Dave Emory’s entire lifetime of work is available on a flash drive that can be obtained here. (The flash drive includes the anti-fascist books available on this site.)
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(We have done eight programs to date about the Ukrainian crisis: FTR #‘s 777, 778, 779, 780, 781, 782, 783, 784.)
Introduction: The title of the program is a quote from Adolph Hitler. The full quote is: “First, tame the intellectuals. Then, take them to the fields and hitch them to your racehorses.” It applies directly to the role of American and German political intellectuals and journalists in the fundamental and deliberate misrepresentation of the events in and around the Ukraine.
In the Ukraine, proper, the fascist Swoboda party is taming the intellectuals in an altogether characteristic and–when necessary–brutal fashion. Several Swoboda parliamentary deputies roughed up the director of the largest state TV station in Ukraine and forced his resignation–this because he broadcast excerpts of Putin’s speech about the annexation of Crimea. The assault was led by Ihor Miroshnychenko, the Deputy Chair of the parliamentary Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information! He is the same fellow who referred to Ukrainian-born actress Mila Kunis as a “dirty Jewess.”
Other, similar, events have occurred elsewhere in Ukraine.
Like the U.S. media, the German media have been systematically misrepresenting Swoboda as something other than the fascist organization it clearly is. (Swoboda dominates the Ukrainian government, along with its fellow OUN/B derivative organization Pravy Sektor.) We note in passing that the fascist/Nazi nature of the forces now holding sway in Ukraine was empowered by the sytematic, deliberate altering of Ukrainian history under the Yuschenko government.
The slanted media coverage in the U.S. and that in Germany appear to be coordinated, to some extent. Die Zeit has been front and center in downplaying the fascism in Ukraine. Jochen Bittner of that publication is a guest editorial contributor to The New York Times. (We wonder if Serge Schmemann might have something to do with that development.)
Much of the program deals with the nature of the so-called democratic opposition in Russia, about which we’ve heard so much caterwauling of late. In particular, the program highlights the true political cache of Alexei Navalny, recently featured as an op-ed writer in The New York Times.
Hailed as a “democrat” in our media, Navalny might better be termed a “fascionalist”–a xenophobe who is seen as uniting the racist anti-immigrant right in Russia and the corporate, urban middle class.
The program concludes with review of Western intelligence support for Caucasus jihadist elements.
Program Highlights Include: Review of Swoboda’s celebration of the Ukrainian Waffen SS units from World War II; the move by German Green Party delegates to the European Parliament to limit former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s limit to free speech after he openly questioned Germany’s policy toward Ukraine; discussion of a Russian fascist known as “the hatchet;” Navalny’s affinity with Russian neo-fascist elements; review of the role of Arrow-Cross/GOP veteran Laszlo Pasztor in the Free Congress Foundation’s interface with the Russian IRG in the 1990’s.
1. The Orwellian coverage of the Ukraine continues, with the absence of coverage in the West of a stunning, representative action by Swoboda parlimentary deputies. Angered by a state television station’s broadcast of Vladimir Putin’s speech announcing the absorption of Crimea into the Ukraine, several Swoboda parliamentary deputies assaulted him and forced him to sign a paper of resignation. The assault was led by Ihor Miroshnychenko, the Deputy Chair of the parliamentary Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information! He is the same fellow who referred to Ukrainian-born actress Mila Kunis as a “dirty Jewess.”
Several members of the nationalist Svoboda Party scandalously assaulted the acting CEO of state-owned First National TV channel. On March 18, lawmakers Ihor Miroshnichenko, Andriy Illenko and Bohdan Beniuk arrived at the TV headquarters with several other men and forced Oleksandr Panteleymonov to quit his post.
In the video, which was first published by Svoboda spokesman Oleksandr Aronets and republished by Ukrainska Pravda after Aronets removed it, the members of parliament are seen questioning Panteleymonov in his office about Pershiy broadcasting Russian President’s Vladimir Putin’s speech about Crimea separation that took place in Moscow on March 18.
“Our viewers have the right to know…” Panteleymonov starts mumbling explanations, but gets interrupted by the lawmakers shouting “Know what? Know what?”
In the video, Panteleymonov is seen trying to explain himself and speaking politely, while the lawmakers surround him and shout rudely.
Miroshnichenko, the leading voice of the group, proceeded to accuse Panteleymonov of directing an editorial policy aimed at discrediting the EuroMaidan Revolution at the behest of the former state authorities and demanded that Panteleymonov leave his post immediately.
Panteleymonov refused to do so and mentioned that it was the Cabinet of Ministers that controlled the TV station.
“Cabinet of Ministers is over. I’m telling you — write the paper,” Miroshnichenko shouted in the manager’s face as he grabbed him and pulled him through the room to his desk.
Miroshnichenko then pushed Panteleymonov into his chair, Beniuk held him by the neck and Illienko passed him some paper. As Panteleymonov refused, Miroshnichenko and Beniuk beat him and slapped his face.
Even though the video doesn’t show it, the lawmakers did force the manager to quit.
As soon as the video was posted on the evening of March 18, it went viral and the actions of the lawmakers were widely condemned. Many were concerned that such actions coming from one of the parties that were brought to power after the EuroMaidan Revolution would fuel Russian propaganda that has focused on violence and nationalism in Ukraine.
“These are not our methods. The actions of these lawmakers are unacceptable,” was the reaction of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk, Svoboda’s political ally.
The assault was also condemned by Ukraine’s Independent Media Union.
Even Svoboda party head and Miroshnichenko’s friend Oleh Tyahnybok condemned the attack. “Such actions were fine yesterday (during the protests), but now they are inappropriate,” Tyahnybok said in official statement.
After the scandal erupted, Svoboda’s Aronets deleted the video and all the eyes turned to the prosecutor general Oleh Maknitskiy. Also a Svoboda party member, Maknitskiy is now expected to impartially investigate the assault.
On the morning of March 19, Makhnitskiy’s office released a statement promising to justly deal with the case. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov also condemned the assault and said he was ready to have police help the prosecutor general’s office in investigating the case. . . .
2. The incident described above is, sadly, not atypical of what is going on in Ukraine. Note, also, the systematic German media effort to “put listick on the Nazi” Swoboda organization. Swoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok met with the German Foreign Minister, among others.
“A Fatal Taboo Violation”; german-foreign-policy.com; 3/21/2014.
