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Russia's President Vladimir Putin addresses the Federal Assembly, including State Duma deputies, members of the Federation Council, the heads of the Constitutional and Supreme courts, regional governors, heads of Russia's traditional religious faiths and public figures, at the Kremlin in Moscow, December 4, 2014. Vasily Maximov/AFP via Getty Images

In a major speech from the Kremlin today, Putin gave something of a "state-of-the-Union" report to members of the government and religious leaders that reveals Putin's own state-of-denial. He continues to praise and identify with the Soviet Union and its communist allies such as Yugoslavia, while never mentioning the mass murder they carried out. Some mind-bending quotes from the speech follow:

“Hitler, with his humanity hating ideas, was going to destroy Russia and throw us back behind the Urals. Everyone should remember how this ended."

"Next year we will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. Our army overcame the enemy, freed Europe.”

A woman collapses over one of the 17 zinc coffins that arrived last week in the far Eastern Russian city of Ussuriysk marked as "Cargo 200".

The local population of the city of Ussuriysk is expressing shock at the large number of coffins containing the remains of Russian soldiers who died in the Donbas fighting.

Despite all the efforts of Russian officials to keep the funerals and information about where these men met their deaths from becoming known, a former Russian soldier said by telephone from Ussuriysk that it appears they were professional soldiers ("kontrakniki") from the 14th brigade of the GRU Special Forces of the Russian General Staff.

In September, people in the city learned that about 500 members of that brigade had been flown to Rostov oblast, as it's said "to the West." Until June 2012, this brigade was based in Ussuriysk, a city of 167,000, before it moved to the larger city of Khabarovsk.

According to this source, these men being buried now met their deaths in one of the battles for the Donetsk airport, thousands of miles away.

Sources for this story here and here. 

ALSO

Update on 73-year old Lyudmila Bogantenkova who was arrested on Friday, Oct. 17 in Stavropol:

She remains in jail, a month and a half later, charged with "fraud" and "failing to repay a debt." Both charges are connected with her efforts to find out about Russian combat losses in Ukraine and to commuicate this to others. She is well-known as the president of the Prikumya Mothers of Soldiers Committee that seeks to protect soldiers from inhumane treatment, including torture [extreme "hazing"] of new conscripts.

Film director Roman Polanski was a guest of honor at the opening of the new Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, honoring the "1000 year history of Jews in Poland." Of course, Poland is not 1000 years old -that's just another Polish fiction and historical invention.

From the BBC, Nov. 4, 2014

An advisor to the Polish President has accused the US of "absolute ignorance" in seeking to arrest Roman Polanski at the opening of a Jewish history museum.

Polanski has been wanted by US police since 1977 after fleeing the country before he could be sentenced for having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

US authorities contacted Polish officials as Polanski attended the museum opening in Warsaw last week.

The director was questioned by prosecutors but was not arrested.

I made a call into "Spingola and Friends" less than an hour ago (around 12:10 Central), to ask a burning question of Rodney Martin, the guest speaker. But Martin refused to answer my simple question.

My question (beginning at 1hour17min): Please state what college or university you graduated from.

His answer: Silence

Deanna expects him to answer and appears uncertain as to why he doesn't. She asks me why I want to know. I tell her "because Mr. Martin said recently that he graduated Phi Beta Kappa, but he has never said, and seemingly won't say, what school he graduated from.

He finally said it was posted on his Facebook page. I said I did not have a Facebook account so why not just say now on this program. He starts arguing.

Lyudmila Bogantenkova ("Mother Prikumya"), head of the organization Committee of Soldiers' Mothers (right) was arrested on Friday, Oct. 17 in the Stavropol Territory and placed in jail. She is not allowed to see a lawyer until Monday.The news was reported on the "Soldiers' Mothers of St. Petersburg" Facebook page.

According to the report, the Committee's office of Budennovsk and Budennovsky district was searched and at the same time the 73-year-old human rights activist was charged under Art. 159 of the Criminal Code (fraud). 

