Russia in the 21st Century [Superthread]

[The Bread Guy]

Trump, Putin chat on the phone - this, via Google Translate, from the Kremlin's statement (attached, in Russian):

Telephone conversation with President-elect of the United States Donald Trump

By mutual agreement, a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin, President-elect of the United States by Donald Trump.
November 14, 2016
22:30

The Russian leader once again congratulated the interlocutor on his victory in the presidential election and wished him success in the implementation of the pre-election program and noted the willingness to build affiliate dialogue with the new administration on the principles of equality, mutual respect and non-interference in the internal affairs of each other.

During the conversation, Putin and D.Tramp not only agreed to assess the current very poor state of Russian-American relations, but also spoke in favor of active joint work to their normalization and removal in the direction of constructive cooperation on a wide range of issues. Underlined, in particular, the importance of creating a solid foundation of bilateral ties through the development of their trade and economic component.

It is noted that next year marks 210 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Russia and the United States, which in itself should stimulate a return to pragmatic, mutually beneficial cooperation, which would meet the interests of both countries, stability and security throughout the world.

Putin and D.Tramp divided opinion on the need for joint efforts in the fight against the common enemy number one - international terrorism and extremism. In this vein, and discussed issues of the settlement of the crisis in Syria.

It was agreed to continue contacts on the phone and in the future to provide for a personal meeting, the preparation of which will take the representatives of both parties.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Couldn't resist sharing this one  ;D (source)

 

[Kirkhill]

Couldn't resist sharing this one  ;D (source)

That looks astonishingly like Sarah Palin's back yard.  Doesn't it?

 

[Journeyman]

During the conversation, Putin and D.Tramp.... 

Interesting translation.

 

[Journeyman]

The US-based Center for European Policy issued a report yesterday on "Black Sea Imperatives: Ensuring NATO Security and American Interests for the Incoming U.S. Administration."  While it's written with their usual degree of jingoism (ie - language = 'US awesome/Russia demonic,' with no hint that Russia's behaviour may be even remotely linked to fears of NATO expansion), I think it's well-researched nonetheless.

LINK

The gist:
The balance of power in the Black Sea is changing in Russia’s favour. Moscow is enhancing its Black Sea fleet, seeking supremacy in the Black Sea in order to restore its Eurasian domination by projecting power toward the littoral states, as well as toward the Balkans, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Middle East. 

Russia’s offensives in and around the Black Sea are part of a larger anti-NATO strategy, in which naval forces play a significant and growing role. It exploits the Black Sea as a more advantageous method of revisionism than extensive land conquests, (although occupation of Crimea and the port of Sevastopol certainly ties in). Control of ports and sea lanes hinders NATO from ensuring security for its Black Sea members or intervening on behalf of vulnerable neighbours. It threatens to choke trade and energy supply routes of states not in compliance with Russia’s national ambitions, and gives Moscow an enhanced ability to exploit gas/oil in this region.

While the report claims to provide "concrete policy recommendations for Washington and the other NATO capitals to counter Moscow’s destructive policy toward the West," what it provides are pretty much common-sense suggestions.

Although the report supposedly took a year to produce, the timeliness seems pretty fortuitous if the message is "Mr Trump, don't bail on NATO now."

 

[Journeyman]

Yet another knock-on from Trump's election. 
While I'm not a fan of Mitrovica's writing style, he provides an interesting perspective; ie - it's got to suck being Edward Snowden right now.  :nod:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/11/161127140817720.html

Will Putin expend Snowden for Trump?
With Trump's presidency, Edward Snowden may be compelled to leave Russia the way he entered it.

Andrew Mitrovica

So, this is where matters stand between a serial liar and a serial truth teller: the former is the US President-elect Donald Trump, while the latter, Edward Snowden, remains holed up in self-imposed and now precarious exile in Russia.

....Beyond his many other manifest sins, Trump is busy stocking his regime with mostly old, white, male, right-wing fanatics who share many of his manifest sins, including his overt racism and zealotry.  Meanwhile, the young man who risked his freedom and his life to tell the truth by providing the world with proof that the vast, unchecked machinery of the surveillance state - which scoffs at territorial boundaries, as well as domestic and international law - is trained almost exclusively on the very citizens it's allegedly supposed to protect.

