Lefties don't do well in Russia's political court system

 

Russia sentences woman to 27 years for delivering 

bomb that killed pro-Kremlin blogger

A young Russian woman was jailed for 27 years on Thursday for delivering a bomb that exploded in the hands of a pro-war military blogger last year and killed him on the spot.

Issued on: 25/01/2024 - 16:57,  2 min

By: NEWS WIRES

Darya Trepova, 26, was convicted by a St Petersburg court of terrorism, handling explosives and using forged documents in connection with the death of blogger Vladlen Tatarsky.

She showed no visible emotion in response to the sentence, which Russian media said was the harshest given to any woman in the country’s modern history. Her defence team said they would appeal.

Tatarsky was killed by a bomb concealed inside a statuette in his likeness that Trepova had presented to him as a gift during a talk he was giving in a St Petersburg cafe.

Trepova said she had been set up, and had thought the statuette contained a listening device, not a bomb.

She told the trial she was acting under orders from a man in Ukraine whom she knew as “Gestalt” (German for “Shape”), who had been sending her money and instructions for several months before the cafe bombing.

Russia accused Ukraine immediately after the attack of organising the murder of Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin. He was one of a group of prominent bloggers who have built up large online audiences as cheerleaders for Russia’s war in Ukraine, while sometimes criticising its tactics.

Senior Ukrainian officials have neither claimed responsibility nor denied involvement in Tatarsky’s death, with presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak describing it as “internal terrorism”.

Trepova said she had gone along with Gestalt’s instructions because she assumed the purpose of eavesdropping on Tatarsky was to find out more of what he knew about the war, which she opposed.

“I feel great pain and shame that my gullibility and my naivety led to such catastrophic consequences. I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” she told the court earlier this week, speaking directly to people who were wounded in the bombing and who have claimed substantial amounts in compensation from her.

“I feel especial pain and shame that a terrorist act was carried out by my own hands.”

The defence said Trepova too was a victim because, sitting only several metres from Tatarsky, she could herself have been killed or wounded.

scribe

The prosecution argued that she had known about the bomb and “acted deliberately with the aim of destabilising the Russian Federation and discrediting the special military operation” - the official name for Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine.

After the bomb went off, Trepova said she had panicked.  Knowing that she risked arrest, she ignored an instruction from “Gestalt” to head to the airport and catch a flight.

Instead she called her husband, who asked a friend of his called Dmitry Kasintsev to let her stay at his apartment that night. She was arrested there the following day.

Kasintsev, 27, was sentenced on Thursday to one year and nine months for helping her to hide, despite testimony from Trepova that she had never met him before and he had nothing to do with the bomb.

Trepova and her husband's reactions after the bomb exploded would seem to indicate that she did not know about the bomb or she would have planned her escape better. She certainly deserves to go to jail, if only for her stupidity. But for 27 years? I'm certain that if she had blown up a blogger who was against the 'special operation', the results would be considerably different. Unfortunately, Russian courts seem to still be as political as they were in Soviet days.

(Reuters)

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Sofia Sapega pardoned by Lukashenko after her plane was forced down in Minsk

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Belarus pardons Sofia Sapega, Russian citizen arrested on seized Ryanair flight

By Patrick Hilsman

 

Russian activist Sofia Sapega has returned to Russia after being pardoned by Belarusian dictator

Alexander Lukashenko. File Photo by EPA-EFE/Leonid Scheglov/BeITA Handout

June 8 (UPI) -- Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko pardoned Sofia Sapega, a Russian citizen who was arrested the Belarusian government after she was on a flight that was forced to land in Minsk in 2021.

Sapega returned to Russia Wednesday where she was greeted by the governor of the Primorye region, Oleg Kozhemyako, who took credit for her release in a statement posted to Telegram.

"Our compatriot Sofia Sapega got a unique chance to start life anew. She is free after my appeal to the President of the Republic of Belarus," said Kozhemyako.

In footage posted to Telegram following her release, local officials in Russia can be seen greeting Sapega, who thanked Lukashenko "for the opportunity to return home."

Sapega was detained along with her then-boyfriend, Belarusian activist Roman Protasevich, when the Belarusian government diverted a plane carrying the pair from Greece to Lithuania into Belarusian airspace under the pretext that there was an active bomb threat.

In May, Protasevich, said he also received a pardon, that he had "signed all the relevant documents," and that "of course this is great news."

Protasevich said he would go to "a quiet place in the countryside for a couple of days... in order to take a breather and start to move forward."

The Belarusian government accused Sapega of being the editor behind the Black Book of Belarus channel, alleging she had posted personal information of security personnel. Her lawyer, Anton Gashinsky, said he didn't previously believe a pardon was likely.

"There was little hope. Thank god it worked out," Gashinsky told the Russian state-backed TASS news agency. Gashinsky said Sapega was back in Russia and that "she went to her father."

Sapega and Protasevich were arrested after the Ryanair flight flew over Belarus as military aircraft forced it to land in Minsk in what was later revealed as a Belarusian plot to detain them.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency blocked civil aviation from Belarusian airspace following the kidnapping and the European Union also blocked Belarusian civil aviation from its airspace.

The U.N. Human Rights Commission said the plane was "hijacked" so the Belarusian regime could "abduct" the pair.

It's called "arrest", not "abduct" in the rest of the world.

Protasevich was accused of running the Nexta Live Telegram channel that covered the regime's crackdown following the 2020 election, which was broadly denounced as fraudulent by international observers.

The Nexta organization was designated as a terrorist group by the regime.

Members of the European Parliament denounced the elections as illegitimate, issuing a statement that they do not recognize Lukashenko as the elected president.

