Portents to the break up of Putin's Russian Mafia based empire: All of this created solely due to Ukraine invasion. All of it avoidable, Putin's fault
Ladies and gentlemen
Let me introduce to you the most monstrous self own in history, the one by Vladimir Putin, whom has singlehandedly destroyed his own POLITICAL order.
See the following:
A. NATO to boost rapid-response unit from 40,000 to over 300,000 troops in apparent response to Putin's war
B. Ukraine may soon get advanced, mid-range air defense system
C. The Future Defederation of Russia
All empires eventually fall apart. The Russian Federation is next.
D. Borjomi Workers Strike as Georgia Prepares To Take Over Russian Shares
Workers at Georgia’s iconic mineral water works haven’t been paid, and dozens were laid off, since the company’s Russian owners fell under American and European sanctions.
Let me state it here, i.e
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I am not calling for the collapse of the Russian Federation — I am predicting it...the disintegration could have been avoided — it would have been enough not to start a war with Ukraine.
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Standing ovation Vladimir Putin. And by the way, here is something else
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That said, almost all empires disappeared in the 20th century, in a process that has been called “decolonization.” Empires were defeated by other types of state: national and federal. Contemporary Russia, a nation-state, calls itself a federation, like Germany or Switzerland, when in fact it is behaving like an empire in its hour of decline.
What is the difference between a federation and an empire? A federation is defined by free entrance and exit of its members. Empires are maintained by force, while federations do not oppose their self-dissolution. In the early 20th century, this was called “the right to self-determination, including secession.” This principle was enshrined in the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, adopted by the Bolsheviks in November 1917. Later it disappeared from constitutional texts.
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Let me run this by you. YOU Putin created the conditions of the breakup of your Kremlin made man Russian Mafioso empire. YOU OWN IT.
https://www.businessinsider.com/nato-rapid-response-unit-announce-expansion-300k-troops-2022-6
quote
NATO to boost rapid-response unit from 40,000 to over 300,000 troops in apparent response to Putin's war
Alexandra Ma?3 hours ago
A Dutch soldier with the NATO Response Force's Very High Readiness Joint Task Force unit in Muenster, Germany, in 2015.?REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay
NATO's chief announced plans to increase its rapid-response unit from 40,000 to 300,000 troops, in a move that appears to be prompted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"We will transform the NATO Reponse Force and increase the number of our high-readiness forces to well over 300,000," Jens Stoltenberg told a press conference in Madrid on Monday, according to Reuters.
The unit was?created after Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine, and was activated for its first collective-defense mission a day after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 this year.
Stoltenberg said the expansion marks the "biggest overhaul" of NATO's defense units since the Cold War, Sky News' Deborah Haynes?reported.
Stoltenberg's comments come days before a NATO summit in Madrid later this week, where the plan will be agreed, Haynes reported.
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Also
https://defence-blog.com/ukraine-may-soon-get-advanced-mid-range-air-defense-system/
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Ukraine may soon get advanced, mid-range air defense system
By
Jun 27, 2022
Modified date:?9 seconds ago
Image by the Finnish Defense Forces
The US government appears close to sending an advanced,medium-range air defense system to Ukraine,?according to a report by CNN Monday.
A source familiar with the decision told CNN?that?Washington plans to announce as soon as this week that it has purchased an advanced, medium-to-long range surface-to-air missile defense system for Ukraine.
However, no details are available as to exactly when the new air defense systems would be delivered.
According to some reports, like one from?The Times of Israel, the US is purchasing NASAMS, a Norwegian-developed anti-aircraft system, to provide medium- to long-range defense.
Just last week, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that his country needs a more modern air defense system after a series of deadly attacks on the capital, Kyiv, as well as the regions of Mykolaiv, Chernihiv and Lviv.
Ukraine operates Soviet-origin air-defense systems and missiles, some of which were donated by neighboring countries.
The Air Defense Systems in the service are aging, and finding spare parts and expertise to keep them in operation has grown harder as time has passed and tensions have risen. Kyiv needs weapons Western-made artillery, drones and air defense weapons to defend itself from Russia’s assault.
If you wish to report grammatical or factual errors within our news articles, you can let us know by using the?online feedback form.
If you would like to show your support for what we are doing, here's where to do it:?patreon.com/defenceblog
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About this Author
U.S. defense journalist and commentator. Aviation photographer. Dylan leads Defence Blog's coverage of global military news, focusing on engineering and technology across the U.S. defense industry.
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https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/06/08/the-future-defederation-of-russia-a77934
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The Future Defederation of Russia
领英推荐
All empires eventually fall apart. The Russian Federation is next.
