#chief oleg

[cinnamontimecrunch]

I can't find any fanfics for Chief Oleg so I guess I'll just write it myself

[underleveledjosh]

Chief Oleg is hot. I wish he is playable.

[iniziare]

Tag drop: Seele (Honkai: Star Rail). Listen, I used to write her and I miss her a bit, and also: there's Belobog people around. And also, well, she's much more interesting than people give her credit for. Also, prepare for some 'rewriting', because Belobog's pacing in specific ways kind of blew a little bit much.

[babocka]

Tag drop: Dynamics/verses/etc.

[scotianostra]

On July 2nd 1971 The Erskine bridge was officially opened.

Construction on the project began in April 1967 at a cost of £10.5m, which is the equivalent of almost £150m today.

The bridge was designed by Freeman Fox & Partners for the Erskine Bridge Joint Committee. Dr Oleg Kerensky was the partner in charge and the chief design engineer was Dr William Brown under the supervision of Sir Gilbert Roberts. The piers and foundations were designed by W. A. Fairhurst & Partners. The consultant architect was R. E. Slater.

The central span is 305m (1000ft) flanked by anchor spans of 110m each. The total length including approach spans is 1322m. The aerofoil box-girder deck is supported by fourteen diamond-plan, single-shaft concrete piers at a maximum height of 45m above the river. Two central pylons extend 38m above the level of the deck. A 6x4 cluster of galvanized steel cables passes over the saddle of each pylon in a centralised, single plane.

The dual carriageway has cycle lanes and footpaths with metal safety barriers, renewed in 2012. The underside of the deck carries four water mains pipes and two gas pipes. In 2017 the cables were painted and aluminium lighting columns were installed.

The Bridge was a state-of-the-art infrastructure landmark in Scotland for its time and remains one of the country's most architecturally and technically distinguished bridges of the post-war period and beyond its date of construction. It is the first example of a large-scale cable-stayed bridge in Scotland and is recognised for its structural simplicity, economy of materials and slender appearance.

It was designed and built during a period of substantial development in civil engineering and road infrastructure. It illustrates the aspirations for economic and social progress in Scottish society and is directly associated with the period of ambitious transformation of Scotland's modern infrastructure during the 1960s.

The Erskine Bridge is one of only three road bridges in Scotland with a main span exceeding 300 metres. Its minimalistic single-cable design remains exceptionally rare for large-scale road bridges. On completion, the Erskine Bridge is understood to have had the longest span of this type in the world. The appearance of many bridges on this scale have been altered by later alteration and engineering works. The largely unchanged appearance of the Erskine Bridge contributes to its special interest.

Some of these pics I unearthed are brilliant, my faves are, probably the first person to cross the bridge, no health and safety back then, and the photo with the PS Waverley passing by during construction.

[kamogryadeshi]

63- and 65-year-old women were wounded as a result of Russian strikes on Kupyansk on September 16, the head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration Oleg Synyegubov said. According to the regional police chief Volodymyr Tymoshko, the Russians hit the city with artillery and guided aerial bombs.

Photo: Oleg Synyegubov/Telegram

[beardedmrbean]

A worker at one of Europe's biggest safari parks was mauled to death by a group of lions after a cage was left unlocked.

The incident occurred at the Taigan Safari Park in Crimea on Wednesday, according to the Russian Investigative Committee's office, which said the worker did not lock the protective internal door that would have separated her from them while completing cleaning duties. It is believed there were three lions in the cage.

Authorities have launched a criminal investigation into potential negligence but have not yet determined whether the worker or the park management is at fault. Taigan's owner, Oleg Zubkov, identified the victim as chief zookeeper Leokadia Perevalova, praising her as the "soul of the park" on his blog. She had worked at Taigan for 17 years.

"Unfortunately when I arrived there was nothing I could do to help. [Lions are] top predators and they do not forgive mistakes, he said, adding that no other employees were present at the time of the attack.

The park is in Belogorsk, about 22 miles east of the Crimean capital of Simferopol. It covers more than 75 acres and houses about 60 lions and several other predators. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, but most of the world does not recognize it as Russian territory.

