Chronic Capitalist Crisis Explained
by Prof. Richard Wolff

Capitalism is fragile. It is not a secure and solid system. And capitalists know this. They just don't let their media or politicians acknowledge it."

The lack of stability of the capitalist system and its recurring crises are both inevitable and hard-wired in its core dynamic and social relations, argues Prof. Wolff in this comprehensive and at times semi-satirical chat. 

Richard D. Wolff: Crisis – It’s How Capitalism Works
Richard Wolff's talk is a splendid introduction and thorough explanation for the way capitalism operates in the real world, and why immensely costly crises with massive social disruption and suffering cannot be avoided under its regimen.

The anarchy of production and capitalism's "iron laws", starting with its relentless drive for bigger profits at any cost, doom it to failure.

I have a point of divergence with Wolff. The power and eloquence of his presentations, and his didactic qualities are evident. But two things bear mention in connection with this specific chat. One, his explanation for the implosion of the Soviet Union is somewhat prejudicial to the actuality of the Soviet experiment and enormous acomplishments. The phrasing used by Wolff in that riff is a bit too close to that of standard anti-communist intellectuals, of which the world has seen more than its justifiable share. The Soviet Union failed because it needed change from within—toward more socialism—but did not develop the mechanism in time, keeping the system largely closed. Its leadership became fossilised and bureaucratised. Cynicism began to invade much of the top tiers of that society, and the siren song of capitalist "freeedom" and consumerism obviously seduced many of the ironically more privileged sectors—beginning with its youth and intellectuals. These sectors—including leaders like Gorbachev himself—had been heavily influenced and gradually absorbed by the Western synthetic left. But many of the people who embraced glasnost and perestroika saw it as means to revitalise the march to communism, not to dismantle it in favor of capitalism. Second, his talk about the confusion plaguing political labels in general in the US, and the left in particular is a correct observation, as far as it goes, but his effort to separate himself from communists is evocative of the kind of talk we frequently heard on the lips of Michael Harrington, or Norman Thomas, two anti-communist socialists the system used for decades, in fact to this day, as the kind of tame socialism people should look to for solutions. Wolff is a Marxist, but he sounds at times like a social democrat, or a pre-Comintern socialist wishing to keep his skirts white and starched while communists are walked down the plank at sword point. That said, I sure hope that I am proven wrong about this because Richard Wolff is an invaluable asset in the struggle for a noncapitalist future. 

—The Editor

•Oct 22, 2016

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post

By Andrei Martyanov
Crossposted with the Saker Blog

The US empire, an outgrowth of centuries, perhaps millennia, of Western Europe's nonstop imperialist plundering and war-addiction, can't help itself, it has to go on sanctioning, slandering, attacking and otherwise making life difficult for Russia, and any other nation that would have the audacity to stand as a sovereign entity in the hegemonic path that Washington's elites have chosen for the world. So now, with Biden's new round of sanctions on Moscow, predicated as usual on a ghastly Orwellian lie—that Russia is the aggressor in the Ukraine and not the Western zombie created by NATO—come but the latest spasm of insults and treacheries, all of them conducive to an expansion of the hybrid war the Americans and their accomplices in London and other Western capitals have long been waging on Russia, China, Iran and the rising bloc of nations representing the sanity of international multilateralism and full self-determination under a United Nations code. But, do not despair, folks. However the corrupt imbeciles in Washington and London may decide to play their cards, and despite their superiority in propaganda, they will not prevail for the simple reason they can't win an all-out war in Eastern Europe—or anywhere else for that matter—without destroying the whole planet, something that even these sociopathic phonies may understand. In any case, here's Andrei Martyanov's calm explanation why, while the criminal West may huff and puff, it fortunately lacks the military power to impose its will on the rest of humanity. That ship has sailed. —PG

—The Editor

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K-300P Bastion-P - Russian Mobile Coastal Defence Missile System

A. Martyanov

For the US Navy ships to enter the Black Sea and hope to survive in case of, God forbid, any kind of a conflict with Russia—yes, you read it right—is a fantasy, or, to be even more precise—an unscientific fiction. This group, let alone a single US destroyer of the Arleigh Burke-class (these are the most active types in the US Navy), which enter the Black Sea periodically to “show the flag” and US/NATO presence in this crucial body of water are aware of the fact that the Black Sea for all intents and purposes is Russia’s lake. Everyone can recall a wide-spread (spread most likely by some overly zealous, but not very literate, Russian “patriots”) rumor about DDG-75 USS Donald Cook having her electronics “burned” by a couple of intrepid Russian Su-24s in April of 2014, who allegedly forced this American ship to fast return to Constanta, where, allegedly some of her crew expressed a desire to abandon the ship. NYT and other US media, not without justification, called those rumors to be Russian “propaganda”. They have a point.

