Righteous Russia - Part 2

Rise of the New Tsar

New to Righteous Russia? Start Here.

Do you remember your first experience with anti-Putin propaganda?

I remember mine.

It was a May 11, 2014 episode of late chef extraordinaire Anthony Bourdain’s ‘Parts Unknown,’ wherein the titular host opens the CNN-produced episode by referring to Putin’s Presidency as “autocratic, vengeful,” and “oblivious to even a thin veneer of democracy.” He then goes on to admit that, despite this objective wisdom his great Western perspective grants him, “Russians love Putin,” likening his standing with his own people to that of Rudy Giuliani to New Yorkers in the 1990s.

Bourdain’s friend, a Russian producer named Zamir Gotta, even hits the nail directly on the Mockingbird’s head when he remarks, “[Putin] strikes me as a businessman—a businessman with an ego … like Donald Trump, but shorter.”

And there we have it. The narrative, announced proudly, cleanly-produced and ready for both mainstream and pop culture dissemination, and just a year before Trump declared his candidacy for 2016.

And the assertions carried extra weight given that Boris Nemtsov, an opposition leader and public opponent of Vladimir Putin, is featured prominently in the episode, only to be assassinated nine months after its airing. The narrative of Putin as killer was put forth confidently by a major Western cultural leader and one of its—at the time—most watched outlets, and seemingly confirmed.

Predictive programming at its best.

But is it a lie? I must confess I do not know the history of Boris Nemtsov. I do not know who funded him. I do not know who shot him on a bridge steps away from the Kremlin. But I do know what CNN—and by extension, the Western corporate media—want us to think of the whole thing.

Who, then, is Vladimir Putin?

According to the media, he is the Donald Trump of the east, which not only makes him the prime evil afflicting that vast, chaotic section of the world, but the greatest threat to “their Democracy” other than Trump and his followers.

In this series, we’ve largely focused on stories of Russia. Not necessarily stories Russia has told us, but rather the collective narrative we’ve been sold on Russia by the powers that be. We’re told Vladimir Putin is a megalomaniac, a madman and even a killer—the latter coming from our current Commander in Chief.

From Biden to the European Union to NATO (we’ll return to their role in the grand Russian Deception in Part 4, the grand finale of our series,) Putin is drawn as the great adversary. An amorphous, shifting threat, and one whose sins are difficult to nail down, but an adversary nonetheless.

In rhetoric not unlike that which has been deployed against Donald Trump for half a decade in the western media, when asked to explain in detail what exactly is so adversarial about Putin, the response tends to be a blistering, emotional rash of arguments about what he WILL do rather than what he HAS done. And what Putin WILL do has been talked about in morbid, sometimes operatic tones for 23 years now.

Looking at the current news cycle, you may also recognize that the wheels are in motion for one final, aggressive narrative push to get those familiar emotional normie doomsayer triggers flipped on one last time. One might even think NATO-aligned nations, including the U.S. Deep State represented by the Biden Administration, is trying to get ahead of something.

But I digress …

If we can set aside stories and narrative pushes for the moment, what, in encyclopedic terms, do we actually know of Putin, and Putin’s Russia over that time period?

We know that Putin rose rather swiftly to power only in the aftermath of a great Russian depression that settled in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Why this depression occurred is the subject of some debate, but there is consensus that the initial attempts to privatize Soviet state agencies represented an illusory chance for former Soviet loyalists to seize the means of production under the guise of private, free market ownership. These “free market” leaders of industry are commonly referred to as the infamous Russian oligarchs, and in the early 90s, one could be forgiven for considering their impending rule and vision for Russia nothing but a black mirror of the Soviet era. Russia, it seemed, sat on the doorstep of capitalist fascism in the place of communist domination. They had traded one group of controllers for another.

The violent crime, economic depression and overall mood of Russia in the 90s was one of a lawless, dystopian hellscape. This did little to alter the West’s view of the Soviets, even if they had shed their red communist paint and their title. Now, they were simply evil Russians who proudly flew the nationalist flag rather than the collectivist one.

President Yeltsin, a leader praised for his intellect, but not so much his ability to get things done was ultimately successful—with the backing of Western governments—in introducing a new Russian constitution in the 90s, which granted the President great power.

