Russian Quotes - page 26
Paranoia is destroying the Russian Army from within. Vladimir Putin is a prisoner in his own high castle, just like Stalin. His terror of revealing his hand too early, and it being leaked to the Americans, was so great that he kept back his true invasion plans for and from the army until the day before the invasion. So the Russian general staff have had to make up the war as they go along – and the result has been disastrous. Generals have been appointed on the basis of their fealty to the Kremlin, not their courage, not their competence.
John Sweeney (journalist)
When the Kremlin decided that it was foolish to keep sending yet more of its boys to die here, the Russian Army hit reverse gear. And as they did so, they expressed their dismay at their wretched performance against proper soldiers by butchering innocent civilians in the hundreds. By the way, satellite imagery taken during the Russian occupation shows bodies on the streets before the Ukrainians recaptured Bucha. The Russian Army carried out these killings. Full stop.
John Sweeney (journalist)
Common sense says it would be madness for a group of Chechens to smuggle explosives all the way from Urus-Martan to Moscow. Since the First Chechen War, Chechens are routinely singled out for harassment by Russian police, vehicles are stopped and searched, identity papers demanded. Besides, there has long been a strong Chechen mafia in Moscow, very capable of getting its hands on arms or explosives in the city. In Russia, in the 1990s, you could bribe your way into a nuclear rocket silo. The 'Chechen terrorists' would have been risking a great deal by hauling their explosives roughly 1,000 miles to Moscow when they could have bought them at the back of a local flea market.
John Sweeney (journalist)
It is fair to say that the Russian secret state succeeded in getting worryingly close to serious political leaders in the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Italy. Time and again the Kremlin turned Western democracy into a game of matryoshka dolls. Lift out the Donald Trump or Nigel Farage or Jeremy Corbyn or Matteo Salvini or Marine Le Pen dolls, and you come face to face with Vladimir Putin – smirking at you.
John Sweeney (journalist)
Nearly all my Ukrainian friends, whom I adore, believe there is something preternaturally wrong with Russia and the Russian soul, that Putin is just one monster among many from the swamp to the East. With love and with respect, I don't agree with them. This is Vladimir Putin's war. Like his wars in Chechnya, Georgia and Syria. Like his war without tanks and bombs against the West. Like his poisonings. It's down to him.
John Sweeney (journalist)
God knows how many civilians have been massacred by the Russian Army in the port city by the Black Sea. There are stories of mobile crematoria vans turning corpses into ash; there are satellite photos of more and yet more mass graves. The chances that the people of Ukraine would agree to a negotiated peace, leaving some of their country permanently under Russian control, is zero or so close to zero as not worth bothering about. Zelenskiy isn't going to try. The war is not going Russia's way, once again, because the morale of the Russian Army is poor; their logistics are rotten from the head down; their leaders are bad in both senses of the word; bad evil and bad incompetent.
John Sweeney (journalist)
Despite the disturbing rhetoric coming out of the Kremlin, the facts are plain for everybody to see. We're not attacking Russia; we're helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression.
And just as Putin chose to launch this brutal invasion, he could make the choice to end this brutal invasion.
Russia is the aggressor. No if, ands, or buts about it. Russia is the aggressor. And the world must and will hold Russia accountable.
Joe Biden
With the socialist ethic giving way to private greed, corruption assumed virulent new forms in the post-Communist nations. Officials high and low are on the take, including the police. The Russian security minister calculated that one-third of Russian nickel shipped out of the country was stolen. Among those enjoying "staggering profits" from this plunder were Shell Oil and British Petroleum (Washington Post, 2/2/93). In April 1992, the chairman of Russia's central bank admitted that at least $20 billion had been illegally taken out of the country and deposited in Western banks (Nation, 4/19/93).
Michael Parenti
We have had the vision for centuries: the brotherhood of man, freedom, fraternity, equality. The French Revolution was built on that. The Russian Revolution was based on freedom for man. It is like the American.... If you read the Russian Constitution and the American Constitution, you will find that they are almost the same....we keep this vision of the brotherhood of man, peace, equality, justice, all the wonderful divine things, but never put it into practice. Why? Why do we wait for Maitreya to show us how to do it? We could do it tomorrow.
