RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 8 AUGUST 2019 by Patrick Armstrong

MOSCOW PROTESTS. Whatever might have been the reason for the original protests, they've now gone full provocation. How to make a photogenic riot: 1) ask for a demo permit 2) refuse it 3) move to the main drag 4) invite cameras. (Is there any country that allows protests anywhere, anytime? Not USA, not Canada, not UK and certainly not France.) This impresses Western pundits – Putin's frightened! but not Muscovites, who support the authorities. Why? Because they've seen the movie before: the regime changers are running out of ideas. Another sign it's a colour revolution attempt is the creation of a poster girl – just like Bana of Aleppo and I am Ukrainian. (Venezuela too). Moscow's Ms Deeds confronts Evil; the hero facing down the tank (Click on the link: it's not what you're expecting). Not such striking images as these from France, or of France's poster man, but they will have to do. And – another tired trope – Navalniy was poisoned, but not very effectively. So what's the point? Distract attention from Gillets jaunes (Week 38); but who was covering that? Last chance to use the tattered playbook before Trump & Co crush the Russia-interference lie and bring the Deep State down? (Well, one can dream). Force of habit? Seizing an opportunity? Whatever, it's not working very well.

NEW WEAPON. Video of a test flight of a stealth RPV named Okhotnik (hunter).

GOLD. Still buying it, now 2.3 tonnes; and the bet is paying off as gold prices rise. Meanwhile, Russia's US treasury holdings are down to $12 billion USD from nearly $100 billion 12 years ago.

RUSSIA IS FINISHED! Again. Just as well – it doesn't have a "better nature". And they tell us that Russia's the one spewing out the we-they stuff.

ATLANTIC COUNCIL. The Procurator-General named it an undesirable organisation.

FOREST FIRES. Big, but not as big as all that.

INF. INF Treaty is dead. If Trump thought he could include China, he's wrong – Beijing is not interested. Three of the four arms-control treaties left us are gone, all killed by Washington although Russia was blamed of course. But Putin & Co saw it coming and their answers are already here: whatever Washington may think it can do, it's been checkmated: MAD returns. As to nearby missiles, Moscow's got that covered too: Tsirkon on a submarine off the US coast.

RUSSIA/CHINA. The NYT had an absurd editorial chiding Trump for not doing enough to split Moscow away from Beijing. Too late, that ship has sailed. I'd change the illustration – the ship is over the horizon.

AMERICA-HYSTERICA. A Pew poll shows 65% of Democrats and 35% of Republicans see "Russia's power and influence" as a "major threat". I would say that the 30-point difference is Muellermania and the lie that Russia hacked the DNC computers. A poll by Gallup, on the other hand, shows concerns about Russia haven't registered all year. A CNN poll (p12) likewise shows Russia's nowhere. So it's only a big concern to Democrats and only when they're asked about it. Interesting. Meanwhile, Tulsi Gabbard, pretty mainstream on most issues, dares to criticise the endless wars: she's a Putinassadbot! Full attack!

THE "FAKE NEWS" FAKE. An article describes how Finland is "winning the war on fake news" (all from Russia of course) by getting students to take their "laptops and cell phones to investigate their chosen topics". This could easily backfire: what would a reasonably intelligent child think when presented with, say, both the BBC coverage of Skripal and Rob Slane's? Not much to the BBC's benefit, I suspect. They sure don't want them to start wondering what happened to Kerry's we saw the whole thing or any of the other tripe they're supposed to take on faith. Best just to train them to love Big Brother and understand that what BB says is true news and be done with it.

MH17. French reporter reveals that there are still many parts aircraft parts and human remains at the site. Also shows photo of what look a lot like bullet holes. Malaysia expresses more criticism of JIT. UKRAINE. "Ukraine is turning to the playbook that helped rebuild the continent’s ex-communist wing back in the 1990s." Well, maybe in Poland or the Czech Republic, but in the other places it was pretty disastrous. Especially in places – like Ukraine – with deeply embedded corruption. Come to think of it, it was a disaster in Ukraine in the 1990s too. Time to re-read Collision and Collusion.

HISTORY. Only a couple of years ago I learned that Poland (1934) had signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler's Germany. Yesterday, thanks to this, I learned that Estonia (1939) and Latvia (1939) did too. Lots of countries taken in by Hitler, eh? Some thought to buy the package, others thought to buy time. (BTW Finnish "fake news" mavens, don't let your students discover that the USSR was not the only one; that could lead to questions and questions are always doubleplusungood.)

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Canada Russia Observer

Comments

[Tom Wonacott]

Mr. Armstrong

"....French reporter reveals that there are still many parts aircraft parts and human remains at the site. Also shows photo of what look a lot like bullet holes......"

Do you think after four years that the MH17 crash site might have been compromised? Even Russia doesn't believe another plane shot down MH17 - although they went with the SU-25 theory until it was "widely discredited". I lost count of the amount of Russian lies on MH17. It most certainly exceeds the amount of lies on even the Skripal assassination attempt.