This power was ostensibly centered on allowing Russian leadership to maintain control of the largest terrestrial nation on the planet, which, in addition to the aforementioned crime and poverty, was now contending with a rise in separatist Islamic extremism, largely emanating from the Chechen region. During this lengthy period of unrest, Russian civilians were routinely targeted by terrorist attacks as Russian nationalist forces waged a guerilla war with the Islamic insurgents. It was, in many ways a prelude to the West’s involvement in the Middle East that would follow a decade later.

Add to this a rapid and seemingly unending inflationary trend that had beaten the ruble to within an inch of its economic life, culminating in a 1998 financial crisis, as Russian debt had outpaced GDP growth for the entirety of the post-Soviet era.

Somewhat shockingly at the time, this confluence of negative factors resulted in President Yeltsin’s abrupt resignation on the last day of the twentieth century. What was even more shocking to both Russian and Western leadership at the time, however, was the handing of power to a relative unknown Russian upstart by the name of Vladimir Putin.

Putin’s first great success according to his rapidly-growing support base was in putting down the Chechen insurgency shortly after his election in 2000. This paved the way for an easy victory in the 2004 election, which was followed by a focus on Russian energy exports, foreign investments and economic policies that most outside observers praised, rapidly and dramatically increasing Russian GDP, and by extension, its place on the world stage as a sovereign, seemingly-independent nation.

And one not encumbered by the European Union or NATO, much to the chagrin of Brussels and Berlin.

Of course, Putin was barred by the Russian constitution from serving three consecutive terms. A minor inconvenience, as his right-hand man, Dmitry Medvedev filled the vacancy in his stead, serving during Barack Obama’s first term while Putin served “under” him as Prime Minister until Medvedev handed the Presidential reigns right back to Putin in the 2012 election. This did not impress foreign and Western media, who largely portrayed Russia as a banana republic run by a despotic regime during this time period.

In fact, the turn from Putin as an enigmatic but somewhat curious foreign leader transformed most starkly during the second Obama administration, when the two leaders sparred in the press leading up to and following the Ukrainian revolution of 2014 that resulted in Russia’s swift and effective annexation of Crimea, a move that was—if polling is to be believed—embraced within the region while being decried by Western leadership at the time, resulting in an escalating sanction war between the superpowers of the east and the west for the rest of Obama’s term.

In short, the Western powers that be, from Washington to Brussels to London, were not impressed by the Russian upstart-turned Superpower, as Putin’s repelling of the Ukrainian color revolution and seizing of strategic Crimea was as swift and effective as his put-down of the Islamic Chechen insurgency. Chaos, as many of us in the truth community understand, is a tool the Prussians, Globalists and modern Deep State (pick your moniker,) use to propose and implement pre-drafted solutions, both economically and socially. Try as they might, it seemed the subversive geniuses of the World Economic Forum, NATO and the United Nations, along with their Islamic extremist spark plugs, just could not get Russia to devolve back into the chaos of the post-Soviet 90s. Putin has an aversion to the stuff, it would seem. One that endures to this day.

Over a period of 14 years, Putin’s swift, decisive and overall highly effective military actions were only mirrored by his stoic, calm and confident demeanor in the face of his growing, howling chorus of powerful western detractors.

In another predictive mirror of Donald Trump’s future posture, it seemed that no matter how hard they tried, said western powers just could not get Putin to understand that collectivist, unelected bodies of sanction-happy councilors should decide the foreign policy actions of Russia, if not its domestic policy as well.

While Western media warned us in 2015 that Putin was on the war path again, that path only took him to Syria, where he backed the Syrian government against militant ISIS forces, the latest Islamic extremist thread that Trump—like Putin before him—quickly eradicated after taking office in 2016.

Thus, when we look back on the grand timeline of Putin’s reign, and leaving aside unsubstantiated accusations of false elections, false polling and insidious plans for world domination, what are we left with on the board aside from a rising GDP, a rising Russian middle class, an energy-independent nation and one whose only kinetic conflicts have seemed defensive in posture?

To be blunt, we’re left with the only world leader before or since Donald Trump to piss off all the right people en route to ushering in an era of national prosperity—in relative terms, at least—unseen in decades, if not a century.

If this stroll down memory lane tells us much of who Putin is and what Putin has done as leader of Russia, what does it tell us about what Putin ultimately wants? What is his vision for Russia’s future?

In order to understand Vladimir Putin, we have to admit that we do not understand him at all. At least, whether you’re the greatest Russia advocate in the world or a member of the CIA’s Mockingbird media industrial complex, you can agree on that much.

Putin is an enigma. And a threatening one. He is a shrewd, calculating and most dangerously, an incredibly patient man. On this, both advocates and agitators of Russia seem to agree.

