Russia Is Co-opting Angry Young Men

[TygrBright]

via The Atlantic

Fight clubs, neo-Nazi soccer hooligans, and motorcycle gangs serve as conduits for the Kremlin’s influence operations in Western countries

Part of the appeal of this strategy is its sheer outlandishness. It may seem implausible that Russia’s secret services could recruit or radicalize skinheads or social outcasts in the West. The Kremlin can easily argue that whatever ties exist between far-right groups in Russia and the West occur spontaneously, and have no connection to the Russian state. But whether it be Serb ultranationalists in Montenegro or neo-Nazis in Hungary, the hand of Russia’s intelligence services has in many cases already been exposed. Russia’s ongoing war in eastern Ukraine, waged using separatist proxies under the firm command and control of the Russian military, has provided a convenient recruiting ground for right-wing fanatics from Brazil to Belarus.

After the Kremlin accelerated its covert war against Western democracies in the aftermath of its invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s intelligence services dramatically ramped up their “active measures” (in Russian intelligence jargon, aktivnyye meropriyatiya or “active measures” refers to a broad range of covert influence and/or subversive operations) using radical-right and fringe groups. These groups serve as the perfect unwitting agents to accomplish Moscow’s twin goals of destabilizing Western societies and co-opting Western business and political elites.

By forging ties to radical groups on the far right, and sometimes on the far left, the Kremlin has developed convenient local surrogates that can amplify its talking points, even as Russian trolls reinforce the divisive narratives such groups spread online.

It would be a mistake, however, to think that the partnerships between the Kremlin and these groups are always marriages of convenience. Many are genuine partnerships based on a shared aversion to liberal democracy and a desire to undermine it.

Yes, disinformation and propaganda are the major battlefield tools for Putin's war on the west and 'liberal democracies' in general, and 'the main enemy' (America) in particular.

But they are not by any means the only tools.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is in denial, or naive beyond what's good for them.

When you look at those videos of the skinheads doing dumbshit, mean, scary, stupid skinhead things and think "What tools!" you are more accurate than you may realize.

And, in America at least, they are heavily-armed. Why? Oh, just because Putin's Russia has put a buttload of effort, money, and resources behind the NRA, that's all.

Purely coincidental, I'm sure.

Are you?

ominously,
Bright

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

1. Gosh. Great information. If we had a leader we'd be fighting back.

[Aristus]

2. Recruiting belligerent street-thugs to further a political agenda?

Where have we seen this before?

[gratuitous]

3. Addendum: Angry, stupid, violent young men

Angry seems self-evident. As to stupid and violent, the violence is sort of self-evident as well. Why stupid? Because these angry, violent young men think that the best chance they have to better their lot in life is to throw in with the very people who have fucked them over. They had a poor education because conservatives starved schools of resources. From that bad start, they haven't developed marketable or profitable job skills, which puts them further behind. They get angry because they've been sold on the notion that they're entitled to an elevated status in society just by virtue of their skin color and family heritage. They have been carefully taught that others are inferior to them for the same reasons. Then they see some of those inferiors out-pacing them and being successful. Their anger builds into violence, ripe for Russian influence.