Alexandra Chalupa lays out the big picture, as to last several weeks in Ukraine. As transmitted to Andrew Beckwith, and reposted with her permission
The Big Picture:?An Overview of the Russian Mafia State and Why It is a Big Deal that China and India voted ‘Yes’ in Support of a UN Resolution calling Russia the aggressor this week…
I’m writing to follow-up on Monday’s group discussion and lecture related to the two Russia-focused articles that were assigned. Our group had a good conversation we shared with Professor Lynch pertaining to them that is worth sharing with the larger class and has been expanded upon below with additional background that is significant to several developments in the news this week and will continue to be important moving forward. Below are some of the things that I’ve researched and written about over the years that have been pulled together and updated to reflect current developments…
(Sources are included at the end of the write-up).
The two articles related to Russia that were assigned as class readings had a common theme of projecting blame on the West for Russia’s economic woes of the past three decades; a popular strategy that Moscow and its sympathizers use to deflect attention away from the fact that Russia is a mafia-state – its government is structured not to serve Russians but for the sole benefit of Vladimir Putin and his inner circle of criminal oligarchs. It’s why Putin, who is believed to be the son of a powerful KGB official who impregnated a Russian street sweeper (many women forced into prostitution during Soviet times were required to be street sweepers and treated terribly) went from rags to unimaginable riches. The KGB-linked family that raised Putin was not financially well off, yet the life-long government employee is considered the richest thief in the world today. It is believed that Putin has hidden hundreds of billions of dollars he has stolen from Russians; and while he’s used some of his wealth to build secret palaces and massive yachts, and a global influence industry that feeds off corruption, he has destroyed Russia.?What Putin has stolen from Russians is greater than money, it is priceless – their freedoms and their future.
Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian defector who served in Russian intelligence – the Federal Security Service (FSS) - is credited for branding Russia “a mafia state.”?After he fled to the UK, Litvinenko devoted himself to fighting organized crime and worked with British intelligence to advise them of Putin’s larger organized criminal network and detailed how Russian intelligence staged bombings of Russian apartment buildings in 1999 as part of an election strategy to propel Putin into power after pumping fear and terror into the public and making him appear tough on terrorism. This false flag strategy deceptively accused the Chechens of the crimes committed by Russian-intelligence, which was then used to validate a war of destruction aimed at Chechnya, which had tried to break away from Russia five years earlier until Russian forces squashed the independence movement and killed an estimated 100,000 people, mostly civilians, in a matter of 20 months. After Putin obtained power, the Chechnyan capital was demolished by Russian forces, foreshadowing what Russians would do to Aleppo, Syria, and Mariupol, Ukraine years later. Journalist David Satter was one of the leading investigative journalists who helped further uncover the Russian intelligence operations behind the apartment bombings that helped Putin’s rise to power; in 2014, he was the first Western journalist expelled from Russia since the Cold War.
The 1999 election strategy worked though - state-sponsored acts of terrorism that targeted and killed Russians were successfully used to install Putin. Trump’s close business partner of many decades and future campaign manager Paul Manafort helped Putin that election (an inconvenient truth the U.S. Russia investigations strategically failed to disclose since Manafort ensured both sides of the aisle in Washington received generous blood money opportunities over the past decades while he propped up ruthless, bloodthirsty dictators. An example of Manafort’s deep reach into both major American political parties was broadcast in the memoir he released last summer, bragging about his very close friendship over the past decade with U.S. Senator Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat who was charged with overseeing the U.S. Senate Intelligence Russia probe that centered on Manafort (Volume 5 of the Committee’s investigation report was quietly released when the media and country were consumed with the Democratic National Convention where Joe Biden was officially confirmed as the 2020 nominee. The report’s findings confirmed that Manafort, Trump’s campaign advisor, coordinated with Russian military intelligence during the election and afterward, including to launch a disinformation operation to blame Ukraine for 2016 election interference to give Russia cover).
