Russia Renamed Its Ambitious Satellite Program After Putin Misspoke Its Name (arstechnica.com) 95
An anonymous reader shares a report: It was always abundantly clear that the leader of the Russian space corporation Roscosmos from 2018 to 2022, Dmitry Rogozin, sought to kowtow to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Now we have an anecdote from Putin himself that highlights how much. The story concerns a satellite constellation now known as Sfera (or Sphere, in English), a modestly ambitious constellation of 264 satellites. The Sphere constellation is intended to provide broadband Internet service from middle-Earth orbit to Russia as well as high-resolution Earth observation satellites.
As is usual with Russian space projects, because they tend to be poorly funded, the timeline for Sphere's deployment has been delayed and its scope reduced. It also underwent an unscheduled name change. Prior to 2018, this satellite program was known as Ehfir (Ether), a reference to the invisible substance once thought to fill the universe and the medium through which light waves propagated.
However that changed in 2018 when Putin was publicly announcing the program's creation. He recently recalled this in remarks that were recorded by RIA Novosti's Telegram channel. They were translated for Ars by Rob Mitchell. "At first it was called Ehfir," Putin said. "And at one of my public speeches I was talking and said it was Sfera. I arrived at the Kremlin, and the former Roscosmos head greeted me and said, 'Vladimirovich, you said it was project Sfera, Sfera you said. That's what it is, project Sfera.'"
Rogozin, who was listening to these remarks, acted immediately -- presumably to save his boss from embarrassment. After Rogozin said the constellation was named Sphere, Putin recalled that he asked how's that? Rogozin replied that it had already been renamed Sfera, not to worry. Laughing, Putin added, "So I didn't even make it back and it's already renamed to Sfera. So I said, well, OK then." Rogozin confirmed the anecdote on his Telegram channel this week.
As is usual with Russian space projects, because they tend to be poorly funded, the timeline for Sphere's deployment has been delayed and its scope reduced. It also underwent an unscheduled name change. Prior to 2018, this satellite program was known as Ehfir (Ether), a reference to the invisible substance once thought to fill the universe and the medium through which light waves propagated.
However that changed in 2018 when Putin was publicly announcing the program's creation. He recently recalled this in remarks that were recorded by RIA Novosti's Telegram channel. They were translated for Ars by Rob Mitchell. "At first it was called Ehfir," Putin said. "And at one of my public speeches I was talking and said it was Sfera. I arrived at the Kremlin, and the former Roscosmos head greeted me and said, 'Vladimirovich, you said it was project Sfera, Sfera you said. That's what it is, project Sfera.'"
Rogozin, who was listening to these remarks, acted immediately -- presumably to save his boss from embarrassment. After Rogozin said the constellation was named Sphere, Putin recalled that he asked how's that? Rogozin replied that it had already been renamed Sfera, not to worry. Laughing, Putin added, "So I didn't even make it back and it's already renamed to Sfera. So I said, well, OK then." Rogozin confirmed the anecdote on his Telegram channel this week.
Re:so what (Score:5, Informative)
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The RS-70 [wikipedia.org] was named to to indicate its role of reconnaissance and strike. As in, first do reconnaissance and if that results in the detection of enemy activity, strike afterwards.
The SR-71 simply matched a change of strategy to strike first and then do reconnaissance to confirm that the enemy was hit. /s
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You're a few presidents off. It was Johnson and seems like it was intentional. https://www.thesr71blackbird.c... [thesr71blackbird.com].
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>> Then again, Reagan was a pretty nasty character too.
> You're a few presidents off. It was Johnson
So are we still able to use this as a reason to hate Reagan or not?
Re:so what (Score:4, Funny)
You need a reason to hate Reagan now? When did this rule appear?
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More like: you need yet another reason to hate Reagan. And this one's pretty bland compared to reaganomics.
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I think that's the joke. Slashdot just fabricates reasons to hate Reagan now and brushes it off like they aren't completely leftist.
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I'd be quite happy to have Reagan back these days. Though he'd be castigated as a liberal and dumped aside. Same that they did with Jesus giving his liberal sermon on the mount. Seriously though, the fact that he reached across the aisle and treated Tip O'Neil as a friend would be seen as highly shocking in the MAGA world these days. The snag is that Reagan actually was a conservative, and thus a RINO.
