First, the easy one. Russia has a typical 5th column: pro-western “liberals”, assorted agents of influence, nostalgic of the 90s (when they could plunder Russia as much as they wanted), Washington Consensus types, folks who hate Russia (for whatever reason) and dream of the day Russia will break apart, etc. etc. etc. They are, objectively, agents of influence for the western PSYOPs. I coined the term “Atlantic Integrationists” because, at best, these folks want Russia to be accepted by the West as an equal partner and then join all the western institutions and become the next Poland. Of course, these folks are all russophobes, whether they admit it or not. They think of themselves as “elites” (they like to call themselves “intelligentsia”) and they feel much superior to the “dark, illiterate, masses” who vote for monsters like Putin. I think this is all pretty simple and I won’t discuss that any further.
Now the much more complex issue. Russia ALSO has a 6th column. I wrote an entire analysis of these folks in a post entitled ” Is there a 6th column trying to subvert Russia?” which you must read to understand what I am going to describe below. I will not repeat it all here.
I will, however, offer a few reminders:
- The western PSYOPs understood that when most Russian hear the the West and the Russian 5th column that calling Putin a “brutal dictator” they think “well, if they hate him this much, he must be defending our, Russian interests, and not the West’s imperial agenda” (Russians also remember how the West absolutely *loved* Eltsin!). Considering that pro-western liberals represent something in the range of 1-3% (max!), the folks at the CIA or MI6 figured out that they were wasting their energy and had to come up with a different plan.
- And somebody pretty sharp came up with the idea of calling Putin not patriotic enough, sold to the WEF and Davos, an agent of Israel and a traitor to true Russian interests. Of course, this is NOT what western PSYOPs told the audience in the West, but in Russia the folks from the CIA and MI6 found a very fertile ground amongst the folks who, for whatever reason, were disillusioned by Putin and who were instantly willing to pick up and repeat the narrative “Putin is not patriot, he is, in fact, a weak figurehead at best, and a traitor at worst“.
Again, I wrote an entire article about that, so please do read it to understand the “hows” and the “who” of all this.
My article was written on April 30, 2020, and I think I did a decent job describing a phenomenon nobody else, at least to my knowledge, discerned or described. But what I did not have is a “smoking gun”, the proof that my analysis was not all the product of conjectures or my misreading of the reality of Russian internal politics.
Yesterday I found that smoking gun. And, boy, it is good, really good. Let me explain.
There is a Russian retired Colonel-General named Leonid Ivashov. Here is his English Wikipedia page. It so happens that I had the chance to meet him and have a long conversation, one on one, with him in Moscow in 1993 when he was the Secretary of the Council of Ministers of Defense of the CIS States. It was quite a meeting, outside nearby firefights were taking place between the supporters of Eltsin and those who defended the Russian Parliament, so I had to pass two rings of heavily armed and very stern looking Special Forces to meet Ivashov (we met in the building where he had his offices and the guard was very strict). The fact that he was willing to meet me, a young Russian emigre and a nobody, in such crazy circumstances speaks to the kind of man Ivashov is: very nice, soft spoken, humble and very welcoming. We drank some Turkish coffee with cardamon (which he called “Moldavian style coffee”) together and even shared one glass of (excellent) Moldavian brandy. If I remember correctly, Ivashov served in Moldavia, hence his love for all things Moldavian. He made a great impression on me, he was very sober minded, superbly educated, amazingly open (especially for a Soviet-era general) and I think we parted on very friendly terms. I want to share all this with you to be as honest as I can about what I will write next about Ivashov.
Politically Ivashov was clearly a real patriot, no doubt about it. However, over the years, his criticism of the Kremlin policies and, eventually, Putin personally become harsher and harsher. Over the years he became one of the figureheads of what I would call the “anti-Putin patriotic movement” in Russia. Here are some of the talking points members of this movement often expressed:
- Putin is a pure product of the Eltsin “family”. He was deeply involved with the likes of Eltsin, Sobchak and the rest of the gang which took power in 1991.
- Putin’s elections are all fake, the people of Russia hate him.
- Far from saving Russia from disaster, Putin very much continued the Eltsin policies of the 90s, only wrapped in a pious pseudo-patriotic claptrap.
- Putin is selling out Russia to both the West AND China.
- Putin also sold out to Russian Jews, international Zionists and the Israelis.
- Putin betrayed and lost Russia when he recognized the Ukronazi regime in Kiev and stopped the LDNR forces from liberating more (some would even say “all”) of the Ukraine.
- Putin is surrounded by oligarchs whose bidding he does and whose interests he really upholds.
- The Putin regime does nothing against all the western agents of influence in the Russian media and government structures, but he viciously represses real Russian patriots.
- Russia is all but dead, we lost against the West, China will eat us up, economically Russia is dead too, import substitution did not even work, and Russia is still totally dependent on the West for basic stuff ranging from simply metal bolts, to microchips to entire machines.
I could go on for much longer, but I want to point out two crucial things here:
- The Russian liberals and the Russian anti-Putin patriots agree on many things.
- If what these folks say is correct, then its all over, Russia is done, and everything is lost.
That latest concept, “everything is lost”, even created a special words for those who believe that to be the case: “allislosters” (всепропальщики).
I have always contended that pro-US liberals and the allislosters fundamentally share the same ideas and are, whether they are aware of this or not, objectively advancing the kind of defeatism which the western PSYOPs want to inject in the Russian collective psyche. That idea is what I call the “Borg ultimatum” (from the Star Trek the Next Generation series): “resistance is futile, you shall be incorporated”.
When degenerate liberals a la Muratov or pseudo-democrats like Navalnyi spew that crap, they get traction with only a tiny proportion, a few percents max, of the Russian population.
But when real patriots say these things, it bring FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) into a MUCH bigger percentage of the Russian population, probably no less than 20%: not a majority, but a very sizeable minority.
Here is a machine translated (and slightly corrected) version of the text penned by General Ivashov and his supporters which was released yesterday and, very characteristically, immediately mentioned by the entire western media within hours. Read it for yourself before we continue. I bolded out some key sentences.
***
The Chairman of the All-Russian Officers’ Assembly, Colonel-General Leonid G. Ivashov, wrote an Appeal to the President and citizens of the Russian Federation “The Eve of War”:
Address of the All -Russian Officers’ Assembly
to the President and citizens of the Russian Federation
Today, humanity lives in anticipation of war. And war is the inevitable human sacrifice, destruction, suffering of large masses of people, the destruction of a habitual way of life, disruption of the life systems of states and peoples. A big war is a huge tragedy, someone’s grave crime. It so happened that Russia was at the center of this impending catastrophe. And, perhaps, this is the first time in its history.
Earlier, Russia (USSR) waged forced (just) wars, and, as a rule, when there was no other way out, when the vital interests of the state and society were threatened.
And what threatens the existence of Russia itself today, and are there such threats? It can be argued that there are indeed threats – the country is on the verge of ending its history. All vital areas, including demography, are steadily deteriorating, and the rate of population extinction is breaking world records. And degradation is systemic, and in any complex system, the destruction of one of the elements can lead to the collapse of the entire system.
And this, in our opinion, is the main threat to the Russian Federation. But this is an internal threat emanating from the model of the state, the quality of power and the state of society. And the reasons for its formation are internal: the non-viability of the state model, the complete incapacity and lack of professionalism of the system of power and management, passivity and disorganization of society. Any country does not live in such a state for a long time.
As for external threats, they are certainly present. But, according to our expert assessment, they are not critical at the moment, directly threatening the existence of the Russian statehood, its vital interests. Strategic stability is maintained in general, nuclear weapons are under reliable control, NATO forces are not being built up, and they do not show threatening activity.
Therefore, the situation being escalated around Ukraine is, first of all, artificial, self-serving for some internal forces, including the Russian Federation. As a result of the collapse of the USSR, in which Russia (Yeltsin) took a decisive part, Ukraine became an independent state, a member of the UN, and in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter has the right to individual and collective defense.
The leadership of the Russian Federation has not yet recognized the results of the referendum on the independence of the DPR and LPR, while at the official level more than once, including during the Minsk negotiation process, it emphasized the belonging of their territories and population to Ukraine.
It has also been said more than once at a high level about the desire to maintain normal relations with Kiev, without singling out special relations with the DPR and the LPR.
The issue of the genocide committed by Kiev in the south-eastern regions has not been raised either in the UN or in the OSCE. Naturally, in order for Ukraine to remain a friendly neighbor for Russia, it was necessary for it to demonstrate the attractiveness of the Russian model of the state and the system of power.
But the Russian Federation has not become such, its development model and the foreign policy mechanism of international cooperation repel almost all neighbors, and not only.
The acquisition of Crimea and Sevastopol by Russia and their non-recognition as Russian by the international community (which means that the overwhelming number of states of the world still consider them to belong to Ukraine) convincingly shows the inconsistency of Russian foreign policy and the unattractiveness of domestic policy.
Attempts through an ultimatum and threats of the use of force to make the Russian Federation and its leadership “fall in love” are senseless and extremely dangerous.
The use of military force against Ukraine, firstly, will call into question the existence of Russia itself as a state; secondly, it will forever make Russians and Ukrainians mortal enemies. Thirdly, there will be thousands (tens of thousands) of young, healthy children killed on one side and on the other, which will certainly affect the future demographic situation in our dying countries. On the battlefield, if this happens, Russian troops will face not only Ukrainian servicemen, among whom there will be many Russian guys, but also military personnel and equipment of many NATO countries, and the member states of the alliance will be obliged to declare war on Russia.
The President of the Republic of Turkey, R. Erdogan, clearly stated on whose side Turkey will fight. And it can be assumed that two field armies and the Turkish navy will be ordered to “liberate” Crimea and Sevastopol and possibly invade the Caucasus.
In addition, Russia will definitely be included in the category of countries that threaten peace and international security, will be subject to the heaviest sanctions, will turn into an outcast of the world community, and will probably be deprived of the status of an independent state.
The president and the government, the Ministry of Defense cannot fail to understand such consequences, they are not so stupid.
The question arises: what are the true goals of provoking tension on the verge of war, and the possible unleashing of large-scale hostilities? And that there will be such, says the number and combat strength of the groups of troops formed by the parties – at least one hundred thousand soldiers on each side. Russia, baring its eastern borders, is moving formations to the borders of Ukraine.
In our opinion, the country’s leadership, realizing that it is not capable of leading the country out of the systemic crisis, and , with the support of the oligarchy, corrupt officials, lured media and security forces, decided to activate the political line for the final destruction of the Russian statehood and the extermination of the indigenous population of the country.
And war is the means that will solve this problem in order to retain its anti-national power for a while and preserve the wealth stolen from the people. We can’t think of any other explanation.
From the President of the Russian Federation, we, the officers of Russia, demand to abandon the criminal policy of provoking a war in which the Russian Federation will be alone against the united forces of the West, to create conditions for the implementation in practice of Article 3 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation and resign.
We appeal to all reserve and retired military personnel, citizens of Russia with a recommendation to be vigilant, organized, support the demands of the Council of the All-Russian Officers’ Assembly, actively oppose propaganda and the outbreak of war, prevent internal civil conflict with the use of military force.
Chairman of the All-Russian Officers’ Assembly, Colonel-General L.G. Ivashov
Source here
***
Next, what I want to do is bring all the parts I bolded out into one single paragraph.
I would call it their “creed”, the symbol of their “faith”. Here we go:
The country is on the verge of ending its history. The non-viability of the state model, the complete incapacity and lack of professionalism of the system of power and management, passivity and disorganization of society. External threats, they are certainly present. But, according to our expert assessment, they are not critical at the moment. NATO forces are not being built up, and they do not show threatening activity. The situation being escalated around Ukraine is, first of all, artificial, self-serving for some internal forces, including the Russian Federation. (The Russian) development model and the foreign policy mechanism of international cooperation repel almost all neighbors, and not only. The acquisition of Crimea and Sevastopol by Russia and their non-recognition as Russian by the international community convincingly shows the inconsistency of Russian foreign policy and the unattractiveness of domestic policy. Attempts through an ultimatum and threats of the use of force to make the Russian Federation and its leadership “fall in love” are senseless and extremely dangerous.The use of military force against Ukraine, firstly, will call into question the existence of Russia itself as a state. There will be thousands (tens of thousands) of young, healthy children killed on one side and on the other, which will certainly affect the future demographic situation in our dying countries. Military personnel and equipment of many NATO countries, and the member states of the alliance will be obliged to declare war on Russia. It can be assumed that two field armies and the Turkish navy will be ordered to “liberate” Crimea and Sevastopol and possibly invade the Caucasus. The question arises: what are the true goals of provoking tension on the verge of war, and the possible unleashing of large-scale hostilities? The country’s leadership, realizing that it is not capable of leading the country out of the systemic crisis. This may lead to an uprising of the people and a change of power in the country (and) activate the political line for the final destruction of the Russian statehood and the extermination of the indigenous population of the country. War is the means that will solve this problem in order to retain its anti-national power for a while and preserve the wealth stolen from the people. We can’t think of any other explanation. We, the officers of Russia, demand to abandon the criminal policy of provoking a war.
I submit that this is unambiguously a terminally defeatist text. It basically says the same thing as what the Ukronazis were chanting in streets “Russians, surrender! Russians, surrender!”.
I am on record as saying that Russia has been at war with the Empire since at least 2013. Yes, that war is 80% informational, about 15% economic and about 5% kinetic. But it was (and still is) a very real war: the Empire lost that war on January 8th 2020 and the USA lost this war on January 6th, 2021. What is taking place now are truly mopping up operations, especially after the Joint Declaration of Russia and China!
Objectively, General Ivashov by his open letter is serving the interests of the CIA/MI6 PSYOPs, now the entire western media can say “Russian generals are opposed to Putin’s aggressive campaign against the Ukraine”.
The fact that this text was released at a time when Putin and Macron had a SIX hours long negotiation is also very telling, to put it mildly.
And then, there is this: this latest text DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS everything which Ivashov said many times over the past years. I don’t have the time or energy to give you all the quotes, but I recommend this video from the exiled Ukrainian blogger Anatoly Sharii, who shows and explains that all in details. The video is in Russian, but I believe that there is a way to get an auto-translation going in the YouTube captions. If you can, I highly recommend you listen to what Sharii says. I would summarize it by saying that Sharii correctly point out that Ivashov made a 180 and now even contradicts his own, past, views.
Personally, when I first saw that text I had to rub my eyes and make sure it was not an optical illusion or a hallucination. My next thought was that somebody must be blackmailing Ivashov. But that is highly unlikely. The man is already retired, I doubt that anybody has any “dirt” on him and, frankly, I don’t believe that he is a coward who would yield to such pressure or abandon his principles. Neither is Ivashov senile, at 78 he is still has very articulate mind (as shown by his live inteviews and videos on the RuNet; he ain’t no Sleepy Joe).
Was this text a fake?
Nope, Ivashov even doubled down this video.
So what in the world happened here?
Before I answer that question, I want to touch upon something very important.
In any PSYOPs or propaganda, WHAT you see is much less important than the EFFECT of what you said will have. So PSYOPs and propaganda are not aimed at “everybody” because people are different. Which I won’t even bother debunking all the factual falsehoods, logical fallacies or outright idiotic nonsense this text is full of. Most of the readers of the Saker blog easily can do that by themselves anyway.
Let me give you one example: these anti-Putin patriots constantly “warn” that there will be an uprising, an insurrection or even coup against Putin. So the WHAT is “a warning about something”, but from an EFFECT point of view, it is very simple: FUD – to try to induce fear, uncertainty and doubt.
