Credibly deniable assassinations are a complex O-ring task (everything in a long chain of procedures has to go right).
So is covering up failed ones.
Credibly deniable assassinations are a complex O-ring task (everything in a long chain of procedures has to go right).
So is covering up failed ones.
Anatoly Karlin is a transhumanist interested in psychometrics, life extension, UBI, crypto/network states, X risks, and ushering in the Biosingularity.
Inventor of Idiot’s Limbo, the Katechon Hypothesis, and Elite Human Capital.
Apart from writing books, reviews, travel writing, and sundry blogging, I Tweet at @powerfultakes and run a Substack newsletter.
© Anatoly Karlin
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At least they ride in style and are discriminating enough to know a good brand from a bad one.
OT, but if someone were to come up with a psychoanalysis of Unz personnel and commenters I wonder what the general picture would look like?
it would resemble – 42, most likely, 128.
FSB is doing their best to support German economy. That’s a lot of Geliks.
At least they didn’t make the plane drop out of the sky like Colombians would have done.
Would consist of a strong percentage of functionally illiterate individuals.
Social Police officer Chieh on the scene 🙂
Remember, these are the guys who did such a good job getting Trump elected in 2016 that none of our intelligence agencies could actually prove incontrovertibly that they did it.
Question: will the quality of FSB agents decline or rise over time?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwvA49ZXnf8
h/t reiner Tor:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/21/europe/russia-navalny-poisoning-underpants-ward/index.html
Improve, as Putler reads our kind host and an increasing number of opportune accidents happen.
Are we just going to trust Navalny on this? Really?
Anatoly, you always suffered from a lack of critical thinking skills.
So what’s your explanation? The conversation is a deep fake?
I suppose Navalny’s voice is real. His interlocutor could be literally anyone posing as an FSB agent.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8230/8463486766_59fa0fdfed.jpg
“Make like horseshit and hit the trail, 128. Better not catch you around here again harassing my Russkie buddy.”
So what’s the point of trying to poison people with pesticide that doesn’t actually kill anyone? To rile up the West? “Novichok” is hard to take seriously as some sort of “warning to the opposition”, it looks more like a high school prank novelty toy.
Not me, my accent is too bad. 🙂
What the audio proves is:
– there is someone willing to say things Navalny wants to hear, and said someone is likely a male native speaker;
– the conversation likely occurred (as it’s easier to stage it in one go that to stitch together from pieces).
Similarly, those ‘true tallies of Belorussian vote’ posted on Twitter didn’t actually prove anything beyond “there is a sheet of paper with some numbers on it”.
He has a point
Since this episode seems to have been great for improving Navalny’s look, one has to wonder what the topical application of the toxin in the underpants area has done for his libido.
I sense a marketing opportunity: “rejuvenate your libido and multiply your sexual energy through Novichok micro-dosing with our Russian underpants” by the “official FSB supplier”
Much more promising than the Bulgarian umbrella: https://www.gadgetsnow.com/slideshows/7-spy-gadgets-that-will-blow-your-mind/bulgarian-umbrella/photolist/51039994.cms
My 2c: if this dude is an FSB agent then FSB is playing games with Navalny CIA handlers. This is simple unbeliveable. Poisen in underpants? German best analysts didn’t check them?
I imagine its easy enough to provide a voice filter for someone.
Remeslo does not believe this for a second. He think Navalny made this shit up. He already confronted the earlier claim about a team tasked to kill him.
I like Putin’s argument that if they wanted him dead he would be dead.
I think Remeslo is right and furthermore I think there is a concerted effort by other intelligence services to mess with Russian security services. Specifically Remeslo’s explanation that this may be Western Services trying to spin a Russian spy/counter spy OP on Navalny as a sinister assassination.
In that case could it be that Navalny voiced both persons in this recording, and the only people getting duped is his audience?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge-ilEFgJ34
“Why do people say I am ordering impalements?”
(Voivode of Wallachia 1460)
Conversation seemed organic and natural, nothing Hollywood like in the script or anything. Of course it is possible to simulate such back and forths but for 49 minutes?