Litvinenko was eventually poisoned with polonium-20; one of many Putin critics who risked their lives and families to speak truth to power and ended up assassinated. That has been a dark reality over the past decades – because so many influential Westerns sold out their countries and humanity for money, those who dared to protect the world from the danger of Putin were placed at even higher risk. “Londongrad” provides a clear example.
That is how the Russian mafia state operates – opposition is silenced through the weaponization of the legal system (lawfare) or through assassinations. This has been going on for the past decades while the United Kingdom, the U.S., and other Western countries became money-laundering havens for the Russian mafia state, enabling Moscow to secure strong spheres of influence over democratic legal systems it uses to silence opponents abroad and by financing political parties that will promote a Russian-mafia state friendly agenda. Western law firms, lobbyists, think tanks, political operatives, political firms, academics, media outlets and pundits, have all played an instrumental role in propping up the Kremlin and its criminal network. Moscow’s political grip over the United Kingdom and United States became especially clear during the 2016 elections (Brexit and U.S. Presidential/Congressional, both tipped to victory with the help of Russian intelligence operations executed in coordination with their Western proxies). Similar strategies have been employed all over the world through the Russian mafia state’s global influence industry, reaching almost every continent. We have seen the impact of this throughout Russia’s more than nine years of war in Ukraine, and as illustrated on the first day of class with the Simon Jenkin’s article arguing against more military aid to Ukraine – one of his many “opinion pieces” since the mid-2000s that pushes Kremlin talking points.?
The global threat the Russian mafia state poses today is linked directly to the late former head of the KGB and one of the last General Secretary’s of the Soviet Union, Yuri Andropov, Putin’s mentor, and a close colleague of his real father. The Soviets had built a powerful security apparatus that controlled the populace through terror, and understood their time was coming to an end, as they could barely afford to financially back East Germany and struggled to keep their own economy afloat. In the 1970s, Andropov was charged with overseeing the Soviet Union’s covert subversion operations aimed and infiltrating the West and building undetectable spheres of influence that could manipulate and undermine democracies from within. The Soviets learned early on that Westerner’s could be manipulated to their advantage, either based on ideology (Far-left/Marxism or Far-right/fascism), financial incentives (conservative businessmen); threats; or kompromat (blackmail). Sometimes a combination of several tactics was used, as done by the Russian mafia state today.
Two examples from the early Soviet days – one a businessman, the other a journalist:
i.)?Armand Hammer?was a young American who was summoned to Moscow by Joseph Lenin shortly before Lenin died. Lenin advised Joseph Stalin that Hammer would play a very important role for the Soviet Union in opening doors of opportunity with the West. The Soviets realized early on that the survival of their economy depended on Western technology. Hammer’s father was connected to a Russian espionage network in NYC but imprisoned for an illegal abortion that killed a Russian woman. Hammer went to Moscow to meet with high level Soviet officials who provided him a government document authorizing him to be the Soviet Union’s representative to securing deals in the West.?He was also gifted a Russian business linked to natural resources, and soon after he returned to America, Hammer began delivering for the Soviets as promised, he recruited countless Western businessmen seeking financial opportunities.?This included Charles Koch, who taught the Soviets how to create the technology needed to drill and refine oil (the Russian engineers who Koch worked with and grew fond of were later assassinated by the Soviets to demonstrate they had mastered the technology and techniques and no longer needed those Koch had worked with, thereby cutting off any risk that he would have influence on the Russian oil industry). Koch then moved on to Germany where he met with Hitler and helped him build refineries that proved invaluable to the Nazi war efforts. Koch’s two sons, known as the ‘Koch Brothers’ would later resume business with Russia and became among the biggest financiers of far-right oil industry and pro-Putin American politicians, as well as creating a global climate change denialist grassroots network that pressures foreign politicians to support fossil fuel friendly agendas. After Koch had broken away from the Soviets, Hammer ended up with his own very profitable oil company – Occidental Petroleum. He continued to grow in power and resources, flying regularly to Moscow throughout the Cold War to meet with different heads of the Soviet Union, as well as many visits to Washington, D.C. where he regularly attending private meetings in the Oval Office with presidents from both political parties. He was Moscow's guy, the gift that kept giving as Lenin had predicted decades earlier. In fact, Hammer was a very close friend and top financer of two prominent American Democratic officials – the late U.S. Senator Al Gore, Sr. and his son, former Vice President Al Gore, Jr.?If it was not for Hammer’s backing, Gore would never have been Vice President, and he rewarded Hammer well, including granting his company Occidental with a historic license to drill in U.S. reserve lands.
