Macedonia is increasingly a destination for political strategists of the Kremlin, ideologues of Russian exceptionalism and Moscow's Orthodox mission in the Slavic world and Eurasia, the Voice of America (VOA) reports today.
Under the title "Disinformation Analysis: Will Macedonia Become a Russian Satellite", VOA states that, as in Ukraine, Russian information war strategists are identifying existing weak points in the targeted country and presenting them in a way that promotes Moscow's interests.
In Macedonia, Kremlin strategists highlight in their publications existing ethnic and political issues that include the Albanian minority, but also issues that accompany Macedonia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations, according to the text originally published on the fact-checking website, a joint project of Voice of America and Radio Free Europe (www.polygraph.info).
According to the Voice of America Macedonian service, the key strategist in the Russian information war in Macedonia is Leonid Savin, who at the end of May trained 50 members of "United Macedonia", an ultra-right party that opposes the name change of Macedonia and sees the country's path towards NATO and the EU as the end of Macedonian statehood. and independence.
The text states that Savin is the "commissioner of the Eurasian Youth Union", the wing of the Russian ultra-nationalist Eurasian Union, a movement created by Alexander Dugin and his ideological collaborators, and that one part of the union's platform called "Our Enemy" is entirely dedicated to the US.
That section ends with a paragraph that reads: "Our Union has an absolute enemy. It is the USA. It is the alpha and omega of our hatred," reports VOA.
In addition to his closeness to Alexander Dugin, Savin's other connections further identify him as a key figure in the Kremlin's expansionist policy. Savin is listed as the editor-in-chief of two agencies, Katehon and Geopolitika, and as a regular contributor to the state Fund for Strategic Culture.
Katehon is a website founded and funded by Konstantin Malofeyev, a Russian multimillionaire, who is under US sanctions for his logistical, financial, ideological and material support for Russian operations in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine, however, is only a small part of Malofeyev's geopolitical interests. An investigation by the German weekly Die Zeit in 2015 revealed the connections that Malofeyev and Dugin had with leading Greek politicians, and the whole trail eventually leads all the way to the president of Russia.
Malofejev, Dugin and others allegedly participated in the attempted coup in Montenegro in 2016, as well as several other secret Russian operations in the Balkans, the analysis adds.
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