Russia today

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blindpig
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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Fri Dec 20, 2024 3:49 pm

THE RUSSIAN LINE ON SYRIA

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by John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

Quoting Mark Twain, President Vladimir Putin has made his first public statement on Syria during his Direct Line broadcast on Thursday. “Whoever wants to imagine Russia weakened…I want to recall the famous man and writer, who once said: ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’”

During four and a half hours of question-and-answer, Putin responded to questions on the Syrian conflict from a US and later a Turkish reporter. He said the future of the Russian bases at Khmeimim and Tartus is undecided. “The vast majority of [Syrian groups] tell us that they would want our military bases to remain in Syria. I don’t know — we should think about it, because we have to decide for ourselves how we relate to the political forces that are now in control and will control the situation in this country in the future. Our interests ought to coincide. If we stay there, then we have to do something in the interests of the country where we are.

”Putin endorsed the Turkish military movements into Syria over the Israeli ones. “Israel is also solving security issues for itself…We hope that Israel someday will leave the territory of Syria, but right now it is bringing in there additional troops. I think there are already thousands of troops. And I have such an impression, that they are not only not going to leave, but they are going to reinforce there…Turkey needs to ensure its security somehow. We understand that all. This is not for today’s meeting, so as not to waste time.”

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Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/

To Keir Simmons of NBC, Putin said: “You and those who, I repeat, pay your wages, want to present everything that happens in Syria like some kind of failure, the defeat of Russia…We came to Syria ten years ago so that it would not become a terrorist enclave like the fact we observed in some other countries, say, in Afghanistan. In general, we have achieved our goals… And even those groups that fought against the Assad regime, with government troops, also undergo internal changes. No wonder today many European countries and the United States want to establish a relationship with them. If they are terrorist organizations, what are you doing there? So, they’ve changed, have they? This means that to a certain extent, the [Russian] goal has been achieved.

“Furthermore, we did not have ground troops in Syria. They just weren’t there. There are our two bases — air and naval. The ground component consisted of the armed forces of Syria itself and some, as we all know — there is no secret here – the so-called pro-Iranian combat formations. In our time we even took out of there [Russian] special forces. We didn’t just fight there.

“What has been happening there? When armed opposition groups approached Aleppo, Aleppo was protected by about thirty thousand people. 350 militants entered the city. Government forces, and with them the so-called pro-Iranian units, retreated without a fight, blew up their positions, and left. And also with some small exceptions, where there were some clashes, that was what happened throughout Syria. If earlier, let’s say, the same Iranian friends asked [us] to help them move their units into the territory of Syria, now they asked us to withdraw them from there. We took out four thousand Iranian fighters from the Khmeimim base to Teheran. Part of the so-called pro-Iranian units went without a fight to Lebanon, some to Iraq.

“Today the situation in the Syrian Arab Republic is not easy, of course. We very much hope that there will be peace, tranquility. We support relations with all the groups that control the situation there, with all countries of the region. The vast majority of them tell us that they would want our military bases to remain in Syria. I don’t know — we should think about it, because we have to decide for ourselves how we relate to the political forces that are now in control and will control the situation in this country in the future. Our interests ought to coincide. If we stay there, then we have to do something in the interests of the country where we are.

“What will be our interests there? What can we do for them? This is a question that is waiting for painstaking research on both sides. Already now we can do something, including using these bases – we have already offered it to our partners, including those located in Syria, and neighboring countries. [We] offered the use of, say, the Khmeimim airbase to deliver humanitarian aid in Syria. And this is accepted with understanding and desire to organize this work together. The same applies to the naval base in Tartus. Therefore, whoever wants to imagine Russia weakened, since you are an American, I want to recall the famous man and writer [Mark Twain], who once said: ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’”

Later in the broadcast, Putin was asked a question by Ali Jura of the Turkish state news agency Anadolu: “Mr. President, Israel violates international rights by killing tens of thousands of people, including children in Palestine and Lebanon. Israel now takes advantage of the situation in the region to occupy Syria and violates its sovereignty. How do you comment on the actions of Israel? Did you have a conversation with President Erdogan about the region as a whole? Thank you.”

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Source: http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/75909 – from minute 2:50:12.

“Vladimir Putin: We are in constant contact with President Erdogan. I don’t remember when we spoke to him for the last time, but of course, we discussed the situation in the region, in the Middle East. The viewpoint of Turkey’s President Erdogan is well aware of the events in the Middle East. And our position is well known in Lebanon and Palestine. Our position is not subject to the current situation. We have always believed so and now believe that it is possible to solve the Palestinian problem only by solving the causes of its occurrence. There was the decision made by the UN Security Council at the time that two states should be formed – Israel and Palestine. Israel is established; Palestine, in fact, has not yet been created. That’s the problem.

“Moreover, from its side Israel continues the so-called illegal settlement activity. I don’t know what Israel’s ultimate goals are in the Gaza Strip, but it deserves only condemnation. We have done this repeatedly at almost all levels, from the public level and our position in the Security Council United Nations. There’s nothing to add here. The same goes for Lebanon.

“What about Syria? It seems, frankly, that Turkey is doing everything to ensure their security on their southern borders during the development of the situation in Syria, to create conditions for the return of refugees from their territory to other territories that are concentrated in the territory of Syria, located under Turkey’s control in fact, and perhaps to move the Kurdish formations from the border. All this is probably possible and, perhaps, even to some extent, to some extent. But still the main beneficiary of what is happening in Syria — the main beneficiary is, in my opinion, Israel.

“And you can view as you please what Israel is doing, Russia condemns the seizure of any Syrian territory. This is obvious — our position here is not subject to any adjustment. But Israel is also solving security issues for itself. Here is the line in the Golan Heights, a line well known to everybody. Israel has advanced 62-63 kilometers along the front to a depth of 20-25 kilometers. It has entered into the fortifications which were created for Syria by the Soviet Union – this is a type of Maginot line. You know, these are serious fortifications there, really.

“We hope that Israel someday will leave the territory of Syria, but right now it is bringing in there additional troops. I think there are already thousands of troops. And I have such an impression, that they are not only not going to leave, but they are going to reinforce there.

“In fact, the local population has already asked to be included in the Jewish state. Since this is already under way, there’ll be another problem. If everything that happens will lead to the disintegration of Syria, then these are issues which will have to be decided by the local population in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and with the right of nations to self-determination. This is a difficult question — it is not for today’s discussion.

“Of course, we know Turkey, Such a problem [there is] with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has been going on for decades. I hope that there will be no escalation, but some politicians of Europe recently told me that at meetings after the First World War the Kurds were promised their own state, then they were deceived, and so on.

“Here are the Kurds in this region – in Turkey more than a dozen million, in Iran, in Iraq – they live in concentrations, how many Kurds are there? You probably know better than me but at least 30-35 million, right? There is a serious Kurdish problem, and the Kurds are serious guys, serious fighters; in Manbij, in my opinion, they fought to the last. That’s what they do.

“We need to decide the Kurdish problem. In the framework of Syria under President Assad they had to solve it, and now it is necessary to resolve it with those authorities who control the territory of Syria. And Turkey needs to somehow ensure its security. We understand that all. This is not for today’s meeting, so as not to waste time. I just want to say about it, that there will be many problems, but we are on the side of international law and for sovereignty of all states, in respect of their territorial integrity, bearing in mind Syria, including the position on these matters of the authorities who now control the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic. In this sense, we are on their side. By the way, we are in contact with them, we are in contact with all groups, including those that are now in the control situation in Syria.”

https://johnhelmer.net/the-russian-line ... more-90849

(I find it hard not to agree with Helmer, pretty lame. OTOH, I suspect that the chances of Putin 'bending over' on Ukraine are pretty slim, unlike Syria the General Staff has no need for cover and is on a roll they'll be loath to scuttle. That and the majority of the public will not look kindly if the cost in blood and treasure does not result in long term security, which means no compromises with a dishonest enemy.)

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Azov Ring Road
December 20, 13:03

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Azov Ring Road

The new ring road will reduce travel time around the Sea of ​​Azov by five hours. This was announced by the office of Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, Izvestia reports.

After the completion of major repairs, reconstruction and construction of roads on the route, the throughput capacity will also triple. The project is planned to be completed by 2030, its cost will be about 600 billion rubles.

The length of the highway will be more than 1.4 thousand kilometers, including 707 kilometers of four-lane sections, 116 kilometers of three-lane and almost 604 kilometers of two-lane sections. It will connect Rostov-on-Don, Taganrog, Novoazovsk, Mariupol, Berdyansk, Melitopol, Genichesk, Dzhankoy, Kerch, Taman, Temryuk, Krasnodar and Azov. The ring will include sections of the M-4 "Don" and "Tavrida" highways.

divgen.ru

The road will play an important role in the restoration of new regions, and will also seriously improve the overall military logistics in the Azov region. The project is strategic. Approximately like "Tavrida", but larger in scale.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9562794.html

Chekist Day
December 20, 11:29

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Chekist Day.

On December 20, 1917, by decree of the Council of People's Commissars chaired by Vladimir Lenin, based on the report of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission was created.

F.E. Dzerzhinsky was approved as the Chairman of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission; the very first board also included: G.K.

This is how the history of domestic state security began, which today celebrates its professional holiday - Day of the State Security Officer or Chekist Day. Of course, since 1917, domestic state security has been transformed many times (and also changed its name) both during the USSR and in post-Soviet times. But modern Chekists take the creation of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission as the starting point.

As the war in Ukraine has shown, the issue of fighting internal enemies is more than acute.

Happy holiday to all who served and were involved!

P.S. The Iron Felix monument will return to Lubyanka.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9562613.html

Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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blindpig
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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Sat Dec 21, 2024 4:13 pm

Monument to Dzerzhinsky unveiled in Khabarovsk
December 21, 17:43

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In Khabarovsk yesterday, in honor of Chekist Day, a monument to the founder of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, was unveiled.

The day will come when he will return to Lubyanka.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9565086.html

Space Thefts
December 21, 12:17

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Space thefts.

The Investigative Committee has charged Deputy Director General of the state corporation Roscosmos Oleg Frolov and his accomplices with large-scale fraud, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation told us.

According to the investigation, Frolov, using his official position, entered into a criminal conspiracy with two other accomplices. During the execution of a contract for the purchase of equipment, they stole at least 435 million rubles of budget funds.

The court has seized real estate in the case of the deputy head of Roscosmos, accused of embezzling 435 million rubles, the investigation materials say. The seizure was imposed on a land plot in the Moscow region and five non-residential premises.

Oh, how the death penalty is needed, oh, how it is needed...

P.S. Yesterday, an official from the Kursk region was also received, who was connected with the issue of building fortifications in the Kursk region. There, the damage amounted to 178 million rubles. Actually, just imagine the volumes of theft on a large scale and the existence of the death penalty for this very theft. We would see many death sentences if it weren't for the moratorium...

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9564416.html

(Well Comrade Boris, don't you think snuffing these bums is treating the symptoms and not the disease of capitalism?)

Migrant children will not be accepted to schools without knowledge of Russian
December 21, 10:42

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Federation Council approves ban on admission to schools of children of migrants without knowledge of Russian

At a plenary session on December 20, the Federation Council (Federation Council) approved a law banning the admission of migrant children who do not speak Russian to schools.
To be enrolled in an educational institution, children will need to pass a free test to determine their knowledge of the language, sufficient to master the program. Those who fail the test will not be allowed to study.
Rosobrnadzor will have to develop materials for the test, evaluation criteria, and determine the minimum number of points. In addition, schools will not accept those who are in Russia illegally. The law should come into force on April 1, 2025.
The law is not prohibitive , said Federation Council Chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko. According to her, it is aimed at creating conditions for the study of the Russian language and the education of migrant children.

Matviyenko added that when children do not know Russian, but must master the program, this creates great difficulties for teachers.
The day before, on December 19, during a direct line, this initiative was supported by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He noted that a child who does not speak Russian will have to be taught separately and someone will have to pay for it.

The Federation Council also approved laws on preserving jobs for SVO fighters for the entire period of the contract, on increasing fines for traffic violations, on toughening the punishment for armed rebellion, and others.

https://ruitunion.org/posts/2024-12-20-we-were-exposed/ - zinc

With the Russian language for migrants is understandable, there it was rather surprising that they still took without knowledge of the language.
Well, life imprisonment for armed rebellion is a delayed reaction to Prigozhin's rebellion.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9564374.html

Google Translator

(Harsh on the kids, one might say 'Trumpist'. But Russia's recent history conditions this harshness in light of radical Islamist terrorist attacks, which were numerous and continue. That is something the US has not experienced from it's overwhelmingly Hispanic migrants. One can and must understand even if one does not approve. )

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And speaking of harsh, here is some judgement that will no more be welcome than Helmer's recent analysis.

Putin’s Narrative Reversal on Syria
Posted by Internationalist 360° on December 19, 2024

Editorial Comment: Moscow continues its subservience to the Sublime Porte and the Zionists. This tendency has bewildered those who have followed developments in Syria since the beginning of the war over a decade ago. If we only glance at the surface of Putin’s remarks as referent to the jihadists, it defies logic. But if we understand that Turkey is the primary support for the terrorist groups in the Levant, it becomes much clearer. And this begins to open the way to explain why Russia supported the illegal Turkish occupation of Syria, never stopped Israel from launching its barbaric attacks or its expansion in the Golan, and has never moved in any meaningful way to stop the genocide in Palestine. No authentic anti-fascist would claim to be at war with Nazis in Ukraine while backing the Muslim Brotherhood and Zionists in the Middle East unless they are abysmally ignorant of their shared history with the Nazis. Neither would they be so foolish as to conflate Zionism with Judaism or Islamists with Muslims. Yet this has been Russia’s consistent error, to their own detriment and shame. A.V.

Joe Lauria

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Putin at 4 hr. Moscow press conference on Thursday. (Kremlin)

The Russian president has said Russia actually won in Syria because the jihadist threat is apparently ended, which was Moscow’s goal all along. But he ignored what he’d previously said was the West’s role in that conflict, writes Joe Lauria.


Putin Thinks Al-Qaeda in Syria Is Reformed

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia’s goal to defeat jihadism in Syria had actually succeeded because the rebranded al-Qaeda force that seized power on Dec. 8 has put its extremist past behind it.

Putin said this in answer to a Western journalist at a Moscow news conference (video) on Thursday:

“Those who pay your salary would like to present the current developments in Syria as Russia’s defeat. I assure you that this is not the case, and here is why. We came to Syria ten years ago to prevent the creation of a terrorist enclave there, like the one that we saw in some other countries, for example, Afghanistan. We have achieved that goal, by and large.

Even the groups that were fighting against the Assad regime and the government forces back then have undergone internal changes. It is not surprising that many European countries and the United States are trying to develop relations with them now. Would they be doing this if they were terrorist organisations? This means that they have changed, doesn’t it? So, our goal has been achieved, to a certain degree.”


The remark aligns Putin with Western nations who claim that Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) — which was al-Nusra Front and before that al-Qaeda in Syria — is no longer a terrorist group and is fit to rule Syria.

This conclusion, after less than 10 days of HTS in power, puts a spin on events that seeks to benefit both Russia and the West. Both sides now need to portray the militants as reformed extremists.

Putin is right to say that at least one of Moscow’s goals in Syria in 2015 was “to prevent the creation of a terrorist enclave there.”

(Other goals appeared to have been to save Russia’s Mediterranean bases in Syria, which they may still do, and to protect gas sales to Europe at the time — now lost to sanctions — against a rival pipeline project through Syria to Europe led by Qatar, which necessitated overthrowing Bashar al-Assad, who opposed it.)


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Thursday’s Putin press conference. (Kremlin)

Putin told the U.N. General Assembly from the podium in New York on Sept. 28, 2015 — days before Russia intervened in Syria at the governments’ invitation — that Moscow’s aim was to defeat jihadism there lest it spread, threatening regional and Russian security.

Russia had to that point already fought Western-backed jihadists in a 30-year struggle against encroachment into its sphere of influence by militant Islamism.

The support the U.S. and Gulf Arab nations gave these terrorist groups opened a three-decade Western rift with Russia that began in Afghanistan and ran across the Northern Caucasus to the Balkans and then into Syria.

Russia was opposed to regime change in Syria not only on principle, analysts and diplomats at the U.N. told me in June 2012, but because the likely new regime would be headed by an Islamist government inimical to Russian interests.

In his 2015 U.N. speech, Putin appealed to the U.S. to join Russia in a military campaign against the common enemy of ISIS, al-Qaeda and other jihadists, the way the U.S. and the Soviet Union had fought together against Nazism.

The Obama administration arrogantly rejected the proposal out of hand with some American commentators calling it “Russian imperialism.” But it would be odd to invite your adversary to join your imperial adventure.

In fact the United States was in alliance with al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups trying to overthrow al-Assad and did not want to fight them. Putin understood that the U.S. had long supported Islamist extremists.


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Putin addressing the 70th U.N. General Assembly in 2015. (U.N. Photo/Kremlin)

He pointed this out at the U.N. in 2015:

“The situation is extremely dangerous. In these circumstances, it is hypocritical and irresponsible to make declarations about the threat of terrorism and at the same time turn a blind eye to the channels used to finance and support terrorists, including revenues from drug trafficking, the illegal oil trade and the arms trade.

It is equally irresponsible to manipulate extremist groups and use them to achieve your political goals, hoping that later you’ll find a way to get rid of them or somehow eliminate them. … the people you are dealing with are cruel but they are not dumb. They are as smart as you are. So, it’s a big question: who’s playing who here? …

Relying on international law, we must join efforts to address the problems that all of us are facing, and create a genuinely broad international coalition against terrorism. Similar to the anti-Hitler coalition, it could unite a broad range of parties willing to stand firm against those who, just like the Nazis, sow evil and hatred of humankind.” [Emphasis added.]


So the question is, has the HTS and lesser extremist groups in Syria really changed their stripes? Have they really transformed from Jihad to Jefferson?

The U.S., the U.K. and the EU are in the process of dropping HTS’ terrorist designation and the U.S. in lifting the $10 million bounty on its leader’s head.

