Tag Archives: Russia

Moscow Misrules – Create Chaos – Promise Order – Collect!

14 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Eastern Europe, Eurasia, Europe, Regions, Russia

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Posted to YouTube 6/22/2016.

Can you see the tree?  The trees?  The forest?

How about the blight?

Writing about Russia can be like that: Focus on a crime, follow it into more general corruption, arrive at the “mafia state”; overview energy and economics, move on to “hybrid warfare” and other aggressive military and paramilitary activities, and it dawns that there is an imperial state at work; have a glance at history, then get the nose out of the books and have a look around at present Putin & Co. relationships, disinformation, domestic information control, and global propaganda.

What may be most dangerous about Russia today is the slowly developing surround in alliance and axis accompanied by the seduction of the popular mind (in Soviet-speak, “the masses”) by way of the promotion of confusion.

For its part, this blog has pressed the idea that defending Putinism, much less spreading it, devolves to sustaining a deeply feudal-medieval worldview that in turn undergirds the power of state elites: the “New Nobility” that is the FSB; the “Vertical of Power” that is this most singular Russian President around whom other elements revolve; the Oligarchs that produce and enjoy the state’s wealth, albeit with a nod to the permit provided by their political mastermind.

From off that magnificent hub:

  • Putin-Assad-Khamenei (Putin-Khamenei);
  • Putin-Assad-Khamenei-Baghdaddi (together representing medieval absolute power);
  • Putin-Orban.

With numerous stolons — plant-generated surface and underground runners that propagate some of the species that use them — the Moscow hub appears to support an immense array of illicit and licit relationships.

Here’s a nugget pulled from the illicit bin, which, of course, is the one that most bothers the west:

The leaked files suggest that Roldugin is not keeping this wealth for himself, but is funneling the money to Putin’s inner circle, the reports say. Although Putin is not mentioned in the documents, he appears to be at the center of a web of Russia’s most influential and powerful men who owe their posts and fortunes to nothing but their friendship and association with him.

“It’s possible Roldugin, who has publicly claimed not to be a businessman, is not the true beneficiary of these riches,” the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists wrote. “Instead, the evidence in the files suggests Roldugin is acting as a front man for a network of Putin loyalists — and perhaps for Putin himself” (Mirovalev, LAT, April 4, 2016).

How deep go these relationships?

How many are there?

Can you see the tree?  The trees?  The forest?

The blight?

The Syrian Tragedy, as BackChannels refers to that horrific process in which it appears Damascus with tacit approval from Moscow and Tehran pursued a course certain to produce “The Terrorists” by preferentially bombing more moderate Free Syrian Army forces and refraining from curbing the early development of al-Nusra and ISIL, needs no introduction: the human spillover is either encamped or migrating all over the Middle East and Europe.

Posted to YouTube April 14, 2016.

Moscow, however, has been also busy from the Baltic Sea (as depicted in the above naval incident) to the Black Sea.  Crimea and Ukraine, Lithuania, and Moldova, among others moan with the impositions or threats posed by the phantom of the Soviet alive within the Russian Federation.

A note from Moldova (Timpul.md, February 11, 2015):

Given Moldova’s limited economic potential, the country struggles to maintain its defense capabilities. It only allocates 0.3% of its GDP for military purposes, which amounts to about 25 million dollars per year. Furthermore, Moldova presents limited interest to the West. Its strategic and economic importance is negligible. To make things worse, Moldova is highly dependent on Russian energy supplies, export and labor markets. Russian media control a significant share of Moldova’s informational space. Finally, Kremlin has been instrumental in using Russian speaking minorities in Moldova to advocate interest that often go against the will of the majority of the local population.

In earlier and Soviet years, Moscow was not above playing games to irk the west and possibly draw on its coffers and patience, for whom has always to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of so much meddling?  The BBC recently ran an audio clip featuring Somalia’s General Mohamed Noor Galal recounting the machinations that went into setting the course for war in the region between Ethiopia and Somalia known as the Ogaden.  In that misery, the Soviet enticed Somalia to invade the Ogaden and seize it from Ethiopia, and when Ethiopian forces were down on luck and firepower, it intervened to arm Ethiopia, which then recovered the Ogaden.

