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A number of Republican and MAGA figures have reacted angrily after The Houston Chronicle, one of the biggest newspapers in Texas, endorsed President Joe Biden.

The Houston Chronicle‘s editorial board said they would be backing Biden in the Democratic primary and for re-election so he can “make life better” for the American people as well as prevent the “chaos, corruption and danger to the nation” that would accompany his presumed 2024 Republican challenger Donald Trump returning to the White House.

The Houston Chronicle‘s praise for Biden will be a boost for the Democrat as he seeks re-election in November. It remains to be seen how much of a difference the endorsement will make, seeing as Texas has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate for nearly 50 years, with Trump beating Biden in 2020 by six points in the red state.

In their editorial, the paper’s board admit that Biden “has his shortcomings,” but what his administration has achieved during his time in office is a “potent reminder to his fellow Democrats, to independents and to those Republicans who have somehow resisted Trump’s cultish appeal that the nation has a viable alternative.”

President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the reported death of Alexei Navalny from the Roosevelt Room of the White House on February 16, 2024 in Washington, D.C. The Houston Chronicle, one of the largest newspapers…
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the reported death of Alexei Navalny from the Roosevelt Room of the White House on February 16, 2024 in Washington, D.C. The Houston Chronicle, one of the largest newspapers in Texas, has endorsed Biden for re-election.Anna Moneymaker

The editorial notes how the U.S. economy is now “healthier” than any other advanced nation having recovered from the pandemic, unemployment is approaching a 50-year low and that inflation is falling.

The board cites other achievements from Biden’s presidency, such as seeking a “modest effort” to address gun safety, introducing a price cap on insulin, leading an allied response to Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s “brutish” invasion of Ukraine as well as seeking a “path to peace and stability in the post-October 7 conflagration involving Gaza, Iran and Israel and the desperate Palestinian people.”

“We are well aware that the Biden administration has not been successful on every front,” the board wrote.

“The calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan was the most obvious failure. The administration’s inability to quell chaos at the border is another, although blame primarily belongs to caviling and cynical MAGA Republicans in the House.

“In servility to Trump, they torpedoed a bipartisan border-security plan painstakingly crafted in the Senate. Biden can’t solve the crisis by executive order; he needs Congress to act.”

In response, a number of Trump supporters lashed out at the paper for their endorsement of Biden on social media.

Steve Guest, a former spokesperson for Texas Senator Ted Cruz, posted on X, formerly Twitter: “Untethered from reality. REMINDER: the economy is a mess, our country is being invaded and the border is wide open, and the world is on fire from the Middle East to a ground war in Europe due to Joe Biden’s policies.”

Talk show host Joe Pagliarulo wrote: “O M G—I just LOVE this parody account for the Houston Chronicle. Kudos!!”

Comedian and political commentator Tim Young posted: “Fill the Houston Chronicle office with illegal immigrants. They endorse it, they can house it.”

Robert Bowlin, who frequently supports Trump on social media, added: “So, do you just not care about the fact that he can barely speak and he appears to be on the verge of tears in every press hearing?”

The Houston Chronicle board did note the concerns about the age and cognitive ability of Biden, who will be 82 by the start of his potential second term in office, and said that he may not be the “energetic, garrulous, occasionally even eloquent” public speaker of previous years.

However, the board suggested the president has “forgotten more than his presumed Republican rival will ever know. That’s not saying much, and at the same time, it says it all.”

Trump’s office has been contacted for comment via email.

IT IS UNUSUAL for spymasters to taunt their rivals openly. But last month Bill Burns, the director of the CIA, could not resist observing that the war in Ukraine had been a boon for his agency. “The undercurrent of disaffection [among Russians] is creating a once-in-a-generation recruiting opportunity for the CIA,” he wrote in Foreign Affairs. “We’re not letting it go to waste.” The remark might well have touched a nerve in Russia’s “special services”, as the country describes its intelligence agencies. Russian spies botched preparations for the war and were then expelled from Europe en masse. But evidence gathered by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a think-tank in London, and published exclusively by The Economist today, shows that they are learning from their errors, adjusting their tradecraft and embarking on a new phase of political warfare against the West.

The past few years were torrid for Russian spies. In 2020 operatives from the FSB, Russia’s security service, botched the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, the recently deceased opposition activist. He mocked them for spreading Novichok on his underwear. Then the FSB gave the Kremlin a rosy view of how the war would go, exaggerating Ukraine’s internal weaknesses. It failed to prevent Western agencies from stealing and publicising Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine. And it was unwilling or unable to halt a brief mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, last year. The SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, saw its presence in Europe eviscerated, with some 600 officers expelled from embassies across the continent. At least eight “illegals”—intelligence officers operating without diplomatic cover, often posing as non-Russians—were exposed.

The study by RUSI, written by Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds, a pair of the organisation’s analysts, and Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former adviser to both Ukraine’s defence minister and foreign intelligence chief, draws on documents “obtained from the Russian special services” and on interviews with “relevant official bodies”—presumably intelligence agencies—in Ukraine and Europe. In late 2022, the study says, Russia realised that it needed more honest reporting from its agencies. It put Sergei Kiriyenko, the Kremlin’s deputy chief of staff, in charge of “committees of special influence”. These co-ordinate operations against the West and then measure their effect.

That personnel change appears to have produced more coherent propaganda campaigns. In Moldova, for instance, a once-scattershot disinformation effort against the country’s bid for European Union membership grew more consistent and focused last year. It tied the accession bid to the president personally, all the while blaming her for Moldova’s economic woes. Campaigns aimed at undermining European support for Ukraine have also picked up. In January German experts published details of bots spreading hundreds of thousands of German-language posts a day from a network of 50,000 accounts over a single month on X (Twitter as was). On February 12th France exposed a large network of Russian sites spreading disinformation in France, Germany and Poland.

Meanwhile the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, has also been re-evaluating its tradecraft. In recent years its Unit 29155—which had attempted to assassinate Sergei Skripal, a former GRU officer, in Salisbury, Britain in 2018—saw many of its personnel, activities and facilities exposed by Bellingcat. The investigative group draws on publicly available information and leaked Russian databases for its exposés.

The GRU concluded that its personnel were leaving too many digital breadcrumbs, in particular by carrying their mobile phones to and from sensitive sites associated with Russian intelligence. It also realised that the expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in Europe had made it harder to mount operations and control agents abroad—one reason why the invasion of Ukraine went awry.

The result was wholesale reform, which began in 2020 but sped up after the war began. General Andrei Averyanov, the head of Unit 29155, was, despite his litany of cock-ups, promoted to deputy head of the GRU and established a new “Service for Special Activities”. Unit 29155’s personnel—once exemplified by Alexander Mishkin and Anatoly Chepiga, Mr Skripal’s hapless poisoners, who insisted that they had travelled to Salisbury to see its cathedral’s famous spire—no longer carry their personal or work phones to its facility, using landlines instead. Training is done in a variety of safe houses rather than onsite. Whereas half of personnel once came from the Spetsnaz, Russia’s special forces, most new recruits no longer have military experience, making it harder for Western security services to identify them through old photographs or leaked databases.

A separate branch of the Service for Special Activities, Unit 54654, is designed to build a network of illegals operating under what Russia calls “full legalisation”—the ability to pass muster even under close scrutiny from a foreign spy agency. It recruits contractors through front companies, keeping their names and details out of government  records, and embeds its officers in ministries unrelated to defence or in private companies. The GRU has also targeted foreign students studying at Russian universities, paying stipends to students from the Balkans, Africa and elsewhere in the developing world.

