How Much Do The Russian People Know About What’s Going on in Ukraine?

[QueEx]

Russia Releases Its Forces’ Death Toll in Ukraine, Revealing Staggering Losses

Its estimate, predictably far lower than Western and Ukrainian assessments, still portends unsustainable casualty rate as its forces shift tactics on the battlefield.

USNEWS
By Paul D. Shinkman
Senior Writer, National Security
March 25, 2022, at 11:29 a.m.


Russia on Friday released how many of its forces it says have died so far in the month-long war in Ukraine offering, predictably, a far smaller accounting of its battlefield losses than Western powers and Kyiv have estimated.

MORE: Biden Warns Putin on Chemical Weapons

More than 1,300 Russian troops have been killed during what Russian President Vladimir Putin insists on calling a “special military operation” in Ukraine that began on Feb. 24, according to Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy, first deputy chief of the general staff at the Russian Ministry of Defense. He said the state would take over supporting these soldiers’ families, including paying for higher education, loan forgiveness and housing stipends.

NATO this week estimated that 7,000 to 15,000 Russians have died this month from fighting.

Kyiv on Friday said its accounting puts that number in excess of 16,000.

Russian state news deleted a post earlier this week suggesting troop deaths at roughly 10,000 with officials claiming the article’s publication originated from a cyberattack. Reports of at least a half-dozen deaths among Russian general officers have also wrought widespread attention and criticism over tactics.

Regardless of the disparity, even the Russian accounting presents a staggering acknowledgement of battlefield carnage for a supposedly contemporary military. The U.S., by contrast, lost 7,000 troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan across two decades of at-times intense, grinding combat.

Friday's announcement represents the first clear accounting from Russia since it began operations in Ukraine, where supposed lightning warfare has since bogged down into a burgeoning stalemate with entrenched Russian positions suffering from poor command, logistics and reinforcements. A depletion of Russian armaments combined with surprisingly effective Ukrainian defenses preceded Putin’s decision to begin the use of more indiscriminate weaponry and siege tactics against dense civilian centers, such as Mariupol and the capital Kyiv, causing widespread civilian casualties. Western officials have become increasingly concerned Russia may also turn to using chemical or biological weapons to gain a battlefield advantage, as Putin himself has appealed to foreign fighters from Syria and elsewhere to join his cause.

“Russia is likely now looking to mobilise its reservist and conscript manpower, as well as private military companies and foreign mercenaries, to replace these considerable losses,” the British Ministry of Defense assesses, according to a statement released Thursday night of Russia’s battlefield losses. “It is unclear how these groups will integrate into the Russian ground forces in Ukraine and the impact this will have on combat effectiveness.”

Ukrainian military officers on the ground have told U.S. News they have witnessed increased presence of Russian conscripts and reserve forces in their operations around the country.

Indeed, the deadliness of the fighting in Ukraine has forced Russia’s military to shift from offensive operations to more entrenched fighting, as Western military officials observed this week. Myhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, assessed this week that the Kremlin had changed its tactics toward more defensive operations “to an acceptable level” from a propaganda perspective.

The Ukrainian general staff has also concluded that Russia is “beginning to realize that the available forces and means are not enough to maintain the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and are conducting defensive operations,” according to the Institute for the Study of War, which has tracked Russia’s movements in near daily reports.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2022-03-25/russia-releases-its-forces-death-toll-in-ukraine-revealing-staggering-losses%3fcontext=amp

 

[COINTELPRO]

The Russians are looking to advance their attack position deep into Ukraine, than retreat and setup into the separatist/stronghold areas with their supplies. While the Ukrainians are reeling from the initial assault, they will advance their position further instead of from Russia.

You don't just go into the separatist areas and setup, the Ukrainians will quickly advance and attack your base of operations.

We know how this turned out 250 years later for the U.S., they did not take on the Native Americans all at once, they seceded territory slowly over time and so will the Ukrainians if they refuse neutrality. Anybody cheerleading that Russia lost is a fool and giving false hope.

 

[QueEx]

“While the Ukrainians are reeling from the initial assault, . . .”

I don’t think that’s what I’ve been reading. Just the opposite isn’t it???

 

[QueEx]

Russians who live abroad say Moscow is hardening the views of those back home

As the number of Russian expatriates living in the West grows, several said conversations about the war with peers and family back home have become more difficult.

www.nbcnews.com

RUSSIA-UKRAINE CONFLICT

Russians who live abroad say Moscow is hardening views of those back home

As the number of Russian expatriates living in the West grows, several said conversations with peers and family back home about the war have become more difficult.

Daria Leshchenko, an expatriate Russian living and working in United Kingdom, is pictured near her home in the Isle of Dogs, London, on March 21.Susannah Ireland for NBC News

March 27, 2022, 4:38 AM EDT
By Phil McCausland

LONDON — Daria Leshchenko said a close friend, a progressive in Moscow who fought for women’s rights in Russia, doesn’t speak to her anymore.

Despite their hourslong discussions about their home country’s invasion of Ukraine over the past few weeks, Leshchenko said she was shocked when her friend recently posted a message of support for President Vladimir Putin on social media and stopped responding.


Leshchenko, 24, works in London now but kept in touch with peers prior to the war. Since the invasion began, those dynamics have changed and relationships have started to unravel, she said.

“I don’t have many friends back in Russia to talk to anymore after these weeks, and I had plenty of them before,” she said.

That is a challenge for a growing number of Russian expatriates living in the West.

In the wake of Putin calling Russians who live abroad “scum” and “traitors” in a speech last week, conversations they manage to have with relatives and friends back home have grown tense or they avoid the topic of the war altogether. Numerous Russians have fled the country as a result of the invasion and the crackdown, probably for good, but the views of those still in Russia have hardened in support of the Kremlin, as years of anti-West propaganda get cemented in the country’s new reality.


