Russian media leap on French presidential candidate with rumors and innuendo

MOSCOW — As seen through a Russian television set, the upcoming French elections are the dirtiest in history, a shameful public display of the cronyism and liberal decay that the Kremlin says are tearing Europe apart. “The stakes [of the election] are high, so they’re digging up kompromat on just about everyone,” said Dmitry Kiselyov, […]

Lukashenka accuses Russia of ‘Grabbing Belarus by the throat’

MINSK – Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has lashed out at Russia, accusing his powerful neighbor of violating treaties and using its role as an energy supplier to “grab us by the throat.” Speaking to journalists in Minsk on February 3, Lukashenka harshly criticized Moscow’s recent decision to establish a “security zone” with border controls along […]

As Cold War turns to Information War, a new fake news police combats disinformation

PRAGUE — The target of high-stakes Kremlin power plays during the Cold War, the Czech Republic is again on the front lines of a contest with Russia and its sympathizers — this time in the Information Wars. Inside a mustard-yellow stucco building in northwest Prague, Benedikt Vangeli is a commander in that fight — leading […]

He who is without Kompromat among you, let him cast the first stone

Ladies and gentleman, take my advice: pull down your pants, and slide on the ice–take a chill pill! Though a brother of shaky faith, and having been raised a Catholic man nonetheless, I know as well as the next future pontiff the story cited in John 7:8 of Gideons Old Testament: Jesus of Nazareth (not […]

Trump dossier spotlights Russian history of ‘Kompromat’

MOSCOW—The public airing of a dossier Tuesday on President-elect Donald Trump casts a spotlight on Russia’s dark art of kompromat, the practice of collecting compromising material on prominent individuals for the purposes of blackmail. The dossier is packed with unverified allegations, including a claim that Russian officials obtained evidence of Mr. Trump with prostitutes and […]

Decision to brief Trump on allegations brought a secret and unsubstantiated dossier into the public domain

As the nation’s top spies prepared to brief President Obama and President-elect Donald Trump on Russian interference in the 2016 election, they faced an excruciatingly delicate question: Should they mention the salacious allegations that had been circulating in Washington for months that Moscow had compromising information on the incoming president? Ultimately, they concluded they had […]

Russia is using the ongoing conflict in Ukraine to prepare for the next major war

On April 26, 1937 the world got its first taste of the impact of strategic air power.   German aircraft belonging to the Condor Legion attacked the Basque city of Guernica. Ignoring military targets and concentrating on the civilian population, German planes killed somewhere around 1500 people and wounded thousands more. The gutted shell of the […]

Behind Russia’s Cyber strategy

MOSCOW—Russia’s military laid out what is now seen as a blueprint for cyberwarfare with a 2013 article in a professional journal by Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia’s General Staff. Cyberspace, wrote Gen. Gerasimov, “opens wide asymmetrical possibilities for reducing the fighting potential of the enemy.” At the time, Russia’s military was absorbing the lessons […]

How Russia recruited elite hackers for its cyberwarfare

MOSCOW — Aleksandr B. Vyarya thought his job was to defend people from cyberattacks until, he says, his government approached him with a request to do the opposite. Mr. Vyarya, 33, a bearded, bespectacled computer programmer who thwarted hackers, said he was suddenly being asked to join a sweeping overhaul of the Russian military last […]

Kremlin spokesman vows retaliation against U.S. sanctions

The Kremlin on Friday issued a stark warning to the United States, saying it would respond in kind to the U.S. expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats and other sanctions following the Russian hacking of U.S. political parties before the 2016 presidential elections. “I cannot say now what the response will be, although, as we know, […]