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The real reason was even simpler than that: In Australian slang, RS = ratshit. They figured the Russians weren't going to be terribly impressed when confronted with a Ratshit 71.
Now, let me tell you about IBM's Ratshit 6000...
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We USAians did the same thing when Reagan called the bird "SR-71" ; the original designation was "RS-71"
Uh... how's that again?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Reagan called the bird "SR-71"
General LeMay. And it wasn't a mistake.
President Johnson (Re:so what) (Score:3)
I was thinking about this too but a quick search of Wikipedia tells me it was President Johnson and/or one of this subordinates that made this change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I could not find a reference with a quick search but I recall Reagan being involved in the renaming of the MX missile program, and because of the similarity confusing this incident with the SR-71 nonstandard designation would be easy. It's quite possible neither happened as described since there's a lot of people involved with
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Don't be surprised when the good ship Depends lands on the moon.
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The lunar lander would be covered in tacky polished brass.
Better Name (Score:2)
Putin is a skilled communicator.
It's not surprising that his mental conception was more resonant.
Ha ha ha ha (Score:2)
Re: Ha ha ha ha (Score:2)
Naw that's not how they roll. They're fine with embarassing the president. It's racking up that carbon footprint with private jet flights that gets you in trouble over there.
there is more where that came from (Score:1, Insightful)
putin also called Ukrainians nazis, while in reality his armed forces and his government were and are filled with nazis https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com] and now host terrorists
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/1... [nytimes.com]
Of course when I point this out https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org] I get labeled as 'troll'.
We have to learn to call things by their real name, this would be the first step towards understanding and healing. Islam is a terrorist organization that wants to turn the world into an Islamic state, this is
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Islam is a terrorist organization
I won't argue with you about Russia, but Islam is not a terrorist organization. It's not even an organization -- there is no monolothic Islam any more than there's a monolithic Christianity, Judaism, etc.
But I'm sure you know this. You just want to be a troll while you whine about being identified as such.
Re:there is more where that came from (Score:4, Insightful)
Islam is first and foremost a religion. Much like Christianity is. And in both religions, there are terror groups that use that religion as an excuse to justify their terror.
To make evil people do evil things it doesn't take much, but to make good people do evil things, you need some sort of ideology. Religion works beautifully in that regard, since you don't really have to first justify what you want to do, all you have to do is declare that you speak for the deity and the deity wants that.
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Which part are you objecting to, that Islam is an organization? Are you saying it doesn't have organizational hierarchy? It doesn't have organizational rules? It doesn't have organizational managers? Organizational finance management? It doesn't have stakeholders? It doesn't have what exactly, what is it that makes *any* religion not an organization?
I am an atheist, I see any religion as an organization.
Are you objecting that Islam is a terrorist organization? Are you objecting that I am singling out
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I understand he has an objection with the idea that Islam is the name of a terrorist organization, I think most people would agree with that too and also agree that Islam is the name of a religion.
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Actually, Islam has less of a hierarchical structure than Christianity. There is no Pope or metropolitan that can speak for a considerable portion of the believers. Not for a lack of pretenders, who, in turn, are mostly of the political Islam, i.e. people who try to use religion for their political goals.
I guess we can agree that there is no shortage of that kind of people in other religions, too.
And yes, some churches (or whatever it's called in Islam) are organized. That doesn't turn a religion into an or
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When has this ever happened the first, the last or any time in between? Yes, when some bigwig in a religion declares something to be gospel, the adherents of his particular flavor will listen and act accordingly. You'll notice that this is the case for any kind of organized religion. You'll also notice that the rest of the people believing that particular religion don't give half a fuck about it. You'll have a larger response when the Pope declares something to be a religious thing than when some Muslim lea
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Assholes using religion as a tool to further their goals? C'mon, that really ain't a new thing.
Ataturk abolished the Caliphate (Score:2)
In 1914 the Caliph - aka the ruler of the Ottoman Empire - called on all Muslims to ally with him against the UK and France in WW1. Clearly the appeal did in fact fail, but the fact that it was attempted is a reminder that Islam has a complex history of involvement in politics; the last time it was turned back from invading Vienna 1688, after all.