Bogatenkova has for many years sought to actively protect soldiers, revealing the facts of inhumane treatment and torture of conscripts. In recent months, her organization has been investigating the circumstances of the deaths of Russian troops in July-August 2014.

In August, a human rights activist referred to the Presidential Council for Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights Council (HRC) information about nine Russian soldiers killed on the 9th and 11th August 2014 in the area of ​​the military training facility in the Rostov region. They were doing military service under contract in the 18th motorized infantry brigade (in / h 27777).

According to the information received, members of the HRC sent to the Chief Military Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, requesting to open a criminal investigation into the deaths of servicemen and to verify the circumstances of their death. An answer to this request still has not  been received.

Lyudmila Bogatenkova is an expert of the Standing Committee on Civil-Military Relations, HRC.

From kasparov.ru/material.php?id=54420D5351A5C

Also see my post from August: Are Russian Troops dying in East Ukraine?

Hazards of a Russian highway in winter-spring

Paul Goble reports:

October 10 – The state of Russia’s road system, which now ranks 136 out of 144 countries evaluated, is so bad that even Vladimir Putin, who recently has been given to upbeat statements about the country, has had to change his tone.

At a meeting of the presidium of the State Council in Novosibirsk yesterday (the day after his birthday break), Putin changed his approach and spoke about the real problems of what he said was “a vitally important” sector of the Russian economy, one that other participants painted in even darker colors than he.

Muscle-man Putin depicted shouldering the entire world, with Crimea featured.

Vladimir Putin's 62nd birthday today comes at a time of great popularity at home for the leader mainly because of his takeover of Crimea.

As part of the festivities, supporters in Moscow staged an exhibition of paintings designed to symbolise Putin's achievements, comparing them to the "12 Labours of Hercules", the demigod of Greek mythology renowned for his strength.

Schröder with President of Russia Vladimir Putin in Moscow on 9 May 2005, sealing their new oil/gas partnership. 

Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder today called for an end to Germany's sanctions against Russia. Of the various reasons he might have, one must be that he is a top stockholder representative of Nord Stream AG, the Russian-German natural gas pipeline company that's 51% owned by Russia's state-monopoly Gazprom.

“Germany doesn’t need a new Russia policy based on confrontation, as is being demanded by some hawks,” Schroeder said Wednesday. He said he was proud to understand Russia’s position and urged a return to “detente,” the policy of easing tension in Europe during the Cold War. [During the "cold war" the Soviet Union had tyrannical control over all Eastern European countries--is that what he wants to return to? See here.]

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Don't miss this article: We will execute you!

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What was that about Eastern Ukraine being predominately Russian-speaking and hostile to Kiev? Didn't I recently read words to that effect from "Marcus Cicero" at The Daily Stormer? The Stormer position is that Kiev is a nest of oligarchic Jews wanting to drag "Russian Ukraine" into the European Union and the pro-Russian resistance "army" represents noble purposes. Well ...

Ukrainian nationalists, one waving Ukraine's flag, start to tear down Lenin's statue on Kharkiv central square on September 28, 2014. (Sergey Bobok/AFP/Getty Images)

Sunday in Karkiv, Ukraine's second largest city which happens to be in the Eastern part of the country (see dot on map), a 28-foot statue of the Bolshevik quarter-Jew Vladimir Lenin--which had been standing in "Freedom Plaza" since 1963, protected and apparently revered by Russian-speaking Ukrainians--was pulled down and broken up by pro-Ukrainian Nationalists.

What to make of that? And by the way, why wasn't this event mentioned at DS?

Karkiv is not majority Russian-speaking. The 1989 census found that 50.38% of the population was Ukrainian, 43.63% Russian, 3% Jews. Interestingly, the Soviet census of 1959 came up with 48.4% Ukrainian, 40.4% Russian, 8.7% Jews, 2.5% other. Are Jews once again hiding their true identity, something they didn't bother to do during Soviet rule?