For over half a century, Moscow has held the same basic position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: It will ultimately require a two-state solution. To that end, and since the collapse of the former USSR, Moscow has striven to maintain good relations with both Israel and the Palestinians.
But when the horrific events of Oct. 7 and the aftermath erupted onto Russian TV, they divided society and put serious strains on the Kremlin’s ability to maintain its traditional stance of equidistance between the antagonists.
The Russian public has expressed sympathy for both sides. Hundreds of people came to lay flowers at the Israeli embassy in Moscow, many expressing grief and anger to reporters at the massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas shooters. And support for Palestinians was evident in the many bouquets placed at the Palestinian embassy in Moscow, especially after Israeli retaliation in Gaza began to escalate and reports of heavy Palestinian casualties flowed in.
As the West, led by the United States, lined up unequivocally behind its ally Israel, Moscow may have been tempted to lean toward a different corner. Perhaps that is why it took Russian President Vladimir Putin more than a week to phone Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express condolences, condemn violence against civilians, and affirm Israel’s right to self-defense.
But Russian experts broadly say that Moscow is sticking to its nonpartisan stance, and beyond that does not want to get involved.
“The Russian position may change a bit as the situation changes, but the essence has been the same for many decades and will remain that way,” says Andrei Klimov, deputy head of the international affairs committee of the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament.
“In the 1940s, the U.N. decided to create two states, Israel and Palestine, and we have supported that plan ever since,” he points out. “We’ve seen wars and attacks come and go many times, but Russia still believes that a political solution, resulting in two states, is the only way forward.”
Warm ties with Israel
Russia is home to about 145,000 Jewish people, many of whom hold dual Russian/Israeli citizenship, while Israel has around a million Russian speakers in its population. The ties between the two countries are strong, underpinned by warm personal relations between Mr. Putin and Israeli leaders, particularly Mr. Netanyahu.
Trade remains fruitful, as do cultural relations. Israel has so far declined to impose Western-led sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine war. Russians enjoy visa-free travel to Israel, Mr. Putin has lauded Israel as a “Russian-speaking” country and joined Mr. Netanyahu a decade ago to unveil a monument to the Red Army’s WWII victory in Netanya, Israel.
Dasha Mikhelson, spokesperson for the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, says that the Jewish community in Russia today is flourishing. She says there is a common view of WWII and the Holocaust, shared tastes in music and cuisine, and lots of two-way tourism, as well as many kinds of cultural exchanges between Russia and Israel.
“Today, the leaders of both countries set the task of strengthening our friendship; they visit each other, discuss important political events,” she says. “All this, as well as the flourishing of Jewish religious life in our country, correlates with good relations between Russia and Israel. Russians and Israelis understand each other well; we have a lot of similarities in our way of thinking and preferences.”
Still, over the past couple of years, Russia’s war in Ukraine has tested Russian-Israeli ties, while military and political priorities have driven Moscow much closer to Israel’s main foe, Iran. The delicate, carefully negotiated arrangements that keep Russian and Israeli forces from clashing on the tense battleground of Syria have all but broken down, experts say.
And Russia’s call for a cease-fire in Gaza failed in the United Nations Security Council on Oct. 16 in part because it declined to describe the actions of Hamas as “terrorism” – a baseline requirement for Israel.
While the basic relationship between the two countries is likely to survive present tensions, analysts say, political ties are definitely chilling.
“It’s a bit strange to me that the attack of Hamas was not condemned immediately by Russia,” says Lyudmila Samarskaya, a Middle East expert at IMEMO, an official foreign policy research institute in Moscow. “Perhaps this can be understood in the context of the general confrontation between Russia and the West, which overshadows everything else these days. But Russia’s basic policy remains unchanged.”
Russia has also maintained official relations with Hamas as well as the Palestinian Authority over the years. About 20% of Russia’s population is Muslim, and some religious charities have been publicly raising money to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, something the Russian government officially supports.
But outright backing for the violence committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 has been sparse. The main exception appears to be Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who issued a statement of support for the Palestinian territories after the massacres and offered to send Chechen “peacekeeping forces” to mediate between Israel and Hamas.
“Kadyrov’s reaction is a bit of an exception to the general Russian attitude,” says Ms. Samarskaya. “Such one-sidedness does not coincide with the official Russian position, nor with what most people think.”
“Not our business”
Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, suggests that Russia hopes to take part in a peace settlement at some point and wants to maintain an appearance of impartiality.
“Russia didn’t condemn Hamas directly because both sides are using terrorist methods according to the Russian point of view, and there is no reason to single out one side,” he says. “Russia is ready to be a mediator when it might be necessary, and that means keeping a balance.”
Few analysts see that as a realistic possibility, as the defeat of Russia’s U.N. resolution would seem to confirm. Indeed, the only poll to appear after the Oct. 7 events, an unscientific survey done by the Moscow daily newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, found almost a quarter of respondents leery of any Russian involvement in the conflict.
“Russia has nothing to do with this conflict, and we do not need it,” one reader commented.
Denis Volkov, head of the independent Levada Center, says that the cumulative results of past polls suggest that most Russians don’t take a side. “About half the population is indifferent, with maybe a bit more supporting Israel. But when asked who is to blame, the majority of people answer that it’s the USA,” he says.
Mr. Klimov, the senator, says that despite its involvement in Syria and growing ties with Iran, Russia would probably prefer to sit this conflict out.
“For much of Russian society, this conflict is perceived as happening far from us,” he says. “We really have enough concerns close to home, without looking for distant problems to get involved with. I don’t mean to say that we are indifferent to what’s happening, just that there’s not much we can do about it.”
