The Glint Of OSINT

I Apologise A Little For The Jargon

In this intro to the Intro, I shall explicate about a few jargon terms and what they mean in plain English THE MOTHER OF LANGUAGES to avoid obfuscation*.  Okay, take it away.

SIGINT: 'Signals Intelligence' meaning information gained by intercepting or eavesdropping on your opponent's electronic communications, principally radio telecoms.  This classification didn't really exist before radios came into common use as it's verrrry difficult to eavesdrop telephones; not impossible, just difficult.  Art!

British WW1 telephone intercept kit

HUMINT: 'Human intelligence'.  Or what your spies glean, or informers pass on, or other members of Hom. Sap. tell you.  Potentially the least reliable means of obtaining data.  Philip Ingram of 'Frontline's Youtube channel, ex-MI6, said that HUMINT is classified as A, B or C and rated 1, 2 or 3, in descending order of reliability and accuracy.  A1, he said, with feeling, is rare.  Art!

OSINT: 'Open Source Intelligence'.  Or, whatever information you can gather from sources that are freely available to the general public.  Back in the Second Unpleasantness, British embassy staff in Dublin would subscribe to all the Teuton newspapers, which were freely available thanks to Eire being (nominally) neutral.  They would scour these for information that Nazi censors had either not noticed or insufficiently gutted.  Art!

     This type of INT is peculiarly relevant to Mordorvia.  Back in June 2024 they suddenly stopped publishing economic data, which had been heavily redacted yet still available for vloggers like 'Joe Blogs', who used it to create graphs and charts of how badly the Ruffian economy was doing, which is why they stopped publishing it.  Art!

     This headline is more of the same from only one day ago.  The Ruffian 'Unified Interdepartmental Information and Statistics System' has just deleted 168 data tables that it used to publish, because - that phrase again - "of how badly the Ruffian economy was doing".  Putinpot doesn't want anyone, including Ruffians, knowing how badly he has shredded the economy of Mordorvia.

     Which segues nicely into a whole slew of annotations I made on Jonathan Fink's 'Silicon Bites' vlog from yesteryon.  Art!

The long-form vlog he also has

     The title of his most recent vlog was 'Russia Is Closed For Business' and consists of a series of OSINT reports from various publications, which I will detail below, with the sources.

Vladimir Milov: Vlad is an ex-Energy Minister of Ruffia, politician and economist, now an opposition member in exile, who was interviewed by the 'Kyiv Post'.  Art!

     As reported by JF, Vlad describes the primary economic function of the Ruffian state as 'State War Spending'.  The old parameters which applied to a market economy no longer exist as Mordorvia moves to a 'Permanent Wartime Command Economy'.  In other words, guns not butter.  Or, insanely expensive butter than has to be kept in security boxes.   Art!

     Milov also stated that the apparent stability of the Mordorvian economy was an illusion, as the state did not exhibit any real growth; any temporary increase in the GDP during 2024 and into 2025 was the result of budget reserves being burned through to prop things up.  With reserves expended, the true state of the economy is becoming readily visible.  For more details read on.

PISM: The Polish Institute Of International Affairs, in case you were wondering.  They pointed out that the cost of borrowing in Ruffia is still high, at 15.5%, which is needed to combat inflation.  This stifles any prospects for businesses, who simply cannot afford to take out loans at this rate or pay back what they took out earlier.  An 'Ooops' moment.  Art!

The Wilson Centre: Which describes itself as a 'non-partisan think-tank' and if Art will do the honours -

     They pick up on the theme of high interest rates, and point out that they crater investment, drive down the available labour force, and cause very high uncertainty in markets that depend on predictability.  Not only that, the Mordorvian economy is now a '2-speed' variety, where investment in the military-industrial complex is ever-increasing from the state, whilst the civilian economy shrinks and there is nil private investment.

Moscow Times: Just to be clear, this is a publication from outside Ruffia, staffed by exiles.  Their take on the Ruffian economy is that financial reserves have been run down, corporate profits have tumbled, investment has tanked and there are warning signs of stagflation leading to a recession.  Art!

The Guardian: They focus on 'Missing In Action', meaning that the orcs sent to Ukraine do not return to the labour force in Mordorvia, thanks to being dead, or having deserted.  That musters a total of 1.25 million in terms of casualties, leading to a gross labour shortage that was 'only' 4 million in 2024 and which may be as high as 11 million overall.  Art!