There is a strong strand in elements of Islam that argues that its moral laws should be imposed on non-believing societies by force - i.e. invading them. This is t
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You will find that claim to "our land" in pretty much all religions. And where religions are no longer en vogue, religion was simply replaced with the nation. How many nation lay claim to some stretch of land because at some point in time some empire associated with that nation occupied that patch of land?
For reference, take a look at what's currently going on in Ukraine.
In either case, it's an excuse to lay claim to something that belongs to someone else. A justification to go to war. Nothing more, nothing
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> Islam is first and foremost a religion
What you're really saying is "If we call a set of beliefs a religion then everyone is entitled to practice their beliefs."
Sounds good on the surface.
Islam is the belief that only through the eliminatin of non-Muslims will they be pure. There's a name for non-Muslims: infidels.
Christianity doesn't preach killing everyone who won't convert, although the Spanish did try that.
Judaism doesn't preach even converting anyone, making it a difficult religion to "join."
Buddh
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Christianity doesn't preach killing everyone who won't convert, although the Spanish did try that.
Judaism doesn't preach even converting anyone, making it a difficult religion to "join."
Lection from the book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 20, verses 10 to 14:
"When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may t
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Jesus said on at least five occasions that not a single bit of the Old Testament is invalidated. Thus: if you don't murder everyone outside the tribe, you're an evil cherry-picker. Unlike the times Koran was written, during Bible's inception people didn't even have the option of converting, it was tribe = religion, with each tribe having its own gods (who possibly have an overgod, such as El). Your best bet was your town surrendering without fight, which, unless you were elderly or infirm or otherwise us
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So the OT is no longer to be heeded according to Jesus, hmm? Let's see what he has to say about that according to the book:
Matthew 5:17-18
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished."
Luke 16:17
But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void.
As for the
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Christianity's commandments and historic death toll are way worse, yeah. But, as Christianity is chock full of doublespeak and Islam is not, thus honest people have no wiggle room.
It's not like good people who are forced to worship on the pain of death haven't tried -- see the sophistry of "Greater Jihad" which wasn't even a thing before 11th century and which is directly contradicted by Koran.
The vast majority of people are good at heart, this is why they balk against more vile pieces of their religion.
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Islam is a terrorist organization
I won't argue with you about Russia,
oh he's dead wrong about that too, nazism exists indeed to some extent everywhere, and is often connected to military and para-military, but all considering it is very minoritary in russia, and there is generalized deep rooted aversion against it in most ex-soviet territory, for very good reason. oh, except in western ukraine, btw, they actually were nazi sympathizers during the war and it's still going strong, and has been instrumental in the current conflict.
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oh he's dead wrong about that too, nazism exists indeed to some extent everywhere
Actually your dead wrong. Putler is hard at work committing genocide against Ukranians. Concurrently state run media embarks on 24x7 imperialistic antisemitic rampage while Putin is busy erecting statues of Stalin throughout Russia.
The same Stalin who killed millions of Russians, developed a friendly relationship with his good pal Adolf Hitler providing Nazis with material support, embarking on joint military ventures and inking secret agreements... In fact their friendship ran so deep even after Hitler a
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Putler is hard at work committing genocide against Ukranians.
what is happening in ukraine isn't a genocide, although the civil war already raging (and ignited by the coup by the us-backed nazis) has been indeed viciously fratricide. still, that's war, not a genocide. russian invasion atm it's still limited to overwhelmingly russian heritage/culture territory, so who are they supposed to be genociding? themselves? for a contemporary example of genocide see what israel has been doing in palestine the last decades and is culminating right now. spot any difference?
also,
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what is happening in ukraine isn't a genocide
Of course it is.
https://newlinesinstitute.org/... [newlinesinstitute.org]
although the civil war already raging (and ignited by the coup by the us-backed nazis) has been indeed viciously fratricide.
Civil war my ass. After Maidan Russia invaded the east and waged war against Ukraine. Only those whose brains have been completely rotted by Russian propaganda believe the Nazi bullshit and civil war propaganda. What other ridiculous things do you believe? Was Maidan a coup d'etat orchestrated by the west?
