Dubious

"The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride."

Zelensky’s words changed everything. In this episode we discuss the invasion timeline, use of illegal weapons, war crimes, the assassination attempts survived by Zelensky and the response of Western leaders in the face of Putin’s increasing aggression. 1

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The West, NATO and EU countries finally stepped up and sent relevant military aid, even Germany changed their policy 180 degrees and sent armaments. In reponse, the Russians have intensified their attacks in western Ukraine, in Lviv. Now they’re focused almost exclusively on civilians. A maternity in Mariupol, a children’s hospital as well. The images and reports coming from Ukrainian cities like Kharkiv, Irpin, Odessa, Mykolaiv, Kherson and Kyiv are harrowing. 2

At the time of our recording, 3.2 million refugees have left Ukraine. Russia has been bombing the refugee corridors as well. Romania, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia cancelled all restrictions for pets entering from Ukraine.

We further discuss Zelenskyy’s vision in managing this crisis, his past career as an actor and his unexpected rise as a political figure.

The USA announces $800 million in aid to Ukraine after Zelensky’s address:

We analyze the military capabilities of Ukraine vs Russia and how Putin managed to bungle his invasion so badly. The turn from complete capitulation on the part of western countries to Ukraine seeming like the probable victor in this conflict is astonishing. Putin began with a 6 to 1 advantage in tanks, a 15 to 1 advantage in helicopters, and a 15 to 1 advantage in terms of total airplanes, and yet now we are to the point where Putin seems afraid to commit the rest of his airforce, and his armor has struggled to advance on Kyiv due to drone strikes. We also cover why the Polish MiG-29 offer to Ukraine was a bad idea in an analysis of modern versus cold war fighter aircraft capabilities.

An iconic moment in the past week was when Maria Ovsiannikova (also spelled Ovsyannikova), a Channel 1 employee, interrupted the state controlled live tv program holding a big sign saying “Stop the war. Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here”. She urged Russians in a pre-recorded video which has gone viral since then (she knew she would be arrested): “Don’t be afraid to protest, THEY CAN’T ARREST US ALL.” 3

Putin now must fear his own people, and we discuss the similarities between the trajectory of this conflict and the failed invasion of Afghanistan that broke the Soviet party in the 1980s.

1. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Address to the US Congress, Video, March 2022. ⇤

2. Mstyslav Chernov, Pregnant Woman, Baby Die After Russian Bombing in Mariupol, AP News, March 2022. ⇤

3. Greg Walters, ‘They Are Lying to You’: A Russian Journalist Just Stormed a Live Broadcast to Protest the War, Vice, March 2022. ⇤

On February 24th the world watched in horror as the Russian military started its invasion of Ukraine.

In this episode we are discussing all the things that led to Putin’s war on Ukraine, the west’s lax attitude and response, and Ukraine’s fight for freedom and acceptance in the EU over the past three decades. Latest developments at the time of recording are of course discussed as well.

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Historical and geopolitical context is key to understanding the current tragedy unfolding under our eyes. We start off with The Budapest Memorandum of 1994 when, after the fall of the USSR, Ukraine was assured by the US, UK and Russia that its territorial sovereignty would be protected as long as they gave up their nuclear warheads. 1

Next we discuss The Orange Revolution of 2004, when the Ukrainian people organized nationwide protests in support of fair elections after Russian tampering, and the poisoning of candidate Viktor Yushchenko by Russian intelligence. He almost died and remained disfigured. We also discuss how the protest movements of this time in led to similar uprisings in support of elections in other countries in the region such as Moldova and Belarus, and how all of this led to similar protests within Russia itself in 2011, and Putin's personal feud with former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 2

Then we discuss the Revolution of Dignity following the elections of 2010, in which the Russian-favored candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, was elected to the presidency of Ukraine, leading to another round of protests and a violent response from the state police and military. We also go over the subsequent Russian annexation of Crimea, and failure (again) of western countries and NATO to live up to their assurances made in the 1994 agreement that saw Ukraine stripped of nuclear weapons. 3

In addition to all of this we discuss the specifics of no-fly zones and how Russia has evaded them in the past, for example during the recent Syrian conflict. Also the firings of Ukranian officials at the behest of US presidents, such as the "Trump phone call" from 2019 to current Ukranian president Volodymyr Zelensky, and the overlap between GOP and Ukranian right-wing campaign advisors, Paul Manafort for example. We also discuss the persecution of Russian dissidents Boris Berezovsky, Alexander Litvinenko, Anna Politkovskaya who were all killed by Russian intelligence agents while living in London. 4

This is a multi-part series, in the next episode we'll discuss the devastation from the invasion in Mariupol, Kharkhiv, Kherson. Irpin, Kyiv and other Ukranian cities, and the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 17 incident.

1. Memorandum on security assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, United Nations, December 1994. ⇤

2. Ukraine's Ex-president on Being Poisoned, BBC, April 2018. ⇤

3. Revolution of Dignity, Maidan Museum. ⇤

4. David Cenciotti, Syrian Mig-29 Fulcrums Escorted the 28 Russian Jets... Hiding Under Cargo Planes, The Aviationist, September 2015. ⇤

We discuss swatting: calling in false law enforcement emergencies on one's online enemies.

