Donnie's Hero, Vlad has started the war

[merh]

Sept 1, 2022 1:48:00 GMT abbey1227 said:

Aug 31, 2022 23:42:23 GMT merh said:

Why don't you ask the friend?

Article didnt mention that.

He lives in Russia so he's probably been a tad more focused on what the leader of his country was doing to dismantle his work.

Sort of like when I point out I have no control over Saudi Arabia so while I may dislike how they treat LGBTQ, all I can do is boycott product from there where I can. 

like gasoline?

How do I know my gas is from there?
Arent we energy independent?

[abbey1227]

Sept 1, 2022 13:18:52 GMT merh said:

Sept 1, 2022 1:48:00 GMT abbey1227 said:

like gasoline?

How do I know my gas is from there?
Arent we energy independent?

Serious?

This may be a great example of how our chosen 'news' sources tend to feed us information on a very selective level

We WERE energy independent for the first time in a very long time under Trump. But since then the attack on our oil industry has been pretty steady. You forget Biden basically begging Saudi Arabia and others to up their production recently? They really needed the help in getting those high gas prices to fall before the midterms

[merh]

Sept 1, 2022 13:43:00 GMT abbey1227 said:

Sept 1, 2022 13:18:52 GMT merh said:

How do I know my gas is from there?
Arent we energy independent?

Serious?

This may be a great example of how our chosen 'news' sources tend to feed us information on a very selective level

We WERE energy independent for the first time in a very long time under Trump. But since then the attack on our oil industry has been pretty steady. You forget Biden basically begging Saudi Arabia and others to up their production recently? They really needed the help in getting those high gas prices to fall before the midterms

Nope.
We were energy independent in 2021 as well, dude.

Its moot as we didn't nationalize our oil industry so they are free to sell wherever, not just here.

In total energy consumption, the US produces more energy than it uses. In May 2011, the country became a net exporter of refined petroleum products. By 2014, the United States was the world's third largest producer of crude oil, after Saudi Arabia and Russia, and second-largest exporter of refined products, after Russia. In November 2019, the United States became a net exporter of all oil products, including both refined petroleum products and crude oil. By 2021 the US was the world's largest producer.

As of March 2015, 85% of crude oil imports came from (in decreasing volume): Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela, and Colombia. Nineteen percent of imported oil came from the Middle East. The fraction of crude oil consumed in the US that was imported went from 35% immediately before the 1973 oil crisis, peaked at 60% in 2005, and then returned to 35% by 2013 thanks to increased domestic production from the shale oil boom. Beginning in the 1970s, exports of crude oil were illegal without a permit; in 2013, the United States physically exported a relatively small amount of oil, and only to Canada.The ban was repealed in 2015.

Dude, I have pointed out to you in the past when you pitched this idea.

www.factcheck.org/2022/03/examining-u-s-energy-independence-claims/

Examining U.S. ‘Energy Independence’ Claims
By D'Angelo Gore

Posted on March 9, 2022

When politicians say that the United States was “energy independent” under former President Donald Trump, some people may get the false impression that the U.S. was 100% self-sufficient. The country still relied on foreign sources of energy, including oil.

To help meet domestic demand, the U.S. has imported oil and other forms of energy from abroad, including from Russia, for many years. And to some energy analysts, a scenario in which the U.S. relies only on the energy it produces is not likely to happen anytime soon.

Instead, those who tout this so-called “energy independence” may be referring to the fact that, on net, the country either produced more energy than it consumed, exported more energy than it imported, or, more specifically, had a greater number of exports than imports of petroleum, which includes crude oil and refined products from crude oil, such as gasoline and various fuels.

However, by any of those definitions, the U.S. was still “energy independent” in 2021 under President Joe Biden — contrary to claims made by Republicans who have suggested otherwise.

www.factcheck.org/2022/03/examining-u-s-energy-independence-claims/

[abbey1227]

Sept 1, 2022 14:23:07 GMT merh said:

Instead, those who tout this so-called “energy independence” may be referring to the fact that, on net, the country either produced more energy than it consumed, exported more energy than it imported, or, more specifically, had a greater number of exports than imports of petroleum, which includes crude oil and refined products from crude oil, such as gasoline and various fuels.

so it's all just a matter of which facts/stats we choose to look at once again?  

[merh]

September 1, 20222:14 PM PDT
Last Updated 4 hours ago
Putin denies Gorbachev a state funeral and will stay away
By Felix Light






3 minute read
Sept 1 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin is to miss the funeral of the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, denying the man who failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet empire the full state honours granted to Boris Yeltsin.

Gorbachev, idolised in the West for allowing eastern Europe to escape Soviet communist control but unloved at home for the chaos that his "perestroika" reforms unleashed, will be buried on Saturday after a public ceremony in Moscow's Hall of Columns.

