YouTube link here.

For our younger readers who may have a harder time picking up on such things in this day and age, this writer engages in lots of sarcasm. – Natylie

By Riley Waggaman, Substack, 6/11/25

In less than four months, the Russian government could begin disbursing funds using a CBDC issued and controlled by an IMF-obedient BIS member managed by a Yale World Fellow (colloquially known as the “Bank of Russia”).

A draft law submitted to the State Duma at the end of May will permit the federal government to use the digital ruble to pay for a limited list of budget expenditures starting October 1. The full-scale use of the central bank-controlled digital currency for all types of budget payments will begin on January 1, 2026.

Russia adopted the digital ruble as its third form of legal currency, alongside the cash ruble and the electronic ruble, two years ago. While the “full-scale implementation” of the Bank of Russia’s CBDC (as publicly advocated for by Vladimir Putin last year) has been pushed back, the transition period for its introduction at the regional level is currently scheduled to begin on July 1, 2027. The draft law lists the same date as the deadline for credit institutions to offer clients access to the digital ruble platform.

A week before the bill was submitted, the Bank of Russia launched an info-offensive against the conveniencephobes who spread malicious lies and innuendo about the safe, convenient, and forever-voluntary digital ruble.

It wasn’t easy, though. Russia’s incredulous mainstream media had a lot of hard-hitting questions about the endless pitfalls of a programmable, centrally-controlled digital token issued by an entity that is not answerable to the Russian government.

Here’s how Komsomolskaya Pravda prefaced its interview with Bank of Russia Deputy Chairman Zulfiya Kakhrumanova:

[I]n the field of finance, we are ahead of the rest of the world! Well, or at least among the world leaders. The financial sector is one of the most technologically advanced in Russia, many countries would envy such a level of development of payment technologies. Large banks are actively introducing innovations that change and simplify our lives. And the rules of the game in this market are set by the Central Bank. And it also creates new entities. For example, the same digital ruble.

What changes await us in the coming years? And how will this affect our wallets? Zulfiya Kakhrumanova, Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia, spoke about this and much more in an exclusive interview with KP.RU

And they say journalism is dead. Shame on the people who say that. Shame!

With her feet to the fire, Kakhrumanova regurgitated the boilerplate talking points:

[What is the digital ruble?] It’s simple. The digital ruble is another form of Russian currency … And what’s important is that the choice of [what type of ruble to] use remains with the person. […]

It cannot be said that we are exactly following the Chinese path. But this is a global trend — to simplify life when making not only payments, but also any of our actions in any spheres. We have already gotten used to this convenience.

Rich and pungent word-dung, even for a Novgorod-based manure connoisseur such as myself. Unsurprisingly, the interview attracted the attention of numerous convenience-haters in Russia, including commentator Alexander Lezhava, who worked in the banking sector for many years before going rogue.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/TAwN0fVCA-M?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Responding to the KP interview, Lezhava wrote on his Telegram channel:

Another propaganda article from the Bank of Russia has appeared in Komsomolskaya Pravda. This time, the new deputy chairperson of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, Zulfiya Kakhrumanova, sang hosannas to the digital ruble under the title “Why do we need a digital ruble, will it become mandatory, and what will a single QR code give us?”

There’s nothing new in what she said. It is a rehash of the same banalities from the Bank of Russia, criticisms of which they are unable to respond to intelligibly. There is no point in repeating the same thing, so it is much more interesting to look at this speech from the point of view of manipulation and logical errors.

The interview begins with an appeal to the readers’ feelings and an attempt to create some kind of positive emotional background:

“And yet, in the field of finance, we are ahead of the rest of the world! Or at least among the world leaders.”

This is necessary to evoke positive emotions in the reader and distract his attention from possible substantive criticism. In essence, this is an attempt to create a pseudo-reality, wherein the emotional background is used to shape public opinion in favor of the policy pursued by the central bank.

Then comes the manipulation, through a simplification:

“The digital ruble is another form of Russian currency… the choice of what to use is up to the individual.”

