Called It!

 

I have been predicting, for most of the past year, that Russia, with too heavy a commitment to the Ukrainian war, will start to split apart as regions separate from Moscow.

Georgia is tumbling first. 

“The law is Russian as we all know… we don’t want to be a part of the ex-Soviet Union, we want to be a part of the European Union, we want to be pro-West,” one protester told Reuters news agency.

If this follows through to its conclusion, we can expect a cascade of similar protests, movements, and separations. Russia lacks the manpower and resources to hold things together. As and when other regions in Moscow’s sphere of influence get it in their heads that there is nothing Russia can do to keep them in the Mother Ship, they will follow suit.

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  1. John H. Member
    John H.
    @JohnH

    Isn’t Georgia already a sovereign nation? I mean it isn’t part of Russia?

    • #1
  2. Hang On Member
    Hang On
    @HangOn

    So Soros is paying for protests and you think this is great?

    • #2
  3. Gary Robbins Member
    Gary Robbins
    @GaryRobbins

    Georgia has been a separate country since the USSR split up.  If memory serves, there were 15 different Soviet Socialist Republics, of which Russia was by far the largest and had the most citizens.  Ukraine had the second most citizens.

    Below are Russia’s eight federal districts:

    Map of Russian districts, 2018-11-04 (Crimea disputed).svg

    Russia is further divided below into oblasts or province’s in yellow, republics in green, territories in orange, autonomous states in dark blue which have a substantial minority population, the three federal cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sevastopol in red, and then a Jewish Homeland in the Far East in purple.  Map of federal subjects of Russia (2014), disputed Crimea.svg

    • #3
  4. DonG (CAGW is a Scam) Coolidge
    DonG (CAGW is a Scam)
    @DonG

    Hang On (View Comment):

    So Soros is paying for protests and you think this is great?

    I wish we could pass a law to prevent Soros from funding color revolutions in our country, but somebody went and made him a citizen and now he has “rights”.  The same goes for the CIA and State Dept.

    • #4
  5. Hang On Member
    Hang On
    @HangOn

    DonG (CAGW is a Scam) (View Comment):

    Hang On (View Comment):

    So Soros is paying for protests and you think this is great?

    I wish we could pass a law to prevent Soros from funding color revolutions in our country, but somebody went and made him a citizen and now he has “rights”. The same goes for the CIA and State Dept.

    The revolving door between the State Department and Soros-funded NGOs is constantly turning.

    • #5
  6. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Kadyrov better look sharp or Chechen is liable to secede from right underneath him.

    Speaking of which, there’s been a horsenapping.

    Wasn’t me. I haven’t been anywhere near Roudnice nad Labem.

    • #6
  7. Doug Watt Member
    Doug Watt
    @DougWatt

    In 2008 Russia attempted to retake Georgia. It’s interesting because Russia was not able to establish air superiority over Georgia.

    • #7
  8. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Doug Watt (View Comment):

    In 2008 Russia attempted to retake Georgia. It’s interesting because Russia was not able to establish air superiority over Georgia.

    I thought the Russians still had a part of northern Georgia having “obtained it” in 2008.

    • #8
  9. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    iWe:

    I have been predicting, for most of the past year, that Russia, with too heavy a commitment to the Ukrainian war, will start to split apart as regions separate from Moscow.

    Georgia is tumbling first. 

    “The law is Russian as we all know… we don’t want to be a part of the ex-Soviet Union, we want to be a part of the European Union, we want to be pro-West,” one protester told Reuters news agency.

    The events in Georgia are interesting in their own right, but as others have pointed out, Georgia is not part of Russia.

    If this follows through to its conclusion, we can expect a cascade of similar protests, movements, and separations. Russia lacks the manpower and resources to hold things together. As and when other regions in Moscow’s sphere of influence get it in their heads that there is nothing Russia can do to keep them in the Mother Ship, they will follow suit.

    I don’t see how Russians, other than perhaps Chechnya, will break away on a geographic basis.  The countries that left in 1991 each had a national sense of identity, despite decades of it being repressed by Russia.  But except for Chechnya, I haven’t heard of any other regions having a distinct sense of national or ethnic identity around which to organize a breakaway unit.

    The Russian oblasts are administrative districts of the center. It’s not like in the United States where states, each with a sense of identity, joined together to form a union, and could perhaps, if driven to it, form the basis for a separation.  That’s not completely true, in that only the eastern states and Texas developed any sense of self-governing government before being incorporated into the Union.  But the other states were purposely admitted with the same rights and privileges as the original states had, in order to avoid the United States becoming a colonial empire with the latecomer states becoming second-class members of the new country.  There were people who would have been glad to have it just like that, but it was not a way to encourage a sense of national identity among the whole. This gave the new states a chance to each develop a sense of state pride and identity, though nothing on the scale of which is seen in, say, Texas.

