Piontkovsky blogs latest publications. Winning victory live

The fact is that it is becoming more and more relevant and, in my opinion, central in world politics, and will remain so until it leads in its natural development to the onset of one of the following two events:

a) the beginning of a nuclear war;

c) preventive reorganization of the personalist regime of Vladimir Putin, which relies on nuclear blackmail in its foreign policy.

In the nuclear era (1945–2018), the behavior of Soviet / Russian leaders on the world stage became extremely aggressive and dangerous when painful fantasies about their ability to win a victory in a nuclear war over the West, which they always hated, came to their minds.

These periods were relatively short: the last years of the life of Joseph Stalin, a couple of years (1961-1962) of the reign of Nikita Khrushchev. The third such period lasts an unusually long time, more than 4 years. Around 2014, a narrow group in the Russian military-political leadership (Putin, Nikolai Patrushev, Valery Gerasimov) came to the conclusion that, yielding to the West at times in everything (economically, technologically, militarily at all stages of the escalation of potential conflict), Russia can nevertheless win a hybrid war from the West, led by the United States, the scenario and rules of which the Kremlin itself will determine.

Victory by the Kremlin means the restoration of at least the "Yalta" zone of their omnipotence in Europe, self-liquidation of NATO as a result of this organization's inability to fulfill its obligations under Article 5 of its Charter, demonstration of the incapacity of the United States as a "leader of the free world" and, accordingly, the withdrawal of the West from world history. And what tools, besides its famous "spirituality", could a state, which is several times inferior to NATO in everything, use for a successful confrontation with the NATO bloc and annexation of the territories of its member countries?

Only nuclear weapons. But, you ask, is it not generally known that in the field of nuclear weapons, Russia and the United States, just as half a century ago, are in a stalemate in the doctrine of mutual assured destruction and, therefore, the nuclear factor can be excluded from strategic calculations? The fact is that this is not entirely true, or rather, not at all. In an acute geopolitical situation, a nuclear power oriented toward changing the existing status quo, possessing an overwhelming political will for such a change, b about greater indifference to the value of human lives (ours and others) and a certain amount of adventurism can achieve serious foreign policy results with just the threat of the use or very limited use of nuclear weapons.

To take a frayer "on weak" - this is the formula of Victory, rooted in the mores of the St. Petersburg gateway, only instead of a Finn now the Gopnik has a nuclear bomb

Putin has long watched his Western partners and deeply despises them. But how else should he relate to them, if the chancellors and prime ministers of a great Europe lined up to serve as lackeys at his gas stations for a pitiful reward of a couple of million euros a year? Or after Putin, together with Bashar al-Assad with one chemical strike, thrashed Western leaders like suckers, changing the agenda of the Syrian crisis, turning Assad in the eyes of the world community from an executioner into a respectable statesman engaged in the noble cause of chemical disarmament? Putin then calculated Barack Obama with his red lines,and believes that he has counted all his former partners in the G8. Putin is convinced that he will outplay his rivals in potential military conflicts that will arise on the way to his victory - despite the fact that the Russian Federation is far behind NATO in the field of conventional weapons and is not superior to the United States in the nuclear sphere.

Putin will play with them, raising the stakes, threatening to use nuclear weapons, and they, he believes, will waver and retreat at a critical moment. To take a frayer "on weak" - this is the formula of Victory, rooted in the mores of the St. Petersburg gateway, only instead of a Finn now the Gopnik has a nuclear bomb.

In recent years, Putin has more than once or twice painted in his speeches and video interviews apocalyptic pictures of a nuclear strike. And, as one observant commentator rightly noted, he talks about it every time with obvious lust. Judge for yourself: after looking carefully, for example, at his face in the film " World Order 2018 "when he declares to Vladimir Solovyov that he does not need a world without Putin in power. Yes, precisely without Putin in power. Vyacheslav Volodin explained to us that Russia today is Putin in power. Judging by the frequency and emotional intensity of public sayings, nuclear war is becoming for Putin's subconscious the same dominant erotic fix idea as the famous Putin copulation of nits.