“Navalny penis too small to absorb poison! Underpants Novichok not working! Abort! Abort mission!”
I have a feeling we are being trolled, just not sure by who.
This shit is so wild that every possible explanation still kinda defies belief.
The FSB carried out a string of succesful assassinations on way harder-to-reach targets throughout the 2000s, namely a big bunch of islamist beardies living off the grid, or incognito etc. Took them one try, that was all that was needed. Poison was involved at least on a few occasions (just not this notoriously ineffective “Novichok” for some reason)…
Now they suddenly fuck everything up to a ridiculous extent, and this regarding a figure whose whereabouts were always known, and whose profile certainly wouldn’t warrant this kind of attention to begin with.
Either it is a result of some recently introduced utter retardation (that gelandewägen stuff that Karlin mentioned sure hints at such a possibility) or the FSB isn’t involved at all. One fact that supports the former is that Putin seemed unaware of any of this when he made his remarks last week. This alleged phone thing took place prior to Navalny’s first announcement (that’s MO, keep the best things for a later date), so if it’s real then either the FSB didn’t report any of it to Putin, or they were so dumb that they weren’t even aware that they’d been played bigtime.
Interesting article series. I wonder, if this is your own attempt at the Russian equivalent to a German “broomstick story”. 🙂 Which you seemed interested in a while back. If everyone accuses you of everything and wants to drag you in, why not pose as harmless and incompetent? And while both would be grounded in some truths, I still think that “ic stuff” is what really works in Russia still. And ultimately defeated the (US imposed) Yeltsin regime, Berezhovsky, Chodorkovsky and Millner, etc. Although your memes and media are better than your assassinations no doubt.
Might make a good sitcom.
Sounds like an old episode of The Rockford Files.
I believe the show was very influential with early hackers.
“German best analysts” say what Washington tells them to say, because Germany has no own sovereign government – hasn’t had one since 1945 – but an imposed system of occupation, no real peace contract, a secret chancellor file (Kanzlerakte) which declares that all German affairs are to be decided from Washington until (at least) 2099. And if you stray from the line like Schröder with Iraq, expect immediate punishment and that it won’t be forgotten.
What Germany has, is a 600 pound Amerifat sitting on its chest, and on the fat mass of this Jabba the hut sits a little Jew, laughing down on his face hysterically and occasionally punching him in the face with great joy. And it has gotten actually worse since the days of visible and direct occupation, and even worse since the days of unification. As paradoxical as it may sound, but it’s true.
In, I think, 2017 when I was still invested in and connected with the AfD, on a federal meeting the suggestion was brought forward by a party member to leave NATO and form a defensive alliance with Russia. This was unanimously rejected, because it was reasoned that in this case the USA would attack Germany with the full might of its nation crashing machine. And THAT is actually all you need to know about what NATO is today and what our situation as a “nation” is. And I suppose what an EU army could become… My own hopes for an independent Europe or US revolt are pretty much dead. Including the Alt-Right fantasy of a “based left” Nazbol-Gang.
I suppose I should be thankful that Angela Kasner-Merkel was socialized in the communist GDR, was a FDJ youth secretary for agitation and propaganda and so on, because at least sometimes she doesn’t do 100% what Washington wants. Although I think this is more of an elite “NY Times” Jew vs. Likud Jignat conflict. Angela Merkel, the Theodor Herzl prize recipient and B’nai B’rith protegee, this “leader of the free world” is pretty much their darling, their creation and their golem. The face of the Kalergi side of the EU. The anti Drumpf 2016 puppet in the old and ongoing “finkelthink”.
So in the case of Navalny, Chodorkovsky, Ukraine, Syria, based Assad, white helmets and so on, if you want to know the “German” position, ask in Washington. Ask the trans-atlantic deep state. Ask AIPAC.
But that would imply a Wakanda-level average IQ of about 130 for the US as opposed to about 98! 😉
An IQ of 128 for a cop is rather high, no? 😉
It could be a conversation with a former FSB officer now working for someone else. He’d know how to plausibly (to non-specialists, at the very least) impersonate a random current FSB officer. I think that the whole thing is a set up; but I guess that there’s a 30% chance that it’s real.
