Incentives: Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin possible moves – Donbass crisis.

 April 11, 2021

By David Sant for the Saker Blog

Several analysts have written articles about how Russia is likely to respond in the theater to an offensive by Ukraine to restart the Donbass War. My purpose in this article is to look at the psychology and incentives of Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin and the possible moves that each of them may make in response to the Donbass crisis.

The Nature of the Dispute

It is fairly well established that two primary motives seem to be driving the Atlanticist pressure on Russia and continuing eastward expansion of NATO. The larger issue is that Russia, Iran, and China seem to be increasingly resistant to the rule of the Atlanticist monopolar hegemony enforced by the US Military and NATO. As someone recently said, the American empire is a currency empire sustained by forcing all energy transactions to be priced in US Dollars, and controlling energy transit points. By moving away from using USD for oil and gas transactions, Russia, China, and Iran pose a mortal threat to the empire.

The secondary issue, the one driving the timing, is control of oil and gas pipelines. In short the USA wants Europe to use American-controlled gas and oil, which means Saudi and Qatari oil, and American LNG. They want to create pipelines and delivery routes for American-controlled energy, and close or prevent delivery routes for Russian energy. The three current flashpoints are Syria, Ukraine, and the route of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, all three of which are current or potential pipeline routes.

Several years ago the US successfully pressured Bulgaria into cancelling the South Stream Pipeline through the Black Sea. However, US sanctions have been unable to deter Germany from allowing the Russians to complete the Nord Stream 2.

With the completion of the project only a few months away, the US seems determined to stop it at any cost. This appears to be the motive behind instigating the Ukrainian government to invade Donbass. If Russia defends Donbass, she will be demonized in the Western press, and this will be used to pressure Germany to cancel Nord Stream 2. From the American perspective, getting the Ukrainians to fight the Russians weakens both at no political cost to the US.

It is my opinion that the Biden Administration is making a major miscalculation by continuing this approach. For the past seven years, Russia has absorbed round after round of sanctions and provocations by the US government in Ukraine and Syria. The Biden regime seems to assume that if they instigate a war in Donbass now, that Russia will continue as they have before, to absorb the blow without striking back. I suggest that this time it will be different.

The History and Psychology of Biden and Putin

Vladimir Putin was handpicked by the Western handlers to replace Boris Yeltsin in 1999, largely because he was known to be reliable. However, Putin surprised those who appointed him by turning against the oligarchs and reigning in the chaos that was dismembering Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin enforced the law and cracked down on corruption, including corruption by the Western interests that put him in power.

Displeased by this turn of events, the West, led by Bill Browder, has spent the past fifteen years demonizing Putin. For example, when Russia granted asylum to Edward Snowden in 2013, multiple US politicians used scripted talking points calling Mr. Putin “a schoolyard bully.” That analogy was rather inept, as Russia did not invite Snowden, but rather got stuck with him, as his passport was cancelled while in transit, making it impossible for him to board his flight out of Russia. Putin actually said that as a former intelligence officer himself, he did not view Snowden’s leak of classified information in a positive light.

The problem with demonizing one’s opponent is that it can lead to strategic errors if you make the mistake of believing your own propaganda. If we look at Mr. Putin’s past behavior we see four consistent characteristics.

First, he follows the rules. Whether it is the START treaty, the chemical weapons accord, or the Minsk Agreements, the Putin regime has consistently tried to keep the old treaties alive and to follow agreed upon UN procedures for conflict resolution.

Second, when Mr. Putin has taken steps to oppose the Atlanticist agenda, he has done so in a way that allowed his opponents to save face. When the US was preparing to invade Syria in 2013, Putin persuaded Assad to agree to eliminate his chemical weapon stockpile. This pulled the rug out from under the US invasion, but it did not make the US look bad.

When Russia entered Syria to fight ISIS, they did not publicly expose the fact that the US and Israel were the primary backers of ISIS. Putin went along with the ruse and said, if America is fighting ISIS we will fight ISIS too, and did so legally at the invitation of Syria. Russia’s work allowed Trump to take credit for defeating ISIS, even though it completely ruined eight years of CIA efforts to train and arm those terrorists.

Third, Mr. Putin keeps his word. When he draws a red line, he enforces it. He speaks quietly but it is wise to listen carefully to what he says. We have seen this in the way that Russia dealt with terrorist groups that agreed to deconfliction versus those that did not, as well as the ones that agreed and then went against it.

And, lastly, when all else has failed and the other party crosses the red line anyway, Putin punches fast, hard, and unexpectedly, and often in a different theater than where the provocation has occurred. We saw this when Russia destroyed the oil smuggling network that the US and Turkey had set up in Northeastern Syria. We saw it again when Russia saved Mr. Erdogan from a US-backed coup only thirty minutes before he probably would have been captured.

Joe Biden

Joe Biden loved to tell the story on the campaign trail about his interaction with a black gangster named “Corn Pop” when he was a lifeguard in college. They almost had a fight but Biden brought a chain with him, and they later became friends. The fact that he even tells this tale signals that Biden has no real experience against a serious enemy. Men with street credibility don’t need to tell stories. They are known and respected.

The reality of Biden’s career is that he has played second fiddle to stronger leaders and only appears to have gotten the presidential nomination because it was his turn and he was deemed to be controllable by his handlers. Biden obtained the presidency through a fraud seen so openly that he has one of the lowest presidential approval ratings in history.

Biden and Putin met for the first time alone in 2011 for talks in Russia. According to Mike McCormick, who was Biden’s stenographer, Biden was halfway through his talk when suddenly the microphone, cameras, and lights were turned off and Putin and all of the media walked out leaving Biden humiliated. Something similar happened to Biden in China a few months later.

This is probably what Biden was referring to when he recently said that Putin was “a killer” with “no soul.” That interaction tells us exactly what Putin thinks of Biden. He considers him to be a weakling with no substance.

Biden’s team is stacked with Russophobes who are motivated by the desire to finish what they began in Ukraine under Obama. They believe they can successfully use information war and dirty tricks to isolate Russia from Europe and control all the energy conduits. Whether due to hubris or ignorance, they do not believe Russia would dare to strike back at the real instigator of the war in Ukraine.

Biden’s response to a Russian strike would probably be a plaintive high pitched, “c’mon man!” However, if Kamala Harris is making the decisions the risk of escalating to a nuclear response is much higher. The problem is that both Biden and Harris were picked and installed by a “power behind the throne,” so it is unclear exactly who would be making the decision of how to respond.

The Imminent Danger of the Current Imbroglio

There is no doubt that the US intends to create a war in Ukraine before the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline can be finished. This will happen within months if not weeks. It is also clear that Zelensky is being placed under tremendous pressure to force Russia into defending Donbass.

Russia has drawn a red line around Donbass. Ukraine had agreed to a peaceful resolution through the Minsk Accords. But with US encouragement, Kiev violated everything they agreed to, making it now politically impossible to re-integrate Donbass into Ukraine.

If Zelensky invades Donbass, then not just Ukraine, but the USA and NATO will be viewed by Russia as having crossed an inviolable red line. Yes, Russia will be forced to defend Donbass, because Putin will not allow Russians to be subjected to genocide. Russia does not want to fight Ukrainians, whom despite the jokes, they view as their Russian brothers. They are frustrated and angry that the USA has forced them into this position.

For this reason, I believe that Mr. Putin will do something that the Biden regime is not expecting with similar psychological impact to the sudden turning off of the lights and cameras. He will find a way to inflict debilitating pain on the decision makers who have forced Russia into intervening in Ukraine.