In May 2022, Sapega was sentenced to six years and Protasevich was sentenced to eight years.

Russia Invades Ukraine > The most likely scenario to end the war

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Putin Has Never Lost a War. Here Is How He'll Win In Ukraine

BY BILL POWELL AND NAVEED JAMALI

Newsweek

ON 02/26/22 AT 6:00 AM EST

As the battle of wills and might between Russia and the west over the fate of Ukraine unfolds, there is one key fact to bear in mind: Vladimir Putin has never lost a war. During past conflicts in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria and Crimea over his two decades in power, Putin succeeded by giving his armed forces clear, achievable military objectives that would allow him to declare victory, credibly, in the eyes of the Russian people and a wary, watching world. His latest initiative in Ukraine is unlikely to be any different.

Despite months of military build-up along Ukraine's borders and repeated warnings from the Biden administration that an incursion could happen at any time, the February 24 pre-dawn bombing campaign that kicked off Europe's first land war in decades seemed to come as a surprise to many Ukrainians. In major cities across a country the size of the state of Texas, stunned citizens, lulled into complacency by their president's repeated reassurances that Russia would not invade, watched and listened to the sound of thunderous explosions targeting Ukrainian military bases, airports and command and control centers. Within 24 hours, the conflict spread rapidly, with Russian tanks and troops moving swiftly toward Kyiv, the capital; fierce battles in Kharkiv, the second largest city; and fighting around Chernobyl, the site of the disastrous 1986 nuclear reactor meltdown. Shock and awe, Russian style.

Despite repeated warnings that an invasion was imminent, many Ukrainians were shocked by the arrival of Russian troops.

 Here, members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces participate in a drill days before the bombings began.

ETHAN SWOPE/BLOOMBERG/GETTY

In an instant, Russian President Putin's invasion of Ukraine destroyed the post Cold War security order in Europe—one centered, to Russia's fury, by an often-expanding NATO alliance. Analysts expect that, once Kyiv falls, the military aggression will give way to a political settlement that puts a Russia-friendly government in place. By February 25, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was considering an invitation from Moscow to hold "neutrality" talks in neighboring Belarus. If those talks happen, Putin will then be able to pull back troops and end the conflict—while having dealt the West a humiliating blow.

And that, military and Russia experts agree, may be the real point.

Ukraine, of course, is not a NATO member; the possibility that it might join the Alliance some day, as other countries that were once part of the old Soviet bloc have done, is a key issue in the current conflict. Putin's actions, a brazen defiance in the face of repeated warnings and threats of sanctions from U.S. President Joe Biden and western allies, now make it a certainty, if it wasn't before, that membership will never happen. Putin's aggression will also serve as a stark warning to countries formerly part of the Soviet Union of the possible repercussions of getting too cozy with the West.

The post Soviet status quo in Eastern Europe was one "that [Putin] never accepted," says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor in chief of Russia in Global Affairs, a Moscow-based foreign policy journal. "It ate at him. He believes Russia was treated [by the West] as a second class citizen after the Soviet Union fell."

Now, western diplomats and intelligence officials believe, Putin seeks to decapitate the western-leaning leadership in Kyiv headed by Zelensky and replace it with a government that will be loyal to "the new Tsar," as former Estonian President Toomas Ilves calls Putin. That could happen, U.S. intelligence officials tell Newsweek, within days. Putin does not want, nor does he need, to occupy the entire country to accomplish his greater goals, intelligence analysts and officials say. As Ilves puts it, "He wants a puppet state like Belarus," another former Soviet province just north of Ukraine, and from which troops poured into Ukraine as the Russian bombing ramped up. With a new reality on the ground in Eastern Europe, Ilves continues, "Putin then wants to rewrite the security rules of the road between him and NATO."

Of course, NATO could have agreed to new security rules, or even old security rules and completely avoided this mess, but they stubbornly refused to. The question is, why did NATO push so hard to provoke this situation when it so easily could have been avoided?

Ukraine itself appears to share at least part of that view. A statement from Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine's presidential chief of staff, and shared with Newsweek by Ukraine's embassy in Washington, outlined what Kyiv suspected were Moscow's goals. "The Office of the President of Ukraine believes the Russian federation has two tactical goals—to seize territories and attack the legitimate political leadership of Ukraine in order to spread chaos and [to] install a marionette government that would sign a peace deal on bilateral relations with Russia," Podolyak said.

Is it possible that Putin would settle for keeping the Zelensky government if there is a firm agreement to stay out of NATO?

A man clears debris at a damaged residential building at Koshytsa Street, a suburb of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv,

where a military shell allegedly hit, on February 25, 2022. DANIEL LEAL/AFP/GETTY

A United States that thought it was pivoting to Asia, and focusing on China—a country that is its preeminent rival going forward—has now been dragged back to Eastern Europe, where for centuries so much blood has been spilled. Putin now has the world's full, undivided attention, in the same way that every Secretary General in the Soviet era did. In chilling televised remarks after the invasion had begun, Putin said, "whoever tries to interfere [in Ukraine] should know that Russia's response will be immediate, and will lead to such consequences that you have never experienced in your history." Putin's subsequent announcement that he was putting Russia's nuclear forces on alerts, underscored the threat.

Russia is now back in the limelight, a nation that is demonstrating, with a display of military might, that it remains a Great Power. Which is precisely where Putin wants his nation to be. He believes Russia should at all times command respect from the rest of the world, "and when it doesn't command respect, it should command fear," as Lukyanov of Russia in Global Affairs puts it.

Mission accomplished. As Rose Gottemoeller, former deputy secretary general of NATO and a long time Russia watcher characterized it recently on the CBS podcast Intelligence Matters, "This is [Putin's] 'look at me' moment."

