In 2011 Russian president Dmitry Medvedev abstained from direct involvement in Libyan affairs. Gaddafi was killed, and new fragile pro-western government couldn't settle issues among islamists, different clans, local elites in cities, mercenaries from Sudan and Chad, and other actors. These conflicts inevitably provoked new civil war, which we observe today.
The state of war has two-fold consequences for Russia. On the one hand, Libya is oil-exporting country, and its eviction from the market doesn't sound as smth bad. Also for a short time Libyan case was used by Russian propagandists, who presented it as Russian future after the victory of liberal revolution (2011-2012 became the years of confrontation between liberals and Putin supporters). On the other hand, in a worn-torn Libya potentially lucrative assets can be obtained for low prices, and Russian oil companies, like Tatarstan-based Tatneft, Russian gas-giant Gazprom and the biggest oil company Rosneft used this opportunity. These companies became interested in stabilization of Libya.
In 2017-2018 after long time of meditation Russian elites chose their champion. Khalifa Haftar, the head of Libyan National Army, looked capable of defeating Government of National Accord and uniting the country. Also he was an (ex?)-CIA operative and the UAE/Egypt puppet, but Russian elites demonstrated tolerance to these minor drawbacks. Actually, forging the alliance with the UAE opened interesting opportunities for the Kremlin, because Emirates were ready to pay for Russian mercenaries and weapons.
With the help of Russian mercenaries Haftar started the assault of Tripoli in 2019. At first GNA position looked hopeless, but a full-scale Turkish intervention completely turned the tide of battle. Now the prospects of Haftar look pretty bleak. Ironically, in January 2020 Putin offered GNA and LNA to work out a political solution, but Haftar left Moscow without signing the armistice. After all, his troops almost took the Libyan capital, and he didn't see any profit from diplomacy. Now it's unclear whether GNA will agree on truce with LNA after Haftar's strategic defeat, and what will be the fate of Russian assets in Libya.
#international #libya
The state of war has two-fold consequences for Russia. On the one hand, Libya is oil-exporting country, and its eviction from the market doesn't sound as smth bad. Also for a short time Libyan case was used by Russian propagandists, who presented it as Russian future after the victory of liberal revolution (2011-2012 became the years of confrontation between liberals and Putin supporters). On the other hand, in a worn-torn Libya potentially lucrative assets can be obtained for low prices, and Russian oil companies, like Tatarstan-based Tatneft, Russian gas-giant Gazprom and the biggest oil company Rosneft used this opportunity. These companies became interested in stabilization of Libya.
In 2017-2018 after long time of meditation Russian elites chose their champion. Khalifa Haftar, the head of Libyan National Army, looked capable of defeating Government of National Accord and uniting the country. Also he was an (ex?)-CIA operative and the UAE/Egypt puppet, but Russian elites demonstrated tolerance to these minor drawbacks. Actually, forging the alliance with the UAE opened interesting opportunities for the Kremlin, because Emirates were ready to pay for Russian mercenaries and weapons.
With the help of Russian mercenaries Haftar started the assault of Tripoli in 2019. At first GNA position looked hopeless, but a full-scale Turkish intervention completely turned the tide of battle. Now the prospects of Haftar look pretty bleak. Ironically, in January 2020 Putin offered GNA and LNA to work out a political solution, but Haftar left Moscow without signing the armistice. After all, his troops almost took the Libyan capital, and he didn't see any profit from diplomacy. Now it's unclear whether GNA will agree on truce with LNA after Haftar's strategic defeat, and what will be the fate of Russian assets in Libya.
#international #libya
Today is the first day without digital GULAG in Moscow. The mayor of Moscow, Sergey Sobyanin, closed the pass system, which caused a huge controversy among citizens. Officialy people were forbidden to leave houses for non-essential purposes (buying food in a store 100m from your home and going to essential work), even individual sport activities were persecuted. To distinguish essential workers and others, a system of passes was implemented.
A person had to make an account on Moscow government internet page, give all main info about himself and his employee, and then receive a pass. The system was heavily bugged, it definetely violated any rights on privacy, its work was illegal, and caused concerns about security of the data. I refused to use the passes and was walking on the streets avoiding police patrols, while system of public transport was closed for me. Finaly, this nonsense was abolished.
In Moscow the number of new cases became lower than number of cured people, and city slowly returns back to work. Still, restaraunts, gyms and swimming pools are closed till 23th of June.
