Vladimir Putin has made himself a “laughing stock” after surrounding himself with “absolutely incompetent” military chiefs ahead of the war in Ukraine, Russia’s former vice president said in a scathing attack on the Russian president.

Alexander Rutskoy, a former Soviet general, accused Putin of “senselessly” killing tens of thousands of Russian soldiers who served as cannon fodder in the war.

Rutskoy, who served as President Boris Yeltsin’s deputy, said Putin’s invasion of Ukraine should never have started.

“If the armed forces are not able to conduct strategic offensive operations, it is better not to try, especially outside of your own country,” Rutskoy said.

Alexander Rutskoy, a former Soviet general, accused Putin of “senselessly” killing tens of thousands of Russian soldiers who served as cannon fodder in the war

He added: “Everything that is happening today can be explained by the fact that our armed forces, I emphasize, are not capable of conducting strategic offensive operations.

‘Why….? For a quarter of a century, the armed forces have been run by incompetent, utterly incompetent people.’

“The result is the slaughter in Ukraine, where in less than a year Russia has suffered casualties estimated at 175,000,” Rutskoy said.

“This is a tragedy for our country,” said Rutskoy, the only man to ever hold the post of Russia’s vice president. “This is a tragedy because people are dying.

“People are dying needlessly despite the slogan ‘Defend Russia’. Where are they defending Russia? What are they dying for…? Who has the right to take a father away from his children?

“Who gave the right to take away sons from mothers and fathers? No one….’

Rutskoy, who served as President Boris Yeltsin’s deputy, said Putin’s invasion of Ukraine should never have started. Pictured: Rutskoy (right) with Putin (middle)

He pointed to highly disputed Russian claims that Britain was behind explosions in the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea, which were being built to transport gas to the European market.

“Britain blew up the Nord Stream pipelines [in the Baltic],’ he claimed. “And what’s the reaction? Nothing at all. Just blah blah blah.

‘Why is this happening? Because from a military point of view, we have no strategic planning. The President expresses his intentions, which are not realized. It makes him a laughing stock.”

Putin has surrounded himself with security apparatchiks and others who lack high-level military training and skills, Rutskoy said.

This includes Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who – although he now holds the rank of army general – is not a career soldier but a politician known for his loyalty to Putin, Rutskoy said.

His predecessor, a furniture entrepreneur, Anatoly Serdyukov was “a kind of driver, a corporal and nothing more” who was promoted because his then-wife was the daughter of a close friend of Putin.

Rutskoy added that the key people “never commanded or directed anything.”

Ukrainian firefighters work in a house on fire in the city of Kherson after Russian shelling on Sunday

He said: “Who do we have in the Security Council of the Russian Federation? Not a single person who served in the army, not a single person who has military training.

“Nobody – and now they are sitting there making decisions about conducting the special military operation. Well, jokingly, this is the same as impotent men making decisions about sexual encounters.

“What kind of sex can we talk about if you’re impotent? It’s the same there. It’s all the same.

“The security council of a huge country and not a single person has military expertise. Not a single person.’

Rutskoy, 75, spoke to host Andrey Kovalyov on the Kovalyov Principle YouTube channel.

He was once proclaimed the acting president of Russia by the country’s parliament during a dispute with Yeltsin.

But Yeltsin replaced parliament, and Rutskoy was briefly imprisoned along with uncompromising parliamentarians.

The nationalist politician served as vice president from 1991 to 1993 after a high-flying career in the Soviet military, where he held the rank of major general in aviation.

He was shot down three times during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, where he commanded an independent air assault regiment of the 40th Army.

Rutskoy was named Hero of the Soviet Union in 1988. He later served as governor of the Kursk region bordering Ukraine during Putin’s presidency.

Frontal and profile images of the mummy ‘unclothed’ with a SALEEM XSN X-ray tomograph

Since 1916, TR 21/11/16/16 slept in the storerooms of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Under this registration number was a 2,300-year-old mummy unearthed in a cemetery in southern Egypt, dated between 332 and 30 BC. AD, or during the Ptolemaic period. She is described in Frontiers in Medicine January 24 by radiologist Sahar Saleem (Cairo University Faculty of Medicine) and his colleagues, who used a CT scanner to virtually strip her of her rags and strips.

This thin digital slice revealed a boy “of high socioeconomic status”, around fifteen years old, well equipped for his sojourn in the afterlife if we refer to the regulations given to the deceased in the famous ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. The body was accompanied by no fewer than 49 amulets of 21 different shapes, made of semi-precious stones, earthenware or half-fired clay, but for many made of gold. Which earned him to be christened “Golden Boy” (literally) and now on display in the main hall of the Egyptian Museum.

Also read: Article reserved for our subscribers At the Toulouse Museum, science writes the novel of the mummy

A tongue of precious metal had been stuck in his mouth so he could speak beyond the grave; an amulet depicting two fingers near his uncircumcised penis, protecting the incision for embalming; Finally, a golden beetle, which had not been removed during the operation, was placed next to the heart. This appears to have been of good quality. The young man showed no signs of illness or trauma, his teeth were free of caries. X-rays alone cannot determine the cause of death, write the study’s signatories, for whom “this non-invasive technology offers a unique opportunity to learn more about life and death in ancient Egypt.”

Herve Morin

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Johnson: ‘Putin threatened to bomb Britain’

Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened Boris Johnson with a missile attack in the run-up to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 in an “extraordinary” phone call: the former British Prime Minister himself said so when he was interviewed by the BBC for a documentary with the Title: “Putin against the West”.

The then prime minister said Putin told him “one minute would be enough”. It is impossible to know whether Putin’s threat was genuine, writes the BBC.

However, the British broadcaster comments that given previous Russian attacks on the UK – most recently in Salisbury in 2018 – any threat from the Russian leader, however minor, was likely to have had little choice but to take Johnson seriously.

“At one point he threatened me and said, ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you, but with a rocket it would only take a minute.’ Or something like that,” the former Prime Minister told the BBC.

The capital of Venezuela has extensive organizational experience in sports, as it hosts many events of all kinds, notably the 1983 Pan American Games.

All of them had their facilities in the so-called Capital District, but this time the baseball tournament will go a little further, to La Guaira, which is considered a satellite city.

This city, located about 40 kilometers by road from the historic center, is part of the greater Caracas metropolitan area, along with Los Teques, San Antonio de Los Altos, Maiquetía, Guarenas, Guatire, Cúa and other cities.

The designation has commercial reasons, as it encompasses a business park divided by several administrative units that in practice form a common and geographically unified market.

It is the largest, most extensive and most densely populated metropolitan area in Venezuela and the ninth largest urban area in Latin America with an estimated population of just over five and a half million people. Since the Jorge Luis García Carneiro stadium, formerly known as Fórum de La Guaira, will serve as a sub-venue for the upcoming Caribbean Series, it would be unfair if the tournament were just called Caracas 2023.

In fact, it will be the first time in its 60+ year history that the fight will be held at more than one facility.

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