Another deep dive into Putin’s private life with Alina Kabaeva from The Dossier Center. The main takeaway is that Putin leverages his inner circle's wealth to provide a princely life for his two young sons. dossier.center/succession-en/
Some other takeaways: they hire private tutors through publicly placed ads. Foreign national tutors (South Africans preferred) get healthcare at the same elite clinic that treats elites' prostitutes. Despite heavy isolation, there are strange loopholes in the family's security (unless Putin is visiting).
Their eldest son apparently loves Disney heroes despite Putin’s hatred of Hollywood decadence. Kabaeva and Putin are grooming the boys for major sports exploits, but it's unclear if they've got mom's talents. At planned stint at the Sirius Lyceum in Sochi fell through due to security concerns.
Dmitry Grinchy is 87. His father was executed in 1938 by Stalin’s NKVD as an “enemy of the people” on bogus espionage charges. Earlier today in Moscow, two men attacked him on a bus when they thought they heard him refer to Wagner Group mercenaries as “murderers.”
The bus was passing by a memorial site dedicated to Wagner PMC fighters when Grinchy supposedly muttered his remark. The two assailants dragged him to the police, and all three men were detained and later released. The two sides have filed police reports against each other. ovd.info/story/zaderzha…
Update: the two assailants have reportedly been charged with felony disorderly conduct, punishable by up to 5–7 years in prison, depending on how prosecutors define the circumstances. ria.ru/20240809/delo-…
Provocative article published last month in Russian Politics tackles now common assumption in West and by anti-Kremlin groups that Putin ordered FSB to bomb apartments in Sept 1999 to boost his presidential momentum. Author suggests that Berezovksy & MVD are likelier culprits.
You might be asking why this needs revisiting now, but the premise is excellent: we seem to read about potential false flag operations in Ukraine every week, so reexamining these allegations ostensibly at the heart of Putin’s rise to power is well-timed indeed.
The article goes deep into the weeds of the case. There’s a long assessment of Mikhail Trepashkin, the ex-FSB agent whose claims fuel much of the suspicions about the FSB in the bombings.
Some thoughts on my favorite Russian villains from Hollywood movies. In no particular order, let's start with Air Force One. Remember Gary Oldman as Egor Korshunov? I think he dies when a parachute gets wrapped around his neck. Kinda like Mark Strong at the end of Sherlock.
Theon Greyjoy's dad in John Wick calls Keanu Reeves "Baba Yaga," which is meant to be the same as "The Bogeyman" but actually means "that old witch lady who lives in the woods in the house on chicken legs." (The new Hellboy did a gross rendition of her.)
Ray Winstone's General Dreykov in Black Widow is maybe the most British Russian to grace the screen since whoever Connery was in Hunt for the Red October. Scottish people are British too, right? (Only English people are allowed to answer.)
More than an hour after this was initially reported, I’m not seeing any additional corroboration. Just this morning, Kremlin spox Peskov was very dismissive when asked about the NYT report claiming that Surovikin had advance knowledge of the mutiny… https://t.co/YW7xyQ83I2t.me/youlistenedmay…
Journalist Alexey Venediktov says Surovikin hasn’t been in contact with his family for three days. Also, the general’s security detail isn’t answering the phone, he claims. t.me/aavst2022/5477
Pro-Kremlin pundit Sergey Markov (grain of salt, eat it) says he doesn’t believe the “pro-Western Russian media” reports that Surovikin is arrested. It would be weird if the insurrection’s leaders were let go and those who spoke publicly against them were arrested, after all…… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Putin is repeating the Defense Ministry’s language about Prigozhin being a “criminal scammer.”
The battle in Ukraine demands unity, he says. Anything that weakens Russia must be cast aside. Prigozhin’s actions are a “stab in the back.” Putin then mentions Russia’s WWI catastrophe.