Putin's Alternative Facts: The World We Never Lived In

President Vladimir Putin of Russia has authored an article in the American magazine, the National Interest, on the lessons of World War II.

He concludes writing (in complex, compound sentences) that the world faces numerous serious risks, and it is the duty of "primarily representatives of the victorious powers" of the Second World War to guarantee that post-WWII cooperation is maintained and improved, by convening the "five nuclear powers, permanent members of the Security Council"--US, China, France, UK, and Russia--to "discuss steps to develop collective principles in world affairs."  He claims the support of the leaders of these countries to hold such a meeting.

However, Putin's article is riddled with errors of fact and misrepresentations. It is a shoddy basis for assessing global accomplishments and for forging a new international foundation of cooperation because it describes an alternative reality that never existed.

Quick takes on Putin's article include an excellent Twitter feed by Sergey Radchenko of Cardiff University on Putin’s use of language and misrepresentation of fact to distort history, https://twitter.com/DirkMattheisen/status/1273790768596111361, and an article by Daniel Fried at the Atlantic Council.

It is an interesting question though--and I am speculating--as to who helped Putin write his article. It undoubtedly reflects Putin’s views, but it also reflects the thinking and style of Dimitri Simes, the publisher of the National Interest. Simes has for many years published articles that excused Russian (and Putin's) misconduct in domestic and in international affairs. [The original post included a link to an earlier post that contained factual error, misrepresenting Dimitri Simes’ activities, and has been removed.]

Quot

The Tightening MH17 Noose Around the Throat of Putin

                                                                                                                        photo credit

No need to add anything to this.  Bellingcat has again done a superb job of bringing to light the facts about the shooting down of Malaysia Flight MH17 over Ukraine by Russia, as summarized below by The Times.  The conclusion is inescapable that the BUK’s presence—and therefore the shooting down of MH17--in Ukraine was authorized by Russia officials and could not have happened without the consent if not the instruction of Putin.

Sanctions against Russia should not be lifted until the final determination of culpability for shooting down MH17 has been determined, and additional sanctions should be imposed if Russia continues to attempt to interfere in the investigations and judicial proceedings.

 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russian-spy-chief-is-potential-suspect-in-downing-of-mh17-jwqcxxrct

The Donut Holes in the Fake Ukraine Collusion Story

In the murder mystery Knives Out, Daniel Craig is devilishly entertaining as renowned detective Benoit Blanc as he describes "donut holes within donut holes" of overlooked evidence before connecting the facts about who murdered renowned novelist Harlan Thrombey. It's an excellent metaphor for Russia’s war on the West, of which the fake Ukraine collusion story is a part. As we delve deeper into donut holes within donut holes, we know more about Russia’s campaign of disinformation to discredit Ukraine and the West, even if sometimes the facts before us distract us from the underlying truth.

In a January 17 article in the Washington Post, Melinda Haring, Deputy Director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council, took credit for calling out eight months earlier the fake Ukraine collusion story--pushed at the time by John Solomon, an opinion contributor at The Hill--that Yuriy Lutsenko, then Prosecutor General of Ukraine, "was opening a criminal investigation into an alleged attempt by a top Ukrainian law enforcement official to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election." That fake story, Haring writes, "set off the ridiculous “Ukraine collusion” narrative that Trump loyalists have been pushing for 10 months” (Solomon is now a Fox News commentator; meanwhile, his contributions in The Hill are being reviewed by The Hill for false and misleading content).

In response, Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American activist, wrote in a post on Facebook that the Ukraine collusion story did not originate with the Lutsenko story in 2019 but with the Kremlin in 2016 in comments made by Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharov, who accused Ukraine of interfering in the US election rather than Russia (probably to deflect from the discovery of the "black ledger" that detailed millions of dollars in payments to Paul Manafort).

What was unknown then was how the story would take off with Trump-associated conspiracy promoters, especially Rudolph Giuliani, who promoted the Ukraine collusion story to undermine the impeachment of Trump by drawing attention to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, who serves on the board of a Ukrainian company. Haring writes that she was wrong at the time to believe that the Ukraine collusion story had originated in Kyiv with President Poroshenko. With what we know now, she writes, the fake story originated in Washington with Giuliani. Chalupa--who was accused in another fake story by Solomon of seeking dirt on Trump through the Ukrainian embassy in Washington--points her finger at the Kremlin but directs her ire at Trump, Giuliani, and Manafort. Yet, what is staring us in the face is that nothing originates in Washington.

