A RUSSIAN IN MY DESK

Why has the Argentine government suddenly started seeing a Russian plot against it?

 

By Sir Charlattam

I certainly thought that the wildest delusions and the most delusional figures had already secured their place in Washington (DC) and London, but I was wrong: Donald Trump and Keir Starmer have some competition. I was just about to have my coffee on a cloudy, chilly morning when my mobile rang, showing a message from a friend in Buenos Aires. And there I saw it: ‘The Russians are funding fake news’ – an accusation that didn’t surprise me, knowing the score, until I reached the end and read that it was intended to ‘damage Milei’s image’. That’s when I realised the whole thing is a smokescreen.

In the middle of last year, around August, the Argentine government tried to impose a censorship crackdown on investigative journalism, accusing it of something similar (an illegal espionage operation) for having exposed the involvement of the president himself and his sister in the multi-million-dollar scam surrounding the LIBRA digital currency.

There is no doubt that all this is the result of a plot, or at least an initiative with a distinct Atlanticist slant. It has been a constant feature of Argentina’s liberal governments to kowtow to whatever is dictated by the centres of Anglo-Saxon power. Remember when the oldie submarine ‘San Juan’ disappeared in 2017? Russia offered to provide the then-liberal Macri government with data and technological tools to search for the stricken vessel. What was that government’s reaction? To consult with London, which was deeply involved and uncomfortable at the prospect of having to explain its naval movements in the South Atlantic. That was a scandal which (how could it be otherwise?) was played down by the mainstream media in Buenos Aires. For that government, the approval of Downing Street was more important than finding its 44 crew members, and their families have never received justice regarding their fate.

I tried my best to take this seriously, but I couldn’t manage it. I cannot find a single reason why the Kremlin would have devised this supposed operation. Reading the Argentine media in Buenos Aires (especially the Herald), anyone would realise the childish oversimplification with which these gentlemen approach issues of foreign policy and geopolitics, making assertions such as ‘Putin did, Putin said, Putin wants’ and so on. Anyone could see that these editorials are either deliberately written by political illiterates, or are aimed at readers with no critical thinking skills whatsoever, or are, rather, intended to influence rather than to inform.

If we analyse this from the most significant aspects of foreign policy down to domestic matters, we will see that it makes no sense whatsoever. Let us suppose (as many of these media outlets claim) that Putin ordered the creation and funding of a fake news campaign to ruin Javier Milei’s image. What would be the justification and strategic purpose of this? I ask because such a manoeuvre (which would likely involve intelligence services) requires prior planning and very serious geopolitical considerations. As I looked out of the window to see if it would rain, sipping my coffee, I wondered: what could be the momentous objective or threat to the Russian Federation posed by a Milei government?

Absolutely none. The childish excuse I came across in one of these media outlets—which are always so eager to toe the editorial line of their Anglo-Saxon counterparts, particularly outlets like the BBC here—is that Putin was angry about Milei’s support for Ukraine. Is that all? In an attempt to give the story a bit more substance in order to build a case, some journalists have claimed that this whole operation has been in the works since 2021 and that part of it involved the arrival of thousands of Russian citizens to settle in Argentina with the ultimate (and sinister) aim of acquiring Argentine nationality and a passport. This raises a question for me: what about the British, Germans, Americans or Israelis who do the same? Will they also use that passport to travel with other hidden intentions?

Trying to understand what on earth all these arguments could possibly mean, I have come to the conclusion that, according to the analyses of these brilliant researchers, those babies born in Argentina would be –or perhaps already have been– enlisted on the payrolls of the FSB and the SVR, a load of rubbish that seems to flourish only in the minds of hired Russophobes. And who is paying them? 

What’s more, the sum spent on funding this so-called ‘operation’ is so laughable that any member of the intelligence community would burst out laughing. I reckon that if I were younger, back in my working days, I would have fallen off my chair with laughter, much to the consternation of the other customers in the café.

The argument they have used to try to implicate the Russian Federation in this is so ridiculous that it collapses under its own stupidity. It is so blatantly biased that even these media outlets and some of their journalists have had no qualms whatsoever about starting to see Russians everywhere, as if that were a bad thing. Here in the UK and across Europe, this is called Russophobia, and given the current government in Argentina, this trend does not surprise me.

Nor would I be at all surprised if this idea had come from some official in your intelligence department who, in turn, listens to the MI6 lot –experts in anti-Russian campaigns– at the embassy in Buenos Aires. What’s more, within Argentina’s domestic political landscape, there are constant rumours of a government with a weak stance based on improvisation, with its own corruption and propped up by a mythology that is losing credibility. So, if fabrication is part of his politics and his Atlanticist alignment is well known, why should his foreign policy be any different?