With Putin's lateral side-step to Syria, much of the world's attention to strategic matters moved away from Eastern Europe—which might explain why the Georgian Dream government in Tbilisi thought it was a good moment to persecute the main opposition TV channel Rustavi 2. And why Russian proxies are attacking in Ukraine again. During the bad old days of the Cold War, the Western world understood that Moscow coordinated its actions throughout the Eastern Bloc in places like Tbilisi and other areas of influence. We saw the significance of such a seemingly remote event. The Kremlin acted wholistically; the world understood that. These days, you're considered something of a Jeremiah having lurid visions if you argue that Russia orchestrates the sequence, timing and polemical uses of far-flung geo-strategic events.
Let's look at recent chronology and see what it yields, prima facie, about the Kremlin's coordination:
- Ceasefire in Ukraine followed by military incursion into Syria
- Ukrainian local elections preceded by a smear job on former President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, now governor of Odessa
- Same smear job used to justify Tbilisi's crackdown on pro-Saakashvili TV Channel Rustavi 2 in Georgia
Now for most Westerners this switching between countries causes the mind to swim so they switch off instead. (Ukraine and Georgia at the same time, but aren't they different countries?) The Kremlin knows this full well from years of post-Soviet impunity. Distraction and disinformation surround every action, not least for Russian domestic consumption. The next incident, the horrific ISIS bombing of the Russian tourists' aircraft, instantly triggered a sudden spike in renewed attacks by pro-Russians on the Ukrainian front. This happened, in tandem with a blizzard of Russian media speculation about how the CIA was possibly complicit in the atrocity, or even Britain's M16.
Drill down a little more and you get a fascinating education in how deliberately Moscow's propaganda machine works. Having arrived at an impasse in Ukraine under pressure from global sanctions, Putin moved onto Syria. Distraction—then disinformation. On the eve of Ukrainian local elections, reports of a Saakashvili phone conversation advocating violent revolution in Georgia appears all over Georgian media. The source, they claim, is Wikileaks Ukraine. Keep in mind that a pro-Saakashvili candidate is running for mayor in Odessa against a pro-Russian candidate (who won). The Ukrainian local elections matter to Moscow. But the leak is first funneled through Georgia with the apparently legitimizing tag of Wikileaks Ukraine, thereby imitating the democratic grass-roots voice of Euromaidan truth-telling. Therefore everyone initially thinks it has to be believable.
The post later turns out to originate physically from an IP address in Russia. But in the meantime the damage is done. The leak says Saakashvili is advocating physical resistance against the Georgian government's assault on the independent TV station. True enough. But it says more. It says he's trying to provoke confrontation in Tblisi order to overthrow the Georgian Dream government. Above all, a truly slimy thread runs through the leak in which Saakashvili seems to embrace the prospect of children being hurt as a way to enhance the provocation.
If you don't know recent Georgian history you won't know the meaning of that. You have to go back to the Georgian national elections of 2012. On October 1, the day of the 2012 national election, which Saakashvili's party lost, the opposition accused his government of drowning a child in the wine vat of a private house as an act of intimidation because the child's uncle worked for the opposition. At the time, a dark cloud already hung over the country (and Saakashvili) in the wake of deeply unpleasant prison abuse videos leaked just a week before—even though the videos manifestly originated from Georgian mafia sources. Election Day proceeded with the Russians openly threatening to invade anew in case of civil strife in Georgia, while the opposition leader threatened to cause just that if Saakashvili won. Understandably, the public opted for a quiet life. A kind of mass Stockholm syndrome gripped the country. Saakashvili's activism and confronting of Russia got tarred with causing all the trouble. (Some months later the dead infant's mother retracted the accusations against Saakashvili's party.)
So, the recent Wikileaks' unmistakable message to Odessans and Ukrainians must be understood against that background echo spilling over from the past Georgian election. Get it? Saakashvili only causes strife and grief. If bad things happen, it's only because of Saakashvili's megalomania. Look, he's trying to meddle in both Georgia and Ukraine. He doesn't care about Ukraine or Odessa. And he will bring the same dark times and doings to Odessa as he did to Georgia. That's the message. Now let's look closely at the recent leaks. The posted transcript allegedly came from a conversation between now governor Saakashvili and one of his allies within Georgia. Some days after the purported transcript is posted, actual audio of the conversation is posted. The fake transcript had Saakashvili saying the following—which never happened in the audio version: “If a woman dies that will be better, even better if it's a woman with children” among other callous statements.
By the time that the real recording came out (illegally wiretapped and leaked) the details merged and got confused. The smear travelled around the Russosphere at just the right time. It wasn't until over a week after that, on November 7, that a group of young Ukrainian media activists released an analysis in Russian detailing how the recent transcripts fit into a pattern of Kremlin disinformation especially through the channel of “Ukrainian” Wikileaks. But by then, the elections already took place in Odessa, Rustavi 2 was raided, and its management sacked and replaced by government loyalists.
In fact, both Saakashvili and his allies everywhere should engage in both countries, resist with their bodies if necessary because they're resisting Moscow proxies throughout the former Soviet bloc. The Kremlin is coordinating to dominate the region and the region's democratic activists must coordinate in response. Putin has a huge advantage because he operates ruthlessly and monolithically, invades and kills and muzzles in order to shape public opinion, reigns as a leader for life. He launched into Syria knowing the potential cost of taking on ISIS, but he had to create another crisis after Ukraine to maintain nationalist fervor in Russia. Innocent Russian tourists paid with their lives. His propaganda organs, by word and deed, rose to the occasion with blood and lies. So the conflict in Ukraine was reignited to distract from ISIS. In effect, Ukrainians had to die to distract from Putin's misstep in Syria. That's how geo-strategically the Kremlin works.
In the Cold War we understood that. It's time to understand it again.
