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writing for godot

Moscow Spies, Rockets and Kink Affairs

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Written by ChilliPepper   
Thursday, 12 June 2014 21:03
Russia’s on its Speedway Back to the USSR

During Joseph Stalin’s reign in the USSR, it was a common practice to blame foreign spies and agents on misfortunes and problems of the communist regime. Whether the blame was put on alleged Polish, German, American or British agents – it all depended on what country Soviet regime considered as its main enemy at any given moment. Additionally, spy allegations were used as an excuse for internal purges in various sectors of the USSR. In the midst of the crisis in Ukraine, it seems that Russian leadership dusted off this age-proven technique and gave a new lease on life to spy hysteria.

The latest alleged accusations have to do with American Council of Young Political Leaders (ACYPL) (http://newsstreet.ru/blog/3622.html )and its recent mission to Russia in May of this year. The declaration was made on 5th of May that exchange program of young leaders of the United States and Russia will resume activity in 2014-2015. In Russia ACYPL is viewed as an organization that almost exclusively funded by the U.S State Department and thus is a key tool of infiltration of American spies in Russian highest echelons of government.

But it gets better: two members of the American delegation, whom Alexei Chepik, a scandalous FSB officer previously exposed recruiting guerillas in Ukraine, indicated as being Khaleb Khalilzad and Jared Katz, who are now being accused by Russia of directly working for National Security Agency (NSA). Their membership in ACYPL is nearly a cover story for illegal spy activities, colonel Chepik claims. Khalilzad is ‘identified’ as a nephew of Zalmay Khalilzad, a former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan and a staunch supporter of former President Bush. Allegedly, Russian side is also questioning Katz’s true identity and whether it is in fact his real name. They suspect him of being an Aid to U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher, one of the authors of Magnitsky Act, and off course accuse Katz of being NSA operative.

The Russian spy hysteria does not stop there. After all in order to fully complete spy ring circle, internal traitors must be identified. Natalya Burlinova, a program manager for Gorchakov Foundation, a branch within Russia’s Office for Foreign Affairs who was in charge of organizing group activities for ACYPL in Russia is being accused of allegedly having close ties with former Russian diplomats. These diplomats are viewed as being “too liberal” and holding their positions prior to President Putin’s ascend to power and thus being a fifth column in Russian Foreign Office establishment. Ironically, Ms Burlinova, who has often publicly positioned herself as a pro-Putin zealot and has even being suspected of reporting to Russian intelligence, could now walk the well-known Trotsky path.

We can only wonder what other sectors in Russian government will be under suspicion of being infiltrated by American spies. The most likely candidate is Roskosmos, a Russian space agency that prior to Ukrainian crisis worked closely with NASA and recently had its share of misfortunes, culminating in yet another failed attempt to launch Proton-M carrier rocket into orbit. To make things worse, a new Russian army jet caught fire during an exercise on June 10 (http://englishrussia.com/2014/06/10/t-50-jet-caught-fire/), driving Russian top military industry official, Dmitri Rogozin, additionally upset by an exotic sexual scandal (http://chapaiff.livejournal.com/3238.html ), into a potential anti-Putin ‘conspiracy pool’. Symptomatically, Russian media managers, scared by recent ominous assassination attempt against their boss, Konstantin Ernst (http://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/155-155/23553-who-has-shot-russias-top-media-boss-and-why ) are honestly eager to hush both incidents, but there is no way to do it in the 21st century.

In any case, due to allegations surrounding ACYPL and Russian Office for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has reasons to be concerned. After all, Joseph Stalin dismissed USSR’s People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maxim Litvinov and replaced him with more reliable Vyacheslav Molotov. Given the latest trends in Russian society to glorify Soviet past, this scenario is not out of realm of possibility.

Joseph Gajic
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