Leshchenko said talking to friends back home is increasingly difficult as the Kremlin takes further hold of the media and lines of communication. Those who haven’t fled the country refuse to talk to her about the conflict, blame the West and the U.S., or say they may not like the war, but they feel they must support the regime and the military.


Another friend of Leshchenko's in Russia, who never shared an interest in politics before, asked her about the West’s views and seemed curious to learn more. But then the friend argued that Russian attacks, such as the bombardment of a maternity hospital in Mariupol, were staged by the West.

She insisted the woman photographed by The Associated Press being evacuated from the hospital was a prostitute and wore makeup to look as though she was in a bombing — a recent line of Russian propaganda.

The tension has only grown after Russian President Vladimir Putin's speech last week in which he called people like Leshchenko "traitors." Susannah Ireland for NBC News

Meanwhile, Russians who oppose Putin and his regime are, for the most part, growing quiet or fleeing the country — and that has not gone unnoticed in Moscow.

Russian media reported that Sergey Plugotarenko, head of the Russian Association for Electronic Communications, told the Duma on Tuesday that his organization believed 50,000 to 70,000 information technology specialists had fled the country since the war started, largely for Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Armenia, Georgia and the Baltic states. The only thing keeping more from leaving was the high price of airline tickets and the financial difficulties of navigating international sanctions.

Leshchenko said talking to friends back home is increasingly difficult as the Kremlin takes further hold of the media and lines of communication. Those who haven’t fled the country refuse to talk to her about the conflict, blame the West and the U.S., or say they may not like the war, but they feel they must support the regime and the military.

Another friend of Leshchenko's in Russia, who never shared an interest in politics before, asked her about the West’s views and seemed curious to learn more. But then the friend argued that Russian attacks, such as the bombardment of a maternity hospital in Mariupol, were staged by the West. She insisted the woman photographed by The Associated Press being evacuated from the hospital was a prostitute and wore makeup to look as though she was in a bombing — a recent line of Russian propaganda.

The tension has only grown after Russian President Vladimir Putin's speech last week in which he called people like Leshchenko "traitors." Susannah Ireland for NBC News

Meanwhile, Russians who oppose Putin and his regime are, for the most part, growing quiet or fleeing the country — and that has not gone unnoticed in Moscow.

Russian media reported that Sergey Plugotarenko, head of the Russian Association for Electronic Communications, told the Duma on Tuesday that his organization believed 50,000 to 70,000 information technology specialists had fled the country since the war started, largely for Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Armenia, Georgia and the Baltic states. The only thing keeping more from leaving was the high price of airline tickets and the financial difficulties of navigating international sanctions.

His group forecast that “between 70,000 to 100,000 people will leave in April” from Russia, he testified. “These are only the IT people.”

Those figures from just one industry indicate a potential explosion of Russians who are departing their homeland — probably never to return or see their families again.

Russians who are able to afford the costs of leaving are traveling to countries such as Israel or Turkey, which remain open to Russian flights and do not require visas.

“There’s no going back. Until he [Putin] does leave, the entire middle class and intelligentsia and liberal-oriented class of people in Moscow and Russia will have to leave,” said Vladislav Davidzon, a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. “There’s nothing to be done about it. Putin has brought us to this point.”

For his part, Davidzon, a Russian by birth who has lived in Ukraine, ensured there was no way for him to return: He burned his Russian passport in front of his country’s embassy in Paris last week in protest against Putin’s invasion and renounced his citizenship, which he said he has kept quiet from his Ukrainian friends prior to this moment.

Davidzon said he hoped to demonstrate his complete rejection of the state and noted the deep effects this conflict will have on the country for years to come. Russia, he said, is now facing a massive brain drain.

“The people who will be the losers in this are going to be ordinary Russians: pensioners, the working class, people on a budget,” he said. “Those in the middle class are going to suffer but the ordinary Russians, especially those whose children make up the conscription class — undereducated young men from the provinces who don’t have the same privileges and educational opportunities that I have had — those are people who are really suffering in all this.”

One Muscovite, a Russian who fled the country on Thursday and asked to remain anonymous out of fear that the government would target his family, wasn't able to leave immediately after flights to Istanbul nearly quadrupled in price. He got a ticket for a week later instead, leaving his parents and siblings behind. He said he was applying for a visa to travel to London and hoped to earn enough money there for his family to eventually join him.

Officers survey the site of a highly destructive bombing at a shopping center in Kyiv on March 21, 2022. Marko Djurica / Reuters

“When I was packing, it’s like, what do you take if you know you probably won’t come back?” he said over the phone while on a bus traveling through Istanbul. “I took a whole day off to just spend in my room and look at things. At first I just packed essentials, but then I was looking at items with memories: small mementos, postcards, little things. I picked up cinema tickets I had kept and thought, what if I still want to look at them in a couple years? That was really emotional.”


He said he never paid much attention to politics before Russia invaded Ukraine. Then, some of his friends who had signed a letter protesting the war were visited by police. Others were arrested.

“We’re not getting bombed. We don’t necessarily have friends dying. Obviously, the situation for Ukrainian people and Ukraine is much worse at the moment, but life has changed for us drastically,” he said. “You have plans for tomorrow, next week, next year, but now the economy has crashed, the work is gone and, just like, where do we go from here?”

In recent weeks, he said, he had found himself watching videos posted by a Russian political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann, a noted Kremlin critic.

The former Moscow resident said Schulmann, who was a member of Putin’s Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights until he dismissed her in 2019, described some Russian reactions perfectly when she said in a recent video that a “rather natural reaction to fear in a scary situation is to join the strong. Reaction to an aggression is to join the aggressor.”

