Rusija i sve vezano za nju

Već živimo u matriksu – pre nego što smo bili spajani sa drugim vrstama (himere) ili pre simulakruma elektronskih neuralnih mreža. Mi smo već u velikoj meri proizvodi veštačke inteligencije, a naša inteligencija je već 99 odsto veštačka i njome više ne upravlja Bog ili visoki filozofski modeli. Kodiranje koje je ugrađeno u našu inteligenciju je potpuno mračno, htonično i demonsko. To je kraj, poslednja stanica. Odavno smo se ukrcali u voz koji ide ka veštačkoj inteligenciji, stvaranju matriksa i promeni čovečanstva u posthumanost i rasu kiborga. Pa zato nema mesta čuđenju kad se bude reklo: „Stigli smo, poslednja stanica, spremajte se da ispraznite vagone”.
U ovom trenutku smo se zaprepastili i zapitali se kuda, dođavola, idemo? Ali, trebalo je o tome da razmišljamo pre nekoliko vekova, trebalo je da uzmemo oružje i da se borimo protiv Moderne, protiv Zapada, protiv Njutna, protiv Galileja, protiv Sunčevog sistema, protiv Kopernika, protiv Fransisa Bekona, protiv okrugle zemlje i zvezdane prašine, protiv crnih rupa, belih patuljaka i crvenih džinova. Protiv duhova i demona Moderne. Protiv progresa i demokratije, protiv Ustava i ljudskih prava. Protiv pobunjenog prometeja i oslobođenog Lucifera. Protiv svog crnila u koje smo upali, protiv matriksa potpuno lažnog i otuđujućeg mišljenja.
Tu bitku smo izgubili i sada, dobrodošli u pakao i posthumanizam. Neobično je kupiti kartu za Arzamas i sablazniti se kuda si otišao. Ovo se dešava samo ako je neko mnogo popio i ne može da se seti gde je bio juče, odakle karta, zašto i kod koga ide.

plachkica wrote:postaju imuni na bacanje kroz prozor, evolucija

Russian defector sheds light on Putin paranoia and his secret train network
Former security officer tells of president’s strict quarantine and says he has ‘lost touch with the world’


A senior Russian security officer who defected last year has given rare insight into the paranoid lifestyle of Vladimir Putin, confirming details of a secret train network, identical offices in different cities, a strict personal quarantine and escalating security protocols.

Gleb Karakulov, who served as a captain in the Federal Protection Service (FSO), a powerful body tasked with protecting Russia’s highest-ranking officials, said the measures were designed to mask the whereabouts of the Russian president, whom he described as “pathologically afraid for his life”.

The 36-year-old said the train was used because it “cannot be tracked on any information resource. It’s done for stealth purposes.”

The Russian investigative outlet Proekt reported previously on the existence of the train and of a secret railway network including parallel lines and stations near Putin’s residences in the Valdai national park in Novo-Ogaryovo, and near his Bocharov Ruchei residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

The Guardian has reviewed an interview with Karakulov by the Dossier Centre, a political information outfit founded by the exiled Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and confirmed the credentials of the senior Russian communications engineer, who travelled with Putin extensively and helped transmit some of his most secret messages.

Karakulov was a member of the “field team” of the Presidential Communications Directorate that encrypts the messages of top Russian officials and estimated he had travelled on more than 180 trips with top officials. He appears to be the highest-ranking intelligence official to defect since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In the interview, Karakulov called Putin a “war criminal” and told fellow officers they should come forward with information being hidden from the Russian public.

“Our president has lost touch with the world,” he said. “He has been living in an information cocoon for the past couple of years, spending most of his time in his residences, which the media very fittingly call bunkers. He is pathologically afraid for his life. He surrounds himself with an impenetrable barrier of quarantines and an information vacuum. He only values his own life and the lives of his family and friends.”

Karakulov described a virtual state within a state that includes firefighters, food testers and other engineers who travel with Putin on his trips abroad, providing a rare first-hand insight into the levels of paranoia and sheltered lifestyle of the Russian president. “They call him the Boss, worship him in every way and only ever talk of him in those terms,” he said.

Karakulov also described setting up secret communications for Putin on planes, helicopters, lavish yachts and even in a bomb shelter at the Russian embassy in Kazakhstan during an October 2022 visit when Karakulov ultimately fled to Turkey and from there to an undisclosed country in the west.

He confirmed that Putin relies heavily for information on reports provided by his security services. Putin did not use a mobile phone or the internet, Karakulov said, and did not even bring an internet specialist with him on foreign trips. “He only receives information from his closest circle, which means that he lives in an information vacuum,” he said.

Putin is still in quarantine and requires all staff working in the same room as him to also undergo a two-week quarantine, severely limiting the number of people who have personal contact with him.

Karakulov said Putin used identical offices in St Petersburg, Sochi and Novo-Ogaryovo, and that the secret services used fake motorcades and decoy planes to pretend he was leaving. “This is a ruse to confuse foreign intelligence, in the first place, and secondly, to prevent any attempts on his life,” he said.

He said Putin’s behaviour and lifestyle had altered significantly since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, when the president retreated from most travel and public appearances.

“He has shut himself off from the world,” Karakulov said. “His take on reality has become distorted.”

The interview did not give information on what messages Karakulov had encrypted for Putin or other top officials, or more information on Putin’s preparations for the war or strategy.

Karakulov described his risky escape to the west during Putin’s visit to Kazakhstan. During the trip, his wife and daughter secretly flew to Astana. They postponed the defection several times until nearly the end of the trip, when Karakulov told his fellow officers he was feeling unwell and then fled with his family to the airport. The Dossier Centre said Karakulov’s current whereabouts were unknown. The Guardian confirmed that Karakulov was listed as a wanted man in the Russian interior ministry’s public database of criminal suspects.

