Meanwhile In The Baltic Republics And Poland...

[Roman Alymov]

Poland political class more and more moving into the world of own imagination

https://www.rt.com/news/496862-kaczynski-plane-crash-zakharova/

[Roman Alymov]

Nice to see old caricature traditions alive in Baltic countries 

From article https://bb.lv/statja/nasha-latvija/2020/09/24/rossiyskie-istoriki-prishli-za-legionerami?fbclid=IwAR38_tbHksMyKsPD1MxGSdcyEmAOHNAc3jkDcOMJGsoS0GSfwBKipwTgpoY

 

Article itself (Yandex-translation from original Russian)

Did Russian historians come for the Legionnaires?
BB.LV 23:01, September 24, 2020 8
The publication by Russian historians Alexander Dyukov and Vladimir Simindey earlier this year of a report on Latvian SS Legionnaires with their surnames gave unexpected results.

In Latvia, it was considered that a search for former members of the Legion was being conducted. According to colleagues from Neatkarīgā Rīta Avīze, "those who are on the Kremlin's payroll started harassing the Legionnaires by coming to their homes."
The head of the organization Daugavas vanagi Latvijā, Andrejs Intermalis, is aware of two similar cases ( after the publication of the list, Russian journalists visited the Legionnaires – ed.) that occurred in England and the United States. According to Neatkarīgā, Legionnaires living in Latvia are concerned about the incident, some of them are being investigated by the Russian side, аnd their names and place of residence are published on the Internet.
According to Andrejs Mezhmalis, who leads Neatkarīgā, gray-haired soldiers, at the moment, do not feel safe, as he was informed in letters, including even from Australia. As the publication emphasizes, this situation is of extreme concern to the Latvian state authorities.
During the presentation of their report, Russian historians said that they will continue to work on identifying and documenting the activities of Latvian Legionnaires.
Recall that Dyukov and Simindey are persona non grata in Latvia.

Edited September 26, 2020 by Roman Alymov

[Roman Alymov]

Infowar in sandbox: Lithuaninan TV named Lukashenko "non-ltgitimate President of Belarus"

In return, Belarus-1 (prime TV channel of Belorussia) now name Lithuania "Former Soviet Republic Lithuania"

Poland is now "Former People's Republic of Poland"

Ukraine is now "Former UkrSSR"

[bojan]

Children throwing mud pies on all sides.

[glenn239]

22 hours ago, bojan said:

Children throwing mud pies on all sides.

The US needs to explain to Lithuania that if NATO decides to call the leader of Belarus illegitimate, it'll be a collective decision.

[Roman Alymov]

Back to Baltic “fighters against Communism”

50 years of first successful airplane highjack in USSR

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_244

On October 15th, 1970 two Lithuanians, father and 15-yo son Brazinskas, hijacked a passenger flight from Batumi to Sukhumi, Soviet Georgia. They killed a stewardess and pilot assistant – the pictured 19 y.o. Nadya Kurchenko who attempted to stop them onboard.

The father, Pranas Brazinskas, during WW2 served as a Nazi-collaborationist (Schutzmannschaft) and helped so called “forest brothers” but wasn’t convicted afterwards as didn’t participate in mass executions (yes, unfortunately bloody Stalin was as bloody as that). But in 1955 he was convicted  for 1 year for corruption - for using his position of a state manager for ‘personal profit’ (yes, not only was he allowed to take state jobs, but also was treated so soft). Then he worked a shop director and in 1966 – sentenced to 5 years for stealing public property. After the release in 1970 – organized a speculation scheme with stolen gold. Fearing of a new arrest he decided to hijack the flight.

In Turkey, where the hijacked flight landed, both were convicted to 2 years and pardoned soon as ‘fighters against communism’. Then they moved to the USA and were granted asylum again as ‘fighters against communism’ (with support of local Lithuanian community). Up until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Soviet government continued to press for the extradition of the Brazinskas, and regularly claimed about American hypocrisy in harboring terrorists.

In 2002 the son – Algirdas Brazinskas murdered his father Pranas Brazinskas during the family quarrel. Now he is convicted in the US for that.  

But the killed stewardess – Nadia Kurchenko - is still remembered and commemorated on October 15th.

Algirdas Brazinskas, left, and Pranas Brazinskas, right, confer with a Lithuanian-American supporter after the hijacking

[Yama]

I don't think Soviets had much of a moral high ground here however - hijackings were extremely common in 60s/70s, to the point that it was news if there was a day WITHOUT an aircraft being hijacked to Cuba or North Korea or whatever. While lot of them were just common criminals, many were asylum seekers or had political motivations and USSR and its allies didn't do much to discourage them.

