An essay by Elena Sannikova posted on Facebook today which I hope to translate.
You can watch Chekist in full here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ksEVb2Vhcw
Stephen Koch: Double Lives: Spies and Writers in the Secret Soviet War of Ideas Against the West
Bill Browder: Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice
Peter Pomerantsev: Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia
Edward Lucas: The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West
David Satter: It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past
Elif Batuman: The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them
An essay by Elena Sannikova posted on Facebook today which I hope to translate.
You can watch Chekist in full here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ksEVb2Vhcw
Posted at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Posted at 06:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Posted at 07:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
By Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
I had meant to publish this before but set it aside when so many people discouraged me, but now that Konstantin Rykov is being discussed again for his Facebook "revelations," I'll put this out there.
There's this thread:https://www.facebook.com/konstantin.rykov/posts/10210621124674610
(THREAD) This is the most stunning revelation in the Trump/Russia investigation yet. My brother Brian @krassenstein predicted something like this was coming very soon, just days ago & here it is! Konstantin Rykov who is known as a Kremlin Propagandist with close ties to Putin (1)
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) November 25, 2017
FWIW, I don't think it's the most stunning revelation, but a problem with all the Trump/Russia stuff is that there are such masses of stuff that it is hard to get the whole picture. Of course, I trust Mueller to get this whole picture more than I do Twitter sleuths. We'll see.
These notes are from November 2, 2016. I showed this to three different techies, they all dismissed it with varying degrees of scorn as such people always do. This was done in the course of researching this four-part series of articles in which we went through all of Trump's Russia connections -- and we were hardly the only journalists to do this. The story of his connection to the Agalarovs, although some are just discovering this on Twitter now, has been known for years.
BEGIN
Look up Trump2016.ru to see what it's IP address is in numerical terms.
So here:
2. That gives you 87.242.78.131
So look up 87.242.78.131 to see what else it might host.
3. Go here:
Then plug in 87.242.78.131
And you get this:
IP Address |
87.242.78.131 |
IP Reverse |
- |
Websites |
We found 2 websites attached to this IP address.
|
So if Rykov.ru has 87.242.78.131 AND Trump2016.ru turns out ALSO to be hosted on 87.242.78.131, they are likely related.
Why? Because he's likely to use the same hosting company.
To be sure, if there were 10 or 100 things on that same server, all kinds of shopping sites and such, you could say, oh, that may only be a coincidence since all of those sites are using the same service to mask their identities.
Except read what Hosting Compass says -- rykov.ru and rykov.media are ATTACHED to 87.242.78.131 -- exactly.
The dozen shopping sites are only in the RANGE close to that number.
So let's say Rykov has gone to the trouble to contract a web host. According to this site, he could create sub-domains on his main domain. Whether or not it's a good practice it's still something he could do.
In any event, the question to ask is whether it is possible for 87.242.78.131, the Trump site, to also be the same IP address for other completely unrelated sites.
And given that Hosting Compass tells us no, it's only two Rykov sites, that suggests they are related.
Yes, I totally realize that one server could host multiple things. For example, in Second Life, where I rent servers, this is a big annoyance. They have dynamically rotating servers. So you never know if some days you are sharing a server, say, with a furry club, with a shoutcast stream and 40 avatars lagging the server then. There were even some nerds who published this information about your "secret sharers" so that you could complain to the company if you got stuck with a club.
But in this case, if Hosting Compass repeatedly shows only 2 other sites attached to that address that we know to be the Trump2016 address, it seems likely it's Rykov.
The other site has a trail like that as well, only a bit more complicated, leading to NOD.
Posted at 04:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Babchenko's photo on a memorial board of slain journalists before his "resurrection" is known. Photo by CNN.
By Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
Before I critique this statement from the Community to Protect journalists “asking the hard questions” about the SBU sting and “resurrection” of journalist Arkady Babchenko, let me make two genuflections, without which one gets endlessly trolled.
Number one, Nina Ognianova, head of the CPJ Europe desk, is a long-time colleague in this field. She came after me (I worked at CPJ from 1996-1997) and I have interacted with her for years. She is a dedicated, smart, innovative professional in this NGO. Interestingly, she's also going to be leaving CPJ soon to go over the National Endowment for Democracy -- to which I can only say good! Because you can only stay in the grim business of documenting endless violations of press freedom -- especially the murder of journalists -- for so long. I worked on 200 cases when I was at CPJ, and I estimate that only 20% had a successful outcome, in which my intervention had some part. It's a futile and frustrating business. Critiquing this statement isn't a slam on Nina at all. What she's authored here is part of a corporate mindset in general in the human rights NGO business, and likely other hands worked this text or at least approved it. She may ardently believe it -- most people who stay working in these groups do. But it's more than fine to challenge it without undermining the good work Nina has done and will do. In the NGO world, there is what is known as “the 11th commandment” – “Thou shalt never criticize another NGO.” I worked in these NGOs for most of my adult life and still work in some of them, and I fail to endorse “the 11th commandment.” These groups need to get way more criticism than they do because they do not have internal processes for debate in often what are rigidly board-controlled or executive-director controlled mandates and policies.
Number two, when you criticize what an NGO like CPJ says, you challenge the "halo effect" and a common response especially on the left is to accuse you of "telling them to shut up" or "advocating that they not do their jobs" or "denying their right to free speech". This is, of course, a totally bogus line, but you'd be surprised how often people who should know better use it as "defense". Yes, CPJ gets to have First Amendment protections; yes, they get to "do their job"; and yes, they get to "hold feet to the fire" and all the rest. But who will watch the watchers? I get to have my free speech and challenge them, too. Such people confuse the *criticism* of an individual or organization as somehow a *demand to shut them up*. This is intellectually dishonest and I call it out in advance.
