During interviews for a documentary on the early days of his presidency, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed his government had intercepted phone calls made by US intelligence assets in Azerbaijan to Islamist separatist groups in the northern Caucasus of Russia.
Russia has faced several separatist movements in and around Chechnya since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Putin claimed to have confronted President George W. Bush with the evidence, and to have been assured by Bush that he would prevent further actions and “kick the asses of” those agents responsible.
This apparently didn’t work as hoped, as Putin went on to say that the Russian FSB, their primary intelligence agency, received a letter from “American counterparts” shortly thereafter insisting they intended to support all opposition groups inside Russia.
Presidents Bush and Putin were seen on relatively good terms through most of the former’s presidency, though relations began to again deteriorate in 2008, with the US backing Georgia in the brief Russo-Georgian War.
Sounds entirely believable down to Dubya's comments and the subsequent letter by those who really ran the government doubling down.
This is hardly news. All countries engage in it to some degree at least. US neocons have been trying to destroy the EU at very least since the Single Act referendum in Ireland in 1978. If Putin got into a full blown war over Ukraine, the US and NATO would try to undermine the Russian Federation, the last surviving European empire and for that very reason, succeptable to anti-colonialist separatist movements. Far more interesting than the Caucasus is the Far East, where decolonising movements would probably have the support of China, always anxious to drive the whte man out of Asia. If Sakha, the vast Yakut republic, became independent, for example, Russia would lose a huge part of its resources. Add Dagestan and the Altay to that and the whole oligarch economic model of pillaging the resources of the conquered peoples and transferring the money out of Russia to tax havens would start to fall apart.
And Putin was hoping that by showing diminished role and responsibility at international forums ,Russia would be invited to get inducted into the Hall of the White Knight .
The biggest regret I have is that I voted for W. twice. I knew better, but Gore and Kerry seemed worse. Not voting would have been better.
Two things jump out here.
First, the trouble is said by Putin to have come out of Azerbaijan territory. That is a small, oil rich country entirely surrounded and isolated by hostile powers, Russia, Iran, and Armenia. Half its population is shared with Iran just across one border, and half with Russia just across the opposite border. It is a post-Soviet state that Stalin had taken from Iran.
It currently sides with Israel against Iran, and with the US against Russia. It is a major spy base for both, and is touted as an air base for attacks on Iran, specific mentions in the press including Special Forces going in by helo to attack Iran.
It wouldn't take much more for Iran and Russia to just divide the place between them, giving Armenia the cantons it contests. Nobody could do a thing about it. Like Georgia, it is trying to arm against that, but it is too tiny and incompetent for all those expensive weapons to be a real defense.
The US and Israel were part of urging Georgia into disaster (a lunatic direct attack on the Russian Army) and now they are getting their little buddies in Azerbaijan into deep kim chi.
Second, see that picture of Putin? He is wearing an enlisted sailor's uniform. Can anyone picture George Bush on a carrier wearing an enlisted man's uniform? He had to be a pilot/officer. No other American President has ever dressed as enlisted anything, anywhere. That sort of small thing is part of Putin's appeal to Russians.