CALIFORNIA SPLIT OR “GO TO MOSCOW!”
WHO IS BEHIND CAL3 CAMPAIGN?
- Californians will vote on splitting their state into three parts on November 6, 2018
- The man behind Cal3 has ten years of working relationship and financial involvement with the Russian government and oligarchs
- Russia supports separatists movements in California, Texas, and worldwide (Ukraine, UK, Catalonia, Kurdistan)
- The Russian secret service has a long history of funding separatist groups and movements around the world through business companies and installing puppet regimes in other countries.
- With the US and NATO officials warning about the Russian meddling in 2018 elections, dismissing Cal3 campaign is unwise
CAL3 — TIM DRAPER
A proposal to divide California into three separate states will appear on the November 2018 ballot.
The author and sponsor of this proposal, a billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper, first spoke about dividing California in 2013.
In 2018, Draper cut the number of new states to three, and “cleared the requirement for petitioners, reportedly paying canvassers $3 per signature.” The “Cal 3” campaign got enough signatures for a statewide referendum.
DRAPER — RUSSIA
From 2007, Draper and his investment fund, DFJ (Draper Fisher Jurvetson), are closely involved with the Kremlin-sponsored agencies in Russia.
- VNESHTORGBANK (VTB)
- In 2007, DFJ co-managed the fund DFJ-VTB Capital Aurora with the Kremlin-controlled bank, the VTB (Vneshtorgbank.) Note: DFJ was not contributing directly to the fund: half of the money came from the Russian government and twenty percent from the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development.
- VTB Group is owned by the Russian Government. Its main shareholder (60.9%) is Federal Agency for State Property Management (parent company: Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation.)
- Since 2014, VTB has been subject to the US, EU, Canadian, Japanese and Australian sanctions due to its role in the Crimean crisis, the Russian downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and Russian provocative actions against Ukraine and Japan.
- VTB played an important (although unclear) role in Rosneft privatization deal in 2016.
- The CEO of VTB is Andrei Kostin, a close ally of Putin, sanctioned by the US in April 2018.
2. RUSNANO (OR ROSNANO)
In 2009, RUSNANO, a 100% Russian government-owned joint-stock company, joined the VTB — DFJ Aurora Capital Fund.
“The overall size of the family fund at the first stage will be $100 million. RUSNANO will commit $50 million to the fund, VTB — $50 million,” stated the press release.
The CEO of Rusnano is appointed by the President of Russia.
- In 2007, (right at the time of DVF-VTB fund launch) Putin appointed Leonid Melamed as Rusnano CEO. Melamed was temporarily placed on house arrest in an investigation into accusations of “wasting public money” in 2015.
3. RUSSIAN VENTURE CORPORATION (RVC)
In 2010, Russian Venture Corporation (RVC), a Russian government fund of funds and a development institute of the Russian Federation, joined the partnership.
- RVC planned to hand over $1.25 billion to top-tier venture capital firms (there were only three, including DVF.) “The venture firms have to invest the money — along with some of their own money — into Russian start-ups, or start-ups created by Russian expatriates that are based in Russia” at “generous terms.”
4. SKOLKOVO — VEKSELBERG
In 2010, Draper and the CEO of DVF-VTB Capital Aurora Alexander “Sasha” Johnson visited Moscow where their group met with the Russian authorities, including the Ministers of Education & Science, Economic Development and the president of the state-funded innovation center Skolkovo, the Russian state-funded high tech developer, oligarch and Putin’s close ally, Victor Vekselberg, appointed by the President of Russian Federation at the time, Medvedev.
VICTOR VEKSELBERG
Victor Vekselberg, of Renova, is lately under the scrutiny for his involvement with the 2016 campaign and the Trump administration.
- A company linked to Vekselberg made payments of reported half million dollars to Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen received payments after the 2016 presidential election. Note: Read more on Michael Cohen’s thirty years of connections with the Russian mob:
- In December 2015, Vekselberg attended the 10th anniversary gala for the Kremlin-owned RT channel, where Putin sat beside Michael Flynn.
CORRUPTION CASES
- Both Skolkovo and Vekselberg were under scrutiny in Russia for misusing one billion dollars and a major corruption case in 2013.
- The DVF-VTB Aurora fund managers have also been accused of receiving “illegal kickbacks and racketeering” and sued in Californian court.
- The Russian investigative journalists uncovered “fraud” and “waste of public money” by the DVF-VTB fund managers; the list of hi-tech innovations included a “potato factory” and a new model of condoms requiring just one hand for application. Touching details.
DRAPER’S VISITS TO RUSSIA
Draper has been attending conferences and forums in Russia on a regular basis from 2007 to 2017.
In 2007, Draper wrote a song for the Russians attending the Russian Innovation Forum in California:
Hey! You want to start a business?
Russia seems to show some promise
While weighing all your choices
“Go to Moscow!” you hear voices…
Alexandra Johnson, the head of DJT-VTB Aurora, has a longterm working relationship with the Russian government, Skolkovo and has been listed as a speaker at the RVC forum with Victor Vekselberg as recently as April 2018.