The complex system of the digital ruble is presented as a simple replacement for cash and non-cash funds – just a third type of currency, nothing interesting. At the same time, the potential risks and consequences with regard to maintaining the privacy of citizens and monitoring or managing them with this tool are ignored. This is a typical example of “manufacturing consent”, in which complex processes are simplified to the level of an inconsequential selection in order to reduce the level of critical thinking.

But that’s not all. She also has to underscore the divide between “us” and “them”:

“We are not following the Chinese path exactly. But this is a global trend…”

It is significant that the Chinese path and the introduction of the digital yuan are mentioned as a potentially negative thing, but at the same time she notes that the trend is global. Here, an external model is used to legitimize internal actions, but in such a way as not to associate it with one’s own policy, which is no different from the external one. (Surprisingly, the deputy chairperson did not bring up the Nigerian experience.)

Once again we see manipulation in her touting of the idea of freedom, or, rather, a false promise of freedom of choice:

“If a person does not want to use it [the digital ruble], he will continue to use the services he is accustomed to.”

The statement regarding the voluntary use of the digital ruble contradicts the possible creation of conditions and pressure from the Bank of Russia that can make it essentially mandatory. This is “managed democracy”, when freedom of choice is declared, but in practice it is limited by systemic factors.

At the same time, the Central Bank positions itself as an expert who “knows better”, although it provides no proof of this, and openly avoids open dialogue with the public. And when there was some interaction with the public on these matters, the Bank’s representatives came out on the losing side. This is called “elite management” — when officials of various kinds determine the direction of society’s development without taking into account the real needs of citizens. This is how it sounded this time:

“We predict what will be in demand in the coming years. We take into account the requests of market participants…”

The practical results of such forecasting are well known and have little correlation with real life, and it is practice that is the standard of truth.

Nevertheless, the Bank of Russia does not hesitate to openly manipulate hope, promising future well-being:

“The digital ruble platform is standardized… providing additional convenience for people.”

The idea of some future convenience and technological progress is used to justify current actions, without a detailed justification of their benefits. This approach is known as “technological determinism”. It presents the development of a technology as an end in itself, while the ethical and social consequences of its implementation and use are not taken into account. As our reader correctly noted, if you are unable to explain the usefulness of the digital ruble even to the former Minister of Finance, then what kind of convenience and usefulness are we even talking about?

There are also purely contradictory statements. They contain multidirectional ideas in order to satisfy different groups of readers but not give a clear position. For example, she asserts that there is a need to both unify and preserve the many payment systems, creating a logical contradiction:

“The QR code must be universal and recognized by any payment service…” but then “a universal QR will not eliminate all the different payment services.”

And need we even mention the concealment of information or the provision of incomplete information by the Bank of Russia:

“The digital ruble platform is a unified system… It is impossible to just steal them.”

This does not address the issues of who controls the platform, how data protection is ensured, or what risks there are for users. This is “information control”, when key issues are hushed up during the implementation of the project in order to avoid criticism and doubts. The Bank of Russia itself has previously admitted that digital ruble thefts will occur and that it will be difficult to get them back. The only thing that can be done is to follow them, where they go, but this will not help the victim, since they will already have been spent, and the Bank of Russia does not block channels for funneling stolen funds abroad.

At the moment, we have the following situation: The Bank of Russia forces banks, trade enterprises, and other market participants to invest billions of rubles into organizing the digital ruble infrastructure, with questionable benefit for society, instead of directing these resources to ensuring cyber security and preventing theft of funds from citizens.

How dare you, Mr. Lezhava. Don’t you read Simplicius the Thinker, the Internet’s #1 Thinker, who correctly observed that the digital ruble is a good CBDC that will remain eternally-voluntary as it karate-chops the globalists?

I mean, does Lezhava even read TASS?

Here are some very inspirational words from First Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia Sergei Shvetsov, speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2021, as quoted by Russian state media:

“Once again: we can thank the pandemic; paper spreads infection. You’ve heard of ‘dirty’ money, now we also have infectious money. This [cash] is probably a technology that’s on its way out, serving either ‘gray’ business or used when there is no alternative. Internet coverage is growing, gadgets are reaching the people. Russia is one of the leaders in this field, and thus we have a technology that allows us to replace cash with digital rubles,” he added.

