RUSSIA 🇷🇺 Thread: Wikileaks=FSB front, UKRAINE?, SNOWED LIED; NATO Aggression; Trump = Putins B!tch
- Thread starter ☑︎#VoteDemocrat
- Start date
you aint seen nothing yet
Putin about to pay, dearly
What you think going to happen?
Wikileaks: Inside the Farage-Assange-Trump Connection
How Donald Trump’s best friend in Britain—another big fan of Vladimir Putin—put his party at the service at Wikileaks’ Julian Assange.
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast
LONDON—When Julian Assange sought refuge in 2011 at an embassy in the heart of London, only one of Britain’s political parties was willing to offer support to the exile in their midst.
Nigel Farage’s U.K. Independence Party, which seemed a fringe movement at the time but became the driving force behind Brexit, swung into action and campaigned against the demand that Assange be returned to Sweden for a police interview on allegations of rape.
Farage and his UKIP colleagues have spoken out publicly in support of Assange numerous times since 2011, but leaked emails seen by The Daily Beast reveal the true extent to which the party apparatus tried to assist the founder of WikiLeaks, whichthe head of the CIA has since described as a “hostile intelligence service” that cooperated with Russian agents.
The episode raises further questions about links between Farage, Assange and the Russian government. Farage, who is also a favored friend of U.S. President Donald Trump, was spotted emerging from a meeting with Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in March.
Internal UKIP memos reveal the relationship went back much further: Assange and his lawyer were given the opportunity to contribute directly to speeches given by UKIP on the floor of the European Parliament while branches of the party in and around London were told to send activists to protest against Assange’s proposed judicial surrender to the authorities.
“We need bodies,” read an email request sent to local UKIP associations asking them to send two or three people each as an “astroturf” protest against Assange’s plight when he appeared in court in London in January 2011.
Farage and his UKIP colleagues also reportedly met privately with Assange’s lawyer Mark Stephens, who was repeatedly offered the chance to help craft the party’s words on the case, according to the leaked emails.
Stephens was asked if he or Assange would like to meet a UKIP member of the European Parliament, Gerrard Batten, on January 31 that year “in order to discuss bringing out issues in the case.” He was asked again if he wished “to include a few points to get the message across” on February 5, 2011, before Batten was due to speak in the European Parliament. Batten asked Stephens again if he had “any points that you feel I should or should not mention in the few minutes I get to speak” on February 11.
Batten addressed the European Parliament, standing at Farage’s right hand, on February 14, 2011,. where he raised the prospect that Assange was being mistreated because he was “a political dissident.” He returned to the case in June 2011, telling the parliament in Brussels that the U.S. “need him locked up somewhere” while they work out how to prosecute him.
The UKIP MEP also made a submission on behalf of Assange in his case against extradition, which went all the way to Britain’s Supreme Court in 2012. Last year, Batten wrote on his blog that Assange’s stay in the embassy of Ecuador had been tantamount to “arbitrary arrest and imprisonment.”
When news broke on Friday that Sweden would no longer pursue the allegationsagainst Assange after a seven-year standoff while he hid in an embassy out of the reach of British law enforcement, Batten told The Daily Beast he had never taken a position on the guilt or innocence of Assange.
“I don't really have a view about Mr. Assange. My involvement with him was regarding my opposition to the European Arrest Warrant,” he said. “At the time, eminent British lawyers who looked at it said this would never make it to an English court—these kind of accusations. It didn't sound very sound in the first place.”
Assange hailed Sweden’s decision to stop pursuing the allegations and celebrated the release of Chelsea Manning—one of the first major WikiLeaks leakers—in a speech from the balcony of the embassy in London’s Mayfair.
"We have today won an important victory, but the road is far from over. The proper war is just commencing," he said, promising to accelerate the distribution of material about the CIA. The standoff will continue because there is still an outstanding warrant for Assange’s arrest over skipping bail.
Batten told The Daily Beast he had attended Assange’s lavish 40th birthday party in 2010 but had not met with him since. He said he does not recall whether Stephens or Assange took up his offer to help with his speeches. He also said he had received no donations from anyone connected to WikiLeaks or the Russian government. “If only these people would offer me money, I’d have the luxury of refusing it,” he said.
