There is no fifth column in the Kremlin? Think again! (THE SAKER)

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

After the reappointment of Medvedev and his more or less reshuffled government, public opinion in Russia and abroad was divided as to whether this was a good sign of continuity and unity between the Russian leadership, or whether it was confirmation that there was a 5th column in the Kremlin working against President Putin, and is trying to impose a neoliberal and pro-Western policy on the Russian people.

Today I want to take a quick look at what is happening inside Russia, because I believe that Russian foreign policy is still largely controlled by what I call "Eurasian sovereignists" see what is happening inside Russia.

Russian 5th column and its typical operations

First, I want to start by sharing with you a short video translated by the Saker community of one of the most astute Russian analysts Ruslan Ostashko, who wonders how this hopelessly pro-Western and loud anti-Putin radio station called "Echo of Moscow" fails only to elude normal Russian legislation, but even to get money from the giant Gazprom, which is majority owned by the Russian state. Echo of Moscow is also so pro-American that it was nicknamed Echo of Moscow (Echo of Moscow means Echo of Moscow, while Echo of Matzo means Echo of Matzo). Needless to say, radio has the unwavering and complete support of the US Embassy. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Ekho Moskvy serves as an incubator for Russophobic journalists and that the majority of liberal pro-Western journalists in the Russian media are at the same time associated with this propaganda outfit. Despite this, or, more precisely, because of this, Echo of Moscow has long gone bankrupt, and yet it continues to exist. Just listen to Ostashko's explanations (and don't forget to press the "cc" button to see the captions in English):

Interesting, no? State giant Gazprom is doing everything it can to keep Ekho Moskvy afloat and above the law. In fact, Gazprom has been financing Echo of Moscow for many years! According to the hyper-politically correct Wikipedia, “As of 2005, Echo of Moscow was owned by Gazprom, which owns 66% of its shares. If Gazprom is majority-owned by the Russian state and Echo of Moscow is owned by Gazprom, doesn't that mean that Echo of Moscow is largely funded by the Kremlin? The reality is even worse, as Ostashko points out, Ekho Moskvy is the most prominent case, but there are many pro-Western media outlets in Russia that are directly or indirectly funded by the Russian state.

So let me ask you a simple question: do you really think that Ostashko is better informed than the Russian authorities, including Putin himself?

Of course not! so what's going on here?

Before we try to answer this question, let's take a look at another interesting piece of news from Russia, the recent article “Pension Reform as a Fifth Column Tool to Overthrow Putin” (original title “On a Fair Pension System”) by Mikhail Khazin, translated by Ollie Richardson and Angelina Siard from the Stalker Zone blog (and cross-reference here and here). Please read the full article as it sheds a very interesting light on what the Medvedev government has had since it was reappointed. Here I want to cite quotes from Mikhail Khazin: (emphasis mine)

In other words, this whole reform is an outright poppik, a political joke aimed at destroying the relationship between the people (society) and the authorities. The specific goal of this is to overthrow Putin, since our liberals are ordered by their senior partners from the "Western" global project. And this is how we should view this reform. This has nothing to do with economic reforms, good or bad. This is not an economic reform, but a political story! And from here we must continue.

Explaining what is really happening, Khazin continues to openly declare how such an operation is possible:

Now about the media. It should be understood that in the late 90s - early 2000s, almost all illiberal media died. Fully. And, of course, almost all illiberal journalists have definitely died (there are only a few dozen mastodons left from the time of socialism). And the youth who grew up in journalism are generally completely liberal. They were a little suppressed in the mid-2000s, but after Medvedev's arrival as president, they flourished again. But then the state began to attack everything that did not reflect the "policy of the party and government."

And so it so happened that now in Russia there are many "patriotic" publications in which mostly liberal journalists work. A charming sight. These journalists (in full accordance with the ideas of Lenin, which they did not read) see their main task as supporting "their own", i.e., the Liberal financiers, Nemtsov, Navalny, etc., and in order to overthrow the "bloody KayGeeBee ",! And it is in this that they participate, which means that by promoting as much government policy as possible, they optimally irritate the population, using Putin personally. You always need to tell some disgusting story every time (how an elderly person died on the way to a clinic or hospital, how children were taken from a large family, how an official or a priest hit a pregnant woman and / or minor children with their luxurious car) to explain that this is not only the result of the policy of the liberal government, but also the specific fault of the president,

Surprising, no? This is an attempt to overthrow Putin, and he is shut down by the (pseudo) patriotic press. What about Putin himself? Why isn't he taking any action? Khazin even explains that:

Of course, the president is to blame, firstly, because he understands that if he begins to cleanse this "Augean stable", he will be forced to shed blood, because they will not voluntarily give up their privileges. But most importantly, and this is the point: the liberal Russian elite has now set itself the political task of removing Putin. Why he decided to do this is an interesting question: if Putin himself and the liberal are flesh and blood, then this task is stupid and senseless. Not to mention suicide. But if he is not a liberal (probably, it’s right to say not a political liberal), then, of course, this activity makes sense. But at the same time, for purely propaganda reasons - because people hate liberals, it is necessary to hang on him the label of a political liberal.

