I remember my detective days. One of the first things I learned was "a guilty man never looks at his own crime scene."
One of the most common arguments among Russian assets in the West, other than the outdated lies about "Ukrainian Nazis" of course,(1) is the claim that the West is making excuses to attack "poor, innocent Russia" who they claim was never hostile toward the West. Attempts to define what possible motive they ascribe to this alleged "anti-Russian hostility" range from "because Russia resists Western hegemony" to conspiracy theories about some Soros-and-Rothschild-led "New World Order" which is never fully defined other than "because we don't have a platform other than 'the mainstream's gotta be wrong some way or another even if we can't explain how, and our views won't make sense unless you take it as axiomatic gospel that there is some sort of shadowy globe-spanning conspiracy behind them." In short, we're expected to believe that the entire West is somehow engaged in some sort of united plan to subjugate Russia,(2) while somehow believing that NATO (with a combined defense budget exceeding Russia's GDP) is somehow incapable of achieving this alleged aim without hiding behind a nation with a tenth of Russia's defense budget, a third of its population and a fifth of its size.
"Holy and Virtuous Mother Russia, which has been righteous in all its dealings since time immemorial, would never attack anyone unless provoked by the EeEeEvil Scheming West," we're told by these Russian assets, who then foam and froth at the mouth like rabid chihuahuas when anyone dares question them. Any evidence proving Russia's involvement in acts of aggression is dismissed out of hand as "propaganda," any discreditation of their dubious sources (such as when 'Donbas Devushka' was proven to have been lying about everything from her name to her back-story to her location to even her fake-ass accent,(3)) is ignored. "Don't be such mindless sheep by questioning us. If you have evidence, it must be fake. Open your mind by unquestioningly swallowing Russian propaganda without evidence. All eyewitnesses who dispute Russia must be paid actors on the dole of the CIA." All who uncover Russian disinformation, even those who catch Russia red-handed in the process of fabricating their story, are immediately characterized as "bullies" and berated for "endangering" those whose lies they expose, before the perpetrator retreats behind a wall of accusations of "Russophobia" levelled at anyone who dares question the Kremlin's easily-debunked narrative. Occasionally, one of these reptiles who has been in the same time zone as a history book a few times in the pseudo-existence it euphemistically calls a "life" will try to substitute the term "Brzezinskian hatred of Russia," thus tipping its hand by pretending that an association with an association with one of the greatest policy-makers in post-Roman history is somehow an insult.
Anyway, these choruses continue.
"Russia has not attacked us. Why attack Russia?"
Arming Ukraine only prolongs the war."
"Ukraine should negotiate and save lives."
Hmm... where have I heard similar lies before?
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| Be honest: how did you "Nazi" that one coming? |
Well, a recent joint report by US-based news outlet 60 Minutes, UK-based Bellingcat, and Latvia-based The Insider would seem to make the debate over "why attack Russia when Russia hasn't attacked us" rather moot. If the reports findings are to be believed, then Russia HAS attacked the US, and has been doing so for nearly a decade.
China-watchers may remember the never-fully-resolved affair of 'Havana Syndrome." Since 2016, there has been a continuous trend of unexplainable illnesses affecting the staff at US embassies all over the world. The circumstances are always similar. First, US diplomatic staff will report hearing odd, high-pitched noises in their hotel rooms, which will continue for several evenings consecutively. Second, these diplomats will spend several days coping with nausea, weakness, and hearing loss. Third, suspicious figures will be seen scurrying away from near the hotels where these diplomats stay. The trail of this mysterious ailment starts in Havana, Cuba in 2016,(4), then continued to the US Embassy in Uzbekistan in 2017,(5) the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China in 2018,(6), and that covers the cases that I'm aware of which occurred prior to the change in US presidential administrations. Occurrences under Biden's administration included Berlin, Vienna, Bogota, Hanoi, and Kyrgyzstan. The reason I mention this is because I already know that the most likely denial from some of the Kremlin's most devoted acolytes and most slavish supporters of genocide, such as @valued-customer and @vp-freelance, will be some form of "Guuuh... DaT's JuSt PwOpAgAnDa FwUm Da LeFt AnD dA gWoBaWiStZ, aNd bIdEn JiSt WaNtZ tO sMeEr MuDdEr WuShA! NARF!" Ergo, I've made it a point to make it plain (at least plain enough for poly-cellular brains, though who knows about the two above-mentioned) that the issue (and the documentation thereof) spans two separate diametrically-opposed presidential administrations with polar-opposite views on Russo-American relations, both of whom have had officials investigating it.