Between the JIT, Bellingcat and Boris Nemtsov ("Putin. War"), it's one of the more clear-cut cases to solve. Of course Russia isn't going to admit the 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade traveled with the missile into Eastern Ukraine. Russia doesn't admit they invaded Eastern Ukraine (twice) or they supply weapons to the separatists or that Wagner works on behalf of the Russian government in Ukraine. Hell, the entire war is run from Moscow.

Thanks.

[JamesT]

That CBC article is a real beauty, eh. No mention of the fact that Navalny organized white supremecist marches. No photos of Eduard Limonov's followers, draped in Nazi iconography, giving him the Hitler salute. (Limonov was/is The Other Russia.) Nope - according the CBC, all of the far right nationalism in Russia is due to Putin.

I feel like a character in a George Orwell novel.

[Patrick Armstrong]

This is the last of your comments I will approve. You're just a polite troll with a paste and repeat key. Goodbye

[Patrick Armstrong]

A very interesting account of the protests here. The Russian authorities are getting a lot smarter and I had not thought to connect them with Huntsman's departure.
https://thesaker.is/the-dialectic-of-the-moscow-protests-hoax/

[Christian J Chuba]

One of the oldest tricks in the book, plan your rally at the same time as a music festival and then let the western MSM double the size of the music festival and claim they are all protesters. We are dumb as dirt to fall for this.

I read the first part of the link and found the authorities using detention to lookup the criminal records (including liens and draft dodging) an interesting way to discourage protesters for hirs. I wonder if Russia is sharing what they have learned about Color Revolutions with China. If so then that would be yet another common bond that we setup.

[Patrick Armstrong]

I would be very surprised indeed if Beijing and Moscow and others were not coordinating responses and so forth. One of the big learning experiences I think were the Crimean Berkut spreading the Maidan lessons. see, for example here from about 26:30 https://youtu.be/3Mw4Y9jRwCQ

I remember, but can't now find, another video (although it may be somewhere on the above) with a commentator taking the observer through a demo in Sinferopol or some place pointing out the organisers and conductors of the protest (all wearing red shirts as I recall) and strategically placed.

They've learned alright.

[Patrick Armstrong]

Found it. Go to about 41 minutes on the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mw4Y9jRwCQ

[LeaNder]

highly recommended, admittedly from a rather subjective perspective, helped me to to not bother about a train connection delay of more then an hour. Not sure if already available in print. Definitively available as ebook.

The Russia Anxiety, Mark B. Smith
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/306/306104/the-russia-anxiety/9780241312766.html>
The fear of Russia and Russians over the centuries and realms

Concering the present in the first chapter, just move beyond it. ...

[JerseyJeffersonian]

Thanks, Patrick. Very illuminating. The English usage of the author is a bit rough, but an extremely damning account of real interference in internal affairs of other nations.

[jjc]

The perception management efforts are impressive and effective. The protests in Moscow do not have to have any effect in shaping anything to do with domestic politics there, as their efficacy is in support of a narrative which recycles through the west's media. For example, a Reuters story today on the opinions of Poland's Deputy Foreign Minister can include this:

"His comments come as Russia detained over 1,000 people over the weekend during protests demanding free elections. The European Union and Poland have condemned police brutality in the protests."

[CK]

When the Byzantine empire fell, Russia was supposed to become the third Rome.
When the Revolution succeeded, Russia was supposed to become the second Judea.
When Stalin dropped his atom bomb, Russia became the First Enemy.
Maybe someday it will be just Russia

[Patrick Armstrong]

Nine years ago I thought we were already at that point. Wrong again. Underestimated the power and determination of the war party.
https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2010/11/17/the-third-turn/

[TI]

"BTW Finnish "fake news" mavens, don't let your students discover that the USSR was not the only one"

The Molotov-Ribbentropp non-aggression pact was the only one that contained a secret protocol dividing Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. The Soviet Union subsequently annexed the Baltic states and Eastern Poland, with thousands being executed by the NKVD and even more deported to the interior of the Soviet Union. Comparing Molotov-Ribbentropp and its consequences with the German-Polish non-aggression pact of 1934 (which really was nothing more than a non-aggression pact) is seriously misleading.
It's true that Russia is often unfairly demonized today, but Russians and Russophiles are doing their cause no favours by such revisionist attempts to explain away Soviet crimes.

[Patrick Armstrong]

Nonetheless it is true that that was Stalin's Plan B. A deal with France and the UK was his Plan A.

[TI]

Why should Britain and France have trusted Stalin's Soviet Union? Before WW2 the Bolsheviks had a lot more blood on their hands than the German Nazis (hundreds of thousands, millions, if one counts the famines, vs. a few thousand killed by the Nazis). There was also a long history of attempts at subversion and espionage against Western powers by the Soviet Union.
It seems very misguided to me to seek improved relations with today's Russia by trying to whitewash Stalin's regime. The argument should rather be that contemporary Russia isn't the Soviet Union, let alone its Stalinist version, anymore.

