superunknown23
Superstar
Putin really bit more than he could chew.
The glory of "mother russia" is long gone
The glory of "mother russia" is long gone
Another Big Win For Putin!!!
- Thread starter 88m3
- Start date
-
- Tags
- putin russia vladimir world news
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
EUROPE
Pro-Putin 'Troll Factory' in Russia Will Pay Labor Abuse Settlement to Former Employee
By Avi Asher-Schapiro
June 24, 2015 | 2:26 pm
Lawyers for a Russian company that produces online pro-Putin propaganda made a rare appearance in a St. Petersburg courtroom yesterday.
Though they refused to speak to the press, representatives of the St. Petersburg-based Agency for Internet Research agreed to pay former employee Lyudmila Savchuk to settle charges of labor abuse.
Savchuk claims she was fired for criticizing what she called Russia's network of "troll factories," and has vowed to use her lawsuit to expose the Kremlin's internet propaganda machine.
"I am very pleased, they pretended they don't exist at all and now they have come out of the shadows for the first time," she said.
When she filed the lawsuit earlier this month, Savchuk told the Associated Press that the Agency for Internet Research "ought to be closed."
Related: European Union Prepares 'Myth-Busters' Team to Combat Russian Disinformation
According to a New York Times investigation, the Agency employees as many as 400 professional trolls to churn out pro-Putin comments, articles, and even fabricate online characters to boost the Russian government's profile.
For three months, Savchuk worked 12-hour shifts in a giant St. Petersburg office building as a member of the Agency's "special projects" department. She managed several online characters, including a fortuneteller named Cantadora who predicted political victories for Vladimir Putin on a fabricated Livejournal account.
The phenomenon of pro-Kremlin trolling has its roots in the 2011 anti-government protests that erupted after Russia's disputed parliamentary elections. After the protesters organized on social media, the government cracked down, forced bloggers to register with the state, and began to build its own online propaganda apparatus.
Related: Meet the Colonel in Charge of Countering Russian Propaganda in Lithuania
Trolling spread beyond Russia's borders during the conflict in Ukraine, as the Agency for Internet Research began to pay people like Savchuk to cheer pro-Russia separatists. The trolls also flood the internet with fake news accounts and erroneous information to dilute news stories that are critical of the Russian government.
Until now, Russian trolling outfits have tried to stay out of the public eye. Savchuk's lawyer, Ivan Pavlov, told AFP that the appearance by the Agency's lawyers was "unexpected." He said that he suspected the Agency was trying to resolve the lawsuit quietly to avoid further scrutiny. "I suppose the defendant considers it a lesser evil to recognize the lawsuit and pay compensation," he told AFP.
Yekaterina Nazarova, the Agency's lawyer, told the Judge the agency would offer Savchuk 10,000 rubles to end the labor dispute.
Follow Avi Ascher-Shapiro on Twitter: @AASchapiro
Watch the VICE News documentary Silencing Dissent in Russia: Putin's Propaganda Machine
https://news.vice.com/article/pro-p...ment-to-former-employee?utm_source=vicenewsfb
superunknown23
Superstar
Them trolls are on every US newspapers comment sections
But they were really hardcore during the Ukraine invasion (and easy to spot too)
But they were really hardcore during the Ukraine invasion (and easy to spot too)
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
TERRORISM
Chechen Strongman Calls Islamic State Governorate in Caucasus a 'Bluff'
By Alec Luhn
June 26, 2015 | 3:54 pm
Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman leader of Russia's Chechnya republic, says that the Islamic State (IS) was just bluffing when it announced the creation of its first wilayat, or governorate, in the northern Caucasus of Russia earlier this week.
Analysts aren't so sure of this, suggesting that IS could fill a power void in the region's simmering insurgency and eventually help fund and organize attacks on Moscow and other cities around Russia.
IS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani announced on Tuesday the creation of a new governorate in the north Caucasus, a region between the Black and Caspian seas at the southern edge of Russia that includes the resort town of Sochi. The declaration, which came after influential militants in Chechnya pledged their loyalty to IS — which is also known as ISIS, ISIL, and by its Arabic acronym Daesh — apparently marks the first time that the terrorist organization has claimed territory outside of the Middle East and taken command over a group of local fighters in Europe.
But Kadyrov, who controls Chechnya with an iron fist and whose security service officer has been charged with killing opposition politician Boris Nemtsov in February, scoffed at the Chechen militants' announcement that they would join IS.
"This statement is nothing more than a bluff," he said, according to Russian media. "I don't think that a few surviving bandits who are still hiding in the woods can provide serious help to radicals from the so-called Iblis State," he added, using an Arabic term for "devil" to refer to IS.
"These thugs have no chance at all here," Kadyrov continued. "Nonetheless, we're not ignoring the threat that the Iblis State could pose, and so we will continue working to not allow the spread of this contagion in Chechnya. We will mercilessly destroy devils and bandits."
In an audio recording published on YouTube on June 12, Chechen insurgent Aslan Byutukayev gave an oath of loyalty that he said was on behalf of all Chechen fighters to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the news and analysis site Caucasian Knot reported. He was the latest in a string of prominent Caucasus Emirate commanders to pledge allegiance to IS.
Byutukayev is the commander of the Gardens of the Righteous, a suicide bomber battalion, and is one of the leaders of the Caucasus Emirate, which has been the primary local insurgent group fighting to break away from Russia and establish a state based on Islamic law. He is best known for helping to organize the 2011 Domodedovo airport bombing that killed 37 people.
Byutukayev is also believed to have ordered a December 2014 attack by Islamic militants in the Chechen capital of Grozny. During that operation, a dozen militants killed three traffic policemen at a checkpoint and then barricaded themselves in a state media building in the city center. A vicious all-night gun battle ensued, with the militants escaping to a school after the media building caught fire. A civilian, 14 policemen, and 11 gunmen were killed.
Coming on the heels of a suicide bombing in Grozny that fall, the attack raised concerns that the Islamic insurgency in Chechnya was again growing after a crackdown over the past decade by Kadyrov, who has been accused of using brutal methods in his effort to stamp out Islamic violence.
