Tag Archives: Vladimir Putin

International news

Biden shows ‘temper’?

Can the Russian media flacks say anything more ridiculous than what they have declared about President Biden’s comments today about thug/despot/tyrant Vladimir Putin?

The Kremlin issued a statement in which it criticized the president for flashing a “temper.” Why? Because Joe Biden called Putin precisely what he is: a butcher.

President Biden is choosing to avoid mincing words as he travels through Europe. For the record, he also declared that Putin shouldn’t be allowed to continue ruling Russia; the president in effect called for “regime change” in Moscow.

To be clear, the president of the United States is not about to launch a coup attempt against Putin. However, the U.S. president clearly is pissed off at the conduct of the Russian dictator over the Russians’ unprovoked attack and invasion of Ukraine.

Joe Biden reportedly wants Russia kicked out of the G-20 international group aimed at fostering economic cooperation among the world’s wealthiest nations. That reportedly will be a difficult mission to accomplish, according to media reports. However, it is becoming clearer by the hour that Vladimir Putin has isolated himself from most of the rest of the world … by “butchering” innocent civilians through indiscriminate bombing and artillery attacks on soft targets in Ukraine.

That the U.S. president would call him a “butcher” is not a sign of a lost temper. It is a clear signal of President Biden’s realistic view of Vladimir Putin.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Putin: ‘war criminal’

Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin are not going to exchange Christmas cards this year, or probably for as long as either of them is alive.

The president of the United States has accused the Russian thug/strongman/despot/dictator of being a “war criminal” on the basis of his armed forces’ indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine.

Yep. Vladimir Putin fits the description that President Biden has hung around his neck.

The man has committed crimes against humanity. He has killed children in his effort to pummel Ukraine into submission. Putin’s artillery and air force have bombed schools, a maternity hospital, churches, shopping malls, apartment complexes. These all are places where children hide to get away from the carnage that is befallen them.

Donald Trump once proclaimed his desire to make nice with Putin and with Russia. The Russians led by Putin have destroyed any possible warming of relations with the United States, not to mention with the rest of the world through their unprovoked and brutal invasion of Ukraine, a sovereign nation.

For his part, Joe Biden is punishing Putin with economic sanctions that threaten to relegate Russia to Third World status. Keep applying the pressure, Mr. President.

Oh, and be sure you take Vladimir Putin off your Christmas card list.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news, military news

Is the Russian ‘bear’ without teeth?

Can it possibly be that the supposedly vaunted Russian military machine is, well, not so vaunted after all? Or that the Russian “bear” is a critter without teeth?

We hear reports of the Russian assault on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and how it is stalling, and that Russia is having difficulty resupplying the troops who are caught in the offensive that isn’t making much progress.

CNN.com reports that “thousands of Russian troops” have died in the month-long invasion of Ukraine. The Russians aren’t having the battlefield success we all believed was theirs for the taking.

Then again, few of us foresaw the fight that the Ukrainians would put up even in defense of their homeland against the Russian aggressors.

CNN reports: One such assessment found that approximately 7,000 Russian troops have been killed so far, said one of the sources. But that figure, first reported by The New York Times, is on the higher end of US estimates, which vary because the US and its allies have no precise way of counting casualties. Some estimates place the number of Russian troops killed in Ukraine at about 3,000, whereas others suggest more than 10,000 have been killed.

Are the Russians going to run up the white flag of surrender, flee back to Moscow, lick their wounds and let Ukraine declare victory? I don’t believe that will happen.

Although I do believe Russia is going to pay a grievous price for Vladimir Putin’s desire to expand the nation’s empire.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Yep, Putin’s a killer

Bill O’Reilly, the one-time Fox News commentator, once famously asked Donald J. Trump whether Vladimir Putin is a “killer.” The Donald offered a typically stupid response.

He said the world is “full of killers,” and then said the United States has killed people, too.

The Donald couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge the obvious, that his pal Vladimir Putin is a killer and that he deserved worldwide recrimination for his history of mass mayhem and misery.

Now comes the news we see pouring out of Ukraine. The armed forces that Putin commands are killing innocent people every hour of every day. Children are dying from bombs and artillery blasts. So are women, including pregnant women. Russian propagandists deny that Russian troops are targeting hospitals, except the videos being broadcast from the field of battle tell they are doing exactly that.

