#vladimir putin plan

[herukapadmajungiansworld]

[thewtcho]

Ukraine news LATEST - Hellbent Vladimir Putin 'planning deadly new assault' as Russian forces gather in south

Ukraine news LATEST – Hellbent Vladimir Putin ‘planning deadly new assault’ as Russian forces gather in south

Ukraine news LATEST – Hellbent Vladimir Putin ‘planning deadly new assault’ as Russian forces gather in south #Ukraine #news #LATEST #Hellbent #Vladimir #Putin #planning #deadly #assault #Russian #forces #gather #south Welcome to thewtcho Blog, here is the new story we have for you today: BRITISH Defence Intelligence claims Putin has brutally sacked “at least six” top commanders, with Russian…

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin claims to be "carefully studying" a peace plan. Of course, Ukrainian politicians have responded angrily. But even this misses the point.

Why has Putin repeatedly mentioned peace plans and negotiation recently? Because after 17 months of war, Russia has not only failed to win, but now has to fend off Ukrainian attacks around the occupied territories.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive is struggling, no doubt. And the Russians have resorted to obscene tactics in order to slow down Ukrainian progress: blowing up the Kakhovka Dam and backing out of the Turkey-backed graine deal.

All of this will not change the fact that Ukraine is encroaching on Russian-held areas, exposing Putin to the possibility of another shock defeat such as the chaotic expulsion of Russian soldiers from Kharkiv province last autumn.

In fact, the more obscene tactics Russia uses, the more energised the Ukrainian resistance. Many of us predicted this from the beginning. As I have said before, Putin has not read history properly: every previous attempt by Russia to rule over Ukraine has ended, either by war (the Russian Empire) or by popular vote (the Soviet Union).

Putin has to know by now, given the number of pro-Putin Russians who have been fired from his government or have suddenly died, that total victory in Ukraine is impossible. He has to have known this ever since Russian soldiers withdrew from around Kyiv last year, because he responded to that withdrawal by claiming that he had never intended to seize Kyiv, but was merely preparing for the 'real' battle in the Donbas.

This was a pathetic lie, of course, designed to save face. Putin had invested in an early victory by seizing the Ukrainian capital within five days. He totally failed, and that failure is obvious even to Russian propagandists.

Naturally, Putin cannot and will never admit to defeat, especially not the Soviet-style Afghanistan humiliation he has caused in Ukraine. His only option is to facilitate a withdrawal that allows him to save face and cast himself as a moderate who could have pursued the war, but instead chose peace. The only way for Putin to save face is to leave the conflict with Ukrainian guarantees not to join NATO (and possibly not the EU), and if possible, with recognition of the four Ukrainian provinces he annexed last year.

It may be that Putin hopes his peace plan talk will entice the international community to put pressure on Ukraine to end its counteroffensive in order to facilitate negotiations. If so, then such a gamble only demonstrates the Kremlin's concern about any possible Ukrainian gains and how these will be perceived among Putin's supporters.

As the war drags on, a stalemate and/or negotiation becomes increasingly likely. But Ukrainian adviser to the Head of Office for President Zelenskyy, Mykhailo Podolyak, claimed on Twitter that the Russians 'refuse to talk to us'.

It should be noted, however, that Zelenskyy himself closed down negotiations with Russia in around April last year, especially after the atrocities in Bucha, and later said that negotiations with Russia are impossible under the current "president".

(Despite fighting a blatantly totalitarian regime, Zelenskyy still referred to Putin as a "president" and claimed in an interview with the Washington Post last year that all or most Russians had voted for him, when Russian elections are just as fraudulent as the Russia-backed "referendums" in Crimea, Zaporizhzia, Donetsk, and Luhansk.)

Nonetheless, Zelenskyy is right to note that Russia must change politically, which is one of the demands that Podolyak noted as a Ukrainian condition for peace. Here they are in full: '1)- Get out of Ukraine; 2)- Change the political elite; 3)- Admit war crimes; 4)- Extradite the authors of the war to the tribunal.'

Of course, Ukraine's demands mean that Putin, his government and allies (Belarusian dictator Lukashenko) will have to be removed from power and put in front of of a war crimes tribunal (as well as much of the Russian army); he will have to confess to his war crimes, including the deliberate bombing of Ukrainian civilians and conspiracy to commit forced depopulation and deportation, and he will have to surrender all of the territory he has stolen from Ukraine since February 2014.

