Review of "Gadfly"
No. 1/89.I.2024
Introduction
Despite the lies of anti-communists around the world who claim that the Bolsheviks “killed Russian culture,” the Soviet people were the most widely read in history. The love of books, inherited by the communists from the classics of Russian literature, was elevated by them almost to the rank of state ideology. The overwhelming majority of Soviet citizens, young and old, loved to read and sought to treat this process responsibly. However, this love, often not based on knowledge of Marxism, led many book lovers into the camp of enemies of the Soviet regime. Many of the stories and novels I read by Gogol, Tolstoy and Turgenev did not contain those scientific truths, the knowledge and competent use of which would contribute to the construction of communism (and not an abstract just society).
Even such seemingly revolutionary writers as Gorky, Serafimovich or Gaidar did not guarantee the person who read them avidly, knowledge of the diamatic methodology of thinking, knowledge that could only be found in the treasury of scientific truths: in the works of the classics of Marxism. The same applies to many other revolutionary writers (including foreign ones), who were so loved in the USSR, published in millions of copies, trying to accustom people from childhood to the ideas of collectivism, mutual assistance and equality.
We, as Marxists, are especially interested in those works in which attempts were made to create an artistic image of a revolutionary. Unfortunately, we are temporarily forced to recognize the results in this direction as unsatisfactory. The authors, due to a lack of understanding of the essence of the science of communism, were unable to identify in the Marxist revolutionaries that essential thing that distinguished them from the “noble rebels.” Accordingly, these qualities of the New Man could not be sufficiently illuminated in literary works. The reader most often saw the role of a revolutionary as an idealized, disinterested revolutionary romantic who abandoned his desires for the sake of a noble but abstract idea of justice - this was the maximum that writers who ignored or insufficiently studied Marxism were capable of. Unfortunately, this trend has been observed in both domestic and foreign literary traditions.
One of these revolutionary-oriented works that enjoyed enormous popularity in the USSR was the novel “The Gadfly” by the English writer Ethel Lilian Voynich, which conquered millions of Soviet hearts with its bright, memorable images of heroes and their tragic, but no less memorable destinies. Multiple film adaptations [1] and productions played a role in this. In Soviet times, “The Gadfly” was included in the lists of recommended literature for youth, being on a par with such works as “The Young Guard” and “How the Steel Was Tempered.” However, there is reason to believe that most readers perceived the story about the Gadfly superficially, relying only on the experiences and emotions that arose, could not highlight the key, not understanding or ignoring the mistakes made by the heroes of the novel and leading to such a sad ending.
It is the analysis of “Gadfly” that this article will be devoted to.
Socio-political situation
The action of the novel takes place in the 1830s - 40s in Italy during the Risorgimento period: the era of the national liberation struggle for deliverance from Austrian oppression, for the creation of a unified and independent Italian state [2]. This period is characterized by the chaotic creation of many small political associations, which, however, did not have a unified strategy for the struggle for the liberation of Italy. Thus, after the collapse of another organization - the Carbonari Society - one of its leaders, the ideologist of the left republican-democratic trend Giuseppe Mazzini founded in Marseille a secret patriotic organization "Young Italy", whose task was to eliminate European absolutist regimes and remove the Catholic Church from secular power, free Italy from Austrian oppression and create a unified state in the form of a bourgeois democratic republic, based on universal suffrage and bourgeois political freedoms.
Mazzini's original ideas of bringing "the most numerous and poor classes" into the struggle under the leadership of the bourgeoisie were gradually replaced by openly idealistic religious concepts about the "sacred duty of the Italian people", as expressed in the Young Italy slogan "In the name of God and the people, now and forever." . The ideas for the future organization of society were petty-bourgeois in nature: it was planned to liberate the working people by giving each citizen small property. The organization naively hoped that the government had good intentions and advocated mainly the path of reform. Those uprisings that were nevertheless organized ended in failure due to the arbitrary (not consistent with the workers' movement) choice of the moment of action and an incorrect assessment of the balance of forces.
In general, the European revolutions of the mid-19th century ended in a compromise between decrepit landowners and not yet sufficiently “mature” capitalists. The proletarian masses who took direct part in them found themselves deceived by their bourgeois-limited leaders. The bourgeoisie, from a progressive fighter against feudalism, gradually turned into one of the vanguard of the reaction, forced to enter into an agreement with the landed aristocracy. This often happened because capitalism in most developed countries of that time had not yet occupied the position that it occupied towards the end of the 19th century. The young capitalist class had not yet had time to gain strength in class battles, and therefore needed the help of their enemies, skillfully maneuvering between two opposing camps, extracting maximum benefit from this and strengthening their positions in many European countries. The working masses were disunited and disoriented.
The above is confirmed by the course of the liberation movement in Italy. The policy of “Young Italy” did not have significant support among the masses, since the ideas of “nationwide unification” ignored the class struggle of the emerging proletariat for its fundamental interests (often contrary to the interests of the bourgeoisie). The fact that the interests of the peasantry were also not taken into account (the slogan of transferring landowners' land to the peasants was not put forward, since the bourgeoisie was afraid of losing the support of large landowners) also had its influence. Thus, Young Italy represented the interests primarily of the bourgeoisie (despite the slogans put forward), which sought to overthrow feudal rule. The protagonist of the novel was a member of this very organization.
Main character
Despite the general rather reformist and conciliatory tone of the national liberation movement, Gadfly was still not alien to the ideals of revolutionism, the establishment of which requires decisiveness in the use of violence against the enemy. In this context, a noteworthy episode is when Gadfly, upon meeting his beloved for the first time in thirteen years, directly tells her:
“...In my opinion, of the two types of patriotism, Russian is better: it gets things done to the end. If Russia had based its strength on flowers and skies instead of guns, how long do you think this prince would have held out in the Polish fortress?
This phrase, uttered by Gadfly, noticeably sets him apart from the vast majority of members of the organization who are arguing about the most preferable form of fighting censorship: petitions to the government or satirical pamphlets ridiculing church and political figures. But even despite the correct revolutionary (and not reformist) attitude, the Gadfly, driven by petty-bourgeois delusions, is mainly guided by the slogan “If only something can be done.” For example, the novel describes situations when Gadfly participates in uprisings and maintains contacts with smugglers and scattered groups of rebels without the knowledge of his party comrades, and often goes on trips without telling the team anything. Such amateur activity only leads to a huge number of unjustified victims among participants in spontaneous protests, which, firstly, does not bring us any closer to the final goal, and secondly, discredits the organization’s policy in the eyes of the masses.
Gadfly, as well as the other participants, were not worried about the long-term consequences of possible failures, because the movement was an alliance of various political forces that could not have a single strategy. However, in one thing their thoughts were definitely similar: in the party they saw not the general (intellectual) headquarters of the revolution, not “the mind, honor and conscience of their era,” but an organization that materially and morally supported the working masses (mainly for their own benefit). It is noteworthy that many modern citizens who call themselves Marxists act like Gadfly, without noticing their fundamental differences with the theory and practice of Marxism.
Obviously, Gadfly's main drawback was that he was devoid of knowledge of Marxism and in his activities relied not on the theory of communism, but on petty-bourgeois criticism of inequality and the religion that illuminates it. However, this, roughly speaking, substantive side of his shortcomings can least of all be subject to doubt, for it should be obvious to any modern Marxist. Another thing is the form of political struggle in accordance with which he acted, the tactics of the revolutionary movement, of which he was an active representative and the “successes” of which largely influenced his sad ending. It was in this area that Gadfly made those mistakes that are not at all obvious to many comrades who decided to familiarize themselves with the classics of revolutionary prose.
Modern leftists, striving to live up to the high title of communist, are obliged to develop tactics and strategy only on the basis of developed scientific theory. Only practice based on the knowledge of Marxism leads to consistent victories. “Heroes” similar to Gadfly (both then and now) replace victory with an eternal movement towards it. The readiness to sacrifice life makes the fate of the brave man, of course, tragic, but his activities still remain ineffective. Many readers and viewers in their assessments did not go beyond the first emotional sympathy. The mere fact that the hero gave his life for what he fought for becomes, in the eyes of Marxist-illiterate citizens, an excuse for all his mistakes. It was precisely these views that were shared by supporters and representatives of “left communists,” Socialist Revolutionaries or anarchists, and it is precisely these views that are so beloved by their modern ideological successors: all kinds of left activists and other “prisoners of conscience.”
Such an uncritical attitude to the matter is unacceptable. There is always a shortage of competent revolutionary personnel, so each “combat-ready unit” must be protected like the apple of one’s eye. Thoughtless heroism, so actively promoted among the “young and ardent” leftists, can be recognized as one of the manifestations of opportunism: a person who puts his personal (subjective) principles, feelings and desires above party goals, a person who strives to appear before his comrades in the role of a martyr, and not in the role of a victorious Marxist, is an enemy either only “in possibility” (if he strives to conscientiously approach the process of self-education, if he responsibly listens to the advice of his senior comrades, while demonstrating a willingness to overcome his ignorance), or already “in reality” ( if you have already proven yourself to be a “hero”, without wanting to understand and correct your mistakes).
Yes, the Gadfly is able to overcome severe pain, he has a persistent character, he is brave and courageous. However, the presence of such qualities really helps the cause only if courage does not flow into recklessness, and the struggle does not become a thoughtless goal. That is why we, as Marxists, cannot be satisfied with the traits described above alone, because the main thing is ignored - the competence and conscientiousness of the revolutionary.
Gadfly’s main goal is still revenge for personal betrayal, and not the successful solution of problems posed by history. He commits unjustified actions, neglects basic caution, and engages in pseudo-revolutionary activity. For example, finding himself in prison (also largely his own fault), he refuses the opportunity to organize an escape with the help of his priest father, because it is more important for him not to continue his work and benefit the movement, but to convince his parent. This behavior is unworthy of a revolutionary, who must be guided by necessity, and not by personal grievances and desires. The Gadfly's desire to take risks and be tested is more a form of satisfying painful pride than a conscious activity in the interests of a common cause.
A revolutionary is always obliged to subordinate his will to party discipline and must be able to deny animal motives with a scientific worldview. The revolutionary is not the likeness of Christ; It is very stupid to believe that you can achieve a strategic victory through mindless suffering. In the head of a believer, perhaps God will credit him with such diligence, but in reality the winner is the one whose understanding of the situation is more accurate, and whose actions are logically planned based on the actual state of things: if, for example, the situation requires a tactical retreat, then it must be competent retreat organized. And, of course, high-quality centralized planning of actions is impossible without a party (research center) consisting of competent personnel.
Communists are not alien to such human qualities as courage and bravery. They, on the contrary, are obligatory, but only if they are subordinated to reason. Heroism makes a positive contribution to victory only when it comes from a competent analysis of the situation, complementing a realistic plan with the mobilization of additional efforts, and is not perceived as a valuable phenomenon in itself. Revolutionary practice cannot be carried out on the basis of a revolutionary phrase. Only conscious actions carried out in accordance with a pre-formulated strategy can lead society to harmony and peace. Only scientific Marxist theory, which forms the basis of transformative activity, guarantees the successful construction of communism. This is exactly the conclusion that modern communists should come to after reading and watching The Gadfly. And it was precisely this conclusion that, unfortunately, Soviet readers and viewers did not come to. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the Soviet people, who admired Gadfly, could not stop either Khrushchev with his “debunking” or Gorbachev with his “perestroika.” And all because the courage and boldness that was observed in many was not based on actual (and not declared) knowledge of Marxism.
At the same time, an assumption may arise that Voynich, painting the fate of Gadfly in such “tragic” colors, on the contrary, sought to show in her work the fallacy of such a “revolutionary ideology.” A look at the biography of the English writer will help us dispel such misconceptions.
Tell me who is your friend...
Often, certain works of art reflect the socio-political and philosophical and ethical views of the author who wrote them. "Gadfly" was no exception. The novel was published in 1897: at a time when Marxism was one of the main currents of political thought and was certainly known to the English writer. Voynich was closely connected with the Russian Narodnaya Volya, and therefore she undertook to tell the story of the petty-bourgeois revolutionary. In addition, thanks to her collaboration with Stepnyak-Kravchinsky (whose personality, according to literary scholars, was used to create the image of Gadfly) [3], she was familiar with many Russian emigrants of various views: anarchists, Socialist Revolutionaries, Social Democrats. In other words, Voynich knew about Marxism, but never joined its banner.
It is not surprising that her sympathies resulted in a novel promoting the idea of the need for a revolutionary change in social foundations using anarchist [4] and leftist, rather than communist methods (while the contradictions between communists and petty-bourgeois socialists remain outside the brackets; at the forefront is the struggle of the “decisive” with "indecisive") That is why the main character, as a collective image of a petty-bourgeois revolutionary, is opposed by utopian reformers who are afraid of revolutionary upheavals and want to prevent them by any means.
What is the reason for the insufficiently deep analysis of the content of the novel?
Few people in the USSR could boast of knowledge of Marxism, and therefore excessive revolutionary pathos found uncritical responses among the masses of workers and intelligentsia, whose representatives were unaware of many of the most important aspects of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the party and revolution. That is why there was an excessive romanticization of feigned revolutionary courage and excessive (not always justified by circumstances) heroism. The populist ideology of revolutionary heroes sacrificing their lives in the name of abstract ideals of equality and justice was defeated by Lenin and Stalin in many of their works [5], but its influence, due to mass ignorance in the field of Marxism, was felt throughout the existence of the USSR. That is why many, weeping over the tragic end of Gadfly’s life, never reached the stage of scientific assessment of the actions of this hero, being content with superficial emotional reflection [6].
Why was The Gadfly so popular?
The educational and educational functions of art manifest themselves very clearly precisely in the era of communist revolutions, when the question of the need to build social and human relations of a new quality is so acute. However, the reality is that most supporters of the revolution will not be familiar with many of the most important aspects of the scientific theory of Marxism at first. Therefore, it is not surprising that in the era of the civil war and the subsequent restoration of the country, the question of the need for revolutionary agitation of the working people clearly arose. There were not enough competent Marxists; most members of the CPSU(b) recognized the program only on the basis of trust in the Bolshevik leaders. At the same time, for the final victory of the revolution, the unconditional support of the working masses was needed; those same masses, most of whom could neither read nor write. It is clear that it is very difficult to eliminate mass illiteracy in a short time, however, as we well know, such difficulties never stopped the Bolsheviks: immediately after the revolution, processes began to rapidly “cultivate” the working masses. One of the ways to introduce a scientific worldview to the people was fiction, which in general taught people what was good and good. It is important to understand that this was a temporary measure preparing the working population of the Soviet state to enrich their memory with “knowledge of all the riches that humanity has developed.” The overwhelming majority began their revolutionary path not with “Capital” or “Manifesto ...”, but with “The Gadfly” or “Song of the Petrel,” which was not surprising. In this context, it was important not to stop reading fiction alone, but to gradually move on to scientific works.
At the same time, there was a very lack of high-quality fiction written on revolutionary topics in the first decades of Soviet power, so using the image of Gadfly as an example to follow could be (albeit with limitations) appropriate. However, the party and the country expected from Soviet writers new, more accurate (corresponding to the party line) books, telling about the fate of not just rebel revolutionaries, but communist revolutionaries, Marxist scientists, engaged in targeted propaganda and organizational activities, remembering conspiracy, striving avoid exile and hard labor. And the propaganda of precisely such ideas (the priority of Marxist self-education) was often lacking in the content of revolutionary-oriented literary works.
If we talk about our time, then it is worth recognizing that literature like Voynich’s novel will no longer fulfill the task of agitation and propaganda. The situation has changed a lot since the Great October Revolution: the experience of the defeat of the CPSU must be taken into account (simple adherence to an idea is not enough, it is necessary to understand this idea). Today's activists and revolutionaries who act like Gadfly are harming the communist movement. Permanent (ignoring the actual alignment of class forces) calls for “revolutionary action”, appealing to the emotions of the simple-minded proletarian, indicate either the illiteracy of the caller, or his hidden provocative, and therefore counter-revolutionary, intentions.
In the works of classics, in magazine and newspaper materials, it has been repeatedly shown that the dominance of a parasitic minority over the working majority rests primarily on the ignorance of the latter. The communist revolution has the ultimate goal of eliminating exploitation, and this requires that the “slaves” surpass their “masters” intellectually. The victory of the communist revolution becomes possible when people armed with scientific Marxist theory and organized into a party on the principle of knowledge of this theory, knowledge confirmed in practice of the scientific and theoretical form of class struggle, take the side of the working people. The party becomes the vanguard of the working class, its organizer, leader and chief strategist, “the scientific center of methodological and social science thought.” Such a party can only be a communist party of scientific centralism.
Which revolutionary should be depicted in fiction?
Reflecting a communist hero in the form of an artistic image is a difficult task, but important and completely doable. However, in order to be able to convey the thoughts and experiences of this type of Personality (Man of the Future, Communist), the writer must have not only a literary gift, but also Marxist literacy, which allows him to see people of the future in his contemporaries:
“If the classics sometimes managed to “photograph” the hero of their time (Onegin or Pechorin), then rarely did any Soviet writer manage to make the image of a communist alive and endearing, turning into an unconditional example. The writers lacked either intelligence, heart, education, or artistic imagination.
<...> The conversation in art should be not so much about WHAT is worthy of contempt (this is relatively easy to do; society is already choking on its own spiritual “feces” and anger), but about WHAT needs to be meaningfully loved in order to be happy.
There can be no noticeable moral progress in a society in which an artist has not yet been born who is capable of rising to the level of artistic reflection of the richest in content images of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Dzerzhinsky, Frunze, Armand, Lazo, Makarenko... “In the mounds of books that buried... “There are no poems and novels yet that would adequately depict figures that are any close to the named Personalities” (V. A. Podguzov “ Do we know how to be happy ”).
A true communist understands that emotional motivation alone is not enough for successful practice. A person who is on the path of learning the objective laws of social development needs to take an example not from Gadfly and similar “heroes”, but from Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, from revolutionary scientists who are ready to diligently and conscientiously engage in self-education for decades, preparing themselves for decisive battles, penetrating the secrets of the universe, learning deeper and deeper truths, raising students and followers. It was precisely this strategy that allowed the Bolsheviks, who took the baton from the founders of Marxism, to continue their work, carrying out the first communist revolution in history and thereby approaching the “kingdom of freedom.” However, we are confident that the mass dissemination of Marxist literacy will be directly proportional to the growth in the number of works of art that reflect in vivid and truthful images real victorious heroes, communists of the past and future, titans who devoted their entire lives to the liberation of humanity from the captivity of ignorance and darkness.
M. Severova , Bronislav
01/18/2024
1. For example, in 1955 the film took third place among the box office leaders - 39.16 million viewers.
2. At this time, not only in Italy, but also in many other European countries, movements of a similar nature flared up, based on the desire to destroy old feudal remnants and establish a new (bourgeois) system, mistakenly perceived by many as the kingdom of reason, freedom and justice .
3. According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, S. M. Stepnyak-Kravchinsky is a revolutionary populist and writer. At first he shared anarchist views. Since the beginning of the 80s. joined the Narodnaya Volya, disagreeing with some of its members on many significant issues. In the 90s denied terror as a method of political struggle. He organized the English Society of Friends of Russian Freedom in London (1890), and edited its organ, the magazine Free Russia (v. 1-3, 1890-92). He gave lectures and reports about Russia. Abroad, K. wrote and published many books about Russia and mainly about Russian revolutionaries: artistic and journalistic essays - “Underground Russia” (1881, Russian translation by the author 1893), “Russia under the rule of the tsars” (vol. 1-2 , 1885, Russian translation 1964), “The Tsar Block and the Tsar Heron” (vol. 1-2, 1895, Russian translation 1921); novels - “Andrei Kozhukhov” (1889, Russian translation 1898), “Stundist Pavel Rudenko” (1894).
4. The following comment by Voynich is noteworthy: “The only image in The Gadfly that I can partly consider a portrait - and even then a very fragmentary portrait - is Gemma, whose image was to some extent copied - especially her personal appearance - from my dear friend Charlotte Wilson, who helped Kropotkin so much in his work."
5. The Narodnaya Volya had an erroneous view of the course of history: their theory of “heroes” and the passive “crowd” considered exclusively individual outstanding individuals as the creators of history. Stalin, explaining the contradictions of this ideology, in his “Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks” noted: “To the populists’ assertions that the mass is a crowd, that only heroes make history and turn the crowd into people, the Marxists answered: it is not heroes who make history, but history makes heroes, therefore, it is not heroes who create the people, but the people who create heroes and move history forward. Heroes and outstanding personalities can play a serious role in the life of society only insofar as they are able to correctly understand the conditions of development of society, understand how to change them for the better (emphasis added. - Author's note). Heroes and outstanding personalities can find themselves in the position of ridiculous and useless losers if they fail to correctly understand the conditions for the development of society and begin to argue against the historical needs of society, imagining themselves as “makers” of history.”
6. The director of the 1980 film adaptation of the same name, in addition to the romanticization of the revolutionary, characteristic of the novel and other films, highlights the personal tragedy of the hero as the main line: the relationship between son and father and the drama of love... This (in addition to the content of the film adaptation itself) is indicated by the titles of the film episodes: “ Memory", "Gemma", "Father and Son". Mozart's "Requiem" is used as the main musical theme, which obscures meaningful analysis with a sense of the inevitability of the hero's death. This interpretation, which focuses on tragedy and gloom, relegates revolution and science to the background.
https://prorivists.org/89_ovod/
Google Translator
******
(And now for something completely different)))
TNT Radio, ‘The Freeman Report’ with James Freeman
Former UK Member of Parliament James Freeman runs a very lively radio show which deals regularly with international events. It was my pleasure to be re-invited by his team two days ago for a 15 minute interview dealing with latest developments in the Ukraine war, with Russian-Middle East relations and with Putin’s popularity ratings today.
The interview begins 20 minutes into the show. I was especially pleased to have had the opportunity to explain why the expectations set out week after week by Russia’s cheerleaders in the West of a massive Russian attack on Ukraine that delivers a knock-out blow have failed to take into account the realities of peer to peer warfare. The interview also afforded me the chance to debunk the notion widely disseminated by Western media last spring that the Putin ‘regime’ was on the ropes due to internal opposition exemplified by the attempted mutiny of Yevgeni Prigozhin’s Wagner Group. Finally, I was able to discuss the likelihood that Russia is presently concluding treaties of mutual defense with Iran and North Korea akin to the ‘Article 5’ provisions of the NATO alliance, meaning ‘one for all and all for one.’ If so, then NATO will soon be put on notice that the game is up, that the chances of militarily defeating any one member of the ‘Axis of Evil,’ in Washington’s political language, is nil.
I recommend to readers the 18 minute long introduction to the program by James Freeman wherein he raises the very important fact of the military dimension of the progressing multipolarism in the world, a dimension that is apart from and complimentary to the political and economic dimensions. He does this by alluding to the spread of hypersonic missile technology in a number of leading countries. Indeed, it would appear that the United States is presently a laggard and not a generation ahead in this critical area which overturns the principles of deterrence from the Cold War days when a couple of superpowers had it all.
The list of countries newly deploying hypersonic missiles is dominated by countries in the Global South. This lends support to the idea discussed by panelists on last night’s Vladimir Solovyov talk show on Russian state television that the coming World War III will differ from the first two world wars in that it will be a nuclear exchange between adversaries in the Northern Hemisphere which decimates them alone. The beneficiaries and survivors, namely China and southeastern Asia, are all states with their own advanced economies and strong militaries. What will result from this war, they say, is the utter destruction of European – Christian civilization while the rest of the world goes on its way.
Is anybody in Washington or Brussels listening?
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024
See https://tntradiolive.podbean.com/e/gilb ... uary-2024/
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/01/19/ ... s-freeman/
A major nuclear exchange will leave no one standing, didn't they see 'On The Beach'? And since when is South America not 'European – Christian civilization', mostly?
Russia today
Re: Russia today
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Russia today
Friday, January 19, 2024
About Fish and Chips.
Daily Mail sounds the alarm.
One of Britain's favourite dishes is under threat amid a Kremlin plan to rip up a decades-old agreement allowing UK ships to fish in Russia's Arctic waters. British vessels have been permitted to fish along the coast of the Russian Kola Peninsula in the Barents Sea and to east of Cape Kanin Nos for almost 70 years - even at the height of the Cold War. A massive amount of cod and haddock sold in fish and chips shops across the country is traditionally sourced from these waters - according to UK Fisheries data, a whopping 566,784 tonnes of cod was scooped in the Barents Sea just last year alone. But now Vladimir Putin is said to have declared fishing war on the UK, with his government backing draft legislation that would see Russia pull out of the 1956 agreement and ban Britain from scooping its revered supply of cod and haddock. It comes in response to Britain's decision to slap Moscow with sanctions over the war in Ukraine, and could mean Russian navy warships being used to warn off UK vessels.
They are wrong, Daily Mail I mean. It is not a war, it is merely a reminder to wrong people not to fuck with Russia, after all it is an Exclusive Economic Zone of Russia.
Here is the area from Kanin Nos cape to Kolguyev Island. It is a juicy cod fishing area, BUT... Russians learned, not least from the Soviet times--being nice and diplomatic with the West doesn't pay. So, as one commenter wrote (highest upvoted comment, BTW):
Why would Russia allow British trawlers into their waters considering how much cash & weapons the UK sends Ukraine. I'm surprised they didn't ban them before.
Exactly! West understands only raw power and Russia, to a dismay of morons who shake air at Davos, has plenty of that. You see, it is like the situation with Finland.
Russia poses no imminent military threat to Finland, the Nordic country’s foreign minister, Elina Valtonen, has said. The diplomat, however, insisted that Helsinki’s decision to join NATO in 2022 was justified, accusing Moscow of using hybrid warfare tactics to “make life more difficult for us.” Finland, which had for decades been neutral, announced its plans to join the US-led military bloc a few months after Russia launched its military operation against Ukraine in February 2022. After complying with Türkiye’s preconditions, Ankara lifted its initial veto, with Finland becoming a member state in April 2023. Russia has described its neighbor’s move as misguided, arguing that the two countries had previously enjoyed good relations.
Poor, poor dear, she missed the point completely. Russia didn't pose any threat to Finland up until Finland joined NATO, and what she doesn't understand--it is now Finland who poses threat to Russia. And that is a different setup. Finns could have continued enjoying shopping trips to St. Petersburg, cheap gas, good food and Russians gladly offering their huge market to Finnish goods. Boy, did they fuck it up for themselves. And this is just the warmup--Finland is now posed to become poor (as most of Europe). Considering population of Finland being smaller than population of St.Petersburg proper, one can relate a scale of catastrophe which befell Finland. Pietari (St. Petersburg in Finnish) alone was a market bigger than Finland's and it was close! Transportation was easy and relatively cheap. Not anymore. Well, Finns wanted it and Russia can do nothing about the will of Finnish people. What she can do, though, is to cut off her market from Finnish goods, same way as Russia getting ready to "attack" fish and chips. You know, this thing: I used to be such a sweet, sweet thing, 'Til they got a hold of me(c).
(Sorry, I'll not post Alice Cooper video. R&R for children, pfttt...)
So, that sums it up pretty well.
(Yeah, 'no more Mr Nice Guy', we get it....)
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/01 ... chips.html
About Fish and Chips.
Daily Mail sounds the alarm.
One of Britain's favourite dishes is under threat amid a Kremlin plan to rip up a decades-old agreement allowing UK ships to fish in Russia's Arctic waters. British vessels have been permitted to fish along the coast of the Russian Kola Peninsula in the Barents Sea and to east of Cape Kanin Nos for almost 70 years - even at the height of the Cold War. A massive amount of cod and haddock sold in fish and chips shops across the country is traditionally sourced from these waters - according to UK Fisheries data, a whopping 566,784 tonnes of cod was scooped in the Barents Sea just last year alone. But now Vladimir Putin is said to have declared fishing war on the UK, with his government backing draft legislation that would see Russia pull out of the 1956 agreement and ban Britain from scooping its revered supply of cod and haddock. It comes in response to Britain's decision to slap Moscow with sanctions over the war in Ukraine, and could mean Russian navy warships being used to warn off UK vessels.
They are wrong, Daily Mail I mean. It is not a war, it is merely a reminder to wrong people not to fuck with Russia, after all it is an Exclusive Economic Zone of Russia.
Here is the area from Kanin Nos cape to Kolguyev Island. It is a juicy cod fishing area, BUT... Russians learned, not least from the Soviet times--being nice and diplomatic with the West doesn't pay. So, as one commenter wrote (highest upvoted comment, BTW):
Why would Russia allow British trawlers into their waters considering how much cash & weapons the UK sends Ukraine. I'm surprised they didn't ban them before.
Exactly! West understands only raw power and Russia, to a dismay of morons who shake air at Davos, has plenty of that. You see, it is like the situation with Finland.
Russia poses no imminent military threat to Finland, the Nordic country’s foreign minister, Elina Valtonen, has said. The diplomat, however, insisted that Helsinki’s decision to join NATO in 2022 was justified, accusing Moscow of using hybrid warfare tactics to “make life more difficult for us.” Finland, which had for decades been neutral, announced its plans to join the US-led military bloc a few months after Russia launched its military operation against Ukraine in February 2022. After complying with Türkiye’s preconditions, Ankara lifted its initial veto, with Finland becoming a member state in April 2023. Russia has described its neighbor’s move as misguided, arguing that the two countries had previously enjoyed good relations.
Poor, poor dear, she missed the point completely. Russia didn't pose any threat to Finland up until Finland joined NATO, and what she doesn't understand--it is now Finland who poses threat to Russia. And that is a different setup. Finns could have continued enjoying shopping trips to St. Petersburg, cheap gas, good food and Russians gladly offering their huge market to Finnish goods. Boy, did they fuck it up for themselves. And this is just the warmup--Finland is now posed to become poor (as most of Europe). Considering population of Finland being smaller than population of St.Petersburg proper, one can relate a scale of catastrophe which befell Finland. Pietari (St. Petersburg in Finnish) alone was a market bigger than Finland's and it was close! Transportation was easy and relatively cheap. Not anymore. Well, Finns wanted it and Russia can do nothing about the will of Finnish people. What she can do, though, is to cut off her market from Finnish goods, same way as Russia getting ready to "attack" fish and chips. You know, this thing: I used to be such a sweet, sweet thing, 'Til they got a hold of me(c).
(Sorry, I'll not post Alice Cooper video. R&R for children, pfttt...)
So, that sums it up pretty well.
(Yeah, 'no more Mr Nice Guy', we get it....)
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/01 ... chips.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Russia today
Prime time news programming on Russian State Television has lost its way
This evening’s Vesti broadcast on Rossiya 1 was all too typical of the narrowing horizons of prime time news programs. It opened with lengthy reporting on the devastation wrought in the city of Gorlovka, Donetsk oblast, by more than 20 incoming Ukrainian rocket artillery projectiles that struck residential apartments in the middle of last night, including from the U.S. made HIMARS system. One person was killed and a dozen more were hospitalized with various injuries.
The next news segment, substantially longer, was reporting from the front lines showing the incessant artillery and drone strikes that Russian forces are delivering near Gorlovka and elsewhere in the oblast at hardened Ukrainian defensive positions, at their infantry, artillery pieces and armored vehicles.
After that the news program moved on to reporting the disruptions to intercity traffic in central Russia due to heavy snowstorms and drifts that have shut down major highways. Truck drivers waiting out the storm were interviewed, as were the emergency workers who are supervising the snow removal and providing hot food to those in need.
From there the Vesti program shifted to commentary about today’s events at the Russian national exhibition (Forum) in Moscow’s VDNKh grounds. And of course there had to follow news about President Putin’s latest activities.
A cult of personality first appeared on Russian state television five years ago with the launch of the embarrassingly servile Sunday evening show entitled Moscow, Kremlin, Putin hosted by the youthful Pavel Zarubin, a protégé of Vladimir Solovyov and of state television news boss Dmitry Kiselyov. The cult has become ever more insistent now that the Russian electoral season is underway and every Vesti show has to give us a good dose of speeches and ribbon cutting ceremonies.
What is missing entirely from Vesti these days is international news. So it goes day after day in formulaic fashion. This, despite the fact that there is no shortage of hair-raising news from Gaza, from Iran and Pakistan, from the Houthi-U.S. confrontation in the Red Sea, among other global hot spots that Russians might just want to know about.
I do not mean to suggest that Vesti news has no merit. The military reporting from the field may be commended for giving the microphone to real Russian soldiers who are not propagandists but are speaking openly about their daily experience. Thus, we hear from the horse’s mouth that those manning the artillery who are firing with high accuracy at Ukrainian targets 37 km away, well behind the enemy lines, are obliged to move their artillery pieces within minutes of firing because there will be artillery counter strikes from the other side. This is a piece of information that puts in perspective the generalizations we in the West are told about how the Ukrainians are starved for ammunition and are firing 8 or 10 times fewer artillery projectiles daily than the Russians. It also tells us that Ukrainian reconnaissance via their own drones or otherwise is not that bad.
In criticizing Vesti I do not mean to suggest that Russian state television generally offers no information about the outside world. That you find in abundance on the talk shows Sixty Minutes and Evening with Vladimir Solovyov. Besides providing live reporting from Russia’s bureau chiefs in Berlin, New York and elsewhere, these shows draw heavily on Western news broadcasts about the major international developments of the day as well as about political events in the West: they feature video clips from CNN, Euronews and other international channels to provide material for analysis by their expert panelists. And those panelists often include area specialists on the Middle East, on China and Southeast Asia or in other topical regions who are given the microphone long enough to set out their broad concepts of what underlies the news at a serious intellectual level.
Both the aforementioned programs have deeply patriotic presenters, but they also strive for balance. True, Solovyov’s film clips and narratives from his almost weekly visits to the front extol the bravery and intelligence of the soldiers and officers with whom he meets. He sings the praises of the Russian military industrial complex, both state factories and the many private enterprises that have become suppliers of critical equipment. And yet he also gives air time to experts who explain at length why and how the Ukrainians may successfully continue the war for years in a defensive posture, so that it would be a grave mistake to be overconfident. This is precisely what I heard on Solovyov’s show this past Thursday. I rather doubt that Colonel Douglas Macgregor or Scott Ritter have lent an ear to these remarks. They should!
