x2 - Mark is absolutely the most interesting and most trustworthy guest. There's entirely too many 'optimists' on this channel. 3 years of being told by everyone how Russia's defeat will be happening any moment now has been eye-watering. Mark is substantially more knowledgeable and more sober. I fear that Kursk is going to be something we look back on as a blunder. I think Mark's assessment of it as a hedge against Trump winning is correct. But it also substantially weakened their hold on their own territory. That sort of 'trade' setup seems smart, until you realize Putin cares alot less about 10km2 of Russian territory than Ukraine cares about 1km2 of it's own. This strategy might have worked if Putin had panicked. But he didn't. And now Kursk is an albatross.
How exactly making from Ukraine enternal battlefield. But people in Ukraine don't want die for that. They want as normal people runaway from endless war. Human body not created for war they dying.Support for Ukrainian population it's when territory of Ukraine accept in NATO and EU and change policy or kremlins. One hand support Ukraine other buying kremlin resources for support russian war in Ukraine
@@samimurtomaki5534 🇺🇦❗❗❗Саме ти кремлін без здорового глузду та раціональності. Чого ти не поряд з нами в Україні? Ти людина чи бот без емпатії до життя.
You really attract powerful people, here. Lovely learning with you and your guests. Keep it up, Jonathan! Pootler is going down at incredible speed. I wish people could see and act accordingly.
The problem for Putin is that the more that he identifies with his escapade then the more the impact upon him if it doesn't turn out in glory It's almost impossible for Putin to avoid an existential crisis
Never met a bunch of people so divorced from objective reality as the supporters of the Kiev Neo Nazis .its done the jigs up its now the end game how many forms do you need reality in🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺
I have to agree about Karamurza. I was in tears when he was sent to the Gulag, but when exchanged through the release of real murderers he talked to the western world what we had to do for Russia now, which made me think shut up, if we have to help anyone right now its the Ukranians.
I don't think that he understood how much people in Europe and USA had changed their mind about Russia and Putin after he got into prison, and it will probably take a little time. I'm trying to stay positive about the ordinary citizens of Russia, but I hope they can start making some noise and complain about the disturbing situation in Ukraine Slava Ukraine from Scandinavia
Thanks for that - Mark always makes complex topics seem like they were actually simple. The discussion about why the US isn't allowing the use of longer range weapons made more sense than anything else I have heard.
I LOVE the idea of crowdfunding a redux of the Russian 'Puppets' satire mocking the likes of Putin, Kadyrov, Shoigu & co.with, of course, cameos by the Ghost of Prigohzin...
Recreate scene from Downfall where Hitler goes apoplectic substituting Putin in a fit of rage because Zelinsky went diving off Crimea and found REAL ancient artifacts.
I’m sorry puppets says someone who supports a country though not for much longer that is totally owned by Washington and Black Rock who’s Neo Nazi elite are allowed to steal half the money as long as ordinary Ukrainians are forced to die for hedge funds and Neo liberal ideology that has now as slwsys dead ended. Ukrainenato will be lucky if Russia allies it even to be a western Ukrainian Nazi rump🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺🤣🤣
Thank you! An excellent interview!!! I would give as counterexamples to that "ru gangsta economy" the stories in Central and Eastern Europe of companies such as Allegro and CCC and (soon) Zabka to enter Warsaw's stock market! Most were created within a world with massive capitals, all had "big money stories" behind them yet... All have had a transition into the open market (read stock market) rather... "boring" (read a la wall street)... My point is, ru is just not there! We cannot talk about ru and expect from ru the same as we do with countries based on the rule of law!
I always keep an eye out for Mark Galeotti, he's the person I trust the most when it comes to understanding Russia and its 'manoeuvres'. Thanks Jonathan, another great interview.
