Prospects for the emergence of a real opposition in Russia

[this analysis was written for the Unz Review]

As predicted, Putin’s popularity takes a nosedive.

This fact is not often discussed in the West, but the popularity of Vladimir Putin is in decline and has been so ever since, following his reelection, he kept more or less the same (already unpopular) government while that government very clumsily attempted to “sneak by” a pension reform undetected. Now the latest numbers are in, and they are not good: only 31.7% of Russians trust Vladimir Putin, that is his worst score in 13 years! His score last year was 47.4% (by the way, Shoigu got only 14.8%, Lavrov got 13%, and Medvedev got 7.6%. These are terrible scores by any measure!)

I have been warning about this for a while now (see here, here, here, here, here, here and here), and we now can try to understand what happened.

These are the faces most Russians are fed-up with

First, it is obvious that millions of Russians (including yours truly) were deeply disappointed that Putin did not substantially reorganize the Russian government following his triumphant reelection last year. Putin himself is on record saying two things about that: first, that he is generally happy with the performance of the government and, second, that he needs an experienced team to implement his very ambitious reform program (more about that in a moment).

Second, it is equally obvious that the pension reform is profoundly unpopular and that Putin’s personal credibility has never recovered from this political fiasco.

Third, and this is the most overlooked and yet most interesting development – there is a *real* opposition gradually emerging in Russia. What do I mean by “real”? First, I mean not a “pretend opposition” as we see in the Russian Duma (which is a glorified rubber-stamping parliament). Second, I mean a *patriotic* opposition which is neither financed nor controlled by Mr. Soros or the CIA or any of their innumerable offshoots. The problem is that this opposition has many severe problems and that it completely fails to present an alternative to the current “Putinocracy.”

Here we need to state something significant: Putin is indeed a “liberal,” at least in terms of economic policies. When he says that he is happy (“on the whole”) with the performance of the Medvedev government, it is because he probably is. Furthermore, while Putin apparently likes to listen to folks like Glaziev, he is clearly wary of implementing the more “social” (or even “socialist”) measures advocated by Glaziev and his supporters.

But if Putin is a liberal, is there really a 5^th column acting behind the scenes?

This being said, it would be wrong to jump to the primitive conclusion that there is no 5th column (or no “Atlantic Integrationists”) in the Kremlin or in the Staraya Square. In fact, it would be impossible for such a 5th column not to exist. How do we know that? For three very basic reasons

The AngloZionist leaders of the Empire absolutely *hate* Putin. Those pretending to deny that are either terminally dishonest or fantastically stupid. Either way, they are wrong. Simply put: by the late 1990s Russia as a country was quasi-dead, finished, something like the Ukronazi occupied Ukraine today. Not only has Putin single-handedly saved Russia from collapse, he turned Russia into a power capable of defeating the plans of the Empire not only in Syria but also in the rest of the Middle-East. Yes, all the accusations of “collusion” and “hacking” are verbal prolefeed for TV-watching intellectual midgets, but that does not mean that the leaders don’t have real, factual and logical reasons to fear Putin and Russia. They do. And they are doing everything in their power to weaken Russia and overthrow Putin.
Most of the Russian elites achieved their elite status in the 1990s (some even in the 1980s!), and many of them hate Putin for putting a stop to the total robbery bonanza which made it possible for these people to not only come to power but also make a killing financially. As for the so-called “economic block” of the Russian government, it is entirely made up of what I loosely call the “WTO/IMF/WB/etc.” -Types: folks who sincerely endorse the so-called “Washington Consensus.” The very *least* one could say about these folks is that their worldview and ideology are not only totally alien to traditional Russian values, they are in fact profoundly anti-Russian. For these folks to become the 5^th column is the most natural development.
The system which Putin inherited was one deeply integrated with the AngloZionist sphere of financial, economic, political, and social influence. While western sanctions (and general political shortsightedness) severed many of these ties (thank you to the Neocons for their life-saving sanctions and, especially, hysterically Russophobic propaganda!), there are very few cases (if any) of Russians severing such ties. Some believe that Putin sincerely wanted Russia to join NATO or/and the EU. I don’t agree with that, but whether he was sincere or not, the fact is that Putin did initially try to court the West. The fact that the West was too stupid to see the fantastic opportunity this situation was offering is yet another powerful testimony of how incompetent western “area specialists” have become.

Putin’s 2007 “Munich speech” should have acted like an urgent wake-up call to the leaders of the West, but they lacked the brains and courage to listen to what Putin was saying. The same thing happened during Putin’s 2015 speech at the UNGA. To his internal Russian audience, Putin bluntly said, when asked if the West was trying to “humiliate” Russia: “They do not want to humiliate us, they want to subdue us, solve their problems at our expense.” Personally, I believe that Putin, as any other officer of the First Main Directorate (foreign intelligence) of the KGB always understood that the West was a mortal enemy of Russia and that this has been true for at least 1000 years. Thus I think that it would be naive to believe that Putin ever “trusted” the West. But did he deliberately give that impression for as long as it could serve his purposes? Yes, absolutely. Now, this period is clearly over.

The one thing which the Russian 5th column cannot really be is any type of “opposition.” First, the 5th column is internal to the Kremlin, to the Presidential Administration, to the “United Russia” party and to all the other centers of power in Russia. This forces the opposition to pretend loyalty to Putin while sabotaging every effort at re-sovereignizing Russia (admittedly a tough task since Russia has been ruled by foreign elites since at least the times of Peter I).

[Sidebar: I am often asked why Russia Today and Sputnik publish what can only be called “trash” or even anti-religious propaganda on their websites. The answer is simple: there are plenty of folks at RT and Sputnik (especially in the teams operating their websites as opposed to the actual broadcasts) who are pure products of the AngloZionist worldview and who love some sleazy sex story almost as much as they love to bash or ridicule the Orthodox church. While there are plenty of terrific people in both of these media, there are also plenty who secretly would love Russia to return to the 1990s or become a kind of “Poland” east of the Ukraine. This is also why these outlets make a strenuous effort not to discuss the Israel lobby in the West (not only the USA), but they also stay away from any discussion of 9/11. I know for a fact that any mention of the real events of 9/11 is strictly forbidden by some “bigshot” editors in Moscow as my own interviews were censored that way.]

One word of caution here: there are millions of Russians abroad, and many of them are what are now called “вырусь” (vy-roos’) in Russia: folks who might speak Russian, and even visit Russia from time to time, but who have completely lost their “Russian-ness” and whose worldview does not extend beyond wishing that Russia was more like the USA or Germany. They think of Russia as “rashka,” and they absolutely hate any genuine manifestation of Russian culture, spirituality, traditions or religion. Some of them will join the Alt-Right movement and pretend that the racist categories and ideology used by this movement have some traction in Russia (they don’t). Some will try to impersonate Orthodox Christians. In truth – they are still a pure product of the AngloZionst Empire. Some of them have clearly found gainful employment in the Russian media where they keep a vigilant watch for any signs that the ideological dogma of the West (we all know what they are) are being debunked by Russian patriots. These “vyroos” are yet another manifestation of the Russian 5^th column.

Ukie Defense Minister Poltorak photoshops himself before an exploding Kremlin tower. The kind of nonsense which gets even Duma members angry

What about the official opposition to Putin?

Then there is the “official” Duma opposition, which is more or less a joke. Some Russian MPs are better than others, but even the comparatively better ones are entirely unable to present a real challenge to the Russian government (we saw that painfully illustrated by the Duma vote on the pension reform).

As for the ordinary people, most of them probably still trust Putin in foreign policy issues, but many are also getting genuinely fed-up with an arrogant and condescending ruling elite which couldn’t care less about the plight of regular people and who live in an ivory tower of wealth, arrogance and power.

There is also a gradual realization that Putin in generally being “too soft” on the Empire and not proactive enough in defense of Novorussia against the Ukronazi junta in Kiev. Sadly, I have to agree with them. Yes, there has been some progress: the Russian ban on exporting energy to the Ukraine and the deliverance of Russian passports to the people of Novorussia. Furthermore, the Kremlin has expressed precisely *zero* approval of Zelenskii’s election and, apparently, this was the correct move since even though the policies of Poroshenko were categorically rejected by an absolute majority of the Ukrainian people, all the signs are that Zelenskii has already wholly caved to the demands of the “collective West”. Unless this trend towards “more of the same, only worse” is reversed, it is likely that the popular pressure in Russia to be far more proactive against the regime in Kiev will only increase. In recent months the Duma has been under pressure from the public to take a more forceful reaction to the events in the Ukraine, and this has had some, albeit limited, effect: the totally lame Duma has now become a little bit less lame, but not by much.

How our power structure is organized: This is the Kremlin. Putin is there. He issues decrees and ensures that the Constitution is upheld; This is the Government building. Medvedev is there and he loots the budget of our country; This is the Duma, Volodin is there and he adopts anti-popular laws; This is the Federation Council, Matvienko and she approves anti-popular laws.

So what is this new opposition to Putin?

The distinguishing characteristic of this new opposition to Putin is that it sees itself as the truly patriotic segment of Russian society. These are folks who blame Putin for being weak, indecisive and corrupt (including personally). They believe that Putin sits on the top of an oligarchic pyramid which only pays lip service to Russian national interests, but which in reality is interested only in wealth, power and influence. Frankly, much of their argumentation about Putin’s alleged corruption is based on a mix of disinformation and personal hatred for Putin himself. In contrast, however, their arguments that Putin is too weak or indecisive are based on a completely rational and fact based analysis of the events which have marked Putin’s presidency. After all, the man has been in power for 20 years or so, he has enjoyed tremendous bureaucratic power and the full support of the vast majority of the population. How then can he (or his supporters) blame it all on a “bad system” or the power of a 5^th column whose existence some don’t believe in in the first place?

On the right is a typical opposition “Internet poster”.

While I personally don’t agree with this point of view, I have to recognize that it is not self-evidently absurd or solely based on propaganda. In other words, they do have a point, and much of their criticism is valid.

Alas, much of it is not, and that mix loses a lot in credibility when 50% of it is fact-based and logical, and 50% is not.

What is even worse is that these patriots regularly find themselves in the same camp as the Soros/CIA -funded folks whom the patriots claim to hate, but whose arguments they often recycle (about the personal corruption of Putin, for example).

The other major weakness of this new opposition is that it lacks any kind of leader. This is why I did not bother listing the names of the main representatives of this opposition: for most of those who will read this article, these names will mean nothing.

Finally, this new patriotic opposition seems to lack an original worldview: much of their argumentation boils down to “it was better in the Soviet era” (they typically tend to overlook how bad things indeed were, at least since the 1980s!).

So where do we go from here? Will Russia ever have a real, vibrant, opposition?

My short personal answer is, yes, Russia will have such an opposition. Here is why:

The official Duma opposition is both useless and hopeless.
The Soros/CIA financed opposition is discredited beyond rescue.
The 5^th column is fundamentally a fraud, and most Russians hate it.
The current “patriotic” opposition will grow due to the policies of the Russian government, and they will probably learn from their mistakes.
Crises often (almost always) generate the appearance of new leaders

I hope that the newly emerging “patriotic” opposition will focus its wrath not on Putin as a person, but on the mistakes of the Russian government wherever they happen: President, Prime Minister, Minister or below – it should not matter. If the opposition succeeds in focusing on issues rather than venting its rage against specific individuals, then real changes become possible, including personnel changes.

The latest opinion polls show that all the members of the government are suffering from falling ratings, not just the Atlantic Integrationists. If this trend maintains itself, the Eurasian Sovereignists will have a powerful incentive to cut their ties with the Atlantic Integrationists. Who knows, maybe Medvedev and the so-called “economic block of the government” will be shown to the door? If not, then the plunge in the polls will most likely continue, and social unrest becomes a real possibility.

The Saker

Auslander on May 30, 2019 · at 2:13 am EST/EDT

It is all well and fine for everyone to complain about the current state of affairs in Russia, but very very few of you have been here. I was here in the very early ’90’s and watched first hand the collapse of SSSR, eyes on.

Every village and town under SSSR had some kind of manufacturing facility run by the government. Many had employ in those little and medium size factories. The outlying villages and towns were mainly agricultural with all major productive land organized in collectives. When SSSR began to collapse in the ’80’s, the collectives began to disintegrate as the ‘management’ of the collectives read the tea leaves and began to position themselves for the collapse of the system with them taking over the collectives irregardless of the ‘rights’ of the collective workers to the land and machinery. Ditto for the small and medium sized factories, most of which had no viable commercial value in the coming ‘new’ economy and were themselves ‘collectives’.

In the larger towns and cities, again the power structure had no illusions as to what was coming and again began to position themselves to take what they could of any and all production facilities, be it actual commodity production or the necessary supply of ‘natural’ resources, water, electric, gas, sewage etc..

As SSSR quite literally fell apart, the looting commenced. The ‘ordinary’ citizens watched in dismay as everything collapsed in record time. Factories large and small ceased operations and if they did not stop production the workers stopped getting paid, collective farms became orphans with no State distribution system for their products which led the collectives to become simply huge gardens whose products were loaded in to car trunks and taken to the nearest village, town and city and hawked at the impromptu open air markets that sprung up everywhere.

So here’s you, the ordinary citizen, watching the entire system you were born and raised in implode. You have no pay for your work, the food shop’s shelves are pretty thin, the petrol stations are generally out of product so you buy a tin or two of petrol from the wandering tanker trucks on a back street. Your wife is carefully hoarding your savings but can’t find a chicken or piece of pork for dinner, the little open air market a kilometer away has no vegetables today. Your daughter’s university has reduced classes to two days a week and the teachers are demanding cash for the classes. Your mother went to hospital today for her weekly treatment and was told that hospital had no more of her required medicines and wanted cash to treat her. She has little cash. And the electric went out again right after the radio said something about the Ruble being ‘devalued’ but you didn’t hear it all. You walk down the five flights of stairs (your lift stopped working and the building collective has no money to repair it) to make sure you removed the windshield wipers from your car, if you leave them on the vehicle they will be gone by morning. While out there your neighbor, who is checking his car, too, tells you his only son is going to leave Russia for USA.