UKIP has repeatedly denied co-operating with Russia, Russian front organizations, or taking funds from the Kremlin—which would be illegal under British law—but Farage, who was one of the first foreign politicians to meet with Trump after his election, has called for improved relations between Russia, Britain, and the U.S. He also described Vladimir Putin as the foreign leader he most admires.
Last week, Farage refused once again to answer questions about his recent visit to see Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. “That has nothing to do with you,” he snapped at a Die Zeit reporter. “It was a private meeting.”
He has claimed that he met Assange as a journalist—not as a political go-between—but no interview has appeared since the March 9 meeting.
In the same interview, Farage also failed to disclose whether he received payments for his regular appearances on RT, a news channel funded by the Russian government, which paid Assange to produce his own show in 2012.
The secrecy surrounding Farage’s meeting with Assange, prompted speculation that he may have been sent as an emissary from someone in Trump’s orbit. Farage is close to Trump, he has also met the political operative Roger Stone who claimed to have a back-channel to Assange last summer.
Farage has denied that he was carrying a secret message to or from Assange, whose WikiLeaks organization has been accused of influencing the result of last year’s U.S. presidential election with the help of Russian hackers.
One of the UKIP candidates contesting Britain’s election next month told The Daily Beast that there is nothing suspicious about the attitude towards Russia taken by Farage and his party. Nigel Sussman, the parliamentary candidate for Edmonton in North London, says it’s a natural meeting of minds.
“Russia is very credible and commonsensical—and UKIP is very credible and commonsensical,” he said. “There's a synergy of views there.”
Sussman has a more intimate view of Russia than most British politicians. He traveled to Crimea last month as a guest of the Russian parliament, who paid for internal flights, accommodation and food. Sussman says he paid for his own round-trip flights to Russia.
Sussman, the chair of UKIP’s Ilford association, who was on the trip with another former UKIP candidate, met with the local pro-Russian officials and toured the streets of former eastern Ukraine talking to local residents accompanied by cameras from Russia’s state-owned TV Channel 1. Although most of the international community regards Moscow’s covert occupation and annexation of Crimea following as stage-managed vote as illegal and illegitimate, based on his interviews, Sussman says: “Crimea had a perfectly legitimate referendum in my opinion.”
As a result, he has submitted a report to UKIP’s National Executive Committee, which calls for a policy change—demanding that sanctions should be lifted against Russia.
“As far as I can see there don't seem to be a lot of people standing up for Russia right now,” he said. Is UKIP the most pro-Russian party? “Yes, I think it is.”
Sussman is, however, hopeful that Trump will ease relations between Moscow and the West. “I have high hopes for Trump because Trump is going to meet Putin. I think he has said it plain: he wants to be friends with Russia. That sounds like an eminently sensible position for God's sake!”
The UKIP candidate insisted that there was no evidence that Putin’s regime had helped Trump into office, although the U.S. intelligence community is on the record and unanimous in its conviction that Russia tried to influence the outcome. He also explained away Moscow’s reported munificence towards Marine Le Pen. “What happened was Le Pen tried to get a loan from French banks and none of the French banks would lend her any money—and that's outrageous... It's a bit like UKIP, I mean God help us!”
The bottom line: Le Pen’s party received millions of dollars in loans in 2014 from a now defunct Russian bank, and, whether coincidentally or out of conviction, her minions, too, endorsed the Crimean annexation.
The two representatives from Britain on the Crimea tour this year were not joined by any members of Le Pen’s National Front, but the guests included an unlikely array of minor party politicians like Jaroslav Holik from a Czech party with links to Le Pen, or the son of Serbia's Vojislav Seselj, who was acquitted of war crimes and crimes against humanity by a United Nations tribunal in the Hague.
“It's a collection of odds and sods; far left or far right will do, as long as they are open to some Russian support. Some of these are full Russian puppets like the Serbian Radical Party,” said Neil Barnett, the chief executive of Istok Associates, a corporate intelligence and investigations consultancy.
There is evidence that Russia helped UKIP secure Brexit—using its army of online trolls and bots—but there is no proof of collusion or direct funding from the Kremlin, or assistance from WikiLeaks.
