Category Archives: Ukraine

Ukraine Under Heavy Fire

05 Monday Dec 2022

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Political Psychology, Russia, Ukraine

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“”Up to 70 percent of missiles we are able to stop, but 30 percent is enough.”

Anna From Ukraine, “Ukrainian Mondays, accurate missile forecasts, watch terrorism online. Vlog 241: War in Ukraine”, December 5, 2022. “

Proof of sovereignty?

Proof of sovereignty might be the sovereign’s ability to treat the ownership of property and persons as alike, and that might include (in fact, has included) the ability to destroy either at will and with impunity. For reference, hunt as I would have to through Richard Pipes’ Russia Under the Old Regime: The History of Civilization.  New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974. The term of interest: “patrimonial authoritarianism”, and it’s in there somewhere–and I have out-aged patience for that kind of hunt.

In the Old Country’s old system, all powered flow down from the Tsar on high as ordained by God, no less, through the Power of the Church and the persuasive power of faith backed, always, by force and wealth.

My related hash tags on Twitter: #MedievalVModern

Europe Bombed, Cold, Corrupt, and Dark

#PutinFullTonto has lost all credibility in speech while retaining the utmost attention for the wanton destruction that has become Russia’s stain on humanity in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, and elsewhere in the former Soviet spheres of control or influence. He has without compassion or intelligence spread brutality, chaos, and death wherever the same serves associated criminals, dictators, and warlords, and so by now he may be imagining a cold and subdued Ukraine, in part or whole, serving other forward operations or merely basing advanced-contemporary and nuclear assets, say, for heightening threats that might inspire “concessions”.

The West’s sin in all of this? To allow, so far, an archaic feudal and criminally bent leadership and its corrupt or intimidated sycophants to threaten not only Ukraine but all of the extraordinary enterprise of Europe, the Atlantic Alliance, and the healthier states of the world.

Posted to YouTube on May 17, 2022.

Who’s next?

Hunting the Last Mastodon

You don’t just go into the woods and throw a spear at it.

🙂

The West has managed the preliminaries of weakening the damned thing–sanctions to power it down some; confiscations to dampen its confidence while helping it embarrass itself. The Great Internet Reflector and plain truth about malign narcissistic illness and much else might have been more helpful had its target had a lick of conscience and humanity left in its steroid bloated body, but there it sits in Moscow or Wherever, deeply isolated, loathed, and paranoid.

How is it–this #PhantomOfTheSoviet and #GhostOfImperialRussia–going to go down? And what is to come when it does?

How will The West win the peace this time?

The West did not win the peace that followed the dissolving of the Soviet Union at noon December 25, 1991.

Related Online

Myre, Greg. “Russia launches fresh round of missile strikes at Ukraine’s energy system.” NPR, December 5, 2022.

Voitovych, Olga, Sebastian Shukla, Sana Noor Haq, Victoria Butenko. “Russia launches fresh barrage of missiles towards Ukraine.” CNN, December 5, 2022.

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FTAC: Kherson and Putin’s Retreat

11 Friday Nov 2022

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

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November 11, 2022.

Editor’s Comment

Even though Putin has quieted on “tactical nukes”, he still has them, and he and his regime remain deeply untrustworthy. Caution seems appropriate. The true ends of the story needs must take place in Moscow and St. Petersburg and in the Kremlin, the FSB, and related criminal and defense circles. Russia has absolutely nothing to gain by way of its feudal-medieval and altogether piratical and politically criminal and retrograde “Imperial” fascist totalitarian revanche, its leader, and his regime.

#TsarVladimirTheSmaller has, both “of course” and tragically (for our species) the power to destroy himself and the world with it, would that he would keep destroying himself, at which he is excelling, and leave the world to both more compassionate and rational actors.

At his command nonetheless: doomsday underwater systems, hypersonic missiles, stealthy submarines, and “tactical” nuclear warheads.

Living within reach of that destructive capability is not an option as it has long been a given, and while the concepts of “balanced power” and “mutually assured destruction” may allay some ambitions and impulses, we seem to be waking up close to “midnight” every day with this one most execrable (#PutinFullTonto) excuse for a human being in power.

On Archaic Beliefs and Systems

Good: Expanding, Harmonious, and Open Systems; Human and Technological Evolution; Greater Peace and Prosperity On the Bedrock of a Spacious Humanism and Predominant Global Security.

Evil?

