Posted on 12/18/2017 8:14:13 AM PST by Kaslin
Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked President Trump on Sunday for information United States intelligence agencies provided that helped thwart "a major terror attack" in St. Petersburg.
"Based on the information the United States provided, Russian authorities were able to capture the terrorists just prior to an attack that could have killed large numbers of people. No Russian lives were lost and the terrorist attackers were caught and are now incarcerated," a readout from the White House stated.
"President Trump appreciated the call and told President Putin that he and the entire United States intelligence community were pleased to have helped save so many lives. President Trump stressed the importance of intelligence cooperation to defeat terrorists wherever they may be. Both leaders agreed that this serves as an example of the positive things that can occur when our countries work together."
Both leaders also expressed their thanks to CIA Director Mike Pompeo, his team, and the entire intelligence community.
Putin also assured the president that if Russia ever had intelligence information about a potential terror attack in the United States they would immediately share the information.
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said Friday that seven Islamic State sympathizers were arrested for planning terror attacks in the city this weekend, including a suicide bombing in St. Petersburg's Kazansky Cathedral in addition to other high-traffic areas in the city, the Associated Press reports.
Explosive devices, automatic weapons, and extremist propaganda were found while searching one St. Petersburg apartment.
Russian TV stations have aired footage daily since Friday of the suspects in the foiled attacks being apprehended and questioned. One segment showed FSB operatives outside a St. Petersburg apartment building detaining a suspect, who appeared later saying he was told to prepare homemade bombs rigged with shrapnel.
“My job was to make explosives, put it in bottles and attach pieces of shrapnel,” the suspect, identified by Russian media as 18-year old Yevgeny Yefimov, said in the footage released by the FSB.
Several other suspects came from mostly Muslim regions in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus, and one man was from the ex-Soviet nation of Tajikistan that borders Afghanistan.
The TV reports included footage of a metal container, which the suspects used as a laboratory for making explosives, according to the FSB. Another video showed operatives breaking the doors and raiding an apartment used by other suspects.
Last week, the FSB said it also arrested several IS-linked suspects in Moscow, where they allegedly were plotting a series of suicide bombings to coincide with New Year’s celebrations. (AP)
Had the plot been successful, it would've been the first major terror attack since April, when a suicide bomber in St. Petersburg's subway killed 16 and injured more than 50 others.
It was a routine exchange under Bush.
“We all know Spetznaz is big on human rights.”
And where did anyone get the idea that radical Mudslimes are human; they’re subhuman, perfect subjects for the kindly and considerate attentions of Vlad and the Spetznaz boys.
Though I believe a normal, functioning federal democracy is in the cards for Russia’s future, Russia has had a VERY different relationship to the State than even populations of other authoritarian countries (like China) do.
It is too hard to explain in a post how a people’s identity can be so wrapped up in their leader. Even as they complain about him...Russia is not North Korea! You might say. (Though its important to note that not only does Putin continue to prop up North Korea, but that the country itself is a Russian creation, as Stalin installed the Kim Il Sung regime in the 1940s.)
A lot of the misunderstanding on the part of Americans of Russia has to do with the disconnect between what the Soviet Union was on paper as a system of economics, without understanding the intellectual, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of how the system operated in the hearts and minds of its people. As a territoirial entity, the system only collapsed 20 some odd years ago...but inside people, the ideal exists.
Do you know how much trauma the Russian people have been through? How Putin has capitalized on his people’s vulnerabilities?
Do you know that 25 percent of Russian MEN don’t live past the age of 55 ?!
Putin (former KGB) and his people blame their sufferings of the past two decades on the *collapse* of the Soviet system, not the evils of the system itself which merely revealed themselves under the glare of freedom. They blame the West and “democracy” for the turbulence faced in the 90s even though the plundering of the country’s resources was done and continues to be done by oligarchs spawned in their own society within webs of corruption already entrenched in the country. Just taking on new forms...
Russians have come to enjoyed some of the fruits of freedom and semi-capitalism, but they still share the desire to avenge of the fall of the Soviet Union (and the Russian Empire) from before that.
Younger people are bit more complicated...but academic indoctrination has made it so to question things like the heroism of Josef Stalin in defeating thr Nazis is quite taboo...
The people there have a very different relationship to their govt than we do...and a different political trajectory and culture due to its complicated history from the tsars onward.
The State overwhelms people’s identities in ways it never has for Americans — to the point where they will compromise their own self-interests and freedoms willingly.
As the great writer Svetlana Alexievich says, complain about their lives though they may, “Vladimir Putin lives inside every Russian.”
I don’t have your extraordinary background; instead, I can trace my family back to the American Revolution on both sides. Indeed, my maternal grandmother was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. I was an ardent supporter of President Reagan and was and am a determined anti-communist. That being said, it looks to me like Putin is a Russian nationalist who’s also an absolutist in the tradition of many pre-Soviet Russian rulers. That makes him a sometimes adversary/sometimes ally, definitely a person with whom we should maintain a serious, adult relationship. That’s just what our PRESIDENT Trump is doing. Three cheers.
“CHRISTIAN LIVES WERE SAVED, ISN’T THAT ENOUGH TO GIVE THANKS?”
For some, no. That means not a thing. Not their tribe, not their concern. Witness the complacency or even glee over the carnage and genocide the “freedom fighters” (and allied ISIS) were wreaking in Syrian Christian communities, some of them among the oldest in existence.
cause that's what real men do?
Imagine how much progress we could have made with Russian cooperation had this false Collusion Narrative hadn’t taken hold?
The Democrats AKA Hillary, have done their best to start a new Cold War, no doubt about it.
If you despise Russia so much what were you doing living there? And for how long?
Unfortunately, you nailed it.
“Yes! Go Putin! That’s why he is allied with Iran so strongly and refuses to acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” ... Two faced Vladdy Poots deceiving even you I see. He is an anti-christ to the core. And shame on “Christians” for refusing to be discerning.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-historic-first-russia-recognizes-west-jerusalem-as-israels-capital/
‘Nuff said about deception and discernment.
The existing order is grateful for your obeisance.
A good summary.
Good for you.
“Tell that to Putin who allies and funds the Muslims. As in Iran, Chechnya, and elsewhere.”
Could be worse. Filthy Saudis come to mind. The heart of the ‘slam beast.
This is YUGE amounts of winning. Having a competitor and potential enemy indebted to you for having saved the lives of his countrymen? Well played, Mr. Trump.
And I plan on going back! There is a lot to love as there is a lot to learn. In strange way, I love the place for the brutal lessons it teaches you. I grew very close to the people there and I am hopeful for its future.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.