Putin has shot down proposals to lower the threshold for nuclear weapons use in Russia’s doctrinal documents, but called for Russia to de-ratify the CTBT. When asked by Sergei Karaganov at the Valdai Club meeting on Oct. 5 whether Russia should “modify the doctrine on using nuclear weapons, lowering the nuclear threshold,” Putin said: “[T]here are two reasons stipulated in the Russian Military Doctrine for the possible use of nuclear weapons by Russia. The first is the use of nuclear weapons against us, which would entail a so-called retaliatory strike … The second reason for the potential use of these weapons is an existential threat to the Russian state.” “Do we need to change this? Why would we? Everything can be changed, but I just don’t see that we need to,” Putin asserted. While rejecting a lower threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, Putin made clear in his Valdai remarks that he was not going to abandon nuclear saber-rattling altogether. “The United States signed the treaty [Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty] without ratifying it, while we both signed and ratified it. As a matter of principle, we can offer a tit-for-tat response in our relations with the United States,” he said. Putin’s decision to stick to the doctrinal language on the conditions for first use is remarkable, given that he has previously said Russia can initiate a nuclear strike when its “territorial integrity,” “sovereignty,” and the “safety of our people” are threatened (none of these threats are explicitly identified in Russia’s military doctrine as conditions for use of nuclear weapons). That the Russian commander-in-chief has publicly rejected the suggestion by Karaganov—who sits on the scientific council of the Russian Security Council, which is run by Putin’s hawkish confidant, Nikolai Patrushev—to lower the threshold, on paper, may also indicate Putin’s decision to conclude internal debates on this issue. That said, Putin’s call for de-ratifying the CTBT indicates that, at the very least, he is not going to stop invoking Russia’s nuclear weapons in his attempts to coerce the West. In the run-up to this call, Russian officials and pundits had made a number of statements on resuming nuclear tests, while top officials visited a former nuclear test site, where construction has been going on, in what, in hindsight, looks like a coordinated campaign meant to prepare internal and external audiences for Putin’s announcement on CTBT.
See full transcript of Putin’s remarks at the Valdai Conference on 10/5/23 here.
By Andrey Pertsev & Svetlana Reiter, Meduza, 10/5/23
In the 2010s, Marat Khusnullin nearly rebuilt the city of Moscow. Today, he’s maneuvered himself into a leading role as the overseer of Russia’s “restoration” of annexed Ukrainian territories. Meduza explains how this construction bureaucrat from Tatarstan won a prized position in the federal government and especially in Vladimir Putin’s circle of trusted underlings.
Last month, in early September, Vladimir Putin christened a new section of the “Vostok” expressway connecting Moscow and Kazan. “You’re cleared… Let’s go,” the president said with a smile. Joining him at the ceremony was Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, who oversees construction projects for the federal government. He hurriedly and obsequiously noted that the highway would have been impossible without Putin, crediting the president with “all the comprehensive solutions” needed “to build such a beauty of a road!”
A source close to the presidential administration told Meduza that Putin’s expressway jamboree was staged as a campaign event. Indeed, the ceremony took place just a few days before a gubernatorial election in the Nizhny Novgorod region (where the new highway section was built), and United Russia candidate Gleb Nikitin later won the vote handily. But the Kremlin already had a bigger campaign on its mind, says Meduza’s source, who calls Marat Khusnullin a “key figure” in Putin’s re-election next spring.
The administration will reportedly rely on Khusnullin to serve as one of the leading “event suppliers” ahead of election day. Meduza has already written about the Kremlin’s plan to transform next year’s race into a “parade of holidays” celebrating the many “achievements of Putin’s Russia.” Some of these festivities will feature the opening of new infrastructural facilities, including new chunks of expressway.
Meduza’s sources with knowledge of the Kremlin’s election plans say that Khusnullin has become “one of Putin’s favorite subordinates.” For example, when the president made a brisk nighttime visit to occupied Mariupol in March 2023, it was Khusnullin who accompanied Putin on a drive around town, boasting about Russia’s “restoration” of a city it bombed and shelled to the ground in many places.
“A helicopter arrives, there were two escort cars, and he got behind the wheel. He even chose the route himself. Nobody saw it coming… People recognized him and started exiting their apartments… So, everything turned out very friendly,” Khusnullin later said, describing Putin’s tour of the city.
A source close to the federal government cabinet told Meduza that Putin first noticed Khusnullin when the latter oversaw Tatarstan’s Construction Ministry. (Before this job, Khusnullin worked for local construction companies and also served as a deputy in Tatarstan’s State Council.) Two decades ago, Putin frequented Kazan, which celebrated its millennium in 2005 and hosted the Universiade (now known as the FISU World University Games) in 2013. When Putin came to town, Khusnullin took him on tours of construction sites around the city. “He always knew how to present himself to his superiors and point out his role in the common cause,” recalls a long-time acquaintance who worked with Khusnullin in Tatarstan.
Meduza’s sources attribute Khusnullin’s rapid career rise to these encounters in Kazan. By 2010, he oversaw construction in Moscow as one of the city’s deputy mayors and intersected with Putin even more often as one of the officials leading renovations to the Luzhniki Olympic Complex ahead of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Additionally, he was front and center in creating Moscow’s Zaryadye landscape urban park and renovating buildings throughout the city. Khusnullin was also involved in the Moscow Subway’s expansion between 2012 and 2019 when the Metro added another 47 stations.
Dozens of businesspeople from Tatarstan followed Khusnullin to Moscow, where they found leading positions in the city’s construction sector. An investigation in September 2018 by journalists at Novaya Gazeta identified 46 of these people. For example, Khusnullin’s former deputy at Tatarstan’s Construction Ministry, Mars Gazizullin, went on to manage Moscow City’s Mosinzhproekt civil engineering company, which oversaw the subway’s expansion.