Sadly, it isn't likely that Putin will end up before a war crimes committee.

The recent attempted mutiny by Wagner Group terrorist Yevgeny Prigozhin, however serious the mutiny really was to the Kremlin, still indicates that Putin has many enemies in Russia. I doubt he would make it long enough out of power to be able to visit any tribunal, let alone the International Criminal Court. A foundational reason for Putin's continuance of this failed and outrageous war is to protect his power. Yes, this war is also about greed and imperialism, but even if neither of those two reasons existed, Putin would still have launched this war.

Dictators need war to survive. Putin wouldn't be in power today if it weren't for war. But war is the very means by which dictators have collapsed. Putin has gambled everything and has very little to show or himself so far. He therefore talks peace to save face and maintain legitimacy. Everyone who supports freedom should make it clear that Putin has none.

[chiefarbitermoon]

How Russia and the West let things get out of hand.

There is clearly a lot to unwrap related to Russia and the West. Should there have been a Russian style "Marshall Plan" when the Iron Curtain cracked? Sure, but I have not seen the following discussed much by either side in this debate. So, let me point out a few things:

1. Germany (or West Germany at the time) did give/loan Russian $3 billion to help them leave East Germany in 1991. Doubt they ever got it back?

2. Bush (41) did not gloat about the Fall-of-the-Wall. Perhaps to his detriment in the '92 election?

3. Most importantly, if the EU wanted to strangle Russia they would have already gotten fuel (gas & oil) from other sources. But they wanted to keep Russia from collapsing and thus going out in to the streets and causing trouble.

[newscast1]

Putin is planning to deploy female prison inmates in Ukraine, says close friend

Putin is planning to deploy female prison inmates in Ukraine, says close friend

Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s close friend and the founder of the paramilitary mercenary organisation Wagner Group, said on Wednesday that he is working to send female prison inmates to fight in Ukraine.   New Delhi,UPDATED: Dec 22, 2022 12:04 IST Russian President Vladimir Putin with Yevgeny Prigozhin (right). By India Today Web Desk: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s…

[generasbir]

Kristen ortodoks RUSIA menceritakan tentang kejahatan busuk Amerika serikat

[globalhappenings]

Illarionov told how many years Putin has been preparing a big war for Europe

Illarionov told how many years Putin has been preparing a big war for Europe

The former adviser to the President of the Russian Federation also named the names of three people who helped the head of the Kremlin to endure the idea of ​​”capturing” Ukraine Putin has been preparing for war with Ukraine for 19 years. / Photo: Collage: Today Russian President Vladimir Putin has been preparing a full-scale invasion of Ukraine for at least 19 years. The first evidence of such…

[mapsontheweb]

Two years of Russian invasion of Ukraine

by theflagmapguy_2.0

On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has caused tens of thousands of deaths on both sides and instigated Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. About 8 million Ukrainians were displaced within their country by June, and more than 8 million fled the country by February 2023. After the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and Russian-backed paramilitaries seized the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts of Ukraine's Donbas region, sparking a regional war. In March 2021, Russia began a military build-up, amassing up to 190,000 soldiers at Ukraine's borders. Russian government officials denied plans to attack Ukraine until the day before the invasion. On 21 February 2022, Russia recognised the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic, two self-proclaimed breakaway quasi-states in the Donbas. The next day, the Federation Council of Russia authorised the use of military force and Russian soldiers entered both territories. The invasion began the morning of 24 February 2022 upon Russian president Vladimir Putin's announcement of a "special military operation" seeking the "demilitarisation" and "denazification" of Ukraine. In his address, Putin espoused irredentist views, challenged Ukraine's right to statehood, and falsely claimed that Ukraine was governed by neo-Nazis who persecuted the ethnic Russian minority. Minutes later, Russian air strikes and a ground invasion were launched along a northern front from Belarus towards Kyiv, a north-eastern front towards Kharkiv, a southern front from Crimea, and a south-eastern front from Donetsk and Luhansk. In response, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy enacted martial law and a general mobilisation.

