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He Won't Live To See Christmas

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funeralxempire
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11 Mar 2022, 2:32 pm

‘He won’t live to see Christmas!’ – Former Soviet spy predicts sticky end for Putin

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A former Soviet military spy has claimed that Vladimir Putin “will not live to see Christmas,” claiming the Russian president is leading his country to the edge of catastrophe.

Viktor Suvorov, a former officer of the Soviet army and GRU operative, suggested on Polish TV network Polsat News that the support for Putin by Russian oligarchs, whose lives and businesses have been affected by Western sanctions, will soon wane.

“We can see that there are oligarchs, who as a result of Putin’s policy, have lost much, and they do not like that,” Suvorov told the news channel. “Imagine that you have billions of dollars, travel around the world and that suddenly comes to an end. They seize your yacht. What’s next? Will we love Putin? No,” he added.

Suvorov pointed to examples from Russian history in which tyrants were killed in staged coups, and suggested that “history is now repeating itself.”

“He will be murdered, they’ll do something with him, remove him. I do not want to predict what because I don’t like doing so, but in my personal opinion: he will not live to see Christmas,” the former Soviet military spy claimed.

Suvorov, whose real name is Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun, is a Russian writer and historian. He fled Russia to the United Kingdom at the end of the 1970s and continues to live there until this day. His pen-name refers to 18th century Russian commander Alexander Suvorov.


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Just a reminder: under international law, an occupying power has no right of self-defense, and those who are occupied have the right and duty to liberate themselves by any means possible.


Misslizard
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11 Mar 2022, 3:31 pm

There will be dancing in the streets.


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Misslizard
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11 Mar 2022, 3:48 pm

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cyberdad
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11 Mar 2022, 4:29 pm

Are we certain his successor won't just take over the empire?



funeralxempire
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11 Mar 2022, 4:38 pm

cyberdad wrote:
Are we certain his successor won't just take over the empire?


Not at all, I don't think the suggestion is that this is a solution for the West's Russia concerns, instead that'll be another element in play before this has resolved itself.


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There's no such thing as a free market.
If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. —Malcolm X
Just a reminder: under international law, an occupying power has no right of self-defense, and those who are occupied have the right and duty to liberate themselves by any means possible.


cyberdad
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11 Mar 2022, 4:44 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
Are we certain his successor won't just take over the empire?


Not at all, I don't think the suggestion is that this is a solution for the West's Russia concerns, instead that'll be another element in play before this has resolved itself.


I think what the west want is a puppet leader in Russia (and probably China) who will cease hostility withdraw from borders and go back to a clean democracy where they give themselves the opportunity to vote themselves out of power.

Unless there is a people's revolution in Russia or China (and in the case of China I seriously doubt it) the new leadership will simply set up a new regime. Different clothes same game.



funeralxempire
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11 Mar 2022, 4:47 pm

cyberdad wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
Are we certain his successor won't just take over the empire?


Not at all, I don't think the suggestion is that this is a solution for the West's Russia concerns, instead that'll be another element in play before this has resolved itself.


I think what the west want is a puppet leader in Russia (and probably China) who will cease hostility withdraw from borders and go back to a clean democracy where they give themselves the opportunity to vote themselves out of power.

Unless there is a people's revolution in Russia or China (and in the case of China I seriously doubt it) the new leadership will simply set up a new regime. Different clothes same game.


I wouldn't count on a democracy in either of those places suddenly becoming pro-western and a puppet state by definition can't be a democracy.

Look at other western-aligned puppet states, they weren't democracies they were right-wing dictatorships like South Korea and Taiwan used to be, or like the US used to install in Central and South America.


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If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. —Malcolm X
Just a reminder: under international law, an occupying power has no right of self-defense, and those who are occupied have the right and duty to liberate themselves by any means possible.


cyberdad
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11 Mar 2022, 5:02 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
I wouldn't count on a democracy in either of those places suddenly becoming pro-western and a puppet state by definition can't be a democracy.

Look at other western-aligned puppet states, they weren't democracies they were right-wing dictatorships like South Korea and Taiwan used to be, or like the US used to install in Central and South America.


