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.

Lavrov - Russian Foreign Minister Agrees That NATO's Raison d'être is to Maintain Tensions With Russia

Fighting Russia has become an existential necessity for NATO, if tensions are reduced alliance has no purpose – Russia FM Lavrov

Admittedly, this article comes from RT (RussiaToday), which is blatantly nationalistic.

However, what Lavrov is saying is what I have been saying for several years now,

even before I had ever heard of RT. It's just that obvious.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov © Sputnik / Press service of the Russian foreign Ministry

Confrontation with Russia has become the sole reason for NATO’s existence, and this encourages instability in Europe, creating artificial dividing lines on the continent. That's according to Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.

The veteran diplomat told the Moscow daily Trud that everyone knows there are no real threats to security in Europe but that NATO needs to invent them in order to keep itself relevant. Lavrov also drew attention to the fact that Russia has repeatedly proposed measures to reduce tensions and reduce the risk of incidents on the continent.

A Reading Error, or Freudian Slip? - Esper Says NATO Must 'Avoid Peace' in Europe

The Real Bill Browder Story (part one): What US/UK Media Won’t Tell You About Billionaire Lobbyist’s Dubious Narrative

“Now, just like during the Cold War, fighting Russia on all fronts, including information and propaganda, has become the alliance’s reason for existence,” he explained. “NATO has deployed extensive resources on the eastern flank, near our borders, including conducting exercises and improving military infrastructure.”

“The alliance continues to expand its area of military and political influence, inviting all new countries under its ‘umbrella’ under the pretext of protecting them from Russia,” he added.

Lavrov further explained that the alliance adheres to the line of “containment and dialogue” in relations with Russia, although “as a result, there is practically no place for a real and open dialogue on pressing problems.”

In the same interview, the foreign minister accused Ukrainian authorities of not hiding their desire to use the conflict in the Donbass to preserve European Union sanctions pressure on Russia, by not fulfilling their obligations under the Minsk Agreements.

According to him, Kiev takes advantage of the fact that the EU continues to link the issue of improving relations between the bloc and Russia with the implementation of the Minsk agreements, to which Russia is not a party. “Alas, this artificial and short-sighted link persists to this day – to the great satisfaction of the Kiev authorities, which not only do not fulfill their obligations under the Minsk Package of Measures, but also make no secret of their desire to use the unresolved conflict to maintain sanctions pressure against Russia,” Lavrov said.

He added that any questions about the prospects for improving relations between Moscow and Brussels should be addressed to colleagues from the EU, who initiated curtailing cooperation.

I have doubts that while trying to convince Europe and America that He is not dangerous, that Putin would authorize a pathetic attempt to poison Alexie Navalny. He may be an annoyance to Putin, but he is certainly no danger. Political enemies and NATO itself would have a far better reason to poison Navalny, if, in fact, he was poisoned. 

Nemtsov's Daughter Chased out of Russia

From BBC Europe

Zhanna Nemtsova has been working as a TV journalist
for an independent TV station in Moscow

A daughter of murdered Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov has accused pro-Kremlin media of spreading hateful propaganda, and says she has left Russia to live in exile.

Zhanna Nemtsova told the BBC that she had received threats, and this was one of the reasons behind her departure.

In a newspaper column, she said Russian propaganda echoed the era of genocide in Nazi Germany and Rwanda.

Mr Nemtsov, a leading Kremlin critic, was shot dead in Moscow in February.

Five suspects have been arrested over the killing, all of them from the Russian republic of Chechnya. However, the investigation has not established who ordered the murder, and one of the suspects has said he was forced to make a confession.

Several critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin have left the country over the last few years, complaining of intimidation and authoritarianism.

A close friend of Mr Nemtsov, Vladimir Kara-Murza, was admitted to hospital with acute kidney failure last month. Doctors have not established a cause and his father told the BBC he suspected poisoning.

Mourners pay tribute to Boris Nemtsov in Moscow on 7 March 2015
Boris Nemtsov was murdered as he walked along a bridge in central Moscow

In a column for business daily Vedomosti, Ms Nemtsova said state-controlled media in Russia had contributed to her father's death by labelling him and other opposition leaders "traitors".

