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Comment by dralley | Hacker News Reader

Yesterday a Russian "chef" was arrested after drunkenly bragging about a sabotage operation to disrupt the Olympic opening ceremony.

https://theins.press/en/politics/273350

> On May 7, he was in Russia and due to fly from Moscow to Istanbul, where he’d catch a connecting flight back to Paris the next day. Except he couldn't. He got so fall-down drunk at Istanbul Airport that he was barred from boarding his plane. Instead Griaznov took a taxi to the Bulgarian border, where another car delivered him to St. Vlas, a resort town on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria, where Griaznov owns property.

> Griaznov stayed at his apartment for a few days before moving on to Varna, a Bulgarian city 60 miles north of St. Vlas. From there he flew on to Paris. During one of his beach-side dinners he got drunk again and let slip to the neighbors that he had a special assignment this summer in Paris to disrupt the opening ceremony of the Olympics. At first the neighbors were incredulous. That’s when Griaznov brandished his FSB ID, witnesses told The Insider. A few days later, Griaznov made his way to Varna and took a flight from there. Before flying to Paris, Griaznov made a call to his FSB boss and informed him that the operation was on track. Griaznov even said he’d recruited “one more Moldovan from Chisinau.”

It would be humorous if it weren't so serious.

View on HN

If this is true, I don't understand the actions of Russia's government in recent years.

I doubt their goal is to be universally reviled, so what's their real objective?

As much as I'm tempted to think they're just being full-on assholes, I assume they're being more strategic than that.

They sow chaos and then unleash the bots criticizing whoever is currently in office; then they unleash bots criticizing those bots and hope to drag in normal people.

Basically the idea is to erode trust in the western system. They don't try to hide it anymore and seems it doesn't matter - it's quite effective anyway.

Yeah but this is more like "plan a minor disturbance of a high profile event. Get caught and galvanize the public to arm your enemies."

It doesn't erode trust in the western system.

This one was exceptional in every way. There are tens if not hundreds of examples in which they managed to not be so completely drunk to fail multiple times.

How do you distinguish between ones that are actually Russia and ones that are only asserted or implied to be Russia?

Or do you?

Sometimes the authorities find out, especially if it's a big fire of an ammo depot or a nerve agent wet job. Sometimes there is only circumstantial evidence. Sometimes you get used to it and you know it's them again.

> Sometimes you get used to it and you know it's them again.

You are using the colloquial versions of "know", and "is".

Yes, of course. You're taking what I've written out of context.

The context: I asked you a precise question about your claim, you answered it in the way you chose to.

You are welcome to clarify if you'd like.

Won’t be doing your googling for you today, I’m very sorry.

I believe this is in play:

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Shiftin...

Do you disagree?

The "get caught" part often doesn't happen. And even if they do get caught, as long as the main objective is achieved, it can be promoted as a show of strength so that next time the victims will play ball even before force is applied.

It's the mafia style, everyone knows who whacked whom.

I don't see how this shows strength.

Not everyone can pull off "a massive attack on a large scale to paralyse the TGV network" (literal quote from the rail operator). It's brutish, but it's a form of strength - like a mafia bully burning down your flower shop because you refused to pay.

Which is fine and expected, the goal here isn’t to impress you.

You have to look at this from the perspective of deeply broken people, full of malice and hardcore narcissism. Even if sabotage fails, they pat themselves on the back, rejoicing that they’ve increased paranoia and confusion, and start planning the next attack.

And if it provokes a response from their would be victims that results in Russian goals somewhere being ruined, they cry crocodile tears for pity and make themselves out to be martyrs, and plan the next attack.

There are many humans in this world with thoughts and motivations that are completely alien to others.

I mean if you gave an American the option between say NK and USA they'll probably chose USA. However, if you just omit a comparison and ask them if they trust the USA they'll probably say no.

That's the cleverness of this. You aren't trying to convince them that Russia is better. You're just trying to convince them that USA is failing compared to its previous self.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/508169/historically-low-faith-i...

