I wish every single person in the West would listen to Putin's speech. Obviously, that won't happen so let me summarise as a professional translator for 10+ years. He states, as he has done from the outset, what his intentions and complaints are in the plainest terms possible.🧵
Setting aside his brief comments on the recent "referendums", he spends most of his speech discussing the West. His primary complaint isn't NATO expansion, which gets only a cursory mention. The West is greedy and seeks to enslave and colonise other nations, like Russia.
The West uses the power of finance and technology to enforce its will on other nations. To collect what he calls the "hegemon's tax". To this end the West destabilises countries, creates terrorist enclaves and most of all seeks to deprive other countries of sovereignty.
It is this "avarice" and desire to preserve its power that is the reason for the "hybrid war" the collective West is "waging on Russia". They want us to be a "colony". They do not want us to be free, they want Russians to be a mob of soulless slaves - direct quote.
The rules-based order the West goes on about is "nonsense". Who made these rules? Who agreed to them? Russia is an ancient country and civilization and we will not play by these "rigged" rules. The West has no moral authority to challenge the referendums because it has violated
...the borders of other countries. Western elites are "totalitarian, despotic and apartheidistic" - direct quote. They are racist against Russia and other countries and nations. "Russophobia is racism". They discriminate by calling themselves the "civilised world".
They colonised, started the global slave trade, genocided native Americans, pillaged India and Africa, forced China to buy opium through war. We, on the other hand, are proud that we "led" the anti-colonial movement that helped countries develop to reduce poverty and inequality.
They are Russophobic (they hate us) because we didn't allow our country to be pillaged by creating a strong CENTRALISED (emphasis his) state based on Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism. They have been trying to destabilise our country since the 17th century in the Times...
...of Trouble (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_of_T…). Eventually, they managed to "get their hands on our riches" at the end of the 20th century. They called us friends and partners while pumping out trillions of dollars (his irony game is strong today).
We remember this. We didn't forget. The West claims to bring freedom and democracy to other countries but it's the exact opposite of the truth. The unipolar world is anti-democratic by its very nature. It is a lie. They used nuclear weapons, creating a precedent. They flattened
German cities without "any military need to do so". There was no need for this except to scare us and the rest of the world. Korea, Vietnam. To this day they "occupy" Japan, South Korea and Germany and other countries while cynically calling them "allies".
The West has surveillance over the leaders of these nations who "swallow these insults like the slaves they are".
He then talks about bioweapon research (haven't heard about them for a while) and human experiments "including in Ukraine".
The US rules the world by the power of the fist. Any country which seeks to challenge Western hegemony becomes an enemy. Their neocolonialism is cloaked in lies like "containment" of Russia, China and Iran. The concept of truth has been destroyed with fakes and extreme...
...propaganda (irony game still strong).
You cannot feed your people with printed dollars and social media. You need food and energy. But Western elites have no desire to find a solution to the food and energy crises *they* (emphasis his) created.
They solved the problems at the start of 20c with WW1 and the US established dominance of the world via the dollar as a result of WW2. In the 80s they had another crisis they solved by "plundering our country". Now they want to solve their problems by "breaking Russia".
Russia "understands its responsibility to the international community" and will "do everything to cool the heads of these neocolonials who are destined to fail".
They're crazy. I want to speak to all Russian citizens, do we want to replace mum and dad with parent 1 and 2?
They invented genders and claim you can "transition". Do we want this for our children?
We have a different vision.
They have abandoned religion and embraced Satanism - direct quote.
The world is going through a revolutionary transformation. A multipolar world offers nations freedom to develop as they wish and they make up the majority of the world.
We have many like-minded friends in Western countries. We see and appreciate their support. They are forming
liberation, anti-colonial movements as we speak - direct quote. These will only grow.
We are fighting for a fair world for our country. The idea of exceptionalism is criminal and we must turn this shameful page. The breaking of the West's hegemony is INEVITABLE (emphasis his).
There is no going back. We are fighting for our "great (as in big), historic Russia". Our values are (irony game crescendo): love of our fellow man, compassion and mercy.
Truth is with us, Russia is with us.