ii.)?Walter Duranty?was the celebrated?New York Times?Moscow Bureau Chief who won a Pulitzer Prize for writing articles that were later revealed to have helped the Kremlin cover-up Stalin’s 1932-33 man-made famine that murdered millions of Ukrainians. Duranty once boasted to colleagues that he believed at least ten million Ukrainians may had been strategically starved to death. The famine was meant to crush Ukrainians while stealing their grain to sell on the black market to finance the Soviet military build-up that the Germans helped with. Years earlier, Duranty and a fellow NYT journalist helped whitewash Soviet show-trials that led to the execution of the Kremlin’s opponents; the “journalists” downplayed the injustice and brutality of the trials and validated the Kremlin’s behavior.
These are two of many examples of Westerns helping empower and embolden the Soviet Union in its early days and while it committed mass atrocities against Russians, Ukrainians, and others.
By the early/mid-1980s, when the Soviet economic collapse was on the close horizon, Andropov took over as the head of the USSR and ordered the new head of the KGB to execute the Western infiltration strategy of the past that had worked so well then. In 1985, shortly after Andropov died, the KGB sent a Soviet Ambassador from Europe to New York City, who was picked up by his KGB daughter at the airport and they drove straight to Trump Tower where he met Donald J. Trump, who the Ambassador praised endlessly as the NYC businessman fell for their trap. They knew exactly how to manipulate him because the KGB had spent years profiling Trump - his Eastern-European wife Ivanna, one of the few allowed to travel freely from her native Czechoslovakia during the height of the Cold War, had honey potted him and shared intelligence about Trump with her father during visits back home, which he then shared with Czech intelligence, that passed it along to their counterparts at the KGB. “It was like taking candy from a baby,” the Russians later bragged about their exchange with Trump. He and Ivanna were off to Moscow two years later, on a trip sponsored by a KGB-linked Soviet government tourist agency. When he returned to New York City, Trump began bragging he would be the U.S. president some day and took out a full-page ad in the paper attacking the U.S. and NATO, which cost almost $100,000. Around the same time, the KGB also successfully targeted a little-known mayor in Vermont with Marxist views. Bernie Sanders and his wife Jane headed to Moscow on a similar trip the day after getting married, and not only did Sanders shock the delegation of local Vermont politicians he travelled with when he unexpectedly delivered remarks at a gala there, but he also used the opportunity to attack the U.S., which was an unheard-of concept in those days, to attack one’s country while on foreign soil, especially soil of an adversary.?He did so days before Ronald Reagan was scheduled to arrive in Moscow to meet with Gorbachev. When Bernie returned, he and his wife held a press conference in Vermont promoting Kremlin propaganda about how happy the Soviets were and all the positive things they saw, despite that the economy was facing collapse and people were miserable and poor. That was a common playbook the KGB required of the far-left – for Western visitors to return and promote positive things touting the Kremlin line. Trump criticized the U.S. and NATO; Bernie criticized the U.S., praised the Soviets.
It was not a coincidence that after years of promoting the Kremlin’s agenda, both men ended up presidential contenders in an election that Moscow was trying to secure to its advantage. Both Trump and Sanders used a “rigged” narrative during the primary election phase, and threw more mud at their own political committees than each other, and while falsely accusing their own parties of trying to stop them from securing their party nominations; both political committees (DNC and RNC) were being hacked by Russian intelligence at that time (GRU and FSB both were in the systems stealing emails); both candidates received help from Russian-linked Cambridge Analytica run by Steve Bannon; both candidates’ most senior campaign strategists (Paul Manafort and Tad Devine) had worked together for years propping into power Kremlin-backed candidates in Ukraine. Trump’s connections to Moscow throughout the election and leading up to it were especially significant, including his meetings around his Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in November 2013, while Manafort was helping his long-time friend and associate Yanukovych hold onto power during the Maidan Revolution of Dignity that started that same month. A couple months after Trump returned to the U.S, in January 2014 the Russian-intelligence handler who had been assigned to him throughout the Miss Universe pageant and appeared with him in countless photos, tweeted how excited the Russians all were that he was running for U.S. president and that he could count on Russia’s “full support.” The Russians knew he was running for president in the 2016 election almost a year and a half before the American public would be officially informed.