Not strictly relevant but I couldn't resist

Reuters: They approach the problem as one of Ruffia becoming 'demodernised' thanks to a triple whammy of economic problems.  Number One is Expensive Credit, for which see above.  Number Two are Rising Taxes - not just an increase in tax but a dropping of the threshold tax becomes liable.  Number Three is the Vanishing Workforce, again.  One feels that the bad old days of the Nineties are returning, with a vengeance and a bullet.

     Ol' Jon has his own thoughts on the crisis, describing the Special Idiotic Operation as a 'Political and economic Ponzi scheme', where the promised infinite returns have proven to be illusory.  These economic mirages will collapse utterly if the war stops, since state investment will also vanish.  Art!

At the stroke of midnight -

From Ugly Duckling To Phoenicopteri

Conrad has held off commenting on the Ukrainian Fire Point 'Flamingo' missile, which was rolled out into serial production in 2025 with a whole lot of fanfare.  It's a monster of a missile, 30 feet long with a warhead massing over a metric ton.  Art!

With puny humans for scale

     It's had a lot of teething troubles, most especially as regards accuracy, and a Ukrainian spokesman explained late last year that they needed to make detailed TERCOM** maps for it over Ruffian terrain.  Otherwise it had to fly dangerously high to navigate to a target, meaning the chances of interception were greatly increased.

     Now, however - Art!

Before

During

After

     The target is the Votkinsk missile production facility deep in Ruffia, where they assemble Iskander missiles amongst others.  This is 1,400 kilometres inside Mordorvia, yet at least one missile got there successfully, evading any air defences en route - if there were any.  2026 just got worse for the orcs.

ENOUGH!  ENOUGH I SAY!

There I was, scrolling through the news feed, looking for a relevant picture, and seeing that half of the content was about Pumpkinhead and his whinging and boasting for 107 minutes live on television.

     Then - what do I see?  Art!

     I DO NOT CARE!  STOP PIMPING OSCILLOSCOPES!

     Sheesh, it makes me nostalgic for the days of Log Counting Software.

Here's One Conrad Can Get Behind

A news item from the 'Manchester Evening News', which, if Art can put down his lignite gruel 

          The image there is of the 'Warner Bros' store in the Arndale Centre.  It followed in the footsteps of Disney stores in selling overpriced plastic tat, meaning it didn't last and is now long gone.  In fact it's been gone for 25 years when it was only around for ten.  Point and laugh.

     ANYWAY what I wanted to mention was another opportunity lost to time.  Art!

Catch a bus from under the Arndale

     Yes, there was a troglodyte bus station within and underneath the Arndale Centre, which was horrid for passengers and I know because I was one of them.  It had no natural light, merely dimly ineffective fluorescents, and always reeked of diesel fumes, because - buses, lots of them, and insufficient ventilation.  It was so dark one had trouble reading whilst waiting for the PSV to exit the gloom.  Not missed one bit, and you can note it's design has not been repeated elsewhere.  Art!

Airy and bright in Babylon-Lite

Finally -

A quote from Ernest Hemingway and my 'QI Book Of Banter'

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk.  That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.!

     Quite!

*  No, I'm not going to go into this word's Latin roots.  Too much <hack spit> too early in the day.

**  TERrain COntour Matching

Conrad Is Supărat!

O So Supărat! Supărat To The Max!

You will, of course - obviously! - recognise the Romanian for 'Angry', which rather surprised me, as the Italian for 'Angry' is 'Arrabbiata', and now I understand why that spicy dish has that moniker, and the Latin <hack spit> for 'Angry' is 'Iratus'. 

     Here endeth the language lesson for today.  You can come out from behind the sofa.  Art!

     

     Meet the Remote Nuclear Detonator, the evil big brother of my Remote Nuclear Tormentor, because in this Intro I am going to be dealing with insolent and abusive Codeword compilers.  You and they may both have been happy sitting in a state of non-RNT or non-RND, assuming that Your Humble Yet Irked Scribe had given up fulminating on their ridiculously obscure or foreign solutions.

     NOT A BIT OF IT!