[…]

“We have moved away from certain inconvenient forms of money. I think that cash will also be marginal at some point, in 10/20/30 years. The digital ruble will have to replace it. And the speed at which this product is created depends very much on our technological readiness,” [the First Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia] emphasized.

Yes. Good.

For more information on the World-Leading Convenience that awaits all Russians, read the latest offerings from Katyusha.org:

By James Carden, Landmarks Magazine, 6/11/25

The following, by Simone Weil Center board member James Carden, first appeared in the Realist Review.

Tbilisi—It was Lincoln who once said “I would like to see someone proud of the place in which they live.” The 16th president never made it to the South Caucasus, but here reside a people quite justly proud of the place in which they live. Among the most striking differences between the vision offered to Georgian citizens by the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party and by the Western-backed opposition parties is that the former is unabashedly so.

From the perspective of an American of rather longstanding, it seems the politics of the GD are not dissimilar to those of MAGA Republicans; Hungary’s Fidesz; France’s National Rally; Poland’s Law and Justice; or the UK’s Reform Party. The pro-NATO, pro-EU Georgian opposition coalition, having lost a democratic election by a convincing margin last October, continues to call for foreign powers (the US, the EU) to sanction members and funders of the GD. The bedraggled youth who sit in protest on the steps of the Georgian Parliament under the flags of a foreign powers are calling for those powers to sanction the legitimate winners of their country’s last national election: Do they not know what “democracy” means?

For some reason, the Georgian opposition thinks Washington and Brussels (a EU and NATO “Information Center” resides in a handsome building just off Tbilisi’s Freedom Square) have something to teach Georgia about democracy. Still worse, the illusion that Washington has both the right and duty to teach Georgia how to govern itself persists in the American media and in the halls of Congress.Pledge your support

***

The Helsinki Commission: A National Embarrassment

Last month Congress passed the MEGOBARI Act. Taking a page from Orwell (as Congress often inadvertently does) megobari is the Georgian word for ‘friend’—it is also, in the manner of these sorts of bills, an acronym for “Mobilizing and Enhancing Georgia’s Options for Building Accountability, Resilience, and Independence.

In reality it is a sanctions bill that seeks to cripple the financing behind the GD.

The bill is the hare-brained-child of the Helsinki Commission, a relic of the Cold War that now employs odd-ball-starved-for-social-media-attention staffers LARPing as freedom fighters for Ukraine.

Before we get to the specific problems with the MEGOBARI act, a few words about the Commission are perhaps in order. To be perfectly blunt, Congress should disband the Helsinki Commission, it is a national embarrassment. And has been for years. It is an unaccountable office that for the past decade and a half has prostituted itself to William Browder, a billionaire hedge fund manager who renounced his American citizenship.

Browder, the grandson of the Stalinist dupe Earl Browder, was tried and convicted in absentia by a Russian court on credible charges of tax evasion. To avoid being hauled back to Russia by Interpol, Browder spent untold sums in Washington, London, and many places besides, on an admittedly brilliant PR strategy that transformed him from a tax cheat into a human rights crusader, and, eventually (and unbelievably) into a Knight of the British Empire. One would have to be deeply stupid to have fallen for the act. But many have. For readers understandably unfamiliar with what kind of character Browder actually is, here is a video of him jumping out the backseat of a car and running down 51st St. in Manhattan to avoid being served a subpoena.

“Sir” William worked hand in glove with the Helsinki Commission’s adviser (now its Chief of Staff—they ‘fail up’ on Capitol Hill, you know), Kyle Parker, who last year found himself under investigation for acting as a foreign agent for Ukraine. Parker, deeply compromised by, among other things, his marriage to a Ukrainian woman, began to act as a freelance weapons dealer to further, you know, the real cause.

Congress, being what it is, promoted him.

In any event, Parker, and his financial patron Browder, crafted a fictional account of the death of Browder’s hapless accountant Sergei Magnitsky (Browder claims that Magnitsky was his attorney—another lie). Parker was later given a “Sergei Magnitsky Human Rights Award” by Browder for his efforts. An aside: Browder’s name never appears in the numerous accounts of foreign influence in Washington: Why would that be?

