Western journalists have this weird habit of making fun of Putin for his yearly marathon phone-ins with the Russian public. It’s populism. It’s all staged.
Well, sure, it’s all that. I can see how a class that writes articles with titles such as “It’s Time for the Elites to Rise Up Against the Ignorant Masses” might be uncomfortable with that. To be fair I find the usual fair – personalistic appeals to the sovereign to fix some road or reign in some tyrannical local bureaucrat to be pretty boring as well.
But still, it’s a nice gesture, and partly explains why he retains such popularity.
My impression is that Putin has started to decline as a leader, starting with how he speaks. Though he started his Presidency as a very poor speaker, he evidently got tuition, and became much better at it by the end of his first term. In the past couple of years, however, this has started to reverse. I thought that last year’s disappointing Q&A might have been an exception, but this year’s confirms that it is a trend.
But far more worrying was the content, which failed to articulate any coherent vision for the next few years and revealed an alarming complacency with respect to foreign policy and the other burning social issues of the day.
This was reflected in Putin’s comments on Ukraine, where he has tried to opt for another “mnogokhodovochka” (4D chess). In response to a Russophile from Kiev, asking him why he doesn’t do more to support Russia sympathizers in Ukraine, Putin told him, “We don’t want to give any public support, because we don’t want to harm you and we try not to get involved in internal Ukrainian political affairs.” Meanwhile, hundreds of Russia sympathizers continue rotting in the Maidanist regime’s jails. With friends like these…
Several minutes later, however, he casually mentioned that Viktor Medvedchuk, the godfather of Putin’s daughters and one of the most energetic champions of integration with Russia before Euromaidan, was actually a Ukrainian nationalist. But, he continued, Ukrainian nationalism, according to its 19th century sources such as Grushevsky, Franko, Dragomanov, Chernovol, stood for a federated state, for democratic, and for individual rights; some of them didn’t even consider Crimea to be part of Ukraine (no shit they didn’t – it never was until Khrushchev handed it to the UkSSR in 1954). Maybe so, but does anyone care? Medvedevchuk’s supposed “colleagues” in the OUN promptly clarified he has nothing to do with them. Perhaps having finally realized his “dear partner” Poroshenko wasn’t coming round, Putin has started thinking of allying with the Banderists. The whole episode is just bizarre.
Meanwhile, the one legitimate question about Ukraine – “When you shake Poroshenko’s hand, are you not afraid to dirty yourself with Donbass blood?” – was removed from the screen within seconds.
The one “gotcha” moment he got in was his riposte to Poroshenko’s comments bidding “farewell to unwashed Russia” on getting visa-free travel with the EU, quoting a line from the well-known Russian poet Lermontov. Putin quite skilfully counter-cited Ukrainian national poet Taras Shevchenko, quoting a line on how after winning the liberal struggle, her children are crucifying her worse than the erstwhile Polish oppressors. “I hope that at some point this period of Ukrainian history will come to an end.”
But he then followed it up with a suggestion to Poroshenko that if he truly wanted to be European he should part with his offshore accounts. Not bad, but it would have been more convincing if Putin’s own elites weren’t wrapped up in analogous schemes – indeed, the Panama Papers, which revealed Poroshenko’s offshore accounts, also revealed some $100 million+ in assets connected with Roldugin, an old celloist friend of Putin’s who was his other daughter’s godfather. In last year’s Q&A, Putin had clumsily explained those accounts as having been used to buy rare historical instruments for talented young Russian musicians.
Speaking of anti-corruption investigations: “We all know that unfortunately, the mass media in general and the Internet are also used to spread fake news, in service of the political struggle. What to do, this is life, there is nothing unusual here. But I must always double check it through the opportunities I have, and I have many such opportunities.” Meanwhile, the utterly compromised Medvedev remains PM, Russophile emigres from Ukraine continue getting deported back into the loving embrace of the Maidanists to make more space for Tajiks, and new laws are under consideration by the Duma to ban VPN services and to greatly limit people’s ability to make FOI requests about bureaucrats’ properties to the land registry.
No bold new ideas about social, economic, or foreign policy. There was a vague statement to the effect that a transition to a “new technological order” was needed, but no further details.
Parallel reality so far as relations with the US are concerned (Putin commented that Russia has “many supporters” in the US, no matter that approval of Russia in the US is at near record lows, and that on this very same day that there was a 97/100 bipartisan vote in the Senate to further sanctions against Russia).
The repetition of old tropes. “We need to strengthen the Syrian Armed Forces.” Meanwhile, more than a year after the start of the Russian intervention, the great bulk of the SAA remains militarily useless, with the hard fighting done by Hezbollah, the Iranians, about 20,000 just about competent SAA fomrations, and increasingly, Russian mercenaries in the Wagner Company.
Though the Presidential elections are less than a year away, it is now clear that Putin does not appear to have any any new ideas, plans, or visions for the long-term future apart from hunkering down and perhaps hoping that the state apparatuses in the US and Western Europe continue degrading even faster than in Russia. He is sitting on his 80% approval laurels, his status as the “inevitable” candidate assured.
Although I have to date avoided the comparison, because I had considered it inapplicable, the Brezhnevite critique is now becoming ever more germane.
This is a bit tendentious. He stressed that Russia’s help to the people of Donbass continues and can change according to what is appropriate for a changed situation. Meanwhile, it’s really strained to find something negative to say about Syria at the moment.
You said yourself that it was a show (“It’s all staged”). You can’t make these kinds of conclusions from watching a show.
You certainly nailed this one on the head, exposing Putin’s ‘parallel reality’. I share your sentiments regarding the parallel dealings of Poroshenko and certain Russian individuals exposed trying to hide funds in offshore ‘Panama’ accounts. But don’t you think that Putin’s characterization of Medvechuk as a ‘Ukrainian nationalist’ a little over the top and one that should also be included as a part of his newly exposed ‘parallel reality’? I mean really, what has Medvechuk done or said himself that would cause him to merit such a flattering sobriquet? 🙂
A good piece all around.
I don’t know, some of that sounds quite prudent to me. What should Putin do in your opinion? End the Syrian intervention, escalate Russian involvement in Ukraine?
(1) I supported the Syria intervention on the understanding it was a Spanish Civil War like environment for live air force training. There are some signs that ground involvement is increasing to a scale I am no longer comfortable with supporting, due to the SAA’s chronic inability to improve (I was always wary about this from my earliest articles about the Syrian intervention, knowing about the history of Arab military incompetence, and it seems the more pessimistic interpretation was right).
Not only are more and more Russian soldiers are dying there (they are formally mercenaries, but functionally many are soldiers who joined up because the pay is 3x better) but the whole operation there is vulnerable to US blackmail, because the US is militarily dominant in the region and Trump has proved to be a wildcard there despite his campaign rhetoric. Incidentally, the defeat of Islamic State won’t change any of that. If anything the situation will get more dangerous, since neocons will then be able to more convincingly argue that bombing Assad would not result in Islamic State gains.
(2) The Ukrainians should know that continuing to bombard Donetsk and Lugansk will result in serious retaliation against them. At the moment, they can do so with impunity, while the Kremlin ties the demoralized NAF’s hands with its autistic focus on the Minsk Agreements. Even though Kiev has still made no moves towards fulfilling its end of the deal, the West turns a blind eye and continues to sanction Russia (and indeed to increase sanctions), so there’s no even an economic case to be made here.
It is absolutely bizarre that Russia accounted for 40% of foreign investment in Ukraine in 2016, especially considering the way it conveys its thanks.
It is also bizarre that there are basically weekly deportation cases against Ukrainian citizens who are seeking asylum in Russia who are wanted for separatism/treason/on the Peacekeeper hit list in Ukraine. Even regardless of your stance on the Donbass conflict, I think it’s safe that say that most people would agree that Russia has a significant degree of responsibility for such people. More so than for Tajik economic migrants, anyway.
But what form should that retaliation take? I mean ok, I can see how the situation might be frustrating for a Russian nationalist, but any form of military escalation would be fraught with grave risks imo.
Your views on the Syrian intervention are convincing to me, Russia should definitely avoid deeper involvement.
It’s easy to say with hindsight, but I think there’s a veritable laundry list of missed opportunities: lobbying and gaining influence in the US and western Europe before the anti-Russian consensus got serious momentum, vetoing the Libyan UN resolution, refusing to speak to, deal with or grant a visa to Nuland, Bildt, Sikorski et al, intervening in Ukraine before Yanukovych was overthrown are the most egregious examples I can think of.
The way things are at the minute, I don’t think there are any better options, Foreign policy wise, than to sit and wait for better circumstances. Did they ever come up with serious alternatives to swift, visa and mastercard?
Mr. Karlin, I know you’re critiquing Putin for being too soft, rather than being too hardline, but if you keep complaining about him at an English language site you risk being invited to join America’s legion of paid shit disturbers. Ambassador McFaul will take you hot air ballooning over California wine country and slip a USB stick full of Bitcoin into your champagne glass. You’ll spend years building up fame as a staunch opponent of Putin and eventually end your days being spectacularly killed by a polonium arrow in Red Square on Putin’s birthday. The good news is your body bag will make the cover of both the Economist and Time in the same week.
“No bold new ideas about social, economic, or foreign policy….etc”
Russians seem incapable of thinking and acting in ordinary, mundane terms.
The current Russian president had been telling the nation to gradually develop through evolution not revolutions ever since he assumed power, and yet here you are looking for “bold ideas” and “grand visions”.
Well, dissolving the Soviet Union was certainly one “bold idea”.
I actually think that this is not a bad strategy. Because when it comes to having no new ideas, the west is far outperforming Russia. The perfect example of this is the starting of the cold war 2. I believe that the decision to do this might have been partially motivated by the outcome of the 1st cold war.
The bright idea could be:” Since we won the cold war, and we can’t win any other kinds of wars, why not start a new cold war and claim some success again?” I can perfectly understand the rationale here.
If you can’t win any wars of the hot type, then start a cold one and try to keep the winning record in that category. Although, I doubt it that they will be able to keep the perfect score at the end of Cold War 2.
The quote that some attribute to Lenin that capitalists will sell them the rope with which they’ll be hanged. I think that quote implies too much labor. No need to buy or sell anything to the capitalists. Just sit back and relax. They’ll make the rope and they’ll hang themselves with it, the way the things are going, although, since they outsourced all the manufacturing to China, it could be a Chinese made rope after all.
Anatoly,
Concerning Putin’s comments on Ukraine, the impression I got is that this entire moment was staged. The man from Kiev who asked question had a Russian accent, and in his reply Putin simply repeated the official Kremlin narrative: war in Donbass is an internal conflict of the Ukraine.
Needless to say I don’t think Putin was sincere in all of his answers. These “phone-ins” serve to convey a certain message to the Russian public, and the message Putin wanted to convey was that of compassion, competence, stability and peace.
when it comes to having no new ideas, the west is far outperforming Russia
Please allow me to retract my previous comments that shaded your ability to activate sufficient numbers of neurons.
What are you talking about? Crimea? The Russians did not intervene until after Yanukovich was overthrown.
Exactly so.
I think your criticisms are pretty unfair, given the odds and the threats Russia has been up against over the past two decades. Quite apart from the general truth that hindsight is 20/20 whereas foresight is not, most of the policies you suggest should have been done would not necessarily have succeeded, and/or would have carried serious costs and/or risks of their own, if they had been done in advance of the situations you now regard as justifying them.
Putin’s not a miracle worker, but the record seems to establish he has been a solid and very competent leader.
The tide would seem to be flowing against most of Russia’s worst enemies. The US and its European satellite states become economically less globally dominant with every year that passes, which is the overriding issue, and the prospects of serious economic/political/social disorder in the US and UK, and a separation of Europe from its post-WW2 US domination, seem to be becoming more realistic, and closer.
A degree of masterly inactivity, as far as radically changing policies is concerned, seems called for.
That’s his point – he’s suggesting Putin ought to have intervened pre-emptively. That failing to do so was an oversight or policy error.
Though as my previous reply implies, I don’t personally see how that could realistically have been done without potentially causing worse problems.
The SAA are winning, albeit slowly. They have cleared Aleppo province of IS, reduced rebel enclaves around Damascus and are making reasonable progress toward relieving Deir Ezzor.
Things are looking far better than a year ago.
Russophobia amongst the American public is in the decline.
First of all, the US electorate is nearly 30% non white. Non whites do not care about Russia, period. There is a good chance that a majority of blacks and latinos could not even find Russia on the map.
Amongst whites, Russophobia is probably the majority position but that is mostly related to partisan politics. Dems now all hate Russia but sentiment towards Russia is greatly improving on the part of Republican voters. It is gonna take a long time for the effects of the cold war to totally wear off though. Within the next 30 years Russophobia will completely disappear from the Republican party.
You lived in America. You KNOW first hand that most Americans don’t give a shit about Russia.
…
I don’t get what you were trying to say about the war in Syria. What do you want Putin to do about the worthlessness of the SAA? That army has been in decline since 1973.
Not sure how true or not this is, but I am sure that to change their opinions would not be too hard to do. If the narrative being sold was that Putin was a racist and hated BLM, I am certain a large chunk would swallow this without giving it a second thought.
All messages appear for several seconds. You was the numbers man, you must point out for how many milliseconds less then the others it appear.
Many is not majority. Lows are not surprising considering coverage. Trump have low statistical approval and proceedings against him, but he have many supporters. This is not contradiction.
Prosvirin is just disgusting.
it never was until Khrushchev handed it to the UkSSR in 1956).
In 1954, the 300th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Rada.
Putin was always a thousand times worse than Brezhnev, but better than the liberal alternative. And I’m filing what you’d like to see, Anatoly, in the liberal alternative category.
Your anti-Brezhnev attitude is exhibit 10^100 of smart people always being wrong about politics. It doesn’t take any brains to be right about it. Even pets can feel if you like them or not, just from your voice. And that’s the main issue in politics – do the people at the top like me?
Every pro-Brezhnev person out there is pro-Brezhnev because he’s pro-Russian. And every anti-Brezhnev person out there is anti-Brezhnev because he’s anti-Russian. Brzezinsky just popped into my head because he died recently. The person who made that derogatory Brezhnev-Putin picture – without looking it up, 100% chance. People only ever do that out of ethnic animus.
But you joined a weird little cult of guys who are anti-late-Soviet while claiming to be pro-Russian.
It doesn’t take any brains to see that 2 + 2 = 4. But 2 + 2 = 7 – true mark of intelligence. Like myopia or those rare debilitating diseases that are caused by the same genes as high IQ. Who would think that 2 + 2 could be 7? Why? It’s the same with your idea that the second USSR was anti-Russian.
Anatoly has gotten noticeably more critical of Putin since he moved to Russia. He is starting to sound like jaded American Trump supporters sound about Trump.