The raids on TV editorial boards by parliamentarians in the new Ukrainian government, which Germany helped bring to power, is provoking massive protests. Tuesday evening, Svoboda Party MPs stormed the office of the acting President of the National Television Co. of Ukraine (NTU) and forced him to resign with physical blows and verbal insults. A similar incident took place the day before in Chernihiv. Dozens of journalists in Kiev and the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media have harshly criticized these attacks, which are in line with Svoboda’s electoral program promising to revoke the licenses of all media “spreading anti-Ukrainian propaganda.” Svoboda’s party program calls also for making the day of the founding of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) a national holiday. The UPA had participated in the massacres of Jewish Ukrainians and tens of thousands of Poles — according to estimates, up to 100.000 people. The German Foreign Minister has lent this party international social respectability and German media is characterizing Svoboda not as “fascist,” but merely as “nationalist.” A leading German daily claims that the leader, Oleh Tiahnybok, has led his party “out of the right-wing quagmire.”
Svoboda’s Media Specialist
The raid on the National Television Co. of Ukraine (NTU) carried out by a group of Svoboda parliamentarians and thugs, has provoked new protests against the new Ukrainian government. Under the leadership of MP Ihor Miroshnychenko, the Svoboda activists forced their way into NTU President Oleksandr Panteleymonov’s office, accusing him of serving Russian propaganda interests because he had broadcast excerpts of the speech, Russian President Putin had held that day. They physically assaulted him and forced him to resign. Miroshnychenko is the Deputy Chair of the parliamentary Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information. A video of the attack can be seen on the internet.[1] [Miroshnychenko is also the fellow who termed Ukrainian-born actress Mila Kunis “Jew.”
Editorial Cooperation
This has not been the only such incident. According to the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, already on Monday, a group of unnamed individuals stormed the national television office in the Chernigov region, forcing its director, Arkadiy Bilibayev, to resign.[2] The “Right Sector’s” militia occupied the TV station “Tonis” and suggested “editorial cooperation.”[3]
Other Methods
Svoboda’s attacks have sparked protests. In Kiev, dozens of journalists demonstrated against intimidation attempts using force to end non-conformist reporting. OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović expressed her “outrage.” The attack on NTU Director in Kiev is a “particularly serious incident,” also because it was perpetrated by members of the freedom of speech and information committee of the Parliament. Svoboda leader Oleh Tiahnybok has now officially dissociated himself from the attack, declaring that his party must “understand” that it no longer is in the opposition and therefore, should use “other methods.” Tiahnybok himself has used violence together with Miroshnychenko, as can be seen on the photo (right) taken in the Kiev parliament. A year ago, Miroshnychenko had made himself a name, when insulting Ukrainian actress, Mila Kunis he referred to her as “Jew.”
“Typical Russian Propaganda”
While its fascist character becomes more evident, from one day to the next, the Svoboda Party has undergone quite a surprising rhetorical carrier in leading German media organs. Whereas, in the fall of 2013, there was a basic consensus that the party was rightwing extremist, it has since gone through a major transformation. As a dwindling number of editorial boards is characterizing Svoboda as “fascist” or “rightwing extremist,” a growing number is using such attributes as “rightwing populist,” “nationalist,” or also, more recently, “national conservative.” Just a few days ago, a German daily wrote that Svoboda, possibly “before 2004, had nurtured rightwing extremist traditions.” However, its leader Oleh Tiahnybok has since “led the party out of this rightwing quagmire.” It would be “difficult to find fascist or anti-Semitic remarks he [Tiahnybok, (editor’s note)] has made over the past few years,” according to the “Tagesspiegel.” Besides, the “fascism accusation” is part “of the typical Russian propaganda.”[4]
Fascist?
If one would take this allegation seriously, various Svoboda activities under Tiahnybok’s leadership in 2013 would no longer be considered “fascist” or “rightwing extremist.” This would include a neo-Nazi “Svenskarnas Party” (Party of the Swedes) meeting, March 23 — 24 2013 in Stockholm, where Svoboda was represented and one of the keynote speakers was from the German NPD party. There would also be Svoboda’s participation at the “Boreal Festival” in mid-September 2013 in Cantù, Italy, where, alongside the “Svenskarnas Party,” also Italy’s neo-fascist “Forza-Nuova” and the “British National Party” were also present, or a meeting of a Svoboda party delegation with Saxony’s NPD regional parliamentary group in late May.[5] The April 28, 2013, commemoration celebration organized by Svoboda in Lviv for the 70th Anniversary of the founding of the “Galician” SS Division, with a Svoboda parliamentarian in Kiev as keynote speaker, would have nothing at all to do with fascism. The next day, Tiahnybok met in Kiev with the German ambassador.[6] According to the “Tagesspiegel’s” allegations, Svoboda’s memorial celebration in October 2013 of the October 14, 1942 founding of the “Ukrainian Insurgent Army” (UPA) would also not qualify as fascist. The UPA had massacred around 100,000 people in the wake of the Nazi occupiers, particularly Jews.
National Holiday
The German government claims that “in the run-up to the 2012 parliamentary elections” Svoboda had revised its electoral program eliminating “rightwing extremist statements” and insisting that, in his telephone conversation with Tiahnybok on April 29, the German ambassador had underlined that “anti-Semitic remarks are unacceptable from the German viewpoint.”[7] But Svoboda’s program is still unambiguous. For example, the party demands that all media organs spreading “anti-Ukrainian propaganda” have their licenses revoked. The parliamentarian Ihor Miroshnychenko used precisely this argument to justify his attack on NTU’s director. According to its electoral program, Svoboda seeks to outlaw “any display of Ukrainophobia” and ban “sexual perversion” — referring also to homosexuality. The party calls for a “state program of patriotic education and hardening the nature of the young generation” and promotes “patriotic organizations.” “Patriotism” would be defined by Svoboda’s view of history: It plans to declare the crimes of the Nazi UPA and of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalist (OUN) collaborators a “national liberation struggle” and wants to give UPA veterans “proper privileges,” and declare October 14, the day the UPA was founded, a “national holiday” — the “Day of Ukrainian Weaponry.”[8]
“Gone Wrong More than Once”
When on February 20, the German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) appeared in public at the side of Svoboda leader Oleh Tiahnybok, he lent that party social respectability as an acceptable cooperation partner. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[9]) A few days ago, former EU-Commissioner, Günter Verheugen (SPD), was unambiguous in his views concerning Svoboda. It is a fatal “violation of a taboo” to accept “real fascists in a government,” Verheugen declared: “Integrating radical forces, has gone terribly wrong more than once in European history. This should not be forgotten.”[10]
3a. Another story in German-Foreign-Policy.com discusses the “Ministry of Truth” as it has operated in Germany. German dailies are distancing themselves from previous commitments to carry the “Russia Today” pages, carried in various Western publications.
