EDITORIAL: Vladimir Putin, on the Take

EDITORIAL

Vladimir Putin, on the Take

We recently published a Special Extra post which contained a translation of an item from the Russian web.  In it, a Russian website interviewed a high-ranking Russian corruption investigator who revealed shocking details about his investigation of Vladimir Putin for personal corruption while Putin was serving in the government of St. Petersburg.

In an almost casual fashion, as if it were obvious to everyone, the investigator reveals that Putin had both hands in the cookie jar of budget revenues in Piter.  And, of course, to any human with a brain it is obvious. How else would Putin be able to afford to sport expensive watches and live in a network of palaces that span the globe?  And if Putin were not personally corrupt, how could corruption flourish so openly in Russia, so that Transparency International routinely finds Russia to be the single most corrupt major civilization on this planet?

The fact that Putin’s personal corruption is so well documented, even in Russia itself, just goes to prove that Russians approve of it, just as they approve of Putin’s brutal crackdown on democratic values, including his brazen murder of political opponents like Starovoitova, Politkovskaya, Estemirova and Markelov. Indeed, we recently reported on the fact that a new arrest in the Politkovskaya case clearly shows the involvement of high-level Russian law enforcement in her killing.

There is only one word for people who would not just tolerate but encourage corruption of this kind by their leaders:  Barbaric.  It seems that Russians view corruption as an ideal, something they themselves aspire to, and look up to Putin for doing it so well.  Maybe it’s the main reason for Putin’s widespread popularity, maybe Russians are carefully taking notes so that one day they too can hope to steal just as much and kill just as many as their beloved leader.

During the era of Stalin, many in the outside world chose to see Russians as being the victims of Stalin just like they were. But what if those people were wrong. What if Russians didn’t oppose Stalin (in fact, of course, there never was any significant uprising against him). What if Russians supported Stalin, saw him as one of their own, and wanted him to go on stealing from them and killing their neighbors just as long as he possibly could?

That would explain, of course, why so many Russians turned in their neighbors, and why Stalin lasted so long. It would explain why Russians quickly chose to hand power back to the KGB after the USSR collapsed.  In today’s issue, a well-known Russian film director emphatically states that Russians simply do not have respect for the lives of their fellow citizens, and that would explain why Russia is such a brutal place, with a world-leading murder rate and horrifically poor levels of cooperation and production.

It would explain why the USSR collapsed in failure, and why Russia is on the fast-track to do the same.

We condemn the craven actions of the people of Russia in looking the other way as their “president” and “prime minister” steals them blind. We condemn them for condemning their children to repeat the horror of the USSR, living in a country permeated by lies and corruption, a country hellbent on self-destruction.  And we call upon the leaders of the Western world to confront Russian corruption and demand that the country produce a civilized government, before it is too late.


24 responses to “EDITORIAL: Vladimir Putin, on the Take

  1. Putin and his electorate:

    • Good thing she’s a very special little old lady with quick fingers and fast feet, able to vote several million times in a 24-hour period!

      • In the 2004, the Ukrainian Supreme Court overturned the fraudulent election. About two million (2,000,000) dead people voted for Yanukovych with their Soviet passports. After-witch, only Ukrainian passports were allowed to vote. Now, Russians get Ukrainian passports.

        In 2004, they wanted to open hundreds (100,s) of polling places in Russia for the elections in Ukraine, but when the Ukrainian people opposed this devious venture, the plan never materialized.

        • What does it mean “to vote with passports?”

          • In some CIS countries (can’t speak for all) passport is generally required to get ballot paper. Though I’m not from Ukraine and I don’t know to what extent received ballot becomes attached to voter’s passport number there.

            • Yes, it is an ID card, also called an internal passport, as opposed to the passport used for international travel.

              • I see, one has to show an ID to get a ballot. Would be quite a controversial practice in most places in the U.S., but I think it’s not a bad idea if one wants to reduce voting fraud. Thanks

  2. Cannot help but notice how cleanly and tidily she is dressed.

    Who pays her, but her idol Putin, and I wonder here her husband and or children are? Oh, but of course they are employed by that evil organization, the KGB.

    I’ll also bet that as the time progresses she will be joined by countless other paid babushkas, so that the chairs are all be occupied in time for his i.e. Putin’s televised entrance and worthless speech.

    • Didn’t get the KGB part, but I believe there are much simpler considerations why she is there sitting like that: she simply got problem with her head :-)

  3. Stalin to appear on russian school notebooks, together with folks like Mao and Lenin (video):
    http://www.5-tv.ru/news/45278/
    The video says, new notebooks enjoy a surprisingly great deal of success.