The various other members of SSSR seize the moment and immediately disavow any loyalty to The First Among Equals of SSSR, Russia, and leave SSSR. Russia had just spent 30 years and vast treasure rebuilding everything from Moskau west that was flattened in the war, carefully dispersing various segments of the economy to other members of SSSR in case there was another war. All these factories and production facilities are now gone, holding Russia hostage for the products they want to sell to Russia at inflated prices. The Armed Forces are aghast at the collapse but Moskau continues to pay the service men and women, after a fashion. The strategic rocket services make a vow amongst themselves to preserve Russia’s one remaining weapon that will keep The West at bay, paid or not. They accomplish this task and the Armed Forces manage to stay relatively intact throughout this economic and social turmoil.

Throughout the decade, Russia is in strategic retreat world wide. Her interests are ignored or actively denigrated by the ‘victors’ of the ‘cold war’. The entire country is looted top to bottom as a new class of wealthy, and generally arrogant, upper class forms. There is vast, and occasionally violent with fighting in the streets of Moskau and St. Petersburg, turmoil as the ‘new’ class secures it’s advantages and continues to loot and expand. The vast majority of the ‘ordinary citizens’ are at wit’s end as to what to do and how to survive in this ‘new’ Russia.

As the ‘power structure’ supposedly in control in Moskau ages and for many reach doddering old age with little actual understanding of who they are and where they are, the emerging ‘Powers That Be’ decide to find a younger face to lead the country. They settle on a little known Security Force mid level manager who shows some promise of obeying them.

What I have described in the above scribbling is but the tip of a vast ice burg. I could write reams of what actually happened and how it actually affected the ‘ordinary workers and peasants’ but I won’t, I’ll leave that to your imagination and you better multiply your worst imaginings by about a thousand to understand how it actually was.

This is what that mid level manager inherited when he took the reigns of power two decades ago. If any of you think you could have done better, then have at it.

Auslander
Author

http://rhauslander.com/

139 Comments

Larchmonter445 on May 30, 2019 · at 12:25 am EST/EDT

Very timely analysis. The brew of discontent has been growing, obvious for those of us who read the “comments” as well as the blogs and magazines on the Internet.

The Pension was a breach of trust. Putin had promised not to alter the system. He later approved and tried in a speech to explain the wisdom of prudent management of the system.

What most of the people want is confiscation of the oligarchs’ wealth, especial the wealth from oil, gas and minerals.

However, Putin has strategically used the oligarchs and the power of oil, gas and minerals to vastly improved the SuperPower status of the nation.

He has promised results, he understands that there are slim results domestically, and he knows the present government will never deliver on his plans. He has four years left in his five year plan.

It is time for him to dump this government, all the Liberals who hold ministry or government leadership posts.

His plan for Union State government with Belarus is in seeming dead end with Lukashenko creating problems, refusing to actually give in to the plan.

Putin must deliver significant change. Time is running out. And there is great danger that things could get very ugly.

Aside from his military, security service and foreign ministry leaders, he has no allies within the government.

It is sadly ironic that Putin’s influence and wisdom is sought by all foreign leaders, but his own government treats his orders and plans like he is powerless.

He must act soon. The dynamic within the society has changed.
- Mulga Mumblebrain on May 30, 2019 · at 5:29 am EST/EDT
  
  When you have ‘oppositions’ as you do in the sham liberal ‘democracies’, you end up like the USA, UK, Australia etc. A divided society where the two sides HATE each other, and where the more Rightwing has the massive advantage of being the preference of the REAL totalitarian rulers-the capitalists who own the country, who own politics, who own the media etc. The so-called ‘Left’ must move ever further Right, abandoning working people (including the mythical ‘middle class’), so inequality inexorably rises, wealth and poverty grow like topsy, the working poor burgeon, social infrastructure and education, health, transport, housing etc rot and the proles turn to suicide and/or drug addiction to stupefy themselves and end their misery.
  Meanwhile, in China, you have one party of power, that anyone can join and rise according to your merits. The public’s opinion is constantly monitored and the Government acts for the benefit of all, along humanitarian and utilitarian lines. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. China has raised more people out of poverty since 2000 than all the rest of the world put together, and built the greatest system of infrastructure in history, and a scientific/technological establishment that puts the rest of the world to shame. And they haven’t invaded anyone nor killed millions to prove their ‘Exceptionalism’.
  - Johnno on May 30, 2019 · at 6:57 pm EST/EDT
    
    If one doesn’t include the fact that the Chinese are exceptionally good at killing their own people, including millions through their 1-2 child abortion holocaust policies, then I suppose that China hasn’t “killed millions”, and unfortunately for China, those missing millions will lead to their undoing fast and hard, and like Babel, it’ll collapse from demographic shortfall, the same as Europe. Ghost cities and infrastructure left to rot.
    
    China’s clock is ticking.
    - augusto on May 31, 2019 · at 8:25 am EST/EDT
      
      yes, china s clock is ticking, until it blows up not before 2055 or 2060. This is a wide kick guess of yours.You forget what the technology clock will be able to do by that time.
      and Tech will be the focus at which the country will be the leading and controlling party when this time gets ripe.
      I don t understand some of Putin s foreing policies as well.
      In syria, in Donbass. And in not letting the world know a few things I BET that his FSB knows very well and has plenty of material evidence to show.
      I refer and remember when in 2016 in the G20 meeting Putin showed the the other heads of state – the vivid photographs of the loooong interminable queus of ISIS trucks… smuggling syria s oil. And he made it clear this oil
      robbery was US plan to finance the terrorists..
      Immediately the russin bombing ran down and finished the CIA oil financing schemes, so rewarding for ISIS.
      wHY can t he do the same in other critical issues, for inst like Ukraine? He wont get a better treatment from the west if he keeps playing the good cop as he s been doing.
    - Mulga Mumblebrain on May 31, 2019 · at 6:04 pm EST/EDT
      
      Johnno, your hatred of China would be better suited to the Guardian or Breitbart, I think. Hoping for ‘China’s collapse’ is wishing for gigantic human suffering. How very ‘Exceptional’ of you.
  - Anonymous on May 31, 2019 · at 12:42 am EST/EDT
    
    You’re just plain wrong mulgabrain:
    
    Nonsense to the ridiculous idea that the wealthy elite in West favor the Right and conservatives. In the West, the corporates, oligarchs and scato-elite, favor the Left to be their useful idiots, hence the “elite’s” support for top-down forced social values of butcherous abortion upto the 9th month, forced LGBTQ/Trans agenda, extreme misandrinist feminism, and the wholesale hijacking of MSM media towards these causes.
    
    The only kind of “Right”-faction that is tolerated by the scato-establishment of the West are mindless bible-thumping protestant evangelicals (because they provide useful cannon fodder for the West’s goepolitical “enforcement” action; ie. when they need to “loot and pillage” the victim’s oil and gold) and dumb pro-corporatist convention conservatives (aka establishment US Republican party types) that ideologically hold to the myth they exist in a free-market.
    
    The corporates prefer the Left to be their fools, because people of this of type tend to be superficial thinkers, intellectually weak and compatible temperamentally to totalitarianism.
    - Mulga Mumblebrain on May 31, 2019 · at 6:06 pm EST/EDT
      
      Is that you, Rupert?
  - NATO Blues on May 31, 2019 · at 8:04 am EST/EDT
    
    I’m not so sure the people of Tibet would agree with your last claim. Last I heard, Tibet has been inundated with Han Chinese in a de facto assimilation of that nation and culture into China, hence the former cry of “Free Tibet”. Of course we don’t here that anymore because either people have lost interest of China has sway over “western” media. And that is to say nothing for the iconic animals of the world, most of whom are being slaughtered in record numbers and to the brink of extinction so satiate Chinese hunger for “traditional medicines” (rhino horn powder), “aphrodisiacs” (tiger penis soup) and status symbols (shark fin soup). Pepe Escobar lauds China and their BRI and perhaps rightfully so, but at the helm is China who will control (to some degree anyway) this new economic empire and as the west grinds on with their wars of aggression, China has little to say about it and offers little by way of assistance to the nations in the gunsights of the crazed neocons. China, unlike Russia, will sit back and reap the rewards of its silence on these matters while Russia does all the heavy diplomatic and military heavy lifting.
    - Mulga Mumblebrain on May 31, 2019 · at 6:10 pm EST/EDT
      
      I can agree with your concerns over endangered animals, although the general ecological collapse is primarily responsible, and the trade in medicines etc only the coup de grace.
      As for Tibet, its people are vastly better off now than under the theocratic tyranny of the Dalai gang. That CIA asset could easily lead his people home, but his CIA controllers would certainly kill him and replace him with an even viler stooge if he tried.
      - Anonymous on June 01, 2019 · at 10:25 pm EST/EDT
        
        @Mulga, re Tibet is vastly better off and other sweeping generalising nonsense…
        
        How would you know? You’re not Tibetan and you don’t know what’s important to them nor what they’re cultural values are. You behave exactly like the Anglo Empire exceptionalists insofar as you output an attitude that you know best, the “natives be damned”. This is the same attitude that says to orthodox believers like Saker that, well, materialism is better than faith (it maybe true for shallow materialists or even for you, but not for deep contemplative individuals like Saker). Therefore you cannot speak on behalf of the Tibetan people and decide they are better off, because their values are not your values.
  - Tollef Ås (sinologist) on May 31, 2019 · at 10:13 am EST/EDT
    
    Also, China thankfully shoots those leaders and billionaires of the day who get sentenced for gross corruption. (Those who are Party members must be cleared for prosecution in advance.) And must pay for the bullet from their ill-begotten gains. Very popular amongst the broad masses.
    - Mulga Mumblebrain on May 31, 2019 · at 6:13 pm EST/EDT
      
      The ‘paying for the bullet’ rubbish is plain Western racist hate-propaganda. Like ALL Western coverage of China. The Chinese are moving away from capital punishment, but glacially slowly. It remains highly popular in China. At least they terminate some of the worst parasites, unlike the West, where they run society, are idolised in popular culture and get knighthoods and seats in the House of Lords.
- Auslander on May 30, 2019 · at 3:01 pm EST/EDT
  
  Larchmonter
  
  Patience, my friend, patience, our President will strike when he judges the time is right as he is wont to do. One can feel the slowly gathering, how to describe it…almost like the growing pressure of a summer storm, but this will be no short lived tempest, here and gone in an instant.
  
  If one watches carefully, one can see each brick being carefully placed in the wall as time and opportunity arises. Remember a year or so ago when he offered those Russians of means to repatriate their foreign held ill gotten gains to Russia with no penalty? I few did. Methinks those who didn’t take the offer may well live to regret that lapse.
  
  Auslander
  Author
  
  http://rhauslander.com/
  - Edgar Palacio on June 02, 2019 · at 10:11 pm EST/EDT
    
    I am like your thinking and that is my hope, that in near future all the major problems will be successfully solved in favor of the people against the bad empire, the anglo sionismo gringo empire.
gepay on May 30, 2019 · at 12:46 am EST/EDT

I personally have no information on conditions in Russia. The Western media or US government positions are useless and filled with disinfo. so we have the Saker whose analysis is clear. and we can trust that he believes what he says. It is also clear he has strong beliefs that may bias his views. I am not talking about his views on 9/11 and the inordinate power that Zionists wield in today’s world. I agree with them. It is still hard for me to know how much actual power the Zionists have because I can’t talk to 95% of Americans about it. The Saker has a lot more faith in the organized religion of the Orthodox Christian Church than I do. There does appear to be a deep well of particularly Russian mysticism. The music and literature of Russia excels. His analysis points out the problem of what comes after Putin. There are the usual culprits waiting for his power to wane so they can continue the looting started after the demise of the Soviet Union. If one reads John Helmer one is aware that all the normal corruptions and incompetencies of an ecoomy still exist in abundance. Athough the bridge being built to the Crimea in 2 years shows some things are working a lot better than the US – notice how California fails to build rapid transit – this was the kind of thing the US used to excel at. Putin saved Russia from being a failed state. I consider Putin to be one of the few statesmen on the international scene. the Saker points out that there are considerable internal elements in Russia that Putin has to work with which do not have the best interests of Russia at heart. He points out that Putin appears to have reached a plateau in dealing with the problems he inherited and the real honest opposition is still struggling.
Юродивый on May 30, 2019 · at 12:56 am EST/EDT

That isn’t St Basil’s Cathedral exploding—it is one of the Kremlin towers.
- Mulga Mumblebrain on May 30, 2019 · at 5:37 am EST/EDT
  
  Mission Impossible, or, in Ukronazi -Nocturnal Emission Probable.
- The Saker on May 30, 2019 · at 7:00 pm EST/EDT
  
  You are 100% correct, I am either sclerotic, or have terrible eyesight, or both.
  Either way, I corrected it.
  Thank you!
  The Saker
Marcel Leutenegger on May 30, 2019 · at 1:17 am EST/EDT

Vladimir Putin’s most important task during his last term is the controlled demolition of his own internal status. If he would stay the unquestioned most trusted leader in Russia, no sincere and popular opposition could emerge and a repeat of the 90s disaster would be almost certain after his leave of office.

The Russian pension system has to account for the longer lifespan of its people and for the growing living cost. Both factors made reform necessary, albeit unpopular they are. The pension reform is a typical Putin-style dual-use action whose long-term results will benefit the Russian people massively.
- Mulga Mumblebrain on May 30, 2019 · at 5:41 am EST/EDT
  
  There is no such thing as a ‘..sincere and popular opposition’, under capitalism. Just compradores and stooges of the Empire, dividing society against itself, all to the benefit of the parasites.
  - MC on May 30, 2019 · at 8:28 am EST/EDT
    
    Oh, oh… Of course there IS genuine and popular opposition under capitalism! It is the elite of “compradores and stooges of the Empire” who divide society against itself by brainwashing everybody, everywhere… We THE people must catch up with their tactics. We will. This site, The Saker, and some others help. We must not give up.
    - Mulga Mumblebrain on May 30, 2019 · at 7:15 pm EST/EDT
      
      You’re speaking of a real opposition to parasite rule, not the fake ‘opposition’ of sham democracies. The Resistance in that deliriously stupid jargon of the DNC feminazis.
      - MC on May 31, 2019 · at 8:54 am EST/EDT
        
        Mulga, I am from a time when we courageously did indeed organize meetings to discuss the situation and made decisions about mobilization in Brazil. I was holding a high position in a trade-union just before Lula da Silva was elected, after decades of military dictatorship followed by years of transition to democracy, which we can say we conquered. We were a genuine opposition to the establishment and we did attract many groups.
        