But it seems too early for Putin to say that the HTS — in nominal charge in Damascus — are no longer terrorists because the West would not be “developing relations” with them “if they were terrorist organisations.” It belies what he knows to be true, that the U.S. has had relationships for decades with some of the most notorious terrorists on the globe to achieve short-term strategic objectives.

Putin may be saying they aren’t terrorists anymore as a way to get out of admitting Russia likely failed in Syria to prevent terrorists from taking over. He did not cite Russian intelligence saying these are reformed killers, but said they must be reformed because otherwise the West would have nothing to do with them, when he knows full well the West has had plenty to do with them when they were openly terrorists.

This may just be Putin trying to find a creative way out of the fact that Assad’s overthrow appears to have been a Russian defeat unless the HTS are truly reformed. And if they are reformed, still very much uncertain, the U.S. and Turkey would have been behind it, not Russia.

A commenter on this article on X suggested Putin was just making fun of the journalist. Perhaps he was employing sarcasm but it was on the record and people take Putin seriously.

What happens in Syria over the coming months will tell the rest of this story. Will Alawis, Christians and other minorities be left alone to live as they please?

Or will the HTS reanimate as terrorists to go after are these vulnerable peoples? Will the HTS serve the interests of stability in Syria and the region as Putin seems to think?

Or will they revert to what they have long been, especially now that they have power?



https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/12/ ... -on-syria/

Yeah, Putin is putting lipstick on the pig. However, given the utter collapse of the Syrian Army the course taken may prove to be the least bad of bad choices.
The solicitude constantly proffered to the Zionist is another story. The refusal to defend Syria against Zionist airstrikes for years cannot be forgiven because of historic ties of shared suffering and shared population. Not that such response would have made a big difference, it seems that the telling blows were delivered by US sanctions which eviserated Syrian finances and US occupation of Syria's oil and wheat lands.

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Why sanctions against Russia have failed

Ian Proud

December 20, 2024

Almost eleven years on from the introduction of the first sanctions against Russia in February 2014, Russia is growing healthily.

Russia is the most sanctioned country on the planet, with more than 20,000 sanctions imposed so far. But almost eleven years on from the introduction of the first sanctions against Russia in February 2014, Russia is growing healthily, despite a costly ongoing war in Ukraine. Let’s assess why sanctions failed against Russia.

First, economically, sanctions have never had as much impact as other globally significant economic events. They include the November 2014 and January 2016 oil price collapses, both of which had a major impact in three key areas. Russian government finances were hit by reduced revenue from oil and exports because the fall in the value of the rouble was not of sufficient depth to cushion the blow (until late 2016 when Russian monetary policy shifted). Inflation and interest rates rose sharply as the cost of imports increased in response to the devaluation. All three, reduced government income, higher inflation and interest rates bore down on domestic consumption and investment. By late 2015, while I was stationed in Moscow, I assessed that western sanctions imposed in 2014 contributed no more than 30% to the contraction in Russian growth, compared to the impact of the oil price collapse. Sanctions impacted flows of foreign capital, in particular. But as Russia weaned itself off of western capital the sanctions impact fell over time. And, of course, the economic impact of COVID vastly exceeded everything else.

Second, Russia has had a very effective top team dealing with economic issues. The combination of Elvira Nabiullina as Central Bank Governor and Anton Siluanov, as Finance Minister, has given Russia unparalleled stability in economic and monetary decision making. At key moments, being December 2014, January 2016 and February 2022, they have adjusted Russian policy to deal with external economic shocks. After the end of peak oil in 2014 Nabiullina signalled a cardinal shift away from maintaining a steady rouble to a floating rate of exchange. In 2016, monetary policy shifted towards maintaining a weak rouble to guarantee a high rouble price on oil and gas exports, whatever the price of commodities; when commodity prices rise, like, after the onset of war in 2022, Russian state finances get a double boost.

Western commentators nonetheless cheer whenever the Rouble weakens!

Floating around 100 to the dollar today, the rouble is three times less valuable than it was in early 2014. Interest rates are used to manage inflation risk and foreign exchange reserves are carefully protected. Between the end of 2014 and the start of 2022, Russia had increased its international reserves by 64% or $245bn, putting itself in a stronger position than it had been before the oil price collapse in 2014. This was only possible with effective economic leadership.

Third, sanctions have stimulated a growth in economic self-sufficiency, in particular in domestic industry and in the agriculture sector. The emergence of Rostec as a single state conglomerate to oversee strategic industrial production, including military, has undoubtedly given Russia a supply chain edge against western manufacturers that can’t produce enough artillery shells. In the agriculture sector, Russian counter-sanctions in August 2014 and drive to import substitution precipitated a surge in domestic food production. One bi-product of this was the stimulation of metropolitan food culture through the renovation of old markets and consequent artisan pop-up culture (I can recommend the locally produced burrata and steaks). Yes, Russia’s economy is still over-reliant on revenue from mineral exports. But why would any economy give up that comparative advantage at a time of significant economic risk?

Finally, if sanctions are a political weapon by economic means, then Russian leaders always saw them as unjustified and illegal, and, as a result, refused to back down in the face of western pressure. The economic consequences of sanctions have always been subordinate to their ability to change political decision making in Moscow. And on that, they have failed catastrophically.

The west actively sponsored an unconstitutional change of power in Kiev in February 2014 (tactics they are trying to repeat in Georgia today) and installed a nationalist government with an antagonistic attitude towards Russia. Whether you consider Russia’s subsequent actions to have been justified in Crimea and the Donbas, it would have been an act of political suicide for President Putin, then, to backdown in the face of the wave of western sanctions. In fact, sanctions have had the opposite political effect, by driving a growth in the BRICS grouping (which has included anti-sanctions language in its communiques since 2014) and a shift towards alternative global financial systems.

It is striking with the war soon to hit the three year mark, and with Ukraine slowly losing on the battlefield, that many commentators in the west still push for more sanctions, rather than a negotiated end to fighting.

Many are taking aim at the $300bn in frozen Russian assets, most of which sit in Euroclear in Belgium. While the EU has been willing to take the legally questionable move of using the profits from those frozen assets to fund a G7 loan package (as western nations have now stopped giving Ukraine anything for free), it has shied away from full confiscation. The economic and political risks are obvious. Economically, the theft of assets would strike a blow to the credibility of Europe’s financial system at a time when its two largest states – France and Germany – are in the midst of political and economic crises. Politically, it would incentivise Russia to continue the war in Ukraine; why would Russia sign up to a ceasefire in circumstances where assets valued at 150% of Ukraine’s entire economy were seized? So, despite pressure from the U.S. and the UK, I judge the EU won’t take the risk and, in any case, Hungary and Slovakia would seem almost certain to block the move.

Failure to steal the frozen assets in their entirety doesn’t leave much on the table for the west to sanction. And on the basis that the western alliance has imposed it biggest sanctions already, it’s unlikely that additional sanctions would have any impact anyway.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... ve-failed/

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Russia Matters: Trump Is Urging Zelenskyy to Make Deal While Putin Claims to Be Nearing Priority Goals
December 20, 2024
Russia Matters, 12/20/24

1.“I would like to emphasize from the very beginning that the outgoing year has been crucial in achieving the goals of the special military operation,” Vladimir Putin told an expanded annual meeting of the Russian Defense Ministry Board on Dec. 16. He then claimed during his annual call-in show on Dec. 19 that Russian forces were moving toward achieving their “priority goals.” Russia is yet to establish full control over the four Ukrainian regions it has annexed since the beginning of its re-invasion of Ukraine in February 2022,1 but Vladimir Putin is already seeking to shape the narrative so that he can present his gains in Ukraine as a victory next year, while his planning horizon for the five Ukrainian regions Russia has already claimed as its own stretch as far as 2030.*

2.“He [Zelenskyy] should be prepared to make a deal. That’s all,” Donald Trump asserted on Dec. 16 at his first post-election victory press conference. Trump is already planning to send his special envoy for the Ukraine war Keith Kellogg to Kyiv, along with London, Paris and Rome after his inauguration, and Kellogg, a retired general, is also open to visiting Moscow, according to Bloomberg. Meanwhile, Putin is sending conflicting signals on whether he would agree to a ceasefire instead of pursuing a peace deal. “I didn’t reject it,” Putin said during his Dec. 19 call-in show with regard to Viktor Orban’s proposal for a Christmas truce, according to Meduza. At the same time, however, Putin told the annual call-in-show that “we don’t need a truce; we need peace.” When asked during the call-in show about Russia’s conditions for negotiations with Ukraine, Putin reiterated that negotiations can begin without preliminary conditions, but at the same time they must be based on what he has described as “agreements in Istanbul” that Ukrainian and Russian negotiators discussed during the early weeks of the war, and negotiations must also take into account “the realities that are taking shape on the ground today.” He added that any treaty could only be signed with a “legitimate government.” In his turn, Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected a return to the Istanbul agreements because he claimed that there were none. At least one of the drafts of the agreement Ukrainian and Russian negotiators discussed in Spring 2022 would have designated Ukraine as a “neutral” state that would not join NATO, but could join the EU and could seek security guarantees from other countries. On top of that, Putin—who insists Zelenskyy’s presidential powers have expired—continues to demand regime change in Kyiv by stressing that he can only negotiate with a legitimate government of Ukraine.

3.In the past month, Russian force have made a net gain of 204 square miles (an area roughly equivalent to 1/3rd of the total area of London), according to RM staff’s estimate that was published in the Dec. 18 issue of the Russia-Ukraine War Report Card, and that is based on data provided for that period by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). One sign of how worried the Ukrainian leadership has become about Russian advances in this eastern province of Ukraine, where Russian troops have reached the outskirts of the key town of Pokrovsk this week, is the replacement of the commander of the Ukrainian forces there less than a month after replacing the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces. As NYT has observed, “On the battlefield, the situation has not looked this desperate for Ukrainian troops since the start of the invasion.”

4.The commander of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) Defense Forces Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov has been killed in an bomb blast, which was allegedly set up by an Uzbek national on the orders of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). The SBU claimed the Russian military’s NBC chief—whom it had accused of ordering the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops—was a legitimate target, but even inside Ukraine some questioned the wisdom of the assassination. Joe Biden’s NSA Jake Sullivan disapproved of the hit, arguing that “we do support and enable Ukraine to defend itself and to take the fight to Russian forces on the battlefield, but not operations like this,” while Keith Kellogg, Donald Trump’s nominee for special envoy for the conflict, called the assassination “not a very good idea.” Moreover, Ukraine’s forces are steadily losing ground on the battlefield and assassination won’t improve their war effort, analysts and Western officials told NYT. The Russians will find a replacement for that general, a Ukrainian special forces officer told NYT, predicting that as a condition of any peace settlement, Russia would insist not only on a cessation of military operations, but also of secret operations that kill their generals. As for the Russian reaction, it went beyond threats of retaliation, with Vladimir Putin offering a rare criticism of his special services. “Our security services allowed a serious terrorist act to happen. Such grave failures cannot be tolerated,” Putin said during his call-in show one day before it was revealed that the head of the FSB’s Military Counterintelligence Department Nikolai Yuryev resigned. Such a public criticism of Russia’s secret services by Putin, an ex-KGB officer and former head of the FSB himself, occurs rarely and could be a sign of what Russians call “organizational conclusions.”

5.Vladimir Putin flaunted Russia’s nuclear forces during his Dec. 16 address to the expanded annual meeting of the Russian Defense Ministry’s Board yet again. “The army and navy are being re-equipped with up-to-date weapons and equipment at an accelerated pace. For example, the share of such weapons in the strategic nuclear forces has already reached 95%. Meanwhile, we have specified the fundamental principles for the use of nuclear weapons envisaged in the updated Basic Principles of State Policy on Nuclear Deterrence. Let me stress once again, so that no one accuses us of trying to scare everyone with nuclear weapons: this is a policy of nuclear deterrence,” he said. He also flaunted the purported capabilities of the Oreshnik MRBM yet again both in the Dec. 16 address to the MoD board and during his Dec. 19 annual call-in show. During the latter, he proposed a “21st-century high-tech duel,” in which Russia would field the Oreshnik and the West deployed a system in Ukraine that Western experts think can intercept that MRBM. This week also saw Putin threaten to stop complying with the INF Treaty, which he claims to be complying with in spite of the legal death of that treaty, while also having the chief of his Strategic Missile Forces Sergei Karakayev participate in nuclear saber-rattling, including a claim that Russia may automate nuclear retaliation. In his interview to the RF MoD’s Red Star this week, Karakayev also implied Russia may have disclosed to the U.S. the area the Oreshnik was to target in Ukraine prior to the Nov. 21 launch of this MRBM.
6.On Dec. 16, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov told an expanded meeting of his agency’s board that one of the priorities for the Russian armed forces is “ensuring full readiness for a possible military conflict with NATO in the next decade… The first among the priority areas is victory in the special military operation,” he said.
7.Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham in Syria has conceded that it will probably allow Russia to keep some or all of its bases, and it is likely to respect Russia’s lease at Tartus port, according to The Economist.

https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2024/12/rus ... ity-goals/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Sun Dec 22, 2024 7:23 pm

Russia is not going anywhere!
Analysis by Zinderneuf

Zinderneuf
Dec 20, 2024
Cross-post from East’s Substack
Zinderneuf was getting tired of reading nonsense in the Western press, so he decided to give them a piece of his mind! It's a well thought out and thorough analysis of the current situation in Russia! - Zinderneuf

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As I’ve repeatedly stated, I have a constant exposure to the Western media narratives on the “dire” situation in Russia. For years, we have repeatedly seen that their prognostications of Russia’s collapse turn out to be incorrect, but that doesn’t stop them from continuing to indulge themselves in this delusion. Lately, I’ve seen that certain topics are being regurgitated, and the new hope expressed by the West is that Ukraine may prevail if they can just continue dying in the trenches for another year. In this article, I will discuss the three most common arguments and explain why they are mistaken.

The first argument presented is that Russia’s National Wealth Fund is running out of money, and that the Russian government will essentially be bankrupt by the end of 2025. This is based on an analysis by Western economists who point out that only $54 billion in LIQUID assets remained in Russia’s NWF at the beginning of 2024. According to their math, Russia will run a $34 billion dollar deficit this year, or 1.7% of GDP, which is higher than the $20 billion deficit that Russian leadership originally projected, and this will leave only $20 billion in the NWF for next year. As a result, the Russian government will be forced to reduce spending, end the Special Military Operation, and retreat from the Ukraine. The problem with this assumption, for them, is that Russia sells about $10 billion worth of government bonds at auction each year. Therefore, the reduction in the NWF for the year 2024 will likely be $24 billion, leaving $30 billion for the year 2025. Last year, the deficit projection for 2025 was $10 billion, and if we assume, for the sake of argument, that next year’s budget gap is underestimated by the same amount ($14 billion), the likely total deficit will be $24 billion. If the Russian government succeeds in selling the same dollar amount in bonds to finance the 2025 deficit, then $14 billion in liquid assets will have to be sold off to finance their budget gap for the year. This will leave $16 billion in liquid asset value left in the fund going into 2026. Therefore, assuming a similar level of bond sales in 2026, the Russian government can theoretically afford to run a total deficit of $26 billion, or 1.3% of GDP, if they need to, in that year. Instead of a collapse of Russian finances in 2025, we see that the Russian government can continue to spend an amount of money similar to this year, each year, THROUGH 2026, or for the next 24 months. (Will there still be an Armed Forces of Ukraine left in another 24 months?)

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I must stress here that I’m not saying that any of this WILL happen. I’m just trying to present the scenario to help people understand what COULD happen and what I believe is more likely to happen than a bankruptcy of the Russian nation. The leaders in the Russian government are not stupid people. They did not get to their position in life by being dumb.

Moving on to a more recent example of wishful thinking that I’ve seen, there is a new claim that Russia is facing an impending famine! One can admit that 2024 has been difficult for Russian farmers relative to the past two years. A combination of droughts, floods, and poorly timed frosts all contributed to a decline in Russian agricultural output this year going into the next, but things are not nearly as dire as suggested by the Western press. So, let’s investigate some numbers.

Across the board, the production of various crops in the Russian Federation is down 20% to 30% compared to 2022 and 2023. However, one must keep in mind that Russian agricultural output has increased dramatically over the past decade, so this is not as bad as it at first appears. Using numbers from the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, I calculated the total tonnage of eight relevant cash crops. After I did that, I searched elsewhere for numbers on potato production so that I could include them in the analysis.

In all, I calculated the annualized average of five years of production for wheat, rice, barley, corn, millet, soybean, sunflower seed, and rapeseed between the 2014-2015 harvest and the 2018-2019 harvest then I added in the total tonnage of the 2016 potato harvest to this total. Without going into too many numbers to bore you, the total annualized average taken across five years of production for all of these crops combined came to 141,425,000 tons. The total for the harvest year (updated projection) of 2024-2025 (for all nine combined) is 148,485,000 tons, or about a 5% INCREASE over the average annual output between 2014 and 2019. Remember, this was a “catastrophic” year for Russian agriculture. A perfect storm of natural disasters and other unfortunate events. And production is still 5% higher than it was a decade ago.

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Russian wheat yields per hectare are higher this year than in six of the previous ten years.

For further perspective, The Russian wheat harvest in 2024-2025 alone is projected to be 15% higher than it was in 2016. 2016 is relevant, because it is the year that Russia became the largest wheat exporter in the world. And in a “catastrophic” year, Russia’s wheat output is still significantly higher than it was less than a decade prior.

For the final Western fixation that I’ll discuss, there are the constant Western predictions of the collapse of the ruble. This year, the ruble has indeed fallen in value on international markets, but this is largely a policy choice of the Russian government. In October 2023, the government increased the required amount of foreign receipts that the 43 major exporters of Russian commodities must repatriate into domestic currency to 80%, meaning that foreign currency would be sold for rubles thus increasing the value of the Russian currency on the market. However, due to the relative stability of the ruble that was achieved, this requirement was first reduced to 60% and then 40% in two decisions during June and then July of this year. The requirement could be increased again in an emergency, but the government has decided that they are comfortable with around a 100 ruble to the dollar exchange rate.

