Final Word from Wednesday, March 27, 2024

It's sad to say, but if what Yuri Shvets claimed on YouTube last week about Pres. Petr Pavel's ammunition program for Ukraine is true, it means that Pavel is a walking disinformation campaign. Shvets said that Pavel had nothing to do with tracking down the shells but was used to legalize the trades of volunteers likely connected to intelligence services and was thereby given the opportunity to boost his political authority. By and large, Shvets said, the arms-trading market is controlled by intelligence services, but the Czech Republic was able to pull a large number of shells out of nowhere. Pavel visited the BIS counterintelligence agency yesterday and had a lot to say about disinformation. Our adversaries, he said, are succeeding in using it to sow distrust among Czechs in government institutions and also to distort reality, with the result that this can have a significant impact on our security. It's difficult to see how Pavel's little munitions masquerade could serve to enhance Czech security. [ Czech Republic KGB analyst Schvets ]