They absolutely they have no idea what is going on, which is a very ominous sign in itself, it's very clear that the Foreign Ministry doesn't know what is going on. It's all up to one person- though it may also be up to the military, which is getting more and more and more influential and powerful. And the interesting thing is that in Russian society, the military now plays such a huge role, which is quite unprecedented.

Andrei Soldatov

Look how ridiculous are Americans. They blame us for everything. by Andrei Soldatov

Look how ridiculous are Americans. They blame us for everything.

Andrei Soldatov

ridiculous blame

Look how great we are. We are to blame for everything in the world, which means we are really, really important.

Andrei Soldatov

important mean world

American election was really personal for Putin because he believed that Clinton is a personal enemy. He genuinely believed she was behind the Moscow protests in 2012, 2011.

Andrei Soldatov

election clinton enemy

I can absolutely tell you that the FSB are rigged up to collect as much compromising information against any target they consider to be valuable. So when Trump was there in Russia, would they have collected against him? I think the answer is yes.

Andrei Soldatov

valuable compromise thinking

If there was compromising material that had a shot at actually making Trump behave the way the Russians wanted him to, I would imagine it would be something financial - illegal, dirty dealings, or something with legal import.

Andrei Soldatov

financial compromise dirty

This could have been an attempt to deter the United States (from hacking and meddling), to try to shake the U.S. establishment, and to try to weaken Clinton, it's pure politics, it's not about military secrets.

Andrei Soldatov

technology

Everyone in Moscow believes that with Clinton in the White House it would be absolutely impossible to get the sanctions lifted.

Andrei Soldatov

technology

It certainly was a bigger operation than directing fire.

Andrei Soldatov

world

This is actually just one of a series of such experiments, and it gives us a very good idea of what they have in mind, if you look at the doctrine of information security, it is all about the same thing: the fear of Western countries using the Internet as an instrument of influence in Russia and so on.

Andrei Soldatov

tech