David Craig, on June 29th, 2023Thursday/Friday blog
I recently wrote a short article for The Conservative Woman about how all our supposed experts have repeatedly misjudged what is happening in Russia.1 All our mainstream media have claimed that the Wagner mutiny had weakened Putin. Typical headlines were ‘Ukraine can now end Putin’s crumbling regime‘2 and ‘How Wagner’s mutiny left Putin catastrophically weakened‘.3 But I argued that the rapid demolishing of the Wagner revolt and the exile of Wagner’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had actually strengthened Putin’s position.
However, the recent claims about a supposedly weakened Putin are just the latest examples of Western media’s dubious reporting of what is really happening in Russia. After all, ever since the start of Putin’s misjudged invasion of Ukraine, we’ve been assured that Putin was suffering from a long list of possibly fatal medical conditions. These included cancer – ‘Putin suffers breakdown after changing cancer medicine‘4: dementia – ‘Vladimir Putin has dementia and is being driven insane by paranoia‘5 and Parkinson’s – ‘Vladimir Putin does have Parkinson’s and pancreatic cancer‘6 It does seem that for a while Putin did suffer from some kind of nervous condition as his invasion turned into a disaster. But he has looked fairly sprightly recently, especially since the Wagner mutiny collapsed. So it may be that media reports of Putin’s imminent demise from a variety of illnesses are more than slightly premature.
I believe that the latest misreporting by our media concerns Putin’s statement that the Russian State paid the Wagner Group over $1 billion in just the last year. This was called an ‘admission’ in most Western media as if it was a sign of weakness.7 One typical Western media report claimed that Putin said this ‘in an apparent attempt to take full credit for earlier battlefield successes of the mercenaries‘.8
But yet again I believe our ‘experts’ have completely misjudged what Vladimir Putin is really doing. When Putin revealed how much money Russia paid the Wagner Group, he added that he hoped: “no one stole anything — or, let’s say, didn’t steal much. But we will certainly get to the bottom of this.“9 These additional remarks don’t appear to have been widely reported in any of the British mainstream media. But it seems clear to me that Putin is about to launch an investigation into how the Wagner Group used the money they were paid and I’ve no doubt that eye-watering levels of corruption will be revealed giving Putin the excuse to persecute Wagner bosses. So, while Western media interpreted the announcement of massive payments to the Wagner Group as another sign of Putin’s weakness, I think they’ve (probably deliberately) got it wrong yet again. What Putin was really saying is that he’s going to get revenge on Wagner for what he perceives as their treachery and he’s going to use a financial investigation to bring down what remains of the Wagner Group.
Of course, I may be wrong and all the ‘experts’ claiming Putin is a gravely ill despot fatally damaged by the Wagner incident may be right. But I suspect that our ‘experts’ have all along been guilty of at best ‘wishful thinking’, but more probably have deliberately worked to mislead us about what is really happening in Russia.
1https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-wagner-mutiny-has-made-putin-stronger/
2https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/27/ukraine-can-now-end-putins-crumbling-regime/
3https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4068792-how-wagners-mutiny-left-putin-catastrophically-weakened/
4https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/vladimir-putin-suffers-breakdown-after-29764364
5https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/vladimir-putin-has-dementia-being-26852731
6https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11377825/Vladimir-Putin-DOES-Parkinsons-pancreatic-cancer-leaked-Kremlin-spy-documents-claim.html
7https://www.newsweek.com/putin-paid-billion-dollars-wagner-group-yevgeny-prigozhin-mutiny-1809326
8https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/27/russia-ukraine-war-latest-rivnopil-prigozhin-putin/
9https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-hopes-prigozhin-wagner-did-not-steal-much-of-billions-2023-6?r=US&IR=T
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This article and others from you recently make me ask, if we knew the truth what can we do about it anyway.
You, and your readers know that there is no climate crisis involving carbon dioxide emissions. Last night there was yet another debate with Rees-Mogg about net zero policies. The driving force behind it is the belief in human caused global warming and they all assume it is true. Some people argue that the problems with achieving net zero are sufficient to make a case against it. I don’t agree. It will not go away until the fake science supporting it is eliminated permanently. You have done more than most to bring this about with your book. It continues to astonish me that in this technological age such utter nonsense exists.
When we have problems with science, it is even more difficult with politics where there is no way to establish the truth. It’s interesting that you mention Putin’s supposed illness. There were photos of him looking very ill. Were they faked? Rather than looking at events today, look at history.
I’m of the opinion that since WWII we are seeing the USA attempting to dominate the. world which meant initially the USSR. I favour the view that the USA dropped the two atomic bombs on Japan as a demonstration of their power, and not to end the war. It is obvious that Stalin was the dominant force at the end of the war with Germany because he was able to occupy Eastern Europe. The bombs were dropped to show that America had the power back. Since then we had the cold war and the USA, with our help, has been conducted wars around the world with no purpose except domination. This includes all their military bases. The Ukraine war is just the latest attempt to weaken Russia. The dollar is the reserve currency which also gives them dominance. The USA is stuck in the past. I cannot see that Russia is a threat either militarily or economically. China is the bigger threat and the west enabled it to attain that position.
The weakness of the west comes from the weakness of politicians. They have lost control to corporatism and that trend started when wars became good for business. Hence the endless wars around the world since WWI. Today it is corporatism but behind it is the spread of socialism and complete domination of the state over us. I cannot see any way back from this.
I have just watched Michel Chossudovsky discussing the state of the world: https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-destabilization-world-economy-prof-michel-chossudovsky/5824026
He is discussing the destabilisation of the world economy. There is a link at the bottom of the article to another video which I haven’t watched. He also refers to his book which I got free from the internet but haven’t read yet.
The problem is that he didn’t offer any solutions. He talked about the WEF and the great reset. I saw a comment recently saying that we need “The Great Resist”. Our chance comes next year with the election and my view is it can be achieved by mass spoiling of the ballot papers. We should not vote for any of them. What would they do if 50% of the ballot papers were spoilt?
Totally of topic. I had supported Brexit on the grounds that the people voted for it.
However I am unable to find a single thing which is better for the United Kingdom on leaving the EU.
Our overseas trade is worse our imports cost more and a so called Conservative government can not defend our borders.