Victory is in front of our eyes liveenters the second acute phase. November 25, 2018 is a date no less important than February 20, 2014; medals will also be knocked out on the reverse with this date. Maybe even in paradise, where the caring father of the nation has already sent us all so that we don't just die like our enemies. Until high point victoriousness live was the spring of 2014. The military thinker was right then, declaring : "They will not shoot at us when we stand behind the backs of their women and children." After Putin's Crimean speech, it seemed that the whole country with flags, banners, icons, portraits of the tsar, St. George's ribbons knelt in front of the residence in Novo-Ogarevo. New geopolitical exploits were expected: Novorossiya, dismemberment of "this ugly offspring of the Brest-Litovsk Peace" - Ukraine, protection of compatriots in the Baltics. And, finally, in response to the indistinct bleating from Brussels and Washington, the question, "Are you ready to die for Narva?"

But then something did not grow together, and everything went completely wrong. The majority of the Russian population of Ukraine rejected the idea of \u200b\u200bthe "Russian World" and remained loyal to the Ukrainian state and its European choice. Appeared ukrainian armywhich did not exist in February 2014. Radiant Novorossia has shrunk to a bandit stub in Donbass. The gradually awakened West has deployed several battalions in the Baltics to symbolize NATO's readiness to fulfill its obligations under Article 5 of its Charter.

The situation in Russia itself was not at all victorious. The mass euphoria of "Krymnash" was gradually eroding and did not grow into support of a large-scale war in Ukraine. The ruling kleptocracy was not at all going to go to Putin's paradise in united ranks, rightly believing that it lived in this Putin's paradise until Putin's victory in power threatened the huge assets accumulated along with Putin in the American and British jurisdictions. But as if out of nowhere a completely new influential group of interests emerged - the soloists of the foreign policy talk shows raging on the air around the clock: Sheinin, Skabeeva, Kiselev, Solovyov. Stuck into the television by the victorious rams, they themselves are now shaping the minds of the ruling victors.

After several years of hesitation, Putin has decided on a serious new escalation in his hybrid war with the West, in which he hopes to win

Let's return to the "sea battle" on November 25, 2018. The significant event was not the clash in the Kerch Strait itself, which, if desired, could be described as a regrettable border incident, but the statements and explanations that followed from the Russian side. Moscow de facto declared the Kerch Strait and the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov its territorial waters, violating once again several international agreements, including the 2003 agreement between Russia and Ukraine on cooperation in the use of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov and the Kerch Strait.

In essence, this means the annexation of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov and the blockade of a large part of the Ukrainian coast, which in a military sense creates the preconditions for its capture. It is politically significant that for the first time the Kremlin committed an act of aggression against Ukraine, not using any "ichtamnets" or "green men" behind it, but openly, in front of the whole world, under the flag of the Russian Federation.

The West took it seriously. So serious that for three or four days I could not work out a clear consolidated position. The first instinctive reaction of the Europeans was to ignore the scale of the incident, limiting themselves to indistinct muttering and calls to live together. In the same vein, Donald Trump continued to demonstrate his special relationship with Putin. Kremlin propaganda did not hide its glee at such a sluggish response from the West. The tough assessments of the escalation of Putin's aggression by the second row of the American administration are Kurt Volcker and Nikki Haley, but it was they who became the moral leaders of the American and Western political class at a critical moment. They completely turned the tide in the West, not in favor of Putin.

When Trump was taken to the plane in which the American delegation went to the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, he, to be sure of his consistency, continued to say something about a very urgent and timely meeting with Putin the next day. Half an hour later I was on board the presidential plane. This was followed by a unanimously approved resolution of the US Senate, a statement G7, new statements by NATO, EC, European leaders. The style of these documents was such that Volcker and Haley could already rest in peace. Trump canceled the wrap-up press conference in Buenos Aires. The official reason is grief over the deceased 41st President of the United States. But the same circumstances did not stop Secretary of State Mike Pompeo CNN.

