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Comment by arduanika | Hacker News Reader

Hmm, you completely lost me at "little green men". What/who is this referring to? Extraterrestrials?

The last time I heard about "little green men" (other than ETs) was to describe obviously-but-unofficially Russian soldiers who invaded Crimea in 2014 and claimed to be natives who wanted Russia to annex the region.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_occupation_of_Crimea

I guess it's now being used as pejorative against groups of vaguely military style. Like the DHS agents conducting Metro Surge.

Hmm. Do you think that kristjansson was using it just to mean state-backed thugs, or were they also claiming some Russia link?

(They haven't responded, and I've been downvoted for even asking the question. I am genuinely confused. I'll admit I don't follow this all very closely, but I want to understand what the phrase means here.)

Your original question was a bit of a challenge to accept earnestly. It’s a pretty charged situation; joking about ETs led me to discount it and may have led others to downvote.

That said, I described them as such because I considered the comparison to a masked and armed force of nebulous origin and ambiguous intention apt.

Okay, understandable under the circumstances. In this case, I really did just want to know more. I did not know about the use of this phrase in the Russia/Ukraine context, so the only touchpoint I had was aliens. It was a confused guess, not a joke.

> The "little green men"[a] were Russian soldiers who were masked and wore unmarked uniforms upon the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014. They were active just before and during the Russian annexation of Crimea and carried regular weapons and equipment, but were always masked and wore distinctly unmarked green military fatigues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men_(Russo-Ukrain...

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