Putin’s and Trumps repressive place in history

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Putin tells Russians Ukraine linked to attack on Moscow concert hall without evidence – video

https://apple.news/Ary3C0-qTRo-mbVCj2p9g0Q

Putin, in his first public comments on the event that shocked the nation, made no mention of Islamic State’s claim to have carried out the attack.

[mccoy]

Putin looks more and more like a fictional character rather than a real person in the real world.

Problem is that many Russians seem to trust him....

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Putin looks more and more like a fictional character rather than a real person in the real world.

Problem is that many Russians seem to trust him....

God created him also. This is the problem;  he has chosen darkness and cruelty over light and kindness. We are taught by the Masters to rise above these dualities. But the method is to embrace the light, the way of service and kindness to all nations and people; not just our own and ourselves.

We may not be Masters or saints, but we do need to differentiate between good and evil. This is part of learning discrimination. An important element of spiritual development and practice.

[Jitendra Hydonus]

WASHINGTON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - The United States on Friday released a U.S. intelligence assessment sent to more than 100 countries that found Moscow is using spies, social media and Russian state-run media to erode public faith in the integrity of democratic elections worldwide.

The assessment was sent in a State Department cable dated Wednesday to more than 100 U.S. embassies in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa for distribution to their host governments, he said.
Washington was privately briefing recipient governments and shared the assessment "to get ahead of elections that are over the horizon over the next year," the official said.
The report represents Washington's latest move to combat what it says are Moscow's efforts "to sow instability" in democratic countries by portraying elections as "dysfunctional, and resulting governments as illegitimate."


Washington "recognizes its own vulnerability to this threat," said the report, noting that U.S. intelligence agencies found that "Russian actors spread and amplified information to undermine public confidence in the U.S. 2020 election."
U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in 2020 beat his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, who refuses to accept the results, falsely claiming that he lost due to fraud.


US intelligence report alleging Russia election interference shared with 100 countries.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-intelligence-report-alleging-russia-election-interference-shared-with-100-2023-10-20/

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko undermined his key ally Vladimir Putin when he said that the men who allegedly opened fire on the Crocus City Hall music venue in Moscow last week, killing at least 139 people, initially attempted to flee to Belarus, not Ukraine—contradicting the Kremlin line.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based think tank, said in its latest analysis of the conflict in Ukraine on Tuesday that Lukashenko's suggestion that the attackers were heading towards Belarus before Belarusian and Russian special services forced them to change direction "flatly contradicts Russian President Vladimir Putin's claims regarding the attackers' planned escape."

"Putin addressed the Russian Federation on March 23 following the March 22 Crocus City Hall terror attack and claimed that the attackers had 'contacts' who had prepared a 'window' for their exfiltration across the border into Ukraine, a claim for which there is no evidence that has become central to the Kremlin's baseless accusations that Ukraine was involved in or responsible for the attack," the think tank said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-s-key-ally-undermines-him-over-moscow-massacre/ar-BB1kCIgR

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Putin miscalculated on Finland’s border

“We generally had ideal relations with Finland. Simply perfect. We did not have a single claim against each other, especially territorial, not to mention other areas. We didn’t even have troops; we removed all the troops from there, from the Russian-Finnish border,” Putin complained in an interview with the RIA state news agency last month. Even so, Finland joined NATO. “That’s what they decided. But we didn’t have troops there, now we will,” he added.

Putin’s complaint was much like that of a bully or abusive partner claiming everything was fine until the other person went to the police or moved out. Indeed, one wonders whether the Kremlin’s top occupants have ever considered the effect their words and actions have on other countries, as it was, of course, Russia’s belligerence that prompted Finland to apply for NATO membership.
But the problem with constantly menacing others is that it requires considerable resources. If Russia wants to intimidate Finland by announcing it’ll avenge the country’s NATO accession with troops on the border, it needs to have plenty of troops at its disposal. And Russia simply doesn’t.