        Of course, you can use the term Resistance if you wish (but I would consider this term more appropriate for a military or quasi-military operation). And perhaps in Russia and a few other places, opposition is a more intellectualized choice… We were genuine though, and we were the majority. The Workers Party (PT – Partido dos Trabalhadores) won its first presidential election in 2002, followed by the party’s victory of four other presidential elections, remaining in power from January 2003 until a Parliamentary/media coup d’état sponsored by the USA removed the party from power in 2016.
        
        Now, we have the oppressive tyranny of the ignorant in Brazil… We are reorganizing, though, and I am sure that we will bring real democracy back – that is, governments that will have to do policies for improving the plight of the poor, who are the majority of the population (about 30% are back again into famine in only 3 years since the coup, while the PT was able to reduce famine to less than 10%…). For now, you can see the huge movement of the students for education– exactly how we started organizing in the 1970-80s, during the military dictatorship. This is just the beginning. It is difficult; but, we will NEVER give up.
        
        Mulga Mumblebrain on May 31, 2019 · at 6:18 pm EST/EDT
        
        MC, I salute your past efforts and wish you every success in the future. We here in Austfailia have a Pentecostal thug like Bolsonaro, Morriscum, as our PM, too. He also is a vicious, class-hating, lying, homophobic, sadist (specialising in driving refugee children mad through indefinite imprisonment). I used ‘Resistance’ sarcastically, to refer to the Democrazy, Clintorista, opposition to Trump.
    - NATO Blues on May 31, 2019 · at 8:15 am EST/EDT
      
      You’re right MC, sometimes I feel things are hopeless, but I am reminded of a scene in The Two Towers where a young boy approaches Aragorn before the Battle for Helms Deep with fear in his eyes and his heart. He tells Aragorn of his fear and Aragorn asks for his sword, waves it around a bit and then tells the boy that he has a fine sword and most importantly, that there is always hope – they won the battle against all odds. While fictional, it is an apt metaphor for our times.
  - Johnno on May 30, 2019 · at 7:01 pm EST/EDT
    
    Still better than the parasitic Communists. Great for awhile, taking advantage of the Capitalist outsourcing of the USA, but left to itself would inevitably have starved a long time ago, were it not for the fact that Communism has often been propped up well by the same Capitalist bankers who funded and supplied useful idiots like Mao and Marx.
    
    China and its slaves have been great for corporate America! And China will continue to bow and serve the money masters.
    - Mulga Mumblebrain on May 31, 2019 · at 6:22 pm EST/EDT
      
      China has been growing at c.7-10% p.a since 1949. They built the greatest economy in history through hard work and intelligent leadership, with occasional set-backs. The USA built its racist Empire of Global Blood-sucking on genocide of the Native Americans, black slaves, Filipinos, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laos, Koreans and various Latin Americans, and world-wide exploitation at the point of a B 52 bomb or Hellfire drone missile.
  - ben sampson on May 30, 2019 · at 9:39 pm EST/EDT
    
    exactly! very precise comment
  - Marcel Leutenegger on May 31, 2019 · at 12:43 am EST/EDT
    
    For democracy it is fundamental that the sovereign (the people) act sovereign and in their own interest. This includes, first and foremost, to continuously check their representatives in parliament and government and to sack those that act against the popular interest. You may not want to call this “opposition”, but I think it is in the very definition of the word.
    
    One does not get a sovereign and self-confident people for the day-after Putin if Russians can stay too happy with the system until then.
Oliver K on May 30, 2019 · at 1:42 am EST/EDT

How could Putin have a different idea on the economy? There is no alternative.

But only wishful thinking. More “justice”, and so on.

What is needed in order to govern a country in terms of a theory and practice of economy: there need to be (many) universities teaching the material. There need to be many experts, and many people need to have a general understanding. That only leaves the current ideology.

Venezuela seems to have the same problem. Their understand is just some redistribution of wealth, but otherwise “public-private partnership”. Since all “economical elites” worldwide are enemies of their own nations, and that especially in a country like Venezuela, that can’t work. But also they have no real alternative (except of wishful thinking).

China seems to have a “method”, but likely not a theory. So it seems they can not offer any real advice to the world (and they seem also not to want to offer such advice).

You have the older literature on planning, and some vague ideas on that this should work better now, with all the computers and the Internet. Very unfortunately, that seems to be it.

Since Putin is not a mad scientist, he seems in reality not to have any other choice than to act like he does.

Or do we have, say on this site, a place for discussing some proper economic theory (based on science)? You see, not here, and also nowhere else.
- Mulga Mumblebrain on May 30, 2019 · at 5:47 am EST/EDT
  
  The Chinese system brings rapid development, poverty reduction, technological advance and, hopefully, an ecological civilization. Neo-liberal capitalism INVARIABLY brings ever greater inequality, poverty, want and unpayable debt, social decay, incessant military aggression, destruction and genocide of the global untermenschen and the ecological Holocaust, if not thermo-nuclear war.
  - NATO Blues on May 31, 2019 · at 8:19 am EST/EDT
    
    That Mulga is for sure correct, especially with regard to the capitalist assessment.
- Anonius on May 30, 2019 · at 6:36 am EST/EDT
  
  I do not think China can offer anything to Russia. They went to war over their different views of what Socialist country should work like. China is a part of Globalist agenda, but it refuses giving up the illusion of communism and insists on party’s control. Putin is no lesser Globalist, who resists submitting to the control of the NY.
  Politically all of EU countries as well as Russia behave the same, the same invisible hand pulls the strings, while politician stooges are nothing but talking heads, or as someone said “idiots with number of degrees”. If you look closely, most of them “the degrees” are from Oxford, Harvard, etc.The usual training ground for the secret services.
  - Mulga Mumblebrain on May 30, 2019 · at 7:22 pm EST/EDT
    
    China’s globalism is very different from the West’s. China’s envisages mutually beneficial social and economic development for all, whereas that of the West is predicated on global parasitism where the elites of the West and the compradores in the non-Western world suck up all the wealth of the planet, while destroying its habitability for our species, and the 99% of ‘useless eaters’ rot, starve, are blown to pieces or otherwise die. A Final Solution for the Useless Eaters Problem.
    - Anonius on May 31, 2019 · at 8:18 am EST/EDT
      
      Really? It means destroy any native industry by flooding all the countries with cheap Chinese products.
      ad homiem statement removed … mod
      - Mulga Mumblebrain on May 31, 2019 · at 6:26 pm EST/EDT
        
        Cheap Chinese mobile phones have created a ‘leap-frogging’ in many parts of Africa to e-commerce and banking that has done more for the populations than centuries of Western racism and exploitation. And China builds infrastructure-it doesn’t deliberately destroy it as in Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Lebanon, Libya etc.
- MC on May 30, 2019 · at 9:27 am EST/EDT
  
  China has more than a “method”; China has a powerful communist party in power, whose objective obviously is to sustain communism, which according to their ideology they see as the only possible way forward. Chinese policy-makers know exactly what they are doing and how far they can go with their Chinese ‘capitalists’ – who they control by allowing them to grow as long as the people come first. They obviously devised this strategy as a way to take advantage of Western greed (and, wow, didn’t they succeed?). Additionally, this is the basis of their win-win foreign policy, as well (which is also working very well!).
  
  Chinese policy-makers have solid understanding/dominion of dialectic materialism (for those who do not know what this means, I suggest a long (for life!) visit to the site marxists.org). They are not orthodox; they are dialectic – and this is what makes the difference between Chinese vs Russian communism. Thus, they are NOT based on creed, they are not orthodox communists; they change according to the reaction to their policies they get from capital.
  
  It is because of dialectics that policies canNOT be pre-define … They have to be designed as the needs arrive, by competent, determined policy-makers, trained since their childhood for the immensely humane, divine task of freeing humanity from the capitalist tyranny.
  - Mulga Mumblebrain on May 30, 2019 · at 7:28 pm EST/EDT
    
    Exactly MC. The Chinese proceed according to the evidence, hence there are NO denialists of the climate apocalypse in power in Beijing. In Austfailia, in tragi-comic contrast, you have zealots in power, in politics and the brainwashing system, who reject all the science and hence condemn our children, including their own, to premature and horrific deaths, because they are that fatal combination of the egotistic moronic ignoramus who thinks he is a genius, and who feels no compassion nor remorse for his actions. The Dunning-Krugerite psychopath.
  - Straight-Bat on May 31, 2019 · at 2:06 pm EST/EDT
    
    @MC and @Mulga,
    
    Both of you raised a very pertinent point – how China is applying the dialectic materialism of Marx (and a splendid work by Mao ‘On Contradictions’) in reshaping the Chinese society. Btw, China is now facing the toughest challenge to it’s progress and prowess due to trade-war and technology-war initiated by USA — i hope in the long run, the Marxist principles will guide the Chinese leadership to sustain.
    
    May be Russian patriotic leadership peep into that and think seriously to chose the right ideology and appropriate techniques for development of Eurasian societies in a just and moral modern way ! It is never too late in the Eurasia stretching from Pacific coast to Atlantic coast to transform the society judiciously using Marxist Leninist Maoist policies.
    
    Straight-Bat
Auslander on May 30, 2019 · at 2:13 am EST/EDT

It is all well and fine for everyone to complain about the current state of affairs in Russia, but very very few of you have been here. I was here in the very early ’90’s and watched first hand the collapse of SSSR, eyes on.

Every village and town under SSSR had some kind of manufacturing facility run by the government. Many had employ in those little and medium size factories. The outlying villages and towns were mainly agricultural with all major productive land organized in collectives. When SSSR began to collapse in the ’80’s, the collectives began to disintegrate as the ‘management’ of the collectives read the tea leaves and began to position themselves for the collapse of the system with them taking over the collectives irregardless of the ‘rights’ of the collective workers to the land and machinery. Ditto for the small and medium sized factories, most of which had no viable commercial value in the coming ‘new’ economy and were themselves ‘collectives’.

In the larger towns and cities, again the power structure had no illusions as to what was coming and again began to position themselves to take what they could of any and all production facilities, be it actual commodity production or the necessary supply of ‘natural’ resources, water, electric, gas, sewage etc..

As SSSR quite literally fell apart, the looting commenced. The ‘ordinary’ citizens watched in dismay as everything collapsed in record time. Factories large and small ceased operations and if they did not stop production the workers stopped getting paid, collective farms became orphans with no State distribution system for their products which led the collectives to become simply huge gardens whose products were loaded in to car trunks and taken to the nearest village, town and city and hawked at the impromptu open air markets that sprung up everywhere.

So here’s you, the ordinary citizen, watching the entire system you were born and raised in implode. You have no pay for your work, the food shop’s shelves are pretty thin, the petrol stations are generally out of product so you buy a tin or two of petrol from the wandering tanker trucks on a back street. Your wife is carefully hoarding your savings but can’t find a chicken or piece of pork for dinner, the little open air market a kilometer away has no vegetables today. Your daughter’s university has reduced classes to two days a week and the teachers are demanding cash for the classes. Your mother went to hospital today for her weekly treatment and was told that hospital had no more of her required medicines and wanted cash to treat her. She has little cash. And the electric went out again right after the radio said something about the Ruble being ‘devalued’ but you didn’t hear it all. You walk down the five flights of stairs (your lift stopped working and the building collective has no money to repair it) to make sure you removed the windshield wipers from your car, if you leave them on the vehicle they will be gone by morning. While out there your neighbor, who is checking his car, too, tells you his only son is going to leave Russia for USA.

The various other members of SSSR seize the moment and immediately disavow any loyalty to The First Among Equals of SSSR, Russia, and leave SSSR. Russia had just spent 30 years and vast treasure rebuilding everything from Moskau west that was flattened in the war, carefully dispersing various segments of the economy to other members of SSSR in case there was another war. All these factories and production facilities are now gone, holding Russia hostage for the products they want to sell to Russia at inflated prices. The Armed Forces are aghast at the collapse but Moskau continues to pay the service men and women, after a fashion. The strategic rocket services make a vow amongst themselves to preserve Russia’s one remaining weapon that will keep The West at bay, paid or not. They accomplish this task and the Armed Forces manage to stay relatively intact throughout this economic and social turmoil.

Throughout the decade, Russia is in strategic retreat world wide. Her interests are ignored or actively denigrated by the ‘victors’ of the ‘cold war’. The entire country is looted top to bottom as a new class of wealthy, and generally arrogant, upper class forms. There is vast, and occasionally violent with fighting in the streets of Moskau and St. Petersburg, turmoil as the ‘new’ class secures it’s advantages and continues to loot and expand. The vast majority of the ‘ordinary citizens’ are at wit’s end as to what to do and how to survive in this ‘new’ Russia.

As the ‘power structure’ supposedly in control in Moskau ages and for many reach doddering old age with little actual understanding of who they are and where they are, the emerging ‘Powers That Be’ decide to find a younger face to lead the country. They settle on a little known Security Force mid level manager who shows some promise of obeying them.

What I have described in the above scribbling is but the tip of a vast ice burg. I could write reams of what actually happened and how it actually affected the ‘ordinary workers and peasants’ but I won’t, I’ll leave that to your imagination and you better multiply your worst imaginings by about a thousand to understand how it actually was.

This is what that mid level manager inherited when he took the reigns of power two decades ago. If any of you think you could have done better, then have at it.

Auslander
Author

http://rhauslander.com/
- vot tak on May 30, 2019 · at 4:12 am EST/EDT
  
  A
  
  Very well put. The results are there for all to see (if they look beyond the zionazi-gay media).
- Grieved on May 30, 2019 · at 4:19 am EST/EDT
  
  Yes. A miracle has happened and his name was Putin. But he himself was not the cause of the miracle but the recipient. So we could say, the angels delivered the miracle to Russia.
  
  Will they stop now?
  
  Why would they stop now?
  
  Why would we negate the miracle of Putin simply to look for a few more points oi perfection on some score of possibility? I’m not sure that I believe this choice, and I’m not sure that the Russian people do either.
  
  All the world is walking away from the devil’s brew that has killed 100s of millions. Why would Russia decide to turn against this flow of refugees from evil, and embrace the evil – at the very time when its evil nature is becoming so easily recognized?
  
