propaganda digest for November 15
- Two truths for the price of 85 missile strikes
- “SVO” spilled over into Poland
- Medvedev proposed “financial terrorism”
- Will there be Putinism after Putin?
Two truths for the price of 85 missile strikes
On November 15, before escaping with the G20 itself, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, in his next speech dedicated to Ukraine, cynically announced that “Russia advocated the rejection of the use of energy to settle political scores.”
Propaganda again began to cry about the next “retaliatory strikes”.
IN FACT, with such, already in fact carpet, rocket bombing of Ukrainian cities, Putin demonstrates his inferiority complex. Quite likely, in response to yesterday’s visit of President Volodymyr Zelenskyi to the liberated Kherson and the list of his demands for negotiations. These blows of Putin are due to impotence, respectively, due to weakness.
Lavrov’s colleague is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Great Britain, James Cleverley, also in addition to that “these heartless strikes on Ukrainian cities with the use of the most terrible missile attacks only demonstrate Putin’s weakness.”
Putin’s previous massive missile attacks were also aimed at intimidating Ukrainians. But there is no fear. uncertainty, panic and terror as well.
How much longer do Ukrainians have to prove to Putin that they and the Russians (who fled by the hundreds of thousands abroad not even from the bombing, but from “partial” mobilization) are not one people?
Another aspect is also interesting. The fact that the only thing Putin is capable of is terror has been known for a long time. But Ukrainians should consider it not only against peaceful people, but against the state of Ukraine itself. But it turned out to be so strong for him, first of all, socially and institutionally (which he absolutely did not count on), that even here time tells the Kremlin dictator: Ukraine is not Russia.
Therefore, with his missile terrorist attacks, Putin once again brings these two truths to the world. And the world understands that it is worth fighting for these Ukrainians and for this Ukraine.
“SVO” spilled over into Poland
It is also interesting that only one day, on November 15, the so-called Kremlin elite actually debunked the myths of its movement about the so-called readiness for negotiations with Ukraine.
While Lavrov is still in Bali declaredwhat “Russia is ready for dialogue”Peskov in parallel already saidwhat “The Russian Federation will continue to achieve its goal in Ukraine through a special military operation”and the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Patrushev in general promised, that “its tasks are carried out despite military aid to Kyiv from the West.”
ACTUALLY, the way Surovikin revealed the plan of the special operation on “peace negotiations”, has been known since the time of his legendary report to Shoigu about the need to leave Kherson. Which has already become another copy to the treasury of selected memes of this war.
And if all Patrushev talks about during the day “the need to strengthen the cover of critical objects in central Russia for the purpose of air defense and counter-battery combat”and after a couple of hours rockets are already falling in Poland, then the situation really got out not only from the real control of the Kremlin, but also outside the borders of Ukraine.
I got out the same way because of Putin and him squinting at the Soviet “Storm”, which is looking for an American aircraft carrier not only in Ukraine, but also in Poland.
And this is not to mention Moldova, where Lavrovska “refusal to use energy to settle political accounts” due to missile strikes on Ukraine, electricity was cut off even on its territory.
On the evening of November 15, the Russian Ministry of Defense officially announced that targets near the border of Ukraine and Poland were not attacked, but “the statements of the Polish mass media and officials about the alleged fall of Russian rockets in the area of the settlement of Przewodów are a deliberate provocation based on the notification of escalation.”
And what about the war with NATO, about which every Russian propaganda outlet is talking about from morning till night? Why was Shoigu so scared? Because it is safer to fight with peaceful Ukrainians.
The Minister of Defense of Slovakia, Yaroslav Nagy, said that “Moscow must explain what happened. The senseless attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure have already stopped. Russia’s imprudence to get out of control.
So how many more rockets have to fall in the center of Europe in the 21st century before someone finally decides to control, if not Russia’s sanity, then at least the skies of Ukraine?
Medvedev offered Russia “financial terrorism”
On November 15, the Russian financial market fell again due to the war in Ukraine. this time, according to the official explanation: “due to the escalation of geopolitical risks”.
This wording hides not only the actual transition of the war to the territory of a NATO country, but also the result of the vote of the UN General Assembly regarding the official recognition of the need to hold Russia accountable for the war and pay reparations to Ukraine.
On the one hand, this decision is of a recommendatory nature, and on the other, it opens the door for more concrete actions by the country where the frozen “Russian gold” is now lying. One international community, represented by the United Nations, actually approved it. The rest is a matter of legal technique of each country.
This decision caused a real flurry of indignation, comments and outright threats from Russian officials. Ex-president Medvedev did the most ridiculous thing, as always. He suggested “irreversibly withdraw the money and property of private investors from such countries, even though they are not responsible for the fools of their governments.”
IN FACT, it is this proposal that will lead to the final flight of the remnants of foreign capital from Russia.
Medvedev’s “nationalization of Western assets” is like missile strikes on Ukraine. They have zero military significance: neither Kherson, nor Kyiv, nor the Kharkiv region are in any way approaching Russia. But from a political point of view, such proposals undermine any possibilities for future financial negotiations with Russia. That’s why they don’t deal with terrorists and blackmailers.
