Top Spymaster Explains How Russian Intelligence Sees the US

08.03.2015

Published on Russia Insider News (http://russia-insider.com)

Home > Top Spymaster Explains How Russian Intelligence Sees the US

Top Spymaster Explains How Russian Intelligence Sees the US

Alexander Mercouris
Thu, Nov 6 |

This is an edited version of an interview Nikolai Patrushev, the Secretary of Russias Security Council, gave to the official
government newspaper Rossiskaya Gazeta.
Patrushev is one of Putin's most important advisors on national security. His position is similar in some ways to that of the US
Presidents National Security Adviser.
As important about what Patrushev does, is who he was. He is Russias most senior intelligence official.
He has served continuously in intelligence since he joined the KGB in 1975 and was from 1999 to 2008 chief of Russias FSB
the successor organization to the KGB. He left this post to become the Secretary to Russias Security Council.
One of Patrushevs key jobs is to collate intelligence information provided by Russias various intelligence agencies and to
provide it to Putin and to Russias other key foreign policy decision makers.
In this interview Patrushev gives insight into what Russias intelligence agencies are telling the Kremlin. Thus we learn that
Russian intelligence:
1. Did not expect Yanukovych to fall because of the Maidan protests;
2. Did however warn the Kremlin long ago that a pro-Western coup in Ukraine was only a question of time because of massive
US subversion in the country.
We also get an idea of how Russian intelligence sees the world.
According to its view US hostility to Russia is an unvarying constant because Russia, irrespective of its system of government,
resists US policies aimed at achieving world hegemony and because the US wants to control Russias immense natural
resources in order to seal its hegemony.
Russias ties to China and India and the emergence of the BRICS bloc have merely provoked the US to intensify its campaign
against Russia. Events such as the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the rebellion in Chechnya in the 1990s, the Georgian
attack on South Ossetia in 2008 and the February coup this year in Ukraine, are all simply manifestations of US policies
targeted at Russia.
One does not have to agree with every part of this view. For example the claim that the USSR collapsed because of a US
engineered fall in oil prices as part of some carefully thought out US strategy of vulnerabilities, though widely believed and not
just in Russia, is a myth and serves as a typical case of a spymasters belief in external, conspiratorial causes for events that
actually had purely domestic, structural and sometimes even accidental causes.

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Patrushev also undoubtedly overstates the degree of coherence in US policy and the extent to which US policy is always and
invariably hostile to Russia.
There is however much that is compelling about this view and it is easy to understand why within Russia it is becoming
increasingly influential.
From a Russian point of view it is not difficult to see US policy since the USSRs break up (eg. NATOs eastern expansion, the
tearing up of the ABM Treaty and positioning of anti-ballistic missiles in eastern Europe, the US support for colour revolutions
in the countries of the former USSR, the US support for anti-government groups within Russia itself, the USs wars of intervention
in many parts of the world and last but by no means least the ferocious US media campaign against Russia) as unremittingly
hostile towards Russia.
For the increasing number of Russians who hold this view (including its intelligence community) the US backed coup in Ukraine
was the final proof.
Russian Intelligence failed to Predict Yanukovychs February Overthrow
Our specialists were warning of the high probability of an escalation of the situation in Ukraine in the context of political and
economic instability, particularly under external influence. At the same time it should be acknowledged that the probability of an
imminent instant seizure of power in Kiev with the support of militant groups of open Nazis was not considered at that time. Let me
remind you that prior to the coup you mentioned, Moscow was implementing in full all its partnership commitments to Kiev.
We were constantly providing material and financial aid, without which Ukraine was in no condition to cope with economic
difficulties that had become chronic in nature. To support our neighbours, material and financial resources amounting to tens of
billions of dollars were mobilized. Unfortunately for many people in Ukraine this aid became, in time, so customary that its
importance for the countrys survival was simply forgotten.

Russian Intelligence Did Predict a Pro US Coup in Ukraine

As for longer-term predictions, the Ukraine crisis was an entirely expected outcome of systematic activity by the United States and
its closest allies.
For the past quarter of a century this activity has been directed towards completely separating Ukraine and the other republics of
the former USSR from Russia and totally reformatting the post-Soviet space to suit American interests. The conditions and pretexts
were created for colour revolutions, supported by generous state funding.
Thus, Victoria Nuland, US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, has repeatedly stated that during the
period 1991 through 2013 Washington spent 5bn dollars on supporting the desire of the people of Ukraine for stronger, more
democratic government.
According to figures from open sources alone, for instance US Congress documents, the total amount of state funding for various
American programmes of aid to Ukraine in the period 2001 through 2012 came to at least 2.4bn dollars. That is comparable with
the annual budget of some small countries. The US Agency for International Development spent about 1.5bn dollars, the State
Department nearly half a billion, and the Pentagon more than 370m dollars.
According to congressional records, organizations such as the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Peace Corps, and the Open
World Centre took part in Ukrainian aid programmes, in addition to the well-known USAID and other departments. It is not hard to
guess for whom and why American volunteers and staffers of diplomatic missions have been opening the world throughout the 23
years since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
.. as a result of this activity..an entire generation was raised that is completely poisoned with hatred of Russia and with the
mythology of European values. It has not yet realized that these values, even in the positive sense of the term, are not actually
designed for Ukrainians. Nobody intends to set about boosting living standards in Ukraine or establishing these young people in
Europe, which is itself having great difficulty coping with extremely serious challenges and threats.

