LOL - The guy in the video fired his warning shot into the building.
Last edited:
ALERT RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE - Consolidated Thread
- Thread starter danielboon
- Start date
LOL - The guy in the video fired his warning shot into the building.
TheSearcher
Are you sure about that?
Well, except we weren't trying to invade Cuba and make it part of the USA.
Countrymouse
Country exile in the city
No you miss the point--
having MISSILES in Cuba meant they were only 10 minutes away from the US--and MAJOR U.S. TARGETS (like DC)
What Russia is worried about is NATO MISSILES set up in Ukraine--less than 100 miles from MAJOR Russian TARGETS
same thing
LIVE: State Department briefing as U.S. threatens sanctions on Russia if it attacks Ukraine
View: https://youtu.be/TloMCeB6v9I
TheSearcher
Are you sure about that?
No, I got that point. I was making an additional point
Russia is being opposed because of their actions. Beyond that, we're many decades beyond needing to be so close to hit Russia (or anywhere else) in 10 minutes.
How many Russian nuclear missiles are deployed within 100 miles of our NATO allies? We might be surprised.
With the removal of the Pershing intermediate range ballistic nuclear missile from Europe in the 90's, I don't believe that NATO has any IRBM deployed within 100 miles of Russia.
Russia doth protest too much?
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danielboon
TB Fanatic
.@StateDeptSpox Says written responses have not yet been transmitted to Russia but noted that Ukraine was consulted and given a preview of what will be in the report. "There will be no surprises," he said Washington, District of Columbia - Ukraine In
.@StateDeptSpox Says written responses have not yet been transmitted to Russia but noted that Ukraine was consulted and given a preview of what will be in the report. "There will be no surprises," he said. Live Universal Awareness Map Liveuamap is a leading independent global news and...
liveuamap.com
adgal
Veteran Member
Probably. I liked the Washington Times article about the relationship between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine has only been independent since the 1990s - before that, it was a part of Russia. It's a border issue. There are MANY border issues going on throughout the world. Why are we thinking about getting our troops killed because of their border issue? And, really, there is no way Biden can say anything about the sanctity of a border considering what he's done to ours.
ok here is the deal
they passed a new law where everyone has to get new cash registers and it is obligatory and when they do
"So that business needs new machines to tax and tax up to 19.5% than rather than 5% or 10%"
"There was idea to light the grey sector of economy"
"But in this crisis business denies bank operations and takes only cash"
so every business now has to have a official cash register, even flea market type places, and must collect taxes.
and i suspect that they have to buy the new machines too, from 'favored' suppliers.
big big deal.
Russias missile beef is about the AEGIS Ashore in Romania and in Poland. While they are ABM sites, in theory you could replace some of those interceptor missiles with nuclear armed cruise missiles as they use the same launchers. I dont know if they hve the software and guidance packages but that is probably just a download.
adgal
Veteran Member
View: https://twitter.com/EndGameWW3/status/1486032587047026689
EndGameWW3
@EndGameWW3
Calling to surrender? Update: The French President will have a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin on Ukraine this Friday.
11:45 AM · Jan 25, 2022·Twitter Web App
EndGameWW3
@EndGameWW3
Calling to surrender? Update: The French President will have a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin on Ukraine this Friday.
11:45 AM · Jan 25, 2022·Twitter Web App
dstraito
TB Fanatic
I just got a feeling that this situation is about to escalate.
Given that there is an evil.group trying to get rid of us, this seems like a perfect way to do it.
The US had no business setting up a Ukrainian administration. We have not business being on the border.
That would be like Russia setting up troops in Mexico. The rhetoric is all wrong.
This administration would not know how to make things better if they tried but they are not trying.
A war with Russia could be a good scapegoat and blame for this administrations failures as well as advancing their agenda.
I do not claim to be an expert though I do know my way and the Risk game.
Given that there is an evil.group trying to get rid of us, this seems like a perfect way to do it.
The US had no business setting up a Ukrainian administration. We have not business being on the border.
That would be like Russia setting up troops in Mexico. The rhetoric is all wrong.
This administration would not know how to make things better if they tried but they are not trying.
A war with Russia could be a good scapegoat and blame for this administrations failures as well as advancing their agenda.
I do not claim to be an expert though I do know my way and the Risk game.
danielboon
TB Fanatic
EndGameWW3 Retweeted
Rob Lee
@RALee85
·
2h
The Western and Southern Military Districts announced combat readiness inspections, which will include raising units to an alert status and moving them to training ranges, and will end this week. This includes the Black Sea Fleet and Caspian Flotilla. 793/ https://militarynews.ru/story.asp?rid=1&nid=565204&lang=RU
Rob Lee
@RALee85
·
2h
The Western and Southern Military Districts announced combat readiness inspections, which will include raising units to an alert status and moving them to training ranges, and will end this week. This includes the Black Sea Fleet and Caspian Flotilla. 793/ https://militarynews.ru/story.asp?rid=1&nid=565204&lang=RU
danielboon
TB Fanatic
EndGameWW3
@EndGameWW3
·
39m
WASHINGTON — The United States could send more troops to Eastern Europe in addition to the 8,500 already placed on high alert in response to Russia’s military buildup along its border with Ukraine, chief Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday.
https://t.co/AoAkf1QRbm
@EndGameWW3
·
39m
WASHINGTON — The United States could send more troops to Eastern Europe in addition to the 8,500 already placed on high alert in response to Russia’s military buildup along its border with Ukraine, chief Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday.
https://t.co/AoAkf1QRbm
danielboon
TB Fanatic
Henry Bolton OBE
@_HenryBolton
Russia has deployed 75% of its combat power to the Ukrainian border, even redeploying units 4,000 miles from #UlanUde near the Chinese border to Gomel, Belarus. Do not be in any doubts about how incredibly serious this is. Why it’s not on every front page, is beyond me.