More importantly, Die Zeit has helped to set the pace with regard to propagandizing the Ukrainian crisis. Note his links to various transatlantic policy forming groups.
Highlighting the over-the-top nature of the Transatlantic propagandizing of the Ukraine crisis is the move by German Green Party delegates to the European Parliament to limit former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s limit to free speech after he openly questioned Germany’s policy toward Ukraine. (This shouldn’t be too surprising to veteran listeners, as the German Green Party’s roots are anchored not only in the Third Reich but the SS.)
“The Free World”; german-foreign-policy.com; 3/17/2014.
In light of the pending incorporation of the Crimea into the Russian Federation, German politicians and media are stepping up their Russophobe agitation. The public’s “understanding for Moscow’s alleged motives” regarding the Crimea, remains “strikingly high,” complains a leading German daily. This reflects the view that Western global aggressions are either “not better or even worse.” In this context, a leading German newspaper, the “Süddeutsche Zeitung,” has discontinued a Russian PR insert, which it had begun carrying following a lucrative European-Russian economic conference. Another leading publication, the weekly “Die Zeit”, has “apologized” for having printed differentiated articles about the Ukraine. The author, a freelance journalist, had also earned his living, doing editorial work for the above-mentioned Russian PR insert. Last week, the leading German Green Party’s candidate for the European parliamentary elections tabled a motion for a gag order on former German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, who had criticized the EU’s Ukrainian policy. This motion, to restrict his right of freedom of expression, has been ultimately rejected by the European parliament, however, not by her Party.
Two Blocks
From a purely strategic point of view, Moscow, with yesterday’s referendum and Crimea’s pending incorporation into the Russian Federation, succeeded in launching a first effective counter-coup against the West’s more than twenty-year offensive. For years now, with the EU’s and NATO’s eastward expansion and its subsequent “Eastern Partnership,” Berlin, Brussels and Washington have been able to attract countries, situated between Russia and the Western Alliance and which had not yet opted for one side or the other. In 2008, the West suffered its first setback, when Russia countered Georgia’s military aggression by Abkhazia and South Ossetia’s de facto secession from that country. From the perspective of power politics, Crimea’s annexation — Moscow’s response to repeated western attempts to take over Ukraine — is the first real effective counter-coup: Unlike Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Crimean Peninsula, in the middle of the Black Sea, is of great geo-strategic importance (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[1]). While business circles are trying to salvage their deals with Russia, Berlin, Brussels and Washington are aggravating the political confrontation. Moscow’s challenge to Western hegemonic claims will not go unanswered.
Free Expression
Currently this is clearly reflected in the leading German media, which is seeking to swing public opinion to approval of the political confrontation. A leading daily, for example, is warning that the public’s “understanding for Moscow’s alleged motives” is still “strikingly high,” reflecting the view that “what the Americans do is not better or maybe even worse.”[2] Proponents of this view can in fact point to numerous US wars over the past few decades and to German aggression, such as in Yugoslavia. Twenty years of repeated western violations of international law — including wars of aggression, also with German participation — accusations of Moscow violating international law in the Crimea, has obviously little impact. The leading media is therefore intensifying the dose.
The Free Market
The current dissention over the daily “Süddeutsche Zeitung’s” monthly PR-insert “Russland Heute” (“Russia Today”) is but one example. “Russia Today’s” official objective is to transmit “a positive image of Russia.” The insert appeared for the first time in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” at the end of 2010, in the immediate aftermath of an economic conference in Berlin’s noble Adlon Hotel. At the conference, Prime Minister Putin had called for an intensification of European-Russian economic relations — making lucrative offers for German industry. Other European and US-American media, for example, the British “Daily Telegraph,” the French “Le Figaro,” Spain’s El País as well as the “New York Times” and “Washington Post” also carry “Russia Today.” The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” declared today that, because of the Crimea conflict, it will no longer carry the pro-Russian insert, co-financed by the Russian government, and, it has also terminated its cooperation with “Russia Today.”[3]
The Free Press
The current escalation in developments has also had an affect on a renowned correspondent for Eastern Europe, who, over the past few weeks, has attracted attention with his differentiated articles on the Ukrainian situation. Moritz Gathmann’s articles had also been published in the on-line edition of the weekly “Die Zeit.” Since 2010, Gathmann, a free-lance journalist, has also been a “guest editor” for “Russia Today.” March 8, the head of the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung’s (WAZ) investigative team, David Schraven, publicly twittered a complaint to “Die Zeit”: “it would be better to say that Moritz Gathmann works in the service of Russla’s propaganda.” Two hours later, the chief-editor of “Die Zeit On-Line,” Jochen Wegner, twittered back: “cooperation terminated.” Since then, “Die Zeit On-Line” has been publishing a disclaimer under each of Gathmann’s articles on its site: “Disclaimer: The author works for the Russian state-co-financed ‘Russland Heute’ journal insert. This does not conform to our basic principles. Therefore, we apologize.” In the current heated debate, this is tantamount to the journalist’s public pillorying. This has made high waves on the media scene. It is not conducive to wage-earning journalists to go against the Russophobe mainstream.
The Free Elites
It should also be noted that there is obviously no contradiction with “Die Zeit On-Line’s” “basic principles” to closely cooperate with Berlin’s and Washington’s foreign policy networks. For example, “Die Zeit” editor Jochen Bittner had participated in a cooperation project sponsored by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) and the “German Marshall Fund,” which — promoted by the Policy Planning Staff of Germany’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs — wrote the study, “Elements of a Foreign Policy Strategy for Germany.” Critics draw parallels between the contents of the project paper “New Power. New Responsibility”[4] and standpoints expressed in Bittner’s articles. “Die Zeit” has published no “disclaimer” under his articles. The same applies to the articles written by “Die Zeit’s” co-producer, Josef Joffe. His texts became one of the subjects of a media science dissertation published last year. The author arrives at the conclusion that Joffe not only mingles in “elite transatlantic ideological circles (...), supplemented with an EU component” — a reference to his membership in diverse organizations for German and transatlantic foreign policy — but, he even promotes key objectives of the German or transatlantic establishments, in part as propaganda within his texts. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[5])
The Free Speech
The level reached by the intensification of Russophobe agitation can be seen in an attempt by a “Green” European parliamentarian to partially strip former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of his right to freedom of speech. Schröder recently spoke quite critically on the EU’s Ukraine policy and during a public event declared “I wonder if it was the right thing to do, to place a culturally divided country, such as the Ukraine, before the alternative: association agreement with the EU or customs agreement with Russia.” Rebecca Harms, the leading Green Party candidate in the upcoming European parliamentary elections, issued a statement saying that she considers Schröder’s statements “part of a campaign” to “win more sympathy for Putin.” Last Thursday, together with another Green Party politician, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, she, therefore, tabled a motion in the European Parliament that the parliament finds Schröder’s statement “regrettable” and “reiterates” that the former German Chancellor “should refrain from making public statements on Russia.”[6]
Only a Test Run
With amazement, the European Parliament has rejected an attempt by the German Greens to restrict the right to freedom of expression in a precedence case. Nevertheless, this incident is but an indication that still standing democratic taboos could be broken in the current frenzy of Russophobe agitation, without consequences for the perpetrators. The power struggle over the Ukraine, as the backdrop, is perceived in Berlin as a “test run” [7] for the new German foreign policy. To be successful, this new policy must win broad popular support at home — by any means necessary.
