On Russia’s selective ’retribution’ for acts of terrorism

Andrei Lugovoi, FSB assassin and Russian MP

Reblogged with permission.

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By Halya Coynash

Andrei Lugovoi, Russian State Duma Deputy and the UK’s chief suspect in the killing of Kremlin whistle-blower Alexander Litvinenko has promised “inevitable retribution” for the terrorists who blew up Russian A321 and blamed “European tolerance” allowing “a flow of migrants” into Europe for the terrorist attacks in Paris on Nov 13.

The irony could not be more pronounced. Litvinenko, who like Lugovoi was a former FSB [Security Service] officer, died a hideous death from radioactive polonium in 2006 not very long after publishing a book in which he accused the FSB of being behind the apartment block bombings in 1999 which killed several hundred people and helped Putin come to power. That book was recently placed on the List of extremist materials in Russia, a few months after Lugovoi received a state award from the President “for courage and daring demonstrated in carrying out work duties in conditions linked with risk to life”. *

Litvinenko shortly before his death

Lugovoi became an MP shortly after Britain’s request for his extradition was turned down, and he is now the deputy head of the State Duma Committee on Security and Countering Corruption. It was clearly in this capacity, and standing in front of the State Duma sign that he gave a long interview, entitled “You shouldn’t believe the USA” to Rossiya 24.

After more than a week of vague statements, denials and furious conspiracy theorising, Russia announced on Nov 17 that the Metrojet plane which crashed in the Sinai Peninsula on Oct 31 had been destroyed by a bomb.

Lugovoi called this a “monstrous crime” and said that Russia’s reaction must follow two principles: no negotiating with terrorists and inevitable retribution. He agreed with unnamed government officials in saying that Russia must increase its activity in the Middle East, including in Syria.

There were certain key messages, one being that Russia has allegedly made huge strides in fighting terrorism – through the “effective work” of the FSB, through legislation, etc. The A321 attack is presented as “unique” and as due to “treachery of local security services”. Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov reports that the Kremlin’s leader has ordered “those guilty exterminated”. There is no indication as to how ‘guilt’ is to first be determined. Nor, of course, is there any suggestion that the terrorist act, if such it be, may have been linked with Russia’s active role over the last month in bombing areas under the control mostly of groups opposing Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, including, but by no means exclusively ISIS.

Lugovoi goes on, as have other pro-Kremlin politicians, to point out that Europe is also not safe and he directly blames “European tolerance”. He makes no mention of the thousands of refugees fleeing the Assad regime and the bombing in Syria, and speaks only of a “flow of migrants” which Europeans supposedly clap their hands over.

The Ahmads brought their four children to Russia seeking safety, but they were refused asylum

This, of course, enables him to ignore such shocking violations of international law as the continued presence at a Moscow airport of an entire family of Syrian refugees whom Russia is simply refusing to allow into the country.

Lugovoi basically sings Russia’s praise, suggesting that the FSB’s role should be an example for other countries. The latter, he suggests, must consider closing borders. Numerous reports on pro-Kremlin media have broadcast predictions that France and / or Europe will be forced now to resort to other restrictions on people’s freedom - doubtless also following Russia’s role model.

Asked about an anti-terror coalition, Lugovoi says that Russia’s only ally was its own army and fleet. Lugovoi, who spoke extremely emphatically on all other subjects seems nervous here, and waffles only about some possible “temporary” measures. He does, however, return to a standard theme in Russian propaganda, by saying that the USA will always do everything to reduce safety for Russia and “our western partners”, and that the more “mess” there is between Russia and European countries, the better for the USA who should not be believed.

Lugovoi has long spoken and, doubtless, acted, in unison with Russia’s leaders and his key statements here are similar to those made by others. It is almost certainly no accident that Putin should have taken the opportunity to pass into force a plan on developing the military until 2020. While spending on medicine has dipped catastrophically in Russia, together with the standard of living, more and more money is being spent on the military. Any Levada Centre public survey will make it quite clear whom Russians deem their enemies. ISIS has seldom received a mention.

With respect to Russia’s ‘principles’ of not negotiating with terrorists and “inevitable retribution”, there are many bitter words that can be written about the Kremlin’s funding and support for militants, a large number of them from Russia, responsible for hostage-taking, forced disappearances, extra-judicial executions, etc. in Crimea and Donbas.

There will be cases before the European Court of Human Rights and, almost certainly, the International Criminal Court over Russia’s annexation of Crimea and behaviour in other parts of Ukraine.

