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Comment by Chance-Device | Hacker News Reader

Russia seems to own the far right mindspace to a large degree, and I’m sure they’ve spent a large amount of resources for many years shaping those perspectives and narratives to suit themselves.

I also suspect that Russia has been causing the very problems that the far right reacts against, most notably immigration. Remember wirecard? Germany’s fintech darling, which was run by Jan Marsalek, who turned out to be a Russian spy? What was one of the things they were doing? Funding people smuggling into Europe. To strengthen the right that Russia owns.

https://www.rferl.org/amp/russia-wirecard-marsalek-spy/32844...

They’ve been directly disrupting the west while controlling those who offer the “solution”.

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> I also suspect that Russia has been causing the very problems that the far right reacts against, most notably immigration.

They absolutely are.

A large portion of immigrants into Europe originate from countries suffering from conflicts that Russia has a big hand in. The big one, of course, being Syria, but also many African nations where the Wagner group, now effectively re-branded as the Russian Africa Corps are providing military support and protection.

Another big aspect of Russia facilitating immigration into Europe, is the immigration route through Belarus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus%E2%80%93European_Union...

Russia has their base in Syria but the US has been trying to destroy Syria through covert and non covert means since at least 1982. Russia is newcomer to Syria conflict.

Checks out - Russia is the country you end up with when you have the far right's ideology.

Ironically, Soviet Union was the product of the far left ideology.

I don't understand why the focus on one side? Russia was caught financing extreme-left parties, religious parties (including hamas, isis and hezbollah), conservative parties (moderate and extreme), rebels, terrorists ...

Certainly seems Russia has no ideology they care about beyond "sabotage states", with some priority on western states, but certainly not just western states. They fund political parties in ex-Yugoslavia that are LITERALLY at each other's throats (with knives and guns, not with protests and shouting).

They're sowing chaos wherever they can, however they can. Priority seems to be on the UK, Brussels/EU and the US, but it's not like they're not doing it in places like Rwanda as well. Whether that means supporting extreme-left, extreme right, or just whoever is willing to turn guns on the police or some ethnic group they hate, Russia/Putin just doesn't care.

Hell, daesh/isis got funding from Russia, killed 145 Russians in Moscow ... and Russia funded them again, after blaming Ukraine for the attack. They just don't care.

Sowing chaos in foreign blocs is a classic far-right manoeuvre.

No one has made more to increase the number of refugees from the middle east than the country who has fought endless wars in the middle east for the last decades. If you're looking for a "culprit" there you have one, but Europe is not ready to accept this.

all middle eastern forever wars are part of the Netanyahu’s Clean Break strategy that US implements

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_...

I remember Ruzzia in Syria too not only USA in fact how many wars was Ruzzia involved sicne USSR fall? Also count special operations as wars?

I blame both USA and Ruzzia for the migrants problem.

Remember Maria Butina, Russian spy in the NRA?

She was actually mentored and funded by real life Pro Gun Ownership guys in Russia. mass civilian gun ownership is not a thing in Russia, but they were inspired by the NRA's example and were trying.

Remember the 7 compromised GOP senators members visiting Moscow on independence day uncomfortably posing for a photo op?

I sometimes wonder whether the sudden rise of "gender politics"... is all part of some sort of conrolled oppopsition narrative.

"Gender politics" is used heavily within Russia to provide a contrast to "masculine traditional values" which in turn are used to convince 100,000s of men to (quite ironically) be turned into cannon fodder against Russia's real or perceived enemies. And even more ironically is used by security services and the military in the form of rape against (male) political dissidents and soldiers.

I know about Wirecard and the Marsalek story, but not about this:

> Wirecard [...] Funding people smuggling into Europe

Can you elaborate?

Trump represents a short term "win" for Russia, but Russia in the medium/long term is as screwed as you can be as a country.

Extractive systems quickly ratchet up their time discounting factor, meaning if it's possible to steal something sooner with a bit of aggression than later without, the former will happen usually. (And usually only external forces limit this process.)

I bet you can do a lot of damage in 4 years. Not to mention if Trump tries to run for an unconstitutional 3rd term.

With what David Cameron and Boris Johnston did with us in the uk. Brexit. A lot in four years.

Labour is doing no better.

That'll end up being the real test of whether or not we still have checks and balances.

We allowed a guy that tried to coup the government not only to run for office again, but to win and disappear all his criminal charges.

What rule of law. What checks and balances?

Oh I didn't say the US would survive another four years of Trump, i'm saying despite their current state of jubilation, Russia is screwed no matter what.

You actually think there are going to be elections again?

Why not? Russia has elections too.

touche!

Even if Trump doesn't run again, Vance will, he'll declare victory no matter what happens, and Trumpism will have another opportunity to coup the government after failing and learning from their mistakes the first time.

