You might be able to strap a gps or a camera on it, but a weapon ?! What's up with all the articles "russia/china bad" popping up recently ?
> In 1980s Soviet Russia, a programme saw dolphins recruited for military training
Yeah, just like any nation with enough defence budget. Dolphins/sea lions [1], dogs, rats [2], &c. are used all the time.
[0] https://www.sciencealert.com/mysterious-whale-wearing-strang...
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/5-animals-that-serve-in-the-...
The behaviour that has been described for this whale ("tries to rub the straps off") is absolutely in line with this training.
So, no, the whale wasn't kitted out to have a Vulcan cannon mounted on it, but explosives, potentially.
Ola Tunander worte a Book about the incidents, called "The Secret War Against Sweden: US and British Submarine Deception in the 1980s". http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/library/tunander.pdf
I'm going to use Occam's razor here; the SU had extensive plans to invade Sweden (as it had against the rest of [central] Europe). I'm pretty sure they practiced those plans.
>a 2017 report by TV Zvezda, a station owned by the defence ministry, revealed that the Russian navy has again been training beluga whales, seals and bottlenose dolphins for military purposes in polar waters. In the past three years, president Vladimir Putin has reopened three former Soviet military bases along its vast Arctic coastline.
>The recent research and training was done by Murmansk Sea Biology Research Institute in northern Russia on behalf of the navy to see if beluga whales could be used to “guard entrances to naval bases’” in arctic regions, “assist deepwater divers and if necessary kill any strangers who enter their territory”.
So a lot of English-speaking people are falling for mass media lies. And frankly it's getting ridiculous now days. It seems that whatever US media starts pushing out ( and it's usually w/o proof ) people will just eat it up.
Not trying to defined anything here, but I kind of try to read news from all kind of source , and I can tell you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ugw9h6cxmw .
Edit: formatting
"English-speaking people"? What's that?
Russia does bad things. China does bad things. The EU does bad things. We do bad things. What's strange is the sudden hysteria and relentless propaganda directed towards china and russia in particular. It's not like Russia and China were saints before.
It's very easy to tell the bad guys to stop being bad, while doing the same things and pretending it's right. You don't even have to go back to MKULTRA or vietnam, it's happening right now.
But be careful, the mean russians have whales with light harnesses and the chinese have backdoors in all our technology. It's even sillier than most WW1/2 propaganda.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Trump-Admin-Wants-500M-t...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_war...
https://www.dw.com/en/trumps-golan-recognition-a-dangerous-p...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/11/03/dozens-us-...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/us-isi...
Yet Mexico gets a fraction of the bad press as the Russian threat.
With the beluga cat now out of the bag, any maritime conflict will be liable to justify the wholesale slaughter of large marine mammals, just as 60 years of preservation efforts have been showing some good results, and incidentally proving that international cooperation actually can work.
On the plus side, nothing was gained. Whales as a weapons, or reconnaissance, platform may have worked as a tactical surprise. But it is useless once it’s known. Killing all the whales in the Atlantic is a day’s worth of fun for bored sailors.
Instead, everyone could have just played солитер all day in the safe knowledge that they are doing the best work of their life.
While there are some efforts to keep mammals away from wars specially when it comes to sea creatures. But sadly no one cares about dogs and horses that are being used and trained.
This article includes that video and also pics of the removed harness. Apparently the buckle is marked with the brand "Equipment St. (logo) Petersburg."
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27716/did-this-beluga-...