In addition to defending Donbass, Russia may strike the USA in a different theater. But they will do so in a way that cannot be confused with a nuclear attack. Unlike the previous chess moves that allowed the US leadership to save face, this one will neutralize and publicly humiliate the USA and the Biden regime as a paper tiger.

The Narrow Window of Technological Supremacy

While the US was busy invading third world countries as part of the War on Terror, Russia was quietly developing their defense technologies. They have now achieved technological supremacy over the USA in three areas: air and missile defenses, hypersonic missiles, and electronic countermeasures (ECM).

In the area of air defenses the Russian S-400 is an extremely capable platform which the West has very little experience fighting against. Russia has the capability to impose a no fly zone within about 500 kilometers of its S-400 batteries, of which there are several from Crimea to Kaliningrad. Israel’s use of the F-35 to bomb Syria has given the Russians live data on NATO’s most advanced stealth fighter.

The S-500 space defense system is scheduled to enter service in 2021. Since the S-500 can defend against ICBMs it may affect the balance of power of mutual assured destruction (MAD).

The Zircon and Khinzal hypersonic missiles are currently in service and are the most effective anti-ship weapons in the Russian arsenal that we know of. Their standoff range enables strikes on enemy ships from 500 to 2,000 kilometers. This means that Russia has the ability to strike ships in the Mediteranean and North Sea using assets based on Russian soil, not even counting the assets based in Latakia, Syria. NATO forces currently have no defense against hypersonic missiles.

Russian ECM capabilities have been somewhat exaggerated by news stories about the 2014 encounter with the USS Donald Cook. The Donald Cook was allegedly shut down by ECM attack while an SU-24 overflew the vessel. However, more accurate sources noted that any ECM attack, if there even was one, would have been executed using ground-based equipment, not the Su-24 fighter. If this attack really happened, the US Navy has presumably hardened its vessels against ECM in the seven years since.

We do know that Russian ECM systems in Syria were able to disable the vast majority of Tomahawk Missiles fired at Syria in April 2017. Other than aircraft carriers, the primary American method of projecting power is Arleigh-Burke class destroyers such as the USS Donald Cook which carry about 50 Tomahawk missiles each. The 2017 exercise in Syria probably indicates that Russia is able to jam volleys of Tomahawk missiles with better than 90% success. The remaining 10% of the subsonic Tomahawks can be easily shot down by anti-aircraft batteries.

The question is whether the US Navy has found a way to harden the Tomahawk missiles against Russian ECM since 2017. If not, then given the much smaller size and number of missiles that can be carried by Navy attack aircraft, the US Navy’s primary weapon for ground attack has no teeth against Russian targets. Of course in any conflict, the first target of NATO’s “wild weasel” aircraft will be SAM radars and ECM equipment.

Conclusion – Biden has Created Strong Incentives for Russia to Strike First

The US is spending billions to catch up technologically, and the window of Russian supremacy may only last for two or three years at most. Russia can be expected to reach the peak technological advantage over NATO in late 2021 after the S-500 system has been fully deployed. However, the Donbass crisis may force Russia to act sooner than they are comfortable.

If Russia were to use the window of supremacy to attempt a debilitating strike on the US military the US Navy is the most likely target. Ships are the most exposed, are not located inside another country’s borders, and are also the primary means of projecting US power. However, I would not rule out a non-missile attack on DC. For example, there are many ways that the US power grid could be turned off without using missiles. The ensuing domestic chaos might prevent the US from responding.

This is a very dangerous situation for the world because it could easily escalate to World War III or nuclear war, depending on the Biden Administration’s reaction. Part of the problem is that it is not clear who is really in charge of the Whitehouse. A nuclear response to a devastating conventional weapons defeat would be a disaster for both sides.

Russia will only strike the USA if they believe they have no other choice. What they have learned from seven years of sanctions, attempted coups, fake poisonings, and other provocations is that the US will continue this behavior for as long as Russia continues to accept it, or until Russia is broken and conquered. In short, Biden’s team may have finally convinced Russia that they have no other choice.

President Biden has handed Putin the justification for a first strike by openly stating his intention to conduct a cyber attack on Russia “soon.” That is a public declaration of war. The fact that the Russian ambassador was recalled from Washington and has not been sent back should be a wakeup call to America that DC itself is on the potential target list.

For these reasons I believe that there is a high probability that Russia will strike first before NATO can fully put in place the forces for planned exercises for this Summer. The strike will probably be non-nuclear, focused against US forces only, and its purpose will be to delegitimize the US power in the eyes of the junior members of NATO, and to weaken or cripple the US ability to project power.

If China and Iran see Russia strike the US military, it would not be surprising if they also pile on using their own hypersonic missiles to destroy US Navy assets in the Persian Gulf and South China Sea.

The Biden regime’s underestimation of Russia and failure to heed Putin’s warnings have created conditions which make possible a sudden and humiliating defeat of the US Navy, which could effectively end the US ability to project power overseas.

However, wars are rarely short, and victories rarely decisive. For this reason it would be better for all parties to de-escalate the conflict immediately. Unfortunately, the Biden regime is the only one in a position to do that, and they have shown no intention of doing so.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Understanding anti-Putin PSYOPs: Preparing for war

 THE SAKER • MARCH 31, 2021 

Intro: cause vs pretext

It is not an exaggeration to say that in the mythology of the AngloZionist Empire Putin is something akin to Satan or, at least, that he is a kind of “Sauron” who is the epitome of evil. And, we all heard that recently, Biden, in a recorded interview, declared that Putin is “a killer”. When given a chance to soften this statement Jen Psaki did no such thing. We can, therefore, conclude that this was an official, deliberately planned, characterization of the Russian leader.

This kind of language was never used by western officials during the Cold War, at least not on the top levels. So why this seething hatred for Putin?

It is not because he is ex-GPU KGB SSSR. Yuri Andropov was a former KGB Chairman, and he did a lot to strengthen the KGB, its personnel and operations. Yet nobody called him a killer. Neither is this because of Crimea or the Donbass, at least not directly, because when the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia and, before that, Hungary, western politicians did not call Khrushchev or Brezhnev “killers”. It is not because of the shooting down of MH-17 (western leaders all know that these are lies created by western special services), because there have been quite a few civilian airliners shot down by various states, but that did not result in the kind of total demonization of the leaders of these states. I could go on and on, but you get the point: even if we carefully parse all the accusations against Putin, we find out that the kind of total demonization he has been the subject of is quite unique in its intensity and scope.

There is a huge difference between the concepts of “cause” and “pretext”, and all the examples I have given are nothing but pretexts. We need to look at the real causes of such a blind hatred for Putin.

Here we come across another list of possible reasons: first, it is undeniable that while Eltsin almost destroyed Russia as a country, Putin single-handedly “resurrected” Russia in an amazingly short time. From a country which was in tatters and a population which wanted nothing more than to become the next Germany or, failing that, at least the next Poland, Putin turned Russia into the strongest military power on the planet and he completely reshaped the Russian perception of themselves and of Russia. Not only that, but Putin used every single move by the West (like, say, sanctions, boycotts or threats) to further strengthen Russia (by means such as import substitutions, international conferences and military maneuvers). Most importantly, Putin de-coupled Russia from a lot of US controlled institutions or mechanisms, a move which also immensely served Russia.

US politicians spoke of a country with an “economy in tatters” and of a “gas station masquerading as a country”. But in the real world (Zone B), the Russia economy did much better than the western ones and, as for the “energy war” between the US, the KSA and Russia, it ended in a catastrophic defeat for the USA and a triumph for Russia and, to a lesser degree, the KSA.