For another example of how Russian spies have turned disaster into opportunity, consider the case of the Wagner Group, a series of front companies overseen by Mr Prigozhin. Wagner initially served as a deniable arm of Russian influence, providing muscle and firepower to local autocrats in Syria, Libya and other African countries. In June 2023 Mr Prigozhin, angered by the mismanagement of the war by Russia’s defence minister and army chief, marched on Moscow. The mutiny was halted; two months later Mr Prigozhin was killed when his plane exploded midair.

Russia’s special services quickly divided Mr Prigozhin’s sprawling military-criminal enterprise among themselves. The FSB would keep domestic businesses, and the SVR the media arms, such as the troll farms which interfered in America’s presidential election in 2016. The GRU got the foreign military bits, split into a Volunteer Corps for Ukraine and an Expeditionary Corps, managed by General Averyanov, for the rest of the world. The latter missed its target of recruiting 20,000 troops by the end of last year, says RUSI, though its strength is “steadily rising”. There have been hiccups: Mr Prigozhin’s son, who mystifyingly remains alive and at liberty, offered Wagner troops to the Rosgvardia, Russia’s national guard, prompting a bidding war between the guard and the GRU, according to the authors.

The net result of this consolidation is a revitalised Russian threat in Africa. Shortly after Mr Prigozhin’s death General Averyanov visited various African capitals to offer what RUSI describes as a “regime survival package”. In theory the proposals involve the GRU providing local elites with military muscle and propaganda against local rivals. In Mali, they observe, the GRU-created Lengo Songo radio station is one of the most popular in the country. In return Russia would get economic concessions, such as lithium mines and gold refineries, and so leverage over enemies, perhaps including the ability to sever France from uranium mines in Niger (France needs uranium for its nuclear power stations). Mr Prigozhin is dead; his malevolent influence lives on.

Mission possible 

Russian intelligence, though bruised, is firmly back on its feet after its recent humiliations. In recent weeks the Insider, a Riga-based investigative website, has published a series of stories documenting Russian espionage and influence across Europe. They include details of how a GRU officer in Brussels continues to provide European equipment to Russian arms-makers, and the revelation that a top aide in the Bundestag and a Latvian member of the European Parliament were both Russian agents, the latter for perhaps more than 20 years.

“It’s not as bad for them as we think it is,” says Andrei Soldatov, an investigative journalist, who reckons that the Russian services are “back with a vengeance” and increasingly inventive. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, and once a (mediocre) KGB officer, is “trying to restore the glory of Stalin’s formidable secret service”, explains Mr Soldatov. He points to a case in April 2023 when Artem Uss, a Russian businessman arrested in Milan on suspicion of smuggling American military technology to Russia, was spirited back to Russia with the help of a Serbian criminal gang—a common intermediary for the Russian services.

In the past, says Mr Soldatov, the FSB, SVR and GRU had a clearer division of labour. No longer. All three agencies have been particularly active in recruiting among the flood of exiles who left Russia after the war. It is easy to hide agents in a large group and simple to threaten those with family still in Russia. Germany is of particular concern, given that the many Russians who have moved there could make up a recruiting pool for Russian spy bodies. The flood of new arrivals is thanks in part to Baltic countries having grown more hostile to Russian emigres.

Moreover, Russian cyber-activity goes from strength to strength. In December America and Britain issued public warnings over “Star Blizzard”, an elite FSB hacking group which has been targeting NATO countries for years. The following month Microsoft said that “Cosy Bear”, a group linked to the SVR, had penetrated email accounts belonging to some of the company’s most senior executives. That came on top of a sophisticated GRU cyber-attack against Ukraine’s power grid, causing a power outage apparently co-ordinated with Russian missile strikes in the same city.

The renewal of Russia’s intelligence apparatus comes at a crucial moment in east-west competition. An annual report by Norway’s intelligence service, published on February 12th, warned that, in Ukraine, Russia was “seizing the initiative and gaining the upper hand militarily”. Estonia’s equivalent report, released a day later, said that the Kremlin was “anticipating a possible conflict with NATO within the next decade”.

The priority for Russian spies is to prepare for that conflict not just by stealing secrets, but by widening cracks within NATO, undermining support for Ukraine in America and Europe and eroding Western influence in the global south. By contrast there has been precious little Russian sabotage against Ukraine-bound supplies in Europe. One reason for that is the Kremlin’s fear of escalation. Another is that the Russians cannot do everything, everywhere all at once.

In the meantime, spies will continue to battle against their peers. In their report, Estonia’s foreign intelligence services published the identities of Russians working on behalf of the country’s intelligence services. “For those who prefer not to find their names and images alongside those of FSB or other Russian intelligence officers in our publications, potentially affecting their associations with the West, we extend an invitation to get in touch,” noted the Estonian spooks. “We are confident that mutually advantageous arrangements can be negotiated!”■

Source: 

https://www.economist.com/international/2024/02/20/russian-spies-are-back-and-more-dangerous-than-ever

Skepticism remains high about the Russian leader’s intentions after he told Tucker Carlson that the war in Ukraine could be settled with a peace deal. 

The Biden administration dismissed on Friday a call by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, showing no sign that flagging political support for American military aid to Kyiv had made President Biden more inclined to make concessions to Moscow.

During his two-hour interview at the Kremlin with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who now broadcasts independently online, Mr. Putin offered long defenses of his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 but said he was prepared to settle the conflict diplomatically.

“We are willing to negotiate,” Mr. Putin told Mr. Carlson in the interview, which was released on Thursday. “You should tell the current Ukrainian leadership to stop and come to the negotiating table,” he added, referring to the U.S. government.

The Russian leader spoke at a moment of apparent leverage, following the failure of a vaunted Ukrainian summer counteroffensive to achieve substantial gains and as the Biden administration is struggling to win congressional approval for desperately needed additional military aid for Kyiv.

It is not the first time Mr. Putin has expressed willingness to negotiate over the fate of Ukraine, and Western officials have long been skeptical of his intentions. But because it was his first interview with an American media figure since the invasion, his call for talks has extra resonance, analysts said.

U.S. and Ukrainian officials say that the best Ukraine’s military can hope for in the coming year, especially without more American aid, is to defend its current positions. Even so, Biden officials say they are not entertaining the idea of pressing Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to negotiate with Mr. Putin.

“Both we and President Zelensky have said numerous times that we believe this war will end through negotiations,” a National Security Council spokesman said in a statement. “Despite Mr. Putin’s words, we have seen no actions to indicate he is interested in ending this war. If he was, he would pull back his forces and stop his ceaseless attacks on Ukraine.”

U.S. officials had previously assessed that Mr. Putin had no intention of negotiating seriously until after the U.S. presidential election in November. Mr. Putin, they say, wants to wait to see whether former President Donald J. Trump might return to the White House and offer him more favorable terms.

In an interview last spring, Mr. Trump said the “horrible” conflict in Ukraine must come to an immediate end and that if re-elected, he would broker a deal to “end that war in one day.”

The Biden administration has supported Ukraine’s stated desire to reclaim territory that Russia has occupied since its invasion. Russia now occupies around 18 percent of Ukrainian land.

U.S. officials have also long insisted that, despite the more than $75 billion in aid the United States has supplied to Ukraine, it is not for Washington to dictate whether Kyiv engages in peace talks and what on terms. “Ultimately, it’s up to Ukraine to decide its path on negotiations,” the National Security Council statement said.

Many analysts were also skeptical of Mr. Putin’s intentions. Sergey Radchenko, a Russia historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said Mr. Putin should not be trusted.

