Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

Tag: Russia

Russian Rebellion

by | 0822, 24 Jun 2323 | | 5 Comments

I’m not sure that I trust any of the news coming out of the area – even (especially) by Western journalists – but something is up in Russia. Putin’s response validates that this is a serious threat. Or it could be a planned provocation to give Putin an excuse to seize more power. But does he need more power? He’s proven that he has full control of the nation already. So it maybe that this is exactly what it looks like… an armed rebellion by the Russian power players who are frustrated with Putin’s actions.

ROSTOV-ON-DON/VORONEZH, Russia (Reuters) -Russian military helicopters opened fire on Saturday afternoon on a convoy of rebel mercenaries already more than half way towards Moscow in a lightning advance after seizing a southern city overnight.

 

President Vladimir Putin vowed to crush an armed mutiny he compared to Russia’s Civil War a century ago.

 

Fighters from Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private Wagner militia were in control of Rostov-on-Don, a city of more than a million people close to the border with Ukraine, and were rapidly advancing northwards through western Russia.

 

A Reuters journalist saw army helicopters open fire at an armed Wagner column that was advancing past the city of Voronezh with troop carriers and at least one tank on a flatbed truck. The city is more than half way along the 1,100-km (680-mile) highway from Rostov to Moscow.

Russia to Use Belarus for Launching Nukes

by | 1336, 25 Mar 2323 | , | 3 Comments

This is kind of a big deal.

Russia will station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, President Vladimir Putin has said.

President Putin said the move would not violate nuclear non-proliferation agreements and compared it to the US stationing its weapons in Europe, according to Russian state media.

Moscow would not be transferring control of its arms to Minsk, he added.

Washington Escalates War

by | 1906, 22 Dec 2222 | , , | 21 Comments

Russia’s not wrong. The warmonger in the White House is making it very clear that this is America’s war against Russia and there is no end in sight.

But Russia’s US ambassador said these “provocative actions” would lead to an escalation with severe consequences.

Anatoly Antonov told Russian state media that Moscow was “trying to appeal to common sense at all levels”, but talk of delivering the Patriot missile system to Kyiv was “deeply disturbing”.

 

[…]

 

Moscow has complained that no calls for peace were heard during President Zelensky’s trip to Washington – with spokesman Dmitry Peskov describing this as proof that the US was fighting a proxy war with Russia.

 

Mr Peskov added that delivering Patriot missiles would not prevent Russia from “achieving its goals during the special military operation”.

“The talks in Washington have shown that neither Ukraine nor the United States is seeking peace. They are simply intent on continuing the fighting,” said Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.

Chechen Leader Calls for Religious War Against NATO

by | 2100, 18 Dec 2222 | | 1 Comment

We’ve come a long way from when Putin was crushing revolt in Chechnya. Now they are spouting Putin’s propaganda in an attempt to stoke religious war.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Head of Chechnya [Federal subject of the Russian Federation – ed.], urged Muslims around the world to “unite in joint efforts against NATO”, speaking in Chinese.

 

Source: Kadyrov on Telegram, Kremlin-aligned news outlet TASS

 

Quote from Kadyrov: “Over the past 100 years, the United States and Europe have organised dozens of wars, military coups and invasions. Millions of civilians have become their victims. Although now they pose an even more terrible threat, destroying all the moral values that have been formed by the peoples of all countries during the existence of mankind…

 

Their money and weapons are nothing in the face of our solidarity, will and faith in our Creator!”.

 

Details: According to him, the North Atlantic Alliance threatens the existence of the whole world, “but Russia, contrary to all the forecasts of the West, has challenged this evil and is confidently moving towards victory”.

 

Kadyrov called on Muslims to “stand on the same side with their brothers” and “against the common enemy”, because NATO “will soon come to destroy their homeland”.

Putin Wins Again with Weak US President

by | 0732, 8 Dec 2222 | | 28 Comments

This is a dangerously stupid deal.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia freed WNBA star Brittney Griner on Thursday in a dramatic high-level prisoner exchange, with the U.S. releasing notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, American officials said. The swap, at a time of heightened tensions over Ukraine, achieved a top goal for President Joe Biden, but carried a heavy price — and left behind an American jailed for nearly four years in Russia.