In another audio recording in Russian and Arabic published on Sunday, an unnamed voice announced that all mujaheddin in Chechnya and the neighboring regions of Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria were pledging their allegiance to Baghdadi.
In his recording, Adnani welcomed the new "soldiers of the Islamic State" in the Caucasus and named Abu Mohammad al-Qadari the leader of its Caucasus branch. Qadari, whose real name is Rustam Asilderov, had been the leader of Caucasus Emirate fighters in Dagestan but was dismissed by top commander Aliaskhab Kebekov after he became one of the first Caucasus militants to swear loyalty to Baghdadi in December.
The announcement of the IS branch in Russia further cuts into the influence of the Caucasus Emirate, which has been losing clout since Kadyrov announced that its leader Doku Umarov had been killed last year. This spring, security forces also killed Kebekov, who was his successor.
The security services' killings of Kebekov and other Caucasus Emirate leaders who had been recently taking a more moderate stance, condemning attacks on civilians and suicide bombings by women, has been opening a power vacuum in the region, according to experts. Gregory Shvedov, the editor of Caucasian Knot, told VICE News that security service operations against those very commanders who had announced a more "soft power" approach to jihad had paved the way for IS to enter the scene.
"It's very dangerous that the Islamic State is stepping up to replace the Caucasus Emirate," he said. "I think that Russian law enforcement should be trying to destroy not leaders of the Caucasus Emirate, but rather leaders of the Islamic State" in the Caucasus.
He added that IS has far more financial resources than other terrorist organizations, including the Caucasus Emirate, which was affiliated with al Qaeda.
"If the Islamic State is going to support fighters in the Caucasus with finances, training, and ideology, that's a big danger," he said. "There is a threat of attacks outside the Caucasus, like in Volgograd, Beslan, Moscow."
Three suicide bomber attacks in Volgograd in 2013 killed more than 80 people and displayed the deadly reach of Caucasus insurgents outside their home region. Basayev, who founded the group that Byutukayev leads, was a Chechen militant who won infamy for organizing the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis in which 130 civilians died as well as the 2004 Beslan school siege in which 385 people died.
The terror threat could also grow as fighters who left the Caucasus to fight in the Middle Eastreturnhome. A member of Russia's security council said this week that about 2,000 Russians, most of them from the Caucasus, are fighting for IS in the Middle East, adding that they could create a threat when they return home.
Kadyrov said Friday that the "road back is closed" for residents of Chechnya who had gone to fight with IS, saying that they sought only to "sow violence and chaos."
"In Chechnya, we will allow neither the appearance of members of this gang, nor even those people who sympathize with them," he remarked.
After the December attack on Grozny, Kadyrov announced that the homes of militants' relatives would be destroyed and they would be exiled from Chechnya. As of January, security forces had burned down at least 15 homes there, the Telegraph reported.
https://news.vice.com/article/chech...ate-in-caucasus-a-bluff?utm_source=vicenewsfb
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Russian Spies, Suspicious Books, and the New Cold War Emerging in Europe
By Alex Chitty
June 26, 2015 | 6:50 pm
On December 9, during a routine session of the European Parliament in Brussels, someone snuck into the building, probably through an inner parking garage, and quietly placed copies of the same thick paperback book into the private mailboxes of all 751 parliamentarians.
The book, Red Dalia, is a takedown of Dalia Grybauskaite, the president of Lithuania. The country sits on the fringes of the EU, squeezed between the former Soviet dictatorship of Belarus and the militarized Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. The books were printed in English.
Except, the obscure book had never been published in English. As it turned out, no one had any idea who published it, who translated it, who printed the 751 copies, or who paid for the whole thing. Even Red Dalia's author had no idea, telling a Lithuanian reporter "this is theft."
But for those familiar with recent events in the Baltic states — Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia — the answer was obvious. Grybauskaite, who is featured in tonight's VICE on HBO season finale episode at 11pm ET, had spent the preceding weeks commenting on the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. Most notably, she called Russia, which invaded Ukraine last year, a "terrorist state."
Related: Spooked by Russia, Lithuania Is Reintroducing Military Conscription
When she spoke to VICE in February in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, Grybauskaite compared Russia's behavior in Ukraine to that of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, in Syria and Iraq.
"[The West] is supporting and supplying the populations against ISIS," she said, "but we're allowing Russia to support criminals and bandits in East Ukraine who are attacking and behaving as terrorists."
The book stunt appears to have been an exercise in Russian soft-power retaliation against Grybauskaite. Earlier this year, a Maltese staffer was fired from the parliament for allowing unnamed Russian and Russian-born citizens into the building with the books. The general assumption is that they were spies sent by a Russian foreign intelligence agency.
The incident gives a glimpse into the apparent resurgence of Cold War-style intelligence operations in Europe. As the crisis in Ukraine has deepened, and relations between Russia and the West have deteriorated to their worst state since the fall of the Berlin Wall, spying and counter-spying are booming.
In the shadow of Vilnius's Museum of Genocide Victims, which details the atrocities carried out by Soviets in Lithuania, one security analyst told us there were likely "hundreds" of undercover Russian spies currently in the country seeking to undermine the authority of the government and "make Lithuania a failed state." One well-placed source in the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry told VICE that graffiti reading "RUSSIANS GO HOME" in Vilnius was seen as an attempt to spread division between the country's Russian-speaking minority and others. These anti-Russian messages, he said, are the work of Russia.
Up until the 1990s, the Russian KGB used the basement in what is now the genocide museum to imprison dissidents, killing more than 1,000 prisoners. Russian President Vladimir Putin was a KGB field agent, and many other former KGB elite yield great power in Russia. So Russian soft power and spy games played out in the Baltic states is no small matter for Lithuanians.
The Baltic states are members of NATO, the decades-old alliance between the United States and many European countries. The alliance rests in part on a security agreement known as Article 5, which stipulates that an attack on one is an attack on all. The idea is that if any member state of NATO is attacked — even small ones like the Baltics — all member states must respond as though they themselves were attacked, including the United States.
