If revelations that a top Russian intelligence chief was reportedly involved in the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine didn’t make it to the top of your newsfeed this week, amid all the coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, don’t worry. You’re probably not alone. But it is bombshell news that could expose more of the inner workings of Russia’s expansive security agencies. The Kremlin has consistently denied allegations that Russian intelligence operatives supported the separatist group that shot down Flight 17 over Ukraine’s embattled Donbass region. But on Tuesday, open-source investigators at Bellingcat identified Col. Gen. [...]
In this current age of American dystopia, it can sometimes be hard to believe there is any part of Washington that still functions, let alone finds consensus on U.S. national security priorities. So the State Department’s designation this week of the ultranationalist, white supremacist Russian Imperial Movement as a terrorist organization came as a pleasant surprise. As counterterrorism experts have been warning for years about the threat posed by the proliferation of white supremacist groups, the move to classify the St. Petersburg-based outfit as a transnational threat is a welcome, if overdue, step in the right direction. The U.S. terrorism [...]
If recent history is any guide, the United States is less than a year away from a paralyzing national security crisis. Whether President Donald Trump or his Democratic challenger wins in November, revelations that Russia is once again interfering in the 2020 presidential election all but guarantee that the legitimacy of the electoral results will be called into question, potentially undermining the country’s very political stability. One way to guard against that looming threat is for media outlets, which frame how most Americans understand foreign meddling, to make a major course correction in how they cover and respond to Russia’s [...]
