Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

When they say they’re pro-life, they don’t mean yours.

When we show up, we win.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

Democrats are back in array!

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

People are weird.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

If you are in line to indict donald trump, stay in line.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Late Night Open Thread: Springtime for Putin

Late Night Open Thread: Springtime for Putin

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Late Night Open Thread: Springtime for Putin 1

(Walt Handelsman via GoComics.com)

… It is also an intensely moving film. Yes, there’s the drama inherent in the events themselves: Navalny surviving his own poisoning with a military-grade nerve agent, then tracking down his would-be murderers, and returning to Russia to face inevitable arrest. It shows the bravery and self-sacrifice not just of Navalny, but of his family. 

But to me, it showed something else: a Russia that disappeared in the flames of the war in Ukraine. The throngs of people in the street protesting for Navalny and attending his rallies when he ran for president in 2018, all the people who mobbed the airport to cheer his return to Russia, the people chanting his wife’s name after his arrest—that Russia is gone. More than a million people have fled Russia in the year since Putin invaded Ukraine, and a great number of them were the people who were regulars at protests, the people who fought for the dream of a better, more democratic Russia. The war, Navalny’s arrest, the massive exodus have shown just how impossible that dream has become…

The film ends with some text saying that you and Masha Pevchikh are still looking for Konstantin Kudryavtsev, one of Navalny’s poisoners, whom you and Alexey prank called and got to admit how the operation to kill him went wrong. Is that still the case? Do you know what happened to him?

We believe he’s alive because we found—again, through the leaky Russia personal data market—that he gave a Covid test in late 2021, but it was negative. So he was alive and healthy. I think he paid a price. I would call it the “moron price.” The Russian government cannot afford to kill people for just being morons because otherwise they’ll run out of people in the security services. Putin kills people that oppose him, those people that betrayed them, but not morons. So we think Kudryavtsev was given a desk job somewhere where he was out of sight. And his wife left him…

Back to the question of stupidity. In the U.S., there is still this image, especially after the election interference of 2016, of the Russian security services as not just scary, but very capable and cunning and, well, professional. Whereas I feel like your investigations reveal a different side of them, the stupid, messy, slightly incompetent side. What is the more accurate view on the Russian security services? 

These two qualities are not mutually exclusive. When somebody is working on offensive operations, they could be cunning and professional and be stupid on the defensive side. It’s a syndrome that I call “the hunter cannot be hunted syndrome.” They don’t really pay attention to covering their tracks because they think nobody would dare go after them the way they’re going after everyone else. They feel protected as a group, the way a pack of wolves protects one another. That hubris leaves them exposed to anybody who dares look into their own ecosystem. That’s what I exploited. For example, the Kremlin has excellent hackers who are really a threat to any electoral system in the world but these hackers also use their own last name and their birthdate as a password…

There’s some worry in the West that, as Russia keeps floundering on the battlefield in Ukraine, they’ll step up their active measures campaigns abroad, things like hacking, going after undersea cables, assassinations, etc. Is there good reason to fear that?

There are two opposing trends. One is a lack of time and focus because all of these defensive skills are needed for the war. And the more fronts Ukraine has with Russia, the less resources are available for hybrid attacks on the rest of the world. On the other hand, there is a complete loss of the barrier of reputation cost. That has been sort of used up already, and there’s nothing more that can happen to Putin’s reputation. So unfortunately, previous red lines such as going after foreign journalists, for example, don’t exist anymore…

The NYTimes (motto: Pecunia non olet) on the new safe haven for Russian oligarchs:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — On an artificial island on the edge of the Persian Gulf, Dima Tutkov feels safe.

There are none of the anti-Russian attitudes that he hears about in Europe. He has noticed no potholes or homelessness, unlike what he saw in Los Angeles. And even as his ad agency turns big profits back in Russia, he does not have to worry about being drafted to fight in Ukraine.

“Dubai is much more free — in every way,” he said, sporting an intricately torn designer T-shirt at a cafe he just opened in the city, where his children are now in a British school. “We are independent of Russia,” he said. “This is very important.”

A year into a historic onslaught of economic sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s rich are still rich. And in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates’ biggest city, they have found their wartime harbor.

