Russia releases a stunning staged photo of President Vladimir Putin sitting at such a distance from his generals and advisors he appears to be in solitary confinement. Bill Whittle brings history to bear analyzing the effect of Vlad’s utter isolation on the invasion of Ukraine.
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27 replies on “Putin Imprisoned: Vlad’s Utter Isolation in One Stunning Staged Photo”
A thought on why Putin invaded: the ongoing fighting between the Ukrainian forces and the rebels in the two provinces has drained the Russian treasury for nearly 8 years. Nothing of substance has been accomplished. No end was in sight and Putin had to determine if he would continue the fighting there indefinitely or end it. He really could not withdraw support and let the rebels go down to defeat, not simply as a matter of “losing face”, but of the real political consequences at home and internationally. The alternative was to invade with conventional military forces, hopefully only into those two regions, with the fig leaf cover first of declaring them autonomous regions and sending in peacekeepers. This action would end the fighting, achieve a victory of sorts, and force Zelensky either to acknowledge the loss or risk a wider war which Ukraine was expected to lose quickly (by Russian calculations). Since Ukraine was not part of NATO but was hinting at applying to join, Putin had another diplomatic “cover” of sorts, the Minsk Accords. That the fighting has not ended quickly and the EU and NATO have supported Ukraine despite that country’s major problems, Putin faces a terrible scenario: again by admitting defeat he has sealed his personal fate, or by winning out, increasingly a pipe-dream, extract something of value. Forcing the West to confront an expanded war may lead to compelling Ukraine to negotiate an end by giving Putin something of substance through which he could claim victory. What the West appears to miss is that destroying Russia is not in eithers interest. The great strategic goal, achievable once Putin is gone, is to bring Russia into the West, away from China. Right now that appears to be a pipedream.
Beautifully explained.
Except …
We (Westerners) have been emotionally poisoned by our own governments” propaganda. Going on 7 years now of “Hate Russia!”. It affects most people’s minds so they’re afraid to think.
We’re all inside our own emotional comfort rooms, afraid to be seen outdoors looking for reality, in case they’re accused of treason.
NY City resident vs ZOD
I tend to defer to your political analyses in particular when it comes to Russian history and current affairs. I’d very much like to hear your take on the following speech given by Putin
( https://www.dailywire.com/news/putin-warns-wokeness-is-destroying-the-west-it-happened-in-russia-its-evil-it-destroys-values )
which, when I read it, told me that Putin very much identifies with many of the same attitudes US conservatives have regarding the absurd cultural war that has been waged in the West for some time, especially in the past 8 years. Is this attitude by Putin disingenuous or fake? It seems to me that this portion of Putin’s mind is absolutely correct:
““Incidentally, the Bolsheviks were absolutely intolerant of other opinions, different from their own,” Putin continued. “I think this should remind you of something that is happening. And we see what is happening in the Western countries, it is with puzzlement that we see the practices Russia used to have and that we left behind in distant path, the fight for equality and against discrimination turns into an aggressive dogmatism on the brink of absurdity, when great authors of the past such as Shakespeare are no longer taught in schools and universities because they announced as backward classics that did not understand the importance of gender or race.”
And it went on with many comments about the wokeism that we all agree is and has been undermining America as we know and knew it.
Anyway, I’d love to hear your take on this part of Putin’s mind.
Art Hyland
Excellent analysis. That explains to a T the source of Russian nationalistic pride. Thank you.
Has anyone else noticed that the Russian navy in the black sea appears to have vanished. Its not made any major attacks for 3 days. How do you say no to Putin on a patrol boat without being court marshaled and shot. Radio difficulties; Hunting ghost submarines; or fending off the other Black sea fleets?
There are reports from an Indian news organization that Russian soldiers, disillusioned with the war, are sabotaging their own equipment. Its not reliable but makes sense. https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/ukraine-war-russian-soldiers-in-disarray-crying-says-report-2798496
Another report is that Ukraine is paying Russians that surrender and not holding them as POW’s. They may be recruiting some to the Ukrainian International Forces. They probably wont use them to fight Russians but every man that can be posted to a rear logistics position frees up a Ukrainian to fight.
In WW2 after Italy switched sides thousands of Italian POW’s were put in modified US uniforms and put to work running Q stores and transport, field kitchens and laundries all across France and the Low countries. The Italians were never meant to fight Germans yet some did. The most dangerous job they got was bomb disposal and several died in that job. If Part of Putin’s Army switches side then the war changes from an invasion of Ukraine to a war of liberation of Russia itself.
There are reports that the Russian soldiers have maps that are 20 years old and out of date. The Ukrainians have built new roads , renamed so many streets and changed place names that it confuses the Russians. The two languages have been rapidly diverging. All this means that the Russians thought they would be fighting on known ground but its changed.
