Thread: How dangerous is Vladimir Putin?

Putin Appointed 'Chief Exorcist' as Kremlin Whips up Satanic Panic

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been named "chief exorcist" by the head of the country's Orthodox Church as the Kremlin seeks to redefine the goals of its invasion of Ukraine.

Putin, when he invaded the neighboring country on February 24, used the term "denazification," saying that was the goal of his so-called "special military operation," but now his security council is shifting to the phrase "desatanization."

Aleksey Pavlov, assistant secretary of the security council of the Russian Federation, is now calling for the "desatanization" of Ukraine, saying that there were "hundreds of sects" in the country where citizens have abandoned Orthodox values.


"I believe that, with the continuation of the special military operation, it becomes more and more urgent to carry out the desatanization of Ukraine," Pavlov said, according to state-run Russian news agency Tass.


"Using internet manipulation and psychotechnologies, the new regime turned Ukraine from a sovereign state to a totalitarian hypersect," said Pavlov.

The Russian politician added that, in Ukraine, "there are hundreds of sects, sharpened for a specific goal and flock."


Pavlov said he is particularly concerned about the "Church of Satan", which allegedly "spread across Ukraine" and "is one of the officially registered religions in the United States."


Pavlov said he sees manifestations of "satanism" in "calls to kill Russians" and that these are welcomed at the state level.


He said that the Kyiv government is forcing citizens to abandon Orthodox values, and is working "reformat" the minds of Ukrainian citizens, to force them to abandon centuries-old traditions, to ban the true values that the Orthodox faith, Islam and Judaism carry.

When Putin said in September that he had annexed four territories in Ukraine following sham referendums, he accused Western nations of "outright Satanism."


"The dictatorship of the Western elites is directed against all societies, including the peoples of the Western countries themselves. This is a challenge to all," Putin said.


"This is a complete denial of humanity, the overthrow of faith and traditional values. Indeed, the suppression of freedom itself has taken on the features of a religion: outright Satanism."


Since then, the term has been used more frequently on Russian state TV, while Putin's staunch ally, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, has branded the conflict as a holy war against Satanism.


On Tuesday, Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, called Putin "a fighter against the Antichrist" or "chief exorcist," according to local news outlets.


Kirill said that Putin is fighting against the manifestation of globalism, and "the name of the one who will claim global power will be associated with the end of the world."


Kirill told Russian citizens not to be afraid of death amid Putin's decision to mobilize reserve troops to fight in Ukraine.


"Go bravely to fulfill your military duty. And remember that if you lay down your life for your country, you will be with God in his kingdom, glory and eternal life," he said in a sermon at the Zachatyevsky Monastery in Moscow on September 22.


Kirill has justified Putin's decision to invade Ukraine in February on spiritual and ideological grounds.

Putin Appointed 'Chief Exorcist' as Kremlin Whips up Satanic Panic

Originally Posted by misskit

When Putin said in September that he had annexed four territories in Ukraine following sham referendums, he accused Western nations of "outright Satanism."

"This is a complete denial of humanity, the overthrow of faith and traditional values. Indeed, the suppression of freedom itself has taken on the features of a religion: outright Satanism."

Sounds very much like



Its good that we get all viewpoints on TD, it gives an insight into posters' mental state . . .

^ Who is that?

Grigori Rasputin.

Originally Posted by misskit

Aleksey Pavlov, assistant secretary of the security council of the Russian Federation, is now calling for the "desatanization" of Ukraine, saying that there were "hundreds of sects" in the country where citizens have abandoned Orthodox values.

I'm guessing with a name like that he drools everywhere whenever Putin rings his metaphorical bell.
A bit like the wanketeers really.

Originally Posted by misskit

Who is that?

Rasputin, a mad monk, who basically dictated policy to the Czar and Czarina . . . obviously with disastrous consequences.

Russians, same old same old

Originally Posted by misskit

Aleksey Pavlov, assistant secretary of the security council of the Russian Federation, is now calling for the "desatanization" of Ukraine, saying that there were "hundreds of sects" in the country where citizens have abandoned Orthodox values.

Hey Oh Doh, how come you have hidden your repo?.

The board had lit you up nice and red for the coming festive season.

Originally Posted by hallelujah

Hey Oh Doh, how come you have hidden your repo?.

The board had lit you up nice and red for the coming festive season.

The colour too easily identifies him as a Mainland Chinese pretending to be 'British' and 'Canadian'.