Somalia, however, has never recovered.

Whatever the Soviet was thinking — arms sales?  Expansion of forced influence? — it sure wasn’t thinking about the lives and needs of either either Ethiopians or Somalis.  In effect, in the promotion of the Ogaden War, The Bear wrapped an arm around the Somali leadership and offered to help the same acquire a fair patch of earth as redress for earlier grievance — and then with that accomplished, it did the same on the other side.

What works, unfortunately, works.

If you now see the Ogaden in history — you have seen one tree.

Nothing has changed: now as then, one may wonder at the character and mentality of the post-Soviet neo-imperial Russian leadership, the same that has treated Russia as it has other states: create chaos and danger, drown the masses in propaganda (ah, those good old Party days are here again!), and for power — and the protection of so many money making enterprises, licit and illicit — promise the super nationalist’s version of greatness, security, and stability.

Note: Putin-Erdogan — politically opposed (there’s that Shiite vs Sunni thing + NATO) but psychologically aligned (and Erdogan has the White Palace to prove it).

Reference

Akkoc, Raziye.  “Turkey’s president is not acting like a Queen – he is acting like a sultan’: Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he isn’t a sultan – rather he wishes to be like the Queen in a constitutional monarchy – but his actions suggest otherwise.”  The Telegraph, February 2, 2015.

Anadolu Agency.  “UN: No record of Russia humanitarian aid for Syria.”  February 4, 2014.

Balazs, Edith and Zoltan Simon.  “Orban Attacks EU Energy Plan as Putin Link Nets Hungary Gas Deal.”  Bloomberg, February 17, 2015.

Blair, David.  “Russia jets make ‘simulated attack’ on US warship in ‘aggressive’ Baltic incident.”  The Telegraph, April 14, 2016.

Farkas, Evelyn.  “Putin is testing Western resolve: Russian incursions into NATO airspace are evidence of Kremlin’s growing aggressiveness.”  Politico, November 25, 2015.

Farkas, Evelyn.  “Trump and Putin: Two liars separated at birth? — No wonder they seem to like each other; they are akin in their abuse of the truth.”  Politico, April 4, 2016.

Farkas, Evelyn.  “What the next president must do about Putin: An open letter from the Pentagon’s former key Russia expert on how to contain Russia’s aggressive autocrat.”  Politico, January 25, 2016.

Grigas, Agnia.  Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire.  New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2016.

Harding, Luke and Matthew Weaver.  “Barack Obama calls for ‘reset’ in US-Russia relations.”  The Guardian, July 7, 2009.

Jakóbik, Wojciech.  “Peter B. Doran: Atlanticism under threat.”  Interview. Stop Fake, March 30, 2016.

Loiko, Sergei L.  “A Russian horror story: Gang sentenced for 12 murders at family home.”  Los Angeles Times, November 19, 2013.

Melvin, Don.  “Girl asks Putin: Who’d you save from drowning, Erdogan or Poroshenko?”  CNN, April 14, 2016.

Mirovalev, Mansur.  “Putin’s best friend is at the heart of Panama Papers scandal.”  Los Angeles Times, April 4, 2016.

Political Capital.  “The Kremlin Connections of the Hungarian Far-Right.”  Stratfor, April 20, 2015.

Rettman, Andrew.  “Russian propaganda wins EU hearts and minds.”  Euobserver, June 23, 2015.

Shuster, Simon.  “A Failed Russia ‘Reset’ Haunts Obama in Europe.”  Time, June 3, 2014.

Stop Fake: Struggle against fake information about events in Ukraine.  Anti-propaganda website.

Than, Krisztina.  “Special Report: Inside Hungary’s $10.8 billion nuclear deal with Russia.”  Reuters, March 30, 2015.