Now let's put the dots together: there is a pro-Western (in reality, Western-controlled) faction in the government that finances those who are trying to topple Putin by making him unpopular with the Russian public (which is overwhelmingly opposed to the "liberal" "Economic Policy and despises Russian liberal elites ", constantly forcing him into liberal economic policies, which he clearly does not like (he declared himself categorically against such policies in 2005), and the so-called" patriotic media "cover it all up. And Putin cannot change this without spilling blood.

But let's say, for the sake of the argument that Putin is truly liberal, he believes in the economics of the Washington Consensus. Even if this is so, of course, he should know that 92% of Russians are against this so-called "reform". And while presidential envoy Dmitry Peskov said that Putin himself was not connected to the plan, the truth is that the process also damaged his political image with the Russian people and political movements. As a direct result of these plans, the Communist Party of Russia is launching a referendum against the project, while A Just Russia is now collecting signatures to throw off the entire government. To Putin (I'm talking about the main political movements and parties, not the tiny CIA-backed and / or Soros-funded NGOs) turning himself into a much more determined opposition. I predicted that about a month ago when I wrote this:

“It is perfectly clear to me that a new type of Russian opposition is gradually emerging. Well, it has always existed, really - I'm talking about people who supported Putin and Russian foreign policy, and who did not like Medvedev and Russia's domestic policy. Now the voice of those who say that Putin is too soft in his stance towards the Empire will only grow stronger. So are the voices of those who talk about a truly toxic degree of nepotism and patronage in the Kremlin (again, Mutko is a perfect example). When such accusations came from rabid pro-Western liberals, they had very little attraction, but when they come from patriotic and even nationalist politicians (like Nikolai Starikov), they begin to take on a different dimension. For example, while the court jester Zhirinovsky and his LDPR party loyally supported Medvedev, the Communist Party and A Just Russia did not. If the political tensions around figures like Kudrin and Medvedev are somehow resolved (maybe a timely scandal?), We could witness the rise of a real opposition movement in Russia, rather than one ruled by the Empire. It will be interesting to see if Putin's personal ratings start and what he needs to do to respond to the emergence of such a real opposition."

Those who vehemently denied that there, as a real problem of the 5th column in the Kremlin, will have a painful wake-up call when they realize that thanks to the actions of these "liberals", patriotic opposition is gradually emerging, and not so much against Putin himself against politics government of Medvedev. Why not against Putin?

Because most Russians instinctively sense what is happening and understand not only the anti-Putin dynamics at work, but also how and why this situation was created. Moreover, unlike most Westerners, most Russians remember what happened in the critical and formative 1990s.

Historical roots of the problem (very rough summary)

It all started in the late 1980s, when the Soviet elites realized that they were losing control of the situation and that something needed to be done. To really summarize what they did, I would say that these elites first split the country into 15 separate fiefdoms, each ruled by a gang / clan made up of these Soviet elites, then they mercilessly seized whatever they wanted, became billionaires for night and hid their money in the West. Being fabulously wealthy in a completely devastated country, they gave them fantastic political power and influence to further exploit and plunder the country from all its resources. Russia itself (and the other 14 former Soviet republics) suffered an unspeakable nightmare comparable to a major war, and by the 1990s Russia had almost disintegrated into many smaller parts (Chechnya, Tatarstan, etc.). Then, Russia obeyed all economic policies recommended by myriads of US advisers (hundreds of them with offices in the offices of many key ministries and various state bodies, as today in Ukraine), it adopted a Constitution developed by Elements -US and all key positions in the state were busy with what I can only call Western agents. At the very top, President Eltis was mostly drunk, while the country was ruled by 7 bankers so-called "oligarchs" (6 of whom were Jews): "She adopted a Constitution developed by pro-American elements, and all key positions in the state were occupied by which I can only call Western agents. At the very top, President Eltis was mostly drunk, while the country was ruled by 7 bankers so-called "oligarchs" (6 of whom were Jews): "She adopted a Constitution developed by pro-American elements, and all key positions in the state were occupied by which I can only call Western agents. At the very top, President Eltis was mostly drunk, while the country was ruled by 7 bankers, the so-called "oligarchs" (6 of whom were Jews): "Polubankirshchina".

