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Topic: Putin the Magnificent: Series 2 - Putin's Russia (Read 131367 times)

Re: Putin the Magnificent: Series 2 - Putin's Russia

Reply #425 –
Poland was over time lost to Russia after the collapse of Tsarism. The USSR was an evil, despicable and hell hole of a place. It done in far more pea film on the speech to a crowd n a field made it very clear there would only be a one-party State! In the Jewish corner they were highly involved in Communism and a fact of history not said much about. The Reds o that dreadful revolution murdered millions people still starved were dispatched to far off parts of the country. Folk had their homes confiscated bank money removed and although thankfully in a sense that evil Lenin did not live long the ignorant not uch of a public speaker Stalin was violently worse. Massive numbers of folk were dispatched to terrible frozen camps in far off Siberia. Numbers vastly outdone similar people sent there pre1917. Many were not in camps before then but courts would order them a period of time they had to just live there. Could decide where they lived and worked then at the end of that term could move back west to that popular end of Russia.

Today the Russian Federation does not automatically have to be like the West just because we want that. They have a range of parties in their Duma and the marking of the 100th year since the terrible assassination of the Royals the parliament all stood up to mark the terrible thing and sadness and even included Communist Party members! I can still recall prior to the collapse of the Reds in the early 1990's how poor the place looked., Shops especially bakers with queues looking not impressive and few cars on the roads. Today mighty traffic jams shops of variety, colour and attraction a modernisation and definitive progress and because not like ours that makes them a fail?!
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: Putin the Magnificent: Series 2 - Putin's Russia

Reply #426 –
An article on how Putin became Germany's darling.

Quote from: https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/putin-s-apocalypse-how-far-is-the-russian-president-willing-to-go-a-1af76b72-f611-4548-a9a3-b01b42b2864f
The Russian president had only been in office for a year and a half when he addressed the German parliament on Sept. 25, 2001. [...] Putin delivered his speech in German, telling his "colleagues" in German parliament that he was speaking the language of Goethe, Schiller and Kant.

[...]

The Russian leader invoked the "ideas of democracy and freedom" and said that, "Russia is a friendly country. We are making our joint contribution to the construction of the European house," adding that peace on the Continent is the goal.

His speech would be interrupted 16 times by applause, and in several instances, the protocol even notes "merriment." When he finished at 3:47 p.m., the German parliamentarians rose from their seats. From the Left Party to the center-right Christian Democrats, they applauded Putin for several minutes, this new hope bearer for Russia.
And I do not agree with the author's assessment that these lovely times are over. (Putin's) Russia is very duplicitous. So is Germany.

Russia is yearning for a return to bygone times of greatness. Germany is affected by a historical sense of guilt for having caused two world wars, harbouring a particular sense of Schade wrt Russia. These two can still turn the world over a third time.

Re: Putin the Magnificent: Series 2 - Putin's Russia

Reply #427 –
SPIEF is St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, held less than a month ago. Honoured guests at the economic forum included representatives of Taliban and Donbass republics.

Putin did an insightful speech there. The speech included a single illustration.



Yup, the world is rather unfriendly to Russia. Even Japan is unfriendly, so just now 384 Japanese MEPs (about half of total MEPs of Japan's bicameral parliament) got sanctioned by Russia.

Re: Putin the Magnificent: Series 2 - Putin's Russia

Reply #428 –
Japan and South Korea. North Korea is friendly though, so there's that.

Essentially the new expanded NATO, with Australia and New Zealand.

Re: Putin the Magnificent: Series 2 - Putin's Russia

Reply #430 –
Happy birthday, Mr. President.



According to Alexey Arestovych, the explosion on the Crimea bridge is due to Russian infighting and leads to further Russian infighting. There are worse war-mongerers than Putin among Russians, and those war-mongerers deem Putin tragically slow, even though on the right path. According to Arestovych, one of those factions organised the explosion to bring further damage to Putin's image, in order to lead to his replacement. However, Putin may easily cut off a few (more) heads aroud him, as he has not been slow to make pre-emptive moves when it comes to threats against himself personally.

Arestovych is associated with Ukraine's intelligence services, so he has more of an interest to misdirect rather than inform. Still, I think he is the best source to get a sense of the attitude and sentiment of Ukrainians regarding the war.

Re: Putin the Magnificent: Series 2 - Putin's Russia

Reply #431 –
Today I discovered another lovely news source: Akipress from Kyrgyzstan. Here's how they interviewed Putin a few days ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXtj1_-7RHI

Summary:
Q: I just heard one might call you naive. Is this true?

A: Yes, honestly. Despite having worked for security organs for decades, I assumed that the so-called civilised world understood that there is no longer any ideological pushback from Russia, thus no reason for confrontation, and if anything negative happened, such as Western support of terrorists in Russia, I assumed it was only inertia of thought and action of former middle class in Western establishment, who were used to struggle against Soviet Union. This was naive on my part. Reality is that, like Brzezinski suggested, the West wants to divide Russia in five parts and subjugate the parts to themselves.

Q: While USA leads imperial policies, they also say that if Putin is not stopped in Ukraine, he would attack Nato.

