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EESTI ELU reedel, 18. septembril 2020 — Friday, September 18, 2020
Opinion
The long and poisonous tentacles of Kremlin intimidation Marcus Kolga, The Toronto Star English-language supplement to the Estonian weekly “EESTI ELU” Tartu College Publications Founding Chairman: Elmar Tampõld Editor: Laas Leivat 3 Madison Avenue, Toronto, ON M5R 2S2 T: 416-733-4550 • F: 416-733-0944 • E-mail: editor@eestielu.ca Digital: www.eestielu.ca
Western thugs advancing the Kremlin’s bid Russia’s influence operations in the West have found enthusiastic support among unexpected allies: motorcycle gangs, Neo-Nazi soccer hooligans, fight clubs – mostly recognized as social outcasts in Western countries. At first the story seems like the vigorous imagination of a Hollywood screenwriter enmeshing cold-war style spies, outlaw bikers and neanderthalic soccer thugs. Yet it’s a true depiction of how enraged men in extremist groups, including neo-Nazis and skinheads, have been recruited by Russian intelligence to subvert Western democratic institutions. Eerik-Niiles Kross, former intelligence co-ordinator for Estonia, has said that European Union authorities had not paid enough attention to Russian intelligence special operations. By 2017 fully 63 fight clubs in Germany alone had been identified with dozens more in the rest of Europe. Nine of them were known to have founders who were all officers of the GRU (Russian military intelligence) or FSB (heir to the KGB). Kross pointed out that by that time, the GRU had given combat training to a neo-Nazi group in Hungary and to similar groups in Slovakia. The martial arts (fight) clubs teaching an offensive style called “systema”, are all said to have connections to the GRU or FSB intelligence services in Russia, tasked with recruiting potential trouble makers throughout Europe and also North America. The Systema Ryabko school in Europe, has branches in the UK, Sweden, Spain, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Portugal, Poland, the Netherlands, Luxem bourg, Latvia, Italy, Ireland, Hungary, Greece, Germany, France, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and Austria. In addition, the Systema Siberia Cossack school also has branches in many of these countries, including Croatia, Finland. Many of these clubs have not kept their direct or indirect links a secret and in fact have publicly bragged about them. In fact their Systema schools in Cyprus, Greece and Italy dis-
plays their GRU insignia and slogans openly as a matter of pride. Observers indicated that for Germany, on the basis of three to five recruits for each fight club, the GRU’s pool of agents could number approximately 350, ready to organize combat sleeper cells. It’s been noted that some five recruits have actually been drawn from Ger many’s own security services. This contingent could be used to attack civilian targets such as airports, communication centres, even military bases. But they’re also assigned to create havoc behind enemy lines should hostilities break out with NATO or sow general distrust, suspicion and apprehension during peacetime. A former Russian FSB has told a German broadcaster that a Russian martial arts club had recruited pro-Moscow Chechen men sent to Germany as bogus refugees. These agents could be given orders for any type of subversion or military action and also to influence the Muslim community in Europe, giving it support in committing terrorism. The Euobserver contacted the largest martial arts school, the Systema Ryabko for comments on this. An email from Ryabko’s Toronto office responded: “The allegations you have heard are a fruit of someone’s malicious imagination and are completely false.” (A Systema school is located in Don Mills, Toronto.) According to a German source, it’s unlikely that the Kremlin would go beyond cyber operations and propaganda as part of their anti-EU campaign. But Kross has viewed Russian activity in Europe to be much more hands-on. He stated that an anti-government rally in Berlin in 2016 had the distinct signature of a Russian special operation. At that time, a Kremlin-connected German organization, the International Convention of German-Rus sians, had 700 people on the streets protesting against migrants who had, according to Kremlin-backed propaganda, raped a Russian girl. The accusations proved to be faked. As per the known connections between the Kremlin and Western far right, the organization urged neo-Nazis and antiMuslim groups to help spread the rape fabrications via social
The world has yet again been shocked by a brazen attempt to poison and kill another opponent of Russian Presi dent Vladimir Putin. The poisoning of Alexei Navalny fits a bloody pattern of assassination and intimidation that has been growing for nearly 20 years. Targeted for his highly effective reports exposing corrupt Russian officials and oligarchs, Navalny is the latest victim in a long line stretching back to 2006, when former FSB agent, Alexander Litvinenko, was poisoned with a radioactive polo nium in a London hotel by two Russian agents. Litvenenko became an enemy of the Putin regime after he exposed a plot by the FSB to blow up a group of apartment buildings south east of Moscow in 1999. Russian opposition activist and journalist, Vladimir KaraMurza was poisoned in Mos cow in 2015, shortly after pro-democracy leader Boris Nemtsov was savagely gunned down steps from the Kremlin. In a coma for several weeks afterwards, Kara-Murza barely survived and endured years of painful rehabilitation, only to be poisoned once again in 2017. In 2018, Russian GRU military intelligence agents employed Novichuk – the same KGB developed toxin used against Navalny – to poison the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England, and which resulted in the death of an innocent bystander who was inadvertently exposed to it. Designed to inflict horrific and highly visible suffering, the Putin regime uses poisoning both to kill opponents and intimidate critics. Putin’s KGB style targeted poisonings and assassinations have forced several leading critics of the regime into exile – including political and human rights activists, journalists and environmental leaders, many of whom now live abroad in hopes of avoiding a fate similar to that
