The Putin stand-in Dmitry Medvedev, lately given to vehement anti-Ukrainian rants, has excelled himself. Extracts:
WHY WILL UKRAINE DISAPPEAR? BECAUSE NOBODY NEEDS IT
1. Europe doesn’t need Ukraine. The forced support of the Nazi regime, by the American mentor’s order, has put Europeans into a financial and political inferno. All for the sake of bandera’s unterukraine, that even the snobby, insolent Polacks don’t take for a valid country, and time and again toss in the issue of its western areas anschluss. There’s a nice perspective ahead: to permanently put the nouveau-Ukrainian blood-sucking parasites on the decrepit EU’s arthritis-crippled neck. That’ll be the final fall of Europe, once majestic, but robbed off by degeneration ... The ruling junta’s criminal ambitions forced Ukrainians to beg and roam around the countries and continents, searching for a better life. All that is for an obscure European perspective. Or rather, to let the harlequin in a khaki tricot and his band of thievish Nazi clowns to put the money stolen from the West into their offshore accounts. Would ordinary Ukrainians need that? Nobody on this planet needs such a Ukraine. That’s why it will disappear ...
Funnily enough, to judge from some of the BTL comments around here, some of our readers would broadly agree. But that's not the point for now. Why is Medvedev venting thus, like a two-bit incel bedsit dweller? For answer we turn to the excellent Kamil Galeev, who has noted several times already this phenomenon of high-profile Russians going puce in public for Western consumption, and has set out his explanation once again, and at some length.
Summarising: any high-profile Russian Kremlin-dweller who might even vaguely appear to the West as potentially a more amenable interlocutor than Putin, is very dangerous to Putin. That's because they might serve as a rallying point for Russian oligarchs etc who've had enough. So, in order not to be a candidate for falling out of a window, such a high-profile, apparently Western-acceptable Russian must periodically rant in such unpleasant terms that nobody would take them for "someone the West could do business with". Both Medvedev and Lavrov comply with this vital self-preservation imperative whenever it seems appropriate: and this is another example.
So far, so plausible. But why such an extreme manifestation just now? Assuming Galeev's explanation is correct, it must surely follow that Putin is fearful right now of some major setbacks about to come Russia's way, presumably when the long-foretold Ukrainian offensive bursts forth. Or at least, as a risk-averse fellow he's making prudent preparations for setbacks and the inevitable domestic discontent that will follow.
We may not have long to wait.
BTW, Medvedev also follows in the grand C@W tradition of making New Year predictions. You'll like these, too - e.g. for 2023 ...
1. Oil price will rise to $150 a barrel, and gas price will top $5.000 per 1.000 cubic meters
2. The UK will rejoin the EU
3. The EU will collapse after the UK’s return; Euro will drop out of use as the former EU currency ...
8. Civil war will break out in the US, California. and Texas becoming independent states as a result. Texas and Mexico will form an allied state. Elon Musk’ll win the presidential election in a number of states which, after the new Civil War’s end, will have been given to the GOP
You get the drift. What a wag. Bet he keeps away from windows, though ...
ND
25 comments:
Have followed Kamil for a while now for his unique take on all things Russian - but sometimes he crosses the line from logic to lunacy. Must be a Russian thing.
Transatlantic slang warning...
Nick, shirley you mean a 'tuppenny-ha'penny incel bedsit dweller'.
I wonder what Galeev's explanation is for the regular unhinged spittle-flecked rants our political masters subject us to about Russia/Russian peoples?
I thought this Chinese reporter did a great job of calling out the hypocrisy over Ukraine with respect to the US military occupation of Syria:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl4_2AqUORs
Mr Bloke - I hope and (in my innocence) believe that the 'incel' thing is intrinsically trans-atlantic
Somebody obvs doesn't understand the rules about who may become US Prez.
Sort of interesting but does not tell us much about Putin's next moves. The US leaks do look like carelessness rather than a misinformation campaign - which must warm Putin's little heart. Worrying but not surprising.
Where next? I guess the game is for Putin to survive 2023 and not lose to any Ukraine push. From end of 2023 he can let another winter go by and then a little largesse to US political actors to render the US ineffective. A useful gap in which to weaken European resolve and plan for a more useful US political scene. Settle in for the long haul.
