Link here.

About halfway through the video, Sakwa states that Kremlin sources have told him that Britain’s decision to sail its warship into an area of the Black Sea near Crimea in June of 2021 infuriated Putin and contributed to his actions in February of 2022. – Natylie

Crosstalk, RT, 11/29/23

NATO’s Ukraine proxy war on Russia should have never happened. Before the conflict there were options. A month into the conflict there were options to end it. The West refused to negotiate. Now ending it is proving most difficult.

Watch here.

By Vladimir Golstein, Facebook, 12/4/23

My review of Gary Saul Morson’s book, Wonder Confronts Certainty, has just came out in Claremont Review of Books, a fascinating publication whose authors are doing ungrateful job of swimming against the current.

Below are some of my observations from this essay. I guess one has to be a subscriber to read the whole thing. But you’ll catch the drift from these paragraphs. The link to the essay (is in the comments):

What is there in great Russian novels that provokes such a strong sense of attachment and identification? Morson, a prolific literary and cultural critic whose insights into Russian literature have benefited generations of readers, is abundantly qualified to answer that question.

Claremont Review of Books

Fall 2023

A Happy Guest in Russia’s Pages

The great Russian novels provoke a strong sense of attachment and identification.

by Vladimir Golstein

https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/a-happy-guest-in-russias-pages/

Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter

By Gary Saul Morson

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Confronts-Certainty-Timeless-Questions/dp/0674971809

This volume is vintage Morson. It addresses serious subjects with the gravity they deserve, conveying the sense of wonder one experiences when reading great fiction. The study also exposes the follies and abuses perpetrated by the Commissars of Certainty—the radical intelligentsia (from the Russian intelligents) willing to die or kill for some scheme of universal happiness. The plea that resounds again and again throughout Russian novels is to avoid abstract utopias and focus on the goodness and beauty of everyday life. It is as timely a message now as it was in the 19th century— or even more so, since technological advances make it easier for today’s Grand Inquisitors to forcibly impose their idea of human bliss on the world stage. The petty tyrant of medieval Seville, whom Fyodor Dostoevsky depicts subjugating city-dwellers and interrogating Christ in The Brothers Karamazov, couldn’t even imagine all the means of control and manipulation available to today’s self-appointed saviors of mankind.

Russia’s peculiar historical development furnished the intelligentsia with plenty of means, motives, and opportunities to articulate, and more importantly to implement, their radical theories. Over the course of the last 150 years, these theories and practices have shaped the trajectory of Russia’s intellectual and material history. Morson’s book frames an opposition between the literary artists who attempted to make sense of themselves and their world, and the ideologues who fancied they had already explained the world and so wanted, à la Karl Marx, to change it…

The book explores intense culture wars waged between the artists (call them “Team Wonder”) and the radical critics (“Team Certainty”). These groups embodied not just two different cultural traditions but two rather fundamental aspects of human nature—perhaps distinguished by the two sides of our brains, or simply two different approaches to the universe and its mysteries.

Morson compares “certaintists” to the hedgehog, and their opponents to the fox of the fable popularized by Isaiah Berlin: “A fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing.” While foxes thrive on dialogue, on switching perspectives, and on looking at themselves from outside so as to learn and adapt, “for hedgehogs, dialogue can make no further discoveries because there is nothing left to discover.” The road to hell is paved with certainties.

Since we do see through a glass darkly in the affairs of this world, it remains reasonable to avoid fake clarity and abstract formulas that can’t possibly do justice to life’s complexity and unpredictability. It was these demonic certainties of the intelligentsia that great Russian authors exposed—convincingly, to many, though not to the intelligentsia itself. The intelligents, despite the inadequacies of their outlook, persisted in becoming more self-righteous, intolerant, and violent. They embraced first anti-tsarist terrorism, then the 1917 revolution with its stated goal of constructing a socialist utopia. Morson’s comparisons between the insights of novelists and the follies of the intelligentsia justify the harsh judgment pronounced in 1909 by the essayist Mikhail Gershenzon: “In Russia an almost infallible gauge of the strength of an artist’s genius is the extent of his hatred for the intelligentsia.”