  ~~
  
  As to the future, Russia could use a Communist Party, real and true, to embody its moral precepts and to hold them strong and make them institutionalized.
  
  The great question is not whether Russia will be seduced by the rotting and fetid west, but whether Russia will be sufficiently influenced by the perfect moral balance of China.
  - MC on May 30, 2019 · at 9:37 am EST/EDT
    
    Grieved, this is one of your best comments! Terrific! Yes, Russia will embrace a genuine, Dialectic Communist Party, like the Chinese did! This is the only possible way forward.
  - mundanomaniac on May 30, 2019 · at 4:34 pm EST/EDT
    
    “As to the future, Russia could use a Communist Party, real and true, to embody its moral precepts and to hold them strong and make them institutionalized.”
    
    The ‘Communist party’ is invisibly in one’s heart or nowhere. I’m sure in VVP’s heart it is.
    
    As an outer party it might be the door to any kind of masquerade. Doing like VVP to me is more promising than “doing like a ‘communist'”.
    
    But the essence of your comment is to my old heart.
- eagle eye on May 30, 2019 · at 4:47 am EST/EDT
  
  Auslander, you truly are the master of understatement. Your challenge to the critics at the end is spot on target.
- Harry_Red on May 30, 2019 · at 5:39 am EST/EDT
  
  Very powerful writing Mr. Auslander.
  
  When I started researching quickly but in more detail how Putin came to power, how he was selected, what he inherited, how he has changed (personally and professionally, 20 years can do that), it became more clear to me that this was a much more fascinating and complex topic.
- Mish on May 30, 2019 · at 6:38 am EST/EDT
  
  Auslander, what you describe is generally accurate for the early 1990s, very late 80s, perhaps, but then you invoke “the powers that be deciding to find a younger face.” So what time do all these horrors refer to? the early 80s? and the younger face was Gorbachev? This is laughably wrong. I was there (here) all my life, i am 53. I left school in 1982. Served in the army 1984-1986. Things were totally A-OK, and i lived in a small town. You got everything mixed up in this mish-mash you have penned. The Soviet government (Gorb was already there) invited the famous US economist Leontieff to pronounce the death verdict for the Soviet economy in 1987. He came and did his thing and said there was nothing wrong with the economy systemically, but there were irregularities of varying gravity here and there. Totally correctible. The hopes of the then soviet rulers (that Leontieff would give them a pretext to do what they had in mind) were thus dashed. They covered up Leontieff’s report and proceeded to wreck the economy, in order to make sure there would emerge systemic flaws in it. The conspiracy high up and in the KGB to tank the Soviet System had brewed since the late 60s at least, but really since the death of Stalin
  - Auslander on May 30, 2019 · at 9:57 am EST/EDT
    
    Mish,
    
    I wrote of my eyes on observations, mostly in Moskau but also Leningrad and smaller cities in the Moskau Region. Time frame is mid ’80’s through 2001. The ‘younger face’ I wrote of is V V Putin.
    
    I witnessed eyes on the turmoil of the early and mid 90’s in Moskau Region and I witnessed eyes on the fighting around Moskau TV and Radio plus White House plus in Stroganoeh District where forces of the attempted coup tried to take the main Militsiya Station in the district, this attempt backed up with BTR’s on the coup side and RPG’s on the defense side. Militsiya Station was in the area of flats buildings housing mostly Field Grade officers of Army and other branches of service. The fighting was intense at times. I have a photo of my not smiling face in front of the blackened TV and Radio Station that, for verification, I will provide to either Saker or Larchmonter but not for publication, as proof I was there and when.
    
    I know nothing of any KGB plans or actions nor do I know of the behind the scenes Government machinations before, during and after those times. By the way, your English is perfect, better than mine.
    
    Auslander
    - Larchmonter445 on May 30, 2019 · at 11:00 am EST/EDT
      
      First of all, never doubt, and I never do, when Auslander writes facts. He always seems to have photo proof. He sent me the photo of him in front of said TV and Radio building. Clearly, of the date and time he so states.
      
      Auslander and I correspond daily, usually on things factual. Sometimes he has sensitive facts because of where he lives, his background in the military, his close relationship with Russians in the military, his work rescuing refugees from the Donbass war. What he says always check out. His personality is grounded in the nuts and bolts, hard facts of life in and near the military.
      
      If Auslander states it was such and so, bank it.
      
      This is why his military novels are so good. All his senses have been there, done it.
- mauricio marquez da cunha on May 30, 2019 · at 9:27 am EST/EDT
  
  Translated:
  I’m not Russian. I do not know your story. From what little I know about his country, from the attempt to follow Russian international politics over the last twenty years, I can conclude that PUTIN did a lot for his homeland. He removed it from stagnation and placed it in a position of respect with the great world powers.
  _____________
  Não sou russo. Não conheço sua história. Do pouco que sei sobre seu país, da tentativa de acompanhar os lances da política internacional russa dos últimos vinte anos, posso concluir que O PUTIN, fez muito por sua pátria. A tirou da estagnação e a colocou numa posição de respeito junto às grandes potencias mundiais.
- Mario Medjeral on May 30, 2019 · at 1:30 pm EST/EDT
  
  I do agree that when talking about today and Putin, one must remember again and again what happened to Russia under the regime of Neo-liberal traitors and how fast (two decades?) Russia was brought back to a strong and sovereign position.
  
  My view is that Putin moves within what he believes is prudent and possible and he will get rid of people (Medvedev & Co) when the power play allows it.
  
  I do not think Putin is alone and I assume there is a good invisible ‘deep-state’ which ensures that the direction is right and the speed of changes are moderated to the circumstances.
  
  When the time comes, somebody will be picked up to replace Putin, as he was, to continue taking Russia to the glorious destiny it deserves.
  
  Cheers from France.
  - Auslander on May 30, 2019 · at 2:47 pm EST/EDT
    
    Mario Medjeral
    
    I am 100% in agreement with what you wrote, in my opinion you are spot on.
    
    Auslander
  - Auslander on May 30, 2019 · at 4:10 pm EST/EDT
    
    Mario Medjeral
    
    I agree with you 100%.
    
    Auslander
    - B.F. on May 30, 2019 · at 4:49 pm EST/EDT
      
      Auslander
      Me too. Those numbers which were quoted regarding the popularity of Putin, Shoigu and Lavrov cannot possibly be correct. They were obviously cooked up in a pro-Western liberal kitchen.
- ruca on May 30, 2019 · at 2:12 pm EST/EDT
  
  Well you succeeded in making me cry, and I didn’t have to live through it. I can’t imagine the horrors. Thanks Auslander for your perceptive mind.
- Anonymous on May 30, 2019 · at 6:11 pm EST/EDT
  
  The collapse was a spontaneous natural event only in the same sense as bank heist or any kind of grand theft operation can be viewed as the culmination of a series of biological forces acting on the psyche of the robbers, who just could not help themselves, therefore acted “naturally”. The robbers in this case were the ruling elites. The collapse was in fact a demolition.
  
  The notion of natural spontaneity can only be preserved if one ignores that the vast majority of the population was explicitly against it. Explicitly meaning that in March 1991 a referendum was held across the Soviet Union to answer the question whether they wanted to preserve it or dissolve it. Voter turnout was 80%, of which 76.4% voted for preserving the Union.
  
  Map of the results:
  https://preview.redd.it/tntjftrktntz.png?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=8eae2e500bfcaa7d5ebb6ca1afe4a2571244434b
  
  But money signs and dreams of opulence were by then too deeply imprinted in the eyeballs and minds of the rulers. So they told those voters to go to hell. Not a metaphorical hell either, as they in fact forced them into a very real hell they created by dismantling the entire system and auctioning off (i.e. giving) to themselves all public assets for a pittance. That is in a nutshell what happened.
  - Anonymous on May 31, 2019 · at 3:06 am EST/EDT
    
    Collapse, Demolition…
    Gentlemen , it was just the biggest Robbery in human History.
    Planned, organized and executed by the ruling class of the then USSR.
    Hidden behind a mountain of dead and Chaos.
    Poor Russia.
  - Mulga Mumblebrain on May 31, 2019 · at 6:39 pm EST/EDT
    
    Hopefully, if there is a human future, the expression ‘a Yeltsin’ will replace ‘Quisling’ as the description of an Evil traitor working for foreign occupiers and against his own people.
- Ugh... on May 30, 2019 · at 6:39 pm EST/EDT
  
  I live in Russia for long time also. I travel back and forth. I know what you mean. Though Saker is right about discontent. I hear it everywhere. There are lots of little things that annoy. I personally, am against tearing up a system because of problems. I always hear how they have money for a holiday, a parade, aide to another country, but can’t help their own people. These type things are constantly muttered there. It isn’t because a new generation raised up and doesn’t remember the 90’s. Even grandma’s have genuine gripes.
  My personal issue there is too much Western nonsense on TNT channel. Starting to see women dye their hair purple or some various unnatural rainbow color. That is straight aping the worst of what the US offers the world. The most important part for Russia is stability and not to take any of the bait from US/EU to enter a conflict.
- NATO Blues on May 31, 2019 · at 8:43 am EST/EDT
  
  Wow Ausländer, very tragic and insightful and for sure I don’t think anyone could have done better piecing that destroyed nation back together. What a shame the “west” failed to embrace the new Russian state and forge an path ahead as true partners. Incidentally, my mom (bless her soul) used to ride her bike from her small town to another to work in the local hospital while the allies bombed the countryside. She was 19 at the time and immigrated to America after the war. Though her family had one of the only markets in her northwest German town, all the inhabitants were starving as the allies had bombed all transport infrastructure, etc. She told me it was the Russians who liberated their city, gave all the kids candy and the townspeople food. I’m guessing she remained grateful for this as I found a lot of collector items from the USSR after I moved back to the home I grew up in after her passing. Alas, Russian culture also interests me and I find your writing very interesting, well done.
- Katherine on May 31, 2019 · at 4:37 pm EST/EDT
  
  “the emerging ‘Powers That Be’ ”
  
  Who were these “emerging powers that be”?
  What was their power base, to be able to choose the next supposed figurehead?
  Oligarchs or mafiosi?
  
  Katherine
Makedonia on May 30, 2019 · at 3:12 am EST/EDT

Is this the case with China as well? Not in terms of potential opposition parties but opposing groups within the Chinese Communist Party? I see China losing its original values as well and becoming more and more a photocopy of the West.
- Dick Lenning on May 30, 2019 · at 4:37 pm EST/EDT
  
  It is actually the opposite. The “conservatives” are those that are trying to bring back Confucian etiquette and values, because many Chinese people are disgusted by “nouveau riche” arrogance, corruption, & selfishness. It is reflected in little things, such as airline stewardess dressing in Qing-dynasty inspired clothing, and bowing towards the guests at the start & end of a flight. On a large scale this Confucian comeback is at the core of the Social Credit system, which is meant to quantify & qualify the factors that make a harmonious society. For example, while the Western media condemns this as “totalitarian surveillance,” Social Credit helps ban people caught vandalising public transit, but also helps encourage people with good daily habits of opening doors for the elderly.
dr.bill on May 30, 2019 · at 3:18 am EST/EDT

That 31.7% isn’t quite what it might seem to be. The same poll found Putin’s approval rating to be 65.8%, i.e. not much changed since he took the hit on the pension issue. Here are a couple of Russian bloggers commenting on the poll numbers, and clarifying things as they see them:

1st article (Russian original) or 1st article (Yandex translation)

2nd article (Russian original) or 2nd article (Yandex translation)

In the first article, note the numbers for Lavrov and Shoigu in the same category where Putin gets the 31.7%. Those can’t be “real” in the usual sense.
Serg on May 30, 2019 · at 3:24 am EST/EDT

Wait for December on Ukraine, I think that things will change after the Nord Stream II pipeline is finished. At the moment neither Europe nor Russia can afford to have the Ukies go even more crazed. Russia needs the European market, at least at this time. Europe needs Russian gas because there simply is no alternative, and Europe is about to exponentially increase their consumption, with it’s (misguided) goal of switching to hydrocarbon fuelcell vehicles from fossil fuel engines, over 90% of which is made with natural gas from Russia (hence misguided) and not with an actual renewable source. Neither side can afford to make the Ukies so mad that they would cut off the gas transit. They have already shown their suicidal, rabid stupidity when they destroyed their own economy by cutting most ties to Russia.

As for Sputnik and RT, I think you are mistaken. You seem to see bogeymen around every corner and don’t look at the simplest of explanations. There doesn’t have to be a sinister plot behind everything. In the case of Sputnik and RT, there are people who simply do like to report on, to you and I, nonsensical stuff, but it’s still “news” in the circles they frequent, such as news about famous people. Even if they didn’t, they probably think that regular people want to know about this sort of thing, so they put it in there. I constantly come across headlines about golden retriever puppies on Sputnik. There is probably someone in the office who likes golden retrievers and wants to share their enthusiasm.

On 9/11 I am with you. They probably did put a ban on this, though again, probably not as sinister as you make it out to be. Questioning the official narrative is, in the broad public sense, still a “conspiracy theory,” Sputnik and RT probably want to wake people up with a gentle shake, rather than the equivalent of 100 air horns going off at the same time. I do wish they would make more effort to dismantle official narratives, not just the ones concerning Russia, more proactively, but I can understand why they shy away from this sort of thing. It would give the MSM way more ammunition than they ever had in the chamber.

The so called “smearing” of the orthodox church can be explained away by people not knowing anything about the orthodox church. Classic ignorance seen as disrespect or “defilement.” People who work at Sputnik or RT usually aren’t experts on anything and everything Russia, quite the opposite. They get hired to speak up about things wrong with their own countries, so it’s not uncommon for them to not know more things about Russia than the average person. Not to mention, they are often young and don’t really care about religion, like me. I find religion to be revolting, it’s the root of all evil. It teaches you who to hate, who to believe, who is worthy of respect and who is expendable. It’s the oldest lie on the planet. But I digress. George Carlin sums up my views on it quite well.
- Mulga Mumblebrain on May 31, 2019 · at 12:04 am EST/EDT
  
  What is ‘misguided’ about moving away from fossil fuels? Do you really prefer the looming self-destruction of our species by runaway anthropogenic climate destabilisation?
  - Serg on May 31, 2019 · at 2:57 am EST/EDT
    
    I was referring to the move towards the hydrogen fuel cell as being misguided, when going towards full-electric is the better way. It’s cheaper, safer, not reliant on non-renewable, finite fuel sources, is easier to produce, has way less parts etc. etc. etc.
    