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Honouring the Past, Embracing the Future The Estonian Central Council in Canada (EKN), representing the Estonian community in Canada, thanks all individuals and organizations who helped build the Toronto Estonian House and made it a home for the Toronto Estonian community for over sixty years. Our shared history: celebrations, folk dancing, Estonian schools, guiding and scouting, the rifle range, ‘Estos’ and ‘Caravan’ will be for ever cherished as we continue to honour our accomplishments, memories and friendships built through hard work and a collaborative community effort. The future of our community is bright, brimming with new opportunities and the excitement of a new path, that will lead to a stronger community in Toronto. While the history that connects us through our shared and proud heritage must never be forgotten, so too must we now forge ahead together in the same spirit as our forefathers who came together to establish and build our house, in 1960, to help build a new house for future generations. It is the volunteers who provide our community with Estonian culture, language and heritage; the parents who inject new life to our community with their children; and the grandparents who remind us of our common history and legacy, who provide us with our unique identity. Those community members who share our common dream of a strong community and actively work towards it, deserve our thanks. On behalf of all Canadians of Estonian heritage, we congratulate all who work in common cause and with the shared goal of strengthening our identity and community in Canada, and those who have worked so hard to provide us with a home in which to do this. Established in 1954, The Estonian Central Council in Canada (EKN) is the proud representative organization of record for Canadians of Estonian heritage, representing and advocating for their interests across Canada, in Ottawa, Tallinn and beyond. KAIRI HEMINGWAY President, Estonian Central Council in Canada
of Navalny. That list includes Garry Kasparov, environmental activist Evgenia Chirikova, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and countless others. Personal safety may also force Navalny to remain in exile, perhaps fulfilling the objective of his would-be assassins. Yet living abroad does not guarantee the safety of Putin’s critics or make them immune from the Kremlin’s intimidation, nor does it protect critics of the Kremlin living in the West. Kremlin propaganda agents have worked to radi calize portions of the Russian speaking community here in Canada over the past years and have attacked critics of the Kremlin, including myself, using Kremlin outlets, including the crypto-Stalinist, Komso molskaya Pravda. A toxic mix of both automated and radicalized trolls flood online comment sections of the pieces that I write about the Putin regime. The accusations range from the deeply ominous to absurdly hateful: I was media. accused last year of being a Experts have traced this ag- gressive activity back to 2011 “demon, Satan, Ukrainian, evil an 2012, when Russia ex Jew,” in an email from a perienced wide-spread anti- Mosocw based IP that ended Putin protests. Putin was con- with, “Evil scum, die!!!!!!” and vinced that the protests were signed by “Avtomat Kalashni given impetus and help from kova.” In May of this year, York the West, and intruding in Russian domestic affairs. Some Region Police investigated viohow, the Kremlin felt, they lent threats that were sent to me must react, to retaliate by mold- by a radicalized pro-Kremlin ing public discourse, by taking extremist. When offered to advantage of European weak- press charges, I declined, with nesses, by sowing dissent and the understanding that my ragefilled interlocutor had himself disunity in weakening the EU. (to be continued) been victimized by Putin’s LAAS LEIVAT propaganda into becoming a
tool of it. Incessant trolling, intimidation and threats are part of the cost of being a critic of the Kremlin – as well as the regimes in China and Iran. These incidents serve as lessons that the Russian government is actively working to silence and intimidate critics both at home and abroad, whether through direct action or through proxies; some through economic incentives, while others through psychologically manipulative propaganda. Threats of violence against critics and activists should be taken seriously by all Western governments. The threat posed by the Russian government’s efforts to strategically encourage emotional and extreme nationalist reactions to criticism of the Putin regime in Russian speakers through propaganda is very real; lives may even be at risk. Thankfully, the Canadian government does occasionally act to protect us from foreign regime intimidation and in formation warfare. In 2018, Canada expelled a number of Russian government propaganda agents – a move shockingly characterized by some as “un-Canadian.” The tentacles of poisonous foreign repression and intimidation are long and dangerous. Yet we must remain vigilant in order to ensure that the threats don’t escalate into violence against Canadians who are cri tical of foreign governments in Russia, China, Iran and any other regime that engages in mass human rights abuses and corruption.