This is not the first time the park has come under scrutiny for safety issues. Zubkov, who has been running parks since 1995, claims to have attended more than 300 legal cases related to fines and charges against him, many of which emerged following Russia's annexation of Crimea. He has often accused officials of unfairly targeting him and his park.

Just over half a mile of elevated walkways allow visitors to observe lions roaming freely, making it a popular attraction.

In 2018, a tourist was bitten by a lion while posing for a photo at the park. Zubkov dismissed the incident as isolated, but it raised questions about his approach to safety.

Additionally, the owner sparked controversy in 2019 when he threatened to euthanize more than 30 bears unless new homes could be found for them. Financial difficulties and ongoing legal pressures led him to issue a public plea, saying: "If no shelters take the bears, I'll have to shoot them."

He has said that without financial support from the government, the park relies entirely on revenue from ticket sales to stay operational.

In a previous cost-cutting measure, he had to resort to feeding dozens of Vietnamese pigs to the park's lions and tigers to cover the high costs of feeding the animals.

The legal system took charge in 2019, closing the doors of Taigan for 30 days after a complaint over expired feed being given to animals, an allegation Zubkov denies.

[pretordh]

These creatures are responsible for today's attack on civilian objects in Ukraine

���� Afzalov Viktor Musavirovich - Chief of the Main Staff - First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Air and Space Forces, 11th Red Banner Army of the Air Force and Air Defense Forces 🛑 Egorov Dmytro Pavlovich - colonel, commander of 182 tbap 🛑 Varpahovych Mykola Mykolayovych - colonel, commander of the 22nd heavy bomber aviation division 🛑 Pchela Oleg Volodymyrovych - deputy commander of long-range aviation of the military air forces of the air and space forces of the Soviet Union, as well as the commander of Tu-160 aircraft

[originalleftist]

Johnny Depp is reportedly dating a new girlfriend- a 28 year old (Depp is 61) Russian beautician and model named Yulia Valasova (this is not the first time in recent years that Depp has dated a much younger Russian woman).

Now, I'm not saying that anyone from Russia is necessarily an agent of the Kremlin. But:

The Kremlin has been reported to use agents, posing as ordinary Russian citizens, to make friends with prominent Westerners and influence them.

It is also known to seek out powerful, influential Westerners with big egos and lots of baggage (ie, Kompromat) to groom as assets, the former President being the highest-profile example.

And Depp's chief fixer Adam Waldman* previously worked with/for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, Julian Assange, and Russian foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and was involved in efforts to cover up Russian interference in the 2016 US election.

Depp is a bit of a has-been now, but he has lots of powerful friends in Hollywood, and his cause is celebrated by the MRA/incel crowd on the right, while also having some crossover/fandom appeal to other demographics (a little-known fact is that polling around the trial showed Depp's support was strongest with women and youth).

And we already know Depp is friends with the ruler of Saudi Arabia, and that a lot of the online hate directed at Heard has been traced back to Saudi bots, so evidently a foreign government thought they could use the intense hype around the trial as part of an influence campaign.

So, from where I'm standing, it looks to me VERY much like Depp is being groomed as a Russian asset.

*Its a shame that Waldman is mostly known only for his involvement in Depp v Heard (and even there, he largely flew below the radar due to being kicked off the case early on by a judge for leaking information to the media, with Camille Vasquez getting most of the attention from Depp's legal team). Waldman is a DEEPLY shady and dangerous man who has been closely-involved in efforts by a foreign enemy to undermine the United States and install fascist government, and deserves far more rigorous scrutiny (and serious legal consequences, starting with disbarment, and ending in prison).

[parasite-core]

I forgot to do this week’s pathfinder update, so better late than never.

The party befriended some bandits, impressed a ‘goblin hero’, and slayed a bunch of gremlins.

The party started out where they left off, tracking the one bandit they let leave Oleg’s alive, to follow him back to the bandits’ encampment. Using horses borrowed from Oleg and Svetlana, the party easily followed the bleeding and panicked bandit, although they purposely stopped before catching up to him so that they could be sure he’d make it back to his buddies.

