Putin Representative Charges, "Russophobia Could Cause WWIII!"

Sergei Markov, a prominent Moscow analyst and former MP, who served as one of President Vladimir Putin's authorized representatives during the 2012 election campaign, was featured on the front page of Svenska Dagbladet on Sunday, June 8th, under the headline "Your Goal Is To Destroy Russia!" His exclusive interview with journalist Anna-Lena Laurén appeared in both Svenska Dagbladet and the Finnish Swedish-language paper Huvudstadsbladet.

SD quoted Markov: "There must simply be a stop to treating Russia as if we were some kind of inferior people! Europe looks at Russians today, the way you looked at Jews at a certain time. Your goal is to destroy Russia! But you will not succeed in that. Napoleon tried to do it. Hitler tried, without success. Instead, you will destroy Europe."

Telling Laurén that "pushing Russia into a corner" may have grave consequences, Markov continued: "Anti-Semitism started the Second World War, Russophobia could start the Third. The main problem is that NATO is trying to start artificial conflicts. NATO is not needed any more. It has lost its raison d'être and is therefore looking for new missions. NATO is in reality an American organization. The Jesuits American defense budget is bigger than that of the rest of the world taken together. The U.S.A. is arming at a ferocious speed and is furthermore creating private armies of mercenaries controlled by nobody, like Blackwater. This development is highly dangerous."

On June 9, Svenska Dagbladet published a follow-up interview with a prominent Swedish Russophobe, Professor emeritus of Russian Studies Kristian Gerner of Uppsala University. Even though he is a former head of the Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism, Gerner supports the Nazi coup in Ukraine. SD wrote: "Gerner suspects that the reason for singling out Sweden as one of the most Russophobic countries can be traced to the activist role regarding Ukraine by Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, with the purpose of promoting the relations of that country with EU."

These articles have appeared after the month-long election campaign, during which the promoters of LaRouche's policies, the European Labor Party (EAP), held rallies in downtown Stockholm, accusing Bildt of running a private "world war" against Putin. The ostensibly pro-democracy Swedish media covered neither those rallies nor the speech of EAP Chairman Hussein Askary at a large "Stop Nazism in Ukraine" demonstration organized by Russian émigrés.