@ 195
If you believe Russia can attain victory without imposing its will on Kiev and all Ukraine and physically preventing any resurgence of imperial power there, you are a fool.

Posted by: Flying Dutchman | Apr 7 2022 3:07 utc | 204

Posted by: Chas | Apr 6 2022 16:34 utc | 18

Today the NY Times is pushing a story with video on its front page claiming the video shows Russian military shooting a man walking a bicycle in Bucha. I watched the video twice and it didn’t show such a shooting. Nor did I see an explanation of where the video came from. Perhaps a Ukie drone made the video. The video is proof of nothing.

The video came from the Azov Battalion. Interesting, as it proves Azov was active in the Bucha area.

Russian military shoots at a man in Bucha – video from a drone – Public News, April 5, 2022
In a video taken from a drone on March 3 in Bucha, the Russian BMD fired several shots at a civilian.
After the published photos from the city, the Russian Ministry of Defense stated that Ukraine staged a provocation, and the bodies appeared on the streets only after the deoccupation.
In a comment to us, the head of the ritual service of the Bucha community Serhiy Kaplychny told us that the first burials of people in the city began on March 10 with the permission of the Russian military.
The video was shot by aerial reconnaissance of Azov fighters on March 3, 2022 in Bucha, showing Russian equipment, VoxCheck analysts confirm in cooperation with Public News.

The video does not show if the cyclist died, or if the BMD only fired warning shots.
The video also sheds light into the shelling victims on Yabluska Street. The most lethal weapon in modern wars in drone-guided artillery. I suspect Yabluska Street came under drone surveillance and any pedestrian movement would trigger a well-aimed mortar round.

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Apr 7 2022 3:09 utc | 206

@DougK – #189
Frankly the article is a shambles of supposition and baseless claims.
* Ukraine is winning the battles against the Russian invaders
* NATO intel specialists were surprised at the poor performance of Russian commanders, troops and equipment.
* This combat experience was either wasted or irrelevant or not passed on to Russians troops sent into Ukraine.
* China was not happy with the poor performance of Russian troops in Ukraine.
* The Chinese consider themselves more astute students of history than Russians
* The Russian invasion is something China warned against because it was reckless, something China avoids at all costs.
There is so much that could be said about the rest of the article but China has huge respect for both Russia’s military capabilities and strategic analysis, both Chinese and NATO analysts (despite what the PR teams may state publicly) are well aware Russia is both winning the war and, apart from, early losses due to hard charging in the first days, have been performing incredibly well against an entrenched and numerically far superior force. As for China not being reckless…I have to assume you don’t live in East Asia where China’s frequently histrionic propaganda, sabre-rattling, territorial disputes and border clashes are hardly the epitome of calm and stable foreign policy and where they are one bad day away from initiating another Taiwan Straits crisis. This shouldn’t be taken to suggest they are the sole party at fault but they and the US are as bad as each another when it comes to reckless provocations.

Posted by: Brannagyn | Apr 7 2022 3:19 utc | 208

FFS stop calling people fools when they post a contrary analysis. We should always try to read and understand them because sometimes they may say something which is true and calls to rein in our own hubris- absolutely essential. Secondly they give an insight into how others might be thinking and their next moves and third when you get stuff from China you must always accept that despite the ra ra about a one party state etc, there will be many different POV.
Now to specific commentary
China Disappointed
“

Officially, China supports Russian efforts to deal with “Ukrainian aggression.” Unofficially, China is critical of the Russian war on Ukraine, if only because of the negative impact on Chinese trade and diplomacy. China was a major customer for Ukrainian military tech and wheat. That trade is disrupted and will take a while to recover, no matter who wins.Text

This is a rather silly comment. Russia also exports wheat and there will be other sources. Yes there will be a price rise. Diplomatically China wins on this level.

Text

China was not happy with the poor performance of Russian troops in Ukraine. China was kept informed about the preparations for the invasion and asked Russia to wait until the Winter Olympics in China were over on February 23rd before invading. The invasion began before dawn on the 24th and was, according to Russia, supposed to be over in fifteen days. After about a week, China concluded that the Russian plan and the Russian military had failed. Russian troops quickly ran into trouble because of the unexpected stiff resistance by Ukrainian troops and armed civilians. China initially remained silent about the invasion and as the Ukrainian resistance increased, along with unprecedented sanctions imposed by Russia’s Western trading partners, China refused to openly support the Russian operation.
Actually this is an obvious statement, despite the many here who can see no wrong. obviously the Russian operation has been disappointing. I am sure Russia will agree.

China was also dismayed at the degree of European military support for the Ukrainians, despite Russian threats of nuclear retaliation. That did not dissuade the Europeans or Americans, just as it had not worked on China during their 1969 border war between Russia and China. In 1969 China had recently tested its first nuclear weapon but did not have a nuclear retaliation capability. Russia approached the Americans about joining in a nuclear attack on China. The Americans refused and criticized the Russian threats to use nukes. When China found out about that, there was a warming in the long-frosty relations with the Americans which soon (1972) led to the U.S. recognizing the Chinese communist government.

This is a rather serious allegation. It may or may not be true but is rather irrelevant. Narky for the sake of it. everybody knows or should know that the USA cozied up to China in the 70s in order to weaken Russia. Nothing new here. The world has changed a very great deal sine 1967. Firstly THEN the USA was clearly No 1 in power- military, economic and diplomatic/cultural. That is not the case any longer. China is no 1 economically, Russia probably No 1 militarily and no power has much diplomatic status/power anymore. Possibly India at a pinch.