    The only problem, currently, is the terrible battery technology from the 70s, which is the exact same technology in the cell phones, laptops etc. That’s the limiting factor which a lot of companies are trying to overcome right now, other than that, electric cars are already very much viable. Certainly already more viable than fuel cell cars.
    
    I am for a transition towards 100% renewable energy, as soon as possible. Just going from oil to gas is ridiculous in my view. It’s kicking the can down the road yet again without solving anything. Actually it makes it much worse, first they expect everyone to transition from fossil fuels to hydrogen, then, when the new problems start rolling in, they expect yet another complete transition towards full renewable… it’s idiotic to even look down this path. Elon Musk is right, it’s not a fuel cell, it’s a fool cell.
    - Mulga Mumblebrain on May 31, 2019 · at 6:42 pm EST/EDT
      
      Fine, Serg. I regret to inform you that I agree fully with your position.
Anonymous on May 30, 2019 · at 4:35 am EST/EDT

The deal of the century will initiate conflagration and so popularity ratings may be of less consequence than currently estimated.

The war cabinet has been assembled.

Dismissing the incompetents just prior to a world trembling conflagration would be to leap into chaos. Let the little piggies continue their suckling where their whereabouts, concerns, and actions are known. Let sleeping dogs lay where they be.

Armageddon comes. Get real. Ok.! You have no time for denial. Semantics. There are death cults in charge of at least 4 of the nuclear arsenals. Armageddon cults. Masons. Clergy. Rabbis. Evangelicals. Crazy sh@t critters walk this earth.

War comes. Astounding devastation. Astounding.

Putin understands what are these days.

“Walk the foothills of Armageddon” were his words from just 6 years ago.

Putin fears rightly Armageddon. He is ready for his role in it. As are all of us in our own way.

It is all but upon us.
- MC on May 30, 2019 · at 9:31 am EST/EDT
  
  I agree. I see Mr Putin as a competent, dialectic politician – exactly the kind of politician Russia and the world need right now!
- Sam on May 30, 2019 · at 11:47 am EST/EDT
  
  Those who just can’t seem to wait for Armageddon, and who imagine they are “ready” for it, should understand that it implies the wider consuming fire of WWIII. The West and most of the East will surely be destroyed (including the communist dreams of an earthly paradise with its “one belt, blah, blah , blah), and humanity will be reduced to perhaps a third or a quarter of its present population. The modern world will be gone. Then comes what is really terrible, the tyreanny of Antichrist, and what is left of humanity will be subject to the Tribulation, until Heaven intervenes and closes the last cycle of this humanity, the terrible Kali Yuga. Then a “new earth and a new heaven”; and, it goes without saying, a new humanity.The positive eschatolgical destinies of the former humanity will depend on their real, not imagined, spirituality, their conformity to the Real, the highest Good, who are the fortunate very few, non-lukewarm, who have chosen the strait gate, the Devayana.
  - anodinous on May 30, 2019 · at 7:33 pm EST/EDT
    
    that would be 500 000 000 left, so more around 1/15 of todays population.
    thats what they wrote on the guidestones, and the companion book that went with them.
    a scan of the book circulated dark recesses of bbs’s in the early 90’s. no idea if its available now, but should be mandatory reading for anyone trying to predict what will happen.
    gorvachov was one of the recepients of the book.
    maybe he believed the book as he did his part to let cccp fall.
tamlin2 on May 30, 2019 · at 6:42 am EST/EDT

Russians of all levels and classes need to seriously understand how the west would love to reduce the country back to the way it was in the 1990s. Any kind of complacency towards what Putin has achieved is highly dangerous to Russia’s continued prosperity. The Empire wants both Russia and China to stop opposing its hegemonic ambition, and if Russia were to collapse, the west would both help to undermine it and cheer if it happened. As it did with Libya’s socialistic state, it would happily help destroy the present Russian state, and reduce the population back to scarcely survivable austerity. What Putin has achieved in less than twenty years is almost miraculous. Be very very careful what you wish for.
- Anonymous on May 30, 2019 · at 7:56 am EST/EDT
  
  Armageddon denial is self harm.
  
  Tell me Trump was not chosen for his birthdate and how it coincides with the foundation of Israel.
  
  Tell me why Pence hungers for Srmageddon. Prays for it. Lusts after glory in it.
  
  The biggest threat to Russia are evangelicals with their cancerous nonsense of Rapture. They are infiltrating Russia. And her former dominions. They bring a curates egg with them. A mix of profound insight and a macabre alignment with death.
  
  Putin has spoken of Armageddon. So open your mind.
  
  “What use a world without Russia?” are words he has uttered. Do you think he has not weighed Armageddon.? That Russia faces off against the entire West in Syria overlooking the very site of Armageddon…with the future of the world at stake.?
  
  Armageddon denial is sickening.
Danijel Turina on May 30, 2019 · at 7:47 am EST/EDT

Why not just pump oil/gas revenue into the retirement funds? This would buy social contentment in normal circumstances, and allow the government to blame the price of hydrocarbons for eventual drops in retirements. Also, Putin can’t really allow himself to cause social discontent in the situation of very serious international pressure, read: CIA aggressively purchasing fifth column and manipulating said discontent to their advantage.
However, there is always temptation to solve all social problems with retirement, which is how my country (Croatia) got into an unrecoverable nosedive. Russia has a much better situation and can funnel natural resources into social programs, but that can only go so far.
Pelantaro on May 30, 2019 · at 9:02 am EST/EDT

Unpopular opinion, but I think that maybe they are managing information and forecasts that we don’t now yet and they can’t reveal. Russia’s economý is innevitably connected to the world’s and there is long overdue a “big one” economic depression just hanging over our heads. Living standards should surely take a good smack and unrest is probably guarateed. On these dire conditions, having a law code prepared to deal with “the new reality” could prove to be a smart move to maintain governability. The creation of the Rossgvardia maybe is a preparation move similar to the “dooms day” preparations and resources stacking going on in the FEMA and the reinforcement of the US police state.
The high interest rates and super-narrowed credit market in Russia, contrary to what they need now, are maybe because they know it is a extremely bad time to take debt, and their world-comparatively crazy hoarding of gold and other savings could also be part of this, a very “austrian school” move (totally contrarian to the keynesian consume-machine-bubble-generator of the west), and the absolute best one if you have the chance to see ahead, in my opinion.
peter mcloughlin on May 30, 2019 · at 9:44 am EST/EDT

A ‘5th column’ might not see itself as such, but as a force saving the Russian people. Any foreign backers would see things the same. But involvement in other nations’ interval affairs, however noble the motives, can lead to consequences far greater than the ills that need to be cured. Such moves by the west – whether we like it or not – would be seen as an existential threat by the Kremlin and a large number of the Russian people. The world survived the fall of the Soviet Union without nuclear Armageddon: it shouldn’t play Russian roulette twice.
- Mulga Mumblebrain on May 31, 2019 · at 12:06 am EST/EDT
  
  Western interference in other countries ‘noble’. Are you joking?
Craig Mouldey on May 30, 2019 · at 11:02 am EST/EDT

There is a document now circulating, produced by those lovely people at the Rand Corp “How to destroy Russia”. We don’t need to debate what sort of sickness lives within people who seem to spend their every waking hour devising ways to destroy rather than build. It is my understanding that their method is the same as the one used earlier. Get Russia to over extend itself financially. Interfere with their main export, petroleum products with sanctions and other means. Continue to encircle Russia with NATO hardware and arming the ZIO-NAZI’s in the Ukraine thus forcing Russia into uncontrolled military spending.
I hold Mr. Putin in great respect. He has been The Man for this time. He knows how this game is played which is why he has been working constantly so that Russia will develop other areas of production for export. They manufacture all sorts of things and are an example to the world in farming vast amounts of clean food. He has made it very clear that there will be No New Arms Race. He knows what that would do and that this is the intent of the west. They used this trick before!
Under his leadership, Russia is resurrecting. The government has even taken steps to strengthen the moral fabric of the nation. All of this is happening while they are under constant assault from the Empire. Yet, he has managed to avoid world war thus far. Given enough time, they will totally free themselves from any effects the empire tries to hurt them economically. It is hoped that many other countries will be attracted to the freedom and potential prosperity offered in this separation from the west and they too will free themselves from the western financial system. With all those fiat petrodollars coming home, the empire will collapse and be isolated. This is also where it gets frightening because this evil is not likely to just accept this demotion. The last card they have is the physical destruction of those who freed themselves from their imposed slavery.
Michel 0 on May 30, 2019 · at 11:46 am EST/EDT

Some or several people think that Russia is an alternative to the liberal and globalist system of power but in fact it is not because Russia accepts every rule of that system. Including its social consequences.
The identity and soul of Russia ended, probably forever, with the end of the Soviet Union. Moreover, after thirty years of colonization and pro-Western cultural subjugation, it is only one of the many standard liberal countries on the face of the Earth. Certainly it has rejected the Soviet experience (except for the parades…) and just as surely it is only a much more discreet, intelligent and sober evolution of the Yeltsinism that it has never denied nor rejected. In fact its current ruling class was established in those years when all the really soviet officials/officers were ousted and replaced by pro liberialist pro western elements never changed again. The new Russia, unlike the Soviet Union and China, has never developed its own idea of society, economics and strategic relations but has limited itself to copying the West.
It is a strange country halfway between a nation with a certain independence and a western colony without roots.
- Kapetan Brina on May 30, 2019 · at 2:47 pm EST/EDT
  
  I believe that Russian soul was lost much earlier in years of 1917 or maybe 1905. Russian coach living here in Ljubljana told me, that God has send Reds to clean filth which accumulated decades ago..then I were still sceptic, still socialist..still blind.
  Solzenicin and Saker opened my eyes, now I see clearly and I wish mother Russia all the best but please without communism! Its just another cult of death, Russia needs peace and her soul will resurect.
  Auslander respect!
  - Michael 0 on May 30, 2019 · at 3:38 pm EST/EDT
    
    Yes, I agree, peace and all the best for Russia. Probably the way would have been a synthesis between Soviet social economy, strong, strategic national integrity, traditional values and Orthodox religion. Not all of the Soviet experience was negative, it would have been enough to discard the dark and evil side of Bolshevism and eliminating the corruption that then led to betrayal and destruction of the Nation by holding and protecting the rest.
    Probably would have been possible until the mid-1980s. Now it’s too late. Destruction and occupation has already occurred. And liberalism has the same dark and evil sides as Bolshevism.
  - Auslander on May 30, 2019 · at 4:08 pm EST/EDT
    
    Thank you for your compliment, Kapetan,
    
    I don’t think the ‘Russian soul’ was lost as much as repressed for a century, but in my opinion the Russian Soul was alive and well the further you got away from Moskau and Leningrad. Today it has come back in spades, albeit somewhat modernized but it is still there, deeply ingrained. I write of Russian Soul a good deal in my books but I don’t identify it as such, I simply include that Soul in many of the characters and for those who know Russia even a little, they instantly recognize the Soul in the writings.
    
    One of my favorite sayings to ‘westerners’ when they ask about Russian women, one of whom I am married to for quite some time now, is thus: You do not want to tangle with Russian women. They don’t take prisoners and you will have a very sad day.
    
    I could probably write a book on Russian Soul, and I may well do so, but even in everyday life this Soul is readily visible. Not all ‘Russians’ have this Soul, but enough do to make one understand how deep it is and understand that no one can ever destroy this Soul.
    
    Auslander
- Larchmonter445 on May 30, 2019 · at 3:27 pm EST/EDT
  
  “The new Russia, unlike the Soviet Union and China, has never developed its own idea of society, economics and strategic relations but has limited itself to copying the West.”
  
  Russia’s idea of society is isolation from the rest of the world, self-sufficiency and a very strong military to secure borders and protect “friends”. Russians prefer to mind their own affairs, but will go out into the world to fight threats to them and their friends.
  
  The idea many, probably most, Russians have of their economy is a socialist system that would use the wealth of the oligarchs and state-owned resources for the social welfare, education and health of the nation.
  
  The Russian idea of strategic relations is close to what Putin and Lavrov have put in place. Russia-SuperPower, staunch opponent of USA, NATO and any alliances which seek to dominate Russia and its friends.
  
  When you analyze these three items, only the Socialist System is not near at hand. But Russia was corrupted and criminalized in the end days (years, maybe decades) of the USSR, then manipulated by Western experts who saddled the economy with oligarch leeches sucking the wealth out of the economy. Putin has spent 20 years struggling to get the oligarchs out of government and politics, and regaining control over the natural resources of the nation.
  
  Russia has been positioned to grow. It’s growth rate artificially hamstrung by sanctions and by the Medvedev government and Western rules of finance and banking.
  The normal flow of foreign direct investment has been diverted over and over. While, the domestic capital is shunting off to London, Cyprus and Switzerland.
  
  Putin has been working to get these billions back into the economy.
  
  Russia is an entrepreneur’s dream. It has cheap energy, highly educated technology base, a large population, and a desire and need to create and innovate all its own products and services in all sectors.
  
  Look at how fast agriculture exploded in the last decade.
  Look at how the military developed the best weapons systems in the world (all in top secrecy for almost two decades.
  
  How to get to a socialist system? Through capitalism. Like the Chinese who talked a socialist system, but paid for their own schooling, their own medical, and most everything basic. They were without a Social Security Pension for many decades. Children supported parents, and sometimes grandparents.Yet, still hundreds of millions of rural citizens have no Social Security.
  
  Competition and market forces drive the Chinese system. It isn’t socialism.
  
  If people look at the dynamics of “small capitalism”, of ”entrepreneurial capitalism”, of employee stockholding in corporations, and local and regional banking, including credit unions, they will see the tools to build a more fair society.
  