I don’t mind prisoner swaps. Nations have been doing them forever. Normally, it is a trade where both nations are getting something of relatively equal value.

This is not one of those trades. Russia is getting back an experienced and brutal arms dealer in the middle of a war. America is getting a dope-smoking basketball player. Putin is working on shoring up his ability to wage war. Biden is trying to fix a domestic political inconvenience.

Once again. Putin wins.

Ukraine Attacks Russia?

by | 1952, 5 Dec 2222 | | 12 Comments

One thing is certain… both sides are consummate liars who aren’t above using the deaths of their own people for propaganda.

Details: The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation stated that on the morning of 5 December, Ukraine “attempted to carry out strikes with Soviet-made jet unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on the military airbases of Dyagilevo in Ryazan Oblast and Engels in Saratov Oblast”.

 

The Ministry said that the Russian air defence system allegedly intercepted Ukrainian UAVs flying at a low altitude.

At the same time, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported that “as a result of the fall and explosion of the fragments of jet drones on Russian airfields, the body covering of two aircraft was slightly damaged“, and “three Russian servicemen of the technical staff, who were at the airfield, were fatally wounded“.

 

Four more Russian servicemen were injured.

It’s curious that they specified a “Soviet” UAV. The USSR had UAVs, but they were for reconnaissance. They would also be at least 20 years old by now. And given that Ukraine has used modern drones incredibly effectively during this war, why would they use ancient Soviet drones for kamikaze attacks on a Russian nuclear base?

My best guess is that this is Putin trying to fake an attack on Russian soil to rally his people, but I don’t leave anything out of the realm of possibilities.

Bidens’ Ties to Russia and China

by | 1705, 31 Oct 2222 | , , | 0 Comments

For all of the finger wagging about people who have ties to Russia or China, it is glaringly clear that the Biden family has been engaging in crooked deals with the two totalitarian regimes for years. It is foolish to not at least consider that our President may have been involved even if he isn’t today. For all of Joe Biden’s faults, he has a long history of loving and supporting his kids. Is it too much of a stretch to think that he might have thrown his influence around on their behalf for foreigners?

Newly unearthed photos show the Biden family’s Chinese business partner meeting with Vladimir Putin.

 

Zang Jianjun was executive director of Chinese oil giant CEFC, which partnered with Joe Biden‘s brother Jim and son Hunter on a deal that earned the First Family millions of dollars.

 

Text messages obtained by DailyMail.com reveal Zang was in close contact with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and that the Chinese leader gave the green light for his partnership with the Bidens.

 

Zang even traveled to Moscow with Xi and met with Putin while brokering a massive $9.1billion deal to buy a share of the Russian state-owned oil firm Rosneft in 2017.

Biden Warns of Armageddon and He’s Not Talking About Global Warming

by | 2146, 6 Oct 2222 | , | 10 Comments

I think that in his addled mind, he wants a nuclear strike so that he can be a warrior president.

‘He’s not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is — you might say — significantly underperforming.’

 

Don’t be fooled by the idea that smaller, tactical weapons were not a major threat to the world, he continued at the reception for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

 

‘I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily [use] a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon,’ he said.

Putin’s Conscripts

by | 0744, 22 Sep 2222 | , | 27 Comments

Tragic. It also indicates how dangerous a time we are in. Putin’s Russia has proven to be a paper tiger, but they still have WMDs – and not just nukes. Desperate people do desperate things.

The first batch of Russian conscripts began shipping out for Ukraine today, as Putin tries to plug holes in his armies after they were mauled at Kyiv’s hands.

 

Men – many of whom appeared middle-aged – were filmed waving goodbye to their families in the far-eastern province of Yakutia as they were loaded on to buses for the long journey west, to the killing fields of Donbas, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

 

Military commissars marshaled them away less than 24 hours after Putin declared the start of Russia’s first mobilisation since the Second World War in a desperate attempt to stop his brutal invasion from collapsing.

 

There were even reports that some of the 1,400 activists arrested last night for protesting the move were being handed conscription papers inside police stations, despite Putin’s promise to only send those with combat experience.