I will be brief here. Right now we are entering uncharted waters in Russo-American relations. What the investigations of Trump’s ties to the Kremlin or at least to the Russian Mafia will reveal remains to be seen. Meanwhile the U.S. Senate is rushing to put more sanctions on Russia for alleged meddling in America’s elections last year. This is simply insane. Russia and America have the two largest nuclear arsenals on earth. Russia sits at the crossroads of Asia, Europe and the Middle East and is Europe’s first line of defense from invasion from the Orient or Moslem Middle East. Russia’s help is need to settle the Syrian civil war, end the Ukrainian crisis, keep Iran nuclear free, de=fang North Korea and curb China’s growing appetite and ambition for worldwide resources, markets and “adventures”. The U.S. should be working with Russia to manage these issues and make Western solidarity not just a slogan but a reality. Instead the Congress is going all out to alienate and aggravate the Russian Bear. I fear that one day President Putin will tire of the persecution of Russia and her proud people and the demonization of his regime and give orders to send long range nuclear missiles and atomic warheads to both North Korea and Iran. Russia shares borders with both and could easily ship these weapons in piecemeal by train, truck, ship and plane to the tyrants in power in those countries and send technicians to assemble them and train the North Koreans and Iranians on how to use them. This is I know a nightmare scenario, but it could easily occur. At that point two of America’s closest dependents, Israel and Japan, would be directly threatened by virulent dictators. How would America react? What could or would the U.S. President do to “retaliate”? This is very, very serious and Congress needs to stop playing games and realize it is vital to America’s peace and security to be friends or at least neutral with Russia and work with them on areas of common agreement and need such as stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction, settling ongoing wars, stopping the migrant invasion of Europe, etc., etc. Otherwise it could literally come to World War II and the end of the planet. No joking matter my friends.
According to Mr. Karlin’s twitter handle, he is now avowed monarchist (Kekism and Baathism were just phases to be overcome).
This means he plans to overthrow the filthy peasant Putin and return the throne of all Russias to the rightful heir.
This means this guy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duke_George_Mikhailovich_of_Russia
(12/16 German, 2/16 Georgian, 1/16 Pole, 1/16 Russian)
USSR was anti-Russian.
It is telling that it was dissolved by Russia.
The Russian internal payment system should already be in use. Is it? I haven’t heard anything about it. Was it shelved after SWIFT promised that they won’t kick out Russia? (Not this time, which means they’ll try next time again.)
I just googled it. Apparently they have the system ready to go, but it won’t go operational until SWIFT disconnects them. Not very wise, because problems that never came up during testing tend to come up during live usage, so it’d be best to bring the system online for internal use ASAP.
I think a good case could be made that Putin’s performance is well past its peak and that he should retire after the end of his current term, or at the latest after the end of his next one. (It would probably be best to appoint a successor during his next term, when he still can do that voluntarily.)
Prof (((Stephen Cohen’s))) understanding of Putin is that above all else, he aims to promote stability and avoid state collapse. The Putin state is one of iron and clay. The collapsed Russian state of the nineties was renovated – a firm will to power was introduced, its self-destructive tendencies were reigned in, and the military and security services revivified. Functionality, not firm foundations, were the order of the day.
But the old nineties state is still there. I think Putin knows this weakness exists, and anything but the most conservative reactions to threats could exhaust the ‘iron’ and expose the clay. The Putin strategy is to keep Russia above the fray, giving the Russian polity time to introduce more iron. It takes time to genuinely achieve such transitions. Consider the length of time required to develop new military equipment for the Armed Forces.
Of late, Putin seems to have tired of fighting the oligarchs, the Medvedev faction, and getting serious about the next series of anti-corruption and economic reforms (i.e., more deviation from Western neo-liberal orthodoxy). Maybe Putin has reached a point where he no longer wields the power to remove more clay. Perhaps the next Russian post-Soviet epoch will be marked by the rise of the Dark Ruler, who possesses the will and the ruthlessness his predecessor lacked to do what needs to be done…
Text http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/54790
In this case, the American public evolution has a completely different direction than the evolution of American politicians and journalists
I have not had time so far to read transcript of this year Q&A session. Will try to do it this weekend.
However, while I really have sympathy for Vladimir Vladimirovich on personal level I am not his fan when it comes to his economic policies. Putting in plain words his economic achievements after 18 years are paltry and the road he has chosen leads nowhere but towards Russia decline both demographic and then economic and international.
It looks increasingly clear that capitalistic experiment in Russia failed miserably. Short of the years of high energy prices Russia is in permanent crisis. Linked to US created for her own benefit system Russia is just one of those who has been feeding the monster with those parasites who stole Russian people properties in 90’s at the expense of own population which is quite obviously is not thriving.
Interesting picture over there of aged Putin in Brezhnev frame. Putin has a long way to go to catch up even with Leonid Iliich. Under Second Iliich USSR was expanding economically at pretty brisk pace and achieved parity with USA in nuclear weapons and maintained and expanded superiority in other military aspects safe Navy. Nobody would dare to parade US military equipment in front of formidable Western army group. In terms of overall happiness of those times Russia has a long way to go. Now , we can only imagine how far we could have gotten without what happened later, just by calmly resolving issues and not getting hysterical over trivialities.
I’ve seen this all over the fake news media, and now here. So, a top level politician has a rich friend; what exactly is being implied?
I haven’t heard anything about it, but I agree it would be foolish not to have gone ahead with it regardless of any ultimately worthless “assurances” that might have been given. Though who outside the few involved really knows what kind of deals are being struck when those kinds of levels of money and power are involved, until the results manifest?
Leaving that kind of weapon in the hands of your enemies is certainly pretty rash.
Paragraphs, dude.
Maybe so, though I’m not personally convinced the case has been made yet. But succession is always going to be a problem with any strong leader, and the leader in question appointing a successor doesn’t always work out. For sure Putin himself isn’t getting any younger.
Without a genetic test, of course, there is no way to know whether that ancestry composition is right. But your main point seems to be that the guy is not ethnically Russian enough, which is probably right from that perspective.
And Germans, of course, were invited and hired by Russians and played a substantial helpful role in exploring and settling the lands that became Russia.
in the oliver stone interview putin claims one of the main reasons for syria is the presence of apx. 5000 russian mercs on the isis side, which pose a future risk for russia mainland – his making the argument like bush – fighting for american security in iraq – but in this case i think it is more legitimate. he stressed it two times during the interview, which i found to be interesting.
You’re right.
And if Russia came up with a banking system that offered widely usable credit, debit, and ATM cards to non-Russians, We as Americans would VERY gladly sign up and ditch our JPMorganChase etc. cards.
I know a little bit about Putin, or at least about his show, but very little about Brezhnev. Do you really think Brezhnev cared more in some meaningful way about the average Russian in a way that Putin doesn’t? And that this is really important for the quality of life of an average Russian?
Sure, but at the same time, Mosul (5x bigger than Raqqa) has been all but liberated by the Kurds – Putin’s uncritical cheerleaders were gloating about how the “Americans” were failing there a few months ago – the SDF will be the ones to take Raqqa itself, while the SAA itself is still 100s km away from Deir ez-Zor.
The gap between what the SAA has been touted as and what it has actually accomplished is probably by far the biggest of any faction in the Syrian/Iraq civil war.
Thanks, well spotted.
No, you should file it away into the Andropov category, the only post-Stalin leader with a substantial degree of both intelligence and realism.
Anyway, we’ve been over Brezhnev. Interested readers can refer here: http://www.unz.com/akarlin/moscow-protests-tverskaya/#comment-1816281
Brezhnev presided over a stable, peaceful period of rising oil prices (okay, so did Putin), the electro-mechanical revolution in industry, and the tail end of Russia’s 20th century urbanization. You would have had to try hard not to have a growing economy and adequate living standards under such conditions.
Nonetheless, the mid-1960s is when Russia’s alcohol-caused mortality crisis began to emerge (reading a local peak by the early 1980s), the mid-1970s is when GDP per capita relative to the West began to slip rather than slowly gain, and that is also when the USSR’s technological backwardness began to become more and more evident.
Brezhnev did essentially nothing about this. Andropov tried to, but his plans were cut short one year into his rule by illness. Chernenko was Brezhnev to the power of ten. Gorbachev adopted Andropov’s reform ideas, but combined them with retarded political experiments with well known consequences.
It, it’s ready for use as of 2015-16.
Incidentally, both China and even (one might think secure from Western sanctions) Japan (!) had SWIFT alternatives laid in place in 2014.
One might ask why this was not the case with Putin’s Russia, even though the risk of a serious geopolitical standoff with the West were self-evident since at least 2008.
That Putin himself didn’t think of or notice this weakness until the idea was raised in the Western media doesn’t necessarily reflect badly on him, because one man can only think of so many things, but it does reflect very badly on the wider government apparatus that is supposed to advise him.
I don’t think Stephen Cohen needs echoes, he’s a good guy.
I agree, Putin is evidently tired, he has the look of a man who wants to retire and spend more time with his grandchildren, the ideal scenario now is he doesn’t fuck up his (hopefully) last term too badly and his replacement in 2024 is better than Putin c.2017.
Really? What I remember from those days is the ‘work discipline’ campaign, raiding bathhouses and bus stops looking for people who are skipping work without sufficient excuse. And that’s pretty much at the peak of Hu Yaobang/Deng Xiaoping’s reformist movement. Pathetic.
Wait, what? Mosul is being liberated by Iraqi Special Forces, the PMF, and Federal Police backed up by Western artillery and air power. The kurds only secured some of the approaches in the east.
The SAA has taken enormous swathes of land over the last few weeks. This was the first division level operation with simultaneous advances on multiple fronts the SAA has performed in a long time. And unlike the Kurds who can concentrate forces on one front, the SAA has to spread its forces over many different fronts. They’re making reasonable progress factoring in these commitments. Since the Battle of Aleppo, the elite forces of the Republican Guard, 4th Armoured Division, and (in Wadi Barada) Hezbollah; subdued a number of pockets around Damascus that tied down Syrian forces. During this time, the Tiger Forces still managed to take enormous tracts of territory in East Aleppo, and now the Maskanah plains, and fend off a jihadi assault from Idlib on Hama. As Russia builds the 5th Corp and more elite brigades are freed up from around Damascus, the concentration of forces necessary to make decisive advances grows.
Russia has had to start building a new SAA. That takes a long time but we are saying results, viz, more frontline elite units. What did you expect? That Ivan would waive a magic wand and the dune coons, used to centuries of sedentary agriculture, would become mighty warriors?
In retrospection, we can see the Russian SAA strategy has been one of long term investment, and its just beginning to pay off.
He good on Russia, yes, but that derives from his firm belief in the ethos of Imagine by John Lennon (stopped clocks and all). So ‘imagine’ what his domestic agenda is – culture distortion just like his co-ethnics. Thus from my Anglo perspective, a precautionary identification of his affiliations are a necessity.
Very good points.
Except that the US doesn’t really want to settle the Syrian war. Without permanent Jihad, how could Washington ever justify a permanent ‘War on Terror’? Ditto Ukraine: they need a constant crisis there to isolate the Europe from Russia. They did not appreciate Putin’s attempts at improving relations with Europe–Germany, especially–since coming to power in 1999. The Norks’ nukes don’t threaten Russia in the slightest–Russia has more than enough of a deterrent to handle such a small, isolated country. And Iran and Russia now have quite goods relations, and Iran still doesn’t have a bomb. As far as China’s resource appetites are concerned, well, that actually benefits Russia, as China is now one of their largest customers, both for natural resources as well as defense/aerospace technology.
You know there is a saying falsely attributed to Churchill: “Those who choose shame between war and shame they end up by getting both”. Russia chose shame in 2014, but will inevitable get war. Or hasn’t it already? The “hybrid war”, you know.
Or another saying: “Better a terrible end than an endless terror”.
You pose a false ridiculous dilemma. How can a normal honest Russian equate some ragheads with Russians and hesitate whom to help and where to intervene?
Imagine East Germany has not united with the West Germany, but instead become a fascist country with a hostile anti-WG identity. Some people there want to WG anyway and they raise a rebellion, so the Berlin regime starts to oppress and even bomb and kill them. At the same time WG has got an opportunity to fight ISIS on the ground. So how do you think what an honest German from WG should choose having the limited military resources? To help your German brothers nearby and intervene (or occupy EG outright altogether) or to fight some damned ragheads somewhere far away in the damned desert?
Exactly if Putin has chosen an intervention in Syria over an intervention in Ukraine he is just saying to everybody that Russians do not matter but that Muslims do. When Putin was saying he’s a nationalist “of some sort” we now know of what sort of nationalists he is. Muslim and Ukrainian ones! Or more generally any nationalists who are against Russians.
I agree with you. I think Karlin is being way too negative on the SAA and on Russia’s involvement in Syria. I think he resents the fact that Putin is doing more to help Syria than Ukraine, and unfortunately, he’s allowed his resentment to color his analysis. To be sure, I think I can understand how Russian nationalists like Anatoly must feel about the situation. If I were a Russian nationalist, I would probably hold this against Putin too (‘Putinsliv!’). But I’m not a Russian, so I have the luxury of being more objective about the situation.
Everybody knows and particularly Putin must have known that that war is not a civil internal war. It is an irredentist war. The people in Donbas (or broader in South-East Ukraine) do not seem to want to overthrow Kiev and install some more “honest” regime. All they have ever wanted is to join to Russia or at least to be independent from Kiev and left alone. This is not a classical civil war like in Spain, Libya, Syria, etc., where the anti-government forces want to control the entire country. I’m 100% sure the Donbas people do not care what may happen to West Ukraine or in Lviv.
I don’t think one has to be Russian nationalist to question and dislike his indifference towards the ongoing Ukrainian disaster. Being a realist would do.
Frankly speaking he was (is) actually a soft-line Ukrainian nationalist who was friendly with Russia as long as it helped Ukraine. So it is a good thing he has been kicked off and Russia shouldn’t have intervened, otherwise Russia hasn’t got the Crimea, for example. But Russia should not have stopped there and should have intervened thereafter. But after having allowed to overthrow a soft-line nationalist, Putin and Co., instead of creating a really pro-Russian Ukraine, have allowed the hard-line nationalists to come to power. This obviously will remain one of the biggest fails in Russian history.
For the record, I think Russia should take a much stronger line with Kiev. Putin clings to the hope he can work out some sort of grand bargain with the West in which Russia becomes a respected ‘partner.’ Well, our elites are incapable of that sort of realism. The only partners they accept are ideologically colonized ones. The Russian elite should view the case of Iran as germane. No matter what Iran does, including signing the nuke deal, America (and the Zionist homunculus pulling the levers in Washington) will seek to raise their independence to the ground. Hell, America will stab its friends in the back (e.g., Mubarak).
