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Comment by empath75 | Hacker News Reader

I think the administration badly, badly mishandled Snowden and Assange, and allowed Russia to coopt them by isolating and threatening them. If they had treated them as whistleblowers and journalists (even if they had nefarious motivations), they could have kept them in "the west" instead of driving them into the arms of Russia. I don't believe that Assange was a Russian agent at the beginning but he was surely one by the time of the 2016 election.

There's a reason we have laws around a free speech and a free press-- they make the country stronger, even if they make it harder to govern.

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I think you do Snowden a disservice when you lump him in with Assange. Snowden you can easily argue is a whisleblower. You can't argue that with Assange since he doesn't have first hand knowledge of what he is leaking and instead actively recruits people to feed him information to leak. He also seemingly encourages people to commit crimes to get more information for him. Snowden did that all himself. In addition, Assange does not have the high bar that information must meet in order to warrant a leak. He instead leaks everything that he has that fits his political goals. A whistleblower needs to be more precise and targeted with what they disclose. Snowden gave his documents to journalists to sift through, judge, redact, and publish. Assange just throws everything up on his website. Lastly, like multiple people in these comments mentioned, there is the question of their relationship to Russia. Knowingly or not, Assange has clearly been used as a tool of Russian Intelligence. Snowden being compromised is more of a conspiracy theory at this point with little (but some) real world evidence.

You are right that Snowden deserves special recognition, but not at the expense of Assange.

Snowden also leaked everything he had. It certainly was not targeted.

He leaked it all to journalists he trusted to make decisions about how, when, and what to publish. It's not quite the same.

Everything was 100% vetted through two respected journalist. They decided what to leak and when and what to protect. Very well done by any standard.

And those journalists even gave a heads up to the DoD in case there was a compelling reason on that end to redact that they didn't realize.

> I think you do Snowden a disservice when you lump him in with Assange.

Correct. Snowden is a Whistle-blower. Assange is a journalist, though perhaps not the kind Snowden would have trusted his stolen data with.

Assange is an attention whore. I had such high hopes for wikileaks but it was, in the end, a vehicle for him to promote himself.

It was & is far, far more than that.

You think Assange put himself at as much risk as he did to promote himself?

He spent 7 years locked in an embassy (to great detriment to his health and was arguably worse then jail), is now in jail, and is facing at least life in prison, if not the death penalty. You really think he did all that just to promote himself and for some attention?

It's not like we think everything through when we set out on a journey. He probably went in with good intentions but was blinded by the lights of fame.

> He spent 7 years locked in an embassy ...

To avoid criminal charges for things unrelated to his political/journalistic exploits. Plenty of people run when faced with possible jail time, e.g., Roman Polanski.

This is a lie. He stated from the start he was hiding to avoid extradition to the United States for his journalism.

And it looks like now that he's been removed from the embassy, he's being extradited to the US based on his journalism, just like he feared.

> based on his journalism

He is being extradited to the US on the charge that he helped Manning break into classified computers. These alleged actions are no longer journalism.

Greenwald and Poitras never faced charges for publishing the documents Snowden leaked / provided. The NY Times did not face charges for leaking the Pentagon Papers that Ellsberg gave them. Assange would not have been charged with leaking documents that others provided—but he is alleged to have taken a step too far.

I do not understand this point:

He was in the UK, who has an extradition treaty with the US. He was facing charges in Sweden, who also have an extradition treaty with the US.

Why was he afraid of being extradited from Sweden but not the UK? If the US wanted him they could have gone after him while he was still live in the UK.

Why fear going to Sweden? I never understood this argument: am I missing some nuance in international law?

As far as I know the case was closed then reopened after some embarrassing US document leaked, and without any new relevant element. As far as I know, the Sweden authorities had the possibility to interrogate Assange without extraditing him, yet for some reason did not use that possibility.

Finding reliable sources with all relevant details is a hassle, so take it with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, I believe at this point that this unrelated affair is more an attempt at character assassination than a real thing. (I do recall that he reportedly didn't used protection, which would qualify him as a major jerk. Legislations seem to disagree on whether this was a crime or not, though.)

I think calling Assange a journalist is very debatable. He certainly doesn’t comply with the ethical norms of the profession.

People say this on this basis of hearsay, like he “selectively released documents” for which there is no evidence.

