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A Russia After Putin

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Russian president Vladimir Putin (R) attends a press conference at the Kremlin with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (L). Putin hasn’t been seen in public since. (Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters)

I’ve given my opinion of where Vladimir Vladimirovich is and what he’s doing.
My gut says he’s alive, unless there was a palace coup and one of his top generals finally snapped.
I believe Russia’s leadership went into planning at an offsite.  What is next, return on investment, wargaming. Figure in the financials, what can they afford, what will they get back, is it worthwhile doing.  Like before Crimea, after Sochi. At an offsite location.
The question is, who else is missing? That tells you who is planning.
But this is fun to read what everybody is saying.

Even if the president reappears, his absence reveals the chilling degree to which he has consolidated power in the country.

Vladimir Putin’s mysterious sabbatical from public life is now in its eighth day, and, still, nobody knows where he is. The Kremlin, whose spokesman Dmitry Peskov has the unfortunate task of insisting nothing is wrong, denies that the Russian president is incapacitated. On Saturday, Moscow announced that Putin will surface on Monday in St. Petersburg, where he’s scheduled to meet Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev. The meeting would be Putin’s first public appearance since March 5, when he met with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

Putin’s reemergence will, probably to the disappointment of journalists everywhere, put a slew of salacious rumors to rest. Even if the president resumes power as before, however, his extended absence raises an uncomfortable question. What would happen in Russia, hypothetically, if Putin dies?

Until this week, analysts had little reason to contemplate the scenario. Putin is just 62 years old and, as Russian propaganda regularly reminds the world, in good shape. But nobody expected Kim Jong Il, just 69, to die young—until he did in 2011. And there’s even a precedent in recent Russian history. Three leaders of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko, died in rapid succession from 1982 to 1985, a series of events that brought the reformist Mikhail Gorbachev to power.

Given Russia’s size, nuclear arsenal, and regional influence, the passing of its leader would have significant consequences—no matter who it is. But a Putin death could be particularly destabilizing. Since assuming Russia’s presidency in 2000 following the resignation of predecessor Boris Yeltsin, who had appointed the then-unknown ex-KGB officer Prime Minister just months before, Putin has spent the next 15 years centralizing state power. Many democratic institutions established in the 1990s—such as the popular election of regional officials—exist just in memory, and the only office for which Russians vote directly is Putin’s itself. Putin controls Russia’s television, where 90 percent of the populationreceives its news, and strictly censors the Internet. Political opposition in Russia is largely weak and fragmented—outspoken critics end up in prison or dead, a trend continued with the assassination of Boris Nemtsov in Moscow last month.

Contemporary Russia is often compared to China, a fellow authoritarian power with which Moscow enjoys a chummy relationship on the UN Security Council. Xi Jinping, Putin’s Chinese counterpart, is thought by some to be China’s most powerful ruler in decades. But Xi must still contend with powerful rivals from within the Communist Party. Putin appears to face less intra-party competition. Because of the personal nature of his rule, Vladimir Putin was named the world’s most powerful individual by the political scientist Ian Bremmer in 2013.

If Putin dies, power would in theory pass to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who under the Russian constitution would then have three months to organize a presidential election. The boyish Medvedev, technically, held the job from 2008 to 2012, and may be in position to govern again—this time without Putin looking over his shoulder.

A smooth transition to power, rather than a protracted power struggle, would seem to be the best case scenario for Russia. Even then, a post-Putin Russia would probably not deviate far from the authoritarian’s policies. Putin remains broadly popular in the country, despite an economy teetering under the weight of Western sanctions and collapsed oil prices. A relatively liberal, pro-Western government, such as Boris Yeltsin’s, is unlikely to emerge.

“I am hesitant when people call for a Russia without Putin.” Dmitry Oreshkin, a pro-opposition analyst who heads the Moscow-based Mercator political research group, told Vocativ. “What do they think is going to follow him? Some liberal politician? No, things would only get worse.”

Maybe it’s better to hope that Putin shows up on Monday in St. Petersburg.

Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/03/a-russia-after-putin/387814/


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From Munich to Kyiv

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BRATISLAVA/PRAGUE – In 1938, when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich proclaiming “peace in our time,” Winston Churchill famously denounced the decision Britain and France had just made. “You were given the choice between war and dishonor,” he said. “You chose dishonor and you will have war.”
Sadly, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President François Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and US President Barack Obama, facing a similar choice in Ukraine, have chosen dishonor as well. But now it is Ukraine that is getting the war, while Europe stands aside, even as its security is undermined and its values mocked.

More than one hundred prominent Czech and Slovak public intellectuals have written an open letter to Europe’s key leaders, admonishing them to get off their chosen path of appeasement. As citizens of the successor states to Czechoslovakia, the country that received its death sentence at the Munich conference, we feel a particular responsibility to speak out.
It has been a year since Ukraine’s citizens sent a corrupt regime packing, with many perishing under their national flag and the flag of the European Union, to open a path toward dignity and freedom for their country. It has also been a year since the Russian army occupied Crimea, violating the principle of the sanctity of borders upon which peace in Europe has stood since World War II. Today, the bloody footprints of Russian agents and soldiers are as evident in Ukraine as the poisonous traces of polonium were in the streets of London following the murder of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. The order for that murder, as an inquest in London is now hearing, can be traced to the Kremlin.
As many as 50,000 Ukrainians and Russians may have died so far in Russia’s war against Ukraine, with almost two million expelled from their homes. Yet the leaders of the democratic West refer to Russia’s aggression on the territory of a foreign state in a type of Orwellian newspeak. They call it a “conflict” or a “situation” instead of what it is: an invasion and a war. As citizens of a region that endured both Nazi and Soviet occupation, we know all too well the danger of euphemism.
In 1938, while other democracies silently looked on, Great Britain and France betrayed their ally Czechoslovakia. Under the pretense of protecting the German minority in the Sudetenland, they allowed Hitler to begin dismembering the entire country. Within six months of the Munich Agreement, on March 15, 1939, Hitler’s Wehrmacht was marching through the streets of Prague. Bohemia and Moravia became a Reich protectorate, and Slovakia was given nominal independence under a puppet regime. Czechoslovakia’s impressive industrial capacity and human resources were placed fully at the service of Hitler’s war machine. By the time Hitler attacked France, one-quarter of all German weapons came from the occupied Czech lands.
Today, history appears to be repeating itself with a vengeance. In 1994, Ukraine surrendered its arsenal of nuclear weapons. By signing the Budapest Memorandum, the United States and the United Kingdom became guarantors of a disarmed Ukraine’s territorial integrity and independence. They have betrayed that pledge with nary a political consequence to themselves.
The paucity of support for embattled Ukraine from the Western democracies is a sad reminder of their failure to stand up to Hitler (not only in Czechoslovakia, but also in the Spanish Civil War). And the craven refusal to live up to the Budapest Memorandum is casting a shadow on the credibility of other international guarantees and agreements, including the mutual-defense assurance that lies at the heart of NATO membership. After all, if one fundamental pledge can be broken for reasons of political expedience, why not another?
Indeed, if no one in the West is willing to help Ukraine defend itself and its 45 million people, what are the chances that the world’s democracies will risk confrontation with Russia to defend Estonia’s one million citizens, or Latvia’s two million, or Lithuania’s three million?
Of course, it is always preferable to attempt to negotiate rather than resort to war. But a willingness only to negotiate is perceived in Vladimir Putin’s Russia as the sign of weakness that it is. Negotiations can succeed only if conducted alongside the toughest and broadest possible sanctions on the Russian economy and the provision of effective and extensive help to Ukraine.
Ukraine’s citizens, like the citizens of Poland who fought alone after the betrayal at Munich, are fighting bravely against a ruthless aggressor. They do not fight for their freedom alone, but for the freedom of democratic Europe. To reward their courage with betrayal mocks everything that the West believes about itself.
Let us be clear: Russia’s war against Ukraine is an attempt to stop the eastward spread of democracy in Europe. War in Europe is here. Donations of bandages and blankets to Ukraine’s ravaged people will not stop the bloodshed – or prevent the West’s dishonor.