Footage on July 17, 2014 which Life News reported as a Ukrainian military plane downed by militants

It is Russia that has blocked an international investigation into the downing of the Malaysian MH17 airliner by a Russian-made BUK missile. This was reported on Russian television as having been downed by Kremlin-backed militants with those reports and incriminating footage only removed after it became clear that a passenger plane had been downed, not a Ukrainian military aircraft.

A European Court of Human Rights judgement is now awaited over one of the most monstrous terrorist acts in the Russian Federation. The Court in Strasbourg has already accepted that Russia must answer for its failure to prevent the tragedy at the school in Beslan, North Ossetia in which 331 people died, more than half of them children. For over two days then Putin even lied about the number of people held hostage in the school, and it is known that the terrorists were so angered by the claim that they were not prepared to negotiate that they refused to give the children water. There are serious grounds for believing that Anna Politkovskaya was poisoned to stop her negotiating, and that the explosions used to justify the storming of a building holding well over a thousand children, parents, grandparents and teachers, did not come from the terrorists. There was no ‘inevitable retribution” and Russia has, on the contrary, done everything to block a proper investigation and bring those responsible to answer.


* The results of a public inquiry into Litvinenko’s murder are due out soon. Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun left traces of radioactive polonium everywhere they went, both before and after the meeting with Litvinenko where he drank the fatal substance in a cup of tea. One key point made repeatedly through the hearings was that radioactive polonium is not something that you can buy on the black market.


See also:

• MH17: Russia did it, endof? 
• The Russian People Saw A Strikingly Different Picture Of MH17 Findings
• How Dutch Investigators Rebuffed Russia’s Alternative MH17 Theories
• Russian LifeNews inadvertently told the truth about downed Malaysian airline
• Sent to be shot
• The EU’s Opaque Dealings with Ukraine
• Whose anti-Semitic and Homophobic Choice?
• What should they talk about, Mr Putin?
• The Peace that chokes Russia
• Russia intent on revising unfortunate history
• Alexander Litvinenko lawyer points finger at Putin as inquiry ends 
• Russia refuses to help Syrian refugees

Ukraine: Punished for pursuing a European future

Demo immediately after President Yanukovych cancelled EU Association Agreement, November 2013

Reblogged with permission from Progress. Jamie Milne is a Labour Councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and the founder of Labour Friends of Ukraine. He tweets @j_m_milne.

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By Jamie Milne

The report by the Dutch Safety Board into the Russian BUK missile that brought down flight MH17 provided a brief revival of interest in Ukraine this week. But for those who know and care about this embattled but optimistic country the trend is clear – the Russian annexation of Crimea and attack on eastern Ukraine is being forgotten.

Ukraine has suffered extraordinary hardship in the last 18 months and, while Ukrainians hold their future in their own hands, western support is vital. The European Union and United States must not allow their response to Russian aggression to become frozen along with the conflict.

If they can manage to rouse themselves for the first rewriting of European borders by force since the second world war, Angela Merkel, Barack Obama and David Cameron should consider three approaches that would discourage future aggression and eventually roll back past misdemeanours.

First, the west should undergo a fundamental rethink of policy towards Russia which persistently sees differences between Vladimir Putin and the west as artificial and born of mistrust rather than a reflection of completely incompatible visions of the future. It must, of course, continue to isolate Russia in light of its intervention in Syria. Obama blundered by rewarding Putin with a meeting straight after his visit to the United Nations. The message on Russian state media was clear – diplomatic isolation over Crimea and the Donbas was over. Since then American policy appears to have changed with the growing realisation that Russia’s intervention is explicitly pro-Assad and entirely unconcerned with Islamic State. Freezing out Russia is both a moral and prudential approach that deepens Putin’s pariah status for his support of one of the world’s worst regimes and denies him the diplomatic showboating he desires.

Punishing Russian eschewal of international norms is vital but little thought has been given to support for Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko and the new Ukraine. For a young nation of 45 million people that has put lives on the line to pursue a European future this is an unforgivable omission. For the west, the wisest Ukraine policy is also the best Russia policy – assist in the creation of an enterprising, successful country shorn of corruption that Russians are envious of and wish to emulate. A flourishing Ukraine solves the Donbas problem and ultimately addresses the Putin problem. The current approach – a mean trickle of cash that keeps Ukraine on life-support coupled with credulous diplomatic agreements – is an unwitting pro-Putin policy.

Finally, western leaders must stop acting as moderators and start behaving like an ally. The Minsk II agreement signed by France and Germany legitimised the Kremlin-backed rebels and left Poroshenko a mendicant in his own country – requiring permission to secure his own borders and to hold elections in the Donbas.