In the real world, there is exactly *zero* possibility of any revolt, insurrection or coup against Putin. If anything, should the liberals or the anti-Putin patriots try to organize a Maidan in Moscow, they will be crushed not as much by the security services, as by the much larger ANTI-Maidan forces in Moscow (that already happened once in 2011-2013). So the argument is idiotically counter-factual. But the intended EFFECT is FUD at a time when Russia is winning on all fronts.
Not a coincidence.
That being said, what happened to Ivashov?
I see only one explanation: I would call it “ideological drunkenness”. That is when a person’s ideological inclinations become so acute and the reality in the real world so unacceptable, that a person becomes literally “drunk” with his/her ideology. We can currently observe that with the US Neocons, the Trump 2024 supporters, the anti-vaxxers and COVID-dissidents, and every single religious sect/cult out there. Notice that cults always emphasize emotions over rational analysis. You could say that their operating principle is “don’t confuse me with facts, I have my opinion made“.
And if you insist of facts, they get really mad really fast.
The main reason why the pro-western liberals and the anti-Putin patriots are so angry and even directly mad at the Russian people, is that both of these camps failed to get enough traction with the Russian public to truly weaken Putin or the Kremlin. So the crazy “defeatist stream of consciousness” shown in Ivashov’s text is the result from many decades of deep frustration and anger. Frustration because the Russian people did give their support to Putin over and over again and anger because far from failing, Putin is winning on all fronts.
When a rational mind finds that a prediction or an effort failed, it seeks to correct its initial assumptions and policies and develop new, more effective ones. You know, the scientific method and all that.
When an ideological mind finds that a prediction or an effort failed, far from analyzing reality, it seeks refuge in doubling-down over and over again or, if dates are involved, these ideological minds simply push back the date of the “inevitable collapse”.
And if that means that a 3 star general must write stuff he MUST know (due to his excellent education) are factually false and utter nonsense in order to push his ideological agenda, then we see that this is truly a desperate effort.
BTW – let me reassure everybody, this letter will also go to the trashbins of history even if it is used for a while by the unison of the chorus of the western propaganda machine. Folks in the West mostly believe the “Putin the evil dictator of Mordor” anyway. As for Russia, those who were already anti-Putin patriots don’t matter much, in this case Ivashov is preaching to the choir. As for the rest of Russians, they will “twist their finger at the temple” (Russian gesture to say “crazy”) and quickly dismiss it.
But for our purposes, this open letter is truly precious, priceless even.
In French we could say “Navalnyi ou Ivashov – même combat!” meaning “Navalnyi or Ivashov – same struggle”.
Mind you – Ivashov is so blinded by his hatred for “the regime” (he would say “the family”) that he is probably totally oblivious to how he comes across and whose interests he de facto very much serves.
This is very sad, and for personally too, I still like the man very much. Navalnyi is a sad, immoral piece of scum. But not Ivashov: I am certain that he is a good, honorable and sincere person. But like an alcoholic, he drank too much of his own cool-aid – his actions are not an expression of his personality, but of his (ideological) pathology.
Ideologies are probably the single most dangerous (mental) toxins out there.
My only hope is that the ridiculously over-the-top contents of this truly deeply delusional letter will open the eyes of those who are on the fence (in Russia and abroad) about both Putin and the anti-Putin patriots. If they are ideologically sober enough they might remember the words of Christ “ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matt 7:16) and realize that de facto anti-Putin Russian patriots are collaborationist with the western enemies of Russia.
As for Putin, oh sure, he does have his faults. And yes, there are still plenty of Atlantic Integrationists in the Russian circles of power (media, Presidential Administration, Government, Central Bank, etc. etc. etc.). In medicine, it is important to take note of two things: the condition of the patient and the evolution of the disease. I would argue that any honest appraisal of Putin’s actions over the past 20 years show two things:
- He failed to solve all the problems of Russia (I wrote about this in distant 2016!)
- But the evolution of Russia since Putin came to power an improving one, going from bad, to better and sometimes to even very good. Yes, it did take a lot of retreats and compromises to achieve the current situation, but there is no denial that in 1999 Russia was breaking apart while in 2022 it is clear that Russia prevailed over both the Empire and its main constituent, the USA.
Real, sober, patriots understand that, for all his faults, now is NOT the time to subvert or undermine Putin. Let him prosecute the war until Russia’s full victory, and then let’s put maximum pressure on him to finally develop a truly sovereign Russian internal policy and even polity.
I fully expect most anti-Putin patriots to never EVER admit that. That would invalidate no less than two decades of their (misguided) efforts to get rid of Putin were in vain and that they will never come to power themselves.
My personal biggest hope is that you, the readers, will now become fully aware of what I call the 6th column in Russia, as opposed to the 5th, traditional one: the next time you hear somebody deny the existence of the Atlantic Integrationists, the Russian liberal 5th column or the allislosters 6th column, please ask yourself: cui bono – who benefits from this denial?
The current standoff between Russia and the West has already yielded numerous very good results. To use an metaphor, Putin stuck a stick into the “western anthill” and all the ants (western politicians) are now running around like crazy. Putin’s success also stuck another stick into the “allislosters” anthill and all these ants (anti-Putin patriots) are now also running around like crazy.
How much comfort can the leaders of the West get from all of the above?
Not much.
It is pretty clear that both 5th column and 6th column PSYOPs have miserably failed. In fact, both the 5th and the 6th column can only preach to their choir, most Russians absolutely hate liberals and a majority also disagrees with the 6th columns defeatism. Putin’s recent series of major successes (politically, militarily, economically) really leave the 6th column no hope at all to prevail. At most, they will lash out and continue to predict an insurrection or coup, but that ship has sailed long ago.
That is not to say that we should dismiss that toxic and evil trio: Atlantic Integrationists, the 5th column and the 6th column. For one thing, there still are Atlantic Integrationists everywhere, from RT, to the Russian Central Bank, to the Presidential Administration, the Kremlin, the Government and A LOT in the media, including entertainment. Putin has pushed them back to some degree, the situation now is MUCH better than, say in 2017, but the enemy is still there. And Russia’s history clearly shows that the internal enemy is far more dangerous than the external one.
Furthermore, Russia is still a “one man show”: remove Putin and Russia will immediately undergo a major crisis, internal and external, if only because there is no credible successor to him, not by a long shot. I can name many very good people near Putin, his Eurasian Sovereignist allies, but none of them have his stature.
And he still has not found the opportunity to get rid of some dangerous snakes which are also in his close entourage. I believe that Putin is much more threatened by Russian financiers than he is by NATO or the US. And, always keep this in mind, Putin is no Stalin. He cannot just fire, expel, arrest or execute anyone for no reason: he has to follow the law which very much limits his power. Nor do I believe that a majority of Russians would approve if Putin started to act like a dictator: been there, done that, paid a huge cost and won’t ever do it again.
Still, should something happen to Putin (disease, death, incapacitation, etc.) we can be sure that the Atlantic Integrationists, the 5th columnists, the 6th columnists and the entire united West will pounce on Russia which will result in a major crisis which potentially could truly threaten the future of Russia.
The truth is that as long as Russia will still be in the process of redefining herself on the fly Russia will be unstable and vulnerable. But that is a topic for a future analysis.
Andrei
UPDATE: as soon as I posted this up, several commentators quasi immediately chimed in with “Ivashov is right”, “I agree with him”, etc. etc. etc. All commentators from the West, by the way. Considering how disruptive my analysis is to the western PSYOPs, I expect a deluge of trolls trying to “retake control of the narrative” in the comments section. Needless to say, I will eject them all without any hesitation. After 15 years of blogging I can easily distinguish a sincere critical comment from the typical output of trolls (paid or not).
Ivashov’s article was written in English, and not by him. And it has nothing to do with Russia. It’s just a bunch of noise in Western press and blogs. That’s just my guess, but it all fits. I choose to ignore it.
Oh, and I hasten to add, some people are saying that he hasn’t been actively involved for something like thirty years and is being used as a stooge because senility is a defense against treason.
You think that he is unaware of what he supposedly wrote?
That he has senile dementia?
In that case
Who is manipulating him?
We don’t know that. But it smells really bad, and the coordinated reaction in the foreign agent press indicates that it was a planned exercise. In any case, I don’t think it means anything at all.
the coordinated reaction in the foreign agent press indicates that it was a planned exercise.
Agreed.
I don’t think it means anything at all.
It shows that the so-called anti-Putin patriots are “allislosters” who objectively work for western PYSOPs
I definitely agree that this is part of some information warfare. Such writing would make, most of the American ideological types, give a standing ovation. For anyone working on the betterment of Russia would be left exasperated.
General Ivashow has been a vocal supporter Kvachkov and Girkin for years. Add to their company an expelled priest turned wanted criminal Sergei Romanov, who declared himself a “ruler of Russia.” Both men, Kvachkov and Girkin, were the crisis-actors on Malafeev’s payroll. Malafeev is a banker and a creatura of the British and the Rothschilds. They are desperate and throwing at Putin everyone and everything. They are waking up “sleepers” (spyashih) all over the place. The general’s association of “Russian officers” are not real, not registered, a one man’s show. He is faking senility while sleeping with the enemy. Svoloch, konechno.
Malofeev has corrupted quite a lot of people, including putatively pro-Russian websites.
Katchkov was always a nutcase, how he could ever command an entire special forces brigade baffles me.
Girkin played an important role in the LDNR, at least initially, then he also went batshit crazy.
More generally
If you look at the Russian opposition (both from the 5th and the 6th) its more of a freak show than any serious alternative to Putin, Putinism or “the family”. The latter, for all their mistakes, failures and even sins at least are mentally connected to reality.
Most of the Russian opposition really only deserves to be flushed in a mental toilet.
Which is NOT good for Russia.
Russia needs a 1) healthy 2) honest and 3) critical opposition.
So far, I don’t see it. All the folks with brains (including the evil ones!) are in the United Russia party.
That’s really not good, not for Putin and not for Russia (sorry, I really don’t like the United Russia party, lots of them are also pseudo-patriots).
This will change very fast when NATO breaks up.
All countries all governments have these types of people, even the U.S. with its neocons unfortunately outside of arresting them for treason little can be done about it. Russia and Putin will survive this for it to will pass away
“Russia needs a 1) healthy 2) honest and 3) critical opposition”
I want to comment on this because it is a pervasive problem, all around the world. At least in Latin America, opposition to the “Axis of Resistance” usually congregates behind a fruitcake such as Bolsonaro in Brazil or it is fragmented in dozens of pieces (tens of candidates in Peru with less than 5 or 10% of the votes each, or the recent Costarican election with 25 candidates).
In order to have a healthy, honest and critical opposition, it needs to offer a sound political project for the nation. Something sustainable, credible (which means not to be funded in countinuously rolling loans from the West), aligned with the cultural specificities of each country that gather several civilian actors and forces. Without that, you cannot expect but a circus.
Russia does have an outspoken, patriotic, honest – & truly populist – opposition party. It’s known as “Spravedlivaya Rossia/Za Pravdu” (with Sergey Mikheev, Zakhar Prilepin, Nikolai Starikov being some of its big stars). Last elections, with all the ER’s shenanigans, Za Pravdu got more votes than did Zhrinovsky’s party which moved it to the #3 position after the Communists (some of whose voters also moved to Za Pravdu). I expect that by the next elections ER will have to be either broken up and/or reformed, and Za Pravdu will continue to gain its popularity.
“the next time you hear somebody deny the existence of the Atlantic Integrationists, the Russian liberal 5th column or the allislosters 6th column, please ask yourself: cui bono – who benefits from this denial?”
Cui bono is a question posed by spectators whilst “How to benefit” is a question posed by practioners.
Consequently who benefits from this denial is the question posed by spectators, whereas practitioners remain focused on “How to benefit” instead of making unnecessary forays into emulation/speculation.
In a slightly different form this is an example/frustration of Mr. Rove’s speculations on
We are an Empire
We create our own reality to which others react
Whilst they are reacting
We create another reality to which others react.
One of your notions from February/March 2014 approximately advised
Russia must invade Ukraine- perhaps on the understanding that representatives of the Russian Federation were incapable of analysing contexts sufficiently to design, implement, evaluate, and modulate/cordinate tactics and strategies to facilitate their purposes, and hence required the benefit your assistance/facilities?
However “The United States of America” gained an albatross, whilst the Russian Federation gained a new member partly as a function of the facilities of others whom you sought to advise.
You apparently seek to reprise that offer by positing that Russia has a 5th and, especially, 6th columns- an assertion which catalyses connotations particularly with non-practitioners – which Auslander on February 09, 2022 · at 3:55 am EST/EDT seeks to support “as a practitioner” by
“We have already fought the ‘5th’ and ‘6th’ columns back in ’93. The fighting in Moskau was quite strong at times, literally ‘to the death’ and ‘no prisoners’. But, like all wars internal and external there were times when we simply did not fight each other. I was there and Saker has the proof.” despite practitioners then and now being bound not to publically discuss matters in which they were involved – existed and exists in the Russian Federation, instead of a limited sum of some of useful fools who deem themselves to be part of a 5th, 6th or nth column and hence threats to the Russian Federation.
As to the 1993 useful fools who deemed themselves to be saviours of Mother Russia and/or The Soviet Union, as a consequence of prepations by others they were frustrated in their hopes, one even having the good grace to kill himself when attention was drawn to the Zubatovschina and Father Gapon, and consequently there were few deaths but a greater number of “prisoners”, as was also the case when the Duma was attacked, of course not as peacefully as the “Capitol” was attacked.
Some do not assign the significance to others, that others seek to assign to themselves, hence “That’s really not good, not for Putin and not for Russia (sorry, I really don’t like the United Russia party, lots of them are also pseudo-patriots).” is likely not of any significance.
@Saker
He could be a honeypot.
“He could be a honeypot.”
“Consequently who benefits from this denial is the question posed by spectators, whereas practitioners remain focused on “How to benefit” instead of making unnecessary forays into emulation/speculation.”
That is one of the functions of blogs.
Over-extension is not only dangerous by causing hernias, but also aiding other things including the productivity of others.
The army should call him back to active service then immediately court marshal him for high treason.
I read his text in Russian some days ago and didn’t mention or cite it anywhere, because I thought it must be s.b. gone mad bought.
Nunca, nunca, nunca, nunca, subestime esse tipo de gente pois na Rússia, como acontece em todos os lugares, para nossa desgraça, sempre há uma legião de imbecis pronta a seguir o “profeta” de ocasião.
Google translation,MOD:
Never, never, never, never, underestimate this type of people because in Russia, as happens everywhere, to our disgrace, there is always a legion of imbeciles ready to follow the “prophet” of occasion.
Ivashov’s article was written in English, and not by him
May I ask what your source for that is?
Who do you think wrote it if Ivashov, far from denouncing it, doubled-down?
Дарья Митина: обращение Офицеров России против войны на Украине и за отставку Путина написал не сам Ивашов
Поскольку уже стали появляться новости о том, что заявление генерала Ивашова – фейк, мы связались непосредственно с Леонидом Григорьевичем и выяснили, что само заявление писал не он, но поставил под ним подпись и ответственность с себя не снимает
https://publico.ru/society/darya-mitina-obrashhenie-oficzerov-rossii-protiv-vojny-na-ukraine-i-za-otstavku-putina-napisal-ne-sam-ivashov%ef%bf%bc/?fbclid=IwAR3NaFSc66alEqrKUSwtsBi7KGteerxVI0N2kzI8W3Qcr6RXIQhU-W-97es
—–
Machine translation:
Daria Mitina: the appeal of Russian officers against the war in Ukraine and for Putin’s resignation was not written by Ivashov himself
Since news had already begun to appear that General Ivashov’s statement was a fake, we contacted Leonid Grigoryevich directly and found out that he did not write the statement itself, but signed it and does not relieve himself of responsibility
Which begs two questions:
1) who wrote the damn thing for him (find the mole!)
and
2) what difference does it make? he signed it, he did not repudiate it, thus he made it his.
