Vladimir Putin and Russia

[Anorthernsoul 1221]

He strikes again.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/05/salisbury-incident-critically-ill-man-is-former-russian-spy-sergei-skripal

[PaddockLad 17341]

Poisened in Zizis in sleepy bloody Salisbury...but that's only the tip of a very sinister iceberg...

 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/from-russia-with-blood-14-suspected-hits-on-british-soil?utm_term=.sd47JPWdR#.paDYaljO5

[Alex 35154]

Odds this one is deemed newsworthy. Perhaps the government has realised Putin treats the UK with as much disdain when we arse-lick him as when we don't. Just as well the USA will have our back if diplomatic relations break down again.

[Ayatollah Hermione 13909]

Shite odds for Putin to win the election. What a waste of a bet!

[ewerk 30744]

 

[Anorthernsoul 1221]

11 minutes ago, ewerk said:

 

 

 

 

Nikolai Glushkov, probably killed off as he was making too much noise about Berezovsky's death.

[ewerk 30744]

Why the seeming hope to find someone other than Putin to be responsible? 

 

[PaddockLad 17341]

Partially agree with some of this. It's getting sore on this fence mind

 

http://novaramedia.com/2018/03/14/corbyn-is-no-traitor-when-it-comes-to-russia-the-tories-are-the-real-hypocrites/

[ewerk 30744]

On 13/03/2018 at 16:29, ewerk said:

 

Now being investigated as a murder.

[Ayatollah Hermione 13909]

Say what you will about the man, he gets things sorted. Put him in charge of the Tyne and Wear Metro, I say.

[Dr Gloom 22011]

a replacement negotiator for david davis, perhaps? 

[Gene_Clark 12]

The risible notion that Britain is actually regarded as a global super power by any other nation than itself was again exposed as a scarcely credible arcane fantasy by the events of the last week.  As yet, responsibility for the poisoning of Sergei and Yuri Skripal, not to mention some unfortunate and hitherto anonymous flatfoot, has neither been claimed nor apportioned with any semblance of proof. Aside from being a particularly poor advert for landfill pasta chain Zizzi’s Sunday dining options, the incident has been taken as an excuse by the shambolic circus allegedly in charge of the country to engage in a pitiful chorus of bellicose sabre-rattling that would have seemed anachronistic in an Ealing comedy back in the days when we still had rationing.

 

Here is a fact. Boris Johnson is incompetent. Here is another. He is also mad and, without doubt, a significant danger to public safety. If he dares to imagine that, with or without the blessing or indeed comprehension of Maidenhead’s answer to Cruella De Ville, the plucky Brits can face down Kung Fu Bonaparte’s empire in any kind of conflict from a stare out contest to full scale thermonuclear war, he is even more deranged than I had feared. Although it should be recognised that, in his rampantly delusional state, he’s among likeminded souls in the Tory cabinet.  I have racked my brains, but in all honesty I struggle to find a more compelling example of the pathetic Little Englander mind-set of Brexit Britain than the vacuous pomposity of Gavin Williamson’s attempted calling out of the world’s largest nation. Not since The Times ran the apocryphal headline Fog in Channel; Continent isolated has there been a more fatuous public pronouncement of wrongheaded Anglocentrism. Mind, Johnson’s demand that the World Cup be postponed runs Williamson’s cretinous utterances a close second.

 

My prediction is that within 10 days or a fortnight at most, the Skripal situation will have been forgotten, as the Government controlled media in both countries downplays the significance of recent events to that of a historical adjunct to the annals of modern diplomacy; a barely remembered footnote in the chronicles of state-sponsored espionage. Of course the whole affair will become murkier and derailed by internecine obfuscatory tactics, resulting in game, set and match to the tiny Beast from the East while Johnson and May are still arranging their towels at the side of the court. Never mind any potential involvement by the United Nations, a far more puissant body, namely FIFA, will ensure that Russia emerges unscathed from this whole fiasco, allowing gas to still be piped westwards and the World Cup to take place. The lasting legacy for the British public will be the timorous fallout from the BBC’s scandalous photoshopped hatchet job on Jeremy Corbyn, whereby a Breton fisherman’s cap morphed into a Russian hat for the purpose of spreading the insidious, subliminal lie of treachery, when all Corbyn has sought is that rarest of political commodities; the truth.

[Rayvin 5236]

6 minutes ago, Gene_Clark said:

The risible notion that Britain is actually regarded as a global super power by any other nation than itself was again exposed as a scarcely credible arcane fantasy by the events of the last week.  As yet, responsibility for the poisoning of Sergei and Yuri Skripal, not to mention some unfortunate and hitherto anonymous flatfoot, has neither been claimed nor apportioned with any semblance of proof. Aside from being a particularly poor advert for landfill pasta chain Zizzi’s Sunday dining options, the incident has been taken as an excuse by the shambolic circus allegedly in charge of the country to engage in a pitiful chorus of bellicose sabre-rattling that would have seemed anachronistic in an Ealing comedy back in the days when we still had rationing.