One thing seems apparent - the war will end on Putin's terms and on nobody else's. Anyone who tries to change that will cause intolerable damage.

Russian-Led Organization Deploys Peacekeepers to Kazakhstan at Their Request

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Kazakhstan intervention sees Russia set a new precedent

Foreign actors may not have started the unrest, but they’ll play the deciding role in how it ends

By Fyodor Lukyanov,

the editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and research director of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

Protesters take part in a rally over a hike in energy prices in Almaty on January 5, 2022.

© AFP / Abduaziz Madyarov

The sudden outbreak of violence in Kazakhstan has taken analysts and international observers by surprise. Now, the decision to deploy a regional peacekeeping force has become the latest major milestone for the post-Soviet space.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which joins the armed forces of six former republics of the USSR, including Kazakhstan, announced that it would send a peacekeeping force to help maintain order as unrest spread across the vast Central Asian nation. 

This is the  first I have ever heard of this organization. But it changes the dynamics of NATO's efforts to recruit old Soviet countries. 

The move represents a blurring of the line between internal and external processes – the reasons that the Kazakh government is teetering on the brink of collapse are domestic in nature, and are related to the prolonged and increasingly weird transfer of power after the almost three-decades-long rule of veteran leader Nursultan Nazarbayev.

However, the street protests, which were sparked by fuel prices and have seen government buildings torched and troops surrender to demonstrators, have been immediately presented as an act of outside aggression on the part of foreign “terrorist groups.” From now on, it seems, the enemy always comes from the outside, even if it is actually inside. That claim gives formal grounds to declare the country is under attack and call in the CSTO.

This was not the case in the past, when similar recurring events were seen frequently in Kyrgyzstan, nor in Armenia three and a half years ago. Back then, the CSTO – Moscow mainly, but also the other members themselves – highlighted the internal nature of the unrest, saying there was no need for a foreign intervention.

However, this time it’s different, and the lines between foreign and domestic affairs are getting blurred across the globe. Several decades ago, liberals and human rights activists were the driving force behind the increasing confusion between home and abroad, advocating that national sovereignty could be set aside when human rights and freedoms were at stake. Today, the given justifications are about protection and preservation: a threat to the national security of the country in question and its neighbors justifies the intervention.

It is worth noting that, this time, the request for peacekeepers came from a government with undisputed legitimacy – even the protesters themselves have only publicly demanded the departure of Nazarbayev, who maintains a hold over domestic politics, and not the current president. This is what makes it different from the events of 2010 in Bishkek, when acting Kyrgyz president Roza Otunbayeva tried to call the CSTO in after his predecessor, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was ousted by mass protests. 

Kyrgyzstan’s entire government system collapsed, which made any intervention highly questionable from a legal perspective. The legal grounds for the current decision are also stronger than those for the West’s so-called “humanitarian interventions” that resulted in toppling governments recognized at the international level, no matter how dubious their reputation.

In the future, we will probably learn more about how everything happened – the decision-making process in both Kazakhstan and Russia and who suggested involving the CSTO. For now, though, it’s clear that the Russian government chose to stay one step ahead instead of waiting for the kindling flame to turn into a blaze. This is the evolution of the approach used a year and a half ago in Belarus, when it was enough for President Vladimir Putin to warn that Russian forces were ready to intervene if the worsening domestic situation required it. This time, Moscow skipped the warnings and jumped straight into action, probably thinking that the Kazakh government might not hold out on its own.

But the lines must not fade away completely. The important question now is whether or not deploying the CSTO peacekeepers would spell the end of clan rivalry in Kazakhstan, as manifested by the “transition of power,” and instead lead to consolidation of power (and in whose hands?). Moscow has every chance to benefit from this, as it will now have a military presence in the state, central to its policy as a guarantor, whose actions might determine how the situation will unfold. This is similar to what happened in Armenia after the 2020 war. It’s only a temporary solution, but it provides an effective set of tools for the near future. 

Many analysts urge that Russia should follow the example of the US and the EU, approaching “all stakeholders,” placating the opposition and shaping the balance of power favorable to Moscow in key states, but they do not take into account the fact that each political culture has its own strengths and weaknesses. In reality, Moscow does not know how to do this – it never did – and when it tried, it always failed. The ideal scenario for Russia is to have a military safeguard there that could spare it the headache of having to deal with complex local political life. In other words, no matter who wins, they would have to act with Russian military presence in mind and not disregard the country’s long-standing partner altogether.

About four or five years ago, what we call the post-Soviet space entered a crucially important stage when these countries had to prove that they were fully functional sovereign states. Back in 1991, they were recognized as such simply because the USSR collapsed rather than for any other reason. While their respective comings of age took different forms, the wider context was the same, with significant interest both from Russia and the West, and some on the regional level, but to a lesser degree. External players fighting over the post-Soviet space became a destabilizing factor, but it lent a certain logic to the developments and made them part of larger international processes.

However, at a certain point, political heavyweights started losing interest in whatever was happening in the “new independent states,” as they were referred to in the 1990s. Amid global shifts, international powers became more and more focused on their own ever-growing list of problems. They didn’t exactly turn away from the former Soviet states, but they started spending much less of their time and resources on them. This goes for Russia too, even though it has a special status in this configuration, and it was looking for optimal forms of influence in the context of its shrinking sphere of interests.

So the political landscape in the former Soviet states has been shaped through internal processes that reflected the interactions between the various actors involved, the local political culture and social structure.

There is also the fact that a new political generation is entering politics across the post-Soviet space and in some cases challenging older leaders.

