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Ben Herb's avatar

Thank you for the thorough report. I find it fascinating what other countries are saying and it isn't always easy to find out. Thanks again!

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jpg's avatar

I wonder if the US timing took into consideration that the Russians would be on holiday and not fully tuned into events happening to their allies halfway around the world.

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Frau Katze's avatar

I didn’t know Russia had bloggers. Fascinating! Thanks.

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Joe Brown's avatar

I thought the seizing of the oil tanker has been a very interesting wrinkle in all this.

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Frau Katze's avatar

Trump wants the oil.

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Joe Brown's avatar

This is true! But I mean wrinkle as in “how do Russians handle us taking their illegal tanker?”

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Frau Katze's avatar

I’m sure they’re not happy!

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Roderick's avatar

"Apparently, losing around a million dead and wounded soldiers while failing to abduct a foreign leader is a sign of strength." A++++ sarcasm

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Keith Wresch's avatar

Great reporting, Cathy! Nice to have you as a source connected to what Russian media is thinking which is something we don’t hear about very often. In the long run this may promote the likes of the Russians and the Chinese to rethink the rules based order. It was one thing for them to flout the order which they didn’t really believe in, but clearly they aren’t comfortable with a United States doing the same.

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Paul Fisher's avatar

So the only positive thing I can say about the Trump administration is that they are making Russia as miserable as this country (US). And this article doesn't even mention the humiliation of a Russian flagged tanker, escorted by a Russian submarine, being seized by the US. But it also shows how easily we could turn the screws on Putin, if Trump really wanted to. Too bad he's so busy with "domestic terrorists".

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Joan Peters's avatar

Great column. My favorite statement…, “The world is observing yet another demonstration of American power with no regard for the international law Washington is so fond of citing.” This coming from Russia, but sadly true.

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Charlie's avatar

Re: the Russians ignoring the cheering Venezuelans--It was interesting to me the initial reactions of US media outlets, who mirrored the Russians by mostly ignoring opposing views at first. The Today show on Saturday did 20 minutes on the breaking story and didn't include any opposing views at all. Admittedly that was in the first hours, so maybe Today's producers weren't able to wake anyone opposed to the action. That doesn't cover (1) NBC Nightly News doing their entire broadcast on it and including one 30-second clip of Tim Kaine saying the snatch and grab was illegal (The local NBC station in Richmond, VA [owned by right-wing conglomerate Nextstar, for God's sake] had footage of protests in downtown Richmond that had occurred on Saturday. Surely that would have been available to the network) or (2) CBS News devoting much of its Saturday broadcast to interviewing Hegseth. It was only when ICE started killing people that the national media started paying attention. Seems to me we are evolving to state-controlled media much like the Russians.

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Kurt's avatar

Thanks Cathy, for another great column. I would love to see you and LTG Hertling on a Bulwark podcast together talking about Russia and Ukraine. I believe that he is going to do a new weekly podcast with Sam called "Command Post."

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Ann P's avatar

Me too, but first someone needs to put a muzzle on Sam and make him stop interrupting and taking over the conversation.

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kirsten on willow's avatar

Interesting. Appreciate the insight!

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RichinPhoenix's avatar

Interesting to hear the Russian chatter from the various talking heads. Meanwhile Ukraine was just pummeled again overnight, this time apparently also with the Russian Oreshnik missile for the first time, supposedly an “unstoppable” hypersonic nuclear capable missile according to Russia. Outside of the Baltic countries and to a lesser extent Poland and Finland, the bulk of Europe still will not go to the necessary full war production after 4 years of war and is still purchasing billions of dollars of Russian fossil fuels. The US under Trump leaves Ukraine twisting in the wind of the unprovoked Putin Russian war. Ukraine continues to suffer immensely and daily.

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