Dear Readers:
Today a sort of potpourri of short features.
A Father Vows Revenge
This story is about a man named Oleg Averyanov, who is the Deputy Mayor of the Russian city of Magadan. Magadan is way, way out there near the East Coast of Russia, you almost can’t get any further East than that and not fall into the ocean. Averyanov had a 9-year-old daughter who was almost as far away from Magadan as one could be and still be in Russia (well, excepting Kaliningrad): Little Sofia and her mother and father were vacationing in Sebastopol this past weekend. She was one of the children killed on the beach by the American cluster-bomb attack.
In his video address (embedded in the piece), Averyanov vowed to avenge his daughter’s death: “I will have revenge for every child who was killed on that beach.”
New Tactical Sign
Russian mainstream media has noted a new tactical sign painted on Russian armor at the front. It is interesting but has not excited the same attention as the previous “Gungnir Rune”. Less Germanic-pagan looking, for starters. More abstract.
This one just looks like 2 small upward-facing triangles within a circle within a square. It probably means something to somebody, although a symbol, by its very nature, has no meaning of its own: It only points to something else that does have meaning. Ukrainian media, among others, are speculating what the symbol might mean, if anything; or, more to the point, what ramifications for the front-line, if any. For example, some military analysts believe that the Russian army is planning to move on Sumy. Or not… [probably not]
Terrorists Unmasked
Moving on to the Dagestan region of Russia: Law Enforcement personnel have their hands full rounding up the terrorists who committed the attacks in Makhachkala and Derbent. Police investigators say they have established the identities of all the perps. Five members of the NATO-backed Head-chopper Cell were liquidated in gun fights. Recall that 19 people in all (according to some accountgs, 20) were killed during the terror attacks this past weekend, including a 66-year-old Orthodox Priest, Nikolai Kotelnikov, who had his throat slit by the Head-choppers.
included in the round-up: Investigators detained Magomed Omarov, a local politician who heads the Sergokala Region of Dagestan. Omarov’s two sons participated in the attacks, so police find it plausible that Omarov himself is a member of the Head-chopper gang. Since these things, especially in the Caucasus, tend to run in families.
The Dagestan jihadist terror attack against the Orthodox Church, synchronized with NATO’s cluster-bomb attack against the Crimean Beach, was clearly designed to terrorize and disorient ordinary ethnic Russian citizens. Who are supposed to suddenly realize that Putin cannot protect them physically, and so they will overthrow Putin, get down on their knees, and beg NATO for mercy. That’s the plan, at least.
Help Is On The Way!
But just when things look most dire, Russia has found a new friend. The best kind of friend: One who can actually help, in one’s hour of need. We are talking about North Korea, of course. Ukrainian newspaper STRANA is reporting that North Korea is sending units of engineers to the Donbass.
Well, to be sure, the information comes from a German reporter, Jürgen Nauditt, so one may choose to believe whatever one likes. I choose to believe it, because I like the idea of friendship between Russia and North Korea. According to Nauditt, Putin and Kim worked out this deal, as part of a much larger arrangement between the two nations. North Koreans are very good at building stuff, and the Russian army could sure use some help with building fortifications, bridges, that sort of thing. Nauditt cynically implies that the North Koreans will actually be inserting themselves directly into the battle and killing NATO soldiers. I doubt if that is true, but it doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me. Well, the language barrier is certainly a thing, but there are ways around that.
Awful Avalanche 
I think the last name is Kim and not Un since most East Asian names are written out Last Name First Name
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Correct. His surname is Kim, his name is Jong Un. His father was Kim Jong Il, his grandfather Kim Il Sung.
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Well, maybe I was just being very friendly to call him by his first name!
