Head coach of Krasny Yar Igor Nikolaychuk, in a conversation with a correspondent from Championship.com, spoke about the team’s preparation for the new season and personnel changes. Here are the most interesting quotes from the mentor of the Russian champions.

Preparations for the new season are just beginning. Yesterday the players arrived at the team's location. Some are engaged in an individual program - these are those who were involved in the Russian national team, and those players who have recently joined the squad. Our defensive coach Siua Taumololo has arrived, all foreign players must arrive by January 20, then the team will be in full force.

Has anyone from the youth team shown themselves?

Maxim Egorov played very well, especially at the beginning of the season. Then he had an injury, and his progress stalled a little. Our young athlete Sasha Ilyin deserves many flattering words. Despite the fact that he is only 18 years old, his game commands respect. And the third discovery was Dmitry Sukhin - we loaned him to Metallurg, and there he developed so much that he earned a call to the Russian rugby sevens team. This season we will have extremely serious competition in the positions of numbers 9-10 - Yagudin, Dorofeev, Ryabov, Sukhin.

And in what position does Krasny Yar need to strengthen?

Yes, in general, all positions are closed, but another question adds headaches to the coaching staff. Now there is an order from the Ministry of Sports on the limit on foreign players in all types of games - in our rugby this is the format “4 on the field and only 6 in the application”. I have a very negative attitude towards this. I believe that this fact will weaken the national championship and reduce interest in it, plus our teams will not be competitive in European competitions. The experience of “Yenisey” this season shows that it is very difficult to fight at the European level without top-class foreign players. And high-quality players should also play in the Russian Championship.

You wouldn’t sign a foreign player for a high salary for six Challenge Cup matches, right?

Yes, even if you sign, he needs to play, and regularly. When he cannot play because of the limit, but only trains, he will quickly lose his level. I think this is a big mistake. It is clear that they want to give Russian juniors a chance, but the level of youth rugby in our country is still, to put it mildly, low. You see the championships of England and France, no one there is artificially bringing up the youth. Again, if there are no strong foreign players, they will have no one to look up to professionally.

Who did the club part with in the offseason?

We parted ways with Alexey Makovetsky and Maxim Kiselyov. He is a good player, but frequent injuries have prevented him from reaching his potential. And Vyacheslav Titika does not have the right to play for the Russian national team, which means he is subject to the limit, so he will not be in the club in the new season.

How are things going with the Krasny Yar legionnaires? Will they all continue to play on the team?

Because of the Legionnaires' Law, we also have to reconsider this point. Most likely, Harison Mataele will not return to the club. He is currently playing in the Tongan Championship and is on trial with his national team. The guy impressed everyone with his performance for Krasny Yar. Everyone else must, as I already said, come to Krasnoyarsk in eight days, when their championship ends - now the final games are there.

If in the summer our rugby sevens team needs Vasily Artemyev in the Olympic selection, will you let him join the team?

This issue has not yet been discussed in detail, it is, let’s say, hanging in the air. We communicate well with the head coach of the Russian national team Andrei Sorokin and are ready to meet halfway, because all rugby fans want both our girls and boys to get to the Olympics in Rio. But for now the situation here is 50/50.

Anyone who believes that workers in the humanitarian sphere - teachers, journalists, cultural and art workers - produce nothing is deeply mistaken. Culturologists and experts in the field of information technology irrefutably testify: we live in a world where the product of intellectual labor, information communications are acquiring an increasingly important role, shaping mass consciousness, transforming political and social trends.

Leading Russian expert in the field of information technology, head of the regional security sector of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, Igor Nikolaychuk, spoke to Pridnestrovian mass media employees about the trends of the times and patterns of development of world journalism.

Igor Aleksandrovich owns scientific works in the field of political mediametry - a discipline that allows, based on quantitative indicators, to identify the attitude of the media to certain issues. The created system is also used to assess the image of the Russian Federation in leading foreign publications. Thanks to a specially monitored “aggressiveness index,” analysts determine the circle of countries where the mass media display the most intolerant position towards the Russian Federation. By the way, research in this area shows that, despite the public commitment to democratic values, the requirements of objectivity and impartiality, independent media simply do not exist in the Western world. They are all addicted in one way or another. The only question is who acts as customers: private individuals, state and suprastate structures, the readership. But, by and large, there is no smell of freedom of speech there, Igor Nikolaychuk is sure.

Suffice it to recall how quite recently, against the backdrop of unfounded, unsubstantiated accusations against the Russian Federation, the leading Western media took an unequivocally anti-Russian position. Thus, no one should have any illusions: a global information war is being waged in the world, the methods and results of which are no less dangerous than real military operations. In any case, by influencing the mentality, determining the range of political views, national priorities, information wars can not only lead to changes in undesirable political regimes and wreak havoc, but also become a catalyst for real armed conflicts. That is why, as Igor Nikolaychuk says, in the modern world journalism is becoming the main weapon in global and regional confrontation.

Fortunately, all of us, former Soviet citizens, who at one time so easily believed Western propaganda, have been able to realize and learn a lot over the past years. We began to distinguish Western reality from a beautiful picture, to see the difference between the declaration of “freedom of speech” and its application in practice. We have studied the enemy's weapons to counter them. But we went further, preferring to be guided not by primitive technologies for manipulating consciousness (they can be conventionally described as “carrots for a donkey”), but by the inherent desire for truth and justice throughout the Russian world, respect for the right of every people to preserve identity and state sovereignty. And the result, as Vladimir Putin’s speech at the UN General Assembly in New York shows, was not long in coming.

In the article “Russia in the mirror of the world media: Putin, go ahead!” Igor Nikolaychuk writes about how the attitude towards Russia abroad is changing right before our eyes. “The restructuring of the information field, reflecting Russian realities, is the main sign of our time,” the expert notes. “Russia finds ways to prove that those who tried to isolate it from participation in world processes are themselves political marginals or, at a minimum, not entirely sovereign politicians.”

According to the analyst, the aggressiveness indices for collections of materials in the foreign press, which mentioned the name of Vladimir Putin and other prominent figures from the corridors of Russian power, became significantly lower in a short period of time after the speech at the General Assembly. As for Vladimir Putin’s peculiar “press index,” today it is equal to 0.6 - a ridiculous figure. For comparison: in February 2015 this parameter was 3.2.

