The Children of Russia Are in Danger!

Elite opinion and foreign policy in post-communist Russia

“…All kinds of elements came together in this apocalyptic vision: Oligarchs like Berezovsky and Khodorkovsky, the 'traitor' Gorbachev and the Yeltsin 'family', the subversives who had engineered the 'quiet' state coups in Ukraine and elsewhere in the post-Soviet region, and the international agencies that had paid for their efforts (see for instance Illarionov, 2006). Wilder versions of this conspiracy theory assigned a role to Freemasons, the Jews, the Illuminati and almost anyone else (see for instance Medvedeva & Shishova, 2006). Although these views were on the margin of the political spectrum, they had something in common with a perception that was evidently well entrenched within the Kremlin itself, in terms of which a co-ordinated attempt was being made Germans, Islamic fundamentalists and Chinese expansionists to break up the Russian state and annex parts of its periphery (Light & White, 2001).…”