It can't. The power structure in both Russia and China s built upon a pyramid of oligarchs, corrupt officials and ethnonationalism. Any new leader in either superpower must kowtow to the powers that be,



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11 Mar 2022, 5:18 pm

One can only hope. At least the some of the Russian oligarchs are pointing the blame in the right direction. This whole conflict is 100% Putin's fault, and the fewer allies he has going forward, the better.



cyberdad
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11 Mar 2022, 7:35 pm

Tross wrote:
One can only hope. At least the some of the Russian oligarchs are pointing the blame in the right direction. This whole conflict is 100% Putin's fault, and the fewer allies he has going forward, the better.


Putin is going to be hard to take down given he's the biggest mafia boss on planet earth,



r00tb33r
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11 Mar 2022, 7:40 pm

Tross wrote:
This whole conflict is 100% Putin's fault

That's rather small-minded. That's the exact thinking that caused the miscalculation that led to the armed conflict.



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11 Mar 2022, 11:50 pm

cyberdad wrote:
Tross wrote:
One can only hope. At least the some of the Russian oligarchs are pointing the blame in the right direction. This whole conflict is 100% Putin's fault, and the fewer allies he has going forward, the better.


Putin is going to be hard to take down given he's the biggest mafia boss on planet earth,


I read a piece on some newswebsite (guardian?) by a Russian journalist argueing that the west is mistaking the concept of the Russisn oligarch.
These people are billionaires *because of Putin*. He has power over them, he put them in offices or made them heads of industry.
They're not like American or European oligarchs, who got rich in business first and are using their wealth to lobby for their interests - these guys used to be mobsters and loyal bureaucrats who suddenly got promoted to the board of Gazprom.
In this journalist's line of argumentation, sanctions will hurt the oligarchs, and they'll lose their properties in London and NYC, but only Putin can take away whatever makes them the money they have been spending outside of Russia. The journalist's prognosis on the effectiveness of sanctions on oligarchs were accordingly rather less hopefull.


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cyberdad
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12 Mar 2022, 12:02 am

shlaifu wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
Tross wrote:
One can only hope. At least the some of the Russian oligarchs are pointing the blame in the right direction. This whole conflict is 100% Putin's fault, and the fewer allies he has going forward, the better.


Putin is going to be hard to take down given he's the biggest mafia boss on planet earth,


I read a piece on some newswebsite (guardian?) by a Russian journalist argueing that the west is mistaking the concept of the Russisn oligarch.
These people are billionaires *because of Putin*. He has power over them, he put them in offices or made them heads of industry.
They're not like American or European oligarchs, who got rich in business first and are using their wealth to lobby for their interests - these guys used to be mobsters and loyal bureaucrats who suddenly got promoted to the board of Gazprom.
In this journalist's line of argumentation, sanctions will hurt the oligarchs, and they'll lose their properties in London and NYC, but only Putin can take away whatever makes them the money they have been spending outside of Russia. The journalist's prognosis on the effectiveness of sanctions on oligarchs were accordingly rather less hopefull.


In that case his empire is built like a house of cards when economic sanctions kick in. In the meantime I have to pay $3/litre for petrol. Nobody escapes.



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12 Mar 2022, 1:41 am

r00tb33r wrote:
Tross wrote:
This whole conflict is 100% Putin's fault

That's rather small-minded. That's the exact thinking that caused the miscalculation that led to the armed conflict.
So it's the fault of the victims now? I disagree. The guy who heartlessly ordered his forces to attack a peaceful nation to fuel his own expansionist desires is to blame. If that demon had a shred of humanity in him, none of this would have happened, so there's zero reason not to pin all of it on him. :roll:

Then again...I suppose there's an argument to be made that the Russian people let this happen by supporting him all these years, but given that Putin controls that country's media, and what happens to Russians who stand in his way, I don't blame them for this. Maybe they get 1-2% of the blame. Hmmm...you might be correct that the Russian oligarchs share a portion of the blame too. Given recent events, it's clear that not all of them have devil horns. I doubt they're berating their leader out of compassion mind you. They just want to keep their summer homes. Still, I suppose they can have 8-9% of the blame. That still leaves 90% of the blame for Putin though, so we're really splitting hairs here.



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12 Mar 2022, 1:47 am

Misslizard wrote:
There will be dancing in the streets.


I wouldn't hold your breath.
But if we get lucky, I won't complain. :mrgreen:



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12 Mar 2022, 5:53 am

Yeah, he'll probably go down in the near future. The thing I wonder about is if he'll be forced out of his seat in a coup, or if he goes down more quietly by being poisoned or something and then the assailants who take his place claiming he died of some health issues or something.