[yourmomsburgerplace]

Originally Posted by kellyhound ↗

During the same period, Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank — the foreign bank with the biggest exposure to Russia — increased its assets in the country by more than 40 per cent, from $20.5bn to $29.2bn.

Raiffeisen has said it is looking at ways of pulling out of the country and has reduced its assets to $25.5bn since March.

The far-right political landscape in Europe is undergoing significant changes, with Austria's Freedom Party (FPOe) and Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) gaining substantial support. In Austria, the FPOe, led by Herbert Kickl, has seen its support rise to around 31% in recent polls. The party has been criticized for releasing content that glorifies fascist ideologies and Austria's Nazi past. Despite this, the FPOe is already part of ruling coalitions in three Austrian provinces and is expected to be a strong contender in the next general election, which is scheduled to be held by autumn 2024.

In Germany, the AfD has nearly doubled its support to more than 20%, placing it just five percentage points behind the center-right Christian Democrats. The party's rise is attributed to public discontent over issues like illegal immigration and the economy. The AfD's increasing popularity comes despite the party lacking a charismatic leader, fueling concerns that one of its most extreme figures, Björn Höcke, could emerge as its dominant figure.

Both parties are capitalizing on public discontent over issues like inflation, migration, and the war in Ukraine. The rise of these far-right parties is causing alarm across Europe, especially given their nativist philosophies and the potential for them to gain power in upcoming elections.

The FPOe has signed a "cooperation pact" with Russia's ruling party, United Russia, which is loyal to President Vladimir Putin. This move signifies the strengthening of political and economic ties between Vienna and Moscow. The FPOe has also called for the lifting of "damaging and pointless international sanctions" against Russia over its actions in Ukraine, including the annexation of Crimea and its backing of separatists in the southeast of the country.

According to a poll on March 11th, the FPOe is now comfortably the strongest party in Austria, with 31% of the vote. The result of recent state elections in Lower Austria confirms the renaissance of the FPOe. The party's share jumped from 15% to 24%.

This summary is based on multiple articles from The Times of Israel (https://www.timesofisrael.com/alarm-...ing-nazi-past/), France 24 (https://www.france24.com/en/live-new...-support-soars), Politico (https://www.politico.eu/article/germ...-elections-eu/), the Georgetown Bridge Initiative (https://bridge.georgetown.edu/resear...terreichs-fpo/), and The Economist (https://www.economist.com/europe/202...-freedom-party), and was summarized with the help of GPT-4. All of these sources are slightly left-leaning.

Note: For those who are interested in gathering more information from sources like The Economist but are facing paywalls, you can use this GitHub repo on Chrome to bypass some news articles' paywalls as many bypasses are no longer working: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome

[RedactedKaos]

Originally Posted by yourmomsburgerplace ↗

The far-right political

Thanks, if anyone is stuck on mobile or can't use an extension
https://archive.is/
^works with the economist
https://12ft.io/
^works with alot

[WonderMomma]

HEADS UP

There is now a WarMemes thread for everyone to "express themselves" in.

I'm not going to be going back and moving any memes from other sections in there but any meme's posted in this or other threads in the future will be moved there.

[iARTEMx]

Originally Posted by WonderMomma ↗

HEADS UP

There is now a WarMemes thread for everyone to "express themselves" in.

I'm not going to be going back and moving any memes from other sections in there but any meme's posted in this or other threads in the future will be moved there.

Yeah. Thanks. I like it a lot.

[richy_dong]

Sky News are reporting that a British Challenger 2 tank has been destroyed in Ukraine

[Rikbikboo]

Just been reading this. Apparently all crew survived. It hit a mine causing the fuel tank to catch fire. Then got hit by a lancet. Important to note the big fuss the Russians are making out of the fact they destroyed one of our tanks. But they must be upset of the fact all the crew. Will soon be driving another one blowing the shit out of them again. A tribute to the great design and survivability of the hardware.