3b. Note that Jochen Bittner is a contributor to the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times.
“Jochen Bittner” [The Opinion Pages]; The New York Times
4a. Indicative of the dogmatic editorial slant that The New York Times brings to the Ukraine crisis, an op-ed piece by Alexey Navalny was presented, with no discussion of the political nature of this creature.
“How to Punish Putin” by Alexey Navalny; The New York Times; 3/19/2014.
As I write this, I am under house arrest. I was detained at a rally in support of anti-Putin protesters who were jailed last month.
In September, I ran for mayor of Moscow as a pro-reform, pro-democracy opposition candidate and received almost a third of the vote despite having no access to state media. Today, my blog, which was until recently visited by over two million readers per month, has been blocked as “extremist” after I called for friendly ties with Ukraine and compliance with international law.
For years, I have been telling journalists that President Vladimir V. Putin’s approval rating would soon peak and then tumble. Russia’s economy is stagnant, I said, and the Russian people would soon weary of the president’s empty promises. Even a rally-round-the-flag military adventure — a “little war,” as it’s known in Russia — would be impossible, I believed. Russia no longer had enemies.
Then, on Feb. 28, Russia sent troops to Ukraine in precisely such a “little war.” I admit that I underestimated Mr. Putin’s talent for finding enemies, as well as his dedication to ruling as “president for life,” with powers on par with the czars’. . . .
4b. The coalition that assembled to attempt the ousting of Vladimir Putin embraces liberals, leftists and “nationalists”–that’s New York Times code for fascists, a word that American journalists seldom use. That coalition–strained because of the prominence of fascist in its midst–is reminiscent in some ways of the one that ousted the authoritarian Hosni Mubarak. That event, as we have seen, has led to the rise of the Islamofascist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
In the event that the Russian coalition succeeds in its goal of ousting Putin (something the U.S. and the fossil fuel companies would love to see), will we see the fascists elements seizing control? Russian and Egyptian societies differ greatly, but fascists have historically been quite successful at seizing power through democratic means and then denying democratic process to their opponents and former coalition partners.
Should the fascists–excuse me “nationalists”–either gain power or sustain a sufficiently high profile to affect both policy and perception, among the possible effects of that might be to drive the oil-rich Caucasus to secede from Russia. This would no doubt be much to the liking of Western oil companies, who’ve coveted that region for decades. One of the fascists’ rhetorical and ideological points concerns hostility toward people from that region.
The residents of the Caucasus will not be doing the Varsity Rag if the enmity toward them is institutionalized by the ruling political interests.
The best known of the leaders of the Russian opposition, a “fascionalist” named Alexei Navalny, is seen as capable of uniting the Doc Martens-wearing cadre of the far right and the disenchanted and economically embattled middle class. A political union of that type might well sweep into power, recapitulating the combination of racism/xenophobia and economic suffering so effectively used by fascists through the decades.
. . . . Why Navalny? One reason is that declarations like “I will slit the throats of these cattle,” though metaphorical, are no mere puffery. Unlike many in the Russian opposition, Navalny puts his words into action, and in a climate where more than a few government critics have met their demise, this action puts his life on the line. Yet, he remains fearless. “It’s better to die standing up that live on your knees,” he told the New Yorker’s Julia Ioffe last spring. With that kind of gumption, it’s safe to say that Navalny has become a nagging pain in the ass of Russia’s corrupt elite. He’s done so not by staging rallies, leading a political organization, or seeking political office. Navalny is an activist of the 21st century: his weapons are a blog, Twitter, and a crowdsourcing website. His army is motley of “network hamsters” ready to root out big moneyed corruption by combing through dry contracts posted on his site Rospil. The results are impressive. Since Rospil’s creation in December 2010, Navalny and his army are responsible for the cancelling of $1.2 billion worth of state contracts. Given all this, it’s amazing that someone has yet to slit his throat.
But Navalny is more than an anti-corruption crusader and renowned blogger. The thirty-five year old Muscovite lawyer is also emblematic of two forces that were once supporters of Putin, but are now increasingly turning against him: the urban, educated middle class, or ROG (russkie obrazovannye gorozhane) as pundit Stanislav Belkovskii has dubbed them, and Russians with nationalist sympathies. On the surface these two groups appear antithetical to each other. The former are often described as “hipster-gadget-lovers” (khipstery-gazhetomany) more interested in Moscow’s cafes, clubs, and sushi bars, and, until two weeks ago, showed no interest in politics besides ranting on their Live Journal blogs and Twitter accounts. The nationalists are portrayed as racist working class street thugs whose sense of Russian victimhood speaks through fists and boots to the heads of migrants from Central Asia and the North Caucasus. Nevertheless, both groups share common ground: they’re by and large suspicious of the West and the Russian liberals who extol its values, patriotic, despise corruption, view immigrants as destroying the integrity of the Russian nation and increasingly loathe Putin and his cronies. With a foot in each world, Navalny is emerging as the logical person who could unite them around a new mass political movement based on what Alexei Pimenov recently called “an anti-corruption pathos plus the national idea.” . . . .
5. One of the Russian fascists–Maksim Martsinkevich–has the nickname “The Hatchet.” One wonders if he knows Makis Voridis, the Greek fascist minister of transportation and intrastructure who has the nickname “the Hammer.”
. . . . For more than two decades, Russian liberals have been warning of the dangers posed by nationalism, often portraying it as a greater threat to freedom and stability in this multiethnic country than the soft authoritarianism of Mr. Putin, Russia’s once and probably future president. In recent years, the nationalist movement has become large and increasingly malignant, responsible for a pattern of racist violence against non-Slavs that includes kidnapping, torture and murder. Nationalists have taken responsibility for several beheadings.