Timpul.md.  “Moldova’s Security Options following Russian Aggression in Ukraine.”  February 11, 2015.

Traynor, Ian and Shaun Walker.  “Russian resurgence: how the Kremlin is making its presence felt across Europe: Moscow is influencing policy and shaping opinion all over the continent, with ties to both the far right and the hard left.”  The Guardian, February 16, 2015.

Walker, Shaun.  “‘So what if Putin is corrupt?’: Russia remains unmoved by offshore revelations.”  The Guardian, April 13, 2016.

Walker, Shaun.  “The luxury hotel, the family of the top Moscow prosecutor and Russia’s most notorious gang: Video by anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny links family of general prosecutor Yuri Chaika with wife of mobster behind notorious massacre.”  The Guardian, December 12, 2015.

Wolking, Matt.  “Six Years Ago Today: President Obama’s Failed Reset with Russia.”  Speaker of the House: Paul Ryan, March 6, 2015.

Xenakis, John J.  “World View: Mass Protests Force Moldova to Choose Between Europe and Russia.”  Breitbart, January 26, 2016.

Posted to YouTube January 26, 2016 (43:54).

Posted to YouTube May 9, 2014

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FTAC – Resistance is Feudal

04 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Politics, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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Regarding the “Cold War”, the 24th anniversary of the dissolving of the Soviet Union took place December 26, 1991, which date places all of us in the 25th year out from the machinations of that abominable terror-supporting enterprise. Of Putin’s bid to sustain a modern security state and oligarchy — the “New Nobility” — it may be suggested that “Resistance is Feudal”, because it is. The open democracies and communicating systems of the modern world present an existential challenge to dictatorships worldwide that continue to rely on medieval methods for keeping themselves in power.

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Links – On Russian Economic Disaffection

28 Monday Dec 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Links, Russia

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The actions of the long haul truckers show this, she says, and others may follow. “What did the government do in this situation?” It made concessions that had the effect of showing that its earlier actions were “unjust” and should not have been taken in the first place. Russians can see that.

“Now, legislation should be very carefully considered, for numerous laws that have been adopted are putting additional burdens on business and on the population. “Unfortunately, in the government, they continue to accept laws” designed to extract more resources from the population and are imposing them to try to cope with the crisis.

http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/12/russia-may-be-close-to-revolution-but.html – 12/28/2015

The share of poor families in Russia—those with not enough income to buy food or clothing—in the past year has almost doubled from 22 percent to 39 percent, according to the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center.

https://meduza.io/en/news/2015/12/28/the-number-of-poor-families-in-russia-almost-doubles-in-2015 – 12/28/2015

Freedom, it so happens, carries with it a great many temptations and pitfalls, and no one among Russia’s powerful and propertied today has managed to resist these temptations. Impunity has made it impossible to cure Russia’s corruption with a simple outpatient procedure.

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2015/12/25/opinion-how-russians-became-radicals – 12/25/2015.

Twenty-four years and two days ago, the Soviet Union dissolved itself, a fact of political life and history that today places Putin, the oligarchs, the Russians, and the rest of the world in the 25th year past the monumental failure of the communist experiment.  Today’s apparent “experiment” in place of the last one: feudalism in the form of a medieval revanche harking back to the days of Nicholas II and his establishment of the grandaddy of Russian political police, the Okhrana.

Same old, same old — and the Russian People will bear the costs before the “New Nobility” does (the “Oligarchs” appear to have been already politically compromised, this according to a Dec. 10, 2014 piece by Masha Gessen in The New York Times).

In a possibly Orwellian turn of events, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, so pleasingly pardoned before the Winter Olympics at Sochi has been returned (by Putin’s regime) to the status of an accused enemy of the Russian state, and “arrested in absentia” (the courts and defense are starting to kick around the absurdity — although Putin denies involvement, the state’s reputation developed under his auspices undermines claims to forthright character, i.e., too much has taken place “behind the curtains”).

