Letter to editor of The Citizen

Having read the recent article by Martin Williams, some may definitely think that Russia’s President V.Putin can’t wait to ‘weaken democracy’ abroad or has no other things to do except for ‘interfering in elections’ somewhere. Especially when he/she already heard lots of ‘boogeyman stories’ about V.Putin from the Western mainstream media.

Yet, people who at least minimally follow global political agenda know that the Russian President is one of the world’s most influential politicians and popular leaders, who enjoys strong support in his home country first of all. In fact, there are lots of people outside Russia, including in South Africa, who sympathize with him, consider him the best state leader of our times and credit him with strengthening the national sovereignty of Russia, improved living conditions etc.

So maybe the party Mr. Williams tries to associate with the Russian leader will some day thank Mr. Williams for the political advert? Who knows.

Getting to the author’s obsession with a fabulous ‘Kremlin/Putin hand’ – the exact quote of his fellow party member was ‘Without doubt and without leaving any evidence, Russian intelligence is working to influence the outcome of the May 29 elections in SA.’ We would ask – if there’s no evidence then how could Mr. Bruce know that? But the answer is obvious.

Funny, this is reminiscent of an episode from a popular Russian comedy from early 1990s:

- Can you see the marmot?

- No.

- Me neither. But it is there!