June 8, 2022
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Moskva News Agency
What happened to the Russian Empire? It disintegrated at the end of an imperialist war. What happened to the Soviet Union? It disintegrated at the end of the Cold War. What will happen to the Russian Federation?
The answer is obvious, even if it saddens many. Russian patriotism is such that even those who do not support the Kremlin regime are not ready to recognize the imperial nature of the present Russian state. Even those who consider the present Russian government unjust, incompetent or simply dangerous believe in the survival of the Russian Federation with its present borders. Even people like me, who wish Ukraine a military victory and the Russian rulers an international trial, are not ready to admit that this will consequently lead to the end of the country itself.
Collapse has long been feared and predicted. It could have been slowed down by taking advantage of the favorable economic situation, by relying on a competent government, a skillful diplomatic game or simply by counting on luck. The ruling party had managed to choose a name that reflected its deep fear of disintegration as well as its lack of other values: “United Russia.”
On the international scene, Russia’s partners did not want this disintegration. Some were grateful to the federation for ending еру dangerous and costly Cold War. Others simply resented the changes, whatever they might be, fearing those more than war itself. The collapse that threatens the federation will not happen because of foreign peoples or governments, but against their will and in contradiction to their predictions. It is likely that it will also happen against the will of the Russian population: such problems are not usually solved by voting.
For a long time — two decades — nothing really significant happened in Russia. Everything changed with the second Russian-Ukrainian war, a war that should never have been started by supporters of the idea of a united Russia. For those concerned about the preservation of the federation, the moment of truth has come.
The era of empires is long gone. The empires of the past collapsed after wars and uprisings and gave birth to a multitude of nation-states that emerged on the ruins of their former colonies. Polish-British writer Joseph Conrad held that there was not a single piece of land in the world that had not been colonized. England, a former Roman colony, became the metropolis of a new empire. Poland, the center of gravity in Eastern Europe, was divided by three hostile states. East Prussia, a former metropolis and the place of royal coronations, became a colony. Earlier, much the same thing had happened to the land of the Tatars. History unfolds without any rules. Empires rise and fall, like waves on a stormy sea.
NEWS
That said, almost all empires disappeared in the 20th century, in a process that has been called “decolonization.” Empires were defeated by other types of state: national and federal. Contemporary Russia, a nation-state, calls itself a federation, like Germany or Switzerland, when in fact it is behaving like an empire in its hour of decline.
What is the difference between a federation and an empire? A federation is defined by free entrance and exit of its members. Empires are maintained by force, while federations do not oppose their self-dissolution. In the early 20th century, this was called “the right to self-determination, including secession.” This principle was enshrined in the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, adopted by the Bolsheviks in November 1917. Later it disappeared from constitutional texts.
Some “composite” federations have disintegrated without the use of force, such as the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. But other cases of disintegration caused civil wars with international interference. This happened earlier in the United States, and it happened before our eyes in Yugoslavia: the forces were unequal, and one party imposed its will on the other. In still other cases, the disintegration was peaceful but wounded pride and aborted ambitions led to deferred violence. This is called revanchism, and it paves the way to a new war.
I am not calling for the collapse of the Russian Federation — I am predicting it, and that makes a difference. Again, the disintegration could have been avoided — it would have been enough not to start a war with Ukraine. But revanchism was stronger than caution. The collapse of this federation — a complex, artificial, highly unequal and increasingly unproductive community — will take place because of its leaders in Moscow, and only because of them. Those who love the federation; those who think that if it were to disappear, people would be worse off; those who see the idea of a united Russia as the main and even the only political value — all should blame those and only those who started this war.
I am not calling for the collapse of the Russian Federation — I am predicting it...the disintegration could have been avoided — it would have been enough not to start a war with Ukraine.
How many parts will the federation break into, and will these parts correspond to the present delimitations of its republics and provinces? In each case, people will decide. At the local level, the existing institutions, leaders and borders will have a role to play in the implementation of the “right to self-determination, including secession.” But there are many other determining factors: economic and cultural, domestic and international. The new states will be diverse: some will be democratic, others authoritarian. All will be linked more to their neighbors, their trading and security partners, than to their old, worn-out and repulsive “kin.”
The territories that belonged to other national entities before becoming part of Russia after the Second World War (East Prussia, parts of Karelia, the Kuril Islands) will leave the federation with undisguised pleasure. Ethnic and religious tensions in particularly complex regions such as the Caucasus may lead to new wars. With the collapse of the federation, social inequalities, a hallmark of Russia in recent decades, will increase further. The provinces producing raw materials will be richer, and other regions will be poorer. Enjoying freedom, their people will show new creativity. They will start trading in what only free societies can create. They will invent their comparative advantages, new and unique.
