Russia

Country, enemy imagenation state

Russia  link () Sourcewatch Spartacus Wikiquote
Capital city	Moscow
Location	Asia
Leader	Russia/President
Type	nation state
Subgroups	FSO, FSB, FAPSI, GRU, SVR, KGB
The largest nation state in the world

Russia is the largest nation state in the world. In 2013, Russia was #3 in the world in terms of military expenditure. It was the #2 nation worldwide as regards arms export from 2012-2016, a long way behind fellow UN/Security Council member, US. An increased placement of more military capability and sometimes soldiers, through diplomatic or military channels of mainly NATO forces (mostly at American request) after the collapse of the Soviet Union in countries neighbouring Russia has caused a Cold War 2.0 since the 2010s according to Russia, although NATO denies this.

History

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The Week That Shook The World: The Soviet Coup - ABC News (1991)

The Russian federation came from the collapse of the Soviet Union highlighted by a strange coup attempt in 1991.

Deep State formation

{{#subobject: |Has superobject=Russia |Has objectClass=Quotation |Has author=Adrian Campbell|+sep=, |Has text=“Higher stakes meant aggressive mobilisation of media for an information war became a feature of 1990s electoral politics at regional level, following the pattern of the 1996 presidential election.

By then, the corruption associated with privatisation had made Yeltsin and the reformers unpopular – and many feared the communists would return to power. The democrats had to resort to desperate measures. Every possible resource was mobilised to ensure that Yeltsin was re-elected – including deals with powerful oligarchs with large media empires. The communists were defeated but the price was endemic cynicism about the democratic process.

The Yeltsin presidency remained beholden to Russia’s regional governors and the oligarchs. It fell to Putin to curtail the powers of these groups, campaigning in 2000 under the slogan of “the dictatorship of law”. That such a slogan could have popular support shows the degree to which the public had become disillusioned in the late 1990s. However, the direction towards concentration of power had been set almost a decade before Putin was elected president.

Russia’s reformers of the 90s largely achieved the irreversible economic change they wanted. They were less successful in creating a positive narrative for the new Russia. Reform had seemed to be based on the idea that Russia needed to learn as much as possible from the west. Over time, disillusion with this idealised view of the west grew and public opinion became more nationalistic.” |Is about=Russia,Russia, Russia/Society, Russia/Foreign policy, 1996 Russian Presidential Election, Vladimir Putin, Communists, democracy, 1990s, 1999|+sep=, |Has wikipediaPage= |Has location=|+sep=, |Has publicationDate= |Sourced from=The Conversation |Has sourceDetails= |Has sourceTitle= |Has sourceName=The Conversation |Has sourceURL=

}}

“Higher stakes meant aggressive mobilisation of media for an information war became a feature of 1990s electoral politics at regional level, following the pattern of the 1996 presidential election.

By then, the corruption associated with privatisation had made Yeltsin and the reformers unpopular – and many feared the communists would return to power. The democrats had to resort to desperate measures. Every possible resource was mobilised to ensure that Yeltsin was re-elected – including deals with powerful oligarchs with large media empires. The communists were defeated but the price was endemic cynicism about the democratic process.

The Yeltsin presidency remained beholden to Russia’s regional governors and the oligarchs. It fell to Putin to curtail the powers of these groups, campaigning in 2000 under the slogan of “the dictatorship of law”. That such a slogan could have popular support shows the degree to which the public had become disillusioned in the late 1990s. However, the direction towards concentration of power had been set almost a decade before Putin was elected president.

Russia’s reformers of the 90s largely achieved the irreversible economic change they wanted. They were less successful in creating a positive narrative for the new Russia. Reform had seemed to be based on the idea that Russia needed to learn as much as possible from the west. Over time, disillusion with this idealised view of the west grew and public opinion became more nationalistic.”
Adrian Campbell

Full article: Russia/Deep state

The Russian deep state saw a change of operatives in 1917 during the Russian revolution, and a smaller change again in 1991, during the break-up of the Soviet Union. Powerful sections include (almost exclusively Jewish) billionaires who became rich by looting the economy in the 1990s, mafia bosses, the infamous intelligence services (KGB, GRU, FSB...), and the military-industrial complex.

How strong the connections to the supranational deep state are, is a matter of some debate, but the Russian deep state is actively involved in Covid-19, the World Economic Forum and the Great reset. Western intelligence services are active in the country, and financially supports "the opposition" of NGOs and civil society activists, as they did during the last years of the Soviet era. Russian Bilderbergers tend to be from this sector. Formerly the USSR, the country experienced turmoil after the end of the Cold War.

Fossil fuel reserves

As well as the 8th largest oil reserves, Russia has the largest gas reserves of any nation state, about 25% of total global reserves. It also has a lot of tar sands.

