New U.S. President, same bad foreign policy. Joe Biden hasn’t been in office a week and we’re already watching an escalation of internal unrest in Russia.
Over the weekend the western press was breathless with reports of Russia cracking down on protestors across multiple cities rising up in support of jailed ‘dissident’ Alexei Navalny.
Now, let’s not play games here. Navalny is a Western asset, he’s not a significant political figure in Russia. He commands almost no electoral power in Russia. His Russia of the Future doesn’t exist outside of Moscow.
And the sole reason any of us know his name, as “The Man Vladimir Putin Fears the Most” is because of the intense Western campaign to make him relevant through the press of CIA House Organs like the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
FYI, that article, linked above, is no longer on the WSJ’s website (that’s a web archive link).
Navalny has been used by Western powers to spin up trouble for Putin whenever there’s an important vote coming up in Russian politics.
Last year Navalny proved his lack of worth by being unable to materially affect the referendum on the sweeping changes to the Russian Constitution. Those changes, long overdue, devolved power out of the hands of the Presidency and handed some of it, properly, for the first time to the legislature while strengthening the judiciary.
The biggest change was banning those with dual-citizenship and those native-born Russians who haven’t spent the last 25 years in Russia from holding office.
It was Navalny’s job, after nearly ten years of grooming him to be the face of Putin’s opposition, to stop this.
And he failed spectacularly. The changes passed with overwhelming support.
The protests from this weekend yet another lame attempt at building Navalny into something relevant. After a massive PR campaign built around his supposed poisoning and his ‘brave’ return to Russia to continue his holy crusade against the demon Putin, the U.S. coordinated obvious protests around the country to create the illusion of unrest in Russia.
And all you’ll hear about is the some 4,000 arrests and “thousands of protestors” and tight shots of the crowds in Vladivostok.
But you won’t get any hard numbers because they are pathetic.
Here’s NPR (a U.S. foreign policy organ if there ever was one):
Tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets in protest on Saturday to demand the release of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, braving the threat of mass arrests in what were some of the largest demonstrations against the Kremlin in years.
From the port city of Vladivostok in the east to the capital of Moscow seven time zones away in the west, protesters swept across the country in open defiance of warnings from Russian authorities that the demonstrations have been deemed illegal.
The rest of the article is nothing but quotes from the U.S. State Department, various Beltway ‘experts’ on what’s going on in Russia and human interest nonsense.
This is bad agitprop even for NPR. It’s like the West isn’t even trying anymore. But, the sad truth is, our hapless intelligence agencies are.
Navalny’s poisoning was all just a set up for building a new campaign around him because the U.S. and Europe have nothing else to throw at Russia other than missiles.
Putin’s anti-NGO Law and crackdowns on foreign media have been effective in shutting down intelligence operations from abroad and it’s clear from this latest series of incidents Putin and Russia have zero fear of it.
You can see the steps of this operation quite clearly.
- Put in place the massive vote fraud system to ensure Trump will lose in November.
- This ensures that post-election the destabilization ploys against Russia can continue into 2021.
- Create another “Putin is a Monster” story in the West by recycling the Skripal poisoning, giving it credence through repetition.
- Navalny is the only real operative of any note we have left.
- He’s flown to Germany, violating his terms of release, where Merkel uses him for a massive psy-op all summer to build the narrative at home.
- Navalny survives the deadly Novichok because he’s no good dead and bravely returns to Russia.
- This sets up the ‘No-Win’ situation for Putin. Arrest him and look like a tyrant, ensuring there will be protests. Allow him to roam free and he gains stature as the man who stood up to the Tyrant.
- Organize protests without getting ‘authorization’ in order to force a confrontation between the police and the people.
- Time that with Navalny’s ‘expose’ on the old story of Putin’s billion-dollar palace.
- Report on it as if Putin’s opposition has credibility.
But the success of this depends on there being a massive groundswell in support of Navalny.
Oops.