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The grand hall, within sight of the Kremlin, hosted the funerals of Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin and Leonid Brezhnev. Gorbachev will be given a military guard of honour - but his funeral will not be a state one.

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State television on Thursday showed Putin solemnly placing red roses beside Gorbachev's coffin - left open as is traditional in Russia - in Moscow's Central Clinical Hospital, where he died on Tuesday aged 91.

Putin made a sign of the cross in Russian Orthodox fashion before briefly touching the edge of the coffin.

"Unfortunately, the president's work schedule will not allow him to do this on Sept. 3, so he decided to do it today," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

He said Gorbachev's ceremony would have "elements" of a state funeral, and that the state was helping to organise it.

Nevertheless, it will be a marked contrast to the funeral of Yeltsin, who was instrumental in sidelining Gorbachev as the Soviet Union fell apart and hand-picked Putin, a career KGB intelligence officer, as the man most suited to succeed him.

When Yeltsin died in 2007, Putin declared a national day of mourning and, alongside world leaders, attended a grand state funeral in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

Russia's intervention in Ukraine appears aimed at reversing at least in part the collapse of the Soviet Union that Gorbachev failed to prevent in 1991.

Gorbachev's decision to let the countries of the post-war Soviet communist bloc go their own way, and East and West Germany to reunify, helped to trigger nationalist movements within the 15 Soviet republics that he was powerless to quell.

Five years after taking power in 2000, Putin called the breakup of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century".

It took Putin more than 15 hours after Gorbachev's death to publish a restrained message of condolence that said Gorbachev had had a "huge impact on the course of world history" and "deeply understood that reforms were necessary" to tackle the problems of the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

[abbey1227]

Sept 2, 2022 1:30:07 GMT merh said:

September 1, 20222:14 PM PDT
Last Updated 4 hours ago
Putin denies Gorbachev a state funeral and will stay away

Five years after taking power in 2000, Putin called the breakup of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century".

it was...........it almost ruined Russia entirely. Gorby was their Obama. And I love how they're speaking for a dead man now.

Found this though...........

World
russia
Exclusive: Gorbachev Blames the U.S. for Provoking 'New Cold War'
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Berlin, Nov. 8, 2014.
Sean Gallup—Getty Images  By Simon Shuster   December 11, 2014 2:24 PM EST

In the offices of Mikhail Gorbachev, still sharp at 83 and plainspoken as ever, the walls are lined with photos from his travels as the leader of the Soviet Union and, in the years after its demise, as a living icon of the Cold War. One picture shows him with his late wife Raisa standing arm-in-arm with Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. In another frame he wears a cowboy hat and jeans as he stands beside Ronald Reagan, the U.S. President who famously branded Gorbachev’s country an “evil empire” in 1983. These portraits, like many others in his Moscow office, betray Gorbachev’s affection for his former American adversaries.

But in the course of this year those feelings seem to have been subsumed in a rising sense of animosity, as Russia and the West enter what Gorbachev calls a new Cold War. “Are we in the middle of a new Cold War? Indeed we are,” he tells TIME in an interview last month at the Moscow branch of the Gorbachev Foundation, the international advocacy group he founded in 1991, when he was forced to resign from his post as President due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

MORE: Vladimir Putin, TIME Person of the Year runner-up

The elder statesman, who was named TIME’s Person of the Year in 1987 and ‘Man of the Decade’ two years later, is not the first to declare the start of a new Cold War this year. Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March has caused officials and pundits around the world to warn that the West’s efforts to isolate Russia have opened a dangerous gulf between them. But the roots of the present standoff run deeper than this spring, says Gorbachev, and the blame for it lies with the Americans.


In the years that followed the Soviet collapse, the West “tried to turn us into some kind of backwater, a province,” he says. “Our nation could not let that pass. It’s not just about pride. It’s about a situation where people speak to you however they want, impose limitations, and so on. It’s America calling the shots in everything!”

For a country whose leaders remember the years when Russia was a superpower, the American dominance of global affairs has always been a taunting reality and a constant source of frustration. Instead of treating Russia as an equal partner, the West tried to “push us out of politics,” says Gorbachev, most recently during the revolution that brought a pro-Western government to power in Ukraine early this year. Vladimir Putin’s reaction to that uprising sought to claw back some of the influence Russia had lost, and for that the Russian President has earned Gorbachev’s admiration.

“Putin started acting on his own,” says Gorbachev, referring to the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. “And his position was in the interests of the majority.”

Even a year ago such praise would have been hard to imagine coming from Putin’s Soviet predecessor. In the spring of 2013, Gorbachev attacked Putin for persecuting opposition activists and silencing dissent. He called that year’s crackdown an “attack on the rights of citizens” during an interview with the BBC, and gave Putin the following advice: “For goodness sake, you shouldn’t be afraid of your own people…What people want and expect their president to do is to restore an open, direct dialogue with them.”