The Chinese consider themselves more astute students of history than Russians and now believe that the invasion was poorly planned and carried out. China is more willing to acknowledge problems with readiness and training in their own military, lessons that Russia appears to have forgotten. Any perceived Chinese support of this Russian disaster causes problems for China, as well as inspiring the Chinese military to pay more attention to avoiding the Russian approach.Text

Polemic rubbish. I am sure China fully understands the Russian situation. The problem for Russia was diplomatic not military. The rest of the article diverges into a heap of out of date polemic rubbish. China in no way wants to weaken Russia because they understand that if Russia falls they will be next. Any Chinese who do not understand this are either naive fools or traitors.

Posted by: watcher | Apr 7 2022 3:29 utc | 210

Downloading now…
Director Igor Lopatonok joined CN Live! for a 1 hour 45 minute discussion about the origins of the film, its production, its brief censorship by YouTube and its extraordinary relevance to today’s events in Ukraine. It is followed by a screening of the full movie. With hosts Elizabeth Vos and Joe Lauria, produced by Cathy Vogan.
WATCH: CN Live! — ‘Ukraine on Fire’ Screening With Director Igor Lopatonok
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/04/04/watch-cn-live-ukraine-on-fire-screening-with-director-igor-lopatonok/

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 7 2022 3:36 utc | 212

Am afraid Karlof1 and others are right. A few nukes on London, DC, Langley, WS and Brussels are in order.
But first, the Kremlin should start to distribute Iodine to its population, warn Russian citizens to leave immediately and stay away from NATO countries.
Then strike.

Posted by: CarlD | Apr 7 2022 3:42 utc | 214

milos comment on the previous thread was pretty good.. here it is again –
“I am beginning to understand why is there a relatively slow progress on the battlefields of Ukraine. Russian combined forces are not only fighting Ukrainians. They are fighting NATO communications, surveying and target allocation. They are constantly surveyed from the air, and from the space and that information is instantly fed to Ukrainians on the front. Russians do not want to use their electronic suppression and jamming beyond what is absolutely necessary. They are also closely monitoring NATO operations and learning. All of this is potentially reserved for some later stage of military-technical measures. Slow progress does hurt in a sense that it costs more in human lives and material, but the end result is inevitably be the same. Russians know that there is no way back, now that the Rubicon is crossed. Economy needs to learn and adapt. As time passes western sanctions will begin to bite more and more. At some point the panic of stagflation in Europe and then inevitably in the US will start to spread. This is when potentially a strong new military push might happen. And this time not necessarily only against Ukraine.”
Posted by: Milos | Apr 6 2022 17:08 utc | 610

Posted by: james | Apr 7 2022 4:08 utc | 216

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky raised eyebrows Tuesday when he told Ukrainian media that he foresees his country becoming like Israel and suggested civilians could expect to be subjected to a type of martial law for the foreseeable future.
“We will not be surprised if we have representatives of the armed forces or the national guard in cinemas, supermarkets, and people with weapons,” Zelensky told reporters …
“Ukraine will definitely not be what we wanted it to be from the beginning,” he admitted, pledging that it “will become a ‘big Israel’ with its own face.”

🇮🇱;💩;🇺🇦 https://sputniknews.com/20220406/zelensky-says-ukraine-wont-be-liberal-european-aims-to-imitate-israel-instead-1094535845.html

Posted by: Laurence | Apr 7 2022 4:10 utc | 218

Posted by: Kim | Apr 7 2022 3:33 utc | 207
Indeed, whatever the details of the war, with sufficient or insufficient degree of success, all developing countries, with China being most successful, face a dilemma how the world can be restructured to conform with the new economic reality: so-called collective West has its position gradually declining to be more proportional with its share of the global population.
Back in late 20th century, practically all top technology had to be important from the West, all international banking was controlled by the West, autarkic Communist countries had to content with the second-rate technology and foreign trade by barter. The dominance was natural and questioning was not expected. With the collapse of Soviet Union, the dominance became truly global. End of history.
With the rise of China, the dominance is becoming increasingly questioned, and the means to maintain it seem increasingly frenetic. For example, the orchestration of the media and foreign policy within the West is steadily increasing, vicious foreign meddling and outright interventions, hostility campaigns are symptoms of vicious decadence. The clash of China with the viciously decadent West is inevitable. If the industrial pre-eminence is lost, the West has to return to the historical roots of its world domination: piracy. As the control of the seas was set in 16-th century, the industrial revolution was yet to come for more than 200 years, so the only advantage was the ships perfected in the stormy seas of the western edge of Europe and weapons perfected in incessant fighting within the fragmented continent.
In the new age of piracy, China needs a trading sphere that may survive any piratical actions of the West. The other non-Western countries have the same need. But the initial decades of the transition will see increased piracy, with mutually assured economic (and not just economic) destruction. The question was when to start resistance to impositions and subsequent escalation. For Russia, it meant waiting for a period with shortages of energy and other material it exports.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Apr 7 2022 4:29 utc | 220