Moscow horde´s war record :- 1856 defeated by Britain and France 1905 defeated by Japan 1917 defeated by Germany 1920 defeated by Poland, Finland, Estonia and all Baltic states 1939 defeated by Finland 1969 defeated by China 1989 defeated by Afghanistan 1989 defeated in the Cold War. 1996 defeated by Chechnya 2022 defeated by Ukraine WW2 won USA/Britain , meanwhile Stalin's officers were shot or sent to the Gulags. Millions went to the Gulags, including Solzhenitsyn Moscow's only victories come from invading smaller countries :- a) Hungary 1956 b) Czechoslovakia 1968 c) Moldova 1992 d) Georgia 2008
I have to argue with Mark when it comes to the "West" being willing to "allow" Ukraine to lose, territory or otherwise to keep the Russian government (Puddin' et al) from falling. That's an unacceptable outcome for the Ukranian people, the Baltics States and certainly not an outcome that will keep Russia contained or satisfied. Why my disagreement? The simple understanding of what international laws, humanitarian and sovereignty, especially. If we in the collective West abrogate our own responsibility, our own standards, then we're the weakened countries, along with essentially shrugging away more behaviour like Russia has shown. No. This is definitely NOT acceptable.
Our own standards. Do you mean threats invasion regime change and blackmail or democracy until it’s the wrong result. Why are we allowed to have spheres of influence thousands of miles away but Russia can’t on her own borders. Let’s post some Chinese troops on the Scottish Borders. Exactly. Talking nonsense in fact my 5 year old has more grasp of reality. Time to grow up chum
@@marinkovacevic8732 In the 1990s, Serbians had been making war on all the other people of the disintegrated Yugoslavia. This involved mass murder and ethnic cleansing. The Serbs decided to kill or expel all the Albanians in Kosovo. That was not permitted. Do you declare yourself here as a supporter of genocide?
@@pashakdescilly7517 1990 and 1999 are not the same. First, looks like you favour international law when it suits you (just like the West) and second, West dismantled Yugoslavia. using word genocide while even West did not declare genocide is a cheap try to get your point. But you can sell that someone younger.
@@marinkovacevic8732 'west did not declare genocide' That's a bs statement. It was happening. It got stopped. Is the ending of a planned genocide not a good thing?
The interesting thing about Russia….we often think of smallish (geographically) countries like the UK, France, Japan, etc., as being the dominant city, with a country being attached….yet Russia has to be the largest country (both population and geographically) that is so dominated by one city…
But the city in Muscovia is going bankrupt... they know it, are freaking out and doubling down on violence. Buying weapons instead of producing and exporting them, prices of oil going down, their rafineries busted, importing refined fuel and everything because everybody is either dead of in the war machine... lol Muscovia is going down.
I don’t agree that we did harm in the 1990s. We didn’t owe USSR nor Russia anything. They dug their own grave and some in the west may have been opportunistic but that’s freedom. The west, if anything, was too supportive and forgave too much - again, not an act of harm.
Another cretin living in an alternative universe. The aware no why America and its western poodles hate Putin. They wanted another alcoholic Yeltsin so they could rape Russia of all its natural resources like the global south and so the hedge funds could move in.didnt work out at all did it and with the global south lead by China and Russia on the move it’s over for the West .Too kind and understanding.Clown🤡🤡🤡🤡🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🇷🇺.
Agreed. The huge amount of Western aid and investment that flowed into Russia was a complete and utter waste. I was there to see how it was squandered and misappropriated.
Most people who invested looking to "take advantage" lost the shirts off of their backs too. If anything Russia should have been held to pay back its debts as well as repayments to the countries it ravaged. Russia was always going to turn into the best it is from the start.
Stop stating 40% is the total for mil spending in the federal budget. It’s 70% min. w/ 30% of the budget “classified” (which = defense, the soldiers being signed for $$$ paid for at the regional level rather the federal level and there are endless expenses that have resulted from the war that are not designated as defense spending, which include repairing damaged infrastructure, medical care and subsidies for maimed soldiers, etc.
Once again a wealth of information which I could follow easily and I must also say (with a guilty feeling) it was quite "entertaining " . . . . and I might add for me it is always an English language lessen too. Thank You
Why stop there? Rus should get back to where it came from. Native peoples of Baltia, Parma, Urals, Siberia, Altay, Mongolia and Far East should be free from Slavs and their Rus masters.
The defence Industrial Complex - which pays its workers well - probably employs no more than a million people - but that's not many out of 140 million people.
As far as Kursk, the land is definitely a bargaining chip. the repulsion of the Russians from Crimea is totally dependant in the retaining that land. They need to hold on to it.
