Dubious

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Holodomor: Ukraine's Hidden Genocide May 19, 2022

Show notes

How Stalin starved Ukraine in the 1930s and how Putin is doing it now.

We're talking about the "Terror-Famine" created by Soviet farm policy in the 1930s which killed millions of people in Ukraine. If you like our content please become a patron and get our premium episodes, plus our public episodes, all ad-free!

The Soviet Union had problems with food production throughout its existence. From the outset in 1917, Lenin was forced with a farm revolt in the Penza province that resulted in his infamous "hanging order" to execute 100 kulaks. We explain what a kulak is, how that class of people came to be, and how Stalin tried to exterminate them in the 1930s. 1

After Lenin's death in the early 1920s, it was Trotsky or Stalin for who would succeed him. Trotsky had the army, but Stalin had everyone else, and the fate of millions were sealed when Stalin rose to power. Stalin's first five year plan involved the collectivization of farmland, and it was thought that machinery could increase production with less labor, and so the kulaks were sent to labor camps and the women of farming villages left to work the fields, with disastrous results. On the low end, 3 to 5 million Ukrainians starved to death. Another 1.5 million Kazakhs. More in the northern Caucasus. And those not killed by the famine were also targets in Stalin's purges a few years later.

Kherson, Odessa, and Mariupol: all cities in the news today with Russia's current invasion. They're grain ports in the country known as the bread basket of Europe, and Ukraine is still fighting for them 100 years later. Famines in 1918 may be more aptly described as food terrorism today, as Putin's destruction of grain ports could cause a global food crisis. Will we have mass migrations in response to mass hunger in Europe in 2022 if grain supplies run low?

Little was written of the famines in the west, except by journalists like Welshman Gareth Jones, who kept diaries of his travels through Soviet territory. Sadly, Jones' legacy was tarnished by western journalists complicit with the Stalin regime such as Walter Duranty of the New York Times, who admitted in private that millions were dying of hunger, but downplayed that fact in the the paper of record. He was given a Pulitzer and "perks" from the Soviets for his efforts, Gareth Jones was given three fatal gunshot wounds while reporting on the Japanese invasion of Mongolia in 1935 with a man we now know to have been with the NKVD: the precursor to the KGB. 2

The famine was also documented in the photos of people living in 1930s Soviet territory such as Alexander Wienerberger and James Abbe. A particularly striking photo of Wienerberger's was one of a Soviet Health Minister's summer palace in Crimea, in which he lived while millions of people below his stately grounds were falling dead in the streets from starvation. Not very comrade-like... 3, 4

1. Lenin's Hanging Order for the Kulaks (1918). Alpha History. ⇤

2. Neil Prior. Journalist Gareth Jones' 1935 Murder Examined by BBC Four. BBC, July 2012. ⇤

3. 'A Gift To Posterity': Four Men Who Risked The Wrath Of Stalin To Photograph The Holodomor. Radio Free Europe. May 2021. ⇤

4. Alexander Wienerberger. Soviet Health Commissar's Summer Residence in Crimea. The Holodomor Research and Education Consortium. ⇤

Forced Pregnancy: A Crime Against Humanity May 12, 2022

Show notes

A history of Roe v. Wade in the context of its impending reversal.

The United Nations lists forced pregnancy as a crime against humanity in Article 7.1.g of the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court. If you like our content, please become a patron to access both our premium episodes and our public episodes ad-free.

Forced pregnancy is listed near murder, enslavement, and the crime of apartheid. An abortion ban is forcing women to be pregnant and give birth. A sexual violence component is linked to this crime: in this case, that component is obliging a rape victim to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth. 1

The leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe Vs Wade is not only an attack on women’s rights. In some states, it will also be a ban on IUDs, condoms, and even a ban on medications used for treating ectopic pregnancy and miscarriages. Women will have less access to medical services such as cancer screenings and the Papanicolaou test. Raped young girls will be forced to give birth. The same will apply to incest and cases where the pregnancy risks to the mothers’ life. Plan B even would be prohibited, the morning-after pill could trigger a murder charge. Even countries like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia have more liberalized abortion laws. 2

In some US states, the abortion laws are already insane:

In Alabama, the penalty for getting an abortion after you are raped is more severe than the penalty for raping someone.

Some pharmacists in Texas are ALREADY refusing to fill prescriptions to treat ectopic pregnancies or miscarriages as some of the drugs used in those cases are also used for abortions.

