Gordon Hahn's lastest post, "Another Rusology Fail: U.S. Experts Continue to Lie About Russia and Ukraine" follows in a long trail of such posts taking positions sympathetic to Putin, and marshalling arguments that are similar to the ones Kremlin propagandists are making. No doubt Hahn believes that this is independent scholarship, but when he has to use words like "lying" -- claiming a colleague in the field has consciously dissembled -- it feels as if something more ideological is driving it. Yet he has indeed claimed Goble "falsified" the story.
I've fact-checked Hahn before back in December 2014 and now I can add that any attempt to portray Putin's own amendments to the "foreign agents'" law as some sort of "liberalization" is completely whacky -- if Putin has now prescribed the regulations for how groups can get OFF the foreign agents' list, he's only done that in a context where he's put more of them ON the list; there's now 40. And in fact the points indicated haven't worked, as groups that ceased their foreign funding in previous years, like the Soldiers' Mothers of St. Petersburg, are still on the list.
Hahn has now attacked Paul Goble's summary of Dmitry Muratov's interview on Ekho Moskvy but independently of any of us, McClatchy's has now made the exact same summary of Muratov's interview as Goble and headlined it "Putin Approved Ukraine Invasion Before Kiev Government Collapsed."
That ought to clinch it -- Goble isn't "lying" but is reading Muratov in good faith as the reporter at McClatchy's is -- independently of us (I never heard of him).
This is just logic and common sense. For one, Putin's invasion is exactly what did happen. For two, if a document of highly-connected oligarchs is placed before the presidential administration and they are involved in discussing it, and then that scenario -- taking over buildings in the Crimea and the Donbass -- in fact happens, and you can show it is dated before February 21, hello, that shows it was a scenario they knew about, approved, and executed. There doesn't have to be Putin's signature and an executive summary that says "The Kremlin, long before we know Yanukovych is going to be toppled, is planning an invasion." Naturally, Putin will want plausible deniabilty.
I suspect what we will now see is a Kabuki theater where these "adventurers" Malofeyev and Strelkov and some others (Boroday? Bezler?) will now be prosecuted for various embezzlement crimes or even extremism.
My response to Gordon Hahn's blog post, which is "in the moderation queue":
I'm surprised to see such a skewed interpretation of what Paul Goble wrote, as he did summarize what Dmitry Muratov did say, as I've read the full interview Muratov gave.
Indeed Muratov implies exactly what Paul Goble describes. I added some more translation from Muratov's interview in my own post.
McClatchy has also now covered this story, independent of any of us and said the same thing.
Thus three people have all independently read Muratov's interview and all have understood him the same way: that the presidential administration, together with Malofeyev and others, developed the scenario to take over the Crimea and the Donbass before Yanukovych's flight.
We've covered the back story of Konstantin Malofeyev and Igor Strelkov and others for the past year.
To describe Malofeyev as merely "a private group" is really, really stretching it when he backed the Kremlin's Crimean operation and later the "Donetsk People's Republic" adventure, and that's all on the record from Oleg Kashin's research which we've translated in the past.
Muratov doesn't refer to any "private group" or "Malofeyev's group" anyway. He refers simply to "a group" *in which Malofeyev took part*. Here is my translation:
"And suddenly, something imperceptible changed. That means that some sort of scenario was prepared. You know, it happens that we have good fortune. A document has come into our hands, several phrases of which I will quote. No one knows this document, it has not been published anywhere. We are preparing it for publication next week, therefore I will not cite it in whole now, you will be able to read it next Wednesday.
This is a document which was presumably prepared by a group of people, in which, again presumably, a prominent oligarch took part, a man who stole a loan to the VTB, a man who is close to AFK Sistema, a man who created his own major fund -- I mean the Russian Orthodox, the major oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev."
You don't know that in fact that group DOESN'T contain presidential administration officials as it is done all the time -- laws for the Duma are drafted in the presidential administration; think-tanks like Reshetnikov's RISI draft scenarios together with the presidential administration, and it feeds into the Minsk agreement; Surkov's shop is part of the drafting for the "Normandy 4" document that the separatists refused to sign. This is a very symbiotic and permeable process where the lines between government and corporations and research institutions are very much blurred and co-mingled because the state funds them, and because the oligarchs depend on the state, state loans, state good will, etc. to function.
