The courage for Truth in Putin's Russia.

A few weeks ago, I published an article about NATO's role in the war in Ukraine. The situation there has since become even more delicate. Several NATO countries (the USA, France, and the UK) have authorized Ukraine to use long-range missiles supplied by them to strike targets deep within Russian territory. This has brought the world closer to a third world war than ever before.

While the war machine is being recklessly ramped up by some, we will remain calm and continue our work here. On this Substack, we explore (among other things) the tension between media narratives and reality. In America and the West, these media narratives – in particular those about wars – are often little more than propaganda. But what about in Russia? How about the use of propaganda in Russia?

Chechnya Before the Soviet Era

Chechnya, a small, mountainous country in the northern Caucasus, situated between the Black and Caspian Seas, has traditionally been inhabited by tribes who called themselves the "Vainakh" ("Our People"). These tribes were organized into clans ("Teips"), sometimes consisting of a few hundred members, and were led by councils of elders who would meet every few weeks to discuss the welfare of their tribal communities. Through conversations, they reached agreements and made arrangements to organize their shared life.

Sometimes these discussions likely went better than at other times, but they were generally sufficient to bring a degree of harmony to communal living. This does not mean that life was idyllic in those days. The clans had a strong sense of family honor and a strict code of honor, with blood vengeance and retribution being integral parts of daily life.

This ancient culture came under severe pressure from Russia from the mid-16th century onward (starting around 1556). Under the rule of Tsar Ivan the Terrible and later Peter the Great (early 18th century), Russia set its sights on the Caucasus (including Chechnya). The motives at the time were primarily strategic: the region was crucial in the power struggle with the Persian Empire.

It was not until the Caucasian Wars, which began in 1817, that the Russian tsars succeeded in subjugating the Vainakh in Chechnya. Even after their subjugation, the tribes continued to resist domination with an extraordinarily tenacious will for self-determination. Russia's response to uprisings was anything but gentle. Entire Vainakh villages were occasionally wiped out. The Vainakh continued to resist through guerrilla tactics until 1856, when Imam Shamil, the foremost figurehead of their resistance, was captured by Russia. After that, they remained under the rule of the Tsar for a few decades.

***Chechnya During the Soviet Union***

When the Tsarist regime in Russia was overthrown by the Bolsheviks during the 1917 Russian Revolution, the Chechens (understandably) sided with the revolutionaries. Initially, this worked out well. Chechnya became independent and appeared to have aligned successfully with the new regime in Russia. However, this period of independence was short-lived. In 1924, after Stalin rose to power among the Bolsheviks, his Red Army re-annexed Chechnya. Several changes typical of communism were imposed, such as attempts to ban religion and collectivize agriculture.

The Vainakh’s desire for self-determination, however, remained unbroken. In 1941, when Stalin’s Soviet Union was heavily engaged in the fight against Nazi Germany, Chechnya seized its chance and declared independence once more. Some collaborated with Nazi Germany, primarily because Hitler promised that, once Stalin was defeated, agricultural collectivization would be reversed, the Vainakh would gain freedom of religion, and they could establish an educational system to teach their own language and culture.

History, however, had a different outcome for the Chechens. Once Stalin began to sense victory over Nazi Germany on the World War II front, he decided to bring order to Chechnya. In 1944, he accused the Chechens of collaborating with Hitler and lived up to his moniker, "Man of Steel." He collectively deported the Vainakh to Central Asia—a total of approximately 3.2 million people, without any distinction, even those who had fought against Nazi Germany in the Soviet army. More than a quarter of them perished in a short time under inhumane conditions in labor camps.

In 1957, four years after Stalin's death, Khrushchev allowed the surviving Chechens to gradually return to their homeland. However, their homes had largely been taken over by Russians, Ukrainians, and Ossetians in the meantime. Riots and pogroms erupted, claiming hundreds of lives. Only a decisive Soviet military intervention to harshly suppress the unrest managed to restore a semblance of peace in the land of the Vainakh.