CPJ's stance on the case of Pavel Sheremet and other issues in Ukraine has tended toward what the pack of NGOs and journalists around the war in Ukraine and domestic issues in Ukraine espouse: that the Poroshenko Administration is corrupt and soft on corruption; that they don't do enough or even cover up attacks on journalists and don't solve murders; that they are even in collusion on this issue with the murders. I reject this take on Ukraine, which I also have followed very closely. I’m not uncritical of Ukraine, as the Ukrainians in the diaspora in particular know as they often harass me, just as much as Kremlin trolls. No matter. I know which side I’m on here, a luxury NGOs don’t feel they have, but one in which they indulge in and inevitably end up taking the wrong side as a result of the fiction of impartiality – also still so common to the press.
Illegitimate Demand for Radical Transparency
When CPJ says there were "no names" given, and makes other points about how the Ukrainian law-enforcers are not forthcoming, there is a very important counterpoint: why should law-enforcers who have JUST opened up a very high-profile and sensitive case tell YOU everything they have? This is the main point to make about so many human rights "interventions". There is no sense of limit or proportion EVER. There is always (especially with figures like Julian Assange, about whom too many journalists are uncritical) this demand for MAXIMUM transparency. PS -- names were given at the outside -- and now people are picking apart the "list of 30" or the "list of 47". No matter. Police and intelligence in a liberal democracy (that would not be Russia but it is what Ukraine aspires to be) get to have secrecy, lack of publicity, and even slowness in their work. The age of Snowden and social media forget this.
And that's just crazy. Police cannot do their jobs with a bunch of reporters and NGOs on their backs questioning their every move, not because they are devious and corrupt, but because they have to check leads, find facts, vet facts, try hypotheses, and this very important work cannot be done in a fishbowl. I shouldn't have to explain this. But every time I do. Your lack of confidence in the SBU; your hatred, even, of the Ukrainian government isn't entirely merited and wouldn't justify second-guessing Babchenko in any event.
From Defense to Prosecution
There is a deeper problem here, and that is the way in which in the last 20 years, the human rights movement, which began in the 1970s as documenters and defenders, have switched to investigators and prosecutors. This is not their job, they don't have training for it often, and more to the point, they often have no real-life experience that would enable them to perform their prosecutorial roles with skill and sensitivity.
(No, Ken Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, clerking for Rudy Giuliani in his youth doesn’t bestow those skills on him. How do we know this is true that Ken Roth worked for Giuliani, respected after 9/11 but now much maligned? Wikipedia will tell you that in 1987, Ken worked for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. But who was that US Attorney in 1987? It was Rudi Giuliani, something that Ken used to tell us when I worked at Human Rights Watch (for 10 years), and it's not a secret).
The NGO involvement in the formation of the International Criminal Court – Ken was among the most ardent campaigners – has caused this shift and enormous amount of hubris: NGOs now feel they are helpers and accessories to the ICC and other international justice courts; they feel no sense of endangerment of their mission or more importantly, their clients in doing this (although they should, given such awful developments as the expulsion of all the relief NGOs from Sudan for a time over this allegation – which in fact was true, as several humanitarian NGOs *did* supply information to the ICC.)
NGOs today feel no need to have any separation of powers, if you will. This is a longer and more intricate discussion which I won't bore you with now, but it's crucial to understanding the emotional stance of constant exasperation, and the constant mission-creep and overreach of NGOs in our time -- they think they are the world's litigators and even prosecutors, and they are not particularly good at this job.
I have only to think of the recent AWFUL debacle of the coalition of NGOs who attempted to take Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash to court. It doesn't take any persuasion to understand why that job might be necessary, but you do have to make the case and find the facts. Coalitions can be unwieldy and quality control can be poor. One of the members of the coalition did research that was faulty; it was presented in the court, and easily refuted by Firtash's lawyers, and the judge dismissed the case. The moral of the story isn't that NGOs should become better prosecutors; the moral is that they should not get out of their league and attempt cases like this that verge away from human right into crime and corruption (not unrelated, but different fields both in content and methodology). They should stop undermining the criminal justice system in the US and in fledgling democracies like Ukraine – which they do not only with legitimate human rights criticism without context but their support of felonious hackers like Manning, Assange, and Snowden. Criminal justice systems work best in liberal democracies where they are elected or appointed by the people, and kept honest not only by the courts and Congress but the judicial system itself. Those conditions don't pertain in NGOs. It's ok to be undemocratic, unelected, unappointed, self-appointed and even secretive in a defense mission; in a prosecutorial mission where you deprive others of rights it is not.
By osmosis in this climate among NGOs, free press groups have become prosecutors as well. And even the nominal defense mission and "corporate solidarity" mission that CPJ rightfully has segues easily into the role of public scold. CPJ feels with great self-importance and sense of righteousness that they have "a right to know" answers to questions about prosecutions -- and they do as any civic group that has a right to form and press governments anywhere does. But we have the right also to challenge them because they begin to needlessly undermine liberal democracy itself, at home and abroad. CPJ's own defense of Snowden and their blundering off into the world of hacker ideology is part of what undermines their case now.
So to the specifics:
To be sure, figures like the dramatic Anton Gerashchenko (who is still important and worth listening to) have somewhat devalued the concept of assassination attempts by repeatedly referring to them, and referring to their resolution, with scant facts. But see point one. Law-enforcers (he is an MP and adviser to the police) aren't required to tell you everything they know to do their work; indeed, they must have protection of privacy, if you will, and classified information to succeed against overwhelmingly more powerful enemies -- the same enemies of journalists.
Case of Pavel Sheremet
Why the hate of the SBU? If the answer is "because they did nothing on Sheremet" I would beg to disagree strenuously (and that should also be a separate post). The fact is, the journalistic corps made allegations about Ukrainian government or para-military involvement in Sheremet's murder that didn't hold up to scrutiny even by desk researchers like me, and which was refuted with facts by the SBU and National Police.