Well, the whole notion of two heterosexual males having a 45-minute phone conversation is somewhat implausible to start with.
Pretty bad
Maybe these were not fuck ups.
AK complained about the occidentophily in the Russian elite.
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1340988870507290625
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1340988871950163969
What these “assassinations” help to poison are the relations between British/EUropean elites and Russian elites.
Maybe that was the goal all along.
Last year, one of these beardies was successfully assassinated in Berlin by an assassin with a gun which suggests that if they really want the target to die, he will die.
That;s as far as I got until the booze kicked in. Pretty accurate I would say.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pkw2Ksg_rzA/X-FRrE_O3gI/AAAAAAAAHFQ/_KW2pGnnC0kTuVnT5WI-k9rbSq1HvRFFgCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/unzcommenters.jpg
It must be an extremely deep fake. It almost convinced me. It reminds of the recorded conversation between Russian hackers who downed MH-17 or the logs of the servers from which Russian terrorists infected SolarWinds. It reminds me even more of Colin Powell’s vial. Deep.
To be honest, I did wonder if that was some sort of elaborate troll. I mean, underpants.
Yes, I agree: ultimately “the Kremlin” is just trying to carve out a better piece of the cake for themselves. But I don’t think that there are any true idol worshippers of the West in real power. None of the politicians or billionaires on either side has a true world view left that really goes beyond money, influence and power. Except the Zionists; except Klaus Schwab and Larry Fink: at the top of the pyramid there is room for true megalomania and for good reason today. The EU-Russia conflict is just a managerial class conflict. China-USA, too. But there are no true elites in Europe either. It’s disgusting to refer to a Merkel, Altmaier, or Johnson as an elite. And the European billionaires are so weak, all it needs is one article accusing them of anti-Semitism and they cough up hundreds of millions in the fight against the right. And whatever may have been Western-European culture in the 19th century has been entirely replaced with globohomo.
But when it comes to the killing, nobody cares about a Chechen beardling; the money masters cared about Chodorkovsky and seem to care a bit about Navalny. Yet it is precisely their effectiveness which makes me wonder why some things are allowed to exist. Including this very website. If Mossad wanted Unz dead, he would be dead. And they killed Epstein. A fellow Jew after all. If Epstein, then why not Unz, Assange, Snowden?
You also know how it is in Europe: say a peep about Jewish power and you’re gone. It will be the same in the USA very soon.
Low effort post. Where is your usual 1,000 word posts?
At the Australian CSIRO back in the 1980s or 1990s, a male scientist dropped his woman, also a scientist. She put pure industrial nerve poison on his doorknob. Did he die? Of course.
She was found guilty of murder by poisoning. It wasn’t just a media beatup; evidence was required.
It’s time people realised that reporters and journalists are the most naive people on earth after editors. [email protected]
If it’s not real, then it seems Navalny’s team/handlers must have somehow obtained sufficient samples of Kudryavtsev’s voice to create a convincing audio deepfake, otherwise FSB could exonerate themselves simply by having Kudryavtsev speak in public. Which seems a bit implausably overcomplicated.
Also possible that it is Kudryavtsev on the call, but he is compromised and working with Navalny. However, in that case I don’t see why Kudryavtsev would still be in Russia, rather than it having been arranged for him to quietly defect just before the tape was released.
The one thing about this weird incident that is clear, is that if FSB is guilty, Putin wasn’t in on it, since if he was, it makes no sense that he would have allowed Navalny to be transferred from the Russian hospital to Germany.
Brilliant.
AND lose weight in a safe and proven way. Chok your friends … Chiseled looks with Novichok!
Possibly because some people on this site may hurt rather than help?
Somewhat related since people have a tendency to talk about China whenever Russia comes up, one has to admire to some extent for China (or maybe Xi) is able to just make silent dissent, I mean I am sure there are all those Corona is just a flu people, or anti-lockdown people in China, and unlike the West, China (or Xi) is just able to shut them all up and make them disappear, you have to give some amount of kudos as to how China is able to do that so effectively in a way, that say, Merkel or Putin can not or will not, even if China is not that healthy for the geopolitical position of your place. If you really know common Chinese they also have a certain predisposition for conspiracy theories, with their subject being the West, kind of how the target of conspiracy theories here seem to be the Jews. If I were the blue checkmark people I will actually be taking a lot of notes with how China successfully deals with dissent.