In the last decade, there have been several cases of people who have been targeted for their “special” social media handles: high value handles that are very short or otherwise desirable. If you enjoy our content, please click here to subscribe.

At least two persons lost their lives after SWAT teams were sent to their homes under false pretenses. Innocent people like Mark Herring, a 60 year-old family man, who died of a heart attack after being swatted over his Twitter handle @Tennessee. Andrew Finch, a 28-year-old father, got swatted in 2017 after an online Call of Duty dispute between two others. He was killed by police on his front porch. This episode focuses on their stories and the ways in which laws have changed regarding online behavior. 1, 2, 3

According to swatting victim @jw, the ordeal starts with constant DMs, comments and phone calls, escalates to pizza deliveries not ordered by the victim and culminates with militarized police sent to their homes.

We also discuss Neal's incident with the Little Rock SWAT team, after his bravely drunk neighbors confronted burglars to try and protect the sanctity of his plasma TV, and in the process managed to attract every cop in Little Rock to his house. We also discuss the swatting cases of former Washginton Post tech writer Brian Krebs and Wired Magazine reporter Mat Honan. 4, 5, 6

Lastly, we introduce the publishing platform we are open sourcing this week! Rent Free Media allows anyone to publish podcasts, videos, or any other digital content, including support for paid subscribers via Stripe. We hope this encourages people to take ownership of their content and stop using corporate publishers such as Patreon and Apple Podcasts that expect anywhere from 18% to 30% of their gross revenue for hosting sub-100 megabyte podcast episodes.

1. Tennessee Man Died from Heart Attack fter ‘Swatting’ over Twitter Handle, The Guardian, July 2021. ⇤

2. Danny Cevallos, Charges Against Suspect in 'Swatting' Hoax that Led to Death Could Be Complicated, NBC News, January 2018. ⇤

3. Suspect in Fatal "SWATting" Call Charged in Another Similar Prank, CBS News, January 2018. ⇤

4. Brian Krebs, Men Who Sent Swat Team, Heroin to My Home Sentenced, Krebs on Security, February 2017. ⇤

5. Brian Krebs, The Obscurest Epoch is Today, Krebs on Security, March 2013. ⇤

6. Mat Honan, How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking, Wired, August 2012. ⇤

What really happened to the Dyatlov hikers?

In 1959 a group of Russian hikers disappeared in the Ural mountains. Months later their bodies were found, showing signs of mutilation, exposure to strange chemical substances, and exposure to radiation. We examine a new theory in this episode that we think solves this decades-old Russian mystery, involving the US Cold War spying flights orchestrated by the USAF Strategic Air Command and CIA, and a Chernobyl-esque nuclear accident at the Kyshtym plutonium enrichment facility which the Soviets tried to hide from the rest of the world.

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The theories about the reason for the Dyatlov party's demise run the gamut from kadabatic winds, to avalanche, to yetis and ghosts. But we think it far more likely that they were inadvertently struck by a photo flash bomb: a device dropped by a spy plane for night time aerial photography. 1, 2

There are documented cases of photoflash bomb accidents in America as early as 1938, and they were used regularly for night flight spy missions during the Korean War in the early 1950s. The photoflash bomb theory explains many of the mysteries surrounding the condition of the bodies of these hikers. The strange grey material on their bodies could be magnesium, burns to their skin could have been caused by proximity to the blast, photos of bright orbs in their camera film could have been the flash bombs themselves, seemingly frantic behavior that caused them to lose contact with each other, all of these details lend more credence to this theory of a photoflash bomb causing their deaths. 3

We think this is the most likely explanation for what happened to these people, and we cover all of the details in this episode. If anything, declassified books and documents from the US military give further weight to this theory about the Dyatlov party, as they paint a more clear picture of the mentality of the people in charge of operating the US military and intelligence agencies at the time. In particular, a declassified book from the CIA covers in some detail the disagreement between USAF officials Curtis Lemay and Jimmy Doolittle and CIA director Allen Dulles about the role of recon flights, generally. 4

We also talk a bit about the found-footage horror film "Devil's Pass" which is a pretty good encapsulation of all of the crazy theories about this incident in fictional form. 5

Over 200 members of US military and intelligence flight crews were shot down over Soviet airspace during the cold war. The vast majority of their families were lied to about their condition and whereabouts. As we publish this there is a brand new war brewing between Russia and NATO over control of Ukraine. Hopefully one of these days we get past World War II, but not today it seems...

1. Harrington Aviation Museum, Photoflash Bomb , American military design. ⇤

2. Andrei Shepelev, Documentary promo (Russian), April 2021. ⇤

3. The New York Times, Photoflash Bomb Wrecks Windows Near Air 'War', May 1938. ⇤

4. Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, The CIA and the U2 Program, US Central Intelligence Agency, 1998. ⇤

5. Devil's Pass, written by Vikram Weet and directed by Renny Harlin, IFC Films, 2013. ⇤

Good guys are boring, villains are fascinating!

From bizarre events, assassinations and celebrity deaths to cyberattacks, swindlers and spy stories - we cover it all and more, sprinkling a bit of true crime flavor and funny commentary on top.

Yours dubiously,

Sandra and Neal