The Kremlin game of "Who's Next" is back in full force... Furious Vladimir Putin launches investigation into Kremlin inner circle to find 'guilty men' in charge of war strategy The Russian president is said to be “incandescent” as his military plans were leaked to the West, who shared it with his Ukrainian enemies https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/world-news/furious-vladimir-putin-launches-investigation-26538094 Furious Vladimir Putin has started a witch-hunt of his most trusted inner circle to find the “guilty men” responsible for the failure of his war strategy. The Russian president is said to be “incandescent” as his military plans were leaked to the West, who shared it with his Ukrainian enemies. The failure is seen as one of the main reasons several of his top generals and elite forces have been stopped during the first month of the invasion Putin is said to be growing wary of his close ally and vacation friend Sergei Shoigu, Russia ’s defence minister, who is in overall charge of the stalling military operation. The Mirror UK report that Putin's long-time ally FSB security service head Alexander Bortnikov- spoken as a stand-in should Putin fall in a coup - is also under pressure, as is Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian general staff. Another target of Putin’s fury is Igor Kostyukov, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed forces, who may face imminent removal. A source said: "He is incandescent that US and UK intelligence appear to know the Russian army’s next moves all the time, starting with predicting the invasion before he was ready to acknowledge it." It comes as the Kremlin admitted more than 10,000 Russian soldiers have so far been killed in Ukraine, with thousands more injured. Morale is so low several are said to be hunting for Ukrainian ammunition to shoot themselves in the leg so they are sent home from the frontlines.
When you amass troops along another country's border for weeks, someone is going to notice it and report it to the world. He made his own bed, now Putin must lay in it. Cocksucker he do be.
Remember: Don't drink the tea. Russia's defence minister got heart attack after speaking to Putin, claims Ukraine https://www.hindustantimes.com/worl...-to-putin-claims-ukraine-101648277204357.html Ukraine minister claimed in a Facebook post that Putin blamed Russian defence minister Sergey Shoigu for the ‘failure’ of the Russian army against Ukraine in the ongoing war. Ukraine minister Anton Gerashchenko has claimed Russian defence minister Sergey Shoigu had suffered a heart attack after a heated confrontation with Russian President Vladimir Putin where Putin squarely blamed him for the 'failure' of his special military operation in Ukraine. The Ukraine minister has claimed that this is the reason why the defence minister, the man believed to be the second mastermind of the war, was not seen in the public since March 11. On March 24, the Russian defence minister was seen on television again. It is, however, not known whether the footage was new or old. His sudden disappearance triggers rumours that he has been punished by Kremlin for not yet capturing key Ukrainian cities like Kharkiv or Kyiv. A Guardian report claimed that the issue was brought up at the daily press meet held by the Kremlin as reporters asked the whereabouts of the defence minister. Kremlin spokesperson, as reported, said it is quite understandable that the defence minister is busy amid the special military operation and it is not exactly the right time for media activities. Soon after, the defence minister was seen on the television, in a clip of a security council teleconference with Putin where the minister was said to have reported progress in the special military operation. "Shoigu was giving a report to the National Security Council on the military operation in Ukraine remotely. The broadcast footage, which interrupted a live interview, did not show Shoigu speak, but his image appeared on screen among other video call participants reporting to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin," CNN reported casting doubt on the recent footage.