#corona
A person had to make an account on Moscow government internet page, give all main info about himself and his employee, and then receive a pass. The system was heavily bugged, it definetely violated any rights on privacy, its work was illegal, and caused concerns about security of the data. I refused to use the passes and was walking on the streets avoiding police patrols, while system of public transport was closed for me. Finaly, this nonsense was abolished.
In Moscow the number of new cases became lower than number of cured people, and city slowly returns back to work. Still, restaraunts, gyms and swimming pools are closed till 23th of June.
#corona
Telegram is unblocked in Russia. Later I will expand this post a bit, rn I'm looking through the details
Telegram became very popular among people interested in privacy. The government constantly asked Durov to share info about the users, but he was pretty reluctant to such demands. These principles attracted political opposition of all kinds, journalists, pr-managers, officials who wanted to share their views, and criminals. Telegram was (and is) an escape from Putin's dictatorship and liberal censorship of western social media. This position made the messenger a real 4th branch of power, the best source of information about the things government wants to hide. Of course, state propagandists labeled Telgram as the messenger for drugdealers and terrorists, but later they joined Telegram themselves.
Independence of Telegram is very annoying for people in power. They have to pay for expensive media-campaigns here instead of just shutting the messenger down, but of course they tried to ban it first. Russian web infrastructure since 1989 to 2011 was developing like a liberal one, and a serious attempt to build Chinese-style firewall in Russia from scratch would cost authorities billions of dollars, while the success wouldn't be guaranteed. Roskomnadzor, mentioned in this channel before, blocked Telegram in Russia because Durov refused to give FSB pesonal info on six people in 2017.
It led to unexpected consequences. Despite improving the methods of blocking, Roskomnadzor failed to ban Telegram. Integral vpn helped users, while Telegram was migrating from one server to another, avoiding the block. After all Roskomnadzor made a carpet bombing of different ip-adresses, banning millions of them. Ordinary services and internet pages suffered.
From the start attempts of banning Telegram were viewed negatively by activists and lawyers. People (including me) took to the streets, business owners started litigation, while the main goal of the authorities, actually ban Telegram, was out of reach. Even Putin supporters understood that the situation didn't look normal. So, the main reasons to unban Telegram are:
1. It cannot be banned de-facto
2. Many pro-putin journalists have popular channels in tg
3. Durov deletes terrorist and child porn channels
4. On June 23, hearings on the Telegram case will take place in the European Court of Human Rights. The plaintiffs are businessmen who suffered from Roskomnadzor "carpet bombing", and some bloggers who have tg channels. No doubt that they will win the case and Russian state will have to pay compensations. Also I'm sure that the Court would oblige to unban Telegram if it still was blocked.
P.S. the story won't be full if I don't mention a conspiracy theory about Telegram as FSB honeypot.
#internet
Independence of Telegram is very annoying for people in power. They have to pay for expensive media-campaigns here instead of just shutting the messenger down, but of course they tried to ban it first. Russian web infrastructure since 1989 to 2011 was developing like a liberal one, and a serious attempt to build Chinese-style firewall in Russia from scratch would cost authorities billions of dollars, while the success wouldn't be guaranteed. Roskomnadzor, mentioned in this channel before, blocked Telegram in Russia because Durov refused to give FSB pesonal info on six people in 2017.
It led to unexpected consequences. Despite improving the methods of blocking, Roskomnadzor failed to ban Telegram. Integral vpn helped users, while Telegram was migrating from one server to another, avoiding the block. After all Roskomnadzor made a carpet bombing of different ip-adresses, banning millions of them. Ordinary services and internet pages suffered.
From the start attempts of banning Telegram were viewed negatively by activists and lawyers. People (including me) took to the streets, business owners started litigation, while the main goal of the authorities, actually ban Telegram, was out of reach. Even Putin supporters understood that the situation didn't look normal. So, the main reasons to unban Telegram are:
1. It cannot be banned de-facto
2. Many pro-putin journalists have popular channels in tg
3. Durov deletes terrorist and child porn channels
4. On June 23, hearings on the Telegram case will take place in the European Court of Human Rights. The plaintiffs are businessmen who suffered from Roskomnadzor "carpet bombing", and some bloggers who have tg channels. No doubt that they will win the case and Russian state will have to pay compensations. Also I'm sure that the Court would oblige to unban Telegram if it still was blocked.