The Coup in Ukraine is a Disaster First and Foremost for Ukraine itself
I think the sobering up of the Ukrainians will be harsh and painful. It remains to be hoped that this will happen relatively quickly, and
a whole string of objective factors could promote that.
I would like to note another factor that is of fundamental significance. Irrespective of the subsequent development of events, the
significance of the one for the other Russia and Ukraine will persist. Ukraine will simply not be able to develop successfully
without Russia, whether anyone likes it or not.
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whereas for Russia the total severance of .links would be a painful blow, for Ukraine it would be disastrous. It is no
accident that current President Petro Poroshenko was obliged, in the wake of his ousted predecessor, to raise the question of
postponing the implementation of economic section of the already signed association agreement between Ukraine and the EU. It is
to be expected that the victory euphoria of other Kiev rulers will also give way to more sober assessment of the real state of affairs.

US Policy towards Russia today simply continues US Policy towards the USSR during the Cold War
... if the catastrophe in Ukraine had not happened some other grounds would have been found to step up the policy of
containment of our country. This course has been pursued unswervingly for many decades; only the forms and tactics of its
implementation change.
As you know, after World War II the confrontation between the USSR and the West headed by the United States took the form of a
cold war. The military-political component of this standoff was entrusted to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), formed
on the initiative of the United States on 4 April 1949. An analysis of NATOs practical activity indicates that in creating the alliance
the United States was pursuing two main objectives.
First, a military bloc directed against the USSR was formed under American leadership.
Second, Washington forestalled the emergence in Western Europe of an autonomous grouping of states that could have competed
with the United States. It should be recalled that the territory of the United States itself, which essentially established unilateral
military control over the allies, is not included in NATOs zone of responsibility.
After the breakup of the USSR and the termination of the Warsaw Pact, which united Europes socialist countries and which by
definition represented the main danger to NATO, not only was the bloc not disbanded, it began to expand even more in quantitative
and military terms.

The US Engineered the USSRs Collapse by Identifying its Points of Vulnerability

In the cold war period a whole string of ideological doctrines emerged in the West that served as justification for an anti-Soviet
political course. One of the authors of this kind of research was Zbigniew Brzezinski, an American political scientist and statesman
of Polish extraction. He established the so-called strategy of vulnerabilities in relation to the USSR, and under President Reagan
this became the basis of American policy towards our country.The identification and definition of vulnerabilities and the task
of organizing ways of converting them into substantial problems for the USSR were entrusted to the US Central Intelligence
Agency.is work, first and foremost economists but also experts from the business world who had real experience of business wars
with competitors. As a result of large-scale analytical work, the USSRs vulnerabilities in the political, economic, ideological, and
other spheres were defined and systematically studied.
Our countrys main vulnerability, as defined by the CIA, was its economy. After detailed modelling, the American experts identified
its weakest link, namely the USSR budgets extremely high dependence on the export of energy resources. A strategy of
provoking the financial and economic bankruptcy of the Soviet state was formulated, envisaging two interconnected objectives: the
bringing about of a sharp reduction in revenue to the USSRs budget from foreign trade, combined with a substantial increase in
expenditure on resolving problems created from outside.
A reduction in world oil prices was envisaged as the main measure for reducing the income side of the budget. This was
successfully achieved by the mid-1980s when, as a result of US collusion with the rulers of a number of oil extracting countries, an
artificial surplus of crude was created on the market and oil prices fell almost by a factor of four.
A growth in the Soviet Unions expenditure was provoked in several areas: the transition from the strategy of American opposition
to the USSR in Afghanistan to the strategy of dragging it deeply into the Afghan war; the incitement of antigovernment
demonstrations in Poland and other states in the socialist camp with a view to provoking Moscow into additional expenditures on
stabilizing the situation in Eastern Europe; the whipping up of the arms race, among other things by introducing the SDI [Strategic
Defence Initiative] bluff, and so forth.
It should be said that at that time the Americans succeeded in achieving their objectives. The outcome of their activity was a
substantial excess in the USSRs expenditure over income, which ultimately provoked a profound economic crisis that extended
into the political and ideological spheres. Shortsighted attempts by the Soviet leadership to alleviate the situation through foreign
financial aid gave Washington additional levers of influence over Moscow. The recovery measures proposed by the West and
implemented through the IMF and the World Bank to liberalize foreign trade without a smooth transition from the previous monopoly
system led to the final collapse of the economy.
In the assessment of American experts, it was the strategy of vulnerabilities, which demonstrated the colossal effectiveness of
economic variety of cold war compared with hot war,that was decisive in promoting the elimination of the USSR and the Warsaw
Pact.