She accused pro-Kremlin journalists of spreading hatred and intolerance, and urged the West to impose sanctions against those involved.

"Many of the texts of Kremlin-controlled media recall the rhetoric of African propagandists," she wrote.

"Putin's information machine - similar to those in Nazi Germany and Rwanda - is using criminal methods of propaganda, and sowing hatred which generates violence and terror."

Inside Russia - Fears of Returning to Soviet Era

Caroline Wyatt
BBC Magazine

If Russia is alarming its neighbours with its actions in Ukraine and its anti-Western rhetoric, many of its own people are also uncomfortable with the prevailing atmosphere of bellicose nationalism. Some are preparing to leave, discovers the BBC's Caroline Wyatt, a former Moscow correspondent - and some have already left.

Moscow is at its loveliest in May, when the usually forbidding expanse of Red Square is bathed in sunshine, and the delicate scent of lilac fills the air around the crazy ice-cream spirals of St Basil's Cathedral. Tourists from across the Russian Federation take smiling family photographs in front of the church built to mark Ivan the Terrible's military conquests.

Boris Nemptsov
murdered opposition leader

The rocket launchers and martial might on display to celebrate Victory Day in Europe have all gone. And instead of marching bands, the ethereal sounds of an Orthodox church choir fill the square, and visitors stop to listen. The only reminder that all is not quite as sunny as it seems is the shrine of flowers on the bridge, the fresh summer bunches left with handwritten notes - in memory of the Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, shot dead on this same spot just a few months ago.

I meet an old friend for coffee on the terrace of what was once the empty Soviet department store GUM. Now it's a temple to consumerism that wouldn't feel out of place in Paris, London or Milan. The shop windows bloom with pastel-coloured dresses from all the luxury brands. I can hardly conceal my surprise when the waiter wishes me a good day with a smile that even looks as though he means it.

I hardly know this place, it feels so different. The streets are no longer pot-holed, nor choked with traffic. There's a new confidence visible in the way people walk. And despite Western sanctions over Ukraine, the supermarket shelves are still full, and the cafes too.

Yet as we sit over coffee, reminiscing about the Moscow of old, I'm suddenly reminded of the past as my friend looks around to make sure that nobody can hear.

"I've sent my family to live abroad," he tells me. "It's better that way. I've sold everything, and now I commute. The health service here is crumbling, and so are schools. Sanctions have started to bite, but it's not that - it's the political atmosphere. It's stifling and it's getting worse. Nobody knows what will happen next, but it doesn't feel like a good place for the liberals."

I resist the temptation to make a joke, to lighten the mood... Liberals on the run, worries about the health service? Why, it sounds just like the UK. But my friend isn't laughing - and nor am I, as I remember his optimism about his country's future 15 long years ago. For this highly educated man to send his family abroad was not a step taken lightly.

Later, I meet Olya in a park, and we sit on a bench dappled by the early summer sunshine. It's warm, but getting muggier. The wisps of cloud carry the ominous grey tinge of an oncoming storm. Olya, too, has a sadness in her eyes as she talks about preparing to emigrate - if she can. She's also eminently well-qualified, another middle-class Muscovite with a decent job and good prospects. For Olya, it's not economic fears that make her want to leave, but a gathering sense of unease.

"I don't know if you in England know the story about the frog, who sits in a pan of warm water on the top of the stove. He's happy. And then someone lights the stove beneath, and gradually, the water gets hotter. The frog is happy, he's comfortable. But soon the water will boil - and he probably won't get out in time because he doesn't realise what's happening. I'm scared of being that frog - trapped in a boiling pot, unable to get out."

I love my country - but sometimes my country is hard to love,
Tanya

Olya's fears grew as the troubles in Ukraine spiralled into conflict, causing blazing rows that split her family - and many others too. "Some believe America will use what's happening in Ukraine to attack Russia - and they say that we should attack first because that's the best defence," she tells me.

"All I want is to find a place on earth where everyone knows the law and abides by it, and where there isn't corruption. I'm so sick of it. And I'm tired of arguing about Ukraine. What's happening there is insane, and it's terrifying that it could lead to a full-scale war. All I want is a small patch of land where there's peace and quiet."

