Weak OSCE observers in Ukraine only in action during banking hours - without binoculars!

The Putin sponsored war against Ukraine goes on uninterrupted, while the OSCE cease-fire observers - nicknamed the "deaf, dumb and blind" by locals - limit their weak presence to banking hours:

AVDIIVKA, Ukraine — As the afternoon shadows grow long, nocturnal creatures begin to stir. A stray cat rises from a nap, stretches and trots off to hunt. Overhead, swallows swoop and screech in the deepening twilight.

Soon, the human inhabitants of this town in eastern Ukraine set about their evening rituals.

Green-clad soldiers strap on their helmets and load their guns, while white-clad European cease-fire observers pocket their notebooks, climb into their cars and drive away. And then the fighting starts.

This improbable routine between soldiers and monitors with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe plays out nightly, illustrating the glum quagmire of the Ukraine war, now entering its third year.

“I never see them here at night,” said Tatyana Petrova, whose apartment looks over a parking lot that is a frequent listening post for the monitors. “In the evening, I look out and they are gone, and then the concert starts.”

--
“We call them deaf, dumb and blind,” said the Ukrainian military nurse who ordered the observers out of her field hospital. She offered only her nickname, Romashka, a typical practice for soldiers here. “They know nothing. They see nothing. They are too soft.”

On a recent afternoon in Avdiivka, whose prewar population of 35,000 people has decreased by about half, monitors wrapped up at the close of business at 5 p.m., as usual. By and large confined to their hotels after dark, monitors say they pass the time watching television, surfing the internet or chatting with colleagues. They can listen for violations from inside the hotels.

The Russians even have forbidden the "deaf, dumb and blind" to use binoculars! :

Emblematic of the group’s weak hand, one key mission of observers stationed at two crossing posts on the Russian-Ukrainian border has conceded to Russian pressure not to use binoculars, lest the observers observe too much.

Read the entire New York Times article here.

Putin´s Russia should be banned from all international sports events

Russia under Putin should be banned from all international sport events after this:

Dozens of Russian athletes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, including at least 15 medal winners, were part of a state-run doping program, meticulously planned for years to ensure dominance at the Games, according to the director of the country’s antidoping laboratory at the time.

The director, Grigory Rodchenkov, who ran the laboratory that handled testing for thousands of Olympians, said he developed a three-drug cocktail of banned substances that he mixed with liquor and provided to dozens of Russian athletes, helping to facilitate one of the most elaborate — and successful — doping ploys in sports history.

It involved some of Russia’s biggest stars of the Games, including 14 members of its cross-country ski team and two veteran bobsledders who won two golds.

In a dark-of-night operation, Russian antidoping experts and members of the intelligence service surreptitiously replaced urine samples tainted by performance-enhancing drugs with clean urine collected months earlier, somehow breaking into the supposedly tamper-proof bottles that are the standard at international competitions, Dr. Rodchenkov said. For hours each night, they worked in a shadow laboratory lit by a single lamp, passing bottles of urine through a hand-size hole in the wall, to be ready for testing the next day, he said.

By the end of the Games, Dr. Rodchenkov estimated, as many as 100 dirty urine samples were expunged.

None of the athletes were caught doping. More important, Russia won the most medals of the Games, easily surpassing its main rival, the United States, and undermining the integrity of one of the world’s most prestigious sporting events.

“People are celebrating Olympic champion winners, but we are sitting crazy and replacing their urine,” Dr. Rodchenkov said. “Can you imagine how Olympic sport is organized?” 

Corruption pervades everything in Putin´s kleptocracy. This rotten mafia state does not deserve to be part of any civilized international co-operation. That´s why Russia should be banned from the Rio Olympic games. And, of course, FIFA (with its own corruption problems) should not allow Russia to host the football World Cup.

Panama Papers: Putin and his friends

An excellent video about the world´s richest and most corrupt political leader and his friends:

It’s inconceivable, though, that the network could have existed without the knowledge and support of Putin, said Karen Dawisha, a U.S. political scientist who has written extensively about Putin and his regime.
“He takes what he wants,” said Dawisha. “When you are the president of Russia you don’t need a written contract. You are the law.”

Here you can read more.

Putin inspects his future escape car

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has inspected the vehicles at his disposal when he - at some stage, hopefully in the not too distant future - is driven out of the country he has terrorized for far too long now.

Not much room in the well protected vehicles, but the KGB FSB interior decorators have at least made certain that Putin´s extravagant $700,000 watch collection fits in ...

