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February 15, 2024
Open (Neither Ukraine Nor Palestine) Thread 2024-049
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Putin’s man in Washington DC …
Putin says Russia prefers Biden to Trump because he is ‘more experienced and predictable’
President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would prefer to see U.S. President Joe Biden win a second term, describing him as more experienced and predictable than Donald Trump — even though Moscow strongly disagrees with the current administration’s policies.
Putin’s comments during an interview with Russian state television Wednesday were his first about the upcoming U.S. presidential election, likely to pit Biden against Trump. They come at time of heightened tension between Russia and the West — and deep disagreements in the U.S. about how best to counter Russia and help Ukraine, which is fighting Moscow’s forces.
“Biden, he’s more experienced, more predictable, he’s a politician of the old formation,” Putin said, when asked which candidate would be better for Russia. “But we will work with any U.S. leader whom the American people trust.”
The above is AP. Here is the full transcript from the Kremlin’s website (machine translation)
Pavel Zarubin: And the current President of the United States, Biden, gives more and more reasons for the whole world to discuss the state of his health every day. This President of one of the largest nuclear powers. At the same time, we all actually observe extremely specific shots on a daily basis, to put it mildly. When you see and hear all this, what do you think?
Vladimir Putin: I think that the domestic political campaign, the election campaign, is gaining momentum in the United States. It is becoming more and more acute. And it is incorrect for us, in my opinion, to interfere in this process.
Look, when I met Biden in Switzerland, it was a few years ago, three years ago, but even then it was said that he was incapacitated. I didn’t see anything like it. Well, yes, he was peeking at his paper. I was actually peeking into mine. Nothing there is no such thing in it. But the fact that he hit his head on this helicopter somewhere while getting out of the helicopter – well, who hasn ‘t hit his head somewhere? Let the first one throw a stone at him.
In general, this is in my opinion… I am not a doctor and I do not consider myself entitled to give any comments on this matter. That’s not what we should be looking at. We need to look at the political position. I believe that the position of the current administration is extremely harmful and erroneous. And I once told President Biden about this.
P. Zarubin: Then the question that was four years ago, and now, it turns out, becomes relevant again. Who is better for us: Biden or Trump?
Vladimir Putin: Biden. He is a more experienced person, he is predictable, he is a politician of the old formation. But we will work with any U.S. leader who has the confidence of the American people.
Hmmm does this mean Russia gate for the demented pipe bomber. Will genocide joe get his very own pee tape dossier from MI5
Posted by: Tannenhouser | Feb 15 2024 14:44 utc | 2
considering how one of the major criticisms of trump is what he is a friend of putin, maybe putin was doing him a favour here.. but it is more likely putin was speaking the truth, which is a very strange thing to do according to western audiences who only associate politicians with deception or worse – lying.. that a political leader like putin might speak the actual truth will shock a good number of people, lol.. here is the west we are not used to it!!
speaking positive of others is really on display in putins commentary… in this regard he really puts to shame all the negative talk expressed about him in this same western world… there is something very biblical in his way of action, based on deeper ethical and fundamental considerations.. this is not a guy who goes to church on sundays to wash his hands of all the ugly deeds he did the other 6 days of the week.. this is someone who actually lives truthfully as best he can.. i wish i could say the same for our politicians in the west.. none of them are leaders – that is the really big problem at this point.. a leadership vacuum exists in the west – at least politically, and we are shocked in putins character as he appears for all intents and purposes to be an actual leader!
Posted by: james | Feb 15 2024 15:05 utc | 3
Thanks for this, b. I omitted to say on Sunday that this week might be called the week of the Caananite woman, to whom,having come into her region, Jesus said ‘Great is your faith!’ and her daughter was healed, after his disciples had asked him to send her away. And then the feast today is that of the Meeting in the Temple, an accord between the parents of Jesus bringing their child to be blessed with the elderly priest Simeon, who proclaims the text that is sung every Saturday evening:
“Now you shall dismiss your servant, O Lord,
According to your word, in peace,
For mine eyes have seen your salvation
Which you have prepared before all people,
A light of revelation to the Gentiles
And the glory of your people Israel.”
So today, in Russian Orthodoxy, is doubly about accord between all people. Thank you, President Putin.
Posted by: juliania | Feb 15 2024 15:23 utc | 4
Perhaps the underlying issue that NATO has with Russia are NGO’s (aka Nazi Guerilla Organizations). In May of 2015, Putin signed into law the banning of NGO’s. One of the organizations banned from operating in Russia is George Soro’s Open Society. Russia rightfully identified these NGO’s as being paid agitators. Of course George Soros cannot be pleased about the ejection of his “operating system” from Russia. Perhaps George Soros is behind all of the Russia-phobia NATO Ukraine war. Of course he would want vengeance for being prohibited from influencing (pillaging) Russian society. Would Putin be in office now if George Soros had been able to “do his thing”? Of course not. The timing for Ukraine Nazi’s taking pot shots at citizens is around the same time frame as the signing of the law. A message from George?
Tucker Carlson marveled at Moscow. Maybe it’s because they don’t have NGO’s (aka Nazi Guerilla Organizations) being paid to agitate society, aid and abet the illegal border crossings, PRIDE and all the rest of the junk that is plaguing America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_undesirable_organizations_law
Posted by: CeaClearly | Feb 15 2024 15:44 utc | 5
Well, I mean, Biden’s follies have certainly been good for Russia, although that is certainly not what Biden intended.
“never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”
Did Putin not say he thinks our policy is a mistake?
Is that not the definition of a fool, to harm themselves and harm their allies while helping the persons they attempt to harm?
Posted by: Bemildred | Feb 15 2024 15:49 utc | 6
Putin’s command of the history of his country, as well as his understanding of the current state of affairs places him well above his contemporaries in the collective West.
Posted by: oldBear | Feb 15 2024 16:25 utc | 7
@ Bemildred | Feb 15 2024 15:49 utc | 6
i don’t believe putin said the wests policy is a mistake, but one can see for themselves that is exactly what it is.. i get the impression putin is much too discreet to say something as blunt as – your actions were a mistake… but i could be wrong… cheers.
Posted by: james | Feb 15 2024 16:36 utc | 8
Posted by: james | Feb 15 2024 15:05 utc | 3
Very well said, james; thank you! I perhaps should not have said ‘priest’ in describing Saint Simeon who ‘takes Him up in his arms’ as Saint Luke simply describes him as ‘a man in Jerusalem’ who ‘came by the Spirit into the temple’. He’s better described as an ‘elder’. That term is best encountered in the early chapters of Dostoievski’s “The Brothers Karamazov and hes been an important designation for Russians, not so much, I think, in Western Christianity, as it was new to me until I first read that work.
Posted by: juliania | Feb 15 2024 17:00 utc | 9
@6 james:
“We need to look at the political position. I believe that the position of the current administration is extremely harmful and erroneous. And I once told President Biden about this.”
Not a direct quotation for sure, and ambiguous. Putin is good at ambiguous.
Posted by: Bemildred | Feb 15 2024 17:03 utc | 10
Is that not the definition of a fool, to harm themselves and harm their allies while helping the persons they attempt to harm?
Posted by: Bemildred | Feb 15 2024 15:49 utc | 6
That is the definition Mephistopheles gives of himself in Goethe’s “Faust”, in answer to Faust’s question, “…Who are you, then?”:
“I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.”