.....These must be turbulent times for Snowden.

....Snowden's value to Putin as a real or symbolic slap to America's haughty face will have run its profitable course.  Putin doesn't strike me as a sentimental politician prone to keeping qualified promises to offer safe haven to an ex-American spy who has not only lost his propaganda currency, but who may be a thorny impediment to a new and recalibrated relationship Moscow is seeking to establish with Trump.

....Reportedly, Snowden has already made asylum requests to 21 countries . Most of them said no.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Note "Comments":

The Russian Way of–Hybrid–Warfare

A very interesting analysis of how the Bear works–both at home and abroad–at War on the Rocks...
https://cgai3ds.wordpress.com/2016/12/06/mark-collins-the-russian-way-of-hybrid-warfare/
A very interesting analysis of how the Bear works–both at home and abroad–at War on the Rock

Mark
Ottawa

 

[The Bread Guy]

What's a few liquidated priests in the old days between friends, right? - highlights mine ...

Jesus Christ was the world's first Communist, Tamara Lavrischeva announced cheerfully.

"Jesus said, 'Don't collect earthly wealth, you won't take it with you after death,'" the 78-year-old pensioner and Orthodox Christian told Al Jazeera as she trudged through the snow-covered streets of central Moscow with thousands of other Communists during the November 7 rally that commemorated the almost-centennial anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.

"And Communists thought the same," she added, her voice drowned by the crowd chanting Soviet-era songs under red banners with hammers and sickles and portraits of Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.

With a dismissive shrug and a condescending smile, Lavrischeva rejected the killings, imprisonment and persecution of millions of Orthodox Christian clerics and believers at the hand of Communists.

What she said was not just an opinion of an elderly woman who wants to reconcile her faith with the ideals of her youth in the officially atheist USSR. Her selective amnesia about the persecution of believers - well-documented and brandished by Soviet authorities - reflects a seemingly paradoxical trend in the recent policies of Russia's Communist Party.

More than 25 years after the Soviet collapse, the party vocally appeals to Orthodox Christianity, Russia's dominant creed. The party's sole post-Soviet chairman Gennady Zyuganov called Jesus "the first Communist" more than once.

"It is a holy duty of Communists and the Orthodox Church to unite," Zuyganov wrote in 2012 in his party's first lengthy document on religion, because both institutions shared "common goals and enemies". The goals included censorship of "debauchery and violence" in mass media, eradication of Western liberalism and "its conception of human rights", e-government and sexual education in schools ...

Quite the shift - although not entirely surprising given how significant an institution the church seems to be in Russia these days.

 

[tomahawk6]

NATO is hunting one or two Oscar's off the coast of Syria thought to be in striking range of USN carriers.Although the P-700 is a threat to land forces as well. Launching a nuke at US forces or Israel with a nuke would be WW3,probably not going to happen,but best thing to do is be aware of the Russian deployment of key assets.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a51503/nato-hunting-russian-carrier-killer-submarines/

The Oscar-class submarines were specifically designed in the 1980s to stalk and kill high-value enemy ships. Each vessel measures 506 feet long with a beam of 60 feet, making them some of the largest submarines ever constructed.

The Oscar's firepower lies in its 24 P-700 Granit long-range missiles. This is a huge weapon—33 feet long and weighing 15,400 pounds each—that flies at speeds of Mach 1.6 and can reach targets over 300 miles away. The missiles can be equipped with either a 1,653-pound warhead or a 500-kiloton nuclear warhead. In addition to the Granits, the Oscar has six torpedo tubes for launching anti-ship missiles, anti-submarine rockets, and homing torpedoes.

 

[The Bread Guy]

He says, ...

Cyber attacks and attempts to subvert democracy by states like Russia pose a fundamental threat to British sovereignty the head of MI6 has warned.

Alex Younger used his first major public speech as head of the Secret Intelligence Service to attack the Kremlin for creating a human tragedy in Syria and to warn of the threat to the UK from high tech subversion by Moscow.

The security chief known as C also paid tribute to MI6 agents risking their lives to infiltrate the heart of a “murderously efficient” Islamic State which he said is still planning murderous attacks in Britain.

