Tag Archives: Vladimir Putin

The moment still sickens me

Time for an admission, which is that every reference to the 2016 presidential election outcome fills me with the same level of revulsion I felt when the TV networks called it for the former Moron in Chief.

Case in point: I just finished watching a nine-part Netflix documentary series on the cold war, titled, “Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War.” It is well-done, thorough and it walks us through the period from World War II to the present day. The images from Hiroshima and Nagasaki are heart-breaking and stark, to be sure.

Then it walks us to the here and now. The Soviet Union has imploded and the new president, Vladimir Putin, is filled with delusions of grandeur and longs for a return to the Stalinesque era of repression.

He invades Ukraine in February 2022 and there he is, plastered on the TV screen, along with the 45th POTUS and his buddy-buddy relationship with Putin.

Netflix felt obliged to show the candidate-to-be riding down the escalator in the office tower that bears is name with his wife to announce his run for the presidency. It also replayed the moment when the GOP nominee was declared the winner of the 2016 contest.

So help me, I cannot help but feel sickened beyond measure at the idea of replaying that scenario this coming November.

The documentary made no editorial comment on what occurred in 2016. The producers delivered it straight and for that I applaud them.

Critics of this blog accuse me of suffering from the “Derangement Syndrome” associated with the once and likely future GOP presidential nominee. I plead guilty! Yes, I suffer from it.

But … so should all Americans who give a damn about preserving democracy and scorning the dictatorial impuses of the moron who aspires to re-take control of our nuclear arsenal.

Attack NATO allies? Seriously?

The former POTUS continues to spew garbage from his overfed pie hole. Consider this little gem.

He was campaigning the other day and said out loud that he would encourage Russian despot/dictator/dipshit Vladimir Putin to attack our NATO allies … namely those of them that haven’t been paying their “fair share” to protect Europe against Russian aggression.

Think of this for just a moment — that’s all it’ll take — to ponder the effect of such an action. It would trigger World War III, pure and simple. There’s a clause in the NATO treaty that declares that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all the nations. It would require a military response.

Is there any more reason to realize how utterly unfit for office this idiot is? That he must never again be allowed near the Oval Office?

This is a dangerous man who continues to reap support among most Republican Party primary voters. He and those who endorse his rants are certifiable lunatics.

We cannot hold Ukraine aid hostage

The United States has gone all in on aid to Ukraine as it defends itself against Russian aggression. Therefore, it is imperative that congressional Republicans stop holding our aid to Ukraine hostage to security issues relating to our own border.

They are jeopardizing our standing as the world’s leading defender of democracy as it seeks in Ukraine to fend off the advances of the autocracy run by Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.

Of course, that seems to matter little to the MAGA crowd that calls the cadence for Republicans to follow. The MAGA cultists have swallowed the poison blathered by Donald Trump who continues to extol the “virtues” of Putin’s alleged toughness.

What’s at stake is the possible involvement of NATO nations in a ground war with Russia if Putin decides to extend his territorial land grab to nations that belong to NATO. Were that to happen, then, well … all hell is going to break loose in eastern Europe.

Do we really want that to happen? Do we really want to send U.S. forces into battle with Russians, which would appear to be imperative if Russia attacks a NATO nation? We have that clause in the treaty that declares that an attack on one NATO state is an attack on the entire organization.

We cannot possibly in good conscience turn away from helping Ukraine defend its sovereignty against a foreign aggressor, which attacked Ukraine without provocation more than a year ago.

Putin is an evil despot whose misadventure in Ukraine must be stopped. Period!

That the GOP would seek to hold our assistance hostage to an unrelated issue is unconscionable on its face.

How much can Russians take?

It’s fair to ask of our fellow travelers who happen to live in Russia: How much more of their country’s squalid leadership can they take as they watch their young soldiers get slaughtered in Ukraine?

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin launched an illegal and immoral war against Ukraine in February 2022. He reportedly expected a quick-and-dirty finish to the conflict, with the Ukrainians buckling under the weight of the vastly superior Russian army.

Not so fast. It damn sure didn’t happen.

Now the Ukrainians have launched their long-anticipated “counter offensive” and have retaken much of the land captured by Russian troops.

Putin’s armed forces have performed miserably. Putin surely must know it. Every international observer worth a damn has declared the Russian effort a tactical defeat for Putin.