But in the effort to drive out Mr. Putin, the opposition, driven by liberal and middle-class Russians, has nonetheless reached out to nationalists, seeing them as a vital bulwark at a critical moment.
Before he could make his case, Mr. Bikbov was drowned out by a mixture of applause and boos, prompting the moderator to remove his question from the discussion. One audience member called him a “liberal fascist.”
As the nascent opposition movement prepares for its next major day of protest, set for Feb. 4, the tentative embrace of an alliance with nationalists has emerged as a defining step — but the consequences of such a move are far from certain. . . .
. . . . Mr. Ponomaryov said he initially resisted the inclusion of nationalist leaders, but relented when members agreed to sign a pact denouncing xenophobia and racism. A delegation of 10 nationalists will join an equal number of representatives from left-wing and liberal groups and a delegation of the politically unaffiliated in the leadership committee of the so-called Citizens Movement, which will coordinate future actions. There are limits to the liberals’ tolerance, however. When an avowed white supremacist, Maksim Martsinkevich, nicknamed the Hatchet, made the top three in an online vote for speakers at the second protest, organizers stepped in, denying him the microphone . . .
6. On Navalny’s position within the Russian “opposition.” Note that he participated in a march by the racist “nationalists,” some of whom raised their hands in a Nazi salute.
. . . . Navalny took part in last month’s Russian March in which thousands of nationalists marched through Moscow to call on ethnic Russians to “take back” their country, some raising their hands in a Nazi salute.
Many Russians resent the influx of dark-skinned Muslims into Moscow and other cities. Many also resent the disproportionate amount of budget money sent to Chechnya and other Caucasus republics, seen as a Kremlin effort to buy loyalty after two separatist wars.
Navalny defends his association with nationalists by saying their concerns are widespread and need to be addressed as part of any broad movement pushing for democratic change, but many in the liberal opposition fear that he is playing with fire.
Some opposition leaders also seem alarmed by Navalny’s soaring popularity.
“We are already seeing signs of a Navalny cult,” Vladimir Milov wrote in a column in the online Gazeta.ru. “I wouldn’t be surprised if grandmothers from the provinces start showing up here asking where they can find him so he can cure their illnesses.” . . .
7a. Again, imagine if Navalny were to become Russian president:
. . . . Among his other nationalist fits, he wrote off the neo-fascist Movement Against Illegal Immigration as harmless as “girl scouts”; declared that immigrants “will NEVER assimilate” and are a “bomb under our future”; called on Russians to arm themselves against “Muslim-looking criminals,” supported the nationalist inspired “Stop Feeding the Caucasus” campaign, and most recently joined the organizing committee of the yearly nationalist powwow, the Russian March. . . .
7b. We wonder how many of the “urban middle class” about whom we hear so much may have evolved from some of the IRG elements in the 1990’s that networked with Laszlo Pasztor–the Hungarian fascist who headed the GOP’s ethnic outreach organization and was also the Free Congress Foundation’s point man interfacing with Boris Yeltsin’s IRG.
“The Free Congress Foundation Goes East” by Russ Bellant and Louis Wolf; Covert Action Information Bulletin #35; Fall/1990.
With the rapid pace of political change sweeping Eastern Europe and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, many opportunities have emerged for western interests to intervene in the politics of that region. In some cases, such a vacuum has been created that virtual strangers to the area several years ago are now able to actively participate in changing those societies from within.
These interventions are not only being practiced by mainstream organizations. The involvement of the United States Far Right brings with it the potential revival of fascist organizations in the East. One U.S. group, the Free Congress Foundation, has been plahying a role in Eastern European and Soviet politics and has ties to Boris Yeltsin and the Inter-Regional Deputies Group (IRG) in the U.S.S.R.
The Free Congress Foundation (FCF) was founded in 1974 by Paul Weyrich as the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress. Weyrich, who had started the Heritage Foundation the year before, was heavily funded by the Coors family for both organizations.
Weyrich has kept one foot in the right wing of the Republican Party while dallying with the racist Right and the extreme Christian Right. In 1976, for instance, he and a handful of other New Rights (William Rusher, Morton Blackwell, Richard Viguerie) attempted to take over the segregationist American Independent Party (AIP), formed by George Wallace in 1968. The AIP was an amalgam of Ku Klux Klan and John Birch Society elements. . . .
. . . . The IRG was established by Andrei Sakharov, Boris Yeltsin and others in the summer of 1989. By the end of that year, a training school had been established for candidates to put forward the IRG program. Their electoral success this year propelled Yeltsin to the leadership of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic. He immediately began forging collaborative relationships with the deeply reactionary leaders of the Lithuanian Sajudis party. The IRG has also served as a source of right-wing pressure on Gorbachev to dismantle socialism and the Soviet Union itself.
One of the key dangers in this agenda is the political vacuum it creates, allowing ultra-nationalist forces in a number of republics to take power. Such nationalist and fascist elements are already evident in Lithuania and the Ukraine. In the latter republic, the pro-Nazi Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) has gained influence in several parties and has mobilized large demonstrations that honor OUN leaders who abetted Hitler’s war on the Eastern Front. Similarly, several deputies Sajudis deputies served in German military units in 1944, and Sajudis has made declarations against ethnic Russians living in Lithuania. According to some reports, Poles have also been denigrated.
It should also be noted that the “radical reformer” Boris Yeltsin has dallied with Pamyat, the foremost Russian fascist group to emerge in the last several years. Pamyat’s virulent anti-Semitism compares to the crude propaganda of the early German Nazi Party in the 1920’s.
The FCF is not entirely disconnected from the history of the OUN. The Treasurer of the FCF board is Georgetown University Professor Charles Moser. Moser is also serves on the editorial advisory board of the Ukrainian Quarterly, published by the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, a group dominated by the OUN. The Ukrainian Quarterly has praised military units of the German SS and otherwise justified the OUN alliance with the Third Reich which reflects the fact that the OUN was politically and militarily allied with Hitler and the Nazi occupation of the Ukraine.
The OUN, an international semi-secret cadre organization headquartered in Bavaria, has received financial assistance from the late Franz Joseph Strauss, the rightist head of the Bavarian state. Strauss also had a working relationship with Weyrich. . . .
. . . . Finally, FCF’s insinuation into the politics of the East must be judged by their selection of Laszlo Pasztor to head their Liberation Support Alliance, “which seeks to liberate peoples in Central and Eastern European Nations.”
Pasztor’s involvement in East European politics began in World War II when he joined the youth organization of the Arrow Cross, the Nazi party of Hungary.
When the Arrow Cross was installed in power by a German commando operation, Pasztor was sent to Berlin to help facilitate the liaison between the Arrow Cross and Hitler.
