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It's not Russia that's pushed Ukraine to the brink of war ( it WAS the USA)
The Guardian ^ | 4/30/2014 | Seumas Milne

Posted on 10/18/2016 1:13:44 PM PDT by GilGil

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To: All
Nov 2015...

Vladimir Putin's media Svengali who was found dead in DC hotel was 'murdered for being an FBI informant'


41 posted on 10/19/2016 10:53:19 AM PDT by ETL (Trump-PENCE 2016!!!)
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To: All
“Lesin was found dead before noon on Thursday, November 5, 2015, in The Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington, D.C. ...”

He was found without any identification in a hotel room that was in his name.[33][i] The original police report indicated an unknown victim in the room which was booked in his name.[33]

After much time, a member from the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., confirmed the identity of the individual as Mikhail Yuriyevich Lesin.[33][35][36][37]

A law enforcement official said there were no obvious signs of forced entry or foul play in his hotel room and that on the video surveillance, Lesin appeared disheveled when he returned to his hotel room.[3]

TASS reported that an early investigation did not find any signs of violent death, quoting a police spokesman, Sean Hickman, as saying security had not seen anything suspicious. ...”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Lesin#Death

42 posted on 10/19/2016 10:58:38 AM PDT by ETL (Trump-PENCE 2016!!!)
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To: All
UPDATE: MAR 2016...

Mikhail Lesin, Ex-Putin Aide, Died of Blunt Force Trauma in Washington: Autopsy

by Alastair Jamieson and Alexey Eremenko
Mar 11 2016

A former aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin found dead in a Washington hotel room was killed by a blunt force trauma to the head, U.S. authorities said Thursday.

Mikhail Lesin, 57, was found dead on the floor of his room in Dupont Circle on November 5.

Autopsy results show that he died from “blunt-force injuries of the head,” according to a joint statement Thursday from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and Office of the Chief Medical Examiner reported by NBC Washington, but the exact manner of death was undetermined.

Also contributing to his death were “blunt-force injuries of the neck, torso, upper extremities and lower extremities,” the statement said.

Russian media originally reported that Lesin, a former government minister, had suffered a heart attack. ...”

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/mikhail-lesin-ex-putin-aide-died-blunt-force-trauma-washington-n536456

43 posted on 10/19/2016 10:59:55 AM PDT by ETL (Trump-PENCE 2016!!!)
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To: All
MIKHAIL-LESIN-DIES

Mikhail Yuriyevich Lesin (July 11, 1958 – November 5, 2015) was a Russian political figure, media executive and an adviser to president Vladimir Putin.[1]

In 2006 he was awarded the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", one of Russia's highest state decoration for civilians.

Mikhail Lesin was nicknamed the Bulldozer because of his ability to get virtually all Russian media outlets under The Kremlin's control.[2]--wikipedia

44 posted on 10/19/2016 11:02:40 AM PDT by ETL (Trump-PENCE 2016!!!)
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To: McGruff

...the Ukrainian president was replaced by a US-selected administration...

In some parts of the world they call that a coup.

______________________

Obama messes around with the Ukraine’s elections/government but he is all in a huff when Putin wants payback and messes with Obama’s elections.


45 posted on 10/19/2016 11:03:04 AM PDT by GilGil (E. Deplorables Unum)
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To: All
Here's some additional background on the Russian-controlled media kingpin, Mikhail Lesin.

The first article is from December 2014...

_______________________________________

"Mikhail Lesin has stepped down as head of major state-controlled media holding Gazprom-Media, the company said late last week.

Gazprom-Media, whose holdings include independent radio station Ekho Moskvy, said Lesin's resignation was due to family reasons, Russian media reports said Friday.

The holding's board of directors will finalize his resignation at an upcoming meeting, Gazprom-Media was cited by Ekho Moskvy as saying. No replacement has been named.

Earlier, a flurry of reports of Lesin's imminent resignation appeared on Russian news wires, all based on undisclosed sources and giving divergent accounts of the motive.

Forbes Russia cited sources in the media and government as confirming the resignation, with one of the individuals claiming that the decision was made personally by President Vladimir Putin."

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/513690.html
_______________________________________________________

Ex-Kremlin Media Boss Hit With Call For Probe Over Pricey U.S. Real Estate

By Luke Johnson and Carl Schreck
August 01, 2014

WASHINGTON - A U.S. senator has asked federal authorities to investigate whether a powerful Russian media mogul seen as the mastermind behind the Kremlin-funded RT [RUSSIA TODAY] network used dirty money to purchase pricey California real estate.

U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (Republican-Mississippi) has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Mikhail Lesin, Russian President Vladimir Putin's former press minister, violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or laundered money by acquiring multimillion-dollar homes in the Los Angeles area.