 

Here is a fact. Boris Johnson is incompetent. Here is another. He is also mad and, without doubt, a significant danger to public safety. If he dares to imagine that, with or without the blessing or indeed comprehension of Maidenhead’s answer to Cruella De Ville, the plucky Brits can face down Kung Fu Bonaparte’s empire in any kind of conflict from a stare out contest to full scale thermonuclear war, he is even more deranged than I had feared. Although it should be recognised that, in his rampantly delusional state, he’s among likeminded souls in the Tory cabinet.  I have racked my brains, but in all honesty I struggle to find a more compelling example of the pathetic Little Englander mind-set of Brexit Britain than the vacuous pomposity of Gavin Williamson’s attempted calling out of the world’s largest nation. Not since The Times ran the apocryphal headline Fog in Channel; Continent isolated has there been a more fatuous public pronouncement of wrongheaded Anglocentrism. Mind, Johnson’s demand that the World Cup be postponed runs Williamson’s cretinous utterances a close second.

 

My prediction is that within 10 days or a fortnight at most, the Skripal situation will have been forgotten, as the Government controlled media in both countries downplays the significance of recent events to that of a historical adjunct to the annals of modern diplomacy; a barely remembered footnote in the chronicles of state-sponsored espionage. Of course the whole affair will become murkier and derailed by internecine obfuscatory tactics, resulting in game, set and match to the tiny Beast from the East while Johnson and May are still arranging their towels at the side of the court. Never mind any potential involvement by the United Nations, a far more puissant body, namely FIFA, will ensure that Russia emerges unscathed from this whole fiasco, allowing gas to still be piped westwards and the World Cup to take place. The lasting legacy for the British public will be the timorous fallout from the BBC’s scandalous photoshopped hatchet job on Jeremy Corbyn, whereby a Breton fisherman’s cap morphed into a Russian hat for the purpose of spreading the insidious, subliminal lie of treachery, when all Corbyn has sought is that rarest of political commodities; the truth.

 

I think this basically chimes with what I've said but with some wider implications concerning Britain's view of itself. Agree with that bit too.

Edited March 20, 2018 by Rayvin

[Anorthernsoul 1221]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/02/suspected-russian-spy-us-embassy-moscow-secret-service

[NJS 4396]

On 13/10/2016 at 09:41, Alex said:

The World Cup is going to be great

Alex the new Stevie. 

[ewerk 30744]

45 minutes ago, Anorthernsoul said:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/02/suspected-russian-spy-us-embassy-moscow-secret-service

Yeah but Putin gave Trump a football so it’s all cool.

[ohhh_yeah 2968]

 

Two Ukrainian gunboats and a tug were captured, with at least two sailors injured from gunfire, in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46338671

[RobinRobin 11355]

Nobody's mentioned him for a while - bad as Trump, must do something irrational

[Dr Gloom 22011]

Putin can pretty much do whatever he likes as long as the orange chump is in the White House. 

[PaddockLad 17341]

 

🤔

[PaddockLad 17341]

 

From the FT.  Post war liberalism isn’t dead but Putin & the rest of the gang appear to be slowly stabbing it to death,..

 

Russian politics

Vladimir Putin says liberalism has ‘become obsolete’

In an exclusive interview with the FT, the Russian president trumpets growth of national populism

Vladimir Putin: '[Liberals] cannot simply dictate anything to anyone just like they have been attempting to do over the recent decades' © Alamy

   

June 28, 2019 2:42 am by Lionel Barber and Henry Foy in Moscow and Alex Barkerin Osaka

Vladimir Putin has trumpeted the growth of national populist movements in Europe and America, crowing that liberalism is spent as an ideological force. 

In an FT interview in the Kremlin on the eve of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, the Russian president said “the liberal idea” had “outlived its purpose” as the public turned against immigration, open borders and multiculturalism.

Mr Putin’s evisceration of liberalism — the dominant western ideology since the end of the second world war in 1945 — chimes with anti-establishment leaders from US president Donald Trump to Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Matteo Salvini in Italy, and the Brexit insurgency in the UK.

“[Liberals] cannot simply dictate anything to anyone just like they have been attempting to do over the recent decades,” he said.

Mr Putin branded Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to admit more than 1m refugees to Germany, mainly from war-ravaged Syria, as a “cardinal mistake”. But he praised Donald Trump for trying to stop the flow of migrants and drugs from Mexico.

“This liberal idea presupposes that nothing needs to be done. That migrants can kill, plunder and rape with impunity because their rights as migrants have to be protected.”

 

Putin: friendship with China, ‘Donald’ and the end of liberal ideas

He added: “Every crime must have its punishment. The liberal idea has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population.”

Donald Tusk, the European Council president, said he “strongly disagreed” with Mr Putin.

“What I find really obsolete is authoritarianism, personality cults and the rule of oligarchs,” he said.