***Chechnya After the Soviet Union***

After the Soviet Union dissolved in 1989, a power vacuum emerged, presenting an opportunity for former Chechen air force general Dzhokhar Dudayev. In 1991, he declared independence. A brief civil war ensued, during which thousands of Russian engineers and workers fled the country, causing the collapse of the industry.

During the early Yeltsin years, Russia initially tried for several years to undermine Dudayev’s Chechen regime through covert military support—mainly by supplying military equipment to local opposition groups. When this failed, a large-scale military offensive was launched in 1994, with the Chechen capital Grozny bombed, followed by a massive ground invasion.

Despite overwhelming Russian military superiority, the Chechens held their ground. Ultimately, more than 100,000 people died in the conflict, with neither side achieving a decisive victory. Russian public opinion turned against continuing the war, and morale within the Russian army plummeted due to ongoing hostage situations and relentless guerrilla tactics by Chechen resistance fighters. Demoralized, Russia signed the Khasavyurt Accord on August 30, 1996, ending the war. Chechnya remained temporarily independent.

The subsequent period was marked by a devastated economy, deep social decline, and unrest. Islamic militias led by Wahhabist-extremist warlords engaged almost exclusively in violence, with kidnappings becoming their primary source of income. Between 1996 and 1999, about 1,300 kidnappings were reported, generating an estimated $200 million in ransom. In 1998, the government declared a state of emergency.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin closely monitored the situation. There was no public support for renewed military intervention, so they initially sought other ways to regain control. Several assassination attempts were made on separatist president Aslan Maskhadov, likely by Russian intelligence agencies. All of them failed.

When Kremlin envoy Gennady Shpigun was murdered in Chechnya in 1999, it became clear that diplomacy also offered no prospects, and the situation neared another boiling point.

***Putin Steps onto the Stage***

Meanwhile, the Putin era began to take shape in Moscow. Putin, who had risen from modest beginnings to director of the FSB (the successor to the infamous KGB) and advisor to the mayor of St. Petersburg, was appointed Prime Minister by Yeltsin in 1999. It is here that recent history begins.

Entire libraries have been written about how Putin came to power. Regardless of the sources you consult, the question always remains: what can be considered even somewhat reliable? Anyone even slightly familiar with the pro-Western and pro-American bias against Putin and the omnipresent NATO propaganda can’t help but feel frustration and annoyance when watching yet another documentary comparing Putin to Hitler or Stalin and blaming him for all military and other tensions between Russia and the West.

As with any geopolitical issue, the first and most important question is: What can we actually know? Below, I’ll limit myself to discussing a few historical facts that seem relatively reliable, though I remain aware of the subjectivity of even this information. I am always open to corrections from those who believe I am mistaken.

An anecdote surrounding Yeltsin's appointment of Putin as Prime Minister offers insight into how Putin wields power. In 1998, the Yeltsin administration contracted a Swiss company, Mabetex, to renovate the Kremlin. Information quickly leaked suggesting irregularities in how the contract was awarded. Persistent rumors claimed that hundreds of thousands of dollars had been transferred from Mabetex to accounts belonging to Yeltsin’s daughters. While these allegations were never definitively proven, there was little doubt about corruption involving the highest levels of the Kremlin.

Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov took on the case. Skuratov was no stranger to high-profile investigations, having previously probed top KGB figures such as Alexander Mamut, Yuri Borodin, and a then-relatively unknown Vladimir Putin. The case garnered significant media attention, and it quickly became apparent that some top officials, including Yeltsin, were in trouble.

This was the moment for the FSB to act. The agency leaked a compromising video of Skuratov in a sauna with two young prostitutes. Then-FSB chief Vladimir Putin personally appeared on television to confirm the video’s authenticity. The smear campaign was highly effective. Skuratov’s credibility was so severely damaged that he was forced to resign, halting his investigation into Yeltsin.

To this day, there is debate over the video's authenticity. The man in the video resembles Skuratov, but the footage is unclear. Many experts believe the video was manipulated or entirely fabricated. Skuratov himself has always adamantly denied being the man in the video. Another prosecutor, Tamaev, was also forced to step down after his two half-brothers were accused of drug and illegal arms possession—charges that were later withdrawn. Skuratov later ran for president but was given little airtime on Russian television and dismissed as a non-viable candidate.