Pasztor was tried and served two years in jail for his Arrow Cross activities after an anticommunist government was elected in 1945. He eventually came to the U.S. and established the ethnic arm of the Republican National Committee for Richard Nixon. He brought other Nazi collaborators from the Eastern front into the GOP. Some were later found to have participated in mass murder during the war.
The dormant Arrow Cross has surfaced again in Hungary, where there have been attempts to lift the ban on the organization. Pasztor spent several months in Hungary. When Weyrich later conducted training there, he was provided a list of Pasztor’s contacts inside the country. Weyrich reports that he conducted training for the recently formed and now governing New Democratic Forum.
Pasztor claims to have assisted some of his friends in Hungary in getting NED funds through his advisory position with NED. In 1989 he spoke at the Heritage Foundation under the sponsorship of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN), a multinational umbrella organization of emigre fascists and Nazis founded in alliance with Hitler in 1943. It is led by the OUN. Pasztor spoke for the “Hungarian Organization” of ABN, which is the Arrow Cross. . . . .
8. The program concludes by reviewing a frightening article about apparent U.S. support for a Georgia-based jihadi conference. Rich with fossil fuels, the Caucasus region has long been the focal point of hostile activity by foreign interests looking to secure those resources for themselves, wresting the area away from Russia and/or the former Soviet Union. In FTR #646, we looked at the Bush administration’s close national security connections to the Georgian republic, resulting in a security agreement with that state, concluded on the eve of Obama’s inauguration.
In FTR #773, we looked at the Boston Marathon bombing, apparent blowback from the Western-backed Caucasus jihadist war.
One can but wonder if petroleum constituencies in the West are looking to use Muslim Brotherhood-connected elements to foment the independence of those regions. The areas are also pivotal in the transit of heroin, in addition to logistical support for the war in Afghanistan.
In turn, it can be safely surmised that Russia will not give these areas up. What is to be understood here, is that the West is engaging in low-intensity warfare against Russia. Undoubtedly, that has much to do with Russia’s actions in the Ukraine.
An analysis published Monday by Defense & Foreign Affairs offers some corroboration for the Georgia-hosted, U.S.-approved jihadi confab in December, the mention of which seemed to upset some readers.
Here are the relevant excerpts from the 16-page analysis, which is subscription-only and therefore not linkable:
Meanwhile, Georgia is actively seeking to exploit the spread of jamaats [jihadist mini-societies] in the North Caucasus in order to go after the Russian pipelines in hope of ensnaring the US into actively supporting a new confrontation with Russia. In early December 2009, Tbilisi organized a high-level meeting of jihadists groups from the Middle East and Western Europe in order “to coordinate activities on Russia’s southern flank.” The Georgian Embassy in Kuwait, for example, arranged for travel documents for jihadists from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. (There is a large and very active Chechen/Circassian community in Jordan since the 19th Century that is heavily represented in the intelligence services and the military.) In Tbilisi, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Lordkipanadze was the host and coordinator. The meeting was attended by several Georgian senior officials who stressed that Saakashvili himself knew and approved of the undertaking. The meeting addressed the launch of both “military operations” in southern Russia and ideological warfare. One of the first results of the meeting was the launch, soon afterwards of the Russian-language TV station First Caucasian.
The jihadists of the North Caucasus — including the Arab commanders in their midst — came out of the early December 2009 meeting convinced that Tbilisi is most interested in the spread of terrorism. The meeting was attended by, among others, Mohmad Muhammad Shabaan, an Egyptian senior commander who is also known as Seif al-Islam and who has been involved in Caucasus affairs since 1992. He took copious notes. According to Shabaan’s notes, the Georgian government wants the jihadists to conduct “acts of sabotage to blow up railway tracks, electricity lines and energy pipelines” in southern Russia in order to divert construction back to Georgian territory.
Georgian intelligence promised to facilitate the arrival in the Caucasus of numerous senior jihadists by providing Georgian passports, and to provide logistical support including the reopening of bases in northern Georgia. Russian intelligence was not oblivious of the meeting. Seif al-Islam and two senior aides were assassinated on February 4, 2010. The Russians retrieved a lot of documents in the process. Moscow signaled its displeasure shortly afterwards when the presidents of Russia and Abkhazia signed a 50-year agreement on a Russian military base in order to “protect Abkhazia’s sovereignty and security, including against international terrorist groups”.
A major issue still to be resolved is the extent of the US culpability.
The same analysis recalls when this misguided approach was used in the Balkans, and outlines how, in order to not alienate Muslims while we tried to contain terror from the Middle East, we fortified terror in the Balkans and jump-started the global jihad:
Initially, the US-led Western intervention in the former Yugoslavia was aimed first and foremost to salvage NATO (and with it US dominance over post-Cold War Western Europe) from irrelevance and collapse. As well, the support for the Muslims of Bosnia became the counter-balance of the US confrontation with jihadism in the Middle East. Anthony Lake, US President Bill Clinton’s National Security Adviser, formulated the logic for the US-led intervention on behalf of the Muslims. The US national interest “requires our working to contain Muslim extremism, and we have to find a way of being firm in our opposition to Muslim extremism while making it clear we’re not opposed to Islam. If we are seen as anti-Muslim, it’s harder for us to contain Muslim extremism. And if we stand by while Muslims are killed and raped in Bosnia, it makes it harder to continue our policy,” Lake argued. That in the process the US would end up partnering with, supporting and arming, the very same jihadist forces Clinton was seeking to contain meant nothing to Washington. The only thing Washington cared about was the image of a US rallying to the rescue of a Muslim cause.
Note that in the 90s the U.S., like Britain, permitted and facilitated terrorist networks to operate in Bosnia and Kosovo for the purpose of Serb-killing, and along with Germany we trained Albanian and Middle Eastern terrorists in Albania. Sure enough, the same decade saw U.S. officials participating in a December 1999 meeting in Azerbaijan very similar to the December 2009 meeting in Tbilisi, where “programs for the training and equipping of mujahedin from the Caucasus, Central and South Asia, and the Arab world were discussed and agreed upon.” The mention of this meeting comes in as the analysis gives background on how we decided to support terrorism against Russia:
By 1999, the US had given up on reconciling Azerbaijan and Armenia in order to construct pipelines to Turkey, and instead Washington started focusing on building pipelines via Georgia.