Irrational fanaticism is a hallmark of decaying regimes. Consider the ‘Satanic panic’ in the eighties as the evangelicals enjoyed their last hurrah at the cultural helm. Demons conspired against the righteous from every dark corner in those days.
IMO, the reason Assad is receiving more decisive support is because the Kremlin believes its a lot harder for America to ‘push back’ in Syria. Conversely,a full spectrum Russian move against Ukraine would elicit consequences Russia is not willing to risk under the Putin Mindframe. (for instance, increased sanctions would mean Russia would be forced to adopt heterodox economics systematically). Karlin has made a case why Russia should do more, but on the other hand Putin may know things he doesn’t.
I didn’t care much about Iran until recently that Iranophobia has started again, but now I am a strong Iranophile, even if I do not like Islam at a certain degree. I think of all the possibilities Iran’s Islam is the most decent one, and considering the long history of Iran and its civilisation you cannot but sympathize Iran against all odds. Sharia and “human rights violations”? But who cares anyway, it is their own internal business and their traditions, why are Americans and Europeans so eager to proselytise and to teach others how to live? It is not their damned business. To sum up having nukes is a good deterrent from the Western-American expansionism once and for all, so Iran must have them at some point.
A word historic gay pride parade is the new white man’s burden. Also don’t forget da joos. Liberal Jews hate Russia (with the exception of Stephen Cohen), and Zionists hate Iran.
Liberation of Aleppo will be studied (if not already) in military academies as a brilliant operation, Mosul, on the other hand… “Americans” were not failing, they failed and comparisons were and are not only irresistible but highly warranted. It is what it is.
This is not a trope, Syrian Army was strengthened in a number of important ways and dynamics in Syria, obviously not without Russian and Iranian involvement is rather telling. One of the major signs of that are desperate US attempts to gain some foothold, while it is not too late.
Their very presence and their big number (a full regiment) must tell Putin that there is something wrong in his country and his policies toward Muslims have failed. But how does he think to treat the problem within Russia by going overseas? The SAA and the Russian Air Force do not seem to be any close too kill all those 5000. And even if only 100 of them return they may cause a real havoc in Russia just right now. So maybe Putin had better check on the Russian borders and not let the former terrorists in, eh? Russia has one of the biggest secret police apparatus and can not cope with 5000 bogeymen?
Putin “clings” to hope, a justifiable one, that EU, especially Germany, will put Ukraine on its books. As per “stronger line”, I guess the fact that Ukrainian Armed Forces still, after two years of famous cauldrons, didn’t try to mount any serious operation in Donbass should be viewed as an indication of the “much stronger line”. But ignoring the whole dynamics of events in Ukraine from early 2014 has become a MO for many. People still don’t get it or simply ignore (very often deliberately) the fact that Russia, from the onset, needed Crimea only–she got it. The rest was a situationally-driven, mostly reactive, approach, which, as it became very clear after 3.5 years, was largely correct. Even such evident fact of a massive (and very expensive) construction of Crimean Bridge testifies to the fact that nobody had any serious hopes for the rest of Eastern Ukraine rising up and doing anything–a correct strategic assumption.
Sorry, if I’ve misunderstood, do you mean you lived in the USSR at that time? I thought you’re American (even if with a misleading Chinese nickname, alright).
It is Brigade-size (if not in force structure) formation, not a regiment.
There’s no denying a ‘northern wind’ blew through the Donbass at the critical juncture, but it sought to ‘stabilize’ the situation rather than resolve it. From a nationalist perspective, hanging those people out to dry (refusing to recognize their sovereignty) is kind of a dick move. But Putin’s super duper plan involves leaving those regions in the Ukraine to veto pro-Western moves by Kiev. Setting aside the moral issue of leaving the Eastern Ukrainians in a position of constant insecurity, it sounds good in theory. There is simply no way the West will let that stand, however. John McCain and co are not about to let Moscow back into Kiev. So, either the conflict will remain permanently frozen (with Russian leaning Ukrainians permanently alienated from Moscow and Kiev), or Kiev will kick out the Donbass and become a NATO state. Since it seems Putin’s whole strategy in Ukraine is predicated on that happening, a much stronger line on whose orbit Ukraine, or at least the whole Eastern half of the country belongs to, was required from the beginning.
I don’t see why it helps Russia if Germany is writing checks for Kiev. They’ll certainly never write ’em for the east.
…as for Syria, I think I saw in the news a few days ago that SAA has reached the Iranian border. It probably doesn’t constitute a supply line yet, but that’s a huge advance. Once they create a supply line Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon, and if they can hold it, that’s the game-over, the 6-year-long US intervention in Syria will have lost.
Stuff missing from your description of the Brezhnev period:
The wholesomeness of the culture. Such a contrast to what was happening in the West at the time.
Economic fairness. Everyone worked, no one was rich. This is separate from economic growth. No homelessness.
Scientific and technological progress. At no other time in history did Russia’s share of global STEM progress was that high.
No advertising, no scamming, etc.
No mass migration from the “colonies” to the core.
Somewhat above-teplacement fertility. Still an unreachable dream in modern Russia.
And on and on. Brezhnev’s USSR resisted the Western trend in all the right ways.
High alcoholism is the only legitimate black mark, surely outweighed by everything else in terms of man-years lost. Homelessness, drug addiction, crime, ethnic conflict, etc. kill too.
You mean the Iraqi border, and yes, the SAA successfully flanked the US forces illegally occupying southern Syria, and reached the border, despite the fact that the US bombed them three times in an attempt to prevent it.
Yes, Iraqi border, sorry about the typo. I also noticed that most of the western fake-news media have chosen to ignore this event (I only see, at the moment, reuters and ft reporting it, financial media still have to report important facts). But that’s a huge story.
I knew exactly you would come to post on this. Lol.
Brezhnev period by all marks has been so far the best time majority of Russians have ever enjoyed in every possible respect. Majority of Russians quite frankly never lived better ever before. It was unjustifiably called “zastoi” but results of what followed and current state of Russia are far from what was achieved by 70’s. People did not value that and lost more than they could imagine. Many of those technologies the world sees from Russia were started then.
I can add global standing. The Russian Empire never disputed the first spot in the global hierararchy the way USSR did after WWII. Throughout the 19th century Britain safely held the top spot, then Germany started getting closer to it, which basically precipitated the WWI collision.
And some of these areas that I listed are as quantifiable as GDP. The number of scientific awards, STEM journal articles and citations, the TFR, the crime rate, etc.
The only moral issue here, as far as Putin goes, is a fate of the country he is the President of and of those 146 million who populate this country, aka Russian Federation. It is a moot point now to discuss how Russia “failed” Ukraine by not “russifying” her enough since 1991, by 2014 it is what it is–if you look at young generation (from school to slightly above 30) of Ukrainians even from the East Ukraine, I doubt many of them saw themselves in Russia’s orbit in 2014. Forget about Western Ukraine. It is both geopolitical and operational reality on the ground, period. Ukrainian nationalism didn’t start in 2014, 1991 or even in 1985–it was always there . One may cry me a river about Kiev being this or that and losing its unique Kiev “soul”, well–too bad, it is a capitol of svidomism now and it didn’t even put up a fight. Does my heart bleed for those who remained there? Yes. But it is not Russian soldiers’ business to die for them, so the situation must come to a head some time soon and then we’ll see. Nor is it Russia’s responsibility to support, and I am not talking some ephemeral “investments”, the nation which gladly decided to identify herself as “Not Russia” for so long. As per this:
And it succeeded brilliantly when it was needed. But apart from Ukraine, Russia has a larger set of issues among which, get this, and I am not joking or exaggerate, to prevent global war, overcome US ferocious attacks, and, eventually deal with the whole (I underscore–whole) Europe during global power re-balancing–a picture in which Ukraine is but a small detail. In the end, Russia welcomes Ukrainian refugees. Many already became Russia’s citizens. Donbass will not be surrendered and they did deserve that–they took weapons. They will be slowly incorporated into Russia.
Forgot to answer this. And why, in God’s name,. should Russia use her own, by far not limitless, resources in supporting this Russophobic panopticon? Coup in Kiev to a very large extent was Germany’s idea, let Germany pay for cleaning her own mess. If not, Ukraine has now “bezviz” let EU accommodate them. There are consequences for actions, always.
Nah, I don’t think it is. To whatever extent russiophobia is common there, if it could be managed, it’d disappear quickly (except for Galicia, Volhynia, and Precarpathia, perhaps). In my opinion, based on vast anecdotal evidence…
I don’t know if I would characterize his reaction as one of indifference; after all, there is the voentorg and all that. But he’s definitely trying to downplay the situation. He has definitely avoided taking the bait and marching into the rest of Novorossiya so far.
There’s a strong case to be made for a lot of the things you say. God knows, I’ve had many of the same thoughts myself! Still, as you pointed out towards the end, Putin probably knows more about the situation than we do. And if he turns out to be wrong? Well, he can always change his mind and liberate Novorossiya later on.
I think it has a lot to do with Merkel’s desire to see new pipelines built through Syria and up into Europe transporting oil/natgas from KSA and Qatar. If she could ever manage that, then the EU could totally or partially embargo Russia’s supplies. But it’s starting to look like that’s never going to happen.
P.S. The latest is that congress wants to sanction European companies doing business with Russia–including those involved in the Nordstream II pipeline. The Europeans are furious! With Turkey headed for exit, Trump refusing to confirm Article V, and now congress fucking up, we could well be witnessing the last days of NATO as a functional alliance.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/germany-austria-slam-us-sanctions-russia-48054975
Overwhelming empirical evidence testifies otherwise since, as I pointed out above, svidomism was tangible even during the Soviet times. In the end, the hypothetical “denazification” still requires large resources, both in treasure and blood, not to mention a psychological break which happened between Ukrainians and Russians way before 2014. Russians are “Nebratiya” for Ukrainians for a long time now, it is just that Russians now begin to admit that openly. But in the end, all historic-cultural sentiment aside (such as Kiev–the Mother Of Russian Cities, which she is, btw) is it even worth it now? Those who still believe in this BS “there are no bad nations, only bad elites”, evidently forget what Germany went through in being denazified–a collective punishment. Russia and Russians got collectively punished for their sins and mistakes with the physical extermination in 1990s. Everything has consequences and Ukraine is not an exception here. Let them have it all until they had enough. That is if they still exist as a “nation” by then.
The Kurds are only fighting IS, which isn’t getting much in the way of materiel or intelligence from any state actor.
The SAA also has to fight Nusra and Nusra hangers-on, who do receive arms and intelligence and direct military support from state actors.
Sure, the PKK has more cohesion and combat effectiveness, but the SAA is not a dead loss. By Arab standards, it is still reasonably effective.
You’re right, but these things may vary, you know.
I already linked this poll here somewhere:
https://news-front.info/2016/12/18/opros-511-ukraincev-schitayut-rossiyan-bratskim-narodom/
Remove the western regions, and it’ll be over 65%, a large majority considering Russians a ‘brotherly people’. And this is in the current environment of relentless anti-Russian propaganda and terror.
So, surely you’re exaggerating the extent of animosity. It’s not wide-spread at all; what (I believe) confuses people is the intensity of it in those affected (or infected?). IOW, it’s a (proportionally) small number of maniacal nutcases. In fact, you can see them every day on Russian or Kiev regime TV talk shows. If you have, you should know what I’m talking about.
Russia does not share a border with Iran.
)))righteous Jew(((
If I am not mistaken 99.77 percent of Crimean population voted to join Russia. This is what is required for trouble free reunification. Ukraine is like proverbal hot nut. Nobody wants this mess. They have what they always wanted , hence let them have it until they have enough.
From your link–the most important measure:
To a separate question if Ukrainians and Russians are “the same people” or “two different peoples”, only 25.6% chose the former, while 63.4% chose latter. That is what matters, not “hostility”, contemporary Ukrainians, no matter how they think about Russians, ill or well, still overwhelmingly identify themselves as a separate nation and that is what matters, period. And that was 2014, now, I am damn sure numbers are even higher. You want to see a proof of that? Look no further than a whimper with which all this Kharkov (supposedly “Russian” city, once long time ago) demonstrations ended in 2014, with majority of people there preferring to be governed by this mafioso rat Gennady Kernes. All those 30-50 thousands of demonstrators (and being anti-Maidan at that time for sure didn’t mean automatically being pro-Russia) in the city of 1.7 million, well, compare that with Sevastopol having a colossal demonstrations for unification, granted its much smaller size than same Kharkov.
It wasn’t 99.77, but yeah, that was, iirc, Putin’s official rationale for rejecting the Donbas 2014 referendum – no unanimity among the population. It’s a valid argument against a reunification, but hardly for lukewarm-ness of support… Although, I sense that ‘just leave them alone’ is the prevailing attitude in Russia now, and, hey, can’t argue with that…
My answer went for moderation for some reason, it should be available shortly.
The poll is from December 2016, actually.
Well, of course today they are “two different peoples”, two different nations. Even though you may not know it from reading this publication (unz.com, I mean), in these times ‘people’ is a political, not ethnic term. I’m surprised 25.6% of them don’t realize that… But, they can be close (‘brotherly’) nations, or they can be unfriendly, hostile nations, like, say, Serbs and Croats, despite them being pretty much exactly the same ethnic group, well, except for the religions, and they aren’t religious.
It is reversable but it cannot happen on a dime. Such processes take long time. I am talking Novorossiya of course. It took time to turn Russian people populating Novorossiya to think of themselves as Ukranians. Give some time. Not sure if it happens on our lives but I am confident things will go back to normal. Ukraine is doing great job to ensure this. I only wonder how long it can take. People over there have been showing great perservance and restrain.
I think lukewarm support has a lot to do with resources availability. If Russia had as much resources as Soviet Union that would have been different story.
There is no more Western expansionism. Those days are over. You are falling for the lies of the Iran Internet Defense Forces.
Yes the US is supporting the Sunni rebels in Syria, but guess what? Syria is majority (or plurality, don’t care enough to wiki it) Sunni and so are the US allies in the region. Supporting your allies and trading partners is not “imperialism”.
The US is not intervening nearly as aggressively as Russia is. If anybody is engaging in imperialism, it’s Russia and Iran.
Not that there is anything wrong with imperialism.
Putin is old, man… he’s like 64 or 65. That’s like ANCIENT old. You aren’t the same. You’re more tired. More…. senile if you will.
I’m serious. I’m watching my old man turn that age now and he is truly a shadow of what he was when he was 40. He was sharp, fast, always caught things. Now the birds pick on him and the rabbits eat his garden and then bully him away when he tries to scare them off.
Being old must suck. Putin probably feels it too. He just doesn’t have the energy for this shit anymore.
I hope I die from a brain aneurysm when I reach 39.