The collapse of the anti-Russian (we emphasize, not Russophobic, but only state-regulated anti-Russian) media front, according to the expert, demonstrates the real controllability of the Western press. In other words, the bias that was talked about so much in the context of the events in Ukraine has today become completely irrefutable. From now on it is a fact.

As for the media background around Transnistria and some other parts of the post-Soviet space, in the near future, according to Igor Nikolaychuk’s forecasts, our region will not be considered among the leading topics. The attention of the leading players and the media controlled by them will be entirely focused on the Middle East. But this, of course, does not mean that there will be less interest in Pridnestrovie from countries with which our state is connected historically, culturally and spiritually. Ties between Russia and Transnistria will only get stronger.

“Transnistria has not been forgotten, we love you and are actively working to make you feel like Russia and continue to feel like Russia,” noted Igor Nikolaychuk. According to him, this is one of the goals of the presence of RISI employees in Pridnestrovie.

Nikolay Fech.

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Conversation with an expert on information warfare technology, an employee of the Center for Defense Research at RISS

Our guest is a specialist in the field of information warfare and a participant in the creation of a special information and analytical system that allows real-time monitoring of the number, topics and tone of publications of the world's leading media.

Igor Aleksandrovich, what signs do you use to determine the moment of the beginning of the information war? Like a disease, it is easier to resist an information attack at an early stage...

As a person placed on duty at the media radar screen and monitoring the information space, I will explain with an example. The so-called Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is the most commented on military-political event of the 20th century. It became an extremely unpleasant surprise for the British and French, although from the point of view of the diplomatic practice of those years, the Non-Aggression Treaty between Germany and the Soviet Union did not represent anything outstanding. The rapprochement between Berlin and Moscow was preceded by the following events.

The USSR noticed that attacks on the USSR and its leaders had stopped in the German press. This was interpreted as Berlin's desire to improve relations with the USSR. After this, Charge d'Affaires of the USSR in Germany Georgy Astakhov, discussing with German diplomat Karl Schnurre the secondary issue of the status of the Soviet trade mission in Prague after the Czech Republic joined Germany, noted that the Kremlin positively assessed the changes in the tone of the German press. As a result, a process began in the diplomatic circles of the two states that led to Ribbentrop's visit to Moscow.

This example shows that monitoring the information flow has become a trigger for serious changes in the political scene of the world. To catch such signals, you need to sit “by the river” and measure the “water level”. This is called an information surveillance system. Today, this kind of work is carried out by professionals of the highest standard. Believe it or not, these are mostly smart, cheerful and attractive girls. For me, girls, when processing foreign press, every day risk getting a dislocation of the brain or falling into deep misanthropy. But so far God has been merciful.

When we transferred information processing to a quantitative basis, things came out that we had never dreamed of before. It turned out that almost any major international event is accompanied by a change in the dynamics of information processes. Let me give you a couple of recent and typical examples. A day after the victory of the “Georgian Dream” Bidzina Ivanishvili in the parliamentary elections, the anti-Russian hysteria that flourished under the regime of Mikheil Saakashvili ceased in the Georgian media. And at the beginning of June 2014, before the visit of the Russian President on the occasion of the anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy, there was a “calm” in the French press. The French did everything possible to ensure that Vladimir Putin’s visit was not disrupted. Quantitative data analysis makes it easy to track the initiation of strategic information operations. The main thing is that the system for monitoring the information situation is properly organized.

- What interest do sociological survey data have for the initiators of information wars?

Huge. The results of the surveys are taken into account when the government makes decisions to change the political course. Journalists love to shout about the information war, often mistaking it for purely PR things. If a certain number of critical publications have appeared, this does not mean that an information war has begun. We often use the concept of “strategic information operation.” It can develop into an information war. Then there is a complete restructuring of the state mechanism of information warfare.

If the number of negative publications per unit of time exceeds the number of neutral ones by five times, then we begin to consider the situation as an information war. Forget about the positive ones altogether. Each positive publication in the foreign press ultimately costs a lot of money. Why does one country suddenly start praising another? If the number of negative publications is less than five, but more than two, we establish a situation of information tension in relation to Russia. States in which there are one or more neutral publications per negative publication are classified as neutral.

When people talk about information warfare today, they usually mean that the Russian population has begun to be indoctrinated in the direction desired by one or another elite of a particular country. The main drama of any strategic information operation, however, unfolds within the country that conducts it. Any change in policy is accompanied by a change in the content of what the ruling strata say to their population. To do something outside the country, the elites must first come to a consensus and prepare their people, explain to them what is good and what is bad.

Before starting actions against another state, for example, starting to organize a Maidan, one must imagine how effective the work on shaping public opinion within one’s own country was. We must be sure that foreign policy actions will receive the approval of our own population. To find out this, sociological surveys are conducted. In the West, sociological services conduct two surveys - among the population and among the elite. The goal is to achieve agreement on positions and obtain a mandate to carry out certain actions.

- How many publications on Russia can you track in a week?

About one and a half thousand worldwide. At least half of them are negative. But this is a normal situation, not an information war. With such figures, one can only talk about information pressure, attempts to influence public opinion.

- Which state leads in the number of negative publications addressed to us?

Germany, where for every one neutral publication there are 70 negative ones. Berlin is conducting a strategic information operation to restructure Russian-German relations from a format of modernization partnership to a format of sharp confrontation.

- What is this connected with?

The country has matured in understanding that it is time for it to become a great European power and revise the results of World War II in its favor. Germany's establishment of political control over Ukraine (economic control is a matter of technology) would mean a breakthrough in national German existence. Since 1918, Germany has made its third attempt to occupy Ukraine. The Germans have always been interested in the monopoly use of Ukrainian resources. The world-famous German geopolitician Karl Haushofer convinced Hitler that it was necessary to export not only bread and manganese, but also black soil from Ukraine.

- In addition to the “aggression index,” do you calculate other indices?

Yes. Mediametric indicators have been used for quite some time, but locally. Measuring the media sphere is difficult and expensive. There is a press index. With its help, you can count how many times the media quoted the statement of a particular politician. I like to monitor the rate of increase in the information array of the number of sharp headlines. The intensity of the information sphere is reflected in the quintessence of the material - its title. Let's look at Germany at random on September 11th. You can write: “The government in Schwerin, despite criticism, will celebrate Russia Day.” Or you can squeal: “The kingdom of evil exists; In Lithuania, the fear of Russia is resurfacing again.”

