Oil is the largest source of foreign income for Russia. Every dollar per barrel increase is a windfall Putin can spend on the Russian military and foreign adventures. In October 2020, with President Donald Trump’s energy independence policy, the price of crude was $39.90 a barrel. Today, with Biden’s anti-American energy policy, the price of crude has jumped to $85.43 a barrel.

So, despite Biden’s strong words about sanctions, the effect of his policies has been a $45.53 a barrel increase in profit (or 114.11 percent) for Putin to pay off his oligarchs, buy better military equipment, and engage in foreign adventures. Any supposed sanctions Biden imposed would have to overcome this windfall—and then go much deeper—for Putin to even feel it.

Per those on the left, including Democrat politicians, “white supremacy” had won because the filibuster is a “Jim Crow relic” only used by virulent racists. Don’t believe me? Just ask Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hakeem Jeffries, and Ayanna Pressley

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley
@RepPressley
It’s time to abolish the Jim Crow filibuster so we can restore voting rights & keep power in the hands of the people.
10:00 AM · Jan 11, 2022

But then something incredible happened. Literally hours after the Democrats embarked on a major offensive to abolish the filibuster as a tool of racists everywhere, they then…used the filibuster. They didn’t just block any bill either. They did Russia’s Vladimir Putin a solid by blocking Ted Cruz’s bill to sanction the Nordstream 2 pipeline.

Frank Thorp V
@frankthorp
And 6.5 hours after the vote began, a GOP bill to impose sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline has FAILED, 55-44, needing 60 to pass.
9:44 PM · Jan 13, 2022

You couldn’t have scripted this any better, and I’m pretty sure Ted Cruz knew exactly what he was doing here. He timed things perfectly to once again show what rabid hypocrites the Democrats are. That the bill was stopped also represented a massive win for the Russians was just the cherry-on-top. The White House actually spent the last week lobbying for Putin in this case.

But remember, it’s Republicans who are soft on Russia.

In my recent article on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Tsar Bomba test, I relied very heavily on Russian sources that were digitized by Rosatom, the Russian nuclear agency. For whatever reason, Rosatom has been dedicating an impressive amount of resources to Soviet nuclear history, radically transforming what is easily available to scholars outside of Russia. The extraordinarily useful series of (curated, redacted) archival documents, Atomniy Projekt SSSR (Atomic Project of the Soviet Union), for example, went nearly overnight from being something only existed in full in a handful of libraries in the United States (I was proud to make sure that the Niels Bohr Library at the American Institute of Physics has a complete set), to being easily accessible through the Rosatom Digital Library.

But I’m not here to talk about the stuff that’s useful to scholars. I’m here to talk about their section on “Atomic Fun” from the Soviet atomic bomb project. This is a collection of, as they put it, “funny stories.”

PJMoran
7 hours ago
All the US and NATO allies should do is recognize and agree to assist Russia in defense of its borders existing as of January 1, 2013 excluding contested areas of Georgia and areas Japan controls or claims in the east. This of course excludes the Crimea. So then how can the NATO threat survive. Putin needs to sell gas to Germany and the EU. The EU should definitely ramp up LNG reception facilities. Put NATO troops way south of DONBAS adjacent to Armiyansk and at key points bordering the Crimea. Harass electronically Bielogorsk and its satellite facilities. Build up in SE Ukraine. Check where the Crimea gets water from. Get some serious non woke minds running this pitiful Biden roll over show. Remind the Russian people that in the east where large oil and gas and other minerals are abundant that the Chinese have crept into those areas.

Canceling sanctions is a telling example of modern Democrats’ dangerous naivete in foreign affairs. Because they’re uncomfortable with using power, appearing strong. That’s what Barack Obama was apologizing for on that global apology tour. They seem to think goodwill gestures will be reciprocated in big-power diplomacy.

In 2009, Obama tried the same stupidity. As a product of the Chicago Democrat machine, you’d think he would understand that not using your political strengths is a sign of weakness. //

NATO is a defensive alliance coming off 20 years of unsuccessful nation-building in Afghanistan. About half its 29 members do not meet their alliance defense expenditure commitments. And Trump called them out.

But Putin’s position is that the alliance threatens Russia. So, he creates a likely empty threat to invade Ukraine, then maneuvers to be paid off by Biden concessions.

