Category Archives: Europe

Sudan’s Civil War: Smuggled Sudanese Gold Funding Russia in Ukraine

17 Monday Apr 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Africa, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, North America, Russia, South America, Sudan, transnational crime, Ukraine

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The facts are just nothing new.

Sudan’s General Dagalo Hemeti has had both long-standing family interests in Sudan’s gold trade, and he has had for some time arrangements with Russian President Vladimir Putin involving Wagner Group oversight of smuggled shipments to Russia that bypass western sanctions and help fund Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The west’s hunkering down, bleating about democracy, and pleading for some cessation in violence seems old news as well.

So it goes here for the Sudanese People and others watching the struggles of ordinary good people against thieves taking advantage of their innocence to rob them of their birthright, their dignity, and their humanity. In fact, having displaced the dictator and war criminal Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese have helped into power, in the course of their powerlessness, two dictators in return, both of them former subordinates to al-Bashir. Of the two, Hemeti may have the more powerful relationship with Putin as he flies off-the-books gold to Russia’s dictator and serves as an envoy — for Putin, a diplomatic channel — to Saudi power as well.

Neither Russians nor Sudanese appear to have today a champion whose interests as well as psychology and temperament reside with them. The present three “strongmen”– al-Burhan, Hemeti, and Putin– appear to represent the evil that enriches and aggrandizes itself while lying without conscience to the nation each purports to represent.

Russia’s meddling in Sudan’s gold began in earnest in 2014 after its invasion of Crimea prompted a slew of Western sanctions. Gold shipments proved an effective way of accumulating and transferring wealth, bolstering Russia’s state coffers while sidestepping international financial monitoring systems.

“The downside of gold is that it’s physical and a lot more cumbersome to use than international wire transfers but the flip side is that it’s much harder if not impossible to freeze or seize,” said Daniel McDowell, sanctions specialist and associate professor of Political Science at Syracuse University.

Elbagir, Nima, Barbara Arvanitidis, Tamara Qiblawi, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Mohammed Abo Al Gheit and Darya Tarasova. Video by Alex Platt and Mark Baron Graphics by Sarah-Grace Mankarious, Marco Chacón, Natalie Croker and Henrik Pettersson. “Russia is plundering gold in Sudan to boost Putin’s war effort in Ukraine.” CNN, July 29, 2022.

Cited or Related Online

ADF. “Russia Uses Wagner To Plunder Sudan’s Gold.” December 6, 2022.

Al-Arshani, Sara. “The two generals fighting in Sudan helped Putin plunder the country’s gold to fund Russia’s war in Ukraine.” Insider, April 15, 2023.

Cole, Brendan. “U.S. Ambassador Details Waking Up to ‘Gunfire’ as Fighting Erupts in Sudan.” Newsweek, April 15, 2023.

Copnall, James. “Sudan crisis: Burhan and Hemedti – the two generals at the heart of the conflict.” BBC, April 17, 2023.

Dahir, Abdi Latif. “Who is Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan’s military?” The New York Times, April 25, 2023.

Dabanga. “Hemeti charts official Sudan policy on Russia-Ukraine conflict.” March 2022.

Dabanga. “Russian FA visit: Putin appreciative of Sudan’s support.” February 10, 2023.

Dabanga. “Hemeti manoeuvres to brand war against Sudan army as fight against former regime Islamists.” April 17, 2023.

Elbagir, Nima, Barbara Arvanitidis, Tamara Qiblawi, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Mohammed Abo Al Gheit and Darya Tarasova. Video by Alex Platt and Mark Baron Graphics by Sarah-Grace Mankarious, Marco Chacón, Natalie Croker and Henrik Pettersson. “Russia is plundering gold in Sudan to boost Putin’s war effort in Ukraine.” CNN, July 29, 2022.

Mackinnon, Amy, Robbie Gramer, Jack Detsch. “Russia’s Dreams of a Red Sea Naval Base Are Scuttled–for Now.” Foreign Policy, July 15, 2022.

NOVA News. “Sudan. who is General ‘Hemeti’ Dagalo, the man close to Russia who is behind the attempted coup.” April 16, 2023.

Oppenheim, James S. “Brief Reference: Wagner Group in Africa.” BackChannels, March 28, 2023.

Packer, George. “This Is Not 1943.” The Atlantic, February 3, 2013.

