I am delighted to announce that I have been contacted by the editors of the new website Russia Insider and that I have accepted their offer to collaborate with them. I did agree to this not only because I knew several of the excellent contributors to this project, but also because I truly believe that it is a much needed, timely and very important project (please see Russia Insider’s “About” page for more details and background)
Check out today’s CrossTalk where the Editor in Chief of Russia Insider, Charles Bausman, is one of the guests:
A very good project, with very good people doing something very important – how could I refuse?! I gratefully accepted.
I strongly believe that bringing the true story about modern Russia is crucial, especially for the English speaking world. At a time when everything Russian is demonized and some crazy, but powerful, maniacs are dreaming about yet another war (Cold or Hot) against Russia, it is absolutely crucial to deconstruct the warmongering anti-Russian propaganda and to replace it with a much more complex and nuanced understanding of the true Russia, not the fictional Land of Mordor the Neocons are trying to portray.
There have been many conflicts between the West and Russia in the past, but for the first time, in the age of the Internet, we – in the West and in Russia – have the means to stop the current one and to prevent it from turning into yet another a full-scale continental war. We need to fight that “information war” and we need to win it.
Please help us fight this war and contribute in any way you can: first and foremost, spread the word about Russia Insider on the social media, post links to the Russia Insider homepage on your blogs and websites, subscribe to the Russia Insider YouTube channel, subscribe to the newsletter (on the homepage), help us organize a crowdfunding for the site or join our community of contributors. Last, but not least, sign up for the RSS feed and make sure to check the Russia Insider website at least once a day.
I am absolutely delighted and honored to be associated with this project which I believe will become a key player on the international scene.
Kind regards,
The Saker
Well, that’s very good news, Saker, your good work is being noticed beyond this blog. Congratulations!
Wow. The site looks great and congrats!
In observing Cross Talk it is interesting to observe the strategy of the “propagandists” in a group discussion although it is frustrating. They tend to bring in a parallel subject that distracts from the main issue, they mix it with false information or half truths and tend to monopolize the conversation.
The problem in our democratically “polite” society is that any form of intelligent discussion is easily sabotaged by the propagandists who use the process to their advantage. And if you try to bring them in line you are accused of bullying.
Peter is taking a very strong approach to maintain the focus of the discussion, but it is the only one that can lead to some form of intelligent dialogue. And it is one of the reasons I keep watching his show.
If nothing else they wont be able to say no one reads what you write.
To make a change every drop counts. I am quite surprised this many knowledgeable people are already awake. But as we saw, 60% of the people dropping main stream news outlets because of all the lies is not enough make a difference, maybe its time to just make them redundant.
Congratulations Saker!
This is excellent news, perfect timing, and good for you altogether . .
Will you be a presenter on T.V? – what will you do with your feathers?
Congratulations Saker, I sincerely wish this will to be a fruitful co-operation for both parties. May your burdens become lighter and thank you for your courage. Best wishes, Lars (swedish).
Congrats, Saker!
BR
shed
Congratulations to Mr. Saker. High honour. And long past due.
Take Note: let’s counter the McStains, underaged Menedez, VickNu, Soros and little mikey Rogers of the warmongering crowd.
Congratulation!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, I’m so happy for you, your hard work is starting to bring the fruit as a result of your generous and hard work.
I’m immensely happy that you have made it in the way you deserve it and this is just a beginning.
Blessings to you and lot of success
RE: Russia Insider. Yes, good move, Saker. Thanks for giving me ways to fight the good fight on this score.
Looks like someone has been reading your post from July 18th..
http://www.whathappenedtoflightmh17.com/the-circumstances/what-happened-to-flight-mh17/
(via:http://twitter.com/JeroenAkkermans)
From the “hated” RT
http://rt.com/op-edge/189592-us-obama-policy-nato/
Well done Saker!
A few people of your calibre on the new website could make a significant difference.
It might be called “Inside Russia”, but it should really be the perspective of a future multi-polar world of which Russia is a major centre.
Best of luck.
So far Jelena, the Russian’s commentary is tragic. I don’t know if it is a poor grasp of English or just a mental limitation. She just keeps repeating that USA should encourage Russia to develop.