🙂
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Thank you! Yes, it should be “Putin and Kim.” Yalensis, since you’re talking about a head of state, I think you really should correct your text here. This is like writing “Putin and Joe talked on the phone….” The family name comes first and the personal name comes after that. Kim’s personal name is Jong-un. Like many personal names, it’s made up of two Sino-Korean characters, so a dash is put between them. The first syllable, Jong- (often written Jeong since it sounds something like “Jawng”; in fact his whole name is often Romanized in phonetically-conscious sources as “Gim Jeong-Eun” ) is important, since it is the same as the first character of his father’s name. Only the second character is changed to show the close connection. Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il, also took one syllable from his father, the first leader of the DPRK, Kim Il-sung (that’s IL-SUNG). Actually in the DPRK they generally don’t use characters any more but write everything with the phonetic syllabary, which was developed after contact with the Mongols, who developed their syllabary from Sanskrit through the influence of Buddhism. In South Korea they also use this syllabary in most cases, but they still use Sino-Korean character in some cases, including (often) when writing people’s names. In S. Korean newspapers, Kim’s name would often be written with Sino-Korean characters, since it’s more polite (though the press usually demonizes Kim otherwise). The characters for Ｋim’ｓname are 金 正恩 , and his personal name means means “True Benevolence.” Characters were abandoned by the DPRK after 1945 in order to quickly raise the literacy rate of farmers and workers. In South Korea it was more out of a sense of nationalism. In China characters, radically simplified, are still in use, while in Japan moderately simplified characters remain in use, integrated with the use of a Japanese syllabary. In short, some North Koreans know both Sino-Korean characters and the phonetic syllabary and use the latter in public, while the majority of the people know and use only the syllabary. In choosing names, however, I’d guess that most North Korean parents must refer to a character dictionary, since it is the characters that bestow meaning on the name.
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Okay, I fixed it! It now reads “Putin and Kim”.
🙂
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P.S. – thanks for that very educational explanation of the names and syllabary. It’s fascinating!
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I am sure that it would benefit any army to have a close look at what happens in high intensity war. That applies to all of Russia’s friends, specifically China, North Korea and even Syria and Iran, despite the fact that the last two have been heavily engaged in war in Syria. This war is different to anything we have seen before.
The only question is, how close to the front are they willing or are allowed to get to?
Certainly news reporters get very close but they also suffer the consequences.
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North Koreans are above all master tunnellers, and if Russia intends to launch subterranean attacks on Ukranazistan then Kim is your man.
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LOL!
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I’m also thrilled by Russia / North Korea friendship. To be honest, I think North Korea (except maybe Belarus) has been Russia’s best friend during this dire period.
The north koreans really did help a lot, and that, despite the fact that Russia’s track record with the DPRK (esp. under Medvedev, who has now recast himself as a firebrand radical critic of the West) has not always been glorious.
Of course, given their isolation, they do not really get to be picky about their friends, but they could have professed eternal brotherly love and done nothing (as some other friends of Russia mostly have). Instead, they faced renewed sanctions and threw their weight behind the Russians, helping with munitions and missiles, and now with engineers.
It strengthens the feeling of admiration I already have for this resilient and friendly people, one of the most unjustly persecuted by western imperialism.
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I second that opinion whole-heartedly! I admire the North Koreans quite a lot, and I want to see these good people prosper. Which I believe is possible, with Russia as a friend. Like I said before, give the North Koreans cheap food and cheap fuel, given their work ethnic they will build their economy, bring all the electricity and other technology up to speed, and they will flourish. And being a Communist country, they don’t have oligarchs to steal all the wealth that the workers create. That does make a difference.
As Lenin once said, “Communism Plus Electrification” …
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It’s better not to wax too romantic about the DPRK. History takes time to develop. What you and Jean say is true, but there is also a serious downside. Many Japanese lefties say that the only place where the old prewar Japanese emperor system is still alive is the DPRK. This is partly correct, I think, in the political sphere, while in the economic sphere the North’s system is definitely pro-people. In China there is a fair amount of freedom of speech, but there is very little in the DPRK, and criticism of the CP, allowed in China, isn’t allowed in N. Korea. I’ve talked with some N. Korean residents who were born in Japan (their grandparents or great-grandparents were imported as slave labor), and it is simply impossible to discuss N. Korean politics with them. They sternly follow the official line perfectly and to the letter. They remind me of the members of a popular semi-Buddhist sect that self-righteously claims from morning to night that they are the only true Buddhists. If N. Koreans are sent as engineers or as guest workers to Russia, the Koreans may be surprised at first at how much freedom of speech there is in Russia. Opening up the now-dormant free-speech and dialog-based culture of the DPRK would be a very good contribution by Russian culture if it is allowed to happen. And don’t forget that Kim Jong-un ordered the fatal poisoning of his half-brother in Hong Kong, and he also ordered the execution by anti-aircraft gun of a top member of the ruling elite whom he considered to be incompetent. Kim Jong-un is a work in progress. He went to school in Switzerland and is friends with a funky former NBA star, Dennis Rodman, so he is definitely flexible and capable of growing to a new level.
