munich--multiple European countries were incredibly inept about extraditing the attackers so Israel responded with assassination teams. Not strikes on anything they didn't believe had hurt them.)
(And there never was a genocide, but this isn't the thread for it.)
[0] https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/07/europe/italy-protests-rail-da...
Lots of governments.
For example, there's some other news at the moment that the USA is financing pro-MAGA groups across Europe, which I mention more because of Jan 6 happened at all than due to any specific evidence that the US government has knowingly given state support for terrorists.
The reason mainland China hasn't taken Taiwan is because they don't have to.
I do not like the government of China, however, they are building infrastructure around the world especially in Africa, Asia, and South America. They are not destroying things like Russia does every single day. Their approach to diplomacy now is building.
For the same reason, China isn't commit terrorist attacks on other countries. However, Russia is committing terrorist attacks on other countries so it easy to believe that they are responsible for terrorist attacks.
And it's a sea battle--drones can pick their own targets and thus can't be jammed. What happens when the ship is met by a hundred drones with explosives? Doesn't take much of a processor to compare the image of a ship with the ocean.
The citizens wouldn't challenged the mainland in 2024, they won't challenge the mainland today, and they won't challenge the mainland in the future.
Likely the reason the mainland hasn't taken the island yet IS because they can take it in 3 days if they wanted.
This does not reflect the opinions of any military person I know who has knowledgeably commented on the topic, all of whom have spent quite a bit longer than 6 weeks on Taiwan.
I'm not saying this to be mean. I'm being honest and because the current United States administration is a bunch of snowflakes, it puts the democracy in Taiwan in great danger you need to honest about that too.
The only country I think that is prepared to defend against China is Vietnam.
Now add typhoon season, the artillery batteries in the mountains, China’s lack of blue-water naval operations (let alone combined arms) and, in terms of allies, the Philippines and Japan.
Sorry. But this analogy reeks of Moscow ca. 2022.
This will be much more like the Taliban recapturing Kabul. If the artillery batteries are like the infrastructure on the east coast, likely they don't work. Taking the train out there is very dangerous. Not 1 in every 100 people dying because the architecture is shit and the local governments are super corrupt dangerous, but incompetence and people just don't care about maintaining them dangerous. They have ~400 combat aircraft but the mainland won't allow them acquire f35s or patriot missiles and anything that would really be a threat.
The Taiwanese are not going to fight. China told them to be quiet and under threat that if they speak out they and their families will later face retribution, everyone went silent. They are surely not going to take arms against China. My dad had a friend, an scientist from China, in the 80s. She was a critic of the government. She had one child in China. They removed one of her young son's testicles and told her to shut up or they would remove the other. The Taiwanese know how it works.
I spent 3 weeks in the Philippines and 2 months in Japan. Neither can afford a war. The Philippines is too poor and Japan's debt is hovering around 235%–263% of its GDP. Japan doesn't even have official diplomatic relation with Taiwan let alone a defense treaty. Japan is a mess with or without a war.
The only thing that will stop China from attacking Taiwan, is a US president who isn't a whining snowflake. If you are US citizen I would recommend electing a US president with a backbone who isn't a pedophile -- for Taiwan's sake.
Sorry, this is nonsense. I'm not Taiwanese. But I have a lot of Taiwanese friends, none of them in politics, half of them in America. They all speak out. Forcefully. Exhibit A for this being B.S. is the electoral history of Taiwan, particularly since Xi started his wolf-warrior bullshit in the late 2010s.
> I spent 3 weeks in the Philippines and 2 months in Japan. Neither can afford a war. The Philippines is too poor and Japan's debt is hovering around 235%–263% of its GDP
You have to be joking. Both have prominent militaries they're building up.
> Japan doesn't even have official diplomatic relation with Taiwan let alone a defense treaty
This is your first valid point.
> Japan is a mess with or without a war
This is Zero Hedge nonsense. Japan is a financial mess. They're also an industrial power, scientific powerhouse and potent–and building–military force.
> If you are US citizen I would recommend electing a US president with a backbone who isn't a pedophile -- for Taiwan's sake
Americans don't vote on foreign policy unless there is a draft.
They can't even vote in their own interest. Something or somewhere else isn't even on their radar.
I would not want to risk American money or lives defending defending a country that doesn't want to defend itself.
