Category Archives: Russia

Blog, Media, Putin, Russia

Complacency And Neglect?

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Is anybody else the least bit interested in how complacent the news media have become regarding the fact that Ukraine has not only invaded Russia, but is pushing farther into the country almost daily, capturing 200 Russian soldiers? The captured Russian fighters are being described as “conscripts,” with some accounts making it sound almost like they laid down their arms and surrendered, rather than fight the Ukrainians. Is Putin, running out of soldiers willing to fight his ego-driven war?

The Russians, meanwhile, appear almost flummoxed over the move leading to questions about what Ukraine will do next. Will they march into Moscow, with Putin making his escape to North Korea? Of course not, and yet, there are questions. I know it’s been more than two years since Putin invaded Ukraine, I know Russia has launched a missile attack in retaliation, but come on now, this is Ukraine invading Russia. A country lead by a megalomaniac dictator with a nuclear arsenal. He reportedly thought this thing would be over in days or a couple of weeks, and here we are headed for a three year long conflict that threatens all of Europe. A conflict that has resulted in tens of thousands of Russia’s best and brightest leaving the country.

Or am I expecting far too much from the U.S. press? A media controlled by a relative handful of industrial giants who have normalized a national criminal running for president? A man who should be in prison for leading an attempted coup? Only in America. Or Germany, in the 1930’s. Or is it just me? Am I losing my perspective, something I worked so hard to develop and nurture over so many years as a journalist? I think not. I think the news business has changed, and I’ve remained pretty much the same. Proud of it too, thank you very much.

Biden, Blog, Nuclear Bomb, Russia, Trump

Nuclear Buildup – The Campaign’s Dirty Little Secret?

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Hadn’t heard anything about nukes for a while, not since Putin, threatened to unleash them in his war against Ukraine, so I took a look around. What I found, is more than a little disquieting. Turns out there’s one helluva big nuclear buildup taking place, with the U.S. and Russia, leading the pack.

According to a report dated June 17, from the AP, “…the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN, said the nine nuclear-armed states spent a combined total of $91.4 billion on their arsenals in 2023 – equivalent to $2,898 per second.”

Seems like a lot, doesn’t it? Moreover, presuming advances have been made in nuclear science making contemporary nukes exponentially more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, shouldn’t this development be at or near the center of the runup to the November election? Standby, it gets even better. Or worse, maybe.

Again, from the Associated Press, “The group said that figures show a $10.7 billion increase in global spending on nuclear weapons in 2023 compared to 2022, with the United States accounting for 80% of that increase. The U.S. share of total spending, $51.5 billion, is more than all the other nuclear-armed countries put together.”

What are Russia and the United States getting ready for? An unsurvivable conflict, leaving both countries in ashes? Will we never get past the theory of mutual annihilation preventing us from annihilating one another? Shouldn’t somebody be talking about this?

At the very least, supporters of Donald Trump, should know how precarious the world situation truly is, before they decide to vote for a man who actually thought nuking a hurricane or injecting bleach into the human body to fight Covid, might be viable ideas. Nothing should be taken for granted. Not when dealing with human behavior.

Biden, Blog, Putin, Russia

Don’t Go Down In The Basement

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A couple of things-

I’m now afraid to go down in the basement. Not sure what might be down there, except for a lot of boxes filled with documents I collected as a reporter over the years. Worried there might be something that could get me in trouble. I know I have John Glenn’s home address down there, but he and his wife are both dead, so I don’t think that really matters.

RIP and God bless you, John and Annie Glenn.

The second thing, is the Abrams Tanks issue. The U.S. Government, or Joe Biden, if you will, has given the green light to send a number of Abrams Tanks over to the Ukrainians. Apparently, this is what the Germans were waiting for, meaning they too, will now send a number of their high end “Leopard Tanks” to Ukraine.

This is serious stuff, folks. We’re already sending short-range missiles and anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, but the tanks are where Vladimir Putin, drew a line in the sand, implying that once we started sending tanks, he’d consider taking things to the next level.