Peter did slip a little, by interrupting the first uttering of the counter argument speaker, if you will…
Bausman’s has great respect for Henry Kissinger and his Russian Views?
Is it possible that both could be crypto-zionists?
Very glad to hear of this new project. Bausman seemed to me to be the strongest of the participants in the linked CrossTalk—Lavelle seemed to be struggling to get the other two participants to get off their hobby horses and grasp the basic premise of the day’s subject! The elderly fellow was a living example of the problem Lavelle was trying to put under the microscope and was blissfully unaware of the fact. And this is an American academic. Fortunately there are some others, but this was a dispiriting showing.
Katherine
Way to go Dear Saker!
This is an immensely proud moment for all of us.
Much luck to the Russia Insider team.
Love and God Bless!
Can you speak about Putin shutting down the net. The Kremlin is considering radical plans to unplug Russia from the global internet in the event of a serious military confrontation or big anti-government protests at home, Russian officials hinted on Friday.http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/19/vladimir-putin-plan-unplug-russia-internet-emergency-kremlin-moscow
Awesome, congrats, I also wanted to note at least two references by Paul Craig Roberts, another article somewhere that I’m fairly sure was from your blog’s Ukraine sitrep (but unattributed, as far as I recall- I could dig for it if you wanted), and one in a recent Pepe Escobar piece. As they say in my home parts- killin it, bro :-)
Success and Good Luck!
Just wondering if you have seen this article by Eric Zuesse
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/09/obama-defeated-ukraine-status-quo-truce-lines-agreed.html
Glad to hear you will be collaborating on the Russian Insider!
This CrossTalk show was one of the worst ones ever. That Russian woman in NY should learn to speak English before she talks on TV. Inside Russia needs better communicators as well.
Hi Saker.
Thats very good news.
Added to favourites and subscribed to youtube.
Good luck to you and Russian Insider.
Saker,
Why is it that only half the videos are showing when I enter your excellent site, using an IPad ? Do you know? Or perhaps other people know?
Best regards,
Vaeringen
Congratulations Saker,
I’m happy to see you getting recognition beyond the Vineyard for all your hard work and talents. This new project will likely add quite some hours to your workload so take good care of yourself and have another try at getting some assistance with the routine chores of running a high traffic blog.
We look forward to your Russia Insider work.
Brian
Crickus is such a moron.
Besides stupidity, he’s also a liar: I’ve seen lots of Russian TV – and I’ve NEVER seen the images he says Americans are portrayed as. The only images of stupidity are of Psaki – and that’s not acting.
Crosstalk really screwed the pooch bringing this guy on: besides his pedigree as a professor for the military (Strategic Studies Institute), the title of this guy’s book “Russia after Putin” doesn’t bode well either.
I think someone read the synopsis of the above (FREE) book and failed to note how a combination of Brzezinski and Kissinger is an oxymoron of the highest order. Emphasis on the moron.
Downloading and looking at it –
the first page talks about Stalin-lite. Big hint that all’s not well with this guy.
A random jump yields this gem of “analysis”: Specifically, he [Putin] wants to re-integrate former Soviet entities back into Russia’s clutches and to deny the West the capacity to integrate them into the EU and NATO.
Or in other words, maybe this is the guy who’s “informing” the US government in its idiocy.
Really, Crosstalk needs to work harder screening candidates.
Unfortunately, not all the links at Russia Insider work. And that includes their email link, so I can’t let them know of the problem. Oh well, it is still a beta after all.
One broken link…
http://russia-insider.com/en/ukraine_business/2014/09/22/09-14-01pm/ukrainian_central_bank_helps_oligarchs_screws_citizens
Read on http://www.rense.com What if Putin is also in it-…?
That explains his action in Kozaksstan. As K.Marx correctly pointed out that The egzistance shapes consciens, so Mr.Put being a billioner consciens tells him to guard his egzistance and don’t give a damm for his copatriots as he did.
Well, welcome to the Billioneres Club with Mr.Put as member in high standing. Masses are asses.
Does that mean you will stop writing in here?
Richard Krickus shows a clear US-centric socialization and clearly cannot speak factually about the issue. His ridiculous claims are laughable to informed and honest people.
