​Excerpts from the press conference of the Trump-Putin summit were displayed in mostly extremely cynical ways all over the western press. This reaction has been so spectacular that it has become an event in its own right. What does this tell us about American politics and press in general?

In this program, Dr. Vladislav Krasnov, former professor and head of Russian studies at Monterey Institute of International Studies, and the President of the Russia & American Goodwill Association expresses his point of view.

Dr. Krasnov starts the program by explaining why America's reaction to the summit did not come as a complete shock to him: "I have been watching the decline of civility in the United States and pretty much in the rest of the western world since 1991. I was a defector for the Soviet Union when it was a totalitarian, ideological monopolistic country, and in order to find out what was going on in the world, I had to defect. I am grateful to the United States that I was given a home, refuge, and an ability to study different sources, to understand different ideologies, different opinions. At that time, the United States was a beacon of hope because there was a plurality of different opinions. But now, since 1991, I look with more and more despair at what is happening to America, particularly as it pertains to be the leader of the western world."

Dr. Krasnov feels that this is happening because America developed a sense of hubris after seeing that the Soviet Union collapsed. It felt that now, it had won. "I think that the Soviet Union collapsed due to internal problems. They [the Americans] became too proud, and you know what happened to Icarus and his father Daedalus when they flew to close to the sun….This hubris has manifest itself into two new words. One is called neoliberalism and the other is called neo-conservatism, and they presume that both are good for the whole world….The issue is not that Russia is doing something wrong. There are many wrong things in Russia, but Russia is not a totalitarian country, it has tendencies which are leaning towards more plurality, whereas in the United States — and I am very grateful to the United States for giving me refuge — but now the tendency in the United States is towards monopoly and monopoly of opinion. The actual power in the United States has probably now shifted to the media. The power of the media is so enormous that it is a kind of totalitarianism…" 

Host John Harrison asks why Jo Biden accused Trump of ‘embracing our No. 1 Enemy' and asks is this what America really thinks, that Russia is America's No. 1 enemy? Dr. Krasnov says that America has decided itself that Russia is an enemy. "I don't think that after 1991 Russia has projected itself as an enemy. If anything, the United States has been more aggressive. The decision to retain NATO was one thing, but when they decided to expand NATO closer to Russia's borders, and thus infringe on Russian sovereignty…it's a natural reaction of any country, whatever the political system, but the people in charge of each country have to take care of the sovereignty of their borders…"

Dr. Krasnov says that a widening gap is opening up between what leaders say and what is reported in the media. "I read the Washington Post every day, I used to when I lived in Washington and I do it now, out of habit, and I know many of the guys who write those things, so I am in touch with both the United States and Russia, and when I watched the event in Helsinki it was apparent that there was one story which is presented by president Trump, and President Putin, and another story which is presented by the media. I also read press releases from the White House; I have to, as President of the Russia America Goodwill Association. I am non-partisan, I am not a political person…my main task is to preserve and strengthen peace which is being severely threatened now throughout the world. The chance of nuclear war and self-annihilation of the whole earth is now higher than ever."

To the question: "how many Americans actually, believe what they read in the press?" Dr. Krasnov answers: ‘Actually many don't believe it. The media is now despondent; they do not know what to do. …I want Americans to try to be decent to one another, including the media people, to try to show some objectivity and for the sake of objectivity, they could downplay their hateful positions towards one politician or another. Let diplomacy win against emotionalism, both leaders have the strong points and weak points, let them negotiate, and essentially I think that the former US Ambassador to Russia, Jack Matlock, who I respect very highly, the one who served in Russia, just before the Soviet Union collapsed, he said that we should go not only back to the classics, to Plato and Aristotle, but also to our own sixth President of the United States — John Quincy Adams. He suggested that the United States should not go abroad in search of monsters to try and destroy them, it should protect its own liberty and not try and impose their notion of liberty on other people…"

Dr. Krasnov referred to the British political theorist and philosopher Edmund Burke who insisted that each country, including the fledgling United States of America (at the time), has the right to go it alone, that each country has the right to choose its own form of government. "We need more democracy in Russia and in the United States", Dr. Krasnov says, "but the moment we say that the whole world has to be democratic, we are undermining the whole basis of civility."
​
We'd love to get your feedback at radio@sputniknews.com

https://sputniknews.com/radio_brave_new_world/201807211066575854-what-does-the-media-reaction-to-the-summit-show-us/


​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

​Mon Apr 09, 2018 3:29 pm
​
Well the time is approaching, coming close to zero hour. I'm on round two of trying to obtain my Russian visa, first time shot down due to minor technicalities. Sooo, hopefully, by the 17th or so I should have it in hand and will be on my way to SVO. A couple days in Moscow, maybe a side-trip to St Pete then down to Rostov for the trip to Donetsk. Russell Bentley has agreed to meet us at the border to help me get in, my friend Sergey should have no problem since he is Russian. May be a bit of an ordeal for me. We are looking at 2-3 days there to do some documentation that we plan to put on Sergey's channel on YouTube (Real Russia Channel).

Seems like we are on the verge of WW3 with the Zionist republicrats spoiling for war with Russia. I am embarrassed and ashamed to be an American. What a horrible time.

​Fri May 18, 2018 12:48 pm

Okay, just got back from 23 days in Russia and had a very successful trip which included meeting Russell Bentley in Donetsk and Vladislav in Moscow! Really, all want very well considering how many chances there were for things to go wrong. I would have never gotten into DPR had it not been for the help of Russell Bentley BTW. Had long conversations with FSB both going in and coming back out. Luckily, I had been pre-cleared going in or else I never would have made it. We made several good videos which I'll include here:

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

Dear friends of the Russia & America Good Will Association (www.raga.org) and antiwar colleagues! 

Urgent matters first:

1. My friend and RAGA associate James George Jatras sent the following appeal:  

Dear Friends:
The petition below was posted on the White House website today. It is self-explanatory.  Please go to the link to sign. Distribute widely via email and social media.  Thanks, Jim

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/president-donald-trump-should-hold-early-summit-russian-president-vladimir-putin

I signed it myself and posted it on RAGA facebook. I suggest you do likewise.2. CONGRATS to Ed and Tatiana Lozansky, RAGA's old-time peace-loving friends !