The Mabetex affair proved politically advantageous for Putin. On August 16, 1999, Yeltsin appointed him Prime Minister. Four months later, on December 31, 1999—literally on the eve of the new millennium—Yeltsin nominated Putin as his successor for the presidency. With a handshake and the words “Take care of Russia,” Yeltsin passed the torch.

It remains uncertain whether Yeltsin committed fraud in the Mabetex affair. What is undeniable, however, is that corruption was rampant during his tenure in Russia. This cannot be entirely blamed on Yeltsin, as signs of such practices were already visible in the final decade of the Soviet Union (circa the mid-1980s). The FIMACO scandal perhaps illustrates this best: in the 1980’s, the KGB elites already purchased Russian state assets for a pittance, sold them to foreigners, and deposited the money into secret foreign accounts.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the fire sale of state assets accelerated, giving rise to the infamous Russian oligarchs. A major part of the Soviet state properties were snapped up for next to nothing by a handful of former Communist leaders, who often resold them to foreigners.

Putin sought to put an end to these practices, tackling the problem head-on. He started with Russia’s richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, head of the oil company Yukos and a financier of several opposition parties. Khodorkovsky was charged with fraud and brought to court in an iron cage (a not uncommon practice in Russia). Found guilty, he served eight years in prison (2005–2013).

Putin’s actions were undoubtedly forceful. The question remains, however, whether they were consistent. The 2015 Panama Papers leak revealed that several of Putin’s close associates had stashed large sums in offshore accounts without facing any consequences. This suggests that Putin did not so much eliminate the oligarchs as reorganize the oligarchic landscape—removing politically hostile oligarchs while empowering others. Regardless of the method, it is certain that he stabilized the country and curtailed the sale of its wealth.

***Chechnya During the Putin Era***

Let us return to late 1999, when Boris Yeltsin nominated Vladimir Putin as his successor to the Russian presidency. Yeltsin put Putin forward as his preferred candidate, but to become president, Putin still needed to win over the electorate. This was no small feat. At the start of his tenure as prime minister in August 1999, Putin was relatively unknown to the general public, with some claiming he had a mere 2% voter support. What could a prime minister do in such a situation to boost his popularity? Winning a war, for example.

And so, we turn to Chechnya. When Putin became prime minister in 1999, Chechnya was in deep crisis. The Chechen government had declared a state of emergency in 1998, and the Russian government was eager to intervene militarily. The only issue: there was no public support for a new war in Chechenya. Under Putin, however, that would change, albeit in a rather peculiar way.

In late 1999, a series of apartment bombings in Russia killed between 200 and 300 civilians. The Kremlin needed only a few hours to identify the culprits: Chechen terrorists. Others, however, were less convinced. Several eyewitnesses claimed to have seen military personnel planting explosives in the apartment buildings. The then-director of the FSB attempted to dispel doubts, explaining that military exercises had "coincidentally" been underway at those locations.

Russian dissidents Anna Politkovskaya (a journalist) and Alexander Litvinenko (a KGB officer) rejected this explanation and argued that the 1999 bombings were false flag operations orchestrated by Russian intelligence to manufacture public support for another war in Chechnya. While these claims were never conclusively proven, they remain compelling. False flag operations—whether executed by the U.S., Russia, or European nations—often "coincidentally" occur alongside military exercises that mirror the events of the attack.

Politkovskaya and Litvinenko made similar allegations about the so-called Moscow Theater Hostage Crisis. On October 23, 2002, 40 Chechen fighters (terrorists?) took 850 civilians hostage in the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow. After two days of unsuccessful negotiations (in which Politkovskaya herself participated as a mediator), Russian special forces ("Spetsnaz") ended the siege in a brutal manner. They pumped an opioid-based sedative gas into the theater, rendering everyone—hostages and hostage-takers—unconscious. However, the dosage was too high, resulting in the deaths of 130 hostages.