Not to engage in an ad-hominem attack, but Krickus appears as if he has suffered a stroke. His speech is obviously slurred. Perhaps that has clouded his judgement. For example, he tells a bald-faced lie about Zbiggy Grand Bloody Chessboard
It really doesn’t matter whether the nutcases in the State Dept. are “neocons” liberal interventionists or so-called realists like Zbiggy B. IMO they are liars, criminals and traitors to the constitution of the US. The constitution is now “just a god-damned piece of paper”
Congratulations, Saker! I’m sure your contributions to this publication will be well received and well read.
Congratulations, Saker!
“Russia Insider” has only to gain with your collaboration.
I presume they’ll be providing you with proofreading services ;)
Seriously, Saker, it looks like a great site/project and I’m glad to see you’ll be part of it.
Charles B comes off as an intelligent guy (even though he voted for Obama 2x (:>) ) and I look forward to his ideas about business conditions in Russia. He needs to pause every time he’s not sure what he wants to say instead of saying “Um, uh, um.” Each time he pauses he’ll appear to be thinking and people respect that. Um-ing is useless and unappealing.
reading Transcript of Poroschenko press conference on current situation – with associated comments just provided quite a lot of pleasure [loose = lose :-)].
Dear Saker –
It would appear that congratulations are in order with respect to this new association.
However, let me plead with you to resist any efforts to change your “Anglo Zionist” descriptor for the sake of political correctness.
Looks like a very good site, altought I wish it did not call itself “Russia” I think newspapers should have neutral names.. Now many people negative or sceptical towards Russia will automatically dismiss it as “Kremlin propaganda.”
Well done, Saker. You were born for this. Can’t think of a more worthy and noble project than to combat the tireless demonization campaign against Russia by “christian” western crusaders, and to try to turn the tide on a thousand years of persecution against the Russian people and their culture.
It is extremely sad and depressing, if true, as one author has observed in a recent article, that Russia’s high mortality rate is on account of a general feeling of exhaustion, hopelessness, and despair that set in after the monumental struggle of WW II ended, only to be followed by decades of Cold War confrontation. The article sadly concludes that “Russia is dying of a broken heart.”
Hopefully, this is just hyperbole, but could it be that a thousand years of hatred and aggression from the West has finally taken its toll on a people who never did anything wrong except to be different?
Saker, may your labor of love, and that of your colleagues and other people of good will in the west bring a ray of sunshine and hope to a weary, despondent, and disconsolate people. Sick and tired of being invaded every 50 years. And sick and tired of occupying Paris and Berlin AFTER being invaded.
Has anyone noticed how the rhetoric over the past tweleve months has transformed from “let’s have a smashing European future”, to “let’s smash beetle terrorists”, to “let’s build walls”, to let’s make escape plans?
Welcome on board :-) !
– Federico Pieraccini
I also welcome the news of Russia Insider. Excellent idea to provide quality discourse about Russia in the English language.
Also @pogo makes a good point. Charles B is very articulate and relaxed in his delivery. However I also find it puzzling that he voted for Obama twice.
But general elections in the USA are merely the world’s most expensive PR stunt. The two “viable choices” are the the ones backed by Big Money and the Media Cartel who control the discourse. The candidates who do not enjoy Big Money and Media Cartel backing are ignored and few even know about them.
I’m listening to that video ‘The Russia Story.
You could have given some warning about that ‘Dickus’ Crickus troll being on there. I was trying to eat lunch when this guy came on like a horned lie machine from the bowels of of Beast. ‘Occupation of Crimea’? ‘The future of Crimea’? He pushes the ‘regime change’ project in Syria’
And that after saying the media in Russia is as crude as that in the US.
I’m fed up with hearing all the lies from US imperialists, after many years of hearing them — all my life, really. It’s one thing to be wrong and quite another to be a mouthpiece for the lies — as if this ‘professor’ can’t tell the difference.
I passed around the URL for Russia Insider, and hope people will check it out. I certainly welcome another voice, hopefully one concerned with the truth and deeper reality than what is usually broadcast on the web and media. I hope this take off (but you don’t get swallowed by the time there and keep the blog going well).
__Blue
Good looking site but beware the offer you can’t refuse.
