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[Rev Jones]

The biggest news in Europe and Russia for abot two months now has not been EU policy, refugees, Brexit, or the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Navalny. It's been the recent uprising in the dictatoria state of Belarus and its large geopolitican conseqences.





Belarus president Lukashenko pleading for troops and assistance with a laidback in control Putin on September 14. Notice the body language of both presidents.





For 26 years Belarus president Lukashenko has been in office as the last dictator of Europe. All elections were rigged. Lukashenko, formerly the manager of a communist farming cooperation rose to power after the USSR fell. At first his reforms were fairly successful and he was well liked by the voters. This changed dramatically over time.


In the weeks leading up to this year's election there were mass protests in the streets in the big cities for the first time. Opposition candidates for various parties had been imprisoned or slapped with lawsuits. In the end the oppositon and the voters rallied around the wife of one of the opposition leaders (who himself had been taken out of the political game by Lukashenko). This housewife, with no previous experience in politics, led the mass protests.


Journalists and protestors (all protest were peaceful) were jailed, protestors were also tortured in jail. State owned factory workers were forced to vote Lukashenko or they would lose their jobs. Additional large scale voter fraud happened during election day.


In the end Lukashenko won and the few remaining opposition leaders were imprisoned, kidnapped never to been again, or forced to leave the country.


Why does all of this matter? Lukashenko's reign has survived international geopolitical powerplay because he kept a balance between the EU and Russia.


When Lukashenko came to power he signed an integration treaty with Russia under its weak president Jeltsin (basically a drunkard), in the hopes of Lukashenko himself becoming the leader of that Russia-Belarus union. We're talking about a customs and trade union here with an essentially joint military force as well.


But when Putin came to power Lukashenko knew the jig was up as Putin had a much stronger grip on things and Lukashenko would be the junior partner, merely a puppet 'leader' in charge of a Russian province nominally known as 'the country' Belarus. Therefore Lukashenko never kept to his end of the Integration Deal, causing lasting friction between Russia and Belarus and in effect making Belarus a large bumper state between the EU and Russia.


The EU was only too glad not to interfere with the dictatorial regime in Belarus.


Mind you, all of this is connected to oil pipelines as well from Russia leading to the EU via various routes.


Now that mass protests were happening in July, August and September, leading up to the Belarus elections, it looked like Lukashenko would be overthrown. He was summoned to Russia by Putin to finally make the Integration Deal happen. In return Russian troops were stationed at the Belarus-Russian border, unofficial Russian government agents were sent into Belarus to help contain the protests and Russian journalists took over Belarus media.


And so Ptin has once again shifted geopolitical relations in his favor and now looms larger than ever over the European continent. Belarus' neigboring countries like Poland, Lithuania and Estonia feel threatened, especially since all of them were at a recent point in history ruled by the USSR.


After recently annexing part of Ukrain, waging war in another part of Ukrain and after past wars with Georgia and other countries and regions near Russua Putin has steadily tightened his grip on the larger region.


With the ice melting near the North Pole he is also looking at new ship routes for both trading and military reasons (e.g. far reaching missile launch platforms on ships)


At the same time Putin has to stay ahead of the internal power struggle in Russia with the opposition coming up wth a nifty system of voter advice for people in local elections (pointing voters to nationalist parties etc that are not friends with the democratic opposition at all but which are also NOT under Putin's influence, making Putin lose power îthe Russian parliament by consequence) and mass protests in the eastern provinve of Chabarovsk that have lasted for three months now as the uncooperative province leader who did not want to take orders from Putin (and was hugely popular with the locals) was replaced with a Putin lackey

[HANZO]

Putin has completely outplayed just about everyone who went up against him. He has made the Europeans look absolutely foolish. All this while the Russian economy is trash. He is using political whit, Russian military might and capitalised off European weakness & American withdrawal.

Europe couldn't even come together and sanction Lukashenko & other officials in Belarus.