Brilliant. There is a report on why Putin’s table is so long and everyone’s ay the other end. Putin is terrified of covid and the vaccine. He has been publicly vaccinated but I suspect he has his own data on the vaccine’s effects, adverse reactions and long term risks. Putin is social distancing by double the distance.
He is also paranoid about being assassinated or being poisoned with polonium so again no one gets close. His public behavior around food is the biggest indicator that Putin is not the one poisoning people with polonium. As Trump said he has lost control of part of his WMD.
I also suspect that everyone in the room with that long table are armed. Putin included. The distance gives him time to duck a shot and return fire. He may not trust his inner circle of hand picked yes men. Most are KGB. The only general in the inner circle, Sergei Shoigu, has won many awards but never commanded an army in war. He is the equivalent of the FEMA director. Emergency and disaster response. He is also not a full blood Slav; He was born ~30 miles from the Mongolian border. That may effect their willingness to pay attention to his suggestions or warnings, if he knows enough to make either.
I assumed he sat that far away to make sure none of them could slip him a little Novichok Night Cap.
Feeling very good about being a paying member after listening to this presentation.
That was about the best condensation of Russian Studies I’ve ever heard presented in a half hour or less. I don’t know what proportion of that was knowledge Bill possessed before meeting Natasha and how much of it was her contribution but … It was spot on the money and spang on target.
It’s very, very helpful for Bill to get this kind of information to the rest of us because understanding a thing is not the same as agreeing with it.
If you’re going to meet a threat you absolutely MUST understand the true nature of it.
This is something that the average American does very poorly. The reason for that is a sort of socio-political anthropomorphism wherein too many Americans think that everyone is like us to a preponderant proportion. It’s’ the “Inside every _______ is an American screaming to get out.” view of global context.
That’s a very, very dangerous bit of naivety. It’s dangerous because it leads to the wrong conclusions about the probable behavior of non-American aligned world actors.
This is a failing of the average American citizen but it’s an understandable if not forgivable one. After all, we live in the richest, most prosperous, most powerful nation which generally (ought to) leads all the other similar prosperous, powerful nations of The West. Why the heck wouldn’t everyone in the world want what we have?
This faulty perspective occurs because many of us fail to grasp how amazingly unique and wonderful our way of life is in a global and historical context. This Western Alliance of which the United States sits at the pinnacle is not the rule it is the exception to the rule.
The vast bulk of humanity doesn’t live like we do and never has. That human norm is always trying to pull us back down to the historical median where the few rule the many by force. It’s a siren song and an evolutionary imperative on a social level that The West has overcome and improved on. That was no small feat and took centuries of work to put us in The West where we are now. It can all go away in less than a generation.
The problematic manifestation of this faulty perspective was recently demonstrated in a big way by our own government which is increasingly falling under the control of Leftist Social Marxist ideology. The Biden Administration knew that Russia meant to invade Ukraine but right up to the moment when that invasion occurred maintained a state of denial and totally failed to take effective countermeasures to prevent that invasion from happening. Not only that but also failed miserably to take common sense, obvious measures to ensure the failure of that invasion if and when it did happen.
There were a lot of failures. Many of them were obvious. Biden and his puppet masters ignored them all right up until the inevitable crisis occurred and even then tried to get as far as they could on their absurd, busted-down, reality-denying ideology.
Rather than dump massive amounts of lethal military aid into Ukraine to put the Ukrainians in a position to repel the Russian invasion when it came, now along with our European (and global) allies we’re scrambling around like idiots trying to get that kind of aid to Ukraine. Six months ago it would have been easy and cheap to do that, today we’re badly behind the curve. Six months ago it would have been an assured thing to get that aid to Ukraine, today there is considerable doubt that enough can be done in time.
This situation worked to the Russian’s advantage because at some level enough Americans just simply didn’t believe that the crisis we’re now facing would manifest. “Enough Americans” includes members of the Biden Administration.
The cynical side of me wants to lean towards there being members of the Biden Administration that actually welcomed a crisis of this nature, wickedly dangerous though it might be and certain to result in a lot of human death and suffering, in order to distract from the abysmal failure of the Biden Administration on all fronts.
This cynicism isn’t without merit. Right in the middle of this crisis while the news cycles were brimming over with the Russian invasion the Democrat Left tried to pass legislation that would nullify the effect of a negative (to them) impending Roe v. Wade decision under consideration in the Supreme Court. The timing was impeccable and more than suspicious.
There is never a lack of people willing to take risks or manipulate circumstances for political gains. That goes for both sides of American politics with the only real difference being that it occurs most often on the Left simply because the Left is so adept at shirking accountability.
