The 'vladmir Putin Rocks' Thread

[Simon Tan]

I am looking forward to the White Rabbit.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

Roman, please show some mercy on us poor non-Russologues!

 

Bush and Putin in Russia on fishing.

Thrown rods, Putin concentrated on looking at the float. Bush slaps himself on the cheek, the forehead, the neck, the whole ischesalsya. He looks at Putin - who quietly watching the float.

- Waldemar and pochemu ne equ bite?

- I can not.

Something like:

Bush and Putin in Russia on fishing.

Thrown rods, Putin concentrated on looking at the float. Bush slaps himself on the cheek, the forehead, the neck, the whole scratching. He looks at Putin - who quietly watching the float.

- Vladimir, why those mosquitos are not biting you?

- They are not allowed to.

 

[TonyE]

 

Meh. Putin is stocky but lean, probably never touched a burger in his life, and sure we know he works out. He´ll outlive us all.

 

 

Putin will be the eternal ruler of Russia, on artificial lifesupport if necessary.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

 

Meh. Putin is stocky but lean, probably never touched a burger in his life, and sure we know he works out. He´ll outlive us all.

 

 

Putin will be the eternal ruler of Russia, on artificial lifesupport if necessary.

 

Suddenly the Russian Army's interest in Robotics begins to make sense....

 

[Panzermann]

 

 

Roman, please show some mercy on us poor non-Russologues!

 

Bush and Putin in Russia on fishing.

Thrown rods, Putin concentrated on looking at the float. Bush slaps himself on the cheek, the forehead, the neck, the whole ischesalsya. He looks at Putin - who quietly watching the float.

- Waldemar and pochemu ne equ bite?

- I can not.

Something like:

Bush and Putin in Russia on fishing.

Thrown rods, Putin concentrated on looking at the float. Bush slaps himself on the cheek, the forehead, the neck, the whole scratching. He looks at Putin - who quietly watching the float.

- Vladimir, why those mosquitos are not biting you?

- They are not allowed to.

 

 

 

And here I thought that any mosquito would just burst when it dared to drink from Putin.

[mnm]

The know how is in place already. When the time approaches Lenin will be finally removed and properly interred in St. Petersburg (temporarily renamed Leningrad for the occasion), and the Greater Vladimir will take his place, sitting on his throne but alive, and so kept to rule over Russia for eternity or until he changes his mind, whichever comes later.

[Stuart Galbraith]

The know how is in place already. When the time approaches Lenin will be finally removed and properly interred in St. Petersburg (temporarily renamed Leningrad for the occasion), and the Greater Vladimir will take his place, sitting on his throne but alive, and so kept to rule over Russia for eternity or until he changes his mind, whichever comes later.

 

Ive got a feeling Lenin might have something to say about that....

[urbanoid]

[Stuart Galbraith]

its hereeeee.......

 

 

Highlight of episode 2, Putin points to his distaste for America spying on its allies. And his role in Dresden in the 1980's? Spying on the USSR's allies.

Edited July 1, 2017 by Stuart Galbraith

[Roman Alymov]

 

Highlight of episode 2, Putin points to his distaste for America spying on its allies. And his role in Dresden in the 1980's? Spying on the USSR's allies.

And those KGB officers who were working in Moscow offices were spying on USSR?

[Marek Tucan]

Quite a lot of them were

 

Though there was little need to directly spy on USSR vassals (sorry, but alliance with a tank division pressed to your head is not really so ) - the local secret polices built under close guidance by NKVD/KGB were more than capable of that. Then again... Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

 

Highlight of episode 2, Putin points to his distaste for America spying on its allies. And his role in Dresden in the 1980's? Spying on the USSR's allies.

And those KGB officers who were working in Moscow offices were spying on USSR?

 

True, and yet he also said that he didnt like the massive state surveillance the US does of its own people. A commendable attitude, and yet, one has to say as a man who made his career in, and eventually running, the organization that did exactly the same thing to the Soviet and latterly Russian people, and played a direct role in supporting the Stasi which took concerns about state surveillance to a whole new level, it rings a little hollow to say the least. I mean, perhaps he is an entirely changed character and regrets the past. Entirely possible I admit it. As he occasionally hints about putting Iron Felix back in front of the FSB building, im guessing perhaps not.

