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      Brittney Griner Swap Puts Spotlight on Americans in Russia

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      Westerners in Russia have to weigh the risks of living and working in the country against professional and financial opportunities there.MOSCOW — After almost 10 months of war, sanctions, nuclear threats and the constant monitoring of the Russian security state, some American and European citizens continue to live and work in Russia, drawn in many cases by professional opportunities and higher salaries.Some Western athletes, businesspeople and artists chose to stay even as the Russian authorities arrested and jailed the American basketball player Brittney Griner in February on a minor drug charge. On Thursday, she was freed and sent back to the United States in a prisoner exchange for a notorious Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout, in a move that some Republican politicians and analysts have said puts other Americans at risk of being wrongfully detained for political gain.Ms. Griner’s detention has injected a complex new factor into the calculation of whether to travel to, or work in, Russia, an already fraught decision with the war in Ukraine as a backdrop.More than 1,000 multinational companies have curtailed their operations in Russia since the invasion, with foreign managers often being the first to go. Most Western universities have halted student exchange programs with Russian peers. And most major European and American cultural institutions have ended collaborations with Russian theaters and museums, including the Bolshoi in Moscow and the Mariinsky in St. Petersburg, two of the world’s most storied houses for opera and ballet.But in other areas the numbers of Westerners have held steady or even grown since Ms. Griner’s arrest. Most choose to come or stay to advance careers, but there are also examples of Americans who made Russia their home for political reasons. Most famously, they include the actor Steven Seagal and the former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, who just this month took an oath of Russian citizenship.The actor Steven Seagal watching a military parade in the Red Square in Moscow, in 2015.Sergei Ilnitsky/European Pressphoto AgencyAthletes have long provided one of the biggest streams of prominent Westerners to Russia. Players “whose careers were declining went there to maintain the same level of income that they were accustomed to,” said Bill Neff, an agent with clients across the world.After the outbreak of the war, the Russian teams in the Continental Hockey League, which includes Russia and its neighbors, lost nearly half of its foreign players. Finns and Swedes led the exodus, largely abiding by their countries’ hard-line stance toward Russia’s aggression.But after the initial outflow, some of the European vacancies are being filled by American and Canadian players. They include Scott Wilson, a Canadian who won N.H.L. championships with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and an American, Alexander Chmelevski, both of whom joined Russian teams this fall.There are now an estimated 42 Americans playing or planning to play in Russia’s premier men’s basketball league, up from 30 a few months ago, according to tallies by American sports agents. An analysis of team rosters shows that there are an additional 29 American and Canadian hockey players who are signed to premier Russian teams this season, with some joining after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There is even an American playing for the Russian woman’s basketball team that Ms. Griner represented before her arrest.The Release of Brittney GrinerThe American basketball star had been detained in Russia since February on charges of smuggling hashish oil into the country.Anxiety Turns to Relief: Brittney Griner’s supporters watched with dismay as her situation appeared to worsen over the summer. Now they are celebrating her release.The Russian Playbook: By detaining Ms. Griner, the Kremlin weaponized pain to get the United States to turn over a convicted arms dealer. Can the same tactic work in the war in Ukraine?A Test for Women’s Sports: The release was a victory for W.N.B.A. players and fans, who pushed furiously for it. But the athlete’s plight also highlighted gender inequities in sports.These athletes have stayed despite warnings from the State Department, which is advising all Americans to leave Russia immediately, weighing the risks of playing in Russia against professional and financial opportunities in a major sports market.Alexander Chmelevski playing for the San Jose Sharks last year.Jae C. Hong/Associated PressMany agents representing American athletes did not respond to queries about Ms. Griner’s detention in Russia. Those who did said the prisoner swap that brought her home had no effect on their work or their clients.