Also don’t forget that reunification is the ultimate goal in Korea. I hope Russia will remember that that is the ultimate goal. I think Putin realizes this, and even Trump realizes this in his own distorted way. It is Biden and the other neocons who want to divide and conquer Korea forever. Democracy has made big progress in S. Korea, and they even have a national health insurance system that is better than anything the US has. And look at the way S. Koreans freely express themselves politically after enduring several military dictators in the 20th century. S. Korea has the biggest and most vigorous political demos in East Asia. Huge demos caused the downfall of one corrupt president, and right now demos and S. Korean alternative media are leading a constant political movement to oppose the current corrupt and dictatorial right-wing president. When Korea is eventually reunited, the socialistic aspects of the North and the free-speech, democratic politics of the South could potentially work together to make Korea an important and dynamic BRICS nation. If you ever visit one of the Koreas, you will immediately realize, I think, that Koreans are nothing if not dynamic and positive about life and the future in spite of all that they’ve had to suffer.
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One has to be careful about accepting as total gospel truth news about Kim Jong-un ordering executions of relatives in Malaysia (not Hong Kong) by poisoning or of military personnel by anti-aircraft gunfire, especially if some of these executed military personnel later turn up alive. Is it not possible that some of these “executions”, especially if they occur overseas, are actually false flag incidents carried out by individuals, agencies or govts hostile to the DPRK?
Incidentally this documentary “Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in South Korea”, made by UCLA undergraduate student David Yun in 2018, is worth watching for demonstrating how South Korean intel agents kidnap or manipulate North Korean citizens into leaving the DPRK and forcing them into becoming “defectors”.
Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul (youtube.com)
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The assassination of Jong-un’s half-brother probably took place in either Hong Kong or Macao, and it took place after his father’s death, and it probably took place because his half brother was also being considered for the position of the new Chairman of the CP. I didn’t keep the articles I read about this several years ago, but they gave many details, and the fact is his half-brother did die. It might not have been ordered by Jong-un himself, but by someone near him or even by the selection committee, but I think the allegation is very possibly accurate. Jong-un’s grandfather and father were Stalinists, so we shouldn’t idealize them, though his father may have forcibly been drugged for most of his adult life so he could be manipulated — it’s a plausible theory. As a for the anti-aircraft gun, even the NK government said that the official had been executed, and the rumor may have been spread in order to enforce discipline. It’s a common technique. In 1950, for example, when north Korean troops swept down almost to the bottom of the Korean peninsula, most of the Korean Communist Party working underground in south Korea migrated to the north and offered to consolidate with Kim Il-sung’s CP. At first things seemed to go well, but eventually people noticed that none of the communists from the south had broadcast or written anything recently, and it was eventually declared by most historians, many of them lefties, that all of the many communists from the south who had gone north had simply been executed because, presumably, they threatened Kim’s authority as the permanent single leader. This was a big tragedy, though the fascists in south Korea must have been happy about it. A friend of mine, who used to be a Brit Labour Party member of the EU Parliament went to Pyongyang on a mission about 20 years ago to try to establish relations between the EU and N Korea, and he said the first thing he and the others had to do in Pyongyang was to go to the huge mausoleum where Kim Il-sung’s body lies in state and stand in front of the body in silence for several minutes showing respect for the Great Leader. He said huge pictures of Kim were everywhere, and his hosts spoke in hushed tones about Kim as if he were “God.” He said he considered the N K regime to be based on a cult of personality that was the Korean version of Stalinism. Unfortunately the negotiations didn’t get very far.