Among the city’s waterfront walkways, palatial shopping malls and suburban cul-de-sacs, Russian is becoming a lingua franca. Oligarchs mingle in exclusive resorts. Restaurateurs from Moscow and St. Petersburg race to open there. Entrepreneurs like Mr. Tutkov are running their Russian businesses from Dubai, and opening up new ones…

Indeed, a major draw of Dubai is that it is apolitical, according to interviews with Russians who have settled there. Unlike in Western Europe, there are no Ukrainian flags displayed in public and no rallies of solidarity. The war itself feels far away. Anyone in Dubai harboring anti-Russian sentiments would most likely keep them to themselves, anyway; protests in the Emirates’ authoritarian monarchy are effectively illegal, and freedom of assembly is severely limited.

The presence of wealthy Russians in Dubai at a time when they have been largely cut off from the West shows how Mr. Putin has been able to maintain the social contract that is key to his domestic support: In exchange for loyalty, those close to power can amass enormous riches.

In fact, one political scientist, Ekaterina Schulmann, said Mr. Putin has been signaling to businessmen that he is prepared to remove still more obstacles to enrichment. A recent law, for example, frees lawmakers from having to make public their income and property.

“Yes, we’ve cut you off from the First World, but things won’t get any worse for you,” Ms. Schulmann said, describing how she sees Mr. Putin’s revised contract with the elite. “First of all, there are many other countries that are friendly to us. Second, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to get even richer, and we will no longer prosecute you for corruption.”…

Late Night Open Thread: Springtime for Putin

(Jeff Danziger via GoComics.com)

Reader Interactions

33Comments

  1. 1.

    AlaskaReader

    Russia breaking up would be as welcome as Putin’s enablers in the US getting their just due.

  3. 3.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Eolirin: Short of invading and occupying Russia (which ain’t happenin’) I see no way of breaking Russia’s habit of imperialism.  If they’re beaten in Ukraine, they’ll rearm for a few decades and try again.  The only thing that will change this, is if Muscovy is deprived of its empire, so that they have no wherewithal to mount invasions.

    So yes, those loose nukes are a problem.  But so is Russia, full stop.

  6. 6.

    Chetan Murthy

    @AlaskaReader: It was true then, too.  We shouldn’t discount the danger of Russia’s nukes going astray.  But at the same time, the danger of Russia staying in one piece is also great, and not just because Russia seems to always return to its imperial dream.  There’s also that Russia seems good at using its secret services to destabilize its adversaries — and for this, we are less-well-equipped, b/c our open societies are naturally vulnerable.

    We need to take Russia apart for our own safety.  And also, btw, for the future prospects of all the subject peoples of the Russian Empire.  It’s a true prison of nations.  You can read about it at Window on Eurasia.  It’s wherre I learned just how awful conditions are, for all but Muscovy.

  7. 7.

    Origuy

    I have been doubtful that the Russian Federation would disintegrate. Maybe a few more pieces would split off, like Tuva or Karelia, but Russians are the majority in nearly all of the ethnic republics like Bashkortostan. In the giant republic of Sakha, aka Yakutia, Russians are only a third of the population, but there were fewer than a million people in the whole place before Putin started sending them to Ukraine. But if Putin is worried about it, maybe it’s possible.

  8. 8.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Origuy: some recent posts with some excerpts

    http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/03/cossackia-can-and-must-be-ally-of-west.html

    Cossackia Can and Must be an Ally of the West and a Bulwark against Russian Imperialism, Ertaul Says

           One Cossack émigré, Ezikovy Ertaul, on his telegram channel, argues that Cossackia is one of the regions that must gain independence if Russia is to cease to be an empire and a threat to the world. Indeed, he is explicit that, an independent Cossackia could de-imperialize Russia in the way many thought the loss of Ukraine would do (t.me/ertaul_1483/514).
                The core region of the Cossacks in the south of what is now the Russian Federation, Ertaul says, “will be able to quietly exist and develop as a federation of ethnic groups and territories without any control from Moscow; but Moscow will not be able to fully function as an empire without this south” and the access it gives to the Caucasus and the world oceans.
                The legitimacy of the connection between the Cossacks and the Russian state ended in 1917 with the fall of the monarchy. That is, it was personalist rather than collective. And it is no surprise that after the Bolshevik revolution, the Cossacks created the Don-Caucasus Union, “the forefather of Cossackia” as an alternative to and opponent of “the Muscovy project.”

    http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/03/with-war-in-ukraine-putin-has-made.html

    With War in Ukraine, Putin has Made Disintegration of Russia a Certainty Sooner or Later and Violence among Its Successors Likely as Well, Etkind Says
    Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 12 – Despite all its flaws, Putin’s Russia could have gone on for decades without coming apart; but by launching the expanded war in Ukraine, the Kremlin leader has opened the way for the disintegration of the Russian Federation perhaps not immediately but in the coming years, Aleksandr Etkind says.