“Griner’s case has to do with things that have nothing to do with basketball,” said David Carro, a Spanish sports agent representing four male American basketball players in Russia. “We never had any problems when Brittney Griner was there, and now, even less so.”“Our Americans get paid promptly and are living very well in Russia,” he added.Many American basketball players come to Russia to make money in the off-season or to prolong their careers. Because Russia covets top-level “name’’ players, they often pay high salaries. Athletes can take in more than $1 million and often receive free housing and cars.Mr. Neff, who represents about 30 professional basketball players, said Ms. Griner’s freedom did not lessen his caution in sending players to Russia during the conflict with Ukraine. He has discouraged his clients from going there and does not currently have any players in Russia.“I don’t think it changes anything,” Mr. Neff said of her release. “If you send someone to Russia, you know there are risks. Is the increased money worth the risk? That’s the choice you’re making.”The American basketball player K.C. Rivers, 35, came to Russia in August, while Ms. Griner was on trial, to play for the team of Samara, a provincial capital more than 500 miles east of Moscow.“At this point I didn’t really have so many options coming my way,” Mr. Rivers said in an interview in September. “What’s the best thing for me right now, towards — I ain’t going to say the end of my career — but in my career at this point? Financially, what makes sense?”K.C. Rivers playing for Zenit St. Petersburg during a Euroleague basketball game in Athens last year.John Andreou/EPA, via ShutterstockThe Russian basketball clubs are playing fewer games this season because of their suspension from Euroleague competition, a penalty that has diminished the quality of players the league has attracted, Mr. Neff said. And Russia’s hockey league voted this month to slash the number of foreigners that will be allowed on each team starting next season, an example of wartime nationalism sweeping the country.There are still a few Americans imprisoned in Russia. One is Paul Whelan, who was detained in December 2018, convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in a penal colony; the U.S. State Department says he has been wrongfully detained. Marc Fogel, a 60-year-old history teacher, was detained in 2021 for having about half an ounce of medical marijuana. He was sentenced in June to 14 years in a penal colony.During a visit to Kyrgyzstan on Friday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia commented on the possibility of new prisoner exchanges with the United States.“Everything is possible and contacts continue through the special services,” he said at a news conference.George Beebe, a former director of the C.I.A.’s Russia analysis and a Russia adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, said that while there were risks for Americans in Russia, he did not think the Bout-Griner swap had increased the chances of an American’s being arrested on trumped-up pretexts.Paul Whelan, an American imprisoned in Russia, in a Moscow courtroom in 2020.Maxim Shemetov/Reuters“For American citizens that are living and working in Russia, I wouldn’t say that there is no danger,” Mr. Beebe, the program director at the Quincy Institute think tank, said in a telephone interview. “Certainly there is. The Russian government is not likely to be at all lenient in dealing with Americans. They’re not going to give any Americans the benefit of the doubt.”However, he said, “I don’t think it increases the likelihood that the Russian government is going to arrest Americans.”Andrei A. Soldatov, a Russian journalist who specializes in the security services, said it was hard to make predictions when the rules of the game are constantly changing. During the Cold War era, he said, the rules were defined and predictable. But with the war in Ukraine continuing to escalate, diplomacy is entering uncharted territory.“We all have this temptation always to compare this to the Cold War, but this is nothing like that,” he said in a telephone interview.“The Cold War was a period when nobody wanted or was actually interested in a hot war. And now we have a really big war which might get bigger,” he said. “Nobody can actually rationalize or predict and develop a strategy accordingly — that’s a problem.”Valerie Hopkins More

