Brian McDonald
@BrianMcDonaldIE • 27,545 subscribers
Irish. Long time Russia-based journalist. Interested in facts and objectivity. Not interested in ideology or wishful thinking.
Shorts
Videos
Those afraid of heights, look away. A base jumper in Russia’s Ingushetia lost control almost immediately after opening his parachute, was spun through the air and carried towards the rocks. Convinced he was finished, he shouted: “That’s it, I’m f*cked.” He was saved by landing in a snowdrift and escaped without injury.
Brian McDonald995,591 Aufrufe • vor 1 Tag
Russian media is noting that Putin appears to have received a higher-level airport reception in Beijing than Trump did last week. Putin was personally greeted by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, a serving Politburo member, whereas Trump was met by Vice President Han Zheng, who no longer sits on either the Politburo or the Communist Party’s Central Committee. Some Chinese protocol analysts explain that sending a Politburo member to the airport signals that Beijing considers the visitor an especially important guest.
Brian McDonald2,650,847 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
RIP Glen Hansard, one of the leading figures in an unusually rich generation of Dublin-based musicians who seemed, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, to have established an informal republic of song between Wexford Street and the Rathmines Road. They included Gemma Hayes, Paddy Casey, David Kitt, Damien Rice, Lisa Hannigan, Dave Odlum and the late Mic Christopher, along with many others who possessed the talent but never received the luck, or chose the wrong themes. Such as the guy who once handed me a demo tape filled with strangely sympathetic songs about the Dublin crime boss Martin “The General” Cahill. A great many emerged from the city’s busking tradition, learning their craft in public, and making the city sound better than it smelled or looked. Dublin was different then, it was poorer, rougher around the edges, but with room for young people to be ambitious and half-broke while they discovered whether they had a song or a story in them, and it was also much more fun. Today’s eye-watering rents and prices would scatter such a scene before it had time to form. Cities often boast about the culture they produce while their officials set about destroying the conditions that made its production possible and Hansard and his contemporaries belonged to a Dublin that has largely vanished, and mores the pity.
Brian McDonald20,939 Aufrufe • vor 9 Stunden
Sergey Lavrov says the current Russian government’s goal is to ensure that “no one even thinks they can advise us on how to organise life inside Russia.” He said Russia’s objective was to remain an “independent power” and an “independent civilisation,” adding that Moscow wanted to build a new international order alongside countries such as China and India while hoping the West would eventually be willing to engage “on an equal footing.”
Brian McDonald42,623 Aufrufe • vor 1 Tag
North Korean street cleaners are too expensive, says the mayor of Russia's Orenburg. The city has been hiring workers from Senegal since spring because locals don’t want the job on the city’s terms of about $730 a month, a six-day week and a one-hour lunch break. Mayor Albert Yumadilov says he's happy with the Senegalese workers because they are willing to do hard work even at weekends. He added that the city tried last year to bring in North Korean workers, but failed because North Koreans would not come for $730 a month. According to him, they earn two to three times more, roughly $1,460 to $2,200 a month, in other Russian regions that have agreements with Pyongyang.
Brian McDonald454,279 Aufrufe • vor 20 Tagen
Horrifying scene in Russia's Voronezh: a drunk father reportedly lowered his underage son from a 7th-floor balcony on a rope as some kind of “stunt” while friends filmed instead of stopping him. Prosecutors say it posed a real threat to the boy’s life. Police are investigating. The child, incredibly, wasn’t physically hurt.
Brian McDonald4,030,367 Aufrufe • vor 6 Monaten
Putin told reporters today that he does, in fact, read bloggers and social media channels, despite the long-standing claim that he barely uses the internet. “There are bloggers whom I sometimes watch with genuine interest,” he said. “Sometimes I’m even pleased, they get it exactly right.” Putin added that online channels are “not useless,” but claimed they contain “an enormous amount of informational garbage” and can easily mislead people without enough background knowledge. He said he still relies primarily on official sources, but makes his final judgments based on “the entire volume of information” that reaches him. It's an interesting detail given how often Kremlin officials and people close to Putin have said over the years that he doesn't personally use the internet in anything like the normal sense. Unless, of course, texts are printed out for him, or videos uploaded to TV. But that would be rather strange and cumbersome?
Brian McDonald70,767 Aufrufe • vor 4 Tagen
Sergey Lavrov says Boris Yeltsin “found the courage” (in December 1999) to step down early and transfer power to “the one person who, at that moment, was capable of preserving Russia.” He described Putin’s succession as a “historic turning point,” adding that it “probably means that Russia is under God’s protection” and that “when things become truly difficult, help comes to us from above.” Lavrov now joins other prominent Russian public figures, including Vladislav Surkov and filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov, in portraying Putin’s rise to power as an act of divine providence.