Read about them Celebrating 1982: A Pivotal Year
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/may/21/celebrating-1982-pivotal-year/
or here https://www.facebook.com/RAGAforPeace/

3. Ed Lozansky's persistent efforts to promote US-Russia friendship do not go without resistance. Smear campaign against Ed Lozansky continues unabated. This time Ksenia Kirillova, a Russian journalist living in the USA, suggests that it was Lozansky who had formulated the Kremlin's strategy of undermining American democracy. One would think that Radio Svoboda's (Freedom!) task should not be contrary to any peace-promoting efforts. The link is in Russian, but I am sure much of the same stuff Kirillova says one can find in any US paper. https://www.svoboda.org/a/29229380.html

4. RAGA also joins in supporting 2018 PEACE PRIZE NOMINEES
<<We are pleased to announce that our Founding Members have nominated seven outstanding Americans to be considered for the Foundation's 2018 Peace Prize. They are Daniel Ellsberg, Nancy Mancias, Colman McCarthy, David Swanson, Sharon Tennison, Sally-Alice Thompson, and S. Brian Willson.>> https://mailchi.mp/uspeacememorial/2018-peace-prize-nominees?e=1b14d9bd2d

About half of the nominees have been quoted either in RAGA Antidotes or in my own writings. All deserve recognition!

5. When I was a student at the University of Moscow, around 1957, there appeared a very mellow, romantic, and totally unpolitical song, Moscow Nights,which soon became very popular in the USSR and world-wide. Since the song is about relaxing Summer time, I hope you'd enjoy it right now, performed by Dmitry Hvorostovsky, a world-renown opera singer who recently passed away, and Anna Netrebko, likewise a famed opera singer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D_UepJMizs) Moscow Nights - Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Anna Netrebko | Russian Songs with English Subtitles:

As to Jerusalem becoming an undivided capital of Israel, you may want to read my 2012 article "The World for Israel, or Jews for the World?" It was about a forum in Washington dedicated to the legacy of Rabbi Elmer Berger, one of the early American anti-Zionists. By W. George Krasnow, it published January 09, 2012 on the Antiwar site

http://original.antiwar.com/krasnow/2012/01/08/the-world-for-israel/ 

There I wrote in 2011: "Zionist claims on Jerusalem as an exclusive capital of Israel have inflamed anti-Israeli and anti-American passions in all Muslim countries. It has helped the fanatical jihadists win the hearts and minds of millions of Muslims who came to mistrust their moderate and secular politicians for their failure to defend Muslim rights to Jerusalem, or Al-Quds, as sacred to their cultural tradition". 

I suggested it then and say it now that Jerusalem literally belongs to all humankind as the birthplace of the world's three major religions. It should be put under the jurisdiction of the United Nations, administered as a cultural treasure of the world, a place where Jews, Christians, and Muslims could live in peace, harmony, and brotherhood and thus inspire the rest of mankind to religious, racial, ethnic and cultural co-existence and co-operation.

​This article is also available in Russian "Израиль играет судьбой мира, иудаизма и еврейства. Памяти раввина Элмера Бергера". Автор: Владислав Краснов
http://perevodika.ru/articles/20787.html?sphrase_id=3249777&ELEMENT_ID=20787%3Fsphrase_id%3D3249777&PAGEN_7=2


Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.) Senior Fellow, Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs, Brown University, made very sensible speech "U.S. Policy and the Geopolitical Dynamics of the Middle East"
http://www.raga.org/news/us-policy-and-the-geopolitical-dynamics-of-the-middle-east-chas-freeman


I immediately translated it into Russian for the benefit of Russian policy makers: "Политика США и геополитическая динамика Ближнего Востока. Наши прошлые ошибки и видение будущего" - Автор: Charles W. Freeman, Jr. Переводчик: Владислав Краснов (W. GeorgeKrasnow)
http://www.raga.org/novosti/-charles-w-freeman-jr


Another favorite American journalist of mine is Allan C. Brownfeld who in early l980s served as a member of President Ronald Reagan's transition team and made policy recommendations. I have admired his writing since the Old Cold War. Like myself, Allan has been a contributor to The Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation site (http://www.fgfbooks.com/AllanBrownfeld/aBrownfeld-bio.html).

In fact, I have translated a number of his articles for the benefit of Russian readers, most recently the one on the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.http://perevodika.ru/articles/1196711.html

Brownfeld also runs the ISSUES magazine of the American Council for Judaism. (http://www.acjna.org/acjna/articles_author.aspx). He just emailed to me his latest article that has not yet been posted.ISRAEL AT 70:  A GROWING DILEMMA FOR AMERICAN JEWS .  BY  ALLAN C. BROWNFELD.
Below are its most striking passages:

<<As Israel celebrated its 70th anniversary in April, and American Jews wished it well, the fact is that it has become a divisive force in the community, repeatedly proclaiming itself a "Jewish state, while its 50-year occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and its blockade and isolation of millions of Palestinians in Gaza, shows it acting in a way that violates Jewish moral and ethical values.>> 

<<It is ironic that Jews, who have suffered oppression in many places at many times, would find themselves in the position of denying Palestinians basic political and human rights. Many in Israel are conscious of the dilemma they face.  Bradley Burston, writing in Haaretz (April 4, 2018). declared, "In the case of Zionism, can the victims of anti-Semitism come to acknowledge their---our---own bigotry, our own ingrained prejudices, our own sense of superiority and entitlement, our own history of injustice to the minorities in their midst?"

Israel at 70, Burston points out, is seeing the dramatic growth of racism and intolerance:  "This is a country which...demeans and dismisses and conflates Palestinian lives...In Israel at 70, Zionism means a government of the racist, by the racist, for the racist".>>

Brownfeld's attitude toward Israel is similar to those of Gideon Levy, Norman Finkelstein, Israel Shamir, Ambassador Freeman or Rabbi Alissa Wise.

Jon Utley is the publisher of "The American Conservative" magazine. He has been RAGA ally and my antiwar friend since last Millennium. I am proud to have helped him find the grave of his father, a Russian Jew, summarily executed as a "Trotskyite" (he was not!) in Stalin's purges.