Two excellent articles about Putin´s Russia

Two must read articles focusing on the reality in Putin´s Russia. Here are two excerpts:

In general, an autocratic regime’s foremost concern is its own survival, and, when economic circumstances threaten its existence or even its legitimacy, the regime must pursue policies that either cure the problem or distract from it.
Rather than embrace the cure of structural economic reform and market liberalization, Putin has consistently opposed such measures, a decision rooted in his preference to keep himself and other Russian kleptocrats wealthy and in power at the expense of the Russian people. Opting for the second option taught in Autocratic Regimes 101, Putin has chosen to disguise widespread economic malaise at home by engaging in adventurism abroad, all in the name of demagogic nationalism and the “rescue” of “repressed” Russian minorities in neighboring ex-satellite states. Irrespective of the actual outcomes of such a foreign policy—which, as I would argue, is really a domestic policy—Putin’s state media will continue to craft an image of Russian triumph and adversarial acquiescence.

Read the entire article here

The leaders of the United States and the European Union are making a grievous error in thinking that President Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a potential ally in the fight against the Islamic State. The evidence contradicts them. Putin’s current aim is to foster the EU’s disintegration, and the best way to do so is to flood the EU with Syrian refugees.

Russian planes have been bombing the civilian population in southern Syria forcing them to flee to Jordan and Lebanon. There are now 20,000 Syrian refugees camped out in the desert awaiting admission to Jordan. A smaller number are waiting to enter Lebanon. Both groups are growing.

Russia has also launched a large-scale air attack against civilians in northern Syria. This was followed by a ground assault by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s army against Aleppo, a city that used to have 2 million inhabitants. The barrel bombs caused 70,000 civilians to flee to Turkey; the ground offensive could uproot many more.

Read the entire article here

US official: The US government has known for "many, many years" that Putin is corrupt.

At last somebody in the US government speaks out about the corrupt Russian president:

Adam Szubin, who oversees US Treasury sanctions, told BBC Panorama that the US government had known Mr Putin was corrupt for "many, many years".
It is thought to be the first time the US has made such a direct accusation.
Washington has already imposed sanctions on Mr Putin's aides, but has stopped short of levelling corruption allegations at the president himself. --

In the programme, Mr Szubin spoke of how "we've seen [Mr Putin] enriching his friends, his close allies, and marginalising those who he doesn't view as friends using state assets", whether it concerned Russia's energy wealth or state contracts. "To me, that is a picture of corruption," he said. --

US government officials have been reluctant to be interviewed about President Putin's wealth, and Mr Szubin would not comment on a secret CIA report from 2007 that estimated it at around $40bn (£28bn).
But he said the Russian president had been amassing secret wealth. "He supposedly draws a state salary of something like $110,000 a year. That is not an accurate statement of the man's wealth, and he has long time training and practices in terms of how to mask his actual wealth."

"Putinism" - Anne Applebaum´s outstanding analysis

An outstanding lecture on Putinism:

 

Anne Applebaum´s report on Putinism

Strongly recommended reading!

Vladimir Putin: Perfection created by God

 

Vladimir Putin: Perfection created by God:

And for the final question of the interview, Mr Putin was asked by Fontana: "Is there an action that you most regret in your life, something that you consider a mistake and wouldn't want to repeat ever again?"

According to the paper's report, Mr Putin pondered the question for a short while before his eyes lit up and he replied softly: "I'll be totally frank with you. I cannot recollect anything of the kind. It appears that the Lord built my life in a way that I have nothing to regret."

"Qatar and Russia shoul be stripped of the World Cup"

Fortunately there are still journalists who are not afraid of telling the truth:

To hell with diplomatic repercussions; every tournament awarded by Fifa must now be re-allocated or boycotted. To do otherwise would be to endorse or condone near-total corruption.

It is unlikely that Vladimir Putin will unashamedly make the opening ceremony to Russia’s 2018 World Cup a celebration of the annexation of Crimea, or an interpretative dance sequence commemorating the supply of surface-to-air military equipment that resulted in the deaths of 298 people when MH17 was shot down. But the event has clearly been purchased for the further glorification of a president more deserving of the attention of the International Court of Justice than the world’s sporting community.

Putin´s Russia and FIFA: "A perfect alliance of sleaze"

Rhyu Spaeth on Putin´s Russia and FIFA:

"The fact is that if FIFA were a country, instead of merely a corrupt international sporting organization, it would look a lot like Russia."

"Lies upon lies, systems of greed, hilariously quixotic vanity projects — all the hallmarks of deeply embedded corruption are apparent in both Putin's Russia and Blatter's FIFA."

Blatter had to go. The next one should be Vladimir Putin ...

