This thin post telegraphs in web links a few of the essentials about President Putin’s Soviet / post-Soviet ultra-nationalist neo-imperial Russian project and revanche.  For the viewer, it may work as a portal both into related posts on BackChannels as well as a channel out for greater web-bound curiosity.

Agitation and Propaganda

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures

http://www.statecraft.org.uk/research/russian-active-measures-modernised-tradition

Recently ‘Also in Media’:

Weiss, Michael.  “Russia’s Long History of Messing With Americans Minds Before the DNC Hack.”  The Daily Beast, July 26, 2016.

Related:

Weiss, Michael and Peter Pomerantsev.  “The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture, and Money.”  The Interpreter, November 22, 2014.

Heritage Foundation.  “Propaganda, Disinformation, and Dirty Tricks: The Resurgence of Russian Political Warfare.”  Features YouTube event recording (1:53:40).  Host: Helle C. Dale; speakers: John Lenczowski, Paul Goble, and Ariel Cohen.  April 21, 2014.

Freedom

https://freedomhouse.org/country/russia

Middle East Conflict

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/10/03/palestinian-kgb/

Moscow Apartment Bombings

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439060/vladimir-putin-1999-russian-apartment-house-bombings-was-putin-responsible

Russian Orthodox Church

The ROC has made billions from trading concessions granted to it by the government. It is increasingly asserting its position as the largest of the 14 self-governing Orthodox Churches and is using its political muscle in support of Putin’s aims. It’s no friend to evangelicals, especially in the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, seeing them as puppets of the West.

But how has it become so powerful – and how is it using its power?

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/how.the.russian.orthodox.church.is.backing.vladimir.putins.new.world.order/81108.htm – 3/3/2016.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the church received official privileges including the right to import duty-free alcohol and tobacco. In 1995, the Nikolo-Ugreshky Monastery, which is directly subordinated to the patriarchate, earned $350 million from the sale of alcohol. The patriarchate’s department of foreign church relations, which Kirill ran, earned $75 million from the sale of tobacco. But the patriarchate reported an annual budget in 1995-1996 of only $2 million. Kirill’s personal wealth was estimated by the Moscow News in 2006 to be $4 billion.

During this period, the church has been silent about genuine moral issues, such as Russia’s pervasive corruption and the indiscriminate killing of noncombatants in Chechnya. As Kirill begins his reign as patriarch, there is little reason to expect this to change.

Yakov Krotov, a liberal Russian Orthodox priest, recently compared Kirill to a “court Jew,” like Peter Shafirov, the foreign policy aide to Peter the Great. The role of the court Jew, according to Krotov, is to put a civilized face on a repressive system.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/20/putin-solzhenitsyn-kirill-russia-opinions-contributors_orthodox_church.html – 2/20/2009.

Security State

http://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-resurrects-the-kgb-moscow-security/

Soviet Era

https://conflict-backchannels.com/library/russian-section/

Terrorism – Fast Links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_and_the_Soviet_Union

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/12/ftac-how-isil-developed/

http://www.interpretermag.com/russia-the-state-sponsor-of-terrorism/

https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2015/09/08/how-russia-manipulates-islamic-terrorism/

http://www.rferl.org/a/soviet-islamist-terrorism-israel-america-disinformation-pacepa/25034290.html

Standard Reference

Piontovsky, Andrei.  “Putin Using All Means Against the West — including Islamist Terrorism — Piontovsky Says.”  The Interpreter, December 12, 2016.

Rosenfeld, Jesse.  “Russia is Arming Hezbollah, Say Two of the Group’s Field Commanders.”  The Daily Beast, January 11, 2016.

Satter, David.  “Putin is No Partner on Terrorism: It’s a Mistake for Washington to Count Moscow an Ally.”  Foreign Affairs, December 22, 2016.

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FTAC – A Post as Module

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/10/03/palestinian-kgb/
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439060/vladimir-putin-1999-russian-apartment-house-bombings-was-putin-responsible
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_and_the_Soviet_Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures
http://Politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-resurrects-the-kgb-moscow-security/
https://freedomhouse.org/country/russia

In effect, Moscow, with its penchant for total control, bears responsibility for using the Palestinian refugees to block western democratic and open society (with free press) expansion while also milking the world under the guise of a good deed.

Moscow (Bogdanov) has met with PFLP in recent years (November 2014) and continues to refuse to designate Hamas as a terrorist organization.

In Syria, and keeping with its “total control” outlook, it appears that Assad himself incubated ISIL as an element that could be used to blackmail and goad the west.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/12/ftac-how-isil-developed/
https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2015/09/08/how-russia-manipulates-islamic-terrorism/

Examine, query, test each URL. As a post on Facebook, the cited URLs taken together tell a story about Putin’s Soviet / post-Soviet transformation of Russia into an ultra-nationalist neo-imperial dictatorship.

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