media Daily Bulletin.
Ball
One of the major political events in early February in American foreign policy was the sighting of a Chinese balloon in the skies of the United States.
Recall that on February 4, the US military shot down a Chinese reconnaissance vehicle while it was in US airspace off the southeast coast of South Carolina.
The balloon was discovered in late January, but US military command has determined that its drop above the earth poses an undue risk to people over a wide area due to its size, load and flight altitude. . Therefore, in accordance with the President’s instructions, the Pentagon has developed options for the safe destruction of a balloon over territorial waters.
On Thursday, February 9, President Joe Biden said he did not believe the recent flight of a Chinese spy balloon over US territory led to a serious security breach.
“There are no major security flaws here,” Biden said. “It’s a violation of international law. It’s our airspace. And once our airspace is in, we can do whatever we want with it.
“It was a giant thing. What if it falls on a school in the countryside? What if it falls? I told them: as soon as you can knock it down, shoot him down. They made a wise decision. They got him out of the water and lifted most of the pieces, and now everything is in order,” Biden said.
The United States said the balloon fleet is operated by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and is used for espionage purposes, equipped with high-tech equipment designed to collect classified information from around the world.
Beijing, in turn, said the US accusations over the ball were part of an “information war”.
For its part, the House of Representatives has already unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the violation of American airspace.
stellar link
Another big news this week was SpaceX’s (surprising to many) announcement to limit the operation of Starlink terminals in Ukraine.
SpaceX management said the use of a satellite communications system to control Ukrainian drones is not covered by the contract between Elon Musk’s company and Ukrainian authorities, stressing that the service should not be used in offensive operations. We talked about it in more detail on our Instagram.
At this point, it’s unclear if SpaceX President Gwenn Shotwell’s comments were initiated by SpaceX founder, CEO and chief engineer Elon Musk.
However, it is known that there is no interruption in the work of Starlink in Ukraine at the moment. This was announced by Ukrainian Minister of Digital Transformation Mikhail Fedorov. A ministry spokesman familiar with the situation said Thursday’s inspection showed no signs of problems with the operation of Starlink in towns near the front lines.
Direct speech
There is no change in Russian public opinion regarding the war in Ukraine, believes the scientific director of the Levada Center, doctor of philosophy Lev Gudkov. According to him, everything depends on the situation at the front.
He also noted the deepening of the process of self-isolation from Russian society, caused by a sense of the injustice of the war, its criminal nature. It seems to him that it locks people into their own shell. Nevertheless, the sociologist does not assess the situation as unpromising, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
About this, and not only, Lev Gudkov spoke in an interview with the Russian service of media.
Investigations
This week, Important Stories, Mediazona and other publications published investigations into how Roskomnadzor controls internet postings, decides who to list as foreign agents and plans to use neural networks and machine learning. to spy on dissidents.
This investigation is based on leaked data from the archives of Roskomnadzor’s subsidiary, the Main Radio Frequency Center. The Belarusian hacker group “Cyberpartisans” managed to obtain them in November 2022. Alesya Marokhovskaya, co-author of the Important Stories survey, spoke in an interview with media about how the material was worked and news things become known.