And he said that despite the upheaval of Brexit and the surprise election of Donald Trump, he expected Britain’s security ties with Europe and the US to only get stronger ...

... she says ...

Comment by the Information and Press Department on anti-Russian remarks by Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) Alex Younger

We took note of an anti-Russian remark Chief of the British MI6 service Alex Younger made at a news conference on December 8. He made the unsubstantiated claim that Britain is under threat from high-tech sabotage carried out by regimes like Moscow and that the Russians will try to undermine the upcoming elections in Germany and France.

It looks like fundamental democratic institutions are now interfering with the way Western elites have become accustomed to governing their countries for decades now. British intelligence, which has clearly lost touch with reality, is trying to hide its shortcomings and setbacks behind their favourite theory about the alleged machinations of external forces. We hear this more and more from the leaders of Western, in particular British, intelligence services.

Regrettably, the Anglo-Saxon world has in recent years developed a firmly entrenched habit of bringing charges without providing specific evidence. This is a dangerous path. Everybody remembers how, under the pretext of “undeniable” evidence, which turned out to be an undeniable lie, the war in Iraq was unleashed, which was willingly supported by London. And, by the way, there still has been no accountability.

Several years later, we see MI6 and its overseas handlers return to their old habit of conducting witch hunts instead of dealing with real challenges and threats. Perhaps they do not fully realise who the real enemy is today, because, in Syria, the United States and its allies have, for several years now, been unable to figure out who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter. Or, maybe they just lost their touch and this is their way of justifying their existence and earning their keep?

In any case, Mr Younger finds it easier to scare his own people by invoking the “Russian threat” and “hybrid warfare” than to confront the terrorists and extremists. It’s unfortunate that certain Western intelligence agencies and politicians have chosen this path. Returning to reality and restoring international credibility is something they will have to deal with sooner or later. The sooner, the better.

 

[a_majoor]

As usual, the tone and content have change remarkably for two very similar charges. I wonder what has changed....?

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/12/obama-to-putin-cut-it-out.php

OBAMA TO PUTIN: CUT IT OUT!

Barack Obama has spent the last eight years resisting the idea that Russia is an adversary of the United States. First we had the “reset”; next the cancellation of the Eastern European missile shield; then we had Obama assuring President Medvedev that he would be able to give away the store, but the Russians would need to wait for his second term; and then the presidential debate where Obama mocked Mitt Romney’s statement that Russia is our number one geopolitical rival by saying that the 1980s called, and they want their foreign policy back. In between, we had a foreign policy that was supine in the face of Russian aggression in Crimea and Ukraine.

Now, in a typically head-snapping 180-degree turnabout, Obama and his fellow Democrats portray Republicans as soft on Communism Russia. It’s a throwback to the 1970s, but with the parties’ roles reversed.

In his press conference today, Obama described the stern measures he supposedly took after learning that the Russian government was involved in breaking into Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s email account:

And so in early September when I saw President Putin in China, I felt that the most effective way to ensure that that did not happen was to talk to him directly and tell him to cut it out, there were going to be some serious consequences if he did not.

And in fact, we did not see further tampering of the election process. But the leaks through Wikileaks had already occurred.

So all it took, apparently, was for President Obama to tell Vladimir Putin to cut it out.

This is what I don’t understand: in October 2014, the Russian government hacked into both the White House’s and the State Department’s computer systems. For an unknown period of time, weeks if not months, the Russians were reading White House and State Department emails–a far more significant security breach than the accounts of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and John Podesta. The Obama administration never did discover that its communications had been compromised, but an ally (I suspect it was Israel) alerted the administration to the Russian intrusion. The White House’s computer system was down for weeks while experts tried to deal with the Russian hack and improve security.

What was President Obama’s reaction to this hack, which could reasonably be seen as an act of war? There was none, apparently. The administration downplayed the significance of the intrusion. The Russian government had been reading White House and State Department emails? No big deal! The liberal press followed suit. The newspapers that are now hysterical about the alleged Russian hacking of Wasserman Schultz’s email account dutifully kept quiet about what happened in the White House and the State Department. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Democratic Party newspapers like the Washington Post and the New York Times remained silent because the midterm election was just a few weeks away, and the story reflected badly on the Obama administration.