Putin’s playing international chess, so who knows what he means. Which is what he wants us to think. If we send in the tanks, will he nuke somebody? That would be insane of course, but who’s saying that Putin hasn’t lost at least some of his marbles? At best he’s a sociopath, who murders or imprisons his political opponents, and at worst, who knows? Thing is, here we are, standing at the doorway to what could be World War III, and much of the media it appears, really doesn’t get it. At all. They’re more concerned with what are probably meaningless documents intellectually overloaded politicians inadvertently took home. Or were sent to their homes by someone else.

The classified documents, are turning into a big joke. The truth, probably, is that there are classified docs scattered all over the place, and it’s really no huge deal, except for MSNBC and CNN, who are continuously carping about how terrible this missing documents situation is. Is it really all that serious, or is it just something that’s easy for you to cover? And carp about. Continuously?

The tanks, and the potential for what’s happening in Ukraine to lead to a world war, are far more unpleasant to deal with, but it’s probably time to give these issues a little more air play. That way, if Putin does nuke somebody, your viewers will understand why.

Oh, and there were just three mass shootings in California in as many days. Is there some way to keep this problem of slaughter in our streets alive other than waiting for the next mass shooting to talk about it again? Also in California, the new Mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, is trying to deliver on her promise of getting thousands of homeless people off the streets. One report says she wants to find housing for 15,000 homeless in her first year. As part of that, she’s started a count of homeless persons in Los Angeles.

They think there are about 40,000 in the city, with another 30,000 or so, if you include L.A. County. That’s 70,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County. Maybe more. The count is underway. Here in America. A wealthy country. Do you suppose this might be worthy of discussion as opposed to acting like the world is threatened by a few misplaced papers in the home of a former VP?

Blog, Putin, Russia

Russia’s Worst Enemy

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First, somebody mysteriously blows holes in both the Nordstream pipelines. At almost the same time, Russia, begins punishing Ukraine for defending itself, by lobbing even more missiles into civilian locations. It almost feels like Putin tried using the pipelines as a diversion from all the civilians he is murdering for no reason other than conquest and his need for ego gratification

In the south, the Ukrainians are pushing back the Russian Army and have bombed the bridge sending in supplies to Putin’s troops. Now, suddenly, Putin’s foreign minister, Lavrov, is talking about the potential for peace talks, either with the U.S. or Turkey.

It feels like Putin, may be on the ropes, gasping for air. One wonders what our intel knows and how much pressure Putin is feeling internally as the Russian people demonstrate in the streets and flee the country by the thousands to avoid being drafted into the dictator’s senseless war against innocent Ukrainians, who want nothing more than for the Russian Army to withdraw from their borders and to be left alone to live in peace.

Because of his insane war of conquest for his personal gratification, everything Vladimir Putin did not want is coming to pass as a self-fulfilling prophecy. NATO, has expanded and more than before, aligned itself as a wall of steel against Russia, a country increasingly seen as a pariah among nations. A country now under the punishing yoke of international sanctions. Most insulting of all perhaps, will be history forever seeing Putin as a butcher of babies and children. A man who failed both his people and himself.

When the killing stops and the madness ends, this may be viewed as another, anachronistic example of too much power in the hands of just one person. Something civilized people thought they had relegated to the past, with the likes of Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Something Democracy, does not permit, which is why Putin has thrown so much of his energy into his attempted destruction of American Democracy.

Through it all, Donald J. Trump has favored, appeared to even idolize Vladimir Putin, a man who wants to destroy Ukraine and other free and democratic countries around the world. Those on the right who continue to support Trump and the Republican Party, need to remember this as they go to the polls. The future of our Democracy is at stake. Voting for a Republican, any Republican, is a vote to tear down our institutions and eliminate all that we hold dear. Freedom, cannot, must not, be taken for granted.

Blog, Politics, Putin, Russia

A Few Thoughts On Keeping What We Have

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Balsonaro, appears headed for defeat in Brazil, moving the country away from the far-right and towards the center-left. Could this be a precursor to the upcoming election here in the U.S.? Hopefully so, if you believe in majority rule and self-governance. This current batch of American right-wingers in the House and Senate clearly do not, witness their stand on public education, women’s rights, the obvious need for more and not less regulation of firearms and the very survival of Democracy in America.

