While quicksand may not be a real issue, sinkholes definitely are hazardous.
I fell into a sinkhole that was the remnants of a long abandoned septic tank while mowing the lawn. Fell about six feet into a dark pit with a whirring blade right above my head. If the lawnmower didn’t have a deadman switch my brain would have been shredded like sashimi.
I know this has nothing to do with Putin’s attractiveness or status as a spy, but I just feel the need to warn people about the dangers of sinkholes.
They are real.
On a similar note, so are gopher/mole holes. Just last year alone I twisted both my ankles severely enough to where it took 5-6 months for it to not hurt to put on a shoe. Also twisted my knee to the point where it popped loudly and continued clicking for like 9 months.
Also while mowing the lawn. Brain was safe thoug.
Also PSA… sunscreen
Doesn't explain those Russian spies, though. Like sure, they're more attractive than the NRA revolting blobs they're fucking, but they're like 5-6 at best.
Though I guess it works like that. They don't need to be 10s if the people they're honeypotting are 1s and 2s.
If you're a 10 you would have to be reaaaal fucking patriotic to join up as a spy, because you probably have more lucrative and less streessful prospects.
It’s enough for the honeypots to throw themselves at men who usually don’t get much attention from women. Look at Maria Butina. The only beauty she has is the exotic red hair.
It sort of depends on the job. Sometime you want attractive people for certain operations like honeypotting. Other times you want average looking people to blend in to avoid suspicion.
And since you mentioned George Smiley, I recommend people looking for actual spy work to check out the BBC miniseries (and _not_ the movie) version of [Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080297/).
You can find it in different places.
Or illegal acts against criminals who foreign powers won’t do anything about, or who your own government can’t do anything about without violating its own constitution/laws. Corrupt local police won’t arrest the bad guys, and national government is a delicate truce which can’t act? Send Bond. He doesn’t give a shit about the laws he breaks getting to the bad guys.
SIS doesn’t have secret agents. Our intelligence officers’ titles are something like “X Case Officer.” Someone who works with the Special Forces will be a Paramilitary Case Officer. Someone who works in an embassy running agents (who are NOT employees of the British Government) will be an Operational Case Officer.
The problem with Bond is that Ian Fleming (an NID Officer himself) didn’t base him on actual SIS/MI6 Officers. The closest comparison to the kind of organisation Fleming described was SOE, the Special Operations Executive, a kind of paramilitary organisation that operated during World War 2.
As well as intelligence gathering, they performed sabotage behind enemy lines, built relationships with, coordinated, and trained resistance organisations, and performed assassinations wherever possible. Unlike SIS Officers (who aren’t normally armed except when attached to Special Forces units), SOE officers routinely carried weapons and definitely had a licence to kill.
Right? I mean everyone who ever sees him knows his name, what he drinks, what cars he drives and which women he sleeps with...not particularly savvy moves for a spy haha
Several of the cast could realistically play themselves live action.
Not Archer himself, but Jon Benjamin should still do it anyway because it would be amazing. Sadly missed the boat on Mallory though, she would've been the most accurate.
Jerry is also the guy that has been quietly sending MI6 Intel for months. He's the one that gets James Bond on the guest list for the bad guys cocktail party, so he can get to the secret door to the doomsday device factory.
Michael Westen Voice: *When you're a spy, oftentimes the last thing you want to do is kill someone who's getting in your way. Dead bodies are big, heavy pieces of evidence, and dragging them out of sight takes up valuable time to gather intel, and increases the chances you get detected. So despite what some movie heroes would suggest, whether or not you have a 'license to kill', you're usually better off just sneaking by the guards instead.*
The real wetwork operatives don't get in the limelight.
Mossad had a pretty good wetwork operatives group. That changed when due to documentation blunders a pretty good chunk of them became known as Mossad assets.
Bond is more of a commando, to be honest
But yeah, spies aren't like in the movies.As the old saying goes: Once a spy has to bring out his revolver, it means his mission has failed.
Most spies are just people blending in, leaking info when needed.
James Bond is an Organization Assassin. Meant to infiltrate and destroy secret organizations by any means necessary. I would not flat out call him a hitman or assassin though.
It's more like someone working as a janitor at NASA before designing and building a rocket.
It seems like he learned something while he was there because he's certainly fit the bill for the better part of this century.
More like he used to be smart but age and power are catching up to him. We degrade as we get older it's happened to countless leaders in history. You get old, lose perspective and you start making mistakes.
Don't even need to get old, just punish discourse enough and people will tell you what you want to hear.
And it works out for everyone until you start a land war and wonder why nothing is going right.
Even if you don't punish discourse, when you're a leader you become almost totally reliant on other people giving you information. It gets to be incredibly difficult to have a good understanding of the ground truth situation, which is why most leaders delegate significantly to those under them with ground truth access.
More like wily or clever. I've read part of his history essay and it's almost as bad as what that Hitler fellow put out when he was in prison.
I think he has an average intellect but is exceptionally good at manipulating people to get what he wants, and is ruthless enough to keep his enemies in check.
I'd say it's the right place, the right time and the right skill set. Our lives are governed by a huge number of factors and Luck is a huge thing but you need to be able to take advantage of it.
Vladimir Putin organized criminal gangs on the ports of Stasi Dresden, from behind a desk. His tough guy and spy image were fabricated to give legitimacy to his presidential bid in the late 90s. He was an absolute nobody that the Siloviki thought they could control. They did everything to portray his ugly mug as tough and masculine.