"Clever Lies to Promote War"
by Jon Basil Utley, May 11, 2018
<<...Most recently we had cable news inundating us with stories of a new poison gas attack in Syria. The American Conservative has published a detailed analysis by former arms inspector Scott Ritter questioning the evidence, or lack of it, that the Assad regime initiated the attack.>>
http://fgfbooks.com/Utley/2018/Utley180503.html

The FGF is a basically Catholic site devoted to the preservation of Western values, and I am proud to be one of its authors. Scott Ritter is also my friend since about 2004 when he exposed the hoax about Saddam Hussein's WMD and I wrote about him in RAGA newsletters.

A few words of wisdom written in 2016 by Michael Brenner, Emeritus Professor, the University of Pittsburgh; a Senior Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, SAIS-Johns Hopkins (Washington, D.C.), about the decline of intellectual standards of US political elite who have surrendered to fantasies in their view of the world:

<<"We can expect that whoever winds up in senior policy positions in a Trump administration ... will be encouraged by the tradition of self-delusion that has become a feature of American thinking about its place in the world. Think of the Middle East where just about everything that we have been doing since 2001 has been guided by a fantastic view of the region – from Iraq, to Syria, to Yemen, to Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Gulf, to Turkey, to Palestine and Israel. This tendency to divorce ourselves from reality so as to perpetuate myths of American omnipotence and superiority is also witnessed at the operational level". >> 

Now disturbing News from ZeroHedge Janitor

Published on May 9, 2018
Ret. CIA Analyst Ray McGovern Brutalized By Police At Haspel Confirmation

Ray has also been my friend and RAGA associate since I posted a story on the Veterans Today site in 2011 when security guards used illegal man-handling techniques on Ray when he peacefully protested against Hillary Clinton's war-like speech.

Now let "The Washington Post" get out of its usual russophobic mode and say something sensible.

"How did the end of the Cold War become today’s dangerous tensions with Russia?"

By Archie Brown May 4, 2018  

Archie Brown is emeritus professor of politics at the University of Oxford and author, most recently, of “The Rise and Fall of Communism” and of “The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age.”

<<...For Michael McFaul, in his vigorously argued political memoir, “From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia,” there is a “new ideological struggle . . . between Russia and the West, not between communism and capitalism but between democracy and autocracy.” As a generalization, that is unconvincing...it is hard to agree that the contemporary ideological struggle with Russia is one between democracy and autocracy. Russia has become substantially more authoritarian in the post-Soviet era than it was in the last years of the Soviet Union, but it retains far more freedom and elements of pluralism than were to be found in the pre-perestroika U.S.S.R.>>

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/how-did-the-end-of-the-cold-war-become-todays-dangerous-tensions-with-russia/2 

Newsweek attacks Ed Lozansky (and deserves the badge of honor from me)

Lozansky, a former nuclear physicist who emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1976, is known in Russia policy circles as a mysterious, conservative figure. With analysts warning of a new Cold War, and as the Department of Justice and Congress investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, Lozansky’s efforts to promote Russia in Washington have drawn scrutiny from analysts and even allegations that he is spreading propaganda for the Kremlin.

http://www.newsweek.com/russia-house-washington-dc-edward-lozansky-forum-899928 

Sharon Tennison, another RAGA ally, reports that
“Bottom-Up Diplomacy” is Working!!!April 20, 2018
https://ccisf.org/bottom-up-diplomacy-is-working/

BBC News. Published on Apr 16, 2018
​
Here is Lord West, former First Sea Lord, speaking to the BBC this morning, his thoughts on why he thinks the chemical weapons attack on Douma was a false flag.

"Jimmy Carter Just Issued A Chilling Warning To Trump About Syria"
by Tyler Durden/Fri, 04/13/2018 - 10:44

Former President Jimmy Carter urges President Donald Trump to refrain from launching an illegal military attack on Syria, warning of the serious dangers - including nuclear conflagration - that could result.

"I pray that he would keep our country at peace and not exaggerate or exacerbate the challenges that come up with North Korea, in Russia, or in Syria," Carter told The Associated Press about Trump's recent threats.

"I hope he realizes very profoundly as I did, and as other presidents have done," Carter continued, "that any nuclear exchange could involve catastrophe for all human beings."
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-13/jimmy-carter-just-issued-chilling-warning-trump-about-syria

Even  Paul Craig Roberts is alarmed
"America Has No Unifying Moral Culture - It Will Lose a War with Russia", he wrote on Apr 5, 2018
"A country without a unifying moral culture is no longer a country. Yet, what pretends to be a country, the US, is being led into war against Russia, a real country. There is no chance whatsoever of the US prevailing in the oncoming war."
https://russia-insider.com/en/america-has-no-unifying-moral-culture-it-will-lose-war-russia/ri22982?ct=t(Russia_Insider_Daily_Headlines11_21_2014)&mc_cid=d89a40f5e8&mc_eid=73f16282b9

"A recent poll of Americans showed that “74% think America is a dictatorship; only 21% think it’s not.” Perhaps Americans are more realistic about the government than about the ‘news’ media."
http://theduran.com/russias-v-americas-records-on-democracy-and-on-whistleblowers-safety/

Which calls us back to Shamir's article: 
"Since that fateful May 9th day (when Netanyahu was just about the only foreign leader to stand next to Putin during the Red Square parade), Russian media has been treating Israel very cautiously", --observes Shamir. "Even the Gaza massacre didn’t bring many condemnations in the Russian media, though the Russian Foreign Office condemned this brutal act. The official state agency RIA reported that Israeli soldiers shot at “especially aggressive individuals”. The second (largest) state news agency TASS minimized its reporting about the massacre". 
   
  Concludes Shamir with a powerful crescendo: "In short, the Jews overcame their problems by mid-May 2018, and emerged as a leading polity on the planet Earth, in perfect rapport with both superpowers and in control over mind of billions. The massacre of Gaza furnished the proof they can kill with impunity."

