Ken Starr was known for probing Bill Clinton’s affair, mishandling sexual assault cases at Baylor University, and helping Jeffrey Epstein secure a sweetheart deal.
— Read on www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/ken-starr-dead-1234592249/
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Im still in Ireland. Please subscribe. I will be back. I appreciate each and every reader.
www.nytimes.com/2022/09/05/world/europe/ukraine-nuclear-plant.html
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i will be traveling in Ireland and wales for the next 17 days. But, i will return. Glory to Ukraine.
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Ukrainians value freedom over order. Russians value order over everything. These two people cannot live together. (Paraphrase of a comment by a Unkainian novelist).
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THURSDAY 25 AUGUST 2022
NYT
UKRAINE, THE LATEST podcast of The Telegraph
- Day 183 of the War on Ukraine
- Boris Johnson visited Ukraine today. This will probably be his last visit as Prime Minister. He urged the British to ensure the hardships economically of the war while the Ukrainians endure the war in blood.
- Johnson understands the importance of the war against Ukraine perhaps more than other European leaders. “We must keep going.”
- This comes when right-wing leaders in Italy, for example, are questioning the sanctions against Russia.
- This fight is about the kind of world we want to live in.
- Matteo Salvini, an Italian politician is advising a reconsideration of sanctions against Russia. He is famously pro-Kremlin. He has been photographed wearing a Putin tee shirt in Moscow. Opposition parties are using this narrative to attack the parties in power. This will continue to build as the winder comes and the costs of fuel will rise even more. This will be a key battlefield.
- Italy is now due to go to the polls September 25. Salvini is part of a right-wing coalition that includes Silvio Berlusconi, another Russia supporter.
- Macron has made statements that we must endure the cut backs in order to help Ukraine win this war.
- The reception of Salvini’s statements is not overwhelmingly supportive.
- Hungry is also complaining about sanctions. Bulgaria is trying to reestablish gas from Russia.
- Putin will be waiting for this break in the EU support for Ukraine due to increased energy prices.
- Hungry is one of Europe’s poorest countries. Orban is arguing that Europe is trying to make Hungarians poor.
- Future politicians in Italy, Germany and other countries may make gains by opposing support for Ukraine.
- Greece has an election coming up soon. Inflation is hitting the Greek population.
- Younger people have never lived through real economic disruption. It remains to be seen how they react. Politicians have repeatedly stress to them why this struggle is important.
- Blocs forming in the UN, emerging economies tending to abstain from opposition to Russia. India, however, voted against Russia in the UN on a procedural vote. If this suggests a trend, a lot of work is being done behind the scenes. This might be an encouraging shift.
- Turkey has an interesting role here in between the east and west. Turkey condemned the annexation of Crimea. They may be hardening in a pro-Ukrainian stance.
- Satellite imagery shows military equipment near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant.
- ISW Institute for Studying War – Follow on Twitter if you are a close watcher.
- Russia has lost land equivalent to Denmark since the beginning of the war. Analysis of Russian claim that they are slowing down their advance to limit civilian deaths. But, it is likely an attempt to explain away their failings.
- Dugina killing. It is unlikely that Ukraine did this. It risks escalating the war. The logistics are difficult. It is unlikely to be worth it. It is more likely that the dispute is internal. FSB targeting is a possibility. The more analysis, the less likely it seems that Ukraine is responsible.
- Sergei Shoigu now claims that they are concerned with civilian deaths? There has also been no convincing explanation of the attacks in Crimea, or the Dugina attack.
- They do not have a comprehensive plan on the battle field. They have had eight years to plan this and this is the best they can do?
- The war has triggered impacts on the environment which will produce problems. This may provoke an environmental disaster. Problems: deforestation and habitat destruction, excavations affecting soil, water availability. This will have a very big impact. The damage is not easily rectified.