Reuters. “Sudan’s Hemedti seeks deeper Russia ties on Moscow visit.” February 23, 2022.

Walsh, Declan. “‘From Russia With Love’: A Putin Ally Mines Gold and Plays Favorites in Sudan.” The New York Times. June 5, 2022.

Deputy Chairman of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council and commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Gen Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemeti’ Dagalo, called on the international community to support the dialogue between Russia and Ukraine. This is the official position of the Sovereignty Council, he said in a statement to the Russian news channel Sputnik yesterday.

Yesterday’s statement followed Hemeti’s statements last week during his Moscow visit, where he declared support for Russia’s invasion by saying that Russia had a right to defend itself and its people.

Dabanga. “Hemeti charts official Sudan policy on Russia-Ukraine conflict.” March 2022.

Hemeti knows Russia invaded Ukraine on a cooked-up pretext on which Putin could fluff himself at least in his own head.

A July 2022 CNN investigation exposed deepening ties between Moscow and Sudan’s military leadership, who granted Russia access to the east African country’s gold riches in exchange for military and political support. The relationship began in earnest after Moscow’s 2014 invasion of Crimea, when Russia began to eye African gold riches as an avenue to circumvent a slew of Western sanctions.

The 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the wave of sanctions that followed accelerated Russia’s gold plunder in Sudan and further propped up military rule, increasing Wagner activity in the country.

On the day before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Dagalo headed a Sudanese delegation in Moscow to “advance relations” between the two countries.

Elbagir, Nima, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Tamara Qiblawai, Barbara Arvantidis. “Exclusive: Evidence emerges of Russia’s Wagner arming militia leader battling Sudan’s army.” CNN, April 21, 2023.

Addendum: Related Online

Dickens, Olewe. “Mohamed ‘Hemeti’ Dagalo: Top Sudan military figure says coup was a mistake.” February 20, 2023.

Elbagir, Nima, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Tamara Qiblawai, Barbara Arvantidis. “Exclusive: Evidence emerges of Russia’s Wagner arming militia leader battling Sudan’s army.” CNN, April 21, 2023.

Lynch, Justin. “In Sudan, U.S. Policies Paved the Way for War.” Foreign Policy, April 20, 2023.

Uddin Rayhan.”Who is Hemeti? The feared former warlord vying for control in Sudan.” Middle East Eye, April 17, 2023.

Posted to YouTube May 8, 2023.

—33–

Rogue Russian State – A Reduction to Essence

04 Tuesday Apr 2023

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

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I tire of conveying similar “talking points” on Twitter, so here have brought together one tweet and a few exemplary references hauled into TwitterSpace to set the point.

As time buries tweets in Twittersphere cacophony, I’ll follow here with what followed beneath the above post.

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

Politkovskaya, Anna. A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Nekrasov, Andrey. Director. Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File AKA The Murder of Litvinenko–>

***

Very little post-Cold War literature speaks well of Russia, frankly.

I had years ago created in my library a small “Russian Section” but decided against become a librarian as well as a faithful, thorough, and persnickety creator of bibliography. 🙂 Nonetheless, the basic reading has turned out a lasting experience.

Here, I would buttress the three articles noted up top with one more in sync with what has been Moscow’s political style since the early-mid 1990s: Schindler, John. “Exploring Al Queda’s Murky Connection to Russian Intelligence.” Business Insider, June 10, 2014.

***

Does Moscow need the enmity of the world for grinding against?

Or does Russia merely represent what is barbaric, corrupt, evil, greedy, and ruthless between men?

And does Washington need the enmity of Moscow to set is own pace in defense spending and related forces and technology development?

They’re questions worth asking but far beyond my capacity to address.

The one thing well known worldwide is that Moscow has lost all credibility in aboveboard political agreements (like that Budapest Memorandum) and normal diplomatic declarations (e.g., assurances about NOT invading Ukraine even as it positioned for doing so–and now we have the same talk about not using tactical nuclear weapons even as it plans to move weapons of the type into Belarus).

As the United States and others have led the world on the basis of competitive good conduct and productivity in trade — and with the happiness of nations having to do with adjustment to long-term cultural attributes and geopolitical realities–Russia appears to have fallen into the darkest of abyss with its “Tsar Nobody” attempting to accomplish by corruption, force, and theft what he and it have no wish to do peacefully. On Putin’s course, Russia evidently means to destroy, enslave, plunder, and subjugate rival powers.