When the party arrived to the clearing by the river, where the bandits had set up camp, they were nearly spotted by one of the bandits’ two sentries. Ella snuck up the tree and knocked him out silently with a critical non-lethal strike.

After, the party decided to take Ella’s advice and try to bargain with the bandits, to give them work in their soon-to-be barony.

Ozzy made a dramatic announcement of their presence, and they tried to intimidate the bandits into listening to their demands. The leader, Kressle, laughed at the attempt, telling them that she was more scared of The Stag Lord than of some random nobles out of their element, and that if they were going to kill her it would still be better than what her boss would do if she failed or deserted.

Irena tried a new approach, telling Kressle that if she was that afraid of the Stag Lord, they already intended to kill the Stag Lord, and she could survive and get gainful employment if she accepted. Kressle told them that she didn’t believe they could kill the Stag Lord, and told them to put their money where their mouth was. She called her boys over to attack.

The man who the party had been tracking went down first from Ella’s arrow. Kressle picked up the fallen man’s shortbow and fired an arrow in return.

Ella climbed onto Ozzy’s shoulder, believing he could help her cross the river. Ozzy directed her to get on Amiri’s shoulder again, right before she ran and leapt across the river, to face the bandits on the other side.

Ella began systematically knocking out the mooks, while Amiri crossed blades with Kressle.

Ozzy used magic to put a striking rune on his weapon, which he now dubbed Whisperkill, and then he went to wade across the river.

Unfortunately for him, Irena’s last arrow knocked Kressle to her knees, and she surrendered, admitting she knew when she was outmatched.

The party got info from Kressle about the Stag Lord and where to find him. She marked their map at a fort by the edge of a lake a few days walk on horseback. Ozzy gave her enough coin first her and her men, telling her that if she remained there with her men and quit banditry, he would hire them formally after the Stag Lord was dead. Kressle agreed to this, although she was still irreverent towards the noble brat.

The party was originally going to make a beeline for the Stag Lord’s fort, but they learned from Kressle that Svetlana’s ring had been amongst the things they stole from the Trading Post, but it had been lost by the Old Sycamore when some of her men were accosted by mitflits.

The party decided to head there first, as the Old Sycamore was on the way anyways.

Before they reached the grand old tree, however, they came upon a cave with flecks of gold in the walls—a place to set up a mine for their new barony once they had said new barony.

The party camped outside of the gold cave, with Ozzy and Irena lighting a fire to make the cavern walls glimmer. Both were incredibly giddy at the find, as gold was holy to Irena as a worshipper of Abadar—and holy to Ozzy because he’s nobility.

Unfortunately the light attracted a bear. Well, half a bear. It was also an owl. An owlbear, one might say.

The party woke up to Amiri shouting for them, and holding back the beast with her enormous bastard sword.

The party came to her aid, and together they felled the beast. Amiri wanted to skin it, and presented the furs to Irena, as the party’s ‘chief’. She said it was tradition where she was from to offer a slain beast when joining a new tribe.

While they were doing this, someone else approached in the night. An excitable goblin named Nok-Nok fawned over the party, saying as a goblin hero he wanted to learn from such great warriors, he was especially impressed with Irena, whose lightning had struck the killing blow on the owl, and who he called a ‘great and powerful caster’. Irena, Ella, and Amiri agreed to him joining. Ozzy didn’t get a vote because he’d already gone back to sleep.

With Nok-Nok in tow, the party began their journey going to a nearby large gnarled lightning-struck tree. They had previously found a treasure map depicting the tree at the bottom of a giant trapdoor spider’s den. Ella found a hollow within the tree’s roots where a cache had been hidden. Nok-Nok and Ella worked together to dig it out and claimed a bountiful reward.

After, the party hightailed it to The Old Sycamore. As they approached, they began seeing the bodies of dead kobolds and mitflits. It looked like a war in miniature had been waged here.

They came upon a cavern beneath the giant tree, and entered. They immediately came face-to-face with two mitflits who had been throwing marbles into each other’s mouth. They did not give the party a chance to talk (or bully) them, immediately attacking the intruders. When one went down, the other fled the room down a tunnel deeper in.