Beyond Republican Fascism in the House and Senate, the way the Supreme Court has been skewing far-right, leaves one wondering if “packing the court” might not be the only solution and whether Joe Biden will be able to get it done.

In the short-term, the best way to return the country to majority rule, that is to say a Democracy featuring self-determination, appears to be an overwhelming defeat of the Republican Party at the polls. An absolute mandate, leaving no question about how most Americans feel with regard to throwing out this current Oligarchy, which continues to hold so much power in the House and Senate.

We all need to think more about what the Ukrainians are fighting for on a daily basis. The survival of their self-determination through the democratic process. Their freedom. The latest word is that they’ve retaken a town inside the territory Putin and his Russian stooges now claim for their own.

You have to wonder to what degree the Russian dictator might not be losing control of both his military and his sway over public opinion. With his soldiers in retreat, record numbers of business leaders falling out of 18th floor windows and thousands of young men leaving the country by any means possible, Vladimir Putin’s future surely must be called into question?

The similarity between Putin and the far right-wing in America is interesting. Rather than doing that which is in their best interest, both seem destined to take actions that are in their worst-interests, a kind of self-fulfilling suicide wish. At least it appears that’s where Putin is headed. We can only hope the same will happen to those on the right in America who are bumping up against Fascism, with so many of them lacking the ability to sort out what or why they are doing it. I don’t mean those in the House and Senate who are doing it for the money, the publicity and the power. I mean those common folk, the lemmings headed for the nearest cliff. They just seem determined to get it done, even though they don’t really know why, except that they have been filled with hate and fear of the other. What fine madness is this? I think the Bard wrote that originally.

After reading about the “human stampede” at a football game in Indonesia, killing more than 120 people, one is left wondering about the very survival of our species, much less our ability for self-governance.

Blog, Politics, Putin, Russia, Trump

Putin And Trump – Both Coming To An End?

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Reports coming in from Russia, indicate people are being arrested in the streets for protesting the war. Other reports indicate military recruiting offices are being torched while airlines are bulging with people wanting to get out of the country rather than being subjected to Putin’s latest military call up. History teaches that it rarely ends well for demagogues, once the Russian people take to the streets.

Putin again threatened the use of nuclear weapons. This is, hopefully, his version of Nikita Khrushchev, banging a shoe on his desk at the United Nations while threatening, “We will bury you.”

At the same time, back in America, the Feds have won their appeal, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, two of the three judges having been appointed by Trump, giving them access to the top secret files from Mar a Lago. Meaning, they can move forward with their investigation of Donald J. Trump, while New York Attorney General Letitia James, moves forward with a civil suit against Donald and his children for bank and tax fraud and possibly more in a complaint of 222 pages and the possibility of criminal cases being pressed by the IRS and the SDNY.

Legal and moral accountability appears to be arriving at about the same time for both Putin and Trump, entwined in their mutual love of tyranny and hate for Democracy and the freedom it represents.

Blog, Putin, Russia, Trump

The Omnipresence Of Vladimir Putin In Trumpian Politics

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As the Jan 6 hearings move forward, it may be pertinent to remember that failed Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, is at or near the top of the list of those who want to see the destruction of our American Democracy.

It is also important to recall that Putin and Donald Trump are among one-another’s greatest admirers and that the Russians were actively involved in trying to get Donald Trump re-elected. Sometimes things are exactly as they seem.

Blog, Politics, Putin, Russia

Bad Madness

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Modeling himself in the image of a contemporary Joe Stalin, Vladimir Putin, now seems to be holding some twenty-percent of Ukraine. He simply bombed the hell out of it, killing thousands, and then took it you see. It’s fairly obvious he wants to take more, as the shelling of totally innocent Ukrainians continues. The man’s a butcher. A failed leader in need of a diversion.

