Vladimir V. Putin's Deadly Obsession

"As Russia’s war economy strains under growing pressure from sanctions and slumping revenues, even businesses in regions that have benefited from massive increases in military spending are feeling the pain and turning to officials for help."

"A survey of more than 10,000 companies published by the the central Bank of Russia in February showed that businesses nationwide reported weaker demand and tighter financial conditions, and were cautious about investment and hiring."

"Some of the country’s largest businesses are asking the government for aid to ease pressures from high borrowing costs and weaker demand, even as the state budget deficit is expanding amid declining oil and gas revenues."

"Many of Russia’s more than 80 regions face widening budget shortfalls that will force them to depend even more on Kremlin funding at a time when Moscow is prioritizing spending on the war that’s now in its fifth year."

"The combined deficit of regional budgets increased by more than one trillion rubles last year to 1.48 trillion rubles, more than triple the shortfall in 2024, Kommersant newspaper reported Thursday, citing calculations by the Analytical Credit Rating Agency in Moscow."

Alberto Nardelli, Bloomberg News

While predictions of Russia’s economic collapse “are not without grounds,” Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine is driven by profound mistrust of the West and will continue until that’s resolved. Photo by ALEXEY DRUZHININ/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images

 

"Four years after Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s economy has entered a 'death zone'."

"Russia’s economy is stuck in what might be described as negative equilibrium: holding itself together while steadily destroying its own future capacity."

"The most dangerous feature of this new structure is the fuel it burns. Russia’s economy now runs on what might be called ‘military rent’: budget transfers to defense enterprises that generate wages and economic activity."

"The body is metabolizing its own muscle tissue for energy."

"[Unlike a cyclical downturn such as a recession, what Russia is suffering from is more akin to altitude sickness] —the longer you stay, the worse it gets, regardless of rest."

"Russia can probably continue waging war for the foreseeable future. But no climber can survive the death zone indefinitely—and not all climbers who attempt the descent survive it." 

Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center 

Russian President Vladimir V. Putin is entirely fixated on his 'special military operation' in Ukraine, determined to see it through, irrespective of the sacrifices, and there have been many sacrifices; in human life, in political capital; in strained relations with most of Europe; in isolation as a war-mongering outcast; in a conflict-made economic downtown; in resorting to extraordinary wartime measures at home to silence his critics. The single-mindedness of his fixation is in fact, a pathology.

 

Mr. Putin's war, which really began in 2014 but was formalized in February of 2022 with a full invasion of Ukraine that the Russian president felt confident would result in no more than a few months of  combat as Ukraine, with its much smaller, much less-well equipped military would simply fold, allowing the Kremlin to see a quick victory and a Ukraine subdued to the point of subservience which in Russia's opinion, is how it has always been and always will be, despite Ukraine's historical push-back to its neighbour's aggressive occupation.

 

Prior to the war, warning signals of economic stagnation loomed in long-term prospects for the country, with an economy dominated by extraction of natural resources leading to a situation where a need to diversify was never acknowledged as a priority for future prosperity. Now, for the past four years and counting, Russia has poured vast state resources into its president's war that has bogged down alarmingly, draining ever greater resources and forcing a move for higher taxation and prospects of rationing. 

 

Volunteers depart for positions with the Akhmat battalion in Russia's military campaign in Ukraine, at an airport in Grozny, Russia.  Reuters

 

The financial cushion built over the years with oil and gas revenues, the National Wealth Fund that stood at $112 billion pre-war, has now been reduced to $55 billion even as 40 percent of the national budget is devoted to the military campaign and national security. Interest payments on the debt required to finance the war eats up another 9 percent of the federal budget. Technical innovation looking into the future of artificial intelligence is ignored while the two world powers, China and the U.S. compete, while Russia remains focused on weapons production. 

 

Foreign investment is Russia is a thing of the past. High interest rates to tame inflation has crimped domestic investment. Up to an estimated 1.2 million Russians have been killed or wounded. Some 325,000 Russian troops, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, have died on the battlefield. There are predictions that the Russian population could plummet under 100-million, from a pre-war population of 145-million. Hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled abroad to escape wartime legal crackdowns on dissent.

