Phil Butler - Putin's Praetorians - Confessions of the Top Kremlin Trolls

Although, in all honesty, I am tired of seeing every evening on Russian federal channels the dominance of Ukrainian and American political scientists.

I would like to dwell on the CNN channel, which the US people consider almost the main friend and lawyer of Russia. The abbreviation CNN stands for the Cable News Network, but the familiar Americans since the time of the Soviet Union have been deciphering this name with humor as the Communist News Network. In fact, I would compare CNN with our “Echo of Moscow,” but CNN is much more modest in its oppositional judgments than its Russian counterpart. Let me express my opinion that for Russia to have such a friend as CNN anyway, is like to have a gay cobber. You never know when, and why he makes you blush.

I tried to find out through reading the threads of discussion in social networks, who mostly call to wars and to crusades in the US and in Russia? Those who know about the war only by hearsay. I do not consider those who harbor personal grievances, earn in war, or both, as a pilot John McCain shot down by Soviet soldiers in Korea. I do not consider those who are already under threat of destruction — the people of Yemen, Syria, the East of Ukraine as well.

Communicating with my friends Americans and British in social networks, I concluded that veterans on both sides of the ocean who were holding weapons on the battlefield, who understand the whole black warfare essence, are always ready to defend their country and loved ones, they frightfully routinely hold their guns under the pillows and pray for never having to use them in combat. Paradoxically, even when we are on different sides of the barricades, we find a common language with each other faster than many other people.

Although there is the difference also. We have fundamentally different upbringing — We in Russia are shameless and straightforward, they are polite and discreet. We perceive our combat experience as a collective work, while they do like a competition of individuals. Our professionals do not tell, especially publicly about how the villains were killed, because they perceive this as a forced measure, evil, and the Americans veterans regularly tell about their murders, are proud of this. If we traditionally preach indulgent attitude towards the defeated enemy, then the Internet is full of photos from Abu-Grave, stories of mockeries of prisoners of war, contempt for the lives of civilians as a collateral damage. It’s understandable, we were brought up in the movie “They fought for their country,” and Americans grew up with Sylvester Stallone as Vietnam Green Beret “Rambo,” John J.

But Americans do not consider themselves villains. They also have kindness and humanity, and we have much in common, which should unite us rather than disunity. We are afraid only of those whom we do not understand.

Many Russians see Americans as unintentional children in whose house there was no trouble, who are fighting by proxies, capable of unleashing hostilities against any country, nuke hundreds of thousands as it was in Japan, or overthrow any government, neither considering state sovereignty nor a choice of citizens of any country, as soon as they see the interests of the United States and the permissible degree of risk.

So, you ask, where does the entire human being lost in them then? — The answer is simple: No one gives a name to the food. We do not think about the hard fate of the cow, considering beef on the counter. We only think about the quality of the product and its price. So, I suppose the Americans do not see specific people behind those who are going to kill or whose legitimately elected leader they intend to overthrow.

But no matter how much one tries to demand from the citizens of other countries to agree to the role of the cow, they will never agree to this, therefore, under the blow, Russia is forced to lead this struggle for the self-awareness and security of all countries in the world.

Our opponents have a chance to win only in one case — if they find the strength to adopt the tactics of the “enemy” — they will begin to tell the truth, listen to the opposite side, open their thoughts to their own people. The new administration of the White House still has a chance to start from scratch, writing off sins for its predecessors.

But how will they differ from their opponent then? How can one explain to his citizens what their insoluble contradictions with Russians are and what is their irreconcilable position? — And then there are two options. Either wars and conflicts will end, world defense spending will decrease, and trade will grow. Either these politicians will have to admit that they are ready to continue attacking other countries, not for good reasons, but solely for the sake of resources, maintaining their own fraudulent financial institutions or for unfair global competition.

But what kind of society will be able to reconcile with the second option, rejecting all the best and humane that we received from God, no matter what names we call him? “This is a question for historians studying the Third Reich, and I hope very much that we will not have a need for these historical analogies in the case of the Americans.

My friend, an American journalist who is the founder of Our Russia, Phil Butler asked me a question about what I feel about his participation in this information war on the side of Russia. He knows the answer himself, but I think he wanted to hear it from me.

Our goodwill of citizens of the two countries is the beginning and the end of any discussions. As there will be no winners in the modern hot world war, there is a high chance that there will not be losers in the information war, and we work together, to ensure that the Cold War 2.0 is resolved in the interests of both nations, the world. To people of different nationalities and religions knew more about each other, and therefore did not fear each other and did not look for enemies where they do not exist. So that no one will be allowed to push each other to please someone’s evil will.

I see him as an honest man, a friend and an interesting interlocutor who has chosen the side that allows him to be a journalist in the most primordial sense of the word — writing about what he knows, sees, and what he believes. He embodies what we believe in Russia, namely, that there are many people on the other side of the ocean who live by conscience and by God’s laws, for whom humanism, honor and international law are not abstract concepts. Phil gives us an example of the responsible attitude to his destiny, because he offers his compatriots to think about the information that Western media feeding them, and to both sides to win this new media cold war so that it never progresses into a hot one.

Those who talk about the aggressive attitude of Russia and its alleged desire to restore the Soviet Union apparently do not know the map of the world. Russia is a huge country, with a relatively small population, enormous natural resources and a unique, strategic geographical location. As we say in a joke: “When we in Moscow set up the navigator to drive to Vladivostok, we hear: ‘After nine thousand kilometers turn to the right’.”

We survived many wars that began with an attack on our territory and ended in the lair of the aggressor. We are always ready to repeat this experience, but the development of military technologies leaves less and less chance that there will be in winners such a war. For us, war is not an abstract concept, but a state of mind, a legacy of ancestors, which from the cradle prepares every citizen at a difficult time to protect his family, and the soil, and the country with weapons in their hands.

We are grateful to the Americans for the help they gave us in the Second World War, we honor the British heroes of the Northern convoys, and remember the docking of the Soyuz-Apollo spacecraft. We love the Private Ryan, Forest Gump, the Schindler list and the Lion King, and we sincerely do not understand why your politicians and the media are trying to make us enemies. We are insulted by their lies, that makes us feel threatened, to remember about Napoleon and Hitler, as well about a lot of other Western states that started aggression against Russia and the USSR and who ended bad. Let’s talk more and teach each other so that no one could dictate to us that we should think about each other, and together we could make this world safer.