PS. For anyone not getting the 'I have pen' quote, it's a reference to this internet classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o8XMlL8rqY :)

"Trust me I'm a fact-checker" is the US equivalent.

I wonder if there's a correlation to how often "it's no problem" is uttered to how likely it actually is a problem.

I never relax when someone tries to assure me with the "it's no problem" tactic.

I was once contacted by a person claiming to be from Dell about a technical support request I was supposedly on for a company I no longer worked for. After informing the person I didn't work for the company they were referring to, I was informed it was "no problem", and they continued on whatever they were talking about.

I didn't know about it :) thanks

Ha nikolie… sounds a lot like nikola ;)

The point is not to convince them.

The point is to:

* create noise in the telephone logbook to annoy the FSB.

* create distrust toward the FSB. This would be the result of people getting arrested for receiving phone calls from the US.

>* create distrust toward the FSB. This would be the result of people getting arrested for receiving phone calls from the US.

Feels like calls like these are pretty easy to filter out just by looking at the metadata (ie. random incoming call from the west). On the other hand random calls like this definitely fuels the "foreign interference" that the FSB is probably pushing right now, and would make it more trustworthy.

Are you okay with getting individuals possibly arrested in the name of a purported common good? You are no better than the FSB itself then.

We are at war.

> You are no better than the FSB itself then.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

To be honest I find the notion of "We" here to be rather dubious. Russia and Ukraine are at war, and while us private citizens of the broader English-speaking world can condemn one side, and support the other, pushing others towards the belief that this is somehow a total war and that every action is justifiable seems patently false.

Russia has been pushing far right, and attempt to disrupt politics in my country for years.

They have gotten Schroder on their payroll so he would sabotage german and Europe energy.

Now, they have been threatening western Europe with nukes.

Yes, we are clearly at war with Russia.

Words mean something. We are not at war with Russia.

malka is probalby using "we" as an exclusive first person plural pronoun. In English, "we" doesn't always include "you".

I don't mean any offense, but I think it's somewhat fascinating that the idea of total war seems assumed by both your comment and the original post. Even if the US and Russia were at war, the notion that private citizens were not just involved, but obligated to contribute seems to be a remnant of the world wars. What's interesting to me is that this notion seems to have disappeared, since to my knowledge there wasn't such an expectation with Vietnam and Korea (though maybe we can argue that the witch hunt for communists was something of a continuation).

Maybe it's due to the positioning of Russia as an existential threat? It just reminds me of the whole freedom fries vs french fries thing and the idea that there isn't a separation between geopolitics and domestic politics.

I live in Europe, I am french to be more precise. I feel Russia as an existential threat right now.

Right, and I'm not saying you're wrong for feeling that way, nor am I saying that Russia isn't an existential threat. But, at the risk of over-intellectualizing the situation, I think it's worth noting that for some reason, this Ukraine-Russia conflict has brought out feelings that citizens should be prepared to fight for their country.

This, at least from an American perspective, seems to be a sentiment that comes and goes, but has only appeared in very few cases in our past. I cannot speak for the French in this case, but in general I think it's worth pointing out because you'd expect military conflicts to be resolved between militaries and their respective states - this social contract being something of the foundational idea to Western politics.

Thinking that this is just between Russia and Ukraine is such a common mistake. Ukraine is the latest move in a larger chess game (remember Transnistria, Georgia, Bellarus?) where the end goal of Russian is a new world order. Instead of the current order based on western values and laws, Russia wants the so called "uni-polar world" to change such that it has it's own sphere of influence. That sphere would consist of weak countries subjected either politically, economically or militarily. It sees those as buffer states... and there are never enough of those.

Who is "we" here ?

Yes, we’re at war. The rules have changed.

If we are at "war" right now, then what is it called when US troops roll tanks into Russia... "super war"? Words have definitions. The definition of war is "a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state."

You say it’s not a war and then offer a definition of war that very clearly applies to the current scenario.

If that scenario is defined as "Russia and Ukraine are currently engaged in battle" then sure. The United States and NATO are not at war with Russia and I'd prefer it stay that way.

Funny thing that word "war"... By that definition US has never been at war with Russia/USSR yet a large part of last century was called "The Cold War". Kinetic war is not the only form of warfare.

You are free to blur the lines all you want, but OP and everyone else here knows what the end game is and they're going to drift that direction regardless of what people like me say about the dangers of doing so.

That is called The End.

You’re right, we should make the innocent suffer as much as possible!

Their country is killing thousands of innocent men, women, children, grandparents, babies etc. The West needs to prioritize on worrying about whats best for Ukraine, and saving their lives. Have more sympathy for them. Once Russia lays down arms and skidaddles back across their border perhaps we start feeling sympathy for the invaders then.

What Russians need to do now is pick sides. Take a stand against Putin, or, leave Russia. Stay home & keep quiet? They Own him. His deeds. His mass murders.