This interview was extremely harsh in relation to Putin, to whom Pompeo issued an ultimatum - return the Ukrainian prisoners of war and captured ships to their homeland. When asked about the cancellation of the meeting between Trump and Putin, Pompeo reiterated twice: "I was part of this decision." The Kremlin's Operation Trumpnash is over. The personal fate of the American president now completely useless for Moscow is no longer interested in anyone in the Kremlin.

So, after several years of hesitation, Putin has decided on a serious new escalation in his hybrid war with the West, in which he is counting on Victory. After several days of hesitation, the West did not succumb to blackmail and did not surrender Ukraine to the aggressor. It's a good news. For Ukraine. For Russia. For the world.

Wounded - including personally - Putin will take the next step in exacerbating the military-political situation in the foreseeable future. This is bad news. The nuclear blackmailer must be stopped at the distant approaches to the fateful step of the escalation ladder. Each new step is another step towards disaster. In the Soviet Union, this situation arose twice. Both times it was somehow resolved by the actions of the first person's inner circle. The ideal would be to remove this problem by a massive anti-war movement in Russia. But the third and last peace march in Moscow was the funeral of Boris Nemtsov.

Andrey Piontkovsky - political expert

The fact that the State Department demanded that Moscow stop supporting Assad after reports of 100 victims of the Russian-Assad forces is generally a trifle. The State Department did not even threaten them with a finger, but a little finger. It reminds me of a year and a half of negotiations between Kerry and Lavrov, when he crawled on his belly in front of Lavrov, as in front of a dominant male. And at this time the so-called. the Russian space air force committed genocide against the Sunni population. So the next demand of the State Department from Moscow is all the little things.

But what happened on the night of February 7 to 8, where, according to different each other, but confirming sources, from 300 to 400 Russian mercenaries from the so-called. Wagner's private campaign, that's important. By the way, many of them are Donbass veterans, and this is a kind of consumable for Moscow. Still, this is a colossal blow and not so much a military one. In a military sense, nothing has changed there, this oil factory, which the Russians wanted to seize, is not so important. That night, Russia received a blow as a power that solves global peace problems on a par with the United States.

For the second week now, Putin has not come out in public, some old chronicle is shown on TV. After the ideas of the "Russian world" and "Novorossiya" in Ukraine collapsed, it was necessary to distract people with a new bombing. But on the night of February 7-8, it was shown that when it comes not to television pictures, but to a real collision of American and Russian military vehicles, it was clear that the countries are in different military categories. This is how the Indians of Central America faced the conquistadors.

This impression was reinforced by the actions of Israel in the same days, which destroyed half of the Syrian air defenses supplied by Russia. The Russians also didn’t make a sound or fire in response, as they did after the American attack in April last year. Then the Russians explained that the curvature of the earth prevented them from effectively resisting enemy aircraft.

This is a visual and obvious defeat - a serious defeat for Russia in this Syrian campaign. This is the kind of Russian Tsushima of the 21st century, which I call putative. How Putin will survive this blow is difficult to judge. Moreover, if you watch Russian TV, then the harshest statements about him come not from the liberal segment, but from the national-patriotic segment. Of course? Putin simply disowned the people who died in Syria and who were apparently his most ardent supporters.

When his press secretary, Peskov, was asked a question about mourning, he asked again: "And for what reason?" These are not our servicemen, there are some Russian citizens in different countries, but we cannot follow everyone. " Like, I'm not a watchman for the mercenaries.

All this creates a rather difficult atmosphere for Putin. After all, the reaction of the national patriots is quite sane. It seemed that one could expect the words that Putin is a traitor who allowed to deal with our boys, let's take revenge, we will inflict some terrible blows. But the military people understand the balance of forces and their basic requirements now - this is not our war, we urgently need to leave Syria.