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httpGrs://twitter.com/BarbaraLuethi/status/1590745260719841286?s=20&t=19WIDeZZ62SJHDHlxisc0g

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I have now spent much of my blogging career–or it feels so–promoting the concepts of “Malignant Narcissism“and the related “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation” while co-promoting or popularizing a post-Cold War narrative that touches on Moscow’s near immediate transformation and reversion to the black fist of a secret police state as well as the world’s appetite for the illicit in earthly delights, so to speak, handily delivered by organized crime, i.e., the world’s most lucrative narcotics and slaves.

While the west approaches accepting some moderation in its policies associated with hedonism and related industries, there remains for consideration the darkest political ramifications associated with corruption, “dark money”, and “kompromat”. Most in and of the west remain deeply committed and steadfast in relation to the experience of freedom as reliant on an atmosphere in which we may live as authentic persons with our own agency, efficacy, ideas, and options, even naughty or tawdry 🙂 , within the realm (and boundaries) of the predominantly healthy and good.

The political hell of the Russian mafia state, greed-ridden and deeply hypocritical and mindlessly subject to the power of a heartless and vacuous lunatic, would have all of western freedom, law, and tradition choked by criminal intents, fraudulent political theater, and related force. Unfortunately, and it’s just my opinion, the west has been poisoned itself by KGB methods and related and equally unsightly and malign narcissism in cultural and political circles–as much would help explain the #GOPofGreed’s issues with authoritarian and reactionary bents.

It tires me to work up one more repeated reference section, but I will offer a short selection here, and with reference to my own citation, there’s plenty of additional reference on most BackChannels posts.

Related Online

Nekrasov, Andrey (Director). Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File. Documentary film, 2007.

Oppenheim, James S. “Trump, Corruption, Narcotics, Russia-A Glance.” BackChannels, October 10, 2022.

Satter, David. “The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power.” National Review, August 17, 2016.

Schindler, John. “Exploring Al Qaeda’s Murky Connection to Russian Intelligence.” Business Insider, June 10, 2014.

Tiplady-Bishop, Lottie. “Jeffrey Epstein boasted about ‘flying to Moscow to visit Vladimir Putin’ as secrets behinds his millions are revealed.” The Sun, July 19, 2020.

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Putin to Ukraine and NATO: Dare Destroy Me

07 Monday Nov 2022

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

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Although Putin has been doing a fine job of destroying himself as well as the wealth, power, and relative security of his closest assigns and associations, he has still advanced weapons systems in submarines, hypersonic missiles, and “tactical” nuclear warheads, and he knows he may destabilize and destroy with impunity whatever he wishes for fear of his lunacy.

No mass death or destruction have yet come to Moscow or St. Petersburg.

The imposing of western sanctions has been but a matter of adjustment in relationships elsewhere.

The “Fragile Empire” has been proving surrounding polities, not only the “demo” made of Ukraine, more fragile in their development and heightened sensitivity to threats–or now imposed–disruptions.

And Putin’s “Mafia State” appears not to have interrupted anyone’s drug deal or other dark business for being so without conscience.

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How would you like to be hit by an enemy you’re not allowed to hit back?

What if it was your friend’s enemy enjoying that impunity, and you knew that you and yours would be next to be beaten, bribed, intimidated, robbed?

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What if you knew that your forces were blocking 90 percent of airborne attacks but the ten percent getting through was destroying basic civilian power infrastructure?

What does “winning” mean when your losing enemy forces are nonetheless freezing and displacing your people?

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Of course, Putin and his Russia are losing too, but he is only losing the better–the more good–of his human resources, and his state is only losing money and international stature. That’s not enough for stopping him. As the Malignant Narcissist (#MaligNarc) that he has been, he and his circle needs must be deprived of power and stopped cold, for in his own delusional mind, he cannot lose, and his enablers, sycophants, and fellow thugs are all in too deep for leaving him. War criminals themselves for what they have abetted, they, and exactly like the Nazis before them, may find no refuge elsewhere–or sadly find it through some realpolitik involving occult cash reserves that may land an obscure outpost or two for living (very well, thank you) on the lowdown.

In Putin’s upside-down world, “winning” looks a lot like losing.
No less than the dictatorships and terrorists supported by Moscow during the Cold War Era and no less so in the post-Cold War Era–know the truth–Russia’s political culture has found no better motivation for being than the want of Absolute Power and demonic control of others via leverage, threat, and, finally, horrifying, mindless, and unwarranted violence.

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Russia’s Special Truth

12 Wednesday Oct 2022

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

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Related Online

Nekrasov, Andrey (Director). Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File. Documentary film, 2007.