     Today I'm going to run through a list of the solutions that have tweaked my Tantrum Gland, getting them out of the way all at once.  I will be using my 'Collins Concise English Dictionary' for definitions, surely the most utilitarian of all Christmas presents evah.

FEINT: 'A mock attack or movement designed to distract an adversary, as in a military manoeuvre.'  It comes, for once, from the Old French* 'Feindre', meaning 'To pretend.'  Art!

To hide the secret redeployment of the Canadian Corps for the August 1918 Battle of Amiens, the British Army staged a convincing feint near Ypres, Flanders. A small Canadian contingent, including two battalions and wireless units, operated there to deceive German intelligence

     It's also used as the ruling between lines on paper, which is considerably duller.  Art!

     Conrad is perfectly familiar with both uses thanks to my profound knowledge of military history and my A4 notepads.  You might have struggled.

LIEGE: 'Owing feudal allegiance to a lord, or owed feudal allegiance to a lord.'  Conrad is pretty sure he'd read this word in one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novels about the White Company, or perhaps in one of Ol' Tolky's works.  It went out of use a good half-millennia ago, except on the island of Sark, where it was only repealed in 2008.  Art!

Hark hark.  Sark.

     Not to be confused with the Belgian city of Liége, which is distinguished by the accent.

SYLLABIFY:  I did think this was a confection at first, until I realised that the last letter did not mirror the 6th letter, so no, it wasn't SYLLABUB.  Which is a dessert made from cream, sugar, wine and lemon juice and which has me curious now <absconds to look up the recipe>.  

     ANYWAY it actually means 'to divide a word into it's constituent syllables.'  So that would be SYL LAB UB thank you very much.  Art!

      HANG ON HANG ON HANG ON!

    I just dredged this up from the inky depths of my memory.  

 
In Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Unification II," Spock identifies achildren's toy (a dreidel-like device) brought by D'Tan as bearing "the syllabic nucleus of the Vulcan language"

Very nearly SYLLABIFY

FRIZZ: I am not convinced that this is proper word <checks> okay, okay, it is in my CCED, so I'll allow it.  "To form or cause the hair to form tight wiry curls or crisp tufts."  O!  Once again from French - 'Friser' meaning 'To curl'."  It still seems excessively slang in nature to Your Humble Scribe.  Art!

The normally hot Taraji Henson gets caught in a wind machine.  I think.

ERSATZ: Have we done this word before?  I have a feeling we have - another recollection from the inky depths.  Let me check.  AH!  Yes, but it was seven months ago - hey not bad in remembering that long back Steve**! - so I am going to cheat and merely copy the item wholesale.

ERSATZ: Another word borrowed from Teuton.  Thank you so much, compilers <hammers Remote Nuclear Detonator repeatedly> "Made in imitation or artificial" from the Teuton 'Ersetzen' meaning 'To substitute'.  One example of this was the Royal Navy's cruel and malicious blockade of the Teutons during the Second Unpleasantness, which forced them to substitute roast acorns for coffee or some such local substitution scheme.  Yuck.  Art!

Made from twigs, spit and ground cockroaches.  Possibly.

     I think that's enough of my frothing nitric ire for one Intro, as I've got another eight Codeword solutions to denigrate, which would take up the entire blog were I to type them out.  Maybe in March.  I bet you can hardly wait.

All The Single Ladies

Conrad will be glad when the Special Idiotic Operation dies on it's bottom and Putinpot is dragged screaming and crying to the ICC, but until then I continue to post on Twitter.

     Further to that, Conrad is no oil painting.  Art!

    I think that's large enough.  No need to scare small children and nursing mothers.  The thing is, I keep getting Followed by single ladies on Twitter, which you might think is welcome flattery for an aging curmudgeon.  Yet they all seem to be from MAGA and thus big fans of the Sagging Sepia Senile Sackbut, reposting nonsense like that below.  Art!

     In fact he bloviated about imposing tariffs on the entire world, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, the Andromeda Galaxy and Narnia.  The expectant suckers aren't getting any tax breaks, lest ye be unaware.

     It's blatantly obvious to anyone who reads BOOJUM! that I loathe and detest Donold Judas Trump, so why on earth are these ladies Following me?  I'm not on Twitter to gain a following, so they're not going to get Followed back.  Perhaps - perhaps they're just big fans of Thomas Pynchon and The Comsat Angels?
     