They claimed an SBU agent who showed up in the story was somehow tethered to the right-wing or pro-Kiev forces in the country, when in fact he was more likely tethered to the pro-Moscow forces, and in any event was no longer working for the SBU. The case of a rogue Ukrainian agent allied with Poroshenko just didn't wash. It's like the allegation that this bodyguard found in the area, who was supposedly related to right-wing groups was somehow indication of government involvement in Sheremet's death -- when he had an alibi (he was there to guard somebody else in that area) that really couldn't be refuted. It's always been strange to me that the journalists so agitated to find "the hand of Kiev" in Sheremet's murder think this is about free-thinking and open-mindedness and going against the tide, when the real free-thinking would be if these moral equivocators could for a second entertain that the Kremlin is most likely to have the means and motive for Sheremet's killing, not Poroshenko -- who Sheremet covered generally positively and was about to cover again -- or the Right Sector and related groups -- which Sheremet also covered, even with some implied criticism, for which these groups were actually grateful as their concerns were aired. The troubling thing here is that now OCCPR has been given an award for doing a film with these allegations, it will be impossible for them to climb down from them or for anyone else to criticize them without being accused of either collusion with Moscow or infidelity to press freedom.
Why Doesn’t the NGO Adversarial Role Include Questioning of Moscow’s Role?
Nina/CPJ then tell you their bottom line on this:
At the same time, this extreme action by the Ukrainian authorities has the potential to undermine public trust in journalists and to mute outrage when they are killed. CPJ takes a dim view of law enforcement impersonating the media, but the parallels in this case are not yet fully known.
What is known is that the Ukrainian government has damaged its own credibility. And given the SBU is an intelligence agency, which engages in deception, obfuscation, and propaganda, determining the truth will be very difficult.
Every bit of this needs a pushback. It's hard to accept that law-enforcement making a deceptive statement to the media is "impersonating the media." This may in fact be a garble in this statement. No "impersonation" has taken place, i.e. planted SBU operatives posing as reporters. Instead, a story has been planted that seemed credible and was later revealed -- within 24 hours! -- by the SBU and prosecutors themselves -- to have been deceptive. Extreme dangers -- an invaded country, numerous acts of violence and terrorism, and murder of journalists -- requires such an extreme action. They aren't stupid and no doubt weighed the pros and cons and argued among themselves. Can CPJ accept that this is war? In UN human rights treaties, states cannot derogate from their obligations to protect human rights -- but when you cannot protect human rights as basic as life, why is this "hybrid" method more despicable than the murder itself? Journalists should have chuckled at the wily SBU, and reminded themselves to check statements and photos when claims of assassinations are made (which is routine in any event in every singe one of these cases); their indignant and shrill second-guessing and impugning of the victim are disgraceful.
Does CPJ get it that public trust in journalists is ALREADY tremendously eroded? This is why we have Trump. Look at this thread as I pointed out -- readers are outraged at the take that this professional Channel 4 journalist has on Babchenko's case and the sting. Perhaps readers have more common sense than elites are willing to concede. As for outrage, as with school killings, each new murder is what lessens outrage as it becomes numbing and routine. Blame the murderers for that, not the police trying to catch them.
The SBU hasn't damaged its credibility -- a credibility that the journalist corps didn't share even before all this, or even four years ago. The press corps is cynical and indignant as they always are; the Ukrainian government has been flat-footed and wrong on some issues (like Myrotvorets’ exposure of contact information). There are topics like the expulsion of Russian state journalists -- which in my view is warranted given their disinformation and incitement of imminent violence! -- which the press corps is never going to concede, as it is outside the "club rules". They're wrong. They and institutions like OSCE keep applying rigid ideological rules and solutions to situations that they have no other solutions for. They haven't cured disinformation as they have pointedly shied away from ostracizing any of their number who engages in it and refuse to make rules to live by for themselves or their profession in a public and binding self-government system (like "let's not show pictures of the war in Syria to make claims about Ukraine's military in the Donbass, shall we?) Free speech absolutism is demanded for Russian propagandists, but it is denied to their enemies, and allowed to trump freedom of association (as in the US) for the parliament which wishes to control Russian disinformation. Liberals hate the anti-communist laws and the anti-Russian journalist activities but they themselves have no solution for this enduring and deep problem -- when they don't even cover the war in Ukraine anymore, and if they do, it is from a biased anti-Kiev position.
Intelligence agencies in democratic societies, and even under liberal democratic governments constantly challenged by anti-government groups and the press -- which is natural and needed in such societies -- get to have programs to obfuscate and even deceive when they have to deal with far worse disinformers and liars. There is always the cliché about "not becoming like them". Except to not act and never to use these methods assure that there is no escape from being crushed by them, either. It's a balance. It is a balance Ukraine is still finding as a society. The nasty and even malicious approach to the Kiev government that so many NGOs and journalists bring to this topic is not in keeping with their supposed mission to uphold the values of democracy and human rights. Their hostility to Ukraine -- because it is accessible, because it responds, because they *can* -- is all out of proportion to their critique and challenge to Russia and its oligarchs -- which they avoid, and fail at doing dramatically in the rare cases they attempt it. That should tell us something.
The sad thing is that as the weeks go by, answers to these CPJ questions are going to be forthcoming regardless of whether CPJ asked them in any event, as the police and public in Ukraine have a vested interest in this. CPJ will unlikely come back and say, "Oh, you answered that, thanks." Instead, we will see another round of indignation and raising of the bar of hostility. It's never enough. If the SBU nailed their man and provided ample proof of his guilt and his ties to the FSB (as the Ukrainian government has done in cases such as the captured GRU agents), there will be endless second-guessing by many on the "mad" list as I've indicated.
"We are relieved that Arkady Babchenko is alive," said Nina Ognianova, CPJ's Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. "Ukrainian authorities must now disclose what necessitated the extreme measure of staging news of the Russian journalist's murder." Why? To do so could undermine this delicate mission. If you're not persuaded now that the extraordinary discovery of plans to murder a journalist was urgent enough reason for this "staging news" -- what will convince you? Likely NOTHING.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter. A hugely well-funded American group with aspirations of playing the role of unelected world prosecutor can't trump the democratically-elected government of a real country. And that's a good thing, at home as well as abroad.
