Tags
decency, democracy, dignity, freedom, New Years Day 2023, Ukraine, western civilization, Zelensky
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01 Sunday Jan 2023
Tags
decency, democracy, dignity, freedom, New Years Day 2023, Ukraine, western civilization, Zelensky
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28 Tuesday Jun 2022
“Full Tonto”?
Criminally insane, mad, off the rails, and in the manner of the Malignant Narcissist and Thug in Charge, Russia has lost all sense of boundaries and limits. Putin’s Russian Circle of Thieves has taken from the Russian People their dignity, economy, freedom, and security; it has marched into battle enslaved conscripts and either criminal or leveraged (both) officers.
I’ve made the case on this blog that the “end of the Cold War” became in its underlying reality a struggle for revenge on the west for the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan (shorthand: “’89”) and the dissolving of the Soviet Union in bankruptcy (“’91”). We are now about 30 years out (1992-2022) from Vladimir Putin’s most traumatic political memory (the fall of the SU) and very near direct war against what has become a politically absolute, criminal, and rogue state held in the grip of real mafia and political thugs.
Excluding Russia’s gas reserves in Asia, Ukraine today holds the second biggest known gas reserves in Europe. As of late 2019, known Ukrainian reserves amounted to 1.09 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, second only to Norway’s known resources of 1.53 trillion cubic meters. Yet, these enormous reserves of energy remain largely untapped. Today, Ukraine has a low annual reserve usage rate of about 2 percent. Moreover, more active exploration may yield previously undiscovered gas fields, which would further increase the overall volume of Ukraine’s deposits.
I’ve no idea what CIA, GHCQ, NSA, et al. have been doing, but I’ve cause to believe I’ve both found and uncovered The Dots, fuzzy and large though they may be. Here they are:
.Felix Dzerzhinsky, born September 11, 1877
.Dawisha (RIP) Soviet Nomenklatura Transition Plan
.Nekrasov’s documentary
.Zawahiri in Russia, ’96-7
.Satter on Moscow Apartment Bombings
.9/11 Reflexive Control->New Nationalism EU/NATO
.Sustained Active Measures | Russian Mafia State | Syrian Barbarism | Trump Ascendancy
.Ukraine, 2014 Crimean Annexation, Invasion 2022
Circumstantial? Coincidental? Disconnected?
I don’t think so.
I suspect one or more Soviet Era KGB found themselves driving cabs early in 1992 and determined to get themselves back into business inside the state (watch Nekrasov’s documentary).
Motivating Zawahiri to team up with Osama Bin Laden to work on fireworks for 9/11?
Addressing Islamic Extremism (and Osama Bin Laden) may have been something Moscow and Washington thought they might work on together.
Wishing not to repeat myself nor dull the reading with definitions (“Active Measures”, “Destabilization Operations”, “Hybrid Warfare”, etc.), it may do to stop here but with the observation that Russia’s barbaric behavior in Syria starting in 2011 may have also set the stage not only for the invasion of Ukraine but added emphasis to its various nuclear-related civilizational, existential, and political threats: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has no conscience.
These newly established enforcers formed the seedy underbelly of Russian society that expanded upon the collapse of the U.S.S.R. and the move towards free-market practices. Since his rise, Vladimir Putin has incentivized gangsters to do his bidding in a new way. Rather than overt collusion, the Russian government, as ABC puts it, “make[s] its views known” and allows gangs to operate within the guidelines set forward by Putin.
As the European Council on Foreign Relations notes, more and more crime networks tangentially linked to Russian actors have appeared all over Europe. Multiple politically convenient assassinations or assassination attempts have been made on anti-Russia figures by gang members who have been accused of being Russian assets. The Russian government, via the Russian mafia, has dabbled in ventures ranging from hacking to money laundering.
The west handled the “end of the Cold War” as if the key elements in “east-west rivalry” had been resolved and returns to the previous state of affairs could be dulled through cooperation, peace, and prosperity.
As much has proven over time an horrendous goof however noble the intents.
