I have written a lot of articles about Putin.
My last article, with its video, got a lot of attention and, as ever, my commenters shared a lot of insights.
Notable among them was Julius Skoolafish who writes Julius’ Book Mentions, which has excellent articles on Russian history – and recently Putin.
He recommends three books.
First Person – An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Nataliya Gevorkyan, Natalya Timakova Andrei Kolesnikov et al.
Russian Populist: The Political Thought of Vladimir Putin” by Matthew Raphael Johnson
The War Against Putin: What the Government-Media Complex Isn’t Telling You About Russia” by Mike King
You will find these on Amazon. the third listed here, The War Against Putin is an interesting and fun read.
I have embedded an epub file which you can read on your smartphone or on your PC (download Calibre—it’s free)
In addition, Julius has provided links to a video documentary by Andrei Kolesnikov “Putin" - the Documentary Sure to Change Everything You Thought You Knew About Russia's Presidentin. It has two parts, two separate videos.
For Part 1- Just CLICK here— or onthe excerpted image.
Part 2, CLICK here —or on the excerpt.
Please visit Julius’ newsletter and support him, as well as the newsletters of my other commenters. Frankly, I think theIR comments are as much or more interesting than what I write! News Forensics seems to be building a community. It humbles me.
Thank you all.
Notes
As you know, I am “on the spectrum”. The “spectrum” is exactly that; like the electromagnetic spectrum it covers all sorts of things. As my friend and commenter Sander says, autism is not a mental illness or a disorder - it is a difference. And I suspect a lot of YOU are different too. Too bad that difference is less and less tolerated.
Don’t believe Hollywood tropes on autism any more than you believe them about Putin as I write in my article Genius is a Disorder (2),
One thing that helps my ASD is coffee which I am drinking now to finish this article, after a few million tries.! If you like this article, written with the help of your coffee Buy me more coffee to keep me focused. Click here or on the image below.
Thank you Julian. It is me that is humbled. I am so glad you appreciated my contributions. I am just going about discreetly using substack as a personal reading diary. It helps me keep my thoughts clear and structured.
Briefly, my awakening only happened in late 2015 when Russia intervened in Syria at the request of the Assad government. The two major influencing bloggers were Eva K Bartlett and Vanessa Beeley. I soon realised that everything on the TV and radio was a lie, and has been for the last …. since their inception and beyond (see my first post on Arthur Ponsonby: “Falsehoods in Wartime”). My first task after switching off the TV and radio was to understand Putin and Russia today. I have had a lot of ‘arguments’ with family and friends regarding ‘my mate’ Putin. If I am wrong then it is not for trying to find the truth and not for the reasons they hold on to.
Your frozen snapshot of Part 2 of the Putin documentary depicts one of my favourite segments where Putin is asked if there is anything he cannot forgive …
From 37:25:
Andrei Kondrashev: ”Can you forgive people?”
President Putin: “Yes, but not for everything”
AK: “What can’t you forgive?”
VVP: ”BETRAYAL”
But wait until you get towards the end of part 2 – around 1:44:00 - where he talks about children/youth and the future … following on from the Sirius project and his vision for that project. (Of course our media and ‘politicians’ would not dare allow this to be known.)
Narrator (AK): “The future of the planet is in their hands … [] … Vladimir Vladimirovich, you have talked to our young elite. Twenty five thousand children from 165 countries came here to Sochi. What do you think? Can we entrust the future to them?”
VVP: “Do we have a choice? [smiling and chuckles]
We can only change the world by inspiring young people through our own example. The world will be theirs. You saw by yourself how the audience reacted to all good things said here. Everything is developing on and on. The modern world is permeated with humanitarian ideas and of course young people feel it. It gives me the hope that the world will become better thanks to them.”
Cheers
and... recommending Oliver Stone's extensive multi-part interview, available here and there I believe. If you can't find it, signal and I'll post a link.