Ultimately, the ruble has fallen from 90 to 103 rubles to the dollar this year, just under a 12% decrease in value. This year, real wages in Russia are expected to increase by over 9% after inflation is accounted for. This is something that most western workers can only dream about. The inflation rate in Russia is projected to be just under 9%, meanwhile the Western ally in the region, Turkey, is currently experiencing an inflation rate of 48%, and the value of the of the Lira has fallen by nearly 20% in a year. (In fact, the Lira has lost nearly 80% of it’s value in the past 5 years!)

That’s enough for today but keep all of this in mind when you read the many Western articles proclaiming that Russia is almost out of money and about to collapse if the Armed Forces of Ukraine can avoid completely dying out for just one more year. There is no impending bankruptcy, and there is no great famine of 2025. Russia will be strong for years to come. Sure, the Russian Federation is facing some recent obstacles. A combination of bad luck and geopolitical forces continue to weigh on the Russian economy. Still, the problem that the Russian leadership has right now is not one of avoiding collapse, but rather maintaining a growing, resilient economy, and that’s a good problem to have.

https://eastcalling.substack.com/cp/153434619

******

Commentary on Russia and the Current Status of Syria
December 21, 2024
By Brian McDonald, Twitter, 12/15/24

The fall of Assad and the “loss” of Syria isn’t actually that critical for Russia. Historically, the Soviet Union endured much larger setbacks in the Middle East. For example: Egypt’s sudden shift from a Soviet ally to a US partner in the 1970s.

Despite investing heavily in Egypt through military aid and infrastructure projects like the Aswan Dam, Moscow was blindsided when Anwar Sadat aligned with Washington. Yet, the USSR eventually restored much of its influence in the region through alliances with other Arab states.

This precedent makes a key point: Russia’s geopolitical fortunes in the Middle East aren’t tied to a single leader or country. The region’s fluid power dynamics mean that today’s setback can be tomorrow’s opportunity.

Russia’s approach to Syria, therefore, should be viewed through this broader historical lens. Strategic losses are part of a long game where influence can quickly be regained.

Plus, the rebel leaders have already said they are open to a deal with Moscow. And Russia has quite a bit to offer them. For instance, lots of cheap grain.

(More, previously posted.)

https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2024/12/com ... -of-syria/

******

December 22, 2024 by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
Putin weighs in on the Syrian situation

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Islamist rebels of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham light a fire to keep warm as they guard the abandoned Iranian Embassy in Damascus, December 13, 2024

Russian President Vladimir Putin, during his Results of the Year annual marathon yearender interactive televised discussion with the Russian public and the media in Moscow on December 19, spoke at some length on the recent developments in Syria.

These were Putin’s first public remarks on the topic and, coming 12 days after armed opposition forces seized Damascus and the exile of former president Bashar al-Assad and his family in Moscow, they signified that the Kremlin is recalibrating its compass of West Asian strategies.

Putin disclosed that he will soon have a meeting with Assad, signalling a level of transparency that is very rare in international diplomacy in comparable volatile circumstances. We still do not know, for instance, what happened to Afghan president Ashraf Ghani after the Taliban takeover four years ago, or whether President Joe Biden even showed the courtesy to receive America’s fallen ally — and an erstwhile proxy at that.

Putin sees no reason to feel ashamed or petrified over the regime change in Syria. Russia’s mission in Syria was to decimate the US-sponsored extremist groups destabilising that country and the region as part of a regime change project. And that enterprise has been hugely successful as Russia inflicted a crushing defeat to the American project. The Russian mission in Syria never had a hidden agenda to prop up the Syrian regime. As Putin explained, Russian ground forces were never deployed or involved in the fighting in Syria.

The speed with which Assad was given asylum in Moscow and the peaceful transfer of power in Damascus hinted that the Kremlin was not taken by surprise. Again, compare the chaotic and desperate US evacuation on August 16, 2021 from Kabul airport with Afghans falling from the sky as American military planes took off. Yet, western propaganda is painting the town red that Russia has been “defeated” in Syria!

The narrative by Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan seems entirely plausible when he claimed that at Ankara’s urging, Moscow and Tehran counselled Assad to peacefully transfer power. Fidan disclosed to NTV broadcaster on Dec. 13, “We spoke with the Russians and Iranians and told them that the man they had invested in was no longer someone worth investing in. They made one phone call, and that evening Assad was gone.”

Putin openly acknowledged that Russia keeps contacts with the HTS and their conversation will have a bearing on the fate of the bases in Latakia. Russia is offering that the international community may use the bases to handle humanitarian assistance to Syria.

Conceivably, Turkey, Russia and Iran synchronised their watches. Tehran disclosed in the weekend that it is reopening the embassy in Damascus and that the HTS has offered to provide security for the mission’s functioning. Through the entire three-and-a-half hour event in Moscow last Thursday, Putin never once voiced any criticism of Turkey’s backing for HTS or questioned the legitimacy of Ankara’s stated concerns in the Syrian situation — although he remains sceptical whether the Kurdish nationality question involving 30-35 million ethnic Kurdish population spread over Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran lends itself to a solution.

Putin asserted that Moscow has already conveyed to the HTS as well as the regional states that the Russian bases are “capable of offering assistance… (and) this was met with understanding and a willingness to collaborate.” Putin stressed: “An overwhelming majority of them have expressed interest in retaining our military bases in Syria.”

Putin ridiculed the Biden administration’s prognosis that Russia faces “defeat” in Syria. His broad message was that “there will be plenty to discuss” with Trump when they meet, implying that Biden Administration is no longer consequential to Syria’s future. The Biden Administration’s efforts to rally the Arab states have failed to gain traction as the trust deficit is formidable. Arabs suspect that the US’ continued illegal occupation has ulterior motives.

Indeed, a new matrix is appearing, as Biden administration’s obsession shifts to creating a quagmire in the Middle East for the incoming Trump administration. In a somersault on Sunday, the US state department’s Assistant Secretary Barbara Leaf landed in Damascus to personally convey the US decision to scrap the $10 million reward for the arrest of HTS leader (Syria’s de facto leader) Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, following what she claimed to be “very productive” meetings with the group’s representatives.

This abject surrender will now enable Washington to lift the sanctions against Syria per the infamous Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019. However, Russia has outmanoeuvred the Biden administration in Syria. Putin implied that a working relationship with the new leadership in Damascus is steadily developing. He said, “I do not know, we must reflect on how our relations will evolve with the political forces currently in control (in Damascus) and those that will govern this country in the future –- our interests must align. Should we remain, we must act in the interests of the host nation.”

Putin noted: “What will those interests entail? What can we do for them? These questions demand careful consideration on both sides. We are already capable of offering assistance, including utilising our bases… while challenges remain, our position firmly aligns with international law and the sovereignty of all nations, including respect for Syria’s territorial integrity. This extends to supporting the stance of the current authorities governing the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic. In this regard, we stand with them.”

This is a big statement and it will resonate across the Arab world. Make no mistake, Russia’s transition from the Assad era is well under way. The contours of a pragmatic policy approach are emerging. Russian intelligence would have done the spade work in this transition.

Putin remarked tauntingly that “the groups that were fighting against the Assad regime and the government forces back then have undergone internal changes. It is not surprising that many European countries and the United States are trying to develop relations with them now. Would they be doing this if they were terrorist organisations? This means that they have changed, doesn’t it? So, our goal (Russia’s intervention in Syria in 2015) has been achieved, to a certain degree.”

From behind the scene, Turkey is tacitly encouraging Russia’s partnership with HTS. Significantly, Putin dwelt on the ramifications of the Kurdish problem where Turkey may need Russia’s cooperation to navigate the tricky pathway going forward.

Turkey’s concerns have four main templates: one, ensure Turkey’s border security with Syria; two, create conditions for the return of Syrian refugees from Turkey; three, push Syrian Kurdish forces away from the border regions; and, four, counter the covert European and US-Israeli support for an independent Kurdish state. Putin underscored “the gravity of the Kurdish issue.” There is no conflict of interests here between Turkey and Russia.

While Putin spoke with understanding and some sympathy for Turkey’s legitimate concerns, he did not mince words to condemn Israel’s naked land grab in Syria. In his words, “I believe that the main beneficiary of the developments in Syria is Israel… In the Golan Heights, Israel has advanced along the front by 62–63 kilometres and to a depth of 20–25 kilometres. They have occupied fortifications originally built for Syria by the Soviet Union, strong defensive structures comparable to the Maginot Line.

“It seems there are already several thousand (Israeli) personnel stationed there. It appears not only that they have no intention of leaving, but they may also be planning to further reinforce their presence.”

Putin warned that “further complications down the line” are to be expected, as the Israeli occupation could “ultimately result in the fragmentation of Syria.” In this regard, Russia shares the same perception as Turkey, Iran and the Arab states.

Interestingly, Putin exuded confidence that Russia is on the right side of history with a policy reset that aims to harmonise with Turkey and Iran as well as the Arab states. Indeed, this diplomatic feat enhances Russia’s standing in West Asia.

Conversely, to retrench or not in Syria — that’s the question that will haunt the Trump presidency. The Pentagon is already pushing back against Trump’s statement “we have nothing to do (in Syria).” Pentagon spokesperson Pat Ryder has revealed that US troop numbers in Syria have reached 2,000 –- more than double the previously reported nine hundred. These troops remain actively deployed with no plans for withdrawal.

https://www.indianpunchline.com/putin-w ... situation/

******

Earth's North Magnetic Pole Is Drifting Towards Russia
December 22, 11:17

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It is reported that the Earth's north magnetic pole continues its successful drift from Canada to Russia.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9565553.html

Google Translator

Syria notwithstanding it looks like the Ruskies are on a roll.))
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Mon Dec 23, 2024 3:06 pm

Special op’s ‘pivotal’ year, nuclear deterrence: what Putin said at Defense Ministry
December 22, 2024
TASS, 12/16/24

MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/. This year has been “a pivotal year” in terms of achieving the goals of the special military operation, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a Defense Ministry Board meeting.

He also pointed out that the country will continue to develop its nuclear potential.

TASS has compiled the Russian leader’s key statements.

On special military operation

The outgoing year “was pivotal in achieving the special military operation goals.”

The Russian Armed Forces hold “a strong strategic initiative across the entire line of engagement in the special military operation zone.”

Russian servicemen have liberated 189 settlements in the special military operation zone over the year.

It is necessary to keep pushing the pace in the special military operation zone.

The situation on the battlefield will not change even if Ukraine lowers the call-up age to 14.

On Ukrainian authorities

Russia is not at war with the Ukrainian people, but with “the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev that seized power back in 2014.”

The problem between Russia and Ukraine stems from “the bloody anti-constitutional coup” in Kiev in 2014.

The Kiev regime commits crimes against the Ukrainian and Russian people on a daily basis.

The regime of Vladimir Zelensky does not protect the interests of the Russian people.

“It seems that this regime is losing all the characteristics of statehood.”

On unstable situation in world

The military and political situation in the world remains “uneasy and unstable.”

The incumbent Washington administration and the West continue to try to rule the world, and continue “imposing on the world their so-called rules, which they change time and again in their interests.”

“The US continues to send weapons and money to the actually illegitimate ruling regime in Kiev, sends mercenaries and military advisors, thus encouraging further escalation of the conflict.”

The essence of what the US is trying to do with regard to Russia is to push it to its red line and then scare the American people with claims of a Russian threat.

On US, NATO aspirations

“NATO’s aspirations long ago went beyond the so-called zone of historical responsibility.”

“In addition to the so-called eastern front, the alliance is expanding its presence in the Asia-Pacific region. Encouraged by the United States, new military and political alliances are being formed, undermining the security architecture that has existed for decades.”

NATO countries are increasing defense spending and are forming strike groups with servicemen from the alliance’s countries.

The US plans to deploy intermediate range high-accuracy weapons are worrisome.

Russia will drop its voluntary restrictions on the deployment of intermediate-and shorter-range missiles if the United States begins deploying such weapons.

Russia is forced to take additional measures to ensure its security, but it will not get involved in a full-fledged arms race: “Our approach here is careful and prudent.”

On development of Russian Armed Forces

Russia now has up to 1.5 million servicemen in the Russian Armed Forces.

This year, about 1,000 people are signing up to join the military every day. “People are going to the front voluntarily.”

On nuclear deterrence

The proportion of state-of-the-art weaponry in Russia’s strategic nuclear forces has reached 95%.

Russia adheres to its policy of nuclear deterrence in its updated nuclear and by no means indulges in saber rattling.

Moscow will continue to support the potential and balanced development of its nuclear forces.

“It is important to keep non-strategic nuclear forces on constant alert and to continue the practice of holding exercises.”

***

Transcript of Putin’s Meeting with Defense Ministry

Kremlin website, 12/16/24 (AI generated translation)

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Comrades,

Today, as part of an expanded meeting of the Defence Ministry Board, we will discuss the main results of work for 2024 and identify tasks to strengthen the defence capability and further develop the Armed Forces.

I note right away that the outgoing year has become a landmark in achieving the goals of the special military operation. Thanks to the professionalism and courage of our soldiers, the heroic work of employees of defense enterprises and the truly nationwide support of the army and navy, the Russian troops firmly have the strategic initiative along the entire line of contact.

This year alone, 189 settlements have been liberated. I would like to sincerely thank our heroes: the soldiers and officers who are fighting selflessly and steadfastly on the front line, the personnel of the Defence Ministry, the National Guard, our special services and other law enforcement agencies who are clearly carrying out all the tasks set, no matter how difficult they may be, who do not spare themselves, do not spare their lives for the sake of victory, for the sake of the Fatherland.

Our duty is to always remember our comrades who died defending the Motherland and our people, to surround their families and children with constant care. I have said it many times and I will repeat it again: their children are our children. We must never forget this.

I ask you to observe a minute of silence in memory of our fallen comrades.

(A minute of silence is announced.)

Thank you.

Dear members of the board!

Today, the military-political situation in the world remains difficult and unstable. Thus, the bloodshed in the Middle East does not stop, and the high conflict potential remains in a number of other regions of the world.

We see that the current US administration and almost the entire collective West are trying to maintain their global dominance and continue to impose their so-called rules on the international community, which they change over and over again, twisting them as it suits them. As a matter of fact, there is only one stable rule: there are no rules for those who do this, for those who consider themselves to be the head of the whole world, for those who consider themselves to be the Lord’s representatives on earth, although they themselves do not believe in the Lord.

And against undesirable states, [they] are waging hybrid wars, implementing a policy of deterrence, including against Russia. In an effort to weaken our country and inflict a strategic defeat on us, the United States continues to pump weapons and money into the de facto illegitimate ruling regime in Kiev, sending mercenaries and military advisers, and thereby encouraging further escalation of the conflict.

At the same time, under the pretext of a mythical Russian threat… They simply frighten their own population by saying that we are going to attack someone, because the tactics are very simple: they bring us to the red line, through which we can no longer retreat, we begin to respond, and immediately frighten their population – then, in ancient times, with the Soviet – now Russian threat. Meanwhile, NATO countries themselves are increasing military spending. Near the Russian borders, strike groups of alliance troops are being formed and cobbled together. Thus, the number of American military personnel in Europe has already exceeded 100 thousand people.

NATO’s aspirations have long gone beyond the so-called zone of its historical responsibility. In addition to the so-called eastern flank, the alliance is increasing its presence in the Asia-Pacific region. At the instigation of the United States, new military-political alliances are being formed, which undermine the security architecture that has developed over decades.

No less concerned are the activities of the United States to create and prepare for deployment in the forward zones of high-precision ground-based strike weapons with a range of up to 5,500 kilometers. At the same time, the transfer and deployment of these missile systems in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region are already being practiced.

Let me remind you that such measures were previously prohibited by the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles, which was terminated at the initiative of the United States. We have repeatedly stated that the termination of this treaty will lead to negative consequences for the entire global security, but at the same time we stressed that we will not deploy intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles until American weapons of this kind appear in some region of the world. In fact, Russia took these obligations unilaterally. But, as I have already said, if the United States starts deploying such systems, then we will lift all our voluntary restrictions.

Given the growing geopolitical tensions, we are forced to take additional measures to ensure the security of Russia and our allies. We are doing this carefully and carefully, without being drawn into a full-scale arms race to the detriment of our country’s socioeconomic development.

We are paying serious attention to improving the combat strength of the Armed Forces and building up their capabilities. As part of these tasks, the Leningrad and Moscow military districts and a number of new units and formations have been formed. The staff strength of the Armed Forces has been increased to 1.5 million servicemen.

The army and navy are being re-equipped with modern weapons and equipment at an accelerated pace. For example, the share of such weapons in strategic nuclear forces has already reached 95 percent.

At the same time, we have clarified the basic principles for the use of nuclear weapons, which are set out in the updated Basic Principles of State Policy in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence. I would like to emphasise once again that no one should accuse us of rattling nuclear weapons: this is a policy of nuclear deterrence.

Along with the nuclear triad, general-purpose forces are developing at a high pace. The troops are receiving advanced robotic systems, including the use of artificial intelligence technologies. Among them are reconnaissance and attack drones, unmanned boats and multi-purpose robotic platforms.

Today, it is important to continue the progressive, systematic development of the army and navy, to achieve the goals of the special military operation, to be ready for a prompt and effective response to potential challenges to the security of our country. At the same time, it is necessary to focus on solving the following priority tasks.

First. Of course, strategic nuclear forces remain one of the key tools for maintaining stability and protecting Russia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. We will continue to support their potential and balanced development, and work to create new systems and complexes of deterrence forces. Along with this, it is important to keep non-strategic nuclear forces in constant combat readiness, to continue the practice of conducting exercises with the development of issues of their use.

Second. I have already spoken today about the risks associated with the deployment of intermediate-range missiles by the United States in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. We will respond to such threats in a comprehensive manner. At the same time, the most important task is to ensure the timely detection of the launch of such missiles and their interception. At the same time, it is necessary to debug all the issues of serial production and deployment of such domestic strike systems, including hypersonic ones.

