Russian Political Control Strategy

Russia doesn’t need tanks rolling through city streets to take control of a country. That’s the old-fashioned way – messy, expensive, and guaranteed to provoke some level of international backlash. The modern method is far more subtle: political control. It’s cheaper, harder to trace, and often dismissed until it’s too late. Instead of physically occupying territory, Russia works to install, manipulate, or corrupt those who govern it. The result is a country that still flies its own flag but takes its orders – directly or indirectly – from Moscow.

The playbook is straightforward. First, you cultivate useful politicians – those who are either ideologically aligned, financially compromised, or just vain enough to think they’re playing Russia, rather than the other way around. They don’t need to declare undying loyalty to Putin. They just need to be disruptive, weaken institutions, and keep their country divided and distracted.

This is where the usual suspects enter the scene. In Britain, Nigel Farage never misses an opportunity to undermine support for Ukraine, banging on about how we should “negotiate” – code for letting Putin dictate terms. George Galloway is a walking Cold War relic who’d defend Russia if it invaded his own constituency, as long as it was "anti-imperialist." Across the Atlantic, Tucker Carlson regurgitates Kremlin propaganda so consistently he may as well be on RT’s payroll, while Donald Trump, never one to shy away from an autocrat, openly signals that a second term would mean less NATO, more appeasement, and a free pass for Moscow.

Once the political landscape is seeded with enough instability, the next move is to control the narrative. Russian-backed media and disinformation networks flood the airwaves and social media with a cocktail of propaganda, conspiracy theories, and manufactured cynicism. The goal isn’t to make people believe in Russia – it’s to make them believe in nothing. If democracy is a sham, if the West is just as corrupt, if every government is secretly rigging elections, then why bother resisting Russian influence?

And if you think Britain and the US are immune to this, look at the state of political discourse. GB News and Fox News are already a pipeline for Kremlin-friendly narratives, pumping out a steady diet of anti-Ukraine, anti-EU, and pro-authoritarian talking points. Meanwhile, elements of the Tory Party, desperate for a post-Brexit identity, have latched onto an isolationist stance that just so happens to align with Russian interests. In America, the Republican Party’s MAGA wing has gone from chest-thumping Cold Warriors to Putin apologists in record time, with figures like JD Vance and Marjorie Taylor Greene actively opposing aid to Ukraine while muttering about "protecting our borders instead." Moscow doesn’t need to win elections – it just needs enough people in power to gum up the works.

Then there’s the economic angle. Russia has long used trade as a weapon, binding countries to its economy so tightly that pulling away becomes painful. This is why Viktor Orbán in Hungary remains Putin’s man in the EU – not because he likes Russia, but because his country depends on it. Britain had its own flirtation with Russian economic influence, with oligarch money washing through London for years while politicians looked the other way. Brexit was another strategic coup, weakening both Britain and the EU while ensuring economic instability that Russia could exploit. No direct orders from Moscow were needed – just the right people in the right places, pushing the right arguments.

And if bribery and influence-peddling don’t work, there’s always the more direct approach – kompromat, blackmail, and the occasional poisoning. Russia doesn’t hesitate to silence those who step out of line. The Salisbury poisonings should have been a wake-up call, but despite some sanctions and tough words, London remains a favourite destination for Russian billionaires looking to clean their money. In the US, the extent of Russian kompromat is still unknown, but the fact that Trump openly defended Putin over his own intelligence agencies in Helsinki tells you all you need to know about how deep the rot goes.

This isn’t just about Russia having influence over a few ex-Soviet states. It’s about the systematic erosion of national sovereignty across the West. If Moscow can control a country’s political direction without firing a shot, then that country’s independence is an illusion. If alliances like NATO and the EU are weakened from within, Russia gets a free hand to operate however it pleases. And if Western leaders keep prioritising short-term political gain over the long-term threat, then we’ll wake up one day to find that Russia’s control has spread further than we ever thought possible.

The ultimate goal isn’t a new Russian empire in the old-fashioned sense – it’s a world where Russia dictates the rules without having to govern directly. Where Europe is too divided to act, where America is too distracted to lead, and where every opponent is just one crisis away from collapse. It’s power without responsibility, empire without the maintenance costs.

And unless the West recognises this as the real battleground, we’ll keep losing – not in land, but in influence, in strength, and in the ability to stop it before it’s too late.