Source http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/west-dishonor-ukraine-by-petr-kolar-and-juraj-mesik-2015-03#7tIBo1U2hZJx4fH8.01


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Anonymous has a Message for Kanye West

Poles Steel for Battle, Fearing Russia Will March on Them Next

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KALISZ, Poland — For evidence of how much President Vladimir V. Putinof Russia has jangled nerves and provoked anxiety across Eastern Europe, look no farther than the drill held the other day by the Shooters Association.

The paramilitary group, like more than 100 others in Poland, has experienced a sharp spike in membership since Mr. Putin’s forces began meddling in neighboring Ukraine last year.

Thirty students took an oath to defend Poland at all costs, joining nearly 200 other regional members of the association — young men and women, boys and girls — marching in formation around the perimeter of the dusty high school courtyard here. They crossed Polish Army Boulevard and marched into the center of town, sprawling in four long lines along the edge of St. Joseph’s Square.

Gen. Boguslaw Pacek, an adviser to the Polish defense minister and the government’s chief liaison with these paramilitary groups, marched with them. He has been making the rounds in recent months of such gatherings: student chapters like this one, as well as groups of veterans, even battle re-enactors.

Children played soccer as young members of the Shooters Association trained at a school in Kalisz. CreditPiotr Malecki for The New York Times

One of those who took the oath in Kalisz was Bartosz Walesiak, 16, who said he had been interested in the military since playing with toy soldiers as a little boy, but had been motivated to join the Shooters Association afterRussia moved into Crimea.

“I think that Putin will want more,” he said.

“Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia are already getting ready for such a scenario, so Poland must do the same.”

As the crisis drags on, what was unthinkable at the end of the Cold War now seems not quite so unlikely to many Poles: that the great Russian behemoth will not be sated with Ukraine and will reach out once again into the West. The thought is darkening the national mood and rippling across the entire region in ways that reflect a visceral fear of an aggressive and unpredictable Russia.

Pointing out that Russia insists it has no such intentions usually elicits little more than a despairing laugh.

“I think the impact on everyday life is starting to be very bad,” said Marcin Zaborowski, director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs. “Very often now, people approach me — neighbors, hairdressers — asking whether there will be a war. The other day, my mother called and asked me.”

Dinner parties in Warsaw these days frequently drift to the topic. Possibilities that were once shrugged off are now seriously contemplated. Even the jokes are laced with anxiety.

In January, the Polish Ministry of National Defense announced that it would provide military training to any civilian who wished to receive it, with registration beginning March 1. About 1,000 people showed up the first day, said Col. Tomasz Szulejko, spokesman for the Polish Army’s general staff. “This number certainly bodes well for the future,” he said.

Tomasz Siemoniak, Poland’s defense minister, is also contemplating a proposal to establish a Territorial Defense Force, taking the cream of the members of the paramilitary associations and other volunteers to create something akin to the National Guard in the United States.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz changed the law on who can be called up for service in case of “military maneuvers.” Previously, the armed forces could summon only current and former reservists, those with actual military training. Now, if necessary, they can call on almost any man in the country.

In neighboring Lithuania, President Dalia Grybauskaite said her government intended to reinstate military conscription because of the “current geopolitical environment.”

In January, the government issued a 98-page booklet (“How to Act in Extreme Situations or Instances of War”) that offered advice on what citizens should do if foreign soldiers appeared on their doorstep, and how they might offer passive resistance to an occupying power.

“If you are a civilian and you make that clear, it is unlikely someone will rush to kill you,” the booklet advised, urging people not to panic. Even hearing shots fired outside your home “is not the end of the world,” it said.

“People come up and ask me: ‘Should we leave? Should we flee?’ ” said Karlis Bukovskis, deputy director of the Latvian Institute of International Affairs in Riga. “This is a new development. This is the first time that has happened to me.”

Worries are increasing in Poland, but they have not yet reached the level of mass fear, said Tomasz Szlendak, a sociologist at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun who has studied the effects the Ukraine crisis is having in Poland.

At a recent party of fellow academics, he said, one retired military officer announced that he would organize a local militia if the Russians invaded. Another professor declared that he would put his wife and daughter on a plane out of Poland with a bag of money and then sign up with one of the paramilitary groups.

“These kind of comments are, of course, meant as jokes,” Mr. Szlendak said. “But they are based on real fear. They are humorless, sad jokes.”

The situation has not quite gotten to the point that people are stockpiling food and ammunition in the basement, said Mr. Zaborowski of the Polish Institute of International Affairs, but anxiety is definitely rising.

Pawel Kowal, a former member of Poland’s Parliament and a foreign policy expert, said the country was getting parallel messages from its leaders, being told that a newly aggressive Russia poses a genuine threat while also being reassured that membership in NATO and the European Union will provide sufficient protection.

“The sense is that the border between NATO and Russia is like a new Iron Curtain,” Mr. Kowal said. “But at least this time, Poland is on the right side of it.”

The growing enrollment in the paramilitary groups is just one manifestation of the changed climate. The number of groups, General Pacek said, is clearly rising. Not all of the increase is due to Ukraine — patriotism and uniformed service are becoming more fashionable among younger Poles, and the military does offer a stable career — but Mr. Putin’s shadow has certainly accelerated the trend, he said.

A gathering a few days earlier in the city of Szczecin had 500 new cadets taking the oath. General Pacek estimated there were 120 such groups at the moment, with about 80,000 members, but he acknowledged that this was just a guess, as the groups are not required to report their existence or membership rolls.

The Defense Ministry has been trying to entice the groups to join an alliance with the government, offering equipment, uniforms, training and even money in exchange for a clearer idea of who they are — and a chance to assemble a new generation of energized recruits.

“There is no question of them doing any fighting,” General Pacek said. “They are to offer assistance to the military. But of course, they have to be prepared to defend.”

Members of the paramilitary association lined up during an exercise at 3 a.m.CreditPiotr Malecki for The New York Times

In St. Joseph’s Square, the 30 new members of the Shooting Association waited for the command before taking four purposeful steps forward and raising their right hands.

“I hereby pledge to put the good of the Polish Republic above all else,” they repeated. “I will always be ready to defend its independence until my last breath.”

After the ceremony, Grzegorz Sapinski, the mayor of Kalisz, watched the cadets march down the cobblestone streets back to the school.

“One cannot help but notice the change in attitudes among young people following what is happening in Ukraine,” Mr. Sapinski said. “The conflict is not in some obscure place. It is happening four hours’ drive away.”

The members of one squad from the Shooters Association were splayed on their bellies on the edge of the school’s soccer field, pushing themselves ahead one knee thrust at a time. Each held a prop AK-47, and Capt. Lukasz Kolcz, the chapter’s commander, barked at them to keep low and move forward.