Do not allow yourself to be stretched too thin. You are already the most important — and most influential Russia analyst in the English speaking world today.
You did that on your own.
The bevy of Anglo ambassadors and other representitives suddenly speaking out against Western policies targeting Russia are using a space opened up by YOU. Where have they been all these months and years beforehand?
You are a general on the informational war front Saker. You need to understand what that means (I think you do).
Word from Thierry Meyssan is Maghreb and other Arab leaders of the ‘Emirate’ are being replaced by Causcasians and Uighurs. The obvious implication being that whatever happens in the ME, the war against Russia and China will continue indefinitely.
I would like to believe that Putin will achieve his objectives in Ukraine through negotiations. I would like but I know that until the Empire is actually unable to sustain aggressive actions, Banderastan will be made into a permanent thorn in the side of Russia. LPR/DPR will be less than a nuissance to the West. The moreso the longer this war on the distant Russian frontier continues.
Until Kiev is cleansed of all those willing to work to detroy Russia, the problem will not be solvable. It will sap Russia’s strength more and more the longer it goes. There will be no perfect or ‘easy’ political victory for Russia in Ukraine under any circumstances. Both Anglos and Zionists have the power to continue to make life difficult for Russia and they agree, as they always have, that it is wise to never let up on the pressure. This is their M/O and they will continue on this path because thus far, the strategy has never failed.
Since there is very little prospect for an anti NATO uprising in Kiev, the only way for Russia to solve this problem is to have boots on the ground.
At some point, likely very soon, the the US and NATO will move fully into Iraq. When this happens and it is clear to Western and other audiences that this is a full on reinvasion, Russia will have a window of opportunity to move into Ukraine while pointing a finger at the US and NATO. It would be far more useful if pro Russia forces focussed on this reality (possibility) instead of allowing themselves to be lulled into a false sense of security, as seems to be happening right now. All is not well and RT and others including yourself must vocally decry the illegality of Western imperial policies even if Russia is planning to do exactly the same in Ukraine in the months ahead. I sincerely fear that Putin is not planning to do anything. At the very least he must be prepared for his strategy of negotiation to be abandoned entirely in favour of more aggressive action.
I hope Putin doesn’t miss the opportunity to fix the Ukraine problem. He was right not to invade at the begining but circumstances have changed and sooner or later Russia will need to understand there is no going back to the Medvedev way, at least not vis a vis the Anglo-Zionists. The trick for Putin is to not alienate Eurasianist supporters in the EU especially.
The Anglo-Zionists are fully prepared to tolerate a weak, pro Russian opposition within their ranks. This is their tradition and they’re very good at using internal opposition to bolster external credibility and power. In the first place they identify it and then they slowly infiltrate. Sooner or later they aquire effective control of even the most virulent anti-regime institutions and use them, at key moments, to leak highly destructive information that undermines the opposition completely.
What I am telling you is that you, above all people, need to beware of the offer you can’t refuse. This war will continue indefinitely. You will be targeted for co-option.
Julian Assange warns of Google being an arm of U.S. foreign policy. See this interview with Assange on his new book When Google met Wikileaks.
http://rt.com/shows/going-underground/189276-assange-google-scotland-referendum/
More info here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/when-google-met-wikileaks-by-julian-assange-book-review-9696487.html
Jared Cohen, director of thinktank Google Ideas, came from U.S. State Department. In this Charlie Rose interview, he and Eric Schmidt talk about “evil governments” and connectivity technologies as “forces for good” (around 18:00).
http://www.charlierose.com/watch/60346643
Nice format, link is on the desktop.
That spineless worm Hollande has finally caved in to his masters wishes and said the Mistral ship cannot after all be delivered to Russia :
PARIS, September 22. /ITAR-TASS/. Paris continues to believe that the transfer of a Mistral ship to Russia is not possible at the moment, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
Its spokesperson recalled President Francois Hollande’s statement of September 18 that the contract with Russia would be fulfilled only if there was progress in political settlement in Ukraine.
He declined to comment on Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin’s remarks on Sunday that if France cancelled the contract and decided to transfer with the ship to somebody else, it would act unlawfully as one third of that ship was Russian-made.