From 2011 to 2018, companies from Tatarstan and firms connected to entrepreneurs from the region won Moscow City contracts worth almost half a trillion rubles (roughly $5 billion in today’s currency). Investigative reporters found that some of these businesses and their owners had ties to Khusnullin, but he denies any corruption allegations.
Khusnullin didn’t limit himself to just participation in such projects but labored to promote himself publicly in any way he could. A source who worked at Moscow City Hall told Meduza that Khusnullin reads the news media (“even opposition outlets”) and Telegram channels and tries to ensure that he’s mentioned. For example, while working for the Mayor, Khusnullin’s press office regularly compiled “positive news” about Moscow and pushed it on Telegram.
But he always stresses shared achievements and puts his bosses first. “Meaning, it was the mayor when he worked at City Hall, not Mr. Khusnullin. The top figure came first; he was just the good executor of the leadership’s will. Irreplaceable, perhaps, but a mere operator,” says Meduza’s source.
This tactic paid off. In 2020, Khusnullin reached the federal level, becoming a deputy prime minister charged with overseeing construction projects. He promptly announced plans to build a network of roads between Russia’s regions and to renovate housing across the country. “Construction is movement; it’s energy,” he said in 2021, describing his feelings about the job. “You can see the results of your work immediately. If everything is going well, your mood improves instantly. I even love the smell of paint, cement, and dust.”
Sources who know Khusnullin say he lacks any “special political views.” “He understands the planned economy of the Soviet era, but he’s also fine with the free market,” the individuals told Meduza, adding that Khusnullin “loves hands-on management” and takes “subordination” very seriously: “He understands who is above him and who is below him. There’s a real cult of personality on his team.”
A source close to United Russia’s Moscow branch leadership told Meduza that Khusnullin is “crude but effective.” “Mr. Khusnullin is an experienced vizier from the East,” says a source close to the Kremlin. “He always knows what to tell the Shah, how to interest him, and how to thank him. For the president, this style of communication has become comfortable lately.”
As Meduza reported in the fall of 2022, Putin lost almost all interest in civilian affairs and domestic issues in the early months of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Even construction projects receded from the president’s agenda. While others in the federal government cabinet tried to keep their distance from the war, Khusnullin dove head-first, traveling regularly to the “new territories” and becoming Russia’s de facto curator of “restoration” infrastructure projects in occupied Ukraine. This, of course, caught Putin’s attention again, says a source with ties to the Kremlin.
Today, Khusnullin and the Construction Ministry he controls are key in allocating Russia’s construction contracts in the occupied territories. The total cost of this work is unknown, but the Russian authorities have estimated that the “restoration of infrastructure” will require at least 1.5 trillion rubles (more than $15 billion).
A source close to the Russian government cabinet told Meduza that Khusnullin understands how vital this restoration work is to Putin, and he even tries to outperform the president’s expectations, setting speed records and overfulfilling plans. For example, Khusnullin was the official who reported on the early completion of repairs to Russia’s coveted Crimean Bridge, which a truck bomb damaged in October 2022. Khusnullin has also declared that “the people are returning to Mariupol” thanks to the Russian authorities’ efforts. (He’s careful not to emphasize the invasion assault that caused the city’s exodus and devastation in the first place.)
On multiple occasions, Putin has praised Khusnullin. With the front lines in Ukraine frozen in many places, the president “is gradually getting tired of military topics” and regaining his interest in domestic affairs, say sources close to the Kremlin. “It’s become important to prove [to the West] that the economy is holding up and everything is going like before,” explained Meduza’s sources. “Construction, roads, and bridges — this is stuff he gets. It brings back memories of the good ole days.”
A source with ties to Russia’s government says Khusnullin “knows what he’s doing,” but that doesn’t mean he harbors specific career ambitions. “He just knows how to grow,” said Meduza’s source. “He knows that the boss doesn’t like it when someone articulates some clear goal and then achieves it. The president knows better where and who is needed. If they tell [Khusnullin] to take over as prime minister, he’ll do it. He’ll be happy to do it. But it would be wrong to say he’s working toward his premiership.”
A journalist from Tatarstan who spoke to Meduza on condition of anonymity recalled that rumors circulated not so long ago about Khusnullin’s possible return to the region, this time as its leader. But that chance seems to have gone with the “zeroing out” of incumbent Rustam Minnikhanov’s term clock. A source close to the federal government told Meduza that Khusnullin going back to Tatarstan is off the table. “He now carries more weight than the whole republic.”
Russia and the West are locked in a scorpions’ embrace in Ukraine that threatens to explode into a major European, even world war. The consequences of such a war would certainly be hundreds of thousands and likely millions of military casualties and civilian victims. Such a war could be easily escalate to a nuclear confrontation that would push the world into disease, starvation, chaos, and perhaps oblivion. Even without a larger war, the presence of five nuclear power plants in Ukraine risks a grave nuclear accident, and there are radicals on both the Russian but especially the Ukrainian side that might seek to construct a ‘dirty’ bomb or some other means for delivering a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapon of mass destruction. Given these terrible dangers, there is a striking, criminal level of negligence in the nearly non-existent diplomatic efforts to end the NATO-Russia Ukrainian war.
Yet there are some very feasible ways, some already well-trodden paths, for putting an end to this conflict and restoring peace in Ukraine, Russia, and the West. Some are very simple: for example, talk.