- What role does the blogosphere play in information wars? Links often go to bloggers.

Valery Solovey, in an interview with LG, said quite correctly that the main information weapon is television. The blogosphere and everyone else, at best, serve as projectile carriers. During the information war, the role of the blogosphere decreases. What comes first is what can shape public opinion on a massive scale - television and the large-circulation press. During the Kyiv Maidan period, the blogosphere was used poorly. It largely performed communication rather than propaganda functions.

Watching how Western-oriented liberals conduct information campaigns, you are amazed at how amicably they jump from one topic to another. Yesterday they defended Andrei Makarevich, today they are solving other problems. It seems that the commands come to them from a single center. Is this true? What is the technology of information warfare?

Those people who carry out a strategic information operation against Russia assign a topic and bring it to the rest. Including pro-Western Russian liberals. And they all start shouting how bad Putin is.

On foreign policy issues, our liberals, in principle, do not start anything on their own initiative. This happens on domestic political issues. The information operations center is located in the US State Department. They very skillfully play with such a category as “the harshness of newspaper rhetoric.” Operations begin after major political decisions at the highest level and pursue specific goals. Then a pre-emptive signal appears in the US press. Next, the main media mouthpieces are connected. This conglomerate defines the theme for Russian liberal media.

A strategic information operation can be fleeting, or it can last for years. The largest strategic operation carried out by the West in relation to Russia since December 5, 2011 (the day of summing up the results of the State Duma elections) and to this day is the “Russia without Putin” campaign. Those who came to Bolotnaya Square repeated slogans that had previously appeared in the US media when processing Americans.

- Why do some informational injections work and others don’t?

Those fakes that do not take into account the real mood of our society do not work. And the ones that work are those that take these sentiments into account. But lately I haven’t seen such stuffing. Remember the campaign around Dima Yakovlev's law... Evil Russians do not allow the adoption of an orphan living in inhumane conditions without warmth and affection! But this theme was aimed primarily at the sentimental Western audience before Christmas, and not at us. As well as the “Magnitsky case,” which is absolutely uninteresting to the Russian population.

In Russia, most throw-ins from the West do not work. But the West doesn’t care about this. It is important for them that it works in Western countries. And this goal, as a rule, is achieved. The girls from Pussy Riot have no support or sympathy in Russia, but in Europe they are the center of attention. In the Western media they are presented as victims of human rights violations and suppression of freedom of creativity by the Russian authorities. The excitement around the violation of the rights of the LGBT community is causing an extremely negative reaction in Russia. A politician who marches ahead of our gay pride parade can end his career. This is our society. But Western society is different. Cries about violation of gay rights are intended for him. In the West they are greeted with understanding. The main topic of criticism of Putin during his visit to Amsterdam last year was the accusation of clamping down on the rights of the LGBT community. But this is complete absurdity! However, in the Netherlands this accusation received massive popular support. City mayors, many of them gay, lowered rainbow flags at city halls during Putin's visit. Russia and the West differ greatly in their understanding of good and evil.

There is an opinion that it is difficult for Russia to conduct information wars outside its borders, primarily due to the lack of an attractive image of the country abroad. Is this really the main reason?

Conversations about Russia's attractive image abroad need to end. No one there expects this image. And he won’t let you change it. Currently, the image of the head of state is relevant. The image of the state today is being replaced by the image of power. Soon after the war, the editor-in-chief of Literaturnaya Gazeta, Konstantin Simonov, before a speech in one of the Canadian cities, learned that people who believed that “it is better to be dead than red” were preparing to boo his speech. At the moment when the situation was ready to explode, Simonov said: “Russia. Stalin. Stalingrad." The clackers remained silent. So Simonov created the image of the Soviet Union with just three words. When one of the modern poets and writers formulates such an image slogan in relation to Russia, then it will be possible to say that Russia has recovered.

One of the most fierce information battles of the past summer revolved around the downed Malaysian Boeing. Who won it?

Everyone solved their problems, and equally successfully. The Americans, roughly speaking, don’t care about both Boeing and what happens every day in Ukraine. But this informational reason fits perfectly with the mentality of the Western man in the street. The problems of terrorism and flight safety concern everyone. The brutal murder of Muammar Gaddafi was justified by the fact that he carried out terrorist attacks on airplanes. For the collective West, both Gaddafi and Putin are the same damn thing. It is necessary to remove the unwanted leader and bring to power the politician the West needs, or create chaos. Therefore, as soon as the Boeing crashed, even before any investigation into the causes of the tragedy, the West immediately named Putin as the culprit. The downed Boeing began to be used in the “Russia without Putin” campaign.

Due to Slavic fatalism, catastrophes in the sky do not leave a deep mark on our society. But we were able to present the matter in such a way that, they say, they shot down the Boeing themselves, and they are blaming us. In my opinion, the task of using this in external propaganda was not even set. In the end, everyone won at home. This is not a military draw, but each side achieving its goals. We cannot convert all Americans to our faith.

What, then, are Russia’s goals and capabilities in the information war? Is Russia conducting only purely defensive battles, protecting its information space?

From the understanding of information warfare that I have outlined so far, it should be clear that our main task is not to hijack foreign societies. At the same time, no one is removing the task of foreign broadcasting. Russia must convey its point of view to Western audiences. Everyone, including our Western opponents, recognizes the success of the Russia Today TV channel. It operates according to Western standards, but advances our understanding of events and their interpretation. Under normal circumstances, the channel's activities in the Anglo-Saxon direction are difficult to overestimate. He presents the Russian point of view and alternative information to that part of Western society that does not trust its government. The maximum task is to expand the audience and attract significant people. Russophiles are everywhere, but they need to be organized.

Why, before the bloodshed in Syria and Ukraine, did the US authorities generally treat Russia Today’s work on its territory calmly? Our TV channel makes it minimally difficult to solve the problem of forming the public opinion Washington needs in the United States. In such conditions, “Emelya is shallow, your week.” However, when a major conflict begins, like the Syrian or Ukrainian one, the activities of foreign TV channels in the United States are perceived by the country’s elite as hostile, which must be counteracted.

