So some Russian Generals appointed by Commander-In-Chief Putin gets fired for incompetence then quickly replaced? Again? At what point does the Russian leader with nearly absolute power hold himself accountable for his “Special military operation” against Ukraine? At what point does the rest of the Russian Government? The Russian people? As it is, a significant number of Russian military forces are not walking, but running away from Ukraine. Time for Russia to do the same? With or without Commander-In-Chief Putin?
The downside to having nearly complete dictatorial powers is it very hard to remain credible when you attempt to deflect from failures. Russia’s failures effectively are Putins failures. After all, Putin had plenty of time to recreate Russia in his image. Any deficiency that stills exists is on him on some level, at least. Perhaps if Russian citizens felt they had a more vested interest in their country, they would have greater motivation to maximize their potential and increase their capability to perform. Intimidation has not been enough, it seems. It would be interesting if there might be some leaders in Russia’s 46 Oblasts that may be feeling that Putin is becoming a lost cause, justifying taking “Special steps”. Perhaps a little encouragement by future friends combined with a lesser presence of Putin’s enforcers in their region could motivate Putin to cut his losses in Ukraine.
Putin Moves to Crush Russian Artists Speaking Out on Ukraine War https://news.yahoo.com/putin-moves-crush-russian-artists-081626315.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall Vit Kogut, a 35-year-old theater director, was dragging on a cigarette as he walked around Moscow. He had spent most of the Ukraine war abroad and when he returned he could not recognize his city—the territory of art that was his world had been destroyed. The bombardment by the state sensors, including GRAD, a group of conservative and nationalist politicians named after a multiple rocket launcher, had compiled blacklists of artists who had spoken against the massacres in Ukraine and pushed leading theaters to cancel their shows by artists with anti-war positions. The number of banned theater directors, filmmakers, playwrights and musicians had been growing by the day. “I look around and I cannot find anything left of my favorite free theater,” Kogut told The Daily Beast. “There is not a single acute play left in the repertoires of Moscow theaters. The loyal state theaters salute the power and once again explore the Russian soul instead of social issues.” A Trial in Moscow Exposes Russia’s War on Artists He sounded down. “My theater, Perovo, demands to cut out all the sharpest, sarcastic lines from my play Land of Elza but I do not agree with the censored versions—if I did, I would be pledging loyalty to the state’s line, which I do not accept.” Russia has targeted its most popular authors who disagreed with the aggression and asked for peace. Last month, the GRAD commission at the Russian State Duma declared their role as “to identify the mechanisms spreading foreign influence and anti-state activities in our theater, cinema, fine art and literature.” Sofia Kapkova, the founder of the Documentary Film Center said that Sept. 2 had been a painful turning point. The center was the place where thousands of film lovers could see the best international feature and documentary films. Intellectuals, artists, hipsters loved it—the center screened film five times a day, five days a week, and invited international directors for long and thoughtful discussions with their audiences. Last year the center presented the American Autumn Film Festival from early October till late December, playing the best American movies from 1970s, with support of the U.S. Embassy and Kapkova’s Mart Foundation. “On Sept. 2 we were supposed to start our new season but the city authorities shut down the center, which is a private company,” Kapkova told The Daily Beast on the phone from New York. “By one version, it was done for fire safety reasons, by the other they shut it down because I spoke against the war. It also looks like they are fighting against any Western influence in arts.” For 38-year-old Evdokia Moskvina, an award-winning filmmaker, the end of the center was also the end of an exciting era, a place where she had premieres and talked of her films, Occupation 1968, about a journey of old Russian generals from their hometown of Odesa to Prague, and Forbidden Children, in which Moskvina documented the sad lives of five Russian girls in the refugee camp of Al-Khol, whose parents were killed