In Ukraine, which is not a NATO member, Russia engaged in hybrid warfare, a combination of undercover intelligence work, overt media operations, and traditional military action. Soft power was the opening salvo in what eventually became a more conventional military conflict; pro-Russia media was used extensively to stir anti-Western sentiment in the lead-up to fighting. Undercover Russian Spetznaz special forces soldiers have been used extensively there to spread dissent. Russian media broadcasts false stories, like one about the pro-European Maidan movement in Ukraine being made up of Nazis and child crucifiers.
Marius Laurinavicius, a senior analyst at the Eastern Europe Studies Center, sees Russian intelligence work and soft-power maneuvering, combined with a military buildup along Lithuania's border with Kaliningrad — a Russian exclave between Lithuania and Poland that's essentially a huge military base — as a display of Russia's willingness to test NATO's commitment to Article 5.
"[Russia] really thinks that NATO wouldn't risk a war with a nuclear-capable Russia [to defend] such 'unimportant,' as they say, countries like Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia," he said. "Of course for us it's unimaginable that Russia would attack a NATO country…. But when we think in their terms, it is a really, very highly possible scenario.
"We really face a danger of real conventional war here — not the hybrid war we are discussing now, but a real conventional war."
For now, NATO is hardly ceding the Baltics. As tonight's episode of VICE on HBO shows, the US military is in Lithuania training, and training with, the military there. Meanwhile, NATO member states from Italy to Spain to Poland are lending jets and pilots to the Baltic Air Policing mission in Lithuania. And US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter is consideringsending enough military equipment to outfit a brigade — about 3,500 troops — to the region.
Still, the soft power war continues to escalate. Congressman Ed Royce, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in April that Russian propaganda in the Baltics, especially that which aims to stoke Russian-language separatism as it did in Ukraine, is as dangerous as military action.
Related: Putin's New Military Doctrine Doubles Down on Jedi Mind Tricks
"Russia has deployed an information army inside television, radio, and newspapers throughout Europe," he told a hearing. "Some doing the Kremlin's bidding are given explicit guidelines to obscure the truth by spreading conspiracies that the CIA is responsible for everything from 9/11 to the downing of Malaysia flight MH17 over Ukraine."
Royce claimed that the US is utterly failing to counter these narratives, and called for a counter attack.
And that's why in Brussels this week, the EU's diplomatic corps (read: spy agencies) discussed an "action plan" to invest in media that promotes "EU policies and values" in order to counter "disinformation activities by external actors [using] communication materials and products… in local languages, notably in Russian."
https://news.vice.com/article/russi...-war-emerging-in-europe?utm_source=vicenewsfb
By Alex Chitty
June 26, 2015 | 6:50 pm
On December 9, during a routine session of the European Parliament in Brussels, someone snuck into the building, probably through an inner parking garage, and quietly placed copies of the same thick paperback book into the private mailboxes of all 751 parliamentarians.
The book, Red Dalia, is a takedown of Dalia Grybauskaite, the president of Lithuania. The country sits on the fringes of the EU, squeezed between the former Soviet dictatorship of Belarus and the militarized Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. The books were printed in English.
Except, the obscure book had never been published in English. As it turned out, no one had any idea who published it, who translated it, who printed the 751 copies, or who paid for the whole thing. Even Red Dalia's author had no idea, telling a Lithuanian reporter "this is theft."
But for those familiar with recent events in the Baltic states — Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia — the answer was obvious. Grybauskaite, who is featured in tonight's VICE on HBO season finale episode at 11pm ET, had spent the preceding weeks commenting on the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. Most notably, she called Russia, which invaded Ukraine last year, a "terrorist state."
Related: Spooked by Russia, Lithuania Is Reintroducing Military Conscription
When she spoke to VICE in February in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, Grybauskaite compared Russia's behavior in Ukraine to that of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, in Syria and Iraq.
"[The West] is supporting and supplying the populations against ISIS," she said, "but we're allowing Russia to support criminals and bandits in East Ukraine who are attacking and behaving as terrorists."
The book stunt appears to have been an exercise in Russian soft-power retaliation against Grybauskaite. Earlier this year, a Maltese staffer was fired from the parliament for allowing unnamed Russian and Russian-born citizens into the building with the books. The general assumption is that they were spies sent by a Russian foreign intelligence agency.
The incident gives a glimpse into the apparent resurgence of Cold War-style intelligence operations in Europe. As the crisis in Ukraine has deepened, and relations between Russia and the West have deteriorated to their worst state since the fall of the Berlin Wall, spying and counter-spying are booming.
In the shadow of Vilnius's Museum of Genocide Victims, which details the atrocities carried out by Soviets in Lithuania, one security analyst told us there were likely "hundreds" of undercover Russian spies currently in the country seeking to undermine the authority of the government and "make Lithuania a failed state." One well-placed source in the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry told VICE that graffiti reading "RUSSIANS GO HOME" in Vilnius was seen as an attempt to spread division between the country's Russian-speaking minority and others. These anti-Russian messages, he said, are the work of Russia.
Up until the 1990s, the Russian KGB used the basement in what is now the genocide museum to imprison dissidents, killing more than 1,000 prisoners. Russian President Vladimir Putin was a KGB field agent, and many other former KGB elite yield great power in Russia. So Russian soft power and spy games played out in the Baltic states is no small matter for Lithuanians.
The Baltic states are members of NATO, the decades-old alliance between the United States and many European countries. The alliance rests in part on a security agreement known as Article 5, which stipulates that an attack on one is an attack on all. The idea is that if any member state of NATO is attacked — even small ones like the Baltics — all member states must respond as though they themselves were attacked, including the United States.
In Ukraine, which is not a NATO member, Russia engaged in hybrid warfare, a combination of undercover intelligence work, overt media operations, and traditional military action. Soft power was the opening salvo in what eventually became a more conventional military conflict; pro-Russia media was used extensively to stir anti-Western sentiment in the lead-up to fighting. Undercover Russian Spetznaz special forces soldiers have been used extensively there to spread dissent. Russian media broadcasts false stories, like one about the pro-European Maidan movement in Ukraine being made up of Nazis and child crucifiers.