Many friends of his who had changed their views had done so out of fear, he said. As Schulmann added in the video, he explained, the desire is to receive protection from the state or “to at least act in a way that won’t get you punished, so that the looming threat wouldn’t affect you personally.”
Many friends of his who had changed their views had done so out of fear, he said. As Schulmann added in the video, he explained, the desire is to receive protection from the state or “to at least act in a way that won’t get you punished, so that the looming threat wouldn’t affect you personally.”


Russian expats who spoke to NBC News also emphasized that Westerners, particularly Americans, don't fully grasp the ongoing undercurrent of anti-Western and anti-American sentiment that pervades public opinion there.

The Kremlin and many Russians view this as a war with the West and the U.S. That might surprise many Westerners, but some experts argue it is a defining feature of Russia’s worldview.

In his book “The Return of the Russian Leviathan,” Sergei Medvedev, a Russian social sciences professor at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, wrote that “Geopolitics in today’s Russia is simply an ideology that justifies imperial ambitions and the state’s priority over the individual in the allegedly eternal confrontation between Russia and the West in the battle for resources.”


iment that pervades public opinion there.

The Kremlin and many Russians view this as a war with the West and the U.S. That might surprise many Westerners, but some experts argue it is a defining feature of Russia’s worldview.

In his book “The Return of the Russian Leviathan,” Sergei Medvedev, a Russian social sciences professor at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, wrote that “Geopolitics in today’s Russia is simply an ideology that justifies imperial ambitions and the state’s priority over the individual in the allegedly eternal confrontation between Russia and the West in the battle for resources.”

Leshchenko said that has been true for as long as she can remember. Americans and Westerners may believe they’re not involved, but Russia views the U.S. and NATO as the actual threat they are fighting in Ukraine.

“Russians often blame the West for most things,” she said. “Any time there was a problem within the country, who do you think was blamed? Usually America. And that’s kind of what I grew up with. This is not something new: It has always been there.”

 

[QueEx]

Russia warns media: don't report interview with Ukrainian president

Russia's communications watchdog told Russian media on Sunday to refrain from reporting an interview done with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and said it had started a probe into the outlets which had interviewed the Ukrainian leader.

www.reuters.com

Russia warns media: don't report interview with Ukrainian president

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses the Ukrainian people, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine March 23, 2022. Picture taken March 23, 2022. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS


LONDON, March 27(Reuters) -

Russia's communications watchdog told Russian media on Sunday to refrain from reporting an interview done with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and said it had started a probe into the outlets which had interviewed the Ukrainian leader.

In a short statement distributed by the watchdog on social media and posted on its website, it said a host of Russian outlets had done an interview with Zelenskiy.


"Roskomnadzor warns the Russian media about the necessity of refraining from publishing this interview," it said. It did not give a reason for its warning.

Russian prosecutors said a legal opinion would be made on the statements made in the interview and on the legality of publishing the interview.

Zelenskiy spoke to several Russian publications.

 

[Mrfreddygoodbud]

I just want to know...

How many vaccines and boosters yall took, because I aint take any

of that bullshit and Im doing fuckin great.....

so how is this plandemic thing going... its still a plandemic right..

oh wait.....

 

[MASTERBAKER]

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Russian troops shooting down own aircraft in Ukraine, UK spy chief says
By
Mark Moore
March 31, 2022 9:48am
Updated

What happens if you push this bathroom's big red button?



0:12
/
0:30

MORE ON:UKRAINE WAR

• ‘Contracts will be stopped’: Putin warns Russia ending gas exports if payments not made in rubles
• Russian troops withdrawn from Chernobyl with ‘acute radiation sickness’: report
• Ukrainian president says defense is at a ‘turning point’
• Biden expected to announce plan to tap oil reserves amid soaring prices