Ceasefire First
The first order item is a ceasefire agreement that will stop the blood letting. An OSCE monitoring agreements and mission would control a no man’s land to create a broad ‘contact line’ separating the sides’ forces. The agreement should include mutual withdrawals in order to separate the forces and allow an OSCE Monitoring Mission to be deployed. All artillery pieces and mortars should be shuttered in OSCE controlled areas. All drone use will be banned, and only OSCE monitoring drones will be permitted to fly.
A more ambitious ceasefire plan could establish a UN peacekeeping force made up of peacekeeping troops from completely neutral countries from outside the region and that are not members of NATO, the CSTO, Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), BRICS, the Eurasian Economic Union, or European Union. Mexico, Malaysia, and Indonesia might be examples of candidates for such a mission. These peacekeeping troops would occupy the separation zone and have the right to intercept any diversionary groups sent by one side to attack the other.
Russian-Ukrainian treaty
Now that the Ukrainian Pandora’s box has been opened, there will be no peace in Europe or Russia until the Ukrainian question is resolved. The West has led Kiev down the road to destruction, and in order to save what remains of Ukraine the West, particularly Washington, and Ukraine must engage Russia in peace talks. In lieu of this, there are only two possible outcomes: Russia’s seizure of at least all Ukraine’s lands east of the Dnepr and along the Black Sea coast or a broader European war involving direct fighting between NATO, Russian, and perhaps other forces. The main cause of the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War was Washington’s and Brussels’ insistence on expansion of world history’s most powerful military bloc to Russia’s borders, especially to Ukraine. The Maidan revolt was cultivated by the West in order to achieve NATO expansion to Ukraine. Instead, it predictably sparked a reaction in southeastern Ukraine and Moscow, a civil war, and finally the ongoing larger Ukrainian war in which the West and Russia are poised to enter into conflict with each other, coming ever closer to that fateful day with each month’s escalations to new levels of violence and terror.
The genesis of NATO expansion was ‘lone superpower’ America’s unbridled post-Cold War ambitions to establish a U.S.-dominated ‘new world order.’ Moscow views the Maidan regime in Kiev as a dagger pointed by Washington at Russia’s heart. So for Moscow to be willing to engage in any peace talks, especially as Ukraine falters on the battlefield, is for Washington to make the first move and propose to sponsor and engage in ceasefire negotiations with Russia and Ukraine. Moscow will simply not trust or see any prospect for stability through direct talks with Kiev. Russian President Vladimir Putin knows who is calling the shots. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s recent statement that if Moscow proposes talks, Kiev will accept, and the U.S. will be right behind them signaled this dynamic as well as the curious antinomy of hubris and cowardice that prevails in Washington under the present administration. Something that limits hope that escalation of this war can be stopped, but let us forge ahead with the necessary, if misplaced optimism.
It is possible that Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy will balk at the idea of talks with Putin. After all, he is surrounded by ultra-nationalist and neofascist elements that bear a burning hatred for Russia and Russians and great ambitions to master Europe. But if West was able in March 2022 to convince Zelenskiy to end the Istanbul process talks and instead continue what obviously would have to be a supremely destructive war with Russia war, then it certainly can push Kiev to resume talks with Moscow. It is often said that Putin will never negotiate because he seeks restoration of the Soviet empire and domination over all Europe. This is an odd claim. Putin’s troops were with within 50 miles of Georgia’s capitol Tbilisi and had defeated the Georgian army in August 2008 Georgia-Russia Ossetiyan war, and yet he did not even consider taking the far easier opponent down in order to start his ‘rebuilding of the Soviet empire.’ Putin and Russians have neither the desire and know they lack the capability to dominate their neighbors. So talks are possible. The nut to crack is how to initiate them and what sorts of agreements with Moscow and Kiev are feasible.
Since NATO expansion was the cause of the conflict, the issue of NATO and Ukraine will be central to any peace settlement, and Washington calls the shots in NATO. Some noise was made a while back when a NATO official suggested Ukraine might trade Russian-occupied territories for NATO membership. NATO, by itself, will never forego its expansion to Ukraine. That decision can only come from higher up—from Washington. For that to happen it must be realized on the Potomac that Russia will never accept Ukraine in NATO even if it is offered all Ukraine east of the Dniepr. The only way Moscow would accept NATO in Ukraine is for Moscow’s full defeat in the Ukrainian war or an entirely new order having been installed in Moscow. By now it must be becoming clear to some in Washington that this is a bridge exceedingly too far and was never a realistic goal. More likely would be Russia taking all Ukraine east of the Dniepr and then offering all but the four oblasts plus Crimea back to Kiev in return for an international agreement on no NATO membership and Ukrainian neutrality. That level of Russian magnanimity regarding the West and Ukraine is a pipedream.
It is worth repeating: There will be no peace treaty signed by Russia that does not guarantee Ukraine’s neutrality. Therefore, for any proposal of a Russian-Ukrainian peace treaty to be viable it must stipulate that Kiev is a neutral state and will not join any military bloc. Moreover, NATO and the CSTO will be banned from carrying out any activity with the Ukrainian military. This treaty should have international status and be signed by Russia, Ukraine, NATO, and the UN. Regarding Ukraine’s territory and territorial integrity, Russia, should it choose, shall retain all territory it holds as of implementation of the ceasefire agreement. Ukraine’s future territorial integrity and any future exchange of territory agreed upon by Russia and Ukraine will be anchored in a separate treaty signed by both states, the OSCE, and the UN.