Addendum

In relation to the expansion of capricious justice in Russia comes this from World Affairs’ “Spotlight on Russia” by Vladimir Kara-Murza: “Putin ‘Outlaws’ European Justice in Russia” (December 24, 2015).

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FTAC – On Separating from the Medieval World

20 Tuesday Oct 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Regions, Russia, Syndicate Red Brown Green, Syria

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Those deep into the polarization(s) don’t understand that what Putin, Khamenei, and Assad are trying to cement for the future and for themselves is the medieval worldview. The tough decision shouldn’t be where to stand up, i.e., against feudalism and fascism, but rather how to lead or navigate the medieval world into a more productive — helpful, peaceful, prosperous — and modern global reality.

Conflicts consume attention and destroy time, so the drivers and engines leading to political polarization have to be impeded or slowed down as well.

Some BackChannels posts function as markers — brief remarks; “scraped” reference to other publications that become teasers (made you click!); commentary that turns old the moment read but remains as a snapshot of response to a part of the news of the day — and that above serves as a marker.

Via BackChannels — perhaps especially in the section “21st Century Feudal” — one catches a glimpse of 19th Century Russia revisited in Putin’s Moscow, the same as alluded to or referenced in the volumes of “The Russian Section”.  The New Russian Security State is a medieval complex promoting spectacle (like the $51 billion Winter Olympics at Sochi) and political theater (like “Assad vs The Terrorists” AKA “Assad OR The Terrorists”) while failing to produce government responsive to Russians (some would add the term “outside of Moscow”) or responsible to humanity in general.  It has taken BackChannels, which is not edited by an hoary Cold Warrior or newly sprung political science major, some time to see the Great Picture aligning a malignant narcissism with an epic that has laid waste to a nation before a horrified and benumbed global audience.

Projected against the backdrop of this bizarre stage: an image of a Russian bishop (unidentified) blessing rockets intended to kill moderate and modern Syrians, not “The Terrorists” incubated into today’s “Daesh”.  The exact context of the image (in the linked Business Insider piece) has been contested but the message — there mere act of Christian religious authority blessing weapons intended for extremist Muslim targets — cannot but endorse the medieval script, would that history itself have kept its most bloody religious wars contained.

On stage, center and right: an endless, horrific, and obscene stream of the momento mori of war brought to the innocent, infant and adult: beheaded, burnt, crushed, mangled, poisoned, riddled, and sliced.

The post-Soviet, neo-feudal arc of power connecting Moscow, Damascus, and Tehran continues to blame the bloodletting on the west (even though last November — 2014 — it was Moscow entertaining the listed terrorist organization “PFLP”; even though it was then Assad’s, and today Russia’s, bombing priority to preference the mixed and moderate Free Syrian Army (FSA) as targets in bombing runs and spare Daesh as hornets to fill up Syria and lash against her neighbors should the Assad regime be plainly overrun).

Responsible oligarchy focused on internal development may survive Syria by way of the complexity of the numbers subject to authoritarian systems and the difficulty, for example, of offering the methods of democracy to such as the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization ever ready for elections followed by proving itself as demonic as advertised (in Egypt in 2013: so done), but the Moscow story now differs quite from that: Bloomberg Business has spotted the contraction of the Russian economy at 4.6 percent (8/10/2015).

Related and published about 30 minutes ago: Kolesnikov, Andrei.  “Russia Chooses Bombers Over Pensioners.”  The Moscow Times, October 20, 2015.

Related: Stadnik, Alexander.  “Russia’s startup migration could help repair relationship with US.”  Russia Direct, October 15, 2015; McKenzie, Malgorzata.  “Why start-ups are Really leaving Russia.”  Russia Direct, October 15, 2015; Murashova, Olesya and Elena Novoselova.  “Employment: Recruitment Shortly Before 2016.”  The Moscow Times, October 20, 2016; Whitman, Elizabeth.  “Russia Unemployment Soars Under Putin Amid Sanctions, Falling Oil Prices: 4.1 Million Out of Work.”  International Business Times, September 23, 2015.

