Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

M
Tag: Vladimir Putin

Putin Hearts Harris

by | 2021, 5 Sep 2424 | , | 0 Comments

Frankly, I think he’s telling the truth.

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) – Russia wants Kamala Harris to win the U.S. presidential election, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday in a teasing comment that cited her “infectious” laugh as a reason to prefer her over Donald Trump.

 

Putin made the ironic remark a day after the U.S. Justice Department charged two Russian media executives over an alleged illegal scheme to influence the November election with pro-Russian propaganda.

Before President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, Putin had said earlier this year – in another comment widely seen as not to be taken at face value – that he preferred Biden over Trump because the former was a more predictable “old school” politician.

 

U.S. intelligence agencies believe Moscow actually wants Trump to win because he is less committed to supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia.

I would remind the gentle reader that the entire intelligence community united behind the lie of Russian collusion. I don’t believe a word they say. Putin, while also a liar, makes a good case for why Russia would support Harris. She is a fellow Marxist, stupid, and easily manipulated. If I were Putin, I would much prefer Harris as an adversary than the unpredictable, irascible, pro-American Capitalist, Trump.

Putin Endorses Expansionist and Interventionist Foreign Policy

by | 0705, 6 Sep 2222 | | 18 Comments

His actions already defined his policy, but now he has a published ideological basis for it.

The 31-page “humanitarian policy”, published more than six months into the war in Ukraine, says Russia should “protect, safeguard and advance the traditions and ideals of the Russian World”.

 

While presented as a kind of soft power strategy, it enshrines in official policy ideas around Russian politics and religion that some hardliners have used to justify Moscow’s occupation of parts of Ukraine and support for breakaway pro-Russian entities in the east of the country.

 

“The Russian Federation provides support to its compatriots living abroad in the fulfilment of their rights, to ensure the protection of their interests and the preservation of their Russian cultural identity,” the policy said.

It said that Russia’s ties with its compatriots abroad allowed it to “strengthen on the international stage its image as a democratic country striving for the creating of a multi-polar world.”

 

Putin has for years been highlighting what he sees as the tragic fate of some 25 million ethnic Russians who found themselves living outside Russia in newly independent states when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, an event he has called a geopolitical catastrophe.

 

Russia has continued to regard the former Soviet space, from the Baltics to Central Asia, as its legitimate sphere of influence – a notion fiercely resisted by many of those countries as well as by the West.

Putin Takes Dig at Biden

by | 1507, 18 Mar 2222 | , | 4 Comments

Ouch

“We hear and see statements that are actually personal insults to President Putin,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

 

“Given such irritability from Mr Biden, his fatigue and sometimes forgetfulness…fatigue that leads to aggressive statements, we will not make harsh assessments, so as not to cause more aggression.”

Biden and Putin Cross Swords

by | 1854, 30 Dec 2121 | | 5 Comments

Do you have confidence in President Biden to deal with Russia? I don’t.

Don’t you wonder if the Russians have leverage on Biden given Hunter’s and Joe’s history of selling influence? I do.

Kremlin officials said President Putin warned Joe Biden that new sanctions would lead to a complete breakdown in relations between the two countries, during a 50-minute phone call to discuss the crisis over Ukraine on Thursday.

 

Both sides have accused the other of provocations while tens of thousands of Russian troops have been moved close to the Ukrainian border.

 

And both sides used the call to warn of dire consequences if the current impasse over Ukraine is not resolved.

 

[…]

 

For its part, the White House stressed that Biden urged his Russian counterpart to deescalate tensions, hours after it emerged that the U.S. Air Force had flown a second spy plane over the region.

 

‘He made clear that the United States and its allies and partners will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine,’ said White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.

 

A senior administration official added: ‘The tone of the conversation between the two presidents was serious and substantive.’

 

Russia has alarmed the West by moving more than 85,000 troops close to the Ukrainian border but officials deny they are planning to invade.

Putin Thanks Trump

by | 1810, 29 Dec 1919 | | 9 Comments

This is curious.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has thanked US counterpart Donald Trump for intelligence that helped foil “acts of terrorism” on Russian soil, according to a Kremlin statement.

Mr Putin and Mr Trump spoke on the phone on Sunday, it said.

