Russia

[Volkonski]

Julia Davis
@JuliaDavisNews
·
35m
What Russia wants is a free hand. The leader of Russia’s delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Petr Tolstoy, has stated openly that Russia aspires to a return to its frontiers of 1917.
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Julia Davis
@JuliaDavisNews
· 36m
The sections of the treaties discussing arms control are laid out in terms that favor only Russia. The ban on land-based missiles would mean that the only missiles threatening European capitals should be Russian ones based in Russia.

[Volkonski]

Reuters
@Reuters
·
10m
UK PM Johnson says talking to U.S. about banning Russia from Swift payments system http://reut.rs/3Izqn9N

[Volkonski]

The New York Times
@nytimes
·
6m
In Opinion

Instead of trapping the U.S., President Vladimir Putin has trapped himself, writes Yulia Latynina, a journalist. “Caught between armed conflict and a humiliating retreat, he is now seeing his room for maneuver dwindling to nothing.”

[Uninformed]

Instead of trapping the U.S., President Vladimir Putin has trapped himself, writes Yulia Latynina, a journalist. “Caught between armed conflict and a humiliating retreat, he is now seeing his room for maneuver dwindling to nothing.”

I have no idea of Putin’s intended end-game but to underestimate his machinations, enabled by uncontested domestic control, is a very bad opinion.

[tek]

Agree.
Putin ALWAYS thinks things through.

[neeneko]

I don't know, I think it is spot on. Putin was in an increasingly difficult spot. Machinations do not exist in a vacuum and have to respond to things outside his control. Between COVID and Trump losing the US election, his situation has gotten worse so he is taking some big (but calculated) risks. These risky moves have given him a possible lifeline, but are also kinda trap of his own making.

[Kriselda Gray]

I don't know, I think it is spot on. Putin was in an increasingly difficult spot. Machinations do not exist in a vacuum and have to respond to things outside his control. Between COVID and Trump losing the US election, his situation has gotten worse so he is taking some big (but calculated) risks. These risky moves have given him a possible lifeline, but are also kinda trap of his own making.

I don't know the situation well enough to know what is or isn't a bad opinion, but just as a counterpoint, here's an article from a couple days ago by Fiona Hill (also published in the NYT) entitled "Putin Has the U.S. Right Where He Wants It"

[neeneko]

I think both framings are kinda true. Putin has painted himself into a corner, but he also has the US in a very precarious place, though I would narrow it down a bit and say he has the democrats exactly where he wants them, but a lot of his gamble depends on his investment in the republican party. The US has been primed for regime change and success or failure that is where he wants it, but his options that involve that trigger not being pulled are deminishing.

[Phoenix520]

Many op-eds written in tense times are written for a readership of one, possibly to make them feel overconfident or confuse them as to wtf we’re up to, don’t forget.

[Volkonski]

USA TODAY
@USATODAY
·
8m
President Vladimir Putin says Russia's top 3 concerns 'have been ignored' in the Ukraine crisis, calls for smaller NATO

[neeneko]

Many op-eds written in tense times are written for a readership of one, possibly to make them feel overconfident or confuse them as to wtf we’re up to, don’t forget.

Yep, there is that. Though also, when they are not, as you say, written for an audience of one, they are often written for a general audience and thus are built around singular narratives. Simple stories, simple morals, single simple internally consistent storybook version of reality.

[RVInit]

Smaller NATO. Good thing we don’t have a President that takes orders from Putin anymore.

[neeneko]

Smaller NATO. Good thing we don’t have a President that takes orders from Putin anymore.

I really suspect this was supposed to play out during a second Trump term, and now Putin is improvising with wheels already in motion.

[Volkonski]

CBS Evening News
@CBSEveningNews
·
3h
SENDING TROOPS: The Biden Administration has announced it’s sending 3,000 U.S. troops to Eastern and Central Europe to bolster NATO forces and deter a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

[Foggy]

Sure, because that's how the Vietnam War started ...

