It's funny how the Russian population is willing to accept a self-made czarist like Putin versus the oligarchy structure of its past.

I'd say that was a no-win decision for any Russian citizen.

Be that as it may, while Putin has never been implicated in these alleged murder attempts, being the former head of the KGB (now FSB) you can't tell me any orders to liquidate someone doesn't at least get heard by him.

Seriously, you think Putin was kept in the dark if the FSB wanted to eliminate a British citizen on the U.K. soil? Something that sensitive would have to be known....

Originally posted by behindthescenes
It's funny how the Russian population is willing to accept a self-made czarist like Putin versus the oligarchy structure of its past.

You could call Putin self-made if he came to power with the sword, chopping up whoever disagreed with his divine abilities. He is what he is, because the Russian people wanted him to become such. As I said, Russians were disillusioned with false promises of democracy, and they rather wanted the country to be back under firm control- and they had a good reason to do so. If you like semi-oligarchy, semi-anarchy that Russia was in the 90's- it is only because you did not live or been there. Otherwise you would know what Russians want.

And what's more funny, is how the greatest democracy in the world is ruled by someone who has the support of only 40% of the polulation. And what's even funnier, is that that same democracy has no real political differentiation- with only 1 conservative party split into the slightly lesser conservatives (democrats), and the more conservative conservatives. Real big choices to make during election... So blaming Putin for what he is doing to Russian democracy is rather ineffectual when you compare it to similarly degenerative states of Western Capitalist Monarchies (umm I mean democracies).

Originally posted by behindthescenes
I'd say that was a no-win decision for any Russian citizen.

I'd say the Russians are in slightly better position to decide what's the winning formula for them. They are not exactly barbarians with no education and freedom of thought, on whom you can easily indoctrinate your democratic hypocricies and ideals. People know what's going on, and yet they keep voting for Putin by a huge majority. Russians know better than anyone, how deceiving democracy and capitalism is. But I guess Americans or Western Europeans know better than those ignorant Russians eh?

Originally posted by behindthescenes
Be that as it may, while Putin has never been implicated in these alleged murder attempts, being the former head of the KGB (now FSB) you can't tell me any orders to liquidate someone doesn't at least get heard by him.

FSB is not run by the president under the new Russian constitution, GRU sort of is. In fact GRU and FSB are rival organizations to that extent. I can tell you for sure that the President has more important thing to do than sit around with countless intelligence documents about assassination plots againsts some two-bit reporters. If, and only if, Federal agencies deal with such matter, it would be left to department heads, who also could not be less concerned with a Russian expatriate.

Now see, if there is a major prospective "liquidation" in order, such as say invading some country and "liquidating" its current leaders in order to get access to that country's energy resources (and setting up "liquidation" camps offshore for alleged terrorists) - that is the sort of thing that would go through the President for an executive decision. But Russia isn't the one thats into this sort of thing these days.

Originally posted by behindthescenes
Seriously, you think Putin was kept in the dark if the FSB wanted to eliminate a British citizen on the U.K. soil? Something that sensitive would have to be known....

Because everyone knows that the main job of a President is to handle assassinations. Putin isn't some godfather that keeping tabs on how 150 million people are behaving regarding their loyalty. If FSB was that concerned about eliminating one of its ex-agents, it would handle these matters itself, much like CIA does. Putin has little oversight of the FSB, and GRU has more vital things to worry about than chasing journalists across UK. Now don't let the facts stop you in your pursuit to make Putin out as an evil evil dictator busy putting out hits on people all day long. Otherwise its easy to see the hypocrisy, in that US and UK are conducting questionable operations on a far larger scale, yet are busy blaming Putin for some alleged poisoning.

"Nope, Ukraine maintained that they should have gas for ridiculously low prices, while Russia believed in market prices, so when Ukraine failed to pay them, Russia no longer supplied them... same for Georgia, of course, too bad they can't cut somebody else off to indirectly blackmail them."

Yep, like I said, it was a pricing dispute. Russia believes in market prices. I'm sure this had nothing to do with Russia's meddling in the internal affairs of The Ukraine and Georgia, or failed attempts to influence their elections or the occasional (failed) poisoning attempt. (Remind me again, what poison was used?). I'm sure you are right, It was all about getting a fair price for Russia's Gas.