Such criticism has since vanished from Gorbachev’s public remarks, much as it has from the rhetoric of many of Putin’s former critics. The annexation of Crimea sent the President’s approval ratings soaring to record highs of well over 80% this year, driven upward by a jingoistic sense of pride even as Western sanctions eat into the value of the Russian currency and push its economy toward recession. Gorbachev now seems willing to forgive Putin for his authoritarian tendencies as long as he works to restore the “great power” status that Russia lost.

“There are still elements of autocracy, of authoritarianism” in Russia today, he tells TIME. “But I’ll say this. The manual control of authoritarianism was also needed to overcome the situation that our friends, our former friends and allies, created for Russia by pushing us out of geopolitics.”

The new East-West divide does evoke a sense of foreboding in Gorbachev. In particular Putin’s recent warnings that Russia is a “nuclear power,” and that foreigners would be wise “not to mess with us,” all feel like reminders of the arms race that kept the world on the edge of a catastrophic war as Gorbachev climbed the ladder of the Soviet Communist Party to become its last General Secretary. “People are talking again not only about a new Cold War but a hot one,” he says. “It’s as if a time of great troubles has arrived. The world is roiling.”

But that does not mean that Putin should back down in the face of Western sanctions. The man who pursued reforms at home and peace talks with the West in the late 1980s now feels it must be the Americans who learn a sense of humility toward Russia and stop resisting its rightful role as a global power. “It’s hard to belittle the Russians,” says Gorbachev. “We know our worth.” And if the U.S. does start to seek a new thaw in relations with Russia, he has a fresh bit of advice to offer Putin going forward: “I learned that you can listen to the Americans, but you cannot trust them,” he says. “When they get an idea to do something, they’ll turn the world onto a different axis to get it done.”

Still, as our interview winds down, Gorbachev seems to snap back into the mode of reconciliation that won him the Nobel Peace Prize a quarter century ago. “We have to return to dialogue. We have to stop this process,” he says warily. “We have to return to what we started with at the end of the Cold War.” But so far, he admits, the world is moving in the opposite direction.

time.com/3630352/mikhail-gorbachev-vladimir-putin-cold-war/

[merh]

On September 7, the group of municipal deputies in St. Petersburg sent an official letter to the State Duma demanding federal lawmakers initiate the ouster of Putin because, according to them, the ongoing war has damaged Russia's security.

TEXT:

Russian police arrested five people who proposed officials arrest and charge Vladimir Putin with treason for his decision to launch the invasion of Ukraine, which has led to catastrophic outcomes for Russia and its interests.

"The fact that several municipal deputies in St. Petersburg, Putin’s hometown, came forward accusing [him] of treason and calling for his removal is highly significant," Rebekah Koffler, a former DIA intelligence officer and author of "Putin’s Playbook," told Fox News Digital.

"They know the punishment will be severe. They can easily face a death sentence based on Russian federal law. The significance of this act of defiance and dissent by a handful of Russian officials cannot be possibly overstated."

The deputies appealed to the central governing body known as the Duma to punish Putin for countless deaths of military personnel, prompting economic sanctions from other nations, motivating NATO to expand and leading Ukraine to build its military power.

Their first point is that the president is blamed for the loss of the army, according to Russian newspaper Kommersant. The second problem is the economy. The deputies point to the withdrawal of investors from Russia and the "brain drain."

The group also held Putin directly responsible for prompting previously neutral Finland and Sweden to join NATO, thereby increasing the alliance’s power and presence along Russia’s border.

But, one day after seven deputies drafted their appeal, authorities ordered them to report to police for "discrediting the army." Two of the deputies left without any further action.

Ukraine’s offensive against Russia in the contested eastern Donbas region has seen a sharp change in fortune. The Ukrainian military advanced 30 miles in just three days since Sept. 1, marking significant progress during a major offensive.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also claimed that the military managed to recapture nearly 400 square miles of territory held by the Russians over the past few months.

And Russia has suffered significant losses during its campaign. CIA director William Burns and British intelligence chief Sir Ronald Moore in July said they believed Russia had lost around 15,000 troops, with "maybe three times" as many troops wounded.

If Ukraine can maintain that momentum, it could revive pressure among officials to take action and change the fortunes of Russia, according to Koffler.

"It is possible they decided to risk their lives in order to build momentum among the Russian people to oust Putin, which is an incredibly difficult thing to do because Putin has surrounded himself with loyal security and intelligence operatives," Koffler explained. "Even two months ago, I would say that a coup in Russia is unlikely.