This is to provide an example of the long-term types of operations Andropov’s team put in place, that took root and sprouted as planned, and harvested by the Russian mafia state decades later. These types of subversion operations are conducted globally and span across political ideologies, ethnicities, countries, religions, and professions.
The Soviet intelligence apparatus simply transformed under a new name after the Soviet Union collapsed, from the KGB to the FSB, but remains the architecture of the Russian mafia state today, which is led by former KGB officials. This includes Putin and one of his most strategically important allies, Russian Orthodox Church (ROC)’s Patriarch Kirill, an oligarch who runs the Kremlin’s religious espionage and military hybrid warfare operations.?There is no religious freedom in Russia, same as under the Soviet Union when countless religious leaders, from rabbis to priests, were massacred or imprisoned after Lenin and Stalin secured power. Religion was only allowed to be practiced again around World War II, and only as a cover for KGB operations as Stalin feared Hitler’s pro-Christian positions would recruit support for him within the Soviet sphere, and especially after both invaded Poland from different directions as part of their secret deal. As a result, Russian Orthodox church leaders who were once labelled as enemies of the state were suddenly welcomed back if they operated as spies, which then developed into a KGB religious spy training network. It’s through the ROC that Russia has infested the far right- in the West, as clearly seen in the U.S. through fascist Evangelical leaders who work closely with ROC leaders and were instrumental in helping “elect” Trump. The ROC often supports operations in the West that promote anti-LGBT campaigns and operations that pump fear about Christian persecution. These same tactics are employed globally, including throughout the continent of Africa. American evangelical Scott Lively was the drafter of Russia’s anti-LGBTQ laws that the Duma passed days before Trump announced he was moving Miss Universe to Moscow. Scott Lively is working with the ROC to draft similar laws in African countries, including the draconian one that passed in Uganda last month – the country was announced as a future ROC strong hold by Russian leaders late last year as Patriarch Kirill aggressively pivoted the ROC’s focused toward Africa to support Putin’s war efforts (he needs their resources to finance his war against Ukraine) and despite that Russia’s war threatens to starve African countries as it severely exasperates a global food insecurity crisis.
The ROC’s statecraft operations have even impacted Australia. As was recently reported by the?Sydney Morning Herald, the Russian Orthodox Choir of Sydney performed at the Sydney Opera House last week as part of a “cultural” event to celebrate Russian culture at a time when the Russian mafia state is waging a war and genocide against Ukraine, mass murdering, destroying cities, kidnapping children, raping women, children, and babies, destroying infrastructure, and destroying and stealing priceless Ukrainian art and other cultural artifacts, some well over a thousands years old. This choir had been previously invited by the Kremlin to perform in Moscow and held another event in Sydney a few years ago that was organized by pro-Kremlin-operatives in Australia tied to the ROC’s leadership. Russians wearing shirts with a large ‘Z’ symbol in support of Putin’s war and genocide (today’s version of a Swastika) predictably appeared at the Sydney Opera House event and shook hands with the Russian Ambassador and took photos with other participants, a classic deceitful statecraft operation. One of the choir members wore a ‘Z’?t-shirt during rehearsal for the event but later claimed he did not know what the Z symbolized (which is equivalent of German wearing a Swastika during WWII and claiming they did not know what it symbolized). This display of fascism and support of war crimes was organized from within the Russia consulate by a Russian operative who is hiding from Australian authorities who are trying to arrest him. He is tied to Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, another top ROC oligarch in Moscow who was instrumental in financing and running the ROC’s operations during the invasion and illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. Malofeev is also connected to FOX News. Jack Hannick, a former director and producer of FOX News host Sean Hannity (a close ally of Trump and Manafort for years) moved to Moscow in 2011 to help Malofeev set-up an ROC propaganda “news” channel that helps censor other religions while using ROC leaders to pump Kremlin disinformation. Jack was indicted and imprisoned by the U.S. government a couple years ago for being a Russian agent. Malofeev is also connected to Russian-linked American conspiracist Alex Jones who has been instrumental in brainwashing millions, including by targeting and harassing parents whose young children were killed by gun violence. He has appeared often on Russian media and has called for the assassination of U.S. officials investigating Russia.