    The Russian specialist at Vienna’s Central European University says that there will be “more than a dozen new states” as was the case in 1991, that some forces will try to bring them back together, and that to avoid disaster the international community will be compelled to get involved (sibreal.org/a/istorik-aleksandr-etkind-o-buduschem-rossii/32153324.html).

    As frightening as that prospect is, the historian continues, the most horrible aspects of it have already happened or are happening while we talk and involve both how the war has affected economic relations in Eurasia and how it is giving birth to a new elite that will rule part of the territory of what is now the Russian Federation.

    Until Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine, “the West was prepared to support Putin in everything which concerned his domestic policy. He could do everything he wanted as long as he didn’t violate certain definite rules of the game.” But with Ukraine, he violated those rules, and now the West looks at him and his country differently.

  9. 9.

    Ruckus

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Russia has the same basic concept of country that it’s had for eons. vlad is the modern version of all of it’s leaders of the last at least 300 yrs. Sure some were worse, some marginally better but he’s really not a lot different. It is a country that has a ruler and a ruling class, and everyone else. The details are different but the result has been similar over the years. The ruler wants something, he gets it or a lot of people die. He wants Ukraine, he might not even have any sort of actual reason and he doesn’t need one other than he wants it. He’s getting his countrymen dead, for what, ego? Tens-hundreds of thousands of people are dying and he doesn’t give a damn about his citizens or anyone else. He wants it, can’t have it, people die.

  10. 10.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Ruckus:

    It is a country that has a ruler and a ruling class, and everyone else.

    It is that, but it’s also an *empire* not a *country*.  The “regions”/provinces are treated as meat by the metropole: I’ve read enough chronicles of the racism that Muscovites have towards basically everyone from the provinces, to be convinced that they don’t view them as equals.  And all the natural resources are out in the provinces.  The riches that allow Vova to conduct these wars, and build his fancy palaces and yachts, are all stolen from people living in the provinces — while those people live in abject poverty.

    It’s an empire, and that needs to end.  If for no other reason, than so that the people of the provinces can have a chance at a decent life.  B/c regardless of what Russia’s leaders do in Muscovy, they will never allow the people of the provinces to get that decent life.  That’s not the way empires work.

  11. 11.

    JWR

    DeSantis channels McCarthy, (Reuters)

    Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday posted on Twitter responses to a questionnaire from Republican candidates and possible hopefuls on the war in Ukraine.

    “While the U.S. has many vital national interests … becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” DeSantis said in his reply.

    “The Biden administration’s virtual ‘blank check’ funding of this conflict for ‘as long as it takes,’ without any defined objectives or accountability, distracts from our country’s most pressing challenges,” he said.

    And as everybody knows, our country’s most pressing challenges are pornographic liberry books, CRT and the Woke Mob, and not that pointless war in Ukraine.

  13. 13.

    Origuy

    RIP Pat Schroeder

    Former U.S. Rep. Pat Schroeder, the first woman elected to Congress from Colorado, has died. She was 82. Schroeder was best known for getting a family leave bill passed, providing job protection for care of a newborn, sick child or parent. https://t.co/TgVpxtPDsg
    — The Associated Press (@AP) March 14, 2023

  14. 14.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Origuy: A-yup.  I’m not saying that we should help Cossackia come into being.  If we’d been discussing this subject a few months ago, I could have found articles about Karelia and other small nations closer to Finland, or Baskortostan, or about the Tatars.  There are many nations in Russia, all under the boot of Muscovy, is what I was trying to point out.

  15. 15.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Origuy: Another way of putting it: used-to-be, all of us in the West would learn (somewhat) about Russia, and ignore Ukraine.  We (somewhat) saw the Baltics as distinct from Russia, but mostly, we thought of all the FSU as just “well, that’s kinda like Russia”.  Russian culture, history, and imperatives were the default.  We’ve learned during this war to think differently, *when it comes to Ukraine* (and the Baltics).  But there are many nations inside of Russia, just as oppressed as Ukraine was, just as worthy of freedom and their chance to have decent lives for their peoples.  And we can start to pay attention to them, and not just think of them as “all part of Russia”.

    At least, that’s what I’ve learned, from many years of reading Window on Eurasia.

  16. 16.

