Category Archives: Eurasia

Ukraine, Russia, and NATO’s Prevarication

10 Saturday Apr 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Russia, Ukraine

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“Russian Railways, 04/10/2021”

Given that Vladimir Putin continues to annoy the west with displays of feudal-medieval political methods, starting with disinformation and rumor mongering and putting a point on it with hybrid warfare and passportization, NATO would seem well advised to hasten Ukraine’s accession to its defense community.

Today’s Ukraine is not only a security recipient, but a security donor in its region. Ukraine has been successfully countering Russian aggression for almost seven years now, protecting not only itself but a wider region between the Baltic and Black Seas. Ukraine has gained invaluable experience deterring Russian aggression on the traditional military battlefield and in the realm of hybrid warfare, which extends from cyber to disinformation and beyond. These factors would appear to make Ukraine a strong candidate for NATO membership.

That is the rational side to answering President Zelenskyy’s question. However, there is also an emotional side to consider. Perhaps the best way to understand this dialectic is by adopting a neuroscientific approach and exploring both the rational and the emotional approaches to Ukraine’s future membership in NATO.

Kuleba, Dmytro. “Why is Ukraine still not in NATO?” Atlantic Council, February 16, 2021.

That emotional side accesses the same arguments the KGB has woven into the Palestinian narrative to see Fatah and Hamas elites — and all their cousins — at once loot the refugees of UN funds (and much else) while claiming their defense (see the rest of Dmytro Kuleba’s insightful essay as noted above and listed below). The arguments — essentially forms of “Accusation in a Mirror” — have been the same that have excused numerous vain and ruthless personalities on their way to establishing brutal dictatorships under cover of popular “revolutions” that bypass always those who believed they were going to get some attention at last.

In that Russian autocratic power from the Imperial Period through the Bolshevik Revolution with its imperious, omnipresent, and totalitarian Party, and right through to the rein of “Vertical of Power” Putin has long played this game against Russians, what makes Ukrainian Russians think the establishment of greater Russian military presence would actually defend either their economic or ethnic interests? Most would be dumb and duped to believe the malarkey passed along from Russia’s traumatized and trauma-producing and now perpetuated medieval political tradition.

Drawing from my impression of Euromaidan seven years ago, Ukrainians wish to be democratic, lawful, and modern — not fodder for barbaric medieval throwbacks inclined to threaten geopolitical space with massed forces or through incursion install corrupt elites inclined to be just as ruthless with Russian speakers as with Ukrainian ones.

I’m sure Alexei Navalny would have something to say about that were he in good health and free to speak.

Related Online

Al Jazeera. “Russia warns NATO against deploying troops to Ukraine.” April 2, 2021.

Kramer, Andrew E. “Russian Troop Movements and Talk of Intervention Cause Jitters in Ukraine.” The New York Times, April 9, 2021.

Holodomor 1932-33: Famine Genocide in Ukraine.

Khurshudyan, Isabelle, David L. Stern, Loveday Morris, and John Hudson. “On Ukraine’s doorstep, Russia boosts military and sends message of regional clout to Biden.” The Washington Post, April 10, 2021.

Kuleba, Dmytro. “Why is Ukraine still not in NATO?” Atlantic Council, February 16, 2021.

Macias, Amanda M. “U.S. concerned about Russian troop movements near Ukraine, discussing regional tensions with NATO allies.” CNBC, April 8, 2021.

NATO. “Relations with Ukraine.” November 11, 2020.

Sabbagh, Dan. “Ukraine urges NATO to hasten membership as Russian troops gather.” The Guardian, April 6, 2021.

Simmons, Ann M. “Russia Warns of Full-Scale War in Eastern Ukraine, Blames Kyiv.” The Wall Street Journal, April 9, 2021.

YanukovychLeaks National Project.

Wikipedia. “Ukraine-NATO relations”.