One huge ethical red flag for Assange and Wikileaks is their view on redacting documents. They published numerous details that a traditional journalistic outlet would never make public include the names of informants. This almost certainly resulted in people being killed.

To my knowledge nobody has ever died as a result of what they have reported. They do careful redaction.

> They published numerous details that a traditional journalistic outlet would never make public include the names of informants.

Valerie Plame would like to have a word with you.

If we keep going down this road we'd end up with No True Scotsman. The reality is "traditional" journalists have done this - Assange is not an outlier in this regard. If we tolerate the "worst" of the traditional (which US society clearly does), then we can't use this as an argument against Assange.

>Valerie Plame would like to have a word with you.

I probably shouldn't have used the word "never", but the fact that the Valieria Plame reveal was such a big deal is basically the exception that proves the rule that it is highly unusual for a journalist to reveal this information.

Assange is certainly an outlier in the number of people who he exposed and the reason for exposing them. He reportedly said on the issue that "they're informants. So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it." [1] Maybe you think that is a No True Scotsman argument, but I really can't imagine a well respected journalist showing such a complete lack of concern for human life. A traditional journalist would generally required some reason of tremendous value to justify putting those people's lives at risk. Assange's reasoning instead appears to be "They deserve it."

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_War_documents_leak#Info...

> but the fact that the Valieria Plame reveal was such a big deal is basically the exception that proves the rule that it is highly unusual for a journalist to reveal this information.

It was a big deal because people wanted to score political points, not because of a breach in standards. The more relevant point is the standing the journalist still had in society - he did not lose his job for it, let alone be prosecuted for it.

The quote you provide is taken out of context - at least from the Wiki page it is not clear if he is referring to the names that were leaked, as opposed to the ones that they ultimately decided to redact. I suspect the latter because it says "initially refused".

> but I really can't imagine a well respected journalist showing such a complete lack of concern for human life.

When you add the "well respected journalist", we really are in No True Scotsman territory. If all you mean to say is "He is a lousy journalist," then we have no disagreements. Without that qualifier, have you thought about extreme views held by existing, famous journalists? How much of an outlier is Assange compared to other "extreme" but established journalists?

How good a journalist he is is debatable. His ethics as a journalist may be debatable. His status as a (possibly bad, possibly unethical) journalist is much harder to debate: he set up a way to have information, which he then made public. Sounds like journalism to me.

I think the administration screwed up massively in more ways than one.

- They conducted illegal, and most likely ineffective surveillance. I mean, if they have as huge watchlists as it is claimed, they can't reasonably watch very closely.

- A subcontractor named Snowden, managed to leak a lot of secret stuff. And while it is the most memorable instance, it is not the first serious leak.

- They failed at damage control. The couldn't cover up, discredit, etc... While there is a debate on whether Snowden is a hero or a traitor, no one seem to question the truth of the leaks themselves.

- They couldn't catch Snowden, or found a way to get him to come back home. He is now with the Russians.

Being a believer in the Hanlon's razor, my hypothesis is that the NSA has become a bloated administration. Focused more on their budget and jobs than national security. Massive surveillance is just a way to keep them busy. Snowden's leaks and their aftermath actually tell two things: the extent of surveillance, and incompetence.

> And while it is the most memorable instance, it is not the first serious leak.

This is a key bit. Snowden was able to basically walk immensely sensitive data out the front door, and we may only know about that because he told us.

How much stuff makes the same journey into the hands of intelligence agencies instead of journalists?

They also completely failed to detect and stop russia’s election interference and if they can’t do that why do we even have an NSA?

To the contrary, I think the fact that you think both Snowden and Assange are Russian agents demonstrates that the administrations response was actually quite effective.

I was going to say exactly this. It's amazing how many Americans honestly think it's clear that Snowden is a "bad guy" because he's close to the Russians. Likewise Assange was pushed into a position that made him very unlikable to the US center-left (he could have probably played his hand a bit better). So mainstream American's are distrustful of both and pretty much everyone hates Assange.

If you examine what Ed Snowden leaked, it’s clear he was trying to do significant damage to the NSA. Much or most of what he stole and was leaked was unrelated to domestic surveillance. Much of it revealed our overseas activity. It’s difficult to see how any of it was to the benefit of Western interests.

