Russia in the 21st Century [Superthread]

[Flanker]

So?  Where to you find your reputable and reliable sources?

There is absolutely reliable sources.
There are all less or more reliable.
However, when you see such a "news" in an anonymous newspaper (no established headquarter, no contact info), without documental references provided and non correlating with other sources, there are no doubts.

Do you think it is so easy now to hide 2000 "killed" troops in such a short period of time?
What about their relatives? How to hide them?
The media space in Russia is much more liberal than you may think.

 

[George Wallace]

There is absolutely reliable sources.
There are all less or more reliable.
However, when you see such a "news" in an anonymous newspaper (no established headquarter, no contact info), without documental references provided and non correlating with other sources, there are no doubts.

Do you think it is so easy now to hide 2000 "killed" troops in such a short period of time?
What about their relatives? How to hide them?
The media space in Russia is much more liberal than you may think.

Fine.

And your sources?

 

[The Bread Guy]

The media space in Russia is much more liberal than you may think.

:rofl:
Liberal?  Just like it's safe to be a journalist there, especially if one criticizes the government, right?  It can ONLY be more liberal than I think ....

Fine.

And your sources?

What he said.

 

[CougarKing]

Russian trolls aside, this article provides some insight into Putin's inner circle; it's titled "The Rise of the Kremlin Hardliners" on the print version of the latest Time issue:

Time.com

Inside Vladimir Putin’s Circle
Simon Shuster / Moscow @shustry  Aug. 27, 2015   
putin-supporters
Maxim Shipenkov—The New York Times/Redux

Gleb Pavlovsky arrived for work as usual that day in the spring of 2011, walking up to the clock tower of the Spassky Gate, which serves as the entrance to the Kremlin fortress. This had been his routine during the first two terms of Vladimir Putin’s presidency, when Pavlovsky had served as a top adviser on matters of domestic politics and propaganda. But on that April day, Pavlovsky discovered that his security pass would not open the gate.

“They just locked me out,” he recalled this spring at his personal office, a shamble of books and papers on the top floor of a crumbling apartment block in central Moscow. Pavlovsky was hardly alone–in the years since his dismissal, many others have been discarded from Putin’s staff in the same way, especially the more politically liberal members of the ruling class, the ones who wanted to stop Russia from tumbling backward into another Cold War with the West. For them the past few years have been a period of setbacks and humiliations–“a shriveling up,” is how one Kremlin consultant put it–while the hard-liners in Putin’s circle have seen their influence steadily expand.

Known in Russia as the siloviki, or “men of force,” this coterie of generals and KGB veterans has come to fully dominate political life in Russia in the year and a half since the war in Ukraine ruptured Moscow’s relations with the West. Their rise has contributed to what several current and former advisers to the Kremlin describe as an atmosphere of paranoia and aggression. Officials seen as sympathetic toward the West have been mostly sidelined and discredited, limiting the voices Putin hears on matters of national and global security. The result is a regime in Moscow that looks increasingly antagonistic to the West and appears prone to ill-considered and dangerous decisions. “Sometimes the old instincts kick in,” says one of Putin’s senior counselors, referring to the Cold War backgrounds of the officials who now dominate the Kremlin. “I’d say there is the danger of going backward.”

That’s bad for an increasingly isolated Russia, but it’s dangerous for the entire world. Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, where Russian-backed militants have taken control of large patches of territory, both Russian and Western forces have dramatically ramped up their military exercises in Eastern Europe. The outcome “has been a game of Russian-instigated dangerous brinkmanship which has resulted in many serious close military encounters between the forces of Russia and NATO,” said a report published on Aug. 12 by the European Leadership Network, a think tank that monitors security threats in the region.

Should a mistake happen, it is far from clear that cooler heads would prevail in the Kremlin–for the simple reason that there aren’t many of them left in Putin’s entourage. Sergei Naryshkin, a close Putin ally and speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, suggested in a newspaper article on Aug. 9 that the U.S. is trying to goad Russia into war. In a warning to President Barack Obama, he wrote that it “wouldn’t hurt the current and latest ‘war-time’ President of the USA to remember: if you sow the wind, you will reap the storm.” Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s Security Council and a 17-year veteran of the KGB, was even more direct in an interview published in late June. “They really want Russia to cease to exist as a nation,” he said of the U.S. “Because we have enormous wealth, and the Americans think we have no right to it and don’t deserve it.”

(...SNIPPED)

 

[Kirkhill]

Here's a neat little item that I stumbled across a couple of days ago.

But I guess I shouldn't worry.  We never have to deal with the Indians.  The Russians would never interfere in our domestic affairs.  We only need an expeditionary army.