–33–

Z->Western End of the Soviet Era & Putinism

28 Tuesday Feb 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Epistemology, Europe, Great Britain and United Kingdom, North America, Political Psychology, Russia, Ukraine

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ㄥ & 7 = Z

2022-1945 = 77 (years)

Zapad -> West.

As with that other now infamous symbol, “9/11”, Putin’s world appears to delight in rich metonymy: “911” emergency call number in the United States; “9/11/1877”–Felix Dzerzhinsky’s birth date. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, we have had yet another cruel symbolic ‘joke’ from Moscow’s most criminal mind: “Z”.

So far, KGB Putin has driven his “Z” into ideologically westward Ukraine only to see armored columns destroyed time and again while sending into battle ill-trained poorly equipped troops who may rightfully consider themselves “cannon fodder”. The rest is numbers.

Putin’s goal in his malign narcissistic fashion: the imprint in Russian popular memory of his courageous-heroic image–a projection covering fear of his own humiliation, which, ironically, he is now handily creating himself with the useful idiots one might call his enablers; also and still related to his narcissism and all the more criminal for it, his own restoration but viewed in the reflection of restored empire starting with the Soviet “Near Abroad”.

The Damaged West

In the 9/11 narrative, the Russian side has Zawahiri “detained” over the winter of 1996/7. Whatever the American story might be, i.e., hapless blundering while the crews got themselves through jet flying school or the “9/11 Truth” argument, the event put Radical Islam on America’s collective cognitive map–or let’s just call into its “enhanced political perception”–and created a patriotic wake-up that headed full throttle toward the “New Nationalism” that would help along the autocratic, narcissistic, xenophobic campaign that would boost Donald Trump’s ascent to power in 2016. In foreign affairs, the same and similar Muslim-identified terror attacks would ease the way for Erdogan’s archaic autocratic consolidation, Le Pen’s prominence in France (with Putin’s approval and possibly his assistance as well), and Orban’s methodical retrograde reactionary degrading of democracy in Hungary. Even though Russia’s invasion of Ukraine–and the perhaps unintended elevation of Volodymyr Zelensky as a Churchillian world-class leader in time of war–brought the Atlantic Alliance to its feet with its hands reaching for the check books, the most familiar indices of nation strength, i.e., political cohesion and coherence, have been altered.

Toward Western Political Repair and Russia’s Liberation From Tyranny

At this time, a year of war in Europe, mass displacements and migration, and the confrontation with Moscow’s evil have strengthened western resolve, and if the Russian Mafia State is not to drain patience and treasuries by drawing out its war, which might be for Putin & Nefarious Company just another “Frozen Conflict”, the whole will have to methodically degrade and hollow out from within Tsar Nobody’s domain with hope that more noble forces presently intimidated and suffocated by Putin’s manipulations will find their way back to daylight and embark on a path of their own toward greater integrity and responsibility in modern governance.

While NATO works up its own broad-spectrum defense capability-in-response, EU/NATO constituencies may wish to revisit Russian Political Absolutism and secret police state history from the Imperial to Bolshevik to Putin eras and ask how so much power could possibly be wrapped into such myopic and small nut balls. Perhaps where force has worked in relation to domestic order in the past it now primarily inspires contempt and resentment (as it should).

Today’s West should have no place for Tsar Nobody or anyone like him.

Related Online

AFP. “Russians and American share spacecraft despite nation’s enmity over Ukraine.” The Guardian, September 21, 2022.

Amaro, Silvia. “Russia ties haunt far-right candidate Le Pen as France gears up for election day.” CNBC, April 22, 2022.

Arms Control Association. “U.S.-Russian Nuclear Arms Control Agreements at a Glance.” Fact Sheets and Briefs, October 2022.

Chang, Kenneth and Anton Troianovski. “In Space, U.S.-Russian Cooperation Finds a Way Forward.” The New York Times, July 15, 2022.

Coelho, Carlos. “Why Is Russia Losing So Much Military Equipment in Ukraine?” RFE/RL, May 13, 2022.

Cohen, Raphael S., Elina Treyger, Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga, Asha Clark, Kit Conn, Scott W. Harold, Michelle Grisé, Marta Kepe, Soo Kim, Ashley L. Rhoades, Roby Valiaveedu, and Nathan Vest, Little in Common: Prospects for U.S.-China and U.S.-Russia Security Cooperation. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2023.

