Russian Campaign against US Consulate in Yekaterinburg has Long History, Kirillova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 13 – In response to the closing of the Russian consulate in San Francisco and of two trade representations in Washington and New York, Moscow officials and Russian nationalists have called for closing the US consulate general in Yekaterinburg; but those appeals are only the latest step in a longstanding Russian campaign against that institution.

            On the AfterEmpire portal today, US-based Russian journalist surveys not only the latest attacks but their history, a programmatic effort she argues is intended to make Russians suspicious of all US diplomats and thus make it difficult if not impossible for them to do their work (afterempire.info/2017/09/13/consulate/).

            The US consulate general in Yekaterinburg, which services 11 subjects of the Russian Federation, has been in operation since 1994. Over that 23-year period but especially in the last three years, it has been “the object of the harshest attacks by local ‘bloggers in civilian clothes,’ the media, and all kinds of ‘patriotic organizations.”

            The latest and one of the nastiest attacks, by the Russian Anti-Maidan group last week (antimaydan.info/2017/09/otvetom_na_gop_stop_gosdepa_dolzhno_stat_zakrytie_genkonsulstva_ssha_v.html), has attracted some attention because of the diplomatic tit-for-tat between Moscow and Washington, Kirillova says. But the start of this “sad tradition” really dates to October 2014.

            At that time, the Russian media attacked the consulate for supposedly seeking to recruit and direct local environmental activists against the authorities when the US vice consul offered to help one of their number get medical treatment abroad (pravdaurfo.ru/articles/gosdep-ssha-v-ekaterinburge-vskryli-iznutri).

            In the months since then, the local media has featured stories about many meetings between consulate officials and local people, typically with suggestions that the former are trying to recruit the latter to work against Russia (e.g., .nakanune.ru/news/2015/10/2/22416326 and nakanune.ru/news/2014/7/4/22359426/).

            The quality of almost all of these stories, Kirillova continues,  is suggested by one that claimed a meeting between the US consul and the mayor of Yekaterinburg was intended to draw the latter into “an espionage network” (politrussia.com/control/ekaterinburg-torzhestvennyy-priem-996/).

            Such attacks have only intensified whenever there are American visitors from Washington or from the US embassy in Moscow as in December 2015 when two senior US diplomats arrived to meet with Yekaterinburg and regional businessmen, a core part of the consulate’s entirely legal responsibilities (nakanune.ru/news/2015/10/23/22418486).

            More media attacks on the consulate as a source of anti-Russian ideas have followed, Kirillova reports (zergulio.livejournal.com/3384631.html, zergulio.livejournal.com/3430628.html, 66.ru/news/politic/181972/ and zergulio.livejournal.com/4104696.html), including some that include information that would not have been publicly available to journalists.

            The Russian journalist concludes her article with some examples of the ways in which Russian consular officials have behaved in the US, ways very different from the ones US consular officials have in Russia but quite similar to the kind that Russian media attack the American diplomats for.

            About six  months ago, she notes, Moscow’s Kommersant newspaper reported that Russian diplomats had called on Russian emigres in the US to oppose Washington policies (kommersant.ru/doc/3083317), an appeal that was followed by the documentation of Russian efforts to organize militarized camps for the children of emigres in the US (on that, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/08/moscow-diplomats-said-behind-formation.html).

            Whether Moscow will close the Yekaterinburg consulate remains unclear at present, Kirillova says, although  it is obvious that the Russian foreign ministry doesn’t understand the differences between Russian and US diplomats and simply projects what the former do on the latter (mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/2855818).