Putin: ‘The Situation Is, to a Certain Extent, Revolutionary’

Pepe Escobar

October 28, 2022

Putin in fact did nail where we are: on the edge of a Revolution.

"In an all-encompassing address to the plenary session of the 19^th annual meeting of the Valdai Club, President Putin delivered no less than a devastating, multi-layered critique of unipolarity.

From Shakespeare to the assassination of Gen Soleimani; from musings on spirituality to the structure of the UN; from Eurasia as the cradle of human civilization to the interconnection of BRI, SCO and the INSTC; from nuclear dangers to that peripheral peninsula of Eurasia “blinded by the idea that Europeans are better than others”, the address painted a Brueghel-esque canvas of the “historical milestone” facing us, in the middle of “the most dangerous decade since the end of WWII.”

Putin even ventured that, in the words of the classics, “the situation is, to a certain extent, revolutionary” as “the upper classes cannot, and the lower classes do not want to live like this anymore”. So everything is in play, as “the future of the new world order is being shaped before our eyes.”

Way beyond a catchy slogan about the game the West is playing, “bloody, dangerous and dirty”, the address and Putin’s interventions at the subsequent Q&A should be analyzed as a coherent vision of past, present and future. Here we offer just a few of the highlights:

“The world is witnessing the degradation of world institutions, the erosion of the principle of collective security, the substitution of international law for ‘rules’”.

“Even at the height of the Cold War, nobody denied the existence of the culture and art of the Other. In the West, any alternative point of view is declared subversive.”

“The Nazis burned books. Now the Western fathers of ‘liberalism’ are banning Dostoevsky.”
“There are at least two ‘Wests’. The first is traditional, with a rich culture. The second is aggressive and colonial.”

“Russia has not and does not consider itself an enemy of the West.

Russia tried to build relations with the West and NATO – to live together in peace and harmony. Their response to all cooperation was simply ‘no’.”

“We do not need a nuclear strike on Ukraine, there is no point – neither political nor military.”

“In part” the situation between Russia and Ukraine can be considered a civil war: “When creating Ukraine, the Bolsheviks endowed it with primordially Russian territories – they gave it all of Little Russia, the entire Black Sea region, the entire Donbass. Ukraine evolved as an artificial state.”

“Ukrainians and Russians are one people – this is a historical fact. Ukraine has evolved as an artificial state. The only country that can guarantee its sovereignty is the country which created it – Russia.”

“The unipolar world is coming to an end. The West is incapable of single-handedly ruling the world. The world stands at a historical milestone ahead of the most dangerous and important decade since World War II.”

“Humanity has two options – either we continue accumulating the burden of problems that is certain to crush all of us, or we can work together to find solutions.”

What do we do after the orgy?

Amidst a series of absorbing discussions, the heart of the matter at Valdai is its 2022 report, “A World Without Superpowers”.
The report’s central thesis – eminently correct – is that “the United States and its allies, in fact, no longer enjoy the status of dominant superpower, but the global infrastructure that serves it is still in place.”

Of course all major interconnected issues at the current crossroads were precipitated because” Russia became the first major power which, guided by its own ideas of security and fairness, chose to discard the benefits of ‘global peace’ created by the only superpower.”

Well, not exactly “global peace”; rather a Mafia-enforced ethos of “our way or the highway”. The report quite diplomatically characterizes the freezing of Russia’s gold and foreign currency reserves and the “mop up” of Russia’s property abroad as “Western jurisdictions”, “if necessary”, being “guided by political expediency rather than the law”.

That’s in fact outright theft, under the shadow of the “rules-based international order”.

The report – optimistically – foresees the advent of a sort of normalized “cold peace” as “the best available solution today” – acknowledging at least this is far from guaranteed, and “will not halt the fundamental rebuilding of the international system on new foundations.”

The foundation for evolving multipolarity has in fact been presented

by the Russia-China strategic partnership only three weeks before imperially-ordered provocations forced Russia to launch the Special Military Operation (SMO).

In parallel, the financial lineaments of multipolarity had been proposed since at least July 2021, in a paper co-written by Professor Michael Hudson and Radhika Desai.

The Valdai report duly acknowledges the role of Global South medium-sized powers that “exemplify the democratization of international politics” and may “act as shock absorbers during periods of upheaval.” That’s a direct reference to the role of BRICS+ as key protagonists.