    I remember seeing maps of a reorganized United States drawn up in the late 50s by people (probably old New Dealers) who wanted the states to become administrative districts more like the Russians oblasts (though of course they didn’t make that comparison). Wiping out all the old state identities would have served these people well. My parents were against that, which set little me to wondering why that was so bad, and to being very aware of the distinction ever since.  I wonder if a search of old newspapers would turn up any of these plans.

    In 2003 when Putin eliminated popular elections for oblast governors, there was hardly a whimper to be heard.  People weren’t aware they had lost anything other than cartoonish gubernatorial elections (as portrayed in the very popular movie, Election Day, which I have watched and enjoyed several times) and had no sense of regional identity around which to focus any objections, anyway.

    There was a case a few years ago when a popular governor in the east got a little too independent from Putin and was removed. That did generate a few objections, but nothing of the sort to form the basis for a breakaway.

    I don’t remember where it is, but it seems there is one place in Russia where the administrative center for the oblast isn’t even located inside the oblast that it administers.  What would it do to Ohio’s sense of identity and experience in self-government if it had long been governed by people in an office complex in Lexington, Kentucky?

    But here  is something that could cause a breakdown of a different kind in Russia.  According to Vlad Vexler tells us that a member of the Russian duma who serves on some sort of defense committee, has advised businesses that they should buy their own rooftop missile systems to protect themselves from Ukrainian drones.  Vlad is usually uber-serious in his videos, but this time he had a little fun with the idea.  He doesn’t do this often enough to know how to keep the smirk off his face when he’s mocking someone.

    [Late edit:  Changed the last paragraph about Vlad Vexler to better identify who is who.]

    • #9
  10. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    MarciN (View Comment):

    Doug Watt (View Comment):

    In 2008 Russia attempted to retake Georgia. It’s interesting because Russia was not able to establish air superiority over Georgia.

    I thought the Russians still had a part of northern Georgia having “obtained it” in 2008.

    That’s true, and I understand that ever since they’ve been “testing” that new boundary and moving it inch by inch.  

    • #10
  11. DonG (CAGW is a Scam) Coolidge
    DonG (CAGW is a Scam)
    @DonG

    One of the “stans” had an uprising last year, but Russia helped put that down.

    • #11
  12. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    Hang On (View Comment):

    So Soros is paying for protests and you think this is great?

    What is it about the desire to be free of Russian influence / control that’s wrong? I just don’t get it.

    • #12
  13. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Hang On (View Comment):

    So Soros is paying for protests and you think this is great?

    What is it about the desire to be free of Russian influence / control that’s wrong? I just don’t get it.

    Why do these people want to hurt Putin’s alleged feelings? 

    • #13
  14. GPentelie Coolidge
    GPentelie
    @GPentelie

    The Reticulator (View Comment):
    … Vlad Vexler, a member of the Russian duma who serves on some sort of defense committee …

    He’s nothing of the kind.

    He’s just a 40-0dd year old long-time UK citizen of Russian birth with graduate degrees in political theory and philosophy from Oxford and East Anglia Universities who, when he’s not offering career and life coaching services through Vlad Vexler Consulting, has been putting out YouTube videos on all sorts of subjects/topics for the past 3 years or so, and only started opining about Russia stuff (mostly mind-reading Putin, it seems) in February last year.

    https://uk.linkedin.com/in/vlad-vexler?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.qwant.com%2F

    • #14
  15. GPentelie Coolidge
    GPentelie
    @GPentelie

    The Reticulator (View Comment):
    … In 2003 when Putin eliminated popular elections for oblast governors, there was hardly a whimper to be heard. … 

    Where in the world do you get such “information”? Vlad Vexler?

    Behold:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_gubernatorial_elections

    • #15
  16. iWe Coolidge
    iWe
    @iWe

    For the pedants here: yes, Georgia is a separate country. Technically. It is solidly inside Russia’s sphere of influence. And if you read the stories of the protests there, it is crystal clear that Georgians do not consider themselves (yet) free of Russian rule.

    If Georgia were truly independent from Russia, there would be no popular uprising seeking to separate from Russia. 

    • #16
  17. Hang On Member
    Hang On
    @HangOn

    iWe (View Comment):

    For the pedants here: yes, Georgia is a separate country. Technically. It is solidly inside Russia’s sphere of influence. And if you read the stories of the protests there, it is crystal clear that Georgians do not consider themselves (yet) free of Russian rule.