Mr. Radchenko said Mr. Putin might be engaging in what during Soviet times was known as a “peace offensive” — an insincere tactical feint whose goal, he said, was “to present a reasonable face to the outside world: ‘Oh yeah, of course we want peace — it’s just the other side that doesn’t want to talk.’”

Some Western officials believe Mr. Putin may also have his domestic audience in mind when he talks about a negotiated end to the war. Polls in Russia have shown that Russian citizens would welcome a settlement to end the conflict that has shaken their economy and produced tens of thousands of casualties.

Talk of peace could also win Mr. Putin favor among nations in the so-called global south — nations in South America, Asia and Africa, including India and South Africa, that are unaligned in the Ukraine conflict. Most of those countries have suffered from higher energy and food prices caused by the war.

Mr. Putin seemed to be exploiting Republican opposition to Mr. Biden’s funding request for Ukraine, echoing critiques made in recent weeks by some conservative members of Congress. “You have issues on the border, issues with migration, issues with the national debt — more than $33 trillion. You have nothing better to do, so you should fight in Ukraine?” Mr. Putin asked.

Alternatively, Mr. Radchenko said, Mr. Putin might be willing to make some unexpected concessions for a peace deal that leaves Russia with a foothold in eastern Ukraine, “and then use that as a basis for either further aggression against Ukraine, or as leverage to force a preferred government on Ukraine.”

Samuel Charap, a Russia analyst at the RAND Corporation, said it was possible that Mr. Putin had been bluffing all along about talks. But he said it was worth engaging the Kremlin in private to determine Mr. Putin’s actual demands.

“Nobody knows for sure — and nobody can know for sure unless they try,” Mr. Charap said. He added that it was notable that Mr. Putin had not told Mr. Carlson that he had preconditions for talks, such as the removal of Mr. Zelensky’s government.

Mr. Charap also noted that Russia and Ukraine were already negotiating on a number of matters, including prisoner-of-war swaps and Ukrainian exports from its Black Sea ports.

Regardless of Mr. Putin’s intentions, analysts and Western officials say that a major obstacle to potential talks is the unwillingness of Ukraine’s public to compromise with an invader that has committed atrocities in their country.

“Zelensky is worried about the domestic political consequences of pursuing a different tactic,” Mr. Charap said.

“Barring a Ukrainian demand signal” for peace talks, “there’s unlikely to be a push from Washington,” he said.

As the war in Gaza continues to unfold, essential questions about Russian and Iranian support for Hamas remain. They include whether Russia played any role in providing support to Hamas ahead of its Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Evidence available from foreign-language publications in Russian, Persian, Arabic, and Hebrew, as well as those in English, provides provocative leads, which, if accurate, have serious potential implications. 

A long courtship

Russia has maintained a relationship with Hamas for more than 17 years, since the group’s leaders visited Moscow in March 2006, just weeks after taking power in the Gaza Strip. 

In the ensuing years, President Vladimir Putin repeatedly invited Hamas’ political and military leadership back to the Russian capital. Hamas officials and commanders secured high-level meetings with then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and Russia’s special envoy for the Middle East, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, among others. 

Bogdanov’s role in the link between Russia-Hamas is central. He has been in charge of the relationship on a day-to-day basis for many years, regularly meeting its leaders in Moscow and Qatar. Bogdanov has also been entrusted by Putin to undertake sensitive diplomatic missions with China, among other major actors, to support Russia’s Mideast policies.

Russian talks with terrorists and Hamas political leaders

Hamas officials who have met regularly with Bogdanov over the years include its political leaders, such as former longtime head Khaled Meshaal; his successor, Ismail Haniyeh, a U.S. Specially Designated Global Terrorist; and Moussa Mohammed Abu Marzouk, a senior member of Hamas’ political bureau who previously served as its deputy chair under Meshaal. They also include senior members of Hamas’ military leadership, such as Husam Badran and Saleh al-Arouri. Badran formerly led Hamas’ military wing in the West Bank, where he planned suicide bombings during the Second Intifada, including the infamous 2001 Dolphinarium discotheque massacre in Tel Aviv, which killed 21 young Israelis. Al-Arouri, characterized by the Israeli government’s public intelligence center as number two in Hamas overall, founded its military wing and directs the group’s military and terrorist activities. He also notably has close, long-standing ties with Iran.

The U.S. Treasury Department first listed al-Arouri as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in September 2015, after he took responsibility for a June 12, 2014, terrorist attack that kidnapped and killed three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank, including dual U.S.-Israeli citizen Naftali Fraenkel. In 2018, the U.S. State Department offered to pay a $5 million reward to anyone who brought him to justice to face trial for his crimes, including several terrorist attacks, hijackings, and kidnappings.

Thus Russia has not limited itself to building a relationship with Hamas’ political leaders. Its lengthy diplomatic courtship of Hamas has included regular contacts with military leaders who have long histories directing terrorist attacks that have killed civilians.

Tighter Russian-Iranian operational relations

Russia has simultaneously built a close working relationship with Iran and its military and terrorist arm, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with increasingly tight financial, military, as well as political ties. Since the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, Iran and Russia have responded to U.S. sanctions with a program to “dump the dollar” and to connect bank-to-bank using SPRS, the Russian counterpart of the financial messaging system SWIFT, utilized by the rest of the world, with the goal of sanctions busting and intensifying their mutual economic ties. By January 2023, Russia had become the largest foreign investor in Iran, putting $2.7 billion into Iranian manufacturing, mining, and transport sectors, according to Ehsan Khandouzi, the country’s finance minister.

On the military side, two weeks before Hamas carried out its brutal Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu traveled to Tehran to meet with Iran’s top security official, Ali Akbar Ahmadian, as well as the head of the IRGC air force, Amirali Hajizadeh, to inspect Iranian-built drones and missile- and air-defense systems. During his visit, Shoigu stated that Tehran and Moscow had worked for months on long-term military cooperation, with “serious military and defense dimensions” and “an entire range of planned activities, despite opposition from the United States and its Western allies.” 

Iran’s pre-attack meeting with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad

Just as conspicuously, on Sept. 1, 2023, five weeks before Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack, the group’s military leader, al-Arouri, traveled to Beirut to meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amirabdollahian and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) Secretary-General Ziyad al-Nakhalah, another long-time Specially Designated Global Terrorist. The PIJ’s longtime openly stated goal is the destruction of Israel.

Since its inception, the PIJ has carried out numerous terrorist attacks, including large-scale suicide bombings against Israeli civilian and military targets. According to the website maintained by the Iranian foreign ministry, at the Beirut meeting, the Iranian foreign minister and the two terrorist leaders agreed to work together on joint action to carry out what they called “the complete defeat of the Zionist regime” with “the formation of a single Palestinian state in all of historical Palestine.”

Critical Hamas-Russian meetings in Moscow

Against this backdrop, it becomes easier to decode the possible substance of important meetings that took place between Russian and Hamas leaders on March 16, 2023, in Moscow, held just days after Hamas received an invitation from Russia. The timing of those meetings is significant, coming one year after the re-invasion of Ukraine and the burgeoning imposition of Western sanctions on Russia and six and a half months before Hamas’ attack on Israel. So why did Russia decide to convene it there and then?