Actually, it’s the other way around. It took centuries of Russification, mainly in the cities of Southern and Eastern Ukraine, to turn Ukrainians into Russians. Being an independent country now for 26 years has finally reversed some of this corrosive damage. The Russian inspired war in Donbas has only served to further cause animosity between Ukrainians and Russians and has served to unify the country against its former imperial center, located in Russia.
Presumably you and I agree that (1) Putin and most Russians don’t care much about the form of government that the Muslim savages choose in their countries, and (2) Nor should they care.
But isn’t there an important defensive / strategic benefit to Russians from having the naval / air base in that location?
Moreover, if Russia didn’t have the base and forces in Syria, the USA surely would have its own base there and would further encircle and threaten Russia.
Having said that,however, I am inclined to agree with you that Russia should more actively aid the ethnic Russians in eastern and southeastern “Ukraine.” If I were Russian, I would be even more likely to feel that way.
Not even medieval alchemy can turn a Ukrainian into a Russian. You can’t turn lead into gold. There is a reason why the Russians used to call the Ukrainians “little Russians”. It supposed to point out that when they reach the full adulthood they might become Russians. They never did and never will.
I think that the Ukrainians are also suffering from a “Hitler syndrome”. What do I mean by that? Hitler suspected that he might be partially Jewish – thanks to some extra-curricular activities of one of his grandmothers with a son of a Jewish family where she worked as a servant.
So, in order to prove that he can not possibly have any Jewish blood – he became the greatest anti-Semite in history. But did that prove that he wasn’t Jewish at all? No it did not, but he made a terrible investment in order to convince the world that he wasn’t Jewish.
Same thing for the Ukrainians. In order to prove that there is no way that they should be considered Russians – they have to turn into most rabid anti-Russians on the planet – in order to convince the world that they is no chance that they are Russian.
It’s O.K. Ukrainians. I believe you that you are not Russians. Not because you are too good to be Russians, but because you are not good enough to be Russians.
In psychiatry this phenomenon is known as ‘narcissism of small differences’.
Dying doesn’t scare me. Getting old scares the shit out of me.
The SAA is just like any army, the 20% that constitute the elite units are the ones who carry out offensive operations and the other 80% are largely there just to hold ground. Actually I think the Syria thing has worked out exceptionally well, Iran and Iraq will be major allies and they are both phenomenally rich in natural resources without being Wahhabi fanatics.
Reality is only the Donbas and Crimea were interested in rejoining Russia, probably Kharkov would go along with it too if the rebels occupied it. I think Russia was always limited in options there as otherwise more severe sanctions etc. would have been imposed. I assume the calculation was the West would grow tired of the new Cold War, and we duly have.
Putin should quit in 2018 though.
I’ve heard another interesting story regarding the ethnogenesis of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples.It gets its inspiration from Mary Shelley’s famous macabre story about Frankenstein. As all good Russian nationalists know, Kyiv is supposedly the ‘mother of Russian cities’. This implies that Russia (and its people) got its first lifeblood in Ukraine (Kyiv being in Ukraine is beyond disputation). So after the fall of Kyiv and Central Ukraine by the Mongols in the 13th century, a few Ruthenian princes (old name for Ukrainians) ventured north to what is today Moscow and interbred with the local Finnish tribes and other Asiatics and Turanic types and formed the basis of the Russian people. This new creation couldn’t stand the idea that its creators were from Ukraine, and therefore started a never ending war to try and kill its creators, analogous to the Frankenstein story. If you read in Ukrainian you can get the whole gist of the story here: http://www.pravda.com.ua/columns/2010/10/15/5470776/
So for Ukraine and Ukrainians, Russia has always been considered as a monster of sorts! 🙂
Nice try, bud. It’s not difficult to check your theory about who is the monster. All the Ukrainians need is a mirror. There is a reason why Stalin disliked the hell out of them. Because they are uppity, believing that they were better than the collectivization and the mere idea of communism. But behind all that was the belief that by being better than the system, they were better than the ones who run the system – the Russians. I firmly believe that Ukrainians together with the Polaks think that their “European” religion makes them more European than the Russians. Never mind that in terms of civilizational achievements, those two pitiable nations are nowhere near the contributions to European civilization that the Russians have made over the centuries. As for their “European” religion setting them apart from the Russians – a religion that will make the Polaks and Ukrainians better than the Russians hasn’t been invented yet. And it never will.
If the approval of Stalin merits being righteous, I think you have a skewed view of history. Communism is a losers paradise and a pipe dream totally discredited by history – even your host at this site, Anatoly Karlin, seems to be an anti-commie and anti-Stalin!
Again you missed my point, bud. I was merely trying to point out that the Ukrainians are not exactly cuddly creatures. Eventually, they’ll get on your nerves. They welcomed the Germans with flowers in 1941, and yet the Germans remained emotionally distant and failed to form a close bond with the Ukrainians, resulting in an epic trashing that they gave them, and of which even Stalin would have been envious. At the end it was those no good Russians that had to save their hinds. This time again the Europeans will tire of them too, despite them mouthing off how Ukraine is Europe. Really? Is this really the best time to be proud of being European? When the third world hordes are swarming the continent and earning the right to call themselves “European” faster than Ukrainians ever could? The other point I am trying to make is that Ukrainians are always out of sync with the times that they live in. As in the 1930’s when it wasn’t really the best time to antagonize Stalin, nowadays might not be the best time to try to cozy up to Europe. Even the British are trying to leave. Oh, yeah, that’s right. Ukrainians are more European than even the British.
Actually about 125 km away. In fact, the elite Tiger Forces, who for months have been advancing east through Aleppo province and into Raqqa province, at a rate of around 1 km per day, are now slightly closer to Deir ez-Zor than the SAA forces advancing east from Palmyra (who just captured Arak, one of only two major towns on the route from Palmyra to Deir ez-Zor).
I’d say the odds that either the Tigers or the southern SAA forces reach Deir ez-Zor by the end of the year are pretty good.
Is this really what the problem is? And you support this idea by pointing out that Stalin ‘disliked the hell out of them’? And in the process killed millions of them, because they weren’t as cuddly as teddy bears? Who cares what Stalin thought about Ukrainians anyway? He was a major league nutcase as is anyone who bases his worldviews on what Stalin liked or disliked.
Argumentative. Unless you produce a psychiatrist’s diploma, your opinion of Stalin – and consequently of me – is worthless. Then again, even if you produce a psychiatrist’s diploma – you are still not qualified to judge that great man. Your “normalcy” will never produce as positive impact on this world as Stalin’s “nutcasness”, so again your opinion is irrelevant.
Stalin had far greater positive impact than negative on this world. You want proof? Ask the Ukrainians (not that they would answer that question honestly), who was greater evil: Stalin or Hitler? Who saved them from whom in the end? They were betting that Hitler was the lesser evil and they were looking forward to being saved from Stalin by Hitler. Wrong. Stalin saved them from Hitler. Try to compute that in your underdeveloped brain.
Whether he killed few million Ukrainians is debatable. What isn’t is that he saved the whole lot of them. Even if they were only collateral beneficiaries of Stalin’s victory over Hitler, and even if saving them wasn’t one of Stalin’s primary objectives. And the reason why saving the Ukrainians wasn’t one of Stalin’s primary objectives has something to do with the reason why despised them. He despised them because they thought that they knew better than him. They never did. They still don’t.
And unfortunately, neither do you. 🙁
I do not understand this geopolitical mumbo-jumbo like “strategic benefit”. What real, not imaginary, benefits could average Russians get from a naval base for which, by the way, they have to spend their taxes, their money? Literally, how will the life in the cities like Voronezh improve from a naval base in Syria? New roads, schools, hospitals, amenities, higher income, pensions, what?
Another bugaboo from the Kremlin to justify their stupid policies. Until the whole Russian elite live in the West, the West cannot be a threat. When a deputy from the Duma plays a patriot and speaks about the threat of the NATO while he enjoy his free time in his villa in Nice or Miami, it is nothing but an extreme example of hypocrisy. It only outrages sensible Russians.
You’re kidding. Less than in 20 years the West destroyed at last 4 countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria; and we may remember Serbia as well). No wonder Iran does not want to be the next and might consider having nukes (of which there are no real proofs that they have actualy even tried to have ones).
Does not seem so.
I’ve never read the Iranian media. Even if I did, your argument is offensive for me because you imply that I’m so gullible that I believe outright everything that I may have read. The people here usually mock the Western media hysteria about “Russian propaganda”, but you just repeat exactly this, only with Iran. Should I say you are falling for the lies of the American Internet Defense Forces?
One must only wonder why the US allies are Sunnies (or worse – outright Wahhabis) and what is wrong to be friendly with Shias.
Yes, it is, it literally invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, meddled in Libya (destroying it at the end), and has been attacking the Syrian government forces and providing support for armed criminals (they are not an “opposition”, in any country, including the USA, people who raise an armed rebellion are treated as criminals).
You may argue this about Russia, but not about Iran since it has never tried to conquer anybody for the past 100 years. And you seem still living in the 19th: imperialism is not only about conquering the land. Quite insignificant meddling of Iran in its neihgbouring countries (which is justified as any country should be always concerned what is going on at its neighbours) is incomparable with the USA meddling in and attacking the countries on the other side of the world.
I do not remember you much, what you have been saying, hence I haven’t got an opinion about you, but now for me you do not seem to have a good sense. Maybe I’ve been mistaken, are you a typical CNN-watching liberal? Or rather a Trump supporter that can but approve whatever his leader may say and do?
Very well said, my 100% support. I have had a similar thought for quite a long time.
Good! Then it’s settled. Ukrainians have never really wanted to be anything but themselves, anyway.
Unfortunately, you racist theories are not true, and Russians share the same genetics with Ukrainians (as well as Belarusians, Poles and Balts). Russian even has fewer Turkic borrowings than Ukrainian, I do not remember exact numbers but it’s like 1% vs 5%, for Shevchenko’s sake, you even have the Perso-Arabo-Turkic word for your main square. As for Finnish borrowing, they are negligible, Russian has like 100 words or 0.1%. And as for material culture you had better worry why, for example, your national costume has been borrowed from the Turks.
I doubt that the Russian tsars had any idea that they were some untermensch mischlings when they sent their men and resources to help the Ukrainians to fight the Poles, because the Ukrainian literally had begged the Muscovites for help. And one of their argument was “help us, because we’re brothers, Great and Little Russians!”. Pity that Ukrainians have such a short memory. Real Judases.
Unfortunately, your hetmans and our tsars did think differently, so they started a procees which is difficult to turn back and to ignore. Myself personally I would prefer the Polish-Russian border rather than dealing with you. Poles seem to be much more sensible people. As for you, you might have become like a good sub-ethnic group of the Poles.
Mykola from Shepetivka wants to drink пЫво, not пИво, як кляты москали.
I never claimed that I know better than Stalin. But you with your extraordinary intelligence of a nobody feels qualified to discuss Stalin.
At times, it feels as if I’m the only American citizen who knows this (although I realize some of my fellow inhabitants of the Comments Section are also well aware). Seriously, I’ve known this for more than two decades; you’d think more of my fellow UniStat serfs would’ve clued into it by now.
Well then I am afraid you are quite mistaken. I am universally regarded by both friend and foe alike as the preeminent intellectual and expert on international issues of the 21st century.
Your friends and foes are wrong.
You could be right, therefore I rely on the opinions of more brainy types to provide me with the inspiration I need to assess that Stalin was a loser and those that admire him to be looney tune characters fit for the funny farm. Anatoly Karlin about Stalin:
🙂
How many Russians would have died if they waited a little bit longer, until the industrialization was done under German ownership? All of them, perhaps? Stalin was right, industrialize or perish.
The ‘Russians’ as you write, may have all perished (God Bless their souls). The Ukrainians, however, would have survived, as they always seem to do being the real hard asses of the Slavic world. They’ve seen many usurpers come and go. Karlin hit most of the high points quoted above, so please reread it before you descend into yet another one of your Joseph Stalin inspired wet dreams. 🙂
I don’t know about them being “hard asses”, but they are definitely willing to sell them.
I wouldn’t know – hard male asses have never held an attraction for me, as they seem to do for you! 🙂
That still wouldn’t prevent you from peddling your own ass to someone else, now would it?
Don’t worry, It’s a Ukrainian thing. I think that actually the current problems of Ukraine can be traced back to Obama’s statement that US plans to lead from behind. When Ukrainians heard this, they thought that there might be a role for them to play in the new world order after all. That’s the problem with the Ukrainians – they take things too literally. They thought that Obama is giving them a little innuendo about the role that he has envisioned for Ukraine to play.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10121588/Barack-Obama-is-leading-from-behind-in-Syria-and-cant-see-where-he-is-going.html
There you go again Cyrano, making another proposition to somebody, even though they’ve already told you that they’re not interested. How stupid can you be? 🙁
Not as stupid as you can. Your capacity in that category is fascinating.
Karlin pegged the likes of you and other Stalin admirers, as truly being caught in a permanent state of descension:
I think he was a lovable monster. Even Roosevelt called him “uncle Joe”. I don’t remember anybody calling Hitler “uncle”. Not even his niece – the one that he (attempted?) to molest and which eventually killed herself.
Stalin’s second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, actually committed suicide after a spat with the ‘good uncle’ ‘after a public dinner party over the effects of the government’s collectivization policies on the peasantry. His son Yakov. also shot himself, so it looks like Hitler had nothing over your idol and the love of your life, Stalin. You’re sick Cyrano, get some help before you end up like so many of Stalin’s former admirers.:-(
You are right. I should give up admiring Stalin. I think I am going to start admiring Ukrainians for standing up to Russia. What a brave nation that is. In less than 3 decades it went from being the bread basket of USSR to being the basket case of the former USSR. And all of this they accomplished without Russia’s help, but now it’s fashionable again to blame Russia for everything.
Maybe he is just keeping pace with the abilities demonstrated by other world leaders, like Trump, May, and even the greatest orator of all times, Barak “Teleprompter-Required” Obama.
This guy is either too young and doe snot know what Ukraine has lost or he is old enough to know and hopeless in this case. It is quite probably he might be living somewhere in Canada hence no skin in the game and doe snot experience wonders of nelzalezhnosti/ independence.
In any case, as a person born there there is no doubt in my mind that Ukraine is going into oblivion. Surrounding countries will be happy to divide what’s left. It is matter of when not if anymore. Ukraine always was that artificial creature with everything over there build by direct policies and investments from Moscow. Hence the moment that line was cut Ukraine went into tailspin especially considering their national peculiarities. They quite naturally need someone to put ring into their collective nose to lead them into some kind of normalcy.
“Russia’s help is need to settle the Syrian civil war, end the Ukrainian crisis, keep Iran nuclear free, de=fang North Korea and curb China’s growing appetite and ambition for worldwide resources, markets and “adventures”.
“I think a good case could be made that Putin’s performance is well past its peak…”
This idea should certainly please StateDept (AIPAC), but it is a question whether it conforms the reality.