The reality of the events with the USS Donald Cook had very little to do with Su-24s or some magical ECM. The reason for cutting American ship’s voyage short was the fact, as Russian President Vladimir Putin himself stressed not for once, that Donald Cook was detected, tracked and, when the necessity arose, locked on by the radar of both K-300PBastion and Bal coastal anti-shipping cruise missile complexes located on the shores of Crimea, which, no doubt, made a lot of noise, literally, when Donald Cook’s passive radiation detectors started to signal that the ship was locked on by one of the most fearsome weapons in Russia’s inventory—a launcher of the P-800 Oniks (Onyx) missiles. This long-range M=2.5 missile is what makes the first line of defense of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet so deadly, because it is precisely a type of weaponry designed to over-saturate the air defense of US Aegis Combat Control System and Spy-1 radar-equipped ships. American naval officers are well-educated in terms of missile salvos and capabilities, including saturation thresholds, of their on-board Air Defense systems and know that 4+ P-800 Oniks or 8+ subsonic X-35missile salvo, in the active ECM environment in the Black Sea are impossible to defend against such a salvo. Russia can repeat these and even much larger salvos many times over, with a desirable frequency and density.

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Russia: Anti-ship BAL missile complex successfully used at Zapad-2017 drills

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post

The Saker
THIS A REPOST • FIRST PUBLISHED ON DECEMBER 10, 2020 

I lived most of my life in Europe and even though by the time I moved to the US (2002) Europe was already in a very bad shape, what I see happening there now never ceases to amaze me. In fact, it makes me wonder if the Europeans or, more accurately, the European leaders have gone completely insane. Either that, or maybe they have some kind of death wish?

The first thing which absolutely amazes me is the fact that the EU leaders are acting as if this was still the 1980s when Europe still mattered and when the European continent was relatively prosperous. And even when EU leaders acknowledge the problems facing Europe today (crime, immigration, lockdowns, civil unrest, tensions with Russia, self-defeating sanctions under US pressure, etc.), they systematically deal with them (so to speak) by minimizing their actual and potential impact and consequences. And if nothing else matters, they use the riot police forces to “solve” the issue.

Then there is NATO which now seems to believe that mantric incantations and some really dumb military “for show” activities along the borders of Russia will terrify the Kremlin and turn Russians into Poles. Apparently, the entire analytical apparatus of NATO has never opened a history book. Either that, or they have decided to ignore the lessons of history, because “this time around” the Russians will definitely surrender.

To be fair, all the military operations along the Russian border bother the Russians only because they show that the “collective West” still hates and fears Russia. But in purely military terms, they are a joke.

this Wikipedia entry for the history of the First Guard Tank Army”. At the bottom of the article, there is a partial list of units and subunits composing this Army. Check it out:

• Army Headquarters (Odintsovo, Moscow Oblast)

• 60th Command Brigade (Selyatino village near Odintsovo, Moscow Oblast)

• 2nd Guards Motor Rifle ‘Tamanskaya’ Division (Kalininets, Moscow Oblast)

• 4th Guards Tank ‘Kantemirovskaya’ Division (Naro-Fominsk, Moscow Oblast)

• 6th Separate Tank ‘Częstochowa’ Brigade (Mulino, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast)

• 27th Separate Guards Motor Rifle ‘Sevastopol’ Brigade (Mosrentgen, Moscow City)

• 112th Guards Missile ‘Novorossiysk’ Brigade (Shuya, Ivanovo Oblast) (9K720 Iskander)

• 288th Artillery ‘Warsaw’ Brigade (Mulino, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast)

• 49th Missile Air Defence Brigade (Krasnyi Bor, Smolensk Oblast) (Buk-M2)

• 96th Separate ISTAR (intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance) Brigade (Sormovo, Nizhny Novgorod City)