 

He said a few things about Snowden that were also quite hilarious. He said that if he disagreed with the NSA, he should have took his concerns to his superiors or resigned. Which when you think about it, is pretty much exactly what Alexander Litvinenko did.

 

The bit where Stone introduces him to Dr Strangelove is also kind of illustrative. He viewed it as a documentary and did not do much laughing. Unless the Machivellian Stone edited all the belly-laughs out of course.

 

 

The whole thing is worth watching of course, and one has to put ones hand on one heart and say that Putin is not100 percent wrong on everything he says. Particularly the bits where he talks about how cluelessly the US acted in the 90's (hey it was Bill Clinton, no newsflash here) But It kind of reinforces the view I formed that he is determined to see every mistake made, every issue that has more than one perspective, as being a personal slight to him, and Russia in general. Its like De Gaulle's hubris taken to the next logical level.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Stuart Galbraith

[Roman Alymov]

 

And those KGB officers who were working in Moscow offices were spying on USSR?

 

True, and yet he also said that he didnt like the massive state surveillance the US does of its own people. A commendable attitude, and yet, one has to say as a man who made his career in, and eventually running, the organization that did exactly the same thing to the Soviet and latterly Russian people, and played a direct role in supporting the Stasi which took concerns about state surveillance to a whole new level, it rings a little hollow to say the least. I mean, perhaps he is an entirely changed character and regrets the past. Entirely possible I admit it. As he occasionally hints about putting Iron Felix back in front of the FSB building, im guessing perhaps not.

 

Intelligence\information gathering efforts of KGB and other Soviet intel services were hardly comparable in scale to current US ones. One could argue it was only because of budget and technological limitations, not because of not wanting to - but still NKVD and KGB was relatively small organization, even compared to personnel number of modern Rus services (now FSB got 2 times the number of Stalin time NKVD).

Re Snowden case, i think Putin was keeping in mind own story of quitting KGB during 1991 events.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

 

And those KGB officers who were working in Moscow offices were spying on USSR?

 

True, and yet he also said that he didnt like the massive state surveillance the US does of its own people. A commendable attitude, and yet, one has to say as a man who made his career in, and eventually running, the organization that did exactly the same thing to the Soviet and latterly Russian people, and played a direct role in supporting the Stasi which took concerns about state surveillance to a whole new level, it rings a little hollow to say the least. I mean, perhaps he is an entirely changed character and regrets the past. Entirely possible I admit it. As he occasionally hints about putting Iron Felix back in front of the FSB building, im guessing perhaps not.

 

Intelligence\information gathering efforts of KGB and other Soviet intel services were hardly comparable in scale to current US ones. One could argue it was only because of budget and technological limitations, not because of not wanting to - but still NKVD and KGB was relatively small organization, even compared to personnel number of modern Rus services (now FSB got 2 times the number of Stalin time NKVD).

Re Snowden case, i think Putin was keeping in mind own story of quitting KGB during 1991 events.

 

 

Absolutely, only due to a limitation in technology. Considering the informer network NKVD/KGB had, you can say they did about as well as the technology of the time. Im pretty sure I read somewhere Lev Gumilev was arrested for singing an amusingly satirical song, in which he has only a few close friends present. You wonder if you really need microphones of email hacking if you can get down to that low level.

 

Im not so sure about size. On has to reflect on the basic point that anyone whom was an informer was essentially in the pay of the service, even if they didnt carry a KGB card. Then you add up the pretty extensive border guards that also came under the KGB, then add on the maritime force it had, and you are essentially ending up with a third Army. I get the impression that people who worked as political officers in the Army, might have been dual hatted as KGB particularly in sensitive roles, without letting on presumably. I dont know its out my area, Im just illustrating its very difficult to come to an accurate determination on the size of the KGB. The Military balance 1973/1974 puts the KGB border guards alone at 175000. That of course does not include any they had in other roles, counter intelligence or even counter terrorist organizations like Alpha or Vympel, or units deployed abroad such as Putin was deployed with in East Germany. Id not personally be surprised if you added it all together and you were getting close to half a million men globally.

 

Id be curious if anyone has any better figures than that.