"Today, with Ukraine’s counter-offensive gaining steam and Russia having become as much of a pariah as North Korea, I don’t rule out the possibility of a regime change organized from within."

Koffler noted that the death of Mikhail Gorbachev may have prompted this act of defiance. Gorbachev played a role in repairing relations between the Soviet Union and the United States, and his funeral drew thousands of Russians to mourn him despite Putin’s attempt to downplay the significance by ruling out a full state funeral and not even appearing at the funeral himself.

"We may be witnessing the beginning of the next chapter in Russian history," Koffler said. "The transition period, if this is what it is, will be highly risky. After all, we are dealing with a nuclear power."

www.yahoo.com/news/five-russian-officials-arrested-proposing-002322781.html

[merh]

Another one.
So many accidents

Putin ally falls into the sea, adding to list of mysterious deaths suffered by Russian energy bosses
Mia Jankowicz
Tue, September 13, 2022 at 4:11 AM
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin.Contributor/Getty Images
A top Russian executive has died falling from his boat near Vladivostok, local media reports.

Ivan Pechorin has been described as an ally of Putin, who reportedly picked him for the role.

Pechorin is the latest in a string of unexplained deaths among Russian bosses.

Another Russian energy boss has died in mysterious circumstances after "falling overboard" from a boat, according to local media reports

Ivan Pechorin's body was found washed up around 100 miles from Vladivostok in Russia's far east, on Monday after a two-day search, local outlet VL.ru reported.

Pechorin fell off his moving boat on September 10 as it sailed near Russky Island, the outlet reported. He was the Aviation Director for Russia's Far East and Arctic Development Corporation (KRDV), which described his death as an "irreparable loss."

The KRDV is President Vladimir Putin's project for developing the rich energy and mining resources of Russia's farthest eastern region, which has become a crucial objective under the weight of international sanctions.

According to the Mirror's Russia correspondent, he was personally selected by Putin for his role, and was described by Newsweek as Putin's "key man" in the region.


Days earlier, Pechorin spoke on a panel about transportation at an economic forum where Putin gave a keynote speech.

Born in 1983, Pechorin is the second KRDV executive to die unexpectedly this year, adding to an ever-expanding roster of Russian businessman and oligarch deaths.

In February, the same firm announced the death of its general director, Igor Nosov. The 43-year-old died of a stroke, Newsweek reported.

On September 1, state media reported the death of Ravik Maganov, chair of the board of directors of top Russian oil company Lukoil, saying he fell from a hospital window.

Lukoil had taken the unusual step of criticizing the Russian invasion of Ukraine six months earlier.

At least eight other oligarchs with connections to the energy industry have also died in mysterious circumstances in 2022.

They include Sergey Protosenya, who was found dead in Spain along with his wife and daughter in a suspected murder-suicide in April and Vladislav Avayev, also suspected of a murder-suicide just two days before in Moscow.

In May, former oil executive Alexander Subbotin died at the house of a shaman in the Moscow region, which was reported in state media as the result of a likely heart attack. According to Newsweek, he was seeking a hangover cure.

Then in July, shipping CEO Yuri Baranov was found dead of a gunshot wound in his St Petersburg swimming pool.

Read the original article on Business Insider

[merh]

Damn
Another day, another...

Another Putin Ally Dead After ‘Suffocating’ on Business Trip
Noor Ibrahim
Wed, September 14, 2022 at 11:21 AM
KP Russia Twitter
KP Russia Twitter
Another top ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin has died this week, this time of an alleged “stroke” while on a business trip in the village of Roshchino in Russia’s far east region.

Vladimir Nikolayevich Sungorkin, 68, was editor-in-chief of the Russian state newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda. According to the newspaper, Sungorkin died “suddenly” after showing signs of “suffocation” during the trip on Wednesday.

“It happened absolutely suddenly, nothing foreshadowed. We were in the village of Roshchino. We were driving, we were already making our way towards Khabarovsk, we planned to get there in the evening today, and from there to Moscow. All was good,” his colleague Leonid Zakharov, who had accompanied him on the business trip, wrote in a story for KP.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences.
Update your settings here to see it.
According to Zakharov, Sungorkin fell unconscious minutes after suggesting their group “find a beautiful place somewhere… for lunch.”

“Three minutes later, Vladimir began to suffocate. We took him out for fresh air, he was already unconscious… Nothing helped. The doctor who did the initial examination said that apparently, it was a stroke. But this is the initial conclusion,” his colleague wrote.



Sungorkin’s passing comes amid a string of mysterious deaths of top Putin allies this month. Most recently, Ivan Pechorin, aviation director for Russia’s Far East and Arctic Development Corporation, was reported dead after allegedly “falling from a boat” in Vladivostok, according to local Russian media outlets.

