okay, this is new and tells me, if true, that the gloves have come off with the oligarchs and their private forces Putin survives ‘assassination attempt’ after he was targeted in his limo (msn.com) According to the anti-Kremlin Telegram channel General SVR, Putin was travelling in the third car of a five-vehicle convoy. The post read: ‘The first escort car was blocked by an ambulance and the second escort car drove around without stopping because of the sudden obstacle' (Picture: East2West News) Putin’s driver reportedly had ‘problems with control’ but managed to keep driving without stopping and get him home unharmed. The Kremlin has since arrested multiple people, including several of Putin’s bodyguards, according to the Telegram channel (Picture: East2West News) Putin's limousine 'hit by loud bang in assassination attempt' | Metro News
Several of us posted on it yesterday. No real confirmation of it, and doubt that we would ever know if it truly happened, at least til Putin’s gone and folks can speak. The scary thing if true though, is that we shouldn’t assume it was the sane ones doing it, could have easily been the hardliners who are as angry right now over their failures as others are over the war itself.
I’m not always a big fan of his, but I agreed with all of that (outside of the need to bring Trump into what was otherwise apolitical from the US side, (he was Trump’s transition guy at state). Ukraine does need to tackle its problems. This could make that much braised or much harder, depending on the path they take.
Actually VA it was the Russians (Bolshevicks) that initiated a pogrom / genocide against Ukranians in the 20's following the Revolution of 1918. Comrades Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky decided the fastest way to change Ukranian thinking and to collectivize all private property was to put a bullet in the back of the head of all land-owners, or peoples of means. This was their precursor to the "State Farm" system in Urkraine (I'm not talking about the Insurance Co.) This is why the Nazi's were initially met with flowers and Vodka until the Ukranians realized the Nazi's were an even more extreme set of homicidal maniacs than the Bolshevicks. There is a rather long "memory" among Ukranians about Russian barbarity after the 1918 revolution.
Wow, the Czar feeling a little heat. Kinda sucks when he is the one trying to get whacked instead of doing the "whackin".
Orrrr - Is this just a B.S. Kremlin announcement to drum up "love" for the Czar wanna be mass murderer??
1/4 of my family is jewish - my relatives left the area that is Poland/Ukraine after the 1905 pogrom I think (my grandfather was born here in 1912). And while I don’t know details, I have always assumed the relatives that stayed got wiped out by the nazis. In that part of the world they didn’t even send them to camps, they just lined them up and killed them. I need to ask more on the oral history I suppose. But that stuff was real and is surprisingly under reported today. Would bet less than 5 percent of people even know it happened.
Babi Yar is one of the worst examples of Nazi cruelty in the Ukraine during 1941 / before the Final Solution. Horrific in the extreme. But Bolshevik comrades did similar shit in the 20's. They did it to land owners, intellectuals, anti Bolsheviks, anyone that got in the way of their agenda.....they were just a bit more discrete.
Ukrainians will also have long memories after this is over as well. My friend in Odessa says they are beyond pissed at Russia and that won't go away any time soon.
To his point, the post-war reconstruction is important. But it is not more important than, first, winning the war.
Low oil prices have caused Russia to lose 90% of its budget surplus over the last two months. Apparently, they'll need to start printing money in another week or two. This could explain some of the panic in the oligarches and the potential assassination attempt. Looks like they need another pep talk from George Schultz. Cheaper oil and Ukraine war are blowing a hole in Russia's finances | CNN Business
Lenin also had a policy of starving the kulaks (people who owned the farms) in the early 30s. Made them grow the grain then took it from them - resulted in mass starvation and cannibalism that killed millions. He wanted to industrialize the Soviet Union. I highly recommend the book by Timothy Snyder - Bloodlands; Europe between Stalin and Hitler. So much mass atrocity happened in Ukraine by those two governments. Stalin/Lenin sought to wipe out a class of people, Hitler tried to wipe out certain ethnicities, particularly Jews, and it all overlapped in Ukraine and Poland in particular.
Many of the Jews emigrated to Germany, who with the push by Hitler, blamed all woes on the ugly Jewish immigrants. We know the rest of the story.
IEA estimates that russian exports will go down another 1.9M barrels per day when the latest round of sanctions kick in
thanks, I was a history major and given the family history I read a fair amount on it. I just don’t know my own family’s stories well enough, to know how we were impacted. Like I said my assumption has always been the pogroms given the timing of when they came, and that I lost many in WW2, but would love to know for sure. Never heard anything about losing anyone in the famines, but I do remember a story about my grandfather and great aunt taking in a relative during WW2. I also know at least some of the family is in Austria, but don’t know when they made it there, or how they survived the war if it was prior to that. Like I said, I need to start asking before the folks that might know are gone.