 

Anyway, interesting programme. I dont think its necessarily done Putin as many favours as he probably thinks it has. If anything he comes across as a bit ignorant and frankly a bit uncultured. Its like watching a Russian version of Donald Trump actually. Just beware if he changes colour he starts a twitter feed is all im saying.

 

#RealVladimirPutin

'Whats up with this navalny guy? Why doesnt he get laid and do something useful like make Russian babies?

 

#RealVladimirPutin

'Ok, had enough of these terrorists. Going to build a wall, and Saudi Arabia is going to pay for it!'

Edited July 2, 2017 by Stuart Galbraith

[Roman Alymov]

 

 

 

 

Absolutely, only due to a limitation in technology. Considering the informer network NKVD/KGB had, you can say they did about as well as the technology of the time. Im pretty sure I read somewhere Lev Gumilev was arrested for singing an amusingly satirical song, in which he has only a few close friends present. You wonder if you really need microphones of email hacking if you can get down to that low level.

 

Im not so sure about size. On has to reflect on the basic point that anyone whom was an informer was essentially in the pay of the service, even if they didnt carry a KGB card. Then you add up the pretty extensive border guards that also came under the KGB, then add on the maritime force it had, and you are essentially ending up with a third Army. I get the impression that people who worked as political officers in the Army, might have been dual hatted as KGB particularly in sensitive roles, without letting on presumably. I dont know its out my area, Im just illustrating its very difficult to come to an accurate determination on the size of the KGB. The Military balance 1973/1974 puts the KGB border guards alone at 175000. That of course does not include any they had in other roles, counter intelligence or even counter terrorist organizations like Alpha or Vympel, or units deployed abroad such as Putin was deployed with in East Germany. Id not personally be surprised if you added it all together and you were getting close to half a million men globally.

 

Id be curious if anyone has any better figures than that.

 

Anyway, interesting programme. I dont think its necessarily done Putin as many favours as he probably thinks it has. If anything he comes across as a bit ignorant and frankly a bit uncultured. Its like watching a Russian version of Donald Trump actually. Just beware if he changes colour he starts a twitter feed is all im saying.

 

#RealVladimirPutin

'Whats up with this navalny guy? Why doesnt he get laid and do something useful like make Russian babies?

 

#RealVladimirPutin

'Ok, had enough of these terrorists. Going to build a wall, and Saudi Arabia is going to pay for it!'

 

Political officers in the Army were absolutely different branch in Soviet system, rivaling with both KGB and Army intelligence. Re "informer network", have i told you the story of how my grandfather was reported in early 1953 of being of "wrong social background"?

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

 

 

 

 

Absolutely, only due to a limitation in technology. Considering the informer network NKVD/KGB had, you can say they did about as well as the technology of the time. Im pretty sure I read somewhere Lev Gumilev was arrested for singing an amusingly satirical song, in which he has only a few close friends present. You wonder if you really need microphones of email hacking if you can get down to that low level.

 

Im not so sure about size. On has to reflect on the basic point that anyone whom was an informer was essentially in the pay of the service, even if they didnt carry a KGB card. Then you add up the pretty extensive border guards that also came under the KGB, then add on the maritime force it had, and you are essentially ending up with a third Army. I get the impression that people who worked as political officers in the Army, might have been dual hatted as KGB particularly in sensitive roles, without letting on presumably. I dont know its out my area, Im just illustrating its very difficult to come to an accurate determination on the size of the KGB. The Military balance 1973/1974 puts the KGB border guards alone at 175000. That of course does not include any they had in other roles, counter intelligence or even counter terrorist organizations like Alpha or Vympel, or units deployed abroad such as Putin was deployed with in East Germany. Id not personally be surprised if you added it all together and you were getting close to half a million men globally.

 

Id be curious if anyone has any better figures than that.

 

Anyway, interesting programme. I dont think its necessarily done Putin as many favours as he probably thinks it has. If anything he comes across as a bit ignorant and frankly a bit uncultured. Its like watching a Russian version of Donald Trump actually. Just beware if he changes colour he starts a twitter feed is all im saying.

 

#RealVladimirPutin

'Whats up with this navalny guy? Why doesnt he get laid and do something useful like make Russian babies?

 

#RealVladimirPutin

'Ok, had enough of these terrorists. Going to build a wall, and Saudi Arabia is going to pay for it!'

