# Pro Kremlin Party now has power to modify constitution



## RackMaster (Sep 19, 2016)

Given Putin's history of increasingly taking more control or changing things so he could stay in power; is this the next step to making him "Supreme Leader"?

Pro-Kremlin party wins big majority in Russian parliament


----------



## Devildoc (Sep 19, 2016)

Putin wants it both ways: he understands the need to engage the west and hop on the capitalism train, but like any real Russian he is very suspicious of the west, and like all good former-Soviet leaders, he understands the need to have total reign on his government.


----------



## Gunz (Sep 19, 2016)

Putin is extremely popular with the average Russian, both men and women. He's a macho-man to them, like a Russian version of James Bond or John Wayne. So his party has pretty firm support at the grassroots level for incremental power moves.


----------



## Devildoc (Sep 19, 2016)

And who could _not_ have predicted something like this?

Russia 'to revive the KGB' after Putin wins biggest majority


----------



## Diamondback 2/2 (Sep 19, 2016)

Putin is a classically trained statesman, from his early beginning with the KGB, into politics. He has been immersed in deplomacy, politics and the manipulation of such. What we are seeing is someone who has reached the mastery of his craft. I don't think the world has seen a leader of his caliber in a very long time. 

It's been interesting watching him this past decade and a half. Especially how he did Georgia, Ukraine and Syria.


----------



## Brill (Sep 19, 2016)

Diamondback 2/2 said:


> Putin is a classically trained statesman, from his early beginning with the KGB, into politics. He has been immersed in deplomacy, politics and the manipulation of such. What we are seeing is someone who has reached the mastery of his craft. I don't think the world has seen a leader of his caliber in a very long time.
> 
> It's been interesting watching him this past decade and a half. Especially how he did Georgia, Ukraine and Syria.



Huh? He's a state sponsored mafia boss!

I would think that negotiation skills would be part of diplomacy but Putin only threatens or steamrolls over the opposition, be they rivals, political opponents, or other countries.  Russians who tried to stand up to him are either killed, jailed, or succumb due to threats or blackmail.


----------



## DA SWO (Sep 19, 2016)

I thought Obama said Russia wasn't a threat?  How could this be happening?


----------



## Diamondback 2/2 (Sep 19, 2016)

Negotiations require leverage and he is very good at the leverage part. He almost always comes from a position of power.


----------



## Brill (Sep 19, 2016)

Diamondback 2/2 said:


> Negotiations require leverage and he is very good at the leverage part. He almost always comes from a position of power.



When a Russian representative is across the table, they have the leverage or they wouldn't be there.


----------



## Red Flag 1 (Sep 19, 2016)

Putin is strong across the board. Obama is weak at just about everything. At the last Economic Sumitt in China, all who attended came off their planes onto the big red carpet. Obama was the exception. As I recall, he had to exit from the rear of the aircraft onto bare tarmac. Some kind of glitch said the White House. China is all about face, and obama lost all his face in China. The world leaders have obama's number, no one more so than Putin. As @Devildoc  pointed out, Putin is a trained classic statesman, obama is untrained and totally inept. For obama to not see Russia as a threat, is what Putin likes to hear; and is probably what Putin told obama. The US has very little diplomatic capital at this point.


----------



## Brill (Sep 19, 2016)

He needs to start a major war because their economy is in major trouble.



> “A year from now, the country will look different in many ways, which poses many questions both in the sphere of domestic politics and that of foreign policy,” Petrov wrote. “But, as the old saying goes, Russia is a country where everything can change in five years, and nothing in 100.”



Think Tank Outlines Possible Scenarios for Russian Collapse


----------



## AWP (Sep 19, 2016)

If you've followed our air campaign you'd see that Russia has owned us from day one. If you've seen some of the details a few of us have, you'd know emphatically that Russia has owned us from their opening deployment. Losing that Su-24 to the Turks gave them all of the initiative and justification needed to dominate the mission. The shit we've allowed them to do is staggering and we possessed more leverage during the Cold War than we now "enjoy." They are operating globally as they see fit and this is amply demonstrated over Syria.


----------



## SpitfireV (Sep 21, 2016)

I wouldn't say they're operating globally. You guys are still the monopoly there.


----------



## Gunz (Sep 21, 2016)

_Wolverines!_


----------



## Red Flag 1 (Sep 21, 2016)

Ocoka One said:


> _Wolverines!_



With the bad guys already here, and taking innocent civilian lives.


----------



## AWP (Sep 21, 2016)

SpitfireV said:


> I wouldn't say they're operating globally. You guys are still the monopoly there.



I guess you're responding to my post?

No, they are operating globally. We are their focus, true, but that is happening around the globe. The UK has intercepted bombers, ala the Cold War, and we could probably find other instances, assuming they were reported.


----------



## SpitfireV (Sep 22, 2016)

Indeed I am.

