'..Russia .. Here, to lie is to protect the social order, to speak the truth is to destroy the State.’'I never cease to be astonished in seeing that there exists a people indifferent to the point of calmly living and dying in the dim light granted to it by its masters’ police. Up to now, I believed that man could no more do without truth for the spirit than air and sun for the body; my journey to Russia disabuses me. Here, to lie is to protect the social order, to speak the truth is to destroy the State.’
- Astolphe marquis de Custine (
Source, page 173)
'..instruments of oppression..''The Russian people impress me as men of agreeable talents .. they possess a feeling for the arts, which is equivalent to saying that nature has endowed them with the need of freedom; but instead of giving them freedom, their masters turn them into instruments of oppression..'
- Astolphe marquis de Custine (
Source, page 249)
'..In the long term, Russia clearly hopes to annex eastern and southern Ukraine; maps to that effect have begun to circulate.''Unlike the planners of D-Day or Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Russians organizing the invasion of Ukraine don’t need an immediate victory. They have flexible goals, and they are prepared to adjust their strategy depending on how much resistance they encounter. In the long term, Russia clearly hopes to annex eastern and southern Ukraine; maps to that effect have begun to circulate.
But in the meantime, the Kremlin may settle for disrupting Ukraine’s presidential elections, scheduled for May 25, or for destabilizing Ukraine’s shaky provisional government, perhaps forcing an economic crash. The Russians may hope to provoke a civil war, or something that appears to be a civil war, which would then require a Russian “peacekeeping mission.”
Many of these tactics are familiar, though we haven’t seen them for a long time. In 1945, Soviet secret policemen, given the task of transforming disparate Eastern European nations into communist puppet states, also began by organizing local thugs and volunteers — criminals and war-damaged sociopaths as well as people who mistakenly believed they were fighting for a form of benign socialism — into paramilitary and secret police forces, exactly like the ones operating in eastern Ukraine. Then as now, they led from the shadows. Then as now, they adjusted their strategy depending on how much resistance they encountered and how much support they received.'
- Anne Applebaum,
A fearful new world, imperiled by Russia’s subterfuge, April 17, 2014
Context'..Russia's policy is nothing more than an improvisational reaction to various crises..'
- Andrei Soldatov,
The True Role of the FSB in the Ukrainian Crisis, April 15, 2014
'There are Russian citizens who are, again, military and intelligence operatives in eastern Ukraine fomenting this trouble. They are recruiting, and there’s some level of training.'
- Mike Rogers (
'..Russian Forces Among Separatists..', April 16, 2014)
'..Russia’s annexation of Crimea won’t be the end of the story, but just the opening salvo..'