Only in Fantasies of Putin’s Party is the CIA Behind Troubles in Karelian Villages, KPRF Deputy Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 31 – Embattled Karelian Governor Aleksandr Khudilaynen says that Western intelligence agencies are “interested in destabilizing the social-political situation” there and that they will step up their destructive work in advance of the September municipal elections.

            Speaking in Petrozavodsk yesterday, he declared that he expected the appearance of “extremism declarations, attempts at destabilizing the situation and dirty leaflets,” and he acknowledged that there were places in Karelia, such as the village of Lendery, where there were problems such outside agencies could exploit.

            “Thank God,” Khudilaynen said, “our people are patient” about the resolution of the problems they do face (ptzgovorit.ru/content/hudilaynen-v-karelii-aktivizirovalis-zabugornye-specsluzhby).

            If the Karelian people are “patient” and even long-suffering, the United Russia governor is not. Reacting to his words, Aleksandr Stepanov, a communist deputy in the republic’s parliament, said that on the one hand, Khudilaynen’s words were simply “funny.” But on the other hand, they really aren’t (forum-msk.org/material/news/10930341.html).

            The village of Lendery, with its 168 residents, is in a forest region and has been forgotten by all, Stepanov says.  Khudilaynin implicitly acknowledges this by admitting there are problems there. But his words are disturbing because they indicate he treats complaints about those problems as the work of Western intelligence services and will suppress them “by the most dirty methods.

            Unlike liberals, Stepanov continues, he does believe that the West has an interest in destabilizing the situation in Russia. “But the Western special services, only in the fantasies of the Karelian governor, are going to come to Lendery.”  One simply can’t imagine such services making a movie entitled “James Bond in Lendery.”

            The communist deputy argues that the Western intelligence services have understood that since the end of the USSR, the best way to destabilize Russia is to work with Russian officials and bankers in the capital cities. “Judging from the situation in the wilds of Karelia – and not only there – these ‘special services’ have already achieved great success.”