The “Panama papers” scandal was an amazing feat of journalism that showed a 100% cleanness of the US moneyed class re offshoring in Panama. Only true believers in miracles could believe that the US “haves” faithfully pay their taxes and have zero deposits in off-shore havens.
Thank you for reminding this story that exposed the western press (MSM) for what it has become – a tool for scoundrels.
Well, he can not compete with american presidents(or presidents to be)1how wery diifferent from strightforward Trump statements, or sophisticated and academic arguments of Hillary!
BS. Kiev has tried to live to their end of the Minsk agreement, but Russia has refused and is still supplying munitions, equipment and personnel to the Donbas. At this point, Minsk is dead.
If have a federal republic is so important, then let Russia go first. Under Putin, it has become a unitary state in all but name, with Putin naming regional governors.
The Minsk agreement was pure stupidity as Putin simply wants to be able to have an easier time taking Ukraine apart piece by piece as he has done with Crimea, and is trying in the Donbas.
And, Krushchev had the authority to turn it over to the UkSSR. The transfer was legal and above board. The RSFSSR was not able to properly administer it. Crimea also voted for independence with Ukraine in 1991 as well. The referendum was not forced, or held under the guns of an occupying power as was Putin’s fake referendum. Russia has been recognized internationally as an occupying power.
“People still don’t get it or simply ignore (very often deliberately) the fact that Russia, from the onset, needed Crimea only–she got it. The rest was a situationally-driven, mostly reactive, approach, which, as it became very clear after 3.5 years, was largely correct. Even such evident fact of a massive (and very expensive) construction of Crimean Bridge testifies to the fact that nobody had any serious hopes for the rest of Eastern Ukraine rising up and doing anything–a correct strategic assumption.”
Agree. Excellent analysis. And let’s the EU to have [Pravyj Sector] Ukraine.
An animosity between cousins is a trifle? – look at the Middle East mess.
“The US is not intervening nearly as aggressively as Russia is.”
The lady doth protest too much, methinks
“Putin should quit in 2018 though.”
Surely London Lobby would love to see that, but the Russian Federation seems to have different opinion.
“This new creation couldn’t stand the idea that its creators were from Ukraine, and therefore started a never ending war to try and kill its creators, analogous to the Frankenstein story.”
Where have you got that fable, Mr. Hack? – Neither historic facts nor Mary Shelley fiction features your “inventive” outline. By the way, check what had happened in 1654 re Russia and Ukraine.
The Oliver Stone four hour interview on Showtime with Putin was pretty good. Sympathetic? Well at least not knee jerk demonizing the way most journalists in the West are. Putin made good points about the expansion of NATO and the two faced dissimulation of the Western leaders. Psyche-wise the guy is pretty good about the commonsense motivations of our leaders. The West needs a demon to hold it together so that Demon is Russia.
The Policy Elite in the US have chronic Russophobia and create a narrative where Russia, which spends 50 billion on the military, is a threat to the US, which spends 500 billion on the military. This Policy Elite cannot acknowledge the truth where Russia has interests which align with the West in particular against the Muslims. Russia is about 10% Muslim and has experienced terrorism(remember the Chechen?).
We lied to the Russians and told them we would not expand NATO but expanded it to 12 more countries.
This used to be in the Wikipedia entry under ‘German Reunification’ but it seems to have disappeared down the memory hole(kind of like the former Soviet Union’s doctored photos.) Anyway the point is We in the US were the dishonorable participant and lied to the Russians when they were down and out. Who exactly are our leaders? and why do they think this kind of behavior is acceptable on the world stage?
from ‘German reunification’ Wikipedia
“Jack Matlock, US ambassador to the Soviet Union during its final years, said that the West gave a “clear commitment” not to expand, and declassified documents indicate that Soviet negotiators were given the oral impression by diplomats like Hans-Dietrich Genscher and James Baker
that NATO membership was off the table for countries such as Czechoslovakia, Hungary, or Poland.[6] [7]
In 1996, Gorbachev wrote in his Memoirs, that “during the negotiations on the unification of Germany they gave assurances that NATO would not extend its zone of operation to the east,”[8] and repeated this view in an interview in 2008.[9] According to Robert Zoellick, a State Department official involved in the Two Plus Four negotiating process, this appears to be a misperception, and no formal commitment regarding enlargement was made.[10] Other authors, such as Mark Kramer, have also highlighted that in 1990 neither side imagined that countries still technically in the Warsaw Pact or the Soviet Union could one day join NATO.[11]”
You’ll need to put on your Ukrainian reading glasses:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/columns/2010/10/15/5470776/
You can droll and rave all you want. Crimea is back to Russia, however there still left Novorossiya and parts of Tavricheskaya gybernia which are not part of Ukraine and belong to Russia. I suspect it will take some time but ultimately everybody will get what they want from Ukraine except Ukraine herself which eventually will seaze to exist as it always happen to chimeras which cannot satisfy own population basic needs.
For now.
.
With a name like ‘Krieger’ and judging by the awful manner with which you lend your support for an independent Ukraine, it’s clear that you’re no Ukrainian! More likely a troll sitting somewhere in Olgino, or some kind of ex-pat fifth columnist straight from Donbas. 🙁
Krieger, tell me about your Ukrainian background. It’s morning where I live and I need a good laugh to start the day and want to see just how creative the Olgino scriptwriters for you are operating today. 🙂
“because cynical leaders were prepared to cater to voters’ paranoia, lying to them about the dangers of immigration and the costs of membership in the EU. ” –Its Time for the elites to rise up against the ignorant masses. James Traub in
FP
Replace the mass immigration with terrorism ,threat to Western values and replace the cost of membership with the cost of the security ,wars,effects on societies then the Elites will never go to sleep with the comfort of having the ability of answering the call at 2 am
I haven’t noticed any animosity between culturally similar people there. Governments quarrel, yes, but people, normal, ordinary people, they usually know better than that.
You mean to be born in Ukraine in 60’s I had to be Ukranian? With such youth I pity Ukraine. I was born in Dnepropetrovsk aka Ekaterinoslav.
That’s a bit of a distortion. They actually voted to separate from Ukraine:
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_sovereignty_referendum%2C_1991
In another referendum in 1994, the Crimeans reaffirmed their right to (dual) Russian citizenship, once again indicating that, unlike the Maidanovtsi, they had no intention of severing their ties with Russia, their ancestral motherland.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_referendum,_1994
Given the huge victory margins in both of the above referenda, there’s absolutely no reason to doubt the outcome of the 2014 one.
No, the Ukraine hasn’t tried to uphold Minsk II. There have been no moves towards decentralization or special status for Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts. There are of course good reasons for that (namely, that Ukrainian nationalists would never allow that).
In some Russian regions such as Tatarstan, Russian schoolchildren are forced to learn Tatar (despite the language’s uselessness outside Tatarstan).
There are three official languages in Crimea (Russian, Ukrainian, Crimean Tatar).
The Ukraine is the precise opposite of that in every respect.
The Ukraine also appoints regional governors, as do a number of other countries including France and India.
Incidentally: How is the Russian Army’s appointment with destruction on the mountains of Israel coming along?
Putin is sitting back and watching the US destroy itself.
He is avoiding US attempts to draw him into direct conflict until the US beast is so sick and tired that he can smack it onto the mat with but a pinky.
Also, one might want to take a look at Brezie again before thinking Putin is near that state:
Putin is very popular with the people of intellect in the US. The sheeple only count as 1 anyway.
The only thing that Russia wanted from Ukraine is not to allow themselves to become threat to Russia by joining NATO. Ukraine, having wasted all other options for normal development, couldn’t resist taking the offer of cashing in on becoming a threat to Russia.
Ukraine tries to justify this based on some past historical grievances from the 1930’s. Why not try to justify their current policies based on what happened in 1991 – when they were given independence. Surely, that wasn’t a hostile act on the part of Russia, definitely not one that needs to be rewarded by becoming a threat to them.
The regime in Kiev wants to have it both ways – they want to benefit from economic ties to Russia (gas transit and cheap gas) and on the other hand to financially benefit from being used as a threat to Russia. Then they fail to see how Russia is not OK with this. They think that based on some alleged historical injustices supposedly suffered by Ukraine at the hands of Russia – they owe them this much – to leave themselves in vulnerable position in order for Ukraine to reap the rewards.
That’s how idiotic their beliefs are. Even if Russia is somehow in debt to Ukraine (which they are not) – that debt is not that big to make it OK for Russia to agree to its destruction in order to pay back its “debt” to Ukraine.
Putin can only do so much and be around for only so long.
Russian people must mature and learn to become great on their own.
Russia has huge advantages. If Germans or Japanese owned all that land and resources, Russia would be the #2 or #3 economy in the world.
Russia has
Lots of land
Tremendous resources
National pride(something lacking in most white nations)
Moral capital(as victors over Nazis, survivors of communism, and resisters of homo-globalism).
But its economy is that of Italy and only because of its resources in gas, oil, and minerals. Without those, Russian economy would be that of some third rate Middle Eastern nation.
Russians need to get their act together, and no leader, however great, is going to do it for them.
What do Russians need?
Culture of discipline
Culture of individuality
Culture of accountability
Culture of conscience
Culture of restraint(especially from vodka)
Culture of maturity(such as refraining from wrestling with bears, dancing on tables, and catching fish with penis)
Russia needs a cultural revolution. Orthodox Church needs to develop an activist wing that trains people like Jesuit cadres and spread values of conscience, diligence, responsibility, and patriotism to ALL Russians.
Russia needs some Protestant-Work-Ethic transformation. Its rich needs to be less lavish and corrupt, and its people need to be more enterprising and less dependent on statism.
A people can be statist and still productive. Germans were always statist, but they developed fast economically. The state was always a big feature of France under monarchy and republican rule, but France made a lot of strides in many areas.
In the end, the character of a people will decide things. Putin has been a good leader(given the alternatives), but he can’t do for Russians what Russians need to do for themselves.
Russians should tell themselves… ‘we can do it’. Russia is one of the few nations that could go it alone if it was forced too. Now, it’s good for Russia to trade with the world, but even if Russia was hit by sanctions by the entire world, it could survive because it has enough land and resources. This is not an option for Japan, Germany, Italy, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and etc. Germans have human capital but no energy. Saudis have energy but poor human capital.
Russia has people, land, and resources. It could develop great industries.
But there’s too much corruption, and so, the most talented Russians prefer to move to other nations.
Now, we can understand why talented people anywhere would want to move to the US to make a quick buck in Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and etc.
So, in order for Russians to keep its best talent, it has to ensure that their ideas will be protected and profitable. Also, Russia must appeal to their sense of patriotism, i.e. that, as patriots, they owe something to the motherland. Also, since smart people like creative stuff, Russians must create a counter-creative culture that is different and better than homo-infected creativity of the West that is poisoning the world(but has a lot of people fooled that it’s the ‘most evolved’ in culture).
Putin was a necessary figure, but the next stage in Russian development must come from the Russian people. They mustn’t see Putin as mother-bird who forever feeds the chicks in the big nest. Russians must go beyond nest-mentality and build Russia into a real aviary.
All Russians should tell themselves… “If Germans or Japanese had our land, they’d do great things. But why do we suck so bad despite the blessings of so much land and resources?”
Russians should also ask themselves… “A bunch of Anglos arrived on the east coast of a wilderness called America. After independence, within a century and half, the US became the most powerful and richest nation on Earth. We have even more land and just as much resources, but we made a total mess of things. Why?”
By asking such questions, Russians can identify and fix the flaws of Russian character.
Now, for a long time, there was Tsarism and Orthodox culture that crushed individual initiative. Also, Russian elites, so into French and German culture, sought approval from foreign elites while treating their own people like dirt.
Communism was the great hope of uniting Russian elites and Russian masses, but communism crushed individual initiative and enterprise, and so, communism became like modern tsarism.
Because Russians lacked individual initiative and enterprising spirit, they were like deer in the headlight when communism ended. Instead of seeing the new order as a great opportunity for new possibilities, most Russians were just dazed and expected more orders and benefits from the state. In this chaos, globalists could easily rob and loot Russia. If Russians after communism had been more like enterprising Chinese, they would have jumped at the chance of new opportunities.
Putin and gang restored some degree of political, social, and economic order, and that was for the good. But in the end, Putinism can only be a form of transitionalism. It can only provide the necessary order in which Russians can take hold of their own future. But how many Russians have such vision, foresight, and fortitude? As of now, most Russians are faced with two possibilities: The Western Model and the Russian Model. Both are bad.
The Western Model is good for innovation, creativity(except in PC-taboo areas), and initiative. Most of the innovations is coming out of the West and Westernized parts of the East. But the Western Model is too divorced from cultural roots, identity, and meaning. It cannot be sustained because Homomania, Afromania, and feminism cannot be the basis of any healthy civilization. Homomania leads to decadence with fecal penetration and tranny-dick-cutting as new religions. Feminism turns women into bitches or sluts who won’t have kids.. or become single mothers. Afromania promotes thuggery and megalomania and egotism.
And yet, the current Russian model is too lethargic, turgid, and static to encourage and invigorate the creative, enterprising, and innovative spirit that is so crucial to competition in the modern world.
What Russia needs is a kind of Themocracy, or theme-based-democracy. A kind of fascist-democracy. That is what Israel has. Israel has fascism and democracy. Its democracy must serve the higher themes of Israel: Jewish state, Jewish power, Jewish destiny. Israel is not some abstract propositional nation but a democracy locked within a certain key theme. Iran is like that too. Iran is a democracy with elections, but its theme of Islamism cannot be violated. Now, I’m not sure the theme of Iranian democracy is good. I prefer the thematics of Israel: Blood and Soil. Israel is open to religious Jews, secular Jews, any kind of Jews AS LONG AS they defend Jewish ethnicity and territory. So, the Jewish mind is free to pursue anything as long as it serves the Jewish body on Jewish land.
In contrast, if all Iranians must bow down to Islam, it restrains what can be thought. (One advantage of Islam is that it has been an effective bulwark against the new religion of homomania, which is a kind of theocracy. And to the extent that moral Jews in Israel haven’t been able to prevent decadent Jews from spreading homomania and turning whole parts of Israel into Sodom and Gomorrah does make us wonder about the legitimacy of Israel.)
Anyway, Russia needs more spirit of freedom and enterprise. More individuality. It needs more democracy. More rule of law. However, these freedoms must be anchored to higher(yet also deeper) themes of blood, soil, and history or identity/inheritance, territory, and narrative. While democracy is good, it must not be the highest theme.
Any Jew in Israel understands this. If you were to ask a Jew, “Which would you prefer? In scenario A, Israel turns autocratic and gets rid of democracy, but it remains a Jewish state for Jewish people. In scenario B, Israel becomes 75% non-Jewish but remains a democracy.”