[Rev Jones]

I wonder how Putin will handle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that has recently flared up again (it originally started in 1988 and has had its periods of serious conflict and downtime)


Nagorno-Karabakh is a sizable mountainous region on the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan. it officially belongs to Azerbaijan but is occupied by Armenia





in geopolitical terms this conflict could well become dynamite for the Caucasus region, which Russia claims to have influence/control over


since Armenia and Russia are Christian orthodox they have had a natural alliance for years. the same can be said of Azerbaijan and Turkey, where Muslims live (I'm of course discussing majority groups here)


at the same time Putin has a good working relationship with the Azerbaijan government in capital Baku, with steady weapon sales from Russia to Azerbaijan that rake in a lot of cash for Putin. In other words : Putin's been having it both ways.


if tensions continue to flare up and more soldiers and civilians get killed, as has kind of suddenly happened this week, Turkey and Russia might be on a collision course because of its allies, although I think both Russia and Turkey will try to avoid this. Note that the OSCE Minsk Group (Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe) that has been working on a peaceful solution for the region for years now is co-chaired by France, Russia and the US. Turkey is not on board.

https://www.osce.org/mg


I think Putin will try to de-escalate the situation since that would benefit Russia most. in that respect it mostly depends on Russia's ally Armenia's reaction to the conflict as it should be easier to control that than Azerbaijan's stance


notice on the map how Armenia is sandwiched between Azerbaijan partly on both sides and Turkey

[HANZO]

Basically with Karabagh in July I believe they began shelling each other again which isn't something new but what was new was that Armenia shelled a region to the north where the TAP gasline went through. This gasline takes Azeri gas from it's massive gas fields through Georgia into Turkey then onto Europe. It's a huge rival to the Nord Stream pipeline which is causing friction between Germany and the US. As the Nord Stream takes Russian gas to Europe.

This obviously pissed off a lot of people. So it heightened Azerbaijan and Turkey's push to protect the pipeline and the best way to do it is remove Armenian forces from that area. Now it seems like the Azeri's are winning quite easily so they might just go ahead and re-conquer/liberate Karabagh once and for all. Putin weirdly hasn't said a thing so far, apart from the usual 'plz don't fight'. Another odd angle is that Iran is sending trucks full of weapons to Armenia, which pissed of Azeri Turks who live in Northern Iran (which they call south Azerbaijan). There was even this televised address on the main Azeri Turkish channel in Iran calling those in Tehran 'traitors'. That's another thing many don't know but Northern Iran with the right push would just leave Iran and join Azerbaijan. That's why to Israel Azerbaijan is quite a crucial nation because they have the best asset to fuck up Iran.

Make no mistake both Armenia and Azerbaijan are fucking poor puppets of Moscow though. All that Azeri gas money flows into the pockets of Aliyev and his family. His daughters own the most expensive houses in London, the people themselves live in poverty. Armenia is just one big village, they look over the border see a mountain in Turkey and masturbate over it with dreams that one day they will reconquer Anatolia. I don't know how they plan to do that. That's why Turkey can't be part of the Minsk group (neither can France but are somehow). They haven't fixed anything in 30 years so it's kinda normal that Azerbaijan just said 'fuck it'. It will go on until Putin really stamps his foot down but I think he will let Azerbaijan capture 30-40% of Karabagh until he tells them to stop. Will Aliyev listen is another story, normally yes but even I didn't expect him to receive so much support from Israel and the Jewish lobby in the US.

Turkeys links to Azerbaijan isn't just religious. Azeris infact are the least religious Muslim majority nation, like 85% do not practice at all and do not like Turkey meddling too much or investing too much in Azerbaijan. Because Erdogan brings his horde of Imam's everywhere he goes. Azeri's are very wary of that and it's known from leaked cables that Aliyev doesn't like Erdogan because he is an Islamist. However both nations are bound by blood, same language, history etc etc. So they can't have a policy where one doesn't support the other. and by the way Erdogan would lose another election in Turkey but because of idiots like Biden and Macron openly saying 'we need to remove Erdogan'. He has gained back the support he lost.

[SL33]

Aliyev bought israeli drones and lots of hi-tech weaponry and Azerbaijan being more populous will make this an easy win.

Russia will not send its army over there (though Russians do have a base in Armenia) - Azerbaijan is strategically more important to Moscow. Armenians have a strong lobby in Moscow, Paris and Washington though.

