Russia and Foggy Albion

 Hi All,

[Note :  "Foggy Albion" is the name, used in an endering way, by Russian Anglophiles to describe Great Britain].

If you were Russian and watching their state TV (the propaganda arm of the Kremlin) you would think that Britain and not America was the world's super power in that it is Britain who is often cast as the primary enemy of Russia. It is the UK that is seen as being behind various plots to stop Russia in Ukraine, be it Nordstream, the blowing up of the Crimea Bridge or anything else that goes wrong for Russia, it is MI6  and not the CIA that's cast as the villian.  There are frequent calls by nationalist pundits on mainstream media outlets (the analogue of the BBC or CNN) for Britain to be nuked or attacked in one way or the other be it via arming the IRA or killing Rishi Sunak.  In fact one Duma member and Putin crony went so far as to say that London would be nuked before Warsaw or New York.

While it is true that London has been called 'Londongrad' because of the Russian billionaire 'oligarchs' (the nationalist complain that this money should flow back to Russia) and it is also true that Britain is the second largest contributor to the Ukraine war, matters lie deeper than this.

For a start there is a strand among the  Russian elite that is  Anglophile . In St Petersberg- where Putin actually comes from-  there is a place called the English Embankment, which is similar to Knightsbridge or Chelsea in London in so much as it is a posh well to do area. It is called the English Embankment as from  the 18th century it was where the British had their Embassay and incidentally built an Anglican Church, which apparently has the only English pipe organ in the Russia, but also the home of the Russian elites.

On another note Sherlock Holmes is extremly popular in Russia, the most well known series starred Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin, as Sherlock and Watson between 1979-1986 although there have also been modern versions of Sherlock in Russia, which is- if you can understand Russian- more entertaining than 'Dr Strange' and the Hobit version we were subjected to via the BBC.

The Anglophia I think stems from the fact that Putin and his Junta are all Siloviki, that is a cabal of former KGB Officers who have controlled Russia for the past 20 years and of course the KGB's number one enemy was MI6. Unlike Britain, Russia has not adopted well to the decline of position from Super Power to a Great or regional power. As far back as 2013 Mendev was calling the UK an 'irrelvence' in global terms. Today that has changed to a chorous of nationalists hating Britain. I think Russia was taken aback by the fact that post Brexit, the British stuck to NATO and the response to the invasion of Ukraine  and that Britain does still have strengths in the intelligence sphere.

The other unfortunate lie that is never really challenged is the idea that post cold war Russia was stripped bare by the first lot of oligarchs (the ones who fled to London post Yeltsin) and that good olde Vlad took over as a nationalist to save Russia from these locusts. In fact Putin and his cronies have made personal gains from ruling Russia in the same way as every other Russian leader has. Look at the Russian army's failures in Ukraine. Stripping tanks for petrol and selling it off, replacing armour on tanks for cheap cardboard and the same for body armour, tampons for bandages etc. What this shows you is that the system is corrupt and people from the top downward have been on a gravy train for years. These problems did not surface (well they did in terms of the Kuznetsov) in the Syrian campaign because this was the Russia way in war : carpet bomb whole cities until they died or starved, not worrying about civilian casulties and droping cheap and non 'smart' weapons in densely populated areas, including hospitals. 

Oh to get back to the times of Foggy Albion!