So, tomorrow in Geneva, Russia and the U.S. will meet and then later with NATO ministers in Brussels. Administration officials leaked last week that Biden was going to offer a reduction of U.S. troops in Europe to buy Putin off from doing what he wants us to think he might do.

The U.S maintains about 70,000 troops in Europe, including some 6,000 rotating through Poland and the Baltic states, which used to be in the USSR but now are independent and NATO members.

And, the officials said, Biden would expect similar pullbacks by Russian forces, especially near the Baltic states. Try listing any concessions that Vladimir Putin has made to anyone in recent years. We’ll wait.

In ‘Sleeper Agent: The Atomic Spy in America Who Got Away,’ former Wall Street Journal reporter Ann Hagedorn provides a captivating account George Koval, who was born in Iowa and died a Soviet hero.

Malcolm Nance, the onetime National Security Agency cryptographer and current Brookings Scholar, once observed, “nothing in the world happens by coincidence.”

But when it came to George Koval, the Soviet sleeper spy carefully embedded into the Manhattan Project who, with his all-American background and scientific training, revealed key American nuclear secrets to his Moscow patrons, the U.S. national security establishment seemed all too willing to overlook as mere coincidences the unlikely concatenation of events leading to Koval’s betrayal.

Russia's Supreme Court has ordered the closure of International Memorial, Russia's oldest human rights group.

Memorial worked to recover the memory of the millions of innocent people executed, imprisoned or persecuted in the Soviet era.

Formally it has been "liquidated" for failing to mark a number of social media posts with its official status as a "foreign agent".

That designation was given in 2016 for receiving funding from abroad.

But in court, the prosecutor labelled Memorial a "public threat", accusing the group of being in the pay of the West to focus attention on Soviet crimes instead of highlighting a "glorious past". //

There were shouts of "shame!" from those in court as the decision was read out.

The ruling also shines a light on the rise in repression in modern-day Russia, where Memorial's own human rights wing now lists more than 400 political prisoners, and independent groups and media are increasingly blacklisted as "foreign agents".

In court, lawyers for Memorial argued that the group's work was beneficial for the "health of the nation". They declared Memorial a friend of Russia, not its enemy, and called the case for liquidation absurd and "Orwellian".

Among the sites the group failed to mark with its "foreign agent" status was the vast database of victims of political repression that it has assembled over three decades of work.

The team argued that any mistakes had been corrected and that shutting down a prominent and respected organisation over such technical errors was disproportionate.

In a statement later on Tuesday, International Memorial said it would challenge the ruling and find legitimate ways to continue its work. Russians needed an honest reflection of their past and no-one would succeed in "liquidating" that need, it added. //

Vladimir Putin has placed great store on the Soviet victory over the Nazis in World War Two, part of his hankering for the old days of superpower status - a far more attractive focus for many Russians than the parallel history of secret courts, prison camps and firing squads.

"Why should we, descendants of the victors, be ashamed and repent, rather than take pride in our glorious past? Memorial is probably paid by someone for that," the prosecutor claimed in court. //

"A power that is afraid of memory, will never be able to achieve democratic maturity."

"Власть, которая боится памяти, никогда не сможет достичь демократической зрелости."

Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński, director / директор @AuschwitzMuseum https://t.co/0Oqsc1xvDf
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) December 28, 2021

interesting tidbits still came out to play. To wit:

“I adhere to that traditional approach that a woman is a woman and a man is a man. A mother is a mother, a father is a father. And I hope that our society has the internal moral protection dictated by the traditional religious denominations of the Russian Federation,” he said.

Later he added:

“If somebody thinks that a woman and a man are the same thing, they’re welcome to [their opinion], but a certain common sense should exist,” the head of state pointed out.

There’s a lot to mull over here.

Putin is a fascinating fusion of Russian old, middle, and new. A product of the Soviet Union’s strong-arm socialistic/communistic political era, unlike many products of his time he understands the value of traditional Russian culture. The most noticeable difference between Putin and his predecessors is his approach to the church.

While his personal beliefs are known only to himself and God, outwardly, Putin has utterly discarded the USSR era’s open disdain for, and none-too-subtle efforts to at least reduce, if not altogether eliminate, the church’s influence on Russian society. Instead, Putin has embraced the church and its insistence on traditional moral values.