RECENT ATTEMPTS TO SPLIT CALIFORNIA SUPPORTED BY RUSSIA
- “In the early hours of 9 November 2016, shortly after it became clear that Donald Trump would be the next president of the United States, the hashtag #Calexit hit Twitter’s list of top trends,” according to the BBC News. The hashtag was mentioned 100,000 times in the course of a few hours and was artificially driven by automated bots or fake accounts.
- BBC Trending has found evidence that the hashtag had some outside help, from accounts run by people based in Russia.
- According to the BBC, “the California independence movement has been spearheaded by a group called Yes California. One of the group’s co-founders, Louis Marinelli, opened a self-styled California embassy in Moscow, and later moved to Siberia.”
- “Marinelli attended a conference of Western secession movements in 2016, along with representatives from similar groups from Texas, Puerto Rico and Northern Ireland. The conference was organized by the Anti-Globalisation Movement, a group that has received money from the Russian government,” according to the BBC News.
- Russian ultra-right Internet site (and former TV-channel) Tsargrad, funded by Konstantin Malofeev, known for his financial support of the Russian separatists in Ukraine and headed at some point by Alexander Dugin, positively covered Draper’s attempt to split California in April 2018 as soon as his campaign gathered enough signatures and before the event was covered in the mass media in the US.
- Other Russian nationalistic and ultra-right sites support the effort.
- In the US, Sean Hannity, Fox News and Zero Hedge, a site whose largely financial reporting is interspersed with pro-Kremlin, anti-NATO, and anti-EU articles, according to the Digital Forensic Research Lab, covered Cal-3.
THE US SECESSION MOVEMENTS SUPPORTED BY RUSSIA
The campaign for California independence is not the only American secession movement with links to Russia, according to the BBC News.
A referendum, from Crimea to the UK to Catalonia, became one of the favorite tools of the Kremlin.
“Divide and Conquer” is at the core of the “doctrine” of Alexander Dugin, nicknamed “Putin’s brain.”
I have covered the principles and concrete examples of such campaigns in several articles on the ongoing hybrid war.
- Heart of Texas was for a time the most popular pro-Texas independence Facebook page, with more than 250,000 followers. But US Senate hearings revealed that the account was allegedly run by the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg.
Preston Wiginton, “American confederates-separatist” and supporter of Texas seceding attended the Russian Nationalists’ March in Moscow and has links to the Russian ultra-rights supported by the Kremlin and Alexander Dugin.
“It is especially important to introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements — extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the US. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics,” wrote Dugin.
THE WORLD SECESSION MOVEMENTS SUPPORTED BY RUSSIA
The Russian secret service has a long history of funding terrorist and separatist groups and movements around the world through business companies and installing puppet regimes in other countries.
Recently, there were many examples of this strategy.
CATALONIA
“Madrid believes Russian-based groups used online social media to heavily promote Catalonia’s independence referendum in an attempt to destabilize Spain.”
KURDISTAN
“With the planned referendum just days away, Russian state oil giant Rosneft announced its latest investment last week, to help Iraqi Kurdistan develop its natural gas industry, for domestic supplies and eventual export.”
UK: BREXIT
The investigative report in The New York Times shows that while Aaron Banks, “British financier who bankrolled the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, was spending more than eight million British pounds to promote a break with the European Union — an outcome the Russians eagerly hoped for — his contacts at the Russian Embassy in London were opening the door to at least three potentially lucrative investment opportunities in Russian-owned gold or diamond mines.”
The Guardian outlines the meetings between Banks and the Russian officials here:
I was in London when Brexit happened and saw how stunned people were at the result of the referendum that no one took seriously. Here is my photo report from the March for Europe; pictures here speak better than words.
WARNING, AGAIN
I also remember people dismissing Trump’s candidacy as a joke just the way they dismiss splitting California now. We have warned as early as February 2016 about Putin’s support for Trump:
…and as early as January 2015 about Putin’s plans:
Fortunately, it is 2018 and it is not just me anymore.
NATO officials believe that “Moscow is involved in a deliberately ambiguous strategy of information warfare and disinformation to try to divide the West and break its unity over economic sanctions imposed on Russia following its 2014 annexation of Crimea.”
“Russia is attempting to influence the midterm elections in the United States in November as well as divide the transatlantic alliance,”
US Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned at a meeting co-hosted by the Atlantic Council in Normandy, France, on June 8.
“It is 2018, and we continue to see Russian targeting of American society in ways that could affect our midterm elections,” he said. “These Russian actions are purposeful and premeditated and they represent an all-out assault, by Vladimir Putin, on the rule of law, Western ideals and democratic norms,” he said.
“[Putin’s] actions demonstrate that he seeks to sow divisions within and between those in the West who adhere to democratic norms,” he added.
CONCLUSION
This is a warning to my home state California:
Do not dismiss Cal3.
Get to the polls.
VOTE IT OUT on November 6th, 2018.
Follow the elections.
And last, but not the least, a good suggestion from our Californian newspaper Sacramento Bee:
This segment is a chapter of CLUSTERCLICK, photo novella by Zarina Zabrisky. For THE TABLE OF CONTENTS or to switch to another chapter, click here. Read more about Russian mafia state and Trump in “Politics. Oligarchs. Mafia” chapter here:
- All facts and photos are in public domain and available through Google. Links to the original sources are included.
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