Hey, we all know we’re dealing with a killer. Never mind the brainless responses of The Donald to a perfectly succinct and cogent question.

We know the nature of the individual with whom we must deal. It gives me some hope — fragile though it feels at this moment — that the global knowledge of this man’s past and now his present will condemn him to a future of scorn and condemnation.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

War won’t end well for Putin

Make no mistake about it: whichever way the war in Ukraine ends — whether it’s a total Russian victory or somehow Ukraine manages to broker some sort of standoff — the conclusion won’t end well for Vladimir Putin.

I say that because of the reports we are hearing from the battlefield of atrocities being committed by Russian troops against Ukrainians.

Putin stepped in it big time with his unprovoked attack on Ukraine and his phony assertions about the peril felt by Russian citizens living within Ukraine’s borders, or his bizarre claim that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is some sort of neo-Nazi. It has only gotten worse for Putin.

His troops have shelled soft targets, killing civilians, including women and children. He should stand trial for war crimes when the fighting stops. If the Kremlin killer unleashes chemical weapons, well, that would produce another atrocity for which he must be held accountable.

Putin is losing the propaganda war outside of Russia. Indeed, he might even have a tenuous hold in the country he governs with his iron fists and boots … given the street protests that have erupted in places like Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The end might produce a military victory — of sorts! — for Putin and his thugs, but it is looking all the more to me as though he will finish this aggression as a net loser among the worldwide community of nations.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news, International news

What else can we do?

President Biden is putting Vladimir Putin on notice: If the Russians deploy chemical weapons on Ukrainians fighting Russians in defense of their country, they will face “severe consequences.”

Now, I don’t expect the president to divulge what those consequences will entail before implementing them in the event the Russians resort to that hideous tactic. However, I am curious as to what precisely the United States can do to Russia that is more severe than what it has done already … short of launching a military counterattack.

Biden is adamant that U.S. forces will not engage Russians on the battlefield. So that’s not an option. At least that is my hope.

What’s next? What can we do? I am not in a position to speculate. Closing down our embassy in Moscow won’t amount to more than spitting into the wind. Kicking every Russian citizen out of this country won’t matter, either.

It appears to me that we already have levied severe consequences on Russia for its unprovoked aggression against a neighboring sovereign nation. Russian currency is worthless; Russians can’t export their oil to many nations that consume it; Russian assets are frozen around the world; Biden has delivered stern notice that an attack on any NATO nation will ignite a third world war.

I am not going to say that a chemical attack is coming simply because there is nothing else we can do to punish Putin and his thuggish partners in the Kremlin. I just hope that whatever President Biden has up his sleeve is going to matter and that Putin might be able to regret the next move he might want to take.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Sanctions should tighten

I won’t pretend that Ukraine has any realistic chance of actually defeating Russia on the battlefield. I can read reports as well as anyone and I am aware of how the Russian forces are advancing on the Ukrainian capital city.

It won’t be an easy conquest. It will be bloody, and it will cost a lot of Russian lives along with Ukrainian lives.

Whether the Russians form a pro-Moscow puppet government in Kyiv remains to be determined. Whatever the outcome, I am sure that President Biden will only tighten the screws even more on the Russian economy, which isn’t any great shakes, even with all that oil that Russia produces.

Are we going to continue to pay more for fuel? You bet we are. I am convincing myself today and likely longer into the future that this is going to become another “new normal.” We had better prepare for paying more to fuel our motor vehicles, heat our homes and light our backyard grills.

Vladimir Putin, the monster who runs Russia, likely will win the battle on the field. He won’t win any hearts of anyone who believes as I do that he is an abhorrent aggressor. Yes, he has his friends in dark states such as North Korea, Syria and Belarus.

I do not expect Putin and President Biden ever will meet to talk about mutual trade agreements or even to discuss arms control. The die is cast and Putin has acted as a man with no conscience. He is a heartless killer who has earned our eternal scorn.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

War brings so much pain

I detest writing about war, even though in my many years as a print journalist I haven’t had much exposure to the varied human conflicts that have at times swirled around us.