Freezing the conflict would work in russias favour? Man that’s delusional Ukraine is in Almost full retrograde across the whole of the front. Troops in some cases have never been rotated out.
It is reported that the US is able to veto storm shadow deployment because the missile contains certain American hardware or software. What is stopping Ukraine reverse engineering these components and fitting them instead of the USA ones
@@guido_aka_guy. Remembering that Ukraine was one of the major centers of Soviet engineering. Those guys may be old but there skills can be taught and used.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
One of my favorite guests. Thanks Jonathan. Its great to see how much your channel has grown.
x2 - Mark is absolutely the most interesting and most trustworthy guest. There's entirely too many 'optimists' on this channel. 3 years of being told by everyone how Russia's defeat will be happening any moment now has been eye-watering. Mark is substantially more knowledgeable and more sober.
I fear that Kursk is going to be something we look back on as a blunder. I think Mark's assessment of it as a hedge against Trump winning is correct. But it also substantially weakened their hold on their own territory. That sort of 'trade' setup seems smart, until you realize Putin cares alot less about 10km2 of Russian territory than Ukraine cares about 1km2 of it's own. This strategy might have worked if Putin had panicked. But he didn't. And now Kursk is an albatross.
Yes. Seems to me there should be more explicit emphasis that US/EU support for Ukraine is a national security issue, not a “foreign aid” issue.
How exactly making from Ukraine enternal battlefield. But people in Ukraine don't want die for that. They want as normal people runaway from endless war. Human body not created for war they dying.Support for Ukrainian population it's when territory of Ukraine accept in NATO and EU and change policy or kremlins. One hand support Ukraine other buying kremlin resources for support russian war in Ukraine
@@user-ghv23ggv Let me guess: you are either a bot or dyslexic.
@@user-ghv23ggv " Saddam Putsein the Great Loser" is rapidly sending Mongol - Muscovite empire back to 15c borders .
@@user-ghv23ggv Sure cremlin, what ever 😂
@@samimurtomaki5534 🇺🇦❗❗❗Саме ти кремлін без здорового глузду та раціональності. Чого ти не поряд з нами в Україні? Ти людина чи бот без емпатії до життя.
You really attract powerful people, here. Lovely learning with you and your guests. Keep it up, Jonathan! Pootler is going down at incredible speed. I wish people could see and act accordingly.
Mark, is possibly the most knowledgeable and realistic commentator on Ukraine/russia…Timothy Snider is another…
You've been absolutely prolific with the interviews recently, bravo.
The problem for Putin is that the more that he identifies with his escapade then the more the impact upon him if it doesn't turn out in glory
It's almost impossible for Putin to avoid an existential crisis
He's done, just wait and see.
We saw this a year or so ago. Hard times ahead .@@PandemoniumMeltDown
@@swarfify Indeed. Prepare.
Never met a bunch of people so divorced from objective reality as the supporters of the Kiev Neo Nazis .its done the jigs up its now the end game how many forms do you need reality in🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺
Maybe Trump's plan to end the Ukrainian Russian war is to offer Putin political asylum in the US.
I have to agree about Karamurza. I was in tears when he was sent to the Gulag, but when exchanged through the release of real murderers he talked to the western world what we had to do for Russia now, which made me think shut up, if we have to help anyone right now its the Ukranians.
He was talking more sense soon after, I hope someone set him straight but I wouldnt count on it sticking if it even happened.
He'd been kept in solitary for 11 months straight. Didn't expect to live. Has changed his message since his return back into life.
indeed, I was very concerned/rather shocked how he spoke...
Ukrainians population it's victims of war and genocide?
I don't think that he understood how much people in Europe and USA had changed their mind about Russia and Putin after he got into prison, and it will probably take a little time.
I'm trying to stay positive about the ordinary citizens of Russia, but I hope they can start making some noise and complain about the disturbing situation in Ukraine
Slava Ukraine from Scandinavia
My Sundays are punctuated by Mark's In Moscow's Shadows show and Perun's powerpoint presentations
a fellow person of culture, i see
Mark Galeotti is an expert whose opinion I trust.
..meh…
🤣🤣🤣🤣
not always, but mostly with me. He is a great scholar.
