Russia Does Not Really Have Influential Lobbyists in the West Anymore*

*Editor’s note: On March 4, 2022, Russia enacted a law that criminalizes public opposition to, or independent news reporting about, the war in Ukraine. The law makes it a crime to call the war a “war” rather than a “special military operation” on social media or in a news article or broadcast.  The law is understood to penalize any language that “discredits” Russia’s use of its military in Ukraine, calls for sanctions or protests Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It punishes anyone found to spread “false information” about the invasion with up to 15 years in prison.

Dmitry Drize on the topic of the new investigation by Seymour Hersh

High officials in the U.S. are quite negatively disposed toward Ukraine, according to a new investigation by famous American political journalist Seymour Hersh. According to his information, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is thought by Washington to be a short-sighted leader and the Ukrainian government is considered corrupt. Apart from that, according to the journalist’s sources, the White House could have some connections to the recent terrorist acts on the Crimean Bridge. Kommersant’s political columnist Dmitry Drize notes that Hersh’s data in a range of cases coincide with the official Russian position.

Hersh has written yet another article on the topic of everything that is happening in Ukraine. The 86-year-old American investigative journalist refers to information from very high-ranking and very well-informed American officials.

Of course, we won’t simply retell everything that was written; we don’t have time for that. Anyone can familiarize themself with it if they want to. We only need to note that, surprisingly, his main points fully coincide with the Russian perspective on the situation. They even create the impression that one is reading excerpts from our main state media; one is then incredibly surprised to learn that the information is actually from America.

Here are a few examples: Ukraine is possibly the most corrupt country in the world; the grain deal was also used for the transit of drugs. Zelenskyy is completely unpredictable; he has no concrete plan. The U.S. administration was involved in the terrorist acts on the Crimean Bridge, but Washington is afraid of the Russian response, and so on.

It appears that across the ocean in the very heart of the Western world, people are thinking — almost, if not exactly — just like the people in the Kremlin are thinking. Hence, a question naturally arises: Why can’t we then come to an agreement? Why does the standoff continue for so long with no end in sight?

There’s no point in speculating who could have helped Hersh to acquire all this shocking data. But the fact of the matter is that there was a complete lack of reaction to it in the West. Russia, in fact, hasn’t learned anything new, and neither has Ukraine.

It’s clear that Hersh is at that age when you should do all you can to stay relevant. So, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to suppose that not everyone in America is content with current events and, indeed, Ukraine could well exasperate many an official.

But it also seems that this process is incredibly hard to stop, even considering the shocking details on how bad Zelenskyy is and how hard Russia can strike.

First of all, despite everything, public opinion in the West is not on Moscow's side, so to speak, and that has to be considered. Second, a conflict is easy to kick-start but really hard to stop; sometimes it’s even impossible. These are simple common truths, of course, but that’s what’s going on.

And, most important, Russia in general doesn’t really have any influential lobbyists left in the West. Hersh, with all due respect to him — let’s face it — is not the brightest of stars. There’s no hope even for Donald Trump. He’s too fickle and he’s a populist, and he’s not too young, either. There’s also Henry Kissinger, but, I’m sorry, he’s already 100 years old. Plus, we can’t really say he completely supports us; he’s blazing his own trail.

So to conclude, there’s a general problem and it’s not clear how to solve it. Thus, we have to make do with what we have.