Then came COVID and the truly epic disaster of the West’s total mismanagement of this crisis. Not only that, but the contrast of how Russia (and China!) handled the crisis and what the West did could not have been bigger. As for Russia being the first country to create a vaccine (by now, no less than three of them actually; now Russia is about to release yet another vaccine, this time protecting animals from COVID) and, worse, the country which created the best vaccine on the planet – this is a PR disaster for the West and there is nothing the West can do to soften the blow. If anything, things are only getting worse as shown by all the coming lockdowns in Europe – contrast that with this photo of happy Lavrov in China wearing a mask with “FCKNG QRNTN” written on it!

But that is not the real reason either, as shown by the fact that the West already hated Putin long before COVID.

The “stolen” Cold War victory

In truth, the West has a very long list of reasons for which to hate Putin and everything Russian, but I believe that there is one reason which trumps them all: the western leaders sincerely believed that they had defeated the USSR in the Cold War (even medals were made to commemorate this event) and following the collapse of the former superpower and the coming to power of a clueless, alcoholic puppet, the triumph of the West was total. At least in appearance. The reality, as always, was much more complicated.

The causes and mechanisms of the collapse of the Soviet Union are not our topic today, so I will just indicate that I believe that the USSR never “collapsed” but that it was deliberately destroyed by the CPSU apparatus which decided to break up the country in order for the Party and Nomenklatura to remain in power, not at the helm of the USSR, but at the helm of the various ex-Soviet republics. Weak leaders and ideologies which nobody really believes in do not inspire people to fight for their rulers. This is why the Russian monarchy collapsed, this is why the masonic democracy of Kerenskii collapsed and this is why the Soviet Union collapsed (this is also one of the most likely reasons for the final collapse of the US as a state).

Putin, who was not very well known in the West or, for that matter, in Russia, came to power and immediately reversed Russia’s course towards the abyss. First, he dealt with the two most urgent threats, the oligarchs and the Wahabi insurrection in the Caucasus. Many Russians, including myself, were absolutely amazed at the speed and determination of his actions. As a result, Putin suddenly found himself one of the most popular leaders in Russian history. Initially, the West went into a kind of shock, then through a process reminiscent of the so-called “Kübler-Ross model” and, finally, the West settled into a russophobic frenzy not seen since the Nazi regime in Germany during WWII.

To understand why Putin is the Devil incarnate, we have to understand that the leaders of the collective West really thought that this time around, after a millennium of failures and embarrassing defeats, the West has finally “defeated” Russia which would now become a leaderless, culture-less, spiritual-less and, of course, history-less territory whose sole purpose would be to provide resources for the “Triumphant West”. Not only that, but the AngloZionist leaders of the Empire executed the 9/11 false flag operation which gave them the pretext needed for the GWOT, but which completely distracted the West from its previous focus on the so-called “Russian threat” simply because by 2001 there was no Russian threat. So there was a certain logic behind these moves. And then, “suddenly” (at least for western leaders) Russia was “back”: in 2013 Russia stopped the planned US/NATO attack on Syria (the pretext here was Syrian chemical weapons). In 2014 Russia gave her support to the Novorussian uprising against the Ukronazi regime in Kiev and, in the same year, Russia also used her military to make it possible for the local population to vote on a referendum to join Russia. Finally, in 2015, Russia stunned the West with an extremely effective military intervention in Syria.

In this sequence, Russia committed two very different types of “crimes” (from the AngloZionist point of view, of course):

• The minor crime of doing what Russia actually did and
• The much bigger crime of never asking the Empire for the permission to do so

The West likes to treat the rest of the planet like some kind of junior partner, with very limited autonomy and almost no real agency (the best example is what the USA did to countries like Poland or Bulgaria). If and when any such “junior” country wants to do something in its foreign policy, it absolutely has to ask for permission from its AngloZionist Big Brother. Not doing so is something akin to sedition and revolt. In the past, many countries were “punished” for daring to have an opinion or, even more so, for daring to act on it.

It would not be inaccurate to summarize it all by saying that Putin flipped his finger to the Empire and its leaders. That “crime of crimes” was what really triggered the current anti-Russian hysteria. Soon, however, the (mostly clueless) leaders of the Empire ran into an extremely frustrating problem: while the russophobic hysteria did get a lot of traction in the West, in Russia it created a very powerful blowback because of a typical Putin “judo” move: far from trying to suppress the anti-Russian propaganda of the West, the Kremlin used its power to make it widely available (in Russian!) through the Russian media (I wrote about this in some detail here and here). The direct result of this was two fold: first, the CIA/MI6 run “opposition” began to be strongly associated with the russophobic enemies of Russia and, second, the Russian general public further rallied around Putin and his unyielding stance. In other words, calling Putin a dictator and, of course, a “new Hitler”, the western PSYOPs gained some limited advantage in the western public opinion, but totally shot itself in the leg with the Russian public.

I refer to this stage as the “phase one anti-Putin strategic PSYOP”. As for the outcome of this PSYOP, I would not only say that it almost completely failed, but I think that it had the exact opposite intended effect inside Russia.

A change of course was urgently needed.

The redirection of US PSYOPs against Putin and Russia

I have to admit that I have a very low opinion of the US intelligence community, including its analysts. But even the rather dull US “Russia area specialist” eventually figured out that telling the Russian public opinion that Putin was a “dictator” or a “killer of dissidents” or a “chemical poisoner of exiles” resulted in a typically Russian mix of laughter and support for the Kremlin. Something had to be done.

So some smart ass somewhere in some basement came up with the following idea: it makes no sense to accuse Putin of things which make him popular at home, so let’s come up with a new list of accusations carefully tailored to the Russian public.

Let’s call this a “phase two anti-Putin PSYOP operation”.

And this is how the “Putin is in cahoots with” thing began. Specifically, these accusations were deployed by the US PSYOPs and those in its pay:

• Putin is disarming Syria
• Putin will sell out the Donbass
• Putin is a puppet of Israel and, specifically, Netanyahu
• Putin is a corrupt traitor to the Russian national interests
• Putin is allowing Israel to bomb Syria (see here)
• Putin is selling the Siberian riches to China and/or Putin is subjugating Russia to China
• Putin is corrupt, weak and even cowardly
• Putin was defeated by Erdogan in the Nagorno-Karabakh war

The above are the main talking points immediately endorsed and executed by the US strategic PSYOPs against Russia.

Was it effective?

Yes, to some degree. For one thing, these “anti-Russian PSYOPS reloaded” were immediately picked up by at least part of what one could call the “internal patriotic opposition” (much of it very sincerely and without any awareness of being skillfully manipulated). Even more toxic was the emergence of a rather loud neo-Communist (or, as Ruslan Ostashko often calls them “emo-Marxist”) movement (I personally refer to as a sixth column) which began an internal anti-Kremlin propaganda campaign centered on the following themes:

• “All is lost” (всепропальщики): that is thesis which says that nothing in Russia is right, everything is either wrong or evil, the country is collapsing, so is its economy, its science, its military, etc. etc. etc. This is just a garden variety of defeatism, nothing more.
• “Nothing was achieved since Putin came to power”: this is a weird one, since it takes an absolutely spectacular amount of mental gymnastics to not see that Putin literally saved Russia from total destruction. This stance also completely fails to explain why Putin is so hated by the Empire (if Putin did everything wrong, like, say Eltsin did, he would be adored in the West, not hated!).
• All the elections in Russia were stolen. Here the 5th (CIA/MI6 run) column and 6th column have to agree: according to both of them, there is absolutely no way most Russians supported Putin for so many years and there is no way they support him now. And nevermind the fact that the vast majority of polls show that Putin was, and still is, the most popular political figure in Russia.