He wasn't "just trying to damage the NSA", he was trying to get the truth out about surveillance, the fact that the NSA was damaged was tangential and they shouldn't have been spying on US citizens. The NSA and other gov police entities were basically breaking half the dictates and the entire spirit of the US Constitution.

What are the motives for leaking information regarding our actions on foreign soil against foreign citizens? I was a big fan of Snowden until he started doing that. That isn't whistleblowing against Constitutional violations and seemed to indicate a shift in his objectives. It now appears that he is just against US spying at large, which is a perfectly acceptable political opinion to have, but it doesn't justify whistleblowing in a lot of people's minds.

> What are the motives for leaking information regarding our actions on foreign soil against foreign citizens?

Because many of the spying actions were against Americans. Did you not read the leaks?

Sure, I read them. Many of them were about operations against US citizens. However, not all of them were. Here[1] is one example that comes to mind. That story in this leak is interesting, newsworthy, had serious repercussions, and was potentially unethical for the US government to do. However it is also exactly the type of thing everyone expects the NSA to be doing and it doesn't involve the spying on any Americans. This is the type of leak that will ensure that Snowden isn't embraced by the US government.

[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/13/snowden-nsa-sy...

> However, not all of them were.

Ok, but many were. Therefore it is a problem.

And spying on Americans is something that many people have a problem with.

> What are the motives for leaking information regarding our actions on foreign soil against foreign [human beings]?

Which side of an imaginary line you were born on should not determine your rights. If he leaked documents about operations against Americans, and then also about operations against foreigners, in my mind he did the same thing twice.

If there was another difference, like spilling the location or identity of a person likely to be at risk, please spell that out. I have yet to see an example.

>Which side of an imaginary line you were born on should not determine your rights.

That is what I am talking about as a "perfectly acceptable political opinion", but it is not an opinion that is based off any laws. Almost no mainstream political figure would share that opinion and therefore if that is the basis of Snowden's arguments, it isn't a wonder why he was treated harshly by the mainstream political system. Foreign spying is an accepted aspect of modern life. I totally understand if you think that spying in unethical. But Snowden would have been received much more favorable if he simply focused on the domestic spying operations which are largely unpopular rather than also revealing the foreign operations which are mostly accepted as necessary by the general population.

Just the fact that, at the time in 2013, a large amount of unknown data was stolen and shared with foreign powers by someone with such privileged access was certain to have catalyzed risk adjustments to global operations, including down to the level of specific human assets. Without a doubt, those in the military are informed that Snowden absolutely did real damage to operations. I’ve heard this in person from multiple military officers. Casualties aren’t going to be discussed.

Snowden’s leaks clearly benefitted adversaries of the NSA:

* domestic global powers such as goog and fb were able to lock down their customer data, which has the downside of shifting unchecked power to those entities

* foreign powers of the us now had confirmed intel on usa’s global intelligence gathering playbook and adjusted accordingly

Additionally, we can perhaps gain insight to any potential upsides or downsides of the proliferation of civil libertarianism that is directly attributable to the actions of Ed Snowden. I do believe personally that the first global superpower (whether the CIA and Google, China, etc) that obtains a way to break all current encryption (and has all of the pcaps) will have a huge upper hand in understanding social effects of this movement of the late 2010’s.

> Without a doubt, those in the military are informed that Snowden absolutely did real damage to operations. I’ve heard this in person from multiple military officers. Casualties aren’t going to be discussed.

They said the same thing about Chelsea Manning, then in her trial the prosecution finally admitted that they couldn't actually point to any casualties.

> What are the motives for leaking information regarding our actions on foreign soil against foreign citizens?

1. Removing plausible deniability. "Well we might be deeply involved in domestic surveillance but we certainly don't do it outside the US!". The laws that enabled the NSA to do the surveillance were attributed to accessing data that traveled outside the US.

2. Demonstrating the power and reach for legitimacy/plausibility.

I'm sure I can come up with more than the first 2 minutes it took to assemble this post.

https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=822

1. They don't need plausible deniability because they wouldn't deny they are spying on foreign nationals. Every world power spies on foreign nationals. The controversy that Snowden revealed is that they are spying on their own citizens, spying on foreign citizens is already known and accepted as a reality of modern politics.