As you know, Russia’s latest powerful weapon is the Oreshnik medium-range missile system. In November, in response to strikes on the territory of our country using Western weapons, it was successfully used: a ballistic missile in non-nuclear hypersonic equipment was used. In the near future, serial production of such complexes should be ensured to protect the security of Russia and our allies. And this will certainly be done.

Third task. It is necessary to more actively introduce the experience gained during the special military operation into the combat training of troops, as well as into the programs of higher military educational institutions. At the same time, it is necessary to improve the methods of conducting military operations, clarify the fundamental statutory documents, increase the level of mastery of weapons and equipment, as well as the effectiveness of command and control of troops, especially at the tactical and operational-tactical levels.

And I would like to emphasise once again that talented officers and sergeants who have proved themselves in a difficult combat situation should become the basis of the command staff of the Armed Forces, as well as become teachers of military educational institutions.

Fourth. The experience of conducting a special military operation should be fully taken into account when determining the priority areas for the development of domestic weapons and equipment, the tactics of their use. For example, high-precision weapons systems use new methods of guidance at the final section of the missile flight, which made it possible to use them against complex and fortified objects, and to use them successfully.

The noise immunity of the onboard equipment of missile weapons has been significantly increased, and new methods of delivering flight tasks have been worked out. In the future, it is necessary to calculate them in real time for promptly identified targets – an extremely important task for our military-industrial complex. I will say more about this.

Another important innovation was the direct exchange of information between the units directly involved in the special operation and defense industry organizations – which I have just mentioned. As a result, for a number of products, the average time to eliminate the identified shortcomings is now five to seven days. But this is not enough: we need to do it even faster.

There are also positive changes in the organisation of the repair of equipment, its fine-tuning taking into account the requirements of the combat situation. But of course, there are also problems, they remain, and they need to be consistently resolved. And, of course, we must continue to do everything necessary to accelerate the introduction of advanced technologies and other innovations in the military sphere.

Fifth. To reduce the time for decision-making when managing units on the battlefield, an interspecific information exchange system based on mobile devices has been created and has shown its effectiveness. More than six and a half thousand such systems have already been delivered to the troops. As a result of their use, the time for setting tasks has decreased by one and a half to two times. Now, due to the introduction of advanced developments of the defense industry, it is necessary to form a single information loop as soon as possible, combining reconnaissance and destruction means at the strategic, operational and tactical levels of management.

Sixth. It is necessary to increase the production of robotic systems and unmanned systems of various classes and types. At the beginning of the special operation, we had problems in this area: some samples turned out to be expensive and difficult to operate. Today, several thousand drones for various purposes enter the troops every day. It is necessary to continue to improve their combat and operational characteristics. It is equally important to train the operators of such complexes, to train them according to programs developed on the basis of the experience of real combat operations.

And the seventh. We need to continue to expand military and military-technical cooperation with allies and partners, with those who are ready and willing to work with us, and these are the majority of countries in the world.

Comrades,

I have already spoken today about the enormous support of the army and navy from Russian society. People understand what we are fighting for, what we are defending, they help front-line soldiers and join their ranks themselves. This is an extremely important thing that reflects the state of our society.

Here is a figure: this year, on average, more than 1000 people enter military service under contract every day. People voluntarily go to the front. And the social guarantees of servicemen and their families must be constantly strengthened and developed. This is the most important, systemic task of the state.

Yes, a lot has been done in this area in recent years. This year alone, more than 55,000 servicemen have been provided with housing, and in the next three years, it is planned to allocate another 113 billion rubles to provide housing subsidies to military personnel.

The savings and mortgage system demonstrates high efficiency. Over the 20 years of its operation, more than 202 thousand servicemen of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have been provided with housing. I would like to add that it is necessary to continue to equip military camps and, of course, to increase the level of medical support.

The priority in the work of all authorities should be to resolve the social issues of the participants in the special operation, to take care of the families of those who died – I already spoke about this at the beginning – and those who were seriously injured during the hostilities. This should be the focus of our attention. It is necessary to delve into the problems of each of our comrades-in-arms, his family and really help solve their problems. This is the task of the Defence Ministry, the Government of the Russian Federation, and all leaders at all levels of government.

In conclusion, I would like to once again thank all the participants in the special military operation for their valor, courage and heroism, and wish the personnel and civilian personnel of the Armed Forces, the leadership of the Defence Ministry success in their service, in their difficult and responsible work aimed at protecting Russia’s sovereignty and national interests and the security of our people.

I am sure that you will continue to adequately solve all the tasks assigned to you.

Thank you for your attention.

Vladimir Putin: As usual, allow me to say just a few words – to conclude this part of your work.

The minister spoke about the illegitimacy of the regime in Kyiv, with which we are at war. I would like to emphasise once again that we are not at war with the Ukrainian people, but with the regime – the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev, which seized power back in 2014. This is the source of power – a coup d’état.

All the troubles of both Ukraine and Russia began just after this bloody anti-constitutional coup d’état. This matters today because these people who are in power commit crimes against their own people and against ours every day. This regime has generally lost – at least it is obviously losing – the signs of statehood.

When we talk about illegitimacy, what do we mean? Did you not go to the elections? They did not go. Does the constitution make it possible to extend the powers of the president? No. The Constitution makes it possible to extend the powers of only the representative body of power – the Rada, that’s it. And the reference to martial law does not matter: there are no ways in the constitution to extend the powers of presidential power.

And where is the supreme court? Where is the Constitutional Court? A legitimate question. The chairman of the supreme court is in prison – they just keep silent about it, no one talks about it, but he was put behind bars. The powers of the Supreme Court include, among other things, the cancellation of unauthorized decisions of the president. Several cancellations took place, after which they were sent to prison. And the head of the regime immediately, on the same day, announced: he will be imprisoned. As you know, in all civilized countries, only the court determines whether a person is guilty or not guilty, whether he will be imprisoned or not. No, representatives of the administrative bodies said here: he will be imprisoned. This is the supreme court.

There is also a constitutional one. Do you know what happened to the Constitutional Court? The security guards have stopped letting the chairman of the Constitutional Court go to work – they are simply not allowed to work. In the end, the Constitutional Court as a whole was paralyzed, and the Chairman of the Constitutional Court himself went abroad, where, as far as we know, he is provided with state protection in the country of his residence, since there is a threat to his life.

Are these signs of statehood? No, these are just signs of the loss of statehood. Therefore, crimes are committed one after another.

I think that the next crime will be the reduction of the mobilization age to 18 years. This is exactly a crime, because even if you reduce it to 14, as in Hitler’s Germany, creating a “Hitler Youth”, it will not change the situation on the battlefield. This is clear to everyone.

But I think that at the behest of those countries whose interests are protected by the Kiev regime – it does not protect the interests of the Ukrainian people, this is already obvious today – at the behest of those whose interests it serves and defends, they will also reduce mobilization to 18 years old – and the boys will be driven to slaughter. Just as today people are caught on the street, like stray dogs, during forced mobilization, and today they are driven under bullets, so they will drive the boys, it seems to me. And then these figures of this regime will simply flee abroad under the cover of those whose tasks they are carrying out today, that’s all. Most likely, this will be the case.

Some figures of the past, recent years have already fled – they are already abroad, this is well known. And they feel good, because they stole money from the Ukrainian people, stole it from their pockets. And all these “pockets” are also abroad, with those sponsors who keep them on this hook: they stole money, accounts there, everything – and they dance to any music, performing any tasks.

It seems to me that this will continue until we achieve the goals of the special military operation.

He said what is happening with mobilization in Ukraine, and you all know this very well. He mentioned that in this sense we have personnel. Last year, over 300,000 of our citizens, our men, came to the military registration and enlistment offices and signed contracts for service in the Armed Forces – over 300,000.

This year, at the moment, there are already over 430 thousand, and this flow of volunteers does not stop. Thanks to this attitude to the fate of our country, to the fate of our children, we are doing what I have said and what Defence Minister [Andrei Belousov] was talking about: in fact, this is a turning point on the line of contact and our combat activity, a complete interception of the strategic initiative. But, of course, this is not enough.

By the way, when I spoke about these crimes, I was referring not only to crimes against the Ukrainian people, primarily against our people, including in the Kursk Region and other border regions.

Yes, of course, from a military point of view, no matter who you talk to, everyone, both our and foreign experts, believes that there is a gamble in Kursk, so they say: “Kursk adventure.” This is obvious, because there is no sense in what the Kiev regime is doing in the border regions. But from the point of view of crimes against the peoples of Russia – this is an obvious thing – this is a crime. This is especially true of the suffering of the civilian population.

Here, of course, the sacred duty of the Armed Forces is to throw the enemy out of our territory. The task of the military justice bodies is to record all these crimes, especially against the civilian population. And the task of the special services is to find and punish the criminals.

Now, as for how much money we spend and what it results in, an extremely important thing, of course. The minister said: we spend 6.3 percent of GDP on the military component – on increasing and strengthening the defense capability. This is decent money, it is about 2.5 percent higher than we used to spend. But these are not the largest, oddly enough, costs in the world – even among countries that do not have any armed conflicts.

Nevertheless, this is a lot of money, and we need to use it very rationally, very rationally, ensuring first of all social guarantees for our servicemen and the effective operation of the defence industry. And what is very important is the rational use of what the country gives to the Armed Forces: this applies to social services, equipment and weapons. It is very important to receive everything in a timely manner, to assess competently what comes in, to be able to use it and train personnel, to train people who know how to do it – they do it competently and effectively.

There are a lot of tasks here. On the whole, they are being resolved – both in what is happening in the people’s agro-industrial complex, as we are saying now, and in what is happening right on the line of contact. And we need to set up our entire military organisation for such joint work to achieve the final result.

In this regard, the latest types of weapons, including those that are well-known both in our country and abroad. First of all, I mean medium-range weapons. You all remember well and know that the Soviet Union decided to eliminate ground-based intermediate-range missiles. And the Americans did the same with their Pershings.

But the Americans, in addition to ground-based intermediate-range missiles, also had the same sea-based and air-launched missile systems, while the Soviet Union did not. Therefore, to a certain extent, we went for unilateral disarmament. A potential enemy left these systems at sea and in the air, and we did not receive anything at all.

Но в наше время, в российское уже, мы создали гораздо более современные, чем у США, комплексы морского базирования. Это и «Калибры», это и гиперзвуковые комплексы «Цирконы». Создали новейшие ракеты средней дальности воздушного базирования Х-101 с дальностью, которая кратно превышает то, что есть у вероятного противника, – свыше 4000 километров. И эта система может быть оснащена и специальном боезарядом, то есть ядерным.

And finally, the Oreshnik system, which has already proven itself well, is very powerful. I would like to repeat once again – specialists know this, the commander of the Strategic Missile Forces Sergey Karakayev is here, he thinks so and told me about it – when used in a complex manner, when several systems are used in a group at the same time, it is comparable in power to the use of nuclear weapons. But it is not nuclear, since there is no nuclear fuel, no nuclear component, no contamination. And this is a very important element when deciding what means of armed struggle we can use.

But we must watch very carefully what is happening in other countries, what is being put into service or may be put into service in the near future, in the near future in other leading military countries. So, as we have done so far, we must act precisely in the near future and in the medium term.

Let me return once again to what was just said: we spend 6.3 percent of GDP on increasing and strengthening our defense capability. In order for all components in the country, all components of the state’s life – the economy, the social sphere in the broadest sense of the word, science, education, healthcare – to develop, we also cannot pump up these expenses to infinity, increase them to infinity.

I say this so that we all understand: the state, the Russian people, give everything they can to the Armed Forces to fulfill the tasks that you and we face. And our task is to ensure the security of the Russian people, to ensure the security of our people and the future of Russia.

I really hope that the pace that has been picked up in recent months on the combat contact line will be maintained. I want to thank you for your service and wish you all the best.

Thanks a lot.

https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2024/12/spe ... -ministry/

******

The Best Comment.

This is why I keep my comments 99% unmoderated except for some trolls and nutjobs.

Nutcracker cancellation reignites heated debate in EU stat. The policy in Lithuania of “mental quarantine” from Russia has been questioned after a minister admitted to actually liking Tchaikovsky

I happen to agree with Lithuania. I also suggest for EU in general to introduce "mental quarantine" from Russia. While at it--as one commenter noted:

Russia should challenge them to remove all the math/statistics formulas by Markov, Kolmogorov, and Chebyshev from their textbooks.

Correct, they should also remove Mendeleev's Periodic Table (of course, most in the West nowadays do not even know who created it). Works of Basov or Landau should also go. Europe is being primed for "suicide by Russia" anyway and its propaganda inevitably will succeed overwhelmingly--the trend is highly pronounced--in convincing most of population that Russians are subhumans (CERN, as an example, already banned Russian scientists), so there is no reason to subject sensitive and enlightened minds of Europe to crude art and science of those who refuse to submit. Let Nutcracker die, nor should Russians performers (most of them banned in the West) expose combined West to Rachmaninoff, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky or Russian painters. West loves Solzhenitsyn anyway--he fits profile well. So, let's do it...

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/12 ... mment.html

******

On the "ban on pyrotechnics"
December 22, 23:03

Image

On the "ban on pyrotechnics"

Against the backdrop of various incidents, State Duma deputy Artem Kiryanov proposed banning the use of pyrotechnics during the New Year holidays. The politician notes that there have already been several mini-terrorist attacks with pyrotechnics in bank branches, arson attacks on military registration and enlistment offices and police stations.

And also, gasoline can be banned, because it is part of the Molotov cocktail. It is also possible to ban citizens from going outside, because they are the ones who are doing this under the influence of enemy intelligence services. It would be better for the deputy to propose teaching society the rules of information security. It would be better for the deputy to propose strengthening the information confrontation in our country with professional practitioners, and not theorists with academic degrees and titles who have never gone beyond their offices. But this is too complicated. It is easier to ban everything.

@NeoficialniyBeZsonoV - zinc

It is hard to disagree. And in Germany, a car ran over people. Cars should be banned.
Some initiatives in the State Duma cause acute attacks of the hand-face condition.

Well, yes - it is necessary to work with citizens, to strengthen explanatory work. And of course to introduce the death penalty for terrorism, not in relation to these bombings, but in general.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9567111.html

YouTube's degradation is intensifying
December 23, 11:47

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By the end of December, YouTube's degradation in Russia is intensifying.
This is reportedly the next stage of events that will ultimately lead to the cessation of access to YouTube in Russia without a VPN.
In principle, these are expected processes. There is no prospect that YouTube will comply with Russian laws, so its fate in the current conditions is somewhat predictable.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9567825.html

Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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blindpig
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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Wed Dec 25, 2024 3:26 pm

Presenting various points of view on this conflict
December 24, 19:09

Image

Writer Alexander Karasev on the problems with publishing works on SVO in the publishing service "Ridero".

With an exposition of various points of view on this conflict

I have already come across complaints about the subversive activities of the Ridero publishing service, which does not allow books about the heroism of our soldiers in the SVO to be published. I did not look into it. I thought it was an exaggeration.

However, I tried to publish a collection of my journalism in Ridero, which I finally prepared.
And then I get this:

“The following regulations came into force in 2022: Federal Law of March 4, 2022 No. 32-FZ “On Amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and Articles 31 and 151 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation” Federal Law of March 4, 2022 No. 31-F3 “On Amendments to the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses” (Punctuation preserved. - A.K.) The specified Federal Laws establish criminal and administrative liability for the dissemination of false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. (Criminal punishment is introduced for public dissemination of such information). Federal legislation does not provide verification methods or procedures for classifying information as false, and to date no explanations have been published on the procedure for applying these federal laws, nor is there any stable judicial practice. In the context of the increased information flow, it is not possible to verify the reliability of information, and there is a risk of accidentally publishing false information, which will lead to a violation of current legislation. Considering that hundreds of thousands of authors are published in our publishing service, the topic of relations between Russia and Ukraine has affected many of them, which is why the number of publications on this topic has increased significantly, presenting various points of view on this conflict. Considering that it is currently very difficult to verify the reliability or unreliability of the information published, and that the legislation provides for criminal and administrative liability in case of violation for both the author and the distributor of such information (that is, for us), we have decided to temporarily suspend any publications by our authors on this topic in order to prevent violations of current legislation and to protect against the consequences of such violations in the form of criminal and administrative liability. We hope for your understanding. Please edit potentially dangerous fragments. "

Then it turns out.

"Hello, Alexander!
We will not be able to publish the work "The Writer and the War."
Evgeny, Publication Department Manager


"The Writer and the War" is my interview given to Alexander Kuzmenkov in 2019. It is publicly available on the Kamerton magazine website, where it was published.

Regarding the war (here you can’t even write “SVO” even if you wanted to) there are fragments like this:

“– Aleksandr Vladimirovich, your military biography is compulsory service in the Russian army, two campaigns in Chechnya and the DPR…”

“…And we definitely need to keep quiet about Donbass. Good thing they don’t write it down anywhere. (Confirmed. – A.K.)

I definitely don’t want to go into the infantry anymore. I ran three kilometers in a bulletproof vest with Givi in ​​the Somali battalion. I’m already old. I held up well, oddly enough, but that’s not for me, for the young…”

“– Was Somali a militia unit or a regular unit?

– When I first saw it, Somali was a military unit with very high combat capability. Well-trained assault infantry with serious combat experience and high morale. There were elements of “partisanship” there, of course.

– Which war is physically and psychologically harder for a soldier, for you in particular – a partisan war in Chechnya or a positional war in Donbass?

– It’s hard for me to compare. The specifics of the combat missions were different. For me, trips were always easier than the current service at the PPT, the permanent deployment point. It was easier with conscripts than with Donbass contract soldiers…”


Image
Alexander KARASEV

Probably, their “Somali” is an extremist organization.
The publishing house in Yekaterinburg works under NATO-Ukrainian legislation. Hiding behind the legislation of the Russian Federation.

Cleverly turned. “The law is like a drawbar…”

How do they publish me at all - I am listed as a terrorist on the “Mirotvorets” website?