My thought for some time has been that Ukraine has drawn in the fighting age fascists/neo-nazies from all over Europe ad the anglosphere.
The French ex intel officer liked to earlier put their numbers (including militant Ukraine nazi’s) at I think at around 90 or 100 thousand.
They have proved themselves quite willing to use as human shields, and wantonly kill people, who consider themselves Ukrainian. This will make a big difference in the future as word will get around. The so called territorial defense units are no different. Brown shirt types, street thugs given guns. I think within six months there will be a big difference in the perception of the average Ukrainian to what it was at the start of the Russian operation.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 7 2022 4:30 utc | 222

@ Laurence – 215
I can’t relocate it now but there is an article out there that claims, based on the weather conditions, that the tanks in the video may have actually been Ukrainian and the footage from a period when they held the town. Either way there is no evidence they were either targeting or hit the bicycle rider (both of which may be true). It is odd though that a Ukrainian drone would have decided to follow a single cyclist in the vicinity of a Russian column, surely their focus would have been squarely on the large group of enemy armoured vehicles. If, however, they were Ukrainian tanks a drone might be expected to be concerned about a figure moving toward them who might be carrying explosives or acting as a spotter. The drone operators alerting the armoured column and them firing on the location of the ‘spotter’ would be a plausible scenario.
It reminds me of another incident in which Russian troops were alleged to have fired on a convoy of civilian cars NW of Kiev. The cars were definitely fired upon Russian troops were nearby but I saw no evidence that the Russians were clearly the guilty party. Again a Ukrainian drone carefully followed the passage of the civilian cars to the point of fire. The possibility that Ukrainian troops were also in the area was never even considered by the media.

Posted by: Brannagyn | Apr 7 2022 4:41 utc | 224

I see I will have to get a new keyboard. N key is a bit hit and miss and although I check back over it, I don’t see many of the missing N’s until after I have posted.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 7 2022 5:03 utc | 226

Proposed land-route, Russia to Kalinigrad:
https://www.google.ca/maps/dir/Kaliningrad,+Kaliningrad+Oblast,+Russia/Kingisepp,+Leningrad+Oblast,+Russia/@55.9446786,21.791582,6z/data=!4m29!4m28!1m20!1m1!1s0x46e33d8d4b7c21a9:0x5050960016126ed3!2m2!1d20.4522144!2d54.7104264!3m4!1m2!1d25.2087593!2d54.7113379!3s0x46dd93d3f6da3587:0x3e072939b0c075aa!3m4!1m2!1d24.7266549!2d57.1886856!3s0x46e94d8fd9607225:0x6942b7684f57f91c!3m4!1m2!1d24.7450895!2d59.4305582!3s0x4692949eda799d6f:0x5c8ecfe6e9d42d25!1m5!1m1!1s0x4695cb7edb05172f:0xa73c9b3c4cf7ee1e!2m2!1d28.61908!2d59.3801537!3e0

Posted by: Figleaf23 | Apr 7 2022 5:11 utc | 228

Ostro 2
Brilliant post. Well teased.

Posted by: Jamie | Apr 7 2022 5:22 utc | 230

Posted by: ayahuasca | Apr 7 2022 5:05 utc | 223
Probably NOT an issue, given Chinese demand for gas and the second pipeline is not yet in place. Moreover the REAL pain will be felt by Germany and Poland and Lithuania, who will have now to compete with China for the US LPG. It is in fact Europe who will be dudded by this deal (and Japan).

Posted by: watcher | Apr 7 2022 5:28 utc | 232

anybody see this one, below? 🙂
And fyi: everyone heard, perhaps, that the Twitter-censors suspended Scott Ritter, and then just a short while ago, reinstated him/his account. I assume that many thousands of followers and others raised a helluva fuss.
the Twitter-naughts also now claim that the great George Galloway is a “Russia state-affiliated media”. lmao. simply scurrilous
the West has totally lost its mind.
https://twitter.com/GarlandNixon/status/1511665165019893764
Garland Nixon @GarlandNixon
BREAKING NEWS – Bucharest: A rage filled lunatic rams his car into the stone gate at the Russian embassy killing himself, destroying his car, but causing no damage to the embassy. What a perfect metaphor for the EU sanctions….
6:20 AM · Apr 6, 2022

Posted by: michaelj72 | Apr 7 2022 5:36 utc | 234

Our household is still baffled at Medvedev’s “rehabilitation” after his very public demotion a couple of years ago. Maybe Putin wants to encourage open competition in the succession game.
Posted by: Opport Knocks | Apr 6 2022 22:32 utc | 137
What is this very public demotion you speak of? Those had stood the test of time, that had successfully pulled Russia out of the poverty of the 90’s were moved to the war room as war loomed. Younger people took their place to take domestic Russia into the future and the old dogs now form the defensive, and if necessary the offensive perimeter of the Russian federation.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 7 2022 5:38 utc | 236

@ 218 peter au…
here is an article that supports your viewpoint @ 218..
American Extremists in Search of ‘Combat Experience’ Head to Fight in Ukraine

Posted by: james | Apr 7 2022 5:49 utc | 238

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 6 2022 21:50 utc | 121
Even duck duck go, supposedly, anonymous search proxy, started filtering and blocking results with Russian point of view month ago. Publicly said by company’s woke CEO/owner.
Who is Jewish, btw (surprise).