2. No one was really questioning the plausibility or legitimacy of the documents Snowden released (there was some challenges on the interpretation of those documents) and revealing unconfirmed and unrelated intelligence operations does nothing to confirm the information about the domestic operations that he released.

SMH

Your assurances that you know what the NSA (or proxy) would reason is laughable, for example. You have a view that he's a bad actor and it doesn't matter to me, other than it's a trivial thought experiment to justify his actions. GL

As a European citizen I’m very glad that Snowden reveled the depth of US surveillance over the world. It may have not benefited US citizens, but it had removed US surveillance from conspiracy theories to put it on a list of facts and I’m very glad for it.

Your words do nothing to counter the argument of the comment you were replying to. The fact that the vast majority of the documents leaked were completely unrelated to domestic surveillance is as strong an indicator as we can get that he was specifically trying to damage the NSA, and any claims otherwise are PR.

drone strikes on people based on heuristics over metadata was the kind of logic that was operating at the highest levels of the intelligence apperatus, and not even congresspeople assigned to intel committees were aware of it.

people should know about the kind of insane stupidity that they get up to overseas that make the country less safe. or what, do you really think that that kind of stuff is what's keeping the terrorists from doing another 9/11?

This is a strawman, and isn't relevant to my argument at all. GP of my original comment never made the claim that the NSA/US weren't doing bad stuff (outside of domestic surveillance), only that Snowden was trying to damage them.

I love that Trump's DoJ hounding Assange into British custody and unsealing a huge indictment against him has done nothing to shake many Democrats' faith that Assange is some kind of Trump/Putin stooge.

There are lots of us who aren't though. The Russians gave him safe haven and I'm guessing it was the only big country at the time that would do so and challenge US hegemony. As much as I hate them for hacking and influencing our elections I recognize Snowden's decision made logical sense. Any smaller country would have rolled over and turned him over to the US.

In fairness to Snowden, he didn't intend to stay in Russia; his fate was sealed when the US revoked his passport.[1][2] I can't imagine Snowden being much of a fan of Russia given a) what he probably knew during his time working at the NSA and b) actually living there.

EDIT: formatting

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-23318475

[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-security-passport/u-s...

Clapper and Brennan (the ones who were in charge and bungled the Snowden and Assange cases) being hired on by major networks as pundits is apparently enough to shift the narrative.

this. the public in US is so easily brainwashed it is actually very scary. Having lived in an oppressive state USSR and now in USA I find too many alarming similarities :(

Calling him an "agent" is silly, but Snowden is living in Moscow at the pleasure of the Russian regime. It's hard to believe he's entirely free, or even substantially free, to do what he wants.

It's pretty clear he never wanted to end up there. The US definitely screwed up by leaving him few other options. He's not an agent of Moscow, but he's not a free man either.

This right here is what I believe. He isn't there out of choice, he is there out of a lack of options.

He's probably as free as he could be. Certainly more free than in US. Russia is scoring against US by simply letting Snowden live free. Then even if it will be hard for you to believe, some countries grant asylum to asylum seekers, simply to comply with international treaties

I think Russia has a lot to gain by letting him live freely

>I think the administration badly, badly mishandled [whistleblowers]

Yes, but by design. Other than passing lip service towards transparency. The fact is Obama admin actively sought to silence them. I know this isn’t popular because HN won’t want to hear anything bad about Obama, but it’s a fact.

In the seven years of Obama's presidency, the administration launched a record number of cases against those who revealed what the government wanted kept secret. Under Obama, eight whistleblowers have been prosecuted under the World War I-era Espionage Act, more than under all other presidents combined.

Sources abound; pick your favorite.

Agreed. one of the most illuminating aspects of the Obama administration was the divergence between great tolerance for corporate whistleblowers on the one hand, and animosity toward government whistleblowers on the other.

Also, people cite the "more than any other administration" argument frequently, especially in media, but rarely think to mention the small sample size. nice work!

Yea, there is a special handling of that whole line. More than any other administration - doesn’t seem like much. And the qualifier that we’re talking about 8 makes it seem less important.

However, those 8 people also the qualifier of “combined” where the sum of people charged with espionage until Obama was less than 8 people total, and then he comes in and exceeds that. No one should believe that from 2008-2016 we had some resurgence of traitors to the country. Just people charged as such in most cases for doing the right thing overall.