Trying to launch a massive information attack on the United States, even if we create ten Russia Today TV channels, is pointless. Americans have long been working in other countries through non-governmental organizations, with the goal of changing society from the inside. What Russophile organizations work in the USA? If you name me, I will be very surprised and thank you.

What is the state of the Russian information machine? Is it well established from an organizational and personnel point of view?

The system of political influence on the media, the formation of editorial policy, financial and organizational aspects of the activities of journalistic groups in any country are one of the most closed topics.

- How can you evaluate the work of the state information machine based on the results?

In 2008 it was considered bad. After the events in South Ossetia, there was talk that Russia had lost the information war. Russia was accused of being an aggressor. Our media have not made enough efforts to convince the public otherwise. And the unpatriotic media actually shot our soldiers in the back. Before the annexation of Crimea, enormous, painstaking, painful and almost invisible work was carried out to exclude from the media field of Russia those media outlets that could shoot in the back. Information warfare requires an overwhelming advantage for those media that work to implement the state project. The propaganda horror of the first Chechen war, when they beat their own people, has not been forgotten and should not be repeated.

The return of Crimea is significant for another event. For the first time in the post-Soviet history of Russia, a positive myth about “polite people” was created. Although many people had previously been awarded the title of Hero of Russia, not a single myth arose. And now he is. Recently, wonderful plastic figurines of “polite people” were released in the Czech Republic. Previously, they produced figurines of Chechen militants holding the severed heads of our soldiers. And now here are the “polite people”...

Interviewed by Oleg Nazarov

Igor NIKOLAYCHUK

On March 29, 2014, news agencies disseminated a report that Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a telephone conversation, discussed with the 44th President of the United States, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama, possible steps by the international community to help stabilize the situation in Ukraine. Although communication between the two presidents on this topic has already taken place before, and more than once, for the first time we can talk about the emergence of real hopes for concerted actions by Moscow to overcome the Ukrainian crisis, which was organized in one of the best cities in the world - Kyiv by the wild “children of the mountains” - cruel and arrogant young "Westerners".

Let us point out, firstly, that Barack Obama is called our president’s “American colleague.” This says a lot to those in the know. For example, that the White House is becoming the Kremlin’s main partner in resolving the crisis. Brussels is being taken out of the political game. The presidents almost directly agreed on this. How else can we understand this phrase: “The presidents agreed that in the near future the specific parameters of such joint work will be discussed by the heads of the foreign policy departments of Russia and the United States”? The European Union is assigned the unenviable role of a purse for the economic salvation of Ukraine in the event that something remains of it.

Secondly, the press release carefully avoided the question of the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the current self-proclaimed Kyiv government. But a lot is said about the power vacuum: “Vladimir Putin drew the attention of Barack Obama to the ongoing rampant extremists who commit acts of intimidation against civilians, government agencies, and law enforcement agencies with impunity in various regions and in Kyiv. In this context, the Russian leader proposed to consider possible steps by the international community to help stabilize the situation.”

Finally, the Russian president drew attention to the actual external blockade of Transnistria, which leads “to a significant complication of the living conditions of residents of the region, impeding their movement, normal trade and economic activities.” Transnistria appears in conversations between the two leaders in the context of the crisis in Ukraine for the first time. And the wording of the phrase leaves no doubt that Russian troops are ready to break through a corridor to the Russian enclave on the Dniester, the existence of which, for obvious reasons, was not particularly advertised in official documents for the time being. But for 20 years, domestic political scientists persistently called the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic “an outpost of Russia in the South-West.”

On March 18, immediately after the referendum, which actually returned Crimea to Russia, the Chairman of the Supreme Council of Transnistria Mikhail Burla sent an appeal to the Speaker of the State Duma Sergei Naryshkin with a request to provide in Russian legislation for the possibility of the region joining Russia. The appeal was received as a response to the A Just Russia bill on simplifying the procedure for annexing new territories to Russia. “The document allows us to accept parts of foreign states into Russia without the consent of these countries on the basis of a referendum or an appeal from their authorities,” the Kremlin press service reported. True, a day before, on March 17, A Just Russia had already withdrawn this bill. Well, the steeper the mix of intrigue. And from the point of view of the average person - why is the PMR not Crimea? The majority of the population is Russian. Fertile land, orchards, vineyards, tomato plantations, canneries, industry, fresh water, energy.

The mention of the intolerable situation in Transnistria, which has developed due to the inadequate actions of the Kyiv authorities, in a conversation between the presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States speaks volumes to a military analyst. At the end of March, the US press demonstrated paroxysmal activity in publishing “top-secret” almost hourly intelligence reports on the movements and concentration of Russian troops in areas adjacent to the eastern border of Ukraine, which were placed on Obama’s desk. Journalists, citing the opinion of high-ranking American intelligence officers (secret, of course, but freedom of speech!), argued that three cities would be attacked by the Russian Army Ground Forces: Kharkov, Lugansk, Donetsk. But these are intermediate goals. In converging directions, strikes will be delivered specifically to Transnistria, although Tiraspol is still more of a symbol, a pretext for carrying out a more serious strategic operation: taking control of the industrial areas of Zaporozhye and Dnepropetrovsk, establishing land connections with Crimea, and most importantly, completing the annexation of the Black Sea region to Russia. The hero city of Odessa, the faithful and heroic Tiraspol, as well as the quiet and hardworking children of the shebutic practitioner of the geopolitics of Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky - the cities of Nikolaev and Kherson with the adjacent regions are included in the newly formed Crimean Federal District. Actually, this development of the situation was not particularly hidden at the moment when the Maidan was just beginning to boil once again. Almost at the official level, Kiev began to receive signals from Moscow that if everything goes exactly as it did, then the new Ukrainian authorities, if they want to relax on the Black Sea beaches, will stumble upon a border barrier.

IMAGE IS POWER

When describing possible scenarios for the development of the situation in Ukraine and around it, I have repeatedly encountered accusations of too rich imagination among some domestic and foreign experts who like to scare customers from government agencies with apocalyptic clips against the backdrop of geographic maps. Not at all. Everything is methodologically correct. The analysis of the military-political situation in the region in this case takes place using the approach proposed by the famous Russian scientist, specialist in the field of political science and imaginary geography Dmitry Zamyatin. At the end of the 1990s. he introduced the concept of “geopolitical image,” which is understood as “purposeful and clearly structured ideas about geographic space, including the most vivid and memorable symbols, signs, images and characteristics of certain territories, countries, regions, marking them from a political point of view.” In this case, we are talking about the actual identification of a certain geographical space with a specific policy pursued by someone.

