Puppet MastersS


Yoda

'He's an old-school gentleman': Former Austrian FM Karin Kneissl praises Putin's exquisite manners

putin and karin kneissel
© Reuters / Roland Schlager
Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl was left impressed with Russian President Vladimir Putin's gallant behavior after the two waltzed at Kneissl's headline-grabbing wedding last year.

"President Putin is an old-school gentleman. He has a special kind of manners that we don't see enough today, including in Central Europe," the diplomat told TASS on Monday.

She came to Moscow to present the Russian edition of her book about Prince Eugene of Savoy, a German 18th-century statesman and military commander.

Chess

The Saker: A quick guide to making sense of the Paris summit on Ukraine

Macron Merkel Zelensky Putin normandy four Ukraine
© REUTERS/Benoit Tessier; AFP / Nicholas Kamm; AFP / Gints Ivuskans; Sputnik / Sergey Mamontov(L-R) Emmanuel Macron, Volodymyr Zelensky, Angela Merkel, Vladimir Putin
The first thing we need to do is the remember what each participant wanted from this summit. Here is a summary of what I think (not how they officially stated it) each starting position was:

Zelenskii: key notion "a flexible approach" to the Minsk Agreements
  • No direct negotiations with the LDNR
  • No special status
  • Ukrainian control of the border with Russia
  • Disarmament of the LDNR "militias"
  • Removal of all foreign forces (he means Russian forces, never mind that they don't exist!)
  • Creation of a "municipal police"
  • Elections under Ukrainian control

Battery

Russia offers Ukraine cheaper gas under new transit deal, Kiev promises to drop $3bn demand

pressure gauge
© Reuters / Gleb Garanich
The price of gas for Ukraine may be lower if Moscow and Kiev manage to reach a new transit agreement, Russian President Vladimir Putin told at a press conference after the Normandy Four summit in Paris.

Gas for Ukraine "could be cheaper by 25 percent, as compared to what the end consumer currently gets, primarily the industrial consumer, because the price of gas for the domestic consumer, for citizens [of Ukraine], is subsidized, we can't calculate the price from the subsidized price," Putin said.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said in return that there is a good chance that the contract on gas transit from Russia to Europe via Ukraine would be extended after January 1.

Agreement for Russian gas supplies to Ukraine and those transiting to Europe expires at the end of this year. In November, Russia's Gazprom offered Ukraine to extend the transit contract or enter into a new one for one year.

Bullseye

No 'exemplary leaders' in EU? Erdogan says 'leadership void' is plaguing Europe

erdogan
© Reuters / Stoyan Nenov
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has thrown yet another jab at the European Union, saying that the bloc is experiencing a shortage of political role models, something which he described as a "leadership void."

Top European politicians are apparently not respected that much by Erdogan; he struggled to name at least one single leader whom he deems to be an "example" for others to follow.

"Europe is experiencing a serious leadership crisis, there's leadership void. I can't find the courage to say [about anyone]: 'This leader is an example for Europe,'" Erdogan said on Tuesday.

While Erdogan's evaluation is not very complimentary for the present-day European politicians, at least some of the past EU leaders earned his praise.

Sherlock

Best of the Web: Crossfire Hurricane in a teacup? IG report exposes gaping chasm between Russiagate inquiry and reality

crossfire hurricane
© Reuters / Jim Bourg
The long-awaited report on the origins of Russiagate shows the intelligence community played fast and loose with the truth to build its case against candidate Donald Trump and inflate the specter of Russian election interference.

The report by the Department of Justice's Inspector General (DOJ IG) "makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a US presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken," Attorney General William Barr said in a statement following the report's publication on Monday. Despite the clear efforts by a handful of malicious FBI officials to mislead the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, he continued, the "evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory."

While praising IG Michael Horowitz's work, Barr made it clear he disagrees with its essential conclusion - that all the prerequisites were properly met in order to launch July 2016's counterintelligence inquiry into purported Russian election meddling, dubbed "Crossfire Hurricane."

Bullseye

WADA's Russia doping ban is a 'war of politics' that 'robs clean athletes of glory'

Russian figure skating team
© Reuters / Shamil ZhumatovThe gold medal-winning Russian figure skating team celebrates on the podium during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics
Russia's ban from global sports is a punishment rife with politics, analysts told RT. Worse still, political decisions can punish clean athletes, who will be denied the honor of competing for their country.

The World Anti-Doping Agency handed down the ban on Monday, after Russia was alleged to have manipulated data in a Moscow anti-doping laboratory. WADA voted to suspend Russia from all major sporting events for four years in response, meaning the Russian flag will not fly at the next two Olympic Games as well as the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, should Russia qualify.

Clean athletes, however, will be able to compete, albeit under a neutral flag and with no national anthem.

In the runup to the ban, US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) head Travis Tygart had called for even harsher penalties, including a blanket ban on all athletes, even those found to be clean.