Posted by: Abe | Apr 7 2022 5:51 utc | 240

line islands | Apr 7 2022 5:37 utc | 231 and others
The gender thing is part of the US war on the world. A part of destroying cultures.
The west went from outlawing homosexuality to promoting it in the blink of an eye. Many non Abramatic cultures it was neither outlawed nor promoted. US brought in gay marriage not through referendum but through the courts and then immediately accused Russia of being homophobic because it hadn’t legalized gay marriage.
Outlawing what consenting adults do is I think wrong but also promoting it and using as a weapon I think is wrong.
Apart from from politics we are mammals that mostly mate for life. Its all about reproduction of the species so the basis of society is mum dad and the kids.
It is the promotion as a lifestyle, it is the teaching in schools, it is using it as a propaganda weapon against conservative cultures that pisses many off. Rather simply moving to a more tolerant society, there may be massive kickback on this issue because it has been weaponized by the usual culprits.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 7 2022 6:00 utc | 242

German media are confident: Russia’s default is imminent.
https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/weltwirtschaft/russland-anleihen-schulden-tilgung-101.html
*snicker*

Posted by: mk | Apr 7 2022 6:16 utc | 244

@119
Agree or disagree with him, Medvedev’s a stellar writer and polemicist. Were there a western leader with a tenth his erudition…

Posted by: line islands | Apr 7 2022 6:53 utc | 246

Posted by: John Kennard | Apr 7 2022 3:36 utc | 209
Posted by: Abe | Apr 7 2022 5:51 utc | 236
(Re Duck Duck Go)

Who is Jewish, btw (surprise).

From “El Protocols”:

WE CONTROL THE PRESS
4. NOT A SINGLE ANNOUNCEMENT WILL REACH THE PUBLIC WITHOUT OUR CONTROL. Even now this is already being attained by us inasmuch as all news items are received by a few agencies, in whose offices they are focused from all parts of the world. These agencies will then be already entirely ours and will give p
ublicity only to what we dictate to them.
5. If already now we have contrived to possess ourselves of the minds of the GOY communities to such an extent the they all come near looking upon the events of the world through the colored glasses of those spectacles we are setting astride their noses; if already now there is not a single State where t
here exist for us any barriers to admittance into what GOY stupidity calls State secrets: what will our positions be then, when we shall be acknowledged supreme lords of the world in the person of our king of all the world ….

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Apr 7 2022 6:59 utc | 248

@ line islands – 231
I understand your frustrations, the West (driven entirely by the US but quickly aped by the EU and far more slowly and cautiously by Japan and other allies) has been politicising gender and sexuality for decades but especially since the beginning of the Trump campaign. It is a reliable tactics threatening conservative ‘family values’ by threatening to go overboard with representation and promotion of gay and transgender issues. Any pushback by the right makes them appear intolerant even if they are perfectly accepting of the more fundamental gay and transgender rights. The problem is that the far left extremists the Democrats use to scare the right frequently either gain positions of influence or are so politically aggressive that the Democrats feel they need to appease them though new policy or face a backlash. The result is the rise of more radical feminism, Marxist BLM, and the quite fascist in action AntiFa, as well as a slew of affirmative action and hate speech laws that threaten the free speech and meritocratic elements that were once core American values.
One effect of this is that many conservatives, or simply those who oppose excessive political correctness, see Russia and Putin’s rejection of far-left ‘wokism’ and embrace of Conservative, and religious, values as a breath of fresh air. Not necessarily a bad thing but it needs to be kept in mind that these values include a hefty dose of authoritarianism and intolerance and while it has been grossly exaggerated in the West, Russia is, as far as I am aware, still relatively homophobic as are some supporters of Russian foreign policy. It is a sad fact that in international conflict you are never going to be faced with a choice between a good and bad guy, each side will have their flaws but this does not mean they are going to be equal in measure (e.g. slightly homophobic Conservatives vs extremely homophobic neoNazis is not a great choice but I would opt for the former). For now I would simply suggest you ignore any blatant homophobia as being unworthy of your attention, and please bear in mind that the majority here do not think that way and that such comments do nothing more than highlight the insecurities and blinkered thinking of those who write them.

Posted by: Brannagyn | Apr 7 2022 7:09 utc | 250

Southfront.org is under attack by the west, apparently the website certification have been revoked, hopefully Southfront could find a solution to this:

Secure Connection Failed
An error occurred during a connection to southfront.org. Peer’s Certificate has been revoked.
Error code: SEC_ERROR_REVOKED_CERTIFICATE

https://southfront.org/

Posted by: Zanon | Apr 7 2022 7:14 utc | 252

Patroklos | Apr 7 2022 7:08 utc | 246
My thought is we need to start brushing up on our understanding of other cultures.
currently anything different is a threat.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 7 2022 7:18 utc | 254

“Blockading Kaliningrad by land would violate Russian agreements with the E.U. and be close to an act of war. If those countries are dense enough to do it, they may cease to exist and in short order. ”
“They`re asking for Maryupol 2.0, after all the main purpose for 1.0 was a land corridor to Crimea, same thing will happen to Kaliningrad if they keep on fooling around.”
That’s why Russia must finish on Ukraine as soon as possible as the progress is too slow now. Russia has so many other enemies to deal with. Some people are overexcited that Russia is winning in Ukraine but Russia winning against Ukraine is a natural thing if you compare the two countries. It’s not something to feel excited. On the contrary, it’s a shame that Russia couldn’t have already won more one-sidedly. Ukraine isn’t the only enemy of Russia, it’s only the first of dozens, and Russia has lost so many of soldiers and weapons already, which is disappointing.