The goals of the Sydney Opera House shenanigans appear to include:
a) making Australia, which has been a strong supporter of Ukraine, look foolish while flaunting that a criminal wanted by Australian authorities can create problems for Australia while under Russian protection in Sydney;
b) to taunt Ukrainians living in Australia (there’s a much larger Ukrainian-Australian population than Russian, most live in Sydney and Melbourne, and many have been vital in helping Ukraine and have loved ones in Ukraine directly impacted by the war); and
c) supporting the Russian state mafia’s war.
Also concerning, this Russian mafia statecraft operation targeting the Sydney Opera House occurred a few days after Australian media reported President Joe Biden is scheduled to speak at an event at the Sydney Opera House later this month.
On the bright side, this stunt has resulted in Australian security forces launching investigations. A few months ago, they uncovered and kicked out of the country a significant “Russian spy haven” and may now have the information needed to kick out another one. They would be justified in expelling “Russian mafia state diplomats” given the bigger circumstance.
Understanding Russia as a mafia state is important to understanding what Russia’s war in Ukraine is about, including how Russia’s military build-up on Ukraine’s border increased leading up to the full-scale invasion because Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy was taking strong steps to clean up Russia’s organized crime network in Ukraine, much of which targeted Viktor Medvedchuk, considered one of the Kremlin’s top guys in Kyiv (Putin is the godfather of his daughter). Had Zelenskyy listened to the horrible advice from the Biden administration and fled Ukraine before the first missiles were launched, Putin’s plan was to install Medvedchuk as his puppet president. Instead, Medvedchuk tried to run away, Ukrainians caught him and used him in a significant prisoner swap. He’s now hiding in Russia and has been stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship and his assets frozen.
Putin’s aim in installing Russian-mafia-backed candidates in democracies (like Yanukovych and Medvedchuk in Ukraine or Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene in the U.S.) is to create a global organized crime empire where Putin is the Don.?This is not to be confused with traditional Russian imperialism, for example, Peter the Great, who is credited with modernizing Russia, westernizing its legal system, and transforming it into a modern major power.?Peter the Great also founded Saint Petersburg and created the Russian Navy.?This is Russian mafia imperialism - a global criminal network that leads to death and destruction and is inevitably transitioning Russia into a failed state, another North Korea. Mafia imperialism does not translate well from a military perspective, as we have seen. Putin’s delusions of being seen as a modern Tsar who could capture Kyiv in three days and then turn Ukrainians into his military slaves to be used to invade the rest of Europe, faded quickly. Russia’s top military defense oligarchs and former Soviet generals pleaded with him for months not to launch a full-blown invasion, the latter even released statements accusing him of treason and calling for his imprisonment. They understood the ramifications and what Putin overlooked – just how widespread the corruption was and its impact weakening the Russian military over many years. Instead of making himself a hero on the world stage, every day of the war he’s proven to be a loser while Ukrainians are hailed defenders of the free world by leaders in the West. For example, Peter the Great built up the Russian Navy, Putin’s regime weakened it, and Ukrainians sank the Russian Navy’s prized Black Sea fleet flagship, then they sank its replacement flagship.?
