Milk and honey on the other side

Milk and honey on the other side[1]

Пересказ на русском см. - https://www.facebook.com/vladimir.lukov.16/videos/1245208818955563/
As Russians are preparing to cast their vote in a shameless ‘election’ on 9th September 2018 that will secure another term for the World's longest-serving autocratic regime under Vladimir Putin. This regime has been firmly based on support of local Organized Criminal Groupings (OCGs). They guarantee the positive results of the so-called ‘election’ in all part of Russia.

An avid opposition leader Alexey Navalny shines a light on members of the Russia Parliament and its secret ties with local and foreign business elite, who have profited hugely from the system of grand corruption instituted during Putin’s reign, and would have a lot to lose from a change in Medvedev’s Government.

Published on the Russian Internet evidence of corruption and political failures of the Kremlin in spite of fierce police and courts’ ‘counter-attacks’ on free reporting, the Navalny campaigns focus on a pretty small number of Putin’s tycoons who have built up the illusion of the Kremlin hegemony with political donations and military funding, and by courting investors from regional OCGs, not from overseas. The point is that their off-shore accounts are under control of the 17 US special agencies.

President Trump fired all ex-leaders of the US special services for not telling him the truth about these ties of OCGs with the Kremlin which were overlooked in the presidential election 2016.

For many years of Putin’s reign, their willy-nilly loyalty to the Russian autocratic regime has been lavishly rewarded – the Russian tycoons were quests of honor in many NATO countries.

Putin’s huge investments have appeared to get immunity from the International and National law and encourage corruption & state-budget looting on the grass-root levels in Russia and abroad. Now they are not!

The Kremlin uses OCGs in format of Private Military Companies (PMCs) like the Wagner in Russia and abroad[2] - in Ukraine, Syria, Somali and the Central African Republic. And the money is from the secret part of the state budget of Russia or from the depth of the Shadow Economy under Putin[3].

The symbiose of PMCs and OCGs helps the Kremlin to guard their ‘buddies’ company operations and secretly crack down on local protests against them.

The Armed Forces of Russia do not fulfill their tasks to protect lives and properties of peaceful population in cities and the country where autocratic forces are on top. They are on top, practically, all over the Russian Federation, greedily waiting for ‘the re-election’ on 9^th September 2018. 

As the US President sanctions against these Russian autocratic officials, anti-Putin’s opposition is also calling for the inclusion of these individuals on as many sanctions lists as possible - for their role in the suppression of Russian Democracy, and the gross Human Rights abuses carried out on behalf of Putin’s buddies’ companies. The latter are under the guard of OCGs & PMCs which are out of civil-military control and the Constitution (1993) norms. What will the Armed Forces do on 9^th September?

New US sanctions are to be quicker, wider and sharper

These unions of Putin’s tycoons and ‘bandits in uniform’ are to be identified on the grass-roots level through the Internet, at least. Russian scientists and NGOs could be helpful in monitoring over these corrupted and unconstitutional affairs of Putinists in their ‘All-People Front’, etc.

There have already been so many facts of suppression of free reporting, civil and military opposition about big and small cliques of unlawfully armed troops in hands of local super-riches. They are the corner stone of Putinism, not the declared and, in fact, fake ‘ The Vertical of Power’.

‘Shadow economy’ (60-70% of the GNP) with its hidden money also feeds violence from above and below to propelled up the Putin image as the Super Hero. US sanctions should be aimed at these shadow political donations and unlawful police-military funding to OCGs from the Kremlin.

While President Trump is successfully building up ‘Zones of Peace’ around Global Autocrats in North Korea, Turkey and Iran, the Kremlin with Putin on top is courting investors from China and other autocratic regimes.

Unfortunately, on 18^th August, Germany and Austria seem to step on the path, leading to Putin’s gas & oil Union of ‘Caspian Five’[4] which consists of ‘honest’ plutocrats, clerics and militarists. It aims is to stand collectively against new US sanctions vs. Russia after 22-d August[5].

Lists of ‘dirty autocrats’ and their vassals

Lists of autocrats and their armed and civil vassals should be handsomely rewarded by EC and US investors in Russia after Putin. New businesses in Russia have to be free from thieves and crooks that are now on top of ‘shadow economy’ and the secret Kremlin’s policy. They stole more than 2 trillion dollars from Russia. This money is up to finance new businesses in Russia after Putin. But it cannot fall in greedy hands of Putinists and Russian Fascists.

The coming US sanctions against Putinists as officials, members of OCGs and PMCs are to discover their role in failure of Russian Democracy & Free Market principles of the 1990s. See, old and latest Human Rights abuses carried out against Michael Khodorkovsky and Oleg Sensov.

The USA and other countries’ sanctions should hit Putin’s hands that are feeding the mouths of those who support him.

New talks of Trump with Putin, if any, are to block the Kremlin’s corrupt and dictatorial rein and also take aim at those who subsidize his regime though ‘business as usual’.

The Kremlin’s decline into ‘Soft Dictatorship’

Putin has been in power for 19 years, ruling ‘with an iron fist in a velvet glove’. He put in action all possible laws to justify his attacks against Democracy, National Freedom, and Free Enterprise.

According to Putin’s ‘laws’ and ‘out of court solutions’ by OCGs, many hundreds of non-system opposition leaders, rank-n-files of NGOs, journalists, local ethnic and religious activists have been attacked, arrested and even killed[6].

As a lawless President of the 3-d term, Putin has presided over a kleptocratic system of state looting that has involved the forced and violent re-capture of Chechnya, Abkhazia, occupation of Ukrainian Crimea & Donbass.