[Rev Jones]

That was very informative, you have given me a much clearer view of the geopolitical situation. Thanks! The media here unfortunately only report on Karabakh fleetingly and certainly not as in depth as you have just now. Thank you for putting in the time.

Israel's support of Azerbijan was completely new to me for example.

[SL33]

At the same time Putin has to stay ahead of the internal power struggle in Russia with the opposition coming up wth a nifty system of voter advice for people in local elections (pointing voters to nationalist parties etc that are not friends with the democratic opposition at all but which are also NOT under Putin's influence, making Putin lose power îthe Russian parliament by consequence) and mass protests in the eastern provinve of Chabarovsk that have lasted for three months now as the uncooperative province leader who did not want to take orders from Putin (and was hugely popular with the locals) was replaced with a Putin lackey

Be assured that Putin has no rival in Russia. It's funny how some think that the likes of Alexei Navalny and some other ppl can actually come close to Putin in any way. There is no power struggle. The real power struggle will occur when he dies. Same can be said for Erdogan.

[HANZO]

Be assured that Putin has no rival in Russia. It's funny how some think that the likes of Alexei Navalny and some other ppl can actually come close to Putin in any way. There is no power struggle. The real power struggle will occur when he dies. Same can be said for Erdogan.

Putin yeah because elections aren't really free in Russia but also Russian's do not have a history of democracy. One Russian told me 'don't compare Russia to Europe. many Russians just want stability they couldn't give a shit about freedom of press, human rights etc etc'. Putin owns shit though, most powerful leader easily.

Erdogan is a different case though. Old Turks are like Russians but the population is young and they all feel the choke hold Erdogan has on them. He lost hard in the last local elections and polls show his approval rating being around 40% which is his core vote. He only exceeds 50 because of his alliance with nationalists. The next general elections are in 2023, 5million new voters will register and 75% of Gen Z say they will never vote Erdogan. Gen Z in Turkey is quite liberal, secular, deist and many things Erdogan doesn't like. They think different politically to, they don't care for Palestine for example and are much more pro-Israel. Nationalistic to but in a different manner, more pro-Turkish instead of pro-Islam.

They are also incredibly supportive of both the mayors of Istanbul and Ankara & polls show that if either go up against Erdogan in an election they will win. Those are the only two who can beat him though, it's really up to the opposition in Turkey not to fuck it up but the opposition is so bad and are so disturbed by the popularity of the Mayors they might just choose someone else to go up against Erdogan. Erdogan's success is also thanks to how utterly bad the opposition in Turkey has been in the past 2 decades.

Erdogan's the weakest his ever been, the economy has been trashed by bad policy, daft projects and his incapable son-in law but what doesn't help is when Macron or Biden say Turkey needs regime change. That pisses off everyone in Turkey and Erdogan claws back some of that lost support. Germany solved this issue, they don't comment on Erdogan anymore. Which is smart and the best way to prop up the opposition in Turkey and help them beat Erdogan. Macron though is just fucking that up and aiding Erdogan with his approach.

[Rev Jones]

You are absolutely spot on, 'power struggle' was much too strong a word

Putin's grip on Russia is iron tight.

He has not made one concession to the Chabarovsk province. The place is so far away from Moscow anyway it can't hurt him.

[zooruka]

Putin's grip on Russia is iron tight.

I don’t totally agree with that!

I believe Putin is more of a figurehead. He seems like a nice guy but I believe if he doesn’t tow the line, he would probably end up dead floating in a river somewhere?

[Rev Jones]

sometimes I feel like Macron is just inflating his ego going around the world flaunting his moral high ground


it is a plus that he cares a lot about international relations (don't they all, though, those world leaders) but with him it often looks like PR and with his legacy in mind, i.e. how Western history will look back upon him later on


I also get the feeling that Macron feels more at ease on the international stage than on the national stage


that's right, these are just things I 'feel', I sort of don't have a lot to really back it up. I wonder how most of the French rate their leader these days. he's had a hard time after the honeymoon days, but then again large strikes (and demonstrations) are a fact of life in France, and they sure have the democratic right of the French to put those to use


I know there is friction between Merkel and Macron (on Merkel's side) for some of his 'solo slim' plays on the international stage. on the other hand, the Merkel-Macron German/French axis is embedded nicely in the recent tradition of efficient and even cordial working relationship between the heads of state of both countries since the blossoming of the Helmut Kohl-François Mitterand relationship

[Dooch]

Putin yeah because elections aren't really free in Russia but also Russian's do not have a history of democracy. One Russian told me 'don't compare Russia to Europe. many Russians just want stability they couldn't give a shit about freedom of press, human rights etc etc'. Putin owns shit though, most powerful leader easily.