Posted by: juliania | Feb 15 2024 17:15 utc | 11
Juliania should be very pleased with Pepe’s latest. Karlof1 posted it yesterday but at the end of
the thread so it seemed to go unnoticed. Maybe it should go on the Ukraine thread but should be OK here too.
Pepe in Donbass
Father Igor, a military priest, is blessing a group of local contract-signed volunteers to the Archangel Gabriel battalion, ready to go to the front lines of the US vs. Russia proxy war. The man in charge of the battalion is one of the top-ranking officers of Orthodox Christian units in the DPR.
A small shrine is set up in the corner of a small, cramped room, decorated with icons.
Posted by: waynorinorway | Feb 15 2024 17:16 utc | 12
@ juliania | Feb 15 2024 17:00 utc | 9
thanks juliania.. i try and often think of myself as stumbling thru things as best i can.. i thank you again for encouraging the dostovsky books on me!
@ Bemildred | Feb 15 2024 17:03 utc | 10
thanks for the quote bemildred.. now that i see the quote – it is ambiguous as you note.. maybe i give putin too much credit for being above the fray when in fact no one can be above the fray of life, geopolitics and etc. etc.. i was mentioning to someone earlier how beauty is in the eye of the beholder – but everything else is too.. well, that goes into my viewpoint that so much of life is subjective in nature – but that is me and my take.. offense, insult and all sorts of things can be read into life – as can be many positive things too… how much of it is real and how much of it is made up in the mind of the beholder??
———————
on an important topic – yalensis at awful avalanche has an interesting 3 articles up on that folder that putin handed carlson.. i think folks here might be interested, so check it out!
Ukraine War Day #720: Tucker Carlson And The Khmelnitsky File – Part I
also in the link above in the comment section, someone shared timothy snyders response to putins historical perspective… here is a direct link to his substack response to this interview.. clearly the interview made some big waves…
Putin’s genocidal myth
i have always thought of timothy snyder as a chief propagandist for the usa in his position as yale professor… obviously many americans view him differently, but that is how i see him – a total fabricator of reality..
Posted by: james | Feb 15 2024 17:22 utc | 13
Barflies, this is a pivotal time. It’s time to look clearly at the structure of the society we live in, and understand that no widely viewed public personality is ‘one of us.’ It’s time to relieve ourselves of poorly considered narratives about stupidity and incompetence in the ruling class, because, while Putin may be ahead of them, they are still way, way ahead of their own domestic opposition. The changes we are starting to see in the governing narrative are not the result of insurgency. They come from the top down, an acknowledgment that Plan A (the deindustrialization and absolute political capture of the EU) is in its culminating phase, and Plan B (the wish that Russia could be conquered and divided also) is not going to happen. The PTB are satisfied. The US destroys a major competitor at no real cost to itself, the ideal of classic imperialist war between imperialist powers. Other people did all the fighting and dying, the US reaps the benefits.
If you can’t understand that this plan was in the works since 2008, you will allow yourself to be misled, just as always, and be a step or two or three behind ‘unpredictable’ events. And, of course, you will be drawn into supporting one champion of finance capitalism against another, or attacking those who are, one small step at a time, placing limits, pushing back the Empire, incrementally improving the global position of anti-imperialism.
Posted by: Honzo | Feb 15 2024 17:29 utc | 14
Posted by: james | Feb 15 2024 17:22 utc | 13
I don’t think we disagree. I think people find what they go looking for, but are often disappointed when they get it. Wisdom would be to be careful about what you go looking for.
I am not any student of Putin, but he seems to me to have a very dry, perhaps “Russian”, sense of humor, as one would need in his position.
He is observably unflappable.
Posted by: Bemildred | Feb 15 2024 17:43 utc | 15
“I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.”
Posted by: juliania | Feb 15 2024 17:15 utc | 11
Yes, excellent, thank you.
Posted by: Bemildred | Feb 15 2024 17:48 utc | 16
1
Sorry but he is a Pathologic sycophant!
From permanently bending down in front of his western partners chessmaster got a kippers back
Posted by: SlowSoft | Feb 15 2024 18:07 utc | 17
Cea Clearly
In Europe one can notice that since the same date, 2015, there has been close to zero funding for cultural venues that are not commercial enough, but plenty of money for so-called ngo-s.
Posted by: Tom2 | Feb 15 2024 18:24 utc | 18
Putin says Russia prefers Biden to Trump because he is ‘more experienced and predictable’
Means: Trump understands money, you can negotiate with him, but you never know what will come out of it. Biden and his predominantly Jewish friends only accept world power. You have no choice, you have to defeat them.
Posted by: Oliver Krug | Feb 15 2024 18:52 utc | 19
What “NATO” (aka the FUKUS mafioso protection and weapons sales racket) wants is the balkanization of the RF and China as they have gone about effecting in so many other parts of the world. IOW, they want perpetual chaos and insecurity outside of the garden walls so that NATO member elites and their financial patrons are able to easily extract resources, tap into markets, and otherwise do their business with corrupt “tribal” warlords minus impediments and roadblocks like strong nation-states and federations with their own peoples’ (and elites’) interests and the accompanying order and prevention of outside (NATO state) corruption. NATO also wants to maintain a network of slightly more orderly client states to whom NATO countries can outsource manufacturing and other important economic activities to suppress wages at home. Furthermore, in order to keep dissent about any of that under tight wraps, NATO wants to maintain quasi-fascistic and militarized thought, speech and societal control within their own members’ borders – because: PUTIN, COMMIES, and TERRURIZMS!!!
And when you look at it that way, the racket has been working like a charm since the demise of the USSR. The present day flailing by NATO is due exactly to the formation of competing (and more peaceful/fair) systems and confederations and the dwindling role that the USD reserve currency has, as a tool of economic (and military) coercion.
Those of us living within NATO countries are treated like battered and abused spouses and step children. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/we-think-this-dystopia-is-normal
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 15 2024 20:02 utc | 20
I was mad when the election was stolen from Trump, but over time, I realized it was for the better for the world.
This time, I don’t care who wins, although I think I am beginning to lean towards more comical incompetence and woke polarization, because the faster everything collapses, the better chance something better rises from the ashes in my lifetime.
There, of course, is just as much chance that something worse arises…
But, I can see the right still has not learned its lesson… …it does not believe anything the msm says, (good), except…
…it gobbles up all slander against the nonNATO world, and is still showing itself to be quite zionist.
Posted by: UWDude | Feb 15 2024 20:15 utc | 21
Posted by: Honzo | Feb 15 2024 17:29 utc | 14
Good comment. Wage slaves of the world unite.
Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Feb 15 2024 20:29 utc | 22
“..I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good. ..”
Posted by: juliania | Feb 15 2024 17:15 utc | 11
How can such a contridictory entity exist? Goethe’s Mephistopheles and “Faust” sounds like a bullshit construction to me and not worth wasting much energy thinking about.
Posted by: Ново З | Feb 15 2024 21:07 utc | 23
The biggest problem with Trump is all of totally fucked up shit that all levels of civil society do then rationalise it as just what had to be done to rid civilization of Trump.
Posted by: jef | Feb 15 2024 21:18 utc | 24
“..I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good. ..”
Posted by: juliania | Feb 15 2024 17:15 utc | 11
How can such a contridictory entity exist? Goethe’s Mephistopheles and “Faust” sounds like a bullshit construction to me and not worth wasting much energy thinking about.
