The continuation of the farce that Navalny’s handlers started with his fake poisoning and the subsequent staged return Russia with the fake “palace” video in his arsenal (outlined in my previous post The Navalny’s Palace – Fake Documentary from Fake Opposition (with a list of past crimes)) has come to the logical conclusion with the much-welcome imprisonment of the fraudster.
Navalny got his remaining 2.8 years of suspended sentence for defrauding of two companies converted into a real term. This was the outcome which Russians hoped for. Should the court have caved in to the Western pressure and release Navalny, that would have given a clear signal that he is above the Law and that Law does not apply to fraudsters in the employ of the foreign secret services. The reactions that I read on the Russian internet could be summed up as: “Why so little?!” Well, this is just one past conviction for one of his crimes. (By the way, Navalny has already got away with too much – he’s the only Russian citizen who managed to have two suspended convictions for fraud!)
There is still the case of defamation of WWII veteran, and the case of defrauding donors to his organisation (with the donated money spent on luxury and vacations). These cases were open and, coupled with the suspended sentence, were grounds for not letting Navalny out of the country in the first place. It was actually President Putin’s request that allowed Navalny to be transported to Germany, where he spent almost 2 months after his recovery on skipping his parole and on creation of the film targeting to defame Putin.
And there are strong calls to open a new case – this time for high treason due to Navalnys NGO direct appeal to Biden to impose sanctions on Russia. Seeing as sanctions qualify as an act of war, these people were calling on a foreign power to start a war on the country that they are citizens of.
The pressure on the Court of Justice was immense, including from the foreign diplomats, who amassed there to intimidate the judges and influence the course of a civil court by their presence. The hall of shame includes the diplomats from the following countries:
USA, UK, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Canada, Finland, Japan, Austria, Czechia and Bulgaria.
EDIT: 05.02.2021 – Good to see Russia acting in accordance with the international norms and also showing backbone – Russia expels diplomats from Germany, Poland and Sweden for alleged participation in pro-Navalny protests. If only Yanukovich did the same with Biden and Nuland back in 2014, Ukraine would most probably not be a Nazi-infested impoverished and depopulated basket-case right now…
I want to translate another angle on the events, from an article published by Alexander Rodgers, an angle which posits that one last desperate a coup d’etat was de facto attempted in Russia.
After yesterday, I do not even know what additional evidence of foreign interference in Russia’s affairs is needed to make this fact clear to everyone.
I will not be starting with yesterday’s events, but will go back a little further. On the eve of the hearing, FSB declassified and published an operational video in which the executive director of “FBK” [translator note: a Navalny-linked NGO] Vladimir Ashurkov meets with an agent of the British intelligence MI-6.
Have you listened carefully to what they are saying? I listened to it twice on purpose. Ashurkov is not just discussing some opposition or anti-corruption activities with the British spy.
He offers the Briton the services of his organization to collect information about the activities of the Russian state bank VTB, and also pour on this bank a stream of black PR in order to discredit and weaken it.
At the same time, the motivation voiced by Ashurkov is interesting. There was no talk that it was “a bank that supports Putin” or “a bank with corrupted dealing.” Nothing like that. A senior employee of the “FBK” says directly that “This bank controls a significant share of the banking services market and is a serious competitor for a number of large Western banks” (at the same time, the “investigator” simply asks the British for at least some dirt on VTB and various Russian businessmen, which they could pass off as their “investigation”).
That’s it! Nothing more. Just a traitor offering services to undermine the Russian banking sector in order to displace our bank and make room for the Western ones. And this, if such activities are successful, in particular, will inevitably lead to a weakening of the country’s economic sovereignty.
Fortunately, Andrey Leonidovich Kostin is such a bison of banking that he will eat anyone for breakfast. Therefore, plans for the destruction of VTB could not be implemented.
Now Ashurkov is hiding from Russian justice in London, and continues to shit on his homeland from afar. But others like him are here…
Now to the trial of Navalny. Fans of the story of “How we want Russia to be a legal state” were very hysterical when they were clearly shown the operations of this legal state yesterday.
