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You see these from time to time in the government news for areas where the US is involved in covert operations. The contract postings are commonly for weapons procurement, logistics (trucking), and extraordinary interrogation (torture).
I'm fluent in Russian but Ukrainian sounds "Greek" to me.
P.S. Here DKM, today I accidentally came across the video that explains why Ukrainian can/can't be understood after Russian.
This video gives an overview of the history of Russian language, ( mentioning the common roots with Ukrainian and Belorussian.) This helps, but this background does not completely explains the situation, until we probably come to 5:24, where the "father of modern Russian language" A.S. Pushkin sorts out "diglossia" and makes the "low conversational language" a legitimate part of Russian.
Before I go any further - "DIGLOSSIA is a relatively stable language situation in which, in addition to the primary dialects of the language (which may include a standard or regional standards), there is a very divergent, highly codified (often grammatically more complex) superposed variety, the vehicle of a large and respected body of written literature, either of an earlier period or in another speech community, which is learned largely by formal education and is used for most written and formal spoken purposes but is not used by any sector of the community for ordinary conversation.[1]"
So to make the long story short, if you learn Russian as a foreign language, you learn the "high" version of it. With time you become familiar with the "middle" version of it ( assuming you have a lot of practice.) But you still most likely remain unfamiliar with the "low" version ( or "vernacular" version, to give it a fancy name.) But that's the version that gives the most clues about Ukrainian language, and that's why it's possible for native Russian speakers ( provided they are well familiar with the two lower levels,) to figure out Ukrainian.
And this basically explains as well why Russian speakers in Ukraine sound more educated overall, since their language is more academic ( and hence provides more outlets to academic knowledge, foreign including) than Ukrainian. It is no surprise that Ukrainian is regarded more of a language of the peasantry, since the Western Ukraine is predominantly agrarian, vs industrial East of the country.
I kinda always sensed that, but this video gave me more tangible explanation.
You see these from time to time in the government news for areas where the US is involved in covert operations. The contract postings are commonly for weapons procurement, logistics (trucking), and extraordinary interrogation (torture).
Russian aircraft regularly violate the airspace of European countries. Seems you would support shooting them down? I'm all for it but Europe are still believers in peace.
NATO aircraft also regularly violate the airspace of Russian Federation.
+
Media creates a tantrum, but reconnaissance aircraft are the usual work of military.
For example, tracks of US reconnaissance aircraft during the detention of Ukrainian ships.
RC-135:
Last edited by Maksim_Frolov; 12-03-2018 at 12:19 AM..
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