P.S. the story won't be full if I don't mention a conspiracy theory about Telegram as FSB honeypot.
#internet
Russian: no articles. Still, we have genders, cases, numbers, so Russian is much harder than English. Also (the) absence of articles in Russian makes it really hard for me to use them while I write smth in English or German. I know (the) theory, but still make mistakes from time to time.
Today I said no to constitutional amendments. Tomorrow I will explain my choice in detail.
#constitution
#constitution
Some words about previous(?) Russian constitution. It was adopted in 1993 after heavy clashes between president supporters and parliament, elected before the collapse of the USSR. This struggle is very important for understanding RF's history, I will write a post or two about it later. What we need to know now is that Boris Eltsin, president of Russia, defeated the parliament. The task of the constitution was pretty straightforward: turn Russia into presidential republic. Still, the liberal lawyers, who actually wrote the main law of Russia, at least added there liberties of all sorts and subordination to international law.
The attitude towards constitution varies among politically awared people greatly. Some of them consider it "American" and "colonial", mostly because of submission to international law. Others think that liberal freedoms are a great step forward, but presidential powers must be balanced by the parliament and courts. Novadays it's hard to find any person who is agreed on 100% of the text.
In fact all constitutional freedoms were greatly limited during Putin's presidency by federal laws and other documents. For example, the right to gather rallies enshrined in constitution was "specified" by federal law on meetings. Apparently Russians have a right to participate on gatherings, but they must notify the authorities (that's normal), which can refuse to approve it (not normal). Moreover, the organizers of meetings must state the number of participants, and meeting can become illegal right in the proccess, if the number of the protesters is higher than stated (not normal at all).
The most important changes affected freedom of speech. At first it was limited by slander laws (poorly written, but normal), then by hate-speech ban (not normal, typical western degeneracy), than by law for "protection of belivers" (poorly written, overlaps previous law, directly opposes constitutional freedom of consciousness), then by "distortion of historic events" (no clear definition of distortion, direct violation of speech freedom). The Constitutional Court approved all of this without any moment of doubt.
Now my personal opinion. I've never liked the constitution of 1993. From nationalist perspective it denied the existence of ethnic Russians and therefore our role in state-building. On the other hand, the constitution of 1993 cemented ugly soviet administrative division and declared continuity with the USSR without even mentioning the Russian empire. From liberal perspective the constitution instead of making the president a part of executive branch created an omnipotent creature flying over all branches of power. Ofcourse, the roots of present-day dictatorship lie in these passages of the main law. In the last paragraph I wanted to criticize the text per se, but I should mention again that all good things stated in the document were limited or abolished by other laws later.
I wouldn’t feel regret if the situation didn’t get worse.
#constitution #legislation
The attitude towards constitution varies among politically awared people greatly. Some of them consider it "American" and "colonial", mostly because of submission to international law. Others think that liberal freedoms are a great step forward, but presidential powers must be balanced by the parliament and courts. Novadays it's hard to find any person who is agreed on 100% of the text.
In fact all constitutional freedoms were greatly limited during Putin's presidency by federal laws and other documents. For example, the right to gather rallies enshrined in constitution was "specified" by federal law on meetings. Apparently Russians have a right to participate on gatherings, but they must notify the authorities (that's normal), which can refuse to approve it (not normal). Moreover, the organizers of meetings must state the number of participants, and meeting can become illegal right in the proccess, if the number of the protesters is higher than stated (not normal at all).
The most important changes affected freedom of speech. At first it was limited by slander laws (poorly written, but normal), then by hate-speech ban (not normal, typical western degeneracy), than by law for "protection of belivers" (poorly written, overlaps previous law, directly opposes constitutional freedom of consciousness), then by "distortion of historic events" (no clear definition of distortion, direct violation of speech freedom). The Constitutional Court approved all of this without any moment of doubt.
Now my personal opinion. I've never liked the constitution of 1993. From nationalist perspective it denied the existence of ethnic Russians and therefore our role in state-building. On the other hand, the constitution of 1993 cemented ugly soviet administrative division and declared continuity with the USSR without even mentioning the Russian empire. From liberal perspective the constitution instead of making the president a part of executive branch created an omnipotent creature flying over all branches of power. Ofcourse, the roots of present-day dictatorship lie in these passages of the main law. In the last paragraph I wanted to criticize the text per se, but I should mention again that all good things stated in the document were limited or abolished by other laws later.
I wouldn’t feel regret if the situation didn’t get worse.