Erdogan is a different case though. Old Turks are like Russians but the population is young and they all feel the choke hold Erdogan has on them. He lost hard in the last local elections and polls show his approval rating being around 40% which is his core vote. He only exceeds 50 because of his alliance with nationalists. The next general elections are in 2023, 5million new voters will register and 75% of Gen Z say they will never vote Erdogan. Gen Z in Turkey is quite liberal, secular, deist and many things Erdogan doesn't like. They think different politically to, they don't care for Palestine for example and are much more pro-Israel. Nationalistic to but in a different manner, more pro-Turkish instead of pro-Islam.

They are also incredibly supportive of both the mayors of Istanbul and Ankara & polls show that if either go up against Erdogan in an election they will win. Those are the only two who can beat him though, it's really up to the opposition in Turkey not to fuck it up but the opposition is so bad and are so disturbed by the popularity of the Mayors they might just choose someone else to go up against Erdogan. Erdogan's success is also thanks to how utterly bad the opposition in Turkey has been in the past 2 decades.

Erdogan's the weakest his ever been, the economy has been trashed by bad policy, daft projects and his incapable son-in law but what doesn't help is when Macron or Biden say Turkey needs regime change. That pisses off everyone in Turkey and Erdogan claws back some of that lost support. Germany solved this issue, they don't comment on Erdogan anymore. Which is smart and the best way to prop up the opposition in Turkey and help them beat Erdogan. Macron though is just fucking that up and aiding Erdogan with his approach.

As someone of Turkish ethnicity, what are you thoughts on Gen Z’s views?

If you were living In Turkey would you align with them, Ergodan or maybe lie somewhere else?

[HANZO]

As someone of Turkish ethnicity, what are you thoughts on Gen Z’s views?

If you were living In Turkey would you align with them, Ergodan or maybe lie somewhere else?

Gen Z has a point in Turkey. They have been choked by an incompetent & out of touch government. The education system alone is enough to oppose the government. Kids study more religion then they do maths and science. They removed the theory of evolution from the curriculum even though Turkey was one of the first countries to add it into the curriculum way back in the 20's. There's no hope for them. They won't get jobs unless they know some people in powerful places. There's gross injustice in Turkey. They are all aware of this to, Turks are highly active on social media and it's common to see people notice certain students for example getting the lowest scores in exams but somehow finding top jobs in universities or state companies because they are related to members of parliament. The AKP's youth wing for example, all the young kids there are millionaires. People see this gross injustice and it's caused them to absolutely detest Islamists in Turkey. In fact Deism is on the rise in Turkey, young people are saying 'if this is their religion, they can fuck off'.
Even media wise. Over a month ago a popular comedian passed away. The youth didn't really know him much because he was popular in the 90's. He was infact a drag queen and had a show on prime time TV. Gen Z were shocked at the videos, there was a drag Queen on prime time Turkish TV telling incredibly lewd jokes. In one show the then President was their and the Drag Queen made a dick joke about him. Then ofcourse the Erdogan years came and that drag Queen was shadow banned from TV. They see the change now and understand just whats gone on.

Erdogan has turned Turkey into a party state, his family and friends run the show. His buddies get the juiciest government contracts. His son appoints general managers in state run companies. His son-in law is the minister of finance and a billionaire thanks to Erdogan, he is also the 2nd most powerful guy in Turkey. His other son-in law an MIT grad is Turkey's number one military drone provider. Erdogan's school buddies now run Turkey's biggest companies. Erdogan put a wrestler, a guy with no high school diploma onto the board of a state bank. Guys with degrees in theology and islamic studies run Turkey's economy. Meritocracy long fucked off. Ofcourse this system of total control, sticking your own guys in positions of power well they learn't all that from good ol Fethullah Gulen the islamist cult leader in the US. Erdogan basically replaced Gulen as the leader of Turkey's main Islamist cult. Gulen helped him gain power, they worked together to destroy the common foe which was the secularists and military. Then they went at each other.

