Putin's False Flag Operation
From America's Premier Editorial Cartoonist
The drone attack on the Kremlin is more likely just a desperate Russian False Flag Operation.
RUSSIA’S LIES by Michael P. Ramirez
What’s the old joke?... How can you tell when Putin is lying? His lips are moving.
On Wednesday, Russia accused Ukraine of attempting to assassinate Putin by launching two drone attacks on the Kremlin at 2:37 am. Russia state media did not report it until 12 hours later.
On Thursday, the Kremlin accused the United States of being behind the attack.
As ineffectual as this attack seemed, it was a national embarrassment for Russian defense officials. This would be the first time since Mathias Rust evaded air defenses and landed a Cessna in Red Square in 1987.
But it is highly doubtful Ukraine would launch an attack on the Kremlin. In a contest with a nuclear power, even a third-world gas station with nuclear weapons, Ukraine has little to gain and everything to lose. Some experts say Ukrainian drones could fly as far as 280 miles. The distance from Kiev to Moscow is over 500 miles. The distance from Kharkiv to Moscow is 402.649 miles.
It is even more doubtful that President Biden, who fears sufficiently supplying Ukraine with adequate weaponry to avoid even the perception of antagonizing Russia, would support an assassination attempt with a pair of drones carrying a payload that caused minimal damage.
It was remarkable how someone just happen to be videotaping the Kremlin Dome at that exact moment at 3 o’clock in the morning… And quite coincidental that it was perfectly timed to rally support in the midst of Russia’s strategic failures on the battlefield, and right before a strikingly scaled-down May 9th Moscow Victory Parade.
Experts are rightly skeptical of Moscow’s allegations.
Russia has a long history of lies and false-flag operations.
In the late 1930s, the Soviets had designs on Finland. Few remember that Germany and Russia had signed a non-aggression agreement, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, in November of 1939. The secret protocol in the pact divided the Baltics, Finland, Poland and Romania between the two allies. Finland, Latvia, Estonia, and later, Lithuania were to go to the Soviets. Poland was to be divided between the two.
After the treaty was signed, Germany invaded Poland, and the Soviets forced the Baltics into the Soviet sphere and annexed Lithuania. Finland refused Soviet demands. So, the Soviets bombed their own village of Mainila and blamed it on Finland. Three days later, the Soviets invaded Finland.
The subsequent Winter War was known for the high Russian casualty rate and the failure of Soviet forces. With overwhelming numbers, Stalin anticipated a quick triumph but the Fins put up a strong defense. After three months, the countries signed a peace treaty and Finland ceded 9% of their territory.
Russia used false-flag operations to justify military interventions in Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Afghanistan in 1979.
They are currently doing this in Moldova, Georgia, and now Ukraine.
The Brezhnev Doctrine, which utilizes infiltration, false-flag operations, aggression and suppression was developed to extinguish the Prague Spring. Operation Progress was designed and executed by the KGB.
Twenty-four years later, Vladimir Putin, a former KGB foreign intelligence officer for 16 years, used the same tactics to come to power. His list of false flag operations and barbarity is getting longer.
In 1999, apartments were bombed in three Russian cities killing hundreds of people. The bombings were blamed on Chechen rebels. The response to the bombings was the second Chechen war and the rise of Putin.
Soon after the bombing, they discovered an undetonated bomb in the basement of another building in the Russian city of Ryazan. Investigators tracked the bomb to the FSB, the successor to the KGB. The KGB claimed the bomb was a fake and was being used as a training exercise.
The list of political opponents, dissidents, critics of Putin and journalists who have been poisoned, killed, imprisoned, exiled, or died under mysterious circumstances is getting longer and longer.
The Ukraine War was born of lies from Putin and the Kremlin. The pretext of the invasion was that Ukraine threatened Russia and “needed to be de-militarized and de-Nazified.”
Yes, Putin is calling the Jewish President of Ukraine a Nazi.
According to Putin, the war in Ukraine is not an invasion or a war, it is a “Special Military Operation.”
Telling the truth and calling the war on Ukraine a “war” are prosecutable offenses in Putin world. Russian opposition figure Ilya Yashin was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison in December for exposing atrocities by Russian troops on Ukrainians in Bucha. Opposition leader Vladmir Kara-Murza was just sentenced last month to 25 years in prison for denouncing the “war.”
Anti-corruption leader and Putin critic Alexei Navalny was poisoned by Putin’s agents by putting a Russian nerve agent, Novichok in his tea in an airport. When they failed to kill him, he was sentenced to nine years in a maximum-security prison for a trumped-up fraud case. He now faces two more charges, terrorism and extremism, which carry prison terms of 30 years and 35 years.
Ukraine has never threatened its eastern neighbor with anything beyond setting up association agreements and economic ties with the EU, and promising to one day join NATO. It gave up its nuclear weapons for security assurances from Russia, the U.S. the U.K. and Northern Ireland, under the Budapest Memorandum
Putin’s Russia has always been the aggressor. Well before the Kremlin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb 24, 2022, Russia had annexed Crimea and was fueling separatist movements in the Donbass as early as 2014.
It is part of Putin’s systematic plan to restore the Russian empire.
Putin is just following the steps of Russian despots who preceded him. His modus operandi is to target states around Russia’s periphery and attack them from within by destabilizing governments, cultivating separatist movements, and using disinformation to create chaos, and then mobilizing armed forces to claim territory.
He has killed thousands of innocents in the process.
Putin’s plans do not end with Ukraine. If he is successful in Ukraine, Moldova may be next, then the Baltics, and then it won’t be Ukrainians fighting for liberty and their homeland, it will be Americans and our NATO allies.
And our enemies are watching… Evil regimes will use Ukraine to gauge America’s fortitude. It will serve as a lesson for countries to never give up nuclear weapons. U.S. intelligence has revealed that President Xi of China has ordered its military to be prepared to annex Taiwan by 2027. You can bet that China is paying close attention.
What happens in Ukraine has consequences far beyond that region of the world. The cost of failure will be much higher and more substantial than equipping Ukrainians to defeat Putin. There is nothing false about that.
(originally published on May 7, 2023))
If you’re new here, please subscribe for free, or with a paid subscription, enjoy early access to Michael’s editorials each Sunday, along with daily exclusive sketches, the ability to comment, access to the full archive, discounts, and more.
Latest Essays by Michael:
Credibility Left Behind …more essays at michaelpramirez.com
Visit the T-Shirt Store, Michael P. Ramirez Store (for special request art prints please write to: ramireztoons@gmail.com) Original Website: michaelpramirez.com Ver Animados en Español AQUI
Please consider a subscription to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Michael’s home newspaper. Click on mylvrj.com/ramirez to enjoy two months of the Review-Journal for just 99 cents.
Putin and the USA MSM have a lot in common....