And outside of abortion, Texas has also implemented a "loyalty oath to Israel" requirement for state employees including school teachers that is working through the courts. 3

We also discuss Jane Roe aka Norma McCorvey, Linda Coffee, Sarah Weddington, Gloria Allred, feminism, Matt Gaetz, “overeducated”, and the fact that it was Republicans like Nixon and Reagan who first passed abortion laws. We discuss the Supreme Court Republican nominated Justices: John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barret.

We hear about abortion bans in Ceausescu’s Romania, then explain how racism and the Green v. Connally decision are the root of the American anti abortion craze via a man named Paul Weyrich and Jerry Falwell. Bob Jones University and its founder claimed that racial segregation was mandated by the Bible. Then we discuss the separation of church and state, and Jimmy Carter’s election details in this context. We also address the foster system and state of social services in the US. We discuss the senate vote on codifying Roe vs. Wade as well. 4

We look at the countries that rolled back abortion laws in the last 20 years: El Salvador, Nicaragua and Poland.

1. Crimes Against Humanity. United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention. ⇤

2. Adrian Horton. "It's ot a Little Child": Gynecologists Join the Fight Against Six-week Abortion Bans. The Guardian. April 2019. ⇤

3. Jacey Fortin. She Wouldn’t Promise Not to Boycott Israel, So a Texas School District Stopped Paying Her. The New York Times. December 2018. ⇤

4. Randall Balmer. The Real Origins of the Religious Right. Politico Magazine. May 2014. ⇤

The Tsar's Palace: Putin's Wealth May 05, 2022

Show notes

How Vladimir Putin acquires his luxuries, and how they're hidden from the world.

Officially, Vladimir Putin is not a rich man. On paper, he owns the following: an 800 square foot apartment, a trailer, two cars and a modest salary of $140,000 a year. In reality, he is one of the richest men on Earth. If you like our content, become a patron to get our exclusive premium episodes, plus our public episodes ad-free.

After the intro, Sandra has a few things to say to Justice Samuel Alito regarding the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion about overturning Roe vs Wade. Then we move into Putin’s wealth: he also has yachts, mansions, gold toilets and expensive watches. 1

There's also the palace on the Black Sea coast that is still under construction, revealed to the world in drone footage by Alexei Navalny before his imprisonment. It features a hockey rink, a vineyard on the grounds of the adjacent property, its own border checkpoint, its own self-enforced no-fly zone, a casino, and of course a hookah bar with a stripper pole and an ancient Greek Orthodox church moved to the site brick by brick. FSB are the title holders. 2

Western billionaires use the same methods as oligarchs to hide their wealth from taxation. We discuss a couple of good examples, for instance the case of Suleiman Kerimov, who owned several Russian banks and also the country's largest gold mining company, Polyus Gold. Kerimov's wealth was hidden behind a Swiss accountant who even used his town's local tattoo artist to send wire transfers between shell companies, to the tune of about $700 million dollars. Most of Suleiman’s wealth came from his investment in Gazprom, a Russian gas company, to the tune of about $21 billion. 3

There's also the case of a few Harvard economics professors who tried to rip off the Russian banking system by taking over the clearing bank for the entire Russian economy with a $400,000 dollar loan from a dentist uncle in Idaho. It all ended in hurt feelings, fraud charges, and tears. But they did gain money in the end by investing in Gazprom. 4.

We also discuss some of Sandra's personal stories about Lada cars, Boris Berezovsky, loans for shares during Yeltsin's admin, and the scam auctions which set all of this in motion from her home country of Romania back when the Soviet party fell apart and Nancy Pelosi’s historic visit to Kyiv, meeting Volodymyr Zelensky.

Also included: Kursk, Ozero dachas, Yeltsin, Roman Abramovich, novichok, Scarface, gold toilets, Trump, KGB, Alina Kabayeva, Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, Luiza Rozova, Sergei Roldugin, Boris Rotenberg, Svetlana Krivonogikh, Timchenko, Kolbin, Kovalchuk, Panama & Pandora Papers, Anatoly Chubais, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

1. Mike McIntire. Why Tracking Putin’s Wealth Is So Difficult. The New York Times. April 2022. ⇤

2. Inside 'Putin's Palace'. Radio Free Europe. January 2021. ⇤

3. James Oliver, Nassos Stylianou and Steve Swann. Hidden Wealth of One of Putin’s 'Inner Circle' Revealed. BBC. April 2022. ⇤

4. David McClintick. How Harvard Lost Russia. Institutional Investor. January 2006. ⇤

Putin’s Childhood - The Real Story Apr 28, 2022

Show notes

Was Vladimir Putin born in Russia or in Georgia? Who is his biological mother – Vera Putina or Maria Ivanova Putina?