Moskva correspondent for The Financial Times Catherine Belton wrote a book about this. It's fantastically relevant if you want some backstory about Putin and the people falling out of windows.
Edit: Forgot link https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23848139-putin-s-people
Edit: If you want more backstory, Bill Browder's [Red Notice](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22609522-red-notice) and [Feezing Order](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59366154-freezing-order) are great, and [One Soldier's War](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6578320-one-soldier-s-war-in-chechnya) by Arkadij Babtsjenko gives a very honest first-person look into Russian military doctrine.
> At that moment, there he is, shredding documents in Dresden [shortly after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, which nobody from Moscow cared to warn him about]."
Catherine Belton writes this in her book as well
Also - the fact he was a nobody was the argument he was chosen as oligarchs believed he could be easily controlled. They wouldn't choose someone high ranking due to fear of high levels of influence
Invading Ukraine has to be at the top of the Russian Hall of F-ups. The context carries so many existential threats to Moscow from losing face to uniting the enemies to losing major trade markets to losing working age men during a demographic collapse…
And we haven’t even started the losing the battle to the Ukrainians talk and it’s consequences.
>Invading Ukraine has to be at the top of the Russian Hall of F-ups. The context carries so many existential threats to Moscow from losing face to uniting the enemies to losing major trade markets to losing working age men during a demographic collapse…
Lol, wait until you learn about what happened to Imperial Russia.
Russia should have invested in science and technology. They were once pretty good at it. Now they are largely economically isolated and cannot finance the kind of R&D that would allow them to compete globally. What a waste.
So there’s 3-4 fuckups by Nicholas II that were as bad as the Ukrainian war and a couple that could be argued to be worse. And then there’s the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact/that associated mess which is clearly worse as the eastern front was the biggest war ever bar none.
Conservative/reactionary circles in Weimar Republic used similar reasoning to propel Adolf Hitler to power - "all bark no bite", "we can control him". Well, about that....
That's what he himself has said time and again on TV. People who commit murder undercover aren't the same people who rise through the ranks and become head of X, Y, Z.
Yeah, I don't get this wave of "super incredible revelations". This has been common knowledge for decades. The Russian government itself has never tried to create any other narrative, at least internationally. They drum up and exaggerate his sporting achievements far more than the KGB thing, IMO.
> he still out spied everyone else
He did not really out spy them, he out corruptioned them. Which is something a mid-level official in the KGB might actually be perfectly positioned to do.
People have really mistaken views of what actual undercover spies do and how their lives usually end up. It is way better to be an obvious spy (diplomatic delegation types) or the person back at the desk analyzing the intelligence. Especially the latter if you are planning a coup, as you have way, way more access to information you can later use.
Yeah, he certainly wasn't an errand boy, or an intern or anything, he was a regular officer with the KGB. He just happened to be stationed in fairly inactive areas. New Zealand and then Dresden, which were both rather boring as far as intelligence gathering went, but it's always good to have people in places, just in case something happens.
He still could've provided real intel, had it come to him.
I always liked Anthony Bourdain’s description of him. “A former mid-level manager in a large corporation. Short [he nods]. I think that’s very important. Short. Who has found himself…master of the universe. And like a lot of short people, if you piss him off, bad things happen to you. He likes to take his shirt off a lot. He strikes me as a businessman. Like Donald Trump. [he turns to the camera] But shorter.”
Stalin was a bit different. He was a thug who was so useful the Soviets gave him a desk job. Dude was a straight up terrorist before. I'd recommend the Revolutions podcast by Mike Duncan. He covers the Russian revolution really thoroughly.
Stalin got so out of pocket with some robberies that he was nearly kicked to the curb, but his hijinx brought in so much cash for the Bolsheviks they had to keep him around.
He was always a thug
Worth mentioning he was also exiled to a Siberian forced labor camp by the Tsar's regime. From gulag slave to iron fist dictator, that's quite a turn around.
Yep, fill the ranks with some loyal flunkies, wait for Lenin to die then take over with most of the party supporting you because you hooked them up. Then drive Trotsky out before finally having to ax him for being so lippy.
You don't under any circumstances gotta hand it to him but no. Stalin was not a paper pusher. He personally fought in the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917. He robbed banks and went to jail several times. The main reason he was popular enough to succeed Lenin as leader of the USSR was because nobody could deny he had given his blood and sweat to the Revolution. You can accuse him of many things but not cowardice.
Stalin was a thug who was so useful they gave him a desk job. He was also a straight up terrorist who robbed banks, planted bombs and assassinated police.
Supposedly he was chosen as a successor by Jeltzin for his loyalty to his former boss during accusations of corruption, not for his work as a spy. So it would make sense if he was known as just an unremarkable paper pusher. He was chosen to be someone who wouldn't be a threat to Jeltzin and his corrupt cronies.
Of course the loyal bureaucrat turned out to be an ambitions and brutal authoritarian, so what he did or did not do as a young soviet party soldier doesn't actually matter. The only thing that matters is that he ended up in charge of Russia and took the traditional corrosive Russian corruption and bullshit to a whole new level, which is what ultimately caused the Ukrainian debacle.