If All Flesh Is Grass These Must Be Bamboo

Which, as any fule kno, is the tallest species of grass there is.  Forgive my tortured analogy.  What am I wittering on about?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Art?

     You see, I have been watching the fifth season of 'Stranger Things', and will avoid posting any spoilers for those of you not yet acquainted with it.  Art!

     Conrad couldn't help thinking how much older the cast look.  The first season was set in 1983, and this one in 1987, so yes, you'd expect them to look a little more mature.  It wasn't until I checked the date of the first season broadcast that things fell into place - 2016.  TEN DOG BUNS YEARS AGO!  

     By all accounts this is the last season, and yes they ought to put it to bed, going out on as high a note as possible, because once again the cast age in real time not Hollywood time.  I have spoken

Typing This On The 4th Anniversary Of The SIO

That is, 24th February 2026.  I like to get ahead of schedules.  

     ANYWAY AGAIN I just thought to update you on this geezer.  Art!

     This is Igor Konashenkov, the official orc MoD spokesman for the SIO back in February 2022, and who was chirpy and upbeat when presenting the official narrative.  For the first three days.  After that, as Big K. observed, he became much more sombre.  He stopped giving briefings late 2023 and reportedly resigned from his post in May 2024, in order to spend more time with his bottle of vodka.

     Now, I am going to post a couple of graphs courtesy of the very excellent 'Covert Cabal' over on Youtube.  Art!

Total 10,626

Total 2,119

     Net loss over 4 years = 8,500.  FYI, the T-55s are at least 45 years old, and more probably 50 or 60 years old.  The T-62s ended production 6 years before the T-55 and again, are at least 50 years old.  The T-64s have not been resorted to much because of their awful unreliable engine, which have not been improved by being stood around outside for 35 years, nor by their autoloader, which tended to load crew arms and legs into the gun breech.  The T-72 has been used up to the tune of 2,000 because it was a reliable, decent model that could be upgraded and wasn't as long in the tooth as the previous three tanks mentioned.  The T-80 is nearing extinction as they are no longer being produced, due to being a lot more complex than the T-72 and when that 134 are gone, they are gone.  Art!

As was

     In reality, there are a lot fewer than 2,119 tanks available, as all the good, mediocre and poor ones have already been salvaged, repaired and renovated and what is left would cost more and take longer to renew than making a new tank from scratch.

     Being aware of this might be why Igor felt the need to breakfast on a pint mug of 100% Standard in the morning before quitting altogether.

    Hmmmm we are well over Count so I'm going to stop here and watch more weirdness unfold in Hawkins. Chin chin!

*  And not Latin, hoorah!

**  Steve: responsible for memory here at the blog.

Possessed!

Not What You Think

For a start, this is a tale from the Youtube channel 'Slash Start' and their takes on Reddit tales of revenge, malicious compliance and entitlement.  So, you can put any expectations of evil spirits, dayglo green vomit and Linda Blair out of your head, we aren't going anywhere near 'The Exorcist' today.  But, having thus cannily mentioned it, I can now legitimately use it as click-bait.  Art!

Mark Kermode's favourite film

     Today's tale is narrated by Four-eyed Unmuscled Nerd, hereafter FUN, who worked at a computer business that bought direct from manufacturers and acted as a middleman by retailing to end-users.  He carried out customer support work, plus occasional call-ins from clients who wanted billable services carried out.  One day they got a call from a client who wanted a technical company able to carry out on-site inspection and restitution on their leased property.  Art!

     The benefit of leasing is that the leasor doesn't have to invest a great big chunk of capital to buy IT systems, instead running on a contract that can come up for renewal annually or less often

     This mutually beneficial arrangement tends to break down when the leasor decides not to pay for their equipment yet continues to use it.  So FUN and his equally scrawny nerd colleague were going to be sent to -

     POSSESS! said equipment.  Okay, okay, repossess, which is considerably less impactful.  The Ripped-Off Company, hereafter ROC, representative said that the business was gatekept by Secretary Lacking Any Goodness, hereafter SLAG, who chain-smoked, had skin smoked like a kipper thanks to fag*-fumes and had made a point of breathing said fumes into the face of the Deputy Sheriff who'd served them.  Art!