    If Georgia were truly independent from Russia, there would be no popular uprising seeking to separate from Russia.

    The demonstration signs and flags tell it all . The EU is a horrible organization. The CIA is a horrible,  murderous, criminal organization. Globalists with their NGOs are about exploiting local populations of their resources. They will suck the life out of Georgia just as they have Ukraine which has prostituted itself to Blackrock, etc.

    • #17
  18. GPentelie Coolidge
    GPentelie
    @GPentelie

    iWe (View Comment):

    For the pedants here: yes, Georgia is a separate country. Technically. It is solidly inside Russia’s sphere of influence. And if you read the stories of the protests there, it is crystal clear that Georgians do not consider themselves (yet) free of Russian rule.

    If Georgia were truly independent from Russia, there would be no popular uprising seeking to separate from Russia.

    Utter nonsense. For goodness’s sake, Georgia has already reached this stage on its way to becoming a NATO member (link at bottom):

    “The Substantial NATO-Georgia Package (SNGP) is a set of measures and initiatives aimed at strengthening Georgia’s defence capabilities and developing closer security cooperation and interoperability with NATO Members. The SNGP includes support to 13 different areas of the defence and security-related sectors, and across all military services and branches. It involves strategic level advice and liaison, defence capacity-building and training activities, multi-national exercises and enhanced interoperability opportunities.”

    Also worthy of mention:

    “During later periods of the Iraq War Georgia had up to 2,000 soldiers serving in the Multi-National Force.[183] Georgia also participated in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan; with 1,560 troops in 2013, it was at that time the largest contributor among non-NATO countries[184] and in per capita terms.[185][186] Over 11,000 Georgian soldiers have been rotated through Afghanistan.[187]

    This kerfuffle is about a law that its own Parliament was about to pass that is meant to circumscribe the activities of foreign agencies/NGOs/etc. (such as, say, Samantha Power’s USAid), which its opponents are characterizing as a “Russian-style” law for maximum rhetorical effect. Interestingly, the same kind of law was passed in 2017 by the Parliament and signed by the President of … Hungary, a NATO member. BTW, India (oft dubbed “the world’s largest democracy”) has one of those, too. 

    This is all moot now, anyway, since the Georgian Parliament caved to the EU’s “Nice EU aspirations you’ve got there, Georgia. It’d be a shame if something happened to them” style … advice.

    “[S]olidly inside Russia’s sphere of influence”? How absurd.

    https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2016_06/20160614_1606-georgia-sngp-factsheet-en.pdf

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)#Military

    • #18
  19. GPentelie Coolidge
    GPentelie
    @GPentelie

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    What is it about the desire to be free of Russian influence / control that’s wrong? I just don’t get it.

    In general, nothing. But this has nothing to do with Russia.

    • #19
  20. Hang On Member
    Hang On
    @HangOn

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Hang On (View Comment):

    So Soros is paying for protests and you think this is great?

    What is it about the desire to be free of Russian influence / control that’s wrong? I just don’t get it.

    What is it about wanting to be free of globalist, CIA influence/control that’s wrong? It’s just so obvious this is another operation funded by these despicable organizations that will wind up killing a lot of people. It’s American tax dollars being used for the detriment of the vast majority of Americans for the benefit of a tiny American plutocratic elite. 

    • #20
  21. GPentelie Coolidge
    GPentelie
    @GPentelie

    Here’s yet another bit of information, from just a year ago, that further highlights the monumental absurdity of characterizing Georgia as “solidly inside Russia’s sphere of influence”:

    “Today (24 March 2022), NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke virtually during the final phases of a joint exercise in Georgia featuring Georgian, Allied and partner troops.

    “For the past two weeks, the Georgian armed forces and the armed forces of Allied and partner countries have trained side by side to advance interoperability, enhance mutual awareness, and build trust,” the Secretary General said. “This exercise, which we conducted for the third time, shows NATO’s commitment to strengthen Georgia’s defence capabilities, by training and educating its armed forces it is demonstrating NATO’s close cooperation with Georgia,” he pointed out.”

    https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_193624.htm

    • #21
  22. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    GPentelie (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):
    … Vlad Vexler, a member of the Russian duma who serves on some sort of defense committee …

    He’s nothing of the kind.