The Kremlin said the information came via intelligence services, but it provided no further details.

Russian media is reporting the discovery of a plot to attack St Petersburg over the New Year period.

Tass news agency says two Russian nationals have been arrested and plans to attack a mass gathering were seized, according to a spokesperson from the FSB, the Russian intelligence agency.

Putin is Right

by | 2217, 2 Oct 1919 | | 13 Comments

I hate to admit it, but the man’s got a point

Chairing a session titled ‘Energy Partnership for Sustainable Growth’ at an energy forum in Moscow, Putin said: ‘I may disappoint you but I don’t share the common excitement about the speech by Greta Thunberg.

‘No one has explained to Greta that the modern world is complex and different and…people in Africa or in many Asian countries want to live at the same wealth level as in Sweden.

‘Go and explain to developing countries why they should continue living in poverty and not be like Sweden.’

Trump Swings and Misses

by | 1744, 16 Jul 1818 | , | 36 Comments

This was not a good day for American foreign policy.

After face-to-face talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mr Trump contradicted US intelligence agencies and said there had been no reason for Russia to meddle in the vote.

Mr Putin reiterated that Russia had never interfered in US affairs.

The two men held nearly two hours of closed-door talks in the Finnish capital Helsinki on Monday.

At a news conference after the summit, President Trump was asked if he believed his own intelligence agencies or the Russian president when it came to the allegations of meddling in the elections.

“President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be,” he replied.

US intelligence agencies concluded in 2016 that Russia was behind an effort to tip the scale of the US election against Hillary Clinton, with a state-authorised campaign of cyber attacks and fake news stories planted on social media.

In a strongly-worded statement, US House Speaker Paul Ryan said Mr Trump “must appreciate that Russia is not our ally”.

Of course, we don’t know what was accomplished in private yet, but the public outcome of Trump’s meeting with Putin left a lot to be desired.

Trump Condemned Iran Treaty to Putin

by | 2138, 9 Feb 1717 | | 6 Comments

Good.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In his first call as president with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump denounced a treaty that caps U.S. and Russian deployment of nuclear warheads as a bad deal for the United States, according to two U.S. officials and one former U.S. official with knowledge of the call.

When Putin raised the possibility of extending the 2010 treaty, known as New START, Trump paused to ask his aides in an aside what the treaty was, these sources said.

Trump then told Putin the treaty was one of several bad deals negotiated by the Obama administration, saying that New START favored Russia. Trump also talked about his own popularity, the sources said. The White House declined to comment. It referred Reuters to the official White House account issued after the Jan. 28 call, which did not mention the discussion about New START.

The Iran treaty was horrible and a bad deal for America. I’m not sure in what context that came up, but the point is valid.

What is clear is that Trump has a serious leak in his administration. You’ll notice that it seems like almost every conversation he’s had with a foreign leader has had this kind of leak fishing for a “gotcha.” Someone – probably a hacked off insider at the State Department or White House staff – is leaking this stuff. And I don’t care who our president is, he or she needs to be able to have frank conversations with other foreign leaders with the assurance that the conversation will remain private. Trump needs to figure out who the leaker is and fire them. And if they have violated any laws by leaking these conversations (I imagine that they have), then they need to be prosecuted.

Putin Attacks Turkey

by | 0620, 17 Dec 1515 | | 0 Comments

Rhetorically… for now.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has used crude language in a furious new attack on Turkey over the downing of a Russian combat jet last month.

The incident on the Syria-Turkey border was a “hostile act” but Russia was “not the country” to run away, he told his annual news conference.

“The Turks”, he said, had “decided to lick the Americans in a certain place”.

There was, he said, a “creeping Islamisation of Turkey that would have Ataturk rolling in his grave”.

The remark appeared to be aimed at President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose AKP party, with its Islamist roots, has been accused of seeking to dismantle the secular state founded by Kemal Ataturk.

World Can’t Stand By While Russia Invades Ukraine

by | 1514, 28 Sep 1515 | | 3 Comments

So says Obama, despite evidence to the contrary. The world seems pretty comfortable standing by as Putin rebuilds the USSR.

“We cannot stand by when the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a nation is flagrantly violated,” Obama stated in his speech. “If that happens without consequence in Ukraine, it could happen to any nation gathered here today.”