A: I'm sure Biden understands this is completely false, but he maintains it as a figure of speech to hide their erroneous policy with regard to Russia. First, it is erroneous because it does not harmonise with their interests in terms of what they envisioned for mutual relations with Russia decades ago. Second, USA as the master of Nato − Nato is their backyard − should see that Russia has no geopolitical, economic or military interest to wage war with Nato countries. They took Finland and made it a Nato country. We had long ago resolved all disputes with Finland, the relations were most warm and heartfelt, but now we will have problems because of confrontation with Leningrad military district. Why are they doing this? This way they are creating artificial problems because they want to outcompete Russia.

Q: How will you spend the New Year's Eve? You said earlier you'd be watching the president's speech. Anything else?

A: Champagne with people close to me and discussions on mundane topics.

Edit: Nice cozy interview I must say. From this one should get a sense of the kind of dude that Putin is. Namely, in my opinion geopolitics is importantly a character study. And then compare it with the kind of character that e.g. Mearsheimer sees in Putin.

Re: Putin the Magnificent: Series 2 - Putin's Russia

Reply #432 –
The contents of the Tucker-Putin exchange properly belong to this thread.

In contrast to Tucker, who was completely unprepared for Putin, Putin was somewhat prepared for Tucker. In the beginning of the so-called interview, Putin asks if Tucker's "basic education" is in history. That's a yes. And then Putin goes into his "30 seconds or a minute" tirade into history for over 20 minutes. The tirade includes a gift to Tucker from Putin.

The gift is Khmelnitsky's letter and treaty with the Muscovite czar. Why exactly this gift? According to Muscovite interpretation of history, this was the point in history when Ukraine (in the person of its first liberator and unifier Khmelnitsky) signed itself off to Muscovy. Putin does not say it, but he means it: Ukraine belongs to Russia because of those historical artifacts between Khmelnitsky and the czar. This is also how this historical event was taught in Soviet schools. It was called reunification of Russia.

In actual history, there was a bit more to it. Khmelnitsky was more familiar with dealing with the Poles, and when he signed treaties with the Poles, these were equal treaties and both sides swore an oath to each other. Khmelnitsky expected the same from the czar. But the czar's envoys did not pronounce an oath after signing, so Khmelnitsky cursed them and said that the treaty was not valid. In practice, the treaty provided Muscovite protection to Ukraine and Ukraine's allegiance to Muscovy, until the next generation of czars began abolishing any autonomy from Cossacks and Cossacks rebelled, this time against Muscovy, not against Poland any longer.

Moreover, Khmelnitsky and the czar needed translators to communicate with each other. So they were not the same Russians as Putinite historiography would have everyone believe. The entity that Khmelnitsky established is called by most historians the Cossack Hetmanate, whereas Khmelnitsky called himself the autocrat of Rus and saw himself as a descendant of Kievan Rus. Russian czars of the time, on the other hand, called themselves the czars of "Great, Little, and White Russia", which roughly correspond to modern "Russian heartland", Ukraine and Belarus respectively, whereof the czars had no possession of Ukraine and Belarus, just a claim to them. This is why already political commentators of the the time saw Muscovy as full of hubris. But many modern commentators swallow Putinite historianism line, hook and sinker.

Tucker got very uncomfortable during Putin's historical discourse. Apparently Putin's intelligence-gathering had not found out that Tucker actually hates history. Tucker's takeaway from the historical discourse was that Putin's claim to Ukraine was historically motivated, and Tucker said repeatedly, "But why did you make this claim only two years ago? Why not earlier during your 20-year reign?" Thus Tucker demonstrated his complete lack of preparation. Of course Putin has made these historical claims for decades, for anyone who has been paying attention.

Those who have been paying attention, have been doing so differently. For example John Mearsheimer hears what Putin says and concludes, "Oh, Putin says that he wants Ukraine and Baltics etc. We should give him all that and a bit more, lest he starts a war and bombs us." EU biggies also heard what Putin was saying and replied, "Okay, let's build another pipeline so you can amass more castles and yachts. This should cool you down." And Russia's immediate neighbours have been watching in horror the growing threat from the East and the insane hypocrisy from the West closing in.

This is my take on just the first 25 minutes of the interview. It is so repulsive that I can listen to it only in small bits.

Re: Putin the Magnificent: Series 2 - Putin's Russia

Reply #433 –
Remember Putin's lessons from WWII? It is now official history in Russia. The foreign ministries of Russia and Germany are currently Twitter-flaming each other over their versions of history.

Quote from: https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-mocks-russia-defending-1939-invasion-poland-protect-ukrainian-population-pseudo-historical-theory/
“On September 17, 1939, the Red Army launched a military operation in Poland’s eastern regions, preventing the genocide of the population of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine,” Russia’s foreign ministry wrote on X.

Germany’s foreign ministry replied to Russia’s post Thursday with a single word: “Seriously?”