Demoralized Russian soldiers are sabotaging their own equipment — including accidentally downing their own planes — and top generals are lying to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the success of his military campaign in Ukraine, the United Kingdom’s spy chief said Thursday.
Jeremy Fleming, the head of Government Communication Headquarters, said during a speech in Australia that Putin had “massively misjudged” both the capabilities of Russian forces and the will of the Ukrainian people to fight for their homeland.
“It’s clear he misjudged the resistance of the Ukrainian people,” Fleming said. “He underestimated the strength of the coalition his actions would galvanize. He underplayed the economic consequences of the sanctions regime, and he overestimated the abilities of his military to secure a rapid victory.”
“We’ve seen Russian soldiers, short of weapons and morale, refusing to carry out orders, sabotaging their own equipment and even accidentally shooting down their own aircraft,” Fleming added.
The spymaster went on to claim that Putin’s inner circle fears speaking truth to the Russian leader, though the “extent of these misjudgments must be crystal clear to the regime.”
A new report has lead British intelligence to believe that Russian troops are sabotaging their vehicles and personnel in an attempt to end the war with Ukraine.EPA/ROMAN PILIPEY A building burns after a Russian shelling in the town of Irpin on March 30, 2022.REUTERS/Oleksandr Ratushniak A destroyed Russian tank in Ukraine.EPA/ROMAN PILIPEY
Fleming added that the Russian command and control structure is in chaos, while the invasion of Ukraine had descended into Putin’s “personal war.”
The UK official’s observations dovetail with those of the US and other Western nations that say Putin is surrounded by a battery of “yes men” who are feeding him false information about how poorly Russian troops are performing, as well as the extent to which sanctions are harming the Russian economy.
“We have information that Putin felt misled by the Russian military, which has resulted in persistent tension between Putin and his military leadership,” White House communications director Kate Bedingfield told reporters Wednesday.
A Ukrainian service member guards a person who, according to officials, is a Russian soldier who surrendered to Ukrainian armed forces.REUTERS/Oleksandr Ratushniak Burned cars and the ruins of a Retroville shopping center following a Russian shelling attack.Mykhaylo Palinchak/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire
“We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisers about how badly the Russian military is performing and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions because his senior advisers are too afraid to tell him the truth,” she added.
Bedingfield said the White House had released an intelligence assessment revealing the strife at the top of Moscow’s chain of command “so that there is a full understanding of what kind of strategic blunder this has been for Russia and for the Russian people.”
Fleming said Western nations are purposely releasing their intelligence findings to get ahead of Russia’s misinformation campaign about the war in Ukraine.
CONTENT WARNING
Ukrainian service members walk near the body of a Russian soldier on the front line near Kyiv as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues.REUTERS/Gleb Garanich According to sources, it is believed that Vladimir Putin is being misled by his own people because they are afraid to upset the Russian leader.Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS
CONTENT WARNING
The body of a Russian soldier lies in a trench after Ukrainian troops retook the village of Mala Rogan on March 30, 2022.FADEL SENNA/AFP via Getty Images
“Increasingly, many of those ‘truths’ come from intelligence. It is already a remarkable feature of this conflict just how much intelligence has been so quickly declassified to get ahead of Putin’s actions,” he said, adding: “On this and many other subjects, deeply secret intelligence is being released to make sure the truth is heard. At this pace and scale, it really is unprecedented.”
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday that “we would concur with the conclusion that Mr. Putin has not been fully informed.”
“It’s his military. It’s his war. He chose it. And so the fact that he may not have all the context, that he may not fully understand the degree to which his forces are failing in Ukraine, that’s a little discomforting, to be honest with you,” Kirby told reporters.
According to British government communications head Jeremy Fleming, Vladimir Putin seriously misjudged the will and determination of the Ukrainian people.APAP Photo/Frank Augstein, File
A European diplomat noted that that assessment was in line with the EU’s thinking.
“Putin thought things were going better than they were. That’s the problem with surrounding yourself with ‘yes men’ or only sitting with them at the end of a very long table,” the official said.
One notable dissenter to the assessment was former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, who told CNN Thursday morning that “I don’t buy that analysis.”
“I don’t think there’s a government in human history, that I’m aware of, where one of the top leader’s advisers was not perfectly prepared to say that another top adviser had made a complete mess of things,” Bolton said. “I think they’ve [the Russians] got the information. I think their calculations proved to be as inaccurate as US intelligence or French intelligence, that predicted there would be no invasion.”
CONTENT WARNING
Ukrainian medics carry the body of a Russian soldier after Ukrainian troops retook the village of Malaya Rohan.FADEL SENNA/AFP via Getty Images
In the same interview, Bolton suggested that “continued corruption in the Russian military” was to blame for discontent among fighting forces, describing the Kremlin as “a racketeering organization, not a government.”
“I think the disastrous performance of the Russian military has caused such a reputational blow that I think it’s an added reason why Putin has no incentive, from his perspective, to negotiate. If his military is to have any effect in terms of threatening other countries, he has to have some military victory he can point to,” he added. “He certainly does not have it yet, and I don’t know what it is in prospect for him. So the bad news is, I think actually this failure contributes to their determination in the Kremlin to continue this conflict until they can achieve some success that justifies the invasion in the first place.”
With Post wires

 

[MASTERBAKER]

Russian troops withdrawn from Chernobyl with ‘acute radiation sickness’: report
By
Yaron Steinbuch
March 31, 2022 10:23am
Updated
One of the Chernobyl workers told Reuters,
Russian soldiers kick up radioactive dust in Chernobyl






Close
MORE ON:UKRAINE WAR

• ‘Contracts will be stopped’: Putin warns Russia ending gas exports if payments not made in rubles
• Russian troops shooting down own aircraft in Ukraine, UK spy chief says
• Ukrainian president says defense is at a ‘turning point’
• Biden expected to announce plan to tap oil reserves amid soaring prices

Several hundred Russian troops have been withdrawn from the Chernobyl nuclear facility in Ukraine after suffering from “acute radiation sickness” and are being treated in Belarus, according to reports.
The Pentagon confirmed earlier that the Russian forces began to pull out from the defunct facility, which was taken on the first day of the invasion, after a pledge by the Kremlin to scale back its offensive.
But an employee at the Public Council at the State Agency of Ukraine for Exclusion Zone management said the soldiers had fled while “irradiated” and bused to a medical facility in Gomel, Belarus, the Mirror reported.
“Another batch of irradiated terrorists who seized the Chernobyl zone was brought to the Belarusian Radiation Medicine Center in Gomel today,” Yaroslav Yemelianenko wrote on Facebook.
“Have you dug trenches in the Red Forest, b—hes? Now live the rest of your short life with this. There are rules for handling this area. They are mandatory because radiation is physics — it works regardless of status or shoulder ranks,” he wrote.
Several hundred Russian soldiers, seen here being bused to a medical facility, were forced to hastily withdraw from the Chernobyl power plant.Facebook / Yaroslav Yemelianenko Chernobyl was taken by Russian troops on the first day of the invasion.EPA/RUSSIAN DEFENCE MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE/HANDOUT
“With minimal intelligence in command or soldiers, these consequences could have been avoided,” Yemelianenko added.
Word about the sickness came soon after Ukrainian officials claimed that Russian troops “looted and destroyed” a specialist laboratory containing “highly active” radioactive samples from the decommissioned nuclear plant.
The lab contained “highly active samples and samples of radionuclides that are now in the hands of the enemy,” the stage agency said in a Facebook post, referring to unstable atoms that release radiation.
Alleged Russian tanks are seen in front of the main reactor at Chernobyl.Forgotten Chernobyl/Facebook
The Ukrainian agency had said it hoped Russian troops “will harm [themselves] and not the civilized world.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of using the exclusion zone around Chernobyl to prepare new attacks.
A US official told Agence France-Presse this week that Russian troops were “walking away from the Chernobyl facility and moving into Belarus. Chernobyl is (an) area where they are beginning to reposition some of their troops — leaving, walking away from the Chernobyl facility and moving into Belarus.