There have been some small, stumbling steps towards a framework that might form the foundation for a Russo-Ukrainian agreement. Kiev reportedly was forced to agree unofficially it would have to abandon its position of a withdrawal of all Russian troops from 1991 Ukraine’s territories at Saudi Arabia’s August 5-7 informal peace conference, As a result of its failing counter-offensive. The same day Russia’s presidential spokesman said Russia only “wants to control those territories fixed in its constitution” (“Russia wants to control territories fixed in its constitution — Kremlin spokesman,” TASS, 6 August 2023, https://tass.com/politics/1657225). This means that Ukraine would have to recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and its 4 October 2022 annexation of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson Oblasts. A further complicating factor is that Russian forces still not occupy all of these latter four regions. A point of compromise could be an agreement by Moscow to retain only the areas in those oblasts whch it occupies as of any ceasefire agreement and the beginning of peace talks. This would require amendments to Russia’s constitution, which is unlikely to be much of an obstacle for Putin to push through Federal Assembly’s two houses just as the amendments stipulating their accession were easily passed.
NATO-Russian treaty
NATO and Russia ought to sign a separate treaty along with Ukraine repeating and thus reinforcing the stipulation of Ukraine’s neutral status contained in the Russian-Ukrainian peace treaty outlined above. Under this kind of a more global treaty or in a separate agreement, Russia, the EU, the US, and the OSCE must hold negotiations on a treaty or set of treaties that would regulate the explosive situation in Moldova and its breakaway region of Transdnestria, including a withdrawal of Russian troops from Moldovan territory. The Moldovan Treaty or Treaties must stipulate Moldova’s neutral status and the Russian troop withdrawal. At the same time, a treaty between Moldova and breakaway Transdnestria and an amended Moldovan constitution should include Kishinev’s neutral and sovereign independent state status and afford Tiraspol and the Gagauz territory broad autonomy within the Moldovan state. After these treaties are signed and implemented, Russia will withdraw all its troops and weapons from Moldova, including Transdnestria. Beyond the more explicit statement on the inviolability of Moldova’s state sovereignty and independence, Kishinev would be obligated to sign a treaty with the OSCE pledging it will not seek to unify with Romania. It cannot be excluded that Russia will demand a treaty clause holding that NATO cannot expand to any more countries directly adjacent to its borders, as the issue is relevant for Georgia especially given August 2008 but also Azerbaijan and Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhaziya, which Russia recognizes it and North Ossetiya as independent states. Moreover, the U.S. continues to poke around in Central Asia – witness the recent and first US-Central Asian summit – and NATO is establishing an office in Japan.
In addition, there must be a reaffirmation and strengthening of the OSCE’s commitment to the principle of non-interference of the organization’s member-states in the domestic politics of other member-states. Western commentators have made much of Russia’s violation of the Budapest Memorandum when it incorporated Crimea into the federation, as the memorandum had been signed by Moscow, Kiev, and the West as part of a deal exchanging Kiev’s surrender to Moscow of nuclear weapons on its territory inherited from the USSR for Moscow’s pledge to renounce its right to Crimea and honor Ukraine’s territorial integrity. What is lost on those who make such superficial comments is that the West egregiously violated the OSCE Founding Act’s Helsinki Accords’ stipulation that commits OSCE members from interfering in co-members politics. US senators, congressmen, deputy secretary of state, and billions of dollars spent to network anti-Yanukovych Ukrainians in the nurturing of the Maidan revolt committed violation of the OSCE’s mutual non-interference clause.
Reviving the Late Cold War Treaties and Security Architecture
More globally, the perestroika-era arms control and verification treaty architecture must be revived in order to restore strategic stability to Europe and central Eurasia. This would include NEW Start as well as new INF, CFE, ABM, and Open Skies agreements should be concluded and should be signed and adhered to by all NATO and CSTO members. The INF treaty and particularly the CFE treaty will have to be renegotiated and amended given the drastic shifts in the deployments of intermediate range missiles and conventional forces since the early 2000s and even more so since February 2022.
Conclusion
Thus, there is a multi-tier structure for reviving strategic stability in Europe: Russo-Ukrainian agreement, Russo-European agreements for eastern Europe and western Eurasia’s frozen conflicts, Russo-Western agreements on arms and mutual non-interference in domestic politics, and a more global infrastructure of interlocking strategic nuclear and conventional forces treaties for Russia and NATO member countries. These are the basic building blocks for any future stability in Europe, but at some point China will need to be brought into this or a similar understanding and security architecture for Asia.
In this tumultuous time of war and global conflict, where pervasive propaganda campaigns mask geopolitical machinations of the powerful and serve their interests, mainstream journalists’ ability to counter these campaigns have never been more limited.
Gone are the days when John Pilger was able to have a story attacking George W. Bush and Tony Blair’s invasion of Iraq on the front page of the British tabloid, the Daily Mirror.
We live in a time of state surveillance and creeping restrictions on freedom of speech, where whistleblowers are criminalised and publishers like Julian Assange face persecution and life imprisonment.
Self-censorship is strictly adhered to by media outlets as narratives are shaped by a technocratic elite. Mainstream stories are packaged with a kind of hermeneutic seal, keeping out vital context that would allow readers to interpret the meaning of events happening in the world.
Yet so much is currently taking place of profound importance that the public needs to know about. For those of us living in New Zealand and the wider Pacific region, these matters include the potential of being caught up in a proxy war with China at the behest of its peer rival, the United States, with all the horror that would involve.
‘Rules-Based’ Domination
For a long time, the U.S. has dominated the global economy using its petrodollar, instruments of economic coercion like sanctions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, as well as C.I.A. interference in nations’ internal affairs, including the fermentation of opposition groups and violent coups.
As a last resort, it has exercised raw military might, invading countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, or directed its will through NATO, bombing Serbia and Libya in the interests of its corporate state.