Back to my question …

Russians cannot possibly be so gullible that they believe the propaganda put forth from the Kremlin about the so-called “success” of the military effort in Ukraine. They have access to worldwide media accounts that tell a stark story of incompetence, malfeasance, desertion among the troops and draftees fleeing the country to avoid conscription into the Russian army.

It all makes me wonder just how much longer Putin can continue to (mis)manage this conflict.

He is being offered a bitter but nonetheless important lesson, which tells him something like this: You do not invade another sovereign country expecting it to roll over just because you demand it. 

The Russians should have learned that lesson already in Afghanistan. It reminds me of the truism about “those who fail to learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them.”

Putin gets his payback

Yevgeny Prigozhin seems to have died in a plane crash today.

I say “seems” because Russian authorities haven’t yet declared that he is indeed one of the 10 people who died when the plane plummeted to the ground.

Who is this guy? Two months ago, he mounted a mutiny against Russian strongman Vladimir Putin with his mercenary army  marching within spitting distance of Moscow. Prigozhin called off his challenge to Putin, retreated to Belarus, and then Putin declared that he wouldn’t exact any punishment against Prigozhin.

Then this happened. Coincidence? Hardly!

The death of this thoroughly bad actor shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone. Putin’s promise to let Prigozhin live on was pure BS and those who follow Kremlin intrigue knew it when Putin made the declaration.

I am not mourning Prigozhin’s apparent demise. I am just aghast that Vladimir Putin would follow the script from which he has been reading once again … while the world is watching how he is prosecuting an illegal and immoral war against Ukraine.

Putin commits No. 1 blunder

In the annals of strategic blunders, it appears to me that an all-time mess-up might have been committed by Russian dictator/tyrant/goon Vladimir Putin.

He invaded Ukraine in February 2022 thinking the war would be brief, that he would install a puppet government in Kyiv, he could bring his troops home, he could force NATO to fall apart and could have his way in that part of Europe.

Wrong!

President Joe Biden declared this week on his trip to Lithuania and then to Helsinki, Finland, that Putin already has “lost the war” in Ukraine.

His military is third-rate at best; Ukraine has shown itself to be more than capable; NATO not only has held together, it has grown; Finland’s inclusion in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization effectively doubles the size of territory bordering Russia.

Oh, and the alliance has held because of Biden’s expertise in foreign policy and his steady leadership as president of the world’s pre-eminent military and economic superpower.

My sense now is that it might be time to start pressuring Putin to begin negotiating a way out of this war. We have supplied Ukraine with plenty of arms, ordnance, various supplies and training to handle the supposedly vaunted Russian military. The Russians have demonstrated time and again a level of battlefield incompetence that no one saw coming.

President Biden is not overstating what looks to be more obvious all the time … that Russia has already “lost” the Ukraine War.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If only a good guy could emerge

Before we get too far down the road in wishing for a different outcome in that brief rebellion we witnessed in Russia, it’s good to put a couple of aspects in proper perspective.

One is that the alternative to Russian strongman/goon/tyrant Vladimir Putin was not a good one.

The commander of the Wagner military group of mercenaries is one bad dude. Yevgeny Prigozhin had led a march to about 125 miles south of Moscow before he called the whole thing off. Putin called him a traitor and vowed maximum revenge.

Then Prigozhin high-tailed it to Belarus after that country’s president brokered some sort of stand-down. Putin said Prigozhin wouldn’t face punishment after all.

That’s all the bad news. The good news is that there appear to be major cracks appearing in Putin’s ring of protection in the Kremlin, according to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“I suspect that this is a moving picture and we haven’t seen the last act yet. But we can say this,” Blinken told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “First of all, what we have seen is extraordinary. And I think you have seen cracks emerge that weren’t there before: first in having Prigozhin raise front and center — questioning the very premises of the Russian aggression against Ukraine to begin with — the argument that somehow Ukraine or NATO posed a threat to Russia, and a direct challenge to Putin himself.”

Prigozhin’s forces have been fighting alongside Russians seeking to overthrow the Ukrainian government … and have been getting their asses kicked by Ukrainian forces. The Wagner leader is angry over the incompetence being shown by Putin and his military high command, which is why — apparently — he sought to toss Putin out via a military coup.

If it’s true that Vladimir Putin’s regime is showing signs of weakness, then it appears incumbent on those who want him removed to ensure that an actual democrat emerges to take the reins of power in the Kremlin.

Yevgeny Prigozhin is nothing of the sort.