Posted by: Ponta | Apr 7 2022 7:26 utc | 256

In our desire to hurt the Russians, we’ve messed up
– sports including sports for discapacitated
– research (expulsing Russian physicists from CERN)
– space (ISS, sanctions against Russian aerospace companies)
– arts (Finland grabbing paintings from the Hermitage)
– healthcare (postponing sine die approval of Russian vaccines)
– energy (North Stream 2)
– peace (color revolutions in Ukraine, Kazakstan, Byelorussia, resulting in war)
It’s an impressive list.

Posted by: Passerby | Apr 7 2022 7:32 utc | 258

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 7 2022 3:58 utc | 211
Agree,I think I mentioned this about 2 weeks ago,that an ex high ranking military Man,(I think general) who is now a member of the state Duma,mentioned “it will take 30-40 years to de-nazify Ukraine”.I think Russia will demand important positions of power in the Ukrainian Government once the demilitisation is complete to achieve this goal.

Posted by: Kim | Apr 7 2022 7:39 utc | 260

John Kennard | Apr 7 2022 7:36 utc | 256 “even gorgeous.’
ahrrr, I wont respond to that one. you wanna see me smile. A few blackened fangs.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 7 2022 7:42 utc | 262

John Kennard | Apr 7 2022 7:41 utc | 258
Q: What languages are taught in the Soviet Union?
A: Two, Hebrew for those who are going and Chinese for those who are staying.
What is the point of that comment? China is the economic center of the world. US is now nothing more than the bullshit center of the world.
An optional class when I was at school was french – Who the fuck would want to croak like a minion frog .. but it was all about western aristocracy.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 7 2022 7:53 utc | 264

OK so no I am impatient for Russia to kick back HARD. There is no coming back from this madness. I do not however support in any way shape or form the use of nukes or indeed bombing any cities with civilians.

Posted by: watcher | Apr 7 2022 7:54 utc | 266

China Protests Over US Approval of Taiwan Deal on Patriot Air Defence Systems https://sputniknews.com/20220407/china-protests-over-us-approval-of-taiwan-deal-on-patriot-air-defence-systems-1094543093.html

Posted by: Laurence | Apr 7 2022 8:00 utc | 268

RSH 153
Thanks for that post, a great statement!
Russia has real diplomats.
I did a search with Ecosia, Bing and DDG for the byline and first couple of lines and MOA and marketing-thema.com (never heard of them) were the only place this speech appeared.

Posted by: Dadda | Apr 7 2022 8:01 utc | 270

A while ago I watched a Netflix spy series called “Pine Gap” set at the satellite intelligence center near Alice Springs.
Posted by: Mr Green Jeans | Apr 7 2022 8:01 utc | 268
I enjoyed watching that one. The French have a good one that brings in Russia in a very interesting way,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bureau_(TV_series)

Posted by: Tom_12 | Apr 7 2022 8:12 utc | 272

A little story about a factory in a country that believed the Americans.
Imagine you’re Motor Sich in Zaporozhe, manufacturing jet engines for planes and helicopters. It’s 1991, and you’ve got just about the monopoly for this product in the whole of the USSR. When the USSR dissolves, you end up in Ukraine, but you keep the market.
In 2014, after Maidan, Ukraine has a government that looks to the West. You try to sell to America and Europe, but these countries already have their own jet engine manufacturers, and don’t need your products. Meanwhile, Russia sets up its own, new jet engine factories, so you lose market share there. Losing sales in Russia and not finding new markets in EUrope, your sales dwindle. You try to diversify, even going into repair of household goods, of all things. You try to sell the company to China, but the Americans object.
Then comes 2022, and the Russians invade. You’re back where you started in 1991, except: your home market, Ucraine, is in ruins, the Russian market has its own factories now, Americans and Europeans are not interested in your products, and the sale to the Chinese did not work out.

Posted by: Passerby | Apr 7 2022 8:28 utc | 274

Putin needs a victory to show off for the May 9th parades. Let’s just nope it does not involve nukes.

Posted by: Mr Green Jeans | Apr 7 2022 8:42 utc | 276

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Apr 7 2022 8:36 utc | 272
Thanks Arch !!! I agree, they can say all they want but this “duck” is a “duck” for “take over”. Something we see today in all its different forms in triple strength (education, medicine, law, military …..). I’d say they are not even attempting to hide it now. Only a tin head would say it isn’t so, who can be seen today wearing masks on the street and in the car.

Posted by: Tom_12 | Apr 7 2022 8:47 utc | 278

RJB @ 233
Aristocracy
Irredentism
Window dressing

Posted by: Oldhippie | Apr 7 2022 8:53 utc | 280

”Fuck the EU …”
Was in charge both under VP Cheney and under VP Biden to establish White House policy towards Eastern Europe. The White House, State and NSC people are a continuation of the Obama administration. Set in stone: “Fuck the EU …” as Nuland partnered with Geoffrey Pyatt to put the Yats clan in position of power. This power grab had immediate response from Russia.
Through the not so surprising loss of HRC to Der Trumpf, the US intelligence community initiated RussiaGate, a propaganda effort to smear Russia and a process of dehumanization. The wars initiated under Obama for regime change in Libya and Syria all failed to great misery of the people and the refugee crisis gave the extreme-right across Europe a boost … read the lips of John Bolton and Steve Bannon. Brexit was a great feat.
It is a global power play fought over the backs of the Ukrainian people … a continuation of history and long wars since …. the Crusades? A needless war. America waiting for the next storming of the Capitol … get your own house in order. Don’t export your shit.
As the Arab leaders in the Gulf States advised George W. Bush in 2002, invading Iraq will open Pandora’s Box. Same with MI6/CIA overthrow of Mossadeq in 1953, so too will history judge the coup d’état of 2014.
Recently posted Biden’s Blitzkrieg Across Europe … the demise of the EU-27.