• unknown Combat Engineer Regiment (in formation until the end of 2018) (unknown location in Moscow Oblast)

• 20th Separate NBC Defence Regiment (Tsentralny, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast)

• 69th Separate Logistics Brigade (Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast)

No need to go into all the details, but let’s just say two things about this Tank Army: first, it has a lot more capabilities than “just” tanks and, second, this was the Army which really broke the back of the Nazi forces in WWII: it destroyed or captured 5,500 tanks, 491 self-propelled guns, 1,161 aircraft, 1,251 armored vehicles and armored personnel carriers, 4,794 guns of various calibers, 1,545 mortars, 5,797 machine guns, 31064 vehicles and other military equipment. The 1st guards tank army fought its way from Kursk to Berlin, which stretched for three thousand kilometers (source).

By the way, the FGTA will also get the very newest and best Russian tanks (there is no point in deploying the Armata family of armored vehicles elsewhere but towards the western borders of Russia), and the two most famous tank divisions of modern Russia.

Furthermore, we need to understand that this Tank Army will not operate in isolation, but will be directly supported by the Western and Southern Military Districts, the Black and Baltic Sea Fleets (equipped with the newest Russian hypersonic missiles) and the Aerospace Forces. Even the powerful Northern Fleet and the Caspian Flotilla (!) could, if needed, provide support for central European operations thanks to the long reach of Russian missiles.

So what is the purpose of the FGTA? Think of it as a powerful armored “fist” whose main goal is to stop any enemy attack and then punch through its defenses. Russia also announced that she will double the size of her Airborne Forces (currently at 4 Airborne/Air Assault Divisions, 4 Air Assault Brigades, 1 Special Operations Brigade, with roughly 45’000+ soldiers). Besides these Airborne/Air Assault units, the Russian military can also make use of her Spetsnaz Forces (8 Spetsnaz Brigades and 1 Spetsnaz Regiment according to the IISS’s Military Balance 2020). True, only part of these units will go to the Western and Southern Military Districts, but that is already much more than what NATO could realistically hope to be able to cope with (for details, see here).

Here is a short video to give you a sense of how Russian Airborne Forces (all fully mechanized, unlike their western “equivalents”) are preparing for next generation wars:

Airborne Force of Russia is ready for the network-centric battles in the Arctic 

Dec 7, 2020 / Saker Community Translations

Oh, and did I mention that the entire Russian nuclear triad has been modernized (or is currently in the process of modernization)?

Now comes the interesting question:

What kind of forces does NATO have which could deal with this kind of power?

On paper, a lot. In terms of raw numbers (what military analysts call “bean counts”), the West has much larger forces than the Russian ones.

But, in reality, very, very little, at least of military value.

What is NATO today? First, a coalition of small countries trying to find the courage to bark at the Russian bear the way dozens of chihuahuas would bark at a big brown bear. These small countries are what I call “prostitute states” – they don’t want sovereignty, freedom or dignity. All they want is for Uncle Shmuel to protect them when they bark and for the EU to give them tons of money as a reward for their prostitution to the collective West. They are apparently unaware that Uncle Shmuel is a world champion in destroying countries, but in terms of actually winning wars, Uncle Shmuel is one of the worst war losers in history (in that sense, the US and Russian militaries are polar opposites). They are also apparently unaware that the EU is broke and in a deep crisis. Besides, even the normally compliant Germans are now getting fed up spending billions of Euros on their clueless and hopeless eastern neighbors (and I don’t blame them!).

There are also more civilized countries in NATO, countries which used to have some very real military power and a history of winning and losing wars: Germany, the UK, France, etc – what Rumsfeld called “Old Europe”. They are all former imperial powers of their own, and they are much more aware of what it takes to win (or lose) a war.

Their problem, however, is that they are now true US protectorates/colonies, with no real foreign policy of their own. Their top leaders, political and military, are also prostitutes, just like “New Europe”, so while they have a wealth of historical experience to draw from, they cannot act on it because of the iron grip Uncle Shmuel has on their political throats. Even France, which used to have some real independence, under such leaders as de Gaulle and Mitterrand, now is just another voiceless and clueless protectorate.

