US Department of State – an expensive but inept effort

Yesterday, the US Department of State congratulated me on International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace in a personal way – by publishing a detailed paper that was entirely devoted to me!

I believe I am probably the only head of the Foreign Ministry Press Service with a personal page on the websites of two nuclear superpowers – my homeland Russia and now the United States.

Well, so now I will have to do extra work for this guy – Matthew Miller.

In general, owing to the US administration, I replenished my biography by being the first in two more cases – the first Russian diplomat under sanctions and the first Russian diplomat with a personal page on the Department of State website. 

The US foreign policy office has not mastered this new genre for free. The Maria Zakharova profile was compiled by the Global Engagement Centre at the Department of State. Thanks to The New York Times, we know that $120 million were allocated for this, including my profile. I can just hear someone like Navalny bursting into tears in some colony – he couldn’t even imagine that his ideological inspirers could do such a job. 

Now regarding the essence of what was written. 

The US State Department managed to discover America and tell the world about an interesting fact in my biography – believe it or not, I propagandise Russian foreign policy. You will agree – this conclusion is worth $120 million.

The rest is not so great. They mostly published blatant lies.

The Department of State claims that I spread a fake item about Osama Bin Laden’s reception at the White House. This is untrue. Any fake item is deliberate. Speaking on Rossiya Channel 1 on October 30, 2017, I made a mistake by mentioning the photos of Bin Laden and members of the Taliban, but I immediately wrote in my Facebook account about this. I clarified that I had two different historical facts in mind.

The first fact. Ronald Reagan’s meeting with the Mojahedin at the White House (this post was written in 2017 when the US was still fighting the Taliban (that included the Mojahedin) in Afghanistan. The US’s shameful flight took place four years later). Senator Rand Paul, Reagan’s reputable fellow party member admitted that the US was arming Bin Laden for fighting the USSR.

The second fact. Bin Laden’s photo in The Independent under the heading “Anti-Soviet warrior puts his army on the road to peace.”

Based on the most stringent requirements for journalists and officials for spreading false information, I decided not to limit myself to one post and went to the studio of the same programme, “60 Minutes,” and talked about all this on November 9, 2017.

But one fake story was not enough and the Department of State produced another one – I am “threatening” journalists. Do you remember how a Finnish journalist came to the Foreign Ministry with a special mission to find “Chechen gays”? This is about this viral video where I talked to Finnish journalist Erkka Mikkonen who was interested in the fortunes of homosexuals (and came to the Foreign Ministry to find out about it for some reason). I offered him a chance to visit Grozny and even asked Ramzan Kadyrov, head of Chechnya to reply to the reporter’s questions (or send him a “to whom it may concern,” as we say in our system).

Moreover, Mikkonen was getting ready to go when his editorial office, or to be more precise, Elina Ravantti, Head of World News and Current Affairs at Yle, prohibited him from going. But the Department of State maintained modest silence about this – why not lie all the way?

Further on, I’m accused of “lying” about “the Anglo-Saxons needing war at all costs, and their favourite method of resolving their own problems includes provocation, disinformation and threats.” Have the past 18 months refuted at least some of that? Let’s see, the threat of sanctions – yes, provocation – yes, disinformation – yes. We saw all of that in the special military operation zone ranging from sanctions to Western weapons supplies and, of course, an unprecedented media campaign against our country. The fact that the United States needs a war at any cost is backed up... by the State Department and White House officials:

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan (December 16, 2022): “…it’s our job to continue to sustain our military support to Ukraine, so they are in the best possible position… at the negotiating table… That moment is not right now.”

White House National Security Council (NSC) Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council John Kirby (February 17, 2023): “To be completely frank, it [special operation] should not be completed through negotiation.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (April 8, 2023): “For some, the idea of a ceasefire may be tempting... it will not be a just and lasting peace.”

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland (February 17, 2023): “It must end in a strategic defeat for Putin.”

And the delusion does not end here.

This report mentioned Bucha and “forcible deportations” separately. Where are the verified lists of the people who died in Bucha? We have been asking this question for months, but what we get instead of an answer is silence or aggressive mumbling.

With regard to forcible deportations, Russia is not moving anyone out by force. Millions of refugees from Donbass are fleeing from Ukrainian and the West’s bombs and missiles. They are not fleeing to Poland, but to a safe and secure place, Russia. As for the “children issue,” I think the recent Arria-Formula Meeting at the Security Council on this issue could well disavow all accusations. Or, the people behind this opus did not watch it, maybe because their NATO allies blocked the broadcast? It’s all right, I will share the recording, and even in English. And if that is not enough, here's the full video of Maria Lvova-Belova's news conference. Let them take a look.

I’m also accused of broadcasting “disinformation” about nuclear blackmail and radiological weapons (“dirty bombs”), which Ukraine was prepared to detonate on the territory that it mistakenly considers its own. In fact, Vladimir Zelensky is the one who is calling on NATO to fire a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Russia. Here’s the same video from the Ukrainian president’s official YouTube channel. Or, has the State Department blocked itself from YouTube?

As for the dirty bomb, as a reminder, London has confirmed its plan to supply Ukrainian forces with depleted uranium munitions which is a highly toxic weapon that contaminates soil, air and water, and triggers cancer and death among victims of missile and bomb attacks and the attackers as well. I recently posted an extensive report on this subject.

Food crisis. Just yesterday, Sergey Lavrov discussed this with Antonio Guterres, so I won't dwell on this State Department fake claim for too long. Again, Russia is honestly holding to its end of the grain deal at a time when grain and food are not reaching the developing countries (UN statistics), and humanitarian corridors are being used to attack Russian infrastructure. At the same time, Russian fertiliser shipments to global markets, which is vital for continuing agricultural cycles (and which is an integral part of the deal), continues to be blocked by the West.

It’s the West that is provoking global hunger, not Russia.

With regard to differences between the United States and Europe, the State Department made me part of this as well for no particular reason. I don’t have anything to do with it. Washington designed and adopted a discriminatory regime against European internal combustion engines, thus securing a competitive advantage and bringing the entire EU auto industry to its knees and at the mercy of the United States. And while the Europeans basked all winter in a sultry 17-19 degrees Celsius in their homes that suddenly became very expensive, the Americans, it appears, wasted no time cashing in on new contracts for LNG exports to Europe. I won’t even mention the investigations conducted by Seymour Hersh who proved US involvement in the effort to eliminate the remnants of the EU's energy security. What do I have to do with any of that?

The State Department's last grievance with me is that I was awarded the Order of Merit.

We, in Russia, do not have such a state award, “For Merit.” We have an order “For Merit to the Fatherland.” I don't have it. What I have is the Order of Honour.

Truth be told, they could have come up with something more serious for $120 million, or, maybe just wire the money to Zelensky for drugs.

Unfortunately, this shows once again that the motto of American foreign policy is hoaxes, fakes and insults. On top of that, it’s a mediocre job even though done for an inordinate amount of money.

P.S. The State Department website has a section dedicated to former secretaries of state, including Colin Powell, who brought a vial filled with some dry powder to the UN Security Council, allegedly anthrax, urging the international community to go to war with Iraq. The countries did not believe him, and thanks to the principled position and a veto by Russia, China and France, this ungrounded invasion did not receive global approval. But the United States started the war anyway.

The vial incident was described by State Department specialists as follows: it turned out that “some of the intelligence that Powell had brought before the United Nations in 2003 was found to be erroneous.”

Question: when will the State Department call things for what they are and publish a post on its website to the effect that Powell misinformed the international community by dumping the largest fake story in recent history onto the UN platform? Or, does the State Department appreciate me more?