This was in France.

Well, the French never had confidence in their government but it is down.

Slide 22 - https://www.sciencespo.fr/cevipof/sites/sciencespo.fr.cevipo...

According to their history of attacks on individuals, grand strategic logic often lags behind their desire for petty revenge. The government of France denied Russia's standing in this Olympics. This is simple reprisal.

I'm a bit puzzled by this as well but I assume that the goal here is to project power and scare people into submission. Making themselves seem more powerful than they are by attacking an event that is in the public spotlight.

Different cultures, this seems a very Russian way of projecting power. Though I personally can think of at least two other actors who are just as likely to blame. At least this wasn't a "hurt people" power projection.

Western civilization, including most of the infrastructure, assumes good intentions of those around. How many times have teenagers independently realized the chassis they could cause just by pushing a waiting pedestrian into traffic? Trains have always been noted as an easy target.

You should be puzzled. You should always be puzzled when people say "witnesses told us", "anonymous intelligence officials said". It's what got us into plenty of wars we didn't need to be in. Especially when the authors are known to be in collusion with said intelligence agencies.

> An extraordinary email uncovered under freedom of information laws raises serious questions about whether Bellingcat, the “open source” collective widely cited by mainstream journalists and loved by the CIA, collaborates directly with Western intelligence agencies.

https://thegrayzone.com/2023/11/30/bellingcat-collusion-west...

Pot, meet kettle:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/06/02/grayzon...

Did you even read the article you linked? Wyatt Reed worked as a Freelance journalist, like so many other journalists. It was always public knowledge. There was no "hacked email" here. The WaPo issued a tiny correction on this smear piece at least:

> correction > A previous version of this article incorrectly said that leaders of the online news site Grayzone had received payments from Iranian media, according to recently unearthed documents. The documents show that only one of the site’s editors received such payments. The article has been corrected.

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

You should also assume Russia would very much prefer the USA to keep to themselves so Putin et al. can steal the rest of the world.

Calling everything a conspiracy is the exact lack of skepticism you should not have.

If you want to paint bellingcat as a tool of the CIA, you have to prove their claims to be false. If the CIA pays bellingcat to produce only factually correct information, that is still useful.

No. People like YOU should provide proof. Until then YOUR claims are the conspiracy. Relying purely on hearsay makes YOU the conspiracy theorist. It's absurd that I even have to say this.

Terrorism is the weapon of the powerless. Russians know they cannot match NATO, so they are trying to disrupt the event they essentially banned themselves from.

There is no objective other than to destroy the West and democracy and then rule with as much brutality as the conquered nations will bear. If they cannot achieve that objective they want to go down in flames with the rest of the world.

If you want to know how the Russian peace looks like read up on the partitions of Poland (economic exploitation, violent anti-semitism, deportations to Siberia, confiscation of property and land, russification, etc.) or the history of countries in Eastern Europe who found themselves inside the borders of Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact. Persecutions, mass deportations, mass murders, torture, economic exploitation.

I really pity the African nations who got convinced to kick out Americans and the French. They will now get a taste of Russia and it will not be pretty.

> If they cannot achieve that objective they want to go down in flames with the rest of the world.

I think this level of unserious analysis is deeply unhelpful. You know people in Russia have their lives and goals, they are not suicidal maniacs. At least read some Russian media with google translate

They are talking about the Russian state, not people in Russia.

People in Russia are indoctrinated and their thinking and worldview is heavily influenced by Russian propaganda. They have never enjoyed freedom of thought or legal protection from the intrusive, corrupt, and murderous state. Their lives belong to the state just like their goals. The concept of personal freedom or privacy doesn't exist in Russia.

Even those who travel abroad don't seem to change their behaviour and thinking no matter how often and how long they visit other countries. They have become the scourge of the tourist resorts that will still take their money. Europeans don't want to go there anymore. It's all vodka, loud parties, and being absolute assholes to others. They are quickly becoming the Sentinelese of Europe.