Putin saw how Pope John Paul II laid to waste Stalin’s smirk about how many divisions does the Pope have. As it turned out, the heavenly hosts are armed to the teeth. The people of Eastern Europe and the USSR itself overthrew the Soviet regime and its puppets not through armed revolt but by lighting candles, saying prayers, and carrying out faith-emboldened quiet resistance against their oppressors.

Putin is both sharply intelligent and keenly aware of the times. While the West is doing everything it can to run the church out of town, what’s left of the church insists on emasculating itself via the abandonment of its own truths, Putin is reinforcing the church, confident that doing so will simultaneously strengthen his hand and raise his appeal to Western people growing ever wearier of weakness in the face of wokeism.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday issued a statement protesting against “the military activity of the United States and NATO member states along the perimeter of Russia’s borders, including military flights and dangerous manoeuvres by naval ships.”

"The sole substitute for an experience which we have not ourselves lived through is art and literature."

Who knew? Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin. The former KGB agent and current murderous dictator of Russia is more woke about wokeism in America than are Joe Biden and the Democrat Party.

The Russian “president for life” slammed wokeism, correctly saying it is causing societal ills, and claiming it is no different than the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Putin made his extraordinary remarks in Sochi, where the topic was “Global Shake-up in the 21st Century.” His remarks were translated by an interpreter and the video was uploaded to the Russian government’s website.

Not the Bee
@Not_the_Bee
Putin blasts Wokeism and compares it to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, slams CRT and the practice of calling women "birthing people"
Putin blasts Wokeism and compares it to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, slams CRT and the practice...
notthebee.com
1:58 PM · Oct 22, 2021

A Russian research expedition has rediscovered the location of the container with two damaged reactors from the Soviet navy submarine K-19, dumped in Ambrosimova Bay in 1965. //

17,000 radioactive objects
The two reactors from the K-19 submarine are not the only objects posing a risk to marine environment. In fact, no other places in the world’s oceans have more radioactive and nuclear waste than the Kara Sea.

Reactors from K-11 and K-140, plus the entire submarine K-27 and spent uranium fuel from one of the old reactors of the “Lenin” icebreaker are also dumped in the same sea. //

17,000 radioactive objects
The two reactors from the K-19 submarine are not the only objects posing a risk to marine environment. In fact, no other places in the world’s oceans have more radioactive and nuclear waste than the Kara Sea.

Reactors from K-11 and K-140, plus the entire submarine K-27 and spent uranium fuel from one of the old reactors of the “Lenin” icebreaker are also dumped in the same sea. //

While mentality in Soviet times was «out of sight, out of mind», the Kara Sea seemed logical. Ice-covered most of the year, and no commercial activities. That is changing now with rapidly retreating sea ice, drilling for oil-, and gas, and increased shipping. //

Additional to the reactors, about 17,000 objects were dumped in the Kara Sea in the period from the late 1960s to the early 1990s.

The issue here is not Hunter’s addiction or illegal behavior. Rather, it’s the intense corruption of the media and intelligence agencies, and how greatly our current president is compromised. //

A Russian woman, a drug dealer, and two of his compatriots may have stolen a laptop from Hunter Biden in 2018, Hunter told a prostitute in another sex video, leaving the president’s son concerned he may be blackmailed because of his father’s political position.

While the salacious video of Hunter Biden released earlier this week exposes more details about the troubling lifestyle of the president’s son, it reveals much more about a corrupt and complicit media, a corrupt and incompetent intelligence community, and a corrupt and compromised Joe Biden.

this is Putin’s first interview with a US news organization since 2018. He quit speaking in public during the Trump Administration because President Trump was not shy about responding bluntly and in public to things Putin said or did.

Now he’s taken the measure of the Biden Administration — and he’s happy for the change. He can “work with” Biden, and he’s free to speak out in public without fear of meaningful rebuke or repercussions from the feckless foreign policy team now in charge.

Ted Cruz
@tedcruz
What does Putin have on Biden?