Any Jew will say he will go with A. After all, even if Israel turns autocratic but remains Jewish, it can one day go back to democracy. But if Israel becomes majority non-Jewish, it is no longer and never again be a Jewish state even if it is a democracy.”
This is the problem of the West. By placing democracy, hedonism, libertarianism, money, and economic growth ABOVE ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS, they’ve lost the will and means to preserve blood, soil, and history. By rules of ‘proposition nation’, any transformation is ‘good’, ‘necessary’, and ‘imperative’ IF it leads to higher GDP, more celebration of vanity(esp via homommania, Afromania, or slut culture), more ‘diversity'(a virtual religion in the West), and etc. So, themes of identity, history, and territory take a backseat to themes of atomization, political correctness, and ‘tolerance’ & ‘inclusion’ which comes down to invasion by foreign hordes.
What Russia must say is, “We want and need more freedom and liberty, BUT the highest themes of Russia are blood, soil, and territory.” After all, even without liberal democracy under the Tsars and Commie-tsars, Russia remained Russia, the homeland of the Russian people.
The trick is to fuse themes of blood, soil, and history with freedom.
That was the source of European and American greatness in the past. At one time, more freedom meant more freedom for the ethnos to do great things for the people. But over time, the idea of freedom came to be divorced from ethnos. And then, it came to see ethnos as an enemy of freedom since radical libertarians don’t want to feel restrained/constrained by any obligation to any people, culture, or territory. Libertarians are like bird-folks. They see themselves as having evolved away from land-creatures who are wedded to a territory as their homeland. For globalist bird-people with wings of cosmopolitan-privilege, the notion of walls and borders is antiquated and irrelevant. They wanna fly from globo-city to globo-city. Their worldview is migratory. They see every nation as anachronistic nest that must be abandoned in the globalized world where everyone should have wings to fly around all over. No wonder that the migratory globo-bird-people feel most affinity with mass migrations of peoples. Globo-elites see themselves as birds-of-privilege and they see Third World migrants as birds-of-need. (Also, by sentimentally latching onto the poor migratory masses, the rich migratory elites justify their own winged privilege of flying all over and shi**ing on everyone below.) These globo-elites put their individual privilege at the center of everything. Sure, they act like they’re for ‘social justice’ and ‘progress’, but that’s mostly empty talk by people like Carlos Slim, Bezos, Soros, and the like who live in an Elysium Sky world safe from troubles on the ground.
For most people, their land really matters to their well-being. It matters economically and psychologically. Since they don’t have much private property, they feel ‘rich’ by knowing they at least have a shared homeland with their own kind. So, when Third World masses pour into their nations, the effect is like attack of winged monkeys in Wizard of Oz. This is why Polish and Hungarian patriots don’t want their nations to be monkey-invaded by Turd World hordes. To patriots, Soros and his ilk are like wicked witch, and the third world masses are like flying monkeys(or sea monkeys as they come by boat to Europe).
The result is massive chaos, but since the main themes of globalism is individuality, ‘inclusion’, and diversity, the elites don’t care what they are doing to the world. And of course, they got their privileges and goodies and remain above the ground on which all the hell is breaking loose. Also, they rigged the narrative and ideology so as to have the moral highground against patriots. So, if patriots say they want to defend the homeland, the piggish winged elites call them ‘far right’ and ‘neo-nazi’. Elites denounce the patriots for not being ‘inclusive’ while ignoring the fact that the elite world is the most exclusive domain that is reserved only for those who ‘belong’. While the elite world is also ‘diverse’, it is the diversity of the moneyed class. In contrast, diversity for the masses means that white people in the West must be pushed aside by grubby morons from Algeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, China,Guatemala, and worst of all, the ghastly continent of Africa with all those crazy Negroes with muscles and aggression. (Look how Africans act in Australia. Ugabuglobalism is the worst.)
Russia must lead the way with its brand of Themocracy that is for more freedom and rule of law BUT in service of the ultimate themes of Russian identity, territory, and history. So, freedom must serve something higher. Freedom serving Freedom is like cannibalism. Freedom needs to serve deeper themes, those with lasting value, like blood and soil.
After all, what is Chinese-ness? Chinese had different religions and cults(Buddhism, Taoism, Maoism), but in the end, what binds all of Chinese history and culture together is a sense of blood ancestry and territory.The deepest themes of Chinese-ness isn’t about political systems, economic ideology, or individualist fashions. After all, China no longer has emperors or the concept of Mandate of Heaven. But it’s still China because it’s the land of Chinese who remember their own history. Now, most people are agreed that capitalism is the most productive system, rule of law & private property are most useful, and republican/democratic system of government tends to be most just. So, it’d be good for all peoples to adopt them BUT with the knowledge that those cannot be the highest or deepest themes, which must be blood, soil, and history. Capitalism, democracy, and rule of law must serve something more lasting and deeper in meaning.
Indeed, there are two sides to human nature. One side longs for freedom, but another side longs to serve something. It’s like that Bob Dylan song, “Gotta Serve Somebody”. This is why even globalists with privilege come to feel empty and hollow and eventually become neo-religious and search for something to serve. Clever Jews understand this and urge globalized gentiles to serve holy homos, magic negroes, and Israel as the highest goods. Globalists feel this craving to serve something so badly that they go with the officially approved neo-religions that deify Jews, Negroes, and homos.(Why don’t they serve their own race, culture, and history? Because globalism has infected their minds that gentiles, especially white ones, who primarily serve their own people, culture, territory, and narrative are ‘far right’, ‘racist’, and ‘neo-nazi’).
People need to serve something. This is why even Libertarians get all weepy about MLK. Even Rand Paul go boo hoo and wets his pants over the thug puncher of women. To serve something is part of human nature, no less than the desire to be free. After all, being free just to be free feels good for awhile but gets boring and pointless. It’s like a novelist or film-maker wants the freedom to express himself but also wants to serve a story, idea, message, meaning, or cause. Eisenstein was a great film-maker but he didn’t just make movies to show off his talent. He served the Revolution. SEVEN SAMURAI shows how warriors gain meaning by serving a cause, a noble one of protecting farmers from bandits.
Jews understood this aspect of human nature and came up with the idea of Covenant. It means Jews must serve God. This was a brilliant move because if Jews didn’t serve God, their human-nature-desire-to-serve-something might have led to serving another tribe or kingdom more powerful than the Jews(as people tend to worship the powerful). By making Jews serve God, they were immune to serving another tribe or people. And to incentivize Jews to serve God, Jews made God the most powerful and only God in the world. After all, if the Jewish God were a weakling god or just one of the many other gods, Jews might feel tempted to worship the gods of a more powerful people. But by making their God the only God, Jews could only serve God. And through the Covenant, Jews were told that they have a duty to serve this God. But more clever yet, the Covenant meant that God, the ultimate power, had a special duty to help the Jews. So, Jews were to serve God who was to ‘serve’ Jews. Very clever arrangement.
When we compare Jews and East Asians in the West, we see how Jews serve their own identity and power because they have this covenant mindset. In contrast, East Asians outside East Asia easily come to serve OTHER peoples, especially Jews, homos, and Negroes, since they have no such idea as the Covenant. So, their human-nature-need-to-serve-something can easily be directed to serve the ‘new gods’ of Jews, homos, and Negroes.
Anyway, Russia needs to ditch the notion of Third Rome. It must think in terms of Second Israel or Zion for Russians.
So-called ‘liberal democracy’ of the West says the white folks of the West must sacrifice everything for the ‘propositions’ of globalism. So, even identity/inheritance, culture, history, and territory must be sacrificed or surrendered IF doing so furthers the proposition of ‘liberal democracy’ that has become all about ‘diversity’, ‘inclusion’, and GDP. This is an inversion of the old principle that all freedoms must ultimately serve the nation, people/ethnos, culture, and history. This principle still exists ONLY IN ISRAEL. Outside Israel, Jewish elites fear and loathe it as promoting solidarity among gentile majorities of nations that can serve as bulwark against Jewish supremacist penetration. So, Jews rigged the globalist narrative so as to make gentiles feel that their serving their own kind is ‘evil’. But Jews love it in Israel because it means consolidation of Jewish power and preservation of Jewish pride of identity.
What Russia must do is promote an order that is democratic, enterprising, and etc. BUT where the highest themes are nation, culture, and territory. Russian human nature is like that of rest of humanity. One part of Russians want to be free. Another part of Russians want to serve something. The magic formula is for Russians to be free to serve their people, culture, and homeland.
What total lunacy and hippocracy. Do I really need to remind you that before 2014 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, NATO membership was not a popular option for most Ukrainians. But now, after the deceitful land grab by Russia of Crimea and three years of proxy directed war in Donbas orchestrated in Moscow, most Ukrainians now look favorably towards NATO membership. Latest polls show that 55.9% o Ukrainians now favor NATO integration (I think that pre 2014 it was less than 15%) and 66.4% now favor EU integration. You reap what you sew, Putinista fanboys. Bye, bye ‘NovoRossiya’! http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2017/06/17/7147228/
{….. the Russian invasion of Ukraine,}
There was no so-called ‘invasion’ of Ukraine by Russia.
There was however an illegal invasion of the sovereign state of Iraq – 7,000 away from US – by US and UK (….admitted as being illegal by Lord Prescott), resulting in its total destruction as a functioning State, and causing the deaths of something like 500,000 Iraqis, most of them civilians. The bloody aftermath of that criminal, illegal act by US&UK continues to this day. Death, destruction, dislocation.
US has also invaded another sovereign State, Syria: US troops and air force are present and conducting military operations in sovereign land and airspace of Syria. All without the permission of the Syrian government. Unlike Russia, from which Syria officially requested military assistance.
So stop lecturing anybody about the so-called ‘invasion’ of Ukraine by RF.
{…after the deceitful land grab by Russia of Crimea }
You can’t, quote, ‘grab’ something that belongs to you.
Crimea has been part of Russia for 200+ years.
In 1954 Soviet dictator Khrushchev “gave” Crimea to Ukraine SSR, without asking the residents of Crimea.
After the dissolution of USSR, residents of Crimea held declarations and referendums:
1992: Crimea declared Independence. Kiev ignored it.
1994: Autonomy referendum. Passed by ~80%. Kiev ignored it.
After the 2014 neo-Nazi putsch in Kiev, the neo-Nazi Azov battalion and other neo-Nazi gangs started murdering ethnic Russians, e.g. the Odessa Massacre. Not wanting a replay of Operation Barbarossa in Crimea, its residents held a referendum in 2014 to re-join Russia: passed by 96%+.
Done. Thank you very much.
By comparison, BREXIT passed 52% to 48%.
So that somehow has more “legality” ?
btw: most of so-called ‘Ukraine’ are Russian lands attached* to Ukraine by various Russian Tsars and dictators. In time, they will all be promptly returned to Mother Russia.
Say, do you remember when US deceitfully grabbed the territory of Hawaii?
*
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2014/05/20140504_3602.jpg
#157
How can you steal something that’s yours? Think of Crimea as the wedding ring. Once the marriage was dissolved – the ring goes back to its rightful owner. At the time Khruschev gifted Crimea to Ukraine, no one in their wildest dreams imagined that Russia and Ukraine would one day go their separate ways. Crimea was to be part of Ukraine only as long as Ukraine was part of the same country as Russia. Otherwise, Russia would have never agreed to cede Crimea. I guess following the marriage analogy, NovoRossiya would be the dowry. Ukraine can lose that too if they don’t smarten up.
It’s a shame that Russia’s annexation of the Crimea, wasn’t in lines with a more legitimate process, including a referendum that wouldn’t have taken place after a Russian invasion, at the point of a gun. More time, rather, than a hasty fait acompli, and the inclusion of international observers would have added to the legitimacy of the whole thing too. Russia could have had its wedding ring back, after its divorce had gone through more legal international channels. Instead, what did it get? The opprobrium of most of the civilized world, sanctions AND the complete ire and mistrust of the Ukrainian people that are more united in their opposition and mistrust o Russia, since the collapse o the Soviet Union. They could have had it all, instead they got the goofy foreign policy of ‘Putlet’ or’Putler’…
The engine that drove the US into an economic power house was decades of violating free market principles…
The engine that drove German economic success was being bailed out by the US right after WW2..
Considering that Russia was gang-raped by Bill Clinton’s Oligarch friends….a gang rape that caused a demographic collapse of the Russian population….Russia’s subsequent recovery has been miraculous…
OOPS…These comments were meant for Priss Factor…not Mr. Hack…
Thousands of unhappy Crimeans protest the ‘ the deceitful land grab by Russia of Crimea’.
[Russia: Thousands celebrate third anniversary of reunification with Crimea]
The greatest mistake of all is thinking western model (in your particular case, the american model) will make russians better, or even being adopted by russians.
It is the role of all nations to find their own way into a functional society. Of course, it is agreeable for russian people to observe the characteristics of other developed countries and look at what sentiments made them great while not observing what is currently making them weak. Or even try to get inspiration on other’s formula and adapt the basic premise with what would fit in your country. But follow religiously the formula of other countries as it would work is balderdash.
While Russia can have a good work ethic, it’s laughable to wish them to adopt Protestant-Work-Ethic (that by itself also has too much of a strong individual feeling that leads into complete atomized individuals as follows from the Great Generation to the Baby Boomers and the latter’s legacy to the decline, lack of self-dependency and selfishness of later generations if it’s not controlled).
Just like in Latin American countries, the people of Russia are much more individualist than americans or europeans think. If they complain too much about the government’s lack of commitment, it is because of their story where the people elected into government butted in many times in people’s lives and still do that. They agree because it became norm in their societies, but in place they lazily want to receive all benefits the government promises. And since the latter does not most of the time, the people are quick to explore on their own breaches to have what they were promised and even more, not caring about their equals. The “friendship” (especially the Latin American countries variety) is so cherished as long as the friend is a public servant of a useful sector (health, education, etc) or a blue-collar-worker on a company that can offer product freebies, can nominate someone on a job and so on.
Now, when looking at how americans and europeans really acted to become successful, it’s because they were less individualistic and more “communist” in a sense.
Ukraine wanted to be “independent”, she got it. Ukraine made her choices and it will not get any better. But it was predicted
I guess it is true as they say in Russia–Those born to crawl can not fly. Too bad it took so long and so many lives to figure that out.t go.
What is, probably, most disturbing for Ukrainians is the fact, that Russia doesn’t care that much about Ukrainian feelings anymore. Eventually Nord Stream-2 will be built and Ukraine’s blackmail of Europe by gas transit will be over. She will become even more grim and desolate place but surely free from those ghosts of Soviet and Russian past. It is a sad end, but in this cynical world of ours, real power is the only commodity which makes one a real player globally.