There is now way for him to weasel out of this one.
As for his reputation, it is now roadkill.
Excuse me, Andrei, but when I find out that an important political statement is in fact a dog turd, this doesn’t motivate me to pull out a spectrograph and an electron scanning microscope. Yes, his reputation is now roadkill, I totally agree. All the best!
If you do not repudiate what is attributed to you, then you own it. It is a big deal.
“If you do not repudiate what is attributed to you, then you own it. It is a big deal.”
Apparently this resort is more prevalent in “The United States of America” which partly describes the career of Mr. Brzezinsky and others.
In some other social relations hypotheses are tested before assigning attribution, although that was not often the case within the “Soviet Union” for various reasons.
“What difference does it make?”
Quite a bit! You vouched for the man’s past integrity, but thought that a piece of such brain-scramblingly garbled doublethink flowed out of him. That left me confused, as well as doubtful about your ability to accurately assess Ivashov’s past character. His not being the author behind that embarrassing missive resolves my doubts and confusions. No one able to write dovetailing hypocrisy in that bizarrely influential, thought-stopping manner was ever a decent or sane person. Could Ivashov have lost his way, sold out, and signed that garbage while still having once been a decent guy? Absolutely!
But whoever actually wrote that mind-melting bundle of contradictions, posing as a coherent argument, has always been evil to the core. That kind of convoluted incoherency, calculatingly designed to slip around all the mind’s defences against blatant untruths and fester unrecognized in the subconscious, was not the output of a remotely decent guy. The sole purpose to writing that kind of logic-shortcircuiting brainwash is to induce fear, uncertainty, and doubt, i.e. to gaslight his readers.
“Beware the FUD, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!”
Maybe he signed with a gun held to his head?
nonsense
You vouched for the man’s past integrity, but thought that a piece of such brain-scramblingly garbled doublethink flowed out of him. That left me confused,
First, I did not “vouch” for anybody
Second, I met him in 1993.
Today is 2022. That’s almost 30 years ago.
So what leaves me confused is your confusion
A Russian patriot, concerned about foreign actors, writing in English? Makes no sense.
It does not make sense if you reject my explanation and are unable to offer one of your own.
As a Greek philosopher once said “ignorance is not an argument”.
“As a Greek philosopher once said “ignorance is not an argument”.
That was before “The United States of America”.
Sorry, I did not noticed you had replied to me. Out of respect, I must elaborate, and I will not be this short again on my future comments. In fact, such short comments as the one I did above may actually constitute trolling.
It makes no sense, if you are a deeply committed patriot – in such a degree that the most honorable VVP is not even considered to be doing strong -, of a nation under siege, to make a public address in a language that, more importantly than being the one of the enemies of his nations, is not the language of his fellow patriots, to whom he is supposed to try to reach.
Therefore either it was a forgery, or – as appears to be the case – the old general was led into it.
Would the most patriotic faction would ever collaborate with the enemies outside the gate?
It might have happened sometime in history, in order to depose a weak ruler – probably a king or prince who received power (by birthright) – instead of conquering with its own hands -, and substitute it with a more able one.
That would be an example of being willing to lose a battle to win a war.
However, the present situation is turning into a climax. This is not time to lose a battle. An officer with such distinguished background would never do this mistake, if he was in his right mind.
Can be compared with Bo Xilai and PLA Coupe 2013 in China.
Thank you Andrei for your excellent explanation, I read about this Ivashov letter and I think you are absolutly right.
He sounds more like 5th column to me. A liberal that wants to be on good terms with the West whatever the price there is to pay. Quite naive for a colonel, he should know that the war is already on.
But that is exactly my point!
The 5th and 6th columns come from totally different places
but, in fact, they work hand in hand
together, they are the two “prongs” of western PSYOPs against Russia
Can we say -armchair general…..???? I think VVP will very shorthly show russian military power in Syria to end tragic 10 yrs old war to show what he done in the CHECHEN he will stalingrad-ized them in Syria..btw he sent stern warning- to western beauties…..
Andrei, do you know of any other 6th column elsewhere? This is an honest question. Another example would help to gain distance from the original case and help objectify the situation.
I never thought about that, frankly, I think that this is a typically Russian phenomenon, I am not sure whether it exists elsewhere.
I took various PSYOP courses, though I can tell you that differentiating your propaganda depending on the target is really going by the book.
Actually, this shows to me that there are still some smart folks in the CIA/MI6/etc.
This move also failed, but it was much more effective than calling Putin a baby-eating tyrant.
That really faceplanted fairly quickly.
Something similar You can find in Serbia.”Big” patriots waits for foreign embassy (western) acknowledgements for their future rule. Fair or circus tent with carousel, clowns, lion tamers, football players and their whore ladies… A sad display of nothingness, fake love of the fatherland and heavy users of “mother Russia” talk points. Accompanied with news Putin will do this/that for us… Left, center, right, both teams on the pitch plays for the same boss. What am I writing ? It is one team which simulates the game and the reserve players bench is one. All is rigged.
I thought about that example, but decided not to mention it as it inevitably triggers a intra-Serbian fistfight in the comments section.
Serbia has a very active 6th column, for very similar reasons Russia does & no less because Serbia is part of the Russian world from an Anglo-German imperialist perspective – Little Russia in the Balkans (Malarusija). Let other Serbs chime in if they wish, I don’t care, I don’t see why the moderators should as long as they don’t get vulgar.
The current government in Serbia is a coalition dominated by Srpska Napredna Stranka (SNS) which is a direct outgrowth of Srpska Radikalna Stranka (Serbian Radical Party – SRS) which was historically, from 1991, the most hard nationalist political party – in the west, SRS & its leader Vojislav Seselj would often be described as fascist – which of course, was just a slur. The current President, Aleksandar Vucic was Seselj’s number 3 man, they are “kumovi” which means they are god parents to one anothers children. Seselj spent 12 years imprisoned in Holland as a suspected “war criminal” indicted by the Hague, he returned to Serbia a few years ago, I have no clue how he got released & whether he did a deal. To be fair to him, he put on a stellar defence whilst he was on trial in the Hague, & did the Serbian nation proud, but since he returned to Serbia, he has been supporting Vucic’s pro-western sell out government. Much of what was hard core nationalist in the 90s in the public sphere, politicians & intellectuals, have gone pro-western, pro-EU & pro-NATO. The west very much likes these former nationalists & pseudo nationalists because they believe with them, they will achieve the result they wish to obtain. I do not think this 6th column phenomenon is exclusive to Russia or Serbia, I think you will find variants of it everywhere, there are probably examples of it in Iran & Venezuela. Take another, radically different example, ISIS. You will often read comments by anti-imperialist types claiming ISIS was created by the CIA, when ISIS has its roots in the Iraqi insurgency against the US occupation. ISIS was ISI – the Islamic State of Iraq, & between 2006 to 2008 the Islamic State of Iraq was responsible for driving US troops out of much of al-Anbar province & back to their bases, much of the attacks on US forces were carried out by them. Some analysts have claimed up to 65% of the Iraqi insurgency was conducted by ISI, the group that became ISIS, supposedly created by the CIA. So how did this happen? How were they flipped into a terrorist group serving western imperial interests in Syria? Well, that is a long story, but it is relevant to this topic, because we are talking about non-conventional types of 5th column traitors. It is an important subject of study.
Maybe it be that many hard core as well as soft core Serbian nationalists have become pro western because of the realization that the “Little Russia” has become a baseless historical illusion after the wayward “mother” Russia was entirely anti Serbian in the last 30 years, supporting the scum of the earth, that is to say endorsing and backing (against us) the Croatian nazi-like ustasha and, consequently, she was on the side of NATO too, which opened our sleepy (Serbian) eyes and had made us to see the “mother” not to be much different from either her foster children or her “partners”?
Please, write as Your heart and mind demands. Intra-Serbian fist fighting is our thing. Stupid, old great divide.
Red vs White, pro western vs patriots vs “patriots”, Chetniks vs Partisans, lady bugs vs “colorados”… Hell, alle gegen alle style. I am tired of that BS.
For me “chain of command” is God, godfather ( I mean the man who vouch before God that I have renounced Satan), Fatherland/Motherland, family/father/mother, family name in a broad sense… Do not know what to say, I am outdated, anachronistic.
Wouldn’t the Empire’s support for both the western-oriented opposition and the military backing of Daesh in Syria be an example of supporting two opposite oppositions? I would perhaps not call Daesh a 6th column, but the principle with having a 5th and a 6th column, as you call it, is to hedge your bets. You support neither of them but are using them in to further your own interest, in these cases: the fall of Putin and the fall of Assad. -Neither the 5th and 6thy column in Russia, or the western opposition in Russia and the Deash and its derivatives would have played a role if the Empires got its way. The case of Syria does by the way show the increased risk associated by hedging your bet and supporting unsavoury actors: they almost won and almost seized Iraq.
What about the Greens, the German war party and the German MainstreamMedia financed by the Atlantic Bridge?
The Never Trump GOP, pure 6th column. Watch them at work now to try to stop him from getting the nomination in 2024.
By the way, last weekend Trump had 85,000 people at a rally in Texas. And before he ends his time in the run up to election, he will have bigger crowds. He got 75 million votes in 2020, and if the election was not rigged, would be President again.
I will say, look at the hardnose Russophobe Republicans like Mitt Romney, Rob Porter,Liz Cheney, Mitch McConnell, the Bush Family dynasty and machine, a slew of Mormons in Nevada and Utah, and “friends” like Chris Christie.
They would rather lose than have the Republican Party under Trump and MAGA run the country again.
Pure 6th columnists. Defeatists.
I think we can do a bit better than tRump, who turned out to be more of a blowhard than an effective statesman. As I don’t see much hope for 3rd parties in the U.S., I hope the Repubs manage to field a competent statesman who can make banging peace deals with Russia and China *fingers crossed*
AK…are you citizen of US ????
@serjmon
I sure am. May I ask why you ask?
Salaam-” As I don’t see much hope for 3rd parties in the U.S.” I am a complete outsider.I have learnt a great deal from visiting this blog.In particular learnt much about the eastern European insight.Nevertheless I cannot understand why is it so difficult to form a credible “Third ” pary in the USA political system-despite the fact-the DEMS / REPS is same difference, same corruption.Why?
“Nevertheless I cannot understand why is it so difficult to form a credible “Third ” pary in the USA political system-despite the fact-the DEMS / REPS is same difference, same corruption.Why?”
There are 3 reasons for this:
1) I see no kind of organization, enthusiasm, or mobilization for one on the ground here.
2) I think most Americans think that any kind of 3rd Party would just get corrupted and turn into the same as the others down the line anyway. Same junk, different label.
3) Leadership and governing skill are far more important than party allegiance. I think Trump was a start in the right direction as far as ideas go, but he turned out to be eccentric and lacked the political skills to achieve remarkable results. Dems are failing miserably right now, so the Repubs have a golden opportunity to hone the message and perfect themselves and get a good, long, sustainable platform going.
Actually this “6th column strategy” is used quite extensively against the 9/11 Truth Movement!
There you have on the one hand the people of the likes of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth who point out that the Twin Towers and WTC7 have been destroyed by controlled demolition using, amongst other types of explosives, the nanothermite that was discovered in the WTC dust by Prof. Steven Jones and Prof. Niels Harrit in tandem with the people who point out that the official hijackers couldn’t even fly a Cessna and therefore the planes used in the attacks were most likely remote controlled (or swapped in midair for remote controlled drones) and on the other hand there are a lot of individuals and groups who push far fetched disinformation campaigns, like the Twin Towers having been destroyed by “directed energy weapons” fired on them from outer space (the Judy Wood theory) or having been destroyed by “mini nukes” as well as people who claim the planes were actually “advanced technology holograms” or computer generated images fed into the video streams (“no planes” theory).
See for example Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth’s rebuttal of the “directed energy weapons” / Judy Wood theory:
FAQ #13: What is AE911Truth’s assessment of the directed energy weapon (DEW) hypothesis?
https://www.ae911truth.org/evidence/faqs/353-faq-12-what-is-ae911truth-s-assessment-of-the-directed-energy-weapon-dew-hypothesis
The Saker did actually mention this during his 2019, February 9th interview with Catherine Austin Fitts from 45 minutes onwards:
The Emerging Multipolar World – The Unraveling with the Saker
https://home.solari.com/the-emerging-multipolar-world-the-unraveling-with-the-saker/
This “6th column strategy” is in my opinion also used against the wider conspiracy theorist community in general in the form of the “flat earth” disinformation videos floating around the internet where the claim is basically that “moderate” conspiracy theorists who doubt the official story of 9/11, the Oklahoma City bombing as well as the JFK and RFK assassinations “did not dive deep enough into the rabbit hole” because they still believe the earth to be a globe…
very good points, thank you!
You‘re welcome Saker!
Try India.
Probably has a 7th and 8th column too.
“do you know of any other 6th column elsewhere?”
In Equador, the indigenous Pachakutik movement which asked for extremely disruptive measures (not to pay any debt, not to exploit any resource that may imapct the environment) became functional for the election of current neoliberal president Lasso instead of Arauz from the Correa’s movement. First nations in Equador add up to 25% of the population, thus being able to tilt the election in a ballotage.
In Argentina, hard-left parties known as Trotskist ask for extreme measures that will wreak havoc to the economy in the short and middle term (not to pay the debt, extremely high taxes on assets for millionaires, etc), consequences that they won’t take responsibility for since they are out of the government. They oppose the reformist measures from the Peronist alliance and work with the neoliberal opposition to block law proposals from the Fernandez administration. That way, they are functional to the neoliberal opposition.
Excellent political and psychological analysis!
Yeah, the “6th column” (great term) is the right flack of the 5th column, there to give it a perfunctory veneer of legitimacy. The 5th column desperately to cloak its traitorous nature.
And right on the money with the psychological profile; a direct projection of his own failures and off-the-mark predictions seems very likely as the cause of this useful idiot role.
Sorry, meant: flank not flack, of course.
Hello, it’s obvious that RT France, for example, is full of opponents of Putin, a half-hearted opposition, but tough in its stupidity and arrogance.
For the 5th and 6th column, I rather learned. Thank you, and I agree with your wise conclusion.
I read number of articles/interviews by gen. Leonid Ivashov , published by Serbian biweeklies Geopolitika and Pechat. But I was much more impressed by the articles/interviews given by another retired general with the same first name, gen Leonid Petrovich Reshetnikov, who held the position of director of Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (2009-2017). Having doctorate in Balkan history, and long experience working in KGB and SVR , Gen. Reshetnikov analysis and insight of world events and trends resonates with me like few do.
Best regards, Spiral
Reshetnikov is a smart man. I hope he does not go down the Kvachkov-Ivashov path of perdition.
In fact, there are a lot of very smart generals in Russia, including retired ones.
Oh how I wish all the Russian talkshows or, at least, the main ones were translated into English!!
For the videos where Youtube offers subtitles, you can get a fairly good idea of what people are saying. If you have never use Youtube’s translation, it takes a little persistence. First you must turn on CC, Closed Captioning. If you can’t turn on CC, then no translation is available. After CC you must click on the Gear icon just to the right of the CC button. On the Gear menu, you must do something that is not intuitive: Click on the Russian (auto-generated) button. That opens a box with the option for “Auto-translate”. Click on that option, and you will get a very long list of languages to choose from. Click on the language you want, and the correct captions will start appearing, usually in a few seconds. Of course this will work for almost any language in the world, including Chinese, etc.