Rob Peter to pay Paul

To cover his old and new expenses to commit these crimes, quite recently, Putin has decided to free up ‘taxes-hands’ of oil-n-gas tycoon-dominated industries like GASPROM and ROSNEFT at the expenses of other successfully developed metal and other big businesses[7].

More than 23 million people have been affected with deepening poverty in far-away corners of Russia. While the inner circle of the Kremlin’s vassals is making a small, corrupt elite vastly wealthy - up to 300 people that are mentioned in the ‘Kremlin’s Report’ for President Trump. But Putin’s corruption is even far deeper. Its roots are in regions.

Russia’s way from President Eltsyn’s ‘Iron Fist’ to ‘Soft Dictatorship’ of Putin has taken 18 years. For nearly two decades, Putin has corrupted local elite. From them he is taking freedom of hands in crimes in/out of Russia.

But fearing defeat in 9^th September’s election, the Kremlin is ready to jail local opposition leaders far from Moscow, while pretending to be ‘soft’ to opposition circles in Moscow and other big cities. At the same time, under anti-American hysteria (since 2014) the Kremlin has launched a major attack on Freedom of Speech, closing down most independent media in regions, passages to the Internet in search of content to block and critics to arrest. It is a matter of further researches to clarify these topics, if they are needed.

International surveillance is critical

Coming US sanctions, being debated in the US Congress and the EU circles after Putin’s visit to Germany (Aug. 18), foresee targets in the Vertical Power structure. But they will be futile without sharp and aimed sanctions against senior civil and military officials from local Russia’s government, military and security forces who have direct and proved (by crime lists in NGOs) ties with OCGs and PMCs in/out of Russia. Their cooperation has substantially undermined Democracy and Free Market principles in Russia.

Global monitoring should be initiated by US sanctions to check up results of punishing autocrats and their vassals who have played a key role in ruining Russia’s dignity and image in the Kremlin’s politics & economy.

Opposition to the ruling party and the Kremlin with its local OCGs and PMCs could not seize complete control in a jiffy. Though sooner is better!

The campaigns against 9^th September election are also calling on foreign governments and investors to protect opposition leaders and self-ruling regions who would become their partners in business on Free Market principles and ‘the Rule of Law’ in the spirit of the Human Rights Charter.

For 100 years, Russians (and the non-Russian population of this country) have been robbed of their land to cultivate for themselves and their families, robbed of their country’s natural wealth, and robbed of their voice in pseudo-elections.

President Trump seems to see a betrayal of previous leaders of the US Special Services and the State Department which could not disclose all deeply autocratic nature of Putinism to him and his electorate in 2016-2018. He and Putin are antagonists in many ways.

Putin has collected those who destroyed Eltsyn’s Free Market structures and used them with lucky billions of petrodollars in favor of his buddies. They with their OCGs and PMCs are pillars of Putinism and targets of the US sanctions.

All his life, Donald Trump concentrates and contributes billions of dollars to helping Free Market principles inside the USA. As the US President he sees a strong need to build a democratic system from the devastation of the previous Communist genocide in Russia to make America far safer!

The Putinist corrupt elite is of no help to President Trump for his second term in the White House. That is why the coming sanctions will be a good starting point for US businesses with not corrupted and pro-American elite and population of Russia!

Pro-American trends is more and more evident in domestic sentiments of Russians in 2018[8]. It is a good sign for the global anti-Autocratic coalition to come and for changes in the US-Russia relation! As they sing, ‘Milk and honey on the other side...!’

         Vladimir Lukov

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[1] Hopes of Black Americans for better life from slavery were widely supported in the White America of the 1960s - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd_5-2kCzfs. Why don’t we try to do America and Russia ‘Great Again’ under the second term of president Trump? Pete Siger was blacklisted and banned from playing concerts in the USA because of the McCarthy 'witch hunts' of alleged communists. He was definitely a socialist but also a loyal and proud American. A truly free country should be able to accommodate people of all races, religious and political beliefs. That is what Democracy is all about. And we believe in it in Russia after Putin.

[2] See - http://sigma-profi.vip/eng/ In fact, all these ‘offers’ are pure fakes! Some highly positive approach to these Private Military Companies (PMCs) see here -  https://jamestown.org/program/continuing-war-by-other-means-the-case-of-wagner-russias-premier-private-military-company-in-the-middle-east/ . To my mind, the PMCs were copied not from old Soviet military fantasies but from OCGs that established the post-Communist autocratic ‘rule of law’!  

[3] The international monetary Fund estimates the share of the shadow economy of Russia at 33.7% of GDP. This writes the newspaper Kommersant with reference to the work of the Fund, which estimated the size of shadow economy in 158 countries around the world - https://ukropnews24.com/the-shadow-economy-of-the-russian-federation-reached-the-level-of-african-countries/. It seems to be nonsense with 60-70%, in fact!

[4] Innocent talks about sharing global energy markets and taking care for cheaper black caviar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTEyYYqiLMw just cover efforts to strengthen their common global autocracy principles.

[5] Germany is facing pressure from the US to halt work on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. And Putin’s help, if any, surely demolishes political-military ties inside the EC and NATO under the innocent commercial slogan ‘nothing personal, just business!’

[6] https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/country-chapters/russia

[7] https://thebell.io/en/a-proposal-to-nationalize-company-profits-triggers-a-fight-between-the-kremlin-and-government/ As they say, ‘rob Peter to pay Paul’.

[8] In the past 69% of Russians expressed negative feelings toward the USA. That figure was 81% during the peak of the Ukraine crisis in 2014–2015. But in 2018, a record 78% of Russians volunteered that they regard the United States as the most unfriendly foreign country - https://carnegie.ru/commentary/76787. In fact, pro-American feelings seem to become stronger than the Media are trying to show to the Autocratic Kremlin.