Marius Laurinavicius, a senior analyst at the Eastern Europe Studies Center, sees Russian intelligence work and soft-power maneuvering, combined with a military buildup along Lithuania's border with Kaliningrad — a Russian exclave between Lithuania and Poland that's essentially a huge military base — as a display of Russia's willingness to test NATO's commitment to Article 5.
"[Russia] really thinks that NATO wouldn't risk a war with a nuclear-capable Russia [to defend] such 'unimportant,' as they say, countries like Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia," he said. "Of course for us it's unimaginable that Russia would attack a NATO country…. But when we think in their terms, it is a really, very highly possible scenario.
"We really face a danger of real conventional war here — not the hybrid war we are discussing now, but a real conventional war."
For now, NATO is hardly ceding the Baltics. As tonight's episode of VICE on HBO shows, the US military is in Lithuania training, and training with, the military there. Meanwhile, NATO member states from Italy to Spain to Poland are lending jets and pilots to the Baltic Air Policing mission in Lithuania. And US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter is consideringsending enough military equipment to outfit a brigade — about 3,500 troops — to the region.
Still, the soft power war continues to escalate. Congressman Ed Royce, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in April that Russian propaganda in the Baltics, especially that which aims to stoke Russian-language separatism as it did in Ukraine, is as dangerous as military action.
Related: Putin's New Military Doctrine Doubles Down on Jedi Mind Tricks
"Russia has deployed an information army inside television, radio, and newspapers throughout Europe," he told a hearing. "Some doing the Kremlin's bidding are given explicit guidelines to obscure the truth by spreading conspiracies that the CIA is responsible for everything from 9/11 to the downing of Malaysia flight MH17 over Ukraine."
Royce claimed that the US is utterly failing to counter these narratives, and called for a counter attack.
And that's why in Brussels this week, the EU's diplomatic corps (read: spy agencies) discussed an "action plan" to invest in media that promotes "EU policies and values" in order to counter "disinformation activities by external actors [using] communication materials and products… in local languages, notably in Russian."
https://news.vice.com/article/russi...-war-emerging-in-europe?utm_source=vicenewsfb
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
A man who used to be the 'Kremlin's banker' is changing the story behind Putin's rise
Reuters photographerPutin and Pugachev in a photo dated July 28, 2000.
See Also
Putin called Obama
Russia could pull a Kazakhstan
Why Putin Took Illegal Boat Rides Into Spain In The 1990s
Back in the late 1990s, it was widely believed that a group of the former president's insiders, nicknamed "семья" (or "family"), was actually behind most of the Kremlin's policies.
Members reportedly included then president Boris Yeltsin's daughter, her husband, oligarch Boris Berezovsky, and a man who later become known as the "Kremlin's banker" — Sergei Pugachev.http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ab541ee8-4e4c-11e4-bfda-00144feab7de.html#axzz3eBUE61UW
And by the end of Yeltsin's second term, as his health started to deteriorate, the group went out in search of a successor. They were looking for someone who could play nice with the "family," but could also win an election.
On Thursday, Pugachev told the independent TV channel Dozhd ("Rain") that he was one-third of a threesome "at the helm of 'operation successor,'" along with Yeltsin's daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko, and her husband, Valentin Yumashev.
Pugachev even claimed that he was actually the one who suggested professional spy Vladimir Putin as a candidate; although he conceded that the then chief of Russia's spy services was already an "insider" by that time, according to the Moscow Times.
“It's not as if I said: 'Oh, here's Putin — maybe he could become president?' Of course it wasn't like that,” Pugachyov told Dozhd.
“Putin was already involved in the story as director of the FSB," he added. "He was, I would say, a key figure, a representative of the siloviki.”
(The "siloviki" are politicians from security or military services, such as the FSB or the Soviet KGB.)
Pugachev also denied that Berezovksy, who is widely credited with anointing Putin, had anything to do with the selection process: “I will tell you frankly that Boris Abramovich Berezovsky was not part of this circle."'
Reuters/WAWRussian President Boris Yeltsin, right, and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as Russia's top officials look on during the official transfer of power in the Kremlin, December 31, 1999.
Pugachev ended up becoming a big player in Moscow during Putin's first two terms, while Berezovsky fled to London.
Pugachev founded Mezhpromback (International Industrial Bank) in Moscow in 1992, and within four years was a "Kremlin powerbroker," helping politicians win elections and speaking to Putin "almost every day probably."
But relations soured in 2010, and he ultimately fled to London in 2011.
"Putin is not someone who sets strategic plans; he lives today." Pugachev told Time last October. "He had no plans; he didn't aim to become president. He hadn't thought of that. He didn't plan to remain in the government at all."
WikimediaRussian president Boris Yeltsin waves a final farewell to the Kremlin, December 31, 1999.
Nevertheless, back in 1999 — seemingly out of nowhere — Yeltsin stepped down as president and named Putin the acting president on New Year's Eve.
"I want to warn that any attempts to go beyond the Russian laws, beyond the Constitution of Russia, will be strongly suppressed," Putin said in his first acting speech as president. "Freedom of speech. Freedom of conscience. Freedom of mass media. Property rights. These basic principles of the civilized society will be safe under the protection of the state."
Later that year, he officially ran in a popular election and won.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/man-says-hes-behind-putins-presidency-2015-6#ixzz3eDU7rqwF
- JUN. 26, 2015, 3:20 PM
- 3,447
- 3
See Also
Putin called Obama
Russia could pull a Kazakhstan
Why Putin Took Illegal Boat Rides Into Spain In The 1990s
Back in the late 1990s, it was widely believed that a group of the former president's insiders, nicknamed "семья" (or "family"), was actually behind most of the Kremlin's policies.
Members reportedly included then president Boris Yeltsin's daughter, her husband, oligarch Boris Berezovsky, and a man who later become known as the "Kremlin's banker" — Sergei Pugachev.http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ab541ee8-4e4c-11e4-bfda-00144feab7de.html#axzz3eBUE61UW
And by the end of Yeltsin's second term, as his health started to deteriorate, the group went out in search of a successor. They were looking for someone who could play nice with the "family," but could also win an election.