Slaggy the faggy

     Equipped with a faxed list of serial numbers, our brace of heroes went waltzing off to - what shall I call them?  Computer Execrable Shady Services, hereafter CESS, yes, that seems apt - and encountered SLAGBUTT (Brutally Unpleasant Tobacco Tyrant, if you must know).  She told them to <swear> off.  Doubtless not happy that CESS's President Pillock, hereafter PEE-PEE, had been given three days in the slammer for contempt of court when trying to argue his case for not paying ROC yet keeping their kit.

     The twosome reported back to a very unimpressed contact at ROC, who arranged with FUN's boss to escalate matters.  Art!

     Meet Gog and Magog, two enormous black delivery drivers who were there to hump all the computer equipment out of CESS's offices, the very opposite of FUN in terms of build and Resting Butch Face.  'Twas not all.  Art!

     Two Deputy Sheriffs also came along, the senior of whom appeared to be channelling the spirit of Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann.  He was the fumigated officer from earlier, and he bore a grudge.  He VERY LOUDLY informed the whole office that nobody was to give FUN any trouble, since no-one was willing to even make eye contact with Gog or Magog.  Art!

VAX with puny humans for scale

     This is a Virtual Address eXtension, which FUN came across in CESS's office.  It was far too massive to shift, so he called his contact at ROC, who asked that he disable it for the interim until they could get specialist hauliers to move it.  He took out the hard drives, which provoked PEE-PEE to have a screaming fit and rush at him -

     To be stopped by the Senior Deputy holding up a pepper-spray about to dose him.  PEE-PEE scuttled back to his office.  Only one lady dared to protest as her tower, mouse and keyboard were all appropriated by Gog and Magog, to which SID (Senior Irate Deputy) responded by bellowing at her, using swears.  Art!

     Then it was time to enter PEE-PEE's office.  Initially he refused to open the door, to which SID responded by threatening to physically kick it either in or down, whichever came first.  Then PEE-PEE had to have a Tazer waved in his face to reveal where he'd hidden his laptop.  One gets the sense that SID was enjoying himself at all this pushback.

• Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: What's your name, scumbag?

     FUN also mentioned that Gog and Magog managed to lift a couple of <ahem> 'office mementoes' from PEE-PEE's desk under the - possibly deliberately focussed elsewhere - eyes of the Deputies.

     All the kit was taken back to base and boxed up for shipment to ROC.  FUN rang them and narrated his adventures in the offices of CESS, making their contact chortle at the pepper-spray and guffaw at the Tazer.

     FUN's boss asked him what he thought of this little excursion and he described it as 'A lot of fun!'

     Not so much for CESS, who had their Proprietary Information Terminated, making them a - you may be ahead of me here - a CESSPIT.

Ah Yes. What?

Another mystery MacGuffin has surfaced on my news feed.  I shall picture it and leave you to wonder and worry about it.  Art!

     Conrad supposes he could Google what a 'DSTI Slip Ring' is, except that would be cheating and I like to try and intuit what these artefacts are.  Given the abbreviations it must be electrical in nature, and there my knowledge and interest runs out.

     At least it isn't an oscilloscope.

The Stable Door Is Now Being Shut

Conrad hasn't commented on the situation in Iran very often but it 110% behind the determined and courageous protestors, who risk their lives every time they mass on the streets.  The other thing I never commented on in any detail was the absolute spanking the Iranian military's air-defence systems got from Israel and South Canada last year.  Art!

    Hmmm no they're not, they're being disingenuous here.  The big S-300 and S-400 SAM systems are not being replaced by equivalent systems, but instead by the 'Verba' Man-Portable Air Defence System, which, if Art will put down his bowl of lignite -

      The ayatollahs are ordering 500 of these with 2,500 missiles at a price of $590 million, which the orcs will be ecstatic about, since their arms sales have fallen off a cliff of late.
     The thing is - these are point-defence missiles with short range, low altitude and not much punch.  They could shoot down incautious helicopters but an F-35 at 25,000 metres wouldn't even notice them, nor will they stop glide bombs or ballistic missiles and would need the luck of the Irish to intercept a cruise missile.

     On the other hand, they are good at shooting down drones, which is the kind of tool the protesters on Iranian streets might well turn to.  Art!