Blackbox

Pepe Escobar: What really happened in Iran protests?

iran gas protest
© AFPA scorched gas station set ablaze by protesters during a demonstration against a rise in gasoline prices in Eslamshahr, near the Iranian capital of Tehran.
On November 15, a wave of protests engulfed over 100 Iranian cities as the government resorted to an extremely unpopular measure: a fuel tax hike of as much as 300%, without a semblance of a PR campaign to explain the reasons.

Iranians, after all, have reflexively condemned subsidy removals for years now - especially related to cheap gasoline. If you are unemployed or underemployed in Iran, especially in big cities and towns, Plan A is always to pursue a second career as a taxi driver.

Protests started as overwhelmingly peaceful. But in some cases, especially in Tehran, Shiraz, Sirjan and Shahriar, a suburb of Tehran, they quickly degenerated into weaponized riots - complete with vandalizing public property, attacks on the police and torching of at least 700 bank outlets. Much like the confrontations in Hong Kong since June.

President Rouhani, aware of the social backlash, tactfully insisted that unarmed and innocent civilians arrested during the protests should be released. There are no conclusive figures, but Iranian diplomats admit, off the record, that as many as 7,000 people may have been arrested. Tehran's judiciary system denies it.

According to Iran's Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, as many as 200,000 people took part in the protests nationwide. According to the Intelligence Ministry, 79 people were arrested in connection with the riots only in Khuzestan province - including three teams, supported by "a Persian Gulf state," which supposedly coordinated attacks on government centers and security/police forces.

The Intelligence Ministry said it had arrested eight "CIA operatives," accused of being instrumental in inciting the riots.

Георгиевская ленточка

Key takeaway from Ukraine peace talks in Paris is that Zelensky's best friend is Putin

putin
© AFP / Alexey NIKOLSKY / SPUTNIK
The Paris talks on Ukraine have enabled Putin and Zelensky to meet for the first time. But they have agreed only to kick the can down the road, to agree to disagree, while seeking progress on issues other than the war in Donbass.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the weakness of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's position. He is a political novice facing perhaps the most experienced and formidable statesman in the world. Although an intelligent man, the former TV comedian says he likes to do things quickly.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, by contrast, is known for his extreme attention to detail and for his propensity to play a very long game.

Putin is not in a rush. Zelensky is, because time is not on Ukraine's side. The country has avoided default by a whisker only by negotiating a new IMF loan to pay off the old one taken out five years ago and due for repayment this year.

Red Flag

Putin: If Kiev gets control of rebel-held border with Russia, a Srebrenica-type massacre may follow

ukraine soldiers
© REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
Moscow is concerned that if Kiev troops take control of the border between Russia and eastern Ukraine without ironclad guarantees to anti-government militias, a massacre not unlike the one in ex-Yugoslav Srebrenica may occur.

Speaking of Kiev's demands on Tuesday, Putin said there needs to be absolute certainty that people in eastern Ukraine would be safe once control of the border changes hands, considering that there is not even an amnesty in place.

"We agreed [on the roadmap] in 2015. They have an amnesty law, some decisions have been taken, but nothing has been put into force," Putin told the presidential human rights council. Without guarantees, "I can imagine what would happen next. There will be a Srebrenica."

The warning from the Russian president comes a day after his first-ever meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris.

Mr. Potato

Don't expect much from Nadler's Monday impeachment 'trial'

Jerrold Nadler
© REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstHouse Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) arrives at a House Judiciary Committee hearing titled "Oversight of the Report by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III," at which witness former White House Counsel Donald McGahn was subpoened to testify at on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., May 21, 2019.
Before House Democrats move forward with articles of impeachment against President Trump - which may come later in the week, they're going to hold a 'trial' on Monday in which the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees will present evidence to support their case, according to CNN.

On Saturday night, the House Judiciary Committee released a 52-page report, an update to previous Judiciary Committee reports issued in 1974 and 1998 during the Nixon and Clinton impeachments. While it does not accuse Trump of committing any impeachable offenses, it it lays out what Congressional Democrats consider constitutional grounds for impeachment.

Comment: Adam Schiff was too much of a coward to show up to defend his own report:
[T]he man who has driven the impeachment inquiry for several months — primarily behind closed doors, in the Special Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF) in the basement of the U.S. Capitol — did not show up in person.

Ranking Member Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was present, as were counsel for both the majority and minority on the Intelligence Committee.

Collins observed: "Mr. Nunes is here! His staff is here! The leading headline is there: 'Schiff Report' — but where's Mr. Schiff?"

He noted that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had testified about his report before the committee, earlier in the year, and that Independent Counsel Ken Starr presented his report in the 1998 impeachment inquiry into President Bill Clinton.

Schiff is under increasing scrutiny — not only for his staff's early contact with the so-called "whistleblower," but also because his committee's reports included phone records of Nunes's calls, along with calls involving the president's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and reporter John Solomon, among others.