2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine/Legacy

The "Special Military Operation" has caused significant changes internally to Russia's own political structure with massive suspicious "suicides", economical trickery, a silent increase in more continental mass surveillance and even the removal of Wikispooks's own page on the "SMO" in the beginning of the war.

Legacy

PMCs

The Wagner Group - Russia most successful PMC after Far West - was ordered to be integrated into the Russian military in early 2023. Wagner was the only group making significant gains in 2023. The group - after an alleged strike on their base - invaded Rostov and attempted to drive to and eventually invade Moscow on the 23rd on June, only for leader Yevgeny Prigozhin to announce to suddenly halt was Putin called a "coup attempt". At the end of this 24 hours - Wagner's leadership left - allowedly - for Belarus. The 20 other PMCs were interestingly not under the scope of the mainstream media on this day.

Several pundits, including CIA and DIA former officer Rebekah Koffler said "Putin 'orchestrated' the Wagner coup with Prigozhin as a 'classic false flag' to boost recruitment for the army and make West think he is weakened". University of Melbourne professor William Parlett argued Putin tried to lure generals and elite investors to join the "coup" to execute and filter them out of the Russian interior.

De-Dollarization?

Full article: De-Dollarization

Russia would find other customers for its oil and gas if sanctions of NATO countries in this area take a hold, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said. This could lead to increased bypassing of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency, probably involving an increase of (already existing) credit swaps between Russia and other nations such as China and BRICS. The world's reserve currency is the backbone of our global financial system which would be severely shaken if global demand for the US dollar decreases, US deficit spending limited and the practice of bilateral credit swaps be accepted more widely.

New Iron Curtain?

By May 2022 rumors started to circulate that Poland may want to annex parts of Ukraine.

Belt and Road Initiative

Full article: Belt and Road Initiative

The vicious circle that the western politicians represented by the European Council didn't want to cut off Russia from the worldwide banking systems partly because Russians owed their countries too much money, is a similar scenario that scholars have painted as a possible choke-hold in case China invaded Taiwan or Hong Kong with their lending to many Asian states.

Media censorship

Full article: Media censorship

Russia Today's websites in many areas around the world, since early/mid March, are giving a 403 error after (supposedly successful) DDOS check. This is notable in light of the alleged Bucha massacre by Russian troops at the end of March 2022.

The consolidation of the media has been further strengthened by the mass panic in reaction to the invasion causing more alternative media funded by countries such as Russia to be banned from accessing without a VPN. Euronews reported that the European Federation of Journalists (or EFJ) said it feared the effects of this spiral of censorship on freedom of expression in Europe, pointing out it is always better to counteract the disinformation of propagandist or allegedly propagandist media by exposing their factual errors or bad journalism, by demonstrating their lack of financial or operational independence, by highlighting their loyalty to government interests and their disregard for the public interest.

After 2 days, Google banned this page from appearing altogether in search requests, only to reverse that to only de-rank this page in Google results somewhere around March 2022.

EU Mass surveillance projects

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor released a report in the fall which described the European Union Commission Intrusive surveillance program for migrants and asylum seekers. In which FRONTEX, better known as EU's border patrol was illegally to collecting detailed information about migrants and asylum seekers, such as "genetic and biometric data and DNA fingerprints, their religious beliefs and their sexual orientation. Moreover, the Euro-Med indicated that the program would criminalize innocent people, impede their right to seek asylum, facilitate the procedures for expulsion and return them to their countries, and consolidate the misperception linking asylum and terrorism".

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