Apr 1, 2020

Constitutional reform in Russia and a new infowar

Alex Herbert

There have been and continue to be changes in Russia regarding the alignment of political forces, reactions to external stimuli and the strategic prospects of the state.

The first signs of change can be found in Vladimir Putin’s address to the Federal Assembly, which announced upcoming changes to the country’s Constitution. On January 15th Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced the resignation of his government, which was immediately accepted, he motivated this step by the need to give the President freedom of action to implement his plans. It became clear that the problem of transferring presidential power from Putin to a new candidate, which occupied the minds of Western politicians, had entered the resolution stage.

Russia has long been under sanction pressure and international ostracism, this has not lost its strength despite the absurdity of supporting the Ukrainian-Polish-Baltic bloc which is also dispensing it. The country has long occupied that conveniently vacant niche of “the main enemy of Western civilization”, which the PRC also aims to share – this is the mainstream Western media representation of the situation.

In a world infused with the idea of opposing the interests of the leadership of various states, any changes are taken as a chance to weaken the enemy. As it should be in an era of serious trials, Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse appeared on the horizon: Crisis, Coronavirus, Instability. The coiled spring of intrigue, in the background of which the preparations for constitutional reform and the referendum are taking place, is twisting more and more.

A number of planned changes to the Constitution have a pronounced social orientation. The Russian leader has been constantly using the term “social state” in relation to the country’s established system of government in his recent speeches. These statements declare the primacy of the interests of the people of the Russian Federation and evolve a plan for the further development of social benefits, preferences and institutions.

On the other hand, after some hesitation and maneuvers in the information field and inconsequent statements, Vladimir Putin took a very decisive step. There is no doubt that cosmonaut Tereshkova’s presentation of the proposal to “reset the counter to zero” for all previous presidential terms in the context of the reconstruction of the Constitution had been agreed with the Kremlin and was the result of decisions taken there.

With the current realities of the political situation, this part of the political and constitutional reform has come to the fore in the discourse and become the number one topic, not least for Western MSM … but not the procedure for paying maternity capital or the role of the state Council in the architectonics of power in Russia.

There is no doubt that the hearts of the Western political community, which is generally negative towards modern Russia, now joyfully beat in unison: this is it, this is our new motive for inflating discontent and growing opposition in a rather amorphous and generally monolithic society!

And those horsemen of the Apocalypse… The maneuvers of the Russian delegation at the OPEC+ parley was a shock and led to the release of accumulated negativity in the world economy. Nothing new: the collapse of world indices, the rapid fall of securities, the disappearance of wealth. When the first wave subsided, it became clear that the Russian economy was seriously affected.

And although high-ranking officials explained to Russians that the economic buffer created over the “good” years is able to ensure the fulfilment of all obligations for 5-6 years, Russians look at the rapidly increased dollar exchange rate and as before do not tend to believe the hollow statements of the authorities. The growth of negative economic expectations pales only in the background of anxiety in the face of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

This is now a perfect environment for the West to develop new examples of “colour revolution” in their fight against objectionable regimes. This technique, which has nothing to do with the social revolutions of the last century, develops destabilisation in a country on the back of objective difficulties.

There is only one condition for success – sufficient funding. And there is always enough “combustible material” in any capitalist country, you can look, for example, at neighboring Ukraine, where marginal Tonton Macoutes escaped from the state of “reserve labour” and imposed the will of their master-oligarchs on society in the only way familiar to right-wing militants – violence.

There is of course “sufficient funding” available for the West to attempt such destabilisation in Russia, MSM are focusing on that Presidential term reset to the exclusion of other elements of the reforms. But a new media strategy is being tested…

A source in an international PR agency, which did a job for a clandestine British-American PSYOP unit, forwarded us a curious video from YouTube. It is disguised as a “citizen journalism” vox-pop, is devoted to Russia and Putin and asks passers-by…

… the West deal with Russia with restraint and employ continuous dialogue, should we keep that policy or should we get tougher and impose sanctions from hell?”

The responses are predictable.

We will not give the video itself any exposure here, but present some screenshots instead. So there’s the new strategy: mimic “citizen media” and alt-media styles. Young people with new cameras on the streets in the UK are being weaponised in this cynical new infowar.

The video shocked the agency’s employee who couldn’t accept that young people were being used and kept in the dark about the motive, and threatened to blow the whistle if the “channel” was not stopped dead in its tracks. But there will be others who won’t be so choosy. Our source says that there is a plan to develop a swarm of such political “podcasts” directed towards Russia.

The aim is to have it all picked up by some of Russia’s “new media” and young globalist “influencers” to foment and grow anti-Putin sentiment at home, to present such pods as “widespread” international “condemnation” or as popular opinion. It’s Russia’s current international policy that angers the “Comrade Wolf” as Putin called the US Deep State, but the latter plans to get back at him where it hurts most – not in Syria or Ukraine, but at home.

Is it necessary to pursue this constitutional reform in such circumstances? Will all this lead to chaos, deterioration of the situation of workers and serious opposition in society? Will Putin’s power pass the next stress test? We’ll know very soon.