My intention is to demonstrate that Russia is a complex society which cannot be described in a useful manner by the simplistic words of infatuation or words of utter condemnation and vilification that predominate in U.S. and European reporting.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/01/20/ ... t-its-way/
*****
The following is from Harpers, is full of Orientalists and anti-communists nonsense but nonetheless provides some interesting reportage. Excerpts follow.
Behind the New Iron Curtain
by Marzio G. Mian,Translated by Elettra Pauletto
Caviar, counterculture, and the cult of Stalin reborn
<snip>
Piotrovsky, who is mild-mannered and cerebral, and who wore his jacket loosely over hunched shoulders, seemed to have become a warrior. “Russia is many people, but one nation,” he asserted. “Russia along the Volga was able to incorporate everyone. Islam is just as much a religion of Russian tradition and identity as is Christian Orthodoxy. In Europe, in America, you speak of nothing but multiculturalism, but your cities are bursting with hate. For us, it didn’t take much to include everyone, because we’re an imperial civilization.” Then he grew more animated. “Look at the Hermitage!” he said, opening his arms to the room around us, widening his eyes. “It’s the encyclopedia of world culture, but it’s written in Russian because it’s our interpretation of world history. It may be arrogant, but that’s what we are.”
He took a deep breath, and began to talk of Stalingrad, his Jerusalem. “I don’t call it Volgograd, but Stalingrad,” he clarified for my sake. “It is our reference point now more than ever, an unparalleled symbol of resistance, our enemies’ worst nightmare. During the Great Patriotic War, we used it to defend the Volga as a vital corridor.” He continued to press the analogy: “And it’s been the same in the last few months. The Volga and the Caspian feed our trade with Iran to oppose the sanctions, while we use them to export oil to India and import what we need.” He removed his glasses and cleaned them with his jacket. “Stalingrad is a lucky charm, it’s destiny. If the Nazis had taken it, they would have cut off the Volga and conquered all of Russia. A very material thing that became spiritual. A warning. Whosoever tries it will meet the end of all the others—Swedes, Napoleon, the Germans and their allies.” He went on. “Russians are like the Scythians: they wait, they suffer, they die, and then they kill.”
<snip>
Sergeeva’s caviar is refined and humanely produced. She explained that this was the result of a process that she had invented: she extracts the eggs from the sturgeon with a small incision, without killing it. This procedure can be performed three times on the same fish. She has endeavored to ensure that the production and sale of her caviar remains the same as it was before the war. “In Russia it’s not a real party unless there’s caviar,” she said—even, apparently, in the current situation. She told me that since Russia had banned wild sturgeon harvesting in the Caspian, farms in this Volga region have proliferated, their numbers rising from three to sixty in the past five years.
Sergeeva is well-traveled and known widely for her aquaculture expertise. She could get a job anywhere, it seemed to me, so why stay? “I was born here, I studied here, my husband is Russian, my son is Russian, I’m Russian,” she said. “I wouldn’t say I’m a patriot, and I don’t want to express my thoughts on Putin and the war. But I can assure you that my life hasn’t changed. Not in the least.” She blushed as she spoke, as if the subject were uncomfortable. “The Russians are reacting to the sanctions in an extraordinary way, even with a weak ruble and the inevitable inflation. The prices of essential goods have held steady. And now we’re consuming better and healthier products than before the war, even exceptional cheeses.”
I had never imagined that the rise of hyperlocal food would be one of the recurring themes of this trip. But it appears that the Western sanctions and war economy have intensified a traditional Russian gastronomy movement. Western products had piqued the palates of average urban Russians, and local producers were trying to fill their vacuum, proudly offering Russian-made Camembert and prosciutto, as if to provide some material evidence of Russkiy Mir, Putin’s ideology of Russian supremacy. As I dined along the Volga, menus often specified the farms from which ingredients had been sourced. Restaurants served svekolnik and okroshka, simple cold summer soups, exalting the quality of local radishes grown without Western fertilizers.
<snip>
A Communist Party sign, Mari El Republic.
Had it not been for a massive poster looming over a lonely intersection in the steppe, showing Sergei Kazankov alongside Lenin and Stalin, I might have missed another quite surreal thing: Soviet Union revivalism. Using a VPN to protect my online searches, I learned that Kazankov had been reelected to the State Duma in 2021 as a Communist, that he was sanctioned for supporting the invasion of Ukraine, and that his father, Ivan Kazankov, has long been a Communist power broker. Sergei himself had been the director of a meat-processing plant and agricultural combine in the Zvenigovsky District, owned by his father.
By this point I was traveling across the Mari El Republic, some ninety miles from Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan. More specifically, I was in the Zvenigovsky District, which lends its name to Kazankov’s company, Zvenigovsky LLC, which has become known in town as the last sovkhoz, or large-scale collective farm. I had only to make a small detour, cross a field of sunflowers, and get directions at a gas station (“when you see the monument to Marx you’re practically there”) to arrive at its building, which, on first glance, seemed like a memorial to the old Soviets. The red flag of the USSR fluttered above the white and yellow complex. According to the company, it’s the same size as the one lowered from the Kremlin on December 25, 1991, when Communism fell. The walls of the plant were covered in red inscriptions marked by the exclamation points the Bolsheviks had so loved to use: “Honor and glory to the workers of the Zvenigovsky combine!”; “Comrades, let us fight for our village, let us fight for Russia!”; “Now and forever, war on Fascism!”
The road to the entrance was lined with modern Stakhanovite-esque photographs, presenting, for instance, one worker as the best sausage stuffer, another as the best tractor driver, and a final one, sporting a mustache and a Nike T-shirt, as the mechanic of the year. Trucks and vans marked with a hammer and sickle poured out of the gates. A statue of Stalin presided over it all, his pants tucked into his boots from his place on a four-tiered pedestal. Off to the side, a metallic Lenin looked on, his brow furrowed; his dais had only two tiers, and was partially covered by the branches of a birch tree.
The entrance to the management building, a stolid modernist structure, was dominated by bronze letters reading cccp. The security guards at reception wore fatigues. I would soon realize this was one of Russia’s most successful agricultural producers, delivering tens of thousands of tons of meat and dairy to the market each year. The business, established in 1995, well after the USSR was dead and gone, identified itself as a Communist-Stalinist enterprise.
Ivan Kazankov is eighty-one years old and has a gray, wolf-like gaze. He’s tall and robust, a wide red tie resting on his belly. He showed interest in my unexpected visit without too much reservation: you could tell he’s a real boss, one who doesn’t answer to anybody—a top dog of this agrarian Stalingrad, this rural empire on the Volga, paradoxically inspired by the greatest peasant exterminator in history. His office seemed to have been designed with the express purpose of disorienting anyone hoping to understand Russia in 2023: busts of Stalin standing alongside Russian Orthodox icons, a portrait of Nicholas II looming over a Soyuz statuette, a picture of Vladimir Putin hanging next to an image of St. Andrew, the patron saint of Russia. To the chaos of this pantheon was added a general sense of opacity about the nature of the combine itself, which at first was presented to me as a “state-run agricultural coop, exactly like in the days of the USSR,” but had turned out to be a private family holding. Ivan had made his daughter director after his son left to join the Duma. “What matters is that it runs as before,” he explained. “Profits are used to increase the salaries of the four thousand employees and grow the business.”
<snip>
A teenager wearing a Stalin T-shirt on a ferry
Stalin, as far as I could tell, had become the symbol of the summer, a totemic figure along the lines of Che Guevara. Lenin may be one of the most common statues in the world, with seven thousand in Russia alone—but it is no longer Lenin’s arm that points to the future. Stalin is experiencing a Second Coming, his name recurring like a mantra. He even has his own namesake sausage brand. His biggest sponsor, perhaps, is Putin, who knows that by invoking him he is pulling on a magic string that will reawaken secret dreams of glory.
“Putin can’t compare himself to Lenin,” the historian Dmitry Rusin told me. “He was too intellectual and complex in these days of easy approximations. It’s too European.” Rusin is a professor at Ulyanovsk State University. In 1970, they built an enormous Lenin memorial in the city center. “Putin prefers to be compared to Stalin, just as Stalin drew his ruthless idea of Russian power from Ivan the Terrible,” said the professor as we approached the memorial. “Not a European idea, but an Asian one, that doesn’t hold the life of the individual in consideration. I find this return to the cult of Stalin, especially among young people, horrifying. I feel a catastrophe coming.” The fountain in front of the complex had run dry. “They closed the complex for renovations five years ago,” Rusin said. “It was supposed to reopen in 2020, now they’re saying 2025. But no funds are coming from Moscow. They want to make Ulyanovsk poor.”
Volgograd is a different story. Putin wants to change its name back to Stalingrad, the better to exploit the symbol of the battle. “We are again being threatened by German Leopard tanks,” the president said in February 2023, inaugurating a new monument to Stalin at the museum dedicated to the two-hundred-day siege, when more than a million Soviet and German soldiers were reported dead, wounded, missing, or captured. “Again and again, we have to repel the aggression of the collective West.”
(More at link.)
https://harpers.org/archive/2024/01/beh ... n-curtain/
Um, Putin is not behind changing Stalingrad's name back, I'm sure if he had his druthers that issue would go away. Rather a significant part of the populace in the city are and they are having a referendum soon. As it stands the name 'Stalingrad' is used on nine holidays.
This evening’s Vesti broadcast on Rossiya 1 was all too typical of the narrowing horizons of prime time news programs. It opened with lengthy reporting on the devastation wrought in the city of Gorlovka, Donetsk oblast, by more than 20 incoming Ukrainian rocket artillery projectiles that struck residential apartments in the middle of last night, including from the U.S. made HIMARS system. One person was killed and a dozen more were hospitalized with various injuries.
The next news segment, substantially longer, was reporting from the front lines showing the incessant artillery and drone strikes that Russian forces are delivering near Gorlovka and elsewhere in the oblast at hardened Ukrainian defensive positions, at their infantry, artillery pieces and armored vehicles.
After that the news program moved on to reporting the disruptions to intercity traffic in central Russia due to heavy snowstorms and drifts that have shut down major highways. Truck drivers waiting out the storm were interviewed, as were the emergency workers who are supervising the snow removal and providing hot food to those in need.
From there the Vesti program shifted to commentary about today’s events at the Russian national exhibition (Forum) in Moscow’s VDNKh grounds. And of course there had to follow news about President Putin’s latest activities.
A cult of personality first appeared on Russian state television five years ago with the launch of the embarrassingly servile Sunday evening show entitled Moscow, Kremlin, Putin hosted by the youthful Pavel Zarubin, a protégé of Vladimir Solovyov and of state television news boss Dmitry Kiselyov. The cult has become ever more insistent now that the Russian electoral season is underway and every Vesti show has to give us a good dose of speeches and ribbon cutting ceremonies.
What is missing entirely from Vesti these days is international news. So it goes day after day in formulaic fashion. This, despite the fact that there is no shortage of hair-raising news from Gaza, from Iran and Pakistan, from the Houthi-U.S. confrontation in the Red Sea, among other global hot spots that Russians might just want to know about.
I do not mean to suggest that Vesti news has no merit. The military reporting from the field may be commended for giving the microphone to real Russian soldiers who are not propagandists but are speaking openly about their daily experience. Thus, we hear from the horse’s mouth that those manning the artillery who are firing with high accuracy at Ukrainian targets 37 km away, well behind the enemy lines, are obliged to move their artillery pieces within minutes of firing because there will be artillery counter strikes from the other side. This is a piece of information that puts in perspective the generalizations we in the West are told about how the Ukrainians are starved for ammunition and are firing 8 or 10 times fewer artillery projectiles daily than the Russians. It also tells us that Ukrainian reconnaissance via their own drones or otherwise is not that bad.
In criticizing Vesti I do not mean to suggest that Russian state television generally offers no information about the outside world. That you find in abundance on the talk shows Sixty Minutes and Evening with Vladimir Solovyov. Besides providing live reporting from Russia’s bureau chiefs in Berlin, New York and elsewhere, these shows draw heavily on Western news broadcasts about the major international developments of the day as well as about political events in the West: they feature video clips from CNN, Euronews and other international channels to provide material for analysis by their expert panelists. And those panelists often include area specialists on the Middle East, on China and Southeast Asia or in other topical regions who are given the microphone long enough to set out their broad concepts of what underlies the news at a serious intellectual level.
Both the aforementioned programs have deeply patriotic presenters, but they also strive for balance. True, Solovyov’s film clips and narratives from his almost weekly visits to the front extol the bravery and intelligence of the soldiers and officers with whom he meets. He sings the praises of the Russian military industrial complex, both state factories and the many private enterprises that have become suppliers of critical equipment. And yet he also gives air time to experts who explain at length why and how the Ukrainians may successfully continue the war for years in a defensive posture, so that it would be a grave mistake to be overconfident. This is precisely what I heard on Solovyov’s show this past Thursday. I rather doubt that Colonel Douglas Macgregor or Scott Ritter have lent an ear to these remarks. They should!
My intention is to demonstrate that Russia is a complex society which cannot be described in a useful manner by the simplistic words of infatuation or words of utter condemnation and vilification that predominate in U.S. and European reporting.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/01/20/ ... t-its-way/
*****
The following is from Harpers, is full of Orientalists and anti-communists nonsense but nonetheless provides some interesting reportage. Excerpts follow.
Behind the New Iron Curtain
by Marzio G. Mian,Translated by Elettra Pauletto
Caviar, counterculture, and the cult of Stalin reborn
<snip>
Piotrovsky, who is mild-mannered and cerebral, and who wore his jacket loosely over hunched shoulders, seemed to have become a warrior. “Russia is many people, but one nation,” he asserted. “Russia along the Volga was able to incorporate everyone. Islam is just as much a religion of Russian tradition and identity as is Christian Orthodoxy. In Europe, in America, you speak of nothing but multiculturalism, but your cities are bursting with hate. For us, it didn’t take much to include everyone, because we’re an imperial civilization.” Then he grew more animated. “Look at the Hermitage!” he said, opening his arms to the room around us, widening his eyes. “It’s the encyclopedia of world culture, but it’s written in Russian because it’s our interpretation of world history. It may be arrogant, but that’s what we are.”
He took a deep breath, and began to talk of Stalingrad, his Jerusalem. “I don’t call it Volgograd, but Stalingrad,” he clarified for my sake. “It is our reference point now more than ever, an unparalleled symbol of resistance, our enemies’ worst nightmare. During the Great Patriotic War, we used it to defend the Volga as a vital corridor.” He continued to press the analogy: “And it’s been the same in the last few months. The Volga and the Caspian feed our trade with Iran to oppose the sanctions, while we use them to export oil to India and import what we need.” He removed his glasses and cleaned them with his jacket. “Stalingrad is a lucky charm, it’s destiny. If the Nazis had taken it, they would have cut off the Volga and conquered all of Russia. A very material thing that became spiritual. A warning. Whosoever tries it will meet the end of all the others—Swedes, Napoleon, the Germans and their allies.” He went on. “Russians are like the Scythians: they wait, they suffer, they die, and then they kill.”
<snip>
Sergeeva’s caviar is refined and humanely produced. She explained that this was the result of a process that she had invented: she extracts the eggs from the sturgeon with a small incision, without killing it. This procedure can be performed three times on the same fish. She has endeavored to ensure that the production and sale of her caviar remains the same as it was before the war. “In Russia it’s not a real party unless there’s caviar,” she said—even, apparently, in the current situation. She told me that since Russia had banned wild sturgeon harvesting in the Caspian, farms in this Volga region have proliferated, their numbers rising from three to sixty in the past five years.
Sergeeva is well-traveled and known widely for her aquaculture expertise. She could get a job anywhere, it seemed to me, so why stay? “I was born here, I studied here, my husband is Russian, my son is Russian, I’m Russian,” she said. “I wouldn’t say I’m a patriot, and I don’t want to express my thoughts on Putin and the war. But I can assure you that my life hasn’t changed. Not in the least.” She blushed as she spoke, as if the subject were uncomfortable. “The Russians are reacting to the sanctions in an extraordinary way, even with a weak ruble and the inevitable inflation. The prices of essential goods have held steady. And now we’re consuming better and healthier products than before the war, even exceptional cheeses.”
I had never imagined that the rise of hyperlocal food would be one of the recurring themes of this trip. But it appears that the Western sanctions and war economy have intensified a traditional Russian gastronomy movement. Western products had piqued the palates of average urban Russians, and local producers were trying to fill their vacuum, proudly offering Russian-made Camembert and prosciutto, as if to provide some material evidence of Russkiy Mir, Putin’s ideology of Russian supremacy. As I dined along the Volga, menus often specified the farms from which ingredients had been sourced. Restaurants served svekolnik and okroshka, simple cold summer soups, exalting the quality of local radishes grown without Western fertilizers.
<snip>
A Communist Party sign, Mari El Republic.
Had it not been for a massive poster looming over a lonely intersection in the steppe, showing Sergei Kazankov alongside Lenin and Stalin, I might have missed another quite surreal thing: Soviet Union revivalism. Using a VPN to protect my online searches, I learned that Kazankov had been reelected to the State Duma in 2021 as a Communist, that he was sanctioned for supporting the invasion of Ukraine, and that his father, Ivan Kazankov, has long been a Communist power broker. Sergei himself had been the director of a meat-processing plant and agricultural combine in the Zvenigovsky District, owned by his father.
By this point I was traveling across the Mari El Republic, some ninety miles from Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan. More specifically, I was in the Zvenigovsky District, which lends its name to Kazankov’s company, Zvenigovsky LLC, which has become known in town as the last sovkhoz, or large-scale collective farm. I had only to make a small detour, cross a field of sunflowers, and get directions at a gas station (“when you see the monument to Marx you’re practically there”) to arrive at its building, which, on first glance, seemed like a memorial to the old Soviets. The red flag of the USSR fluttered above the white and yellow complex. According to the company, it’s the same size as the one lowered from the Kremlin on December 25, 1991, when Communism fell. The walls of the plant were covered in red inscriptions marked by the exclamation points the Bolsheviks had so loved to use: “Honor and glory to the workers of the Zvenigovsky combine!”; “Comrades, let us fight for our village, let us fight for Russia!”; “Now and forever, war on Fascism!”
The road to the entrance was lined with modern Stakhanovite-esque photographs, presenting, for instance, one worker as the best sausage stuffer, another as the best tractor driver, and a final one, sporting a mustache and a Nike T-shirt, as the mechanic of the year. Trucks and vans marked with a hammer and sickle poured out of the gates. A statue of Stalin presided over it all, his pants tucked into his boots from his place on a four-tiered pedestal. Off to the side, a metallic Lenin looked on, his brow furrowed; his dais had only two tiers, and was partially covered by the branches of a birch tree.
The entrance to the management building, a stolid modernist structure, was dominated by bronze letters reading cccp. The security guards at reception wore fatigues. I would soon realize this was one of Russia’s most successful agricultural producers, delivering tens of thousands of tons of meat and dairy to the market each year. The business, established in 1995, well after the USSR was dead and gone, identified itself as a Communist-Stalinist enterprise.
Ivan Kazankov is eighty-one years old and has a gray, wolf-like gaze. He’s tall and robust, a wide red tie resting on his belly. He showed interest in my unexpected visit without too much reservation: you could tell he’s a real boss, one who doesn’t answer to anybody—a top dog of this agrarian Stalingrad, this rural empire on the Volga, paradoxically inspired by the greatest peasant exterminator in history. His office seemed to have been designed with the express purpose of disorienting anyone hoping to understand Russia in 2023: busts of Stalin standing alongside Russian Orthodox icons, a portrait of Nicholas II looming over a Soyuz statuette, a picture of Vladimir Putin hanging next to an image of St. Andrew, the patron saint of Russia. To the chaos of this pantheon was added a general sense of opacity about the nature of the combine itself, which at first was presented to me as a “state-run agricultural coop, exactly like in the days of the USSR,” but had turned out to be a private family holding. Ivan had made his daughter director after his son left to join the Duma. “What matters is that it runs as before,” he explained. “Profits are used to increase the salaries of the four thousand employees and grow the business.”
<snip>
A teenager wearing a Stalin T-shirt on a ferry
Stalin, as far as I could tell, had become the symbol of the summer, a totemic figure along the lines of Che Guevara. Lenin may be one of the most common statues in the world, with seven thousand in Russia alone—but it is no longer Lenin’s arm that points to the future. Stalin is experiencing a Second Coming, his name recurring like a mantra. He even has his own namesake sausage brand. His biggest sponsor, perhaps, is Putin, who knows that by invoking him he is pulling on a magic string that will reawaken secret dreams of glory.
“Putin can’t compare himself to Lenin,” the historian Dmitry Rusin told me. “He was too intellectual and complex in these days of easy approximations. It’s too European.” Rusin is a professor at Ulyanovsk State University. In 1970, they built an enormous Lenin memorial in the city center. “Putin prefers to be compared to Stalin, just as Stalin drew his ruthless idea of Russian power from Ivan the Terrible,” said the professor as we approached the memorial. “Not a European idea, but an Asian one, that doesn’t hold the life of the individual in consideration. I find this return to the cult of Stalin, especially among young people, horrifying. I feel a catastrophe coming.” The fountain in front of the complex had run dry. “They closed the complex for renovations five years ago,” Rusin said. “It was supposed to reopen in 2020, now they’re saying 2025. But no funds are coming from Moscow. They want to make Ulyanovsk poor.”
Volgograd is a different story. Putin wants to change its name back to Stalingrad, the better to exploit the symbol of the battle. “We are again being threatened by German Leopard tanks,” the president said in February 2023, inaugurating a new monument to Stalin at the museum dedicated to the two-hundred-day siege, when more than a million Soviet and German soldiers were reported dead, wounded, missing, or captured. “Again and again, we have to repel the aggression of the collective West.”
(More at link.)
https://harpers.org/archive/2024/01/beh ... n-curtain/
Um, Putin is not behind changing Stalingrad's name back, I'm sure if he had his druthers that issue would go away. Rather a significant part of the populace in the city are and they are having a referendum soon. As it stands the name 'Stalingrad' is used on nine holidays.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Russia today
WHY IS THE STEEL OLIGARCH VLADIMIR LISIN SELLING OUT?
by John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with
By Russian oligarch standards, Vladimir Lisin (lead image) – iron-ore and coalminer, steelmaker, land and sea transporter, shipbuilder — is the only honest one.
In the acquisition, enlargement, and protection of his asset holdings over thirty years, he has also managed to defeat the dishonest ones, starting with Oleg Deripaska, then Mikhail Prokhorov, then Victor Rashnikov, not to mention offshore raiders like George Soros and David Reuben of the Trans World Group.
Those who have known Lisin longest, including me, don’t put this down to his factory-floor origins, to his two PhDs and fluent English – Lisin is the best educated of the oligarchs — nor to his alliances with Soviet and Yeltsin-era politicians. “Straight and honest was his character”, says an American metals trader today, who worked with him in the 1990s. “The disputes [with Lisin] were not easy,” says Oleg Korolev, between 1998 and 2018 the governor of Lipetsk region, where Lisin’s main steel production is based, “but they always ended objectively and fairly.”
“[He is] one of the most original stars in the oligarchic firmament,” concludes the latest business media profile published in Moscow a few days ago. “He has never aspired to power, like, for example, [Vladimir] Potanin, but has such an administrative resource that even [Anatoly] Chubais in exile, according to rumours, has been asking [Lisin] to intercede for him with the Kremlin’s decision makers. He hasn’t poked his nose into erstwhile political projects, like [Roman] Abramovich…He has not received any special state awards, unlike his colleague, Hero of Labor of Russia Rashnikov, but no one will deny his powerful personal contribution to the development of NLMK and to the country’s economy. He did not participate in the loans-for-shares schemes or in the semibankirschina. Nevertheless, he has created one of the most advanced, diversified, and effective business empires which his colleagues on the Forbes list can envy.”
And yet, since the start of the Special Military Operation two years ago, Lisin has been stripping the assets of the group in which his shareholding control is about 80%. He has been selling both steelmaking and transportation businesses to independent buyers, not nominees; from them in return he has received between $3.5 billion and $4 billion in cash from the deals.
At the same time, he has preserved the original Novolipetsk Steel Metallurgical Combine (NLMK), the core of his group, plus the coal and iron-ore mines and energy sources which supply NLMK, and enable it to produce cheaper steel than its domestic or foreign competitors.
This is what turf bookmakers call an each-way bet – on steelmaking in the domestic Russian market to support and profit from the Russian victory over the US and NATO in the Ukraine; and on cash banked through the UAE, outside the reach of US and European economic warfighters and sanctioneers, and also the Russian tax man.
Still at risk in this wager are Lisin’s castle and grouse shoot in Perthshire, Scotland; a home in Geneva; a motor yacht he calls Socrates, and a Bombardier airplane. Hedging that risk are his steel plants in Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, and the US which continue to be so vital for the political survival of the regimes in those states, not to mention their defence industries, that they have secured quota-busting concessions until 2024 or longer, in order to keep importing Lisin’s Russian steel products for their production lines.
Lisin’s investment relations and press offices list eight analysts at Russian commercial and state banks who cover steelmaking and NLMK. Every one of them refuses to say what he thinks is Lisin’s war strategy for the group or Moscow stock market pricing of his future inside Russia, and outside.
NLMK SHARE PRICE HISTORY, 2006-2024
WAR IMPACT ON NLMK SHARE PRICE
Source: https://markets.ft.com/
The share price responds to the financial results of the domestic steelmaking and mining divisions of the group. Publication of the details was suspended in February 2022, and this was the last production and trading report, issued for the first six months of 2022 and released on July 25, 2022. Some releases continue in the Russian press: a week ago, Interfax reported that in the first nine months of 2023 NLMK’s revenue amounted to Rb524.8 billion, cost of sales Rb355.1 billion, and after-tax profit Rb182.1 billion, calculated according to Russian Accounting Standards. These data do not include the results of the Urals region steel plants, the mines or the offshore operations.
This year, the company says, $296 million worth of Eurobonds are due to mature, and must either be repaid in sanctioned currency or refinanced; another $1.1 billion in Eurobonds aren’t due until 2026. If Lisin can’t arrange Russian Central Bank permission to repay this year’s debt obligation with dollars converted from his rouble profits, he should be able to refinance it on the credit of his European and American businesses. For European banks to lend, the credit risk would be local, not Russian – unless Lisin decided to cut off his European plants from their Russian steel supplies. That, the European bankers would be telling themselves, would be like cutting off one of his own hands.
In the meantime, over the past several months Lisin has sold his Urals-based long steel plants which produce blooms, billets, wire, rod, rail, reinforcement bar (rebar), and sections, together with his hardware distributor, and Vtorchermet, the steel scrap processor which has been feeding the electric arc furnaces for longs production. There are no confirmed transaction details, but the cash proceeds for Lisin from selling these assets are reported to have been between $550 million and $600 million. Industry reports have been saying Lisin has been trying to sell his long steel units since 2020 because they have represented the slowest to grow, least profitable to operate parts of his group.
This is confirmed by the company’s last pre-war presentation, issued on February 3, 2022, although there is not a word in that report to acknowledge the intention to divest which was already in discussion in the Moscow market.
NLMK EARNINGS AND PROFITABILITY BY DIVISION, 2021
Source: https://nlmk.com/ -- page 26. NBH stands for NLMK’s Belgian steelmills at La Louvière and Clabecq.
In November 2023 it was also announced that Lisin had sold the First Freight Company, aka Freight One, to the Babaev brothers for a price which has been reported between Rb200 billion ($2.2 billion) and Rb270 billion ($3 billion). In 2011, Lisin had won the privatization auction for Freight One, paying the state Russian Railways Rb126 billion (then $4.6 billion). Freight One is a railroad carrier.
Without it, Lisin’s transportation holding called United Cargo Logistics Holding Company (UCLH), registered in Amsterdam, has continued to keep shipping, shipbuilding, port logistics, and stevedoring companies based in Russia. These include terminals at St Petersburg port and Ust-Luga in the northwest, the southern ports of Tuapse and Taganrog, and shipyards. At one point in the business history, Lisin had been hoping to arrange an initial public offering of shares in UCLH in London, but this failed to materialize. A month ago, Lisin arranged the sale of the Oka Shipyard in Nizhny Novgorod out of the UCLH group but no transaction value has been disclosed; market estimates put the price tag at between $50 million and $90 million.
A leading analyst of the Russian shipping sector explains that Lisin is exiting railroads because their tariffs are the most heavily state-regulated of the UCLH group, and thus the least likely to meet Lisin’s profitability target. He has let go the Oka shipyard for the same reason, the source believes.
That leaves Lisin still in command of a combination of flat steel fabrication, the electrical steel unit VIZ-Stal in Yekaterinburg, iron-ore and coal mining, and transport businesses.
Click on source to identify the units of the group in their country locations.
The expansion of NLMK’s electrical steel businesses to India can be followed here. Output capacity for the electrical steel plant now open in Maharashtra state is 64,000 tonnes and represents more than a fifth of the Indian market for the product which is used in motors, generators and transformers. The group’s electrical steel producer, VIZ-Stal in Yekaterinburg, has been selling about 300,000 tonnes per year of grain-oriented (GO) and 300,000 tonnes of non-grain oriented (NGO) products, which represent almost the entire Russian market.
There has been no comment in the Russian industry press or in NLMK releases on the fate of VIZ-Stal after the other NLMK Urals plants have changed hands. More broadly, NLMK has been saying nothing about divestment in Russia or expansion in India – and that was for several years before the war. The obvious impacts on Russian steelmaking of war industry mobilization and the reconstruction of the Donbass are secret.
In 2019, the group announced it was launching NLMK’s steel strategy to the year 2023. This emphasized growth of earnings from lowering costs of energy and raw materials, improving efficiencies in steel production, reducing debt, and increasing free cash. Most of the earnings growth, the company report said, would occur in Russia (60%), less in Europe and the US. For an overall increase in steel sales across the group, NLMK claimed that growth in the domestic Russian market would be 22%, resulting in a growth of the Russian proportion of total group sales from 33% in 2018 to 39% in 2022. European sales were to grow by 32%; sales in the US were projected to remain flat. Not a word was said about selling off the long steel and scrap businesses.
Source: NLMK’s five-year plan for 2018-2022.
In the last open presentation to investors and shareholders by NLMK, which was issued on February 3, 2022, the company said almost nothing about its future strategy, except to note that its Russian flat steel and coal and iron-ore mining divisions were contributing much more to the group’s earnings and profitability than its long steel division.
The presentation also reveals that NLMK’s Russian operations were performing far better in output, sales and profit than the European and American steel plants.
Source: https://nlmk.com/ -- pages 23, 25
For the time being, Lisin is not sanctioned by the US or by the European Union and UK, despite active efforts by US and Ukrainian state propaganda organs, and by the Baltic states to force the EU to act. Lisin was, however, ousted from his presidency of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) in December 2022; the result was that he took his Olympic prize sponsorships and money with him.
The EU has announced a sharp cutback in Russian (and Belarus) steel imports since March 2022. In theory, this was “to further isolate Russia and drain the resources it uses to finance this barbaric war,” according to the German European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen. In practice, she was impotent as the steel industries of Denmark, Belgium, France, and Italy, where Lisin owns and operates steelmills, have forced lengthy extensions of time until 2028. Without NLMK’s steel, there can be no NATO rearmament in those states, especially shipbuilding, tank and armoured vehicle construction, like the French Caesars and AMXs, which the Russian army is defeating in the Ukraine.
No Russian source in the steel business believes Lisin’s decision to sell assets has been forced domestically by either a political or business rival. No source who knows will say what and where he is banking the proceeds. Not a single Moscow analyst whose job it is to monitor Lisin’s NLMK group dares to guess, even off the record, what Lisin’s divestment strategy means for the future. Lisin himself isn’t saying. He isn’t paying journalists and their editors to float balloons, drop hints, or attack his rivals with kompromat.
Lisin’s first statement on the Ukraine war, issued on March 7, 2022, was a letter to the steelworkers of his group: “I would like to begin by expressing my deepest compassion to all the victims of the armed conflict in Ukraine, the families and relatives of those who died,” Lisin wrote. “Lost lives are always a huge tragedy that is impossible to justify. I am convinced that peaceful diplomatic conflict resolution is always preferable to the use of force.”
A month later, on April 5, 2022, Lisin said significantly more in an interview with Kommersant. His intended audience this time was the Kremlin. In retrospect, he appears to have been under-estimating how long the war would last, and to have failed to understand that the US and NATO intended the war against Russia.
President Putin meeting Lisin for a discussion of NLMK on June 22, 2007. This is the last one-on-one meeting the two have had, according to the Kremlin archive. However, Lisin has been a regular attender and speaker at Putin’s annual meetings with the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE in English, RSPP in Russian) and the Kremlin’s Christmas dinner for the oligarchs. In March 2023 Lisin resigned from the RSPP board.
Lisin told Kommersant he was opposed to all measures to put the Russian economy on a war footing. “The situation is more than another economic crisis…Supply chains formed over the years are being destroyed, logistics, payment and financial infrastructure are failing. And against this background, the rules of the game change daily, new restrictions appear. In conditions of high uncertainty, we are changing business processes and trying to fulfill our social obligations…Obviously, many measures are being taken rapidly now, their consequences have not been fully analyzed. It seems to me that speed should give way to precision, adequacy, so that the consequences do not turn out to be devastating for the domestic industry, where millions of people are employed.”
Lisin said nothing critical of the sanctions regime, nor anything at all about the long-term security of Russia’s strategic industries, like steelmaking, under US and NATO economic warfare. By contrast, he was critical of Russian government measures for converting Russia’s economy to self-sufficiency, reoriented markets, and de-dollarisation in trade payments.
“It is difficult to imagine what can convince our customers to switch to settlements in roubles and bear currency risks. Logistical problems have already complicated the delivery of products to the consumer. Switching to payments in rubles will simply throw us out of international markets… I see that, for example, ministries are working on issues of supporting infrastructure projects for the development of domestic consumption, the possibility of a preferential mortgage stimulating construction is being discussed, a moratorium on inspections has been introduced. These are useful, but local initiatives…”
“Don’t try to administer everything down to the nuts and bolts – this only harms business,” Lisin said, declaring this to be an “ill-considered idea.” Although this was “the first time NLMK’s main shareholder Vladimir Lisin publicly shares his opinion on the issues related to the Ukraine crisis and the sanctions imposed on Russia,” the only war he acknowledged he and his businesses were facing was with Moscow where the enemies were state regulation, price fixing, rail access quotas, and foreign currency controls. Lisin was so confident of this, he arranged for his interview to be published in English on the NLMK website.
