patrick.net

Follow the money! Last week, Politico ran a whiny story headlined, “European governments criticize IMF trip to Russia as ‘propaganda win’ for Putin.”

If there is one kind of win that corporate media hates more than any other kind of victory or success, it is a propaganda win. They just can’t stand it. Please, they always cry, anything but a propaganda win. Not that. Not for Putin.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a Washington-based international finance agency formed in 1994. Since then, its octopus-like tendrils have spread worldwide, making massive “development loans” and dishing out “financial advice” to other countries with more strings attached than a concert hall harp section.

Although the IMF is ostensibly neutral, its strings always benefit U.S. interests.

When Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2022, the IMF’s tendrils shrank away from that country, as part of Joe Biden’s backfiring sanctions regime. But last week, the IMF announced it was sending a delegation to Moscow to renew relationships. Although the announcement was light on details, looney Ukraine supporters did not fail to detect the obvious message. Politico:

Ukraine's backers argue that by visiting Russia, the IMF is sending the
message that relations with Moscow are normalizing despite its continued
unprovoked aggression in Ukraine.

Haha, unprovoked. The point is, the wheels are coming off the Ukraine bus. First, it was the Ryan Routh attack, which has done and will do more to tank Ukraine’s prospects than any other single event. Routh’s unhinged Ukraine support mingles with his assassination attempt, to create a politically unpalatable narrative stew.

The IMF’s new mission to Russia is the kind of behind-the-scenes stuff that says more than a hundred headlines. Follow the money, and the money is going to see President Putin.

Russia’s economy has done terrific in the last two years, breaking all previous records, in the absence of any IMF “help.” They’d be crazier than the CIA wants you to think Ryan Routh is, if they got back in bed with the grasping financial agency. The IMF has a lot of selling to do.