If you are learning Russian, it helps to “turn on” your Russian ears, noticing first of all the change when one person stops speaking and another one starts. Subtitles is the painless way to learn languages. I got my Italian mostly from the movies and a little from the glossy magazines. About a third of my small Russian vocabulary I’ve learned like a small child: in contest, except my window is Youtube.
Machine translation is not perfect unless some human typed it in, and that’s a rare find. But in general, machine translation works fairly well to give an approximate understanding. And for splitting hairs and hares, no matter how very fluent you are, sometimes you still just have to dig harder – or else decide you don’t need to split those hairs.
Thanks!
Can we consider Alexander Dugin as part of the “6th column?” Both seem to think the only way to save Russia is to win a huge war.
yes, de facto, very much so
Absolutely. He has been promoted by the WESTERN press as “Putin’s ideologue”, a nemesis of the Western World, “the most dangerous philospoher in the world” etc. Quite a marketing there! Why was Dugin promoted and not other professors such as Katasonov or Glaziev? Because he served as a very convenient target. Was he aware that he was making the adversaries’ game? I don’t know, but he is certainly not stupid.
But neither Kasatonov or Glaziev are really Putin supporters, nor does he patronize them.
In fact, he demoted Glaziev several times already
Yes, Sergei Glaziev has been pushed aside, and that’s too bad because Glaziev wants a political-economic soluiton very close to Michael Hudson’s MMT. I would never count Glaziev as belonging to the 6th Column, but it’s possible some 6th Column people might try to cover themselves with his ideas. If you want to understand the wider possibilities for Russia, and also the constraints from the central bank, I believe Glaziev is good as it gets.
Glaziev has a website: https://glazev.ru/ It’s all in Russian, but machine translations are effective. Many of his books and articles are freely available on the web in pdf format from this page: https://glazev.ru/spec/41-knigi-glazeva .
Here is part of the introduction to his 2015 book, “Report on urgent measures to strengthen
Russia’s economic security and put the Russian economy on a trajectory of advanced development”
I snipped the end to keep it short.
“Introduction
The immediate cause of stagflation, which is manifested in the destabilization of the ruble and inflation, on the one hand, and the fall in investment and economic activity, on the other hand, is taking place under the pressure of the anti – sanctions outflow of capital, which last year [2014] amounted to about 150 billion dollars, and this year i[2015] s expected to be $ 100 billion. (8-12% of GDP). Such a negative impact of capital outflow, the accumulated export of which is estimated at more than a trillion dollars over the past decade, is associated with the unprecedented offshoring and openness of the Russian economy for large countries, which resulted in the extreme vulnerability of its financial system to external factors. More than half of the monetary base is formed for external sources of credit. At the same time, the vast majority of foreign loans were received from countries under the jurisdiction of NATO member states. Their withdrawal entails a twofold compression of the money supply in a broad definition. Tougher sanctions may lead to the blocking of Russian capital in offshore
zones through which more than a third of non-state investments pass annually. All this entails a sharp demonetization of the already under-monetized economy, which is fraught not only with a further drop in investment and production, but also with the breakdown of the entire monetary circulation system.
The Central Bank (CB) does not take measures either to stop the outflow of capital or to replace the drying up external sources of credit with internal ones. As a result, there is a compression of the monetary base, which entails a reduction in credit, a drop in investment and production, provokes defaults of many borrowers,
which can acquire an avalanche-like character. At the same time, there is no decrease in inflation due to the continued effect of its non-monetary factors, as well as due to increased costs due to the rise in the cost of credit, production cuts and the fall in the ruble exchange rate. The latter, due to the unavailability of credit, does not have a positive effect on the expansion of exports and import substitution and only accelerates inflation. the economy is being artificially dragged into the funnel of declining supply and demand, falling incomes and investments. Attempts to keep budget revenues at the expense of increases in the tax press exacerbate capital flight and a drop in business activity. By the end of 2015, the reduction in real incomes of the population will throw Russian society back in terms of poverty in 2003, leveling the social effect of economic growth
of the last decade.
The economy is being dragged into a stagflationary trap solely as a result of the macroeconomic policy being pursued. The decline in production and investment occurs when there is free production capacity, the utilization of which is 60% on average in industry, underemployment of the excess of savings over investments, excess of raw materials. the economy operates at no more than 2/3 of its potential capacity, while continuing to be a donor to the global financial system. To get out of the stagflationary trap, it is necessary to stop the spiral of “capital flight – a reduction in money supply – a drop in demand and a rise in the cost of credit – an increase
in costs – an increase in inflation, a drop in production and investment. …”
Fear, uncertainty, and doubt is brought about by feeding the masses a constant stream of conflicting information.
The mistake is to fall into the trap of assigning true / false to all information received. Once the choice is made, every item of information which conflicts with that choice is dismissed, and you get a population which is speedily departing from reality. Eg, wokeism, liberalism.
The way to maintain sanity is to assign probability to each item of information, and be willing to change the probability whenever new information comes in. This works particularly well with changing situations; or, as we are now, surviving an onslaught of propaganda from people who have shown themselves to be habitual liars.
I arrived at this approach, because my training is in medicine, and it became obvious that competent diagnosis is not a matter of black and white, but is more realistically an assessment of comparative probabilities. The “perfect fit” where every clinical sign matches the text book disease description, as with most things in life, is rare.
competent diagnosis is not a matter of black and white, but is more realistically an assessment of comparative probabilities.
Exactly! I totally agree.
“And Russia’s history clearly shows that the internal enemy is far more dangerous than the external one”.
True. That’s how Lenin and Trotsky got to power in 1917, financed by Western bankers, although they did get quite a bit of support from the impoverished and war weary population. And that’s how Soros operates, using a minority to represent the majority and doing his utmost to have this minority control the majority.
As that Roman writer stated many centuries ago, a spy inside the walls of Rome is more dangerous than an invading army outside the walls of Rome, as he moves around unobserved, debasing everything he touches.
Internal subversion is a tactic that has, methodically, been in use since the 17th century and the English civil war, when Zionist bankers from Holland used their agent Oliver Cromwell to start a civil war and eliminate king Charles I’st, after which they returned to England from which they were expelled by Edward the I’st. These methods were to become a blueprint for future subversion.
They were repeated in the 18th century, when the Rothschild’s used George Washington and his Freemasons to start a “revolution” in the North American colonies, and they were further repeated in 1789 with the French revolution, where the king was executed, not to mention in 1917 in Russia, leading to the murder of the entire royal family. These methods are now in permanent use, as seen in the actions of George Soros and Western NGO’s, not to mention Western intelligence agencies.
As for Vladimir Putin, his place in history has been assured. What he achieved is remarkable, saving Russia from dissolution and bringing her back to the world stage. This led to his high popularity, to the utter frustration of Western centers of power and Russian liberals inside the country.
However, his Presidency will be completed in 2024, and I sincerely hope he will stay in power until a competent successor is found. As for the West, it has years ago started preparing for the post-Putin period. Descendants of the Romanov’s started arriving in Russia from the West and settling in Crimea, no doubt to prove their “patriotism”. They are, no doubt, a reserve Trojan Horse, just in case the monarchy is revived. The West will do it’s utmost to find a Russian version of Guaido, whom they can control. I trust the bulk of the Russian population will not fall for these subversive methods.
Edward the 1st, (Edward Longshanks, Hammer of the Scots etc. 1272-1307) was big on war and conquest. This is always an expensive project. At the time the king was expected to finance his operations from his own estates. Despite his overwhelming victory over the barons led by Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Llewes (1265), he could not fund his wars by taxing the nobility – they were already contributing and funding their own forces as part of their feudal obligation. So, he borrowed heavily from Jewish merchants and bankers – if “borrowing” is the correct term for extortion. By 1287 that source of funding was wrung dry and the Crown had a significant debt. So, he ordered their expulsion. All their property was seized by the crown and all outstanding debts payable to Jews were transferred to the King’s name. Neat huh?
The Jews I have met in my lifetime have been no different from the Catholics, or Protestants, or Orthodoxists, or Muslims, or Hindus, or Sikhs, or Buddhists, or Animists, or Agnostics, or Atheists. (I’m not sure if I have ever met any Zoroastrians). They are HUMANS. If there is a malign international conspiracy, it is that of rent-seeking capitalists.
Old Bill
I shall have to correct you. Yes, Edward Longshanks had financial difficulties due to his wartime activities, fighting both the Scots and the French. It was then that Khazars, who called themselves Jews, appeared on the scene, offering financial assistance on condition Edward obeyed their commands, thus reducing himself to the role of a puppet. The outraged Edward sent the Jewish (Khazarian) leaders to the Tower, where they were decapitated. All the others were expelled from England, with their descendants fuming for revenge.
This came in the 17th century, when Khazarian bankers from Holland financed their agent Oliver Cromwell to provoke a civil war between the aristocracy and the lower social ranks. Cromwell won and Charles I’st was decapitated as revenge for the decapitation of Khazarian leaders during the reign of Edward I’st, and this became a blueprint for “revolutions” that appeared later on..
Executing royals (and others) is part of the Khazarian modus operandi. During the French “revolution” not only was the king executed, but some 700.000 people were also butchered in the Vendee region of France, while millions perished during the Russian civil war, which came after the Russian “revolution” of 1917. The fate of the last Russian Tzar is well known.
Are you implying Jews only arrived in England during the reign of Edward the 1st? That’s a bit strange given such notable incidents as the massacre at York in 1190.
As for your characterisation of Oliver Cromwell as an agent of Jewish financiers in the Low Countries, well that would appear to be somewhat at odds with the histories I have studied. However, I fear this conversation has little future.
Old Bill
I never said that the Jews (Khazars) arrived in England during the reign of Edward I’st. They arrived in 1066 with William the Conqueror, whom they financed. Until 1066 they were resident in Rouen. William had no money to raise a mercenary army and build a fleet. The Khazars gave him the money. In return – as part of the deal – they became tax collectors in England, amassing a fortune. They overplayed their hand with Edward I’st. Their leaders were executed, and the rest expelled. They only returned to England during the reign of Oliver Cromwell. They now rule Britain from the City of London.
As for the history you studied, you studied official history. Did historians ever explain how in 1055 a duke, William, could possibly fight a king, Harold ? That bit with the Khazars was left out, as it was with Cromwell. You were taught selective history.
The role of bankers is wastly overemphasized by English royal oligarchy on purpouse. In fact, bankers are just another tool of the trade of Kings and Queens.
If you carefully reread what Longshanks actualy did, you will find that he alowed moneychangers to lend money at interest, which was forbidden by Church to Christians. (Similar to today’s Sharia banking).
Jews was allowed to do so, as not being Christians. (How convenient).
Naturaly, that fueled hatred towards Jews among commoners. King seized profit (interest), and adressed all outstanding loans to himself in exchange for let them continuing business. We call that “racketeeting”, today.
Effectively taxing his own people in the way that nobody would accept othervise.
The fact that loansharking continued unabated suggests that moneychangers received their cut of profit/tax from Ruler. From time to time low level Jews were expelled and their property seized, but business with moneychangers never stopped. Sheeple hated Jews, and saw their King as saviour.
There was ups and downs, in unlikely relationship between English oligarchy and Jewish bankers, but the same con-game is playing today. It is in the interest of oligarchy to have patsy, that’s why bankers are universally hated, but never bear consequences.
Many cover stories was woven to picture Bankers as real rullers of the World. They flash money and Kings become their bitches. It’s not working that way.
Kings do not need money. In fact they do not have money. They have lots of men with guns. If you try to buy the likes of Edward I Longshanks, you at dead. Period Period. English aristocracy is the most proud, the most arrogant group of people in known history. They ruled (and seamingly still do) “The Empire on which the sun never sets”. Thinking that some nerdy Jewish bankers, backed by tormented nation of dispersed 15 million can give order to them is beyond gullibility.
Even if the translation was dodgy, this letter is way too fragmented to have been written by someone in charge of all their marbles.
What’s the name of those 2 Russian guys who spoof Western Leaders on the phone? They or similar are pranking us.
No, the letter is real.
If it was not, Ivashev could easily denounce it.
I read that Boris Yell &Sing near the end was surrounded by 5th Columnists and their western (partners) and hookers being force-fed contracts to sign while being plied vodka. I wonder what effect this had on a young Vlad who is near teetotal (special occasions ).
There are individuals/families and companies who lost out in the CIA-Corporate sponsored failure of the Great Russian Garage Sale whose offspring most likely make up the majority of those 5/6th Column players.
Interesting timing as you pointed out, Saker, that this general’s diatribe coincides with the marathon meeting between Putin & Macron.
Macron himself seems to be adding to disinformation as he claimed that Putin promised him that there would be no new manoeuvres…something which the Kremlin was forced to deny a few hours ago:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/kremlin-denies-putin-told-macron-there-will-be-no-new-manoeuvres-near-ukraine-2022-02-08/
BTW, here are photos of the Macron -Putin meeting 2018 & 2022. The recent one seemed “distant”…
https://twitter.com/pittbull_grrr/status/1490796568521416707?s=20&t=VzGtfQHeNzoLYqlgP-h0fg
All in all seems like an orchestrated disinformation campaign.
Yes, the the “allislosters” always repeat:
Putin has sold out!
Putin will sell out!
Repeat a million times every time Putin is mentioned.
As I said, typical PSYOP FUD.
“Interesting timing as you pointed out, Saker, that this general’s diatribe coincides with the marathon meeting between Putin & Macron.”
My gut-feeling is that 6hours torture was distraction for … something. Open all eyes for downplayed events that happened in that time-frame.
Yes, they did not spend 6 hours playing chess or dominoes.
Macron wants to be re-elected, so he needs a big foreign policy success
how about “I saved Europe from war”?
That is what Macron wants.
As for Putin, he just wants to bring out all the contradictions of the western ruling elites.
Thats all true, but I highly doubt Putin would help Macron in his election campaign by wasting 6 hours of his life. He has month from hell incoming just after Olympic flame is extinguished. No time for such ….
There must be something more important. We’ll see.
Many Thanks!
Some may recall BRUSILOV Letter in Pravda, some time ago…this seems relevant, particularly since it’s forgotten, generally.
I recall Uncle Ho saying, they say, “it’s better to smell Chinese chit for a while than smell Yankee chit forever.” And Uncle Franklin ” Either we hang together or we’ll hang separately”
see> https://www.reddit.com/r/SWWP/comments/jn6jdt/the_open_hand_of_aleksei_brusilov/
Excerpt>
To All Former Officers, Wherever They Might Be
Russia stands, surrounded by foreign foes. In the North, interventionist armies once calling themselves Russia’s friend have occupied Russian soil. The Western imperialists seek nothing more than to carve Russia, once indivisible, into a series of protectorates and puppets, squeezing the Russian people for everything of value. In the East, the White warlords invite Japanese and American troops into the country, to plunder, loot, and pillage. Who knows what else they intend to do? Is Russia to become a Japanese colony? In the West come the Germanic hordes, hellbent on destroying the Slavic and Russian way of life, and carving out their own petty fiefdoms, duchies, and slaver colonies, as Germans are wont to do. They are facilitated in doing such by the Western imperialists, and the White warlords Denikin and Boldyrev. In the south, Denikin himself has unleashed a great evil on to Russian soil, killing untold numbers of good Russian civilians with noxious gasses. These men are unhinged, cowardly, and above all un-Russian. Joining them are the French and Romanians, who have carved out large portions of the Ukraine, as if it were a slice of Africa or the Americas of yore. The French have claimed the Crimean Peninsula as a protectorate, seeking to extract wealth from the Russian population.
It is any Russians duty to fight for the Russian Soviet Republic, to fight the foreign invaders, and those who invite them into our beds. I, Aleksei Brusilov, urge all former officers of the Tsar’s army to abandon the White warlords and their anti-Russian activities.