  Meanwhile, the day of the Oligarchs is nearing its end.
  As Russia’s power grows internationally, it will take much of the wealth from the cold, dead hands of the blood-suckers. Russia has a lot of growing to do. That wealth has to recirculate as investment in the economy.
  And so, those fortunes through use in education, medicine, transportation, housing, family support and Research and Development, the nation will slowly become more socially equal.
  - Michael 0 on May 30, 2019 · at 4:16 pm EST/EDT
    
    Russia’s recovery after the years of the Great Plunder certainly has something miraculous but it remains a country that has lost a war, has been occupied, looted, disintegrated and only very partially liberated, not to mention cultural colonization. And it doesn’t have the resources, the capabilities, or the power that the Soviet Union had and that was completely self-sufficient. And still the West in Russia can do things that Russia cannot do in the West.
    For example, how many seconds would a hypothetical Russian Fifth Column in the West last?
  - Straight-Bat on May 31, 2019 · at 2:38 pm EST/EDT
    
    @Larchmonter, @Auslander,
    
    We, the truth-seeking blogger community tend to forget the astounding achievement of Russia under Putin-Shoigu-Lavrov trioka in this decade of 2010s – the unipolar world order built by the military power of Zionist-Capitalist has been successfully challenged head-on by Russia military using minimal engagement in East Hemisphere (Syria) and dare i say, in West Hemisphere (Venezuela).
    
    However, the same group of bloggers are slow and direction-less in identifying the utter chaos and/or corrupt social order in Russia-Belorussia-Novorussia societies! If it is felt that, things will fall in place automatically as President Putin completes another term in 2024, we will be in a rude shock.
    
    The patriotic leadership of Russian politics must chose a principle a policy and formulate an implementation plan before 2014. They can surely compare 2 political systems – how Chinese built their society with 90% population living a life of middle-class standard (basic socialist tenets are being followed) vis-a-vis how Indians built their society with one of the highest inequality where 9 business families own assets as much as poorer 50% of population (industrial-financial capitalism’s paradise !)
    
    Straight-Bat
Edward on May 30, 2019 · at 1:33 pm EST/EDT

If Russia gives citizenship to a large number of Ukrainians, will this change Russian politics?
Travis on May 30, 2019 · at 2:19 pm EST/EDT

Let’s never forget the big factor behind the scene: the demographics. Everyone claiming your economy will stay strong when having poor birth rate, even in conditions of stability, is totally wrong. Adam Smith saw the correlation between growing population and economic growth. This is the big issue looming behind all Europe, Russia, Korea, Japan, China – in future many Asian countries too. And even though many are claiming how U.S has better demographics it’s not those European Americans but just arrived Latinos, Muslims and other minorities. Fertility rate among white Americans is not much better at all than that in Russia or France. We definitely are marching to totally different road never seen since 1600’s – demographic winter or at least demographic fall. Where ever western town you go you will see horrific scene of aging community, slow, stagnated, introverted. When baby was not born the future was lost – forever.
- Mulga Mumblebrain on May 30, 2019 · at 7:40 pm EST/EDT
  
  In fact, when a baby is born, the future is lost. The facts of the ecological Holocaust mean that growth must not only cease, it must be reversed. The planet cannot support more than two billion humans living in a comfortable First World fashion, and then only with renewable energy and radically reduced material levels of unnecessary consumption. The parasite elites know this-it is basic science, and they intend reducing the ‘Useless Eaters’ through Malthusian methods. It can be done humanely, over many decades, through a demographic transition to lower family sizes and female fecundity, but only through female emancipation, education and empowerment and through a total destribution of the planet’s wealth from the parasites to the human beings.
  - hassan Mohamed jama on May 30, 2019 · at 9:41 pm EST/EDT
    
    Quick Mind-boggling Math…
    
    The Earth is about 3.5 million times larger than a human.
    The Solar System is about 36 billion times larger than Earth (3.6 X 10^10).
    The Local Group is 5 million times larger than the Solar System (1.4 X 10^17 times larger than Earth)
    The Virgo Supercluster is 11 times larger than the Local Group (1.5 X 10^18 times larger than Earth
    The Pisces-Cetus Supercluster Complex is 12 times larger than the Virgo Supercluster (1.9 X 10^21 times larger than Earth)
    And Finally, the Observable Universe is 10 times larger than the Pisces-Cetus Supercluster Complex (1.9 X 10^22 times larger than Earth)
    
    And the Observable Universe is only one tenth of the Whole Universe ………….. the creator of such a universe will be able to sustain a hundred billion humans on this earth forever …..who are nothing but little tiny almost non existant beings……when compared to the size of the universe ………so who are you to calculate what can be sustained or cannot be sustained…..you who doesn’t know what you are going to gain tomorrow…..you who doesn’t know when you are going to die….you who doesn’t know where you are going to die………….
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Eh5BpSnBBw
    - Mulga Mumblebrain on May 31, 2019 · at 12:01 am EST/EDT
      
      Hassan, I justify my opinions by reference to the ecological sciences which calculate the ‘carrying capacities’ of various species in different biospheres. Your estimate of the Earth being 3,5 million times large than a human being, seems wildly out. The Earth weighs c. 6 x 10^24 kilos, so, dividing by 7.6 billion you get an average human mass of c. 8 x 10^15, or 8 quadrillion kg. I know there are some ample people about, but that looks awry, to me. As for the rest of your speculations, the population crash due to over-population causing an ecological Holocaust will occur far before we travel to Mars, let alone the observable Universe. I’m not equipped to comment on your religious beliefs.
    - Tomsen on May 31, 2019 · at 7:28 pm EST/EDT
      
      @Hassan
      I am in. A little more details for bumble brains.
      
      Average 3 people/1000m2 approx. 3000 people/km2
      Sao Paulo population of 22 mio/8000km2 approx. 2800 people/km2 (NOT living tight, best food on the planet).
      World population 7 billion/153 mio km2 land approx. 46 people/km2
      
      World population 7 billion living as Sao Paulo or 3 people/1000m2, cover an area equal to Sudan or 1/3 of Australia.
      
      Look then at a world atlas and evaluate “overpopulation”, “lack of fish”, “lack of water resources”, “limited energy resources”, etc.
    - Marcel Leutenegger on June 01, 2019 · at 1:19 am EST/EDT
      
      If population size is a no-brainer, why do humans go to war against each other for resources since the ages of time?
      
      During the years of 1000 to 1500, Europe was populated by 50 to 100 million people, but those 10 to 20% of today’s population managed to deforest the continent in search of construction material and wood for heating. Without the discovery of coal and later oil and gas, the current world population would never have built-up. Due to the finite depots of these resources, world population will (have to) drastically decline in this century.
      - Tomsen on June 01, 2019 · at 5:06 pm EST/EDT
        
        @Marcel Leutenegger
        “Finite depots of oil and gas”.
        
        Russian scientists discovered in 1996 oil/gas is abiotic, thus there is coal, oil, gas for a billion years.
        Rockefeller made the “fossil oil” hoax in 1892 as a “used car seller trick”.
        
        Everybody upstairs in the oil industry knows these facts and every clown can find them with a search machine on the net.
        
        Marcel Leutenegger on June 02, 2019 · at 2:29 pm EST/EDT
        
        The formation of oil and gas may be abiotic, but the energy stored in them still must come from somewhere. You should look up the heating power of earth to recognize once-and-for-ever that abiotic formation would be terribly slow; orders of magnitude slower than solar-powered plant growth. At our rate of burning through our earthly reserves, the abiotic thesis does not matter at all.
  - sherlock_holmes on May 31, 2019 · at 1:03 am EST/EDT
    
    ” When a baby is born,is born for eternity. The future of the future.”
    
    If China and India combined have a 2.5 billion population on 13 mil.square km,how much can Russia accommodate on 17 mil.square km ? Or Canada ?
    
    An average citizen in the consumer society eats around 10 times more than a spiritual orthodox monk and having countless more goods . How many spiritual and humble people can this planet sustain ? I don’t say 10 times more but who knows ?
    
    The best ( and safe ) for humanity is to live a spiritual life ( mainly ),in communion with God and people.
    
    With greed,passions and sins that bring spiritual and sooner than later physical death,no wonder the nature is in pursuit. Two opposite gangs of only few thousands nuts armed with nuclear bombs can do more harm to the nature than the rest combined. We could see that pretty soon.
    
    ” ecological Holocaust ” could be used as a ” moral ” justification for legally killing people. We are not far away from eugenics, real Holocaust for whites this time ( racism on steroids ),modern gladiators and all that Death and Hate can get.
    
    Regarding Russia,I did like what Auslander said. I don’t think he is an auslander anymore.At least half of him.
    
    And we pretty much know the future of Russia ( not in detail,too much work,but a tsar will come ),at least according to our prophecies.
    
    http://orthochristian.com/77399.html
    
    All the best to Saker and his friends!
    - Mulga Mumblebrain on May 31, 2019 · at 6:50 pm EST/EDT
      
      Sherlock, the ecological Holocaust will cause human extinction. I can see the cogency of an argument that the killer parasite elites will use the ecological collapse to justify exterminating much of humanity, who they hate and fear, but there is, there are, other ways to preserve humanity and Life on Earth.
      - sherlock_holmes on June 03, 2019 · at 9:26 pm EST/EDT
        
        http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20181102-what-can-i-do-about-climate-change
        
        ” We also could ask whether having offspring is a human right beyond questioning ”
        
        ” One 2017 study co-authored by Lund University’s Nicholas ranked 148 individual actions on climate change according to their impact. Going car-free was the number-one most effective action an individual could take (except not having kids ) ”
        
        ” 6. How harmful are my flying habits? …There are groups of scientists and members of the public who have decided to give up flying or who fly less. ”
        
        It looks to me like bricks of the future global dictatorship.No freedom of movement ( unless you pay taxes ),no kids ( unless you pay taxes ), no certain food like meat ( unless you pay taxes ),no imported goods ( unless you pay taxes ),no jobs in downtown or far away but close to your home ( unless you pay taxes ),etc.
        
        Disguised in saving planet Earth, climate change policies is more like an elites idea for building a free and privileged world for rich people and bantustans like areas for the rest of it.
        
        And this is only the tip of the iceberg.
        
        If there would be really concernes about the future of this Planet,the MSM should talk a lot about the chances of a nuclear war which is far worse than any climate change forecasts. Exceptional hypocrisy.
  - Straight-Bat on May 31, 2019 · at 1:41 pm EST/EDT
    
    @Mulga,
    
    Your statement like “In fact when a baby is born, the future is lost” is true for everywhere on the Earth but Russia-Belorussia-Novorussia. Yes, I’m talking about the original Rus land and society which were time and again destroyed by the Zionist-Capitalist backed West European empires in order to settle in the east by snatching land and resources from Slavic society. During past 2 centuries Slavic societies have been, by and large, undergoing degrowth (in population) due to direct and indirect war.
    
    The yet-to-born Eurasian Union must set it’s eye to reach a population of half-a-billion ! Ridiculously ambitious ? May be … But without such a population the vast land and bountiful resources may not be defendable ! Peoples will say technology is what defends not manpower. I disagree – manpower will use technology for defence.
    
    Rest of the Earth should, at the earliest, stop population growth, and if possible go for -ve growth, as you suggested.
    
    Straight-Bat
  - Anonymous on May 31, 2019 · at 7:31 pm EST/EDT
    
    You leave out that the Earth has renewable resources and that the sun continues to provide energy and fuel plant life to generate new food, products (wood, cotton, for example) for the Earth and will for billions of years more.
    This will continue to go on as the sun lasts more or less as it has for billions of years already and the Earth has an atmosphere which keeps/recycles water.
Frankie on May 30, 2019 · at 2:47 pm EST/EDT

I never have understand why they are seeing Putin in west as new Stalin, “strong leader” when he actually is rather mediocre traditional European conservative. It’s because our western leaders and diplomacy has collapsed since 1970’s and 1980’s. Problem in west is we lost traditional conservatism and got Cultural Marxists, Greens and Neolib/Neocon nonsense. America and Russia have both illusion of “exceptionalism” but in reality they culturally they both are on brink of mortal, just as Europe but perhaps later. At the end of 21st century there might not be any Western Culture really existing.

One perspective more. Many of you have moaned how Russia was left alone in Syria and Ukraine. But now when China finally feels the pressure of U.S Empire we should ask: what has Putin’s Russia done to back China and played really viciously against Empire? Not much. Actually Russia has been rather opportunist taking change of Chinese problems. Kissinger wanted U.S having partnership with Russia (against China). Trump seems to be keen on it.
RobfromCanada on May 30, 2019 · at 4:00 pm EST/EDT

Russians should be extremely grateful that you don’t have a government with the legitimacy of a moral sewer dedicated to using other peoples money to feed the sociopathic predators in the Hobbsean jungle known as the moronic, incompetent, corruption complex that can’t do ANYTHING right.
Anonymous on May 30, 2019 · at 4:24 pm EST/EDT

As for the ordinary people, most of them probably still trust Putin in foreign policy issues, but many are also getting genuinely fed-up with an arrogant and condescending ruling elite which couldn’t care less about the plight of regular people and who live in an ivory tower of wealth, arrogance and power.

This is the main problem in every country in the West. Everyone is fed up of these corrupt no good money and power hoarders, its way past personalities and is coming to an nexus of understanding that the many work and die so that the few may continue to live in the profligate style they have become/always been used to, in short everyone is beginning to realise the game is rigged against them, no matter what they do, no matter how hard they work they will eventually get screwed, squeezed like a lemon for taxes and then dumped on the street to die like a pauper. THIS is the element to me which is most interesting in world politics and effects almost all countries, the 1% are just that and very vulnerable, how the majoritys displeasure is going to manifest itself will be interesting. There is a vacuum appearing and it will be filled by those who circumnavigate the political elites and create something else without them, whether this is a good something or a bad something remains to be seen. History would seem to suggest it is mostly bad but people are definitely fed up of wars and division so there are opportunities for good to manifest. The western press may be obsessed with the far right but in reality they are much less than 10% in most countries. Interesting times
- Marcel Leutenegger on June 02, 2019 · at 3:11 pm EST/EDT
  
  I wish you were right but I do not believe that people are fed up with wars unless they filed a tax declaration for several years and signed every declaration by an explicit statement that “these proceeds shall under no circumstances be used for criminal actions or purposes.” I executed this recipe for any single transaction required by law.
  
  Money rules the world. Hence people have to start taking matters in their own hands and take responsibility, because it is forbidden to support terrorist groups and/or criminal gangs – punishable by up to 15 years behind bars here in Germany, for instance. We all know that our governments behave very much as organized crime cartels.
  