  4. Europe Home
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    8 September 2011 Last updated at 11:51 ET Share this pageEmail Print Share this page

    9ShareFacebookTwitterBad year for Russian crashesBy Pavel Aksenov

    BBC Russian, Moscow
    A plane crash in Petrozavodsk in June killed 44 people Continue reading the main story
    Related Stories
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    The crash of a plane carrying the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team is the latest in an extraordinary number of air accidents in Russia this year.

    Air safety has been notoriously bad in Russia – but it had seemed to be improving.

    Since the beginning of the year at least 15 Russian planes have crashed, killing 120 people – and these figures only relate to civilian flights.

    That is a 53% increase in crashes, and a fourfold increase in deaths, compared to the same period last year, according to Russia’s deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov.

    The first accident of 2011 happened as early as News Year’s Day, when a Tupolev 154 airliner operated by Kogalymavia burned on the ground at the airport in Surgut, central Russia.

    In April, President Dmitry Medvedev criticised the aircraft industry and called for the updating of the country’s civilian fleet.

    Later, he urged the ministry of transport to consider withdrawing dated Tupolev-134 and Antonov-24 planes from use in regular passenger flights.

    Experts say many other types of old Soviet aircraft should also be withdrawn from use. Among those are Tupolev-154, Antonov-12 and Mi-8.

    One recently crashed Mi-8 helicopter had been in operation since 1977. At the time of the disaster it had not reached its official end of service.

    On the other hand, experts say, planes are usually built to last for several decades, and most crashes are caused by human error.

    Maintenance issues

    “You can fly a plane even if it’s 40 years old,” says veteran Soviet pilot Oleg Smirnov. “As long as you maintain it properly.”

    The majority of Russian air disasters, Mr Smirnov believes, happen because airlines’ determination to cut costs.

    Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency has said that, from 1 January 2012, only airlines operating 10 or more planes will be allowed to operate long-distance passenger flights. In 2013 that number is to double.

    Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov has welcomed the proposal.

    President Medvedev agrees as well. “The situation with civilian aircraft industry has to change dramatically,” he said, speaking in Yaroslavl on Wednesday.

    But the pilot Oleg Smirvov is convinced that simply forcing the air companies to become bigger is not enough to ensure the safety of flights. “Large carriers also have crashes,” he points out.

    Mr Smirnov suggests the government should enforce strict regulations on the carriers “so they can’t afford to make money by sparing people’s lives”.

    As for its aircraft fleet, Russia has recently been making an effort to update it.

    The Russian super jet RRJ-100 is about to go into mass production, as well as the cargo planes An-148 and An-158, made as a joint effort by Russia and Ukraine.

    But the majority of planes operated by Russian airliners are still the old vehicles built in Soviet times, as well as dated foreign liners.

  5. Europe court: Russia violated rights of Yukos (updated)

    Today at 16:17 | Associated Press

    The court has repeatedly found Russia in violation of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights, and deals with more cases involving Russia than any other country.

    Read more:

    http://www.kyivpost.com/news/russia/detail/113153/#ixzz1YV9JojiN

  6. It is a sad blog.

    LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:

    You’re right, and that’s because Russia is a sad country, destroying itself.

    And you are sad, because you spend time commenting on it, right?

    • DjekVosmerkin,

      Why is it “a sad blog,”?? because it states the truth about your beloved neo soviet (read fascist) Russia?

      Ah well get used to the truth, as the sooner you ‘face the music’ the better for you. But you have to always remember that the truth does hurt in truthful circumstances,

  7. Suicide in Russian Army.

    Warning: The following blog post contains pictures which are dangerous to be viewed by children or women.

    http://tinyurl.com/3na3wd7

    • Rape in the US army.

      http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/01/26/13rd-of-women-in-us-military-raped/

      http://www.katiehalper.com/do-rape-don039t-tell-women-us-army-more-likely-get-raped-killed

      http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2010/12/2010122182546344551.html

      Warning: sources above contain statistics that may be dangerous to be viewed by US female army recruits and their future children. Some of the sources are dangerous to be seen by male US army recruits too.

      • Is this what happened to you Dtard?

        Were Russian soldiers forced into prostitution?
        Prosecutors to investigate latest claim of rampant abuse in nation’s military

        http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17121117/

        Russian army plagued with sex slavery and male prostitution
        15.02.2007

        According to the UN International Panel for Struggle against Sexual Exploitation, the Russian army is plagued with male prostitution. A small amount of money is enough to find a Russian soldier-prostitute in the center of Moscow.