The youngest of the cadets, Grzegorz Zurek, 11, was having trouble keeping up, but he was stubbornly determined. As they arrived on the far side of the field, the cadets turned to cheer Grzegorz along.

“I think it is highly probable that Putin will do something against Poland,” Grzegorz later said. “I know from history that Russia has always been a totalitarian state. Now it is trying to regain the territory it lost at the end of the Cold War.”

He rested his rubber-coated gun on the soft, perfect grass.

“Should it invade Poland,” he said, “I would not hesitate a second to fight against them.”


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Ukrainian Doctors Meet With Savchenko

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Jailed Ukrainian military pilot Nadia Savchenko

By RFE/RL

Ukrainian physicians who traveled to Russia to examine jailed Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko have now been allowed in to see her.

Savchenko’s lawyer, Mark Feigin, confirmed on Twitter that Ukrainian doctors met with Savchenko on March 14.

Officials at the facility where Savchenko is being kept said they would not allow an earlier visit on March 13, because the doctors did not have the necessary paperwork from the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Savchenko is in pretrial detention in Russia, where she has been charged with involvement in a mortar attack that killed two Russian journalists covering the conflict between government forces and Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine.

She recently ended a nearly three-month hunger strike to protest what she calls her illegal confinement by Russia.

The Ukrainian doctors recommended to Savchenko that she should not resume her hunger strike.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-savchenko-doctors/26900753.html


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This is why it’s impossible for the Kremlin to lie about Putin’s weird disappearance

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Where is he? (Sergei Karpukhin/AP)

Julia Ioffe

By Julia Ioffe March 14 at 6:00 AM
Julia Ioffe is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine. She was the Moscow correspondent for Foreign Policy and The New Yorker.

The president’s carefully cultivated image rests on never showing weakness.

It’s been more than a week now since anybody’s seen Russian President Vladimir Putin. He had a mundane meeting with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on March 5, and then … nothing. Since then, Putin hasn’t been seen in public, and the Russian blogosphere can talk about nothing else. Their president skipped a number of events—including one with his FSB bigwigs—and the Kazakhs, with whom Putin was supposed to meet this week, said the Russian president was ill. They quickly walked it back after the Kremlin denied it. The Kremlin began fiddling with Putin’s schedule. State television began broadcasting news of meetings planned for the future as if they had already happened in order to show that Putin was alive enough to attend meetings. Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s mustachioed spokesman, has been stonewalling all week, insisting that his boss is not only breathing, but “breaking hands” with his manly handshake.

Unsurprisingly, this combination—active and seemingly frantic dissimulation, and flat denial that anything is amiss—is perfect for the Internet. #PutinIsDead began trending on Russian Twitter, and the Russian blogosphere began to churn out theories of what happened to Dear Shirtless Leader, each version more ludicrous than the next.

There was the anonymous letter claiming to be from an employee of elite Moscow hospital, who said that Putin had had a stroke and was languishing in the hospital. There were the frantic messages from people who know people in the Russian Embassy in London, saying that they had abandoned London en masse and that there would be a statement in three hours—a statement that never got made. There was the (false) report of the Kremlin press service asking foreign correspondents not to leave Moscow ahead of what would be a major announcement this weekend. A former Putin aide living in Washington posited that Putin had been overthrown by the siloviki (“strongmen”) in a palace coup. Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic and Putin’s most violent cheerleader, wrote a curious Instagram post about his loyalty to Putin, “whether he [Putin] is in office or not.”

Putin was even momentarily found, in the vicinity of Ticino, Switzerland, where, a local tabloid announced, Putin’s gymnast girlfriend Alina Kabayeva had given birth. Hopes were dashed when Peskov appeared again to say that this too was untrue. By this time, he was reaching new levels of exasperation. “Yes. We’ve already said this a hundred times,” he barked at a Reuters reporter who called to ask if Putin were, in fact, in good health. “This isn’t funny any more.”

This is, in large part, a crisis of the Kremlin’s making. If Peskov can’t make Putin reappear, the obvious thing to do would be to furnish some plausible explanation, like, “The President has come down with a bad case of the flu but is following all developments and will be back at work shortly.”

But that statement is impossible for two reasons. First, manly men don’t get sick. Putin’s carefully cultivated image rests on never showing weakness, which is crucial in hypercompetitive Russia. If one shows some weakness, then one is all weakness—and therefore prey. This is why Putin never apologizes and, in the rare instance in which he reverses a decision, will do so long after the public gaze or outcry has moved on. Putin is the national leader and does not admit mistakes. It is beneath national leaders to do such lily-livered things.

The second problem is that no one would believe Peskov. The flu would become its own meme and people would parse that statement for clues about Putin’s secret death or secret stroke or secret tumor. That’s because the Kremlin has done such dissembling before. As columnist Leonid Bershidsky points out in Bloomberg View, Boris Yeltsin’s flack became expert at these tales, since Yeltsin would periodically disappear at critical times—either on boozy benders or with yet another heart attack. Putin himself disappeared for a while in 2012 after he threw out his back in a judo match, according to Belarussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko. Before that, there was also a brief absence after which Putin reappeared with a noticeably puffy, stretched face. He sat in the audience at a comedy show and, as the cameras zoomed in on him, he tried his best to make his new face laugh.

Then there are the more alarming times Russian leaders have disappeared. Blindsided by the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Josef Stalin famously disappeared for the first and very crucial 10 days of the war. As the blitzkrieg rolled across Soviet territory, annihilating whole divisions in its path, Stalin hid in his office, agonizing and not addressing the terrified and equally blindsided Soviet people. Fifty years later, in August 1991, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev was vacationing at his Crimean dacha when hard-liners in his cabinet essentially barricaded him inside, cutting off all lines of communication. Publicly, they announced that “for health reasons,” Gorbachev could no longer lead the country. In the meantime, the hard-liners sent tanks into the streets of Moscow.

You can see why some in Russia are panicking right now—or veiling their discomfort in humor. It certainly doesn’t help that Putin’s disappearance comes at a particularly nervous time for the country. It is at war in Ukraine, its economy is shuddering under sanctions and historically low oil prices, and the opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov, was recently gunned down steps from the Kremlin. There is a sense in Moscow that the wheels are coming off. To Moscow’s chattering class, Putin’s disappearance confirms that impression.

As for the rest of Russia, if the buzz about Putin’s mysterious absence doesn’t make it on the television screen, it didn’t happen: for 90 percent of the Russian population, TV is the main source of news. And, even if they knew, for a majority of Russians this event would be like most other political events—that is, above their pay grade. When it comes to the intricacies politics, the prevailing attitude outside Moscow’s liberal circles is a semi-religious one, and it comes from Byzantine culture. Just as the Eucharist is prepared behind the wall of icons that separates the altar from the eyes of the laity, so it is with political maneuvers: We are but mere mortals, unable to understand such mysteries. Let the professionals handle it.

The problem is that the professionals aren’t handling it too well anymore. After 15 years in power, Putin has so personalized the system that it becomes increasingly difficult for his subjects to envision a Russia without him. Nearly half of those Russians surveyed in a recent poll said they wanted to see Putin serve a fourth presidential term, starting in 2018. This number had more than doubled from a poll a few months earlier. And it’s not just about vision. Putin’s system of “manual control”—that is, micromanaging the country—has come at the great expense of Russia’s institutions. The only institutions Putin has strengthened are the security services.

