To think, "Well said Prince Charles!"

[FrancesNiadova]

I agree with the news commentators who say he shouldn't be writing to cabinet ministers, trying to influence policy. However, Putin, invading countries & handing out Russian passports, is behaving like a land-grabbing dictator.
Prince Charles is not the King, yet, so he is maximising his opportunity to say, well, what we're all thinking, basically.
I remember the controversy of the State Visit of the Chinese President. Instead of joining the formal greeting party & banquet, he booked himself to attend a much more minor event in Cornwall, to show his disgust for human rights abuses. The snub was not missed by the Chinese & the media.
Is it unreasonable to be pleased that he speaks out & a bit by the bad press he's getting for it!

If people want to worry about poor old prince Charles and how he can't exercise his rights to say what he likes, they should direct their annoyance at the monarchy system. That's why he can't do it. If you want him to be able to express himself whenever and wherever he likes (like the rest of us can), then campaign for a republic in which his opinions won't stand in for the entire country's.

Charles is a fool. He does not have the right to make remarks about political matters while on state visits. He can say what he wants to his friends in teh privacy of his own home, etc., but this is a major faux pas.

Putin is no Nazi and whatever the rights and wrongs of the Ukrainian situation (where the US encouraged and flat-out instigated a revolution against an elected president a revolution that involved significant participation by the Ukrainian far right and Banderites after doing the same in Egypt and Libya, both of which are now embroiled in horrible turmoil) Charles has absolutely no right to mention it. If the US has a right to wade into sovereign states and pay for revolution, residents of parts of those countries that want no part of the resulting political setup have the right to opt out. No doubt Russian speakers have seen the blatant discrimination practiced against them in Latvia while the EU and US turn a blind eye.

How ironic that the two will be together at D Day celebrations next month in France. There would be no France, no Britain, and no D Day celebration without the war effort and the sacrifice of millions of Russians, military and civilians alike.

campaign for a republic in which his opinions won't stand in for the entire country's

But he wasn't speaking for the country. He was in a private conversation with an individual, that was overheard by a reporter. You may be sure that if he was making an official speech he would have been far more discrete.

I was personally pleased to learn that his personal views coincided with those of most people I know. It shows he is not out of touch with the general public.

There would be no France, no Britain, and no D Day celebration without the war effort and the sacrifice of millions of Russians, military and civilians alike.
Very true.
But of course the reverse is also true. The USSR could not have stood alone without the UK and US.
And remember that until Hitler chose to turn round and attack them, the Russians were happily trading with Hitler, sending them food and oil while we were fighting Germany single-handed.

FYI, OP, Pussy Riot did what the Communists did -- they desecrated a church.

The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow was blown up by order of Stalin, to make way for a Palace of the Soviets that was supposed to feature a massive statue of Lenin. The destruction was part of the Communist policy of destroying the Russian Orthodox Church and all other religion in the USSR. Funds ran out and war broke out, so the project was shelved. There were also problems with the site. Under Khrushchev the site was turned into a huge public swimming pool.

Almost as soon as Communism fell and the USSR broke apart, plans to rebuild the cathedral were afoot. Money from private citizens funded it -- about 1 million Moscow residents donated. The Cathedral was dedicated in 2000. It was the site of the canonisation of the Romanovs, in 2000, and also the place where the formal reunion of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (an exile church) was executed, in 2007, both highly significant events in Russian ecclesiastical and political history.

The irony of Pussy Riot's 'performance' in the cathedral, given its history, and given the fact that ordinary Russians voted with their money to rebuild (at a time when there wasn't much of it) has clearly been lost on some posters here. What they did was a slap in the face to many ordinary Russian citizens.

And remember that until Hitler chose to turn round and attack them, the Russians were happily trading with Hitler, sending them food and oil while we were fighting Germany single-handed.

The USSR was complying with the terms of the treaty of Brest Litovsk, entered into by Lenin to end WW1 as far as Russia was concerned, while he focused on the revolution. They were not 'happily trading'. They were sending grain and other Russian products per the terms of that treaty under pain of the penalties the treaty called for in case of default. The last train crossed the border going west hours before the Wehrmacht crossed eastbound.

