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.)
Kenneth Branagh may have shot a reverse bullet into his wife in Tenet as Andrei Sator, but I remember his evil Russian ways best when he threatened to make Keira Knightley eat a lightbulb as Viktor Cherevin in Shadow Recruit.
Remember when Dolph Lundgren was training as Ivan Drago and he punches that thing while running indoor laps? That sounds like fun. Apparently, he put Stallone in the hospital when he accidentally connected a punch in one scene. What a baby, Sly.
Peter Bull as Soviet Ambassador Alexi de Sadesky has so many great lines in Dr. Strangelove. "Our source was the New York Times" is still something I like muttering to myself.
Mickey Rourke's Ivan Vanko was mostly off-putting, but at least the screenwriters gave him that fascinating pet bird storyline.
I don't really remember Rambo II or Lieutenant Colonel Podovsky very well, but I think this was lampooned in Hot Shots Part Deux. That was a fun movie.
That's it. Those are all the Russian villains ever to appear in Hollywood films.
Okay I forgot one: Alfred Molina's Boris the Butcher in The Man Who Knew Too Little. Molina's ethnic range is incredible. Is he Russian? Iranian? Latin American? Literally no one knows.
Okay that's all the Russian movie villains ever.
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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.
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.
Just wow. A video has surfaced showing Prigozhin at the Southern Military District HQ in Rostov-on-Don talking to (and HUMILIATING) Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov. He threatens to blockade Rostov and head for Moscow!