    He’s just a 40-0dd year old long-time UK citizen of Russian birth with graduate degrees in political theory and philosophy from Oxford and East Anglia Universities who, when he’s not offering career and life coaching services through Vlad Vexler Consulting, has been putting out YouTube videos on all sorts of subjects/topics for the past 3 years or so, and only started opining about Russia stuff (mostly mind-reading Putin, it seems) in February last year.

    https://uk.linkedin.com/in/vlad-vexler?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.qwant.com%2F

    Yes, I certainly put the wrong punctuation in that one. Vlad is not the Duma guy. He’s making fun of one. 

    • #22
  23. iWe Coolidge
    iWe
    @iWe

    I wanted to place the marker. As events play out over the coming months and years we’ll see who is right!

    • #23
  24. GPentelie Coolidge
    GPentelie
    @GPentelie

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    GPentelie (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):
    … Vlad Vexler, a member of the Russian duma who serves on some sort of defense committee …

    He’s nothing of the kind.

    He’s just a 40-0dd year old long-time UK citizen of Russian birth with graduate degrees in political theory and philosophy from Oxford and East Anglia Universities who, when he’s not offering career and life coaching services through Vlad Vexler Consulting, has been putting out YouTube videos on all sorts of subjects/topics for the past 3 years or so, and only started opining about Russia stuff (mostly mind-reading Putin, it seems) in February last year.

    https://uk.linkedin.com/in/vlad-vexler?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.qwant.com%2F

    Yes, I certainly put the wrong punctuation in that one. Vlad is not the Duma guy. He’s making fun of one.

    Ah, OK.

    • #24
  25. GPentelie Coolidge
    GPentelie
    @GPentelie

    iWe (View Comment):

    I wanted to place the marker. As events play out over the coming months and years we’ll see who is right!

    Which calendar will you be using for your “RUSSIA’S END IS NIGH!” countdown? Gregorian or Julian?

    • #25
  26. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Hang On (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Hang On (View Comment):

    So Soros is paying for protests and you think this is great?

    What is it about the desire to be free of Russian influence / control that’s wrong? I just don’t get it.

    What is it about wanting to be free of globalist, CIA influence/control that’s wrong? It’s just so obvious this is another operation funded by these despicable organizations that will wind up killing a lot of people. It’s American tax dollars being used for the detriment of the vast majority of Americans for the benefit of a tiny American plutocratic elite.

    Ha.  The one pro-Russian YouTuber that I follow just in order to get the latest war headlines from that side says the U.S. has now opened up a 2nd front in Georgia.  You agree with that, right?  

    • #26
  27. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Estonian Rainer Saks explains what’s at stake in Georgia. This is from Estonian blogger Artur Rehi, who I follow on YouTube. 

     

    Estonian military blogger and former head of reconnaissance of Estonia, Rainer Saks writes in his today’s Ukrainian war blog:

    March 9th, 2023

    The most significant events of the past few days may have taken place in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. Somewhat unexpectedly, the parliament passed a law on so-called foreign agents. Such a law can only originate from Russia’s political culture, and there is no doubt that it is based on or at least coordinated with an initiative from Russia. In the bigger picture, the processing of such a law in parliament means only one thing – Russia has begun to increase its control over Georgia’s internal political process. It is not surprising that some of the biggest protests in recent years have erupted in response. It is possible that the authorities consider the situation in the capital too dangerous, as they have already used significant force to disperse the protests. Even the Georgian president on a foreign visit has expressed his opposition to the law. It is clear that the enforcement of such a law would put an end to any movement of Georgia towards Europe. It is unlikely that the protests can simply be ended by using force. The current internal political crisis will show in the coming weeks whether the Georgian people can block Russia’s growing influence in the country or whether the majority will be indifferent to it. Russia is thus currently investing in destabilizing the internal politics of both Moldova and Georgia in order to play an escalation and weaken Europe’s position.

    • #27
  28. iWe Coolidge
    iWe
    @iWe

    In other words: Russia’s push for greater power is being rejected by the citizens of a neighboring quasi-nation.

    As stated in the OP.

    • #28
  29. GPentelie Coolidge
    GPentelie
    @GPentelie

    iWe (View Comment):

    In other words: Russia’s push for greater power is being rejected by the citizens of a neighboring quasi-nation.

    As stated in the OP.

    You automatically believe a former intel guy from Estonia when he claims that “Such a law can only originate from Russia’s political culture, and there is no doubt that it is based on or at least coordinated with an initiative from Russia”?

    Did you automatically believe the 51 former US intelligence officials who claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020 had “the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation”, too?

    • #29
  30. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    iWe (View Comment):

    In other words: Russia’s push for greater power is being rejected by the citizens of a neighboring quasi-nation.

    As stated in the OP.

    Why do you say “quasi?”

    • #30
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