However one may read or skim the above cited articles, business life (and employment) appears simply more tenable, perhaps even pleasant, in the west: more markets for high tech innovators, whether as labor or the heads of new businesses; the power to passively contribute to reduced global oil pricing — by way of North American Energy Independence for Canada and the United States — and, in relation to conflict, imposing sanctions that could only be imposed by the lawful (in banking, business, and trade) on the unlawful — and “unlawful” is what medieval “absolute power” — the rule of the despotic and piratical — has been always about.

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Bashar “Barrel Bomb” Assad . . . .

15 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, Syria

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

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian military helicopters dropped barrels packed with explosives in the government’s latest air raids on rebel-held areas of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Saturday, killing at least 23 people, including a family trapped in a burning car, activists said.

In neighboring Lebanon, a car bomb blew up near a gas station in a Shiite town, killing at least three people, in the latest attack linked to the war in Syria.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/world/middleeast/syrian-helicopters-drop-barrel-bombs-on-aleppo.html – 2/1/2014.

Ahmad al-Hamoud, Vice Commander of Ahfad Hamza Battalion for Special Missions, al-Sultan al-Fatih Brigade, told VDC that many kinds of the barrel bombs used by the regime forces had been recognizable. These included:

1- Regular Russian-made Barrels. These are believed to have been used by the Russian Army in the middle of the previous century. They were brought from Russia ‘ready to use’. The regime has owned them for decades. Their weight ranges between 300 to 500 kg and they’re filled with TNT and metallic scraps. There’re extremely destructive, yet their range is more limited than that of the other kinds.

2- Medium Destruction Barrels. These are believed to be made by the regime in ‘Defense Factories’ in al-Safira, in the Valley of al-Waha. Most of the helicopters taking off from this valley dropped these barrels on the districts of Aleppo. The weight of these barrels ranges from 400 to 500 kg.

3- Highly Destructive Barrels. These are the most dangerous and destructive of all. Weighing more than 600 kg, they take many shapes like containers, cisterns and, in some cases, green rubbish containers.

“A Special Report on the Recent Air Attacks on Aleppo: Potential Death Falling from the Sky…: Violation Documentation Center in Syria, March 2014.  Note: graphic forensic photographs included in the report.

Posted to YouTube 2/24/2015.

Source: https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/02/24/syria-new-spate-barrel-bomb-attacks – 2/24/2015.

Barrel bombs are improvised weapons: oil drums or similar canisters filled with explosives and metal fragments. They are dropped without guidance from helicopters hovering just above antiaircraft range, typically hitting the ground with huge explosions and the widespread diffusion of deadly shrapnel. They pulverize neighborhoods, destroy entire buildings and leave broad strips of death and destruction.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/06/opinion/barrel-bombs-not-isis-are-the-greatest-threat-to-syrians.html – 8/5/2015

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/bombs-kill-dozens-syria-aleppo-150713131000494.html – 7/13/2015

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/aljazeeraworld/2015/03/150325072934200.html – 3/25/2015 – “Death of Aleppo”.

Footage has emerged showing the Syrian regime using explosive “barrel bombs” on civilian neighbourhoods, killing hundreds, while its representatives attended peace talks at Geneva.

Filmed by activists in the southern Damascus suburb of Daraya, the ten minute video is a compilation of footage showing barrels, loaded with TNT, being dropped on the neighbourhood during the week the Geneva II conference was convened.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10618670/Syrian-military-drop-devastating-barrel-bombs-on-city.html – 2/5/2014.

Nongovernmental organizations researching and working in Syria, including Human Rights Watch and the Syrian Civil Defense, testified during the meeting. Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations special envoy on Syria, said in a video message that the Syrian government is responsible for the use of barrel bombs and that at the rate the weapons are being used, there won’t be any civilians left in Syria.

http://www.newsweek.com/united-nations-assads-barrel-bombs-continue-kill-syrian-civilians-347782 – 6/27/2015.