The last person that Chechen terrorist assassinated in Berlin spoke to was……. Sandra, wife of Saakasvili.
That doesn’t apply to those who are reprinted here, or to Unz himself. And if you mean “wignat”, “Nazi” commentators that’s also irrelevant. Although the cartoon villain Neo-Nazi scene has indeed been helpful to Jewish power and fueled by feds. Yet the “good optics” anti-racist libtard anti-Zionism has been about as effective as a wet noodle. And an anti-white like Comrade Corbyn got crushed and humiliated even harder than Golden Dawn. Furthermore, antifa and BLM have the worst optics in the world. Yet they don’t lose power, instead in the case of BLM they make profits like Amazon, because our enemies control the media, most of the big corporations and dominate education, thus hyper-reality.
Angelo John Cage asked the same question a few days ago and it could also be asked about 4 Chan. But the Chans are pretty much all lost in the personality cult of “the king of Israel”. No revolutionary potential there, only impotence and qtardation. If Unz is genuine and I am just being paranoid, then things certainly won’t improve for him. Or any opponent of Zionism, the Jewish state or Jewish power. Not in the USA, not in the EU, not anywhere else.
BLM and abolish the police actually cost the Democrats a lot of votes, particularly in the suburbs where Biden performed well otherwise.
If it’s real, what’s the big picture? Are spy agencies out of control?
Weren’t Petrov and Boshirov enough for you? The Russian intelligence services have an amazingly inexhaustible ability to disappoint their fans.
So you think his intelligence services are actively hiding their involvement from Putin..? Anyway I don’t really understand why he wouldn’t let him out if it was a murder attempt ordered by the president. Letting him out was a political decision, based on damage control. Putin’s decision was based on his perception which course of action would result in more harm. How would him having ordered this influence this decision?
No, they are not out of control. Rather, they are simply incompetent.
Its unlikely but not impossible. The CIA was doing absolute random stuff for awhile with no real oversight and leaving the consequences in the bag with the American government.
Sweden is not the first country that springs to mind when the shady businesses of security services are being discussed, granted, but even here things they’ve been involved with and that the government/prime minister wasn’t aware of crop up every now and then.
Well if you think of Russians as evil thugs, who also can’t get anything right, I suppose you’ll find this story believable enough. IMO this whole Novichok nonsense was manufactured by Western governments for domestic consumption.
Did Western governments also send Dr Mishkin and Colonel Chepiga to Salisbury the day of the Skripals poisoning?
BTW, what’s exactly the narrative in Russia about Navalny’s incident? He had to be put in induced coma after an emergency landing just because his blood sugar level was low and then all the rest is a Western conspiracy?
A lot of Russians travel to England on any given day. Those two might have been unlucky enough to be in the same town, and thus the Brits appointed them as “killers”.
Russians have bigger issues to worry about, frankly. This story has no circulation outside the usual “democratic opposition” crowd, and even they seem to be tired of it.
Yes, a very unlucky coincidence that two GRU agents were in town the day of the Skripals poisoning.
I can perfectly understand that Russians have more important things to think about and in the past years the West has given them plenty of reasons to dismiss Western media narratives but if I were Russian, I wouldn’t be so willing to ignore hard evidence that my government is doing illogical things of a criminal nature.
It’s mostly ordinary Russians who end up paying for the consequences in the form of economically damaging sanctions and worldwide hostility.
So the official story that even many people here including Karlin believe is that the FSB tried and failed to kill Navalny. Instead of finishing him off Putin sent him to Germany, than the FSB guy who was supposed to kill him called up Navalny and confessed to the whole deal? Okay. I know Karlin thinks the idea of the phone call being fake or not what it seems is to too tin foil but imo it’s less so than the official story.
