Every important story has liars surrounding it, massaging facts, complicating the narrative, obscuring data, and sometimes fabricating from whole cloth things that appear to be facts. This story is not different than any other. In the telling here of the story of the various narratives, as opposed to a narrative itself, we will often find liars calling out other liars. We have to ignore that noise and seek the validity of various truth claims. Some of this truth will be told by dishonest people for their own purposes that we cannot fully understand. We do not consider all the people linked here as fully trustworthy, but if linked we trusted some of the facts they presented, in the narrow scope of the specific facts we believe appear true, more than those of people that disparage them. This whole thing is surrounded by people lying for presuppositional reasons.


That there were foreign individuals, involved in the events of January 6th, 2021, seen on video entering the Capitol is not in dispute. There are pictures of one such individual with Jake Angeli (Shaman guy) taken that day before people entered the Capitol, video exists of him rushing the Capitol, screaming encouragement in a foreign language – this is not disputed. Most do not even dispute the name of the individual, and that he has a history of being involved in extremists activities and violence in Ukraine. Most agree on those basic facts. The fact that these pictures exist, and the video, linked to two bizarre characters is enough to indicate something beyond mere coincidence.

 

The next logical question, that those facts demand to be asked is “who was the guy associated with and what was his purpose there?” That question has not been asked a lot, it has been ‘answered’ with certitude and confidence by some groups, but something about these so quickly fixing on a version of the explanation that aligns with their worldview is unsettling. It does not seem honest.

 

There is more we can know about this individual. He has a history of extremist activity in Ukraine and is associated with Pavry Sektor. He was even awarded a medal by Poroshenko. There appears to be an arrest warrant for him in Lugansk for crimes committed while working with Ukrainian ultra-nationalist.[1] There is general agreement that Sergei Dybynyn[2] was there, did these things, but this is where agreement ceases. Some claim he was a mere journalist, but this term has lost its weight in light of activist groups using these claims as cover for extremist activity.

 

Some claim his work in Ukraine was that of a Russian agent provocateur. Others that he was in fact a Ukrainian national and a believer in the ultra-nationalists cause. We cannot know for a fact, for certain which is true. The question has not been properly asked.

 

If we took just the agreed upon facts, it seems the questions deriving from those facts would be of top national security interests. The media would care, cover it and ask questions. Politicians that have long claimed that Russia is behind every bush of foreign interference, disinformation, and nefarious activity would make this the holy grail. It would be the thing, if Sergei were a Russian or if he and others were Ukrainians acting as a Russian agent. But it is not ‘the thing.’

 

If it becomes ‘the thing’, closer to the midterms, it will only add additional suspicion and implausibility to the entire story. The US Government is terrible at many things, but tracking a foreign agent, in the US, on camera, involved in something profound and then circling his communications and travel patterns is not such a weakness. If Sergei was the Russian agent so many are convinced he was, it would already be the story, and any decent American would want it to be.

 

It may become a story later, Sergei is a human with human nature and it is demonstrable that he has been involved in some shady extremism in his life. He may yet have a role to play, but if he was a Russian agent, acting at the behest of Putin, we would already know, it would have been leaked, briefed, and focused on. It would almost be enough to justify the war that so many seem to pine for at present. It would be Peter Schiff's primary talking point.

 

How is it them that normal progressives and conservatives, radical progressives, and neoliberals came to agree, so quickly that Sergei was a “Russian”? When they say Russian most will not entertain the question of if they mean a Russian that lived in Ukraine and was a Ukrainian Nationalist, an agent provocateur, and a Russian agent. Most leave it as “he was Russian”.

 

Soon after the events, the next week, the narratives that would become the certitude of each side began to form. The next morning Ukrainian sources began to publish pieces claiming that Russian language words were used. [3] [4]

The US government weighed in on 11 January through Voice of America’s ‘fact checking’ organization Polygraph to state that;

“After close examination, it appears the phrase “Get out of the way,” which can sound like“getouttadaway” when spoken quickly and excitedly, was mistaken for the Russian phrase. At that same point, the crowd is also chanting “U-S-A!”, which also may have been mistaken for the Russian phrase.” [5]

That article went on to state that  Serhiy Dubinin was a reporter that had covered the Donbas region for Inter, a Ukrainian news agency. So according to VOA, through Polygraph, there is nothing to see. Take note of the name change used by VOA.