All those former officers who in one form or another help to eliminate as quickly as possible the White Guard detachments and their foreign masters that occupy Russian soil, who thus facilitate and hasten the victory of worker-peasant Russia over the German gentry, will be freed of responsibility for those acts which they carried out when they were in the White Guard armies of Boldyrev, Denikin, etc.
Do not take up arms against Russia! I implore you to take up arms for Russia, and the Russian way of life.
~ Aleksei Brusilov
Sorry but 2022 Russia is not 1919 Russia, I don’t think there is much to compare.
Also, in 1919 it was the Bolsheviks which unleashed a genocidal terror on Russians, not the Brits, Germans or Japs.
As for Brusilov, let’s just say that I don’t have much good to say about him anyway.
There was, alas, A LOT of very bad people amongst the Whites.
The good ones were, in my opinion, a minority.
Even General Alexeev was a traitor to his oath, country and Czar.
Some, once in exile, repented from their actions.
The main reasons why the Whites lost was their political and spiritual blindness.
My 2cts
Yes, thank you, agree, certainly not a close correspondence of Times and much else. Nevertheless the B Letter and Uncle Ho and the rest illustrate that there’s little room for small matters when the existence of the Country and it’s people are under attack and their survival is in doubt. BTW the letter came to my attention when Dimitri Babich mooted the letter as relevant to the matter of coordination of the people, several years ago. It seems in an overarching sense, relevant. Your knowledge of the History and people and persons and so forth is specific and detailed. Mine is much more distant. Best to you, Sir.
Imagine being an ordinary Russian citizen in that time period! Sandwiched between two blood thirsty violent political groups willing to maim and kill at all costs to stay in power, only to get invaded and maimed and killed even more during the Nazi invasion not long thereafter.
Things got stable from 1945-1985 then they just took a nosedive again as the Soviet model blistered with its internal contradictions and everything fell apart and has hardly even recovered.
“The Russian pessimist says ‘Things are so bad they could not possibly get worse!’, the Russian optimist says ‘Don’t worry, they will!'”
Real curious to see where Russia decides to go in the next couple years, something tells me 2024 is going to be on Hell of a Year from several locations on the planet.
“Also, in 1919 it was the Bolsheviks which unleashed a genocidal terror on Russians, not the Brits, Germans or Japs.”
It was the Bolsheviks that took the backwards feudal russia and put it to space. Never forget who the founder of USSR was (Lenin) and who the founder of the Russian federation(Yeltsin–> CIA).
Perhaps it may be easily forgotten, how close 1917 was to 1914, and all that occurred in those three years, (notably in 1916). Times of millennium are of real significance.
Shell hole, 1914
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hHPj4z7sKxI/Wrxa-0mmSFI/AAAAAAABU-k/l4EnLoAsCJsvSvZO7_KdmhiYGIeJCqUsQCLcBGAs/s1600/Colorized%2BPhotos%2Bof%2BRussia%2BDuring%2BWWI%2B%25281%2529.jpg
Portrait of a Russian nurse, 1914
https://vintagenewsdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/1.bp_.blogspot.comColorizedPhotosofRussi-31dcb51ec702fa992e1702eacd9c749bb4f04117.jpg
According to Starikovs The liquidation of Russia, the British army systematically undermined the whites.
In addition Lenin stated that in an early stage, the anglosaxons et al could easily have crushed the bolsheviks but chose not to.
Only the germans for a brief period actually helped the whites.
Small correction: Ho said that he’d rather smell French ‘chit’ for ??? years then Chinese ‘chit’ forever. This was his appeal during the collection of gold to bribe the Chinese army to leave VN. This bribery was successful.
If I may “fabulate” a little bit on your last thought, I think the key might be a remark by Lavrov about 1 year ago.
He said, roughly, that people were thinking about whether to continue to follow the criteria, the “yardsticks” of the West at all.
Everything we are witnessing now follows the idea of establishing full RF sovereignty vis-à-vis the West, and making this process irreversible – if possible by 2024, so that succession would be relatively unproblematic.
In economic and military terms, this is obvious and not so difficult.
Decisive is the establishment of a “spiritual-cultural” sovereignty, which is to be achieved on the one hand by means of the world of ideas of Orthodoxy in the shape of the Russian Orthodox Church in demarcation from the claim to sole representation of “Rome” and Protestantism, as its “liberal” offshoot – and – on the other hand by an orientation to the statehood of Russia before 1900 (in my opinion, e.g. Alexander II, III).
This will not be easy, if one considers that the “net” has made any possibility to establish “spiritual shelters” to a large extent null and void…
Interestingly, MOA has an article about a piece written by Professor Sergey Karaganov:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/02/europe-should-leave-nato-behind-and-integrate-with-russia.html#more
The timing of Karaganov’s article and the above piece by retired Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, makes one wonder if the collective West wanted to muddy the waters too with Karaganov’s article…. just a thought.
We need a motto, now — nothing would be better than the old and good WWII one:
Nashe delo pravoe! Pobeda budet za nami!
The translation I know is:
Our cause is just! Victory will be ours!
From the first weeks of Girkin in Donbass I said this guy is nothing but trouble. I have insisted he is a traitor to the Russian Federation. He has spent every minute of his life since being shipped out of Donbass working against Russia, not just Putin.
His bent ego is a deep sickness.
Cassadra did a massive study of him, his entire background and delusions.
Many think he was a hero in the militia. He was nothing of the sort. His “brilliant” retreat was the work of Motorola and his loyal men who actually fought and died to cover Girkin’s ass as he fled Slavyansk.
It took his execution of a young guy in the militia (for stealing a T-shirt) that was the last straw.
These people in the 6th column are all whack jobs, filled with ego and ridiculous ideology who think Russia can fight wars all over all the time. And they know best about everything, after it happens.
If nothing else, with CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanction Act ) almost rendered futile, the US/West’s last bastion of hope, their Mass Propaganda Outlets have been on full Save Face Cycle since 2013, maybe earlier, think Obama years (2008-16)
Trudging home time and time again, tail between legs after a menagerie of expensive defeats, reduced to arming and training faux Jihadi Militias, fodder even for The Houthis.
Militarily, Economically Impotent, the retreating Whores/Hordes have decided to retire their Armies and that Shakespearian Tragic-Comedy, The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword, is all that remains. Now even us mugs here in the West have had a belly full of their diarrhoea and are turning to RT for a semblance of reality.
I’m not sure if it’s written in Sun Tzu’s Art of War but while you have your foot on the Cockroach’s neck, crush/snap it. I’m going to reread the Fall of the Roman Empire and the final nail in the coffin.
Go Russia! No Prisoners !
Gentlemen! I salute all of you, meaning the Saker and Mr. Orlov. Just as much all the informed and well read commentators. What a refreshing reading, albeit too complex too difficult for a totally uninitiated reader who is simply trying to navigate the deep murky waters of 99% of all the western propaganda.
My highest respect and regards to all of you that today have enlightened me so much, in fact made my day.
BTW, is the word “allislosters” used so often derived from German “alles los?
Frank
“allislosters” is Mr. Raevsky’s literal translation of the russian word “всепропальщики”. The russian word itself means “people, who constantly say ‘Everything is lost’, ad nauseam”. I’m not sure if there are direct correspondent words in enlish language, but “scaremonger” and “alarmist” come closest, I think.
correct
Vineyard articles increasingly overcome my default contrarian tendency to seek something to disagree with. Here, I’m both delighted/enlightened by Saker’s and Orlov’s “back and forth” discussion– not ego-involved debate/argument– of various probable aspects of the Ivashov memo/letter. They are two of the best in a small circle of analysts who are both knowledgeable and rational. Paul Craig Roberts has long noted Russia’s 5th columnists and complained that Putin has done too little to get rid of them. I can’t recall if he’s mentioned 6th columnists. It’s helpful to see Putin has critics on both sides that, despite their small numbers, can be worrisome–especially if they’re in important positions and find it useful to collaborate to undermine him. I agree that finding a similarly capable successor will be crucial to Russia’s long-term stability.
PCR is always very worth reading and very sincere, but to get a better picture, you have to understand where he’s coming from. He knows all too well what nasty sh*t the deep state is fully capable of doing. As do we all, by now. Also, he is an American to the core (not an insult here) and given his previous positions of responsibility, he tends to see things in more somber shades, sometimes perhaps a little bit too black and white, sometimes seeing the foreground figures in sharper focus than the background or middle-ground action. His best contributions are when he sees things others have missed. I wish there were more people like him.
I enjoyed PCR for a long time. After he started being published in Unz review, I started noticing an increase in anti semitic material coming from him that I had not seen before. Including almost complete denial of the Holocaust. I don’t know what to think about him now.
Perhaps you should do some more reading on the schmolocaust,
PCR would be obviously correct to talk about the oversized Jewish influence in Washington DC. However, Complete denial of the Holocaust would be a very big deal, and I have not seen such a denial from PCR. Really, this is too serious an affair all way round, to just make an assertion and not back it up.
Would you please provide a source ?
“I believe that Putin is much more threatened by Russian financiers than he is by NATO or the US.”
Is there a time when these bloodsuckers are not trying to screw the majority of people for their own personal gain?
“should something happen to Putin […] we can be sure that […] will result in a major crisis which potentially could truly threaten the future of Russia.”
I sincerely hope you are wrong on this. My best wishes of success and a peaceful future for the Russian people.
Excellent analysis. I agree that the goal of the West is to remove VVP and install a West-friendly government. (I believe this is their goal in China too.) That the 5th-6th column is so weak, shows the need for the Iron Curtain. When (not if) the Iron Curtain falls between Russia and Europe, the Russian people will be economically hurt. (Europe will be devastated but who cares about Europe?) Won’t this cause a temporary recession as the Russian economy is reoriented? This is when the 5th-6th column will ramp up their rhetoric. Putin is weak. Look at what he allowed to happen! We need a new leader, one who cares about Russia and the Russian people!
I believe this is the game plan. There will be no hot war. Just a political war for the leadership of Russia.
TheBAG
This is one of the most informative essays in a long time, even compared against the recent slew of other high-quality essays. I don’t think I’ve ever heard people such as Strelkov referred to as “6th Column” nor was I aware of how systematically the empire is trying to weaponize them, as shown by how quickly and boldly they publicized Ivashov’s ghost-written statement. That speed reminds me of a “tell” from 2014, concerning the shoot-down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17. A local TV station, network affiliated and with a Jewish news manager, ran an almost 10 minute “special” which interviewed exactly one person: an Israeli with no credentials in air safety or the Ukraine and the cub reporter informed us that “world opinion” was that the Ruskies done it. World opinion ? That program ran merely 5 hours after the shoot-down, so in truth, no time for real “world opinion” to form. I’ve always wondered what sort of advance notice that TV news crew might have been given, to do that off-site interview.
7 years ago, I saw this shocking debate between Strelkov and the historian / politician Nikolai Starikov.
/must-watch-strelkov-vs-starikov-debate/
At the time, I emotionally wanted Strelkov to win, so I didn’t appreciate much of the nuance. In hindsight, I fully agree with Andrei that the “less sexy” historian and prudent politician won..
We are in a war of attrition against legion. Cowboys such as Strelkov do not understand this.
Any criticism of Putin during the present war between Russia and USA, even by sincere Russian patriots, serves the interests of the CIA/MI6 PSYOP.
Let’s say that you are right. But it doesn’t really make their critique wrong necessarily. What is true is that whatever faults exist in Russia politically, culturally, spiritually… can be dealt with after the crisis between the West and Russia is finished. Its like the choice of Prince St. Alexander Nevsky between the fires of the Teutonic Knights and Swedes, and the fire of the Golden Horde.
Yes, but Saint Alexander Nevsky was a true Christian and he made his choice on profound (and accurate) religious beliefs.
That time is long, long gone nowadays…
That time of spiritual regeneration may be gone, but if Russia is to survive, it must return. And it doesn’t come from political parties and figures. We need a new St. Sergius of Radonezh.
It appears a lot of the anti-Putin cadre 6th column may have delusion/mental disorders, envy, and/or lack of patience at the root of their pathology. To oversimplify, the 5th columns are traitorous crooks, and the 6th columns are the mentally or emotionally limited.
5th columns require basic police work or counter-espionage.
However for the 6th columns, wouldn’t much of their undermining stop once it overtly becomes clear (1) Russia’s careful and slow course has prevailed – whether due to Western submission (we can hope?) or collapse or clear supremacy even to the blind? (2) Even the envious could end their griping once a successor replaces Putin.. otoh, bitterness at being so fundamentally wrong could tip them over into the 5th column category.
This 6th column is tricky – many may be sincere fools. A way has to be found to remove them from public arena. A transparent media environment helps expose them, quickly filtering them out. Letters like this are very helpful.
It appears a lot of the anti-Putin cadre 6th column may have delusion/mental disorders, envy, and/or lack of patience at the root of their pathology (…) This 6th column is tricky – many may be sincere fools.
Spot on! Absolutely true, it is hard to imagine, but that is true.
I saw the first roots of that insanity in 1993 with my own eyes.
Andrei, I like and appreciate this article… its very real to me… the Ivanovs of this world have their fixed ideas and do not help to better life for Russia and Russians… I have here and there met similar though not as harsh statements from Russian ”intelligentsia”… always think they know better… (and are better)….
Putin is doing a phenomenal job… and of course we outside Russia only get to know a fraction of the problems he has to solve…
Btw I am Danish and the danes and their institutions are so brainwashed… see hear, breathe and repeat only US and NATO PROPAGANDA… VERY SAD… but interesting phenomena… fortunately we are so small and insignificant that it does not really matter or make a difference…
Anyway good on you to write this article…
So not all is rotten in Denmark Bente.
Yes Putin like Churchill, is/was a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Only the latter was a fat bloated alcoholic who as Lord of the Admiralty in WW1 sent half a million men to an early grave at Gallipoli with breathtaking incompetence unparalleled in history, bombarded the Kurds (yes those US hyenas ) with chemical weapons as well using poison gas to kill hundreds of tribes in Africa & Asia. In the UK History Books they cite him as a Hero. Lovely speeches though as you went on your merry way to oblivion.
Putin on the other hand has pulled Russia off its knees and with a budget 5% that of the West/NATO has turned it into the greatest military force the world has ever known, not to mention the plethora of long term economic/energy/ infrastructural/medical deals that has set Russia up for the next 50 years.
Putin and the Beanstalk, Golden eggs (Russia has plenty gold ) and The Giant (NATO) dead.
The 5th & 6th Columns, Forgive Them For They Know Not What They Do.
This “6th column” reminds me of Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country, where warmonger factions of two superpowers (United Federation of Planets and Klingon Empire, for those not familiar with Star Trek) actually collaborate with each other to sabotage a peace treaty, thus starting a war. Mind boggling that two groups of enemies actually work together so that they can later try and kill each other…
In the real world it is astounding that warmongers in NATO and Russia are collaborating with each, not to establish peace, but to eventually try and kill each other. CIA+MI6 working with Alexander Dugin, General Ivashov and other Russian warmongers, so that CIA & MI6 headquarters and their agents get destroyed?!?!?! Sad but true, evidently…
The problem is – it won’t be the warmongers. who’ll do the dying part. Otherwise, it would’ve been the best solution – coral them into some abandoned spot and let them kill each other; the world shall be better out of it.
If (God forbid) there is a war I cannot see how the Russian military can resist the urge to “test” Kinzhal, zircon, & latest version of caliber missiles against CIA, MI6, NATO, etc headquarters. As for the Russian warmongers, assuming the Russian military achieves a decisive victory I am pretty sure the Russian warmongers would simply need to “apologise” for any “misunderstandings” by retiring from public life.