 

Obama to Meet with Putin

by | 2028, 24 Sep 1515 | | 0 Comments

Reset?

The Kremlin and White House said the two leaders will have their first formal meeting in two years on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, although they gave differing views as to whether the talks will center around Syria or Ukraine.

And the announcement was accompanied by a series of disparaging remarks from the White House about image-conscious Putin and Russia, underlining the festering distrust between the old Cold War foes.

The decision to hold talks checks a US policy of punishing Putin for his invasion of Ukraine, a stance that also brought international sanctions that have crippled the Russian economy.

Putin Planned Return of Crimea

by | 1745, 8 Mar 1515 | | 0 Comments

What!?!? You mean that Putin and the Russians lied about their involvement in Crimea? That’s OK… I’m sure they are telling the truth about their involvement in Ukraine and their peaceful intentions toward other countries like Poland.

Putin recounts an all-night meeting with security services chiefs to discuss how to extricate deposed president Viktor Yanukovych, who had fled a pro-Western street revolt in the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

“We ended at about seven in the morning,” Putin says. “When we were parting, I said to my colleagues: we must start working on returning Crimea to Russia.”

Four days after that February 2014 meeting, unidentified soldiers took over the local parliament in Crimea and deputies hurriedly voted in a new government. The Ukrainian province was then formally annexed by Moscow on March 18, triggering international condemnation.

The military operation was initially kept secret and despite the increasingly obvious actions of unmarked Russian forces on the ground, Moscow insisted that only locals were involved in the upheaval. Later, the Kremlin conceded that it had been behind the power grab.

Christmas is Cancelled

by | 1644, 26 Dec 1414 | | 1 Comment

Ouch.

(CNN) — Vladimir Putin delivered a lump of coal in the Kremlin’s stocking this year when he announced Thursday that he has canceled holiday vacations for members of the government.

Russia’s President delivered the bad news at a December 25 meeting he convened of his government, but for those thinking that his timing was merely the diabolical twist of a maniacal scrooge, Christmas is celebrated in Russia on January 7, the traditional date in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

“The Government and its various structures cannot afford such extensive holidays, at least not this year,” Putin told government ministers in a speech broadcast on state television. “You know what I am talking about.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his annual press conference in Moscow on December 18, 2014.

He was talking about Russia’s battered economy.

“We have been making efforts to change the structure of our economy, to refine it and make it more innovative … quite a lot has been done in this direction,” he said. “However, recent events show that this is not enough.”

Spreading Putin’s Seed

by | 0700, 12 Nov 1414 | | 0 Comments

The funny part is imagining Putin making the donations. I assume he’ll have a staff take care of that.

The Russian-language newspaper, Trust, is reporting that an actual lawmaker—albeit one with a history of strange ideas—has introduced to the State Duma a bill that proposes extending the greatness of Russia by having children using the sperm of Vladimir Putin. To the best of our research, the Observer is the first to translate this strange proposal into English.

“The essence of my proposition is simple”, says the chairwoman of Parliamentary Commission on Women’s Affairs, Children and Family, Yelena Borisovna Mizoulina. “Each female citizen of Russia will be able to receive by mail the genetic material of the President, get pregnant from him and have a baby. These mothers will be receiving special allowances from the government.”

Australian Prime Minister Wants to Shirtfront Putin

by | 0650, 14 Oct 1414 | | 0 Comments

Rumor has it that Obama challenged Putin to a game of golf.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A Russian diplomat on Tuesday dismissed the Australian prime minister’s threat of a physical confrontation with the Russian president as immature, warning that Vladimir Putin is a judo expert.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott intends to have a one-on-one meeting with Putin on the sidelines of a summit of the world’s 20 biggest economies in Brisbane next month to demand Russian cooperation with a Dutch-led investigation into the shooting down of a Malaysia airliner in Ukraine by Russian-backed separatists with the loss of 298 lives in July.

Abbott told reporters on Monday he was “going to shirtfront Mr. Putin,” using an Australian Rules Football term for a head-on shoulder charge to an opponent’s chest aimed at knocking the opponent backward to the ground.

Login | Register

Archives

Categories

Pin It on Pinterest