Tag archive: Vladimir Putin

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Alexei Navalny: Poisoned (Again)?

On 16 February 2024, the sudden death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was announced from the Polar Wolf prison in Kharp, Siberia, Russia, where he had been held since December, following a series of transfers after his incarceration in 2021.  Navalny, who can be seen laughing and joking in a video just the day before, reportedly felt unwell after a morning walk, collapsed, and could not be revived.

Navalny had long been a thorn in the side of Russian President Vladimir Putin, organizing and leading the opposition to his despotic rule for over a decade.  Putin had tried at least once before to have him killed, using poison, and astrologic factors point to his death being a repeat performance, successful this time.   In August 2020 Navalny became violently ill during a flight, losing consciousness and lapsing into a coma; he was medically evacuated to Berlin, where the cause was determined to be Novichok poisoning, a Soviet era neurotoxin.  Miraculously, Navalny survived, and despite the risk to his life returned to Russia in January 2021, where he was immediately arrested, and has been in detention ever since, under increasingly harsh conditions, serving a nineteen-year sentence for “extremism.”

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Ukraine War: First Anniversary

The traditional first anniversary gift is paper, but no peace treaty looms on the horizon between Russia and Ukraine as the war grinds on into its second year.  Perhaps the modern version, the gift of a clock, would be more appropriate, to time the conflict’s duration.  What many predicted would be a triumphal progress for the Russian army a year ago, with expectations that Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv would fall in a matter of days, has turned into a long, hard slog, mainly serving to illustrate the resilience, spirit and determination of the Ukrainian people, and the relative weakness and ineffectuality of the Russian armed forces.

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AAA Profile: Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin has dominated Russian politics for almost a quarter century.  A former KGB officer, Putin entered politics after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, an event he describes as the greatest tragedy of the Twentieth Century.  In 1996 he joined Boris Yeltsin’s administration; appointed as prime minister in 1999, he filled the role of acting president when Yeltsin resigned later that year, being elected to the office in 2000.  At the time, Russia had a prohibition on an individual serving more than two consecutive terms as president, so after being reelected in 2004, in 2008 Putin swapped jobs with then prime minister Dmitry Medvedev for a term, only to assume the top spot again in the following election, four years later.  That would have entitled him to two more terms, but Putin changed the law to allow himself to run for an additional two terms uninterrupted, potentially continuing his occupancy of the presidency indefinitely.

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The Russia-Ukraine Crisis

Tensions continue to increase on the border between Ukraine and Russia, where more than 100,000 Russian troops have recently been stationed, in what appears to be a build-up to an invasion.  Russia began a piecemeal takeover of its neighbor in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea, followed by further border incursions into adjoining Ukrainian enclaves dominated by its military and local separatist groups wanting to reunite the two nations, as they were under Soviet hegemony.  Reports that families of Russian diplomatic staffers in Ukraine were evacuated in early January heightened the sense of impending crisis.

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Political Apprentice, Season Three: The Trump Administration’s 2019 Solar Return

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse … they do. We’ve seen how lousy a year this is shaping up to be for Trump personally. Now it’s the administration’s turn to feel the heat. Amazing how there are cycles within cycles with this stuff, from transits to Trump’s natal, the ongoing effects of his prior solar return, the transit sky’s interaction with his celestial referent, and now the administration itself. And all saying the same thing – you’re goin’ down, buddy!

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Manafort Trial Begins

The first of two trials of former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort opened in Alexandria, Virginia on August 31st, with Manafort facing federal bank and tax fraud charges. Manafort joined the Trump campaign in March 2016 as a non-paid consultant, when the GOP nomination became a likely outcome; his expertise in politics was sought to derail a possible floor fight at the convention, smoothing Trump’s path by locking in delegates’ votes. Promoted to Campaign Manager in June, Manafort resigned under a cloud in August, allegedly because family members had become worried about the extent of his Russian connections.

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