Alles unsere Jungs, die da umgekommen sind! Unsere Jungs! Das muss man sich mal vorstellen! … Sie haben noch keinen Menschen gesehen, der über und über mit Verbrennungen bedeckt ist … Kein Gesicht, keine Augen, kein Körper … Nur gelbe Kruste — Lymphflüssigkeit. Kein Schrei, sondern ein einziges Brüllen unter dieser Kruste hervor …

Wir haben dort vom Hass gelebt, der Hass hat uns geholfen zu überleben. Schuldgefühl? Das kam erst hier, als ich alles aus der Distanz betrachtete. In Afghanistan war für mich alles gerechtfertigt, aber hier, zu Hause, packte mich das Entsetzen, als ich an das kleine Mädchen dachte, das ohne Arme und Beine im Sand lag … wie eine kaputte Puppe … Und wir haben uns gewundert, dass sie uns nicht mögen! Sie lagen bei uns im Lazarett. Du reichst einer Frau die Medizin, und sie hebt nicht mal den Blick. Sie lächelt dich nie an. Das hat gekränkt. Da, in Afghanistan, hier nicht. Hier bist du wieder ein normaler Mensch mit normalen Gefühlen …

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Wir haben nicht alle gerettet, die wir hätten retten können — das ist das Schlimme: retten können — aber mir fehlte das nötige Medikament, retten können — aber der Verwundete wurde zu spät gebracht (die Sanitäter waren schlecht ausgebildete Soldaten, die gerade mal so einen Verband anlegen konnten), retten können — ich bekam den betrunkenen Chirurgen nicht wach. Ich hätte retten können … Wir durften nicht mal die Wahrheit in den Todesbenachrichtigungen an die Angehörigen schreiben. Sie waren auf Minen getreten … Vom Menschen blieb oft nur ein halber Eimer Fleisch übrig. Wir aber schrieben: beim Verkehrsunfall umgekommen … in eine Schlucht gefallen … Lebensmittelvergiftung … Erst als sie in die Tausende gingen, durften wir den Angehörigen die Wahrheit schreiben.

—Swetlana Alexijewitsch, »Zinkjungen: Afghanistan und die Folgen«, (Berlin: Hanser, 2014), 44-45.

Regarding our perception of NATO’s eastern expansion, I already mentioned the guarantees that were made and that are not being observed today. Do you happen to think that this is normal practice in international affairs? But all right, forget it. Forget these guarantees. With respect to democracy and NATO expansion. NATO is not a universal organisation, as opposed to the UN. It is first and foremost a military and political alliance, military and political! Well, ensuring one’s own security is the right of any sovereign state. We are not arguing against this. Of course we are not objecting to this. But why is it necessary to put military infrastructure on our borders during this expansion? Can someone answer this question? Unless the expansion of military infrastructure is connected with fighting against today’s global threats? Let’s put it this way, what is the most important of these threats for us today – the most important for Russia, for the USA and for Europe – it is terrorism and the fight against it.

Does one need Russia to fight against terrorism? Of course! Does one need India to fight against terrorism! Of course! But we are not members of NATO and other countries aren’t either. But we can only work on this issue effectively by joining our forces. As such, expanding infrastructure, especially military infrastructure, to our borders is not connected in any way with the democratic choices of individual states. And I would ask that we not mix these two concepts.

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Economist, 25.08.2017:

Tikhon recalled the saying of a revered Russian bishop of the early 20th century that “Catholics are not even a church and as a result not even Christian.” The very fact that both President Putin and Patriarch Kirill used the word “church” this week when referring to Roman Catholicism will doubtless upset some purists.

Russia’s leadership are pulled in two different directions regarding relations with Rome. On the one hand, it is expedient for Russia to have a more or less friendly diplomatic interlocutor in the Western world at a time when it is under sanction from just about every other Western authority. On the other hand, upholding the doctrinal purity of eastern Christianity against all comers (in practice, against the Catholics) has been one the country’s raisons d’être since the 16th century, at least in the eyes of Russian nationalists.

While Putin is unquestionably the most powerful figure in Russia, it is clear that he does not entirely lay claim to the aura either of an absolutist tsar, as projected by his supporters, or of an autocratic despot, as proposed by his detractors. Instead of an Olympian throne, it would seem that Putin sits at the nexus of modern-day boyar clans in perpetual conflict over property, policies and perks, a new version of the Soviet Politburo, in which decisions were taken by consensus and powerful interest groups balanced each other’s potency.

