According to the press release, Putin "thanked" Trump for the information provided to the Russian intelligence agencies by the CIA which "was enough to locate and detain" the individuals who planned to commit terrorist acts in several well-known public places in St. Petersburg, including the Kazan Cathedral.[i] Putin asked Trump to "convey his appreciation" to the CIA director (who was, interestingly, not named) and the CIA operatives involved in the intelligence sharing. Last, but not least, Putin "assured" Trump that the Russian intelligence agencies would return the favor, if they ever came into possession of the information of similar importance for the U.S. national security.
Soon after the Kremlin's press release, there was a press release from the White House. The White House release essentially repeated what was already stated by the Kremlin. However, it included a sentence which, in my opinion, is very significant for understanding Putin's action. "Both leaders agreed that this serves as an example of the positive things that can occur when countries work together." The press release also stated that Trump called the CIA director Mike Pompeo "to congratulate him, his very talented people, and the entire intelligence community on a job well done!"[ii]
On the surface, this may appear paradoxical. Mike Pompeo, who uses every public speaking opportunity to bash Putin and the Russian government, has now found himself in the position of publicly receiving their gratitude. However, as I see it, this is a very sophisticated psychological technique deployed by Putin. The opponent is openly and publicly praised for his honorable deeds (especially he does not deserve it) in order to set a reputational standard for his future behavior. Indeed, this may also be an indirect confirmation of the rumor that Pompeo will soon be leaving the position of the CIA director to replace Rex Tillerson as the head of the State Department.[iii]
There are other reasons why I believe that this whole thing was a well-staged performance on the part of Putin which Trump thought would be politically beneficial for his political agenda as well. In my opinion, Putin and Trump agreed to go ahead with it during their earlier phone conversation, which took place in the early hours of December 15 Moscow time. While the official Kremlin stated that this conversation took place "at the initiative of the American side" and various bilateral issues were discussed,[iv] the official White House added that Trump "thanked president Putin for acknowledging America's strong economic performance during his annual press conference."[v]
However, I believe that one of the issues under discussion was also the arrest of seven alleged members of the ISIS-linked terrorist cell in St. Petersburg which took place in the middle of the week. In my opinion, it was then decided that this arrest would be used as a key PR example highlighting the significance of the U.S.-Russia cooperation in combatting what Putin calls "international terrorism" and Trump calls "radical Islamic terrorism."
The Changing Narrative
The FSB, the Russian domestic intelligence agency, informed the public about the arrests via a press release on its official website on December 15. However, this release, together with the earlier one published on December 12, regarding the arrest of three suspected ISIS-linked terrorists in the Moscow region, both of which I had read on December 17, can no longer be found on the FSB site. I was only able to locate the December 12 release using the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, because the FSB site was last saved by the Wayback Machine on December 14.[vi]
Why would the FSB remove these press releases from its official website? Was there something in these press releases that hinted at the sources and methods used by the CIA? Or perhaps there was a hint at the possibility that the CIA was not involved at all and that the story about the CIA's assistance was fabricated later?
The arrests were widely reported in the Russian media, including Sputnik International, but, unfortunately, without any specifics about the weapons and types of explosives found which are typically included in the official FSB press releases.[vii] No initial news report mentioned anything about the CIA involvement or assistance.
In fact, the popular semi-tabloid daily newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda reported a radically different version of the events. According to the article published on December 19, two days after Putin thanked the CIA, it was not the CIA information that led to the arrests.[viii] According to the article, the owner of the garage rented to one of the suspects found some suspicious boxes and liquids in the garage by accident and notified the police.
The article also provides the full names of five suspects, most of whom come either from the Russian Caucasus republics (Dagestan, Ingushetia) and the former Soviet Central Asian republics (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan). While the article clearly states that seven arrests were made, why were only five names revealed? Were the other two perhaps double agents? And if the FSB had double agents within an alleged ISIS-terrorist cell, why would it need the help of the CIA? This may be another sign that the whole story of the CIA assistance was made up to shape the Russian and U.S. public opinion.
Interestingly, this article is flanked by two articles describing the Putin-Trump phone conversations which clearly refer to Putin's gratitude to the CIA. One of these articles quotes Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesperson, as saying that while he obviously could not say anything on behalf of the CIA, this intelligence exchange was the first example of the effective Russia-U.S. collaboration in combatting international terrorism.[ix] According to Peskov, it represented "the standard" which should give "the orientation" to all future Russia-U.S. activities. Once again, the public benefits of the Russia-U.S. cooperation instead of confrontation were emphasized.
Peskov ignored the journalist question as to how the CIA knew what was going on in St. Petersburg. In fact, as I see it, the key question for Peskov to answer would be what kind of light all this sheds on the quality and readiness of the Russian intelligence community, if it depends on the CIA to inform it on the alleged terror plot in the Russian second largest city, former imperial capital, and Putin's hometown. Obviously, the consideration of this very negative aspect of the whole situation could hardly escape Putin, but he still consciously decided to go ahead and put Russia in an openly weaker position vis-à-vis the U.S. There is no other way to explain this than to assume that Putin expected to attain some more important goal.
In my opinion, it is significant to note that the meeting of the Russian National Security Council chaired by Putin took place on December 15, that is to say, between the two phone conversations with Trump. My guess is that it was during this meeting that Putin informed the top leadership (including the FSB director Alexander Bortnikov) of what he planned to do. This then led to re-shaping the public narrative and the disappearance of the two press releases from the FSB official website.