The party fought through mitflits and giant centipedes, until they came upon a room in which a half-dozen mitflits were torturing a kobold prisoner. He was tangled in the roots hanging from above, as were the bodies of 3 other kobolds.

Ozzy, who was on a bit of a power trip because of how cowardly the mitflits were, enhanced his blade into Whisperkill, then downed multiple mitflits in the name of his ancestor Ignacio Surtovasio, an infamous pirate lord.

The party killed all but two of the mitflits in this room—the remaining two dashed out of the room to find their leader. They both leapt over a pit beyond the room—but one fell in. The other did not wait for his companion, and instead continued running to warn their leader, Grabbles, and his giant tic mount, Tickleback.

The mitflit that had fallen in the pit coaxed out their nest’s pride and joy—an enormous whiptail centipede, so large it blocked off the entire cavern as it raised itself and its new rider out of the pit.

The centipede was focused on the imprisoned kobold despite the mitflit’s orders to focus on the ontruders. It was clear it saw the kobold as an easy meal.

Ella ran forward to try to save the little draconid. The centipede slammed the girth of its tail on her, knocking her off balance, but it didn’t stop her. She managed to cut the kobold free.

The kobold tried to talk to Ella in draconic, but she didn’t understand him. Irena, however, did. She translated for the kobold, telling Ella he gave his thanks, and was willing to fight with them to survive this if one of them had a weapon he could use. Ella gave him her old dagger, which had been replaced with a shiny new +1 dagger at the previous tree’s cache.

Nok-Nok ran in, stabbing the centipede multiple times before getting bitten by it and nearly downed.

Ozzy, still high on adrenaline, tried to face the enormous creature. It immediately smashed him with its tail and knocked him unconscious before he could even act.

Together, the party managed to weaken the centipede enough for Nok-Nok to leap up and gut it with a cry of victory.

They weren’t done yet, however. The last mitflits in the final chamber had gathered together and were preparing to attack. Grabbles ordered then forward, before his mount took him down one side if the chasm and halfway up the other.

Some mitflits followed, while others tried throwing darts at the party from a distance.

Ella and Nok-Nok ended up in a fight with the leader and a few other Mitflits, while Irena healed her brother—at least in body, his pride took a beating that will be harder to mend.

The party slowly thinned the numbers, until the boss was bloodied. The kobold prisoned leapt up onto Tickleback, and stabbed the mitflit leader with a declaration in draconic ‘this is for my comrades’.

With the leader dead, the final surviving mitflip fled. Irena gave chase, but quickly found that the cavern circled back around to the first cave. She checked the exit, and found Amiri, who had been guarding the door, had skewered the final mitflit.

And with that, exhausted from a more harrowing venture than any of them had expected, the party decided to take some down time.

[payidaresque]

They came to a place called Golgotha, which means “the place of the skull”. There, they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall. But after tasting it, He refused to drink. When they had crucified Him... they divided up His clothes by lot. Above his head, they placed the written charged against Him. “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews”. Those who passed by hurled insults at Him, shaking their hands and saying, “Come down from the cross if you are the Son of God”.  In the same way, the chief priests and the elders mocked Him. “He saved others”, they said, “but He can’t save himself. He’s the King of Israel. Let him come down from the cross.. and we’ll believe Him”.  He trusts in God, let God rescue Him now if He wants Him, for He said, “I am the Son of God”.

I am the Son of God.

Danila Kozlovsky as Oleg the Prophet, Vikings, s6

[woodsteingirl]

“If truth be told, the Kennedys were a highly dysfunctional family,” claimed Oleg Cassini, Jackie’s chief fashion designer during her days as First Lady. “Jack Kennedy was a sex and amphetamine addict, and Teddy was an out-and-out alcoholic. Joan Kennedy, Teddy’s wife drank more than he did. Jack’s sisters, particularly Pat Lawford and Jean Smith, also drank to excess. They had good reason. Their spouses, Peter Lawford and Steve Smith, thought nothing of stepping out on them. Lawford was a drug abuser, while Smith had sadomasochistic tendencies—he paid women for the express privilege of beating them up. Ethel Kennedy, on the other hand, has always been an emotional cripple. She’s unstable. She gave birth to eleven children but knew nothing about raising a family. She’s the world's worst mother.”