Here at home, we continue slaughtering our own with semi-automatic rifle fire taking down grammar school kids, doctors and people out trying to buy grossly overpriced groceries. All the while, some of us are looking with fear to the upcoming election in November. An event which, we are told, certain Republican factions are prepared to try an undermine by claiming any races they lose were fraudulently conducted.

In other words, the criminal element is once again preparing to sew chaos by making the claim in court and out, that the law-abiding good guys are actually the real criminals. It’s a transference plot worthy of the KGB, and we can watch for it to be actively pursued here on American soil by Americans of uncertain loyalty – to anyone other than themselves.

I was thinking back tonight about simpler times not so very long ago when I was covering the campaigns of Ralph Nader and Ross Perot. One eventually wrote the book, “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us.” The other, started a third party, which looked like it was going to be viable, but when the politics got too rough for his family, Perot, eventually bailed.

Thing is, unconventional though they might have been, neither Perot nor Nader supported the idea of supplanting Democracy with Fascism, which is what this current batch of toxic right-wing thugs appear to favor.

Things made so much more sense not so very long ago. Now, it’s not just the occasional unconventional politician we have to worry about, but what appears to be an ongoing and carefully planned conspiracy to destroy American Democracy from within with help from without. Unless, of course, unnamed billionaires decide to save us from a Dickensian future millions upon millions of Americans can’t seem to fathom.

As Sinclair Lewis warned us so many years ago, don’t think “It can’t happen here.” It very nearly did.

We are in dangerous third-world waters friends. There is no Ross Perot anywhere in sight and I haven’t noticed any of our many billionaires getting in line in an effort to save the Republic from imploding under the weight of thirty to thirty-five percent of our fellow citizens who appear to favor switching from Democracy to some bizarre form of strong-man rule, with God knows who at the helm. It’s not that they don’t love freedom and it isn’t that they are stupid. Truth is, they have simply been snowed into believing that what’s in their worst interest is really the best for them. Again, it’s a crazed reversal worthy of the KGB. Which, of course, no longer exists.

Blog, Media, Politics, Putin, Russia

The Real “Crisis!”

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ISSUE #1 So the President of the United States says the U.S. will support Taiwan, in one form or another, if they are attacked by China. This is has been commonly accepted ever since the Nationalist Chinese were driven from their homeland by Communists in 1949, so I’m not sure it’s the big “breaking news” story it’s being made out to be by the 7-24 click-bait outlets. I’m currently far more interested in the potential for the outbreak of World War III, a potential nuclear exchange precipitated by a possibly unstable Vladimir Putin, frustrated by his inability to succeed in Ukraine. A dictator, who may be facing internal pressures we know nothing about. That, is something that should get your attention, not that the U.S. will continue to support Taiwan, something it’s been doing for decades.

ABC-TV, needs to re-run the movie “The Day After.” The country needs a wakeup call about the realities of a nuclear exchange with Russia. It feels as though several generations are way too comfortable with a reality that’s been insulated by time.

ISSUE #2 I do not understand. MSNBC is reporting the baby formula “crisis” continues. Does this mean babies are dying? If babies are not dying, then what are people feeding their babies, and if there is something other than formula they are feeding babies, then is this really a “CRISIS!” or something else? Is the need for formula overblown by a profit-hungry baby food industry? Why isn’t the major media answering these questions instead of just repeatedly pushing a giant collective panic button? From microchips to vaccine to baby formula. Soon, women won’t be able to get a legal abortion. Welcome to the third world.

ISSUE #3 Our streets continue to be flooded with guns, while in Baltimore, a former mayor was just released from prison. The second Mayor of Baltimore to be indicted in ten years time. Oh, but wait! There’s so much more!

The current city council president, has been cited for ethics violations for raising money for a personal defense fund while his wife, the Baltimore States Attorney, has been indicted for perjury and making false statements in a real estate deal while the City explodes with crime. The current mayor, a Democrat, appears downright flummoxed as does his Chief of Police, who was brought in from New Orleans to help “fix” the Baltimore PD.

