I still want to know about the remarks quoted in a Newsweek report by this guy- Colonel General Mordichev, recently promoted from Lieutenant General by Putin.
"...In a recent interview with Moscow's state-run Russia-1, a clip of which circulated widely on social media Saturday, Mordvichev said he believes Putin's war will last quite a long time and expand in the future.
"I think there's still plenty of time to spend. It is pointless to talk about a specified period. If we are talking about Eastern Europe, which we will have to, of course then it will be longer," the general said.
"Ukraine is only a stepping stone?" the interviewer then asked.
"Yes, absolutely. It is only the beginning," Mordvichev responded, who went on to say that the war "will not stop here."
The story has been framed as proof of the narrative of Russian militaristic expansionism- that the Ukraine invasion is intended only as the first step in a plan of military aggression that includes marching into eastern Europe with the aim of reclaiming the former Eastern bloc.
To me, a notable feature of the article is that there's only one Mainstream Legacy Media outlet that's reported this story- MSN/Newsweek. The rest of top searches consist of repetitions of the Newsweek report by outlets like The NY Post, Daily Beast, and the Hindustan Times. The top rank major league Legacy Media outlets like the NY Times, WaPo, and the television networks continue to be silent about the claim, which gives me pause.
I can't even be sure that the linked site is a reliable source that provides the original unabridged interview transcript.
That doesn't work as a checkable source for me. I suppose I can feed it into a translation program to convert it into English, but I have no confidence that the result will yield the intended sense of the content.
Frankly, at this point my skepticism is deepening in regard to what Mordichev actually said. The lag time of well over a month since Mordichev's original remarks and lack of follow-up or mirroring by the A-list of Western media outlets indicates that the Newsweek report may be an exaggeration, or a quote misleadingly translated outside of its proper context. A story like that has implications that are too important for it to be dismissed, but at present I'm not going to simply swallow it as presented.
Even if everything inferred in the Newsweek report turns out to be accurate, that isn't diligent reference work. Speaking as a one-person operation, if I were reporting on the speech, there's no way I'd link to a source that didn't supply a full English translation of the interview in addition to the primary source in the original Russian.
Also, there's no way I'd ever re-run this story with a clickbait headline like this:
"Putin’s New General Wants to INVADE Eastern Europe! When Will Russia’s Mad Dogs Stop?"
According to your analysis, things do point to hyperbolic disinformation about the general. however, whether the Russian leaders want territorial expansion or expanded influence, I think it's believable and verifiable by other means than the general's words. But all powerful countries do that to a degree, expand in order to gain power either through human resources or material or influence or decimation of people and land. The main European powers in the US have long history of geographical colonization but. Russia has done some of that also but typically hasn't established large groups of pilgrims or settlers or cultural Russifiers Russia has done some of that but has not typically dispatched large groups of pilgrims or settlers to far off lands for the cultural war of Russification. Russia and its predecessors and neighboring groups for hundreds of years have invaded one another. Appreciating the Russian leaders' predilections and patterns doesn't require the verbatim ratification of one general. European colonialists spread their seed as far and wide as they could and the influences are still felt. And they have taken land as well. Having to cede some of it back to those they stole it from has been an ugly and ongoing process. but the cultural influence carries on, as does the plunder of natural resources.
I am personally not in a position to judge how popular such expansionist notions are, like those of Aleksandr Dugin's or if the type of nationalism espoused by Navalny involves expansionism and how popular that is and what particular style of expansion is it might be undertaken.
I'l bet Nordic Scandinavian Baltic and Balkan leaders have their own histories and perceptions in mind when they consider Russia's foreign policy goals. And again I am not in a position to understand how much an alignment all those nations' goals are with NATO.
And it's still possible that this general spoke in a deceptive manner to, you know, intentionally. I doubt any wisdom in dealing with these matters is available from individual leaders, individual countries, blocs of countries, and the species in general.
DC Reade, I appreciate the deep dive into this particular story that you took to try and establish its authenticity. You did a valuable service to humanity.
I still want to know about the remarks quoted in a Newsweek report by this guy- Colonel General Mordichev, recently promoted from Lieutenant General by Putin.
"...In a recent interview with Moscow's state-run Russia-1, a clip of which circulated widely on social media Saturday, Mordvichev said he believes Putin's war will last quite a long time and expand in the future.
"I think there's still plenty of time to spend. It is pointless to talk about a specified period. If we are talking about Eastern Europe, which we will have to, of course then it will be longer," the general said.