I will not read Russian media, I had enough of it in my early years when it was compulsory. Russians pillaged my country of birth and continue to be an existential threat. Russians also lied to everybody after 1989 and used the time, the trust, and the money to arm themselves and start invading and killing neighbours. There is zero truth in what Russians say. They can keep their ballet and Dostoyevsky.

> You know people in Russia have their lives and goals, they are not suicidal maniacs.

There are many, many decent people in Russia who abhor this war. But people have zero influence on what is going on. If one day Putin decides to invade the Baltics, your statement about Russians not being suicidal maniacs will still hold true, but again with no relationship with the actual events.

> I really pity the African nations who got convinced to kick out Americans and the French. They will now get a taste of Russia and it will not be pretty.

As a Russian I was with you until this part. Russia doesn't seem to have enough money/influence for that. They get a taste of China instead. Like https://x.com/mirab_clothiers/status/1782115456045728135

At least the west knew what they were getting into when they enabled the Chinese extraction system (no objections here, seemed like a fine quid pro quo for a while). I don't expect we would see benevolence from China towards the west, I do hope they show it to the emerging countries, as they were not so long ago emerging themselves.

Not sure I understand most of your comment, what extraction system?

China tends to be even more narrowly focused than Western powers on mineral extraction in its African investment, and they also have a reputation for relying very heavily on imported Chinese labor in their projects, which means the benefits percolate less than they would with Western projects (itself a pretty meager benefit usually!).

Or it could be a reference to the Chinese tendency to invest in the form of giving countries loans that they are ill-equipped to pay back, and China playing very hardball on poorest country debt forgiveness.

China emerged by building and selling. Part of the rise of china has been the extraction of wealth, resource, and knowledge. I don't say this with any shade, any emotion or feeling, just very literally. A large component of the ability for china to move forward so quickly was the creation of funnels that allowed for exchange. The west mostly extracted the labour and china extracted a bunch of other stuff. I can't think of a better word to describe what literally happened, and again, I'm not saying it with an opinion (that would be another discussion).

Without any judgement, imo: China is good at creating extractive systems.

(I'll add, if you've not read it, "Dealing with China An Insider Unmasks the New Economic Superpower By Henry Paulson" is a fantastic book)

OK, makes sense.

> do hope they show it to the emerging countries, as they were not so long ago emerging themselves.

That’s not how it works.

Read this https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2024/05/08/russia-has-ti...

Russia’s influence in Africa / Asia is greatly diminished since the Cold War era.

China is the primary threat to Western nations, not Russia. China savvily extended its influence in Africa in particular while the US was so caught up with its useless War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, totally squandering its post Cold War opportunities in Africa.

I'm sure Chinese intelligence loves how easily people attribute things to Russia.

Yeah, it's a ridiculous Cold War era kneejerk reaction.

The "nations" in Africa courting Russian influence are largely militant groups that have claimed dominion over lands. Those particular people in charge will probably selfishly benefit a great deal.

They could be embracing the North Korean model. You don't have to be competitive as long as you are untouchable. The elites get wealth and power, and the rest don't matter.

What wealth? Their wealth comes from the natural resources, which they now cannot openly sell at market prices. Give it a few years and the next meeting of the Russian oligarchs will be held on a wooden bench behind the foreign currency exchange kiosk next to the Moscow's Luzniki stadium.

Private wealth, not national wealth. Despite the poverty of his country and decades of isolation, Kim Jong Un is a billionaire who lives an extremely comfortable life.

If you are untouchable, don't care about the people, and can keep the people in check, the economy doesn't matter. You can live in wealth and comfort, while your people face famine and poverty. And the situation can be stable for many decades.

Kim is a billionaire who cannot enjoy his wealth in the same way western billionaires can.

He is untouchable because of the cost of removing him, not because he is so well protected.