[Leo Niehorster]

10 hours ago, Yama said:

I don't think Soviets had much of a moral high ground here however - hijackings were extremely common in 60s/70s, to the point that it was news if there was a day WITHOUT an aircraft being hijacked to Cuba or North Korea or whatever. While lot of them were just common criminals, many were asylum seekers or had political motivations and USSR and its allies didn't do much to discourage them.

Normally, I would agree with you. But these scumbags were certainly not "‘fighters against communism’ as I would understand it. That degrades those people who were really fighting communism everywhere and suffered for it as a consequence.

 

--

Leo

[wendist]

But that is a problem with all oppressive regimes left or right, they all love to portray anyone who disagree with them as a criminal of some sort. What Roman tells us about these two hijackers could very well be true but if western countries should take the Soviet Unions accusations at face value they would have had to return every single asylum seeker during the cold war because they were all "baby killers". Both Russia and China are often accused of continuing this practice today.  

[Roman Alymov]

On 10/16/2020 at 11:44 PM, Yama said:

I don't think Soviets had much of a moral high ground here however - hijackings were extremely common in 60s/70s, to the point that it was news if there was a day WITHOUT an aircraft being hijacked to Cuba or North Korea or whatever. While lot of them were just common criminals, many were asylum seekers or had political motivations and USSR and its allies didn't do much to discourage them.

It is not about moral high ground, but about Soviet “oppressive regime” not only failing to actually oppress Nazi collaborator, but repeatedly  failing to pay proper attention to his criminal activity after war –allowing him to continue on state positions after very soft punishment. Killing of young woman and disabling for life one of the pilots (billet hit his spinal cord) was logical result of this soft hand approach to Baltic Nazi collaborators. In this particular case revenge came not from Soviet officials but from his own son – unfortunately  many other Nazi collaborates survived all Soviet years to become sort of national heroes.

[bd1]

hey, never underestimate people´s desperation to get out of soviet union. juri gagarin spent years training and agreed to sit on top of missile just to get out of soviet union for  108 minutes!

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

[Roman Alymov]

17 minutes ago, bd1 said:

hey, never underestimate people´s desperation to get out of soviet union. juri gagarin spent years training and agreed to sit on top of missile just to get out of soviet union for  108 minutes!

In your logic, US was so bad more than a dozen men agreed to risk their lives to temporary get out of it on tiny aluminum foil capsules to remote lifeless rock in space, even without atmosphere

[Simon Tan]

It is quite curious how liberal democracies have embraced state power so derided in the 20th century. 

[Roman Alymov]

Who is to blame for Poland poor image, according to spokesman for Poland’s security services chief  - as by English version of interview it is only Russia  https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7785/Artykul/2619816

 while in Russian language version from the same Polish news channel it is also China and, surprise, Germany https://www.polskieradio.pl/397/7830/Artykul/2620073

 “Stanislav Zharin noted that not only Russia is conducting coordinated information attacks against Poland, but also China, and in the field of historical politics – Germany.”

[Rick]

Have the churches in both countries held meetings or done charitable work in both countries with both sides represented?

[Roman Alymov]

On 11/15/2020 at 6:14 PM, Rick said:

Have the churches in both countries held meetings or done charitable work in both countries with both sides represented?

I'm afraid it is too complex question for short answer. First, we have to provide definition of what is "churches in both countries". Poland is predominantly Catholic country, and Catholic Church is (at least in theory) above-national organization, so i do not know to what extent we could talk about Polish Church (Polish members input wellcome). Catholic Church is also represented in Russia and is traditionally in uneasy relations with Russian Orthodox church  - this uneasy relations are mostly caused by old feud between Russia and Poland for leadership in Eurasia (Poland lost this competition and is now relatively small country in Eastern Europe, but at certain points in history Poland was close to winning this race and Polish-Chinese border is not so much alternative history as one might think). Catholic leadership is more or less aware of this difficulties - probably it was one of the reasons why  in 2007 ethnic Pole was replaced by ethnic Italian as head of Catholicism in Russia. Anyway, Russia is not Orthodox-only country and we got plenty of religious organizations, including ones of pagans (in Tuva Republic alone we got three official shaman unions) so i am sure some of them were involved in some kind of joint activity with catholics of Poland.