Bringing in Michael Harrison to be Police Commissioner in Baltimore, is working about as well as bringing in Willie Williams as Chief of Police in Los Angeles following the L.A. riots. No, check that, on second thought, Willie Williams, was far better than Harrison. Under Williams, the crime rate fell in Los Angeles and police-community relations stabilized. In Baltimore, crime just keeps getting worse with Harrison at the helm.

Kids in muscle cars were captured on video doing “donuts” at downtown City intersections – all caught on camera and dutifully sent out over the airwaves by local tv stations, without anyone asking the simple and obvious question of “where the hell were the police?” This did not happen on some deserted roadway, this happened in the very heart of downtown Baltimore. It feels almost like some of the local media view the City being totally out of control as their new reality. A terrible reality that must be accepted because nothing can be done to fix it. It feels like they have given up.

All this, while Maryland’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, whose name is being floated as a possible candidate for president, complains of the Democrat-controlled City’s inability to do anything to bring its crime problem under control no matter how many millions of dollars the state releases.

Not that it matters, but this city of more than 585-thousand people is on track to set a new record for murder. Turning it into an “us vs. them” political issue, probably won’t help anybody.

Could Baltimore turn out to be the country’s next Detroit? Maybe the state can cut a deal with one of the Mexican cartels to patrol the streets in pickup trucks like they do in TJ? Can’t be any worse than what they have now. It might even be more cost-effective.


Blog, Politics, Putin, Russia, Trump

Putin’s Diversion

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When I first read about this it seemed unbelievable. I promised myself that I’d eventually get back to it. So here it is. The following is from The Moscow Times, April, 2019.

“More than one-fifth of Russian households do not have access to indoor plumbing, according to official statistics obtained by the RBC news website on Tuesday.”

“Russia leads the developed world with the worst sanitation record, according to the London-based WaterAid NGO. A 2012 estimate citing official data placed the number of Russians whose households are only equipped with outhouses at 35 million, or roughly a quarter of the population.”

Are you still wondering why Vladimir Putin, a man whom Donald Trump has called a “genius” invaded Ukraine? It’s simple, really. He needed a diversion from his miserable failures as a leader.

At the same time, we have a real “glass houses” problem here in the U.S.. With more than 66-thousand homeless on the streets of Los Angeles County alone, the County Supervisors have just voted to create an office to coordinate their response to the problem. Isn’t it surprising they didn’t do so sooner?

Nationally, by one estimate, there are more than 580-thousand homeless in the United States. On another front, Buzzfeed estimates that some 700 people died in February of 2021 in Texas, as a result of the power going down during Winter Storm Uri.


Blog, Politics, Putin, Russia, Trump

Too Few People With Too Much Power

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Those who champion Elon Musk as a promoter of free speech, apparently have no idea that Twitter is a privately owned company that can censor or ban anyone they want from their service. Nor does Twitter have anything to do with journalism. It is a purveyor of rumor, misinformation, hate and fear. We would all be better off if it just went away. In fact, social media in general, could turn out to be one of the greatest threats to the Republic and thereby to Democracy in history, a wonderful example of our inability to properly deal with advancing technology.

Just because someone has a lot of money is no indicator of their ability to make good choices for how the rest of us want to live. The founders knew this, which is why they wanted “We The People,” and not a relative handful of merchant bankers in charge of the country. It appears the founders may have failed. We’re not quite there yet but it feels like we’re getting awfully close as Elon Musk, threatens to open the door on a booming return to Trumpism in America.

A failure to adequately regulate Capitalism will inevitably lead to Neo-Feudalism. In the words of Radar O’Reilly, “Wait for it.” The Republicans opened the door with Reagonomics, and it’s on the way.

Free trade has nothing to do with allowing monopolies. Preserving Democracy does not mean supporting fraud. Free speech has little to do with supporting false information. We might have to allow it, but it needn’t be encouraged and even celebrated.

Before long we could all be begging for the scraps under the oligarch’s tables, here in America, in Russia, and anywhere else a handfull of uber-wealthy people are allowed to gather up most of the wealth and thereby most of the power.



