The Kremlin is burning?

[JWB]

While Putin claims that the efforts of Western countries to force a “strategic defeat” on Russia’s economy have failed, the head of the Russian Central Bank says that it will take almost 2 years to curb inflation.

https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1864310511971586074

 

[JWB]

Putin's niece accidentally revealed the approximate number of missing Russian soldiers.

Russian authorities have received 48,000 applications for DNA tests to find missing Russian soldiers. This was announced in Russia's Duma by Russian Deputy Defense Minister, Anna Tsivilyova, Putin's niece.  
https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1864272538307633509

[Roman Alymov]

Putin have fired Kursk region Governor and have appointed Alexander Khinshtein (  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Khinshtein  ) as acting Governor.

Very strange appointment, Khinshtein is journalist and career MP of populist sort, with zero experience of practical work. May be the idea is to try as if current generation of Russian Jews is as good for high positions as their grandparents generation once was...

[JWB]

Over the past few days, reports emerged that anti-LGBTQ+ raids swept through Moscow’s club scene in Russia. While not out of the ordinary in one of the most homophobic countries in the world, this time the raids had a new goal - conscription into the military.

https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1864953288279626005

[Stuart Galbraith]

Ruski Mir, saved by the Village People.

 

[Stefan Kotsch]

Tea or window? Somehow this seems to be a Russian standard procedure?

https://x.com/Osint613/status/1866825822994387221

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

Window much cheaper than Gulag.

[JWB]

The largest real estate developer in Russia continues its tumble towards bankruptcy.

https://x.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1868600224803172361

[Stuart Galbraith]

https://en.thebell.io/mass-layoff-of-russian-it-staff-spooks-emigrants/

A round of mass layoffs at ABBYY, the IT company founded by David Yang, a businessman with Russian roots, was one of the big stories in the Russian business world last week. The firings affected only the offices in Cyprus, Serbia and Hungary. Russian citizens were featured heavily among those who were dismissed, according to former employees.

https://dev.ua/en/news/the-bell-1734374185

UPDATED. Meanwhile, Russian IT employers are simultaneously complaining about a shortage of personnel.

Every second company in Russia (54%) faced a shortage of personnel in the IT and technology industries.

Most companies call the problem with personnel for the IT sector the most acute. At the same time, the shortage of qualified specialists is recorded not only in the IT sphere, but also in engineering, medicine, chemistry, ecology, science and other industries. According to the results of a survey by the Association of Managers, 33% of the surveyed company representatives reported a shortage of specialists in production and engineering, and 13% said about a shortage of personnel in other areas and directions.

IT specialists from Europe, the USA, the UK and other «unfriendly» countries who held management positions in Russian companies began to be dismissed en masse after the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. They were registered as highly qualified specialists (HQS).

In the IT sector, Russian companies more often attract citizens of the CIS countries.

The involvement of specialists from China, India, Iran, Turkey, Bangladesh, and other «friendly» countries has not yet become widespread, notes Natalya Berdieva, an evangelist of IT innovations in the sharing economy at SkillStaff.

This is due to the fact that citizens from neighboring countries are easier to hire and integrate into work processes, the expert notes. IT personnel from India, Pakistan, and African countries also show serious potential for work in the Russian market, says Elena Ivanchikhina, head of GeekSource (ANCOR group), which recruits IT specialists.

[Roman Alymov]

23 hours ago, JWB said:

The largest real estate developer in Russia continues its tumble towards bankruptcy.

https://x.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1868600224803172361

Good news, taking into consideration business practicies of big real estate developers here in Russia. Having some of them turn bankrupt will clear the market (especially if it will be combined with ban on use of migrant workers in construction).

[JWB]

Early this morning, an IED mounted to a scooter exploded outside of a Moscow apartment building, killing Lt. Gen. Igor Anatolyevich Kirillov, commander of Russia’s CBRN forces. 
https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1868897042724274297

[Roman Alymov]

8 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

https://en.thebell.io/mass-layoff-of-russian-it-staff-spooks-emigrants/

A round of mass layoffs at ABBYY, the IT company founded by David Yang, a businessman with Russian roots, was one of the big stories in the Russian business world last week. The firings affected only the offices in Cyprus, Serbia and Hungary. Russian citizens were featured heavily among those who were dismissed, according to former employees.