On Thursday, Pugachev told the independent TV channel Dozhd ("Rain") that he was one-third of a threesome "at the helm of 'operation successor,'" along with Yeltsin's daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko, and her husband, Valentin Yumashev.
Pugachev even claimed that he was actually the one who suggested professional spy Vladimir Putin as a candidate; although he conceded that the then chief of Russia's spy services was already an "insider" by that time, according to the Moscow Times.
“It's not as if I said: 'Oh, here's Putin — maybe he could become president?' Of course it wasn't like that,” Pugachyov told Dozhd.
“Putin was already involved in the story as director of the FSB," he added. "He was, I would say, a key figure, a representative of the siloviki.”
(The "siloviki" are politicians from security or military services, such as the FSB or the Soviet KGB.)
Pugachev also denied that Berezovksy, who is widely credited with anointing Putin, had anything to do with the selection process: “I will tell you frankly that Boris Abramovich Berezovsky was not part of this circle."'
Pugachev ended up becoming a big player in Moscow during Putin's first two terms, while Berezovsky fled to London.
Pugachev founded Mezhpromback (International Industrial Bank) in Moscow in 1992, and within four years was a "Kremlin powerbroker," helping politicians win elections and speaking to Putin "almost every day probably."
But relations soured in 2010, and he ultimately fled to London in 2011.
"Putin is not someone who sets strategic plans; he lives today." Pugachev told Time last October. "He had no plans; he didn't aim to become president. He hadn't thought of that. He didn't plan to remain in the government at all."
Nevertheless, back in 1999 — seemingly out of nowhere — Yeltsin stepped down as president and named Putin the acting president on New Year's Eve.
"I want to warn that any attempts to go beyond the Russian laws, beyond the Constitution of Russia, will be strongly suppressed," Putin said in his first acting speech as president. "Freedom of speech. Freedom of conscience. Freedom of mass media. Property rights. These basic principles of the civilized society will be safe under the protection of the state."
Later that year, he officially ran in a popular election and won.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/man-says-hes-behind-putins-presidency-2015-6#ixzz3eDU7rqwF
ill
Superstar
Guess who fukked up?
US to Put Military Equipment in Several European Countries
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSJUNE 23, 2015, 9:10 A.M. E.D.T.
Continue reading the main storyShare This Page
TALLINN, Estonia — The U.S. will spread about 250 tanks, armored vehicles and other military equipment across six former Soviet bloc nations to help reassure NATO allies facing threats from Russia and terrorist groups, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Tuesday.
- Share
- Tweet
- Save
- More
Carter's announcement, made as he stood with defense chiefs from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, comes a day after he announced that the U.S. would have other weapons, aircraft and forces, including commandos, ready as needed for NATO's new rapid reaction force, to help Europe defend against potential Russian aggression from the east and the Islamic State and other violent extremists from the south.
The defense chiefs standing with Carter all spoke bluntly about the threat they perceive from Russia, and the latest military plans provide a show of solidarity across the region and in NATO.
Estonia Defense Minister Sven Mikser said the Baltic leaders aren't trying to restart the Cold War arms race or match Russian President Vladimir Putin "tank for tank," but the additional military presences will be a deterrent to Russia and could change the calculous.
"In global terms Russia is no match conventionally to U.S. or to NATO, but here in our corner of the world, Putin believes that he enjoys regional superiority," Mikser said, adding that Estonia is eager and ready to accept the equipment immediately.
Each set of equipment would be enough to outfit a military company or battalion, and would go on at least a temporary basis to Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania. Carter said the equipment could be moved around the region for training and military exercises, and would include Bradley fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzer artillery guns.
Germany will be participating in the expanded military effort, but already has U.S. equipment.
"We intend to move those equipment sets around as exercises move around," Carter told a news conference. "They're not static. Their purpose is to enable richer training and more mobility to forces in Europe." He said the U.S. presence will be "persistent" but "agile," and he said the troops will be able to stay at a higher state of readiness.
But while the stated goal of the move is that American forces moving in and out of Europe will be better able to do training, it also would allow NATO nations to more quickly respond to any military crisis in the region.
Later in the day, Russia was also on the minds of U.S. sailors and Marines aboard the USS San Antonio, which just finished up a major annual international military exercise on the Baltic Sea called BALTOPS.
The exercise, which involved some 60 ships from 17 NATO nations, is part of the stepped-up campaign to increase military training and activities in the region as a deterrent to Russia.
Troops quizzed Carter on U.S. relations with Russia and questioned whether the U.S. might put a greater maritime presence in the region.
The U.S. military "is highly, highly visible here in Europe, it's reassuring for them to see you," he said, "because of what you stand for."
The U.S., said Carter, is also going to work with NATO's cyber center, located in Estonia, to help allies develop cyber defense strategies and other protections against computer-based attacks. Russian hackers have become particularly adept, including breaking into U.S. State Department computers.
The countries for the equipment storage were chosen based on their proximity to training ranges, to reduce the time and cost of transporting it for exercises.
The two-pronged U.S. plan — with the placement of equipment in Europe and the commitment of resources for NATO's very high readiness task force — underscore America's commitment to helping allies counter growing threats on Europe's eastern and southern fronts.
U.S. and NATO allies have criticized Russia for its increasingly aggressive actions, including the annexation of Crimea and its backing of separatist troops on Ukraine's eastern border.
Under the plan to commit troops and resources if needed during a crisis, the U.S. could see a temporary increase in American troops in Europe, although many could be reassigned from bases already in the region. No U.S. troops or equipment will move immediately.
Carter said the U.S., if requested and approved, would be willing to provide intelligence and surveillance capabilities, special operations forces, logistics, transport aircraft, and a range of weapons support that could include bombers, fighters and ship-based missiles. It would not provide a large ground force.
US isn't putting troops/machinery in the Soviet bloc.
Also the bolded - Germany will never attack Russia or be a part of that coalition. Germany has become a great ally to Russia thanks to the West's incessant need to police everyone but themselves.