I'm reminded of those conversations when I hear President Putin respond to the corruption allegations against Fifa. He blames America for what he seems to see as politically motivated arrests aimed at taking the World Cup away from Russia in 2018.

I ask another friend, Tanya, what she makes of it all. "That bellicose form of patriotism is everywhere in Russia today," she says, speaking softly as she drags deeply on her cigarette.

Soldiers singing on Red Square during Victory Parade, VE Day, May 2015

"You hear it all the time on the news. Everything is interpreted as being aimed against Russia. It's absurd. Americans don't spend their lives scheming against us, but the authorities here think and talk as though they do. And many believe it. The rhetoric today is like something from another era - the Soviet era. I feel as though we're asked every day to make a choice between being true patriots or leaving Russia.

Communist paranoia about western countries - US, UK, Germany, etc., constant plotting to overthrow Russia and destroy communism worked well for about 70 years. The KGB and it's predecessors deliberately planted that paranoia in Stalin and his successors in order to build their massive intelligence empire. They were so successful that even the KGB came to believe that it was true. Vladimir Putin was a KGB agent, and I believe he is still suffering from the conspiracy paranoia.

If the west had any interest in attacking Russia they would have done so when the USSR was crumbling and Russia was broke and in chaos. There is just no sense in invading a country the size of Russia, it would be impossible to defend either from within or without. We still remember Napoleon and Hitler! The west is not interested in attacking Russia, but as long as the Kremlin believes it does, Russia will suffer unnecessarily in myriad ways.

Napoleonic retreat from Russia

"I'm not leaving. I'm Russian and I love my country. But sometimes my country is hard to love." Tanya and her husband are putting money aside for their daughters so in a few years time the girls can travel and perhaps study abroad.

"If our borders are still open then," adds Tanya, with a sigh. "I remember the Soviet Union - we were trapped and we couldn't escape. That's how I grew up. I just hope it doesn't happen again."

Putin's Russian Image Change: Action Man to Mr Ordinary

By Stephen Ennis
BBC Europe

President Putin joined a march on Red Square,
holding a picture of his father in uniform

As viewers watched Russian state TV coverage of Victory Day on 9 May, their eyes will have been drawn to one face in particular among the crowds carrying photographs of family members who took part in the struggle against Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1945.

Among the massed ranks, a portrait of his late father held out in front of him, was President Vladimir Putin.

This surprise appearance amid crowds in Moscow honouring ordinary people who served in World War Two seems to be part of a change of image for the Russian president - portraying him more as a down-to-Earth man of the people, rather than the all-action hero TV viewers have become used to seeing.

For over 30 seconds, TV commentators made no reference to his surprise appearance. But then anchor Vladimir Solovyev supplied the meaning of what was undoubtedly a carefully choreographed media event.

"There were no loud announcements and no commotion. Why?" said Mr Solovyev. "Because this is an amazing event at which politics moves into the background. It is a day when all are equal."

Sounds a little like communism, doesn't it?

President Putin among marchers in Red Square (9 May)

Not everything went completely smoothly.

As the president paused for a short interview surrounded by his security entourage, an old man button-holed him to ask about the benefits he was due as someone affected by the 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl.

'Masterstroke'

The cameras quickly moved away. But Solovyev continued in the same lyrical vein. "Victory Day - everyone is equal. People just come up to the president of the Russian Federation and talk to him."

The message of the people's president was reinforced in other parts of the media. "Putin acted like an ordinary man," proclaimed a headline on the popular news website Gazeta.ru.

Commentator Aleksey Malashenko described it as a political masterstroke.

"I would not be surprised if at that moment the president's rating had reached 100%. Yes, it was populism, but sincere populism," he blogged on the Ekho Moskvy radio station website.

Prezident

Putin as man of the people was also one of the key themes of Prezident, a 150-minute film recently shown on official channel Rossiya 1 to mark the 15th anniversary of the beginning of his rule in 2000.

The film dwelt on the Russian leader's humble origins and his attachment to his late parents.