Another sign that this may have been the case is that there is not a single mention of the CIA assistance in the extensive three-page interview given to the Russian government-owned daily newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta by Bortnikov and published on December 20. While one of the questions explicitly mentioned the cooperation with the CIA, Bortnikov remained at the level of vague generalities, talking about the cooperation via the United Nations Office of Counterterrorism. Why did he not mention something that just happened and that is still very much present in the public consciousness? In my opinion, this means that the narrative about the gratefulness to the CIA is something that only Putin is authorized to deploy.
While the CIA (predictably) declined to comment, in his December 18 address on the new U.S. national security strategy, Trump echoed the ideas expressed by Peskov. Trump stated that though Russia and China were "rival powers that seek to challenge American influence, values, and wealth, we will attempt to build a great partnership with those and other countries."[x] As a way of example, he mentioned the intelligence passed on by the CIA to the Russian government on the alleged St. Petersburg terrorist plot. Trump added that "that's a great thing, and that's the way it is supposed to work. That is the way it is supposed to work."
Note that Trump repeated the latter sentence twice. This was not the case with any other sentence during the speech. This points to the political significance Trump wanted to give to the whole narrative of the U.S. having the upper hand in the U.S.-Russia cooperation. I have no doubt that we will see this narrative repeated many times over in the coming weeks and months by the Trump administration officials.
Another Interpretation
However, there may be another, admittedly more speculative, interpretation of Putin's sudden "appreciation" for the work of the CIA. It is important to keep in mind that Putin is now a presidential candidate and that he knows that he faces a hardline opposition from the Western political and media establishments, including the Western intelligence community. He is seen by these forces as the greatest threat to neoliberal globalism since Josef Stalin and they have demonstrated that they will spare no money and effort to bring him down and set Russia on the dependent path of a client state once again (the way it was under the president Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s).
There is no doubt that the CIA represents one of the most forward players in this geopolitical offensive against Putin personally and against Putin's Russia-first foreign policy. So, by thanking the CIA openly, Putin may also be sending it a veiled warning: "I know what you are doing and what you are planning to do. We can play it nice and cooperate and I am willing to play that game. But, should you decide to reject my gesture of goodwill, beware of the consequences. I know how to play tough as well."
The last part of the December 17 Kremlin press release can also be seen in this light. The Russian government promised to share any intelligence they collected on potential terror attacks against the U.S. and its citizens and business interests. But if the CIA nonetheless strikes against Putin on the eve of the presidential election, why would he follow through with the promise?
Therefore, while Putin's grateful attitude toward the CIA (based on evidently fabricated grounds) can be seen as the joint PR effort with Trump to improve the relations between Russia and the U.S., in my opinion, it is also an element in the Russian strategy to give one more chance to the U.S. intelligence community to stop its efforts of subverting the Putin administration. Perhaps it is the last time that the hawks in Putin's circle listened to the doves. It would be foolish to think that the Russian intelligence community is as weak as this episode seems to make it in the eyes of the international community.
# # # #
Filip Kovacevic, Newsbud Analyst & Commentator, is a geopolitical author, university professor and the chairman of the Movement for Neutrality of Montenegro. He received his BA and PhD in political science in the US and was a visiting professor at St. Petersburg State University in Russia for two years. He is the author of seven books, dozens of academic articles & conference presentations and hundreds of newspaper columns and media commentaries. He has been invited to lecture throughout the EU, Balkans, ex-USSR and the US. He currently resides in San Francisco. He can be contacted at fk1917@yahoo.com
NOTES
[i] "Telephone Conversation with US President Donald Trump," The Kremlin, December 17, 2017, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/56398. When I taught at a university in St. Petersburg, I lived near the Kazan cathedral and frequently visited it. It is always overflowing with the local faithful and the tourists.
[ii] Readout of President Donald J. Trump's Call with President Vladimir Putin," The White House, December 17, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/readout-president-donald-j-trumps-call-president-vladimir-putin/. The exclamation sign at the end of the sentence is found in the original release.
[iii] Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker, and Anne Gearan, "White House Readies Plan to Replace Tillerson with Pompeo, install Cotton at CIA," November 30, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/11/30/white-house-readies-plan-to-replace-tillerson-with-pompeo-install-cotton-at-cia/?utm_term=.4d5e470c2780.
[iv] "Telephone Conversation with US President Donald Trump," The Kremlin, December 15, 2017, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/56382.
[v] Readout of President Donald J. Trump's Call with President Vladimir Putin," The White House, December 14, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/readout-president-donald-j-trumps-call-president-vladimir-putin-russia/.
[vi]"Федеральной службой безопасности Российской Федерации пресечена деятельность глубоко законспирированной террористической группы международной террористической организации 'Исламское государство,'" Internet Archives WaybackMachine, December 12, 2017,
https://web.archive.org/web/20171212194216/http://www.fsb.ru/fsb/press/message/single.htm!id=10438226@fsbMessage.html.
[vii] "Russia's FSB Detains Daesh Sympathizers Who Planned Terror Attacks in St. Pete," Sputnik International, December 15, 2017, https://sputniknews.com/russia/201712151060026319-fsb-daesh-russia-st-pete/.
[viii] Elena Molchanova and Maksim Syu. "'Хороший улыбчивый парень' готовил теракт в Петере," Komsomolskaya Pravda, December 19, 2017, page 2.
[ix] "ЦРУ молчит, но Дональд их поздравил," Komsomolskaya Pravda, December 19, 2017, page 2.
[x] "Remarks by President Trump on the Administration's National Security Strategy," The White House, December 18, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-administrations-national-security-strategy/.
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