[comeonamericawakeup]

The biggest threat to the United States is not China or Russia or other "external threats," said Max Boot. It's "our own political dysfunction." The U.S. remains fundamentally strong, with the world's biggest and most resilient economy, the most powerful military, and 50 allies, compared with a handful for China and Russia. China's once-booming economy has stagnated, due to poor central planning and an aging and shrinking population. We remain the world's only true superpower and an "indispensable nation," keeping rogue actors like Vladimir Putin and Iran in check. But extreme partisan warfare and a growing isolationist movement have put us on the road to abdicating that critical role. A divided Congress cannot even pass a budget, or agree on military aid to embattled allies Israel and Ukraine. If Donald Trump and his "American First" brigade regains the White House, he'll likely abandon Ukraine, pull the U.S. out of NATO, alienate allies, and cripple our nation's global power. A host of enemies, including Nazi Germany, al Qaida, the Soviet Union, Russia, and China have been unable to cripple the U.S. and demote us to second-class status. But Americans may succeed where "others have failed."

THE WEEK November 24, 2023

[mariacallous]

It was almost two years ago that Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. As another winter of war arrives, voices skeptical of the country’s prospects are growing louder—not in diplomatic meetings or military planning sessions, but rather in news reports and in expert commentary. Most do not openly argue that Ukraine should simply give up its fight, but the pessimism, buttressed by supposedly pragmatic arguments, carries clear strategic implications that are both dangerous and wrong.

These skeptics suggest that the current situation on the battlefield will not change and that, given Russia’s vastly greater resources, the Ukrainians will be unable to retake more of their territory. They argue that international support for Ukraine is eroding and will plummet sharply in the coming months. They invoke “war fatigue” and the supposedly bleak prospects of our forces.

The skeptics are correct that our recent counteroffensive did not achieve the lightning-fast liberation of occupied land, as the Ukrainian military managed in the fall of 2022 in the Kharkiv region and the city of Kherson. Observers, including some in Ukraine, anticipated similar results over the past several months, and when immediate success did not materialize, many succumbed to doom and gloom. But pessimism is unwarranted, and it would be a mistake to let defeatism shape our policy decisions going forward. Instead, policymakers in Washington and other capitals should keep the big picture in mind and stay on track. A Ukrainian victory will require strategic endurance and vision—as with our recent counteroffensive, the liberation of every square mile of territory requires enormous sacrifice by our soldiers—but there is no question that victory is attainable.

Over nearly two years of brutal war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has upped the ante to the point that half-solutions are impossible. Any outcome besides a clear defeat of Russia in Ukraine would have troubling implications, and not just for my country—it would cause a global disarray that would ultimately threaten the United States and its allies, as well. Authoritarian leaders and aggressors around the world are keeping a close watch on the results of Putin’s military adventure. His success, even if partial, would inspire them to follow in his footsteps. His defeat will make clear the folly of trying.

STAGES OF VICTORY

Wars of this scale are fought in stages. Some of those stages may be more successful than others. What matters is the end result. In Ukraine, that means both fully restoring our territorial integrity and bringing those responsible for international crimes to justice—goals that are both clear and feasible. Meeting those objectives would ensure not only a just and lasting peace in Ukraine but also that other malicious forces around the world are not left with the impression that mimicking Putin will ultimately pay off.

The current phase of the war is not easy for Ukraine or for our partners. Everyone wants quick, Hollywood-style breakthroughs on the battlefield that will bring a quick collapse of Russia’s occupation. Although our objectives will not be reached overnight, continued international support for Ukraine will, over time, ensure that local counteroffensives achieve tangible results on the frontlines, gradually destroying Russian forces and thwarting Putin’s plans for a protracted war.

Some skeptics counter that although such goals are just, they simply aren’t achievable. In fact, our objectives will remain militarily feasible as long as three factors are in place: adequate military aid, including jets, drones, air defense, artillery rounds, and long-range capabilities that allow us to strike deep behind enemy lines; the rapid development of industrial capacity in the United States and Europe as well as in Ukraine, both to cover Ukraine’s military needs and to replenish U.S. and European defense stocks; and a principled and realistic approach to the prospect of negotiations with Russia.

With these elements in place, our effort will bring marked progress on the frontlines. Yet that requires not veering off course and concluding that the fight is hopeless simply because one stage has fallen short of some observers’ expectations. Even with significant challenges, Ukraine has achieved notable results in recent months. We won the battle for the Black Sea and thereby restored a steady flow of maritime exports, benefiting both our economy and global food security. We’ve made gains on the southern front, recently securing a bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River. And elsewhere, we have held off enormous Russian assaults and inflicted major losses on Russian forces, including by thwarting their attempts on Avdiivka and Kupiansk. Despite their gargantuan effort, Russian troops failed to secure any gains on the ground.