Notice "control over minds of billions". It refers to the same phenomenon that Russia-Insider's Charles Bausman described in his article "It's time we drop the Jew Taboo" (http://www.raga.org/news/drop-the-jew-taboo). If we take into account that the number of people who read Russian has greatly diminished since the Old Cold War and is certainly many times smaller than those who use English, US MEGA Media has a field day to manipulate not just US government, but also the public opinion in the world. ​

Prof. Vladislav Krasnov ​

​

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

President Donald Trump
The White House, Washington DC
 
Dear Mr. President:
Enclosed is the 5th and 6th issue of 2017 of the Russian analytical magazine “Predstavitelnaya vlast’” (Representative power at www.vlast.ru) featuring you on the front cover. During my latest stay in Moscow, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Professor Aleksey Lyubimov, asked me to pass this copy to you. I am glad to do so.

The magazine features an article “Fenomen Donalda Trampa, ili kak Trampu peretrampit’ sebya”(pp. 44-54) by Mr. Ismail Gasanov, a Russian political analyst, about your presidency. It can also be found at the link http://pvlast.ru/archive/index.1201.php

Neither the Russia & America Good Will Association nor I take a stand on the thrust of the article. I am sending it to you as a gesture of Good Will consistent with RAGA’s non-partisan philosophy as is evident in the Open Letter to you written by Professor Rudolf J. Siebert of Western Michigan University, which RAGA posted earlier.
http://www.raga.org/news/open-letter-to-president-trump
​
I wish you success in carrying out the best intentions of your presidency.  I do so in the belief that the betterment of US-Russia mutual understanding is the cornerstone for World Peace.
Sincerely,

Wladislaw “George” Krasnow
President, RAGA www.raga.org
president92@gmail.com
 
P.S. Aleksey Lyubimov participated in Dr. James Billington’s Open World program in the USA and now is professor at the Russian Diplomatic Academy. Read more http://a-tsm.ru/docs/lyubimov.pdf and http://www.pvlast.ru/glavred/

​
All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

Dear friends of the Russia & America Good Will Association (www.raga.org) and antiwar colleagues! 

Let me start by congratulating Vladimir Putin on being re-elected for another 6-year presidential term and wishing him that he carries out all the promises he made to his electorate. He got over 76% of the vote in a contested election. Clearly, the russophobic anti-Putin propaganda campaign that US mega media has conducted in the hope to drive a wedge among Russians by issuing hurtful sanctions back-fired. Putin's share actually increased considerably, at the cost of pro-Western liberal opposition. Putin's numbers were the highest in the Crimea.

Sending congratulations is a matter of courtesy, not politics.  RAGA has sent Open Letter to Obama and congratulated Trump (http://www.raga.org/news/raga-newsletter-antidote-31-merry-christmas-donald-trump-open-letter-to-obama-obamas-response-and-krasnovs-rebuttal-happy-holidays-william-brumfields-photographs).

​Later, RAGA carried an open letter to President Trump written by Professor of Religious Studies Rudolf Siebert http://www.raga.org/news/open-letter-to-president-trump. Our mission remains the same, PEACE.

Now take a look what RAGA friends and associates, mostly Americans, have to say about the dangerously rising tensions between the super powers.

(1) Russia is Not the Soviet Union/ By Charles G. Mills, March 2, 2018
The Soviet Union was a dogmatically atheist regime. Today’s Russia, in contrast, is a Christian country. Vladimir Putin is a faithful Russian Orthodox Christian with a personal confessor. http://www.fgfbooks.com/Mills-Charles/2018/Mills180302.html

Charles is a lawyer of the conservative Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation in DC, dedicated to the preservation of Western civilization. I am proud to be FGF contributor. In previous Antidote letters I have pointed out a rapid rise of Christian and other religious values in Former Soviet Union. For comparison with the negative dynamic in the US, take a look at the two "boxers" on RAGA's front page. http://www.raga.org If that is not enough, read:

(2) Resurgence of Christianity in Russia as new Orthodox churches open across the nation. 24 new churches opened in Moscow in 2017 with another 21 set to be opened this year, as Russia rebuilds and strengthens its Christian foundations.

By  Seraphim Hanisch
Russia is know throughout the world for the Russian Orthodox Church, and its beauty, its music, and its unique architecture, especially that of its ancient churches. In the years right before the Communist Revolution, there were nearly 86,000 churches and chapels, and more than one thousand monasteries throughout the Russian Empire. Under Communism, almost all of these were destroyed, with the number of churches falling to fewer than 500. Between 14 and 22 million Christians perished in the most horrific Christian persecution in recorded history.
http://russiafeed.com/resurgence-christianity-russia-new-churches-open-everywhere/

Of course, Russia remains a secular country with freedom of religion and conscience for all, including Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Atheists. All the more, it's a shame that the two most-powerful nuclear-armed Christian countries cannot figure out how to get along with each other--for the sake of Mother Earth! 

(3)  About the Skripal poisoning affair read The Washington Times
By Edward Lozansky - - Tuesday, March 20, 2018
So, Vladimir Putin did it again or did he?
<<I leave it to legal and linguistic professionals to decide whether “highly likely” terminology is acceptable in any independent court of law, but many politicians and experts, including those in the know, express serious doubts that it was Mr. Putin’s handiwork.>>
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/mar/20/crosstalk-how-prevent-british-drama-turning-traged/ 

What about Putin’s presentation of Russia’s new weapons systems during his Address to the Federal Assembly on 1 March? Listen to his explanation to MegynKelly:

(4) ‘Why would we want a world without Russia?’ 
Putin on Moscow’s nuclear doctrine
Published time: 7 Mar, 2018 14:05

Putin told NBC’s “Megyn Kelly Today” that a new arms race has been started by Washington when it decided to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) back in 2002. The US then proceeded with a massive arms build-up right on Russia’s doorstep. In the following years, the US has virtually encircled Russia with its missile defense installations, in particular by stationing them in Romania and Poland. It also, for the first time, deployed a battery of Patriot long-range anti-aircraft systems to Lithuania for war games.
https://www.rt.com/news/420715-putin-world-russia-nuclear/ 

(5) Israel Shamir, a former Soviet dissident and my friend. Israel became Zionist,emigrated to Israel, turned against Zionism and converted to Christianity. He contributes to The Unz Review: ISRAEL SHAMIR • MARCH 11, 2018  

Putin’s Missiles: Deterring an American Attack?