Arron Banks, the British businessman who was once UKIP’s biggest donor and set up the unofficial Brexit campaign group Leave.EU, says he has a good relationship with Russia—including long boozy lunches with the Russian ambassador—but says there has been no monetary donation either directly or through his array of offshore companies.
Banks, who was pictured in the entourage that met Trump with Farage in the days just after Trump won the election, gave an extraordinary interview to the Observer newspaper in London last month in which he admitted that his Russian wife had the profile of a Russian spy, then suddenly denied that Russia had bankrolled Brexit—unprompted—and repeatedly defended Putin.
“What you’re talking about is the degree to which the Russians actually—let’s say they influenced the Brexit vote. Say I’m pro-Putin. Nigel said he’s not anti-Putin, if that’s the right word. But all we’ve said is that there are elements of what Russians do that we don’t disagree with. We don’t agree with everything they’re doing, like murdering journalists in the street,” he said.
This “joke” is typical of Banks, who ensures it’s hard to know exactly how seriously his words should be taken at any given moment.
When his old pal Farage was spotted leaving the Ecuadorian embassy in March, original reports said it was unclear why he had been inside the building—not least since Farage claimed to have forgotten.
A newspaper later reported that he had indeed been holding secret talks with Assange, and Banks wrote on Twitter: “Well he didn't go for drinks with the ambassador did he?”
Another multi-millionaire with loose-lips, like Trump, Banks seems to revel in offering glimmers of a sprawling axis that runs from Washington D.C. to Moscow via London—and a tiny sliver of Ecuadorian sovereignty.
Whether Assange makes it outside the embassy in the coming days or if he continues to hide from justice—the game of shadows will continue.
The West Is Pushing Back on Kremlin Lies—Without America
Putin’s Fake News offensive has generated resistance... but not in Washington
By John R. Schindler • 05/22/17 12:45pm
Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin after Putin spoke during the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum at the China National Convention Center (CNCC) in Beijing, Sunday, May 14, 2017. Mark Schiefelbein-Pool/Getty Images
Last week I was in Prague, participating in the STRATCOM 2017 summit—and it was a week very well spent. Sponsored by the European Values think-tank, a top-notch Czech NGO devoted to defending liberal democracies, it brought together 330 experts from 29 countries to discuss the threat to all our societies presented by Russian propaganda and disinformation.
Fittingly hosted in Prague, which as I recently explained has a serious problem with Kremlin espionage and subversion, STRATCOM 2017 is unique in its size and scope, bringing together a diverse group of security practitioners, politicians, think-tankers, journalists, and related experts from across the Western world. In Prague, they meet and speak frankly under Chatham House rules, sharing ideas and best practices. There’s nothing quite like it anywhere else—and certainly nothing remotely comparable in the United States.
That’s because America is several years behind Europe in grappling with the corrosive effects of Kremlin-pushed Fake News on our societies. As the summit made abundantly clear, this is a necessary fight if we want to protect Western democracy and civil society from Vladimir Putin’s disinformation machine and his helpers in our midst. However, it’s painful to admit that Washington really isn’t in this fight at all, more than three years after Putin seized Crimea, invaded Ukraine, and initiated Cold War 2.0. This, notwithstanding that Kremlin lies in recent years have played a noxious role in misshaping American politics and elections.
It’s worth looking at what is going on elsewhere before we castigate our own government. At the national level, several European countries have established units to examine Russian Active Measures, to use the proper Chekist term. In some cases, they are engaged in counter-propaganda, debunking noxious lies emanating from Moscow which aim to dissolve the bonds of democratic societies. Having just witnessed France’s successful effort to defeat Russian spy-games designed to manipulate their presidential election, European eyes have now turned to Germany, which has national elections in September. Whether Berlin will be as adept as Paris at blunting Putin’s lie machine remains an open and very important question.
In some countries, citizens have taken it upon themselves to fight Kremlin trolls and bots online, pointing out their blatant social media falsehoods and deceptions, often with mockery. In the Baltic states, on the frontline of NATO’s efforts to deter Russia in all arenas, from military to information, patriots amusingly calling themselves “elves” have taken the fight to Twitter, Facebook, and VKontake (Russia’s version of Facebook). Self-starting Baltic elves, without government backing, have made a serious dent in Kremlin efforts to destabilize their small countries through disinformation.