Indeed, over the last year and a half, the Ukrainian military has proved its ability to surprise skeptics. Against all odds, Ukrainian forces have liberated more than half the territory taken by Russia since February 2022. This did not happen with a single blow. After the liberation of Ukraine’s northeast in the first months of the war, we lost some ground in the east before regaining momentum—a sequence that demonstrates why drawing broad conclusions based on one stage of fighting is misleading. If the war were only about numbers, we would have already lost. Russia may try to outnumber us, but the right strategy, advanced planning, and adequate support will allow us to effectively strike back.

THE FALLACY OF NEGOTIATIONS

Some analysts believe that freezing the conflict by establishing a cease-fire is a realistic option at the moment. Proponents of such a scenario argue that it would lower Ukrainian casualties and allow Ukraine and its partners to focus on economic recovery and rebuilding, integration into the European Union and NATO, and the long-term development of our defense capabilities.

The problem is not just that a cease-fire now would reward Russian aggression. Instead of ending the war, a cease-fire would simply pause the fighting until Russia is ready to make another push inland. In the meantime, it would allow Russian occupying troops to reinforce their positions with concrete and minefields, making it nearly impossible to drive them away in the future and condemning millions of Ukrainians to decades of repression under occupation. Russia’s 2024 budget for the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, amounting to 3.2 trillion Russian rubles (around $35 billion), is clear evidence of Moscow’s plan to dig in for the long haul and suppress resistance to Russian occupation authorities.

Moreover, whatever the arguments that such a scenario would be less costly for Ukraine and its partners, the reality is that such a negotiated cease-fire is not even on the table. Between 2014 and 2022, we endured approximately 200 rounds of negotiations with Russia in various formats, as well as 20 attempts to establish a cease-fire in the smaller war that followed Russia’s 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea and occupation of Ukraine’s east. Our partners pressed Moscow to be constructive, and when they ran into the Kremlin’s diplomatic wall, they insisted that Ukraine had to take the “first step,” if only to demonstrate that Russia was the problem. Following this flawed logic, Ukraine made some painful concessions. Where did it lead? To Russia's full-scale attack on February 24, 2022. Declaring yet again that Ukraine must take the first step is both immoral and naive.

If the frontline were frozen now, there is no reason to believe that Russia would not use such a respite to plan a more brutal attack in a few years, potentially involving not only Ukraine but also neighboring countries and even NATO members. Those who believe Russia will not attack a NATO country after celebrating success in Ukraine should recall how unimaginable a large-scale invasion of Ukraine seemed just two years ago.

SUPPORTING UKRAINE IS NOT CHARITY

Skeptics also argue that supporting Ukraine’s fight for freedom is too expensive and cannot be sustained indefinitely. We in Ukraine are fully aware of the amounts of assistance that we have received from the United States, European countries, and other allies, and we are immensely grateful to the governments, legislators, and individuals who have extended a helping hand to our country at war. We manage the support in the most transparent and accountable way: U.S. inspectors of military aid to Ukraine have found no evidence of significant waste, fraud, or abuse.

This support is not, and never has been, charity. Every dollar invested in Ukraine’s defense returns clear security dividends for its supporters. It has enabled Ukraine to successfully rebuff Russian aggression and avert a disastrous escalation in Europe. And Ukraine has done all this with American assistance totaling roughly three percent of the annual U.S. defense budget. What is more, most of this money has in fact been spent in the United States, funding the U.S. defense industry, supporting the development of cutting-edge technology, and creating American jobs—a reason that some local business leaders in the United States have publicly opposed withholding or cutting military aid to Ukraine.

Moreover, while the United States is Ukraine’s top defense partner—and Washington’s leadership in rallying support for Ukraine has been exemplary and essential—the United States has hardly borne the burden alone. As NATO’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, recently noted, other NATO members, including European countries and Canada, account for more than half of Ukraine’s military aid. A number of countries have provided more support as a percentage of GDP than the United States has: the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom. Germany's assistance continues to grow, making it Ukraine's largest European supporter in absolute terms.

Attempts by some skeptics to brand Ukraine’s fight for freedom as just another futile “forever war” ignore these facts. Ukraine has never asked for American boots on the ground. The deal is fair: our partners provide us with what we need to win, and we do the rest of the job ourselves, defending not only our borders but also the borders of global democracy.