As a piece of fiction, the Magnitsky saga would have been trashed by critics as so far removed from reality that it could not be believed. For example: In his book Red Notice, Browder claims he got a late night call,

…That night, at 12:15 a.m., the voice mail alert on my BlackBerry vibrated. Nobody ever called my BlackBerry. No one even knew the number. I looked at Elena and dialed into voice mail.…I heard a man in the midst of a savage beating. He was screaming and pleading. The recording lasted about two minutes and cut mid-wail.” He writes, As soon as the sun came up, I called everyone I knew. They were all okay. The only person I couldn’t call was Sergei.”

As the award winning investigative journalist Lucy Komisar, the only American journalist to have exposed the Browder fraud, notes,

…Imagine Magnitsky, handcuffed based on what Browder claims and the bruises found on his wrists, being beaten by, Browder says, eight riot guards.

Magnitsky: “Hey guys, I have to make a phone call. Can we take a break?”

Even Magnitsky’s mother doesn’t believe the story Browder peddled. But then again, she’s clearly brighter than the staff of the Helsinki Commission which took Browder’s claims at face value (no investigation was ever done to validate any part of Browder’s tale) and duly drew up the 2012 Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, a sanctions bill against Russia and one that effectively stuck a dagger into the heart of President Obama’s “reset” policy and put the US squarely on track for a new and even more perilous Cold War.

But that was the goal all along. Browder’s tale, sold to a credulous media, was weaponized by the Helsinki Commission in the service of a policy favored by neoconservatives in Congress—a policy that, allow me to add, subverted the foreign policy of a duly elected President of the United States.

Democracy in action.

***

Old Habits Die Hard

The Helsinki Commission is at it again—this time it has Russia’s southern neighbor, Georgia in its sights. And naturally Russia is both the pretext and the ultimate target. Helsinki Commission chairman Joe Wilson (R-SC) and ranking member Steve Cohen (D-TN) praised the passage of their bipartisan effort to overturn the Georgian election. Cohen, a loud and unscrupulous peddler of the Russiagate conspiracy, said the act “sends a strong message to the Georgian people that the U.S. supports them as they fight for their democracy.”

In fact it does the opposite.

In reality, the act demands that Georgians relinquish their right to vote for whom they want to vote. Indeed, the MEGOBARI act is based on the faulty premise that the GD is riddled with Russian influence—in the manner it was alleged that Ukraine’s ill-fated Party of Regions was said to have been a proxy for Russian interests in that country. I suspect that all the GD wants are simply non-hostile relations with their restive northern neighbor. But that, in the eyes of the zealots on the Helsinki Commission, is a grave sin not to be countenanced.

The passage of the MEGOBARI act (which President Trump should veto if it ever makes it to his desk) only serves to alienate a small, friendly, Christian country in a very tough neighborhood. Bounded by Russia to the north, Islamist Turkey to the West, and another Islamist dictatorship to the East in Azerbaijan—Georgia would be far better off charting its own path—free of dictates emanating out of Washington or Moscow or, for that matter, Beijing.

Election interference is something we Americans deplore. We should practice what we preach.

It’s pathetic that the writers at Intellinews (namely Ben Aris) wrote this article in such a sanguine manner, without mentioning that several people have been murdered after appearing on this list after which a red strike is placed over their pictures with the word “liquidated.” All the writers can seem to muster is “some subsequently facing persecution or attacks” and then only mentioning one victim. They should know better than to leave out this important contextual information. – Natylie

Intellinews, 6/12/25

A Ukrainian website that catalogues perceived “enemies of Ukraine” has added several prominent foreign leaders to its database, including Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, following their controversial attendance at Victory Day celebrations in Moscow.

The Myrotvorets (Peacemaker) website, established in 2014 by former Ukrainian intelligence operatives, publishes personal information about individuals it deems threats to Ukraine’s national security. The platform has now targeted the three leaders who participated in commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany on May 9.