Let us emphasize with three bold lines the following statement, which, however, does not lie at all in the Ukrainian problem field, but is extremely important for understanding the events around Crimea and Ukraine, as well as for forming ideas about the future of Russia. Specialists in the field of mass communications drew attention to the fact that in the eyes of the population of many countries of the world, especially in Asia and Africa, Russia is presented as “a country that has shrunk”, “lost a significant part of its territories.” At the same time, we are not talking about the “collapse of the empire,” a tragic and globally pompous process. For the Russian Federation, restoration within the previous limits (USSR or “historical Russia” - call it what you want) remains natural and expected. Its “shrinking” itself is perceived not as a result of the irreversible course of the historical process, but as an incomprehensible misunderstanding.

Thus, the famous domestic Arabist Nadezhda Khasan, exploring the perception of the Russian Federation in the Arab world, points out: “The image of the territory of Russia at the rational level among respondents is a large and distant country. However, on an unconscious level, they perceive it much less. The distortion in the perception of the territory’s image is influenced by the fact that Russia has to some extent lost its position in the world and in the East. Compared to the USSR, Russia seems smaller and weaker. Respondents see the Russia of the future as a territorially more extensive country than the Russia of the present.”

This topic can be deepened endlessly, but it is absolutely clear that a correct understanding of the international genesis and prospects for the outcome of the Ukrainian crisis can no longer be formed without taking into account the ideas about the imaginary essence of Ukraine, its image among the main external and internal actors of the geopolitical “optimistic tragedy” unfolding before our eyes.

US GOAL IS TO TEAR RUSSIAN BANDAGES FROM UKRAINIAN WOUND

During the years of bipolar confrontation, the United States actively encouraged separatist sentiments on the territory of the USSR. Of course, the “Ukrainian government in exile,” as was the case with Latvia and Estonia, was not supported by the Americans, but in America after the war a small but influential Ukrainian-Jewish lobby appeared, which aimed to tear Ukraine away from the Soviet Union, since the communists -they are fighting against Israeli statehood. The head of this direction, the well-known Lev Dobryansky, back in 1959, began to work closely on creating a new identification of the Ukrainian people in the world, including exposing the “myth of Ukrainian anti-Semitism.” At the same time, he created new myths, initiating the tradition of the annual celebration in the US Congress of the “Captive Nations Week Resolution,” which attracted the attention of the “democratic public” to the situation of national minorities in the USSR, including Ukrainians. This, of course, was a propaganda rattle, especially since Dobryansky indecently included in the list of enslaved nations purely Hitler’s “creatures” to gain independence - the Krasnov Cossacks and the Kazan Tatars and Bashkirs who were absolutely loyal to the USSR. But President Eisenhower liked this safe and pointless idea. Without any hesitation, he added “continental China” and half the other countries of the world to “Dobryansky’s list.”

By the way, among the students of Professor Lev Dobryansky at Washington’s Georgetown University (let’s pay tribute, he was a good economist and teacher) included Katerina-Klava (Catherine-Claire) Chumachenko, later the “First Lady of Ukraine” Ekaterina Mikhailovna Yushchenko. Largely thanks to her, the image of Bandera’s followers was at least somehow entrenched in the American establishment not as flayers and “anti-Semites,” but as consistent and persistent fighters against communism, which is hated by the “free world.” And that's all. After graduating from university, Catherine-Claire did not become a banal marketer, but began working as the director of the Ukrainian National Information Service of the Washington Bureau of the Ukrainian Committee of the American Congress. In 2008, Ekaterina Yushchenko was awarded the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom for her “exceptional contribution to disseminating the truth about the Holodomor and other crimes of communism.”

If we return to the issue of the image of Ukraine in the United States, primarily in a geopolitical and military-strategic context, then when communism was not a bogeyman for the American people, but a very nice global project (with the Russians it was possible not only to fight together against Hitler and Japan , but also to create the United Nations), then the United States press (including the Russian émigré press) was extremely unkind to the Austro-German project of inciting nationalism in Ukraine, which arose before the First World War. Just before the start of World War II, the Americans carried out the necessary strategic review, trying to take a closer look at what Ukrainian trump cards the parties involved in the conflict had in their hands. It was recognized that “the Ukrainian independence movement is not dead”, and from time to time revolutionary, separatist and nationalist movements were formed on the territory of Soviet Ukraine, although “with great disagreement regarding their seriousness.” It was stated that most of the nationalist agitation was carried out by Ukrainians living outside the country, but German propagandists worked directly in Ukraine. As for Stalin’s repressions, the pragmatic Americans decided at that time to admit the obvious, although it sounds strikingly politically incorrect today: “The rebellion against Moscow rule was not widespread.”

The notorious “Holodomor”, for the PR of which the “orange lady” Yushchenko accepted a medal as if from the hands of Truman and Reagan themselves, under the “pink” Roosevelt in 1939 was interpreted as follows: “The famine, the severity of which there are also disagreements, struck several times in region, but the last harvests obtained under the almost completed collectivization system turned out to be plentiful.”

In short, the Ukrainian card was played by Washington strictly situationally. At the same time, by and large, achieving “independence” was considered some kind of absurdity. But the fight against the regime, the weakening of communist Moscow, is another matter.

When communism in Russia first weakened and then completely collapsed, the goals seemed achieved. Indeed, why also an independent Ukrainian state? It is known that in August 1991, US President George H. W. Bush even warned Kyiv about the undesirability of such a scenario. At the same time, when the emergence of a sovereign Ukraine became a reality, the Ukrainian vector of American foreign policy became fundamentally different.