To put my views into this perspective. Am I glad that Snowden and others leaked information on government programs? Yes.

That said, I think it's amusing when people need to call out "Under president <whomever>'s administration..." as if it makes a point by itself and implies something directly about the president that was named. Let's not pretend here, that's exactly what you were doing. Using this same logic, I hope you blame George W. Bush's administration entirely for the 2008 recession. I want to be clear, I'm not pretending that the sitting president's policy decisions and other influences don't have an effect. But inherited legacy, context, and the surrounding details play a huge role in how these things play out.

First, the people you are talking about (Thomas Drake, Shamai Leibowitz, Chelsea Manning, Donald Sachtleben, Stephen Kim, Jeffrey Sterling, John Kiriakou, Edward Snowden) all have different circumstances surrounding their cases.

Second, they all stepped forward roughly around 2009 and later. Most gathered the information they leaked between 2000 and 2008 working on programs for the CIA and NSA. They all leaked information that wasn't supposed to be leaked. The default in our government is to handle that with punitive measures. If they had stepped forward during any other presidency would the outcome have been the same? Yes.

Third, alluding to some sort of hypocrisy with regards to transparency when talking about intelligence programs initiated by the CIA, FBI, NSA, etc is ironic. Just because an administration wanted to embrace transparency doesn't mean it's fine to free-for-all leak information from those agencies.

> They all leaked information that wasn't supposed to be leaked.

What did Thomas Drake leak that wasn't supposed to be leaked?

> If they had stepped forward during any other presidency would the outcome have been the same? Yes.

Kiriakou in fact stepped forward in December 2007. The Justice Department under Bush did not pursue him, and it was explicitly the Justice Department under the Obama administration that did so.

Similarly, Jeffrey Alexander Sterling was in contact with a journalist during the period 2002--2004 (for a book published in January 2006), but his prosecution was also led by the Obama administration.

> What did Thomas Drake leak that wasn't supposed to be leaked?

He leaked information classified as "secret". Additionally he leaked unclassified information of which some of it was classified as "Unclassified—For Official Use Only" which means it is not supposed to be given to the public and is intended for internal or law enforcement use only.

> Kiriakou in fact stepped forward in December 2007. The Justice Department under Bush did not pursue him, and it was explicitly the Justice Department under the Obama administration that did so.

I'm not going to disagree here. For whatever reason, the CIA brought this case back in 2012 and asked for it to be pursued.

>Similarly, Jeffrey Alexander Sterling was in contact with a journalist during the period 2002--2004 (for a book published in January 2006), but his prosecution was also led by the Obama administration.

The Bush administration sent (the journalist) James Risen a subpoena on January 24, 2008. The leak investigation surrounding Sterling didn't come to a culmination until 2010. The investigation started in 2003, under Bush.

>[all had difference scenarios and different times]

Yet all were charged by the Obama Admin, for something people largely agree with and in most scenarios exposed government breaking the laws they themselves set.

As to your argument it doesn’t count because Obama didn’t put the cuffs on them himself - no, it was only Holder and Lynch who did the actual work, who directly reported to and were appointed by Obama himself.

I wonder if you would apply the same “AG autonomy” to decisions Sessions or Barr have made where those don’t reflect or implicate direction from Trump?

I'll quote myself, "I'm not pretending that the sitting president's policy decisions and other influences don't have an effect. But inherited legacy, context, and the surrounding details play a huge role in how these things play out."

The point being, there are often things initiated by past presidents that come to a head within the time the sitting president is in office. How the situations that arise are handled absolutely reflects on the sitting administration. But people who ignore the history and legacy surrounding those situations because it feels good to take a shot at an administration that has a letter after it (be it R or D) that a person doesn't identify with is overly simplistic.

There were a lot of things the Obama administration did that I do not agree with. Specifically, the use of drone strikes, how the ACA was handled (albeit a lot of players were involved), continuing revolving door policies, and more.

An agent? No. But friendly towards those friendly to him? Who in the world doesn't do that?

After all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Seems like a difference without a distinction, and I'm not even sure it's correct. If he's acting in the interest of Russia, he's a Russian agent.