The Russian mafia state's war has also resulted in an inhumanely number of Russian deaths, an estimated 100,000 in the last five months alone according to U.S. intelligence. Even the war criminal heading the Wagner Group – Yevgeny Prigozhin -is publicly pleading with Putin to end his illegal war after 20,000 deaths have occurred in the unsuccessful Russian offensive of Bakhunt (half of which are Wagner mercenaries). It is estimated that these mercenaries last only 7 days on the field before being killed in battle, that figure worsened in the last days as supplies run out. Just this morning, Prigozhin released a very gruesome video of him standing over a line of Russian corpses, his mercenaries who were just killed in the latest battle. He yelled at those sitting comfortably in the Kremlin and the elite in Moscow, screaming that he’s running out of ammunitions; it has become an unwinnable bloodbath. Hours later, he released another video claiming he was handing control of the area off to Russian forces and taking the Wagner troops out starting on May 10th?(the day after Russia’s annual May 9th?military celebration). Some have speculated that Prigozhin’s unprecedented behavior may signal he will be leading a coup against the Kremlin (which would make sense why he announced the May 10th, in the event an attack happens on Moscow during the celebration the day before, so that he is not blamed regardless of whether he’s involved. Putin, who does not want to be perceived as under siege from within, attacked by his fellow-Russians, will use any such incident as a false flag and shift blame the U.S. and Ukraine). Others have cautioned the videos of outrage could themselves be a Russian military tactic, resembling ones used by Genghis Khan’s army when it destroyed Kyivan Rus, which later gave rise to Moscow, the vassal of the Golden Horde.?One way or another, the next week should provide some more clarity.
Russia, which was already experiencing a population crisis before the war, has since sent millions of Russians fleeing for their lives to other parts of the world and is sending the men who did not flee and are of marrying-age to be killed in an unwinnable war that was meant to build a criminal empire headed by a murdering thief who has robbed Russians of everything. An organization of Russian mothers who have spent the past nine years risking their lives warning the world that Putin’s hunger for unchecked power and war and his lies surrounding Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 showed a total disregard for those Russians serving in the military and that they were nothing but disposable garbage bags to the Kremlin. Now, this fact cannot be denied.
What about the nukes? Again, this mafia state has not kept up its military equipment, including its nuclear warheads and some public estimates project that only 40-70 percent of the missiles work and that the Russians don’t know which among them are functional. An entirely new meaning of Russian roulette if they were to unsuccessfully try to launch one and the immediate retaliation that would result in ensuring Moscow no longer exists. It is not a coincidence that the “nuclear war” threats meant to pump fear are spiking leading up to Ukraine’s counter offensive. It's an exhaustive tactic that Russia’s influence industry in the West has gotten increasingly good at pumping. However, the game Putin plays best is poker and the cards he holds suggest it’s time to fold.
Instead, of knowing when to quit, it seems the Kremlin has reverted to old-school false flag operations that Putin used to secure power back in 1999 – Putin’s team is ridiculously claiming Ukraine launched a drone strike against the Kremlin the other night and is now crying “terrorism” while blaming Ukraine, and a couple Russian officials have publicly called for President Zelenskyy’s assassination. Why would an “assassination” attempt on Putin target the Kremlin in the middle of the night when he doesn’t sleep in the Kremlin? Not the brightest strategy, especially since its widely known Putin spends his nights hiding out in different bunkers, terrified one of his many Russian enemies in Moscow are trying to kill him. Today, the Kremlin predictably started blaming the U.S. for the attack, despite that the U.S. has spent more than 9 years failing to adequately support Ukraine against Russia’s aggressions, refused to protect its skies, continues to slow walk military support, and does not support nor encourage Ukraine to use force against Russia that crosses over its 1991 physical borders; quite the opposite. U.S. defense officials have reiterated that these claims are false and it is unclear whether Putin is using the drone attack as an excuse to cancel Russia’s big annual May 9th?military parade (it can’t adequately finance bullets for those on the frontlines at this point), or if there is a more dangerous motive, including justifying the assassination of a world leader, they've already made threats toward President Zelenskyy and seem to be implying threats toward his U.S. counterpart.
