Putin's Name Must be Cursed!

backslashbaby

~~~~*~~~~
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
12,635
Reaction score
1,603
Location
NC
Just talking about him a lot causes a lot of death, at least for folks who don't agree with him. I wonder why on earth that is?

Boris Nemtsov, Critic of Putin, Is Shot Dead in Moscow

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/28/w...sian-opposition-leader-is-shot-dead.html?_r=0

It doesn't even mention the poisonings or imprisoning:

...In the decade after Mr. Putin’s rise to the presidency, several prominent journalists and rights workers were shot to death in attacks seen as retribution for their work. Paul Khlebnikov of Forbes was shot in 2004; Anna Politkovskaya, well known for her fiery polemics against the war in Chechnya, was shot in 2006. Natalya Estemirova, a human rights worker, was kidnapped and shot to death in the North Caucasus in 2009.
 

backslashbaby

~~~~*~~~~
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
12,635
Reaction score
1,603
Location
NC
Putin is investigating it himself, naturally.

If anyone saw the Anthony Bourdain in Russia, that had Nemtsov in it. I remember watching that and thinking it was scary for him that he was so open about things :(

This is a snippet of transcript; Bourdain is talking at first:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-4o3iNUEAAh04K.jpg

The tweet for the above pic:
https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/571439145106583553/photo/1

ETA: Here we go. This is a much longer, much better transcript. Bourdain has cojones, and obviously Nemtsov did :( :
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/bourdain-boris-nemtsov-russia/
 
Last edited:

maxmordon

Penúltimo
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 12, 2007
Messages
11,536
Reaction score
2,479
Location
Venezuela
Website
twitter.com
An old joke my father told me when I was a kid:

The KGB, the Mossad and the CIA are all trying to prove they are the best at catching criminals. The Secretary General of the UN decides to set them a test. He releases a rabbit into a forest, and each of them has to catch it. The CIA people go in. They place animal informants throughout the forest. They question all plant and mineral witnesses. After three months of extensive investigations, they conclude that the rabbit does not exist. The Mossad goes in. After two weeks with no leads they burn the forest, killing everything in it, including the rabbit, and make no apologies: the rabbit had it coming. The KGB goes in. They come out two hours later with a badly beaten bear. The bear is yelling: "Okay! Okay! I'm a rabbit! I'm a rabbit!"
 

Alessandra Kelley

Sophipygian
Staff member
Moderator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 27, 2011
Messages
16,874
Reaction score
5,189
Location
Near the gargoyles
Website
www.alessandrakelley.com
Last edited:

atombaby

nice & cynical
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 31, 2011
Messages
1,645
Reaction score
93
Location
NJ
Website
elldimensional.wordpress.com
It's all politics, baby. No surprise that the Chechens are being blamed. The Chechens are always to blame for anything that goes awry in Russia. Why won't he just call himself the dictator of Russia and leave it at that? Why play all these games? Because it's the 21st century? The world gets darker and darker with every passing year.
 

sulong

It's a matter of what is.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 1, 2005
Messages
1,776
Reaction score
127
Location
Portland OR
\ although watchdog groups say the man who confessed shows signs of torture and he now says he didn't do it.
I didn't find anything in the linked article about "watchdog groups".

I'd like to read where the suspect has recanted his confession, if you have a link.
 

sulong

It's a matter of what is.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 1, 2005
Messages
1,776
Reaction score
127
Location
Portland OR
Never mind Alessandra, I found something.
The chairman of the PMC said all the three suspects he visited, Zaur Dadaev, Anzor Gubashev and Shagid Gubashev, deny their guilt. It was earlier reported that Dadaev confessed to being involved in the murder.
Red commie bastard news site.
 

backslashbaby

~~~~*~~~~
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
12,635
Reaction score
1,603
Location
NC
Huh. No updates? Apparently Putin is blaming a couple of Chechens for the murder, although watchdog groups say the man who confessed shows signs of torture and he now says he didn't do it.

It does give Putin a neat excuse to crack down more on the Chechens though.

Nemtsov's daughter says Putin is responsible.

I didn't update this, but anyone could. I certainly don't mind. But I have been following the various stories; Russia is full of intrigue nowadays! There's no way to take the investigation seriously, but of course people being arrested matters, so that should be updated.

The Human Rights monitors have since had a visit from the government, naturally:

Just as was warned on the Investigative Committee website Sledkom.ru yesterday, the human rights advocates who had publicized their findings of torture used on the suspects in the Nemtsov murder case got a visit from investigators last night, RBC.ru reported.

Vladimir Osechkin, director of the Gulagu.net [No to Gulag] social network told RBC that as 23:00, 10 investigators from the Investigative Committee came to the home of Eva Merkacheva, Moscow coordinator for Gulagu.net and a reporter for Moskovsky Komsomolets and informed her that "a general wants to talk to her." They didn't give his name, and Merkacheva was not home....

...Osechkin says he plans to file a complaint about the late-night visit as there is no reason to have an investigation of the human rights monitors. Pavel Gusev, editor-in-chief of Moskovsky Komsomolets also said that Eva Merkacheva would go to the Investigative Committee in the morning to file a complaint about "obstructure of journalistic activity" regarding the visit, TASS reported.
http://www.interpretermag.com/russia-update-march-12-2015/#7431


At the very moment, though, everyone's trying to figure out what the hell is up with Putin not being seen in a while! The Kremlin is using the old wrong-date trick while forgetting to check the calendars and clocks like back in the day, lol.

Ah, it's discussed enough on that link or check Michael Weiss on Twitter for breaking tweets :D Apparently the big rumor is that Putin had a stroke. It really is interesting, whatever is going on with that.

This link is good on him being missing, too:
https://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical-diary/putin-puzzle
 
Last edited:

backslashbaby