It [Germany] also posted a map of Poland, signed by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and Nazi Germany’s Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, showing how the country would be divided between them, with the hashtags “#MolotovRibbentropPact” and “#HitlerStalinPact.”
Debates over WWII are not over. Westerners should not think that they have it sorted out or that it can/should be forgotten because it was a very long time ago. As I have explained the mid-European point of view (i.e. the point of view of most countries between Germany and Russia), the Yalta Conference and the Potsdam Conference updated the Nazi-Soviet Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact for the worse, not for the better, and this fact is still going unrecognised in the West.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f7N09kLFD4

Re: Putin the Magnificent: Series 2 - Putin's Russia

Reply #434 –
Putin's response to Trump's ceasefire proposal is "Yes but but but" which means no. I'd say Putin slipped here. A smarter tactic would have been to accept the ceasefire without actually stopping the fighting, and only when someone complains about the continued fighting, respond with the buts, essentially projecting the blame on Ukraine.

Trump can respond to Putin in two ways. Either
(1) "understand" Putin's no as a yes and celebrate the peace he accomplished (even though a 30-day ceasefire is not a peace) or
(2) beat down Zelensky a bit more to force him to agree to a bit harsher terms that Putin would accept more straightforwardly.

Either way the ceasefire will not be a ceasefire (much less will it be a peace) due to Putin's predicament: at least 50% of Russia's economy is geared for the war and cannot be wound down, and the undersupplied soldiers at the front, destined for meatwave attacks, cannot remain idle, much less be sent back home to be unleashed on Russia's civilian population.

I don't think Trump would put any pressure on Putin. Trump has always given Putin his everything. Trump switched sides in Ukraine war. Trump stopped supporting Ukraine (which in domestic terms was illegal). Trump got rid of any backbone in his negotiation team, namely he cancelled Keith Kellogg and Steve Witkoff. Trump is negotiating a mineral deal with Russia, foreshadowing cancellation of sanctions. And, more often than not, when a decision turns out bad, Trump's characteristic reaction is to double down on the decision, especially when the "bad" doesn't hurt him personally or hurts someone he doesn't care about, such as Ukraine. And Trump is ready to give more, much more to Putin. He is ready to grovel.

So Trump will either say, "I made peace in 24 hours! No one has ever seen anything like it! Come to me, Nobel Peace Prize!" or he will blame Ukraine quoting Putin's buts. And when the situation goes messy and bears no resemblance to his claims, he will crash the stock markets some more so that there would be something else to talk about.

Really Putin could have made it much simpler for Trump. Putin could have accepted the ceasefire and then immediately break it blaming Ukraine. The current options may be too difficult to parse for Trump and his team of headless chickens.

Re: Putin the Magnificent: Series 2 - Putin's Russia

Reply #435 –
Trump weighs recognizing Crimea as Russian territory in bid to end war
Quote from: https://www.semafor.com/article/03/17/2025/trump-weighs-recognizing-crimea-as-russian-territory-in-bid-to-end-war
The Trump administration is considering recognizing Ukraine’s Crimea region as Russian territory as part of any future agreement to end Moscow’s war on Kyiv, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Trump is to talk with Putin today. And he's not unprepared <3

Re: Putin the Magnificent: Series 2 - Putin's Russia

Reply #436 –
Putin and Trump had a phone call. According to both sides, it went so well that the world is now much more peaceful. Allegedly Trump had prepared a gift: USA's recognition of Crimea and Donbass as Russian territory. Additionally, Putin asked Trump to stop supporting Ukraine again (weaponry and intelligence).

It is public now that Putin's condition for the ceasefire is that Ukraine stops rearming itself and that there is strict observance of the ceasefire along the entire front.

According to White House, the ceasefire concerns in the first instance the energy infrastructure. Kreml has confirmed that it has been agreed that there would be no further attacks on energy infrastructure for next 30 days. The next step, according to White House, is to take the details of the ceasefire back to the table with Ukraine again.

The following was written a week ago.

The Tragic Success of Global Putinism
Quote from: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/03/tragic-success-global-putinism/681976/
After just a few weeks in office, the list of Trump’s concessions to Russia is truly extraordinary. It includes (1) intelligence sharing with Ukraine has been discontinued; (2) USAID assistance for Ukraine, including funding to repair its energy grid and for anti-corruption programs, has been discontinued; (3) U.S. funding for Russian civil society and independent media operating in exile has been stopped; (4) diplomatic relations with Moscow have been restored, beginning with a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov in Saudi Arabia a few weeks ago; and (5) in radical reversal of past policy, the United States voted with Russia, Belarus, North Korea, and a handful of other rogue autocracies against a UN resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In addition, Trump has insisted that (6) Ukraine cannot join NATO; (7) Zelensky must give up territory to Russia; (8) no new military aid for Ukraine will be made available, even previously appropriated funding; (9) U.S. forces deployed in Europe might be reduced and will not participate in any peacekeeping mission in Ukraine; and (10) sanctions on Russia could be lifted, although Trump suddenly reversed himself last week when he said he was “strongly considering” new sanctions and tariffs.

To use Trump’s favorite metaphor for dealmaking, these are not clever “cards” played to shape a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Trump has secured nothing for either the United States or Ukraine by playing them. Instead, the concessions are meant to rekindle a personal relationship between Trump and Putin, anchored by a shared ideology. In all of American history, I cannot think of a more radical change in U.S. foreign policy in such a short period of time.