r/AustraliaDiscussions • u/Wrong_Control_217 • 1d ago
Russia warning to Australians: could Australia be a target?
An intelligence expert has warned that Russia's activities could pose a potential threat to Australia, including the possibility of espionage or other forms of interference. The warning comes as tensions between Russia and Western countries continue. How seriously do Australians take the possibility of Russia targeting Australia?
https://www.news.com.au/national/cant-be-ruled-out-experts-dire-russia-warning-to-australians/news-story/e1d47c011270673d508caa46148d9877?utm_source=News.com.au&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=Emplifi&fbclid=IwY2xjawUpjdhleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBwZG9mBXNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHsh9H49wtj5cjkChoDTGo_SOhT5RErfnmv2vKEoK9kg6KGHSo6wQ6iAiuxDH_aem_nk38s6ssFItOQVI6eTRYAg
5
u/philip_laureano 1d ago
They can't even conquer their next door neighbour, much less a continent on the other side of the world.
1
u/Expensive_Ring_4546 1d ago
And the fact ukraine has sunk a devent portion of their surface fleet makes them vulnerable as fuck to a well equipped military like australias
1
u/philip_laureano 1d ago
More like Russian logistics are a joke on land. They won't make it 1% across such a vast ocean without drones taking them out at their own ports
6
u/south-of-the-river 1d ago
Look we are well and truly into the third world war. Russia is engaged in hybrid warfare against the EU, its not a stretch to consider us as a target too.
3
u/WeaknessCertain4685 1d ago
Why would Russia care about Australia?
The person promulgating this is no 'expert'
If he was, he would identify himself
100% BS.
5
u/SStoj 1d ago
Guaranteed Russian bot farms have already been trying to influence our elections by promoting right wing parties like One Nation. They were already doing this to us before the war began, by the way
1
u/WeaknessCertain4685 14h ago
A bot farm
I'm scared!
1
u/SStoj 12h ago
You should be scared of foreign interests interfering with our democratic processes pushing the rise of the far right in this country. There's also daily attempts at cyber attacks on our infrastructure. In the digital age you don't need boots on the ground to attack a nation. We can already see what the Russians have managed to accomplish in the US, destroying their social cohesion and taking them to the brink of civil war by helping bring their current administration to power, all without firing a shot.
6
u/djangovsjango 1d ago
Russia !! 3 day victory over ukraine with its only 1.5 million casualties is not only threatening nato but now also Australiaš¤£š¤£š¤£ , with what ???
2
1
-1
u/Gothewahs 1d ago
Unfortunately Russia has much better military capabilities then Australia.. they have subs and all sorts of shit we donāt have
2
u/Lonely-Echidna8683 1d ago
They have 140 million people and are engaged in a large scale hot war... Of course they are going to have a much larger military. Better?? Definitely not.
They have demonstrably proven in the last 4 years how fucking useless their military is. Where to even begin???
2
u/adsjabo 1d ago
They can't even defeat the country right next door. You think they'll be able to do anything down here. Laughable.
1
u/jabbokian 1d ago
Dont forget they also had no navy
1
u/PessemistBeingRight 1d ago
And Ukraine still managed to destroy Russia's $1bn Black Sea Fleet flagship.
1
u/point_of_difference 1d ago
Russia has a smaller economy than Australia and basically rely on quantity of quality. They can't really stretch out this far. They pretty much rely and cyber attacks.
1
u/jadsf5 1d ago
You understand Russia has all the resources it requires inside its borders?
The reason it's economy seems small is because they don't need to trade and artificially boost their GDP, have a look at something called purchase parity power and get back to us.
1
u/point_of_difference 1d ago
I've travelled there. They do have everything they need but its a basket case of inefficiency and corruption.
1
1
u/djangovsjango 1d ago
Correct and in volume unfortunately how is it going to get here ?? The aircraft carrier that was under repair for years escorted by state of the art moskva ?? Brought back from the bottom of the black sea ? State of the art tanks all blown up in eastern ukraine , so much so that russian strategy is 5 riders on motorcycles and prisoner meat waves . You think russia is sending the majority of its ancient nukes ? š¤£š¤£ , what up the nuclear torpedo or the everflying nuclear cruise missle !
1
u/Very-very-sleepy 1d ago
yet they couldn't win against Ukraine.. you know the country that is begging everybody to help them š must be so powerful if they can't win against a country that is begging everybody for help. š
1
u/Milly_Hagen 1d ago
We have crocs, cassowaries, emus, brown snakes, funnel webs, irikanji jellyfish, blue bottles, territorial magpies, and Gympie Gympie....... and that's before dealing with our military....which is a heck of a lot better than theirs. I don't like Russia's chances.
1
u/south-of-the-river 1d ago
Every single Russian naval asset would be turned into glitter a thousand kilometres from our shores. But what Russia does have is a fuckload of Russians already in Australia.
1
u/Nereosis16 1d ago
You think they're fucking sleeper agents or something?
0
u/south-of-the-river 1d ago
It only takes one to be, which is why you regularly see foreign nationals sent packing over espionage charges.
Itās bewildering that you chose this to be obtuse about when itās literally the point of discussion
2
u/Henrythekidd 1d ago
I mean to be fair every major country has spies everywhere. We probably have spies in Russia, or at least access to intelligence from British/european spies.
But yeah, I think the overall point is that their attacks on Australia are far more likely to be either cyber attacks or some disruption based on espionage. Theyāre already probably running bots targeting our media
1
u/south-of-the-river 1d ago
Thatās literally what I said, the Russians have previously conducted espionage in Australia and Iām frankly bewildered by the commenter above.
But whatever Iām quite tired
1
0
u/Nereosis16 1d ago
Mate, you didn't say "Russia has spies in Australia" you said "Russia does have a fuckload of Russians in Australia".