If what we know of Putin is largely relegated to summaries of all of the conflicts he almost engaged with but ultimately did not, what do we think we know of Putin?

Most recently, in the latest—and most dramatic and spastic—artificial build-up of tensions that could ‘pretty please with sugar on top’ lead into the Globalist wet dream of the catastrophe that is World War 3, a formerly influential voice in international politics added some nuance—and plenty of plausible deniability regarding his true feelings on the subject—to the discussion regarding Putin.

Harald Malmgren, a geopolitical strategist and former negotiator and aide to Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, doesn’t have all—or really, any answers—on who Vladimir Putin truly is and what he truly wants in his recent comments. And given Malmgren’s first and secondhand knowledge of Russia’s leadership through half a century and more, specifically as it relates to our own western leaders, his own confusion and uncertainty regarding Putin’s intentions provide the most tantalizing evidence that said intentions operate outside of the scope of the public narrative.

Malmgren says many things about Putin, from comparing him to a “Sicilian mafia boss,” to his unflinching and very public adoration of Peter the Great. Malmgren had direct experience negotiating with the administrations of the Brezhev, Andropov, Chernenko, Gorbachev and Yeltsin Presidencies. From describing the Brezhev Presidency as one steeped in political and international “paralysis,” to remarking on the brevity of Andropov and Chernenko, to the weakness of Gorbachev and the ultimate lack of resolve and follow through of Yeltsin, Malmgren has always been able to form strong, detailed opinions on Russian leadership.

What, then, is his ultimate take on Vladimir Putin, who has been (mostly) President of Russia since 2000? Malmgren, who can wax poetic on all the various attributes and shortcomings of any politician in the Eastern theater of forever almost-wars, simply describes Putin as “strong.” He argues that, after the Presidencies of the 80s and 90s, Russia “needed strong leadership,” and that Putin provided that. But what he says most confidently about the Russian leader is that the West fundamentally misunderstands him, which—aside from being entirely by design, in Malmgren’s view—plays right into Putin’s ultimate grand, enigmatic play.

Far from being an isolated opinion of a Soviet-era fossil in U.S. politics, Malmgren’s views on Putin then—when he was first shockingly appointed by a resigning Yeltsin—and now—as he shrugs off the latest attempts by 30 NATO-aligned nations to provoke him into a hot war on the borders of both Ukraine and Kazakhstan—highlight an inability of the power players on both sides of the Atlantic to come to a firm conclusion regarding Putin’s intentions.

What is Vladimir Putin’s grand play, then? Well, Malmgren seems to think it has everything to do with his admiration—even his obsession—with Peter the Great. Malmgren went so far as to suggest that Putin admires Peter the Great so much that he sees himself as his literal incarnation. While Malmgren admits that he can’t verify the information personally, he has been told that Putin had portraits of Peter the Great “hung in several important meeting rooms,” at the Kremlin, where portraits of himself and the current leadership would be more customary. This is a big deal to Malmgren, just as many in the truth community feel Trump’s seeming fixation with rearranging, removing and replacing White House portraits—largely drawing attention to known enemies of central banks—is indicative of much more than aesthetics.

Action is born of philosophy, after all.

If we accept this, then what is the core philosophy we can glean from Peter the Great, and should we trust the establishment’s comparison so easily, or is Putin using the Russian historical figure as just another layer of obfuscation to cover his true, long-term motives?

As for Peter the Great, the first—and to date, only—self-described Emperor of Russia, is undoubtedly the nation’s most accomplished leader on the world stage. Through a number of campaigns, he expanded Russian territory and influence into a major European power in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and largely railed against medieval cultural norms in Russian society, adopting a more Enlightenment view of humanity, and Russia’s role in it.

And yes, we are talking about the Enlightenment that saw the rise of such ideas as liberty, constitutional government and separation of church and state.

Not just any Emperor, after all.

If that is to be the grand inspiration of Putin’s Russia, it can be taken in one of two ways: either Putin wants to dominate Europe—and by extension, the world—or he wants to usher in a new age of Russian Enlightenment, and re-establish his people on the world stage, as enduring, humanistic sovereigns.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that Putin simply likes the man’s portrait.

When we consider Putin’s reign, we’re left with an administration that looks eerily similar to the rise of Donald Trump and his Deplorables. Men who have been buoyed by staunch, nationalistic support and dogged by the disdain and mournful screeching of many of the most famous globalist leaders in the modern world—the crowd that has the gall to sell us on a future vision of the world in which we will own nothing and be happy.