Ivashovi is old. Many older people get depressed because of all their weakening facilities. The AZE is indeed becoming rabid because it is losing.The ideology he expresses “We are all doomed” will have little appeal. Western MSM always adopts Russian news that affirms their confirmation biases, 60 minutes ran a show a few years ago saying Navalny was Putin’s main opponent when he was polling at 3 %. What is CBS doing trying sell some punk at 3% as Putin’s main opponent and ignoring the Communists? Not only are the west MSM liars, they are so biased against Russia you can not believe anything the MSM says
Problem is many of the herd swallow the nonsense,i know i have seen it for decades in my Country,even some people on the left have fallen for all the propaganda,if you look at the main political parties in Britain they all sing from the same hymn sheet on Russia,there is no difference,and anyone who goes against that narrative is branded a apologist for Putin,not that he has anything to apologise for,the news coverage is toxic.
This text clearly highlights the role of enemy agents who seek to weaken the Russian government and state in the face of NATO. To claim that NATO is not threatening Russia is to throw pepper in the people’s eyes.
I offer a name as author or at least editor of the Ivashov epistle.
El-Murid. The main propagandist for Strelkov.
https://dedona.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/strelkov-entre-guerra-y-verguenza-se-ha-elegido-la-verguenza-y-no-se-evitara-la-guerra-declaraciones-en-moscu-del-crl-strelkov/
El Murid-Anatoly Yevgenyevich Nesmian. Born on August 11, 1965 in Ukraine, in the village of Krasilovka, Stavishchensky district, Kiev region. Graduated from the Chemical Faculty of the Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology. Lives in Naberezhnye Chelny (Tatarstan, Russian Federation).
The man has volumes of negative reports aimed at Putin and the Russia leadership.
Surkov had to kick him out of Donbass and got his internet presence shut for a time.
https://informnapalm.org/en/dog-eat-dog-surkov-ordered-hack-propagandist-el-murid/
Great write, Ivashov does sound like a bit of a nutcase and since when are generals supposed to get overtly political (unless they themselves retire from the military and join politics)?
Ultimately though it’s up to the Russian people to decide what they ultimately want, but I do think that Putin and Zyuganov are the two best Russian politicians and I hope it’s ultimately one or the other. Up to them though!
Also
“Russia’s history clearly shows that the internal enemy is far more dangerous than the external one.”
Something Russians and Americans certainly have in common! ;-)
Yea, I became aware of this guy when my wife show me the video (as she characterize as “some idiot”) that her distant relative from Germany sent her. She became curious and dragged me to watch his interview, but I quit shortly after due to started headache from cognitive dissonance. Content (as I’ve got in a short time watching): from a problem description a la “шеф, усё прoпало” to THE proposed solution a la “continue to talk with NATO and particularly with Zelensky”…forever. My overall impression was that this guy has slow developing schizophrenia.
I have seen these commenting frequently when the Syrian war was really rolling. They sound convincing but, that is only if you don´t know for what you are looking. They prove to be out of alignment with the events as they proceed. Reality does not allow their positions to pan out and patience is what is needed to discern what is what. I have banged heads with them a bunch of times and most of them have disappeared from the places I read and they have not resurfaced. They were a factor in 2015 to maybe when Aleppo was retaken. After that they just looked more and more like jackasses. When Al Bukami was secured, they looked lost. Nobody listened to them after that. Lol ……. especially when the F-35 was almost shot down by a Syrian S-200 system ( the famous bird strike incident ). The laughter over the web was discernable.
They had a point during the first Chechen War and prior to Russia seizing the airstrip at Pristina. But since then, these people get shown to be full of crap year after year. Right now the velocity of events completely overwhelms them. It is a percentage and they were quite vocal but, their push pretty much died out when Syria won their war. Everything they were saying turned out to be not true.
As for your friend the General, when they completely go out of their minds, something nutty always surfaces. He went nuts, it happens, don´t hate him. Normal stuff.
My take and experience with them.
“I see only one explanation: I would call it “ideological drunkenness”. That is when a person’s ideological inclinations become so acute and the reality in the real world so unacceptable, that a person becomes literally “drunk” with his/her ideology. ”
The psychiatric term is “cognitive dissonance.”
I’m been accusing all sorts of people of that for years now. It’s simply the condition where a person can’t believe the reality around him – so he doesn’t. Almost everyone is afflicted by that repeatedly in one’s life. As long as it’s just a personal problem, we don’t need to care. But when it becomes a major social movement – or worse, the entire society – that’s a real problem.
Much food for thought here. A few questions;
1) Do you believe the allislosters are sincere?
2) Do they have a central home or homes in the Russian media landscape, as the liberals do in, say, Echo Moskvi or Meduza ?
3) Assuming violence does break out in Banderastan, what,if anything will they say or do? The liberals will, of course take the side of the Nazis, (it worked so well for them in 2008) but how do the Putin is weak-ists play this?
4) Seems like Israel is getting less of a free pass to me – do you agree? Will this be an issue for the allislosters?
Thanks
1) no
2) yes, several, but not as established as Ekho or Meduza (which both reposted this open letter, by the way)
3) they will say “too little, too late, and Putin lost the Ukraine for being so weak or corrupt”
4) most of them don’t like Israel, but Israel is not a major topic in Russia to begin with (Russia ain’t the USA or EU)
Cheers
This guy is crazy: Erdogan retaking Crimea (what a joke), NATO fighting(mercenaries in fact)in the Donbass, nato countries will declare war on Russia(even bigger joke).
As even the two psycho Bojo and Biden declared they will NOT fight for Ukraine, nada.
The real danger is: Ukrops nazis or Nuland cia mercenaries/proxies(or even UK) starting a big false flag, neither Russia neither ”official” Ukraine will start a real war.
I have tried to talk to many people about V. V. Putin and his role in this world, now and in the future, in the following countries: USA, Serbia and Israel.
About 98% have no idea about his education (law, economics{doctorate}) and almost no one knew about what exactly were his duties in Pervoe Upravlenie of KGB. Perhaps I benefited from reading his biography by R. Medvedev, in the early 2000’s.
I observed that less educated people, with enough common sense, like a worker in local recycling plant, or my plumber, tend to have a more realistic grasp
of V.V. Putin. The usual comment is : we need him here. I remember seeing in Belgrade, at the farmer’s market named Bajlonijeva Pijaca, a small passage of farmer’s stands titled “Bulevar Putina” handwritten on large flattened card box nailed on the first stand.
More educated people tend to repeat , ad nauseam, what they read/heard in agitprop press/radio/tv. When confronted with extra relevant facts, the attitude is one of disbelief, claims of fakery, conspirology, political murder, autocracy, or worse. It is often followed by an anger and/or topic switching. When I asked them have they ever seen or heard Putin lying or being hypocritic, even in diplomatic situations, they just stare. Few of the silliest comments are : he is just trying to resurrect USSR, or worse, Russian Empire, and he is persecuting LGBT…
All of the above is a prelude to the fact that there are even fewer people who can point out what Putin really wants, although many in the west constantly write dis/mis-informationally about it. Clearly, at least to me, Putin’s vision and desires, economic, strategic, welfare for RF and world, are in the public domain and have been eloquently announced by him in:
a. 2007 Munich conference,
b. Valdai’s and St. Petersburg conferences,
c. a number of interviews to foreign and domestic journalists, and above all
d. those end-of-year 4 hour exhausting direct talks to Russian people and a few foreigners.
e. Not to mention 2 letters sent to USA and NATO in Dec 2021, demanding mutual security talks and actions.
I have never seen a major inconsistency. That in itself is probably a world record.
Even less is known to most people how he is going about achieving all that, even though his actions, so far, speak clearer than any words:
1.) Peaceful ending of war in Chechnia followed by a major, I would say almost complete reconstruction, of that province.
2.) Restoring and reconstructing RF state, military, diplomacy, financial and economical self-reliance to an unprecedented degree, a necessary but not quite sufficient condition for what he would like to accomplish.
3.) Conducting wars against any terrorism endangering RF and neighboring countries with an incredible combination of peace negotiations, (Syria), legally correct procedures (Tajikistan, Kazakhstan), and military excellence. Probably one of his greatest theoretical contribution to military science.
4.) Development ( huge investments ) in Arctic, Siberia, Far East, Krim.
5.) Joint approach with China towards peaceful/constructive elimination of war, international crime, destructive indebtness, poverty, hunger and disease.
And so on …
Deeds describe this man better than most words. But I doubt he is getting Nobel peace prize any time soon.
Best regards, Spiral
Thanks, Spiral, for reminding us of Putin’s stature: the nearest thing to Plato’s ideal of a Philosopher King.
“There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.” — Plato, The Republic
Thanks, Spiral, well stated. I am in agreement. Thanks for mentioning Medvedev’s book, it’s now on my hit list.
@ Saker
“…I submit that this is unambiguously a terminally defeatist text. It basically says the same thing as what the Ukronazis were chanting in streets “Russians, surrender! Russians, surrender!”…”
And within the current historical context, Russia vs a Ukraine controlled by neo-Nazis, it is also unambiguously pro-fascist, disguised with a thin layer of “patriotism” while calling for political vandalism, hence the analogy with the Ukronazis fits the bill.
Ivashov is the Russian version of retard Trump, just that Trump is ahead of him in dismantling what is left of the US democratic facade. His calling Russians for mass disobedience is similar to Trump’s Jan. 6 assault on Congress, and his reckless disregard for the rule of law.
Russian political system is not perfect, but under Putin, Russia has made a giant leap in social, economic, political, and military progress, across all levels of society. For this idiot to be calling Russians to rebel against Putin and the establishment, it means he is being promoted to the role of “social revolutionary leader” in a backward direction, and his promoters are the NED (read CIA), or Soros type.
This is a dangerous MoFo, and his wings need to be clipped now, before he develops a “20%” and counting following among the “allislosters” (всепропальщики) and other Russian political detritus, the Russian version of Trump’s “deplorables.”
Lone Wolf
Just finished Michael Hudson’s article and was truly impressed this time, even though I don’t always agree with him. Didn’t think that could be topped for a while and then, I read this. Andrei this is the only bit of media anywhere mainstream or otherwise that consistently finds a way to go up a gear. Honestly this site is amazing.
The world should consider itself lucky that the neocons, NATO bureaucrats, Atlantic integrationists, 5th columnists and now 6th columnists have been so incompetent. All that delusional, obsessive ideology with no bearing on reality, just so much sound and fury signifying nothing. General Ivashov’s statement is totally and desperately incoherent.
The Saker is right on. Russia is on the verge of breaking away and running away with the victory. Dare I say it, there’s a chance that by the end of this decade Vladimir Putin will have cemented a legacy as the most important and successful stateman of the early 21st century.
“Dare I say it, there’s a chance that by the end of this decade Vladimir Putin will have cemented a legacy as the most important and successful stateman of the early 21st century.”
I would say he already has…..except in the West, of course – at the moment, anyway. Most suffer from what Spiral talks about.
Excellent piece, Mr Saker, sir – certainly gives food for thought on aspects I hadn’t really thought about before
The way to fight these arguments is to show that his points are incorrect. For example:
-Putin is a pure product of the Eltsin “family”. He was deeply involved with the likes of Eltsin, Sobchak and the rest of the gang which took power in 1991.
Show how he has acted against these folks over the years or encouraged them to move to London.
-Putin is surrounded by oligarchs whose bidding he does and whose interests he really upholds.
Explain the cases where he has gone against the oligarchs when he had the chance. Talk about the oligarchs in prison or whatever.
-The Putin regime does nothing against all the western agents of influence in the Russian media and government structures, but he viciously represses real Russian patriots.
Illustrate where Putin is working to get rid of most or all Western agents. Laws against NGOs or funding from suspected intelligence fronts.
These critiques will only work to the audience who wants to hear them and feels that they seem believable. So the rebuttal should simply be the truth. None of these arguments would work against Xi, and the same could be true for Russia. Truth is the best disinfectant, kind of like sunlight.
@Pablo: “Truth is the best disinfectant, like sunlight.”
Good to remind ourselves of these truths about Putin’s obvious patriotism. Putin has won our trust by many deeds over the years. We take them for granted, and forget to mention them. Meanwhile the other side suppress all mention of Putin’s patriotic deeds, and of his contribution as a global statesman to peace in Syria etc. So our side of the argument is is danger of getting lost by default.
The first time I noticed these anti-patriot accusations was in regard to Syria, when posts began to emerge accusing Putin of being in league with Israel. I replied that Putin, while a good military strategist, is by nature a statesman and a builder — as shown in his handling of Chechnya and Crimea. Though a formidable foe, Putin does not revel in destruction and enmity.
These critiques will only work to the audience who wants to hear them and feels that they seem believable.
200% correct. I wish most people had your critical brain. Alas, they do not.
thanks!
I would add this:
The West LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVED Eltsin who, clearly, was what the West wanted to see in Russia.
Now the West HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATES Putin, but we are told that, like Eltsin, he is what the West wants to see in Russia.
Any critical assessment would see the flaw in this.
But ideologues fry their own critical capabilities and replace it with confirmation bias
The preferred strategy of US Empire, like the British before it, is divide and rule: fear-mongering propaganda, fragmentation and subversion. A major war against a power like Russia or China is very unlikely. The game is to provoke the Russians into a military response in the Donbass to scare the crap out of the Europeans so they stay on the US plantation.
For their scam the DoodleDandies could have at least picked a Russian General that looked like a Russian General rather than one who looked like themselves, tho ‘spose familiarity breads contempt… for who you are >_<
In France, we have a long long long habit of these two kind of traitor.
But I’m absolutly stunned.
I don’t think that France is(yet) a dictatorship but I can swear that if a general 3S, officially chairman of all french officiers assembly would write and publish this kind of mess, the whole sky break on his head:
He immediatly would be nailed in cross on a barn’s gate by President, chief of staff, each and every MP, from communist to far right.
His heart would be snatched by each media , TV, radio, presse, net.
And worst, his own officiers corp could burn him alive after a tough exorcism.
Every citizen would be horrified in just hearing his name and would anxiously throw salt behind his shoulder invoking de Gaulle spirit.
Putin and russian are really patient and tolerant
And Russia is a free society with free speech allowed.
In fact, both the Russian media and the Runet are often very critical of Putin
So there is no way to shut down the 5th or 6th columns
the 5th got really hurt by the “foreign agent law”
but the 6th does not get money from abroad, they are sociologically a very different group.
the best way to silence them is to prove them wrong.
Which Putin has done over and over and over and over again.
cheers
Andrei
You say: “I can name many very good people near Putin…but none of them have his stature”. But Putin himself didn’t have “his stature” in 1999. It took him two decades to grow into that stature. I think you are being too pessimistic. Is there no-one near Putin who, over two decades, could not grow in such a way?
maybe.
I sure hope that you are right
and yes, in 1999 Putin looked like a petty bureaucrat and mostly a nobody
good point.
Time for Russia to groom a strong patriot to succeed Vladimir Putin!
Sound like Ivashov’s remarks were of maverick nature. Perhaps, being a retired soldier, he wanted to defend the country (alas in his own style) by saying things that touched sentiments etc. but as you rightly mentioned, gotten drunk by his ideas and went overboard. however, this can’t be put in the same class with western-paid interests like Navalni and Khodorovsky. Here in Iran, we do have (almost) the exact same groups playing the same zio-western game with little middle-eastern spice added. There are many liberal supporters mainly in business and foreign exchange sectors but not yet the advanced-type such as the Pussy-Riot…
Saker,
This is an interesting article
I think you give this person too much respect
Russian people have respect for its armed forces, and this person is abusing that respect to put forward his views and be heard.