A book like this, which argues for the relevance of thousands of small things and resists sweeping pronouncements of certainty, can’t be reduced to one message. Morson eschews grand theories about “what must be done” (the obsession of Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Vladimir Lenin). Instead he focuses on negative examples of what must be avoided: dogmatism, myopia, and what Mikhail Bakhtin called “theoretism,” i.e., “the belief that abstractions are more real than experience.” The book’s main argument is presented in chapters with revealing titles: “What Is Not to be Done?” “Who Is Not to Blame?” “What Don’t We Appreciate?” “What Doesn’t it all Mean?” Reading through Morson’s lively narrative, an attentive reader is bound to acquire a wisdom that prefers not to blame, not to imagine that it knows what to do, not to reduce complex life experience to abstractions, and not to suffocate with certainty what should remain a subject of wonder….

Novels rarely offer recipes for universal salvation. They capture small discoveries and might prompt slight adjustments in a few hearts, which nevertheless can be a great boon to humanity at large. Along with other great novelists, Leo Tolstoy prompted his readers to reorient their vision and re-calibrate their system of values: What matters is the person suffering here and now, rather than some distant scheme. In War and Peace, Tolstoy’s Pierre is transformed when he realizes that “everything near and commonplace” once seemed “insignificant and limited” because he “had equipped himself with a mental telescope

and gazed into the distance” so that “things seemed to him great and infinite only because they were not clearly visible.” It is this need to replace our mental telescope with the microscope, clarity with wonder, that Russian novelists articulate so forcefully.

Writing when the microscope and telescope were both new discoveries, John Milton made a similar plea. In Paradise Lost (VIII.172-4), the archangel Raphael admonishes Adam against trying to decipher all God’s “wondrous Works”: “Heav’n is for thee too high / To know what passes there; be lowlie wise: / Think onely what concernes thee and thy being.”

In Landmarks, the philosopher Semen Frank highlighted the dangers of the “telescopic” way of approaching the world: “The abstract ideal of absolute happiness in the remote future destroys the…vital sensation of love for one’s neighbor…. Great love for future humanity engenders great hatred for people.”

But such appeals, writes Morson, “ran counter to the prevailing Russian ethos.” The intelligentsia’s telescopic myopia was as disturbing as its intolerance of criticism and opposing points of view. “Nothing in Marxism is subject to revision,” Lenin declared. “There is only one answer to revisionism: smash its face in.” This attitude, which Morson calls “willful non-knowing,” is the zeal of a neophyte who views disagreement as religious apostasy, meriting destruction or, in current parlance, “cancellation.” Still today, certainty can lead quite naturally to absolutism.

Intellinews, 12/3/23

According to the latest polls from the Levada Centre, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating rose three percentage points in November to 85%, and disapproval slid down two points to 13%.

Separately, another poll conducted by the state-controlled Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) reported a small decline in Russians’ trust of Putin: 78.5% of participants expressed their trust in President Putin, marking a minimal decrease of 0.1 percentage points compared to the previous poll. Additionally, the approval rating for President Putin’s job performance showed a slight dip, with 75.2% of respondents indicating their approval, representing a 0.2 percentage point decrease.

Putin is benefiting from the failure of Ukraine to make any progress with its counter-offensive this summer and rising incomes in both nominal and real terms thanks to a tight labour market.

At the same time, the heavy state spending on defence has given the economy a shot in the arm, which is running well ahead of potential.

These positive results are also seen in things such as retail turnover, which is also up in November, and the PMI manufacturing index is still in expansion mode, well above the 50 no-change mark, while unemployment is at a historic low of 3%.

The good news is also reflected in the “is the country going in the right/wrong direction” question, where “right” ticked up 3 percentage points as well to 67%, while “wrong” remained flat at 21%, as more people shifted from “don’t know” to “right”.