Putin’s autobiography says he was born in 1952 in Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg. But there is an alternative, more credible story which places his early years in Metekhi, Georgia and identifies his biological mother as a woman named Vera. In the Kremlin version, Putin’s grandfather, Spiridon Putin, was a personal cook to Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. If you like our content and want to support Dubious, please become a patron and subscribe to our add free premium episodes.

Putin's mother was a factory worker and his father was a conscript in the Soviet Navy, serving in the submarine fleet in the early 1930s. Early in World War II, his father served in the destruction battalion of the NKVD – which later became KGB, now FSB. He was severely wounded in 1942. Vladimir Spiridonovich and Maria Ivanovna, his parents, had two more children, two boys but they both died before Putin was born: Albert, born in the 1930s, died in infancy, and Viktor, born in 1940, died of diphtheria and starvation in 1942 during the siege of Leningrad by Nazi Germany forces in WW2. In her memoir, Hard Choices, she shares a story Putin told her about this time in his life. This story does not fit the version Putin tells in his official autobiography. The then U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said he too had never heard it before.

Putin also tells another story: one of his great teachers in life was a rat. 1

Putin’s path was influenced by a movie called The Shield and The Sword - a 1968 Soviet spy series. It inspired him to join the KGB. Putin was impressed that “One man's effort could achieve what whole armies could not. One spy could decide the fate of thousands of people.” 2

There is an unofficial version of Putin’s early years: Putin was actually born in Georgia. A woman named Vera who lives in Metheki, near Gori, in Georgia has been saying since 1999 that she is Putin’s birthmother. Putina married a Georgian soldier Giorgi Osepahvili. In December 1960, the ultimatum from her husband, Putina travelled with "Vova" back to Ochyor, in Russia and she left the boy with her parents and returned to Georgia. Vera believes that the Leningrad "parents" referred to in Putin's official biography adopted HER son from his grandparents, so from her parents. The story was corroborated by Shura Gabinashvili, a former Russian teacher at the village school in Metekhi. She says Putin was her student and that she has received death threats about making these claims public. She remembers Putin by the same pet name Vera, his alleged biological mother uses: "Vova." 3

In this episode we also discuss Alexander Litvinenko, polonium 210, the suspicious death of BOTH Putin’s Leningrad parents of cancer, AT THE SAME TIME. We also comment on the very peculiar deaths of Artyom Borovik who died in a plane crash coinciding with the documentary he was making about Vera and Putin's childhood & Italian journalist Antonio Russo who was also interested in Vera’s story before was murdered while investigating Putin’s war crimes in Chechnya.

1. Alex Kliment. Putin, Ukraine, and the Rat Story. Gzero. March 2022. ⇤

2. Damien Sharkov. Straight Outta Leningrad: Putin Says Streetfights Taught Him How to Tackle ISIS. Newsweek. October 2015. ⇤

3. Kate Weinberg. Could This Woman be Vladimir Putin's Real Mother?. Telegraph. December 2008. ⇤

Politicizing Presidential Pets Apr 22, 2022

Show notes

A FOIA lawsuit was filed against the Secret Service regarding the Biden dogs, Champ and Major.

In this episode we’re going to talk about the new Biden pets, Commander the German Shepherd, Willow the tabby cat and Poppet the unofficial White House rabbit, but also about Major and the late Champ Biden and how they were turned into political weapons and attacked by right wing groups, in court and on live TV. And we have some “barking news”: president Zelensky, Olena Zelenska, and their children have more than just two dogs: they also have a hamster and a cat. If you like our content, please subscribe to our premium episodes.

Major Biden is the only pet in history whose less than perfect behavior was considered reason enough to "file a FOIA lawsuit against the United Stated Department of Homeland Security for records of communication between Secret Service officials assigned to the White House regarding the Biden family dogs."

One’s pets and children are/should be off limits in politics, even if the politics of their humans is not your cup of tea. On that note, thanks to President Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush for adopting puppy Freddy Bush from the SPCA of Texas and rescuing kitty Bernadette from the side of the road and giving them a wonderful, spoiled life, along with Bob, the second Bush cat.

