Last April, Vladimir Putin visited the campus of Bauman Moscow state technical university, set on the banks of the Yauza River in the east of the city and home to some of the country’s brightest scientific minds.

He toured the campus, met undergraduates and boasted about Moscow’s ambitious plans for space missions to the moon and Mars. “You have everything it takes to be competitive,” Putin told the students.

What the Kremlin readout of Putin’s visit did not mention was a secret faculty inside the university, known simply as Department 4, or “Special Training”.

  • Riverside@reddthat.com
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    20 hours ago

    Do you understand how overrepresentation of an issue on media (including social media) is a form of propaganda? The media spectrum being dominated by pro-US and anti-Russia stations means that we get 10 times the focus on one vs the other.

    If there were appropriately weighted representation of such news in Lemmy, commies like me wouldn’t need to remind everyone constantly that the US is doing even worse, but as things stand, in order to be fair to reality it is necessary to engage in whataboutism.

    • Zorque@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      If youre a communist and youre backing Russia, youre doing it wrong.

      Now if you’re a soviet apologist on the other hand…

      There is also the evidence that this Russian interference is directly impacting how US is being run. Does that not factor into your value judgment?

      No one can, in good conscience, say that the US isnt having a significant negative impact on world stability… but obviously it’s not happening in a vacuum.

      • Riverside@reddthat.com
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        19 hours ago

        Where in my comment did I back Russia?

        There is also the evidence that this Russian interference is directly impacting how US is being run.

        This is mostly a conspiracy theory, though, the whole “agent krasnov” etc etc. If there is overwhelming evidence of systematic funding of political parties, campaigns and propaganda that’s by Israel, not by Russia. “The american government is run by Putin” is about as well documented as “the Jews run the world”, that is, none at all.

        Blaming the US behavior on Russia, as if the US didn’t constantly go to war in the middle East, as if the Biden administration hadn’t funded the most extreme phase of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, is bullshit to excuse the US and blame “le evil country”

        Nothing I’ve said in this comment is a commandment of the Russian government, they’re proto-fascist, racist, queerphobe scum. Thay doesn’t mean they run the world.

        • Zorque@lemmy.world
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          15 hours ago

          Where in my comment did I back Russia?

          You’re right, you didn’t explicitly back them.

          It doesn’t have to be run by the Russian government to be affected by it. This article is about election meddling, not deep state conspiracy stuff. Do you deny that meddling? That it has had a serious impact on the US and a wide array of other countries?

          Intentional destabilization while not mucking about with actually controlling it is often times even worse, especially when it comes to as influential country as the US.

          That doesn’t mean they have no culpability… but as I said, it’s not a vacuum. There’s always more than one factor, and ignoring any in favor of only one is intentional ignorance of the worst kind.

          • Riverside@reddthat.com
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            12 hours ago

            Do you deny that meddling? That it has had a serious impact on the US?

            Yes! I explicitly said that it’s mostly a conspiracy theory, backed by no serious evidence.

              • Riverside@reddthat.com
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                5 hours ago

                No, there is substantial evidence for Russian meddling in such countries’ elections. Do you think there’s election meddling by the EU in said countries?