The unexpected collapse of the USSR according to the “Belovezhskaya scenario” brought to the first positions in the intellectual service of Washington politicians those who could somehow maintain the tone of “bipolarity,” since the political class of the United States as a national state was not ready for real world domination. Yes, this is obviously impossible. Former Assistant to the US President for National Security (1977-1981) Zbigniew Brzezinski, within the framework of his concepts of the fight against communist Russia and personal geographical preferences in the 1990s. formed a strong opinion among the lost political elite of the United States that the revival of the conditional “Russian Empire” (or rather, large, historical Russia) is fundamentally impossible without its integration with Ukraine. But the revival of Russia cannot be allowed. Supporters of this point of view today have a strong position both in the White House and on Capitol Hill.

During these years, the possibility of reuniting Ukraine with Russia became a nightmare for Washington. This is what needs to be said here. Sociological services of the West work more than professionally when necessary. For example, on pressing political issues, two parallel surveys are conducted - among the elite and among the population. This is how the level of concordance of opinions on items on the national agenda is checked. In the same 1990s. to the question (let’s consider this example conditional) “Should we strive for the physical elimination of Fidel Castro?” the majority of the population, especially, of course, in Florida, answered bloodthirstyly “Yes!” But representatives of the elite said a firm “No!” Without the support of the USSR, who would be afraid of this Cuba? But to the question (in meaning) “Should the United States start a war with Russia if it tries to take back Ukraine by military means?” the results turned out to be the opposite. The people of the United States did not want to fight for Ukraine. The elite believed that it was very worth fighting. All sorts of military colleges and academies in America began to produce plans and conduct training staff games on the topic: how best for Russia to fight with Ukraine. As the Persians would say in this case, “An orphan’s head is the best desk for a barber.” The chances of maintaining independence for the “Nezalezhnaya” in such studies were immediately nullified.

But as a result, the Americans came to understand that it was better not to get involved in a war, but should limit themselves to distributing suitcases with money and placing “their sons of bitches” in the necessary political positions - even presidential ones. Washington was completely satisfied with the existence of a large Slavic state entity independent from Moscow, whose population was a third of Russia’s.

Now is the time to remember the notorious “ideological component” of American-Ukrainian relations. Of course, the collapse of the Soviet Union is actively exploited in American political thought as proof of the final and irrevocable victory of the United States in the Cold War. According to most experts, the existence of a Ukraine that is as remote and even hostile to Moscow as possible for Washington is, among other things, a kind of “indicator of triumph.”

The presence of an independent Ukraine, whose relations with Russia are not in the best way, has become the highest achievement of American “chess” thought, chained to the “great chessboard,” and one of the cornerstones of American foreign policy in Europe. To achieve this goal, the United States acted in three directions at once. We have already mentioned the first - the distribution of suitcases with money. In politically correct language, this was called carrying out active work with the Ukrainian political elite and socially active groups of the population, creating an extensive network of NGOs, the task of which was to form the necessary public opinion. The second direction is connected with the “Carpathian campaign” - intensifying cooperation with right-wing radical, nationalist movements in Western Ukraine. In fact, Americans continued to look towards Bandera’s supporters since the end of World War II. But here, on the basis of relict anti-communism, the United States managed to create close-knit groups of extremists with obvious signs of neo-Nazism, which played a decisive role in the confrontation on the Kiev Maidan. The third direction – the most ineffective – is the work of American diplomacy in the direction of making Ukraine’s separation from Russia institutionally irreversible. It was for this purpose that an association agreement with the EU was imposed on Kyiv, which would lead to a sharp break in Russian-Ukrainian economic cooperation. The next step was to deepen Ukraine’s partnership with the North Atlantic Alliance and, in the future, membership in NATO.

However, Washington failed to systematically implement the last of these strategies. With the launch of the Eurasian economic integration project, a real prospect of expanding cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv has emerged. The United States had to work in “afterburner mode” in Ukraine, and growing opposition from Russia left the American political establishment with no choice. Finding itself unable to force the Ukrainian government to pursue a policy that suited the United States, Washington supported the coup in that country. Analyzing this step of the American political leadership, it is necessary to recognize that the United States has largely become hostage to its false, dysfunctional geopolitical images of Ukraine, which it has been guided by for more than two decades. As a result, the United States finds itself on the verge of a confrontation with Russia comparable only to the Cold War.

UKRAINE AS A GEOPOLITICAL SANDWICH

Unlike the disorganized and wildly romantic America, the Federal Republic of Germany knows very well what Ukraine is, understands very well why Ukraine should be independent (or rather, on whom it should be dependent) and even imagines the geopolitical image of Ukraine. The latter is formulated simply: food paradise.

In general, the image of Ukrainian lands in Europe as a kind of paradise has long been formed. In the 16th century, a brave Catholic missionary, whose name has not been preserved by history, made his way to the Muslim East through Poland and Ukraine. Oddly enough, he survived, returned to Rome, and wrote a report on his business trip. The report was full of horrors. The times were cruel. And Ukraine was awarded only this definition: “The land on that side is unusually abundant and fertile. Everyone I met sings very well. People (i.e. men) drive slowly and are afraid of their wives.”

The stern grenadiers of Charles XII were in shock as they marched towards Poltava. Tender sun. Blue sky. Watercolor landscapes. Golden waves of heavy ears of wheat. They asked God why they got cold waves, endless damp fogs, and frozen stones in their homeland.

By the end of the 19th century, the well-groomed plantations of German colonists had already formed a noticeable accent in the anthropogenic landscape of Tavria and Crimea. The Ukrainian holiday came to German streets, however, in February 1918, after the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. One of its conditions was the recognition by the Bolsheviks of the independence of Ukraine. The Kaiser's diplomats immediately organized the Central Rada of the Ukrainian People's Republic - a senseless and merciless prototype of the current Ukrainian government. Then they brought Hetman Skoropadsky. Pavlo Petrovich was, by today's standards, an ethnic Ukrainian, a Russian general. Born in Wiesbaden (Germany), died in Metten (Germany). At the same time, the Ukrainian hetman hated the Galicians, considering them the destroyers of Ukraine. “...Narrow Ukrainianism is exclusively a product brought to us from Galicia, the culture of which is completely transplanted to us: there is no evidence of success, and this is simply a crime, since, in fact, there is no culture there. After all, Galicians live on scraps from the German and Polish tables. Their language alone clearly reflects this, where out of five words four are of Polish or German origin,” he wrote in exile.