        Servicemen may become male prostitutes in the Russian army for various reasons. There are young men who voluntarily offer sexual favors to their homosexual clients; others are forced into prostitution against their own will. Newcomers, especially those who finished higher schools before joining the army, suffer from sexual harassment more often than others. Brave soldiers try to protect their honor and rights, although there is no one to help them: commanders and military officials may often be involved in the sex business too.

        “When I was standing on duty, two bullies came up to me and shoved me into the stockroom, a soldier serving at one of Moscow’s military units recollects. “They raped me there in turn. It was very painful and revolting. It didn’t take them much time to finish, but the next day I started noticing other soldiers giving me strange looks. I instantly realized that those bastards let everyone know what they had done to me. An officer came up to me one day and said to me point-blank: “Tomorrow you will to serve two clients.” I knew that if I said “no” then I would spend my last days spitting blood. But still, I told him “no.” When the officer heard that, he pulled out pictures of me being raped in the stockroom. “If you don’t serve the clients, you mother will see these pictures,” said he. I was forced into prostitution,” the soldier said.

        Another serviceman, named only as Ilya, became a male prostitute during his second month in the army. The young man received a letter from his girlfriend. “The sergeant told me that day that I would no longer need girls. He and three other men forced me to go behind the barracks to the abandoned construction site. They made me kneel their, tied me up to a lamppost and hit me several times in the groin. The pain was so strong that I lost the will to fight them back. They made me open my mouth and raped me. I don’t remember how long it continued. When I came to my senses I didn’t want to live. I was seriously thinking about committing suicide. I was shocked that the rapists were visiting me regularly afterwards bringing fruit and vodka for me. When it ended they made me a prostitute,” Ilya said.

        There were many incidents when soldiers prefer bid farewell to their lives being unable to cope with humiliation. However, military officials mostly say that such stories occur because of the unbalanced state of mind of the soldiers.

        Solder Aleksey I. from the town of Taganrog was also going to commit suicide. He wrote a letter to his mother before: “Hello Mum. I have been raped like a whore. I have decided to kill myself. Please forgive me. I will hang myself, and nobody will call me a whore ever again. If I find out that my younger brothers will serve in the army too, I will curse you. I don’t want to live like a faggot. I hate myself.” The man’s attempt to commit suicide failed. He is now a patient of a hospital for mentally unbalanced individuals.

        Pimps in uniform aim at bringing a person down and humiliating him. If they succeed, they make a soldier become either a passive or an active male prostitute (an active one is more expensive). Prostitute soldiers are divided into three groups in Russia: the secluded, the street boys and the affiliated.

        Street boys are the most common and cheapest male prostitutes in the Russian army. They can be found in many places of Moscow during weekends. When on a leave warrant, the street boys wander about the capital looking for clients and offering sex services to them. They can be basically found in the center of Moscow: on Tverskaya Street, on the square in front of the Pushkinsky Cinema and in the Alexandrov Garden near the Red Square. Sometimes they can be found on railway stations too. They try to guess the sexual orientation of a potential client and approach him asking for a cigarette or a little money. Sometimes they ask to use a cell phone to make one single call home. Just a little attention to such a soldier is enough to make him start seducing the client. The conversation mostly ends with a quick oral action in a toilet nearby.

        “The street boys don’t ask for much money. The majority of them come to Moscow from Russia’s provinces. They are ready to do anything for a bowl of soup or a cigarette,” a client (he asked to call him Igor) said. “When they return to the military unit, they share their earnings with bullies, who in their turn share with officers,” the man said.

        Unlike street boys, the secluded do not spend their time rambling about Moscow and looking for clients. They gather in certain places of which their potential clients know – for example the monument to heroes of Plevna, otherwise known as Pleshka.

        Pleshka is the most notorious place in the Moscow homosexual environment. Gays can be spotted their all day long, although gay prostitutes and their pimps appear in the evening time. Some of them put on military uniform and pretend to be soldiers. Such a “professional” asks for $300, although a genuine military man on Pleshka charges only 20-30 dollars.

        The so-called affiliated army prostitutes make the biggest earnings in comparison with the two of the above-mentioned groups. They “serve” in their own military units waiting for clients in the barracks.

        Finding an agent to establish a contact with army prostitutes is very easy. There are several websites on the Russian Internet that carry quite a list of adequate advertisements. However, going on a gay adventure in the military can be a risky endeavor. It is strongly recommended not to show money to soldiers before sex. “If they see the money they may kill you without giving it a second thought. Five hundred rubles ($20) is a whole fortune in the army,” a man who wished to remain anonymous said.

        http://english.pravda.ru/society/stories/15-02-2007/87441-army_prostitute-0/

      • But wait, there is more!

