Posted on 11/05/2022 2:29:50 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
Litvinenko, like a number of other FSB and SVR officers, went into exile only AFTER bringing corruption and misconduct to the attention of their superiors and the public and then being forced to flee for the sake of their lives. They are essentially political refugees, not defectors, and what they say about public corruption and criminality in Russia is verified by multiple independent sources who are Russian or who know Russia well.
Apart from rank and file officers, how many higher level Russian police and security service leaders do you know?==
I know guys with whom I attended a school and a university. One is a major. Other one is a captain. And I know their mindset. My father was a officer of army. It is a same ordinary Russian officer mindset. These guy will never do a deal with criminals. Even the idea of it sound so ridiculous that any Russian will laugh.
Yes they may break rules and be punished. They are not saints. So it is possible.
They rather will do something by themselves. For example they may do aside business like legal one still forbidden for them to do because the state doesn’t like that its officers have aside sources of income. So they may open enterprise and employ their relatives and friends and use their influence to get them some profitable contracts. Like this and be punished if the internal affairs will get aware of it.
But they will never protect or hold a real criminal business like narcotics or prostitution. It is ridiculous.
BTW the illustration. Even in a penal system of Russia there are the separate penal camps for officer violators and for criminals. They can’t be held in one same prison and even in one common cell. They eventually will go to fight and kill each others.
Have you ever discussed the allegations and evidence of corruption in their organizations and against Putin?==
I wouldn’t discuss allegation especially from foreign source. It may make me a foreign stooge in their eyes.
Litvinenko, like a number of other FSB and SVR officers, went into exile only AFTER bringing corruption and misconduct to the attention of their superiors and the public and then being forced to flee for the sake of their lives. ===
He said it. But I don’t take for granted anything said by a traitor. And you shouldn’t too.
I get where you are coming from, but the limitation you are under is that you have no first hand knowledge, only faith in your friends. ==
C’mon man. If I have not a first hand knowledge about my country then how you can get such information sitting oversea except from some Russophobe propaganda websites of cause)).
Consider though that they could all be genuinely honest but that the organizations and the Russian state and leaders they work for be deeply compromised by corruption and partnership with the Russian Mafia.===
It is conspiracy theory man. Same crazy as a theory CIA involvement to 911 bombings. Or else lot of them different for any taste.
But seriously why any officers would even need it? Say they acquire some money from dirty source. Then HOW they may spend it? They have to report any big purchases for them and their families. And also any government official with clearance (so as everyone!) have not a right to possess foreign property or accounts. Or depart Russia. At all.
And if their assets in Russia become bigger than it possibly earnings from a regular sources it will fire a red flag and automatic investigation. Then assets will be confiscated. SO officer will lose the money and the position and the rank at once. Or possible he/she will go to the officer penal camp for say 10-15 years. They know it. Everybody knows it.
But Putin you say? He a CZAR after all. He lives as a czar the host of everything of Russia. He has no personal property but he is not needed. He has a whole government property in possession.
Consider him as a CEO of a biggest corporation Russia. Because Russia is a real corporation. She has a huge government sector of economy and it works as a regular corporation. And Putin is a head of it. He has everything. He need nothing more.
P.S. Putin everyday makes decisions which involve hundreds billions of dollars. He rules assets which cost dozens trillions of dollars. Each day. And they incriminate him possessions of some lame foreign accounts and properties which allegedly sums up few billions. Funny yes?)).
C’mon man. Few billions is a pocket change for him. If you say he has assets abroad for 2-3 trillions of dollars then I may listen because that is his scale level. But again where is proves of it? Not at all. Aside of some crazy rumors or gossips of his enemies. Especially from West.
But as I told you before if some western figure condemns or blames Putin then I know he did something good for Russia. More they badmouthing him higher his approval in Russia. We would get worry if they began to praise him))..
Where we differ it seems is that you urge that if Putin can steal as much as he wants, then why would he, as an otherwise honorable man, soil himself with bribes and earnings from criminals and drug smuggling? In contrast, I argue that since Putin is a thug and a criminal stealing from Russians on a massive scale, he has no reason not to profit from drug smuggling as well. Indeed, I think that it is ludicrous to suppose that Putin would steal from ordinary Russians but draw back from taking money from drug smugglers and other criminals.
Again, I refer to former FSB agent Litvinenko's testimony about the criminal nature of Putin's regime and Putin himself. Describing Spanish efforts to investigate Russian criminals who had settled in Spain, a 2017 article by ProPublica offered an early summary of Litvinenko's account:
Meeting in London with Spanish anti-mafia prosecutor José Grinda, Litvinenko argued that Russia’s mafias, like its oligarchs, were almost organically entwined with the state. The patronage system under which both operated had roots in an alliance that Putin and other KGB veterans had established with underworld figures in St. Petersburg, early in Putin’s political career, Litvinenko said. The partnership had evolved as Putin consolidated his power and the Russian criminals expanded their reach. “Litvinenko’s theory was that Putin and the intelligence services have taken over, manipulated and absorbed the criminal groups,” Grinda said in an interview.
Since the Spanish investigation resulted in prosecutions, the detailed evidence behind these and more extensive claims became part of the public record and litigated in court. In sum, Litvinenko's claims were established as true in court to a high degree of proof. As best as anyone could establish, Litvinenko's assistance to Europe's criminal investigators and prosecutors against the Russian Mafia was the reason he was murdered.
Again, I refer to the massive British government report and evidence in the inquest into Litvinenko's murder. You insist that it is all lies. Let us focus then on a fact that is easily established as indisputably true, that the world's only source of polonium in the necessary quantity is a reactor in Moscow under state control and high level security.
That being so, why wasn't there a massive scandal and investigation in Russia as to how the security of that unique reactor was so badly compromised and its product used to kill Litvinenko? Why no prosecutions and public report?
After all, given the dangerous nature of polonium, Russia's security was in jeopardy -- unless, of course, the murder of Litvinenko was an operation by Russia's security services and approved at the highest level. That being the most logical and near inescapable conclusion, Litvinenko's murder itself does much to prove his account of Putin's Russia as a criminal partnership between the Mafia, Putin, and Russia's oligarchs.
You contend that Russian state resources are effectively Putin’s personal assets to the degree that he wants to treat them as his own. I agree. There are no effective barriers against Putin stealing from the Russian state and from Russians by putting whatever he wants into his own pocket.==
You got it wrong. American mentality but wrong. He doesn’t need to steal anything. He is a host of whole country. He is a czar. He would be stealing from himself. DO you get it?
He is a czar. He is a king. King doesn’t steal because it would be stealing from himself.
Guy not taking for himself but he effectively rule Russia and her resources for good of people. He runs resources of few dozen TRILLIONS of dollars. Not millions not billions but trillions.
One can’t spend trillions of dollars on oneself. It is impossible.
Litvinenko is a defector so traitor. I care not what he said to his western curators. I already told you that but again bring him up. Please stop not listening me if you want to continue this conversation.
bttt
After that war started Uke men were taking off out of Ukraine wherever they could go. I could not blame them at all.
Last winter Ukraine was asking countries where many fled to, to force them to come back to Ukraine.
This story is kind of late and overbaked because both sides had people flee who didn’t want to play war.
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