We’ll see how happy the crowds will be once Ukraine shuts off all of their electricity and water. Electricity to power their microphones, lights, stage amps etc; Water, needed to irrigate their crops so that they can eat. If you think that Putin’s bridge to nowhere is going to save them, think again:
http://www.newsweek.com/putin-bridge-crimea-doomed-collapse-541578
The bridge sounds like another great idea from the great leader who spent over 100 billion on Sochi – how’s that boondoggle holding up? 🙂
Get it, boys and girls? Everyone owes it to Ukraine to “put her on her feet”. Russia owes her gas transit, buying everything Ukraine (less and less) produces. And, of course, Ukraine’s main idea about Europe, as even her former President still thinks so, is to get to EU, get a truck load of free money (aka investments) and start living as European upper middle class. I am not exaggerating. Of course, the fact that Ukraine became what it became by 1990 was largely thanks to the Soviet economic system somehow got lost on such people as Kuchma, not to speak of very many average Ukrainians. The scale of de-industrialization and of de-modernization Ukraine achieved in short 26 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union is nothing short of mind-boggling and unprecedented.
{We’ll see how happy the crowds will be once Ukraine shuts off all of their electricity and water.}
It’s already been done (2015), and it was taken care of*.
Nothing will stop Russia in the full absorption and integration of Crimea.
And yeah, I will believe a Neocon fake-news mouthpiece like Newsweek prediction about Russia. The same idiots predicted – actually hoped – that Russia would collapse as a result of sanctions. Everything was tried by the anti-Russian Globalist reptiles: attack on the ruble; economic sanctions; agricultural sanctions; forced collapse of the price of oil down to $50. Nothing has worked.
Russia has become stronger.
And the $50 billion Russia spent on the Sochi Olympics (not your mythical $100 billion) was a smashing success, despite the childish boycotts by some sore losers.
{…how’s that boondoggle holding up?}
A lot better than the $400 BILLION F-35 boondoggle**.
[You would think after 15 years in development and some $400 billion in taxpayer dollars spent to create the most deadly,…….Instead, after all the money and a 70 percent cost overrun to get the F-35 off the ground, we are left with “initial operational capability.”]
Over to you homes.
*
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/21/saboteurs-blow-up-transmission-towers-knocking-out-power-to-crimea-russian-government-says/?utm_term=.d5de140fa475
*
https://www.rt.com/news/246725-crimea-water-pipeline-project/
[Ukraine’s attempts to cut off water supplies to Crimea caused significant droughts last summer, but now Russia is rushing to compensate for the deficit. The first lines of newly installed water pipes are already feeding the peninsula from artesian wells.
Over the past week, despite rough spring conditions and muddy turf, engineering battalions from Russia’s Eastern and Western military districts have laid some 7,000 pipes in 8 pipelines connecting artesian wells in the western part of peninsula with the Crimean canal.]
**
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/ruth-the-f-35-boondoggle/2288367
I don’t know about a truckload of money (though that would help) and living the upper middle class European lifestyle, but the recent opening of visa free restriction to travel within the EU and closer economic ties to Europe sure look good to most Ukrainians. Poroshenko’s recent successful meeting with Trump and his stopover to Europe bid well for his next reelection campaign. Ukrainians are not interested in Russia’s reformed hope for the U.S.S.R. Things are looking up for Ukraine, for a change. Poor Lavrov, he seems dismayed by the new, more potent sanctions:
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/content/eu-and-ukraine-hail-closer-ties-extension-russian-sanctions
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/content/russias-lavrov-says-new-us-sanctions-harm-ties-washington
What an idiot if Russia had invade the Ukraine in 2014 by 2015 there wouldn’t have been a Ukraine but keep trolling for some idiot just might believe you…
Russia did invade Ukraine,and it’s still there fighting alongside paid proxies today. How far has it gotten? Half of Donbas in three years. Not much to show for its efforts, I would say.
The greatest mistake of all is thinking western model (in your particular case, the american model) will make russians better, or even being adopted by russians… While Russia can have a good work ethic, it’s laughable to wish them to adopt Protestant-Work-Ethic (that by itself also has too much of a strong individual feeling that leads into complete atomized individuals as follows from the Great Generation to the Baby Boomers and the latter’s legacy to the decline, lack of self-dependency and selfishness of later generations if it’s not controlled).
I didn’t say Russia should become like the US. I said Russians need to assess the reasons as to why they’ve comparatively failed in relation to other nations. Russians need to learn lessons from US, Germany, Japan, France, and etc., but of course, Russians must find their own way to fix the problems.
Still, the Big Questions must be asked as to WHY.
Japan asked this question when confronted with the Western threat in the 19th century. It wondered why the West made so many advances whereas Asia failed to. So, it went about reforms.
Of course, Russia has also raised this question, but it is such an underachiever given all the potentials.
Russia needed a Putin because things got so out of hand. Now, they must look to themselves to deal with the big challenges.
Globalism means Total Domination by the Best, Richest, Most Powerful, Most Forceful, Most Aggressive. It has no mercy for all else.
Since Jewish finance is dominant, it must invade and rule all the world.
Since Chinese manufacturing is most dominant, it must dominate all the world.
Since American Pop Music is most addictive, it must conquer all the world.
Since Hollywood movies are most popular, they must replace all national cinema.
Since US military is most powerful, it must rule all the world.
Since blacks are most dominant in sports, they must take over sports of every nation.
Since black Africans have the most children, they must demographically invade and colonize every nation.
Since homos are most flamboyant and narcissistic, the entire world must worship homomania.
Since Jews dominate the media, all the world must support Israel and worship the Holocaust as a religion.
Since Muslims are most aggressive as Jihadis of sermons and bombs, they must mess up every nation.
All peoples must put out to whomever happens to be most aggressive, arrogant, insistent, demanding, and/or dominant in whatever field.
These meager attempts to provide the water needed are literally a drop in the bucket. Here’s what’s really going on:
Read more about Russia’s progressive economic plans for Crimean agriculture here:
http://neweasterneurope.eu/articles-and-commentary/2255-crimea-s-water-troubles
Really, who give a damn about what Ukranians feel. Suck it up and get used to be molested. Once you were part of the strong proud country. Now you are third world hell hole without any chance of ever coming back. Za chto borolis, na to I naporolis. You wanted it, you got it. You ain’t no Russians.
You should have mentioned the source. It is from Smoothiex12 blog.
{Read more about Russia’s progressive economic plans for Crimean agriculture here:}
No, YOU, read about it.
NewEasternEurope.com
Another anti-Russian website disseminating fake “news”.
The site is based in Poland, a great “friend” of Russia, as well all know: No?
The editorial board and staff is chock full of anti-Russian lying scum.
http://neweasterneurope.eu/about-nee/editorial-board
http://neweasterneurope.eu/about-nee/editorial-staff
Try again, homes.
Find something credible I can work with.
So far, you’re not doing too well: I have debunked your b____s____ with one hand tied behind my back.
Not very sporting old chap.
Why Ukrainians of course, it’s their country after all.
Perhaps you are indeed a Canadian Banderite with a dim knowledge of Ukrainian history. And it does not help that you have provided a link to unreadable materials that you found as very important to counter with to the established history of Ukraine. Only in todays world a lying progeny of a Ukrainian nazi-collaborator could find a full support from the US ziocons. A neat circle.
“Chrystia Freeland’s Family Lie Grows Bigger And Blacker– Michael Chomiak Volunteered For Hitler Before Ukraine Was Invaded and Was Hunted by the Polish Police Until the 1980s:”
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/06/john-helmer-chrystia-freelands-family-lie-grows-bigger-blacker-michael-chomiak-volunteered-hitler-ukraine-invaded-hunted-polish-police-19.html
The Jewish Proxy Faith, Crusade, Culture, and Identity of Homomania.
https://twitter.com/Pepichet/status/877743728601047040
Homo church:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DC5fQ36XUAAH2Pt.jpg
Homo crusade military:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DC5fQ37XoAA_OGE.jpg
Homo finance or Homoney:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DC5fQ4AW0AQynkv.jpg
Homo food or Homocdonalds:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DC5fQ4AW0AQynkv.jpg
Homo-Genization of the World thanks to Jewish control of finance, media, academia, state, courts, advertising, and narrative.
PT Barnum didn’t go far enough. He said there’s a sucker born every minute.
Actually, there’s someone who’ll take it up the ass born every minute.
Even non-homos have totally bought into this crazy idea that homo fecal penetration and tranny penis-and-testicle-mutilation should be associated with the rainbow and be the object of worship, revelry, and celebration. That ‘rainbow’ homo color must have been tested in psychology labs as to its talismanic power. Wrap ANYTHING with homo colors, and wallah, it’s holy-by-association. From ‘God on our side’ to ‘Homo on our side’. (But then, as homomania is controlled by Jews, pro-homo translates into being spellbound by Jewish supremacist power.)
A nation of lies.
But we also have BLM, another massive lie sold as a moral cause. All those poor saintly innocent blacks killed by ‘racist’ white cops.
And Russia Hacking nonsense by the very same people who’ve been telling us of the dangers of McCarthyism and politics of paranoia.
But then, a society addicted to pop culture is constantly ‘bored’ and in want of something ‘new’ and ‘hot’. And homos are tireless in their vanity, self-promotion, and celebration. So, the less flamboyant groups seek ‘fashionability’ by association with homos.
After all, a church as church is just a ‘dull’ and ‘boring’.
But a church-gone-homo is a happening place, trendy and ‘hot’ and ‘colorful’.
Just like ordinary uncool people look to celebrities to add spice to their lives, so many people look to homos for ‘color’. They outsource ‘excitement’and ‘wonder’ to homos. Since celebrity and buzz are so essential to what is ‘hot’ and ‘relevant’, even the sacred must be rendered ‘fun'(like the current pope or poop, Mr. globe-trotting celebrity panderer to every vice). If the profane is more fun and exciting than morality, then profanity is the new morality. Since traditional religions are ‘dull and boring’ while homos are so ‘fun and colorful’, the New Sacred must favor homos above all and let them festoon sacred places with homo emblems. Homos are never ‘being boring’. A shallow culture is easily bored because, infantile and childlike, it needs constant titillation and sensory-overload to feel anything(like thrills sent up Chris Hedges leg by closet-homo Obama). And homos are the las vegas and hollywood of globalist culture. It’s nonstop self-adulation and narcissism.
A real culture would find value and meaning in family, church, real arts, tradition, and heritage. But we don’t have a real culture but a pop-culture-gone-degenerate where kids from young age grow up staring at posters of pop idols stuck on their bedroom walls. As for their grandparents, they just rot away in nursing homes so as not to inconvenience the young who are addicted to momentary thrills and ‘fun’. With no link to the past, it’s no wonder that millennials all around the world don’t feel a deep passion to preserve their culture and heritage. Their main focus of identification is with pop stars like lady gaga, katy perry, rappers, and tattooed athletes. In this culture climate, homos were bound to score big since they are the masters of self-promotion and self-aggrandizement.
They are never ‘being boring’. In our cool-centric culture, anything that doesn’t jolt someone right away is ‘boring’. Welcome to utterly shallow globopolis.
Of course, Jews are cracking up at how easily goyim all around the world got taken in by a bunch of lab-tested colors and their promotion by the media, academia, and state controlled by Jewish oligarchs and commissars.
And even though gentile elites around the world know that it is a proxy of Jewish power, they dare not say anything lest they be accused of ‘antisemitism’.
As for dumb conservatives, they worry about Sharia when it is the new religion of Homomania that has really made a sickening spectacle of the West and destroyed or cowed so many lives who don’t want to bend over to homomania and the Fruit-Crusade or Frusade.
“…it’s their country after all.”
Their country?
Ukraine had ceased to exist as an independent country in 2014, with arrival of Nuland (ziocon) and Brennan (the CIA). Hence the spectacular appointments of Misha Saakishvilli (wanted in his native Georgia), Natali Yaresko (an American felon), Pravyj sector (local neo-nazi), and finally, Groysman, a Jewish entrepreneur and current prime minister of Ukraine. Jews make 0.4% of Ukrainian population: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-population-of-the-world
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-22/stockman-warns-great-big-coup-way
“While Putin was basking in the glory of the 2014 winter Olympics at Sochi, the entire apparatus of Imperial Washington — the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, the State Department and a long string of Washington funded NGOs — was on the ground in Kiev assisting the putsch that overthrew Ukraine’s constitutionally elected President and Russian ally.
From there, the Ukrainian civil war and partition of Crimea inexorably followed, as did the escalating campaign against Russia and its leader.
So as it turned out, the War Party could not have planned a better outcome — especially after Russia moved to protect its legitimate interests in its own backyard resulting from the Washington-instigated civil war in Ukraine. That included protecting its 200-year old naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea.”
Moreover, the Ukrainian territory is the result of Soviet annexations of Rumanian, Polish, and Hungarian territories; without the generous provisions by the USSR, Ukraine would be a puny patch of land: http://ukrmap.su/en-uh10/273.html
Every single oblast within Ukraine had a compact Ukrainian majority living within its borders, with the exception of the Crimea (they were the second largest ethnicity there). Why shouldn’t all of these territories be included within a Ukrainian state?
And you’re probably the offspring of some demented commie creep responsible for the murder of many. So what? You shouldn’t be judged for the sins of your fathers, right?
Anything at all within the article itself that you find to be untrue? I read all sorts of stuff, even pro-Russian sites like this one. Face it, you’re afraid to read anything at all that contradicts your preconceived world views where Russia is the Alpha and the Omega.
How do you know anything at all in the article is true?
Do you live in Crimea?
How long have you lived in Crimea?
And no, visiting and talking to so-and-so won’t do: you have to live in a country for long periods to really know the country.
No, I don’t live in Crimea either.
But I have been around long enough and have read fake news about Russia proffered by anti-Russian MSM long enough to be wary of all the doom-and-gloom stories and prognostications.
Every day, for months now, we are bombarded here in the US with one lurid tale after another of alleged Russian meddling in US elections. Yet not one shred of evidence has been dug up, because there is nothing to dig up. Nothing. It’s a replay of the McMartin Preschool hysteria on a national scale.
At the time, with each passing week the fake allegations of sex-abuse grew more and more fantastical. Otherwise normal people were gripped with a rapidly spreading mass-hysteria and became an irrational mob. In the end, not one shred of evidence was found, because there was none. Everything was made up. Yet the falsely accused were destroyed nevertheless.
Face it, you will dig up and read anything that supports your fervent hope to see Russia flounder: we call it Confirmation Bias out here in the West.
Blah, blah, blah…
I certainly do give a damn about what Ukrainians feel. I’m not losing any sleep over it, obviously, but still I care. However, what Ukrainians feel has nothing to do with pseudo-Ukrainian trolls-provocateurs here (Hack and others).