They have been squeezing me out of their platform for a long time, putting all sorts of “sticks in the wheels”, finding fault with every little thing when checking books (it reached the point of ridiculousness). And now, of course, I need to curtail my authorial activity there. If they can’t miss a mention of the Donbass battalion “Somali”, which took Mariupol in 22nd.

(c) Alexander Karasev

https://litrossia.ru/item/pyataya-kolonna/ - zinc

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9570836.html

"Endless Summer" and the VK pornographic network
December 25, 17:10

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A subscriber asked to voice a problematic issue related to the connivance of VK moderation in the distribution of child pornography.

There are several interconnected public pages in the social network VKontakte, where administrators post and repost pornographic content to other groups, including child erotica, based on visual novels (computer games from SovietGames) "Endless Summer", "Love, Money, Rock-n-Roll", and also post paid pornographic content in closed VKontakte groups, Telegram channels with links to the Boosty payment service.

Some of the erotic and pornographic content is "reposted" and advertised in the official verified community "Endless Summer / SovietGames" by its owner on a permanent basis.

The official community itself:
https://vk.com/everlasting.summer.official

They also regularly post and use as a way to advertise such content groups in VK, in addition to the main official group "Endless Summer / SovietGames" - some groups from the publics of the so-called "Temples of the Goddesses", dedicated to the characters of these games, where they have influence on the administration of the groups or are the owners of the communities.

As one of many examples of such groups among fans of the game universe for the veiled centralized distribution of pornography and attracting a new audience to porn groups and the further sale of pornographic materials - one of the "Temples of the Goddesses", where the owners of the allegedly publics with content oriented towards teenagers are part of a porn network and post links and reposts to a friendly pornographic group (they themselves, in parallel, have their own same or another pornographic group, to which other participants in the network for the distribution and sale of pornography refer).

Most groups and publics affiliated with "Endless Summer / SovietGames" are engaged in this kind of activity. Thus, a coordinated network of creation, distribution and sale of pornography operates, with mass involvement, including among minors and about minors with the connivance, knowledge and approval of the author of the game universe and the official community of these games https://vk.com/dream .

Only some groups of "Temples of Goddesses" and other groups and publics dedicated to the game universe associated with these games do not engage in such activities, and they are subject to pressure from such pornographic groups, their participants and administrators, including from within among the administrators who were "appointed from above" by the owner of the main community "Endless Summer / SovietGames", or infiltrated from the above pornographic groups using social engineering.

Based on the above, it is necessary to check the above groups for compliance with current legislation, and also to hold accountable the administrators supervising these groups:


I hope Roskomnadzor will exercise the necessary vigilance and check this information.
Why VK moderation doesn't react to this is certainly an interesting question..

P.S. For the dumb. Links to pornographic materials are not given in the post. The subscriber sent them along with a letter to RKN..

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9572825.html

The mixture of anime and porn seems rather twisted to me.

Google Translator

*******

Khinshtein will have the last laugh!
Article by Marat Khairullin

Zinderneuf
Dec 23, 2024
Today, a new front opened by enemies within the country has been clearly defined. Instead of the defeated Navalnyites and the liberals with their tails between their legs, like Nadezhdin, the West has thrown a new fifth column into the battle – bloggers Alekhine, Podolyaka, and Tsarev.

The next moment of truth was their reaction to the emergency appointment of Alexander Khinshtein as governor of the Kursk region. The fifth column did not like this at all, and criticism began immediately. To be clear.

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Aleksandr Yevseyevich Khinshtein

In my opinion, it is hard to find a more vicious person than Kursk blogger Alekhine: 9 criminal cases, not counting administrative ones. And every single one of them was for deceiving the disabled. Alekhine's fraud scheme was always the same: he would come personally to the legless, armless, or simply sick grandmothers and grandfathers. He would promise them cheaper prosthetics and medicines, take the money allocated by the state, and disappear. And this creature operated for years in the Kursk and border regions and even managed to become an assistant to the governor - this alone speaks of how things are in the region. How much everything there needs a radical reform of internal governance.

Now, there is a clear problem: the opinion of this "animal" is being disseminated by the channels that have received the status of a foreign agent, as some kind of collective opinion of war correspondents. Alekhine is a person who evaded mobilization. In fact, he is a deserter, but law enforcement agencies ignored this fact. Can you imagine how real war correspondents clench their fists when they hear the name Alekhine... So, today any swindler and deserter can declare himself a war correspondent?!

It is very noteworthy that, together with Alekhine, political refugee Tsarev also appeared in the public campaign discrediting the Russian government. I do not understand why migrants are allowed to criticize the internal structure of our country, and so groundlessly. Who are you? You are guests here at best. If you don’t like being our guest, get out, Tsarev, Podolyaka, we didn’t invite you.

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Oleg Tsarev

Tsarev, for those who don't know, is the same person who gave us Podolyaka. There is an opinion (I agree with it) that it was Tsarev who promoted and financed Podolyaka. And by the way, we don't know a lot about the blogger Podolyaka. How did he even appear in Russia?

We are told that he was a kind of "centurion*" on the Maidan - And, supposedly, he only looked after order and provided the protesters with tea. In fact, there was no tent camp providing the protesters with food. But there was an organized seizure of the regional administration building by a trained group of militants. During which people died - the brutal young men killed the guards. They were arrested as murderers, and then they were released. After that, militant detachments from Sumy went to suppress popular uprisings in Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, and even Odessa.

Immediately after the events in Odessa, Podolyak showed up in Sevastopol.

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Yuri Podolyaka

There is a very curious point here. The militant group in Sumy that seized the government bodies was financed by Kolomoisky's money, and the recruiters were direct agents of MI6. We now know by name who trained these units, including in Sumy. Now they are all generals of that very GUR headed by the bastard Budanov. Podolyak, hey, the material is accumulating, and I sincerely pray that you will be sent to the right place as soon as possible - I mean that very colony where Navalny was hanging on the horizontal bar. This is the place for you and Alekhine. If anything, this is my personal opinion.

After Podolyaka so clumsily stood up for the thieving General Popov, special people began to take a very keen interest in the origins of this blogger. (Popov is the former commander of the 58th Army, fighting in the Zaporozhye direction. He was arrested and charged with theft.) Just imagine, this is the kind of agent who is now being dragged into Navalny's place in Russia, who Tsarev planted in our country. By the way, Tsarev himself has a very complicated biography. He left behind a worse legacy than Podolyaka, and the time will come when I will definitely tell you about it in detail.

Now three such, to put it mildly, controversial characters have suddenly pounced on the new governor of the Kursk region, and they are promoting a campaign against Alexander Khinshtein strictly on the resources of foreign agents. Moreover, they disgrace the good name of war correspondents - I would judge Alekhine for this alone. Some people earn their title with blood and sweat, while others are given it on those same resources of the foreigners. This gang is clearly unlucky with the new governor. I know Alexander a little from his previous life – even then, he was a stern man. Since the late 90s, he has been through all the circles of public persecution, and now, apparently, he has finally hardened himself on the twists and turns of power. I think Alekhine, Podolyaka, and Tsarev will seriously fail with him. Personally, I am rooting for Aleksandr Yevseyevich Khinshtein - the events in Kursk Oblast have shown that the region is frankly problematic from the point of view of civil governance. The local elites, having signed up as strong middle peasants, have lost their grip. The invasion of the Ukrops has revealed this weak spot. A very difficult task lies before the new governor. Let us all wish him fruitful work and good luck.

*Centurion: Territorial defense units (squads of territorial defense) were created to seize power objects, disperse anti-Maidan, and other similar objectives. They were divided into hundreds. And each squad was headed by a centurion.

In the fourth year, this was not as prominent as it had been in 2013-14, but, in principle, it was done in the same way.

https://maratkhairullin.substack.com/p/ ... laugh-last
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Fri Dec 27, 2024 3:20 pm

Ursa Major Was Sunk ...

... and it was not a simple terrorist act--it was, likely, an attack by an unknown sub.

МОСКВА, 25 дек — РИА Новости. Причиной крушения российского сухогруза "Урса Майор" в Средиземном море стал теракт, заявил РИА Новости судовладелец, группа компаний "Оборонлогистика". "Оборонлогистика" полагает, что 23 декабря 2024 года была совершена целенаправленная террористическая атака на судно "Урса Майор", принадлежащее компании. По показаниям членов экипажа судна, 23 декабря 2024-го, в 13:50 (по московскому времени), произошли три последовательных взрыва с правого борта, в районе кормовой части", — сказали в пресс-службе.

Translation: MOSCOW, December 25 — RIA Novosti. The cause of the sinking of the Russian dry cargo ship Ursa Mayor in the Mediterranean Sea was a terrorist attack, the ship owner, the Oboronlogistics group of companies, told RIA Novosti. "Oboronlogistics believes that on December 23, 2024, a targeted terrorist attack was carried out on the Ursa Mayor vessel, which belongs to the company. According to the testimony of the ship's crew, on December 23, 2024, at 13:50 (Moscow time), three successive explosions occurred on the starboard side, near the stern," the press service said.

It is too early to speculate on who could have done it, but Ursa Major is a large vessel and what is described sounds like torpedo attack at the screw-rudder group (винто-рулевая группа). We still have to wait for information though.

But here, there is no doubt that it was a terrorist act with Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer jet. (Video at link.)

These are holes from the elements of the explosive device on board. These are not birds' impact holes. We all can easily arrive to the conclusion of who could be the "beneficiary" of these atrocities but still--let's wait for more detailed information.

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/12 ... -sunk.html

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The Ursa Mayor ship was blown up
December 25, 17:57

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It all turned out to be quite trivial.

A terrorist attack was carried out against the Russian vessel Ursa Mayor, which sank in the Mediterranean Sea, Oboronlogistics (the owner of the dry cargo ship) reported.
Three explosions occurred on the starboard side of the Ursa Mayor, which caused the wreck, the company said.

P.S. Either explosives were planted on board the vessel, or these are magnetic mines. An attack by sea drones would hardly have gone unnoticed.
All this is, of course, part of the expected escalation.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9573024.html

An attempt to lift the mood failed.
December 26, 12:49

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The mayor of Irbit apologized to the townspeople for deciding to dress up the Lenin monument as Father Frost and Catherine the Great as the Snow Maiden for the New Year.
Judging by the apology, the mayor sincerely believed that by doing so he was raising the New Year's mood in the city, but he received a stream of "rays of goodness" for mocking historical memory.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9574064.html

Father's Axe
December 26, 21:07

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Father Lukashenko is chopping wood.
He is running for another term in January. And they will try to rock Belarus for this. And there is no longer just chopping wood.

P.S. Another headline for 300 is "Batka is dealing with the chinks".

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9575104.html

The general plan of Sevastopol is ready
December 26, 19:04

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The general plan of Sevastopol is ready

Work on the general plan of Sevastopol is completely finished. Today, at a meeting of the city government, my colleagues and I adopted an order to approve the draft law "On the general plan of the city of Sevastopol".

The draft law, which is to be considered by the deputies of the Legislative Assembly in January, approves the general plan of the city.

This is one of the most important documents for Sevastopol, which includes a provision on territorial planning and maps of the planned placement of social, transport, engineering infrastructure facilities, improvement of public spaces, emergency prevention, and waste management. In essence, the new general plan gives us the opportunity to develop the city more intensively.

The document was developed by specialists from the State Autonomous Institution of Culture "Moscow General Plan Institute". It was reviewed by members of the urban planning council, experts, deputies, representatives of municipalities and resource supply organizations, and city residents. At the beginning of this year, public discussions were held, during which Sevastopol residents put forward more than 3,600 proposals. The commission for the development of the general plan met 34 times and made adjustments to the document. After revision, the draft general plan was agreed upon with federal authorities.

The general plan of Sevastopol was developed for an estimated period of 20 years with the first stage of implementation until 2030.

In the near future, it will be submitted to the Legislative Assembly of Sevastopol. (c) Razvozzhaev

P.S. Less than 10 years have passed.
The absence of a general plan for Sevastopol seriously hinders the development of the city.
It is noteworthy that the development of the new general plan was not carried out by local forces, but by the "Moscow General Plan Institute".
I hope that in 2025 it will be finally adopted and work will begin

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9574818.html

Google Translator

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Is it really possible to destroy Russia?

Lucas Leiroz

December 27, 2024

The West, which has a global hegemonic ambition, sees Russia as a threat because of its own physical presence in the Heartland.

In times of war and with the threat of nuclear conflict, it is important to reflect on the future of the countries involved in the main geopolitical disputes. Western propaganda often tries to reinforce a narrative suggesting that Russia could be destroyed, but the geopolitical reality is very different. Many in the West believe that, in a nuclear war scenario, Russia would be vulnerable, but this view disregards the country’s unique resilience, its vast territorial expanse, and the historical and cultural factors that sustain its ability to survive. In a potential “post-apocalypse” scenario, even a large-scale nuclear war would not be enough to irreversibly destroy Russia. The complexity of Russia’s geography, along with its self-sufficiency and the resilient mindset of its people, ensures its survival, regardless of the severity of the destruction.

Obviously, this type of scenario is not one of a simple military confrontation, where the conventional firepower of both sides would be used to achieve victory. In a global nuclear war, surely everyone would “lose.” However, Russia, due to its geographical, historical, and cultural characteristics, would remain a viable nation, regardless of what happened to its major cities, which would be targets of Western missiles. Even if the West managed to destroy Russia’s major urban centers and critical infrastructures, the country would still retain a vast physical survival base, from the Urals to the Far East, and from the Arctic to Lake Baikal. In other words, Russia, despite any destruction that the West could cause, would continue to be the largest nation in the world, with sufficient resources to ensure self-sufficiency and the long-term continuity of the nation.

Russia has the advantage of its vast territory, which makes it almost immune to total destruction. While Western Europe, with its small size and high population density, virtually has no uninhabited areas where it could survive a nuclear conflict, and the United States only benefits from the relative isolation of Alaska, Russia possesses an extensive and rich area. This territory, which still holds part of its population in regions far from major urban centers, would allow for significant recovery after a global catastrophe. This vast region, with its abundant natural resources, would ensure that Russia not only survives immediately but also has the ability to physically rebuild itself for the future.

It is essential to understand that the Russian mentality, very different from the Western one, is deeply rooted in the country’s historical experience, especially regarding major military events, such as the recent and tragic Second World War. Russia managed to withstand one of the greatest massacres in history and, even amid extreme conditions, rebuild its manufacturing capacity by relocating heavy industry to Siberia and expanding essential infrastructure to sustain the fight against Nazism. This experience of overcoming extreme adversity not only reflects the resilience of its people but also a structure capable of recovering the country’s productive strength in times of crisis.

This reality is often ignored by Western analysts, who tend to see the global population as a homogeneous and unified group, without considering the particularities of each society. Russian resistance lies not only in its ability to mobilize resources or technologies but also in a legacy of survival and adaptation. Russian culture, with its strong connection to Orthodox Christianity and a Soviet heritage of collective planning, creates a solid base for preserving the nation. Instead of an individualistic system, like the West, where multimillionaire elites build nuclear bunkers inaccessible to the people, Russia has public infrastructure designed to ensure the survival of its population, such as the Moscow metro system, which could function as a collective bunker in the event of an atomic catastrophe.

Russia’s unique geography, both physically and socially, offers the country a true “survival formula.” While the West focuses on military and diplomatic issues to weaken the country, Russian territory presents immense challenges to any attempt at disintegration. The vast territorial expanse, the diversity of ethnicities and peoples, and the separated geographic zones that make up the country make any attempt at division more difficult than it may seem at first glance. Not coincidentally, the strategic goal of the West has been, in fact, to destabilize or fragment Russia – an effort that dates back to the time of the British Empire, through the Nazi siege during World War II, and more recently with the expansion of NATO and its allies.

This fragmentation is nothing new; it is part of a continuous effort by Western powers to limit Russian influence and prevent the country from regaining full control over the Heartland region, as described by British geographer Halford Mackinder. Mackinder’s central idea in geopolitics was that control of the Heartland, the vast Eurasian region, is crucial for global dominance. The West has always viewed Russia, with its strategic position in the Heartland, as a threat to its hegemony. Whether with the British, the Nazis, or NATO, the West has always tried to encircle, weaken, and eventually fragment Russia to prevent it from becoming a self-sufficient power and a leader in its region.

In recent years, especially after NATO’s expansion eastward and Western intervention in several former Soviet republics, efforts to destabilize Russia have intensified. The West’s strategy seems clear: weaken Russia internally, foment separatist movements (like in the Caucasus), and support foreign regimes opposing the Kremlin, while militarizing the borders of neighboring countries, like Ukraine, to prevent Russia from reclaiming its regional influence. But these efforts have failed by not understanding Russia’s nature, which is not a fragile or vulnerable state, but a nation that, throughout history, has demonstrated an impressive capacity for adaptation and survival.

In other words, the West, which has a global hegemonic ambition, sees Russia as a threat because of its own physical presence in the Heartland. In a world where geopolitics is shaped by the distribution of power, controlling Russia or keeping it fragmented is essential for the West. However, Russia’s survival, with its immense geography, resources, and cultural resilience, represents a constant challenge to any attempt at global domination by the West.

Therefore, Russia cannot be “destroyed” in a simple way. Its survival, even in a nuclear war scenario or massive destruction, is guaranteed by a series of geographical, historical, and cultural factors that make it an exceptionally resilient nation. This makes clear how irresponsible NATO’s measures in the Ukrainian conflict are, especially the recent authorization for long-range attacks against Russian recognized territory. The West seems to be betting on a game that could quickly lead to a nuclear confrontation, but, unlike the Russians with their vast geography, Western countries do not appear prepared to face the atomic challenge.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... oy-russia/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Sat Dec 28, 2024 4:45 pm

Archangelsk Joins the Fleet ...

... and I don't mean the city.

(Video at link.)

Another state-of-the-art carrier of 32 missiles of 3M22 Zircon and Kalibr variety joined the fleet today. Speaking of which. Here is the transformation of the city of Archangelsk in the last 15 years.



As you can see yourself--the regime of bloody tyrant Putin continues to destroy Russia by means of building modern cities, highways, hospitals, schools, sports objects. Russians are dying from hunger in the supermarkets while trying to decide what sort of meat or avocado are they going to buy. So, as you can see yourself--sanctions are working and Putin's regime is about to fall, any minute now.