The Komsomolskaya Pravda has long been known as a staunch pro-Kremlin newspaper.

“The legendary Komsomolka has traveled a long creative path over these years and has written brilliant unforgettable pages in the history of the Russian media,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a statement congratulating the newspaper on the 95th anniversary of its first issue in 2020. “It is crucial that the current staff of the newspaper pass on these traditions from generation to generation and strive to retain the newspaper’s flagship position in the Russia media market.”

www.yahoo.com/news/another-putin-ally-dead-suffocating-182142397.html

[abbey1227]

Sept 14, 2022 19:19:55 GMT merh said:

Damn
Another day, another...

Another Putin Ally Dead After ‘Suffocating’ on Business Trip
Noor Ibrahim
Wed, September 14, 2022 at 11:21 AM
KP Russia Twitter
KP Russia Twitter
Another top ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin has died this week, this time of an alleged “stroke” while on a business trip in the village of Roshchino in Russia’s far east region.

Vladimir Nikolayevich Sungorkin, 68, was editor-in-chief of the Russian state newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda. According to the newspaper, Sungorkin died “suddenly” after showing signs of “suffocation” during the trip on Wednesday.

“It happened absolutely suddenly, nothing foreshadowed. We were in the village of Roshchino. We were driving, we were already making our way towards Khabarovsk, we planned to get there in the evening today, and from there to Moscow. All was good,” his colleague Leonid Zakharov, who had accompanied him on the business trip, wrote in a story for KP.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences.
Update your settings here to see it.
According to Zakharov, Sungorkin fell unconscious minutes after suggesting their group “find a beautiful place somewhere… for lunch.”

“Three minutes later, Vladimir began to suffocate. We took him out for fresh air, he was already unconscious… Nothing helped. The doctor who did the initial examination said that apparently, it was a stroke. But this is the initial conclusion,” his colleague wrote.



Sungorkin’s passing comes amid a string of mysterious deaths of top Putin allies this month. Most recently, Ivan Pechorin, aviation director for Russia’s Far East and Arctic Development Corporation, was reported dead after allegedly “falling from a boat” in Vladivostok, according to local Russian media outlets.

The Komsomolskaya Pravda has long been known as a staunch pro-Kremlin newspaper.

“The legendary Komsomolka has traveled a long creative path over these years and has written brilliant unforgettable pages in the history of the Russian media,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a statement congratulating the newspaper on the 95th anniversary of its first issue in 2020. “It is crucial that the current staff of the newspaper pass on these traditions from generation to generation and strive to retain the newspaper’s flagship position in the Russia media market.”

www.yahoo.com/news/another-putin-ally-dead-suffocating-182142397.html

He's like Dr. Evil

Soon he'll have more confirmed kills than the Clintons. 

[merh]

Ironically, former agent Charles McGonigal was involved in the investigation of Trump campaign officials' contact with Russia during the 2016 election.

TEXT:

A former high-level FBI agent who was involved in the investigation into the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia during the 2016 election has himself come under scrutiny by federal prosecutors for his ties with Russia and other foreign governments.

Late last year, according to internal court documents obtained by Insider, US attorneys secretly convened a grand jury that examined the conduct of Charles McGonigal, the former head of counterintelligence at the FBI field office in New York City. The Justice Department declined to comment on what the grand jury was investigating or whether it remained ongoing. But a witness subpoena obtained by Insider seems to indicate that the government, in part, was looking into McGonigal's business dealings with a top aide to Oleg Deripaska, the billionaire Russian oligarch who was at the center of allegations that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign to interfere in the 2016 election.

The subpoena, issued in November, requests records relating to McGonigal and a shadowy consulting firm called Spectrum Risk Solutions. A week after the subpoena was issued, a Soviet-born immigrant named Sergey Shestakov said in a separate filing that McGonigal had helped him "facilitate" an introduction between Spectrum and Deripaska's aide. The filing also states that McGonigal helped introduce the aide to Kobre & Kim, a New York law firm that specializes in representing clients who are being investigated on suspicion of "fraud and misconduct." Shestakov, who has been identified on TV panels as a former Soviet foreign ministry official and former chief of staff to the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, reported receiving $33,000 for the referrals.

While it wouldn't necessarily have been illegal for McGonigal to work on behalf of Deripaska, failing to disclose activities covered by the Foreign Agents Registration Act, such as lobbying and public relations, is punishable by a $250,000 fine and up to five years in prison. Deripaska was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in 2018 for acting as an agent for the Kremlin, and has been accused of ordering the murder of a businessman. "If McGonigal is mixed up in any way shape or form with Deripaska, that strikes me as unseemly, to put it politely," says Tim Weiner, the author of "Enemies: A History of the FBI."

