Worse than bots and trolls; the rise of Euro-Putinism; Russia’s unnoticed war on the West, and more

The rise of Euro-Putinism(Bret Stephens, New York Times)
Vladimir Putin will be re-elected to a fourth presidential term in Sunday’s sham ballot. The larger question is what other elections can Putin win in the coming years. He’s on a roll. … The big winners in Italy’s election this month … are highly sympathetic to Putin. Austria’s young new chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, governs in coalition with the far-right Freedom Party, which in 2016 signed a contract with Putin’s puppet political party, United Russia … . German elections in September saw gains for the far-left Left Party and the far-right Alternative for Germany. Both are popular with pro-Putin voters. The list continues … . The deeper reason Putin seduces is that he believes in the principle of power. … The uses of his power are mainly wicked. But wickedness, at least, is a quality, particularly when it is wedded to political efficacy, personal forcefulness and the appearance of great cunning. Compare that to the last decade or so of European leaders … . What did any of them stand for? What in their personalities was anything other than feckless and pallid? Who among them would pull a trigger for their country’s preservation—or even for their own? … Vladimir Putin is a criminal president who poses a clear and present danger to democratic society. But … he’s exciting in the way of a tiger pouncing on prey. So long as he’s allowed to pounce he’ll continue to win new admirers and future elections, not just his own.”

Leaked docs show UK long worried about Russian nerve agent (Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy)

Once-secret U.S. government documents show that Western powers have quietly worried for more than a decade about the mysterious and deadly nerve agent Novichok, which British investigators now believe was used in the attempted assassination of a former Russian spy living in Great Britain.

The nerve agent poisoning in England was a message to the rest of the world(Rachel Becker, The Verge)
‘You won’t be safe anywhere, even if you’re in Britain’

Russia has a long history of eliminating ‘enemies of the state’(Calder Walton, Washington Post)
The military-grade chemical attack on Skripal, which left hundreds of people in Salisbury exposed, has a depressing familiarity — in 2006, a dissident former Russian intelligence officer, Alexander Litvinenko, died after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium in a London hotel. A British government inquiry into Litvinenko’s death concluded that it was a “probably” a hit job carried out by Russia’s FSB security service, with the approval of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Boris Johnson: Britain needs its allies to stand with us against Russia(Boris Johnson, Washington Post)
If the Russian state is prepared to deploy a banned weapon in a British city—amounting to the unlawful use of force against the United Kingdom—then the Kremlin is clearly willing to act without restraint. … I interpret this incident as part of a pattern of reckless behavior by President Vladimir Putin. The common thread that joins the poisonings in Salisbury with the annexation of Crimea, the cyberattacks in Ukraine, the hacking of Germany’s Parliament and Russian interference in foreign elections is the Kremlin’s reckless defiance of essential international rules. Most tellingly of all, Russia has made immense efforts to conceal the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime in Syria. … In its blatant Russian-ness, the nerve agent [Novichok] sends a signal to all who may be thinking of dissent in the intensifying repression of Putin’s Russia. The message is clear: We will find you, we will catch you, we will kill you—and though we will deny it with lip-curling scorn, the world will know beyond doubt that Russia did it. … All responsible nations share an obligation to take a principled stance against this behavior.

Putin has finally gone too far(David Ignatius, Washington Post)
Putin’s aggressive use of covert action to settle scores hit an international tripwire after the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter … .  So how can the United States and its closest allies alter Putin’s behavior, if they’re truly serious about holding Russia to account? The answer … is to use America’s network of alliances to put Russia under strain. Putin has been playing a weak hand well, but the high cards remain in Western hands. Russia’s greatest vulnerability is its dependence on sales of oil and gas. Here, the United States is uniquely positioned for payback. … Russia’s outrageous behavior in Syria should be on the table, too. … Russia has been getting a pass for the Syria carnage, thanks partly to its manipulation of Turkey and its quiet liaison with Israel. … If the United States is serious about altering Russian behavior, it must organize a new coalition of the willing. For NATO allies and Israel, participation should be mandatory. … By his reckless actions, Putin has sharply raised the price of his admission to the club he needs to join if his dreams of a revived Russia aren’t come crashing down around him.

Russian hackers target European agency with updated DealersChoice Adobe Flash exploit tool(Bradley Barth, SC)
The aggressive Russian APT group Sofacy targeted yet another European government agency earlier this month, attempting to infect the organization with unknown malware using a crafty new variant of its Adobe Flash-based exploit platform DealersChoice.

Allies “entering a new world” in confronting Russia, U.K. official says(Paul McLeary, Breaking Defense)
A British defense official talks about an age of competition among great powers, putting the Ministry of Defense on the same page as its Pentagon colleagues

Five myths about espionage(Mark Kramer, Washington Post)
The poisoning of former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter in southern England, most likely by Russian intelligence agents, highlights the role of espionage in Russia’s relations with the West. Skripal had been a double agent for the British from the 1990s until he was arrested by Russian security forces in 2004. Britain got him back in a spy swap in 2010. Espionage often generates misconceptions — by virtue of its secrecy.