That all said, the Ukraine-Russia war has consumed a good bit of everyone’s attention for the past two-plus weeks. The Russians invaded Ukraine in an unprovoked act of aggression; they intend to take the country back from the independence it has enjoyed since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. It is a disgraceful display of bullying by the Russian dictator/despot Vladimir Putin.

The Russians now have selected “soft” targets, such as hospitals and schools. They have targeted civilians such as women and children. They have earned every ounce of scorn that the world is heaping on them and is heaping specifically on Putin.

The good news, if you want to call it that, is that Ukraine is not rolling over. The Ukrainians are putting up a hell of a fight against superior enemy forces. All the while, Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are standing tall while Putin withers and shrinks in public stature.

History well might write a compelling chapter about Zelenskyy when this fight finally ends. Think of it: a young man who built a career as a comedian and actor is thrust into the Ukrainian presidency, only to become a central figure in the first impeachment of a U.S. president, who tried to persuade Zelenskyy to dig up dirt on a presidential opponent here at home; the president escaped conviction in the U.S. Senate, but Zelenskyy’s role in that impeachment was set in stone.

Now his legacy is being burnished by the courage he is displaying by staying in the Ukraine capital of Kyiv, seeking to rally his constituents to fight with him.

I am going to pray constantly for a relatively quick end to this conflict, as it taxes my emotions even sitting in the peanut gallery far from the fighting. I don’t give a damn what might happen to Putin in its aftermath, but I give plenty of a damn about the future of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He deserves the highest praise possible from an anxious world awaiting the outcome of this aggression.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Putin won’t surrender, however …

Let’s not be swept away by reports of how Russian invaders are being “bogged down” in their advance toward key cities in Ukraine as this hideous ground war slogs on.

The Russian army is not about to raise the white flag of surrender, accept terms dictated by Ukraine and then skulk back across the border to the Motherland. However …

This is not to dismiss the tons of good will and support that is falling on the Ukrainians who are fighting for their lives and for the life of their sovereign country. The love is coming from throughout the world.

President Biden is tightening the economic screws on Russia, its oligarchs and certainly on the dictator, Vladimir Putin, who well might have reached a bit beyond his grasp by invading Ukraine in an effort to reel the nation back into what is left of the Russian empire.

Intelligence reports tell us of morale problems among Russian soldiers who marched into Ukraine believing it would be a cakewalk. We hear about Ukrainian forces shooting down Russian aircraft (fixed-wing and helicopters). The ghastliest reports of all tell us of Russian ordnance falling on hospitals, schools, houses of worship, inflicting grievous casualties on helpless civilians, including children.

Vladimir Putin doesn’t strike me as someone who gives a sh** about worldwide public opinion. He damn sure should care, though, about the opinion of Russians who hear the bad news from the media about what is going on in Ukraine.

Will the Russian populace rise up to protest what the strongman is doing? How inept leadership has relegated Russia to third-rate economic power status?

I don’t expect Putin to end the monstrous invasion in the next day or two. The longer this man’s military cluster-hump goes on, though, the worse he looks. As near as I can tell, Putin’s ego cannot tolerate the battering it is taking as the invasion he launched continues to fall short of the expectation he set for it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news, International news

Get set to pay … a lot!

I am swallowing hard as I ponder what I want to say about this, but … here goes. I am ready to pay a lot more for motor fuel if a U.S. ban on Russian oil can bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

President Biden is set to announce a total cutoff of crude oil from Russia. The announcement will come later today, just as the president comes to Fort Worth to talk about veterans’ issues.

Gosh, do you think he’ll field any questions about the Russian oil ban? More to the point, do you think he’ll answer them?

The POTUS has been getting plenty of pressure to “do more” to make the Russians come to what’s left of their senses. The dictator Vladimir Putin has launched a full-scale, unprovoked, bloody and senseless attack on a sovereign nation at Russia’s doorstep. Oil revenue is funding this invasion. The United States happens to be a prime consumer of Russian oil.

President Biden is about to tell the world that the nation he governs is no longer going to purchase that fossil fuel. The consequence undoubtedly will be a continued spike in the price of petroleum products.

I am prepared to pay it if it helps bring an end to the bloodshed.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com