Posted by A Whisper to a Roar, “I Am a Ukrainian”, February 10, 2014.

https://liveuamap.com/en/2021/9-april-military-echelon-filmed-in-rostovnadonu

“Military echolon filmed in Rostov-na-Donu”, April 9, 2021, 47°13′N 39°41′E.

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Ukraine: ‘Bidenlain v Putler” — Russia Adds Heat to Its ‘Frozen Conflict’ with Ukraine

07 Wednesday Apr 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Ukraine

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Joint Forces Operation: 14 ceasefire violations yesterday. 2 Ukrainian soldiers were killed

https://liveuamap.com/en/2021/7-april-joint-forces-operation-14-ceasefire-violations-yesterday

. . . the enemy fired proscribed 82mm mortars, tripod-mounted man-portable antitank guns, and heavy machine guns near the village of Nevelske.

They also used 82mm and 120mm mortars, tripod-mounted man-portable antitank guns, hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, and automatic rifles near the villages of Pisky and Opytne.

https://www.unian.info/war/donbas-war-escalation-14-attacks-on-april-6-two-soldiers-killed-11379409.html

“Bidenlain” meets “Putler”?

Putin appears to be searching for the limits of threat while weaving into his takeover of Ukraine new prepared forces — and large ones, conventional and new — with impunity. Ukraine has fed its children, one to a few at a time, into the fire at the edge of the margin of the Atlantic Alliance and Europe.

NATO appears prepared but supine with an America’s President asking for “clarifications” and a State Department whining about Russia’s attitude toward publications adverse to its aggression.

The American public appears distracted by issues abetted or stirred by Russian trolls — possibly agent provocateur; certainly disinformation — and the encouragement of Far Out Left and Far White Right elements.

And much of the American public appears ill-educated, unprepared, and too parochial (on the Right) or self-centered (on the Left) for understanding how Putin’s aggression in Ukraine threatens the very freedoms, privileges, and traditions they take for granted (while the government takes care of their foreign affairs and related security, so they believe), a posture (if true) that then leaves their Presidents, even the former Trump, alone and weak).

Even America’s Gun Culture (as expressed in enthusiasm for signing up with militia) appears more concerned with its arms and predominantly white cultural traditions than with the greater freedom of all Americans and the support of bedrock American principles and values at home and abroad.

In Russia, Putin has effectively removed from the public sphere his most brave and notorious critic Navalny while ignoring the complaints of ordinary Russians. The man without a face has turned out a man without a purpose or soul apart from his own malign and piratical narcissism.

Related Online

Meyer, Henry, Daryna Krasnolutska, and Kateryna Choursina. “Russia Stages Mass Military Drills as Ukraine Tensions Climb.” Bloomberg, April 6, 2021.

RFE/RL. “U.S. Secretary of State Expresses Concern Over Russian Attempts to Restrict RFE/RL.” April 7, 2021.

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Russia v Ukraine – Fast Note

05 Monday Apr 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Ukraine

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6 hours ago – 48°0′N 37°48′E
Head of occupation authorities in parts of Donetsk region threatens there is little chance to stop military conflict at Donbas

https://liveuamap.com/en/2021/5-april-head-of-occupation-authorities-in-parts-of-donetsk – Noticed about 9:30 a.m. EDT.

Russia’s earlier mobilization, the production (fake, false flag, etc.) or reporting of a casus belli (scroll down), and this day’s direct signal may spell other than heightened activity in this frozen conflict zone in which Russia has every day violated ceasefire agreements.

While Ukraine has reluctantly shouldered The Bear through two Administrations in Washington, this following on the heels of the Easter Holiday will challenge the Biden Administration to step up and forward instead of stepping back and sitting down to watch a sapping low-intensity conflict that appears to have transformed.

Related Online

At home, Putin faces parliamentary elections in September with his approval ratings in a slump and support for his United Russia political party collapsing. A military adventure in nearby Ukraine could act as a convenient distraction and serve to revitalize Putin’s personal popularity. In a worrying indication of Moscow’s intentions, the Kremlin-controlled Russian media has recently stepped up its propaganda attacks on Ukraine and begun accusing the Ukrainian authorities of plotting an offensive of their own.