On the Big Picture across the chessboard, the analysis tends to get more realistic when it considers that “the triumph of ‘the only true idea’ makes effective dialogue and agreement with supporters of different views and values impossible by definition.”
Putin alluded to it several times in his address. There’s no evidence whatsoever the Empire and its vassals will be deviating from their normative, imposed, value-laden unilateralism.
As for world politics beginning to “rapidly return to a state of anarchy built on force”, that’s self-evident: only the Empire of Chaos wants to impose anarchy, as it completely ran out of geopolitical and geoeconomic tools to control rebel nations, apart from the sanctions tsunami.

So the report is correct when it identifies that the childish neo-Hegelian “end of history” wet dream in the end hit the wall of History: we’re back to the pattern of large scale conflicts between centers of power.
And it’s also a fact that “simply changing the ‘operator’ as it happened in earlier centuries” (as in the U.S. taking over from Britain) “just won’t work.”

China might harbor a desire to become the new sheriff, but the Beijing leadership definitely is not interested. And even if that happened the Hegemon would fiercely prevented it, as “the entire system” remains “under its control (primarily finance and the economy).”

So the only way out, once again, is multipolarity – which the report characterizes, rather vaguely, as “a world without superpowers”, still in need of “a system of self-regulation, which implies much greater freedom of action and responsibility for such actions.”
Stranger things have happened in History. As it stands, we are plunged deep into the maelstrom of complete collapse.

Putin in fact did nail where we are: on the edge of a Revolution"

https://strategic-culture.org/news/2...revolutionary/

Originally Posted by OhOh

Putin in fact did nail where we are: on the edge of a Revolution.

Sounds like something a Russian would have written prior to Putin ordering his assassination.

Putin 'under threat' as rising Kremlin star confronts him in tense face-to-face meeting


A mercenary chief, thought to be a potential successor to Vladimir Putin, confronted the Russian leader face-to-face and criticised his mismanagement of the war in Ukraine, according to US intelligence.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the brutal private army, the Wagner Group, has challenged Vladimir Putin face-to-face over the failings in the war in Ukraine. The rare act of defiance, revealed by US intelligence reports, shows the growing influence of Mr Prigozhin within Kremlin circles. The mercenary chief and close Kremlin confidant is believed to have confronted President Putin himself about the mismanagement of the war, according to American intelligence officials.

According to US intelligence sources, the tense confrontation was seen as significant enough to include in the daily briefing provided to US President Joe Biden.


During the meeting, the Wagner Group chief took particular aim at Russia's Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu, as he tries to oust him.


He has regularly criticised the Russian military effort under Mr Shoigu in the past month while calling for more funding to be directed to his mercenary group.

Earlier this week, the Institute of the Study of War (ISW) suggested that Mr Prigozhin's rise and the success of Wagner in Ukraine could "pose a threat to Putin's rule."

The ISW report said: "Prigozhin continues to accrue power and is setting up a military structure parallel to the Russian Armed Forces, which may come to pose a threat to Putin's rule."


They added that Wagner's victories on the battlefield were “undermining the authority” of Russian President Putin.


Mr Prigozhin's mercenary army is the only Russian force in Ukraine which is seizing land, following a series of setbacks for the national army.


In recent days, Wagner mercenaries have led the efforts to capture Bakhmut, a strategic town in the Donetsk region.

Russian soldiers have deployed artillery to pummel the town, which is key for Ukraine’s supply lines.


Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said the relentless strikes on Bakhmut showed Moscow’s “craziness”.


In a nightly address, Mr Zelensky said: “Day after day, for months, they have been driving people there to their deaths, concentrating the maximum power of artillery strikes there."


Samuel Ramani, a defence analyst, said President Putin desperately "needs the optics of some kind of an offensive victory to assuage critics at home and to show the Russian public that this war is still going to plan".

Vladimir Putin at risk of Kremlin coup as Wagner chief confronts him over bungling war | World | News | Express.co.uk

WHAT IS NEXT? Is there life after Putin? How does he go and who replaces him?” Such are the questions that weigh heavily these days on the minds of the Russian elite, its bureaucrats and businessmen, as they observe the Ukrainian army advancing, talented people fleeing Russia and the West refusing to back down in the face of Vladimir Putin’s energy and nuclear blackmail. “There is a lot of swearing and angry talk in Moscow restaurants and kitchens,” one member of the elite says. “Everyone has realised that Putin has blundered and is losing.”