@_HenryBolton
Russia has deployed 75% of its combat power to the Ukrainian border, even redeploying units 4,000 miles from #UlanUde near the Chinese border to Gomel, Belarus. Do not be in any doubts about how incredibly serious this is. Why it’s not on every front page, is beyond me.
The Hammer
Has No Life - Lives on TB
75%??
If true, that's a huge commitment. Probably the kind you intend to do something about...
SNOWSQUAW
Veteran Member
I think they hit us with a warning nuke on our nv test site like they said - make us sit down and shut up. Then go after Ukraine. Possibly grab a few more while they are on a roll. Then stop and say ok ok, we were too agressive.
Just my .02
oh- and it happens this week. He has too much deployed to the arena to not take action and every day they put more resistance in place.
Just my .02
oh- and it happens this week. He has too much deployed to the arena to not take action and every day they put more resistance in place.
danielboon
TB Fanatic
yes but wouldn,t that leave the rest of the country vulnerable
SouthernBreeze
Has No Life - Lives on TB
I agree. Not to mention that most of his military is in one area. What would it take to wipe it all out in one blink?
rob0126
Veteran Member
China has there back.
Plus, the russian nuke subs will make sure to bring the pain to whoever tries that.
The Hammer
Has No Life - Lives on TB
That's just it. If you're committing that big of a chunk of your capability in one general area, you're not leaving much else for the rest of your territory (which is Russia's case is substantial).
That's usually more than saber rattling, unless you have the ability to quickly and fairly easily reshuffle the deck.
AlfaMan
Has No Life - Lives on TB
If this is correct; then Russia is getting ready to do something far more violent than just take over the Ukraine. And these troops are going to Belarus, not the Belgorod or Voronzeh oblasts. Ever look at a map of Belarus? Ever thought about why these troops are massing in Belarus? I didn't think so.
Let me throw out this out to you. Ukraine is to the south of Belarus. To the west is Poland-A NATO member. To the northwest of Minsk is a stone's throw away from Vilnius. Vilnius is the capitol of Lithuania, another full NATO member. To the north of Vilnius is Riga, Latvia. Another NATO full member. Finally, to the north of Riga is yet another country of interest-Talinn, which is the capitol of yet another NATO member-Estonia.
To quote the tweet-"Do not be in any doubts about how incredibly serious this is."
The Hammer
Has No Life - Lives on TB
All of those you listed are former USSR as well, if I'm not mistaken...
mistaken1
Has No Life - Lives on TB
ALERT - RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE - Consolidated Thread
I don’t know, I already see some at TB2000 ready to pull a Lee Greenwood… Well, I consider this forum like an intelligence test. Some are passing, and some ARE FAILING.
mistaken1
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Either ukraine does not join nato or russia ceases to exist. If russia ceases to exist so will some number of other nations.
adgal
Veteran Member
This article is from 2014 - but I think it's applicable right now.
Fair use:
Vladimir Putin: The rebuilding of ‘Soviet’ Russia
Published28 March 2014
Share
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
The world was stunned when Russia invaded Crimea, but should it have been? Author and journalist Oliver Bullough says President Vladimir Putin never kept secret his intention to restore Russian power - what's less clear, he says, is how long the country's rise can continue.
On 16 August 1999, the members of Russia's parliament - the State Duma - met to approve the candidacy of a prime minister. They heard the candidate's speech, they asked him a few questions, and they dutifully confirmed him in the position.
This was President Boris Yeltsin's fifth premier in 16 months, and one confused party leader got the name wrong. He said he would support the candidacy of Stepashin - the surname of the recently sacked prime minister - rather than that of his little-known successor, before making an embarrassing correction.
If even leading Duma deputies couldn't remember the new prime minister's name, you couldn't blame the rest of the world if it didn't pay much attention to his speech. He was unlikely to head the Russian government for more than a couple of months anyway, so why bother?
That man was a former KGB officer, Vladimir Putin, and he has been in charge of the world's largest country, as president or prime minister, ever since. Few realised it at the time, because few were listening, but that speech provided a blueprint for pretty much everything he has done, for how he would re-shape a country that was perilously close to total collapse.
IMAGE SOURCE,AP
Image caption,
The little-known Putin became prime minister
Just 364 days previously, Russia had defaulted on its debt. Salaries for public sector workers and pensions were being paid months late, if at all. Basic infrastructure was collapsing. The country's most prized assets belonged to a handful of well-connected "oligarchs", who ran the country like a private fiefdom.
The once-mighty Russian army had lost a war in Chechnya, a place with fewer inhabitants than Russia had soldiers. Three former Warsaw Pact allies had joined Nato, bringing the Western alliance up to Russia's borders.
Meanwhile, the country was led by Yeltsin, an irascible drunkard in fragile health. The situation was desperate, but Putin had a plan.
"I cannot cover all the tasks facing the government in this speech. But I do know one thing for sure: not one of those tasks can be performed without imposing basic order and discipline in this country, without strengthening the vertical chain," he told the assembled parliamentarians.
