There are lots of reports of Russia meddling in the affairs of other nations, not the least of which was in the recent election of el-Trumpo in the USA. One glaring example of their efforts was the DNC hack carried out a few months before the election, with many US intelligence experts indicating there was clear evidence that it was tied to some very high levels in the Russian government...

https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsro...rity-statement

The trove of documents obtained were all published by everyone's favorite whistleblower Julian Assange, who may or may not be directly tied to the Russian government, but sure seems to publish a lot of stuff that benefits them and very little that hurts them. The times did a fairly lengthy article on this.

Beyond that we have a clear Russian media effort that was pretty clearly pro-Trump and anti-Hillary and was involved in all manner of nefarious stuff

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politi...opaganda-media

Of particular interest in the VOX article is this passage from their Russian expert:

In addition to the more brazen stuff involving hacks and fake news and so forth, we've also got the so-called "Web Brigade" out there deliberately trolling internet forums and message boards not unlike this one with pro Russian opinions and propaganda. This effort seems to be directed not only at the recent US election, but at worldwide politics in general.

Here are some examples:

Brexit:
http://www.interpretermag.com/putins...or-the-brexit/

Italy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/02/wo...fake-news.html

Finland:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/wo...to-trolls.html

Balkans:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.e83612371ee1

And the list goes on. At this point I think it goes beyond mere conspiracy theorizing though and looks like it's really taking place. As such, and if we grant that that first notion is correct, then the main questions seem to be 1) just how far and wide is Putin/Russia attempting to influence and 2) what exactly is the end goal? Clearly destabilizing NATO is one objective, as is potentially the erosion of the European Union. But would the latter actually be something that benefits the Russian economy, or does it just align with Putin's supposed long-term goal of returning Russia to full superpower status? Or is that really Putin's goal? Some estimates have him as the world's richest man with a fortune in excess of $200 billion, why doesn't he just sit back and continue to plunder his country like he's clearly been doing for years now?

Regardless, is this happening for real and if so, should these efforts be countered somehow? And if so, how do the supposed good guys go about doing that? Or if you don't think that this is really happening as many of us think, then lay out the case for that as well.

Discuss.

Putin is a smarter version of Trump. Pretty sure he also views life in a zero sum way, so if other countries "lose" that must be good for Russia. And dude did annex part of another country, so he's clearly into the whole conqueror idea. Maybe he's got some Hilterian ambitions, and weak neighbors would make them easier to realize.

OP I do hope we meet often at poker tables, to be this obtuse and still be capable of starting new thread is somewhat commendable.

went from one of two superpowers to an economy less than half the size of the UK in a couple decades, everyone over there feels humiliated and pissed off, tiny man complex explains 99% of russia's activity

Yawn...

NSA much?

Post-truth, dog meme style.

........chuckles.

Wow you sound really smart.

He also sounds Russian, on account of that habit of omitting the definite and indefinite articles ('the' and 'a' or 'an'), which don't have any equivalent in Russian and which Russians have trouble using in English.

Here is what I think happened.

1. Russia invades the Crimea.
2. Not wanting a hot war the US, retaliates in non militaristic ways...including hacking and leaking information embarrassing to Valdimir Putin's friends. It was called the Panama Papers....you might have heard about them.
3. Russia responds by hacking the DNC and leaking that information to embarrass the democrats and the POTUS who ordered 2.

I think it is naïve to think that its only the Russian government hacking and leaking. All sophisticated governments are engaged in hacking/spying including the US. Hell when Hillary was SOS and visiting a foreign country, she probably couldn't take a dump without it being recorded. Leaking is the new development and there is a good chance we started it.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...p-russia-putin

I loathe Putin but I believe this is an accurate assessment.

I only found the whole hack story surprising because people seemed to think it was noteworthy. It is actually pretty midl stuff by intelligence standards.
Hardly compares with the CIA setting up torture schools for friendly Latin American dictators or some of the creepy stuff the KGB got up to.

Don't suppose you have any evidence of this? Those leaks embarrassed many prominent figures around the world, including UKR's Petroshenko, a foe of Putin. The uncovering of the dealings of Putin's kleptocratic cadre was just a bit of luck.

everything going to plan

If you read stuff like this it is really hard to say there is no chance or only a very tiny chance that there isn't something very ****ed up going on behind the scenes.

*Accusations of Russian interference in election process
*The weirdest election result in the history of the USA, with all the weird **** that is surrounding Trump
*Trump pointing to the guy for secretary of state that closed a $500bn deal between two of the largest companies in the world, which was blocked and is on the verge of completely falling apart due to sanctions imposed by the USA
*And we still don't know anything about Trump (& his family) his business ties due to a lame audit excuse

Yep, I bet Hillary regrets meddling in the 2011 Russian elections. Payback is a bitch

The Ruskie effort is so broad that they have operative in 2+2 politics!

FYP Ruskie

Хорошая рука, сэр

I have contacted my comrades and of course spoke with our dear leader Putin.

We were instructed to resurrect Hillary and proceed with plan, this Trump guy is not at all good for us, the bstrd using brain and all.