Well im sure we can afford to send a few more if needed. Easy to hit a stationary unmanned target.

[iARTEMx]

Originally Posted by Rikbikboo ↗

Just been reading this. Apparently all crew survived. It hit a mine causing the fuel tank to catch fire. Then got hit by a lancet. Important to note the big fuss the Russians are making out of the fact they destroyed one of our tanks. But they must be upset of the fact all the crew. Will soon be driving another one blowing the shit out of them again. A tribute to the great design and survivability of the hardware.

Well im sure we can afford to send a few more if needed. Easy to hit a stationary unmanned target.

The best part is that they are telling some bullshit like that Ukraine lost 66k soldiers in 3 mo of counteroffensive
66k
In 3 mo
Are you getting it?

[kellyhound]

Originally Posted by yourmomsburgerplace ↗

The party has been criticized for releasing content that glorifies fascist ideologies and Austria's Nazi past.

Plus:
four years after a secretly shot video exposed how corrupt, pro-Russian, unscrupulous and anti-democratic FPÖ party leader and then Austrian deputy prime minister Heinz-Christian Strache was.

In the video, he eagerly promised someone posing as a wealthy Russian businesswoman public contracts if, in exchange, she would buy Austria's largest tabloid newspaper and secure positive coverage for the FPÖ.

The ensuing scandal brought down the coalition government of the conservative ÖVP and the FPÖ.
https://euobserver.com/opinion/157383

People tend to forget, especially when new issues becomes popular like inflation and immigration so they will support the party with the loudest voice not seeing (willingly or unwillingly) into the past scandals of the same party or blatant desinformation/conspiracy. This goes for all countries and the one who gets the most (social) media attention usally gets a lot of support as people are too lazy to read behind the lines and most people are sheep anyway.

[scoRch]

Originally Posted by iARTEMx ↗

The best part is that they are telling some bullshit like that Ukraine lost 66k soldiers in 3 mo of counteroffensive
66k
In 3 mo
Are you getting it?

66k? I did read 500k, then 400k, then 100k, yesterday it was around 50k

Someone literally wrote that during this counteroffensive Ukraine lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers

Logical thinking of some persons seems to be gone

Russians are going to mobilize another 200k civilians so pro-russian trolls keep spamming that UA wants EU countries to hand them over every male that left UA, to treat them like deserters even though it was debunked

[Guns N' Coffee]

It is time for another episode of:

♪ ♫ Ljubodrag Avatar Watch ♫ ♪

In today's episode BOBR Unmanned rapid reaction detachment of the Russian Defense Ministry.



This is the drone squad operating under the Russian Ministry of Defense

I have not found much online in regards to Russia's military drone force. The following article is one of the few I could find in regards to a Russian military drone organization.

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2...kraine/375988/

Russia Is Training Drone Hobbyists to Fight in Ukraine
The effort to replenish depleted Russian forces blurs the line between civilians and military combatants.

Russia’s heavy losses in Ukraine have forced it to send conscripts and convicts to the front lines. A new center in occupied Ukraine is training Russian military and civilian drone operators for combat roles against Ukrainian forces.

Civilians trained at the three-month-old center in Donetsk do not formally join the military, the Russian news site Argumenty i Fakty reported on Aug. 12.

“It is important to understand that when training drone operators for use in war, a completely different approach is needed than when training a civilian pilot. Here, in addition to studying technical and tactical issues, it is necessary to train people in interaction within the unit, work with other attached forces, and coordinate work in combat crews,” an unnamed founder of the center told the Russian news site.

It’s not clear how “coordinated work in combat crews” differs from combat. And that blurs the line between civilians and troops and creates a new type of combatant, said Sam Bendett, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and an adviser at the CNA Corporation.

“We have to emphasize that this training effort blurs civilian and military lines. So at some point, this would have to be either folded into the [Ministry of Defense] officially, or be disbanded since it puts civilians in harm's way, even if they volunteer,” Bendett said.