These changes are not brought about by external influence. Foreign players have to react to them, intervene or threaten to intervene, as they did in Belarus, adapt and try to make it all work in their favor, but the final result depends on how mature and efficient a country’s new social and political systems are rather than on any foreign patrons.

This is an acid test, and not all countries will pass it. Armenia’s case shows that the consequences for a nation can be dire (and it’s not quite over yet), even though the dominant idea there was that, some glaring problems aside, the country had a strong identity and could successfully mobilize its resources and survive when faced with an old adversary. Kazakhstan might also turn out to be an example of how a long-cultivated façade of success is actually hiding a deeply problematic and twisted core. And this case is definitely not going to be the last.

This is the first time Russia is using an institution it controls to pursue its own political goals. Until now, it seemed that such structures were purely ornamental. It’s clear that the CSTO peacekeepers deployed to Kazakhstan will be made up mainly of Russian troops. First of all, that guarantees an effective response. Secondly, while Kazakhstan can agree to have Russian troops on its soil, Armenian or, say, Kyrgyz forces are absolutely out of the question. Still, using the coalition brand gives Moscow more opportunities and additionally justifies the existence of this alliance. Time will tell whether any other CSTO member states will face a Kazakh scenario, but the precedent has been set. 

With Russia-US talks on security issues around the corner, this is a timely reminder that Moscow can make swift and unorthodox military and political decisions to influence the events in its sphere of interests. The larger this construct, the bigger the shouldered responsibility becomes, of course, including the responsibility for the developments in the countries where troubles are far from over. Of course, Moscow would have to deal with any fallout from these troubles anyway, and it’s easier to do so proactively and through a variety of tools at hand.

What is clear is that while branding the demonstrators foreign “terrorists” has allowed the Kazakh government to bring in heavyweight support from abroad, it has booted the conflict firmly into the international arena. It’s not yet clear what consequences this could have for the post-Soviet space, or for the world.

Russophobia - Skripal Poisoning Handling Leaves Room for Manipulation

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UK Defense ministry document reveals Skripals blood samples

could have been manipulated

By Dilyana Gaytandzhieva - Dilyana.BG

September 3, 20210

Incredible transformation: Yulia Skripal (left) following the alleged poisoning with the deadliest known nerve agent Novichok. Yulia and her father Sergei Skripal (right) before the alleged nerve agent poisoning.

New evidence has emerged of gross violations during the UK investigation into the alleged poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury on 4th March 2018. The new revelations put into question the main evidence that the Skripals were poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok.

The blood samples taken from the Skripals could have been tampered with so that they test positive for Novichok, newly disclosed information obtained from the UK Ministry of Defense reveals. Furthermore, documents show that Russia was not the only country in the world that could be linked to the nerve agent Novichok.

The US had covered up its own Novichok program masked as research on fourth generation nerve agents (FGAs) and muzzled the Organisation for the prohibition of chemical weapons (OPCW) a decade before the Skripals attack.

Breach of chain of custody

Newly disclosed information obtained from the UK Ministry of Defense (MOD) under the Freedom of Information Act questions the integrity of the main evidence that the Skripals were poisoned with Novichok, namely their blood samples. The ministry is in charge of the British military laboratory DSTL Porton Down which analyzed the Skripals blood samples and reportedly identified Novichok.

“Our searches have failed to locate any information that provides the exact time that the samples were collected”, the ministry states. The information held by MOD therefore indicates that the samples were collected at some point between 16:15 on 4 March 2018 and 18:45 on 5 March 2018 (the approximate time according to MOD when the samples arrived at DSTL Porton Down). Even the time of arrival at Porton Down is indicated as “approximate”.

The lack of this information is gross violation and breach of the chain of custody. The UK NHS protocol requires that a request form accompany all specimens sent to the laboratory and clearly state the exact (not approximate) date and time of collection. This newly disclosed information questions the whole Skripals Novichok poisoning story. The fact that the chain of custody of these blood samples was broken directly suggests that they could have been manipulated and tampered with.

There is so much more on this story, some of it a little technical. There is also some reference to the Navalny poisoning. Read it at DILYANA.BG. 

Russophobia - And the Organizations That Create It

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US regime-change agency NED admits its role in the strife in Belarus, but leaked documents also implicate the UK Foreign Office

21 May, 2021 07:50

FILE PHOTO. Demonstration to protest against presidential election results, in Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus. © Reuters / Vasily Fedosenko; (inset) Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. © Wikipedia

By Kit Klarenberg, an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. 'Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg

The full extent of Western meddling in Belarus prior to the country’s contested August 2020 election may never be known. Yet the outlines of a wide-ranging foreign effort to destabilize the government are becoming ever clearer.

As RT reported earlier this week, a pair of Russian pranksters posing as Belarusian opposition figures have duped high-ranking representatives of US regime-change arm the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) into exposing the extent of Washington’s clandestine involvement in the unrest that erupted across the country throughout 2020.

Among other bombshell disclosures, Nina Ognianova, who oversees the NED’s work with local groups in the country, suggested “a lot of the people” who were “trained” and “educated” via the organization’s various endeavors there were pivotal to “the events, or the build-up to the events, of last summer.”

Long-time NED chief Carl Gershman – who in September 2013, less than six months prior to the coup that shifted Kiev’s political orientation, dubbed Ukraine “the biggest prize” for Washington – added that his organization was working with controversial opposition figure Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and her team “very, very closely.” In all, the agency bankrolled at least 159 civil society initiatives in Belarus, costing $7,690,689, from 2016 to 2020 alone.

The team’s unguarded comments represent a rare public admission of the insidious, destabilizing role played by the NED – in 1991, its then-president acknowledged, “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” However, leaked UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) files indicate that the US is far from the only foreign power attempting to undermine the country’s government.