“The current situation is more than just another economic crisis that we have faced before. It requires a much more serious approach and high-quality, balanced decisions…We see, for example, that in recent weeks suppliers of materials, equipment, and components have raised prices significantly. In such conditions, the freezing of prices for final products will lead to the fact that its production will simply stop due to losses.”
“We can already see how the cost of transportation is growing. As soon as the proposal of JSC Russian Railways appeared to increase the tariff for export transportation of metals by 30%, a new proposal has already been announced — to index tariffs quarterly by the amount of inflation and exchange rate difference. In general, the idea of indexing transport tariffs while fixing prices for everything else will lead to the fact that only metal and fertilizers can be transported by rail, the rest only by trucks. It will be a complete collapse for agriculture in general.”
Source: https://www.kommersant.ru/
“Private companies supported the domestic engineering industry and bought new [rail] wagons worth 2 trillion roubles, now more than 70% of the total fleet. Now it is proposed to transfer them to the management of Russian Railways. What for? Apparently, the times of chronic shortage of wagons have been forgotten. At the same time, Russian Railways already has the largest rolling stock operator in the country, FGC [Federal Freight Company]. It can be used to solve all government tasks.”
Lisin revealed in the interview that he thinks he and his companies are “caught in the crossfire between regulatory initiatives from the [Russian] authorities on the one hand, and the constant threat of Western sanctions, including personal ones, on the other.”
“It is difficult to reduce my attitude to the topic of personal sanctions to any one simple emotion or thought… On the one hand…they directly or indirectly affect a lot of people who now have to try to work and live in a new reality. It is clear…that this need cannot but cause alarm, because sanctions are capable of destroying everything that has been created over the years…this is not so much about personal well-being, as about a cascade of negative consequences for tens of thousands of employees and tens, maybe hundreds of thousands more employees of various partner companies and customers.”
“On the other hand, and this is an important part of my attitude, it is a shame to complain about personal problems in a humanitarian disaster situation. Sanctions may seem unfair as much as you like, with elements of collective responsibility, if you want, but people will try to stop the death of people and the destruction of cities by any available means…in the current conditions, economic measures can be treated as an alternative to military action, which gives the situation a chance not to escalate into a global conflict that can turn into a disaster for everyone.”
Almost two years have now elapsed since Lisin’s public statement. In the interval what he has done is to have converted into cash the least profitable of his steel plants and those of his transportation businesses most subject to state price, route and cargo quota control. He has withdrawn the profit accounting centre he used to run in Cyprus, but he has not returned to Russia. Instead, the group has re-registered in the United Arab Emirates. The Fletcher front in Cyprus, which has been targeted by Kiev, has turned into Serenity II Holdings and Nebula II Holdings, registered in Abu Dhabi by June of 2023.
What remains in the Lisin group is steel production most likely to benefit from military production mobilization and post-war reconstruction, the likes of which Russia has not seen since World War II, plus the geographical reorientation of trade which has never happened before. For an oligarch, these are strategic opportunities, and also future risks, which have never been calculated before.
Lisin’s calculation is a two-way wager. If the Forbes Russia estimate of his wealth as of this month is on the high side at $25 billion, and the cash proceeds of his asset sell-off is on the low side at $4 billion, Lisin is betting less than 20% of his position in an offshore haven in case both the military and economic wars go badly for Russia.
As for Lisin’s personal exposure to sanctions and the vulnerability of his steelmills in Europe and the US, there is a kicker which Lisin doesn’t have to announce. This is because he has already demonstrated inside Russia what he will do, and what he did when he was sanctioned by the International Shooting Sport Federation. This is to cancel his business, pick up his money, and walk away.
According to domestic press reporting, after the new Lipetsk region governor, Igor Artamonov, took power in September 2019, there were several political and personal clashes with Lisin. Lisin’s reaction was that in 2021 he cancelled his tax residence in Lipetsk and re-registered in the Moscow region. An estimated billion roubles in personal income tax which Lisin had been paying annually to the Lipetsk administration was gone.
Last month, a Lipetsk region deputy and television journalist explained in print: “A handshake means a lot to him [Lisin]. The political events of 2021 showed that some people in Lipetsk do not take much account of NLMK’s position and with him personally. I do not exclude that the change of residence permit, followed by the removal from the tax register of citizen Lisin, was a reaction to the actions or words carelessly tossed by the head of the region [Artamonov]. He [Lisin] is very emotional here. So you see, Vladimir Sergeyevich is not alien to anything human.”
https://johnhelmer.net/why-is-the-steel ... more-89221
by John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with
By Russian oligarch standards, Vladimir Lisin (lead image) – iron-ore and coalminer, steelmaker, land and sea transporter, shipbuilder — is the only honest one.
In the acquisition, enlargement, and protection of his asset holdings over thirty years, he has also managed to defeat the dishonest ones, starting with Oleg Deripaska, then Mikhail Prokhorov, then Victor Rashnikov, not to mention offshore raiders like George Soros and David Reuben of the Trans World Group.
Those who have known Lisin longest, including me, don’t put this down to his factory-floor origins, to his two PhDs and fluent English – Lisin is the best educated of the oligarchs — nor to his alliances with Soviet and Yeltsin-era politicians. “Straight and honest was his character”, says an American metals trader today, who worked with him in the 1990s. “The disputes [with Lisin] were not easy,” says Oleg Korolev, between 1998 and 2018 the governor of Lipetsk region, where Lisin’s main steel production is based, “but they always ended objectively and fairly.”
“[He is] one of the most original stars in the oligarchic firmament,” concludes the latest business media profile published in Moscow a few days ago. “He has never aspired to power, like, for example, [Vladimir] Potanin, but has such an administrative resource that even [Anatoly] Chubais in exile, according to rumours, has been asking [Lisin] to intercede for him with the Kremlin’s decision makers. He hasn’t poked his nose into erstwhile political projects, like [Roman] Abramovich…He has not received any special state awards, unlike his colleague, Hero of Labor of Russia Rashnikov, but no one will deny his powerful personal contribution to the development of NLMK and to the country’s economy. He did not participate in the loans-for-shares schemes or in the semibankirschina. Nevertheless, he has created one of the most advanced, diversified, and effective business empires which his colleagues on the Forbes list can envy.”
And yet, since the start of the Special Military Operation two years ago, Lisin has been stripping the assets of the group in which his shareholding control is about 80%. He has been selling both steelmaking and transportation businesses to independent buyers, not nominees; from them in return he has received between $3.5 billion and $4 billion in cash from the deals.
At the same time, he has preserved the original Novolipetsk Steel Metallurgical Combine (NLMK), the core of his group, plus the coal and iron-ore mines and energy sources which supply NLMK, and enable it to produce cheaper steel than its domestic or foreign competitors.
This is what turf bookmakers call an each-way bet – on steelmaking in the domestic Russian market to support and profit from the Russian victory over the US and NATO in the Ukraine; and on cash banked through the UAE, outside the reach of US and European economic warfighters and sanctioneers, and also the Russian tax man.
Still at risk in this wager are Lisin’s castle and grouse shoot in Perthshire, Scotland; a home in Geneva; a motor yacht he calls Socrates, and a Bombardier airplane. Hedging that risk are his steel plants in Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, and the US which continue to be so vital for the political survival of the regimes in those states, not to mention their defence industries, that they have secured quota-busting concessions until 2024 or longer, in order to keep importing Lisin’s Russian steel products for their production lines.
Lisin’s investment relations and press offices list eight analysts at Russian commercial and state banks who cover steelmaking and NLMK. Every one of them refuses to say what he thinks is Lisin’s war strategy for the group or Moscow stock market pricing of his future inside Russia, and outside.
NLMK SHARE PRICE HISTORY, 2006-2024
WAR IMPACT ON NLMK SHARE PRICE
Source: https://markets.ft.com/
The share price responds to the financial results of the domestic steelmaking and mining divisions of the group. Publication of the details was suspended in February 2022, and this was the last production and trading report, issued for the first six months of 2022 and released on July 25, 2022. Some releases continue in the Russian press: a week ago, Interfax reported that in the first nine months of 2023 NLMK’s revenue amounted to Rb524.8 billion, cost of sales Rb355.1 billion, and after-tax profit Rb182.1 billion, calculated according to Russian Accounting Standards. These data do not include the results of the Urals region steel plants, the mines or the offshore operations.
This year, the company says, $296 million worth of Eurobonds are due to mature, and must either be repaid in sanctioned currency or refinanced; another $1.1 billion in Eurobonds aren’t due until 2026. If Lisin can’t arrange Russian Central Bank permission to repay this year’s debt obligation with dollars converted from his rouble profits, he should be able to refinance it on the credit of his European and American businesses. For European banks to lend, the credit risk would be local, not Russian – unless Lisin decided to cut off his European plants from their Russian steel supplies. That, the European bankers would be telling themselves, would be like cutting off one of his own hands.
In the meantime, over the past several months Lisin has sold his Urals-based long steel plants which produce blooms, billets, wire, rod, rail, reinforcement bar (rebar), and sections, together with his hardware distributor, and Vtorchermet, the steel scrap processor which has been feeding the electric arc furnaces for longs production. There are no confirmed transaction details, but the cash proceeds for Lisin from selling these assets are reported to have been between $550 million and $600 million. Industry reports have been saying Lisin has been trying to sell his long steel units since 2020 because they have represented the slowest to grow, least profitable to operate parts of his group.
This is confirmed by the company’s last pre-war presentation, issued on February 3, 2022, although there is not a word in that report to acknowledge the intention to divest which was already in discussion in the Moscow market.
NLMK EARNINGS AND PROFITABILITY BY DIVISION, 2021
Source: https://nlmk.com/ -- page 26. NBH stands for NLMK’s Belgian steelmills at La Louvière and Clabecq.
In November 2023 it was also announced that Lisin had sold the First Freight Company, aka Freight One, to the Babaev brothers for a price which has been reported between Rb200 billion ($2.2 billion) and Rb270 billion ($3 billion). In 2011, Lisin had won the privatization auction for Freight One, paying the state Russian Railways Rb126 billion (then $4.6 billion). Freight One is a railroad carrier.
Without it, Lisin’s transportation holding called United Cargo Logistics Holding Company (UCLH), registered in Amsterdam, has continued to keep shipping, shipbuilding, port logistics, and stevedoring companies based in Russia. These include terminals at St Petersburg port and Ust-Luga in the northwest, the southern ports of Tuapse and Taganrog, and shipyards. At one point in the business history, Lisin had been hoping to arrange an initial public offering of shares in UCLH in London, but this failed to materialize. A month ago, Lisin arranged the sale of the Oka Shipyard in Nizhny Novgorod out of the UCLH group but no transaction value has been disclosed; market estimates put the price tag at between $50 million and $90 million.
A leading analyst of the Russian shipping sector explains that Lisin is exiting railroads because their tariffs are the most heavily state-regulated of the UCLH group, and thus the least likely to meet Lisin’s profitability target. He has let go the Oka shipyard for the same reason, the source believes.
That leaves Lisin still in command of a combination of flat steel fabrication, the electrical steel unit VIZ-Stal in Yekaterinburg, iron-ore and coal mining, and transport businesses.
Click on source to identify the units of the group in their country locations.
The expansion of NLMK’s electrical steel businesses to India can be followed here. Output capacity for the electrical steel plant now open in Maharashtra state is 64,000 tonnes and represents more than a fifth of the Indian market for the product which is used in motors, generators and transformers. The group’s electrical steel producer, VIZ-Stal in Yekaterinburg, has been selling about 300,000 tonnes per year of grain-oriented (GO) and 300,000 tonnes of non-grain oriented (NGO) products, which represent almost the entire Russian market.
There has been no comment in the Russian industry press or in NLMK releases on the fate of VIZ-Stal after the other NLMK Urals plants have changed hands. More broadly, NLMK has been saying nothing about divestment in Russia or expansion in India – and that was for several years before the war. The obvious impacts on Russian steelmaking of war industry mobilization and the reconstruction of the Donbass are secret.
In 2019, the group announced it was launching NLMK’s steel strategy to the year 2023. This emphasized growth of earnings from lowering costs of energy and raw materials, improving efficiencies in steel production, reducing debt, and increasing free cash. Most of the earnings growth, the company report said, would occur in Russia (60%), less in Europe and the US. For an overall increase in steel sales across the group, NLMK claimed that growth in the domestic Russian market would be 22%, resulting in a growth of the Russian proportion of total group sales from 33% in 2018 to 39% in 2022. European sales were to grow by 32%; sales in the US were projected to remain flat. Not a word was said about selling off the long steel and scrap businesses.
Source: NLMK’s five-year plan for 2018-2022.
In the last open presentation to investors and shareholders by NLMK, which was issued on February 3, 2022, the company said almost nothing about its future strategy, except to note that its Russian flat steel and coal and iron-ore mining divisions were contributing much more to the group’s earnings and profitability than its long steel division.
The presentation also reveals that NLMK’s Russian operations were performing far better in output, sales and profit than the European and American steel plants.
Source: https://nlmk.com/ -- pages 23, 25
For the time being, Lisin is not sanctioned by the US or by the European Union and UK, despite active efforts by US and Ukrainian state propaganda organs, and by the Baltic states to force the EU to act. Lisin was, however, ousted from his presidency of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) in December 2022; the result was that he took his Olympic prize sponsorships and money with him.
The EU has announced a sharp cutback in Russian (and Belarus) steel imports since March 2022. In theory, this was “to further isolate Russia and drain the resources it uses to finance this barbaric war,” according to the German European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen. In practice, she was impotent as the steel industries of Denmark, Belgium, France, and Italy, where Lisin owns and operates steelmills, have forced lengthy extensions of time until 2028. Without NLMK’s steel, there can be no NATO rearmament in those states, especially shipbuilding, tank and armoured vehicle construction, like the French Caesars and AMXs, which the Russian army is defeating in the Ukraine.
No Russian source in the steel business believes Lisin’s decision to sell assets has been forced domestically by either a political or business rival. No source who knows will say what and where he is banking the proceeds. Not a single Moscow analyst whose job it is to monitor Lisin’s NLMK group dares to guess, even off the record, what Lisin’s divestment strategy means for the future. Lisin himself isn’t saying. He isn’t paying journalists and their editors to float balloons, drop hints, or attack his rivals with kompromat.
Lisin’s first statement on the Ukraine war, issued on March 7, 2022, was a letter to the steelworkers of his group: “I would like to begin by expressing my deepest compassion to all the victims of the armed conflict in Ukraine, the families and relatives of those who died,” Lisin wrote. “Lost lives are always a huge tragedy that is impossible to justify. I am convinced that peaceful diplomatic conflict resolution is always preferable to the use of force.”
A month later, on April 5, 2022, Lisin said significantly more in an interview with Kommersant. His intended audience this time was the Kremlin. In retrospect, he appears to have been under-estimating how long the war would last, and to have failed to understand that the US and NATO intended the war against Russia.
President Putin meeting Lisin for a discussion of NLMK on June 22, 2007. This is the last one-on-one meeting the two have had, according to the Kremlin archive. However, Lisin has been a regular attender and speaker at Putin’s annual meetings with the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE in English, RSPP in Russian) and the Kremlin’s Christmas dinner for the oligarchs. In March 2023 Lisin resigned from the RSPP board.
Lisin told Kommersant he was opposed to all measures to put the Russian economy on a war footing. “The situation is more than another economic crisis…Supply chains formed over the years are being destroyed, logistics, payment and financial infrastructure are failing. And against this background, the rules of the game change daily, new restrictions appear. In conditions of high uncertainty, we are changing business processes and trying to fulfill our social obligations…Obviously, many measures are being taken rapidly now, their consequences have not been fully analyzed. It seems to me that speed should give way to precision, adequacy, so that the consequences do not turn out to be devastating for the domestic industry, where millions of people are employed.”
Lisin said nothing critical of the sanctions regime, nor anything at all about the long-term security of Russia’s strategic industries, like steelmaking, under US and NATO economic warfare. By contrast, he was critical of Russian government measures for converting Russia’s economy to self-sufficiency, reoriented markets, and de-dollarisation in trade payments.
“It is difficult to imagine what can convince our customers to switch to settlements in roubles and bear currency risks. Logistical problems have already complicated the delivery of products to the consumer. Switching to payments in rubles will simply throw us out of international markets… I see that, for example, ministries are working on issues of supporting infrastructure projects for the development of domestic consumption, the possibility of a preferential mortgage stimulating construction is being discussed, a moratorium on inspections has been introduced. These are useful, but local initiatives…”
“Don’t try to administer everything down to the nuts and bolts – this only harms business,” Lisin said, declaring this to be an “ill-considered idea.” Although this was “the first time NLMK’s main shareholder Vladimir Lisin publicly shares his opinion on the issues related to the Ukraine crisis and the sanctions imposed on Russia,” the only war he acknowledged he and his businesses were facing was with Moscow where the enemies were state regulation, price fixing, rail access quotas, and foreign currency controls. Lisin was so confident of this, he arranged for his interview to be published in English on the NLMK website.
“The current situation is more than just another economic crisis that we have faced before. It requires a much more serious approach and high-quality, balanced decisions…We see, for example, that in recent weeks suppliers of materials, equipment, and components have raised prices significantly. In such conditions, the freezing of prices for final products will lead to the fact that its production will simply stop due to losses.”
“We can already see how the cost of transportation is growing. As soon as the proposal of JSC Russian Railways appeared to increase the tariff for export transportation of metals by 30%, a new proposal has already been announced — to index tariffs quarterly by the amount of inflation and exchange rate difference. In general, the idea of indexing transport tariffs while fixing prices for everything else will lead to the fact that only metal and fertilizers can be transported by rail, the rest only by trucks. It will be a complete collapse for agriculture in general.”
Source: https://www.kommersant.ru/
“Private companies supported the domestic engineering industry and bought new [rail] wagons worth 2 trillion roubles, now more than 70% of the total fleet. Now it is proposed to transfer them to the management of Russian Railways. What for? Apparently, the times of chronic shortage of wagons have been forgotten. At the same time, Russian Railways already has the largest rolling stock operator in the country, FGC [Federal Freight Company]. It can be used to solve all government tasks.”
Lisin revealed in the interview that he thinks he and his companies are “caught in the crossfire between regulatory initiatives from the [Russian] authorities on the one hand, and the constant threat of Western sanctions, including personal ones, on the other.”
“It is difficult to reduce my attitude to the topic of personal sanctions to any one simple emotion or thought… On the one hand…they directly or indirectly affect a lot of people who now have to try to work and live in a new reality. It is clear…that this need cannot but cause alarm, because sanctions are capable of destroying everything that has been created over the years…this is not so much about personal well-being, as about a cascade of negative consequences for tens of thousands of employees and tens, maybe hundreds of thousands more employees of various partner companies and customers.”
“On the other hand, and this is an important part of my attitude, it is a shame to complain about personal problems in a humanitarian disaster situation. Sanctions may seem unfair as much as you like, with elements of collective responsibility, if you want, but people will try to stop the death of people and the destruction of cities by any available means…in the current conditions, economic measures can be treated as an alternative to military action, which gives the situation a chance not to escalate into a global conflict that can turn into a disaster for everyone.”
Almost two years have now elapsed since Lisin’s public statement. In the interval what he has done is to have converted into cash the least profitable of his steel plants and those of his transportation businesses most subject to state price, route and cargo quota control. He has withdrawn the profit accounting centre he used to run in Cyprus, but he has not returned to Russia. Instead, the group has re-registered in the United Arab Emirates. The Fletcher front in Cyprus, which has been targeted by Kiev, has turned into Serenity II Holdings and Nebula II Holdings, registered in Abu Dhabi by June of 2023.
What remains in the Lisin group is steel production most likely to benefit from military production mobilization and post-war reconstruction, the likes of which Russia has not seen since World War II, plus the geographical reorientation of trade which has never happened before. For an oligarch, these are strategic opportunities, and also future risks, which have never been calculated before.
Lisin’s calculation is a two-way wager. If the Forbes Russia estimate of his wealth as of this month is on the high side at $25 billion, and the cash proceeds of his asset sell-off is on the low side at $4 billion, Lisin is betting less than 20% of his position in an offshore haven in case both the military and economic wars go badly for Russia.
As for Lisin’s personal exposure to sanctions and the vulnerability of his steelmills in Europe and the US, there is a kicker which Lisin doesn’t have to announce. This is because he has already demonstrated inside Russia what he will do, and what he did when he was sanctioned by the International Shooting Sport Federation. This is to cancel his business, pick up his money, and walk away.
According to domestic press reporting, after the new Lipetsk region governor, Igor Artamonov, took power in September 2019, there were several political and personal clashes with Lisin. Lisin’s reaction was that in 2021 he cancelled his tax residence in Lipetsk and re-registered in the Moscow region. An estimated billion roubles in personal income tax which Lisin had been paying annually to the Lipetsk administration was gone.
Last month, a Lipetsk region deputy and television journalist explained in print: “A handshake means a lot to him [Lisin]. The political events of 2021 showed that some people in Lipetsk do not take much account of NLMK’s position and with him personally. I do not exclude that the change of residence permit, followed by the removal from the tax register of citizen Lisin, was a reaction to the actions or words carelessly tossed by the head of the region [Artamonov]. He [Lisin] is very emotional here. So you see, Vladimir Sergeyevich is not alien to anything human.”
https://johnhelmer.net/why-is-the-steel ... more-89221
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Russia today
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Russia’s Turn From the West
January 22, 2024
Sergei Lavrov’s recent comments are a case of the subtext being vastly larger than the text.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, during Russia-UAE talks in December 2023. (Sergei Savostyanov, TASS)
By Patrick Lawrence
Special to Consortium News
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s steady, able, intellectually quick foreign minister, last week held one of those wide-ranging press conferences he and his boss favor. Lavrov’s remarks are subtly delivered but of a significance we must not miss.
Tass published a useful summary of them on Jan. 18.
Here are a few of Lavrov’s pithier remarks. The first of these appeared under the subhead, “On friends of Russia.” I take the liberty of minorly cleaning up the English translation:
“Relations between Russia and China currently experience the best period of their centuries-long history.
Their relations are firmer, more reliable, and more advanced than a military union as we understood these in the previous Cold War-era.
In all cases, the interests of Russia and China reach a common denominator after negotiation, and this is an example for resolution of any issues by any other participants in global communication.
Relations of particularly privileged cooperation with India develop gradually. Russia also takes relations with African states to a truly strategic level. It develops relations with the Latin American continent. Russia’s close circle also includes Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Qatar.”
Here is Lavrov on the BRICS–Plus group, which expanded last year from its original members, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa:
“About 30 states are interested in rapprochement with BRICS. This association has a great future. Being a superregional global structure, BRICS symbolizes the diversity of a multipolar world.”
At one point Lavrov turned, inevitably, to the conflict in Ukraine:
“It is not up to Ukraine to decide when to stop and when to talk seriously about realistic preconditions for the end of this conflict. It is necessary to talk with the West about it.
The West wants no constructive resolution that would take Russia’s legitimate concerns into account. This is indicated by incitement and coercion of Kiev for increasingly aggressive use of long-range weapons to strike Crimea, in order to make it unsuitable for life, as well as deep into Russian territory, and not only incitement, but the handover of corresponding weapons as well.”
Three practical questions as Russia’s top diplomat interpreted them in a review of “Russia’s diplomatic work in 2023,” as TASS put it. This is fine as it is, but Lavrov’s comments are a case of the subtext being vastly larger than the text. Russia’s objective in 2024 — this is TASS again — is “to remove any dependence on the West.”
I am sure you know the old adage, derived from an 18th century Christian hymn, “God moves in mysterious ways.” So does history. Let us, then, consider this history in brief. Lavrov’s press conference brims with implied references to it.
Notions of Progress
Red Square, Moscow, 2015. (Misha Sokolnikov, Flickr,
CC BY-ND 2.0)
Russia is considered among the scholars what is called “a late developer.” Such nations are so named because they were a century or more behind the West as it entered the age of scientific and industrial advances and then — regrettably enough, I would say — on to the Age of Materialism. Railroads, telegraph lines, steamships, photography, Bessemer steel, and all the rest: Late developers, lagging in these technologies, looked Westward with envy well-mixed with a felt inferiority.
The premier case of late development is Japan. Among Russians as among the Japanese, the condition of being “behind” produced profound confusion as to identity and their place in the modern world. This confusion is still easily detected. At its core lie two very consequential misunderstandings.
One, there is the fraudulent Western notion of “progress” as this became an orthodoxy from the mid–19th century onward. I say “fraudulent” because history does not advance in anything like a straight line, and progress is measured in the West strictly according to material advances. In matters of ethos, humaneness, equality, environmental stewardship, the settling of conflicts — of the human spirit altogether — the West remains more primitive than many “primitive” societies.
Two, and the larger point here, from the 19th century onward, there was only one way to modernize. All colonized people who chose the capitalist road understood the imperative this way: modernization = Westernization. All of a sudden, to advance, to make a future in the modern world, meant to repudiate who one was and imitate being someone else.
How hard is it to imagine the deep disturbances and distortions — at bottom psychological but also political, social, economic, and cultural — that arose in consequence of this misapprehension? I count the equation of modernizing with Westernizing, as measured by the extravagant damage it did, among the gravest errors of the late 19th century and all through the 20th to our time.
Russia has spent nearly three centuries in this state of turmoil and — maybe not too strong a term — disorientation. Periods of orthodox conservatism have been followed by cycles of Westward-looking liberalization, this followed by a return to previously abandoned traditions, which have included over many years a return to reaction and a new valorization of one or another kind of nativism and nationalism.
A New Course
U.A.E. welcoming ceremony for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Abu Dhabi, Dec. 6, 2023. (President of Russia)
There is another factor to consider. From the 1830s onward to NATO’s post–Cold War expansions, the horrific U.S.–led program to turn the Russian Federation into a capitalist greedfest after the Soviet Union’s collapse, and now the conflict in Ukraine, Russia’s struggle to understand itself has been accompanied by more or less incessant Western efforts decisively to reshape Russia in the West’s image.
We cannot understand Lavrov’s press conference, or many, many of the things Vladimir Putin has said these past few years, without this historical context. In so many words, all of them well-chosen, the foreign minister and the president have announced that Russia will no longer look Westward as it advances into the 21st century. Modernization will no longer mean Westernization.
It would be altogether impossible to overstate the historical magnitude of what Russia has set as its new course. We live in the most interesting times, to put this point another way — even if most of us, mesmerized by the propaganda of eternal Western superiority, cannot see five feet in front of us as the most significant events of our time unfold.
Many things will now fall into place. Lavrov, in enumerating the members of Russia’s “close circle,” describes, a couple of years on, the “new world order” the Chinese frequently reference.
The 5,000–word charter Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping made public two years ago next month, “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development,” can be understood now as what your columnist called it at the time: the most important political document to be issued so far in the 21st century.
Gordon Hahn, the accomplished scholar of Russia and Eurasia, last week offered a superb history of Russia’s relations with the West during an appearance last week on The Duran, the daily web program produced by Alexander Mercouris and (in this case) Glenn Diesen. In the course of this long, rich interview Hahn notes, “Putin, as he has stated over and over again now recently, the [Russian] elites routinely demonstrate that they do not trust anyone in the West anymore.” He elaborates:
“For Russia, it looks now, the West is no longer its ‘Other.’… Russia has always identified itself, motivated itself, driven itself in relation to Europe. Now Putin is turning away from that. He said that we are no longer to define ourselves, look at ourselves, through the European prism. For now, we will put all our eggs in one basket, and that is Eurasia…. This close bilateral relationship, of Europe as Russia’s Other, is ending, and therefore the cycle [from conservatism to Westernization and back] is probably ending.”
This moment has been a long time coming. A shallow peruse of the past brings us back to 1990–91, when Michail Gorbachev accepted Washington’s assurance — without a signed document, imprudently — that NATO would not expand eastward from the reunified Germany.
As is well-known, 30 years of betrayals and diplomatic dishonesty followed as Moscow sought a new security architecture that would provide the Russian Federation a place in that “common European home” for which Gorbachev longed.
“I am extremely pessimistic,” Hahn says of the outlook for U.S.–Russian relations. “I can’t see that, even with an agreement between Russia and Ukraine, the West will cease trying to expand NATO. They will try to repeat the same scenario unless something changes in the West itself, in Washington.”
The world turns, even as the West declines or is incapable of turning with it. The teaser on The Duran’s segment with Gordon Hahn reads, “Russia ends 300 years of west-centric foreign policy.” This is big. It rarely gets bigger. History’s mysterious ways lie before us.
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/01/22/p ... -the-west/
******
My path to the “Breakthrough”
No. 1/89.I.2024
Leningrad, 1960s. On the street, adults still reprimand children for inappropriate words and actions: we are sitting in a group on a high wooden fence, and for some reason a woman passing by addresses me personally:
— He climbed the fence, and he was wearing glasses! - it’s good that no one fell, they laughed, and then they remembered it to me.
Lenin, party, Komsomol?
At school, everyone is accepted as a pioneer, and into the Komsomol with some kind of selection - for diligent behavior and studies. Thanks to the movie, to paraphrase the poet, “I made life from comrade Chapaev.” Going to the cinema was a common activity, it is clear that different films were shown, but over the years the vulgar laughter during the screening became more noticeable. One gets a dual impression: cinema, books are one thing, conventionally “the cause that you serve,” and the other is everyday life, pulling us into philistinism and unbelief, into the path we follow under the leadership of the “Kremlin elders.”
TV broadcasts big concerts on holidays - the choir repeats “Lenin, Party, Komsomol” twenty times in a row, the stage is mostly gray, and now, in the late 1960s, I’m 13, a friend becomes the owner of a portable tape recorder! What's the first thing: the Beatles, etc. - we all go to listen to him, but he himself regularly comes to me to listen to a flexible record with Vysotsky's mountaineering songs from the film "Vertical". When everyone had tape recorders, they exchanged records vigorously, but Western music is one thing, Vysotsky is another, military, sports, lyrical, fairy tale songs, parodies of philistinism, performed like an actor (he played Hamlet) with humor, with nerve, — the reels were rewritten many times until the quality was lost.
Moscow hasn’t seen such a funeral for twenty years!
80th year. The “five-year period of magnificent funerals” has begun. Later, at the beginning of “glasnost”, the topic in the media about V.S. Vysotsky, like seismic waves, is of both lively and commercial interest. I didn’t finish my studies at the institute, I went to work in production - that’s where they “forced me” to join the Komsomol. Joined, paid dues. Then they beckoned to join the CPSU, but no longer. Almost all the party organizers and secretaries I knew were unsympathetic people. From the factory I went to “make friends” in the center: Gostiny Dvor, Nevsky Prospect, Philharmonic Hall, Hotel “European”; sometimes they took black marketeers into the OP, the conversation of the senior, who is also a party organizer - complete helplessness against “aesthetic” mockery. The fartsovschik is another type, a “choirmaster”, appearance, manners - a friend called these “foreigners”.
In the port city: sailors, foreigners, chewing rubber, clothes, CDs with pop music. Concerts are broadcast by enemy voices upon request (?), presenter: “What Ice Zeppelin sings about has never been the topic of conversation about them, but their fans love them for the rhythm of the music and the power of the amplifiers!”, or “It’s just rock- n-roll, but we like it,” or “Vanya, you like songs with screams - there will be screams in the middle of the song.”
Our answer
The magazine for youth “Rovesnik” publishes seemingly critical articles about Western rock ensembles, of course, with colorful photos - yes, yes, so that teenagers are imbued with contempt. Censorship, as a strict judgment, a harsh analysis, was censorship only in a certain way:
- film directors in our time boasted about how they inserted seditious episodes on purpose so that they would be cut out - and the rest would pass;
- a music journalist, actor-reader, author and permanent host of the radio program “Meeting with a Song” throughout the 56 years (!!) of its existence complained about Soviet censorship, that B. Okudzhava’s song “Paper Soldier” was not allowed to be broadcast, and one of the programs was closed after the song Led Zeppelin, but he toured with programs on Zoshchenko and Bulgakov.
V.A. Podguzov accurately noted this:
“The CPSU did not know how to educate Voznesensky, Yevtushenko, Vysotsky... born under Soviet rule.”
Give me capitalism...
Memorable moments of the beginning of Perestroika, when they came to the workshop and animatedly discussed everything, exchanged impressions, read materials from newspapers, magazines, radio and TV programs - “Let’s return to Lenin’s principles” - but soon came disappointment, skepticism and then “Give capitalism, that’s all.” things will get better!”
Then a key event happened: in 1989, I began to study literary and theatrical methods in one large group, where among practical classes there were lectures that were relevant to me, and on the other hand, unacceptable thoughts were expressed - communism was propagated to us! Sometimes they tried to slow down the manager:
“In this way you are pushing people away from us.”
To which he invariably replied:
- If they cannot hear it, then there is nothing to expect from them to be included in our activities!
The same principle worked thirty years later when I first became acquainted with the materials of the newspaper “Proryvist”: the most interesting articles and immediately a contradiction with my ideas, which are now clear that they were leftist. The most difficult case is the position of “Proryvist” in relation to the events in Novocherkassk in 1962. I knew the version of the economist A.V. Safronov, although I didn’t like everything there either. It was a shame for the left-wing bloggers, but the authorities fell one after another. I put all my inconsistencies on the back burner after the first experience and inserted my opinion later, and that’s right - everything resolved itself along the way.
Tellingly, I somehow immediately grabbed onto the words “scientific centralism.”
Country life
Each one took a plot of land for himself,
got chickens and sat in it,
guarding his allotment
out of work.
V. Vysotsky
In 1982, near Leningrad, I don’t know by what decree, 22 thousand plots were cut up, and one of them was ours! My father didn’t say, but seemed to exhale: “Finally!” He was a survey engineer, but he was from the peasantry, he built everything with his own hands.