 

Analysts and experts have given the new conscripts little chance of survival, saying they are likely to be given little or no training before being thrown on to the frontline as ‘cannon fodder’.

Putin Endorses Expansionist and Interventionist Foreign Policy

by | 0705, 6 Sep 2222 | | 18 Comments

His actions already defined his policy, but now he has a published ideological basis for it.

The 31-page “humanitarian policy”, published more than six months into the war in Ukraine, says Russia should “protect, safeguard and advance the traditions and ideals of the Russian World”.

 

While presented as a kind of soft power strategy, it enshrines in official policy ideas around Russian politics and religion that some hardliners have used to justify Moscow’s occupation of parts of Ukraine and support for breakaway pro-Russian entities in the east of the country.

 

“The Russian Federation provides support to its compatriots living abroad in the fulfilment of their rights, to ensure the protection of their interests and the preservation of their Russian cultural identity,” the policy said.

It said that Russia’s ties with its compatriots abroad allowed it to “strengthen on the international stage its image as a democratic country striving for the creating of a multi-polar world.”

 

Putin has for years been highlighting what he sees as the tragic fate of some 25 million ethnic Russians who found themselves living outside Russia in newly independent states when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, an event he has called a geopolitical catastrophe.

 

Russia has continued to regard the former Soviet space, from the Baltics to Central Asia, as its legitimate sphere of influence – a notion fiercely resisted by many of those countries as well as by the West.

Two Americas. One Russia.

by | 1949, 29 Jul 2222 | , | 8 Comments

Would your government pull out all the stops to rescue you? Should they? Should they be doing it for Griner?

For the past 11 months, Fogel has languished in Russian detention centers following his August 2021 arrest for trying to enter the country with about half an ounce of medical marijuana he’d been prescribed in the United States for chronic pain after numerous injuries and surgeries. First he endlessly awaited trial, often in crowded, smoke-choked cells. More recently, he has been serving the first weeks of an incomprehensible 14-year sentence handed down by a Russian judge in June.

 

Fogel’s plight parallels a similar case that has played big on news websites, led cable newscasts and prompted White House pronouncements: the trial of WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner, who also was arrested for attempting to enter Russia with a small amount of medical marijuana. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the United States has made a “substantial proposal” to Russia to secure the release of Griner and another jailed American, Paul Whelan, who is serving a 16-year Russian sentence on spy charges he has denied.

 

Marc Fogel’s wife, Jane Fogel, said in an interview after the news broke that she’s still hoping her husband can be included in a swap. But those hopes are fading, she said, speaking publicly for the first time about her husband’s case.

Russian Atrocities

by | 0854, 4 Apr 2222 | , , | 13 Comments

No matter how civilized we think we have become, humans always return to barbarism. It is one of the many reasons that I vehemently defend the 2nd Amendment.

The BBC’s Yogita Limaye is on the ground reporting on new evidence of atrocities emerging in areas around Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, after Russian forces pulled out.

She took the photo below of a shallow grave in the village of Motyzhyn, where four people allegedly shot dead by Russian forces were left. We have blurred parts of the picture.

Three of the bodies have been identified as members of one family, including the head of the village, Olha Sohnenko. The fourth body has not been identified.

Yogita is on her way to Bucha – a town where the discovery of many dead civilians has shocked the world, and seen Russia accused of war crimes.

 

Radiated Russian Soldiers Withdraw

by | 1452, 31 Mar 2222 | , | 2 Comments

Yikes. One can empathize for the soldiers while still condemning their nation.

Several hundred Russian soldiers were forced to hastily withdraw from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine after suffering “acute radiation sickness” from contaminated soil, according to Ukrainian officials.

 

The troops, who dug trenches in a contaminated Red Forest near the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history, are now reportedly being treated in a special medical facility in Gomel, Belarus. The forest is so named because thousands of pine trees turned red during the 1986 nuclear disaster. The area is considered so highly toxic that not even highly specialized Chernobyl workers are allowed to enter the zone.

 

Energoatom, the Ukrainian agency in charge of the country’s nuclear power stations, said the Russian soldiers had panicked and fled.