Hopes of achieving a favorable peace agreement with Zelenskyy have also now largely evaporated.

Dickinson, Peter. “Is Putin about to launch a new offensive in Ukraine?” Atlantic Council, April 4, 2021.

Mikovic, Nikola. “The Donbass conflict: Waiting for escalation.” The Interpreter, February 4, 2021.

Roth, Andrew. “EU pledges backing to Ukraine after Russian military buildup.” The Guardian, April 5, 2021.

Stewart, Will. “The Kremlin accuses ‘Ukrainian beasts’ of executing a boy, 5, with a drone as tensions rise between the two countries and Russia moves troops and tanks to the border.” Daily Mail, April 5, 2021.

StopFake. “Fake: A child died in Donbas as a result of a Ukrainian drone attack.” April 5, 2021.

StopFake. “Ukraine is Barbaric: StopFakeNews with Marko Suprun (No. 3018).” April 2, 2021.

UNIAN. “Russian deploying air assault division to occupied Crimea — OSINT group.” April 5, 2021.

Wikipedia. “Russo-Ukrainian War”.

Related to Russia’s Projection of Greater Threat to EU/NATO (Examples)

RFERL. “Putin Warns of Risk of Nuclear War, Talks Up Russian Economy in Annual Press Conference.” December 20, 2018.

RFERL. “Russian Fighter Jets Moved to Annexed Ukrainian Region.” December 22, 2018.

Posted by StopFake English, April 2, 2021.

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From Russia with Contempt? Of Hacks and Windmills and Possibilities

18 Thursday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, North America, Russia, United States of America

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I’m not inclined to leap far into conspiracy-think. However, wind turbine technology appears engineered and manufactured by transnational corporations and firms well aware of freezing weather, so this nonsense about renewable energy failing in Texas (why not on the North Sea? Why not in Germany?) just doesn’t hold ice water.

Super conservative angst, disinformation (received or sent), and viciousness get in the way of the public’s more cool-headed gathering and perception of variables contributing to disasters. That discomforting aspect of our collective national psyche notwithstanding, I would ask news (and weather) editors and readers to simply consider the full suite of possibilities in the unfolding of dramatic stories. In this one, finger pointing at wind-generated energy overlooked frozen instruments (!) in other energy systems. Well Whisky Tango & Foxtrot, where is Homeland Security on the Big Dallas Freeze? And may the investigative journalists be all over the possibility, just that (!), of external meddling involving massive critical — and technologically delicate or vulnerable — systems.

Of course, there are other possibilities, much including the architecture and engineering in a region better known for heat than cold and successive building generations in a political environment resistant “global warming” the potential for coming extremes in the known environment.

Still, has the drama been only about old engineering and new weather?

I may be tilting at windmills.

Maybe not.

While some wind turbines did freeze, failures in natural gas, coal and nuclear energy systems were responsible for nearly twice as many outages as renewables, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (Ercot), which operates the state’s power grid, said in a press conference on Tuesday.

Frozen instruments at gas, coal and even nuclear power stations were among the main problems, Ercot director Dan Woodfin said, according to Bloomberg.

Farrer, Martin and agencies. “US conservatives falsely blame renewables for Texas storm outages.” The Guardian, February 17, 2021.

Douglas, Erin and Ross Ramsey. “No, frozen wind turbines aren’t the main culprit for Texas’ power outages.” The Texas Tribune, February 16-17, 2021.

Farrer, Martin and agencies. “US conservatives falsely blame renewables for Texas storm outages.” The Guardian, February 17, 2021.

Patel, Nilay. “Hard Lessons of the Solarwinds Hack.” The Verge, January 26, 2021.

Texas Standard. “How Software From Austin-Based SolarWinds Became the Vehicle for a Massive Government Computer Hack.” December 17, 2020.

