By: Gašper Blažič
Robert Hanssen. Most readers are probably unfamiliar with this name. He is a long-time FBI agent who was arrested on February 18th, 2001. And the reason? For fifteen years he worked for the Soviet Union (and later for the Russian Federation) without his employers noticing. He seemed like a calm family man, a father of six and a devout Christian. Therefore, until 2000, no one paid attention to him, despite one of Hanssen’s first major betrayals was the revelation that Soviet Major General Dmitry Polyakov, who held a high position in the hierarchy of Russia’s GRU intelligence service, was in fact a double agent working for both the CIA and the FBI. Due to his very high rank, Polyakov was one of the most important Soviet sources of American intelligence, Siol.net wrote last year.
Hanssen was arrested just after handing over an envelope with strictly confidential information, with which he received one and a half million dollars from the Soviets in his career of double espionage – including in diamonds. As he himself said, he did not betray because of ideological or political issues, but solely because of money. Or, as the famous Don Corleone would say, “Nothing personal, just business.” Grabbing property at the expense of American security did not pay off for him, as he was sentenced to fifteen life sentences without the possibility of early release. And without much fuss – even though relations between Russia and the United States were rather cold at the time. A month before Hanssen’s arrest, George W. Bush officially took over the leadership of the Western superpower, almost on the tenth anniversary of Operation Desert Storm, launched by his father and US President George Bush senior. This was a time when the Soviet Union still existed, but, like Yugoslavia, it was crumbling like a house of cards.
Nevertheless, Bush Jr. arranged for a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, who had taken over from Boris Yeltsin only a year earlier, soon after his inauguration. They chose Slovenia for the meeting, specifically Brdo pri Kranju, the former residence of the Karađorđević family and later Josip Broz Tito. The American-Russian summit was of a more informative nature and did not leave behind such ground-breaking events as the meeting between Bush Senior and Mikhail Gorbachev in Malta in December 1989 – more concrete talks did not take place until November of the same year when Putin visited Washington. At that time, the leaders of the two countries were already exchanging views on reducing the nuclear arsenal in both armies. However, their study visit was a nice gift to Slovenia on the tenth anniversary of independence – the event itself, which was honoured with a performance in the style of the legendary Grohar’s work “Sower”, the leaders of the two empires did not attend, but was attended by then German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, otherwise a Social Democrat. At that time, Slovenia was still a typical transition country, desperate for international promotions – the president of the republic at the time was Milan Kučan, and the government was headed by Dr Janez Drnovšek, who did not end his term due to the “jump” to Kučan’s chair, but left the reins to Anton Rop, otherwise the bankruptcy trustee of the “big” LDS.
When Vladimir Putin visited Slovenia for the second time fifteen years later, the situation was already somewhat different, but still typically transitional. It was the middle of summer, and the reason for the visit was to mark the centenary of the Russian Chapel in Vršič in memory of the fallen prisoners of war from tsarist Russia. We can say that the entire political top at the time was hanging around Putin: The President of the Republic Borut Pahor, the Prime Minister Dr Miro Cerar, President of the National Assembly Dr Milan Brglez, pro-Russian Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec, members of the transition elite led by Milan Kučan and many businessmen. Although there were many Russians and those who understood Russian there as well, it seemed that everyone who was important in Slovenia tried to get as close as possible to the “Prince from Kremlin”, to whom Klemen Slakonja dedicated the satirical song “Put in, put out” that year. Only the opposition at the time was understandably restrained, as it was known that the bearers of revolutionary traditions were very fond of visiting Moscow, where practically all the main architects of the Leninist revolution in Slovenia studied. Of course, there were protests during Putin’s visit, which were attended also by Ukrainians living in Slovenia.
In a conversation with Pahor, Putin griped a bit about the decline in trade between the EU and Russia, but the official address at the Russian Chapel passed without any concrete political messages. One could say that the Russian oligarch was not concrete at all in his expression, but nevertheless reconcilable. He received the loudest applause when he announced the unveiling of the monument in Žale: “The monument will represent our common position on the inadmissibility of attempts to falsify or rewrite history, to justify crimes that have killed millions of innocent people.” He thanked for the applause with a quiet “thank you”. The message was rather ambiguous, but since it is known from what the Kremlin ruler is made of, it was clear in which direction he was aiming. Either way, Putin missed the event, which was otherwise his characteristic, as he even left Pope Francis waiting. As if to say that one day he will show how he missed – history…
More than five years after his spectacular visit to Vršič, where he should have admitted that Ukrainians were among the dead prisoners of war, Putin’s “message of peace” was finally lost in the fog of deception. The Kremlin ruler set out in a direction he criticised in Vršič – he himself began to commit crimes that require the death of innocent people. At the same time, Slovenia is lucky that two years ago Marjan Šarec threw in the towel, because if he and Karl Erjavec were still shaping foreign policy today, our country would certainly act as a typical ally of Moscow within the EU. After all, this was also shown by the scandalous visit of prosecutor Drago Šketa in January this year in Moscow, when no one expected aggression against Ukraine. During the Russian attack on Ukraine, many people probably remembered the events of thirty years ago, when the Yugoslav People’s Army invaded Slovenia. At least on the outside, aggression united us for a while, but it was not possible without collaboration with the aggressor – many will remember how Školc’s LDS staged a real pogrom against the Demos government in the most difficult moments (which Danilo Slivnik described in detail in the book “One Hundred Independence days”). However, this shameful incident obviously did it no harm, as it became the main ruling party in the spring of the following year.
But this time it will have to be different. Not only because many international officials have recognised the positive role of the Slovenian Prime Minister in resolving the Ukrainian crisis, but also because many (opposition) political factors in Slovenia have shown that they cannot condemn barbaric aggression against Ukraine because they may be too sucked on the Moscow udder. Some have even openly supported Putin’s aggressive policies, as his rhetoric is, after all, very similar to that used by fans of the slogan “death to Janšism”. And this is not just about Ukraine, but also about the attitude of many Russians who oppose this kind of degenerate imperialism and are ashamed to belong to a country recognised in the 21st century as an aggressor and occupier – and pay for their opposition with prisons. Slovenia’s “little Putins” are informing the Slovenian public that if you support them in the elections, they promise that they will enforce Putin’s policy on Slovenian soil as well. The courteous smiles from Vršič are just a thing of the past. With Putin (and KUL), we are left with only a brutal military force and class hatred towards imaginary “fascists”.
Gašper Blažič is a journalist for Demokracija, editor of its daily board and editor of the Blagovest.si portal.