Contemporary history shows at the core of its so-called “rules-based international order” lies a very destructive neo-colonial system of domination, one that pays lip service to democratic values and institutions only when corporate schemes for profit are not being threatened.
It is in the interests of democratic participation and accountability that citizens of countries aligned with U.S. power understand this, so they can hold their governments to account for foreign policy positions.
They should also understand that this unipolar power, exercised by the U.S. since the fall of the Soviet Union, is being challenged by an emerging multipolarity, particularly through the growing strength of trading bloc BRICS.
BRICS’ New Development Bank headquarters in Shanghai. (Donnie28, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Nations are breaking free from the U.S.-dominated global system, trading in their own currencies, and seeking greater economic sovereignty to avoid sanctions, the predatory practices of Western financial institutions. BRICS leaders have stated an intent to build an alternative, more equitable and just global framework for trade and co-operation.
Current U.S. foreign policy strategies that push proxy war as a means of ‘containing’ those nations leading this charge towards multipolarity, namely Russia and China, pose an unprecedented danger of nuclear exchange and the annihilation of life on Earth.
Within Western mainstream media, striving to present a contextual framework for world news stories that reflect these overarching realities is an onerous task and one fraught with risk. I’m very much aware of the price journalists face for attempting to do so.
In June, I was publicly cast as a Russian propagandist by my employer Radio New Zealand (RNZ) and thrown to the wolves over my subediting of a Reuters story on the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine.
The gross mischaracterisation created a scandal and widespread hysteria amid speculation that the national broadcaster — New Zealand’s most trusted source of news — had been infiltrated by a Russian agent. It led to weeks of intense national and international media coverage. It also left me jobless, with a 20-year career in tatters. Others around the world are being smeared in a similar fashion.
Edits ‘Pro-Kremlin Garbage’
I had worked on the RNZ digital team since September 2018. Part of my job involved selecting and processing news stories from international wires for website publication. I had approached such copy critically, finding that Reuters copy on occasions blatantly leaned towards a U.S. State Department position, while BBC copy reflected a U.K. government bias.
In both cases it led to unbalanced and distorted stories. Addressing political or cultural bias usually involved deleting or reframing the paragraph that carried it, or adding counter-factual context to achieve greater balance.
Reuters building entrance in New York City, 2007. (Eternalsleeper and Broadbeer, Wikimedia Commons,CC BY-SA 3.0)
As the Ukraine war kicked off, instances of such bias and imbalance increased, as did what I saw as a journalistic duty to remove it.
“The conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014 after a pro-Russian president was toppled in Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution and Russia annexed Crimea, with Russian-backed separatist forces fighting Ukraine’s armed forces.”
The edited version instead stated:
“The conflict in Ukraine began in 2014 after a pro-Russian elected government was toppled during Ukraine’s violent Maidan colour revolution. Russia annexed Crimea after a referendum, as the new pro-Western government suppressed ethnic Russians in eastern and southern Ukraine, sending in its armed forces to the Donbas.”
When adding references in news copy to the Maidan coup that ousted the then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, I would have usually attributed the position to Russia as a matter of prudence. On this occasion, I didn’t. Leaving in the Reuters reporter’s byline didn’t help my case and it would be used to push the false idea my editing was surreptitious ‘tampering’, even though this was an isolated error.
My immediate boss approached me after Reuters sent an email to RNZ pointing to a breach of contract over the edited story. She emphasised the matter was “really, really serious” as I’d changed the intended meaning of the story. I took responsibility for the changes and accepted paid leave while an investigation took place, alongside the implementation of an external strategy to minimise reputational damage to the company.
In my mind, I was guilty of procedural errors and believed I may be looking at a verbal or written warning after explaining to furious bosses the reasons for the copy edits. Instead, that evening an audit of my work spanning five years was launched after RNZ informed the public it was investigating how “Russian propaganda” had been inserted into its international wires online content.
The late U.S. Sen. John McCain addressing crowds in Maidan square, Kiev, Dec. 15, 2013. (Mr.Rosewater, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
In framing the matter this way, the RNZ leadership maximised reputational damage to its organisation, as well as to myself. International coverage of the unfolding “Russian edits scandal” really took off after RNZ CEO Paul Thompson increased the maelstrom by calling the edits “pro-Kremlin garbage.”
A Political Show Trial
The broadcaster began publishing a list of other stories it found “inappropriately” edited and in breach of its editorial standards.
Three days after being put on leave, the audit had identified 16 stories of concern, prompting right-wing politicians to demand a government inquiry. Instead, the RNZ board of directors set up an independent review panel to determine what had gone wrong, re-establish public trust and ensure such “breaches” could never happen again.
The active audit was published at the top of the RNZ website, ostensibly to reassure the public and demonstrate transparency. It in effect became a type of political show trial. I felt the pressure every time it was updated with new stories, complete with editorial notes at the bottom of each. But the audit also betrayed where RNZ management stood ideologically — firmly and explicitly behind a skewed Anglo-American worldview.
My own original stories were also put under the microscope. In July 2022 I’d written a story “NZ entering Ukraine conflict ‘at whim of govt’ – former Labour general-secretary,” featuring ex-senior politicians, who said the New Zealand government was risking nuclear catastrophe by giving material support to the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine at the expense of diplomacy.
It was removed from the website and screened for Russian bias, before being republished without a byline and with a note incorrectly telling readers an earlier version of the story had lacked balance.
Resignation
Amid public scrutiny, which also included disinformation experts being invited on national media platforms to comment on foreign interference in relation to my work, as well as online threats and speculation over my motives, I resigned.
Coming to terms with the loss of a job with a young family was one thing. The circumstances of the loss was causing much more immediate anxiety.