I am very conscious of the big lie-producing industry in S K. It is fully on the level of Ukraine’s or the US’s information warfare industry, and it’s been going full-blast for decades. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be realistic about Stalinism in N Korea, where there was never a de-Stalinization movement. There was no N Korean Khrushchev. I’m not saying that Jong-un is a Stalinist, but that’s the tradition he’s working within. I’m sure he would like to de-Stalinize N Korea, but he also knows he wouldn’t be in the position he’s in if it weren’t for who his grandfather and father were. And how is that different from kingship? Politically, N K is way behind China in evolving away from Glorious Leaderism. Much of Kim’s power still depends on religious-style worship from the population. This cult-like system just can’t go on much longer. I’m sure Jong-un himself is frustrated with it. I certainly hope he is able to evolve and modernize NK. Probably the influence of Russia will be a big help in this regard, and I look forward to seeing a lot of development.
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Very well said and balanced analysis, cc. The Stalin Cult and its attributes (like mausoleums, etc.) seems to have been frozen in time and space, in North Korea. Like the Land that Time Forgot. Having said that, I would caution against regarding Russia as a model for them to follow. I mean, free speech is good and I am all for that; but one has to remember always the class distinctions: Russia is a capitalist country, and North Korea does not need a Yeltsin-style capitalist counter-revolution, that’s the main thing.
Having said all of that, I don’t know much about the Kim family and whatever internal issues they had, but I do know that Jong-un has a sister who is actually rather hot!
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Thanks for your views. I just checked Wiki, and it says, “On 13 February 2017, Kim Jong-nam died after being exposed to VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia.” Also, “From roughly 1994 to 2001, he was considered the heir apparent to his father. He was thought to have fallen out of favour after embarrassing the regime in 2001 with a failed attempt to visit Tokyo Disneyland with a false passport….Kim Jong-nam was exiled from North Korea c. 2003, becoming an occasional critic of his family’s regime….His younger paternal half-brother, Kim Jong Un, was named heir apparent in September 2010….The Wall Street Journal on 10 June 2019 reported that former US officials stated that Kim Jong-nam had been a CIA source.” Sorry for misremembering the location. Whoever ordered Jong-nam’s death, it was definitely planned and intentional. The head of the regime when Jong-nam was assassinated was Jong-un. Jong-un became the leader in 2011.
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If Kim Jong-nam had been a CIA asset in the past, then there’s the possibility that that organisation may have had something to do with his death. Particularly if Kim was no longer of any use to the CIA or had stopped feeding them information but was still drawing an income from them. It is very curious that the women involved in his murder were patsy Indonesian and Vietnamese citizens who had no idea that what they had been told to do could have been potentially dangerous to themselves as well. The plot seems to have the hallmarks of an incident designed to cause trouble between the DPRK and three Southeast Asian countries.
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This is very interesting info, thank, Jen!
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I think the reason why China successfully evolved away from Glorious Leaderism and N Korea has yet to take that step may be partly due to history and geography. China is a big country with many competing groups and nodes of power. In addition, Chinese Confucianism always had the doctrine of the Will of Heaven, that is, if a ruling dynasty became corrupt and incompetent, then it was going against Heaven’s will and should be replaced. This gave rebels a position of virtue from which they could attack a corrupt dynasty. North Korea, on the other hand, is fairly small so it was easier for one ruler or party to replace ALL others, and when the communists from the south came north in 1950, they were in a weak position as refugees and so unfortunately they got “liquidated” as rivals. In addition Confucianism in Korea and Japan lost its revolutionary aspects “in translation.” In both countries Confucianism was tailored to support the ruling class and used simply to instruct the ruler so he could be a better ruler. The Will of Heaven never became widely accepted in either country, and in Japan the imperial line has basically lasted for more than a thousand years. Jong-un has his work cut out for him.
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This RT article just arrived:
Bastion of Juche: How North Korea’s ruling party and dynasty has managed to stay in power for decades
Make of it what you will.
