With some outside help from people like John Bolton.
Ah, no. Far, far worse than enemies: heretics.
With enemies, you defeat them and conquer them. Heretics are the worst demonic pod creature Страшная долина infiltrators.
Worst than anything they’ve experienced since WWII?
yes… and… some more to sanction… it seems:
Tbh., if you’re in the middle of reporting on an invasion and war crimes against civilians, a cute cat may be exactly the kind of a unicorn chaser you really need.
She got caught by the change from a level 3 (You are not meant to believe this) to level 4 (Believing this is compulsory) propaganda state.
When no-one is meant to believe the bullshit flowing from the official channels, at least they can talk about how it’s bullshit. (That’s part of the point: go ahead and say what you want, the message is that you can’t do anything about any of it.)
When they’re meant to believe it and they don’t at least pretend to believe, then anyone could be going to report them; either because they believe, or because they’re desperate to show that they believe in case anyone accuses them of not.
A stage 4 propaganda state is one where you daren’t say anything, even in private, because anyone could be the one to turn you in to the thought police.
Sandworm is particularly known for launching disruptive hacks over the years, including knocking the Ukrainian power grid offline, using malware to try to blow up a Saudi petrochemical plant, and more recently deploying a destructive wiper targeting the Viasat satellite network over Ukraine and Europe.
John Hultquist, vice president of intelligence analysis at Mandiant, said in response to the FBI’s operation:
Sandworm is the premier Russian cyber attack capability and one of the actors we have been most concerned about in light of the invasion. We are concerned that they could be used to hit targets in Ukraine, but we are also concerned they may hit targets in the West in retribution for the pressure being placed on Russia.
“This was done by professionals, probably British. They’re the best in the area of information operations,” said commentator Gevorg Mirzaryan. “[They know how] to place the bodies correctly, do everything correctly, create a nice picture for the necrophilic Western consciousness.”
Having just read Operation Mincemeat, it is clear how fraught with risk such operations are and how much sheer luck is needed to get away with it.
(Light aside: Operation Mincemeat will be coming to a screen near you soon but it remains to be seen how accurately it reflects the book. The original book “The Man Who Never Was” was written by one of the architects of the operation and deliberately mis-told the story for security and other reasons - the film of the same name was just as non-non-fictional, if you get my meaning.)
(ETA to add that Operation Mincemeat was rather more complicated and relied on gullible Spaniards and Germans, not gullible news camerapersons and serious investigative journalists, to say nothing of an entire gullible global audience, which is what would be needed for that fuckwitted Russian’s ludicrous allegations to be true.)