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      in World Politics

      Changing My Mind on Ukraine

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      in US Politics

      Griner release is cause for relief but Viktor Bout transfer tough to stomach

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      AnalysisGriner release is cause for relief but Viktor Bout transfer tough to stomachDavid Smith in WashingtonCritics label Biden’s decision to release Russian arms dealer ‘deeply disturbing’ – even if Brittney Griner’s freedom is excellent news Last month, the Russian parliament mounted an unusual art exhibition with subjects ranging from the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to a sentimental image of a kitten. They had been produced in prison by Viktor Bout, serving 25 years in America.Brittney Griner freed from Russian prison in exchange for Viktor BoutRead moreHistory has shown that a sideline as an amateur artist is not much guarantee of moral integrity. Bout, known as “the merchant of death”, was the world’s most notorious arms dealer, selling weapons to rogue states, rebel groups and murderous warlords in Africa, Asia and South America.That, for many, was what made his release on Thursday in a prisoner swap for US basketball star Brittney Griner difficult to stomach. Joe Biden has done a deal with the devil. But he may also have saved a woman’s life. As the president found in Afghanistan, the big decisions are seldom morally clearcut.On the credit side, Griner’s release is spectacularly good news. She was arrested in February after vape canisters containing cannabis oil were found in her luggage. Against the backdrop of war in Ukraine, her nine-year prison sentence was wildly disproportionate. Her transfer to a penal colony, with its promise of sexism, racism and homophobia in medieval conditions, raised fears for her survival.But on the debit side, despite Vladimir Putin’s effort to portray Bout as painter and classical music lover with a sensitive soul, the arms dealer has blood on his hands. He armed militias in Sierra Leone, the Liberian war criminal Charles Taylor and the Taliban in Afghanistan. His life helped inspire the 2005 Hollywood film Lord of War, starring Nicholas Cage.Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, captured the ambivalence in a statement on Thursday. The Democrat welcomed Griner’s release as a “moment of profound relief” but warned that “releasing Bout back into the world is a deeply disturbing decision”.He added: “We must stop inviting dictatorial and rogue regimes to use Americans overseas as bargaining chips, and we must try do better at encouraging American citizens against traveling to places like Russia where they are primary targets for this type of unlawful detention.”Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee, also expressed relief but warned that “trading Viktor Bout – a dangerous convicted arms dealer who was in prison for conspiring to kill Americans – will only embolden Vladimir Putin to continue his evil practice of taking innocent Americans hostage for use as political pawns”.Predictably, there was a less measured response from Donald Trump’s wing of the Republican party. Some cried foul over the fact that while Griner was coming home, the former US marine Paul Whelan, convicted in 2020 of spying, will remain in a penal colony.Cory Mills, an Afghanistan and Iraq war veteran and congressman-elect from Florida, tweeted: “Biden clearly showed his priority is celebrities over veterans. I guess Brittany’s basketball career in WNBA was more important than Paul Whelan’s service to our nation as a marine.”Family of US man held in Russia lament ‘catastrophe for Paul’ after Griner swapRead moreIn a phone interview from his penal colony, Whelan told CNN he was glad Griner had been released but “greatly disappointed” that the Biden administration has not done more to secure his own freedom. According to the White House, Russia is treating Whelan’s case differently because of his espionage conviction and was not willing to include him in the deal.Not even Republicans, however, were accusing Biden of being “soft on Russia”, given his success in rallying the west against Putin in Ukraine – a vivid contrast from Trump’s embrace of the autocrat. The war has been unusual in its lack of ambiguity between right and wrong.After meeting Griner’s wife, Cherelle, in the Oval Office, it was clear Biden had no doubt he had done the right thing despite the understandable ethical qualms.“It’s my job as president of the United States to make the hard calls,” he said. “And I’m proud that, today, we have made one more family whole again.”TopicsJoe BidenUS foreign policyUS politicsRussiaViktor BoutBrittney GrineranalysisReuse this content More