[Patrick Armstrong]

2. Stalin had just wiped out his best officers so what's his offer worth anyway?
3. Soviet Army's just a bunch of peasants with pitchforks.
4. Wouldn't it be nice if Hitler and Stalin fought each other to the death?
5. Poland's afraid that if they get in, they'll never leave.
6. Poland's got a deal with Hitler, it's OK.
7. Maybe something will turn up...

And so on. And so it never happened. But what if it had?

Nobody is whitewashing anybody; this is the historical reality.

[johnf]

From memory I think Poland and Hungary also helped Hitler in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.

[d74]

It may be worth noting the reasons why the Brit and French Staffs sabotaged military negotiations with the Soviets ( Marshal Voroshilov):

A- "2 Stalin had just wiped out his best officers so what's his offer worth anyway? "
B- "3 Soviet Army's just a bunch of peasants with pitchforks. " ( the proof: they failed in front of tiny Finland a few months later.)
C- An allied war with the Soviets, won or lost, will bring communism to the participating countries (GB and Fr) and to Europe.
The fear of their own weakness ( GB and Fr) was decisive.

The Brit had sent Admiral Plunkett, courteous, cold and 'slow'. The French had sent General Doumenc, a supporter of this alliance. Very intelligent, very active and lucid. He was convinced of the (future) value of the Soviet steamroller. Looked like a little frog with big ears!

Negotiations stumbled over Poland's refusal to allow the Soviets to cross Poland to reach the Germans, to the relief of everyone. The French made some efforts to bend the Poles, but without success. A Polish man said: With the Germans Poland loses its body, with the Russians it loses its soul... Polish romanticism made a Frenchman say: "Show a abyss to a Pole, immediately he throws himself into it.»

[Martin Oline]

I found something interesting this morning regarding the nuclear powered missiles of Russia. It may be somewhat off-topic, but I am putting it here as it involves Russia.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29356/russia-admits-mysterious-missile-engine-explosion-involved-nuclear-isotope-power-source

[Patrick Armstrong]

Yep for Poland. A sort of "secret protocol" as it were
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaolzie#Part_of_Czechoslovakia_(1920%E2%80%931938)

[Seamus Padraig]

Yup. Whether it's Russia or Iran, Europe always bears the brunt of these failed régime-change plots hatched in Washington, and they're finally starting to wise up.

[Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12)]

the Bolsheviks had a lot more blood on their hands than the German Nazis (hundreds of thousands, millions, if one counts the famines, vs. a few thousand killed by the Nazis)

Another victim of Solzhenitsyn's "history of Russia"? I am sure you are a troll but in case you are not--find Krivosheev's books, I promise you--you will be surprised. Per GULAG--read Zemskov.

[TI]

iirc there were about 700 000 executions in 1937/38 alone; worst thing the Nazis did before September 1939 was probably Kristallnacht when several hundred Jews were killed. It's true that some of the claims made during the Cold war by Robert Conquest etc. have been shown to be much too high. But Stalin's Soviet Union was still a totalitarian dictatorship and British conservatives were 100% correct to distrust it.
This isn't meant btw to trivialize the suffering and sacrifice of Russians and other Soviet peoples during WW2. But trying to pretend Stalin's regime wasn't profoundly abnormal isn't convincing imo.
As I wrote before, Russians and Russophiles are doing their cause no favour by trying to deny this history, it repels even people who might otherwise be sympathetic to some at least of Russia's grievances.

[Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12)]

irc there were about 700 000 executions in 1937/38 alone

No, there were not. From 1923 through 1953 through the so called GULAG system by different estimates 3.8 to 4.1 million people went through. Around 800, 000 have been executed throughout those 30 years. 1937-38 saw higher levels of executions. Of major note is the fact that these numbers are related to ALL prisoners among which larger part were your run-of-the-mill criminals, from bandits to thieves. All numbers are (confirmed today) from Prosecutor General Rudenko to Khrushchev on the eve of the XX party Congress. Since then thousands of studies have been conducted--numbers didn't change.

P.S. Conquest is not a historian--he is propagandist and not a very bright one, I may say.

[Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12)]

"Mysterious isotope power source" is as old news as I am. E.g. power sources used in providing operations of border guards infrastructure, including electric fences and surveillance systems have been used since 1960s. Isotope power sources could be found on a variety of military technology both in Russia and elsewhere. The Drive is a collection of fanboys who write for fanboys about cewl sexy military toys while having zero expertise in those, especially Russian ones. The fact that they may invite couple of Afghan or Iraq vets to write for them doesn't change the fact that...well...they are rumor and click bait mill. They have zero expertise.