If terrorist organizations can sell their natural resource plunder on the black market at profit why can't the Russians? For instance https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-isis-uses-oil-to-fund...

Too little and too slow for Russia’s current needs.

Sure. But what is wealth without a chance to flex? You can park all your yachts in Vladivostok, but it's not exactly the Monaco Yacht Club is it?

Destabilization. You can usually count on it if Russia is involved.

They didn't want to get caught. They want to create chaos, which leads to disillusionment, nihilism, infighting and isolationism and a breaking up of the West's unity. Relevant, from the CBS this week:

> The FBI announced it disrupted a Russian AI-enhanced social media bot farm, which was designed to be an influence operation. Some of the fake profiles from bots purported to be Americans.

Some other examples:

- https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/16/1035851/facebook...

- https://openai.com/index/disrupting-deceptive-uses-of-AI-by-...

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_and_Black_Lives_Matter

It's probably quite effective, but we don't know how effective because it's impossible to re-run the last 10 years without this and see what would have happened.

Poisonings, people falling out of windows, arsons, it all make sense if you consider that it is a state captured by a mafia clan. John McCain famously said that Russia is ‘A Gas Station Run by a Mafia That Is Masquerading as a Country’

> that it is a state captured by a mafia clan

most countries are captured by a mafia clan, this isn't a thing specific to Russia. When you have powerful intelligence services sooner or later they end up taking over.

But there are differences.

For example, Asian theocracies understand their mission as a state and its government as furthering whatever bizarre ideas they gleamed from the scripture. They are often clan-ish in organization, but this only reflects the history of how they came to be that way, that isn't the goal.

When it comes to the European politicians, they may be very corrupt lying scumbags, but in order to get elected they need to put on a show pretending to act in the interest of the country they want to rule.

When it comes to Russia: they are simply criminals. They don't need to pretend to want to make their country better off. Not in the sense the same corrupt lying European politician would. In prison terms, they try to prove themselves as the higher cast. As those who are allowed (and even required) to humiliate the lower cast.

It's highly unlikely that Russian intelligence service is anything special. But they aren't the ones calling the shots that's for sure. They are just a part of the country-sized prison.

The reality of living in Russia is the perfect example of the false equivalence of the sentiment that “a government is just a mafia”. Magnitude matters.

It's just like how the terrorists hated us for our freedoms and were hiding weapons of mass destruction. The war machine isn't just gonna keep itself running.

To understand anything Russian government does, you need to understand that they aren't a government in the way Western democracies / republics / monarchies understand the function of the government. For someone with largely humanistic outlook on life, the function of the government is to try to make sure that what's being governed prospers. Prosperity may be understood as "more riches for the rich" or "redistribution of wealth" or anywhere in between. But the basic idea is to make things better, at least for some sub-group of thus governed subjects.

Russia is operated by straight-up criminals. And I don't mean white-collar corrupt politicians. They are literally people who committed often very violent crimes. For instance, Putin is implicated in a number of "hits" on law enforcement officers, investigators etc. He was not the one executing the "hits", but he was likely directly involved in the crime. A lot of his associates have done often long time behind bars. For example, his puppet assigned to rule over Ukraine (the one who was deposed in the "revolution of dignity" which set in motion the present conflict) started his career as a gang robber: he, with his friends broke into an apartment, tortured the owners while taking their belongings.

These people have a mental model of the world defined by the prison lore. They have a bizarre set of rules which define what honor is: "honor" (the prison kind of) is the central value / virtue in this system. In this model, the world is divided into "suckers" and "men". "Men" are allowed to humiliate the "suckers" in whatever way they want. In fact, if they don't, they might as well join the "suckers". In this system, anyone who shows any kind of compassion to the "suckers" is him/herself a "sucker". Europeans or anyone who wants to live in a society that values any human life thus is automatically a "sucker".

This is why Russians think and treat Europeans with contempt and disdain. They don't think it to be immoral to steal from a European, or to assault one etc.

