From the editor
Vladimir Putin insists that he is fighting Nazism in Ukraine, but the truth is that the Kremlin has long been a sponsor of far-right groups around the world, which was highlighted this week in stories from Spain and Sweden. The New York Times reported that the US government believes Russian intelligence instructed a white supremacist group to carry out a letter-bombing campaign in Madrid last year that targeted top officials and foreign embassies. And a Swedish journalist affiliated to RT with strong pro-Russian views, Chang Frick, was found to have paid some of the costs for Danish far-right activist Rasmus Paludan to burn the Quran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm, sparking protests in Turkey and reducing Sweden’s chances of getting Turkey’s approval for its NATO membership bid.
Protesters burn the Swedish flag in Istanbul in response to the burning of a Quran
These two examples show that Putin does not have to do very much to create the chaos he craves – especially when there are so many extremist groups willing to help him. The rate of return on hybrid war is higher than for conventional war, especially now that the United States and Germany have agreed to start sending modern tanks to Ukraine. Meanwhile the UK’s Royal Mail is still struggling with the consequences of a Russian ransomware attack, and the country’s National Cyber Security Centre has said that a Russia-based hacking group called SEABORGIUM is behind a large-scale information-gathering campaign in which its members impersonate people to get targets in politics, academia, journalism and activism to click on malware.
Against this background it was particularly frustrating to see South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor cosying up to Sergei Lavrov as he started a tour of the continent. The Soviet Union supported the ANC for years during apartheid, ostensibly to combat Western imperialism, but even that thin veneer is gone in Putin’s destructive Russia, and South Africa is aligning itself with the bad guys by agreeing to participate in joint naval exercises. It would have been “simplistic and infantile” to tell Lavrov that Russia must withdraw from Ukraine, Pandor said – in line with the stance of President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has blamed NATO for the war. South Africa is a member of the BRICS alliance that Russia touts as evidence of the new “multi-polar world” Putin is striving to create.
Comments on the website of South Africa’s Daily Maverick about Pandor’s meeting with Lavrov were overwhelmingly negative, and reader Paul Hatty hit the nail on the head when he wrote, “What Lavrov was really here for was to hear from the ANC how to destroy an electricity supply system, as the Russians have been less successful in Ukraine than the ANC has been here, and hence the Russians need help!” There is plenty of truth in the sarcasm, since a country overwhelmed with its own corruption problems and electricity shortages will gain nothing from trying to cultivate a friendship with the depraved killers in the Kremlin. Russia is also an overtly racist country and South Africa will not benefit from an upsurge in white supremacism.
The latest events should remind us once again that Putin’s war is global and aimed at everyone who wants to keep democracy alive – not only Ukraine. The decision to send tanks to Ukraine should have been made much sooner, but at least it is now happening and the fight is going to get even harder for Russia. In the meantime the hybrid attacks will continue unabated, and doing everything possible to stop the far right will help to put a dent in Putin’s plans.
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Former FBI agent indicted over work for Deripaska
The US Department of Justice has charged former FBI Special Agent in charge of the New York Counterintelligence Division Charles McGonigal and Russian court and government interpreter Sergei Shestakov with violating sanctions by providing services to Oleg Deripaska. McGonigal had been in the FBI for 22 years before retiring in 2018. He was arrested at JFK Airport on Saturday when returning from international travel and pled not guilty to five charges before being released on bail.
“In 2021, MCGONIGAL and SHESTAKOV conspired to provide services to Deripaska, in violation of US sanctions imposed on Deripaska in 2018,” the DoJ said in a statement. “Specifically, following their negotiations with an agent of Deripaska, MCGONIGAL and SHESTAKOV agreed to and did investigate a rival Russian oligarch in return for concealed payments from Deripaska. As part of their negotiations with Deripaska’s agent, MCGONIGAL, SHESTAKOV, and the agent attempted to conceal Deripaska’s involvement by, among other means, not directly naming Deripaska in electronic communications, using shell companies as counterparties in the contract that outlined the services to be performed, using a forged signature on that contract, and using the same shell companies to send and receive payments from Deripaska.”
British man arrested in Spain over aid to Vekselberg
British citizen Richard Masters was arrested in Spain last Friday and charged with evading US sanctions by helping oligarch Viktor Vekselberg to hide his 255-foot luxury yacht worth £72 million, the Tango. Masters, who runs a yacht management company, gave the Tango the false name Fanta. Nevertheless, the vessel was seized by the FBI last April in Palma de Mallorca. Vladislav Osipov, a Russian with Swiss citizenship, was also charged in the plot but remains at large.
These are all the false narratives that you are paid for to write and circulate. You yourself know well what are the truths. And who are the evil forces, destroying the world peace since the second world war. You should be ashamed of yourself for your ulterior motives to blindfold your readers with false narratives. Shame on you.
putin and those who lobby for his interests in any form, let it be the promotion of agents or a dispute over the supply of weapons for Ukraine, should be criminally punished. Populists in Germany promote kremlin's agents as opposition to Belarus. A lot of the kremlin's agents sit tightly in Europe, spreading kremlin propaganda and having protection, while those who really need protection were denied it. This world today is through the wormholes of putinism, this is the result that putin and russia sought, they look victorious...
The "russian world" should be criminally punishable.
Both previous commentators clearly carry the smell of kremlin propaganda.