They're not operating globally, though. Sending a couple of bombers/collection platforms/whatever over to the US or UK isn't an example of global operations.

Syria is about as far as they can project power without overextending themselves. And that's not all that far from Russia, really.

They're not operating in Africa, the Pacific or either of the Americas (at least nothing significant) Because they can't project power that far.

I'm defining operating as being projecting military power, just to be clear.


----------



## AWP (Sep 22, 2016)

SpitfireV said:


> They're not operating globally, though. Sending a couple of bombers/collection platforms/whatever over to the US or UK isn't an example of global operations.
> 
> Syria is about as far as they can project power without overextending themselves. And that's not all that far from Russia, really.
> 
> ...



You're wrong. They have operated off Somali, including the capture of pirates, the Indian Ocean including exercises in 2014 and 2016, intercepted our a/c in the Pacific, have a base on the Spanish side of Gibraltar, SAM and bomber deployments to Venezuela, and the Europe/ Baltic/ Black Sea/ Syria angle which is widely discussed.


----------



## WiLLiE_DYNAMiTE410 (Sep 22, 2016)

According to the article, 35 percent of eligible voters turned out, which suggests some manipulation of the voting process to say the least. In addition, it also says Putin has a large amount of control over television in Russia. This article reports on a study done on Russian propaganda, and how they create images of the anti-Russian political parties in Western Ukraine as "radicals, ultranationalists, etc." --- Behind Russia’s TV propaganda machine | News | DW.COM | 02.09.2015 --- I also remember reading about how Russian soldiers immediately started programming Crimean TVs to Russian channels when they came in. Politics all around the world are volatile right now


----------



## Gunz (Sep 22, 2016)

Freefalling said:


> You're wrong. They have operated off Somali, including the capture of pirates, the Indian Ocean including exercises in 2014 and 2016, intercepted our a/c in the Pacific, have a base on the Spanish side of Gibraltar, SAM and bomber deployments to Venezuela, and the Europe/ Baltic/ Black Sea/ Syria angle which is widely discussed.



Indeed. And made a show way back in '08 when they sent warships through the Panama Canal, west to east, from what was once the US Rodman Naval Base. I have always felt--and his behavior confirms to a degree--that Putin yearns for the good old days of Soviet superpower status; and that it's his intention is to regain that reputation for his country, without, of course, the reintroduction of Communism. He's trying, gradually, to rebuild a Russia that can globally compete with the West.

Given the United States' and Western leaders milk toast reactions to Putin's moves, I think he'll be fairly successful.


----------



## BloodStripe (Mar 26, 2018)

I was reading today about all the various countries expelling Russian diplomats today over the poisoning of the former spy and his daughter and was shocked to see that Ukraine still has allowed Russia to keep its embassy in Ukraine. Call me crazy, but if you are running a proxy war in my country and annexing parts of it, I would not allow you to keep open an embassy.


----------



## NFB19 (Mar 27, 2018)

This whole business with escalating tensions over the poisoning of a former double agent is fishy. I truly don't believe the Kremlin had anything to do with it. Why, after nearly 30 years since the Cold War, would they just now decide to take out a defector? Why would they use the very Russian sounding nerve agent Novichoks (rough Russian equivalent translation of gringo/gaijin)? Some believe it is Russia posturing and sending a message to its agents. Hard no, I'm sure their agents know the possible backlash without seeing a state-sponsored assassination on the news. Great Britain's knee jerk reaction, and the countries following suit, is both ill-informed and not advisable. If Russia wanted a former agent dead, I'm certain they are very capable of making that person disappear and/or at least making their demise look 'accidental'. They certainly wouldn't use a very Russian sounding chemical nerve agent (the chemical formula of which is published for the public domain) against some intel officer defector that has been out of the game for decades.


----------



## Devildoc (Mar 27, 2018)

@NFB19 , it isn't the first time.  It's at least the second one that we know about.  Not sure what you do or how much you know about Soviet/Russian posturing, but historically they like to be loud and proud of their antics, not just to warn other Russian dissidents, but also to put other countries on notice.  Twenty two countries have expelled 137 Russian diplomats, accounting for hundreds of years of foreign service and intelligence knowledge, so I think there's more 'there' there.


----------



## Etype (Mar 27, 2018)

NFB19 said:


> Why, after nearly 30 years since the Cold War, would they just now decide to take out a defector?


The reason why is the HUNDREDS of Soviet and Russian defectors, over 40 of which have come directly from their intelligence community. 

The message is this- you will not live a peaceful life, if you slight us, we will come for you.

When they fail to be motovated by patriotism, the system will motivate them with fear of repercussions.