Does anyone have any information on the whole "Krasnov" claim, whereby Trump was supposedly recruited by the KGB in the 80's and given the designation "Krasnov"?

It's pointless to ask. Either you believe the story or you don't, but it's not like you can send a FOIA request to the FSB. It's doomed to remain a single-source allegation, even though I find the claim plausible.

As plausible as the pee tape?

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/47630

No one is going to comment here wit any information that isn't trivially findable via google.

It would be beneficial to russia to spread such claims to sabotage US even further even if it's not real. The problem right now -- you can't be 100% sure that it's not. It was believable even before the claim was made.

Absolutely no way it can be proven. However, the actions of "Krasnov" certainly seem to point in that direction.

There have been multiple books written about this, leaks from MI6, etc etc. It's not at all new and doesn't seem to have been debunked, just kind of glossed over.

I find it interesting how the Russian news agency TASS quotes the presidential aide of Russia:

"The election campaign is over," Patrushev noted. "To achieve success in the election, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. As a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them."

https://tass.com/politics/1870713/amp

Thought experiment: Compare three scenarios, in which:

A Trump is not in any way beholden to Russia

B Trump has prospective business interests in Russia

C Trump follows Russian orders even at the cost of US interests

Which of these most easily explains the actual behavior we see?

I was expecting something like this to happen in 2023 after the catastrophic summer offensive. That was when it became abundantly clear that Ukraine was losing the war. There wasnt even a viable plan for victory after that it was just... keep giving weapons and keep those fingers crossed.

For Trump this is about washing his hands of a war that he understands cannot be won and will become an albatross around his neck if he doesnt disengage.

A makes complete sense if you have a full picture of the military industrial situation, but in the west there is very little cognizance of just how badly Ukraine is losing not how limited western options are.

"Krasov" is an appealing explanation because it means not facing this bitter reality.

Three years on and Ukraine is still holding its own. There's no reason this couldn't become Russia's Afghanistan 2.0.

Moreover, Ukraine's rules of engagement have been severely limited. They've been unable to strike airfields inside Russia even though they have the capacity to do so.

It's really not holding its own. The military situation is dire. Budanov accidentally let slip that they can keep going for another 6 months...1 month ago. That's probably about when a catastrophic line collapse will occur, if not sooner.

It's unlikely to become another Afghanistan because A) it does not have Afghanistan's superlative geography for hit and run attacks on supply chains and B) coz this war burned through Ukraine's best troops such that now mostly all they have left are TCC-kidnapped soldiers who would rather submit to Russia than fight.

Even if Trump seems to behave like in case C there could be others like

D Russia can blackmail Trump

E Russia pay Trump to act in favour of of Russia even at the cost of US interest.

> Russia can blackmail Trump

I don't think that's possible at all.

It's been proven time and time again that Trump is untouchable. He joked about being able to shoot somebody and not lose voters, and it's too true. People that love Trump love him because of the people he hurts, not the people he helps. If he shot someone, his supporters would be like "haha he murdered someone! That makes you so angry, doesn't it? MAGA!"

So, no, I don't think Russia could blackmail Trump. Any dirt Russia has on Trump could be released and it wouldn't decrease Trump's support. For fuck's sake, we already know he was a regular visitor to Epstein's Kiddie-Diddle Island.

Also the Muslim refugees flooding Europe crisis has largely been a result of the Syrian civil war, with Russia being the main and mostly only ally of Bashar al-Assad. Supposedly, motivation there was Putin not wanting to lose his only ally in the region left after Gaddafi was murdered, not so much an intentional effort to destabilize Europe, but hey, it worked out, I guess.

Before that there was the drawn out conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The amount of refugees was staggering.

Do take the time to check the facts sometime where those refugees ended up. How many did Germany accept? How many did Sweden take? How many did the US accept?

It does put the recent claims that Europe should pay up for its protection into perspective.

Didn't the disintegration of Libya also not play a big part to start the refugee crisis? Someone explained to me once that once Gaddafi was gone and Libya became a fractured state, that it essentially became a refugee gateway into the Mediterranean as previously that "band" of North African countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt) where acting as a buffer preventing refugees from African countries to move Northwards.

What’s the phrase, never let a good crisis go to waste?

It was qctually Israel that wanted to destroy an ally of Iran and weaken Iran. Russia was only defending his ally. It was not driving the conflict.

The refugees started coming months before Russia's involvement, after the organized campaign with the pictures of a dead young boy on the shore.

I think it's because the really wanted to keep their navy base in syria

Russia had both a navy base and an air base in Syria. They used the navy base to project power into the Mediterranean Sea and the air base to protect power into Africa (Wagner Group logistics, and air cargo transport of cash bribes and conflict minerals).

That's the same thing.