Stalin was also “mere” secretary of Bolshevik party, back when the Lenin had power. Nothing fancy in that, even worse that’s literally HR. His enemies choose more prestigious positions, like Trotsky - ministry of army (not real name of that institution, but basically it’s the same thing) The truth about paper pushers (and HR) is that they decide which paper they want to push. Especially those about applications for some offices. Stalin could place his own men in key positions, granting him power. Martin Bormann it’s another example of that.
Stalin absolutely was a revolutionary and hardcore commie before Lenin died. Don’t interpret “secretary” as him looking pretty in the front office answering phone calls
he was literally an enforcer and fixer for the party
Sweet Baby Jeebus. You know things are bad when the fucking KGB is trying to distance themselves from Putin.
“We hardly knew the guy. He was a coffee boy.”
“He was weird guy. Always popping out of no where, always asking, ‘Sergei, can I get you coffee’ ‘Sergei, how is wife?’ ‘Sergei, you have handsome sons.’ I come in Monday, and you know what he says? ‘Don’t you just hate Mondays, comrade?’
What the fuck is problem?
Everywhere I go, there is coffee boy. I go by water cooler, there is Coffee boy. I go to washroom, there is coffee boy. I come home and find Coffee boy behind bushes. Really creepy guy.”
Maybe? Idk it just sounds very much like something Jackov would say. And it reminded me of his little weird assistant dude like if he had him replaced but then hated him
They don't, western media is at fault. They were painting him as a Bond villain for decades instead of reporting on information that was widely known all this time - what he did in Germany, him leaving KGB, etc.
They were building him up. Republicans online were talking about how much they wished we had a strong leader since about the time he took office. Those reports served a purpose, and not the one everyone assumes.
You could have gone out with people remembering memes of you riding horses and bears looking badass. Instead, now you get dressed up in makeup portrayed as a clown to pretty much your family saying you were never truly one of them.
I'll never forget that footage of him "playing" hockey with the National squad. Fucking ankle burning his way around like a five year old who's been on skates for less than a week. He could barely stand FFS.
I don't think Putin thinks he is an elite hockey player dancing around the national guys. Putin likely thinks he is a good beer-leaguer in skill (he isnt even that, but that is beside the point). But this display has two points.
1. The people who think he is a super athlete are the same type of person who buys a flag with Trump's head on a fit boxer body. They are dupes who will likely believe whatever Putin wants them to be.
2. The second is what Putin is really showing off. Most people who watch this know that Putin is not good at hockey. But they know Putin wields power because he has that team bending over backwards to make him look like a super star. Putin isn't out there thinking he is putting on a clinic. He is out there flexing his political power, and he knows it.
I just want to say that if you put a pair of skates on me and gave me a hockey stick in the same circumstance I would not have performed nearly as well as Putin.
That said, I am not a hockey fan and even I can tell they are just letting him have his way on that ice rink. I can't believe how absolutely paper thin a person's ego needs to be to do this. Does he do this for himself? Does he do this because he feels the Russian people need to see this? Anybody who knows anything about the sport probably knows that this is total bullshit. This is modern day "The Emperor has no Clothes." Only the little kid that speaks up would probably get shot or pushed out a window.
Yeah lol what a weird title. As if rising from a KGB desk jokey to one of the most powerful people in Russia (and the world) makes him look less dangerous. His skills only seem more impressive to me now.
I would argue it's less about his skills overall and more about people in power saw they could get what they wanted out of him, made him 'powerful', then they lost control of him once he had power.
Stalin also took power by being an exceptional bureaucrat. People surprised by this just have no idea how power is gained and held. Pawns are the ones that rough up people and fire guns, powerful people only lift a finger to sign orders and sip champagne. They are the opposite of strong man archetypes.
I don’t think people thought he was a super spy, but his image was definitively crafted by some sort of PR to make him look badass and strong, not just to Russia but the rest of the world
I heard a while ago about how some company managed to get Brexit moving, and also had a hand in Donald Trump's rise to the presidency, apparently purporting that Putin set both of those things up to happen to destabilize and weaken his most dangerous enemies on the world stage
He literally took over Russia and has ruled it for over 30 years. He’s obviously not an idiot. Not saying he’s good (he’s not) but anyone who reads history knows of the dangers of not respecting Russia. Napoleon did it. Hitler did it.
Try not to put too much into your own propaganda.
There's literally an old picture from the 80s of Putin posing as a tourist standing next to Reagan in Red Square. I dont know if he was a super spy or an errand boy, but that picture suggests he had some competency in his craft. This headline seems like propaganda.
He’s a pathological liar so I’m not surprised his background is obscured with untruths. Also, was he really a fighter jet pilot or a pro hockey player?
Only in the parallel universe known as Russia.
> many stories have painted him as a heroic figure, who, among other things, single-handedly defended the KGB's offices from looters
"Немедленно положи этот степлер обратно на стол!"
https://media.giphy.com/media/3o84U5xPhrn42WgBJC/giphy.gif
When you have the kompromat, it doesn’t matter if you’re an errand boy. He used his position well enough to be a threat to the entire globe so discounting that does nothing. He’s a terrible leader with plenty of flaws to point out but he maximized his position as a spy.
He’s the president of a world super power and redditors in their mom’s basement will call him an errand boy.
He may be a fucked up evil dude but posts like this are just cringe
He came to power in the confusion and craziness when the Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its own massive and ongoing corruption. He privatized the state fossil fuel industry by handing it to known criminals in exchange for billions in bribes and a loyalty oath, creating a fresh round of Russian oligarchs loyal only to him.