Solar Winds – Fast Reference

CBS News. “Former top cybersecurity official on why U.S. intelligence missed Russia’s SolarWinds hack.” February 15, 2021.

Halpern, Sue. “After the Solarwinds Hack, We Have No Idea What Cyber Dangers We Face.” The New Yorker, January 25, 2021.

Jibilian, Isabella. “Here’s a simple explanation of how the massive SolarWind hack happened and why it’s such a big deal.” Business Insider, December 24, 2020.

Last March—if not before, as a report by the threat-intelligence firm ReversingLabs suggests—a hacking team, believed to be affiliated with Russian intelligence, planted malware in a routine software upgrade from a Texas-based I.T. company called SolarWinds, which provides network-management systems to more than three hundred thousand clients. An estimated eighteen thousand of them downloaded the malware-ridden updates, which were embedded in a SolarWinds product called Orion. Once they did, the hackers were able to roam about customers’ networks, undetected, for at least nine months.

Halpern, Sue. “After the Solarwinds Hack, We Have No Idea What Cyber Dangers We Face.” The New Yorker, January 25, 2021.
Posted to YouTube by CNBC, January 22, 2021.

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Resource: Cold War; Global Human Rights; Hungary; Freedom; Orban’s Unfreedom

12 Friday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eastern Europe, Free Speech, Hungary, Russia

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Central European University | Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives

Related Online

Unlike the underground of Czarist times, today’s samizdat has no print ing presses (with rare exceptions): The K.G.B., the secret police, is too efficient. It is the typewriter, each page produced with four to eight carbon copies, that does the job. By the thousands and tens of thousands of frail, smudged onionskin sheets, samizdat spreads across the land a mass of protests and petitions, secret court minutes, Alexander Solzhenit syn’s banned novels, George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and “1984,” Nicholas Berdyayev’s philosophical essays, documents of the Czech Spring, all sorts of sharp political discourses and angry poetry.

Parry, Albert. “Samizdat is Russia’ Underground Press.” The New York Times, March 15, 1970.

On the Inconnu Independent Art Group

An appeal from the Inconnu Independent Art Group for funds to produced wooden grave markers to be erected in June 1989 at Plot 301 in Budapest’s New Public Cemetery, the assumed resting place of Imre Nagy and other leaders of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, on the 31st anniversary of their execution.

Inconnu Independent Art Group/Tamás Molnár, Open Society Archives, June 16, 1989. The page features a woodcut of a totemic grave marker.

Wikipedia. “Inconnu Independent Art Group”.

History. “1956. November 4. Soviets put a brutal end to Hungarian revolution.” Last updated November 3, 2020.

Hungarian Spectrum

Published in 2005, the volume remains incredibly relevant as Putin challenges the liberal and open societies of the west with his version of 19th Century absolutism, aristocracy, and mafia.
Posted to YouTube by British Pathe, April 13, 2014.

According to the report’s methodology, Hungary is now a “hybrid regime,” having lost its status as a “semi-consolidated democracy” due to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s continued assaults on the country’s democratic institutions. https://70868d36203bc22d88a087b52c71fd8c.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

The adoption of an emergency law that allows the government to rule by decree indefinitely, brought in after the coronavirus pandemic struck, “has further exposed the undemocratic character of Orbán’s regime,” the authors wrote, adding that “Hungary’s decline has been the most precipitous [they have] ever tracked.”

Gehrke, Laurenz. “Hungary no longer a democracy, Freedom House says: The NGO describes ‘a stunning democratic breakdown’ in the Eastern European country.” Politico, May 6, 2020.

Related: https://freedomhouse.org/country/hungary .

Posted to YouTube by treffynnon19 March 21, 2018.
Posted to YouTube by Vera & Donald Blinken Open Society Archives, September 13, 2012.

Wikipedia. “End of Socialism in Hungary”.