Posted at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Arkady Babchenko, center, flanked by Vasily Hritsak, head of Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) (L) and Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukrainian Prosecutor General (R)
By Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
"The world is divided into two camps: those who mourned Arkady Babchenko yesterday, and those who mourned him today." -- Viktor Davydov
Journalists hate the making of lists of journalists about anything, but there are some occasions when it is interesting.
There are two lists now -- those who are mad at Arkady Babchenko for participating in a sting operation to catch a would-be assassin, or who are "troubled at the implications," or unsure if it is a good thing -- and those who are glad he is alive, think the ruse was justified, and wonder why all the attention is on criticizing the SBU and not the Kremlin, which is alleged to be behind this deed -- and others.
These two lists really fall for the most part into a pattern -- the pattern you can see on many other issues, in fact; the extent of how far people will go to criticize Putin; how much they feel they have to balance their saddlebags and then criticize Trump, too, or perhaps only Trump; how much they will support Ukraine against Russia, and so on. You could take other questions like: do you think it is likely that the Skripals were poisoned by the Russian state? Do you think the "Gerasimov Doctrine" or hybrid warfare exists? Or do you think Russia's claim of NATO expansion as a justification for its aggression holds water? Or do you think there was Western triumphalism after the collapse of the Cold War? Or do you think Russia or America is to blame for poor relations? And so on and so forth down the line. The lists will pretty much be drawn up along the same lines.
Sometimes these differences in these two lists are described as "international realist/pragmatist versus idealist/colour revolutionary" or "correct thinkers versus neocons" or "informed versus ignorant" or "liberals versus neoliberals" or "nuanced versus biased" or "dove versus hawk" or any other number of characterizations. Note that when Atlantic Council's Melinda Haring covered this issue, she featured mainly those mad at/troubled by Babchenko, and left out many prominent figures who in fact are happy for him and think the SBU was justified.
I'm on the second list, of course. Simon Ostrovsky and others are concerned that a stunt like this detracted from the fact that Pavel Sheremet's murder wasn't solved (I also knew him.) But if the Kremlin is behind it, how could it be solved? Ukrainian and Western journalists who have been absolutely sure that Pavel was murdered by pro-Ukrainian forces or at least not Russian-related forces are wrong, in my view, and I have studied the case closely. If Babchenko had really been murdered, that is, without any leads on the contract and the killer, his murder would have been unsolved like so many others. What is the plan to stop those murders? Thoughts and prayers don't work, and earnest petitions to OSCE and seminars about safety for journalists don't work, either. Not when the likely perpetrator is a state with the largest territory in the world AND significantly greater forces AND the will to do violence more than the West, even in a coalition. All of those responses have to continue, but it's good somebody is finally doing something practical, even if you didn't like their methods.
Babchenko is a complicated character -- he is a rogue. He fought in Chechnya -- in two wars -- on the Kremlin's side. He was a war reporter critical of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but sometimes in a complicated way. It's all good because it was all very much on the ground. He pissed people off with his acidic remarks, such as his post about the father who lost his whole family in the Kemerovo mall fire (he pointed out that the man was a government loyalist and was easily cowed to see the government's point of view, and found pictures of him with the St. George flag pin -- this made a lot of people angry). Fortunately, Babchenko will go on being Babchenko, not so clear-cut on any one's side but his own, but when it came to Russia's wars in Syria and Ukraine, a critic (tragically, he wasn't for the Chechen wars). Some people say Babchenko should cease to consider himself a journalist (and can't be one because he once fought in wars -- well, tell that to George Orwell, why don't you!) What, you only get to be a journalist if you are CPJ-dead? No thanks.
Ну выходит, что и живой Бабченко порочит Россию и мертвый тоже порочит, поэтому непонятно что с ним вообще делать, безвыходная какая-то ситуация 🤔
— водка и мельдоний (@treugolny_hui) May 30, 2018
Translation: So it turns out that a live Babchenko smears Russia and a dead one also smears it, therefore it's not clear what to do with him in general, it's a hopeless situation.
People Mad about Babchenko/Think SBU is Wrong/Consequences Will be Terrible
Committee to Protect Journalists
Reporters without Borders
David Filippov
Shaun Walker
Kevin Rothrock
Masha Gessen
Lindsey Hilsum
Leonid Ragozin
Henry Foy
Lincoln Pigman
Craig Murray
Natalia Antonova
Mark Ames
Charles Shoebridge
Ed Lucas
John Sweeney
Elana Beiser
Piers Morgan
Lucian Kim
Plushchev but calls out MK editor
Vladislav Davidizon
Peter Dickinson
Sergiy Leshchenko
Vitalii Rybak
Simon Ostrovsky also ambiguous
Union of Journalists of Russia
Harlem Desir/OSCE Representative on FOM
International Federation of Journalists
Margarita Simonyan and see this
People Glad About Babchenko/Think Ruse Was Justified/Progress Made
Molly McKew
Michael Weiss although ambiguous
Michael Carpenter - changed mind
Cathy Young
Olexander Scherba
Maxim Eristavi
Garry Kasparov
Kateryna Kruk
iAmtheWarax
Laura Rosen
Glasnost Gone
Jakub Janda
Paula Chertok
XSovietNews
Evelyn Farkas
I'll add to this list as I come across more people and add some links.
What does Babchenko himself say in response to those who reprimand him for misleading the media?
He replied to a comment on a post about how hard it is to believe in anything any more, from a reader who expressed concern about how the media was fooled, as follows:
I wish all the high-moral inhibitors to wind up in the same situation -- let them show their adherence to the principles of high morality and die with a proudly-raised head, not leading the media astray unacceptably. Well, so that deeds and words do not diverge. Good luck and successes to you, the killer is outside the door -- I believe in you, guys, don't screw up!
Once again, there are those who take up the mindshare in Washington policy circles and in the media and New York and feel they speak for everyone, that only they have the correct line, that anyone who objects is "a neocon" or worse. But they don't speak for all of us, and they're wrong.
FAQS
Posted at 09:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
The chief feature of Russianology is the inability to criticize Putin directly and significantly for fear of losing access to establishment policy-makers and even visas to Russia.