Which tells you why Russian liberals are so worried and, strangely, implicitly hoping for Putin’s reappearance. Two weeks ago, one of their main leaders was assassinated. The other one, Alexey Navalny, has basically admitted that the opposition has been neutered and marginalized. And if Putin’s gone, they certainly won’t be the ones to take power. It will be the real strongmen.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/03/14/this-is-why-its-impossible-for-the-kremlin-to-lie-about-putins-weird-disappearance/


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Dare to criticize Putin!

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In 2008, the Russian newspaper “Moscow Correspondent”(Moskovsky Korrespondent (Russian: «Московский корреспондент») did an article on the affair between married Vladimir Putin & gymnast Alina Kabaeva.

The paper was closed just days later.

Source

On 12 April 2008, the newspaper published an article which mentioned that the Russian President Vladimir Putin was to divorce his wife Lyudmila Putina and marry gymnast Alina Kabaeva in June 2008 at Konstantinov Palace in Saint Petersburg. The news spread and also got published in other magazines including Finnish tabloids, Helsingin Sanomat and Ilta-Sanomat. After the news was published, both Putin and Kabaeva declined the claim and Kabaeva asked the newspaper to publish a retraction else threaten for legal notice. Though the newspaper published a refutation, their offices were visited several times by Federal Security Service agents.

On 19 April 2008, the newspaper was shut down by Artem Artemov, general director of the paper’s parent company. Artemov commented on the decision to the Interfax news agency: “I took the decision to cease financing and therefore [cease] printing the newspaper, in connection with the large expense of publishing it, and also disagreement with editorial staff over its strategy.” Artemov added that the Moskovsky Korrespondent’s lead editor, Grigory Nekhoroshev, had resigned.

But Grigory Nekhoroshev defended his strategy and the article by saying that reporters had spent weeks checking the facts and that the public had a right to know everything — whether true or false — about their president. He added “I am 100 percent convinced that people should know this information about leaders. They should be aware even of rumors so that a public discussion can take place.”

The owner Lebedev asked the newspaper editors to provide the source for the claim or apologize. Nekhoroshev’s resignation was noted as the “perils of invoking Kremlin displeasure”. The paper later admitted that there was no factual basis for its claim, however Nekhoroshev reported that he has “full faith in correspondents.” The suspension of the newspaper was also believed to be influenced by Kremlin and Putin.

  1. “Newspaper Suspended After Steamy Putin Rumor”, at theotherrussia.org from 20 April 2008
  2. Jump up^ Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Putin Romance Rumors Keep Public Riveted. Friday, 18 April 2008
  3. Jump up^ “Paper Shut Down After Report Vladimir Putin Divorced Wife to Marry Gymnast”. Fox News. 20 April 2008. Retrieved 13 June 2013.

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Thousands March in Honor of Slain Opposition Activist Nemtsov (Video)

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Dear Reader, this is a gentle reminder of what occurred only a few days ago. The murder of Boris Nemtsov and a rally by ordinary Russians in honor of his life.

This is a reminder that this administration, in Russia, has consistently denied any wrongdoing in Crimea. This administration denied Russian troops were involved. This administration denies involvement in Donbas. This administration denies any involvement in the murder of Boris Nemtsov.

Now that Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin has disappeared, perhaps in an effort to distract from admitting responsibility for the muder of Boris Nemtsov, now may be the time to question Putin’s probable involvement, his more than obvious motivations to have Nemtsov murdered, and have the Russian administration held accountable for a series of lies, treachery and dishonorable actions. Dishonorable against Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the rest of the world. Russia is being held accountable, but somehow not Putin.

Perhaps Putin should be held accountable by the Russian people.


Mar. 01 2015 17:30

A sea of mourning Muscovites marched silently through downtown Moscow on Sunday in honor of Boris Nemtsov, one of President Vladimir Putin’s most virulent critics, who was gunned down steps from the Kremlin on Friday night.

Black ribbons were pinned to the tricolor Russian flags many among the thousands of mourners waved as they filed onto Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge, where Nemtsov took his final steps. The crowd brandished an array of photographs of the handsome politician, who had been a household name in Russia since the 1990s. “Heroes do not die,” read their signs.

Others were more defiant, carrying cardboard posters featuring the words “I am not afraid” in bold lettering.

When the mourners reached the bridge, which leads off Red Square over the Moscow River and offers one of the city’s most stunning views of the Kremlin, they paid their respects at the precise spot where Nemtsov was murdered, bowing their heads and laying flowers atop an ever-expanding mound.

“This is not only an opposition march,” Gennady Gudkov, himself a former opposition politician and one of the march’s organizers, told The Moscow Times on the scene. “This is a march for all the people who have come to understand we have reached a dangerous point.”

The official number of participants, like in many protests or public events, remains disputed. Organizers of the march estimated that some 50,000 people had turned out, while the Moscow Police Department said in a statement Sunday evening that about 21,000 people had taken part in the memorial event.

Sunday’s silent march replaced a planned anti-government protest, which Nemtsov had been set to lead. Similar events were held in other Russian cities, including St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Yaroslavl.

A strong police presence — both on the ground and in the sky — attested to fears that the event could be disrupted by radicals or enemies of the opposition. No violent incidents were reported.

In what appears to have been a carefully planned assassination, the suspects fired at least six bullets at Nemtsov as he walked across the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge on Friday night, four of which hit him in the back and heart.

Nemtsov had been one of the most energetic and outspoken critics of Putin and his government over the past 15 years. He was a member of several oppositional political parties and helped organize numerous political rallies in Moscow and around Russia.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement Saturday that investigators are currently working with two primary theories: The murder was either an attempt to destabilize the political situation in Russia or was conducted by Islamic extremists in revenge for Nemtsov’s stance over the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris. Other less prominent theories include an attack by Ukrainian radicals, or by someone seeking revenge over Nemtsov’s romantic life or financial affairs, the committee said.

Nemtsov’s ferocious opposition to the Kremlin has not been named — at least officially — among the possible motives behind the crime.

Mourners that spoke to The Moscow Times expressed sadness and outrage at Nemtsov’s murder, but also vocalized concern over the implications of the grisly crime.

“This [Nemtsov’s murder] means that anyone can be killed in the center of Moscow,” said Timofei Krit, a 28-year-old researcher at the physics faculty of Moscow State University. “But this doesn’t mean we should be afraid. We have to fight for our belief that we can go home at night and be safe.”

Some opposition figures have received death threats, as Nemtsov had, in the aftermath of the murder.

The Twitter feed of opposition State Duma deputy Dmitry Gudkov, the son of Gennady Gudkov and a leading figure in anti-government protests, was inundated with ominous messages, which claimed that he was “next on the list” and that he should fear for his life.

“I don’t fear for myself as much as for my family,” said the elder Gudkov, who was on the front line of Sunday’s march.

Media-Propelled Hate

Since the Ukraine crisis has unfolded, unleashing a wave of patriotic fervor, Nemtsov and the opposition movement overall have lost much of their support among the general public.

Only 15 percent of respondents said they sympathized with politicians such as Nemtsov, Mikhail Kasyanov, Alexei Navalny and other opposition figures, according to a survey published by the Levada Center independent pollster Friday. The poll, conducted among 1,600 respondents across Russia with a margin of error not exceeding 3.4 percent, found that 68 percent said they did not sympathize with them.

Pro-government media outlets have intensified their efforts to undermine and discredit any signs of dissent in Russia in the past few years, contributing to the deep sense of alienation and mistrust among various social groups in the country, Alexei Makarkin, deputy director of the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies think tank, told The Moscow Times in an interview on Saturday.