Posted by: Ново З | Feb 15 2024 21:07 utc | 23
I only know the reverse:
path into hell is paved with good intentions.
Posted by: MAKK | Feb 15 2024 21:42 utc | 25
path into hell is paved with good intentions.
Posted by: MAKK | Feb 15 2024 21:42 utc | 25
That takes in the majority of suckers that have been drawn into the woke cult.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Feb 15 2024 21:56 utc | 26
Tucker visits Kievskaya subway station in Moscow:
https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1757901280830505037
Tucker visits a grocery store in Moscow:
https://twitter.com/TheWakeninq/status/1758097544708538621
Tucker visits a former Moscow McDonalds franchisee, now rebranded as Vkusno i Tochka:
https://pravda-en.com/world/2024/02/15/322069.html
Posted by: S | Feb 15 2024 22:41 utc | 27
Check the Map in the article! I googled it somehow that island belongs to Taiwan (even though Taiwan belongs to China). The USA is so desperate for a war with China that we are at the point where they are spitting in China’s face to get them to react. They’ll suck this up, China will respond on their schedule not their enemies, which is obvious tactics to everyone but the USA, but it’s coming.
https://news.antiwar.com/2024/02/07/report-us-military-advisors-deployed-to-taiwan-controlled-islands-on-chinas-coast/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUZWpvguIEk
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Feb 15 2024 22:52 utc | 28
Putin can be very snide, I have noticed. So people think he doesn’t make snide jokes about US politics in private? He is not an angel or a saint (Russia’s middle-of-road on Palestine, imo). But a very smart person with respect for humanity and thank heaven for such a leader in the world today, . One of best books by Dostoyevsky on good vs. the social order imo is his “The idiot.” And then there is an English writer – Forester – who messages “beware of those with good intentions” (often, not always of course).
@ Lavieja | Feb 15 2024 23:27 utc | 29
I think Putin is more than entitled to be snide, and while I wish he would take a tougher stand on the Palestine matter (and a few others), I understand that he is not omnipotent and therefore am willing to cut him some slack. I just hope/assume you don’t take him for a Dostoyevskyan idiot!
As for E.M. Forster — the author I assume you’re referring to — now there’s proof that a bio-male can bean Old Queen and still have a conscience and a heart of gold. Even if most of his novels are crap. (Passage to India is forbiddingly good, and Room with a View is at least entertaining).
Posted by: malenkov | Feb 16 2024 0:07 utc | 30
The WEF won’t be able to impose its Globalist nightmare of elite transhumanism and surveilled bug-eating serfs, and they know it now. They’re running scared. The vile Yuval Noah Harari has even said so publicly. The political figures and agents serving that cabal will be lucky if they are not hanged in the public squares. The political criminals here in America, the hoaxsters, the grifters, the seditionists, the Lawfare agents, the election fraudsters, know very well the danger of their looming prosecutions, and that’s exactly why the Democratic Party and its blob henchmen and flunkies are acting like desperate lunatics.
Expect: failed national governments, maybe even state governments; failed supply lines; failed electric supply, failed trucking, failed big box stores; failed supermarkets, failed giant companies; failed banks, failed investments, failed money, failed news orgs, failed airlines, failed car dealers, failed hospitals, failed colleges, and much more. But don’t discount human ingenuity and resourcefulness, our ability to work-around and reinvent systems for daily life, even if it’s on a downscaled and more modest level.
Expect rebuilt local economies from production to wholesale to retail. Expect smaller stores, fewer things to buy but much of it better quality. Expect a lot less long-distance travel but a lot more happening in your locality. Expect the rebirth of local culture — theaters, live music, news-sheets, dances — to replace all the canned entertainments we’re used to. Expect small private academies to rise to replace the shuttered central schools. Expect small, local clinics to appear from the ashes of the medical conglomerates. Expect Americans to return to churches as an organizing mechanism for community relations. Expect more formality and less slobbery in public. Expect all of us to feel a renewed sense of gratitude for being here instead of rage, resentment, and grievance, because it’s likely there will be far fewer of us around.
https://jameshowardkunstler.substack.com/p/think-about-it
Not saying this relatively rosy forecast is accurate (personally, I expect more violence and mayhem in urban areas), but I like the cut of his jib. The best way to counteract the looming tyranny of over-centralized systems is to bolster local community culture and authority. If the former is excessive it creates an opening for the latter to redress the resultant imbalance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRb5-_790wY
In the first twenty minutes, Colonel MacGregor critiques Putin’s ‘history lesson’ as an example of how most Russians to this day either deny or perhaps simply don’t know about how terrible a catastrophe was the 1918-40 period with all the millions of murdered and starved – though some barflies insist those are all lies – and how it engendered not only Germany’s Adolf, most of whose voters deeply feared the same thing happening to them, but the inevitable later catastrophe called World War II. Agree with him or not, he’s a forceful, well-informed speaker.
30 malenkov. Correction to lavieja post. Change sarcastic to snide, but I do remember a comment he made about Prigozhin.
Also, I should have put in paragraph space. Comment on “The Idiot” had nothing to do with Putin. It was about issue being discussed in thread of good and evil.
The Forester book I was thinking of is “Howard’s End” and the effect of intervention of the Schlegal sister into the life of the lower-class clerk (sorry, forgot his name) in an attempt to “better” him, a not unusual effort on the part of the Edwardian upper class in England, I understand.
Scorpion | Feb 16 2024 1:37 utc | 32
Do you ever think about what conditions the peasants, both of Russia and China were under that could have pushed them to revolution? It certainly was not a product of simple brainwashing.
When things come to that point, shit happens. It doesn’t mean people are intrinsically bad or intrinsically good, it simply means they are humans.
Much better to look at it as a time of great turbulence and in hindsight and from comfort we can look at it and say this aspect is good but this aspect is not good rather than saying this person was good or that person was bad.
The turbulence of revolution was a product of its times in those countries.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Feb 16 2024 2:42 utc | 34
WILLIAM SCHRYVER substack part 2… a good read..
The Vladimir Putin Interview – Part Two
Posted by: james | Feb 16 2024 2:51 utc | 35
James
A couple of phrases that stood out to me
“we have contacts through various agencies” and “what we are conveying to the US leadership”
It is quite obvious Biden is not the ‘leadership’. Putin made it clear in his references to Clinton and Bush that the president of the US is not the ‘leadership’ of the US.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Feb 16 2024 3:03 utc | 36
I should have added this “Why would I call him? What should I talk to him about?”
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Feb 16 2024 3:04 utc | 37
@ Lavieja | Feb 16 2024 2:04 utc | 33
The Helen Schlegel character was the one good thing in Howard’s End, with honorable mention to Miss Avery. The rest was rather silly, especially the absurdly contrived happy ending.
Posted by: malenkov | Feb 16 2024 3:08 utc | 38
the 1918-40 period with all the millions of murdered and starved – though some barflies insist those are all lies
Posted by: Scorpion | Feb 16 2024 1:37 utc | 32
____
…and speaking of silly…!