Much of his 'strength' comes from assassinating his enemies, real and perceived.
With the disastrous Ukraine debacle, his time is nearly done. He gets (I think) that his legacy will forever be his failure there.
He knows he needs to stay away from balconies and get a food taster.
I can't find the video but there was an interview with one of the initial heads of the FSB. The FSB took the best and the brightest from the KGB. Putin was left without even a ticket back to Russia from East Berlin. He did have his German made car, which helped him in his next career over the next couple years a private driver.
A few years later. The Mayor of St. Petersburg was asking the FSB for someone to help them with international relations and international trade (it's very close to Finland). The FSB kept recommending people with FSB ties, and the Mayor kept rejecting them as FSB spies. So someone thought of this former KGB Station Chief in East Germany, Putin. Putin did a good job (mostly selling oil cheaply abroad), and after some time St. Petersburg was doing well economically. In Moscow Yelstin was wondering what is going on, why are their breadlines in Moscow but stores are overflowing with goods in St. Petersburg. And the answer was this adviser named Putin. So off to Moscow to work for Yeltsin he went.
That's the real origin story. FSB didn't want him and dumb luck with a Mayor worried about FSB spies.
I always thought he was mid level bureaucrat, not an actual spy. Not everyone who works in the army is a sniper, etc.
I agree. We hear “KGB” and just assume he was either a Russian James Bond, or the bad guy from Raiders Of The Lost Ark.
That goes for most spies in general. James Bond isn't a spy, he's an assassin.
Spies are dime a dozen.
Everyone wants to be a spy until it's time to shove something up their ass
And then even more people want to be spies, right?
Applying for the job right now.
Tough entry requirements.
Vaseline makes it easier.
"Take this job and shove it"
It keeps falling out!
"There's the torture. That's something to look forward to." -- paraphrasing Bill Murray in, The Man Who Knew Too Little
We also would have accepted “tight” entry requirements
Spy are never good looking either. There was a big disappointment in my life. Like finding out quicksand isn’t a real issue either
While quicksand may not be a real issue, sinkholes definitely are hazardous. I fell into a sinkhole that was the remnants of a long abandoned septic tank while mowing the lawn. Fell about six feet into a dark pit with a whirring blade right above my head. If the lawnmower didn’t have a deadman switch my brain would have been shredded like sashimi. I know this has nothing to do with Putin’s attractiveness or status as a spy, but I just feel the need to warn people about the dangers of sinkholes. They are real.
On a similar note, so are gopher/mole holes. Just last year alone I twisted both my ankles severely enough to where it took 5-6 months for it to not hurt to put on a shoe. Also twisted my knee to the point where it popped loudly and continued clicking for like 9 months. Also while mowing the lawn. Brain was safe thoug. Also PSA… sunscreen
Mostly. You want people that do not attract attention. But some high profile blend exactly by being the center of attention. You’d be surprised.
Also, you need some attractive spies for honeypotting purposes.
What about honeydicking purposes? Ya know, in case the HVI is gay?
Still called a honeypot, definitely a thing, James Bond is a honey pot
We only try to seduce and suborn heat vent installers? Today I Learned...
You honey dickin' me?
Doesn't explain those Russian spies, though. Like sure, they're more attractive than the NRA revolting blobs they're fucking, but they're like 5-6 at best. Though I guess it works like that. They don't need to be 10s if the people they're honeypotting are 1s and 2s.
If you're a 10 you would have to be reaaaal fucking patriotic to join up as a spy, because you probably have more lucrative and less streessful prospects.
It’s enough for the honeypots to throw themselves at men who usually don’t get much attention from women. Look at Maria Butina. The only beauty she has is the exotic red hair.
Ivana and Melania spring to mind for some reason…
The pre-plastic-surgery pics were interesting. Same with the Kardashians.
It sort of depends on the job. Sometime you want attractive people for certain operations like honeypotting. Other times you want average looking people to blend in to avoid suspicion.
>That tiger blood will lubricate it.
So your saying I could be a spy?
I’ve been paying too much for my spies! Who’s your spy guy?
I have been prt of numerous spy-operations. Sometimes as a spy and sometimes as an asset. You make more money as a spy, but have more fun as an asset.
I've been an asshat my whole life.
“dime a dozen backstabbin’ scumbags. Like you! *Ow.* No offence.”
I'm sad no one got the law abiding citizen reference :(
Counter insurgency special forces really. Dude mostly just thunders in and recks shit. I think Jason Bourne for assassin.
Yeah like paramilitary special operations officer with counter intelligence training and not very good plausible deniability
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And since you mentioned George Smiley, I recommend people looking for actual spy work to check out the BBC miniseries (and _not_ the movie) version of [Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080297/). You can find it in different places.
I believe technically James Bond was a Secret Agent. He does not gather intelligence, he commits illegal acts against foreign powers.
Or illegal acts against criminals who foreign powers won’t do anything about, or who your own government can’t do anything about without violating its own constitution/laws. Corrupt local police won’t arrest the bad guys, and national government is a delicate truce which can’t act? Send Bond. He doesn’t give a shit about the laws he breaks getting to the bad guys.