“Anti-liberal propaganda has fostered a sense of mutual hatred in society. What we have is a situation that could detonate at any moment,” he said.

“This killing demonstrates to what extent hatred has been legitimized or even sanctioned in Russia. Society was irritated for a long time, but when the hatred comes from TV screens, it makes a big difference,” he added.

Some mourners at Sunday’s memorial echoed Makarkin’s analysis, holding up signs reading “Propaganda kills.”

Makarkin specifically pointed to emotive and incendiary media coverage of the Ukraine conflict, saying it had separated society into “patriots” and “enemies.”

For instance, the Gazprom-owned NTV channel was scheduled to broadcast another episode of its “Anatomy of Protest” program on Sunday that — its trailers enthusiastically boasted — was supposed to portray the alleged role of opposition members, including Nemtsov, in working to foment a Ukraine-style revolution in Russia. The channel removed the program from its Sunday schedule after news broke of Nemtsov’s death.

Structure of the Situation

Nemtsov, who had accused Putin of waging a war against Ukraine and opposed Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine last year, was emphatically placed in the category of enemies. He had reportedly been planning to publish a report on Russia’s direct involvement in the fighting in Ukraine’s east.

Together with his political allies, Nemtsov has accused Putin of rampant corruption, claiming that he enjoys a life of immense luxury with personal palaces, yachts and aircraft at his disposal. The Kremlin has repeatedly dismissed these accusations.

“Regardless of who killed Nemtsov, it’s perfectly clear why this murder was committed. It was done simply to demonstrate the ‘structure of the situation,’” Alexander Morozov, a political scientist and editor-in-chief of the online magazine Russian Journal, wrote on his Facebook page.

“The structure of the situation demands that there must be killings, and the more killings, the better,” he wrote.

Everybody Has to Stop

A former political ally of Nemtsov’s and the current head of Rusnano state corporation Anatoly Chubais said in a statement about his slain friend that “the demand for anger, hatred and aggression has been created in the country.”

“If only several days ago here in our city people marched with posters saying, “Let’s finish the fifth column” and today Nemtsov is killed, let’s ask ourselves, what will happen tomorrow?” Chubais said Saturday, standing on the spot where Nemtsov was gunned down. “Everyone has to stop — the government, opposition, liberals, communists, nationalists, conservatives. Everyone. It is time to stop and to think for a moment about where we’re bringing Russia.”

Nemtsov will be honored at a public memorial service at Moscow’s Sakharov Center on Tuesday, before being buried in the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery, the resting place of another murdered Kremlin critic, Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Firebrand opposition blogger Alexei Navalny, currently serving a 15-day prison sentence for having handed out flyers announcing the march that had initially been planned for Sunday, said he would request permission from the authorities to attend the funeral.

Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, could not confirm Saturday whether the president planned to attend Nemtsov’s funeral.

“The President stated that this cruel murder has all the makings of a contract crime and is absolutely provocative in nature,” Peskov said, noting that the president would take the investigation into Nemtsov’s murder under his “personal control.”


Filed under: Information operations

Russia is Conspiring

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If you have read my blog for the period of time when Putin disappeared you might have read what I thought was going on.

Putin disappeared for what, 11 days?  During that time we heard all kinds of conspiracy theories about his death, his girlfriend, his illness, his medical conditions, all kinds of theories, which have been proven wrong.

I put forward a theory that he and Russian leaders were taking a strategic pause and planning out their next move.

Some people who I really respect said I had a valid point. One said it was cogent.

Remember, after the Sochi Olympics the Russian leadership went into overdrive when they realized they had a unique opportunity.  The leadership in Ukraine was brand new, the structure of the government was unsure, a new government had not been elected, and the time was very much to the advantage for Russia to take advantage of a shaky Ukraine and attempt a takeover of Crimea.  Russian Information Warfare could easily manipulate the perception of the situation and tell the West that Russia was scared for Russians in Crimea. Green Men were deployed publicly in Crimea, to ‘help keep the peace’, but actually to forestall any reactions.

Now look at Europe. We are seeing incidents in Ukraine, Latvia, and all over Europe.  All reported by Russian and Russian proxy press with absolutely minimal evidence from the Western media.

If these incidences build the way I expect them to, we should start seeing widely disparate events all over Europe, Eastern Europe and Southern Asia.

These events will all point to Western division, incapability to maintain the peace and the need for Russian troops to “assist” and promote peace by ensuring democracy.

Again, this is Russian Information Warfare in action, or as the current buzzword appears to be, hybrid warfare.  The situation is being created by Russian IW, in the press, reinforced by paid crowds, Russian agents, and ethnic Russians lured to compliance.

11 days of planning, sequencing, wargaming, discussions.


Filed under: Information operations

War by Non-Military means

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I haven’t read the whole report yet, but here is a report from a Swedish academic perspective.

Information warfare is rapidly becoming an integral part of modern conflicts, as recent events in Ukraine illustrate. A new FOI report examines what Russian military theorists and official documents have to say about information warfare, illustrated by a handful of case studies.

In the Russian view of modern war, information warfare is given a lot of weight. The modern, increasingly digital, media landscape and the rapid development of information and communication technologies have created a new playing field.

– Information warfare is not just considered a matter for the Armed Forces. On the contrary, Russian military theorists envision strategic coordination of all government resources in order to affect an adversary, says Ulrik Franke, senior scientist and author of the report.

According to Russian doctrine and theory, information warfare is conducted continuously in peacetime and wartime alike. One example of a peacetime activity that can be used to send a message is the exercise patterns of Russian military aircraft. Aggressive flying sends a message of Russian strength, resolve and military capability.

– It is also striking how information warfare has become highly politicised. In the Russian military theory debate, regime security has become the number one topic. In democracies, the approval ratings of the incumbent political leadership are not seen as matters of national security, but this is precisely what can now be seen in Russia, says Ulrik Franke.

The Russian view of information warfare is also fuelled by the perception of the world as a zero-sum game, where globalisation is reducing Russian security, and where Russia lags behind Western countries in terms of technology.

Source: http://www.foi.se/en/Top-menu/Pressroom/News/2015/War-by-Non-Military-means/


Filed under: Information operations Tagged: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies

Television & Neuromarketing, Manipulating Your Brain

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Your Brain is being manipulated when you watch TV with the latest in Scientific Technology and its also getting into the Brains of your Children, Grandchildren & anyone else you care about. Think its just in the Commercials, think again! Politicians & Websites will use this also. Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Coke, Hyundai & a lot of other companies use EEGs & MRIs to create commercials, packaging & product design to get inside your Brain. Product placement is everywhere, even in your favorite TV show. They’re not just selling you a product but also Ideas & Lifestyles.

In this video we will introduce you to the world of neuromarketing and explain how SME’s can use it to make their advertising more effective. Neuromarketing is a relatively new scientific research domain and marketing practice that has caught much attention the last few years as it aims to find our brains’ “buy button”. Triggering this button with precisely the right sensory inputs can subconsciously force our brain to prefer a specific brand over another. With the use of fMRI scans, eye tracking and other techniques researchers are looking deeper and deeper in our brain than ever before. This allows them to discover which stimuli trigger which emotions, enabling them to tweak advertisements for maximum effectively. Already put to use by all the major companies neuromarketing has already influenced the choices of millions of consumers. We will show that, despite its high costs, neuromarketing is not only for the big and powerful and that SME’s can learn quite a lot from existing research without the need to perform their own.