The new focus on Giuliani, for example, is incomplete. It is true that Giuliani pushed the Ukraine collusion story, along with his associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who channeled Russian money to Republican politicians and worked to discredit US Ambassador Yovanovich, as well as Republican point men, such as Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Linsey Graham (R-SC), who repeat the same disinformation. But we are staring at the mask, not the face, of disinformation.

Malign actors, such as Trump, Giuliani, Manafort, Solomon, Fox News, and Republican apologists for Russia, draw our attention to Washington but distract us from the reality that at heart this is a part of Russia’s war on the West. Haring and Chalupa are not wrong that actors in Washington have an outsized influence in promoting the fake Ukraine collusion story, but the facts in front of us should not distract us from what should be our focus. As Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) remarked in the Senate impeachment hearings last week, “the Ukraine conspiracy is brought to you by the Kremlin.” If we don't always know who is pushing the pen, we know it is the Kremlin that is writing the story.

Despite his malign influence, Trump is nothing in the Ukraine conspiracy but a whip wielded by Putin. The Kremlin created the fake story, promotes it through disinformation, and uses Putin’s leverage over Trump, through enticement or threat, to advance Russia’s interest.

Despite his Machiavellian contortions, Giuliani would be nothing without the backing from Ukrainian oligarch, Dimitri Firtash, for whom Giuliani’s associate, Lev Parnas, was working as a conduit for Russian money to Republican purses and as an agent to regain control of the Ukrainian gas transit business upon which Firtash first made his illicit money, which in turn leads to Russian organized crime and to Putin directly. New details about Firtash’s role continue to emerge in a steady drip from Parnas’ disclosures.

Similarly, Manafort is nothing without Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, and corrupt Ukrainian intermediaries that paid Manafort to promote Russia’s interest in Ukraine and undermine Ukraine in the US.

In spite of the day-to-day, moment-to-moment distraction of new facts, the focus needs to remain on the principal suspect in the story. The evidence shows that all donut holes point to Russia.

ReplyForward

Russia at war: From Russia with Blood (2)

Since I wrote Russia at War: A Review of From Russia with Blood, The Times of London has also published an article on the larger picture of Russia's war with the West under Putin.  The Times writes,

“Russia is at war with the West. It uses propaganda, economic coercion, military saber-rattling, extraterritorial killings and diplomatic pressure to systematically undermine the rules-based international order. It also wages “lawfare”, abusing international legal co-operation and law-enforcement institutions.

Since coming to power in 2000, Vladimir Putin has built an authoritarian kleptocracy in Russia. In this system, elections, and political institutions have been hollowed out, the judiciary is supine and several critical journalists and political opponents have been killed.

The system is based on predation and corruption....“

The West needs the resolve to recognize and respond to Russia’s asymmetric war.  As I wrote, measures already enacted and those under consideration are needed to blunt Russia’s aggression, but they are insufficient by themselves.  Russian aggression is wider-ranging in means. Knowing Putin’s game plan, the West cannot afford to fight a limited or solely defensive asymmetric war. The West needs a proportionate response that demonstrates that for every action there will be an equal and like response that disrupts Russia at war.

Russia at War: A Review of From Russia with Blood

http://euromaidanpress.com/2020/01/09/russia-at-war-a-review-of-from-russia-with-blood/

Heidi Blake’s, From Russia With Blood, about Russian state-sponsored attacks on and murders of individuals in Russia and abroad, including Russian defectors Sergei Skripal and Alexander Litvinenko and others, is a gripping read. But the real story is the larger picture that emerges from these murders confirming what is already widely believed. Russia is at war.

In Blake’s telling, the attacks on and murder of Russians and other nationals in Russia and in Western countries are linked not just to money laundering of Russian wealth but also to the work of the Russian security services to eliminate Putin’s opponents and to compromise individuals and Western institutions, to Russian cyberattacks and disinformation that undermine faith in Western institutions, to interference in other countries’ political processes, and to Putin’s criminality at the expense of the Russian people and his dream to overturn the global system and restore Russian power.

Blake’s is a gritty, street-level view of Russia at war. As early as the 1990s and for most of the first two decades of the 2000s, Britain, the US, and other countries turned a blind eye to evidence that Russia under Putin was conducting a campaign of murder against its citizens and Western enablers who had fallen out with the Kremlin over money or politics.