by ISIS. “The USSR did not have any documentary filmmakers and now authorities ban international documentary films. The development of cinematography in Russia, just when it started joining the international process of art development is frozen,” Moskvina told The Daily Beast. “It was the only center in Russia that showed so many of the world’s best documentary films. But Russia is fighting against the leading voices in arts.” Ever since Russian president Vladimir Putin sent the army to Ukraine on Feb. 24, dozens of Russia’s leading artists have been signing letters, petitions, and recording videos addressed to the Kremlin demanding an end to the war. “As a child of the World War II, I could not imagine even in my worst nightmare that Russian bombs would target Ukrainian cities, villages, force Kyiv residence into bomb shelters, make them flee from their own country,” Lev Dodin, an acclaimed Russian theater director of the Maly Drama Theatre said. Celebrated pianist Polina Osetinskaya, who played a concert at Carnegie Hall last October, posted on Facebook on the first day of the war: “Horror, shame and disgust. My friends in Ukraine, Kyiv, Odesa, I have no words, I did not think I would ever live to see this.” On Sept. 2, Osetinskaya arrived to perform in St. Petersburg but found out that her performance had been cancelled. “I have no idea who makes such decisions, out of the blue I was informed I would not be playing the Triple Concerto by Beethoven. Then more concerts were cancelled,” Osetinskaya told The Daily Beast. “Beginning from the first day of the war, I posted on social media for Russia to stop the horror. I do not delete my posts,” she added. The Kremlin fired back at artists by shutting down Russia’s best contemporary theatre, Gogol Center, on July 1, then the Bolshoi cancelled ballets and operas by its directors without giving any reason, and finally, on Sept. 2, an avalanche of cancellations and bans began all across the country after Russia officially outlawed criticism of war. “I am a totally banned playwright in Russia. Forty-five theaters have cancelled my plays,” Ivan Vyrypayev, one of the leading playwrights of Russian contemporary drama, told The Daily Beast. “GRAD is a far-right group. They are building a nationalist culture, where the core is the Orthodox church and imperialism; they plan to spread the influence of the Russian world, all the way to the western part of Ukraine, banning every performance, every piece of art representing liberal values.” Vyrypayev is now in Poland. He stages his thoughtful plays with Polish, Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian actors. As a student at the Russian Institute of Theater Arts, he made a deal with his master, Leonid Kheifets. “We agreed that everything I ever create will be honest,” he said. “I keep my promise to my teacher.”
Although I have been annoyed by some clueless anti-Trump artists in the US, I feel supportive of the artists and members of the media jailed for expressing their anti-Ukrainian war sentiments non-violently. Putin’s war against Ukraine seems like it is turning into Putin’s war against the Russian people. Many in the Russian military don’t seem to want to fight against Ukraine. Oligarchs, other business leaders, former and present FSB agents, teachers, and Russian scientists have felt Putin’s wrath. Putin’s wrath has included intimidation, loss of livelihood, imprisonment, murder of the offending individual, and murder of an entire family. Just because they either spoke out against Putin’s war or were perceived as a competent replacement for him. It has been said that many of Russia’s most accomplished citizens have been trying to leave. Putin’s war has certainly led to the exodus of Western businesses, including their sought after products, employment, and their managerial expertise - Something seemingly in short supply in Russia, at least in Government. Some citizens have apparently started to engage in vandalism to express their frustration against current leadership causing spillover effects on other Russians. As we speak, there is a report the Kremlin is hurriedly increasing their own on-site security. Resources diverted to ever increasing security means less resources available for basic needs. This situation is multiplied by time and supply chain disruptions caused by sanctions. What happens if current citizen discontent leads to widespread protests? Put everyone in jail? Considering all of the preceding, is it not reasonable to say that Putin’s war against Ukraine has transformed itself into Putin’s war against the Russian people?
