Russia - threadbanned users in OP

That’s the thing isn’t it. They are hard to distinguish from each other due to both using a near identical Bingo-card when posting on forums like this one. Our two possibilities typically are:

• A Russian asset registering here to forward the Kremlin talking points. These are usually easy to spot and tend to be new-reg users who focus on forums like this one.
• A fully subscribed member of an echo-chamber that’s being nurtured by the Russians. These are actual posters and you’ll see them across a diverse set of forums. But their opinions smack so much of a Putin-Bot that it’s hard to not perhaps wonder if they are one.

The second variety are something to examine and wonder about….but also to be extreemly weary of. I would like to know more about the process of how people brought up in a liberal Western society would willingly delve into such a limited and authoritarian view of the world. What put them there, and what (if anything) can get them out of it?

The thing to be weary off should be a concern for any student of history. While we look back to WWII and rightfully vilify the Nazis of Germany…not an awful lot of focus is given to the sizable Nazi organisations that existed in the US, Britain and across the free world up-to and including the war itself. Even before 1939, people knew what the Nazies were about and you still got people growing up in democracies and thinking “Yep, seems like a good idea”.

With that invocation of Godwin’s 1st Law, that brings us back to today and the concept of a poster who supports Russia in their war of annihilation. They are the same thing, and sooner or later we’ll need to address this.

Also worth mentioning that this middle part of that map with nearly nothing in it is a part of the world so difficult and unforgiving to human life (especially in Winter), that it took the Soviets decades and countless gulag-slave lives to build any infrastructure at all there.

Cuban mercenaries executed their Russian commander for regular humiliations, withholding money from the soldiers, beatings. The mercenaries have been redistributed to the Rostov region never to be heard from again.

Fair enough. It was surprising to me as I was thinking of the effect sanctions had on Iraq. These crippled Saddam's efforts to rebuild his military again and develop missiles and "WMD" after the Gulf War, as emerged publically later when the US invaded.

Those were UN sanctions signed off on by the Security Council (i.e. like what NK is under?). Effectively "the World" such as it is saying this country is a danger to all, and must be economically sanctioned. They are not like the Russian situation, where the West (US/EU/G7) has tried to sanction them after the invasion, but many countries still trade with them as normal, or have increased trade in some cases for their own benefits and/or because they are hostile to the countries helping Ukraine defend itself or Russian allies.

That has not happened with NK if that article is correct. Maybe you are right and things have changed since the sanctions on Iraq, and stuff like the consumer grade electronic components [and also likes of CAD and CAM and factory equipment] needed by NK to design and build ballistic missiles and drones are more freely available from more places, but I have doubts and think main difference here vs Iraq's situation may be NKs neighbour, China.

There is a piece on the BBC website today about the Cuban mercenaries fighting for Russia in Ukraine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68949298

Why have they blurred out their faces to protect their identities?Do they blur out the faces of the other Russian combatants?

Nope.

Those are relying on Russian data, so garbage in garbage out. Military spending will show up as an increase in GDP... it is an economy cannibalizing itself.

Why are you just dumping Russian propaganda without scrutiny?

Who do you think you are going to fool with this misinformation?

This canard has been thoroughly discredited multiple times already on the thread.

Any claim Russia is winning economic war is just an exercise in economic illiteracy.

It's an extension of a previously existing license, so it's not easing of anything.

Probably no consent given from Facebook or the people themselves to use the images.

Everyone in the link I put up is easily recognisable. So the proof is there for the Cuban authorities to charge them on if return if they so wish.