Source: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7d6_1426530917


Filed under: Information operations

Launching Balloons into North Korea: Propaganda Over Pyongyang

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VICE News correspondents met North Korean defectors in South Korea, attempting to launch balloons with money and propaganda into North Korea.

Launching these balloons is at the mercy of the winds.  In this case it appears the balloons returned to South Korea, not exactly a success.

In South Korea there are also protests against launching these balloons, which is now technically illegal.  It is seen as a provocation by North Korea. These protest efforts may or may not be supported by North Korea, in an effort to keep any information harmful to the regime out of the North.

At the same time there are tacitly approved attempts by other North Korean defectors to get information via the internet, into the North.

This is interesting as seldom do we see these attempts to get information or propaganda into North Korea.


March 17, 2015 | 1:30 pm

North and South Korea are, both legally and philosophically, in a state of war. While the guns may be silent, the conflict between the two countries has now become one of propaganda.

With the assistance of the Human Rights Foundation, North Korean defectors now in South Korea have been launching hydrogen-filled balloons across the 38th parallel — carrying both money and propaganda. In late 2014, a balloon launch sparked a brief exchange of gunfire between North and South Korean soldiers, and even more recently, Pyongyang has promised that hellfire will rain on South Korea if any copies of the controversial Hollywood comedy The Interview make it across the border.

VICE News traveled to Seoul to meet frontline soldiers in this information war — and to attend a clandestine launch of propaganda balloons into the Hermit Kingdom.

Source: https://news.vice.com/video/launching-balloons-into-north-korea-propaganda-over-pyongyang


Filed under: Information operations

Putin claims of Polish training for Ukrainian nationalists ‘absurd propaganda’

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Polish foreign minister dismisses Russian Crimea documentary

Poland’s foreign minister has harshly criticised a Russian documentary about the annexation of Crimea and the aftermath of Ukraine’s Euromaidan protest movement.

In the documentary, Vladimir Putin claims that revolutionaries who flooded the central streets of Kyiv last year were trained in Poland and Lithuania with support from the United States. Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna called that claim absurd and compared it to Soviet propaganda from the 1950s and 1960s.

The documentary, “Crimea: Path to the Motherland,” features extensive interviews with Putin, who explains how he and his government planned the invasion and annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula last year. The Kremlin initially denied any link to the armed men who appeared in camouflage and without insignia, after they began to flood the peninsula in late February 2014.

After the Russian government moved to annex Crimea, Putin admitted that Russian Special Forces had indeed been deployed. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk requested last week for a Russian documentary trailer to be sent to theInternational Criminal Court in The Hague.

Source: http://uatoday.tv/geopolitics/putin-claims-of-polish-training-for-ukrainian-nationalists-absurd-propaganda-415828.html


Filed under: Information operations

The dollar is rising faster than any time in the last 40 years

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(Big Stock)

My Russian friends continue to deny sanctions have an effect in Russia.

They lie.
They also continue to deceive themselves that the sanctions will have a negative effect on the economy of the United States.
Obviously another lie.
Russia lies.

March 17
The dollar has hit a 12-year high against the euro, and it’s not going to stop anytime soon. Not when the dollar is in the middle of its biggest rally in almost 40 years.

But it’s not just the euro that the dollar is rising against. It’s pretty much every currency in the world. That’s because the U.S. economy is doing well enough that the Federal Reserve is getting ready to raise rates, and the rest of the world is slowing down enough that it’s cutting them. And that’s not hyperbole. The not-so-short list of countries that have eased monetary policy the past few months includes Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Israel, Peru, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, and, above all, the eurozone now that it’s buying bonds with newly-printed money—aka quantitative easing—which Japan has also been, and still is, doing itself. The result is that investors can get better returns in the U.S. than they can in a lot of other places—would you rather buy a U.S. 10-year bond that pays 2.05 percent or a German one that pays 0.28 percent?—so that’s where they’re moving their money, and, in the process, pushing up the value of the dollar.

That’s actually an understatement. The dollar is exploding up more than it’s getting pushed up. As Citibank’s Steve Englander points out, the dollar, going by its trade-weighted exchange rate, has increased more in percent terms the past 175 trading days than it has in any other similar period going back to 1976. And that will only continue if the Fed really does raise rates in June. It’s expected to take the first step towards doing that by saying it will no longer be “patient”—Fedspeak for waiting at least two months—about hiking rates at its next meeting on Wednesday.

But wait a minute. If the Fed has told us it might raise rates, and told us that again, and again, and again, why would the dollar go up that much if it does does raise rates like it’s said? You don’t have to believe in perfectly efficient markets—only non-inefficient ones—to think that some of this should be priced in already. Well, the answer is that markets don’t believe the Fed. Investors used to think there was an almost 50 percent chance the Fed would start raising rates in June, but then inflation fell and, as you can see below, those odds did too, down to just 18 percent today. Even normal-ish unemployment hasn’t been enough to convince them that the Fed will begin normalizing policy—not when core inflation is so far below target.

Now it’s true that more investors are starting to listen to the Fed and bet on a June rate hike. But despite that, markets would still be caught pretty off guard if the Fed’s lack of “patience” turns into higher interest rates so soon. The dollar would shoot up even more violently, and put even more of acrimp in the recovery by making it harder for U.S. companies to sell exports overseas and compete against imports at home. But why would one teeny tiny rate hike matter that much? Well, because it’s not just one teeny tiny rate hike. Earlier liftoff tells us that what economists call the Fed’s reaction function is more hawkish than we thought. In other words, if the Fed raises rates sooner than we think they should today, they might raise rates more than we think they should later.

The only question is how much more the dollar is going to go up: a historic amount or something slightly less than that.


Filed under: Information operations Tagged: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies, US Economy

What Russians are saying about Russia (not good)

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I can’t swear to the truth of this video, but it is damning.

If Russia is as bad as the author says, it is a very bad place, comparable to a cesspool.

Unfortunately, it seems Russians used to being kissed with a lie.


THE TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIA!

Yakutia and other republics of the Russian Federation, rich in diamonds, oil, gas, Putin and the oligarchs looted so that the people there are just shit (and in the truest sense of the word).


Filed under: Information operations, Russia Tagged: Truth

F-35 FIGHTER JETS TO GET MYSTERIOUS NEW ‘CYBERPOD’ CYBERWEAPON

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WORLD’S DEADLIEST PODCAST?

Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is, for better or worse, the future of American military airplanes. With Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps versions costing over $100 million each, the aircraft is a jack-of-some-trades designed to replace 10 older models now in use by America and its allies. The F-35 has a lot of very different-sized shoes to fill, including one in a cyberwarfare, so it’s going to do something new: carry a “cyberpod” cyberweapon.

Like many new weapons systems, the cyberpod is cloaked in secrecy. Rear Admiral Randy Mahr, a program director on the F-35, told IHS Jane’s that “industry is developing a pod that would not degrade the signature of the airplane.” Translation: The cyberpod is probably an external weapon that won’t make the F-35 any less stealthy than it is now.

Cyber-attack is a broad category that encompasses everything from jamming signals to destroying laboratory equipment (i.e. centrifuges to refine weapons-grade nuclear materials) with malicious code. The common thread is that all cyber attacks target computers in some form or another.