Putin’s March 1st presentation of new Russian weapons has been greatly misunderstood as a declaration of strategic parity or triumphalism. There was a much more urgent need, namely, to prevent an imminent strike. This danger is not over yet, for a week later, on March, 7, President Putin emphasized his readiness to employ the nuclear weapons for retaliation purposes. “Certainly, it would be a global disaster for humanity; a disaster for the entire world,” Putin said, “but, as a citizen of Russia and the head of the Russian state I must ask myself: Why would we want a world without Russia?” http://www.unz.com/ishamir/putins-weapons/

(6)  Shamir was seconded by Mary Dejevsky of UK/
Putin's speech wasn’t aggressive – it was a plea to the US to start talking again

The military half of Putin’s address was not only – or perhaps even primarily – directed at the Russian audience. This message of new, and world-beating, defence prowess surely had another intended recipient: the United States/ By Mary Dejevsky Thursday 1 March 2018
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/russia-putin-trump-us-speech-weapons-wasnt-aggressive-plea-to-start-talking-a8235356.html

(7) Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, a pre-eminent US Russia scholar, based in Brussels, thinks that
"U.S. Raises the White Flag, Calls for Talks with Russia over the New Arms Race"

One can say with certainty that it has elicited the desired response from its target audience in Washington, D.C. http://usforeignpolicy.blogs.lalibre.be/archive/2018/03/21/u-s-raises-the-white-flag-calls-for-talks-with-russia-over-t-1164493.html

(8) The US establishment's Washington Post let Karen DeYoung elaborate: It may still be far from the depths of the Cold War, but Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’sThursday speech, outlining new, “invincible” weapons to overcome U.S. defenses, lowered the already chilly temperature of the relationship by several degrees.

Few experts on either side believe that the new weapons, assuming they actually exist and are ever deployed, would change the balance of power between two nations that already have the ability to destroy each other many times over. At the same time, there is widespread agreement that the rhetorical attacks, stalled diplomacy and military escalation that increasingly characterize U.S.-Russia relations are counterproductive to global security.

“The tension level is high, higher now than it was several months ago, in part because the Russians have gotten past the phase where they thought with President Trump they would be able to move the relationship in a different direction,” said Thomas Graham, senior director for Russia on the George W. Bush National Security Council staff and now managing director at Kissinger Associates Inc.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/putin-speech-adds-to-freeze-in-us-russia-relations/2018/03/01/ffab9174-1d8d-11e8-ae5a-16e60e4605f3_story.html?undefined=&utm_term=.280e2420111b&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

(9) PATRICK LAWRENCE of the liberal SALON magazine assesses the overall situation: Washington can’t adjust to losing its role as global sheriff, and the entire world must bear the consequences

If the first few weeks of 2018 are any guide, it is going to be a tumultuous, confrontational year for America’s foreign relations...To say what we are likely to see is going to beunpretty is to put the point far too mildly.... Finally, and related to the above, the “sole superpower” phase of the post–Cold War era is slipping with accumulating momentum into the past. Maintaining unipolarity, to put the point another way, becomes an ever more forlorn endeavor. It cannot hold, and one mourns Washington’s inability to grasp this reality.

https://www.salon.com/2018/01/28/now-the-u-s-is-playing-spoiler-role-in-korea-syria-and-elsewhere-but-why/#.Wm4D_Ue0Kkw.twitter

The recent appointment of John Bolton as Trump's National Security Adviser bodes no good. Even George Will, a Washington Post observer denounces of "the second most dangerous man".

(10) Jim W. Dean, Managing Editor of Veterans Today, a site where I am a contributor, says "Bolton’s record is beyond horrible on where he stood on policy and his total inability to acknowledge what a disaster Iraq was." 

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2018/03/25/foreign-policy-magazine-john-bolton-poses-a-threat-to-us-national-security/

(11) Brother Nathanael explains why on March 20, 2018 in his timely video
Tillerson Out, Neocons In!

http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=1279

<<I mean, when neocon Jews and their shills lie, we’re not really upset, and nobody bats an eye.>>

His reference to "neocon Jews" is pointed because Bolton was among the 1997 founders of the PNAC, the Project for the New American Century, originally designed to encourage Israel to dominate the Middle East and then re-designed for the US to take the burden of world domination.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_for_Securing_the_Realm

Several of the founders were former Trotskiytes used to think in terms of global domination.  https://www.proudprimate.com/Resources/PNAC%20Background.htm

(12) James George Jatras, a former Congressional operative, admirer of Solzhenitsyn and my friend, thinks.

We're Sliding Towards a Nuclear 1914 - Can We Save Ourselves?

He sees The spooky similarities between 1914 and today
What was unthinkable in the old Cold War has become all-too-thinkable in the new one between the US and Russia. As described by veteran arms control inspector Scott Ritter, in analyzing a draft of the 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the US threshold for the use of nuclear weapons has become dangerously low

http://russia-insider.com/en/were-sliding-towards-nuclear-1914-can-we-save-ourselves/ri22451

(13) Let now the best known statesman of the 1990s speak up about the current  downturn in US-Russia relations

Mikhail Gorbachev: The U.S. and Russia Must Stop the Race to Nuclear War

We must remind the leaders of all nuclear powers of their commitment under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to negotiate reductions and eventually the elimination of nuclear weapons. Their predecessors signed that obligation, and it was ratified by the highest levels of their government. A world without nuclear weapons: There can be no other final goal.