It's also "honorable" to accept the risks associated with humiliating the "suckers". To prove how much of a "man" someone is that is. It's actually better to die while proving your place is among "men" than to surrender and live like a "sucker". So, they don't care about international consequences of their sabotage in France today. At least not in the sense how another European country might've cared, should they engage in something similar.

> For example, his puppet assigned to rule over Ukraine (the one who was deposed in the

> "revolution of dignity" which set in motion the present conflict) started his career as a

Deposed by the maidan's "revolution of dignity" president of the Ukraine Yanukovich had not been "assigned to rule over Ukraine", but elected in competitive voting, that OSCE certified as democratic and "organized in a transparent manner."

You are entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts.

I think you have to be Russian to fully grasp the motivations behind this.

I've got a lot of mileage out of the assumption that every such act is supposed to send a message both to Russia's enemies and citizens.

The message being "we are everywhere".

Should anyone try to start working with the enemy, like the helicopter pilot Maxim Kuzminov, they will be found and executed.

EDIT: Navalny's return to Russia raised eyebrows in the west. I think he was aware that he would be targeted anyway, so might as well have it happen on his own terms.

I think about this quite a lot. I presume people at that level are at least TRYING to be strategic in some manner. The two thoughts I used to try and frame it are: the cold war never really ended, it just changed, and, begrudging-capitalist subscribing societies have highly intelligent people in them just like capitalist societies. If nation states are indeed competitive, then a relatively decent strategy would be presume automation is going to rapidly allow for an alternative systems in societies, and while that shift is happening, cause as much problem as you can for the folks unable/unwilling/unknowing, while you start shifting behind the scenes. Marx literally articulated deeply, the idea that socialism, and eventually communism, would arise as a natural progression from capitalism. We may or may not want to accept that, but Marx spelled it out, and lots of people follow Marx as their philosophy.

I try hard to avoid getting conspiratorial in my head, so I tend to leave the thought around that point, after all, it's just a thought. :)

Sowing chaos is always a good strategy, when you need/want to disguise your action behind or among distractions.

As to be reviled, some don't care, as long as they're feared.

The goal is to get some fact they can use in propaganda internally to show how the country is great or succeeding against its enemies. And yeah, everybody that complains about them is an enemy.

Remember that Russian citizens are explicitly told they are "At war with NATO".

russia’s ultimate goal is to spread misinformation to destroy democratic countries from within and then invade these countries’ land.

Because they stand no chance fighting fare and square.

I doubt their goal is to be universally reviled, so what's their real objective?

Believe it or not -- their initial goal was simply to gain respect.

They actually thought the Ukraine invasion would be a walkthrough, and that of course Western countries would whine and moan about of a -- but ultimately they would respect Russia for its audacity and boldness, that Russia would emerge with greatly enhanced stature over its historic rivals, and a new era of Russian gravitas and self-assuredness would begin.

So yes - it was all definitely quite strategic, in theory. But things didn't go as they planned of course, so now they're fighting like a cornered animal.

Except now the fight isn't for "respect", and it certainly isn't about Ukraine -- but rather their own physical and political survival.

My take is they think they are a great power entitled to rule over their neighbours including the former soviet union and thus are entitled to attack all who oppose that by whatever ways including dumb things like disrupting the olympics and funding anti vaxxer and far right folk and the like. Not that I know that much - I'm kind of confused myself.

Here's Keir Giles, who wrote a related book, talking a bit. https://youtu.be/j8wVuHMAEHg?t=688

That reads like an extract from a John le Carré novel.

Are any le Carré characters so flagrantly incompetent? Even the ones who like to drink (like Connie Sachs) manage to keep it under control and function reasonably well.

I always had the feeling that Le Carré's portrayal of Eastern European adversaries was too kind. He clearly underestimated the influence of alcohol over private and professional lives in those lands.

