Russia must “stop playing false democracy” in order to combat a “hybrid war” waged against it by the U.S., the chief of the country’s powerful Investigative Committee said. Russian authorities must abandon “pseudo-liberal values” and give a “tough” response to “political, economic, informational and legal” attacks by the U.S., said Alexander Bastrykin (above), Bloomberg reports:
The U.S. is spending billions of dollars “under the guise” of promoting democracy in Russia’s neighboring states, Bastrykin said. That’s fueling an “anti-Russian mood” in those countries and a “pro-American and pro-Western” opposition in Russia, he said.
The U.S. is betting on stirring up ethnic and religious conflicts in Russia that previously destroyed “the ideological foundation of the USSR,” Bastrykin said. While conflicts that erupted during the Soviet Union’s collapse were seen at the time as having local causes, “it’s now absolutely obvious that all these clashes were part of an initial hidden phase of the information war,” he said.
Russia must retaliate with a “national idea” that includes “ideological education” of the young to ensure “destabilization won’t happen even with the most generous external funding,” he said.