At those meetings, first Lavrov and then Bogdanov met with two of Hamas’ most significant leaders, political head Marzouk and military commander al-Arouri. Coming out of the talks, the top Hamas officials made statements consistent with Russia promising to support Hamas in changing the status quo with Israel. Al-Arouri was quoted stating the Moscow trip “was an important visit [for Hamas] that highlights the role of the movement with many global actors,” in which the Hamas “delegation affirmed its legitimate right to armed resistance [emphasis added] in order to confront the Israeli occupation and continued Israeli violence and oppression of Palestinians.” In response, Bogdanov reportedly emphasized Russia’s “unwavering support” for the rights of the Palestinian people.

After the meeting with Deputy Foreign Minister Bogdanov, Marzouk described the visit on Hamas’ website as “different from its predecessors” since the “[special] military operation in Ukraine [the Russian regime’s term for the war] caused special confusion in the world and in the international system.” 

One possible explanation: this time was different because, in the context of its stalled invasion of Ukraine, Russia had agreed to help Hamas, with the strategic purpose of opening up a costly second front for Western states supporting Ukraine. Now, the West would simultaneously have to support Israel at both military and political cost, especially vis-à-vis the Western countries’ relations with the Global South.

The evidence not only documents Russia’s long-term political support of Hamas, which it does not recognize as a terrorist group, but the meetings with Hamas and Iran also offer circumstantial evidence of engagement on the military side, as reflected by the suggestive timing of the March 16 Moscow meetings with Hamas convened by the Kremlin, and Shoigu’s meeting with Iran just ahead of the Hamas attack. 

The possible use of Russian proxies to assist Hamas

Did the Russian government directly, or indirectly, through proxies — Iran, Syria, or others — provide weapons, military training, financial support, terrorist finance facilitation, or the provision of intelligence and/or strategic or tactical advice to Hamas ahead of its brutal Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel? Could the Russian government even have provided Hamas implicit or explicit approval for the attack before it occurred?

Below is some of what is known to date. Taken together, the datapoints command attention.

Evidence of Hamas’ access to Russian-origin weapons and technology

For years, Hamas fighters have relied on Russian weapons, for example Kornet anti-tank missiles, to attack Israeli targets such as buses carrying Israeli soldiers. Hamas has contended the weapons are made locally — that is, inside Gaza — but the laser-targeting technology used to precisely guide them is not likely to be readily manufactured there. Iran has long been believed to be the supplier. But there is growing evidence that more of Hamas’ weapons originated from Russia as well. 

On July 1, Hamas’ military arm undertook an open-to-the-Palestinian-public, Soviet-style show of its military inventory. Among the Hamas weapons on display were locally made missiles and launchers, Shihab drones, grenade launchers, and Russian-built Kornet anti-tank missiles. One Palestinian publication described the weapons displayed at the show as “Made in Gaza” and “Made in Russia.”

On March 14, just ahead of the Hamas visit to Moscow, CNN cited four unspecified sources who stated that Russia had been sending to Iran weapons and equipment lost on the battlefield in Ukraine that the United States and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) states had provided to the Ukrainian military. These reportedly included Javelin anti-tank and Stinger anti-aircraft systems, which could then be reverse-engineered and used by Hamas. In June, a senior Israeli official stated directly that he was concerned the weapons Moscow sent to Tehran would go straight from Iran to Hamas and Hezbollah.

On Sept. 10, Mossad chief David Barnea declared that the Israeli government was concerned Russia was seeking to sell advanced weapons to Iran in a barter arrangement. Barnea expressed worry that Iran would provide Russia with short- and long-range missiles in addition to the drones it was already selling to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and in turn, Russia would transfer advanced weapons to Iran that could threaten Israeli security “and maybe even our existence.”

Allegations of training by Russian “private” military companies

Using proxies to provide weapons to Hamas and, when possible, to have those weapons manufactured originally in other countries, such as China, or North Korea, fits the Kremlin’s usual modus operandi. Using proxies would enable President Putin to stir up conflict in the Middle East at lower risk than having its forces directly involved in a military action killing civilians. It would also be unsurprising for Russia to use “non-governmental” outfits, such as the so-called private military companies (PMCs), to train foreign fighters or to supply them with weapons, to provide some deniability if outsiders found out. 

The day after the Oct. 7 attack, an official Ukrainian source claimed, “Some of the fighters of the Wagner [Group] PMC, who left Belarus in the direction of African countries, were involved in the training and transfer of combat experience to Hamas militants.” According to the Ukrainian Center for National Resistance, a Ukrainian government news and information agency formed after the Russian re-invasion of Ukraine, Hamas fighters had been training to use small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to drop explosive material as part of their attack. The center stated, “Only the Russians, among the allies of Hamas, have experience using drones with reset mechanisms on enemy equipment.” The center further asserted that Wagner provided Hamas fighters this training in an unspecified African country and that its information had come from “the Belarusian underground,” another country where the Wagner Group had carried out activities in 2023. On Oct. 10, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated, without providing further specifics, “We are certain that Russia is supporting, in one way or another, Hamas operations”; Zelensky reiterated the charge, again without specifics, on Nov. 20.

To date, there has been no non-Ukrainian confirmation of the allegations that the Wagner Group offered training to Hamas. Some have suggested this support was provided in whole or in part by other lesser-known Russian “private” military companies, such as Vegacy Strategic Services or the “Vega Network” with offices in Moscow and complex links to one another, previously alleged to have carried out such training for Palestinian fighters in Syria; another possibility floated was PMC Redut, also active in Syria. 

Whatever the case, someone trained the Hamas fighters to undertake their sophisticated attack on Israel, as well as to behave as they did. In contrast with previous attacks by Hamas, the verified atrocities documented on Oct. 7, seen in footage recorded by body cameras worn by Hamas fighters, resemble the tactics used by Russian PMCs to intimidate and terrify local populations. Gunmen shooting the dead bodies of civilians in cars, beheading a body with a hoe, throwing burnt corpses in a dumpster, and committing heinous acts on the living — these are tactics used by Russian PMC fighters, not only in Ukraine but in the Central African Republic, Mali, Syria, and Libya. 

The Ukrainian account provides one theory of who trained Hamas. Further independent reporting is needed to determine the truth. Of potential relevance is the release of declassified intelligence by U.S. officials on Nov. 21 that the Wagner Group has been recently preparing to provide an air-defense system “to either Hezbollah or Iran” at the direction of the Russian government.

The cryptocurrency connection

At the same time, there is separate evidence of Russian support for terrorist financing for Hamas. The Russian cryptocurrency exchange Garantex, currently under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, has reportedly served not only wealthy Russians, various criminal groups, and Iran but also provided a means to help Hamas — and the PIJ — fund their terrorist operations prior to Oct. 7.

Major intelligence questions

Taken as a whole, the circumstantial evidence raises serious questions about what Russia and Iran knew and how much they may have helped Hamas to carry out its Oct. 7 attack on Israel. U.S., Israeli, and other Western intelligence agencies must work intensively to reach assessments on an array of key questions. With its invasion of Ukraine stalling out, did Russia decide to work to open up a second front in the Middle East as a means of dividing and distracting its adversaries? Did Russia promise Hamas assistance in its meetings with the group’s political and military leadership last March? If so, what did such pledges include: arms and technology, military training, financial support, assistance in money laundering, information warfare, and which types of assistance were provided in practice? Did Russia and Iran agree together to help Hamas, PIJ, Hezbollah or others in the region take on Israel as a means of weakening their respective enemies in the West as well as Israel itself? Did Russia and Iran know that the attack was going to take place? Did they agree on its timing? 

The information that is public does not provide definitive answers to these questions. But there is one more data point that is especially relevant. It is one that took place soon after the Oct. 7 attack and the start of Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza.

