German Intelligence: Cracks Are Starting To Show Between Russia's Oligarchs And Putin's Hardliners

[applegrove]

German Intelligence: Cracks Are Starting To Show Between Russia's Oligarchs And Putin's Hardliners

Tony Paterson, The Telegraph/Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-may-not-be-a-united-front-2014-7

"SNIP........................


Germany's intelligence services have informed Chancellor Angela Merkel's government that a power struggle is under way in the Kremlin with hardliners and oligarchs at loggerheads over how best to respond to western economic sanctions, according to media reports.

German intelligence chief Gerhard Schindler has told the Berlin parliament's foreign affairs committee that cracks are beginning to appear in the united front that President Vladmir Putin is seeking to present to the world, Der Spiegel magazine said on Sunday.

Mr Schindler was reported to have told the committee and subsequently Mrs Merkel personally that a struggle had broken out in the Kremlin with hardliners and oligarchs seeking to exert their influence on President Putin.

"According to German intelligence it is quite possible that some of the oligarchs who are worried by European Union sanctions will soon start putting economic interests above political concerns and try to put the brakes on Putin," Der Spiegel wrote.


..........................SNIP"

[applegrove]

1. Where is the "Relax - I Got This" photo of Obama?

[msanthrope]

2. Wait!! Countries spy on each other? The Germans are spying on Russian citizens?

I have to wait for Snowden and Greenwald to tell me how I feel about this.

[applegrove]

3. LOL!

[msanthrope]

5. I gotta sit the fuck down. Who would have thought the Germans would be

spying on the Kremlin?

Obviously, this type of intelligence-gathering is bad and morally wrong!

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. Countries that aren't close allies?

Why yes, yes they do. But 'intelligence' isn't all spying. Sometimes it's just reading papers and talking to people who know more than you do about a given event on the phone. If the oligarchs are displeased, it's not going to stay secret long.

[msanthrope]

6. Still, I feel more comfortable waiting for GG or ES to tell me how to feel about

this surprising turn of events.

[applegrove]

9. Like after all that happened in the 20th century the USA shouldn't be spying

on Germany.

[Tarheel_Dem]

10. NSA! Putin's assholes shot a plane load of civilians out of the sky! But NSA!

[BillZBubb]

12. What an foolish comment.

Russia is not Germany's ally. Get a clue.

[msanthrope]

13. Apparently both your irony meter and sarcasm detector are broken. That is unfortunate. nt

[Cali_Democrat]

16. So spying on countries who aren't your allies is fine?

So then why did Snowden disclose US espionage activities against China?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014762667

[freshwest]

14. There is only one alternative now:

[herding cats]

7. The Independent has a great article on this today.

I recommend it for anyone who wants to know more about the budding schism.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/a-new-russian-revolution-cracks-start-to-appear-in-putins-kremlin-power-bloc-9631894.html

[blm]

8. When we get past the US newsmedia's BS 'analysis' we'll realize how amazing Kerry's efforts

and the steadfastness of Obama and Biden have been throughout this entire situation.

The corpmedia's had it wrong. It's been obvious to some of us all along.

[freshwest]

15. +1,000

[Tarheel_Dem]

11. Not because there's a plane load of dead civilians, but it's about the money.

Assholes.

[HereSince1628]

17. Yes, that's certainly true, but then leverage is where it can be found.

Economic sanctions are intended to be about money, so the strategy all along has been to hurt Russia's politically capable oligarchs to get them to turn on Putin's policy.

Those sanctions were going into place when a plane load of dead civilians was a seemingly unlikely hypothetical.

Russian supplied armaments could do a wide range of destruction, getting Russia to reverse it's support for pilfering provinces from neighboring countries through destabilization/civil war is the goal and it potentially limits all types of mayhem.

The alternatives to economic sanctions include doing nothing --unacceptable-- and turning Ukraine into the battlefields of a very thinly veiled proxy war --also unacceptable.

[Tarheel_Dem]

18. Oh, I certainly agree with you. It just sickens me that the EU seemingly needed a horrible event...

like this to put the screws to the Kremlin. I heard this morning that the UN HRC says there's over a thousand dead in the fighting started by these so-called "separatists".

I am all for sanctions, and always have been, but I'm just sad & disappointed that it took this for the EU was so slow to the table.