As the de facto ruler of Russia for almost two decades, Mr Putin, 66, has been regularly accused of covertly supporting populist movements through financial aid and social media, notably in the 2016 US presidential election, the Brexit referendum and the recent European Parliament elections.

Mr Putin emphatically denied this. He dismissed the conclusion by special counsel Robert Mueller that Russia had systemically interfered in the 2016 US presidential election as “mythical interference”.

Turning to the US-China trade war and geopolitical tensions in the Gulf between the US and Iran, Mr Putin said the situation had become “explosive”. The problem, he said, stemmed from American unilateralism and the lack of rules underpinning world order.

Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin talking to FT editor Lionel Barber and Moscow bureau chief Henry Foy © Press office of the President of Russia

He expressed concern about the threat of a renewed nuclear arms race between the US and Russia. “The cold war was a bad thing . . . but there were at least some rules that all participants in international communication more or less adhered to or tried to follow. Now, it seems that there are no rules at all,” he said.

On a positive note, Mr Putin said there were tentative signs of a thaw in Anglo-Russian relations ahead of his meeting in Osaka with Theresa May, her farewell summit as UK prime minister.

“I think Russia and UK are both interested in fully restoring our relations, at least I hope a few preliminary steps will be made.”

Relations between London and Moscow have been frozen after the attempted assassination of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England.

Treason is the gravest crime possible and traitors must be punished. I am not saying that the Salisbury incident is the way to do it . . . but traitors must be punished

The UK government blames the Russian government for the nerve agent attack, but Mr Putin said there was no evidence to support this. Mr Skripal had served a sentence in Russia before being released in a spy swap with the UK, he noted.

Mr Putin made clear, however, that he had zero tolerance for spies who betrayed their country. “Treason is the gravest crime possible and traitors must be punished. I am not saying that the Salisbury incident is the way to do it . . . but traitors must be punished.”

Theresa May, the UK prime minister, said she will demand the suspects in the attack are extradited and “brought to justice” when she sees Mr Putin on Friday — their first face-to-face meeting since the incident. 

“We would be open to a different relationship with Russia but if that is going to happen then Russia needs to stop its activity that undermines international treaties and undermines our collective security like what happened on the streets of Salisbury,” she told journalists en route to Osaka. 

In recent years, Mr Putin has become emboldened, presiding over the annexation of Crimea, a pro-Russian revolt in eastern Ukraine and a military intervention in Syria which he described as a clear-cut success.

Apart from killing thousands of radical Islamists and shoring up President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Mr Putin said the exercise had given Russia’s armed forces invaluable fighting experience.

Recommended

Transcript: ‘All this fuss about spies . . . it is not worth serious interstate relations’

He made no mention of the fact the seven-year-old war has resulted in more than 5m refugees and 500,000 dead. However, he did point to the waves of immigration from conflict zones in Africa and the Middle East which had fostered crime and social strains, in turn fuelling an anti-establishment backlash in Europe.

Echoing nationalist populists such as Mr Salvini and France’s Marine Le Pen, Mr Putin said liberal governments had not acted to reassure citizens. Instead they had pursued a mindless multiculturalism embracing, among other things, sexual diversity.

“I am not trying to insult anyone because we have been condemned for our alleged homophobia. But we have no problem with LGBT persons. God forbid, let them live as they wish,” he said. “But some things do appear excessive to us. They claim now that children can play five or six gender roles.”

“Let everyone be happy, we have no problem with that,” he added. “But this must not be allowed to overshadow the culture, traditions and traditional family values of millions of people making up the core population.

[Dr Gloom 22011]

He’s basically just gone on the record to say what we’ve all known for a while now. He opposes liberalism and will support populist proxies in the west to continue the fight.

He has quite the set of balls on him though. Mainly down to having Trump in his back pocket. He can pretty much say and do whatever the fuck he wants right now.

Edited June 28, 2019 by Dr Gloom

[Anorthernsoul 1221]

31 minutes ago, Dr Gloom said:

He’s basically just gone on the record to say what we’ve all known for a while now. He opposes liberalism and will support populist proxies in the west to continue the fight.

He has quite the set of balls on him though. Mainly down to having Trump in his back pocket. He can pretty much say and do whatever the fuck he wants right now.

 

Which answers my original post, very dangerous indeed.

[Dr Gloom 22011]

if he decides to embark on more imperialist adventures, who would stop him? 

[PaddockLad 17341]

2 hours ago, Dr Gloom said:

if he decides to embark on more imperialist adventures, who would stop him? 

 

Theres been Russian tanks on the borders of the Baltic states, the very doorway from Russia into Europe & full EU members,for a decade or more.

 

Trump wants to tear NATO apart. UK defence spending slashed by the Tories for 30 years now. One of the Brexit loons' favourite tropes is being hugely against any possible future EU army. Every sign points to it happening if you ask me 👍

Edited June 28, 2019 by PaddockLad