The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - The Russian Reach: Categorizing Intelligence Agents || PETER ZEIHAN

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

The Russian intelligence system is comprised of a vast and interconnected network of agents. Each of these pawns plays a different role in supporting the "king" back in Moscow.Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihanFull Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/the-russian-reach-categorizing-intelligence-agents

Hey everyone, Peter Zion here. You are about to watch a video on a series that I've put together called the Russian Reach, which examines the role of the Russians in manipulating the current White House, as well as the U.S. government in a broader sense. For anyone who signs up for my newsletter, for watching any video, for the remainder of the month, any scent that you would have normally given me for the next three months is going to a medical charity called MedShare. Medchere steps in to help out communities who, through no fault of their own, have temporarily lost the ability to look out for themselves. So, for example, if the Russians are bombing your power grid and the Americans are no longer providing the tactical intelligence so you can anticipate the missile strikes and position your air defense, and the Americans, furthermore, have stopped all financing to help you repair set power grid in the aftermath. Medchair steps in to help hospitals with things like diesel generators.

This QR code will take you directly to the Ukraine page, and that is where all of the donations will be going. All right, Peter Zine here coming in from Colorado. We're doing our latest in this series of, holy shit, what's going on in Washington, working from the possible theory that the Russians have penetrated the White House. The Russians have the best intel system in the world when it comes to human intelligence.

The U.S. excels at something called Signals, intelligence was basically electronic eavesdropping of various forms. But when it comes to face-to-face contact and getting people to do things specifically, that's where the Russians have always held sway. It's in their geography. They've been doing it for centuries. We'll link to a piece that we just posted explaining how we got to that. As for the rest, as you might expect from someone who's really good at something, there's different classification. So every once in a while, you'll hear someone myself included, throw around the term foreign agent, Russian agent, and people get all up in arms.

because their favorite ideologue has now been accused of being working for someone else and, you know, tough. But there's a lot more nuance than words foreign agent would tend to suggest. There's basically a multi-step classification that the Russians use to determine just how close the person is and how loyal they are. So let's start at the bottom and work our way up. The lowest category is something called Pelagny, which roughly translates into useful idiot. This was someone who openly and willingly regurgitates Russian talking points and propaganda without maybe really understanding what's going on. These are people who are too ideological, too arrogant to believe they've been fooled or maybe just too stupid to realize what's going on,

many of the three. And the two leading candidates for Pallosiery classification in the United States today are Majorie Tyler Green, the Republican representative from Northern Georgia. Her newest thing is that the only reason that Americans don't trust the Russians is because of mass media. It has nothing to do with them killing Americans or pointing nukes at us for 70 years. Yeah, right, MTG, whatever you say. It's amazing what the Russians can get her to say because she says some stupid shit. The other one would be David Sacks, the crypto billionaire, who definitely falls in the too arrogant to think that he's being manipulated category. Next up is Vliania, which roughly translates to agent of influence. This is someone who has a platform, a following, not necessarily in policy circles, but is not a nobody.

And the Russians have been able to inject their view of the world into this person or this organization's work. The two best examples in modern day are Michael Moore, the leftist activist. You may remember his movie from a few years ago called Gasland, which was basically an anti-fraking video. The Russians were very active in making sure that that happened. In terms of organization, the best example would be Greenpeace. It's not that the Russians founded or controlled Greenpeace or anything like that, although they did play a very big role in the development of the green movement back in the 20th century. It's that they're able to inject and encourage certain ideological angles. to the environmental aspects of Greenpeace.

So, for example, during the Cold War, the Western world was capitalist. The Soviet world was communist. So they were able to convince the folks at Greenpeace to put a degree of anti-capitalism, anti-industry into their environmental messages, not necessarily because it was pro-Russian, but it was anti-Western,

and that ended up working for the Russians pretty well. Third up is something called Nashvo. a Nashvo roughly translated as to our guy or one of us. This is someone who's internalized the Russian message, maybe even generates some of their own propaganda, and oftentimes even has a role in policy circles. Best example is Bar-none Bernie Sanders, the guy, the liberal activist slash senator from Vermont,

who made waves for taking his honeymoon back in the Soviet Union. He's like moron. Anyway, he had been promulgating Russian propaganda, especially on things like socialism, even though the Russians haven't been to a long time, to the degree that he was able to, on a couple of occasions, disrupt the presidential elections in the United States. Russians were very happy with that.