Voices from Russia

Thursday, 22 May 2014

Mohawk Nation Stands with Russia

Filed under: history,Russian — 01varvara @ 00.00

Tags: American Indian, Canada, Edward Snowden, First Nation, First Nations, Great Law of Peace, Indians, indigenous peoples of the Americas, Iroquois, McCarthyism, Mohawk people, Native American, Native Americans in the United States, Peter the Great, political commentary, politics, Pyotr Veliki, Russia, Russian, Russian history, Ukraine, United States, USA
00 mohawk warrior. 21.05.14

The above is an Indian warrior of the period of the great wars of France and Britain in the New World in the 18th century. Both British and French militaries learned much of value in light infantry tactics and skirmishing from their Indian allies… American propaganda that British soldiers were ignorant of American conditions is arrant bullshit devoid of any truth… after all, they DID listen to the Kanienkehaka leader Thayendanegea during the War of the American Rebellion. Do notice how silent American history books are on the ruthless Rebel sack of Thayendanegea’s home of Onaquaga.

_____________________________

Corporation of Canada CEO Harper is sending 6 CF18s and other weapons of mass destruction for NATO provocations against our ancient allies in Russia. Russia is legally a long-time ally of the Rotino’shonninwe/Iroquois Confederacy and its friends and allies on Great Turtle Island. Our alliance comes from the Kaia’nereh:kowa, our constitution. Treaty belts accepted by Peter the Great in 1710 record this sovereign international agreement of peace. They presented these belts to us for interpretation. According to our constitution, which is always recorded in wampum, and our treaty, we’ll seek all international legal remedies to stop Canada’s violation of the Peace established between Russia and the Onkwehonwe, the true sovereigns on Great Turtle Island.

Canada is conspicuously not attending the present negotiations between Russia, the USA, the EU, and other affected nations. Each party agreed not to supply weapons to the Ukraine. However, Canada is provoking war against our ancient allies by providing fighter jets and other weapons of mass destruction. This treaty alliance predates the corporations of Canada and the USA by more than a century. CEO Harper can’t speak on our behalf. Only we speak for ourselves and our friends and allies. The Corporation of Canada speaks for its shareholders. Like all corporations, Canada exists for one reason, to give ever-growing dividends and to protect their shareholders’ anonymity.

We stand by our Russian allies. There’ll be no war. Consequences will follow for these violations of our ancient alliances and sovereignty. According to international law, it’s our duty to demand that Canada refrain from posturing war against Russia. We Rotinoshonnionwe reaffirm our alliance to spread world peace. We assume our Russian allies who met our grandfathers in 1710 continue to have this on their minds too. These belts were left so that one day we could sit together and discuss them. These treaty belts predate the corporations of Canada and USA and the religion spread by Handsome Lake. We reaffirm this alliance between Russia and the people of the Kaianerekowa, the Great Law of Peace, those who follow the natural laws of this land. A corporation that is masquerading as a sovereign on our land is threatening Russia.

Editor:

The Anglos stole what is today the USA and Canada… they expect praise for it! I’d say to attend to history… the Anglos never kept a single treaty with native people, so, why does their duplicity vis-à-vis Russia surprise you? They love the Right Sector and Svoboda, as these groups are as violent, greedy, and untruthful as they are. It’s time to push back… in Russia… AND closer to home. However, take a care in how you express yourself, McCarthyism proved that the Americans, in particular, are jumpy and aren’t careful in their repressions. NEVER EVER use language that even implies the overthrow of the US government. You can describe the evil… you can castigate the evil… you can “finger” the criminals… but, please, NEVER call for the overthrow of the US government… they can and will throw you in prison for that… do recall what they did to Eugene V Debs and what they wanted to do to Edward Snowden. Take a care…

Remember Vine Deloria Jr’s words… “I was oppressed as an Indian, I’ll win justice as an Indian, and after I win justice, I’ll call myself whatever I damned well please”. Keep the faith and keep the fires burning…

BMD

18 April 2014

Mohawk Nation News

http://mohawknationnews.com/blog/2014/04/18/canada-threatens-ancient-mohawk-allies/

 

[Kirkhill]

Nope.  Never happen.

 

[a_majoor]

More "Smart Diplomacy" fallout. Frankly, I hope the Gulf States and Saudi go all in in supporting and funding ISIS so the Russians can fight on multiple fronts, while we can pack up and go home.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/charles-krauthammer-putin-outflanks-obama-article-1.2365143

How Putin outflanks Obama: Russia's objectives in Syria are blindingly obvious
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS /
Thursday, September 17, 2015, 8:00 PM

Once again, President Obama and his foreign policy team are stumped. Why is Vladimir Putin pouring troops and weaponry into Syria? After all, as Secretary of State John Kerry has thrice told his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, it is only making things worse.