That's the end of the speech. As I said from day 1, the purpose of what Putin is doing in Ukraine is to throw the West off its pedestal. This isn't about NATO or Ukraine, this is the big play to replace the current world order.
For my British and European friends who are "shocked" and "surprised", here are 10 reasons you didn't see this coming.
Read this short post and then read the replies from our American friends who will confirm what I'm saying.
1. Americans love their country and want it to be the best in the world. America is a nation of people who conquered a continent. They love strength. They love winning. Any leader who appeals to that has an automatic advantage.
2. Unlike Europeans, Americans have not accepted managed decline. They don't have Net Zero here, they believe in producing their own energy and making it as cheap as possible because they know that their prosperity depends on it.
3. Prices for most basic goods in the US have increased rapidly and are sky high. What the official statistics say about inflation and the reality of people's lives are not the same.
4. Unlike you, Americans do not believe in socialism. They believe in meritocracy. They don't care about the super rich being super rich because they know that they live in a country where being super rich is available to anyone with the talent and drive to make it. They don't resent success, they celebrate it.
5. Americans are the most pro-immigration people in the world. Read that again. Seriously, read it again. Americans love an immigrant success story. They want more talented immigrants to come to America. But they refuse to accept people coming illegally. They believe in having a border.
6. Americans are sensitive about racial issues and their country's imperfect history. They believe that those who are disadvantaged by the circumstances of their birth should be given the opportunity to succeed. What they reject, however, is the idea that in order to address the errors of the past new errors must be made. DEI is racist. They know it and they reject it precisely because they are not racist.
7. Americans are the most philosemitic nation on earth. October 7 and the pro-Hamas left's reaction shocked them to their very core because, among other things, they remember what 9/11 was like and they know jihad when they see it.
8. Americans are extremely practical people. They care about what works, not what sounds good. In Europe, we produce great writers and intellectuals. In America they produce (and attract) great engineers, businessmen and investors. Because of this, they care less about Trump's rhetoric than you do and more about his policies than you do.
9. Americans are deeply optimistic people. They hate negativity. The woke view of American history as a series of evils for which they must eternally apologise is utterly abhorrent to them. They believe in moving forward together, not endlessly obsessing about the past.
10. America is a country whose founding story is one of resistance to government overreach. They loathe unnecessary restrictions, regulations and control. They understand that freedom comes with the price of self-reliance and they pay it gladly.
Per suggestions, I really should have signed off with:
How are people celebrating their political opponents having their bank accounts closed for political reasons?
I don't get how so many people are so incredibly stupid, immoral and dishonest. And I've never had a particularly favourable view of humanity in the first place.
You...
... don't have to like Nigel Farage or agree with him to think it's a terrible precedent to set for our country.
I voted Remain in 2016 and I wasn't happy to be on the losing side. Indeed, I remember feeling both shocked and bitter about it. That was an unpleasant 5 minutes...
...but then I moved on because I remembered we live in a democracy where it is not only possible but NORMAL for me to not always get my way politically.
How have we got to the point where politicians, journalists and other public figures will say nothing or, worse...
I would strongly caution people against celebrating what is happening in Russia. There have been fewer harsher critics of Putin's invasion but chaos is very rarely a good thing.
Prigozhin is not the only one with a private army in Russia. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has...
...a large force under his command who have 0 loyalty to Russia or Putin. They hate Wagner but if Putin has to be rescued by them, why not take him out as well as take over the country?
Will the national guard fight for Putin?
We don't have answers to any of these questions...
...and an armed mutiny in a nuclear nation is a big deal.
A lot of people asking what is happening in Russia.
Basically, for many years Putin has been funding a mercenary company called Wagner and using them for military operations in other countries, especially Syria and various African countries.
During the course of the Ukraine War, there has been growing conflict between the Russian Ministry of Defence and the Wagner Group which has also been fighting in Ukraine. I wrote about it here:
After taking Bakhmut, a city in Eastern Ukraine with heavy casualties, Wagner rotated to the rear. As they were withdrawing from the front they claimed that their path had been mined by Russian MoD forces. Bomb disposal engineers they sent to deal with this...