Unfortunately for the Russians, Bernie Sanders has finally woken up. When the Ukraine war started, Senator Sanders realized that maybe being associated with raping, murdering child kidnappers wasn't the best look for a progressive and he dialed it back. I mean, he's still an asshat, but he's no longer the Russian's asshat. Now, what these first three categories have in common, Polesny, Vilania, and Nachevo is that the Russian agents might not actually realize that they're Russian agents. Remember, too ideological, too arrogant, too stupid.

They're doing what the Russians want, but the Russians can't, like, say, call them up and so, hey, hey, here's the next batch of propaganda. They have to be a little bit more subtle than that, even with somebody who's as much of a moron as Majorie is Tyler Green. These next categories, though, they can make no such excuses. They are fully aware that they're working for the Russians at least part-time. The first one up, it's called Residant. it's basically somebody who always has a platform, typically in media, typically with a following,

but because of their chosen profession, like in media, you're supposed to be unbiased or something, there's a facade of independence. And anyone who wants to look past what you're saying and what you're doing at least has a fig leaf to hide behind. And the best example of that today would be Tucker Carlson, who has definitely worked his way up the rungs of Russian management until basically becoming a full-time mouthpiece for anything that is going to take a hack out of American democracy, American professionalism,

the American military, or further Russian goals in any meaningful way. Next up is Verbalvani, which is flat out of a recruit. This is someone the Russians approach, maybe even flew to Moscow for a meeting with Putin directly, and they've basically sold their soul. Jill Stein, leader of the U.S. American Green Party. He's definitely at the top of this list at the moment. This is somebody who has

been in and out of Russia meeting with Putin over and over and over again, basically an extension of the Greenpeace corruption, but taken to the logical extreme. And in doing so, she's basically taken this fragment of the American left ideologies and kind of twisted it in a direction that consistently serves Russian interests. Next is something called Crote, or a Molod. And when people hear the term foreign agent, this is what they always assume that you're talking about. And this is a very, very specific subcategory. This is someone who's embedded in a foreign organization and regularly provides the Russians with information that they couldn't get. So rather than serving as a vehicle for Russian power projection, this is a way that the Russians do espionage.

Aldra James, of course, is the most famous of the recent croats that we know of. entirely possible that people like Edward Snowden fall into this category, but that has not been fully explored. And the granddaddy, what the Russians were ultimately after is something called Nashvo-Chileveka. Nashvacaa-Nashvika is our man-in, someone who has been subsumed into the Russian decision-making system but is still working officially for a foreign power and basically serves as a combination of eyes and ears and whispers in order to get the Russian worldview push through to the people who matter. The difference between a plain old Nashava,

one of ours, and a Nashua Chavalaika, is the degree of placement and the degree of commitment and the degree to which the Russians can more directly operate them. Now, there is a debate going on in the Russian community about how they've successful they've been in recent times because someone that they have long referred to as one of theirs, plain old Nashville, is Tulsi Gabbard, the former House of Representatives

rep from Hawaii, who then ran for the Democratic Convention, then switched over to Trump, and now is the Director of National Intelligence. They have always called her anacheva. And now they're starting to call her a Nashava Chalvalika, because she's now in a position where she can actually operate within the White House, almost with impunity, and change the information that is in front of the president. So, for example, every day the Central Intelligence Agency produces something called the presidential daily brief, which is everything that's going around the world that the president

should know. Well, she has oversight over the CIA. And so the question is whether or not she's even allowing that brief to reach the president or if she's just there whispering Russian propaganda and directives into the president's ear. There's a deep open conversation going on among Russian and tell folks about just how successful they've been. But looking from the policy outcomes, It looks like they've had a good run with Ms. Gabbard. And then, of course, the last question, which I don't have an answer to, which is kind of like what spawned me to do this series on the first place, is how successful have the Russians been with President Trump himself. Now, I'm not one of those people who think that the Putin government has some sort of compromise on Donald Trump. I mean, there's supposedly a series of sex tapes out there from when he was running Miss Universe beauty pageants in Russia and that they've threatened him with them unless he does what they want.

I don't buy that. I mean, number one, a sex take of Donald Trump has already been released. But it was in the court proceedings with the whole stormy Daniels thing. In addition, as good as the Russians are at Intel, they're much better at corruption. the idea that something with that sort of potential value would have not been used by someone who is someone other than Vladimir Putin, that's just silly. So there's still plenty of things about this that don't line up, which is why this is basically exploring what is potentially just a conspiracy theory.

But we can't ignore that what has happened around the world in the last few weeks has been so wonderful for the Russians, while simultaneously being so awful for long-term American interests. Of course, that doesn't mean this is the only theory.