Russia blame game begins: Putin allies attack each other on Ukraine failure –Kremlin chaos RUSSIA is locked in a game of "who is to blame" after the catastrophic errors in the Ukraine invasion, Western officials have said. https://www.express.co.uk/news/poli...-vladimir-putin-update-ukraine-invasion-blame
Putin coup fears explode as Russian tyrant ‘purges’ closest ally who ‘made him President’ in latest war on ‘traitors’ https://www.the-sun.com/news/5114713/putin-arrests-former-aide-vladislav-surkov/ PUTIN has ordered the arrest of his close former aide and the father of "Putinism", according to reports from Moscow. Shadowy figure Vladislav Surkov, who kept a picture of US rapper Tupac beside a picture of Putin on his desk, is being held under house arrest. Surkov, whose age is either 57 or 59, was detained as part of a wide-ranging criminal probe that has also led to the arrest of 150 Russian security agents. The case involves the alleged embezzlement of almost £4 billion by security services to create an undercover intelligence network in Ukraine. Surkov - the former deputy prime minister of Russia - is credited with helping to keep Putin in power by masterminding the country's entire political system. He created "opposition" political parties that, in reality, were controlled by the Kremlin, while also founding Nashi, the Russian equivalent of the Hitler Youth, who would beat up supporters of those very same parties. Once a week, he would meet with the heads of Russia's TV channels, instructing them who to attack and who to support. Describing his propaganda mission in June last year, Surkov told the Financial Times: "People need it. Most people need their heads to be filled with thoughts. "You are not going to feed people with some highly intellectual discourse. Most people eat simple foods... Generally, most people consume very simple-meaning beliefs. "This is normal. There is haute cuisine, and there is McDonald's." Surkov also encouraged Putin to believe that Ukraine is not a real country, and previously called for Russia to annex not only Ukraine, but Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as well. He was fired in February 2020 over reported policy differences at the Kremlin, but his arrest appears to be a further sign that Putin is turning on his former allies. His detention is said to be linked to the arrest of senior security service figure Col-Gen Sergei Beseda, now being held in Moscow's notorious Lefortovo Prison. Putin is believed to be furious at intelligence failings in Ukraine, following years of investment to supposedly ensure Russian support in key places. Russian media outlet Buninskaya Alleya reported: "More and more sources report that Vladislav Surkov is under house arrest. "Investigative measures have been carried out allegedly in the case of embezzlement in the Donbas since 2014. "It was Surkov who was the representative of the Russian President in Ukraine." Surkov is also a close ally of Chechnya's warlord leader Ramzan Kadyrov, whose intervention in Ukraine has caused huge splits in Putin's inner circle. Kadyrov, as a Lt-Gen in the Russian national guard, has demanded that Putin invade all of Ukraine, sometimes directly contradicting statements by Russia's government. Surkov, who has been described as Putin's "main ideologist", was former deputy head of the Russian presidential administration between 1999 and 2011. He is credited with coming up with the idea of "sovereign democracy" as a cover for authoritarianism. Surkov masterminded the original annexation of Crimea in 2014, after calling for the defence of Russians who live beyond the country's borders. He once described the Russian world as "everywhere where people speak Russian and think like Russians, or where they respect Russian culture". Surkov also said about Ukraine: "There is no Ukraine. There is Ukrainness. "That is, a specific mental disorder. An amazing enthusiasm for ethnography, taken to an extreme." This is the same line taken by Putin to justify his original invasion. His arrest comes as reports swirl that Putin is "bracing for a military coup" after purging 150 spies over Russia's disastrous invasion of Ukraine. An increasingly-paranoid Putin has been looking for someone to blame as his planned invasion becomes bogged down in a quagmire. He is said to be desperate to achieve some sort of military success in time for Victory Day on May 9, one of the most significant days in Russia's calendar, when an annual parade will be held in Moscow's Red Square. Boris Karpichkov, a former KGB spy now living in exile in the UK, said Putin is now "completely losing his mind" over the state of the Ukraine war. The ex-double agent, 62, told The Sun Online: "Putin lost the war before he even started it - and it happened a long time before this maniac idea flew into his sick head. "He turned out to be a psychopath really heavily obsessed with paranoid ideas and conspiracy theories against himself and about non-existent threats Russia allegedly faces from the rest of the world." (Pictures & video at above url)