HELLO??? the drama in this one quote…….

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 17, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

Although few Americans paid much attention at the time, the events of February 18, 2014, in Ukraine would turn out to be a linchpin in how the United States ended up where it is a decade later. 

On that day ten years ago, after months of what started as peaceful protests, Ukrainians occupied government buildings and marched on parliament to remove Russian-backed president Viktor Yanukovych from office. After the escalating violence resulted in many civilian casualties, Yanukovych fled to Russia, and the Maidan Revolution, also known as the Revolution of Dignity, returned power to Ukraine’s constitution.

The ouster of Yanukovych meant that American political consultant Paul Manafort was out of a job. 

Manafort had worked with Yanukovych since 2004. In that year, the Russian-backed politician appeared to have won the presidency of Ukraine. But Yanukovych was rumored to have ties to organized crime, and the election was full of fraud, including the poisoning of a key rival who wanted to break ties with Russia and align Ukraine with Europe. The U.S. government and other international observers did not recognize the election results, while Russia’s president Vladimir Putin congratulated Yanukovych even before the results were officially announced. 

The government voided the election and called for a do-over.  

To rehabilitate his reputation, Yanukovych turned to Manafort, who was already working for a young Russian billionaire, Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska worried that Ukraine would break free of Russian influence and was eager to prove useful to Vladimir Putin. At the time, Putin was trying to consolidate power in Russia, where oligarchs were monopolizing formerly publicly held industries and replacing the region’s communist leaders. In 2004, American journalist Paul Klebnikov, the chief editor of Forbes in Russia, was murdered as he tried to call attention to what the oligarchs were doing.  

With Manafort’s help, Yanukovych finally won the presidency in 2010 and began to turn Ukraine toward Russia. In November 2013, Yanukovych suddenly reversed Ukraine’s course toward cooperation with the European Union, refusing to sign a trade agreement and instead taking a $3 billion loan from Russia. Ukrainian students protested the decision, and the anger spread quickly. In 2014, after months of popular protests, Ukrainians ousted Yanukovych from power and he fled to Russia.  

Manafort, who had borrowed money from Deripaska and still owed him about $17 million, had lost his main source of income. 

Shortly after Yanukovych’s ouster, Russia invaded Ukraine’s Crimea and annexed it, prompting the United States and the European Union to impose economic sanctions on Russia itself and also on specific Russian businesses and oligarchs, prohibiting them from doing business in U.S. territories. These sanctions were intended to weaken Russia and froze the assets of key Russian oligarchs. 

By 2016, Manafort’s longtime friend and business partner Roger Stone—they had both worked on Richard Nixon’s 1972 campaign—was advising Trump’s floundering presidential campaign, and Manafort was happy to step in to help remake it. He did not take a salary but reached out to Deripaska through one of his Ukrainian business partners, Konstantin Kilimnik, immediately after landing the job, asking him, “How do we use to get whole? Has OVD [Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska] operation seen?” 

Manafort began as an advisor to the Trump campaign in March 2016 and became the chairman in late June.  

Thanks to journalist Jim Rutenberg, who pulled together testimony given both to the Mueller investigation and the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee, transcripts from the impeachment hearings, and recent memoirs, we now know that in 2016, Russian operatives presented Manafort a plan “for the creation of an autonomous republic in Ukraine’s east, giving Putin effective control of the country’s industrial heartland, where Kremlin-armed, -funded, and -directed ‘separatists’ were waging a two-year-old shadow war that had left nearly 10,000 dead.” 

In exchange for weakening NATO, undermining the U.S. stance in favor of Ukraine in its attempt to throw off the Russians who had invaded in 2014, and removing U.S. sanctions from Russian entities, Russian operatives were willing to help Trump win the White House. The Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 established that Manafort’s Ukrainian business partner Kilimnik, whom it described as a “Russian intelligence officer,” acted as a liaison between Manafort and Deripaska while Manafort ran Trump’s campaign. 