#constitution #legislation
For those who don't know, Khabarovsk krai (pronounced as cry) is a big region in the Russian Far East. Recently its governor Sergei Furgal from LDPR, elected in 2018, was detained and accused of multiple assasinations. After that people in the region took to the streets and demaned his release. I'm trying be laconic here, but these events touch a vast amount of topics, so it's difficult to explain them in short. Probably later I'll write more posts about federalism, Russian political parties, opposition, regional peculiarities and so on.
#protest #khabarovsk
https://telegra.ph/Far-Cry-07-25
#protest #khabarovsk
https://telegra.ph/Far-Cry-07-25
Telegraph
Far Cry
Foreigners should understand that people in Russia don't know much about the Far East. Only 8mln people out of 146mln Russians live there. Majority of Russians never visited that federal district (me included), because of the big distance and relatively high…
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Time to write an article on Belarus. I think it will appear on the channel before Lukashenko's fall (spoiler: Lukasheko won't lose power today).
#international #belarus
#international #belarus
— For sure that all of this is just a
Coincidence, something Improbable to have foreign ties and nothing Abnormal, right?Not an expert on other countries, but Kyrgizia has nothing to do with Soros or CIA. Every election cycle two clans (northern and southern) can't normally share power. So every 5 years there is a "revolution", and the current president leaves the country. Ofcourse Kyrgyz youth wants changes, and I understand them: it is hard to live in a corrupted shithole. But not all young activists in Kyrgizia are pro-western that much, and they don't get power in any case.
All Kyrgyz political forces claimed they are Russia's best friends, but Moscow suspended economic aid to Kyrgizia anyway, and now waits for political stabilization, which inevitable will be reached till the next elections, when the history will repeat itself.
#international #kyrgizia
All Kyrgyz political forces claimed they are Russia's best friends, but Moscow suspended economic aid to Kyrgizia anyway, and now waits for political stabilization, which inevitable will be reached till the next elections, when the history will repeat itself.
#international #kyrgizia
Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire. In general, Armenia capitulated. I'm writing this here because Russia sends its army to Kharabakh as a peacekeeping mission. 2k soldiers are already on their way to Caucasus.
Corona update.
Number of corona cases has stabilized on rather warning numbers, 27k-28k per day, the record was 29,4k. While many countries (like the UK) are under strict lockdown, it is suspiciously calm in Russia. Almost every region has bars, restaraunts, ice rinks, and museums open. Sport events and concerts are avaliable with certain restrictions. Although, it seems the New Year fireworks and festivals were cancelled around the country.
The situation in transport field has improved. Since spring quarantine the Russian railroads restored almost every train route. The number of flights within the country pushed off the bottom as well. The real problem is international travel: the Russian government banned flights to many countries, so top destination for Russian tourists in 2020 is Turkey. A lot of my friends, maybe two dozen people, visited Istanbul this year. Also some of my friends used interchange in Istanbul to fly somewhere else. Was it wise to give the Turks such advantage? In my opinion, not at all.
In general it seems the authorities rely on soft measures combined with vaccination. The latter has already started in Moscow and in fact became avaliable for every city dweller. At first the regional government wanted to prioritize some groups (like teachers and doctors) in supplying the vaccine, but in part this idea failed. People are very reluctant in taking it, so in fact every Moscovite can get an appointment for an injection without queue, which is a bit surprising for me.
#corona
Number of corona cases has stabilized on rather warning numbers, 27k-28k per day, the record was 29,4k. While many countries (like the UK) are under strict lockdown, it is suspiciously calm in Russia. Almost every region has bars, restaraunts, ice rinks, and museums open. Sport events and concerts are avaliable with certain restrictions. Although, it seems the New Year fireworks and festivals were cancelled around the country.
The situation in transport field has improved. Since spring quarantine the Russian railroads restored almost every train route. The number of flights within the country pushed off the bottom as well. The real problem is international travel: the Russian government banned flights to many countries, so top destination for Russian tourists in 2020 is Turkey. A lot of my friends, maybe two dozen people, visited Istanbul this year. Also some of my friends used interchange in Istanbul to fly somewhere else. Was it wise to give the Turks such advantage? In my opinion, not at all.
In general it seems the authorities rely on soft measures combined with vaccination. The latter has already started in Moscow and in fact became avaliable for every city dweller. At first the regional government wanted to prioritize some groups (like teachers and doctors) in supplying the vaccine, but in part this idea failed. People are very reluctant in taking it, so in fact every Moscovite can get an appointment for an injection without queue, which is a bit surprising for me.