@Mikel
Sense you believe the Bellingcat/CNN version of the Skirpal thing just curious what you think Putlers motive was. I mean what did Putler/the forces of darkness gain by killing Skirpal. Do you think it was just to discourage future agents who come around to loving globohomo from turning traitor? If so it’s ironic because apparently the guy responsible for failing to kill Navalny just pulled a Skirpal without even bothering to leave Russia. Probably in the next few months another hapless, incompetent FSB goon will try and fail to poison Kudryavtsev. Kudryavtsev will be flown to somewhere in the EU with Putlers blessing after he initially ordered the murder, than Bellingcat and CNN will expose the agent who failed the operation. At that point the incompetent agent will sit down and do a full hour interview with Radio Free Europe maybe.
Yes, and likely also actively seeking to embarrass Putin and nudge him toward retirement. That is the theory that the last US ambassador to the USSR proposed post-Skripal, and assuming that GRU and FSB were indeed responsible for both Skripal and Navalny incidents, that is what makes the most sense. There are too many things in both cases which in combination can’t plausibly be explained by simple incompetence, such as why Skripals and Navalny would have been targeted in the first place despite Putin’s lack of motive, why the timing of both attacks happened to endanger projects very important to Putin (World Cup, Nord Stream 2), and why the assassins used a particular poison which would clearly implicate the Russian state, even after it was proven ineffective.
If Putin hadn’t allowed Navalny to be transferred to Germany -after Russian doctors had already saved his life- there never would have been any physical evidence that Navalny was poisoned at all, let alone with novichok.
Why not? Those guys looked like couriers of some sort. All British authorities had to do was arrange fast track visas for them, pay them money, and they would show up at the address they were given. Same process as with Yulia Skripal. Easy peasy.
Where’s the crime? Skripals are alive and well and so is Navalny. “Novichok” is a fake prank. West won’t discuss their theatrical production with Russia and excluded Russia from investigation. So there is no “hard evidence” to discuss or even Western complaints to consider.
Unless you choose to believe that the most deadly chemical warfare agent that only Russia can make (this right there is how you know the story is a lie) poisons two completely different people (by weight and biology) – Sergey and Yulia at exactly the same time, but is nice enough to spare them. It poisons random people but not the ducks Skripals fed nor the boys Skripals shared bread with, nor the cops touching the door handle allegedly contaminated. And while in UK there were random hazmat decontamination operations and they reported some other people sick, nobody around Navalny got even a mild sneeze as far as I know. Also, deadly Novichok was so nice it delayed killing Navalny for days until German doctors were able to rescue him. That’s some very kind and polite chemical warfare poison.
And underpants? Lol, the whole thing is a joke.
The objective of the West is to destroy Russia and genocide the Russian people. So sanctions and Western hostility are inevitable. Russian opinion on this is irrelevant, and so are Russian actions. West will increase pressure on Russia until Russia collapses and dies or Russia fights back. Fight or die – those are the only options on the table.
Not too surprising that GRU would have agents in the vicinity of the Porton Down facility at any given time.
I do think the Salisbury attack probably was a (rogue) GRU operation, but question whether those particular two guys really were the assassins, based on their behavior and problems with the timeline.
Who is the Bellingcat founder Christo Grozev? He’s the business partner and good friend of the current head of the Hapsburg family. The one Karl Von Hapsburg who brought the Western relief package to blockaded Lithuania in 1991. This nailed it to Gorby: EC will not allow the rebelious Baltic states to be re-integrated into the USSR.
And if you believe that Karl Von Habsburg-Lothringen did it all by himself – as a good Samaritan – then I have two nice bridges that you absolutely need to acquire. Since then, the man relentlessly worked to extend the EU as far East as possible. Last time he was active in Ukraine in 2014. Just a detail; Karl is a Coudenhove-Kalergi admirer among many other things.
And what was Grozev’s business in Russia in the early 00ies? Acquiring as many regional radio stations as possible. With what moneys and to what ends? Perhaps Karl might explain. But Grozev was forced out from Russia by the FSB in 2016.