“The stern section of Mistral was made at Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg. That is why if they want to keep the ship, we will have to tear away its stern section and get it back to use it in other ships,” Rogozin said.
For the same reason, it is impossible to transfer this half-of-the-ship to anybody else,” he added. “Secondly, the money has been paid and it must be returned with penalties. Thirdly, it is not even money that France is risking, but its status of a reliable supplier in the World Trade Organisation,” Rogozin said.
Simply unbelievable. This sorry excuse for a human being is sabotaging Frances economy to please the Americans, and after they fined the French bank BNP $9 million dollars on top !
Simply unbelievable. The NSA simply must have something on these guys, no way is the moron doing this of his free will.
Excellent effort overall, Saker, but that video reeks.
Keep your chin up.
Thanks for sharing. Russia Insider looks interesting. I hope you’ll keep working on your blog anyway. I don’t always share your views but you’re always a reliable and very sound source.
In my view, voting for Obama, twice, may be the result of resigning oneself to the current absurd political machinery; Saying he is a nice man but a weak president is quite wrong headed. Obama is a very strong president — the job of the president now being to act as a spokesman for the oligarchy and spread the propaganda to zombify the people.
Similarly, the purpose of the State dept. spokespeople is not to look smart, but to obstruct resistance against the empire, and they have done that.
Mission accomplished, regarding this presidency — the rich got richer, and the people of the US poorer and weaker. Movement towards US and EU neofeudalism, and away from effective democracy, proceeds.
Russia Insider should contact Micheal Parenti to see if he will contribute some articles. He know the score and pulls no punches. Try for some Chris Hedges’ work too. Informed cynicism is on the ascendance now, and there is not enough of it: the empire is collapsing and it will not be pretty, so we had better see the reality.
__Blue
Saker when you go on Cross Talk please don’t wear a mask and sunglasses;)
Thanks for the links and congrats to you and all others that help.
“Over 2.5 weeks we got an opportunity to retreat those units that stood there for a long time, for rotation. My son was in one of these units,” – said Poroshenko, your honor.”
“Are you with that guy who proclaimed in this same courtroom yesterday that ‘ They killed the president?”
“Excuse me, your honor… what guy?”
“The guy who said that he said that they said…”
“Said what, your honor?”
“Mumbo jumbo… Words without proof or evidence… Like your ‘My son was in one of them…’ Surely you have ample evidence of him being at the front line in this age of omnipotent, electronic gadgets…?”
“You have my word, your honor…”
“Yeah, but I can’t find a picture of your son actually doing any of real fighting in your ‘words’… Oh, what’s that? One of the Cartra$$hian$ showing off more of their talented derived sex life on another lost tape?”
Saker, have you got any info/photos on the Luhansk airport destruction?: ‘The [OSCE] SMM observed on 20 September that Luhansk airport was completely destroyed, including airport infrastructure such as planes, cars, trucks and tanks remaining in the area. The runways could no longer be used due to the large number of craters. No human remains were seen.’
Thanks.
Congrats to the Saker. I would differ, however, with some of these commenters here, who are saying that the Saker is honoured by being invited to join the team. Rather, the honour is the other way round. Russia Insider is fortunate to have bagged the Saker and secured his agreement to join their team. He will bring high esteem to this site with his knowledge3 and analysis. While the “scaffolding” for the new site is in place and looking quite nice, content-wise it’s pretty feeble so far. Some of the analyses there are more like PA news flashes, about three or four sentences long. They seriously need articles with depth and well-developed argumentation, which is something the Saker will well and truly deliver. (To be fair, the site is still in Beta.)
@know the truth
That spineless worm Hollande has finally caved in to his masters wishes and said the Mistral ship cannot after all be delivered to Russia
Cheese eating surrender monkeys!
I’ll never get tired of sayin’ it.
BTW Said:
Saker, congratulations!! By the way, I wanted to spell congrats in caps but feared your anger!
Good luck ahead, but do heed Where-wolf’s cautions: Don’t get stretched too thin and don’t let anyone even try to coopt you.
— BTW
I knew of a Michael Parenti who was at the Institute for Policy Studies in DC, and I was under the impression that it had links of some nature with the CPUSA.