"I...understand that following his government service, Mr. Lesin moved his immediate family to Los Angeles, California, where he acquired multiple residences at a cost of over $28 million," Wicker wrote in the July 29 letter. "That a Russian public servant could have amassed the considerable funds required to acquire and maintain these assets...raises serious questions." ..."

http://www.rferl.org/content/lesin-wicker-real-estate/25477122.html
_______________________________________________________

Here's something from 2013 on Mikhail Lesin, again, the creator of Russia Today (RT), who was found dead in a Washington DC hotel in Nov 2015...
_____________________________

The Ominous Return of Putin's Media Enforcer

Vladimir Kara-Murza
October 18, 2013

The recent return of Vladimir Putin's longtime eminence grise, Vladislav Surkov, to the Kremlin was widely discussed in the media. Much less noticed was the appointment of Mikhail Lesin, Putin's former information minister, as the new head of Gazprom-Media, Russia's largest, and de facto state-run, media group, which incorporates several broadcast, print, and online outlets.

Lesin's return to a senior position is no less symbolic than that of Surkov, and says a lot about the Kremlin's plans for Russia's few remaining uncensored media.

Lesin was a central figure in the early Putin years, spearheading the Kremlin's effort to silence the country's independent television, the first step in the consolidation of authoritarian rule.

The first target was NTV, at that time Russia's largest and most popular independent TV channel, whose hard-hitting news broadcasts, talk shows, and satirical programs criticized the government over growing corruption and the war in Chechnya and gave airtime to the opposition.

In June 2000, a month after Putin's inauguration, NTV's founder and majority shareholder, Vladimir Gusinsky, was arrested and placed in Moscow's infamous Butyrka prison.

While he was there, the information minister made an offer: Gusinsky could have his freedom if he agreed to transfer his media holdings to Gazprom, the state-owned energy monopoly.

On July 20, 2000, while still under a prosecutorial recognizance, Gusinsky signed a deal to sell his media outlets to Gazprom that included "Annex 6," which provided for the "termination of the criminal prosecution against Mr Vladimir Aleksandrovich Gusinskiy in connection with the criminal case initiated against him on 13 June 2000, his reclassification as a witness in the said case and suspension of the precautionary measure prohibiting him from leaving [the country]." "Annex 6" was personally signed by Information Minister Mikhail Lesin.

In its 2004 ruling, the European Court of Human Rights found the NTV owner's arrest to have been politically motivated and in violation of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, emphasizing in particular that "the facts that Gazprom asked the applicant to sign the July agreement when he was in prison, that a State minister [Lesin] endorsed such an agreement with his signature, and that a State investigating officer later implemented that agreement by dropping the charges strongly suggest that the applicant's prosecution was used to intimidate him."

In the end, Gusinsky refused to give up NTV (once out of Russia, he annulled the deal as having been signed under duress). The offices of Russia's largest independent television channel were forcibly taken over by Gazprom-installed security guards in the early hours of April 14, 2001. TV6, a smaller independent channel that sheltered former NTV journalists, was shut down by the authorities in January 2002. The journalists found another short-lived home in TVS, Russia's last nationwide independent television channel, which was taken off the air in June 2003. By this time, the regime no longer cared for appearances and saw no need to hide behind "legal" decisions of obedient courts: the TVS signal was switched off by a direct order of Information Minister Mikhail Lesin, who cited 'viewers' interests" as the reason for the decision.

After this state campaign against major media outlets, Lesin left the spotlight, only occasionally surfacing in the news, for instance, when he co-founded RT [Russia Today], the Kremlin's English-language propaganda mouthpiece.

His return as the new director general of Gazprom-Media could signal another attack on media pluralism in Russia. A likely target could be Ekho Moskvy radio, which, unlike other Gazprom-Media outlets (including the present pro-Kremlin NTV), continues to maintain an independent editorial line and invite opposition leaders to its studios. Many in the Russian media community took Lesin's appointment as a grim sign.

Interestingly, Lesin may become one of the first senior Putin regime officials to face consequences for his involvement in human rights abuses. Earlier this year, civil society groups reportedly proposed Lesin's name for inclusion in the US blacklist under the Magnitsky Act, which provides for visa bans and asset freezes for Russian officials involved in human rights violations.

The next update of the US list may come in December. Meanwhile, sources in the European Parliament indicate that Lesin may be placed on a European Union visa blacklist. This would come as bad news to Putin's media enforcer: according to the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, Lesin owns a 2 million, euro estate in Finland's Turku Archipelago, purchased through a company registered in the British Virgin Islands. This would indeed be a timely and appropriate message, that helping a dictatorship to muzzle the free media and enjoying the comfort of the Western world are no longer compatible.