Selected passages from the interview of the famous Russian political scientist and publicist Andrei Piontkovsky on the channel "112 Ukraine" (A. Piontkovsky "Putin will be taken out of the Kremlin this year by his confidants". 4 Feb 2018 17:49:00). By the way, Piontkovsky is a prominent scientist, until January 27, a leading researcher at the Institute for Systems Analysis of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a member of the coordination council of the Russian opposition. He currently resides in the United States.
// Politics is not astronomy, where you can make almost reliable predictions for centuries and even billions of years. We cannot be sure of the future either. So they may or may not bear it. As Putin said, everything is possible in Russia. You can get rid of him without difficulty, you just need, in my opinion, the non-systemic opposition and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation to insist that V. Putin is a criminal, according to moral criteria, a criminal. Indeed, he was more than once legally and publicly accused of corruption, and he did not file a claim for the protection of honor and dignity. The prosecutor's office did not initiate criminal cases and none of the “slanderers” was convicted. The fool understands - V.V. Putin is a thief. So you give a new ballot paper with columns "Against all", a minimum turnout threshold and new electoral legislation until March 18, 2018, which would allow the prominent anti-corruption fighter A. Navalny to participate in the presidential race. One of the provisions of the New "electoral office" should be as follows: "An official who is accused of corruption and has not withdrawn this charge in court cannot be a presidential candidate." For every sage, simplicity is enough. But if there is no reaction from those in power - a boycott!

"With each year that Putin is in the presidency, the chances of the Russian Federation for continued existence are becoming less and less." //Right. Let's say in some African country there is very strong corruption in the government, and the president, it has been proven, is corrupt. Will Afrikaners be able to defeat corruption while a thief-president is in power? Every reasonable person will say yes of course not! Russia is among African countries according to the CPI, and it is headed by the World Corruptor of 2014 ... Is it clear? Any country in the world with a high level of corruption is doomed to degradation - this is
socio-economic law. That is why the most popular slogan at anti-Putin demonstrations today is: "Russia without Putin."
"Very important was Putin's speech at the meeting of both chambers of parliament on March 18, if I am not mistaken, 2014, dedicated to the annexation of Crimea." // The political scientist is mistaken: not annexation, but a long-awaited return to Russia.

About the "Kremlin report". “Not everyone has yet understood what happened: the entire political leadership of Russia has been declared a criminal group ... there is a fairly large amount of purely economic sanctions, tightening the restrictions that were before, primarily in two key areas: the possibility of financing and access to new technologies. But this is not the most important thing, but a sensational section, the so-called section 241, personal sanctions. This section obliges the intelligence of the United States within 180 days to publish all data on assets in the United States of people close to Putin, associated with him, involved in the Russian political leadership, relatives, account keepers, and so on ... The release of this data means automatic application to these assets of the current legislation on combating money laundering, obtained by criminal means, and there all this is also formulated: freezing, denial of visas to the holders themselves, their relatives, and so on. "
Host: “If you translate this into simple, human language, all these 26 years of the so-called free Russia, the leaders of the Russian Federation in large quantities poured budget money and together sent them to the United States of America so hated by them to the“ Pindos ”... the economic institute of the United States National Bureau of Econimic Research has published an accurate reference: 1.2 trillion (dollars - P. Basque).
- Yes, this is, to put it mildly, the cognitive dissonance of Russian foreign policy. In my last article I called him a little differently, said that “cognitive” is too flattering for the Russian leadership, it implies some kind of cognitive capabilities. It is rather an anal dissonance of Russian foreign policy.
“The possibilities of the Putin regime have been exhausted. The criminal scheme we talked about could not exist without a certain tacit or any kind of cooperation with the West, with the United States ... // Putin's kleptocracy, in my opinion, fell into the American trap, well-developed in practice - to accept the loot, and then to appropriate this loot under a plausible pretext.

About Alexei Navalny. - I like what he is doing now in the fight against Putin. I, as you understand, have very serious ideological disagreements with him ... over everything that is happening to him now, it is clear that he has serious supporters and patrons in power ... but instead of scourging him for this, I think this is a positive factor for him as a political force. Navalny's supporters are people, most likely in the power structures, and they are most likely clearly unhappy with Putin ... and this has escalated recently ... And now he turned to harsh and merciless criticism of Putin, the same
mocking, as in relation to Medvedev. This is encouraging to me, because it means that Navalny's allies are moving to the stage of a more decisive struggle with Putin.