Nick,
Not 'incel' but 'two-bit' (coinage metaphore).
Mr Bloke - OK ... and because I think 'incel' is a US phenomenon, why then, ...
(oh, never mind!)
Medvedev used to be an Atlanticist, as did a fairly large proportion of the Russian elite - probably a majority. Hell hath no fury...
To quote Blok's The Scythians
"But if you spurn us, then we shall not mourn.
We too can reckon perfidy no crime,
And countless generations yet unborn
Shall curse your memory till the end of time.
We shall abandon Europe and her charm.
We shall resort to Scythian craft and guile.
Swift to the woods and forests we shall swarm,
And then look back, and smile our slit-eyed smile."
Is that spring offensive still on? The mud is still deep in Bakhmut.
I guess those 'leaked documents' dated early March showing 0% training for most of the armoured brigades in the offensive could be a cunning plant. If they're real, it's bad news for Ukraine.
It could be said to be a triumph of US foreign policy to sunder Germany and Russia, and remove Russia from Europe.
IMHO it'll be a Pyrrhic victory, as former US allies desert the setting sun for the rising East. Just hope the neocons have read about the Thucydides Trap.
Medvedev is also an Olympic class alcoholic, so no doubt some of that feeds into his missives. If he manages to avoid defenestration long enough for the cirrhosis to kick in, he can consider that a win.
The leak is quite interesting too, looks like it was dumped on Discord and has been released with a few tweaks from there. Plenty of meat for conspiracy theorists from all sides to feast upon.
Russian demographics not looking too healthy - https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/04/11/russia-lost-13m-young-workers-in-2022-research-a80784
Putin must be quite grateful Russians are a rather more cowed people that the French.
When things quieten down I assume quite a lot of the Russians who scarpered from being called up will return, but the longer this goes on, the more of the diaspora will settle down in their new lives and never return.
https://www.google.com/search?q=lavrov&rlz=1CATTSD_enGB819&sxsrf=APwXEddIeYhV1hoaGXcSTdRFDAulrUxR3g:1681384219231&source=lnms&tbm=vid&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjuy_io3Kb-AhW0lFwKHdgwBOUQ_AUoA3oECAEQBQ&biw=1366&bih=665&dpr=1#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:95100c9d,vid:hiA8Ex9KQo4
Sergey Lavrov recently. He does not sound mad to me.
I have heard claims that Ukraine has lost troops north of 100k dead and 400k injured so severely that they are put permanently out of use with severe injuries of a nature that will need lifelong healthcare.
10 m Ukrainian refugees have fled.
The Spring offensive will include a force of largely newly trained troops under veteran command against entrenched Russian positions with a supportive population behind them.
Colonel Douglas MacGreggor is my source. Anyone know this guy ? I really don't trust our MSM, especially when they hide the US President's obvious dementia in plain sight, either that or he insults our country and our PM deliberately.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Macgregor
Or am I just seeking out confirmation bias ?
Yes. The Russians are difficult but they did not do this without consulting Xi after an attempt to broker a treaty for Ukrainian neutrality had failed - is Xi a nut job too ? His only objection was that his Olympics were to be left undisturbed.
If Russia really is the husk we think it is then send in the USSAF and mop this up by next Wednesday.
Caesar - UK demographics aren't looking too healthy when the #1 given name for boys in England and Wales in 2021 is Muhammad/Mohammed/Mohamad/Muhamed.
https://www.behindthename.com/top/lists/england-wales/2021
@EK - MacGregor has discovered that providing content that a section of the internet laps up is lucrative, so view him in the light of a piper who knows which tunes gets the most coin flung their way.
@Anon - UK demographics have been an issue for a while, something successive governments have used immigration to paper over.
I'm not sure quite why a particular name is an issue though, the mouth-frothiness of Muslims tends to correlate with income level. The more well heeled are a lot more liberal, the ones in the poorer areas much more likely to be fruitcakes.