Blog, Politics, Putin, Russia, Trump

A Reckoning

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Anyone else see the parallels between Trump and Putin, with both men willing to destroy their countries rather than admit failure? It seems so obvious, but maybe it’s just me. However, both also share techniques, like rigging or trying to rig elections, and calling anything that casts them in an unfavorable light, “fake news.”

For a time I thought the Russians might have been giving Trump instructions on how to use disinformation and a few other techniques to overthrow American Democracy, which is clearly what he was trying to do. I still wonder if that’s not the case. So much of this stuff is right out of an old KGB playbook.

The degree to which Trump and his minions have employed Russian tactics to convince millions of Americans that real news is fake and vice-versa, is both astounding and frightening.

Why aren’t these factors being brought to the surface and discussed? Feels like there’s a reckoning coming, doesn’t it?

Is it because there is a fear, a very deep-seated fear, of Americans once again choosing sides and going after one-another? A second Civil War to settle this current surge of white supremacy? Is that the reckoning? Or is it another fear, that of war with Russia, possibly a nuclear war, breaking out over Putin’s need to win something, anything, before stopping his maniacal obsession with these ongoing, pointless attacks on Ukraine?

Aren’t we being hit with both at the same time? A failure to fully deal with the fascism that was Stalin’s Russia and the many failures of reconstruction in the United States?

Perhaps there is a standoff coming between two kinds of people. Those who demand the self-determination and freedom of Democracy, and those others, who are willing to unthinkingly and blindly follow a tyrant wherever he might lead. Fascism vs. Democracy, and those of us who have the courage to stand up for what we believe?

This is a photo of my Uncle, Bud Olsen, a naval aviator who gave his life in WW II when his plane, a Grumman TBF, went into the ocean. He was 21. Just a kid. Because of him, and so many others like him, I thought this madness had ended. And yet, here we are, with freedom once again demanding eternal vigilance. Confronted with a voice from the past, demanding that business left unfinished in 1945, must be dealt with now.

It was then, at war’s end on the European continent, that the British had drawn up plans for “Operation Unthinkable,” A massive attack which had the Brits and the U.S. joining forces with what was left of the German Army and the Poles, and going after the Russians, driving them back into Russia. The operation, of course, was never carried out. And here we all are.

Churchill, who had asked for the plans to be drawn up, was proving himself to be a true visionary, possessing the insight that even with the departure of Stalin, others, like Vladimir Putin, would be waiting for an opportunity to express their own peculiar brand of madness, slaughtering children and the elderly and destroying themselves, and possibly their country, in the process.


Blog, Politics, Putin, Russia

A Question Of Morality?

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Is it immoral for NATO and the U.S., to refuse to send troops into Ukraine? How about the MIGs?

Is it okay for Russia to march into Ukraine as a conquering force but wrong for NATO to march in to defend freedom? Why does so much of what the West and NATO are doing feel so terribly inadequate, particularly in light of Russia’s history of pushing others around until others, finally, push back?

Are the U.S. and NATO simply trying to avoid the inevitable, while the body bags of innocent Ukrainians pile up, or is NATO correct in its current assessment that its best option is to stand back, without putting any boots on Ukrainian soil, while Putin blasts Ukraine into dust, murdering thousands of innocents in the process?

Doesn’t it feel like the U.S. and NATO have a moral obligation to punch back with more than military and humanitarian supplies? If Putin can do whatever he wants by threatening World War III, then where will this stop? Will Poland, be next?

From the beginning, Putin has been dictating where and how this conflict will take place. NATO, has waited for his next move and then reacted. Would declaring a “no-fly zone,” and sending in the MIGs help to draw a line in the sand? Doesn’t it feel like NATO is making the same mistake that was made in 1939, of trying to placate a monster? The Ukrainians are obviously tough enough to fight this battle. Are NATO and the U.S. up to it, or will this be another Crimea, or maybe something even worse?

I cringe every time someone from NATO or the U.S. makes the point that they will not send troops into Ukraine. Every time they say that they are sending Putin a message, and it is the wrong message to send.



