Question of the day - to Maria Zakharova: why would the Pentagon interfere in the Russian elections?

As you know, the speaker of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova made a scandalous, albeit much anticipated statement that the developers of the Smart Voting project are “in one way or another” connected with the Pentagon. RIA Novosti quoted her as saying:

“ Roskomnadzor has established IP addresses. It was found that the servers and technical support for that very application "Smart Voting" mainly come from the United States, "- said a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The diplomat added that the United States is "the largest territorial group from which attempts to bypass the locks" of the application come from..."

Earlier, the chairman of the Federation Council commission on counteracting interference in the internal affairs of Russia, Andrei Klimov, said that the testers of Smart Voting were linked by the former director of FBK (an organization recognized as illegal in the Russian Federation) Roman Rubanov, whose new employer allegedly collaborates with the Pentagon.

These statements have not gone unnoticed on social media.

Political scientist Abbas Gallyamov asked the question: what percentage of Russians will believe Zakharova's words?

“Here you can recall the study conducted by the Levada Center (an organization that performs the functions of a foreign agent in the Russian Federation) in August 2019. Sociologists then interviewed residents of the country about their attitude to the protests associated with the elections to the Moscow City Duma. Among other things, the following question was asked: "How likely is it that the protests in Moscow took place as a result of Western intervention?"

The option "Western intervention is one of the main reasons for the protest actions" was chosen by only 26 percent of the respondents. Exactly the same number of people agreed that "even if there were attempts to interfere, it is unlikely that it affected anything." But 32 percent of Russians said that there was no Western interference in these events, and in general all these conversations are just an attempt to slander the protesters.

So, then 26 percent of the country's residents believed in the version of the authorities. I don’t think their number has increased since then. Quite the opposite.

By the way, it is worth noting that this figure coincides with the number of voters intending to vote for United Russia. These are the same people. For them, Zakharova tries, spitting on the fact that the others do not believe her.

The authorities are now working to maintain their own base. Expansion - about finding arguments that would allow them to reach other groups of the population - is out of the question. This is a purely defensive tactic.

This is precisely the main characteristic of the current political stage. The regime - for all that it tries very hard to look strong and aggressive - in an ideological sense is waging defensive battles. He does not come, but moves back. Of course, there is no need to talk about flight, but there is no talk of meaningful counterattacks either ... "

Publicist Anatoly Nesmiyan is seriously surprised that someone can seriously decide to interfere in the Russian elections, this activity is so senseless:

“Interfering in the Russian elections is a meaningless activity in essence and in content. If only because nothing at all depends on them. The process has been brought to such a level that, firstly, the list of admitted candidates can be characterized by one phrase "each other is disgusting", and secondly, people's opinion has long turned into a purely advisory one. The result that will be announced has nothing to do with the actual results of any voting. The mathematical results published after each vote convincingly show that "anomalous" (that is, literally falsified) votes are measured in tens of millions. In such conditions, trying to influence them from the outside is simply useless from the point of view of any rational logic. And why? What is the Russian Duma, why should you be so worried about it? All the more so for the Pentagon. I would understand if the US Department of Health followed the Russian elections (by the way, is there such a thing?) - just to estimate the number of violent and quiet people who went to the Russian government. Why does the Pentagon need all this?

But the Russian authorities no longer go into these details. There is a setting - to sit in a besieged fortress. And if there is no siege, hordes of enemies are not visible under the walls, then you need to at least talk about the fact that they are actually available. Only they are not visible.

Russia in its degradation has gone so far that today we are at the level of the second or even the third echelon. And not global, but regional politics. At the global level, the Kremlin is no longer a player, but you want to ... Therefore, you have to invent different fascinating stories that are interesting only to itself..."