In the first summer, everyone trudged from the station on foot and with great enthusiasm. I have zero interest, and once the thought came to me: this is a crowd of individualist owners - is this a march towards communism? But it was extremely rare for teachers to talk about politics. Perhaps another time, at the first stage of building communism, dacha life will present fewer difficulties than those noted by V. Bushin with the example of Okudzhava’s “struggle” for his allotment.
***
I am 66 years old, I successfully changed my profession ten or twelve years ago. Only at one factory did I witness conversations about Marx and Hegel; not counting left-wing circles, clubs, social forums, but this is not serious.
Seriously in I. Bortnik’s note “ What kind of workers do we need .” Under the accompanying circumstances, you can add authority by becoming an organizer of sports tournaments, even in chess or kettlebells, and you yourself look like a “physical athlete.”
A. Kuznetsov
01/23/2024
https://prorivists.org/89_way/
Google Translator
January 22, 2024
Sergei Lavrov’s recent comments are a case of the subtext being vastly larger than the text.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, during Russia-UAE talks in December 2023. (Sergei Savostyanov, TASS)
By Patrick Lawrence
Special to Consortium News
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s steady, able, intellectually quick foreign minister, last week held one of those wide-ranging press conferences he and his boss favor. Lavrov’s remarks are subtly delivered but of a significance we must not miss.
Tass published a useful summary of them on Jan. 18.
Here are a few of Lavrov’s pithier remarks. The first of these appeared under the subhead, “On friends of Russia.” I take the liberty of minorly cleaning up the English translation:
“Relations between Russia and China currently experience the best period of their centuries-long history.
Their relations are firmer, more reliable, and more advanced than a military union as we understood these in the previous Cold War-era.
In all cases, the interests of Russia and China reach a common denominator after negotiation, and this is an example for resolution of any issues by any other participants in global communication.
Relations of particularly privileged cooperation with India develop gradually. Russia also takes relations with African states to a truly strategic level. It develops relations with the Latin American continent. Russia’s close circle also includes Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Qatar.”
Here is Lavrov on the BRICS–Plus group, which expanded last year from its original members, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa:
“About 30 states are interested in rapprochement with BRICS. This association has a great future. Being a superregional global structure, BRICS symbolizes the diversity of a multipolar world.”
At one point Lavrov turned, inevitably, to the conflict in Ukraine:
“It is not up to Ukraine to decide when to stop and when to talk seriously about realistic preconditions for the end of this conflict. It is necessary to talk with the West about it.
The West wants no constructive resolution that would take Russia’s legitimate concerns into account. This is indicated by incitement and coercion of Kiev for increasingly aggressive use of long-range weapons to strike Crimea, in order to make it unsuitable for life, as well as deep into Russian territory, and not only incitement, but the handover of corresponding weapons as well.”
Three practical questions as Russia’s top diplomat interpreted them in a review of “Russia’s diplomatic work in 2023,” as TASS put it. This is fine as it is, but Lavrov’s comments are a case of the subtext being vastly larger than the text. Russia’s objective in 2024 — this is TASS again — is “to remove any dependence on the West.”
I am sure you know the old adage, derived from an 18th century Christian hymn, “God moves in mysterious ways.” So does history. Let us, then, consider this history in brief. Lavrov’s press conference brims with implied references to it.
Notions of Progress
Red Square, Moscow, 2015. (Misha Sokolnikov, Flickr,
CC BY-ND 2.0)
Russia is considered among the scholars what is called “a late developer.” Such nations are so named because they were a century or more behind the West as it entered the age of scientific and industrial advances and then — regrettably enough, I would say — on to the Age of Materialism. Railroads, telegraph lines, steamships, photography, Bessemer steel, and all the rest: Late developers, lagging in these technologies, looked Westward with envy well-mixed with a felt inferiority.
The premier case of late development is Japan. Among Russians as among the Japanese, the condition of being “behind” produced profound confusion as to identity and their place in the modern world. This confusion is still easily detected. At its core lie two very consequential misunderstandings.
One, there is the fraudulent Western notion of “progress” as this became an orthodoxy from the mid–19th century onward. I say “fraudulent” because history does not advance in anything like a straight line, and progress is measured in the West strictly according to material advances. In matters of ethos, humaneness, equality, environmental stewardship, the settling of conflicts — of the human spirit altogether — the West remains more primitive than many “primitive” societies.
Two, and the larger point here, from the 19th century onward, there was only one way to modernize. All colonized people who chose the capitalist road understood the imperative this way: modernization = Westernization. All of a sudden, to advance, to make a future in the modern world, meant to repudiate who one was and imitate being someone else.
How hard is it to imagine the deep disturbances and distortions — at bottom psychological but also political, social, economic, and cultural — that arose in consequence of this misapprehension? I count the equation of modernizing with Westernizing, as measured by the extravagant damage it did, among the gravest errors of the late 19th century and all through the 20th to our time.
Russia has spent nearly three centuries in this state of turmoil and — maybe not too strong a term — disorientation. Periods of orthodox conservatism have been followed by cycles of Westward-looking liberalization, this followed by a return to previously abandoned traditions, which have included over many years a return to reaction and a new valorization of one or another kind of nativism and nationalism.
A New Course
U.A.E. welcoming ceremony for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Abu Dhabi, Dec. 6, 2023. (President of Russia)
There is another factor to consider. From the 1830s onward to NATO’s post–Cold War expansions, the horrific U.S.–led program to turn the Russian Federation into a capitalist greedfest after the Soviet Union’s collapse, and now the conflict in Ukraine, Russia’s struggle to understand itself has been accompanied by more or less incessant Western efforts decisively to reshape Russia in the West’s image.
We cannot understand Lavrov’s press conference, or many, many of the things Vladimir Putin has said these past few years, without this historical context. In so many words, all of them well-chosen, the foreign minister and the president have announced that Russia will no longer look Westward as it advances into the 21st century. Modernization will no longer mean Westernization.
It would be altogether impossible to overstate the historical magnitude of what Russia has set as its new course. We live in the most interesting times, to put this point another way — even if most of us, mesmerized by the propaganda of eternal Western superiority, cannot see five feet in front of us as the most significant events of our time unfold.
Many things will now fall into place. Lavrov, in enumerating the members of Russia’s “close circle,” describes, a couple of years on, the “new world order” the Chinese frequently reference.
The 5,000–word charter Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping made public two years ago next month, “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development,” can be understood now as what your columnist called it at the time: the most important political document to be issued so far in the 21st century.
Gordon Hahn, the accomplished scholar of Russia and Eurasia, last week offered a superb history of Russia’s relations with the West during an appearance last week on The Duran, the daily web program produced by Alexander Mercouris and (in this case) Glenn Diesen. In the course of this long, rich interview Hahn notes, “Putin, as he has stated over and over again now recently, the [Russian] elites routinely demonstrate that they do not trust anyone in the West anymore.” He elaborates:
“For Russia, it looks now, the West is no longer its ‘Other.’… Russia has always identified itself, motivated itself, driven itself in relation to Europe. Now Putin is turning away from that. He said that we are no longer to define ourselves, look at ourselves, through the European prism. For now, we will put all our eggs in one basket, and that is Eurasia…. This close bilateral relationship, of Europe as Russia’s Other, is ending, and therefore the cycle [from conservatism to Westernization and back] is probably ending.”
This moment has been a long time coming. A shallow peruse of the past brings us back to 1990–91, when Michail Gorbachev accepted Washington’s assurance — without a signed document, imprudently — that NATO would not expand eastward from the reunified Germany.
As is well-known, 30 years of betrayals and diplomatic dishonesty followed as Moscow sought a new security architecture that would provide the Russian Federation a place in that “common European home” for which Gorbachev longed.
“I am extremely pessimistic,” Hahn says of the outlook for U.S.–Russian relations. “I can’t see that, even with an agreement between Russia and Ukraine, the West will cease trying to expand NATO. They will try to repeat the same scenario unless something changes in the West itself, in Washington.”
The world turns, even as the West declines or is incapable of turning with it. The teaser on The Duran’s segment with Gordon Hahn reads, “Russia ends 300 years of west-centric foreign policy.” This is big. It rarely gets bigger. History’s mysterious ways lie before us.
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/01/22/p ... -the-west/
******
My path to the “Breakthrough”
No. 1/89.I.2024
Leningrad, 1960s. On the street, adults still reprimand children for inappropriate words and actions: we are sitting in a group on a high wooden fence, and for some reason a woman passing by addresses me personally:
— He climbed the fence, and he was wearing glasses! - it’s good that no one fell, they laughed, and then they remembered it to me.
Lenin, party, Komsomol?
At school, everyone is accepted as a pioneer, and into the Komsomol with some kind of selection - for diligent behavior and studies. Thanks to the movie, to paraphrase the poet, “I made life from comrade Chapaev.” Going to the cinema was a common activity, it is clear that different films were shown, but over the years the vulgar laughter during the screening became more noticeable. One gets a dual impression: cinema, books are one thing, conventionally “the cause that you serve,” and the other is everyday life, pulling us into philistinism and unbelief, into the path we follow under the leadership of the “Kremlin elders.”
TV broadcasts big concerts on holidays - the choir repeats “Lenin, Party, Komsomol” twenty times in a row, the stage is mostly gray, and now, in the late 1960s, I’m 13, a friend becomes the owner of a portable tape recorder! What's the first thing: the Beatles, etc. - we all go to listen to him, but he himself regularly comes to me to listen to a flexible record with Vysotsky's mountaineering songs from the film "Vertical". When everyone had tape recorders, they exchanged records vigorously, but Western music is one thing, Vysotsky is another, military, sports, lyrical, fairy tale songs, parodies of philistinism, performed like an actor (he played Hamlet) with humor, with nerve, — the reels were rewritten many times until the quality was lost.
Moscow hasn’t seen such a funeral for twenty years!
80th year. The “five-year period of magnificent funerals” has begun. Later, at the beginning of “glasnost”, the topic in the media about V.S. Vysotsky, like seismic waves, is of both lively and commercial interest. I didn’t finish my studies at the institute, I went to work in production - that’s where they “forced me” to join the Komsomol. Joined, paid dues. Then they beckoned to join the CPSU, but no longer. Almost all the party organizers and secretaries I knew were unsympathetic people. From the factory I went to “make friends” in the center: Gostiny Dvor, Nevsky Prospect, Philharmonic Hall, Hotel “European”; sometimes they took black marketeers into the OP, the conversation of the senior, who is also a party organizer - complete helplessness against “aesthetic” mockery. The fartsovschik is another type, a “choirmaster”, appearance, manners - a friend called these “foreigners”.
In the port city: sailors, foreigners, chewing rubber, clothes, CDs with pop music. Concerts are broadcast by enemy voices upon request (?), presenter: “What Ice Zeppelin sings about has never been the topic of conversation about them, but their fans love them for the rhythm of the music and the power of the amplifiers!”, or “It’s just rock- n-roll, but we like it,” or “Vanya, you like songs with screams - there will be screams in the middle of the song.”
Our answer
The magazine for youth “Rovesnik” publishes seemingly critical articles about Western rock ensembles, of course, with colorful photos - yes, yes, so that teenagers are imbued with contempt. Censorship, as a strict judgment, a harsh analysis, was censorship only in a certain way:
- film directors in our time boasted about how they inserted seditious episodes on purpose so that they would be cut out - and the rest would pass;
- a music journalist, actor-reader, author and permanent host of the radio program “Meeting with a Song” throughout the 56 years (!!) of its existence complained about Soviet censorship, that B. Okudzhava’s song “Paper Soldier” was not allowed to be broadcast, and one of the programs was closed after the song Led Zeppelin, but he toured with programs on Zoshchenko and Bulgakov.
V.A. Podguzov accurately noted this:
“The CPSU did not know how to educate Voznesensky, Yevtushenko, Vysotsky... born under Soviet rule.”
Give me capitalism...
Memorable moments of the beginning of Perestroika, when they came to the workshop and animatedly discussed everything, exchanged impressions, read materials from newspapers, magazines, radio and TV programs - “Let’s return to Lenin’s principles” - but soon came disappointment, skepticism and then “Give capitalism, that’s all.” things will get better!”
Then a key event happened: in 1989, I began to study literary and theatrical methods in one large group, where among practical classes there were lectures that were relevant to me, and on the other hand, unacceptable thoughts were expressed - communism was propagated to us! Sometimes they tried to slow down the manager:
“In this way you are pushing people away from us.”
To which he invariably replied:
- If they cannot hear it, then there is nothing to expect from them to be included in our activities!
The same principle worked thirty years later when I first became acquainted with the materials of the newspaper “Proryvist”: the most interesting articles and immediately a contradiction with my ideas, which are now clear that they were leftist. The most difficult case is the position of “Proryvist” in relation to the events in Novocherkassk in 1962. I knew the version of the economist A.V. Safronov, although I didn’t like everything there either. It was a shame for the left-wing bloggers, but the authorities fell one after another. I put all my inconsistencies on the back burner after the first experience and inserted my opinion later, and that’s right - everything resolved itself along the way.
Tellingly, I somehow immediately grabbed onto the words “scientific centralism.”
Country life
Each one took a plot of land for himself,
got chickens and sat in it,
guarding his allotment
out of work.
V. Vysotsky
In 1982, near Leningrad, I don’t know by what decree, 22 thousand plots were cut up, and one of them was ours! My father didn’t say, but seemed to exhale: “Finally!” He was a survey engineer, but he was from the peasantry, he built everything with his own hands.
In the first summer, everyone trudged from the station on foot and with great enthusiasm. I have zero interest, and once the thought came to me: this is a crowd of individualist owners - is this a march towards communism? But it was extremely rare for teachers to talk about politics. Perhaps another time, at the first stage of building communism, dacha life will present fewer difficulties than those noted by V. Bushin with the example of Okudzhava’s “struggle” for his allotment.
***
I am 66 years old, I successfully changed my profession ten or twelve years ago. Only at one factory did I witness conversations about Marx and Hegel; not counting left-wing circles, clubs, social forums, but this is not serious.
Seriously in I. Bortnik’s note “ What kind of workers do we need .” Under the accompanying circumstances, you can add authority by becoming an organizer of sports tournaments, even in chess or kettlebells, and you yourself look like a “physical athlete.”
A. Kuznetsov
01/23/2024
https://prorivists.org/89_way/
Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Russia today
BEN ARIS: EUROPE STILL HOOKED ON RUSSIA GAS AS US THREATENS TO SANCTION LNG
JANUARY 23, 2024
By Ben Aris, Intellinews, 1/7/24
Russian gas exports to Europe have tumbled since the Nord Stream 1&2 pipelines were blown up last September but EU imports of Russian LNG have jumped by 40% since the invasion of Ukraine and are currently at record levels, according to a report by Global Witness. Europe remains Russia’s biggest customer for gas – both piped and as LNG – as the EU countries continued to spend $1bn a month on Russian Arctic LNG in 2023.
Russia is working very hard to make up what it lost from the collapse of piped gas by growing its LNG business, which remains unsanctioned – for now.
“Between January and July 2023, EU countries bought 22mn cubic metres of LNG, compared with 15mn cubic metres during the same period in 2021 – a jump of 40%,” the report said.
“This is a much sharper rise than the global average increase in Russian LNG imports, which stands at 6%. EU countries now buy the majority of Russia’s supply, propping up one of the Kremlin’s most important sources of revenue. Between January and July 2023 the EU bought 52% of Russia’s exports, compared to 49% in 2022 and 39% in 2021,” the report adds.
A similar report released by the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air came to the same conclusion: the EU remains the leading consumer of Russia’s pipeline gas and LNG, buying in 41% and 50% of Moscow’s exports respectively. In the third quarter of 2023 Russia supplied about 12% of total EU gas imports, according to Eurostat, and about 8% of its LNG.
The biggest loser from the change was Germany, the biggest net importer of Russian gas in the EU, with 55 bcm in 2021 from the circa 150 bcm total exported to Europe, making up over 65% of the country’s gas imports.
The start of the war in Ukraine didn’t affect Russia’s gas exports to Europe in the first half of 2020 and the billions of euros paid into Kremlin coffers bailed out the sanctioned economy. But the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines meant the total amount of Russian gas sold to Europe in 2022 tumbled to 80 bcm for the full year.
In 2023 the amount of gas Russia has sold to Europe will fall again to an estimated 25 bcm, partly due to Europe’s ongoing efforts to diversify its supply and because part of the Ukrainian pipeline was turned off due to the war. Nevertheless, Ukraine’s gas transit deal with Russia remains in place until the end of 2024, earning Kyiv a cool $4bn a year.
While Europe increased purchases of LNG from global producers in 2023 to start diversifying away from Russian LNG, it also sharply cut its imports of Russian pipeline gas.
Overall LNG exports from Russia were down 6% in 2023 year on year at 31mn tonnes, of which 15.8mn tonnes went to Europe, down by 1.9% on the previous year.
LNG to the rescue
Europe’s energy market has been totally remade by the outbreak of war in Ukraine. Russia used to send 70% of its gas westwards via pipelines that were built as far back as the 1970s. Now it has to find new customers, but that system can’t be remade overnight. Many landlocked Central European countries have no access to LNG terminals and remain dependent on Russian gas imports.
And those with coastlines have become partly dependent on Russian LNG imports, as the deficit caused by the end of Russian piped gas can’t be fully replaced by just US and Qatari LNG.
Russia used to account for a third of Europe’s total gas imports, but as uncertainty over gas supplies to Europe sent prices skyrocketing in 2022, Europe successfully replaced most of the piped Russian gas imports with 130 bcm of LNG imports, largely supplied by Qatar, the US and Russia.
The US has only exported LNG since 2016 but at the start of 2023 it overtook Qatar to become the world’s largest exporter of LNG and available volumes will only grow now there are two more big projects in the pipeline to increase supplies.
Qatar could also step up supplies with the huge North field project that includes six mega LNG trains and is supposed to come online in 2025 that will massively increase its output, if enough customers willing to sign long-term supply contracts can be found.
Increases in LNG production between 2017 and 2022 led to a threefold increase in exports from 11mn tpy to 33mn tpy by 2022, of which half goes to the EU.
Russia was planning to triple its production again by the end of this decade to 100mn tpy and raise its market share from 8% to 20% at the same time, according to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.
“Russia has already become the fourth largest LNG producer with an 8% share [of] the global market. The plan is to increase LNG production from 33mn tonnes now to 100mn tonnes by 2030, with the share on the global market [having] increased to 20%,” he said when addressing the Federation Council in November.
But that ran into trouble after the US slapped fresh sanctions in December on its Arctic LNG-2 project.
Novatek, Russia’s LNG champion and the owner of the LNG-2 project, warned customers in December that it would not be able to meet all its delivery obligations in 2024 due to force majeure caused by sanctions imposed by the US.
The Arctic LNG-2 project involves the construction of three gas liquefaction lines with a total capacity of 19.8mn tpy based on the Utrenneye field on the Gydan Peninsula. The first line was planned to have been launched before the end of 2023, with shipments to begin in the first quarter of 2024.
Novatek has 60% of Arctic LNG-2. Other participants such as the French TotalEnergies, the Chinese CNPC and CNOOC, as well as the Japanese consortium of Mitsui and JOGMEC, each own 10%.
Russia may have lost its piped gas business, but the LNG business is growing fast. Global trade in LNG will grow by another 25% to 500mn tpy in five years, according to the International Energy Forum (IEF). China has overtaken Japan to become the world’s largest LNG importer, and the US will have become the biggest LNG exporter in 2023.
LNG currently accounts for about 15% of the world’s total volume of gas supplies. The US was the world’s largest LNG exporter in the first six months of 2023, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), and hopes to capture a large share of the burgeoning LNG market.
In Europe, LNG’s share of the demand mix has expanded from 12% ten years ago to more than 50%, and European regasification capacity is predicted to grow by another 48% by 2030.
Russian LNG supplies
Despite the reduction in the amounts, Europe remained the biggest importer of Russian gas in 2023 and Russia’s best customer, as supplies shifted from piped gas to LNG.
LNG currently represents 45-50% of the EU’s total gas imports and in November Russia’s LNG exports to the EU hit an all-time high of more than 1.75mn tonnes.
In 2023, the US supplied the largest share of the EU’s LNG (40%), followed by Russia and Qatar, which both have a market share of around 13%. Throughout 2023 Russia’s LNG exports to the EU have amounted to 15.5mn tonnes, on a par with exports in 2022.
Conversely Europe remains Russia’s biggest buyer of LNG, accounting for half its total sales, with Spain, Belgium and France being by far the largest customers. EU ports receive in excess of 200 shipments per year from Russia’s Yamal LNG facility. The volume of imported LNG is now so significant that it has surpassed other forms of Russian fossil fuels.
Russian LNG is still not subject to sanctions, as Europe still cannot find enough LNG from elsewhere to meet all its needs. Imports of Russian LNG, mostly via tankers, jumped 40% in the period between January and July 2023 compared to the prewar levels, according to environmental watchdog Global Witness.
And some of Russia’s LNG arrives in the EU via third country intermediaries. Bulgaria, for example, was cut off from Russian gas in 2022 when it refused to pay for its gas in rubles, but it still receives Russian LNG indirectly, buying it from Greeks that are in turn customers of Gazprom.
Germany also bought 23% of its natural gas imports from Belgium in the first three months of 2023, which, during the same time period, imported 60% of its LNG supply from Russia, according to the Center for the Study of Democracy. And ardent Kyiv supporters Lithuania and Estonia secretly purchased €6.1bn worth of LNG from Russia in 2023 despite the promise to refuse its fuel, The Telegraph reported in December citing Eurostat service data.
As a result, Russia’s share in the EU gas supplies is likely to be a lot higher than the official 13% of the total reported by Eurostat.
LNG sanctions
As part of the ongoing efforts to deny the Kremlin access to revenues it can earn from oil and gas exports, the US is now pushing for sanctions on Russia’s LNG exports – and clashing with the EU as a result.
Since the advent of the shale revolution in the US it has become a net exporter of oil and LNG since 2016. In January this year it became the world’s biggest exporter of both, with its crude exports overtaking those of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and its LNG exports overtaking those of Qatar.
However, because of their deficiency in oil and gas, some of the EU member states are reluctant to go along with a ban on buying Russian LNG, as even the US’ increased output is not enough to replace Russia’s supplies in the EU’s fuel mix.
But the European Commission executive is continuing its campaign to tighten the noose around Russia’s neck. The EC is preparing to give its member states powers to block Russian gas imports in a bid to curb Moscow’s energy revenues, the Financial Times reported on December 8, citing a draft document seen by the outlet.
The proposed powers provide a way for European firms to break energy contracts without paying penalties, as they can cancel deals that allow Russian and Belarusian companies to buy capacity in pipelines and LNG terminals.
The restrictions on access to pipeline capacity are similar to the oil price cap sanctions insomuch as they don’t ban purchases of gas outright, but instead seek to use a market mechanism to limit Russia’s ability to sell its gas.
The Netherlands and UK have already banned the transhipment of Russian LNG, but Belgium, Spain and France have permitted the import and re-export of Russian LNG to continue, arguing that it is difficult for their companies to extract themselves from existing contracts.
Like the Greek tanker fleet that continues to transport Russian crude oil from its ports in the Baltic Sea to Asia, European companies are reshipping a fifth of their imports of Russian LNG to other parts of the world, helping Russia maximise its fossil fuel revenues, the Financial Times reported on November 29.
The EU imported 17.8 bcm of Russian LNG between January and September 2023, 21% of which was transferred to ships headed to countries such as China, Japan and Bangladesh, the FT said, citing data from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
The practice allows Russia to make more efficient use of its Arctic fleet, as its icebreaking tankers can offload their cargoes of gas from the Siberian Yamal LNG plant to warm-water LNG tankers that take it on to countries around the world, allowing the icebreakers to return to Russia’s frozen Barents Sea sooner.
Yamal LNG has a 20-year contract with Belgian natural gas company Fluxys that ends in 2039, the FT said. Yamal LNG also has a contract with SEFE, a formerly Russian firm that was nationalised by the German government. However, even the new German management of SEFE refused to cancel its Russian contracts in October, saying that pulling out would cost German taxpayers over $10bn.
Still hooked on Russian piped gas.
Russia’s share in Europe’s overall gas supplies has been reduced dramatically after the Nord Stream 1 & 2 pipelines were destroyed, but it remains a major supplier – and its share in European supplies is very likely to start climbing again as more LNG capacity is built and new planned pipelines via Turkey come online in the coming years.
Russia supplied as much as 95% of Hungary’s gas in 2021 but less than 10% of Spain’s in the same year. Hungary continues to be almost entirely dependent on Russian piped gas.
In 2021, Prime Minister Victor Orban’s government negotiated a 15-year contract, under which Gazprom would ship 4.5 bcm of natural gas to Hungary annually, via TurkStream and via Ukraine.
In 2022, after Russia’s invasion, Budapest signed a new deal with Moscow for additional quantities of Russian gas. Three-quarters of the deliveries (3.5 bcm) flow through TurkStream, with a smaller portion (1.5 bcm) being delivered through Ukraine.
Likewise, Serbian President Aleksander Vucic has signed off on long-term Russian gas supply deals and is attempting to navigate between an EU membership bid and maintaining good business relations with Russia.
Austria is also still 80% dependent on Russian gas. Austrian energy company OMV signed off on a new long-term gas supply deal until 2040 with Gazprom after the war in Ukraine had broken out.
Slovakia, Italy and Croatia also receive Russian gas through Ukrainian transit routes under long-term contracts with Gazprom, according to the Centre on Global Energy Policy. However, these countries have alternative supply route options and are likely to switch to other sources in the future.
Spain has never been dependent on piped gas, which it imports as LNG. Spain and Belgium both have the largest regasification terminals for the liquid fuel in Europe and have become the biggest importers of Russian LNG behind China. As a result, Spain has seen its dependence on Russian gas soar in the last year, becoming one of Novatek’s best LNG customers in the process, and Russia is now Spain’s biggest supplier of LNG. The fact that the EU is set to import a record volume of LNG from Russia in 2023 has been largely due to the LNG trade going through Belgium and Spain.
Unlike the US, the EU has not yet imposed any sanctions on liquefied gas imports. From December 2022 to October 2023 half of Russian LNG exports, worth €8.3bn, were directed to the EU market.
Russia secured the top position among gas suppliers to Spain in June 2023, up from fourth at the start of the year and behind the United States, Algeria and Nigeria, according to Spanish energy company Enagas. In 2023 as a whole, Russia’s supplies to Spain expanded by 39% y/y.
Turkish gas hub
Gas deliveries to Europe could start rising again in the near future if a mooted Turkish gas hub plan is put in place. The scheme, cooked up by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Putin, would see up to 100 bcm of gas from Algeria, Azerbaijan, Russia as well as LNG delivered to a hub in Turkey before being distributed to the rest of Europe.
The idea is that once molecules of methane arrive in the hub they lose their nationality; the upshot is that Russia would be able to export large amounts of its gas to Europe again, as its gas would account for the vast majority of the 100 bcm transiting the hub.
Erdogan also wants to see the capacity of the TurkSteam pipeline doubled. It came online in January 2020 with a nameplate capacity of 35 bcm, but just under half of that volume is dedicated to serving the Turkish market. Plans are now under discussion to build a second pipeline to lift its total capacity to 60 bcm and transport gas to the EU via Bulgaria. TurkStream continues to supply Serbia, Hungary, North Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Greece through its network of pipelines.
https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2024/01/ben ... ction-lng/
******
The State Duma adopted in the first reading a law on confiscation of property for fakes about the RF Armed Forces
January 24, 15:27
In the State Duma, in the first reading, amendments to the law on fakes on the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation were adopted, which provide for the confiscation of the property of distributors of fakes.
First of all, with this baton they will hit on the head those characters who sit abroad and throw mud at the army and the country, while having assets and real estate in Russia. Within the framework of the adopted amendments, the life of such characters ends.
However, this also applies to ordinary distributors of fakes about the RF Armed Forces. The bailiffs may come and take away the combat sofa.
I look forward to the start of law enforcement practice - there are so many wonderful test candidates for the updated law.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8914655.html
Google Translator
JANUARY 23, 2024
By Ben Aris, Intellinews, 1/7/24
Russian gas exports to Europe have tumbled since the Nord Stream 1&2 pipelines were blown up last September but EU imports of Russian LNG have jumped by 40% since the invasion of Ukraine and are currently at record levels, according to a report by Global Witness. Europe remains Russia’s biggest customer for gas – both piped and as LNG – as the EU countries continued to spend $1bn a month on Russian Arctic LNG in 2023.
Russia is working very hard to make up what it lost from the collapse of piped gas by growing its LNG business, which remains unsanctioned – for now.
“Between January and July 2023, EU countries bought 22mn cubic metres of LNG, compared with 15mn cubic metres during the same period in 2021 – a jump of 40%,” the report said.
“This is a much sharper rise than the global average increase in Russian LNG imports, which stands at 6%. EU countries now buy the majority of Russia’s supply, propping up one of the Kremlin’s most important sources of revenue. Between January and July 2023 the EU bought 52% of Russia’s exports, compared to 49% in 2022 and 39% in 2021,” the report adds.
A similar report released by the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air came to the same conclusion: the EU remains the leading consumer of Russia’s pipeline gas and LNG, buying in 41% and 50% of Moscow’s exports respectively. In the third quarter of 2023 Russia supplied about 12% of total EU gas imports, according to Eurostat, and about 8% of its LNG.
The biggest loser from the change was Germany, the biggest net importer of Russian gas in the EU, with 55 bcm in 2021 from the circa 150 bcm total exported to Europe, making up over 65% of the country’s gas imports.
The start of the war in Ukraine didn’t affect Russia’s gas exports to Europe in the first half of 2020 and the billions of euros paid into Kremlin coffers bailed out the sanctioned economy. But the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines meant the total amount of Russian gas sold to Europe in 2022 tumbled to 80 bcm for the full year.
In 2023 the amount of gas Russia has sold to Europe will fall again to an estimated 25 bcm, partly due to Europe’s ongoing efforts to diversify its supply and because part of the Ukrainian pipeline was turned off due to the war. Nevertheless, Ukraine’s gas transit deal with Russia remains in place until the end of 2024, earning Kyiv a cool $4bn a year.
While Europe increased purchases of LNG from global producers in 2023 to start diversifying away from Russian LNG, it also sharply cut its imports of Russian pipeline gas.
Overall LNG exports from Russia were down 6% in 2023 year on year at 31mn tonnes, of which 15.8mn tonnes went to Europe, down by 1.9% on the previous year.
LNG to the rescue
Europe’s energy market has been totally remade by the outbreak of war in Ukraine. Russia used to send 70% of its gas westwards via pipelines that were built as far back as the 1970s. Now it has to find new customers, but that system can’t be remade overnight. Many landlocked Central European countries have no access to LNG terminals and remain dependent on Russian gas imports.
And those with coastlines have become partly dependent on Russian LNG imports, as the deficit caused by the end of Russian piped gas can’t be fully replaced by just US and Qatari LNG.
Russia used to account for a third of Europe’s total gas imports, but as uncertainty over gas supplies to Europe sent prices skyrocketing in 2022, Europe successfully replaced most of the piped Russian gas imports with 130 bcm of LNG imports, largely supplied by Qatar, the US and Russia.
The US has only exported LNG since 2016 but at the start of 2023 it overtook Qatar to become the world’s largest exporter of LNG and available volumes will only grow now there are two more big projects in the pipeline to increase supplies.
Qatar could also step up supplies with the huge North field project that includes six mega LNG trains and is supposed to come online in 2025 that will massively increase its output, if enough customers willing to sign long-term supply contracts can be found.
Increases in LNG production between 2017 and 2022 led to a threefold increase in exports from 11mn tpy to 33mn tpy by 2022, of which half goes to the EU.
Russia was planning to triple its production again by the end of this decade to 100mn tpy and raise its market share from 8% to 20% at the same time, according to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.
“Russia has already become the fourth largest LNG producer with an 8% share [of] the global market. The plan is to increase LNG production from 33mn tonnes now to 100mn tonnes by 2030, with the share on the global market [having] increased to 20%,” he said when addressing the Federation Council in November.
But that ran into trouble after the US slapped fresh sanctions in December on its Arctic LNG-2 project.
Novatek, Russia’s LNG champion and the owner of the LNG-2 project, warned customers in December that it would not be able to meet all its delivery obligations in 2024 due to force majeure caused by sanctions imposed by the US.
The Arctic LNG-2 project involves the construction of three gas liquefaction lines with a total capacity of 19.8mn tpy based on the Utrenneye field on the Gydan Peninsula. The first line was planned to have been launched before the end of 2023, with shipments to begin in the first quarter of 2024.
Novatek has 60% of Arctic LNG-2. Other participants such as the French TotalEnergies, the Chinese CNPC and CNOOC, as well as the Japanese consortium of Mitsui and JOGMEC, each own 10%.
Russia may have lost its piped gas business, but the LNG business is growing fast. Global trade in LNG will grow by another 25% to 500mn tpy in five years, according to the International Energy Forum (IEF). China has overtaken Japan to become the world’s largest LNG importer, and the US will have become the biggest LNG exporter in 2023.
LNG currently accounts for about 15% of the world’s total volume of gas supplies. The US was the world’s largest LNG exporter in the first six months of 2023, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), and hopes to capture a large share of the burgeoning LNG market.
In Europe, LNG’s share of the demand mix has expanded from 12% ten years ago to more than 50%, and European regasification capacity is predicted to grow by another 48% by 2030.
Russian LNG supplies
Despite the reduction in the amounts, Europe remained the biggest importer of Russian gas in 2023 and Russia’s best customer, as supplies shifted from piped gas to LNG.
LNG currently represents 45-50% of the EU’s total gas imports and in November Russia’s LNG exports to the EU hit an all-time high of more than 1.75mn tonnes.
In 2023, the US supplied the largest share of the EU’s LNG (40%), followed by Russia and Qatar, which both have a market share of around 13%. Throughout 2023 Russia’s LNG exports to the EU have amounted to 15.5mn tonnes, on a par with exports in 2022.
