MISSING MAN FORMATION: Last Friday, seven retired four-star officers (six generals and one admiral) posted a letter in Defense One calling on the US and its allies to "dig deeper to get Ukraine what it needs to win and succeed." That is quite a showing of star power. The signatories were said to be every living person who had once served as Supreme Allied Commander Europe — except one. Which got us thinking, which former NATO commander didn't sign? Turns out it was retired General Bantz J. Craddock, U.S. Army (ret) who was SACEUR from 2006 to 2009. We hear there is no indication that General Craddock disagrees with his fellow members of the SACEUR fraternity — it is just that the drafters of the open letter (which was put together on short notice) couldn't find him in time. If you are General Craddock — drop us a line. We'd love to know if you agree with the gang of seven.
ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: Apparently, the life expectancy of Russian troops in Ukraine is only slightly worse than the prospects for Russian oligarchs and former friends of top Russian officials. According to The Mirror a 59-year-old former Russian spy, Viatcheslav Rovneiko, was “found unconscious” at his home in a gated village and died of mysterious causes. He reportedly once worked closely with Sergei Naryshkin, now head of Russia’s SVR and more recently, was close to Gennady Timchenko, one of Putin’s most loyal oligarchs. The news came just a week after an IT specialist at the Russian foreign ministry was found dead after falling from a “low height.” The name of that official has not been confirmed – but The Mirror cites a report saying it was “Mikhail Ukrainets” - whose last name may have sounded too much like “Ukraine” for those in the Foreign Ministry.
WELL-PLACED SOURCES: Voice of America placed two journalists from its Russian-language service on leave last week, while they investigated some interesting complaints from colleagues for possibly serving as the Voice of Russia. According to The Washington Post, the two were hired by VOA in November after working for several years at media outlets controlled by the Russian government or closely allied with it.” That information was apparently included in a letter signed by 15 VOA employees, that showed up in the Kyiv Post. The letter accuses the two reporters of toeing the Kremlin line, spreading misinformation and repeating Moscow’s talking points – while working for VOA. A VOA spokesperson told the Kyiv Post earlier last week, that management had looked into the work of the two reporters but “was satisfied that both can make a strong contribution to the VOA Russian Service and like all other VOA journalists, their work goes through the standard VOA editing processes." A day or two later – all that changed, and they were placed on leave.
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE: Actor Steven Seagal was presented a “friendship award” from Vladimir Putin this week, in recognition of his “humanitarian work.” We are not exactly sure what that work entailed – but Seagal was a cheerleader for Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and more showed up in a video recorded at a Russian-held Ukrainian town where Ukrainian POWs were reportedly killed in shelling that Russia and Ukraine blamed on each other. Doesn’t sound very humanitarian to us.
SPEAKING OF BAD ACTORS: Putin wasn’t just pumping up Steven Seagal this week, he also visited the headquarters of the FSB to: “…thank the leadership and all employees of the agency, especially those who worked on the frontlines: in the liberated territories, in the zone around the frontlines and behind enemy lines.” Putin also lamented the loss of an unspecified number of FSB employees in recent months and urged the organization to re-double its efforts due to the “separatism, nationalism, neo-Nazism and xenophobia … (that) have always been used against our country and now, of course, the attempts to activate all that scum on our land are more active than ever.” Putin will need the FSB to help defend against any elements in Russia who fancy the idea of a change in leadership. He ended his remarks by telling those present that he expected from them “complete dedication, fighting spirit, loyalty to the best traditions of service, which have been tested at the sharpest turns in our history.” We are not sure what the “best traditions” of the FSB are – but we have some ideas about the worst.
SPEAKING OF XENOPHOBIA AND NATIONALISM: Russia Media Monitor Julia Davis did her usual fine job of pointing out wacky stuff appearing on Russian State TV this week. This time it was a clip from a docuseries about Margarita Simonyan, the head of the Russian media service RT. Simonyan is seen on screen saying that at one time, “they” tried to turn her into an agent of influence like Navalny and they wasted a ton of money doing so. She was quoted as saying, “The American Dream turned out to be like bubble gum, the bright wrapper got crumbled up, the taste disappeared, only tasteless resin remained.” We are guessing that made more sense in the original Russian. Simonyan spent time in the US when she was a teenager and describes it as an “untruthful” country and very uneducated. Apparently, the Americans she met did not make a good impression since she described them as “hypocritical, deceitful, disgusting creatures.”
SY LIED? Remember in last week’s Dead Drop when we reported about controversial investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, who had given an interview to the Kremlin’s RT news outlet about his theory that the CIA and the U.S. Navy blew up the Nord Stream pipeline? Well, one reporter said he had just spoken with Hersh, who insisted he had not spoken with “a single one” Russian reporter. Russian Media Monitor Julia Davis posted a screen shot of Hersh doing so, however. Maybe Sy meant that all of the Russian reporters he spoke with were married and not single.
NEW ARNOLD SERIES IS “FUBAR”: The Dead Drop has told you in the past about a new forthcoming Netflix series starring Arnold Schwarzenegger about a father and daughter that learn that they each have been secretly working for the CIA for years. The eight-part Netflix series has been unnamed for quite a while – but now word is out that the title is “FUBAR.” No, really. That’s the title. It is supposed to start streaming on May 25th and appears to be played at least as much for laughs as action. Here’s a link to a very short trailer.
FLAG FOOTBALL: If you have watched any major American sporting event in recent years, you have likely seen giant American flags brought onto the field in pre-game ceremonies. Old Glory held taut by a large contingent of personnel – sometimes military, sometimes first responders. Well now, the Pentagon has sent a note to the military services standing up against unfurling horizontal flags. Spies tell us that the memo reads, “While many, including military members, view these displays as inspiring and patriotic, uniformed service members may not participate directly in the unfurling, holding and/or carrying of giant, horizontal US flags that are displayed during community outreach events.” DOD parachute teams have also been instructed not to use the flag in their jumps "if the flag cannot be caught reliably and handled respectfully by ground personnel during landings.”
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
STUDYING THE SLOSH MARKET: For a moment, we thought that April Fool’s came a month early. But unless they are kidding us, the folks at Military.com have uncovered a decade-old Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) study looking into why coffee spills when you walk with it. According to an abstract produced by the American Physical Society “The studied problem represents an example of the interplay between the complex motion of a cup, due to the biomechanics of a walking individual, and the low-viscosity-liquid dynamics in it.” It only cost the taxpayers $170,000 (in 2012 money) to learn that it spills because you are walking too fast or using too small a cup. We imagine there is probably a classified DARPA study on why beer spills, but we haven’t uncovered it yet.
C’MON, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO SPILL: So, send your news tips to us and leave your mark on some upcoming Dead Drop. Send them to: TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com
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