Western news, always new: reporting events that were covered by Russian press on October, 1  - on December 17

ABBYY объяснила массовые увольнения россиян «путем трансформации» — РБК

8 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

UPDATED. Meanwhile, Russian IT employers are simultaneously complaining about a shortage of personnel.

Every second company in Russia (54%) faced a shortage of personnel in the IT and technology industries.

That is obviously wrong, as it means that 46% of companies do not facr shortage of personnel. Reality is, next to all companies are complaining about persoinnel shortage, since we are in next to zero unemployment situation now. As result, we now got strange people from around the globe doing unqualified manual jobs - for example, for two days i was "happy owner" of big group of young Cubans who were hired to assist in handmoving/loading some stuff for our Museum here in Moscow. Even Uzbeks are easyer to work with - at least they know basic Russian, while Cubans are not speaking neither Russian nor English, and finding someone speaking Spanish here is not an easy task. Luckily, online translators on smartphones are able to help....

[Roman Alymov]

8 minutes ago, JWB said:

Early this morning, an IED mounted to a scooter exploded outside of a Moscow apartment building, killing Lt. Gen. Igor Anatolyevich Kirillov, commander of Russia’s CBRN forces. 
https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1868897042724274297

Yes, it was not far away from my house (by Moscow standards). The device was detonated remotely by data from camera planted in car parked nearby.  Pro-Russian community is furious and accuse Russian officials of failure to fight the war, not imitate it

"17.12. Statement of the All-Russian Officers' Assembly in connection with the death of General I.A. Kirillov.

On December 17, as a result of a sabotage action by the Ukrainian special services in Moscow, the Head of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, Lieutenant General I.A. Kirillov, was killed when leaving home. Igor Anatolyevich was one of the very few Russian military leaders who proved his high military professionalism through his activities during the war. Under his direct supervision, new heavy flamethrower systems were developed, adopted and supplied to the troops, which showed exceptionally high fire damage capabilities of the enemy in shelters. General Kirillov, as a specialist in the protection of chemical weapons, carried out the most important investigative and research work to prove the criminal activities of American chemical and biological laboratories in the liberated territories of Ukraine. He was one of the first in 2020 to declare the so-called covid pandemic, announced by the WHO, as the deliberate spread of a certain militant virus. Therefore, the desire of the United States and its "Jew-Bandera" puppets from the now occupied Kiev to destroy the outstanding Russian military leader was quite expected. 
However, there is a Federal Security Service in the Russian Federation to combat sabotage and terrorist acts. "Fish rots from the head," says a Russian proverb. The most important head of the Russian Federation for a quarter of a century has been a born citizen of the FSB, Vladimir Putin. During his leadership of the country, the FSB has turned into a completely unique intelligence service in the world. If all the world's special services, perhaps with the exception of the US CIA (the global drug trade is their topic), have trade, banking and other commercial structures as a legalizing cover for their special activities, then purely in Putin's way the FSB itself has become essentially a kind of commercial and protective institution. And her officially special security activities turned into a cover for their various "businesses." This is not a personal sin of the FSB employees' avarice, although not without it. This is an inevitable consequence of the lack of ideology of the entire state system, a consequence of the absence of a state ideology in Russia. Putin is an ardent guardian of Zion–liberalism in Russia, whose power is based on money and total lies. Basayev's militants made their way to Budyonnovsk with money, terrorists entered Nord Ost through money, money was the basis for covering up and committing a terrorist act in Crocus. For money in the current Russian Federation, which has been penetrated by tens of millions of migrants during Putin's decades, you can do everything or almost everything.  That's what the Nazis do. What should we, the Russians and other indigenous peoples of Russia do? To change this whole Zion-liberal system! At the root!
We grieve together with all the personnel of the Russian People's Health Protection Forces, together with his countrymen from the Russian city of Kostroma, together with relatives and friends. May God rest the soul of Your newly departed servant and Warrior Igor in the Kingdom of Heaven!" (https://t.me/KvachkovV/2801)

[urbanoid]

7 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

Yes, it was not far away from my house (by Moscow standards). The device was detonated remotely by data from camera planted in car parked nearby.  Pro-Russian community is furious and accuse Russian officials of failure to fight the war, not imitate it

"17.12. Statement of the All-Russian Officers' Assembly in connection with the death of General I.A. Kirillov.