But worse for whom? For the additional thousands of civilians who will die or flee as a result of the inevitably intensified fighting. True, and I’m sure Lavrov is as moved by their plight as by the 8,000 killed in Russia’s splendid little Ukrainian adventure.

SYRIAN REFUGEES TELL THEIR HARROWING STORIES

Kerry and Obama are serially surprised because they cannot fathom the hard men in the Kremlin. Yet Putin’s objectives in Syria are blindingly obvious:

1. To assert Russia’s influence in the Middle East and make it the dominant outside power. Putin’s highest ambition is to avenge and reverse Russia’s humiliating loss of superpower status a quarter-century ago. Understanding this does not come easily to an American president who for seven years has been assiduously curating America's decline abroad.

2. To sustain Russia’s major and long-standing Arab ally. Ever since Anwar Sadat kicked the Soviets out of Egypt in 1972, Syria’s Assads have been Russia’s principal asset in the Middle East.

3. To expand the reach of Russia’s own military. It has a naval base at Tartus, its only such outside of Russia. It has an airfield near Latakia, now being expanded with an infusion of battle tanks, armored personnel carriers, howitzers and housing for 1,500 — strongly suggesting ground forces to follow.

4. To push out the Americans. For Putin, geopolitics is a zero-sum game: Russia up, America down. He is demonstrating whom you can rely on in this very tough neighborhood. Obama has given short shrift to the Kurds, shafted America’s allies with the Iran deal and abandoned the Anbar Sunnis who helped us win the surge. Meanwhile, Putin risks putting Russian boots on the ground to rescue his Syrian allies.

Obama says Bashar Assad has to go, draws a red line on chemical weapons — and does nothing. Russia acts on behalf of a desperate ally. Whom do you want in your corner?

5. To re-legitimize post-Crimea Russia by making it indispensable in Syria. It’s a neat two-cushion shot. At the UN next week, Putin will offer Russia as a core member of a new anti-Islamic State coalition. Obama’s Potemkin war — with its phantom local troops (our $500 million training program has yielded five fighters so far) and flaccid air campaign — is flailing badly. What Putin is proposing is that Russia, Iran and Hezbollah spearhead the anti-jihadist fight.

View Gallery Shocking images show Europe's migrant crisis

Putin’s offer is clear: Stop fighting Assad, accept Russia as a major player, and acquiesce to a Russia-Iran-Hezbollah regional hegemony — and we will lead the drive against the Islamic State from in front.

And there is a bonus. The cleverest part of the Putin gambit is its unstated cure for Europe’s refugee crisis.

Wracked by guilt and fear, the Europeans have no idea what to do. Putin offers a way out: No war, no refugees. Stop the Syrian civil war and not only do they stop flooding into Europe, those already there go back home to Syria.

EUROPE SHOULD TAKE SYRIA'S ASSAD TO WAR

Putin says, settle the war with my client in place — the Assad regime joined by a few “healthy” opposition forces — and I solve your refugee nightmare.

You almost have to admire the cynicism. After all, what's driving the refugees is the war and what's driving the war is Iran and Russia. They provide the materiel, the funds and now, increasingly, the troops that fuel the fighting. The arsonist plays fireman.

After all, most of the refugees are not fleeing the Islamic State. Its depravity is more ostentatious, but it is mostly visited upon minorities, Christian and Yazidi — and they have already been largely ethnically cleansed from Islamic State territory. The European detention camps are overflowing with Syrians fleeing Assad’s barbarism, especially his attacks on civilians, using artillery, chlorine gas and nail-filled barrel bombs.

Putin to the rescue. As with the chemical weapons debacle, he steps in to save the day. If we acquiesce, Russia becomes an indispensable partner. It begins military and diplomatic coordination with us. (We’ve just agreed to negotiations over Russia’s Syrian buildup.) Its post-Ukraine isolation is lifted and, with Iran, it becomes the regional arbiter.

In the end, the Putin strategy may not work, but it’s deadly serious and not at all obscure. The White House can stop scratching its collective head whenever another Condor transport unloads its tanks and marines at Latakia.
- See more at: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/charles-krauthammer-putin-outflanks-obama-article-1.2365143#sthash.uThugwBV.dpuf

 

[Good2Golf]

More "Smart Diplomacy" fallout. Frankly, I hope the Gulf States and Saudi go all in in supporting and funding ISIS so the Russians can fight on multiple fronts, while we can pack up and go home.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/charles-krauthammer-putin-outflanks-obama-article-1.2365143

Or...it's reverse psychology and letting Putin's ego allow him to over-extend himself into Syria (and leave his Caucus flank vulnerable)...kind of like drawing the Soviets into another trap, just like in Afghanistan in the late 70's, which arguably, had a great influence in the Soviet regime (and its wall) fall a decade later...