    Ruckus

    @Chetan Murthy:

    I’m saying that Russia, in all it’s forms over the last few centuries really hasn’t changed. I’m saying that you are correct about it’s make up of human beings, it’s “ownership” of things it doesn’t own. A country wasn’t born it was stolen, by force and a lot of deaths. Exactly what and how vlad is attempting to steal pieces of Ukraine and that Russia stole some of those parts before. That nothing is new here other than the weapons.

  17. 17.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Ruckus: Everything you are saying is true, but it leaves out too much.  Specifically, that it’s not just about Vova: the entire Russian power elite is imperialist, and changing Vova for one of them won’t change much: they’d want Ukraine just as much.  They might stop the war (b/c it’s hurting them too much) but they’ll still want Ukraine, and they’ll rearm to that end.  If Russia is to become a normal country, their power elites must be taught to not want empire.  And that can only happen if Russia is dismembered.

    But I do agree with you about everything you wrote.

  18. 18.

    bjacques

    My general impression of Russian oligarchs is that, despite the trappings of yachts, jets, and private islands, their collective wealth is probably less than that of the currently richest non-Russian. Which goes to show the relative poverty of an economic system built on theft, especially when the main resources are dirt and dinosaur juice, while brains, of which Russia also has vast resources, are neglected and suspected.

  20. 20.

    AlaskaReader

    @Chetan Murthy: Russia’s imperialism isn’t news to anyone who has observed it’s aspirations playing out over decades of oppression, genocidal terrorism and criminal invasions.

    The mythology of it’s need to maintain it’s imperialism is deeply embedded in it’s ruling elite, as well as a large segment of those who are ruled, it is the central theme of all historic Russian literature and arts, as well as more recent media, (otherwise known as propaganda).

    The West has been duped many times in the past and it is doubtless encouraging for the oppressed to see that the West is not as willing today as they have shown to be in even the recent past.

    Breaking that imperialistic grip won’t as likely come from outside pressure alone, but rather it is more likely to be successful as a consequence  of internal forces yet again disrupting the overblown aims of small men like Putin.

    Stalin overextended the mythos and that ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, I see it likely that Putin’s ambitions are leading to a similar internal fracturing that may lead to more independence movements having greater chances for success.

  21. 21.

    Chetan Murthy

    @AlaskaReader: 100% agree.  I’ve read (IIRC) McFaul saying that in the 1990s, the West was if anything working to *help* Russia stay together.  We completely bought the line that Chechnya (for example) needed to stay part of Russia, etc.  This time around, one trusts we will not be so stupid.

  23. 23.

    Ramalama

    On another note, Navalny was such a great film. I listened to an interview with the filmmakers on pod save the world, and then had to see it. Fantastic as it was chilling.

    The Russian writer Masha Gessen has said the Russia after the fall of the Soviet union was so exciting but now that Russia no longer exists.

  25. 25.

    Geminid

    President Biden is on the road. Yesterday he was in San Diego for an “AUKUS” summit meeting with British PM Sunak and Australian PM Albanese. He announced a deal whereby the U.S. will supply the Australian navy with nuclear powered submarines.

    Today the President will speak on gun violence in Monterey Park, California, then travel to Las Vegas for a reception organized by the DNC. From Politico Playbook.

    Also from today’s Playbook:

        Mitch McConnell was discharged from the hospital with a rib fracture and is expected to be at a rehab falsity for physical therapy for one to two weeks.

  28. 28.

    Glidwrith

    @bjacques: What gets me, their rich assholes have looted so much of their country, no one wants to live there, hence decamping to Dubai. For all that they make war on the West and try to destabilize, they need our stability in order to enjoy their stolen fortunes.

  30. 30.

    J R in WV

    @Geminid: ​

    President Biden … announced a deal whereby the U.S. will supply the Australian navy with nuclear powered submarines.

    This is odd, as I have read in military articles that the US doesn’t have sufficient shipyard capacity to produce the number of submarines necessary to meet projected requirements for the US Navy. Where is the shipyard capacity for AUS Navy’s portion of submarines?

  32. 32.

    SteverinoCT

    The problem with the US building and selling nuclear submarines to the Aussies rather than them building their own, is that all the signs, labels, and gauges have to be translated. Makes it hard on the US yardbirds.

  33. 33.

    Ruckus

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Wasn’t trying to write the entire personal history of all the Russian oligarchs of last 500 yrs of Russian history. Just as simple description of the state and disaster that is Russia as possible. Because so many processes today want to cover every detail in detail and so often that adds bulk but can cloud the road to understanding what is reality.

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