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Monday, September 17, 2018

What did Putin want to achieve with the RT Skripal poisoning suspects' interview?




That journalists managed to find all these inconsistencies with the suspects’ passports and cover stories just shows that the Russians intended them to find them.  An experienced spy agency could not have been so sloppy.

So why is Putin doing this? They could have all just said nothing instead of having this preposterous Marx Brothers sketch interview on RT (transcript in English here) which the Washington Post thinks backfired. But did it backfire, or was not believing it the original intent?

I remember years ago, as a foreign student in the USSR, I often wondered how was it possible that the USSR had such primitive propaganda and was it not clear that so many Soviets would not believe it?

But then I was told that I was missing the point. Of course many Soviets did not believe Soviet propaganda and the authorities knew that they did not believe it. But what the authorities meant was this: we know that you do not believe what we are saying and you know that we know that - but there is nothing you can do about that!   In other words, the authorities were demonstrating their sheer power over the populace, - and that was the actual goal of the propaganda.  

So is Putin doing the same today?  Giving the finger to the West?  Demonstrating the powerlessness of the West?