Neither McGonigal nor those he is cited as dealing with responded to requests for comment from Insider. "This is not an area where we can provide a statement at this time," a representative for Kobre & Kim said.

It is not clear whether McGonigal is a target of the grand-jury investigation, or simply a subject whose activities are somehow related to it. And there is nothing in the court documents or elsewhere to suggest that McGonigal behaved inappropriately during the FBI's investigation of the Trump campaign. But the materials requested in the witness subpoena raise questions about whether a top FBI agent may have been tapping the connections he made during his years of public service for private gain — an all-too-common practice among Washington insiders. And whatever McGonigal's actions, the fact that he has been swept up in a grand-jury investigation is highly unusual. According to a former senior official at the Justice Department who asked not to be identified, prosecutors almost never consider charges against someone so high up in the FBI. "It's very rare that former FBI people at all, and certainly former senior FBI people, wind up as grand-jury targets," the official said.

The federal scrutiny of McGonigal is especially striking given his work at the FBI. Before his retirement in 2018, McGonigal led the WikiLeaks investigation into Chelsea Manning, busted Bill Clinton's national security advisor Sandy Berger for removing classified material from a National Archives reading room, and led the search for a Chinese mole inside the CIA. In 2016, when reports surfaced that Russia had hacked the email system of the Democratic National Committee, McGonigal was serving as chief of the cybercrimes section at FBI headquarters in Washington. In that capacity, he was one of the first officials to learn that a Trump campaign official had bragged that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, sparking the investigation known as Operation Crossfire Hurricane. Later that year, FBI Director James Comey promoted McGonigal to oversee counterintelligence operations in New York.

According to the witness subpoena, prosecutors are also looking into whether McGonigal has ties to the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as any "payments or gifts" he was provided by the governments of Kosovo, Montenegro, and Albania.

Two sources told Insider that McGonigal was close to Edi Rama, who has served as the prime minister of Albania since 2013. According to an email reviewed by Insider, McGonigal used his official FBI email account to try to arrange a meeting between Rama and an American firm the prime minister was thinking about hiring for an anti-corruption initiative. In the end, the FBI didn't give McGonigal approval for the meeting, and it never took place.

A representative for Rama said the prime minister's relationship with McGonigal was "a totally private friendly relationship of no public interest. We have no idea about any grand jury and no US authority has ever contacted us about it. There have never been meetings with firms, gifts, payments, travel reimbursements before or after Mr. McGonigal left his job."

Since he left the FBI, McGonigal has continued to trade on his expertise in counterintelligence. In 2020, months after his reported assistance to Deripaska's aide, he appeared on a panel at the Atlantic Council, where he condemned the corruption of Russia's security services. "You are seeing an erosion in any rule of law as it relates to the FSB," he said. "It would be akin to having in the United States the FBI as a rogue element, operating at the behest of the highest bidder."

McGonigal's profile on LinkedIn says he is the senior vice president of "global security and life safety" at Brookfield Properties, a multibillion-dollar real-estate company in New York. But that information, apparently, is inaccurate. "Charlie McGonigal is no longer with Brookfield," Andrew Brent, Brookfield's head of communications, told Insider. McGonigal left the company, he added, in early January — just as witnesses were scheduled to appear before the grand jury.

www.businessinsider.com/exclusive-fbi-charles-mcgonigal-trump-russia-grand-jury-oleg-deripaska-2022-9

[merh]

''The seeds of peace, not dragon's teeth!'' - German cartoon from ''Kladderadatsch'' magazine (artist: Arthur Johnson), March 1936

[merh]

Putin Ally Dies After Falling Down Stairs on Day of Russia Mobilization
BY GIULIA CARBONARO ON 9/21/22 AT 9:32 AM EDT


The former head of the Moscow Aviation Institute has died after falling down "several flights of stairs," the institute reported Wednesday.


Scientist Anatoly Gerashchenko, 72, "fell from a great height," according to the university, which described his death in the Russian capital as an accident.


The institute also said paramedics were called to the scene but pronounced Gerashchenko dead in the same location. The place where he reportedly fell to his death is still unknown.

"At the moment, a commission is being formed to investigate this fact, which will include representatives of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science, the State Labor Inspectorate in Moscow and the Moscow Aviation Institute," the university told Russia's state news agency Tass.

Gerashchenko had been the rector of the Moscow Aviation Institute from 2007 to 2015. Recent reports in the Russian media said Gerashchenko had been working as an adviser to the current rector, Mikhail Pogosyan.

Gerashchenko is the latest of several Russian businessmen, prominent figures and former allies of Vladimir Putin who have died in mysterious circumstances since the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, and the third this month.