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Even the European Union has joined the fight against Moscow’s Fake News. The EU established a small analysis unit in the fall of 2015 to combat Kremlin disinformation. Although its tiny size—only a dozen or so personnel—and budget limit its effectiveness, the EU effort at least exists, even if it cannot make much of an impression on the Russians, given that they spend more than $1 billion annually on propaganda aimed at destabilizing the West and its institutions.
That’s still more than America is doing in this crucial struggle to defend democracy. It speaks volumes that the EU, perhaps the world’s slowest-moving, most arteriosclerotic bureaucracy, can create an effort to fight back against Putin’s online disinformation mob. Washington cannot—even years after the Kremlin has made its intentions abundantly clear.
It would be tempting to place this debacle at the feet of President Donald Trump, who can’t seem to criticize anything his Russian counterpart does, even when Putin threatens the West, but that’s hardly the full story. In truth, this rot in Washington, a basic unwillingness to fight Russian Active Measures, traces back to Trump’s predecessor, who allowed the Kremlin to run roughshod over American democracy.
Why Barack Obama remained so timid in his reactions to Russia’s weaponized lies is an important question which historians must answer—not least because Kremlin espionage and propaganda played a role in defeating President Obama’s designated Democratic successor at the polls last November. However, it cannot be fairly disputed that Obama was negligent regarding Russian propaganda, nor that his refusal to take this rising threat seriously contributed to the mess our country’s in right now.
Specifically, in mid-2015, more than a year after Cold War 2.0 commenced, when it was glaringly obvious that Moscow was aggressively employing disinformation to distract, deter, and defame Western democracies, bureaucrats in Washington began to ponder what might be done about this new problem. Which wasn’t actually new—Russian Active Measures today are much like their predecessors from the last Cold War, just with the Internet added—but since there’s practically nobody left in the Federal bureaucracy from that era, it was new to Beltway functionaries.
It was determined that the State Department should establish a small effort, a test-bed, to study Kremlin lies and start pushing back against them. In other words, Washington was going to do what the EU was doing in the autumn of 2015. However, without warning, the White House quashed the tiny State Department counter-propaganda effort before it got off the ground. As I reported in detail at the time, orders came down from the White House “not to upset the Russians,” no matter how outrageously they behaved. By refusing to resist Putin’s Fake News, President Obama got more of it, with fateful consequences in 2016 which we all know.
In the messy aftermath of our last presidential election, Congress finally had enough of Obama’s egregious passivity, and with bipartisan support it placed a mandate to push back against “state propaganda” in the end-of-2016 National Defense Authorization Act. Although the NDAA didn’t use the word Russia, there’s no doubt who was the intended target of this belated effort at counter-propaganda.
Specifically, thanks to a strong push by Sen. John McCain, who has urged Washington to get serious about Russian threats for many years, the NDAA gave the State Department not less than $60 million in 2017 to engage in counter-propaganda work—in other words, debunking Fake News aimed at undermining Western democracies. According to the NDAA, the Pentagon is supposed to transfer the funds to Foggy Bottom, which is perennially short of cash; for the Defense Department, $60 million barely constitutes a rounding error. When Congress passed and President Obama signed the NDAA on December 23 of last year, it became law.
However, five months have passed and nothing has happened in Washington that’s worth mentioning in the fight against Kremlin disinformation. The State Department has established a tiny office inside its Global Engagement Center, which is charged with pushing back against jihadist propaganda; the effort against Russian lies is supposed to be an add-on for the GEC. However, to date nobody has been hired, and the State Department has only a small handful of experts in Russian disinformation on the payroll, nowhere near enough to implement the law.
There’s plenty of blame to go around here, though none of it belongs to the overworked GEC. The Trump White House’s hiring freeze has made it impossible to bring qualified personnel into the State Department. Neither does it help matters that the Trump administration has decided it doesn’t need its own officials to implement its policies. To date, of the 557 jobs that require Senate approval, President Trump has nominated 49, announced the nomination of 19, while only 29 people have been confirmed; 460 jobs have no nominees at all. No previous White House has ever been this slow to get its own people into top positions in Washington.