According to the website’s operators, Lula “denies Ukraine’s right to resist Russian aggression”, whilst Fico is accused of “promoting Kremlin propaganda narratives”. Milorad Dodik, the outspoken leader of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska entity, has been listed for allegedly attempting to “undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

The move reflects the diplomatic tensions surrounding international engagement with Russia whilst the war in Ukraine continues. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky had previously blasted foreign leaders attending the Moscow celebrations, describing Vladimir Putin’s temporary ceasefire proposals made during the event as a “theatrical performance”.

Lula da Silva

The 79-year-old Brazilian president has maintained close ties with Putin following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a position that has strained relations with Kyiv and drawn Western criticism. During his recent Moscow visit for the Victory Day celebrations, he appealed for a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine.

However, despite attending the May 9 parade, Lula has not spared criticism of Russia’s military operation, setting him apart from the other two leaders listed on Myrotvorets who have taken more pro-Russian stances. During a recent visit to France, the Brazilian leader declared: “I still criticise the Russian occupation of Ukraine. People need to realise this… The mental insanity of war has been more than proven.”

“I told Putin it was time to end the war; I advised him to meet Zelensky in Istanbul. And I regret that he did not go.”

Lula has consistently advocated for an immediate ceasefire and, along with China, launched a UN-sponsored initiative named “Group of Friends of Peace” aimed at proposing talks that would prevent battlefield expansion and conflict escalation.

Brazil’s neutral stance has frustrated some Nato allies, who view Lula’s approach as an impediment to their strategy of maintaining pressure on Russia through continued military support for Ukraine. The president’s inclusion on Myrotvorets represents what critics see as an attempt to delegitimise mediation efforts outside Western diplomatic frameworks.

Brazil’s foreign ministry, Itamaraty, has yet to issue an official response to Lula’s inclusion on the website.

Robert Fico

Fico staged a remarkable political comeback in autumn 2023, returning to power after years in opposition by pivoting towards anti-Ukrainian rhetoric and national conservative positions. This strategic shift revitalised his populist Smer-SD party, allowing it to capitalise on Slovakia’s anti-establishment sentiment, which encompasses both anti-Western and pro-Russian elements amongst the electorate.

After Fico quickly formed a left-right cabinet in 2023 together with Smer’s more moderate split-away party Hlas-SD and the Slovak Nationalist Party (SNS)-led list, which also includes an array of far-right and fundamentalist legislators, both Smer and Hlas were suspended from the Party of European Socialists (PES), the umbrella group for Europe’s Socialist parties.     

Fico’s cabinet pushed ahead with sweeping legislative changes to the country’s judiciary, police and restructuring public media, which sparked country-wide protests and put it at odds with the EU over rule of law backsliding concerns, while forging an alliance with the EU’s most pro-Russian leader, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

Fico stepped up his anti-Ukrainian rhetoric at the end of last year, seizing the opportunity of the long-signalled end to Russian gas transit through Ukraine, and he also made unprecedented appearances on Russian state media. However, Fico has so far avoided an open conflict with Brussels over the EU’s Ukrainian policy despite his repeated threats to block the EU’s new sanctions against Russia, possibly fearing an EU reaction, which could include freezing of EU funds, a lifeline for Slovakia’s slowing economy and widening state budget deficit.  

“Fico has very skilfully developed this brand of politics which combines neo-Stalinism with the tradition of Andrej Hlinka [founder of the Slovak People’s Party, which ruled the Nazi-allied World War II puppet state in Slovakia],” Boris Zala, a former founding Smer member, MP and MEP who left the party in 2016 over its corruption scandals and shift rightwards, told bne IntelliNews last November. 

“Smer has not been a left-wing party for some time,”  Zala continued, adding that today, “Smer is a nationalist-conservative party mixing the nostalgia after [the pre-1989 communist] old regime with Slovak People’s Party rhetoric, thanks to which it can attract neo-Stalinists and Hlinka supporters alike”. 

Milorad Dodik

Dodik was also present at the Moscow Victory Day parade and is a frequent traveller to Russia, despite recently being banned from travelling outside of Bosnia. He is an outspoken admirer of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, as well as US President Donald Trump.