However dismal the current situation, however depressing and hopeless the atmosphere may seem, we must act to prevent the ultimate catastrophe. What we need is not the race to the abyss but a common victory over the demons of war.

http://time.com/5191433/mikhail-gorbachev-nuclear-weapons-trump-putin-russia/

Finally, two articles on the topic of Jew Taboo that dominated the previous issue RAGA antidote 41. http://www.raga.org/news/raga-antiwar-antidote-41-bausman-solzhenitsyn-karl-marx-putin-karlin-doctorow-makow-tennison-ira-helfand-brett-abrams-tsar-michael-ii-roulston

(14) First, is Dmitry Orlov's article
"Never, Ever Listen to What American Jews Have to Say About Russia". 

http://www.raga.org/news/never-listen-to-what-american-jews-have-to-say-about-russia

Orlov is as contentious as Charles Bausman who brought up the Jew Taboo issue. But he deserves to be heard. First, Orlov is one of the better-known thinkers The NewYorker has dubbed 'The Dystopians', along with James Howard Kunstler, another RI contributor.These theorists believe that modern society is headed for a jarring and painful crack-up. Second, Orlov came to the USA in a massive Soviet Jewish immigration during the 1970s and 1980s. It was a deal worked out by Kissinger and Brezhnev to let Soviet Jews immigrate to Israel for "family re-unification", but the majority (over 300,000) chose the USA. For Soviet authorities the deal was useful as they wanted to get rid of dissidents as well criminals. A popular Soviet joke then was in the form of Radio Moscow "You ask/We answer" session. A listener asks: "What does the word Jewishmean, ethnicity or religion?" Radio Moscow answers: "Neither. After doing research across the USSR, we found out that the word Jewish is most frequently used to designate the surest method of immigration to the USA".      

Soon the news of "Russian mafia" came to dominate Brighton Beach and other places where the immigrants were settled, usually on welfare. The Congress of Russian Americans (CRA), of which I was a board member, protested the defamation of ethnic Russian community, usually assimilated,Christian and patriotic US citizens. We suggested that these criminals be called "former Soviet Jews". Nobody listened, until Robert Friedman wrote a book "Red Mafiya: How the Russian Mob Has Invaded America". Of course, the criminals spoke Russian and some of them may have been ethnic Russians, but at least Friedman tied the crime to  its Soviet origin, even though the Jew Taboo was still observed.

(15) In the wake of Bausman's article
The SPLC Attacks Russia Insider, Gilbert Doctorow Responds. 

I will not go into the other numerous confused attempts by Reid Ross to pigeon-hole me either as facilitator of Right-Left coalitions or as a rightist, pure and simple.  He willfully misses the point. My political and authorial activities have had only one purpose: to facilitate public discussion of the reckless and ignorant foreign policy originating in Washington and followed slavishly in Europe which is leading us to nuclear Armageddon.
https://russia-insider.com/en/splc-attacks-russia-insider-our-contributor-gilbert-doctorow-responds/ri22497

Diverse News:
Russia's Biggest Bank Is 2nd Most Valuable in Europe After HSBC (Sberbank)
With 127 million retail customers and 16,000 branches, it also is one of the largest financial players in many Eastern European markets. Investors also see it as a way to get exposure to the growing Russian economy and growing Russian middle class.
https://russia-insider.com/en/russias-biggest-bank-2nd-most-valuable-europe-after-hsbc-

​Oxford-Perm Sister Cities Association, January 2013 newsletter
David Roulston reviews Donald Crowford, The Last Tsar: Emperor Michael II
​
Last Tsar Emperor Michael II Donald Crawford, Publ. Murray McLellan, Edinburgh, 2012. This book contains much material from an earlier work ‘Michael and Natasha’ published in 1997 and reviewed by Vladislav Krasnov in our Perm Newsletter October 2008. The new book is considerably shorter, more focused on Michael. It starts with interesting details of Michael’s and Natasha’s backgrounds and describes how in 1912 they managed to avoid the Okhrana to have a secret marriage in Vienna; then their exile from Gatchina in Russia, living in England at Knebworth House near Stevenage until war broke out in 1914 when they returned to Russia. Joining the army, Michael led a top division of horsemen in the Caucasus, and was awarded Russia’s top award for gallantry. The chapters covering the events of March 1917 make fascinating reading and are written mainly as they affected Michael and of course his brother Nicholas. From his temporary apartment on Millionnaya Street in St Petersburg, with his brother Nicholas stuck on trains between his military headquarters at Mogilev, Pskov (from where he could communicate with St Petersburg) and Tsarskoe Selo, the sequence of events evolves with a proposed manifesto (which could stop the revolution) coming too late, and demands from the people and the Duma for the abdication of Nicholas in favour of the Tsar’s young son, with Michael as Regent. Within 24 hours Nicholas had changed his views (not to be separated from his son) and offered his abdication in favour of Michael as Emperor. This was opposed by the ever more powerful Soviet; Kerensky visited Michael in Millionnaya Street to persuade Michael to abdicate (although this word was not in fact used in the signed document). Crawford’s description of the meetings is vivid and ends with the signing of a new manifesto by Michael handing power over to the provisional government until the formation of a democratically elected Constitutional Assembly expressing the will of the people. The next day 4th March he returns to Gatchina where he lives with Natasha (in comparative freedom compared to his brother) until he is arrested in June, finally being exiled by the Bolsheviks to Perm where he lived before being killed in June 1918 by the Motovilikha Perm Cheka. Natasha returned to England but eventually died in 1952, a pauper in Paris where she has her grave in Passy. Crawford’s book is an illuminating and at time moving account of early Russian 20th century history and a gripping story of one man’s struggles with a rapidly changing system, from being ruled by a Tsar (or his wife Alexandra and adviser Rasputin) to Kerensky’s government and overthrow of the evolving constituent assembly signed into place by Michael during his one day rule.

By David Roulston
http://www.oxfordperm-assoc.org/members- only/news-Jan13.pdf

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

​This comes on top of daily news coverage of each and every candidate’s activities in the field and invitations to appear on leading television talk shows and interviews which are dispensed by media producers at their option. And it is rounded out by advertising paid for by the electoral headquarters of the 8 candidates. The net result is that domestic politics are jostling with Olympics coverage and international news for the attention of the broad Russian public, and will continue to do so until the Day of Silence, 17 March, when the campaigns shut down in anticipation of the balloting the next day.

In the West, during the run-up to his disqualification as a candidate by the Central Election Commission in December, election news from Russia carried by mainstream media centered on Alexei Navalny. He was characterized as posing the only real threat to Vladimir Putin’s hold on power through his popular exposes of official and corporate corruption disseminated virally on social media and youtube. All others in the race were put down as Kremlin controlled and tolerated only to give sham elections an appearance of authenticity.