  Once, a large majority delivers these declarations, it is time to raid tax offices by representatives of the local populace and check for the legality of proceeds. Unaccountable expenses or expenses going towards criminal acts shall then be punished on the spot.
  
  Frankly, it is about time to grow some courage.
Dick Lenning on May 30, 2019 · at 4:47 pm EST/EDT

For those not satisfied with Vladimir Putin and the government working under him, who do they propose as replacements? I would be interested in some names, and more importantly their backgrounds.
Bente Petersen on May 30, 2019 · at 4:52 pm EST/EDT

Easy to sit (I think outside of Russia) and critizise. Who could have done it better than Putin ? The number of times he has actually saved Russia from being pulled into a war, are numerous, the way he has made sanctions actually help the Russian economy… this include the devaluation of the Rubble… etc etc etc… who? I ask. Is there even one ?

And as you mention he and his tight team are up against not just the US Junta and their allies (vasals) no there are plenty of the elite INSIDE RUSSIA also gainst Putin’s policies…

You mention the pension ”reform”.. as one of the reasons Putin is not as popular as he used to – I doubt that is really true. How would the pensioners have been faring if Putin had not taken or been given the reigns in 1999 ? If at all people had survived… in the nineties people were whole disgusted, so much so many died of addiction to alcohol and or drugs, or committed suicide, the birthrate dropped catastrophically… not now.

Maybe life is a struggle for many, especially old people, and that should not be, they are afterall the ones who have suffered most, from the war and the collapse of the USSR followed by the rape of Russia by the oligarchs, but everything is relative, and the old people should have more now, compared to what they have had all their life, compared to what they would have had if Putin has not been there since 1999, look at Ukraine and you know what they would have had… the old people are not stupid, they, I am sure, being 78 my self and seen and experienced life in Africa and Asia, ups and downs, seen poverty, real poverty there – now back in my home country I am ever so happy with what I have and get although its is only a fraction of what others have and get due to having worked too many years outside DK to get a full pension… so yes, old people know and can look at all facets… when they have a place to live, food to eat and peace where they live… peace that is no war and not too many bandits, and they have a reasonable health, they are happy… there are many other joys in life than money… and the beauty of getting older is that you see and realize this more and more .

So I do not think your analysis and reasons actually fit the realities in Russia for the majority of people.
- Tomsen on May 31, 2019 · at 7:51 pm EST/EDT
  
  @Bente
  Thanks to Bente, pulling us back to Gods world ;-).
Full Spectrum Domino on May 30, 2019 · at 5:20 pm EST/EDT

A dispiriting report all in all, Saker.

Wow, those look like tepid Western democracy popularity ratings across the board. Welcome to one of the stalwarts of Atlanticist governance: apathy and an inextinguishable low-grade contempt.

Are we sure NED isn’t working diligently to bring about this fade? And frankly, is an organic self-determinative unrest any more palatable than Washington Consensus-ists? Answering my second question, I would say nativist unrest is always to be preferred over alien/imposed/manipulated unrest. That doesn’t make the former any less wrenching than the latter, just more preferred and in the spirit of self-determination. We should all be masters of our own misery because a expanded sense of control helps take the edge off the misery.

I would suggest pension reform is ‘more’ than a pocketbook issue (that, or the ultimate pocketbook issue) because it foreshadows a solvency predicament for people whose personal labors can no longer, through old age, add to their pocketbooks. Not even a politician of prodigious gifts could escape the wrath is procrastinated-upon issue. Last time I read up on this crisis they were talking of boosting the retirement age for men from 60 to 65 in a nation where male mortality is 66. Imagine being sentenced to prison (what’s a bad job other than a form of incarceration?) until such time as the authorities determine you have one year of natural life remaining. The algorithms to do this with astonishing accuracy exist.

“This forces the (RINO) opposition to pretend loyalty to (Trump) [Putin] while sabotaging every effort at re-sovereignizing (America) [Russia]”

May I borrow this sentence for use elsewhere and with edits as noted?

So Putin may be the most insidious Atlantic Integrationist of all? Too bad he’s detested by the Atlantic Integrationists.

“The latest opinion polls show that all the members of the government are suffering from falling ratings, not just the Atlantic Integrationists.”

I see not so much Russia in this analysis, as I do the world through the prism of Russia. However in this instance the sameness is particularly oppressive. I’m still counting on Russia to devise a peculiar new way forward for the world. Otherwise we’re stuck with a reversion to Petrinist monotony and a blanket-fate for humanity.

There is a ranging angst infecting all corners of the globe. Quite simply, people have grown tired of people in power. The Yellow Vests have resisted the conventional steps of appointing leadership and revising a list of programmatic grievances. This deprives the political class –sui generis– of devising their stock and trade: expropriative ‘prescriptive remedied’. Just as bakers can only offer bread, politicians are best at blunting and diverting popular unrest. Watered-down compromise of their sad gruel. The YVs are simply not providing the handles to allow easy co-optation.

As to what can proceed from such a deeply-rooted and global popular aversion to leaders of all stripes, we have to get beneath political call-and-response and look to popular consciousness for leadership. I cannot see the antiquated superstructure of accumulated debt (legacy of a superseded consciousness) surviving this malaise, nor capitulating to it. But there’s the rub. How can a climactic (and potentially ruinous) resolution be be avoided? WW3 offers a binary resolution: complete human cessation or the victory of one side (rentiers) over the other (the people).
- Mulga Mumblebrain on May 30, 2019 · at 7:44 pm EST/EDT
  
  The vast majority of Chinese are quite happy with their Government.
Nobody on May 30, 2019 · at 5:26 pm EST/EDT

This “New patriotic opposition” is just another Neo-bolchevic scheme. Their MO for cunning is well known: they pose as patriotic, savior of country they plan on destroying, and go for the jugular : they want the head of the state. They did it in Uk with Cromwell complicity, to french King Louis , to Sadam hussein, Gadafi, and now bent on taking out Maduro etc… Ya I remember the fake ju polls hillari saying hillari has about a 90 percent chance of defeating Republican Donald. Their writing style (vengeful, foaming at the mouth, projecting all their soulless hatred onto their target.

I read 200 years Together and follow closely all the cfr “recommendations” to their lackeys and I got the feeling that this (writer) is either naive or an expert well- versed in the art of manipulation and faked politic symptoms.

—-
You must understand, the leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred they tortured and slaughtered millions of Russians without a shred of human remorse. It cannot be overstated. Bolshevism committed the greatest human slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant and uncaring about this enormous crime is proof that the global media is in the hands of the perpetrators. 200 Years Together. Russo-Jewish History. Solzhenitsyn
Max on May 30, 2019 · at 5:58 pm EST/EDT

Saker, another great article, thanks.
will on May 30, 2019 · at 8:59 pm EST/EDT

Not buying the analysis about Putin.
Petrel on May 30, 2019 · at 9:18 pm EST/EDT

President Putin has proved a deft hand geo-politically, but far less agile on questions of national economy. Further, the Russian economy in 2019 staggers under the burden of crony-capitalism (also-known-as Oligarchs) created by Harvard economists in the 1990 – 1995 period.

President Putin in 2019 faces the same challenge as President Trump in 2016, whose US economy was strangled by globalists and shutting down, with 91 million Americans living on the dole.

While the attention of newspapers and TV financed by Wall Street owned media is focused on global trade, President Trump has been very active, below the radar, creating local banks for small business, eliminating death-taxes on family owned small businesses, eliminating regulations designed to thwart small business formation and so on.

As a result, small-local-businesses, termed “Main Street” in America (after a characteristic small-town pattern in the US between 1800 and 1970), are in very rapid formation, are creating national economic growth of 3.3% — 3.6% and with wages suddenly rising 4 – 7% — after a stagnation of nearly 30 years. In effect, President Trump is harnessing the economic creativity and momentum of families and close friends across the country.

A fine book for President Putin to begin his economic refresher might be EF Schumacher’s essays SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL — as well as most productive, most efficient, most family friendly and so on. EF Schumacher later created an institute to promote low-cost manufacturing and farming tools the INTERMEDIATE TECHNOLOGY FOUNDATION whose designs, for everything from plows, to wells, to wall-board might be very useful to cash-strapped Russian businesses.
Srbalj on May 30, 2019 · at 9:58 pm EST/EDT

In addition to comments by Larchmonter & Auslander that I ould generally agree with, another factor needs to be stressed that is not stressed enough when considering Putin’s relationship to the Anglo-American Atlanticist Empire, & its Zionist element – that is, the intervention in Syria was far more a radical move that anyone gives it credit for. From an Israeli perspective, but also an Anglosphere FVEYES point of view, this was a declaration of war against them. It can not be underestimated just how important – critical – the greater middle east project & the Iraq & Syrian wars were & are to the continuity & ultimate survival of the Empire. I do not have time to go in to too much detail but in saving Syrian sovereignty, Russia dealt this project a death blow & by extension the survival of the Empire. The state of Israel was created, as I’m sure most here know, off the back of the recommendation of the Balfour Declaration 1917 which in turn was the activation of Halford Mackinder’s recommendation from his Royal Geographical Society address in 1904 in which he basically stressed that in order for the British Empire to survive, & for Anglo-Western hegemony in the world to sustain itself, domination of Eurasia would be essential. The practical conclusion of Mackinder’s reasoning, is the need for a base – a colonial state – in the heart of Eurasia. See Greater/Eretz Israel – this is its origin & the fundamental reason why support for it is integral to both UK & US foreign policy. Putin knows this only too well, the ISIS project was conspired well in advance as a Plan B to the Plan A of a direct US/UK assault & occupation of the Middle East in the event Plan A failed, which for the most part, it did. Russia has put a halt to this project & in so doing has single handed destroyed the Empire, this is literally the case. As the Empire deteriorates, I suspect Putin will begin to adjust the socio-economic policy of Russia accordingly, but he is unable to do this until the Russian economy is truly independent of Western influence, & this process has only just begun. It is still very early days, although in the last 5 years the world has already changed dramatically as a result of Russia’s actions. One last point, the other day, in the Serbian parliament, Vojislav Seselj urged President Vucic to adjust his pro-western course & prepare Serbia for an end to Putin’s presidential term, which in 2024 will see the creation of a confederation of Russia-Belorussia-Kazakhstan & possibly Ukraine, depending on further developments in Kiev, of which Serbia should also seek to join. How reliable Seselj’s “intel” is I can not say, but he is not someone to be take lightly. If what he claimed has credibility, Putin will be the head of this new union, & if that happens, what can we say? Can we fault him?
- Grieved on May 31, 2019 · at 12:15 am EST/EDT
  
  @ Srbalj
  
  Yes, I agree with everything you say here.
  
  We forget how inspired we were when Russia entered Syria and defeated the US and Israel plan. We forget how game-changing we saw this move to be.
  
  But it was so, and still is. Russia defeated the US in 2015. Everything since is merely arranging the furniture for the new tenants.
  
  You are correct, I think, that Putin single-handedly destroyed the US empire. History will show this, I believe.
  
  As to the future, I like your picture of the regional alliance of the borderlands of Russia – perhaps even including Ukraine. We must watch this to see if it delivers the reality of its promise.
  
  Thank you very much for sharing your view of this situation and this region.
- Anonymous on May 31, 2019 · at 12:35 am EST/EDT
  
  How many realize that the ‘Revolution’ was meant also to eliminate Russia from the solution of the “Oriental Problem”, after the elimination of the Ottoman Empire? People talk non-stop about the Sykes-Picot agreement not realizing that Russia was part of the plan and would have had a strong voice.
- Dr N.G Maroudas on May 31, 2019 · at 1:05 am EST/EDT
  
  @Srbalj: “for the British Empire to survive, …, domination of Eurasia would be essential. The practical conclusion of Mackinder’s reasoning, is the need for a base – a colonial state – in the heart of Eurasia.”
  
  Thank you for shining that light from Mackinder on Britain’s ‘Drang nach (Mittel) Oesten’. It explains something from Bernard Shaw in 1922. For years I was puzzled by this little piece of dialogue about a putative Britain “200 years in the future”:
  
  “I come from the Capital of the British Empire”.
  “From Baghdad?”
  “Yes”.
  
  At last I understand why Her Majesty’s White Helmets are active in Syria today, funded by MI6 under a strategic directive from Chatham House. Long, long term planning: “Vaster than Empires and more slow”.
- Serbian girl on May 31, 2019 · at 11:40 am EST/EDT
  
  @Srbalj
  Do you have a video or transcrpit of this session of the parliament?
  
  How would Putin be the head of this confederacy? Isn’t this his last term? Any head of the confederation would need to be voted by the respective confederate states..
  Btw, Seselj sometimes says crazy things…
  - Srbalj on May 31, 2019 · at 7:48 pm EST/EDT
    
    Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY0XUG4OKcM [39:03 mins]
    It’s in Serbian, I assume you understand the language, Seselj likes to act the bufoon but he is not to be underestimated, he will play an increasingly significant role in Serbian politics as Serbia moves towards a formal alliance with Russia. As for Putin, he has one more legal term after this one ends, as president, & that second term will end in 2024. In terms of what kind of government structure a Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan-Ukraine union would take, Seselj says it will be a loose confederation but will have a head of state, i.e. Putin. The European Union is not formally a federal or confederal entity,yet that have a government in the form of the European Commission with lead commissioner, the perpetually drunk Jean Paul Juncker as de facto head of state. Russia & Belarus already have a state-union agreement, so what Seselj says may well be based in some credible information. For an interesting discussion on Vucic, Seselj & Russia in the English language, see this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi-icoiehv0
    It is a few years old, but very relevant to what is happening now.
JEinCA on May 30, 2019 · at 10:50 pm EST/EDT

As an American who knows little about internal Russian politics and a convert to Orthodox Christianity who was received into the One True Faith within the Moscow Patriarchate all I can say is May God Bless and Save Holy Orthodox Russia and her faithful children and allies both within Mother Russia and abroad.
Bosnian Croat on May 30, 2019 · at 11:36 pm EST/EDT

Time will say what happens. Putin will not stay forever and transition has to be done smoothy and has to be well prepared.
In my opinion Putin will stay on political stage till 2030. As a President till 2024 and after that probably as a sort of supervisor, like Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan.