Here is further translation of Muratov's interview which makes the context clear:
Chizh: A serious accusation.
Muratov: Someone from his entourage -- I think these are people who have the opportunity to go into the presidential administration more than he does, to go to the Kremlin, brought there scenarios about possible events. You must pay attention to the most important: all our counteraction to Ukraine and all our organization and propaganda machine which has been turned on, it has been turned on as if in answer to the coup d'etat, the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych.
This scenario was prepared and created before Viktor Yanukovych was removed from power. Here it is contained brutally and accurately -- incidentally, the document is written beautifully: Yanukovich is a man of low moral and volitional qualities -- it says in the preamble. He is afraid of giving up the post of president, and at the same time is prepared to change his forces for the guarantee of preserving the post of president and his immunity.
Further it is said that Russia must interfere in the matter of Ukraine's territorial integrity. The motive: because otherwise, our country will risk losing not just the Ukrainian market for energy sales but far more danger, even indirect control over the gas transit system of Ukraine. That will put the positions of Gazprom OAO in jeopardy in Central and South Europe and deliver an enormous blow to our economy.
The ongoing events in Kiev -- continue the very intelligible people who wrote this document, convincingly demonstrating that Yanukovych's existence in power may end at any moment. Under these conditions -- I'm leaving some things out here, but pay attention -- it appears correct to play on the centrifugal efforts of various regions of the country. And in one or another form initiate the annexation of its eastern regions to Ukraine. [The context here indicates that he means "to Russia"].
Chizh: I beg your pardon - annexation of the eastern regions?
Muratov: Yes, I'll cite it again: this is a scenario: under these conditions it seems right to play on the centrifugal tendencies of various regions of the country with the aim of initiating the annexation of its eastern parts to Russia in one way or another. Of course Russia, taking upon itself the support of the Crimea, will be forced to accept the entirely burdensome budget expenses but undoubtedly this will reflect on positive things as well -- there will be highly-qualified cadres, industry, transportation and we will receive access to demographic resources.
Then further - how to use the people Point 5 - in order to launch the process of the pro-Russian drift of the Crimea, in is necessary to build a PR strategy which would accentuate the coerced nature of hte relevant actions of Russia in the east of Ukraine and south of Ukraine.
Muratov: You see, the delusion of such simplicity and the beauty of this plan, it indeed played its terrible, dark role. And now Putin is doing everything to stop this war, but the war has already broken out, it seems to me, from under control of the presidents of the "Normandy Four."
Chiz: What was the intention of the document in general in the scheme of things; from what you are saying, there's the impression that it wasn't that it was going around the government offices; it was rather coming from people close to the government.
Muratov: You see, we'll judge by the results, alright? We will judge by what happened. We see that all those slogans which were promoted, all the PR back-up which went on, the whole transition from the Crimea to the east of Ukraine -- it predicted. It is predicted in this paper. Moreover, some of the people who became the first, and by the way, most effective managers, well, this was at first a kind of PR siege, there wasn't yet the global bloodshed that there is recently.
Chizh: Buildings were seized.
Muratov: But this is those very same people, Malofeyev's employees. Strelkov worked for him in his security service, Aleksandr Boroday, heading the DNR government, worked for him. And judging from everything, even the polish and shine which is present in these documents, these were not the most simple minds. These people didn't let moss grow under their feet. They proposed a vivid story, a blitzkrieg, a Barbarossa, which was outright...
Chiz: You sensed the ad experience.
Muratov: There was even charm in such a global review of the world in our favor, and even virtually legitimate.
Malofeyev isn't just some "private group" -- he's associated with Sistema, which is Yevtushenkov's company -- he is one of the top oligarchs and was associated with Yanukovych's hunting club which has been reported by RBC.ru.
There were reports that Malofeyev's home and office were searched in connection with the Rostelekom case although he denies it; his partner, also searched, says he signed a non-disclosure agreement and cannot speak about it. That suggests something's afoot.
