I heard Joel Skousen on sightings.com last night. He thinks y2k will be a 4-5 and so has put a Russian Masterplan attack in the middle of the next decade. He sees y2k as a blessing as it has helped many people prepare for this attack.

I agree with him that those who are preparing will be glad they did. I don't agree with his timing. Russia will not be y2k compliant by 2000. The implications of this are clear. (I am still holding my breath until the August 22nd GPS rollover.) And if we do get by that date without incident, I have yet to see evidence that the GPS system is y2k compliant. Missiles won't fly unless it is.

Regardless of what Russia's military plans are....it is obvious what is going to happen to its economy (what's left of it) and their infrastructure.

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Most Russian computers not Y2K-ready (USA Today, July 12)

MOSCOW (AP) - Only one-third of Russia's vital computer systems are ready for the millennium, and the government probably won't have the money to fix the rest in time, officials said Monday. Finance Ministry officials told a Cabinet meeting on Monday that Russia needs at least $187 million to prepare its computers for the year 2000, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

The new estimates were dramatically lower than previous figures, which said Russia would need $1 billion to $3 billion to fight the millennium bug. The Finance Ministry did not explain the discrepancy.

Still, the money will be hard to find, and Moscow will probably have to give priority to defense and security sectors while withholding money from other agencies, Finance Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said, according to ITAR-Tass.

The Defense Ministry needs $13 million to fix the problem, and the Interior Ministry needs $6 million, Kasyanov said.

Russian government agencies have 28,000 vital computer systems, one-third of which are ready for the Year 2000 changeover, said Alexander Ivanov, head of the State Communications Committee.

He said many of Russia's government agencies don't fully appreciate the risks. ''The situation with resolving the Y2K bug in Russia provokes concern,'' Ivanov told the meeting, according to the Interfax news agency.

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-- BB (peace2u@bellatlantic.net), July 14, 1999

Answers

[polly mode on]

Who cares? They don't really use computers for anything important. Besides, they're practically third-world: they're used to weeks without electricity and water and food and air. And it doesn't matter to anybody outside Russia, anyway. There's an Iron Curtain around every country that keeps them all separated so that anything bad that happens in one can't affect any others.

[polly mode off]

-- Lane Core Jr. (elcore@sgi.net), July 14, 1999.

Bottom line. When Russia falls apart in 2000, they MUST either:

A) Accept NATO or UN presence in their country to prevent total internal annialation(sp)

B) Start a war(because that, historically gets countries out of the crapper)

Take into account the current mood of the Bear concerning the West. Answer B is a VERY real possibility. For those of you who are thinking about using the old--"Russia's military is shot, they can't even pay them, etc...". Look at Milo's army--how tiny were they? Yet, they gave us a pretty good run for our money(and their blood). As far as paying soldiers, they can take care of that AFTER the war---just like in Yugo.

-- CygnusXI (noburnt@toast.net), July 14, 1999.

Pardon me, but I believe the headline should either read - 1/3 WILL be ready or 2/3 WILL NOT be ready... either way - worse than what your header implies..."Only one-third of Russia's vital computer systems are ready for the millennium..."

-- Valkyrie (anon@please.net), July 14, 1999.

[ For Educational Purposes Only ]

7/20/99 -- 6:48 PM

Electricity to Russian Air Defenses in Far East Cut Over Debts

MOSCOW (AP) - An unpaid electricity bill led to the temporary loss of radar in Russia's Far East, officials said Tuesday.

The cutoff temporarily incapacitated military radars in the Khabarovsk region on the border with China, local air defense chief Anatoly Nogovitsyn said.

Power was also cut intermittently for the past three days to other regional military bases, including units of the Strategic Missile Forces, which control nuclear weapons in the area.

The central command of the Strategic Missile Forces later said in a statement that the cutoff had only affected support facilities, not combat units.

It blamed the government for the cuts, saying that the Defense Ministry had received only 10 percent of funds allocated in this year's budget for electricity payments.

The military has run up $5.6 million in power and heating debts to the local power company, Khabarovskenergo, Interfax said.

Energy officials have repeatedly cut off power to different branches of the armed forces to get them to pay their bills, even though President Boris Yeltsin's administration has banned power cuts to military installations.

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The world is falling apart in very dangerous places, JIT for Y2K.
Some revengeful terrorist opportunist is going to take advantage.
Pray for peace.

3~0 3~0 3~0 3~0 3~0 3~0 3~0 3~0 3~0 3~0 3~0

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), July 20, 1999.