For such a project to be economically viable, the Russian pipelines would have to be shut down. Hence, in early October 1999, senior officials of US oil companies and US officials offered representatives of Russian “oligarchs” in Europe huge dividends from the proposed Baku-Ceyhan pipeline if the “oligarchs” convinced Moscow to withdraw from the Caucasus, permit the establishment of an Islamic state, and close down the Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline. Consequently, there would be no competition to the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. The “oligarchs” were convinced that the highest levels of the Clinton White House endorsed this initiative. The meeting failed because the Russians would hear nothing of the US proposal.Consequently, the US determined to deprive Russia of an alternate pipeline route by supporting a spiraling violence and terrorism in Chechnya....The Clinton White House sought to actively involve the US in yet another anti-Russian jihad as if reliving the “good ol’ days” of Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, seeking to support and empower the most virulent anti-Western Islamist forces in yet another strategic region.
In mid-December 1999, US officials participated in a formal meeting in Azerbaijan in which specific programs for the training and equipping of mujahedin from the Caucasus, Central and South Asia, and the Arab world were discussed and agreed upon. This meeting led to Washington’s tacit encouragement of both Muslim allies (mainly the intelligence services of Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia) and US “private security companies” (of the type that did Washington’s dirty job in the Balkans while skirting and violating the international embargo the US formally supported) to assist the Chechens and their Islamist allies to surge in spring 2000. Citing security concerns vis-à-vis Armenia and Russia, Azerbaijan adamantly refused to permit training camps on its soil.
Now, just to keep our — including my — heads straight, let’s remind ourselves that this exercise that Robert Spencer was good enough to let me engage in on these pages was not a defense of Russia; it was not meant to start an argument about how bad or how not-that-bad Russia is. The point is that foreign relations in a mad world require finding enough common ground with not-so-great states so that we can work together where we can work together. It’s to minimize the messiness of things. Why, when we had Russia in its historically most maleable form, did we insist on provoking and provoking and provoking? Why did we make a bad situation like Russia worse when we had an opportunity to make it better? As with all problematic countries that we nonetheless find areas of cooperation with, we narrowed even those areas by dealing with the Russians in the bad faith that had been their trademark. Simultaneously, we moved away from picking the lesser evil in a given conflict, and started siding with the greater.
It’s a surreal situation indeed when the actions of my savior country put me in the position of having to “defend” Russia, whose people my parents thank their lucky stars to not have to live among anymore. I myself am a self-proclaimed Russophobe; I just had no idea how much more pathological America’s Russophobia is. So for someone who is loath to visit even Brighton Beach, I find myself in a surprising position here, pointing out where we went wrong and shoved Russia back into old behaviors.
Infuriatingly predictably, one of the comment posters suggested that the line I’m taking here is one that’s paid for by Russia. The same “tip” was offered to Robert by a fellow blogger — in that tone of providing “some friendly, professional, and cautionary advice.” The likes of which I’m all too familiar with by now. (One Wall St. Journal fixture advised me, “Your views on this [the Balkans] are deeply misjudged...You’re not doing your career any favors.” Thanks. Good thing I don’t have a career, then.) It certainly would be nice if anyone paid me for anything I do, but it wasn’t to be in this lifetime.
Regardless, it shouldn’t seem strange for someone to be pointing out that our foreign policy is being guided by people with a stronger anti-Russian agenda than anti-jihad agenda. And notice where this kind of thinking has gotten us. Take the past two decades of Western policy and media coverage in the Balkans, which were based on information that made its way into reporters’ notebooks directly from the Ministry of Information of the Bosnian Government run by the fundamentalist Muslim wartime president Alija Izetbegovic. The template was used again when politicians, reporters, NGOs and human rights organizations dutifully repeated what was coming out of the KLA-run newspapers and other propaganda organs of the Kosovo separatists. And so in service to consistency, having gotten into this hole, we’ve kept digging. With our Yugoslavia intervention, as the Defense & Foreign Affairs analysis points out, we’ve ended up “demonizing the Serbs and the world of Eastern Christianity as a whole.” Such that we’ve arrived at a place where the word “Byzantine” is now used to mean primitive or uncivilized. While the Muslim world and Islamic heritage represent the height of culture, tradition, heritage and civilization.
One interesting thing about the reactions to calling the U.S. on its aggressive alienation of Russia via, for example, the use of jihadists is the sense of outrage and shock at the suggestion that America would support these violent groups, followed immediately by a defense or justification of such tactics (e.g. “we *should* help the Chechens against the Russians”). Meanwhile, these oh-so-incendiary allegations happen to coincide with overtly stated intentions and policies. (See the late Senator Tom Lantos and his ilk applauding the creation of a U.S.-made Muslim state in Europe, which the jihadists should “take note of,” Lantos hoped.)
Great coverage! Swoboda are not the kind of guys one would want to invite to mom’s house for Sunday night dinner. Also perhaps that horrible knife terrorist attack in Northern China that killed 29, and the political uprising in Venezuela around the same time are parts of a covert action blitz, along with the Ukraine that is going on right now. If that is the case, this site certainly has the foundation of the blitz well covered and explained.
Yeah, there’s probably going to be a lot of disavowals on all sides for a stunt like this:
Will we ever learn the identities of the five masked men? That remains to be seen, although it’s difficult to see how pro-Russian separatists that have been highlighting the neo-Nazi nature of Svoboda and Pravy Sektor as a central component of their PR strategy would suddenly decide to publicly emulate them:
“Svoboda would stop immigration and reserve civil service jobs for “ethnic Ukrainians.” It would end abortion and gun control, “ban the Communist Ideology” and list religious affiliation and ethnicity on identity documents”.
Here’s a hint of what’s come: John McCain suggested today that the West’s response to the crisis in Ukraine should include an acceleration of Ukraine’s acceptance in the EU:
It’ll be interesting to see if any EU ‘compromises’ are going to be required for an accelerated EU membership timeline after the upcoming elections. Of course, given events on the ground, it’ll also be interesting to see if there are any upcoming elections at all.
Mark Ames has a piece on the background of Boris Nemtsov, the anti-Putin Russian reformer that was just gunned down outside the Kremlin while on a walk with his Ukrainian model girlfriend, and how Nemtsov’s label as a “liberal reformer” really needs to be reinterpreted by Americans as a “neoliberal reformer”. And while there’s understandably no shortage of speculation over who killed Nemtsov and why, as Ames’s piece points out, Nemtsov’s anti-Putin/reformer status is a somewhat curious development since Nemtsov was a key figure in the Yeltsin government, an advocate of an unelected government body of oligarchs, a darling of the international institutions that pushed the devastating “shock therapy” on Russia’s economy and society in the 90’s, and used to view Putin as the savior of the oligarchy:
It’s an awful sign for Russia if Nemtsov was indeed, directly or indirectly, gunned down by the Kremlin as most speculation points towards. But as we just saw, the fact that a political opponent as high profile and Boris Nemtsov was a darling of the same forces that inflicted the austerity disaster of the 90’s and happened to hold views like...