Who is Maria Pevchikh? A sexy and bright Russian expat in UK, who travels far and wide to help Navalny, without being officially registered with his organization. The daughter of an owner of a biopharmaceutical company. A biopharmaceutical lab, which among other things produces transdermal administration devices for gene therapy, vaccines and nanoparticles! Where did Masha’s daddy get the funding to acquire a biopharmaceutical company active on an international scale? He probably earned it in some Soviet NII.
Anyway, her daddy said during an interview that during all these years he was absolutely not aware of his daughter working with Navalny, he seemingly did learn about it from his daughter’s BBC interview. So Maria Pevchikh kept her involvement with the Navalny’s organization secret from everyone, including her own family. What else was she shy about? Like, what exactly is she doing in UK all these years and how is she earning her living there, her London flat and the costs of her endless travels included?
Remember; she was supposedly the one who transported the “Novichok” stained water bottle to Germany. Perhaps she also had access to Navalny’s underpants?
Christo and Masha, what a gifted couple!
Great friends that Navalny has, great friends…
Compared to them, the FSB-ists look like a bunch of Kolkhoz Sovoks. Anna Chapman vs Maria Pevchikh. That’s all you need to know about the comparative level of sophistication of the globalist West and putinist Russia.
There’s a 20 years mental development gap here to (never?) be bridged…
Yes, that is the only theory that makes some sense. Russian deep state operatives working independently and possibly against the Kremlin. It’s not totally satisfactory but al least allows for an explanation of every actor’s behavior.
Russian spooks are well know guys for lack abilities. Each year we have some major scandal where they uncover themselves.
Recently, several “investigative journalism organizations” have suddenly appeared in Russia. Meduza, the Bell, Proekt, have a similar style and approach to describing Putin’s Russia. They all work according to a “genre” or “style ” that has been pioneered by Navalny’s organization (The Anticorruption Foundation). They all attack the Russian Federation “vertical of power ” built under Putin and strongly focus on Putin’s close circle.
The staffers of these “new media outlets” are young, energetic Russian citizens, some of whom have studied or trained in the West, but all of whom are probably bilingual and familiar with the globohomo standard ideology. They are the exact representation of the young anti-Putin demographics that are the target audience of these media.
These are people who have grown up in Putin’s Russia, who did not directly experience the life in the USSR and have only early childhood memories of the “blessed 90ies”. These young people – similar to those who work with Navalny – resent the overwhelming domination of the Siloviki and Bureaucrats, they despise the Oligarchs, the Kremlin tamed and fed media propagandist class (RT, Solovyov…) and the “liberal opposition ” that is integrated into the system (Yabloko Party, the Echo of Moscow dem-schizo crowd).
The ideology of these young people seems being a mix of libertarian and legalistic thought: increase the compliance to laws and regulations, but lower the direct involvement by the State. They are also mostly pro-Western and would be glad to end the current state of hostilities between the globalized West and the Russian Federation.
All of these “media agencies ” are bilingual and are partially funded from abroad. They are in fact an effective, legal and elegant tool used by the globalized West to put the Putinist upstarts where they truly belong; that is in the corner of the cell of a globalized digital detention facility, to make them eat, sit and sleep by the toilet: “u parashy”. Those who know the mores and traditions of the Russian criminal underworld will understand the allusion.
Below is one example of these “media companies ” work:
https://www.proekt.media/en/narrative-en/kremlin-vs-navalny/
They are forming the future Russian zeitgeist by directly influencing the educated young people. Putin and his buddies have neglected and lost these 20 something. They have never built an “image of tomorrow ” for the young and the gifted, their stability is only a sedative for surviving Sovoks who have been PTSD after the 90ies shock reforms.
I don’t think Putin neglected the youngsters on purpose. Western pressure on Putin’s regime is so multifaceted and Putin also had to deal with so many domestic and internal political issues – no easy task.
And Western soft power is at its peak compared to Russia’s dismal soft power. Youths the world over is enamored by the West, it’s not a Russian phenomenon only.
Perhaps, Putin’s regime is waking up to this issue:-
https://tass.com/society/1238885
https://tass.com/society/1238805
https://tass.com/politics/1101307
The West, with its current ‘progressive’ ideology, will ultimately weaken and lose its luster in the coming decades. The only way for Russia (and other rival nations) to avoid complete vassalage is to resist regime change to a vassal regime engineered by Washington + Brussels until that eventuality. Hopefully Russia succeeds. Failure to do so, like that if your pessimistic scenario, is a disaster which Russia may never recover.