Posted by: malenkov | Feb 16 2024 3:10 utc | 39
From reports it seemed like Azov was being fed into the boiler to be cooked, but on thinking about it, it would seem far more likely they would be used for flanking attacks to prevent the boiler from being closed.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Feb 16 2024 3:12 utc | 40
From reports it seemed like Azov was being fed into the boiler to be cooked, but on thinking about it, it would seem far more likely they would be used for flanking attacks to prevent the boiler from being closed.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Feb 16 2024 3:12 utc | 40
Military Summary channel says Third Brigade arrived in Avdeevka, lost six hundred men in four days, said, no thanks and took off, sparking the massive withdrawal being attempted now.
Posted by: Honzo | Feb 16 2024 3:44 utc | 41
Video of Syrskiy marching on the Red Square in 1986:
https://t.me/historiographe/11317
Posted by: S | Feb 16 2024 3:56 utc | 42
Honzo | Feb 16 2024 3:44 utc | 41
Interesting. There’s an ex SUB bloke bloke who began working for Russia after the coup in 2014 until he got out of the place in 2018. He has a webpage where he has nazi Ukraine documents and so forth plus a telegram account.
In the SBU he had aq lot to do with the neo-nazi so called volunteer battalions and gave descriptions of them, the football club hooligans they originated from and there shakedown lurks and so forth.
In the fighting of 2014, after MH17 and the tables suddenly turned with the ethnic Russians and so called north wind creating cauldrons, the nazi groups, particularly Azov always left early while the regular fools would stay.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Feb 16 2024 3:56 utc | 43
@ Honzo | Feb 16 2024 3:44 utc | 41 with OT Ukraine thread reporting….thanks but shame on you
Will this be another thousand plus kettle that will make global news soon?
Maybe NATO exercise folks will come in and turn the tide…./s
This is all fitting into my magical 6 weeks to end of global shit show call…..grin
It will be a Happy Easter for all.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Feb 16 2024 3:57 utc | 44
@ Peter AU1 | Feb 16 2024 3:03 utc | 36
yes.. in answer to carlsons question – putin and russia have done what they can, but as he said earlier if the west wants to see the end of this war, they can stop providing weapons to ukraine.. it is that simple… it is clear the west is not interested in ending the war.. in fact the opposite is pretty clear from the time of boris the clowns visit in april 2022… and of course zelensky is just a puppet doing what he is told.. the ukrainians don’t actually have a voice in any of this..
Posted by: james | Feb 16 2024 4:17 utc | 45
@ james | Feb 16 2024 4:17 utc | 45 who says Ukraine does not have a say.
I agree but what about the US/Occupied Palestine relationship? Who doesn’t have a say? Or, are they on the same side?
Posted by: psychohistorian | Feb 16 2024 4:35 utc | 46
@ psychohistorian | Feb 16 2024 4:35 utc | 46
i have been approaching these 2 topics differently, but the usa is the common denominator in both.. i am not sure who ‘they’ are in your question…
Posted by: james | Feb 16 2024 5:06 utc | 47
@ james | Feb 16 2024 5:06 utc | 47 who is asking me who “they” are in my statement
Or, are they on the same side?
They is your common denominator and Occupied Palestine and I would posit the statement above is true.
While you cast the US as a common denominator, I see a master above the US that I call the God Of Mammon cult and the US and Occupied Palestine are both proxies for the cult.
And one or both of them are about to be sacrificed in an attempt to keep global private finance alive and not replaced by all totally sovereign finance coordinated by sovereign nations representing their citizens instead of the global elite.
sleep time soon for me as well
Posted by: psychohistorian | Feb 16 2024 6:27 utc | 49
Healthcare advances are amazing. Some are described in “Putin at the Future Technologies Forum”, https://karlof1.substack.com/p/putin-at-the-future-technologies
S | Feb 16 2024 3:56 utc | 42–
I hope you see and can answer this question: What is the Eastern Landfill in relation to the Eastern Polygon, the latter I know? I’ve looked and looked, but no proposed answer’s made any sense.
karlof1 | Feb 16 2024 6:35 utc | 51
Your question to S was interesting as I had heard of neither. Just a somewhat shallow search and the polygon seems connected with Korea rail to China and and Russia.
An article at springer link has this
“The “Eastern Polygon” of the Trans-Siberian rail line: a critical factor for assessing Russia’s strategy toward Eurasia and the Asia-Pacific.”
It seems to have something to do with Russia, China, Korea rail. Eastern landfill appears to be connected with Russia rail.
But interesting. Will wait to see if S puts in some thoughts or knowledge
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Feb 16 2024 6:48 utc | 52
The special counsel investigating Hunter Biden has charged a former F.B.I. informant with fabricating claims that President Biden and his son each sought $5 million bribes from a Ukrainian company — a stinging setback for Republicans who cited the allegations in their push to impeach the president.
The longtime informant, Alexander Smirnov, 43, is accused of falsely telling the F.B.I. that Hunter Biden, then a paid board member of the energy giant Burisma, demanded the money to protect the company from an investigation by the country’s prosecutor general at the time.
NYT
Posted by: Jonathan W | Feb 16 2024 7:01 utc | 53
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Feb 16 2024 6:48 utc | 52
It’s possible ‘Eastern’ in those two terms means different regions, particularly if you think this way
-“temporarily occupied areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions”
Eastern landfill(s)?
Tass has this on the Eastern Polygon
Posted by: waynorinorway | Feb 16 2024 7:15 utc | 54
James, | Feb 16 2024 2:51 utc | 35, thank you. Using actual quotes was indeed the way to critique the interview, very good!! I’ll just post Putin’s final rendition of the back and forth on negotiations:
“…It seems to me that now those who are in power in the West have come to realize this [that… inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield…. is never going to happen….] as well. If so, if the realization has set in, they have to think what to do next. We are ready for this dialogue…..”
My bold is what Carlson pins his hopes on — he does want to have something to show for his effort. Which is probably why he kept on in that exchange, eliciting that Putin sigh.
Posted by: juliania | Feb 16 2024 7:16 utc | 55
NYT
Posted by: Jonathan W | Feb 16 2024 7:01 utc | 53
LoL
Posted by: UWDude | Feb 16 2024 7:28 utc | 56
Posted by: Lavieja | Feb 16 2024 2:04 utc | 33
Very good points, Lavieja. I agree. Thanks for the clarification.
Posted by: juliania | Feb 16 2024 7:40 utc | 57
Posted by: waynorinorway | Feb 16 2024 7:15 utc | 54
Those both make sense, waynorinorway – well done. And thanks too for your earlier remark, very much appreciated.
Posted by: juliania | Feb 16 2024 7:47 utc | 58
Martin Armstrong:
The war against Syria was a war for a pipeline from the Middle East through Jordan & Syria and against a gas pipeline from Iran, Iraq and Syria.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/world-war-iii-a-pipeline/
Posted by: WMG | Feb 16 2024 8:09 utc | 59
Scorpion | Feb 16 2024 1:37 utc | 32
Millions of Russians were indeed killed between 1918 and 1940. Blaming those deaths on the Communists, however, is not unlike blaming the dead in Gaza on Hamas. Millions were killed in the wars of intervention waged by the White Russian forces and their sponsors, foreign governments intent on squashing Communism before its example spread to their own countries.
Many of these victims were killed in the wars but most died because of the famines caused either by sanctions and boycotts or the devastations of war- the loss of men to plant or harvest, the burning of food supplies to prevent their falling into enemy hands and so on.
Had the Bolsheviks been allowed to carry out the revolution in peace and to build a new economy to replace that devastated by war, nobody knows what might have transpired.