This is the time when Russian security services successfully tricked these oligarchs into believing that Putin, who has a law degree and worked for the (very liberal) mayor of St. Petersburg (Anatoly Sobchak), was just a petty bureaucrat who would restore a semblance of order, posing a real threat to the oligarchs. The ruse worked, but the business elites demanded that “their” boyfriend, Medvedev, be put in charge of the government in order to preserve their interests. What they were missing were two things: Putin was a truly brilliant officer in the KGB's most elite first headquarters (Foreign Intelligence) and a real patriot. Moreover, the constitution that was adopted to support the Eltsin regime can now be used by Putin. But more than anything, they never predicted that the little guy in the ill-fitting suit would become one of the most popular leaders on the planet. As I have written many times before, while Putin's original power base was in the security services and the military, and while his legitimate authority stems from the Constitution, real power comes from the tremendous support he provides from the Russian people, who for the first time for a long time it was felt that the man above was really representing his interests.

Then Putin did what Donald Trump could do as soon as he entered the White House: he cleaned the house. He started with an immediate decision by the oligarchs, he put an end to the Semibankirshchyna, and he stopped the massive export of money and resources from Russia. Then he set about restoring the "vertical of power" (the Kremlin's control over the country) and began to rebuild all of Russia from funds (regions). But while Putin was extremely successful, he simply could not fight on all fronts and win at the same time.

In truth, he ended up winning most of the battles he chose to fight, but in some battles he just couldn't behave, not because of a lack of courage or desire on his part, but because the objective reality is that Putin also inherited an extremely poor system, completely controlled by some extremely dangerous adversaries. Remember the words of Khazin above: "if he begins to cleanse this" Augean stable ", then he will be obliged to shed blood, because they will not voluntarily give up their privileges." Thus, in a typical Putin, he made a series of deals.

For example, those oligarchs who agreed to stop interfering in Russian politics and who from that moment will pay taxes and generally comply with the law are not subject to imprisonment or expropriation: those who received the message were allowed to continue working as normal entrepreneurs (Oleg Deripaska), as well as those who were not imprisoned or exiled (Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky). But if we look just below the level of these famous and notorious oligarchs, what we find as a much deeper "swamp" (to use the US expression): a whole class of people who made their fortune in the 1990s, who are now extremely influential and control most key positions in economics, finance and business and who absolutely hate and fear Putin. They even have their own agents within the military and security services, because their weapon of choice is, of course, corruption and influence. And, of course, they have people representing their interests within the Russian government: pretty much the entire "economic bloc" of the Medvedev government.

Is it not surprising that these people also have their paid representatives within the Russian media, including the so-called “pro-Russian” or “patriotic” media? (I've warned about this since at least 2015)

As in the West, in Russia, the media is primarily dependent on money, and large financial interests are very good at using the media to advance their agenda, deny or obfuscate some topics while nudging others. This is why you often see the Russian media support the policies of the WTO / WB / IMF / etc., without criticizing Israel, or, God forbid, violently pro-Israeli propagandists on mainstream television (guys like Vladimir Soloviev, Evgeny Satanovsky, Yakov Kedmi, Avigdor Eskin and many others). These are the same media that will happily criticize Iran and Hezbollah, but never wonder why Russia's main TV channels spew pro-American propaganda on a daily basis.

And, of course, they will all mantically repeat the same thing: “There is no 5th column in Russia! No one!! Never!!"

This is no different from the paid corporate media in the US, which denies the existence of a "deep state" or the American lobby of Israel.

And yet, many (most?) People in the United States and Russia understand at the gut level that they are being lied to, and that in fact they are dominated by a hostile power.

Putin's options and possible outcomes

Sadly, Trump has been a disaster in the United States and has completely submitted to the neo-conservatives and their demands. In Russia, the situation is much more complicated. So far, Putin has been very adept at avoiding contact with Atlantic integrationists. Moreover, the biggest crises of the past decade or so have been related to foreign policy issues, and they are still controlled by Eurasian sovereignties. Finally, while the Russian government has clearly made some mistakes or contributed to some unpopular politicians (such as health care reform), they have also had undeniable successes. As for Putin, he continued to consolidate his power, and he gradually removed some of the most famous people from their positions. In theory, Putin could probably arrest most of the Atlantic integrators on corruption charges.

Some of my contacts in Russia expected the purge of Atlantic integrators immediately after the elections, there was enough logic here and that once Putin gets a strong mandate from the people, he will finally hit Medvedev and his gang from the Kremlin and replace them with popular patriots … This obviously did not happen. But if this pension reform program continues to provoke protests, or if a major war breaks out in the Middle East or Ukraine, then pro-Western forces in the Kremlin will be under intense pressure to further cede control of the country to Eurasian sovereignties.

Putin is a very patient man, and at least so far, he has won most, if not all, of his battles. I do not believe that anyone can predict exactly how everything will develop, but there is no doubt that trying to understand Russia without realizing internal conflicts and the interests of groups fighting for power is useless. In its thousand-year history, internal enemies have always been much more dangerous for Russia than external ones. This is unlikely to change in the future.