Great series by Vice
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
The Rundown Arctic Mining Town Putin Wants to Be a Resort
http://www.wired.com/2015/06/leo-delafontaine-arktikugol/?mbid=social_fb
http://www.wired.com/2015/06/leo-delafontaine-arktikugol/?mbid=social_fb
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
A Spanish investigation into the Russian mafia 'could change the narrative of Putin in the West'
ReutersPutin with former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar at Moncloa Palace on June 13, 2000.
See Also
Putin's Extraordinary Path From Soviet Slums To The World's Stage
A man who used to be the 'Kremlin's banker' is changing the story behind Putin's rise
Russia could pull a Kazakhstan
One of Russia's largest organized-crime syndicates allegedly operated out of Spain for more than a decade with the help of close allies of President Vladimir Putin, then the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Bloomberg reports.
Prosecutors in Madrid have filed a 488-page petition to charge 27 people with money laundering and fraud in connection to the St. Petersburg-based Tambov crime syndicate's setting up shop in Spain in 1996.
Vladislav Reznik, now the deputy head of the finance committee in Russia's lower house of parliament and a member of the Putin-aligned United Russia Party, faces charges accusing him of giving allies of the criminal organization's alleged leader, Gennady Petrov, positions in the Russian government in exchange for a share of the organization's assets.
"The criminal organization headed by Petrov managed to achieve a clear penetration of the state structures in [Russia], not only with the lawmaker Reznik but with several ministers," the Spanish prosecutors said.
Reznik denies the accusations, insisting his relationship with Petrov is "purely social."
Petrov is unlikely to face a trial — he fled to Russia when his villa on the Spanish island of Majorca was raided by the police in 2008, and Russia does not extradite its citizens.
REUTERS/Dani Cardona (SPAIN)Russian Gennadi Petrov (L) arrives at Palma's court accompanied by police officers during an operation against Russian mafia on the Spanish island of Majorca June 14, 2008.
US officials briefed by Spanish prosecutor Jose Grinda in 2010 concluded that Putin ran a "virtual mafia" state that extended to Spain, where criminal networks have been established to do things the Kremlin cannot.
The Russian president's connection to Spain dates back to the 1990s, when he allegedly took no fewer than 37 secret boat rides to meet with several well-known Russian mafia leaders living in southern Spain — all while he was the head of the FSB (the successor to the KGB).
Putin reportedly entered Spain illegally, bypassing Spanish passport control by entering through Gibraltar, according to the book "Putin's Kleptocracy" by Karen Dawisha.
"This Petrov probe could change the narrative of Putin in the West — from being a Stalinist tyrant defending the interests of his country to being a product of gangster Petersburg who united authorities with organized crime,” Stanislav Belkovsky, a Kremlin adviser during Putin’s first term who consults at Moscow’s Institute for National Strategy, told Bloomberg.
REUTERS/Grigory DukorRussian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2015 (SPIEF 2015) in St. Petersburg, Russia, June 19, 2015.
The network of Russian authorities with alleged ties to Petrov is vast: from former prime minister and current chairman of Gazprom Viktor Zubkov and his son-in-law, former Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak and longtime communications minister/Kremlin adviser Leonid Reiman.
Russian law-enforcement official, Nikolai Aulov — deputy of Viktor Ivanov, who runs the Federal Narcotics Service — was also one of Petrov's "most important" contacts in Moscow, according to the criminal complaint.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/pros...n-for-more-than-a-decade-2015-6#ixzz3eaan7OUX
Of course!
- 37 minutes ago
- 2,232
- 2
See Also
Putin's Extraordinary Path From Soviet Slums To The World's Stage
A man who used to be the 'Kremlin's banker' is changing the story behind Putin's rise
Russia could pull a Kazakhstan
One of Russia's largest organized-crime syndicates allegedly operated out of Spain for more than a decade with the help of close allies of President Vladimir Putin, then the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Bloomberg reports.
Prosecutors in Madrid have filed a 488-page petition to charge 27 people with money laundering and fraud in connection to the St. Petersburg-based Tambov crime syndicate's setting up shop in Spain in 1996.
Vladislav Reznik, now the deputy head of the finance committee in Russia's lower house of parliament and a member of the Putin-aligned United Russia Party, faces charges accusing him of giving allies of the criminal organization's alleged leader, Gennady Petrov, positions in the Russian government in exchange for a share of the organization's assets.
"The criminal organization headed by Petrov managed to achieve a clear penetration of the state structures in [Russia], not only with the lawmaker Reznik but with several ministers," the Spanish prosecutors said.
Reznik denies the accusations, insisting his relationship with Petrov is "purely social."
Petrov is unlikely to face a trial — he fled to Russia when his villa on the Spanish island of Majorca was raided by the police in 2008, and Russia does not extradite its citizens.
US officials briefed by Spanish prosecutor Jose Grinda in 2010 concluded that Putin ran a "virtual mafia" state that extended to Spain, where criminal networks have been established to do things the Kremlin cannot.
The Russian president's connection to Spain dates back to the 1990s, when he allegedly took no fewer than 37 secret boat rides to meet with several well-known Russian mafia leaders living in southern Spain — all while he was the head of the FSB (the successor to the KGB).
Putin reportedly entered Spain illegally, bypassing Spanish passport control by entering through Gibraltar, according to the book "Putin's Kleptocracy" by Karen Dawisha.
"This Petrov probe could change the narrative of Putin in the West — from being a Stalinist tyrant defending the interests of his country to being a product of gangster Petersburg who united authorities with organized crime,” Stanislav Belkovsky, a Kremlin adviser during Putin’s first term who consults at Moscow’s Institute for National Strategy, told Bloomberg.
The network of Russian authorities with alleged ties to Petrov is vast: from former prime minister and current chairman of Gazprom Viktor Zubkov and his son-in-law, former Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak and longtime communications minister/Kremlin adviser Leonid Reiman.