Finally, the big SNAFU with the pension reform definitely did not help Putin’s ratings, so he had to take action: he “softened” some of the worst provisions of this reform and, eventually, he successfully sidelined some of the worst Atlantic Integrationists, including Medvedev himself.

Sadly, some putatively pro-Russian websites, blogs and individuals showed their true face when they jumped on the bandwagon of this 2nd strategic PSYOP campaign, probably with the hope to either become more noticed, or get some funding, or both. Hence, all the nonsense about Russia and Israel working together or Putin “selling out” we have seen so many times recently. The worst thing here is that these websites, blogs and individuals have seriously misled and distressed some of the best real friends of Russia in the West.

None of these guys ever address a very simple question: if Putin is such a sellout, and if all is lost, why does the AngloZionist Empire hate Putin so much? In almost 1000 years of warfare (spiritual, cultural, political, economic and military) against Russia, the leaders of the West have always hated real Russian patriots and they have always loved the (alas, many) traitors to Russia. And now, they hate Putin because he is such a terrible leader?

This makes absolutely no sense.

Conclusion: is a war inevitable now?

The US/NATO don’t engage in strategic PYSOPs just because they like or dislike somebody. The main purpose of such PSYOPs is to break the other side’s will to resist. This was also the main objective of both (phase one and phase two) anti-Putin PSYOPs. I am happy to report that both phases of these PYSOPs failed. The danger here is that these failures have failed to convince the leaders of the Empire of the need to urgently change course and accept the “Russian reality”, even if they don’t like it.

Ever since “Biden” (the “collective Biden”, of course, not the potted plant) Administration (illegally) seized power, what we saw was a sharp escalation of anti-Russian statements. Hence, the latest “uhu, he is a killer” – this was no mistake by a senile mind, this was a carefully prepared declaration. Even worse, the Empire has not limited itself to just words, it also did some important “body moves” to signal its determination to seek even further confrontation with Russia:

• There has been a lot of sabre-rattling coming from the West, mostly some rather ill-advsied (or even outright stupid) military maneuvers near/along the Russian border. As I have explained it a billion times, these maneuvers are self-defeating from a military point of view (the closer to the Russian border, the more dangerous for the western military force). Politically, however, they are extremely provocative and, therefore, dangerous.
• The vast majority of Russian analysts do not believe that the US/NATO will openly attack Russia, if only because that would be suicidal (the current military balance in Europe is strongly in Russia’s favor, even without using hypersonic weapons). What many of them now fear is that “Biden” will unleash the Ukronazi forces against the Donbass, thereby “punishing” both the Ukraine and Russia (the former for its role in the US presidential campaign). I tend to agree with both of these statements.

At the end of the day, the AngloZionist Empire was always racist at its core, and that empire is still racist: for its leaders, the Ukrainian people are just cannon fodder, an irrelevant third rate nation with no agency which has outlived its utility (US analysts do understand that the US plan for the Ukraine has ended in yet another spectacular faceplant such delusional plans always end up with, even if they don’t say so publicly). So why not launch these people into a suicidal war against not only the LDNR but also Russia herself? Sure, Russia will quickly and decisively win the military war, but politically it will be a PR disaster for Russia as the “democratic West” will always blame Russia, even when she clearly did not attack first (as was the case in 08.08.08, most recently).

I have already written about the absolutely disastrous situation of the Ukraine three weeks ago so I won’t repeat it all here, I will just say that since that day things have gotten even much worse: suffice to say that the Ukraine has moved a lot of heavy armor to the line of contact while the regime in Kiev has now banned the import of Russian toilet paper (which tells you what the ruling gang thinks of as important and much needed measures). While it is true that the Ukraine has become a totally failed state since the Neo-Nazi coup, there is now a clear acceleration of the collapse of not only the regime or state, but of the country as a whole. Ukraine is falling apart so fast that one could start an entire website tracking only all this developing horror, not day by day, but, hour by hour. Suffice to say that “Ze” has turned out to be even worse than Poroshenko. The only thing Poroshenko did which “Ze” has not (yet!) is to start a war. Other than that, the rest of what he did (by action or inaction) can only be qualified as “more of the same, only worse”.

Can a war be prevented?

I don’t know. Putin gave the Ukronazis a very stern warning (“grave consequences for Ukraine’s statehood as such“). I don’t believe for one second that anybody in power in Kiev gives a damn about the Ukraine or the Ukrainian statehood, but they are smart enough to realize that a Russian counter-attack in defense of the LDNR and, even more so, Crimea, might include precision “counter-leadership” strikes with advanced missiles. The Ukronazi leaders would be well-advised to realize that they all have a crosshair painted on their heads. They might also think about this: what happened to every single Wahabi gang leader in Chechnya since the end of the 2nd Chechen war? (hint: they were all found and executed). Will that be enough to stop them?

Maybe. Let’s hope so.

But we must now keep in mind that for the foreseeable future there are only two options left for the Ukraine: “a horrible ending or a horror without end” (Russian expression).

1. The best scenario for the people of the Ukraine would be a (hopefully relatively peaceful) breakup of the country into manageable parts.
2. The worst option would definitely be a full-scale war against Russia.

Judging by the rhetoric coming out of Kiev these days, most Ukrainian politicians are firmly behind option #2, especially since that is also the only option acceptable to their overseas masters. The Ukrainians have also adopted a new military doctrine (they call it a “military security strategy of Ukraine”) which declares Russia the aggressor state and military adversary of the Ukraine (see here for a machine translation of the official text).

This might be the reason why Merkel and Macron recently had a videoconference with Putin (“Ze” was not invited): Putin might be trying to convince Merkel and Macron that such a war would be a disaster for Europe. In the meantime, Russia is rapidly reinforcing her forces along the Ukrainian border, including in Crimea.

But all these measures can only deter a regime which has no agency. The outcome shall be decided in Washington DC, not Kiev. I am afraid that the traditional sense of total impunity of US political leaders will, once again, give them a sense of very little risk (for them personally or for the USA) in triggering a war in the Ukraine. The latest news on the US-Ukrainian front is the delivery by the USN of 350 tonnes of military equipment in Odessa. Not enough to be militarily significant, but more than enough to further egg on the regime in Kiev to an attack on the Donbass and/or Crimea.

In fact, I would not even put it past “Biden” to launch an attack on Iran while the world watches the Ukraine and Russia go to war. After all, the other country whose geostrategic position has been severely degraded since Russia moved her forces to Syria is Israel, the one country which all US politicians will serve faithfully and irrespective of any costs (including human costs for the USA). The Israelis have been demanding a war on Iran since at least 2007, and it would be very naive to hope that they won’t eventually get their way. Last, but not least, there is the crisis which Blinken’s condescending chutzpah triggered with China which, so far, has resulted in an economic war only, but which might also escalate at any moment, especially considering all the many recent anti-Chinese provocations by the US Navy.

Right now the weather in the eastern Ukraine is not conducive to offensive military operations. The snow is still melting, creating very difficult and muddy road conditions (called “rasputitsa” in Russian) which greatly inhibit the movement of forces and troops. These conditions will, however, change with the warmer season coming, at which point the Ukronazi forces will be ideally poised for an attack.

In other words, barring some major development, we might be only weeks away from a major war.← Uncle Shmuel Is Truly Brain Dead…

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Kochavi’s threats and claims, what are their background, and what is the path and response? تهديدات كوخافي وادّعاءاته ما خلفيّتها وما المسار والردّ؟

 **Machine translation Please scroll down for the Arabic original **

Kochavi’s threats and claims, what are their background, and what is the path and response?