 

Political officers in the Army were absolutely different branch in Soviet system, rivaling with both KGB and Army intelligence. Re "informer network", have i told you the story of how my grandfather was reported in early 1953 of being of "wrong social background"?

 

Agreed, im just suggesting in practice its not impossible they were either members of, or reported also to the KGB. They certainly DID have a number of informers, maybe even actual officers, in the Orthodox Church, something that caused a few problems in the 1990's as some of them made it to high office in the church.

https://www2.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/assets/docs/demokratizatsiya%20archive/01-04_armes.pdf

 

No, you didnt mention that, what happened?

Edited July 3, 2017 by Stuart Galbraith

[Roman Alymov]

 

Political officers in the Army were absolutely different branch in Soviet system, rivaling with both KGB and Army intelligence. Re "informer network", have i told you the story of how my grandfather was reported in early 1953 of being of "wrong social background"?

 

 

Agreed, im just suggesting in practice its not impossible they were either members of, or reported also to the KGB. They certainly DID have a number of informers, maybe even actual officers, in the Orthodox Church, something that caused a few problems in the 1990's as some of them made it to high office in the church.

https://www2.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/assets/docs/demokratizatsiya%20archive/01-04_armes.pdf

 

No, you didnt mention that, what happened?

 

Seems to me you are mixing political officers with “counter-intelligence” officers. First ones were not supposed to have agents networks – but to, ideally, convert every soldier into ideology-motivated and politically educated fighter. The closest approach to “informers” work was writing reports about political and general mood in their units (also, on higher levels, done by extracting quantitative and qualitative statistics from monitoring soldiers correspondence). Political officer trying to establish informers network was quite likely to run in argument with counter-intelligence officer who is responsible for doing that. Of course on ground level in massive war-time army, when millions of individual people interact everything may happen – situation when political officer was stronger personality and as result dominating over weaker personality of counterintelligence, but it is not how it is supposed to be.

Somewhere in late 1952-early 1953, when my grandfather already was experienced coal mine engineer and decorated hero of war, somebody wrote unanimous letter that was saying he is not the one who he is supposed to be, of wrong social background (from rich family) etc. Somehow my grandfather was informed about it - so he rushed to the village on upper Don he was originating from, to collect first-hand data about his ancestors. As result, we got this document recording data provided by local elders with lots of useful information (including exact date my grandgrand father was killed on WWI)

 

Somehow, due to this document or to Stalin’s death, he got away safely and continued his career very successfully. But tricky part is unanimous letter was not exactly wrong - as he was in fact from relatively rich Cossack family, that was “de-Cossacked” after Revolution, losing all possessions, and sort of covered this fact when at the age of 16 he was forced to go to cut coal in Donbass coal mines to make his living. And decade later after this events, in 1960th, my grandfather's uncle, who was believed vanished during Civil War, suddenly turned out from exile in France, where he, Denikin Army officer, was living all this time.

[Marek Tucan]

Well, I guess a lot of the KGB stuff was due to anonymous denunciations. It is estimated that Prague Gestapo had manpower o look into (as in... Look into at more than a glance) ~10% of such letters they got and I have no reason to believe it was otherwise under any other repressive regime. And most of them were just simple case of malice o neighborhood revenge, not any ideology issues. "Dear gestapo, my neighbors secretly had a goose, I have nothing so take his goose away..."

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

 

Political officers in the Army were absolutely different branch in Soviet system, rivaling with both KGB and Army intelligence. Re "informer network", have i told you the story of how my grandfather was reported in early 1953 of being of "wrong social background"?

 

 

Agreed, im just suggesting in practice its not impossible they were either members of, or reported also to the KGB. They certainly DID have a number of informers, maybe even actual officers, in the Orthodox Church, something that caused a few problems in the 1990's as some of them made it to high office in the church.

https://www2.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/assets/docs/demokratizatsiya%20archive/01-04_armes.pdf

 

No, you didnt mention that, what happened?

 

Seems to me you are mixing political officers with “counter-intelligence” officers. First ones were not supposed to have agents networks – but to, ideally, convert every soldier into ideology-motivated and politically educated fighter. The closest approach to “informers” work was writing reports about political and general mood in their units (also, on higher levels, done by extracting quantitative and qualitative statistics from monitoring soldiers correspondence). Political officer trying to establish informers network was quite likely to run in argument with counter-intelligence officer who is responsible for doing that. Of course on ground level in massive war-time army, when millions of individual people interact everything may happen – situation when political officer was stronger personality and as result dominating over weaker personality of counterintelligence, but it is not how it is supposed to be.