The official narrative was met with widespread skepticism. Polls suggested that 74% of Russians did not believe the official account. Several aspects of the story raised eyebrows. For example, all the hostage-takers were shot dead, even though many could have been subdued and interrogated—a standard approach in such operations. Questions also linger about how the attackers managed to smuggle explosives into a large Moscow theater and execute an operation of such scale without detection.

The analysis of these events is further complicated by American geopolitical meddling in Chechnya. As in many other regions—Guatemala, Chile, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and so forth—the U.S. likely sought regime change in Russia, arming Chechen rebels and potentially aiding in the planning of terrorist attacks. In this sense, Putin was probably correct: the U.S. actively sought to destabilize Russia during this period.

Regardless of the truth, the 1999 bombings provided the Russian government with the perfect pretext to gain public support for renewed military action in Chechnya. Weeks later, Russia launched its campaign, and after a ten-year struggle (ending in 2009), the proud and resilient Vainakh people were forced—once again—to bow to Russian rule.

The narrative about Chechnya disseminated by Russian media since 1999 strongly resembles the "war on terror" rhetoric of the Bush administration in the U.S. In some ways, the Russian narrative even preceded the American one. The U.S. would follow Russia's lead a year later, after 9/11, launching its own "war on terror" in the Middle East—a campaign of imperialistic plunder that dwarfed Putin's Chechen campaign.

Anna Politkovskaya, mentioned earlier, took it upon herself to bear witness to the horrors of the Chechen war—committed by both Chechens and Russians—through interviews, articles, and books. She paid the ultimate price. Facing several death threats (including from the Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov), she was imprisoned by the Russian army in Chechnya and subjected to a mock execution. Twice she was poisoned. Ultimately, only a bullet to the head silenced her.

To this day, the mastermind behind her murder remains unknown. Kadyrov, the president of Chechnya who had previously threatened her, is a prime suspect. However, many fingers point to Putin, not least because the murder took place on his birthday. The Kremlin arrested five men as alleged perpetrators, but whether this absolves them of suspicion remains a critical question.

Politkovskaya's case is not an isolated one. Four of her colleagues at Novaya Gazeta—one of Russia's few critical newspapers—were also murdered. In their honor, we name them here: Igor Domnikov (2000), Yuri Shchekochikhin (2003), Anastasia Baburova (2009), and Natalya Estemirova (2009). Also here, in each case, suspects were convicted in Russian courts, but whether justice was truly served is doubtful.

Some assassinations in Russia are scarcely debatable as being orchestrated by the Kremlin. The murder of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, on a bridge near the Kremlin, was almost certainly ordered by high-ranking officials. For instance, all security cameras on the bridge were "coincidentally" switched off—a feat hardly achievable without Kremlin involvement. The killing took place the day before Nemtsov was set to lead a protest in Moscow and shortly before he planned to publish an article exposing Russia's involvement in the war in eastern Ukraine.

This incident draws parallels with the "suicide" of Jeffrey Epstein in his New York jail cell—except that Epstein, unlike Nemtsov, was not known for his pursuit of truth. In Epstein’s cell, "coincidentally" all security cameras failed, a fellow inmate was transferred to another cell the day prior, and guards were either asleep or conveniently absent. In both cases, a powerful story was concealed.

Turning now to Alexander Litvinenko. As an FSB officer specializing in combating organized crime, Litvinenko quickly uncovered the deep ties between the criminal underworld and Russia’s bureaucracy and power structures (a phenomenon Whitney Webb argues is equally prevalent in Europe and America). Litvinenko, said to be an idealist, struggled to reconcile with this reality.

He also encountered other troubling orders. In 1998, his superiors instructed him to assassinate oligarch and Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky. Litvinenko refused and decided to go public. Together with a few colleagues, he planned a press conference to expose the system of political assassinations. Just before the conference, he was arrested and held in pretrial detention for a year on charges of abusing information obtained in his official capacity.

Upon his release on bail, Litvinenko learned from reliable sources that he would be killed before his trial. He fled to the United Kingdom, where he reportedly collaborated with British and Spanish intelligence—an act considered treason in Russia. On November 23, 2006, Litvinenko died in London after a 22-day battle with polonium-210 poisoning.