Yeah… who dares interfere with US intervention of a country?!

russia voted for or abstained from voting about the intervention in Libya if i remember correctly

I'm still dumbfounded how this era gave rise to the emergence of stable long-term bs narratives across all society. Russia leverages gullibility a lot but surely there's other factors at play.

Simple. If I'm Russia, I would do everything I could to directly fund every pacifist academic possible, and literally anything that bogs things down, especially if it gives moral fuzzies on paper. Nothing is more useful than something that wastes time, increases complexity, while being tied into morals and worldview, causing it to be impossible to question why or where the push is coming from.

"Put your guard down, there's no credible threat."

"Gender equality in the military? Expensive, complicated - do it!"

"Additional rules for soldiers? Expensive, complicated - do it!"

"Do we really need a military this large? Nah, downsize!"

"The US would never not follow their promises, real or implied."

"The UN is a powerful and effective safeguarding body; trust them."

"International law is a powerful and effective deterrent against invasions."

"Maybe the military should be focused on more civilian improvement activities."

"Can we start researching whether we could be a post-militarized society?"

> Simple. If I'm Russia, I would do everything I could to directly fund every pacifist academic possible, and literally anything that bogs things down, especially if it gives moral fuzzies on paper.

And they tried that, and never really gave up on it, but the real big returns came when they started funding of the international white supremacy and far right movements.

I'm skeptical that it is only the Right. Maybe predominantly, or more explicitly, but anyone wanting power and control on either side would want to sell themselves out, too.

It is not only targeting the Right. I'd suggest that Russia isn't primarily interested in bolstering the right specifically. They are interested in dividing national societies as well international alliances along any possible ideological issue, effectively shattering the entire thing - divide et impera.

You can see some indication of this in the Mueller report on Russia's election interference in the US, and the DOJ indictment against Prigozhin and his Internet Research Agency troll factory. They kept playing both sides: pushing Facebook groups that were strong pro racial justice & BLM while also pushing pro cop / back the blue Facebook groups. At some point, they scheduled protests for both sides of this particular issue at the same time and place, clearly hoping for altercations.

But I think it's safe to say that, at least in the US, their efforts seem to have mainly focused on the Republican side. However, here in Germany, both the populist far-right AfD and the populist far-left political Party BSW around former Linke politician Sarah Wagenknecht are very much aligned with Russian interests: https://www.dw.com/en/russias-best-friends-in-germany-afd-an...

Oh, you mean people like Jill Stein? Sure. Notably, she has never been part of the mainstream left.

https://archive.thinkprogress.org/jill-stein-campaign-russia...

https://www.salon.com/2024/09/23/jill-stein-paid-100000-to-a...

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/russians-...

https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/democracy-now/clip/why-jill-s...

Why not compare their actions? We have a previous president who tried to maintain the constitutional political process in the US right up to handing off to the current administration. And then we have a current administration who seems to want to sow a bunch of chaos and a majority in congress who were fine complaining about circumventing legislators in the previous administration but who now do nothing to stop it. So given those actions, do you still believe that both sides would stop at nothing to hold on to power?

most of the European and US refugees are due to American forever wars in support for Israeli "clean break" strategy by Netanyahu.

Please don't try to put the blame on Russia, where it squarely belongs to the USA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_...

Syria is very much Russia's conflict.

"Russia supported the Ba'athist administration of former President Bashar al-Assad of Syria from the onset of the Syrian conflict in 2011: politically, with military aid, and (from September 2015 to December 2024) with direct military involvement."

Very much so. Thanks

Syria, with its 17+ factions (including ISIS) rebellion is definitely... complicated. I wouldn't know where to lay blame, personally.

Do you remember when the US started paying Al-Queda to destabilize Syria

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

go to wikipedia and read the history of Syrian conflict and how many years after it started, did Russia intervene

Good call!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Syria_relations

> an agreement was signed in February 1946 ensuring Soviet support for Syrian independence ahead of the evacuation of French troops in April 1946

> In 1971, under an agreement with President Hafez al-Assad, the Soviet Union opened its naval military base in Tartus

> On 8 October 1980, Syria and the Soviet Union signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation

So, "how many years after it started" appears to be a negative number.

yes soviet union had diplomatic relations with Syria as well as other arab states, but Russia didn't involve in Syrian civil war instigated by the CIA (so called Arab Spring) and completely fumbled by Barry Soetoro

You're thinking about intervention as if it means direct military involvement. They were allied with Assad and supplying weapons the entire time.

Supplying weapons to whom? It was bona fide weapons purchases program from one state to another, like all other states procure their weapons.

Syrian war was civil war financed by the NED, USAID and other US entities to topple Assad, like they did in other arab spring states.

It took several years of civil war and unsuccessful bombing of civilians by Barry Soetoro, unsuccessful funding of various jihadi groups by the Pentagon and CIA (separately), the same groups that led to the rise of ISIS. Only then by the request from then president Assad, did Russia help with strikes against ISIS

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