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[NotTheGuyYouKill]

Sex tape scandal was work of Putin, says Russian political activist exposed in video

Lengthy article. Posted a few bits below:

Natalia Pelevina, a Russian political activist at the heart of a shocking sex scandal, has no doubts about who is responsible for revealing her affair with a former Russian prime minister.

A secret video of her and Mikhail Kasyanov showing intimate bedroom sex scenes and frank private conversations was baldly exposed last Friday on national television.

Pelevina is convinced the Russian security services planted the recording devices to entrap the couple at the behest of the president.

"It had to be Putin. I have no doubt about that," Pelevina told CBC during an exclusive interview in Moscow this week.

She hadn't spoken publicly about the sex scandal since it broke last week. Kasyanov is chairman of PARNAS, a liberal opposition party in Russia. Pelevina is his political assistant and was, until this week, a member of the party executive.

Russian broadcaster NTV aired a 40-minute special program liberally laced with scenes from the secretly taped video of the two.

The black and white video played on NTV, with clear audio, first showed Pelevina in sexy lingerie, then the two lovers naked in various stages of cooing and lovemaking. It seemed to have been quickly edited to highlight salacious, sometimes cringing moments of intimate talk between the two.

"What has come out, the just unthinkable awfulness of it, really tells me that he (Putin) did not only go after Kasyanov this time. The goal was to destroy him," Pelevina told CBC News.

Pelevina believes a surveillance camera was installed behind a bedroom wall and a microphone hidden under the kitchen table in a private Moscow apartment owned by Kasyanov.

Pelevina and Kasyanov often met there during their long affair. She is 38 and single; he is 58, married with two children. They worked together in the trenches of Russia's battered opposition. Both were deep in preparations for this fall's parliamentary elections when the video emerged.

NTV did not explain how it got the secret video, but the channel is close to the Kremlin. The footage that aired appeared to show one night of sex, but Pelevina says the scenes were edited together from, she believes, six months of secret surveillance. She is horrified thinking the couple may have been spied on for that long.

There were obvious signs that pressure was building on Kasyanov — beginning in January, when Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov posted video of Kasyanov inside a sniper's crosshairs. A few weeks later, he was "pied" in the face at a restaurant, a favourite threatening tactic of provocateurs.

In an interview with CBC in February, Kasyanov said "the situation is worsening every day. Putin's pursuing a tough policy, squeezing the whole political environment in Russia. We have permanent blackmailing of the opposition. We face problems every day."

Kasyanov's adultery wasn't the only "revelation" in the video. Clear audio recordings reveal Pelevina, a would-be parliamentary candidate, aggressively badmouthing other leaders of the opposition. She is heard saying that an alliance with opposition leader Alexei Navalny was necessary, but she clearly detests him.

"Navalny is a piece of shit," she's heard to say.

She goes on to call the deputy chairman of PARNAS, Ilya Yashin, "a freak who's willing to sell his place in the campaign for $30,000."

Pelevina has resigned her seat on PARNAS's political council in the wake of the scandal.

"I'm not making excuses but … they cut all the terrible things in such a way that it looks like one crazy verbal explosion, and it was never like that," she said. "The words I used were foul, but I'm human, and when you get upset, you sometimes say things you regret."

But there is no doubt the video hurts the opposition, already weak and struggling to unite in order to present a stronger alternative to an overwhelmingly popular governing party. With only five months to go before the election for the Duma, the opposition is reeling.

Media reported that millions of Russians watched the NTV broadcast, which raised the bar on political sabotage to new levels, even in a country used to political smut.

"It's damaging, of course," says Dmitry Nekrasov, running for a seat in the Duma this fall.

"But it won't be as damaging for Kasyanov as if it happened in many Western countries. It won't be so harmful.

"In Russia, there's a lot of damaging information regarding all politicians, and it's used from time to time by different parties. That's why people don't believe in many things."

"Nothing we did was illegal," said Pelevina angrily. She paused, trying to collect herself. Speaking about the affair is clearly painful for her.

"The fact that Mikhail was and is married, yes, it is wrong, but unfortunately, what we felt was stronger than that fact. We weren't able to end the relationship."

The secret surveillance wasn't the first attack aimed at Pelevina. Only three weeks ago, she was charged with possessing a pen-size spy camera, the kind you can buy at a gadget shop. She says it was a gag gift from her sister. She now faces a criminal charge, and even though she has British residency, she cannot leave Moscow. If convicted, she can never run for political office.

 

[Silver Arrows]

You go up against Putin, they'll find a way to ruin you.

ETA on the Putin trolls trying to spin this to make her seem worse?