Cole, Brendan. “True Meaning Behind Russian ‘Z’ Symbol Finally Revealed.” Newsweek, April 19, 2022.

Cooper, Helene, Eric Schmitt, Thomas Gibbons-Neff. “Soaring Death Toll Gives Grim Insight Into Russian Tactics.” The New York Times, February 2, 2023.

Council on Foreign Relations. “U.S.-Russia Nuclear Arms Control”. Timeline.

Dean, Jeff. “The letter Z is becoming a symbol of russia’s war in Ukraine. But what does it mean?” NPR, March 9, 2022.

Epstein, Jake. “Putin brags that Russian weapons are ‘years, perhaps even decades ahead of rivals as his army pulls old Soviet-era tanks out of deep storage due to losses in Ukraine.” Business Insider, August 16, 2022.

Galeotti, Mark. “Narcotics and Nationalism: Russian Drug Policies and Future.” PDF. Improving Global Drug Policy: Comparative Perspectives and UNGASS. Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, Latin America Initiative, Foreign Policy at Brookings, 2016.

Gavin, Gabriel. “Putin’s push for a new USSR reawakens the bloody chaos of Soviet collapse.” Politico, September 19, 2022.

Gessen, Masha. “‘Z’ Is the Symbol of the New Russian Politics of Aggression.” The New Yorker, March 7, 2022.

Keane, Isabel. “Ukraine losing large number of troops as it boasts about Russian casualties.” New York Post, February 14, 2023.

Keaney, John. “US-Russia Cooperation.” American Security Project. 2017.

McCormick, Kiley. “Fast Reactors and Opportunities for Russian-American Collaboration.” Wilson Center, May 28, 2021.

Oppenheim, James S. “Malignant Narcissistic Process Distilled.” BackChannels, July 10, 2022.

Rahman, Khaleda. “What Marine Le Pen Has Said About Vladimir Putin.” Newsweek, April 19, 2022.

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

Sokolsky, Richard and Eugene Rumer. “U.S.-Russian Relations in 2030.

The White House. “Guidance on Scientific and Technological Cooperation with the Russian Federation for U.S. Government and U.S. Government Affiliated Organizations.” June 11, 2022.

VOA News. “US Contends Russia Violating Nuclear Arms Treaty.” January 31, 2023.

Vexler, Vlad. “Putin: The Problem of Evil in Politics.” Video. YouTube, February 27, 2023.

Wikipedia. “Casualties of the Russo-Ukrainian War.”

Wikipedia. “Felix Dzerzhinsky.”

–33–

Ukraine, One Year Out, Feb. 24, 2022->Feb. 24, 2023

24 Friday Feb 2023

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

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Posted to YouTube on February 19, 2023, this has seemed to me an extraordinary retrospective for this one-year anniversary–and may there not be another with the conflict ongoing–of Russia’s entirely surreal and unwarranted invasion of Ukraine.

My second-row seat to history, i.e., the modern desktop on the World Wide Web, has been overwhelmed by all of the option, and this day the live “presser”, now a recording for history, by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky-worth every second of its 2:20:55 run time. Also in the audience: The New York Times with its “Live Updates: On War’s Anniversary, Allies Support Ukraine With Words and Weapons.” There’s no waiting on the mail these days as the time between the question asked and answered and its appearance in the most reliable media has a lag time of about 10 minutes (for the typing into publication, no doubt).

For commiseration, memory, and solidarity with Ukraine in the defense of freedom this day: Bucha, Donetsk, Mariupol, etc.

For western can-do obligation, optimism, and spirit related to Ukrainian refugees in a time of war initiated by tyrant deserving of the title, “Tsar Nobody”: UNHCR Data; The Economist on the experience of Ukrainian refugees; and ordinary Americans rising to the occasion to host Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s war.

I have noted with sustained conviction the idea that Putin will not stop his own criminal assaults on Ukraine and against the west in general until stopped, and, frankly, I believe the entire relationship structure of the Russian “Mafia State” must be betrayed, confused, disinformed, hounded, and manipulated into the chaos, collapse, and corruption it has had in mind for all of the rest of the world. Putin, Kadyrov, Prigozhin: political criminals (my two most relevant signatures on Twitter: “#MaligNarcs” and “#PolitCrims”).