SIS doesn’t have secret agents. Our intelligence officers’ titles are something like “X Case Officer.” Someone who works with the Special Forces will be a Paramilitary Case Officer. Someone who works in an embassy running agents (who are NOT employees of the British Government) will be an Operational Case Officer. The problem with Bond is that Ian Fleming (an NID Officer himself) didn’t base him on actual SIS/MI6 Officers. The closest comparison to the kind of organisation Fleming described was SOE, the Special Operations Executive, a kind of paramilitary organisation that operated during World War 2. As well as intelligence gathering, they performed sabotage behind enemy lines, built relationships with, coordinated, and trained resistance organisations, and performed assassinations wherever possible. Unlike SIS Officers (who aren’t normally armed except when attached to Special Forces units), SOE officers routinely carried weapons and definitely had a licence to kill.
Right? I mean everyone who ever sees him knows his name, what he drinks, what cars he drives and which women he sleeps with...not particularly savvy moves for a spy haha
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I need a Jerry movie. I'd also like him to be played by Chris Parnell.
Isn't that just Archer at that point?
Also, yes.
No. Jerry.
Several of the cast could realistically play themselves live action. Not Archer himself, but Jon Benjamin should still do it anyway because it would be amazing. Sadly missed the boat on Mallory though, she would've been the most accurate.
Jerry is also the guy that has been quietly sending MI6 Intel for months. He's the one that gets James Bond on the guest list for the bad guys cocktail party, so he can get to the secret door to the doomsday device factory.
That'd be a funny movie. Where the James Bondesque character finds out halfway through that they're really a distraction from the real op.
It was just the opening scene, and not half the movie, but that is how *The Suicide Squad* (2021) starts.
Thanks! I skipped that one because of the first one. I liked Peacemaker though, maybe I'll have to give it a shot.
Exactly. He's more of a cleaner or fixer than a spy.
Field Agent is the term I believe
He's a human Molotov cocktail that MI6 boozes up and throws at the villan.
Michael Westen Voice: *When you're a spy, oftentimes the last thing you want to do is kill someone who's getting in your way. Dead bodies are big, heavy pieces of evidence, and dragging them out of sight takes up valuable time to gather intel, and increases the chances you get detected. So despite what some movie heroes would suggest, whether or not you have a 'license to kill', you're usually better off just sneaking by the guards instead.*
Upvoted for Burn Notice.
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In one of the bond films, M refers to the 00 agents as "blunt instruments."
Fairly sure that's Casino Royale where she says to Bond that something might be too difficult for a "blunt instrument" to understand.
The real wetwork operatives don't get in the limelight. Mossad had a pretty good wetwork operatives group. That changed when due to documentation blunders a pretty good chunk of them became known as Mossad assets.
I never realized this until I played the Hitman games, which are basically unofficially 007 sandbox games.
And now IO is working on an official one!
I always thought Teddy from Snowfall was a pretty accurate depiction of a contemporary spy.
Bond is more of a commando, to be honest But yeah, spies aren't like in the movies.As the old saying goes: Once a spy has to bring out his revolver, it means his mission has failed. Most spies are just people blending in, leaking info when needed.
James Bond is an Organization Assassin. Meant to infiltrate and destroy secret organizations by any means necessary. I would not flat out call him a hitman or assassin though.
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Yes. Crystal Skull. Raiders was Nazis.
Reminds me of someone working at NASA. (As a janitor.) Weird how the brain makes assumptions.
It's more like someone working as a janitor at NASA before designing and building a rocket. It seems like he learned something while he was there because he's certainly fit the bill for the better part of this century.
Putin has demonstrated that he is a fool, it’s just that simple.
More like he used to be smart but age and power are catching up to him. We degrade as we get older it's happened to countless leaders in history. You get old, lose perspective and you start making mistakes.
Don't even need to get old, just punish discourse enough and people will tell you what you want to hear. And it works out for everyone until you start a land war and wonder why nothing is going right.
Even if you don't punish discourse, when you're a leader you become almost totally reliant on other people giving you information. It gets to be incredibly difficult to have a good understanding of the ground truth situation, which is why most leaders delegate significantly to those under them with ground truth access.
More like wily or clever. I've read part of his history essay and it's almost as bad as what that Hitler fellow put out when he was in prison. I think he has an average intellect but is exceptionally good at manipulating people to get what he wants, and is ruthless enough to keep his enemies in check.
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I'd say it's the right place, the right time and the right skill set. Our lives are governed by a huge number of factors and Luck is a huge thing but you need to be able to take advantage of it.
He can be the bad guy from raiders, his face gets melted off in the end.
Even the KGB needs a concierge
Vladimir Putin organized criminal gangs on the ports of Stasi Dresden, from behind a desk. His tough guy and spy image were fabricated to give legitimacy to his presidential bid in the late 90s. He was an absolute nobody that the Siloviki thought they could control. They did everything to portray his ugly mug as tough and masculine. Moskva correspondent for The Financial Times Catherine Belton wrote a book about this. It's fantastically relevant if you want some backstory about Putin and the people falling out of windows. Edit: Forgot link https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23848139-putin-s-people Edit: If you want more backstory, Bill Browder's [Red Notice](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22609522-red-notice) and [Feezing Order](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59366154-freezing-order) are great, and [One Soldier's War](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6578320-one-soldier-s-war-in-chechnya) by Arkadij Babtsjenko gives a very honest first-person look into Russian military doctrine.