The politically ‘wised-up’ speak knowingly of Putin’s strategic cunning but the truth is his assault on Ukraine has been a disaster. Only through a pitiful lack of willpower and turning our back on our values have we made it possible to lose an easy fight. In putting right their mistakes, Obama, Merkel and Cameron would be doing a better day’s work than they have done for a long time on the international stage and would go a long way to silencing a man who has become the world’s principal cause of instability.

MH17: Russia did it, endof?

#MH17 victims of #RussiaInvadedUkraine Mo, Evie and Otis Maslin

A year ago today hundreds of Western bodies tumbled out of the sky in the middle of a European war zone.

Nobody predicted the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 but with hindsight they could have. The war in Eastern Ukraine was at a turning point. Despite a corrupt and crumbling army and 92 thrown together groups of ragtag militia, the Ukrainians were turning the tide on the rebels.

But if it was not obvious that the exact same 'little green men' scenario played out in Crimea was being played out in the Donbas it should have by the time that the first planes started getting shot down. The fighter jets started going down and then the high flying transport planes.

Those transport planes were being shot down by some very sophisticated weapons, ones that took a lot of coordination and a lot of training to operate. They did not, to turn around Putin's joking phrase, from when he was still pretending that those in Crimea were 'local volunteers', 'come from a shop'.

We now know thanks in large part to the work of one British man, Eliot Higgins, almost beyond all reasonable doubt, that MH17 was shot down by a Russian missile system. This means a Russian crew, precisely because of the training required to operate such a system and Higgins just said that his Bellingcat team now have Russian names and have provided them to the official investigators, the Dutch Safety Board, where he is an official witness.

How could they know Russian names? Because those Russians posted the evidence themselves, on social media. After the jump watch the film by Vice News' Simon Ostrovsky where he follows up on evidence gathered by Higgins of one Russian soldier's presence on the Donbas battle fields. Ostrovsky finds the exact same spots where one soldier took his selfies. That soldier was from Buryatia, a Russian region whose people are Mongols. Hence the soldier got noticed in Eastern Ukraine.

After MH17 the tide turned back and the rebels with their Russian 'volunteer professional assistants' ensured that the war did not end last August but carried on, as it still does today, Minsk 'peace' or no 'peace'.

10% of Ukraine lost, 6000 dead and over 2 million displaced.

Russia has come up with five, to date, explanations for MH17, none blaming themselves of course and some out of science fiction. One by the Defence Ministry is described by Bellingcat as Russia's "Colin Powell moment".

That moment when the former American Secretary of State went before the UN Security Council to argue for war on Iraq has become a poster for Russia's lavishly funded international propaganda TV network RT. You may have seen it on the Washington Metro or on London's Tube. But just as the West tolerates RT so does Western media have 'balance' and thus MH17 will remain 'he said, she said' until the official report comes out in three months time.

That 'balance' and essential fairness which underpins our Western societies is used against us by Russia. Their security services and their 'political technocrats' know full well that with something like MH17 they can muddy the waters enough that many in the West won't blame Russia. They can somehow wriggle out of this.

The FSB and the Kremlin will find willing partners on both the left and the right but they will also find unwitting ones like journalists. Journalists such as one Mike Kelly writing today for the Newcastle Chronicle. (Newcastle is where two of the British victims hail from.) Kelly presents MH17 as a tale of 'versions' and he condemns the 'squabbling' over whodunnit, comparing this notion of his with the 'quiet dignity' of today's memorials.

Putin could not have said it better - in fact he has said it with his talk of the politicisation of the MH17 inquiry. But just as climate change is not about 'sides' of equal veracity neither is MH17, to say otherwise is to damn the whole profession of investigative journalism and to sign up to the Russian propaganda meme of there being no such thing as the truth! And it is no service to the victims' loved ones to pretend otherwise.

Tomorrow Ukraine will disappear from people's radar but come October we know what the Dutch report will say. Not because we are arrogant but because others have done the hard work.

Even when we then have a Russian war crime spelt out in black and white I predict we will still hear the siren voice of appeasement, from the left and from the right. Business will still go on and London palaces will still be bought with corrupt money.

For shame.

• Others than Higgins have of course investigated. Two are James Miller and Michael Weiss and they have a long read at the Daily Beast spelling out how come we know Russia dunnit.

Watch Simon Ostrovsky's astonishing report tracking down one Buryat soldier to one of Russia's remotest regions.