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has also seen his credibility rise to 72% in November from 68%, while his disapproval rating remains flat at 21%.

Mishustin has made steady gains since he took office in 2017 with an approval rating of 53% that rapidly fell to a low of 31% in the summer of 2018 and remained under 40% for the next year. But after a four-year recession ended that year and since the start of the war, Mishustin has shown himself to be a competent administrator and has increasingly won over the population for maintaining the standard of living in Russia.

The government has also seen its approval tick up two points to 69%, which is not much of a difference from where it has been for the last year. Even the Duma, one of the most disliked institutions in Russia, has seen its approval rise to 61% with a 33% disapproval rating. The approval/disapproval of the Duma is usually balanced, and often with disapproval outweighing the two.

Regional governors retain their relative popularity with a 72% approval rating, down by two points from October. The governors have seen their approval rise from last year, when their polling numbers were mostly under 60%, but they have not managed to climb to the point where they were challenging Putin’s own popularity a few years ago.

Finally, the share of respondents who think that protests are possible with political demands remains a low 19% in September, well below the 29% recent peak in February on the eve of the start of the Ukrainian war. However, interestingly the figure for those that said they would participate in the demonstrations should they occur was 18% in September, on a par with every other poll for the last few years, suggesting there is a hard-core community of Russians that remain politically committed to opposition to the government, but which is relatively small in size.

The same poll asking whether there would be protests with economic demands, and if the respondent would participate should they happen, came in at 14% and 13% respectively, suggesting Russians are much less dissatisfied with the standard of living than their political freedoms.

VTsIOM also gauged public sentiment towards the Russian government and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. Approximately 49.7% of those polled approved of the government’s execution of its functions, experiencing a 1.1 percentage point decline. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mishustin’s job performance maintained steady support, with 52.3% of respondents approving.

However, trust in Prime Minister Mishustin experienced a minor drop of 0.5 percentage points, with 61.1% of participants expressing their trust.

In terms of party leaders represented in Parliament, the results were as follows:

Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) leader Gennady Zyuganov garnered the trust of 32.1% of respondents, marking a 1.7 percentage point increase.

A Just Russia-For Truth party leader Sergey Mironov enjoyed the trust of 29.4% of those polled, experiencing a 0.6 percentage point rise.

Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) head Leonid Slutsky received the trust of 17% of participants, encountering a minor decline of 0.2 percentage points.

New People party chairman Alexey Nechayev secured the trust of 7.8% of respondents, noting a 1 percentage point drop.

In terms of political party support:

The ruling United Russia party saw its popularity rise by 1.1 percentage points to 40.9%.

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) experienced a 0.7 percentage point decrease, with its support standing at 9.2%.

The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) saw a 0.4 percentage point increase, with its support also at 9.2%.

A Just Russia-For Truth party witnessed a 0.5 percentage point decline in its popular support, reaching 4.4%.

Support for the New People party decreased by 0.4 percentage points, landing at 4.4%.

Intellinews, 11/30/23

Corruption case against Ukraine oligarch Kolomoisky to be dropped. Another big fish looks like he will escape justice as the fraud case against top Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky looks like it will be dropped following a court ruling on November 29, the Kyiv Independent reports.

Kolomoisky was arrested on September 2 by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and charged with money laundering and fraud. He was subsequently accused of embezzling $250mn from his bank PrivatBank by National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) on September 8 in the most high profile corruption case in years.

PrivatBank, Ukraine’s biggest commercial bank, had to be nationalised and bailed out in 2016 after a bne IntelliNews cover story Privat Investigation exposed a fake loans scam at the bank, where the owners lent money to shell companies under their control leaving a $5.5bn hole in the balance sheet, resulting in the biggest bailout in Ukraine’s banking history.

Kolomoisky is also under investigation in the US, where he syphoned off hundreds of millions of dollars through shell companies in Cleveland, and is also being prosecuted in both London and Cyprus by the now state-owned PrivatBank in an effort to recover the money. A London court has frozen some $2bn of his assets as part of these cases in a case which is expected to go on for years.