 

“It has been confirmed that the occupiers who seized the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and other facilities in the Exclusion Zone set off in two columns towards Ukraine’s border with Belarus. The occupiers announced their intentions to leave the Chernobyl nuclear power plant this morning to the Ukrainian personnel of the station,” the agency said in a statement on Telegram, adding that a small number of Russians still remained at the facility.

Nokia Helped Russia Spy on Enemies

by | 0658, 29 Mar 2222 | , | 0 Comments

If you think that the big tech companies in the U.S. aren’t doing the same work for the American government, you aren’t paying attention.

Nokia said this month that it would stop its sales in Russia and denounced the invasion of Ukraine. But the Finnish company didn’t mention what it was leaving behind: equipment and software connecting the government’s most powerful tool for digital surveillance to the nation’s largest telecommunications network.

 

The tool was used to track supporters of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Investigators said it had intercepted the phone calls of a Kremlin foe who was later assassinated. Called the System for Operative Investigative Activities, or SORM, it is also most likely being employed at this moment as President Vladimir Putin culls and silences anti-war voices inside Russia.

 

For more than five years, Nokia provided equipment and services to link SORM to Russia’s largest telecom service provider, MTS, according to company documents obtained by The New York Times. While Nokia does not make the tech that intercepts communications, the documents lay out how it worked with state-linked Russian companies to plan, streamline and troubleshoot the SORM system’s connection to the MTS network. Russia’s main intelligence service, the FSB, uses SORM to listen in on phone conversations, intercept emails and text messages, and track other internet communications.

U.S. Inflation Rate Only Half of Russia’s

by | 1828, 24 Mar 2222 | , , | 2 Comments

We’re closing in fast.

On Wednesday, Russia’s economic ministry said annual inflation had jumped 14.5% in the week ending 18 March – the highest rate since late 2015.

The Federal State Statistics Service said the cost of sugar rose by as much as 37.1% in certain regions of the country and increased by an average 14%.

 

Sugar, which is commonly used to preserve food or make liquor, was the biggest gainer in the week, the government agency found.

The price of onions was the second biggest riser over the week, up 13.7% nationwide and 40.4% in some areas. Meanwhile, nappies were 4.4% more expensive. Prices for black tea rose 4% and toilet paper increased by 3%.

Front Line Generals

by | 2007, 19 Mar 2222 | , | 3 Comments

I wondered why the Russian Generals were in the line of fire.

Russia is believed to be sending its generals to the front line of its war in Ukraine in a bid to bolster low morale among troops.

 

According to Western officials, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has “largely stalled on all fronts”, with Russia making “minimal progress” and suffering heavy losses.

 

The Russian President is said to be frustrated at the lack of progress, which has seen his troops fail to seize any major cities despite heavy bombardment of them.

 

On Thursday Ukrainian officials claimed a fourth Russian general has been killed during fighting in the city of Mariupol.

Russians Threaten to Maroon Astronaut

by | 1439, 13 Mar 2222 | | 3 Comments

Remember that it was Obama who abandoned the United States’ manned space program and wanted to rely on Russia.

Russia’s space program has apparently threatened to leave an American astronaut aboard the International Space Station as it comes crashing down to Earth in a video shared by Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti.

 

Mark Vande Hei, a married 55-year-old father of two from Texas, is scheduled to return to Kazakhstan from the International Space Station (ISS) with two Russian cosmonauts aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on March 30 after spending nearly a year on board.

 

But amid United States’ sanctions against Russia for the human rights violations it is committing in its siege of Ukraine, Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, has threatened to leave him in space.

