The Practicalities of Arctic Spying

It has been a year, reader. 'Secure underground seclusion' has its pros, such as my continued being alive, and its cons, such as raging cabin fever and scurvy. I have come back above ground to resume my work.

The back-room power struggling continues. On the one side, Chief Russian spy Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, and the security forces ("Siloviki"): they're mysterious, they work in the shadows, both figuratively and literally. They bring down oil companies and pull bureaucratic strings. On the other side, the "Civiliki", technocrats and democrats, individuals with civilian backgrounds rather than KGB ones. With them is now-President Dmitry Medvedev. Where Putin's international approach tended to involve death threats and military dick-waving competitions, Medvedev's approach involves sitting down for hamburgers with US President Barack Obama.

I digress. Upon rejoining the above-ground world, I found that the main issue of contention now seems to be the Arctic. Delegations from Russia have been heading down for (ostensibly) any number of reasons, from cartography to science... but the most recent have been accompanied by a sizable and somewhat suspicious military presence.

Arctic spying, of course, is an entirely different kettle of spies: the snow provides camouflage, providing a spy covers his nose when prey is nearby. The winds are bitter and the weather is harsh. The practicalities of Arctic spying can be gruelling.

Above: Arctic Spying at its most intense. An estimate places the density of Russian spies in the Arctic at around 12 per km², far fewer than in warmer climes.

Death Threats

Chief Russian Spy Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has claimed he knows exactly who betrayed his spies in the USA and Cyprus... and has stated that their ends will come "lying in a ditch".

It beggars belief that a head of state can make such bladdy blatant death threats against individuals in other nations. We all remember what happened to former Russian spy Litvinenko, murdered in a British hospital for revealing murderous truths about Putin's conduct.

I await more news on the mysterious, unnamed "traitors" at whom Putin has taken aim. In the meantime, your beloved author will be spending some time hidden away in an underground bunker, on entirely unrelated business.

Ukraine Elects Half-Spy

Literally some people were intently following the recent Ukrainian general election. The disinterested people of the Ukraine were not among them. 

Chief Russian Spy Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, however, was. The political make-up of countries such as the Ukraine and Georgia interest the Russian spy-o-sphere no end. This is perhaps because the Russian three-step plan for world domination is as follows:

Ukraine & Georgia ===> ????? ===> Profit. 

...It is perhaps worrying, therefore, that the overall victor in this election has been Russian spy Viktor Yanukovych. 

The opposing candidate, former PM Yulia Tymoshenko had operated a pro-NATO foreign policy, writing frankly awesome articles about the danger of Russia. She had long been a strong figure of vocal resistance, in a country where people that don't like Russia often get their faces hurt.

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister and Presidential Candidate Yulia Tymoshenko

In the aftermath of the election, many were left wondering how Yanukovych, an individual with convictions for Manslaughter, Robbery and Blatant Russian Stoogery, had managed to obtain the presidency. There were a platitude of reasons offered, including money. 

...The sad truth, of course, is that the average Ukrainian cares not about whether their country is allied with NATO or Mordor. They simply vote according to who's not in power already. As a writer-in-exile in the glorious United Kingdom, I can honestly say I'm glad to live in a country where simplistic voting like THAT doesn't occur!

~~ Ilyich.

Russian Representatives in NATO all Spies.

The Russian delegation in NATO, it has emerged, is staffed almost exclusively by spies. 

The predictable revelation came out after more than a decade of naive trust-- for more than ten years, NATO had been allowing Russian officials to roam free around their headquarters without a leash, just like normal politicians, and trusting them not to spy on anything.

The truth became too blindingly obvious to deny when Russian "officials" were caught hiding their badges and sneaking into meetings reserved for NATO members. Russia is not a NATO member, as Russia is to NATO what Mordor is to the Shire.

Apparently, during the Soviet era, only 27 Russian spies had been arrested for spying in the Brussels NATO HQ. Today, the number of spies infesting NATO is much higher, as Superspy Vladimir Putin has been outdoing his paranoid Soviet predecessors.

 

Missile defence network scrapped; Russian spy business suffers

Russian spies everywhere were left with an identity crisis a few days ago. A lot of soul-searching was required when US President Barack Obama declared he would scrap the European missile defence network in its current form, and come up with an alternative, involving the Russians in a pro-active role.

Needless to say, Chief Russian spy Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was unsure how to react when the US President unpredictably gave him what he wanted. Vladimirovich had been arguing for the defence system to be scrapped for years, citing pathological paranoia as his main reason, but he never expected anyone to listen to him.

Hundreds, perhaps millions of Russian spies had been employed on the case, throughout Europe. Now jobless and hungry, the positive move comes as a huge blow to the now unemployed Russian spy masses. With the necessity for spying plummeting, this will likely be the start of an unemployment crisis in Russia, where 95% of the population get into the spying business.

Spies made redundant in Moscow

One ex-spy told the Weblog; "This is just bloody typical of the American swine. First, they draw up this missile defence system, so we [Russia] have to keep operating this ridiculous spy network to keep an eye on them. Then, as if drawing up the plans wasn't bad enough, they scrap them! I had a job, once- Now I'm redundant, thanks to them. Everyone I know was in the spy business. And everyone they know".

Saakashvili hit by shoe; Pravda orgasms

One of the primary targets of Russian ire these days is Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili. Last August, after all, Saakashvili launched an attack on South Ossetia and Abkhaza, hoping that the Olympics would distract chief Russian spy Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin long enough for him to get away with it.

He didn't get away with it.

Ever since forever, Putin state mouthpiece Pravda has been leading the assault on President Saakashvili. This is why when Saakashvili was hit in the head with a shoe during a visit to the Abkhazan region, Pravda could scarcely hold in it's joy.

It must have seemed like an early Christmas for the newspaper, which is understood to be a venerable warren of Russian spies.

Pravda's Greatest Hits:

"Two Russian nuclear submarines will make the USA shake with fear!"

A rundown of reasons that women become prostitutes; "14% a wish to lead a careless lifestyle, 6% natural predisposition".

"Moscow Gay clubs to be moved to deserted islands"

Identification, Supervision, Understanding

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has this week commemorated his ten years of uninterrupted leadership of the Russian Federation.

Through use of the unfeasibly vast Russian spy network, the Russian PM keeps to this day an eye into every home, every school, and every government in NATO and the wider world: No position is immune from subversion; no NATO top-secret file goes unspied.

Analysts estimate one in every two people in the western world is "most likely a Russian spy", and the Russian PM has been known to read NATO documents even before those who drafted and wrote them.

It is with this background that we today unveil the Russian Spy Watch: the weblog for watching & supervision of global Russian spy activity.

It is my aim to bring wider attention to the global endemic of Russian spy proclivity, an endemic that has revealed such figures as novellist Ernest Hemingway, Queen Elizabeth's art advisor Anthony Blunt, and the Head of the Estonian defence system Hermann Simm to be none other than Russian spies passing NATO secrets to ten-year leader Putin.

Whenever new details emerge regarding the activities of the inconceivably huge Russian spy network, I will be here, watching the watchmen.