Born in Leningrad in 1952, Putin came of age in the Soviet Union's golden years, the period after the USSR's astonishing triumph in World War Two. Sputnik, the hydrogen bomb, Laika the dog and Yuri Gagarin all bore witness to Soviet ingenuity. The crushing of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 bore witness to Soviet resolve. Soviet citizens were enjoying a time of peace and prosperity. Life was stable. People got paid. The world respected them. Everyone knew their place.
When Putin spoke to the Duma, his homeland was a different, and less respected place. He spoke the language of a man who yearned for the lost certainties, who longed for a time when Moscow was to be reckoned with. He did not say it explicitly, but he was clearly stung by Russia's failure to stop Nato driving the forces of its ally, Serbia, out of Kosovo just months previously.
"Russia has been a great power for centuries, and remains so. It has always had and still has legitimate zones of interest ... We should not drop our guard in this respect, neither should we allow our opinion to be ignored," he said.
His domestic policy was to restore stability, to end what he called the "revolutions", that had brought Russia low. His foreign policy was to regain Russia's place in world affairs.
Those two core aims have driven everything he has done since. If only people had been listening, none of his actions would have come as a surprise to them.
Since then, he has seized every opportunity history has offered him, from the attacks of 11 September 2001 to the Ukrainian Revolution of 2013, in his bid to secure his aims. He has been tactically astute and ruthlessly opportunistic. At home and abroad, he wants Russia to regain the prestige it held when he was growing up.
The obvious place to start his campaign was in Chechnya, symbol of Russia's collapse. The Chechens had defeated Yeltsin's attempt to crush their self-declared independence, but it proved a bitter victory. The war devastated Chechnya's people, economy and infrastructure. Chechnya became a sink of kidnapping, violence and crime, and - until Putin - no-one did anything about it.
Finally, for long-suffering patriotic Russians, here was a man not only able to pay their pensions, but prepared to get his hands dirty to defend their homeland. By the turn of the millennium, when Yeltsin stood down, and appointed Putin acting president in his place, the unknown prime minister's public approval rating was above 70% a level it has barely dipped below ever since.
Human rights groups and some Western governments accused Putin of breaking Russian and international law in his pursuit of his Chechen opponents. (The European Court of Human Rights has found against Russia in 232 "right to life" cases, effectively ruling that Russia repeatedly committed murder during its Chechen campaign.) But that has done nothing to dent Putin's popularity.
In Chechnya, hundreds of soldiers and thousands of Chechens died. Hundreds of thousands of Chechens fled to claim asylum outside Russia, but Russia's territorial integrity was secured, and Putin had begun his task of restoring Russian prestige.
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
Russian troops in Chechnya in 2001
After 11 September 2001, Putin recast his Chechen campaign as part of the global fight against terrorism, thus muting international criticism of his troops' conduct. He became briefly close to President George W Bush - who even claimed to have glimpsed Putin's soul - until the Iraq War drove them apart. In Iraq, Putin insisted that international law must be upheld - no invasion could be allowed without approval from the United Nations Security Council, and that approval was not forthcoming.
At home, he crushed the most powerful of the oligarchs, first those who controlled media assets, thus taming the lively television scene, and then in 2003 police arrested Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the richest man in the country. His oil company was dismembered and bought by a state oil company. He was jailed in a process so egregiously predetermined that Amnesty International declared him to be a prisoner of conscience.
IMAGE SOURCE,TATYANA MAKEYEVA
"I think it became absolutely clear when Khodorkovsky was arrested, that Putin was not going after the oligarchs to reassert the power of democratic civil society over these titans. He was doing it as part of building an authoritarian regime," says Chrystia Freeland, the FT's bureau chief in Moscow when Putin came to power, and now a Liberal member of the Canadian parliament. (She is also one of the 13 Canadians barred from entering Russia this week in response to Canada's imposition of sanctions against Russian officials.)
Putin kept a tight grip on the parliamentary elections at the end of 2003, and his allies gained two-thirds of the Duma. He praised the poll as a step towards "strengthening democracy" - monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe called it "overwhelmingly distorted".
In just four years, Putin had crushed Chechnya, reined in the free media and the oligarchs, gained a parliament that would do whatever he wanted, and shown that Russia had a strong voice in international affairs.
"He says what he thinks and does what he says - at least much more than probably any other contemporary politician or statesman. Western analysts and politicians always try to uncover some sort of false bottom in his statements, when there often isn't one. That applies to many other Soviet leaders including Stalin - at least in the run-up to and during WW2," says Dmitry Linnik, London bureau chief of the Voice of Russia radio.
"He is a nationalist - in the federal 'Russian', not ethnic 'Russian', sense of the word. That is his biggest driving force, I think - not hunger for power or personal ambition."
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
Putin restored some of the Soviet symbols, such as the five-pointed star
But Freeland disagrees.
"I think he has taken a series of decisions, quite rationally from his narrow personal point of view, that this kind of autocratic regime gives him the most personal power and personal wealth," she says.
There was one thing missing to make the world of his childhood complete: an ideology.
Putin restored some Soviet symbols. He brought back the Soviet national anthem and Soviet emblems, and praised the Soviet triumph in World War Two. But he embraced pre-Soviet themes too. He befriended the Russian Orthodox Church, and name-checked anti-Soviet philosophers like Ivan Ilyin, whose remains he had repatriated to Russia and buried with honour.