Which leaves the US. I won’t repeat it all here, but to sum it all up: there are only two segments of the US military forces which are still meaningfully combat capable: the nuclear triad and the US submarine forces (strategic and attack). Both use mostly old, even outdated, equipment, both waste absolutely fantastic sums of money, but both are still for real. The problem with such a lop-sided force is that while it can devastate any enemy, it can only do so at the cost of being devastated by the Russian counter-strikes. In other words, by the time the US SSN and SSBN are engaged against Russia, we will be dealing with a large-scale war (even more so if nukes are used, which they probably will, at least on the tactical level). Oh, and this too: no amount of subs and nukes can “protect” any part of Europe from a (entirely hypothetical) Russian attack (conventional or not). For that, you still need the one thing the US has the least of: combat capable “boots on the ground”.

Did you know that in the 1990s Russia had almost no defenses in the western direction? Nothing bigger than division/brigade sized forces. And they were all in very bad shape. And the Kremlin, under Yeltsin, only wanted to further “reform” (i.e. “destroy”) the Russian military.

So what brought about such dramatic changes in the Russian force posture?

The EU/US/NATO war against the Serbian nation.

And the endless western threats, of course.

One could be excused for thinking that the collective West would have realized this mistake and that now they would try something smarter?

Nope!

They did exactly the same thing again, this time with the Kaliningrad enclave.

And they are now openly talking about “dealing with Russia from a position of force”!

Last time Germany tried that, it didn’t go too well, did it?

Let me summarize what recently happened: the Russians mostly deployed defensive systems in Kaliningrad: air defenses, early warning radars, signals intelligence, fighters, interceptors, electronic warfare units, etc. According to Russian sources, these systems had the ability to spy on much of northern Europe and were capable of simultaneously engaging 475 aerial targets (missiles, aircraft, etc.). Furthermore, these capabilities provided much needed support for the operations of the Baltic Sea Fleet.

Western analysts, always in search for some kind of buzzword or fancy sounding acronym, described that as “anti-access and area denial” aka A2/AD, and proceeded to use it as a justification for more money spending on completely unrealistic plans (see here for a good example). But that was not all, NATO commanders openly stated that they would “send” all sorts of “signals” to “deter” Russia. Again. And, so they did. They sent comparatively tiny forces to their 3B+PU (that is 3 Balts plus Poland and the Ukraine) protectorates where they played at all sorts of seriously sounding wargames.

Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, but NATO analysts apparently don’t know that. But what had to happen did happen: Russia has now announced that she will create a full Motor-Rifle Division inside the Kaliningrad enclave. And this division won’t be “sending” any “messages” to 3B+PU, NATO or anybody else. But they will train for real war, the kind of war which Russia always waged on her enemies when attacked. Bravo NATO! Now you are going to have to deal with a much more dangerous force than before, well done!

As for the Poles, they are now claiming that the entire “Fort Trump” plan, of which they were so proud of, was just a concept. Why? Because these losers are now terrified that the Biden team will remember how they backed Trump during the past four years (as did the rest of the 3B+PUs). This really is worth repeating: unlike those countries which heroically resisted the AngloZionist Empire (Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, etc), or those who at least did not volunteer to be occupied (Japan, Korea, Germany), the 3B+PU are the only countries actually willing to pay (while being mostly broke!) for the US military to occupy them. Just from that perspective any Russian will immediately conclude that irrespective of their numbers on paper, these countries actual combat potential is close to zero (the Russians remember very well that all the many units composed of volunteers from many European countries occupied by Germany and who were fighting on the side of Germany during WWII were only good at massacring and terrorizing civilians, but when faced with the regular Red Army they *always* ran like hell).

Finally, if you think of NATO as a structure, then the US military is both its foundation and its cornerstone. With the US entering the worst crisis of its (admittedly short) history, it is completely unable to perform even its normal tasks, nevermind fighting the most powerful military force on the planet.

If the EU leaders had any kind of awareness of these realities, they could immediately embark on a series of steps to stop this insanity. Amongst these could be such “unthinkable” steps as:

• Declaring that Russia and/or Putin are not always responsible for all the evil and problems in the universe.

• Immediately begin to take small, but steady, confidence-building measures, including resuming normal contacts between western and Russian militaries.

• Resuming economic collaboration with Russia, not because anybody has to like or approve of Putin, but simply to give the best possible conditions to the European industries.