Everything was strictly within the law: there is the fact of probation for fraud, there is the fact of numerous violations of the regime of oversight by the convicted person, so there is every reason to replace a suspended sentence for a real one. And so it happened.
Moreover, Navalny himself tried to claim that “Putin is taking revenge on him for publishing a film about the palace,” but, as usual, he stupidly and primitively lies – in fact, the decision of the Federal Penitentiary Service to change the measure of restraint was taken before the publication of this fake.
And the vast majority of people who were outraged that Navalny had gotten away with numerous violations of the law for so long (which he also admitted in his speech), happily said “At last!” when he was finally put in jail.
However, the most important thing is not even this (although it is also, of course, important). The main thing is what happened around the court.
For example, about 16 or 18 representatives of diplomatic departments of other countries appeared at the trial. What should they do at the trial of a Russian fraudster, which a priori is an internal matter of the Russian Federation?
Can you imagine what would happen if the Russian ambassador tried to come to the trial of Michael Flynn or Roger Stone (or anyone else) in the United States? He would have been instantly accused of espionage, interference in internal affairs, attack on democracy, and so on – and at best would have been expelled from the country.
While here a whole bunch of foreign diplomats strutted in (this is the perfect word) to the trial of Navalny. And they also tried to press demands – you see, they were not provided with translators! Why on earth should they be? On the “Aftershock” there is a specific heading “Overwhelmed in the attack” – it’s about them.
Comrade Gotzman has a natural question: “Why all of a sudden?”. Why is there such a huge interest – starting from hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, and to diplomatic support – in a dull fake that has lost all its trials on libel charges?
There is only one rational explanation – the collective West sees in him almost the last hope for a coup in Russia, which would allow them to take our country under their external control – and then plunder it without restrictions, solving their increasingly noticeable economic problems at our expense.
What is happening is not just an unceremonious and contrary to international law (if there is such a thing, which I strongly doubt) interference in the internal affairs of the Russian Federation. This is, in fact, an act of aggression, an attempt (albeit unsuccessful, which does not make it any less of a manifestation of open hostility) to inspire a coup d’etat in the country.
Moreover, after the verdict was announced, a representative of the Swedish diplomatic mission was detained at the subsequent unauthorized rally. What was he doing there? On what grounds? This is completely beyond any reason – they should still send Viky Nuland with her cookies!
What about slapping this Swede with “participation in mass riots” and “attempted coup”? And not send him home, but send them to sunny Magadan for 10-15 years?
However, yesterday, Nuland would not have helped – there were barely about two hundred protesters, who were quickly and cleanly tied up.
I was especially delighted with the delusions of a Kupchik and Volkov “we demonstrated our power” (or rather, lack thereof, because for half a billion roubles they could have brought out orders of magnitude more people), and hysterical threats from sitting in London Marichka Pevchih who spat all over Twitter her impotent threats against judges and law enforcement officers “We will jail you all”.
To do this, Masha, you should conquer Russia first. As the ancient Spartans said, “If”…
Because although Granny Lisa [translator note: Q. Elizabeth] has her own pet “Baron of Siberia” [translator note: Evgeny Lebedev, son of the former KGB office Alexander Lebedev], the island’s jurisdiction does not apply to continental Russia (and never will).
So yesterday, we saw the visualized pain of a pack of small predators facing an awakened bear. Here it is, the wealth of Russia – the eye sees, but the tooth can’t touch.
This hungry groan is called by them for “democracy”.
P. S. The Americans – represented by the trademark Pelevin character (if you know what I mean, there’s something about clowns) Mitt Romney – are already urging to release a “valuable asset”. Oh, sorry, four-times underpoisoned blogger. Threatening with sanctions (they found something original to surprise us with).
The Russian Foreign Ministry has already presented European diplomats with the footage of police brutality during the crackdown on rallies in EU countries. While these need a reply of “First, you will release Julian Assange, who told the truth about your war crimes. And close Guantanamo Bay. And then we’ll talk. Maybe.”