Putin loses the plot as Russian tyrant plans 'insane' terror attacks on OWN people VLADIMIR Putin has been accused of planning a series of "insane" terrorist attacks against civilians in Russia, by a Federal Security Service (FSB) agent. https://www.express.co.uk/news/worl...kraine-war-terror-attacks-russia-fsb-osechkin
Hundreds of thousands flee Russia and Putin’s ‘two wars’ At least 200,000 Russians have abandoned their homes and jobs for fear of being persecuted as ‘scum and national traitors’. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/18/why-white-collar-russians-flee-two Nana Grinstein fled Russia because the Kremlin’s new laws punishing criticism of its so-called “special operation in Ukraine” may land her in jail. Grinstein, a playwright, her husband Viktor, a video editor, and their 14-year-old daughter, Tonya, left behind the hysteria in Russia caused by the war in Ukraine, and the persecution of anyone who dares to say that President Vladimir Putin’s “special operation” is, in fact, a war. “The world that we’ve been building for years, that seemed unshakable, important and relevant, crumbled before my very eyes like it was made of cardboard,” Grinstein told Al Jazeera from a rented apartment in the Armenian capital, Yerevan. Arriving in Armenia in early March, the family found that tens of thousands of other Russians had made the journey before them, and they have witnessed the arrival of many more since Grinstein and her family fled Russia fearing the very real possibility of persecution for being, to use Putin’s own words, “scum” and “national traitors” – slurs that have spurred a witch-hunt reminiscent of the Stalin-era purges. The Grinsteins are now among at least 200,000 Russians who have abandoned their homes and jobs because they are disgusted by the Kremlin’s attack on Ukraine and the largely enthusiastic response to the war by their compatriots. “They want nothing to do with Putin’s sham-Imperial project and don’t want to be associated with his war crimes,” columnist Leonid Bershidsky wrote in mid-March. “Others [leave] because they cannot imagine living under the Soviet-style autarky to which Western sanctions have doomed Russia,” he wrote. Post-invasion flight The post-invasion flight from Russia is the latest but hardly the final chapter of the exodus of millions who cannot stand to live under Putin’s rule. From 2000, when Putin was first elected president, to 2020, four to five million Russians have emigrated, according to research published by the Takie Dela magazine in October. The figures were based on surveys, official national data from dozens of countries – from Kazakhstan to Canada – as well as Russian statistics on the number of people who had cancelled their residence registration. In the early 2000s, Russians migrated mostly to Europe and North America, but after 2014 more moved to former Soviet republics, the magazine reported. The new tide of Russian migrants is huge – and rising. At least 200,000 people left Russia in the first 10 days of the war in Ukraine, according to calculations by Konstantin Sonin, a Russian-born economist at the University of Chicago. “The tragic exodus not seen for a century,” Sonin wrote in a tweet, where he compared the ongoing flight with the “White Emigration” that followed the 1917 Bolshevik revolution when some five million people fled the former Russian empire – ending up in Germany, France, the United States, Argentina and China. Among the emigres were novelist Vladimir Nabokov, composer Igor Stravinsky and Ukrainian-born helicopter designer Igor Sikorsky. Nowadays, emigration is faster and far easier, especially for digital nomads who can live almost anywhere as long as there is access to broadband internet and online banking. A survey of more than 2,000 emigrants conducted in mid-March by OK Russians, a nascent nonprofit that helps emigres, found that about a third of those who left were IT experts, managers of all sorts constituted another third, and the remainder were office workers and creative freelancers – designers, bloggers, journalists. The survey concluded that at least 300,000 Russians had left the country by March 16, mostly to Georgia, Turkey and Armenia. Others have left for more exotic destinations. ‘Two wars’ When the war started, Leonid Shmelkov was on vacation in Sri Lanka. The 39-year-old animator, whose “My Own Personal Moose” cartoon won a special prize at Germany’s 2014 Berlin International Film Festival, decided to stay in Sri Lanka – and urged a dozen friends to join him. Shmelkov and his friends work on long-distance projects despite imperfect web access and power supply in Sri Lanka. They have learned how to get by living on an island where web access and the power supply are far from perfect. Sri Lanka’s tourism-dependent economy nosedived because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and authorities have allowed