RedState
@RedState
Ted Cruz Slaps Joe Biden Around After the Latter Decides to Become Vladimir Putin's Puppet https://zpr.io/RDEdW
11:20 AM · May 20, 2021

NEW: President Biden plans to waive sanctions on the Russian-owned company in charge of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline https://t.co/cdRWmBoojn

— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) May 18, 2021

According to Axios, the Biden regime will waive sanctions on the corporate entity and CEO overseeing the construction of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline into Germany.

What does this mean? This means that Biden is giving Russia a huge lift to their struggling economy and gives them more advantage in Europe while harming Ukraine’s position. //

So who’s really in the pocket of the Russians? Well, it surely wasn’t Trump, who dropped bombs on their heads in Syria, built up that energy independence, strengthened NATO, armed Ukraine, and even tried to counter Russia’s moves in the Arctic. //

What was it that Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates said? Biden has been wrong on virtually every foreign policy decision for the past four decades? Well, looks like here he goes again.

DarkSide, like a great many other malware strains, has a hard-coded do-not-install list of countries which are the principal members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) — former Soviet satellites that all currently have favorable relations with the Kremlin, including Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Romania, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The full exclusion list in DarkSide (published by Cybereason) is below:Simply put, countless malware strains will check for the presence of one of these languages on the system, and if they’re detected the malware will exit and fail to install.

Will installing one of these languages keep your Windows computer safe from all malware? Absolutely not. There is plenty of malware that doesn’t care where in the world you are. And there is no substitute for adopting a defense-in-depth posture, and avoiding risky behaviors online.

But is there really a downside to taking this simple, free, prophylactic approach? None that I can see, other than perhaps a sinking feeling of capitulation. The worst that could happen is that you accidentally toggle the language settings and all your menu options are in Russian.

If this happens (and the first time it does the experience may be a bit jarring) hit the Windows key and the space bar at the same time; if you have more than one language installed you will see the ability to quickly toggle from one to the other. //

But James says he loves the idea of everyone adding a language from the CIS country list so much he’s produced his own clickable two-line Windows batch script that adds a Russian language reference in the specific Windows registry keys that are checked by malware. The script effectively allows one’s Windows PC to look like it has a Russian keyboard installed without actually downloading the added script libraries from Microsoft. https://github.com/Unit221B/Russian

It’s been nearly 10 years since I first visited the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It was a great experience for me. I could finally see the place I’d previously only known from books and TV and the tart taste of the Lugol’s iodine I had to drink a few days after the disaster. After many visits to the plant, I was finally even allowed to enter the damaged Reactor 4 and see the notorious control room. It was here that the failed experiment resulting in the reactor exploding and the uncontrolled emission into the atmosphere of terabecquerels of radioactive isotopes was conducted.

I prefer much more to get to know history by going to museums, watching old documentary films, listening to direct reports of the witnesses of events. It is much easier and more pleasant to absorb the information when you are closer to these events. It is much easier to form your own opinion, having a greater and fuller image of the reality that surrounds us. This must be where my interest in diving in shipwrecks comes from. Located several dozen metres under the surface of the water, the wreck of a military ship is nothing if not a living museum. Additionally, one in which you can touch all the objects without worrying, not receiving strict reprimands from the museum guards. Recent diving in Narvik in wrecks from the Second World War taught me the history of these events much better than many lessons in school.

And it was no different during my last trip to the closed zone in Chernobyl. This time, thanks to obtaining special permits, I was able to get to the area of block 4 of the nuclear power plant, in other words, where everything began.

It’s been nearly 10 years since I first visited the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It was a great experience for me. I could finally see the place I’d previously only known from books and TV and the tart taste of the Lugol’s iodine I had to drink a few days after the disaster.

After many visits to the plant, I was finally even allowed to enter the damaged Reactor 4 and see the notorious control room. It was here that the failed experiment resulting in the reactor exploding and the uncontrolled emission into the atmosphere of terabecquerels of radioactive isotopes was conducted. A decade ago, obtaining the necessary permits to see the epicenter of the events of April 1986 was extremely arduous and complicated. Today, this place is a must-see on most tourist excursions.

Today I return once again to the plant. This time, I want to see new places that I haven’t yet photographed. When I got permission after several months of effort, sending letters and making phone calls, I was very excited. As one of the staff members in charge of my visit said, I had been granted exclusive access to the nuclear power plant. I can’t wait to find out what this actually means.