Jeazess H. Kreist

[Volkonski]

MSNBC
@MSNBC
·
12m
US has intel about a Russian plan to fabricate a pretext for an invasion of Ukraine using a fake video involving actors playing mourners for people who are killed in an event, Deputy National Security Adviser Finer says.

[Volkonski]

Julia Davis
@JuliaDavisNews
·
29m
In his message to the President of Ukraine Zelenskyy on the Ukraine peace process, Putin quoted what is part of disgusting lyrics about necrophilia, addressed to a woman lying in a coffin. Part of it goes, "Whether you like it or not, you've got to put up with it, my beauty."

[Volkonski]

Reuters
@Reuters
·
43m
Lithuania seeks permanent U.S. troop deployment in face of Russian build-up http://reut.rs/3LiR057

[Volkonski]

Maybe NATO should build up its troops on its the borders with Kaliningrad. If Putin moves on the Ukraine NATO should occupy Kaliningrad and partition it between Poland and Lithuania.

[Dave from down under]

Russia Russia Russia....

yes they are still at it...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-10/ ... /100819910

A wealthy figure in Australia linked to Russian spy agencies and President Vladimir Putin's regime has emerged as the likely mystery "puppeteer" caught in a recent ASIO operation that thwarted an overseas attempt to interfere with a local election.

Key points:
Intelligence sources have told the ABC the interference was orchestrated by Russia
The head of ASIO would not identify which jurisdiction the thwarted plot happened in
Russia was identified as the likely source of a "nest of spies" in Australia last year
Vague details of the foreign interference plot were first publicly revealed on Wednesday night, when ASIO boss Mike Burgess delivered his annual threat assessment inside the spy agency's Canberra headquarters.

[RTH10260]

Even the Russians have sharpies and culturally challenged population...

Russian painting vandalised by ‘bored’ gallery guard who drew eyes on it
Anna Leporskaya’s Three Figures sent for restoration after guard doodled on it with a ballpoint pen on his first day

Sian Cain
Thu 10 Feb 2022 03.44 GMT

A valuable avant garde painting has been vandalised by a “bored” security guard who drew eyes on faceless figures in the artwork on his first day working in a Russian gallery.

Anna Leporskaya’s Three Figures was painted between 1932 and 1934, and had been insured for 75m roubles (A$1.3m, £740,000). It was on display as part of an abstract art exhibition at the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center in Ekaterinburg when the guard drew eyes on it using a ballpoint pen.

Alexander Drozdov, the executive director of the Yeltsin Center, did not identify the security guard in a statement, but said he worked for a private security company and had been fired.

The exhibition’s curator, Anna Reshetkina, said the painting was vandalised “with a Yeltsin Center-branded pen”.

“His motives are still unknown but the administration believes it was some kind of a lapse in sanity,” she said.

“The ink has slightly penetrated into the paint layer, since the titanium white used to paint the faces is not covered with author’s varnish, as is often the case in abstract painting of that time,” Ivan Petrov wrote in the Art Newspaper, which broke the story.


https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesig ... eyes-on-it

[Volkonski]

Emma Burrows
@EJ_Burrows
·
5h
Replying to
@EJ_Burrows
The conversation between
@trussliz

@FCDOGovUK
& Russian FM Lavrov
@MID_RF
is as icy as the Moscow weather. They disagreed, threw insults & accused each other of not listening. If anything, this visit may have soured U.K.-Russia relations further. That’s an achievement in itself…

[Uninformed]

At last a dependable pair of hands in control at the Foreign office.

[RVInit]

I saw the full end of the video before and after Lavrov walked over to the door. I think the reporter at least slightly mischaracterized. He finished his words, turned to her to wait for a response, she failed to respond, he made some short comment to indicate that he recognized that neither of them had more to say, she fussed around closing her paperwork as he walked over to the door and held it open for her to walk through after she closed her notebook and followed him over to the door. I forgot to save the link, I apologize. I went back to find it to post, but there are so many comments now I think it's buried fairly deep. If I find it again I will post the link that has the whole ending so people can judge for themselves.

[Volkonski]

Welcome to the Fantasy World Where Putin Already ‘Won This Round’

https://www.thedailybeast.com/welcome-t ... ref=author