thousands of Russian tourists to extend their stay because they are welcome of the business, Shmelkov said. Reflecting on the conflict, Shmelkov feels that Moscow is not just at war with Kyiv. Propaganda exaggerating the role Soviet forces played in the victory over Nazi Germany led to a “cult of war” that acted as a precursor to the current war hysteria in Russia, he explained. “We’ve had some sort of a cult of war, a very wrong cult of war, not in the sense of ‘let’s do everything so that it doesn’t happen again’,” Shmelkov told Al Jazeera. “The Russian government is waging two wars – one against Ukraine and the other one against normal people in Russia.” ‘Not Orwell, this is King’ Two-thirds of Russians feel “pride, inspiration or joy” about the war in Ukraine, according to a March 4 survey by the Levada Center, Russia’s last independent pollster. Only 18 percent felt “anger, shame or depression” at the war. A resident of Moscow, who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, compared the current environment in Russia as being more like a plot in a Stephen King horror novel than to the anti-Utopia of George Orwell’s “1984”. “I am surrounded by zombies. No one forces them, they support the war voluntarily and with joy. This is not Orwell, this is King,” she said. Propaganda-filled television shows are broadcast “almost around the clock”, and their influence on the hearts and minds is as devastating as “nuclear weapons”, she added. “It’s killing everyone and everything, turning black into white and vice versa. Year after year, drop after drop, fake after fake.” Thousands of war critics have been jailed, harassed, their homes raided, subjected to smear campaigns, and physically attacked by unidentified thugs, human rights groups say. This new witch-hunt surpasses any previous quashing of dissent under Putin, who said in mid-March that “scum” and “national traitors” should be “purged”. “For two decades, the argument has been that oppression and human rights violations are a necessary evil to ensure economic growth and stability, [but] in the end, Putin’s regime has neither,” said Ivar Dale, a senior policy adviser with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, a rights monitor. “The increasing brutality in Russian society has forced the country’s brightest to leave in search for a better future for their families,” he told Al Jazeera. War hysteria Newly resident in Yerevan, Grinstein’s professional and personal history is a reflection of the evolution of oppression in Russia. The 51-year-old Muscovite penned scripts for award-winning movies and television shows, but it was her lesser-known writings that drew the ire of Russian authorities. Since 2011, she has been writing for Teatr.doc, Russia’s most political, persecuted, and outspoken theatre. Grinstein based her plays on interviews and documents that described the lives of LGBTQ Russians, Muslim labour migrants and the post-WWII co-existence of Germans and Russian settlers in the Soviet-occupied Baltic exclave of Konigsberg. For years, the Teatr.doc troupe faced threats, arrests and interrogations, but their shoestring-budget performances won accolades and awards. When the war in Ukraine began in February, Grinstein tried to rally filmmakers she knew in opposition to the conflict. Her appeals were in vain, because too many of their film projects depended on government funding. Grinstein’s own family history epitomises the new divisions in Russian society – and the not-so-distant Soviet past. Her husband, Viktor, refrains from discussing the war with his elderly pro-Russian parents who live in the separatist-controlled southeastern region of Luhansk. Her daughter, Tonya, saw how the Kremlin’s war propaganda affected her peers, who mostly cheered the invasion. “She was scared more than we were,” Grinstein told Al Jazeera. For Grinstein, their recent arrival in Armenia echoes another war that uprooted her family a generation ago. She was born in 1971 in Baku, the capital of then-Soviet Azerbaijan, into an Armenian-Jewish family where she remembers wearing a classy dress to her high school graduation in 1988 – and walking home past soldiers in armoured vehicles. The troops were deployed by Moscow during the Azeri-Armenian tensions over Nagorno-Karabakh that would spark a war four years later. Anti-Armenian pogroms in Azerbaijan soon forced the Grinsteins to leave for Armenia, from where she later moved to Moscow to study in a prestigious film school. She realises now that despite her anti-war stance, her family will still be blamed for allowing Russia’s war against Ukraine to happen. “My forefathers were persecuted for being Jewish, then – for being Armenian, and we will be persecuted for being Russian,” she said. What soothes her is working on plans to move to Germany, “the immense hospitality” of Armenians – and the view in Yerevan she has of Armenia’s most sacred mountain. “I see Mount Ararat from my window, and that’s inspiring,” she said.