The post-Oct. 7 Moscow meetings with Iran and Hamas and Russia’s current disinformation campaign

On Oct. 26, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Bagheri Kani met with Russia’s Bogdanov and Hamas’ Marzouk for a trilateral meeting in Moscow. Officially, the three gathered to discuss dual-national Russians who were being held hostage by Hamas. Little more than that was said publicly, besides Marzouk praising Moscow’s position on the conflict and the active efforts of Russian diplomacy. The New York Times presented the meeting as a belated effort at diplomatic catch-up by Russia to demonstrate its diplomatic engagement in the crisis, after initially seeking to “keep its distance” from the conflict.

If one draws a straight line from the Oct. 26 meeting back to the successive series of Russian-Iranian, Russian-Hamas, and Iranian-Hamas meetings that occurred in the months prior to Oct. 7, it is plausible to suggest there was more on the agenda than diplomacy. The growing evidence of the ongoing systematic Russian effort to disseminate pro-Hamas disinformation, including the retention of Moldovan agents by a Russian national to carry out destabilization efforts in France, provides a further clue of Russia’s continuing efforts to help Hamas and stoke conflict over the Israeli-Hamas conflict in the West.

There is a pressing need for Western intelligence agencies to gather enough information to reach solid conclusions about the extent of Russian involvement in the Hamas attack, and to make those conclusions public. The findings will be an essential element of managing as well as containing the conflict going forward. Any such findings could also have legal implications. Under U.S. law, countries designated as state-sponsors of terrorism have no immunity to civil suits by their U.S. victims. It is thus squarely in the public interest for the truth to come out.

Jonathan M. Winer, a Non-Resident Scholar at the Middle East Institute, was the U.S. Special Envoy and Special Coordinator for Libya from 2014 to 2016 as well as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Law Enforcement.

Photo by YURI KADOBNOV/AFP via Getty Images

Two Russian courts have meted out the first convictions in connection with what the government calls the “international LGBT social movement” and which was designated as extremist last year.

On Thursday, a court in the southern region of Volgograd found a man guilty of “displaying the symbols of an extremist organization” after he posted a photograph of an LGBTQ flag online, according to the court’s press service.

Artyom P., who was ordered to pay a fine of 1,000 rubles, admitted guilt and repented, saying he had posted the image “out of stupidity,” the court said.

On Monday, a court in Nizhny Novgorod, east of Moscow, sentenced to five days in administrative detention a woman who had been in a cafe when a man approached her and demanded she remove her frog-shaped earrings displaying an image of a rainbow, said Aegis, an LGBTQ rights group.

The woman was called to the police station after the man, who filmed the encounter, posted it online.

A trial is set to resume next week in Saratov in southwestern Russian against a photographer who posted images of rainbow flags on Instagram, independent Russian news outlet Mediazona reported.

The rainbow flag represents the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community. Russian law prohibits anyone in the country “displaying the symbols” of organizations it considers extremist, a list that includes social network Meta.

Russia’s Supreme Court banned the “LGBT movement” last November, continuing a pattern of increasing restrictions in Russia on expressions of sexual orientation and gender identity.

A law passed last July outlawed legal or medical changes of gender for transgender Russians, and a law banning the promotion of “nontraditional” sexual relations has been on the books for over a decade. 

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Russia makes first convictions for ‘LGBT extremism’ following ban

Igor Salikov was a Russian GRU officer and former Wagner PMC fighter who defected after witnessing war crimes in Ukraine. Since 2014, he participated in Russia’s covert takeover of eastern Ukraine under the direction of Vladislav Surkov.

In a bombshell interview with Russian human rights activist, Gulagu.net founder Vladimir Osechkin, Salikov described how Surkov carefully crafted the narrative of a separatist uprising led by locals.

Russian proxies like Salikov were restricted to Soviet-era equipment to mask their involvement. Salikov even witnessed how forces under Aleksandr Zakharchenko deliberately shelled Russian-held areas like Donetsk cemetery, blaming Ukraine to manufacture pretexts for escalation.

Salikov realized no true “liberation” was underway – residents were pawns in a larger geopolitical scheme. Through propaganda, isolated incidents were exaggerated into fables of Ukrainian brutality used to justify further bloodshed. But on the ground, most citizens prioritized stability over external manipulation sold as “liberation.”

Salikov’s insider perspectives expose the lies and hybrid warfare tactics that enabled Russia’s long-term campaign. The interview will likely be used within the framework of an international investigation, and in the work of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

We found this interview so important that, after writing its short overview, we created the English subtitles for the entire 2 hours of the video. Below is their shortened text version, adapted for clarity.

How Russian army officer Igor Salikov ended up in private military companies

Vladimir Osechkin: I present to you for the first time on our channel Igor Salikov, an officer of the Russian armed forces and Russian special forces. We have been in touch behind the scenes for almost a year. I welcome you and thank you for agreeing to speak on video for the channel. Please tell us about yourself, your service record, your experience.

Igor Salikov: I enrolled in military school, then was expelled and later went to serve in the army. I took part in military operations in the territory of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Turkestan Military District. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, I finished my service already on the territory of the Russian Federation. And then, I went rogue, became a mercenary. I also went through the criminal structures. Because at that time, the beginning of the mid-90s, where could a poor peasant go.

Vladimir Osechkin: When did you take part in military operations in Ukraine, what was your relationship with the so-called Wagner PMC, and when did you personally meet Dmitry Utkin, what brigade did you serve in, what brigade did he serve in, and when did you find out that there is such a person?

Igor Salikov: I met Dmitry Utkin somewhere around in 2010 or 2011. He was interested specifically in working in such private military structures, and we were already doing this, we were working in Iraq at the time. Dmitry Utkin was from the second brigade, and I was from the 15^th. After I had already gone on to officer positions, after compulsory service when I served then in an airborne assault brigade, I ended up in the 15th brigade, which was based in the Turkestan Military District, not far from Tashkent.

I met Dmitry Utkin from the second brigade through our mutual acquaintance, with whom they served in Chechnya together. So we started communicating with him, and then we had one joint operation there related to returning property to a businessman… I think he was a foreign citizen, bandits in the Moscow Oblast took away his plane, and some other assets, and the man needed help with this issue. The difference here is working for money, and Utkin was recommended to me. He he conflicted with my colleagues from Alpha, and our mutual work ended.

How Russian special services created PMC Wagner to fight in Ukraine

Vladimir Osechkin: When you mentioned Alpha, are you referring to the Alpha Group, the FSB spetsnaz unit?

Igor Salikov: Yes, that’s how Group A of the FSB of Russia is called now. So that was our first meeting, then our paths diverged. In 2013, Utikin signed up for detachments to guard towers in Syria a project led by Gusev and Evgeny Sidorov from the airborne special designation regiment of the 45^th brigade. It was a scandalous project, they were deceived and after two combat encounters were evacuated and flown into St. Petersburg by charter.

Gusev and Sidorov were arrested and the others went through a filtration process, their passports were taken away, the FSB interrogated them, compiled all the data, assigned personal numbers to the cases. Gusev and Sidorov were convicted, initially charged with Article 358, 359 and served three years each, and then everyone went and started fighting in Ukraine.

Vladimir Osechkin: what was the name of this group deployed in Syria and which returned and was arrested?

Igor Salikov: It was the Slavic Corps, it was a legal entity registered in Singapore. They operated, according to our scheme, because Gusev was there, an experienced guy.

The precursor was the Moran group, a structure working for several years before. Moran, then the Slavic Corps, then detention by FSB officers upon returning to Russia, filtration and then formation under control.