This trend towards a uniquely Russian form of conservatism accelerated after the wave of protests against electoral fraud that struck Moscow in 2011-2, which alienated Putin from Russia's liberals. Among his favourite ideologues is Vladimir Yakunin, an old friend, a fellow KGB graduate, an Orthodox believer and now head of Russian Railways, one of the country's most strategically significant companies.
"Russia is not between Europe and Asia. Europe and Asia are to the left and right of Russia. We are not a bridge between them but a separate civilisational space, where Russia unites the civilisational communities of East and West," Yakunin said in a recent interview with Itar-Tass.
Last week, he was added to the US sanctions list for "membership of the Russian leadership's inner circle", following the annexation of Crimea.
The idea of Russia being separate from but equal to the West is convenient, since it allows the Kremlin to reject Western criticism of its elections, its court cases, its foreign policy, as biased and irrelevant.
Many of Putin's friends, though dismissive of the West's economics, politics, values and structures, are, however, much attached to its comforts. Both of Yakunin's sons live in Western Europe - one in London, one in Switzerland - and his grandchildren are growing up there.
According to the anti-corruption campaigner, Alexei Navalny, Yakunin has built himself a palace outside Moscow using foreign limestone and building materials brought in from Germany - a strange step for a man supposedly wedded to creating a Russian economy independent of the West.
Putin too has espoused principles, then dropped them when they proved inconvenient. In Iraq in 2003, he made a stand in defence of international law, opposing any invasion without UN approval. In Georgia in 2008, he sent in the troops without even pretending to consult with the Security Council.
Last year, intervention in Syria was out of the question. This year, intervention in Ukraine is justified and unimpeachably legitimate. It may be that principles have never been the issue - and that Putin's objective has always been to maximise Russian power, and to defy Western attempts to rein Russia in.
"We have every reason to assume that the infamous policy of containment, conducted in the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries, continues today. They are constantly trying to sweep us into a corner because we have an independent position," said Putin in his speech last week announcing the annexation of Crimea, a speech that repeated all his points from 1999, but with 15 years worth of additional resentment.
"If you compress the spring all the way to its limit, it will snap back hard. You must always remember this."
It is not easy re-shaping a country on your own, and Putin has needed the assistance of one key group within Russian society. While he has cracked down on independent journalists, businessmen and politicians, he has relied on state officials to make sure his ideas are implemented.
They have been well rewarded for their help. Wages for top officials increased last year by 20%, four times the increase in the general budget. Putin's spending binge means that, for the budget to balance, Brent crude must now average around $117 a barrel, more than five times the level needed in 2006, according to analysis from Deutsche Bank.
Even that is not enough for top officials. Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, said last week that, in 2013, the average bribe in Russia had doubled to $4,000. Last year, Transparency International gave Russia 127th place on its Corruption Perception Index, rating it as corrupt as Pakistan, Mali and Madagascar.
"Putin has really painted himself into a corner by destroying every independent source of power in Russia. He now has only the bureaucracy to rely on, and must keep increasing its funding to keep ensuring its loyalty," says Ben Judah, the British author of Fragile Empire, a study of Putin's Russia.
"Eventually, the money is going to run out, and then he will find himself in the same position Soviet leaders were in by the late 1980s, forced to confront political and economic crises, while trying to hold the country together. He looks strong now, but his Kremlin is built on the one thing in Russia doesn't control: the price of oil."
Putin has succeeded in building a version of the country of his childhood, one that can act independently in the world, and one where dissent is controlled and the Kremlin's power unchallenged. But that is a double-edged sword, because the Soviet Union collapsed for a reason, and a Russia recreated in its image risks sharing its fate.
According to Vladimir Bukovsky, a dissident who spent a decade in Soviet prisons before his exile to the West in 1976, Putin is totally genuine when he says the disintegration of the Soviet Union was a "geopolitical catastrophe".
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
IMAGE SOURCE,AFP
Image caption,
Putin with the head of the Russian army's main department of combat preparation in early March
"He does not understand that the collapse of the Soviet system was predetermined, therefore he believes his mission is to restore the Soviet system as soon as possible," he says.
As a middle-ranking KGB officer who loved the Soviet Union, Putin lacked the perspective of senior officers, who knew full well the Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its own inefficiency rather than because of Western plotting, Bukovsky says.
"It leads him exactly to… repeat the same mistakes. He wants this whole country to be controlled by one person from the Kremlin, which will lead to disaster," he says.
Putin's decision to invade Crimea was taken quickly and impulsively, by a small group of his favoured top officials. That means Putin has no one to warn him of the long-term consequences of his actions, and until he finds out for himself, he will maintain his course. That means relations with the West will remain uncomfortable, especially in areas he considers to be his "zone of legitimate interests".
But we can't say we weren't warned.
Oliver Bullough is Caucasus editor at the Institute of War and Peace Reporting. His most recent book is The Last Man in Russia, detailing the demographic decline of the Russian nation.
Fair use:
Vladimir Putin: The rebuilding of ‘Soviet’ Russia
The world was stunned when Russia invaded Crimea, but should it have been, asks author and journalist Oliver Bullough.
www.bbc.com
Vladimir Putin: The rebuilding of ‘Soviet’ Russia
Published28 March 2014
Share
The world was stunned when Russia invaded Crimea, but should it have been? Author and journalist Oliver Bullough says President Vladimir Putin never kept secret his intention to restore Russian power - what's less clear, he says, is how long the country's rise can continue.