“The Russians won’t have the resources to build infrastructure, produce new heavy weaponry and recruit considerable numbers of forces to our border before the 2030s,” retired Major General Pekka Toveri, a former chief of Finnish military intelligence and recently elected member of the Finnish parliament, told me.

Politico

https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-russia-miscalculated-on-finland-border/

[mccoy]

True enough, states like Poland and the Baltic nations are said to be afraid to be the next target of a Russian invasion but to evaluate facts objectively, Russia's troops are still at an impasse, having conquered only part of the Donbas territory. The Ukrainians have fewer men and resources, they made some strategic errors, nevertheless, Russia has been at a standstill for months.

But, even if it is clear that Russia would not presently be able to invade other countries beyond Ukraine, the war has leveraged the fear of surrounding countries, acting like a powerful boomerang.

From a strategic and geopolitical point of view, Putin's decision has been a colossal fiasco, which he is trying to sell as a huge success and inevitable act of defense.

As already discussed in other threads, his figure is very similar to some dystopic figures of dictators I read in fiction books.

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Why we should never stop supporting the fight against an extremely brutal man;

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-20/polar-wolf-penal-colony-alexei-navalny-inside-russia-prison/103483894

https://youtu.be/q-SwIe1qi00?si=hvo3r80qEirgMCZG

Do everything we can to help stop such brutality!

I think it’s important to humanity that we continue to help others be aware of the cruelty this man has caused to many people, so we can stop his bullying others and taking freedom away from our family around the world.

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Russia is waging a war against religious freedom in Ukraine

[Jitendra Hydonus]

“Providing lethal aid to Ukraine right now is critically important.  I really do believe the intel in the briefings that we’ve gotten. I believe Xi (Jinping) and Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil. I think they’re in coordination on this. I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed,” Johnson said.

Mike Johnson; speaker of the house

[mccoy]

I just heard the news that the congress has approved a conspicuous sum to aid Ukraine, well done, the Russian superpower is not exhibiting great military prowess now and some help may leverage the stand in favour of Ukraine.

[Jitendra Hydonus]

I just heard the news that the congress has approved a conspicuous sum to aid Ukraine, well done, the Russian superpower is not exhibiting great military prowess now and some help may leverage the stand in favour of Ukraine.

Just gobbling up a little land is never enough for a Napoleon, a Hitler, a Putin. The taste of conquer and the submission; power over others becomes insatiable. It becomes an addiction. When someone has no real spiritual aspiration, no true and visible purpose to express in humble submission to the divine; their souls desire for omnipotence becomes directed instead at materialism and world domination; dominion and supremacy over others, with brutality rearing its ugly head. Instead of conquering the ego, the life desire becomes absorbed in conquest and making God out of one self, and the loss of channeling divine forces that include the expansion and happiness of others as well.

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Vladimir Putin's alleged use of a "horrendous" chemical weapon in Ukraine should serve as a wake-up call for NATO to provide additional defenses to Kyiv, according to Colonel Hamish Stephen de Bretton-Gordon OBE, a chemical weapons expert. He told the Daily Express US that reports of Russia using chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces represent another "war crime" to add to Putin's list.

Irish Star

[Jitendra Hydonus]

The new Russia is glorifying Stalin and rewriting history to whitewash Soviet crimes. Some people who had close contact with Putin in his early years as president described his fervent mission to rebuild Russia as a superpower and his admiration not only for imperial czars but also for the Soviet dictator and wartime leader Joseph Stalin, who engineered the Great Terror, the purges of the mid-to-late 1930s, sent millions to the gulag system of prisons and forced labor camps, and had about 800,000 people executed for political reasons. At least 95 of the 110 Stalin monuments in Russia were erected during Putin’s time as leader.

https://apple.news/A51eogAVfSpWeyJrXSmnByg


We reported for months on changes sweeping Russia. Here’s what we found.

~ Washington Post

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Burning Skin, Teary Eyes: Ukraine’s Troops Say Russia Is Using a Banned Toxic Gas
Ukrainian forces describe the physical effects of gas they say Moscow’s troops are using to oust them from their positions

Wall Street Journal