Russian law-enforcement official, Nikolai Aulov — deputy of Viktor Ivanov, who runs the Federal Narcotics Service — was also one of Petrov's "most important" contacts in Moscow, according to the criminal complaint.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/pros...n-for-more-than-a-decade-2015-6#ixzz3eaan7OUX
Of course!
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
EUROPE
'Russia Is Russia’s Worst Enemy in Armenia'
By Will Cathcart and Joseph Epstein
July 4, 2015 | 5:17 pm
As sundown approached in Armenia's capital Yerevan, lines of police officers in riot gear beat their steel shields on the pavement, chanting, "We serve the Republic of Armenia."
On the other side of a makeshift barricade made of garbage bins across Baghramyan Avenue, a main street leading to the Armenian Parliament and Presidential Palace, tens of thousands of protestors — men, women and children — shouted right back at them, roaring "Free Armenia!"
Only a few hours earlier, the gathering seemed like a party. Folk bands played, and few seemed to fear that police would make good on their promise to clear the road by force as they had done with water cannons just five days earlier.
That protest led to the arrests of several hundred people, but the move backfired for the Armenian government when thousands of people flocked back to Baghramyan Avenue to erect the trash bin blockades. The "Electric Yerevan" movement was born.
The protests, which started a couple weeks before, over the price of electricity, has since become part of a larger struggle for socio-economic rights. The advancement of the demonstration has caused anxiety in the Kremlin over whether the protest could take on an anti-Russian sentiment.
Related: 'We Won't Get Tired': Riot Police Deployed in Armenia as Protests Over Electricity Hike Rage On
An Armenian special forces operative prepares to clear journalists out from the buffer zone in between the protestors and riot police. 9Photo by Will Cathcart)
"This is the most recent link in Armenia's quest for justice," former presidential candidate, foreign minister, and opposition leader Rafi K. Hovannisian told VICE News. "It belongs to a long chain of grievances ranging from stolen elections to violations of basic liberties. Having been victimized and dispossessed by others throughout history, Armenia and its leadership must now deliver rights and dignity to its own citizens."
This isn't the first time that demonstrators have blocked main roads in Yerevan to voice their grievances with the government.
Armenians vividly remember a disastrous protest on March 1, 2008, when thousands gathered to denounce what they called fraudulent presidential elections. At that time, riot police forcibly dispersed the crowd with tear gas and live ammunition, killing 10 people.
"We lost brave citizens," said Hovannisian, a member of the pro-Western Heritage Party. "Today there are leaders of different parties, intellectuals, editors, actors, and clergy who come every night to form a human wall between the sides."
'There is an inherent disconnect between public opinion and public policy.'
Hovannisian considers himself the true winner of Armenia's 2008 presidential election, which brought current President Serzh Sargsyan to power. Hovannisian accused Sargsyan of "a sense of impunity," and condemned his 2013 "overnight" decision to abandon three years of preparation to integrate with the European Union after a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in September 2013.
"There is an inherent disconnect between public opinion and public policy," Armenian activist Babken DerGrigorian, a graduate student at the London School of Economics, told VICE News. DerGrigorian has been active on social media, organizing and broadcasting news about the movement. He coined the phrase "Electric Yerevan," and the #ElectricYerevan hashtag, which has been a crucial source of information on Facebook and Twitter.
Related: Meet the Colonel in Charge of Countering Russian Propaganda in Lithuania
The crowd props up five Armenian youth, who take the opportunity to flip off the police. (Photo by Will Cathcart)
The Armenian protesters have repeatedly insisted that Electric Yerevan is not a replay of "Euromaidan," the clashes between protesters and police in Kieve that led to the ouster of Ukraine's pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych in February of 2014. Still, the Kremlin is obviously worried.
Sargsyan is a staunch ally of Putin, and Russia has an important military base in the northwestern Armenian city of Gymumri. But Putin potentially has even more to lose than that.
A successful homegrown protest in Yerevan could inspire similar actions in other ex-Soviet countries, possibly including activists within Russia.
With Russian state media calling the protests a US-funded Armenian Maidan, the Kremlin is hedging its bets in case the Armenian demonstrators succeed in throwing out their government.
'Russia is doing everything it can to look like a colonizing power; Russia is Russia's worst enemy in Armenia.'
At the heart of the conflict is Armenia's electrical grid, which is owned by a subsidiary of the Russian company Inter RAO. The conflict over the government's clumsy recent attempt to raise electricity rates has exposed how much of Armenia's strategic infrastructure is owned and controlled by Russia — including the country's gas distribution. It has also revealed the mismanagement, bad governance, and corruption that is embedded in Armenia's current structure.
"That's the beauty of this movement," DerGrigorian said. "It is about one single, straightforward issue which highlights many other issues at the same time. Meanwhile, Russia is doing everything it can to look like a colonizing power; Russia is Russia's worst enemy in Armenia."
Many protesters say their goal is to take back their country both from Moscow and from political parties they view as uniformly corrupt. "Politicians are simply not trusted in Armenia," said DerGrigorian.
The movement has marginalized key political players like Hovannisian, one of the country's best-known opposition figures, even as he tries to create a role for himself as an intermediary between the activists and political establishment.
Related: Russian Spies, Suspicious Books, and the New Cold War Emerging in Europe
Members of Armenia's special forces stand in between riot police and protestors on Baghramyan Avenue. (Photo by Will Cathcart)
"These two things are often perceived as, but should not remain, mutually exclusive," Hovannisiansaid. "I am absolutely proud of these people — our people here fighting for a new national identity… Having recently regained independence, Armenia is signing away pockets of strategic assets of our small republic to another, much larger country, which in this case is Russia. Some might say we've even given the controlling package away. This is unacceptable and must be reversed."
In this sense at least, the views of the young activist and the veteran politician are not so far apart. Russia "owns everything here," DerGrigorian joked to a reporter, adding, "They probably even own the chair you're sitting on."
After nightfall, back in the Yerevan Square — after two hours where it seemed like the riot squad was going to attack the protesters with fire hoses and batons at any moment, the officers abruptly turned their backs to the crowd and marched off into the darkness.
The crowd erupted in cheers. It was a victory, however temporary.