~~~~*~~~~
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
12,635
Reaction score
1,603
Location
NC
Never mind Alessandra, I found something.

Red commie bastard news site.

http://www.interpretermag.com/russia-update-march-11-2015/#7418

This link (different than the link I gave above but from same site) details a bit more about the recanting or not. It depends on who you ask:

Yesterday, Moskovsky Komsomolets published an account of a visit to Lefortovo Prison (translated by The Interpreter ) by some members of the Public Observation Committee who heard from the Chechen suspects in the Nemtsov murder investigation that they had been tortured. Zaur Dadayev, an officer in the Interior Ministry troops of Chechnya, told the monitors that he was beaten and a sack was put over his head while he was brought on an airplane to Moscow.

Today, Anton Tsvetkov, the head of the Public Observation Committee is walking back these claims. Slon.ru reported (translated by The Interpreter):

There are no signs of torture and bruises are not documented. Information [from the detainees] about the use of torture on them did not elicit trust, said Tsetkov, who also holds the post of the chairman of the civic organization Officers of Russia.
Thus it seems to come down to a disagreement between Andrei Babushkin, a long-time prison rights activists and Tsetvkov, who heads an officers' rights group about what they heard from Zaur Dadayev, an officer in the Interior Ministry troops of Chechnya, and the Gubashev brothers arrested with him.
Both Babushkin and Tsvetkov are members of the Presidential Human Rights Council, a group which some human rights activists have said is now thoroughly co-opted by the government, but others say still represents a forum in which they can get attention for severe human rights problems in Russia.
When Tsetkov, who grew up in a family of KGB officers, took over the leadership of the Public Observation Commission in 2013, long-time human rights organizations expressed their concerns -- his group is concerned with defending the rights of military people under investigation. Human Rights in Russia reported at the time:
...

It goes on, but I'm only quoting the beginning. The government is apparently threatening some sort of obstruction charges for some of the monitors for speaking to the prisoners, etc.
 

Filigree

Mildly Disturbing
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 16, 2010
Messages
16,441
Reaction score
1,529
Location
between rising apes and falling angels
Website
www.cranehanabooks.com
Ah, Russia, you never change.

Some of my Russian friends report there's all kinds of quiet simmering, because Nemtsov was The Man. But they also doubt any real resolution to the charges and counter-charges, even if Putin dies or leaves office. There are too many other members of the old guard ready to step forward.
 

backslashbaby

~~~~*~~~~
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
12,635
Reaction score
1,603
Location
NC
Some of the choices could be worse than Putin, apparently, although I don't really see it. But it's been a little while since Kremlinology was in fashion, so I haven't been keeping notes on a possible coup, lol!

The Kremlin says Puti is fine, though. So that should be that ;) Except he's still not shown himself in person today! Very strange now that the rumors are swirling so publicly.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015...dType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter

Interpretermag (edited by Michael Weiss, so it's not a junk site btw) has better evidence today that the two meetings since March 5th didn't really happen the week the Kremlin says:

While state broadcasting has aired footage of two of his meetings on March 10 and March 11, with the governors of the Yamal-Yenets and Karelian autonomous republics, respectively, in fact there is evidence that those meetings were also taped last week. Sources of a local news site Vesti Karelii say that Aleksandr Khudilaynin, their governor, was in Moscow at the Kremlin on March 4, but that the transcript of their meeting was held for a week before being published March 11 on kremlin.ru, the official Kremlin news site. Sources told RBC.ru that Dmitry Kobylkov, Yamal-Nenets governor, also did not meet Putin on March 10, although a transcript of their meeting with that date has appeared on kremlin.ru and Kobylin's own web site....

http://www.interpretermag.com/russia-update-march-12-2015/#7436