ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — Russia’s Foreign Ministry has accused U.S. intelligence services of trying to recruit Russian diplomats expelled by the U.S. amid a diplomatic conflict over the poisoning of an ex-spy in Britain.
The ministry said Friday it saw a “sharp increase in provocative actions against Russian diplomats” following the U.S. decision earlier this week to order out 60 Russian diplomats.
It said American intelligence services have engaged in “frantic efforts” to make cooperation offers to the expelled diplomats. The ministry described the alleged U.S. overtures as “cynical and disgusting,” adding that they have failed.
Two dozen countries ordered more than 150 Russian diplomats out in a show of solidarity with Britain over the nerve agent attack on ex-spy Sergei Skripal. Moscow denies involvement and has responded in kind.
Spies trying to recruit another nation’s spies? I’m shocked. Shocked I tell you. This is some pretty weak sauce from the Kremlin. I think the only intended audience is domestic.
80% of their anti-Americanism is for domestic consumption. The rest is exported to the democracies they’re trying to undermine, including ours.
There appears to be a strain of thought at work in Russia, of which Putin himself is the leading exponent, that it wasn’t the repression and decade after decade of intellectual fraud and compounding economic stupidity that caused the collapse of the USSR, but, rather the loss of America as a unifying external threat.
It’s all about the MRGA. Not to be confused with Mar-a-Lago, of course. Except when it’s the same thing.
Off topic:
A little levity that I stumbled across…
If you unpack this, for a moment, something interesting appears. Even Putin agrees that it’s plausible a russian diplomat would rather betray their country than return to it from abroad even temporarily.