[BansheeOne]

German, Dutch and Norwegian troops of eFP BG Lithuania in exercise "Vigilant Leopard".

[Lesley]

😜history repeats itself, Germany and the Netherlands against the red hordes in the Baltic states...... 

I didn't know, but there are even (not an offical Dutch goverment monument!!) monuments in the baltics in memory of the missing, killed or killed as POW soldiers, nurses and helpers.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

[BansheeOne]

Quote

The Italian F-35As Have Deployed To Estonia For NATO’s Baltic Air Policing Mission

April 30, 2021

David Cenciotti

It’s the first time 5th generation aircraft take part in BAP mission.

On Apr. 30, 2021, four Italian Air Force F-35A Lightning II jets landed at Amari Air Base, Estonia, to take over the NATO’s BAP (Baltic Air Policing) mission. It’s the first time the Italian stealth jets deploy to Estonia (even though the Italian Eurofighter Typhoons operated there for BAP in 2018) and also the first time that 5th generation aircraft support NATO’s mission in the Baltic States.

The Italian F-35s belong to the 13° Gruppo (Squadron) of the 32° Stormo (Wing) from Amendola Air Base, in southeastern Italy, and their deployment to Estonia was supported by a KC-767A tanker, flying as IAM1447 (and tracking online), from Pratica di Mare Air Base.

As part of the “Baltic Eagle II” mission, the Italian F-35A aircraft, operating within the Task Group Falco of the Task Force Air Estonia will replace the German Air Force Eurofighters which have been deployed to Amari since late August.

At the same time, after leading BAP for 8 months, the Italian Typhoons have completed their rotation at Siauliai, Lithuania.

Although it’s the first time they operate from Estonia, the Italian Air Force F-35A jets have already supported NATO Air Policing mission in Iceland twice: the first time in 2019, the second in 2020, when the Italian Lightnings scrambled for the first time to intercept a formation of three Russian Tu-142s.

[...]

Previous U.S. F-35 trip to Estonia.

Dealing with the F-35 and Estonia, it’s worth remembering what happened in April 2017, when two U.S. Air Force F-35As belonging to the 34th Fighter Squadron, from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, deployed to the UK flew from RAF Lakenheath, UK, to Amari for a short visit. In fact, the quick stopover was “accompanied” by a rather unusual activity of U.S. and British spyplanes in the Baltic region: as many as three RC-135s (including a RAF Rivet Joint) operated in the airspaces over or close to Estonia as the F-35s headed to, stayed and returned from Amari. Back then, we speculated the presence of the three spyplanes was related to the F-35s trip: they were probably “covering” the stealth jets, deterring the Russians from using their radars to gather details on the Lightnings at their first trip to Estonia. We also noted that it was not the first time U.S. stealth jets flying to the Baltics were directly or indirectly “accompanied” by Rivet Joints: on Apr. 27, 2016, two F-22s deployed to Siauliai Air Base, Lithuania supported (so to say) by an RC-135W.

Whatever, although the peacetime NATO QRA configuration does not require the F-35s to keep their LO (Low Observability) – this is the reason why the Lightnings on alert are equipped with radar reflectors/RCS enhancers – it’s quite likely that the presence of the Italian F-35A 5th generation stealth aircraft in Estonia, not far from the border with mainland Russia, will attract some interest by the Russians land and airborne ELINT sensors, targeting, if not the F-35’s radar signature at specific wavelengths, at least its valuable radar emissions… We will see.

https://theaviationist.com/2021/04/30/italian-f35-estonia/

[BansheeOne]

New Bundeswehr Youtube series covering a tank platoon deployed to Lithuania, complete with flashy cuts and dramatic music. Closed captioning in English available.

 

[BansheeOne]

 

Edited May 19, 2021 by BansheeOne

[BansheeOne]

The above series now seems done. English subtitles typically took a couple days to be added, but now are available for all but the last episode. Though they don't always do the colorful original language justice, particularly all the swearing during the alert to move out for the "Iron Wolf" exercise. After the lengthy runup of training in Germany, there's a jump of three months between arrival in Lithuania and extensive coverage of that exercise, but the last four episodes were pretty entertaining I thought.

 

 

[BansheeOne]

Apropos of Germans in Lithuania, the Bundeswehr is investigating an alcohol-fueled party at a Rukla hotel involving ten soldiers from a Panzergrenadier platoon and charges of singing extremist and anti-Semitic songs, racist insults and sexual assault. Four have been sent home, and an alleged victim separated from the rest.