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      in World Politics

      Why John Feffer’s Careful Reasoning Still Looks like Propaganda

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      in Elections

      Inside the Face-Off Between Russia and a Small Internet Access Firm

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      The cat-and-mouse experience of Proton, a Swiss company, shows what it’s like to be targeted by Russian censors — and what it takes to fight back.After Moscow erected a digital barricade in March, blocking access to independent news sites and social media platforms to hide information about its unfolding invasion of Ukraine, many Russians looked for a workaround. One reliable route they found came from a small Swiss company based nearly 2,000 miles away.The company, Proton, provides free software that masks a person’s identity and location online. That gives a user in Russia access to the open web by making it appear that the person is logging in from the Netherlands, Japan or the United States. A couple of weeks after the internet blockade, about 850,000 people inside Russia used Proton each day, up from fewer than 25,000.That is, until the end of March, when the Russian government found a way to block Proton, too.Targeting Proton was the opening salvo of a continuing back-and-forth battle, pitting a team of about 25 engineers against a country embarking on one of the most aggressive censorship campaigns in recent memory.Working from a Geneva office where the company keeps its name off the building directory, Proton has spent nine pressure-packed months repeatedly tweaking its technology to avoid Russian blocks, only to be countered again by government censors in Moscow. Some employees took Proton off their social media profiles out of concern that they would be targeted personally.The high-stakes chess match mirrors what is playing out with growing frequency in countries facing coups, wars and authoritarian rule, where restricting the internet is a tool of repression. The blocks drive citizens to look for workarounds. Engineers at companies like Proton think up new ways for those people to secretly reach the open web. And governments, in turn, seek out new technical tricks to plug leaks.The digital censorship battle is reaching “an inflection point,” said Grant Baker, a research analyst for technology and democracy at Freedom House, which recently reported that internet censorship globally had reached a new high in 2022. While Russia has spent years working on a more closely controlled, sovereign internet, the controls imposed after the war are “a stark contrast” to anything Moscow had ever done before, Mr. Baker said.Companies rarely discuss being targeted by an authoritarian government out of fear of escalating the conflict. But Andy Yen, Proton’s founder and chief executive, said that after a period of trying to keep its “head down,” Proton wanted to raise awareness about the increasing sophistication of governments, in Russia and elsewhere, to block citizens from reaching the open web and the need for technologists, companies and governments to push back.Proton’s account provides a rare inside look at what it’s like to be entangled in Russia’s censorship net as President Vladimir V. Putin tries to suppress information about the war and mounting battlefield losses in Ukraine.Dozens of VPN services have been blocked inside Russia, but Proton, perhaps best known for its encrypted email service, seemed to receive extra attention from the authorities. In June, Russia’s internet regulator labeled the company a “threat.”“We’re gearing up for a long fight,” Mr. Yen said in an interview at the company’s office. “Everybody hopes this will have a happy ending, but it’s not guaranteed. We don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, in fact, but you keep going because if we don’t do it, then maybe nobody else will.”The VPN team at Proton, whose virtual private network gives users a way around government internet restrictions.Aurélien Bergot for The New York TimesProton, which makes money by selling $10-a-month subscriptions for extra features, was founded in 2014 by a team of young engineers from the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, the institute outside Geneva where the worldwide web was created. Their main project was working on the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, a $5 billion instrument built to unlock some of the world’s biggest scientific mysteries.After the disclosures of mass digital surveillance that were made by Edward Snowden, the former U.S. intelligence contractor, Mr. Yen and a few colleagues created an email service that encrypts messages so they cannot be intercepted, simplifying use of a technology that had been too complicated for many people. It became popular with activists, journalists and privacy-conscious consumers.The State of the WarStriking Deep in Russia: In its most brazen attack into Russian territory, Ukraine used drones to strike two military bases hundreds of miles inside Russia, showing an ability to take the war beyond its borders.Weaponizing Winter: Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure have left millions without power, heat or water as the snow begins to fall. The Daily looks at what life is like in Ukraine as winter sets in.Russian Oil Price Cap: The E.U. agreed on a $60-a-barrel limit for Russian oil, the latest effort by Western allies to try to deprive Moscow of revenue to finance its war in Ukraine. Here’s how it will work.Mr. Yen, who grew up in Taiwan, said the threat of Chinese aggression looming over the island’s democracy had shaped his worldview. Privacy and fighting censorship were core to Proton’s mission from the start, he said, and the company seemed to almost relish confronting authoritarianism.In 2017, after several governments, including Turkey and Russia, temporarily blocked access to the email service, Proton created its virtual private network, or VPN, a technology used to sidestep internet restrictions.The technology behind a VPN