On 16 August 1999, the members of Russia's parliament - the State Duma - met to approve the candidacy of a prime minister. They heard the candidate's speech, they asked him a few questions, and they dutifully confirmed him in the position.
This was President Boris Yeltsin's fifth premier in 16 months, and one confused party leader got the name wrong. He said he would support the candidacy of Stepashin - the surname of the recently sacked prime minister - rather than that of his little-known successor, before making an embarrassing correction.
If even leading Duma deputies couldn't remember the new prime minister's name, you couldn't blame the rest of the world if it didn't pay much attention to his speech. He was unlikely to head the Russian government for more than a couple of months anyway, so why bother?
That man was a former KGB officer, Vladimir Putin, and he has been in charge of the world's largest country, as president or prime minister, ever since. Few realised it at the time, because few were listening, but that speech provided a blueprint for pretty much everything he has done, for how he would re-shape a country that was perilously close to total collapse.
Image caption,
The little-known Putin became prime minister
Just 364 days previously, Russia had defaulted on its debt. Salaries for public sector workers and pensions were being paid months late, if at all. Basic infrastructure was collapsing. The country's most prized assets belonged to a handful of well-connected "oligarchs", who ran the country like a private fiefdom.
The once-mighty Russian army had lost a war in Chechnya, a place with fewer inhabitants than Russia had soldiers. Three former Warsaw Pact allies had joined Nato, bringing the Western alliance up to Russia's borders.
Meanwhile, the country was led by Yeltsin, an irascible drunkard in fragile health. The situation was desperate, but Putin had a plan.
"I cannot cover all the tasks facing the government in this speech. But I do know one thing for sure: not one of those tasks can be performed without imposing basic order and discipline in this country, without strengthening the vertical chain," he told the assembled parliamentarians.
Born in Leningrad in 1952, Putin came of age in the Soviet Union's golden years, the period after the USSR's astonishing triumph in World War Two. Sputnik, the hydrogen bomb, Laika the dog and Yuri Gagarin all bore witness to Soviet ingenuity. The crushing of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 bore witness to Soviet resolve. Soviet citizens were enjoying a time of peace and prosperity. Life was stable. People got paid. The world respected them. Everyone knew their place.
When Putin spoke to the Duma, his homeland was a different, and less respected place. He spoke the language of a man who yearned for the lost certainties, who longed for a time when Moscow was to be reckoned with. He did not say it explicitly, but he was clearly stung by Russia's failure to stop Nato driving the forces of its ally, Serbia, out of Kosovo just months previously.
"Russia has been a great power for centuries, and remains so. It has always had and still has legitimate zones of interest ... We should not drop our guard in this respect, neither should we allow our opinion to be ignored," he said.
His domestic policy was to restore stability, to end what he called the "revolutions", that had brought Russia low. His foreign policy was to regain Russia's place in world affairs.
Those two core aims have driven everything he has done since. If only people had been listening, none of his actions would have come as a surprise to them.
Since then, he has seized every opportunity history has offered him, from the attacks of 11 September 2001 to the Ukrainian Revolution of 2013, in his bid to secure his aims. He has been tactically astute and ruthlessly opportunistic. At home and abroad, he wants Russia to regain the prestige it held when he was growing up.
The obvious place to start his campaign was in Chechnya, symbol of Russia's collapse. The Chechens had defeated Yeltsin's attempt to crush their self-declared independence, but it proved a bitter victory. The war devastated Chechnya's people, economy and infrastructure. Chechnya became a sink of kidnapping, violence and crime, and - until Putin - no-one did anything about it.
Finally, for long-suffering patriotic Russians, here was a man not only able to pay their pensions, but prepared to get his hands dirty to defend their homeland. By the turn of the millennium, when Yeltsin stood down, and appointed Putin acting president in his place, the unknown prime minister's public approval rating was above 70% a level it has barely dipped below ever since.
Human rights groups and some Western governments accused Putin of breaking Russian and international law in his pursuit of his Chechen opponents. (The European Court of Human Rights has found against Russia in 232 "right to life" cases, effectively ruling that Russia repeatedly committed murder during its Chechen campaign.) But that has done nothing to dent Putin's popularity.
In Chechnya, hundreds of soldiers and thousands of Chechens died. Hundreds of thousands of Chechens fled to claim asylum outside Russia, but Russia's territorial integrity was secured, and Putin had begun his task of restoring Russian prestige.
Image caption,
Russian troops in Chechnya in 2001
After 11 September 2001, Putin recast his Chechen campaign as part of the global fight against terrorism, thus muting international criticism of his troops' conduct. He became briefly close to President George W Bush - who even claimed to have glimpsed Putin's soul - until the Iraq War drove them apart. In Iraq, Putin insisted that international law must be upheld - no invasion could be allowed without approval from the United Nations Security Council, and that approval was not forthcoming.
At home, he crushed the most powerful of the oligarchs, first those who controlled media assets, thus taming the lively television scene, and then in 2003 police arrested Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the richest man in the country. His oil company was dismembered and bought by a state oil company. He was jailed in a process so egregiously predetermined that Amnesty International declared him to be a prisoner of conscience.
"I think it became absolutely clear when Khodorkovsky was arrested, that Putin was not going after the oligarchs to reassert the power of democratic civil society over these titans. He was doing it as part of building an authoritarian regime," says Chrystia Freeland, the FT's bureau chief in Moscow when Putin came to power, and now a Liberal member of the Canadian parliament. (She is also one of the 13 Canadians barred from entering Russia this week in response to Canada's imposition of sanctions against Russian officials.)
