Covering Kremlin news feels like a humiliation ritual, but I’m not quite sure who is getting humiliated, exactly.

I suppose I, personally, am, because I’m the one who has to report on the farce truthfully and accurately. The feeling of disgust and ennui deepens with each month of ongoing “negotiations” which fail to bear anything but endless hype headlines.

It has been the better part of a month since we checked in on the talks and, luckily for us, nothing has happened, really.

We did learn that Putin is open to a NATO presence in Donbass, apparently. But this was somewhat backtracked in subsequent statements, sort of. Most interestingly, military channels of communication have been restored with Washington. The Russian media has essentially been painting the picture of American and Russia working together to fight Nazism in Ukraine, or at least planning to do so again soon, like they did in WWII. This narrative has emotional resonance for a lot of people, I think.

Here:

The US and Russia have agreed to re-establish high-level dialogue between their armed forces.

The announcement came after a meeting of senior US and Russian military officers in Abu Dhabi in the margins of talks about the war in Ukraine.

In a statement, US European Command said the renewed dialogue would “provide consistent military to military contact as the parties work towards a lasting peace”.

This marks a significant rapprochement between the world’s two largest nuclear powers and comes after President Donald Trump repeatedly voiced his desire to normalise relations between both countries.

We also confirmed that Sergei Lavrov has essentially been blacklisted from the Kremlin and is now out of the loop on important matters. He is so out of favor that even a TV reporter can ask him to his face why control over negotiations have been yanked out from under him.

His role has been taken by /ourboy/ Kiryl Dmitriev.

Stalkers are no doubt aware that I have been all-in on Kirylcoin since it was launched in 2025 as an alternative to Lavrovcoin, which it has eclipsed. Lavrov appears to be laboring under the delusion that the terms of June 2024, as laid out by Putin, are still in effect. They state that a ceasefire is only possible once Kiev withdraws from Donetsk, Zaporozhiye, and Kherson. This has already been dropped in the latests Kremlin statements on the matter, which no longer mention Zaporozhiye and Kherson, and only mention Donetsk. Here:

MOSCOW, February 5. /TASS/. Moscow believes that the recognition of Donbass as part of Russia by all countries should be part of a major agreement, a Western source close to the Abu Dhabi talks told TASS.

“Russia sees the aspect concerning the recognition of Donbass by all countries as crucial,” the source said.

Not only has the Kremlin already backed off from the demands for two territories it legally claims as part of the RF, but they already agreed to a recent air strike ceasefire anyway, which Kiev immediately violated, and which Moscow has now given up on as well.

Meanwhile, Russian oil companies are being asked, politely, to leave Venezuela, according to Lavrov. Here:

Russian companies are being pushed out of Venezuela following the United States’ capture of President Nicolás Maduro last month, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said, suggesting the move was driven by pressure from Washington.

“Right now, in the wake of the events in Venezuela, our companies are being quite openly forced out of the country,” Lavrov said in an interview with the Kremlin-backed RT network published Thursday, without naming the companies involved.

He claimed the actions were being taken at the behest of the U.S. but did not offer further details.

Lavrov also noted that the U.S. had imposed sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft and was threatening tariffs on countries that buy Russian energy products despite talks on ending the war in Ukraine.

This is in the wake of multiple seizures of tankers and boats that belong to the Kremlin or Kremlin-controlled companies. The latest tanker seizure was carried out by the might fleet of Estonia. Here:

Estonia has detained a Bahamas-flagged container ship in the Gulf of Finland after a multi-agency operation involving police special forces, naval vessels, and aerial support, Estonian Public Broadcaster (ERR) reported on February 3.

The vessel, Baltic Spirit, was intercepted while en route to Russia’s St. Petersburg. Estonian authorities confirmed that a special operations unit from the national police, known as K-Commando, boarded the ship and detained all 23 crew members, all of whom were identified as Russian citizens.

Soon, the mighty Maltese or Monaco navies will be confiscating Russian ships too. By doing nothing when Washington seized their boats, and letting Kiev sink their entire Black Sea navy without a fight, the Kremlin has signaled to the whole world that they can seize whatever they want with no repercussions, apparently. It is like a continuation of Yeltsin’s policy of “take as much of the USSR as you can,” given to the satellite republics.

