Member-only story
Putin, Girkin, and London
Novorosya, is the heart of a new nationalist ideology
Nadin Brzezinski
Written by: Nadin Brzezinski
Follow
7 [more like 27] min read
20230913 2 days ago
Today, I will keep it short. The first is a statement from Vladimir Putin, which, at least to me, speaks to likely internal pressure. It also references the capitulation of the Soviets to Germany in 1918, the Treaty of Brest.
This treaty saw Russia withdraw from the Great War, and the Soviets had good reasons. The civil war was coming. Ukraine achieved a short period of independence, as well as Poland. The two would become allies during the brief war to come. Poland remained independent. Ukraine was absorbed, by force, into the nascent Soviet Union.
What is significant about what Putin said is who he blamed for this treaty. It was Trotsky. He [Trotsky] was Jewish. His [Putin's] antisemitism is not coded anymore. However, the fact that he even said it might matter. Russia wants to freeze this conflict. He [Putin] needs time to rebuild, break Western unity, and try again. He also needs Donald Trump, or somebody like him, in the White House. So here is the [Putin's] post. It’s not as innocuous as it looks:
Russia cannot stop fighting while Ukraine is carrying out a counter-offensive, Vladimir Putin said.
“We are not Trotskyists,” he added.
I [the Author] will also add that Leon Trotsky was murdered in Mexico on orders of Joseph Stalin decades after that. It’s [That was] not unlike Putin ordering hits on his enemies, whether in front of the Kremlin or abroad. So keep that in mind. Putin also admires Stalin, whom he has been busy normalizing in Russian society.
This brings me to Igor Girkin. He is a loyal servant of the state and one of the chief advocates of Novorosya, which is the heart of a new nationalist ideology. He dared become a critic of the war because it was not going well. So here first is a post from yet another group that supports him:
Appeal from comrades from Tolyatti in support of Igor Ivanovich Strelkov
On June 24, a military mutiny occurred; some of the fighters of the Wagner PMC, led by Prigozhin, left their positions at the front, armed with heavy equipment and air defense systems, and moved towards Moscow. The country froze in anxious anticipation… While senior officials cowardly remained silent, and some of them rushed to flee the capital, Strelkov was the first to publicly speak out against the rebels and called on the army to remain faithful to the oath and prevent a coup d’etat, which would inevitably plunge the country into a bloody abyss of turmoil and fratricidal war.
The Kremlin’s gratitude did not take long to arrive — less than a month had passed before Strelkov was arrested. It turns out that he committed a serious crime, talking about the outrages happening in the army, which were documented, and used a phrase as a literary turn of phrase, which our valiant law enforcement agencies were able to cling to. The same ones who closed the criminal case against the rebels who attempted a coup and shot down several helicopters and a plane on the way to Moscow. Another bottom has been broken. There is an open mockery not only of the law, but also of common sense itself. The patriot Strelkov, who devoted his entire life to serving the Motherland, found himself behind bars, while the rebel Prigozhin moved freely around the country.
Strelkov is not only a person with vast combat experience, which for some reason turned out to be unclaimed, he is also a good analyst. Almost all of his strategic forecasts, which he has made since 2014, have turned out to be correct. And that is precisely why, in the light of recent events, the words he said in one of the live broadcasts sound ominous: “If they send me to the front, they are going to win; if they imprison me, they are preparing to capitulate.”
If the goal is to win a war and not be defeated, then you should listen to those who are not afraid to speak the truth and never compromise their conscience for profit or personal safety. Patriots like Strelkov need to be supported and relied on, and not imprisoned on trumped-up charges.
We, patriots from the city of Tolyatti, who are not indifferent to the fate of our Motherland, demand his immediate release. Freedom to the hero of the Russian Spring Igor Strelkov! Freedom for Strelkov!
This tells me [the Author] that there is an effort to suppress the Russian Spring. A frozen conflict, or worse, a withdrawal from Ukraine, could make these people dangerous. Russia is a place where you can go through multiple ways of thinking in the day.
This is what Peter Pomerantsev writes in Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia:
Whenever I ask my Russian bosses, the older TV producers and media types who run the system, what it was like growing up in the late Soviet Union, whether they believed in the Communist ideology that surrounded them, they always laugh at me.