The betrayal of the Entente by the Bolsheviks seems like a child's prank compared to the service the authorities of the new Ukraine rendered to Wilhelm at the gunpoint of German machine guns. They agreed to become a colony of Germany in the most classical sense of the word. Under the terms of the Brest Peace Treaty, the UPR was supposed to supply food to the countries of the Fourth Alliance. For precious bread, peasants received beads - industrial goods. But just in case, the German army occupied Ukraine and Crimea. In Ukraine, the Kaiser kept, according to various estimates, from one to one and a half million soldiers. This was the price of food security. Historians believe that if the Germans had not clung to their new luxurious colony, but had sent these troops to France, Paris would have definitely fallen in 1918. It is also interesting that Austria-Hungary also received its own Ukrainian colony - the Kherson province.

The Germans are generally honest people. They promised industrial goods - they delivered. If they promise Ukraine loans now, they will definitely give them. But there is one subtlety here. Colonialism has not been abolished. According to the recollections of one Mariupol man in the street that have reached us, everyone was amazed at the politeness of the German soldiers and the fact that they paid for everything in stores. Primus stoves and Singer sewing machines actually appeared in shops. But no one bought them, because the prices were simply prohibitive. And the Germans treated the natives almost according to the laws of war communism. Almost the entire harvest collected by the peasants was subject to requisition, and a tax in kind was introduced. They raked everything out, leaving no bread even for seeds. Here the “grain grower” was simply plundering the Ukrainian army, which needed food to fulfill Ukraine’s obligations to Germany and Austria-Hungary under the Brest-Litovsk Peace. And a new problem - large landownership was being restored. Somehow, everything is typologically very reminiscent of the modern situation: biased presidents, oligarchs, association with the EU, aspirations to join NATO.

As for the second occupation of Ukraine by Germany in 1939-1944, there were no innovations, a typical repetition of the past. A strategic task was set for Erich Koch: to ensure the use of Ukraine as a guarantor of food security for the Reich. Leaving collective farms is a good thing! The Banderaites who interfere with the procurement and export of food, fighting for some kind of “independence”, must be put under pressure. After the war, the “paradise lost in 1918” was subject to immediate colonization. During the war, Crimea was already included in the Reich - Hitler even managed to give Livadia to Manstein for his skillful capture of Sevastopol.

The third occupation of Ukraine by Germany dawned when Barack Obama shifted the “center of gravity of US national interests” to the Asia-Pacific region. After saving the European Union and Europe in general during the 2008 crisis, Germany began to quickly gain geopolitical points. The events of the last six years can be looked at in different ways. However, everyone can see that Berlin is trying in one way or another to end the American political occupation that has lasted for 70 years (an unprecedented case in history). One can also share the view that Germany has already created its own colonies of a “new type” in Europe, bringing together scattered post-Soviet lambs into the economic herd, which it successfully shears. However, he also feeds. The analogy with lambs is appropriate here, since Russia fed the Ukrainian ram with the golden fleece of bread, but did not shear it. That is, Aries turned out to be a draw. An economic and political takeover of Ukraine by Germany would mark a German national breakthrough, a long-awaited rise to become a full-fledged European leader and a great European power.

The fact that unexpected transformations began to occur in Russian-German relations was traced by political scientists when they began to study the variations and characteristic features of the process of covering the Pussy Riot case in the media of various countries. Germany turned out to be the most informationally aggressive country, which was completely unexpected. If we take into account that the specific goal of these information processes was, according to the general conclusion of experts, to create the image of Vladimir Putin as an authoritarian leader who does not take into account the norms and procedures of justice, then this contradicted the entire practice of German media assimilating Russian material and violated the traditions of covering the activities of the current President of the Russian Federation, who were previously distinguished by fairly high objectivity. Even then, the impression was created that it was the German man in the street who was meant to be the main target of a powerful campaign to change the stereotypes of perception of the personality of Vladimir Putin in the mass consciousness in the West.

Then the situation began to become clearer. Today we can say with a high degree of confidence that at the end of July 2012, a large-scale information operation began in Germany, the purpose of which was to create a new configuration of Russian-German relations: the transition from the policy of “modernization partnership” to the format of Germany’s actions as a “great European powers" in the status (in fact) of the authoritarian leader of the EU. The reaction of the German press to the Pussy Riot case was a bifurcation point in the formation of public opinion regarding Russia and its leadership.

With reference to the need to take into account the factor of public opinion in Russian-German relations, the leaders of the Federal Republic of Germany began to put open pressure on the top leadership of the Russian Federation. For the first time, the case of the Pussy Riot group surfaced in this context at negotiations between Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel within the framework of the St. Petersburg Dialogue forum on November 16, 2012. Responding to the opinion previously expressed by Angela Merkel about the excessive harshness of the sentence for the members of the punk band, the Russian President reminded the Chancellor about “ anti-Semitic action" of the convicted. The reaction of foreign media followed immediately. The mass consciousness in Germany was subjected to accelerated processing before Chancellor Merkel's difficult visit to Moscow at the end of November 2012, where she also for the first time acted in a rather unusual role for herself as the leader of a leading European power concerned about human rights in Russia. This “European Union” topic was actually avoided during previous meetings between the leaders of Germany and Russia, but during the Moscow visit it became the subject of sharp sparring between Merkel and Putin.

We especially note the fact that none of the representatives of foreign countries who made a working visit to Russia over the past year or two raised the issue of the fairness of punishment for Pussy Riot. Nobody except German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Subsequently, the topic of “girls rebelling against Putin” was supplemented by a completely far-fetched and inorganic reason for Germany to put pressure on Russia regarding issues of alleged infringement of the rights of members of the LGBT community. After this, the process of contrasting Germany and Russia in the European space went “on autopilot,” which is typical for the final stages of information operations aimed at processing the population.

The anti-Russian information operation in the German media, which took the form of chronic absurdity, caused a shock among the national business elite, which traditionally has serious financial and economic ties to Russia. For example, Johannes Theissen, head of the energy concern E.ON, stated openly: “We are not some traders thinking only about how to earn more. But I urge the German media to take a more differentiated and balanced approach to events in Russia.”