Happy birthday, international spying network! Britain’s GCHQ and America’s NSA hail 75th anniversary of their alliance

In 2017, then-Prime Minister Theresa May unveiled a £100 million kitty, ostensibly for battling Kremlin disinformation. In practice, internal FCDO files leaked by hacktivist collective Anonymous made clear the effort was primarily concerned with “weakening the Russian state’s influence,” particularly in its “near abroad.” As a close neighbor and arguably most important ally of Moscow, Belarus was unsurprisingly very much in the FCDO’s crosshairs.

In January of that year, Whitehall commissioned an extensive analysis of Belarusian citizens’ perceptions, motivations, and habits, in order to “identify opportunities” to “appropriately communicate” with them. In particular, London was interested in “existing or potential grievances against their national government” that could be exploited, and “channels and messages” by which the UK government could “appropriately engage with different sub-groups.”

The analysis was conducted by shadowy FCDO contractor Albany Associates, which has, in recent years, also conducted numerous information warfare operations in the Baltic states, in order to “develop greater affinity” among the region’s Russian-speaking minority for the UK, European Union and NATO. While carrying out another Whitehall-funded project targeted at Moscow, the firm closely collaborated with NED-connected French NGO IREX Europe.

An accompanying bio notes IREX has been working in Belarus since 2006 “with print, online and radio outlets,” to “improve the quality of their coverage,” and “increase their understanding of the EU and EU member states.” As part of its youth audience offering in the country, the organization was said to have founded the Warsaw-based Euroradio, along with online outlet 34mag.

Footage produced by Euroradio of violent crackdowns on protesters in Minsk was regularly aired by the Western media, including the BBC, during the strife. The outlet even specifically amplified calls from the British state broadcaster for activists to submit pictures and videos for use in news coverage. Franak Viacorka – an Atlantic Council senior fellow, and now senior advisor to Svetlana Tikhanovskaya – prominently hailed its “fearless” reporting of the upheaval.

Euroradio also repeatedly crops up in documents related to the Open Information Partnership (OIP), which is the “flagship” strand within Whitehall’s multi-pronged propaganda assault on Russia. Bankrolled by the FCDO to the tune of £10 million, the organization maintains a network of 44 partners across Central and Eastern Europe, including “journalists, charities, think tanks, academics, NGOs, activists, and factcheckers.” One of the collective’s primary, covert objectives is influencing “elections taking place in countries of particular interest” to the FCDO.

The classified files make clear the OIP has engaged in numerous astroturfing initiatives throughout the region, helping organizations and individuals produce slick propaganda masquerading as independent citizen journalism, which is then amplified globally via its network.

For instance, in Ukraine, the OIP worked with a 12-strong group of online ‘influencers’ “to counter Kremlin-backed messaging through innovative editorial strategies, audience segmentation, and production models that reflected the complex and sensitive political environment,” in the process allowing them to “reach wider audiences with compelling content that received over four million views.”

In Russia and Central Asia, the OIP established a covert network of YouTubers, helping them create videos “promoting media integrity and democratic values.” Participants were also taught how to “make and receive international payments without being registered as external sources of funding” and “develop editorial strategies to deliver key messages,” while the consortium minimized their “risk of prosecution” and managed “project communications” to ensure the existence of the network, and indeed the OIP’s role, were kept “confidential.”

It would be entirely unsurprising if similar efforts were being undertaken in Belarus. After all, the country – along with Moldova and Ukraine – is referred to in the leaked documents as “the most vital space in the entire network,” and a “high-impact priority” for London, suggesting its 2020 election was very much “of interest” to Whitehall. If so, it would likewise be entirely unsurprising if many of the alleged so-called citizen journalists and media outlets covering the unrest in Minsk received funding and training from the OIP.

All along, too, MEMO 98, an OIP member coincidentally also funded by NED, kept a close eye on the incendiary proceedings, publishing several analyses of media coverage and social media activity related to the protests. It drew particular attention to the output of Belsat TV, a Warsaw-based channel – founded in December 2007 by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it seeks to influence political change in Belarus. MEMO 98 praised the station’s “extensive coverage of protests and related intimidation of activists.”

Strikingly, the leaked FCDO files indicate that Belsat TV received intensive, Whitehall-financed support from the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the newswire’s international “charitable” wing, including 150 days’ consultancy in improving “TV output quality and audience reach.”

While the protests have largely fizzled out in recent months, and Svetlana Tikhanovskaya’s calls for Western leaders to recognise her as the legitimate president of Belarus continue to fall on deaf ears, there are clear signs many other media platforms in Belarus receive life-giving sponsorship from London to this day.

In March 2021, the FCDO published an update on the progress of its global ‘Media Freedom Campaign’, which revealed that, over the past year, Whitehall had allocated £950,000 in financing to Belarusian news outlets, enabling them to “remain open and maintain a functional level of equipment.”

“Without this support, they would otherwise have been forced to close by government measures,” the document stated. “The funding has saved jobs and ensured that independent media can still hold the government to account during a period of increasingly violent action by the security forces.”

Evidently, even during a global pandemic, the regime-change show must go on – and the UK government is committed to ensuring people the world over continue to receive a steady deluge of slanted agitprop from the streets of Minsk, in order to turn public opinion against the government not only of Belarus, but of Russia too.

Lest anyone call me communist, or something worse, for criticizing the UK, USA, NATO, etc for the relentless efforts to demonize Russia, may it be known that for the first decade and part of the 2nd decade in this century, I was persuaded that Putin was determined to re-create the old Russia, or perhaps the USSR with himself as Czar.