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/12 ... fleet.html

What They Fail To Report ...

... is that Medvedev expresses the opinion and a sentiment of the overwhelming majority of Russians. As I repeat ad nauseam--never in my life (and I am a Cold Warrior 1.0) did I encounter so much contempt, resentment and hatred towards Europe on part of Russian society.


“Looking at the Old World today, the only thing I feel is deep revulsion. It is Europe, now a mad old hag, which became the world’s stronghold of Russophobia.”

As you might expect, all kinds of "clarifications" started to be issued by Norway. And those may have some credence to them. But here is the text by Medvedev, which is generally correct, situation with Ursa Major crew rescue notwithstanding.

More than 20 years ago, one of my American colleagues made a curious statement about the events in Iraq: “Punish France, ignore Germany, forgive Russia.” Why did I remember this? Here's why: this linguistic triad is perfectly suited to the situation that will arise (and it will definitely arise someday) in connection with the end of the West's hybrid war against Russia. And then our country may well:

a) forgive those weak countries that succumbed to the pressure of the Anglo-Saxons and took at least a passive part in the anti-Russian Western trash (mainly these are a number of countries in Asia and Latin America);

b) ignore the USA. It's simple: we don't expect any friendship in the next 100 years, and fighting with America is expensive - a direct conflict will obviously develop into a global nuclear war;

c) punish Europe. I will say more here, because the current Old World does not evoke any emotions in me except the deepest disgust. It is Europe, which has turned into an evil, half-witted old woman, that has become the main stronghold of Russophobia in the world. It is lying Europe that is to blame for the breakdown of the Istanbul negotiations. It is brainless Europe that frantically promoted the incompetent sanctions campaign, which brought its citizens colossal losses. It is bloodthirsty Europe that fed all the most rabid demons of war, without regard for the losses of the parties to the conflict.

And therefore, Europe must be punished by all means available to us: political, economic and all sorts of hybrid. And therefore, we must help any destructive processes in Europe. Long live the aggressive pogromists on its historical streets! Glory to the crowds of migrants committing atrocities and hatred destroying the rainbow European values! Let all the vile mugs of European bureaucrats disappear in the stream of future civil conflicts! Why so harshly? How else, given the facts? The Norwegian-flagged Oslo Carrier 3 refused to take on board the Russian sailors from the Ursa Major who were drowning in the Mediterranean Sea. Do you need any more explanations? This cannot be forgiven! Let us act, for it is said: “The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked” (Psalm 58:11).


This is exactly what Russians think and feel. The hull of sunk Ursa Major will be inspected (Russians have the technology to inspect it at the great depth) and the report will be issued on which country (we already have an idea) was responsible for the state terrorism which sent a civilian vessel to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. As I state ad nauseam--Russia has no business with Europe, with the US she has to talk. Per AZAL flight--things are more complicated.

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/12 ... eport.html

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Salome Zourabichvili is a threat to Georgian democracy and should be politely ushered out on 29 December

Ian Proud

December 28, 2024

Salome Zourabichivili plans to mount a coup d’etat by insisting that she remains the rightful ruler of Georgia.

I spent thirty minutes watching current Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili’s interview with Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell on their popular ‘The Rest is Politics’ podcast. It was both illuminating and deeply disturbing. My main conclusion was that the biggest threat to democracy in Georgia is Zourabichvili herself, and that Georgian authorities should tread carefully to avoid bungling the end of her Presidency on Sunday 29 January.

Salome Zourabichvili is very obviously driven by a deep-seated hatred of Russia dating back to her grandparents’ decision to go into exile in 1921, in the teeth of the Red Army occupation of Georgia. It was clear that she has made it her life’s ambition to right the wrong of Georgia’s occupation, by which I inferred she meant to eradicate any hint of hated Russian influence.

Salome has a childish and romanticised historical view of Georgia rooted in her affluent childhood in central Paris and attending the Georgian church. Like a child, she was mendacious and slippery in her response to the question of her Georgian citizenship, describing herself as always having been Georgian through speech and song at home. In fact, she only gained Georgian citizenship on March 20 2004, awarded by then President Saakashvili, while she was still France’s serving Ambassador to Georgia.

The reason for Zourabichvili’s sudden citizenship was to allow her to become Georgia’s Foreign Minister, a role she carried out for a year and a half, for most of that time still employed by the French Diplomatic Service. If that sounds familiar to you, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s first Finance Minister in 2014, Natalia Jaresko, was a former State Department official, as is former President Viktor Yushchenko’s wife, Kateryna. Noone screams ‘democracy’ more, after all, than western officials put in charge of countries that they want to rescue from the tyranny of independence.

By becoming Georgian Foreign Minister while still a serving French diplomat and French citizen, she described a sense of exacting ‘revenge’ on behalf of her parents. So, it was apparent that she has spent her whole life in a private fury about the Russian menace and developed an almost fanatical determination to right what she considers to have been an historical wrong. A political opportunist, she has aligned with and dropped most political parties in Georgia on her way to the top, including Georgia Dream itself.

Like an elderly Greta Thunberg without the global fanbase, Zourabichvili has turned her fury more recently towards righting the so-called injustice imposed on Georgia by the 26 October election which she describes as having been stolen. She is entirely dismissive of the weak support lent to her cause by the OSCE monitoring mission, which found that the Georgian elections were generally well organised, even if there were discrepancies in a number of areas. Or to the fact that most European Heads of State have soft-pedalled on outright condemnation of the Georgia Dream party since that time.

Her position rests almost exclusively on the notion that the wrong party won, and that that must by definition be anti-democratic. That – in her words – the elections themselves were ‘really a referendum’ about Georgia’s right to choose Europe over Russia. And that the fact Georgia Dream lost must axiomatically indicate that the result was fiddled.

An elderly woman, reaching back to her high-society upbringing in Paris with her Nazi sympathising relatives, she describes a young generation of Georgians who have lived and ‘studied abroad’ and are desperate to choose Europe. And yet, statistics from UNESCO show that only around 10000 Georgians study overseas in tertiary education each year, or around one quarter of a percent of the population. Her idea of the modern Georgian citizen is that of an urban rich kid, who may well yearn for a European future for their country after skiing trips to Chamonix.

That chauvinistic and narrow view of an appropriate Georgianness doesn’t represent the median of a Georgian society in which GDP per capita is just $8200. While the elections on 26 October were not perfect, a very clear pattern emerged in which rural Georgians, who make up 40% of the population, voted overwhelmingly in favour of Georgia Dream.

As has been the case since the election night itself on 26 October, Salome Zourabichvili has provided not a single scrap of evidence of Russian interference. Indeed, at the end of the interview, she conceded that Bidzina Ivanishvili himself is not even a direct agent of Russia. Bizarrely, she even described Sergei Lavrov as extremely professional. Her protest is entirely ideological; that any right-minded Georgian must necessarily have wanted to vote against Georgia Dream, and, by implication Russia, although she has never articulated persuasively how the two are linked. And that by choosing Georgia Dream, voters have either been got at or are plain stupid and not worthy of the right to vote.

But her position is also astonishingly self-interested. Narcissistic and drunk on her own propaganda, she just wants to cling to power. Come what may, Salome Zourabichvili is determined to remain President of Georgia, even though her constitutional term expires on Sunday 29 December. At first, during the interview, as if she has a grand plan that she only intends to reveal at the weekend, she refused to be drawn on her future. But by the end of the she announced that ‘I will certainly be President this time next week for the Georgian people’.

So having heaped scorn of the democratic failings of the electoral process in her adopted country, Salome Zourabichivili plans to mount a coup d’etat, at least in publicity terms, by insisting that she remains the rightful ruler of Georgia. What she undoubtedly wants is to create a huge scene in which she suffers a deathless martyrdom involving her being dragged out of town and exiled, bullied and bruised. Georgian authorities, which appear so far to have managed the heavily orchestrated protests in Tblisi with restraint, should continue to do so in ushering her out of power in a firm, yet polite way, so that Georgia’s incoming President, Mikheil Kavelashvili, can assume office.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... -december/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Sun Dec 29, 2024 7:43 pm

SITREP 12/28/24: Provocation Pressure Against Russia Heats Up in Both Air and Sea

Simplicius
Dec 28, 2024
Several people have requested updates on the Azerbaijani flight situation, as well as the sinking of Russian Ursa Major ship. I wanted to wait until there was more information, but the topic fits the general theme of today’s report so let us discuss:

As far as the Aktau flight crash, today Putin reportedly ‘apologized’ to Aliyev for Russia’s involvement but both leaders appear to be skirting any direct declarations as to what happened. Both leaders’ statements referred to some ‘external events’ and seemed to have an agreement to not explicitly blame the crash on a shoot down. This could be for political reasons or it may simply be honest caution in not wanting to jump to conclusions as investigations proceed, since no official conclusion has been reached by relevant authorities.

However, it’s difficult to believe any ‘investigation’ is necessary given that if a Russian AD missile shot down the plane, Russia would likely have that data immediately available from the military, unless someone in the air defense battalion command has subsequently covered it up.

On first impression, it seems obvious the plane was in fact shot down by an errant missile. However, we must consider that the official flight log of the neutral Kazakh pilots does mention a ‘bird strike’, though at the moment we have no way of verifying if these transcripts are 100% real:

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You could argue the pilots can make a mistake by assuming a blown engine is a ‘bird strike’ if nothing else was visible or obvious to them, however they specifically mention the cockpit being hit, which is strange; that would imply they watched birds actually hit the cockpit glass. The weather is claimed to have been foggy, so we could also hypothetically argue “something” hit the cockpit and they merely assumed it was birds—it’s difficult to know for sure.

For all we know, they were hit by one of the Ukrainian drones, which could have resembled a bird through the fog as they ran right into it—though admittedly that’s less likely.

Also, it’s interesting that the side of the plane with the shrapnel is the left side:

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(Video at link)

Notice this damaged flap track fairing is on the left wing from the photo taken by a passenger:

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Since the plane was headed in a northerly direction when it was hit, the expected ‘missile’ would have come from the west, i.e. left—which is consistent with the shrapnel damage. This is consistent with videos from inside the cabin that appear to show shrapnel holes on the seats and overhead on the left side.

Red arrow showing potential missile direction:

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But if a Russian missile did shoot down the plane as some claim, how could that be possible, some might ask? Well, for one there is no IFF (Identity Friend Foe) between AD systems and airliners. Airliners should simply not be anywhere near active combat zones. But modern AD systems are of course designed to differentiate between different objects based on their radar signature, flight characteristics, such as speed, altitude, etc. Unfortunately, a descending airliner ready to land could actually look a lot like a drone given that its airspeed and low altitude would precisely mimic one of these Ukrainian OWA-UAS which fly at the exact same speed and altitude as an airliner approaching a runway. This is particularly the case given that apparently heavy Russian GPS jamming was ongoing at the time, which may have seriously affected everyone’s signals including Russian AD, given that coordinating such things is often not as smooth as one would like.

Recall that modern radar systems may not be as discerning as you might think. For instance, days ago we found out from US military-connected sources that the US’ shoot down of its own F/A-18 Super Hornet was “far worse than we thought”, for two reasons:

The USS Gettysburg which shot down the Hornet had just gone through an extensive $200 million upgrade which vastly updated its AEGIS system, radars, etc., to the most modern and advanced standards. In fact, it was the first Ticonderoga class cruiser to successfully complete the Navy’s major SLEP (Service Life Extension Program) upgrade program.

On top of that, it turns out that the Gettysburg almost shot down a second Hornet, which just dodged the missile at the last second:

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So: one of the US Navy’s most advanced ships which was just upgraded for nearly a quarter of a billion dollars was not able to discern its own incoming jets, especially given the presence of IFF, and tried to shoot two of them down in a row? It’s clear to see that modern radar discrimination is not as “perfect” as people think, no matter the country.

The presence of fog would have further complicated the situation near Grozny given claims that a Pantsir system was used, which also relies on electro-optical visual tracking of targets as redundancy to radar.

However, my one point of skepticism is that the airplane seems to have suffered very light shrapnel damage which is not consistent with a modern missile striking it. You see, a giant airliner is the easiest target in the world for any modern AD system where the chance of the missile striking a more “glancing” blow is very low. Such a ‘fat, slow target’ would be hit much more directly and completely shot down, with consequent fragment dispersion showing far more serious penetration rather than a light scattering which leaves the plane to continue flying hundreds of kilometers. But in this case, the shrapnel damage is so light, and the plane made it so far—across the entire Caspian Sea—that I’m left extremely skeptical that a missile was targeted directly at the plane. The type of damage seems more consistent with something exploding nearby but which was not directly targeted at the plane. The only scenario which fits the above explanation? A drone may have been shot down “near” the plane and the explosion from both the drone’s own fragmentation warhead plus the missile may have sprayed the plane that happened to be flying by, but just glancingly so.

The other thing to recall: I have reported before that Ukrainian SBU now regularly sends up smaller drones in the path of Russian planes precisely to cause AD systems to engage the target and hopefully hit the planes instead. This was reportedly done during the Il-76 and/or A-50 AWACS shoot downs. It is carried out by some operative on the ground who can anonymously fly a small Mavik style UAV or even FPV drone directly in the plane’s path in order to ‘bait’ the AD.

So, my personal assessment for now in the absence of new information is that it’s likely a Russian AD missile may have had something to do with it, but still feels wrong that it was a directly targeted hit—there appears more to the story. But there’s still also the chance it was an outright Ukrainian provocation in the form of a terrorist attack made to look like a Russian shoot down.

Ursa Major
There’s not much to say on the sinking itself other than that it was almost certainly carried out by Ukrainian and possibly British special services as claimed. I have long wondered when Ukraine would begin exporting its naval drones to hound Russian fleets across the world, rather than just in the Black Sea. We’ve seen that these drones have massive ranges, able to go from Odessa to the Kerch Bridge in a circular path that takes them far outside of Crimea, which can be nearly 1000km in total distance. This means Russian ships in the Mediterranean and elsewhere can be easy prey, given that the Starlinks powering these drones are able to navigate them anywhere.

I’m not saying a naval drone was responsible in this case, but it was only a matter of time before Ukraine began targeting Russian naval assets all over the world, which are essentially sitting ducks.

But this brings up a much larger theme, which also ties into the Aktau flight ‘shoot down’:

Russia is entering a very dangerous time period. It may sound cliche to say this because for a long time now we’ve constantly spoken of Ukraine’s “collapse”, but this time it really is getting to that point where things are hitting the wall. Particularly depending on what Trump does, Ukraine may not last out the next year. Zelensky is now forced to embark on a major global operation to “fire all guns” in provoking Russia to the maximum, full tilt.

This is not just my speculation but has been supported by several reports that affirm Ukraine has activated such a wide-scale plan. It involves other countries in broadly increasing the pressure on Russia’s operations from every conceivable angle. The most obvious and overtly declared one has been the new announcement that the US and allies are declaring an elevated war on Russia’s “shadow tanker fleet”. This has created immediate results, such as a new provocation surrounding Russia’s ‘Eagle S’ ship which was seized yesterday under suspicion of allegedly cutting more undersea cables between Estonia and Finland.

Image

(Much more at link)

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A fishy story of cable sabotage in the Baltic Sea

December 27, 2024

The alleged vandalism of the submarine cables is a return to the scene of the Nord Stream crime.

This week saw yet another incident of alleged submarine cable sabotage in the Baltic Sea. A power line running along the seabed from Finland to Estonia was reportedly disrupted. Western news media have fingered a tanker carrying Russian crude oil as being responsible, with the implication that the damage was caused deliberately.

In recent weeks, there have been other incidents of alleged sabotage of telecommunication cables under the Baltic Sea. On November 17, a data link between Finland and Lithuania was damaged. The next day, on November 18, another internet line lying on the seabed from Finland to Germany was reportedly cut. Both cables were said to have been wrecked by external force.

Germany’s defense minister Boris Pistorius and other Russophobic politicians have insinuated that the alleged sabotage is a form of “hybrid warfare” being waged by Russia and possibly with China’s help in the case of the November incidents.

Moscow and Beijing have categorically denied any involvement in interfering with subsea infrastructure in the Baltic region. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the accusations against Russia of aggravated damage as “absurd” and, he noted, typically made without any verifiable evidence.

Conveniently, following the latest incident this week, NATO head Mark Rutte is assuring Finland, Sweden, and the Baltic states that the alliance is responding to their calls for more security by increasing the alliance’s military forces for patrolling the sea lanes.

Any independent criminal investigator would easily find credible answers to the question of Cui Bono (Who Gains?).

Cables are cut with unusual frequency (suggesting not accidental damage); the people reporting the damage do so without showing evidence (we are relying on their version); the accusations are basely leveled at Russia without evidence but reliant on Russophobic prejudice; the accusations, in turn, are cited to make calls for increased NATO protection; and NATO duly provides the requested “protection”.

One upshot is that the NATO military is giving itself a license to increase warships, warplanes and surveillance systems on Russia’s northern flank – all under the pretext of “responding to Russian sabotage”.

Such a move is, of course, part of the long-term strategic attempt to encircle Russia, threaten its national security and destabilize its sovereignty. In other words, this is all part of the long-term geopolitical confrontation between the U.S.-led NATO bloc and Russia, in which the war in Ukraine is but one theater.

The control of the Arctic sea routes and resources is a top strategic goal of the United States and its Scandinavian NATO partners, in particular. Russia has a natural advantage in the Arctic region owing to its geography. One way of tipping the balance of advantage is for NATO to militarize the region.

Another strategic aim is to curb Russian cargo shipping via the Baltic Sea. Tankers operating from the Russian Baltic Sea ports of Primorsk, Ust-Luga, St Petersburg, Vyborg and Vystok provide a vital maritime route for Russian crude oil exports.

