Up until the time of the MH17 tragedy, my role in moderating anti-Russia sentiment was almost entirely confined to social media. Then, on July 17, 2014, the proverbial shit hit the fan. Stunned like everyone else, I immediately turned to traditional media, only to get the immediate sense that a media control game was in place. Then, in rapid succession, RTTV called to ask my opinion on the PR at work against Russia, and social media lines went buzzing like crazy.
Supposedly recorded communications, real and fake video, and every manner of contrivance was pitted against the blatantly obvious about the downed Malaysian airliner. A blame game of never before seen magnitude ensued to the west, with political celebrities like the US Secretary of State John Kerry, Hillary Clinton on the Charley Rose Show, and soon to be famous (or infamous) journos like Eliot Higgins (aka Bellingcat) and Daily Beast’s Michael Weiss.
On the other end of the “arguments” over who shot this airliner down, some names would become synonymous with the euphemism “Kremlin Troll.” From Global Research’s Professor Michel Chossudovsky’s initial report the flight path of MH17 had been changed, to what soon became a small legion of pro-Russian supporters, the reason seemed to demand a questioning and moderating counterbalance to the American propaganda.
An almost immediate analysis by urban legend Andrei Raevsky, better known as “The Saker” because of his intensely critical and well-documented works at The Vineyard of The Saker website, led the foray into independent analysis of the event. The absence of real evidence by the US administration, the disjointed and strange accusations of the Poroshenko government, and parroting across the media spectrum in America and Europe provoked a natural counter-response. For my part, the RT interview led to some Russian media amplifying my later writings, and I did a short stint writing op-ed material for the RT website. “Death & lies: The only truth of flight MH17” in late August was a reflection of the overall frustration many people felt for the total lack of proof presented on the disaster.
As an interesting footnote here, RT’s Op-Edge editor, Natalia Makarova had offered me normal compensation for my editorials according to industry standards, but I turned down them down for what were for me obvious reasons. It might interest the reader to know that this condemned Putin Troll has never received compensation from RT, Russia One, NTV, Russia 24, RIA Novosti, or Pravda for dozens of editorials or TV appearances. This is not to suggest some journalists accused of being Kremlin agents do not get paid for their work, I simply mention it here because so many who are unpaid have been so accused.
Chapter III: A Solitary Falcon
“Sometimes it is necessary to be lonely in order to prove that you are right.”
I have already related how me and some other players became involved in what some people call the New McCarthyism. From here on I will also discuss how I came to be acquainted with most all of the most notorious pro-Russia figures, the people otherwise known as Kremlin fanboys and fangirls. But as famous and familiar as the names and faces of most of the analysts, journalists, and social media people taking Russia’s part are, there’s one iconic dissenter who’s more prescient than all the rest. At this point, it seems appropriate to introduce one of the most famous Kremlin Trolls, the self-proclaimed “Putin Fanboy” known as The Saker. With his permission, I include the first of several confessed Kremlin Troll autobiographies. What you are about to read comes directly from the source, The Vineyard of The Saker website at http://thesaker.is.
How I became a Kremlin troll
by The Saker
By birth, experience, and training, I truly had everything needed to hate Putin. I was born in a family of “White Russians” whose anti-Communism was total and visceral.
My childhood was filled with (mostly true) stories about atrocities and massacres committed by the Bolsheviks during the revolution and subsequent civil war. Since my father had left me, I had an exiled Russian Orthodox Archbishop as a spiritual father, and through him, I learned of all the genocidal persecutions the Bolsheviks unleashed against the Orthodox Church.
At the age of 16, I had already read the three volumes of the “Gulag Archipelago” and carefully studied the history of WWII. By 18 I was involved in numerous anti-Soviet activities such as distributing anti-Soviet propaganda in the mailboxes of Soviet diplomats or organizing the illegal importation of banned books into the Soviet Union through the Soviet merchant marine and fishing fleet (mostly at their station in the Canary Islands). I was also working with an undercover group of Orthodox Christians sending help, mainly in the form of money, to the families of jailed dissidents. And since I was fluent in Russian, my military career took me from a basic training in electronic warfare, to a special unit of linguists for the General Staff of the Swiss military, to becoming a military analyst for the strategic intelligence service of Switzerland.
The Soviet authorities had long listed me, and my entire family, as dangerous anti-Soviet activists and I, therefore, could not travel to Russia until the fall of Communism in 1991 when I immediately caught the first available flight and got to Moscow while the barricades built against the GKChP coup were still standing. Truly, by this fateful month of August 1991, I was a perfect anti-Soviet activist and an anti-Communist hardliner. I even took a photo of myself standing next to the collapsed statue of Felix Derzhinsky (the founder of the ChK — the first Soviet Secret police) with my boot pressed on his iron throat. That day I felt that my victory was total. It was also short-lived.
Instead of bringing the long-suffering Russian people freedom, peace, and prosperity, the end of Communism in Russia only brought chaos, poverty, violence, and abject exploitation by the worst class of scum the defunct Soviet system had produced. I was horrified. Unlike so many other anti-Soviet activists who were also Russophobes, I never conflated my people and the regime which oppressed them. So, while I rejoiced at the end of one horror, I was also appalled to see that another one had taken its place. Even worse, it was undeniable that the West played an active role in every and all forms of anti-Russian activities, from the total protection of Russian mobsters, on to the support of the Wahabi insurgents in Chechnya, and ending with the financing of a propaganda machine which tried to turn the Russian people into mindless consumers to the presence of western “advisors” (yeah, right!) in all the key ministries. The oligarchs were plundering Russia and causing immeasurable suffering, and the entire West, the so-called “free world” not only did nothing to help but helped all the enemies of Russia with every resource it had. Soon the NATO forces attacked Serbia, a historical ally of Russia, in total violation of the most sacred principles of international law. East Germany was not only reunified but instantly incorporated into West Germany and NATO pushed as far East as possible. I could not pretend that all this could be explained by some fear of the Soviet military or by a reaction to the Communist theory of world revolution. In truth, it became clear to me that the western elites did not hate the Soviet system or ideology, but that they hated Russian people themselves and the culture and civilization which they had created.