The United States has spent decades, and hundreds of billions of dollars, building and protecting an international order that could sustain and protect democracy and market economies, thus ensuring security and prosperity for Americans. It would be foolish to give up on that investment now. If democracy is allowed to fall in Ukraine, adversaries of the United States will perceive weakness and understand that aggression pays. The price tag for defending U.S. national security against such threats would be many times higher than the one for supporting Ukraine and could spark decades of global turbulence with an uncertain outcome.

Scholars and analysts often warn of a World War III involving nuclear conflict between great powers. But they may overlook the risk of a world of smaller hot wars between states, with bigger powers feeling empowered to take advantage of their smaller neighbors—World Wars I, plural,rather than World War III. Without a common commitment to Ukrainian victory, Russian aggression could in hindsight mark the onset of such a world.

LISTEN TO UKRAINIANS

No country in the world desires peace more than Ukraine. It is not our side that wants this war to drag on indefinitely—Putin does. (We have a clear vision of the path to peace, as laid out in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ten-point Peace Formula.) And it is Ukraine that is paying the greatest price for this war. We are losing some of our best men and women every day. There is hardly a Ukrainian family that has not directly felt the pain of war. Our warriors have in many cases been serving for more than 20 months, stuck in muddy or icy trenches under daily Russian bombardment, with no return date in sight; the toll on civilians, whether enduring brutal airstrikes or occupation, keeps growing, and the horror of Ukrainian children being stolen and then “adopted” by Russian families for “re-education” continues to haunt us all.

Yet even with our suffering, weariness, and struggles, Ukrainians are not willing to give up, to opt for “peace” at any price. Eighty percent of Ukrainians oppose making territorial concessions to Russia, according to a recent survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. Another poll found that 53 percent of Ukrainians were prepared to endure years of wartime hardship for the sake of a Ukrainian victory. Ukrainians would not be ready to give up even in the event of a significant decrease in foreign military aid: polling in November by the New Europe Center showed that only eight percent of Ukrainians think that such a reduction should push us into negotiations with Russia. (Thirty-five percent said that a Russian willingness to withdraw troops from Ukraine would be the necessary condition for starting talks, and 33 percent said that under no conditions should talks begin at all.)

Western analysts who urge Ukraine to accept a hasty cease-fire on unfavorable terms neglect such views. For years, policymakers and experts in Europe and the United States failed to listen to Ukrainian warnings that both diplomacy and business as usual with Russia were no longer possible. It took a large-scale invasion and enormous destruction and suffering for them to recognize that the Ukrainian warnings were right. They should not fall into the same trap again.

ALLIES AT WAR

In the summer of 1944, in the weeks after the World War II Allies’ D-Day landing, the headlines in allied capitals were often pessimistic: “Allied Pace Slows,” “Delays in Normandy: Overcaution of Allies and Bad Weather Seen as Factors Upsetting Schedule,” “Terrain Slows Tanks, U.S. Officer Explains.” Even after Allied success in Normandy, the massive Operation Market Garden in the German-occupied Netherlands in September 1944 proved challenging. It had been expected to bring the war to a close but instead yielded limited successes and massive Allied losses. Yet pessimistic headlines and disappointing, even costly, setbacks did not cause the Allies to give up.

At the end of last month, I attended a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels. What struck me most was the disparity between the mood inside the chamber and the mood outside it. On the sidelines, reporters opened their questions by asserting that the war had reached a “stalemate” and that “war fatigue” would cripple support, before wondering why Ukraine wouldn’t offer to trade territory for peace. Yet such defeatist narratives were absent in the official discussions, with ministers making a firm commitment to additional military aid and sustained support.

However prevalent a false narrative of attrition becomes, we should not allow it to set policymaking and our shared strategy on a disastrous course. Nor should we be duped into believing that Moscow is ready for a fair negotiated solution. Opting to accept Putin’s territorial demands and reward his aggression would be an admission of failure, which would be costly for Ukraine, for the United States and its allies, and for the entire global security architecture. Staying the course is a difficult task. But we know how to win, and we will.

