Welcome to this week’s Active Measures.
The Guardian’s supposed scoop of a Kremlin document detailing the Russian leadership’s plot to put Donald Trump in the White House strangely reminds me of my own greatest journalistic blunder. Back in 1993 I invented a KGB source called Oleg Khuiyovich (Russian-speakers will instantly note that this surname is impossible — it means “son of a ****”).
Our local readers got the joke — but the “leaked” memo detailing how Russia was plotting to destabilise the Baltic states was taken seriously by foreigners, and soon stopped being funny. You can read the Spectator piece I wrote about the episode (and the original Khuiyovich memo) here.
Angela Merkel’s trip to Washington failed to patch up the row between Germany and the Biden administration. The only acceptable deal will be something truly generous for Ukraine, compensating it for the loss of gas-transit revenues once the Nord Stream 2 pipeline comes into operation. Until that happens, Germany looks selfish and the US looks weak.
But the authorities in Kyiv are increasingly exasperated with the West. The really striking news this week is the warming of Ukraine-China ties. Xi Jinping and Zelensky had a remarkably friendly phone call. China has supplied vaccines and now is offering a hefty trade and investment deal. Poland, snubbed hard by the US and at loggerheads with Brussels, is also looking squishy on the China front. It’s a reminder of how China exploits Western disarray.
The big mystery this week is the abrupt disappearance of the REvil ransomware gang (which is inconvenient for its victims hoping buy back access to their scrambled data). One theory is that this was a strike by American government cyber-warriors. Another is that Putin reacted to Biden’s warning and took steps against the gang. I suspect they just decided life was getting too hot. They’ll be back: crime-as-a-service is booming and nothing we have done so far has dented the business model.
What I’ve been doing:
This panel “Banned by Beijing: Is China Censoring Europe?” with Trevor Philips, Tom Tugendhat MP and Mareike Ohlberg.
I wrote my CEPA column on moral obligations arising from our dismal retreat from Afghanistan.
This week’s China Influence Monitor also looked at that — and highlighted how the party-state is filling the vacuum left by the West.
What I’ve been reading: Two books on surveillance in China. The Perfect Police State (which I’m reviewing for the Times) and We have been Harmonised.
Also the new Navalny bio, which is out in mid-August.
I’ll be back in your inboxes next week.
Best regards, Edward