The timing of this false flag stunt is interesting for two reasons. The first is this week’s UN Resolution vote calling Russia the aggressor, which will be discussed in the next section. The second is that it comes days after Danish security officials released photos and other evidence that suggests Russia blew up the Nord Stream pipeline. Seymour Hersh’s suspect article (assigned to the class weeks ago), claiming the U.S. was responsible for blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline but without providing any evidence other than a claim of an anonymous source, suggests that article may have been part of a Russian disinformation operation. His article was heavily promoted by Westerners with long-standing reputations for disseminating Russian disinformation, like Glenn Greenwald, as well as Moscow-appeasing Tankies in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere. But after a long investigation, Danish defense officials have released over two dozen photographs they took days leading up to the attack on the pipeline – the photographs clearly show six Russian vessels in the exact area of where the attack on the pipeline occurred, including a ‘special operations’ vessel that would be needed to conduct such an act of sabotage. Other European defense intelligence agencies, including Sweden’s confirmed that the overwhelming evidence suggests Russia was responsible for the attack on the pipeline. It may have been a desperate tactic to blame Ukraine and weaken support for it and/or blame the U.S. in an attempt at validating the Kremlin disinformation that the war is really between the U.S. and Russia and that Ukraine is merely a proxy (its highly embarrassing to Putin that the Ukrainians have so skillfully destroyed a significant segment of Russia’s military and are positioned to take back Crimea leading up to the counteroffensive). This latest revelation by the Danish appears to suggest that Seymour Hersh either knowingly promoted a Russian disinformation operation to help coverup for Russia’s involvement or got played as Moscow’s “useful idiot” (there are many).
The bigger damage that the Russian mafia state's ongoing war threatens is a global food crisis that may kill well over 110 million people, including large populations in China, India, and Pakistan where climate change has resulted in significantly smaller rice and other crop yields that are leading to food shortages. Given the climate change disasters, agricultural exports from Ukraine are even more increasingly important and Russia continues to threaten Ukraine’s ability to feed the world. This goes well beyond the crisis it caused by mining Ukrainian farms; it’s also attacking Ukrainian distribution channels. This is why India and China voted ‘Yes’ on yesterday’s United Nations resolution declaring Russia the aggressor. While both India and China have taken advantage of astronomically low energy deals with Russia due to the war, as these deals were seen in the immediate interests of their countries, it is not in the interests of their countries for tens of millions of their people to be starved to death because of the Russian mafia state's illegal war.?Putin is creating a Holodomor situation for many countries, like when Stalin strategically starved millions of Ukrainians, stole their grain and sold it on the black market to finance the building of the Soviet military (all while Walter Duranty of the?New York Times?knowingly covered it up). Only there is no benefit to the Russia mafia state in causing this mass starvation other than it being used as a mafia tactic to extort powerful countries that refuse to provide it weapons. It’s a desperate attempt leading up to Ukraine’s highly anticipated counter-offensive. Modi has publicly condemned Russia’s war because of it. Both China and India did so by voting to support the UN Resolution calling Russia the aggressor.
The class assigned article that suggests President Joe Biden wants regime change in Russia is an outdated attempt to validate a mafia state led by the richest thief in the world who secured power through state sponsored terrorism that murdered hundreds of Russians and who has stolen everything from Russia, continues to mass murder, wages hybrid war on democracies, and threatens global starvation and economic turmoil. This is a much bigger issue than regime change, it’s about dismantling the entire Russian mafia global criminal apparatus. An equally sophisticated task as the handling of Germany after World War II.?There is a tremendous amount of work to be done long term as this impacts every continent.
On the U.S. front, there has been some significant progress in the last week:
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Why is this significant beyond the obvious reason?