The truly sad part is Russian bullshit is so easily disproved with such a small amount of effort.
"Mission has still been able to document Russiaâ(
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Don't be a clown.
yeah, sorry, no disrespect, but you are full of shit.
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yeah, sorry, no disrespect, but you are full of shit.
Is that the best you can do?
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for people that is full of shit and deliberately misrepresents facts it's way more than they deserve, and still nothing would be enough to have a meaningful exchange of ideas. so, i'm afraid yes. don't worry, you don't need me to keep shouting your lies. you aren't even alone.
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for people that is full of shit and deliberately misrepresents facts it's way more than they deserve, and still nothing would be enough to have a meaningful exchange of ideas. so, i'm afraid yes. don't worry, you don't need me to keep shouting your lies. you aren't even alone.
I've provided evidence to objectively support my assertions regarding Genocide and "civil war" claims. Is your position so weak you are unable to do the same? Is calling me full of shit the best you can do?
BTW have you heard of mobs of Nazi's looking for Jews to kill in Dagestan?
https://www.jpost.com/breaking... [jpost.com]
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Wow, our very own Russian disinformation troll.
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In fact their friendship ran so deep even after Hitler attacked the USSR Stalin couldn't bring himself to believe his good pal had betrayed him.
According to a part of historians, Stalin intended to strike first, but as a raving lunatic, ordered defenses to be burnt during preparation for the attack. Hitler's Operation Barbarossa was a hasty desperate counter-strike which initially succeeded only because of said Stalin's lunacy -- he eg. closed himself in his quarters for two weeks, refusing to issue orders. And, as it was just after the whole upper cadre of Soviet army having been purged and murdered for acting on their own initiative without an
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https://duckduckgo.com/?q=russ... [duckduckgo.com]
Doesn’t exactly look like these guys are worried about getting punched.
Re:there is more where that came from (Score:5, Informative)
Remember back when Stalin, famous mass murderer of tens of millions of innocent people, allied with Hitler to start World War II (literally nobody after Hitler bears more responsibility for starting WWII than Stalin), and now we're all supposed to forget about that, with Putin deliberately working to rehabilitate Stalin's image?
Nah, I guess we're only supposed to talk about low-level collaborators. Well, fine - let's do that . In places conquered by the Nazis, all ethnic groups cooperated at roughly equal levels, and yes, that includes Russians (ironically, fighting under today's Russian tricolour against the Red Army). If any group collaborated more, it seems (unsurprisingly) to be ethnic Germans, and any group less, perhaps Belorussians, but they all were roughly equivalent in participation rates.
If you arrive in an invading army, overthrow the government, and hand out arms to all the worst people you can find and use them to carry out your dirty work, you're the reason all that happened. Not the fact that everywhere will have some percentage of the population that will collaborate, on any grounds from shared ideology, to trying-to-use them to achieve your own aims, to desperation and trying to avoid becoming a victim yourself.
Not isolated to WWII, but throughout human history, in every country. And it would happen in your country, too - whoever the invader was.
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Quite disingenuous to imply that:
1) Justin Trudeau was the only one: the whole fricking bunch of them did.
2) That they knowingly did it: nah, they didn't: all of them, Liberals and NDP and PCs, did not realize the man being honoured for being a Ukrainian war vet had been fighting under the German forces. They were clueless, but that goes for the conservative side as much as the liberal side.
No wonder you posted anonymously.
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Of course when I point this out https://slashdot.org/comments [slashdot.org].... [slashdot.org] I get labeled as 'troll'.
That's not why that post got modded troll. There are clearly other reasons.
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ruzzia
Your spelling is off. You wanted to say "Muscovy", the other name is stolen.
At present it's way too tainted to be returned to Rus' -- ie, Ukraine -- but that's not a reason to allow the thieves to use it.
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Ukraine claiming they are the inception of the Rus is idiotic. The Rurik dynasty were vikings, and their initial cities were in the north like Novgorod.
