Cicero's Songs

I make no apology for maintaining a string of posts on the subject of Russia. The fact is that Putin's mafia state, nuclear armed as it is, poses an existential threat to the freedom and prosperity of the West and to the peace of the whole world. Russian-sponsored brutality in Ukraine, now thrown into sharp relief by the appalling mass killing of flight MH17, should disgust all civilised human beings. The initial shock of that act of barbarism may be wearing off somewhat, but its place is emerging a whole variety of questions. From "how could they do this?" has emerged another question: "What does Russia want?", yet as it becomes clear how disconnected and incompetent the Putin regime has become, and even bigger question is emerging: "Can Russia survive?" At first glance, such a question may seem to be simply absurd, or to play into the hands of the most paranoid Putinista. Yet, the scale of the human rights breakdown under Putin is now so complete

For the last few months the government of the Russian Federation has been on the offensive on multiple fronts. In cyberspace, in Syria and Iraq, Russian government agents have been active against Western interests. Internationally, through RT and other mouthpieces, official or not, Moscow has created a slick propaganda machine to set out a case against Western policies. Domestically in Russia, of course the free media has finally ceased to exist. Increasingly, Human Rights have been crushed and what passes for Russian political culture is wrapped in a brutal authoritarianism whose strident nationalism strongly resembles those of the Fascist dictatorships of the 1930s. As this blog has warned repeatedly, Russia has become an enemy power.  The image of Vladimir Putin has hitherto been one of an ice cold, intelligent, strategist seeking to probe and develop weaknesses in the Western system- a system that he has maintained an unrelenting hatred for.  Yet as the Ukrainian crisis has u

The advent of a significant Ukrainian advance in the Donbas has opened up scads of poorly informed speculation in the Western press. The fact remains that Russia has increased its direct involvement in the conflict, not reduced it. The so-called "rebels" are Russian led, Russian equipped and indeed much of the military personnel is Russian too. The Ukrainian-Russian border is being held open on the Russian side in order to permit the transit of large amounts of heavy weapons to the puppet army that Putin claims to deny all knowledge of. This is a flagrant violation of international law- it is an act of war against a sovereign nation in the same way that Iraq's war against Kuwait was in 1990. Permitting this outrage to continue is extremely dangerous.  Russia is a mafia state led by murderous criminals and their contempt for law, both domestic and international is a threat to global peace and security, not merely the health and prosperity of Ukraine. Russia is an ex