*University Professor  –    Strategist

Whoever listened to the chief of staff of the Israeli army at the Zionist “Institute for National Security Studies” conference would almost imagine that “Israel” is on the verge of launching a comprehensive open war that would lead to the establishment of an empire for itself on the territory of the Middle East and West Asia after destroying, all its opponents from states, entities and organizations opposed to the Zionist-Western occupation project of the region. Where is this perception and perception of reality?   

Kochavi claims that “Israel” now has full strategic military plans to completely destroy Iran’s nuclear program, which is reminiscent of israel’s destruction of iraq’s July nuclear reactor and an end to Iraq’s nuclear ambitions, despite the fact that it had modest ambitions that did not exceed limited civilian affairs and under foreign supervision that did not allow any development towards the limits of the military threat, yet Israel destroyed the reactor and no one in the world has ever mentioned a lip to the aggression and treated as if Israel was exercising its acquired right to prevent others from developing.

He claimed that “Israel” knows very well the locations, stores and missile silos in Lebanon and Gaza, which are accurate and ordinary, places that he claims are located within the populated places, so “Israel” prepared plans to destroy those bases or warehouses and will not dissuade them from carrying out the destruction of the presence of civilians and killing them no matter what. “It’s not like we’re going to be able to do that,” he said.

Kochavi then brags about what “Israel” is doing publicly in pursuing the Iranian presence and the resistance factions from Iran’s allies in Syria and Iraq, and claims that “Israel” continues with a policy of seeking to eradicate that presence and put an end to its effectiveness against the Israeli colonial project, and that “the strategy of working in the battle between wars “It will continue and will not stop.

What is more strange is Kochavi’s claim that Israel will carry out its tasks without slipping into a large-scale open war and that it will remain in control of the field so that the war will stop after the end of the specific mission in Iran, Lebanon and Gaza as well as Syria and Iraq, a task that will not Israel is alone in its implementation, as it claims, and there is a newly emerging military alliance led by Israel, which is in the middle of it and extends from Greece and Cyprus in the west to the UAE and Bahrain in the east and with them, as stated, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt,etc…

Whoever heard what came in the words of Kochavi almost thought that he heard the words of a superficial amateur who has no experience with military science, military plans and military alliances, as reality belies Kochavi’s contempt and expectations in more than one place, including:

1 The chief of staff of the aggression imagines the keys of the field is in his hand to open his doors of his own volition and close it by his decision, and this he thought of the most naive and foolish, and jumping over reality, “Israel” launches the first shot but the last shot is not in its hands, and it is enough to remind him of the war of 33 days in 2006, where “Israel” persisted in asking for a cease-fire, and brought in the major powers and the Security Council to reach that for nothing except because it was no longer able to continue the war on the security and social levels as well as the military and political, and Kochavi forgets that the Axis of Resistance that he will face is practising on long wars, whether they are Confrontations that lead to resolution or attrition operations, and “Israel” is unable to do both, as it cannot now resolve a war and cannot engage in a war of attrition.

2 The enemy chief of staff claims that only a few dozen civilians in “Israel” will be killed while the enemy’s missiles fall on them, and he forgets that the enemy’s entity in all occupied Palestine is under fire and that there are accurate missiles that can destroy the 25 major strategic objectives and important strategic objectives. The 50’s, destroying it 5 times, and that if it opens its squares, the fire will not stop until it achieves all its destructive goals, as there is no opportunity or room for the enemy to move, especially as he failed miserably to implement the saying “a people working under fire.”

3 As for the so-called alliance, Kochavi seems to have ignored that his Gulf alliance is a weak, weak cartoon alliance, a rapidly cracking glass entity on the one hand and a rapidly combustible entity on the other, but in the West, relying on Cyprus and Greece to fight the resistance is objectively and subjectively misplaced.

4 The hope of “Israel” in America remains to protect it from the reaction of the Resistance and its Axis and its participation in the war against it. Here, objectively, we say that if America were ready for the war promoted by Kochavi, it would have started under the reckless fool Trump, who saw a personal interest in it, but under Biden, the matter is so unlikely that it will not happen. Biden’s strategy in his Middle Eastern relations in general and with The axis of resistance in particular is not based on a “hard power strategy,” as it appears from more than one behaviour, not the last of which is the appointment of Robert Malley as a special American representative to Iran, an appointment that made Iran’s enemies describe it as an unfortunate event on them.

In summary, we say that an enemy army, like any other army, may have multiple plans to address the dangers it expects. This is self-evident at the military level, but we must distinguish between the existence of the plan as a military duty that must be implemented and the effectiveness of the plan and the ability to implement it  and achieve its objectives on the other.

In our opinion, there are a number of facts and concerns that led the Israeli enemy official to launch these positions and to announce these plans and perceptions, both internal and external, some of which can be mentioned as follows:

1 To send a message of reassurance to the interior that “Israel” has become a level of self-strength and alliance reassuring, a force reached as a result of its military effort and political success, which was represented by normalization with some Arab regimes and the ability to forge regional military alliances with it and others for the first time in the history of “Israel.”

2. Withholding the reality of the Israeli army in terms of deteriorating morale, which the Israeli studies confirm that it is at a moral level that does not qualify it to go to war, especially in terms of the forces of land and the weapon of paratroopers, as well as the failure of the Iron Dome and the like to achieve the objectives for which it was established.

3 To send a message to Biden to dissuade him from returning to the Iran nuclear deal, considering that the alternative military solution to address this issue is ready in Israel and awaits understanding, timing and the U.S. green light.

4 Tightening the nerve of the “new – old allies” of the Arab regimes, especially in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who fear that America will review its relationship with them, especially after Biden decided to freeze the supply of weapons to them as a matter of the Yemen war.

5 To humiliate the Axis of Resistance that achieved its strategic victory in Syria and Iraq, and to inform the Axis that “Israel” and those with it are ready to prevent the Axis from investing victory, and that “Israel” are ready to return to the field effectively and decisively to make up for the previous losses.

The axis of resistance, with all its components, is well aware of the size, value, truth, and goals of what Kochavi said, and deals with these positions as should be an objective and intelligent deal, and although he realizes that it is a psychological war and intimidation that is not applicable, it is also working on the guidance of saying that “Israel” is at the end will dig her grave with its grave with its own hand, and it will spark the fire that burns it and end it. No one thinks that what was said by the Iranian military official in response to Kochavi that “Haifa and Tel Aviv will be annihilated if Israel implements something of its threats.”

تهديدات كوخافي وادّعاءاته ما خلفيّتها وما المسار والردّ؟

العميد د. أمين محمد حطيط

*أستاذ جامعي – خبير استراتيجي

مَن استمع إلى كلام رئيس أركان جيش العدو الإسرائيلي في مؤتمر “معهد دراسات الأمن القومي” الصهيوني يكاد يتصوّر بأنّ “إسرائيل” باتت على قاب قوسين أو أدنى من الانطلاق في حرب مفتوحة شاملة تقود الى إقامة امبراطورية لها على مساحة الشرق الأوسط وغربي آسيا بعد أن تدمّر كلّ معارضيها من دول وكيانات وتنظيمات مقاومة للمشروع الصهيونيّ – الغربيّ الاحتلاليّ للمنطقة. فأين موقع هذا التصوّر والظنّ من الحقيقة والواقع؟

يدّعي كوخافي بانّ “إسرائيل” باتت لديها خطط عسكرية استراتيجية كاملة لتدمير البرنامج النووي الإيراني بشكل كامل، يحدوه في هذا القول ما يذكّر بقيام “إسرائيل” بتدمير مفاعل تموز النووي العراقي ووضع حدّ لطموحات العراق النووية رغم أنها كانت طموحات متواضعة لا تتعدّى الشأن المدني المحدود وبإشراف أجنبيّ لا يسمح بأيّ تطوير نحو حدود الخطر العسكري، ومع ذلك دمّرت “إسرائيل” المفاعل ولم ينبس أحد في العالم ببنت شفة استنكاراً للعدوان وتعامل الجميع وكأنّ “إسرائيل” تقوم بممارسة حق مكتسب لها هو منع الآخرين من تطوّر علميّ لا توافق عليه.