In addition, the Russian Federation itself does not really believe in the strength of the Russian ruble. On November 15, the next and murderous number for Putin’s Russia became known. In September, citizens of the Russian Federation transferred a record $6.7 billion to deposits in foreign banks, which is 25% more than the figure in August. This follows from calculations by RIA Novosti based on data from the Central Bank of Russia. In addition, since the beginning of the year, the amount of deposits of Russian citizens abroad exceeded $60 billion for the first time.
Zakhar Prilepin, a self-proclaimed terrorist and likely future candidate for the presidency of the Russian Federation, reacted nervously to this: “Some come to help our people, and others withdraw money. Yes, s…ka, we will win!”.
And the former ex-chief “Roscosmonaut” Rogozin, who now calls himself a member of some “Tsarski Vovki” group (which promises to make “unheard of weapons samples” in Ukraine in the unfinished state), simply called these citizens “enemies of Russia.”
In reality, this is the verdict of Putin’s Russia of the future, in which even more or less intelligent Russians no longer believe. Or at least those who have money.
Will there be nobility after Putin?
And does Russia have a future without Putin? Will “Putinism” stay there? After all, there are “Putinists” there now. And even official ones. For example, the head of Bashkortostan, Radii Khabirov, without being shy, calls himself just like that.
IN FACT, “Putinism”, as “Signal” believes, is just a PR strategy to justify the mistakes of Putin’s policy, especially after the attack on Ukraine.
Pro-Russian sentiments in it were overestimated – they had to invent that “Nazis and satanists All Ukrainians have had their brains reformatted.”
Readiness was underestimated “collective West” to sever economic ties with Russia — we had to pretend that everything was planned that way: they said they had thrown a challenge. “unfair world order”.
There are those who believe that the “ideology of nobility” has always been there, just because of the war it had to be articulated more clearly.
About gentry as a successful ideology of modern and future Russia (like Kemalism in Turkey, which was formed after the death of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk), wrote back in 2019 the then court philosopher of the Kremlin, Vladyslav Surkov.
Three years ago, the Russian publication “Actual comments” announced the launch of the column “Putinism”, which was planned to analyze “various aspects of Putin’s course”.
We can characterize today’s nobility. These are: anti-Westernism, isolationism, militarism, revanchism, anti-liberalism, paternalism (understood simply as the leading role of the state in the economy – due to the fact that the USA refused to accept Russia as a country with a market economy).
Putin himself since 2013 calls himself a “conservative”. It was then, after the winter protests of 2011-2012, that he bet on the ideological camp that was most convenient for him.
His new ideology began to displace (and has already almost completely displaced) economic, legal, and other considerations from Putin’s speeches and politics. Now this is done by “spiritual anchors”, “parents #1 and #2”, “thousand-year history” and others under the guise of ideologues.
The sequence of events is important here. It was not ideology that gave rise to Putin’s regime (as, for example, Marxism gave rise to Soviet power), but Putin’s regime gave rise to ideology. Or more precisely, he constructed a quasi-ideology — simply as another tool to maintain his personal power.
The Spanish political scientist Juan Linz, the author of the classic work “Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes”, proposed to distinguish between totalitarianism and authoritarianism in this way: the former is initially ideological and requires sacrifice in the name of its “bright future”. The second is focused on preserving the status quo – and for this invention new tools from improvised materials.
There are two main theories as to what the mentality of the Putin regime is. According to one, he is a Chekist: trust no one, always act “in the mode of a special operation.”
On the other hand, it’s boyish, “pretentious”: disregarding generally accepted rules, respecting only strength and being the first. Actually, gangster.
These theories do not exclude, but complement each other.
So, will gentry remain in Russia after Putin? Probably not. After all, he is not guided by any universal ideas. He “absorbs” them into his usual emotional reactions. The same resentment can initially be received by neo-Marxistpostcolonial rationaleand then — Slavophile-Eurasian.
Neither Eurasianism nor anti-colonialism constitute the essence of Putinism. These are just other ways to overcome the same sense of humiliation that “we” are no longer considered a superpower, and Putin personally is not recognized as an equal in the image of Biden or Xi.
And this is not a thirst for greatness as such, but a thirst for recognition itself: to not just be tolerated, but to “offer friendship” and “ask with respect.” Like Don Corleone in The Godfather.
This mentality will, of course, survive Putin. And likely to remain dominant. There is practically no political culture that could become an alternative to the Patsan-Chekist “culture” in modern Russia: the institutions that could produce such a culture are almost completely used.
Putin’s personality is unlikely to become a marker for the expansion of Russia’s sentiments (it is better to call it sentiments than ideology). So, slyachinism can easily turn into some kind of “Medvedism”, “Prigohynism” and so on. Without changing its basic essence. Just as back in 2009, Putin’s Ukrainian Political Party changed its name to “United Russia”. (We mention this curiosity only because its leader Remenyuk died some time ago in Crimea).
In any case, nobility, racism, schizofascism (or what else they will invent in Russia after the end of its current dictator) is moving further away from Ukraine every day. New belts no longer appear in Ukraine.
Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security