You squib
Ok rus-bot. No one who actually speaks English would have said that, that way.
Mark Galeotti is always one of the most lucid minds anywhere.
Great conversation!
Galeotti is a beast of a brain!
You are clearly offending beasts!
Great interview Jonathan and good to see a "heavy hitter" on your channel
Loving the Mark Galeotti and Silicon Curtain crossover
Happy to say I just made my first contribution to the doc / aid delivery project.
Et moi! That film can have a very powerful impact in assisting Ukraine🤗😁
Me too!
Thnx both!!!! Loved it! ❤❤❤
🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇿🇦
Great work - thanks for
WooHoo Mark is back 😊
Great to have you full time on the channel, you do a great job
Thank you, Jonathan and Mark Galeotti, for another wonderful discussion.
🇺🇦 Перемоги та миру всім українцям! 🇺🇦
Wooo! In Mark we trust
Yessss Galeotti is the best 🎉
yess, after Al Capone Galeotti is sure the best
@@samoferluga9072Fanny
A very intersting and informative conversation. I'm looking forward to see Mark Galeotti as guest again some time.
Great discussion as usual.
Great episode, as ever! Thank you very much for your stand in the informational war we‘re in!
👍👍👍
Mark, Mark, Mark! Yay....
👍👍👍
Thanks for that - Mark always makes complex topics seem like they were actually simple. The discussion about why the US isn't allowing the use of longer range weapons made more sense than anything else I have heard.
Thank you. Gorgeous discussion
I never wait to the end, I click like in the beginning!
👍👍👍
I've just found this podcast. I'm delighted. Fantastic content and expert guests. Great work!
Great channel, and a great guest 👍
Excellent guest! Thank you!
Thx great work both of you!
Thx Guys great work both of you!
Very insightful and informative discussion. Thank you Silicon Curtain.
Thank you very much Jonathan and Mark!
thank you both
thanks for your work
Listen to Mark's podcast every time he posts! Thank you Jonathan for having him on! Slave Ukraine🇺🇦🇺🇸
Great interview
Excellent analysis across a range of related topics.
Thanks!
25min: real insight, thank you.
First time in history that it’s accepted for one invading country to bomb them but not the other way around… America has fallen for this fallacy…
With all your shows flaws, I still love your show!
Was really interesting in many details !
Quite like the ramble, many thanks
Thanks!
Thank you Jonathon & Galleotti.
I LOVE the idea of crowdfunding a redux of the Russian 'Puppets' satire mocking the likes of Putin, Kadyrov, Shoigu & co.with, of course, cameos by the Ghost of Prigohzin...
It could do so much to undermine the ‘bunker dwarf’
@@SiliconCurtain Ghost of Prigozhin knocking on bunker door, loaf of bread in hand: "Did someone order a palianitsyia?"
Recreate scene from Downfall where Hitler goes apoplectic substituting Putin in a fit of rage because Zelinsky went diving off Crimea and found REAL ancient artifacts.
Ghostwritten by Mark Galleotti of course
I’m sorry puppets says someone who supports a country though not for much longer that is totally owned by Washington and Black Rock who’s Neo Nazi elite are allowed to steal half the money as long as ordinary Ukrainians are forced to die for hedge funds and Neo liberal ideology that has now as slwsys dead ended. Ukrainenato will be lucky if Russia allies it even to be a western Ukrainian Nazi rump🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺🤣🤣
Thank you for contining to supply us all with this wonderfully put together information. 😅 I do appreciate and enjoy your work. Keep it up sir. 😅
Great to hear from you and Mark. Keep it up!
Yes, every country works for its own benefit, the important question though is whether they do so with a zero-sum or a win-win mentality.
We love you dearly
"Sportsmen" Mr Galeotti is so very generous.
those last few minutes were incredible,,,, well said
Awesome podcast. Mark is on point constantly. Im signing up to both of you
My fav speakers on Ukraine matters.
Thank you! An excellent interview!!! I would give as counterexamples to that "ru gangsta economy" the stories in Central and Eastern Europe of companies such as Allegro and CCC and (soon) Zabka to enter Warsaw's stock market!
Most were created within a world with massive capitals, all had "big money stories" behind them yet... All have had a transition into the open market (read stock market) rather... "boring" (read a la wall street)...
