Bashar al-Assad has been overthrown, fleeing Damascus after a rapid rebel advance. But the Syrian dictator is far from the only president likely to be despairing today, for Vladimir Putin is another big loser here.
For Putin, the collapse of the Syrian regime and removal of Assad from power poses two critical problems. Firstly, it represents a critical strategic loss. Secondly, it represents a stark decline in Russia’s global prestige.
Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and his family have arrived in Russia and have been granted asylum by the Russian authorities, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday, citing a Kremlin source.
I never use the word based, but if I did, I would use it to describe this clip of Tucker Carlson food shopping at a Russian supermarket, wow. pic.twitter.com/weuMOYpzYj
— The Rubber Duck ™ (@TheRubberDuck79) December 6, 2024
The study, titled “Russia’s Systematic Program of Coerced Adoption and Fostering of Ukraine’s Children,” found that 166 of the children have already been placed with Russian citizens, spread across 21 states and provinces. At least 67 of them are confirmed to have been naturalized as Russian citizens.
Taken in isolation, they could just about be explained away as coincidences – freak accidents, one-off attacks, unfortunate infrastructure failures. The DHL cargo plane that crashed on Monday as it approached Vilnius airport. The recent bomb scares that have hobbled London, from Euston Square and Gatwick Airport to the US Embassy. The drones spotted circling near US Air Force bases in the UK. The explosion at a weapons manufacturing facility in Wales in April.
The Russia-North Korea-China relationship is not an equilateral triangle but an evolving alliance with conflicting interests, and reportedly beginning to show signs of fracture and lack of trust.
Now that North Korean troops have joined Russian forces in fighting a democratic country, Ukraine, the global ramifications of this East-West coalitional warfare have darkened. An alliance of aggressive dictatorships are directly confronting the free West.
At this moment, when we can hope that the era of our U.S. educated class has been consigned to the dustbin of history, it’s time to get nostalgic. Remember the WWII Vera Lynn song?
When the lefty hate is gone, all over the world
And the wokey drains are flushed, all over the world
Oh wait, I guess that’s the Taylor Swift Era version.
Can Donald Trump bring peace to Ukraine in a day, as he asserted during the presidential campaign, even before he enters the White House?
The short answer is: no.
To be sure, his election has helped change the tone of the protagonists. Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky says he is ready to work for peace in 2025.
When sexual aids spontaneously burst into flame, one does not automatically assume it to be the work of Vladimir Putin. However, that is the prospect now being considered by Western security officials, who believe that two electric massagers which ignited in logistics hubs in Germany and the UK back in July were in fact part of a wider Russian sabotage operation. The European erotic gadget inferno was, they suspect, a “practice run” aimed at ultimately placing similar incendiary devices aboard cargo or even passenger aircraft flying to the US and Canada.
Russia plotted to put incendiary devices aboard passenger aircraft bound for Canada and the U.S., The Wall Street Journal is reporting.
The newspaper said Western security officials “believe that two incendiary devices, shipped via DHL, were part of a covert Russian operation that ultimately aimed to start fires aboard cargo or passenger aircraft flying to the U.S. and Canada, as Moscow steps up a sabotage campaign against Washington and its allies.”
The new missiles are expected to help Russia further its efforts to destroy Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, which President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said this week now involved 4,000 bombs a month across the country.
Russian commandos quashed a mutiny at a southern Russian prison on Friday, killing the attackers and freeing their hostages, according to the local governor.
Inmates claiming to be motivated by radical Islam and armed with makeshift knives and an explosive vest briefly took control of Penal Colony No. 19 in the southern Volgograd region, according to videos posted on social media and verified by The New York Times. The Russian prison service said four guards had been killed and three injured in the attack.
MOSCOW, August 19. /TASS/. Moscow will provide assistance to any foreigners who want to escape the neoliberal ideals being put forward in their countries and move to Russia, where traditional values reign supreme, according to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin.
Under the document, such foreign nationals will have the right to apply for temporary residence in Russia “outside the quota approved by the Russian government and without providing documents confirming their knowledge of the Russian language, Russian history and basic laws.”
h/t Mauser
When 11-year-old Sofia and her brother Gabriel, 8, stepped off the plane at Moscow’s Vnukuvo airport last Thursday, they were met by an unfamiliar balding man in a dark suit.
“Buenas noches,” he said, addressing them in Spanish, the language they spoke at home.
Surrounded by media, security and other functionaries, he embraced Sofia and her mother, handing them flowers and welcoming them to the Russian capital. It must have been a bewildering sight.
Later, according to the Kremlin, the children asked their parents who the man there to greet them on the red carpet had been. Vladimir Putin, they explained.
Three US citizens imprisoned in Russia, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, are expected to be released on Thursday under a prisoner exchange deal.
Gershkovich, US Marine veteran Paul Whelan, and Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva will be released under the deal agreed by the Biden administration, a senior US official confirmed.
In total, the exchange will involve 24 prisoners held in Russia, the US, Germany and three other Western countries. The swap has not happened yet but is expected later on Thursday.