• Stop parroting the idiocies à la Skripal/Navalnyi cooked up about Russia by the Anglos and tell them that they can fight their own (useless) propaganda wars if they like them so much.

• Getting together with the Russians and any mentally sane central European leaders to discuss what to do together to save the Ukraine from its current implosion (which will very negatively affect the EU, much more so than Russia).

• Define a list of policy issues in which Russia and the EU could work together, stuff like immigration, crime, terrorism, Takfirism, space, health crises, etc.

These are just a few, basic, suggestions. A real list could be several pages long and be much broader than the few options I listed. None of them require anything painful or crucial from Europe, just good old common sense.

But no, not only are EU leaders not taking even small steps to return to sanity, they still think they can bully and threaten Russia into some kind of compliance. I wish somebody told them something as simple as “Russia ain’t Poland”, really. 

At the core of it all, there is a cultural difference: Europeans (and nevermind their US bosses!) are not really afraid of war. That is why they are not really prepared for it at all. The Russians are very, very afraid of war, because they know and remember it. This is why the West is all threats and no action, while Russia is all action and no threats. From the Russian point of view, the best way to avoid war is to really, really prepare for it. One could argue that 1000 years of Russian history were a never ending lesson in preparation for war, especially since most wars fought by Russia were existential.

As my friend Andrei Martyanov recently mentioned in his blog, “Russians also have a saying: once every century Europeans gather their forces and go to Russia to get the shit beaten out of them”. He is right. But last time around Russia lost 30+ millions of people in truly horrible battles. She also lost most of her economy. Then, in the 1990s, Russia almost completely disappeared as a country. As a result, there is this notion of “never again – enough is enough!” underlying most Russian actions today.

The US and Europe can only ignore this at the greatest possible risk for their own survival. Take it from Putin himself, who recently declared “as a citizen of Russia and the head of the Russian state I must ask myself: Why would we want a world without Russia?”

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post

Moon of Alabama 
BY THE EDITOR ("b")

The 'western' media reporting of the spat between Biden and Putin is typically bad.

The Guardian @guardian - 18:15 UTC · Mar 18, 2021

'Takes one to know one': Putin-Biden spat escalates over 'killer' accusation

That was not what Putin had said:

Ivan Pentchoukov @IvanPentchoukov - 16:56 UTC · Mar 19, 2021

Can't believe how many outlets are running with the same totally false translation of what Putin said.

The idiom Putin used is much closer to "the names you call others is what you should be called."

The official Kremlin transcript agrees with Ivan's formulation:

[D]ifficult, dramatic, and bloody events abound in the history of every nation and every state. But when we evaluate other people, or even other states and nations, we are always facing a mirror, we always see ourselves in the reflection, because we project our inner selves onto the other person.

You know, I remember when we were children and played in the yard, we had arguments occasionally and we used to say: whatever you call me is what you are called yourself. This is no coincidence or just a kids’ saying or joke. It has a very deep psychological undercurrent. We always see ourselves in another person and think that he or she is just like us, and evaluate the other person’s actions based on our own outlook on life.

There is an additional passage of interest which sets out rules for future talks that I have not seen reported in 'western' media:

I know that the United States and its leaders are determined to maintain certain relations with us, but on matters that are of interest to the United States and on its terms. Even though they believe we are just like them, we are different. We have a different genetic, cultural and moral code. But we know how to uphold our interests. We will work with the United States, but in the areas that we are interested in and on terms that we believe are beneficial to us. They will have to reckon with it despite their attempts to stop our development, despite the sanctions and insults. They will have to reckon with this.

We, with our national interests in mind, will promote our relations with all countries, including the United States.

Secretary of State Blinken's meeting with the Chinese foreign minister in a shabby Alaskan hotel was another diplomatic train wreck:

“The alternative to a rules-based order is a world in which might makes right and winner takes all and that would be a far more violent and unstable world,” Blinken said.

The 'rules based order' means 'do what we say' and is of course unacceptable. Here is how the Chinese replied:

What China and the international community follow or uphold is the United Nations-centered international system and the international order underpinned by international law, not what is advocated by a small number of countries of the so-called “rules-based” international order.

and

I don’t think the overwhelming majority of countries in the world would recognize that the universal values advocated by the United States or that the opinion of the United States could represent international public opinion, and those countries would not recognize that the rules made by a small number of people would serve as the basis for the international order.