The symptoms had no discernible medical cause. There was no contagion or chemical ever found, no common trait in the victims' medical history, and the victims had nothing in common except having worked, in some capacity, to counter Russian operations. "[C]onsistently there was a Russia nexus," said Greg Edgreen, a now-retired Army lieutenant colonel who ran the Pentagon investigation. "There was some angle where they had worked against Russia, focused on Russia, and done extremely well."(7)
The US Intelligence community has played ping-pong with their theories about the causes of the mysterious ailment. For a while they were convinced it was a result of a high-energy weapon from a foreign actor,(8) (usually suspected to be China). Then, a year ago last month (just as calls began to rise for the US to get more involved in the war against Russia than just sending supplies), they conveniently changed their minds and decided that the US had not been systematically attacked by Russia for the better part of a decade,(9) much to the outrage of victims who insisted that the dismissal of their claims was politically timed.(10)
Yet even as the Biden Administration tried to sweep the issue under the rug (it wouldn't do to have a bombshell emerge that the US had been actually attacked by an enemy who commands the openly professed allegiance of the Fringe Right, after all, because that would compel the US to act and we can't afford to piss off the Russopublicans right before an election), it wouldn't go away. Finally, earlier this week, the above-mentioned joint report emerged that basically pointed the finger solidly not at China (as many previously suspected), but at China's vassal state: Russia, specifically a GRU unit known only as "unit number 29155." Well, of course, the Kremlin immediately denied it. And predictably enough, the Kremlin's faithful stooges in the West echoed this denial, because they dare not seek evidence when the Kremlin has spoken.
To be fair, the timing of the report was rather suspect. Barely a week ago, a false-flag attack in Moscow (blamed rather unconvincingly on Ukraine) gave the Kremlin cassus bellii to increase their pressure on Ukraine, so this report (which gives the West probable cause to escalate to match) was rather conveniently timed. If I were a Western government asking myself "now that Russia has manipulated events to give themselves an excuse to pour more troops in, how can we sell the public on the need to increase our force to match?", a report showing that Russia was responsible for a decade of covert attacks on US diplomats including their families all over the world, would fit the bill nicely. Given that neither Biden nor Putin is known for being completely above-board (meaning neither the Biden Administration's allegation nor the Kremlin's denial could be taken at face-value), some investigation was warranted.
Well, the kicker is in the Latvian outlet's Russian-language version of the report(11), which not only identified the unit but got down to the level of picking out names and faces of individuals.
Tracking the movements of GRU officers across Europe is quite difficult, since they usually fly into one country, and then rent a car and drive to another - to make it more difficult to calculate their destination. Among other things, this helps them pose as tourists, and they prefer to enter the Schengen area through the country that issued the visa in order to attract less attention. Moreover, they, as a rule, fly in groups that replace each other: some monitor the victim and conduct preparations, others are directly involved in the execution. Everything developed according to this scenario in 2014.
On January 26, 2014, two employees of military unit 29155 landed in Prague - Alexander Mishkin (with a passport in the name of Petrov) and Denis Sergeev ( "Sergei Fedotov" ). Four years later they would become famous throughout the world as the Skripal poisoners in Salisbury, but this time they had a completely different task. They took the train to Munich, where on January 30 they rented a car. They disappeared for two days and, judging by the mileage, went to another city, which is unknown (for example, Frankfurt could have been within this radius). Immediately after returning, they moved back to Prague and on February 2 flew back to Moscow. Most likely, this was the first “reconnaissance of the area.”
