21 April 2021 — Moon of Alabama
“Nice sidekick, Shere Khan. A hyena who laughs at his own bad jokes.”
― Bagheera to Shere Khan about Tabaqui
Today Russia’s President Vladimir Putin made his annual Address to the Federal Assembly (English transcript).
Most of his talk was about domestic and economic issues. At the end he made some remarks towards international developments and other governments.
20 April 2021 — Moon of Alabama
Thanks to a monoculture of anti-Russia hawks in U.S. policy institutions relations between the U.S. and Russia are likely to further decline. But some hope might be seen at the horizon.
Scott Ritter predicts the end of a generation of anti-Russian influencers in Washington DC who depict Russia and is policies as being run by just one man:
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20 March2021 — Moon of Alabama
The ‘western’ media reporting of the spat between Biden and Putin is typically bad.
The Guardian @guardian – 18:15 UTC · Mar 18, 2021
‘Takes one to know one’: Putin-Biden spat escalates over ‘killer’ accusation
That was not what Putin had said:
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1 March 2021 — Global Research
By Pepe Escobar
This past Wednesday, at a very important meeting with the FSB board, President Putin laid it all out in stark terms:
We are up against the so-called policy of containing Russia. This is not about competition, which is a natural thing for international relations. This is about a consistent and quite aggressive policy aimed at disrupting our development, slowing it down, creating problems along the outer perimeter, triggering domestic instability, undermining the values that unite Russian society, and ultimately to weaken Russia and put it under external control, just the way we are witnessing it transpire in some countries in the post-Soviet space.
17 February, 2021 — Asia Times
Last week we traced the necessary historical and geopolitical steps to understand Why Russia is driving the West crazy.And then, last Friday, right before the start of the Year of the Metal Ox, came the bombshell, delivered with customary aplomb by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
2 November 2020 — National Security Archive
Clinton Library declassifications plus Archive lawsuit open verbatim Clinton-Putin and Clinton-Yeltsin conversations
U.S. emphasis on importance of transfer of power by ballot box gives way to merely endorsing peaceful transition as Yeltsin resigns and anoints Putin in 1999
22 September 2020 — Indian Punchline
By M.K. Bhadrakumar
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) signed the statements on the “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era” and on “strengthening contemporary global strategic stability”, Moscow, June 5, 2019
The first part of the three-part essay is here. The second part is here.
The disintegration of the former Soviet Union in 1991 was a geopolitical disaster for Russia. But the watershed event, paradoxically, prompted Moscow and Beijing, erstwhile adversaries, to draw closer together, as they watched with disbelief the United States’ triumphalist narrative of the end of the Cold War, overturning the order they both had regarded, despite all their mutual differences and disputes, as crucial for their national status and identities.
18 August 2020 — Indian Punchline
M.K. Bhadrakumar
Opposition protests in Minsk, Belarus, Aug 16, 2020
The mercurial Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has not been an easy ally for the Kremlin. But the growing interference by Belarus’ “New European” neighbours is setting the stage for a “colour revolution” with potentially anti-Russian orientation. Poland, egged on by the US, has convinced itself that it has become a regional heavyweight and eyes Belarus as a valuable piece of real estate that could shift the military balance on Russia’s western borders.
14 July 2020 — Indian Punchline
M.K. Bhadrakumar
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center, Jerusalem, January 23, 2020, to mark 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz
Moscow has a way of signalling to the White House on critical issues from time to time through public statements calibrated to catch President Trump’s attention. It happens usually on Sundays such as on July 11 when the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov transmitted a complicated signal which pointedly called attention to the growing despondency in Moscow that the Russian-American relationship lies in tatters.
6 March 2020 — Asia Times
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan makes a speech on November 9 last year on the 81st anniversary of the death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Republic of Turkey. Photo: AFP / PhotMurat Kula / Anadolu Agency
At the start of their discussion marathon in Moscow on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with arguably the most extraordinary diplomatic gambit of the young 21st century.
5 March 2020 — Moon of Alabama
Our last post on Syria concluded:
Erdogan wants Idleb but neither Syria nor Iran nor Russia will let him have it. President Putin will meet Erdogan during the coming days and will make sure that the point is understood.
President Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and President Vladimir Putin of Russia met today in Moscow. They had a 160 minute long talk under 4 eyes and another round with their relevant staff. The parties agreed on a new ceasefire in Idleb governorate.
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23 January 2020 — Strategic Culture Foundation
Anyone looking with sober eyes upon today’s world and the feeble economic and geopolitical underpinnings holding the system together must accept the fact that a new system WILL be created.