[thewtcho]

Ukraine news LATEST - Hellbent Vladimir Putin 'planning deadly new assault' as Russian forces gather in south

Ukraine news LATEST – Hellbent Vladimir Putin ‘planning deadly new assault’ as Russian forces gather in south

BRITISH Defence Intelligence claims Putin has brutally sacked “at least six” top commanders, with Russian losses continuing to grow. The Ministry of Defence’s statement said a slew of commanders have been dismissed as Putin rages at their failures. Specifically, the report claims: “The poor performance of Russia’s armed forces during its invasion of Ukraine has been costly for Russia’s military…

[treethymes]

With the exceptions of North Korea and Cuba, the communist world has merged onto the capitalist highway in a couple different ways during the twenty-first century. As you’ve read, free-trade imperialism and its cheap agricultural imports pushed farmers into the cities and into factory work, lowering the global price of manufacturing labor and glutting the world market with stuff. Forward-thinking states such as China and Vietnam invested in high-value-added production capacity and managed labor organizing, luring links from the global electronics supply chain and jump-starting capital investment. Combined with capital’s hesitancy to invest in North Atlantic production facilities, as well as a disinclination toward state-led investment in the region, Asian top-down planning erased much of the West’s technological edge. If two workers can do a single job, and one worker costs less, both in wages and state support, why pick the expensive one? Foxconn’s 2017 plan to build a U.S. taxpayer–subsidized $10 billion flat-panel display factory in Wisconsin was trumpeted by the president, but it was a fiasco that produced zero screens. The future cost of labor looks to be capped somewhere below the wage levels many people have enjoyed, and not just in the West.

The left-wing economist Joan Robinson used to tell a joke about poverty and investment, something to the effect of: The only thing worse than being exploited by capitalists is not being exploited by capitalists. It’s a cruel truism about the unipolar world, but shouldn’t second place count for something? When the Soviet project came to an end, in the early 1990s, the country had completed world history’s biggest, fastest modernization project, and that didn’t just disappear. Recall that Cisco was hyped to announce its buyout of the Evil Empire’s supercomputer team. Why wasn’t capitalist Russia able to, well, capitalize? You’re already familiar with one of the reasons: The United States absorbed a lot of human capital originally financed by the Soviet people. American immigration policy was based on draining technical talent in particular from the Second World. Sergey Brin is the best-known person in the Moscow-to-Palo-Alto pipeline, but he’s not the only one.

Look at the economic composition of China and Russia in the wake of Soviet dissolution: Both were headed toward capitalist social relations, but they took two different routes. The Russian transition happened rapidly. The state sold off public assets right away, and the natural monopolies such as telecommunications and energy were divided among a small number of skilled and connected businessmen, a category of guys lacking in a country that frowned on such characters but that grew in Gorbachev’s liberalizing perestroika era. Within five years, the country sold off an incredible 35 percent of its national wealth. Russia’s richest ended the century with a full counterrevolutionary reversal of their fortunes, propelling their income share above what it was before the Bolsheviks took over. To accomplish this, the country’s new capitalists fleeced the most vulnerable half of their society. “Over the 1989–2016 period, the top 1 percent captured more than two-thirds of the total growth in Russia,” found an international group of scholars, “while the bottom 50 percent actually saw a decline in its income.” Increases in energy prices encouraged the growth of an extractionist petro-centered economy. Blood-covered, teary, and writhing, infant Russian capital crowded into the gas and oil sectors. The small circle of oligarchs privatized unemployed KGB-trained killers to run “security,” and gangsters dominated politics at the local and national levels. They installed a not particularly well-known functionary—a former head of the new intelligence service FSB who also worked on the privatization of government assets—as president in a surprise move on the first day of the year 2000. He became the gangster in chief.

Vladimir Putin’s first term coincided with the energy boom, and billionaires gobbled up a ludicrous share of growth. If any individual oligarch got too big for his britches, Putin was not beyond imposing serious consequences. He reinserted the state into the natural monopolies, this time in collaboration with loyal capitalists, and his stranglehold on power remains tight for now, despite the outstandingly uneven distribution of growth. Between 1980 and 2015, the Russian top 1 percent grew its income an impressive 6.2 percent per year, but the top .001 percent has maintained a growth rate of 17 percent over the same period. To invest these profits, the Russian billionaires parked their money in real estate, bidding up housing prices, and stashed a large amount of their wealth offshore. Reinvestment in Russian production was not a priority—why go through the hassle when there were easier ways to keep getting richer?