The impact of this on implementing the NDAA—and countless other laws—is cancerous. Most of the staff work that goes into making the Federal bureaucracy function is approved at the level of assistant secretaries and their deputies. And those critical jobs are almost entirely unfilled at both the State Department and the Pentagon. When closely examined, there’s really no mystery why the will of Congress regarding Russian Fake News isn’t being followed: there’s nobody to make decisions, sign paperwork, transfer funds, and hire staff.
Nevertheless, that doesn’t explain why Congress isn’t asking questions. Several of its senior members have been passionate about getting our government in the fight against Putin’s noxious lie machine. While it’s no surprise that Team Trump isn’t excited about pushing back against Russian propaganda, why patriots on Capitol Hill don’t have pointed questions about the law not being followed is something of mystery. Until senators and representatives start asking what’s going on here, the struggle against Kremlin Active Measures will be fought by our European allies on our behalf.
John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, he’s also been a Navy officer and a War College professor. He’s published four books and is on Twitter at @20committee.
The Latest: Macron attacks Russian media outlets
The Latest: Macron attacks Russian media outlets
PARIS (AP) — The Latest on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to France (all times local):
5:50 p.m.
French President Emmanuel Macron has made an extraordinary attack on two Russian media outlets, saying they acted as “propaganda” organs during France’s election campaign.
Speaking at a news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, Macron accused the two outlets, Russia Today and Sputnik, of spreading fake news.
He said that’s why he banned their reporters from his campaign headquarters during the race for the French presidency, which he went on to win May 7.
___
5:41 p.m.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has rejected allegations that Moscow meddled in France’s presidential election.
Speaking after talks Monday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Putin said Moscow didn’t try to influence the French vote.
But he also defended his March meeting with Macron’s rival in the presidential race, far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
Putin described Le Pen as a politician who wants to develop friendly ties with Russia.
Putin says it would be strange if Russia rebuffed overtures from European politicians who want to strengthen relations.
He says the meeting with Le Pen didn’t represent an attempt to sway the race.
Putin added that Russia had been well-aware of opinion polls predicting Macron’s victory.
___
5:30 p.m.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says he and French President Emmanuel Macron have agreed to discuss pursuing closer cooperation on anti-terror efforts.
Putin said after talks with Macron at the Palace of Versailles on Monday that the French leader proposed exchanging official delegations to work toward that goal.
The Russian leader says they also discussed the situation in Syria. Putin underlined the importance of securing the Syrian state, adding that it’s essential for combatting terrorism.
Russia has staunchly backed Syrian President Bashar Assad throughout the conflict, while France has pushed for Assad’s removal from office.
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5:22 p.m.
French President Emmanuel Macron is saying after talks with President Vladimir Putin of Russia that he believes they can work together on Syria and that he wants to forge a reinforced partnership against the Islamic State group.
Macron said he wants a democratic transition in Syria, but not at the cost of the war-torn country becoming a failed state.
After talks with Putin at the Palace of Versailles that ran far longer than planned on Monday, Macron said the use of chemical weapons in Syria was a “red line” for France.
He said that any use of such weapons in Syria would lead to “reprisals” from France — without specifying exactly what form they would take.
Macron said he also spoke to Putin about LGBT rights in Chechnya and about NGOs in Russia.
He vowed to be “constantly vigilant on these issues.”
___
4:45 p.m.
Talk about making a statement.
The vast and sumptuous room at the Palace of Versailles, which has been chosen by France to host President Emmanuel Macron’s press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, celebrates 14 centuries of French military successes.
At 120 meters long by 13 meters wide (394 feet long by 43 feet wide), the Gallery of Great Battles is Versailles’ largest room.
The martial paintings on its walls are spectacular and breathtaking. They commemorate an array of battles — from Tolbiac, waged by King Clovis in 496, to Wagram, won by Napoleon in 1809.
A gentle reminder in case Putin had forgotten France’s proud past.
Putin flew to France to hold talks with Macron on Monday.
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4:25 p.m.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen maintains contacts with Moscow after visiting Vladimir Putin in March, but had no plans to meet with the Russian leader or Russian aides during Putin’s visit to France.
Le Pen tweeted ahead of Putin’s meeting on Monday at the Palace of Versailles with French President Emmanuel Macron that she “rejoices that V. Putin is being welcomed to France. Our relations must be normalized.”