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FTAC: Palestinian KGB: Another Remark

11 Thursday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Palestinia, Palestinian Territories, Russia

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From the Awesome Conversation

I harp on this point with the hope that it will lead to insight into the Palestinian role in more general and profound “east-west relations” — https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4874089,00.html As Moscow has remained “politically absolute” in relation to power, so it has supported corrupt dictatorships around the world and blocked the spread of western liberalism and democratic self-determination and inclusion. The Middle East Conflict remains but one of many now post-Soviet frozen conflicts energized by its defunct Soviet Era framing and covered by the “liberation movement” banner.

From Arafat to Abbas to whoever comes next, Palestinian leaders have been puppets with their string attached to the Russia’s political police services.

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Revisiting Ukraine – A Start

08 Monday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, International Development, Ukraine

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Crimea and Donbass, Ukraine, February 8, 2021, Liveuamap screen capture.
Live at 1 p.m., February 8, 2021.

Former American President Trump’s tenure proved the nation’s distraction from all but itself with the exception of China for Trumpian finger pointing over the “Wuhan Flu”. Now the state’s perhaps a little startled to find itself again a part of the free and do-good world of the Atlantic Alliance. With concern for Russia’s now baldfaced aggression in Ukraine, President Biden will have to pick up on Russia’s crude squatting there and degrading and subverting industrial and other Ukrainian assets in the process of its imposing its largely unwelcome presence and will.

Posted while live — I’m inclined to take notes.

Related Online

Coffey, Luke. “The Black Sea should be a US and NATO priority.” MEI, February 6, 2020.

Council on Foreign Relations. “Conflict in Ukraine.” Global Conflict Tracker, n.d., last updated February 5, 2021.

Trenin, Dmitri. “Dealing with Biden’s America.” Carnegie Moscow Center, February 8, 2021.

Ukrainian Prism.

Posted to YouTube by Intelligence Fusion, February 2, 2021.

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Navalny Protests – Related Links & Washington, D.C. Event

05 Friday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Russia, United States of America

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https://apnews.com/article/world-news-arrests-moscow-russia-e94fb42740961916ca7686ee475a59c1 “Moscow’s jails overwhelmed with detained Navalny protesters” – 2/5/2021.

https://apnews.com/article/alexei-navalny-russia-jail-52c598a1929341e955d131fddff0d735 “Navalny urges Russians from jail to overcome their fear” – 2/4/2021.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55938042 – “Russia Navalny trial a ‘low point’ in EU-Russia relations, says Borrell” – 2/5/2021.

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/05/964434008/russia-expels-diplomats-from-3-countries-saying-they-attended-pro-navalny-protes – 2/5/2021.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55954162 – “Russia expels European diplomats over Navalny protests” – 2/5/2021.

What Is To Be Done?

Event by Free Russia Foundation
Saturday, February 5, 2021 at 2 p.m. EST
Boris Nemtsov Plaza, Washington, D.C.
34–50°F Mostly Cloudy
Price: Free
Public · Anyone on or off Facebook
Join us for the third weekend of protest against the poisoning and jailing of a pro-democracy Russian politician Alexey Navalny by the Russian authorities!
We demand justice and freedom for Alexey Navalny and thousands arrested over two weeks of protests in Russia! We demand an international investigation of the poisoning of Alexey Navalny by Russian Security Service officers!

Putin’s navigating his oligarchic (and mafia) state back to the 19th Century must seem surreal to Russians aware of the modern democratic open societies of the west. Here in the United States, not only “everything goes”, too much goes 🙂 and the wildness in social chaos and exuberance may need some cultural shaping and trimming through natural normative adjustments in years to come, but that such processes take place with the most spacious freedom on earth may speak well to results in the future. Russia, on the other hand, seems to have embarked on official reversions to absurdities as a militarized white Christian (ROC) talking up its nationalist pride while being handled roughly by pernicious forces, wealthy and ruthless, destined, so far, to add to the woes of ordinary and less connected Russians.

Posted by Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation fives years ago –>

Related background –>

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