- Boris Johnson was enormously helpful to Ukraine, especially at the beginning of the war when the UK and the USA were trying to unite NATO
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SUNDAY 21 AUGUST 2022
An explosion in an elite suburb of Moscow killed the daughter of an important Kremlin ideologue. Alexander Dugin, an ultranationalist Russian propagandist, flirted with the politics of Nazi Germany.
Dugin painted a picture of Russia fighting an “individualistic, materialistic west.” I cannot, however, understand how much more materialistic the Russian elite can be. I see no indication that there is a struggle going on against materialism among the Kremlin elite.
Dugin, according to the Guardian, formed a National Bolshevik party with a novelist “merging fascist and communist-nostalgic rhetoric and symbolism.”
After 1991, he became a prominent pillar of the conservative establishment. He wrote a much used book which called on Russia to “rebuild its influence through annexations and alliances while proclaiming his opposition to Ukraine as a sovereign state.”
Dugin framed Ukrains as an “enormous danger” for all of Eurasia. “…without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics.” Dugin wrote.
Putin quoted some of Dugin’s views in his 4,000 word essay “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukranians” which many see as his blueprint for the invasion of Ukraine. The invasion came just six months after this absurd and virtually unreadable essay was published.
After mass anti-government protests in 2012 Putin took power once again and he embraced a conservative vision for Russia. It was then that Dugin’s ideas gained more currency inside the Kremlin.
Dugin was a supporter of the annexation of Crimea and a bloody war in Donbas.
“I think we should kill, kill, kill (Ukrainians), there can’t be any other talk,” Dugin said in a video.
One of the most hated men in Ukraine, Dugin did not travel with heavy security and some think he was the target of Saturday’s attack.
Dugin’s influence on Putin has been much debated. An ally of Alexei Navalny wrote about Dugin” “This caricature pseudo-intellectual foist is certainly not part of the decision-making system.” This was written hours after the bombing.
The Guardian: “his brand of Russian nationalism has indisputably become popular among much of Russia’s political elite, and his views helped shape the ideas behind the invasion of Ukraine.”
Dugin’s daughter, 30-year-old Darya, was not an innocent bystander. She was a “pro-Kremlin journalist ideologically aligned with her father.”
Ukraine has denied any involvement in the car bombing. Ukrainian independence day is 24 August and Ukraine is bracing itself for reprisals. Ukrainian military warned that Russia had “put five cruise missile-bearing warships and submarines out in the Black Sea and…Moscow was positioning air defense systems in Belarus.”
Ilya Ponomarev, a former member of Russia’s Duma, now lives in Kyiv. He was expelled from Russia for anti-Kremlin activities while he was in the United States and preventing from returning. He established an anti-Russian newspaper in Kyiv.
He has claimed that the explosion that killed Darya Dugin’s death was the work of the National Republican Army, an underground group working inside Russia to overthrow Putin.
Prominent Russian hawks called for Russia to attack Ukrainian officials.
Darya Dugin and her father were scheduled to leave an event together, but left in separate cars. Darya Dugin left in her father’s car. Dugin has been described as a “Russian fascist,” and his daughter had similar views.
The independent Russian news agency, Agentstvo, has reported that the car was registered in the daughter’s name.
Dugin has been described as the “spiritual guide” to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Both Dugin and his daughter has been sanctioned by the United States.
Cnn (8/21/22)
The US Treasury has said that Dugin was a leader of the Eurasian Youth Union, which recruited those with military and combat experience to fight in Donbas.
In an interview with CNN in 2017, Dugin remarked on the many similarities between his own views and those of Donald Trump. He characterized Trump’s inauguration speech “as if I would write it myself.”
Dugin also said that Putin had provided inspiration for Trump.
BBC
While Dugin is not a state official, he is “a symbolic figure in Russian politics.”
Names:
Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry.
Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief for the state-funded RT television station.
Mykhailo Podolyak, spokesman for Zelensky
Keir Giles, a Russia expert at the Chatham House thinktank.
Agentstvo, independent Russian news agency.
Sources:
- The Guardian 8/21/22
- Luke Harding.
Law, Power and Justice 