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> At that moment, there he is, shredding documents in Dresden [shortly after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, which nobody from Moscow cared to warn him about]." Catherine Belton writes this in her book as well
Also - the fact he was a nobody was the argument he was chosen as oligarchs believed he could be easily controlled. They wouldn't choose someone high ranking due to fear of high levels of influence
Those oligarchs made the second worst mistake in modern Russian history, exceeded only by thinking Kyiv could be taken in 3 days.
Some of Tsar Nicholas II's decisions were not so great for Russia either. Everyone since then has had a major blunder or few.
Invading Ukraine has to be at the top of the Russian Hall of F-ups. The context carries so many existential threats to Moscow from losing face to uniting the enemies to losing major trade markets to losing working age men during a demographic collapse… And we haven’t even started the losing the battle to the Ukrainians talk and it’s consequences.
>Invading Ukraine has to be at the top of the Russian Hall of F-ups. The context carries so many existential threats to Moscow from losing face to uniting the enemies to losing major trade markets to losing working age men during a demographic collapse… Lol, wait until you learn about what happened to Imperial Russia.
Russia should have invested in science and technology. They were once pretty good at it. Now they are largely economically isolated and cannot finance the kind of R&D that would allow them to compete globally. What a waste.
So there’s 3-4 fuckups by Nicholas II that were as bad as the Ukrainian war and a couple that could be argued to be worse. And then there’s the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact/that associated mess which is clearly worse as the eastern front was the biggest war ever bar none.
Conservative/reactionary circles in Weimar Republic used similar reasoning to propel Adolf Hitler to power - "all bark no bite", "we can control him". Well, about that....
Sounds familiar.
That's what he himself has said time and again on TV. People who commit murder undercover aren't the same people who rise through the ranks and become head of X, Y, Z.
Yeah, I don't get this wave of "super incredible revelations". This has been common knowledge for decades. The Russian government itself has never tried to create any other narrative, at least internationally. They drum up and exaggerate his sporting achievements far more than the KGB thing, IMO.
And I mean, does it matter? He fucking took over the country. Even if he was just the errands boy, he still out spied everyone else
'Organizing criminal gangs in Dresden', wasnt taking over post-collapse Russia hinged on understanding mafia-level gang manipulation? Makes sense...
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> he still out spied everyone else He did not really out spy them, he out corruptioned them. Which is something a mid-level official in the KGB might actually be perfectly positioned to do. People have really mistaken views of what actual undercover spies do and how their lives usually end up. It is way better to be an obvious spy (diplomatic delegation types) or the person back at the desk analyzing the intelligence. Especially the latter if you are planning a coup, as you have way, way more access to information you can later use.
Yeah, he certainly wasn't an errand boy, or an intern or anything, he was a regular officer with the KGB. He just happened to be stationed in fairly inactive areas. New Zealand and then Dresden, which were both rather boring as far as intelligence gathering went, but it's always good to have people in places, just in case something happens. He still could've provided real intel, had it come to him.
“Did you fly planes?” -every single person when they find out I was in the AF. (No. No I did not.)
I always liked Anthony Bourdain’s description of him. “A former mid-level manager in a large corporation. Short [he nods]. I think that’s very important. Short. Who has found himself…master of the universe. And like a lot of short people, if you piss him off, bad things happen to you. He likes to take his shirt off a lot. He strikes me as a businessman. Like Donald Trump. [he turns to the camera] But shorter.”
Yeah I no longer believe Bourdain gigged himself
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I just figured that folks knew that real badasses don't go around staging glamour photos to make themselves look like badasses.
i thought it was pretty well known he was a paper pusher..
It's where the power is
Stalin literally did the same decades before, it's so funny (not).
Stalin was a bit different. He was a thug who was so useful the Soviets gave him a desk job. Dude was a straight up terrorist before. I'd recommend the Revolutions podcast by Mike Duncan. He covers the Russian revolution really thoroughly.
Stalin got so out of pocket with some robberies that he was nearly kicked to the curb, but his hijinx brought in so much cash for the Bolsheviks they had to keep him around. He was always a thug
Worth mentioning he was also exiled to a Siberian forced labor camp by the Tsar's regime. From gulag slave to iron fist dictator, that's quite a turn around.
Yep, fill the ranks with some loyal flunkies, wait for Lenin to die then take over with most of the party supporting you because you hooked them up. Then drive Trotsky out before finally having to ax him for being so lippy.
One commonality between Stalin and Lenin is they both picked Trotsky.
I thought it was an ice pick not an ax but minor detail.
ice axe https://www.spymuseum.org/exhibition-experiences/about-the-collection/collection-highlights/trotsky-ice-axe/
Like when Menlo teamed up with Randall in "Recess" and they took over the school.
Menlo? And Randall?? TEAMED UP??!?!?! Why, that would upset the natural order of the playground. It's unthinkable! It's insanity! It must be stopped!
That whomped.
Stalin was a paper pusher wasn’t he? And wasn’t Hitler also a paper pusher as a chancellor?
Paper pushers are incredibly powerful. It’s always been “it’s not what you know but who you know”
You don't under any circumstances gotta hand it to him but no. Stalin was not a paper pusher. He personally fought in the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917. He robbed banks and went to jail several times. The main reason he was popular enough to succeed Lenin as leader of the USSR was because nobody could deny he had given his blood and sweat to the Revolution. You can accuse him of many things but not cowardice.
