The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power https://www.nationalreview.com/2016...artment-house-bombings-was-putin-responsible/ Vladimir Putin's Long Shadow - the fifth estate
Putin Isn’t Just Insane. It’s Far Worse Than That. https://www.thedailybeast.com/putin-isnt-just-insane-he-thinks-hes-gods-man-on-earth?ref=home Glimpses into Putin’s inner sanctum offer horrifying clues about the state of mind of the man with his finger on the nuclear button. The subject is Putin’s brain. Is President Putin clinically insane? Is he choreographing madness and threats of a nuclear holocaust to frighten the West? Or does Putin know precisely what he’s doing? The questions are reasonable, but ultimately unanswerable. There is a data point, however: Russian and German scientists at Moscow’s aptly named Research Institute of the Brain in 1925 sliced and diced 30,953 sections of Vladimir Lenin’s cytoarchitecture for indications of genius. The results of that research remain a mystery, as does a solution to the enigma of whether the heir to Lenin’s throne—one Vladimir Putin—believes his own hype or is experiencing buyer’s remorse over an invasion that caught the rest of the Kremlin unawares. Sadly, work has not yet begun dissecting Putin’s cerebrum for clues. Short of delving inside his mind, Fiona Hill, the former senior director for Europe and Russia on the U.S. National Security Council during the Trump administration, did a splendid job of purifying Putin’s sense and sensibility in a recent interview. “Putin is increasingly operating emotionally,” she told Politico. “It’s reestablishing dominance over what Russia sees as the Russian Imperium. We’re treading back through old historical patterns that we said that we would never permit to happen again.” Rewind about 150 years and you will hear a familiar refrain from Russia’s imperial Romanov family, who spent 300 years brutally persuading their subjects to back endless wars. “If the West is cursing Russia, Russia is doing something right,” blustered the multi-titled Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland, and Grand Duke of Finland. To be sure, you really had to be in the audience to feel the full force of tub-thumping late-19th-century Tsar Alexander III’s patriotic call to arms but Alexander Romanov is widely believed to be Putin’s favorite tsar. He was assassinated in 1881. A group of young people hurled three bombs at him (without the assistance of TikTok). The Bolsheviks in 1918 murdered the last of the Romanov thoroughbreds in a cellar. The Soviets followed with 69 years of great expectations. The happy drunk and baptized Russian Orthodox Christian Boris Yeltsin became the star of the show in 1991, until Putin took over in 2000. Still, for the casual visitor, Russia’s memory lane never stretched much further than the gift shop at the Hermitage Museum. Once upon a time in Moscow, Red Square was an open air market built atop a pavement of logs laid down to cover the mud and keep the tsar’s boots clean and the patriarch’s robe sparkling when they strolled out of the Kremlin. That is the level of reverence Putin has spent the past 22 years resurrecting on state-controlled television for his isolated home audience of 146 million Russian souls. “Russian politicians excel in making people everywhere believe in things which are not real,” Vladimir Yerofeyev once explained over dinner during my years as a correspondent in Moscow. Yerofeyev should know. He was Joseph Stalin’s translator and no slouch when it came to triggering the trickery Russian leaders use to rally public support to exorcise Western criticism. The Imperial Kremlin has two masters, one temporal, the other spiritual. The tsar and the Russian Patriarch of All Moscow and All Rus. The tsar and his hierophant-in-chief worked and lived and ruled in tandem. “There’s no difference between the secular realm and the spiritual realm,” explains the Byzantine and Russian historian Henry Hopwood-Phillips. “The tsar and the patriarch are meant to occupy the same body and the same mystical mind. That’s the anvil of Russia’s domestic Byzantine statecraft.” And Putin’s hammer is wielded by God. “Let God save the Russian soil,” Putin’s Patriarch Kirill earlier this week on TV told his flock of 90 million devout parishioners. “When I say Russian, I use an ancient expression from the chronicles of where Russian soil started, which includes the Ukraine and Belarus. God forbid,” Kirill thundered, “that the evil forces that have always fought against the unity of Russia and the Russian church get the upper hand in brotherly Ukraine.” Kirill’s frequent pronouncements in support of Putin’s destruction of Ukraine are not gibberish and, for more Russians than many in the West might want to believe, it’s not lunacy. According to a Feb. 27 poll conducted by Obshestvennoemnenie, 71 percent of the 1,500 respondents said Putin is “working his post rather well” and that they “generally trust him.” Indeed, Russia’s incarcerated opposition leader Alexei Navalny, in a message recently smuggled out of his jail cell, raged against Putin’s primitive melding of the secular and the spiritual to retain miraculous power. “I will not remain silent watching pseudo-historical nonsense about the events of 100 years ago become an excuse for Russians to kill Ukrainians,” Navalny pleaded. “Let us not become a nation of frightened silent people. Of cowards who pretend not to notice the aggressive war against Ukraine unleashed by our obviously insane czar.” He is desperately trying to recapture a romanticized heyday. “Putin looks to be suffering deep melancholy,” reckons Hopwood-Phillips. “His consciousness is still floating in the 17th century, and 44 million Ukrainians are paying the price.” In Putin’s Russia, nostalgia is what it used to be.