And that is why they were attacked by the armies of eighteen foreign powers, because even the worst case scenario-for the capitalists- a Red Army victory, which came at the price of compromises with ‘experts’ and the ruthless suppression of dissent and laid the ground for elitists developments, was preferable to allowing the people time and room to express themselves and create an alternative to the exploitation of man by man.
Posted by: bevin | Feb 16 2024 9:14 utc | 60
Healthcare advances are amazing. Some are described in “Putin at the Future Technologies Forum”, https://karlof1.substack.com/p/putin-at-the-future-technologies
Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 16 2024 6:32 utc | 50
A very informative and positive read. I detect a certain nervousness amongst those officials, researchers etc who find themselves having to answer “Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich” in public!
It is amazing to see such amazing competence at play in a political leader. Plus the real humanity of VVP shines through in this report.
Posted by: Ново З | Feb 16 2024 10:26 utc | 61
The NGO in Russia might well be disseminating globalist StratCom.
I’d like to posit an hypothesis about the narrative design here, maybe MoA picks it up. I think it’s a sensible intuition; though not a deduction, it still has some worth as the idea allows for inductive reasoning. I have gathered my point from the conversations with russians whom I met in Germany, among them real political exiles, like a young woman who arrived here from Petersburg with just a bag and the shoes she wore after the authorities had made clear in diplomatic, yet no uncertain times that it would be better for her family to pack up and leave. Her parents are artists and somewhat conncected to the Pussy Riot thing, Zizek and Soros are family friends. The young lady spoke german after just two months here! We spent a few lovely summer nights strolling through town and speaking about Russia, russian history, the west and of course Putin.
She said she was an actual russian patriot, but could not find herself able to support the current political statehood of the country. Both was well and sincerely stated (though I disagreed); a position which reminds me of many other russian emigres I’ve spoken to. Most of those who are political-minded people hold some kind of grudge against the country – for example, a woman from Kiev had evacuated after the Chernobyl incident, when her parents had insider knowledge from working in some sort of authority. Others fled the impoverished and at times brutalized society after 1991 (in one instance after the water utility in Kharkov had broken down). Jewish russians often weighed a choice between Israel and Germany.
Typical for the reasoning about Russia of all these people is that they would pick a more or less outrageous and colourful anecdotes, and use it to dismiss living in Russia, the state of the russian nation, and of course Putin. – All of them lighten up considerably when they switch from german to their native russian, btw; an interesting observation on the sides.
A few examples:
Two delivery drivers were coming head-on in a small street, no one backed up, a fight ensued, and one of them killed the other. – The psychiatric hospitals in Russia are useless and dangerous, as can be seen by the treatment of political enemies during the Soviet Union. – After 1991, sailors of the black sea fleet in Sevastopol began to take apart their warships to sell the metal for scrap. – Wagner accepted a murderer of 70 women who also ate his mother (or some such), he survived fighting and is now a free man. – The policy to support family as the basic structure of society is indeed at times questionable, like when the Duma revoked laws against domestic violence (an apparently true story), but they would fail to see that this is also a reaction against the threat from the adversary; the same argument structure is used for other history as well sometimes (just think Stalin). – etc etc.
There is a logic to that. And now I wonder if these kinds of tropes and faux reasoning are actually spread deliberately as a means of PsyOp.
Any obyervations, MoA?
Posted by: persiflo | Feb 16 2024 10:30 utc | 62
it seems part of the process that every day we have to let go of at least one illusion.. Now it was Yunus another Nobelprice winner, who has definitively turned out to be just another bloodsucker.
ps://www.dawn.com/news/1814551/nobel-winner-yunus-says-his-firms-forcefully-taken-over
the good thing: he is thrown out. Making space for better things to happen.. soon .. and allready …
Posted by: swiss | Feb 16 2024 12:03 utc | 64
Breaking news here in the UK is the MI6 asset Navalny has died in Prison, convenient timing for the Reich,i have said several times people like Navalny Skripal Berezovsky Litvenenko are worth more dead than alive to the Reich once they have served their purpose, of course they are going crazy on the news here, i am not sure some of that Media filth even reported the murder of Gonzalo Lira by the Ukrainian Gestapo.
Posted by: Englishman | Feb 16 2024 12:51 utc | 65
Forwarded from
Roman Alekhine
According to Navalny
First. Now, of course, the Western media will begin to lament that Putin killed him, but any reasonable person understands that Putin would not have done this before the elections, and even the most reckless, vindictive and bloodthirsty politician would not have done this. Navalny’s death is beneficial precisely to his opponents. And in any crime we must look, first of all, for those who benefit. This is if you don’t take an accident, that is, the version with a blood clot.
Second. My attitude towards Navalny is extremely negative. Besides the fact that he was not for the people, but sold himself to foreigners, he waged an open war with the Ruler and with us, because deception is the way of war. And the staging of the Novichok poisoning is precisely that same monstrous lie that was not for the sake of the people and Russia, but against them and for the sake of the curators from behind the cordon. They were the ones who needed this lie. After “Novichok” he would not have survived.
Third. Navalny’s activities led to the degradation of the socio-political struggle. This sounds strange to the average person, but those who have been involved in real social activities and human rights can understand it. Even when I was an ardent activist of the ONF, we could not solve many problems for people, because the regional authorities immediately labeled us as “navalnenki.” And this continues, thanks to him, now those who do not have the goal of overthrowing the government, who have not sold out to foreigners, but who are really trying to help people achieve justice and who are trying to fight corruption with socio-political instruments, are also suffering from this. And these are all the consequences of his active work to degrade the entire social field and all public truly democratic instruments provided for by the Constitution.
Once upon a time, Navalny’s death would have been an event, but now it is no longer an event, but just a line of news.
Posted by: anon2020 | Feb 16 2024 12:55 utc | 66
Do you ever think about what conditions the peasants, both of Russia and China were under that could have pushed them to revolution?
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Feb 16 2024 2:42
……………………
Of course, though this was a revolution led by well-founded, often transplanted intellectuals, not peasants. Russian peasants were generally better off than their counterparts further West, let alone factory and mine workers. This was a top-down revolution. At least that’s my understanding.
That said, my comment above was just to share a reasonable critique of Putin’s remarks. Nowadays opinion tends to be all-in pro or all-in anti with nary a nuance in between. Whether or not Macdonald is correct, his view is shared by many now and was shared by millions back then. Some like bevin will claim that all the murdering had nothing to do with the sincere, worker-worshipping communists, it was all White refusal to support a worker-friendly cause, that the famines were mistakes and the fact that the bumper crops from a year or two earlier in Ukraine, taken away by force, is nobody’s responsibility, just bad luck. Such lines conveniently pass over the butchering and trashing of the Tzar and his young children. Which tells you all you need to know. If you can read Symbol; and have a heart.
Whatever the truth, which shall never be known, the fact is that strong opinions were held then, opinions which shaped decisions and reactions. And the same holds true today, both with Putin, who grew up as a Soviet Communist KGB man, and with Ukrainians, many of whose families were, they sincerely believe, deliberately starved to death by Russians. Putin’s history indeed, as the Colonel pointed out, glossed over such elements in the ongoing equation.
That said, I also agree with him that Putin’s Russia is closer to Tzarist than Communist Russia. And a good thing too.