That surplus of people willing to stake the wellbeing of the rest of us to increase their own on personal power is amplified in places like Russia. It all comes full circle back to accountability.
When national leadership in whatever form it takes is accountable to the people, the leaders fear the people because the people can remove them from power or implement even greater punishments for whatever turpitude they commit. When the leadership does not answer to the people then the people fear the leadership. Or should because even the most apparently benevolent leaders are subject to corruption if they’re not concerned about consequences.
In fact, the most dangerous, insidious form of leadership is one that appears to be or claims to be totally benevolent but is either unaccountable or is trying to move towards unaccountability to the people governed by such. Because that kind of leadership can make any claim they want, say anything they want, paint any picture they want. There’s nothing to keep them honest when they’re not accountable or think they’re not.
This is the situation we’re seeing with Biden’s approval being in the gutter and rather than responsibly move towards better policies he and his ilk simply insist on telling everyone how beautiful the Emperor’s Clothes are. These people are not responding to accountability. That’s a very bad sign.
This is the situation with Vladimir Putin. He’s accountable but not to his own population. He may be accountable to a few very powerful, very wealthy oligarchs inside Russia. He may be held accountable by the other people of the world for what he does. But he’s not accountable to his own people.
The further from accountability a leader moves, the less leading and the more pushing he is able to do.
The other side of that coin is vital also. The People are accountable too. Authority without accountability is always a problem. It doesn’t matter if that authority is a political tyrant imposing his will by invading another country or a people who having once obtained authority over their leadership squander it.
The difference between the former and the latter is that if the people squander their authority over their leadership they will always be held accountable, without fail. Because there is always someone willing to take that authority away from the people and wield it himself.
I always thought of Russia as European though that might be on just a surface level since I was connecting them via the royalty during the 17-19th centuries. Bill’s point about them being invaded from the east and west does make sense. Claiming that most of Russia is in Asia doesn’t hold much credit without a percentage of the population breakdown. On the other hand, Soviet brainwashing in schools teaching Russians that “the -stans and other areas are Russian” does hold more credence.
(In case Bill doesn’t see this and respond, do you have a pointer for how eastern or western the thinking of the average Russian is?)
I don’t think I would say the Illuminati sparked a war to pass legislation, but “let no crisis go to waste” does say that when you’ve got a war on, push through things when no one is paying attention. I would think instead that if the Ukranians aren’t being sufficiently corrupt and in the correct manner, engineering something to both punish them and put the right puppet on the throne would be something a one world government would do. The fewer strings you have to pull, the easier the system is to work.
A youtuber with the name “CGP Grey” has a video called Rules for Rulers where he points out that the more of the wealth of a nation comes from the ground, the worse it is as a place to live, since the ruler doesn’t need to care about his people, their living conditions, or approval, since they are not keeping him in power or producing the wealth. The “Russia is just a gas station” comments the last few days reminded me of the video. Russia used to be a nation of great crafts (I think Steve mentioned that in the Back Stage, that they rivaled France) and if they could shake off the totalitarian mindset, take a positive attitude about the position of keeping Europe warm, and re-develop those Russian fine crafts, I think the world would be a better place.
To answer your question about “how eastern or western the thinking of the average Russian is” … It’s neither. A Russian thinks like a Russian, it’s as innate to them as American Exceptionalism is to (most of the best of) us. That’s sort of like asking how Asian an Indian or Pakistani is, they’re Eastern and as Asian as the Chinese or Koreans but not really similar as a people in their thought process.
Russians tend to see things from a uniquely Russian point of view. That point of view is a part of the national psyche of the Russian people. Just like to us Americans who think there’s no problem that cannot be solved or to a Chinese person who places respect for elders and authority above their own self esteem.
We’re all Western but we don’t think a lot like the Germans and nearly nothing at all like the French. I lived in Europe for a while and was often gobsmacked by some of their attitudes that made absolutely no sense to me. We and the Brits do think similarly but not identically on every issue. This is all highly influenced by language. Language is an expression of thought processes and shapes thought to some degree thereby.
This fact of language was recognized and written about by George Orwell in the novel “1984”. Language as a means of manipulating thinking was the reason for Orwell’s “newspeak”.
This is also why the Left attempts to shape thought through language. The word “homophobe” is a great example. Like anyone really has an innate, irrational fear of gay people … That’s just silly but the connotations are intentionally derogatory and offensive. The word is constructed to convey shame on the accused so that any disagreement with homosexuality is assumed to be a particularly bigoted, repulsive and vile manifestation of a small mind. This doesn’t really work all that well on most of us but they keep on trying to do it anyway.