Sounds a lot like fundamentalist MAGAtards who believe that God brought Trump to Earth so he could "save" America.
I agree.Some people thinks he bluffing but I think he will use nukes if he goes to war with The US,he has choice since he has no chance in a conventional war.He will likely face war crime charges making him a fugitive for life which makes him even more dangerous.
In Soviet Russia, president bans Facebook. For a definition of "false information", please refer to the Ministry of Truth. Russian Duma passes law giving 15-year prison sentences for spreading ‘false information’ about military Kremlin continues to insist its war with Ukraine is a ‘special operation’ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-war-latest-russia-law-b2028440.html
To clarify my position ... again ... for those who may directly, or indirectly refer to me. I specifically stated I was only referring to a non-mental leader. I don't believe Putin is mental. I believe Trump is more mental than Putin. Invading countries for economic, tactical, etc. reasons has been going on throughout history. I think the pushback took Putin by surprise--as is understandable as there was no real pushback the other times Russia has done so. So we can't conclude, "OF COURSE HE'S MENTAL, HE INVADED ANOTHER COUNTRY!!" Seeing how he likely didn't invade knowing the current reaction would be in play. Being barbaric doesn't necessarily make a leader "mental." If solid evidence eventually shows up that Putin is, in fact, mental, then my original premise is N/A. I DID NOT refer to the US engaging RUSSIA ... in RUSSIA. I SAID a non-mental Putin would not initiate WIDESPREAD nuclear war over a conflict within the UKRAINE/NON-MOTHERLAND territory simply because the US is participating militarily. Any questions? Please ask. αßΓπ
You sure God doesn’t work for Trump? The way things are going right now, Trump is likely preparing to say our favorite line to God: “You’re fired”! It has been over a year since Trump was in office, but he seems more on minds of the Left than his most ardent supporters, including myself. Democrats have long been in bed with Communism and Russia. For over a hundred years in fact. The Communists organized heavily through labor unions, a to-this-day critical demographic for Democrats. We see it in open Democrat open border policies, where we take in refugees of war or persecution from failed Leftist or outright Communist states such as Romania, Cuba, Haiti, Philippines, and various South America countries. Are Ukrainians next? Guess which political party would almost exclusively benefit from this group? Maintaining relative political balance is key to a surviving democracy. Every time one of our political parties gain a meaningful advantage of the other, abuses of power happen to the ultimate harm of all citizens. We end up like passengers on a small boat running from one side to the other, hoping for representation by our elected officials. One of these days we may see our small boat capsize and once democracy is lost, it may never return.
Romania is a democratic parliamentary republic, its been in the EU since 2007 and in the queue to join the euro. Bit of Covid and corrupt targets affecting them but thats the world for you. The thing is you mention Romania.. Moldova is basically Romania+ and Moldova is next for attack. Its no great coincidence Russia want you slagging off Romania early and often. From Putin's lips to your keyboard. Speaking of lips, Romanian girls are hot though.
I mentioned Romania because of my friend’s girlfriend who mocked the US for giving her paid college tuition, among other benefits for being willing to emigrate to the United States. ET’s resident Leftist have been lobbying for free college tuition for a while, right? Perhaps if less money were spend on “Emigration bonuses…” She certainly had Leftist views and said her country was authoritarian. Was she a political minority in her country? Admittedly, I did have a favorable impression of her overall and expect her to be a competent healthcare professional. So the Democrats are trying to distance themselves from Russians? So tell us, how do you feel about Republican Joseph McCarthy(RIP)? Oh, never mind, you, Frederick Foresight, Cuddles, etc., already have. A search on “McCarthyism” shows your true feelings on Communism. As far as Putin specifically, Cuddles posted a YouTube video on Putin’s bio and commented “Good shit”, among other pro Putin posts. /Rant off. The Russians are a fine people with strengths and weaknesses just like any other culture. Supporting someone who turns out to be disaster, such as Putin, shouldn’t define them if they change their tune. But just as Democrats turned Covid political, Democrats are trying to obscure their long term connections and at least to some extent, support from Communist Russia to minimize political damage by association. At this point, is it fair to say that we are in agreement about Putin being a disaster? Images.googled Romanian girls. Must say, I’ve got to get out more! Remembering an old post of yours about Israeli girls, I looked them up right after. Not sure If I’d survive an encounter with one! I did play a game of chess with an Israeli woman in Washington State before she was due to return to Israel for two or three years of mandatory military service. She was definitely driven and won the game. Anyway, ran out of hours before making it home, so now stuck at a truck-stop and letting myself get gaslit on ET’s version of politics. Think I’ll go to D.C. to protest truckers who protest! Or perhaps I’ll go to Ukraine. Care to join me? I be right behind you. I promise! /verbal diarrhea off. Good night.