Wyrmalla wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

/quote] Yes, it also needs some weathering and a bit of thinned down paint that to simulate mud and dirt. I would also reccommend a wash with nuln oil and highlighting with a lighter shade of green. That would bring out the definition a bit more. Currently, it is a pretty nice paintjob, but a little flat and clean.

I prefer just a crap ton of Agrax Earthshade.

Spoiler:

Google has fixed a bug in an online tool after it began translating "Russian Federation" to "Mordor".
...
In addition, "Russians" was translated to "occupiers" and the surname of Sergey Lavrov, the country's Foreign Minister, to "sad little horse"

.

BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
than where the hell did they get an armed BTR?

It might not be. The standard way to demil something like that is to cut the receiver, which you wouldn't see from outside. The front end has had welding done to it, that was painted over with a spray can. Possible demilling of the armor then too.

Without a close up of the BTR I can't be sure, but as bad as the green spray is, that line is VERY neat. It almost looks like tape.


As far as where the pictures could be taken, Serbia was the first thing to come to mind, actually.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Don't you think they'd remove the entire gun from the turret? Most of BTRs I have seen for sale had the guns removed.

Ustrello wrote:I think he means Siberia

Breotan wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Don't you think they'd remove the entire gun from the turret? Most of BTRs I have seen for sale had the guns removed.

How difficult would it be for a militia type in that part of the world to get ahold of the parts to put the gun back in?

 LordofHats wrote:
I learned two things watching Nicholas Cage in Lord of War;

1. National Treasure was a fluke after all
2. Ukraine really does have a lot of old Soviet military hardware just laying around, and people found ways to get rich off of it

 LordofHats wrote:
Did that happen in Lord of War? I remember that movie being boring beyond belief and unmemorable and Nick Cage dressing up as a bear and punching women sounds kind of memorable

 Ustrello wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Did that happen in Lord of War? I remember that movie being boring beyond belief and unmemorable and Nick Cage dressing up as a bear and punching women sounds kind of memorable

No its from that terrible wicker man remake he did 8 years ago or so. But I couldn't pass up the chance to make that allegory

 Breotan wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Did that happen in Lord of War? I remember that movie being boring beyond belief and unmemorable and Nick Cage dressing up as a bear and punching women sounds kind of memorable

No its from that terrible wicker man remake he did 8 years ago or so. But I couldn't pass up the chance to make that allegory

The allegory is lost on us probably because none of us saw that movie.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Don't you think they'd remove the entire gun from the turret? Most of BTRs I have seen for sale had the guns removed. Otherwise how do you see the vehicle is no longer dangerous?

And Serbia? That is possible of course, but what makes you think of Serbia?

Return of Russia's economic rollercoaster

As Russia begins the New Year, two recent events - an inability to pay salaries and a new law on currency exchanges - show the country is hurtling rapidly back to the future. Fiona Clark sees troubled times ahead.
Ruble bills are handed through a window frill

On Christmas Eve we couldn't get a taxi using any of the usual apps, so we decided to hitch home after dinner. That's not such an unusual practice in Russia, in fact since Soviet times it's been an accepted way for people to subsidize their incomes by picking up strangers and charging them a small fee to drop them wherever they want. Foreigners call them "gypsy cabs."

The man who picked us up was very pleased to finally get a fare. "You're the first people to put your hands out for ages. No one puts their hands out anymore," he said, lamenting the effect of the taxi apps that are killing the ordinary man's revenue supply. "I used to make 5,000 rubles (62 euros; $68) a night doing this, now I'm lucky if I make 2,000 a week." Then he went on to explain why he needed the money.

His son is a captain in the fire brigade. His salary was 60,000 rubles a month but he had told his father that the ministry in charge of the emergency services had just announced to its employees that their salaries would be slashed to 15,000 a month - around 190 euros.

In February the government announced its members would take a 10-percent cut from their 250,000 ruble a month pay packets, but this goes far beyond that.

"I'm so mad I just want to punch the minister in the face," the driver said, wondering how on earth his family would survive.

Tough times

On hearing this we rang a friend who works for the fire department, albeit at a lower rank. His story was worse. He hadn't been paid for December. He won't be paid in January and said he'd be lucky if he was paid in February - and if he is, it won't be at his usual rate.