We discuss the attack against a 13 year old dog, Champ, by a Newsmax host. Gregg Kelly and two guests presented agreed on live TV that Champ “is dirty, looks rough, disheveled, like a junkyard dog.” This attack was connected to senator Ted Cruz who fled to Cancun during the 2021 Texas freeze, leaving his poodle Snowflake alone in a house with no electricity and no heat. Texas monthly editor Michael Hardy brought this fact to light and the Twitter account The Oval Pawffice spread the Snowflake news. Newsmax attacked this account while lying to their viewers, stating the account belonged to Jen Psaki. Newsmax viewers mass reported the account until the Twitter algorithm banned it. But thanks to the adorable fox red Labrador retriever Gipper, Juris Dog-tor at Clare Locke, a boutique law firm, The Oval Pawffice was reinstated in 24 hours. Gipper wrote an official letter to Twitter’s Legal Counsel making it clear that The Oval Pawffice didn’t break any rules. This letter is a work of art, it’s written in doggo, Gipper signed it with his own paw print. 1, 2

Next: fun stories about FDR’s dog Major, Pete Roosevelt, Barney Bush, Juno and Satan Adams, parrot Poll Jackson, Old Ike the Woodrow Wilson ram and Rebecca Coolidge the racoon. We think wild animals should be protected and they should live in their own habitat. Sanctuaries yes, zoos no. Foreign presidential pets like Nemo Macron and Konni Putin (Konni sadly passed away) are included too. Farts, hair dye and Rudi Giuliani are also a thing in this episode. 3

We conclude by asking everyone to please donate to animal organizations on the ground in Ukraine. They need our help, now more than ever, so please help out if you can. And please ADOPT DON’T SHOP. 4

1. Joe Patrice. Twitter Bans Fan Account For Joe Biden’s Pets… . Above The Law. February 2021. ⇤

2. The Oval Pawffice twitter account. How to Help Pets in Ukraine. Twitter. April 2022. ⇤

3. The Star Youtube account. Macron's Dog Pees in Elysee Meeting. Youtube. October 2017. ⇤

4. Michael Hardy Twitter account. @mkerrhardy. Twitter. 2022 ⇤

Putin's War Crimes: Ukraine, Chechnya, Syria Apr 14, 2022

Show notes

We discuss Russia's escalating attacks on civilians in Ukraine, and similar tactics used previously in Syria and Chechnya.

Putin has committed crimes against humanity before. With no real repercussions from the West. If you like our content, please subscribe to our premium episodes.

During the Chechen wars, the West was not as outraged as now, because the victims were predominantly Muslim and world leaders at the time still believed Putin was fighting a war “against terror”. It was proved by journalists like Anna Politkovskaya and former FSB officer turned dissident Alexander Litvinenko that was in fact Putin who planned the now infamous Moscow apartment bombings of 1999 as a pretext to start a war with Chechnya. For a more detailed account, listen to our Putin’s Rise to Power – Part 2 premium episode. 1, 2

We discuss verified reports of executions, sexual assault, torture, shelling of children hospitals, maternities, and blocks of flats, as well as other horrors emerging from Bucha, Borodyanka, Mariupol, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Mykolaiv, Lviv, Irpin and Odessa. The number of civilian casualties just in Mariupol alone is estimated to exceed 20,000. They are rounding up Ukrainian civilians into camps and many people are “disappeared”. They have even killed dogs and their puppies. As Russia regroups to prepare for the Donbas battle, they are giving a new meaning to “scorched earth”. We go through a brief history of war crimes, and we will analyze the current situation, the West’s reaction and what’s coming next: General Alexander Dvornikov aka the Butcher of Syria and the Battle of Donbas. 3

Lviv University is the alma mater of the two lawyers who came up with the legal concepts of prosecutions at Nuremberg for genocide and crimes against humanity. Raphael Lemkin introduced the term ‘genocide’ in international law and Hersch Lauterpacht coined ‘crimes against humanity’ into international law.

Putin is winning in Russia. He’s losing internationally but he’s winning at home, his popularity ratings inside Russia are 83%. On April 11, Putin arrested Vladimir Kara-Murza. The FSB has poisoned kara-Murza twice already. He’s now in prison just Alexei Navalny, not likely to be released soon. A 13 km long Russian convoy is approaching Donbas.

On the international scene Russia has been kicked out of the UN Human rights Council but not from the Security Council. The US is sending $750 M in military aid to Ukraine. Ukraine also has Bayraktar drones from Turkey. Finland and Sweden move closer to NATO membership. 4

1. Patrice Taddonio, What an ‘Unhinged’ Meeting Reveals About Vladimir Putin’s War on Ukraine, PBS, March 2022. ⇤

2. Greg Myre, Russia's Wars in Chechnya Offer a Grim Warning of What Could Be in Ukraine, NPR, March 2022. ⇤

3. Pjotr Sauer, Hundreds of Ukrainians Forcibly Deported to Russia, Say Mariupol Women, The Guardian, April 2022. ⇤

4. Ben Arris, Editor in Chief, BNE Intellinews. ⇤

China Plane Crash - Part 2 Apr 13, 2022

Show notes

In this episode we interview a Boeing 737 pilot.