While Russia grew billionaires instead of output, China saw a path to have both. As in the case of Terry Gou, the Chinese Communist Party tempered its transition by incorporating steadily increasing amounts of foreign direct investment through Hong Kong and Taiwan, picking partners and expanding outward from the special economic zones. State support for education and infrastructure combined with low wages to make the mainland too attractive to resist. (Russia’s population is stagnant, while China’s has grown quickly.) China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, in 2001, gave investors more confidence. Meanwhile, strong capital controls kept the country out of the offshore trap, and state development priorities took precedence over extraction and get-rich-quick schemes. Chinese private wealth was rechanneled into domestic financial assets—equity and bonds or other loan instruments—at a much higher rate than it was in Russia. The result has been a sustained high level of annual output growth compared to the rest of the world, the type that involves putting up an iPhone City in a matter of months. As it has everywhere else, that growth has been skewed: only an average of 4.5 percent for the bottom half of earners in the 1978–2015 period compared to more than 10 percent for the top .001 percent. But this ratio of just over 2–1 is incomparable to Russia’s 17–.5 ration during the same period.

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, certain trends have been more or less unavoidable. The rich have gotten richer relative to the poor and working class—in Russia, in China, in the United States, and pretty much anywhere else you want to look. Capital has piled into property markets, driving up the cost of housing everywhere people want to live, especially in higher-wage cities and especially in the world’s financial centers. Capitalist and communist countries alike have disgorged public assets into private pockets. But by maintaining a level of control over the process and slowing its tendencies, the People’s Republic of China has built a massive and expanding postindustrial manufacturing base.

It’s important to understand both of these patterns as part of the same global system rather than as two opposed regimes. One might imagine, based on what I’ve written so far, that the Chinese model is useful, albeit perhaps threatening, in the long term for American tech companies while the Russian model is irrelevant. Some commentators have phrased this as the dilemma of middle-wage countries on the global market: Wages in China are going to be higher than wages in Russia because wages in Russia used to be higher than wages in China. But Russia’s counterrevolutionary hyper-bifurcation has been useful for Silicon Valley as well; they are two sides of the same coin. Think about it this way: If you’re a Russian billionaire in the first decades of the twenty-first century looking to invest a bunch of money you pulled out of the ground, where’s the best place you could put it? The answer is Palo Alto.

Malcolm Harris, Palo Alto

[afeelgoodblog]

These are The Best News of Last Week

1. Brazil’s new president Lula vows to halt Deforestation.

For many Brazilians, Bolsonaro’s defeat represents a rejection of the explicit anti-Indigenous, anti-environmental agenda he enacted while in office.

Lula has promised to update Brazil’s climate goals to steer the country back in line with the Paris Agreement. He has also committed to a list of climate proposals put forth by Marina Silva, the most prominent environmental activist in Brazil who served as his former environment minister. In his first speech as president-elect late Sunday night, he reiterated his strong support for zero deforestation in the Amazon. “Brazil is ready to resume its leading role in the fight against the climate crisis”

2. All-terrain wheelchairs arrive at U.S. parks: ‘This is life-changing’

For anyone who has to use a wheelchair, the state says it will soon be easier to be able to enjoy several parks, historic sites and wildlife centers because these locations will provide free all-terrain wheelchairs.

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources said it has partnered with the Aimee Copeland Foundation to provide high-mobility, all-terrain track wheelchairs at 10 different locations across the state. DNR said the initiative “encourages those with mobility impairments to reconnect with nature, explore nature trails, go fishing and attend adaptive hunts.”

3. Electricity-generating windows? Swiss scientists design more efficient transparent solar panels

All that natural light flowing through your windows may one day do much more than brighten your mood. Scientists in Switzerland have reached a new efficiency record for transparent solar cells, paving the way for electricity-generating windows that could help power our homes and devices.

Also known as Grätzel cells, dye-sensitised solar cells (DSCs) are a type of low-cost solar cell that use photosensitised dye attached to the surface of a semiconductor to convert visible light into energy.

4. In France all new large parking lots must now be covered in solar panels starting in july 2023

The new provisions are part of French president Emmanuel Macron’s large-scale plan to heavily invest in renewables, which aims to multiply by 10 the amount of solar energy produced in the country, and to double the power from land-based wind farms.

Starting July 1, 2023, smaller carparks that have between 80 and 400 spaces will have five years to be in compliance with the new measures. Carparks with more than 400 spaces have a shorter timeline: They will need to comply with the new measures within three years of this date, and at least half of the surface area of the parking lot will need to be covered in solar panels.

5. Car horns replace gunfire as Ukraine’s troops return to jubilant Kherson

Ukrainian soldiers swept into the southern city of Kherson on Friday, seizing a major symbolic and strategic prize from the retreating Russian army and dealing a bitter blow to President Vladimir V. Putin.

