Nice Guy Putin, Who's Just Trying To Protect Russia From Fascist Ukraine, etc ..

[Thomas Graves]

He's a swell guy.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/to-stop-putin-the-western-world-must-revisit-the-1994-budapest-memorandum/?fbclid=IwAR07lFTrO3rRReHm1XBD3DJ0H_72zAHDLnPRbRcZquXRCJ0ai-qUymiIJTo

--  MWT 

[Richard Rubio]

I think a different article than the one I posted in the other thread, but there's your Atlantic Council in this thread.   

[Thomas Graves]

I think a different article than the one I posted in the other thread, but there's your Atlantic Council in this thread.

What was the question you're trying to answer above?

No clue?

Me, neither.

Regardless, do you like Vladimir Putin?

Are you old enough to remember the KGB?

(Today it's called the SVR and the FSB.)

--  MWT 

[Richard Rubio]

No, I don't like Putin.

That's simple enough, I said that in the other thread too, that I support  Ukraine.

Do you like Zelenskiy?

Golda Meir was born in Kiev.... moved to Milwaukee at one point (there are some buildings named for her there), she also lived in Denver for a spell. I mention Meir, because like Zelenskiy, they are Ukrainian Jews.  So, is Irina Tsukerman, human rights lawyer sort of.... that's a bit of why I bring this up. I follow her twitter: https://twitter.com/irinatsukerman    And I certainly don't agree with everything she says....

I think Zelenskiy is good for Ukraine, the country moves away from corruption in the short term. He will be a bit of a transitional figure and he's okay but he may not be the most effective leader.   Yet, being a good or great or bad leader is pretty relative. In his own realm, maybe he's a great leader.

[Thomas Graves]

No, I don't like Putin.

That's simple enough, I said that in the other thread too, that I support  Ukraine.

Do you like Zelenskiy?

Golda Meir was born in Kiev.... moved to Milwaukee at one point (there are some buildings named for her there), she also lived in Denver for a spell. I mention Meir, because like Zelenskiy, they are Ukrainian Jews.  So, is Irina Tsukerman, human rights lawyer sort of.... that's a bit of why I bring this up. I follow her twitter: https://twitter.com/irinatsukerman    And I certainly don't agree with everything she says....

I think Zelenskiy is good for Ukraine, the country moves away from corruption in the short term. He will be a bit of a transitional figure and he's okay but he may not be the most effective leader.   Yet, being a good or great or bad leader is pretty relative. In his own realm, maybe he's a great leader.

Dear Richard,

Why don't you like Putin?

--  MWT 

[Richard Rubio]

I already answered your question, time to answer mine... though, my answer is easy, so I will say it...on Putin,

Journalists, opposition politicians murdered or imprisoned, invasion of Ukraine, maybe include invasion of Georgia too, though,  I don't know that situation as well.

Assad as an ally, Russia in Syria. Pretty heavyhanded.   Russia poisoning or otherwise assassinating persons on foreign soil.

You want conspiracy? Did Putin/Russian government bomb Russian apartment buildings to start a war in Chechnya?

I don't know if I believe this but there is a lot said on it. The spy poisoned and killed in the UK said it,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko

   The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power
By David Satter

August 17, 2016 8:00 AM

I believe that Vladimir Putin came to power as the result of an act of terror committed against his own people. The evidence is overwhelming that the apartment-house bombings in 1999 in Moscow, Buinaksk, and Volgodonsk, which provided a pretext for the second Chechen war and catapulted Putin into the presidency, were carried out by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Yet, to this day, an indifferent world has made little attempt to grasp the significance of what was the greatest political provocation since the burning of the Reichstag.

I have been trying to call attention to the facts behind the bombings since 1999. I consider this a moral obligation, because ignoring the fact that a man in charge of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal came to power through an act of terror is highly dangerous in itself.

Russian human-rights defenders Sergei Yushenkov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, and Alexander Litvinenko also worked to shed light on the apartment bombings. But all of them were murdered between 2003 and 2006. By 2007, when I testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the bombings, I was the only person publicly accusing the regime of responsibility who had not been killed.

More: https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/08/vladimir-putin-1999-russian-apartment-house-bombings-was-putin-responsible/

I'm not from there, I can't judge it but I would lean towards what the dissidents say.

Bush at some sort of party in Russia, attended by Putin. Bush, within reason, seemed to get along with Putin.

[Michael T. Griffith]

I am very glad that Trump has sold Ukraine and Georgia offensive weapons. Obama was afraid to do so because he feared it would anger the Russians. That was a mistake, a mistake that Trump has corrected.

Ukraine is a wonderful country. My wife and daughter and I visited Ukraine last year and had a marvelous time. Ukraine has tourist sites as awesome as any you can find in Western Europe, and your dollar goes a long ways in Ukraine. We ate at very nice restaurants and paid about $6 per meal, meals that would have cost us five or six times as much in France, England, Italy, etc., and the food was fantastic. Ukraine also has breath-taking castles, great museums, and awesome nature sites.

[Thomas Graves]

I already answered your question, time to answer mine... though, my answer is easy, so I will say it...on Putin,

Journalists, opposition politicians murdered or imprisoned, invasion of Ukraine, maybe include invasion of Georgia too, though,  I don't know that situation as well.

Assad as an ally, Russia in Syria. Pretty heavyhanded.   Russia poisoning or otherwise assassinating persons on foreign soil.

You want conspiracy? Did Putin/Russian government bomb Russian apartment buildings to start a war in Chechnya?

I don't know if I believe this but there is a lot said on it. The spy poisoned and killed in the UK said it,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko

I'm not from there, I can't judge it but I would lean towards what the dissidents say.

Bush at some sort of party in Russia, attended by Putin. Bush, within reason, seemed to get along with Putin.

Dear Dick,

Why wouldn't you believe it?

Do you think it might be "Deep State" disinformation?

LOL

--  MWT 

PS  The FSB's blowing up of four apartment buildings in Western Russia in September 1999 (killing some 350 Russian citizens) was done not only to start The Second Chechen War, but, more importantly, to justify the declaring of martial law and the attendant postponing of the upcoming election, thereby clearing the way for First Prime Minister (former FSB chief and former KGB foreign counterintelligence lieutenant-colonel) Vladimir Putin's automatically becoming "interim" president of Russia when, lo-and-behold corrupt, protected-by-Putin Boris Yeltsin "up and decided to retire" on New Year's Eve, 1999.