1/ Iran's rapid military collapse is being blamed by Russian warbloggers on rampant corruption under the country's notionally Islamist regime. Everything is for sale like in "the late USSR", they say, which has allowed the Israelis to infiltrate Iran with ease. ⬇️
2/ Dmitry Steshin writes:
"The West has found Iran's solar plexus and is hitting it precisely and methodically. Of course, it is being helped from within. Who? Why? I'll explain based on my personal impressions."
3/ "It is generally accepted that Iran is ruled by the 'ayatollah regime', it is solid, there are no cracks. This is both true and false. Iran, as it seemed to me, is a country torn apart by internal contradictions, like the late USSR. I lived there.
4/ "When you could be a Komsomol member and even, God forgive me, a communist and walk the streets with a Montana bag. Remember? There were three women and a guy, all in flowing jeans, literally eating ice cream from indecently huge waffle cones?
5/ "And there were also Montana and Peek-a-boo watches and they could take sneakers, even from a corpse if necessary. They collected empty cans of foreign beer and cigarette packs, a disgrace, damn.
6/ "So, in Iran, everything is about the same, I saw enough in the distant 2013 and it has hardly become better since then. And so, 1 million people come out for Friday prayer in Tehran (according to other sources - 5 million), but ...
7/ "1. The first thing I saw at the Tehran airport was a photo in the newspaper – several men and women in the uniform of concentration camp inmates and next to the Facebook logo (restricted in the Russian Federation).
8/ "The jury of the first Iranian beauty contest sat down in full force.
9/ "2. Satellite TV is prohibited, but when I opened the door and climbed out onto the hotel terrace, I saw that all the city roofs were covered with dishes - new and rusty. There are many thousands of them, as far as the horizon, but not visible from the street.
10/ "3. Prostitution is prohibited, but at the entrance to the northern district of Tehran, an aunt in a niqab will thrust a business card into your car window – "temporary marriage", for two hours.
11/ 4. "Marlboro is haram, a sign of the devil, you can be hanged for it – the seller in the store showed me every evening how – "shhhhh!" and immediately got me a couple of packs from under the counter.
12/ 5. "The Internet in Iran is a real "sovereign [closed] Internet", but everyone has a VPN.
And there are a lot of such details of everyday life that make the consciousness similar. And street protests, and feminist performances, night clubs, etc.
13/ "This is the other side of stability – a generation is born that wants to change everything. This is how humans are made, it's stitched into the subcortex, otherwise we would still be living in caves ... "
'DarkZotovLand' says that Israel's success is "all about money":
14/ "In 2024, one of the leaders of the Hamas Politburo, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in Tehran. There are two versions of this death: that a bomb was planted in his room, and that a short-range projectile was used from Iranian territory.
15/ "There is a possibility that Haniyeh’s security guard was involved, and they even announced the amount paid to him: 6 million dollars.
16/ "Whether this is true or not, I don’t know. But I have been to Iran many times, and the corruption there amazed even me after living in Russia. They continue to take from us [in Russia], but not everything. They take EVERYTHING there.
17/ "Back in 2002, I didn’t like the system. They give you a press visa. It’s more expensive than a tourist visa. You have to come to the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and pay for the issuance of accreditation.
18/ "You are required to work with a licensed agency for receiving foreign press for $200 per day, otherwise you CANNOT be in Iran. I knocked the price down to $100, and that was the most I could do. It was always like that, except for the last time.
19/ "Then they let me into Iran without the services of an agency: apparently, there were some concessions.
This is how they work. I came to the city of Rasht to do a report on how black caviar is being prepared in Iran.
20/ "The company said that my letter from the government was so-so, and they would send it back (!) to Tehran for verification. How long will it take - who knows. No explanation that the report had already been approved helped - like, what if the letter was fake.
21/ "At the same time, they began to demand $1,000 from me in personal conversations for the report. I did not pay them, and there was no report. In the future, this was repeated many times.
22/ "You have something approved by the press service, but give me money for gas, otherwise we will not go. They demanded payment under any pretext, everywhere and always.
23/ "It would seem that Iran is an Islamic republic. Strict Sharia norms, medieval punishments, a total ban on booze: except for Armenians, who are allowed to make wine for church ceremonies. But the country has a huge bootlegging network for selling alcohol.
24/ "It is easy to find everywhere, and everyone knows where to get it. Bootleggers pay the police, and feel great. The same is with prostitution. I was offered women in any hotel, although the lady herself is legally stoned to death for such a thing.
25/ "'They pay off,' they told me with a grin. 'Both the police and Sharia judges take it.'
The official exchange rate for the dollar is 42,000 Iranian rials. But currency dealers buy it from tourists for 920,000 rials and more.
26/ "Hand-to-hand currency transactions are not welcome, but I always knew where it was more profitable to hand over dollars. The police do not interfere with this, they are well-fed.
Bribes exist in almost any sphere. This is the norm.
27/ "Therefore, Israel felt like a fish in water in Iran. It could hire agents everywhere for good money, which was used to destroy the Iranian air defense on the very first day of the attack.
28/ Mossad is guided by two rules - what cannot be bought for money can be bought for a lot of money + any, even the most fortified fortress, can be taken by a single donkey loaded with gold. This is what happened...
29/ "And it turned out that the Israelis have long known perfectly well where all the generals live, where the best fighters are located, and where the air defense systems are installed. And all this disappeared in an instant. Simply because the Israelis pay, and pay generously.
30/ "And the people who take money from them think about patriotism and love for the country last of all.
Although, I was wrong here.
They don't think about it at all."
Sources:
🔹 t.me/DmitriySteshin…
🔹 t.me/darkzotovland/…
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