The secretary-general of Le Pen’s far-right National Front party, Nicolas Bay, said later that “of course” Le Pen’s contacts with Russia continue and “there is no reason these contacts wouldn’t continue long-term.”
He says they’re “totally distinct from diplomatic contacts” that Macron, the president, now has.
Putin hosted Le Pen at the Kremlin in March, wrongly betting that the nationalist would win France’s May 7 presidential election.
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2:15 p.m.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in France for talks with newly-elected French President Emmanuel Macron.
Macron greeted Putin with a firm handshake on a red carpet leading into the Palace of Versailles before both men walked inside.
Putin’s trip is likely to shape Russia-France ties for years, with Putin trying to mend strained ties with the West and with Macron after the Russian leader backed Macron’s far-right rival Marine Le Pen.
Putin and Macron will hold a joint news conference after their talks.
___
11:40 a.m.
Human rights activists are gathered in Paris to draw attention to the situation of gays in Chechnya before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to France.
The activists want newly-elected French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss the issue with Putin at their Versailles palace meeting. They held a banner “Stop homophobia in Chechnya” at a square in front of the Eiffel Tower.
Amnesty International France vice president Cecile Coudriou says “it’s important that Mr. Putin is ready to hear, we hope, strong words coming from Mr. Macron, to say ‘stop’ to that homophobia which has lasted for too long.”
Human Rights Watch said in a new report last week that high-level officials in Russia’s Chechnya humiliated inmates during visits to detention facilities where gay people were allegedly held and tortured.
___
8:40 a.m.
On a trip that will likely shape Russia-France ties for years to come, President Vladimir Putin is set to visit France for talks with newly-elected French President Emmanuel Macron after expressing sympathy for his rivals during the campaign.
After Moscow lost its bets in the French vote, the visit offers the Russian leader a chance to turn the page and try to establish ties with Macron as the Kremlin has struggled to mend a bitter rift in relations with the West.
Monday’s meeting comes in the wake of the Group of Seven’s summit over the weekend where relations with Russia were part of the agenda, making Macron the first Western leader to speak to Putin after the talks.
Boss the shyt out of bytch Putin lol.
Foot Soldiers in a Shadowy Battle Between Russia and the West
By ANDREW HIGGINSMAY 28, 2017
Ladislav Kasuka was offered money to organize protests against NATO and the pro-Western Ukranian government in Prague. Pavel Horejsi for The New York Times
MELNIK, Czech Republic — Working at his computer, as he does most weekends, on an anti-Western diatribe for a Czech website, Ladislav Kasuka was not sure what to make of the messages that began popping up on his Facebook page, offering him money to organize street protests.
“Do you need help?” read the first message, written in Russian, from a person he did not know. This was followed, in a mix of Russian and garbled Czech, by gushing encouragement for street demonstrations and increasingly specific offers of cash.
An initial payment of 300 euros ($368) was offered for Mr. Kasuka, a penniless Czech Stalinist, to buy flags and other paraphernalia for a protest rally in Prague, the Czech capital, against the NATO alliance and the pro-Western government in Ukraine. Later, he was offered €500 ($558) to buy a video camera, film the action and post the video online. Other small sums were also proposed.
“It was all a bit unusual, so I was surprised,” Mr. Kasuka recalled in a recent interview at a shopping mall north of Prague where he works on security and maintenance.
He decided the cash “was for a good cause” — halting the spread of NATO and capitalist Western ways into the formerly communist lands of Eastern Europe — so he accepted.
The strange relationship that followed, consisting of passionate social media exchanges about politics and a total of €1,500 in cash transfers, was one of many forged across Eastern and Central Europe in summer 2014. They were part of a frenetic, though often clumsy, influence campaign financed from Moscow and directed by Alexander Usovsky, a Belarus-born writer, Russian-nationalist agitator and ideological hired gun in a shadowy battle for hearts and minds between Russia and the West.
Compared with Russia’s supposed meddling in the recent presidential elections in France and the United States, the activities of Mr. Kasuka and those like him are of little consequence. He belongs firmly to the fringe of Czech politics, and has never aspired to any higher office than local councilor in Melnik, the town north of Prague where he lives with his girlfriend in a graffiti-smeared housing block.