And Britain was not 'fighting single-handed'. Britain was backed secretly by the US until Pearl Harbour caused the US declaration of war on Japan and Germany, and thereafter supported Britain openly, and massively.

Britain on her own could never have put up a fight. Churchill knew this and so did FDR. FDR went behind the back of Congress to provide vital material aid to Britain, risking impeachment and giving the howling isolationists the means to have their way.

The USSR showed by her huge-scale withdrawal into the interior and the rapid recovery of manufacturing after factories were uprooted lock, stock and barrel from territories taken over by the Third Reich, and the massive industrialisation that took place well behind the lines that she would within a short time have out-produced Germany and rolled the invaders back even without aid. After the initial military failure the Red Army regrouped, and after ending the Japanese threat in the far east and the subsequent stand in Stalingrad, its sheer strength in numbers and superiority of equipment and materiel meant the writing was on the wall for Nazi Germany. US aid helped, but the USSR was never close to being as reliant on outside aid as Britain was.

You may be sure that if he was making an official speech he would have been far more discrete

If only Just to take one example, I think his constant outpourings about the environment are toe-curling in the extreme, given his personal choices; the word "hypocrite" could hardly be more apt when yet again he preaches one thing, does another and expects the arse licking to carry on as before

I honestly don't mind that he's totally unsuited to the real world, since his position doesn't require him to spend much time in it; sadly, it's when he tries to pretend he does that the problems start

Certainly Britain could not have continued to fight alone. We would not have survived if the US had not officially joined the war after Pearl Harbor.

Regardless, the USSR did not fight to help Britain. They continued trading with Hitler even after being given clear evidence of his plans to attack. If he hadn't turned on them they would have watched while we were starved into submission.

Strange thing is, I thought that Putin & the Russian Orthodox Church were best of friends. Weren't the Orthodox hierarchy nationalistic KGB informers?

Didn't Mr Putin have photographs of him kissing icons & greeting Alexei II in exchange for the Priest's support of Putin's puppet, Medvedev?

In playing a couple of bars of an anti-Putin ballad at the Cathedral, Pussy Riot were defying both Putin & his conservative, orthodox supporters.

I support anyone who can use their position to highlight what's going on.

It wasn't a 'private conversation'. You don't have private conversations with your subjects on a state visit with the media all around to hear. I don't give a shit what he says to camilla in bed or whatever, but he doesn't get to give his opinion on geopolitics out to anyone who'll hear. If he wants to do so, he needs to not be part of the monarchy.

Sallyingforth Thu 22-May-14 17:11:49

DoctorTwo
Do you work for RT by any chance?

Putin injected special forces into Crimea to start the revolt. We all saw them on TV in their anonymous but very professional uniforms and equipped with the latest Russian weapons. They have caused similar unrest in other regions.

Thanks for your question. No, I don't work for RT. Are you Jen Psaki?

France24 went to look for these Russian special forces and couldn't find them. As for people having Russian guns, well, this might come as a shock to you, but so do the Ukrainians. :o

FWIW, I do watch RT. I also watch France24, Aljazeera, CNN and BBC News. I also cross reference with non MSM online news sites like Truthdig, Raw Story, Zero Hedge and Activist Post, so my posts are an amalgamation of those sites.

Where the US have gone wrong this time is in an age of information it's easy to discover their agenda. Also, Putin is acting completely opposite to their expectation. Their attempted isolation of Russia has driven Russia to a massive deal with China and will lead to a new alliance of China, Russia and Iran. If I had any money I'd be changing it into gold, silver and Bitcoin, 'cos things are about to get messy.

Uncle - you might well be familiar with that part of the world, but it is the part of the world I live in....so we will just have to agree to disagree.

COMPOSHAT: F.Off & don't dare come back until you've written 10,000 words.
(PS: Good luck & all of that sort of thing! I did my dissertations way back when, on an Amstrad 64K! HTH)

I thought it was disgusting. When Putin starts murdering Jews for just being Jews I'll take his point.

Until then it is just sloppy and lazy to band around the Hitler insult.

