Bennett Murray

Master's student at @FletcherSchool. Previously reported in 🇺🇦. Was also once @dpa Vietnam bureau chief.

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

I spent the past week and a half in the Donbas, where I embedded with the 28th Mechanized Brigade in the Bakhmut direction. The shell hunger is acute, with FPV drones the only thing keeping the line steady. But Ukraine's grim determination continues.

https://t.co/ZG1klkVyWP

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@SpaghettiKozak @Waraboshi Well sort of. The in-game scroll clearly says Жар-птица at the top and he has no idea what that might mean. I think the scriptwriters assumed that Cyrillic is like Chinese characters, insofar that foreigners might be able to learn the language while bypassing basic literacy.

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@SpaghettiKozak One of my all-time favorites. 90% of the non-English is subtitled because the protagonist supposedly understands most of the languages spoken on the train. The exception is Serbian, the language of the main villians. I think they pretty much give up the game in their dialogue.

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@Lazarban @mikitaisbased There's no such thing as an ethnic Hercegovinian, nor will you ever see a road sign saying "Now entering Herzegovina." But if you say you're Hercegovinian, people in the Balkans will know where you're from.

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@nikicaga I got married in Serbia because it was the most central choice for our families to meet (US and Kazakhstan) and couldn't have been happier with our choice.

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@MoiDawg Doesn't quite look right. Colored tape would help. So would some novelty patches. The biggest issue is that Ukrainian soldiers are free to heavily customize their tactical clothing, so there's tons of variety in the field that'd be hard to capture in a game.

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@ASPertierra @TrueSlazac @luistr640poli The KR had been vowing to annex Kampuchea Krom from Vietnam even before they took power. The KR cadres were under NVA military command until 1973 or so but they already hated each other by 1975.

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@POMAHMOBA @Madame_Ennui Premium in this case means more expensive than substitutes. In the U.S., McDonald's at least historically was viewed as a place that the working poor could afford with some regularity, and that's just not the case in any other market of theirs I've seen (including Poland).

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@doctoradmiral @Arhivistka_LJ @yarotrof Until recently it was against the law for foreigners to serve as officers so they'd inevitably be led by a Ukrainian past the NCO level. The law has changed but I suspect it's mostly still the case.

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@Arhivistka_LJ @yarotrof I've never heard of any language crash course. They do place English-speaking Ukrainians (perhaps Spanish as well) around them to transmit orders and whatnot, but they often just have to live with the language barrier from what I've seen. Some of them pick stuff up on the fly.

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@SpaghettiKozak @Agapiy_ First thing that came to mind is my all-time favorite toad monument in Berdiansk. If the day ever comes, they can place it opposite of him.

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@LieutenantRusty @ingelramdecoucy I personally knew a member of a foreign parliament with US citizenship. The current legal precedent is that the only way to lose your citizenship is to file the paperwork at an overseas embassy, pay the fee, and go through with the final renunciation in person.

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@carlfranzen @bigblackjacobin I'm a grad student who graduated college in 2012 so I've lived in both worlds. AI is considered a perfectly acceptable research tool and I use it all the time. The problem is that the cheaters aren't even learning to apply the tech in novel ways. They're gaining nothing.

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@MiaTeller40313 @AABESEDAA Unfortunately I don't. In my quick search, I did find this video of Steve. More are probably out there somewhere.

https://t.co/cFHYQ6gCtr

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

My late friend Steve Martin prepping and smoking refined opium in the old Chinese style, with antique pipe and lamp.https://t.co/jEAo7Gts6n

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@ARaderVon @MazMHussain It's a popular destination for what I'm sure are mostly perfectly well-meaning halal tour groups. Beautiful mountainous countryside, lots of pretty old mosques, halal cuisine, etc. But, it also has a robust alcohol culture and probably some of those tourists get the wrong idea.

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@SpaghettiKozak @NataliaAntonova It's common to hear journalists and other noncombatants dick size about being X meters away from the Russians. Fucking hilarious hearing that come from a supposed fighter.

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@bigseb31213 @justincbzz Pretty much. Using smoke in that context amounts to marking your own position for enemy artillery spotters.

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@Szabadsag1956 Also, it's not totally crazy that Ukraine could get the bomb in that timeframe.

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@Szabadsag1956 I'm curious what the sweet spot amount of time for Russia to rearm would be, but four years feels like a pretty big gamble for them. Ukraine can do stuff too to prepare. Also, the continued existence of "Nazi Ukraine" without further "denazification" would make a mockery of Putin

[Bennett Murray @BDMurray]

@bengrossbg @flaminhottweets Very hard to compare. For instance, you can argue that the Taliban took almost twice as long as HTS, or you can take a different perspective and argue that they survived twice as long. The character of warfare in both countries was also very different.