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The Suspected Poisoning of Alexey Navalny, Putin’s Most Prominent Adversary

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Re: The Suspected Poisoning of Alexey Navalny, Putin’s Most Prominent Adversary

#81

Post by ChomskyNormal4m »

dsabanin wrote: post #20

I was born in Russia and I despise Putin. He is the reason why I emigrated. He and his cronies brough the country into the dark age, from which it may never come out. He is, without a single doubt, Hitler of the 21st century. * He consolidated all the political and judicial power. Destroyed, physically, politically or judicially all the opponents. Elections are completely fake. * He completely controls all secret ser…

> [Putin] consolidated all the political and judicial power. Destroyed, physically, politically or judicially all the opponents.

You are writing in English, and thus aimed at a US/UK audience - the president of the US (Clinton) and PM of the UK (Major) celebrated the 1993 shelling by the military of the Russian parliament that consolidated Yeltsin's power, and that of his chosen successor, Putin. Putin didn't consolidate power and destroy opposition, this was done in 1993 to celebration in the West.

The problem with this in the West really started in 2007 when Putin announced in Munich that Russia would no longer tolerate the US's continual encroachment against Russia. Suddenly all these events going back to 1993 which had been celebrated were cast as nefarious.

Re: The Suspected Poisoning of Alexey Navalny, Putin’s Most Prominent Adversary

#82

Post by mcsb4 »

mhh__ wrote: post #64
mcsb4 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what happened there but the official version leaves some serious doubts open. For example there was a long time talk of a "nurse" that found them. Only by accident it was revealed that this nurse was the head-nurse of the UK forces, i.e. in the rank of a general, well versed in chemical warfare. Also why was never the full tracks of the two Russians the victims revealed? There is CCTV on every corner in…

The official story would always be vague. This is spook territory not regular police. A Scotland Yard team went to interview Litvinenko's assassins (One of whom was being treated for radiation poisoning - fancy that!), and they were completely outgunned by the FSB. Also, as to CCTV, it is extremely prevalent in London but not as omniscient in places like Salisbury. Security services sit on information like this for y…

The fact that it was invented in Russia doesn't mean that this sample was Russian made. Every decent chemist can produce that stuff. We were also shown powerpoint slides of Saddams truck-mounted labs of WMD - they just didn't exist. The second mission was to "win hearts and minds". Result: 1,000,000 people dead. Women, old people, children and toddlers included. Just watch collateral damage again. Do it 100,000 times and you know what happened in Iraq. Plus a dash of abuse and torture of prisoners of war in the Abu Ghraib prison. There are plenty of things I doubt when I hear about them.

Re: The Suspected Poisoning of Alexey Navalny, Putin’s Most Prominent Adversary

#83

Post by mhh__ »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #68
mhh__ wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The official story would always be vague. This is spook territory not regular police. A Scotland Yard team went to interview Litvinenko's assassins (One of whom was being treated for radiation poisoning - fancy that!), and they were completely outgunned by the FSB. Also, as to CCTV, it is extremely prevalent in London but not as omniscient in places like Salisbury. Security services sit on information like this for y…

> A Scotland Yard team went to interview Litvinenko's assassins (One of whom was being treated for radiation poisoning - fancy that!), and they were completely outgunned by the FSB. Source?

From a BBC documentary into the investigation at the time. One of the members of the scotland yard team suggested they were poisoned by the russians (Laxatives in the water or similar not Po)

Re: The Suspected Poisoning of Alexey Navalny, Putin’s Most Prominent Adversary

#84

Post by vogre »

lostmyoldone wrote: post #66
jetzzz wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And IntelliJ IDEA of course, which I think many HN visitors are using in one form or another. This still doesn't change the original point that Putin regime has been very damaging to Russia.

It's true that Jetbrains has lots of developers in Russia, but Jetbrains s.r.o is Czech and was founded in Prague under the name Intellij Software.

JetBrains has this name this because they were brains jetting from Russia. All founders were Russians, of course.