For Insight and Related Online

I have been relaying the following URLs for some time and have no longer the patience for typing, retyping, copying or pasting the same damning set of excellent independent research–>

David Satter on Putin’s ascent to power via the Moscow Apartment Bombings: https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/08/vladimir-putin-1999-russian-apartment-house-bombings-was-putin-responsible/

Anna Politkovskaya on the Putin-permitted Russian Army’s brutalizing of Chechen villages during the Second Chechen War: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo3617244.html

John Schinder on Al Queda and Aymen al Zawahiri’s stay in Russia, winter 1996-7,in relation to 9/11 and probably a “reflexively controlled” New Nationalism across EU/NATO: https://www.businessinsider.com/exploring-al-qaedas-murky-connection-to-russian-intelligence-2014-6

By yours truly, James S. Oppenheim, on post-Cold War history, 1992-2022, and 30 years of optimistic “peace dividend” cooperation with Moscow even while it grew as a Russian “kleptocracy” (rule by thieves) and resumed its support for dictatorships and terrorist organizations worldwide–https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/07/19/detecting-post-soviet-russias-black-narrative-of-revenge-for-89-and-91/

I think that’s enough to tie Russia’s abysmal purposes in Ukraine to its government’s criminal character at home. Russians have proven weak or bereft of power at home–more the latter, but they have nonetheless painted themselves before the world–and have made themselves ugly worldwide.

–33–

Nord Stream 2: Biden’s Warning, Putin’s Timing, and Germany’s Separation from Russia

10 Friday Feb 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, North America, Northern Europe, Political Psychology, Russia, Ukraine, United States of America

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Posted by C-SPAN to YouTube, February 7, 2022.

The simpletons, including those in the Kremlin, will scream casus belli over the alleged September sapping of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline laid out by Pulitzer Prize-winning Seymour Hersh in his Substack blog, but the big picture will not have changed: on February 24, Russia invaded a peaceful and sovereign Ukraine taking its business westward away from Moscow’s criminal corrupt and plundering character, and it did not take long for the invader to overtly frame NATO as its admitted true target. With the what-ifs of national security floating ahead of an ever-unfolding present, the Biden Administration appears to have at least developed a plan to secure the functional and political coherence, cohesion, and defense of NATO.

Even if the cat’s out of the bag, so to speak, #PutinFullTonto continues to live in the past while fully believing he’s fighting a medieval war involving primarily feudal force and will: “President Vladimir Putin has accused ‘Anglo-Saxon’ powers of blowing up the pipelines, a Kremlin-designed project to circumvent Ukraine in exporting its gas under the Baltic Sea directly to western Europe.”

With a secret kept secret–or a fabrication not too flagrantly distributed–the White House could have pointed to Russia’s extraordinary lies all the way back to at least the false-flag Moscow Apartment Bombings that well appear to have brought Vladimir Putin to power and paved way for his army’s brutality in Chechnya. Now the Federal establishment will have to defend its denial of Seymour Hersh’s allegation and analyses. Given Hersh’s persnickety and thorough attention to details and references, the Government will lose.

Biden’s Administration, however, will remain well in the right in relation to post-Soviet Russia as a criminal and implacable force that has repeatedly bloodied the world’s stage with its support for barbarism, corruption, terrorism, and transnational crime. Moscow appears to have taken on the role of Evil in a religious play it believes must seek an ambivalent balance between the Devil and God. Well . . . that’s bunk, but it’s also signal of Putin’s own medieval and malign narcissistic (messianic, delusional, grandiose) mentality.

Support may be found for each claim I have made regarding Putin’s Russia, but those who follow know, or all those simply curious, independent, and possessed of integrity in their own OSINT (or better) adventures, will find in every examination of Putin’s tenure in power a damned regime, and one still godless and smarmy even before God, an ignominious little show put on by ruthless small and violent men.

Regarding Putin’s inverted worldview, Germany, and “RusNazis”, having Nord Stream 2 offline and Germany all in with NATO fairly halts the further development of Putin’s backward-moving and upside-down ambitions in Ukraine and the rest of Europe. He has done his damage to British and European spirit, and when he’s gone–and he will be gone, one way or another–greater western and liberal repair will ensue.

Related Online

Faulconbridge, Guy and Vladimir Soldatkin. “Kremlin says those behind Nord Stream blasts must be punished.” Reuters, February 9, 2023.

Hersh, Seymour. “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline.” Seymour Hersh, Substack, February 8, 2023.

