4 ms·

I'm really starting to think these fringe "activist" groups are driven by the FSB doing "active measures". Putin cut his teeth as a field agent in Germany suppo

I'm really starting to think these fringe "activist" groups are driven by the FSB doing "active measures". Putin cut his teeth as a field agent in Germany supporting fringe groups to destabilize governments. In 2014, it was these types of groups that stormed the Luhansk and Donetsk governments. In 2021, right wing groups attempted to do the same in Washington. Now we see the German version of this in 2022.

082349872349872 4y ago
The argument against that is that groups of this memetic profile have been documented in the US since the 1960's, and in Deutschland since the 1980's, both of which predate the FSB as such (1995). On the "for" hand, they could all plausibly be Полезные идиоты (NB loan word from english!) and so it'll be interesting to see whether TFA's "one suspected supporter [who] is from Russia" winds up connected during the prosecution.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  The predecessor was certainly highly active in 1960s U.S. though. We know of this from the Mitrokhin revelations.
  - aebtebeten 4y ago
    From https://www.rbth.com/history/334691-inside-mitrokhin-archive-spy-ussr-kgb https://www.rbth.com/history/334691-inside-mitrokhin-archive...: > Stashes of arms were maintained in various parts of the [US], ready to be used in the case of an armed conflict. It would be ironic if pred(FSB) [in line with techniques used by the Tsar's Охрана, pred(pred(FSB))] had been using anti-communist groups to gather and stash arms for their ultimate use! (almost as ironic as a farmer fattening hogs, ultimately for schnitzel?) Putting on my tinfoil hat, a grand conspiracy theory along these lines would involve the pred(FSB) first cancelling both Kennedy and Хрущёв to prevent rapproachment, then electing Reagan in 1984 to shatter detente and turn the US away from western european democracy, in the hopes he would bring down the state and party (which had a distressing tendency to promote Gorby types?) for which they worked, enabling them, at long last, to install one of their own as leader of the FSU... Nah, that's crazy talk! </tinfoil> (between the FBI and the KГБ, I almost start to wonder how many truly organic nutjob groups existed in the 1960s US! "Please, no russian — I'm spying!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PHLmv4Zzu0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PHLmv4Zzu0 )
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  no idea if this is the "suspected supporter", but I just read: > Reuss [71] soll Verbindungen nach Russland haben – seine 39-jährige Lebensgefährtin ist Russin. Über sie soll Reuss Kontakt zu russischen Stellen aufgenommen haben.
yucky 4y ago
I wonder if it's not much different than what we saw years ago from the far left. Whichever ideological wing isn't in power, fights against the state apparatus. It seems that since the ideological left currently holds most state power, you see far right groups on the attack. When the right had the power, you had far left groups on the attack. Just a dispassionate observation..
- LarsDu88 4y ago
  The KGB was active in supporting leftwing extremists in the 70s such as Red Army Faction. Guess who was one of the KGB officers in contact with RAF in the late 80s? That's right, none other than Putin. The modern FSB nurtures contacts on both far left and far right, a long with folks like Tulsi Gabbard. I think the big lesson for modern Russian active measures is that you can only get so far with leftist intellectuals and intelligencia before they push back (see George Orwell). The militaristic, chauvinistic, and overwhelmingly rural conservatives are a lot easier to ring in nowadays since so many of them have been economically displaced by globalization and alienated by the abandonment of tradition.
  - yucky 4y ago
    Can you provide some evidence that Tulsi Gabbard is somehow compromised by the FSB? That's an extraordinary claim.
belorn 4y ago
The biggest difference between the 2021 riots in the US compared to this events in Germany is that the German group had some military support. Civil disorder are dangerous, but military revolutions tend to be at a distinctly different level. Riots tend to also be a bit more chaotic in their goals and destruction, while planned military operations tend to be more focused and deliberated.
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  Is it true that the german nutters had qualitatively more military support than the US nutters? After all, the recent sedition verdicts in the US involved ex-military who had established arms caches before, and moved in formation during, their "riot".
  - belorn 4y ago
    The German nutters had people from the Kommando Spezialkräfte, and they were arming themselves with military weapons to be used in the attack. The US nutters had paramilitary equipment during the riots like Walkie talkies and walked in formation. They were also equipped with bear spray, classified by the prosecutor as a "Deadly or Dangerous Weapon". I would say there is some qualitative differences between the two, although both were obvious nutters with no connection with reality.
    - 082349872349872 4y ago
      US nutters had also prepositioned rifles (no barrett this time) with their reserve ... but I agree active KSK is a qualitative difference from "Gravy Seals". Edit: seems like KSK involvement may be less than surprising: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53237685 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53237685
    - 082349872349872 4y ago
      Some more qualitative differences: * the germans allegedly had support from (former?) legislators to produce a plausible plan for breaking into the government chambers. * the germans not only had planned to use private weapons but had even cased government Kaserne for materiel.