traces back to the 1990s. It is a relatively basic tool used most commonly by people trying to pirate movies or watch a sports broadcast available only in another country. Yet in recent years the systems, which are easy to use and often difficult to detect, have become a vital tool for circumventing internet restrictions.The Kremlin spent years building the legal foundation and technological abilities to control the internet more closely. Yet even as Russia blocked certain websites and interrupted access to Twitter last year, few thought it would outright block major social media platforms and independent news websites. While television has always been heavily censored, the internet had been less restricted.The crackdown in March interrupted communications and commerce for many otherwise apolitical Russians, said Natalia Krapiva, tech-legal counsel at Access Now, a group focused on online speech-related issues. VPN use was already high among tech-savvy Russians, she said, but the blocks and news of harsh punishment for online protest led even more casual internet users to seek ways around the restrictions.Demand for VPNs surged in Russia, with downloads in March jumping 2,692 percent from February, said Simon Migliano, head of research for the review site Top10VPN.com. Proton was a popular choice, he said, hovering among the 10 most popular products despite being slower than some other choices.Since then, VPNs have become a way of life for many. Roskomsvoboda, a Russian civil society group focused on internet freedom, estimates that a quarter of the Russian population is using one.“To simply read independent news or to post a picture, you had to open your VPN,” said Viktoriia Safonova, 25, who now delivers food by bike in Sweden after she fled Russia in July. Both she and her husband were racked by anxiety after the invasion. Finding independent news and information was difficult. Workarounds often weren’t reliable.“If the one you’re using gets blocked, you have to find another VPN,” Ms. Safonova said.She recalled the paranoia that set in as new internet restrictions and surveillance took effect. She and her husband, Artem Nesterenko, worried about whether they could criticize the war online, even on international social networks. He recalled how the police had come to check on their building after he scrawled “No to war” in the elevator. He feared being arrested for things he posted online.As people turned to VPN services to avoid the blocks, Proton struggled to keep up. Over a weekend in March, engineers scrambled to buy and configure more than 20 new servers to avert a crash of its entire network.At the same time in Moscow, censors were at work trying to patch holes in the government’s internet controls.The first block that took down Proton, at the end of March, was a technically basic interruption that company engineers quickly overcame, but they figured more powerful attempts loomed.The battle took on a “Spy vs. Spy” dynamic in Proton’s headquarters. Mr. Yen said a network of people within the government, telecommunications firms and civil society groups had helped Proton operate in Russia, providing access to local networks and sharing intelligence about how the censorship system worked. But those contacts began to go dark as the Kremlin’s crackdown on dissent intensified.At the start of June, censors struck again.The service, which had more than 1.4 million daily users inside Russia at this point, collapsed as employees were going about their day. Complaints from Russian users poured into Proton’s customer service email. The company concluded that the government had deployed more sophisticated software that could filter through all internet traffic to identify when a person was trying to connect to Proton’s VPN service. Russia had used similar technology to block Twitter and other social media sites.Around this time, the company noticed a suspicious spike in negative reviews of its service in the Apple and Google app stores, reducing its search ranking.“They had clearly studied us,” said Antonio Cesarano, a senior engineer working on the VPN project.Some at Proton questioned whether they should continue the fight with Russia. It was costing millions of dollars and slowing down development of other products. But after Proton faced criticism in 2021, when the French police obtained the IP address of a climate activist using its email service, backing down from Russia could have added another bruise to the company’s reputation.Over about two weeks in June, Proton created yet another workaround that bounced internet traffic to servers in different geographical areas faster than censors could track. It was a technically complex move that would take considerable resources for Russia to counter.The fix worked — for about six weeks.Mr. Yen was interrupted during a staff meeting in mid-July with news that Russian censors had come up with an even more elaborate block. A corporate chart from the time shows use dropping off a cliff. Russian engineers had identified what is known as an authentication “handshake,” the vital moment when Proton’s VPN connection gets established before reaching the wider web. Blocking the link made Proton’s service essentially unusable.“We had no idea what was happening and how they were doing it,” Mr. Cesarano said.By August, after working around the clock for days to find a fix, Proton acknowledged defeat and pulled its app from Russia. The company has spent the months since then developing a new architecture that makes its VPN service harder to identify because it looks more like a regular website to censorship software scanning a country’s internet traffic. Proton has been successfully testing the system in Iran, where Proton has seen a sharp increase in VPN use during recent political demonstrations.In Russia, Proton has reintroduced its apps using the new system. Mr. Yen acknowledged that it probably wasn’t a long-term fix. He has confidence in the new technology, but figures Russian engineers will eventually figure out a new way to push back, and the game will continue. More