Government forces and pro-government militia continue to conduct widespread attacks on civilians, systematically committing murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearance as crimes against humanity. Government forces have committed gross violations of human rights and the war crimes of murder, hostage-taking, torture, rape and sexual violence, recruiting and using children in hostilities and targeting civilians in sniper attacks. Government forces disregarded the special protection accorded to hospitals, medical and humanitarian personnel and cultural property. Aleppo was subjected to a campaign of barrel bombing that targeted entire areas and spread terror among civilians. Government forces used incendiary weapons, causing superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering, in violation of international humanitarian law. Indiscriminate and disproportionate aerial bombardment and shelling caused large-scale arbitrary displacement. Government forces and pro-government militia perpetrated massacres.

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.  “Report of the independent international commission of inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic.”  Human Rights Council, 25th Session, Agenda Item 4, February 12, 2014.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/06/barrel-bomb-attacks-syria-aleppo-reported-150622175005995.html – 6/22/2015

While the Assad opposition masks off its own excesses, and, as always in the Islamic Small Wars, it’s hard “seeing” who is fighting exactly for what and how they’re doing it, warrior band by band, and sometimes person by person, there are no doubts as regards the smashing of large business, education, religious, and residential areas packed with noncombatant Syrians.

As Syrian Muslim and Jewish relationships develop — a perhaps “unheard of” now heard of — and Syrian anti-Semitism and anti-westernism comes more into focus as one impediment among several to western intercession, the scales may tip in the direction of the cosmopolitan and modern and therefore away from the medieval worldview that forms the basis for the despotism displayed by Putin, Assad, and Khamenei on the Shiite axis and al-Nusra and ISIS and others on the Sunni complement that serves the former as foils for the cooked up theatrical “Assad vs The Terrorists”.

In Syria, the center could not hold and the rough beast rose to savage the land.

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Link – Orton – Russian Manipulation – Islamic Terrorism

11 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Iraq, Links, Politics, Russia, Syria

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Moscow’s action were in line with the strategy it had used to defeat the separatist movement in Chechnya, infiltrating the insurgency, driving it into extremism, and facilitating the arrival of al-Qaeda jihadists who displaced the Chechen nationalists. In Syria, Russia’s actions accord with the strategy adopted by the regime and its Iranian masters to present Assad as the last line of defence against a terrorist takeover of Syria and a genocide against the minorities. New evidence has emerged to underline these points.

https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2015/09/08/how-russia-manipulates-islamic-terrorism/#more-1722 – 9/8/2015.

Published to YouTube 11/24/2012

Related: Russian Politics Timeline 1999-2011.  Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 2011 (PDF).

Posted to YouTube 8/8/2012.

Additional reference on BackChannels: The Russian Section.

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FTAC – Soviet to Syria – Now

01 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Russia, Syndicate Red Brown Green, Syria

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Blame Berezovsky (the wealthy man who effectively upgraded Putin’s political clout — http://www.thedailybeast.com/…/how-boris-berezovsky…). The Russians, as a people, and Afghanistan as a financial black hole for military expansion, managed to derail the Soviet (dissolved December 26, 1991); however, hardline privileged had already produced a plan to outlive the Soviet (reference: Karen Dawisha – http://www.miamioh.edu/…/cultural…/putins-russia/ – and the results of that today plus the Islamist stance of the opposition (Assad needed “the terrorists” for his play, “Assad vs The Terrorists”) has led to today’s mass murder and destruction in Syria.

Compression and distillation matter.

The ability of the average victims of fascist and feudal sociopaths may depend on a quick pickup on critical information — accurate, clear, complete (delivered honesty and with the highest integrity) — and the independent discernment and both personal and public political decision making it enables.

A good telegraphy should open on to new worlds, truth revealing and trustworthy.

For those with the necessary time and resources (and intellectual freedom), the Russian Section of the Library of this blog provides ample reference for seeing the Putin machinery as it worked across the president’s years in power and across the arc of the impositions of the Soviet Era.