082349872349872 4y ago

The argument against that is that groups of this memetic profile have been documented in the US since the 1960's, and in Deutschland since the 1980's, both of which predate the FSB as such (1995). On the "for" hand, they could all plausibly be Полезные идиоты (NB loan word from english!) and so it'll be interesting to see whether TFA's "one suspected supporter [who] is from Russia" winds up connected during the prosecution.

zozbot234 4y ago
The predecessor was certainly highly active in 1960s U.S. though. We know of this from the Mitrokhin revelations.
- aebtebeten 4y ago
  From https://www.rbth.com/history/334691-inside-mitrokhin-archive-spy-ussr-kgb https://www.rbth.com/history/334691-inside-mitrokhin-archive...: > Stashes of arms were maintained in various parts of the [US], ready to be used in the case of an armed conflict. It would be ironic if pred(FSB) [in line with techniques used by the Tsar's Охрана, pred(pred(FSB))] had been using anti-communist groups to gather and stash arms for their ultimate use! (almost as ironic as a farmer fattening hogs, ultimately for schnitzel?) Putting on my tinfoil hat, a grand conspiracy theory along these lines would involve the pred(FSB) first cancelling both Kennedy and Хрущёв to prevent rapproachment, then electing Reagan in 1984 to shatter detente and turn the US away from western european democracy, in the hopes he would bring down the state and party (which had a distressing tendency to promote Gorby types?) for which they worked, enabling them, at long last, to install one of their own as leader of the FSU... Nah, that's crazy talk! </tinfoil> (between the FBI and the KГБ, I almost start to wonder how many truly organic nutjob groups existed in the 1960s US! "Please, no russian — I'm spying!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PHLmv4Zzu0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PHLmv4Zzu0 )
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
082349872349872 4y ago
no idea if this is the "suspected supporter", but I just read: > Reuss [71] soll Verbindungen nach Russland haben – seine 39-jährige Lebensgefährtin ist Russin. Über sie soll Reuss Kontakt zu russischen Stellen aufgenommen haben.

yucky 4y ago

I wonder if it's not much different than what we saw years ago from the far left. Whichever ideological wing isn't in power, fights against the state apparatus. It seems that since the ideological left currently holds most state power, you see far right groups on the attack. When the right had the power, you had far left groups on the attack. Just a dispassionate observation..

LarsDu88 4y ago
The KGB was active in supporting leftwing extremists in the 70s such as Red Army Faction. Guess who was one of the KGB officers in contact with RAF in the late 80s? That's right, none other than Putin. The modern FSB nurtures contacts on both far left and far right, a long with folks like Tulsi Gabbard. I think the big lesson for modern Russian active measures is that you can only get so far with leftist intellectuals and intelligencia before they push back (see George Orwell). The militaristic, chauvinistic, and overwhelmingly rural conservatives are a lot easier to ring in nowadays since so many of them have been economically displaced by globalization and alienated by the abandonment of tradition.
- yucky 4y ago
  Can you provide some evidence that Tulsi Gabbard is somehow compromised by the FSB? That's an extraordinary claim.

belorn 4y ago

The biggest difference between the 2021 riots in the US compared to this events in Germany is that the German group had some military support. Civil disorder are dangerous, but military revolutions tend to be at a distinctly different level. Riots tend to also be a bit more chaotic in their goals and destruction, while planned military operations tend to be more focused and deliberated.

082349872349872 4y ago
Is it true that the german nutters had qualitatively more military support than the US nutters? After all, the recent sedition verdicts in the US involved ex-military who had established arms caches before, and moved in formation during, their "riot".
- belorn 4y ago
  The German nutters had people from the Kommando Spezialkräfte, and they were arming themselves with military weapons to be used in the attack. The US nutters had paramilitary equipment during the riots like Walkie talkies and walked in formation. They were also equipped with bear spray, classified by the prosecutor as a "Deadly or Dangerous Weapon". I would say there is some qualitative differences between the two, although both were obvious nutters with no connection with reality.
  - 082349872349872 4y ago
    US nutters had also prepositioned rifles (no barrett this time) with their reserve ... but I agree active KSK is a qualitative difference from "Gravy Seals". Edit: seems like KSK involvement may be less than surprising: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53237685 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53237685
  - 082349872349872 4y ago
    Some more qualitative differences: * the germans allegedly had support from (former?) legislators to produce a plausible plan for breaking into the government chambers. * the germans not only had planned to use private weapons but had even cased government Kaserne for materiel.