“Tens of thousands” in dozens of cities is pathetic. I mean, in the U.S. George Soros can get a quarter-million to D.C. for pretty much any reason on any given Saturday. In Moscow, a city of 11.5 million people in 2010 before it was expanded, that number is, at most 10,000.
Please do some math before calling me a Putin shill.
Look, the reality is that, as Putin said, if he wanted Navalny dead Navalny would be dead. To give you an idea of how inconsequential Navalny is in Russia, TASS doesn’t even afford him the respect of ‘party leader’ or ‘former candidate for Mayor of Moscow.
No, TASS calls him ‘a blogger.’ *snort*
So, Putin allowed the U.S./EU/UK to do their thing and it gave him the opportunity to find out who the ringleaders are and get rid of them as well.
The reason Navalny is an issue is because later this year it will be the Parliamentary Elections in Russia where the eighth Duma will be voted on by the people.
This is pure groundwork for election interference come this fall.
The current Duma is dominated by Putin’s former party United Russia, who got 77% in the last election and led by former President/Prime Minister and current Chair of the very important Security Council Dmitri Medvedev.
And it will likely dominate again, though likely not to the extent that it does now. Russia is, effectively, a one-party system at this point, but it’s a one-party system with the consent of the people…
… unlike the U.S.
If that wasn’t the case, the underlying dissatisfaction with Putin and United Russia, would have been far more successful. The protests that were ginned up in Belarus last summer in Minsk are an example of what can be achieved when the people don’t much like their government.
President Lukashenko got the message loud and clear and stopped pussyfooting around with the U.S. and the EU. The upshot of his successfully fending off the color revolution against him was his moving more firmly back into Russia’s orbit.
What happened this weekend was the opposite of that.
With Biden now at the helm *sic* in the U.S. the provocations against Russia will amplify. Obama is calling the shots behind the scenes and the World Economic Forum is pulling his strings.
Putin outplayed Obama along multiple fronts in 2013-16, beginning with his successful de-escalating the run up to an international war on Syria over a chemical weapons attack blamed on President Assad but never proven.
The only good thing to come out of the Biden administration in its first week in office is a pledge to extend the existing START Treaty for five years. But, I’m sure that offer only comes with Putin abandoning Nordstream 2 or ‘giving back Crimea.’
Both of those are non-STARTers, all puns intended.
Biden is a placeholder president and Russia is on the cusp of becoming a powerful engine of economic growth and destination for foreign capital. The latest numbers for 2020 just came out and, surprise to no one, China led the world in 2020 while nearly every other major economy saw capital inflows fall dramatically, including the U.S.
But as I’ve noted many times, capital inflows, especially now that things are in such flux, are a function first in the political stability of the country. So, undermining Russia politically is important in the strategy of keeping capital confused as to where it should go.
This is why it is so important that Operation Navalny was such a complete bust. It paves the way later this year for Russian elections which should underscore the relative political stability there.
What’s most important about all of this is that even though the president has changed, nothing about the policies towards Russia, or, in fact, anything important ever changes.
The election of Trump prompted the passage of CAATSA which took foreign policy out of the hands of the President through targeted sanctions. Relations with Russia under Trump were arguably worse than they were under Obama. This is a perfect example of what Putin states with regularity.
“Presidents change, policy doesn’t,” he told Oliver Stone in The Putin Interviews. Of course, he would know, since he’s now dealing with his fourth since taking over for Boris Yeltsin in 2000.
Operation Navalny is just another in a long line of moves
Now that Biden the Fungus is sporifying in the Oval Office signing whatever’s put in front of him, absolutely expect zero change in direction of U.S. policy towards Russia.
In fact, expect things to get even worse from here. If The Davos Crowd gets their way their control over the U.S. military should scare you to no end.
The only silver lining in all of this is that Biden is so guilty in Ukraine and Putin has all the goods on him, that it may wind up being the best leverage he has in keeping things from getting out of hand.
Wouldn’t that be the ultimate irony, a corrupt Joe Biden actually being more Putin’s puppet than anything Hillary could gin up about Trump?