What scenario?
I agree. Starting with Bernays, the globalized West slowly transformed its propaganda into marketing. And its marketing into neurolinguistic programming They sell a (bullshit) vision of enjoyable future. People often talk about geopolitics or economics, but the true power is the power to brainwash the masses. The West is the best at this game, has been for a very long time.
That’s the way they won the Cold War. They bullshited Soviets as if they were simple-minded imbeciles. The Eastern European youth swallowed it line and sinker.
An example of that era:
https://youtu.be/qU8UfYdKHvs
The cars destroyed in the video are Soviet cars, they really made the effort to find somewhere a Volga car to destroy by a British synthpop / new wave band. That’s the attention to detail here.
The lyrics call to the destruction of the socialist industrial societies in the name of some “romantic freedom”. Which followed some years later.
Another song and video clip from the same era:
https://youtu.be/L1lcPYVplSA
I believe it doesn’t need explaining.
Finally:
https://youtu.be/wHylQRVN2Qs
And during that time the Soviets were like:
https://youtu.be/gnqXfK-ESoY
And nothing changed in the last 35 years. Russia is unable to lead, it follows. And it loses.
” What scenario?”
The future of anti-Putin youths who worship the West and subscribe to Regressive ideals( the term I would call ‘Progressive ideals’ – should not give such a positive label to these ideals) of globohomo and cucked weakling mentality staging widespread protests leading to a regime change to weak leaders that ultimately destroy Russian civilization. These silly Russian youths really believe Western lies that Washington or Brussels really care about Russia’s wellbeing. The ultimate aim is to actually enslave the whole country totally for the benefit of Western elites. Russia barely survived the 1990s shock. If such a scenario repeats itself, the West will finish off what it did not complete in the Yeltsin years – suck, rape and plunder the country dry and ensure its complete geopolitical demise as a rival power. Oh these silly Russian youths!
Thanks for the videos. Indeed very good examples of how the West uses its propaganda machine ( media, entertainment industry etc) to destroy any rival regimes / powers.
” Russia is unable to lead, it follows. And it loses.”
Russia was and is against a very powerful West – especially in terms of soft power. I agree with you that Western capability to brainwash the youth is even more important than economics and geopolitics but these are interrelated. The youths of the world are enamored by the West because of Western economic and geopolitical supremacy over all rivals.
The same youths conflate Western material success with Western political system, economic models, Regressivism and social liberalism . They think that adopting these Western models will ensure their country’s development into a wealthy country. They might look at the “success” of Western vassals like former soviet bloc countries now within the EU or Western lapdog nations like South Korea or Japan to justify this thinking. Also, look at the way the West markets it’s political and societal models vs how they portray the political and societal models of rival powers . Look at the positive terms they label their systems – liberal democracy, freedom of thought and speech, equality, diversity, progressive . It actually implies that rival regimes are illiberal, unfree, do not have equality ,are monolithic and unprogressive. Western soft power personnel understand the psyche of youths. These ideals are very adolescent ideals : anti- establishment, rebellious . Useful ways to gain acceptance by the youth , use their youthful vigour and energy to incite internal discord and destroy rival countries from within. It is a time and tried method that works wonders for the West all the time.
I don’t think Russia , or any other rival “non Western powers” can lead / beat the West at this juncture. The material success of the West was the result of complicated circumstances of the past and built upon by their ancestors with evolving political ideals and societal ideals. In my opinion current Western liberalism and Regressivism will undermine its current supremacy in the future(by social chaos and demographic replacement by inferior and less developed ethnocultural groups) ….the very same model they are exporting to the youths in Russia and elsewhere.