Re: The Suspected Poisoning of Alexey Navalny, Putin’s Most Prominent Adversary

#85

Post by 2bitencryption »

baybal2 wrote: post #2

He was poisoned, and survived thrice, and was also jailed for really insubstantial periods of time. I think the Kremlin is very much content with having such a plaything opposition, which tacitly plays along, and does nothing to really challenge it. The few other people who ever were a credible threat to the regime in Russia were dealt with much more unceremoniously: gunned down in the broad daylight. I think the KGB…

I like to think of myself as pretty level-headed and totally unbelieving of conspiracy theory. As an example, I think "billionaire in a prison cell kills himself to avoid the consequences of his actions" is a far more likely story than "covert assassins enter a high-security prison and stage a fake suicide".

But the moment the coronavirus started to get really bad, the first place my mind went was: "How does this help Putin?"

That's not to say I actually continued down that train of thought -- I don't think it's very likely Putin kept a secret lab that evolved a very potent virus and waited to release it at a time that would cause the most instability with his biggest enemies. But... my mind did go there, very fast. And sometimes it does revisit that place.

Re: The Suspected Poisoning of Alexey Navalny, Putin’s Most Prominent Adversary

#86

Post by king_magic »

vogre wrote: post #45
DFHippie wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Brexit, and French and German elections, and shoot down Dutch airlines, etc.

You see, when anything go wrong in the world it's Russia's fault:) Especially if someone loses some elections - blame Russia 100% of the time.

Except... those things explicitly are Russia's fault. You can keep pretending Russia is a benevolent member of the international community all you want, but that simply does not make it true.

Re: The Suspected Poisoning of Alexey Navalny, Putin’s Most Prominent Adversary

#87

Post by enkid »

ChomskyNormal4m wrote: post #81
dsabanin wrote: post #20

I was born in Russia and I despise Putin. He is the reason why I emigrated. He and his cronies brough the country into the dark age, from which it may never come out. He is, without a single doubt, Hitler of the 21st century. * He consolidated all the political and judicial power. Destroyed, physically, politically or judicially all the opponents. Elections are completely fake. * He completely controls all secret ser…

> [Putin] consolidated all the political and judicial power. Destroyed, physically, politically or judicially all the opponents. You are writing in English, and thus aimed at a US/UK audience - the president of the US (Clinton) and PM of the UK (Major) celebrated the 1993 shelling by the military of the Russian parliament that consolidated Yeltsin's power, and that of his chosen successor, Putin. Putin didn't consoli…

Yeltsin certainly began the process, but it's hard to argue that Putin hasn't acted very aggressively to consolidate power. The idea that just because it was a process that started under a previous ruler, the currently ruler shouldn't be blamed for embracing and expanding the corrupt policies makes no sense.

Also, what is the encroachment you are talking about against Russia? Are you talking about allowing the people of the former Soviet Union to choose to move away from Russia toward the West and enter into a defensive military alliance? Because that's not encroachment. That's helping those people get out from under Russian encroachment. Russia does not get to play the victim card because we're letting people outside of Russia choose to move away from them. That's not how reality works. Just because Russia neighbors the Baltics, Georgia, and Ukraine does not give them any right to demand they follow specific domestic policies. But that is exactly what Putin is trying to assert.

Re: The Suspected Poisoning of Alexey Navalny, Putin’s Most Prominent Adversary

#89

Post by baybal2 »

WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #70
vogre wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Saudi Arabia is hundred times worse than all we have in Russia on every point you mentioned. But guess who get all the sanctions?

Really? From which point of view? Arguably true for the Yemenites, but the fact is, no one really care about the Yemenites (sorry if there are Yemenites reading that but it's a fact). Saudi Arabia doesn't try to interfere with any western European country, neither militarily nor in their politics...

> Saudi Arabia doesn't try to interfere with any western European country, neither militarily nor in their politics...

O_O you are so wrong, it is one the biggest foreign lobbying power in America, and Europe.

But this is not the point of this conversation.

Re: The Suspected Poisoning of Alexey Navalny, Putin’s Most Prominent Adversary

#90

Post by shuntress »

fartcannon wrote: post #19

Is there a book written by a soldier that explains why people defend/enforce the power of evil people? Putin himself is not poisoning these people, someone is doing it for him. Why? Doesn't have to be from Russia. Any soldier defending any evil person - why?

This Atlantic article [0] goes in to that subject a bit. It is less focused on "why do people defend/enforce the power of evil people?" and more on comparing people who collaborate vs those who do not. But still a good read.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/trumps-...

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