Correct?
Excellent – recognition for the immense effort you have put into to making this an excellent site.
I do concur with Where-wolf 21:00. It seems Greenwald (just as an example) took an offer he couldn’t refuse from Omidyar and has effectively disappeared.
I think the ‘counterpropaganda’ needs to be even more basic perhaps… We here in the West know absolutely nothing about Russia, or even eastern Europe. Most of us have never met an ordinary Russian person. Really, we have no idea. We do not learn anything about Russia, not the history, not the culture, nothing. It’s rather some almost mythological place, and perhaps precisely because of that even more fear-inducing, i.e. the fear of the unknown.
I recently saw some research which indicated that though most Westerners think of themselves as people who follow the situation in Ukraine and Russia very closely they could not even pinpoint Ukraine on a map. And they were off by thousands and thousands of miles.
In the following link you can see a screenshot in which “even” CNN placed Ukraine in Pakistan.
http://russianuniverse.org/2014/06/23/ukraine-crisis-from-identity-conflict-to-civil-war/
And to say one more thing about ‘the unknown’, I think that in the West we typically do not want to know.. We simply cannot imagine that another worldview has any legitimacy, and and we basically are only prepared to “know you” when you are no longer you, but have become “us”. It’s like the ‘loving the stranger’ conundrum’: someone who is a stranger you do not know by definiton, so how can you love him, even recogmize him, so goes our logic. Therefore, you must stop being a stranger (to us!) and then we’ll love you.
That’s the ” unipolar world”: why can’t you just all be like us, be the way we want you to be?
But then again, without an other to actually love, how can there ever be love at all?
Wise words Where-Wolf
I’m interesting in the demographical history of Donbass. I’ve found a lot of interesting data, going all the way back to the 16th century when the uninhabited region was first settled by Russian frontiersmen.
One issue I’m having trouble researching, however, concerns the inflow of Russians to the area during Stalin’s industrialization drives. Does anyone know where I can find statistics detailing how many Russians were transplanted to the region in the 1930’s?
I’ve noticed that many Westerners naively assume that Donbass has a large Russian population today because, allegedly, Stalin deliberately transplanted them there for the purpose of marginalizing the region’s native Ukrainians. I get the impression that many MSM articles about the subject are deliberately misleading Westerners into believing this canard. I’d like to know the facts.
I already have Donbass’s 1897, 1926, and 1939 census data, but nothing indicates how many Russians were relocated there in the 1930’s.
GW
Oh Boy! It looks fun, inviting and fascinating. And your portrait on your contributor’s page is simply gorgeous.
Congratulations. I’ll be glad to do what I can for this new insight into Russia. We desperately need this kind of info on Russia in the States. I think Russia Insider will do the trick nicely.
Thanks for the head’s up. May God bless this new enterprise!
We need to clone you, Saker.
@ Blue,
Q: the job of the president now being to act as a spokesman for the oligarchy and spread the propaganda to zombify the people.
R: Really? Who owns MSM, the movie studios, who distributes the flicks, who owns most of the theaters and 50% of NBA teams?
Yeah, that’s right, Obambi.
Chancellor Hitler was hoisted into his imperial saddle by the 0,01%, because the believed he would be an excellent counterweight against the rise of the commies [mostly vegetarians, but some meat eaters too].
Countries are run by companies, PMs are mostly a facade, a face, like Kings/Queens/Emperors.
Even Mr. Putin has to drag that ball & chain around and get things done. I don’t envy him.
The Russia Insider team is very lucky to get you contributing to them in some way.
Please don’t exhaust or eover-extend yourself.
Your work here is very important.
This is the best source of analysis on Russia in English in the world right now, and is more important than Russia Insider.
Congratulations, Saker.
I am from Brasil and I read your Blog since the beggining. Please forgive my english, I’m an autodidata. An average low midle-class guy.Here in Brasil there is only the MSM version. I believe out of 200 million inhabitants, about 1.000 have another view of the Geopolitical situation. Just want to say a BIG THANK YOU. Keep your good work, I am allways reading and waiting for your clarification of the big fog we live in. Júlio César Siqueira.
Congratulations Saker, the site looks great.
Ukies have their Lehman. No surprise.
