Still Crazy, After All These Years – Western Analysis Continues to Get Russia Wrong

Uncle Volodya says; “To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead.”

A world that sends you reeling from decimated dreams
Your misery and hate will kill us all
So paint it black and take it back
Let’s shout it loud and clear
Defiant to the end we hear the call…

My Chemical Romance, from, “Welcome to the Black Parade”.

Reading a recent comment which detailed the inexplicable and yawning gulf between the media-hyped love affair the west pursues with ‘poison victim’ Alexey Navalny, and his clownlike public image in Russia, it struck me that the situation is a microcosm of the larger deliberate misunderstanding with which western analysts regard Russia.

We’ve been over the credibility aspects before, in which the Anglosphere stubbornly maintains that Navalny was poisoned – most likely at Vladimir Putin’s direct order – with the most toxic and deadly nerve agent the world has ever seen, but will not share its proof with Russia. Navalny miraculously did not die, and now is feeling fine as frog hair and ready for the next stage in his job-free life. He is most likely going to be a long-term guest of the west – returning to Russia is not a viable option, as he is regarded as a criminal there – enjoying a comfortable lifestyle with his family which arises from his perceived status as ‘Putin’s fiercest critic’, and an important Russian opposition politician.

What immediately follows is a translation by Moscow Exile of this RIA Novosti article.

“VTsIOM: Rating of Russians’ confidence in Navalny – 3%

A poll conducted by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM) has shown an almost complete lack of confidence amongst Russians in the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK, non-profit foreign agent) Aleksey Navalny. The low rating is an indication of a failed media campaign to increase the popularity of the oppositionist with the participation of the West.

VTsIOM has published opinion poll data, relevant at the end of November 2020, as regards the measurement of the level of trust in the Russian public towards political figures and oppositionists. As part of the survey, it was established to whom the citizens of the Russian Federation would entrust the solution of important state issues. FBK founder Aleksey Navalny was included in the list of figures, the attitude towards whom sociologists were trying to find out. The poll showed that only 3% of Russians trust the oppositionist and are ready to entrust him with solving important state issues.“

Personally, I am opposed to ongoing discussion of Navalny’s affairs, as continued mention of him only keeps him in the news and increases his exposure. However, I think it is fairly clear – if you believe this poll – that Navalny is not really taken seriously in Russia, and has no realistic chance of legitimately attaining any political role in that country. His name recognition may have greatly increased, but his forecast influence on national politics – should he be able to run for a political office – has not budged in ten years.

And therein lies the enigma. The western media persists in portraying Navalny as a political firebrand with a significant audience eager to hear his powerful message. He cannot be an object of mockery – an insignificant boob regarded by many Russians as a foreign agent of the western regime-changers. Therefore…the poll must be rigged!

Those in the west who are seriously committed to regime change in Russia should, by rights, be depressed at this – the overthrowing of Putin and his replacement by a progressive western-friendly liberal, who will deal the country away for a handful of magic beans, does not stand much chance so long as the dullwitted western public-at-large is determined to see a d’Artagnan in a doughhead. Not a bit of it – western think-tankers and analysts are among the most intoxicated optimists when it comes to seeing imminent collapse in Russia’s future, followed by a renaissance under an enlightened leader who will welcome western advice in building a dream country that will anchor a relationship in which freedom and democracy prevail. And, just incidentally, make western investors even more wealthy, even as it removes the next-to-last adversary on America’s must-go list. Western political and media investment in Navalny continues unabated.

Examples abound of this determined tunnel vision, a sort of self-medicated ecstasy in which judgment steps aside to permit fantasy to take the wheel. It hasn’t been that long since America’s ‘Russian athletes are brimming with performance-enhancing drugs’ campaign ran out of momentum, wobbled and collapsed in ignominy as reinstated medals , which had been stripped owing to accusations led by the USA, returned Russia to the head of the medals count. At the start of its run at Russia, the western investigatory commission claimed it had so much evidence of a state-sponsored Russian doping program it was…well, gosh darn it, it was embarrassing. Star-witness ‘whistleblower’ Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, former head of the Russian anti-doping program, electrified the prosecution with his confident claims of proof beyond any doubt…and then disintegrated, during testimony, in a pants-wetting supernova of contradictory claims and unsubstantiated blather.

More recently, the entire underpinning of America’s Magnitsky Act collapsed like a house of cards when Bill Browder’s tax-fraud case against the Russian state was completely discredited after a nine-year investigation, and probably will be dropped for lack of evidence. Browder used tales of breathtaking financial impropriety as alleged motive for the death of his ‘tax lawyer’ – actually an accountant – Sergey Magnitsky, in a Russian prison. According to Browder’s story, Magnitsky was murdered to shut him up, so he could not tell what he knew about a Russian scheme to steal millions from investment taxes. The Swiss investigators found no evidence at all to support such claims, casting well-deserved doubt on the entire story Browder used to sell the discriminatory Magnitsky Act to the American government.

Western press consistently portrays Russia as floundering, flailing, thrashing to remain afloat against the brutal counterweight of sanctions which drag it down to the deeps. Yet its foreign cash reserves have returned to the peak they reached immediately before the global financial crisis of 2008/09, at nearly $600 Billion.

The government income ratio distributed to cash reserves has remained metronomic at 8% since 2019, and reflects the highest level achieved since that same global financial crisis in 2008/09.

This is not a picture of a country struggling under a brutal dictatorship led by a thieving oligarch who salts away more billions of his country’s hard-earned money every year in secret accounts abroad which nobody can find any trace of. But the figures come from the Central Bank of Russia…so they’re probably made-up. As is, no doubt, the handling of government debt as a percentage of GDP since Satan’s Imp seized power in Russia in 1999.

If only a popular people’s champion like Alexey Navalny could gather the reins of power into his steadfast hands. Then you’d see some progress that would make you blink.