I assume this person served during the USSR – and considers himself a patriot.
I am curious did he speak out when Gorbachev and Yeltsin were destroying the country?
He has the luxury to speak now and that says a lot about the self confident country that he has a voice.
I am curious did he speak out when Gorbachev and Yeltsin were destroying the country?
Yes, he did.
That is why/how I met him in 1993.
We have already fought the ‘5th’ and ‘6th’ columns back in ’93. The fighting in Moskau was quite strong at times, literally ‘to the death’ and ‘no prisoners’. But, like all wars internal and external there were times when we simply did not fight each other. I was there and Saker has the proof.
The amazing thing is the civilians in general wandered about the streets going to and from work, shopping, everything, at times wandering right in to the middle of a firefight. It was an amazement and the wounded from both sides were succored by the civilians, they did not discriminate as to who or what they were.
I think this Tovarich General Ivashov is living in his past ‘glories’. Those times are gone now, good or bad, replaced by a new and vibrant Russia the likes of which westerners can not imagine. The Russians I know well are completely behind V. V. Putin. They all remember very well the disintegration and chaos of the early and mid ’90’s. My wife has told me in clinical detail what she went through, alone, and it is not pretty, a happy and well educated 25 year old going to bed one night safe and secure in her vocation and bank savings and waking up the next morning to find the bank, and her money, totally gone and her employer gone, too. Put yourself in her shoes and imagine going through that yourself, imagine a dog stealing that one piece of bread in the kitchen and that was all you had to eat that day and you don’t have a single kopek to buy another piece. That was life for many during the troubles.
No one wants to return to any semblance of those times yet the ‘allislosters’, and this ‘general’ and the navalnies want to return to exactly those times. This won’t happen and will never happen in Russia again, there’s too many of us who will fight again if we have to.
Auslander
Author http://rhauslander.com/
How close the Russian nation came to complete self-destruction. Your testimony, Auslander, makes the history palpable.
Here, in the States, we see the self-destruction (led by the Liberal Cult, Biden, Obama, the Elites and Globalists) no longer in slow motion. This is gaining momentum. Two million illegals poured over the border, drugs in astronomical volume (tens of millions of pills at a time), crime condoned by DOJ, FBi and some states and cities if the crimes are done by their street thug armies of BLM, Antifa and covert instigators. The inflation now may not be controllable as the FED dithers at reducing the massive over-liquidity of dollars they issued in the last two years.
The entire Federal structure is being transformed into a fascist national tyranny. The enemy all the government is focused on is the citizenry of the country. They fear the American public.
It is predictable that if the next two rounds of elections are not Holy Mary pure, there will be a civil war.
This why the Dems are attempting to federalize all elections, to codify their crooked, rigged methods.
As I remarked in my first comment (/revisiting-russias-5th-and-especially-6th-columns/#comment-1015961) the US has a very powerful 6th column. RINOs and NeverTrumpers form with the Dems into a UniParty that works to subvert the will of the People. Nearly all the Media and Big Tech spent billions to convince the public that anything positive was negative, up was down, and Trump and MAGA were the devil and the devil’s spawn.
Larchmonter my friend and comrade,
I keep a close eye on the news and informations in both US and EU. It is appalling to watch the daily steady decline in US and it is not by microns by any stretch of the imagination. I do have a few, very few, friends left there and all are having problems. Government uses the virus plague as an excuse but the rampant inflation, business shutdowns, the ever increasing supply shortages, the societal manipulation make it obvious what the end game plan is. You are correct, when ‘they’ steal the next election this early fall all Hades will break loose and then it will be open season on anyone disagreeing with the ‘election’ results.
Mark my words, the next trick will be to disarm the populace. A few will resist and get dead for their resistance and then 80% will surrender their weapons. Another ‘few’ will get dead during the following forced surrender and the ‘holdouts’ will be nailed to a cross. Germany ca 1932-1933 comes to mind and the result in SehSha will be the same, ever increasing government terroristic repression of anyone who so much as whispers a single word against any ‘official’ policy be said policy internal or external. ‘Informers’ will be everywhere and anywhere, polite and erudite discussion of politics and economy will disappear. The freedoms and vibrant economy you and I grew up in will be a forgotten memory and it will disappear from all print and audible sources as if it never existed.
But it did exist and I’ll never forget how it was. I’m old and don’t have really that much time left but I fear I’ll live to see at least some of what I predict. My wife will live to see it all albeit from afar and to be honest I thank Him for us deciding to make a life where we do, at least she will witness the total decline from 9,000 kilometers away and not be caught up in the middle of the impending chaos and societal destruction as the entire culture of SehSha implodes.
Auslander
Author http://rhauslander.com/
Motus in fine velocior.
Ego assentior, deorsum labi erit semper augeri velocitatem.
Auslander
Translation:
I agree, the downward slide will be of ever increasing velocity.
@Auslsnder, there are millions, globally, in her shoes right now, vocation gone, bank accounts depleted, many losing homes and families……why? Apparently, Freedom to Choose is not won on the battlefield.
Cheers M
“there are millions, globally, in her shoes right now, vocation gone, bank accounts depleted, many losing homes and families……why? Apparently, Freedom to Choose is not won on the battlefield.”
Sometimes, my friend Sean, it is won on the field of battle. My charming bride of now 17 years has no fear, no want, our children are fed well and we help those we can who need help. If push comes to shove I will defend this city and this region with my life if needs be but no matter what, my lass will be taken care of whether I survive or not.
My bride is still, after all these years, reduced to tears when she speaks of how life was back then. I won’t go in to detail but I will simply state that she, unlike many of her friends, did not ‘sell herself’ to make ends meet. She managed with time to save enough money cleaning railroad cars, working in kiosks and selling puppies to purchase a mechanical knitting machine. She ended up making ends meet by working til dawn every day knitting sweaters and skirts. To this day she gets inquiries to make something special for someone and she does. She also embroiders extensively, I’ve made sure she has machines for that, too. She is quite the artist.
Auslander
Does not open in my browser (at this date and time, conditions change all the time)
I was troubled reading this at yandex:
https://zen.yandex.ru/media/682313alla/otkrytie-olimpiady-pokazalo-istinnoe-otnoshenie-kitaia-k-rossii-kak-za-odin-den-razrushili-mif-o-ravnyh-partnerah-61ffdbd6ceff2570843d435a?&
bp
bp, take two aspirin and call me after the Ides of March. Your headache will pass with time and to help in that passage take a gander at some of my books. Truth is there.
Auslander
Author http://rhauslander.com/
This analysis by the Saker has extraordinary explanatory power for me regarding Russian domestic politics. However, I couldn’t find a way to fit the following into the basic thesis when it cites the US domestic groups below as all sharing some “ideological drunkenness”:
I would appreciate further elaboration when convenient and not necessarily as part of this blog entry.
Thanks
However ideologically drunk Ivashov was when he wrote this letter, I consider him to be an intelligent man, as such he must have understood somewhere beyond his drunkenness, that his letter would be considered very anachronistic and detached from reality.
Why someone with his reputation would smear his name with such nonsense is not clear to me, If he has some personal feud with Putin or the power structures around him I really don’t know? Considering the current stand off with the U.S / Nato right now, It was sure of no help to Russia or it’s people, and not so very patriotic either in my opinion.
The head of the German Navy uttered a few home truths regarding Putin and Crimea very recently and mass hysteria broke out from the rump of the German ruling, political and media class. He was swiftly dispatched/forced to resign. Have Ivashov’s words created anything close to that reaction in Russia? The Empire is getting desperate. Whatever Ivashov may have been, he quite clearly is not that now (for whatever reason- only he can explain). As we say in jolly little England: today’s news, tomorrow’s fish and chips wrapping paper. Just another Pussy Riot, Novichok Navalny cheap vaudeville act. Whatever happened to Pussy Riot anyway?……
I’m from South Africa and I idolise Putin the possible Saviour of Humanity. I think if it wasn’t for this man and his partner Xi Jinping, humanity as a race would be doomed
That said, when sh!t really hits the fan in my neck of the woods, I’m applying for Political asylum in Russia! 😬
Please don’t idolize ANY man.
Only worship God.
Never a creature.
I would like to add that the influence of “6th Columns” is rising in all developed countries. Here in Canada there is an increasing sentiment that “we are not voting our way out of this mess”. Many web site posters in the US believe the same, Trump vs Biden is our only choice?
Perhaps the techno-fascists at the WEF and other globalist organizations want it that way, to get grass roots support for their Great Reset.
Andrei, a well-structured smear campaign can not be ruled out: its effect is lethal over time. Look at what happened in Brazil, unfortunately (a campaign to eliminate the party – and more than that, the man who created it – because, in fact, it contradicted many international interests that have always ruled the country). Today what is left is a pantomime, a caricature, a shame. Brazil is an example of programmed decay. Putin must be backed by the quality of the work he has done for Russia. Every campaign against him must be publicly and with great emphasis refuted (sorry for the text, machine translation).
1.
I’d say that Ivashov is of the same clique (ideology) as Andropov, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and etc.
All these folks see Russia as a PART of Europe (White Civilization).
In my opinion this is their main, fundamental mistake.
2.
For in reality the roots of Russian civilization are very deep indeed:
a) Ancient Russian Arkaim (https://arkaim-center.ru) [about 4000 years old] was built by people of the same civilization that constructed Celtic Stonehenge (https://www.stonehenge.co.uk);
b) Modern Russian language is the closest to the ancient Indian Sanskrit [about 5000 years old] (https://1000petals.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/amazing-affinity-of-russian-and-sanskrit/).
(And of course one should not forget about more recent well-known roots of Russia: Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), Tatars (Mongols), and Orthodox Christianity)…
3.
So, this is the main difference between Putin (and overwhelming majority of Russians) and Ivashov (and tiny minority of Russians):
whether Russia is a unique civilization in her own right
or an integral part of European Civilization…
My position is know: Russia never was, and still is not, part of Europe other than
1) for 300 years it has been ruled by westernized elites
2) geographically, Russia west of the Urals is considered European.
I consider Russia as her own “civilizational realm”.
But she is much closer to the East (including the South and Southeast) than to the West.
Most people disagree with me.
O have no doubt that Russia has engaged West for a fight but unlike China it shares the same ideology as their enemies. Unfortunately for Russia, imperialism reached to a point where nationality of the oligarchy does not matter anymore, therefore some of the points the general (and Saker also) makes are valid. Indeed the color of the ruling elite in Russia is not clear at all and I have no doubt there are many in them who wants to integrate with the west and happy to continue to plunder Russia. That is the weak underbelly of Russia in this fight. US elite might be incompetent but their governance is rock solid against outside influences, the same us clearly true for China but Russia? It is a one man show precisely because the state does not have an ideology distinct from the West, without that, it is just a matter if time it recedes under imperial rule (and that is not the rule of US but global oligarchy).
The West us not wrong to expect that Russian oligarchy would bring in another Yeltsin as that is clearly good for business
i’ve read this argument before (russia does not have an ideology distinct from the west) & invariably floundered grasping it…or why it’s stated/believed. i read russian press interviews, speeches, conferences, any & all, & what amazes & delights me is the depth of the entire foreign ministry. it goes on & on, fostering thought, education, skill & statesmanship. i can’t recall another. possibly @ some point the brit foreign office, possibly, possibly QE1’s court, which depended entirely on the wit of its officials to match & counter spain’s wealth. bt i believe there has never really been a match—& so i am floored by the appeal of the 6th column. russians read, russians debate & are quick to mark a fool…what appeal can the lure of neofeudal-liberalism have for a civilization blessed with art & ability to debate, to think? a successor for putin, my god, lavrov…he’s written most of the accords now trapping the empire; accords & treaties they signed & believed they could overlook, ignore or sweep aside. lavrov will not have any of it. soigu, certainly, bt russia i hope doesn’t have to assign the military to rule, she simply has too many other choices. everyone agrees russia is rich in resources, bt her main resource is her people & their education & well developed sense of reason. she is rich in her people. what the allislosters have truly lost is faith. they are faithless. russia will continue to rise & rule her world because she has faith, faith in truth, justice & all those christian hallmarks the west has abandoned.
I would consider Ivashov’s text as usual Russian TV show where they let in the most rabid Russophobes and even pay them to spew nonsense for the Russian public to hear.
FSB and GRU are not made of stupid people, I would put my money that this is Russian managed psyop with goal of mopping up “patriotic resistance” and to basically run a poll of trust in current policies.
Basically checking the traction of 6th column, something very nice to know if you intend to go into the unknown.
If it stands the critique of someone of Ivashov’s status, then we can safely say that Russians are united.
Lessons from Serbs during the nineties are very much learned by Russians. We can all see how most radical and ardent ultra-Serb “patriots” during the nineties are today open NATO agents in Serbia.
It is also possible that some creative folks decided to discredit the 6th column by allowing/encouraging this crazy letter to be signed by a well known figure and widely spread.
The Kremlin also does PYSOPs, let’s not be naive about that.
You write of this 6th column and make no mention of Zhirinovski? Surely he is one of them.
Zhirinovski was taken ill.
LDPR party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky – RIA Novosti, 1920, 09.02.2022
© RIA Novosti / Maxim Blinov
Go to photo bank ovsky
Read ria.ru in
MOSCOW, February 9 – RIA Novosti. LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky was hospitalized in Moscow, a source familiar with the situation told RIA Novosti.
“Yes, he is now in the Central Clinical Hospital (Central Clinical Hospital. — Approx. ed.),” the source said.
At the same time, he did not specify with what diagnosis the politician was taken to the institution.
https://ria.ru/20220209/zhirinovskiy-1771869806.html
https://www.armenpress.am/eng/news/1075119/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Zhirinovsky
no, he is not.
he is:
1) a testing kit: throws ideas out and the Kremlin looks at the reactions
2) a pretend opposition (when needed he will always back the Kremlin)
3) a safety valve to let the pressure out when needed
and, of course, he is a court jester :-)
Immediately one Riley Waggaman came to my mind…
“Russia’s history clearly shows that the internal enemy is far more dangerous than the external one.”
I thought I knew a fair amount of Russian history, but could you point me at what you mean here? I’m thinking of the Golden Horde, the Swedes, the Poles, Napoleon, so many countries after WW1, Hitler, the US-led empire and its economic invasion during the Yeltsin days. Who were the internal enemies in Russian history?
That the internal enemies might be far more dangerous right now is another matter.
Dear Saker
You yourself agree Russia is still a one man show. In essence it means a state of equilibrium has been reached between the Atlanticists and Eurasianists where no one seems to prevail any further while Putin is at the helm. But Putin is not getting any younger. And the west is waiting like that buzzard high above. The west knows its time will come. Putin is simple a CEO of a system. He cant change the system. You dont like the ways of Stalin either. So in essence the west just needs to wait and watch.
Sir, can you explain President Putin asking Clinton about RussianNATOmembership in the late 1990’s?
yes, at that time Russia was fantastically weak and close to death.
Submission, compromises and tons of smiles were a must to survive and prepare for a future resistance
Think of Kutuzov retreating up to Borodino before giving his first major battle.
There are always people who would sell their country out,another General in time of war did just that,Vlasov went the whole way as a traitor.
I very much disagree.
People make SINCERE mistakes.
They also get drunk on ideology
errare humanum est
If he’s the decent human being and lifelong servant and defender as you report him to be it’s conceivable that he simply “cracked” under the cumulative pressures and disappointments. It is a ghastly thing to meditate on what the west intends for Russia. If you in fact (correctly or not) expect the west to prevail you might try to call off pursuit of confrontation. It’s not unreasonable to conclude that genocide of the indigenous Russian peoples is the game plan of the neocons. That’s too horrifying for human contemplation if you’re an actual human. If someone thinks it more likely than not – and media is flooded with reports and prophecies of demographic collapse – it might prove overwhelming.