inb4: Kremlin ballwashers saying how Putin's "alpha" for "ridding god-fearing Russia from the scourge of gay snowflake lib commie degeneracy"
The Kremlin tells Russian nationalists questioning Ukraine losses to shut up... or be locked up. Kremlin Warns Russians Critical of War Losses: ‘Be Very Careful’ https://www.thedailybeast.com/kremlin-warns-russians-critical-of-war-losses-to-be-very-careful The Kremlin has issued a thinly veiled threat against Russians venting their anger over recent military defeats on social media. Pro-Kremlin bloggers and military reporters were among those to join an uproar on social media over the weekend as Russian troops literally fled from advancing Ukrainian forces, a move the Russian defense ministry managed to bill as a simple “reshuffling” of forces. Asked Tuesday about the chorus of criticism, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the “unsympathetic” takes would be seen as “diversity of opinions” as long as they remained within the confines of the law. “But the line is very, very thin. Here you need to be very careful,” he told reporters. Peskov went on to insist that “statistical data” shows that “Russians support the president,” despite municipal deputies from 18 districts in St. Petersburg and Moscow recently calling for Putin’s ouster. Read it at Interfax
This is what happens if you call out Putin in his new Soviet Russia -- -your local government council is dissolved. Russian Council Faces Dissolution After Call For Putin's Removal https://www.ibtimes.com/russian-council-faces-dissolution-after-call-putins-removal-3612441 A group of St Petersburg local politicians who called for President Vladimir Putin to be sacked over the war in Ukraine faces the likely dissolution of their district council following a judge's ruling on Tuesday, one of the deputies said. Nikita Yuferev said the judge decided that a series of past council meetings had been invalid, paving the way for it to be broken up by the regional governor. Another council member, Dmitry Palyuga, said the same court then fined him 47,000 roubles ($780) for "discrediting" the authorities by calling for Putin's removal. Court officials could not be reached by telephone for comment. Four more members of the Smolninskoye local council are due to appear in court in the next two days. Last week, a group of deputies from the council appealed to the State Duma to bring charges of state treason against Putin and strip him of power, citing a series of reasons including Russia's military losses in Ukraine and the damage to its economy from Western sanctions. Another local deputy said 65 municipal representatives from St Petersburg, Moscow and several other regions had signed a petition she published on Monday calling for Putin's resignation. While posing no current threat to Putin's grip on power, the moves mark rare expressions of dissent by elected representatives at a time when Russians risk heavy prison sentences for "discrediting" the armed forces or spreading "deliberately false information" about them. Palyuga told Reuters before Tuesday's hearing that the group's appeals were aimed not only at liberal Russians but also at "people loyal to the authorities who are starting to have doubts when they see the lack of success of the Russian army" He said he expected the numbers of such people to increase after last week's lightning counter-offensive in which Ukraine drove Russian forces out of dozens of towns and recaptured a large swathe of territory in its northeast Kharkiv region. "Of course, what is happening now has successfully coincided with our agenda. Many people who liked Putin are starting to feel betrayed. I think the more successfully the Ukrainian army operates, the more such people will become," he said. 'VERY, VERY THIN' LINE Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya said the greater risk to the Kremlin lay not in the councillors' protest itself but in the danger of responding too harshly to it. "The reaction, or overreaction, may cause more political damage to the regime than this petition. But I have no doubts that all those who signed the petition will (come) under political pressure," said Stanovaya, founder of the independent analysis project R.Politik. Thousands of legal cases have been launched against people accused of discrediting the army, usually leading to fines for first-time offences, but a Moscow district councillor was jailed for seven years in July after being convicted of spreading false information. Several other journalists and opposition figures have been charged and face potential prison terms. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that critical points of view were tolerated, within the limits of the law. "As long as they remain within the law, this is pluralism, but the line is very, very thin, one must be very careful here," he said. Ksenia Thorstrom, a St Petersburg local councillor who published Monday's petition calling for Putin's resignation, said it was too early to say how the campaign would turn out. "To call for a politician to resign is absolutely normal. There can be nothing criminal about it," she told Reuters. "Of course there is a certain risk, but to show solidarity with our colleagues - independent politicians who still remain in Russia - is much more important."
I am declaring Alexander Subbotin the winner. Damn that is some first class bullfeathers right there. Died in a Jamaican Shaman's basement from toad poison. Good stuff there.
Russia primarily uses social media as a tool for government to monitor and punish its citizens. Russia Wants Citizens to Like, Comment, Subscribe for More Surveillance https://slate.com/technology/2022/09/russia-domestic-surveillance.html