 

A Ukrainian serviceman fires a Bohdana howitzer toward Russian troops at the frontline at Donetsk region. Reuters

 

Chronicles, an independent Russian polling group, found 59 percent of Russians age 18 to 29 support withdrawal from Ukraine in the absence of Mr. Putin's goals being achieved, as opposed to 42 percent of all surveyed Russians; younger Russians are not enamoured of this war. Russia's oil and gas revenues experienced a steep drop as global prices fell and sanctions struck to impose Russian crude discounts. While businesses related to the military have profited, Russia's other businesses are struggling. Manufacturing has dropped, while higher taxes and costly loans are taking their toll. 

"You have lots of money spent on tanks, shells, bombs, military benefits and other things -- no long-lasting value, nothing that works on what we call development."

"This is a structural change of the Russian economy, of the design of the Russian economy, which is not easy to turn back."

Alexandra Prokopenko, Carnegie Russian Eurasia Center, Berlin 

"An Era of Barbarism"

"Humanity is experiencing something very complex, and [the U.S.] is governed by a president who considers himself an emperor."

"We must show him that ideas are worth more than weapons."

"This march is a message of our unity. Independence is sacred, and we will defend it tooth and nail, if necessary."

Rene Gonzalez, 64, Cuban protester, Havana demonstration

 

"The current U.S. administration has opened the door to an era of barbarism, plunder and neo-fascism."

"No one here surrenders."

"The current emperor of the White House and his infamous secretary of state haven't stopped threatening me."

"Cuba does not have to make any political concessions, and that will never be on the table for negotiations aimed at reaching an understanding between Cuba and the United States."

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel 

Members of the Cuban military honour guard carry urns containing the remains of soldiers killed in the U.S. strike and the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in Caracas on January 3, during the funeral for Cuban soldiers at Colon Cemetery in Havana, Cuba, January 16, 2026. Adalberto Roque/Pool via REUTERS 

 

On Friday, tens of thousands of Cuban citizens demonstrated outside the U.S. Embassy in Havana, furious over the death of 32 Cuban officers, killed during the U.S. military raid that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro two weeks before. The open-air Jose Marti Anti-Imperialist plaza across from the embassy was crowded in the rally the Cuban government organized during high tensions between Cuba and the United States, following the attack on Venezuela of January 3.

 

Cuban officers, part of President Maduro's security detail, were killed when the raid on his Caracas residence took place. The show of popular strength was Cuba's answer to U.S. President Trump's demand that Cuba 'make a deal' with him before it is "too late". Cuba, Trump crowed, could no longer depend on Venezuela's oil and money to buoy its fractured economy.  The 1960s-forward U.S. sanctions imposed on Cuba as punishment for its communist government has strained the island mercilessly.

 

The crowd of protesters transitioned their demonstration into a "combatant march" parade, a custom hearking back to the late Fidel Castro, where a line of people led the crowd, holding up photographs of the 32 officers that were killed in Venezuela. "Down with imperialism! Cuba with prevail!", shouted the crowd. 

 

A glimpse of a coffee being made by candlelight during a power outage in Havana in March. The disruptions are often blamed on Cuba's aging power generation system, which has been stressed by fuel shortages, natural disasters and economic crisis. (Norlys Perez/Reuters)

 

Cubans have faced shortages of the basic needs of daily life. The economy is now in worse shape than it has ever been. Up to the present the government had supplied the population with a monthly allotment of rice, beans and other staples through distributed ration cards. Although the rations lasted a mere ten days, now, because of food scarcity, government ration stores can barely stock the essentials, rendering the ration cards fairly worthless.

 

There is an app available where people must sign up for an appointment to buy gas, three weeks in advance of prospective purchase. Latterly the waiting queue has been three months. With scant fuel available for municipal purposes, trucks have been unable to collect trash. Pickups of domestic garbage have been faulted, and the result is outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases like dengue fever and chikungunya. Treatment drugs are no longer locally available.

 

Venezuela once provided 90,000 barrels of oil daily to Cuba although the last quarter of  2025 saw oil deliveries dwindle to 35,000 barrels. Now, with the U.S. in control, there will be none. Private enterprises were legalized in 2021 where private stores stock consumer goods comparable to those of U.S. supermarkets, but demand exorbitant prices. In Cuba a typical monthly pension is less than $7; a carton of 30 eggs is priced at $8.

 

"The domestic economy is in a free fall", said Ricardo Torres, a Cuban economist, now a fellow at American University in Washington. People now do their cooking over firewood. Cuba now produces 25 percent less power than in 2018.  