Somewhere in late 1952-early 1953, when my grandfather already was experienced coal mine engineer and decorated hero of war, somebody wrote unanimous letter that was saying he is not the one who he is supposed to be, of wrong social background (from rich family) etc. Somehow my grandfather was informed about it - so he rushed to the village on upper Don he was originating from, to collect first-hand data about his ancestors. As result, we got this document recording data provided by local elders with lots of useful information (including exact date my grandgrand father was killed on WWI)

 

Somehow, due to this document or to Stalin’s death, he got away safely and continued his career very successfully. But tricky part is unanimous letter was not exactly wrong - as he was in fact from relatively rich Cossack family, that was “de-Cossacked” after Revolution, losing all possessions, and sort of covered this fact when at the age of 16 he was forced to go to cut coal in Donbass coal mines to make his living. And decade later after this events, in 1960th, my grandfather's uncle, who was believed vanished during Civil War, suddenly turned out from exile in France, where he, Denikin Army officer, was living all this time.

 

Not, not at all. Im just suggesting that there might well have been a lack of trust in the army that they would have felt a need to back up the system by having their own people on hand. I mean, after what happened on the Storozhevoy, one could hardly blame them if they did.

 

Thanks for that, that is genuinely interesting. I cant say im very surprised. I was watching a BBC documentary (Nazi's a warning from history) and they found the records in a small German town of the local Gestapo office. In one case they found a young woman whom was denounced to the nazi's as being a defeatist or some such. I forget what happened to her, presumably executed. The thing was they actually traced the person whom denounced her and asked her why she did it. She denied ever doing such a thing, and in fact claimed to be unable to remember that far back. They asked someone else what the victim was like. And they said she rubbed people up the wrong way. The likelihood is she didnt do anything wrong, just like your grandfather. Someone just used the opportunities the system provided to denounce her for their own reasons, and presumably get their own back.

 

In that regard, one authoritarian system is not that different from another. A not very palatable fact, but it seems borne out by the evidence of its effects. And people worldwide are not that really different when you get down to it. I get the impression the British citizens on Jersey behaved in much the same manner, as did the Polish farmers who grassed up my Grandfather and his buddies for stealing potato's.

[Stuart Galbraith]

I actually found the interview if its of any interest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw9newgsEyU

Edited July 4, 2017 by Stuart Galbraith

[Ivanhoe]

Thanks for that, that is genuinely interesting. I cant say im very surprised. I was watching a BBC documentary (Nazi's a warning from history) and they found the records in a small German town of the local Gestapo office. In one case they found a young woman whom was denounced to the nazi's as being a defeatist or some such. I forget what happened to her, presumably executed. The thing was they actually traced the person whom denounced her and asked her why she did it. She denied ever doing such a thing, and in fact claimed to be unable to remember that far back. They asked someone else what the victim was like. And they said she rubbed people up the wrong way. The likelihood is she didnt do anything wrong, just like your grandfather. Someone just used the opportunities the system provided to denounce her for their own reasons, and presumably get their own back.

Not to mention, eliminating competition; economic, political, or romantic. The oldest story in the hills. In fact, back in the day there was an English layabout who earned a decent living simply writing about the venal interests and actions of all too fallible humans...

[Stuart Galbraith]

People dont change very much. We are all just primates swinging through the trees when you get down to it, with all the positives and negatives that implies.

[Panzermann]

People dont change very much. We are all just primates swinging through the trees when you get down to it, with all the positives and negatives that implies.

 

 

Just like most witchery accusations were a means to get rid of a person someone did not like.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

People dont change very much. We are all just primates swinging through the trees when you get down to it, with all the positives and negatives that implies.

 

 

Just like most witchery accusations were a means to get rid of a person someone did not like.

 

Yep.

 

[mnm]

People dont change very much. We are all just primates swinging through the trees when you get down to it, with all the positives and negatives that implies.

Speak for yourself, you evolutionist brachiocephalic campesino, myself I come in a straight line down from an Atlantean demigod!