Putin’s (and this Russian Government’s) failures were/are basically overemphasizing geopolitical clout but neglecting to protect Russian youth from being poisoned by Western propaganda and failing to reform the economy. In other words, holding on to an obsolete notion of a superpower and denying reality that it is no longer a superpower and should not attempt to be one: too weak economically , geopolitically and soft power – wise to counter the West. To maintain sovereignty and avoid vassalage to the West, the regime should have more restricted geopolitical goals and try to strengthen weaker aspects of the country: the economy, corruption, improve scientific and technological endeavours, ethnocultural consolidation of Russian identity, develop a distinct Russian political and ideological model suited for the Russian people etc. I do not think Putin did this on purpose though. He had to content with many factions with vested interest to maintain the status quo. In my opinion, the West will self destruct by the same poisonous ideals they export to the worlds’ youths. For Russia(and others), they just need to hold on and counter Western regime change efforts till the self destructive fruits of Regressivism and liberalism collapsed the West from within.
My 2 cents.
I have nothing against Russians. One of my great-grandmothers was Russian. Also I don’t think that the Russian government is worse than the NATO governments, most of which are actively working on replacing their own populations with Africans and Arabs.
But the Russian intelligence services are surprisingly incompetent, in stark contrast to the KGB. Petrov and Boshirov used an amazingly amateurish cover, and they displayed it in front of the entire world.
That it was a sign of supreme incompetence cannot be disputed – who believed that it would be a good idea to have the two guys appear on RT for an embarrassing interview?
It’d be believable if Putin was an incompetent lazy outsider like Trump. He is neither incompetent nor lazy, nor an outsider. He understands the working of the government and especially the intelligence services, having worked there. But even if he doesn’t, after the first botched rogue operation he could have had heads rolling and cleanse those services.
The CIA is in a totally different position. No American president has ever been so entrenched like Putin in Russia (he’s been the top leader for over two decades now), and Putin has some KGB background to boot, so he cannot be so easily misled about these things. If we could figure out where Boshirov belonged, Putin must have figured that out earlier. If he had been misled by his own subordinates, he could have figured it out ages ago and punished and replaced the culprits. Including those who merely allowed this to happen through incompetence.
I don’t think it’s a very plausible explanation.
Your scenario requires Putin to be massively incompetent and irrational: Ordering assassinations which obviously had far more downside than upside even if successful, and voluntarily handing over to Germany medical evidence of his guilt.
Conversely, I’m not sure it’s fair to presume that not being in complete control of his own intelligence and security services, requires Putin to be incompetent. But even granting that it does, at least in the rogue Deep State scenario, Putin is only failing to prevent activities against his own interest, not actually ordering them himself.
What is the oh-so-terrible downside for Putin? I fail to see it.
Also, after the poisoning, as I said, he could only choose between two PR catastrophes. Either he doesn’t let him out (if he then dies, this is a PR catastrophe; if he survives, he would travel to Germany himself and show them his underpants), or he does. He chose the second option, but it’s not like it was necessarily worse than the other one. He can now argue that he was not in on it, since he let him out.
Actually there might be an upside. Sanctions might make it impossible for his successors or subordinates to cuck.
I find it extremely implausible that Putin would invest $10 billion on a World Cup project intended to improve Russia’s image, then decide to flush away all that positive PR, invite sanctions, and even risk boycotts of the event, in order to murder an insignificant person (who could easily have been killed earlier when he was a prisoner in Russia), using one of the few poisons that would implicate himself. That would mean Putin is irrational to the point of practically having a split personality.
Killing Navalny was clearly not in Putin’s self-interest either: He did not represent enough of a threat for it to be worth making him a martyr and endangering the Nord Stream 2 project.
Navalny’s condition was already stabilized, shipping him to Germany did not substantially improve his chances of survival. Also, Navalny did not know the poison was in his underpants (if it really was), and even if he did Russian authorities could easily have confisticated them from the hospital before he left with them.
Putin himself is already cucking in multiple ways, including cutting defense spending while USA and other NATO members are increasing it, then bragging to foreign journalists about how weak and non-threatening Russia is (see my post in the Putin press conference thread). It is likely that whoever replaces Putin will be more hard-line than he is. I can’t buy the idea that Putin actually wants sanctions inflicted on his country.
Agree with what you wrote, with the exception below:
Russian “elites” want a detente with the globalized West. Whomever coming after Putin would work in that sense.