That said, your anecdotes don't match my experience with sentiments in taiwan
Because nothing happened. If your neighbour is on an acid trip, you leave them alone. They're not actually breaking into your house yet.
> this has a lot more to do with China's growth
That is my point. Because of China's growth they don't need to take the island by force or commit terrorist attacks against other countries especially in Europe. Today, countries like the Bahamas, Peru, Afghanistan, and Nigeria are welcoming China and their infrastructure money (not destroying infrastructure like Russia does) with open arms.
A couple reasons:
1. China's not particularly known to conduct this sort of activity this far from their mainland.
2. What would be their motive? China is actively trying to fill that "superpower" void being left in Europe by President Trump's unpredictable behavior.
> Or a random terrorist group?
Plausible.
> Speculation is fun but it's important to actually make statements grounded in reality.
I look at it from the standpoint of motive and history. See "GRU Unit 29155"[1]. Russia has both. Russia is on the brink of war with Europe.
EU / NATO is on the brink of making war with Russia official.
There, FTFY.
In this specific case, becuase China has historically had significant FDI within Italy's infrastructure sector.
China has significant issues with the EU and is aligned with Russia, but it isn't in China's incentive to conduct violent actions outside of the Chinese diaspora within Europe (which is a separate sticking point).
Unnecessary. Just (a) pursue and seize its shadow fleet and (b) give Ukraine long-range weapons. (And radars so you can profile Russia's air defences.)
Russia is operating so comically outside its circle of competence, material constraints and international law that you don't even have to go kinetic to hurt it.
What is true however, is that Russia does possess a huge arsenal of nuclear and other weapons:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_and_weapons_of_mass_des...
Despite Putin's posturing, Russia's never going to risk deploying them in a conflict with Ukraine. But in an actual war between NATO/Europe and Russia, with the regime facing an existential threat, then there's a very good chance they would. But even before it got to that point, the nature of the conflict itself would make nuclear escalation very likely. Both sides would be firing huge numbers of missiles, attempting to gain air superiority by wiping out the other's own missile launchers, radar bases, etc. With that many missiles flying, and stressed people and automated systems making split-second decisions, it's very likely that an error or miscalculation would result in an accidental nuclear strike, at which point it would be impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.
But that does not mean we can't arm them with long range stuff, just in fairly small quantities. A Tomahawk can't take down Russia. A Tomahawk a day raining down in areas away from the battle front--that can make Russia very much want to quit provoking them. Provide such weapons on the basis that the supply will be immediately cut off at status quo ante.
(And of course, if they don’t have a problem with stealing over half of the fruits of your labor, do you really think they won’t send you to fight for them when the chips are down anyway?)
I live in Bulgaria. My effective tax rate here is around 20%. Next destination is Dubai which is even lower, because again, if rich politican assholes’ kids are going there to live the good life, why not follow them in their grift?
(Would I recommend Bulgaria? Well the tech money you make is enough to live like a king and privately pay for all the services a government is supposed to provide… but then again it’s no different from the UK where I also had to pay for everything privately except I could barely afford it because I also had to burn 50% of my income on taxes with nothing in return, so from that perspective Bulgaria wins. Make of it what you will. Switzerland appears to be the only place with a functioning government and fair taxes, except the property Ponzi is reaching such breaking points that whatever you save on taxes is getting burnt immediately on rent, so you’re no better)
And bankruptcy is only a problem when you actually have significant assets, something not easy to acquire in western EU countries. If you’re the average under-30 western EU resident, bankruptcy won’t make a major difference in your lifestyle, it’ll be shit either way.
What sort of easily-disprovable horseshit is this?
https://www.economie.gouv.fr/particuliers/impots-et-fiscalit...
Income 11k-30k taxed at 11%, 30k-80k at 30%.
80k puts you in the top 5% of wage earners.
If you are spending an amount which rounds to zero on world-class healthcare, all of a sudden rent being even half your post-tax income (which would indicate you are living near the edge of your means, if not beyond) isn't so bad.
Its absolutely senseless to take on a position on something when not knowing what's coming from both sides
I'd presume this place to be frequented by those who would also find it similarly foolhardy to be taking a stance on an issue when not all parties are privy to the same objectivity/impartiality (in terms of information and the different sides of the story)
Glad you agree!