On December 17, as a result of a sabotage action by the Ukrainian special services in Moscow, the Head of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, Lieutenant General I.A. Kirillov, was killed when leaving home. Igor Anatolyevich was one of the very few Russian military leaders who proved his high military professionalism through his activities during the war. Under his direct supervision, new heavy flamethrower systems were developed, adopted and supplied to the troops, which showed exceptionally high fire damage capabilities of the enemy in shelters. General Kirillov, as a specialist in the protection of chemical weapons, carried out the most important investigative and research work to prove the criminal activities of American chemical and biological laboratories in the liberated territories of Ukraine. He was one of the first in 2020 to declare the so-called covid pandemic, announced by the WHO, as the deliberate spread of a certain militant virus. Therefore, the desire of the United States and its "Jew-Bandera" puppets from the now occupied Kiev to destroy the outstanding Russian military leader was quite expected. 
However, there is a Federal Security Service in the Russian Federation to combat sabotage and terrorist acts. "Fish rots from the head," says a Russian proverb. The most important head of the Russian Federation for a quarter of a century has been a born citizen of the FSB, Vladimir Putin. During his leadership of the country, the FSB has turned into a completely unique intelligence service in the world. If all the world's special services, perhaps with the exception of the US CIA (the global drug trade is their topic), have trade, banking and other commercial structures as a legalizing cover for their special activities, then purely in Putin's way the FSB itself has become essentially a kind of commercial and protective institution. And her officially special security activities turned into a cover for their various "businesses." This is not a personal sin of the FSB employees' avarice, although not without it. This is an inevitable consequence of the lack of ideology of the entire state system, a consequence of the absence of a state ideology in Russia. Putin is an ardent guardian of Zion–liberalism in Russia, whose power is based on money and total lies. Basayev's militants made their way to Budyonnovsk with money, terrorists entered Nord Ost through money, money was the basis for covering up and committing a terrorist act in Crocus. For money in the current Russian Federation, which has been penetrated by tens of millions of migrants during Putin's decades, you can do everything or almost everything.  That's what the Nazis do. What should we, the Russians and other indigenous peoples of Russia do? To change this whole Zion-liberal system! At the root!
We grieve together with all the personnel of the Russian People's Health Protection Forces, together with his countrymen from the Russian city of Kostroma, together with relatives and friends. May God rest the soul of Your newly departed servant and Warrior Igor in the Kingdom of Heaven!" (https://t.me/KvachkovV/2801)

Wait, isn't Kvachkov a communist? With those invocations to god and the kingdom of heaven it's like...

[JWB]

Gazprom shares once again collapsed amid news that the EU is not interested in further transit of Russian gas through Ukraine.

For the first time in history, the share is worth less than 107 rubles.

https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1869018648545050698

[JWB]

Russian coal industry is in a crisis.

Due to loss of Western markets and a sharp decline of demand in "friendly" countries, Russian coal companies have closed nine months of 2024 with a loss of 91 billion rubles (about $875 million) - that is a record among all Russian economic areas.

https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1868928014278332704

[Roman Alymov]

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

Wait, isn't Kvachkov a communist? With those invocations to god and the kingdom of heaven it's like...

  First of all, regarding your picture, i hope you remember Stalin was Church univercity student and had reinstated Patricrchy after centuries of state bureoucracy control over Orthodox Church. (more on that ww.tanknet.org/index.php?/topic/38893-kiev-is-burning/page/3822/#comment-1782482 )

 Second, modern Russian Communists have long abandoned anti-Church policy, see below Genady Zuganov (formal leader of "official" Communist Party of RF) on Church service

Edited December 17, 2024 by Roman Alymov

[mandeb48]

19 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

for example, for two days i was "happy owner" of big group of young Cubans who were hired to assist in handmoving/loading some stuff for our Museum here in Moscow. 