The US Backed Coup in Ukraine and Sanctions are part of a US Strategy of Points of Vulnerability aimed at Russia
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The coup detat in Kiev, accomplished with clear US support, followed the classical pattern tried and tested in Latin America,
Africa, and the Middle East. But never before has such a scheme affected Russian interests so profoundly.
Analysis shows that by provoking Russia into retaliatory steps the Americans are pursuing the very same objectives as in the 1980s
with regard to the USSR. Just like back then, they are trying to identify our countrys vulnerabilities. At the same time, incidentally,
they are pursuing the objective of neutralizing European economic competitors who have, in Washingtons opinion, grown
excessively close to Moscow.
Washington has always sought to have levers of pressure on Russia. Thus, in 1974 the famous Jackson-Vanik Amendment
was adopted, restricting trade relations with our country. It appeared to have completely lost its relevance immediately after the
breakup of the USSR, but it was still in force right up to 2012, when the so-called Magnitsky List was promptly adopted in its place.
The current sanctions are in the same category. The US Administrations activity in the Ukrainian sphere is taking place within the
framework of an updated White House foreign policy course aimed at holding on to American leadership in the world by means of
the strategic containment of the growing influence of the Russian Federation and other centres of power. In this context Washington
is actively making use, on its own terms, of NATOs potential, seeking to use political and economic pressure to prevent any
vacillations on the part of its allies and partners.

Yugoslavia was a Dress Rehearsal and Russias Weaknesss under Yeltsin let it Happen
In the 1990s the Russian Federation, for well-known reasons of an internal and external nature, lost the dominant influence in the
Balkans that the Soviet Union had enjoyed and embarked on the path of conciliation with the West. It was in the Balkans that the
unilateral and totally uncompensated surrender by Russia of its positions in the international arena was manifested most distinctly. In
1991-1996 the bodies that shaped our countrys foreign policy did not officially even have any such concept as national interest.
They nurtured groundless expectations of gratitude for obedience from the Western partners and some kind of special benefit for
our country from close and unconditional cooperation with the United States. In practice our American partners almost immediately
stopped taking us seriously and only gave us a condescending slap on the shoulder, so to speak, from time to time.
The NATO bloc, under cover of peacekeeping and without encountering serious objections from our side, operated increasingly
confidently outside its own zone of responsibility, sought the rights to lease strategic infrastructure facilities for lengthy periods, and
effectively brought the organs of military command and control of a number of Balkan countries under its own control by various
means. The Alliances subunits became firmly established in the region. Other states taking part in peacekeeping missions,
including Russia, set themselves no such objectives, having reconciled themselves to the role of junior partners and preferring not to
see the self-evident fact: The war in the Balkans could perfectly well be regarded as a rehearsal and a prologue to larger-scale
steps to redivide the world.

The US War on Terror Gave Russia only a Temporary Respite

Encouraged by the weakening and subsequent elimination of the USSR, American ruling circles did everything possible to
ensure dominance over the major sources of raw materials resources in our country and in Central Asia, as well as the transit routes
for their export. Washington planned to extend its sphere of direct influence to the regions of the Black Sea, the Caucasus, and the
Caspian.
All these territories were named a US zone of strategic national interests. The only remaining obstacle to the realization of the
Americans plans to take complete control of the corresponding deposits and transport corridors was Russia, which preserved its
military potential to inflict unacceptable damage on the United States.
American strategists saw the solution to this difficulty in the final collapse of the system of state power and the subsequent
dismemberment of our country. The first region that was supposed to leave Russia was the North Caucasus.
Particular importance was attached to Chechnya, which declared its independence and was temporarily under the effective control
of the West. Extremists and their supporters in Russia were offered support by the special services of Britain, the United States,
and allies in Europe and the Islamic world.
In these conditions the Russian leadership adopted a firm, principled stance of defending the unity of the state. Ultimately, as a
result of the firm political will displayed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and at the cost of enormous efforts, it proved possible
to stop attempts to detach Chechnya from Russia and then to consolidate the Republics place within the Federation.
After 11 September 2001 the world community recognized the terrorist threat as the main threat and a global threat, reaching the
understanding that countering this threat requires common efforts. As a result there was, in particular, a slight weakening of the
Wests attacks on Russia because of its campaign against international terrorists in the Caucasus, while we did not object to the
operation by the Americans and their allies in Afghanistan. The announcement of the formation of a broad antiterrorist coalition
followed.