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Thanks very much for this. I wish it were ten times longer. Unfortunately, though, it doesn’t go deeply into Il-sung’s later “strong man” period, when the current power structure was established. The author also seems negative about the Chinese cultural revolution, though he doesn’t say why. The cultural revolution had many positive as well as negative aspects, although it was severely demonized after the anti-Mao people took control. It’s possible that a N Korean cultural revolution was exactly what the DPRK needed after Il-sung’s death. This would have prevented the solidification of the current nepotistic, family pedigree system that is holding the DPRK back from a more democratic form of socialism. As a thought experiment, imagine if Stalin’s grandson or great-grandson were now in power…. China has managed to create a power-sharing structure within the CPC that goes beyond family/clan control. I’m glad to learn that the Workers’ Party is gaining power in the DPRK. I hope that continues, but until some actual workers become the Secretary of the party, the DPRK will still be stuck in partial political development in spite of its great successes technology and economics. Under Xi, the CPC has also become more democratic, and cadres are constantly scouring the country, holding neighborhood meetings and personal interviews, trying to determine bottlenecks and problem areas that need to be improved, so in some ways China is more responsive to ordinary people’s needs and opinions than formal democracies are. I hope the DPRK also develops something like this. I’m sure they can also learn from contemporary Russia. If they don’t get rid of their current family-based power structure, they will experience a big disadvantage when the time comes for Korea to reunify. The elites in both S Korea and the DPRK aren’t showing much *real* interest in reunification, though they pay lip service to it, because north and south both want to preserve the present establishment in their zone. China also does not actively support Korean reunification, since it wants to preserve a buffer state between itself and the US military. I know Putin, who has a large-scale vision, supports eventual Korean reunification, so I think Russia’s contribution in this area will be large when the present Cold War Redux is over. The Korean reunification problem is almost universally ignored by the western media, but it is a huge problem on many levels that must be addressed. When that time comes, how will the north maintain socialism? This problem needs to be addressed soon.
Regarding the assassination of Kim Jong-sam. Did it actually cause any international friction or bad will in southeast Asia? I’d love to see the evidence. Of course one can always blame the CIA, but prima facie I think the North Korean regime had more obvious motivation to do it. “CIA agent” is also the most common automatic go-to used in the DPRK when the regime wants to criticize someone. It’s like “because Russia” in the “west.” Jong-nam, being the eldest son of Jong-il, was in a power position in the family hierarchy and was for that reason still a considerable threat to the Pyongyang regime, even in exile, since there was probably a fair amount of secret support for him, perhaps even a secret faction, inside the DPRK, because he was the eldest son. That was surely why he was exiled in the first place: he dared to criticize the regime directly from a position of potential power. But he continued to publicly criticize the regime, harming the DPRK’s image around the world. Isn’t is very possible that the regime, knowing they could never shut him up using persuasion or bribery, decided to do the dirty deed? He was a real thorn in their side, and he still possessed the charisma of being the eldest son, outranking Jong-un. He could have formed the basis and rallying point for a “restoration” coup in Pyongyang, though who knows the real details? I have no idea who ordered the assassination of Jong-nam, and I’d very much like to see more concrete evidence from SE Asia, but until I do, the prima facie elements would seem to point toward the North Korean regime, though not necessarily to Jong-un personally.
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It’s a fascinating history, thanks for posting the link!
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My most sincere condolences to Oleg Averyanov on the loss of his young daughter, those responsible for the war crime[s] that were the precursor and direct cause of her death should be punished to the fullest extent allowed by the code set down at Nuremberg.
I pray this war will be successfully concluded by summers end. The losses from this 3LA staged war are staggering. However, with it becoming evermore clear that Biden will not be re-elected and the very real possibility of the 3LAs Obama/Cheney/Hillary cabal losing power, they have every motivation to continue their terror attacks in the hopes of creating and handing over an irresolvable war to Biden’s successor.
For the millions of faithful Never-Trumpers [NTs] out there, Hillary & Nikki Haley are waiting in the wings…just waiting for you to beckon them onstage…and the 3LAs want to make your wishes come true so, please call out to them..let them know you need warm comfort of their warmongering blood lust*. For the NTs I’ll add, I’m pretty sure I’ll be pretty unhappy with many of Trump’s flattering/backstabbing VP/Cabinet picks…
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*
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By “Finish them!” I assume Nikki means “finish killing every last Palestinian infant” just like Yahweh ordered them in the Bible.