Sargsyan announced a partial compromise. He would temporarily suspend the electricity rate price increase by having the government subsidize rates to allow time for an international audit of Armenia's power distribution company. Even so, the protesters refused to leave. They objected to the government using their tax money to pay a price they see as unjust.
Many of Armenia's political elite seemed uncomprehending. "People can celebrate this as an achievement. Otherwise it's just all or nothing politics, and in that case you always get nothing," said Parliament Member Edmon Marukyan, an independent.
Marukyan's concern wasn't only theoretical. He warned that if 10 protesters could be killed in 2008 — a time when Armenia was much closer to the West than it is now — what might happen if the protesters today continue to refuse to disband?
https://news.vice.com/article/russia-is-russias-worst-enemy-in-armenia?utm_source=vicenewsfb
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Russian Yoga Ban Leaves Officials In Awkward Pose
The yoga hall in Nizhnevartovsk
By Kira Morozova and Claire Bigg
July 03, 2015
When rumors began swirling that authorities in the central Russian city of Nizhnevartovsk intended to ban yoga, practitioners of the ancient Indian discipline thought it was a prank.
It soon turned out Nizhnevartovsk officials were dead serious.
Several yoga studios received letters from city authorities asking them to stop holding classes in municipal buildings in an effort to "prevent the spread of new religious cults and movements."
Private studios started to receive the warnings, too.
"It really stunned me, to put it mildly," says Inga Pimenova, an instructor at Nizhnevartovsk's Ingara School.
The apparent ban took Nizhnevartovsk by surprise, especially since yoga is officially recognized as a sport in Russia and has its own national federation.
In December, Russia became one of the 177 co-sponsors of a resolution to the UN General Assembly to make June 21 International Yoga Day.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev himself is known to be an enthusiast.
Up until the letters, Nizhnevartovsk authorities had actually sponsored yoga classes in state-run premises.
"How can you prohibit people from being healthy? This is absurd," asks Yelena Kolchanova, another yoga teacher who runs the city's Ganesh House of Yoga. "They'd better ban eating sausages."
The leaked letter (click to enlarge)
The yoga controversy started in late June, when a leaked letter from Nizhnevartovsk's department for social and youth affairs referring to the "occult" character of yoga appeared on the Internet.
The letter instructed the city's culture, sports, and education department to "take measures to stop the practice of yoga in municipal institutions."
It described yoga as "inseparably connected to religious practices" and called on city officials to curb the spread of practices "of a destructive religious nature."
"Occult means invoking higher forces," says Pimenova. "We don't invoke any higher forces. Yoga is a science, a science of the body."
News of the Nizhnevartovsk yoga ban spread like wildfire across Russia and beyond, prompting critics to heap scorn on Nizhnevartovsk authorities.
Mayor Alla Badina swiftly recalled the letters and pledged to punish the officials guilty of sending out "incorrect information."
Irina Rybina, the acting head of Nizhnevartovsk's department for social and youth affairs and the author of the leaked letter, is also playing down the scandal.
"People may be seeing what they want to see in this information," she told RFE/RL. "The motives to send the letter were good; it was for prevention."
Local authorities have scheduled consultations on July 7 to determine whether yoga classes should be permitted in municipal buildings.
With the danger of a shutdown now behind them, yoga teachers joke that the incident may actually play in their favor.
"I thank our administration for promoting yoga," laughs Yelena Kolchanova. "People are now showing an interest in yoga, asking what it is and what the noise is all about."
http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-yoga-ban-backlash/27108587.html
@Ill
The yoga hall in Nizhnevartovsk
By Kira Morozova and Claire Bigg
July 03, 2015
When rumors began swirling that authorities in the central Russian city of Nizhnevartovsk intended to ban yoga, practitioners of the ancient Indian discipline thought it was a prank.
It soon turned out Nizhnevartovsk officials were dead serious.
Several yoga studios received letters from city authorities asking them to stop holding classes in municipal buildings in an effort to "prevent the spread of new religious cults and movements."
Private studios started to receive the warnings, too.
"It really stunned me, to put it mildly," says Inga Pimenova, an instructor at Nizhnevartovsk's Ingara School.
The apparent ban took Nizhnevartovsk by surprise, especially since yoga is officially recognized as a sport in Russia and has its own national federation.
In December, Russia became one of the 177 co-sponsors of a resolution to the UN General Assembly to make June 21 International Yoga Day.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev himself is known to be an enthusiast.
Up until the letters, Nizhnevartovsk authorities had actually sponsored yoga classes in state-run premises.
"How can you prohibit people from being healthy? This is absurd," asks Yelena Kolchanova, another yoga teacher who runs the city's Ganesh House of Yoga. "They'd better ban eating sausages."
The yoga controversy started in late June, when a leaked letter from Nizhnevartovsk's department for social and youth affairs referring to the "occult" character of yoga appeared on the Internet.
The letter instructed the city's culture, sports, and education department to "take measures to stop the practice of yoga in municipal institutions."
It described yoga as "inseparably connected to religious practices" and called on city officials to curb the spread of practices "of a destructive religious nature."
"Occult means invoking higher forces," says Pimenova. "We don't invoke any higher forces. Yoga is a science, a science of the body."
News of the Nizhnevartovsk yoga ban spread like wildfire across Russia and beyond, prompting critics to heap scorn on Nizhnevartovsk authorities.
Mayor Alla Badina swiftly recalled the letters and pledged to punish the officials guilty of sending out "incorrect information."
Irina Rybina, the acting head of Nizhnevartovsk's department for social and youth affairs and the author of the leaked letter, is also playing down the scandal.
"People may be seeing what they want to see in this information," she told RFE/RL. "The motives to send the letter were good; it was for prevention."
Local authorities have scheduled consultations on July 7 to determine whether yoga classes should be permitted in municipal buildings.
With the danger of a shutdown now behind them, yoga teachers joke that the incident may actually play in their favor.
"I thank our administration for promoting yoga," laughs Yelena Kolchanova. "People are now showing an interest in yoga, asking what it is and what the noise is all about."
http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-yoga-ban-backlash/27108587.html
@Ill