In February 2014, the Revolution of Dignity was happening in Kyiv. [Russian media] presented it as a witch’s sabbath. I contacted my long-time friend in the field, a public figure appearing on TV who was invited to give interviews everywhere, because private military companies were discussed in media since 2007 when there was a Kremlin order to study them.

We were still working in Northern Iraq, correspondents came to interview us about private military work. And there was a certain Sladkov who was a pro-government person with his own program on Rossiya-2. He had a list of questions that interested the official structures. This surprised me because we essentially worked for Russia but were at risk of being considered a mercenary. We worked legally under state structures like Northern Iraq government, Kurdistan, in Afghanistan escorting convoys for ISAF. Internationally legal but in Russia we were illegal as mercenaries so people kept away from media.

Wagner defector exposes Russia’s Donbas ruse, false-flag ops in bombshell interview

Prigozhin liked Utkin’s excessive cruelty; Wagner captures Luhansk and Donetsk airports

From him, I learned that a meeting in St. Petersburg addressed forming units according to a similar plan and who would be in charge. I first heard the surname of Prigozhin and his nickname “cook.” I learned that Dmitry Utkin was offered to form a group and show himself in some real action, and then decisions will be made from there.

Based on 50% of my own analytics and 50% of data I have from various sources, meetings took place during April-May when the powers of the future [Wagner] PMC were transferred to a certain person who financed them, then the question arose of who will head it from the military standpoint, and of course, the [FSB] agency reviewed all these lists, called people in and told them that Prigozhin himself will not go to capture the airport in Luhansk.

Utkin was called in given an offer. Knowing him, he didn’t need to be blackmailed, he agreed: this was his line of work. But some were indeed blackmailed and had second thoughts but ended up there in such a spectrum on the edge. A group was formed, there were about 30-40 people who entered Luhansk, and their main task was to crush the units that were defending the airport.

At that time, both in Donetsk and Luhansk, the [Ukrainian] special forces remained in these key [airfields], which provided air logistics. Capturing them was significant in every respect, in military and political terms. And Utkin successfully coped with this, especially while decisions on who would be the military commander of this structure had not been made.

And I have such insider information from a person who communicated with Prigozhin. He said that what Prigozhin especially liked about Dmitry Utkin was excessive cruelty, the execution of all these things without sentimentality. That is, practically no one was taken prisoner, everything was destroyed, and Utkin himself gave the order.

Core of Wagner made from GRU officers; criminals involved

Vladimir Osechkin: Summarizing what you talked about, it turns out that the very creation of this Wagner group, the tactical battalion group, was de facto under the control of the special services, who had dossiers on former GRU officers, and whom the state itself, the FSB, assembled, formed, and connected with the person who was entrusted, through whom the financing of this activity and the execution of such geopolitical and military special tasks, assignments on the territory of Ukraine.

Igor Salikov: In general, as you put it, yes, absolutely correct. The core of the entire unit consisted of GRU officers, but there were also paratrooper guys. The core, which was part of the Slavic corps, fell into this dossier conducted by FSB upon the arrival of the charter flight. Tt was then analyzed, there were special instructions, these people were selected, and everyone was made an offer. Someone accepted with joy, someone, probably, had second thoughts but could no longer refuse.

Vladimir Osechkin: I will just make a small factual insertion here. That is, on the well-known photograph, which can be easily found on the internet, where Vladimir Putin stands with a whole row of people, who have Heroes of Russia on their chests, on the left hand from Vladimir Putin.

Russian president Vladimir Putin (C) pictured with head of PMC “Wagner” Dmitry Utkin (L). This image is believed to date from December 2016.

This is none other than Kuznetsov Alexander Sergeevich, now known under the call sign Rotibor, commander of the first assault unit, respectively, personal number M-0271. In 2008, Alexander Kuznetsov, as a major, served in the special forces, later he was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and robbery. In 2010, he was convicted and served a sentence in the correctional colony in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. By the decision of the Borsky City Court, his sentence was reduced, and in April 2013, he was released on parole. Shortly after, he took command of the first reconnaissance-assault company in Dmitry Utkin’s group, known as the Wagner PMC.

This is one of the small sketches to what we talked about. The person was in the special forces, then was arrested and convicted for committed crimes, then the authorities released him in 2013. And already in 2014, we see that this person who should have still been in a penal colony becomes a commander of the Wagner group. I just mention this so that those who will watch and analyze us understand how the military machine, which gained worldwide notoriety as the Wagner PMC, was formed.

Let’s then turn to the question of how you ended up in Ukraine in 2014. Under what circumstances did this happen? Who controlled it? Whose orders or instructions were you following?

Salikov supports Russia’s sham “referendum” as part of Borodai’s group

Igor Salikov: Despite living and working abroad, I belong to the Soviet generation of people. The spirit of passionarity — compassion for your own and others, international assistance, no matter what kind – was instilled in me from family relations and school. While much proved false, it remained with my generation.

Witnessing events unfold in Russia from 2000-2010, over time it became clear the state leaders and authorities had failed and betrayed the people, as too many villains and corrupt figures had risen up the ranks. However, I believed the core institutions that prevent total villainous rule were still intact. I naively hoped that eventually some hero will stand up and say “enough,” call the warriors into his army and say, come on, comrades, let’s bring order, after all, this is our home there. I also fell for this bait.

[So when the Ukrainian crisis first erupted, I will admit I retained some of that inherent sympathetic mindset. During the Euromaidan revolution, the idea spread that] “our Ukrainian brothers are heading the wrong way.” In particular, the city of Donetsk ]holds a personal connection because] a cousin of mine who had fought all the way to Berlin in WW2 is buried there. All the propaganda portrayed the shocking events, such as the 2 May 2014 clashes in Odesa, in a negative light.

Then, the Crimean Spring [occupation of Crimea, 2014] influenced me in a historical sense; my memories of childhood days joyfully spent with grandparents in Crimea by the seaside still lingered.

And so I ended up in a unit that entered [Ukraine] under the leadership of Aleksandr Borodai [Russian national appointed as the first “Prime Minister of the “Donetsk People’s Republic -ed]. We initially went to Sloviansk to assist a friend from Iraq, who ended up surrounded there as part of Strelkov’s unit.

“Donetsk People’s Republic” ex-PM inadvertently admits he carried out Kremlin plans

But after that, I was assigned to lead a reconnaissance squad in a unit under Borodai who had a task from Strelkov and Russian special services.

Throughout this period, the FSB and counterintelligence were managing numerous operational aspects on the Donetsk side, while the GRU conducted similar functions on the Luhansk side. Putin’s aide Surkov supervised through the FSB line, with the orthodox oligarch Malofeev, who funded Borodai.

Our first major operation was providing armed support for the “referendum,” followed by the founding of the so-called DNR.

My first entry into Donetsk was to support the referendum by force. The second time I entered as the commander of a reconnaissance unit to prevent the Ukrainian-Russian border along the Mius river from being cut off.

Vladimir Osechkin: To talk in chronological order, let’s devote time to the “referendum” and this special operation and then move on to the military part, where you were the commander of reconnaissance. You mentioned the word “curator.” Am I right in understanding that for such professional fighters, special forces officers, having experience in the GRU, other special units, participating in many combat operations in many countries of the world, an institution of curatorship existed in Russia, when the FSB controlled, supervised and formed them for some specific state task?

Igor Salikov: Of course. How else could we move armed around Russia, with ammunition, grenade launchers, in combat vehicles, escorted by police?