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      in US Politics

      Top US conservatives pushing Russia’s spin on Ukraine war, experts say

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      Top US conservatives pushing Russia’s spin on Ukraine war, experts saySome of the Kremlin’s most blatant falsehoods aimed at undercutting US aid are promoted by major figures on the right Ever since Russia launched its brutal war in Ukraine the Kremlin has banked on American conservative political and media allies to weaken US support for Ukraine and deployed disinformation operations to falsify the horrors of the war for both US and Russian audiences, say disinformation experts.Some of the Kremlin’s most blatant falsehoods about the war aimed at undercutting US aid for Ukraine have been promoted by major figures on the American right, from Holocaust denier and white supremacist Nick Fuentes to ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon and Fox News star Tucker Carlson, whose audience of millions is deemed especially helpful to Russian objectives.On a more political track, House Republican Freedom Caucus members such as Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Scott Perry – who in May voted with 54 other Republican members against a $40bn aid package for Ukraine, and have raised other concerns about the war – have proved useful, though perhaps unwitting, Kremlin allies at times.Pro-Moscow video materials from the network RT (formerly Russia Today), which early this year shuttered its US operations, have been featured on Rumble, a video sharing platform popular with conservatives that last year received major financing from a venture capital firm co-founded by recently elected Republican Ohio senator JD Vance and backed by billionaire Peter Thiel.As Republicans will control the House in 2023, the influence of these Ukraine aid critics in Congress and Moscow-friendly media on the right led by Carlson is expected to increase. But analysts say they’re unlikely to block a Biden administration request to Congress in mid-November for over $37bn in emergency aid for Ukraine, although they may try to pare it back.Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, who looks poised to become speaker in January, threatened pre-election that if the GOP won the majority, it wouldn’t back a “blank check” for Ukraine.There are signs that the conservative wing of the Republican party and its media allies are already ratcheting up their criticism of US backing for Ukraine. For instance, Perry, the chair of the rightwing Freedom Caucus, in October floated the idea of Republicans using their anticipated control of the House to investigate the Biden administration’s efforts and policies involving Ukraine-Russia peace talks.Moscow’s political friends on the far right have also become more vocal in pushing falsehoods and have hosted some Freedom Caucus members to showcase their influence.Fuentes infamously dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last month despite his long record of cozying up to Putin and his antisemitic and white supremacist remarks. Back in March, Fuentes said on his podcast: “We continue to support czar Putin in the war effort.” Fuentes also falsely claimed the Russian war in Ukraine was “not aggression” and its goals were “not unreasonable”, repeating the Kremlin line that Moscow is trying to denazify Ukraine.In a similar, albeit somewhat less inflammatory vein, Carlson’s pro-Moscow spin and distortions about the war have been palpable since the start and seem to have increased in recent months. Russian media often rebroadcasts the Fox News host’s comments and praises Carlson. “We’ve entered a new phase, one in which the United States is directly at war with the largest nuclear power in the world,” Carlson with considerable hyperbolic license warned his audience in late September.Disinformation experts note that in the run-up to the US midterm elections, conservative media stars such as Carlson, as well as Greene and other far-right members of Congress, became more vocal about blocking Ukraine assistance, and calling for audits of American assistance.