Just weeks after Mr. Putin declared the Kherson region a part of Russia forever, his troops were forced to abandon its capital city, their third major retreat in the war. The setback further dented the once-formidable reputation of an army that has mismanaged logistics and sent unprepared and unmotivated soldiers into battle.

Jubilant crowds poured into the streets, greeting Ukrainian soldiers and waving flags

6. Lab-grown blood given to people in world-first clinical trial

Tiny amounts — equivalent to a couple of spoonfuls — are being tested to see how it performs inside the body. The bulk of blood transfusions will always rely on people regularly rolling up their sleeve to donate.

But the ultimate goal is to manufacture vital, but ultra-rare, blood groups that are hard to get hold of. These are necessary for people who depend on regular blood transfusions for conditions such as sickle cell anaemia.

7. A pod of dolphins got stuck in the mud at low tide — here’s how a N.S. community saved them

According to the Digby Fire Department, there were 16 Atlantic white-sided dolphins, of various sizes, stranded. People of all ages rushed to the scene in Digby on the afternoon of Nov. 4 after it was discovered that 16 dolphins were stranded in the mudflats of an area known as The Joggins.

“We are happy to report that all 16 dolphins eventually were ushered into the water,” the department posted on its Facebook page late in the afternoon. “We are hopeful once the tide keeps rising, they will safely make their way back out to sea.”

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Have a great week ahead :)

[geritsel]

A sincere wish

Dear fellow Tumblrians,

Besides Happy New Year, I also – and above all – wish you all a good, safe and prosperous future in a broader sense. In my opinion, that means a future in which Vladimir Putin dies quickly, Benjamin Netanyahu is impeached and tried for crimes against humanity and Donald Trump is – quite rightly – excluded from participating in the elections in 2024, convicted of both fraud and undermining the constitution, and disappears ASAP in prison for a long time, where he belongs.

Not everyone has to agree with me 100%, but I sincerely hope that everyone who seriously plans to vote for Donald Trump in 2024 will stop following me here on Tumblr after reading this message. I prefer not to share my love for art and beauty with people who are so at odds with everything I believe in and cherish as right-thinking and decent.

A very Happy New Year to all of you!

[seymour-butz-stuff]

There are no more dog whistles. No code words. No efforts to hide the truth. When it comes to democracy, Republicans are against it. Trump: We’ve been waging an all out war on American democracy pic.twitter.com/4YQDfsvTwi— Acyn (@Acyn) December 2, 2023 That little nugget may have been just one of the endless series of mistakes, slip-ups, and misstatements that the media seems willing to overlook when it comes to Donald Trump. But even if that’s the case, you don’t have to go far to understand what Trump has in mind for America. There’s “Agenda47,” where Trump promises to expand the death penalty, end birthright citizenship, and create giant “tent cities” for homeless people. And there’s the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which lays out plans to destroy the Department of Justice and replace tens of thousands of career federal employees with conservatives pledged to Trump’s will. But this past week, it seems that major media outlets woke up enough to realize that whistling past the Chancellery may not be the best idea. As The New York Times reported on Monday, Trump’s plan for moving the country into authoritarian control is now more sophisticated, and the systems that are supposed to safeguard democracy have all been weakened. It’s not that Trump hasn’t always been a radical fan of authoritarian rule. “When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it,” Donald J. Trump said in an interview with Playboy magazine the year after the massacre. “Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak.” It’s just that the first time around, Trump seemed unprepared for the idea that he couldn’t just step into the Oval Office and begin enjoying the despotic freedom of a Kim Jong Un or Vladimir Putin. This time, Trump and his allies seem to be pulling out all the stops to ensure that there are no stops. Not only has Trump been mimicking the language of the Nazi Party in describing his opponents as “vermin” and fretting that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” he’s also making it clear that he intends to take actions lifted from Germany circa 1939. Republicans have made the idea of invading Mexico practically a requirement for being a candidate in 2024, and Trump has sworn to get that done. Besides getting a little American lebensraum, Trump has also threatened to send military forces to take control of “Democratic cities.” Which would be all but three of America’s 20 largest cities and almost two-thirds of the top 100.

Any student of history - hell just current events - would know that countries are at their weakest when they stand alone against the world.

Just look at how weak Russia has become as a result of standing alone. They'll be lucky to get out of 2024 without handing over their east to China.