“We think that they are leaving. I can’t tell you that they’re all gone,” the official added.
Russian military vehicles are seen in Trostyanets, Sumy region, Ukraine, which has been recaptured by the Ukrainian army.EPA/ROMAN PILIPEY The bodies of Russian soldiers lie on the ground after Ukrainian troops retook the village of Mala Rogan, east of Kharkiv.FADEL SENNA/AFP via Getty Images
Meanwhile, the head of Ukraine’s state nuclear company said Thursday that the UN nuclear watchdog will establish online monitoring missions to the Russian-occupied Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia plants.
Energoatom CEO Petro Kotin said the International Atomic Energy Agency should use its influence to ensure Russian nuclear officials do not interfere in the operation of nuclear plants occupied by Russian forces.
“(The IAEA) can influence this and they must influence this, and this question will be discussed,” Kotin said.

He said he could not disclose all the results of a meeting he had Wednesday with visiting IAEA chief Rafael Grossi.

 

[COINTELPRO]

The Root Cause of this Military Conflict:



It looks like a Venezuela/Iraq type of scenario in Russia, where Western capital tries to privatize their natural resources that they will own. If they interfere with this arrangement, severe consequences are imposed either through the military. Here Russia, just seized his assets and barred him from the country through the appearance of corruption. In Venezuela, Chavez nationalized the oil industry.

What the West wanted from Russia is not to be a buyer, but to own all of their natural resources such as oil. He called it corruption, it appears to be more of a nationalization through the oligarchs. In Iraq, the oil industry had been privatized after the war.

Basically they want full control of your mineral resources and to control supply and demand. This unhealthy, mentally ill obsession long term is dangerous, I am surprised they tried to use these tactics with a nuclear armed country. I have alot of experience with the psychology of the Western mind.

For Russia to fully repair their relationship with the West, they will have to let the Bill Browders come into the country and own their natural resources.

 

[COINTELPRO]

The Root Cause of this Military Conflict:



It looks like a Venezuela/Iraq type of scenario in Russia, where Western capital tries to privatize their natural resources that they will own. If they interfere with this arrangement, severe consequences are imposed either through the military. Here Russia, just seized his assets and barred him from the country through the appearance of corruption. In Venezuela, Chavez nationalized the oil industry.

What the West wanted from Russia is not to be a buyer, but to own all of their natural resources such as oil. He called it corruption, it appears to be more of a nationalization through the oligarchs. In Iraq, the oil industry had been privatized after the war.

Basically they want full control of your mineral resources and to control supply and demand. This unhealthy, mentally ill obsession long term is dangerous, I am surprised they tried to use these tactics with a nuclear armed country. I have alot of experience with the psychology of the Western mind.

For Russia to fully repair their relationship with the West, they will have to let the Bill Browders come into the country and own their natural resources.

Anytime you mess with foreign oil investments from the West, that is a bad omen, no matter how small it is. The U.S. does not play at all and does not want to show any weakness. If they come in to make investments; you better double check if you nationalize or try to use some corruption scheme to scare foreign ownership.

I think Russia used some corruption scheme to scare foreign investments/ownership away which is no different than Hugo Chavez nationalizing the oil industry. After hearing his story, would you spend $10 billion to buy an oil field in Russia? This came out in 2010 time period, Ukraine soon followed in 2014 turning Russia into another Venezuela 10 years later.

I did not know they could do this another nuclear armed country like Russia, usually this is done to small bit player countries with a weak military.

 

[gene cisco]

Been talking politics on BGOL for over 20 years. Was here for the post -9/11 shit. I called it the apple pie frenzy. Remember the freedom fries, the 'why do they hate us?", Bill maher getting fired for questioning the narrative, 70 percent of these idiot Americans supporting the Iraq invasion and then like a year later 70 percent against it.

My man is still looking for WMD

Not once in all this time do I recall NATO expansion being made a big issue. I never talked about it. Was too busy going in on the empire bringing democracy via drone strike to people living on a $1 a day.

Americans could barely keep up with the lies in front of their face about the apple pie wars(Iraq and Afghanistan) and then the other shit like Libya and Syria. And we are going to wonder what Russians know? ...

Fuck what Russians know, Americans can't even keep up with the shit their empire pulled. Hell, 90 percent of these idiots won't admit they live in an empire that brings hell to millions across the globe. They don't realize NATO expansion was supposed to end decades ago. But hey, Native Americans had receipts too.

I thought 70 percent of these creatures falling for the WMD shit in 2003 was bad. Seeing all this Ukranian flag bullshit and OUR media's propaganda machine talking shit about Russia's is crazy. Just shows the Internet hasn't helped the masses at all. Masses dumb as ever and just as easy to manipulate.

Americans didn't know shit 20 years ago and they don't know shit today. So many worried about Russians having the right information when we are the ones on the Death Star bringing people more work than any other country on the planet. Meanwhile, locking more people up at home than any other country.

Sick of Americans acting like we live on a cloud with some care bears. We team Vader baby. Before we worry about what Russia knows, we got 10s of millions of Americans to wake the fuck up. More shit change, more it stays the same. Why do they hate us in 01, Patriot in 03, crickets on libya/syria/yemen, I stand with Ukraine in 22. Americans a special kind of propagandized.

 

[QueEx]

My man is still looking for WMD

Geno, Geno !!!