Kolomoisky’s arrest in September came as an landmark event, as he is the second big fish NABU has attempted to jail. Previously NABU arrested Roman Nasirov, the government’s financial controller and former President Petro Poroshenko’s right-hand man, and charged him with embezzling millions of dollars in March 2017. However, Nasirov walked free after his wife came up with over $1mn bail in cash and the case was eventually dropped. Seen as a litmus test of the anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine at the time under the Western-leading EuroMaidan government, Nasirov’s case was judged as a failure.

Now it looks like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s efforts to rejuvenate the anti-corruption drive are going to suffer a similar humiliation. Ukraine has a corruption problem that will stymie any effort to raise private sector investment to pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction, as was laid out at the Recovery conference held in London in June last year.

Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center reports that on November 28, the High Anti-Corruption Court’s appeal chamber ruled that NABU had failed to meet a May deadline for completing its investigation in the case against Kolomoisky.

This ruling may invalidate the charges brought against Kolomoisky, the only charges brought against him in the PrivatBank case, despite the blatant nature of the schemes. A forensic audit of PrivatBank following its nationalisation found that 99% of the loans made by the bank to shell companies were fake.

The High Anti-Corruption Court has only been recently reactivated and its ruling means either the prosecutors or a court could close the case down, according to Vadym Valko, a lawyer at the Anti-Corruption Action Centre as cited by Kyiv Independent, although such a decision would be subject to appeal.

In a parallel decision the High Anti-Corruption Court, which is a related anti-corruption body set up at Western insistence, rejected motions to freeze Kolomoisky’s assets and impose bail and travel restrictions on them.

Charges were brought against Kolomoisky, along with several alleged accomplices, including Oleksandr Dubilet, Lyudmila Shmalchenko, Yaroslav Luhovoy, Tetiana Yakymenko and Nadiya Konopkina.

NABU’s investigation claims that Kolomoisky orchestrated a scheme in 2015 to funnel funds from PrivatBank to an offshore company and increase his share in the bank’s capital. This involved a payment of over $250mn to the offshore company under the pretext of repurchasing its bonds at an inflated cost. A portion of these funds, totalling $12mn, was then channelled to five legal entities before ultimately ending up in Kolomoisky’s personal account, according to NABU.

The NABU case against Kolomoisky is separate from the original charges brought by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) that were used to arrest him in September. The SBU is under the direct control of the president and was widely seen as an attempt by Zelenskiy to crack down on Ukraine’s oligarchs. Ukraine’s Economic Security Bureau (BEB) also cooperated in the SBU case that has similar allegations of fraud and money laundering of UAH500mn ($13.5mn) in 2019-2020. Kolomoisky has been held in pre-trial detention since September and refused to post bail. A court this week extended his detention into the New Year.

The court’s decision and the potential closure of the NABU case are linked to the controversial “Lozovy amendments,” Kyiv Independent reports, which imposed strict deadlines for investigations and limited the terms for sending cases to trial. The Rada passed several laws this week that undermine the judiciary and its ability to vet and bar corrupt judges from office.

Anti-corruption activists argue that these amendments aimed to protect corrupt officials by hindering investigations against them. Despite calls from activists, Parliament has yet to repeal these amendments.

The ruling on the Kolomoisky case highlights different interpretations of the Lozovy amendments, with prosecutors and some courts contending that they do not apply when multiple cases are merged, and one was opened before the amendments. The Kyiv Independent reports. The Anti-Corruption Court’s appeal chamber disagreed with this interpretation.

As the case hangs in the balance, the future of Ukraine’s efforts to prosecute Kolomoisky remains uncertain, prompting concerns about the state of anti-corruption efforts in the country.

The Kolomoisky case comes as Ukraine’s anti-corruption efforts are spluttering following a failure to reform the judiciary and bar corrupt judges from office. Zelenskiy has been trying to reform the High Commission and the Anti-corruption Court but is running into stiff institution resistance to any changes.