Putin kept a tight grip on the parliamentary elections at the end of 2003, and his allies gained two-thirds of the Duma. He praised the poll as a step towards "strengthening democracy" - monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe called it "overwhelmingly distorted".
In just four years, Putin had crushed Chechnya, reined in the free media and the oligarchs, gained a parliament that would do whatever he wanted, and shown that Russia had a strong voice in international affairs.
"He says what he thinks and does what he says - at least much more than probably any other contemporary politician or statesman. Western analysts and politicians always try to uncover some sort of false bottom in his statements, when there often isn't one. That applies to many other Soviet leaders including Stalin - at least in the run-up to and during WW2," says Dmitry Linnik, London bureau chief of the Voice of Russia radio.
"He is a nationalist - in the federal 'Russian', not ethnic 'Russian', sense of the word. That is his biggest driving force, I think - not hunger for power or personal ambition."
Image caption,
Putin restored some of the Soviet symbols, such as the five-pointed star
But Freeland disagrees.
"I think he has taken a series of decisions, quite rationally from his narrow personal point of view, that this kind of autocratic regime gives him the most personal power and personal wealth," she says.
There was one thing missing to make the world of his childhood complete: an ideology.
Putin restored some Soviet symbols. He brought back the Soviet national anthem and Soviet emblems, and praised the Soviet triumph in World War Two. But he embraced pre-Soviet themes too. He befriended the Russian Orthodox Church, and name-checked anti-Soviet philosophers like Ivan Ilyin, whose remains he had repatriated to Russia and buried with honour.
This trend towards a uniquely Russian form of conservatism accelerated after the wave of protests against electoral fraud that struck Moscow in 2011-2, which alienated Putin from Russia's liberals. Among his favourite ideologues is Vladimir Yakunin, an old friend, a fellow KGB graduate, an Orthodox believer and now head of Russian Railways, one of the country's most strategically significant companies.
"Russia is not between Europe and Asia. Europe and Asia are to the left and right of Russia. We are not a bridge between them but a separate civilisational space, where Russia unites the civilisational communities of East and West," Yakunin said in a recent interview with Itar-Tass.
Last week, he was added to the US sanctions list for "membership of the Russian leadership's inner circle", following the annexation of Crimea.
The idea of Russia being separate from but equal to the West is convenient, since it allows the Kremlin to reject Western criticism of its elections, its court cases, its foreign policy, as biased and irrelevant.
Many of Putin's friends, though dismissive of the West's economics, politics, values and structures, are, however, much attached to its comforts. Both of Yakunin's sons live in Western Europe - one in London, one in Switzerland - and his grandchildren are growing up there.
According to the anti-corruption campaigner, Alexei Navalny, Yakunin has built himself a palace outside Moscow using foreign limestone and building materials brought in from Germany - a strange step for a man supposedly wedded to creating a Russian economy independent of the West.
Putin too has espoused principles, then dropped them when they proved inconvenient. In Iraq in 2003, he made a stand in defence of international law, opposing any invasion without UN approval. In Georgia in 2008, he sent in the troops without even pretending to consult with the Security Council.
Last year, intervention in Syria was out of the question. This year, intervention in Ukraine is justified and unimpeachably legitimate. It may be that principles have never been the issue - and that Putin's objective has always been to maximise Russian power, and to defy Western attempts to rein Russia in.
"We have every reason to assume that the infamous policy of containment, conducted in the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries, continues today. They are constantly trying to sweep us into a corner because we have an independent position," said Putin in his speech last week announcing the annexation of Crimea, a speech that repeated all his points from 1999, but with 15 years worth of additional resentment.
"If you compress the spring all the way to its limit, it will snap back hard. You must always remember this."
It is not easy re-shaping a country on your own, and Putin has needed the assistance of one key group within Russian society. While he has cracked down on independent journalists, businessmen and politicians, he has relied on state officials to make sure his ideas are implemented.
They have been well rewarded for their help. Wages for top officials increased last year by 20%, four times the increase in the general budget. Putin's spending binge means that, for the budget to balance, Brent crude must now average around $117 a barrel, more than five times the level needed in 2006, according to analysis from Deutsche Bank.
Even that is not enough for top officials. Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, said last week that, in 2013, the average bribe in Russia had doubled to $4,000. Last year, Transparency International gave Russia 127th place on its Corruption Perception Index, rating it as corrupt as Pakistan, Mali and Madagascar.
"Putin has really painted himself into a corner by destroying every independent source of power in Russia. He now has only the bureaucracy to rely on, and must keep increasing its funding to keep ensuring its loyalty," says Ben Judah, the British author of Fragile Empire, a study of Putin's Russia.
"Eventually, the money is going to run out, and then he will find himself in the same position Soviet leaders were in by the late 1980s, forced to confront political and economic crises, while trying to hold the country together. He looks strong now, but his Kremlin is built on the one thing in Russia doesn't control: the price of oil."
Putin has succeeded in building a version of the country of his childhood, one that can act independently in the world, and one where dissent is controlled and the Kremlin's power unchallenged. But that is a double-edged sword, because the Soviet Union collapsed for a reason, and a Russia recreated in its image risks sharing its fate.
According to Vladimir Bukovsky, a dissident who spent a decade in Soviet prisons before his exile to the West in 1976, Putin is totally genuine when he says the disintegration of the Soviet Union was a "geopolitical catastrophe".