"Western Europe enters the picture when Ukraine then started taking (aka theft) gas out of transfer pipelines. Curiously, this happened like half a year after the ominous 'orange revolution' where Yushchenko's face was badly mauled by poison while his hands remained remarkably normal. no comment."

Well they must have stolen a hell of a lot gas to cause a massive reduction of gas supply pressure across Northern Europe! This is nonsense. Of course Russia reduced supply pressure. Ok, it might not have been the intention to interrupt supplies to Western Europe but it happened and like it or like it not, it has been a wake up call to Russia's 'customers'. As for the attempt on Yushchenkos life, I'd rather take the word of the German Doctors including one of Europe's leading Toxicologists who treated him than your speculation. When did you see his hands? During a Hospital visit?

Dr Kelly? Missing journalists? My post was about the attempted murder of a British citizen In London. Perhaps you could deal with that and reassure us that Russian agencies, either official or unofficial weren't involved in this crime.

Originally posted by behindthescenes
It's funny how the Russian population is willing to accept a self-made czarist like Putin versus the oligarchy structure of its past.

I'd say that was a no-win decision for any Russian citizen.

The Russian finance minister said recently that the Russian economy would be equal in strength to the financial systems of the United States of Germany within a decade.

The Russian population has arguably the fastest growing middle class in the world right now.

The oligarchs (who obtained Russia's assets under very dubious circumstances) were about to sell everything to the USUK oligarchs (Exxon/BP/Shell). On saying that, Putin's recovery of stolen assets is just the beginning. How he invests Russia's massive cash reserves will be the next step.

It won't be yachts or football clubs.

It's quite absurd to suggest that Putin is the same as the oligarchs.

Obviously the infrastructure needs improving. Poverty will take a decade to eradicate. Corruption is falling but still worryingly high. Health system isn't at Swedish level etc...

Putin is very popular becasue of his policies. Simple as that.

So if you survive a poisoning it's because it's Anti-Russian Propaganda and when you die of poison it's completely ignored? I smell Hypocrisy. Anna Politkovskaya's is the one whom I'm alluding to.

Now don't let the facts stop you in your pursuit to make Putin out as an evil evil dictator busy putting out hits on people all day long. Otherwise its easy to see the hypocrisy, in that US and UK are conducting questionable operations on a far larger scale, yet are busy blaming Putin for some alleged poisoning.

I haven't seen any facts to support your conjecture either, my friend. Sure, am I purely speculating on Putin's involvement, or at least implicit approval for the assassinations? Sure. I haven't a shred of proof.

But it doesn't take a veteran Russian affairs analyst to understand that Putin -- like Bush -- has surrounded himself with yes men and syncophants who will do his bidding. And yes, I believe he's aware of the more high profile wet works.

Originally posted by Fang
Yep, like I said, it was a pricing dispute. Russia believes in market prices. I'm sure this had nothing to do with Russia's meddling in the internal affairs of The Ukraine and Georgia, or failed attempts to influence their elections or the occasional (failed) poisoning attempt. (Remind me again, what poison was used?). I'm sure you are right, It was all about getting a fair price for Russia's Gas.

It was not a pricing dispute but the realization of the long announced end of Russian subsidies to Ukraine.

We are talking about €3bn a year.

Once the USUK funded Orange Revolution took over the running of Ukraine it was up to the USUK to step up to the plate and subsidize Ukraine like Russia has been doing since the break up of the Soviet Union. USUK refused because their budget only involved planting missile silos on Ukraine's soil.

To be more precise, USUK missile silos pointed at Russia's citizens.

Take a step back and you'll see that Russia cares about Ukraine's citizens and that the USUK is obviously the meddler.

I don't believe it is just Putin who is under suspicion but also

1, Boris Berezovksy - Scientist in exiled uk

2, Mario Scaramella - Italian Intelligence

3, Akhmed Zakayev - Former minister of culture, asylum in britain

4, Oleg Gordievsky - Mi6 double agent


Not a clear cut case at all! and proof is one thing but confessing the truth is quiete another?

Do you realize that not everything people say to the media is true? Firstable, how do we know that this ex-FSB or ex-KGB agent even had clearance to high-level intel about assassinations? Are we to believe what every ex-Intelligence officer in any country says, simply because they were once in an intelligence agency? If he was a field agent, and not a department head, he wouldn't have information about high-level operations that he didn't part-take in (if there even are operations to assassinate civilians).