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Regarding Russia’s “help” with the “War on Terror”: Rowlett, Justin. “Russia ‘arming the Afghan Taliban’, says US.” BBC, March 23, 2018; Maynes, Charles. “The Russian Embassy in Kabul Is Now Under Protection of the Taliban.” NPR, August 16, 2021.
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The West–EU/NATO–has been “played” by Moscow.
Putin & Co.’s Russia presents as nothing less than a most barbaric, criminal, and self-centered enterprise bent, enthralled, and maddened by its own destructive capability, narcissistic paranoia (see “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation”) and grandiose messianic delusions.
This with Russia’s criminal political enterprise persistent through Putin more from the Bolshevik camp than the Romanov will end in Russia internally–or from without but with consideration for The Russians en masse and for the world’s Modern International Standards in cultural comportment, development, integration, law, technology, and trade, all of which Putin & Co. have chosen to degrade and destroy without putting up anything at all that could be called Good.
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07 Tuesday Dec 2021
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13 Tuesday Apr 2021
Putin hasn’t to move one tank into Ukraine to control Ukraine, for he has already made himself central to Ukrainian (and NATO) awareness, fear, mobilization, and reflection.
Everything Ukraine may now do (and think) will have to do with whatever Putin chooses to do first.
Putin is in control.
Consider the Ukrainian defender’s now about seven-years-old experience and position with a belligerent and bullying Russia repeatedly and with impunity injuring or killing Ukrainian troops daily and weekly for all those years.
Where is that pain to be harbored and kept in check?
For how many more hours, days, weeks, months, years should Ukrainians tolerate the status quo of a “frozen conflict” sustained by the same criminals driven out in the 2014 Maidan?
Putin is in control.
How should Ukrainians feel about reaching out to a NATO that hems and haws over its imperfect governance while aspiring to meet modern democratic standards in rule-of-law?
Oh, has anyone had a good look lately at the degrees of corruption and rancor in relation to domestic political behavior within the United States?
At least the voting will of the American People voted out their own corrupt autocratic infection, but should any of the Atlantic Alliance have fallen so far to now have to bend over fully to pick up the reins dropped from the horse?
Hungary, Italy, Poland, Turkey have each gone at least partially — two especially — back toward family control or, alternatively, ownership of states by nobility, i.e., either way, the feudal mode in political absolutism.
Who’s next?
Putin is in control.
How tense the atmosphere? How dark the clouds? How near the enemy?
Putin is in control.
However far Russia dares to go with its annexation of Ukraine — and its thieving from Ukrainian business and industry and all else Ukrainian and good — Ukraine will have to stand up and go further, and God help NATO embrace and defend Ukraine.
Ukraine: is Putin in control?
“I heard Zelensky’s words as he said that Ukraine is ready to repel aggression. The fact is that he didn’t just say it’s ready today, it’s been ready for seven years already. It’s only that it’s a different level of readiness, because it’s hard to say when Russia might put their aggressive rhetoric to life,” Kravchuk told Current Time, a Russian language project created by RFE/RL with the participation of VOA.
He noted that Russia’s top leadership are directly threatening Ukraine and its sovereignty, including warning of “collapse of the state.”
Wikipedia. “Locus of control”.
Wikiepedia. “Malignant narcissism”.
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12 Monday Apr 2021
Has His Malignance Rolled or not?
It’s a little early to tell here with the Open Source.
Note: early drafts of this post were launched in the small hours, Eastern Standard Time; the latest updates now catch up with mainstream coverage.
Putin’s genius as a “malignant narcissist”: the projection of threat that makes himself central in the narratives of others.
While Ukraine may “not back down to Russian pressure,” it cannot help but be transfixed by it — and EU/NATO cannot help either being drawn to post-Maidan revolutionary Ukraine and both its democratic potential as well as its immediate security interests.
My schematic for the personal journey and process known to malignant narcissists
Narcissistic Mortification –> Covering (humiliation and shame) / Splitting (the damaged child from the image of an heroic child) –> Gaslighting and other Willful Manipulation (to create and sustain an heroic image) –> Limitless Narcissistic Supply (the experiences of public glory, the roaring approval of crowds, the validations of humanity and God).
(BackChannels Page Reference: “Malignant Narcissism”).