Image caption,
Putin with the head of the Russian army's main department of combat preparation in early March
"He does not understand that the collapse of the Soviet system was predetermined, therefore he believes his mission is to restore the Soviet system as soon as possible," he says.
As a middle-ranking KGB officer who loved the Soviet Union, Putin lacked the perspective of senior officers, who knew full well the Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its own inefficiency rather than because of Western plotting, Bukovsky says.
"It leads him exactly to… repeat the same mistakes. He wants this whole country to be controlled by one person from the Kremlin, which will lead to disaster," he says.
Putin's decision to invade Crimea was taken quickly and impulsively, by a small group of his favoured top officials. That means Putin has no one to warn him of the long-term consequences of his actions, and until he finds out for himself, he will maintain his course. That means relations with the West will remain uncomfortable, especially in areas he considers to be his "zone of legitimate interests".
But we can't say we weren't warned.
Oliver Bullough is Caucasus editor at the Institute of War and Peace Reporting. His most recent book is The Last Man in Russia, detailing the demographic decline of the Russian nation.
mbabulldog
Inactive
Russia-Ukraine Crisis Deescalating As NATO Countries Break From Bellicose US-UK Stance
Deescalation appears to be accelerating over the Ukraine crisis given a number of rapid developments which have seen lead NATO countries break from the more bellicose and threatening tone of the United States and UK. After Germany's neutrality toward the Russia-Ukraine crisis became apparent, Sweden is the latest to follow its lead of forbidding arms transfers to Kiev, while Croatia is out with a firm statement saying it will recall all of its troops from NATO in the event of war.
This followed on the heels of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announcing that circumstances in the region are now "under control" and that there's "no reason to panic" according to The Associated Press.
It appears the earlier hyped messages of an 'imminent Russian invasion' have backfired, as Ukraine officials have now turned to castigating the media for spreading a sense of overblown panic and doom among the population. Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov went so far as to say the threat of a Russian invasion "doesn't exist" despite there still being "risky scenarios". Other Ukraine defense officials have echoed this as well...
"As of today, we don’t see any grounds for statements about a full-scale offensive on our country," Danilov had stated confidently on Monday. Here's more from the defense chief:
"President Joe Biden told reporters Tuesday that he does not foresee U.S. troops moving into Ukraine," Axios writes Tuesday afternoon. Biden stressed, "There is not going to be any American forces moving into Ukraine," which seems a reversal of the "stand by orders" he gave the day before. Here's further details on the administration's backing off the prior confrontational tone, as it's looking more and more like diplomacy is winning out...
And yes, there is daylight... actually massive fissures opening among NATO allies on the issue:
"No daylight" with European allies.
"The key point is that any steps that we would take would not be concessions," Price said. "They would need to be on a reciprocal basis, meaning that the Russians would also have to do something that would help improve our security – our security posture."
And Jen Psaki is still standing by the White House's line of an invasion is "imminent" as of Tuesday afternoon even as the Ukrainians themselves downplay it. Additionally Biden had this to say directly of the situation:
Importantly for the Russians, and after all the panic that resulted from Putin merely moving a hundred thousand troops to southern positions but within Russia's own sovereign borders, it appears momentum is moving in their direction. Russia may get what it wants after all: guarantees of no further NATO eastward expansion - or at least for the West to take its concerns seriously.
The US previously said this demand was a "non-starter" - but given the rapid shift in atmosphere surrounding tensions, it'll be interesting to see if by week's end the US tune is very different.
For for time being, some level ofmilitary economic threats and counterthreats look to continue...
www.zerohedge.com
Deescalation appears to be accelerating over the Ukraine crisis given a number of rapid developments which have seen lead NATO countries break from the more bellicose and threatening tone of the United States and UK. After Germany's neutrality toward the Russia-Ukraine crisis became apparent, Sweden is the latest to follow its lead of forbidding arms transfers to Kiev, while Croatia is out with a firm statement saying it will recall all of its troops from NATO in the event of war.
This followed on the heels of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announcing that circumstances in the region are now "under control" and that there's "no reason to panic" according to The Associated Press.
It appears the earlier hyped messages of an 'imminent Russian invasion' have backfired, as Ukraine officials have now turned to castigating the media for spreading a sense of overblown panic and doom among the population. Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov went so far as to say the threat of a Russian invasion "doesn't exist" despite there still being "risky scenarios". Other Ukraine defense officials have echoed this as well...
"As of today, we don’t see any grounds for statements about a full-scale offensive on our country," Danilov had stated confidently on Monday. Here's more from the defense chief:
This perhaps more realist sentiment is spreading, and now with a European consensus emerging that direct conflict with Russia must be avoided at all cost, the message has reached the White House, which is singing a different tune from even a day ago...
"President Joe Biden told reporters Tuesday that he does not foresee U.S. troops moving into Ukraine," Axios writes Tuesday afternoon. Biden stressed, "There is not going to be any American forces moving into Ukraine," which seems a reversal of the "stand by orders" he gave the day before. Here's further details on the administration's backing off the prior confrontational tone, as it's looking more and more like diplomacy is winning out...
- He added that the decision to put troops on high alert is "not provocative" but intended to reassure the U.S.' allies.
- "We have no intention of putting American forces, or NATO forces, in Ukraine. But as I said, there will be serious economic consequences if he moves," he added, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
- Asked if he could see himself personally sanctioning Putin in the case of an invasion, Biden replied, "Yes...I would see that."