Erdogan regularly defies the constitution to. The constitutional court rules in favour of the opposition but lower courts who must obey them by constitutional law, simply tell the top courts to fuck off. The main leader of the Kurdish party is in prison, the courts have said let this guy go. Turkey's most secular nationalistic institutions who don't even like the dude in prison have said 'this is wildly unjust let him go'. The smaller local judge says no. The smaller pro-government judge has more power than the supreme court. Just the other day Erdogan's interior minister threatened the head of the court. He was like 'mr judge how about you go around without police protection, lets see what happens'. Thing is in Turkey we know in the 90's and before if minister said this they would be forced to resign but times have changed.

Like they turned Hagia Sophia back into a mosque. The way they presented it was as if they reconquered the city, yeah but who are you conquering it from? Ataturk turned it into a museum. This backfired on the government because people saw it as an attempt to override the decisions made by Ataturk. Still to this day Ataturk is Erdogan's number 1 political rival. The mans been dead for 80 years but in order to protect themselves from the Islamists in Turkey people are clinging onto him more than ever.

So how comes with all this crap doesn't the opposition win? I mean elections are actually quite free there is no vote rigging. Up to the last elections all the candidates the opposition fielded where the same old dudes who nobody cared for. In the last local elections they finally picked new blood and it worked. The AKP lost all major cities bar one. They got hammered in Istanbul the gap was 800k votes which is huge. The economy and Syrians being the reason but people had enough. If either the Mayor of Istanbul or Mayor of Ankara goes up against Erdogan they will win. I'm in support of the Mayor of Ankara though, he has done brilliantly in trolling Erdogan's goons. When the media talks shit about him he quickly phones in and slams some documents in their faces and embarrasses them on live TV. When Covid kicked off he quickly organised a fundraiser and helped the poor. The government saw this and they banned the bank accounts used by the fundraiser. He didn't quit and found another way to feed the poor. He doesn't take the governments shit at all. He hired Turkish kids who graduated in Ivy league schools to help him out, he openly calls the educated ones back. He is also an old school nationalist who opposed the Gulenist cult from day one. So nobody can call him a terrorist. He also has excellent relations with Gen Z and is the most popular politicians among them. It's all about whether the leaders of the opposition are smart enough to show him as candidate & well they aren't that smart unfortunately.

[zooruka]

Erdogan has turned Turkey into a party state, his family and friends run the show

they worked together to destroy the common foe which was the secularists and military

Erdogan regularly defies the constitution to

I can’t wait for the day the military rise up a stage a coupe? They tried a couple of years ago but failed due to lack of support or coordination? Erdogan is going to fail eventually, because he is trying to change Turkey from it’s s original intended purpose. Ataturk founded Turkey as a secular state (IIRC) with the military as the protectors of that state/those freedoms. So eventually something will give because what he is doing is contrary to Turkish society and beliefs?

[Rev Jones]

Zooruka, I respect you but I absolutely have to disagree with you on this one. Back in the Jeltsin days oligarchs were the de facto rulers in Russia. They had bought large state companies and privatized them, had sold off a lot of stuff too and became amazingly rich. Think of oil and gas too. With that money came poltical power and influence as well.

When Putin rose to power these oligarchs thought they could make deals with Putin and use him like a figurehead like they had sort of done with Jeltsin.

However, over the years Putin has driven most of these men away from power and/or riches through trials, jail time etc. There were about 6 to 7 really big oligarchs back in the Jeltsin days. About two of them are still 'in power', be it that they still own their fortune BUT have to do what Putin says.

Putin was underestimated in Russia by the powers that be initially and that was their fatal mistake.

Make no mistake about it, there are still a lot of wealthy and powerful people around Putin but 80% of them came up during the Putin reign and are therefore loyal to him. They depend on him, not the other way around.