​When his candidacy was rejected due to a criminal conviction, Navalny issued a call to boycott the election. He launched unsanctioned street demonstrations in Moscow and elsewhere, leading to scuffles with the police. Some of his supporters and Navalny himself were arrested and later released.  But the protests were all on a small scale and Western media quickly lost interest.

Now attention was refocused on the 36 year old celebrity candidate Ksenia Sobchak, Russia’s own Paris Hilton, a television personality who brought glamor, youth and a novel “vote against all” or “none of the above” slogan in support of her candidacy. It bears mention that Sobchak would be the first female candidate for the Russian presidency since 2004,  In December 2017, she was quickly slotted into the race by winning support from the pro-Liberal “Civic Initiative” party, giving her a nation-wide organizational presence and reduced requirements for gathering signatures of supporters to be registered.

In her first speeches on the campaign trail, Sobchak called out the abuses and inefficiency of the Russian bureaucracy. But her main fire was directed against the very stability of the Putin regime with its immutable elite and opposition leaders who have moved from middle age to pension age before her eyes and seem intent on remaining in office to the very end.  To this she added a number of foreign policy positions drawn from the Liberal opposition that were sure to win her the attention and support of the West even if they ran against the clear preferences of the vast majority of the population as spelled out in the polls: namely her condemnation of the reunification with Crimea as a violation of international law and her insistence that there was no threat to Russia from NATO expansion.

Indeed, while her fellow candidates were traveling around their vast country to meet with voters, earlier this month Ksenia Sobchak made a trip to the United States, where among other activities, she was feted at the Center for International Strategic Studies in Washington, D.C. Her talk was piquantly entitled “Russia’s Post-Authoritarian Future.”

In the big order of things, Sobchak’s foreign policy positions and her cultivation of political support in the U.S. is border-line treasonous behavior that falls into the tradition of the Liberal Opposition leaders in the Parnas political movement, Boris Nemtsov and Mikhail Kasyanov.  In 2011, Nemtsov famously traveled to Arizona to see U.S. Senator John McCain and lend his support to American sanctions against Russia over alleged human rights abuses. Put inversely, Sobchak’s American hosts receiving her in the midst of the presidential elections were necessarily guilty of egregious meddling in Russian domestic affairs.

​The first poll results in January gave Ksenia Sobchak about 1% of the electorate and little has changed since. However, in the same time frame there was great dynamism in the popular support for the candidate of the Communist Party, Pavel Grudinin, trending well over 10% and putting him in second place after Vladimir Putin (70%). Despite their habitual disregard of the Communists, Western journalists took an interest. The fact that Grudinin was not a Communist Party member made his personality all the more intriguing.

Surprisingly friendly articles about Grudinin began appearing in The Financial Times among other mainstream outlets.  They highlighted the fact that he had made his mark as director of a prosperous farm complex in the Moscow region where he paid his workers more than double the national average salary and offered pre-school care, subsidized housing, free medical care and other social benefits from the Soviet era which he pledged to generalize across the country if elected. Grudinin was speaking the language of European Social Democracy or Scandinavian welfare state, if you will, making a very agreeable contrast with the orthodox Communist ideology of the Party standard bearer in the previous four presidential elections going back to 1996, Gennadi Zyuganov.

With a likable demeanor, quiet self-confidence and enjoying the support of the country’s largest full-scale national political machine after the United Russia ruling party backing Putin, Grudinin very quickly found himself in the crosshairs of the Kremlin elites.  The main news broadcasters Pervy Kanal and Rossiya-1 initiated regular coverage of a protest movement against Grudinin over allegations impugning his management of the Lenin State Farm that is his model for the future development of Russia:  it was said that he had wrongfully cheated more than half of the farm’s cooperative members-employees out of their shares during the 1990s and that the wealth of the farm came not from selling strawberries and other produce but from windfall profits in the disposal of some of its land holdings to developers. A second line of attack is that Grudinin had not declared a couple of bank accounts he held abroad.

From polls taken in mid-February, it would appear that this constant barrage of negative news halted the trending in Grudinin’s favor and possibly dented his numbers. Nonetheless, with 7% of voters polled declaring their intention to vote for the Communist Party candidate, he remains second to Putin and just ahead of the anti-Communist, nationalist party of Vladimir Zhirinovsky (LDPR).

Nonetheless, the ruling party is clearly not taking any chances and will be unrelenting in its attacks. The Sunday, 18 February edition of the widely viewed News of the Week program on Rossiya-1 dwelled for about 10 minutes on the Communists.  Presenter Dmitry Kiselyov used questionable poll figures on voting intentions of Party members to argue that the decision to back the non-Party Grudinin opened the Communists to an internal division, with less than half its members prepared to vote for him.  Kiselyov predicted the party’s demise and called upon its leader Gennady Zyuganov to reverse his decision and withdraw his support, this is the name of solicitude for Russia’s still new and fragile democracy.

​This particular report by Kiselyov seems to have little if any factual basis.  The notion that Grudinin’s candidacy splits the Left runs counter to the process that led to his selection in the first place. That process bears mention here since it seems not to have been picked up by Western media.  

In fact, many of the Left political movements, entailing more than a hundred organizations led by the Left Front and the Communist Party, collectively held primaries in which Grudinin won in a second-stage run-off.  It was on this basis of his being a unity candidate of the Left that Gennady Zyuganov put Grudinin’s name forward within his own party and then assumed the position of his campaign manager.

In the face of the various attacks from the Russian state news programs and in personal interviews on air from ill-disposed hosts, Grudinin has shown himself to be cool-headed and genial.  In his 37-minute long January interview with Vladimir Solovyov on Rossiya-1, Grudinin managed to withstand harsh questioning and to get out his political program and beliefs, even forcing the presenter to acknowledge some common perspectives on the country’s ills and to smile at some of his repartee.

Grudinin calls for continuity in the country’s foreign policy, to the point where he says he would keep in office Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Instead, the changes he seeks are in domestic policy. To ensure the social benefits mentioned above, he would introduce a progressive income tax, freeing the poor from tax but imposing a substantial levy on the wealthy. Moreover, he would require repatriation of oligarchs’ wealth from abroad and ensure there would be no further private export of capital offshore. Finally, he would channel all profits from the country’s oil and gas industry into the state coffers, while acting strictly through the law and independent courts. Heady stuff!