The most important and crucial thing is to fully implement colossal national projects and to finish all these reforms till 2024. To complete modernization of Army, Navy, Air Forces and strategic nuclear forces.

To complete all those infrastructure projects. This is foundation of future Russia. And then to implement other projects till 2030, like space projects including Moon program.

And normal modern opposition and modernization of political system will come. The most important is to neutralize Fifth Column and so called liberals. And also to prevent return of communists because they had their time and they should be transformed to normal modern leftist party and get rid of remnants of obsolete communism and Stalinism.

Zhirinovski is smart guy but radical Russian nationalism would be disaster if comes to power. It would undermine and destroy inter ethnic and inter religious relationships in Russia. It would cause separatism in non Russian regions.
Patriotism must be promoted but nationalism must be neutralized. Russian nationalism in the first place and all other nationalism.

Putin and his team knows all of these problems and as far as we can see, they are dealing with these problems very well.

Also one more thing – Russia MUST NOT self isolate itself from other world like communists did. Russia MUST NOT do this does not matter what happens. Because it was one of main reasons for collapse of USSR.
Russia is too important for this world to allow itself destiny of USSR.
Travis on May 31, 2019 · at 2:40 am EST/EDT

China and Russia, together have to win in Eurasia. The must merge and guide Europe to new reality of Eurasian super continent as power house of world. It’s all what really matters. I definitely recommend Russia’s next president and team to play tough game against Empire. We all have seen how they hated Putin. Only Russian president they like is a puppet. Don’t forget that. If there’s coming trade war then let it come. Let it burn. Let them feel the pain. Let them crawl on their knees to ask for their much needed critical strategic resources or ask permission for their airlines to fly over Russia. The world is there outside west. And foremost – strangle that fake dollar.
Dmitry Orlov on May 31, 2019 · at 9:00 am EST/EDT

I looked at those poll numbers and they are misleading. The numbers cited were for answers given in response to the question “Who do you trust?” The results were divided between the most trusted people in Russia: Putin, Shoigu, Medvedev, etc. When asked “Do you trust the federal government?” the numbers looked much better for the government. But most importantly, the elections are over, Putin won by a huge margin, he has extremely ambitious plans, pension reform has been ameliorated to a point where there is minimal opposition to it, and people are sufficiently satisfied to not care about politics at the federal level. There are complaints at the local level, because there always are, but in some of the more prosperous areas political candidates for local office have been going door to door trying to elicit some complaints from the residents, just to develop some talking points. In all, my advice to US residents is: don’t worry about Russian politics.
- Larchmonter445 on May 31, 2019 · at 10:25 am EST/EDT
  
  Dmitry, as I read Saker’s article I thought of you. What would D.O. say about this matter?
  Thanks for commenting.
  
  This article makes clear the results are because of methodology.
  
  http://tass.com/society/1061175
  
  MOSCOW, May 31. /TASS/. The approval level of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s performance among Russians has risen by almost 3% over the past 5 months (January – May) to reach 64.5%, according to a poll conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center and published on its official website.
  
  In the period between January and May 2019, Vladimir Putin’s approval rating rose from 61.7% to 64.5%, whereas Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s approval rating rose by 3.1% to hit 37.4%,” the research center reports.
  
  According to the center, the respondents were asked direct (closed) questions, and the responses amounted to the following: 72.3% trust Putin, 37% – Medvedev, 36.1% – Russian LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, 32.6% – Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, while 26.7% of respondents noted that they trust A Just Russia leader Sergey Mironov. However, when asked open-ended questions on which politicians they trust, Putin scored 30.5%, while Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took the second (15.1%) and third spots (12%) respectively.
  
  Mikhail Mamonov, who heads the pollster’s Political Analysis and Consulting Department, clarified that the gap between the responses to the closed and open-ended questions is caused by the differences in methods. “In the first poll, we were asking respondents to name politicians themselves, who they would trust with important state affairs (without a specific list of names), while in the second poll we wanted them to determine how they feel about specifically chosen politicians. Many years of research show that the trust rating of politicians is very volatile when the open-ended question method is used. Background events, information activity of the politicians and other factors play key roles here,” Mamonov underlined.
  
  He added that a significant number of respondents picked the “not sure” option when asked the open question. Replies to closed questions are more stable since they allow people to “concentrate on the person they are asked to evaluate. There are much fewer ‘not sure’ answers in this case.”
  
  The polls were conducted over the phone from January to May 2019, 1,600 Russians aged over 18 participated in them daily.
  - Mulga Mumblebrain on May 31, 2019 · at 6:55 pm EST/EDT
    
    But what of Navalny, the Russian Guaido? When does he declare himself ‘President of Russia’ and is immediately recognised as such by the USA?
    - Davi on June 02, 2019 · at 7:57 am EST/EDT
      
      Perhaps Dmitriy’s admonition to American residents might apply to Australian ones as well.
Pamela Storer on May 31, 2019 · at 9:11 am EST/EDT

I’ve always found this idea that a country just “must” have an opposition very odd, and very infantile.
It’s like the teenager, just beginning to leave the realm of total dependency, but not yet able to think like an independent adult, becoming rebellious for the sake of it. If Mum and Dad are conservative, he’s going to be a communist – just for the sake of “opposition”.
It’s a learning curve on the way to adulthood, on the way to grasping what constitutes independence and self reliance, before one then learns to become an inter-dependent adult, a fully contributing member of a community.
Why do we need an opposition, if everyone is relatively happy with the governorship they have?.
If the Government is not being criminal, oppressive, dictatorial and causing harm, but is instead working to improve the standards of life of the community, trying whatever seems best at the time, and not actually harming people, why do you “need” an opposition?? What good do they do?? They stir up criticism even where it is pointless and harmful, they do nothing yet take home big fat salaries for it, they advance their own future aspirations at the taxpayer expense.
Russians are very like the British with their weather. It doesn’t matter what the weather is like, from snow, rain, constant sunshine, the British talk of it all the time, and moan and whine about it.
In Russia, the people are always talking of what the Government [or Kings Courtiers] are doing, and constantly complaining of them. It doesn’t much matter what they are doing.
But they have the sense to know when you dont let that affect you. I would propose that if an election were held in Russia right now, the return results would be the same as last time. Who else would they trust at a time when increasingly America is threatening them, moving more troops to the borders, leaving Treaties which were offering protection?. When Poland and its like want to assist American troops to run aggressive exercises not a few miles from their border?
Surveys are meaningless, certainly those like this one quoted. What was the margin of error? The Degree of confidence ?? The number surveyed?? Their demographic?? Not knowing these things mean you can place not one jot of reliance on the so called “survey”. It could all be made up.
And someone in a bad mood can give an answer to “do you trust Putin” that would have no effect on how they would vote in an election.
I suspect that taken all in all, the Russian people aren’t that bothered and do trust Putin to do the best he can for them.
And as for those bitter about the need to increase retirement pension age – the coming demographic “dip” caused by the catastrophe of the 1990’s, of workers able to support the retired means he had no choice. Those who refuse to see this are either being deliberately stupid or mindlessly greedy – and I guess Russia has her share of those, like everyone else.
I doubt Russian want an “opposition” yet. Not until they realise there really is a need for it, and clearly, with the management of the economy as it is, with trade growing, I suspect that time is not now.
Observer on May 31, 2019 · at 10:05 am EST/EDT

It was the Russian émigré jew deep state in the US (eg adam schiff) that sent a trotsky (lev bronstein) from NY to kill the czar and his heirs, and they haven’t let up since. The powerful kazar state that even withstood the Islamic armies that brought down both the Byzantine and Persian Empires was wiped out by Russia, and they want revenge till today. Israel is actually the same kazar state that has now resurfaced in Palestine but they have a problem, they cannot get the dumb US wasps to take out Russia for fear that Russki in retaliation will wipe them out in Israel, they are unable to block Russian nuke subs from the Bab el Mandab and the Turkish Patriot missiles that were supposed to protect from missiles from Southern Russia are now being replaced by S400s. This means the job has to be done from the inside, Pokhorovskys will be spending much more than nudelmans $5b spent on Russia, the only problem is the spiritual power of the Russian Orthodox Church which does not allow the kazar zhirinovskys to hypnotise the Russki masses with kabbalah.
- Alabama on May 31, 2019 · at 11:10 am EST/EDT
  
  That’s some real creative talented juggling of words and phrases, how many translators are able to sipher such sophisticated language, and is all these things a good or a bad thing for a humanity in general?
war is coming on May 31, 2019 · at 10:12 am EST/EDT

Putin’s approval rating on the rise since January, reaching 64.5%, survey says

More:
http://tass.com/society/1061175
Its the economy .... on May 31, 2019 · at 10:14 am EST/EDT

There is a very simple solution to all this, but Russians are not proactive. The Houthi may be given the weapons to destroy Saudi oil production eg just one hit on the Qurayyah power plant will knock out out 80% of saudi crude production. Once the oil price rises to $150 (ie an EXTRA $400b for Russian oil and gas PER ANNUM), all the color revolution games of the nudelmans will come to nil as Russki enjoys two holidays a year, one to Turkey and one to Mauritius every year !!
Bente Petersen on May 31, 2019 · at 1:55 pm EST/EDT

Todays TASS
MOSCOW, May 31. /TASS/. The approval level of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s performance among Russians has risen by almost three points over the past 5 months (January – May) to reach a 64.5 percent approval rating, according to a poll conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center and published on its official website.

“In the period between January and May 2019, Vladimir Putin’s approval rating rose from 61.7% to 64.5%, whereas Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s approval rating score increased from 34.3% to 37.4%,” the research center reports.

More:
http://tass.com/society/1061175
Rob on May 31, 2019 · at 2:15 pm EST/EDT

Lots of good insights here.

Let me emphasize that I’m not Russian, nor have I Iived there or speak the language, and a part of my memory is polluted by the MSM when I was not quite aware yet that we are completely fooled.

My main first thoughts are that I have serious doubts about the percentages ‘approval’ that appears to be one of the drivers of this Saker post. Often the questioning itself is a part of the desired outcome.

Why, I ask myself, is it rugged under the carpet what kind of miracle happened to get the RF living again under the management of Putin? I tried to find a documentary again about his revivement of Russian industries, but somehow failed. Many decades later it may well be characterized as one of the largest archievements of our times.

How has this taken shape? How did TPTB let this happen? I guess in that time they didn’t pay attention enough, so busy with their Oded Yinon wars. Maybe I’m mistaken. I foresee, that they will make the same mistake with the regards to the ongoing onreaching of Germany and Russia.

As for the devastating conditions of Russia in the nineties, as described so detailed by co-commentator Auslander, I want to say this. Auslander, I have read many posts of you in the time. Never had I got the idea that you are making things up, so spare me pictures to ‘prove’ that you were there. I don’t need that, just speaking for myself. To illustrate my point, give me some time, and I’ll produce a picture that I was there too.
Your words are enough. I rely on that.

The pace of the Anglozionists is short-termed. Their weak spot is that they tend to think for the rest of the world, which is an anomaly. Chinese think in decades, if not centuries, for instance.

Interesting but also very dangerous times ahead. Fasten your seatbelts, my gut feeling says me it ain’t going to be pretty.

Cheers, Rob
- Auslander on May 31, 2019 · at 3:55 pm EST/EDT
  
  Rob
  “As for the devastating conditions of Russia in the nineties, as described so detailed by co-commentator Auslander, I want to say this. Auslander, I have read many posts of you in the time. Never had I got the idea that you are making things up, so spare me pictures to ‘prove’ that you were there. I don’t need that, just speaking for myself. To illustrate my point, give me some time, and I’ll produce a picture that I was there too.
  Your words are enough. I rely on that.”
  
  I provided the photo to a deeply trusted comrade for Mish, a poster who said he was Russian but his command of English was anything but Russian, in my opinion he is American from his knowledge of idioms in American English. Normally I prove nothing of who or what I am or who or what I am not and what I have done or what I have not done. I had no desire to upset you or anyone else, this was a one time and one time only of proof, and I deeply appreciate your trust in what I write.
  
  Your post was intelligent and erudite, and your last line I find quite poignant and a harbinger of things to come. ‘Fasten your seat belt’ is indeed sage advice, this coming from Ground Zero if the fecal material hits the whirling blades.
  
  Auslander
Anonymous on May 31, 2019 · at 7:34 pm EST/EDT

http://tass.com/society/1061175

Putin’s approval rating is currently 65.5% and therefore the panic button has been needlessly engaged.
Ole C G Olesen on June 02, 2019 · at 1:15 pm EST/EDT

What You say in the Start of this Article is that the Popularity Scores for President Putin are and have been FAKE.
I refer to statements and Numbers from todays TASS : http://tass.com/society/1061175 Dated 31.05.2019

So WHOM shall I believe ?

Your Article written by The Sakeer for UNZ Review : 31.7 % Approval
or
TASS Numbers 64.5 % Approval

You might agree .. there is a considerable DIFFERENCE !
Ole C G Olesen on June 02, 2019 · at 1:44 pm EST/EDT

On President Putins Approval Ratings :

A. From SvobodnayaPressa May 25 15:13 : by Sofia Sachivko

President Putin’s rating fell to a 13-year low

https://svpressa.ru/society/article/233608/?ans=1
Study conducted by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM)

B. The UNZ REVIEW May 29, 2019 by The Saker
Prospects for the Emergence of a Real Opposition in Russia
THE SAKER • MAY 30, 2019

only 31.7% of Russians trust Vladimir Putin, that is his worst score in 13 years!

/prospects-for-the-emergence-of-a-real-opposition-in-russia/?inmoderation

C. TASS 31.05.2019

Putin’s approval rating sees 3-point rise since January, reaching 64.5%, survey says

http://tass.com/society/1061175
Study conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center

WHO IS RIGHT … WHAT SHALL WE BELIEVE ?
- Antisemantic on June 04, 2019 · at 3:26 am EST/EDT
  
  Thats not easy unless you can see through a Russian equivalent of a merv rothstein aka sumner redstone, chucktodds and kellners are getting difficult to spot.
BRF on June 13, 2019 · at 10:47 pm EST/EDT

Is Nabiullina still running the Russian Central Bank? Is Skolkovo 2030 still official as Russian protocol? If so then what does this man do that you seek?