Former Uefa president: England should be given the 2018 World Cup instead of mafia state Russia

Of course former Uefa president Johansson is right. The dictator of the mafia state called Russia, Vladimir Putin, should be denied the games due to massive corruption:

England should be given the 2018 World Cup instead of Russia, the former Uefa president Lennart Johansson has said.
Johansson, who lost the 1998 Fifa presidential election to Sepp Blatter, says the 2018 and 2022 World Cup awards should be reviewed in the light of the new corruption charges.
Johansson, 85, speaking after seven Fifa officials including two vice-presidents were arrested by police in Zurich for extradition to the USA, told the Swedish newspaper Sportbladet: “I expect they will reconsider the [World Cup] decisions. Blatter himself has said that the decision to go east wasn’t proper. I am sure the initiative will now be taken to make a new decision.
“England haven’t had it since 1966 and it’s considered ‘the motherland of football’, whatever we might think. They are worthy of the attention.”

Russian novelist Mikhail Shishkin on Putin

 "It is impossible to imagine Putin, the gray little KGB colonel, with a book in his hands."

Mikhail Shishkin

(Link)

Garry Kasparov to Western leaders: "Stop legitimizing Putin"

Garry Kasparov is - as always - spot on:

Garry Kasparov

Bloomberg TV: "What do you think Obama should do now?"
Me: <pause> "Resign".
Ok, I don't expect that to happen, but my outrage is starting to overtake my grief over Boris's murder. To the question of what the leaders of the free world should do, look at what they have NOT done for years and years to constrain Putin. Treating him like one of the guys, just another leader, instead of a brutal dictator has enabled and encouraged him and is why he is invading Ukraine and why Boris is dead. It may be a little too much to say Obama, Merkel, Cameron, & Hollande have blood on their hands, but they will next time. They can have no more illusions about Putin's true nature. Stop legitimizing Putin, for by so doing, they delegitimize brave fighters like Boris.

Boris Nemtsov RIP

Boris Nemtsov RIP

The shooting, on a bridge near Red Square, under the towering domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral, ended Mr. Nemtsov’s two-decade career as a champion of democratic reforms, beginning in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, and just days before he was to lead a rally to protest the war in Ukraine. --

He is by far the most prominent public figure to die in such a fashion, though just one in a string of murders of opponents of Mr. Putin, most notoriously the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the human rights researcher Natalia Estemirova and the security service defector Aleksandr V. Litvinenko. And while low-level criminals have been detained in some cases, the investigations in Russia never traced back to those who ordered the murders.

Read the entire NYT article here

Vladimir Putin - "A common criminal dressed up as a Head of State"

 "A common criminal dressed up as a Head of State"

Yes, Vladimir Putin is nothing but a "common criminal dressed up as a Head of State":

Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “common criminal dressed up as a Head of State” who ordered the murder of Alexander Litvinenko to stop him exposing him, the inquiry heard.

The former spy was murdered for trying to reveal Putin’s close links to organised crime and a cabal of crime lords who prop up his corrupt regime, it was claimed.

Ben Emmerson QC, representing the Litvinenko family, said the trail behind the “act of unspeakable barbarism” led directly to Putin’s door.

He said Russia was a “Mafia state” where the Kremlin and Russian organised crime syndicates were “indistinguishable”.

Mr Litvinenko could even show crimes committed or authorises by Mr Putin personally, it was claimed.

And the seeds of hatred Putin had towards his former agent which would eventually lead to the murder were first sown in clashes more than eight years before, the inquiry heard.
Putin was a “ruthless and deadly enemy” and “we find Mr Putin's fingerprints as clearly as we find the traces of nuclear material in the forensic evidence”, he said.
In his opening statement to the inquiry, Mr Emmerson said: "Vladimir Putin should be unmasked by this inquiry as nothing more or less than a common criminal dressed up as a Head of State.

Read the entire article here
 

Vladimir Putin named most corrupt Person of the Year

"Putin has been a finalist every year so you might consider this a lifetime achievement award. He has been a real innovator in working with organized crime. He has created a military-industrial-political-criminal complex that furthers Russia’s and Putin’s personal interests. I think Putin sees those interests as one and the same."

Another well deserved award for Vladimir Putin:

Vladimir Putin has been named the 2014 Person of the Year by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an award given annually to the person who does the most to enable and promote organized criminal activity.
Putin was recognized for his work in turning Russia into a major money-laundering center; for enabling organized crime in Crimea and in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine; for his unblemished record of failing to prosecute criminal activity; and for advancing a government policy of working with and using crime groups as a component of state policy.

Anne Applebaum on Putin and his KGB cronies: "theft on a grand scale"

 "European politicians as high-ranking as Schröder and Silvio Berlusconi—all have been well compensated, directly or indirectly, for offering their support."