In Moscow I saw the rotten side of officers, unlike the honorable ones in Soviet movies. Defending someone legally, they framed me with planted bullets and grenades, even tried to pin two corpses on me. The city police ruined my life and career. But for this operation, such charges disappeared and ammunition appeared.

Vladimir Osechkin: Let’s discuss the formation of the initial group in chronological order, starting with the referendum operation. Which service formed this group? How and where did the physical grouping and arming take place? Can you provide dates or timeframes for your first entry into Ukraine?

Igor Salikov: So, a complex composite question.

The FSB’s second counterintelligence service supervised. They operated through the FSB border service’s reconnaissance office. I don’t recall if it was during the border troops or border services. These details aren’t important. Like the GRU, the specifics aren’t significant. It was through the border service’s intelligence and counterintelligence formations, training, and arming. Weapons came from warehouses, the newest models. In the FSB, the storage facilities were more or less from the army. The machine guns were in good condition, greased, boxes and all. The grenade launchers fired properly. Everything was managed well, with documentation and signatures. But still, it was for for free, nobody really cared about the paperwork. So even machine guns disappeared. Nobody really bothered about it.

The military structure handled operations, while the special services remained curators. In training camps, officer groups resolved all issues – equipment, ammunition, supplies, communication procedures, primary and secondary tasks. We had contact agents and avoided others. There was a lepton, a laptop with secret communication, which connected directly to the operational department that supervised our tasks.

Surkov’s role in creating the “DNR” and “LNR”

Vladimir Osechkin: So, in essence, there was direct management of these special operations?

Igor Salikov: Absolutely correct. Surkov supervised all of Borodai’s group.

At that time, he headed the presidential administration and Putin’s personal aide. He decided all issues, who lives, who doesn’t, what to do. Even in these training camps, everything was coordinated with him. Even all the operational officers were coordinated by Surkov.

He supervised Russian affairs in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, the “DNR,” “LNR.” Surkov remained Putin’s assistant until February 2020. He had constant contact with Putin, the administration head, FSB Director, overseeing Putin’s geopolitical projects.

Vladimir Osechkin: Please elaborate on the role of Putin’s administration, about Vladislav Surkov, and about the structure they built to control what was happening in the occupied territories that later began to be called the so-called “DNR” and “LNR.” Did you have any official status in those events? If yes, what was your position called and within which structure? And what can you tell about the interrelation of these structures with the administration of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, who is subject to arrest based on the warrant of the International Criminal Court?

Igor Salikov: Initially I had no official status. Parallel units were being formed from soldiers discharged retroactively from their previous units. This was to avoid directly involving personnel from army or special services at that time.

In April-May 2014, groups were recruited this way. After units were pre-formed, they were then “legitimized” by the May 11 referendum. Structures were then established based on the newly declared republics, including law enforcement agencies modeled after Russia.

I entered the Special Operations Management under the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Donetsk People’s Republic. Previously this unit worked directly with Borodai under Surkov’s direct leadership. Officials who directly entered the territory of Ukraine starting in May were appointed to head these new structures, including the Attorney General, the military prosecutor, and all the authorities. In June, they started creating some additional structures.

Our unit re-entered in early June after these events, when combat participation was needed to prevent border isolation and the “Voentorg” [military trade] from being cut off. At this stage we were directly managed by the Russian FSB. I have described how units were pre-formed under Surkov and the entry process – people appointed to leadership knew their positions in advance.

How Russia maintained plausible deniability in occupied Donbas

Vladimir Osechkin: What was your role, position, how much was it connected to the presidential administration? What was the relationship, if any, with Surkov, with those who work in the presidential administration, with those who were in the occupied territories?

Igor Salikov: I already told that Donbas was taken into Russian “embraces” directly under the presidential administration, or Surkov. At least I myself heard, it was all secret, but [there were] people who managed the units who already knew they would be appointed to some positions. A unit was formed in Russia’s Rostov Oblast, then it split: a part went to Sloviansk and another to Donetsk.

Some entered Luhansk, others Donetsk. These appointed people received operational commands and clarifications directly from Surkov by phone. Before entering, Surkov worked directly with Borodai and Sergey, a young man with a Georgian surname, to coordinate actions and formations.

Surkov then managed the administration of all appointed officials. For example, he appointed the Attorney General position. Surkov approved the Vostok battalion and communicated directly with [its leader] Khodakovsky in my presence. I heard Khodakovsky speaking to Surkov on the phone.

Borodai as well – he was appointed Prime Minister, holding the role until July/August 2014. This is what I know from personal experience of the structured coordination. Complete consistency was impossible because Donbas was a living organism with many independent currents.

Orders came directly from Moscow to Borodai’s team, who were responsible for coordination. Some like [current “DNR” head] Pushilin got involved, others resisted or served [Ukrainian oligarch] Akhmetov’s interests – many complex dynamics.

Moscow orders to capture Donetsk airport

By 26 May 2014, when the Ukrainian presidential [post-Euromaidan] elections were confirmed, the decision came to capture Donetsk airport, staged for victims and evidence of rebellion.

Then, clashes were taking place on the outskirts, mainly in Sloviansk and Donetsk. The Ukrainian side was building up there, military planes were landing at the airport, it was operational, civilian planes flew from there.

By the end of May, Moscow decided to put an end to all this, signaled to “come on guys, earn your money” as nothing was progressing. It was decided to stage a battle at the Donetsk airport involving Vostok, Oplot and Borodai’s unit and an “Interbrigade number one” created as fodder. Victims were needed, evidence that people were fighting for their freedom, to show that protest sentiments grew to such a degree that fights began. All this was disguised as internal problems of Donbas, with no supposed Russian intervention. Everything was disguised. Weaponry and personnel were meant to appear Ukrainian. The group that entered there should not have been distinguishable from Ukrainians. That was being monitored at the time. Because it was ordered from above.

Everything had to appear organic. Surkov is such a pragmatist, a man of forms. He demanded precision – old Ukrainian weapons and equipment, no visible Russian intervention. The ammunition and rifles had to be from within Ukraine.

Only Ukrainian equipment was used to disguise Russian intervention

Vladimir Osechkin: What kind of equipment was supposed to be used? What kind of ammunition was needed? What was all this for, how was it organized?

Igor Salikov: I don’t know specifics, only that Surkov organized purchases in Russia using financing from Malofeev. They chose groups knowledgeably, as in Chechnya. Surkov still supported Strelkov in Sloviansk then, sending vehicles and ammunition.

When units were being formed at bases in Russia’s Rostov Oblast like at Kazachyi Lageri based on the 22^nd brigade, a roster was made and weapons selected. Everything had to be old Soviet models common in Ukraine, like machine guns. Newer weapons unavailable in Ukraine at the time were not used.

Vladimir Osechkin: In your understanding, why was this done? And possibly any instructions that were given from Surkov and subordinates. In what moments did you hear this being discussed?

Igor Salikov: So that this particular regulation was followed – at first, to use a limited amount of weapons that are also available to the Ukrainian side. But I was not privy to insider information during the formation of units that entered. One could only guess and then analyze.

During the “people’s referendum,” last minute issues nearly disrupted the orchestrated plans. Roman Lyalin, the savings bank director, demanded higher pay for his role. Failure loomed without urgent coordination. I witnessed a phone call to the boss while sitting in a car. From the tones and phrases, I realized it was Surkov, though he was not named explicitly. With a good connection and in sufficient silence, you can hear what is being said on the phone.

But nobody introduced me to Surkov, I didn’t have the authority, it’s not done that way there. Everyone was in their place: Borodai received tasks, assigned them to us, if something didn’t work out, reported it below and up.

