Did Berezovsky Buy Off Communists for US Intelligence?

It seems that everybody already knows about relations between Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, the Communist party, and the Russian People’s Patriotic Union, as Berezovsky and the communists admit the relations themselves. However, sometimes, people think that these are scams by Russian politicians, which are on the whole the private business of several Russian personalities and public organizations.

Some people think that relations with the Communist party are not compromising for Berezovsky at all; on the contrary, they look like the trick the bolsheviks played on the German Joint Staff in the WWI: they used German money for their own purposes.

In some respects, this is even more true than it seems. But in this case, money isn’t appropriated uncontrolled: political action must follow each tranche. Being prosecuted for crimes in Russia, Berezovsky lives abroad in exile, but in fact he is a real political emigrant there. Because of the great power in Russia and the very fact that Berezovsky knows state secrets, he immediately drew the close attention of British and American special services.

However, Berezovsky isn’t given the status of a political emigrant, which would make him more independent in relations with the authorities in the country of residence. Although he has lots of formal reasons, he hasn't been given a residence permit either. Berezovsky could have been given residence permit, as he is a doctor of physics-mathematical sciences and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Although no official refusal was issued, the emigrant still has no permit. It certainly exerts some definite pressure on him (Berezovsky is known as a man with an unstable psyche).

The story describing a meeting between Berezovsky and editor-in-chief of Russia’s national-patriotic newspaper Zavtra Alexander Prokhanov on an island allegedly bought by the Russian oligarch in the UK sounds like an anecdote. In fact, Berezovsky has no life in Great Britain, as he has no long-term reasons for living there.

Ex-deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council Boris Berezovsky is also practically of no interest from the point of view of revealing state secrets. He knows just a few strategic and defense secrets of Russia and knows nothing about Russia's intelligence activity. British specialists studied him in this respect since the very first days of his exile in the country, and the study is already over.

Berezovsky is much more interesting from the point of view of different manipulations in domestic and partially in foreign political life. For this very purpose, British special services “handed Berezovsky over” to American colleagues. We have information that Fritz Ermarth, former CIA officer and specialist on special operations in the East-European region, is in close contact with the oligarch. Russiagate, the scandal on Russian budgetary finance laundering through BONY in August to September of 1998, was one of his projects. He is in contact with Former CIA DirectorWoolsey, who has no official job in Washington but is known as a person close to Cheney.

It is not ruled out that it was Ermarth who suggested that Berezovsky switch his attention from the weak and unpromising micro-party Liberal Russia to financing and cooperation with the Communist Party. Some time ago, Berezovsky used to say that the threat of communism in Russia was even more dangerous for him than the threat of Putin and the special services. However, he suddenly changes his opinion, and his personal view didn’t change, as he still a staunch anti-communist. However, his new masters think that Berezovsky’s old contacts with communists are much more promising than control over a group of unpopular liberals.

To all appearances, the idea to influence Vladimir Putin and his team with the so-called disclosure of their indirect participation in the organization of the tragic apartment bombings in Russia was invented by Berezovsky himself. Then, American specialists joined the process. In any case, the demonstration of the scandalous film about the explosions in Moscow was done professionally. There is information that the research was carried out by a consulting company close to US special services.

It is already known that another project of Berezovsky and the Russian Communist party was a might-have-been referendum with questions of an obvious provocative nature. At that, it had been planned beforehand that the referendum would be rejected in an illegitimate and non-democratic way, and therefore attract more attention of international structures. For instance, a letter by communist leader Zyuganov to the PACE chairman was prepared with theparticipation of people close to Berezovsky, who, in their turn, were in contact with Ermarth. There is little known about the fact that the recent arrest of Eduard Savenkov, more known as Limonov, was connected with the investigation of Berezovsky’s contacts.

In the nearest future, the undemocratic features of the Russian regime, voiced by official representatives of the parliamentary opposition and confirmed by reliable facts, will be used to place pressure on Russia regarding Iraq. You shouldn’t expect this will be a short-term game.

The war against Iraq will begin by winter, which, in its turn, will cause a leap in oil prices. The war will be ended by April, and the USA will establish control over the Iraqi territories and oil prices will drop to 12-13 dollars per barrel, which means the collapse of the Russian budget for 2003. Social tension in the country will be extremely high by the next parliamentary elections in autumn. It is not ruled out that Berezovsky’s financing will only aggravate domestic problems, which may become a really strong factor affecting the fate of Russia.

Anna Kolchak PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Maria Gousseva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/10/09/48169.html

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