“Marjorie Taylor Green’s introduction of a resolution to audit aid to Ukraine is entirely unsurprising given the pervasively negative messaging about Ukraine coming from the right flank of the GOP over the past three months,” Bret Schafer, a senior fellow with the Alliance for Securing Democracy, said.Prior to the 8 November elections, he noted that “of the 100 most retweeted tweets about Ukraine posted by GOP candidates for the House since August, roughly 90% opposed continued support for Ukraine. Though much of that messaging plays to simple pocketbook concerns – essentially saying, ‘Why are we supporting Ukraine when Americans are struggling to pay their bills?’ – there is also a strain of anti-Ukrainian disinformation that colors some of their commentary.”Schafer added that “although most members of Congress support Ukraine, the loudest members do not, and their voices are dominating online spaces”.John Sipher, who served in the CIA’s national clandestine services for 28 years with a stint leading its Russia operations, said that Putin is using a playbook that he honed during his long career with the KGB to influence policy and Russian opinion.“I think Putin’s weakness is that he is not a strategic thinker but reverts to what he knows – using covert means to influence and undermine others,” Sipher said. “He cannot win on the battlefield so he uses threats and intimidations to influence and scare western leaders into backing down or pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table.”Sipher noted that historically Putin “has weaponized energy, information, refugees, food and nuclear threats to get his way. I think his nuclear threats are just a means to sow unease and dissension among supporters of Ukraine, and suspect that the discussion of a ‘dirty bomb’ is meant to signal to his domestic audience that Ukraine is a real threat, and the population should support Putin’s tough measures.”In the US the audiences receiving pro-Putin messages have been boosted by Rumble, the video sharing platform, which has featured RT content including an interview with two Americans captured in Ukraine who were badly beaten by Russians and later released, as the New York Times last month reported.One of the two American men in the video clip told his interviewer while he was in custody that he had been deceived to fight in Ukraine by “propaganda from the west” that reported that Russians soldiers were “indiscriminately killing civilians”.Megan Squire, a deputy director for data analytics with the Southern Poverty Law Center, noted that Rumble has also been busy recycling pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine material from multiple figures on the right.“Alt-tech platforms such as Rumble are actively peddling the anti-Ukraine talking points of their heavy users, many of whom have been deplatformed elsewhere,” Squire said. “A simple search for ‘Ukraine’ in Rumble today shows that the top search results are for a Steve Bannon video where he promotes Marjorie Taylor Greene’s demands for an audit of Ukrainian relief funds, and junk news site Post Millennial, which is using Rumble to promote clips from a similar story from Tucker Carlson.”But for overall influence with American audiences, veteran Russia experts say Carlson’s big Fox megaphone still dwarfs other propaganda tools favorable to Moscow.“The audience for Fox News commentators like Tucker Carlson, who frequently spreads pro-Russian narratives, is obviously orders of magnitude bigger than that of new niche players like Rumble that often carry Russian disinformation,” said Andrew Weiss, a vice-president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Such platforms are far more impactful than the more sneaky techniques that the Russian propaganda apparatus employs these days.”TopicsThe far rightRepublicansFox NewsUS politicsRussiaUkrainenewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Trump and the Anti-Abortion Movement