And yes, there is daylight... actually massive fissures opening among NATO allies on the issue:
"No daylight" with European allies.
"The key point is that any steps that we would take would not be concessions," Price said. "They would need to be on a reciprocal basis, meaning that the Russians would also have to do something that would help improve our security – our security posture."
And Jen Psaki is still standing by the White House's line of an invasion is "imminent" as of Tuesday afternoon even as the Ukrainians themselves downplay it. Additionally Biden had this to say directly of the situation:
All of this looks like an admission that the assessment has changed: no, at this point he's not going to do anything we thought he was going to do, the president appears to now be admitting. The above is also a reaction to NATO showing willingness to sit down and take Moscow's security demands seriously. According to the latest via CNN, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has ruled out sending troops to Ukraine...
Importantly for the Russians, and after all the panic that resulted from Putin merely moving a hundred thousand troops to southern positions but within Russia's own sovereign borders, it appears momentum is moving in their direction. Russia may get what it wants after all: guarantees of no further NATO eastward expansion - or at least for the West to take its concerns seriously.
The US previously said this demand was a "non-starter" - but given the rapid shift in atmosphere surrounding tensions, it'll be interesting to see if by week's end the US tune is very different.
For for time being, some level of
Zerohedge
ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
www.zerohedge.com
Cacheman
Ultra MAGA!
Did "10% to the Big Guy" go up to "19.5% to the big guy"?
Covering up massive money laundering of foreign aid is a problem.
Chance
Veteran Member
Some are saying this war will wait until after the chinese Olympics. That China has put billions into this plus tons of propaganda for them.
Personally, I don't think the Chinese give a rats @ss about the Olympics; they've been planning for this coming war with America for years - their survival depends on their expanding to new lands and getting rid of us...I think they want us to think nothing will happen until end of February, March.
And I don't think Putin has plans to wait for China's Olympics..he's got too many troops to logistically support.
And it's hard keeping troops waiting around...Putin did this last year. Don't think it will end the same way this time.
China, Russia will move together. Maybe before February/before the Olympics.
Just MO.
Personally, I don't think the Chinese give a rats @ss about the Olympics; they've been planning for this coming war with America for years - their survival depends on their expanding to new lands and getting rid of us...I think they want us to think nothing will happen until end of February, March.
And I don't think Putin has plans to wait for China's Olympics..he's got too many troops to logistically support.
And it's hard keeping troops waiting around...Putin did this last year. Don't think it will end the same way this time.
China, Russia will move together. Maybe before February/before the Olympics.
Just MO.
Jez
Veteran Member
Quick dog leg. What is the current status of Russia's relationship with Turkey? Looking at something else. While I doubt that Russia has 70% of its military power on the border with Ukraine, I can't help but wonder what else they could do with all that might in that general area? Could they have any reason to move south?
okie-carbine
Veteran Member
There is NO WAY a nuke will hit American soil.
Doomer Doug
TB Fanatic
Now the
Magnitude of Putin's victory becomes clear.
He has SPLIT NATO. Crotia is out. France and Germany are out. Sweeden is out with no arms shipments to the Ukraine.
The USA and UK are the lone warmongers.
Putin may yet force his way to get a disamed buffer zone from finland to the Ukraine and Romania with both aegis sites removed.
Heck Mongo I think Putin may go for it all the way and drive to the river, take donbass and the coast line. He KNOWS NATO, the EU and usa and uk won't lift a finger. Putin has exposed NATO as a naked emperor totally dependent on the USA.
Putin won. Now we shall see what he does military wise to take advantage of his political and diplomatic victory destroying NATO.
Airdrops on the aegis sites to neutralize them. Cruise missile and carletbomb the uke fools lined up in their fixed maginot line posititions.
Magnitude of Putin's victory becomes clear.
He has SPLIT NATO. Crotia is out. France and Germany are out. Sweeden is out with no arms shipments to the Ukraine.
The USA and UK are the lone warmongers.
Putin may yet force his way to get a disamed buffer zone from finland to the Ukraine and Romania with both aegis sites removed.
Heck Mongo I think Putin may go for it all the way and drive to the river, take donbass and the coast line. He KNOWS NATO, the EU and usa and uk won't lift a finger. Putin has exposed NATO as a naked emperor totally dependent on the USA.
Putin won. Now we shall see what he does military wise to take advantage of his political and diplomatic victory destroying NATO.
Airdrops on the aegis sites to neutralize them. Cruise missile and carletbomb the uke fools lined up in their fixed maginot line posititions.
jward
passin' thru
tom
@tom_bullock_
44m
"Evidence indicates activity from all of Russia's major regional commands" "Russia also appears to be activating some troops and may be beginning to move aircraft and ground-support crews to operational air bases."
View: https://twitter.com/tom_bullock_/status/1486119579269140485?s=20
@tom_bullock_
44m
"Evidence indicates activity from all of Russia's major regional commands" "Russia also appears to be activating some troops and may be beginning to move aircraft and ground-support crews to operational air bases."
View: https://twitter.com/tom_bullock_/status/1486119579269140485?s=20
AlfaMan
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Poland was a satellite and member of the Warsaw Pact; Latvia Estonia and Lithuania were Soviet posessions.
jed turtle
a brother in the Lord
Sounds like the US to me. Last empire out of Afghanistan, like every empire before it, goes down hard. Combined with the Democrat-enabled invasion across the southern border, it’s just a matter of time: Washington’s Vision. The “new immigrants” are already birthing the majority of the next generation...