Can he possibly be as bad as NATO countries make him out to be?
Putin inaugurated as Russian president
for fifth time, West boycotts
May 7 (UPI) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin was inaugurated to his fifth term in office on Tuesday despite much of the Western world, including the United States, boycotting the ceremony because of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Putin's government will go into a reassignment mode after the inauguration ceremonies, where Russian watchers will keep a close eye on what past administrators will get promotions and which ones will get sacked in the process.
Putin faced little opposition in his election victory on March 15, where Russian officials said he received 87% of the vote, with several opponents jailed or barred from the ballot.
He did face a protest movement encouraged by the widow of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison, that called for people to write in names, including Navalny's, rather than vote for Putin.
Putin has been in power since 1999 and in 2021 constitutional amendments permitted him to run for two more additional six-year terms than previously allowed.
The circumstances surrounding the election drew condemnation from the West as the European Parliament in April passed a resolution denouncing the election as a "sham."
The sham is not the election as Putin is very popular in Russia and would have won anyway. The sham is the BS that comes from NATO countries that are just as crooked in their elections as Russia, but a lot more sophisticated in how they influence them.
NATO must maintain the facade of righteousness and the attitude of Russian evil in order to justify the forever war in Ukraine. America's economy would collapse without at least one good war on a continuing basis. Other NATO countries are beginning to catch-on and are gearing their economies more and more toward the manufacture of war materials. This is the 21st century, and war is the primary mover of western economies. How disgraceful!
The United States said the vote was "undemocratic" with State Department spokesman Matthew Miller saying the United States "will not have a representative" at Putin's inauguration.
Britain, Canada and the European Union each also declined to send a representative.
"Russia's assault on Ukraine is an unprovoked, premeditated and barbaric attack against a sovereign democratic state," the British Foreign Ministry said Tuesday in its message boycotting the inauguration.
"The U.K. condemns the Russian government's reprehensible actions which are an egregious violation of international law and the UN Charter."
Moscow's war with Ukraine has gone on much longer than the Kremlin had hoped but Russia made some gains in the spring with Western supplies stalled, the dynamics would change with a new influx of weapons for Ukraine.
Ukraine says 2 undercover military officials
arrested in plot to assassinate Zelensky
May 7 (UPI) -- The security service of war-torn Ukraine on Tuesday revealed that it had foiled an attempted assassination of President Volodymyr Zelensky and other top officials by two undercover Ukrainian security officials working for Russia, officials have confirmed.
"[Russia] was actively developing plans to eliminate" Zelensky and other officials, the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, had confirmed Tuesday on Telegram.
Is that for real, or is it spin to deflect the media from reporting that Ukraine's military might be turning on Zelenskyy? Why would they? Because they are losing the war and a generation of young men, and the military must know that for Ukraine to keep fighting the war for years will mean the complete destruction of the country, sending it back to the Middle Ages.
What can be accomplished by continuing the war? NATO (mostly American) war manufacturers get filthy rich with every death. And the money comes from NATO taxpayers, that's us.
The two undercover Russian agents, now in custody, were Ukrainian military colonels who were allegedly working for Russia's Federal Security Service -- known as the FSB -- and leaking information to Ukraine's enemy as part of a network of agents working against Ukraine.
"A limited number of people knew about our special operation, and I personally monitored its progress," the head of the SBU, Vasyl Malyuk, said.
The SBU said one of the FSB's goals "was to search for executors among the military close to the protection of [Zelensky]," who could take him hostage "and later kill him."
In addition to Russia's plan to "eliminate" Zelensky, it included Malyuk and the chief of the State Administration of Ukraine, Kyryll Budanov, plus other high-ranking Ukrainian officials, according to the SBU.
On Saturday, the Russian Interior Ministry had placed Zelensky on a criminal "wanted" list for unspecified charges.
Described as a "terrorist attack" by Malyuk, "which was supposed to be a gift to Putin before the inauguration, was actually a failure of the Russian special services," he said.
The two colonels are in custody and if found guilty by a Ukranian court, they face the likelihood of life in jail for "treason committed under martial law" and "preparation for a terrorist act," according to Ukraine's government.
Malyuk did admit Russia "is strong and experienced" and "cannot be underestimated," but vowed that Ukraine "will continue to work ahead of time, so that every traitor receives the well-deserved court sentences."
The planned attack was supervised by Maxim Mishustin, Dmitry Perlin, and Alexey Kornev, who are known employees Russia's FSB, according to the SBU.
A spokesperson for the Ukrainian State Security Department told Politico this particular plot to kill Zelensky was more unique than the other handful of attempts so far, including one in August 2023 by a woman.
"But it is the first time such a high-ranking official of the state security department" got identified as the "enemy's moles," Artem Dehtiarenko told Politico.
Perlin, it is alleged, in January 2022 had "became the curator of the 'moles,' who were recruited even before the full-scale invasion of Russia," but until then the "moles" were being "taking care" of by Kornev, who "held a series of conspiratorial meetings" with the Ukranian colonel "on the territory of neighboring European states," where "funds or agents were also usually transferred abroad."
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