 

This was not the end of the story of course. There is the fact that it appears that some arrested on or after January 6th, speak Russian and needed interpreters during their arraignment.

“Yet another, who needed a Russian interpreter, told a judge, “I don’t know what unlawful entry you are referring to.’”[6]

The attempts by the VOA to gaslight on 11 January that people did not hear a foreign language being used on 6 January did not comport with facts. At least one person arrested needed a Russian interpreter to understand the judge.  There were speakers of a Slavic language present, and some were arrested very early on for doing something illegal.

 

The obvious question, the one we began with, haunts a rational thinker at this point. If some involved in the events that day apparently only speak Russian and they were arrested, why is that fact, plus the other individuals with foreign connections not the center of the story? If they are “Russians” and Putin is what we are so often told why has the story of that day not focused heavily on exposing the foreign cells, influence, and activity?

 

In the main, it is not the story. Not from the January 6th Committee, not from politicians that have built their fame solely on the thesis that Russia is bad and is working against the US within the US. Any serious investigator, any rational person would begin from the questions these odd facts present. And yet, they have not, not in over a year.

 

The story does have legs though, on social media, some parties have quickly latched on to an explanation that very often agrees with their personally and collectively held presuppositions. One can find many examples of Ukrainian versus Russian at the core of it all in discussions, and by that, I mean ‘asset’ even if most simply talk of nationality. What you do not find very much of, is a person arguing that it might have been Ukrainian (at least assets that operated in Ukraine for a specific Ukrainian objective) if the person making the argument is of a progressive political outlook.

 

In terms of the “it was Russia” argument you find commonality between the whole spectrum of worldview. A person that occasionally dons black bloc will agree on the fundamentals of the story with someone that believes they hold a conservative outlook.[7]

 

I cannot speak to how the story grew legs and spread to progressive-minded people. I suspect I know, but that suspicion begins from my own bias. I cannot speak to how most of that persuasion came to believe they know, without questioning and without wondering why it is not the key topic of geopolitical conversations and internal investigations that “it was Russia”. Perhaps it was not so very different than how so many conservatives come to the same conclusion.

 

From the conservative side, we can know that there were voices, beginning the week after the event that immediately tackled the story and went to great lengths to explain the facts as they emerged in a way that aligned with the central theme of their message for years previous.

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I wonder how many progressives that support ANTiFa understand how much they have in common with the folks above in this narrative?

From the same people that once told you the Muslim Brotherhood had taken control of the United States, that Russia (and sometimes maybe China) were using shipping containers to smuggle weapons systems into the United States for a surprise attack we were told that January 6th  was Russia, and they gave all the explanations (their version) for facts and data to prove it.

 

This same group had members that told us a “highly specialized unit” had raided some servers in Germany. The unit in question was a training unit comprised of old fat guys.[8] They also told us that a story about “Hammer and Scorecard” was something to be believed. Some of those telling the story had interesting roles in creating it.[9]

 

None of their stories and theories have ever actually materialized, some proved to be absurdly false, much of it was so ludicrous even Alex Jones never repeated it (maybe he has a different role). And yet, despite that, their narrative is widely accepted by many conservatives, even those that have never heard of any of the storytellers. I am not giving them credit for influencing the entire right, there are many other elements involved, but they had a role and they got in early.[10][11]

 

Many of the stories published by the group above over the years reference articles written by the same writers. One of these holds himself out as an expert on Russia because at the end of the Cold War he talked to some people and wrote a book. It is all very circular. A Russophobe, with views of that nation reflecting a very past-century tone and a shallow appreciation for true geopolitics. This flawed worldview and narrow view of geopolitics are at the center of thinking in the group above, they circularly reference him, and others, as the ‘‘rational’ writer(s) that spoke about this crazy idea[they are] about to sell you.” It is a brilliant method to legitimize crazy theories.