The power to (with impunity) threaten one’s targets is, of course, power. What those targets then do in the position of being threatened — and with Putin, boundlessly and without end — may or may not set the limits of that odious behavior.
Axelrod, Tal. “Ukraine says it will not back down to Russian pressure.” The Hill, April 10, 2021.
BBC. “US-Russian spat over bombers landing in Venezuela.” December 11, 2018.
Correll, John T. “Intercepting the Bear.” Air Force Magazine, February 26, 2018.
Mackinnon, Amy. “Is Russia Preparing to Go to War in Ukraine?” Foreign Policy, April 9, 2021.
Pifer, Steven. “Ukraine: Six years after the Maidan.” Brookings, February 21, 2020.
UNIAN. “Huge Russian troop camp near Ukraine’s border shown from inside (Video).” April 12, 2021.
UNIAN. “Zelensky lodges request to talk with Putin about escalation in Donbas.” April 12, 2021.
VOA News. “Putin Praises Russian Military Arctic Exercises.” March 26, 2021.
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07 Wednesday Apr 2021
Tags
Joint Forces Operation: 14 ceasefire violations yesterday. 2 Ukrainian soldiers were killed
https://liveuamap.com/en/2021/7-april-joint-forces-operation-14-ceasefire-violations-yesterday
. . . the enemy fired proscribed 82mm mortars, tripod-mounted man-portable antitank guns, and heavy machine guns near the village of Nevelske.
They also used 82mm and 120mm mortars, tripod-mounted man-portable antitank guns, hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, and automatic rifles near the villages of Pisky and Opytne.
https://www.unian.info/war/donbas-war-escalation-14-attacks-on-april-6-two-soldiers-killed-11379409.html
“Bidenlain” meets “Putler”?
Putin appears to be searching for the limits of threat while weaving into his takeover of Ukraine new prepared forces — and large ones, conventional and new — with impunity. Ukraine has fed its children, one to a few at a time, into the fire at the edge of the margin of the Atlantic Alliance and Europe.
NATO appears prepared but supine with an America’s President asking for “clarifications” and a State Department whining about Russia’s attitude toward publications adverse to its aggression.
The American public appears distracted by issues abetted or stirred by Russian trolls — possibly agent provocateur; certainly disinformation — and the encouragement of Far Out Left and Far White Right elements.
And much of the American public appears ill-educated, unprepared, and too parochial (on the Right) or self-centered (on the Left) for understanding how Putin’s aggression in Ukraine threatens the very freedoms, privileges, and traditions they take for granted (while the government takes care of their foreign affairs and related security, so they believe), a posture (if true) that then leaves their Presidents, even the former Trump, alone and weak).
Even America’s Gun Culture (as expressed in enthusiasm for signing up with militia) appears more concerned with its arms and predominantly white cultural traditions than with the greater freedom of all Americans and the support of bedrock American principles and values at home and abroad.
In Russia, Putin has effectively removed from the public sphere his most brave and notorious critic Navalny while ignoring the complaints of ordinary Russians. The man without a face has turned out a man without a purpose or soul apart from his own malign and piratical narcissism.
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08 Monday Feb 2021
Former American President Trump’s tenure proved the nation’s distraction from all but itself with the exception of China for Trumpian finger pointing over the “Wuhan Flu”. Now the state’s perhaps a little startled to find itself again a part of the free and do-good world of the Atlantic Alliance. With concern for Russia’s now baldfaced aggression in Ukraine, President Biden will have to pick up on Russia’s crude squatting there and degrading and subverting industrial and other Ukrainian assets in the process of its imposing its largely unwelcome presence and will.
Posted while live — I’m inclined to take notes.
Coffey, Luke. “The Black Sea should be a US and NATO priority.” MEI, February 6, 2020.
Trenin, Dmitri. “Dealing with Biden’s America.” Carnegie Moscow Center, February 8, 2021.
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04 Saturday May 2019
Tags
east-west conflict, frozen conflict, medieval v modern, Russian aggression, Ukraine, Ukrainian Conflict
Once inured to suffering associated with Russian arms and will, the liberal democracies of the west risk watching the heat rise — or the surroundings change — while being lazed into unconscious acceptance.