I recall some shows in the US, where some ex-military or ex-FBI officials were blabbering about aliens and UFO's, and what not. How are we to know that these disgruntled ex-agents aren't simply telling fairy tales.

Okay, true. But those fruitcakes didn't eat thallium-covered sushi either.....

And again, this guy like so many other is where else- in UK. What does that tell us? It seems that all of Putin's major critics are in UK. Is there no other place to hide from the terrible FSB? They are in UK for a reason, like I said before. They probably worked for sources in UK, like so many Russian officials and oligarchs, and they will tell you anything you want to make Putin out as an evil dictator.

Maybe not so much that the UK is a hotbed of Putin administration criticism, but because it's a safer country for asylum than, say, South America or Asia.

And overall, no matter who is assassinated and who just ate some bad sushi or had a heart attack, Western bashing of Putin is unfounded and hypocritical. UK was one of the countries robbing Russia in the 90's. Many tens of billions of dollars left the country illegally. Putin is cleaning house, and is completely correct in doing so- and the majority of the population is behind him in that. So if you criticize what he is doing, you critisize 2/3 of Russia's population- and if so then frankly it is not the business of outsiders to decide how Russia is to be run.

The problem is that he's "cleaning house" for his own power consolidation and power grab. He's not doing it "for the people." Are the citizens of Russia better off than they were after the immediate fall of the Soviet empire? Sure. Will that be the case in the long run with a leader who has clear disregard for the Democratic reforms undertaken by Yelstin and progressive Russian leaders, particularly given that any potential political opponent to Putin is silenced by a variety of means? Nope.

We here in America are learning the hard way about giving a leader too much power....

Why should Russia let the West choose its leaders and how its run? So the West has open doors to pilage Russia's resources? A large portion of corruption in Russia is due in no small part to the West. Britain and US bought out nearly half of Russia's energy resources directly and through oligarchs. They saw Russia as a third world country that can't control their encroachment, so they helped themselves with the help of some Russian opportunists. So if Putin is trying to correct this, it's only expected that UK puts up the biggest stink of all. And why shouldn't it- it's losing billions of dollars. USUK had 10 years to exploit developing capitalism of Russia, and enough is enough. If they want to accuse Putin of acting undemocratically, they should first look at their own degenrating democracies and Patriot Acts, and wars with immaginary Axis of Evil.

Western energy companies infused billions of critically needed capital into the Russian economy, which was in disarray from years of failed Soviet economic policies. We did not ruin your economy. And without Shell/BP/Exxon, etc....you'd never been able to successfully mine, process and distribute those energy reserves, teetering as you were on pure anarchic collapse. As I see it, Putin actually is building his energy empire on the billions invested by Western companies and countries. If you look at it through that eyeglass, who's the real crook then? The reason these companies don't speak up is because they don't want to be completely frozen out of their investment by a maniacal, power-hungry Putin.

But politics is a dirty business, and hypocricy and facts are ground up in the propaganda- and what comes out is dubious speculative articles such as this- from what seems to be a respected news source CNN and BBC nonetheless. Free media just sold out me thinks.

I'd give CNN and the BBC a lot more credit than that. But I suppose you see the Pravda daily as the height of journalistic integrity?

PS: just a quick Q: if Russia and Ukraine feud over gas prices and suddenly EU gets only approx 2/3rds of the normal amount and the pipeline goes through ukraine, who are you realistically going to blame? only Russia? without further investigation ?

Blame dosen't come into it. A number of EU states had contracts with Russia for the supply of Gas. Price and quantity had been agreed and both parties were clearly happy with the terms of the deal. The customers had a legal/contractual obligation to pay Russia for it's Gas, Russia had similar obligations to supply it's customers. Russia's dispute with Georgia, Ukraine or whoever, shouldn't mean that non involved EU customers suffer as a result. I'll admit this poses interesting questions about pipelines and gas destined for one customer being "bunkered" by a country through which a pipeline runs but at the end of the day there are international legal means of redress for this sort of dispute which should have been used. Ok they are slow and expensive but what Russia did was to demonstrate that a pricing dispute with a former Republic outweighed any other obligations they had and people have drawn appropriate conclusions as a result.

USUK refused because their budget only involved planting missile silos on Ukraine's soil.