The late Jeffrey Epstein is believed to have been a top kompromat collector for Vladimir Putin’s regime. He targeted the most influential individuals, businesses, and universities in the West.?Many among the elite of the elite spent time with Epstein at his private sex trafficking properties where he brought guests and underage girls, including his private island, New York City townhouse, and other estates, all of which were heavily equipped with surveillance equipment in every room; a tactic he learned from his protégée, British media tycoon, the late Robert Maxwell who worked closely with both Mossad and the KGB. It is believed that the information obtained through Epstein’s espionage and surveillance tactics was shared with both Russian Intelligence and Israeli intelligence and has compromised hundreds of exceptionally powerful and influential people. This includes former U.S. Presidents like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump; former head of the CIA; former White House counsels, including Obama’s; heads of Fortune 500 companies, from Elon Musk to Bill Gates; influential media figures; top lawyers like Harvard’s Alan Dershowitz (a very close advisor and friend to Epstein who helped head Trump’s defense during impeachment); top scientists and academics at America’s most prestigious universities, he had especially strong reach at Harvard, Yale, and MIT; and the British Royal family (the soon to be coronated King’s brother).
Epstein visited Bill Clinton in the White House an estimated 17 times between 1993 to 1995, the time frame when Bill Clinton was pushing Ukraine to give up its nuclear warheads to Russia (Ukraine had the 3rd?largest arsenal in the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union), which it did with the 1994 signing of the Budapest Memorandum, in which the U.S., U.K., and Russia all agreed to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty against potential aggressors. Clinton apologized for this a few weeks ago, but it was too little too late. It is unclear how many involved in Obama’s White House who influenced his “reset” of relations with the Russian mafia state were also closely connected to Epstein. Many European leaders, including in Ukraine and Georgia, as well as Russian opposition leaders, warned the Obama administration not to reset relations with Russia, that it was a mafia state that could not be trusted and was dangerous. The administration did not listen and as part of the rest, the White House rolled out the red carpet for the Russians to infiltrate Silicon Valley, which emboldened and empowered Russia to attack the 2016 U.S. election and Brexit election. Russian mafia oligarchs and spies gained great influence within Google, Facebook, and Twitter, all which were then weaponized against democracies and used to promote Russian disinformation.
There will be a lot more information disclosed in the future about the web of Jeffrey Epstein. It is crucial for his entire web of kompromat to be exposed, understood, and justice served, for it has contributed a great deal to the turmoil we are experiencing globally, more than people may currently appreciate. There need to be Congressional public hearings with every person compromised by Jeffrey Epstein hauled in and questioned. None of them should ever be able to hold a national security clearance, and each should be deemed unemployable and a national security risk. That’s how serious of a matter this is.
Sunshine is the best disinfectant – let us hope there are many sunny days ahead.?
I hope the above has provided some helpful background and context of the bigger picture. There is a lot more to include but this covers the basic overview. It should be clear why Ukraine’s victory is so important to the world and the threat posed by the Russian mafia state, including to China, which many wisely predict will be well positioned to take over a large portion of what’s left of the Russian Federation and join Ukraine and its allies in playing an instrumental role in helping stabilize, develop, and bring long-term peace to the region while addressing its own resource needs.
Given the seriousness of the situation and its global implications and how much disinformation the Russian mafia state’s influence industry apparatus continues to pump, this overview may help combat such active measures. Below are some sources to the above sections.
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SOURCES:
Section 1: Reality Check: Russia is a Mafia State
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Section 2: Today’s Russian Mafia State sprouted from the Soviet Union’s KGB apparatus
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领英推荐
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Section 3: Russian Mafia Imperialism…
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Section 4: Stale Nuclear Arm Stockpiles and High Risks for Russia If they Don’t Work…
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Section 5: Global Food Insecurity Crisis Russia is Causing – China and India Vote Yes on UN Resolution
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Section 6:?Russian Mafia State Regime Change? No, it's about Dismantling a Global Criminal Network that Threatens Humanity.
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End of repost, as given to Dr. Andrew Beckwith, from Alexandra Chalupa
Andrew Beckwith, PhD
Densolam Airspaceventure Open Market Offer Exchange Bids DAOMOEB Integrated System Solutions. Engineering Sciences, hardware & software from requirements, to concept, analysis & test, support land air space adventures.
5 个月A century long story... worth looking into... because history tends to repeat itself. In a more recent time, I'd heard of story of 10 Russian designers will do the work to get one (1) American engineer's salary. This may be why some globalists think their strategy is a good idea...