In fact, that would be hilarious.
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Navalny is small potatoes but regarding Putin playing along with the global scamdemic, I see two possibilities. The more probable is that he is a player in an apparent whitish hat among the Luciferian, transhumanist psychopaths running most of the planet. The less probable one is that he brilliantly played along with the fear porn crap because he viewed direct opposition as a losing game, but did so in a way that he did not devastate the Russian economy as has North America and Europe, and he devised a vaccine, Sputnik 5, which may well be a relatively harmless placebo for a non-existent “novel” virus. On second thought, both possibilities could be compatible. What is your take? BTW, like you I am also a chemist.
I see Putin playing the game that is best for Russia in the long run. The transhumanist psychopaths in Europe hate him and want him destroyed. Sputnik V is likely the best placebo vaccine one can come up with to counter the craziness of their vision to destroy the middle class.
Putin is no Bolshevik. In fact, I see him as something quite opposed to that. No white knight or anything … but he is allowing culture to flourish in Russia, that makes him the enemy of the WEF and the Western oligarchs. What you see is real. It’s not deeper than that.
Under Putin, Russia jettisoned the vestiges of its Soviet past, modernized their economy and military, for defensive purposes, and allowed the populace to return to their Russian Orthodox Christian roots.
These are not the acts of an anti-Western leader. I agree, Tom, that he is a “Russia First” leader just as Trump was “America First”. But neither man was about shrinking from interaction with the rest of the world.
Russia is a natural component to incorporate in opposing CCP dominance. But now that China Joe Xiden is in office, an historical opportunity will likely be squandered.
The problem with that analysis Curt, no disrespect, is that I don’t see China as the active agent trying to destroy the U.S. That title goes to the Europeans who are looking to use the US to subjugate Russia and bring China to heel, while they ‘run the table.’
That alone should give you pause. Putin is well aware of what the real problem is which is why he is no longer interested in making nice with Europe. He’s turned his back on the West because the West turned their hand up to Russia, thinking they will win this.
There’s an element of white, European colonial arrogance that the loony Left isn’t wrong about. Just because they can ONLY see things in these terms (Think Caitlyn Johnstone) doesn’t mean that some of their analysis and criticism of the West isn’t valid.
Boy, they really are stupid losers if they thought they could use the US military to subjugate Russia because the MICC is a money sucking parasite scam and color revolutions won’t work because Russians didn’t like being debt slaves and having gay pride parades shoved down their throats in the 90’s.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120509201936/http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/less-bang-for-the-buck/
Oh they are that arrogant and stupid. And they will continue to ring in Russia and continue to fail miserably, all the while Lockheed-Martin and Gen. Dynamics will rake in the billions.
I agree that the Europeans are TRYING to play the whole world!
As Armstrong notes, they will FAIL!
Under Trump, we could have played both ends against the middle. Under Biden we will be the biggest loser, period. Stair steps 2022, 2024, 2027, & 2032. We’ll be very lucky to be unified with any semblance of freedom by then. I’m glad I’ll be too old to care then. I DO care now!
I disagree about CCP malintent. It is blatantly obvious to me.
What’s hilarious is the more debt slaves they create and the more they shove cultural Marxism down the West’s throat, the more they delegitimize themselves.
Capital doesn’t like betting on losers who are stupid con artists.
Bingo. Capital would rather honest tyrants than virtue signaling ones.
As an Australian I can say without any stretch of the truth, our National Broadcaster the ABC is awash with “Right leaning Lefts” who never got a blood blister doing a hard days work. But as an example of the ingrained ignorant hate a Presenter on the 7.30 Programme exposed exactly what you identify in your Article……….. https://iview.abc.net.au/video/NC2101H010S00
The arrogant ignorance is all you need to know as to the diet churned out on the most important News Service in Australia.
And by the way Caitlyn Johnstone is a non starter on the ABC who would have their hair on fire if she somehow poked her head in?
William Kierath.
