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[MonkeyHead]

So, Russia bans the import of fruit and veg from Poland citing "sanitary concerns". Poland claims this is politically motivated in retaliation to recent sanctions as up to 50% of Poland's produce ends up in Russia. Poland responds by getting apples and the eating of said apples trending on twitter.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-28590589

[LordSlowpoke]

wow that's cute

google tells me poland had lots of problems with meeting russia's sanitary requirements for imports, be it meat or produce or whatever ever since forever

except now it's politically motivated

i mean sure throw propaganda at each other but this is president assassination-tier bullshit coming from them

[swordsmith04]

Can we move this discussion to the American megathread? I doubt that Canada is a European country.

well, canada is more european than a couple countries that call themselves european but i can't really argue with you

canada got its own thread though

The Vimy Memorial in France, which commemorates the Battle of Vimy Ridge. The French government permanently granted a land area of about 91 ha (220 acres) to Canada as a war memorial in 1922 in recognition of Canada's military contributions in World War I in general and at Vimy Ridge in particular.[27]

[mainiac]

google tells me poland had lots of problems with meeting russia's sanitary requirements for imports, be it meat or produce or whatever ever since forever

Yeah, I'm sure those concerns were legit, it's not like Russia is a protectionist country that invents bullshit health concerns towards that end.

Why exactly do you reflexively attack anything democratic countries say?

[aenri]

Not really, my country that neighbours Poland, also has many health related problems with food from Poland. Classic case was road salt used for food processing. But there were also overdosed chickens with substances similar to human anabolics. Polish production is known to be low cost and they aren't afraid to bend a few laws to get some reduction in cost.
TLDR : What you pay for is what you get.

[Loud Whispers]

US spyplane violates Sweden, gets chased by Russian aircraft from Kaliningrad all the way across the baltics.

I always find these things funny.

*EDIT
Reading back at stuff about the cold war, the Soviets sent so many planes to test British air defences and response times that the RAF crews and the Tu-95 crews eventually started recognizing one another and did things like show each other family photos and things. When the soviet officers found out they were rather pissed so they sent commissars into the planes with the crews, yet the soviet pilots would shake their planes about when RAF planes neared to get the commissar to strap in so they could continue with the banter.

[Guardian G.I.]

My dad met a former sailor who served in the Soviet Pacific Fleet quite a while ago. The sailor told him that during routine patrols, the Soviet ships, including the one he served on, were frequently harassed by American jet fighters, which imitated attack runs on the Soviet ships. At times they had to open fire on the Americans to shake them off.

[Loud Whispers]

Haha, yeah I reckon these sort of feints will go on for a long time still. Also a ship's crew and an aeroplane's crew don't really have that many opportunities to fraternize with the enemy on what is practically another plane of existence

[Guardian G.I.]

Haha, yeah I reckon these sort of feints will go on for a long time still. Also a ship's crew and an aeroplane's crew don't really have that many opportunities to fraternize with the enemy on what is practically another plane of existence

Americans also frequently intruded into the Soviet airspace to test the reaction of the Soviet military and photograph Soviet military installations. The horrible Soviet propaganda preferred not to publicise such incidents (with exceptions like the ill-fated flight of Gary Powers). Meanwhile, when Soviet aircraft briefly approached the American aerospace (without intruding into it!), the American mass media branded it as an an aggressive move by USSR against the peaceful United States.

[Owlbread]

It looks like old Yunusbek Yevkurov, friend of Putin, United Russia politician and President of Ingushetia, is playing silly buggers messing about with figures for how many rebels are still in Ingushetia and exactly how many are applying to various rehabilitation schemes. It's all very sketchy. Then again, this is if you believe the JamesTown Foundation, and we know where their bias lies - but I can't really find fault with what they're saying.

Yevkurov also said something rather unpleasant about the need to allow relatives of victims killed in attacks by militants to take "blood revenge". This is not good. I will provide a link to the article but I can't use the my usual methods of hiding with it, so it has to be raw.

=42694&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7&cHash=b35963013dfd89cdfb4c425f49d9920e#.U9wrIWPndeB]http://www.jamestown.org/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=42694&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7&cHash=b35963013dfd89cdfb4c425f49d9920e#.U9wrIWPndeB

Yevkurov emphasized that, within the limits of the law, the authorities intended to influence and punish the relatives of members of criminal groups if the latter commit new crimes. “Until now we have acted with a great restraint and have attempted to restrain the relatives of those who were killed by the militants from taking blood revenge, but we will no longer do that,” he said. “I have tasked the Security Council of Ingushetia to spread the information on and photographs of all the bandits and those they killed in the republic. Let everyone look and know” (newsru.com, May 29).

The head of the republic was essentially calling for blood revenge. This will cause a chain reaction in a society in which the pre-Islamic traditions of vengeance still run strong. By vilifying the relatives of the militants, Yevkurov is practically expanding the conflict in Ingushetia. The underground fighters in Ingushetia today are not like those in the republic at the start of the second Russian-Chechen war in 2000, when they would go underground to take revenge or escape the authorities. Today’s militant is an ideologically well-prepared young man who has consciously chosen to fight the government and cannot be stopped through threats made to his relatives.

Of course Putin is 100% ok with all of this.

In other Caucasian news:

According to the Chechen nationalists, a Chechen doctor living in Odessa seems to have joined up with the Ukrainian national guard, specifically Kiev 2 Battalion, and is now fighting as a sniper in Donetsk against the Russian rebels. Her name is Amina Okueva. The Chechen nationalists are claiming she is known as the "Lioness of Ichkeria" but I don't think we can really verify that.

Spoiler: Here is a photograph of her. (click to show/hide)

[Yoink]

I haven't been really following this thread (or politics at large, really) but how true is this Sanya Sotkin stuff?
Because that would be hilarious.   

[Guardian G.I.]

An article in Slate about Russian novels which predicted the war in Ukraine. It's pretty anti-Russian, like most articles on that site, but it's the only English publication I've seen describing the subject.

[Mr. Strange]

An article in Slate about Russian novels which predicted the war in Ukraine. It's pretty anti-Russian, like most articles on that site, but it's the only English publication I've seen describing the subject.

This is the first time I've heard about those books, and the only thing that surprises me is that I'm not surprised at all.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Meanwhile Armenia and Azerbaijan are getting closer to a new war

[TheDarkStar]

Meanwhile Armenia and Azerbaijan are getting closer to a new war

This makes me wonder: What fraction of the countries in the world are currently dealing with war, ethnic conflict, large-scale terrorism, etc?