"Ukraine is only a stepping stone?" the interviewer then asked.
"Yes, absolutely. It is only the beginning," Mordvichev responded, who went on to say that the war "will not stop here."
Newsweek reached out to the Russian embassy via email for comment..." (and then the topic is dropped.) https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-general-admits-ukraine-just-a-stepping-stone-to-invade-europe/ar-AA1gtZQc
The story has been framed as proof of the narrative of Russian militaristic expansionism- that the Ukraine invasion is intended only as the first step in a plan of military aggression that includes marching into eastern Europe with the aim of reclaiming the former Eastern bloc.
To me, a notable feature of the article is that there's only one Mainstream Legacy Media outlet that's reported this story- MSN/Newsweek. The rest of top searches consist of repetitions of the Newsweek report by outlets like The NY Post, Daily Beast, and the Hindustan Times. The top rank major league Legacy Media outlets like the NY Times, WaPo, and the television networks continue to be silent about the claim, which gives me pause.
The MSN/Newsweek story contains no link to the interview, which was broadcast on Russian TV back in July 2023. The Daily Beast report links to a transcript of the speech. https://www.thedailybeast.com/putin-promotes-general-andrey-mordvichev-with-eye-for-attacking-eastern-europe
However, the link leads only to a transcript of the interview in the original Russian, Cyrillic alphabet and all. https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/news/2023/07/23/986566-vsu-do-kontsa-leta
I can't even be sure that the linked site is a reliable source that provides the original unabridged interview transcript.
That doesn't work as a checkable source for me. I suppose I can feed it into a translation program to convert it into English, but I have no confidence that the result will yield the intended sense of the content.
Frankly, at this point my skepticism is deepening in regard to what Mordichev actually said. The lag time of well over a month since Mordichev's original remarks and lack of follow-up or mirroring by the A-list of Western media outlets indicates that the Newsweek report may be an exaggeration, or a quote misleadingly translated outside of its proper context. A story like that has implications that are too important for it to be dismissed, but at present I'm not going to simply swallow it as presented.
Even if everything inferred in the Newsweek report turns out to be accurate, that isn't diligent reference work. Speaking as a one-person operation, if I were reporting on the speech, there's no way I'd link to a source that didn't supply a full English translation of the interview in addition to the primary source in the original Russian.
Also, there's no way I'd ever re-run this story with a clickbait headline like this:
"Putin’s New General Wants to INVADE Eastern Europe! When Will Russia’s Mad Dogs Stop?"
which leads to this shitshow of an article--presented as a slideshow!--sentence by sentence (with frequent commerical interrruptions.) https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-s-new-general-wants-to-invade-aol-europe-when-will-russia-s-mad-dogs-stop/ss-AA1gybqQ#image=7
According to your analysis, things do point to hyperbolic disinformation about the general. however, whether the Russian leaders want territorial expansion or expanded influence, I think it's believable and verifiable by other means than the general's words. But all powerful countries do that to a degree, expand in order to gain power either through human resources or material or influence or decimation of people and land. The main European powers in the US have long history of geographical colonization but. Russia has done some of that also but typically hasn't established large groups of pilgrims or settlers or cultural Russifiers Russia has done some of that but has not typically dispatched large groups of pilgrims or settlers to far off lands for the cultural war of Russification. Russia and its predecessors and neighboring groups for hundreds of years have invaded one another. Appreciating the Russian leaders' predilections and patterns doesn't require the verbatim ratification of one general. European colonialists spread their seed as far and wide as they could and the influences are still felt. And they have taken land as well. Having to cede some of it back to those they stole it from has been an ugly and ongoing process. but the cultural influence carries on, as does the plunder of natural resources.
I am personally not in a position to judge how popular such expansionist notions are, like those of Aleksandr Dugin's or if the type of nationalism espoused by Navalny involves expansionism and how popular that is and what particular style of expansion is it might be undertaken.
I'l bet Nordic Scandinavian Baltic and Balkan leaders have their own histories and perceptions in mind when they consider Russia's foreign policy goals. And again I am not in a position to understand how much an alignment all those nations' goals are with NATO.
And it's still possible that this general spoke in a deceptive manner to, you know, intentionally. I doubt any wisdom in dealing with these matters is available from individual leaders, individual countries, blocs of countries, and the species in general.
obvious propaganda rabbit hole, imo.
DC Reade, I appreciate the deep dive into this particular story that you took to try and establish its authenticity. You did a valuable service to humanity.