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      More from our inbox:Detained in AmericaHelping People in JailTreating Vote Counting as Live Sports Damon Winter/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Pro-Life Camp Paid for Its Trump Bargain,” by David French (Opinion guest essay, Nov. 22):I appreciate the discomfort that Mr. French discusses. Electing Donald Trump president allowed him to appoint the conservative justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. But, he writes: “Trumpism is centered on animosity. The pro-life movement has to be centered on love, including love for its most bitter political opponents.”I wish that the pro-life movement, including Mr. French, would focus more broadly on what it claims to be about: pro-life. Most people I have known or spoken with who call themselves pro-life have told me that they favor capital punishment and expansive gun rights and oppose guaranteed access to physical and mental health care and aggressive efforts to control pollution and global warming, positions that threaten far more lives than does abortion.All lives are precious, not just fetal ones.Gordon F. BoalsSag Harbor, N.Y.To the Editor:David French’s essay was an interesting argument about the toxic influences of Donald Trump on the pro-life movement. It was also somewhat of an advertisement for a fantasied pro-life movement.Well before Mr. Trump was in office, some pro-life supporters bombed clinics offering abortion services and others murdered doctors and nurses. Many more severely harassed doctors and women walking into clinics.I do not believe that the hate and violence coming from the pro-life movement are because Mr. Trump hijacked it. It has been there all along. The recent election results have shown to me that the majority of Americans support abortion as a health care issue for women.Paul M. CamicLondonThe writer is a professor of health psychology at University College London.To the Editor:Thank you for publishing David French’s essay. As a pro-life Never Trumper, I felt my point of view was represented, and I think this stance might bring some hope for those who fear all pro-lifers. I appreciate The Times’s willingness to publish a point of view that balances two extremes.Kathie HarrisFayetteville, N.C.To the Editor:The problem with David French’s essay is that he ascribes humanistic motives to the pro-life forces and the politicians who want to ban abortion. Of course, there are true believers, both religious and secular, who think abortion is completely unacceptable.But most voters understand that this is a political battle for votes. And the prime example is the one Mr. French cited — Donald Trump. His conversion to the right-to-life side is a political convenience. It’s essentially no different from Herschel Walker’s abortion beliefs — good as a campaign issue, but, hey, keep out of my personal life.John VasiSanta Barbara, Calif.To the Editor:David French writes: “Walk into a crisis pregnancy center and you’ll often meet some of the best people you’ll ever know. These are the folks who walk with young, frightened women through some of the most difficult days of their lives.”On the contrary, crisis pregnancy centers are intentionally dishonest, using deception to trick women who actively seek abortions into making appointments there instead of abortion clinics. Once inside, they ply these women, who we all agree are often young and frightened and in some of the most difficult days of their lives, with outright lies about biology and her options, and then attempt to guilt her into making a choice she doesn’t want to make.Is tricking women and teenage girls into having unwanted babies really “pro-life”? What about the life these women want to live, a life that may not include parenthood then, or ever? Or is it just another tool in the tool kit of the forced birth movement?Alexandra EichenbaumSan FranciscoTo the Editor:I appreciate the compassionate tone of David French’s guest essay. I find it true that there’s an inherent spirit of unkindness in most pro-life messaging, demonizing the woman and the health care provider. In addition, red states are notorious for having strict and minimalist social services and income support programs for people who need them.If we seriously want young girls and women to carry unplanned pregnancies through to birth, many will need social services, mental health and income supports, as well as health care and job protection. And those who keep or adopt the children may need additional publicly funded support.So, if pro-life states say every embryo must be carried and delivered because every child is important, they must provide systems of care for these children and the families that raise them. Otherwise, it’s hypocrisy pure and simple, Trump or no Trump.Dale FlemingSan DiegoDetained in AmericaTwo Russian antiwar dissidents, Mariia Shemiatina and Boris Shevchuk, reuniting outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Pine Prairie, La.Emily Kask for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Russian Dissidents Fleeing to U.S. Find Detention, Not Freedom” (front page, Nov. 29):The outrageous and inhumane treatment experienced by two Russian political refugee doctors, Mariia Shemiatina and her husband, Boris Shevchuk, at the hands of ICE and in private for-profit prisons illustrates the need for drastic immigration reform.Since the same system has treated nonwhite refugees this way for years, we need to ask ourselves why these injustices have been allowed to fester.At the very least the Democratic lame-duck House must pass legislation that will provide proper oversight and enable early hearings so that those with legitimate claims can participate in the freedoms they risked so much to attain.Tom MillerOakland, Calif.The writer is a human rights lawyer.Helping People in JailDallas Garcia, the mother of an inmate killed in Harris County Jail, holding her son’s ashes.Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “For a Growing Number of Americans, Jail Has Become a Death Sentence” (news article, Nov. 24):The reporting on Harris County, Texas, emphasizes the dire need for more programs supporting incarcerated individuals with a serious mental illness, substance abuse problems, intellectual and developmental disabilities or a brain injury — cycling through the system in the county and nationally. The percentage of such people in jails has grown over the last few years.The support services must include accessible and affordable housing options — safe shelters, rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing and community-based behavioral health services.With better staffing and oversight of jails, these programs have the ability to prevent many tragic outcomes and needless deaths, disproportionately affecting those who are Black, Indigenous and people of color.Laurie GarduqueChicagoThe writer is director of criminal justice at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.Treating Vote Counting as Live SportsTo the Editor:Why is it that the media has to treat vote counting as if it were the fourth quarter of a football game and maybe there will be a miraculous surge by the losing team?The votes have already been cast. The results have happened already; we just haven’t opened all the boxes yet. Yes, the vote tallies will change, but that’s not due to anything any candidate or other partisan does or does not do after the polls have closed. The votes are in, or in the mail.Jay GoldmanWaltham, Mass. More

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