"He comes from a working family in the suburbs, just like millions of others, millions of his compatriots, same as me, same as you," popular singer Nikolay Rastorguyev said over footage of Putin discussing people's problems in the street.

In the film, President Putin himself stressed that he was not from an "elite background".

"This connection with the people and sense of closeness to them, to ordinary people, are hugely important and a great help to me in my work," he said.

Prezident also featured an episode from 2006 in which Putin visited a coffee shop in Dresden and stood in the corner with his coffee and cake, apparently unnoticed by other customers.

The sequence was shown without commentary as if its only purpose was to reinforce the idea of Putin as the "ordinary man".

In March, Russian TV produced a lavish film on the annexation of Crimea

This portrayal of Putin is in marked contrast to the image of the derring-do hero of the TV stunts for which he has become famous - the bare-chested hunting expeditions, the dive for Greek wine vats in the Black Sea and saving journalists by shooting a Siberian tiger with a tranquilizer, to name but a few.

But it has been some time since Russian TV viewers were treated to Putin in full-blown action-man mode and is a far cry from the image given by a film aired three years ago to mark his 60th birthday.

Prime Minister Putin in 2008

Gone are the outdoor stunts with wild animals

President Putin fishing

Gone, too, is the action man tone of a few years ago

'Lost touch with reality'

That NTV film showed the president working late at night, alone in his office, breakfasting on health foods and swimming and exercising in his private gym, watched over by his beloved black labrador Koni.

Media academic Anna Kachkayeva believes it portrayed a person who "for a long time has been living in the special dimension of power and has, of course, lost touch with reality".

The wish to show President Putin as an "ordinary man" may be related to the political imperatives of Russia's current economic difficulties. But there may also be a more personal element.

At the end of "Prezident", Vladimir Solovyev asks Mr Putin what he has had to give up as leader of his country.

The president sighs deeply, frowns and answers: "A normal, everyday life."

One journalist, Oleg Kashin, suggested the film may have been less about propaganda than psychotherapy.

With the current economic problems in Russia, it is imperative that Putin identify with the people and not be seen as above the level of being affected by the downturn, even though he certainly is. It is brilliant though.

VE-Day Tarnished by New War of Words Between Russia, the West

Once joint celebration has become new high-water mark in 

Cold War II

What if you had a parade and nobody came?

Russian soldiers march in a rehearsal for the Victory Day Parade on May 9,
a national holiday to commemorate the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany

By Brian Stewart,
CBC News 
Only a few years ago it was still possible to imagine Russia and the West coming together to celebrate a shared moment of history — the end of the Second World War in Europe 70 years ago.

That was then. Now we're in a much harsher world in which this week's normal celebratory sentiments have been swept aside by bickering and official snubs as the U.S. and most European leaders make it clear they want nothing to do with Russia's massive military "victory parade" in Red Square on May 9.

There's a stark sadness to such infighting in this of all weeks, which, after all, commemorates the greatest combined achievement of Russia and its war-time allies: their destruction of the genocidal Nazi regime at such enormous sacrifice.

The official surrender took effect late on May 8, but it was already the 9th in Moscow, which explains the later VE-Day there, a national holiday of almost spiritual importance for Russians.

This difference always made it possible for Western leaders to celebrate both anniversaries, first at home and later in Russia. But not this year.

To get a sense of how far relations have soured, consider that a decade ago then U.S. president George W Bush made a point of flying to Moscow to stand with "my friend" Vladimir Putin during the victory parade in order to thank the Russian people directly "for their sacrifice."

Such niceties already seem quaint, part of a brief interregnum before this new Cold War II that we seem to be entering.

Regrets only

In the wake of the Crimea and Ukraine crises and resulting Western sanctions, Europe's leaders certainly don't want to be in Moscow, to be pictured lined up in the shadow of the Kremlin applauding impressive displays of Russian military might and Putin's muscular brand of nationalist fervour.

Almost all European leaders have spurned his invite outright, though German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced she will travel to Russia a day later for a relatively modest wreath-laying, which hardly appeases Russian anger.

