Paul Goble
Staunton,
March 30 – Leonid Reshetnikov, the obscurantist and imperialist former SVR lieutenant
general and head of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISI), says
that his organization is “one of leading” organizations providing input to
Vladimir Putin as the Kremlin leader formulates his foreign and domestic policies.
In the course
of a long survey of his views on the world and Russia, Reshetnikov provides
additional details on the way in which RISI is involved in “the development of
information-analytic materials, proposals, recommendations and expert
assessments for state structures including the Presidential Administration (lenta.ru/articles/2015/03/26/risi/).
According
to its president, RISI “is one of the analytic centers [in Russia] which
supplies the Presidential Administration with analytic materials. Besides us, I
think,” Reshetnikov continues, “the Kremlin above all relies on the reports of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,on the work of our special services … and on
the work of other institutes.”
But “among
these other institutes,” he suggests, RISI “occupied one of the leading places.”
Reshetnikov
served for several decades in the SVR and ultimately was head of its analytic
administration. Consequently, he says, he understands what ordinary people do
not – just how reports are prepared for senior officials. Outsiders “think that
someone writes something, gives it to Putin, he then reads it as says: ‘Fine!
Let’s take this decision now!’”
That is not how things proceed. Instead, there is a
constant flow of materials “from various sides,” and this is processed again
and again at various levels in what is “an enormous analytic” process which “continues”
at each level “right up to the very top,” that is, to Vladimir Putin.
The RISI president tells Lenta.ru that Russia’s foreign intelligence
services did not have an analytic shop until “the end of 1943.” That was one of the reasons for the country’s
failures in the first months after the Germany invasion. There was plenty of
operational information, he says, but “there wasn’t any analysis” that sorted
it out.
As a result, the country’s leaders were pushed now in one
direction, now in another. Thus, Reshetnikov says, “Zorge wrote that war would
begin on June 22, but some agent in Berlin reported that it wouldn’t begin at
all, and a third asserted that the war would happen but it would start only in
December.”
Now, he continues, the situation is different. There is
an enormous analytic apparatus, and one of its strengths is that it contains
and reports “alternative points of view” up the line so that the Kremlin will
not be blindsided or trapped by a single position.
Asked about RISI’s role in the run-up to the annexation
of Crimea, Reshetnikov says that “we of course constantly prepared analytic
materials both on Crimea and on Ukraine … but I want to say,” he insisted, “that
in the preparation of the reunification of Crimea, no one from Russia took part
… it was something unexpected for all.”
Challenged by his interviewer that Putin has said that
the Crimea operation was planned, Reshetnikov suggests that it “was planned
when already everything had begun,” that the planning “went in parallel with
events,” rather than in anticipation of them even though RISI and others had
highlighted the attitudes of the Crimean population and Kyiv’s shortcomings.
“But unfortunately,” the RISI president says, “we did not
allow for the possibility that these attitudes would move toward a more
effective phase, one of action.” When
that happened, Moscow, however, was ready to respond.
(For background
on RISI, Reshetnikov, and its and his recommendations, see “Kremlin Think Tank Confirms Close Links with Kremlin and with New Greek
Premier” (February 1, 2015) at windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/02/kremlin-think-tank-confirms-close-links.html; “Putin’s Personality, Agenda and Nuclear Weapons Make
Him ‘Most Dangerous’ Leader in History, Piontkovsky Says” (March 18, 2015) at windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/03/putins-personality-agenda-and-nuclear.html;
and “Russia Must Stop Relying on Soviet and Western Answers to the Nationality
Question and Use Tsarist Ones Instead, RISI Says” (January 14, 2014) at http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/01/window-on-eurasia-russia-must-stop.html.)
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