A few months later, the main stage of the operation began. On September 25, the same Denis Sergeev flew from Moscow to Milan (he then had a fresh Italian visa), at the same time, but to Paris, Egor Gordienko (“Georgy Gorshkov”) flew out to Paris on a French visa - remember this name, he will play again important role in this story. Both of them will immediately take the train upon arrival to meet soon in Geneva. There they rented a car again, this time for five days (where they went is again unclear). On the other days, they also obviously did not spend time in the city (although for the legend they had English courses booked nearby - what kind of Russian doesn’t fly to Geneva for a couple of weeks to improve their English skills). They booked a hotel directly at Geneva airport, allowing them to travel from there to any Schengen destination without leaving a trace (most European airlines don't even require ID on domestic Schengen flights). They returned to Moscow on October 13 - again on different routes.
I'll confess though, I still was suspicious until I heard the phrasing of Russia's denials, voiced through Vladimir's mouthpiece Dmitry Peskov. His slips were telling.
“This is not a new topic at all; for many years the topic of the so-called Havana Syndrome has been exaggerated in the press, and from the very beginning it was linked to accusations against the Russian side.
Umm... no. They've been rather consistently pointed at China. It wasn't until quite recently that Russia was even considered. It seems Peskov has been paranoid about denying these allegations for far longer than they've been made.
*“But no one has ever published or expressed any convincing evidence of these unfounded accusations anywhere."
...Uh, the same military unit that has been responsible for high-energy-weapons since the Soviet Era, was tracked to every single location where the syndrome was detected, complete with having multiple members identified by facial recognition. That's pretty conclusive. When I was still a detective, one of the first things I was taught by my investigations instructor was "I'll grant that correlation doesn't imply causality, by when the accused could explain away a correlation and they don't even try, when the only defense the accused offers is denying a correlation that has already been documented, he's got a neon-red 'guilty' sign on his forehead."
*“Therefore, all this is nothing more than baseless, unfounded accusations by the media."
Right. And why would three separate agencies in three separate countries with three separate agendas see fit to collaborate on such "baseless, unfounded accusations?"
See, I reiterate: the evidence linking Russia to Havana Syndrome had some holes in it. Many, myself included, have always believed China was a more likely culprit than Russia. But Peskov hung himself with the manner of his denial. When one is confronted with false allegations, the natural response is to look at them and show the flaws in the evidence. It is only those who are guilty who refuse to look at the crime scene, whose only response is denial (and again, rather than reminding the world that correlation didn't mean causation, he merely tried to deny correlation between 22195 and Havana Syndrome existed even when it had been proven). Peskov could easily have explained this report away be claiming that the suspicious circumstances were coincidence, or that the faces were inaccurately recognized, or pointed out that the nature of the attacks seemed inconsistent from one victim to the next. But instead of looking at the report and pointing out its flaws, he simply denied it had been printed at all.
This is a huge, HUGE red flag.
Frankly, I'm skeptical of anything from the Biden Administration, and I never would have believed the accusation that Russia had a mysterious "brainwave weapon" out of a science fiction novel.
...Until Russia denied it, and clumsily.
I'm still not willing to dismiss China's involvement. Frankly, I've said for some time that everything Russia does, they do on China's orders. But just because Russia was acting on orders from their Chinese masters when they attacked Americans doesn't change the fact that they've been caught in the act of attacking Americans.
This is a slam dunk, folks. Russian military personnel have attacked US citizens, including civilians. Any response short of a declaration of war against Russia is tantamount to an abrogation of US sovereignty, and any attempts to undermine that declaration (or the subsequent war effort) are aiding and abetting an enemy, which the Constitution defines as treason.
Let nukes rain on Russia, and string up the collaborators!!