Posted by: Oui | Apr 7 2022 9:18 utc | 282

Our household is still baffled at Medvedev’s “rehabilitation” after his very public demotion a couple of years ago. Maybe Putin wants to encourage open competition in the succession game.
Posted by: Opport Knocks | Apr 6 2022 22:32 utc | 137
What is this very public demotion you speak of?
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 7 2022 5:38 utc | 232

January 17 2020
“President Vladimir Putin of Russia proposed constitutional changes that could enable him to wield political power after his presidency ends, as his longtime ally, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, unexpectedly resigned. (*cough*)
Mr. Putin proposed that Mikhail Mishustin, a relatively unknown technocrat who has worked as head of Russia’s tax service since 2010, become the next prime minister, according to state news agencies. The Russian state Duma, or lower house of parliament, is set to consider his candidacy on Thursday.
Mr. Medvedev, whose cabinet also resigned, will stay on as prime minister until a new government is formed, Mr. Putin said on state television. He said Mr. Medvedev would be offered a newly created post of deputy chairman of Russia’s security council—a relatively minor role.”
https://www.forumfreerussia.org/en/news-en/2020-01-17/putin-moves-to-shore-up-power-as-prime-minister-resigns

Posted by: Opport Knocks | Apr 7 2022 9:49 utc | 284

https://www.forumdaily.com/en/vosem-raz-privityj-zhirinovskij-zabolel-covid-19-politik-v-kriticheskom-sostoyanii-ego-podklyuchili-k-shvl/
Jirinovski vaccinated 8 times against Covid before catching virus and l’atelier passent away.

Posted by: Greg Galloway | Apr 7 2022 9:58 utc | 286

Sorry abt spell checker gone mad.
“Lately passing away”

Posted by: Greg Galloway | Apr 7 2022 10:00 utc | 288

WARNING: LONG POST!
tl;dr In short, the Protocols were almost certainly a plagiarization of a work of fiction forged by Russian intelligence to stir up Europe against the Russian anarchists and Jews.
Posted by: protocols | Apr 7 2022 8:49 utc | 276
Uh, terrorism has been around for a very long time, but at the very least it was around in the 1800’s, both from the Russian revolutionaries and the direct action anarchists – of which I know a great deal. 🙂
I also know that the Protocols were probably (although perhaps not certainly) invented by a Russian espionage agent operating against the Russian anarchists and Jews in turn of the century France.
The World That Never Was – A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, and Secret Agents
by Alex Butterworth
https://www.amazon.com/World-That-Never-Was-Anarchists/dp/0307386759
Also available here for free: https://u1lib.org/book/1226817/598883
The book describes the rise of anarchism in the 19th Century and the milieu in France, England, Russia, and elsewhere. It is essentially the same terrorist environment that has been experienced over the last fifty years, with groups forming, splitting and reforming, and government security agencies fomenting all sorts of plots and infiltrations and manipulations.

How The Protocols of the Elders of Zion came into existence is even more obscure than the hidden details of the Drefyus Affair. And yet, for all the many theories about the provenance of the forged document, with its cunning representation of anarchists, socialists, Masons and liberals as the dupes of a diabolic Jewish plot, its roots clearly lie in the world over which Rachkovsky presided. It is not only the contemporary allusions that point to such a conclusion: the construction of the Paris Métro, for example, or the document’s own claim to be the secret agenda of the first Zionist Congress, organised in
Basel in the summer of 1896 by Theodor Herzl and Max Nordau, whose secret lover was the Okhrana agent Madame Novikoff. Nor is it the employment in the Okhrana’s Paris offices at the time of the skilled forger Matvei Golovinsky, who like Rachkovsky and his loyal French agent Bint was an old member of the Holy Brotherhood.
The most telling facts of all concern, rather, the literary work on which the forgery was based, The Dialogues between Machiavelli and Montesquieu in Hell, a satire of Napoleon III’s despotic manipulation of public opinion, and the context of its composition in 1867 by Albert Joly, while he was an exile in Brussels. Thirty years on, few would still have remembered Joly’s work, long since out of print. But when Joly had been in Brussels, so too had Rochefort, who may well have consulted him about routes by which to smuggle La Lanterne into France. Albert Joly, moreover, was the brother of the lawyer Maurice Joly, who had defended Henri Rochefort before the military tribunal in 1872 at Gambetta’s request, and would subsequently be hounded to suicide for it by his client. If anyone had
proposed the old booklet to Rachkovsky as the basis for a trick to demonise the Jews, Rochefort appears the likeliest candidate.
When Herzl witnessed the humiliation of Captain Dreyfus in 1895, it was the visceral anti-Semitic hatred he saw and felt in the crowd that convinced him that only in a Jewish homeland could the safety of his race be guaranteed. At the time he cannot have guessed the sordid intrigues that had led to the scene, but still less can he have imagined the conspiracy that would be forged to demonise the Zionist movement he founded. Rochefort and Rachkovsky had both demonstrated, in their different ways, that they had few scruples when it came to settling scores and making their political points…