Posted at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Why RT isn't media, and should register under FARA.
Posted at 10:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Storify is going down forever, so some reprints.
Have you ever tried to create a political party in Russia? You know, like Alexey Navalny or Boris Nemtsov have. It's so hard, trying to get on the ballot when officials pick on every little thing. But it turns out, you've been doing it all wrong! Let Konstantin Rykov show you how it's done!
The trick is to treat the party not as some real party, you know, with members, a platform, registration, consistency in views, loyalty, even party discipline and mutual solidarity. No, the trick is to treat the party as a conveyor belt, you know, the way the Communist Party itself was. You don't want to really believe in your party's goals or its consistency to its charter, you just want to use it to get and keep power and keep others off balance. In fact, the best thing of all, is when you can rent a party to get into power but never actually be its member, in case you have to throw it away later and disassociate yourself from it, you know, in case its youth branch in particular gets a bad rep. Let Konstantin Rykov show you how...
Создательница твиттера @euromaidan идет на выборы в Раду по списку Порошенко http://t.co/SfkaB50aMZ pic.twitter.com/HKAqBrK38D
— Константин Рыков (@rykov) September 13, 2014
and
Here's a typical anti-Ukrainian slam from Rykov, this time on founder of the @EuroMaidan account Svetlana Zalishchuk:
Translation: The creator of the Twitter account @euromaidan is going into the election for the [Ukrainian Verkhovna] Rada on the Poroshenko list.
BTW, this account is likely run by a group of people, and I'd like a second opinion; back in April, Rykov outed this account as run by Zalishchuk, who he calls "the common-law wife of Sergei Leshchenko, editor of Ukrainska Pravda." I'm not privy to Ukrainian gossip, but Ukrainska Pravda has been the best, most accurate and responsible paper covering this war.
This is supposed to expose her as politicized and exploitative as Rykov -- who has taken the name "McRykov" this week to cynically expose the Kremlin propaganda industry's boosting of the Scottish independence movement, which they love, as it breaks up the UK and weakens the West.
Of course there's nothing wrong at all with the Euromaidan gal going into the Rada. Why not?! It's a free country -- unless Russia keeps invading it, right? Right? While I might wish some of the Ukrainian leaders of civil society would stay in civil society and make both it and the government better, it's war, and if loyal Ukrainians want to get in the government and try to keep their country alive and free, who could be opposed? It's especially unsavory for Rykov to cast stones on this woman when...he himself is in the ruling party. Watch what happens next.
Шотландская народная республика сегодня в ударе! pic.twitter.com/oHNnRcfFEY
— Константин Рыков (@rykov) September 13, 2014
First, a vulgar comment: Translation: you'd blow her? ; )
So I ask:
Read the whole thread and people's comments here:
Создательница твиттера @euromaidan идет на выборы в Раду по списку Порошенко http://t.co/SfkaB50aMZ pic.twitter.com/HKAqBrK38D
— Константин Рыков (@rykov) September 13, 2014
This is a reference to the Foundation of Effective Politics, founded by Marat Gelman and Gleb Pavlovsky, a Kremlin aide for many years before falling out of favour. Rykov, a web entrepreneur worked with Gelman on Irak.ru and Vojna.ru which were anti-American sites.
abuses
documented by Amnesty International. Perhaps there are more. But ultranationalists poll 2% in the polls. EuroMaidan Twitter people aren't in these ultranationalist parties as far as we know; if it turns out they are, they are not likely to get into parliament, given actual past records of not only polls, but recent elections where they didn't. So...how is it that Poroshenko is going to become a prison guard?! Putin is the one locking people up in large numbers, look at Bolotnaya Square cases.
[What a chore, copying these posts from Storify!]
Posted at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Igor Sechin, CEO of Rosneft. Photo by Valery Sharifulin/TASS
By Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
The Intercept and Slate have reporting about Jared Kushner and his attempts to get loans from Qatar and his threats against Qatar and the question I asked the other day, "Do you know who else got money from Qatar? Rosneft" is now being linked back to the much-maligned Steele memo. The Intercept focuses on the Qatar piece only and doesn't link in Page; Jed Handelsman Shugerman links the Qatar revelations about Kushner to the Page story.
Are we there yet? I don't think so, although Mueller continues to surprise even the Twitterati again and again. My own sense is that nothing will be found to indict Page, and that the indictment of Kushner -- if it does come -- will not help indite Page.
Skip to the sections outlined in red if you want to see what there is on Page in Moscow -- not much.
I've always thought the Rosneft part of the Steele memo was one of the most odd, and garbled. Michael Weiss and I have a multi-part series coming out on the Steele memo soon.
The summary of the section on Page and Rosneft in the Steele dossier speaks of giving Trump the whole 19% stake -- which seemed absurd, as that would be way too big a gift for Trump ($11 billion!) and not necessary, given that he was already cooperating and already likely compromised by the Kremlin. To put this sale into American hands is simply counterintuitive -- America is still Russia's enemy even if they maneuvered to get Trump into office -- and they've had some (claimed) buyer's remorse. The Kremlin already got the change in the GOP platform by Manafort; it already had Page on a string; it already had Tillerson's friendship with Sechin and willingness to lift sanctions -- Moscow did not need to pay $11 billion or even the brokerage fee for $11 billion to buy the lifting of sanctions that would come either for free or a lot less -- nor would Moscow want to have this highly weird deal get the scrutiny it would if Americans benefited. None of it makes sense to Russia-watchers, if you read all the press on Rosneft for the year before the sale, which I did, and reported on.
Rosneft, the Kremlin, and state media had said for a year that this sale would not go to any Westerners; there was even a scandal where Sechin sued RBC for reporting a Kremlin warning to BP to stay off the deal. It was always said it would be "Asians," which could mean "Middle Easterners" also.