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Yes, surely she means “Finish them off.”
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No need to assume Y, Haley’s evil is displayed for all to see.
And Haley’s just waiting to be beckoned forth. To conjure up the curs-ed cur, just say “never-Trump” thrice while clutching a copy of Cheney’s bestselling autobiography, “In My Time”, also published under the title, “They Don’t Call Me Dick For Nothing”.
Honestly, we are just one “well-placed-$hθt” away from having Haley become* the next US President. Yes. Really.
Think about it. Blue & Red “never-Trumpers” would fall all over themselves to get in line for a Nikki Haley Presidency. In fact, high-info-blues have been crossing-over throughout the 2024 primaries. And you can bet your ass that “Goldwater-Girl” Hillary would openly support low-info rank & file Ds crossing over for Haley…”just this once”. Then the, “unity-ticket” media-DNCers would intone…”hell, Haley’s practically a Democrat but, with Cheney’s sensibilities…what’s not to like”? I can hear it now…what a $h!t show it would be.
*FYI, Haley has never actually dropped out of the Republican primary race, she temporarily “suspended” her campaign while allowing surrogates to actively run ads/garner-votes-for-nomination. And, she has never said she would support Trump, just that she would vote for him if, he was still running and “legally” able. Haley now has enough delegates racked-up, [easy since everybody else dropped-out], to be “legitimately” considered 2nd place to Trump.
With Trump out, Haley’s in. And…in a match-up with Biden…Haley would easily win with Biden as the voters other WTF – “choice”.
And yeah, I really do think that it’s possible…should Trump get Fico’d/Feet-so’d or…Assange’d.
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Your Nostradamic predictions are terrifying me!
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Me too but…
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Well, Belousov seems to be the real Number Two in Russia now. First heard about him summer of ’22 arguing that the Bank of Russia was run on lines / policies too similar to the national banks of the West, and needed overhaul, i.e. new management — hasn’t hapened yet. And now Belousov is a big cheese, Minister of Defence, he’s throwing his weight around in his own department. Corrupt generals found behind every bush which apparently Shoigu missed somehow for years. Heard that Shoigu dropped his new ceremonial “job” and might be a tad sulky.
According to Tass, Belousov tasked his boys to think up ways of stopping US reconaissance drones flying over the Black Sea as Crimea is attacked. The Brits are at it as well using a converted KC-135 (to AWACS and electronics), escorted by two fighters. So, bouncing American Reaper drones is on the cards for sure, and the Battle of Britain heroes may soon be in the drink — because if anyone needs a kick up the arse so far as Russia is concerned, it’s Blighty.
Belousov talked by phone with that intellectual heavyweight Floyd Woo Woo Austin yesterday, and may have finally got through a foot of dense timber to get Austin to realize he’s treading on very thin ice. But nah, Americans tend to not take advice well in my opinion.
I personally regard the whole Ukraine situation as fraught at the moment. Belousov has already told a few RF defence companies to sharpen up because they’re not shouldering their share of the weapons supply increased burden. That shocked a few of them. Yup, Belousov is no nonsense, but he doesn’t yell like Medvedev. Somebody in the West is going to have a nasty surprise soon, I think.
And about bloody time, too. Zelensky is talking Piss Conference 2 because he seems panicky, although why anyone would turn up for Round Two is beyond me. Pretty clear Ukraine is effed. Maybe not to Joe Biden, but then, he’s out of it completely, as the “debate” showed.
North Korea? Well, some food is what they need most. They have every bit of decent soil under cultivation, and there ain’t much, not enough for 25 million people. The place is a rock. So best of luck being friends with Russia, why not? Great comments above on the DPRK.
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Agree with much of this missive, well written.
Belousov appears, [to my eye], to be the next “Putin” and…the “elite” of the “west” made a helluva mistake in not making a deal while “the getting was good”. A failure of historical proportions.
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