The reason the men at his brigade were given for the lack of payment was that Crimea was costing the country too much and cuts had to be made to help. The catchcry of "our Crimea" or "Krim Nash" that was so popular after Russia's annexation of the peninsula in March 2014 wasn't ringing happily in his ears. To add insult to injury, the employees' passports had been confiscated as they are considered to be part of the country's defense forces and as such can't leave the country in these difficult times, he was told.
Fire fighters try to put out a Moscow fire

Doing their patriotic duty

News agency Interfax has reported incidents of wages being withheld to emergency services in other regions of Russia as well, and cited the country's economic difficulties as the reason. It also said the servicemen were told budget reallocations were expected to resolve the situation in the new year.

It's been quite some time since Russia hasn't been able to pay the salaries of its government employees. The last two times in recent history were after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 and again during the financial crisis of the late 1990s. It was the 1998 economic crisis - when the ruble lost a third of its value and inflation was running at 300 percent - that finally destroyed the popularity of Russia's first post-Soviet and democratically elected president, Boris Yeltsin.

Inflation is nowhere near that at the moment, hovering in the mid-teens, but the ruble has lost 50 percent of its value against the dollar and the pound, and with the price of oil dipping below the $40 a barrel mark, that's unlikely to change.

Clearly the government is worried that what little money is left in the country will disappear. Between 2014 and 2015 - as the economic crisis started to bite - there was capital flight estimated to be worth around $151 billion. A few months back staff at airports actively started asking if passengers were carrying cash out of the country since amounts above $10,000 must be declared. The last time they asked me, my reply was simple: "Unfortunately not," but the border guard said I'd be surprised how many people were carrying bags of cash in their hand luggage.

Currency checks

Last week legislation came into effect that says banks must ask people exchanging more than 15,000 rubles for foreign currency where they got the money from and collect their passport details and tax numbers. The government is clearly extending its crackdown on corporate tax evasion to individuals. But the reaction from people on local radio stations was that this move will only serve to fuel the rise of the black market again.
A stack of ruble notes

Safest under the mattress?

Russians don't trust banks. They've seen them collapse too often, taking their savings with them, so they keep their money in their mattresses, so to speak. They are unlikely to take kindly to having to provide an explanation as to how they came up with the equivalent of about 200 euros.

So far veterans and military personnel I've spoken to haven't been affected by pay or pension cuts, but the inability to pay emergency services and the crackdown on small money exchanges does not send good signals about the strength of the economy and the state of the government's coffers.

2016 may well become Russia's annus horribilis: All the signs suggest the country's economic roller-coaster history will repeat itself.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Meanwhile in Russia... That's what four ongoing wars and international sanctions right? There's always the Chinese to bail them out I guess.

God what a crappy regime.

Return of Russia's economic rollercoaster

Spoiler:

As Russia begins the New Year, two recent events - an inability to pay salaries and a new law on currency exchanges - show the country is hurtling rapidly back to the future. Fiona Clark sees troubled times ahead.
Ruble bills are handed through a window frill

On Christmas Eve we couldn't get a taxi using any of the usual apps, so we decided to hitch home after dinner. That's not such an unusual practice in Russia, in fact since Soviet times it's been an accepted way for people to subsidize their incomes by picking up strangers and charging them a small fee to drop them wherever they want. Foreigners call them "gypsy cabs."

The man who picked us up was very pleased to finally get a fare. "You're the first people to put your hands out for ages. No one puts their hands out anymore," he said, lamenting the effect of the taxi apps that are killing the ordinary man's revenue supply. "I used to make 5,000 rubles (62 euros; $68) a night doing this, now I'm lucky if I make 2,000 a week." Then he went on to explain why he needed the money.

His son is a captain in the fire brigade. His salary was 60,000 rubles a month but he had told his father that the ministry in charge of the emergency services had just announced to its employees that their salaries would be slashed to 15,000 a month - around 190 euros.

In February the government announced its members would take a 10-percent cut from their 250,000 ruble a month pay packets, but this goes far beyond that.

"I'm so mad I just want to punch the minister in the face," the driver said, wondering how on earth his family would survive.