I was "COUNTing" ON YOU to show up soon !!!


.


.

 

[QueEx]

What Russians think of the war in Ukraine, according to an independent pollster

Most Russians say they support the military, according to this pollster : NPR

NPR
Updated April 18, 20221:06 PM ET
Heard on Morning Editio



A couple walk in front of the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower and St Basil's cathedral in downtown Moscow. While 80% of poll respondents say they support Russia's military, some have mixed feelings.
Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images

What do ordinary Russians think about President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, and how much are they feeling the effect of Western sanctions?

Denis Volkov has been working to find out. He's the director of the Levada Center, an independent polling firm in Russia.

As Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep notes, doing anything independently in Russia is tricky (the government has branded the firm a foreign agent), as is conducting polls on this topic — since the government prohibits calling the invasion a war, and dissenters are arrested.

The Levada Center stays within those parameters by asking whether people support the actions of the Russian military.

Volkov found that some 80% of respondents do support the military, but that group is by no means a monolith. He says about 50% have "definite support" without any qualms, but the other 30% have support with reservations. And he sees shock and anxiety across the entire group.

Volkov told Inskeep that he's aware of the pitfalls with these polls, but they may still have valuable information to teach us.

"We must understand that polls show us not what people really think or really believe, but what they want to share," he says.

Volkov says these polls are conducted face-to-face, and people are assured of anonymity. Still, he notes, the survey results reveal at least as much about what people are willing to say in public than about how they truly feel.

"We are measuring public attitudes that, more or less, coincide with how people will behave in public," he adds.

He says the firm asks about peoples' feelings, and is seeing that both groups — those who support and oppose the military's actions — are anxious and afraid. He contrasts this to public opinion surrounding the annexation of Crimea in 2014, recalling that there were positive feelings and even "euphoria" at the time.

"This time, you do not see this euphoria," Volkov says. "It's rather that people understand that this is serious, that there is fighting. But at the same time, many say that they're supporting and some people even say that they should support, because it's international conflict and they have to support their government."

Volkov adds that public opinion matters, even though the Russian government isn't taking the public's pulse in order to plan its next moves. He says officials are instead monitoring the situation to make sure that it's "under control."

And as Russia's war in Ukraine continues, the U.S. and other Western allies are hitting it with more economic sanctions.

One-quarter of respondents say they already feel the effect of those sanctions, according to Volkov. People who are from disadvantaged groups are suffering the most, he adds, because they don't have the resources to adapt.

On the other hand, Volkov says that people in big cities who are well-off and well-connected do have the resources, but are suffering "morally."

By that, he means that those who were most connected to the outside world might have been less inclined to support Putin's military operation, but now find themselves cut off from the West. That means they're on conflicting sides — and feel the shunning of Russia most of all.

===============================================================


UKRAINE INVASION — EXPLAINED
What the ruthless new commander of Russia's military in Ukraine signals for the war



WORLD
Russia strikes Ukraine's big cities, bears down on M

SPECIAL SERIESUkraine invasion — explained
The roots of Russia's invasion of Ukraine go back decades and run deep. The current conflict is more than one country taking over another; it is — in the words of one U.S. official — a shift in "the world order."

Here are some helpful resources to make sense of it all.

The digital version of this story originally appeared on the Morning Edition live blog.

This interview was produced by David West and Sean Saldana, and edited by Taylor Haney.



An expert says it may be hard, but not impossible, to prove genocide in Ukraine
April 12, 2022 • Should the atrocities in Ukraine be called war crimes, ethnic cleansing or genocide? The terms can be tricky to differentiate, but experts say the separate labels are crucial when seeking justice.


How does Ukraine keep intercepting Russian military communications?
April 26, 2022 • Russia had a reputation for being highly skilled in secretive military communications. That notion has been largely shattered by the bumbling way it has been operating in Ukraine.
LISTEN· 4:53Add toPLAYLIST


Anastasia thinks about leaving Russia. Here's what her life looks like today
April 21, 2022 • Anastasia has considered leaving her home in Moscow as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues. She feels trapped, cut off from the world, and unable to speak out.
LISTEN· 5:22Add to PLAYLIST


It's planting season in Ukraine, and that means problems for global food supply
April 20, 2022 • Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent ripples beyond the immediate conflict zone, breaking supply chains and creating food shortages as two of the world's biggest food exporters went to war.



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[QueEx]

[REAL STORIES OR PROPAGANDA ???]
QueEx:
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There Is Such Fuckery Going on Here’: Russian Soldiers ‘Revolting’ as They Get Stiffed on Ukraine Payouts

ABANDON SHIP
Allison Quinn
News Editor
Published Apr. 13, 2022 11:17AM ET

Reuters

Russian soldiers in Ukraine are said to be “dumping their stuff” and leaving after the military leadership stiffed them on special pay they were promised.
That’s according to several intercepted phone calls released by Ukrainian authorities Wednesday, all of which paint the same picture of a “total clusterfuck” among Russian troops, as one soldier put it.

‘There Is Such Fuckery Going on Here’: Russian Soldiers ‘Revolting’ as They Get Stiffed on Ukraine Payouts

Putin says he’s proud of his “noble” war against Ukraine, but his soldiers there say it’s such a mess “entire battalions are starting revolts.”

www.thedailybeast.com

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Tapped Calls Expose Russia’s Heinous Treatment of Own Dead Troops

Efforts to discreetly transport corpses are so slow that by the time bodies are returned to Russian families, they’re already “half-decomposed,” newly intercepted calls suggest.

www.thedailybeast.com

Calls Expose Russia’s Heinous Treatment of Own Dead Troops

‘DON’T FREAK OUT’
Shannon Vavra
National Security Reporter
Updated May. 02, 2022 1:38PM ET Published May. 02, 2022 12:52PM ET

Russian authorities are transporting the dead bodies of Russia’s fallen soldiers from Ukraineback to Russia in “small batches” in the dead of night in an attempt to conceal just how many Russian troops are dying in Ukraine, according to intelligence shared by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

The intelligence—intercepted calls between Russian troops the SBU said it picked up in the Zaporozhye region—suggests that Russia is also transporting the corpses back to Russia in small groups in order to avoid suspicion that Russia’s invasion is sustaining massive losses or faltering in Ukraine, the SBU said.