Mr. Kasuka’s collaboration with Mr. Usovsky first came to light in a cache of emails, Facebook messages and other data pilfered by Ukrainian hackers from Mr. Usovsky’s computer. It provides a rare ground-level view of a particularly murky aspect of Russia’s influence strategy: freelance activists who promote its agenda abroad, but get their backing from Russian tyc00ns and others close to the Kremlin, not the Russian state itself.
Mr. Usovsky’s focus was on marginal political players in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, and his efforts mostly fell flat. The protests organized by Mr. Kasuka and others attracted only handfuls of people. Pro-Russian websites that Mr. Usovsky helped to set up all fizzled. A Polish politician he was in touch with, Mateusz Piskorski, was arrested last year on suspicion of spying for Russia.
None of that seemed to deter Mr. Usovsky, who was still pitching wild plans and detailed budgets to potential backers in Moscow early this year.
His communications offer a revealing glimpse into Russian thinking, ambitions and frustrations. His dealings with the office of Konstantin Malofeev, a nationalist billionaire who was hit with sanctions by the United States over his alleged support for pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine, are especially notable.
After Mr. Usovsky managed to orchestrate only a few tiny demonstrations in Prague, Warsaw and other cities, an assistant to Mr. Malofeev demanded in October 2014 that Mr. Usovsky produce “a clear, concrete and realistic plan for the coming to power of pro-Russian forces.”
Mr. Malofeev declined to be interviewed, and his spokeswoman, Nadezhda Novoselova, said the billionaire and his staff had nothing to do with Mr. Usovsky.
Mr. Malofeev has acquired a reputation as the Kremlin’s version of George Soros, the Hungarian-American billionaire whom pro-Western forces across Eastern Europe often turn to for money. Unlike Mr. Soros, though, the wealthy Russians who support activists abroad generally try to keep their roles and spending secret. That allows the Kremlin to keep its distance as well.
Mr. Malofeev has in the past insisted he supported only humanitarian work, not political trouble-making.
Reports that Russia used cyberattacks and disinformation to meddle in the American election have persuaded many that Moscow runs a sophisticated influence machine. But interviews with several of Mr. Usovsky’s collaborators, and the contents of his hacked computer, suggest that it was at times a more shambolic affair, hampered by money squabbles, intramural rivalries and absurdly distorted views of how politics works outside Russia.
Jakub Janda, deputy director of European Values, a Western-financed research group in Prague that has tracked Russian influence campaigns, said that Mr. Usovsky seemed so far out of touch with reality that he might even be “a decoy” meant to make people say, “Look, this whole Russia threat thing is just not serious.”
Others, though, see Mr. Usovsky as evidence of Russia’s mastery of plausible deniability and its willingness to bet on opportunists, no matter how slim their chances of success.
Mr. Usovsky “is a good case study in Russian methods,” said Daniel Milo, a former official of the Slovakian Interior Ministry who is now an expert on extremism at Globsec, a research group in Bratislava, the Slovak capital. “He is a small cog in a big industry,” Mr. Milo said. “There may be dozens more.”
Mr. Usovsky declined to be interviewed for this article without being paid. But in response to emailed questions, he confirmed that his computer had been hacked, and he did not dispute the authenticity of the leaked messages.
A resident of Vitebsk, near the Russian border with Belarus, Mr. Usovsky started his operation in 2014, riding a wave of nationalist fervor in Moscow after the annexation of Crimea and the widespread belief among Russia’s political and business elite that united European backing for sanctions against Russia could be quickly dissolved.
He set up a network of websites in various languages to promote Slavic unity, rented an office in Bratislava and established a sham foundation nominally dedicated to promoting culture.
Asked by email how much money he had received from sponsors in Moscow, Mr. Usovsky initially denied receiving any. Then, when he was sent a copy of a message he had written in October 2014 detailing €100,000 he received to finance the “preparatory stage” of his work in Eastern Europe, he stopped responding to inquiries.
Other messages taken from his computer by hackers suggest that the money came from Mr. Malofeev. Mr. Usovsky badgered Mr. Malofeev’s assistant for hundreds of thousands more euros in late 2014 and 2015, to finance pro-Russian candidates in Polish elections.