- What do you think about Ksyusha Sobchak and her possible presidential nomination
Russia? - Well, this is not a serious topic for our discussion with you.

“And by the way, why am I now supporting Navalny? In March and June last year, at his call, tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest. Moreover, these were not some of his fanatics, they did not chant: "Long live Navalny!" - they chanted: "Putin is a thief!" The novelty of this protest lies in two very important, promising factors. The first is demographic: well, young people! Previously, our generation walked, and now it is 16-25 years old, the generation that grew up under Putin. And the second one is regional. If earlier it was a Moscow and a little St. Petersburg get-together, now hundreds of cities are involved.

"... the real way to remove Putin is not some kind of popular uprising, but a palace coup, but after all, a palace coup is maturing only in an atmosphere of mass discontent, it must also rely on something."
- that is, your words that Putin will be taken out of the Kremlin by his own confidants, no one else, are relevant as ever? - Yes, yes, and it seems that many of them think about it, especially after the ultimatum of the United States Congress, which is an unprecedented phenomenon in American politics: almost unanimously

- What do you think about the political prospects of Garry Kasparov? - When, after the fall of Putin, he returns to Russia, I think he will be a very active political figure.

About the murder of Nemtsov. “He was killed practically on Red Square, where every centimeter is monitored by video systems and guarded by armed men, that is, this murder took place with the assistance of the Federal Security Service, the Federal Security Service, and all the higher Russian power structures. It could not take place without the knowledge, consent, order, wishes, hint of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
- Do you think that Putin knew about this? - You cannot kill a person of this rank in Red Square without the consent and desire of Putin.

- Please tell me: does Russia personally depend on Chechnya and Ramzan Kadyrov? - Well, Putin is very dependent on him, because his entire legalization of power since 1999 is based on the fact that he defeated terrorism in Chechnya and protected us, whom terrorists blew up in our houses. That is, if Kadyrov opposes Putin, it will mean that Putin has lost the Chechen war.

- Do you respect Ramzan Kadyrov as a strong leader capable of subjugating the Russian establishment? - Well, Kadyrov is a criminal, the word “respect” would not be entirely accurate, but I see in him precisely these qualities that you are talking about.
- Does he have problems with the Kremlin security officials? - They hate him! And the entire investigation of the Nemtsov case is a direct confrontation between the security officials and Putin. They accused Kadyrov, and only Kadyrov, and demanded his head. And by the way, this irreconcilable confrontation over Chechnya aggravates the current split of the elite, which we are talking about.

- Is Putin really supported by 86% of Russians? - Nonsense! Look, a Soviet man is sitting at home, a stranger calls him and asks: "Are you for Putin or not?" All his 100-year genetic experience suggests that one should say “for”, which translated into Russian means “and you went - you know where?”.

- Will Putin be elected president of Russia again in March? - It seems to me that the contradictions that we talked about today ... will not allow the process, which in our country is called elections, to go smoothly. After all, the elections will not be on March 18, they are being held now ... in closed residences, where the security forces decide the fate of both their own and Putin's.
- So you can assume that Putin will not be elected in March? - There won't be these elections already, do you understand?
- So you can imagine that the March presidential elections in Russia will not take place? - Yes. And I once again insist on my formulation: the word "elections" is conditional. The elections are taking place now ... But it is not 140 million Russians who are elected, but 140 those top gentlemen whose assets in America are in limbo.
- The last question: are there high-profile events in the near future? - Yes,
definitely!
Published: 05.02.2018

The fact that the State Department demanded that Moscow stop supporting Assad after reports of 100 victims of the Russian-Assad forces is generally a trifle. The State Department threatened them not even with a finger, but with a little finger. This reminds me of a year and a half of negotiations between Kerry and Lavrov when he was crawling on his belly. before Lavrov, as in front of a dominant male. The Russian space air force was committing genocide against the Sunni population, so the State Department's next demand from Moscow is all the little things.

