A Recent Bit Of News From Russia - Dugin-Musk Link?
True, it was Errol Musk, Elon's father, but it provides a bit of the basis for Elon's moves with respect to Ukraine and the war between Ukraine and Russia...
“Errol Musk, the father of billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, traveled to Moscow to participate in a forum hosted by prominent Russian propagandist Alexander Dugin, Russia’s REN TV reported on June 7.
Musk was listed as one of the speakers at the “Future Forum 2050,” alongside Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, state TV anchor Ekaterina Andreeva, and a number of Western political figures known for echoing the ideology of Dugin, the architect of the “Russian World” doctrine. While speaking to Russian media, Errol Musk took aim at his son over Elon’s ongoing feud with U.S. President Donald Trump, calling his son's actions “a mistake.”
“They’ve been under incredible stress for five months. Give them a break,” he said, referring to Trump and his team. “They had to get rid of the opposition, try to restore normalcy, focus on ordinary matters, and so on. They’re exhausted and tense, so something like this isn’t unusual.” Errol Musk added that he doesn’t believe the dispute between Elon and Trump is serious and expects it to be resolved soon. According to Musk Sr., Elon follows the principle of not allowing Democrats to “implement their foolish ideas.”
Errol also gave an interview to the Kremlin-aligned Tsargrad TV channel, during which he praised Russians as “some of the smartest people in the world. In an earlier April interview with the BBC, Errol Musk said his family felt a degree of admiration for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. “If you view Putin simply as a man, outside of global politics, it’s hard not to respect him,” he said. When the interviewer pointed out that Putin launched the war in Ukraine, Musk responded, “Only time will tell who really started it.”
On June 6, President Trump told reporters from CNN and ABC that he had no interest in speaking with Elon Musk. He also shared this view with his advisers. … Meanwhile, Elon Musk continued to escalate the feud, doubling down on his unsubstantiated claim that Trump was connected to documents related to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Musk later deleted the post on X. He has also questioned whether he owes Trump an apology and has floated the idea of launching an alternative to the Republican Party, which he’s now calling the “American Party.”” https://english.nv.ua/life/musk-was-listed-as-one-of-the-speakers-at-the-future-forum-2050-alongside-russian-foreign-ministe-50520440.html
Amongst the speakers at this conference were George Galloway, Jeffrey Sachs, and Alex Jones - https://forumfuture2050.ru/en/ - and this site lists a set of topics, in English, and there are videos which you can get via the Telegram channel for the event: https://t.me/forumfuture2050 Here’s one on the “Foreign Policy of the Future” with English translation, although the Russian is clearly audible, for those interested in checking accuracy - https://disk.yandex.ru/i/O1laoIEncPYCPg Of course, for this event to have occurred - with the speakers from Russia included - it would be with the Putin government’s approval and act as a declaratory statement of Russian foreign policy.
Apparently the Russians are interested in space, too - including Mars - https://disk.yandex.ru/i/wj5QtRx7-q33QQ
Of course, none of this will come about if Russia continues to run its military into the meatgrinder in Ukraine, and get up to its eyeballs in debt to the Chinese - especially if they decimate their military to the point where, if China forecloses on the debt by sending the PLA into the oil- and gas-producing parts of Russia, Russia can do nothing about it. And if the Straits of Hormuz get shut off or become impassable, that will really put a crimp in China’s energy policy, since it gets 40% of its oil and gas from Iran - and the rest from Russia.
Of course, they could continue to pay Russia - but the Chinese might figure that it would be cheaper just to take it, in “settlement on the debt” or just because they can do it. And they might figure that, because of the Russian Army’s dismal performance in Ukraine, that if they make a move like they did in 1969, then the Russian Army - which ran them out in six months back then - would not be able to do the same, now. And Putin and Russia would be totally screwed, because their economy is nearly wholly dependent on the sales of oil and gas abroad, for hard currencies. So as long as their disastrous war in Ukraine continues, all of these plans will be harder to achieve, until it becomes simply impossible.
President Trump may think that Zelenskyy is a smug little prick, but Zelenskyy has managed to stop the armed forces of a far larger opponent pretty much cold - the areas claimed by that country as its own, still, after nearly three years, have not been fully taken. Any other leader in a democratic country with such a losing policy would have been sacked a long time ago, but Putin, the quintessential bureaucrat, learned his lessons at the KGB quite well - he has killed or driven off all potential replacements, successors, and opposition. He’s free to continue to double down on his failures in Ukraine, squandering the lives of his troops, and converting huge amounts of military hardware into junk - and he’s firmly caught in the steel trap of the Sunk Cost Fallacy.
For Russia to recover - and perhaps even prosper - enough to put the ideas expressed in Dugin’s forum earlier this month into action, Putin and his circus of clowns, buffoons, thieves like Shoigu, and stupid incompetents like Gerasimov, need to get put out to pasture. It’s a choice between suffering and failure and loss - if the very very special military operation continues - or the potential of progress towards a better future. It’s time for Russia to call it a day in Ukraine, give up, and go home.