Putin’s silence. How the Kremlin will react to the Bellingcat and Navalny investigation

On Navalny’s YouTube channel alone during this time, the investigation has already collected more than six million views. On other platforms, it was read, seen or heard by dozens, if not hundreds of millions of people.

This massiveness was achieved, among other things, thanks to the participation in the investigation of the main world media – CNN, The Country, Der Spiegel. And already based on his materials, this story was shared by hundreds and thousands of other world media. Among them BBC, The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, South China Morning Post, «Anadolu“, German wave.

During the last day, the whole world learned that a whole department of the FSB of the Russian Federation, consisting of dozens of people, including two generals, had been trying for several years to kill the main leader of the Russian opposition, Alexei Navalny. . In addition, the order to commit a terrorist act was personally given by the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin. Evidence abounds in the Bellingcat and Navalny research.

But the louder this story resonates around the world, the more eloquent is the guilty and resounding silence in the Kremlin. Not a single official representative of the president, the government or the FSB of the Russian Federation commented on the situation in any way.

Putin himself is silent. His representative Dmitry Peskov abruptly canceled his daily press conferences, where he usually lies a lot to journalists and with inspiration on any subject.

Russian news agencies Interfax, TASS and RIA Novosti did not release any news on this issue. State television channels did not produce a single article.

Internal Russian propagandists like Margarita Simonyan, Dmitry Kiselev and Vladimir Solovyov went into complete radio silence. As you know, they usually run around on some sensitive topic and bark at Putin’s opponents.

Now keep quiet.

Even the pro-Putin anonymous telegram channels are silent. Usually these hellish cesspools and cesspools are the quickest to come up with wild and ridiculous explanations of this or that event. But not now.

I do not remember a silence so complete, so hugging and scared, such a shocking silence. I don’t think this just happened. It appears as if Navalny is on the air, figuratively speaking, raping Putin in front of an astonished audience.

Now the Kremlin is desperately trying to devise at least one not-too-shameful line of defense.

And now the state propaganda, which has always argued that Putin is the good, the smartest and the most invincible, somehow this has to be explained to the shocked Russians what they just saw.

At the same time, Putin himself is on his feet: humiliated, crushed. He’s silent, his lips are trembling, he’s ready to cry. But at the same time, a fierce anger chokes him.

Now the most reasonable thing for state propaganda is to pretend that you didn’t see anything at all. The first of Putin’s slaves to admit, even with the best of intentions, that he witnessed the humiliation of his boss, he will already be destroyed by him.

I guess that’s why everyone (about) state media now look in different directions and whistle, as if they haven’t seen anything. They prefer to write about anything other than the main news of the day: that the Russian president was caught organizing a political assassination.

A situation vaguely reminiscent of the current one was in 2018, when Bellingcat himself found the perpetrators of the poisoning of Sergei and Yuli Skripal in Salisbury: Mishkin and Chepiga.

Later, however, the Russian media did not keep silent, but simply denied the GRU’s involvement in that crime. Then there was a whole orgy of jokes and excuses, even with the participation of Solovyov, Simonyan and other propagandists. But as the evidence mounted, Putin himself decided to put the blame on failed artists. He said these people are known and sent them to RT.

There they told Simonyan himself an absolutely idiotic story that they were two gay men who went to England. «get out ”and look at the spire of Salisbury Cathedral.

Now such a story will not work. First of all, a whole huge FSB unit worked here, whose employees flew for Navalny all over Russia. And although funny photo-toads have already appeared on this subject, it will not serve to present them as tourists. They are murderers working for Putin and everyone understands that.

Second, the people of Navalny and Bellingcat have already found them all. Their names, nicknames, pseudonyms are known. As well as their workplaces, bosses and colleagues. Due to the fact that in Russia all possible databases of anyone are bought and sold, it was not difficult to find the organizers of the Navalny assassination attempt.

The FSB, who thought they were in control of everything and everyone, was completely shocked and demoralized when it turned out that Navalny and his people knew more about them than they did about him. Especially striking in this sense was the episode with the arrival of the journalist CNN Clarissa Ward’s house with Oleg Tayakin, the group coordinator. His home address was also found thanks to the same databases.

It turned out that he lives in a high-rise building on the outskirts of Moscow, in a common entrance, painted in green paint.

Clarissa rang the doorbell and the unsuspecting, bald-bearded Tayakin opened it, wearing some sort of sweatpants and an alcohol T-shirt.

Clarissa says to him from the door: “Tell me, is your team trying to kill Navalny?” The guy was dumbfounded, somehow he moved strangely, slammed the door and never appeared again.

You know, if he said calmly, “Yes, we were the ones who tried to kill Navalny,” I wouldn’t have believed him. I would have decided that this is some kind of show, montage. That would be unconvincing.

But this scared reaction from the shocked FSB officer speaks for itself; of course, it was he who participated in the planning of the assassination. Excellent journalistic work! Clarissa opened this guy like a can. Bravo!

But generally speaking, the incident at the entrance is a small cast of a great story.

I am sure that Mr. Tayakin, sitting in his old apartment in a poor neighborhood, was completely sure that he is a powerful secret agent who creates the destiny of the world. Elusive and mysterious, whose existence is shrouded in mystery.

And then an international television station came to his house and asked him how he had killed Navalny. Of course, Tayakin is surprised. He panics, hides and does not know what to answer. His entire world collapsed in a second. His entrance, his scared face and even a dirty alcoholic T-shirt are displayed all over the world.

So Putin is now experiencing similar emotions. He was sure that his main secret operation, that is, the murder of Navalny, will remain forever shrouded in darkness. That no one will ever know how and who prepared it, and that Putin himself will remain in the shadows.

But then Clarissa herself from CNN and asks the same question: “Was it your team that killed Navalny?” Putin, like Tayakin, closes the door in shock and hides in his bunker.

But the Russian president, unlike the little FSB officer, will still have to explain. He has a big annual press conference scheduled for December 17th. Apparently no one is going to cancel it yet. Now, I think, there is a very careful and delicate coordination of a loyal journalist’s question on this subject.

I think it will sound something like this: “How long will you tolerate the slander of this scoundrel Navalny?” Well, Putin will answer something like «We live in a free country, let yourself lie. “

Such a scenario sounds quite plausible. But there is a problem. Such a response will only strengthen everyone’s confidence that Putin is a murderer. So they will most likely come up with a more sophisticated response, as a publicly humiliated Putin requires more serious coverage than a fig leaf of outright denial.

Right now, Putin’s men in the Kremlin are desperate to come up with a not-so-embarrassing line of defense for their boss.

In any case, the press conference, which was conceived as a way to calm people a little in the middle of a pandemic and crisis, will already be only about Navalny. No one in the world or in Russia will be interested in anything else.

By the way, today Putin, realizing how bad his affairs are in the international arena, tried to improve relations with the United States. He became the last of the world leaders to congratulate Joe Biden on his victory in the presidential election. He really wants calm relations with the Americans so that they do not interfere with his government of Russia and do not impose new sanctions.

But Washington responded to this congratulation with icy silence.

If at a press conference on December 17, Russia’s current president does not tell an incredibly compelling story about his innocence in attempting to kill Navalny, then the United States and the West will generally end their relations with him.

Well, since you will hardly be able to find at least something reasonable, I am sure that in the spring a new wave of very tough sanctions will fall on the Kremlin, which will topple the Putin regime in no time.

For more details, check out Ivan Yakovina’s video blog: