I have been following the Russian story closely for a number of years. One of my best friends at school was a Russian who's father was a professor in Physics. They had defected to Ethiopia in the 80`s when Russia was still the Soviet Union (USSR), and by the 90`s his father ended up as a professor here in South Africa and he attended my school.

I spent many weekends at his house and in the process learnt to read the Russian alphabet and a smattering of the language, but I did spend a lot of time reading up on their history and politics.

I was once told that the Russians were the most over educated under employed people in the world, and in a way I could understand this. Most of the Russians I have met are extremely intelligent people, and their conversation and insights are very informative. However it seems they have a major flaw in their cultural way of thinking. Russians seem to have this S&M fetish for tyranny.

We all hoped that comparing penis *cough* sorry I mean missile size would have ended at the end of the Cold War. I hoped with the fall of the Soviet Union and the introduction of democracy that the Russians as a people would become a great nation again. This time without the need to kill millions of people.

It seems I was wrong. It looks like the Russians are well on their way to repeating the tragedy of their history again. Uncontrolled capitalistic greed and corruption with the fall of communism has lead to a state whereby corporate and criminal cartels were able to take over the country.

Before I continue with the order of events I would quickly like to share some information about one of the main architects and leader of the cartel. President Vladimir Putin. Putin's father was conscripted into the Russian Navy to fight in World War 2 and was a member of the NKVD, and one of Putin's brothers died in the siege of Leningrad. Vladimir Putin's paternal grandfather was also the personal cook to both Stalin and Lenin.

Putin managed to get a qualification called a Candidate of Science (Apparently similar to a Ph.D) from the International Branch of the Law Department of the Leningrad State University with a dissertation (similar to a Ph.D thesis) called "The Strategic Planning of Regional Resources Under the Formation of Market Relations". It was later found out that 16 of the 20 pages that open a key section of Putin's work were copied either word for word or with minute alterations from a management study, Strategic Planning and Policy, written by US professors William King and David Cleland. Deception started early for Putin.

Putin was quickly recruited into the KGB in 1976 where he was able to achieve the rank of Major before the KGB was disbanded in 1991. It was in the KGB where Putin was able to make some very important political contacts and get together with future collaborators such as Sergei Ivanov. Putin resigned from the KGB when it failed to seize control of Russia from Gorbachev in the 1991 Putsch (coup).

Putin had a very interesting political career after that and with about the most noteworthy being his appointment as head of the FSB ( a successor to the KGB) just before he became President of Russia. It was during this time that he alledgidly framed Yury Skuratov who was trying to clamp down on corruption at the time. Putin as we will find out... likes destroying other people's lives to support his own.

I am going to stop writing about Putin now and move onto one of his largest instruments for manipulation. The corporation Gazprom. In 1998 Putin realised what a valuable resource Gazprom was. Suddenly, Russia under Putin's authority started demanding billions of dollars in back taxes from Gazprom, and Putin replaced Chernomyrdin who was head of Gazprom with his own man.

Under Putin's command, tax collectors started seizing Gazprom assets and the company gave into the political pressure and paid Putin. For the first time ever Gazprom started showing a loss. The main reason for this was the unbridled corruption Putin introduced to Gazprom, though the official excuse was "an aging pipeline"

Putin's Gazprom then initiated a series of deals with companies like Purgaz and scandal followed it. Large-scale asset-stripping of Gazprom by its corrupt board members nearly sank the company in the 1990`s.

In 2001 Gazprom took over Russia's only nationwide state-independent television station NTV which meant that Putin now had control of a well oiled tool for future propaganda purposes. I will come back to this because I had something interesting happen while watching Russian television not too long ago.

The main reason the KGB attempted a coup-de-tat in 1991 (as mentioned earlier) was that it did not like the decentralization of power to the republics Gorbachev was trying to achieve with his reforms. I can imagine the failed Putsch upset top level KGB officers... including Putin who did not want to loose their power.

Once Putin had majority control of Gazprom he was able to use it to bully opponents of his whether they be people or countries. In 2006 Putin worried about pro-west sentiment in the Ukraine, used the company to politically manipulate the situation by threatening to stop the flow of gas which is a life blood to the Ukrainian people.

Putin and Gazprom have also used energy blackmail with the countries who have showed pro-west sentiments such as Estonia, Belarus and Georgia. Strangely enough all countries that were part of the previous Soviet Union and all countries that Putin and his KGB cronies did not want to have power. Belarus was at the end was able to strike a deal after threatening to stop the flow of Russian gas in their pipes through the country of Belarus.

I would just like to bring in 3 quick power plays that are also of importance in regards to Putin's Gazprom that may interest you. In July 2006 with the help of Putin, Gazprom was able to become a monopoly by getting Russian Federal Law to grant Gazprom exclusive rights to export natural gas. Also, later that same year Putin was able to fud with an environmental permit to hostilely take control of 50% and one share of Royal Dutch Shell's Sakhalin-II project.

The 3rd and latest power play by Gazprom and Putin seems to allow Gazprom to build up its own private army. In February 2007 a group of State Duma deputies proposed to give the Putin controlled company Gazprom the right to form special armed units. The main task of the new oil military will be to protect production facilities and transport infrastructure. If adopted by the parliament, Gazprom officials will be allowed to use weapons and arms for self-protection and for the execution of “service obligations”. We all know about dodgy Russian “service obligations”.....

Now that I have mostly got Gazprom out of the way I would like to get back to Putin and what he has been up to lately. In October 2006 a journalist and human rights activist by the name of Anna Politkovskaya was investigating the corruption of Putin's government as well as the savagery of Russian troops in Chechnya. She was assassinated in a contract killing. No prizes as to which cowardly Russian president was behind her killing.

Now onto the part of the story I am sure most of you will be familiar with. The assassination of the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko with polonium-210 by Putin (yes, I will call a duck a duck). Polonium was discovered in Poland while it was under Russian control. The substance is extremely unstable and dangerous and very hard to manage. 1 gram of polonium is dangerous enough to kill 50 million people. Polonium is also used in nuclear triggers on nuclear weapons. Its not the type of stuff that everyone has access to. In fact, its not the type of stuff most countries have access to. The rarity is compounded by the fact that the planet currently is only able to produce about 100 grams of the stuff a year.

Alexander got on the bad side of Putin when he found out his superiors were planning to kill billionaire businessman Boris Berezovsky (who was a vocal critic of the 2nd Chechen War), whom he was charged to protect. When he found out about the plot he went to the media to warn everyone about it and was subsequently arrested. Alexander was later released and fled to Great Britain to claim political asylum.

I do believe what got Alexander into the most trouble was him revealing some of Putin's dirtier but expected tactics. Alexnader informed the world that Putin's FSB was bombing Moscow apartments and blaming it on the Chechen terrorists to legitimise reprisals using military force in Chechnya. Boris, Alexander and Anna were all opposed to a second Chechen war. Alexander and Anna have lost their lives apposing Putin.

Back to control of the media and the little bit of information I wanted to tell you earlier. I had just watched a piece on Sky News regarding the death of Alexander Litvinenko, so I decided to switch over to the Russian channel to see how Putin's propaganda machine was spinning the story. Two things caught my interest. When the announcer on TV started informing the people of Alexander Litvinenko's death she said the following, "Alexander Litvinenko has just been assassi..... has just died". Seems she knew the truth as well.

I also remember about how in the next 20 minutes of the show the Russian presenter kept going on about, "how free Russian media is", and that they, "have no one here in the studio with a gun telling us what to say". Very strange things to say do you not think so?

Putin it seems is almost uncontrollable. What surprises me about all of this is the Russian people are allowing this rubbish to happen all over again. Surely the Russians are tired of presidents with small manhood issues? Surely they are bright enough to shake the yoke of this tyranny?

Things are not getting better. Putin is comparing penis size with the USA and Europe again and is trying to use every dirty tactic it can to control the current world political situation. Poland (rightfully so) wishes to protect itself from Iranian and Russian attacks so they have managed to score a Missile Shield from the states. Putin's response borders on the melodramatic and he really should get an Oscar for his performance. Putin has managed to turn the situation around to make a defensive weapons system appear to be an offensive (which I am sure it could be with a little imagination) attack on Russian statehood or something like that. Again I am sure it has something to do with manhood size.

Putin is also in Iran supplying that wheel-tapper of an Iranian president with nuclear capability as well as offering all the militant locals in the area access to weapons with nicely reduced price tags. It seems Putin wants the Middle East area as unstable as possible.

Just in case you missed the hypocrisy of Putin in the above two paragraphs... in Putin's mind, its is okay to supply Iran with nuclear technology which in turn can be used to create offensive nuclear weapons... but its NOT okay in Putin's eyes for countries around Iran to want to setup a missile defence system? Thats not counting the millions of AK-47 rifles the world has had to suffer from. Please Putin... that's pathetic. Really it is. I am sure your new buddy Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe could come up with a smarter story than you.

They say you can judge a man by the company he keeps and the friends that Putin seems to be getting into bed with all appear to be dictators of dodgy 3rd world countries where human rights are abused the most and freedoms are at a minimal. Zimbabwe, Venezuela, China and Iran... all countries suffering under terrible dictators seem to be the in thing for Putin.

The latest bit of news I have heard (other than Putin's over reaction to the missile shield), is that Estonia has accused Russia of launching large scale cyber attacks against it, Russia of course has denied this. I honestly completely believe Estonia on this one. Nothing in the last couple of years has given me a single reason to trust Putin or the current Russian government. Putin is a man completely without honour or scruples so I am more likely to trust what comes out of the silly Iranian presidents mouth than I am out of Putin's.

As I mentioned earlier on, the Russians I know are rather smart, so I have to ask any Russian readers out there... why are you allowing a tyrannical leader into power again? Do Russians get a kick out of pain and suffering? Do Russians like being exploited? I am trying to reconcile in my mind how such a smart people can make such an obviously repeating stupid mistake.

Well the good thing about having Putin in control of Russia is it is allowing Africa to catch up economically and surpass Russia socially while Putin keeps draining the country dry of everything it has.

Come on Russians. You have a wonderful country, stunning woman and from what I can see.. smart people. You can do so much better if you wanted to.