Zero sympathy for evil.

Very easy for us westerners to criticize Russians for not protesting. I wonder if you'd be protesting if you lived in a place where doing so could get you killed?

Putin has been in power there for 20 years. Been attacking neighbor nations for at least 14 years, offhand. He has a clear track record. Info has been out there, and for a looooong time ordinary Russians were able to get facts, if they wished.

They've had plenty of time to move away. Some have. Some chose to stay. These are the consequences of the choices they made.

Again, easy for someone who has never been in circumstances like that to judge.

People have been protesting; So far, 13,000 have been arrested.[0] Remember: Russia's judicial system is not the same as the US'. It's easy to armchair criticize when your life isn’t on the line.

Is it North Korea's citizens' fault that they have a dictator? After all, they do have a "democracy" where Kim Jong-un is "elected": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_North_Korea

[0]: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-police-arrest-1...

Great. I have massive respect for any Russian who has stood up. Hopefully they set an example and embolden more.

There are several ways Putin can exit office, or exit the world. In the best scenario for everyone, the Russian people should make it happen. Thats a thing they get to choose. The kind of future they want. I bet that ordinary Russians dont want to wake up in a nuke wasteland, eg, and no American, European or anyone else wants to either. Because that is madness. But the Kremlin is a wild card now, and credible reports is they simply dont have the kinds of safeguards and mediating forces that most Western nuke powers do. Best if Russians themselves show him the door, before its too late for anyone.

We really cannot over-emphasize the seriousness of the stakes now. For humanity. Russians best step up, show the rest of us what kind of people they are, down in their hearts.

Now or never.

Did you call on Americans to leave the US during the war in Iraq?

What a weird comment. Victim blaming at its finest.

By the same logic Ukrainians can stop resisting and prevent WW3. Is it "Zero sympathy for evil Ukrainians wishing WW3?".

one of the most Orwellian gaslighting replies I've seen on HN to date. wow

I doubt that FSB will intercept random calls from the USA.

First, there's got to be a lot of calls since a few million Russians live in the USA. Second, everybody is using Skype/WhatsApp anyway so whatever they manage to capture is mostly pure noise ("granny, can you repeat your Skype login letter by letter").

I get the general sentiment but wouldn't it make more sense to send letters to random people? Maybe even disguise it as a travel ad where the images of iconic places are replaced with their current state.

I think it's important to get past the initial barrier against believing what is happening and you can only do that by being sneaky.

Once you realize that someone is trying to convince you of something that goes against your core belief it's very likely you shut that information down but anything that got already past that barrier will slowly take root and grow.

So, it doesn't do any good and possibly gets innocent people hurt? And this is something I should take time out of my day to do?

This is a wonderful way to make some poor Russian have to explain to the FSB why he got calls from the United States.

Or maybe they don't even bother asking and just gulag him.

Well then maybe his friends and family left behind will find the motivation to take action against their shadowy oppressors.

Like the country that has been waging an online psy-ops on us for the last decade and a half and literally bribing our elected officials?

Interestingly CIA was kind of blazed the trail there. They even openly bragged about how it got Yeltsin elected.

What would you do if you ran a country and the CIA was running a psyops campaign on your citizens?

A) Ask them nicely to please stop.

B) Do it back

C) Do it back and then call for a truce

D) Nothing whatsoever

From a game theory as well as a moral perspective I think theres one right answer here, but Im curious as to what your answer is.

You’re probably right, but it’s possible that the environment is such in Russia right now that this could be impactful. From what I’ve been reading and seeing, the Russian people are more willing now than ever to protest and question their government. Those who are on the fence may actually be swayed by a random call like this, but only if they are already suspicious of the information the Russian government is showing them.

There is a major element of shaming and condescension here. The very act of this implies "hey, I know more than you do! what you know is less, and also false. because your government tells you wrong things, but my government tells me the truth! so let me educate you". How do you think you and the rest of the West would come across?

Unless you have a personal connection with the person and managed to find common political ground beforehand, this may actually sway them in the other direction, especially so if the person has any national pride.

So, talk to existing Russian friends, network with Russians more, build rapport. Be subtle and open-minded, rather than robotically delivering fixed agenda.

The opposite of random calling, basically.

It's entirely possible that those calling Russia from abroad would learn something from the conversation as well, but I think it's that absurd to suggest that Russians (who have heavily restricted Internet and media) would be completely resistant to the idea that people calling from places without such restrictions would have information that hasn't been made available to them

You think it's absurd to suggest people react badly to condescension?

There are different ways to discuss political questions and hopefully get a thinking person to adopt your viewpoint. "Educating" them is not one.

Is this a joke? Putin is wildly popular because he 'stands up to the west' and had presided over economic prosperity.