Benjamin Creme
In summer 1945, the historical act of the reunification of Carpathian Ukraine "with its ancient motherland, Ukraine" - as The Pravda newspaper put it - was announced.
Therefore, modern Ukraine is entirely the product of the Soviet era. We know and remember well that it was shaped - for a significant part - on the lands of historical Russia. To make sure of that, it is enough to look at the boundaries of the lands reunited with the Russian state in the 17th century and the territory of the Ukrainian SSR when it left the Soviet Union.
Vladimir Putin
Why is Ukraine's potential admission into NATO dangerous? The problem does exist. For example, European countries, including France, believe that Crimea is part of Ukraine, but we think that it is part of the Russian Federation. And what happens if attempts are made to change this situation by military means? Bear in mind that Ukraine's doctrines declare Russia an adversary and state the possibility of regaining Crimea, even using military force. Just imagine what could happen if Ukraine were a NATO member. Article 5 has not been canceled. On the contrary, Mr. Biden, the President of the United States, has said recently that Article 5 is a sacred obligation and will be honored. This is fraught with a military confrontation between Russia and NATO...
Ask your readers, your audiences, and the users of online resources, ‘Do you want France to fight against Russia?' Because this is how it will be....
Vladimir Putin
Not only do Western countries take unfriendly measures against our countries in the economic dimension, I mean the illegal sanctions that everyone knows about very well, but also the top officials of leading NATO countries allow themselves to make aggressive statements with regards to our country. That is why I order the defense minister and chief of the general staff to put Russian deterrence forces on high combat alert.
Vladimir Putin
The whole Bill looks like an attempt on the part of the Government to gratify a small but noisy section of their own supporters and to purchase a little popularity in the constituencies by dealing harshly with a number of unfortunate aliens who have no votes. It will commend itself to those who like patriotism at other people's expense and admire Imperialism on the Russian model. It is expected to appeal to insular prejudice against foreigners, to racial prejudice against Jews, and to labour prejudice against competition; and it will no doubt supply a variety of rhetorical phrases for the approaching election. The same men who are obstinate opponents of trade unionism will declaim about "the rights of British labour." Those who champion the interests of slum landlords will dilate on the evils of overcrowding. Those who have been most forward in bringing Chinese into Africa will pose as the champions of racial purity at home.
Winston Churchill
Imperialism has a meaning. When the United States supports Saudi Arabia, it's not imperialism, even though it's supporting a brutal and harsh government. When the United States supports Israel, it's not imperialism, even though it's carrying out atrocities. When Russia supports Damascus, it's not imperialism. [when asked whether "sections of the left” were "guilty of only resisting US imperialism, but not Russian imperialism in the Middle East, in Ukraine, and elsewhere”].
Noam Chomsky
The United States Department [sic] acknowledged that they had not taken Russian security concerns into consideration in any discussions with Russia. The question of NATO, they would not discuss. Well, all of that is provocation. Not a justification, but a provocation. And it's quite interesting that in American discourse, it is almost obligatory to refer to the invasion as the 'unprovoked invasion of Ukraine'. Look it up on Google. You will find hundreds of thousands of hits. Of course, it was provoked. Otherwise, they wouldn't refer to it all the time as an unprovoked invasion.
Noam Chomsky
Right now, if you're a respectable writer, you want to write in the main journals, you have to talk about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. You have to call it the ‘unprovoked' Russia invasion of Ukraine. It's a very interesting phrase. It was never used before. You look back at Iraq, which was totally unprovoked, nobody ever called it the unprovoked invasion of Iraq. In fact, I don't know if the term was ever used. If it was it was very marginal. Now, you look it up on google, hundreds of thousands of hits. Every article that comes out has to talk about the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Why? Because they know perfectly well it was provoked.
Noam Chomsky
On the economic side I cannot perceive that Russian Communism has made any contribution to our economic problems of intellectual interest or scientific value. I do not think that it contains, or is likely to contain, any piece of useful economic technique which we could not apply, if we chose, with equal or greater success in a society which retained all the marks... of British bourgeois ideals.
John Maynard Keynes