But judging from the triumphant tone of Kremlin media and their ecstatic coverage of the supposed reconcilement of Washington and Moscow, things are apparently going in the right direction.

Which begs the question: are you truly being humiliated if you refuse to acknowledge the humiliation and instead smile and ask for more?

Sometimes, I think that my own life is a humiliation ritual.

Everything that I thought I once firmly believed has been proven to be mostly wrong. I was left with a choice though: to acknowledge this humiliating fact with humility or to double down on being wrong and to try and power through with sheer delusion and refusal to face facts. I chose the former strategy, but I am still not sure that I made the right decision.

I was more decisive and active when I was stubbornly deluded.

I’m not sure I like this new, pensive and withdrawn version of myself.

I preferred being ignorant, but arrogant. Living it up in the full bloom summer of my own stupidity and hubris, if you will.

The Kremlin, in stark contrast to my soul-searching angst, is still firmly in the New Age mode of “meming your own reality” with their geostrategic behavior and media narrative.

In their alternative meme universe, they are now great allies with Washington, apparently. Who armed Ukraine? Apparently it was the Third Reich, and not Washington.

I mean, I do allege that Putin and his cabal are assets of Langley, recruited in either the 80s or early 90s, but what they themselves fare communicating is far simpler and more delusional than my theories. Putin and his clowns seem to think that they are in a position to negotiate with Washington as equals! And that, by showing wall-to-wall coverage of the negotiations and hyping up the visits of US officials to the Kremlin, that they can somehow change the fundamental reality on the ground, which is that they cannot take the Donbass from the UAF through military means.

Thus, to get the ceasefire, it is the Kremlin who will have to make territorial concessions (and not only), not Kiev. Following ZAnon media and Kremlin media though, you would really be left thinking that Washington and Moscow are now allied against Kiev! This, despite the fact that Washington continues to basically keep the entire Ukrainian war machine afloat on its back.

Truly, an inverted bizarro reality.

And yet, Trump is also apparently the great betrayer of Ukrainian independence and an asset of the Kremlin, according to the NAFO side of the spectrum?

Truly, does it get any more delusional than that?

In reality, Putin has been humiliated, clearly, on the public stage too many times to count. His threats have been ignored. The treaties he wrote used as toilet paper. All of Russia’s remaining legacy satellites and satrapies turned against Moscow in four short years. Putin is reduced to promising Jared Kushner one billion dollars of the Kremlin’s own stolen slush fund as a bribe to get back in the good graces of the Trump-Kushner crime syndicate.

And yet, every time we see Putin out and about, he is absolutely beaming.

Practically bouncing with giddy joy after his meetings with his esteemed American partners, even. No wonder the casual observer thinks that all is well and that the patriots have the forces of the Analic-Soros-Satanics (ASS) on the run.

This, to my mind, brings us to a key distinction that we must understand between Humiliation Rituals and Initiation Rituals, which chessmaster and possible undiagnosed autist Vladimir Putin clearly doesn’t.

Oftentimes, when we think of male fraternity or secret societies of an occulted or political nature, we think of the ritualistic practices that must be performed on initiates for them to gain admission. Hell, I am writing this post in the wake of the most recent batch of Epstein’s emails being released, which has revealed many more names being involved in his blackmail operation from all sides of the ideological, culture war spectrum in the West. What goes unsaid, but understood, is that to join the inner circle of global elites, one had to do some unsavory stuff, on film, to be allowed into the club. Sometimes, this appears to be referred to as “partying” in the emails which invokes imagery of the drunken hooliganism associated with college fraternities and sororities.

And this kind of behavior blurs the distinction between Humiliation and Initiation, and does so purposefully. It is what makes admittance to the Epstein tier circle of global elites so enticing for so many people as well. People want to be Initiated, but they often end up simply getting Humiliated instead. This is because, structurally, Humiliation and Initiation rituals seem similar when viewed from the outside.

