RFE/RL’s Idel.Realii Portal Not Only Informs but Helps Defend People of the Middle Volga

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 1 – Ever fewer people in the West accept the argument that there is no need for Western broadcasting to and Internet pages for people living within the borders of the Russian Federation given that as in Soviet times when Western “voices” began operating, people there have ever less access to reliable and accurate information.

            But even with this shift, there has yet to be an adequate appreciation of something else. Western broadcasts and web pages not only provide people in Russia with information, they make a direct contribution to improving the lives of Russians and others by calling attention to problems the powers that be in that country can’t afford to ignore.

            In an end-of-the-year article, Regina Khisamova describes how articles carried on RFE/RL’s Idel.Realii portal have had a direct and positive impact on the lives of people in the Middle Volga at whom its postings are directed and with whom it is in increasingly active correspondence (idelreal.org/a/29677171.html).

            Dozens of times last year, investigations by Idel.Realii journalists uncovered waste, fraud, abuse, corruption, illegality in the health care system, in education, and in the courts. In nearly every case, Khisamova reports, local and regional actions immediately opened cases and sometimes succeeded in having the guilty punished. In others, they were overruled.

            Most of the cases she describes are about individuals facing the problem individuals face in many societies rather than grand political questions, although in the case of the latter too,  Idel.Realii played a key role in its reporting about efforts by Tatars to protect their rights to instruction in their national language.

            Having gone into details about more than a dozen of such cases, Khisamova points out that officials in Tatarstan at the end of the year took an action which highlighted just how significant the portal has become: They blocked the site in republic ministries, the republic State Council, and the Supreme Court. 

            Others in the Middle Volga and indeed around the world, however, will continue to rely on Idel.Realii not only for reliable information but also as a defender of their rights against an often out-of-touch bureaucracy. 

Belarus Already Under Russian Troll Attack Designed to Give Moscow a Base for Further Aggression

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 1 – Belarus meets all three requirements as a target for a hybrid war and then use it as a base to attack other countries in a similar way, Russian commentator Yury Khristenzen says. Moreover, Belarusians say, Moscow is already conducting troll attacks on Belarus, the equivalent of advance artillery attacks in conventional war.

            Khristenzen’s argument is important because most analyses of the Belarusian-Russian crisis have limited themselves to discussions of what it will mean for Belarus if and when it is absorbed (and more rarely for Russia). But the real story – and the reason the West must oppose it – is that the Russian absorption of Belarus would open the door to much broader aggression.

            In a Kasparov commentary today, Khristenzen says there are three conditions needed for the hybrid conquest: the seizure of the information space, the existence of a transport corridor to provide logical support for forces that the attacker will deny are his, and “a low standard of living” in the victim that the attacker can exploit (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5C29CAF8CB0B5).

            “In this regard,” the commentator continues, “Belarus is an ideal object for unleashing asymmetric wars against other states bordering it. The first two conditions are already being fulfilled, and the third can be easily fulfilled, after control of the economy of the country in fact passes into the hands of the Kremlin.”

            “This is a real threat,” Khristenzen says; “and therefore we will carefully follow” developments in that regard.  As soon as there are signs of that, it will mean that “the Kremlin has taken a decision to unleash a new front of hybrid war against one of the bordering countries. For this, Moscow needs, besides information control, administrative control over Minsk.”

            According to the commentator, “this part of preparation for [a broader] war” could occur in this new year.

            One sign Moscow has made the decision to do just that is that “an attack of Kremlin trolls on the Internet has begun.  “Just as the wars of the 20^th century rarely began without artillery preparation, so conflicts in the 21^st often are preceded by information preparation,” Vladimir Chudentsov says (by24.org/2018/12/30/belarus_under_kremlin_troll_attack_in_social_media/).

            Chudentsov, the editor-in-chief of the By24.org portal, says that “in the last several weeks,” Russian trolls on the Internet “have begun to actively prepare for this, by attempting to form among them an active pro-Russian position,” something the Russian side has been willing to make major investments in.