Jackson, Jon. “Putin Preparing Russians for War With NATO.” Newsweek, May 1, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “Detecting Post-Soviet Russia’s Black Narrative of Revenge for ’89 and ’91.” BackChannels, July 19, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “KGB FSB ROC M-O-N-E-Y.” BackChannels, January 18, 2023.

Politkovskaya, Anna. A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. Alexander Burry and Tatiana Tulchinsky, Translators. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

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.

–33–

Over Coffee–Opinion, Reading, and Viewing Recommended: Russian Payoffs to European Politicians; Chinese Balloon; Ilhan Omar

05 Sunday Feb 2023

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Russia Paid Off European Politicians In Relation to Ukraine and Violence Elsewhere

Since Russia launched its brutal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, condemnation of Vladimir Putin’s overseas aggression has reached a fever pitch. Yet Russia can still rely on the occasional friendly voice in Europe: Last November, for example, far-right Italian local legislator Stefano Valdegamberi penned an op-ed decrying the EU’s decision to designate Russia a terrorist state as “a serious mistake” that “foments conflict by denying historical truth.”

But what Valdegamberi didn’t mention was that he had long been collaborating with a secretive Russian lobbying group with a direct link to the Kremlin. Since at least 2014, that group had designed plans to channel cash to European politicians to help it legitimize Russia’s occupation of Crimea and promote pro-Moscow policies inside EU countries.

Laine, Martin, Cecilia Anesi, Lorenzo Bagnoli, and Tatiana Tkachenko. “Kremlin-Linked Group Arranged Payments to European Politicians to Support Russia’s Annexation of Crimea.” Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, February 3, 2023.

Reading Highly Recommended–>

Greg Olear’s 2018 investigation of how the world works between Donald J. Trump, Russia’s political interests, and related mafia and ill-gotten wealth.

America Has Lost Its Objectivity Over “Spy Balloon”, Says Chinese Pundit–And He’s Right

Influential commentator Hu Xijin blamed American “politicization” and “hype” for preventing the incident from escalating, saying that competition to look tough on China meant that the United States “has already lost its objectivity.”

Shepherd, Christian. “China blames U.S. politics for ‘overreaction’to suspected spy balloon.” The Washington Post, February 5, 2023.

In the normal course attending diplomatic incidents, investigations ensue, and with “spy data” presumed already transmitted, there would seem not much point in destroying the technology involved in the overflight. Of course, there was Gary Powers too, so Biden did what ranting Republicans appeared to expect in the way of “tough” leadership. It was not a good decision nor display of national air and space defense–the object should have been addressed and turned or interdicted on or just past arrival in American air space.

China has already apologized for the incident–“On Friday, China’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that the balloon was theirs, but called it a “civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological purposes,” that had gone off course. And the ministry expressed rare “regret” for the incident.” Beijing should now follow up with details regarding the research mission and its technology, in general, while the U.S. Navy attempts retrieval of the drowned payload.

The Silencing by Removal of Ilhan Omar From the Foreign Affairs Committee

The angry header displayed this morning in The Jerusalem Post: “Decision to remove Ilhan Omar from Foreign Affairs Committee was overdue -editorial: What makes Omar particularly dangerous is that while she spews blatant antisemitism, she pretends not to be an antisemite.”

Omar herself had asked (same article), “‘Why is it OK for me to talk about the influence of the (National Rifle Association), or fossil fuel industries or Big Pharma, and not talk about a powerful lobbying group that is influencing policy?'”

Conservative and liberal Americans have now to ask this question: what else is off the table?

Who hasn’t an ox?

Our American system relies on compassion, education, intelligence, open discourse, earnest problem-solving abilities, and respect, not religious or tribal hate.

Apparently, some Jews–not this one although I have become with experience very much an American of Jewish descent–believe Ilhan Omar’s election and voice should be nullified where it most counts, and suspicion, for that is what is expressed by, “. . . pretends not to be an antisemite”, put in place of of argument, education, and reason. The only lesson imparted: don’t mess with the Jews, even if and when they are wrong.

Posted by PBS to YouTube, February 2, 2023.

–33–

Ukraine Defense: Courageous, Righteous, and Tough People

01 Wednesday Feb 2023

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War. Winter. Weariness.

Here, Anna From Ukraine in her daily broadcast lets the world know how war with Russia has been experienced and weathered in her nation.

