Even before the Malaysian Airlines provocation, I had begun analysis of the underlying causes of renewed America-Russia conflict. A Quartz piece I shared on Facebook, and my argumentation with it, brought to the forefront the cliché “war for gas” machination. “Putin’s revenge—anti-fracking protests in Europe” showed us a kind of template for future Obama administration led propaganda against Russia. This quote from the Steve LeVine Quartz[3] story reveals what I mean:
“In a London appearance on June 19, Anders Rasmussen, the secretary-general of NATO, accused Russia of secretly funding European non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that oppose hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”), the method used to drill for shale gas, on environmental grounds. The objective, according to Rasmussen: to frustrate European countries’ efforts to wean themselves off Russian gas, which now comprises 30% of the European market.”
My fellow Kremlin “agents” will cringe at the mere mention of Rasmussen’s name, for NATO’s former head accusing Russia of Soros-like NGO insurgency is truly the “pot calling the kettle black.” This kind of rhetorical redirect would become the nauseatingly familiar strategy of western world leaders. But before I reveal the deeper network of pro-Russian activists and “operatives,” a close friend and colleague of mine needs to be revealed.
From the early stages of my own geopolitical studies, my friend Holger Eekhof has played a significant role in my own research and in voicing dissent across commentary channels. A Dutch national, Eekhof has lived in Germany most of his life and was once a CDU politician. Today he offers a keen insight, especially from the German perspective, on geopolitics and European law. I mention Eekhof for two reasons. First and foremost, he has been analyzing this anti-Russia situation since before the 2008 South Ossetia War, which makes him one of the longest living Kremlin Trolls (by definition). More importantly for this book though, it was Eekhof who prompted me back in June 2014, to begin looking hard at the “natural gas” aspect of the whole Ukraine affair. Eekhof’s initial media studies focused on the German ZEIT and other quasi-intellectual German media, which would later prove invaluable in compiling information on the key players behind this crisis. I distinctly remember Eekhof and I discussing Ukraine, and Crimea in particular, about natural gas and its influence on world energy markets. It was Eekhof who reminded me of the immense importance of transit and supply on this subject, in particular, the need for storage and “regasification” facilities.
Interestingly, an Everything PR News story in which I discussed this “energy” facet has since disappeared from the Everything PR News website. I’ll get into why I think it vanished later, but luckily the story has been archived elsewhere on the web. In “Ukraine, Arab Spring, Cold War II and Price Wars Hardly Disguised” the nexus of what we’ve come to call the “New Democratic Order” is featured prominently. This quote from my conclusions hints at what I’ll later reveal as the true enemy of the Kremlin:
“I imagine a world of business actions, running wholesale and almost chaotically the fate of billions of human beings. This is the “obtuse” garden where billionaires get too busy and maybe too dumb to really act smartly. The alternative view leaves us with evil bastards who could care less about the environment, people, or even their own legacy. The coming race to capitalize on all the world’s shale natural gas will be something greater than even the California gold rush.”
Now it seems appropriate to introduce a rather “naked” Kremlin troll, an operative truly in the trenches of this asymmetric media war. Eekhof inhabits the comment sections of some of the world’s most influential media, media such as ZEIT. The man who now blogs at Sputnik, started off his pro-Russia endeavors in the most organic of ways — his life partner being from Tbilisi, and their network of friends including many Russians in Germany. As for our relationship, Eekhof and I share many common interests, not the least of which being geography, history, and a special kind of anti-Russophobia angst. In the coming chapters, you’ll find this top Kremlin Troll mentioned sporadically along with others but remember this “regasification” story, along with Vice President Joe Biden’s son signing on with Burisma Holding,[4] is central to understanding the truth of Ukraine and the regime changes we’ve witnessed since the Arab Spring began.
One common denominator you will find in the profiles of Kremlin Trolls you will discover here, is the fervent idealism heated to a boiling point be real and perceived injustices. In Holger Eekhof’s case, his life partner being from the Bagrationi family of the Republic of Georgia added a kind of reality most people cannot see. So, this influence has an organically positive effect on the way Eekhof and this whole circle of friends viewed the aforementioned war in South Ossetia. The reader should understand that the real people of these former Soviet republics have their fond memories too. Georgia being one of the most privileged republics, led to much closer ties between modern Georgia and Russia than Westerners are led to believe. His natural inclinations and expertise within the realm of CDU and European political study were fed by grassroots and credible local opinion and ideas. My point here is that Georgia’s leadership often reflects one view, while the people in the streets genuinely reflect another. Eekhof’s view is extremely important for this very reason — he mirrors the real-world view tempered by his knowledge of all the legalities of policy building.
For this key Kremlin Troll analyst, the game started as an intellectual pastime as far back as 2002, and after the Euromaidan changed from being a secondary hobby to a full-time job. Eekhof read and commented on online German news and periodicals out of his interest in litigation and policy from his CDU days. Later, he tells me, German media like ZEIT and many others simply became propaganda instruments. What I found far more interesting though something Eekhof said about the local and national level CDU hierarchy: recently how deep-seated Russophobia existed in the Trier “club,” as well as higher up at every level of the organization. Eekhof said the leadership at the local offices even accused his Russian girlfriend at the time of being a “Russian spy.” This story is not a unique one, I assure you.
Having lived in this region a decade now, the shadows of the distant past still loom large over the land and the German psyche. Even today Eekhof cannot believe the utter stupidity and narrow-mindedness his CDU colleagues showed toward Russians, in fact, he told me many times this narrow view was the reason he left the party for good. On reflection, I see more clearly commonality among almost all foreign pro-Russia activists in disenchantment. This is not about so-called Kremlin Trolls being disenfranchised, but about idealism and the disappointment that comes from encountering the warped politics. As Eekhof said once:
“I could not believe how stupid and short sighted they were, Phil. And all of them.”
He was referring to CDU and other party officials even up to the highest level. From what he describes, the essence of the “party” is really like a country club, or perhaps those Moose Lodges from my American experience. Now that I think about Eekhof’s recounting of events in the Trier CDU club, I think the “Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes” from the cartoon The Flintstones, where Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble were members of the lodge, may be more accurate. Germany does have its share of villages that could as easily be called Bedrock, the socialism here being orchestrated over the top of some really archaic thinking masked as democracy. While the reader is surely more interested in how other actors and I were “recruited” for their alleged roles in the coming Dezinformatsiya, German politics and Eekhof come up frequently later in the book.
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