In any event, Muratov hasn't released the entire document yet. It's clear that this document isn't just some memo feeding into the Kremlin among many from all over given that THIS is the scenario that in fact DID play out with indeed THESE cast of characters -- with Col. Strelkov, associated with Malofeyev -- in a starring role -- until he was recalled.
And perhaps that was the idea all along, to give it plausible deniability.
But what Muratov stresses in this interview is that highly-connected people were discussing the storming of the Donbass -- as the Ekho Moskvy journalist who interviews Muratov puts it "buildings were seized" -- weeks before Yanukovych actually fled. That's what's key about this document for him, because as he explains -- and I totally agree with him -- central to the Kremlin version of this story was the notion that threats of a "coup" from Maidan forced him to flee.
That's false for other reasons that can be seen from our own extensive reporting at the time, which indicates a number of other factors with which Yanukovych was faced -- the defection of the Party of Regions supporters to the opposition on the night of the 20th in the parliamentary meeting and defection of parts of the Berkut before February 21st.
As for this entire tendentious story of the photographs, if the Ukrainian government had an incorrect photograph that anyone can instantly discover via Google image search was from Georgia in 2008, *it doesn't matter* one whit as it is easily discovered and easily corrected -- no one in this day and age with Google image search and related services can think something obviously fake will last for long.
There are numerous other photos and videos that have been geolocated that show Russian tanks and other armor of the kind that can only come from Russia (like T-72BM3s or BPM-97s) have been located multiple times inside Ukraine. We at The Interpreter and other organizations like Bellingcat could send you stacks of such links; Robert McKay at the Times knows this and focused only on the incorrect photo which would hardly undermine the rest of the testimony which is credible and corroborated by other sources.
The proof of the Russian military presence is at this point is overwhelming; no military functions without military intelligence, so while this or that incident of claimed GRU "gotchas" may not pan out, it doesn't matter, because Russia made clear back in 2013 on its state television that it was training special forces to be deployed in other nearby countries to protect its interests, and has done so. The proof is in the pudding.
As for the SBU's claims about Surkov, I think this is a compressed version of a story that involves Surkov's involvement in the political planning which represents a political decision to back up Yanukovych by force -- which indeed was the case. And the SBU said in the announcement about Surkov that they had passports, hotel visits, and other documentation showing Surkov's presence in Ukraine three times. No intelligence agency is going to show their entire file before the need to, and we must question how it was that Yanukovych, whose own guards fled, who was supposedly threatened by violent Maidan protesters, was in fact able to safely make his way first to Kharkiv, then to Rostov, and later even to Moscow, and there's no indication that he had to do this all on his own, without Russian intelligence help, buying his own bus tickets. Indeed, Putin himself said in October 2014, "he asked to be driven away to Russia, which we did."
As for the Estonian audio tape intercepted by Russian intelligence, you've also misrepresented that as well, and hewed to the distorted spin that Kremlin propagandists put on it. In fact the Estonian Minister confirmed that he was in this conversation, but disavowed the spin. He said that he merely discussed with the Ukrainian physician Olga Bogomolets the various theories regarding the Maidan sniper deaths; neither he nor she were making an affirmation that the opposition was involved in the sniper deaths; indeed Bogomolets called for an international investigation (see here and here).
As for the "elements within Maidan behind the sniper shootings," this is a longer story than you, the BNE or BBC have written it, for sure. The reality is that there is no explanation for police shooting so many *unarmed* demonstrators which is what they did. If the story was merely as Katchanovskii and you claim, that some armed demonstrators shot at police and police shot back at them -- for which there is evidence -- that doesn't explain why more than 100 mainly unarmed people were gunned down and killed at all.
The responsibility belongs to Yanukovych who passed draconian laws and ordered troops to crack down on the demonstrators, some of whom were killed by riot troops long before February 21; it belongs to Putin for supporting Yanukovych and then unleashing a war on Ukraine because he believed his arms and gas trade through Ukraine were threatened if Kiev turned toward the EU.
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