In the past few years, I have begun to think that he has outgrown that adolescent dream and is now more on the defensive than offensive as the west has become very offensive in its pursuit of Russia's neighbours. That, in itself, might be a good thing, but it is still 'playing a game' that feeds military industrial manufacturers, creating a spectacular waste of money. 

It's time for key players to grow past adolescence and start helping each other instead of threatening to destroy each other. It's time to grow up! What do you think the odds are of that happening?

The Media is the Message - BBCs influence in the demonizing of Russia exposed by Anonymous

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Leaked files indicate UK state media engaged in anti-Moscow information warfare operations in Eastern Europe

11 Mar, 2021 09:10

FILE PHOTO: The main entrance to the BBC headquarters and studios in Portland Place, London, Britain, July 16, 2015

©  REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

By Kit Klarenberg, an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.

New documents raise serious questions about how well-deserved British state broadcaster BBC’s 'unimpeachable' reputation is, and also what impact its relationship with the UK government has on its supposedly ‘impartial’ output.

Within a tranche of secret UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) papers, recently leaked by hacktivist collective Anonymous, are files indicating that BBC Media Action (BBCMA) – the outlets ‘charitable’ arm – plays a central role in Whitehall-funded and directed psyops initiatives targeted at Russia.

American journalist Max Blumenthal has comprehensively exposed how, at the FCDO’s behest, BBCMA covertly cultivated Russian journalists, established influence networks within and outside Russia, and promoted pro-Whitehall, anti-Moscow propaganda in Russian-speaking areas.

However, the newly released files reveal BBCMA also offered to lead a dedicated FCDO program, named 'Independent Media in Eastern Partnership Countries' and targeted at Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. This endeavor forms part of a wider £100 million ($138.9 million) effort waged by London to demonize, destabilize and isolate Russia, at home and abroad.

A Whitehall tender indicates that under the auspices of the project, set to cost a staggering £9 million ($12.5 million) from 2018 to 2021, participating contractors are charged with crafting “innovative… media interventions” targeting individuals throughout the region, via “radio, independent social media channels, and traditional outlets.”

Further detail was offered by FCDO Counter Disinformation & Media Development (CDMD) chief Andy Pryce at a June 2018 meeting with prospective suppliers.

He made it clear that the effort’s ultimate goal was to “weaken the Russian state's influence,” via the co-option of journalists and media organizations in target countries via funding, training, and surreptitious production of anti-Russian, pro-Western content. “Girls on HBO… but in Ukraine” was, bizarrely, one suggested example of such activity.

In response, BBCMA submitted extensive proposals, in conjunction with Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF), the global newswire’s “non-profit” wing, and since-collapsed veteran FCDO contractor Aktis Strategy.

The project was to be managed and coordinated directly by BBCMA from BBC Broadcasting House headquarters in London, with local support provided by Reuters newswire offices in Kiev and Tbilisi, and Ukraine’s Independent Association of Broadcasters.

A dedicated board, comprised of representatives of the contractors involved, the FCDO’s CDMD program, and British embassies in the target countries, would also meet privately every quarter to discuss the operation’s progress. Publicly, Whitehall’s funding and direction of the vast project was intended to be completely hidden.

The consortium boasted of having an existing “strong profile” in Eastern Partnership countries, and conducting “broad consultations” with a number of major news outlets, media organizations and journalists in the region in advance of its pitch.

For example, the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (UA:PBC) had been approached and offered “essential support,” aimed at “improving its existing programs” and “developing new and innovative formats for factual and non-news programs.”

BBCMA was moreover said to be “already” working on building the capacity of Kiev-based Hromadske TV, and wished to use the FCDO program to extend this assistance to “co-productions” and “building support to Hromadske Radio.”

Launched with initial funding from the American and Dutch embassies in Ukraine, Hromadske began broadcasting in November 2013 on the very day Viktor Yanukovich’s administration suspended preparations for the signing of an association agreement with the European Union, and went on to extensively cover the resultant Euromaidan protests, which eventually unseated the government the next year.

It subsequently received support from Pierre Omidyar, billionaire founder of The Intercept, who bankrolled a number of opposition groups in the country prior to the coup. In July 2014, Hromadske anchor Danylo Yanevsky abruptly terminated an interview with a Human Rights Watch representative after she consistently refused to blame Russia for civilian casualties in the Donbas conflict, despite his repeated demands.

Beyond dedicated news platforms, the consortium also pledged to enlist “local” and “hyperlocal” media outlets, as well as “freelancer journalists,” bloggers and “vloggers” for its information warfare efforts.

BBCMA argued “journalism education” locally would be a “long-term investment” – in other words, the identification, cultivation, and grooming of a network of reporters in the countries who could be relied upon to take the Whitehall line in future.

As such, the organization sought to establish a journalism training center in Gagauzia, Moldova in collaboration with NGO Media birlii – Uniunia. The autonomous region, bordered by Ukraine’s Odessa Oblast, was said to be home to “six TV companies, four radio stations, six newspapers and five web portals” potentially ripe for influence and infiltration by BBCMA – and in turn, the FCDO.

In Georgia, BBCMA visited the offices of Adjara TV“to discuss training priorities and possible co-productions.” The station was reportedly interested in developing “youth programming,” which represented “a gap in the market” in the country.

In June 2020, Georgia’s Coalition for Media Advocacy slammed Adjara for its “persecution” of “outspoken journalists expressing dissenting opinions,” after it fired newsroom chief Shorena Glonti.

Strikingly, the Coalition is funded by US regime-change agency, the National Endowment for Democracy, which supports numerous anti-Moscow initiatives worldwide. Perhaps Glonti had been too well-trained in “weakening the Russian state” for the broadcaster’s liking.

