Majorityrights News > Category: Russian Politics

Another old and wise hand who understands the global contest in which the war in Ukraine is a key element.  As he says, “The question is: will the world in the 21st century be based upon force and tyranny, or not?

Andrei Illarionov, who worked as a senior policy adviser to Vladimir Putin at the start of his term, supplies his insights into the Russian dictator and the global strategy he is advancing.
Interviewer Dr Jason Jay Smart of Kyiv Post.

The American diplomat and academic Mitchell Reiss airs his views of Donald Trump’s forthcoming conversational intervention in Ukraine, indicating that Trump has a degree of realism that will disappoint the bravado-filled pro-Putin right.  Interview by Times Radio.

ATP Geopolitics explains:

So far, four large-scale ammunition storage sites have been hit in under two weeks. The first attack was on the morning of September 7.  The depot is in Soldatsky, Voronezh region, only about seventy-five miles from the Ukrainian border.  It is where North Korean-made KN-23 missiles were held.

Next, on the night of September 18 the SBU security service, GUR defence intelligence, and Special Operations Forces hit Military Unit 11777, the headquarters of the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Russian Defence Ministry in Toropets, Tver region.  As many as 100 drones may have been used.  The depot is vast, and said to have held missiles for Iskander operational-tactical missile systems, Tochka-U tactical missile systems, as well as KAB aerial guided bombs, and artillery rounds.

On the night of September 21, the Defence Forces of Ukraine struck the Russian arsenal of Tikhoretsk, in the Krasnodar region.  This facility is one of the three largest ammunition storage hubs in Russia and one of the key ones in the logistics system of the Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.  According to reports the arsenal had received at least 2,000 tons of ammunition, including from North Korea. The Podliot radar station, which detected air targets in the direction of the arsenal, was also attacked.

The same night the 23rd Arsenal of the Main Artillery Department of the Ministry of Defence, again in the Tver region.  This was another warehouse where the Iskander and Tochka-U ballistic missiles were located. It is about 15 km from Toropets.

All four were major hits.  There are claims from the front in Donetsk that Russian Army logistics have already been affected, and the rate of artillery fire is reducing.  Can the pressure be sustained by the Ukrainians (for example, if the Russians now have to move to a multiplicity of smaller but less secure storage sites)?  What would be the potential effect on the Russians ability to continue their current offensive war?

Alexey, a 47-year-old Russian and a teacher by profession, shares his perspective on Putin’s war in Ukraine.  Among other things, he explains why he believes Ukraine should not cede territory, and questions whether the West is really the great enemy to Russia:

“We have China right next door and it’s many times scarier.

... China’s policy is that the whole world, that is, the globe, is China.  And all those who think otherwise simply do not understand the magnitude of the imperial scheme of the Chinese and their emperor”

Video from HEADSHOT, who specialise in bringing the vox populi of that vast country to the internet.

“Unwilling to rest on the foot of conscience, my Russia took a few big leaps, pushing everyone around, but them slipped and collapsed with a crash, destroying everything around it. And now it is floundering in a pool of either mud or blood, with broken bones and the poor, robbed population, surrounded by the tens of thousands of victims of the most stupid and senseless war of the XXI century.”
- Navalny, 20th July, 2023.

Claimed details of Navalny’s treatment at Correctional Colony 3, Yamalo Nenets here.

Here is a sampler from the work of a Ukrainian content producer, the content being the busting of propaganda from Moscow.  The video is titled 20 Confirmed Lies, Imperialism & Moscow’s Propaganda from Robert Kennedy Jr. on Ukraine.

Beneath the videos, Yaroslav - that’s his name, apparently - notes the following:

Moscow’s immense investments into propaganda paying off from the mouth of Robert Kennedy Jr. Most disgusting lies about Ukraine I’ve ever heard from a presidential candidate of a democratic state.  Over 20 of confirmed lies, severe imperialism symptoms, justifying Moscow’s unprovoced invasion, borderline betrayal of US interests

Timecodes:
00:00 Intro
00:38 Lie#1 Putin asks for negotiations everyday
02:35 Lie#2 Gorbachev destroyed himself politically
03:17 Lie#3 We swore not to expand NATO
04:27 Lie#4 We put missiles in Romania and Poland
06:11 Lie#5 WE overthrow Ukraine’s government
06:58 Lie#6 Ukraine’s government was overthrown
07:45 Lie#7 Crimea taken without firing a shot
08:55 Lie#8 Killing ethnic russians in Donbass
09:45 Lie#9 Voted to leave and join Russia
10:14 Lie#10 Ukraine controlled by ultra right
10:38 Lie#11 Ukraine refused to sign Minsk Accords
12:00 Lie#12 Zelensky threatened by death
12:23 Lie#13 USA controls Zelensky
12:37 Lie#14 Moscow sends only 40,000 invaders
13:00 Lie#15 Muscovites withdraw in good faith
13:30 Lie#16 US forced to not sign peace treaty
13:40 Lie#17 450,000 kids have died
14:00 Lie#18 More Ukrainians die than invaders
14:20 Lie#19 Ukraine has no men left
14:38 Lie#20 US looks like the aggressor
15:00 Conclusion

A residential apartment block in Dnipro hit by a Russian missile on 14th January 2023

This morning the DT’s live Ukraine feed carried a brief report of comments by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s, revealing the Kremlin’s real interest in peace talks with Ukraine, ie, it doesn’t have any.  The war is for empire and geopolitics, not for ethnic Russians in Ukraine (or in Russia).  The Kremlin’s interest is that the United States “negotiates” giving up of its status as global hegemon in exchange for Putin making nice with Zelensky for five minutes.  Lavrov actually means that American maintenance of the rules-based international order has to be ended so Russia can upgrade its non-rules-based, eurasionist model of imperial power to a global level.

I would remind readers that the Kremlin power elites define multipolarity as a collection of economic blocs, each led by a dominant power.  The model allows the Kremlin to piggy-back (with “no limits”) off the China’s inevitably global hegemony - as close as it can get to hegemon itself.

Here is the report:

Any Ukraine peace talks should be about ‘new world order’

Moscow wants any Ukraine peace talks to focus on creating a “new world order”, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on a visit to Turkey on Friday.

He also threatened to abandon a landmark grain deal, which Turkey helped broker, if obstacles to Russian exports remain.

“Any negotiation needs to be based on taking into account Russian interests, Russian concerns,” Lavrov said.

“It should be about the principles on which the new world order will be based.”

He added that Russia rejects a “unipolar world order led by ‘one hegemon’”.