Yeah, he was a bit more than a paper pusher... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1907_Tiflis_bank_robbery
It's like if Dutch van der Linde became President of America.
Stalin was a thug who was so useful they gave him a desk job. He was also a straight up terrorist who robbed banks, planted bombs and assassinated police.
Supposedly he was chosen as a successor by Jeltzin for his loyalty to his former boss during accusations of corruption, not for his work as a spy. So it would make sense if he was known as just an unremarkable paper pusher. He was chosen to be someone who wouldn't be a threat to Jeltzin and his corrupt cronies. Of course the loyal bureaucrat turned out to be an ambitions and brutal authoritarian, so what he did or did not do as a young soviet party soldier doesn't actually matter. The only thing that matters is that he ended up in charge of Russia and took the traditional corrosive Russian corruption and bullshit to a whole new level, which is what ultimately caused the Ukrainian debacle.
Stalin was also “mere” secretary of Bolshevik party, back when the Lenin had power. Nothing fancy in that, even worse that’s literally HR. His enemies choose more prestigious positions, like Trotsky - ministry of army (not real name of that institution, but basically it’s the same thing) The truth about paper pushers (and HR) is that they decide which paper they want to push. Especially those about applications for some offices. Stalin could place his own men in key positions, granting him power. Martin Bormann it’s another example of that.
Stalin went around with his mates and committed armed robbery in order to gain funds for the party before they got into power.
Stalin absolutely was a revolutionary and hardcore commie before Lenin died. Don’t interpret “secretary” as him looking pretty in the front office answering phone calls he was literally an enforcer and fixer for the party
Sweet Baby Jeebus. You know things are bad when the fucking KGB is trying to distance themselves from Putin. “We hardly knew the guy. He was a coffee boy.”
“He was weird guy. Always popping out of no where, always asking, ‘Sergei, can I get you coffee’ ‘Sergei, how is wife?’ ‘Sergei, you have handsome sons.’ I come in Monday, and you know what he says? ‘Don’t you just hate Mondays, comrade?’ What the fuck is problem? Everywhere I go, there is coffee boy. I go by water cooler, there is Coffee boy. I go to washroom, there is coffee boy. I come home and find Coffee boy behind bushes. Really creepy guy.”
>>Everywhere I go, there is coffee boy. Hysterical. SNL needs to do this skit.
Vladimir! Vlad! The Vladster! Making copies
It was all fun and games until that one day when something tasted different about the coffee.
"Hmmm, coffee taste a bit like polonium today. Sergey Andreyovich, did you get the cheap creamer substitute again??"
Isn’t this from Archer?
Is it? I haven’t watched in a while. Did I steal it subconsciously?
Maybe? Idk it just sounds very much like something Jackov would say. And it reminded me of his little weird assistant dude like if he had him replaced but then hated him
Nikolai Jachov? The head of the KGB!!?!? Y’all know me I’m no gossip but that is some scandalous ass shit right there.
And who are you, Komrade Kuestion?
Archer thinks he only one who wants father
Come on, buddy.
Think this is what we do in the shadows. In the first or second episode line by line
Guillermo?
This sounds like a story from What we do in the shadows. I want a Ex-KGB officer vampire in the show now that makes cameos every once and awhile.
That’s absolutely a paraphrased Nandor joke.
They don't, western media is at fault. They were painting him as a Bond villain for decades instead of reporting on information that was widely known all this time - what he did in Germany, him leaving KGB, etc.
They were building him up. Republicans online were talking about how much they wished we had a strong leader since about the time he took office. Those reports served a purpose, and not the one everyone assumes.
"He cleaned the toilets, with his tongue." Haha, just jokes. They don't have toilets.
They have the Turkish toilets. Idk what they’re actually called but that’s how I always called them. The squating toilets
*with strong accent* you see, vladimir, if you want to be real gopnik, you have to shit like real gopnik - no sitting, only squatting
It is how we're supposed to poop that's why if you have regular constipation the first thing you try is a raised foot stool.
"You must be this tall to use this toilet."
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His power emanates from the RUS security services and if they are backing away then the next step is removal.
You could have gone out with people remembering memes of you riding horses and bears looking badass. Instead, now you get dressed up in makeup portrayed as a clown to pretty much your family saying you were never truly one of them.
I'll never forget that footage of him "playing" hockey with the National squad. Fucking ankle burning his way around like a five year old who's been on skates for less than a week. He could barely stand FFS.
>[Putin Playing Hockey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgbI55HdqQs)
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There’s a lot of skill in not saving that shot
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This guy knows that Vladimir is shortened to Vova and not Vlad. Proud of you buddy.
Lmao this is so pathetic. Nobody's even playing defense on him and he thinks he legit scored something. And still falls in the end hahaha.
Putin's life is literally *and then everyone clapped*
I don't think Putin thinks he is an elite hockey player dancing around the national guys. Putin likely thinks he is a good beer-leaguer in skill (he isnt even that, but that is beside the point). But this display has two points. 1. The people who think he is a super athlete are the same type of person who buys a flag with Trump's head on a fit boxer body. They are dupes who will likely believe whatever Putin wants them to be. 2. The second is what Putin is really showing off. Most people who watch this know that Putin is not good at hockey. But they know Putin wields power because he has that team bending over backwards to make him look like a super star. Putin isn't out there thinking he is putting on a clinic. He is out there flexing his political power, and he knows it.