When Yang was chided by Blinken for making a too long opening statement in response to Blinken's accusations Yang replied:

The Chinese side felt compelled to make this speech because of the tone of the U.S. side.

Well, isn’t this the intention of United States, judging from what – or the way that you have made your opening remarks, that it wants to speak to China in a condescending way from a position of strength?

So was this carefully all planned and was it carefully orchestrated with all the preparations in place? Is that the way that you had hoped to conduct this dialogue?

Well, I think we thought too well of the United States. We thought that the U.S. side will follow the necessary diplomatic protocols. So for China it was necessary that we made our position clear.

So let me say here that, in front of the Chinese side, the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength. The U.S. side was not even qualified to say such things even 20 years or 30 years back, because this is not the way to deal with the Chinese people. If the United States wants to deal properly with the Chinese side, then let’s follow the necessary protocols and do things the right way.

And this which was apparently left out of State Departments transcript:

History will prove that if you use cutthroat competition to suppress China you will be the one to suffer in the end.

The attempted U.S. assault was a home run for the Chinese side:

Many netizens on China’s social media said Chinese officials were doing a good job in Alaska, and that the U.S. side lacked sincerity.

Some even characterized the talks as a “Hongmen Banquet”, referring to an event that took place 2,000 years ago where a rebel leader invited another to a feast with the intention of murdering him.

Posted by b on March 19, 2021 at 18:53 UTC | Permalink

Select Original Comments

The Chinese emphasis on most of the world rejecting a US-directed 'rules-based order' instead of honouring the UN Charter and settled international law is of supreme importance aand must be re-emphasized ad nauseum.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post

Moon of Alabama

Navalny in the prisoner's dock. The New York Times and the rest of the Western oligarchs' disinformation machine is using 'Navalny the Martyr' to prepare their own home publics for more extreme measures against Russia, including war.  (NYT photo)

It is amusing to what extent the editors of the New York Times resort to lying in their attempts to portray the incarceration of the right wing racist Alexei Navalny as the best thing that happened since the invention of sliced bread.

Today's editorial is as delusional as it can get.

Aleksei Navalny Is Resisting Putin, and Winning
The opposition leader was sentenced to prison, but he has mobilized a vast movement that’s not done growing.

Beyond being delusional the editorial is full of lies and disinformation:

A Russian court on Tuesday opened a new and fateful stage in the gripping power struggle between Aleksei Navalny, Russia’s tough-talking and internet-savvy opposition leader, and President Vladimir Putin, by sentencing Mr. Navalny to his first serious stint in prison.

On the face of it, this would appear to be a clear victory for Mr. Putin, who has effectively proclaimed himself president for life.
...
But in this David v. Goliath saga, the 44-year-old Mr. Navalny has succeeded through raw courage and perseverance in putting Mr. Putin on the defensive. The imprisonment was Mr. Navalny’s move. Mr. Putin had tried for years to give him only brief sentences to avoid making him a martyr.
...
The Kremlin attempted to give the court proceedings a veneer of legitimacy by moving them to a large courtroom in central Moscow and allowing Mr. Navalny to do all the talking he wanted to. But the outcome was preordained: Mr. Navalny was accused of violating parole from a 2014 conviction that the European Court of Human Rights had debunked as “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable.” The accusation served to underscore the main reason Mr. Navalny couldn’t make the requisite visits to the authorities: Evidence suggests he was nearly poisoned to death in August by the secret police. He was subsequently evacuated to Germany.

The sentence in bold is an outright lie. On January 17 the Russian Foreign Ministry relayed a statement (in English!) by the Moscow Directorate of Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service which debunked that claim:

Earlier, on 30 December 2014, Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow sentenced Mr. Navalny to serve 3 years and 6 months in prison and pay a fine of 500 thousand rubles on the charges of fraud and money laundering. The court ruled the sentence to be suspended with a 5-year probation term. On August 4, 2017, Simonovsky District Court of Moscow extended Mr. Navalny’s probation period by twelve more months.

However, Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia has registered multiple violations of the probation terms by Mr. Navalny during the year 2020; namely, Mr. Navalny has failed to check in for registration at the Department of Corrective Services of the Federal Penitentiary Service’s Moscow Directorate twice a month as per the assigned schedule. There were two registration appointments missed in January 2020, and one in each of the following months: February, March, July and August, 2020. Last time Mr. Navalny checked in with the Department of Corrective Services was on August 3, 2020. All this time the Department of Corrective Services has been warning Mr. Navalny that these violations could lead to his suspended sentence being revoked and replaced with an actual prison term.