----------



## NFB19 (Mar 29, 2018)

Devildoc said:


> @NFB19 , it isn't the first time.  It's at least the second one that we know about.  Not sure what you do or how much you know about Soviet/Russian posturing, but historically they like to be loud and proud of their antics, not just to warn other Russian dissidents, but also to put other countries on notice.  Twenty two countries have expelled 137 Russian diplomats, accounting for hundreds of years of foreign service and intelligence knowledge, so I think there's more 'there' there.





Etype said:


> The reason why is the HUNDREDS of Soviet and Russian defectors, over 40 of which have come directly from their intelligence community.
> 
> The message is this- you will not live a peaceful life, if you slight us, we will come for you.
> 
> When they fail to be motovated by patriotism, the system will motivate them with fear of repercussions.



Yes, Russia has a history with being a bit "loud" with their posturing, but it is not done without reason. There is something strategic about it. This move created a negative value. Russia surely would have realized this would be the international reaction to their alleged poisoning of the defector. I agree,  it is not above Russia to inspire fear in defectors and current agents, but I believe Putin is smarter than this. What is more valuable: instilling fear into defectors and agents in a very public way, or maintaining current intelligence plugs in key foreign states? To me the answer is easy. 

I cannot begin to assume who may have staged the poisoning, but I don't believe it was Russia. Someone very smart, knowing where the finger would be pointed, and knowing the backlash, set this up. Putin, at least, was enjoying a very buddy-ish relationship with Trump, which has allowed him to make moves against us and our allies without much repercussion. That is gone now. I just don't see how Russia could have thought they would benefit from this.


----------



## Devildoc (Mar 29, 2018)

@NFB19, here's the dangerous assumption westerners make about Russia, and it has happened to all of us and the best of us:  we assume Russia thinks a) like us, and b) rationally.  They may look like us (i.e., western, Caucasian), but that's about as far as the similarities goes.  They have a 250+ year history of irrational thinking, paranoia, and illogical and unjustified actions.

I don't know what Putin, et al., were thinking.  I doubt anyone does.  But apparently the evidence to those with access must be pretty damning; Mattis, who is about as objective and non-reactionary as they come, has endorsed the intel that it was Russia's doing.


----------



## SaintKP (Mar 29, 2018)

I can see it from the standpoint that Putin or whoever, did it as previously stated to make a huge statement. 

Russia has almost always been ruled by an iron fisted leader, since even before the the Mongols subjugated it's principalities and up to present day with Putin. What better way to let your populace know that nothing is outside your reach and that you're willing to make a great deal of noise to get your point across, than to make it almost publicly known that you performed a state sponsored assassination regardless of the potential repercussions? Also this wouldn't be the first time Novichok was used by the Russians to kill off other Russians. 

Also it may be because I just got done reading True Faith and Allegiance but how likely is it that someone got their hands on some old school soviet developed chemical weapons? How much military hardware went missing during the fall of the Soviet Union? If someone out there wanted to really stir the pot and cause confusion, this would be a pretty good way.


----------



## Etype (Mar 29, 2018)

NFB19 said:


> 1. There is something strategic about it. This move created a negative value. Russia surely would have realized this would be the international reaction to their alleged poisoning of the defector.
> 
> 2. What is more valuable: instilling fear into defectors and agents in a very public way, or maintaining current intelligence plugs in key foreign states? To me the answer is easy.


1. The strategic factor comes in the reminder that there will be consequences for actions against the state, no matter how long it takes. 

2. The value is in showing that you will pay for your choices no matter what the political price, and that there is no safe haven for traitors to the state.

Additionally, with the policy of reciprocity, Russia doesn't "lose" anything, they evict a comparable number of diplomats from Russia. Who's to say they weren't looking for a reason to oust several dozen British diplomats?


----------



## NFB19 (Mar 29, 2018)

SaintKP said:


> Also it may be because I just got done reading True Faith and Allegiance but how likely is it that someone got their hands on some old school soviet developed chemical weapons? How much military hardware went missing during the fall of the Soviet Union? If someone out there wanted to really stir the pot and cause confusion, this would be a pretty good way.


It is very available. Several of the old Soviet chemists who worked on the Novichok project back in the day have defected all over the place. I believe a prof at Princeton (can't remember his name) even published the formula for it at some point. Also found this article:
Soviet-era scientist says he helped create poison in UK spy attack row


----------



## RackMaster (Mar 30, 2018)

NFB19 said:


> It is very available. Several of the old Soviet chemists who worked on the Novichok project back in the day have defected all over the place. I believe a prof at Princeton (can't remember his name) even published the formula for it at some point. Also found this article:
> Soviet-era scientist says he helped create poison in UK spy attack row



And if that's the case, when Russia finds out who did it; they'll kill off everyone involved and possibly their families, first.


----------



## Devildoc (Mar 30, 2018)

RackMaster said:


> And if that's the case, when Russia finds out who did it; they'll kill off everyone involved and possibly their families, first.



See "Alpha Group."  I mean, the Russians have tactics that put the mafia to shame.


----------