Yes, the country was founded by a mostly peaceful merging of viking traders with slavic farmers. It was a rare case of conquest-less conquest: if you're filthy rich from trade (and a bit of piracy), you don't oppress forest clearing subsistence farmers: they'd just run away deeper into the impassable forest and make another clearing elsewhere. Instead, you buy food from them and hire them to man your ships. Before they blinked, the vikings were speaking slavic and were one nation. Both sides were democr
Nothing to be proud of (Score:4, Insightful)
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My immediate thoughts were of the path of a hurricane back when Trump was the POTUS. He went on TV and announced where the danger was heading, but he got it wrong. The next thing that happened was that someone updated the diagrams to make it look as though what he said came from the meteorologists.
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Biden, on the other hand, has (justifiably) admitted to being "a gaffe machine" [theguardian.com].
Some people deal with it better than others, I guess.
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I just don't understand why it is so hard for someone, like Trump, when they misspeak to just admit it. Why is that considered such a horrible thing to just say something like "Yeah, I know I said Florida but I misspoke and meant Georgia (or where ever)." People make simple mistakes like this all the time. I just did it earlier today, not a big deal. But I guess with certain egos, they can't be wrong. Sad.
I think it comes from prioritizing loyalty above all else.
When you screw up your opponents use it to attack you. The more loyal the subordinate the more strongly they'll defend you.
If you then admit the mistake, well then you just sold out your most loyal defenders and now they're looking ridiculous explaining why they repeated this ridiculous falsehood that even you corrected.
If on the other hand you dig in then you're signalling that unquestioned loyalty to you is the way to go. And if the folks who didn'
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IMO you don't understand because you're not a malignant narcissist. So that's good.
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The next thing that happened was that someone updated the diagrams
I don't actually have proof of this but... it was Trump.
to make it look as though what he said came from the meteorologists.
It was clearly hand drawn on the map with a marker and was completely the wrong shape. It didn't look anything like something that came from the meteorologists. Though to be fair, just add "attempt to" and I would agree, which is probably what you intended.
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Ether is not proved to not exist.
doesn't need to. it was a mind construct to accommodate our incomplete understanding of physics at some point in time, much like dark matter or dark energy fill a gap in our (still incomplete) current understanding. however maxwell and einstein showed there was no need for such a construct. if for some reason you want to keep claiming that aether exists then it's on you to provide evidence.
Dictators are terrifying (Score:3)
Once you've got a dictator in place they're almost impossible to get rid of, and it's only a matter of time before age takes it's toll and they start doing things that hurt everyone, not just the folks you put them in power to hurt...
America needs to remember that.
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Spot on. What used to be the sole domain of military dictatorships has crept into the politics of democracies across the globe. I would suggest that people who are interested in preventing dictator-like governments need to figure out what it is that makes a third or more of voters truly desire a stongman/dictator type leader. Figure out this psychology and see how that need can be met in some other way. The current 'strategy' of trying to shame folks, lecture them, ban people doesn't seem to be makin
It's a lack of critical thinking skills (Score:2)
Same with the SR-72 (Score:2)
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Just what we need - another serial connector!
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When did this happen? Which aircraft and/or program was "SR-72" used for since it appears this was used more than once? Depending on the year the "S" designation could be for "scout" or "S" for "(anti-)submarine" with the change happening in the 1960s and some aircraft retaining their old designations from the 1950s because it would have been too much paperwork to change everything. The use of "R", either as a primary designation or modifier prefix, would be for "reconnaissance" under most any past or pr
Same with the SR-232 spy plane ! (Score:1)
President Carter caused a similar name change when he got the R and S letters swapped in a press conference.
But it was not the only time he got his communications crossed. it was a serial mistake.
the emperor has always been naked (Score:3)
Covfefe Force (Score:1)
is what we'll get if the Tinted One wins the election.
This reeks of propaganda (Score:2)
I don't know whether the Internet Research Agency (Russia's internet propaganda department) directly contributed to this article, but this (at least the summary) reads like typical Russian propaganda about their dictator. It's like those pictures of him riding a horse shirtless: show how charming, strong, yet harmless and folksy he is.
I remember a song when I was a kid (Score:2)
Now Kije was a hussar bold, a hussar bold was he...
Re: I remember a song when I was a kid (Score:1)
Now Kijé never lived at all,
A Tsar's mistake was he;
But since the Tsar could do no wrong
A myth he had to be.