Russians Always Knew There Was No Collusion

Alexey Kovalev, The New York Times, March 29, 2019; original article contains links

Mr. Kovalev [JB: see] is a Russian journalist.

[JB comment: Am not quite sure what this journalist is trying to say -- that there was, or there wasn't -- Russian collusion in the recent US presidential election; see the below underlined sections in his article]

Image from article, with caption: A store across from the United States Embassy in Moscow offered a discount in honor of Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017. Perceptions of the United States have changed in the last two years. Credit Vladimir Gerdo\TASS, via Getty Images

MOSCOW — Russians weren’t waiting for Robert Mueller’s report with quite the same excitement as Americans.

Russian state media’s coverage of Donald Trump’s campaign and presidency has vacillated between breathless adoration, mockery and outrage, but one thing has been consistent: The idea of Russia electing and controlling an American president has always been deemed absurd. Most references to the Mueller inquiry and the Trump-Russia story in state media are preceded by a qualifier: “the so-called Russia investigation,” as the prominent TV host Dmitry Kiselyov puts it.

It’s not just the state media that has rejected the idea that Mr. Trump colluded with Russia. Even liberals and opponents of President Vladimir Putin have been deeply skeptical, pointing out that Russia’s ruling circles are barely competent enough to prop themselves up, let alone manipulate a superpower.

When the news broke last week that Mr. Mueller had finished his report, Moscow’s political and media circles reacted with a mixture of contempt and derision. Far from being a top news story, it was practically forgotten after a few angry comments from state officials. Coverage focused far more on the coming election in Ukraine.

Alexey Pushkov, a former diplomat and a political analyst, tweeted to his 360,000 followers on Tuesday, following the release of Attorney General William Barr’s summary of the report: “The results of Mueller’s investigations are a disgrace to the U.S. and their political elite. It’s now confirmed that all their allegations have been plucked out of thin air. The media have played a shameful role of lie-mongers in a campaign built on lies. The adherants [sic] of this conspiracy theory are discredited. Only an idiot can believe them now.”

To the Kremlin and its supporters, Russia is the aggrieved party here, and the government’s consistent denials of interfering in America’s internal affairs have been fully vindicated. Appearing on the Russian talk show “60 Minutes,” Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the foreign ministry, said the ministry was preparing a report to name and shame the “brigade of propagandists” — pointing at, among others, Fareed Zakaria — who tried to tie Mr. Trump to Russia. She added that “apologies are expected.”

These commentaries conveniently focused on the portions of Mr. Barr’s summary of the report that ruled out the Trump team’s coordination with Russian operatives, and they disregarded the fact that the full report has not been released. Other important portions of the report, which reached the unequivocal conclusion — also supported by independent investigations, including in Russian media — that there were, indeed, Russian efforts to influence the 2016 American election, went completely ignored.

But while government officials and state media tell one-sided stories and revel in “I-told-you-sos,” liberal Russians like myself and many of the people I know are less joyous. Online and in private conversations, it becomes clear that whatever the outcome of the Mueller investigation, our relationship with America has changed.

We’ve seen anti-Russian xenophobia spread into the American mainstream. Etched in our minds are comments like the one James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, made in an interview when he said that Russians are “almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever.”

This climate hasn’t just offended us; it’s making our ability to communicate and share experiences with Americans more difficult. Take the example of Leonid Volkov, an opposition political operative who went to the United States last year as part of the Yale World Fellows program. In a blog post he wrote while there, he described his frustration while trying to monitor the midterm elections to gain insight for his own campaigns in Russia. The very idea of a Russian volunteering for an American political campaign is today so toxic, Mr. Volkov wrote, that he had to abandon his plan.

In the atmosphere where “contacts with Russians” has become cause for suspicion, every bank transaction and visa application faces extra scrutiny. I’ve heard from people I know about how exchange programs, conferences and businesses are suffering.

To those of us who paid attention to American media and politics over the past two years, it quickly became clear that too many in the United States know nothing about our country. Ominous images of onion-shaped domes taking over the White House baffled us; St. Basil’s Cathedral is not part of the Kremlin complex and has no political connotation. The ubiquity of hammers and sickles in visuals accompanying Trump-Russia reports seemed likewise absurd. Our country hasn’t been Communist for about 30 years.

We have few illusions about our own government, its dirty dealings abroad or our own toxic media. But we expected better of America.

Oleg Kashin, a prominent Russian journalist, wrote in a 2017 op-ed essay that “every time a Russian television network or pro-Kremlin newspaper reaches a new low, it was once commonplace among independent thinkers to say that the Western media giants never allowed themselves such mistakes.” That’s much harder to do now.

The end of the Mueller investigation and the conclusion that the Trump campaign didn’t collude with Russia may allow Washington and Moscow to begin to try to fix diplomatic and business relations. I’d be glad to see that. But my perception of the United States’ politics and media might have suffered irreparable damage as a result of #Russiagate, and I’m afraid that’s the case for many people like me. Robert Mueller can’t fix that.

Alexey Kovalev (@alexey__kovalev) is the investigations editor at Meduza, an independent Russian news outlet.