The UK would have been much better off if we'd kept the demographics of 1971 and stopped mass immigration. They would have had to front up about the Ponzi scheme of NI and state pensions, but we could have managed. Nothing more expensive than cheap labour - privatise the profits and socialise the losses.
Now it's insane - people are much worse off than their parents were because house prices are through the roof yet HMG keep inviting people in and even with waves of concrete round every country town supply doesn't meet demand.
If I hear "tight labour market" again... we'll know the labour market is where it should be when the hand car wash is a thing of the past...
"the Russians who scarpered from being called up will return, but the longer this goes on, the more of the diaspora will settle down in their new lives and never return"
Those are exactly the kind of immigrants a nation needs! You can just tell they'll be loyal to their new home... and does that apply to Ukrainians too?
This pessimistic Guardian opinion piece seems to be written by someone who's only just realised that Russia has a rather larger population than Ukraine and the military implications thereof. I think the subtext is that she'd like more than 50 UK troops (as revealed by the leaked docs) there.
She may get her way yet, with two large US battlegroups close to the Ukrainian frontier.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/02/europe-ukrainians-dead-heroes-putin
Caesar
Maybe so about the Colonel (I doubt he has enough traffic to make a living from it) but why is it so difficult to find details of Ukrainian losses yet we're bombarded with Russian losses ?
Ukraine has a demographic problem too and has just lost the symbolically vital battle of Bakhmut.
Colonel MacGreggor's 'sources in the Pentagon' have "expressed alarm at how this war is going for Ukraine - their army is being bled white."
Does anyone know ?
Funnily enough? Hardly. Anyone knowing the region knows exactly.
Huge ND fanboy here, and he, unlike many of us, has dealt with Russians and their companies/institutions, but I can't help thinking his forecast that "Putin is fearful right now of some major setbacks about to come Russia's way" is, while strictly accurate in that a national leader should always be paranoid about a powerful enemy that broke his country once and wants to do so again, isn't quite spot-on about what a Marxist would call "the objective balance of forces".
IF those leaked docs are kosher - and I'm 50/50 on that one - then the brigades slated for the attack are short on equipment and very short on training. Have all the soldiers we trained already been killed?
And as we keep being told, they're short on ammo. Most of our former ROF sites are housing estates, and most of the occupants of said estates are Brits fleeing the cities and diversity.
PS - driving through such an estate this morning, Ukraine-registered car in front. They haven't quite worked out zebra crossings yet - you don't go round the pedestrian while he's still on the crossing, and you wait for the cyclist who's just arrived on the pavement.
PPS - but like VVP, it behoves us to be wary - Mordor still disposes of great power and those docs may have been planted for the lad to discover. I would not be surprised if their satellites/sonar have clocked the locations of all of Russia's nuclear-armed submarines, for example. That would certainly explain their seeming insouciance about WW3.
"Mordor still disposes of great power" - I wonder if the current unpleasantness in Sudan is related to the current (only just) Sudanese govt decision to lease a naval base to Russia?
Funding "militants" vs "governments we don't like" has a very long history - remember we funded bin Laden when he was killing Russians in Afghanistan.
Certainly - the narrative is Hobbits vs Orcs in the mythology pervading Inner England.
50 SAS operating in Ukraine according to the deliberate leaks from the US. Probably in direct fire sniping and painting targets for artillery.
Why are we even pretending we're not at war with Russia ?
The US has dropped a big bo^&*ck and now owes Ukraine big time. Oh, that was the plan - I don't think so. Cock up not conspiracy. And no one noticed - apart from WaPo??
Now how to deliver? Direct engagement might make for squeaky bottoms around the beltway. There is not too much time to patch up the damage either. A healthy delivery of shoulder launched hardware seems the minimum. We shall see.
Biden had better make it short and snappy before the GOPs get a chance to sell Ukraine down the river.
@E-K - going off traffic he likely makes a good $10k a year, he's not quite popular enough to rake in the millions the real YT "stars" do. Still, along with his other media income, it's not bad for claiming the US will be running out of certain ammunition (even Tucker Carlson didn't swallow that) and proclaiming Russian victory every few months.
Take him as you will, but for me he's just another source of disinformation
Post a Comment