But the point is, Hitler existed before he started doing that and he and his party laid the groundwork for a number of years before WW2, with increasingly suspect policies and persecutions.

What people are drawing parallels with is the pattern of behaviour of the Nazis in the run-up to WW2. Seeing that pattern repeated alarms people and there is nothing wrong with noticing it.

If Putin gets to the point of gassing Jews before we are allowed to remark on the similarities, it will be a bit late.

FrancisNiadova, where are you getting all of your weird ideas about Russia from? I suspect from all you have posted about Russia and Putin that you are unaware that the USSR no longer exists and that Communism is over and done with.

Putin left the Communist Party about the time the Berlin Wall fell.
Putin had worked in the KGB in its foreign department, with a job that involved making contact with potential western agents. So nobody was dispatched to the Gulag by him
Putin himself is a church member, baptised as an infant. As an ex Communist there would be no incongruity in exchanging greetings with Patriarchs or anyone else in the hierarchy. (Exchanging kisses is a traditional Russian greeting, if that's what you are having trouble with).
Very likely some Orthodox clerics were informants under Communism, as were hundreds of thousands of other Russians. The Church was partially rehabilitated under Stalin during WW2 as a symbol of Russia that Russians might be willing to die for as he no doubt suspected the Communist regime might not inspire devotion of the sort that was required in the struggle against the Third Reich. Before the rehabilitation the church was persecuted, thousands of priests and hierarchy killed, hundreds of thousands of believers sent to the Gulag, and churches themselves turned into barns or clubs or other secular use if not destroyed altogether and their treasures plundered.

The restoration of the Orthodox Church immediately after the fall of Communism is an element of post-USSR life that many in largely secular western Europe completely missed or completely under-appreciated, mainly because in post-Christian Britain and western Europe religion is seen as anything from quaint folly to dangerously benighted, and from this pov, how could it be that people feel otherwise elsewhere? In Russia, restoring the Orthodox Church as an institution, rebuilding or reclaiming the churches themselves, and enshrining freedom of worship in the constitution were extremely important both from a religious pov and from the pov of trying to wipe out the anti-religious vestiges of Communism.

In playing a couple of bars of an anti-Putin ballad at the Cathedral, Pussy Riot were defying both Putin & his conservative, orthodox supporters.

In desecrating the cathedral by putting it to secular/ political purpose they did exactly what the Communists did. The gesture of the Communists in closing it and then destroying it was similar in its intent -- desecration for political purposes.

I find it really, really awful that we are posting here without any justification whatsoever that Putin might get to the point of gassing Jews.

Seriously, WTAF???

Who mentioned gassing?

And yes. Putin is a pussy cat.

I said if. It is important to learn from history and become wary of leaders/governments that begin to behave in a tyrant-like manner. The idea would be to head off the possibility of things getting that bad, using diplomacy.

There are some parallels with the Nazis in the 1930s. That doesn't mean (as Antony Beevor said on Newsnight) that it inevitably will go that way - "history isn't predictive". But the parallels are there and are worrying.

I've been looking into it, and I think this registering Jews thing was just a stunt, most likely by people pretending to be Russian aiming to highlight the comparison between Putin and Hitler. Certainly both sides deny the masked men handing out leaflets were anything to do with them.

It was just a PR gimmick

Which does make more sense, after all, why would Putin WANT a register of Jews????

But they are being advised to leave.

I did Bear - in response to Scrimper saying

When Putin starts murdering Jews for just being Jews I'll take his point.

I was saying you wouldn't want it to get to that point before you start to worry.

Please don't resort to condescending comments, math, there was a jolly good debate here until your penultimate comment.
Errm, yes, I was aware that the Berlin Wall and CCCP are history.
I am also aware that Mr Putin had a flourishing career in the KGB before communism' s demise. He did work in DDR, as a KGB officer, supporting the regime there.
I also note that the 3 main party leaders here have not condemned Prince Charles. The current climate in Russia seems to be abhorrent to all of them.

The Neonazi Right sector is on the Ukrainian side.
Can people not see that war drums are being banged by the West? Can you not see we are being manipulated to create an enemy of Russia?
Remember what Farage alone of all our politicians said "the EU has blood on its hands".