Question, do I by any chance socialize with them? Do you know how the Cubans arrived in Russia? Are they temporary workers or migrants? If they were immigrants, did they come to Russia directly or through other countries? I ask because Cubans typically emigrate to closer destinations. But Cuba state also "rents" labor.

[JWB]

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has Arrested a 29-Year-Old Uzbek National, Kurbonov Akhmajon Alijon Ugly, for his apparent participation in yesterday’s Bombing Assassination in Moscow of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the Commander of the Russian Armed Force’s Radiological, Chemical, and Biological (CBR) Defence Unit. The FSB claims that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) offered Kurbonov over $100,000 and a European Passport to carry out the Assassination.

https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1869398345950568691

[JWB]

Friendly fire. Pro-Russian channels are mourning - they shot down their own Ka-52 helicopter. A post from a Russian Telegram channel claims the crew is "sleeping peacefully."

https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1869424676952588696

[Roman Alymov]

On 12/18/2024 at 4:06 PM, mandeb48 said:

Question, do I by any chance socialize with them? 

  It was hardly possible due to language barrier. They seems to be to some extent submerged in own social structure - often with smarthones in their hands, talking to somebody via Internet (often with video), fully using relatgively cheap mobile Internet access in Russia.

On 12/18/2024 at 4:06 PM, mandeb48 said:

Do you know how the Cubans arrived in Russia? Are they temporary workers or migrants? 

No idea where and how they came from (they were "rented" to us by ethnic Armenian guy) but as for me they are neither  temporary workers nor migrants - more like students (and some professors) looking for extra work to make extra money. They wear normal "youth" closing (one of them was looking as if he came to play football in bad weather), with decorations, earings, some with colored hair etc.  Generally, they looked as in their late teens (except couple of "professor" typesd who are probably in theirt late 30th-early 40th). They do not look like people who are used to everyday hard physical labor in construction. Also, they are, as for me, smaller than average Russian (probably result of hard conditions in Cuba - "professors" are of normal size, but sample is obviously too small for real numerical judgement).

Here is the video of them carrying foldable cinema screen (guy walking free with them is their "leader" Khoerkhe (probably, Jorge)). No idea how they manage to chat in process

 

On 12/18/2024 at 4:06 PM, mandeb48 said:

I ask because Cubans typically emigrate to closer destinations. But Cuba state also "rents" labor.

I can hardly imagine Cuban who would like to move from tropical paradise to snowy Russia (but who knows, even some African guys and girls are living here). They do not look like state-organised group (and state would not use Armenian middleman), more like college kids private initiative.

Edited December 19, 2024 by Roman Alymov

[sunday]

11 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

Here is the video of them carrying foldable cinema screen (guy walking free with them is their "leader" Khoekhe (probably, Jorge)). No idea how they manage to chat in process

For what is worth, I could not understand anything from the words spoken in the video.

Edited December 19, 2024 by sunday

[Roman Alymov]

25 minutes ago, sunday said:

For what is worth, I could not understand anything from the words spoken in the video.

Yes as for me they speak distinctively different from "Spanish Spanish". Who knows, may be they are in fact Brazilians pretending to be Cubans to use traditional good attitude to Cuba in Russia (not many people here will be able to tell the difference, i can't for sure). The only words familiar were "arriba"(?) and "cuatro" (when the item was too heavy to be carried by three of them, while our guys were moving it in couples). Still, this guys were staying active and cheerful even after all day of work (with lots of breaks, i must admit). Also, they were overinventive  - for example, they attempted, while nobody was watching, not to carry ~100kg part downstairs but to lover it from 2nd floor to 1st floor on improvised "rope" made of electric vire - predictibly, it crashed from ~5m on concrete floor, luckily not killing anybody.