Thomas, Jake. “Russia’s Estimated Losses Entering Day 230 of War, Including 62K Personnel.” Newsweek, October 10, 2022.

Wikipedia. “List of Russian generals killed during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine”.

BackChannels’ Related Political Psychology

The blog’s starting to carry quite a package! 🙂

I think the “amateur psychologists” have been written off by the rough and tough get-it-done warfare analysts, but, sigh, Russia really does have a deranged narcissistic feudal-medieval “Vertical of Power” who has by his destructive and ruthless wiles and will made the powerful and wealthy of Russia dependent on his existence and his on them.

Who is Vladimir Putin to judge any of them?

Beneath heaven–and would they would ask themselves the same thing–I don’t know.

Whatever the answer (blackmail? intimidation? grandiose promises?), he has inveigled an entire class of associates, executives, and warriors in an archaic narrative of utterly barbaric cruelty, destruction, and ethnic cleansing. So far, not one of Putin’s oh-so-powerful associates appear capable of preparing any resistance to him or his crimes–or it’s they, at least a few, who have perhaps been pushing him. Either way, all have become themselves complicit in the leader’s ugly and cowardly fantasy about himself–and they are losing as mightily as they are clinging fast to this most backward, myopic, and villainous of daddies.

Are they brain dead?

Have they lost the last vestiges of conscience, humanity, and integrity?

Perhaps the worst thing–the most special truth, frankly–is they know what they have done and are doing and believing themselves bought in, doomed, and enslaved are walking themselves to their own ignominious end.

Civilizational Narcissism
Detecting Post-Soviet Russia’s Black Narrative of Revenge for ’89 and ’91
Malignant Narcissism
Malignant Narcissistic Process Distilled
Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation
Reuters. Published to YouTube, August 30, 2022.

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FTAC: Russia’s Old Ukrainian Land Grab

12 Wednesday Oct 2022

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

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From correspondence:

. . . two greater-than-civilizational stories run through the history of the region: 1) who were the Vikings, really, as defined both by the character of their leadership and the makeup of their complement? And 2) the condition of Russian soil (not so good) and the desirability of one of the world’s great crossroads and agricultural centers. The drive for Ukraine has been always south from today’s St. Petersburg. Boredom, corruption, criminality, greed have indeed enriched Ukraine’s soil over centuries. The inhabitants of the land in the early Byzantine Era had been Turkish (“Turkic”) tribes who chose to declare themselves Jews and probably so in defiance of expanding Christian and Muslim power.

The source I generally cite for Russian history from before the Rus has been Pipes, Richard.  Russia Under the Old Regime: The History of Civilization.  New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974, but I have reached an age where re-reading seems in order while the taking of voluminous notes defies the contemporary zeitgeist, however enamored one may be of 19th and 20th Century methods in scholarship. Informal conversation serves the note as well, and one may indeed “fly” south from St. Petersburg via Google Maps and practically hit Kiev as is being done today but primarily for want of unobtainable pride.

Inspiration for this post: an encyclopedia entry for the “Pereiaslav Treaty of 1654”, which papering relationships into history appears about as confused as today’s Putin.

Kyiv Post, September 6, 2018.

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Kerch Strait Bridge Fire Puts Russian Backs to the Wall

08 Saturday Oct 2022

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

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CNN, October 8, 2022.

David Arakhamia, the head of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s party in parliament and a member of Kyiv’s negotiating team with Russia released a Telegram statement about the incident, saying: “Russian illegal construction is starting to collapse and catch fire. The reason is simple: if you build something explosive, sooner or later, it will explode. And this is just the beginning.”

Mykhailo Podoliak, who serves as an adviser to Zelensky echoed the sentiment. “Crimea, the bridge, the beginning. Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled,” Podoliak said.

Voitovych, Olga, Kostan Nechyporenko, Josh Pennington, and Hannah Ritchie. “‘Air defense of the Russian Federation, are you sleeping?’ Ukrainian officials respond to Kerch bridge explosion.” CNN, October 8, 2022.

Ukraine, perhaps, has announced its full intention to divorce Russia from its sovereign territory without exception. Today’s explosion and fire on Kerch Strait Bridge, the lengthy causeway linking Russia to Crimea by road and rail, will slow Russian resupply to Russian-speaking Ukrainians, Russians, and Russian soldiery recently delivered to Crimea for training.