If we instead pursue a conspiratorial train of thought, why isn’t it possible he was given this statement to sign — by whom is unknown – so that the people in Russia who support it on social media can be identified by state authorities? I personally consider that unlikely. But you have to allow for the build up of tension to be possibly stressing some elements of internal security forces who may pursue their own possibly harebrained schemes, which don’t appear harebrained to the people pursuing them.
“Allislosters” encompass all kinds. Very astute observation — yes, a psycho-pathological phenomen, rather than anything else… Very numerous, in SPB. Driving a nice car, blasting radio эхо Москву all day. Meek and polite fellow. “Russia is finished”, ДНО! Thus starts every sentence. Referring to himself as “us” or “народ”, “нас-нам-мы…” while caressing the wheel of his luxury car, and cursing the country and city where he drives.
This 6th column business doesn’t make sense. Ok, they come with Putin is not patriotic enough, and agent of Israel, etc, etc. Putin can definitely be considered not patriotic enough because he doesn’t protect the Russians in Ukraine enough, doesn’t keep the Chinese out of Siberia enough, doesn’t wipe the Israelis out of Syria, etc, etc. So this means that these 6th columnists must be very patriotic and are willing to do whatever it takes to defend Russia. Right?
Wrong. These 6th columnists are scared of people dying in Ukraine if Russia goes in to defend the Russians there, so how can they say that Putin is not patriotic enough when they themselves are scared of going into Ukraine. Ukraine is killing Russians yet they are scared of making mortal enemies of Ukraine. They are even scared of Turkey. This 6’th column business just contradicts itself, it is a fake patriotic grouping.
Putin himself said something to the effect that if Russia gets nuked then Russians will die as martyrs. But of course Russia will take whoever dared to nuke Russia down with them, and then some. What more can be asked for? Is that not patriotic enough?
On the military front Russia, with its current weapon systems, has nothing to fear from NATO. On the economic front Russia will always have enough to eat, plus is trading with the East as well, so nothing to fear there.
Russia cannot be defeated militarily or economically. I’ve never heard about country being defeated psychologically before, a country can only be weakened psychologically. If too much FUD is being induced, then take a leaf out of the CIA’s playbook, people die from “accidents”, “heart attacks” and “cancer” in the States all the time, even by suicide with shotgun blasts to the back of the head. This Ivashov guy sounds like a prime “covid” candidate.
For the record, I agree with Russia’s utter lack of response to Western provocations, it has worked all along so the policy should be continued. However, there are always exceptions to every rule.
>>I’ve never heard about country being defeated psychologically before,
You could argue the USSR was defeated psychologically. It certainly wasn’t defeated militarily. You could say it was defeated economically, but I’m not sure that was really the reason. A lot of the economic problems were caused by Gorbachev’s reforms. China provides an existence proof that the economic system could have been reformed without the whole thing collapsing. My impression was that a lot of people looked enviously at the West and wanted to be like them. After that it was all over.
The USSR was good at hard skills (military) but forgot about the soft skills (economy and public opinion). Russia remains good at the hard skills (military) and is making excellent headway with the economy but seems to forget about public opinion. The public is too stupid to be relied upon to come to the right conclusion even if given all the facts, 50% have borderline retard IQ’s after all, so public opinion needs active shaping. Public opinion doesn’t need active control, that doesn’t work with high IQ individualistic types, but active shaping is allowed. Active shaping includes the unfortunate “covid” casualties.
I agree with active shaping —and that, that is what is being described here. China states they don’t support colour revolts, but opposes them; and this is only a logical paradigm for continuity, for effectiveness and results like we see here. Expose the plot and oppose it; an anti-coup coup. The new model from Venezuela, used successfully in Belarus, and just lately Kazakhstan, this model solidifies opinions more strongly than the old models, and leaves less baggage behind— less room for doubts.
Saker what will happen then when Putin leaves? His departure means Russia can go back to the 90’s.
Sadly he’s not eternal, do you think Dyumin can replace him? Or it would be better the Communist Party to take over?
As far as I can tell, Ivashov’s text in English has no typos. This would be extraordinary for a non-native speaker.
After living in the West for decades, the Saker still has minor typos in his essays, usually homonyms or short words that sound near to what he means. (After 20 years here, my Russian born wife has little problem with multisyllabic words, but will stumble over pronouns frequently.) So yes, unless Leonid Ivashov has a professional English editor, it’s unlikely he wrote this himself. (After 20 years, my Russian language ability is still around 100 words, so NO criticism of either Andrew or my partner.)
It is a machine translation from Russian
machine translator don’t make typos
In case anyone here has forgotten the people that the Russian 5th and 6th columns inadvertently support? Let this article remind you of the heritage of those people,and why they must be defeated:
‘They used axes to spare the ammo’: How modern Ukraine’s Nazi heroes massacred civilians during WWII:
https://www.rt.com/russia/548672-ukrainian-murdered-poles-wwii/
Every organization seems to have what I call a Cpt. Eeyore. An old grey stuffed jackass that is always pessimistic, gloomy, and joyless. These sorts are often braying about the mistakes of others and generally have a poor opinion of most of their colleagues. They usually offer nothing constructive. They are best ignored and if that doesn’t do the trick often ridicule will.
I had never heard of Gen. Ivashov until I read about him here. I took the time to look up his bio with the link provided. One of the things I noted was that he was reportedly involved in a book written by Alexander Dugin. I have heard of Dugin but I haven’t read any of his books. I looked up the Eurasian party’s principles and found them to be in my opinion a little schizophrenic. Eurasianism that is antagonistic towards China would play right into the hands of the Empire. Indeed keeping China at odds with Russia is a long time goal of the Empire. A little like keeping the French at odds with Germany is for the British historically.
I think the formation of the 6th column is described in Jacques Ellul’s “Propaganda: the formation of men’s attitudes”. In fiction perhaps look for Heinlein’s “The 6th column”.
What will happen when Putin goes? Putin is rather like an entrepreneur who has raised a mighty company from nothing by a combination of risk-taking, shrewdness and business acumen. But the original entrepreneur is not always the best person to run a mature and stable organisation. Putin is probably the greatest statesman in the world today and I sincerely hope he continues leading Russia but I am sure if he were not there another will take his place, probably quite different but equally effective in growing a mature and stable country.
Time finds the man.
As a western outsider I think Putin is indispensable to my personal freedom.The naive and misguided will follow the worlds power brokers into global fascism if Putin were not there to provide a counterweight. It is a thin thread and an immense weight for one man to carry on his shoulders, and whether he knows it or not, Putin is much more important than to Russia alone. In a sense, for those few outsiders who understand, he is effectively the defacto leader of the free world. I wish Gods richest blessings and greatest wisdom for Putin.
Saker,
Thanks so much for this excellent and informative article. For those of us in the States that are sincerely interested in Russia and its fate, I thank you for sharing your insights.
This is interesting – Russia having these various political camps. Reminds me of the USA and its various flavors of political views and the way some of them intersect at points, for example, the anti-imperialist left and the non-interventionist right. These fringes of the political spectrum are completed banned from corporate media and, should one be so determined as to run for president, are quickly dismissed for lack of support from billionaire X or billionaire Y or simply ignored in debates by those more in line with the wishes of the ruling class (the one-tenth of one percent). What passes for democracy here in the states is a worthless vote every 4 years while the ruling class funds the political class through campaign donations and lobbying (even using this lobbying to write laws!). The average citizen is essentially locked out of any role of influence.
As someone who values peace and prosperity, I am horrified at the thought of a Russian-NATO war. As Putin said, “there will be no victors.” I wholeheartedly support the idea of neutrality for Ukraine. What is interesting is that the USA and NATO bizarrely believe that neutrality is a violation of Ukrainian sovereignty while sending arms and military trainers to Ukraine, member ship in NATO, and membership in the EU is not. Hey, it’s not even a violation of sovereignty to tell a country where it must buy it’s oil or that it can’t do business with a country of it’s choice – hmmm…. sovereignty must be in the eye of the beholder!
At this point I hope someone on your blog, or maybe even yourself, will consider writing on NATO. NATO appears to be a black box. Who controls NATO? While it is under the thumb of the USA, how are leaders like the moron Stoltenberg appointed to their positions? Do the various member countries representatives elect the leader? How is NATO structured? How would it decide to go to war?
It seems that all the NATO countries have their own agenda. The USA wants to sell weapons systems to Europe to reduce its trade deficits and provide marginal support to the dollar. Therefore, a heightened state of anxiety is important. The UK seems delirious – a weak and overrated country whose leaders are deluded enough to believe they still have an empire’s worth of gravity. Germany and Italy are like occupied countries – first world economies with foreign soldiers on their soil. In essence they and South Korea and Japan are all occupied and have yet to tell the USA to take its toy soldiers and go home.
The citizenry of the USA would much prefer to direct government spending towards modernizing infrastructure and improving the quality of life right here in the USA, but our “leaders” believe it’s more important to hype anxiety to fund weapons contractors. Growing homelessness, a failing and impoverished education system, and an acquiescence if not obedience to billionaires who offshore jobs while benefiting from the military protection provided by the taxpayer are just a few of the outrageous examples one can point to when thinking about the impotence of the citizen here.
What is the most egregious example is that all of us could be vaporized at a moment’s notice because of the decisions of a few senile or hot-headed “leaders” in DC. Overall, a sad state of affairs. Which is why Russia must remain strong….
Good question!
I posed it first to DuckDuckGo: Stoltenberg was named, then I asked for *all* GenSecs except Stoltenberg and received Stoltenberg, repeated that question and received diverse junk without any mention of any NATO GenSec. OK, DDG, once recommended, seems to be junk by now.
This last question, as posed to DDG, was repeated at //swisscows.com and brought n results, of which the first/uppermost was the best for my purpose, namely this link:
https://www.adducation.info/general-knowledge-politics-religion/nato-secretary-general/
with a complete list of all 16 GenSecs so far. For answering your question…
>>Who controls NATO? … It seems that all the NATO countries have their own agenda..<<.
… I made a quick’n’dirty numerical overview for a q’n’d statistic. I assume and propose here that those who steer/control NATO most of the time do it for those interests and goals these persons and their countries are known for. Some countries/places are not NATO members, including Switzerland and Antarctica, so that the Rotzchilds and Schwabs cannot be nailed to directly steer NATO by this statistic. An optical but not real problem is that I counted the named years, so that e.g. 1994 with 3 NATO GenSecs is included three times, as “3 years” – the total number of “years in office” of all GenSecs is thus inflated (69 instaed of , but the relations are maintained.
Four influential countries never had a GenSec (USA, Canada, France and Malta, Home of the famed Knights of Malta, seemingly no NATO country at all), but for the rest, the numbers seem to speak about influence. Thus, NO influence at all on this level for: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Eestland, Greece, Hungary, Island, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Crna Gora, MAK, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Turkey. All of them seem to be just Schwejk units and soldiers (“Melde gehorsamst: ich bin blöd!”) without influence (no major/none at all) on NATO’s actions and direction. They seem to be needed only as statists, to beef up the NATO propaganda, that NATO’s goal is allegedly “freedom and democracy” – which in common understanding would mean “equal rights for everybody” or at least “everyone according to his weight”.
All of them are material for influence (to be influenced and dealt with) but few are those who steer and use the influence in the *name* of all of them, but not necessarily in their *interests*. I found that during the 71 years of NATO (1952-2022) according to my ad hoc criteria, found within the material, NATO was ruled
– 63 years by Germanix and 16 years by “Romans” (GenSecs from a country with a Germanic/Romanic (main) language (with Belgium counted as half this and half that)): Slavs and others do not exist for NATO, only their territories as Aufmarsch- and Kampfgebiete, and their bodies as dispensible material;
– 67 years by chieftains from Monarchies and 19 years by such from Democracies (which thus are only unimportant, non-serious deviations from the norm);
– 69 years by burghers from historical Nazi-&-Quisling countries, which during WW II either were (1) inventors of the whole nazi war scenario (England, then home of the RotzKills and the Rhodes gang with their “war-on-the-continent”-mongering, see CorbettReport) or (2) officially nazi/fascist (D, E, I) or (3) posed as “victims” officially “suffering” from germ nazi occupation, but helping Nazideutschland either with nazisoldiers (eg Holland/Waffen-SS, later in murdering Milosevic and their fake “war criminal “justice”” moves) or with by producing and selling stuff for the Wehrmacht (DK, N) – all together being a sort of Großgermanistan. The present NATOführer had a massaker of 77 kids arranged for being able to play a “poor near victim of a cruel killer – and therefore best equipped to stop all cruel killers spotted East of NATO”…
One might say: NATO is controlled by those who organized WWI and WWII for organizing WWIII. Others have found this out, too, but the statistics say the same.
For your questions re: org, these statistics show that, whatever the “democratic” procedures, the outcome is always in the same spirit, which I just described.
In hoc signo
bp
Thank you for your amazing articles and insights…
Not sure what to make of this as us Serbs remember Gen. Ivashov from the end of the NATO Bombing in 1999 when his name became synonymy’s with the famed Slatina Airport incident and his subsequent support for Serbia.
He also published a conspiracy style book that was translated to Serbian and some of his interviews have been translated but then again some people will do anything to remain relevant…???
Dear Andrei,
It seems that you are too pessimistic and underestimate the Russian government.
There is a solution and I’m sure Putin thought about it and is waiting for the right moment to act.
As Cato the famous Roman statesman used to hammer DELENDA EST CARTAGO today solution is DELENDA EST LONDINUM and then, and only then the world is going to breathe again.
Remember, the forces of Evil will not prevail.
Please do not use capitals – its screaming – and breaks site rules. Mod
I have witnessed a surge of appreciation of Putin as the “grown-up in the room” among pro-Trump conservatives over the past year. It was like a dam burst. They are understanding the battle between nation states versus new world order types even to the point that some see Putin as the Trump of Russia. He’s fighting the same globalist forces that went after Trump for daring to reassert sovereignty over them
The universal issue is sovereignty of the both the individual and the government from the parasitical borg-like influence of global speculative capital. That is the universal enemy of civilization. They exercise control over our lives without being elected, and now they want more because their financial system is on its last adrenaline-FED-pumped gasp of life.
Recall each time the general Welfare is compromised in favor of a swindle at a national level, and the chain-reaction cancer which follows it.
Now they are running out of blood to suck, and have exposed themselves, and need to change the subject.
But having damaged the legitimate host production on which they feed, they wish to flip over the chessboard as the final Hail-Mary before physical laws reveal the accumulated entropic reality. Because the fleas refuse to give themselves a flea dip.
Putin’s, Trump’s and every other state leader’s job is to prevent WWIII, to join in the Great Flea Dip. Cancel speculative debts, reinvest into the industry of the nation, and strike the globalists when they are at their weakest both politically and at the ballot box.
The war danger is not really the issue, it’s that the west is collapsing and they have not yet compromised Russia enough to execute their Great Reset and turn it into a looting mineral zone. The outlier Russia has the future of the world in its hands as an island of relative geopolitical and statecraft sanity.
We expect this tension to build up over time, but it won’t be long until some saner leaders are elected in the US out of the fallout from the pandemic. The opposition is like a corked-up bottle and has coherent values based on a strong distaste of Tyrannic impulses in favor of traditional values.
This political revolutionary atmosphere makes it more likely that some large provocation will occur in order to quench it, and create “War with Russia” fear but hopefully their tactic either gets exposed and/or Putin once again anticipates and outflanks the move without being sucked into a full-blown regional war.
It’s good Putin kicked the anthill. It further exposes the motives of the players for the citizens to see.