We don’t yet know what the F-35’s cyberpod will do. But in 2010 the U.S. Navy revealed a goal develop its existing cyberweapon technologies into a “Next Generation Jammer.” Made by Raytheon, the jammer fools hostile radar systems by receiving those signals, then sending back false ones directly to the source. Fast-forward five years, and it’s almost certain the jammer has evolved–and that the cyberpod could do more than any jamming devicescurrently carried by naval aircraft. If not, what’s the cyberpoint?

Source: http://www.popsci.com/f-35-cyberjoint-cyberstrike-cyberfighter-gets-cyberpod-cyberwarfare?utm_content=buffer9c076&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer


Filed under: Information operations

Cyber chief: Efforts to deter attacks against the U.S. are not working

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Admiral Michael Rogers, head of the US Cyber Command, advocates considering a more offensive stance in doing cyber defense.

I concur.

The US has been playing whack-a-mole for more than two decades, acting reactively.  Once an attack begins is not the time to defend, when it is technically and ethically possible to shut down a machine initiating an attack on an US system.

Making an attacker pay with the loss of equipment or a network will make an enemy think twice before trying again. Losing yet another machine or network will reinforce the message.

The results can be near instantaneous and the lessons will last forever.


By Ellen Nakashima March 19 at 3:05 PM
The government’s efforts to deter computer attacks against the United States are not working and it is time to consider boosting the military’s cyber-offensive capability, the head of U.S. Cyber Command told Congress on Thursday.

“We’re at a tipping point,” said Adm. Michael S. Rogers, who also directs the National Security Agency, at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We need to think about: How do we increase our capacity on the offensive side to get to that point of deterrence?”

Rogers noted that the command, which launched in 2010, has focused mostly on defense. But, he said, “in the end, a purely defensive, reactive strategy will be both late to need and in­cred­ibly resource-intense.”

His testimony picks up where his predecessor, retired Gen. Keith Alexander, left off. Alexander, who retired last year and started a cybersecurity firm, had long advocated a more robust offensive capability. But concerns over the years from the White House, the State Department and even some within the Pentagon that the use of cyberweapons could trigger unintended consequences and might harm diplomatic relations have slowed their deployment.

Rogers said that President Obama has not yet decided to delegate authority to him to deploy offensive tools.

He indicated that policymakers still were not convinced that it was time. “We’ve got to increase our decision-makers’ comfort and level of knowledge with what capabilities we have and what we can do,” he said.

When asked by Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) whether he agreed that the “level of deterrence is not deterring,” Rogers said: “That is true.”

Rogers was emphatic that the threat is growing. Attackers not only want to disrupt, but also establish “a persistent presence on our networks,” he said.

He said that he sees “a strong, direct linkage” between “individual” hackers in Iran, Russia and China and “the nation state directing” an attack or intrusion.

He said the command will watch for signs that foreign governments are trying to confuse analysts by using “partners” outside government so the activity is not as easy to attribute directly to the state.

Rogers’ views on cyber-offense were endorsed by several committee members, most notably McCain, who used the platform to knock the Obama administration’s handling of recent cyber-incidents.

The November cyberattack by North Korea on Sony Pictures Entertainment “has exposed serious flaws in this administration’s cyber-strategy,” McCain said at the hearing’s start. “The failure to develop a meaningful cyber-deterrence strategy has increased the resolve of our adversaries and will continue to do so at a growing risk to our national security.”

Administration officials, however, say that the financial sanctions imposed against North Korean officials following the attack and the indictments last year against five Chinese military officials who were accused of stealing corporate secrets from U.S. companies show greater resolve to hold adversaries accountable.

Rogers has said it was necessary to name North Korea as the country behind the Sony attack to deter other nations from taking similar actions. Naming North Korea as the state responsible for a cyberattack was virtually unprecedented for the United States.

McCain and other lawmakers want to see more forceful action.

“I just think it’s critical to develop an offensive cyber-capability,” said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine ). Moreover, he said, that capability needs to be publicized.

Remember “Dr. Strangelove,” he said, referring to the classic movie satirizing Cold War fears of a nuclear conflict. “If you build the doomsday machine, you’ve got to tell people you have it. Otherwise the purpose is thwarted.”

Ellen Nakashima is a national security reporter for The Washington Post. She focuses on issues relating to intelligence, technology and civil liberties.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/head-of-cyber-command-us-may-need-to-boost-offensive-cyber-powers/2015/03/19/1ad79a34-ce4e-11e4-a2a7-9517a3a70506_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage


Filed under: Information operations

Russian State TV Anchor: ‘Propaganda Is Journalism’

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ht to fh for this image.  It couldn’t have come at a better time.


Andrei Kondrashov is one of 300 media professionals awarded by Russian President Vladimir Putin for their “objective” coverage of events in Crimea. Speaking to RFE/RL in Moscow, Russian state television’s leading news anchor defended his award and said he saw no difference between journalism and propaganda. (RFE/RL’s Russian Service)

There’s a great video on the RFE/RL site that I can’t seem to link to on here, except for the website itself.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/media/video/russian-state-tv-anchor-any-propaganda-is-journalism/25375248.html


Filed under: Information operations

The EU should put pressure on Russia sanctions – Tusk

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(Translated from Ukrainian by my Chrome browser)

“The EU should put pressure on Russia sanctions until Minsky agreement will be fully implemented.” So before the two-day summit of EU member states of the EU Council chairman said Donald Tusk.

By limiting – and ochilnytsya Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė and Prime Estonia Taavi Rõivas. They also came to the meeting in Brussels. Ukraine came from Prime Minister Yatsenyuk. He promised to persuade the Europeans did to send international peacekeepers to Donbass. But on sanctions against Russia said – they should continue and strengthen. Prime sure: in this respect the EU will be able to maintain unity.

Source: http://1tv.com.ua/uk/news/2015/03/19/66753


Filed under: Information operations

A Bad Journalist Targets Me

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George Eliason

A bad journalist named George Eliason wrote a hit-piece article about me. “Can the Ukrainian Government Target American Journalists in America?”

In the words of Elvis: “Thank you, thankyouverymuch.” I always thought my recognition would come in the form of an RPG crashing through my front window. Instead, a pro-Russian non-apologist wrote a banal article about me which failed on so many levels. I hesitated to respond, but I was convinced otherwise.

Please, before you read any further, I urge you to re-read the title carefully, then read the article.

George self-published versions of the article at a total of four different places. The links are at the end of this blog. I honestly can say he’s gunning for me. Okay, cowboy, you have a little bit of my interest, which should be enough for you to hang yourself.

The comments to the article at OpEdNews.com are actually fairly good, obviously written by friends and like-minded people. After reading their comments, I concluded they did not read the entire article, did not click on the links, and entirely avoided thinking while reading.

A cursory reading of the article finds a sincere lack of citations where needed, large leaps in logic and multiple outright falsifications.  There is no linkage between the title and the article itself. George has a tendency to link quotes of mine completely out of context, forming blatantly false statements.  I know he is trying to stab me in the back, but even a cursory reading and checking of the facts will show he is merely a bad, bad, bad journalist. Oh, did I mention he’s a bad journalist?

I learned of the article from Newsle, a news aggregator which provides me news I don’t find elsewhere. Kudos, Newsle! OpEdNews is not a mainstream news site, neither is the author. I just discovered another Russian rag, GlobalResearch.org/.ca reprinted the… ‘article’ and now, two others (links at the end).  I’d better publish this blog before he gets it into the Weekly Reader for elementary school students!