Then in the actual section of the Steele memo that contains the report from Russia, as distinct from the summary of the report, there is mention of the brokerage of the deal, not the deal itself. The discrepancy here within the dossier itself between "the stake itself" and "the brokerage of the stake" is part of what makes this section so weak (and possibly disinformation) -- but it may be a simple mistake -- the summary misreported the detail in the dossier. That makes more sense as a possible gift to Trump via Page, but is still awfully weird given Julia Ioffe's reporting.
Naturally, I've wondered for a long time given my long-time critique of Ioffe and her tendency to moral equivalency -- and at one time, a realism about Putin that most have forgotten she had -- if this entire article's purpose was to minimize Page, ridicule him, and make him seem like "not a thing" as a form of distraction. Certainly the Russian officials and state gas executives that Ioffe could reach would definitely be up to such a distraction also known as "disinformation".
To be sure, there are two independent sources in Ioffe's report which then can't be accused of Russian disinformation -- and therefore the report that Page "is a nothing" may be true: one is Bill Browder (a very prominent Kremlin critic now, owner of Hermitage Capital and campaigner for justice in the murder of his tax consultant Serige Magnitsky, while in Russian custody), who said he never heard of Page, despite being deeply involved in Russian investments in the past -- Page was an owner of Gazprom shares and claimed he helped big Gazprom deals. The other independent source for Ioffe is Sergei Aleksashenko who was formerly deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Russia who essentially lives in exile now in the U.S. and is part of a group of prominent emigres involved in 4FreeRussia, a Washington-based group that publishes substantive criticism of the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin and which advocates liberal democracy in their homeland. Aleksashenko sounds exasperated in Ioffe's telling at these people trying to get information about him from Page because Page was his subordinate when Aleksashenko was head of Merill Lynch in Russia:
In 2004 Page moved to Moscow, where he became an energy consultant with Merrill Lynch. As Page tells it, it was while working as an investment banker that he struck up a relationship with Gazprom. He advised Gazprom on transactions, including a deal to buy a stake in an oil and gas eld near Sakhalin, the desolate island on Russia’s Pacific coast. He bought Gazprom shares.
According to Politico, few people in Moscow’s foreign business community knew of him. Those who did were underwhelmed. “He wasn’t great and he wasn’t terrible,” his former boss, Sergei Aleksashenko, said, adding that Page was “without any special talents or accomplishments,” “in no way exceptional,” and “a gray spot.”
I've always thought that journalists were missing an opportunity by not going back and asking Aleksashenko more pertinent if larger questions, such as: "Do you think it is possible that Rosneft could have intended to sell their stake to Trump or any American, and do you think it is possible that they would have given the brokerage of this deal to Carter Page?" and I think Aleksashenko would likely explain why this would seem absurd. But he should be asked.
Reuters did quote Aleksashenko's blog:
“The main question in relation to this transaction, as ever, still sounds like this: Who is the real buyer of a 19.5 percent stake in Rosneft?” Sergey Aleksashenko, a former deputy head of Russia’s central bank, wrote in a blog last week
His blog post -- very complicated -- explains basically why no privatization took place, because of the issue of Rosneft's dividends and the fact that it is a state-owned company and the price of oil fluctuating -- and the need for the Russian state to fill its coffers for social expenditure. Here he explains further for RosBalt how Sechin benefitted politically and financially from this deal. Here in this interview with a Ukrainian business publication BIN.ua he explains more starkly - there was a big show of having Sechin come to Putin in front of the cameras and announce the sale of Rosneft for the good of the Motherland -- except the sale wasn't quite made and the money wasn't quite received then...and it's still a mystery. Aleksashenko further commented on a remark made by Sechin during the affair of Ulyukayev, the former minister of economic development said to be caught in a bribe which some believe was a set-up to quiet him and punish him over what he knew about Bashneft, another mysterious oil deal.
I cite all these complexities to make the point that Aleksashenko provides you with copious and complex detail: this was a dodgy deal, and the Russians would hardly want any spotlight on it by roping in Trump or even Page. And it's dodgy all on its own even without any Page relationship, which we still haven't proven is there.
Page being discounted as a nothing -- by either official sources bent on disinformation or independent sources who actually knew he was a nothing and say so -- may or may not be it's own form of even more complex disinformation -- we don't know.
Even the way the Russian spies are quoted as ridiculing Page leads many to conclude he's "not a thing". Of course, it wouldn't be the first time that Russia used an obscure cut-out (like the professor from Monaco who has now disappeared) to perform some active measure. And Page could be a bumbling idiot AND a "nothing" and still turn out to be "a thing" -- after all, the FBI got four -- count 'em -- four FISA warrants to follow him and as we now know, their request did not hinge on Steele's memo.
But now with Qatar being actively researched by Mueller, the same Qatar of the Rosneft is being examined, as is Page all over again.
The deal was announced December 7, one day before Page arrived in Moscow, and the reporting on it later indicated how strange it was as to its financing and sources. As Alexander Aleksashenko has explained in his numerous posts and quotes on this affair, Russia essentially sold the stake to itself, to temporarily have Putin make a show of filling state coffers with the proceeds of a state asset to help social costs that came from Western sanctions. Again: the Rosneft deal has weirdness all in its own right, without any Carter Page or Trump.
Let's review what Page said in Moscow by examining the Russian media.
Interestingly, here is how Page's trip to Moscow was reported in the Russian media. RBC, which was once an independent business news service and has recently fallen under more control (its former editors were forced to leave and it is now managed by TASS editors), had this:
RBC reported Dec 12 2016 that Page spoke at a press conference in Moscow where he was introduced by Shlomo Veber, the rector of the New Economic School. He had come to Moscow December 8.
He said Russian leader German Gref, head of Sberbank, and Igor Sechin, head of Rosnef were "leaders capable of activating the Russian-American dialogue," RBC reported.
Page said he had contacts with Rosneft representatives but declined to give their names.
"Very often it is said of me that I had some sort of contacts with Sechin. Of course this would be a great honor for me, but there weren't any, it's not so," Page was quoted as saying by RBC.
He also mentioned the contribution Rex Tillerson of Exxon had made, who was named as the chief candidate for secretary of state in the Trump Administration. Page said "This is an example worthy of imitation," RBC quoted him as saying.