Edited December 19, 2024 by Roman Alymov

[mandeb48]

Yes, they sound Caribbean. They must be Cubans. at least the foreman. Thanks for your response

[urbanoid]

  I'm replying here, as I don't want to... uh... impurify the 'technical thread'

8 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

It is actually another action "collective Putin" aka pro-Western comprador Gov of Russia is scared to do: they prefer inviting Central Asian/Caucasus migrants and giving them citizenship, while not allowing ethnic Russians in. More over, untill very recently the very word "Russian" was sort of officially unvelocme (replaced by Yeltsin's era "Rossiyanin" - "citizen of RF"), the slogan "Russian means sober" was threated as "Russian fascists slogan" and so on.

From https://t.me/rusengineer/6110

".....So I'll say it with an outside look at the work of all these regulatory agencies. Yes it is good and even necessary to attract those who are ready to shed blood for Russia with Russian citizenship, and I strongly support this. But Russians who stayed abroad after 1991, who are now unable to pass Sheremetyevo Airport* due to formal quibbles, can be put in order in the end (we are not talking about all refuseniks, many were filtered out quite correctly, but a lot of really honest Russian people with a Ukrainian passport were turned away simply because of the clean smartphone, which they had to clean when leaving UkrReich). Why is there no appeal mechanism, additional verification mechanism, polygraph, etc.?

In other words, we need a Russian card, similar to the Polish card, or similar repatriation mechanisms in Israel. Where migrants are clearly distinguished from their own, from other countries. 

And then rushing into words that Russians don't leave their own is fashionable for all this decision-making officials, but something prevents us from moving from words to action."

* Sheremetyevo Airport is the only gateway former citizens of Ukraine are allowed to enter Russia, throuygh filtration porcedure.

P.S. Note that even despite of all this deliberate complications created by Russian bureoucracy, hundreds of thousands of former "Ukrainians" have managed to cross into Russia

That's as much of a madness as your foreign policy. 

Doesn't 'Rossiyanin' mean the 'non-ethnic Russian citizen of RF' and wasn't/isn't it used alongside 'Russkiy', not instead of it? At least that's what I was taught in uni. The professor who told us about it wasn't 'anti-Russian' in the least, he actually lived and breathed Russian history and culture and was a Russlandversteher extraordinaire, condemning Polish 'Russophobia' (actually the Russorealism to which I personally subscribed even then, since Georgia actually) etc. Actually I kinda feel sorry for him, as you could tell that for most of his life he believed Russia can be reasoned with and can liberalize, become a normal country and a good neighbour. Even then, in my early 20s, I was probably far too cynical to hold such beliefs myself. 

Quote

When I started a lecture in Krasnoyarsk about Polish and Russian identity, I asked the first student I came across: "You russkaya or rossiyanka?" She was very surprised - she didn't understand what this Pole wanted from her. A professor of linguistics, my Russian colleague, was sitting next to me, so I asked him the same question. "Konechno, rossijanin," he replied, laughing. After all, he is a "pure-blooded" Korean.

While my question makes some sense in Russian, it would sound absurd in Polish. The title of my book "Polish and Russian Problems with Russianness" (Łódź 2009) also makes more sense in Russian: "Polskije i rossijskije problemy s ruskost'yu". The Polish language does not give us the lexical means to distinguish russkost' from rossijskost'. That is why I usually ask Polish students another "provocative" question during the first lecture: "Is a Chechen a Russian?". I always get the same answer: "Of course not!" So I ask further: "And was Stalin a Russian?", "And Beria?", "And Dzerzhinsky?". There are no quick answers here, because students usually have no idea who Beria and Dzerzhinsky were, and as for Stalin, they are not sure what nationality he was. I also usually do not receive an answer to the question of how our Constitution defines the category of Polishness. "We, the Polish Nation" and what next? - I ask and very rarely hear: "all citizens of the Republic of Poland". Once we explain that according to the Constitution every citizen of the Republic of Poland, regardless of ethnic origin, is a Pole, we come to the conclusion that a Chechen with citizenship of the Russian Federation is, at least according to the law, a Russian (not russkiy, but rossiyanin).