When your culture's drinking problem is so bad that it starts causing information leaks that disrupt clandestine overseas sabotage operations, maybe that's the clue it's time to get a better grip on the culture of alcohol consumption.

I've read that it's not quite as simple or easy as banning vodka or alcohol, as strangely enough, the highest individual source of Russian tax revenue is from excise taxes on the vodka, and revenue from the excise taxes on beer make up 75% as much as the excise taxes on vodka.

Further reading: https://warontherocks.com/2015/07/little-water-vodka-and-the...

They tried an anti-alcohol campaign. It failed.

https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1985-2/anti-alcohol-campaign/

Carrying FSB ID on assignment abroad?

It has to be a decoy of sorts right?

Nope, they operate more or less in plain sight and don't care. They know that they worst thing that can happen to them in the west is expulsion or a jail sentence.

Jan Marsalek reportedly bragged multiple times to business associates about his connections to Russian intelligence services

Anyone capable of critical thinking would suspect false flag attack with this ostentatious lack of forethought.

But well, as we all know, false flag attacks is something only The Enemy does.

It's a pattern. Russian and Belarusian agents attacked rail infrastructure across Europe on several occasions over the last year or so. Not a false flag, but yet another terrorist attack against the European rail transportation infrastructure.

yeah sounds about true. french newspaper also said hamas was russian yesterday. I guess I got a power outage yesterday too. must be putin.

Until RT or Putin confirms it was Ruzzia then you won't believe it.

For other real skeptics, there were 100% clear Ruzzian attacks in France before, there were people that drawn Swasticas, some people that put some coffins , soem Chechen guy with a grenade/bomb. We do not have video or written proof that Putin signed the orders so we need to use our brains and ignore the bots and trolls that defend terrorists.

There has been at least one dangerous fire in a factory or a warehouse per week in Europe for over a year now. Most suspects caught are Russian agents, Russians or people paid by Russia or Belarus.

Do you have a source on that?

I mean they probably won't read it anyways. Usually with comments like "french newspapers said hamas is russian" end up being strictly factually false.

Perhaps a french newspaper said hamas received russian funding or weapons or some other nuance that they completely glossed over. Perhaps it wasn't even a french newspaper or one not well regarded for accuracy (look at what the Onion prints in the US!). Or possibly it's even worse and the article is just posting a quote of somebody who said "hamas is russian" and so it's not even the french newspaper saying it.

This blindness is also commonly seen in the US. i.e. people saying polls had trump at a 0% chance to win the election despite literally a week before the election even CNN had articles saying it's a tight race -- https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/01/politics/presidential-poll-do...

https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/des-rivieres-de-sang-v... here you go about hamas.

and then here you go about left wing being behind the train attack: https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/france-sees-hand-of-far-lef...

this is the problem when having a political bias. you stop being factual. it was not the russian you were wrong and you wont even acknowledge it. before the russian it was the arabs for decades and before that it was the serbs. we know how the hive mind operates.

lefigaro is behind a paywall so not much to read there. Judging from the articles title it sounds _at best_ like the article will claim that "Russia created a photo of a Palestinian soldier" and not that "Russia is Hamas".

> here you go about left wing being behind the train attack

> France’s top cop said Monday he suspects far-left saboteurs [1] [2]

The article you're using as support doesn't support the claim you're making; the guy _suspects_ the far left but going around posted about it as settled matter is inaccurate. We got tons of people on this forum that _suspect_ Russia should I go make a post saying Russia did it and link to them as proof?

[1]: https://archive.ph/TcBBx

[2]: https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/france-sees-hand-of-far-lef...

coming back to this https://www.ft.com/content/9efa3343-e97e-40ed-b7d7-e2b6a6a58...

it was indeed the russian far left from france. you were right I apologize. putin owns even our left wing I wonder how France is even still a nation

got downvoted to -4 while it was revealed that french far left was behind the attack.https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/france-sees-hand-of-far-lef...

nice to see the political wokeness affecting hnews.

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