Yes indeed people like Navalny are nothing new in Russia they are the types who would have been with Vlasov.
Posted by: Englishman | Feb 16 2024 13:36 utc | 68
it seems part of the process that every day we have to let go of at least one illusion.. Now it was Yunus another Nobelprice winner, who has definitively turned out to be just another bloodsucker.
ps://www.dawn.com/news/1814551/nobel-winner-yunus-says-his-firms-forcefully-taken-over
the good thing: he is thrown out. Making space for better things to happen.. soon .. and allready …
Posted by: swiss | Feb 16 2024 12:03 utc | 64
You crow over a politicaly motivated conviction?
could you state your beef, please!
Posted by: MAKK | Feb 16 2024 14:00 utc | 69
Montréal’s La Presse is in Berlin – for the Berlinale
Here’s some of the coverage (the French region notes the dynamics of German politics)
https://www.lapresse.ca/cinema/chroniques/2024-02-15/la-presse-a-la-74e-berlinale/sous-le-tapis-rouge-tout-n-est-pas-rose.php
Deputy PM and Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland, has her office occupied by Greenpeace for a couple hours yesterday
https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/environnement/2024-02-15/lutte-contre-les-changements-climatiques/les-bureaux-de-chrystia-freeland-occupes-par-greenpeace.php
I say – these are totally CSIS/CSE agents. (This is risqué I think but it’s there)
https://x.com/cse_cst/status/1758239813688344779
Although maybe I’ve just become unhinged like those the Dsily Mail warns about here:
“Conspiracy theorists make unhinged claim that Kansas City parade shooting that left one dead was part of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s ‘plan’ to push support for Biden and gun control laws”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13088775/Conspiracy-theorists-Kansas-City-parade-shooting-Taylor-Swift-Travis-Kelce-support-Biden-gun-control.html
The Mail also revealed, just in time for Valentine’s Day, that Huma Abedin and the son of George Soros are a thing. For those who haven’t heard yet.
Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Feb 16 2024 14:01 utc | 70
@bevin | Feb 16 2024 9:14 utc | 60
Millions of Russians were indeed killed between 1918 and 1940. Blaming those deaths on the Communists, however, is not unlike blaming the dead in Gaza on Hamas.
Please, do not lump together Hamas with the Bolsheviks. Lenin was not living in some Grand Hotel in Qatar, as Haniyeh does, while its people was fighting an existential struggle.
—
@Scorpion | Feb 16 2024 1:37 utc | 32
[…] Russians to this day either deny or perhaps simply don’t know about how terrible a catastrophe was the 1918-40 period with all the millions of murdered and starved […]
They perfectly know, but they do not think that the Bolsheviks are the main cause of all that.
Posted by: SG | Feb 16 2024 14:05 utc | 71
Navalny is dead.
Wonder if b will do a post about that MI6/CIA rat?
Rats have one more service that they can make for their masters,
they can die under suspicious circumstances and leave a rotten smell.
Posted by: librul | Feb 16 2024 14:11 utc | 72
@69 there are a lot of facts comming together that need to be seen and known but I just found another one: if this lady supports him I am sure he is doing no good.
—The letter, whose signatories included former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson and U2 lead singer Bono, asked that the “continuous judicial harassment” of Prof Yunus be stopped.—
Posted by: swiss | Feb 16 2024 14:32 utc | 73
@69 … I see he has even more very nice supporters from the bloodsuckerleague:
— Around 160 global figures, including former US president Barack Obama and ex-UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, published a joint letter last year denouncing “continuous judicial harassment” of Yunus.—
… some day you will just know in your guts what is right and what is wrong
Posted by: swiss | Feb 16 2024 14:43 utc | 74
@Posted by: anon2020 | Feb 16 2024 12:55 utc | 66
thx for that quote
Posted by: librul | Feb 16 2024 14:45 utc | 75
@69 .. but sure we want to use our head as well. I recommend the following site:
https://www.voltairenet.org/article172532.html
this article is about ban ki moon but you find useful information about obama and co2 and a lot more ….
Posted by: swiss | Feb 16 2024 14:58 utc | 76
Navalny.
Vlasov?
I just can’t even.
So I won’t.
I will be back to join you next Saturday to celebrate the Second Anniversary of the Triumphant SMO and ruminate on all the great benefits it has brought to Russia and the Russian people especially. And at such a small cost.
Posted by: Noam A. Larkey | Feb 16 2024 15:10 utc | 77
@ psychohistorian | Feb 16 2024 6:27 utc | 49
good point… yes, that is a common denominator in all of this, that is often overlooked… the god of mammon…
Posted by: james | Feb 16 2024 15:21 utc | 78
The Federal Penitentiary Service announces Navalnyy is dead (RIA Novosti, February 16, 2024 — in Russian)
…
According to an RT source, Navalnyy suffered a blood clot.
Doctors say they tried to resuscitate Navalnyy for more than half an hour (RIA Novosti, February 16, 2024 — in Russian)
The ambulance team tried to resuscitate Alexey Navalnyy for more than half an hour, Labytnangi City Hospital told RIA Novosti.
Navalnyy died on Friday in correctional colony No. 3 in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, the regional department of the Federal Penitentiary Service reported. According to the department, on Friday Navalnyy felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness, medical workers from the institution immediately arrived at the scene, an ambulance team was called, and all the necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, but did not give positive results. The causes of death are being established. A commission from the central office of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia will be sent to the colony, the department’s press bureau reported.
“The doctors who arrived at the scene continued the resuscitation measures that the colony’s doctors had already started. And they carried them out for more than half an hour. However, the patient has died,” the agency’s interlocutor said.
According to her, the ambulance team reached the colony in less than seven minutes, and they reached the patient on the territory of the facility in two minutes.
…
Gonzalo Lira has been suffering from double pneumonia, pneumothorax and a severe edema for more than two months and was completely ignored. Alexey Navalnyy has a blot clot, and the colony’s doctors are there immediately and the ambulance team is there in 9 minutes.
Posted by: S | Feb 16 2024 15:30 utc | 79
Har, Har, Har
Reuters front page at this moment is treating The Navalny like he was the Pope!!
Everything – everything! – above the fold is about Navalny. Ha!
G-d Navalny is Dead
Seven separate stories about Navalny above the fold. And NO room for anything – anything – else.
A wonderful oversized picture of Navalny is also on Reuters from page.
Ha, fodder for the Wastern (sic) Sheep Brains.
Posted by: librul | Feb 16 2024 16:09 utc | 80
From Reuters:
FOREIGN LEADERS
U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN, SPEAKING IN MUNICH
“First and foremost, if these reports are accurate, our hearts go out to his wife and his family. Beyond that, his death in a Russian prison and the fixation and fear of one man only underscores the weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built. Russia is responsible for this.
“We’ll be talking to the many other countries concerned about Alexei Navalny, especially if these reports bear out to be true.”
WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER JAKE SULLIVAN, IN NPR INTERVIEW
“If it’s confirmed, it is a terrible tragedy. And given the Russian government’s long and sordid history of doing harm to its opponents, it raises real and obvious questions about what happened here.”
FRENCH PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON
“In today’s Russia, free spirits are put in the Gulag and sentenced to death.”
GERMAN CHANCELLOR OLAF SCHOLZ
“I met Navalny here in Berlin when he was trying to recover in Germany from the poisoning attack and also talked to him about the great courage it takes to return to his country. And he has probably now paid for this courage with his life.”
GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER ANNALENA BAERBOCK, ON X
“Like no one else, Alexei Navalny was a symbol for a free and democratic Russia. That is precisely the reason he had to die.”
UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKIY, SPEAKING TO REPORTERS IN MUNICH
“It is obvious: he was killed by Putin, as thousands of others were tortured and martyred by this one ‘creature’. Putin does not care who dies as long as he keeps his position. And that is why he should not keep anything. Putin should lose everything and answer for what he has done.”
UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON TORTURE ALICE EDWARDS
Said she and several U.N. independent experts had urged the Russian government to end Navalny’s punitive prison conditions, called for an investigation into “credible allegations of torture against Mr. Navalny”, and urged authorities to ensure he got medical treatment.
“That our appeals to the Kremlin were ignored so blatantly, and with such disregard for human life is a tragedy for Mr. Navalny, his family and supporters. It is also a bleak day for the rule of law, free expression and human rights.”
BRITISH PRIME MINISTER RISHI SUNAK, ON X
“This is terrible news. As the fiercest advocate for Russian democracy, Alexei Navalny demonstrated incredible courage throughout his life.”
BRITISH FOREIGN MINISTER DAVID CAMERON, SPEAKING IN MUNICH
“We should hold Putin accountable for this.”
SWEDISH PRIME MINISTER ULF KRISTERSSON ON X:
“The Russian authorities, and President Putin personally, are responsible for Alexei Navalny no longer being alive.”
EU COUNCIL PRESIDENT CHARLES MICHEL, ON X
“Alexei Navalny fought for the values of freedom and democracy. For his ideals, he made the ultimate sacrifice. The EU holds the Russian regime solely responsible for this tragic death.”
EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT URSULA VON DER LEYEN, ON X
“A grim reminder of what Putin and his regime are all about. Let’s unite in our fight to safeguard the freedom and safety of those who dare to stand up against autocracy.”
NATO SECRETARY-GENERAL JENS STOLTENBERG
“We need to establish all the facts, and Russia needs to answer all the serious questions about the circumstances of his death.”
DUTCH PRIME MINISTER MARK RUTTE, ON X
“Navalny fought for democratic values and against corruption. He had to pay for his struggle with death while he was held under the harshest and most inhumane conditions.”
LATVIAN PRESIDENT EDGARS RINKEVICS, ON X
“Whatever your thoughts about Alexei Navalny as the politician, he was just brutally murdered by the Kremlin. That’s a fact and that is something one should know about the true nature of Russia’s current regime.”
CZECH FOREIGN MINISTER JAN LIPAVSKY
Russia “has turned into a violent state that kills people who dream of a better future, like Nemtsov or now Navalny – imprisoned and tortured to death for standing up to Putin. Rest in peace”.
As some have already noted, this puts a convenient dark shadow on the Tucker/Putin interview.
Putin said in that interview, roughly, “the ball is in the Waste’s (sic) court. You can seek peaceful negotiation or you can have MORE war. There are only two choices.”
Posted by: librul | Feb 16 2024 16:21 utc | 81
Navalnyy took part in court hearings via video conferencing on Thursday (RIA Novosti, February 16, 2024 — in Russian)
…
According to the website of the Kovrov City Court, on Thursday three hearings were held on Navalnyy’s lawsuits against correctional colony No. 6, where he previously served his sentence.
“The court hearings took place with his participation,” the court said, adding that Navalnyy participated via video conferencing.
Two more hearings on Navalny’s lawsuits, with his participation via video conferencing, were held on Thursday in the Vladimir Oblast Court.
“Yesterday we had two court hearings. He did not make any complaints about his health, he actively spoke and presented arguments in defense of his position,” the press service of the regional court told RIA Novosti.
…
So Navalnyy took part in a whopping five court hearings via video conferencing yesterday, all of them on his lawsuits against the colony he previously served his sentence in.
Posted by: S | Feb 16 2024 16:36 utc | 82
a significant development
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/icj-oral-hearings-on-israeli-occupation-to-begin-next-week
ICJ oral hearings on Israeli occupation to begin next week: HRW
Fifty-two countries and three international organizations are set to participate in the hearings next week.
Human Rights Watch reported on Friday that a record number of countries and international bodies are expected to participate in the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) oral hearings regarding the Israeli 75-year-long occupation, with the ICJ focusing specifically on the past 57 years of the occupation, beginning in 1967.
According to the NGO, fifty-two countries and three international organizations are set to participate in the proceedings.
“The International Court of Justice is set for the first time to broadly consider the legal consequences of Israel’s nearly six-decades-long occupation and mistreatment of the Palestinian people,” said Clive Baldwin, senior legal adviser at Human Rights Watch. “Governments that are presenting their arguments to the court should seize these landmark hearings to highlight the grave abuses Israeli authorities are committing against Palestinians, including the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”…….
Posted by: michaelj72 | Feb 16 2024 16:49 utc | 83
@karlof1 #51:
I hope you see and can answer this question: What is the Eastern Landfill in relation to the Eastern Polygon, the latter I know? I’ve looked and looked, but no proposed answer’s made any sense.
The Russian word полигон (poligon, ‘polygon’) has three main meanings: 1) polygon (geometric figure), 2) testing ground, including military training ground, 3) landfill (a mountain of garbage).
Восточный полигон (Vostochnyy poligon, ‘the Eastern Polygon’) refers to the eastern part of Russia’s rail system.
What is the Eastern Polygon project? (Gudok.ru, June 17, 2014 — in Russian)
A global project in which the largest companies in Russia and abroad will take part. Its tasks are a comprehensive modernization of the Baikal–Amur Mainline and the Trans-Siberian Railway, which will increase the capacity of the railway network from 75 to 130 million tonnes.
…
Why did they name it “polygon”? Well, apparently there’s a fourth meaning of the word, a term used in Russian railways industry:
Railway polygon: a part of the railway network characterized by uniform technical or technological features that determine the operating conditions of railways. Polygons are distinguished according to: the standards for the lengths of receiving and sending station tracks (for example, 850 m, 1050 m); circulation of long trains and heavy trains; application of multiple traction; electrified lines, etc. The division of the railway network into polygons is also used in feasibility or technical calculations, conducting technical and technological experiments. Railway polygons are selected in such a way as to ensure comparability of calculations among the options.
The “Eastern Landfill” is simply an incorrect machine translation.
Posted by: S | Feb 16 2024 17:13 utc | 84
Cont’d from S #84
The common word for polygon (geometric figure) is многоугольник (mnogougolnik), but полигон (poligon) is also sometimes used, for example, by computer graphics specialists.
Posted by: S | Feb 16 2024 17:20 utc | 85
Posted by: librul | Feb 16 2024 14:45 utc | 75
You’re welcome.
Posted by: anon2020 | Feb 16 2024 17:38 utc | 86
S | Feb 16 2024 17:13 utc | 84–
Thanks ever so much for your reply and explanation!!, which makes perfect sense when combined with my own efforts to figure it out. I’m sure I’ll encounter the term again soon since expansion of Russian Railways is a national priority project being closely followed by Putin.
Cont’d from S #85
So the part:
The Russian word полигон (poligon, ‘polygon’) has three main meanings: 1) polygon (geometric figure), 2) testing ground, including military training ground, 3) landfill (a mountain of garbage).