...was already a really bad sign for Russia.
So the situation in Russia presumably got worse with the killing of Nemtsov because that’s what happens when political violence enters the equation. But it will be interesting to see how the assassination of Nemtsov shapes the various Russian opposition movements because, at the end of the day, it didn’t sound like Boris Nemtsov’s vision for a “reformed” Russia was going to be a significant improvement for the vast majority of Russians. Yes, the political reforms Russia’s opposition calls for are generally steps in the right direction, but what kind of economic reform is Russia going to get if, for instance, a “Russian Spring” eventually ushers in a new government led by opposition leaders that share the neoliberal views of Nemtsov? Based on politics of Nemtsov’s political allies, it seems doesn’t seem like the Russian public is going to appreciated those economic reforms or lack thereof. Since Putin is basically an authoritarian neoliberal, but one that doesn’t follow the ‘sell of the nation to international interests’, who knows how much someone like Nemtsov would actually feel need to ‘reform’ how the economy functions other than more state privatizations?
These are all just some of the questions raised about the future of Russia’s reformers following the stunning assassination of one their key leaders. And of course, one of the biggest question is whether or not Nemtsov’s death will lead to a revival for the opposition at a time when Putin’s approval ratings just hit 86%. As Nemtsov’s co-founder of the “liberal” (neoliberal) Union of Right Forces party, Irina Khakamada, suggested, “It’s a provocation that is clearly not in Putin’s interests, it’s aimed at rocking the situation”:
“Nemtsov served as a deputy prime minister in the 1990s and once was seen as a possible successor to Boris Yeltsin”. Yikes!
So, assuming Irina Khakamada is correct and the situation is eventually “rocked” enough to herald a dangerous destabilization (enough for the opposition to gain real power, it seems like now would be a good time for the neoliberal-minded reforms to explain how, exactly, putting a bunch of Yeltsin-era neoliberal reformers back into power isn’t going to lead right back to the kinds of humiliating “reforms” that Russia experienced in the 90’s that helped fueled mass popularity for someone like Putin that acts like he’s protect Russia from becoming a non-Russia economic colony.
Sure, like most countries these days, Russia is basically an economic colony of its billionaires, albeit more so than elsewhere. But if the Western-backed neoliberal reformers get into power, aren’t we just going to see a lot more foreign billionaires AND demands for endless austerity? What is that going to do to Russia’s collective psychology if it undergoes a repeat of the 90’s where all the “reforms” basically redistribute the wealth amongst the Russian and international elites while leaving the Russian populace screwed as usual? Isn’t it a massive risk to have members of Team-Yeltsin as a lead reformers? Does anyone in Russia, other than the elites, want to return to the 90’s? It seems like a huge mistake for Russia’s opposition, especially since the political support for the neoliberal “reformers” like Nemtsov tends to mostly come from the Moscow elites that have outsized influence but are hated by much of the rest of the nation:
Yep, Russia’s “liberal intelligencia” and the “manager class” are largely hated by the Russian masses, so once Putin lost the support of the Moscovites it was easy to turn that into a new source of mass popular support for Putin by doing waging a new culture war that targeted Moscow’s yuppies. And while some of that hatred was no doubt driven by the kind of sad bigotries you find nearly everywhere, it’s hard to deny that the hatred of Moscows elites was driven in part by the fact that Russia has the most unequal wealth distribution in the world.
So, given the success of Putin’s Nixonian “Silent Majority” strategy, it seems like the additional attention Nemtsov’s death is bringing to the opposition movements makes this a really good time for Russia’s opposition parties to develop a reform package that explicitly doesn’t involve even more neoliberal reforms that are probably going to do nothing about the incredible concentration of wealth that resulted from Russia’s neoliberal reforms thus far.
How about some redistribution of wealth down the public? Will Russia’s neoliberal reforms be able to stomach such an idea? Probably not, so the question is raised of what type future Russia’s opposition has if it’s continually led by a bunch of hated Moscow elites with appeal that doesn’t extend much beyond Moscow. What kind of future is there for Russia’s opposition when that’s the status quo? Oh yeah, they could continue teaming up with the far-right and hope everything works out.
Here’s an indication that the threat of an armed insurrectionary coup that’s now become part of the New Normal for Kiev as a consequence of the sudden elevation and normalization of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi far-rightists might not be limited to Kiev:
“Strelkov, whose real surname is Girkin (Strelkov is a pseudonym derived from the Russian for “the Shooter”), believes Putin dithered at the crucial moment in 2014, for fear of breaking off ties between Russia and the west for good. A radical nationalist who believes Russia should seize all the lands where ethnic Russians live, and who describes Ukrainians as “Russians who speak a different dialect”, Strelkov said it was fatal that Putin stopped after annexing Crimea.”
Beyond being a threat to Putin and the current Russian elite power structure, it’s worth keeping in mind that the crisis in Ukraine and the resulting ‘new Cold War’ dynamic that’s emerged is exactly the kind of sustained crisis that could eventually create the conditions where an ultra-nationalist far-right revanchist fringe like what Strelkov represents really does some day seize power in Russia. And that’s not just a threat to Putin and the Russians, that’s a threat to world peace. Or at least regional peace because there’s no shortage of Russian-speaking populations outside of Russia.
So if we’re going to see years or longer of big military buildups between NATO and Russia and the kind of economic sanctions that eventually destabilize Russia’s economy and society, is there any particular reason to assume the the Strelkov faction of Russia’s current-fringe won’t be one of the main political beneficiaries of that kind of situation? It’s unclear why we shouldn’t expect a possible outcome like that. Perhaps a very possible outcome like that.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-politics-navalny-cia-idUSKBN26M5U1
OCTOBER 1, 2020 6:57 AM UPDATED A MONTH AGO
Kremlin accuses CIA of working with critic Navalny, says he’s receiving instructions from ‘instructors’
By Reuters Staff
MOSCOW (Reuters) — The Kremlin accused specialists at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency on Thursday of working with Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny and said Moscow believed he was receiving instructions from people it described as “instructors”.
Navalny told a German magazine he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind his suspected poisoning, but said he was not afraid and that he would return to Russia to resume campaigning.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters the allegation by Navalny was unacceptable, groundless and insulting, but that he was free to return to Russia.
Reporting by Tom Balmforth and Anastasia Lyrchikova; Editing by Alison Williams