Hypothetically... 

 

[Altair]

Or...it's reverse psychology and letting Putin's ego allow him to over-extend himself into Syria (and leave his Caucus flank vulnerable)...kind of like drawing the Soviets into another trap, just like in Afghanistan in the late 70's, which arguably, had a great influence in the Soviet regime (and its wall) fall a decade later...

Hypothetically... 

If drawing a direct parallel, wouldn't that mean giving weapons to ISIL?

 

[Good2Golf]

If drawing a direct parallel, wouldn't that mean giving weapons to ISIL?

I wouldn't say the direct parallel need be drawn (where ISIL today is yesterday's Mujahideen), the effect (Russia over-extending) is perhaps what the US and KSA (and other secondary/tertiary players) are looking for? 

:2c:

G2G

 

[YZT580]

I wouldn't say the direct parallel need be drawn (where ISIL today is yesterday's Mujahideen), the effect (Russia over-extending) is perhaps what the US and KSA (and other secondary/tertiary players) are looking for? 

:2c:

G2G

I fear you are giving those running the show too much credit?  I don't believe that they have the mental dexterity to even consider a scenario as complicated as that one. 

 

[Altair]

I would imagine a quick campaign(example; France in mali) to wipe out ISIL in conventional battle and reclaim territory to then be occupied /controlled by assad forces coming up after the Russians wouldn't be too hard for the Russians.

Assuming that's their play.

 

[Good2Golf]

Perhaps Putin's plan in to 'help' Assad by bringing his troops down for some good old high-readiness training, and if in the 'Fog of War' a coalition plane or three get shot down, well...oops. You know, these things...they happen, Comrade!" :nod:

 

[The Bread Guy]

Perhaps Putin's plan in to 'help' Assad by bringing his troops down for some good old high-readiness training, and if in the 'Fog of War' a coalition plane or three get shot down, well...oops. You know, these things...they happen, Comrade!" :nod:

Or maybe to set up another Georgia/Transdnistria/Novorossia?  More on this theory here:

.... Accounting for about 15% of territory, “Useful Syria” is now home to more than half of the population, partly thanks to influx of displaced people from other parts of the country. The strip between the coast and the mountains has the added advantage of being the principal base of the Alawite community to which Assad and his clan belong.

Get ready for Russia to cast itself as the protector, not only of the Alawites but also of other minorities such as Turcoman, Armenians and, more interestingly for Moscow, Orthodox Christians who have fled Islamist terror groups such as ISIS.

Russia has always seen itself as the “Third Rome” and the last standard-bearer of Christianity against both Catholic “deviation” and Islamist menace.

By controlling a new mini-state, as a “safe haven for minorities,” Russia could insist that if Syria returns to some normality it be reconstituted as a highly decentralized state. This is what Putin is also demanding in Georgia and Ukraine ....

 

[Altair]

Considering the state of syria and the advances of ISIL,  that wouldn't be the worst possible outcome.

 

[Kirkhill]

Tell me again.

WHY are we leaving the field to Putin?

:not-again:

JFHC.

 

[Altair]

Why not?

Who else is going to put boots on the ground?

God bless the air forces of all the members of the coalition but when it comes to actually defeating ISIL it's probably going to take a trained military with boots on the ground.

The USA under the Democrats have no interest in doing that, Europe doesn't either, middle eastern countries much prefer westerners to die for them.

For all of their faults, russia>ISIL

 

[Kirkhill]

It is not just about ISIL.  And it is not just about boots on the ground - or even birds in the air.

It about all the various fora in which Putin is putzing around.  He does not have the cards the Stalin, or Krushchev, or Brezhnev or even Gorbachev had to play.  And yet we treat him as if he does.

He needs to be backed up and backed up fast.  The world was a damned sight scarier in 1948 and 1962 and even in the era of "The Evil Empire".

 

[Altair]

There's a saying, it's better to be present with ten men than be absent with ten thousand.

No point in having a royal flush when you fold off the blind.

Sure, putin has a lot less to play with than his predecessors but he's actually willing to use what he has.  And if in the end he helps to defeat ISIL in Syria,  the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

 

[Good2Golf]

Given that the Bear got thumped when it went over The Mountain, do some not see the benefit to seeing Putin's little green men "not fight" on two fronts?  Syria and Egypt are smaller power brokers than KSA and Kuwait...let Putin stretch himself to ingratiate himself with old friends.  I look forward to when the House of Saud finally decides enough is enough and becomes more proactive in the region.