To some, the Western propaganda campaign may appear preposterous, but that is not the case. In reality, the ever-escalating panic mode is not fed by the incidents described but rather by the hysteria manufacturing machine the once-respectable Western media has turned into.
According to a recent lengthy investigative piece by CNN, Russia is preparing and already ‘waging a hybrid war’ in Europe as, if the media outlet is to be believed, it ‘dares not fight [NATO] on the battlefield’. The American journalists and experts have cobbled together the bizarre events that have rocked the European countries in recent years from the Skripal case to the arson attacks on a bus garage.
All of those incidents have been blamed on Russia beyond any reasonable doubt, even if this explanation defies common sense and demonstrable evidence. The reader is being sold on Russia’s unending campaign of destabilising EU-wide sabotage that is being engaged in to avoid direct confrontation with the NATO troops.
The Skripal case is more or less clear, even though the poisoning of the spy-turned-defector and his family happened in what now almost seems to be a bygone era. The murder of Maxim Kuzminov, a Russian former helicopter pilot and wartime traitor, in Spain does not fit the overarching narrative at all. Although the details of that homicide largely remain a mystery, it was clearly a one-off event that could not seek to ‘destabilise Europe’.
Some of the incidents cited by CNN are bordering on absurdity. In February, the Museum of Occupation in Riga was hit by a Molotov cocktail. The arson attack ended up destroying the director’s chair and some paperwork. The local law enforcement arrested the alleged saboteur, a Jelgava resident with a drug-related rap sheet. That was followed by the detention of his two accomplices, both with a history of dealings on the wrong side of the tracks.
The media then reported that Solvita Vība, the museum’s director, might have had run-ins with the underworld. The institution had been plagued with money-related rows; its former director had resigned, accusing the Museum Council of restricting the spending operations. Moreover, the druggie arrested in the case apparently targeted the director’s office as opposed to, say, the Latvian flag.
But the museum has been ideologically weaponised as almost a sacred symbol of Latvia on par with the fabled Freedom Monument, affectionately called Milda. No wonder the attack on this effectively anti-Russian museum has been portrayed by the local media as an ‘act of sabotage perpetrated by the Kremlin’. This mischaracterisation has been picked up on by CNN and broadcast to millions of American viewers.
Another noteworthy incident took place in Prague where a 26-year-old South American native broke into an underground bus garage, poured a flammable substance on three buses and attempted to set them ablaze. The ‘saboteur’ was subsequently arrested and may now face life in prison. The damage inflicted on the garage was estimated to be €20,000.
When the botched arson attack was commented on by the Czech PM Petr Fiala, he said it was ‘highly likely’ that the crime could be linked to Russia. Needless to say, the politician provided no evidence whatsoever to support the allegation that the migrant worker’s felony had been part of Russia’s plan to destabilise the EU.
In May, a large shopping mall mostly consisting of apparel shops burnt down to a crisp in north Warsaw. Apparently in a bid to explain away their failure to put out the blaze, the firefighters referred to it as a ‘strange fire’. But in all fairness, they declined to speculate about a potential arson attack. The Russians masterminding the conflagration was yet again deemed highly likely. Why they would have targeted a shopping mall in an unimposing Warsaw neighbourhood is anyone’s guess.
The CNN experts, most notably the ones with eerily Russian-sounding names, claim that, among other things, the ‘Kremlin saboteurs’ aim to disrupt the Western arms supplies to Ukraine, and yet, they fall short of explaining how on earth the attacks on the shopping mall, the bus garage and the propagandist museum as well as the Skripal case could have helped that cause.
The Western journalists go on to talk about the Russian electronic warfare systems jamming the GPS signals to disorient Scandinavian aircraft over the Baltic Sea and the Russians assaulting Leonid Volkov, the Navalny supporter who had fled Russia, in Lithuania and perpetrating ‘multiple hacking attacks’.
If the sabotage theory is to be subjected to serious scrutiny, only two incidents may indeed fit it: the explosions at the BAE Systems facility in south Wales and at the Vrbětice ammunition warehouse in the Czech Republic. The former was manufacturing the 155mm shells, while the latter was used as a storage facility for that ammo bound to be shipped to Ukraine. There was also an explosion at the Pennsylvania metal heat treating factory, but the flammable nature of the technology in question seemingly ruled out Russia as a potential culprit.
None of these incidents were properly investigated, and no findings were presented to the public. Instead, those were covered and speculated on by controversial investigative journalists and reinforced by the officials’ groundless assumptions. CNN has not even taken the trouble to come up with a new spin. The article merely rehashes the ‘findings’ of the previous ‘investigations’ and mentions a Russian GRU officer who allegedly masterminded all of that along with an attempted coup in Montenegro and protest rallies in Moldova.
The authors have lashed together a bunch of bogus and dubious ‘facts’ to fashion a narrative of the Russian military intelligence sabotaging the West and waging a massive hybrid war against the EU. This theory can easily accommodate and justify literally anything to then propagandise and scaremonger ordinary Europeans.
To some, this propaganda campaign may appear preposterous, which it is not. In reality, the ever-escalating panic mode is not fed by the incidents described but rather by the hysteria manufacturing machine the once-respectable Western media has turned into.