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At that time Washington displayed a certain readiness to collaborate, although in actual fact it did not intend to abandon the policy
of containment with regard to Russia. More and more new NATO facilities moved up to our borders. International law was
supplanted by the law of force (let us recall the aforementioned dismemberment of Yugoslavia, followed by Serbia, the occupation
of Iraq, and the invasion of Afghanistan by the so-called coalition forces).

Russias post 1999 Revival and its forging Alliances with China, India and the other BRICS Has Alarmed the US
After 7-8 August 2008, when the Georgian leadership, with US support, attempted to annihilate South Ossetia, the world once again
changed substantially.
Everything was staked on surprise. The Georgian dictator believed that a military incursion on the opening day of the international
Olympic Games would put Russia in a difficult position, and the Georgians, taking advantage of this, would carry out their
blitzkrieg. However, the Russian leadership reacted promptly to the sharp deterioration in the situation and the necessary
measures were adopted to halt the aggression.
After the August events in the Caucasus, Washington was clearly alarmed by Russias obvious intention to take its place among the
world powers of the 21st century and uphold the principle of equal opportunities and full autonomy in global politics. And also to
convert the states financial income from the exploitation of natural resources into real economic and defence potential and human
capital.
The American leadership clearly also disliked the prospects of Russias collaboration with China and India, the introduction of the
practice of summits in the BRICS format, the successful activity of other organizations in which Russia occupies leading positions
(the CSTO [Collective Security Treaty Organization], the SCO [Shanghai Cooperation Organization], and the EAEC [Eurasian
Economic Community]), and the formation of the Customs Union.
In the context of the growing world financial and economic crisis, major new players in the international arena such as the PRC,
India, Brazil, and Iran as well as the growing economies of Southeast Asia and South Korea became increasingly significant factors
for the United States. Hence, incidentally, the emergence of new conceptual principles such as the American-Chinese special
partnership, the strategic collaboration between the United States and India, the establishment of direct dialogue between
Washington and Iran, and so forth.
Indications of the need to resume the beneficial dialogue with Russia on a whole range of issues began to emerge from the new
administration of President Barack Obama. This positive inclination on the part of the American authorities could only be
welcomed.
However, it soon became clear that Washington is not inclined towards real cooperation. It confined itself to mere statements of
friendliness and the devising of certain negotiation tracks from which the benefit to Russia, in the end, proved almost zero. After a
while even totally nonbinding positive dialogues of this kind came to an end and the US attitude towards our country began once
again to be reminiscent of cold war times.

The US aims to gain Control of Russias Energy, Food and Water Resources to Seal its Domination
specialists are certain that no real substitute for hydrocarbons as the basis of power generation will emerge in the next few
decades. Furthermore the understanding prevails in the West that the total capacity of nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, and other power
stations will meet no more than one-fifth of world demand.
Nor should another important aspect be forgotten. In the modern world we can observe a steady growth in the shortage of food and
drinking water for the growing population of the planet. The absence of the most elementary means of existence pushes desperate
people into manifestations of extremism and involvement in terrorism, piracy, and crime. This is one reason for the acute conflicts
between countries and regions and also for mass migration.
The shortage of water and irrigated land is not infrequently the cause of friction, for instance, between the Central Asian republics.
The problem of water resources is acute in a number of other countries in Asia and particularly in Africa.
Many American experts, in particular former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, assert that there are vast territories under
Moscows power that it is incapable of exploiting and which therefore do not serve the interests of all humanity. Assertions
continue to be heard about the unfair distribution of natural resources and the need to ensure so-called free access to them for
other states.
The Americans are convinced that people must be thinking in similar terms in many other states, particularly those neighbouring on
Russia, and that in the future they will, as is nowadays the custom, form coalitions to support the corresponding claims on our
country. As in the case of Ukraine, it is proposed to resolve problems at Russias expense but without taking its interests into
account.

The Threat to Russia from the US is Constant and Thaws Never Last
Even during periods of a relative thaw in relations between Russia (the USSR) and the United States, our American partners have
always remained true to such notions.

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Therefore irrespective of the nuances in the behaviour of the Americans and their allies the Russian leadership still faces this task
as a constant: To guarantee the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Motherland, to defend and multiply its riches, and to
manage them correctly in the interests of the multiethnic people of the Russian Federation.
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