In a recent interview with Russian broadcaster RT, Dodik accused the United States, Britain and Germany of escalating the war by provoking Moscow and pursuing geopolitical objectives at Ukraine’s expense. He defended the Kremlin’s military intervention, citing what he described as Ukraine’s persecution of Russian-speaking populations and the Orthodox Church.

A long-term advocate of the secession of Bosnia’s Serb entity, Republika Srpska, Dodik has been behind steps taken by lawmakers in the entity to reject the authority of Bosnia’s state-level institutions — moves analysts warn are pushing the country closer to war than it has been since the 1990s. 

After being sentenced to one year in prison for violating state laws in February, Dodik has since initiated legislative changes and taken other steps towards the legal secession of Republika Srpska. In response, Bosnia’s state-level prosecution issued arrest warrants for Dodik, Republika Srpska’s Prime Minister Radovan Viskovic and parliament speaker Nenad Stevandic. 

Dodik’s political future now hangs in the balance. He has been in power alternately as Republika Srpska’s president and the Bosnian member of the tripartite state-level presidency since 2010. However, rival parties have banded together to oust his SNSD from power at state level, while Bosnia’s high representative recently cut off funding for the party. He is sanctioned by the US and UK for his efforts to undermine Bosnia’s constitutional order, while Germany has stepped back from investments in Republika Srpska. 

Myrotvorets has previously listed journalists, artists, and religious leaders, with some subsequently facing persecution or attacks. The most notable case involved Ukrainian journalist Oles Buzina, who was murdered in Kyiv in 2015, days after his details appeared on the platform.

Whilst the website holds no legal authority, Ukrainian officials have used it as a symbolic tool of pressure. The platform’s activities have drawn criticism from press freedom organisations and diplomatic circles concerned about the potential risks to those listed.

The Kyiv-based database has targeted high-profile figures with alleged close ties to the Kremlin, including former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters for “anti-Ukrainian propaganda”. Other notable entries include former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and former British MP George Galloway.

RT, 6/10/25

The majority of Western companies operating in Russia are not planning to leave the country, despite the challenges posed by sanctions, according to a new survey by the Association of European Businesses (AEB).

Many US, European, and Asian businesses exited Russia after the West imposed sweeping sanctions on Moscow over the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Others left citing reputational concerns or fear of secondary sanctions. However, the annual poll from the AEB published on Monday indicates that most companies that stayed see long-term potential in the Russian market, despite Western restrictions weighing on short-term performance.

Of the companies surveyed by the AEB, 67% said they were not considering leaving, up slightly from 66% last year. Most respondents said their Russian operations remain a key part of their global business.

Companies identified opportunities such as market share growth (50%), business expansion (39%), and new customer segments (32%) as the primary reasons to stay. Over half (56%) said they are continuing investment projects, citing the Russian market’s size, potential, and positive developments.

The survey showed that while short-term business confidence among foreign firms has dipped, longer-term expectations have improved compared to last year: 82% of respondents said they were anticipating significant growth within a decade, up from 66% last year.

The survey found that most companies have adapted to sanctions but still face challenges, including payment delays, reputational risks and reluctance from foreign partners to work with Russia-linked entities. About 87% said they were negatively affected by Western sanctions and Russian countermeasures over the past year, citing banking curbs, export-import restrictions, frozen assets, SWIFT disconnection, and software and transport limits. Some 71% said they don’t expect any sanctions relief in 2025.

Still, 59% forecast turnover growth over the next three years, up from 53% in 2024. The AEB said its Business Climate Index has climbed to 127 points out of 200, steadily improving since falling to 80 points in 2022.

“[This] confirms that European companies in Russia have reached a certain equilibrium in the new economic reality,” AEB CEO Tadzio Schilling said. “Business has entered a phase of stabilization – companies have adapted their operating models, found alternative supply chains and learned to work under the conditions of the remaining restrictions.”

He added that the results reflect “business environment’s stability,” noting that despite the ongoing challenges and uncertainty, companies remain “cautiously optimistic.”

The AEB represents more than 380 companies from EU states, the European Free Trade Association, and other foreign countries operating in Russia. This year’s survey was conducted between April and May and included input from top managers at 100 member companies across various sectors.