Anatoly Gerashchenko, the former head of Moscow's Aviation Institute (MAI), was found dead on September 21 after reportedly falling from "a great height."
TELEGRAM

Only a week ago, the body of businessman Ivan Pechorin was reportedly found dead in the city of Vladivostok in Russia's far east. The death of Pechorin, the top manager for the Far East and Arctic Development Corporation, was reported by his company on September 12.

According to Russian news agency RIA Novosti, Pechorin drowned.

"Ivan's death is an irreparable loss for friends and colleagues, a great loss for the corporation. We offer our sincere condolences to family and friends," a statement from the company reads.

At the beginning of the month, Ravil Maganov, chairman of Russia's second-largest oil producer and biggest private oil company Lukoil, was found dead after falling from the window of a hospital in Moscow, according to reports in Russian media.

A list of all the Russian officials and public figures who have died under mysterious circumstances since the beginning of the war in Ukraine can be found here.

Gerashchenko's death was announced on the day Putin declare partial mobilization in Russia. His decree includes a plan to call up some 300,000 reservists to help the Kremlin meet its operational goals in Ukraine.


One-way flights from Moscow to visa-free countries were sold out within minutes of Putin's televised address. Protests against the mobilization order were seen in a number of Russian cities.

ErikTenShag•2 hr. ago
Gravity is such an issue in Russia

New-Ad-1380•2 hr. ago
Gravity is a western anti cremlin new arm

dr4kun•1 hr. ago
Are all those 'serial suicides and accidents' about (a) Putin removing his opposition, (b) Putin removing his own weak allies who may know too much, (c) FSB removing Putin's allies to alienate him before outing him, (d) a mix of these, (e) other?

With so many 'accidents', what does it say about those oligarchs who haven't been assassinated? As in - if it's Putin removing his opposition, it means that those not being targeted are still on his side (or are not yet easy enough to remove). Like... as an example: where's Abramovich now and what does it tell us about his allegiances?

Quirky-Garbage-6208•1 hr. ago
To be honest, as a Russian I think reason is a little bit other (but closer to a) : people consider them "Putin allies" but in fact they never were, but still they were people with some power. Russia is super corrupted on high levels, so I think that after war started Putin people started to check where is money goes in reality, so they found "top faces" with stole a big amount of money or accused them in receiving some money from west or to help west. So it's most like e) for whatever the reason, Putin remove people which he found made some big mistake or would likely to betray him so he change them on more loyal ones

[abbey1227]

Sept 21, 2022 15:48:07 GMT merh said:

Putin Ally Dies After Falling Down Stairs on Day of Russia Mobilization

dr4kun•1 hr. ago
Are all those 'serial suicides and accidents' about (a) Putin removing his opposition, (b) Putin removing his own weak allies who may know too much, (c) FSB removing Putin's allies to alienate him before outing him, (d) a mix of these, (e) other?

With so many 'accidents', what does it say about those oligarchs who haven't been assassinated? As in - if it's Putin removing his opposition, it means that those not being targeted are still on his side (or are not yet easy enough to remove). Like... as an example: where's Abramovich now and what does it tell us about his allegiances?

Quirky-Garbage-6208•1 hr. ago
To be honest, as a Russian I think reason is a little bit other (but closer to a) : people consider them "Putin allies" but in fact they never were, but still they were people with some power. Russia is super corrupted on high levels, so I think that after war started Putin people started to check where is money goes in reality, so they found "top faces" with stole a big amount of money or accused them in receiving some money from west or to help west. So it's most like e) for whatever the reason, Putin remove people which he found made some big mistake or would likely to betray him so he change them on more loyal ones

Sheesh, he might be in danger of surpassing the Clintons at this rate

[merh]

Sept 22, 2022 1:36:40 GMT abbey1227 said:

Sept 21, 2022 15:48:07 GMT merh said:

Sheesh, he might be in danger of surpassing the Clintons at this rate

I like the gravity joke.
Damn.

[merh]

Kidnapping as well

Parents from a Ukrainian village are desperately trying to locate their children after sending them to a summer camp hundreds of miles away on Russia's Black Sea coast.


Deborah Haynes
Security and Defence Editor @haynesdeborah

Friday 23 September 2022 15:15, UK

The offer sounded compelling for any family living in a warzone - send your children to a summer camp in Russia to relax, enjoy the weather and swim in the sea.

The parents of 13 families in one Ukrainian village occupied by Russian forces accepted.

At around 6am on 28 August a bus arrived, picked up the children and drove them out of Ukraine to the camp, hundreds of miles away on Russia's Black Sea coast.

It was meant to be for a three-week break.

But halfway through, a Ukrainian counteroffensive across the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine unexpectedly ended the Russian occupation of their village.

Russian forces retreated without returning the children.

The mothers of two girls, one aged 13 and the other nine, are distraught.