In Blake’s narrative, Britain and the US were impotent to respond as they failed to realize the full implications for Western security. The murders were not just personal, they were a means to a larger end.

A Russia consumed by criminality was emboldened by Western avidity for vast Russian wealth seeking a safe harbor in the West

Although not set out in Blake’s narrative, the West’s impotence is on full display among British and US politicians. An inquest into the 2006 murder of Alexander Litvinenko did not take place until 2016 as Britain prioritized trade and investment with Russia. This last year, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is accused of having delayed for political purposes a government report on Russian election interference until after his election. In the US, Trump and his circle, as well as leading Republicans–often funded by Russian sources through organizations such as the NRA or Trump associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman—frequently belittle the risk of Russian interference and, at times, legitimate and amplify Russia disinformation, such as that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election or that Ukraine was responsible for interfering not Russia, as detailed among other places in the Mueller Report and the ongoing impeachment drama.

Evident from Blake’s narrative is that a Russia consumed by criminality — foremost as practiced by Vladimir Putin — was emboldened by Western avidity for vast Russian wealth seeking a safe harbor in the West even as that wealth brought with it the subversion of Western banks, law firms, and anonymous corporations. Western avarice is epitomized by the murder of Britains described in Blake’s book, such as lawyers Stephen Curtis and Stephen Moss and the horrific death of fixer Scot Young.

Blake summarizes the scope and consequence of Putin’s war on the West, as follows,

“The Novichok attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal on a rainy Sunday in Salisbury was the latest dramatic salvo in a series of increasingly warlike moves by the Kremlin (…“the attack on the Skripals had been conducted by two serving members of Russia’s military intelligence agency…”). Putin’s security state had helped propel Donald Trump to the White House through a concerted campaign of meddling in the 2016 US election. Its hacking labs, internet troll factories, and fake news farms had sown disunity, disruption, and disinformation in democracies across Europe, while its financing of extremist fringe groups had stirred up race hate and violence around the world. It had sponsored an attempted coup against the government of Montenegro as the country neared accession to NATO and unleashed ever more malignant cyberattacks on Western governments. And, for all the effort to make Russia part of the solution in Syria, it had backed the regime of Bashar al-Assad with increasingly ferocious military assaults on the Western-backed rebels as the dictator gassed hundreds of his own people with internationally outlawed chemical weapons. The leaders of the United States and Europe had covered their eyes to the Kremlin’s crimes for so long that the man inside had crept right up on them, and now Putin’s actions amounted to an asymmetric war on the West.”

What Blake writes is corroborated and expanded by other reporting and sources. For example, the involvement of the Russian government is detailed in the New York Times reporting on a secret Russian military unit specifically tasked with assassinations in Europe and in disinformation campaigns.

Blake’s is an unfinished story. Even now many in the West are captivated by the chance of windfall wealth from Russia and other countries based on providing a safe harbor for illicit money flows. The political leadership in Britain and in the US, as well as in the EU, are still too unaware of the scope and consequences of Russia’s asymmetric war on the West — of which money-laundering is only a small part. Some appear prepared to compromise on Western security for personal and party short-term gain.

Nevertheless, Putin’s war has provoked a response. Anti-money laundering legislation in Britain in 2017, as well as the proposed US Illicit Cash Act and proposed EU anti-money laundering legislation, if passed, could curtail the immediate threat from money laundering. And, more aggressive measures that address the source of corruption and anti-Western aggression, such as the so-called “Magnitsky Act,” passed in 2016 and 2017 by the US, Britain, Canada, as well as by the frontline neighboring states in Putin’s war, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, has already curtailed the activities of those who engage in money laundering and in human rights abuses. Further “Magnitsky” legislation is under consideration by the EU — which hosts numerous off-shore financial jurisdictions listed by the IMF, including Ireland, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Malta, Monaco and others–and by EU member states. Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia are considering similar legislation. Each of these last three countries has been the target of and lost territory in Russia’s asymmetric war.

Measures already enacted and those under consideration are needed to blunt Russia’s aggression, but they are insufficient by themselves.  Russian aggression is wider-ranging in means. Knowing Putin’s game plan, the West cannot afford to fight a limited or solely defensive asymmetric war.  The West needs a proportionate response that demonstrates that for every action there will be an equal and like response that disrupts Russia at war.