Although in another part of the article he admitted that there was a time when the word 'russkiy' became almost politically incorrect in Russia:

Quote

And it is important because in recent years in Russia there have been attempts to bring into being a multi-ethnic Russian nation and the word "Russkiy" has become politically incorrect to such an extent that when, as part of a project on Polish-Russian prejudices, I organized a conference in Moscow called "Polskaya i Russkaya dusha" a few years ago, I received a call from the Polish embassy in Moscow and was suggested to change the title to "Polskaya i Rossiyskaya dusha", which I of course did not agree to, because I do not specialize in "souls" of Siberian, Caucasian, etc. nations. And here Putin spoke on behalf of the Russian nation as the basis of Russian statehood - as if again in the spirit of Solzhenitsyn, who first fought in the West for Russianness not to be identified with Sovietness, and later, in Russia, for preserving the russkost' within the rossijskost'.

I had to tweak the autotranslation a bit, as it went absolutely crazy with Polish transcription of Russian words.

https://www.tygodnikpowszechny.pl/rosyjska-tozsamosc-a-narracja-historyczna-15868

Aaand...

Quote

“ Are we supposed to teach him [Putin] how to behave?”

Prof. Lazari hastened to explain. As he explained, his attitude towards Putin is not a matter of trust.

I treat Putin as a man who is very much needed in Russia at this historical moment. Of course, in Poland such a leader would be unacceptable. If he still has about 80 percent of the support of his multinational society, are we supposed to teach him how to behave and what policy to pursue? It is the Russians who should be happy with his rule, not the Poles.

— he argued.

Besides, I see how Russia is changing during his rule, how people are living better and I understand why they like their leader. Just as I understand why so many people in Poland do not like our leader

— he emphasized.

And here, condemning Russophobia in 2013:

Quote

Prof. Lazari: Polish Russophobia comes from the need to have an enemy

Russophobia in Poland stems from the need to have an enemy, because it gives
a sense of unity - believes political scientist and expert on Russia, Prof. Andrzej de Lazari, who took part in
the Polish-Russian debate "Prejudices, myths, stereotypes" at the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

"In Poland, I am terrified by the growing Russophobia, which is very unjust. It stems from the need to have an enemy, because an enemy unites. If we had an enemy from outer space, would there be any problem in the world? We would all be brothers," said on Tuesday Prof. Lazari, who heads the Department of Central and Eastern Europe at the University of Lodz. As he explained, in the current socio-political reality in Poland, it is not appropriate to consider Jews or Germans as enemies, which is why Russians are becoming enemies.

https://www.money.pl/archiwum/wiadomosci_agencyjne/pap/artykul/prof;lazari;polska;rusofobia;bierze;sie;z;potrzeby;posiadania;wroga,240,0,1272304.html

Aaaand, the change of tune, March 2022:

Quote

How Tsar-Patsan* Went to War

In today's wartime reality, there is no time for laughter, but even in the darkest days of Nazi occupation, Hitler's mocking caricatures gave hope for a better tomorrow. Today, Hitler and Stalin's place in the consciousness of the free world and the enslaved liberal Russians has been taken by Putin. Unfortunately, there are few liberal Russians in Russia, which is why it is worth supporting them and trying to make sure that the sanctions against Putin's Russia affect them as little as possible. We know Viktor Yerofeyev well from his critical attitude towards today's Russia and PiS-ruled Poland. We know little about Sergei Jolkin, however. So I will illustrate Viktor's views with Sergei's drawings.

Yerofeyev warned back in 2006 that Putin had become the Tsar of Russian dreams , although in reality "he is a void, this cosmic hole waiting to be filled". The "dumbass" (patsan) believed that he had found a "national idea" and incarnated as a two-headed eagle. How to reconcile these heads - he does not know. One head thinks about the market economy, the other reads Machiavelli's Prince  from the perspective of governing the country as a special operation. One head fights terrorism, the other realizes that intimidating people strengthens power [...] Genetics is stronger than ethics: the people of Russia have so many inherited weaknesses that the country can only be governed with the help of a knout and gingerbread".