For instance, one of the most hurtful things you can call a Russian is “nekulturny” (некультурный in Russian Cyrillic script). It means “without culture” or “uncultured”. Basically it’s the same thing as calling him a hick but it’s insulting and hurtful far more than if you called an American a hick. Point being that though the word can be translated verbatim it doesn’t carry the same deep connotations in English as it would in Russian. Because a Russian’s view of an uncultured person is different than an American’s view of a hayseed from the sticks.
I’m a hayseed from the sticks myself and perversely proud of that. Any Russian worth the name would be deeply ashamed and offended by the same designation.
So if you’re going to be dealing with Russians it’s important to understand how a Russian thinks and not just assume he’s an American that talks funny. That’s a dumb move that all too many Americans make simply because they don’t understand that everyone is not like us and we are not like everyone else.
When my son went off to the Navy and became an officer he asked me “Dad, do you have any advice for me?”
I said “Yeah, I do. NEVER trust a Russian. You can respect him, be friends or at least friendly with him, you can even admire him. You can drink with him and you can eat with him but never, ever trust him. Because he doesn’t think about things the same way you do and never forget that for even one moment or he’ll eat your lunch.”
Years later my son said that was some of the best advice I ever gave him and I gave him a lot of advice.
I’m not a Russo-phobe, I’m a realist. My attitudes about Russians are learned from contact with real, no-shit Russians. These attitudes are not some generic principle applied out of ignorance. Though I’m sure that some who read this will draw erroneous conclusions based on their own very limited or nonexistent experience or worldviews. Some of the information I’ve accumulated in that regard over the years has been bloody awful expensive in one way or another.
There’s a lot more I could say on this subject and if you’re not careful I just might do that. 😉 But I think that answers your question. If not then I’m still certain it answered some question.
I think the biggest thing to consider is the fact that Putin likely doesn’t have the big bad military he thinks he does. As a failing state, it’s very likely that maintenance and modernization have both been cut – maintenance more so. I’m sure the ground forces, and especially infantry, have been maintained, because those are needed to keep the rabble in line. But ships and aircraft… well, we know all about what deferred maintenance does.
It’s very likely that the reason Putin hasn’t sent the Russian Air Force to destroy Ukraine isn’t from some sort of humanitarian interest in restraint… he probably doesn’t want to telegraph to the world that his readiness numbers are through the floor. I’m guessing he’s got more NMC (Non-Mission Capable) aircraft than he has up aircraft.
And, yes, he’s got a large military… but that doesn’t mean he can put a gun in every Soldier’s hands and tell them to fight. For one, it takes a hell of a lot longer to train a maintainer or a good logistician than it does to toss a gun at a conscript. You get all your good technicians killed by pretending they’re infantry, you’re going to grind your effort to a halt much faster than you would by being undermanned.
well summarized, Bill. Putin is on an island and I wonder what the internal politics of Russia are like such that if this turns into a much longer campaign than anticipated. How long will those guys at the end of the table stay at lance’s length?
That “lances length” thing is always a problem for a totalitarian leader like Putin. He may not be limited by the rule of law but he’s not protected by it it either. The sharks are always out there circling. That rule of law stuff is a double edged sword. It would be well for our own Democrats to never lose sight of that fact.
Russian armies advancing for a few days then stopping to resupply is not a failure of the Russian armies, it’s their SOP, they have never been as good at resupply as western nations. Also it should be kept in mind that anything over about 10 miles/day is blindingly fast for a military advance, expecting them to cover 90 miles in two days in hostile territory is just ridiculous.
You’re right, Bill. We think of Russia as a nearly European country. But Vladivostok is east of Beijing, east of North Korea, and just about on the same parallel as Tokyo. And 150 or so years ago, Russia included what we are pleased now to call Alaska.
If Putin is in a prison of his own making, then what of Biden?
Biden is in the prison of his own mind. He always has been — even before his dementia had taken hold.
Joe is in a medically induced coma where people visit him a la Dreamscape (Dennis Quaid) and make him believe he is the POTUS.
The cyborg currently residing in the oval office is the Mark Z 4.0 prototype. It still has some glitches as could be seen Tuesday night with the mumbling and pauses, but is better than the 2.0 which looked like Zuckerburg and froze in front of congress.
I hear the Mark Z 5.0 will be lit, though making it look like H is turning into a real problem – too lifelike and full of humor. They are thinking of going back a few S/W versions.
Are you sure he’s not engaging in social(ist) distancing?
I thought Putin was sitting far away so he didn’t accidentally end up with a water glass full of Novichok.
I guess VP is lucky he is not an American politician, he would have killed himself by now. H would have insisted.
He doesn’t want to be too close to the polonium.
Awww, you beat me to it, lol.