      • And more!!!

        Russian soldiers ‘used for sex’

        The Russian military is reported to be investigating claims that army conscripts were forced to work as male prostitutes in St Petersburg.
        The command of the interior ministry unit denied the claims made by the Soldiers’ Mothers human rights group.

        The group says it was contacted by a parent of a conscript who had been forced to work as a male prostitute.

        Last year, an 18-year-old soldier was so badly beaten that he had to have his legs and genitals amputated.

        The BBC’s James Rodgers in Moscow says the latest claims follow a series of scandals which have damaged the Russian army’s reputation.

        A spokeswoman for the Soldiers’ Mothers, Ella Polyakova, told the BBC that in St Petersburg there was “a network of clients” who would pay for sex with soldiers.

        Older servicemen are said to have forced younger conscripts into prostitution and then taken the money for themselves.

        Brutality

        The Sychev bullying case drew worldwide attention to Russian army abuses.

        Private Andrei Sychev was forced to squat for several hours by fellow soldiers and then tied to a chair and brutally beaten up last year.

        As a result he developed gangrene in his legs and genitals, which had to be amputated.

        Now permanently disabled, Pte Sychev has just announced that he is to write a book about his ordeal.

        Such cases have highlighted the appalling conditions suffered by some Russian service personnel at a time when Russia is seeking a greater role on the world stage, our correspondent says.

        http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6356707.stm

        The case of rapes of women in the US Military is a crime, but one that is actually dealt with, it is also not considered to be common behavior.

        The rape of men and women, physical abuse and being forced into prostitution to feed the perverse exploitative Russian sexual culture of scum like Dtard is normal in the Russian military.

        • “The case of rapes of women in the US Military is a crime, but one that is actually dealt with, it is also not considered to be common behavior.”

          Andrew, did you miss that I was sending sources that stated “1/3 of the US army” was raped? And that both *cases* of rape you mentioned are investigated? And can you imagine investigating into a rape of 1/3 of the US army?

          Can you read there at all?

          • “Newsjunkiepost”?

          • Oh, and Dima, it was about allegations regarding 30% of WOMEN veterans in the US Army. I’m not sure how you missed the fact it was about women only, with “women” even in your own links. “Can you read there at all?”

            And just how some “and in America they beat the negroes” makes you somehow okay with the rape and other abuse of your fellow Russian conscripts, and suicide, and poverty, and everyhing else? I just don’t get it. If, say, there was some horrific police brutality taking place my country, I can’t imagine being deflecting it by the fact that in Russia most people fear the police! Did you see any kind of “but in Russian they beat the negroes” (and they do) in response to Abu Ghraib scandal, or the bungled handling hurricane Katrina? What the hell is wrong with you?

  8. maziliteralworks

    Despotic Putin misunderstood Russian Dynamism,will face disgraceful humiliation/forced Exit.As he has technically only one term PM left and Medvedev has one term Presidency,whether Putin is a strong KGB Boss or not, or whether you can force with threat or not,the truth will confront him badly and he will loose to Russia as Russia has great history where in past strong kings were overthrew and forced into exile.

    Since, Russians belongs to European Stocks, which bears the known cradles of modern civilization,despite its Communism or Socialist background and definitely the Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin whose political attempts to despotically impose himself as a self acclaimed KGB Strong man with his foisted Russian State Duma and Moscow Kremlin cow, intimidate,maneuver and manipulate Russians into submission as to run and rule Russia for 3rd and 4th Russian President, will lead him to bloody confrontation and disgraceful humiliation.

    Russia was known to be ruled by exploitative Emperors/Kings during red capitalism in past,but Russians used Communism or Socialism as running point to drove away their Emperors/Kings to exile,and any attempt to draw Russia back to one man feudalism,will backfire with dire consequences.

    It is making mockery out of Russia State, for a Russian President to be seen to coarse to tow and act Putin’s script under Putin well organized security controlled threat and what will happen to other ordinary Russian?, which ironically means no true freedom in Russia and without Freedom, there could no meaningful development and realization of the expectant Russian target.

    The World and Russians should use Media and Advice to counsel Putin to toe the right path of modernism and not to return Russia to ugly past of feudalism or Autocrat Capitalism.

    View my articles on these websites:

    http://www.maziliteralworks.wordpress.com

    http://www.maziliteralworks.blogspot.com

    Regards

    Mazi Patrick
    Historian, Thinker & Writer
    email:akwaba2000@gmail.com
    Mazi literal works is an African literal Organization based in political/historical writing and international Research.

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