To be more precise, USUK missile silos pointed at Russia's citizens.

Take a step back and you'll see that Russia cares about Ukraine's citizens and that the USUK is obviously the meddler.

Nurse.......NURSE!

Originally posted by behindthescenes
Okay, true. But those fruitcakes didn't eat thallium-covered sushi either.....

Here is a theory. Maybe this guy tried to commit a suicide, and make it look like an assassination so that people would pity him. Maybe he was kicked out of FSB for mental instability, became disgruntled and moved to UK where he found a well paying job telling fairy tales to reporters. Then he reflected on his meaningless life life, and decided to off himself. And when you don't succeed what do you do- you blame your old boss. Sounds pretty much as plausible as Putin disguised as a sushi chef putting thallium or whatever into the guy's sushi.

Originally posted by behindthescenes
Maybe not so much that the UK is a hotbed of Putin administration criticism, but because it's a safer country for asylum than, say, South America or Asia.

Why not Italy, or maybe the picteresque Switzerland or Monaco. But no- they are all flocking to UK by the horde. Does the UK provide MI5 agent to each expatriate Russian or something? And I guess sushi-covered-wityh-thallium got through British security. The safety of the asylum has been compromised. I can just picture all of the expatriates now migrating to the US. Someone should seriously make a movie about on-the-run ex-KGB agents being chased across Europe by Putin in a black limousine.

Originally posted by behindthescenes
We here in America are learning the hard way about giving a leader too much power....

If you took care of choosing a better leader in the first place, more centralized authority wouldn't be much of the problem as long as it's not abused.

Originally posted by behindthescenes
Western energy companies infused billions of critically needed capital into the Russian economy, which was in disarray from years of failed Soviet economic policies. We did not ruin your economy. And without Shell/BP/Exxon, etc....you'd never been able to successfully mine, process and distribute those energy reserves, teetering as you were on pure anarchic collapse. As I see it, Putin actually is building his energy empire on the billions invested by Western companies and countries. If you look at it through that eyeglass, who's the real crook then? The reason these companies don't speak up is because they don't want to be completely frozen out of their investment by a maniacal, power-hungry Putin.

Infused billions? Where are these billions. Major cities remained dirt poor through the 90's. The oligarchs and their Western parters got around paying most taxes thanks to bribes. Exxon/Shell/BP were pumping oil as fast as they could, and all the money was untraceable- believed to have went back to UK through parterns like Berezovsky and Khadarkovsky. Genious idea- lets pump Russia's oil, and then pay ourselves for it. I can see why Russian's hate these Western conglomerates.

Never be successful without these companies? Are you kidding me? Was Russia in the stone age before the 90's? It's not like the Soviet Union was powered by the wind or by manpower. Oil/gas refining and infrastructure was in place for decades, and well operational beyond needed capacity of that time. There were never issues with getting gas or oil. It is because Western puppets in Russia's government pressed on for quick privatization, that they were able to acquire these assets for pennies on the dollar.

And yes Putin is now using Western funds to build new energy infrastructure in return for a small profit share to Western companies. After so many years of being exploited by them, its time for Russia to put pressure on them to pitch in some funds. After that they are out of there- for good.

Putin is not power-hungry, he is leaving after this term. However he is trying to return Russia's resources back under Russian control. If the West doesn't like it, they can just sit and watch, and keep MOSNEWS busy at work. Thankfully the West is nearly powerless in Russia right now, and all it can do is bark at the wind. But don't fear - there is still enough oil to be had in the Middle East as long as you find allies to ride shotgun.

Originally posted by behindthescenes
I'd give CNN and the BBC a lot more credit than that. But I suppose you see the Pravda daily as the height of journalistic integrity?

let me tell you- no one makes more fun of Pravda than Russians. If you read MOSNEWS all day long, and then PRAVDA, the two balance each other out perfectly like ying yang. But then I don't allude to dubious articles in Pravda do I. read Itar-Tass for the official source of Russian news, although like everything else biased to a degree. Every media source is biased, CNN and BBC not the least. That is vital to realize, and it is vital to receive all news with a grain of salt. Most of the Putin stories are speculative, and speculation is just that. If you read it all as facts- you are disillusioned. I am not saying they are useless news, but they shouldn't be the deciding factor in forming your opinion, especially one as critical as accussing someone of murder.