For reasons which become apparent as the conversation unfolds, our guest is introduced as just “Alex”. Together with this experienced Boeing 737 pilot, we address a very important issue: mental health in aviation and the stigma surrounding it. If you like our content, please subscribe to our premium episodes.

Are our pilots and air traffic controllers, the people we entrust with our lives, able to get the healthcare they might need without fear of being let go by the airlines?

Our guest shares a very personal tragedy he experienced and how he coped with the loss of his beloved newborn son. Alex also explains that he’s one of the lucky pilots who received full support from his airline. Together we discuss mental health, what the reality of suffering from depression or anxiety translates into in the aviation community and what can be done to make things better for everyone involved.

We also discuss the China Eastern Airlines MU-5735 crash. Together we look at potential causes for this tragic incident as and we compare the China plane crash to similar plane crashes based on the information revealed so far by the investigators. 1, 2

1. Tom Head, China Eastern Plane’s Vertical Dive Raises Questions – As ‘Pilot Suicide’ Theory Tackled, The South African, March 2022. ⇤

2. Pilot Mental Fitness, Federal Aviation Administration, June 2016. ⇤

China Plane Crash – Part 1 Apr 07, 2022

Show notes

A pilot and a passenger discuss the China Eastern Airlines MU-5735 crash.

Together we’ll analyze the horrific details of the tragedy, we’ll go over a brief history of Boeing and we’ll look at similar plane crashes based on the information revealed so far by the investigators. If you like our content, please subscribe to our premium episodes!

We’ll also address a very important issue: mental health in aviation and the stigma surrounding it. Are our pilots and air traffic controllers, the people we entrust with our lives able to get the healthcare they might need without fear of being let go by the airlines? In this context we discuss the Germanwings pilot suicide crash of 2015, the Silk Air pilot suicide crash of 1997, and the Egypt Air pilot suicide crash of 1999. 1, 2, 3, 4

In these cases, captain Tsu Way Ming, first officer Gameel Al-Batouti, and co-pilot Andreas Lubitz intentionally crashed their flights to commit suicide, according to official reports.

We also discuss the MCAS related crashes of Boeing 737-MAX aircraft operated by Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines, and how the company, particularly Dennis Muilenburg the Boeing CEO at the time, repeatedly misled the public about the nature of the crashes and the cause of them.

It is essential to point out that until the investigation into this tragic plane crash of China Eastern Flight 5735 is completed, we won’t have any concrete definitive answers as to what caused it.

In part two of this series we will interview a current international cargo 737 pilot about the technical details of the aircraft and his opinions on the FAA medical procedures and processes, particularly in the context of mental health.

1. Joshua Hammer, 9525, GQ Magazine, February 2016. ⇤

2. Regan Morris, Silk Air Crash Was Probably Intentional, ABC News, January 2006. ⇤

3. William Langewiesche, The Crash of EgyptAir 990, The Atlantic, November 2001. ⇤

4. Silk Air Flight 185 Crash Animation, Youtube, February 2022. ⇤

Marilyn Monroe and Freud Mar 30, 2022

Show notes

On the Freuds, films, and psychoanalysis in the life of Marilyn Monroe.

In this episode we are talking all about psychoanalysis. What is it, where it came from, and how it directly contributed to Marilyn Monroe's decline and unfortunate suicide. If you like our content please subscribe to our premium episodes!

We begin with a discussion of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis, and its impact on the culture of the late 19th and early 20th century. Thanks to Adam Curtis for the wonderful documentaries, but in particular for this episode we mention The Century of the Self, a BBC documentary that is one of the few in mass media to examine the impact of the theories of Freud in modern culture. 1

We then cover the life of Marilyn Monroe from the time of her childhood in orphanages on through her adult fame in the post WW2 American Film industry. Marilyn is inseparable from the film business, because of her association with the "method acting" school, Actors Studio, founded by Lee Strasburg with funding in large part provided by Marilyn. Sadly Strasburg's method was fundamentally incompatible with Marilyn personally, since it teaches people to draw on their past experiences to summon emotion for the camera, but Marilyn's past was mostly traumatic and only led to her continued psychiatric decline. 2

We also discuss Marilyn's relationships with Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, and the conspiracy theories surrounding her affairs with Bobby Kennedy and John F. Kennedy. DiMaggio seemed to be her only reliable friend at times and Miller an unfortunate marriage of professional considerations that didn't work out. The irony of Arthur Miller relegating his wife to a secondary role in a movie starring her, coming from the author of Death of a Salesman, cannot possibly be overstated.