     The orcs, meanwhile, would be well advised to instead use these MANPADs to try and protect the tarry gold of Mordorvia.  Or even give them to Belgorod, which is being rendered uninhabitable by Ukrainian drone strikes.  

     O and they're not due to arrive in Iran until 2027.  That's putting a lot of faith in TACO and his infinitely-elastic 'two weeks'.

The BBC Is Posing A Leading Question

Conrad thinks he'd be quite able to survive a bleak, lonely existence in the Sahara desert, as he is a churlish, truculent individual with no love for you we humans**.  Then again, it depends on what kind of desert it is, as Antarctica has also been dubbed a rainless desert environment.  Art!

     Do I hear it for Codeword solvers?  Professional tea-drinkers?  Fountain-pen wielders?

     Probably not.

Finally -

Another from my "QI Book Of Banter"

"In physics the truth is rarely perfectly clear, and that it certainly universally the case in human affairs.  Hence what is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth."  - Richard Feynman

      One of the smartest people of the 20th century (alongside Albert Einstein), not only a theoretical physicist involved with the Manhattan Project, but also the prime mover behind nanotechnology.  Sadly missed.

*  BRITISH SLANG you pikers.

**  Also, it's nice and dry.

Communication Breakdown

I Know What You're Thinking And You're WRONG

Once again, NO I am not using the DARPA Telepathy Helmet that I long-term-borrowed and returned a couple of years ago, it's because I am insightful and clever, not to mention it's my blog and I make the rules.  Art!

     Once again the blog goes on at length by showing what we're not talking about today, which is the way we (rock and) roll, which is a splendid mental exercise you should all appreciate.

     So, no heavy metal bands.  Nor are we talking about that famous quote from 'Cool Hand Luke':  "What we've got here is failure to communicate", which, if Art will do the honours again - 

Luke has a nice relaxing lie down

     No, you see, I came across a loooong Tweet by 'Chris0_Wiki' on That Platform, detailing the inner workings of the Ruffian military as it tried to create modern telecommunication systems for it's orcs.  Chris himself took the article from a milblogger in Ruffia, one 'Oleg Tsarev', who posted it on Telegram as of 6th February, pre-throttling.  In case you were wondering, Tsarev, the utter rapscallion, is a Ukrainian who fled to Ruffia and whom is now an ultra-nationalist pro-Ruffian, who nevertheless hates hates hates the Ruffian Ministry Of Defence, as he, along with ultra-nationals, considers it to be far too namby-pamby and also riddled with corruption.  Art!

Red bull gives you wings

     He's not wrong about that second part.  He also cautions that the cases that follow are only the ones released to the public, and that there will be military cases nobody will know of for decades.  

     ANYWAY he points out that, at the start of the Special Idiotic Operation, the orcs were buying up Motorola hand-held radios because they had nothing else suitable or issued.  Now, four years later, the 1,000 illegal Starlink terminals are gone with almost nothing to replace them despite tens of trillions of rubles being poured into the sector since 2011.  This is the date when the ten-year GPV-2020 plan came into execution, intending to update and modernise the Ruffian armed forces.  Art!

     Of the overall total, ₽18 billion (or $233 million in proper money) was allocated for digital telecommunications and tactical radios research and development, which sounds like an awful lot, and which various Ruffians in high places licked their lips at.  Why so?  Because these people have been carrying out fraud, embezzlement, extortion, bribery and passing port to starboard since they were at the lowest level of the totem pole.  Art!

     To port is the 'R-168 Akveduk' tactical radio, and to starboard is the 'R-187P1 Azart' radio.  The Akveduk has not been produced in large numbers as, developed between 2013 and 2017, it's full of South Canadian microchips from Texas Instruments and AMD.  The Azart, supposedly '6th generation', is full of Chinese components, has a short battery life, low range and is vulnerable to electronic warfare.  Why are these comms systems so underwhelming despite all that funding?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Let's have a portrait.  Art!