Tapped Calls Expose Russia’s Heinous Treatment of Own Dead Troops

Efforts to discreetly transport corpses are so slow that by the time bodies are returned to Russian families, they’re already “half-decomposed,” newly intercepted calls suggest.

www.thedailybeast.com

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[COINTELPRO]

At that meeting, Lincoln famously told the five delegates “you and we are different races” and it was “better for us both . . . to be separated. Lincoln hoped the Chiriquí region of what is now Panama would be an auspicious destination for African Americans, whom he doubted would be able to enjoy prosperity and peace in the United States.

President Lincoln, a heroic figure in American history acknowledge that two groups could not lived together. He basically tried to force us in to becoming colonizers in lieu of them with South America and Africa. This tactic was later used with Jews after the Holocaust. For the most part he was right and Putin is right to separate the Ukrainians from Russians to avoid these pitfalls:

1. Mass Incarceration
2. Encourage Racial Cannibalism and in fighting
3. Concentration of Russians in low skill, low wage jobs, that will be offshored to other countries or automated
4. Mass Surveillance of Russians
5. Terrorism

 

[MASTERBAKER]

Hackers Humiliate Putin; Prominent Media Vandalized On Russian Holiday

 

[QueEx]

Two Russian journalists appear to defy Putin, slamming the war in Ukraine

By Henry Klapper, CNN
Tue May 10, 2022

https://www.bgol.us/forum/javascript:void(0);
(CNN Business) Two Russian reporters appeared to post at least 30 articles on Monday that criticized President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

CNN reviewed the articles, which were taken down almost immediately after they were published on a pro-Kremlin news site. Some were pegged to the 77th anniversary of the Soviet Union's defeat of Nazi Germany, while others criticized Putin for using Russia's Victory Day to justify his violent onslaught in Ukraine.

Reporters Egor Polyakov and Alexandra Miroshnikova made several claims in their articles, including that Russian defense officials were "lying to relatives" of those killed on the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet flagship. They directly accused Putin of launching one of the "bloodiest wars of the 21st century."

"Putin and his circle are doomed to face a tribunal after the end of the war," Polyakov and Miroshnikova published to the news site Lenta.ru. "Putin and his associates won't be able to justify themselves or flee after losing this war."

Reporting critical of the government in Russian media is extremely rare — especially since the war in Ukraine started in February.

The Russian parliament passed a law in early March criminalizing what it considers to be falsehoods about Russia's war in Ukraine. Breaking that law could result in a 1.5 million ruble (around $21,500) fine or up to 15 years in prison. Putin and state media still refer to the full-scale ground war in Ukraine only as a "special operation."
In March, a long-time Russian TV editor, Marina Ovsyannikova, made headlines for disrupting a live broadcast while holding up an anti-war sign on Russia's Channel 1. She was arrested and fined 30,000 rubles (about $280 at the time.) Ovsyannikova is now reporting for a German-owned news outlet from Russia and Ukraine.

'Putin must go'
Polyakov and Miroshnikova are both business editors at Lenta.ru, a major pro-Kremlin Russian news site. The outlet's parent company was recently bought by Russia's Sberbank (SBRCY), which is subject to US sanctions for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

CNN reached out to the two reporters and lenta.ru for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Independent Russian news site Mediazone published what it said was a statement from Polyakov and Miroshnikova after the articles made their appearance.
"Putin is a paranoid dictator," they were quoted as saying. "Putin must go. He started a senseless war and is leading Russia into a ditch."

Polyakov and Miroshnikova not only publicly rejected the government line on the Russia's invasion but went as far as to accuse Putin of lying about his intentions in Ukraine from the outset.

"Putin repeatedly lied about his plans for Russia in Ukraine, naming one goal at first then a completely different one." They pointed to Putin's call for a "liberation of Donbass," "de-Nazification," and the "demilitarization of Ukraine," as examples of what they describe as hastily put together justifications for a needless war.

One of the articles focused on what Polyakov and Miroshnikova described as the Russian military lying to families of Russian sailors who died on the Moskva flag ship that sank in the Black Sea last month.

The article claimed the Russian navy may have recirculated old images of the Moskva's crew to suggest more sailors made it off the ship unharmed than really did. "The video of the Black Sea fleet leadership and crew members that the Defense Ministry circulated after the tragedy could've been archival since a relative of a missing crew member actually recognized him in the video itself."

CNN could not independently confirm these claims.

Each article the pair posted to the site started with the same urgent plea under the headline.

"Disclaimer: This material is not approved by the state, therefore the Presidential administration will delete it... In other words: TAKE A SCREENSHOT URGENTLY before it's deleted."

The duo also appeared to sign off from Lenta.ru saying, "We're looking for work, lawyers and probably, political asylum!"

"Don't be afraid, don't be quiet," they continued in an apparent call to action. "Resist! You are not one, you are many! The future is yours!... Peace to Ukraine!"


Two Russian journalists appear to defy Putin, slamming the war in Ukraine - CNN

Polyakov and Miroshnikova - Search (bing.com)

 

[COINTELPRO]

Putin ultimate goal is to protect Russia from coup attempts and wanting to become European.

