STEVE PIECZENIK TALKS

Putin’s New Cold Borscht War.

“In Air and Cyberspace, on Land and Sea, Russia Shows Muscle”, NYTimes, 11,1, 2014 by Andrew Roth.

It was only a matter of time before my favorite A.D.D. Russian judo expert, Vladimir Putin, initiated a trial of anti-American incursions.

The NYTimes article quoted above, describes Putin’s ADD activities as follows:
“How else to explain the sudden increase of bombers over Europe, kidnapped spies, troop buildups in Eastern Europe and roaming submarines in the Baltic Sea?”
I wonder if Putin is trying out for a Director’s/Producer’s role in one of my partners Tom Clancy’s franchise movies? Maybe Putin might want to make a sequel to the “Hunt For Red October”? Or something akin to “Clear And Present Danger”? Somehow I think that Putin is really putting his heart, mind and soul into an attempt to disrupt American/European interests around the world.

What makes me come to that conclusion?
Putin is a creature of habit.  He is not a long-range strategist; nor is he a chess player, a game in which the Russians have excelled for centuries.  Therefore I must conclude as someone who has worked against the KGB for decades that he is trying all kinds of nuisance tactics to disrupt the natural flow of world events as they evolve without any unnecessary turbulence. Putin is clearly disturbed, emotionally and physically. He is, in the words of a New Yorker from Harlem, “itching for a fight”.

But with whom? 

Probably with anyone whom he could pick on who would not be able to retaliate effectively against him or his country. The Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia have just witnessed the Putin Borscht special with the following noisome overflights of the latest Russian aircraft models:
Tu-95; Bear H Bombers; Su-27 fighter jets; IL-78 tanker aircraft.

To make sure that these small,  helpless Baltic countries received Putin’s loud message, he “did not file flight plans or maintain contact with civilian air traffic control”.

“During a period of heightened tensions in 2007, Putin resumed the Soviet-era practice of long range patrols far beyond Russian borders.”  

However, Putin was still not content with playing with his air force, so he decided to kidnap an Estonian Spy. “The F.S.B. Russia’s security service said in a statement that Mr Kohver [Estonian Spy] had ‘detained on Russian territory’ and had been found to be carrying a pistol and ammunition cartridges, 5000 Euros[$6000], surveillance equipment and ‘intelligence gathering instructions’.”  Even in the world of spy novels, this old scenario would never pass by an editor’s red pencil. 

How prosaic and cliché can Putin be?

In fact, my dear readers, especially you readers in Russia and the Ukraine, I must admit that I am a little ashamed of Putin. He has demonstrated a concerted and major deficit for creativity and imagination. Any school boy in St Petersburg could have come up with more original ideas to annoy the US and Europe.

I must insist on showing you how RETRO Putin really is. He had sent mysterious submarines into the Baltic Straits where the war weary Swedish Navy described Putin’s pathetic intrusion as, “The Hunt For Reds In October”.  Tom Clancy would have been very proud of that play on his best-selling title.  Please remember the principle that if one lacks any capability to be new, then one must beat the tempos of past rhythms. In this particular case, Putin has repeatedly tried to Cyber-attack the states of Georgia and Estonia. Then, he attacked Western oil and gas companies.

Ho-hum! How boring!!

Putin is clearly at his wit’s end. He has tried all the old tricks and chicaneries and they don’t seem to be working. He has no master mentor as he had in the past to consult with like Andropov of the KGB or Marcus Wolfe of the Stasi. 

Now he has to turn to his childhood friends: “The Crooked Duo”—The Rotenberg Brothers [no brains between the two; only brawn]. There is an old axiom that Matzoh Balls do not belong in the Borscht soup.  It will be a short matter of time before the Russian people, no devotee of leaven bread, will figure out this UNHOLY ALLIANCE  between the pathetic X-KGB agent Putin and the corrupt Rotenberg Brothers. I predict that the people of Russia will erupt into a maelstrom of a “POGROM” against the remaining Jews in Russia and a replay of the Bolshevik Revolution against the new Tzar Putin.  Now, folks, this is a scenario worth waiting to see.

Trust me, Putin is now in center stage and a modern day Chekhov, the physician-writer, is waiting to pen how Putin has destroyed the Great Russia, after so much effort was made to take down the Soviet Union. Stalin would have been angry by Putin’s pettiness and incompetency.