 

Cuban military personnel carry portraits of soldiers killed in the U.S. strike on Venezuela and the U.S. capture of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, during a march outside the U.S. Embassy to protest against what they denounce as U.S. aggression in the region, in Havana, Cuba, January 16, 2026. REUTERS/Norlys Perez (Norlys Perez)

 

 

"I, who was born there, I, who lives there, and I'll tell you."

"It's never been as bad as it is now, because many factors have come together."

"It's dark [severe lack of energy], people are sick and they don't have medicine [adequate food and medical drugs in acutely short supply]."

"There is food, and plenty of it [at MiPyMEs private enterprises] but the prices are incredible."

"Nobody with a salary, not even a doctor can hardly buy in those stores."

Omar Everleny Perez, economist, Havana resident 

Taking Pride on an Anti-Israel Journey of Rejection

"The focus today is to show our love, to show our solidarity and our support to a community that needs it. The message here is that everybody is welcome, everybody is included and there's so much that we can learn from each other."

"For the youth to see so many groups, so may organizations and so many people being here to support this community, it gives that sense of validation that is so important -- to make people feel they are welcome and validated."

"This community is all about love, solidarity and support."

Mr. Capital Pride 2024

 

"All of the organizations and institutions that have pulled out have done so without consultation with their workers."

"This was top bosses and employers or boards of directors making decisions without consulting the people who work there or the people they actually serve." 

Emily Quaile, Community Solidarity Ottawa

Capital Pride Parade in Ottawa, on Sunday, August 25, 2024. (Chris Tanouye/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Inclusion, love, solidarity and support? Not quite. As it happens Capital Pride organizers conferred among themselves -- without taking a poll among their members, in fact -- to reach a consensus of opinion that inclusion would mean the Palestinian community of the Ottawa region, not merely those who qualify as 2SLGBTQIA+, but they and their sympathizers in general. The very groups that have celebrated the October 7 Palestinian terrorism butchery in Israel where 1,200 mostly civilians were left dead, girls and women raped and tortured, entire families put to the torch, children, women and the elderly taken hostage into Gaza.

 

Gaza, the stronghold of the Hamas terrorist organization; considered by the government of Canada to be terrorists just as they are in most Western countries, for their unabashed and straightforward dedication to the destruction of the world's only Jewish state, in an ancestral geography, an Israel reborn for the singular purpose of offering safe haven to Jews in a hostile world that continually reverts to a state of viral antisemitism, just as we now see in Europe, North America and elsewhere, boosted by the slanderous propaganda of the Palestinian agenda to discredit and demonize Israel and Jews everywhere. 

Palestinian organizations and sympathetic groups have organized raucous, threatening rallies in cities across Europe and North America from October 8 onward, funded by foreign organizations and Islamist countries like Qatar and Iran who have also supplied organizers for these pro-Hamas protests as well as the encampments on university grounds demanding that university administrators and corporations and business leaders as well as Western governments condemn Israel for its response to the mass rape, mutilations and bloodletting by Hamas when the Israeli military embarked on a campaign to destroy the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, the PLFP and Hezbollah.

The declaration of 'principles' and alliances expressed by Capital Pride prior to embarkation on its annual Capital Pride parade effectively raised the level of antisemitism in and among the LGBTQ community in favour of supporting a death cult that aims its poisoned arrows at Jews everywhere, extending its campaign in less visible but rising campaign against Western 'imperialism' inimical to Palestinian aspirations and extended Islamist jihadist goals.

"Part of the growing Islamophobic sentiment we are witnessing is fuelled by the pink-washing of the war in Gaza and racist notions that all Palestinians are homophobic and transphobic. By portraying itself as a protector of the rights of queer and trans people in the Middle East, Israel seeks to draw attention away from its abhorrent human rights abuses against Palestinians. We refuse to be complicit in this violence. Indeed, to withhold our solidarity from Palestinians in the name of upholding 2SLGBTQIA+ rights betrays the promise of liberation that guides our work. We join our voice to the calls for greater protection of civilians and reject any attempts to use a devastating conflict as a pretext to advance hate."

"To breathe life into our sincere hope for an end to this war and justice for all its victims, we commit to the following actions:

• Integrating resources such as the Palestinian BDS National Committee’s boycott list in our existing review process of current and future sponsorship agreements;
• Hosting Zaffa: A Queer Arab Showcase, a Signature Event as part of the 2024 Capital Pride Festival that features discussions about ongoing issues facing LGBTQIA+ Arabs locally and abroad;
• Recognizing the ongoing genocide against Palestinians in opening remarks at 2024 Capital Pride Festival Signature Events; and
• Working with all our partners, both public and private, to push for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the immediate release of all hostages, increased access to humanitarian aid, and more accessible pathways for refugees."

