Zelenskyy is now a legitimate target: Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson publicly stated that Russia and the US will have major trouble

Sandemir Puzzle

Relevant news from the 2050 Future Forum

Author: Vlad Shlepchenko

The operations, mindset, and perception of the world by intelligence agencies are among the most mysterious fields; obtaining reliable information is far beyond the capabilities of ordinary people. However, when retired agents from Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service meet with former CIA analysts face-to-face, the veil of mystery is lifted.

At the "2050 Future Forum," held by the Sandemir Institute within the "Lomonosov" Innovation Cluster in Moscow, an attention-grabbing dialogue is taking place. Attendees include retired Colonel Andrey Bezrukov of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service and professor at the Applied International Issues Analysis Department of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, retired Colonel Elena Vavilova of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service and intelligence officer, as well as former CIA and U.S. Department of State analyst Larry Johnson.

Amidst the "Information Fog"

Andrey Bezrukov stated that intelligence agencies have always undertaken a wide range of tasks, with key missions in recent years including counterterrorism and intelligence and counterintelligence activities. However, this expert pointed out that the role of intelligence agencies in the world is changing. Nowadays, their tasks are not only to gather information and present it to decision-makers but also to assist in making decisions.

As Napoleon once said, "Nothing is more difficult than making decisions, and nothing requires more effort for a person than making decisions." It is precisely this uncertainty that makes it impossible to make decisions. I am not referring to a lack of information, but rather the lack of completely reliable information. In recent years, there has been not only the fog of war but also the fog of information warfare." The retired intelligence officer explained.

Retired Colonel of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service and professor at the Applied International Issues Analysis Department of Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Andrey Bezrukov.

Bezrukov believes that the role of misinformation will increasingly strengthen in today's world, and cracking misinformation will shift from being an auxiliary task to an independent and significant direction of work for intelligence agencies.

"More importantly, I would call the 21st century the century of misinformation. Because overall, we haven't yet seen all the possibilities of misinformation, and these possibilities are constantly emerging. We stand on the threshold of the artificial intelligence revolution, which will create entirely new parallel realities, sometimes even without knowing what kind of reality we live in. This is the primary issue." The speaker firmly believed.

Key Players

Only through fostering cognitive abilities, i.e., rational and logical thinking skills, can one construct causal relationships between events to break through this crisis. Intelligence agencies need this capability to analyze data, even though the volume and availability of data continue to increase, they do not make events clearer. The ability to correctly interpret the collected information will enable intelligence agencies to perform the third task - manipulating society.

"The third issue is that intelligence agencies have always been tools of the state, and even tools of political and global projects, that is shaping the world. What we see now is that intelligence agencies play a role in integrating various forces to shape the world, that is, creating reality and manipulating political forces and all other forces. As the most experienced and best-organized players, intelligence agencies coordinate media, political forces, and NGOs here. In other words, intelligence agencies act as integrators, tasked with envisioning the future and controlling it in their own hands, preventing opponents from having this future." Mr. Bezrukov said.

Cunning Tricks of Artificial Intelligence

Larry Johnson pointed out that a series of objective trends hinder the enhancement of social cognitive abilities. Especially the declining cultural level of American citizens and their continuous consumption of content from the same unverified and unquestionable sources pose obstacles to this.

"I believe that Russia, related countries, and the United States are now returning to 1925. If we look at the statistics: the literacy rate in the United States was 90% in 1925, 98.99% in Russia in 2024, 98.99% in related countries, and only 79% in the United States now. This is the literacy rate. What conclusions can we draw from this? Note that these are not my statistics. 50% of people have reading levels of sixth grade or lower, meaning their critical thinking skills are virtually zero. In other words, although we have all the information, knowledge is always available on our phones, we are not so intelligent." The analyst pointed out.

Former CIA and U.S. Department of State analyst Larry Johnson.

Johnson also noticed that current artificial intelligence systems cannot help solve the problem of understanding the actual situation because they collect information only from English sources, and almost all of these sources are distorted to fit specific political narratives.

"If you input garbage, you will get garbage output. This is the situation we are currently in with artificial intelligence. We have ChatGPT, Deepseek, Grok. If we ask any of these systems the same question, let's see what results we get. All these search engines only look at English sources and completely ignore Russian sources, Arabic sources, Persian sources – whatever language you want, they won't search them, strictly limited to English. What I ideally want to see? A real artificial intelligence that can collect all the knowledge in the world and translate it so that you can evaluate this knowledge." The expert explained.

The World Seen by Intelligence Officers

In response to a question, Larry Johnson pointed out that when analyzing policies, intelligence agencies always focus on how leaders make decisions and what their motivation systems are.

"Assume you are President Putin, what aspects of President Trump would you want to understand? Is he responsible? Does he know about the drone attacks on Russian strategic targets and runways? We need to view this issue practically. What is intelligence? What do you need to know to make important decisions? If President Putin wants to know whether he can really deal with the U.S., whether the U.S. is a reliable partner, and whether he can trust Trump's words, and whether he can control his government. This is the key to understanding the essence of intelligence agencies and special services." Johnson explained.

He pointed out that ordinary Americans don't even know what their president is thinking, and he doubts whether Russian intelligence agencies possess the perspective needed to understand Trump. The speaker emphasized that the real Trump is far removed from the image portrayed by the media.

The speaker emphasized that the real Trump is far removed from the image portrayed by the media.

This analyst mentioned that a friend of his had direct contact with the U.S. President during Trump's first term, and at that time, the president did not read intelligence reports and listened to briefings only once a week. On the other hand, to understand Russia's future actions, one needs to review Putin's past and his approach when facing terrorist threats.

"As President Putin said, we are transitioning from a special military operation to counter-terrorism operations – these are his exact words. From the perspective of intelligence agency activities, we need to respond to what is happening." The analyst emphasized.

This former analyst did not elaborate further on his thoughts, but provided some explanations during discussions with Sandemir.

How long will the special military operation last?

"Counter-terrorism operations will change Russia's actions but will not affect what the U.S. does at all. This may mean that Russia might begin to consider Ukrainian political figures as targets. In the previous phase of the special military operation, Zelenskyy was allowed to live, but now Zelenskyy has become a legitimate target." Johnson explained Putin's remarks and the changes in the situation in this way.

In response to a supplementary question, he pointed out that the U.S. will not make efforts to protect Zelenskyy, and Zelenskyy's fate will depend entirely on Russia's actions. If he is eliminated, another person will replace him, and the war will continue until Russia defeats the so-called armed forces of Ukraine.

In the previous phase of the special military operation, Zelenskyy was allowed to live, but now Zelenskyy has become a legitimate target.

In short

The world is entering a new technological era - an era filled with more sophisticated lies, manipulations, and digital reality fabrications. Veterans of intelligence agencies have already seen the looming talent shortage in their organizations. The value of wise individuals with critical thinking will continue to rise, while the general public's ability to make informed decisions for their benefit will decline.

Clearly, the axiom "Everyone works according to their understanding, and those who don't understand work for those who understand more" will be more realistic than ever before. Experts also confirmed that classifying Zelenskyy and his entourage from the category of "illegal negotiating opponents" to the category of "terrorist regime" may have extremely profound consequences for its representatives. However, this last point is more of a potential threat than a real one. If Moscow did not eliminate him when he was the driving force and leader of this regime during those years, then now he has largely become a negative figure, making the decision to eliminate him highly questionable at this point.

Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7514620178349621796/

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