What is the IMF’s Option on the $17 billion loan? Ukraine’s Economy Implodes. Severe Capital Controls Introduced.
“A few days ago we showed how when Obama said there would be “costs” for Moscow in the Ukraine-Russian conflict, he got the recipient country of said costs woefully wrong, as confirmed by the economic data released by Ukraine which showed its Industrial Production crater at a pace on par with the Lehman collapse, confirming the Ukraine economy was on the verge of a spectacular implosion just in time for the harsh, Gazprom-free winter to finish off what little economic activity is left.
[the] news reported by Bloomberg moments ago, which cites Ukraine’s Unian news service, that the Ukraine central bank just instituted restrictions on Hryvnia use, i.e., capital controls, should also not come as a surprise, yet for all those expecting Russia to crater first under the weight of western sanctions, to see said cratering take place in western-backed (and IMF guaranteed) Ukraine is probably just a little unpleasant.
The details:
Central Bank forbids companies completing FX payments on import contracts if they don’t actually bring goods into Ukraine, Unian reports, citing Central Bank decree that comes into effect tomorrow.
Read more at link
A good video, well worth watching, that I have copied from ‘Truth About Situation In Ukraine’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC3tINgWfQE&list=UUEHsSWvrGVSIA63OV3J6vhA
Congratulations Saker. I appreciate your honesty and provision of a platform for free speech.
I look forward to an expansion of multisource media, in an age where you can get more legitimate news from Twitter/Youtube than traditional entitites and most ‘mainstream’ and ‘independent’ sources have been exposed as straight war propaganda – especially and definitively via the Ukraine crisis. What we are seeing in the ‘media’ is budgetary inertia, as milgovcorp continues to spend massive sums with an ever-diminishing credibility in the internet era. The desperate paranoia and arrogance of imperialist capital has never been more evident in history.
Robert Parry has an excellent article on Consortium News titled ” Reported US-Syrian Accord on Air Strikes”.
It is about Russia again brokering an agreement between Obama and a country in the US’s crosshairs. This makes 3 times.
I’m beginning to wonder just how much of a tug-of-war is going on with the President and the hawks. Obama seems to let the warmongers have free reign, but then reels the situation back ….. with the help of Putin.
I’ve gotten a sense of this before, but 3 times is more than co-incidence. I wonder if the implications of this means that Obama, despite the deep state apparatus, is really fighting the empire in his own way. Or, just as likely, he’s realized US FP has reached a bridge too far and the blowback is only accelerating the demise of US hegemony.
In any case, less chaos is a welcome thing. I hope this might become an operational paradigm put to use in Ukraine.
I believe you should do a show together with alex jones infowars! Will get you a lot of good exposure!
pogo said…
Charles B comes off as an intelligent guy (even though he voted for Obama 2x (:>) ) and I look forward to his ideas about business conditions in Russia. He needs to pause every time he’s not sure what he wants to say instead of saying “Um, uh, um.” Each time he pauses he’ll appear to be thinking and people respect that. Um-ing is useless and unappealing.
—-
As someone who has been in radio for 25 years, Charles has received voice training. You are taught to pause while composing a thought. Ands umms y’knows are “placeholders” where the tendency is to fill the radio/TV waves with sound
It is very distracting to the listener and you are coached that short pauses are preferable to stammering
Congrats to The Saker. Very deserving. Will we see him next on Maddow or Chris Hayes
Nyet. Obama is too thin skinned for the likes of the Saker’s rapier wit. MSNBC has become a whorely owned subsidiary of this mass murderer
@woogs
http://en.itar-tass.com/world/750779
@ Anunnaki,
Add to that list the biggest whopper of ’em all… “That’s a good question………….”
Que in more ‘blah, blah, blah…’
Anyone who needs a teleprompter to be spontaneous is as real as my imaginary friend…
What? No, I’m talking to people on the WWW now… I’ll be right back with you… hold on a sec… Put that gun down. Put that gun do-
PS2. Regarding the “military surplus store”, our sources say that it was working on Sunday.
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Col. Cassad today. Saker do you know the status? I would assume (you know what you say about assumptions) that it is at least temporarily closed per Minsk Accords