My point is, ru is just not there! We cannot talk about ru and expect from ru the same as we do with countries based on the rule of law!
This is brilliant- thank you for what you do
Thanks guys 😄. Wild berries 🤔. I've heard that name before
I love Galeotti
loving jailbirds (galeotti in italian) it's very 50's ... like McCarthyism....
I always keep an eye out for Mark Galeotti, he's the person I trust the most when it comes to understanding Russia and its 'manoeuvres'. Thanks Jonathan, another great interview.
I see Galeotti in a YT video title, I click
Absolute favorite Guest!!! - Mark Galeotti🎉❤
thanks 👍🌞
Mark your presentations are so informative and interesting
Great episode
Moscow horde´s war record :-
1856 defeated by Britain and France
1905 defeated by Japan
1917 defeated by Germany
1920 defeated by Poland, Finland, Estonia and all Baltic states
1939 defeated by Finland
1969 defeated by China
1989 defeated by Afghanistan
1989 defeated in the Cold War.
1996 defeated by Chechnya
2022 defeated by Ukraine
WW2 won USA/Britain , meanwhile Stalin's officers were shot or sent to the Gulags. Millions went to the Gulags, including Solzhenitsyn
Moscow's only victories come from invading smaller countries :-
a) Hungary 1956
b) Czechoslovakia 1968
c) Moldova 1992
d) Georgia 2008
Winners exp-1
I thought Finland in 1944 had to give up some land valuable in minerals to Stalin for a peace treaty? Am I wrong?
Summay
@@jaimepatena7372 Russia had to give up two million men in exchange for 20.000 Finns and 10% of Finnish bogs, and one mine. Easy prey.
@@jaimepatena7372 Gave up Karelia for a ceasefire. Still, ruSSia failed to defeat the much smaller Finland.
Good on you
We need better Battery R&D because right now the methods of storing energy is at best, a little risky.
I have to argue with Mark when it comes to the "West" being willing to "allow" Ukraine to lose, territory or otherwise to keep the Russian government (Puddin' et al) from falling.
That's an unacceptable outcome for the Ukranian people, the Baltics States and certainly not an outcome that will keep Russia contained or satisfied.
Why my disagreement? The simple understanding of what international laws, humanitarian and sovereignty, especially.
If we in the collective West abrogate our own responsibility, our own standards, then we're the weakened countries, along with essentially shrugging away more behaviour like Russia has shown.
No. This is definitely NOT acceptable.
Our own standards. Do you mean threats invasion regime change and blackmail or democracy until it’s the wrong result. Why are we allowed to have spheres of influence thousands of miles away but Russia can’t on her own borders. Let’s post some Chinese troops on the Scottish Borders. Exactly. Talking nonsense in fact my 5 year old has more grasp of reality. Time to grow up chum
Kosovo? Any you talk about international law?
@@marinkovacevic8732 In the 1990s, Serbians had been making war on all the other people of the disintegrated Yugoslavia. This involved mass murder and ethnic cleansing. The Serbs decided to kill or expel all the Albanians in Kosovo. That was not permitted. Do you declare yourself here as a supporter of genocide?
@@pashakdescilly7517 1990 and 1999 are not the same. First, looks like you favour international law when it suits you (just like the West) and second, West dismantled Yugoslavia. using word genocide while even West did not declare genocide is a cheap try to get your point. But you can sell that someone younger.
@@marinkovacevic8732 'west did not declare genocide'
That's a bs statement. It was happening. It got stopped. Is the ending of a planned genocide not a good thing?
Thank you for your great show, and thank you as always, Mark.
One of the best commentators on Russia.
A hahahaha!!!! Repayment in mandarins… he assumes the fruits not the imperial bureaucrats!
So good!😁
😁
Always great to have this particular guest tame the host's (not sure of his name) wild-eyed takes. :)
The interesting thing about Russia….we often think of smallish (geographically) countries like the UK, France, Japan, etc., as being the dominant city, with a country being attached….yet Russia has to be the largest country (both population and geographically) that is so dominated by one city…
But the city in Muscovia is going bankrupt... they know it, are freaking out and doubling down on violence. Buying weapons instead of producing and exporting them, prices of oil going down, their rafineries busted, importing refined fuel and everything because everybody is either dead of in the war machine... lol Muscovia is going down.