Coming in third in the mid-February polls with 5% electoral support, Vladimir Zhirinovsky is the candidate who has been receiving the most television air time now for months as a nearly daily guest on both principal talk shows produced by Rossiya-1, Sixty Minutes and Evening with Vladimir Soloviev. On these shows he is allowed by the indulgent presenters to dominate discussion, delivering a stream of outrageous comments on Russia’s past, on relations with the United States and more that have great entertainment value even if they are far removed from day to day politics. Thus, even in the “debate” between Zhirinovsky and Grudinin which the popular talk show Sixty Minutes hosted a couple of weeks ago, and which has gathered more than 4 million “hits” on youtube, the LDPR leader was allowed to hog the microphone and Grudinin was doubly under pressure from the few questions pitched to him by the moderator.

​Apart from his insistence on taking a strong stand against American provocations in Syria, in the Ukraine, in its sanctions list, Zhirinovsky’s platform focuses on domestic concerns like all other candidates. He decries unemployment levels, low living standards, unaffordable housing, for-pay medical care and education. However, while calling for social welfare that is not dissimilar to the Communist Party’s program, Zhirinovsky denounces the Soviet past for running a dysfunctional economy and for misguided internationalism at the expense of the welfare of the Russian people. Says Zhirinovsky, the United States uses its foreign policy to bring in wealth, while the Soviet Union, and to a lesser degree Russia today only loses wealth on foreign adventures.

Zhirinovsky’s main target in his campaign is not the ruling United Russia party but the Communists. In his television appearances he is a pit bull against Grudinin.  For his support to Putin in the last Duma elections, Zhirinovsky’s party was rewarded with the chairmanship of the Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee.  One may assume that if his run against Grudinin works, Zhirinovsky and/or his party will get additional political spoils, perhaps at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself.

* * * *
The opening on 18 March of the Russian airwaves to promotional video clips, both free and paid for by the candidates, added an important new dimension by which their objectives and electoral prospects can be measured.  Since no one in Russia or in the West seems to have made use of these new metrics, I will take the plunge in what follows.

First, the latest television spots for Ksenia Sobchak are head and shoulders above all other Russian electoral advertising. Both in terms of concept and in terms of execution, they bear the fingerprints of top international corporate public relations talent. Sobchak has been re-packaged and her entire message is concentrated in two words that are positive, attractive and impactful:  “за молодость и смелость” – “for youth and daring.”  This contrasts with her previously negative appeal of “none of the above” and matches the flair of Vladimir Putin’s own campaign slogan “a strong President for a strong country.”

​Sobchak’s coiffure, her dress, her entire image has been reconfigured to combine seriousness of purpose with womanly as opposed to girlish appeal.  If she can stay to script on the campaign trail, the new Sobchak may be expected to multiply several fold the votes she draws on election day. This assumes she is not undone by alternative videos posted on youtube by her enemies, contrasting the new idol of the creative classes in Moscow with her recent past as a narcissistic Reality Show star. In any case, Sobchak’s results will not threaten Vladimir Putin, but may set in place a credible foundation for further development of her political year in coming years.

Second in sophistication to Sobchak are the latest videos posted by the Yabloko candidate Grigory Yavlinsky. The perpetual candidate of this Liberal party born in the 1990s that has enjoyed support among urban intellectuals in the two capitals, Moscow and St Petersburg, Yavlinsky has waged a low-key campaign and raised assorted issues like animal welfare in his talks on the campaign trail. One new video clip repeats insistently the theme that Russians as a people have been inventive and at the cutting edge of technology for at least a couple of centuries but have been let down by their state and political culture. Meanwhile his latest video can easily be confused for a message from the Central Election Commission urging the population not to stay at home, not to watch the political process with folded arms but to go and vote on election day. Only in the last couple of seconds is the candidate himself identified.  The clear purpose of this advert is to discredit Alexei Navalny and his call for a boycott.

Yavlinsky knows his chances of succeeding to the presidency based on his fraction of a percent of popular support are nil, and this video suggests he has decided to use his opportunity as a candidate with air time to discredit the non-systemic and authoritarian Navalny. This is a variant of Zhirinovsky’s attacks on Grudinin: candidates devouring one another while leaving the enormously popular Putin untouched.

Apart from Sobchak and Yavlinsky, the remaining challengers to Putin and United Russia have posted promotional videos which are primitive in both concept and execution, none more so that the videos of LDPR candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky. In contrast to the relaxed and confidential tone of Sobchak and Yavlinsky, Zhirinovsky is intense and aggressive. He denounces poverty, unemployment and social injustice while making empty, unsupported promises of a bright future if he is elected. It is a safe bet that Zhirinovsky took no counsel from PR professionals and relied solely on his own instincts.

The Communist Party videos on behalf of Pavel Grudinin are also lacking in sophistication and emotional appeal. They do the candidate no favors.  It is hard to say whether Grudinin’s greater air time on talk shows and the like due to his leads in polls against the rest of the non-Putin field and his own relaxed and attractive personality can compensate for the official media attacks and the disservice of mediocre advertising support from the Communist Party. Notwithstanding these deficiencies, it is entirely possible that Grudinin’s ballot count on 18 March will be substantially higher than the polls now suggest. Not enough to force a run-off against Putin, but sufficient to revise expectations in the Party’s favor during the next Duma elections.

​Those in the West who have viewed the Russian presidential election of 2018 with disdain because of the near certainty that Vladimir Putin will win are missing the point.  In the candidacies of Sobchak and Grudinin, in particular, we see the jostling for power in the next legislative elections of 2021 between what are new generation Right and Left forces directed against the centrist ruling United Russia party. All of this will greatly affect the post-Putin succession process which will set in by 2022 given the “lame duck” phenomenon as the President’s men make their own moves to secure their future without him.

© Gilbert Doctorow, 2018

G. Doctorow is an occasional guest lecturer at St. Petersburg State University and Research Fellow of the American University in Moscow. His latest book, Stepping Out of Line: Collected (Nonconformist) Essays on Russian-American Relations, 2008-12, is available in paperback and e-book from Amazon.com and affiliated websites worldwide.