The idea of the global Jewish conspiracy had a long pedigree in Russia, with the publication of the Book of Kahal preceding the Odessa pogrom of 1871, while the appearance of Osman Bey’s World Conquest by the Jews a decade later coincided with revenge attacks for the tsar’s assassination. Following the massacre in Kishinev, in August 1903 the notion was propagated anew by the publication of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Znamya (the Banner), the organ of the nascent extreme nationalist movement the Black Hundreds, a recrudescence of the worse aspects of the Holy Brotherhood of the early 1880s. But whilst the Holy Brotherhood had supposedly been the brainchild of a young Witte, and had numbered Rachkovsky among its members, it was now Plehve who was playing the anti-Semitic card most aggressively, while Witte sought to calm the situation, under pressure from the western European bankers on whose financing his project of
modernisation relied. Had the ‘discovery’, or rather forging, of the Protocols really been the brainchild of Rachkovsky, following the raid on de Cyon’s villa, the document’s extraordinary propagandist power would already seem to have escaped his control…

The trajectory of Burtsev’s career had left him with few illusions about where the current of political poison ran, from its source in Rachkovsky’s Okhrana, through into the murky waters of the interwar years. The inquiry into the provenance of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion began in earnest in 1920, when, in an article titled ‘The Jewish Peril: A disturbing pamphlet’, The Times had asked ‘What are these “protocols”? Are they authentic? If so, what malevolent assembly concocted these plans, and gloated over their exposition: prophecy in part fulfilled, in parts far gone in the way of fulfilment?’ In addition to the newspaper’s revelations concerning the work’s plagiarism of Joly’s Dialogues, the Russian Princess Catherine Radziwill revealed that Golovinsky himself had given her a copy in 1904, along with an explanation that Rachkovsky had indeed commissioned the forgery. However, neither of these new pieces of evidence could weaken the purchase that the Protocols had established as a propaganda weapon against Bolshevism, whose leaders were largely of Jewish extraction. Within a couple of years, two books elaborated on how the predictions in the Protocols had already been realised. Secret World Government, by an old
Okhrana bureau chief called Spiridovich, and World Revolution, by the English proto-fascist Nesta Webster, fingered the diabolical banking family of the Rothschilds for everything from inciting the American Civil War and financing the Paris Commune, to the assassinations of Lincoln and Alexander II…

Societies turned upside down by war and revolution craved simple explanations for their misfortunes, and if blame could be laid squarely at the door of a conspiracy by an easily identified and little-loved ethnic group, so much the better. A touch of mysticism made the notion more intoxicating still: an account, for example, by the young Alfred Rosenberg of 358how, on opening a copy of the Protocols while a student in Moscow during the summer before the October Revolution, he had sensed ‘the masterful irony of higher powers in this strange happening’. A leading member of the German National Socialist Party since 1919,
who would go on to be Nazism’s leading racial theorist, Rosenberg’s publication of a German translation of the Protocols in Munich in 1923 provided inspirational reading for his close colleague Adolf Hitler while in prison following the failed Beer Hall Putsch of that year…

Not long after Malatesta had died, it was the enduring toxicity of the Protocols that brought Burtsev to Berne in Switzerland in 1935, where the local Jewish communities had lodged a legal challenge against the book’s Nazi propagators. For too long the mystery of its provenance had fed public curiosity, and allowed the unscrupulous to insist that it was genuine. Laying to rest any residual uncertainty had become a moral imperative, which even the lack of hard, documentary evidence could not be allowed to impede. Alexandre du Chayla, who had corroborated Princess Radziwill’s wholly unreliable tale of Rachkovsky’s involvement with an account of his own meeting with the Protocols’ first Russian editor, Sergei Nilus, agreed to testify; the secret 4,000-franc fee he commanded was yet another symptom of the ugly opportunism that had all along surrounded the book. Boris Nikolaevsky, the historian who, five years earlier, had had the chance to inspect a suitcase containing Rachkovsky’s private papers, agreed to conceal from the court his own conviction that the claims of Radziwill and du Chayla were groundless.
Burtsev was faced with a dilemma of his own, for whilst he had a good story to tell of how the Protocols had arrived in the world, one that was clear and coherent, it lacked any sure foundation. For when he had approached Rachkovsky to buy his collection of key Okhrana documents and a fragmentary memoir, his offer had been rebuffed, and, following the revolution of 1917, the vast and precious archive of the Paris Okhrana vanished into thin air, or into smoke and ash, as would later be claimed. There was little doubt, though, about which way Burtsev would jump. And just as he had learned from the Okhrana’s methodology of surveillance and record-keeping in the 1890s, modelling his counter-intelligence activities on theirs, he now played his part with aplomb in weaving a myth of
Okhrana conspiracy around the document’s origins as strange and compelling as that contained in the Protocols themselves: one that drew together high finance, espionage, diplomacy, court intrigue and personal rivalry. It is a testament to the subtle complexity of Rachkovsky’s devious mind that Burtsev’s story remains to this day only too plausible….