He claimed he had opposed the war on Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, but had waited to persuade his wife to flee together as a family. He said he had still not spoken with his parents, who were supporters of the war.

While the strict quarantine regime has fuelled rumours that Putin may be seriously ill and worried about complications from coronavirus, Karakulov said he had seen no indications that Putin was in poor health.

A post-Putin Russia may look like Serbia after Milošević
Nationalist grievances make stony ground for liberal democracy and good relations with the west
TONY BARBER


The war in Ukraine is psychological and political as much as military in nature, as Volodymyr Zelenskyy demonstrated when he forecast that “predators” in Russia’s ruling circles would one day kill Vladimir Putin.

Doubtless the Ukrainian president would shed no tears if Putin succumbed to a fate like that of Julius Caesar, denounced as a dictator and stabbed to death on the Ides of March by members of the Roman Senate. However, Zelenskyy cited no evidence in support of his prediction, and his chief purpose in making it was seemingly to boost Ukraine’s war effort by sowing more seeds of suspicion in the paranoid soil of Kremlin power politics.

The question of who might eventually replace Putin, and the policies a new regime might pursue, is nonetheless one to which western governments and specialists on Russia are giving some thought. Putin has confirmed that Russia’s presidential election will go ahead next year, a contest in which — if he runs — he is assured of victory. Another six-year term would stretch his rule to 30 years, longer than the 1924-1953 reign of Joseph Stalin.

Still, Putin turned 70 in October. The longer he stays in office, the larger the succession question looms. To understand what a post-Putin Russia might look like, consider Serbia after the strongman rule of Slobodan Milošević. He fell from power in 2000 after fomenting wars in former Yugoslavia, as Putin has done in former Soviet republics such as Georgia and Ukraine.

Similar grievances gripped Milošević and Putin: the collapse of a multinational state in which one nationality — Serbs in Yugoslavia and Russians in the USSR — had held the upper hand; the status of ethnic Serb and Russian minorities in newly independent states; and the determination to control one territory in particular — Kosovo in Serbia’s case, and Crimea for Russia — that embodied national identity and historical pride.

Milošević died in 2006 while on trial for alleged war crimes. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin last month in connection with forced removals of children from Ukraine.

Serbia after Milošević was no longer a warmongering, hyper-nationalist state. But it evolved into a flawed democracy and remained at odds with the west, especially over Kosovo and a foreign policy that includes warm relations with Russia and China. Public life under Aleksandar Vučić, who has held office since 2014 as prime minister and now president, is marked by the concentration of power, patronage and media influence in his Serbian Progressive party.

Similar conditions might emerge in a post-Putin Russia. No future Kremlin leader seems likely to give up Moscow’s claim to Crimea, whatever the outcome of the war in Ukraine. A far larger power than Serbia, Russia will certainly not tailor its foreign policy to suit the west. At home, the ruling group will ensure that nationwide elections always keep it in power, even if voting becomes less of an orchestrated ritual than under Putin and more of a carefully managed contest, as under Boris Yeltsin, his predecessor.

As in Serbia, no turn to western-style liberal democracy is plausible in the near future in Russia. The only post-Milošević prime minister of Serbia who embraced these values was Zoran Đinđić. He was assassinated in 2003. A rare prominent politician who, on the whole, stood for them in Putin’s Russia was Boris Nemtsov. He was shot dead near the Kremlin in 2015.

In fact, one feature of Serbian politics after Milošević has been the existence of an ultranationalist opposition. It keeps the ruling elite on its guard, making official recognition of Kosovo’s independence close to inconceivable — even if Vučić felt inclined to go down that road, which is doubtful. Vučić began his political career under the wing of Vojislav Šešelj, an extreme nationalist advocate of a Greater Serbian state, convicted by an international court in 2018 of wartime crimes.

There is likewise an ultranationalist tendency in Russian politics, once too unruly for Putin’s taste, but now with a louder voice because of the Ukraine war. To the extent that elements in powerful military and security service circles sympathise with this outlook, it seems certain to play some role in setting the tone of future Russian politics.

We can only speculate who will succeed Putin. To judge from Serbia’s experience, however, even the end of Putin’s authoritarianism and the war in Ukraine will bring neither genuine democracy to Russia nor smooth relations with the west.

https://www.ft.com/content/bb2aa15a-b467-4418-9d43-5d06e608a699

„Ми се тренутно не боримо против људи, већ против владара таме овога света, против духова зла. Кажем ово смело, са пуним уверењем да је Русија на страни светлости. И то се лако може доказати, јер Русија не тежи да постане богатија, не жели да заузме друге земље, не настоји никога да потчини. Русија једноставно настоји да сачува свој идентитет, своју веру, свој систем вредности“, поручио је учесницима трпезе после литургије у Саборном храму Христа Спаситеља на празник Уласка Господњег у Јерусалим.

Како је истакао, потпуно одсуство заједничких вредности и одсуство хришћанских вредности на Западу довело је до војног сукоба између Русије и Запада.

"Нестала је лажна дипломатија из доба детанта. Задатак је био да нас шчепају голим рукама, без икаквог рата, да нас заварају, увуку у свој свет, усаде нам своје вредности. Али наш народ и наше руководство су то схватили. Те вредности су у супротности са нашим, јер света Русија, хвала Богу, чува хришћанске вредности, које су биле укључене у систем националних вредности. Када је постало јасно да немамо ништа заједничко, све је то довело до војне конфронтације“, рекао је он.