It is significant that NATO intelligence agencies are turning their attention to cutting off Russia’s oil exports via the Baltic Sea. There is huge consternation, as our columnist Ian Proud alluded to last week, among Western enemies that unprecedented economic sanctions imposed over the last decade have failed to cripple the Russian economy. Indeed, far from it, Russia’s economy is powering ahead, partly because its oil and gas exports are finding alternative world markets to the traditional European ones which have been cut off by their unilaterally imposed sanctions against Russia.

A telling headline in European Pravda (a CIA-sponsored propaganda outlet) was this: “Why the EU still fails to restrict Russian oil exports and what should be done instead”.

The article went on to state: “The volume of seaborne crude oil exports from Russian ports in the Baltic Sea accounts for approximately 60% of Russia’s total maritime oil exports… Sooner or later, the EU or a coalition of Baltic Sea countries, together with Norway and the United Kingdom, will be forced to implement restrictive measures against this maritime oil trade.”

Given the context that the U.S.-led NATO agenda of defeating Russia via its proxy in Ukraine has failed, and given that the Western economic sanctions against Russia have proven useless, it is anticipated that other forms of coercion and aggression are to be sought. Cutting off Russia’s oil and other cargo routes in the Baltic Sea would be a calculated blow.

To make that offensive plausible, the NATO and extremely Russophobic members in the Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, along with the Scandinavians, can reliably be expected to indulge in provocations against Russia to justify a NATO “security response”.

By crowding the Baltic region with NATO forces this would allow for harassing Russian tankers and creating the circumstances for a blockade on Russia’s seaports.

Russia has no motive to sabotage submarine cables in the Baltic Sea. The NATO powers do.

After all, it was the United States that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines that ran from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea. That act of state-sponsored terrorism in September 2022 was cogently reported by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. The whole point of that sabotage was to damage the Russian and European economies for the strategic benefit of the United States.

Shamefully, no European investigation has been properly conducted to determine the culprit when it is obvious that it was the U.S.

The alleged vandalism of the submarine cables is a return to the scene of the Nord Stream crime. It is obvious that the U.S.-led NATO gains from the latest incidents.

The irony is that while the next leader of the United States, Donald Trump, has taken to threatening NATO members Canada and Denmark (Greenland) with the annexation of their territory, other NATO members in the Baltic region are “crying uncle” to the American imperialist bully for protection.

You could not make this up. But such is the absurdity of the U.S. and NATO imperialist lunacy.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... altic-sea/

******

Calls to phones via the Internet are prohibited
December 29, 12:58

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Calls to phones via the Internet are prohibited

The government has banned internet calls to mobile and landline phones, which will help in the fight against fraudsters, the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers reported.
"The government has optimized the list of licenses for the provision of communication services to limit telephone fraud. <…> Thus, the license for the transmission of internet data with the overlay of voice information is excluded from the list ," the press release says.
The corresponding decree was signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

The press service noted that such technology made it possible to contact a person using a landline or mobile phone network via the internet. Fraudsters most often used this, because the technology allows for the substitution of phone numbers.
Now, the government believes, fraudsters can be seriously limited, since data transmission networks cannot be connected to telephone networks.
The innovation will not affect ordinary users in any way, the press service assured. They explained that special programs are used for voice calls in messengers, which provide communication via the Internet without going to the landline and mobile phone network.

https://ria.ru/20241228/svyaz-1991802125.html - zinc

Less than three years have passed.
They should also toughen the punishment for involvement in organizing telephone fraud.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9580062.html

RKN has registered over 49,000 bloggers with an audience of over 10,000 people
December 29, 15:09

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RKN has registered over 49,000 bloggers with an audience of over 10,000 people

. According to the registration of bloggers with an audience of over 10,000 subscribers in RKN.

1. 135,000 applications submitted.
2. 49,000 bloggers registered (practically an army corps).
3. 30,000 applications rejected.

As statistics show, they clearly don't register everyone.
The law on registering blogs comes into effect on January 1, 2025.
We'll see the law enforcement practice there. Some people don't register because they want to see how it all works.

P.S. By the way, yesterday I discovered that the "Registered with Roskomnadzor" banner appeared in TG.Stat's internal statistics.
They registered my LiveJournal much faster than Telegram.

P.S. 2. Have you registered with Roskomnadzor?

https://www.karusel-tv.ru/media/suit/pr ... 243174.jpg

Belarus advances on Lvov
December 29, 17:14

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Chronicles of the unknown offensive of Batka's divisions on Lvov.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9580702.html

Former Russian national team player dies in SVO zone
December 29, 21:24

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Former Russian national football team player Alexey Bugayev died in the SVO zone. His life after football didn't work out, he was caught distributing drugs and sentenced to 9.5 years. In the end, he decided to go to the front. He died fighting for his country. He atoned for his guilt.

May he rest in peace.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9581257.html

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Tue Dec 31, 2024 3:11 pm

Analyzing Aliyev’s Theory About The Azerbaijan Airlines Tragedy

Andrew Korybko
Dec 30, 2024

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If there’s any truth to what he alleged about a cover up, and once again it’s pure conjecture at this point since the black boxes haven’t yet been analyzed, then that can be accounted for by personal factors and not a national conspiracy.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev shared a theory about last week’s Azerbaijan Airlines tragedy in an interview that can be read in English here. He’s a graduate of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO, which is run by the Russian Foreign Ministry), recently reaffirmed his country’s alliance with Russia, and has withstood immense Western pressure to remain a reliable partner for Russia. Aliyev therefore can’t be accused of wanting to smear Russia at others’ behest.

According to him, while the final version of what happened isn’t yet known since the investigation is ongoing, “the initial theories are also quite reasonable and are based on facts.” He believes that the plane was accidentally shot down by Russia, its electronic warfare made the plane even more uncontrollable afterwards, and officials then tried to cover it all up. Regrettably, nowhere in his interview did he mention Ukraine’s drone attacks, which triggered Russian air defenses and electronic warfare.

It's unclear why that is, but it’s best for the media to ask him so that he can account for this instead of people recklessly speculating about his intentions, which could worsen bilateral relations if any high-profile Russians accuse him of playing a double game. The situation is understandably very sensitive and must be treated that way by the media and influencers. Russia’s interests are to maintain its strategic alliance with Azerbaijan. Anyone who risks that for clout and clicks is therefore harming the state.

Moving along, Aliyev also mentioned that he “categorically refused” to let the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) investigate the matter in a leading role since “it is no secret that this organization consists mostly of Russian officials and is headed by Russian citizens. Objectivity factors could not be fully ensured here.” For those who aren’t aware, the IAC is based in Moscow and is connected with the Commonwealth of Independent States. It’ll still participate in the investigation, but it won’t lead it.

Aliyev also said that “Some believe that the plane was deliberately sent off course by ground handling services in Grozny because the plane was already out of control, and there was a high probability it would fall into the sea. If this had been the case, the cover-up attempts would have been successful, and the so-called bird theory would have been presented as the most likely version.” He clarified that he doesn’t want to jump the gun about what happened but is expressing an opinion on “obvious issues”.

Even so, he’s clearly speculating on the motives of the local air control officials, but he also feels the full weight of his people upon him to comment on the theories that many of them are currently discussing. He therefore ultimately placed his understanding of national interests above all else. Aliyev later wrapped up his interview by demanding an apology, an acknowledgement of guilt, criminal punishment for those responsible, and compensation to the Azerbaijani state and the victims of this tragedy.

Aliyev’s theory about last week’s tragedy is intriguing and will certainly find many adherents at home and abroad, but observers must remember that it’s still only a theory and that he himself cautioned during his interview that the final version of what happened isn’t yet known. If there’s any truth to what he alleged about a cover up, and once again it’s pure conjecture at this point since the black boxes haven’t yet been analyzed, then that can be accounted for by personal factors and not a national conspiracy.

Some people panic during times of crisis and behave in very shameful ways that they otherwise wouldn’t if they were thinking clearly. This isn’t an excuse but an explanation of human behavior. It’s not exclusive to Russians and is relevant to every ethno-national group in the world. The speed with which the tragedy unfolded during Ukraine’s surprise drone attacks against civilian infrastructure in the region that day excludes any credible possibility of a national conspiracy in which Putin himself might have played a role.

Assuming for argument’s sake that shrapnel from Ukrainian drones or Russian air defenses pierced the plane right around the time that electronic warfare was resorted to for scrambling the attacker’s flight path, all of this would have happened too quickly for a local official to spread word to Putin. The same goes for the alleged instructions that the pilots received to stage an emergency landing in Kazakhstan instead of somewhere in the North Caucasus region that Ukraine was actively attacking.

The use of air defenses, carpeting the region with electronic warfare, and redirecting civilian flights are standard responses during drone attacks. There’s nothing scandalous about any of this. Something apparently went wrong last week if one doesn’t believe the bird or gas cylinder theories that some on the Russian side floated right after the tragedy and which deeply offended Aliyev as he revealed in his interview. That said, panicking officials might be responsible for this possible confusion, not the Kremlin.

It's important for Russians, “Non-Russian Pro-Russians”, and other Russian-friendly members of the diverse non-Mainstream Media community to remember that Aliyev explicitly said that he believes that what happened was an accident, but he’s very upset by what he suspects to be a series of attempted cover-ups from the initial theories put forth to redirecting the flight to Kazakhstan and then involving the IAC. Not once did he say anything that could even remotely be interpreted as implicating Putin in this.

He too understands the importance of preserving Azerbaijan’s strategic alliance with Russia just like his counterpart does, but now each side’s media and influencers must follow their lead by behaving responsibly and not accusing the other of anything untoward. That’ll admittedly be difficult for some to do given the sensitivity of what happened and the speculation that’s now swirling about, including that which Aliyev himself lent credence to, but it’s for the greater good for them all to exercise self-restraint.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/analyzin ... -about-the

******

Crash of Azerbaijani civilian airliner in Kazakhstan. Accidental tragedy or monstrous provocation?

December 29, 2024

It may be hoped that the attempts by Russia’s adversaries to politicize this tragedy and use it to weaken the trusting relations between historically close nations are doomed to failure.

The crash investigation of the Brazilian-built Embraer 190 airliner is ongoing, and therefore, it is too early to talk about technical details. Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly apologized for the fact that the tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace and expressed his sincere condolences to the families of the victims.

In the Western media, the perpetrators of the tragedy have already been assigned. Who did it? The Russians, of course!

A statement by the British Foreign Office that “President Putin’s statement lacks recognition that the reckless and irresponsible actions of the Russian state pose a huge and immediate threat to the interests and national security of other states” looks particularly cynical.

And no one in the West will even mention that the initial cause of the disaster was another terrorist raid by Ukrainian drones on the southern region of Russia, where, at that time, there was a civilian passenger plane flying from Baku to Grozny.

It is safe to assume that with all their public statements and other steps, the British authorities, who are directly interested in destabilizing the Caucasus and Central Asia (including through Ankara-promoted “pan-Turkic” projects), will do everything possible without waiting for the results of the investigation to shift responsibility for the tragic incident onto the Russian side.

It is plausible that the crash was a carefully planned project to finally squeeze Russia out of the South Caucasus, which is fraught with new challenges already on the northern, Russian side of the Greater Caucasus Ridge. It is not by chance that, along with Grozny, on the same day, December 25, Ukrainian drones attacked Magas (Ingushetia) and Vladikavkaz (North Ossetia), where a woman was killed in a strike on a shopping center. It should also be remembered that Azerbaijan is an important participant in negotiations regarding hypothetical schemes for Russian gas supplies to Europe following the end of the current Gazprom contract on December 31 via Ukraine. Accordingly, the deterioration of Russian-Azerbaijani relations is in the interests of the opponents of the continuation of Russian gas supplies to Europe via the Ukrainian gas transport system and Turkish Stream.

Turning to the immediate circumstances of the tragedy, we can note that the destructive impact on the navigation system of the Azal aircraft could have been carried out by a swarm of Ukrainian drones equipped with local electronic warfare systems. A “blinded” aircraft could well have lost its route, and even more, it could have been skillfully brought under air defense fire. The route of the aircraft was known, so the reason to accuse the Russians of hitting a civilian aircraft seems quite appropriate.

It should not be forgotten that swarm systems of the warring parties are now coming to the forefront and that the Ukrainian Army has shown unprecedented activity in this area. The appearance of clouds of drones over major Russian cities is no longer sensational news. All these attacks were preceded by boastful hints from the enemy that they were preparing a major drone provocation against Russia. Similarly, the fact that these clouds may have cutting-edge systems, including possibly a local electronic warfare system, should be no surprise.

If the version about the external impact on the aircraft is confirmed, the beneficiaries will inevitably reveal themselves. In fact, they have already begun to do so, as evidenced by the above-quoted statement by the British Foreign Office. Who benefits from the serious cooling of Baku’s relations with Moscow in the background of the hybrid war being waged by the West against Russia? Apparently, Armenian leader Nikol Pashinyan, who did not show up at the informal CIS summit and who is being courted by Western powers. And certainly not Azeri leader Ilham Aliyev, who urgently returned to his homeland because of the tragedy. There is nothing to say about Ukraine, given their direct involvement in the terrorist attack in Moscow’s Crocus City shopping and entertainment center and the murder of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defence Forces of Russia. One can trace a cynical scheme with a clear ethnic coloring: the terrorist attack in Crocus City was carried out by citizens of Tajikistan, General Kirillov and his assistant were killed by a citizen of Uzbekistan. Russia has friendly relations with all these countries, which, according to the plan of its enemies, should be destroyed as much as possible. And here, there is a “good opportunity” to seriously complicate Russia-Azerbaijani bilateral relations.

At the beginning of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, the whole world was struck by the monstrous provocation known as the “Bucha massacre”, which is emotionally negatively perceived by the English-speaking public (sounds like “Butcher”). Now, the skill of provocateurs has grown immeasurably. They fly up under the clouds to do evil there, too, it seems. The words of Joseph Goebbels come to mind: “Give me the media and I will turn any nation into a herd of pigs.” Life has confirmed the words of this terrible man: in Ukraine, under the influence of Nazi propaganda, a herd of pigs has formed, falling into glee at their most horrible actions. Not only in the mud of Bucha but probably also in the skies above Grozny.

It may be hoped that the attempts by Russia’s adversaries to politicize this tragedy and use it to weaken the trusting relations between historically close nations are doomed to failure.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... ovocation/

******

"Finnish Horror Stories for Naughty Children" - How to Frighten Your Population with the Russian Threat
December 30, 2024
Rybar

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After the capture of the Eagle S vessel, it was expected that NATO countries would not stop there. An Estonian vessel arrived in the Gulf of Finland , and other NATO countries supported the initiative and intend to strengthen the naval group in the Baltic Sea .

But the Finns went further. The Finnish publication Italehti, citing “a bunch of intelligence sources,” writes that Russia could attack Finland in the coming years to annex new territories.

According to the publication, the Russians plan to advance first into the Kymijoki River valley and gain a foothold there. After that, they will make a dash north to Puumalansalmi to "bite off" this piece of territory in southern Finland and blockade Helsinki .

In the north, they believe, Russia's 44th Army Corps will attack the Lapland region and Norway's Finnmark to consolidate its presence in northern Scandinavia and gain lucrative lands in the Arctic standoff .

Unfortunately, this is the current policy of most of Europe. Previously, only the " Baltic dying outs " spoke with such regular statements about the Russian offensive, which in this way maintained interest in themselves in the world.

In Finland, politicians similar in character and mental abilities are currently in power, who quickly picked up the same theses as in the Baltics . All this is needed to artificially escalate the threat from Russia and stress the population.

Frightened Finnish citizens are more manageable and will be less likely to resist unpopular political decisions . Inflation, falling incomes, deteriorating quality of life, militarization - all this concerns Finland, so such headlines will be heard more and more often.

https://rybar.ru/finskie-strashilki-dly ... j-ugrozoj/

How Ukrainians Recruit Arsonists via Telegram
December 29, 2024
Rybar

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Since mid-December, almost every day on the Internet you can find reports of another case of arson in Russia: from shopping centers and bank branches to MFCs and departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In our recent analysis, we explained in detail how exactly Ukrainian call center operators choose their victims and force them to commit a crime.

The sabotage is organized not only through phone calls and WhatsApp , but also through the Telegram messenger: for this, the authors intercept or buy long-abandoned channels with a sufficient audience and use them to publish offers to earn extra money for an extremely high fee.

Let's give some examples
The closed channel "Secret Worker" - since its foundation, it has been distributing materials of an intimate nature, thanks to which it was able to gather an audience of over 15 thousand subscribers . However, after 2022, its authors stopped publishing any messages until December 2024.

Another example is "The Boy's Word in Fact" . As you can easily guess from the name, its main content was materials somehow related to the well-known Russian TV series. However, it also fell into disuse after 2023, but was unexpectedly resurrected in November 2024.

What do these channels have in common?
In all these channels, since the resumption of activity, the content has changed dramatically - instead of the usual entertainment materials, users were bombarded with all sorts of offers to earn extra money , while neither the experience nor the age of the authors were of interest.

For the performance of "simple" tasks and "specific assignments" they promised high pay , although they themselves admitted that they would have to " misbehave a little bit ". And even if there were doubts at this stage, they were dispelled by direct communication with the contacts listed under the ads, who directly offered to set fire to any object for a payment of one and a half to three thousand dollars .

How to deal with this?
While writing this article, both of these channels were deleted within a day of each other. And Roskomnadzor specialists are behind their blocking — this is beyond doubt, given their long-standing practice of interacting with Telegram, including the deletion of various extremist channels like “ Utro Dagestan ” and “ Stop the Cars ” . Moreover, they could have found at least one of the above channels through a publication by our colleague Alexander Kartavykh .

For the site administration itself, searching for such sources in the mountains of user complaints in such a short period of time is, to put it mildly, difficult - and even if they had found them, they would most likely have continued to function. But they could not ignore the demand from RKN : it is one thing to refuse to remove opposition and Ukrainian channels, and another to remove those who spread calls for sabotage and terrorist attacks.

The situation itself once again demonstrates that channels from the Russian-language segment of Telegram, operating in the interests of the Ukrainian special services, can and should be removed . However, for a more widespread nature, this requires a certain strategic approach from the Russian leadership.