In a comment early today, I put forward the prospect that the Sputnik V vaccine was probably a relatively harmless placebo for a non-existent “novel” single strand RNA virus. However, this evening I decided to research it further. The question which I came up with was what exactly was the “piece of genetic material” which the adenovirus acted as a vector for. After an fruitless hour of searching, I reluctantly finally went to the CIA Handbook, Wikipedia, which does give the answer. It is a piece of cDNA which is manufactured by back engineering the spike protein of cv-1984 and converting it to RNA, and then using the reverse transcriptase enzyme to convert it to cDNA. Then the question arises for me, how does this cDNA produce the spike protein as DNA cannot interact with ribosomes. It would appear to me that the only way it can do so would be to implant itself in nuclear genetic chromosomes and then produce mRNA to visit the ribosomes to manufacture this spike protein.
“They typically also contain a strong promoter to drive transcription of the target cDNA into mRNA, which is then translated into protein.”
If this is correct, I view it as even more potentially insidious than the current Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines. I would welcome your input as a chemist.
Obviously Bill Gates wants to use our testicles to clone his semen with Microsoft operating system and I wouldn’t trust a vaccine manufacturer as far as I could shit on one.
The number one determinant of how well a vaccine works is how well the persons immune system works. Which depends on the thymus gland which depends on zinc consumption.
Actually this Russian clown show is a good sign. Global Elite losing its grip Swamp can divided by two type of people.
Old true believing wise psychopaths’ who put up this world order. Like Soros Kissinger Klaus Schwab and some others
Young psychopaths’ who have very moderate intellect and who can not run big things. Like those Big Tech folk. For general information , those young faces are not really in charge. They do what people mentioned above tell them to do.
Greatest service Trump did , he gave us 4 years. Above certain age, every year becomes important. It is no big difference between 36 and 40 years old but above 80 years old, every year may be difference between evil genius and human wreckage who doesn’t understand what is going around.
Globalism will end up like Soviet Union. Wise leaders just die and younger career bureaucrats had no idea how to run system. We see that already. In Ukraine color revolution succeeded , in Belarus it failed because 6 years ago wise Swamp elders directly run the show but now they are too old and weak and their younger apprentices have too low intellect for such sophisticated thing like coup in Belarus or Russia itself.
Or Great Reset. Reset will come but they are the ones who will be resetted.
I agree that it’s a good sign. Pathetic virtue signaling and ham-fisted protests only reveal how weak their sauce really is.
Excellent comment.
Social Darwinism weeds out narcissism, laziness, cowardice and centralized decision making systems.
So, I feel ignorant because I have very little information about any of what is going on here. Any tips on what to read for a roadmap from the beginning?
The ‘russia’ archives here. No lie. Just search ‘russia’ and begin reading from the beginning
Not just about Russia, the whole enchilada on this re-set. I have the basics of what you can find out in the open, I do not, however, know where to find the rest of it.
Heterosexual white Slavic male with a woman wife is not really a convincing oppressed dissident right now. The only headline here is “poisoned”. Sounds so barbaric and backward. So really, this is a crime story, not a person story. Counter-propagandists will know what to do.
I stopped at
You can see the steps of this operation quite clearly.
1.Put in place the massive vote fraud system to ensure Trump will lose in November.
What a complete load of horse shit. If you are still believing the Mockingbird media’s narrative about Russian interference in US elections you probably need to get a clue. We all know who was behind it now. Follow the money. Go back to the Diebold voting systems who were they bought by? Who owns the biggest shares in Dominion systems. Also, research the American consulate in Italy and Leonardo. An Italian citizen came clean to this and look up Spain and Germany. It’s not Russia.
Are you a complete idiot or just incapable of reading comprehension. I outlined the parameters of the operation… which by the way, this time, went FAR BEYOND Diebold, which I’ve already covered.
Do you really think I, of all people, am blaming the Russians for hacking the election?
Honestly, put the outrage down and read the article again after three deep breaths. Otherwise you make yourself look like a fool in public.