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/vladimir-kara-murza/ominous-return-putins-media-enforcer

46 posted on 10/19/2016 11:07:27 AM PDT by ETL (Trump-PENCE 2016!!!)
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“On Friday, November 6, RIA Novosti reported that Lesin died of a heart attack citing a spokesman for the family as saying: “Today, Mikhail Lesin died ... His death came supposedly from a heart attack.”[35][38]

RT [Russia Today] reported the next day that the cause of death was a heart attack.[31][39][40][41]”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Lesin#Death


47 posted on 10/19/2016 11:17:13 AM PDT by ETL (Trump-PENCE 2016!!!)
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To: JediJones
Obama is hellbent on convincing us that Russia is evil NOW so that history can be rewritten to say it wasn’t communism that made them evil.

It's not only Obama saying that, then in Obama's case there's an entirely different thing going on (refer to my other posts on this thread as to how the O admin HELPED Russia become powerful and aggressive), it's stand-up patriots like Ted Cruz, Trump's VP, Mike Pence, and even Trump himself. See my post above where he (Trump) says KGB "Putin has eaten Obama's lunch on the Ukraine". Also the one quoting Pence.

48 posted on 10/19/2016 1:06:12 PM PDT by ETL (Trump-PENCE 2016!!!)
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To: JediJones
Obama is hellbent on convincing us that Russia is evil NOW so that history can be rewritten to say it wasn’t communism that made them evil.

Oh, I get what you're saying now. You meant he's trying to make it sound like Russia has *all of a sudden* become wicked and evil, which they were in fact then, and still are in fact now.

49 posted on 10/19/2016 1:11:14 PM PDT by ETL (Trump-PENCE 2016!!!)
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To: AppyPappy
The JBS is still around?

Unfortunately. They've adopted the anti-Israel attitude of Willis Carto's old "Liberty Lobby."

50 posted on 10/19/2016 1:17:55 PM PDT by Zionist Conspirator (Sof davar hakol nishma`; 'et-ha'Eloqim yera' ve'et-mitzvotayv shemor, ki-zeh kol-ha'adam.)
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To: Zionist Conspirator

WASHINGTON — Mikhail Y. Lesin once occupied the upper stratosphere of Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia, an advertising executive turned cabinet minister who helped carry out the state takeover of the country’s independent media and later created the Kremlin’s global English-language television network.

Until late 2014 he ran the media wing of the state’s energy giant, Gazprom, before stepping down or, more likely, being forced out. He ended up in the United States, where he and his family owned properties in Los Angeles said to be worth far more than the salary of the former government minister. And then, in November, he was found in a hotel here in Washington, the victim, the Russian state media he had helped build said, of a heart attack.

On Thursday, more than four months later, one of the questions surrounding Mr. Lesin’s death was answered: The office of the chief medical examiner in Washington announced that he had not died of a heart attack, but rather of blunt force injuries to his head. But the mystery surrounding his rise and fall only deepened.

Although the examiner and the police did not declare his death a criminal act, the authorities clearly no longer consider it to be the result of natural causes. Mr. Lesin’s body also showed signs of blunt trauma to his neck, torso, arms and legs, the result, according to one official, of some sort of altercation that happened before he returned to his room at the Dupont Circle Hotel on the night in November when he died at the age of 59.

The medical examiner’s office did not explain the timing of its announcement, nor why the findings took so long. Officials there had said as recently as Wednesday that it would not imminently release its findings, only to reverse course the next day. His death remains the subject of a police investigation, though spokesmen for the Metropolitan Police Department and the F.B.I. in Washington declined to comment.

For months, Mr. Lesin’s fate has been the subject of much speculation. In the Russian news media, he was said to have had a falling out with a major shareholder of Gazprom Media, Yuri V. Kovalchuk, an even closer business ally and friend of Mr. Putin’s. Some speculated that he had fled to the United States in a kind of self-exile, one that is not unknown among ministers and businessmen who once were in favor inside Mr. Putin’s Kremlin. ...”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/11/us/former-putin-aide-found-in-washington-died-from-blows-to-head.html


51 posted on 10/19/2016 3:48:19 PM PDT by ETL (Trump-PENCE 2016!!!)
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To: GilGil

bkmk


52 posted on 10/19/2016 11:20:52 PM PDT by AllAmericanGirl44 (If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes.)
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To: AppyPappy

“So if Russia invades Ukraine, it is our fault?”

Fuck America, says a British commie -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seumas_Milne#Communism If you don’t agree, you must be Obama/NWO supporter...


53 posted on 10/22/2016 3:27:39 AM PDT by Grzegorz 246
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