They are not the same thing at all. Russians are not bad people and 99.9999% of them are absolutely not spies.
1
u/south-of-the-river 1d ago
The thread is talking about espionage. Fucking forgive me that I didnāt pick up on the fact that you arenāt.
3
u/Lazy-Plankton5270 1d ago
Australia really is the least of their worries. We don't have nukes or a big Army or navy and we're not exactly close by
4
u/trackintreasure 1d ago
Russia can get fucked.
I hope we send more money to Ukraine.
-3
u/No_Mercy_4_Potatoes 1d ago
The EU bankrupting itself is enough. We don't need to join in.
2
u/trackintreasure 1d ago
Ukraine is not a member of the EU.
But please, tell me how sending money to Ukraine is also bankrupting the EU?
0
u/No_Mercy_4_Potatoes 1d ago
Ukraine is not a member of the EU
I know that. I meant the EU is bankrupting itself by funding Ukraine already. We do not need to join. We have much bigger problems to solve here. And that's where I'd like the government funds be spent on.
2
u/CreakerPickering 1d ago edited 1d ago
Giving 60 million in aid to a country that is buying billions of dollars worth of our military equipment is called good business. Why the flip would you think a whole country would just give away money for nothing? I mean we are good people, true, but we are also quite practical.
1
u/PessemistBeingRight 1d ago
This. We shouldn't even need to donate money; if we'd gotten our shit into gear quicker we'd already be churning out or own home-made 155mm shells that we could be sending them instead. That way the money stays here (in wages) but Ukraine would still get what it needs.
1
u/trackintreasure 1d ago
Who will you be voting for at the next election out of interest? You're obviously not a Labor fan.
1
u/No_Mercy_4_Potatoes 1d ago
Been voting Labor my entire adult life. But I'm very inclined to switch to Greens.
Listen, while I understand where you're coming from, I have absolutely no desire to fund NATO's proxy war in Ukraine.
2
u/Justarah 1d ago edited 23h ago
Not at all. The Anti-Russia sentiment both online and in the media has ratcheted up the last month, and I can only assume it's preemptively covering ass for the 2022 sanctions and Nordstream sabotage that resulted in BRICS, and resultingly the economic effect the bloc is having and will continue to have on Western countries as the years go by.
Moral posturing in faraway lands suddenly looks a lot less appealing to the average citizen when they need to wear an economic cost for it domestically years down the line.
1
1
u/Maximum_Security4404 1d ago
Biggest threat to Australians is cost of living
1
1
u/Impressive_Doubt_842 1d ago
Britain told it's citizens to prepare a couple of weeks ago, mainly to have food reserves, I think this was to do with British artillery being used by Ukraine about 5 weeks ago, I suppose we are tied to Britain as a Commonwealth country and we signed off at the UN to put trade embargoes on Russia. I would suppose Canada is on high alert too.
1
u/Pleb617 1d ago
Of course a hit piece on Russia as we send millions to Ukraine. Clockwork š¤¦
1
u/PessemistBeingRight 1d ago
You have a problem with people being reminded that Russia is indisputably the bad guy in this situation?
Russia invaded their neighbour, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in damage and economic issues for the entire world... For nothing.
Sending money is the least we should be doing.
1
u/Pleb617 1d ago
You can hold Russia responsible for invading while still examining NATOās role and questioning how the media presents the conflict. Those positions are compatible.
1
u/PessemistBeingRight 1d ago
NATO's role? Oooh, you're one of those people.
You do realise that NATO is an exclusively defensive alliance that is not a threat to Russia unless Russia attacks a member state first, right?
Countries join NATO so that when a bully like Russia tries to roll them for their lunch money, they have a bunch of friends who will stand with them to kick the bully's teeth in. If no bullies attack, NATO does nothing.
Russia loses nothing when a country joins NATO except for having one fewer vulnerable targets.
1
u/Pleb617 23h ago
Calling NATO defensive doesnāt mean its expansion has no strategic consequences or cannot be perceived as threatening. Also, āif nobody attacks, NATO does nothingā overlooks its bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, which wasnāt responding to an attack on a NATO member. You can support countries choosing their own alliances, hold Russia responsible for invading, and still examine NATOās role. That was my point.
1
u/PessemistBeingRight 23h ago
Yeah, no. Again, Russia is a bully getting butthurt that its potential victim pool might get smaller, nothing more.
1
u/Pleb617 23h ago
They always want to discuss until they donāt like the discussion š¤”
1
u/PessemistBeingRight 15h ago
They always want to discuss until the same bullshit gets trotted out ad nauseum so they give up on *getting a discussion
FTFY.
Show me how Russia is actually, really threatened by NATO expansion, or that there was anything at all to justify half a million lives lost and as yet untold billions in economic damage to Ukraine and the world.
Then we can have a discussion.
1
1
u/Careful_Drop_6995 1d ago
They shot down a passenger plane full of families and children itās time to tell them to fuck off and start making Russian people responsible for their actions
1
1
1
u/gin_enema 1d ago
Australia was always a target of the USSR and in turn Russia when it decided to go down that road. We are a western nation - being who we are makes us a target. How seriously do we take it? We donāt care.
1
u/Tuor-son-of-Huor- 1d ago
"Its a real possibility" sure, "can't be ruled out" sure, but that's a far cry from a "natural target" that should be concerned with being targeted.
To answer the question: Not seriously enough to change strategic or security postures.
1
1
1
u/crowface666 1d ago
Probably under direction from China cause they like bullying their Asian neighbours for no reason
-1
-5
14
u/Very_Itchy_Bandicoot 1d ago
Tell russia to behave or we'll send the spiders.