وزعم كوخافي بأنّ “إسرائيل” تعلم جيداً مواقع ومخازن ومرابض الصواريخ في لبنان وغزة الدقيقة منها والعادية، وهي أماكن بزعمه تقع ضمن الأماكن الآهلة، ولذلك فإنّ “إسرائيل” أعدّت الخطط لتدمير تلك القواعد او المخازن ولن يثنيها عن تنفيذ عملية التدمير وجود مدنيّين وقتلهم مهما كانت أعدادهم، ثم انه “يمنّ” على هؤلاء بأنه سيعلِمهم قبل ساعات بقرار “إسرائيل” البدء بالقصف التدميريّ ليغادروا المنطقة ويخلوا،الأمر بينه وبين مقاتلي حزب الله في لبنان أو المقاومة الفلسطينية في غزة (لم يقل كوخافي الى أين سيغادر المدنيون خاصة أهل غزة).

ثم يتباهى كوخافي بما تقوم به “إسرائيل” علناً من ملاحقة الوجود الإيراني وفصائل المقاومة من حلفاء إيران في سورية والعراق، ويدّعي انّ “إسرائيل” مستمرّة بسياسة السعي لاجتثاث ذاك الوجود ووضع حدّ لفعاليته ضدّ المشروع الإسرائيلي الاستعماري، وأنّ “استراتيجية العمل بالمعركة ما بين الحروب” سيستمرّ العمل بها ولن تتوقف.

اما الأكثر غرابة في الأمر فهو ادّعاء كوخافي بأنّ “إسرائيل” ستنفذ مهامها دون أن تنزلق الى حرب واسعة مفتوحة وأنها ستبقى مسيطرة على زمام الأمور في الميدان بحيث توقف الحرب بعد أن تنتهي المهمة المحدّدة في كلّ من إيران ولبنان وغزة فضلاً عن سورية والعراق، وهي المهمة التي لن تكون “إسرائيل” وحيدة في تنفيذها كما يدّعي، بل انّ هناك حلفاً عسكرياً ناشئاً حديثاً بقيادة “إسرائيل” التي تتوسّطه ويمتدّ من اليونان وقبرص في الغرب الى الإمارات والبحرين في الشرق ومعهم كما جاء في تخصّصات كوخافي الأردن والسعودية ومصر إلخ…

مَن سمع ما جاء على لسان كوخافي كاد يظنّ بأنه يسمع كلام هاوٍ سطحيّ لا عهد له بالعلم العسكري والخطط العسكرية والأحلاف العسكرية، حيث إنّ الواقع يكذب تخرّصات كوخافي وتوقعاته في أكثر من محلّ نذكر منها:

1 ـ يتصوّر رئيس أركان العدوان مفاتيح الميدان هي بيده يفتح أبوابه بإرادته ويغلقه بقراره، وهذا ظنّ فيه منتهى السذاجة والحمق، والقفز فوق الواقع، فـ “إسرائيل” تطلق الطلقة الأولى لكن الطلقة الأخيرة ليست بيدها، ويكفي أن نذكره بحرب الـ 33 يوماً في العام 2006، حيث استماتت “إسرائيل” مستجدية وقف إطلاق النار وأدخلت القوى الكبرى ومجلس الأمن للوصول الى ذلك لا لشيء إلا لأنها لم تعد قادرة على الاستمرار في الحرب على الصعد الأمنية والاجتماعية فضلاً عن العسكرية والسياسية، وينسى كوخافي انّ محور المقاومة الذي سيواجهه تمرّس على الحروب الطويلة سواء كانت مواجهات تفضي الى حسم او عمليات استنزاف، و”إسرائيل” لا تقدر على الأمرين فهي لا تستطيع الآن أن تحسم حرباً ولا تستطيع ان تنخرط في حرب استنزاف.

2

ـ يدّعي رئيس أركان العدو أنه فقط بضعة عشرات من المدنيين في “إسرائيل” سيُقتلون خلال هطول صواريخ العدو عليهم، وينسى انّ كيان العدو في فلسطين المحتلة كلها بات تحت النار وانّ هناك من الصواريخ الدقيقة ما يمكن من تدمير الأهداف الاستراتيجية الأساسية الكبرى الـ 25 والأهداف الاستراتيجية الهامة الـ 50، تدميرها 5 مرات، وانّ النار إذا فتحت أساطينها لن تتوقف إلا بتحقيق أهدافها التدميريّة كلها حيث لا يبقى للعدو فرصة او مجال لحركة خاصة أنه فشل فشلاً ذريعاً في تطبيق مقولة “شعب يعمل تحت النار”.

3

ـ أما عن الحلف المزعوم، يبدو أنّ كوخافي تجاهل أنه حلف كرتوني واهن ضعيف، ففي الخليج هو كيان زجاجي قابل للتكسير السريع من جهة وكيان سريع الالتهاب قابل للاحتراق السريع من جهة أخرى، اما في الغرب فإنّ التعويل على قبرص واليونان لمحاربة المقاومة ظنّ في غير محله موضوعياً وذاتياً.

4

ـ يبقى أمل “إسرائيل” بأميركا لتحميها من ردّ فعل المقاومة ومحورها وتشاركها في الحرب عليها. وهنا وبشكل موضوعي نقول لو كانت أميركا جاهزة للحرب التي يروّج لها كوخافي لكانت باشرتها في ظلّ الأحمق الأرعن ترامب الذي كان يرى له مصلحة شخصية فيها، أما في ظلّ بايدن فإنّ الأمر مستبعَد الى حدّ القطع بعدم إمكان حدوثه، فاستراتيجية بايدن في علاقاته الشرق أوسطية عامة ومع محور المقاومة خاصة لا تقوم على “استراتيجية القوة الصلبة”، كما يبدو من اكثر من تصرف او سلوك ليس آخرها تعيين روبرت مالي ممثلاً أميركياً خاصاً لدى إيران، التعيين الذي جعل أعداء إيران يصفونه بأنه واقعة شؤم عليهم.

في الخلاصة نقول بأنّ جيش العدو كأيّ جيش قد تكون لديه خطط متعددة لمعالجة الأخطار التي يتوقعها. وهذا أمر بديهي على الصعيد العسكري، ولكن يجب ان نميّز بين وجود الخطة كواجب عسكري لا بدّ من تنفيذه وبين فعالية الخطة والقدرة على تنفيذها وتحقيق أهدافها من جانب آخر، ومع هذا التمييز قد نسلّم بوجود الخطط، ولكن موقفنا من النتائج يختلف، وهنا نقول بأنّ العراضة القوليّة التي جاء بها كوخافي، مقرونة بالأعمال الجوية الاستعراضيّة في الأجواء اللبنانية بما في ذلك إدخال طائرات F35، كلها من قبيل الحرب النفسية او عمليات الضغط لتحقيق مآرب أخرى، فما هي هذه الأهداف التي يرمي اليها رئيس أركان العدوان؟

برأينا إنّ هناك جملة من وقائع ومخاوف حملت مسؤول العدو الإسرائيلي على إطلاق هذه المواقف والإعلان عن هذه الخطط والتصوّرات منها الداخلي ومنها الخارجي ويمكن ذكر بعضها كالتالي:

1

ـ توجيه رسالة طمأنة للداخل بأنّ “إسرائيل” باتت في مستوى من القوة الذاتية والتحالفية مطمئن وهي قوة وصلت اليها نتيجة جهدها العسكري ونجاحها السياسي الذي تمثل بالتطبيع مع بعض الأنظمة العربية والقدرة على صياغة تحالفات إقليمية عسكرية معها ومع غيرها لأول مرة في تاريخ “إسرائيل”.

