Schlagwort-Archive: Defence

How to deal with Putin’s Agents among us

It is very common today that people accuse each other of being Putin’s agents or at least useful idiots. In general this is seldom based on an in-depths analysis with a wide range of details forming a complex picture. Usually the level of already successful subversion which dominates the discourse is underestimated or folks are not aware something like that exists. It is indeed eye-opening to listen today to the dire warnings of KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov who described the dangers of ideological subversion in the 1980’s. We see the results with wokeism and cancel culture which distract us as indivuals and as citizens of a nation. Bezmenov recommended to watch what happens at universities and forget about the Hollywood nonsense of James Bond movies. Armchair agents in mainstream media use to do the exact opposite and boast about it with clichees when a story about a female GRU agent in Naples is published.

Bell¿ngcat did excellent research and the article on Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera (a false identity) really is worth reading. She posed as a jeweller (though pieces she offered seemed to come from China) to get access to society and hopefully meet NATO officers stationed in Naples. What „Der Spiegel“ promises with a big team in a cover story on „Putin’s saboteurs – How Putin’s agents undermine Germany“ becomes partly true as Adela was somebody’s agent next door („How good do you know your neighbour?“ a newsletter asks). It stimulates a vague feeling of danger and at the same time draws a line between possible agents and our everyday life. What is a remarkable piece of investigation by Bell¿ingcat shows how a certain kind of agents operate. It is not the overall picture from our perspective but it is a vital contribution to it. We need counterintelligence based on the degree of penetration of our countries by Russian intelligence – and this is about high-ranking politicians, military, economy, media, administration, intelligence services, NGOs etc. You’d bet „Der Spiegel“ and those journalists who admire their colleagues would not connect all the dots but continue to force the covert Russian agenda.

„Der Spiegel“ and Russian agents

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What’s wrong with Oleg Deripaska?

On the 19th of October reports came up that the FBI raided US homes of Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska on charges like money laundering and blackmail. Earlier claims of the Treasury Department emphasized that he threatened the lives of business rivals, ordered the murder of a businessman, took part in extortion, racketeering and illegal wiretapping and belongs to a Russian organized crime group. But Deripaska who defined his role once as acting unseparable from the Russian state took part in a multilevel Russian influence operation around the 2016 US presidential election. His business partner Paul Manafort who owed him several million Dollar was for several months Donald Trump’s campaign manager. When Manafort lobbyed for the Putin friendly Ukrainian government prior to 2014, he was joined by former Austrian chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer. I did a lot of research on Deripaskas network in Austria and the covert Russian strategy unfolding with it; another word for it would be „multilevel Russian influence operation“.

In 2007 Deripaska visited Vienna with Vladimir Putin to acquire shares of construction company Strabag; he demanded a seat in Strabag’s advisory board for Siegfried Wolf who was the CEO of Magna where Deripaska also became partner. The then chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer in 2010 was elected chairman of the advisory board, which Wolf left in 2015. The shares which Deripaska bought were from Raiffeisen who still is partner in Strabag; the deputy chairman of the advisory board is Erwin Hameseder from Raiffeisen. The screenshot below shows a photo of Deripaska the Denver Gazette first used in front of the GAZ factory which was once owned by the Russian state when Magna in 1998 began to cooperate with it. Now Siegfried Wolf is Deripaskas business partner and has bought the MAN factory in Steyr in Upper Austria. Gusenbauer took part in Manafort’s Ukraine Lobbying and in Austria he and Wolf pushed Rene Benko of Signa Holding who bought the Chrysler Building and was represented by Skadden, another Ukraine Lobbying Partner.

Deripaska and GAZ

What’s wrong with Oleg Deripaska? weiterlesen