This does not mean that Mr Putin is about to bow out, be overthrown or fire a nuclear weapon. It does mean that those who run the country and own assets there are losing confidence in their president. Russia’s political system appears to be entering the most turbulent period of its post-Soviet history. Western governments, too, are starting to worry that Russia could become ungovernable.

“Never before has Vladimir Putin been in such a situation in the 23 years of his rule,” says Kirill Rogov, a Russian political analyst. In the past, when confronted by difficult situations such as the loss of the submarine Kursk and its 118 crew members in 2000, or an appalling school siege in 2004 that ended with the deaths of 333 people, he managed to deflect responsibility and retain his image as a strong leader. “Now he is planning and executing operations that are visibly failing.”

The invasion of Ukraine on February 24th was a shock to the Russian establishment, which had persuaded itself that Mr Putin would not risk full-scale war. But the mixture of his initial, if limited, military advances, the absence of an economic collapse in Russia, and early attempts at peace negotiations calmed nerves. (Heavy drinking may also have helped; it became so acute that Mr Putin started to complain in public about alcoholism.) Some members of the elite even, for a while, persuaded themselves that Mr Putin could not lose.

This view has been shattered by Mr Putin’s “partial” mobilisation. It showed that his “special military operation” was faltering; and, by drafting more troops, he was seen to be dragging the country deeper into the conflict. And as a mass exodus and extensive draft-dodging have shown, his attempt to turn his venture into a new “Great Patriotic War” has so far failed. The mobilisation has broken the basic premise of the public’s acquiescence to the war: that it would not demand its active participation. In Moscow, Russia’s richest city, where men were being press-ganged in the streets, the mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, felt compelled on October 17th to announce that conscription was over. Other regions, with less lobbying power, will have to make up the shortfall.

Mr Putin cannot win his war, for from the very start it had no clear goals; and, having lost so much, he cannot end it without being deeply humiliated. Even if the fighting in Ukraine were to cease, a return to peaceful pre-war life is all but impossible under his belligerent presidency. Meanwhile, the economy is starting to show the effects of sanctions and of the exodus of the most skilled and educated members of the workforce; consumer confidence is on the slide.

A ceremony on September 30th, in which, after a ranting speech against the West, Mr Putin annexed four provinces in Ukraine that he does not actually control, was so absurd that it probably undermined his aura of strength even within Russia. As Tatyana Stanovaya, a political consultant, puts it: “Until September, the Russian elites had made the pragmatic choice to support Putin…but matters have progressed so far that they may now have to choose among various losing scenarios.”

A military defeat might well lead to the collapse of the regime, with all the associated risks for those who have supported it. Mr Putin’s bellicosity meanwhile “raises the question of whether the Russian elites are prepared to stick with Putin until the bitter end, particularly amid growing threats to use nuclear weapons,” Ms Stanovaya notes. Mr Putin has gone from being a perceived source of stability to one of instability, and danger. This week Ksenia Sobchak, reputed to be Mr Putin’s god-daughter, fled ahead of arrest, a sign that the elite is now devouring its own.

Abbas Galyamov, a political analyst who has spent time in the Kremlin, argues that in the next few weeks and months the elite, whose members have always trusted Mr Putin’s ability to preserve his regime (and them), will realise that it is up to them to save it and even their own lives. This, he says, will intensify the search for a possible successor within the system.

Mr Galyamov’s list of potential candidates includes Dmitry Patrushev, the son of Nikolai Patrushev, who is the head of the Security Council and one of the chief ideologues of the regime. Mr Patrushev junior is a former minister. Though part of the family, he could be seen as a fresh face because of his youth. More familiar possibilities include Sergei Kiriyenko, the deputy chief of staff at the Kremlin; Mr Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow; and Mikhail Mishustin, the prime minister, who could make an alliance with some of the security men and play the role of a moderate negotiator with the West.

Yet, as Alexei Navalny, Russia’s jailed opposition leader, argued recently in the Washington Post, the hope that “Mr Putin’s replacement by another member of his elite will fundamentally change this view on war, and especially war over the ‘legacy of the USSR’, is naive at the very least.” The only way to stop the endless cycle of imperial nationalism, Mr Navalny argued, is for Russia to decentralise power and turn itself into a parliamentary republic. In what looked like an appeal to the Russian elite, Mr Navalny argued that parliamentary democracy is also a rational and desirable choice for many of the political factions around Mr Putin. “It gives them an opportunity to maintain influence and fight for power while ensuring that they are not destroyed by a more aggressive group.”