Conversely Europe remains Russia’s biggest buyer of LNG, accounting for half its total sales, with Spain, Belgium and France being by far the largest customers. EU ports receive in excess of 200 shipments per year from Russia’s Yamal LNG facility. The volume of imported LNG is now so significant that it has surpassed other forms of Russian fossil fuels.
Russian LNG is still not subject to sanctions, as Europe still cannot find enough LNG from elsewhere to meet all its needs. Imports of Russian LNG, mostly via tankers, jumped 40% in the period between January and July 2023 compared to the prewar levels, according to environmental watchdog Global Witness.
And some of Russia’s LNG arrives in the EU via third country intermediaries. Bulgaria, for example, was cut off from Russian gas in 2022 when it refused to pay for its gas in rubles, but it still receives Russian LNG indirectly, buying it from Greeks that are in turn customers of Gazprom.
Germany also bought 23% of its natural gas imports from Belgium in the first three months of 2023, which, during the same time period, imported 60% of its LNG supply from Russia, according to the Center for the Study of Democracy. And ardent Kyiv supporters Lithuania and Estonia secretly purchased €6.1bn worth of LNG from Russia in 2023 despite the promise to refuse its fuel, The Telegraph reported in December citing Eurostat service data.
As a result, Russia’s share in the EU gas supplies is likely to be a lot higher than the official 13% of the total reported by Eurostat.
LNG sanctions
As part of the ongoing efforts to deny the Kremlin access to revenues it can earn from oil and gas exports, the US is now pushing for sanctions on Russia’s LNG exports – and clashing with the EU as a result.
Since the advent of the shale revolution in the US it has become a net exporter of oil and LNG since 2016. In January this year it became the world’s biggest exporter of both, with its crude exports overtaking those of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and its LNG exports overtaking those of Qatar.
However, because of their deficiency in oil and gas, some of the EU member states are reluctant to go along with a ban on buying Russian LNG, as even the US’ increased output is not enough to replace Russia’s supplies in the EU’s fuel mix.
But the European Commission executive is continuing its campaign to tighten the noose around Russia’s neck. The EC is preparing to give its member states powers to block Russian gas imports in a bid to curb Moscow’s energy revenues, the Financial Times reported on December 8, citing a draft document seen by the outlet.
The proposed powers provide a way for European firms to break energy contracts without paying penalties, as they can cancel deals that allow Russian and Belarusian companies to buy capacity in pipelines and LNG terminals.
The restrictions on access to pipeline capacity are similar to the oil price cap sanctions insomuch as they don’t ban purchases of gas outright, but instead seek to use a market mechanism to limit Russia’s ability to sell its gas.
The Netherlands and UK have already banned the transhipment of Russian LNG, but Belgium, Spain and France have permitted the import and re-export of Russian LNG to continue, arguing that it is difficult for their companies to extract themselves from existing contracts.
Like the Greek tanker fleet that continues to transport Russian crude oil from its ports in the Baltic Sea to Asia, European companies are reshipping a fifth of their imports of Russian LNG to other parts of the world, helping Russia maximise its fossil fuel revenues, the Financial Times reported on November 29.
The EU imported 17.8 bcm of Russian LNG between January and September 2023, 21% of which was transferred to ships headed to countries such as China, Japan and Bangladesh, the FT said, citing data from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
The practice allows Russia to make more efficient use of its Arctic fleet, as its icebreaking tankers can offload their cargoes of gas from the Siberian Yamal LNG plant to warm-water LNG tankers that take it on to countries around the world, allowing the icebreakers to return to Russia’s frozen Barents Sea sooner.
Yamal LNG has a 20-year contract with Belgian natural gas company Fluxys that ends in 2039, the FT said. Yamal LNG also has a contract with SEFE, a formerly Russian firm that was nationalised by the German government. However, even the new German management of SEFE refused to cancel its Russian contracts in October, saying that pulling out would cost German taxpayers over $10bn.
Still hooked on Russian piped gas.
Russia’s share in Europe’s overall gas supplies has been reduced dramatically after the Nord Stream 1 & 2 pipelines were destroyed, but it remains a major supplier – and its share in European supplies is very likely to start climbing again as more LNG capacity is built and new planned pipelines via Turkey come online in the coming years.
Russia supplied as much as 95% of Hungary’s gas in 2021 but less than 10% of Spain’s in the same year. Hungary continues to be almost entirely dependent on Russian piped gas.
In 2021, Prime Minister Victor Orban’s government negotiated a 15-year contract, under which Gazprom would ship 4.5 bcm of natural gas to Hungary annually, via TurkStream and via Ukraine.
In 2022, after Russia’s invasion, Budapest signed a new deal with Moscow for additional quantities of Russian gas. Three-quarters of the deliveries (3.5 bcm) flow through TurkStream, with a smaller portion (1.5 bcm) being delivered through Ukraine.
Likewise, Serbian President Aleksander Vucic has signed off on long-term Russian gas supply deals and is attempting to navigate between an EU membership bid and maintaining good business relations with Russia.
Austria is also still 80% dependent on Russian gas. Austrian energy company OMV signed off on a new long-term gas supply deal until 2040 with Gazprom after the war in Ukraine had broken out.
Slovakia, Italy and Croatia also receive Russian gas through Ukrainian transit routes under long-term contracts with Gazprom, according to the Centre on Global Energy Policy. However, these countries have alternative supply route options and are likely to switch to other sources in the future.
Spain has never been dependent on piped gas, which it imports as LNG. Spain and Belgium both have the largest regasification terminals for the liquid fuel in Europe and have become the biggest importers of Russian LNG behind China. As a result, Spain has seen its dependence on Russian gas soar in the last year, becoming one of Novatek’s best LNG customers in the process, and Russia is now Spain’s biggest supplier of LNG. The fact that the EU is set to import a record volume of LNG from Russia in 2023 has been largely due to the LNG trade going through Belgium and Spain.
Unlike the US, the EU has not yet imposed any sanctions on liquefied gas imports. From December 2022 to October 2023 half of Russian LNG exports, worth €8.3bn, were directed to the EU market.
Russia secured the top position among gas suppliers to Spain in June 2023, up from fourth at the start of the year and behind the United States, Algeria and Nigeria, according to Spanish energy company Enagas. In 2023 as a whole, Russia’s supplies to Spain expanded by 39% y/y.
Turkish gas hub
Gas deliveries to Europe could start rising again in the near future if a mooted Turkish gas hub plan is put in place. The scheme, cooked up by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Putin, would see up to 100 bcm of gas from Algeria, Azerbaijan, Russia as well as LNG delivered to a hub in Turkey before being distributed to the rest of Europe.
The idea is that once molecules of methane arrive in the hub they lose their nationality; the upshot is that Russia would be able to export large amounts of its gas to Europe again, as its gas would account for the vast majority of the 100 bcm transiting the hub.
Erdogan also wants to see the capacity of the TurkSteam pipeline doubled. It came online in January 2020 with a nameplate capacity of 35 bcm, but just under half of that volume is dedicated to serving the Turkish market. Plans are now under discussion to build a second pipeline to lift its total capacity to 60 bcm and transport gas to the EU via Bulgaria. TurkStream continues to supply Serbia, Hungary, North Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Greece through its network of pipelines.
https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2024/01/ben ... ction-lng/
******
The State Duma adopted in the first reading a law on confiscation of property for fakes about the RF Armed Forces
January 24, 15:27
In the State Duma, in the first reading, amendments to the law on fakes on the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation were adopted, which provide for the confiscation of the property of distributors of fakes.
First of all, with this baton they will hit on the head those characters who sit abroad and throw mud at the army and the country, while having assets and real estate in Russia. Within the framework of the adopted amendments, the life of such characters ends.
However, this also applies to ordinary distributors of fakes about the RF Armed Forces. The bailiffs may come and take away the combat sofa.
I look forward to the start of law enforcement practice - there are so many wonderful test candidates for the updated law.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8914655.html
Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Russia today
PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN ACCORDING TO A DROWNING ITALIAN
by John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with
When a man is drowning, he reportedly sees excerpts from his life story flashing in review in the two minutes it takes for his lungs to fill up with water, stopping the heart and cutting off the oxygen supply to his brain.
When an Italian writer recently attempted over two hundred and eighty-five pages to imagine what President Vladimir Putin is really like, he drowned before he got to the truth. But not before he managed a great deal of hand-waving and hyper-ventilation which is also typical of drowning victims.
Hand-waving and hyper-ventilation about the leadership of Russia in the present war can make a best-seller in the states which are losing the war. The Financial Times which is owned by Japan and written in England recommends the book for portraying “Putin as a lone wolf who works as others sleep.” He’s also a cross between a wolf and a pitbull — “a power animal. You end up killing everyone because, in a way, that guarantees your survival. That’s why the last [depiction] of Putin in the book is him alone in a graveyard — with his dog, of course. The dog is always important.”
Indeed — dogs take five times longer than men to drown. So they see more flashbacks before they succumb.
The Italian’s name is Giuliano da Empoli – that’s Julian of Empoli, a medieval town turned nondescript industrial zone, which is too far from the sea — sixty kilometres — to drown in. It is only a brisk walk, however, to submerge in the Arno River which marks the northern boundary of the old town.
Da Empoli claims, as do the promotions of the book in the anti-Russia propaganda organs, that he is writing about Putin and how power is exercised in Russian politics. Da Empoli’s method is to have the author’s narrator, a shrinking violet type, interview his opposite, a brash character modelled after Vladislav Surkov (lead image), onetime Kremlin plotter and plodder with the Ukraine portfolio, and self-styled ideologist in chief. In the outcome, the book’s Surkov character reveals next to nothing about the real Surkov’s performance – that’s a discovery which da Empoli, lacking the sources, hasn’t made himself.
More to the point, the book’s title Wizard of the Kremlin reveals that the alchemy attributed to Putin is what the alchemical combinations of melanosis (blackening), leucosis (whitening), xanthosis (yellowing) and iosis (reddening) have always proved to be – an illusion of words, a fantasy of colours, a PR trick people are persuaded to pay to believe. At seventeen dollars for da Empoli’s paperback, that’s a more costly illusion than the cheap enlightenment of reading this to the end.
Left: Giuliano da Empoli; right, The Wizard of the Kremlin.
The real Surkov thought of himself in Russian politics as a powerful wind. The evidence is that he was a windvane whose spinning helped Putin appear to be more directional, less vacillating than he was. This explains. https://johnhelmer.net/vladislav-surkov ... anent-war/
But when the General Staff started to blow from its direction, when the talking stopped and the guns roared, there was no use left for the rotational Surkov. He attempted to save himself by ideologizing for the military, calling it “Putinism”. Surkov released this on February 11, 2019; a year later on February 20, 2020, he was let go and announced his resignation. “There is no Ukraine”, he declared afterwards, but “coercion to fraternal relations by force is the only method that has historically proven its effectiveness in the Ukrainian direction. I do not think that some other will be invented.” On this point, the windvane was pointing two years before Putin accepted it.
“The real Putin is hardly a Putinist, just as Marx was not a Marxist, and we can’t be sure he would have agreed to be one had he found out what that’s like.” Source: https://johnhelmer.net
Through the narrator of his story, the foil to da Empoli’s version of Surkov, the Italian wants the reader to know he has read a lot of books about Russia, starting with Astolphe de Custine, followed by Isaac Babel and Yevgeny Zamyatin, and eaten in a lot of fashionable Moscow restaurants whose names he remembers for facticity, like Beloye solntse pustyni (White Sun).
Surkov learned that words aren’t guns; da Empoli has failed to learn that reading isn’t doing. His idea of Russian money-making has been cut and pasted from The [American] Exile of Mark Ames and Matt Taibbi, minus their sense of humour. “Moscow in the 1990s was the right place…You could leave the house in the afternoon to buy a pack of cigarettes, run into a friend who was for some reason in a state of excitement, and wake up two days later in a chalet in Courchevel, half-naked, surrounded by slumbering young [sic] women, and have not the slightest idea how you had gotten there.”
A combination of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Mikhail Fridman makes his appearance in the story by showing off his rich toys in order to race off the narrator’s girlfriend named Ksenia, a Stalin lookalike. “Like great dictators throughout history, Ksenia instinctively knew that nothing inspires more fear than random punishment.” The combo character turns into the real Khodorkovsky when the Putin character tells the Surkov character on the evening of October 24, 2003: “I’ve given orders to have your old friend Khodorkovsky arrested at dawn tomorrow.”
The lesson da Empoli wants readers to understand is his conclusion about Putin and the oligarchs now: “in Russia a billionaire is perfectly free to spend his money, but not to influence politics. The will of the Russian people — and of the tsar, who is its incarnation – counts for more than any private interest”. As finding of fact from afar, or intelligence from the inside on how the Kremlin works, this is nonsense.
The clichés and the fatuities don’t stop coming, Surkov like.
“In Russia even a smile is considered a sign of idiocy”
“No one ever says anything in Moscow in principle”
“No one knows anything in Russia, and either you cope or you leave”
“In Moscow power and bourgeois comfort always rest on a solid foundation of oppression”
“The only thing that matters in Russia is privilege, proximity to power”
“Russia’s fate is to be governed by the descendants of Ivan the Terrible”
“Whoever lives in the Kremlin owns time”
“[Russian] politics has just one goal: to address men’s terrors”
“Russians have always forged their way ahead, swinging an axe”
“Force has always been at the heart of the Russian state, its raison d’etre”
“Life is a fatal disease”
There is a lengthy section in which the suicide oligarch in exile, Boris Berezovsky, is introduced by the Italian as if from the mouth of his Russian character, the Surkov lookalike. This reveals how little da Empoli has learned about Russian business, Berezovsky’s business in particular. Berezovsky’s chauffeurs know more and will tell – da Empoli is too much of a snob to have asked them, and too poor to pay.
Italian journalists have produced drivel on Russia for years: they are da Empoli’s sources. The Italians who know much more worth telling include Italian politicians like Silvio Berlusconi; executives of the Eni oil and gas company and Unicredit bank; several mafiosi; and the papal nuncio. Da Empoli doesn’t know any of them; his purported service as a staffman for a two-year Italian prime minister appears to have passed harmlessly without his learning anything he has put into his book.
Da Empoli introduces Berezovsky in order to repeat the well-known boast of Berezovsky that he had created Putin as Yeltsin’s successor, and also introduced Surkov as an election-winning PR adviser. This is reported as happening at a French restaurant “on a street off the Arbat” – a factoid which Empoli embroiders with another of his clichés: “It was the first time I would notice Putin’s complete indifference to food, just as I would later his imperviousness to the other pleasures that make life agreeable.”
Surkov’s brilliant idea which inspired Putin so much then that he hired him turns out, according to da Empoli, to have been Greta Garbo, about whom Surkov instructs Putin: “An idol who withdraws from public view gains in power. Mystery creates energy. Distance fosters veneration.”
The Italian machismo in da Empoli is irrepressible. From the triumph over Putin of the Surkov lookalike’s Greta Garbo idea, da Empoli’s narrator heads towards his own happy ending when Ksenia returns with “her legs crossed, her small breasts pointing”. That point is the new cliché, the conclusion of the book: “One of the main aspects of a Russian woman’s charm is her ferocity.”
All of a sudden, however, da Empoli has gotten confused. He has Ksenia call the narrator, who isn’t the Surkov lookalike, by the diminutive Vadya, which is assigned by the Italian as the diminutive or nickname of the Surkov lookalike. This is easier for an Italian to pronounce than Vlad or Vladik, the usual diminutives for Vladislav, but Vadya is usually used with the name Vadim, not with Vladislav. Da Empoli’s alter ego, the foil, thus turns into the main man, and off into the sunset he (who he? кто он? lui chi?) walks with his old flame. “Our footsteps sank into the snow, taking the place of words…We looked at each other from time to time, seeking confirmation in each other’s eyes.”
That’s the climax, the money shot. The anti-climax follows, several of them.
The Surkov lookalike resumes boasting about his power over real characters – German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Igor Sechin, Yevgeny Prigozhin. He claims to be the inspiration, if not exactly the script writer of Putin’s 1999 remark about “hitting them in the shithouse”; then Putin’s introduction of his dog to Merkel in 2007 to trigger her canine phobia. He also claims to have persuaded Putin to release Khodorkovsky from prison in December 2013; to have followed that in 2014 with the idea of the Donetsk revolt during a drinking session with a Night Wolf biker; also the scheme of employing Prigozhin and his internet hackers to intervene in the US elections in 2016.
Left to right: Angela Merkel, Koni the labrador, Vladimir Putin, in Sochi on January 21, 2007. Da Empoli puts in the mouth of his Surkov lookalike: “the tactic was not entirely original, as the precedent had already been set by a Roman emperor. But we Russians did him one better, because Caligula only made his horse a consul, whereas we promoted the dog to minister of foreign affairs.”
The book ends with the Surkov lookalike going for a skinny-dip in winter waters off an island in the Stockholm archipelago, where he and Ksenia are staying after he had been released from his Kremlin job. Da Empoli’s Surkov claims he resigned after he had been sanctioned by the US because “I consider it [US and European Union sanction] an Oscar, the crown of my political career. It indicates that I’ve served my country with honour”. In truth, the US sanction was imposed on Surkov in March 2014; his Kremlin exit didn’t occur for another six years, until February 2020.
Back to the icy water for the false Surkov and Ksenia: “I pressed her luminous [sic] body against mine in the dark water, I read for the first time in her eyes the full majesty of the mystery growing inside her…I had the feeling of being able once more to breathe”.
In the plot the Surkov lookalike and his amour continue to breathe. The Italian author, however, goes down like a lead weight. As da Empoli drowns, his past clichés flash across his page. “Russia is the West’s nightmare machine” is the penultimate; the last of them is: “the real race is not between power and apocalypse, but between the coming of the Lord and the apocalypse.”
Da Empoli’s narrator then returns out of the blue to record being introduced to a little girl of four. This, according to the Surkov lookalike, is his only child; the real Surkov has four children. There’s a brief conversation about a pet cat and a toy rabbit. Da Empoli’s foil then goes out the front door, recording on his very last line “snow was falling gently”.
That was the end of the oxygen supply to da Empoli’s brain. The invention of Putin was dead, but selling well.
https://johnhelmer.net/president-vladim ... more-89247
********
Is Putin’s decency inviting a world war? Comments on a new article by Paul Craig Roberts
Four years ago, I published an article in which I roundly criticized Vladimir Putin for being too gentlemanly, too civilized for his and our good, so that his every effort to avoid aggravating the stand-off between Russia and the United States was perversely enhancing the likelihood of a nuclear war.
See https://original.antiwar.com/gilbert_do ... -bury-you/
The position I set out in this piece ran against ‘group think’ among Putin and Russia cheerleaders on the one hand and Putin and Russia detractors, on the other hand. But it was obviously a position largely shared by the contrarian thinker Paul Craig Roberts. Over the years since 2019, Roberts has occasionally directed his large web readership to my articles, for which I am grateful. He has also published his own essays in which he makes similar points about the risks inherent in Putin’s throwing pearls to swine. The swine in question are, of course, the leaders of the United States and its European allies.
I offer today some thoughts on Roberts’ latest essay in this vein published online two days ago:
As you see, Paul Craig Roberts is not a professional Russia expert. However, I contend that his understanding of Russian society is more profound than most academics and journalists who are considered to be experts, including, if I may shock politically correct critics of America’s Russia policies, my once friend and admired comrade in arms on the peace front, Professor Steve Cohen (RIP).
I will expand on the last point in a moment, but first things first.
Paul Craig Roberts faults Putin for being much too cautious today as he was for the eight years when the Minsk Accords were patently being ignored, when 15,000 Russian-speaking civilians in the Donbas were being murdered by indiscriminate artillery fire from Ukrainian army units across the line of demarcation; when Kiev was being armed and prepared for NATO entry. As he sees it, Putin was ‘taken for a ride.’ Now the situation is repeating itself. Putin stands by and does virtually nothing while the Israel-Hamas war threatens at any moment to precipitate a regional war that in turn could become a world war in an instant.
I share Roberts’ disappointment with Russia’s tolerating the Ukrainian atrocities in Donbas for so long. However, there are others who question why Russians ever entered into the Minsk Accords to begin with, saying that they should have struck Kiev hard in 2014, while the Ukrainian military was in total disarray. They should not only have seized the Donbas then but overthrown the neo-Nazi regime that the United States had installed in Kiev.
Regrettably all of these criticisms of Russian restraint in 2014 to 2022 fail to consider what must have been crystal clear to Vladimir Putin: namely that until 2022 Russia did not have the economic strength to resist the kind of ‘sanctions from hell’ that Washington eventually imposed after the start of the Special Military Operation but could have just as easily imposed in 2014 or at any later date of its choosing. Russia also did not begin to have the strategic superiority that it reached only in 2018 when its new, world-beating armaments were tested and ready for serial production. In a word, it was not only Ukraine and its Western backers who bought time thanks to the Minsk Accords, but Putin’s Russia as well.
As regards the present situation in the Middle East and what Russia can and should do to prevent its spinning out of control, Paul Craig Roberts notes that there are reports in the Indian press that Russian-Iranian relations are being codified in an enhanced but unspecified military cooperation. Yet, there is no declaration of a mutual defense pact which alone could stop further adventurism in the region by the United States. Here I agree completely with Paul Craig Roberts. I remind readers that panelists and the presenter of Russia’s leading talk show Evening with Vladimir Solovyov have for more than a couple of weeks insisted that a mutual defense pact between Russia, Iran, North Korea and China should be rolled out here and now to stop further U.S. and Western aggression in the several global hot spots of the moment. To be sure, Xi is at least as hesitant to confront the USA directly with threats as Putin is, but that is no problem for Iran and North Korea, so the three should not wait any longer in declaring “one for all and all for one.”
Roberts also points to other current contradictions in Russia’s policies that look like weakness to Western officialdom. He mentions Russia’s failure to protect Syria against Israeli air and missile attacks.
Yes, these failures are hard to fathom and do point to excessive caution by Putin and his immediate entourage, including and especially in the Foreign Affairs Ministry. Sergei Lavrov may be a scholar and a gentleman, but he is not a street brawler, which is the quality Russia needs most right now. His ministry is itself full of contradictions. Lavrov’s press spokeswoman Maria Zakharova exemplifies precisely the ‘softly, softly’ approach that Roberts is criticizing. After every humiliation that Washington has imposed on Russia, Zakharova just whines and asks rhetorically: “Can you imagine..?”
In the month before Trump’s inauguration in 2016, Russian consular property in the States was seized by the feds, and all we heard from Zakharova was “Can you imagine?” In the spring of 2022, Belgium, acting in cahoots with the USA, froze 285 billion dollars of Russian state assets on deposit there. All we have heard from Russian officials since then is “Can you imagine…?”
Yes, we can imagine that the bastards are true to form and we ask where is the Russian response, preferably the symmetrical one, the old ‘eye for an eye.’
At the same time, within the Russian Foreign Ministry there are tough chaps like Deputy Minister Sergey Ryabkov, who came to our attention back in December 2021 when he said in essence to NATO: either withdraw to your 1996 borders or we will push you back to them. As we know, the Special Military Operation followed less than a month later. This is the fellow whom Russia needs at the helm of its foreign policy if not as Putin’s successor. I say this not for Russia’s sake but for ours; it is only this kind of shock therapy that can puncture the bubble in Washington and bring American political elites to their senses lest we stumble into a nuclear Armageddon.
Of course, among Kremlin insiders a hard and realistic line towards the West is now being pronounced by former president and current deputy head of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev. However, in the West Medvedev made a name for himself as a patsy during his presidency. Today he is viewed as just a loose cannon on the deck and no one takes him seriously.
*****
Paul Craig Roberts has tucked into the middle of his essay the following paragraph which merits repetition here:
From my experience with the liberal Russian intelligentsia, I would say that their program is surrender to Washington. They would rather be invited as visiting professors to Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, and to serve as consultants to American corporations than to be in conflict with the West. As Putin seems to believe toleration of subversion is a sign of democracy, he could have been prevented from required action by pressure to prove that he is not, as the entirety of the West proclaims, a dictator. Putin would have saved many lives by ignoring the propaganda of his enemies and being more forceful in Russia’s defense.
The lives that could have been saved are not just the 400,000 Ukrainians towards whom Putin bears no responsibility but the 50,000 Russians who are estimated to have lost their lives in action since February 2022. That corresponds to a lot of widows and it cannot be compensated by showing on state television how the president takes his New Year’s Day dinner with widows and orphans.
I remind readers that Paul Craig Roberts is a dyed in the wool conservative. His understanding of the pernicious influence of the ‘liberal Russian intelligentsia’ is entirely correct from my experience. Their influence on Putin goes back a long way, to his first years in government when he was a deputy to mayor of St Petersburg Anatoly Sobchak responsible for attracting foreign investment to the city. These liberals were present in large numbers in Putin’s presidential administration until the start of the Ukraine war, when many packed their bags and left the country.
Of course these liberal Russian intelligenty have always been treated with great indulgence by American experts on Russia, and not only by those experts who are viscerally anti-Putin. They were the friends and sources of information for otherwise Russia-friendly Steve Cohen, for example. But then again, almost none of our experts could be considered to be conservative on a par with Paul Craig Roberts in the traditional sense, without a ‘neo’ prefix.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/01/24/ ... g-roberts/
Bolding added, if true, and it seems very plausible, explains a lot that I spewed venom on in 2014. Not that I regret....but Putin's 'tolerance' does explain his insistence of treating Washington as an 'honest partner', which has never been the case.
These conservatives, like that old bastard James Kilpatrick, are broken clocks, right twice a day...
*******
We are losing the best shots
January 24, 19:17
The director of the Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences was replaced. For sins.
Minister of Science and General Education Valery Falkov appointed acting Director of the Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrey Misyurin instead of Alexander Kudryavtsev.
“From January 24, Doctor of Biological Sciences Andrei Misyurin was appointed acting director of the Institute of General Genetics named after N. I. Vavilov RAS (IOGen RAS). The candidacy of the new director was agreed upon with the Russian Academy of Sciences,” TASS quotes a message from the press service of the Ministry of Education and Science.
The decision to terminate the contract with Kudryavtsev was made by the department on January 23 and was also agreed upon with the leadership of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the ministry clarified. The reasons for the change of director are not officially stated.
Kudryavtsev, who previously held the position of director of the IOGEN RAS, a year earlier attracted public attention during a speech at a scientific and theological conference, TASS writes. In particular, his report included allegations that some of human genetic diseases were caused by sins.
In addition, in the materials that Kudryavtsev spoke with, there was a slide talking about the constantly decreasing life expectancy of people over thousands of years, reminds RIA Novosti. According to Kudryavtsev’s estimates, earlier, “before the flood,” it was more than 900 years.
https://rg.ru/2024/01/24/minobrnauki-so ... i-ran.html - zinc
We will assume that we suffered genetically for the sins of others.
PS. I have written more than once that the cleansing of the Augean stables of Russian science and higher education is yet to come and we will still see many wonderful characters there.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8915256.html
( A mistake that Stalin made was not dialing back the prominence given to the ROC during the war. Having an 'idealist' in a position of such responsibility should never have been allowed in a communist state. )imho
Sentences
January 25, 15:57
Today verdicts were handed down in two high-profile cases.
The killer of Vladlen Tatarsky, Daria Trepova, received 27 years in a maximum security colony (it’s a pity that there is no death penalty). Her accomplice received a modest 1 year and 9 months in prison.
* * *
Igor Strelkov was given 4 years in a general regime colony for extremist statements.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8916796.html
Google Translator
Strelkov, damn, hero to zero.....and he certainly was a hero, the fighting withdrawal from Slavyansk was a classic and saved the Donbass republics. Too bad about his monarchist politics, which we knew about, and his use of his notoriety to promote bad and divisive politics at a time of war. He wanted Putin to be a tsar, which as we can see from the above entries ain't happening regardless of Western propaganda.
by John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with
When a man is drowning, he reportedly sees excerpts from his life story flashing in review in the two minutes it takes for his lungs to fill up with water, stopping the heart and cutting off the oxygen supply to his brain.
When an Italian writer recently attempted over two hundred and eighty-five pages to imagine what President Vladimir Putin is really like, he drowned before he got to the truth. But not before he managed a great deal of hand-waving and hyper-ventilation which is also typical of drowning victims.
Hand-waving and hyper-ventilation about the leadership of Russia in the present war can make a best-seller in the states which are losing the war. The Financial Times which is owned by Japan and written in England recommends the book for portraying “Putin as a lone wolf who works as others sleep.” He’s also a cross between a wolf and a pitbull — “a power animal. You end up killing everyone because, in a way, that guarantees your survival. That’s why the last [depiction] of Putin in the book is him alone in a graveyard — with his dog, of course. The dog is always important.”
Indeed — dogs take five times longer than men to drown. So they see more flashbacks before they succumb.
The Italian’s name is Giuliano da Empoli – that’s Julian of Empoli, a medieval town turned nondescript industrial zone, which is too far from the sea — sixty kilometres — to drown in. It is only a brisk walk, however, to submerge in the Arno River which marks the northern boundary of the old town.
Da Empoli claims, as do the promotions of the book in the anti-Russia propaganda organs, that he is writing about Putin and how power is exercised in Russian politics. Da Empoli’s method is to have the author’s narrator, a shrinking violet type, interview his opposite, a brash character modelled after Vladislav Surkov (lead image), onetime Kremlin plotter and plodder with the Ukraine portfolio, and self-styled ideologist in chief. In the outcome, the book’s Surkov character reveals next to nothing about the real Surkov’s performance – that’s a discovery which da Empoli, lacking the sources, hasn’t made himself.
More to the point, the book’s title Wizard of the Kremlin reveals that the alchemy attributed to Putin is what the alchemical combinations of melanosis (blackening), leucosis (whitening), xanthosis (yellowing) and iosis (reddening) have always proved to be – an illusion of words, a fantasy of colours, a PR trick people are persuaded to pay to believe. At seventeen dollars for da Empoli’s paperback, that’s a more costly illusion than the cheap enlightenment of reading this to the end.
Left: Giuliano da Empoli; right, The Wizard of the Kremlin.
The real Surkov thought of himself in Russian politics as a powerful wind. The evidence is that he was a windvane whose spinning helped Putin appear to be more directional, less vacillating than he was. This explains. https://johnhelmer.net/vladislav-surkov ... anent-war/
But when the General Staff started to blow from its direction, when the talking stopped and the guns roared, there was no use left for the rotational Surkov. He attempted to save himself by ideologizing for the military, calling it “Putinism”. Surkov released this on February 11, 2019; a year later on February 20, 2020, he was let go and announced his resignation. “There is no Ukraine”, he declared afterwards, but “coercion to fraternal relations by force is the only method that has historically proven its effectiveness in the Ukrainian direction. I do not think that some other will be invented.” On this point, the windvane was pointing two years before Putin accepted it.
“The real Putin is hardly a Putinist, just as Marx was not a Marxist, and we can’t be sure he would have agreed to be one had he found out what that’s like.” Source: https://johnhelmer.net
Through the narrator of his story, the foil to da Empoli’s version of Surkov, the Italian wants the reader to know he has read a lot of books about Russia, starting with Astolphe de Custine, followed by Isaac Babel and Yevgeny Zamyatin, and eaten in a lot of fashionable Moscow restaurants whose names he remembers for facticity, like Beloye solntse pustyni (White Sun).
Surkov learned that words aren’t guns; da Empoli has failed to learn that reading isn’t doing. His idea of Russian money-making has been cut and pasted from The [American] Exile of Mark Ames and Matt Taibbi, minus their sense of humour. “Moscow in the 1990s was the right place…You could leave the house in the afternoon to buy a pack of cigarettes, run into a friend who was for some reason in a state of excitement, and wake up two days later in a chalet in Courchevel, half-naked, surrounded by slumbering young [sic] women, and have not the slightest idea how you had gotten there.”
A combination of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Mikhail Fridman makes his appearance in the story by showing off his rich toys in order to race off the narrator’s girlfriend named Ksenia, a Stalin lookalike. “Like great dictators throughout history, Ksenia instinctively knew that nothing inspires more fear than random punishment.” The combo character turns into the real Khodorkovsky when the Putin character tells the Surkov character on the evening of October 24, 2003: “I’ve given orders to have your old friend Khodorkovsky arrested at dawn tomorrow.”
The lesson da Empoli wants readers to understand is his conclusion about Putin and the oligarchs now: “in Russia a billionaire is perfectly free to spend his money, but not to influence politics. The will of the Russian people — and of the tsar, who is its incarnation – counts for more than any private interest”. As finding of fact from afar, or intelligence from the inside on how the Kremlin works, this is nonsense.
The clichés and the fatuities don’t stop coming, Surkov like.
“In Russia even a smile is considered a sign of idiocy”
“No one ever says anything in Moscow in principle”
“No one knows anything in Russia, and either you cope or you leave”
“In Moscow power and bourgeois comfort always rest on a solid foundation of oppression”
“The only thing that matters in Russia is privilege, proximity to power”
“Russia’s fate is to be governed by the descendants of Ivan the Terrible”
“Whoever lives in the Kremlin owns time”
“[Russian] politics has just one goal: to address men’s terrors”
“Russians have always forged their way ahead, swinging an axe”
“Force has always been at the heart of the Russian state, its raison d’etre”
“Life is a fatal disease”
There is a lengthy section in which the suicide oligarch in exile, Boris Berezovsky, is introduced by the Italian as if from the mouth of his Russian character, the Surkov lookalike. This reveals how little da Empoli has learned about Russian business, Berezovsky’s business in particular. Berezovsky’s chauffeurs know more and will tell – da Empoli is too much of a snob to have asked them, and too poor to pay.
Italian journalists have produced drivel on Russia for years: they are da Empoli’s sources. The Italians who know much more worth telling include Italian politicians like Silvio Berlusconi; executives of the Eni oil and gas company and Unicredit bank; several mafiosi; and the papal nuncio. Da Empoli doesn’t know any of them; his purported service as a staffman for a two-year Italian prime minister appears to have passed harmlessly without his learning anything he has put into his book.
Da Empoli introduces Berezovsky in order to repeat the well-known boast of Berezovsky that he had created Putin as Yeltsin’s successor, and also introduced Surkov as an election-winning PR adviser. This is reported as happening at a French restaurant “on a street off the Arbat” – a factoid which Empoli embroiders with another of his clichés: “It was the first time I would notice Putin’s complete indifference to food, just as I would later his imperviousness to the other pleasures that make life agreeable.”