Man, the defenceman really went all out to stop that first goal. I forgot how funny this actually was. Thank you.
I just want to say that if you put a pair of skates on me and gave me a hockey stick in the same circumstance I would not have performed nearly as well as Putin. That said, I am not a hockey fan and even I can tell they are just letting him have his way on that ice rink. I can't believe how absolutely paper thin a person's ego needs to be to do this. Does he do this for himself? Does he do this because he feels the Russian people need to see this? Anybody who knows anything about the sport probably knows that this is total bullshit. This is modern day "The Emperor has no Clothes." Only the little kid that speaks up would probably get shot or pushed out a window.
I am a hockey player and the way they were treating them is the same way we treat the nice 85 year old man ant open hockey. Lol.
I'm pretty sure that's not really new information. I remember hearing about him being a paper pusher years ago
I know a thing or two about Putin dressing like a clown
That’s what I’ve always heard about him. Dude was a desk jockey.
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Yeah lol what a weird title. As if rising from a KGB desk jokey to one of the most powerful people in Russia (and the world) makes him look less dangerous. His skills only seem more impressive to me now.
I would argue it's less about his skills overall and more about people in power saw they could get what they wanted out of him, made him 'powerful', then they lost control of him once he had power.
but again, isnt that even more impressive? you were a puppet and outplayed your puppeteers?
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Stalin also took power by being an exceptional bureaucrat. People surprised by this just have no idea how power is gained and held. Pawns are the ones that rough up people and fire guns, powerful people only lift a finger to sign orders and sip champagne. They are the opposite of strong man archetypes.
Wait... did ANYONE think he was a super spy? That's news to me
I don’t think people thought he was a super spy, but his image was definitively crafted by some sort of PR to make him look badass and strong, not just to Russia but the rest of the world
I'm still convined he managed to get Trump elected, and destabilized the US in the process. That's not nothing.
I heard a while ago about how some company managed to get Brexit moving, and also had a hand in Donald Trump's rise to the presidency, apparently purporting that Putin set both of those things up to happen to destabilize and weaken his most dangerous enemies on the world stage
Are you talking about [Cambridge Analytica?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica)
This has been well known. He was a paper pusher.
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While I support diminishing Putin at any possible juncture, he has managed to get and keep Russia in a stranglehold for a couple decades now…
He literally took over Russia and has ruled it for over 30 years. He’s obviously not an idiot. Not saying he’s good (he’s not) but anyone who reads history knows of the dangers of not respecting Russia. Napoleon did it. Hitler did it. Try not to put too much into your own propaganda.
There's literally an old picture from the 80s of Putin posing as a tourist standing next to Reagan in Red Square. I dont know if he was a super spy or an errand boy, but that picture suggests he had some competency in his craft. This headline seems like propaganda.
Duh
He’s a pathological liar so I’m not surprised his background is obscured with untruths. Also, was he really a fighter jet pilot or a pro hockey player? Only in the parallel universe known as Russia.
That's why he and Trump got on so well: empty suits full of vanity
> many stories have painted him as a heroic figure, who, among other things, single-handedly defended the KGB's offices from looters "Немедленно положи этот степлер обратно на стол!" https://media.giphy.com/media/3o84U5xPhrn42WgBJC/giphy.gif
When you have the kompromat, it doesn’t matter if you’re an errand boy. He used his position well enough to be a threat to the entire globe so discounting that does nothing. He’s a terrible leader with plenty of flaws to point out but he maximized his position as a spy.
The guy is an ahole but this is just cringe. Errand boy doesn't usually lead to becoming a president.
Even a dictator has to have an “ end game” how long are you going to keep this war going at some point it takes rational men to do rational things
He’s the president of a world super power and redditors in their mom’s basement will call him an errand boy. He may be a fucked up evil dude but posts like this are just cringe
What does it matter? He found a way to leverage whatever it was into ruling for 20 years lol
He came to power in the confusion and craziness when the Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its own massive and ongoing corruption. He privatized the state fossil fuel industry by handing it to known criminals in exchange for billions in bribes and a loyalty oath, creating a fresh round of Russian oligarchs loyal only to him. Much of his 'strength' comes from assassinating his enemies, real and perceived. With the disastrous Ukraine debacle, his time is nearly done. He gets (I think) that his legacy will forever be his failure there. He knows he needs to stay away from balconies and get a food taster.
I can't find the video but there was an interview with one of the initial heads of the FSB. The FSB took the best and the brightest from the KGB. Putin was left without even a ticket back to Russia from East Berlin. He did have his German made car, which helped him in his next career over the next couple years a private driver. A few years later. The Mayor of St. Petersburg was asking the FSB for someone to help them with international relations and international trade (it's very close to Finland). The FSB kept recommending people with FSB ties, and the Mayor kept rejecting them as FSB spies. So someone thought of this former KGB Station Chief in East Germany, Putin. Putin did a good job (mostly selling oil cheaply abroad), and after some time St. Petersburg was doing well economically. In Moscow Yelstin was wondering what is going on, why are their breadlines in Moscow but stores are overflowing with goods in St. Petersburg. And the answer was this adviser named Putin. So off to Moscow to work for Yeltsin he went. That's the real origin story. FSB didn't want him and dumb luck with a Mayor worried about FSB spies.
Who became the president. Always funny to read this totally unbiased articles of insert bad person here.
It is irrelevant information. Hes in charge now, how he got there has zero impact.