Last but not least we cover in detail Marilyn's mistreatment at the hands of her psychiatrists, all of which were proteges of the Freuds, Anna in particular. Sadly Marilyn was not the only notable celebrity to die in the care of a Freud, Tiffany and Co. heiress Mabbie Burlingham died due to sucide in the care of Anna Freud as well. In Marylin's case she was most mistreated by Drs Marianne Kris in New York, who convinced Marilyn to commit herself to the Payne Whitney Mental Hospital in Manhattan (incidentally also the site of MKUltra experiments) where she was sexually assaulted by a staff physician, and by Ralph Greenson her psychoanalyst in Los Angeles who employed the bizarre technique of "adoption therapy" in which he convinced Marilyn to live in his house and pretend to be one of his family. We also talk a bit about Freud's bizarre first trip to America after World War I. 3, 4

As a book recommendation for this episode, we recommend Gloria Steinem's "Marilyn: Norma Jeane" as the most relevant to the subject matter we are discussing. It is not only a deeper dive into the same stories but includes iconic photos of Marilyn taken by the late, great celebrity photographer George Barris, who took the last picture of Marilyn before she died. 5

1. Adam Curtis, The Century of the Self, BBC, 2002. ⇤

2. Rachelle Bergstein, How Method Acting Led Hollywood’s Biggest Stars to Behave Bizarrely, New York Post, January 2022. ⇤

3. Sam Kashner, Marilyn and Her Monsters, Vanity Fair, November 2010. ⇤

4. Daniel Akst, Freudian America, The Wall Street Journal Europe, August 2009. ⇤

5. Gloria Steinem, Marilyn: Norma Jeane, Open Road Media, 2013. ⇤

Is Putin Dying? Mar 24, 2022

Show notes

Vladimir Putin’s health is declining.

There is credible intelligence suggesting that he has a “significant” illness. “Putin appears to have some neuro/physiological health issues.” There is chatter of cancer and/or Parkinson’s disease and steroid use, videos of Putin show a rigid right arm and visible limping. If you like our content, please subscribe to our premium episodes.

We discuss the possibility that he may be dying, and that the Ukraine invasion may be a legacy action that he is trying to complete before his own demise due to medical issues. Putin has a very carefully constructed public image which includes prepared videos and images of him performing physically demanding tasks such as Judo fighting, riding horses, and flying gliders. But these "strong-man" images and videos have declined in number in the past couple of years and in some cases, even have been altered with things such as a photoshopped image of a bear. 1, 2

Russian TV even had to cut a portion of a live appearance, presumably due to some medical issue Putin suffered on stage in front of a crowd, and then re-start the broadcast after he had been attended to and returned to the microphone. 3

We also analyze Ukraine's air force status. The war is slipping through Putin's fingers due to his own mismanagement of the ground assault, and so is the number of aircraft in service in the Ukranian air force. As of our recording they're down to 55 fighter jets - MiG-29s are not known for reliability. 4

We finish by assessing who Putin's successors may be if he dies of natural causes or simply doesn't manage to hold on to control of the country if the Ukraine invasion fails. Anatoly Chubais resigned and fled to Turkey. Yuri Kovalchuk and Alexander Bortnikov may also fall out of favor if Ukraine falls from Putin's grasp - like Mikhail Khodorkovsky who got imprisoned by Putin for 10 years. He says Putin will be "gone in 3 years." Boris Berezovsky is obviously out of the running, Putin had him killed. 5

1. @Russia Twitter account, Putin With Photoshopped Bear, Twitter, October 2021. ⇤

2. @PutinsKillList Twitter account, Putin and the Microphone, Twitter, March 2022. ⇤

3. By Nataliya Vasilyeva, In a £10,500 Italian Designer Coat, a Limping Vladimir Putin Tries to Rally his People, Telegraph, March 2022. ⇤

4. Maria Varenikova and Andrew Kramer, How Ukraine’s Outgunned Air Force Is Fighting Back Against Russian Jets, New York Times, March 2022. ⇤

5. Roman Petrenko, Who Will Replace Putin? Pravda, March 2022. ⇤

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