Brian McDonald29,273 Aufrufe • vor 1 Tag
![Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who died in 2022, warned more than a decade ago that the US would eventually strike Iran and predicted a fallout far bigger than Washington expects (my translation): "I’m the only one making predictions while everyone else stays quiet. So ask your questions now. I’ll be gone soon, and you won’t get another chance to hear the real answers. Then in 20 years you’ll say, 'You know, Mr Zhirinovsky was already telling us back then what we should’ve done, and we didn’t listen?' "So what’s their plan? Occupy another bunch of Arab countries, finish off Syria, then hit Iran by force. What’s the trigger here? Where is the pressure on Iran really coming from? It's under the banner of 'democratisation by force,' but in reality it’s about taking control of energy resources. Because the crisis everyone talks about as being in the future is already here." "The US needs to weaken China. If Iran is attacked, oil goes to $200 a barrel. China can’t handle that. The EU can’t either. One strike on Iran weakens both Europe and China at once. But then there’s Russia. How do you weaken Russia? Iranian refugees can only go one way [and that's] north. To the south is Syria, where a pro-American regime would already be in place. To the south is Iraq, where they’ve been fighting for years and can easily stir things up again. So north it is, through Azerbaijan."](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2027706733867462736/amplify_video_thumb/2027705745274216449/img/Z1AE2DX-MnRv0X07.jpg)
Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who died in 2022, warned more than a decade ago that the US would eventually strike Iran and predicted a fallout far bigger than Washington expects (my translation): "I’m the only one making predictions while everyone else stays quiet. So ask your questions now. I’ll be gone soon, and you won’t get another chance to hear the real answers. Then in 20 years you’ll say, 'You know, Mr Zhirinovsky was already telling us back then what we should’ve done, and we didn’t listen?' "So what’s their plan? Occupy another bunch of Arab countries, finish off Syria, then hit Iran by force. What’s the trigger here? Where is the pressure on Iran really coming from? It's under the banner of 'democratisation by force,' but in reality it’s about taking control of energy resources. Because the crisis everyone talks about as being in the future is already here." "The US needs to weaken China. If Iran is attacked, oil goes to $200 a barrel. China can’t handle that. The EU can’t either. One strike on Iran weakens both Europe and China at once. But then there’s Russia. How do you weaken Russia? Iranian refugees can only go one way [and that's] north. To the south is Syria, where a pro-American regime would already be in place. To the south is Iraq, where they’ve been fighting for years and can easily stir things up again. So north it is, through Azerbaijan."
Brian McDonald2,393,995 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten
A guy from Yekaterinburg has gone viral in Russia after waking up following a night out and discovering he was travelling to Siberia's Tyumen inside a freight train wagon full of coal. Still half-asleep and clearly horrified, he still found the professionalism to send his colleague a video message first explaining that he probably wouldn’t make it into work that day.
Brian McDonald982,401 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
People in southern Russia are reporting a surge in unusually aggressive Hyalomma ticks, which reportedly actively chase hosts instead of simply waiting in grass like ordinary forest ticks. Russian media say the large ticks have become particularly active across regions including Rostov, Krasnodar, Stavropol, Astrakhan and Kalmykia. The main concern is that Hyalomma ticks can carry Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, a potentially deadly disease with a high fatality rate if untreated. Some reports also claim the ticks are far less responsive to standard repellents than ordinary species.
Brian McDonald930,959 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
A surreal scene from St Petersburg: a Russian police officer briefly kept playing the VR game Beat Saber while his colleagues arrested a young Belarusian wanted back home for avoiding military conscription, 47news reports. The man was celebrating his birthday with friends. Staff say police had already come looking for him twice before.
Brian McDonald1,703,775 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten
Putin is currently meeting Vladimir Potanin, Russia’s richest or second-richest man, depending on which billionaire ranking you believe, at the Kremlin. The Nornickel chief told him that global demand for Russian metals remains steady, but sanctions have complicated logistics and sales as many countries refuse to buy them. You can assume the private part of the conversation will be more interesting.
Brian McDonald153,406 Aufrufe • vor 15 Tagen
A viral track repeating just two words,“Yanis Varoufakis,” is spreading across Russia's clubland. Created by a Moscow DJ, the tune has taken off among zoomers, with critics linking its appeal to a revival of 90s/early 2000s techno. The irony is that most listeners likely have no idea who Yanis Varoufakis is, they just like the rhythm of the name.
Brian McDonald1,355,874 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten
Marco Rubio says the peace outline agreed by Putin and Trump in Anchorage has failed because Ukraine rejected it. Rubio said the proposal was unacceptable to Kiev at the time and is probably even less acceptable now. He added that any future settlement would therefore require “new suggestions, new ideas and new concepts.”
Brian McDonald57,626 Aufrufe • vor 7 Tagen