And your point like this channel. There isn’t one🤡
@@paulstewart4195 huh?
Galeotti is the best guest with Konstantin!
Excellent convo, gents. Duzhe dyakuyumo!
I don’t agree that we did harm in the 1990s. We didn’t owe USSR nor Russia anything. They dug their own grave and some in the west may have been opportunistic but that’s freedom. The west, if anything, was too supportive and forgave too much - again, not an act of harm.
Another cretin living in an alternative universe. The aware no why America and its western poodles hate Putin. They wanted another alcoholic Yeltsin so they could rape Russia of all its natural resources like the global south and so the hedge funds could move in.didnt work out at all did it and with the global south lead by China and Russia on the move it’s over for the West .Too kind and understanding.Clown🤡🤡🤡🤡🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🇷🇺.
Agreed. The huge amount of Western aid and investment that flowed into Russia was a complete and utter waste. I was there to see how it was squandered and misappropriated.
Most people who invested looking to "take advantage" lost the shirts off of their backs too. If anything Russia should have been held to pay back its debts as well as repayments to the countries it ravaged. Russia was always going to turn into the best it is from the start.
@@evulclown you may note also that Russia failed to pay back one cent of its war loans, used to defeat the Nazis, after Russia had changed sides.
That's the Russian narrative. Always the victim. So much Western hope and treasure went into planes and dachas.
57:11 I would argue that Yashin has no less charisma then Navalny, but he is also alive and free (thanks to US and Germany)
Navaly another Neo Nazi -have you actually read anything he has written thought not-on the CIA pay roll 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Thx for the update
Stop stating 40% is the total for mil spending in the federal budget. It’s 70% min. w/ 30% of the budget “classified” (which = defense, the soldiers being signed for $$$ paid for at the regional level rather the federal level and there are endless expenses that have resulted from the war that are not designated as defense spending, which include repairing damaged infrastructure, medical care and subsidies for maimed soldiers, etc.
Yes, it's more closer to 200%.
Once again a wealth of information which I could follow easily and I must also say (with a guilty feeling) it was quite "entertaining " . . . . and I might add for me it is always an English language lessen too. Thank You
" Saddam Putsein the Great Loser" is rapidly sending Mongol - Muscovite empire back to 15c borders .
Why stop there? Rus should get back to where it came from. Native peoples of Baltia, Parma, Urals, Siberia, Altay, Mongolia and Far East should be free from Slavs and their Rus masters.
The defence Industrial Complex - which pays its workers well - probably employs no more than a million people - but that's not many out of 140 million people.
Tx prof galeoti
It’s Mark’s empathy for Russian peoples that makes his opinions and comments so poignant.
Wildberries fight = Bonnie vs Clyde. Bonnie should enlist Shoigu as her proxy against Kadyrov.
lol
The real result was the Chechnians won the 2nd Chechnya war they were clever and let the Russians keep their face.
"SHOIGU! GERASIMOV! Where is my book!?"
Like at the end? I'll just go ahead and like it right now! 😀
Contributed for the film from 🇦🇺
Ohhh late, but daaamn! We really are seeing the bad old days of the fallen USSR Russia 1990s.
nice!
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦💪
The U.S. seems quite happy to see Russia exhaust itself in this blunderingly stupid war ,
Fascinating interview 8:06
Wow. When a divorce results in a shootout. I empathize. Dear god, I get it.
As far as Kursk, the land is definitely a bargaining chip. the repulsion of the Russians from Crimea is totally dependant in the retaining that land. They need to hold on to it.
Freezing the conflict would work in russias favour? Man that’s delusional Ukraine is in Almost full retrograde across the whole of the front. Troops in some cases have never been rotated out.
It is reported that the US is able to veto storm shadow deployment because the missile contains certain American hardware or software. What is stopping Ukraine reverse engineering these components and fitting them instead of the USA ones
They are much faster designing brand new weapons that they have 100% Control of.
@@guido_aka_guy. Remembering that Ukraine was one of the major centers of Soviet engineering. Those guys may be old but there skills can be taught and used.