Given Ukrainian President Zelensky’s determination to remove the last Russian armed presence from Ukraine’s sovereign territory, the contest is bound to lead to the elimination of Russian Naval Base in Sevastopol. The base had been started in 1772, finished eleven years later, fought over in the 19th Century, abandoned by Russia in 1855, occupied by the German Imperial Army in 1918, again lost to Nazi Germany in 1942, and leased by Russia for its Black Sea Fleet since the end of the Cold War.

As noted in a France24 video in 2019, a tour guide says to the reporter, “It’s a fleet that was armed two years ago. Everything we see in this bay is weaponry that appeared over the past five years” (1:55).

Related Online

Cragg, Gulliver and Elena Volochine. “The Crimean port of Sevastopol, a strategic link between Russia and Syria.” France24, March 20, 2019.

France24 English. “The Crimean port of Sevastopol, a strategic link between Russia and Syria.” Video. YouTube, March 20 2019.

Nechyporenko, Kostan. “Crimea authorities seek to reassure public on fuel and other supplies.” CNN, October 8, 2022.

Reuters. “Moscow says truck explosion destroys part of Russia-Crimea bridge.” October 8, 2022.

Reuters. “New Russian recruits train in Crimea and near Ukrainian border.” September 28, 2022.

Sky News. “Ukraine latest news: Explosion on key bridge linking Russia to Crimea; Putin sends ministers to scene.” October 8, 2022.

Wikipedia. “Russian-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty”.

Wikipedia. “Sevastopol Naval Base”.

Yuhas, Alan and Raya Jalabi. “Ukraine crisis: why Russia sees Crimea as its naval stronghold.” The Guardian, March 7, 2014.

Times Radio analysis, posted to YouTube, October 8, 2022.

BackChannels concurs with perhaps less subtlety: Russia has clearly overplayed its position, and in the say of “soft power”, it has sacrificed any cultural or peaceful benefits it may have brought with its presence in exchange for bullying willful destruction and terror and nothing else. Russia has nothing to offer Europe or Ukraine at this time, and with Putin’s criminal enterprise–that’s all it has been since the early-mid 1990s–it has no place to go in history and has only sealed its fate in Ukraine.

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Putin’s ‘Kremlinals’ Find Disfavor Over War

02 Sunday Oct 2022

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

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With regard to east-west rivalry, timing, perhaps has been everything as post-Cold War Russia “invited” western cooperation with and investment in Russia as part of post-Soviet reform. To our misfortune, some disaffected KGB, all products of the Bolshevik mentality, pried themselves back into power to become what one might call “Kremlinals”. Okay. Ouch. In any case, and based both on Litvinenko’s experience and Zawahiri’s “detention” in Russia (1996/7), the criminals were set for kleptocracy by the early-mid 1990s.

The west may have been played.

Vladimir Putin has never been a rational state actor but always a piratical “malignant narcissist” engaged in the cover of a projection of an heroic self with impression enforced by the many methods of perceptual control. As his fear of being “found out” becomes realized, he doubles-down in defense of image and becomes more surreal by the day. As he has never authentically served Russia but plundered her by developing his mafia-style monopoly on power, one may only hope that his own “tire” of him post-haste and with ambition to return to modernity, which some have quite enjoyed, will take the reins in the direction of reform.

This image may tell what is also at hand.

RFE/RL. “Pro-Ukrainian Protesters Rally in Belgrade.” YouTube, October 2, 2022. 0:43.

For the time being, the world surrounding Putin’s Imperial Russian Kleptocracy would seem stuck with containment, defense, and deterrence. For Russians who would be modern and well dressed with a Modern Political Mentality: despair, flight, lethargic cooperation, passive resistance; and for some close in with the little monster grown fat, one might hope for treachery.

The end-state desired would seem a modern responsible-responsive Russian state, not Putin’s criminal feudal-medieval monstrosity loaded up with 2,000 tactical nukes (advanced hypersonic missiles and stealthy submarines) x hate, ignorance, and fear to match, not to mention the leader’s criminal — and politically criminal — narcissism.

RFE/RL. “Pro-Ukrainian Protesters Rally in Belgrade.” YouTube, October 2, 2022.
UATV, October 2, 2022.
UATV, October 2, 2022.

Some of us are just waiting to see Robert Kraft’s Superbowl ring returned to him. And all of this over that? Could be as that ring is symbolic of the criminal, piratical, and unhinged nature of Putin’s increasingly naked regime.

Related Online

Anderson, Hans Christian. “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

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