He got away with blowing up four apartment buildings, with plain-as-day evidence showing the bombings were conducted by the FSB. The population didn't care. They didn't care when he went around assassinating people outside the country. Didn't care when he invaded Crimea. Chicken in the pot, car in the driveway.

There wasn't any "anti-war" sentiment until the sanctions started kicking in.

Now that the ruble is worth less than toilet paper and they can't watch Netflix, they're willing to stand up to him?

Welcome to the cost of your country shitting all over the rest of the world for two decades. Hope y'all enjoy being sanctioned into the stone ages.

> There wasn't any "anti-war" sentiment until the sanctions started kicking in.

LMAO, sorry, but you have absolutely no effing clue what you're talking about. Russia and Ukraine are very interconnected, almost everyone has friends and relatives on the other side. Anti war sentiment was there long before 24th of February.

If you're speaking about news coverage in the US, well, that's another story. Even in western EU, there was a lot of commotion since January.

The inverse is happening right now, Russian citizens are calling Ukraine searching for family that happened to be a part of the Russian army.

https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2022...

I could see a spambot calling thousands of numbers a day from europe with a recording versus an actual person. We laugh about the car warranty scam calls we get everyday, but we're all aware of the messaging.

I'm glad this is the top comment because this is indeed an absurd and ridiculous plan. It's pretty amazing how many people in this thread and in MSM are copy/pasting the exact playbook run by Dick Cheney and his gang of liars, and doing a "Ctrl-F" to replace "terrorist" with "Russian". Notice as well that these analyses are not making a claim that Ukraine itself represents some specific national interest to the US and NATO, security or otherwise. The tone is consistently vengeful and demonizing. The difference between 2022 and 2003 is a matter of velocity in terms of how quickly the fervor can spread via our technology, and how difficult it is to pare back the insane calls for escalation.

Part of Putin's narrative of control is that the west is out to get ordinary Russians and have been since the Berlin Wall came down. Much of what we've done over the last several weeks in response to this crisis is making that fiction a reality in the minds of Russians. This "call random Russians, troll them" idea is part of that same general philosophy that's making it so easy for people to advocate things that would directly lead to WWIII with a rather uncomfortably high probability that we'd see the use of tactical nuclear weapons (a no-fly zone for just one example).

It might be a good plan if one wanted to create 'noise' for FSB so these random calls overwhelm their surveillance capabilities.

Must Russians don't even know there's a war. Even a bad call could trigger some to look up what's happening.

> Must Russians don't even know there's a war.

How can you know this?

Maybe I misunderstood what was meant in the parent comment.

The Russians may not know, or believe, that there is the shelling of cities with mass casualties among civilians. But they certainly know that Russia is somehow militarily involved in Ukraine right now. Even if they only consume the state-run media, they would have heard this from Putin himself. They know that their economy is collapsing; they know that various payment systems have stopped working; they know that imported consumer goods are disappearing from the shelves, and that stores of international brands are closing. Whether whatever is causing this is called a “special military operation” or a "war" is not a matter of knowledge, but a matter of language usage.

It's a big lie

This is misinformation peddled by Russian sympthisers in the West.

To be fair, Russia _does_ do a version of this extensively, with bots on social media. It still only manages to have some (maybe?) effect on ~30-40% of Americans, so your point stands, the tactic has limited effectiveness.

"Limited effectiveness"

Even a tiny effect on that much of the population is huge.

Indeed! It is one of those things that is difficult to measure, but we know the strategy has some effect, otherwise they wouldn't do it.

If they don't pick up then you can just dial their number repeatedly until they do. Simple.

So we're for harassing random Russian civilians now?

Yea I only believe propaganda on facebook, who even uses phones anymore anyway? Clearly this is a CIA op

>Trust me. Look. I have pen

Or even better:

"Privet kamrad. My name John. Zer is a site Utub. Itz no blokt in Rasha. Taip Ukreyn in surch boks end it vil shou yu trus yu didn't no."

I think we should ask some marketing genius on how to approach this one.

Robo-calling and having a recording say "the people are stronger than Putin", or something like that, could have an impact if people hear it often enough.

Robo call in Russian and say: Z is For Zelenskyy, if you support Zelenskyy put a big Z on your vehicle. (Russia's trying to create their own Swastika out of Z which is very poor marketing since Zelenskyy's name starts with Z and you can't really google 'Z'... etc...

The best counter is to make the Kremlin have to guess if you're Z is secretly counter-support or actual support for their 'narrative' of what 'Z' stands for.

Better yet, make them use juuust slightly yellow paint for their Z. I want to see Russian cops start carrying colorimeters to determine guilt, lol.

Good one!

No, think about it. We have all of these free speech advocates who insist that sunlight is the best disinfectant, that only necessary response to misinformation is information, that one simply needs to engage with extremists in rational debate on the facts, etc. Let them loose on the Russian public and the war could be over in a matter of days!

In case anyone doesn't recognize it, this is sarcasm.