Tag Archives: leaders

Kremlin works to deflect blame for Russian defeats in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin: meetings with the military have been cancelled, apparently while the Kremlin works to clear him of blame for defeats in Ukraine.

Meetings between Vladimir Putin and his top military officials have been postponed while the Kremlin tries to find a way to deflect blame for Russia’s recent defeats in Ukraine, it has been suggested.

According to an assessment published on Tuesday by the Institute for the Study of War*, the Kremlin is trying to clear Putin of any responsibility for Russia’s disastrous retreat and instead place the blame on “underinformed military advisors within Putin’s circle.”

If military advisors are “underinformed”, then one would imagine Putin would be desperate to hold these meetings, find out where the rot has set in, and put a stop to it.

But perhaps that is too reasonable a point of view.

Commentators, discussing the Russian rout earlier this week, have suggested that the defeats have a more structural basis – that, Russia now being in the hands of corrupt oligarchs who owe their positions to Putin, investment on military equipment has collapsed; they have kept as much cash as they could and invested only in the cheapest and shoddiest weaponry.

As a result, in the face of cutting-edge technology sent to Ukraine by western powers, Russian soldiers have been outmatched and forced to back away.

You can appreciate that such news would not be welcomed by the leader who had made it possible for this to happen.

With Russia, as always, it will be practically impossible to find out what’s really going on.

As ever, we’ll have to draw our conclusions from any changes in strategy over the next few weeks, if not months.

* A Washington-based think tank.

Source: Putin pushed off meetings with top military officials as the Kremlin tries to deflect blame for Russia’s disastrous retreat

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#COP26 : How are these polluting politicians going to tackle climate change? With weapons-grade HYPOCRISY?

If you’re doubting the sincerity of the world leaders who are meeting to talk – and I stress, talk – about fighting climate change and the destruction of our eco-system at COP26, you’re not the only one:

It’s true, isn’t it?

These leaders – certainly Boris Johnson and his crony Alok Sharma who is hosting the conference – did their level best to keep the coppers rolling in for their big business funders during the (ongoing, let’s not forget) Covid-19 crisis – at the cost of our lives.

They scheduled two hugely important summits back-to-back – in cities thousands of miles apart. And they are travelling between those places in hugely-polluting aircraft and enormous gas-guzzling motorcades.

They are likely to put the onus to take action against climate change on the majority of the population, even though the 1% – the billionaires – who fund them are responsible for as much of the damage as a full half of the 99% – the rest of the population.

They are likely to ignore the fact that the 99% have no choice when it comes to climate change. We have to use the facilities provided to us by the 1% who control them, and if those facilities are provided using resources that trigger climate change, we can’t do anything about it.

And they are likely to blame us when nothing changes.

Meanwhile, they are unlikely to impose strong demands on the 1% that will actually stave off our impending eco-doom. Such demands would require their funders – remember, the businesspeople causing the problem pay money to the politicians – to forgo some of their massive profits in order to restructure their enterprises to cause less pollution.

And that might mean they couldn’t build their own – hugely polluting – spaceships!

Knowing all this, if This Writer were you, I would take everything these people say at COP(OUT)26 with a massive spoonful of salt.

And remind yourself that nothing is ever going to change when we are led by people of such weapons-grade hypocrisy.

Boris Johnson reckons he can fix Brexit – but the EU leaders think he is a loon

Boris Johnson: A clown, even when he isn’t wearing the make-up.

Boris Johnson has launched his bid to be Conservative Party leader – and prime minister – amid a chorus of claims that he’ll sort out Brexit.

It’s like an awful, bad-taste joke.

The EU leaders think he is a disaster – as reported in the Graun earlier this week:

“People in Brussels are fed up that the political class in the UK has gone a little bit crazy,” Jean-Claude Piris, a former head of the European council’s legal service said.

For the EU, the bookies’ favourite Boris Johnson, is a Trumpian figure whose disputed claims and bombastic rhetoric played a major role in plunging the UK into what is seen in Brussels as the Brexit nightmare.

The former foreign secretary is remembered for his early 1990s stint as Brussels correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, where he made his name mocking EU regulations, promoting what the European commission calls “Euromyths”.

He achieved wider prominence for his claims during the EU referendum campaign. “He lied a lot to the British people,” the then French foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, said in 2016.

He lied a lot to the British people. Are Conservative Party members seriously considering making someone tarred as untrustworthy the leader of the UK?

“The idea of Boris Johnson in the European council is probably quite abhorrent to some EU leaders,” an EU source said. “Boris is known in foreign policy circles, certainly not respected. He’s also seen as part of a wider Trump world and no one wants that.”

The EU’s most senior civil servant, Martin Selmayr, once described a Johnson premiership as a “horror scenario”, classing him with Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump.

Mr Johnson is claiming that he will find a way to make a deal with the EU27 – but European leaders take an entirely different view:

Many EU insiders think the chances of no deal have increased, with the Tory party expected to choose a Brexiter prime minister.

“For me it is very clear the odds of no-deal Brexit are more than half and clearly if Boris Johnson becomes prime minister the odds will go up again,” said Philippe Lamberts, a Belgian MEP and member of the European parliament’s Brexit steering group.

And if you think that’s bad, read their views on Dominic Raab.

Source: EU view of Tory leadership candidates deeply critical, say sources | Politics | The Guardian

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