Surkov’s brilliant idea which inspired Putin so much then that he hired him turns out, according to da Empoli, to have been Greta Garbo, about whom Surkov instructs Putin: “An idol who withdraws from public view gains in power. Mystery creates energy. Distance fosters veneration.”
The Italian machismo in da Empoli is irrepressible. From the triumph over Putin of the Surkov lookalike’s Greta Garbo idea, da Empoli’s narrator heads towards his own happy ending when Ksenia returns with “her legs crossed, her small breasts pointing”. That point is the new cliché, the conclusion of the book: “One of the main aspects of a Russian woman’s charm is her ferocity.”
All of a sudden, however, da Empoli has gotten confused. He has Ksenia call the narrator, who isn’t the Surkov lookalike, by the diminutive Vadya, which is assigned by the Italian as the diminutive or nickname of the Surkov lookalike. This is easier for an Italian to pronounce than Vlad or Vladik, the usual diminutives for Vladislav, but Vadya is usually used with the name Vadim, not with Vladislav. Da Empoli’s alter ego, the foil, thus turns into the main man, and off into the sunset he (who he? кто он? lui chi?) walks with his old flame. “Our footsteps sank into the snow, taking the place of words…We looked at each other from time to time, seeking confirmation in each other’s eyes.”
That’s the climax, the money shot. The anti-climax follows, several of them.
The Surkov lookalike resumes boasting about his power over real characters – German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Igor Sechin, Yevgeny Prigozhin. He claims to be the inspiration, if not exactly the script writer of Putin’s 1999 remark about “hitting them in the shithouse”; then Putin’s introduction of his dog to Merkel in 2007 to trigger her canine phobia. He also claims to have persuaded Putin to release Khodorkovsky from prison in December 2013; to have followed that in 2014 with the idea of the Donetsk revolt during a drinking session with a Night Wolf biker; also the scheme of employing Prigozhin and his internet hackers to intervene in the US elections in 2016.
Left to right: Angela Merkel, Koni the labrador, Vladimir Putin, in Sochi on January 21, 2007. Da Empoli puts in the mouth of his Surkov lookalike: “the tactic was not entirely original, as the precedent had already been set by a Roman emperor. But we Russians did him one better, because Caligula only made his horse a consul, whereas we promoted the dog to minister of foreign affairs.”
The book ends with the Surkov lookalike going for a skinny-dip in winter waters off an island in the Stockholm archipelago, where he and Ksenia are staying after he had been released from his Kremlin job. Da Empoli’s Surkov claims he resigned after he had been sanctioned by the US because “I consider it [US and European Union sanction] an Oscar, the crown of my political career. It indicates that I’ve served my country with honour”. In truth, the US sanction was imposed on Surkov in March 2014; his Kremlin exit didn’t occur for another six years, until February 2020.
Back to the icy water for the false Surkov and Ksenia: “I pressed her luminous [sic] body against mine in the dark water, I read for the first time in her eyes the full majesty of the mystery growing inside her…I had the feeling of being able once more to breathe”.
In the plot the Surkov lookalike and his amour continue to breathe. The Italian author, however, goes down like a lead weight. As da Empoli drowns, his past clichés flash across his page. “Russia is the West’s nightmare machine” is the penultimate; the last of them is: “the real race is not between power and apocalypse, but between the coming of the Lord and the apocalypse.”
Da Empoli’s narrator then returns out of the blue to record being introduced to a little girl of four. This, according to the Surkov lookalike, is his only child; the real Surkov has four children. There’s a brief conversation about a pet cat and a toy rabbit. Da Empoli’s foil then goes out the front door, recording on his very last line “snow was falling gently”.
That was the end of the oxygen supply to da Empoli’s brain. The invention of Putin was dead, but selling well.
https://johnhelmer.net/president-vladim ... more-89247
********
Is Putin’s decency inviting a world war? Comments on a new article by Paul Craig Roberts
Four years ago, I published an article in which I roundly criticized Vladimir Putin for being too gentlemanly, too civilized for his and our good, so that his every effort to avoid aggravating the stand-off between Russia and the United States was perversely enhancing the likelihood of a nuclear war.
See https://original.antiwar.com/gilbert_do ... -bury-you/
The position I set out in this piece ran against ‘group think’ among Putin and Russia cheerleaders on the one hand and Putin and Russia detractors, on the other hand. But it was obviously a position largely shared by the contrarian thinker Paul Craig Roberts. Over the years since 2019, Roberts has occasionally directed his large web readership to my articles, for which I am grateful. He has also published his own essays in which he makes similar points about the risks inherent in Putin’s throwing pearls to swine. The swine in question are, of course, the leaders of the United States and its European allies.
I offer today some thoughts on Roberts’ latest essay in this vein published online two days ago:
For those unfamiliar with Roberts, you will find most everything you need to know in his Wikipedia entry. His university degrees were earned in economics and this was the realm of his government service. Under Ronald Reagan, Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy. His academic career before and after serving in the federal government was also made in this discipline.WILL WAR RESULT FROM THE EVER HESITANT PUTIN?
WILL WAR RESULT FROM THE EVER HESITANT PUTIN? Paul Craig Roberts I have often expressed my concern that the lack of proactive action by Putin, Xi, and Iran was maximizing the expansion of Israeli and US aggression in the Middle East and leading to a dangerous confrontation and outbreak of nuclear war. It is the purpose … Continue readingWILL WAR RESULT FROM THE EVER HESITANT PUTIN?
PaulCraigRoberts.org
As you see, Paul Craig Roberts is not a professional Russia expert. However, I contend that his understanding of Russian society is more profound than most academics and journalists who are considered to be experts, including, if I may shock politically correct critics of America’s Russia policies, my once friend and admired comrade in arms on the peace front, Professor Steve Cohen (RIP).
I will expand on the last point in a moment, but first things first.
Paul Craig Roberts faults Putin for being much too cautious today as he was for the eight years when the Minsk Accords were patently being ignored, when 15,000 Russian-speaking civilians in the Donbas were being murdered by indiscriminate artillery fire from Ukrainian army units across the line of demarcation; when Kiev was being armed and prepared for NATO entry. As he sees it, Putin was ‘taken for a ride.’ Now the situation is repeating itself. Putin stands by and does virtually nothing while the Israel-Hamas war threatens at any moment to precipitate a regional war that in turn could become a world war in an instant.
I share Roberts’ disappointment with Russia’s tolerating the Ukrainian atrocities in Donbas for so long. However, there are others who question why Russians ever entered into the Minsk Accords to begin with, saying that they should have struck Kiev hard in 2014, while the Ukrainian military was in total disarray. They should not only have seized the Donbas then but overthrown the neo-Nazi regime that the United States had installed in Kiev.
Regrettably all of these criticisms of Russian restraint in 2014 to 2022 fail to consider what must have been crystal clear to Vladimir Putin: namely that until 2022 Russia did not have the economic strength to resist the kind of ‘sanctions from hell’ that Washington eventually imposed after the start of the Special Military Operation but could have just as easily imposed in 2014 or at any later date of its choosing. Russia also did not begin to have the strategic superiority that it reached only in 2018 when its new, world-beating armaments were tested and ready for serial production. In a word, it was not only Ukraine and its Western backers who bought time thanks to the Minsk Accords, but Putin’s Russia as well.
As regards the present situation in the Middle East and what Russia can and should do to prevent its spinning out of control, Paul Craig Roberts notes that there are reports in the Indian press that Russian-Iranian relations are being codified in an enhanced but unspecified military cooperation. Yet, there is no declaration of a mutual defense pact which alone could stop further adventurism in the region by the United States. Here I agree completely with Paul Craig Roberts. I remind readers that panelists and the presenter of Russia’s leading talk show Evening with Vladimir Solovyov have for more than a couple of weeks insisted that a mutual defense pact between Russia, Iran, North Korea and China should be rolled out here and now to stop further U.S. and Western aggression in the several global hot spots of the moment. To be sure, Xi is at least as hesitant to confront the USA directly with threats as Putin is, but that is no problem for Iran and North Korea, so the three should not wait any longer in declaring “one for all and all for one.”
Roberts also points to other current contradictions in Russia’s policies that look like weakness to Western officialdom. He mentions Russia’s failure to protect Syria against Israeli air and missile attacks.
Yes, these failures are hard to fathom and do point to excessive caution by Putin and his immediate entourage, including and especially in the Foreign Affairs Ministry. Sergei Lavrov may be a scholar and a gentleman, but he is not a street brawler, which is the quality Russia needs most right now. His ministry is itself full of contradictions. Lavrov’s press spokeswoman Maria Zakharova exemplifies precisely the ‘softly, softly’ approach that Roberts is criticizing. After every humiliation that Washington has imposed on Russia, Zakharova just whines and asks rhetorically: “Can you imagine..?”
In the month before Trump’s inauguration in 2016, Russian consular property in the States was seized by the feds, and all we heard from Zakharova was “Can you imagine?” In the spring of 2022, Belgium, acting in cahoots with the USA, froze 285 billion dollars of Russian state assets on deposit there. All we have heard from Russian officials since then is “Can you imagine…?”
Yes, we can imagine that the bastards are true to form and we ask where is the Russian response, preferably the symmetrical one, the old ‘eye for an eye.’
At the same time, within the Russian Foreign Ministry there are tough chaps like Deputy Minister Sergey Ryabkov, who came to our attention back in December 2021 when he said in essence to NATO: either withdraw to your 1996 borders or we will push you back to them. As we know, the Special Military Operation followed less than a month later. This is the fellow whom Russia needs at the helm of its foreign policy if not as Putin’s successor. I say this not for Russia’s sake but for ours; it is only this kind of shock therapy that can puncture the bubble in Washington and bring American political elites to their senses lest we stumble into a nuclear Armageddon.
Of course, among Kremlin insiders a hard and realistic line towards the West is now being pronounced by former president and current deputy head of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev. However, in the West Medvedev made a name for himself as a patsy during his presidency. Today he is viewed as just a loose cannon on the deck and no one takes him seriously.
*****
Paul Craig Roberts has tucked into the middle of his essay the following paragraph which merits repetition here:
From my experience with the liberal Russian intelligentsia, I would say that their program is surrender to Washington. They would rather be invited as visiting professors to Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, and to serve as consultants to American corporations than to be in conflict with the West. As Putin seems to believe toleration of subversion is a sign of democracy, he could have been prevented from required action by pressure to prove that he is not, as the entirety of the West proclaims, a dictator. Putin would have saved many lives by ignoring the propaganda of his enemies and being more forceful in Russia’s defense.
The lives that could have been saved are not just the 400,000 Ukrainians towards whom Putin bears no responsibility but the 50,000 Russians who are estimated to have lost their lives in action since February 2022. That corresponds to a lot of widows and it cannot be compensated by showing on state television how the president takes his New Year’s Day dinner with widows and orphans.
I remind readers that Paul Craig Roberts is a dyed in the wool conservative. His understanding of the pernicious influence of the ‘liberal Russian intelligentsia’ is entirely correct from my experience. Their influence on Putin goes back a long way, to his first years in government when he was a deputy to mayor of St Petersburg Anatoly Sobchak responsible for attracting foreign investment to the city. These liberals were present in large numbers in Putin’s presidential administration until the start of the Ukraine war, when many packed their bags and left the country.
Of course these liberal Russian intelligenty have always been treated with great indulgence by American experts on Russia, and not only by those experts who are viscerally anti-Putin. They were the friends and sources of information for otherwise Russia-friendly Steve Cohen, for example. But then again, almost none of our experts could be considered to be conservative on a par with Paul Craig Roberts in the traditional sense, without a ‘neo’ prefix.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/01/24/ ... g-roberts/
Bolding added, if true, and it seems very plausible, explains a lot that I spewed venom on in 2014. Not that I regret....but Putin's 'tolerance' does explain his insistence of treating Washington as an 'honest partner', which has never been the case.
These conservatives, like that old bastard James Kilpatrick, are broken clocks, right twice a day...
*******
We are losing the best shots
January 24, 19:17
The director of the Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences was replaced. For sins.
Minister of Science and General Education Valery Falkov appointed acting Director of the Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrey Misyurin instead of Alexander Kudryavtsev.
“From January 24, Doctor of Biological Sciences Andrei Misyurin was appointed acting director of the Institute of General Genetics named after N. I. Vavilov RAS (IOGen RAS). The candidacy of the new director was agreed upon with the Russian Academy of Sciences,” TASS quotes a message from the press service of the Ministry of Education and Science.
The decision to terminate the contract with Kudryavtsev was made by the department on January 23 and was also agreed upon with the leadership of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the ministry clarified. The reasons for the change of director are not officially stated.
Kudryavtsev, who previously held the position of director of the IOGEN RAS, a year earlier attracted public attention during a speech at a scientific and theological conference, TASS writes. In particular, his report included allegations that some of human genetic diseases were caused by sins.
In addition, in the materials that Kudryavtsev spoke with, there was a slide talking about the constantly decreasing life expectancy of people over thousands of years, reminds RIA Novosti. According to Kudryavtsev’s estimates, earlier, “before the flood,” it was more than 900 years.
https://rg.ru/2024/01/24/minobrnauki-so ... i-ran.html - zinc
We will assume that we suffered genetically for the sins of others.
PS. I have written more than once that the cleansing of the Augean stables of Russian science and higher education is yet to come and we will still see many wonderful characters there.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8915256.html
( A mistake that Stalin made was not dialing back the prominence given to the ROC during the war. Having an 'idealist' in a position of such responsibility should never have been allowed in a communist state. )imho
Sentences
January 25, 15:57
Today verdicts were handed down in two high-profile cases.
The killer of Vladlen Tatarsky, Daria Trepova, received 27 years in a maximum security colony (it’s a pity that there is no death penalty). Her accomplice received a modest 1 year and 9 months in prison.
* * *
Igor Strelkov was given 4 years in a general regime colony for extremist statements.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8916796.html
Google Translator
Strelkov, damn, hero to zero.....and he certainly was a hero, the fighting withdrawal from Slavyansk was a classic and saved the Donbass republics. Too bad about his monarchist politics, which we knew about, and his use of his notoriety to promote bad and divisive politics at a time of war. He wanted Putin to be a tsar, which as we can see from the above entries ain't happening regardless of Western propaganda.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Russia today
RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY TIES RED SEA BLOCKADE TO GAZA BLOCKADE, BACKS HOUTHIS IN MOSCOW MEETING
by John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with
For the time being, there are no official photographs of the meeting in Moscow on Thursday evening at the Russian Foreign Ministry between Mikhail Bogdanov, the deputy foreign minister and chief Russian negotiator in the Middle East and Africa, and Mohammed (Mukhameddov) Abdelsalam leading a delegation of the Ansarallah government of Yemen, known as the Houthi movement.
The absence of photographs does not mean a blackout.
Bogdanov’s communiqué said “special attention was paid to the development of tragic events in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict zone, as well as the aggravation of the situation in the Red Sea in this regard. In this context, the missile and bomb attacks on Yemen undertaken by the United States and Great Britain, which are capable of destabilizing the situation on a regional scale, were strongly condemned.”
This is the plainest signal to date of Russian backing for the southern front of the Arab war against Israel, and the link which the Houthis have made between the Israeli blockade of Gaza, the genocide of the Palestinians, and the Red Sea blockade which the Houthis have imposed on vessels owned or directed by Israeli shipowners, US naval fleet, and American-flagged and other vessels carrying military and civil cargoes to Israel or reload ammunition for future attacks on Yemen.
At the same time across Moscow, unusually large delegations of officials of the Russian Security Council, led by Nikolai Patrushev, and Ali-Akbar Ahmadian, special presidential representative and Secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, have been meeting to discuss a detailed agenda which Patrushev’s communiqué calls a “wide range of Russian-Iranian security cooperation” and “the practical implementation of the agreements reached at the highest level.”
In an open statement for reporters, Ahmadian told Patrushev: “”America’s grandeur has shattered, and today, it cannot even rally its traditional allies. A country that considers itself a superpower is engaged in war against resistance groups and the people of the region.”
The display of Russian support for the Axis of Resistance against Israel and the US is unprecedented. The Foreign Ministry and Security Council meetings confirm there is now a new definition of “terrorism” in Russian warfighting strategy, in which there is both public and secret support for Hamas, the Houthis, and other groups in Lebanon and Iraq fighting for national liberation against Israel and the US.
On the differentiation between national liberation which Russia supports, and terrorism which it condemns, click to read this.
Source: https://johnhelmer.net/
Bogdanov’s meeting with Abdelsalam was not the first high-level Russian contact with the Houthis, nor their first negotiation. The two officials had met in Moscow on July 24, 2019, when they discussed terms for ending the civil war in Yemen; Bogdanov was also meeting at the time with other Yemeni political factions. Abdelsalam said then: “The meeting discussed the most important issues related to the Yemeni policy and the steps of the national delegation [the Houthi delegation] in the Stockholm Agreement in addition to the regional crisis, in addition to the importance of the Russian role at the regional level, and its reflection on the situation in Yemen to calm the escalation and prevent further tension as Yemen represents a key point towards regional calm that will be positively reflected in the tense regional situation.”
Bogdanov met Abdelsalam again in Oman on August 30, 2019.
Above: Bogdanov (left) meeting Abdelsalam (2nd left) in Moscow on July 24, 2019.
Below: Abdelsalam meeting Bogdanov in Muscat on August 30, 2019.
So long as the agenda was limited to the Yemen civil war and the intervention of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, the Israelis were not exercised. But they are now, as the Russian Foreign Ministry announcement of Thursday evening’s negotiations caught Israeli intelligence agents and government officials by surprise. The first Israeli press reports over Thursday night cribbed from Reuters which had followed Tass in reading the Foreign Ministry communiqué; no Israeli officials were available to comment to their reporters.
The Russian-Houthi negotiations took place in parallel with the talks between the Russian Security Council and their Iranian counterparts headed by Ali-Akbar Ahmadian, head of Iran’s Security Council. Tass reported that Nikolai Patrushev had invited Ahmadian to the talks. Ahmadian issued a statement through the Iranian Embassy in Moscow to say “the Supreme National Security Council secretary hailed Iran-Russia cooperation in the fight against terrorism, particularly in Syria, saying that cooperation must continue.” By terrorism Ahmadian meant Israeli attacks on Iranian military advisers in Syria, as well as the bombing of civilians at the Kerman cemetery on January 3.
Patrushev (ring) on the left meets Ahmadian, sitting directly across the table, 2nd from right.
Here is the full text of the Bogdanov-Abdelsalam communiqué:
“On the meeting of the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for the Middle East and Africa, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Mikhail Bogdanov with a delegation of the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement
“On January 25, the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for the Middle East and Africa, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Mikhail Bogdanov received a delegation of the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement headed by Mohammed Abdelsalam.
“During the in-depth conversation, an in-depth discussion took place on the issues of a comprehensive settlement of the military-political crisis in Yemen, which has been going on for almost nine years. At the same time, the importance of increasing international efforts to create the necessary conditions for establishing a full-scale inter-Yemeni national dialogue under the auspices of the United Nations was emphasized.
“Special attention was paid to the development of tragic events in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict zone, as well as the aggravation of the situation in the Red Sea in this regard. In this context, the missile and bomb attacks on Yemen undertaken by the United States and Great Britain, which are capable of destabilizing the situation on a regional scale, were strongly condemned.”
Here is the Russian Security Council communiqué following the plenary session between Patrushev, Ahmadian and their delegations, before they broke up into working-group meetings:
“In Moscow Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev held talks with the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Ali Ahmadian” -- http://www.scrf.gov.ru/
“A wide range of Russian-Iranian security cooperation was discussed. The focus is on the interaction of the security councils, law enforcement agencies and special services of the two countries. Special attention is paid to the fight against terrorism, information security issues, problems of ensuring the economic security of Russia and Iran in the face of sanctions pressure from Western countries, as well as countering attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states. The development of a new bilateral comprehensive long-term agreement was touched upon. It was emphasized that the conclusion of this fundamental document will give a powerful impetus to the further development of mutually beneficial cooperation in all spheres.
“In addition, the conversation discussed global and regional trends, as well as the upcoming bilateral and multilateral contacts between the Security Councils of Russia and Iran in 2024. The schedule of activities of the working groups of the Security Councils of the two countries on issues of mutual interest has been agreed.
“The parties noted that relations between Russia and Iran continue to strengthen and reach a qualitatively new level across the entire spectrum of areas. The focus on the practical implementation of the agreements reached at the highest level was confirmed.”
Hours after this meeting in Moscow, but before the Houthis arrived at Bogdanov’s office in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a press conference at the United Nations in New York. Lavrov did not mention the Houthis explicitly nor did he condemn their blockade of Israeli ports, shipping and deliveries, but he did attack the Anglo-American bombings of Yemeni territory.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/
“Regarding the Red Sea,” Lavrov said, “there is a direct and illegal aggression there in violation of all international norms. Those taking part in it and who are behind this aggression are lying when they claim that this is an act of self-defence in accordance with the UN Charter. Our mission in New York has circulated a real document that reviews all the arguments put forward by the UK and the US and exposes their actions as outright robbery rather than self-defence.”
Asked about Russia’s relationship with India and the plan for an eastern maritime corridor for shipping between the two countries, Lavrov replied by emphasizing Russia’s strategic priority is to defend against US and NATO attacks, including economic warfare against its oil exports. “A question of this kind calls for a lengthy answer. To put it briefly, just like most countries on the Eurasian continent, Russia needs new corridors as a way of cutting logistics costs and ensuring faster deliveries compared to using the Suez Canal or sending ships around Africa. Everyone is interested in creating these transport and logistics chains and ensuring that they are independent from the West and those who regularly abuse their standing in global trade and along the shipping routes.
“There is the North-South corridor that ensures quick, effective and reliable shipments from the Baltic Sea to the Persian Gulf. There are plans to link Russian ports in the Far East with India. There is also an initiative called Europe–Middle East–India, backed by western Europeans. For us, the North-South corridor remains a priority and India stands to directly benefit from it. This route will cross Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran and go all the way to India. Pakistan is also interested.
“There has been much talk about this lately. India is looking at the Northern Sea Route with a lot of interest. The same goes for China. Considering global warming and the fact that it is expected to become operational year-around, the Northern Sea Route can directly compete against all other routes since it cuts shipping time by a third compared to the Suez Canal, to give you one example. We have been discussing it with our Indian colleagues but, of course, not at the Foreign Ministry level. The ministers of economy, finance, transport and our prime ministers are working on this matter. This is one of the most promising tasks in terms of our regional development.”
Source: https://splash247.com
Moscow sources say the official communiqués indicate the multi-track approach Russian strategy is adopting, and speak for themselves, requiring no comment at this stage
Vzglyad, the semi-official Moscow website for security analysis, which has followed a pro-Israel, anti-Hamas line since October 7, reported on January 24 that their sources are confident that Russian oil shipments to India and China, through the Suez Canal and Red Sea, remain secure from attack by the Houthis, and also that there will be no behind-the-scenes interference from Saudi Arabia. Without saying as much, the Vzglyad reporter conceded this is only possible because there have been direct Russian agreements with the Houthis and Iran.
Source: https://vz.ru/
“Russia has not changed logistics at all,” Vzglyad reported a source, Igor Yushkov, an analyst of the National Energy Security Fund. “Ships with our oil are still sailing through the Red Sea past Yemen, and we will most likely be the last to leave the Suez Canal. Russia will [sic] obviously try to negotiate with Iran to coordinate the passage of Russian tankers through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea.”
“In general, Russia, of course, benefits if all the other oil producers are forced to send their ships around Africa via the Cape of Good Hope, while Russia itself retains the shorter, previous route through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea…Because the logistics will become more expensive for all other companies, these costs will be included in the cost of oil, and so that will grow. Whereas Russia’s transportation costs will remain the same, and it will then be possible to sell Russia’s oil more expensively. As for Saudi Arabia, Russia has many more points of common interest with it than differences. Therefore, the West’s bet on a contest between the two countries over the entire situation with navigation in the Red Sea is premature.”
Premature is official Russian-speak for wishful thinking.
Boris Rozhin, chief of the Colonel Cassad internet platform and one of the leading military analysts in Moscow, noted on the evening of January 25: “Since the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement began its operations against shipping related to Israel, the volume of cargo traffic through the Suez Canal has decreased by about 85%. Navigation on the Suez Canal has almost completely stopped after the attacks in the Red Sea. This has a serious impact on the Israeli economy.” Rozhin, who has been writing on the Yemen conflict for several years, has not yet commented on the Houthi visit to Moscow.
According to Vzglyad’s source, “I don’t see any serious reduction in Russian oil supplies to India and China. Moreover, by itself Russia is now reducing production and exports; these are included in the new commitments under the agreement with OPEC+. At the same time, Russia is still the largest supplier for both India and China. Therefore, it is not worth saying that we have left these markets or someone has pushed us out… There are no problems with the sale of Russian oil, and it is unclear why Saudi Arabia would squeeze Russia out of the Asian market. In the previous two years, we have swapped markets — the Saudis got the European market after Russia left. At the same time, Saudi Arabia is still represented in Asia, where Russia has now become a strong player. It makes no economic sense to compete and knock the ground out from under each other’s feet…In order to displace Russian oil from the Asian markets, the Saudis would have to offer the same price as Russia offers. However, it is more profitable for Saudi Arabia to send oil to Europe, even around Africa, than to give the same discount of $10 per barrel which Russia gives to India and China.”
CURRENT PRICE QUOTES IN THE CRUDE OIL MARKET (BEFORE DISCOUNTING)
Source: https://oilprice.com/
Vzglyad concludes: “Even if Saudi Arabia gives this discount, Russia will still have nowhere to go, because we cannot supply this oil to Europe. This means that we would have to give an even bigger discount to Asian customers. Why should Saudi Arabia compete with us in the amount of this discount in order to supply oil to China and India, if they have the European market…One more point: if Saudi Arabia and Russia supply oil to Asia, who will supply oil to Europe? Then there will be a shortage of oil in Europe, the price will rise, and the Europeans will lure non–Russian oil at a high price.”
Moscow sources note that since this is the consensus calculation of the Russian oil exporters, the political and military calculation follows that agreement on terms with the Houthis and Iran is a must. “There is no place left for Israel in this calculation of Russia’s national interest”, one of the sources adds.
https://johnhelmer.net/russian-foreign- ... more-89256
******
In 2023, the Russian Federation bought $1.7 billion worth of military chips from the West
January 26, 12:42
While in Ukraine they continue to talk stupidly about washing machines and refrigerators, Russia over the past year has purchased $1.7 billion worth of chips from the United States and the EU, which can be used in military products.
Russia received more than $1.7 billion worth of Western chips in a year - Bloomberg.
As the agency found out, despite the sanctions, the country imported microchips from Europe and the United States that can be used for the production of military equipment, mainly through third countries, including China, Turkey and the UAE. We are talking about products from the American Intel Corp, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Analog Devices Inc., as well as the European Infineon Technologies AG, STMicroelectronics NV and NXP Semiconductors NV, writes Bloomberg.
And this is only for 2023. Sanctions work
PS. And we still don’t take China, where chips and controllers for military production are flowing from.
PS2. But of course we need to develop our microelectronics industry first of all.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8918939.html
Feigin was arrested in absentia. "Kashchey" was added to "Peacemaker"
January 26, 14:52
A court in Moscow arrested in absentia former lawyer Feigin, who in the fall of 2023 is on the federal wanted list for discrediting the RF Armed Forces.
Echoes of yesterday's landings.
The Chushpans contributed "Kashchey" to "Peacemaker". The fight against the popularity of “The Boy’s Word” in Ukraine continues.
In 2023, it was the most popular TV series in Ukraine.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8919095.html
"Leningrad" and "Stalingrad" for the Arctic
January 26, 18:01
Today, another nuclear-powered icebreaker of the Arktika type (project 22220) with a displacement of more than 33,000 tons, named Leningrad, was laid down.
Next year, another icebreaker of this type will be laid down - the Stalingrad.
Ships of this type will ensure long-term dominance of the Russian Federation in the Arctic due to its powerful icebreaker fleet.
Well, the names are wonderful. The anti-Soviet people are already on fire.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8919709.html
Google Translator
by John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with
For the time being, there are no official photographs of the meeting in Moscow on Thursday evening at the Russian Foreign Ministry between Mikhail Bogdanov, the deputy foreign minister and chief Russian negotiator in the Middle East and Africa, and Mohammed (Mukhameddov) Abdelsalam leading a delegation of the Ansarallah government of Yemen, known as the Houthi movement.
The absence of photographs does not mean a blackout.
Bogdanov’s communiqué said “special attention was paid to the development of tragic events in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict zone, as well as the aggravation of the situation in the Red Sea in this regard. In this context, the missile and bomb attacks on Yemen undertaken by the United States and Great Britain, which are capable of destabilizing the situation on a regional scale, were strongly condemned.”
This is the plainest signal to date of Russian backing for the southern front of the Arab war against Israel, and the link which the Houthis have made between the Israeli blockade of Gaza, the genocide of the Palestinians, and the Red Sea blockade which the Houthis have imposed on vessels owned or directed by Israeli shipowners, US naval fleet, and American-flagged and other vessels carrying military and civil cargoes to Israel or reload ammunition for future attacks on Yemen.
At the same time across Moscow, unusually large delegations of officials of the Russian Security Council, led by Nikolai Patrushev, and Ali-Akbar Ahmadian, special presidential representative and Secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, have been meeting to discuss a detailed agenda which Patrushev’s communiqué calls a “wide range of Russian-Iranian security cooperation” and “the practical implementation of the agreements reached at the highest level.”
In an open statement for reporters, Ahmadian told Patrushev: “”America’s grandeur has shattered, and today, it cannot even rally its traditional allies. A country that considers itself a superpower is engaged in war against resistance groups and the people of the region.”
The display of Russian support for the Axis of Resistance against Israel and the US is unprecedented. The Foreign Ministry and Security Council meetings confirm there is now a new definition of “terrorism” in Russian warfighting strategy, in which there is both public and secret support for Hamas, the Houthis, and other groups in Lebanon and Iraq fighting for national liberation against Israel and the US.
On the differentiation between national liberation which Russia supports, and terrorism which it condemns, click to read this.
Source: https://johnhelmer.net/
Bogdanov’s meeting with Abdelsalam was not the first high-level Russian contact with the Houthis, nor their first negotiation. The two officials had met in Moscow on July 24, 2019, when they discussed terms for ending the civil war in Yemen; Bogdanov was also meeting at the time with other Yemeni political factions. Abdelsalam said then: “The meeting discussed the most important issues related to the Yemeni policy and the steps of the national delegation [the Houthi delegation] in the Stockholm Agreement in addition to the regional crisis, in addition to the importance of the Russian role at the regional level, and its reflection on the situation in Yemen to calm the escalation and prevent further tension as Yemen represents a key point towards regional calm that will be positively reflected in the tense regional situation.”
Bogdanov met Abdelsalam again in Oman on August 30, 2019.
Above: Bogdanov (left) meeting Abdelsalam (2nd left) in Moscow on July 24, 2019.
Below: Abdelsalam meeting Bogdanov in Muscat on August 30, 2019.
So long as the agenda was limited to the Yemen civil war and the intervention of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, the Israelis were not exercised. But they are now, as the Russian Foreign Ministry announcement of Thursday evening’s negotiations caught Israeli intelligence agents and government officials by surprise. The first Israeli press reports over Thursday night cribbed from Reuters which had followed Tass in reading the Foreign Ministry communiqué; no Israeli officials were available to comment to their reporters.
The Russian-Houthi negotiations took place in parallel with the talks between the Russian Security Council and their Iranian counterparts headed by Ali-Akbar Ahmadian, head of Iran’s Security Council. Tass reported that Nikolai Patrushev had invited Ahmadian to the talks. Ahmadian issued a statement through the Iranian Embassy in Moscow to say “the Supreme National Security Council secretary hailed Iran-Russia cooperation in the fight against terrorism, particularly in Syria, saying that cooperation must continue.” By terrorism Ahmadian meant Israeli attacks on Iranian military advisers in Syria, as well as the bombing of civilians at the Kerman cemetery on January 3.
Patrushev (ring) on the left meets Ahmadian, sitting directly across the table, 2nd from right.
Here is the full text of the Bogdanov-Abdelsalam communiqué:
“On the meeting of the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for the Middle East and Africa, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Mikhail Bogdanov with a delegation of the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement
“On January 25, the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for the Middle East and Africa, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Mikhail Bogdanov received a delegation of the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement headed by Mohammed Abdelsalam.
“During the in-depth conversation, an in-depth discussion took place on the issues of a comprehensive settlement of the military-political crisis in Yemen, which has been going on for almost nine years. At the same time, the importance of increasing international efforts to create the necessary conditions for establishing a full-scale inter-Yemeni national dialogue under the auspices of the United Nations was emphasized.
“Special attention was paid to the development of tragic events in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict zone, as well as the aggravation of the situation in the Red Sea in this regard. In this context, the missile and bomb attacks on Yemen undertaken by the United States and Great Britain, which are capable of destabilizing the situation on a regional scale, were strongly condemned.”
Here is the Russian Security Council communiqué following the plenary session between Patrushev, Ahmadian and their delegations, before they broke up into working-group meetings:
“In Moscow Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev held talks with the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Ali Ahmadian” -- http://www.scrf.gov.ru/
“A wide range of Russian-Iranian security cooperation was discussed. The focus is on the interaction of the security councils, law enforcement agencies and special services of the two countries. Special attention is paid to the fight against terrorism, information security issues, problems of ensuring the economic security of Russia and Iran in the face of sanctions pressure from Western countries, as well as countering attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states. The development of a new bilateral comprehensive long-term agreement was touched upon. It was emphasized that the conclusion of this fundamental document will give a powerful impetus to the further development of mutually beneficial cooperation in all spheres.
“In addition, the conversation discussed global and regional trends, as well as the upcoming bilateral and multilateral contacts between the Security Councils of Russia and Iran in 2024. The schedule of activities of the working groups of the Security Councils of the two countries on issues of mutual interest has been agreed.
