Russian Expansion Strategy: Active Measures and Nukes
In May, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said this to Russian TV audiences, per Reuters: “No one is against Kazakhstan and other countries having the same close relations that we have with the Russian Federation,” Lukashenko said. “If someone is worried … (then) it is very simple: join in the Union State of Belarus and Russia.…
Governing Incompetence of the Siloviki
The Russian intelligence service veterans termed “Siloviki” who became self-dealing oligarchs, or “Silovarchs,”1 have all but destroyed the KGB-FSB-SVR-GRU brands with their incompetence. A metaphorical meme for Putin’s war on Ukraine could be Tom Clancy’s “Hunt for the Red October” scene in which the Lithuanian-born (today he could be Ukrainian) Captain Marko Ramius of the…
Turkey playing both sides with decided preference for autocracy
One would think Putin would have yanked S-400 contracts with Turkey, angered by Ankara’s Bayraktar combat drone deals with Kyiv. He has not. Instead, he is pursuing a Bayraktar drone plant in Russia to use the combat drones against Ukraine. If a conflict with NATO broke out Putin would not want S-400’s operational over Turkish…