In Jolkin's opinion, Putin believed in his autocratic "tsarist rule" in 2010, began preparations for the annexation of Crimea, and invaded Crimea. He ignored Western sanctions. After all, he dreams of restoring Russia to the borders of the Soviet Union.

Yerofeyev obviously did not see any “tsarskost'” in Putin:

"Putin is not Peter I, and he is no tsar. He is just a clever tactician, not a strategist. But the misfortune is that the nation is even more ignorant than Putin. This is also true now, after the taking of Crimea, after this great amount of Kremlin, state lies about the situation in Ukraine. I will tell you a terrible thing: Putin and his team are more liberal than 80 percent of the Russian nation. This means that if completely free elections were held now, we would get nationalists and fascists!" ( In Russia it is like in Africa , "Rzeczpospolita. Plus Minus", 23-24.09.2014).

"Do you think that when Putin disappears, Russia's aggression will end? You are naive, " he explained to Ukrainians after the annexation. People with unlimited power are preparing successors for themselves. In order for democratic changes to begin in Russia, a new Peter I would be needed, who would introduce pro-European reforms by force. Such a person has not been born yet, but now the Russian empire needs Ukraine, or at least a corridor from Russia to Crimea. Russians like aggression and believe Putin that all the Ukrainian "maidans" were organized by Americans, not Slavic Ukrainians. That is why Putin will not stop in Crimea and Donbas, he will go further, and the stupefied society will support him, because only 15% of the Russian population appreciates European values. According to the writer, the problem lies not so much in Putin himself, but in the archaic consciousness of the Russian population. If you do not understand this, "you will be like Don Quixote fighting windmills." A year later, in an interview for the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung , the writer stated that Putin, seeing public support, would want not only Donbas but the whole of Ukraine, to create a second Belarus out of it, i.e. a state obedient to him with a loyal leader.

On February 11 this year, on the radio station " Echo Moskvy " , now closed by the regime, the writer used the epithet "tsar-pacan" for the first time, describing both Putin's height and his backyard, hooligan, boorish upbringing. According to Viktor, if Putin starts a war, "everyone will lose: the regime will fall apart and Russia will fall apart". Although Ukrainians are a brotherly nation to Russians, they differ from them in mentality - they will not give up their own and will not surrender. "If Russia comes to them on tanks - it will be like in Afghanistan". Russia lost Ukraine forever after occupying Crimea and if it enters Ukraine now - it will lose the whole world.

On February 22, in another interview, this time for the Sobiesiednik portal , Yerofeyev formulated Putin's four dreams:

The first is to annex Donbas to Russia ("Blood is already being shed, but this is a local war").

The second was to create Novorossiya from Kharkov to Transnistria and cut off Ukraine from the sea ("There will be more blood, but who will feel sorry for it? Nobody will count the bodies").

Third – to capture Kiev and establish their government there ("Ukraine will then obtain the status of Belarus").

And finally, the fourth dream – "to reach the borders of Poland, put Ukraine in our pocket and announce that we are becoming the Soviet Union again."

The day before the war broke out, on February 23, in an article for the Deutsche Welle website “ Tsar Pachan tore Donbas away from Ukraine ,” the writer repeated these four dreams and pointed to four categories that formed Tsar Pachan’s worldview: “The first is the St. Petersburg backyard with juvenile delinquents. The most important thing there is to win and humiliate others. The second is the Eastern martial arts, another link in Putin’s consciousness that builds victory. The third is work in the KGB. Fighting enemies in the name of victory. The fourth is restoring the borders of the Soviet Union. Then it will be fair, because it was the Americans who destroyed the great Soviet Union, dragged the republics like potatoes from a bonfire, annexed them to their camp, and now ‘Russian Mir’ is ready for revenge. Revenge is the favorite word of the clown.” The writer repeated these thoughts on March 2 in an interview on the Newsweek website: “ Putin is taking revenge. Russia has become even more distant from the real world than the USSR under Brezhnev ."

https://liberte.pl/jak-car-pacan-poszedl-na-wojne/

*a word game, 'pacan' in Polish, unlike in Russian, means 'fool', although it has two meanings in Russian as well, this is about the other one (thug, gang member)