***

We have presented a few historical facts regarding the fate of those who attempt to speak the truth in Russia. How should we assess Russia's political system?

In some respects, Putin clearly demonstrates a certain reverence for the totalitarian Soviet era (for instance, by reinstating the Soviet anthem introduced under Stalin as Russia's national anthem). However, he himself is not a totalitarian leader, nor is contemporary Russia a totalitarian state. Putin’s policies, for example, lack the ideological fanaticism that is a defining characteristic of totalitarian systems.

Totalitarianism has not disappeared, but it will not reemerge from Russia, the United States, or any other nation. Instead, it is returning via globalist institutions. These institutions exhibit the foundational traits of totalitarianism: a fanatical utopian-ideological drive to create a new technocratic and rationalist society.

French anthropologist and historian Emmanuel Todd characterized the West as a liberal oligarchy and Russia as an authoritarian democracy:
"Of course, Russia has not become a liberal democracy. Personally, I would describe it as an authoritarian democracy, giving equal weight to both terms—democracy and authoritarian. Democracy, because, even though elections are somewhat manipulated, the polls—which no one disputes—show unwavering support for the regime in both wartime and peacetime. Authoritarian, because the regime clearly does not meet the essential criteria of a liberal democracy: respect for the rights of minorities. The authoritarian nature of the regime is evident, with all that entails, including restrictions on press freedom and the liberties of various groups in civil society." (La défaie de l’Occident, p. 47)

The notion that Putin is solely responsible for the escalating tensions between Russia and NATO is questionable on many levels. A younger Putin was overtly pro-Western. He explored the possibility of Russia joining NATO with President Clinton and even aligned himself with elite Western organizations such as the World Economic Forum, where he trained as a Young Global Leader.

He soon realized, however, that NATO—particularly American neoconservatives—had other plans. Leaders like Bush and Blair initially appeared sympathetic, but deeper layers of the U.S. and British state systems quickly made it clear that there was no room for Russia within NATO. Under these circumstances, Putin turned inward, building a strong and conservative Russia regulated through the old structures of the KGB, the Soviet-era intelligence service.

The intelligence service may have adopted a different name, but it unquestionably still exists. It even forms the core of the current Russian state system. Contemporary Russia was, to a significant extent, constructed from within the FSB. In a sense, it is accurate to state: in the Soviet Union, the state built the secret service; after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the secret service built the state.

Important to note: also in other countries, the totalitarian systems of the first half of the 20th century (Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union) never truly disappeared. A significant portion of the Nazi apparatus was either transported to America (both South and North America, as seen in Operation Paperclip), remained active within Germany, or was transferred to the Soviet Union (as in Operation Osoaviakhim). Similarly, in Japan, many fascist officials from World War II remained in power. Nobusuku Kishi, for instance, who served as Minister of Justice during WWII, became Japan’s prime minister after the war and founded the Liberal Democratic Party. It is fair to conclude that as long as humanity remains captivated by a rationalist-materialist worldview, the same types of individuals and the same state systems will continue to lead it.

When it comes to propaganda techniques, NATO countries employ methods comparable to those used in Russia. Political assassinations occur here as well, far more frequently than we might like to admit. Similarly, false flag operations, in which large numbers of casualties are inflicted on one’s own population to generate political support for wars, have been well-documented in Europe and the U.S. Sometimes these operations are publicly denied, while other times they are acknowledged years later. Operation Gladio is perhaps the best-known example of the latter. In the anxious struggle to survive and assert dominance inherent to the rationalist worldview, no one can afford to be constrained by ethical principles.

Perhaps nothing is more telling than the episode in Tucker Carlson’s interview with President Putin, where Carlson asks him, “Who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline?” Putin chuckles warmly and mischievously, replying, “YOU did.” There is no trace of indignation or resentment over the West’s underhanded attempt to pin the sabotage on him. The Russian chess master’s words and body language convey something along the lines of: “No hard feelings; we are all playing the same game; we all use the same tricks.”