The plethora of competing interest groups in the Kremlin often resembles a medieval court. While bickering, fighting and (literally) backstabbing, they can fall into line when their collective interests are threatened, and then go back to fighting again after seeing off the intruder. Ideology plays little role in elite battles – one frequently finds liberals and conservatives in the same political clique, and groups of hardliners on opposite sides.

The pluralism at the centre of Russian autocracy has been a common feature of the state for centuries. Indeed, Harvard historian Edward L. Keenan argued that the analogy to medieval court politics was appropriate up until the modern era in his classic article ‘Muscovite Political Folkways’, which showed that the notion of an omnipotent, autocratic tsar has largely been a myth throughout 500 years of Russian history. Keenan outlined instead the ways in which rule has been by a system of Kremlin court politics within which the guiding principle is consensus. Clan politics within the Kremlin, he wrote, was ‘symbolically expressed in a kind of self-imposed fictional subservience to an autocratic tsar, and ensured by the awareness that the fiction was the central element of a conspiracy against political chaos that would ensue if clan were to be set against clan’. Keenan’s conclusions appear every bit as valid today as they did 30 years ago.

In the case of Putin, his direct authority over his most senior lieutenants has been questioned by a number of analysts who argue that, rather, the president has to tack politically between these competing interests, obeying a strict balance, in order to preserve his neutrality. His political authority rests on his being primarily a problem solver and adjudicator in elite disputes. Ideology is always subservient to these more paramount considerations of elite power dynamics.

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Putin’s authority appears to rest more on the wilful suspension of disbelief of his upper-echelon elite – on their general collusion in a spectacle of awesome despotic power. The reality may be more complex: cliques and clans more or less free to challenge each other and push boundaries in a complicated and extemporaneous political theatre, with few rules and a script written by collective effort. ‘The Kremlin has many towers’, according to the well-worn saying.

—Charles Clover, Black Wind, White Snow, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 295-96.

Ill-begotten gains? The US is concerned with kleptocracy? There is some legal basis for the United States to challenge the source of funds for a Russian citizen’s yacht purchase?

Guardian:

UK defence secretary Ben Wallace has warned that having failed in his main objectives, Russian President Vladimir Putin may order his troops to fortify and dig in, and become a “cancerous growth” in Ukraine.

Interviewed on Sky News in the UK, he said the UK supported pushing Russia completely out of Ukraine, and did not rule out supporting Ukraine in recapturing Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. He said:

„It’s certainly the case that Putin, having failed in nearly all of his objectives, may seek to consolidate what he’s got. Sort of fortify and dig in as he did in 2014. And just be a sort of cancerous growth within the country of Ukraine and make it very hard for people to move them out of those fortified positions. If we want this to not happen, we have to help Ukraine try to get the limpet off the rock and keep the momentum pushing them back.

The international community believes Russia should leave Ukraine. The international community condemned Russia for its invasion of Crimea, which was illegal in 2014, [and] its invasion of Donetsk. We’ve constantly said that Russia should leave Ukraine sovereign territory, so that hasn’t changed.

There’s a long way to go before Ukraine forces are in Crimea. What I would certainly say is that we are supporting Ukraine sovereign integrity. We’ve done that all along. Now of course that includes Crimea.

Pravda:

Pravda:

Dan Sabbagh, Guardian:

While the west toughens its stance over Putin’s invasion, it is rejecting his foreign minister’s claim that Nato is in a proxy war with Russia

Step by step, the west’s war aims are expanding. What began as an effort to supply “defensive weapons” to Ukraine has evolved into an attempt to provide heavier weaponry.

…

On Monday Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, said the west’s goal was to “weaken Russia” to the point where it could no longer invade or threaten its neighbours.

A day later the British junior defence minister James Heappey said it would be “completely legitimate” for Ukraine to use western weapons to strike inside Russia if need be.

These are different, more specific, statements, compared with some of the broad-brush rhetoric used in the early phase of the war when Russian forces were menacing Kyiv, and Ukraine’s crisis seemed existential.

…

On Monday, Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said that Nato was “in essence … engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy” in an interview where he also warned of the risks of a third world war and even nuclear conflict.

Nato is not at war with Russia, but it is hard not to conclude that the west is engaged in a proxy fight because of the ongoing arms supply. Nevertheless, western officials reject Lavrov’s proxy war description, because they do not want to lend legitimacy to any Russian reprisals beyond Ukraine’s territory.