The same Roskomnadzor should pay attention to many other channels that openly act against Russia : from those collecting data on the deployment of the Russian Armed Forces to those calling on the population to betray and join the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. At the same time, on the territory of the so-called Ukraine, since the beginning of the SVO, much less odious channels have been subject to removal for " violating local legislation ."

And here we don’t need to think in terms of “mirror responses ,” as some of the speakers said yesterday against the backdrop of Russian Telegram channels being blocked in Europe. There is the country’s information security, which is threatened by hundreds, if not thousands of channels, including Ukrainian ones. But their carefree existence against the backdrop of the special operation coming to an end in its third year raises questions — we hope that at least this will be fixed in the new year.

https://rybar.ru/kak-ukrainczy-verbuyut ... r-rybarya/

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Re: Russia today

Post by blindpig » Fri Jan 03, 2025 4:44 pm

An Ignored US Diplomat’s Warning on Russia – My Interview with E. Wayne Merry on His “Long Telegram of the 90’s”
January 2, 2025
Consortium News, 1/2/24

The National Security Archive recently published a 1994 memo by E. Wayne Merry, a U.S. diplomat in Moscow who provided an on-the-ground assessment of U.S. policies toward a Russia that was in chaos.

In his memo — sent by telegram — Merry criticized the U.S. tendency to prioritize experimental shock therapy rather than laying the foundation for the rule of law.

He also said that Russia’s historical and cultural experience was not conducive to the same lionization of unfettered free markets that Americans had.

The memo represented a different view of how the U.S.-led West could have managed its relationship with and guided reforms in post-Soviet Russia — a view that unfortunately was not followed.

Natylie Baldwin: You wrote an assessment of what was going on in Russia for the State Department in March of 1994. It was entitled “Whose Russia Is It Anyway? Toward a Policy of Benign Respect.” The National Security Archive published it in December 2024 and described it as “The Long Telegram of the 90’s.” What was your formal role for the U.S. government at that time and what prompted you to write this assessment?

Wayne Merry: From August 1991, I was chief of the Political/Internal section of the U.S. embassy in Moscow, in charge of reporting and analysis on political developments in the late Soviet Union and then Russia. I had worked in this section a decade earlier and was very familiar with the role.

Given the historic events underway from 1991 through 1994, it was a central part of my job to attempt to explain these events to a Washington readership and especially to challenge misperceptions in Washington about Russia through the advantage of being on the ground.

Baldwin: One of several themes in the assessment was the U.S./West’s insistence on implementing exploitative neoliberal economic policies on Russia in that era that were leading to a lot of destabilization and major social problems. These policies were understandably unpopular among most Russians.

You made the point that, as far as U.S. interests relating to Russia were concerned, Washington should have prioritized diplomacy and the successful building up of democracy and the rule of law and let the Russians decide their own domestic economic policies. Explain how you arrived at that conclusion about U.S. interests and how our policies at the time were problematic.

Merry: It was not difficult in-country to see that the macro-economic stabilization policies which had been fairly successful in Poland were not so in Russia and that more maturity of post-Soviet Russia’s political institutions was essential to permit a non-criminalized development of a market economy.

There was considerable debate on the American side, in Washington and in Moscow, as to which should have priority — market economics or rule of law. As someone with years of in-country experience of Russia, I felt strongly that political and legal reforms should take priority.

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In 1998, demonstrators in Pereslavl, Russia, with banner saying “Jail the redhead!” in reference to Anatoly Chubais, the Russian politician and economist responsible for the privatization program under President Boris Yeltsin. (Pereslavl Week, Yu. N. Chastov, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Baldwin: In making your case on that point, you predicted that U.S. policies were eroding much of the good will that Russians had toward the West in general and the U.S. in particular, right after the Cold War ended. Indeed, Russians did become very disillusioned by the U.S./West and ended up having a less than positive view of democracy because it became associated with the poverty, crime and chaos that accompanied Western involvement in their country in the ‘90s. To what extent were you already seeing this resentment from Russians at the time that you wrote this in 1994?

Merry: These developments began under [the last Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev and were well advanced by 1994.

Baldwin: In your assessment you stated:

“Thus, ‘reform’ of the Russian economy will, of necessity, be the work of many years. The Russian approach to this process will be different from our own, reflecting a better appreciation of their needs and societal preferences. In facing the colossal mistakes of the Soviet period, Russia can and will fall back on traditions long pre-dating the Leninist state: traditions amenable and sometimes even rational in a Russian context, even if they differ sharply from American experience and inclination.”

To most people, I think this point you make about Russia progressing on the road of economic reform in a manner that reflects their unique history — and you also go on to mention geography and climate — seems like common sense. Why do you think U.S. decision-makers couldn’t understand this and act accordingly?

Merry: Most advocates of “shock therapy” in Russia had little or no experience of the country, let alone of its social and political cultures. They simply believed in their macro-economic ideology as applicable anywhere on earth. I had encountered this perspective among academic economists in the United States during my student years but had learned from other economists with a broader range of thought.

Baldwin: To continue with that line of thought, when reading your 1994 assessment, it is notable that you provide an analysis based on an acknowledgment of objective reality. Today that really seems to be missing from so much that is written by supposed experts in the U.S. about Russia and policies toward it.

Analysis today seems to be very ideologically/narrative driven and facts seem to be easily dismissed if one simply doesn’t like the facts or they don’t fit a preferred narrative.

What do you think may explain this? Is there a difference in the education and training of academics and government officials these days? It’s safe to say that arrogance breeds foolishness — is it just arrogance due to the fact that we’ve been the lone superpower for several decades?

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A young boy and U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Red Square, Moscow, 1988. (Reagan White House, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

Merry: I am not familiar with recent education in this country about Russia, but certainly the policy arrogance we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan had its parallels in our policy in Russia in the ‘90s.

Baldwin: At one point in your assessment, you refer to the legislative elections that had taken place in December of 1993. You said the following:

“What the election showed, yet again, is that Russia is a very different society than America. In contemporary American rhetoric, ‘democracy’ and ‘the market’ are treated as synonymous terms and certainly as mutually dependent.

Few, if any, Russians perceive them so. American dogma portrays ‘democracy’ and ‘the market’ as freedom of choice for the individual in the political and economic realms, with highly positive ethical connotations. Russians (and most non-Americans) are simply baffled by this vision of a societal double helix of political and economic decisions leading to a higher moral and material state of being. Very, very few Russians impart positive ethical content to market forces, and unfortunately more of these are mafia than economists.”


Can you discuss this difference in outlook by Russians about the relationship between democracy and the market? What are those differences rooted in for Russians? To what extent do you think this is still true in Russia today?

Merry: I think Russia remains closer to its pre-Soviet roots than to any kind of contemporary Western market economy. I would recommend reading the works of Nikolai Leskov, a late 19th Century Russian author, to get a grip on the realities of 21st Century Russia.

Baldwin: You also noted that, given Russians’ seven decades of experience with Soviet socialism, one thing they were weary of was economic theory. The last thing they wanted after communism fell was to be the subjects of a socioeconomic laboratory experiment which is how many Western officials and academics viewed Russia in the 90’s. Can you expound on that?

Merry: Certainly, many of the Western economists who came to post-Soviet Russia did so with an enthusiasm for large-scale market experimentation. I recall that one of the most common slogans in public demonstrations under Gorbachev and [the Russian President Boris] Yeltsin was “no more experiments.”

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Yeltsin ahead of the 1996 presidential election. (Kremlin.ru, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)

The Soviet system fairly exulted in its mass social and economic experiments, which most people came to loath.

Most Russians pretty much assumed that Americans and Europeans must know the correct way to run a modern economy, so did not need to experiment. They were not amused when many of the Westerners who came to “educate” Russia in market economics saw their roles as one of mass experimentation.

Russians said they wanted to live “normal” lives. That word, “normal,” in Russian carries with it a very deep well of frustration and dissatisfaction both with their own leaders and with the outsiders with their view of the Russian people as little better than laboratory animals for experimentation.

Baldwin: You also discussed the fact that Yeltsin was losing his popularity at the time. Yeltsin went from being very popular in 1991 to now being seen by many Russians as one of the worst leaders the country has ever had. As someone who had a front row seat during that period, what factors would you say led to his popularity taking such a nosedive and virtually destroying his legacy?

Merry: Yeltsin suffered from excessive expectations, especially after Gorbachev. Yeltsin enjoyed very high levels of popular acceptance in 1991, but this proved fragile under the pressure of high levels of inflation; loss of employment and access to consumer goods; loss of great power status and pride, plus the poor human relations exhibited by some of his team.

Yeltsin could be a terrific leader in a crisis, but keep in mind that the patience of the Russian public with its government had eroded badly even under [Soviet leader Leonid] Brezhnev. Yeltsin had great instincts for tearing down the old Soviet system, but little grasp of what could or should come after. I think his military interventions in Chechnya also were catastrophic errors, both at home and in terms of his image abroad.

Baldwin: What do you think are the biggest lessons from that period that would be helpful for U.S. policymakers to understand now in our relationship with Russia?

Merry: Humility would be a great asset in U.S. policy, but I do not expect to live to see it.

https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2025/01/an- ... f-the-90s/

Merry's assessment of the Soviet Union is what you'd expect from a US diplomat. But if the Soviet people were so sick of socialism why have polls over the decades expressed considerable majority opinions that the dissolution of the USSR was a mistake? Merry's assessment of US policy makers is much more accurate but ignores the weight of capital upon policy. It is certainly not the working class perspective.

******

Viktor Alksnis has died
January 2, 15:10

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Viktor Alksnis has died.

He was an active opponent of Perestroika in the USSR.
In 1991, he supported the State Emergency Committee.
In 1993, he sided with the parliament during Black October.

May he rest in peace.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9587947.html

Cost of apartments in Mandarins
January 2, 12:55

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The cost of apartments on the primary and secondary markets in tangerines.

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The issue of purchasing real estate in Abkhazia has not been disclosed.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9587550.html

(In other words, 'moderate' inflation. I think...)

Google Translator

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The Political Consequences Of Ukraine’s Decision To Cut Off Russian Gas To Europe

Andrew Korybko
Jan 02, 2025

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Russia and the EU will manage the latest phase of their US-instigated divorce without much difficulty, but the US might offer to bring them back together by authorizing its vassals’ import of Russian pipeline gas in exchange for some concessions from the Kremlin in the energy sector and Ukraine.

Pundits are discussing Ukraine’s decision to cut off Russian gas to Europe after Kiev refused to extend its five-year agreement with Moscow that expired on the first of the year, with the vast majority laying blame on the other side and hyping up the negative consequences for their opponent’s interests. The reality is that this development is much more political than anything else since the EU and Russia already weathered much more serious disruptions throughout 2022.

The Yamal pipeline through Poland was shut down a few months after the special operation began for sanctions-related reasons while Nord Stream 1 was gradually phased out of operation due to maintenance needs worsened by Canada’s delay on returning repaired gas turbines to Russia. That pipeline and the inactive Nord Stream 2 were then blown up in a terrorist attack in September of that year, though one still remains undamaged but has yet to re-enter into operation for political reasons.

The combined effect resulted in the share of Russia’s pipeline gas in EU imports plunging “from over 40% in 2021 to about 8% in 2023” according to the European Council. Nevertheless, the EU “narrowly avoided” a recession that year in CNN’s words, though it could enter into one later this year if Germany’s economic struggles deepen. Even so, it won’t be directly affected by Ukraine’s latest decision since this route only concerns 5% of EU imports, with the main clients being Slovakia, Hungary, and Moldova.

The first two are led by conservative-nationalists who are fiercely opposed to NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine while the third is ruled by a pro-Western figure who wants to reconquer her country’s separatist region of Transnistria in which several thousand Russian peacekeepers are still based. This observation lends credence to the earlier claim that Ukraine’s decision is much more political than anything else since it punishes Slovakia, Hungary, and Transnistria without harming other countries.

The last-mentioned is being hit particularly hard since it had to halt heating and hot water to households, which could lead to political unrest that might be manipulated from abroad to provoke a Color Revolution. This could either result in regime change or weaken that polity enough from within that it becomes much easier for Moldova (with possible Romanian assistance) and/or Ukraine to invade. Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service warned about that scenario last month, which was analyzed here.

Slovakia and Hungary won’t be harmed anywhere as much as Transnistria since each can import costlier LNG – whether from Russia, the US (which has poached a lot of its rival’s former EU market share), Algeria, and/or Qatar – from Lithuania/Poland or Croatia. Poland can connect Slovakia to Lithuania’s Klaipeda LNG terminal while Croatia’s Krk LNG terminal can supply Slovakia and Hungary. Hungary is also already getting some pipeline gas from TurkStream, which is Russia’s last pipeline to Europe.

All three are therefore being punished for political reasons, but it’s only Transnistria that risks an all-out crisis as a result, which could lead to an outcome that deals political damage to Russia if the government there is overthrown through an upcoming Color Revolution or that polity is captured by its neighbors. In the event that another conventional conflict erupts, the aggressors might eschew targeting Russian troops in order to avoid provoking an escalation, but Russia can always still authorize them to intervene.

Observers can only speculate what Russia would do since there are arguments in favor of it withdrawing its peacekeepers if they aren’t attacked and Transnistria falls but there’s also a logic in sacrificing them as part of a plan to “escalate to de-escalate” the special operation on better terms. There’s also the possibility that Transnistria doesn’t slip into a Color Revolution and isn’t invaded either. A potentially larger crisis would be averted so this is the best scenario for everyone’s objective interests.

Regardless of whatever may or may not happen in Transnistria, Ukraine’s decision to cut off Russian gas to Europe leads to the possibility that this route could be reopened once the conflict ends, thus representing a card that could be played to entice concessions from the Kremlin during negotiations. The same holds true for the Yamal pipeline and the last undamaged part of Nord Stream. Europe could use low-cost Russian gas to more confidently avoid a recession while Russia would appreciate the revenue.

To be sure, Russia still profits from LNG exports to the EU, which have filled the supply gap caused by the EU sanctioning its pipeline gas and Russia’s LNG competitors being unable to scale their exports to the point of fully replacing Russia’s exports that the EU still imports out of necessity. That said, Russia and the EU would mutually benefit a lot more if they returned as much as possible to their pre-2022 arrangement, though of course keeping in mind the contemporary political limitations to that.

America would have to approve this since it successfully reasserted its previously declining hegemony over the EU since the start of the special operation, however, but creative energy diplomacy of the sort elaborated on last month here could help lead to a breakthrough. The gist is that it’s the US that has an interest in making concessions to this end, not Russia, since the US doesn’t want Russia further fueling China’s superpower rise like it could do out of spite if it isn’t offered a good deal in Ukraine.

At the same time, it’s unrealistic to imagine that the US will cede its influence over the EU, ergo why it might propose a compromise whereby Russia isn’t allowed to (re)obtain control over the European portions of Nord Stream, Yamal, and the trans-Ukrainian Brotherhood and Soyuz pipelines. The first could be purchased by an American investor as was analyzed here in November while Poland might retain its post-2022 control over the second and the third would remain under Ukrainian control.

If the US really wants to incentivize Russia into agreeing to this proposal, which advances US interests by increasing the chances that Russia won’t build more pipelines to China out of the need to replace its lost revenue from the EU, then it can partially compensate Russia by releasing some of its seized assets. Even though those assets are legally Russia’s and were stolen from it, the Kremlin might agree to this swap if a large enough amount is offered in order to help manage its latest fiscal and monetary challenges.

In exchange for the US returning some of Russia’s seized assets and authorizing the EU’s resumption of some Russia gas pipeline imports, Russia might have to informally commit to not building any new pipelines to China while scaling back some of its demilitarization and denazification demands of Ukraine. American, Indian, and Japanese investment in Russia’s sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 megaproject could also replace frozen Chinese investment if waivers are granted for that purpose as a further incentive.

So long as Russia’s core security goals are achieved, which are restoring Ukraine’s constitutional neutrality and keeping uniformed Western forces out of the country, then it might be willing to compromise on demilitarizing all of Ukraine by settling for demilitarizing everything east of the Dnieper. This scenario was described more in detail at the end of this analysis here, which could include the vaguely defined denazification of that historically Russian region too instead of the entire country.

If Trump offers to terminate the US’ bilateral security agreement with Ukraine as part of a package deal that includes the abovementioned terms, then Russia might very well accept it since this would provide a mutually “face-saving” means for ending their proxy war while creating a basis for rebuilding relations. It’s not a perfect compromise, and some of each side’s supporters might argue that it’s more beneficial for their opponent, but their leaders might think differently and that’s all that ultimately matters.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/the-poli ... f-ukraines

Is Andy floating trial balloons for some dissident State Dept faction? Anything less than a Russian dictated peace will bite Russia in the ass, sooner rather than later. Andy seems more afraid of China than the US, which makes one wonder whose side he is on.

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The mountains and caves are buzzing
January 3, 11:41

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The mountains and caves are buzzing

Due to mining, Abkhazia returned to the schedule of power outages despite humanitarian energy supplies from Russia.

According to ( https://ultramining.com/news/abhaziya-s ... -majnerov/ ) "Chernomorenergo", the energy system is not coping due to excessive loads, the cause of which is illegal mining. Earlier, the head of the energy company admitted that the country "mined", and local residents demanded that the Russian Federation provide electricity, send tourists (who follow the rules of rest for Russians ( https://t.me/daydaynews/4099) ) and send money to pay salaries and pensions.

"Whole villages are humming, mountains and caves are buzzing, cables with free electricity are stretched into the forests, the forests are buzzing too" - this is how an external correspondent of Polish radio described Abkhazia after the New Year.
"Russia will help again, always, where will it go? - this is the rhetoric in most Abkhaz chats ( https://iatochka.news/2024/12/19/sami-p ... a-opozdal/ ) "Tochka".

Abkhazia has been a world leader in the number of miners per capita since 2021. Since December 23, Russia launched humanitarian electricity supplies to save the country from a catastrophic energy crisis.

https://t.me/navodka_na/12112 - zinc

Well, how can you not support the famous Abkhaz mining industry, which exists exclusively due to free electricity from the Russian Federation.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9588238.html

Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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