Oil & "Debt Default"

Russia has been suffering from sanctions following the 2014 Ukraine Coup, the Covid-19 Recession that saw the 5^th highest death toll of the world nations, and a sudden Oil price war with US-ally Saudi Arabia during the Covid-19 Lockdown. Russia suffered a debt default caused by a suspicious technical error in Belgian computers processing the finances, which fuelled claims that it was the reason BP divested from Rosneft, that Shell left and pipeline investments into Blue Stream were scrapped.

Leadership

Vladimir Putin has been an important figure in Russian politics of the last 2 decades. He became FSB Director on 25 July 1998, Russian Prime Minister on 9 August 1999 and Russian President on 7 May 2000.

Policies

Cyberwarfare

Unlike, American activities regarding cyberattacks, Russian cyberwarfare is often the alleged cause of computer errors in the Western world. Cyberwarfare by Russia includes denial of service attacks, hacker attacks, dissemination of disinformation and propaganda, participation of state-sponsored teams in political blogs, internet surveillance using SORM technology, persecution of cyber-dissidents and other active measures.

In 2019 Russia was jailing Jehovah's witnesses under laws about "extremism".

Russophobia

Full article: Russophobia

File:Apartment bombing.jpg

One of the apartment blocks destroyed by explosives in September 1999, a deep event which the Russian leadership exploited a casus belli for the invasion of Chechnya.

Irrational fear of Russia is termed "Russophobia". Western commercially-controlled media and governments have been building up this enemy image after the success of Donald Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election.

"Russian Propaganda"

Full article: Russian Propaganda

This website was accused by the spooky ProporNot website as being a supplier of "Russian propaganda" - notwithstanding its pages on events such as the 9/99 bombings. The general pattern of NATO-friendly groups attempting to reboot Cold War was clear to many observers since about 2016Template:Cn, but the first clear documentary evidence of a deliberate campaign funded by UK Deep state-backed groups emerged only in late 2018 after the Integrity Initiative leak of 2018.

US Election Interference

Full article: Russiagate

After Donald Trump was elected, unnamed Russians were accused of interference in the 2016 US presidential election, through social media such as Twitter).

Society

{{#subobject: |Has superobject=Russia |Has objectClass=Quotation |Has author=Euan Grant|+sep=, |Has text=“As commentators such as Mark Galotti and Edward Lucas have long pointed out, the Putin state has long co-opted Russian criminality to act as an information source, purveyor of corruption and in supporting Russia/Foreign policy aims including murders outside Russia. However, due to difficulties to say the least in obtaining convictions or even meeting criminal standards of evidence against persons outside the jurisdiction, much information which would demonstrate these links are often limited in numbers and quality. This is especially so due to the lack of understanding of the semi militarized ethos of Russian society.” |Is about=Russia,Russia, Russia/Society, Russia/Foreign policy|+sep=, |Has wikipediaPage= |Has location=|+sep=, |Has publicationDate= |Sourced from= |Has sourceDetails= |Has sourceTitle= |Has sourceName= |Has sourceURL=

}}

“As commentators such as Mark Galotti and Edward Lucas have long pointed out, the Putin state has long co-opted Russian criminality to act as an information source, purveyor of corruption and in supporting Russia/Foreign policy aims including murders outside Russia. However, due to difficulties to say the least in obtaining convictions or even meeting criminal standards of evidence against persons outside the jurisdiction, much information which would demonstrate these links are often limited in numbers and quality. This is especially so due to the lack of understanding of the semi militarized ethos of Russian society.”
Euan Grant Template:Cn

Sleeper terror cells

In December 2022, journalist Jack Murphy exposed that the US and an unnamed "NATO allied spy service" have created a network of standing sleeper cells. The sabotage network was activated to hinder Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine by waging a secret war behind Russian lines. While command and control over the sabotage program resides with the CIA for legal reasons, the NATO ally has a strong say in which operations go forward since it is their people taking the risks.

The allied spy service had emplaced caches of explosives and gear used by these cells more than a decade previously. At the time, that spy service was allegedly acting unilaterally, without any CIA participation. After new 2016 infiltrations, more teams slipped into Russia over the next several years. Some smuggled in new munitions, while others relied on the original caches.

While no American personnel are involved on the ground in Russia in the execution of these missions, agency paramilitary officers are commanding and controlling the operations, The paramilitary officers are assigned to the CIA’s Special Activities Center but detailed to the agency’s European Mission Center.

With the CIA’s knowledge, the allied spy service provided the undercover sleeper cell operatives with "legends" – false biographies that would explain their presence in Russia – and the documents to back those cover stories up. There is also an extensive network of front companies that were established as platforms to support such behind-the-lines operations, some of which were created almost 20 years ago.

An intelligence operative said to Jack Murphy that "The elite-level teams that we have the best relationships with are almost always given air surveillance support for major sabotage ops" behind Russian lines, adding that some of the ISR platforms are models that have never been publicly revealed. "Drones we don’t even know about yet are loitering all over the Ukrainian and Russian airspace," the person said.

In addition Ukrainian intelligence and special operations forces are running their own operations behind Russian lines.

References