If you only read one article about the mafia state that Vladimir Putin has created, this is the one to read:

In place of a genuine media and a real civil society, Putin and his inner circle slowly put into place a system for manufacturing disinformation and mobilizing support on a new and spectacular scale. Once the KGB had retaken the country, in other words, it began once again to act like the KGB—only now it was better funded and more sophisticated. Today’s Russian “political technologists” make use of their state-owned media, including English-language outlets such as the TV news channel Russia Today; armies of paid social media “trolls” who post on newspaper comment pages, as well as on Twitter, Facebook, and other sites; fake “experts” whose quotes can be presented with fake authority; and real experts to whom Putin’s officials have granted special access, or have simply paid. Former Western ambassadors to Moscow, businessmen who have been recruited to Russian company boards, European politicians as high-ranking as Schröder and Silvio Berlusconi—all have been well compensated, directly or indirectly, for offering their support. --


Indeed, in the months since Putin’s invasion of Crimea, it has become fashionable to suggest that the harder-line face that Putin has more recently shown to the world is somehow, once again, the West’s “fault,” that we have provoked Russia into autocratic behavior through our talk of democracy in Ukraine or that—once again—the “reform process” was somehow brought to a halt because the Russians felt threatened by the expansion of NATO or by Western policy in the Balkans.
But after reading Dawisha’s book, and after absorbing the implications of the stories she has so carefully pulled together from so many sources, it is simply not possible to take this argument seriously. Since 2000, Russia has been ruled by a revanchist, revisionist elite with origins in the old KGB. This elite had been working its way back to power since the late 1980s, using theft on a grand scale, taking advantage of the secrecy provided by Western offshore havens, and cooperating with organized crime.
Once in power, the new elite sought to maintain control using the same methods that the KGB always used to maintain control: through the manipulation of public emotion, and by undermining the institutions of the West, and the ideals of the West, in any way that it can. Based on its record so far, it has every reason to expect continued success.

Esa-Pekka Salonen again defends his friend Valery Gergiev

Finnish conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen again defends Russian dictator Putin´s admirer Valery Gergiev:

“I’ve spent the morning defending my friend Valery before the Swedish media,” says Salonen.
Gergiev is a committed supporter of the Putin regime, and his appearance at the festival provoked some outrage in Stockholm at a time of strained diplomacy. Salonen describes his opinions as “diametrically opposite” to his colleague’s on the subject of Ukraine but, “as long as London is making money for the oligarchs, as long as the Austrians are lobbying for a gas pipe to make sure they get an uninterrupted supply, regardless of what’s happening to Ukraine,” he says, “why should I, as the artistic director of this festival, not say that Gergiev is allowed to come here?”

One wonders, why on the earth should Salonen "defend" somebody like Gergiev? I never imagined that Salonen would be that stupid.

Plummeting oil prices will weaken Putin´s Russia

Oil prices are plummeting. They have gone down as much as 20% since June. This - together with Western sanctions - weaken Vladimir Putin´s chances to continue his policy of aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere:

Lower oil prices could have lots of knock-on effects around the world. Take Russia, which depends on oil sales to bring in foreign currency. The Russian government has set its three-year budget with the expectation that oil prices would stay at $100 per barrel. A sustained fall in prices could cripple the Russian economy and run up deficits.

Indeed, some energy analysts are starting to wonder if an oil crash might even force Russia to pull back in Ukraine and elsewhere. And on Tuesday, the Russian finance minister warned that the country could no longer afford a multibillion-dollar upgrade to its armed forces that had been approved by President Vladimir Putin

Read the entire article here

Garri Kasparov on Putin: “the most dangerous man in the world”

Western leaders should listen to what Garry Kasparov has to say about Russian dictator Vladimir Putin:

Garry Kasparov, the world’s most renowned chess master, has branded Vladimir Putin “the most dangerous man in the world” in a passionate interview with Yahoo News, in which he stressed that the Russian President is more dangerous that Islamic State (ISIS) and “all the Al-Qaedas in the world”.

Asked if Islamic State or Putin were a bigger threat to global stability, Kasparov responded with “Of course Putin… Of course Putin!”

“Because Putin cannot be defeated militarily,” he explained. “The war with ISIS can be won on the ground. It is very clear that if America decides to eliminate ISIS, they will turn it into dust in 24 hours!” --

 

Russia’s nuclear arsenal gives Putin an “ability to create instability - a thousand times bigger than all the Al-Qaedas of the world,” Kasparov also said.

“Putin wants to stay in power at any cost and for him to stay in power he needs to create global instability. I would not be surprised if he starts blackmailing the world with nuclear armageddon because for him there is no life if he loses power.”

 

Of course Kasparov is right about Putin, and Obama, Merkel and the rest understand how dangerous the man is. But because unstable Putin is in charge of a large nuclear arsenal, they are too scared to take the action needed ...