Echoes of Crimea

by | 0646, 2 Mar 2222 | , | 24 Comments

Eight years ago this week, Putin was invading and taking over Crimea. I wrote a column about it. Here’s a part:

“Hagel proposes downsizing Army to smallest size in decades.” – Associated Press 2/24/14
“Hagel: Dominance of US military ‘can no longer be taken for granted’” – The Daily Caller 2/24/14
“In Crimean capital Simferopol, pro-Russian gunmen seize key buildings.” – BBC 2/27/14
“Obama to Russia: Stay out of Ukraine.” – Politico 2/28/14
“Ukraine erupts as Russian troops take over Crimea.” – New York Post 3/1/14
As American President Obama scolds, Russian President Putin acts. Putin acts without fear of American might because President Obama has proven time and time again that his words have nothing behind them.
[…]
Putin is engaging in realpolitik as America and the rest of the west issues stern warnings and threatens to pull out of the upcoming G8 conference. I’m sure Putin is shaking in his boots at the thought of another gravely-delivered content-free oration from President Obama.
Events do happen in the world that have nothing to do with America or our foreign policy, but this is not one of them. The fact is that Obama’s foreign policy has been an utter failure. He came into office apologetic of America’s might and influence on the world stage. In five years of his administration, we have seen a steady decline in our ability or willingness to influence events around the world.
And now we see the fruit of our president’s intentional neutering of American power in the world. Russia will almost certainly succeed in taking over Ukraine – one way or another. America will stand by and watch with crossed brows and impotent arms. And the downsizing of our military will continue based on fantastical world visions of unicorns and rainbows and glitter emanating from the White House.
When the Eagle sleeps, the Bear rises.
It’s no mystery that as Biden has returned us to Obama’s policies – weaken the military; high oil prices; lead from behind – Putin has returned to conquering his neighbors.

Belarus and Russia Prepare for Western Push

by | 0712, 24 Feb 2222 | , , | 40 Comments

Putin is a prototypical expansionist tyrant of the kind that the world has known since time began. He will keep expanding until he can’t. He is gathering his few allies to prepare for the next step.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko says he expects to discuss the possible deployment of Iskander and S-400 defense systems to Belarus with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in the coming days.

 

“[Thursday or Friday] we will talk with the President of Russia about how to strengthen ourselves here in the western direction,” Lukashenko told state news agency Belta Thursday.

 

“Today we consulted with the military, and we see that it would be desirable to put Iskanders [missile systems] there and place a battalion or two with S-400s somewhere so that we can actually monitor the situation all the way to Berlin,” Lukashenko said.

That is not an argument for direct U.S. military action. Russia is still much weaker than it was during the Soviet days. There is a decent chance that they blow their wad in Ukraine if the Ukrainians put up a fight. I’m not confident of that. The next layer is for Western European nations to defend themselves. I don’t think Putin is crazy enough to attack a NATO country yet, but if he has an easy time in Ukraine, he might.

The biggest worry for Americans is the acceleration of Russian cyberwarfare against America’s economy. They are stepping up that effort. This is not WWII. There are more battlefronts.

Biden Goes to the Mat to Keep Russia Out of Ukraine

by | 2003, 19 Feb 2222 | , | 4 Comments

Hmmm… why is Biden so hellbent on defending Ukraine? What is our strategic interest? Why is recklessly exposing our spy capabilities to the world?

But now, with growing fears that Moscow is preparing for a full-scale invasion, the Biden administration has abandoned the U.S.’s normally tight-lipped attitude toward releasing intelligence information and is pursuing a strategic — and according to former officials, unprecedented — declassification campaign aimed at exposing Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

 

In recent days, U.S. officials have called out a number of Russian “false flag” operations that they say are designed to provide a pretext to invade Ukraine. These have included allegations of a potential Russian-authored chemical assault designed to look like Ukrainian aggression, and even a plot to create a detailed yet fake movie showing the lethal aftermath of a Ukrainian attack. Officials have also publicly named Russian military intelligence as responsible for a disruptive cyber operation that targeted Ukraine’s defense ministry and banks earlier this week.

 

Experts say the revelations have been aimed at throwing Russia off balance by exposing their plans before they’re brought to fruition — and showing that the U.S. has the capability to surveil many of Russia’s actions.

 

By the end of the Trump administration, U.S. spy agencies had developed a “much better understanding of what the Russians are doing in a strategic sense,” said a former senior CIA official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive capabilities. “There were some extraordinary sources, obviously those are really fragile, so I’m not sure if those accesses are still in place, but I have to imagine they are.”

It’s also worth noting that last cited paragraph… the Trump Administration had made great strides toward spying on Russia. Once again, the whole “Trump is a puppet of Putin” narrative is a load of whoey.

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