This “more aggressive group” has already started to emerge. It includes Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former criminal known as “Putin’s chef”, who runs a group of mercenaries called the Wagner group, and Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman of Chechnya, who has his own private army. Both men are seen as personally loyal to Mr Putin. Ekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist, has likened Mr Prigozhin’s men to oprichniki—a corps of bodyguards established by Ivan the Terrible—who have plunged the country into chaos. Russia’s dictator wants to turn Ukraine into a failed state. Instead, he is fast turning Russia into one.

Russia’s elite begins to ponder a Putinless future | The Economist

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Sounds like something a Russian would have written prior to Putin ordering his assassination.

Don't tell me you read that BS?

Originally Posted by HermantheGerman

Don't tell me you read that BS?

The first line?

Yes.

It only takes that long.

You can see why Puffy is all upset.

2 Nov, 03:43Updated at: 06:41

UN committee adopts Russian draft resolution on prevention of arms race in space

The resolution drew support from 124 delegations, while 48 voted against it and 9 abstained.

UNITED NATIONS, November 1. /TASS/.

"The UN General Assembly First Committee on Tuesday adopted Russia’s draft resolution on Further Practical Measures for the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space.

The resolution drew support from 124 delegations, while 48 voted against it and 9 abstained. The resolution is now expected to be considered by a full General Assembly in December. The document underscores the importance of taking urgent measures in order to forever prevent the deployment of weapons in the outer space, use of force or threat of force in the outer space, from space against Earth and from Earth against objects in space. The document calls on all states to achieve via negotiations corresponding legally binding multilateral agreements.

The UN General Assembly First Committee approved the Russian draft resolution "No first placement of weapons in outer space." The document was supported by 123 delegations, with 50 voting against and 4 abstaining. The draft document is now expected to be reviewed by the General Assembly’s full membership in December.

The document was co-authored by 18 other states. It calls to promptly begin a substantial work based on the updated version of the 2008 draft agreement on prevention of deployment of weapons in space, use of force or threat of force against space objects, introduced by Russia and China. It reaffirms the need for examination and adoption of practical measures during development of agreements for prevention of an arms race in the outer space.

The committee approved without a vote the Russian draft resolution on Transparency and Confidence-Building Measures in Outer Space Activities.

The committee also adopted the Russian draft resolution "Transparency and confidence-building measures in outer space activities" without a vote. The document states that the UN Secretary General must inquire about opinions and proposals of member states on practical implementation of transparency measures, contained in the 2013 report of Group of government experts on transparency and trust-building measures in space."

UN committee adopts Russian draft resolution on prevention of arms race in space - World - TASS

The document states that the UN Secretary General must inquire about opinions and proposals of member states on practical implementation of transparency measures

Putin? Transparency?

Originally Posted by bsnub

Russia's elite begins to ponder a Putinless future

except russia's elite is comprised of the FSB and criminal organisations who are all beholden to putin

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...putin-s-people

Originally Posted by OhOh

by the Russia-China strategic partnership only three weeks before imperially-ordered provocations forced Russia to launch the Special Military Operation (SMO).

Say it ain't Smo Oh Ho, A photo saya a thousand word I hope this aint your wife or gf

Originally Posted by david44

A photo saya a thousand word

Indeed.

Originally Posted by baldrick

except russia's elite is comprised of the FSB and criminal organisations who are all beholden to putin

Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West by Catherine Belton

Many of whom have lost lots of money because of his stupid, pointless invasion.

Remember Mussolini, Ceausescu, Caesar, etc.

Originally Posted by baldrick

except russia's elite is comprised of the FSB and criminal organisations who are all beholden to putin

Many oligarchs are taking a breather in their other homeland, Israel.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Many of whom have lost lots of money because of his stupid, pointless invasion.

Sure

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Remember Mussolini, Ceausescu, Caesar, etc.

Heard about them

What is your point ?

Originally Posted by helge

Many oligarchs are taking a breather in their other homeland, Israel.

Hardly 'many', to be fair . . . ah, to have a passport of convenience - but they are still tracked and blocked from entering many countries based on having Russian citizenship and being part of the 'clan'.

Originally Posted by panama hat

Hardly 'many', to be fair

I bet that there is atleast 20 jews in that "elite"