The consortium furthermore proposed to tutor and support “independent” online Georgian news outlets, including Batumelebi, iFact, Liberali, Monitor, Netgazeti, and Reginfo.

Estonia’s Digital Communications Network – financed by the US State Department – would be central to these efforts, offering lessons in “building online audiences, innovative business models and reaching out to breakaway regions susceptible to Kremlin narratives.”

The importance of “target audiences in breakaway regions” is outlined in another file, which explicitly states that the consortium would work closely with “independent outlets in proximity of non-government-controlled areas of Donbas in Ukraine, Transnistria in Moldova and Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia.”

This undertaking aimed to counter the output of “separatist” media, and thus manipulate “hard-to-reach audiences,” which was “critical to achieving the project’s objectives.”

Any and all support covertly provided under the program was to be thoroughly intimate indeed, with “mentors” from the consortium “embedded” in target organizations, in order to provide “bespoke support across editorial, production and wider management systems and processes as well as on the co-production of content.”

These “mentors” include current and former BBC journalists.

“Our ability to recruit talented and experienced BBC staff is a great asset which will be harnessed for this initiative,” BBCMA promised.

These individuals may have been central to program efforts, if BBCMA’s pitch to the FCDO was accepted. For instance, UA:PBC was said to be “very interested” in receiving help from BBCMA to develop a “new debate show” and “discussion programming” to “enable audiences to think critically about the process and choices,” “counter disinformation” and “dispel rumors.”

Lofty objectives indeed, although commitments to nurturing analytical skills, thinking and debunking propaganda ring rather hollow when one considers the station’s output was perceived to be so overwhelmingly biased in favor of the government, opposition candidate Volodymyr Zelensky boycotted the channel’s official election debate during the 2019 presidential election.

BBCMA also proposed to establish an “independent” news platform in Ukraine, “timed for the run up to the 2019 election,” which would publish “vetted news content” freely syndicated to local and national media.

If the approach in Kiev was “successful,” the consortium would replicate the exercise in Georgia for the country’s 2020 election. Strikingly, the proposal brags of TRF’s experience establishing such platforms elsewhere, for example “the award-winning Aswat Masriya” in Egypt.

Other leaked files indicate the endeavor, founded after the 2011 revolution in Cairo, was secretly funded by the FCDO to the tune of £2 million ($2.8 million) over six years, and run out of Reuters’ Egyptian offices.

Over its lifespan, Aswat Masriya “became Egypt’s leading independent local media organization” and one of the most-visited websites in the country, providing news in English and Arabic, which was syndicated widely the world over. Its true, clandestine purpose seems to have been granting London a degree of narrative control over news coverage as events unfolded in the country, during its difficult and ultimately ill-fated transition to democracy.

That BBCMA likewise intended to use news coverage to influence politics in Eastern Partnership countries is amply underlined in the newly leaked files, with the organization pledging to “encourage” local news outlets to meet with “local stakeholders,” including lawmakers and community leaders, in order to “cement the media as a key governance actor.”

The organization furthermore sought to “foster a debate” in target nations, by producing wide-ranging analysis of the media environment therein. Its “long track record” of comparable efforts in “diverse” countries, including those “experiencing Arab uprisings,” had allegedly “shifted government policy.”

One objective of these lobbying efforts was achieving “a more enabling operating environment” for “independent” media in the target countries – i.e. ensuring regulations in the region were suitably conducive to and protective of the FCDO’s secret army of information warfare agents, to allow them to prosper for the duration of the consortium’s three-year offensive, and “post intervention.”

It’s not yet clear if BBCMA was successful in its pitch, and if so, which BBC journalists contributed to the program and as a result are implicated directly in cloak-and-dagger attempts to shape politics and perceptions in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine for London’s benefit.

It’s also unknown whether their commitment to fulfilling the FCDO’s objective of undermining Moscow, and furthering Whitehall’s interests, truly ends when they return to their day jobs as “objective,” “neutral” purveyors of news.

As BBCMA boasts in its pitch, the BBC is “well-known and highly regarded” in the Eastern Partnership countries, and provides “millions of viewers, listeners and online users in the region with world-class news on a daily basis.” At the very least, the leaked files make clear that neither the British state broadcaster, nor its FCDO paymasters, has any qualms about exploiting that standing and perceived credibility for malign ends.

Will the Demonization of Russia By America and NATO Continue, or Get Worse Under Biden? Brilliant Op-Ed

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Knowing ‘liberal international order’ needs Russia as enemy to galvanize West,

Moscow braces for aggressive Biden foreign policy

22 Jan 2021 13:47

FILE PHOTO. © Sputnik / Vladimir Astapkovich

By Glenn Diesen, Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway, and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal. Follow him on Twitter @glenndiesen

Donald Trump’s efforts to reduce the ideologically driven base of US foreign policy fuelled great resentment among those who believed it betrayed Washington’s leadership position in the so-called “liberal international order.”

Now that power has changed, will the pendulum swing in the opposite direction, with Joe Biden’s administration applying a radical ideological foreign policy?

A recent article by Michael McFaul, once Barack Obama’s ambassador to Russia and a noted ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy theorist, indicates what such an ideological foreign policy would look like. McFaul’s article, ‘How to Contain Putin’s Russia’, makes a case for a containment policy.

Containment: learning from the past or living in the past?

To advance his argument, McFaul quotes George Kennan, the author of the Long Telegram and architect of erstwhile US containment policy against the Soviet Union. McFaul suggests that Kennan’s advocacy for a “patient but firm and vigilant containment” against the revolutionary Bolshevik regime 75 years ago remains as valid as ever.