German thoroughness in carrying out an information operation was manifested, in particular, in the fact that a special test was carried out to check the effectiveness of processing public opinion in Germany. We are talking about a special sociological study dedicated to measuring changes in attitudes towards Russia in 2011-2013. At a special seminar on the topic of the attitude of Russian residents to NATO and vice versa, which was held in Veliky Novgorod in early December 2013, the director of the German Marshall Fund, Constance Stelzenmüller, cited data that in Germany the level of sympathy for Russia fell from 48 to 32% . This is an unprecedented result. In the USA, for example, this figure over the specified period decreased from only 48 to 43%. At the same time, Mrs. Stelzenmüller did not hide the fact that in this case we are not talking about the attitude towards the country itself or its citizens, but only “to the processes taking place in it.” “Of course, the affairs of Khodorkovsky, Magnitsky or the Pussy Riot group greatly influenced the results of the rating on attitudes towards Russia,” she explained.

So, the political elite of Germany received carte blanche from German society to expand its influence in the East after creating a situation of economic and partly political dominance in the countries of Central Europe, the Balkans, and Scandinavia. Nowadays, it is increasingly said that Germany lays claim to South-Eastern Europe, primarily to Ukraine, where its national interests as a new “European superpower” sharply collide with the national interests of Russia.

Effective operation of Germany in this zone can be carried out, albeit on behalf of the European Union, but only with the elimination of all factors that introduce some kind of “third force” into this zone. German experts say that the implementation of these plans is impossible as long as the essential problem of European Eastern policy remains unresolved: what to do with Russia. And most importantly: it is Germany that must determine what to do with Russia. The head of the foreign policy department of the Munich daily Suddeutsche Zeitung, Stefan Cornelius, spoke quite frankly on this topic, who, in particular, wrote in December 2013: “Several new fundamental points will appear in the Russian policy of Merkel’s third cabinet. Germany calculates everything first. The rest of Europe expects that the EU's political strategy towards Russia as a whole will be developed in Berlin. Indeed, despite the fact that the US government was already threatening Ukraine with sanctions, even their leadership willingly shifted this initiative onto the shoulders of Germany.”

The scenario for the development of the internal conflict in Ukraine demonstrates precisely such approaches. The events there can be viewed as the first direct clash of interests between Germany and Russia in a new format since 1945. This format, judging by the behavior of the German side, fully allowed and still allows for the development of the situation according to a forceful scenario. This is evidenced by the fact that rumors began to actively circulate about increasing the capabilities of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in terms of forceful pressure specifically on Germany. For example, a leak of “secret information” (German weekly Bild) was organized without any real information reason that the Russian Federation had deployed Iskander missile systems in the Kaliningrad region. For the first time, the assertion is being made that Berlin is under the gun of Russian missiles.

Germany's assumption of “supervision” over Maidan Independence led to some interesting metamorphoses in the organization of actions of supporters of Ukraine’s immediate entry into the EU. At least, the confusion, anarchy and student disorganization characteristic of American approaches to this issue were replaced by the iron German “Ordung”. Paramilitary “self-defense units” were created, which, according to the opposition, numbered up to 4,000 people already in the first stages of the coup. A constant duty of 1200-1400 “volunteers” was organized. Certain “retired officers” were involved in the creation and staffing of the detachments. Quite quickly, such formations as were close to the German spirit appeared, such as the “tent city commandant’s office”, “coordination” and “information” (headquarters and intelligence) Centers of self-defense detachments, etc. Thus, in Ukraine, the “protection of rallies and speakers” detachments were actually revived according to German patterns from the communists" of the late 1920s, which, as is known, later developed into the SS service.

Then, of course, everything got mixed up due to the West’s deliberate loss of control over the “useful killers” - the children of the mountains mentioned above. Yanukovych left for Rostov-on-Don (sorry, young man, I’ll correct myself!). Yatsenyuk - to Washington (dad, pennies!). Yulia Volodimirovna Timoshenko - to Berlin, to see Angela Merkel (girlish commotion). I returned from Berlin feeling better. In general, the situation with the Germanization of Ukraine through its association with the EU is stuck.

Remember the biblical “mene, tekel, fares” - the words inscribed on the wall by a mysterious hand during the feast of the Babylonian king Belshazzar shortly before the fall of Babylon at the hands of Darius of Media? The Prophet Daniel interpreted them this way: “This is the meaning of the words: me - God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it; tekel - you are weighed on the scales and found very light; Fares - your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”

“Mene, tekel, fares” is also about today’s Ukraine. Only modern Daniel, the prophet from the Gdansk shipyard, former Polish President Lech Walesa, who predicted the fall of communism, interprets them in modern realities, without the Medes: “God gave Ukraine such good soil so that it could feed all of Europe. We must tell Ukraine that it can produce all the grain for Europe - but not the cars. The cars can be produced in Poland.”

EVERYTHING IS ACCOUNTED BY THE MIGHTY HURRICANE

While this text was being written, the situation was changing right before our eyes. US Secretary of State John Kerry, on direct orders from Obama, turned his plane around - no, not like Primakov over the Atlantic, but simply after refueling in Ireland, he flew from Saudi Arabia not to the USA, but to Paris. There he talked for four hours with the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Viktorovich Lavrov. The urgently organized meeting was called “very constructive,” although journalists called it “inconclusive.”

But why to no avail? After all, everything has been overgrown with results! Russia has agreed to withdraw troops from the Russian-Ukrainian border. And she withdrew, however, partially: 20% of the troops remained. This became known from a telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “The Russian leader informed the chancellor about the partial withdrawal of troops from the eastern border of Ukraine,” German government spokesman Stefan Seibert told Reuters. He informed, but, as we said, Putin made this decision after communicating with his “American colleague.”

Kerry promised to intercede with the Kyiv semi-authorities and complete hostages of the situation to fulfill that point, which in Lavrov’s formulation was designated as “achieving tasks in the field of disarmament of radical forces and provocateurs,” that is, the notorious “right sector.” We see this too. Finally, a very powerful, but deadly for the disconsolidated Ukrainian elites message about the federalization of Ukraine, with all the diplomatic waltzing around this radical but necessary measure, was introduced into the negotiation field. So, little by little, Russia and America will come to an agreement on the Ukrainian problem and inform their “colleagues” from Germany and France. The crisis is over. Snide English journalists have already talked about this: “The EU’s (read Germany’s) dream of an empire has been destroyed.”

Igor Aleksandrovich NIKOLAYCHUK – Candidate of Technical Sciences, Senior Researcher at the Center for Defense Research, RISS