Russia's Vladimir Putin has lashed out at the
West for not sending high-level delegations
to his VE-Day commemorations this year.
Even North Korea backed out,
for reasons of its own. (Associated Press)

This cascade of snubs has Russia seething, and Putin has responded by stirring up more anti-EU and anti-U.S. sentiment in the Russian media, which is not difficult given how much VE-Day means in that country.

He accused Washington of orchestrating the European attempt to besmirch even "this day of pride for our entire nation, a day of supreme veneration of the victorious generation."

"Their goal is obvious: to undermine Russia's power and moral authority," he said, "to divide peoples and set them against each other and use historical speculation in their geopolitical games."

Putin gave no example of this "historical speculation," though it seems to refer to Western attempts to downplay the Soviet Union's pre-eminent role in Nazi Germany's destruction.

There is little evidence for this charge, however, for few in the West and no serious historian would deny the Soviet Union's crucial part in winning that war.

The mighty Red Army

Russians bore the brunt of fighting Germany's massive ground forces, and best estimates are that 25 million Russian soldiers and civilians died in that conflict.

Without Soviet endurance and fighting power it's hard to see how the Western allies, including Canada, could have forced Germany's unconditional surrender.

Fully 80 per cent of all German soldiers killed in the Second World War died fighting the Soviets, causing even British leader Winston Churchill to remark, "It was the Red Army that tore the guts out of the Wehrmacht."

A profound ceremony on all sides.
A member of Germany's armed forces lays a
cardboard coffin containing the remains of
recently discovered World War II
German war dead last week. (Getty Images)

Today, it is certainly not denial of Russia's war sacrifices that is behind the boycott of the Moscow parade.

Rather it is the growing concern that Putin's aggressive foreign policy may again threaten large parts of Eastern Europe and is primarily responsible for the nervous Cold War-like distrust settling over the continent.

What's more, combative rhetoric on both sides of the divide has stirred up the kinds of dark WW2 emotions that divide rather than unite.

In recent months, Moscow has accused the Ukrainian government of being dominated by Fascists and neo-Nazis, and Putin has pushed overstatement to the point of comparing the Ukrainian army's campaign in the eastern breakaway belt to the Nazi siege of Leningrad — which killed over 700,000 civilians.

For their part, the leaders of those Eastern European nations that were occupied by the Soviets after Germany's defeat have been unnerved by this new hostility and some are firing back in kind.

The Polish government infuriated Russia by pointing out Germany started the war by invading Poland in 1939 only after Hitler and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact in order to brutally split Eastern Europe between them.

It has also reminded neighbours that the entry of Soviet troops in 1944-45 essentially replaced German tyranny with an oppressive Soviet one that lasted decades.

'Revision is provocation'

Moscow's full sensitivity was on display last week when its foreign ministry denounced, as "sacrilegious," Warsaw's refusal to allow a small pro-Putin motorcycle club to enter Poland on the way to VE-Day events in Berlin.  

Some nations, including China and India, will still send leaders or their representatives to the Kremlin parade. But Moscow's anger is undiminished.

Alexander Zaldostanov (front) also known as "Khirurg" (The Surgeon),
leader of the pro-Kremlin Night Wolves bikers' club, heads to a press conference
 in Brest on April 28. Ten of the pro-Kremlin bikers, on a controversial ride
to Berlin for VE-Day, were denied entry into Poland. (AFP/Getty Images)

When Latvia, one of the three Baltic states once occupied by the Soviets, suggested recently it might even remove Soviet-era war memorials from its territory, Moscow roared an ominous warning: "Revision of history is a provocation, and Russia cannot tolerate this."

Given the current poor climate of East-West antagonism, this infighting over VE-Day is a very worrying development.  

Soon after the end of the Cold War, VE-Day became one of the key occasions to bring Russia and the West together.

If it is now to become a week simply to recharge and unleash old historical feuds, we're in even more trouble than we realize. 

Brian Stewart

One of Canada's most experienced journalists and foreign correspondents, Brian Stewart is currently a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Munk School for Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. He also sits on the advisory board of Human Rights Watch Canada. In almost four decades of reporting, he has covered many of the world's conflicts and reported from 10 war zones, from El Salvador to Beirut and Afghanistan.