“The parties noted that relations between Russia and Iran continue to strengthen and reach a qualitatively new level across the entire spectrum of areas. The focus on the practical implementation of the agreements reached at the highest level was confirmed.”
Hours after this meeting in Moscow, but before the Houthis arrived at Bogdanov’s office in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a press conference at the United Nations in New York. Lavrov did not mention the Houthis explicitly nor did he condemn their blockade of Israeli ports, shipping and deliveries, but he did attack the Anglo-American bombings of Yemeni territory.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/
“Regarding the Red Sea,” Lavrov said, “there is a direct and illegal aggression there in violation of all international norms. Those taking part in it and who are behind this aggression are lying when they claim that this is an act of self-defence in accordance with the UN Charter. Our mission in New York has circulated a real document that reviews all the arguments put forward by the UK and the US and exposes their actions as outright robbery rather than self-defence.”
Asked about Russia’s relationship with India and the plan for an eastern maritime corridor for shipping between the two countries, Lavrov replied by emphasizing Russia’s strategic priority is to defend against US and NATO attacks, including economic warfare against its oil exports. “A question of this kind calls for a lengthy answer. To put it briefly, just like most countries on the Eurasian continent, Russia needs new corridors as a way of cutting logistics costs and ensuring faster deliveries compared to using the Suez Canal or sending ships around Africa. Everyone is interested in creating these transport and logistics chains and ensuring that they are independent from the West and those who regularly abuse their standing in global trade and along the shipping routes.
“There is the North-South corridor that ensures quick, effective and reliable shipments from the Baltic Sea to the Persian Gulf. There are plans to link Russian ports in the Far East with India. There is also an initiative called Europe–Middle East–India, backed by western Europeans. For us, the North-South corridor remains a priority and India stands to directly benefit from it. This route will cross Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran and go all the way to India. Pakistan is also interested.
“There has been much talk about this lately. India is looking at the Northern Sea Route with a lot of interest. The same goes for China. Considering global warming and the fact that it is expected to become operational year-around, the Northern Sea Route can directly compete against all other routes since it cuts shipping time by a third compared to the Suez Canal, to give you one example. We have been discussing it with our Indian colleagues but, of course, not at the Foreign Ministry level. The ministers of economy, finance, transport and our prime ministers are working on this matter. This is one of the most promising tasks in terms of our regional development.”
Source: https://splash247.com
Moscow sources say the official communiqués indicate the multi-track approach Russian strategy is adopting, and speak for themselves, requiring no comment at this stage
Vzglyad, the semi-official Moscow website for security analysis, which has followed a pro-Israel, anti-Hamas line since October 7, reported on January 24 that their sources are confident that Russian oil shipments to India and China, through the Suez Canal and Red Sea, remain secure from attack by the Houthis, and also that there will be no behind-the-scenes interference from Saudi Arabia. Without saying as much, the Vzglyad reporter conceded this is only possible because there have been direct Russian agreements with the Houthis and Iran.
Source: https://vz.ru/
“Russia has not changed logistics at all,” Vzglyad reported a source, Igor Yushkov, an analyst of the National Energy Security Fund. “Ships with our oil are still sailing through the Red Sea past Yemen, and we will most likely be the last to leave the Suez Canal. Russia will [sic] obviously try to negotiate with Iran to coordinate the passage of Russian tankers through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea.”
“In general, Russia, of course, benefits if all the other oil producers are forced to send their ships around Africa via the Cape of Good Hope, while Russia itself retains the shorter, previous route through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea…Because the logistics will become more expensive for all other companies, these costs will be included in the cost of oil, and so that will grow. Whereas Russia’s transportation costs will remain the same, and it will then be possible to sell Russia’s oil more expensively. As for Saudi Arabia, Russia has many more points of common interest with it than differences. Therefore, the West’s bet on a contest between the two countries over the entire situation with navigation in the Red Sea is premature.”
Premature is official Russian-speak for wishful thinking.
Boris Rozhin, chief of the Colonel Cassad internet platform and one of the leading military analysts in Moscow, noted on the evening of January 25: “Since the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement began its operations against shipping related to Israel, the volume of cargo traffic through the Suez Canal has decreased by about 85%. Navigation on the Suez Canal has almost completely stopped after the attacks in the Red Sea. This has a serious impact on the Israeli economy.” Rozhin, who has been writing on the Yemen conflict for several years, has not yet commented on the Houthi visit to Moscow.
According to Vzglyad’s source, “I don’t see any serious reduction in Russian oil supplies to India and China. Moreover, by itself Russia is now reducing production and exports; these are included in the new commitments under the agreement with OPEC+. At the same time, Russia is still the largest supplier for both India and China. Therefore, it is not worth saying that we have left these markets or someone has pushed us out… There are no problems with the sale of Russian oil, and it is unclear why Saudi Arabia would squeeze Russia out of the Asian market. In the previous two years, we have swapped markets — the Saudis got the European market after Russia left. At the same time, Saudi Arabia is still represented in Asia, where Russia has now become a strong player. It makes no economic sense to compete and knock the ground out from under each other’s feet…In order to displace Russian oil from the Asian markets, the Saudis would have to offer the same price as Russia offers. However, it is more profitable for Saudi Arabia to send oil to Europe, even around Africa, than to give the same discount of $10 per barrel which Russia gives to India and China.”
CURRENT PRICE QUOTES IN THE CRUDE OIL MARKET (BEFORE DISCOUNTING)
Source: https://oilprice.com/
Vzglyad concludes: “Even if Saudi Arabia gives this discount, Russia will still have nowhere to go, because we cannot supply this oil to Europe. This means that we would have to give an even bigger discount to Asian customers. Why should Saudi Arabia compete with us in the amount of this discount in order to supply oil to China and India, if they have the European market…One more point: if Saudi Arabia and Russia supply oil to Asia, who will supply oil to Europe? Then there will be a shortage of oil in Europe, the price will rise, and the Europeans will lure non–Russian oil at a high price.”
Moscow sources note that since this is the consensus calculation of the Russian oil exporters, the political and military calculation follows that agreement on terms with the Houthis and Iran is a must. “There is no place left for Israel in this calculation of Russia’s national interest”, one of the sources adds.
https://johnhelmer.net/russian-foreign- ... more-89256
******
In 2023, the Russian Federation bought $1.7 billion worth of military chips from the West
January 26, 12:42
While in Ukraine they continue to talk stupidly about washing machines and refrigerators, Russia over the past year has purchased $1.7 billion worth of chips from the United States and the EU, which can be used in military products.
Russia received more than $1.7 billion worth of Western chips in a year - Bloomberg.
As the agency found out, despite the sanctions, the country imported microchips from Europe and the United States that can be used for the production of military equipment, mainly through third countries, including China, Turkey and the UAE. We are talking about products from the American Intel Corp, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Analog Devices Inc., as well as the European Infineon Technologies AG, STMicroelectronics NV and NXP Semiconductors NV, writes Bloomberg.
And this is only for 2023. Sanctions work
PS. And we still don’t take China, where chips and controllers for military production are flowing from.
PS2. But of course we need to develop our microelectronics industry first of all.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8918939.html
Feigin was arrested in absentia. "Kashchey" was added to "Peacemaker"
January 26, 14:52
A court in Moscow arrested in absentia former lawyer Feigin, who in the fall of 2023 is on the federal wanted list for discrediting the RF Armed Forces.
Echoes of yesterday's landings.
The Chushpans contributed "Kashchey" to "Peacemaker". The fight against the popularity of “The Boy’s Word” in Ukraine continues.
In 2023, it was the most popular TV series in Ukraine.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8919095.html
"Leningrad" and "Stalingrad" for the Arctic
January 26, 18:01
Today, another nuclear-powered icebreaker of the Arktika type (project 22220) with a displacement of more than 33,000 tons, named Leningrad, was laid down.
Next year, another icebreaker of this type will be laid down - the Stalingrad.
Ships of this type will ensure long-term dominance of the Russian Federation in the Arctic due to its powerful icebreaker fleet.
Well, the names are wonderful. The anti-Soviet people are already on fire.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8919709.html
Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Russia today
Don’t Read Too Deeply Into A Russian Parliamentarian’s Proposal To Base Nukes In Latin America
ANDREW KORYBKO
JAN 30, 2024
The Deputy Chairman of the Defense Committee’s proposal is expected to be more of a benefit to Russian soft power than a liability to its interests or those of the three possible hosts that he mentioned despite nothing likely coming of this idea.
Deputy Chairman of the Duma’s Defense Committee and leader of the Rodina party Alexei Zhuravlev told local media that he’s long been in favor of their country basing nuclear missiles and associated submarines in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. His proposal came in response to the US’ reported plans to base its own nukes in the UK, which he said won’t change the military-political situation since that country already has its own such weapons.
Nobody should read too deeply into his proposal, however, since it’s unlikely to happen. For starters, Russian nuclear submarines don’t have to be based in the Caribbean for their second-strike capabilities to be credible, so formalizing their presence in a regional port is unnecessary and could be provocative. This leads to the second point about how nobody should assume that those countries want to risk riling the US in the first place when they’re already struggling to defend themselves from its subversive plots.
From there, the third point is that the US would certainly respond in a quasi-kinetic way by escalating its existing Hybrid Wars on whichever of those previously mentioned countries agrees to this in order to maximally pressure them into reconsidering. After all, it’s unimaginable that a deal of this sort could be agreed to without the US first catching wind of it before the submarines and/or missiles are permanently deployed to the Western Hemisphere.
Fourth, even if one of them were to agree to this for whatever reason and the US inexplicably doesn’t find out about it until after the submarines and/or missiles arrive there, then it could just easily replicate the Cuban Missile Crisis gameplan by blockading that country and threatening to invade. The final point is that Russian policymakers don’t have the political will to risk World War III over this, hence why they’re disinterested in this proposal since it’ll lead to another withdrawal, which isn’t in their interests.
Nevertheless, Zhuralev’s proposal still serve the purpose of advancing some of his country’s soft power interests by tickling the imagination of its regional supporters and reaffirming their perception of Russia as the US’ chief geopolitical rival nowadays, which is one of the reasons why so many folks there like it. At the same time, however, his proposal risks being exploited by anti-Russian hawks to justify escalating the US’ existing Hybrid Wars on Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela on a faux deterrence basis.
All things considered, the US’ military capabilities are more limited nowadays than they’ve been in recent memory after it depleted a lot of its stockpiles for Ukraine’s sake over the past two years, which was one of the reasons why Venezuela made its move in Essequibo late last year as explained here. The US is also busy trying to simultaneously contain Russia, China, and Iran, with there being a real chance that the regional Israeli/US-Iranian proxy war escalates after the lethal attack against Tower 22 in Jordan.
For these reasons, Zhuralev’s proposal is expected to be more of a benefit to Russian soft power than a liability to its regional interests or those of its three partners that he mentioned. The most that the US might do is encourage some of its media to fearmonger about Russia’s speculative plans, but the resultant information warfare products won’t tangibly change anything either way. At the end of the day, the US has limited means for escalating its Hybrid Wars in the region, which bodes well for multipolarity.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/dont-rea ... -a-russian
(The weight and hope invested in 'multipolarity 'defies the logic of Lenin's 'Imperialism'. As long as there's capitalism it will inevitably produce imperialism. Sure, it will be better than US hegemony, but not by much, as imperialist competition between nations will resume without the heavy hand of the US to usurping imperial benefits unto itself. Which is not to deny it's undoubted benefits, but this enthusiasm should be tempered. It will be a rough but necessary ride into the future.)
*******
Vladimir Putin is...
... on the suicide watch, from worries, while most of Russia's Security Council members bite their nails sitting on the edges of their seats observing a riveting discussion between Finland's two Presidential candidates who decide...
If Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to congratulate Finland's future president, the phone would be buzzing for a long time. "I wouldn't answer. Putin would use it as some kind of propaganda. At the moment, we have no relations with Russia, Alexander Stubb replies. Unlike Stubb, Pekka Haavisto would pick up the handset. "Every time a head of state calls, they answer. I wouldn't give the phone to the cleaner at the presidential palace. I would reply and accept congratulations. I would not be having a debate on political substance without coordination. This is the opinion of Alexander Stubb (Conservative Party) and Pekka Haavisto (constituency association, Green Party), who were runners-up in the presidential elections. The candidates met for the first time in the second round in Studio A on Monday night. In the live broadcast, Stubb and Haavisto also answered questions sent by the audience. The question related to Putin's call was one of nearly a thousand audience questions received by Studio A.
What can I say, I am very happy for Finns for getting their priorities straight, but I have been to Finland--it doesn't look good in short to mid-term perspective. Per the long-term? Doesn't look good either, judging by the questions from audience. In related news, this issue, I am sure, will be brought up to Putin's attention who will discover soon that he should call Finland's President-elect, not that he wants to or has any intentions to do so. But those hot Finnish guys--they are so persuasive.
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/01 ... in-is.html
*********
The situation in Moldova for January 22 - 28, 2024
January 28, 2024
Rybar
Military escalation and Transnistria
Rally in Transnistria against economic pressure from the Moldovan authorities
Another rally against economic pressure from the authorities of Moldova took place in Transnistria , in which about 50 thousand people took part.
Pridnestrovians are protesting against double duties for economic agents from the PMR. The money goes to the Moldovan budget, and the damage to the unrecognized republic could amount to about $16 million, which will lead to higher prices and hit the well-being of Pridnestrovians.
With similar blackmail, Maia Sandu’s office is trying to “reintegrate” Transnistria, violating all international agreements on the PMR at the instigation of the British.
Ban on entry into Moldova with a Transnistrian passport
It was announced in Chisinau that entry into the territory of Moldova with a Transnistrian passport is now illegal, thereby continuing measures of pressure on residents of the unrecognized republic.
Military exercises in Romania
On January 14-26, a group of Moldovan military personnel conducted exercises with the Romanian 15th mechanized brigade Podul Înalt. The maneuvers took place at the Romanian Smyrdan base not far from the border with Moldova.
Information on the deployment of F-16 aircraft in Moldova
The Ministry of Defense of Moldova denied information from social networks about the deployment of F-16 fighters in the republic, which the Netherlands will supply so-called. Ukraine. They also talked about the airfield in Marculesti. However, it is officially known that combat fighters from the Netherlands are sent to neighboring Romania.
Participation of Moldova in the contact group to support the so-called. Ukraine
The Ministry of Defense of Moldova reports that Minister Anatoly Nosatiy took part in the first meeting of the so-called contact group on military assistance in 2024. Ukraine, which was attended by more than 50 countries - NATO members and allies.
Earlier, the Ambassador of Moldova in Moscow was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry for clarification regarding information about the training of Armed Forces personnel on the territory of a neutral republic.
Training of sappers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Moldova
The commander of the Army of Moldova, Eduard Okhladchuk, presented certificates of completion of training to the next group of sappers from the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Foreign policy
Joining the “vertical gas corridor”
Moldova, etc. Ukraine joined the “Vertical Gas Corridor” project to diversify energy sources and oust Russia from the gas market.
The project appeared in 2014, when Greece, Bulgaria and Romania signed an agreement on the formation of an LNG supply route, and the Greek port of Alexandroupolis became the key hub , from where American fuel should be supplied to the countries of Eastern and Central Europe.
However, for now, direct supplies of Russian gas to Greece are carried out through the main gas pipeline, and reverse is possible in a small volume. For now, it is more profitable for Greek companies to resell the Russian gas they purchased. Moreover, last year Gazprom increased exports to the country to the maximum since 2018 and became the main gas supplier to Greece, covering 47% of all Greek supplies.
Gagauzia's appeal to Russia for help
Information appeared in the media that on January 17, the head of the Department of the Agro-Industrial Complex of Gagauzia, Sergei Ibrishim , sent a letter to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
In the letter, Ibrishim asks to send humanitarian aid to the autonomy for local entrepreneurs in the form of fertilizers. In addition, the official asks the Russian Federation to abolish excise taxes and customs duties for products from Gagauzia in connection with Moldova’s unilateral severance of economic relations within the CIS.
Denunciation of agreements in the CIS
The Government of Moldova approved the denunciation of eight more agreements within the CIS: on the principles of providing the armed forces of the CIS member states with weapons, etc.; about military observer groups and collective peacekeeping forces in the CIS; on cooperation in technical support of competent authorities in the fight against terrorism and extremism; on a coordinated policy in the field of natural gas transit; on cooperation in ensuring energy efficiency and energy saving; on cooperation in the fight against diabetes and HIV; on cooperation in the field of education in the field of electricity.
Interior furnishings
Start of work of the “Center for Combating Disinformation”
In January, Moldova will host the first meeting of the “Center for Strategic Communication and Combating Disinformation,” created on the initiative of President Maia Sandu to combat Russian influence.
One of the members of the Center, Petru Macovei , stated that the task of the body is “to combat the influence of Russian propaganda on the minds of Moldovan citizens.”
Macovei also heads the Soros NGO Association of Independent Press of Moldova , which tries to “protect” Moldovans from “false news about the Russian-Ukrainian war, NATO and the EU.”
The “Center for Combating Disinformation” is controlled by the Parliament of Moldova, which approves its director and 11 members for a period of five years. The budget for 2024 allocated 20 million lei ($1.1 million) for its work. The Center was headed by former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Anna Revenko .
Change of the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and creation of the Ministry of European Integration
Nicolae Popescu resigned from the post of Foreign Minister, declaring the fulfillment of his main task - the republic achieving the status of a candidate for accession to the EU.
The new head of Moldovan diplomacy was Mihail Popsoi , a member of the ruling PAS party and the parliamentary commission on foreign policy and European integration, a citizen of Romania.
Previously, Popshoi worked at the US Embassy in Chisinau, at the NATO office in Moldova, and also headed the Soros Foundation in Moldova (Soros-Moldova).
Popshoy has already managed to show up at the winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), demanding investment in the so-called. Ukraine confiscated Russian assets.
The government of Moldova is also creating a separate Ministry of European Integration, which will be headed by Secretary of State of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Kristina Gerasimova , who worked in anti-Russian foundations, namely in the British Chatham House and the German Robert Bosch Center . Gerasimova will be the main negotiator with the EU on the European integration of Moldova.
Romanization of Moldovan power
The National Bank of Moldova approved the candidacy of Romanian banker Andrei-Liviu Stamatian as head of the management committee of Energbank.
Previously, former Romanian Finance Minister Anca Dragu was appointed head of the National Bank .
Preparation for the referendum on European integration and the attitude of young people towards the EU
President Maia Sandu has begun consultations on the referendum on Moldova's accession to the EU with representatives of civil society.
At the same time, the Euronews channel released a report that not all Moldovan youth want to join the EU.
https://rybar.ru/obstanovka-v-moldavii- ... 2024-goda/
NATO military activity in Lithuania in January 2024
January 27, 2024
Rybar
With the onset of the new year, it became even more obvious that in Lithuania they are not only actively participating in Russophobic rhetoric and military exercises on the border with Russia and Belarus, but are also seriously preparing for armed confrontation.
Brave Griffin 24-I
On January 15-18 , a military exercise of the motorized infantry brigade “Zemaitija” of the Lithuanian Armed Forces took place in Western Lithuania (Klaipėda, Tauragė, Šilutski and Šilala districts) . The goal is to test the brigade's ability to redeploy headquarters and units to given areas. At the same time, the units were tested to bring them to various degrees of combat readiness and the functioning of communications in difficult conditions.
The exercises were attended by subordinate battalions and companies of the Samogitia infantry brigade, the 3rd and 6th detachments of the voluntary regional security forces of the Lithuanian Armed Forces, and a military police unit.
Aršus vilkas 24-1
On January 22-26 , international maneuvers of air gunner units Aršus vilkas 24-1 (“Furious Wolf 24-1”) were conducted in the Panevezys and Klaipeda regions (central and western part of Lithuania) . Organized by the NATO Battle Group in Estonia, the exercise aims to train the ability of multinational Lithuanian, US Air Force and NATO battalions stationed in the Baltics and Poland to plan and coordinate close air support and control air attacks.
In the Panevezys region, combat aircraft from the NATO mission to protect the airspace of the Baltic states, helicopters of the Lithuanian Armed Forces and an MQ-9 Reaper UAV were involved.
In the Klaipeda region (taking into account its proximity to the sea), actions to call and adjust the fire of naval vessels were practiced.
During the exercises on land, military personnel will operate using military vehicles in both daylight and darkness.
Sniper pair training
Starting January 28, training for sniper pairs is planned at the Gaiziūnai military training ground (central part of Lithuania). Only active members of the paramilitary organization “Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union” participate, 2 shifts of 50 shooters each, working distances from 100 m to 1 km.
It is expected that similar events will be held on February 18 and 25, March 10 in the specified area.
Tactical medicine course
On January 15-19 , an international course in tactical medicine (Tactical Combat Casualty Care, TCCC) was held in Kaunas (central Lithuania) on the basis of the 2nd detachment of volunteer regional security forces . The participation of representatives from Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Norway, Georgia and Sweden was noted.
Military-political events
Officially at STRIKFORNATO
On January 10, the Lithuanian side joined the activities of the headquarters of NATO Striking and Support Forces (STRIKFORNATO). Previously, they had an official observer; starting this year, Lithuania became a full member of the headquarters.
Chairmanship of BALTRON
On January 12 , a ceremony for the change of command of the Baltic Naval Squadron (BALTRON) took place in Klapeda . Lithuanian Lieutenant Commander Karolis Lileikis took over the powers from his Latvian colleague, Commander Jānis Ause.
The military-ship formation of the Baltic countries BALTRON was created in 1998, and currently the unit includes ships of the Lithuanian and Latvian navies assigned to it. This squadron is a rapid reaction unit of the Naval Forces of the Baltic countries, one of the main tasks of which is to conduct operations to search for and neutralize mines and unexploded ordnance. At the same time, this connection serves as a platform for preparation for participation in NATO formations.
NATO Military Committee meeting
On January 17-18 in Brussels, the commander of the Lithuanian Armed Forces, General V. Rupšis, took part in a meeting of the NATO military committee. Issues of defense of the alliance countries, needs for the development of military potential for 2024, and problems of air and missile defense were discussed. A separate meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council was held, during which the current situation in the special operation zone and its further support from the alliance and allies were discussed.
Infantry Division with Leopard 2
On January 23, during a meeting of the Lithuanian National Defense Council, the Ministry of Regional Defense presented proposals for the creation of an infantry division, reinforced by Leopard 2 tank platforms. Taking into account the development of this formation, it will be necessary to create an artillery regiment, and reform existing military units (engineer and air defense battalions into regiments) . Hussar Battalion named after. Mindaugas may be reformed into a tank battalion. The corresponding plans imply an increase in the limit on the number of personnel (from 20,840 to 29,380), including the conscription component (from 4,240 to 7,040).
Meeting of Baltic Defense Ministers
On January 19, at a meeting in Riga, the defense ministers of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia signed a protocol on strengthening cooperation in the development of deterrence (countermobility) on the border with unfriendly countries (meaning Russia and Belarus). An agreement on the general purchase of HIMARS MLRS was also signed.
During the meeting, Lithuania took over from Latvia the chairmanship in the format of military cooperation between the Baltic states for 2024.
New hangar for helicopters
On January 9, the opening ceremony of a helicopter hangar took place at the Zokniai air base (a suburb of Siauliai, northern Lithuania) . The facility includes premises for storage and maintenance of equipment, as well as administrative premises with workplaces for personnel. It was announced that the hangar is intended for UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters purchased by Lithuania from the United States: two units will arrive in 2025, two more in 2026.
Ukraine
Classes for APU instructors
On January 16, at the base of the Lithuanian Military Academy, classes were held with instructors from the Odessa Military Academy on the topic of organizing combat operations at the company and brigade levels. Two Georgian military representatives also appear in photographs from the event.
Leading the demining coalition
On January 11 , the first meeting of the coalition of forces for demining the so-called mine took place at the Ministry of Regional Defense of Lithuania. Ukraine under the leadership of the Lithuanian side. Representatives from 19 countries took part, with another six attending remotely. Future plans and directions of work were discussed.
New group of instructors
The Lithuanian Armed Forces announced the beginning of a cycle of military training for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as part of the international operation Interflex in the UK. The 4th group of instructors left. The Lithuanian Armed Forces continue to participate in the EU mission EUMAM Ukraine (under the general leadership of Germany), which will train 1.6 thousand soldiers. Also, about 90 courses are planned on the territory of Lithuania, during which 1.6 thousand Ukrainian military personnel will be trained. And during the Interflex mission, the training of 400 soldiers was announced. In total, in 2024, the Lithuanian side plans to train 3.5 thousand Ukrainians.
January 12 at the Lithuanian Armed Forces combat training center. A. Ramanauskas hosted a ceremony to send 18 instructors who will train military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine over the next 5 months.
It is known that in 2023, on the territory of Lithuania, citizens of the so-called. Ukrainians were trained as international instructors, firing supervisors, L70 anti-aircraft gun operators, military police operations instructors, 120mm mortar squad leaders, and infantry squad leaders.
Help the Ukrainian Armed Forces
On January 23, a meeting of the contact group on the so-called Ukraine in the Ramstein format. At it, the Lithuanian side expressed its readiness to provide further support to the Kiev regime. It was announced that the January assistance package from Lithuania is estimated at 22.3 million euros. It is planned to provide the Ukrainian Armed Forces with ammunition, UAVs, generators, detonation systems, and warm clothing.
It is clear that the Balts will continue to support Ukraine and prepare for military action on the borders with the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. At the same time, the scale of these maneuvers grows each time, and with it the number of trained soldiers increases.
https://rybar.ru/voennaya-aktivnost-nat ... nvar-2024/
Google Translator
ANDREW KORYBKO
JAN 30, 2024
The Deputy Chairman of the Defense Committee’s proposal is expected to be more of a benefit to Russian soft power than a liability to its interests or those of the three possible hosts that he mentioned despite nothing likely coming of this idea.
Deputy Chairman of the Duma’s Defense Committee and leader of the Rodina party Alexei Zhuravlev told local media that he’s long been in favor of their country basing nuclear missiles and associated submarines in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. His proposal came in response to the US’ reported plans to base its own nukes in the UK, which he said won’t change the military-political situation since that country already has its own such weapons.
Nobody should read too deeply into his proposal, however, since it’s unlikely to happen. For starters, Russian nuclear submarines don’t have to be based in the Caribbean for their second-strike capabilities to be credible, so formalizing their presence in a regional port is unnecessary and could be provocative. This leads to the second point about how nobody should assume that those countries want to risk riling the US in the first place when they’re already struggling to defend themselves from its subversive plots.
From there, the third point is that the US would certainly respond in a quasi-kinetic way by escalating its existing Hybrid Wars on whichever of those previously mentioned countries agrees to this in order to maximally pressure them into reconsidering. After all, it’s unimaginable that a deal of this sort could be agreed to without the US first catching wind of it before the submarines and/or missiles are permanently deployed to the Western Hemisphere.
Fourth, even if one of them were to agree to this for whatever reason and the US inexplicably doesn’t find out about it until after the submarines and/or missiles arrive there, then it could just easily replicate the Cuban Missile Crisis gameplan by blockading that country and threatening to invade. The final point is that Russian policymakers don’t have the political will to risk World War III over this, hence why they’re disinterested in this proposal since it’ll lead to another withdrawal, which isn’t in their interests.
Nevertheless, Zhuralev’s proposal still serve the purpose of advancing some of his country’s soft power interests by tickling the imagination of its regional supporters and reaffirming their perception of Russia as the US’ chief geopolitical rival nowadays, which is one of the reasons why so many folks there like it. At the same time, however, his proposal risks being exploited by anti-Russian hawks to justify escalating the US’ existing Hybrid Wars on Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela on a faux deterrence basis.
All things considered, the US’ military capabilities are more limited nowadays than they’ve been in recent memory after it depleted a lot of its stockpiles for Ukraine’s sake over the past two years, which was one of the reasons why Venezuela made its move in Essequibo late last year as explained here. The US is also busy trying to simultaneously contain Russia, China, and Iran, with there being a real chance that the regional Israeli/US-Iranian proxy war escalates after the lethal attack against Tower 22 in Jordan.
For these reasons, Zhuralev’s proposal is expected to be more of a benefit to Russian soft power than a liability to its regional interests or those of its three partners that he mentioned. The most that the US might do is encourage some of its media to fearmonger about Russia’s speculative plans, but the resultant information warfare products won’t tangibly change anything either way. At the end of the day, the US has limited means for escalating its Hybrid Wars in the region, which bodes well for multipolarity.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/dont-rea ... -a-russian
(The weight and hope invested in 'multipolarity 'defies the logic of Lenin's 'Imperialism'. As long as there's capitalism it will inevitably produce imperialism. Sure, it will be better than US hegemony, but not by much, as imperialist competition between nations will resume without the heavy hand of the US to usurping imperial benefits unto itself. Which is not to deny it's undoubted benefits, but this enthusiasm should be tempered. It will be a rough but necessary ride into the future.)
*******
Vladimir Putin is...
... on the suicide watch, from worries, while most of Russia's Security Council members bite their nails sitting on the edges of their seats observing a riveting discussion between Finland's two Presidential candidates who decide...
If Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to congratulate Finland's future president, the phone would be buzzing for a long time. "I wouldn't answer. Putin would use it as some kind of propaganda. At the moment, we have no relations with Russia, Alexander Stubb replies. Unlike Stubb, Pekka Haavisto would pick up the handset. "Every time a head of state calls, they answer. I wouldn't give the phone to the cleaner at the presidential palace. I would reply and accept congratulations. I would not be having a debate on political substance without coordination. This is the opinion of Alexander Stubb (Conservative Party) and Pekka Haavisto (constituency association, Green Party), who were runners-up in the presidential elections. The candidates met for the first time in the second round in Studio A on Monday night. In the live broadcast, Stubb and Haavisto also answered questions sent by the audience. The question related to Putin's call was one of nearly a thousand audience questions received by Studio A.
What can I say, I am very happy for Finns for getting their priorities straight, but I have been to Finland--it doesn't look good in short to mid-term perspective. Per the long-term? Doesn't look good either, judging by the questions from audience. In related news, this issue, I am sure, will be brought up to Putin's attention who will discover soon that he should call Finland's President-elect, not that he wants to or has any intentions to do so. But those hot Finnish guys--they are so persuasive.
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/01 ... in-is.html
*********
The situation in Moldova for January 22 - 28, 2024
January 28, 2024
Rybar
Military escalation and Transnistria
Rally in Transnistria against economic pressure from the Moldovan authorities
Another rally against economic pressure from the authorities of Moldova took place in Transnistria , in which about 50 thousand people took part.
Pridnestrovians are protesting against double duties for economic agents from the PMR. The money goes to the Moldovan budget, and the damage to the unrecognized republic could amount to about $16 million, which will lead to higher prices and hit the well-being of Pridnestrovians.
With similar blackmail, Maia Sandu’s office is trying to “reintegrate” Transnistria, violating all international agreements on the PMR at the instigation of the British.
Ban on entry into Moldova with a Transnistrian passport
It was announced in Chisinau that entry into the territory of Moldova with a Transnistrian passport is now illegal, thereby continuing measures of pressure on residents of the unrecognized republic.
Military exercises in Romania
On January 14-26, a group of Moldovan military personnel conducted exercises with the Romanian 15th mechanized brigade Podul Înalt. The maneuvers took place at the Romanian Smyrdan base not far from the border with Moldova.
Information on the deployment of F-16 aircraft in Moldova
The Ministry of Defense of Moldova denied information from social networks about the deployment of F-16 fighters in the republic, which the Netherlands will supply so-called. Ukraine. They also talked about the airfield in Marculesti. However, it is officially known that combat fighters from the Netherlands are sent to neighboring Romania.
Participation of Moldova in the contact group to support the so-called. Ukraine
The Ministry of Defense of Moldova reports that Minister Anatoly Nosatiy took part in the first meeting of the so-called contact group on military assistance in 2024. Ukraine, which was attended by more than 50 countries - NATO members and allies.
Earlier, the Ambassador of Moldova in Moscow was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry for clarification regarding information about the training of Armed Forces personnel on the territory of a neutral republic.
Training of sappers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Moldova
The commander of the Army of Moldova, Eduard Okhladchuk, presented certificates of completion of training to the next group of sappers from the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Foreign policy
Joining the “vertical gas corridor”
Moldova, etc. Ukraine joined the “Vertical Gas Corridor” project to diversify energy sources and oust Russia from the gas market.
The project appeared in 2014, when Greece, Bulgaria and Romania signed an agreement on the formation of an LNG supply route, and the Greek port of Alexandroupolis became the key hub , from where American fuel should be supplied to the countries of Eastern and Central Europe.
However, for now, direct supplies of Russian gas to Greece are carried out through the main gas pipeline, and reverse is possible in a small volume. For now, it is more profitable for Greek companies to resell the Russian gas they purchased. Moreover, last year Gazprom increased exports to the country to the maximum since 2018 and became the main gas supplier to Greece, covering 47% of all Greek supplies.
Gagauzia's appeal to Russia for help
Information appeared in the media that on January 17, the head of the Department of the Agro-Industrial Complex of Gagauzia, Sergei Ibrishim , sent a letter to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
In the letter, Ibrishim asks to send humanitarian aid to the autonomy for local entrepreneurs in the form of fertilizers. In addition, the official asks the Russian Federation to abolish excise taxes and customs duties for products from Gagauzia in connection with Moldova’s unilateral severance of economic relations within the CIS.
Denunciation of agreements in the CIS
The Government of Moldova approved the denunciation of eight more agreements within the CIS: on the principles of providing the armed forces of the CIS member states with weapons, etc.; about military observer groups and collective peacekeeping forces in the CIS; on cooperation in technical support of competent authorities in the fight against terrorism and extremism; on a coordinated policy in the field of natural gas transit; on cooperation in ensuring energy efficiency and energy saving; on cooperation in the fight against diabetes and HIV; on cooperation in the field of education in the field of electricity.
Interior furnishings
Start of work of the “Center for Combating Disinformation”
In January, Moldova will host the first meeting of the “Center for Strategic Communication and Combating Disinformation,” created on the initiative of President Maia Sandu to combat Russian influence.