For those horrified by the destruction wrought by Assad in Syria and determined to address it, BackChannels suggests addressing first endemic Syrian anti-Semitism and anti-westernism, which may contribute to blocking greater western intercession — actually, at the moment, any intercession — in Syria.

For a look at the Russian contribution to man’s inhumanity to man as overseen by President Putin, Oryx, a blog oriented to military tactics, provides a look through such articles as “New evidence proves Russian military directly engaging in Syrian Civil War” (August 29, 2015) and “Captured Russian spy facility reveals the extent of Russian aid to the Assad regime” (October 6, 2014) — and there’s more between those dates.

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Ukraine – Orphan?

06 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Europe, Russia, Syndicate Red Brown Green, Ukraine

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Posted to YouTube June 30, 2015.

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) has prepared a dossier laying out evidence for what it calls “Russian aggression against Ukraine.”

The report alleges there are some 9,000 Russian troops deployed in Ukraine, forming 15 battalion tactical groups. The force includes about 200 tanks, more than 500 armored fighting vehicles, and some 150 artillery systems, according to the dossier.

Coalson, Robert.  “Who Are The Russian Generals That Ukraine Says Are Fighting In The Donbas?”  Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, July 3, 2015.

In today’s Washington Post, Jackson Diehl notes Russia’s suspension of gas deliveries to Ukraine and the west’s distractions with Greece and Iran, asking at the end of his piece “Will this be remembered as the summer when the West let Ukraine die?”

I won’t give away his answer.

My hope: I hope not.

Remember Yanukovych Leaks and the state-borne internal piracy that drove Ukrainians to give Putin’s stooge the boot.

Remember Putin’s $52 billion Sochi Winter Olympics, which obscene spending ignored and masked off the hundreds of thousands dead in Syria and the nearly 10 million displace while Putin-Assad-Khamenei fairly cultivated “The Terrorists” for Assad’s Big Political Theater and Khamenei’s teleological commitment to bringing forth the Great Shiite vs Sunni Battle.

Remember Yulia Marushveska — says Anna Nemtsova recently, “She’s a Beautiful, Passionate Voice for Ukraine, But That’s Not Enough” (The Daily Beast, June 28, 2015):

“I want you to know why thousands of people all over my country are on the streets,” she said to the global audience, her voice full of feeling. “There is only one reason: They want to be free from a dictatorship. … We are civilized people but our government are barbarians. This is not a Soviet Union.” The video has since been seen by more than 8.3 million people.

Remember “Syndicate Red Brown Green” and the smaller feudal and mafia-style relationships: Putin-Assad-Khamenei; Putin-Khamenei; Jobbik-Iran; Putin-Orban; Putin-Erdogan, which looks shaky today.

Remember how Assad nurtured Syria’s al-Qaeda Typicals.

Remember Milan Kundera’s famous statement about remembering: “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”

The main purpose of keeping the Donbas conflict in a smoldering state is to let Putin remain in power. The Donbas war will distract the Russians and help Putin stay in power, the ex-FSB officer said.

Zik.  “Ex-FSB officer throws light on Putin’s games around Donbas.”  July 6, 2015.

The BackChannel’s term for what Putin (and Putin and Khamenei together) represent in contemporary political possibility: “21st Century Neo-Feudalism”.

Dzerzhinsky may be a Communist saint, but the symbolism of the prince’s statue is inescapable. It will celebrate the new Vladimir, not just the old one. This may be obvious, but the subject is avoided in polite conversation.

There are other topics — rising prices, the fighting in Ukraine, the shape of things to come — that people don’t like to think about, even though these subjects are at times unavoidable. The economy is entering “a full-fledged crisis,” former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told Parliament recently. He warned that Russia’s gross domestic product is forecast to be 4 percent lower this year than it was in 2014. Meanwhile, food prices are rising. Official figures indicate a 23 percent jump for the year ending in March, but an informal survey of grocers in my neighborhood suggests a 30 percent jump is more realistic.