But what happened on the night of February 7 to 8, where, according to different each other, but confirming sources, from 300 to 400 Russian mercenaries from the so-called. Wagner's private campaign, this is important. By the way, many of them are veterans of Donbass, and this is kind of a consumable for Moscow. But still this is a colossal blow and not so much a military one. In a military sense, nothing has changed there, this oil factory, which the Russians wanted to seize is not so important. That night, Russia was hit as a power that solves global peace problems on a par with the United States.

For the second week now, Putin has not come out to people, on TV they show some old chronicle. After the ideas of the Russian world and Novorossiya collapsed in Ukraine, it was necessary to distract people with a new bombing. But on the night of February 7-8 it was shown that when it comes not to television pictures, but to a real clash of American and Russian military vehicles, it was clear that the countries were in different military categories. This is how the Indians of Central America faced the conquistadors. This impression was reinforced by the actions of Israel in those the same days that destroyed half of the Syrian air defenses deployed by Russia. The Russians didn’t squeak or fire back, as they did after the American attack in April last year. Then the Russians explained that the curvature of the earth prevented them from effectively resisting enemy aircraft.

This visual and obvious defeat is a serious defeat for Russia in this Syrian campaign. Such is the Russian tsushima of the 21st century, which I call good. How Putin will survive this blow is difficult to judge. Moreover, if you watch Russian TV, then the harshest statements. Putin's address is not from the liberal segment, but from the national-patriotic segment. Well, of course? Putin simply renounced the people who died in Syria and who, apparently, were his most ardent supporters. When his press secretary Peskov was asked the question of mourning, he asked again: “And for what reason?” These are not our servicemen, there are some Russian citizens in different countries, but we cannot keep an eye on everyone. ”Like, I’m not a watchman for mercenaries.

All this creates a rather difficult atmosphere for Putin. After all, the reaction of the national patriots is quite sensible. It seemed that one could expect the words that Putin is a traitor who allowed us to deal with our boys, let's take revenge, inflict some terrible blows. But the military people understand the balance of forces and their basic requirements now - this is not our war, we urgently need to leave Syria.

The demonstrative murder of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov on February 27, 2015 at the walls of the Kremlin was a landmark event in the history of late Putinism.

The top leaders of the ruling organized criminal group, by the very choice of the place of reprisal against their implacable opponent, frankly confessed to their crime. “We killed, sir, we can repeat it,” they said without hesitation to the stunned fellow citizens.

But this did not exhaust the significance of February 27. From the very first days of the official "investigation", the conflict within the ruling elite, including its power elements, became obvious. For the first time, Putin was challenged within the system of power itself.

The Russian security forces (primarily the FSB) used the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, organized by them, as a trigger for launching a frontal attack on Putin's project "Kadyrov", which provoked their sharp rejection from the very beginning. They have never been able to come to terms with the loss of Chechnya as a zone of their unlimited and uncontrolled power over the life and death of any of its inhabitants. Having quickly arrested several Kadyrovites involved in the crime, the investigators boldly indicated their interest in Kadyrov's immediate circle - Geremeev and Delimkhanov. And they even embarked on an expedition to Chechnya, during which they shot one of the suspects while trying to detain. The main goal of the coordinated attack by the security forces was to discredit Kadyrov in the public arena, and through him the patronage of Putin, if he refuses to surrender him.

But Putin could not surrender Kadyrov. The closure of the Kadyrov project under pressure from the security forces would be an official recognition of Russia's defeat in the second Chechen war and the declaration of a third. This is a return to 1999 in a much worse starting position and, in addition, the complete political delegitimization of Putin as "the savior of the fatherland in 1999". Putin managed to stop the security forces' attack on Kadyrov at the cost of legal absurdity. The organizer and customer of the murder was named Geremeyev's driver who had escaped from the investigation. But the security officials did not abandon their plans.

Putin has not forgotten anything and, apparently, has not forgiven anyone either. His reaction to the "riot" was a large-scale restructuring of the security forces and the creation, in essence, of his own personal guard, headed by his loyal Zolotov (350,000 fighters).