#corona
2021 has come to Russian territory. It's already 00:30 in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, capital of Kamchatskiy krai. Russia has 11 time zones, and if you are strong enough, you can start celebrating at 15:00 Moscow time😂
Journalists use rather primitive approach when they write about the protests in Russia. Conservatives condemn Navalny and protesters, some of them even support Russian police (lol), while global liberal media attack Putin and give positive coverage of the opposition rallies. I tried to be neutral, sorry, if I failed. As for Navalny, he deserved another text. Maybe I'll write it later.
https://telegra.ph/23--31--02-The-protests-in-Russia-02-04
#protest
https://telegra.ph/23--31--02-The-protests-in-Russia-02-04
#protest
Telegraph
23 + 31 + 02. The protests in Russia
This post will be about the protests, which took place on 23rd and 31st of January, and then erupted on 2nd of February, when Navalny was sentenced for 3 years in prison. Where to begin? The protests can be viewed on two levels: tactical and general. It's…
Ukraine and Russia are flexing on each other, and still I don't believe in full-scale conflict between them. What can happen?
1. The least possible option: Ukraine starts offensive operation in Donbass, Russia doesn't come to help separatists. After a week or so pro-Russian unrecognized republics collapse. The end. I don't believe this will happen because Russia invested in Donbass too many resources. Also this defeat will draw more attention to Crimea, a scenario nobody in Moscow wants to happen.
2. Ukraine starts limited operation in Donbass, Russia supports separatists. Then the situation returns to existed status-quo or maybe Donbass militia will liberate a couple of insignificant villages. Russia will try to avoid sanctions, so the scale of military actions will be minimal.
3. Two sides are shooting at each other, dozens of people die for nothing, than diplomats sign another cease-fire. This option looks stupid, but I consider it to be the most real one. Ukraine must attract attention to the conflict in order to get credits and military supplies from the West, and shooting helps to achieve this. Also the conflict allows Ukrainian elites to justify their fails in internal affairs. Probably Zelensky counts to boost his ratings blaming Russia for everything, and maybe NATO countries will impose new sanctions on Russia.
Anyway, while a lot of people expect total war, I just see partly-frozen local conflict, where no side can get ultimate victory
#ukraine #international
1. The least possible option: Ukraine starts offensive operation in Donbass, Russia doesn't come to help separatists. After a week or so pro-Russian unrecognized republics collapse. The end. I don't believe this will happen because Russia invested in Donbass too many resources. Also this defeat will draw more attention to Crimea, a scenario nobody in Moscow wants to happen.
2. Ukraine starts limited operation in Donbass, Russia supports separatists. Then the situation returns to existed status-quo or maybe Donbass militia will liberate a couple of insignificant villages. Russia will try to avoid sanctions, so the scale of military actions will be minimal.
3. Two sides are shooting at each other, dozens of people die for nothing, than diplomats sign another cease-fire. This option looks stupid, but I consider it to be the most real one. Ukraine must attract attention to the conflict in order to get credits and military supplies from the West, and shooting helps to achieve this. Also the conflict allows Ukrainian elites to justify their fails in internal affairs. Probably Zelensky counts to boost his ratings blaming Russia for everything, and maybe NATO countries will impose new sanctions on Russia.
Anyway, while a lot of people expect total war, I just see partly-frozen local conflict, where no side can get ultimate victory
#ukraine #international
On April 12th, 1961, a Russian guy from Smolensk province became the first human into space🚀
Yuri Gagarin's flight is a symbol of progress, a triumph of science, and yet another proof that humans are very creative creatures.
On personal level I admire Gagarin for this skill to enjoy life, unfortunately a very rare quality among Russians and other post-soviet peoples. When I look at Gagarin's pictures with his famous happy smile, I'm getting better myself😊
#space
Yuri Gagarin's flight is a symbol of progress, a triumph of science, and yet another proof that humans are very creative creatures.
On personal level I admire Gagarin for this skill to enjoy life, unfortunately a very rare quality among Russians and other post-soviet peoples. When I look at Gagarin's pictures with his famous happy smile, I'm getting better myself😊
#space
I had some problems at university and didn't have much time. A lot of important events happened in latest two weeks, and I got a feeling that they demand certain coverage