 

The US Department of Defense and the intelligence community, for their part, have never moved past viewing Russia as an adversary. Every single US National Security Strategy(NSS) document since the Cold War listed them essentially as such. Russia only changed its NSS in 2021 to reflect the reality that US planners and policymakers had let be known for decades. There is, and always has been a more realistic way to explain Russia, but there are few policymakers or rhetoriticians in the west that are realists.[12]

 

The same people that always benefit from war, the lukewarm type of war, are always the ones to spend money to support “think-tanks” and defense policy groups. There is a circular, self-referential, incestuous nature to it all. “Conservatives” that follow the fearmongering theories of groups like the one referenced above, or swallow without skepticism the pontifications of defense experts and intelligence sources really are not very concerned with conserving much at all.

 

I wonder what progressives really think about the whole-hearted acceptance of the ‘it was Russia’ narrative. Just because it makes the people you hate look like treasonous fools is not a good long-term strategy. The Military-Industrial-Media-Intelligence-Grifter complex will never care about your progressivism or your desires. Fear and hate empower governments; you will not like that power.


I do not know who these Slavic -speaking people in DC were on January 6th and neither do you, no matter how certain you believe that you are. There are innumerable ways that intelligence agencies and groups using refined methodology derived from those agencies can turn and twist a person. Every character in this story, every foreigner may have played one or more roles over their ‘career’. Perhaps working for numerous sides at different periods. Only God and these individuals know for sure, and only enhanced interrogation techniques or piles of money are likely to get the real truth out of them. I do know there is a lot of certitude and unwillingness to even ask basic questions present in all corners of the political spectrum.

 

I only know we ought to ask the question and ask why all the experts, the media, and our government have ceased to care to ask.

 

The Logical Approach

It cannot be as simple as the hidebound narratives. Logically, it seems reasonable that there is some bit of truth sprinkled into all claims (most at least). There were likely Russians and Ukrainians in DC that day, some of them could have been there for reasons that have nothing to do with international geopolitical conspiracies. A person could get lost in a sea of information and never come to knowledge by focusing on a video of say, a Russian-speaking woman live streaming for instance. Does her and others’ presence there mean anything?[13] Maybe, and perhaps not. Many focus on what could be unrelated or perhaps red-herring events to dismiss other items that are important. Some hold these potentially unrelated items up as proof of their stance.

 

It is also logical to ask if the bulk of all those that believe they know all agree that it was a Russian operation, and we have video of a guy that did something in Ukraine apparently urging people on (in Russian) as they entered the Capitol – ought this not be the central thing in the investigation? What of the actual Russian speakers that were arrested that day? The implication of a foreign state conducting clandestine direct action operations inside the United States should be the main focus of all of this. Why, after a year, is it just a ‘known fact’ but means nothing other than being a political and social media talking point and a quiet justification for seeing Russia as an enemy?

 

If someone that ‘knows’ what they know’ with so much certainty that they can work through that logical bottomless pit of a problem and explain it, we welcome the knowledge.

 

If it were so easily a provable Russian operation, our intelligence services would know and politicians would tell us. It is much more likely that some of the Russian smell on this was placed there perhaps intentionally. Who benefits from the Russian narrative? Who stood to lose the most running an operation over an insurrection that had zero chance of being a successful insurrection? People may hate Putin, and there are good reasons, but he is no fool.

There is a large hole in the Russian operation story that those that believe they know cannot fill, so they mostly ignore and insult those that frame rational and reasonable questions.

 

Counter-Claims

The generally accepted narrative, in the form presented to and bought by various ideological niches, is easy to find; it is all over social media if you search. Try to have a conversation with someone that presents themselves as someone that wants to know facts and you will quickly learn just how shallowed fixed most are on this subject.[14]

 

George Eliason presents an interesting argument against the commonly accepted narrative. We disagree with some of the associations and connections he sees but look forward to him articulating his case further. [15]

 

The following are some examples of counter-claims, presented without comment or endorsement for consideration.