Department of Corrective Services suspended the requirement for Mr. Navalny to check in for registration for the duration of his treatment at the Charité Hospital in Berlin, Germany. However, Charité Hospital’s official statements indicated that Mr. Navalny’s treatment there was completed on September 23, 2020. Later, Mr. Navalny confirmed this fact in a notification he sent to the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia. In the apparent absence of any valid reasons Mr. Navalny has not appeared for any of the regular check-in appointments with the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia from October 2020 until the end of his probation period, thus violating the probation terms again.

Either the editors of the New York Times do not know the facts or they are avoiding them because they do not fit their narrative:

It was Mr. Navalny in the glassed-in prisoner’s dock. But it was Mr. Putin and his corrupt cohort who were on trial behind the army of riot police officers gathered in central Moscow to prevent the sort of mass protests across all of Russia that followed Mr. Navalny’s return to his country on Jan. 17. “Hundreds of thousands cannot be locked up,” Mr. Navalny declared from court to his millions of followers on social media. “More and more people will recognize this. And when they recognize this — and that moment will come — all of this will fall apart, because you cannot lock up the whole country.”

There were, at max, some 40,000 people protesting all over Russia when Navalny returned. Many of those were school children. In total there were way less protesters than on other occasions.

Nina Byzantina @NinaByzantina - 15:11 UTC · Jan 23, 2021

Neon sign on the building above these anti-govt protesters in Russia reads: “Circus: trained animals.” Yes, yes they are.

The following week less than half took again to the streets. Navalny's organization has since stopped all calls for further demonstrations. They know that no one would follow them. The "vast movement" the NYT claims to see does not exist.

Massive police repression and winter frosts may quell the demonstrations. But the vast movement Mr. Navalny has mobilized is quantitatively different from earlier opposition forces, and still growing. The opposition now has 40 offices across Russia, and most of its millions of followers are young people who have not challenged the Kremlin before. Among people ages 18 to 24, Mr. Putin’s popularity has slid from 36 percent in December 2019 to 20 percent.

The last sentence is an outright and intentional lie. The link provided goes to a Washington Post story which does not include any such numbers.

There are however fresh poll numbers from Russia. The New York Times ignores these because, again, they do not fit its narrative:

Something has changed, we are told again and again. After two decades of misrule, Russians are getting increasingly fed up with Vladimir Putin and his ‘regime’. The recent protests caused by the arrest of Alexei Navalny are just the tip of the iceberg, underneath which is a huge wave of dissatisfaction just waiting to burst loose.

But is it?
...
To answer that question, we turn to the Russian sociological organization known as the Levada Centre. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, Levada has been doing surveys for a long time, so one can compare data over a prolonged period. And second, Levada is well known for its liberal, anti-government orientation, and so cannot in any way be accused of biasing its surveys to favour the Russian state.

Today, Levada published its latest set of indicators. So, let’s take a look at these, starting with the one that everybody is always interested in – Vladimir Putin’s approval rating.

This records that when asked the question ‘do you approve of Vladimir Putin’s activities as President?’, 64% of respondents said yes. That’s down from 69% in September of last year, but up from the 60% recorded in July at the peak of the first wave of coronavirus.

If there is any reason for Putin to be concerned it is that his approval rating is lower among younger people than older ones. Whereas 73% of people aged 55 or over approve of him, only 51% of those aged 18 to 24 do so. But then again, 51% is still a majority.

The New York Times claims that Putin's popularity with younger people has 'slipped' down to 20%. It deceivingly gives a link, which few will follow, as source of its claim even when the linked page fails to support it. This when current polls show that a majority of Russian youths approve of Putin.

The Times and other 'western' media are constantly and intentionally building a narrative of Russia that has little to do with reality. That is dangerous as the false narrative over time forms the basis of 'western' policy making towards Russia.  When Russia reacts harshly to unrealistic 'western' demands and policies the outcry and disappointment is great. But no lesson is ever learned from it.

Posted by b on February 6, 2021 at 12:33 UTC | Permalink

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