Capital Pride Statement in Solidarity with Palestine, August 8, 2024, Ottawa, Ontario

Replete with the slanderous calculated falsehoods of the Palestinian propaganda, the Capital Pride Statement is a document of ignorance and antisemitism combined in a lethal cauldron of pure hate. Israel is a defender of alternate gender human rights which are legally protected in Israel; its Pride Parades are open and respectful. Whereas on the other hand, in the Palestinian Territories gays risk their very lives if their sexual orientation becomes public knowledge. In the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as in Iran, death stalks members of the Palestinian  LGBTQ community.

There is no 'genocide' against Palestinians at the hands of Israel; there IS a military campaign to expunge the presence of lethal Islamist Palestinian attackers of Jews/Israelis from the territories. The founding charters of Fatah, Hamas and other such internationally recognized terrorist groups identify their purpose as the elimination of Israel from its ancestral soil. Deadly attacks against Jews have been the Palestinian formula since 1948 with the declaration of the State of Israel. Existential threats against Israel and world Jewry emanate from the Palestinians whom LGBTQ groups lionize.

In Ottawa, reaction to the Capital Pride position statement was clear and it was a denunciation of all that it alleges in demonizing Israel while supporting Palestinian terrorism against Israel. The city's mayor began the response of rejecting the Pride position when the City of Ottawa's Mayor Mark Sutcliffe let it be known with regret, that he would not be attending the parade. Followed by the Liberal Party of Canada, the Ontario Liberal Party the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, The Ottawa Hospital, the Montfort Hospital, Ottawa Tourism, the Bank of Canada, Giant Tiger, Loblaw, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, the University of Ottawa, the U.S. Embassy, the Public Service Pride Network, Conseil des ecoles publiques de l'Est de l'Ontario, Conseil des ecoles catholiques du centre-Est, and the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board.

They did so in sympathy and agreement with the Ottawa Jewish community which felt excluded and isolated as a result of the Capital Pride statement and position taken on the Israel-Gaza conflict, repeating the slanderous accusation of Israel committing 'genocide' against the Palestinians. Ottawa's situation is not a unique one, as it happens, since Pride parades in Montreal, Toronto, Halifax and Vancouver have been disrupted by pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Hate-mongering against Jews resulted in over 100 synagogues, hospitals and Jewish community centres receiving bomb threats.

As for the Pride commitment to integrate the BDS boycott list into its review of sponsorship agreements, that remains to be seen. The TD Bank is Pride's major 'presenting' sponsor and right behind it as a sponsor is Loblaws, and the LCBO followed by the province of Ontario, all of which are listed on the BDS Coalition's "Boycott List of Shame". Shame, in very point of fact, has settled itself squarely on the Pride community for its unabashed antisemitism cloaked unbecomingly under the banner of anti-Zionism, anti-Israel provocations.

Members of the OCDSB carry a giant pride flag during the Capital Pride Parade in Ottawa, on Sunday, August 25, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Tanouye

Outlawing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps/Terrorist Central

"It's influencing the political and the social landscape of Canada. It's influencing the youth and mobilizing them against Western values against Canadian security, in very subtle ways and sometimes in very overt ways." 

"It's the same issue with respect to China, how they have been operating. The Islamic Republic is no different."

"In terms of the evidence before the Liberal government, nothing substantial has changed since six years ago. We all know that in 2020 the IRGC shot down [Ukrainian Airlines] PS752, killing all 175 passengers, including 55 Canadian citizens. If that wasn't sufficient evidence, I don't know what else the Liberal government was looking for."

"We welcome the change in the government's attitude after six years of not doing anything about it and giving all sorts of excuses why they were not listing IRGC as a terrorist entity despite all the evidence that they admitted existed. The evidence was there. It was just a question of political will."

"[Six years of inaction has allowed the IRGC to] spread their tentacles in Canada. Their numbers have increased. Their influence has increased. We are going to feel that influence and the impact of them being in Canada and within our systems and institutions for decades to come."

Mojdeh Shahriari, Vancouver human rights lawyer, co-founder, Stop IRGC

People take part in a a protest against the Iranian government on April 21 in Montreal (John Kenney / MONTREAL GAZETTE)

 

In 1976 when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in France to head a revolution that removed the Shah of Iran from power, in turn installing a theocratic regime with himself at its head, it was understood that a fundamentalist Islamist Shiite government had taken power in the country, with Khomeini as its Supreme Leader. Despite which, the extent of the reach of the Islamic Republic of Iran since that time in influencing Middle East affairs and international relations far afield might never have been imagined.