The sixteen crates containing the lost archives of the Paris Okhrana finally came to light in 1957, proudly revealed to the press by the Hoover Institute in California, into whose safekeeping they had been entrusted by the last tsarist ambassador to France after he had smuggled them out of Paris in the 1920s. Since its inception in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency had, it would later be revealed, analysed the archive closely in the process of developing its own tradecraft. The same thing was happening on the other side of the Iron Curtain. When it lifted, Oleg Kalugin, the highest-ranking Soviet intelligence officer ever to cast light on the inner workings of the KGB, confirmed that Okhrana methods had also been taught to the organisation’s agents throughout the Cold War. There is a striking irony in the fact that, while the Okhrana files and piled boxes of crumbling agent reports in the Paris Prefecture of Police provide a treasure trove of insights into late nineteenth-century policing of terrorism, only in Britain – so proud in the nineteenth century of its liberal traditions of policing – is access to the scant surviving documentary evidence of Special Branch’s early anti-anarchist activities still tenaciously guarded. Democracy and the existence of a political police force are, it seems, perhaps only compatible as long as certain more uncomfortable truths about the price of political stability are kept secret….

Personalities:
Rachkovsky, Peter. Born 1853. Third Section infiltration agent, member of Holy Brotherhood and later head of the Foreign Okhrana, based in Paris. The foremost
intelligencer of his era, he was finally dismissed in 1902 on the instigation of the tsarina. Briefly restored to prominence in Russia following 1905 revolution. Died 1910.
Bint, Henri. Ex-officer of the Sûreté hired as a French agent of the Holy Brotherhood in 1882, then employed by the Paris Okhrana office throughout Rachkovsky’s tenure as its director. A participant in the celebrated raid on the People’s Will Swiss printing works, Charlotte Bullier, honeypot bait, may have been cousin. Would later claim to have hired Golovinsky to forge Protocols. After Bolshevik Revolution, worked for Cheka.
Golovinsky, Matvei. A family friend of Dostoevsky, he joined the Holy Brotherhood in the early 1880s and subsequently the Okhrana, but following exposure by Gorky as an informant he moved to Paris to work as a forger for Rachkovsky, allegedly creating The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Joined Bolsheviks in 1917, playing an important role in the St Petersburg soviet.
The Holy Brotherhood:
The origins of the supposedly secret society that was formed as the elite’s response to the assassination of the tsar are unclear. Intriguingly, though, the chief of the south-western railway, Sergei Witte, was later keen to claim the germ of the idea as his own. Having written to his uncle General Fedeev in the immediate aftermath of the tsar’s assassination, proposing that loyalists should combat the terrorists using their own methods, he was summoned to meet the commander of the emperor’s bodyguards, Count Vorontsov- Dashkov, and Count Peter Shuvalov, the ex-head of the disbanded Third Section, who there and then instructed him to swear an oath of allegiance ‘to the society formed on the basis of my letter.’ If it is true that the Holy Brotherhood was established with such speed, it makes it implausible that it was anything other than a long-cherished project for which a pretext had been found. The retired Colonel Stieber, a long-time ally of Shuvalov, now nearing the end of his life, would surely have nodded his grizzled head in approval. Credulous as to the existence of a vast, international terrorist network, comprising myriad small self-sufficient cells in order to inhibit enemy penetration, the progenitors of the Holy Brotherhood structured their own organisation on the same model, with an added dash of the Masonic occult. At the apex of the Brotherhood stood a five-strong council of elders, each the designated contact for a subsidiary group of five, and so on, down to the sixth and eighth tiers of more than 3,000 cells, boasting such assertive or esoteric names as Talmud, Success or Genius. ‘I dedicate myself entirely to the protection of His Majesty the emperor and to the persecution of sedition which casts shame on the name of Russia,’ swore initiates, including the composer Peter Tchaikovsky: ‘Brother number 6, Assistance.’

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 7 2022 10:08 utc | 290

Posted by: Aslangeo | Apr 6 2022 20:14 utc | 89
Again wishful thinking, completely useless, completely defeatist, siding with the ukronazis and their supports.

Posted by: Olivier | Apr 7 2022 10:32 utc | 292

Jirinovski vaccinated 8 times against Covid before catching virus and l’atelier passent away.
Posted by: Greg Galloway | Apr 7 2022 9:58 utc | 288
The spike protein of the so-called “vaccines” is the damaging part of the virus: it links with the ACE2 enzyme which regulates the blood pressure – bringing it down. Thus more ACE2 enzymes blocked, higher the blood pressure with its cohort of health damage.

Posted by: Olivier | Apr 7 2022 10:44 utc | 294

Atrocities are committed by emotionless or mental zombies, officially labelled sociopaths or psychopaths.
They have frozen hearts, hear voices etc; they exist almost anywhere but depending on governmental setup they are behind locked doors in institutions, roam the streets, sit on huge yachts, on ministerial seats or don a military uniform. In the latter case, to what rank are they allowed to rise: corporal, sergeant, , , , or general? Bucha, Mariopol, Douma, Mosul, Fallujah…
In the Ukraine non are locked up, in the US many are roaming “free”. I have some hope about the location of Russian and Western European cases…

Posted by: Antonym | Apr 7 2022 11:03 utc | 296

Russian army : A lack of vision and a poor preparation
Only french langage
https://www.chroniquesdugrandjeu.com/

Posted by: Nicolas | Apr 7 2022 11:51 utc | 298

Posted by: watcher | Apr 7 2022 10:27 utc | 293

Do you want to get this site banned, because you are going the right way about it.

And there, friends, is the extent of your so called ‘Free Speech’ …

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Apr 7 2022 12:10 utc | 300