Works Cited
(1) Patriam Reminisci. "If Ukraine is a "Nazi State," Why Are the World's Nazis Lining Up Behind Russia?" Peakd. 11 Sep, 2023. Accessed 1 April, 2024. https://peakd.com/hive-122315/@patriamreminisci/if-ukraine-is-a-nazi-state-why-are-the-worlds-nazis-lining-up-behind-russia
(2) Patriam Reminisci. "To the Drooling Hobgoblins Who Still Blame "NaY-dOh ExPaNsHuN" For ruZZia's Ongoing Genocide in Ukraine." Peakd. 13 June, 2023. Accessed 1 April, 2024.
https://peakd.com/ua/@patriamreminisci/to-the-drooling-hobgoblins-who-still-blame-nay-doh-expanshun-for-ruzzias-ongoing-genocide-in-ukraine
(3) Khatsenkova, Sophia. “Former US Navy officer exposed for running pro-Kremlin disinformation account.” Euronews. 18 Apr, 2023. Accessed 20 Mar, 2024.
https://www.euronews.com/2023/04/18/former-us-navy-officer-exposed-for-running-pro-kremlin-disinformation-account
(4) "US says 16 people were affected by unexplained health problems at Havana embassy." The Guardian. 25 August, 2023. Accessed 2 April, 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/25/us-embassy-havana-unexplained-cases-of-hearing-loss-cuba
(5) Dorsey, Steve. "Uzbekistan incident raises suspicions of Russian involvement in Cuba attacks." CBS. 28 November, 2017. Accessed 2 April, 2024.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uzbekistan-incident-raises-suspicions-of-russian-involvement-in-cuba-attacks/
(6) Myers, Steven Lee & Perlez, Jane. "U.S. Diplomats Evacuated in China as Medical Mystery Grows." New York Times. 6 June, 2018. Accessed 2 April, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/06/world/asia/china-guangzhou-consulate-sonic-attack.html
(7) Pelley, Scott; Chasan, Aliza; Zill de Granados, Oriana; Rey, Michael; Gordon, Emily; Ramgopal, Kit & Woods, Jamie. "Russian nexus revealed during 60 Minutes Havana Syndrome investigation into potential attacks on U.S. officials." CBS. 31 March, 2024. Accessed 2 April, 2024. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/havana-syndrome-russia-evidence-60-minutes/
(8) Seligman, Lara and Desiderio, Andrew. "Russian spy unit suspected of directed-energy attacks on U.S. personnel." Politico. 10 May, 2021. Accessed 2 April, 2024. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/10/russia-gru-directed-energy-486640
(9) Seligman, Lara and Desiderio, Andrew. "Intel community bats down main theory behind ‘Havana Syndrome’ incidents." Politico. 1 March, 2023. Accessed 2 April, 2024. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/01/havana-syndrome-cia-intelligence-00085021
(10) Torres, Nora Gamez. "‘Knife in the back’: Havana Syndrome victims dispute report dismissing their cases." Detroit News. 29 April, 2023. Accessed 2 April, 2024. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/29/havana-syndrome-victims-dispute-report-dismissing-their-cases/70162821007/
(11) Weiss, Michael; Grozev, Hristo & Dobrokhotov, Roman. "The solution to the “Havana syndrome”. How the GRU cripples American diplomats with secret weapons." The Insider. 31 MArch, 2024. Accessed, 2 April, 2024. https://theins.ru/politika/270420
Dear @patriamreminisci !
Rob,
Do you think the Havana Syndrome was caused by Russia bugging American embassies around the world?😦
I've honestly been inclined to think it was China, rather than Russia. But the fact that the old USSR spent decades working on this technology while China shows little interest in it, makes me wonder.
I think the Chinese had a hand in it, and I think anything Russia does is done on China's orders (they are a slave race of the Han Chinese, after all), so even of Russia is guilty it doesn't assuage China's guilt as the kingpins who ordered it. But as I said, I didn't suspect Russia at first...
...until I saw how clumsy their denial was.