The distinction is responsibility. If he were operating under orders from Russia, Russia bears ultimate responsibility for his actions. If they have no control over him and his actions merely benefit them, he bears responsibility for his own actions.

Going by that standard, 95% of all Russian peasant farmers are "Russian Agents" and that's pure ridiculousness from any angle.

>Going by that standard, 95% of all Russian peasant farmers are "Russian Agents" and that's pure ridiculousness from any angle.

Oh please, you're the one being ridiculous. I think we all know there's a line between farming for the good of civilization and actively working to push an agenda. C'mon.

I suppose that all the South African farmers that moved to Russia to avoid getting killed over politics by savages are also Russian Agents.

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/land-expropriation-russ...

If the subsequently worked at the behest of the Russian goverment to push their agenda, yes. Honestly are you even reading what I'm typing?

Well, then I suppose it was indeed a PR stunt for the Russians to accept South African farmers, and they are according to your logic indeed Russian Agents! That is assuming a PR campaign pushes an agenda, and I would argue it does.

There is a difference between and unwitting pawn, especially in a circumstance like that, and someone who acts with full knowledge as to what they're doing. I don't understand why this is difficult.

It's never an either/or. you're presenting a false dilemma.

I don't know about friendly. If you're wanted at home, and living in a foreign country at the pleasure of the local regime, there's going to be hard limits on what you're allowed to do without consequence.

> But friendly towards those friendly to him? Who in the world doesn't do that?

I feel you underestimate people's intelligence — assuming that everyone can be played with a simple overture of friendliness.

Hold up, where did you get the idea that Assange has at any time worked for “the Russians”? It seems like he’s stuck to his guns and his convictions on Wikileaks without any misstep. There was never any indication that he had a change in loyalties or that the quality of Wikileak’s content had changed, was there?

When those tasked with enforcing the rules take a punitive approach as the default, loss of a potential asset is the most likely outcome.

Yeah it would have been an opportunity for Obama to shine but alas he didn't. Just the mediocre, status quo President that we elected. In retrospect, I'll take him any time over our current Mango Mussolini.

People spend so much time patting themselves on the back for electing the First Black President - who was witty, looked leader-ly on TV, and wore a (D) behind his name - that they totally let him off the hook for so many abhorrent policies, like mass surveillance, drone assassinations, and the way he mistreated the biggest whistleblower of our time.

It's so disappointing how few people seem to have complex thoughts about our political system/politicians, and it shows in the ever-decreasing quality of those things as time advances. Bandwagons are dangerous, and it seems we only have bandwagons left.

Obama is the equivalent of a SWE candidate that only studies Leetcode and interviewing tactics.

People thought everything else (e.g. the substance of the job) would be on the level of his oratory skills, but it turned out he was just some guy that knew how to get votes.

I believe he is a hero and did the right thing, but I think there is no way the US could do anything but try to put in prison someone who illegally made state secrets public. That would have set the precedent that anyone with secret bad looking intelligence about the US would be safe to come out with it. Turns out I'm sure that there is a lot of intelligence that looks quite bad for the US.

There are in fact whistleblower laws. The big question at hand is how it was handled. Snowden claimed to go to his superiors first, which checks off an important box. So the question is if he did that or not. I believe he was also supposed to attempt to report to Congress before he can legally go to the media. It's definitely a gray area and if you believe it is right probably depends on how much you trust the government and moral factors.

I believe he did the right thing, I probably should have made that more clear. I also understand why the government still can't possibly treat him in anyways but as a traitor

I think he did the right thing too (though maybe not the best way, but that's a completely different argument). But I don't think you have to treat him as a traitor. We're a society that values democracy. A branch that is over reaching should be realed in. We've done this is the past. I think the framers very much understood that democracy is always a balancing act. One that must be continually fought for. I think anyone who really has looked into democracy clearly see this. I think we've just lost sight of that (I'm talking about a lot more than Snowden though)

This sounds awfully similar how Western governments singled out the so called communists. If you don't support war and actively protest against in the Middle East does not make you an agent for isis or Muslim brotherhood.

If he was an agent the Muller investigation would have revealed it. It doesn't say so in the paper that is public, I actually read the whole thing.

You're an agent if you get orders from Kremlin, people's interests align often with different people, hence the world and politics is complicated.

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