            In a transparent attempt to conceal what is going on, the “pro-Russian point of view is being advanced from accounts of users who live in Belarus itself.” That makes it appear to some as if these views are an expression of Belarusian public opinion. In fact, this is a Russian operation, financed from Moscow, and pushing Russian not Belarusian views, he says.

            Moscow pays these ostensibly Belarusian bloggers a pittance – six or seven rubles per item via credit card or mobile telephone transfers – but that is sufficient to attract enough to make it appear there is a groundswell of support in Belarus for union with the Russian Federation.

            Chudentsev says there is only one aspect of this situation which is welcome: Despite the efforts Russians are making, “Belarusians themselves are reacting to the proposal to ‘unite in a union state’ without enthusiasm, to put it mildly.” And many are responding directly to the trolls’ arguments.   The editor gives numerous examples of both sides of this “debate.”

            But if one can be pleased by the reaction of ordinary Belarusians, Chudentsev continues, one can only regret that “the Belarusian powers that be despite their responsibility to be concerned about the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country have still not reacted to the attack of the Kremlin trolls at all.”

            There are laws even in Lukashenka’s Belarus that would allow them to do so.  But since the authorities won’t act on them, ordinary Belarusians must take up the defense of their country against this asymmetric form of Russian aggression and do so in the first instance by not allowing themselves to fall victim to the trolls’ propaganda. 

Russian Internet Users Turn Thumbs Down on Putin’s New Year’s Message

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 1 – Russian users of the Internet gave an overwhelmingly negative assessment of Vladimir Putin’s address to the nation, with “dislikes” outnumbering “likes” five to one on the Russia I channel website and six to one on the First Channel portal, an assessment not only of his speech but of his presidency (echo.msk.ru/news/2344415-echo.html).

            Criticism of the Kremlin leader and his speech also spread to other Internet platforms, including Facebook.  A typical example is the comment of a Russian blogger who posts as Vitaly Oi (facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1054198951419526&id=100004882928644; reposted at  

ehorussia.com/new/node/17646).

            His words capture much that many of those critical of Putin think and feel on this Near Year’s Day:

“Dear Volodya!” Oi writes. “Thank you for such a heartfelt greeting on New Year’s. Honestly, I had thought that it would be again about rockets and paradise. I was surprised and in a good way!

“However, I am compelled to disappoint you.

“First, there is no mention of ‘we.’ There is only you, your friends, your bureaucracy, and your ‘siloviki who for their own enrichment are trying together with the priests to push Russia back to the 16^th century, and we who are trying despite all the obstacles created by your government to draft Russia into the 21^st.

“Second, there are no ‘essential tasks in the economy, science and technology, health care, education and culture that you and your friends, bureaucracy, and ‘siloviki’ are capable of resolving, just as you all could not create ‘an International Financial Center’ in Moscow which you promised in 2012 to create, ’25 million new high technology jobs,’ and ‘a Silicon Valley in Skolkovo.’

“No offense, but you simply aren’t capable of doing do. You and your friends, the bureaucracy and ‘the siloviki’ simply don’t know what it is to be involved with constructive work instead of dividing up the budget and the property of others for yourselves.

“Third, as a result of your efforts and those of your friends, your bureaucracy and your ‘siloviki,’ we, the citizens of Russia, are becoming only ever poorer. You and your command arranged the collapse of the ruble, raised taxes, raised the pension age, and since 2014 have confiscated the pension savings of the population. With you, we feel only changes for the worse.

Fourth, we will nonetheless break through ‘into the future,’ but with you, your friends, your bureaucracy and your ‘siloviki.’ You are not Russia. After you, Russia will remain and begin to develop technologically, culturally, and economically and people will become richer. But not as a result of your efforts to steal from us but in spite of them. Not the bureaucrats, nor the Orthodox Cossacks, nor the bikers, nor the priests, nor your fellow KGB officers will develop Russia, but the despised ‘creative people’ (engineers, scholars, and technological entrepreneurs) you have stolen from.

”All the same, thanks for your kind words. Be well!

“Your landsman, that same ‘creative person’ who is an engineer and an honest taxpayer.”