     This is Colonel General Khalil Arslanov, who was Deputy Chief of the Main Communications Directorate of the MoD, very much past tense.  During his time in office, he stole ₽2.2 billion ($28.5 million) from that previously mentioned ₽18 billion budget assigned to Voentelecom, between 2013 and 2017, and ₽6.7 billion ($87 million) from the Azart budget.  He got sentenced to 17 years in prison, the heaviest sentence ever for anyone in a corruption trial.  His co-defendants - he liked to spread blame and money around - Colonel Kutakhov got 7 years, and Igor Yakovlev got 6 years.  All three conspired to supply the orcs with cheap, insecure  Chinese Baofeng radios that were re-branded with prices jacked up sky-high.  Arslanov is not due for release until July 2042.  

     Bear in mind that Ukraine could easily intercept, eavesdrop and pinpoint any orc using either the Motorola or Baofeng radios, and often did.  Art!

     This is the 'Andromeda-D' automated airborne command and control comms system, intended for use by the orc's VDV paratrooper units.  It cannot interface with older comms equipment, is woefully insecure (the poor thing!) and is very complicated and unintuitive.  Once again, this sub-par performance is because of graft and corruption.  The enterprise responsible for creating this module was the <deep breath> Central Research Institute of Electrical Engineering and Control Systems, whose executives stole ₽500 million ($64 million) from the budget funds.  

     We haven't finished yet.  Art!

     The 46th Central Research Institute, which was tasked with developing digital telecom systems, and whose General Director, Alexander Molodchenko, and his mates Ivan Maltsev and Olga Pavlova, conspired to steal ₽460 million ($6 million) by inflating prices.  Art!

     Then we have the 31st State Design Institute, which defrauded ₽188 million ($2.4 million) from a contract issued by the MoD for fibre-optic communications.

     You may be seeing a pattern here.

     Or, take the Director of Slavgorod Radio Equipment Plant, who stole a relatively modest ₽18 million ($233,000) but who still got 4 years in prison.

     Definitely a pattern.

     These investigations and prosecutions, with a few swingeing sentences, are the result of Putinpot replacing the incredibly corrupt Shoigu with Belousov as Defence Minister back in 2024.  Ol' Belly is an economist, not a military man, so his corruption might be less extreme than a soldier.  Art!

Weaned on a lemon

     He has an uphill struggle; I recall Chuck Pfarrer stating that it would take 20 years to stamp out corruption in the orc army.

     We'll see!

     Wowsers, wall-to-wall text, we need pictures, nurse, and stat!

Brace For Impact

In mind of the above, here's one from my news feed.  Art!

     Andromeda again.  This time it's the galaxy not a dodgy telecom system.  

     As for the panic-baiting headline, file under IGNORE.  The Andromeda galaxy is our nearest galactic neighbour, but that's 'near' in astronomical terms.  It stands (or sits) two million light years away, so you have time to make your last will and testament and observe the rise and fall of Hom. Sap. along the way.

You What?

In Conrad's experience, a 'cupola' is a small raised viewing dome atop a tank turret that allows the commander to have a 360⁰ view through vision blocks, without having to stick his vulnerable head out of the turret.  Art!

     Somehow I cannot see this blending in well on a Challenger 3 or a Leopard 2.  Maybe it's just me.

In Mind Of The Above

Talking of communications or lack of them, here's another bizarre entry on my news feed, which is doing the heavy lifting today for picture content.  Art!

     My O my.  I was aware that one irked Telegram user scornfully referred to using pigeons instead to communicate, but Dog Buns! the Ruffians do miss their Starlink so.

Destroying It From The Inside

Hereafter DIFTI.  We've mentioned a few cases of this errant behaviour in employees or ex-employees, where they act out of spite or pettiness and harm their employer, which is one reason people with IT access are usually shooed off the premises the instant they become redundant.  Just in case.  Art!

     Say hello to Andrew Skelton, data protection specialist at Morrisons, the UK supermarket chain.  Denied a promotion, he deliberately leaked sensitive staff information - including bank details - of 100,000 employees and was arrested, tried and sentenced to 8 years in 2014 - so he's due out this year!

     What happened next was a 6-year struggle by Morrisons to avoid tens of millions in fines for a Data Protection Breach, which went all the way to the Supreme Court.  Finally, in 2020, they were held not vicariously liable, resulting in a big Phew! from the shareholders.

     We'll be coming back to this theme, I find it verrrrry interesting!

Finally -

It's an anniversary today, isn't it? though for what escapes me at present.