1. Having the oligarchs die, or lose all their money from sanctions, looking like a complete failure. Imagine a Bill Gates or Warren Buffett accumulating their massive wealth in the U.S. to live in other countries. The black community has the same problem of people achieving success than living in 'other' communities or buying their products.

These oligarchs were undermining the government by seeking refuge in the West with their wealth, buying yachts or real estate. This myth that punishing oligarchs, they will seek to oust Putin is a lie. They were seeking or was manipulated into messaging that the West is a superior caste that the elites aspire to become when they get their opportunity.

2. Cutting off Western technology and social media where the Russian government has little control or influence. Making it difficult for Russian speaking influencers using these platforms to make money, which is a defacto ban. They now have to convert their earnings into Rubles.

They are anticipating and wanting these sanctions and asset freezes to make these oligarchs clowns look foolish in the eyes of the Russian people.

 

[COINTELPRO]

There is a crime rate not documented in the stats for us when we move to these areas. I am planning on setting up black oligarchs so that sanctions will be imposed on them and their message of wanting to be with the superior caste will be muted.

1. Bill Cosby experienced this with a false rape allegation and DA chasing after him 15 years later using broken promises. This would have never happened to him if he lived in Philadelphia. I had a Karen make an attempt that I quickly shut down, I have extensive experience and can detect abnormal behavior within instant.
2. Sabotaging your revenue sources to get you up out of their neighborhood.
3. Covert Surveillance and harassment.
4. Being killed by the police or false accused of a crime.
5. Having your white wife being cut up and Mark Fuhrman planting blood evidence on your clothing.
6. Going to a school system that will attempt to addict your kids with drugs and will be hostile to their presence in classes.
7. Kobe Bryant going to Colorado and getting setup with a rape charge. Dying in a suspicious helicopter crash.

Many of our oligarchs in the black community move out to these areas for safety reason, but we need to keep our stats. It might actually be safer when you factor in these crimes.

 

[gene cisco]

Where is the middle ground news on the Russia/Ukraine shit? Is it even allowed? I remember when the Russian ruble crashed and everyone was patting themselves on the back and was on a sanction high. It then runs up to multiyear highs and is 2022's best performing currency, and the western news still talks shit.

Don't want to hold the L on just how embarrassing the recovery and central bank surplus is after talking all that hot shit this winter.

Americans and Europeans still struggle to get honest coverage about what is really going on AND the ramifications. Meanwhile, their governments keep pissing away money on this money pit while their own citizens need economic help.

 

[QueEx]

[REAL STORIES OR PROPAGANDA ???]
_____________________________________________________

Wives of Soldiers in Putin's Army
Take to the Street, Demand Answers

​

Wives of Soldiers in Putin's Army Take to the Street, Demand Answers (msn.com)

Newsweek
June 15, 2022

Wives of soldiers fighting Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine's Donbas region have taken to the streets, demanding answers over their husbands' whereabouts, more than 100 days after the invasion began.

A video allegedly of the wives of mobilized Russian soldiers in the breakaway Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine shows the women complaining that they haven't heard from their husbands in four months and that they are not being given any information.

DPR head Denis Pushilin ordered the mobilization of all able men in the region on February 19, just days before the war began.

"We are the wives of the mobilized from the 121st regiment, 2nd battalion," one woman said, speaking directly to the camera in front of a group of women, and one man. "At the moment we don't know, for four months, where our husbands are."

The woman said that on February 24, the day Putin declared his so-called "special military operation" against Ukraine, their husbands were inducted to the personnel of the Komsomolsk city military unit, 08801.

"At the moment, we don't know where they are located," she said. "For four months, there were no payments to us."

She said their husbands were meant to return on June 6, but never made it back.

"From their 121st regiment, only the 4th company (battalion) made it here," the woman said, adding that the military unit "refuses" to tell them where their husbands are and that nobody is giving them any information.
"Where are our husbands? This is how they mobilized our husbands, took them from their jobs—they haven't been home even for a day," the woman said. "We don't know what's happening to them now, whether they are alive or not, no one can give us an answer to that. How is this possible? Two hundred people, is that a needle in a haystack? Answer us, to whom should we appeal?"

One man interjected: "Are we meant to complain to Putin?"

The woman claimed that half of the men who were deployed to fight the Russian leader's war in late February were "obviously not fit for service."

"That didn't bother anyone, and it still doesn't. Where could the people vanish in the DPR territory, tell me, please? Two hundred servicemen!"

In a separate incident in March, just days after the war began, furious mothers of Russian soldiers accused the Kremlin of deploying their sons as "cannon fodder."

"We were all deceived, all deceived. They were sent there as cannon fodder. They are young. They were unprepared," one woman said in footage that purportedly showed a heated confrontation with a Sergey Tsivilev, governor of the Kemerovo region.

Russian soldiers have also been filmed saying that they believe they were deceived by their superiors, and that they believed they were sent to Ukraine "for training."

More than 100 days since the war began, Russia's focus now is to seize Ukraine's eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions in full. Clashes are intensifying in the strategic city of Severodonetsk, which could determine the fate of Ukraine's Donbas region.

Britain's defense ministry said Wednesday that after more than a month of heavy fighting, Russian forces now control the majority of Severodonetsk.

Newsweek reached out to Russia's ministry of foreign affairs for comment.
Related Articles

• Russia Seizes Severodonetsk Center as Ukraine War Turns in Putin's Favor
• Russia Turns to 'Forced Mobilization' as Troop Morale Declines: Report
• Russians 'Rescue' Ukrainians from 'Genocide,' Turn Them into Cannon Fodder

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[MistaPhantastic]

All I know is that Jeremy Renner has to play Zelensky in a movie. He HAS to.

 

[MASTERBAKER]