However, the purpose of Initiation is to bring someone into a new status: that of an adult, warrior, mystic, citizen, etc. The ritual serves to trigger:

1. Separation from the old identity
2. Liminal ordeal — danger, trial, brush with a promising new vista of the unknown
3. Reintegration with honor, new rights, and recognition of earned status

The whole ordeal is therefore not about abasement but about testing the capacity of the initiate. Pain may be present or used during the initiation (fasting, cold, scars, trials), but the pain is impersonal and delivered impersonally as well. It isn’t supposed to be done because the initiator gets off on inflicting pain and humiliation on the initiate, as was once done unto him.

Even if a member of the group initiates the suffering, it is meant to be interpreted as coming from without, from nature, the gods, the task itself, or the trials that begin for the soul in its journey onwards after death.

Importantly, the initiate is not mocked, ridiculed, or made contemptible.

He is supposed to come out of the experience as something higher, elevated and improved, at any rate. And he is accepted into the order of his tribe or club once the rite is finished, which is crucial and the payoff for undergoing the rites.

But this is not what is happening to Putin … or to Epstein’s clients at any rate.

What they willingly underwent is clearly a humiliation ritual of a kind. Sure, they get to feel like they’re part of an inner club with access to information and secrets that the masses are not. But they pay the ultimate price for that sort of membership — their own self-respect and self-autonomy.

A humiliation ritual has a completely different logic, even if it borrows initiation aesthetics.

The purpose is to lower, not to transform or to elevate.

It reinforces a pre-existing hierarchy by producing shame, dependence, or submission. Furthermore, Humiliation requires an audience. It weaponizes laughter, ridicule, or enforced self-debasement. This seems like a kind of humbling, which is used on initiates in legit rituals, but it is actually a humiliation, really. The subject is diminished and reduced as a permanent state, not as a temporary one on the road to becoming something greater again. One’s status can remain ambiguous or permanently inferior after undergoing the humiliation. The victim might think that they’ve undergone an initiation and are now part of the club, but in reality, they’ve only opened themselves up for further humiliation as a permanent whipping dog.

And there is a thin line between self-reflection and a desire to self-improve and the dark side to these practices, which take the form of permanent hazing, forced confessions, public shaming, loyalty tests, cult-style psyche “breaking,” ego-killing, modern corporate “team building,” humiliation exercises, and totalitarian self-criticism sessions conducted by shrinks.

Chances are that you, dear Stalker, never got to the station that you thought you would reach in this life because you refused to let yourself be humiliated, ritually, at some crucial point in your career when the offer was made, however obliquely. All you had to do was bend over a little, and then bend over a little more, later, probably … but then the way forward would have been clear. I am probably more privileged than the average man because of just how many opportunities I was offered in life to bend over and get “initiated” by different organizations. However, despite my unfortunate propensity to occasionally wallow in introspective navel-gazing, I could never quite take that last step out of humbling and into humiliation.

Nowadays, I find myself observing and commenting on careers of those who took the plunge into humiliation, like Putin, and who seem to never feel any shame for what their role and rank in the big secret club is. What is more, they seem self-deluded enough to think that they aren’t the permanent bete noire or scapemule to be kicked in the rear by the higher-ups over and over again.

Once you understand Putin’s role as a useful foil or boogeyman or runt to be kicked around and humiliated by his “esteemed Western partners”, you can safely predict that in a few weeks time, he will simply be humiliated again, publicly. Perhaps he will even object and pout a bit in the media … but he will meekly take the abuse, in the end, like he did all those times before.All because he so desperately wants to be in the cool secret club and continues to double down on the only behavior that he knows when it comes to gaining admittance in these circles — letting himself get humiliated by those higher up than him.

My advice is to learn from this pathetic lump of a man and to never ever let yourself be bent over by anyone, ever, for any reason whatsoever.

But hey, that’s easy for me to say.

Those of you who still want to achieve great success and advancement in the world should do the opposite of what I suggest. Who knows, if you’re able to let yourself get humiliated as much as Putin is, you might even eventually rise to an equal rank in the global hierarchy. Perhaps we will see your name in the release of a new batch of leaked emails someday, jetting around and partying in the company of powerful Jewish pedophiles.

That’s how you know that you’ve made it in this world.

No one who matters isn’t mentioned in those emails, let me just tell you that much in closing. Also: keep an eye out for the February 8th date that is coming up soon. Seems that Epstein’s cabal had something planned for that time.

Maybe this “WW3” will rally the crypto markets, at least.