A Russian journalist asked him what he thought of the male friendship between Trump and Putin, and Page said he didn't believe in it, and this was an illusion. He refused to answer any concrete questions from journalists about his business interests in Russia and connections with the team of the president-election in the US, RBC said.
"Page only said this was connected to his obligations under a non-disclosure agreement, however he confirmed that he attended meetings and briefings with Trump," said RBC.
Page outlined five areas to work on for improvement of Russian-American relations: development of business ties, scientific cooperation, work with the young generation, improvement of the quality of media, and learning to react quickly to changing reality.
So: mention of Sechin -- and Gref -- invocation of secrecy and denial of his meeting with Sechin. I was able to pinpoint Sechin himself in Moscow on July 5, 2016 at the Venezuelan Embassy in Moscow for the national Venezuelan holiday -- Sechin went on to visit Caracas and signed a deal there on July 28 -- but we can't prove he was in Moscow on July 6 OR that he met with Page. And the levels issue seems incredible -- the reverse equivalent would be like Tillerson meeting with some lowly Russian gas consultant that maybe the FBI had as an asset, witting or no.
So TASS, which is the Russian state news service reported Page as actually mentioning Glencore on December 12,2017:
(This is reverse translation from the Russian, i.e. likely Page spoke in English as his Russian is apparently not that good.)
"I had the opportunity to meet with one of the top managers of the company Rosneft. The recent Rosneft deal in which the Qatar fund and Glenclore could take place is unfortunately a good example of how American private companies are limited to a large extent due to the influence of sanctions," TASS quoted him as saying.
Asked if he met with representatives of Moscow, Page replied:
"I think that in a new era of relations between Russia and the US more efforts need to be applied in support of the new US administration, from the perspective of business," said Page. In his opinion, the central element of relations between the US and Russia should become the transformation of the role of the private sector. "You know, Igor Ivanovich [Sechin -- TASS] is the chief advocate of this."
Asked if sanctions could be abolished or lessoned by the US regarding Russia in the new administration, Page replied: "it is early to speak of this still" since the main challenge is the inaccurate perceptions of each other by the two sides.
Carter Page also refuted his contacts with Russian officials and representatives of business circles, including Igor Sechin, head of Rosneft, who is in the US sanctions list, said TASS.
"The most classic examples [of fake news--TASS] are of course the claims of my contact with Igor Ivanovich [Sechin--TASS] which would be a great honor but which did not take place, said Page.
So tantalizing that he mentions Glencore -- after the deal is announced -- but not proof of anything. And tantalizing that he mentions "a top manager of Rosneft" -- without a name -- but this may be Alexander Baranov, head of investor relations with whom Page met during his July 2017 trip and evidently again in December 2017 -- which he admits in his congressional testimony, but about whom he says no "quid pro quo" of a Rosneft stake in exchange for living US sanctions on Russia was ever made.
Page also mentions Glencore in his Congressional testimony where he tries to turn the tables on members pestering him with queries about his activities in Russia, by saying that Glencore was founded by Marc Rich, who died in 2013, who was pardoned by Bill Clinton. This is cut and pasted on Imgur for the anti-anti-Trump conspirators and originated as Reddit fodder.
Rich was indeed a controversial figure, Clinton later expressed some regrets about this pardon.
Remember, Glencore's part in the RBC deal is minor -- it was only 300 million euros in a 10.2 billion euro deal but the bigger prize is its option to sell Russian oil later.
One wonders how even this minor stake was legal under sanctions but for one, Glencore is an Anglo-Swiss company, not an American company, and for two there are loopholes and maybe they were found; at least "shock" was expressed in "the City".
Glencore has now in turn sold that stake to the Chinese state oil company
The sale was seemingly at a loss, but then there's this:
On paper, after nine months he shows a small loss: Glencore retains a 0.5 percent equity stake in Rosneft, now worth around 250 million euros. But crucially, traders expect Glencore to hold on to the most valuable benefit of the deal: an agreement to let his firm sell hundreds of millions of barrels of Russian oil to global markets over five years.
The mystery around this deal is of course what enables some to go looking for Trump connections. Reuters reports again:
When that deal was reached in December, participants did not fully disclose the beneficiaries of their off-shore investment vehicle to the public, or explain which Russian banks were among those providing loans.
So this is where Slate's timeline comes in:
Dec. 8: Carter Page—as he later confirmed in his own congressional testimony—meets with Rosneft executives, and then flies to London to discuss new business opportunities in Kazakhstan with Gazprom officials.
Dec. 9: The “largest oil deal in Russia’s history” is announced.
Dec. 13: Kushner meets Sergey Gorkov, who chairs Russia’s government-owned VE Bank (VEB) and is Putin’s close confidant. Analysts have described VEB as Putin’s “private slush fund,” a source of money independent from official Russia budgeting. VEB is under strict U.S. sanctions.
Dec. 14: Gorkov reportedly immediately flies to Japan to meet with Putin.
Dec. 29: Obama orders new Russian sanctions for election hacking and interference. On the same day: Flynn calls Kislyak five times about Russian sanctions. Trump tweets about Putinthe next day, calling him “very smart” for not responding to Obama’s sanctions before Trump has had a chance to transition into office.
The Rosneft sale was right after Trump’s victory but before the inauguration. It was also right after Kushner’s push for a secret communications link to the Kremlin through the Russia embassy that U.S. intelligence couldn’t access, and right before Kushner’s meeting with Putin’s banker and confidant Gorkov.
Except one mistake - Rosneft's deal was announced on December 7, as we know from Vedomosti, Russia's (still somewhat independent) business daily. Meduza, a Russian news site now based in Riga and run by editors who fled Lenta, also reported it that day. The New York Times, which has a Moscow bureau, also reported the sale December 7, 2017. It may have not been reported in the US because of the difference in time zones until the 8th or 9th at other outlets, hence the mistake.
So Page knew about the sale, as did the Russian media, and commented on it in Moscow at a press conference.