Now, ten years later, Putin has invaded Ukraine in an effort that when it began looked much like the one his operatives suggested to Manafort in 2016, Trump has said he would “encourage Russia to do whatever they hell they want” to NATO allies that don’t commit 2% of their gross domestic product to their militaries, and Trump MAGA Republicans are refusing to pass a measure to support Ukraine in its effort to throw off Russia’s invasion. 

The day after the violence of February 18, 2014, in Ukraine, then–vice president Joe Biden called Yanukovych to “express grave concern regarding the crisis on the streets” and to urge him “to pull back government forces and to exercise maximum restraint.”  

Ten years later, Russia has been at open war with Ukraine for nearly two years and has just regained control of the key town of Avdiivka because Ukrainian troops lack ammunition. President Joe Biden is warning MAGA Republicans that “[t]he failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will never be forgotten.”

“History is watching,” he said.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[tomorrowusa]

Th Russian military has been in a greater state of turmoil than it usually is.

A senior Russian general in command of forces in occupied southern Ukraine says he was suddenly dismissed from his post after accusing Moscow’s Defense Ministry leadership of betraying his troops by not providing sufficient support. Gen. Ivan Popov was the commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army, which has been engaged in heavy fighting in the Zaporizhzhia region. He is one of the most senior officers to have taken part in the bloody Russian campaign in Ukraine. Popov said he had raised questions about “the lack of counter-battery combat, the absence of artillery reconnaissance stations and the mass deaths and injuries of our brothers from enemy artillery,” in a voice note published on Telegram late Wednesday.

In military terms, Russia can't even cope with the basics. Gen. Popov blames Putin crony Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu “signed the order and got rid of me,” the general also said in the recording, as he accused the top Kremlin official of treason. “As many commanders of divisional regiments said today, the servicemen of the armed forces of Ukraine could not break through our army from the front, (but) our senior commander hit us from the rear, treacherously and vilely decapitating the army at the most difficult and tense moment,” Popov said.

Russian senior officers have been taking it on the chin lately.

Another Russian General Killed in Occupied Ukraine

Russian Lieutenant General Oleg Yuryevich Tsokov was reportedly killed in an overnight attack by Ukrainian forces in the city of Berdyansk. The information was confirmed on the Telegram channel of the mayor of Mariupol, Peter Andryushchenko, and then by an advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Anton Gerashchenko, on Twitter. Later Andryushchenko suggested that this had been an attack against the “Duna Hotel” which had been commandeered as accommodation for the Russian military leadership in the occupied town. According to local reports, cited by the mayor, the hotel was all but completely destroyed in spite of reports that anti-missile defenses were sited close to the building. Unconfirmed reports say the building may have been struck by a Storm Shadow missile.

Cheers to the UK for supplying Ukraine with Storm Shadow missiles! 🍻🇬🇧

Russian commander killed while jogging may have been tracked on Strava app

A Russian submarine commander shot to death while jogging on Monday may have been targeted by an assailant tracking him on a popular running app, according to Russian media. Stanislav Rzhitsky was killed earlier this week in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar by an “unknown person,” state news agency TASS reported, adding that “the motive for the crime is being investigated.” [ ... ] Russian media earlier reported that Rzhitsky’s killer may have used Strava, a widely available app used by runners and cyclists, to follow his movements.

Yes, this is yet another idiotic lapse in basic security by Russians. Rzhitsky was essentially broadcasting to the world his exact location with an exercise app.

Top Russian General Missing Since Mutiny Is ‘Currently Resting,’ Lawmaker Says

Russian General Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russia’s war in Ukraine—who is also known to have ties with Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin—is “currently resting” and “not available for now,” said a lawmaker from Russia’s ruling party. The comment came in response to questions Wednesday about Surovikin’s whereabouts. Surovikin, who is known in the Russian media as “General Armageddon” due to the tactics he used in the bloody Syrian civil war, is one of several notable Russian military leaders who have not been seen in public since Wagner’s aborted mutiny last month.

Of course the place where "General Armageddon" is resting could very well be a gulag.