2

ـ حجب حقيقة الجيش الإسرائيلي من حيث المعنويات المتردّية والتي تؤكد الدارسات الإسرائيلية بأنه في مستوى معنوي لا يؤهّله لخوض حرب، خاصة على صعيد قوى البرّ وسلاح المظليين فضلاً عن فشل القبة الحديدية وما شابهها في تحقيق الأهداف التي من أجلها أنشئت.

3

ـ توجيه رسالة الى بايدن لثنيه عن العودة الى الاتفاق النووي الإيراني، باعتبار انّ الحلّ العسكري البديل لمعالجة هذا الأمر جاهز في “إسرائيل” وينتظر التفاهم والتوقيت والضوء الأخضر الأميركي.

4

ـ شدّ عصب منظومة “الحلفاء الجدد – القدامى” من الأنظمة العربية خاصة في السعودية والإمارات الذين يخشون من مراجعة أميركا للعلاقة معهم خاصة بعد أن قرّر بايدن تجميد تزويدهم بالأسلحة من باب حرب اليمن.

5

ـ التهويل على محور المقاومة الذي حقق انتصاره الاستراتيجي في سورية والعراق، وإعلامه بأنّ “إسرائيل” ومن معها جاهزون لمنعه من استثمار الانتصار، وأنهم جاهزون للعودة للميدان بشكل فاعل وحاسم لتعويض الخسائر السابقة.

انّ محور المقاومة بكلّ مكوّناته يدرك جيداً حجم وقيمة وحقيقة وأهداف ما جاء على لسان كوخافي ويتعامل مع هذه المواقف كما يتوجب ان يكون التعامل الموضوعي الفطن، ورغم انه يدرك أنها حرب نفسية وتهويل غير قابل للتطبيق فإنه يعمل أيضاً على هدي القول بانّ “إسرائيل” في نهاية المطاف ستحفر قبرها بيدها وستقتدح النار التي تحرقها وتنهيها ولا يظنّن أحد أنّ ما جاء على لسان المسؤول العسكري الإيراني رداً على كوخافي بأنّ “حيفا وتل أبيب ستبادان إنْ نفّذت إسرائيل شيئاً من تهديداتها”.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Putin Expels the Families

November 19, 2020

by The Ister for The Saker Blog

The 1990s was a time of immense suffering for the Russian people. As the impending collapse of the USSR became discernable, insiders such as Nikolai Kruchina, Viktor Geraschenko, and Leonid Veselovsky created a planning group to ensure the continued influence of Soviet-era officials by transferring Russian state assets to offshore shell companies and thus stripping the country’s wealth. One such offshore company, FIMACO, was used to pilfer an estimated $50 billion from the nation. Viktor Gerashchenko, the head of the central bank of Russia, sent a memorandum demanding transfers from FIMACO be covered up. It was through this looting that liquid capital was generated and used by future oligarchs to build their fortunes. An early beneficiary of this arrangement was Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who had started his career as a minor Soviet official and whose Yukos oil conglomerate was tied to FIMACO. In return for his help Viktor Gerashchenko was later given a position as the chairman of Yukos by Khodorkovsky.

In 1991 the Soviet Union finally collapsed. That August, state treasurer Nikolai Kruchina, responsible for Russia’s gold reserves, died by falling from his window. He had been a member of the planning group which originated the plot to steal state assets. His successor Georgy Pavlov fell to his death from a window two months later: the oligarchs were cleaning house.

In September, the Russian central bank announced the Kremlin’s gold reserves had inexplicably dropped from the estimated 1000-1500 tons to a mere 240 tons. Two months later, Victor Gerashchenko announced Russia’s gold reserves had actually entirely vanished. While the Russian public was horrified at the revelation, European bankers were less surprised. It was whispered frequently among those circles that Soviet transport planes had been flying to and from Switzerland for months and selling off large amounts of gold. Boris Yeltsin announced his plans to privatize the nation’s assets and the real looting began.

During the privatization period, international capital wasted no time in opportunistically swooping in to take over Russian industries. The Clinton administration sought to redesign the economic policies of the nascent Russian Federation according to the Washington Consensus: privatization, deregulation, austerity, and the opening up of Russia’s companies to purchase by ultra-wealthy Americans. They gave the role of economic planning in Russia to the Harvard Institute for International Development, which sent Harvard economists to meet with Anatoly Chubais, Boris Yeltsin’s head of privatization. The close relationship with Anatoly Chubais allowed a select group of American investors to be on an inside track of financial dealings in the new Russia. One Harvard grad involved in this scheme was Jonathan Hay, convicted inside trader. He became senior advisor to the GKI, Russia’s new state privatization committee.

Certain members of this network, which included Harvard graduates Hay, Jeffrey Sachs, Andrei Shleifer, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, David Lipton, and others, misused funds from USAID that were intended for Russian economic development and rigged deals for privatization to gain control of key Russian industries in backroom negotiations. In one 1995 off market deal, Anatoly Chubais created a closed bidding process for prime national properties in which the only approved bidders were Harvard Management Company and George Soros. This resulted in the acquisition of major stakes in Sidanko Oil, Novolipetsk Steel, and Sviazinvest.

Foreign investors flocked in and the level of greed among this fifth column of new Muscovites was truly astonishing. The 1999 RICO suit Avisma Titano Magnes v. Dart Management is particularly enlightening. RICO allows victims of a racketeering conspiracy to sue conspirators for damages caused by their illegal conduct, and the following defendants were named in the action:

Kenneth Dart; Dart Management Inc, address unknown
Jonathan Hay; Dart Management Inc, address unknown
Michael Haywood; Dart Management Inc, address unknown
Michael Hunter; Dart Management Inc
Francis E. Baker; Andersen Group Inc
William Browder, Hermitage Fund
Barclays Bank, PLC

The complaint document alleges the following: the defendants and a cooperating bank called Bank Menatep, owned by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, had a controlling interest in titanium producer Avisma. They forced Avisma to sell its titanium below market price to offshore companies which they secretly controlled. Next, these offshore companies sold the titanium at a correct price on international markets for profit, which was then funneled back from the offshore companies to the defendants and Bank Menatep. Money that should have been booked as profits for Avisma was siphoned away, and the majority shareholders who were in on the scam benefitted at the expense of minority shareholders, the company, and Russian tax authorities.

Defendant Francis E. Baker described the actions in a private letter as, “An immense Russian bank money laundering scheme, clearly a criminal matter.” According to the complaint, the actions were discovered when defendants attempted to swap Avisma shares for shares of mining company VSMPO and replicate the same scam at VSMPO. Baker and other defendants later excused their actions by claiming the suit was Russian targeting. Sound familiar?

The criminality was not limited to foreign speculators. During the early period of privatization in the 90s a secret society of seven Russian oligarchs entirely controlled Boris Yeltsin’s administration. This group called itself Semibankirschina, named after the Seven Boyars who controlled Russia during the 17th century. The secret society included the following oligarchs: Boris Berezovsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven, Vladimir Gusinsky, Vladimir Potanin, and Alexander Smolensky.