Though he never even came close to bringing any pro-Russian groups to power, Mr. Usovsky was able to identify partners in Eastern and Central Europe ready to accept his help. He also showed a grasp of the internet’s power to amplify fringe voices and make thinly attended demonstrations seem like major dramas. He worked closely with state-controlled Russian news outlets to ensure that the activities of his Czech, Slovak and Polish collaborators received extensive coverage.
For example, Mr. Kasuka, the Czech Stalinist, has appeared regularly in Russian media as a commentator on Czech affairs and geopolitics. He once told RT that the United States might drop an atomic bomb on Ukraine and blame Russia to create a pretext for war. And a small rally that Mr. Kasuka organized in Prague was featured on Perviy Kanal, a major Russian TV channel.
“It is totally crazy,” said Roman Mica, an analyst based in Prague. “Pervy Kanal presents as serious news a protest by 10 or so people who are mostly ready for the psychological hospital.” He said Mr. Kasuka had become “one of the best known Czechs in Russia, after our hockey players.”
One person Mr. Usovsky did not want in the limelight, however, was himself. When a Slovak group, Peaceful Warrior, wanted to thank him publicly at a rally for his financial support, he swiftly vetoed the idea.
After Mr. Malofeev, his main backer, cooled on his ambitious but unrealistic political plans, Mr. Usovsky grew increasingly desperate for money. He told Mr. Malofeev’s assistant in March 2015 that his “Polish friends” needed €292,700 ($327,000) to win seats in Parliament. He also asked for €10,000 ($11,175) for Jobbik, a far-right Hungarian party, and €3,000 more for a neo-fascist paramilitary group called the Hungarian Guard.
Apparently rebuffed by Mr. Malofeev, he peppered other prospective Russian donors with detailed plans for a “pro-Russian fifth column,” claiming that he could destroy “Europe’s anti-Russian front” by channeling money to politicians who opposed NATO and the European Union. Among them were the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, headed by a former intelligence officer, and Konstantin Zatulin, a hard-line member of the Russian Parliament.
Short of funds, Mr. Usovsky looked to Mr. Kasuka, the Czech Stalinist, as a low-cost project that could keep him in the game. Unlike Mr. Usovsky’s Polish partners, Mr. Kasuka was not constantly asking for money, and had even turned some down when he ran for a seat on the Melnik town council in 2014.
But Mr. Kasuka lost interest in street politics. Though he is still in touch with Mr. Usovsky on social media, he says he now concentrates on his writings about the risk of war, Stalin’s achievements and the misery caused by capitalist exploitation.
“It does not matter to me whether money comes from the Kremlin or from America, so long as it helps the cause,” he said. “What matters is the idea.”
Correction: May 29, 2017
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article referred incorrectly in one passage to requests made to Mr. Malofeev’s office for money to finance pro-Russian politicians in Polish elections. The requests came directly from Mr. Usovsky, not from an assistant.
newworldafro
DeeperThanRapBiggerThanHH
OP...............ya fired breh..
Holdup.....let me find a ruler so I make sure I count all these things Americans find more important than a fake ass "Russia Did It" narrative that has taken ovet the MsM....
Russia is 21st most important non-economic problem, and less than 1% give a shiit.....
.....tell Napoleon he has been fired from the DNC troll network for ineffectiveness. His stuff will be in boxes by the trashcan.....
Holdup.....let me find a ruler so I make sure I count all these things Americans find more important than a fake ass "Russia Did It" narrative that has taken ovet the MsM....
Russia is 21st most important non-economic problem, and less than 1% give a shiit.....
.....tell Napoleon he has been fired from the DNC troll network for ineffectiveness. His stuff will be in boxes by the trashcan.....
Pull Up the Roots
I have a good time when I go out of my mind..
OP...............ya fired breh..
Holdup.....let me find a ruler so I make sure I count all these things Americans find more important than a fake ass "Russia Did It" narrative that has taken ovet the MsM....
Russia is 21st most important non-economic problem, and less than 1% give a shiit.....
That is a really poor poll. Situation with Russia is so vague and meaningless.
The person whom you're quoting even clarified that. I also want to see you prove this is all fake.
newworldafro
DeeperThanRapBiggerThanHH
I want to see you prove it's real...
I passed 6th grade math I know what less than 1% means....in this case insignificant and in an academic statistical model....still insignificant....everybody still hoisting up "Russia Did It" narrative...the whole section has been fired...
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