Credit must be given to Borodai, and his assistants. They adhered to all these laws of theater. Apparently, that was the directive from Surkov, and the presidential administration, to play by the rules, down the smallest details. They really were meticulous in following them.

The initial attempt was to simulate acting forces as supposedly Ukrainian with Ukrainian weapons, without direct Russian invasion from the Russian special services, soldiers, officers, mercenaries. Everything was disguised as rebel patriot self-defense groups opposing Euromaidan who expressed their civil position, took up arms found locally in response to Ukrainian government pressure and the ATO [anti-terrorist operation] declaration. It was like that the people, having the right to revolt, took up arms which they scavenged in warehouses, in mines, etc. But this obscured the real supply line (“Voentorg”) opened from Russia transporting equipment unavailable in Ukraine.

Voentorg: flow of Russian weapons to its proxies over the Ukrainian border

Vladimir Osechkin: What do you mean by the term Voentorg?

Igor Salikov: Briefly, “Voentorg” referred to the covert military assistance in weapons and materiel established between Russia and the groups in southeast Ukraine. It’s slang invented as convenient shorthand in conversations for cross-border arms transfers, like call signs for units. Local people who lived there were used for Voentorg, with FSB and GRU. Some eventually received assignments. Particularly, Bezler [Lieutenant Colonel of the FSB of the Russian Federation who headed a “self defense” group in the “DNR” accused of war crimes]. He was pumped up with weapons. Voentorg went to Girkin and to him, to Horlivka. And they were told to do whatever they want. There was no accountability for them. They were like bandits. The groups were independent. That’s why later there were killings, showdowns. Petty criminal elements.

A new system to pocket Russian money after Minsk-2, “Russian world” enthusiasts discarded

Vladimir Osechkin: Were any special operations carried out under a false flag — terrorist acts, sabotage, attacks while pretending to be representatives of the Ukrainian Armed Forces? Or

Igor Salikov: Yes, but in 2015, not 2014. It was after the battles for Debaltseve ended and the formation of the Debaltseve pocket [of Ukrainian troops surrounded in 2015 during the signing of the Minsk-2 agreement].

An era of economic uncertainty and confusion began at this time. Many volunteers from units that had entered from Russia started being expelled, even those who had endured the entire conflict up to this point and through whose resources much of the campaign was resourced.

After 2012-2013, a large number of former military personnel who were left without purpose or excluded from service made up a sizable part of the fighting forces in Donbas. These included many patriotic individuals who were no longer needed by the Russian armed forces since the conflict in Chechnya ended in an unclear manner under the leadership of Ramzan Kadyrov. Additionally, many were pushed out of the military due to the reforms instituted by Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, which dismantled many existing structures. As a result, a significant population of marginalized and dissatisfied former soldiers remained.

Events like the [2014 Sochi] Olympics also played a role, everyone saw how they were stealing the Olympics. All of these marginalized groups urgently needed direction, which is part of what made the events in Crimea and Donbas so appealing to them. And all this marginal crowd which I belonged to turned out to be in demand. There was a patriotic boom at last. The boss began to put things in order. The cookies that were distributed by America and the West [referring to the alleged American backing of the Euromaidan revolution, epitomized by snacks distributed by Victoria Nuland in Kyiv] played a role. And we finally rose up to recreate [the Russian world] anew.

After the massive “northern wind” Russian troop offensives, when they again led [Russian] troops to break frontline Ukrainian army units during the Debaltseve cauldron [in 2015], downsizing and removal of resistors began. Some committed suicide. Units started being renamed as corps.

Zakharchenko had been appointed prime minister before this, returning as hero of all cauldrons. A combative officer with experience and saber at his side, he began establishing order by dispersing volunteers who led the “revolution.”

Killings, disappearances and departures occurred, leaving those who could serve the formed system. The new system relied on large cash flows from Russia. Zakharchenko in particular was said to pocket $2-3 millions of dollars each week from some undisclosed funding source. This generated conflicts as figures like Khodakovsky challenged how the spoils were divided up locally.

Conflicts arose over dividing it, like Khodakovsky and him. Money goes where there is ongoing low-level war with results, needing victims and shelling. When Minsk-2 was concluded, everyone was withdrawn for some reason, and now they want to use the same scheme. At the time, we were already in Novoazovsk near Mariupol, and at that moment it was possible to reach Odesa. Realistically in Ukrainian cities at the time, no one knew where the situation was heading. In Mariupol, Ukrainian forces were no longer present – we could have entered the city unimpeded and continued on to Kherson. But political and economic motives prevented this.

The authorities thought about their [bank] accounts, they thought [the West’s anger] would pass quickly, the West would wipe itself again and that the frog had to be boiled slowly. Therefore, they decided: now we will not anger the elder brother [the West], look, we’re conceding, so don’t block anything please; they portrayed the separatist movement as a local uprising by residents rebelling against the new Kyiv government. Foreign Minister Lavrov [skillfully framed Russia’s role as non-involvement in the conflict]. And then Minsk-2 appeared, such a harmful thing.

After over a year fighting to purportedly “liberate” the Donbas region, I came to realize that there [is nothing] to liberate and it is unclear who we were liberating. The local population was being used as pawns by outside forces. The situation on the ground grew increasingly tragic, though the crisis had not yet escalated to a global scale.

Russian proxies shelled their own to keep money flowing for a protracted war

Vladimir Osechkin: In your role in 2014-2015, did you directly witness any examples of foreign proxies, sabotage or other covert activities? Because many people write that [the Ukrainians] for 8 years “bombed Donbas,” and when the war started, one of the main slogans of those who justify the full-scale war was that for eight years before that [Ukrainians] allegedly arranged genocide in Donbas and tortured the local population. Russian propaganda then concealed, covered, hid, kept secret the reasons behind Russia’s involvement, Russian special services, Russian soldiers, officers, mercenaries, security forces in what happened there. If you can, at least one, two, three specific examples, about which you are ready to testify.

Igor Salikov: Well, the “foreign flags” are conditional, at the time there was no need to change uniforms, Then I was called to one committee, where they asked whether I know a comrade with the callsign “Spear.” I was reluctant to disclose information as a rule, though in this case I couldn’t deny knowing the person from the photos shown since we served together in 2014.

By this point, I held the position of head of the special operations department. They disclosed that mortars shelling areas of Donetsk like Petrovsky and Kyiv districts were connected to military forces shifting under Zakharchenko’s control through various designations like Guard, Army Corps, and National Guard.

During this time, even our own units found themselves accidentally shelled near the Trudovska mine, believing the fire originated from Ukrainians on the opposite riverbank. However, analysis of munition evidence and blast trajectories indicated the mortars actually emerged from within our territory practically in Donetsk, launched from Petrovsky cemetery and striking buildings housing mine workers – five-story apartments and rooftops.

Vehicles departed openly from the launch site, with an obligatory observation post also stationed near the road as required, though an undetected disguised post in the area covertly monitored and provided my colleagues information that vehicles from the site proceeded to a location housing one battalion under the command of “Spear.” Further intelligence work confirmed these incidents entailed internal affairs conducted according to Zakharchenko’s directives.

Why? I’ll explain. First, it’s money. Maintaining the war generates constant financing flows needed for social welfare and military expenditures. Here, you didn’t need to shoot by yourself. You could just place a mortar, say, in such, in neutral zones and such unclear areas that nobody controlled, or were ostensibly under the control of the “DNR,” but neither Ukrainians nor our people went there.

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