Texas Secessionist Invited to Moscow and Seeks Russian Support for His Cause

Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, March 23 – Many people around world have been focusing on and been horrified by the meeting of representatives of extreme right, even fascist parties in St. Petersburg over the weekend, but fewer have paid attention to another aspect of Moscow’s outreach – to separatists around the world whose efforts may help Vladimir Putin by weakening his enemies.

 

            But that lack of attention may be partially rectified by an interview in Moscow’s “Vzglyad” newspaper today with Nathan Smith, one of the leaders of the Texas Nationalist Movement which seeks independence from the US and is in Moscow at the invitation of the Kremlin-backed Anti-Globalist Movement of Russia (vz.ru/politics/2015/3/23/735599.html).

 

            Smith’s group is a marginal one, and any support he might pick up in the Russian capital is likely to make it more so by alienating even those Texans who like himself are inclined to identify as Texans first and Americans second but who are unlikely to welcome the idea that their state could become independent with help from Moscow.