 

In the close aftermath of the revolutionary change in government in Iran, many Iranians knew they could not remain in their country of birth. From a fairly open society, with good international relations with non-Muslim countries -- including Israel -- the Islamic Republic was destined to become a divisive power broker in the Middle East. Under the ruling Ayatollahs and their Islamic Republican Guard Corps the intention was to restore Iran to its historical influence as the supreme regional power. 

 

In the predominately Arab Muslim Middle East, Iranians, though Muslim, are not Arab but Persians, the Aryans that Adolf Hitler was adamant were a superior 'race'. There is also a sectarian divide between Iran and the other Muslim countries of the Middle East which are majority Sunni Muslim, while Iran is Shiite, a relative minority. From its very inception in 1976 the Islamic Republic set out to gain a commanding influence within the Middle East, and to elevate the status of Shiite Islam. An unsubtle state of confrontation between Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia ensued.

Iran's ambitions rose to challenge Saudi Arabia as custodian of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in its aspirations to become the supreme Islamic authority commanding the Middle East. Iran's animus toward the Jewish State of Israel surpassed that of any Arab state by a wide margin. And Iran courted the disaffected populations of minority-status Shiites in Arab countries. The al-Quds division of the IRGC founded an Islamist Shiite group in Lebanon, training and arming it as a proxy militant arm it could control.

 

The IRGC is a major military, political and economic force in Iran   EPA

Hezbollah came to world notice when in 1983 it undertook a truck-suicide bombing on an American military base, a marine corps barracks in Beirut against UN-affiliated peace envoys, killing 241 American soldiers. Another suicide bomber soon afterward killed 58 French UN-assigned paratroopers. This was Hezbollah, a newly-minted terrorist group, doing the bidding of its masterminds in Tehran. Since that time, Hezbollah has been a terror-creation of Iran, tasked to do its bidding, with a major focus on Israel, and on suicide-mission attacks abroad on Jewish enclaves.

 

There is also a Western infiltration component to the Islamic Republic's aspiration for dominance. Those Iranians who fled a revolutionary Islamist Iran they had no wish to live within, have found themselves, in the past decade, being targeted for their anti-Islamist, anti-Ayatollah, anti-terrorist attitudes. The Trudeau government in Canada has allowed the infiltration of Iranian agents and personnel, including senior leaders of the IRGC to have easy access to Canadian society at all levels, to enter on visas, to establish residency and to undermine the democratic freedoms of the Iranian expatriate population.

 

Their scheme in Canada, as it is elsewhere in the free world, is to destabilize all the institutions that make the West a free world, undermining the social and cultural values of nations of the West. Although Iranian-Canadians have made it clear to the Trudeau government that they have reason to fear the entry of representatives of the Iranian regime to Canada who intimidate and threaten them, the very fact that those involved in the most extremes of human rights abuses have entry to Canada is in and of itself inexcusable.

 

Finally, although all parties in Canada's Parliament have long supported a move to outlaw the presence of Iranian regime representatives in Canada, on a number of occasions voting unanimously to place them on a terror list and impose sanctions, the Trudeau government chose not to take appropriate action. Until last week, when it finally did. "Based on their actions, there are reasonable grounds to believe that the IRGC has knowingly carried out, attempted to carry out, participated in or facilitated a terrorist activity", explained the government's minister of public safety. Stating something that has long been known.

"This process of IRGC spreading its influence throughout the Western world has been going for a very long time, unfortunately, and they have been able to infiltrate many of our academic institutions, our professional institutions and they have been money-laundering [in Canada]."

"Everyone is looking for an assassination plot or something like that, and of course they do that, and they are known for it and their terrorist activities all over the world, but they have been infiltrating and interfering with our institutions for decades and in the past six years this has intensified."

"So it has been a huge disaster, in my view. In 2018, Parliament unanimously voted to immediately list the IRGC and I never heard any reasonable explanation from the Liberal government why they were dragging their feet. Something political has changed for them in terms of their calculation of the cost benefit of listing the IRGC."

Mojdeh Shahriari, Vancouver human rights lawyer

Members of the Revolutionary Guards attend a parliamentary session in Tehran. Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images