One of the members of the Center, Petru Macovei , stated that the task of the body is “to combat the influence of Russian propaganda on the minds of Moldovan citizens.”
Macovei also heads the Soros NGO Association of Independent Press of Moldova , which tries to “protect” Moldovans from “false news about the Russian-Ukrainian war, NATO and the EU.”
The “Center for Combating Disinformation” is controlled by the Parliament of Moldova, which approves its director and 11 members for a period of five years. The budget for 2024 allocated 20 million lei ($1.1 million) for its work. The Center was headed by former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Anna Revenko .
Change of the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and creation of the Ministry of European Integration
Nicolae Popescu resigned from the post of Foreign Minister, declaring the fulfillment of his main task - the republic achieving the status of a candidate for accession to the EU.
The new head of Moldovan diplomacy was Mihail Popsoi , a member of the ruling PAS party and the parliamentary commission on foreign policy and European integration, a citizen of Romania.
Previously, Popshoi worked at the US Embassy in Chisinau, at the NATO office in Moldova, and also headed the Soros Foundation in Moldova (Soros-Moldova).
Popshoy has already managed to show up at the winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), demanding investment in the so-called. Ukraine confiscated Russian assets.
The government of Moldova is also creating a separate Ministry of European Integration, which will be headed by Secretary of State of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Kristina Gerasimova , who worked in anti-Russian foundations, namely in the British Chatham House and the German Robert Bosch Center . Gerasimova will be the main negotiator with the EU on the European integration of Moldova.
Romanization of Moldovan power
The National Bank of Moldova approved the candidacy of Romanian banker Andrei-Liviu Stamatian as head of the management committee of Energbank.
Previously, former Romanian Finance Minister Anca Dragu was appointed head of the National Bank .
Preparation for the referendum on European integration and the attitude of young people towards the EU
President Maia Sandu has begun consultations on the referendum on Moldova's accession to the EU with representatives of civil society.
At the same time, the Euronews channel released a report that not all Moldovan youth want to join the EU.
https://rybar.ru/obstanovka-v-moldavii- ... 2024-goda/
NATO military activity in Lithuania in January 2024
January 27, 2024
Rybar
With the onset of the new year, it became even more obvious that in Lithuania they are not only actively participating in Russophobic rhetoric and military exercises on the border with Russia and Belarus, but are also seriously preparing for armed confrontation.
Brave Griffin 24-I
On January 15-18 , a military exercise of the motorized infantry brigade “Zemaitija” of the Lithuanian Armed Forces took place in Western Lithuania (Klaipėda, Tauragė, Šilutski and Šilala districts) . The goal is to test the brigade's ability to redeploy headquarters and units to given areas. At the same time, the units were tested to bring them to various degrees of combat readiness and the functioning of communications in difficult conditions.
The exercises were attended by subordinate battalions and companies of the Samogitia infantry brigade, the 3rd and 6th detachments of the voluntary regional security forces of the Lithuanian Armed Forces, and a military police unit.
Aršus vilkas 24-1
On January 22-26 , international maneuvers of air gunner units Aršus vilkas 24-1 (“Furious Wolf 24-1”) were conducted in the Panevezys and Klaipeda regions (central and western part of Lithuania) . Organized by the NATO Battle Group in Estonia, the exercise aims to train the ability of multinational Lithuanian, US Air Force and NATO battalions stationed in the Baltics and Poland to plan and coordinate close air support and control air attacks.
In the Panevezys region, combat aircraft from the NATO mission to protect the airspace of the Baltic states, helicopters of the Lithuanian Armed Forces and an MQ-9 Reaper UAV were involved.
In the Klaipeda region (taking into account its proximity to the sea), actions to call and adjust the fire of naval vessels were practiced.
During the exercises on land, military personnel will operate using military vehicles in both daylight and darkness.
Sniper pair training
Starting January 28, training for sniper pairs is planned at the Gaiziūnai military training ground (central part of Lithuania). Only active members of the paramilitary organization “Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union” participate, 2 shifts of 50 shooters each, working distances from 100 m to 1 km.
It is expected that similar events will be held on February 18 and 25, March 10 in the specified area.
Tactical medicine course
On January 15-19 , an international course in tactical medicine (Tactical Combat Casualty Care, TCCC) was held in Kaunas (central Lithuania) on the basis of the 2nd detachment of volunteer regional security forces . The participation of representatives from Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Norway, Georgia and Sweden was noted.
Military-political events
Officially at STRIKFORNATO
On January 10, the Lithuanian side joined the activities of the headquarters of NATO Striking and Support Forces (STRIKFORNATO). Previously, they had an official observer; starting this year, Lithuania became a full member of the headquarters.
Chairmanship of BALTRON
On January 12 , a ceremony for the change of command of the Baltic Naval Squadron (BALTRON) took place in Klapeda . Lithuanian Lieutenant Commander Karolis Lileikis took over the powers from his Latvian colleague, Commander Jānis Ause.
The military-ship formation of the Baltic countries BALTRON was created in 1998, and currently the unit includes ships of the Lithuanian and Latvian navies assigned to it. This squadron is a rapid reaction unit of the Naval Forces of the Baltic countries, one of the main tasks of which is to conduct operations to search for and neutralize mines and unexploded ordnance. At the same time, this connection serves as a platform for preparation for participation in NATO formations.
NATO Military Committee meeting
On January 17-18 in Brussels, the commander of the Lithuanian Armed Forces, General V. Rupšis, took part in a meeting of the NATO military committee. Issues of defense of the alliance countries, needs for the development of military potential for 2024, and problems of air and missile defense were discussed. A separate meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council was held, during which the current situation in the special operation zone and its further support from the alliance and allies were discussed.
Infantry Division with Leopard 2
On January 23, during a meeting of the Lithuanian National Defense Council, the Ministry of Regional Defense presented proposals for the creation of an infantry division, reinforced by Leopard 2 tank platforms. Taking into account the development of this formation, it will be necessary to create an artillery regiment, and reform existing military units (engineer and air defense battalions into regiments) . Hussar Battalion named after. Mindaugas may be reformed into a tank battalion. The corresponding plans imply an increase in the limit on the number of personnel (from 20,840 to 29,380), including the conscription component (from 4,240 to 7,040).
Meeting of Baltic Defense Ministers
On January 19, at a meeting in Riga, the defense ministers of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia signed a protocol on strengthening cooperation in the development of deterrence (countermobility) on the border with unfriendly countries (meaning Russia and Belarus). An agreement on the general purchase of HIMARS MLRS was also signed.
During the meeting, Lithuania took over from Latvia the chairmanship in the format of military cooperation between the Baltic states for 2024.
New hangar for helicopters
On January 9, the opening ceremony of a helicopter hangar took place at the Zokniai air base (a suburb of Siauliai, northern Lithuania) . The facility includes premises for storage and maintenance of equipment, as well as administrative premises with workplaces for personnel. It was announced that the hangar is intended for UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters purchased by Lithuania from the United States: two units will arrive in 2025, two more in 2026.
Ukraine
Classes for APU instructors
On January 16, at the base of the Lithuanian Military Academy, classes were held with instructors from the Odessa Military Academy on the topic of organizing combat operations at the company and brigade levels. Two Georgian military representatives also appear in photographs from the event.
Leading the demining coalition
On January 11 , the first meeting of the coalition of forces for demining the so-called mine took place at the Ministry of Regional Defense of Lithuania. Ukraine under the leadership of the Lithuanian side. Representatives from 19 countries took part, with another six attending remotely. Future plans and directions of work were discussed.
New group of instructors
The Lithuanian Armed Forces announced the beginning of a cycle of military training for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as part of the international operation Interflex in the UK. The 4th group of instructors left. The Lithuanian Armed Forces continue to participate in the EU mission EUMAM Ukraine (under the general leadership of Germany), which will train 1.6 thousand soldiers. Also, about 90 courses are planned on the territory of Lithuania, during which 1.6 thousand Ukrainian military personnel will be trained. And during the Interflex mission, the training of 400 soldiers was announced. In total, in 2024, the Lithuanian side plans to train 3.5 thousand Ukrainians.
January 12 at the Lithuanian Armed Forces combat training center. A. Ramanauskas hosted a ceremony to send 18 instructors who will train military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine over the next 5 months.
It is known that in 2023, on the territory of Lithuania, citizens of the so-called. Ukrainians were trained as international instructors, firing supervisors, L70 anti-aircraft gun operators, military police operations instructors, 120mm mortar squad leaders, and infantry squad leaders.
Help the Ukrainian Armed Forces
On January 23, a meeting of the contact group on the so-called Ukraine in the Ramstein format. At it, the Lithuanian side expressed its readiness to provide further support to the Kiev regime. It was announced that the January assistance package from Lithuania is estimated at 22.3 million euros. It is planned to provide the Ukrainian Armed Forces with ammunition, UAVs, generators, detonation systems, and warm clothing.
It is clear that the Balts will continue to support Ukraine and prepare for military action on the borders with the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. At the same time, the scale of these maneuvers grows each time, and with it the number of trained soldiers increases.
https://rybar.ru/voennaya-aktivnost-nat ... nvar-2024/
Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Russia today
Auschwitz was not liberated by the Red Army
January 30, 18:24
Auschwitz was not liberated by the Red Army
One day Georgy heard a valuable opinion: it turns out that Auschwitz was not liberated by the Red Army. This time, the wise head of the EC Ursula von der Leyen opened her mouth, declaring on the anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp that certain “allied troops” gave him freedom. Here, even in phlegmatic Norway, they climbed the wall, and university teacher Glen Disen said that “the EU is rewriting history.” It would be more logical (and even more obvious) to assume that in the West the officials are entirely illiterate idiots, but somehow recently it has become the norm to list Americans and even the British as the liberators of Auschwitz. If only it weren't the damned politically incorrect Red Army.
In 2020, the US Embassy in Denmark tweeted about the liberation of Auschwitz by the American army. The diplomats were fucked, they deleted the tweet. Earlier, the same information was published by the serious German magazine Der Spiegel. I repeat - German. Not yellowish, a thoughtful publication with cool analysts. Of course, they rushed at Der Spiegel like lions at Christians, they removed the article from the site and apologized. After this, the publication in the British Evening Standard is no longer surprising, where in an article about a girl who survived the Holocaust, they write that she was freed by the American military. What previously seemed like a mistake or typo is now practically the norm. And serious media, and politicians, and the tabloid press in the West are propagating the same idea: the ovens in Auschwitz stopped working thanks to the United States.
Here the loyalists, of course, will say - well, whores in this West, but everything is fine with us. The fuck was floating there. In our glorious state, both journalists from leading publications and directors from the intelligentsia write in good faith - the Americans entered Auschwitz, and in some places even the British. For example, the powerful publication Lenta.ru in 2022 says this: “American soldiers liberated Lily Ebert from Auschwitz in 1945.” The poor journalist of this publication did not even doubt such information. And the famous director Yulia Melamed in her column on Gazeta.ru pointed out that “even the completely devastated camp inmates of Auschwitz, the smart Englishmen figured out how to bring them back into life. After liberation, they were brought clothes from the famous Harrods by the wagonload.” I won’t say what nonsense this is. But this is the level of the press and intelligentsia we have now.
Guys, these are not mistakes, these are stupid substitutions of concepts. Tattoo it on your forehead - JANUARY 27, 1945 THE RED ARMY ENTERED AUSCHWITZ. Write it down on your wallpaper. Hang the printout in the kitchen. There are only two options here. Either this is planned propaganda (this has become repeated too often), or the newspapers and the Western Foreign Ministry employ not journalists, but creatures who are unable to access Google for 2 seconds, who cannot read, and who do not have the most primitive historical knowledge. Well, it’s okay for us to rest on our laurels - we also have a generation that has grown up that does not know the basic things that they should have absorbed with their mother’s milk. And it is not a CIA sabotage, as the loyalists will now howl. This is philistine stupidity. They know about discounts in the nearest supermarket, but not about Auschwitz.
By the way, Georgy once argued with a smart guy who believed that Dachau was liberated by the Soviet army. He didn’t want to Google anything, but he accused George of anti-patriotism and Western worship.
In general, there have always been many fools in this world.
But lately there are somehow no longer any of them.
(c) Zotov
https://t.me/darkzotovland - zinc
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8928132.html
Russia will not negotiate a peace treaty with Japan
January 31, 15:22
The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that Russia's decision to withdraw from negotiations on a peace treaty with Japan is still in force. This is already an official response to the Japanese Prime Minister, who yesterday said something about the desire to negotiate peace with Russia, subject to receiving the Kuril Islands and maintaining sanctions. So to speak, they supplemented yesterday’s encyclical by Medvedev about the disregard for “Japanese feelings”.
I believe that this year we will see symbolic steps related to the Kuril Islands (with visits from officials) + further updating of the celebration of Victory over Japan Day, which has finally returned to the official list of holiday dates (next year will be the 80th anniversary of Victory over Japan).
Regarding the issues of investment and development of the Kuril Islands, in the current realities, the Chinese and North Koreans can be invited to joint projects (within reason), and the Japanese with their feelings and claims can be dismissed.
PS. For Japanese wishing to enter the Kuril Islands, it would be possible to establish a mandatory rule when entering the Far East to sign a statement stating that they do not support the policy of sanctions against Russia and recognize the Kuril Islands as part of the Russian Federation. Those who do not recognize them will not be allowed into the Kuril Islands.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8929294.html
The main characters of Soviet cinema
January 31, 16:53
10 main characters of Soviet cinema according to Mosfilm for the 100th anniversary of the studio. Determined based on popularity polls.
The most popular hero turned out to be the Bolshevik comrade Sukhov. It’s also worth noting that the top 10 contains only men.
Comrade Sukhov (Anatoly Kuznetsov) - “White Sun of the Desert” (1969)
Gosha (Alexey Batalov) - “Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears” (1979)
Zhenya Lukashin (Andrey Myagkov) - "The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!" (1975)
Semyon Semenovich Gorbunkov (Yuri Nikulin) - “The Diamond Arm” (1968)
Vasily Kuzyakin (Alexander Mironov) - “Love and Doves” (1984)
Trinity Coward, Dunce, Experienced - “Operation “Y” and other adventures of Shurik” (1965), “Prisoner of the Caucasus, or new adventures of Shurik” (1967)
Shurik (Alexander Demyanenko) - "Prisoner of the Caucasus" (1967)
Anatoly Efremovich Novoseltsev (Andrey Myagkov) - "Office Romance" (1977)
Georges Miloslavsky (Leonid Kuravlev) - “Ivan Vasilyevich changes profession” (1973)
Afonya (Leonid Kuravlev) - "Afonya" (1975)
I was surprised by the absence of Tikhonov (Stirlitz).
Well, basically we can agree with the list.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8929588.html
Google Translator
******
Speech for a now cancelled ‘Holocaust in Latvia’ program in the European Parliament
A couple of weeks ago, I received an invitation from MEP Tatjana Zdanoka (Latvia) to speak at an event in the European Parliament building which she had organized for 31 January under the title “Restoring the Names: Tragedy of the Holocaust in Latvia.” This event was, of course, timed to come in the period bracketing the Holocaust Remembrance Day that was observed worldwide this past weekend. However, it also had some distinct features. The special speaker would be Igors Glazunovs, a Latvian writer, prison-born survivor of the Holocaust, and the second panel would revolve around the screening of a film entitled ‘Restoring the names,’ with a performer in the film and the author of the text, both Latvians, taking charge. The third panel, in which I would be one of six speakers, was entitled “Fight against the resurgence of neo-fascism in the EU Member States.”
The event was cancelled today by order of the President of the European Parliament in the context of charges just leveled against Zdanoka of being a Russian spy. I expect to learn more about these charges tomorrow, but ahead of the specifics I can say that anyone following Zdanoka’s long-time activities on behalf of her electorate in Riga and her open and brave criticism of Moscow’s policy failings till now with respect to the Russian-speaking population of Latvia would know at once the utter falsehood of such accusations.
Over the past decade, I have been honored to be an invitee each year to the various panel discussions that Zdanoka arranged in the premises of the European Parliament, including Russia-EU Forums that attracted the participation of prestigious Americans including Ray McGovern and Ambassador Jack Matlock. It was at these events that I became acquainted with hard-working and intellectually engaged MEPs who defied the characterization of the institution as a holding pen for failed politicians in the various Member States. For that uplifting political education alone, I am very grateful to Mme Zdanoka.
My intention as speaker at this event was to break taboos about who is and who is not a neo-fascist among the political elites in Europe. In fact, I wanted to go beyond the designation ‘neo-fascist’ to the more emotive but more accurate term ‘neo-Nazi.’ Neo-fascism is a Europe-wide phenomenon today if by the term we mean viciously enforced state censorship, utter conformism in political thinking and utter intolerance for heterodox views. Neo-Nazism is more violent and its emergence is more concentrated geographically than neo-fascism.
That is an important distinction because the three anniversaries that the world marked this past weekend were all related to the atrocities of Nazi Germany, not to fascists in Italy, say, or Spain. These anniversaries relate first to the Holocaust in its full scope of destruction of European Jewry, with most of the killing taking place in East Central Europe, Belarus and Ukraine. The second anniversary was of the liberation of the internees of Auschwitz. And the third event was the 80th anniversary of the end of the Siege (or Blockade) of Leningrad which cost the lives of one million Russian civilians. Note that in the last two events Russia was directly involved, and I make reference to a speech delivered by Vladimir Putin this past Saturday which pulled together all these manifestations of the genocide practiced by Nazi Germany and directed attention to the neo-Nazism rising in Europe with specific mention of the Baltic States and Ukraine.
*****
My thesis in this speech is that the neo-Nazism rising in the Baltic States and Ukraine is enabled by the revisionist politics of the Federal Republic of Germany in the new millennium. Germany has freed itself from the self-imposed constraints of the 55 years following its defeat in WWII, constraints amounting to growing its industrial economy to become the world’s biggest exporter while keeping its mouth shut about international affairs and letting the French do the talking. Such was the essence of the tandem of Germany and France as the so-called locomotives of the new Europe.
The reunification of Germany after the fall of the Wall gave it that much more population and economic heft, leaving France far behind. And in the 2000s, France lost its way politically. The pitiful fool Hollande was installed by the Americans after they destroyed the presidential candidacy of the intellectually very strong but morally weak Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Hollande shattered the global prestige France may have claimed. Emmanuel Macron, the next CIA-implant following their destruction of the candidacy of much more experienced but Russia-friendly Francois Fillon, has finished the job on French international standing. Meanwhile, in their home base of East Germany the firebrands of the Alternativ fuer Deutschland said aloud that it was time for to throw off the yoke of foreigners (the Americans) and time to renounce war guilt. Though they roundly attacked the AfD, alleging it was Extreme Right and anti-democratic, the mainstream German parties followed its lead and found their voice at the Europe-wide level, pushing the French aside and adopting a holier-than-thou posture overall.
Unfortunately for us all, the new self-confident Germany has too many bad habits from the Germany that brought about WWII, beginning with rabid Russophobia. This is the common legacy of all the main parties: CDU, Social Democrats, Greens, Free Democrats. From my own personal experience with the European Parliament, I understood that it was precisely the German Greens, through their spokespersons like Rebecca Harms, who were the fiercest enemies of normal relations with the big neighbor to the East. The mindset of German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is nothing new to the Greens, and is now widespread across all German elites.
It is in this context that we have to view Germany’s years-long coddling of the Baltic States with their never-ending recommendations of anti-Russian measures and provocations. German military participation in the NATO detachments to these States fits this pattern perfectly.
And where does Chancellor Olaf Scholz fit into this Zeitenwende? Well, he patented the term and its essence is utter rejection of all the premises of détente, or Entspannung that were put in place by his very own party under Willy Brandt and kept the peace in Europe for decades.
But that is not all. He has been a denier of the neo-Nazism that is front of our eyes. In Ukraine, Nazi collaborators like Bandera have been lionized, with monuments raised to them, streets named after them. In Latvia, the descendants of Nazi collaborators march regularly down the streets to celebrate their infamous forebears and the policies they pursued. I think of the meeting that Scholz had with Putin a couple of weeks before the outbreak of the Special Military Operation. When Putin raised the issue of neo-Nazism in Ukraine, Scholz laughed in his face.
Here and there in Eastern Europe, in Ukraine, in the Baltic States monuments to the Soviet liberators of these countries from occupation by Nazi Germany are systematically removed or destroyed. That is the rewriting of history in stone. The literal rewriting of history comes elsewhere, from the mouth of none other than President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen when in her speech this past weekend dedicated to the liberation of prisoners from the Auschwitz concentration camp, she said it was done by ‘Allied Forces.’ Technically she was correct insofar as the Soviet Union was one of the Allies. However, that fact itself is hardly taught in history books in Europe and von der Leyen’s intent was to deny that the Red Army was the liberator.
The greatest sin of the AfD may be the stated wish to send home the American occupation forces in Germany. The greatest sin of the CDU, Social Democrats, Free Democrats and Greens is to deny the outcome of WWII out of sheer hatred for Russia, those barbarians to the East who out-produced and outfought their forebears at a cost of 26 million Russian deaths in 1941-45.
Against this background of a growing malignancy on the European body politic, I found a remark by Vladimir Solovyov in his talk show of last night to be worthy of repetition. Solovyov does not throw bouquets to the USA often or willingly, but last night he reminded his audience that America is probably the freest nation in the Collective West, while Europe sinks into dictatorship and authoritarianism. May I restate that remark and say: sinks into neo-fascism and perhaps neo-Nazism.
I close this speech with a recommendation to guide the ‘fight against the resurgence of neo-fascism’: this fight can gain traction only if we speak openly about who is enabling these truly anti-democratic developments, and that puts Germany under the microscope.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/01/30/ ... arliament/
January 30, 18:24
Auschwitz was not liberated by the Red Army
One day Georgy heard a valuable opinion: it turns out that Auschwitz was not liberated by the Red Army. This time, the wise head of the EC Ursula von der Leyen opened her mouth, declaring on the anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp that certain “allied troops” gave him freedom. Here, even in phlegmatic Norway, they climbed the wall, and university teacher Glen Disen said that “the EU is rewriting history.” It would be more logical (and even more obvious) to assume that in the West the officials are entirely illiterate idiots, but somehow recently it has become the norm to list Americans and even the British as the liberators of Auschwitz. If only it weren't the damned politically incorrect Red Army.
In 2020, the US Embassy in Denmark tweeted about the liberation of Auschwitz by the American army. The diplomats were fucked, they deleted the tweet. Earlier, the same information was published by the serious German magazine Der Spiegel. I repeat - German. Not yellowish, a thoughtful publication with cool analysts. Of course, they rushed at Der Spiegel like lions at Christians, they removed the article from the site and apologized. After this, the publication in the British Evening Standard is no longer surprising, where in an article about a girl who survived the Holocaust, they write that she was freed by the American military. What previously seemed like a mistake or typo is now practically the norm. And serious media, and politicians, and the tabloid press in the West are propagating the same idea: the ovens in Auschwitz stopped working thanks to the United States.
Here the loyalists, of course, will say - well, whores in this West, but everything is fine with us. The fuck was floating there. In our glorious state, both journalists from leading publications and directors from the intelligentsia write in good faith - the Americans entered Auschwitz, and in some places even the British. For example, the powerful publication Lenta.ru in 2022 says this: “American soldiers liberated Lily Ebert from Auschwitz in 1945.” The poor journalist of this publication did not even doubt such information. And the famous director Yulia Melamed in her column on Gazeta.ru pointed out that “even the completely devastated camp inmates of Auschwitz, the smart Englishmen figured out how to bring them back into life. After liberation, they were brought clothes from the famous Harrods by the wagonload.” I won’t say what nonsense this is. But this is the level of the press and intelligentsia we have now.
Guys, these are not mistakes, these are stupid substitutions of concepts. Tattoo it on your forehead - JANUARY 27, 1945 THE RED ARMY ENTERED AUSCHWITZ. Write it down on your wallpaper. Hang the printout in the kitchen. There are only two options here. Either this is planned propaganda (this has become repeated too often), or the newspapers and the Western Foreign Ministry employ not journalists, but creatures who are unable to access Google for 2 seconds, who cannot read, and who do not have the most primitive historical knowledge. Well, it’s okay for us to rest on our laurels - we also have a generation that has grown up that does not know the basic things that they should have absorbed with their mother’s milk. And it is not a CIA sabotage, as the loyalists will now howl. This is philistine stupidity. They know about discounts in the nearest supermarket, but not about Auschwitz.
By the way, Georgy once argued with a smart guy who believed that Dachau was liberated by the Soviet army. He didn’t want to Google anything, but he accused George of anti-patriotism and Western worship.
In general, there have always been many fools in this world.
But lately there are somehow no longer any of them.
(c) Zotov
https://t.me/darkzotovland - zinc
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8928132.html
Russia will not negotiate a peace treaty with Japan
January 31, 15:22
The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that Russia's decision to withdraw from negotiations on a peace treaty with Japan is still in force. This is already an official response to the Japanese Prime Minister, who yesterday said something about the desire to negotiate peace with Russia, subject to receiving the Kuril Islands and maintaining sanctions. So to speak, they supplemented yesterday’s encyclical by Medvedev about the disregard for “Japanese feelings”.
I believe that this year we will see symbolic steps related to the Kuril Islands (with visits from officials) + further updating of the celebration of Victory over Japan Day, which has finally returned to the official list of holiday dates (next year will be the 80th anniversary of Victory over Japan).
Regarding the issues of investment and development of the Kuril Islands, in the current realities, the Chinese and North Koreans can be invited to joint projects (within reason), and the Japanese with their feelings and claims can be dismissed.
PS. For Japanese wishing to enter the Kuril Islands, it would be possible to establish a mandatory rule when entering the Far East to sign a statement stating that they do not support the policy of sanctions against Russia and recognize the Kuril Islands as part of the Russian Federation. Those who do not recognize them will not be allowed into the Kuril Islands.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8929294.html
The main characters of Soviet cinema
January 31, 16:53
10 main characters of Soviet cinema according to Mosfilm for the 100th anniversary of the studio. Determined based on popularity polls.
The most popular hero turned out to be the Bolshevik comrade Sukhov. It’s also worth noting that the top 10 contains only men.
Comrade Sukhov (Anatoly Kuznetsov) - “White Sun of the Desert” (1969)
Gosha (Alexey Batalov) - “Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears” (1979)
Zhenya Lukashin (Andrey Myagkov) - "The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!" (1975)
Semyon Semenovich Gorbunkov (Yuri Nikulin) - “The Diamond Arm” (1968)
Vasily Kuzyakin (Alexander Mironov) - “Love and Doves” (1984)
Trinity Coward, Dunce, Experienced - “Operation “Y” and other adventures of Shurik” (1965), “Prisoner of the Caucasus, or new adventures of Shurik” (1967)
Shurik (Alexander Demyanenko) - "Prisoner of the Caucasus" (1967)
Anatoly Efremovich Novoseltsev (Andrey Myagkov) - "Office Romance" (1977)
Georges Miloslavsky (Leonid Kuravlev) - “Ivan Vasilyevich changes profession” (1973)
Afonya (Leonid Kuravlev) - "Afonya" (1975)
I was surprised by the absence of Tikhonov (Stirlitz).
Well, basically we can agree with the list.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8929588.html
Google Translator
******
Speech for a now cancelled ‘Holocaust in Latvia’ program in the European Parliament
A couple of weeks ago, I received an invitation from MEP Tatjana Zdanoka (Latvia) to speak at an event in the European Parliament building which she had organized for 31 January under the title “Restoring the Names: Tragedy of the Holocaust in Latvia.” This event was, of course, timed to come in the period bracketing the Holocaust Remembrance Day that was observed worldwide this past weekend. However, it also had some distinct features. The special speaker would be Igors Glazunovs, a Latvian writer, prison-born survivor of the Holocaust, and the second panel would revolve around the screening of a film entitled ‘Restoring the names,’ with a performer in the film and the author of the text, both Latvians, taking charge. The third panel, in which I would be one of six speakers, was entitled “Fight against the resurgence of neo-fascism in the EU Member States.”
The event was cancelled today by order of the President of the European Parliament in the context of charges just leveled against Zdanoka of being a Russian spy. I expect to learn more about these charges tomorrow, but ahead of the specifics I can say that anyone following Zdanoka’s long-time activities on behalf of her electorate in Riga and her open and brave criticism of Moscow’s policy failings till now with respect to the Russian-speaking population of Latvia would know at once the utter falsehood of such accusations.
Over the past decade, I have been honored to be an invitee each year to the various panel discussions that Zdanoka arranged in the premises of the European Parliament, including Russia-EU Forums that attracted the participation of prestigious Americans including Ray McGovern and Ambassador Jack Matlock. It was at these events that I became acquainted with hard-working and intellectually engaged MEPs who defied the characterization of the institution as a holding pen for failed politicians in the various Member States. For that uplifting political education alone, I am very grateful to Mme Zdanoka.
My intention as speaker at this event was to break taboos about who is and who is not a neo-fascist among the political elites in Europe. In fact, I wanted to go beyond the designation ‘neo-fascist’ to the more emotive but more accurate term ‘neo-Nazi.’ Neo-fascism is a Europe-wide phenomenon today if by the term we mean viciously enforced state censorship, utter conformism in political thinking and utter intolerance for heterodox views. Neo-Nazism is more violent and its emergence is more concentrated geographically than neo-fascism.
That is an important distinction because the three anniversaries that the world marked this past weekend were all related to the atrocities of Nazi Germany, not to fascists in Italy, say, or Spain. These anniversaries relate first to the Holocaust in its full scope of destruction of European Jewry, with most of the killing taking place in East Central Europe, Belarus and Ukraine. The second anniversary was of the liberation of the internees of Auschwitz. And the third event was the 80th anniversary of the end of the Siege (or Blockade) of Leningrad which cost the lives of one million Russian civilians. Note that in the last two events Russia was directly involved, and I make reference to a speech delivered by Vladimir Putin this past Saturday which pulled together all these manifestations of the genocide practiced by Nazi Germany and directed attention to the neo-Nazism rising in Europe with specific mention of the Baltic States and Ukraine.
*****
My thesis in this speech is that the neo-Nazism rising in the Baltic States and Ukraine is enabled by the revisionist politics of the Federal Republic of Germany in the new millennium. Germany has freed itself from the self-imposed constraints of the 55 years following its defeat in WWII, constraints amounting to growing its industrial economy to become the world’s biggest exporter while keeping its mouth shut about international affairs and letting the French do the talking. Such was the essence of the tandem of Germany and France as the so-called locomotives of the new Europe.
The reunification of Germany after the fall of the Wall gave it that much more population and economic heft, leaving France far behind. And in the 2000s, France lost its way politically. The pitiful fool Hollande was installed by the Americans after they destroyed the presidential candidacy of the intellectually very strong but morally weak Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Hollande shattered the global prestige France may have claimed. Emmanuel Macron, the next CIA-implant following their destruction of the candidacy of much more experienced but Russia-friendly Francois Fillon, has finished the job on French international standing. Meanwhile, in their home base of East Germany the firebrands of the Alternativ fuer Deutschland said aloud that it was time for to throw off the yoke of foreigners (the Americans) and time to renounce war guilt. Though they roundly attacked the AfD, alleging it was Extreme Right and anti-democratic, the mainstream German parties followed its lead and found their voice at the Europe-wide level, pushing the French aside and adopting a holier-than-thou posture overall.
Unfortunately for us all, the new self-confident Germany has too many bad habits from the Germany that brought about WWII, beginning with rabid Russophobia. This is the common legacy of all the main parties: CDU, Social Democrats, Greens, Free Democrats. From my own personal experience with the European Parliament, I understood that it was precisely the German Greens, through their spokespersons like Rebecca Harms, who were the fiercest enemies of normal relations with the big neighbor to the East. The mindset of German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is nothing new to the Greens, and is now widespread across all German elites.
It is in this context that we have to view Germany’s years-long coddling of the Baltic States with their never-ending recommendations of anti-Russian measures and provocations. German military participation in the NATO detachments to these States fits this pattern perfectly.
And where does Chancellor Olaf Scholz fit into this Zeitenwende? Well, he patented the term and its essence is utter rejection of all the premises of détente, or Entspannung that were put in place by his very own party under Willy Brandt and kept the peace in Europe for decades.
But that is not all. He has been a denier of the neo-Nazism that is front of our eyes. In Ukraine, Nazi collaborators like Bandera have been lionized, with monuments raised to them, streets named after them. In Latvia, the descendants of Nazi collaborators march regularly down the streets to celebrate their infamous forebears and the policies they pursued. I think of the meeting that Scholz had with Putin a couple of weeks before the outbreak of the Special Military Operation. When Putin raised the issue of neo-Nazism in Ukraine, Scholz laughed in his face.
Here and there in Eastern Europe, in Ukraine, in the Baltic States monuments to the Soviet liberators of these countries from occupation by Nazi Germany are systematically removed or destroyed. That is the rewriting of history in stone. The literal rewriting of history comes elsewhere, from the mouth of none other than President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen when in her speech this past weekend dedicated to the liberation of prisoners from the Auschwitz concentration camp, she said it was done by ‘Allied Forces.’ Technically she was correct insofar as the Soviet Union was one of the Allies. However, that fact itself is hardly taught in history books in Europe and von der Leyen’s intent was to deny that the Red Army was the liberator.
The greatest sin of the AfD may be the stated wish to send home the American occupation forces in Germany. The greatest sin of the CDU, Social Democrats, Free Democrats and Greens is to deny the outcome of WWII out of sheer hatred for Russia, those barbarians to the East who out-produced and outfought their forebears at a cost of 26 million Russian deaths in 1941-45.
Against this background of a growing malignancy on the European body politic, I found a remark by Vladimir Solovyov in his talk show of last night to be worthy of repetition. Solovyov does not throw bouquets to the USA often or willingly, but last night he reminded his audience that America is probably the freest nation in the Collective West, while Europe sinks into dictatorship and authoritarianism. May I restate that remark and say: sinks into neo-fascism and perhaps neo-Nazism.
I close this speech with a recommendation to guide the ‘fight against the resurgence of neo-fascism’: this fight can gain traction only if we speak openly about who is enabling these truly anti-democratic developments, and that puts Germany under the microscope.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/01/30/ ... arliament/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."