Blog, Russia, Violence

Some Notes On Russia

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by Paul Paolicelli

In 1975, as a Senate staffer, I was able to make an unusual trek for that time and spend a couple of weeks in the Soviet Union; specifically Russia; Moscow, Kalinin and what was then Leningrad. It was an eye-opener to say the least. Just a few years before this trip I’d been a soldier in Germany so, while hardly qualifying as a military expert, I was quickly able to see that we were far better equipped than our Russian counterparts. Our uniforms for cold weather were clearly better, the Russian soldiers wore cheap and thin wool and seemed to always be under the hood of some stalled or broken-down vehicle. It struck me that much of their military bluster was really a paper tiger and, absent their nuclear capability, they really weren’t a threat. Another major takeaway was the reaction of the Russian “man on the street.” We were treated with curiosity and kindness, it was clear that the people weren’t our enemy but they were timid in approaching us as we knew we were under constant surveillance. During a train ride to Leningrad, one older man made a point of cornering me between cars and, in our mutually bad German, thanked me and the U.S. for having provided him with an airplane in World War Two to fight the Germans. And memories of that war absolutely haunted and permeated every public arena with monuments and memorials. Watching the current events in Ukraine I can’t help but feel sorry for those millions of Russians who have consistently been manipulated and mis-lead by their own government. I truly believe that if it were up to the average Russian, they’d never send their sons into needless harm’s way for political dominance of a country they consider their cousin. The Russian people deserved better than the Soviets, they deserve better than Putin. We need to find a way to help them….

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Paul Paolicelli, is a veteran broadcast journalist and the author of two books on the Italian-American experience, “Dances with Luigi: A Grandson’s Search for His Italian Roots,” and “Under The Southern Sun: Stories of the Real Italy and the Americans it Created.”

Blog, Putin, Russia

The Fog Of War

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As the fog of war sets in, it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine how many casualties there are on either side. That said, multiple sources have indicated that the casualties on the Russian side may be much heavier than Putin or his war-planners expected. The Ukrainian military claims to have shot down more than one Russian military transport as rifles are handed out to Ukrainian civilians while others busy themselves making Molotov cocktail explosives in anticipation of the Russian advance on Kyiv.

Polish officials tell the BBC, that some ten-thousand Ukrainians have now crossed over into Poland. Men, age 18 to 60, are staying behind in Ukraine, to support the fight against what some are now calling “Putin’s War.”

For his part, Putin and his FSB, continue a massive war of disinformation, insisting they are attacking Ukraine because it is under “Neo-Nazi” control. The truth, is that the country’s president is Jewish. Observers inside Russia, have indicated that the Putin regime is also failing to tell the Russian people that there have been Russian casualties. Reports indicate that both Facebook and Twitter, have been shut down inside Russia and that, as to be expected, the Putin regime is practicing extreme censorship over Russian media outlets, generally.

There are reports that Russian soldiers sent into the fight were not told they would be going to war against Ukraine.

Resistance, both inside Russia and from without, appears to be growing, with Russians, even when threatened by arrest, continue taking to the streets to protest the war. There are protests in other countries as well, including Georgia, Kazakhstan, across the U.K., and the United States, where New Yorkers have filled Times Square. According to one report, Kazakhstan, refused a request from Putin for troops. At the time of this writing, Ukrainian President Zelensky was still in Kyiv, which was still being controlled by Ukrainians, although Russian missiles have rained down on civilian structures including apartment buildings and schools.

While there seems to be some agreement that the Ukrainians are doing better than many expected, it is also generally believed that they continue to be out-gunned and out-manned, and fighting by themselves as they are, they won’t be able to hold off the Russians forever. One recent video shows unarmed Ukrainians attempting to block Russian tanks with their bodies. Another, shows a Russian tank crushing a car, with its driver at the wheel. Remarkably, the motorist survived.

In a recent statement, Ukrainian President Zelensky said, “We will fight as long as it takes to liberate the country.”