Even so, once you see "VEB Bank" (Vneshekonombank or literally Foreign Economic Bank) mentioned in Steele and the New York Times coverage then there is more cause for "following the networks".
Of course even back in June 2017, the Times had this:
Now VEB is at the center of an international firestorm that threatens the Trump presidency because the bank’s chief [Sergei Gorkov] — a prominent graduate of Russia’s spy school — met with Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, during the presidential transition. That meeting is a focus of a federal counterintelligence investigation about possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
***
On that same trip, Mr. Gorkov met with Mr. Kushner. The nature of the meeting, which remains in dispute, followed a session between Mr. Kushner and the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, about opening a communications channel with Russian officials during the presidential transition, according to current and former American officials
So it's not as if The Intercept is breaking this news about VEB, it's just linking new revelations about Qatar to the overall Kushner story.
Where are we on this? We are still nowhere. Page has been under investigation by the FBI for ages with 4 FISA warrants and there isn't any indictment yet -- and may never be one. As we know from the Alger Hiss story, this may not mean he is innocent.
Maybe Mueller will get something on Kushner -- this may not tie up to Glencore or Rosneft.
Let's look at one more article covering Page's trip to Moscow in December 2016, in the state-owned RIA Novosti:
What is the purpose of your visit to Moscow?
I have travelled to Moscow over the course of most of my life and worked with the Russian people. I am firmly convinced that the possibilities for cooperation with the private sector of the Russian economy have never been as great as they will be in the coming years. Despite the hostile Western policy and the inevitable logical reaction of Moscow which has restricted these opportunities in the last few decades, the opportunities of the present day are unique. I am working on several potential projects within the framework of support of that trend.
Are there any problems now with forming the Administration?
I am not directly connected with any activities in organizing the transition. However, judging from the conversations with my close acquaintances in Washington and New York which are drawn into this process the work is going exceptionally well.
Do you expect that in the near future sanctions with regard to Russia will be removed? Do American companies want to return to the Russian market? If yes, in what sectors, above all? What do you think about the Rosneft deal?
The wish of Americans and also European companies to return to the Russian market is great. The interest extends to numerous diverse sectors. Hostile attempts to punish Rosneft and its team of senior executives with the help of Western sanctions mainly harmed Western companies and not the target aimed at. The innovative deal made this week accentuates these restrictions since many potentially strategic investment partners were excluded.
Do you expect that the new US Administration will implement a policy of recognition of the Creima? What role and what place will Ukraine be given in the new Administration?
The history of events of recent years in the Ukraine [note the Russian use of "na Ukraine" instead of "v Ukraine--CAF] as a whole and Crimea in particular can be one of the most egregious examples of 'fake news' in recent times. The level of disinformation on which decisions have been built by external players and their influence on this country was catastrophic. I am convinced that there will be new opportunities to overcome these mistaken conceptions and the incorrect vector which was established for Ukraine."
Note that everything Page says here is calculated to be part of his denial of involvement in the claims of the Steele dossier.
Regardless of whether Page is ever indicted, he should be morally condemned for doing business with a government rightly under Western sanctions for its mass crimes against humanity, namely in the Ukrainian and Syrian wars but one could add also its seizure of Georgian territory and the Georgian war regardless of the clownish nature of Saakashvili. (I always explain the Georgian war as follows: "Russia is responsible, Georgia is to blame, the US is involved." I think that about sums it up: Russia began handing out Russian passports in a provocative move that international institutions could only wring their hands about years before the invasion; Russian planes buzzed Georgian air space before the invasion; Russian "peacekeepers" are self-described and represented no international institution or consensus.)
It will be interesting to see some people's heads explode as they first try to explain that Russia is poor and mismanaged and corrupt and therefore can't possibly launch nuclear weapons, and doesn't have enough money to pay its pensioners, but yes, is a great business opportunity (!) Sergei Brin once called Russia "Nigeria with snow." I've always thought that was too harsh especially given that Sergei was all too happy to hire Russia's human stock, educated computer engineers and programmers. The Russian state is responsible for much of the world's hacking, both financial and political, and malware and spam which cost billions of dollars. Under a different leadership, this shall we say "energy" might be converted to programming the world's back offices and mobile games and more. Others have summed up Russia's economy currently as that of "hunter-gatherers" -- i.e. oil, caviar, minerals. Well, that's harsh, too -- again under better leadership, this might be turned to cooperation.
It's helpful to remember what Amb. Michael McFaul said, former envoy to Russia, immensely disliked by the Kremlin (and criticized by me for his opposition to the Magnitsky Act): even during the reset, there wasn't that much business with Russia. There just isn't that much trade with Russia and the US. There are some long-term oil and gas deals -- or were -- that one could argue didn't yield big profits given the time and investments required for them; there were purchases of engines to launch space rockets, arguably cheaper for the US space program -- that's gone now. There was this and that -- caviar, cardboard, perhaps some seabuck thorn oil (although that mainly comes from Central Asia) or pine tar extract (but America has its own). Truly, there has not ever been much trade between the US and Russia for lots of reasons.
And there won't be, until there is better leadership and reform, as there were under Gorbachev and Yeltsin. But we don't have better leadership, and Russia will never be part of the West or the West's friend, given everything, and that must always be kept in mind.
And now in retrospect -- Page's interview was 15 months ago -- we see the Trump Administration, for a combination of reasons, hasn't gone in the direction Page or Sechin for that matter hoped. Sanctions remain in place, the new representative on Ukraine, Kurt Volker, is quite critical of Russia as the main problem in the war in Ukraine - the fake news is all in Page's mind as a fellow traveler. America is even supposed to give and/or sell Javelin missiles to Ukraine now in the long-delayed implementation of a Congressional mandate.
This might all end this year, of course, we don't know. There are certain signs that Trump's Russian policy is better than Trump himself has let on -- and this is no thanks to Trump but whatever grown-ups do remain in the Administration or were always part of the government service.
Below find the sections of Page's testimony in Congress:
Posted at 05:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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