It would have made more sense to quote Kennan when he condemned NATO expansionism and predicted it would trigger another Cold War. As Kennan noted: “there was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves.”

Kennan continued to express disbelief over the rhetoric by the misinformed US leadership, presenting “Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don’t people understand? Our differences in the Cold War were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.” Kennan then went on to correctly predict that, when Russia would eventually react to US provocations, the NATO expanders would wrongfully blame Russia.

Ideologues often have nostalgia for the Cold War, when the bipolar power distribution was supported by a clear and comfortable ideological divide. The Western bloc represented capitalism, Christianity, and democracy, while the Eastern bloc represented communism, atheism, and authoritarianism. This ideological divide supported internal cohesion within the Western bloc and drew clear borders with the adversary.

The liberal international order has attempted to recast the former capitalist-communist divide with a liberal-authoritarian divide. However, the ideological incompatibility between American liberalism and Russian conservatism is less convincing. For example, McFaul cautions against Putin’s nefarious conservative ideology committed to “Christian, traditional family values” that threatens the liberal international order.

The new ideological divide nonetheless advances neo-McCarthyism in the West. McFaul presents a list of European conservatives and populists that should be treated as American conservatives, purged from political life as enemies of the liberal international order and thus possible agents of Russia. Hillary Clinton even suggested that the Capitol Hill riots were possibly coordinated by Trump and Putin – yes, Russiagate is here to stay. The solution, for McFaul, is for American tech oligarchs to manipulate algorithms to protect populations from Russian-friendly media.

An American ideological project

McFaul cautions against what he refers to as “Putin’s ideological project” as a threat to the liberal international order. Yet he is reluctant to recognize that the liberal international order is an American ideological project for the post-Cold War era.

With no sign of US returning to fold, Russia is preparing to withdraw from 'Open Skies' treaty - Foreign Ministry

After the Cold War, liberal ideologues advanced what was seemingly a benign proposition – suggesting that liberal democracy should be at the center of security strategies. However, by linking liberal norms to US leadership, liberalism became both a constitutional principle and an international hegemonic norm.

NATO is presented as a community of liberal values – without mentioning that its second largest member, Turkey, is more conservative and authoritarian than Russia – and Moscow does not, therefore, have any legitimate reasons to oppose expansionism unless it fears democracy. If Russia reacts negatively to military encirclement, it is condemned as an enemy of democracy, and NATO has a moral responsibility to revert to its original mission as a military bloc containing Russia.

Case in point: there was nobody in Moscow advocating for the reunification with Crimea until the West supported the coup in Ukraine. Yet, as Western “fact checkers” and McFaul inform us, there was a “democratic revolution” and not a coup. Committed to his ideological prism, McFaul suggests that Russia acted out of a fear of having a democracy on its borders, as it would give hope to Russians and thus threaten the Kremlin. McFaul’s ideological lens masks conflicting national security interests, and it fails to explain why Russia does not mind democratic neighbors in the east, such as South Korea and Japan, with whom it enjoys good relations.

Defending the peoples

States aspiring for global hegemony have systemic incentives to embrace ideologies that endow them with the right to defend other peoples. The French National Convention declared in 1792 that France would “come to the aid of all peoples who are seeking to recover their liberty,” and the Bolsheviks proclaimed in 1917 “the duty to render assistance, armed, if necessary, to the fighting proletariat of the other countries.”

The American liberal international order similarly aims to liberate the people of the world with “democracy promotion” and “humanitarian interventionism” when it conveniently advances US primacy. The American ideological project infers that democracy is advanced by US interference in the domestic affairs of Russia, while democracy is under attack if Russia interferes in the domestic affairs of US. The liberal international system is one of sovereign inequality to advance global primacy.

McFaul does not consider himself a Russophobe, as believes his attacks against Russia are merely motivated by the objective of liberating Russians from their government, which is why he advocates that Biden “distinguish between Russia and Russians – between Putin and the Russian people.” This has been the modus operandi for regime change since the end of the Cold War – the US supposedly does not attack countries to advance its interests, it only altruistically assists foreign peoples in rival states against their leaders such as Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin etc.

McFaul and other liberal ideologues still refer to NATO as a “defensive alliance,” which does not make much sense after the attacks on Yugoslavia in 1999 or Libya in 2011. However, under the auspices of liberal internationalism, NATO is defensive, as it defends the people of the world. Russia, therefore, doesn’t have rational reasons for opposing the liberal international order.

McFaul condemns alleged efforts by Russia to interfere in the domestic affairs of the US, before outlining his strategies for interfering in the domestic affairs of Russia. McFaul blames Russian paranoia for shutting down American “non-governmental organizations” that are funded by the US government and staffed by people linked to the US security apparatus. He goes on to explain that the US government must counter this by establishing new “non-government organizations” to educate the Russian public about the evils of their government.

The dangerous appeal of ideologues

Ideologues have always been dangerous to international security. Ideologies of human freedom tend to promise perpetual peace. Yet, instead of transcending power politics, the ideals of human freedom are linked directly to hegemonic power by the self-proclaimed defender of the ideology. When ideologues firmly believe that the difference between the current volatile world and utopia can be bridged by defeating its opponents, it legitimizes radical power politics.

Consequently, there is no sense of irony among the McFauls of the world as US security strategy is committed to global dominance, while berating Russia for “revisionism.” Raymond Aaron once wrote: “Idealistic diplomacy slips too often into fanaticism; it divides states into good and evil, into peace-loving and bellicose. It envisions a permanent peace by the punishment of the latter and the triumph of the former. The idealist, believing he has broken with power politics, exaggerates its crimes.”