Ukraine’s five-year-old “frozen conflict” has not been forgotten by EU / NATO, which methodically if slowly has focused on containing the irritating Bear now pummeling Mariupol and targets north by northwest along a line of embattled territory on the western edge of Donetsk Oblast. In addition to a vigorous round of military exercises conducted by NATO in 2018, typified perhaps by the 31+ nation Trident Juncture 18, the United States has continued training-related deployments to Ukraine in a “train-the-trainers ” effort to improve Ukraine’s defense against greater incursion by Russian forces.
Not to flack the rah-rah: Ukraine has been made to pay a near daily — or daily — price in injury and death for having become a Russian test bed (no different than Syria) for Moscow’s defense technologies and “hybrid warfare”.
Russia’s cynical “Passportization” program appears also under way with the only resistance to it to be found in Ukrainian disinterest.
The Russian propaganda mill plies a familiar routine with web videos: the most recent shelling appears to come from Ukrainian forces without cause (I’ll leave the look-up on such as “Donetsk, fighting” to the reader). However, as displayed on any given LiveUAmap, Russia’s military-integrated activity should seem clear enough.
Primary source for this section:
Drawing from the above source, this is what BackChannels tallies for undeniable Russian military presence in proximity to Ukraine’s border:
12 Battalions
340 Helicopters
500 Tactical Aircraft
Derived from the same source but focusing on what has been observed in relation to Russia’s military presence on the Crimean Peninsula:
A-50 AWAC (1)
BMD-2 Infantry Fighting Vehicles
IL-76 Military Transport Aircraft
S-300 Air Defense Batteries (2)
S-400 Air Defense Batteries (5)
Analyst Felix K. Chang’s winter 2019 observation for the Foreign Policy Research Institute:
“Together with two other S-300 air defense batteries nearby, Russian land-based air defenses in the region could simultaneously launch as many as 192 surface-to-air missiles. Interestingly, their crews have been training to counter not only hostile aircraft, but also sea-launched cruise missiles, seemingly in preparation for a NATO intervention. Whatever the case, the airspace above Crimea and Donbas has quickly become among the most well-defended in the world.
For cruising through related offerings on YouTube and elsewhere on the web, the open source seems short of up-to-the-minute Ukrainian war reportage but for the Live UA Map, a conflict pin board, and reporting by Michael MacKay via Twitter and through his column in Radio Lemberg.
BackChannels has been seeing the numbers, finding Russian-side videos (in which the fire always comes from Ukraine, not the Russian-backed separatists that provoke it), and finding videos from when the conflict was all bloody new, shocking, and hot. Now it’s still bloody and plenty hot, but it has become a part of the daily fare in the world’s conflict-related horror show.
Perhaps a warning should be issued: once inured to suffering associated with Russian arms and will, the liberal democracies of the west risk watching the heat rise — or the surroundings change — while being lazed into unconscious acceptance.
MacKay’s tweet, much in line with thinking by America’s Democrats and possibly some Republican moderates, begs a few questions about Ukraine’s “frozen conflict” among others: how much “patience” has the west? How much destruction and how many lives lost is acceptable before jawing about Russian barbarism and kleptocracy and posturing about western defense support and strength lose their charm?
Russia has recently claimed victory in Syria. This is what that looks like:
With the winter-is-coming cloud of nuclear warfare hanging over east-west confrontation — and with the incredible billions of dollars laundered out of transnational criminal enterprise spiked into the bloodstreams of states — the way forward for the democratic attenuation of political power and the promotion of faith in rule of law may be difficult to see. While one may hope for hope in that regard, locking related conflicts into one place without limit seems itself dispiriting and on the side of evil.
For how long may Ukraine be expected to endure a Moscow-engineered “status quo”?
And for how long may EU / NATO — already somewhat compromised by Moscow’s use of Islamic Terrorism and Syrian mass migration to induce / “inspire” the western “New Nationalism” — abide Moscow’s favor for Feudal Political Absolutism (worldwide) and its concomitant eroding of the ideals, principles, and values associated with democracy and the still open societies of the west?
Related on BackChannels:
https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/
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