History will continue. Sooner or later the international community, which does not like upheavals, will take note of the changes and make an effort to avoid bloodshed. At this point a peace conference will be held, modeled after the Paris conference of 1918-1919, organized by the victors of the First World War. Russia, which had signed a separate peace agreement in Brest-Litovsk, was not invited. In the new peace treaty, the neighbors of the new countries will mediate the negotiations: Ukraine, China, Norway, Poland, Finland, Kazakhstan, and others. Historically more successful federations, such as the European Union and the United States, will have their part to play. A new Eurasian Treaty will complete the work begun at Versailles a century ago.
An earlier version of this article was published in?Desk Russie.?
The views expressed in opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the position of The Moscow Times.
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https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/06/08/borjomi-workers-strike-as-georgia-prepares-to-take-over-russian-shares-a77931
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Borjomi Workers Strike as Georgia Prepares To Take Over Russian Shares
Workers at Georgia’s iconic mineral water works haven’t been paid, and dozens were laid off, since the company’s Russian owners fell under American and European sanctions.
Updated:?June 8, 2022
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borjomi.com
Up to 400 workers at Georgia’s Borjomi mineral water factory have gone on strike as the firm’s Russian owner has been hit by sanctions and the company stopped paying salaries.
The Georgian government, meanwhile, says it has worked out a plan to bail out the company by taking over the Russian shares.
Borjomi's salty tasting mineral water is hugely popular across Russia, where it is widely believed to have health benefits.
In late April, Borjomi?announced that it was?halting production, citing disruptions in market access and banking services caused by the war in Ukraine.?
While the company’s mineral water is an iconic Georgian brand, Russia’s Alfa Group owns 60% of its shares. As a result of the Russian invasion the company and its co-founder Mikhail Fridman were hit by American and European sanctions.?
The European Union?said?in its announcement that Fridman had “actively supported materially or financially and benefited from Russian decision-makers responsible for the annexation of Crimea and the destabilization of Ukraine.”
As talks between workers and management failed to find a new arrangement to preserve jobs during the crisis, the company in early May?dismissed a reported 50 employees, most of them production workers, through what the company called a “reorganization.” The labor union argued that the move was a punitive measure against workers who had led a successful strike the year before.?
NEWS
In the meantime, the government and company worked out a plan for the state to take over a portion of the shares – presumably 11% – from Alfa, which would leave the majority of the shares in non-sanctioned hands. Georgian media have reported that the remaining 40% of the company shares are owned by the family of late Georgian billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili, which sold the controlling share of the stocks to Alfa in 2013.?
“The state will become a co-owner of Borjomi, which will solve this problem,” Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said during a government session?on June 6. Garibashvili said that the Ministry of the Economy had “practically” concluded the talks with IDS Borjomi and the issue would be discussed during a government session the following week.
Garibashvili made a similar promise on May 21, two days after the company?announced?that, following negotiations, it had presented the Georgian government with “a formal offer to grant part of its shares free of charge.” Without specifying the number of shares it was ready to give away, the company said that the move would “enable the government of Georgia to take part in managing the international company.”
The prime minister then mentioned a figure of “roughly $100 million worth” of shares that the company was ready to grant the government, which he said would help the company continue to operate without disruptions.
But Garibashvili then headed overseas for visits to Jordan, Israel and Slovakia, and with no deal in place and salaries still not being paid, workers at the plant took action.
About 400 workers went on strike on May 31, with?demands?including reinstatement of the dismissed workers, salary payments, indefinite contracts, pay raises and a collective agreement.?
Workers “haven’t been paid salaries for two months, they have unlawfully dismissed 50 employees, they force, blackmail and threaten the employees into accepting and agreeing to exploitative conditions,” Giorgi Diasamidze, head of a union representing Borjomi workers, said as he?addressed striking workers?on June 6.?
The strike came as the company?announced?it had resumed production in small volumes, primarily to supply the Georgian market.?
Also on June 6, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Affairs?said?it was assigning the state Labor Inspectorate and a mediator to try to negotiate an agreement between workers and management.
The company said in a?statement?that it was willing to cooperate with the Inspectorate but cited “extremely limited financial resources” and “challenges the company is facing amid imposed sanctions, frozen [bank] accounts, and complicated access to markets.”
IDS Borjomi International, which also operates water businesses in Russia and Ukraine, runs two factories in Georgia through its subsidiary employing over 600 people, half of them production workers. In total, more than 1,000 workers were expected to lose their jobs should the business stop working, company officials have said.
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Andrew Beckwith, PhD