Latest news with #AndreiSoldatov
Wall Street Journal
03-08-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
‘Our Dear Friends in Moscow' Review: Propaganda and the Press
In September 2020 Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, two of Russia's leading investigative journalists, fled to the West. For years they had been watched and harassed by their country's security services, and by that spring Mr. Soldatov's life was in danger. Neither of them could have imagined this would be their fate when they started out as young reporters in 2000. Having come of age in the 1990s, they had believed that they belonged to a new generation of Russians who were committed to democracy and human rights, only to see their friends reject these ideals in favor of authoritarianism and anti-Westernism. 'Our Dear Friends in Moscow' is a searing and sobering book that captures the profound cynicism and xenophobic nationalism that define contemporary Russia. 'Our Dear Friends in Moscow' tells two interconnected stories. One is intensely personal and recounts the relationships among Mr. Soldatov, Ms. Borogan and several fellow journalists: Evgeny Krutikov, the scion of a once-elite Soviet family; Petya Akopov, an intellectual with a fascination for repressive regimes; Zhenya Baranov, a war correspondent; and Olga Lyubimova, a TV host with connections to the reactionary film director Nikita Mikhalkov. In the early days, their differences seemed unimportant. They worked and socialized together. They partied, drank, smoked and debated the 'accursed questions' about Russia's troubled past and murky future. Things changed once Russian president Vladimir Putin began to suffocate the independent media and civil society in the early 2000s. For a while it seemed that the regime would allow liberal journalists some space in which to work. 'Many believed that this coexistence could last for years and that one day Putin would just be gone,' the authors write. Then, they add, 'things would go back to 'normal'—whatever that meant.' But Mr. Putin did not go away, and the repression intensified. Mr. Soldatov, Ms. Borogan and their friends had to decide whether to resist and join the opposition or to surrender and join the Putin propaganda machine.
Telegraph
21-03-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Why MI5 will be checking very carefully for Putin's fingerprints on the Heathrow fire
It has marked similarities, for example, to the arson attack on a Ukrainian-linked warehouse in east London last year for which two British men were arrested. German intelligence is also reported to be looking at the series of car rammings – several of them fatal – that occurred ahead of the recent German elections. They believe they may have been instigated by Russian intelligence in order to inflate support for the far right. According to Russia specialists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, Russia's intelligence agencies have become adept at using social media not just as a tool for stirring discontent and spreading conspiracies, but recruiting local criminals, poor immigrants and mentally vulnerable individuals to carry out attacks for them. A similar modus operandi has been used by the Iranian intelligence services to recruit spies across Israel, many of whom have been arrested in recent months. 'These attacks don't necessarily have to be violent to be effective,' they write in Foreign Affairs. 'There are indications that Russian agencies could use social media to recruit teenagers, including those belonging to post-Soviet diasporas, to spray hateful slogans on the walls of apartment buildings in neighbourhoods with a significant migrant population, threatening or humiliating locals to incite hatred against refugees from Ukraine or Syria. These attacks don't require much preparation and may cost only a few thousand dollars. More ambitious recruits might be paid to undertake more violent actions, such as committing arson or throwing Molotov cocktails'. The British security services will be in no doubt about the threat from Putin's Russia. They have been on high alert ever since the killing of Alexander Litvinenko with polonium in London in 2006 and the botched assassination of the Skripals with the nerve agent Novichok in 2018. And earlier this month a team of Russian agents were found guilty following the biggest spying investigation in Britain. The spy ring, made up of Bulgarian nationals, plotted kidnaps, disinformation campaigns, surveillance against Ukrainian troops and secret weapon trades with China from their base in Great Yarmouth. The group received orders from Moscow via Jan Marsalek, a fugitive tech boss and one of the most wanted men in Europe. MI5 will also be aware of Russia's most brazen recent assassination attempt in Europe: the plot to kill in the spring of last year Armin Papperger, the head of Rheinmetall, Germany's largest arms manufacturer. The murder was thwarted by German and American intelligence, confirmed Mr Appathurai, the Nato official, in January. The Heathrow fire could of course yet turn out to be an accident. It is well known that the country's infrastructure is creaking and perhaps it is just a coincidence it occurred so close to the airport at such a sensitive time. Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, said there was 'no suggestion that there is foul play' on Friday morning. Nevertheless officers from Counter Terrorism Command were leading the investigation because of 'the impact this incident has had on critical infrastructure', The Telegraph was told. The officers – also known as 'SO15' – will play a key role to try to establish whether or not any hostile agents were involved in triggering the blaze. At least 1,351 flights going to and from the airport will be impacted by the closure, with up to 291,000 passengers thought to be affected. Inbound planes have been diverted to other airports, including Shannon in Ireland and Charles de Gaulle in Paris, with aviation experts saying the impact of disruption is 'similar to 9/11'. Terrorism or otherwise, it is likely we will see much more hybrid warfare from Mr Putin's agents over the next few months and years. Soldatov and Borogan say that the idea that a deal between President Donald Trump and Putin to end the fighting in Ukraine will cause Russia's spies and saboteurs to step back is 'dangerously mistaken'. 'For centuries, Russia has viewed the West as intent on Russia's subjugation or outright destruction, and Soviet and Russian intelligence services have operated for decades on the assumption that the West is an implacable foe', they write in Foreign Affairs this week. 'To Moscow's spies, Trump's courting of Putin has provided an opportunity to expand and strengthen their subversion campaign in Europe. Given the Trump administration's scepticism toward NATO and the defence of its transatlantic allies, a US-Russian agreement could increase Moscow's willingness to launch unconventional attacks in Europe'.