When I read “Meet Joel Harding – Ukraine’s King Troll”, I thought “thank you”.  I try to help Ukraine as much as I can, unpaid, of course.  But being labeled that I am a King Troll really means I am making a positive contribution in the struggle to overcome Russia’s paid trolls.  ‘Thank you very much”. Quite a few of my professional friends and colleagues have written me notes of congratulations in response to this article!  Yes, George, I know you meant it as an insult. Fail.

None of this was bothersome, but the first indication of objectionable bias by the author was contained in the following sentence: “When you look at the beginning of the NSA’s intrusive policies you find Joel Harding.” Obviously George believes I write NSA policies (which is incorrect and an absurd assumption on his part), but the bias occurs when he uses the word “intrusive”.  Invasive means someone goes into a normally restricted area on the internet but intrusive means you stay and have a long-term presence. I’ve never been a big fan of intrusive, except for an in-line presence, but obviously the author has no idea what that means – he didn’t even bother to ask. He shall forever remain uninformed. He didn’t even bother to properly research Operation Eligible Receiver, what it was for, how it was done and the ultimate outcome. Now, anybody but the author may ask me and I’ll tell you everything I can. Be assured, however, George never tried to contact me for any information whatsoever. He is, don’t forget, a very bad journalist!

The TechRepublic’s quote about me skipped a number of years. I did not work for SAIC until years after I retired from the Army.  If only he had taken the time to verify his sources. Poor George!

It is interesting that George says I used freeware to discover details about people during Operation Eligible Receiver. I was concerned with something completely different in that exercise.  Yet again, anyone calling themselves a journalist might have verified one or two facts along the way. Of course, calling George a journalist is a stretch.

Here is where the truth in the article starts to wane:

Joel Harding has quite a different opinion in 2014 after taking control of Information Operations (IO) in Ukraine.

Me?  I never said I was in charge of anything but my keyboard. Certainly no program in Ukraine.  Again, any reporter worth his or her salt would have tried to verify. George did not.

On February 28 th 2014 he was announced director of the NSE Strategy Center . Harding reached out immediately to the IO community to see what information anyone had on current Russian cyberspace operations . On March 1 st 2014 Harding announced cyber options for Ukraine.

I was announced as the Director of the NSE Information Strategy Center, part of the National Security Enterprise. This was a planned graduate school for which the funding never appeared.  On my blog, however, I continued to reach out to find more information about Russian cyberspace operations.  This so-called “cyber options for Ukraine”, if you click on the link, describes a conventional Russian invasion of Ukraine and has nothing to do with cyber. If the author had even bothered to click the link, he might have discovered this.  Again, if the author had bothered to verify any of the information, he might have discovered he hadn’t read the information and hadn’t verified any information… always the sign of a bad journalist.

Now, in the ‘article’, George begins to show his Russian propaganda roots. He begins to fabricate information in a section called Pravy Sektor.

In early March 2014 US President Barrack Obama issued an executive order stating anyone challenging the legitimacy of the new Ukrainian government was subject to US sanctions including US citizens.

No such statement was ever made and no executive order made gave even the slightest hint of this. But, once again, the author did not verify his sources and has now taken to fabrications.  George is, of course, referring to Executive Order 13660, signed on 6 March 2014.  This is who is affected:

Section 1. (a) All property and interests in property that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person (including any foreign branch) of the following persons are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State:

(i) to be responsible for or complicit in, or to have engaged in, directly or indirectly, any of the following:

(A) actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions in Ukraine;

(B) actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine; or

(C) misappropriation of state assets of Ukraine or of an economically significant entity in Ukraine;

(ii) to have asserted governmental authority over any part or region of Ukraine without the authorization of the Government of Ukraine;

(iii) to be a leader of an entity that has, or whose members have, engaged in any activity described in subsection (a)(i) or (a)(ii) of this section or of an entity whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order;

Plainly this does not target US citizens unless they meet the above specifications.  I wonder wheer he got his information?  Obviously he did not verify.

Later, the author’s roots begin to show, quite plainly.  He uses the word “junta”.  Technically, at this point in time in the ‘article’, the elections in Ukraine had not been held, so the word was technically correct. But by continuing to use that word, he portrays himself as a Russian dolt.

The author later reveals what I wrote in my blog, that KyivPost.com’s editor and I have exchanged notes, and the newspaper later dropped their paywall on certain articles.  I begged KyivPost.com to find a way to get someone to pay for it. I even offered to help find him sponsors. So when the KyivPost.com dropped their firewall on some articles, George credited me.  “Why thank you very much” for not verifying that information.

On February 23rd I tweeted about the creation of an i-Army.org?  Did George even bother to read my blog?  All my blogs are tweeted, it says so on the sidebar.  Again, George did not bother to verify the information. If he had, he might have made that connection.

On page 4 the author, and I cringe to use that word, uses a number which could only come out of the same place into which you insert a suppository… 40,000! Supposedly, that is the number of trolls that work for me.  Pshaw!

He is referring to, of course, the number of people who signed up at i-Army.org, Ukraine’s online Army. I am not in charge of anything at i-Army.org. Of course, repeat after me, George did not bother to verify that information.

George does poor editing, however, when he links a biographical sentence about me with a blog piece: The Security Service of Ukraine reached an agreement with Google Inc. to jointly fight with the Russian secret services, who are constantly spreading propaganda network in the Kremlin and sow panic among the population.  He linked that to a biographical sentence, implying I claim that as an accomplishment. Of course, if George had bothered to verify…

Again, next is yet another example of poor editing.  Commas mean things but without them, this paragraph makes no sense.

If you like Mairead Maguire are employing Russian active measures according to Harding’s definition, you are the Russian secret services he is talking about. She doesn’t write about Ukraine. You are the people to be isolated from society, “suspicious”, that must be neutralized. You are the journalists, activists, or people who read alternative news that must be put on lists with the CIA, FBI, INTERPOL, intel, and counter intel.

George, what does this have to do with the article?  Your editor failed, you fail as a writer, your Russian propaganda fails.

In some of the paragraphs towards the end of the article, George obviously got tired.  There was no lead-in, no segue, no continuity, it all appears disjointed and… challenged. It is total blather.

In the last paragraph George asks me “will it be assassination or character assassination?” Neither, George.  I need not do a thing to you for your career as a wanna-be journalist to go down the tubes. As a journalist you fail.

If you want to read the article, here are the links. By the way, I wrote  about the author previously.  Obviously he took great umbrage to the words I wrote about him, the pro-Russian non-apologist author that he is.

  1. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Can-the-Ukrainian-Governme-by-George-Eliason-American-Terror_Americans-Killed_Government-Bullying_Government-Crime-150319-980.html 
  2. http://www.prisonplanet.com/weaponizing-wikipedia-what-invasion-scale-info-war-is.html
  3. http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/03/weaponizing-wikipedia-invasion-scale-info-war.html
  4. http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-psychological-warfare-in-ukraine-targeting-online-independent-media-coverage/5437883
  5. Update: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Weaponizing-Wikipedia-Wha-by-George-Eliason-Genocide_Genocide_Nationalism_Nationalism-150322-382.html This article is a repeat of #2.  I’m beginning to see a link between pro-Russian proxy sites, aren’t you?
  6. http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/03/21/us-psychological-warfare-ukraine-targeting-online-independent-media-coverage.html

Filed under: Information operations, Propaganda Tagged: #RussiaFail, #RussiaLies
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