My view: for those who believe in human dignity and freedom–especially freedom from autocrats, dictators, tyrants, perhaps as well deeply impersonal bureaucracies and systems, and one might also add for Moscow corrupt and criminal systems–courage, endurance, faith, and resilience matter. In the realpolitik between states, alliance, commitment, determination, and ferocity seen as well as off-stage matter too.

Related Online

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

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

Posted to YouTube with February 1, 2023.

–33–

Surrealpolitik: Orban & Putin & ‘Illiberal Democracy’

07 Saturday Jan 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, Hungary, Psychology, Russia

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BUDAPEST, Hungary—When Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban unleashed a racist tirade during an annual address to ethnic Hungarians in Romania on July 23, in which he argued that his supporters do “not want to become peoples of mixed race,” the international community recoiled in horror at the vitriol being espoused by the leader of a NATO and European Union member state. One of Orban’s longtime advisors, Zsuzsa Hegedus, resigned after the speech, calling it a “pure Nazi text … worthy of [former Nazi leader Joseph] Goebbels.”

Coakley, Amanda. “Putin’s Trojan Horse Inside the European Union: No matter what Moscow does, Hungary’s prime minister consistently carries water for the Kremlin.” Foreign Policy, August 3, 2022.

Amanda Coakley’s article also covers Orban’s deliberate development of dependence on Russia for Hungary’s energy supply. His disingenuous position within the European Union suggests he has had but one outcome in mind, i.e., to become premier in Europe’s “New Nobility” as encouraged by Vladimir Putin. At the base of the autocratic feudal-medieval bond–the same “Malignant Narcissism” that has so characterized former American President Donald Trump’s careers and politics that have turned out disasters for banks, contractors, and citizens.

In late November 2022, Ukrainian special forces arrested a suspected Russian agent at the Ukraine–Hungary border. The man had been attempting to smuggle secret information into EU member state Hungary on a flash drive that he had allegedly concealed in his anus.

The flash drive contained stolen personal information about senior figures and staff at the Ukrainian domestic secret service SBU and the Ukrainian military intelligence service GUR, as well as sensitive data on Ukrainian army bases, weapons and logistics.

Bogar, Zsolt. “Is Hungary becoming Russia’s spy hub within the EU?” DW, September 12, 2022.

Orban, contrary to the European Union’s posture, appears not to mind either the presence nor success of Russia’s spies in Budapest and elsewhere in Hungary. The penetration surpasses presence in numbers as allies believe Hungary’s “IT networks and internal communications” compromised. For a four-year period, 2013-2017, Orbán’s Hungary had even eased the access of Russian spies into the rest of the EU via a “Golden Visa” program (related and recent: Szabolcs, Panyi. “Russian spy chief’s son has a Budapest address–in a property owned by an old friend of Orbán’s chief of staff.” Telex, November 14, 2022).

In the now “surrealpolitik” constructed between Hungary and Russia, business includes the following:

  • Building two nuclear plant blocks in Paks financed by borrowing $10 billion from Russia;
  • Building railroad cars;
  • Hosting Russia’s dark International Investment Bank;
  • Supporting a 15-year gas delivery contract with Gazprom that bypasses Ukraine.

For further details, see the source–Rácz, András. “Authoritarian Ties: The Case of Russia and Hungary.” The Russia File, Kennan Institute, Wilson Center, October 22, 2021. Rácz also notes where Orbán’s spine has stiffened in relation to Russian performance not up to EU standards (and some “intelligence operatives” have indeed been ejected from Hungary).

Global Security‘s remarks fit the brotherly love model of modern despotism in Hungary: “Orban played tough, which might not turn out well for him in the long run. His games were turning into a high wire act, threatening to keep Brussels off balance. At times Orban made half-hearted promises to uphold the EU’s policy toward Russia; at other times, he allowed himself to be flattered by Putin, his self-declared political role model. Or, when it came to economic interests, he allowed himself to be put under pressure (Global Security, “Hungary-Russia Relations” as quoted January 7, 2022).

