Aleksandr Bastrykin, a close associate of Putin, and head of the powerful Russian Research Commission, has said that Russia "needs to arm itself against the hybrid American information war, by applying censorship to the internet, like China does.
He says the US has been pumping billions of dollars into spreading false information about Russia.
As examples he names the shooting down of flight MH-17, the inquiry into the polonium poisoning of Aleksandr Litvinenko in the UK (which technically was a nuclear attack on NATO soil btw), and the rumors about corruption, about FIFA awarding the hosting of the world championship soccer 2018 to Russia.
According to Bastrykin, the US spends billions of dollars each year to "feed anti-Russian sentiments in nations bordering Russia, under the guise of strenghtening democracy".
At the same time, Bastrykin continues, "the US are trying to incite the peoples of Russia against each other, just like they sparked nationalist conflicts in the Sovjet Union in the '90s."
"It has become crystal clear that all these conflicts were an element of the first, secret phase of the information war."
Now too, he sees Americans everywhere. "Washington is behind the islamic terror in the Caucasus, and the US is also behind the recent spark of conflict between Azerbeidzjan and Armenia about the Nagorno-Karabach region. They aim to create instable conflict situations everywhere along the Russian border."
"It is time to put up an effective barrier against this information war. We should stop being a pseudo-democracy, and stop adhering to pseudo-liberal values. A true democracy should aim for protecting common interest, and not absolute freedom and the right of the individual."
Next to proposing censoring the internet, Bastrykin also proposes that Russian youth should be educated ideologically, to arm them against foreign destabilizing influences.
Also, it should become a punishable offense by law to deny 'historic facts' from the Russian history, like the "voluontary joining of the Crimea to Russia".
Bastrykin, an old college friend of Putin, is the head of the powerful Russian Research Commission since 2011, which is an alternative public prosector, and is regarded by some to be Putin's personal justice department. The most sensitive cases are handed from the official public prosecutor's office to the Research Commission, especially when it is a political case.
Next to that, Putin recently created a police and safety department that is under his direct command, the National Guard. It will be formed from units that are now still under the command of the department of internal affairs.
Critics fear that the National guard, which will take up 300 to 400 thousand men, will become some kind of Pretorian guard, which Putin will use to supress any signs of political unrest.
The National Guard will be lead by another trustee of Putin, Viktor Zolotov, who has been the head of Putin's presidential guard for a long time.
http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/adviseur-poetin-wil-censuur-op-westers-gestook~a4285608/The US government paid me 3 billion to post this.