Almost four years have passed. It looks like December 31, 2018 is destined to be another important date in the history of Putin's judoheria. For almost a month now, in the course of the investigation of a series of explosions in Magnitogorsk, we have been observing a stubborn confrontation between the same government institutions as in 2015 - Putin and the FSB.

Official structures controlled by Putin, including the UK and federal TV channels, assure us that there was a gas explosion on December 31. The FSB is more and more persistently pouring through its channels (a specially created resource "Baza", etc.) information about a series of terrorist attacks prepared by the Islamist underground in Magnitogorsk, the most dangerous of which the KGB heroically managed to prevent. Now it is not even so important what was actually there (below I will express my point of view). The political meaning of this war of versions is important.

The Putin myth, as you know, was originally created by the Kremlin scoundrels after a series of house bombings in the fall of 1999 attributed to Islamic terrorists.

After that, each subsequent large-scale terrorist attack in Russia became a new injection of political Botox for Baby Tsakhes hatched from a television test tube. The myth of the Father of the Nation was strengthened in the popular consciousness, the powers of the bearer of the myth were expanded, and repressions against all who doubted were intensified.

For many years the terrorist attacks and their correct propaganda coverage served the good cause of forming the given cliches of the mass consciousness.

This was the case until the crash of the A321 passenger plane over the Sinai Peninsula on October 31, 2015. Suddenly, all of the Kremlin's propaganda efforts from the first day were aimed at supporting the version of a technical malfunction, and not a terrorist attack. Only the international nature of the investigation forced the Kremlin to dully agree, in the end, with the obvious - it was a terrorist attack.

Why did the terrorist acts of Islamists, which served it so faithfully for a decade and a half, become undesirable for the Russian propaganda machine? Why did Putin's muzzle-makers shy away from them?

This is because in September 2015, Putin's concept of fighting Islamist radicals changed dramatically. From now on, he decided to fight them not in domestic toilets, but on the distant borders of our Motherland, long before they could strike Russian territory or Russian planes.

Moreover, this deceitful ma'am about "distant frontiers" became the official justification for the Syrian military adventure, which pursued completely different goals. Here I will limit myself to one quote from this text:

We must kill them on the distant lines so that they do not come to us. The highest officials of the state, who are memorized repeating this mantra, are either deliberately lying or trying to deceive themselves. We got into the heat of the medieval religious war. Our Orthodox-Shiite Crusade will not diminish the number of Sunni radicals. On the contrary, their number will increase dramatically in Syria, Iraq and around the world. Including on the territory of Russia. Jihad is a network structure, an ideological brand. Potential terrorists do not need to crawl to us through the Caucasus and Central Asia. They have been among us for a long time and their number is growing.

They have long been among us in Magnitogorsk, and their number is growing. Such news not only does not fit into the picture of the world of Putin's propaganda today. On the contrary, she brings it down, discrediting the former alpha male who has already lost his mythological self. Therefore, all the institutions and characters that have retained their loyalty will stubbornly defend the version of the gas leak.

But the FSB, even more resolutely than three years ago, continues to pursue its independent line, engaging new and increasingly close to the mainstream media.

The FSB is not worried about the reputation of Putin's "long-range fight against terrorism." On the contrary, they rejected this concept from the very beginning, as did Putin's Kadyrov project. Kadyrov's offshore company took away the power and huge money in Chechnya from the KGB. And the shift in priorities towards “fighting on distant frontiers” reduced the power, financial, and political resources that the FSB, as a department, harnessed in the course of its fascinating twenty-year struggle against terrorism throughout Russia.

I promised to express my version of the tragic events in Magnitogorsk. It is very simple and even everyday.

In Magnitogorsk the same thing happened that all these twenty years happened in the course of resonant terrorist attacks.

The bombings of the houses that brought Putin to power. The explosion of a house in Volgodonsk was officially announced by the speaker of the Duma two days before the tragedy. Who really were the serial killers who ordered these explosions became extremely clear after their failure in Ryazan, where ordinary executors (officers of the central FSB apparatus) were grabbed by the hand.