A Russian journalist named Andrey Fadin described their overwhelming power in an article, “they control the access to budget money and basically all investment opportunities inside the country. They own the gigantic information resource of the major TV channels. They form the President’s opinion. Those who didn’t want to walk along them were either strangled or left the circle.” Less than one year after publishing the article Andrey Fadin was killed. Through their front man Anatoly Chubais, Semibankirschina used control of television networks to prop up Boris Yeltsin’s low approval ratings. From the mid-90s to 1999 this clique had total authority over Russian policies and industries, judiciously using violence to enforce its monopoly. In one case Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his underling Leonid Nevzlin carried out the murder of the mayor Vladimir Petukhov, who was pursuing Yukos Oil Company’s evasion of taxes.

In late 1999, Vladimir Putin became president of Russia and the fortunes of these self-appointed rulers rapidly turned for the worse. A new group of Putin insiders such as Gennady Timchenko, Vladimir Yakunin, and Sergey Chemezov formed and began supplanting the previous access that the Semibankirschina had to the president. In 2001, a state takeover of media seized the television networks previously owned by oligarchs Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky, and Badri Patarkatsishvili, prompting Patarkatsishvili to denounce Russia to the New York Times and flee the country. While exiled in the UK, Patarkatsishvili died suspiciously at the age of 48. The Georgian government has called his death an assassination. Boris Berezovsky also died suspiciously in the UK after having sold his Russian assets and denounced Putin. After his television networks were seized, Vladimir Gusinsky was criminally charged with money laundering and forced to flee the country as well.

The sweep continued as three other allies of the Semibankirschina were killed: Nikolai Glushkov, Alexander Litvinenko, and Boris Nemtsov. Bill Browder was deported in 2005, and later convicted in absentia for fraud. Fraudster Konstantin Ponomarev was also convicted, sentenced to 8 years in prison for crimes relating to his extortion of $1 billion from IKEA. Jamison Firestone, an associate of Ponomarev and Browder, was forced to flee Russia due to his involvement in the Magnitsky case, and his associate Alexander Peripilichny mysteriously died while jogging near London. George Soros was banned from Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.

Once the richest man in the country, Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s fortunes turned for the worse as well. In the early 2000s, Putin pushed through a number of populist reforms for criminal, tax, and land law, which the oligarchs of the 90s had strongly opposed. As the most blatantly criminal member of the original Semibankirschina, Khodorkovsky’s Bank Menatep had been founded with funds stolen as part of the looting of state assets. The bank operated as a hub of money laundering and engaged in countless financial scams, even delaying government funds to Chernobyl victims while using their money to financially speculate. It was Bank Menatep through which American fraudsters had allegedly ripped off Avisma shareholders with the titanium dumping scam.

In 2003, Khodorkovsky was criminally prosecuted by Putin for tax evasion and fraud for which he ended up serving 10 years in prison. His protege Leonid Nevzlin was convicted of ordering multiple contract murders on Khodorkovsky’s behalf, and sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia. Associate Platon Lebedev was also convicted and imprisoned. This wave of prosecution sent a message and gave Putin a strong position, which was used to negotiate a “grand bargain” with the remaining oligarchs: they retained most of their existing assets in return for alignment with Putin’s vertical rule of Russia. The era of financial gangsterism from the 1990s was over.

Stolen Russian gold reserves have now been restored and are at the highest levels in history. Because of the lack of collaboration with other central banks it is certain that Russian gold is present in Moscow’s vaults: there are none of the surreptitious leasing or swap agreements which call into question the claimed size of Western bank holdings. So instead of buying US treasuries or dollars for its reserves, the Bank of Russia can demand physical gold delivery into Moscow vaults. This will continually strain the fraudulent COMEX and London Bullion Market systems with the pressure of physical shipments and threaten the dollar. Unlike China, Russia is in the position to attack the dollar as a net commodity exporter, meaning when its gold purchases bid up the price of metals it is simply increasing the receipts of its own domestic commodity producing companies like Norilsk Nickel and VSMPO-AVISMA.

The economic crisis of 1998 has heavily influenced the Kremlin’s financial policy, and the last twenty years have been spent creating a resilient system. One of Putin’s first agenda items was to pay off all debt to the IMF and holdover loans from the Soviet era. Russia is now positioned to attack the dollar, as the only powerful state not operating on a debt-based system. A decade of economic warfare in the form of sanctions has cut off access to international capital: the result is one of the lowest levels of external debt of any country in the world, with cash reserves large enough to pay off all debt at once. These low debt levels have tangible benefits, primarily that Russia is now able to withstand large economic fluctuations without crumbling as a result of internal defaults. By comparison, the financial system of America would disintegrate if it attempted to sustain the decline in GDP Russia incurred from 2013-2016.

The Bank of Russia actively enforces stringent lending standards in order to prevent the emergence of consumer credit bubbles, and forces banks to hold extra cash on their balance sheets (as a result, most applications for personal credit are declined). So sanctions have actually made the country stronger, as hubris of the McCain class of American politicians has created a competitor state with no stake in the survival of the existing debt-based financial order. Russia’s mission to create resiliency and restore sovereignty foreshadows a tumultuous future, while America bets everything that the world will remain the same. The concerted plot to loot Russia has been foiled.

In December of 1999, Edmond Safra was murdered at his fabulous mansion, the Villa Leopolda in Monaco. The Safras are one of the oldest and most secretive of the banking families, with a fortune dating back to the gold trading caravans of the Ottoman Empire. Coincidentally, Safra means yellow, or gold, in Arabic. It was Edmond Safra who served as Bill Browder’s mentor in Russia, providing him with an initial seed funding of $25 million to start his Hermitage Fund. When Browder needed protection during a business dispute with an oligarch, Safra sent his emissary four armored vehicles and fifteen bodyguards led by a former Mossad agent. While Edmond Safra spent much of his later life defending himself from drug trafficking and money laundering allegations, he was accomplished, nonetheless. He founded his first bank at 23 years old and had dreamed of creating a banking dynasty that would last 10,000 years.

Just after Putin’s takeover as president, Villa Leopolda was broken into. Safra’s nurse, a former Green Beret named Ted Maher, was stabbed by two masked intruders who entered the premises, after which Safra was killed. Under pressure from Monacan authorities, Ted Maher was forced to sign a nonsensical confession in which he claimed that he stabbed himself and admitted to setting the fire in order to attempt to gain his employer’s adoration. He has since recanted this confession, saying that his defense attorneys coerced him into signing and threatened he would never see his family again otherwise. Jean-Christophe Hullin, the chief judge in the case, revealed in 2007 that the guilty conviction was a predetermined outcome which had been planned in a secret meeting with himself, Maher’s attorneys, and the chief prosecutor of Monaco: in short, Ted Maher was a fall guy for the real murderers of Edmond Safra. Now free, he believes Safra was ordered killed by Putin, “in retaliation for a plot orchestrated by Safra and Russian oligarchs to take control of all of Russia’s assets.”

It was during the purge of oligarchs and vulture capitalists that the true power behind Mikhail Khodorkovsky emerged. When it became likely he would be arrested, he arranged to have all his shares from the Yukos Oil Company transferred to the ownership of Jacob Rothschild. The transfer took place in November of 2003, giving Lord Rothschild control of shares estimated by the Sunday Times to be worth $13.5 billion. Putin subsequently liquidated and nationalized Yukos by seizing and selling off its shares to state oil companies at much below market value.

So Putin has declared war on the most powerful people on the planet.

The Ister is a researcher of financial markets and geopolitics. Author of The Ister: Escape America

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