“Don’t be silly,” most answer.
“But you sang the songs? Were good members of the Komsomol?”
“Of course we did, and we felt good when we sang them. And then straight after we would listen to ‘Deep Purple’ and the BBC.”
“So you were dissidents? You believed in finishing the USSR?” “No. It’s not like that. You just speak several languages at the same time, all the time. There’s like several ‘you’s.”
Seen from this perspective, the great drama of Russia is not the “transition” between communism and capitalism, between one fervently held set of beliefs and another, but that during the final decades of the USSR no one believed in communism and yet carried on living as if they did, and now they can only create a society of simulations.
The far-right and the far left, all political views, exist in the same space at the same moment, sometimes within the same person. Strelkov's error was [not?] to be critical of the army, but chiefly [? to be critical of] the Tsar. That is the line he crossed. You can believe all and nothing but never go after the king.
Russia is capable of switching spots because none of her spots are permanent. However, a few in Russia, those who do believe, are now stuck in that moment in time when they are no longer on the winning side. The war may be in the past tense.
Why am I [the Author] saying this? Here is another strong signal:
“Ukraine lost 71.500 people, 543 tanks and almost 18.000 various armored vehicles during their counter-offensive,” Putin said.
He added that if the US believes that Ukraine is ready to negotiate, then Ukraine needs to cancel Zelenskyi’s decree banning negotiations with Russia.
Leave the creative math. Putin is almost begging to get to that negotiating table. He is desperate to freeze this before he runs out of mass. He needs time to recruit or mobilize tens of thousands of troops and train them.
He is also telling us that he will not give up the dream of a greater Russia. He is not going to compromise. But in the meantime, people in the pro-war camp are starting to leave the chess board. Some are dead. Some are in prison. Some are just going quiet.
I [the Author] will also highlight this about life in the Federation. Some people live very distinct lives. While they are anti-western, because we all know the West is evil, they have apartments in London. [Settlement and population numbers] Many of their children live and, at times, work in the West:
The daughter of the Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation, Anna Chuichenko, is vacationing in London. While her father scolds Europe for neglecting morality and law
The daughter of Russian Justice Minister Konstantin Chuychenko, unlike her father, was not subject to Western sanctions. As “MO” noted, the girl is now on vacation in the UK.
◼️ Anna Chuichenko is spending time in London , as follows from her Instagram stories. She is familiar with the British capital: here she studied at University College London, and after graduation she entered the British University of Goldsmiths. This university is one of the best educational institutions in the world. According to journalists’ calculations, the parents had to spend about 10 million rubles (more than the minister’s annual salary) on the girl’s education.
◼️ The minister’s daughter is not in poverty in Russia either. The girl lived in the elite cottage village “Cotton Way” on Nikolina Gora, where the Chuychenko family owns a house with an area of 900 square meters. meters and a plot of 4510 sq. m. Last summer, already at the height of the war, Chuychenko threw a luxurious wedding in the Moscow region: with a five-tier cake, Nikolai Baskov and rapper L’One ( you can read more about the celebration here ).
◼️ The UK imposed sanctions against Chuychenko himself , banning him from entering this country. He does not hide his resentment towards the West. “With its policy, the collective West demonstrates total legal nihilism and the true degree of deviation from fundamental human rights and freedoms, including in terms of protecting property rights, personal integrity and the inadmissibility of discrimination,” he said at SPIEF. Chuychenko is especially outraged by the European ban on criticism of LGBT people.
So here we are. They hate the West, but in typical fashion, their [rich] children live in the West. There are increasing calls to nationalize the property of Russians living abroad. I am betting she will not be touched. Ironically, one of the people issuing these calls is Vladimir Soloviev. Mind you, his son lives in London.
This brings me back to Girkin. ["one of the chief advocates of Novorosya"] He needed more contacts or money to get away with what he posted on his Telegram channel. Many of the Novorosya crowd, including people like Alexandr Dugin, need more connections., and bribe money.
Them going to prison for discrediting the army gives room to think that perhaps Putin is looking for an off-ramp. At the moment, it’s not to leave any of the taken territories. It is to freeze this so he can buy time.