"Nord-Ost". The surviving terrorist Terkibaev, a recruited agent of the special services, left the building unharmed and free, then managed to give a sensational interview to Novaya Gazeta, and only after that was he eliminated. And one of the organizers of the terrorist attack, Elmurzayev, was in charge of the security service of the Prima Bank, which was protected by the special services, in whose collection vehicles the terrorists moved around Moscow.

Beslan. Among the Beslan terrorists were several people, including one of their leaders, Khodov, who was released from prisons and isolation wards shortly before the attack on the school. Persons detained by the Russian special services as suspected terrorists can be free only in one capacity: as recruited agents of these special services.

Volgograd. October 2014. One of these agents, Dmitry Sokolov, the common-law husband of the shahid woman Ziyalova, was in the center of the Volgograd legend of the security forces. Our glorious bodies daily informed us that the ring of persecution around the elusive main demolitionist of the Makhachkala sabotage and terrorist group was inexorably shrinking and he was about to be captured. But why did they have to squeeze this ring with such heroic efforts, if they themselves unclenched it? He was already in their clean hands. They themselves told about it, having posted on the Internet his full-face photos and profile during the arrest. Honored Volgograd Chekist Sergey Vorontsov admitted on the air of the Nedelya program: “Yes, he was detained, we controlled him, but we could not keep track of his every step.” In the end, after the bus explosion, he was again arrested (for the umpteenth time!). Then, like a sack, it was thrown along with four unknown persons into a house on the outskirts of the city, in which, according to legend, they were all destined to die in live federal TV channels “in the process of detention”.

St. Petersburg. 2017. After the explosion in the St. Petersburg metro, we again heard the same painfully familiar Volgograd legend from a "source from the special services" - yes, we were playing an operational game with the terrorists, but they got out of our control. And it was broadcast not on some marginal site, but on the pages of the systemic pro-Kremlin Kommersant.

This is how the classic corporate identity of the FSB in its "fight against Islamist terrorism" has been taking shape for decades. The same template was worked out to automatism. Each mega-terrorist attack is an explosion of a hellish mixture of real Islamic fanatics, agent provocateurs and leaders of the regional and central levels of the FSB, who are playing an "operational game" with them. When and where this game gets out of control, or, as it were, gets out of control, depends on specific political attitudes or departmental interests.

Everything, apparently, happened in approximately the same way in Magnitogorsk. Why did it have to happen in any other way? As in any large Ural city with a sufficient number of migrants from Central Asia, there were clandestine Islamist cells in Magnitogorsk, which have significantly increased over the past three years. Local security officers were playing some kind of "operational games" with them ...

Unusual was only the rapid appearance at the scene of the tragedy of Putin, who flew in to grieve with the FSO officers. Maybe some kind of operational game was also played with him?

One way or another, the war for the interpretation of the Magnitogorsk tragedy continues. I think that the FSB will win in it and the terrorist act will be named as the cause of the explosion. The FSB is much more assertive in the information field than it was three years ago. The Special Section already knows that Little Tsakhes has three magical hairs missing. Unfortunately, in Russia there was no Hero who would publicly pluck them. They were simply eaten by the mold of Time.

Ethnologists believe that from the loss of sacredness by the leader of the Aryan tribe to mass protests, it should take about a year, therefore, until late autumn, serious unrest of the lower tribe is not expected.

But who told you that the top - this collective dollar trillionaire armed to the teeth - will passively wait for their fate for a whole year?

They will be ahead of the curve, trying to mold a new post-Putin myth by the fall. In order to intercept the agenda of the protest, this myth must, along with something sovereign, include a certain simulacrum of social justice as its absolutely obligatory element.

The kleptocrats are not capable of offering any social justice to the country they have gutted. But they can flatter the masses: preemptively "lead" a social protest and appoint several hundred of their fellow accomplices (possibly including the first person) "oligarchs who robbed the people." The sacred sacrifice will prolong the agony of the zombie regime for several more years.

The most urgent problem of the Top Transit-2019 will be the formation of a much more solid corps of new ulyukayevs, whites, sixes ...