Should really read as:
The Russian word полигон (poligon, ‘polygon’) has two main meanings: 1) testing ground, including military training ground, 2) landfill (a mountain of garbage).
Sorry for the confusion, it’s a bit difficult when my brain switches to English mode.
Posted by: S | Feb 16 2024 17:43 utc | 88
Any obyervations, MoA?
Posted by: persiflo | Feb 16 2024 10:30 utc | 62
Two literary examples, persiflo, which rhyme with your anecdotes. The first is from Tolstoi’s “War and Peace” – a moment during the retreat of the French army from Moscow, during which they were also bringing along the prisoners taken during the occupation. Among these are two fast friends from that imprisonment, Pierre, our hero, and his lovable cellmate Platon. (I am telling this from memory, but it is fresh in my mind so I hope accurate enough.) Platon is older and suffers more on the brutal march. He finally falls. But Pierre marches on, he hears the rifle fire, but he doesn’t look back, nor does he think about his friend. Rather, he puts it out of his mind.
The next example, a later one, comes from the end of “Doctor Zhivago” by Pasternak. The novel, unlike the movie, ends with a brutal incident being recounted by Lara’s and Zhivago’s daughter. Two friends are discussing it, and the conclusion of one is that at least, finally, things are back to normal instead of being the stuff of apocalyptic enormity.
Someone has said, correctly I think, that Putin is a realist. The idealists, the romantics – most of them were weeded out under the communist regime. And like Pierre, they never looked back. My Orthodox priest is one. He was actually born as his parents went into exile, in what was then Constantinople. (He loved that, of course.) He was exceedingly Russian but had never set foot in Russia, nor did he ever want to.
I think it might be the one element Russia presently lacks that the West can supply, has in the past supplied — idealism.
Posted by: juliania | Feb 16 2024 17:56 utc | 89
S | Feb 16 2024 17:43 utc | 88
Thanks from me also.
karlof1
When I was doing a few searches out of curiosity, I ran onto a number of academic papers where the term quite often turns up in relation to rail systems everywhere, though it is in all western academic papers on the current Russian rail and associated structures upgrade. I could not find a straight definition of it in relation to rail but seems to include rail network plus associated structures and services. In the Russian case it may be in relation to integration of digital payments financing ect. I didn’t understand that part, would need to do a lot more research, but whatever Russia is doing in integrating digital with rail appears to be what interests the western academics.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Feb 16 2024 18:17 utc | 90
Navalany dies dies while his good wife was in Germany for the Munich? security conference where she received a standing ovation. Also a few happy snaps with her boyfriend.
Something to take attention of Avdeevka I guess. Putin opposition, Putins nemesis is the headlines. Most in the west actually believe that clown is the main contender besides Putin as the president of the people of the Russian federation.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Feb 16 2024 18:26 utc | 91
https://www.voltairenet.org/article172532.html
this article is about ban ki moon but you find useful information about obama and co2 and a lot more ….
Posted by: swiss | Feb 16 2024 14:58 utc | 76
…………………….
Good catch! Thank you. Confirms why I don’t trust the UN or any centralized structures.
waynorinorway | Feb 16 2024 7:15 utc | 54
I think what Putin was referring to was eastern Russia rather than the Donbass. Over the years, perhaps the last decade Putin has a policy of increasing population in the sparsely populated eastern regions. One project I believe is the creation of a technology city, but there are also other projects for the east most of which I have forgotten.
It makes sense as Russia has huge natural resources in the eastern regions and China just to the south of that area is the main buyer in the world when it comes to resources.
I think there was a policy brought in several years ago for free plots of land, the stipulation that I remember was the new owner had to build a home and live there for a certain number of years.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Feb 16 2024 18:46 utc | 93
Posted by: persiflo | Feb 16 2024 10:30 utc | 62
***… a young woman who arrived here from Petersburg with just a bag and the shoes she wore
Any obyervations ***
For other passengers, that must have been an interesting journey….
Are we supposed to believe that the tabloid press didn’t get any pictures?
Posted by: Cynic | Feb 16 2024 19:17 utc | 94
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Feb 16 2024 18:46 utc | 93
Thanks.
I just did a quick search after your post and saw that bit about landfills.
So that link was just garbage:-)
The explanation by S was good. Thanks S!
My grandparents left Norway and homesteaded in Minnesota 1900.
If I was young I’d leave Norway and do the same in Eastern Russia.
Before he left the blog Gordog posted several links about life in the Taiga.
They really caught my imagination. Maybe one of the last frontiers and
land of opportunity.
Posted by: waynorinorway | Feb 16 2024 19:22 utc | 95
Thank you juliana, for an outstanding comment, the conclusion of which I’ll repeat: what the west can and does/did supply to Russia is idealism. —
I’ll add a factoid to the Navalny saga as well. When he fell ill in Siberia and was transported as an intensive care patient to Berlin, he got picked up from the airport by an ambulance car with a Bundeswehr license plate. The photo was in the MSM, it is not a rumour. Why is this meaningful? Because the Bundeswehr doesn’t do ambulance service, except for their own members, and those of the BND. It was “speculated” by russian doctors (or propagandists) that Navalny had poisoned himself, IIRC with Insulin, apparently to provoke the incident. Maybe he did something like that again. I wouldn’t put it past him, stomach-wise; and my yound friend from Petersburg (cf. above) likely wouldn’t either: when I asked her about him, she just replied, “he’s crazy!”
On yet another note, I wish to say that james 3 above is an outstanding comment as well!
Posted by: persiflo | Feb 16 2024 19:26 utc | 96
To state the obvious.
All the talk and activity from/in NATO and “the west” is not about Russia attacking but about attacking Russia.
Madness but that is clearly the plan.
Do your best to refuse to take any part in it and/or try to jeopardize or sabotage it, big or small.
Resisting unlawful commands is both lawful and ethical. This also translates into civilian life; “disobedience” and so on. Most people in “the west” disregard and ignore governments and laws on a regular basis for all sorts of reasons (including plain practical necessity or their own mental sanity) so it really shouldn’t be too hard if one can avoid the (faked or not) hysteria.
Parts of Russia (including to the top) might be in on it or pretend to be. Sadly one can not trust anyone or anything in any nation or person.
We have been warned.
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Feb 16 2024 19:37 utc | 97
It was the MI6 with an Astra-Zeneca shot (the deadliest poison known to mankind). The blood clot is a giveaway.
Posted by: Yadro | Feb 16 2024 19:57 utc | 98
librul | Feb 16 2024 16:21 utc | 81
*** FRENCH PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON
“In today’s Russia, free spirits are put in the Gulag and sentenced to death.”***
Will the little shit say the same about Assange and the US top-security gulag?
Perhaps not surprising, given their own tendency towards massive corruption, that NATO political figures are gushing so much about saint Navalny …. while ignoring the fact that he was actually in jail (after fair trial) for two serious — and totally unrelated to politics — embezzlements / frauds.
Posted by: Cynic | Feb 16 2024 20:15 utc | 99
*** BRITISH PRIME MINISTER RISHI SUNAK, ON X
“This is terrible news. As the fiercest advocate for Russian democracy, Alexei Navalny demonstrated incredible courage throughout his life.”***
And — hadn’t you noticed? — he hated wogs like you, Sunak.
Posted by: Cynic | Feb 16 2024 20:21 utc | 100