With New Zealand part of the Five Eyes Western intelligence apparatus, I expected the security services would be knocking on my door. Isolated and feeling vulnerable, I began to catastrophize, believing there was a chance I could be removed from the country and estranged from my Kiwi children. As an Irish national I had resided in the country since 2009.
In times of crisis, I’d always prayed for help and this time was no exception.
Rendering of the “Five Eyes” intelligence network that includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., the U.S. (@GDJ, Openclipart)
People Begin Rallying
I stopped reading media reports as the toxic groupthink of my former colleagues became too taxing to process. I also ignored media requests. Instead, my energy went into writing up a 14,000-word substantive statement as part of plans to meet with the review panel, which was now seeking to interview RNZ staff, as well as myself.
As I did so, light began breaking through the darkness. People who understood what was going on began to reach out. A reformed Ukrainian nationalist got in contact and offered to assist, thankful for what he said I had helped point to — the plight of his fellow countrymen who were being cynically used, many unwillingly, as cannon fodder to forward U.S. strategic interests.
Award-winning cartoonist Malcolm Evans, an outspoken critic of Israel’s occupation of Palestine who had himself been ousted from The New Zealand Herald decades before, suggested I ring lawyer Deborah Manning. I did so. The power differential between RNZ and myself troubled Manning enough that she offered to guide me through the inquiry process, alongside her colleague Simon Lamain, on a pro-bono basis.
Manning had gained a high public profile after her prolonged, but successful battle against the imprisonment and persecution of Algerian refugee Ahmed Zaoui after he arrived in New Zealand in 2002, accused by intelligence agencies of being a terrorist.
She also represented Afghan villagers during a 2019 government inquiry following a raid by members of New Zealand’s special forces in 2010 that left five dead and 15 wounded. Manning had proven herself a formidable advocate.
My sense of isolation lessened further after a supportive call from investigative journalist Nicky Hager, co-author of Hit & Run, a book detailing that NZ Special Air Service (SAS) Afghan operation. He assured me time would attest to the fact that RNZ had called it wrong.
Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs and University of Chicago Professor John J Mearsheimer, alongside other highly regarded scholars and political scientists, agreed to write letters of support to the review panel. Both men took a keen interest in the unfolding drama.
In his letter to the review panel, Sachs wrote:
“It may be that the RNZ leadership is simply trying to keep in step with official U.S. and U.K. policies, rather than to help its readers and listeners to understand the dramatic events of our time…
The claim that the edits are pro-Russian propaganda is nonsense. The edits add depth of historical context and understanding, and open minds to a deeper inquiry.”
Commenting on various elements of context I’d added to the Ukraine stories, Mearsheimer wrote:
“I think that his characterization of the Azov battalion and how it was portrayed in the West before the recent war is correct. I think his views on how Russian leaders thought about NATO enlargement and how that helped cause the war is correct. I think his identification of American involvement in the events on the Maidan and his description of it as both a color revolution and a coup is correct…
Someday, historians are going to look back at this period in amazement, wondering how the West allowed itself to engage in such an all-encompassing and vicious propaganda campaign – that is so at odds with the truth as well as liberal values. Hopefully, RNZ will correct its mistake with Mr. Hall, so those historians do not point to this incident as prime evidence of how the West lost its mind.”
Facing the Panel
Buoyed by the fact I was in good company I prepared to meet the review panel, my statement outlining the circumstances of the wires copy editing now completed.
Seated inside the ground floor of a soulless, nondescript corporate hotel in central Auckland, I nervously scanned the faces of those descending the staircase to the cold marble foyer next to our lounges, where immigrant staff served coffee, hoping to identify the person I thought might bring the group of three to the inquiry’s interview room.
Manning stood up as Willie Akel, a media law expert and the panel chairman, suddenly appeared a few metres away, greeting us with a smile and handshakes. A tall, studious-looking man in his early 60s, Akel had a history of battling for corporate media freedoms. He would be the most personable of the panel, yet the most importunate during intense cross-examinations that would take place over two days.
It became clear from my initial meeting with the three-person panel that I would not convince them that all my Russia-Ukraine edits were accurate or appropriate.
The panel did not intend to assess all stories flagged by RNZ but wanted to look at a sample to establish that inappropriate editing had indeed taken place. In my view, exchanges that followed pointed to an inability to discuss the Ukraine conflict without deference to Western orthodoxies, an implicit bias that trumped empirical evidence.
One story discussed was “UN again trying to evacuate civilians from Ukraine’s Mariupol,” published on May 6, 2022. It included a comment from an Azov Regiment commander, after which I had added: “The Azov Battalion was widely regarded before the Russian invasion by Western media as a neo-Nazi military unit.” [Related: ROBERT PARRY: When Western Media Saw Ukraine’s Neo-Nazis]
A march of Azov veterans and supporters in Kiev, 2019. (Goo3, Wikimedia Commons)
A panel member argued it had been inappropriate to add the line without also giving further balancing context, namely, that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had brought the Azov private militia into Ukraine’s regular army and in doing so had “reigned” the group in.
In its subsequent report, the panel found the line’s “uncritical and unexplained inclusion” had unbalanced the story without attribution to Russia and more balancing context added. It noted a “contested and complex debate about the origins of the battalion some years earlier and the extent to which they were and still are influenced by neo-Nazi elements.”
It remains unclear why the panel believed the line needed to be attributed to Russia, while offering a Ukrainian counter position would have only amounted to adding false balance, in the absence of any real evidence Azov had renounced its fascism.
‘One-sided, Politically Coloured and Unbalanced’
The panel’s main scrutiny was directed at reporting, as uncontested fact, the Maidan events as a U.S.-backed coup that had sparked a civil war and had led to Russia’s annexation of Crimea after a referendum.