BuzzFeed News contributed to exposing Russia’s asymmetric war.  As Blake writes, Buzzfeed News “published a series of stories laying bare Russia’s campaign of assassination in the West. The series had mapped a web of fourteen suspected hits in the UK, including the deaths of Boris Berezovsky, his fellow exiles, and their British fixers, as well as the death of Mikhail Lesin in America.” Blake is Global Investigations Editor at Buzzfeed News.

More on Russia's Campaign of Fabrications and Lies on Russia's Shooting Down Flight MH17

Memorial by Families and Nations of Victims of MH17

Photo Credit: voanews.com

Christo Grozev and others report on the latest release by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) of transcripts of phone conversations between field commanders in eastern Ukraine (some Ukrainian and some Russia) that establish the close command by Russian authorities of the fighting in eastern Ukraine and the downing of Flight MH17.

Grozev's Twitter chain is worth reading to grasp the absolute control of Russia authorities of the fighting and political developments in eastern Ukraine, including the direct involvement, as shown by the transcripts, of President Putin's aide, Vladislav Surkov, who is widely held to be responsible for control of Russia's artificial mini-states in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, and suggest the direct involvement of Sergey Shoigu (or Shoygu), Russian Minister of Defense (who is rumored to be a possible successor to Putin when he completes his term as president) .  The involvement of Surkov and Shoigu could not have taken place without the direct involvement of Putin.

The significance of the release of transcripts can not be understated.  I had previously written that, despite Russia’s categorical denial of the facts, the well-advanced JIT investigation is on the verge of naming the Russian military officers and their political superiors who are responsible for downing MH17.  In addition to bringing justice for the victims of MH17 and their families, Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine will be incontrovertible...There will then be more significant indictments close to or up to the Kremlin, as well as the real possibility of additional sanctions.  Today, JIT has taken a step closer to that end.

I had also written that future Russia will stand or fall on its ability to act honestly toward its own people and the international community.  It cannot do that if it is engaged in shadow conflicts with neighboring, independent countries, as well as far-flung conflicts in Syria and elsewhere, where it willfully and purposefully violates human and state rights, refuses to be held accountable, and carries out extensive disinformation campaigns built on deliberate fabrications and lies.  Russian civil society pays a high social and economic price for its government's crimes and will until the government's behavior changes.

 Photo Credit: infonapalm.org

Russia's Campaign of Fabrications and Lies on the fifth Anniversary of Russia's Shooting Down of MH17

Human Rights in Ukraine reports families of persons killed in the shooting down of MH17, have on the fifth anniversary of MH17's destruction, addressed an open letter to Russia.

Their letter makes the point I made in an earlier post and an article in Euromaidan Press that Russia continues to deny its culpability and, moreover, engages in an extensive campaign of fabrications and lies to cover up its culpability.

Alone among nations, Russia's conduct and that of Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, stand out for its deceit and hypocrisy. 

Human Rights in Ukraine writes, The family members have no illusions after these five years.  They [family members] write: “To this point there has been no acknowledgement by the Russian state of their involvement in the shooting down of MH17. Worse, Russia has spread multiple, bogus and contradictory explanations about what happened. This has taken place on a massive scale through social media but also through the main state sponsored media channels. It took time for us to realise that this barrage of conflicting theories was the result of a state orchestrated campaign of denial, distraction and distortion. The Russian government has done its best to hide the truth, or worse, convey the idea that there is no reliable truth to be found. We the families of MH17 have found this disturbing and deeply offensive.”

Future Russia will stand or fall on its ability to act honestly toward its own people and the international community.  It cannot do that if it is engaged in shadow conflicts with neighboring, independent countries, as well as far-flung conflicts in Syria and elsewhere, where it willfully and purposefully violates human and state rights, refuses to be held accountable, and carries out extensive disinformation campaigns built on deliberate fabrications and lies.  Russian civil society pays a high social and economic price for its government's crimes and will until the government's behavior changes.

My earlier posts and article can be found here,

Russia's Campaign to Discredit the MH17 Investigation (continued)

http://dirkmattheisen.blogspot.com/2019/07/russias-campaign-to-discredit-mh17.html

Russia's Campaign to Discredit the MH17 Investigation

http://euromaidanpress.com/2019/06/26/whataboutism-strikes-again-in-russias-disinformation-campaign-to-discredit-the-mh17-investigation/

And, here is a link to the private analytical service, Bellingcat, on the status of the MH17 investigation and known links to the Russian military, secret services and the Kremlin.