The Russian word vranyo means ‘to lie’, but to lie in a way where everyone knows you're lying but pretends to believe it anyway. Since the days of the Soviet Union, this has been an expected part of how the Russian government operates. Dishonesty is just the norm, as is a lack of transparency. Unlike the US or UK, Russia does not have a regular policy of declassification that exposes the nefarious things it has gotten up to. What we know about what goes on behind the scenes in Russia is thanks to foreign intelligence services, defectors, or journalists and activists who risk their lives to expose Russian secrets.

We may not know nearly as much about Russia’s secrets as we do about their American counterparts, but what we do know is still fascinating. Today on A Day In History, we get a glimpse at some of the secrets that Russia has tried and failed to keep hidden. So, stick around to the end to learn how Russia killed someone with an umbrella, how they helped get the Prime Minister of India assassinated, and how Russia tried to manipulate Us politics during and after the 2016 election. Don’t forget to leave a like on this video and subscribe to the channel for more videos like this.

Environmental Disasters

In order to keep things secret, Russia has perfected the art of the cover-up and it seems there’s no disaster too big for them to try and hide from the world.

On several occasions, the Russian government tried to cover-up colossal environmental disasters. The one everyone knows is Chernobyl. Before the 1986 disaster, the authorities had actually covered up several safety issues at the sites to, quote, “prevent panic and provocative rumors.” This culture of dishonesty and lack of accountability contributed to the 1986 disaster and explains the Soviet government’s delayed response. When an explosion during a botched safety test killed 2 workers in April 1986, causing uncontrollable fires and expelling vast amounts of radioactive material, it took almost 2 days for the authorities to inform the local population. They had delayed because they’d hoped to contain the problem without anyone noticing. This delay was fatal: on top of the 30 plant workers and emergency responders who died from radiation poisoning, thousands of people were exposed to dangerous amounts of radiation, causing devastating and sometimes fatal health effects for decades to come.

#russiansecrets #cia #putin #history #kgb

Music: Epidemic music

Sources:
Christopher Andrewand Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, (2000)
Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB and the World, (2005)
Ion Mihai Pacepa, ‘What does Moscow have to do with the recent war in Lebanon?’, National Review, August 24th 2006, https://www.nationalreview.com/2006/0...
Ion Mihai Pacepa and Ronald Rychlak, Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism, (2015)
Luke Harding, ‘Alexander Litvinenko: the man who solved his own murder’, The Guardian, January 19th 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/201...
Philip Howard, Bharath Ganesh, and Dimitra Liotsiou, ‘The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012-2018’, Project on Computational Propaganda, (2018), https://demtech.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-conte...
Thomas Rabl, ‘The Nuclear Disaster of Kyshtym 1957 and the Politics of the Cold War’, Environment & Society Portal, Arcadia, (2012), https://www.environmentandsociety.org...
‘Unsealed Soviet archives reveal cover-ups at Chernobyl plant before disaster’, Reuters, April 26th 2021, https://www.reuters.com/world/unseale...



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