Still, what we witnessed for about 48 hours was a remarkable attempt to unseat a wholly evil tyrant who should stand trial as the war criminal he has proven himself to be.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Putin faces rebellion? Yes!

Vladimir Putin isn’t looking like such a tough guy after all, given the challenge mounted by the leader of what they call a “mercenary” army intent on challenging the dictator’s invasion of Ukraine.

The mercenary force was said to be marching on Moscow. Then the leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, reportedly ordered his Wagner forces to “stand down.”

What in the world does this mean? At first blush, it appears that Putin is likely to seek the harshest retribution imaginable against what he calls an act of “treason” against the Kremlin. Well, that’s not exactly how some of us beyond the Russian borders see it.

Prigozhin was acting out of a sense of desperation as Russian military forces are being defeated by Ukrainians seeking to regain territory taken by the Russians in their illegal and immoral invasion launched more than a year ago against Ukraine.

And it damn sure signals a serious fracture within the Russian military command that has acted incompetently and stupidly ever since Putin ordered the invasion in early 2022.

Meanwhile, the United States — led by President Biden — continues its aggressive support in providing aid and equipment to Ukraine.

This is serious stuff, folks.

Wagner Chief Marches on Moscow in Mutiny Challenging Putin (yahoo.com)

As Yahoo News reports: The insurrection is without precedent in Putin’s nearly quarter-century rule in Russia, jolting a country trying to sustain a war in Ukraine that’s the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. It’s unfolding against the backdrop of a Ukrainian counteroffensive across some of the area where Wagner’s troops deployed for months in the war’s longest and bloodiest battle.

My strong hope is that Joe Biden continues to apply maximum economic pressure on Putin in a strategy he hopes will persuade the dictator to cease his aggression.

The United States cannot let up in its support of the valiant Ukrainians who are fighting for the survival of democracy in Europe.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Happy anniversary, Vlad!

This is an “anniversary” that Russian goon/strongman Vladmir Putin likely never presumed he would commemorate.

It’s been one year since the Russian tyrant launched his illegal and immoral war against Ukraine. He sought to bring the former Soviet republic to its knees in days. It didn’t happen.

What Putin is now realizing, even if he doesn’t admit it, is that people whose sovereignty is threatened by an evil aggressor will fight to the death to protect themselves and their nation.

Ukraine has done that … and then some!

Yes, the Ukrainians have had help. It has come from President Biden, whose leadership has melded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization into a cohesive alliance hell-bent on ensuring the Russians do not attack NATO. Doing so would doom the Russians.

Putin’s cakewalk into Kyiv has turned into a stumble-bum quagmire.

May the Russians continue to suffer the shame they have earned by their conduct on the battlefield. May they also be denied a second “anniversary” of this disgraceful episode.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joe Biden: ‘wartime president’

Joe Biden has done the impossible by becoming a “wartime president” without a single American fighting man or woman engaging in combat with a foreign enemy.

How did the president do it? By sneaking into war-ravaged Ukraine and delivering one of the more stirring speeches in recent memory, assuring Ukrainians that the United States and our many allies worldwide stand with them in their fight against the immoral invaders from Russia.

“Kyiv stands. Ukraine stands. Democracy stands,” Biden told the Ukrainians. Yes, it’s all true.

It was a remarkable feat for President Biden to venture into Ukraine under the cover of darkness. He strolled the streets of Kyiv, the capital city that just a few months ago was under siege by Russian artillery. Yes, there were sirens blaring to warn Ukrainians of pending danger from Russian artillery. Joe Biden would not be deterred … nor should he.

The visit reportedly buoyed the Ukrainian troops who are fighting valiantly — and successfully — against Vladimir Putin’s armed forces.

To be sure, the president’s visit drew expected criticism from the MAGA wing of the Republican Party back home. These are the nimrods who express skepticism about Ukraine’s ability to fend off the Russians, who invaded their country on multiple phony pretexts uttered by Putin.

Biden, though, has stitched together a strong alliance comprising NATO and EU nations committed to opposing Putin’s land grab in Ukraine as he seeks to reincarnate the Soviet Union-style of ham-handed rule. Putin sought to weaken NATO. Thanks to Joe Biden’s leadership, all he has done is strengthened the alliance formed after World War II to protect Europe against the kind of aggression the world is witnessing at this moment.

Joe Biden spoke like a man in the middle of a struggle. Indeed, he is. President Biden is fighting to preserve democracy, which is fighting for its life against the authoritarian instincts of a brutal killer.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com