 

[Murder. She Wrote]

You go up against Putin, they'll find a way to ruin you.

ETA on the Putin trolls trying to spin this to make her seem worse?

Wait wat, there' people that like/support Putin? Dude is like a mini Stalin.

 

[Tripon]

Wait wat, there' people that like/support Putin? Dude is like a mini Stalin.

The Republican party. Kappa.

 

[Silver Arrows]

Wait wat, there' people that like/support Putin? Dude is like a mini Stalin.

You haven't seen those comments trawling through Western news articles about Putin?

 

[SlickShoesRUCrazy]

Wait wat, there' people that like/support Putin? Dude is like a mini Stalin.

misterxmedia.

 

[Guerrillas in the Mist]

Wait wat, there' people that like/support Putin? Dude is like a mini Stalin.

A bizarre rabble of both the left and the right in Europe and the West stumble over each other to give him verbal fellatio. Ably assisted by RT, the Kremlin-funded English language news outlet that's a sort of haven for conspiracy theorists and discredited fringe journalists/commentators.

 

[Piecake]

The Republican party. Kappa.

And some people on the far left for some odd reason

 

[Des0lar]

Wait wat, there' people that like/support Putin? Dude is like a mini Stalin.

There is a whole fringe of people who started to believe that Western politicians and media are lying through their teeth and Putin and Russia Today are the only saviors, who see and speak the truth clearly.

 

[TomWaitsForNoMan]

You go up against Putin, they'll find a way to ruin you.

ETA on the Putin trolls trying to spin this to make her seem worse?

Not a Putin troll at all, but it makes her seem better in my eyes. At least she admits that Navalny is a piece of shit. She's still willing to ally with that racist, genocide advocating fuck though, so it doesn't improve my opinion of her that much.

 

[Phantast2k]

Yup, they're out to get him. This man is probably going to die soon.

I instantly remembered this from a few months back:

Chechnya's Kadyrov puts Putin critic Kasyanov in gunsights - BBC News

Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov has posted an Instagram video showing Russian opposition politician Mikhail Kasyanov in a sniper's crosshairs.
Mr Kasyanov, a former prime minister, is a high-profile critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the opposition RPR-Parnas party.

Recently Mr Kadyrov called Mr Putin's critics "enemies" and "traitors".
Russian opposition politicians have described the posting as a murder threat.
The Chechen leader said Mr Kasyanov was seeking cash in Strasbourg for the opposition. "Whoever doesn't get it will get it!" he warned.

Last March Mr Kadyrov spoke out on Instagram about the assassination of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in Moscow. That message defended one of the Chechens charged over the shooting.

A day later President Putin gave Mr Kadyrov a top award.
Mr Nemtsov was among several well-known opponents of Mr Putin murdered in the past decade.

...

Video can be seen here: Chechen leader posts video of his opponent in a gun's crosshairs

 

[GTP_Daverytimes]

There is a whole fringe of people who started to believe that Western politicians and media are lying through their teeth and Putin and Russia Today are the only saviors, who see and speak the truth clearly.

There is also a whole bunch of people who knows that putin is an asshole but that doesn't make him stalin or hitler or devil reincarnate as many would like us to believe, in foreing affairs he is playing the game the west (the US specifically) have been playing for a while, at home however he is trying to stifile any form of opposition. He isn't quite a dictator yet but he is certainly approaching it.

 

[John Kowalski]

Wait wat, there' people that like/support Putin? Dude is like a mini Stalin.

This made me check and, holy shit, i'm taller than Putin!

 

[Slackbladder]

Wait wat, there' people that like/support Putin? Dude is like a mini Stalin.

There are people employed by the Russian State to go on western news websites and fill it full of pro-Russian bullshit. It's well documented if you want to read up on it.

 

[Bigboss242]

People forget he is ex kgb. He still got connections no doubt.

 

[Phantast2k]

Another day, another attack on the Russian opposition by the Kremlin:

@shaunwalker7

Rus TV running whole programme on @navalny recruitment by MI6, featuring "leaked" emails full of article mistakes.

@shaunwalker7

In each new doc, MI6 make more and more English mistakes. It's almost like it was Google translated from the Russian

A few months ago:

US gives Russian newspaper grammar lesson over 'fake letter' to LGBT activist | World news | The Guardian

The US embassy in Moscow has given a Russian newspaper a grammar lesson over a fake letter that purports to show that the US pays gay rights activists to smear Russian officials.

The embassy marked more than two dozen mistakes in a copy of the alleged letter that it posted on its Twitter account. “Dear Izvestia, next time you use fake letters, send them to us – we will be happy to help correct the mistakes,” it wrote at the bottom.

...