UpIs that important? Ukraine effectively killed itself. What’s left will be picked apart by all neighboring states including Russia. There is still a lot of Russian lands in Ukraine namely Eastern, Central Eastern and Southern Ukraine. It will take some time but ultimately there will be no Ukraine. It is failed state by now. If you have any illusions as per Ukraine future just move there. You sound a lot like you actually do not live there…. There is a lot more Russia’s in there in the East then your so called stats say. Otherwise there would not be any internal issues. It took time to make population crazy but real life will eventually undo most of it. You cannot imagine what Ukraine used to be and what hell hole it is now. This is the cost of 30 serebrennikov and Ukraine is ending like Judas.
No Russia did not INVADE the Ukraine, material yes troops no as I stated if Russia had invaded the Ukraine in 2014 by 2015 the Ukraine would no longer be on the map, it would have been delegated to the bin of history probably where it really belongs…
Oh boy, Mr. Hack. If you people think you’re winning Crimean hearts and minds now, just wait until you finally succeed (it hasn’t worked yet) in cutting off all their water and power. Then they’re really going to love Ukraine! They’ll be lined up around the block at their local parliament demanding to be re-annexed by Kiev! I can just see it now …
I think it should be devided along ethnic and cultural lines
half the country is ethnic Ukrainian and the Eastern half is majority ethic Russian
just let them have their own respective nations and allow them self-determination.
problem solved
create a gladiatorial arena in the middle for all the ultra-nationalistic, chest thumping Russian and Ukrainian men to slug it out for the amusement and mollification of their respective sides. I’d log onto pay-per-view to watch that!
An excellent post, Priss Factor.
Of course, not many comments here (and on similar Web sites/forums).
Uncomfortable truths maybe?
Much easier to …discuss…..Ukraine, Chechnya, Syria, blah…blah.
But NOT the core of the issue.
Keep up the good work man.
LOL.
{Blah, blah, blah…}
An erudite, concise, yet point-by-point rebuttal.
How do you do it?
{Anything at all within the article itself that you find to be untrue?}
This is what you wrote above: {We’ll see how happy the crowds will be once Ukraine shuts off all of their electricity and water.}
As in future tense.
I showed you evidence from well known news sources that in fact Ukrainians did cut off both water and electricity in 2015: two years ago. Crimea survived and is doing well. This is 2017.
You go dig up some obscure site, run from Poland, that sends someone to find problems in Crimea. It’s called lying by omission: you talk to a 100 people, you’ll find a few who see nothing but problems.
You are insane if you think I am going to analyze some article from some obscure site and rebut each and every assertion therein.
Fact remains that Crimeanas have sufficient water and electricity.
If they didn’t, it would be international news.
Anti-Russian MSM would be all over it.
And as poster [Seamus Padraig] noted, the fact that you, presumably an anti-Russian Ukrainian, hope that Crimeans will be left with no water and electricity and therefore will do anything to go back under the yoke of the neo-Nazi Kiev junta – shows how divorced from reality the whole lot of you are.
May I suggest a change of tag to Mr Troll because Mr Hack is negative already and Troll is more appropriate for your quality of debating – pure inventions of alternative reality.
“… I said Russians need to assess the reasons as to why they’ve comparatively failed in relation to other nations. etc”
This theme of alleged “failure” of Russian state relative to the West is very common.
But then what is considered a “successful” society?
For example, let’s take Japan, Germany or South Korea. On the face of it, you could argue that they have been extremely successful societies in terms of industrial development, standard of living, etc.
But, all three of them are actually dying as communities, if we consider their population decline.
Therefore, based on this criteria, let’s call it a “sustainable existence” criteria, they might prove a failures in the end.
If we apply this same criteria to say, Roma people (gypsies), then they appear the big winners.
Anyway, have a nice weekend.
What’s so funny young man?
They are doing g
For example, let’s take Japan, Germany or South Korea. On the face of it, you could argue that they have been extremely successful societies in terms of industrial development, standard of living, etc.
Don’t be a dammy.
I never said those nations are all-around successes. They have succeeded in certain areas, but they are, as you said, morally bankrupt, spiritually hollow, and dying. (Not that Russian demographics is so great either.)
I would never say Russia should become like today’s Germany, Japan, or Korea.
But, there is something good about them that is missing among Russians. It is THAT which the Russians must learn.
It’s like extracting chemicals from a plant. It might be poisonous to consume the whole plant. But there might be elements in the plant that might be beneficial to health.
So, it’s a matter of Cultural Extraction. What useful or positive elements can you extract from Germans and Japanese?
Also, people do change over time. Germans and Japanese were once sane. They had the balance of pride and conscience and work ethic and hedonism and modernity and traditionalism.
But all that’s left now is hedonism, materialism, and ‘liberalism’. So, they are spiritually empty and dying.
But there are good things about Germans and Japanese that is sorely lacking among Russians. So, Russians need to extract and adopt those elements while retaining what is great about Russia.
Finally, who can deny that Russia is truly an underachiever? Germany and Japan are over-stressed because human capital is pretty much all they have. Also, as losers of WWII and as political whores of the US, they have no pride.
In contrast, Russia has vast territories and lots of resources. Russia has great national pride as victors over Nazi Germany. So, sky is the limit for Russians IF they were to take hold of their destiny. But they just wanna hold onto vodka bottles.
In other thread it has been slipped out that you may be Jewish American. If true it may explain much of your opinion about Iran. Though, if Israel, by your words, is a s-hole, why are you worried about it so much?
Sort of hard to believe the Putin-haters on the left have not already taken advantage of such an obvious strategy.
Putin needs to find a good successor soon and fast. Russians don’t want a repeat of the 90s where the entire nation basically got raped by the west.
So, Priss Factor, obviously nobody is interested in discussing those cultural issues you mentioned.
Minor things, as corruption, common attitude to rule of law, work ethic and top/bottom difference in material wealth and social power.
Not only here, but on most of,say, “anti-Empire/anti-NWO” Websites.
Would you have a theory why is that?
If one says ‘Russians are lazy’, it can lead to ‘blacks are lazy’. That said, it is permissible to denigrate Russian ways of doing things. And even Black African ways of doing things. But shhhhh about black American way of doing things.
Also, if one begins to attach Work Ethic to national/ethnic character, it may lead to other qualities or demerits like corruption, dishonesty, and weaseliness.
Also, work ethic can co-exist with dishonesty, and I think this is a problem with Jews. Jews certainly have work ethic, but they have hustle-pride. This is where Swedes are different from Japanese. Swedes have work ethic and earnest trust ethic. Jews have work ethic and hustle-pride.
Also, given the rise of pop culture and youth hedonism, work ethic is seen as lame and boring. So, even those who have it tend to hide it. They would rather be seen as ‘hip’ and ‘cool’.
Work ethic is seen as ‘boring’. In a world of hip-and-cool supremacism, no one wants to be ‘boring’. This is where homo stuff is useful for those who work obsessively to get ahead.
They spend most of them toiling and competing but wave the homo flag to come across as fun-loving.
These days, if there is ‘work ethic’ it’s not Protestant but Prurient.
Protestant Work Ethic said work, save, invest, work more. Working is virtuous.
Prurient Work Ethic says work, work, work to get paid and get laid.
Well…my, sort of rhetorical, question was/is about that people who criticize The Empire/NWO in minute detail, and with reason, are rather shy when it comes to criticizing Russia.
I am not talking about Russian paid trolls, immature fanboys and such, but smart people actually interested in making this world a better place.
Issues as corruption, attitude towards the rule of law and work ethics are, as far as Russia is concerned, the ‘elephant in the room”, very few are comfortable discussing. Let alone the obscene material wealth of top layer compared to the bottom half of society.
Something as The Holocaust™ in polite society.
Maybe it’s because people fed with The Empire are so desperate for alternative that even Russia looks and feels better?
Or, it’s just too hard to go down that rabbit hole? Perhaps there are some VERY uncomfortable facts down there?
Well…my, sort of rhetorical, question was/is about that people who criticize The Empire/NWO in minute detail, and with reason, are rather shy when it comes to criticizing Russia… Something as The Holocaust™ in polite society. Maybe it’s because people fed with The Empire are so desperate for alternative that even Russia looks and feels better?
For starters, criticizing Russia isn’t taboo. Karlin and Saker have plenty to say about what’s wrong with Russia and what Russia continues to do wrong and fails to fix.
So, it’s not like the Holocaust, which really is a sensitive topic.
I think many people, even those sympathetic to Russia, take it for granted that Russia has huge problems of corruption, drug use, alcoholism, crime, apathy, and etc. Those are givens, and that’s something Russians must fix for themselves.
As most commentators are not Russia and don’t live in Russia, their only interest about Russia is on the world stage. Given where Russia was in the 90s and considering what could have happened if Yeltsinism had continued, there is a respect for Russia’s restoration of some degree of sovereignty. And they like some of the themes of Putinism even though Putin isn’t hardcore nationalist. Given the total lunacy that prevails in ‘Western’ circles, Russian policy seems reasonably sane when it comes to the National Question.
But in the end, it’s the nitty-gritty that matters. And Russians need to develop a mindset that is more thorough and diligent. And this is something that government can play a role in but cannot do without the participation of individuals and cultural institutions.
Agree.
And, at the moment I don’t see much progress there.
Which presents three options I guess.
First, slowly but surely the West (or The Empire) assimilates Russia (regime change, partitioning, the works……). This is neocon strategy. It’s also the strategy of some of Russian elites (enjoy while it lasts).
Second, the West/The Empire, in the process (which can drag depending on the resistance ) simply collapses unto itself. I guess this is the core Moscow strategy.
Third, the most fun, The Empire miscalculates the move, Russia miscalculates the response and cockroaches inherit the Earth.
Ultimately, Putin is a technocrat and a manager.
Russia needs a prophet, a visionary. A Russian Moses and David.
Russia had its share of great leaders, but the main message was OBEY and FOLLOW.
The whole mentality is that Russians on their own will just be slovenly, lethargic, directionless, confused, and excessive with drink and dancing on tables. Because Russians are such semi-barbaric boors, they need a strong hand and strong state to do anything.
So, Russia’s great leaders are men like Peter the Great. Even though Ivan the Terrible(though it could be translated as Awesome) wasn’t a nice guy, he was a strong leader too. And of course, the Georgian Stalin. Problem is all these men did some great things through tyranny, ruthlessness, and iron hand. Such cannot be sustained for long. Too violent, too costly, too brutal, and traumatic. But when Russia emerges from such constructive tyranny, Russians just slack off and revert back to vodka and dancing on tables and acting like semi-barbarians.
So, Russians need to develop a sense of order, balance, and discipline that emanates from their inner souls than is imposed on their butts from the outside. Russians have needed a big hand to spank their ass, but this is not a viable long-term way of development.
Another problem with Russia is its moral and spiritual leaders tend to come in two extremes.
The Russian Church has a rich and deep history, but it was too conservative, rigid, and dense. It was about carrying the weight of tradition as crucifix. It was funereal and failed to develop a mindset of the individual’s relation to God. (On the plus side, such conservatism made it less prone to fashions of the time. When we see how mainline churches have gone homo-degenerate, we can certainly see the advantages of Orthodox Church.) Russians have a right to be appreciative of their church and its core should not be altered. But I think the church can develop more of an activist wing based on Jesuits and Protestant churches. And these young idealistic church-members can actively do good work to promote values and virtues and correct habits among Russians. Mormons have done this. Mormon church requires its members to do service, and it disciplines and reinvigorates them. The Russian church shouldn’t change its core institution/tradition but it could play a more creative/active role in society by creating spirited auxiliary organizations.
Apart from religion and spirituality, Russian philosophy comes in two forms: beards and clean-shavens. Beards are like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn. And in cinema there is Tarkovsky. These were great men of letters or cinema, and they need to be appreciated for their works and views. But there is something heavy, turgid, static, and mulish about all of them. In the end, they say No to liberation, freedom, and individuality and just revert to roots, tradition, old time religion, hermetic cave, and etc.
Now, I’m all for roots and tradition, but there needs to be something MORE in the modern world. More energy, more drive and initiative. There is too much of a sense of NO to the New among these men. So, even though these men were curious and read far-and-wide, their conclusion is reversion to simple morality, old truths, and tradition. There is meaning in that but not much in the way of progress.
Apart from the beards, you got the clean-shavens. These Russians are so self-loathing of Russian ‘backwardness’ that they are convinced the solution is to imitate anything ‘western’ and beg for western approval. To them, Russia is just total barbarism, and Russians must aspire to be like French or Germans or English. Such attitude wasn’t all bad in the past when France, UK, and Germany were indeed sane progressive and productive nations. But one has to be crazy to emulate the decadent and degenerate West of today with Homomania, Afromania, and globalism as religions.
In a way, the extremes of beardism and clean-shaven-ism feed on one another. Beardism makes many Russians impatient and exasperated. They see Russia dragging along because of the weight of tradition. They want to dump it and just move fast imitating the West. But then, Clean-Shavenism makes many Russians feel like their culture and identity are being eroded by a mindless and shallow infatuation with everything ‘western’. Why replace rich deep tradition with a series of fashions that may be flashy but often have no substance? Besides, what happened in the 90s as the result of globalism?
What Russia needs is a new school of thought that can synthesize rich deep tradition & culture with the modern spirit. And Russians should look to certain kinds of Jews and Japanese of Meiji Reform Era and Germans of 19th century. While some Jews have lost it and gone nuts, there are some Jews who’ve found a way to balance Jewish identity/tradition with modernity. And Japanese Reformers found a way to modernize Japan along Western lines but to make Japan stronger. And Germans did it best in the 19th century, emphasizing modernization, nationalism, and liberalism all at once.
Also, habits and attitudes are crucial. Two people can have the same ideas and tasks, but one people may do so much more due to habits and attitudes. Russians need to develop the right kind of habits and attitudes. They say fish rots from the head. Likewise, fish revives from the head.
And to appreciate this, Russia need to look to Prussia. Russia is so big whereas Prussia was so small. But Prussia did so much more in a short time than Russia the giant. Prussia had great leadership. And its elites were clean, conscientious, and sober. And their habits and attitudes came to define the whole nation and served as template for culture at large. In contrast, Russian elites have acted like a bunch of self-indulgent rakes. It’s no wonder so much of the modernization of Russia in the 19th century was outsourced to Germans who knew how to run things and serve with accountability.
Russia needs someone to ask the people a series of Questions. And one should be why Russia cannot be like a Big Prussia. And the fault must be found among elites and the masses.
And then the National Question can grapple with what Russians can do, as elites and masses, to change things from top to bottom, in hearts and hands, to make Russia finally live up to its true potential.
I just spent 2 weeks traveling around the country and the description of it as a “hellhole” reveals extreme cluelessness of the sort written by someone who has clearly not been there. Granted, your idiocy with respect to other topics is well-established so no surprises…
Here is the Lviv hellhole: