The Kremlin Wants Information. To Get It, Agents Show Up With Flowers.

This thought hit me immediatly upon starting to read this article: Russia is Russia, the world of Fyodor Dostoeyevski lives on.

Another "war" that US ended (cold war with Soviets) but didn't follow through and we have to deal with the aftermath. Post war work is just as important as the war it self.

And how many "informants" are currently on the FBI payroll, infiltrating American opposition political groups? A question of really massive disinterest to mainstream American media. After all, they & the Deep State are partners. In a report in the 1970s for Rolling Stone magazine, reporter Carl Bernstein wrote of the CIA program of infiltrating the US media. The most compromised of the many eager media "journalist"co-operators with the sinister spies were employed by the most prestigious outlets--CBS News and the New York TIMES. There have of course been NO follow-up stories on this topic in the decades since. Therefore, let the readers be warned: When one reads a story in the American press, it could be legitimate journalism--or it could be placed there by the CIA or the FBI.

For anyone who followed _The Americans_, this strategy is entirely familiar.

I traveled a bit in the Soviet Union in 1990 as part of a delegation. Let's just say it was "interesting." Unlikely coincidences, comments, activities that fit notorious patterns of treatment of foreigners. Can't describe it in 1500 characters.

When I was a graduate student half a century ago, an FBI agent came up to me while I waiting at a bus stop in Cambridge, MA, flashing his ID and asking if he could talk to me. He wanted to know about my neighbors, a bunch of pleasant young men in their early 20s who were also graduate students. One of them had applied to join the Peace Corps, and the FBI agent kept asking me if they "had parties." I in my innocence thought he was trying to find out if they were noisy, drunk, wild, etc., and I kept saying, "Oh no, they're very quiet." Finally he came to the point: "Do they have parties....with girls?" -- He wanted to know if they were gay, a word not yet common in its current meaning. I can't remember how I answered; I just remember my dawning awareness that he was after information it had never occurred to me give (yes, they were straight). -- So that's what the US gov't was up to in 1968, FYI.

Everything old is new again! Seriously, the end of the USSR was a brief respite that was extremely hard on the citizens of the Former Soviet Union, and a wasted opportunity for the US. The New Russia wants it's colonies back, and the sooner we come to grips with the WHY of Russian government behavior, (a very complex exercise), the sooner we can advise the Russians that colonialism is so 20th century...

They are political pimps

"How many people are serving as informants is impossible to know: The only people who talk about recruitment pitches are those who balked." Not necessarily. Think about it. By immediately going to his or her boss and reporting an approach, a successfully recruited individual would be inoculated against suspicion. If I were a recruiter, it's the first thing I'd advise a new recruit to do.

How odd to find Trump’s favourite device .. the non disclosure agreement ... occurring in the modus operandi for recruitment of Russian agents. What a strange coincidence.

And the GOP Congress would feel right at home in the Russian Duma, watching its members rubber stamp everything Putin asks for, the same way they do for Trump. In fact the pusillanimous Republican Congress who echo Trump’s tweets about Mueller’s “witch hunt,” might as well all be wearing those tee shirts that say “I’d rather be Russian than a Democrat.” Nataliya Gryaznevich’s courage puts the GOP’s elected officials to shame.

Interesting that paranoia is so entrenched in Putin that he is convinced that the domestic resistance is driven by foreign intervention. Here in the US Trump is paranoid about the domestic civil servants (deep state), while the Russian interference is ignored. I guess all authoritarians get lost in their own delusions because there are nobody who dare to push them back to reality.

My Russian wife was recruited by the FSB when she returned from a graduate program in the US. She has now served for over 15 years for the FSB in a variety of positions in the international business community. Her business association employers know of her role as an FSB informant and they regularly use her connections to solve problems that arise with Russian government agencies. Her mother was an FSB agent that monitored scientists from East Germany and her father was an informant in the Russian Academy of Sciences. I lived in Russia for nearly a decade and many people I knew worked for the FSB or informed for the FSB. I had a very good contact in the FSB that solved issues I had with Russian government. The NY Times has printed articles written by journalists that are well known in Russia to have been cooperators with the FSB and other Russian government agents. Based on my personal experience living and working in Russia for over 20 years it would nearly impossible not to have interacted with or worked with the FSB agents or other Russian government security services. I understand Andrew Higgins has been the Moscow correspondent since February 2016 so I understand Mr. Higgins interest in the use of Russian security services in this manner. Having grown up in the US at the end of the cold war it was unnerving when first approached by the FSB as I never have had any contact with US security services. The use of the FSB in this manner is normal for Russia.

This also happens in the USA. When I was in college in the 60's I was approached several times by men wanting to know if I was interested in helping them watch anti war fellow students. I found it flattering, but a little unnerving. I declined their invitations. Always wondered which agency was behind the advances. Just rouge agents, or a serious offer? I have no clue, but my conservative leanings were well known at my college.

Higgins paints an accurate picture of how brilliant the Rooskis are at these operations. While we dismiss it as cute versions of Rocky and Bullwinkle, we forget that the show was written when the Russian threat was taken much more seriously. Guess I’m dating myself here, but that show deserves a comeback.

"........working for the F.S.B., the principal pillar of a Russian security system dedicated to keeping President Vladimir V. Putin in power." Power First:Country Last The Kremlin uses its own methods to destroy and drown democracy and free and fair elections. Here in America, Russian-Republicans use slightly different methods to destroy democracy and the will of the people....voter suppression, the gerrymander, propaganda, 0.1% oligarchy-moneyed 'speech', the Fake News Channel, hate radio. But the goals of the Kremlin are the same as the goals of the Republican Party: fake elections, fake democracy, oligarchic rule, oil and gas money, country (and planet) be damned to criminal greed. Power First: Country Last Don't let your children grow up to be Russian-Republicans.

I am not naive about evil in the world, and I can't help thinking the world will be a better, less authoritarian place when Vladimir Putin finally exits the public stage.

You can immediately tell if you are dealing with a Russian agent (spy): they all have dead eyes.

I miss Boris Badenough and his espionage accomplice, Natasha. They were more fun.

Why is this surprising? Investigative agencies in the US recruit informants.

A culture of distrust in those around you is one of the most effective means to control the masses. This report reminds me of a party I attended in St Petersburg where I was a visiting scientist in 1986. The 15-20 friends of the apartment's owner were singing and drinking vodka and beer. Within 20minutes of my arrival the owner requested that I join him in the bedroom to talk. He was a physicist and had sent an abstract to a conference in St Paul Mn. After locking the door he merely requested that I send him a copy of the published abstracts once I returned to Minnesota. His distrust of his "Friends" accented what I saw among neighbors, relatives and co-workers, everyone was a potential spy and you were never sure who was a trustworthy acquaintance.

She's not as weak as they thought. This is what a person of character looks like. They are the same in every part of the world, out in front doing what's best for all so it shouldn't be hard to find them and follow their example. This is good leadership and the antithesis of what trump and putin are.

The Russian game plan is much more elaborate and it is not restricted to Russian soil only. I had a personal experience of this in late seventies when I went to Helsinki from New Delhi to attend a conference at Helsinki University. The driver who came from Indian Embassy to pick me up at Airport was a Nepali and he started working on me from that point. Knowing the weak points of Bengali young professional he started talking to me about INA and fixed a visit to his Dacha on Sunday, the off day of my conference. Sunday morning he came and pick me up and took to his Dacha, and as I expected, two English speaking Russian were there. I am sure, there was my file with photos of the good times with drink and food and Sunna bath. Luckily, there was no women. On those days, India was under the grip of Russia, with Ms Gandhi as PM and three of her closest advisors, Kashmiri communists, were Russian agents. The country was having GDP growth rate of 3.5%, 1.5% lower than global average. This disaster keep the country undeveloped for almost 50 years.

Thank you, NYT, for this article. I wish people like those MAGA types who wear “I’d rather be Russian than a Democrat” would read this. Ordinary Russians, who do not enjoy the rights and standard of living we do, often literally risk their lives to fight for liberties we take for granted. People over there who get involved in any kind of cause that goes against the government take a lot of risks. It’s downright shameful that Republican legislators are cozying up to a Russian government that treats its people in a fashion that is inimical to what America is supposed to stand for, and I wish people would stop for a second to imagine what it’s like to be Ms. Gryaznevich to see if they’d be brave enough to persist.

Ms. Gryaznevich is to be commended for her bravery in coming forward about this attempt to coerce her to inform. Kudos also to Mr. Shtorn. The current atmosphere in Russia is chilling any real discourse about freedom to assemble or run for office or vote one's conscience. When we turn against our innocent friends, neighbors, colleagues for the sheer power inherent in doing so, (manipulating the human wish to live in peace) thus creating 'sides' or 'tribes' or conformists vs non-conformists, we have corrupted the trust a healthy democracy relies on to exist and thrive.

The effort to assist all those people in the world who work to promote successful rule-of-law democracies around the world should be supported by all of us who believe in said democracies...and unfortunately, this work is now, also, required in our own country where we are "led" by an uninformed, reckless, and most dangerous tyrant.

That's the way it is here in Hartford City, IN. A stronghold for former Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) with ties to Russia, neighbors routinely falsely accuse me of doing perfectly normal activities to the local police without any accountability for their statements. One such false report yielded a policeman apprehending me and transporting to a psychiatric hospital for the forcible administration of psychotropic drugs that alter the mind. I would think the federal Government wouldn't allow Russia to establish ownership and government of parts of the US homeland.

I worked for Shell Oil a Dutch based corporation out of the Hauge, Netherlands in Hartford City, IN when a local banker who owned the town shows up with flowers for a female single employee who had an interest in me. The female employee sought a no-contact order against me on behalf of the banker at no avail. I believe the banker and his city are funded in part by the Russian government and practice philosophies of the socialism and communism. The banker was tightly connected to former Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) who also has ties to Moscow. They subsequently blacklisted me and ordered psychiatric institutionalization because I was college educate. The Court is in favor of this treatment to a college grad.