Putin’s realpolitik, plain old mafia leverage, came through for Russia this past year. From The Guardian—

Hungarians voted in general elections just weeks after the invasion, in April, and it seems reasonable to assume that the war next door had an influence on the result. Given the climate of fear that the devastating “special military operation” created, Hungarians voted to keep Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz in power rather than risk an untested six-party coalition. This assumption also underlies Orbán’s response, which is to stay out of the conflict to the point of being “exempted”, a position that has been condemned as a betrayal by Hungary’s western allies. Hungary refuses to allow arms shipments destined for Kyiv to transit Hungarian territory and blocks the extension of EU sanctions against Russia to the energy sector. This latter stance is intended to enable an already controversial Russian-Hungarian project to build a nuclear power plant on the Danube (Paks II) to go ahead unaltered.

Dalos, György.  “Orban says Hungary is ‘exempt’ from the conflict: tell that to his friend in Moscow.”  The Guardian, October 29, 2022.

György also notes the “similarities between the two leaders: authoritarian posturing and illiberalism underlying their respective concepts of the state.”

Since then, Orbán has been accused of fostering resentment. Tensions flared in 2018 over a video that apparently showed diplomats illegally issuing Hungarian passports to people in Transcarpathia. Later, in 2019, Hungary was accused of trying to influence the outcome of elections in the region, and blocked Ukraine’s NATO membership negotiations over the row. |

Today, from the Donbas to Kosovo, events are again proving the potency of nationalist narratives over lost territory and peoples separated by the claimed injustices of history. Yet, in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the simple fact that many Hungarians have negative views of both Russians and Ukrainians is pertinent.

Nattrass, William. “Hungary’s ‘pro-Russia’ stance was inevitable.” Politico, September 15, 2022.

The wholly reactionary New Nobility (a member of which Orban might wish to be counted) rather like the old, appears fascinated by its own super-duper bloodline and culture, enough so to demonize hosts beyond their own boundaries, engage in passportization, and when possibility arises, redraw maps by way of wars driven by the conviction of racially-based cultural supremacy.

Comparing Orban to Putin might once have been hyperbole. But when Fidesz seems determined to expel a high-quality educational institution from the country on the grounds of political views of its funder, it is hyperbole no longer.

The attack on CEU, furthermore, is not happening in isolation. It is part of a broader effort to squeeze out “Soros and the powers that symbolize him,” to use Orban’s own words.

Rohac, Dalibor. “Hungary Is Turning Into Russia: On the CEU, Orban Mimics Putin.” Foreign Affairs, April 12, 2017.

America’s Anti-Defamation League has classified the demonizing of George Soros as expressive of anti-Semitism, a return to the rhetoric of Jew as Globalist. In fact and far back in the day, George and his father, Tivador, used social camouflage to survive the Holocaust while providing other Jews with forged papers for escape. Their resistance would continue against Stalin and Communist Russia, and so through George Soros it has been sustained through the Cold War and throughout Russia journey into kleptocracy and, on this day, politically absolute tyranny.

ADL. “The Antisemitism Lurking Behind George Soros Conspiracy Theories.” October 11, 2018.

Bogar, Zsolt. “Is Hungary becoming Russia’s spy hub within the EU?” DW, September 12, 2022.

Coakley, Amanda. “Putin’s Trojan Horse Inside the European Union: No matter what Moscow does, Hungary’s prime minister consistently carries water for the Kremlin.” Foreign Policy, August 3, 2022.

Dalos, György.  “Orban says Hungary is ‘exempt’ from the conflict: tell that to his friend in Moscow.”  The Guardian, October 29, 2022.

Global Security. “Hungary-Russia Relations”.

Nattrass, William. “Hungary’s ‘pro-Russia’ stance was inevitable.” Politico, September 15, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “FTAC: A Short Note on the Demonizing of George Soros.” BackChannels, August 8, 2020.

Rácz, András. “Authoritarian Ties: The Case of Russia and Hungary.” The Russia File, Kennan Institute, Wilson Center, October 22, 2021.

Rohac, Dalibor. “Hungary Is Turning Into Russia: On the CEU, Orban Mimics Putin.” Foreign Affairs, April 12, 2017.

Szabolcs, Panyi. “Russian spy chief’s son has a Budapest address–in a property owned by an old friend of Orbán’s chief of staff.” Telex, November 14, 2022.

While #PutinFullTonto strives to return Russia to some version of the KGB revisits the Russian Imperial mode, few believe the Phantom of the Soviet will restore a monstrous near past; however, he has well succeeded in leveraging cooperation from malign and piratical personalities similar to his own–in power Viktor Orban and Recep Tayyip Erdogan most notably–and thereby weakening the political cohesion and coherence of the Atlantic Alliance and the European Union.

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