While regular press freedom no longer exists in Russia, there is still a rather robust exchange of information on Telegram. This news of chaos and incompetence among the top military leadership will gradually filter through much of the population – including the cannon fodder at the front.

[warsofasoiaf]

Was Harry Hopkins a Soviet spy? If so, how should that affect how the Roosevelt administration is remembered?

"19," the agent identified in the Venona files that had been suggested previously to be Harry Hopkins, was identified in 2005 as Lawrence Duggan by Alexander Vassiliev. Duggan committed suicide when he was discovered in 1948. Another piece often levied against him, an allegation by Oleg Gordievsky, who was remembering something that he had learned from another retired spymaster, but it was uncorroborated, remembered decades after the fact, and even Gordievsky himself suggested that Hopkins was probably a dupe rather than a conscious agent. Another piece of evidence, that the FBI learned that CPUSA San Francisco leader Steve Nelson had met with KGB officer Vasily Zarubin to discuss funding and coordination with covert Soviet intelligence work in 1943. Hopkins learned of this and informed the Soviet ambassador, but this was consistent with many members of the Roosevelt administration who accommodated Soviet espionage work during the Second World War, including Roosevelt himself. This policy of absolute accommodation with the Soviet Union pursued by FDR, Hopkins, Stettinius, Wallace, etc. was incredibly reckless, damaging to national security, and didn't accomplish anything to boot, but it wasn't espionage, it was just very stupid and short-sighted. They very clearly should have known better.

That being said, when it comes to evaluating FDR's tenure through the lens of national security, he definitely deserves criticism. It's incontrovertible that FDR presided over a great failure of counter-intelligence when the Soviet Union successfully stole the atomic bomb secrets. Moreover, we know that when he was warned about Soviet espionage in the United States from sources from Whittaker Chambers, journalist and former Soviet asset, to various intelligence chiefs, FDR frequently hampered their investigation, dismissing their findings and using back-channel negotiations to warn "Uncle Joe."

It's another reason why I think that while he was a very accomplished president, history has largely given him a pass on his major blunders, even the ones that were very explicitly his fault (like EO 9066).

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer. Hand of the King

[scotianostra]

On July 2nd 1971 The Erskine bridge was officially opened.

Construction on the project began in April 1967 at a cost of £10.5m, which is the equivalent of almost £150m today.

The bridge was designed by Freeman Fox & Partners for the Erskine Bridge Joint Committee. Dr Oleg Kerensky was the partner in charge and the chief design engineer was Dr William Brown under the supervision of Sir Gilbert Roberts. The piers and foundations were designed by W. A. Fairhurst & Partners. The consultant architect was R. E. Slater.

The central span is 305m (1000ft) flanked by anchor spans of 110m each. The total length including approach spans is 1322m. The aerofoil box-girder deck is supported by fourteen diamond-plan, single-shaft concrete piers at a maximum height of 45m above the river. Two central pylons extend 38m above the level of the deck. A 6x4 cluster of galvanized steel cables passes over the saddle of each pylon in a centralised, single plane.

The dual carriageway has cycle lanes and footpaths with metal safety barriers, renewed in 2012. The underside of the deck carries four water mains pipes and two gas pipes. In 2017 the cables were painted and aluminium lighting columns were installed.

The Bridge was a state-of-the-art infrastructure landmark in Scotland for its time and remains one of the country's most architecturally and technically distinguished bridges of the post-war period and beyond its date of construction. It is the first example of a large-scale cable-stayed bridge in Scotland and is recognised for its structural simplicity, economy of materials and slender appearance.

It was designed and built during a period of substantial development in civil engineering and road infrastructure. It illustrates the aspirations for economic and social progress in Scottish society and is directly associated with the period of ambitious transformation of Scotland's modern infrastructure during the 1960s.

The Erskine Bridge is one of only three road bridges in Scotland with a main span exceeding 300 metres. Its minimalistic single-cable design remains exceptionally rare for large-scale road bridges. On completion, the Erskine Bridge is understood to have had the longest span of this type in the world. The appearance of many bridges on this scale have been altered by later alteration and engineering works. The largely unchanged appearance of the Erskine Bridge contributes to its special interest.