Russia is America's primary goal despite all

Russia remains one of the main goals of U.S. intelligence, the documents, which Edward Snowden submitted to The Washington Post said.

The newspaper published only some of them, referring to recent reactions from the American authorities that were "deeply concerned" about the leak of top secret information. The documents that have been exposed, say that the U.S. intelligence network is composed of 16 independent organizations that employ 107,000 people. The budget makes up 52.6 billion dollars for the current year. The Washington Post called it a "black" budget as no details about this spending had ever been published.

The CIA accounts for 14.7 billion dollars, or 28 percent of the budget. The National Security Agency has $10.5 billion. The National Reconnaissance Office received 200 million dollars less.

The publication notes that "immediately after the attacks of September 11, 2001, U.S. intelligence services created a gigantic body, which, however, is still unable to provide the president with crucial information about a number of threats to national security."

According to the documents, Russia remains one of the main goals of U.S. intelligence, along with China, Iran, Cuba and Israel. Israel's presence in the document, the newspaper said, is due to the fact that Washington is interested in the secrets of both friends and enemies alike. It would be interesting to know to which category Russia belongs.

It is no secret that there is a point of view both in Russia and in the West that Russia does not have a significant influence on international affairs. Some believe that other world powers may ask Russia's opinion on this or that subject simply out of politeness. In this case, the activities of foreign special services are completely ignored, if not negated.

The sensational story with a "spy rock" can be a classic example. Many were saying that the story was nothing but an awkward provocation of the Russian FSB. Later, however, it became clear that the whole story was true. Yet, none of the wits has ever admitted putting their feet into it.

Retired FSB Major General Yevgeny Lobachev, however, believes that there is no contradiction at all.

"One has to separate the U.S. interest in Russia into two. Indeed, the U.S. government, the establishment, does not consider the opinion of Russia as a state, or nearly does not consider, pushing Russia into the periphery of politics, but not into the periphery of their interests.

"The interest of the United States in relation to Russia is that the country is a major supplier of a lot of things, particularly fuel resources. No one in the world knows how rich Russia is in terms of its natural resources. Thank God they don't know it ... Therefore, their interest in Russia as in a territory is immense.

"On the one hand, they believe in the West that one doesn't have to take Russia's opinion into consideration, as the Russians can't do anything. On the other hand, Russia is incredibly rich with resources. To crown it all, no matter how arrogant and silly they may be, they realize that Russia, God forbid, may run out of patience," Lobachev told Pravda.Ru.

Anton Ponomarev

Pravda.Ru

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