I argued that, although I had not attributed this context to the Russian position – alongside Reuter’s ‘Maidan Revolution’ U.S.-aligned narrative which I had instead removed – in mitigation the paragraph did not contain misinformation. It contained key historical antecedents to the Russian invasion.
Yanukovych was removed from office by a Parliamentary vote that the Ukrainian constitution did not allow, a move backed by the U.S. He had in any case already left Kiev the day before amid violence and threat of arrest, or worse.
The panel continued to listen intently, but with palpable scepticism, as I mentioned the intercepted phone conversion [LISTEN] between the State Department’s Victoria Nuland and diplomat Geoffrey Pyatt, where the two U.S. officials discuss who should make up the next administration, several weeks before Yanukovych was driven from power.
Oct. 8, 2014: Pyatt and Nuland at a Ukrainian State Border Guard Service Base in Kiev. (U.S. Embassy Kyiv, Flickr)
I referred to academic Ivan Katchanoski’s Revelations from Ukraine’s Maidan Massacre Trial and Investigation and Ukraine-Russia War Origins, a peer-reviewed study that presented compelling evidence snipers positioned in hotels controlled by far-right groups killed dozens of protesters and police during a false flag operation at Maidan Square, putting pressure on Yanukovych after he was accused of ordering the shootings.
None of it mattered much. In its report, the panel found the edits to the June 8 story flagged by the New York commentator were “one-sided, politically coloured and unbalanced.” The finding came as no surprise.
I maintain this instead accurately describes Reuter’s original copy, not the version I edited. The logic used by the panel seemed to dictate that anything contested by the Western powers cannot be stated as fact, regardless of the evidence.
Inquiry Scathing of RNZ for Causing Alarm
On the other hand, the panel did show commendable fairness. It found many of the stories flagged by RNZ’s audit had not been edited inappropriately. It also took on board my reasons for not “referring up” to management when making the edits – that my managers lacked expertise in world news and that I had been siloed in a dysfunctional editorial system. They were scathing of the organisation’s structural inadequacies.
The report found no evidence I set out to introduce misinformation or disinformation, “never mind run a Russian propaganda campaign.” It was also highly critical of RNZ management for alarming the public. It found language used by the broadcaster “unhelpful in maintaining public trust” in that “listeners and others may have believed the editing had been a deliberate and orchestrated exercise in propaganda.”
The report stated: “We consider that had RNZ’s own language about the incident been more restrained, the resulting coverage might have been too.”
In response, RNZ board chairman Jim Mathers promised to implement its recommendations, which included a major restructure, improved editorial systems and the establishment of an editorial “standards” enforcer.
There were signs that RNZ was not happy with the findings over my editing. Its flagship programme Morning Report wheeled out a belligerent mainstream media figure to reassert the discredited view the edits were in fact pro-Kremlin garbage, while an RNZ manager falsely reported that the review panel had “said the ‘rogue actor’ would not have gotten away with it had RNZ’s systems and oversights been up to scratch”. The report explicitly rejected the suggestion I was a “rogue actor.”
‘Frightened, Compliant Censorship’
The panel’s inquiry gave me some closure, while putting to bed New Zealand’s fears of Russian disinformation. I was thankful for that.
But it did not address the deeper systemic malaise within RNZ and the wider corporate media ‘eco-system’. Although it questioned the veracity of the RNZ’s audit, it did not see it for what it was. That was left to veteran journalist John Pilger, who called it “frightened, compliant censorship.” That assessment was echoed by others, including Joe Lauria at Consortium News and Max Blumenthal at The Grayzone.
Should we expect it any other way, given the societal role critics like Noam Chomsky assign to media – a place where stenographers to power, gatekeepers of what can be considered reasonable discourse, shape public opinion?
My attitude had always been at the very least that we should be held to our promise of balance, fairness and accuracy and be pushed to express a preferential option for peace and justice in international news reporting. I believed approaching international news copy critically to address potential issues of bias and accuracy to be an integral part of the editorial process at any public news service.
Unfortunately, the review panel’s position seemed to align with RNZ’s view stated during the inquiry process – that international wire copy should be treated as sacrosanct.
Yet, when Associated Press journalist James La Porta last November used an unnamed “senior U.S. intelligence official” to falsely point the finger at Russia after a Ukrainian rocket crossed into NATO country Poland killing two people, he demonstrated the dangers of this position. There are numerous other examples.
Just because a story is written and edited within a well-resourced, professional international news organisation does not mean it is accurate or balanced, particularly as war rages and that organisation’s country is a party to it.
RNZ’s new editorial standards enforcer will presumably oversee an uncritical publication of this copy, conflating editorial standards with narrative control. In my view, it will not be to benefit a public that RNZ’s charter states the broadcaster is duty-bound to supply with “comprehensive, independent, accurate, impartial, and balanced regional, national and international news and current affairs.”
Most seriously, this position will not benefit informed, much-needed debate about the supposed ‘threat’ of China, as the spectre of proxy war looms ever more clearly over Asia-Pacific.
In the words of imprisoned publisher and journalist Julian Assange, if wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by the truth. It is incumbent on journalists that they get this truth out and that wider society offers them support and protection to do so.
However, given the structural restraints on journalists and the apparent chill factor around questioning narratives of power at present, it will remain difficult to do so within New Zealand’s mainstream media.
Mick Hall is an independent journalist based in New Zealand. He is a former digital journalist at Radio New Zealand (RNZ) and former Australian Associated Press (AAP) staffer, having also written investigative stories for various newspapers, including the New Zealand Herald.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
