Latest news with #Malikov
Time of India
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Selfies from the front: Inside the 'VIP' brigade for ambitious Russian officials
For the past three years, many young men in Russia have been doing everything they can to avoid getting sent to fight in the war against Ukraine. But some Russians are enthusiastically signing up for service in what President Vladimir Putin has called the battle for his nation's survival by joining a drone brigade offering short stints far from the fighting. Pro-war Russian bloggers have described the unit, Kaskad, as a "sinecure for officials." Based in an undisclosed location in a part of Ukraine occupied by Russia, it provides a career boost to politically minded recruits, according to Kremlin watchers and military analysts who call Kaskad a "VIP unit." Thousands of men have been called up to fight in Ukraine since 2022 and have been kept at the front as a terrible toll mounts by the day. But stints with Kaskad tend to be short-term. And given it's a drone unit away from the front lines, the chances of being put in danger's way are relatively small, analysts say. Officials assigned to the unit usually stay three to eight months, get plenty of photo ops with automatic rifles and return to their jobs with a hero's welcome, according to numerous social media posts in which recruits have documented their deployments, and accounts pieced together by analysts. "Enlistment with Kaskad allows elite figures to sidestep statutory military service requirements with guaranteed safety and potentially curry favor with Kremlin," Britain's defence ministry said last year. More than 270 pro-Kremlin regional lawmakers and 200 members of the youth wing of governing United Russia party have served in the Russian army in Ukraine, said Andrei Turchak, the party's chairman. At least six members of parliament, dozens of pro-Kremlin youth activists and even one cosmonaut have done so in Kaskad. In Nov, 12 senior members of United Russia's youth wing in St Petersburg joined Kaskad on the same day. Among them was Aleksandr Malikov, who promptly updated his profile picture on social media, which shows a clean-shaven man, wearing sunglasses and cradling an automatic rifle, standing in front of a building with shattered windows and smoldering rubble. Just a few months earlier, Malikov was documenting his life as a local council member. Malikov described his decision to enlist as a patriotic duty but declined to describe his role at Kaskad. "Here, I keep on doing the same thing I've been doing for many years: supporting my country and taking an active role where I'm needed." Dmitri V Sablin, a longstanding member of parliament, has been commanding Kaskad since 2022. In 2023, a camouflage-clad Sablin introduced a Kaskad team to reporters. Footage showed two soldiers launching a combat drone from a field and others monitoring drone flights on a computer from a bunker. Kaskad has at least 54 crews operating 10 types of reconnaissance and combat drones along the front line, Sablin said. Stints in Kaskad have been helpful for the careers of some of its veterans. Yevgeny Pervyshov, for instance, was a low-ranking member of parliament when he joined Kaskad in Nov 2022. After his stint with the brigade, he was spotted by Putin at a televised meeting and offered a job. In Nov, Pervyshov became the first Ukraine war veteran to be appointed as a governor.
Broadcast Pro
06-05-2025
- Business
- Broadcast Pro
Elecard to showcase video broadcasting solutions at CABSAT 2025
Industry professionals and interested parties are encouraged to visit Elecard at the booth during the CABSAT 2025 expo to explore firsthand the company's cutting-edge solutions and engage with their team of experts. Elecard, a provider of software products and solutions for digital television and video broadcasting, has announced its participation in the upcoming CABSAT 2025 exhibition, set to take place from May 13 to 15 at the Dubai World Trade Centre. Recognised as the premier event for broadcast, satellite and digital media across the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, CABSAT presents a strategic opportunity for Elecard to demonstrate its latest innovations and engage with global industry professionals. Elecard will exhibit its cutting-edge products and solutions, engage with industry professionals, and gain valuable insights into the latest trends and technologies shaping the broadcasting and digital media landscape. This event marks Elecard's fifth consecutive year of participation, underscoring the company's commitment to innovation and industry leadership. Speaking about the participation, Alexey Malikov, Chief Business Development Officer of Elecard, said: 'We are delighted to be exhibiting at CABSAT for the fifth consecutive year. This event provides us with an unparalleled opportunity to demonstrate our extensive experience in broadcast projects deployed worldwide. We cordially invite professionals involved in live event broadcasting or digital signage to visit our booth, S1D35, and explore how we can assist in transforming their ideas into tangible, profitable projects.' Malikov added: 'Our engineering team provides comprehensive support throughout all stages of a project, from research and development to acceptance testing. We take great pride in our Service Level Agreement (SLA) standards and look forward to engaging with our customers and partners to demonstrate how our products and solutions can contribute to the achievement of their business objectives.' Marking its fifth consecutive appearance at the expo, Elecard plans to highlight its commitment to innovation and industry leadership through live demonstrations of its flagship technologies. Among the featured solutions is Elecard Boro, a client-server platform designed to monitor and measure the Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) for streaming protocols such as UDP, RTP, HTTP, HLS, MPEG-DASH and SRT. The system facilitates real-time content delivery monitoring, fault detection and localisation, automatic notifications and comprehensive reporting. Elecard Boro serves a broad range of applications, including OTT TV, IPTV, DVB, VoD, CDN monitoring, advertisement insertion control and SRT streaming in television studios. Also on display will be Elecard CodecWorks, a live transcoder, multiplexer, and gateway for professional-grade video encoding and streaming. Supporting codecs like HEVC/H.265, AVC/H.264 and MPEG-2, it enables adaptive bitrate streaming over HLS and MPEG-DASH to ensure high-quality delivery. Four high-profile use cases from an international sports event in the MENA region will illustrate the solution's capabilities. These include UHD video transmission with HDR to 5,000 devices with low latency, SDI channel creation with multi-track audio, multicast delivery over unreliable UDP networks with FEC-based redundancy, and IPTV quality monitoring across 40 remote sites using Elecard Boro. The deployment of these solutions resulted in the establishment of a broadcasting infrastructure capable of 24/7 operation, real-time graphic overlay capabilities and comprehensive signal redundancy using a 1+1 scheme. Elecard also provided on-site technical support and training to ensure uninterrupted service and optimal performance. Elecard played a pivotal role in a major international sports competition in the MENA region, delivering four advanced broadcasting solutions. In the first case, Elecard CodecWorks enabled UHD video delivery with HDR and 10-bit coding to 5,000 devices with just 1,000 ms latency, using SDI-to-IP encoding on a Supermicro-Nvidia platform. The second case involved creating eight SDI TV channels with support for multiple audio tracks, live and pre-recorded content, and real-time signal processing using a custom CodecWorks-based system. The third solution tackled multicast delivery to 40 remote sites over UDP networks prone to packet loss. Elecard implemented FEC-based redundancy and dual transmission paths to ensure stable streaming with under 20 ms latency. In the fourth deployment, Elecard Boro monitored IPTV broadcasts at 40 remote venues, collecting quality metrics across 1,000 channels using a centrally managed CDN monitoring system. These implementations ensured 24/7 uninterrupted broadcasting, advanced graphic overlay capabilities, comprehensive staff support and full signal redundancy with a 1+1 backup scheme. Stand S1D35
