Oh, Goodness!

And I thought I was the only one who had to shovel through piles of media's verbal manure trying to distill from it some droplets of sense. Nope, evidently Andrei Raevsky (aka The Saker) has the same addiction to intellectual suffering as me, because in his today's excellent piece on his site, he introduced all of us to this:

This is not a question that figures in our Western commentary and analysis, since it is universally assumed that one man, Vladimir Putin, dominates Russian political life for a good reason: his unique ability to tame the contending factions at the center of power in Russia. He is the indispensable lynchpin. However, I insist that this assumption may have become threadbare, and that there may well be a power struggle going on in the Kremlin today which Vladimir Vladimirovich no longer controls. Indeed, it appears he is receiving his script now from the stronger of the contenders around him and is not comfortable with his lines.

I suffered to the very end of Doctorow's piece on Kremlinology as a viable "science" and I was about to discount it as a typical effort to keep oneself noticeable  amidst this mega-hype of pandemic and economic crisis, until I took an interest in this line:

Mary Dejevsky, a shrewd and experienced journalist who served as foreign correspondent in Moscow of The Guardian, the next day posted the following in her Comment on my article: “Agree. especially on putin’s decline in authority – I thought his actual demeanour during nationwide broadcast looked less ‘in command’ than usual.”

So, I did my due diligence on this "shrewd and experienced journalist" and voila'--I was in awe who passes for "Russia's specialists" nowadays in Anglospehere. No, no, I know, I write about it non-stop for years that I do not even view journalism as a viable profession or education, but Mary Dejevsky who writes (or wrote) for both Independent and The Guardian was already a huge red flag and not for the lack of any serious expertise--she "reported" from USSR/Russia from 1988 to 1992, about the same time period which made Steele pass in the US as Intelligence professional with "connections" in Russia, enough to concoct the so called "Steele Dossier". But it was this piece, apart from other ones by her, which illuminates really well the mindset of Dejevsky (as well as of Doctorow, who wrote for openly Russophobic Moscow Times).

Russia's democracy activists are surely anunimpeachable cause, deserving all the moral and financial support they can get. They face all manner of obstacles. 

Just read this piece in which Dejevsky openly writes about "regime" and still suggests...ahem  direct interference n Russia's elections while praising a type of public in Russia, which, if not for the "regime" and Putin personally, long ago would have been hanging from the lamp posts in all major Russian cities (those "activists" prefer to live in a comfort of large urban agglomerations). So, Doctorow ran his "impressions" by this "journalists" and then, not suffering from excessive humbleness, concluded that: 

In light of these troubles around him, is it any wonder that the body language of Vladimir Putin during his speech on the 25^th indicated to the Russian speaking analysts among us that he did not like the script he had been given to read and was possibly losing his grip.

That was on March, 26. On April 4 this happened. 

I tried to convince myself that he looked like the man who is "losing his grip", but then I remembered that I am also a "Russian speaking analyst" and once I got a hold of myself I came to the conclusion that I would rather stick to my opinion on the matter, and this opinion is that when Putin announced what amounts to stating conditions to the United States (forget Saudis) on oil he looked surprisingly sure about his grip. I don't know what is Doctorow's agenda in this case, but something tells me that it is a cohort of "analysts" like that who really need to get a grip. Albeit, for people who continue to write for The Guardian (or Independent) I see no hope of getting it--those are utterly globalist Russophobic rags. But, at least I am happy that I am not alone suffering through non-stop rubbish in the last month or so and Saker also had to dive into the dark depths of Western ignorance and malice. I can only subscribe to every word in his conclusion:

Of course, the anti-Russian propaganda machine has an explanation. For example, it claims that the Russians are lying about everything.  There is even a psyop going on with western agents of influence impersonating Russian MDs claiming that there are thousands of hidden deaths, that Russia has no equipment and that the Russians are clueless. One previously sober-minded analyst now even claims that “Putin is loosing control“. To be totally honest, I have never in my life seen such a tsunami of nonsense, false information, unfounded rumors, and, last but certainly not least, shameless clickbaiting. For some, this crisis is clearly a chance to regain some visibility. It is shameful, really, a total disgrace: just a new form of profiteering from a crisis.

Couldn't have said better myself .