- This really is rock bottom.
That phrase keeps running through my head as I read Meduza’s investigation, which finally tracked down the “foreign sponsor of ACF.”
The mysterious Spaniard who somehow managed to send us a ruble-denominated transfer to a blocked account, which instantly got us labeled “foreign agents.”
Here he is:
I mean, it was obvious from the start: a provocation.
But since it was also clear that this was a provocation approved at the highest levels of the Kremlin, with the Investigative Committee, the courts, and the Justice Ministry all working in sync, you would have expected something more sophisticated.
I assumed this Monda Cardenas would never be found at all. Some crafty guy with fake documents.
Or the opposite: someone whose Facebook feed, going back two years, is packed with our videos. (That’s roughly how our planned designation as “foreign agents” was described in the hacked emails of Kremlin political strategist Kostin.)
But instead it’s just some boxer who was taught to say, “Yes, I sent it myself,” and beyond that he knows nothing. Not my name or what I look like. Not the name of the organization he supposedly sent the money to. Not where he got the bank details.
- Who do you know in Russia? they ask the “Spanish sponsor of ACF.”
- A few girls living in Spain, the sponsor replies.
Just marvelous.
A brilliant scheme dreamed up by Kiriyenko and approved by Putin. It’s supposed to make you stop supporting us and, in particular, stop sending us money.
You know what I’m waiting for? For it to turn out that this hellish scheme against ACF also involved a Russian intelligence station in Spain. Why not? Judging by Chepiga and the “Salisbury cathedral spire” (a reference to the suspects in the Skripal poisoning case), that’s about the level of planning we’re dealing with. And now Spanish journalists will expose them.
It’s some kind of rock bottom. Just rock bottom. Small-time but vicious crooks have seized power in the country and wrecked everything to hell.
Thanks to Meduza. There is now no room for even the slightest doubt that ACF’s designation as a foreign agent was not caused by some well-meaning but clumsy actions of a foreigner sympathetic to ACF.
The words “all right, proceed with this plan” were spoken by Putin personally.
Unfortunately, the cost of our work is going up right now. There are a lot of expenses (smiley). So please support us.
And if you know anything about how the scheme to have ACF designated a foreign agent was organized, write to us via Black Box (it’s completely anonymous there).