Russians have seen this vision. They have lived this vision. It’s not one they are eager to return to. Woe be unto any who would think otherwise.

For the last two decades, the internal posture of Putin’s Russia has largely consisted of a focus on energy independence—if not wholesale market domination—the confirmation and defense of sovereign borders and a peace through strength approach largely reminiscent of the foreign policy of the U.S. Kennedy, Reagan and Trump Administrations.

As for the country’s external posture, Putin’s Russia has only engaged its vast, highly trained military in kinetic conflict against Islamic extremist and rebel groups in Chechnya and Syria, militant rebel groups in Kazakhstan and the Caucasus, and loyalists to the most openly corrupt regime in Ukraine that we have seen on the world stage in quite some time.

Overall, this is not the posture of a megalomaniacal invader, but rather a defensive posture—a posture of keeping rather than taking, of consolidating rather than stretching.

While the post-Soviet era looked like it was heading straight off a cliff, as if the economic controllers were set on punishing the freed Russian serfs for daring to break out of the communist system they had chained them with, Putin emerged at just the right time to turn the ship around for his people.

The ensuing generation has seen a steady rise in Russian GDP, the nation’s reemergence on the world stage as an actor and not merely an ideology, and the portrayal of an unapologetically independent, nationalist expression to foreign nations. Russia is a nation proudly and openly in service of its own interests. It is also the nation whose national currency has the highest percentage of gold backing, which is food for thought all its own.

Have you ever come across the term, “think mirror?”

In short, these postures are again reminiscent of the Trump Presidency’s, even when the two have come into administrative conflict with one another, as happened more publicly in Trump’s opposition to and sanctions on Russia’s valued Nord Stream 2 pipeline project that would arguably complete the nation’s stranglehold on what is left of sovereign European nations.

Still, if we in the truth community have never trusted media narratives about Trump, North Korea, COVID-19, the Paris Climate Accords and the Great Reset, to name a few, why would we so gladly accept their vision for our great adversary, and our enduring villain?

Perhaps there is a version of history where we got our World War 3. Our trilogy capper to end all trilogies. But for all the kayfabe and public posturing in service of—in my view—obfuscating, frustrating and yes, even toying with a vicious, corrupt and predatory globalist media, Donald Trump never seemed overly interested in seeing how that particular trilogy ends. And for his part, Vladimir Putin, while enigmatic in so many ways, cleverly cunning in others and outright threatening—admittedly—at turns, has largely mirrored his nationalist counterpart in the West.

And if we reject said narrative, and contrast it with what we have seen of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, what is the alternative view?

I can think of no greater endorsement of a leader than one who is cursed, mocked, threatened and provoked by the combined forces of the Western Media Industrial Complex, Hollywood, the European Union, the leaderships of Canada, France, the U.K. and shriveling, fallen Germany. Putin has been firmly cast as the great villain of our time, and the aforementioned powers that be seem dead set on maneuvering him into that great war that was foretold.

The question is, is Putin himself in on the plan? Is the tiger simply waiting for his time to strike, to make good on his secret globalist promises and give the Deep State the red button strike necessary to force the Great Reset that COVID-19 only flirted with, but ultimately failed to deliver?

Is there another plan? A plan for good, cooked up by western patriots and Russian nationalists behind closed doors and in secret meetings under the noses of the Deep State?

If we can come to only one clear conclusion at this point in our journey, let us admit that we cannot know if the nationalist arm of the United States is actively engaged in a backdoor alliance with Putin’s Russia. But let us state firmly and with conviction that a globalist Putin is not, and as for his role as the warlord that has been drawn and pushed by the Western world governments onto their respective populaces, he has utterly failed.

Is there a simpler explanation for the seeming similarities of the ongoing Putin era in the east and the emerging—and just beginning—Trump era in the west? Are Vladimir Putin’s plans his own, just as Russia, for the first time in centuries, is its own?

And if that final, simplest explanation is the right one, does it not lead us right back to where we started in this examination of Russia’s role in the great war against the Invisible Enemy?

In framing Donald Trump as the scourge of the West, the international media, largely based in Berlin and London, and largely despised by the Russian populace, endeared him to the very same. Perhaps it’s time Americans took the same approach with Vladimir Putin.

After all, are not all champions of sovereignty on the same side, at least in the context of slavery?

Is not the enemy of my enemy, my friend?

Continue on to Righteous Russia - Part 3

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