Trudolyubov, Maxim.  “Russia’s Virtual Universe.”  The New York Times, July 5, 2015.

But Vyrypaev’s wider summing-up was admirably succinct: “This means that [the state] has the right to intervene, to control, direct, grow, regulate, monitor, and finally to develop the cultural process. It means that the state assumes the role of a kind of spiritual and educational shepherd for the people.”

Birchenough, Tom.  “theartsdesk in Moscow: Free thought vs cultural politics
How heavy is the official hand bearing down on Russian culture today?”  The Arts Desk, July 5, 2015.

While Obama has for the public paired Putin with Soviet revanche, it’s not the Soviet that Putin (and the KGB cum FSB organization) have brought to Russia: “feudalism”, “state capitalism”, “neo-feudalism” better describe what Putin has done — is doing —  to the Russians.

Related Reference

AP. “Land mine explosion in eastern Ukraine kills 5 soldiers, wounds 3 as fighting grinds on.”  Fox News, July 5, 2015.

Avedissian, Karena.  “The power of Electric Yerevan.”  Open Democracy, July 6, 2015: “The corruption and mismanagement of ENA reflect wider problems of governance and the political environment in Russia. When Russian state-owned companies (in which theft is not the exception but the norm) take over infrastructure in neighbouring countries, this is, in effect, ‘exporting corruption’.”

Batchelor, John.  “Obama’s ultimatums to Putin fall on deaf ears.”  Al Jazeera, July 3, 2015.

BBC.  “Nemtsov daughter condemns Russian media ‘propaganda’.”  June 9, 2015.

Castner, Jennifer.  “In Putin’s Russia, Environmentalists Face Stiff Repression.”  Earth Island Journal, June 30, 2015.

Center for Transatlantic Relations.  “This Week in Ukraine” (viewed as compiled July 2, 2015).

Connolly, Kate.  “Obama lambasts Putin: you’re wrecking Russia to recreate Soviet empire.”  The Guardian, June 8, 2015.

Gray, Rosie.  “Pro-Putin Think Tank Based in New York Shuts Down.”  BuzzFeed News, June 30 2015.

Gutterman, Steve.  “Russia blocks internet sites of Putin critics.”  Reuters, March 13, 2014.

Horvath, Ani.  “Hungary’s Viktor Orban antagonizes European Union with border fence, Russia embrace.”  The Washington Times, July 2, 2015.

Isachenkov, Vladimir.  “Putin: Russia is going to spend $400 billion upgrading its military.”  AP via Business Insider, June 26, 2015.

Popova, Polina.  “Freedom of speech under fire in Ukraine.”  The Hill, June 16, 2015.  (The story becomes convoluted as official Ukraine responds to the assault of Russian propaganda: writes Popova, “Some journalists fear that the ministry was actually created to muffle internal opposition, rather than tackling Russian propaganda. It’s not surprising that it has earned the Orwellian nickname “the Ministry of Truth”).

Not a few Russian intellectuals, depressed by the Orwellian state of Russian public discourse, have come to see Ukrainian cities as the hope for the future of Russian culture. In this light, the Russian invasion of Ukraine to protect freedom of speech in the Russian language is perhaps better compared to America invading Canada to save the welfare state or North Korea invading South Korea to protect capitalism.

Snyder, Timothy.  “Ukraine’s easy, misunderstood Babel.”  Politico, July 2-3, 2015.

The Chosunilbo.  “Russia Bans Internet Database Archive.”  July 6, 2015.  (The story concerns the “Wayback Machine” and, indeed, the suppression of questionable material).

Vasilyeva, Nataliya.  “Russian opposition star campaigns against apathy, but Kremlin media drowns him out.”  U.S. News & World Report, July 1, 2015.

Weiss, Michael.  “The Kremlin’s $220 Million Man: Igor Shuvalov, Russia’s deputy prime minister, is supposed to have the cleanest hands in the Kremlin. So where’d he get a quarter of a billion dollars?”  Foreign Policy, October 29, 2014.

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