"I am so worried," said Natalia Med, standing in the living room of her home in Kozacha Lopan, a rural village surrounded by fields that stretch up to Ukraine's border with Russia.

On the wall are several photographs of her daughter, Karina, 13, a pretty girl with long, blonde hair. Her mother described her as sensitive, chatty and fun.

"I just want her to come home as soon as possible so I can hug her and kiss her," she said, starting to cry, wiping away the tears as they streaked across her cheeks.

Natalia's 13-year-old daughter went on a summer camp
The second mother, Tetiana Hlahola, 38, is also desperate for news.

Her nine-year-old daughter, Polina, similarly disappeared on the holiday bus.

"It is very difficult because I don't know what to do," she said. "We ask everyone to bring back our child… I don't know how she will be feeling right now."

She showed a video on her husband's mobile phone of her daughter dancing. It was taken just a couple of days before she left.

"We hugged. We wished each other the best. We kissed and she went," Tetiana said, describing the moment they said goodbye.

"Nobody knew it would be so difficult to get her back."

Russia is accused of forcibly relocating hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians during the war. There is no suggestion the camp was a deliberate ruse to steal children, but Moscow does not seem to be doing much to help reunite the children who are still stranded.

The Russian forces that controlled the village had told parents the Medvezhonok summer camp would be an idyllic break for the children, away from the shelling and rocket fire that intermittently shook the village given its location next to the border.

Natalia picked up a copy of a Russian newspaper in her home that carried an article on the trip and a photograph of a number of children, including Karina, departing for the camp.

"We trusted them," the mother said.

She said Karina had spent a week debating whether to go as she had not wanted to leave her mother. But in the end, she decided to attend as three other friends had signed up.

Recalling the last conversation, the mother said she had told Karina: "'Sweetheart, don't worry, everything will be fine.' She was crying on the bus. So was I. Then she was gone."

Locals at the village said the eleven other sets of parents that sent sons and daughters to the camp decided to leave with the Russians when they retreated.

Natalia said she would gladly go to Russia as well to retrieve her daughter but only if she had a guarantee that the two of them would be allowed to return home.

"I will take any chance, any lead, if any could help me," she said. She spends her time trying to obtain information from the Ukrainian authorities.

Tetiana is doing the same. She said she cannot afford to travel to Russia and does not have a passport.

"I thought they [the Russians] would deport Polina and send her home. Why do they need other people's children?" she asked.

She said she hopes that Russia is not keeping her daughter deliberately.

"We are not thinking they could be" so cruel, she said.

Tetiana offered a message directly to her little girl, saying: "Polina, my daughter, if you see me, please don't worry, don't be nervous. Father and mother will bring you home.

"Be a fighter. You know what these words mean…. We will bring you back. I promise. Just don't worry. We love you so much."

Natalia also had a message for her daughter, saying: "Daughter, I will bring you back for certain. Don't worry. We are safe. I love you and I will definitely get you back and I will never let you go. I have sorry you have had to wait so long

[merh]

Patriarch Kirill says dying in war against Ukraine "cleanses away all sins"
SUNDAY, 25 SEPTEMBER 2022, 19:41

"UKRAINSKA PRAVDA" — SUNDAY, 25 SEPTEMBER 2022, 19:41

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill has said in his Sunday sermon that "sacrifice in the course of carrying out your military duty cleanses away all sins."

Source: Russian media outlets Meduza; SOTA

Quote: "We know that many today are dying in the fields of internecine battle. The Church is praying that this battle will end as soon as possible, that as few brothers as possible will kill each other in this fratricidal war.


And at the same time, the Church realises that if someone, driven by a sense of duty and the need to honour his oath, stays loyal to his vocation and dies while carrying out his military duty, then he is, without any doubt, doing a deed that is equal to sacrifice. He is sacrificing himself for others. And, therefore, we believe that this sacrifice cleanses away all of that person’s sins."

[merh]

Apparently the Russian army is asking its new recruits to carry tampons. If you get shot you've got to put a tampon in there. But sorry, the Russian army does not have enough money to supply tampons. so they are asking recruits to ask their mom and girlfriends for tampons.

[abbey1227]

Sept 30, 2022 8:50:13 GMT merh said:

Apparently the Russian army is asking its new recruits to carry tampons. If you get shot you've got to put a tampon in there. But sorry, the Russian army does not have enough money to supply tampons. so they are asking recruits to ask their mom and girlfriends for tampons.

Bloody hell!

[merh]

Sept 30, 2022 14:25:19 GMT abbey1227 said:

Sept 30, 2022 8:50:13 GMT merh said:

Bloody hell!

Yeah, first aid.
The class we took every other year mentioned tampons are good for nosebleeds or bullet wounds.