So this is what I don’t get: why didn’t President Obama tell Vladimir Putin to cut it out back in 2014? If all it took was a stern warning by our president to bring Russian cyberwarfare to a halt, why didn’t Obama tell Putin to stop it two years ago? If he had done so, following his own logic, the Russians would have behaved and there would have been no Wasserman-Schultz hack two years later. Who knows, Hillary Clinton might be our president-elect!

This question is so blindingly obvious that one can only wonder why not a single reporter at today’s press conference thought to ask it.

I am just kidding, of course. The news outlets that covered up the Russian hack of White House and State Department computers in 2014 are not about to challenge their fellow Democrat today.

For background on the 2014 intrusion, which the Obama administration attributed to Russia after the fact, go here, here, here, here, here and here.

 

[PuckChaser]

Obama should draw a line in the sand. Then Putin will know he's serious.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Obama should draw a line in the sand. Then Putin will know he's serious.

:rofl: ... he could do this, too:  :tsktsk:  that'll show 'em.

 

[Kirkhill]

 

[The Bread Guy]

Confirming stereotypes since before 1917 ...

Up to 100 might get poisoned with a bath lotion containing methanol in Siberian Irkutsk, Investigative Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko told Tass on Tuesday.

"According to investigation, 95 reports have come to law enforcement agencies of Irkutsk between December 16 and 20, about citizens poisoned with methanol and about dead bodies found," she said. "All poisoning incidents came as a result of consumption of alcohol-containing cosmetic product for taking baths called Boyaryshnik, in which methanol was found," she said.

As of the present moment, 55 people have died of poisoning and 40 are in hospitals.

Nine people selling bath lotion Boyaryshnik have been detained.

 

[Lightguns]

Confirming stereotypes since before 1917 ...

I would imagine their North hinterlands have the same problems ours do, only without the dry communities.  It's the location not necessarily the people that fuel drug and alcohol problems. 

 

[The Bread Guy]

Putin pines for (a version of) the old days ...

The USSR can’t be restored, although its disintegration was a disaster, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the Mir TV Channel on Wednesday.

However, the logic of today’s events suggests that a need exists for new integration in the post-Soviet space, Peskov said.

"[Russian President Vladimir] Putin still believes that this [the disintegration of the Soviet Union] was a disaster for those peoples who lived under the roof of one union state," the Kremlin spokesman said.

"This was a disaster that pushed us far back in our development. All the countries that are now independent were actually pushed decades back after the ruin of the Soviet Union," the Kremlin spokesman said.

"But you see for yourselves that it is impossible, of course, to talk about any reverse processes. This is impossible," the spokesman said.

"But the logic dictates the need of new integration in the space of the former Soviet Union," he added ...

 

[The Bread Guy]

AND he's all about pluralism and a range of political views and opinions, including those opposing his own, too!

Vladimir Putin is a liberal by nature who is no stranger to the concepts ‘development’ and ‘freedom’, and he is not a promulgator of a strong state, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with Mir TV channel.

"You know that (Putin’s) foes - and the ones located abroad, in the first place, but some foes inside this country, too - believe that Putin much rather is a conservative and an advocate of a strong state, and the word ‘freedom’ is alien to him," Peskov said. "But Putin is an attested liberal by nature. He is much more liberal than the self-styled ‘liberals’ who claim they are opposition."

Peskov finds Putin to be an absolutely liberally-minded person in what concerns his stance on the economy, social policies and other spheres. That is why the notion of ‘liberty’ is so close to the President ...

 

[MarkOttawa]

Very interesting geopolitical read by Niall Ferguson:

The Russian Question
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/12/23/the-russian-question-putin-trump-bush-obama-kissinger/

Prof. Ferguson:
http://www.niallferguson.com/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Kirkhill]

I found the latest little nuclear exchange interesting.

Putin: (Reiterating Russian Policy to go nuclear early) We are stronger than any potential aggressor.  We will continue to upgrade nuclear weapons.
Trump: You say you want an arms race.
Putin: Oh.  I wasn't meaning you.  Your the most powerful nation on the planet.

Quite as set of policy clarifications in a very short time.  Transparent diplomacy?