Tough times

On hearing this we rang a friend who works for the fire department, albeit at a lower rank. His story was worse. He hadn't been paid for December. He won't be paid in January and said he'd be lucky if he was paid in February - and if he is, it won't be at his usual rate.

The reason the men at his brigade were given for the lack of payment was that Crimea was costing the country too much and cuts had to be made to help. The catchcry of "our Crimea" or "Krim Nash" that was so popular after Russia's annexation of the peninsula in March 2014 wasn't ringing happily in his ears. To add insult to injury, the employees' passports had been confiscated as they are considered to be part of the country's defense forces and as such can't leave the country in these difficult times, he was told.
Fire fighters try to put out a Moscow fire

Doing their patriotic duty

News agency Interfax has reported incidents of wages being withheld to emergency services in other regions of Russia as well, and cited the country's economic difficulties as the reason. It also said the servicemen were told budget reallocations were expected to resolve the situation in the new year.

It's been quite some time since Russia hasn't been able to pay the salaries of its government employees. The last two times in recent history were after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 and again during the financial crisis of the late 1990s. It was the 1998 economic crisis - when the ruble lost a third of its value and inflation was running at 300 percent - that finally destroyed the popularity of Russia's first post-Soviet and democratically elected president, Boris Yeltsin.

Inflation is nowhere near that at the moment, hovering in the mid-teens, but the ruble has lost 50 percent of its value against the dollar and the pound, and with the price of oil dipping below the $40 a barrel mark, that's unlikely to change.

Clearly the government is worried that what little money is left in the country will disappear. Between 2014 and 2015 - as the economic crisis started to bite - there was capital flight estimated to be worth around $151 billion. A few months back staff at airports actively started asking if passengers were carrying cash out of the country since amounts above $10,000 must be declared. The last time they asked me, my reply was simple: "Unfortunately not," but the border guard said I'd be surprised how many people were carrying bags of cash in their hand luggage.

Currency checks

Last week legislation came into effect that says banks must ask people exchanging more than 15,000 rubles for foreign currency where they got the money from and collect their passport details and tax numbers. The government is clearly extending its crackdown on corporate tax evasion to individuals. But the reaction from people on local radio stations was that this move will only serve to fuel the rise of the black market again.
A stack of ruble notes

Safest under the mattress?

Russians don't trust banks. They've seen them collapse too often, taking their savings with them, so they keep their money in their mattresses, so to speak. They are unlikely to take kindly to having to provide an explanation as to how they came up with the equivalent of about 200 euros.

So far veterans and military personnel I've spoken to haven't been affected by pay or pension cuts, but the inability to pay emergency services and the crackdown on small money exchanges does not send good signals about the strength of the economy and the state of the government's coffers.

2016 may well become Russia's annus horribilis: All the signs suggest the country's economic roller-coaster history will repeat itself.

 Freakazoitt wrote:
Kiev club featuring a fictional Russian pilot executing

Under pressure from the Pentagon, Congress has stripped the spending bill of an amendment that prevented funds from falling into the hands of Ukrainian neo-fascist groups.

 master of ordinance wrote:
No, he means the fact that they are no longer doing it is.

What is clear is that by stripping out the anti-neo-Nazi provision, Congress and the administration have paved the way for US funding to end up in the hands of the most noxious elements circulating within Ukraine today.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
2015: The year we started calling fundamentalist Jihadi groups "moderates".
2016: The year it became politically acceptable to fund Neo Nazi paramilitaries.

We're on a roll here. By this time next year we'll be best of buddies with ISIS.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
 Congress Has Removed a Ban on Funding Neo-Nazis From Its Year-End Spending Bill

Under pressure from the Pentagon, Congress has stripped the spending bill of an amendment that prevented funds from falling into the hands of Ukrainian neo-fascist groups.

Good.

 thenoobbomb wrote:

 Wyrmalla wrote:
 Congress Has Removed a Ban on Funding Neo-Nazis From Its Year-End Spending Bill

Under pressure from the Pentagon, Congress has stripped the spending bill of an amendment that prevented funds from falling into the hands of Ukrainian neo-fascist groups.

Good.

I'm not sure how there's anything good about funding, training, and arming neo-nazi militias.