Thread by @Matthew_Kupfer

THREAD. Fascinating scoop from @NBCNews: associates of Yevgeny Prigozhin, man behind #Russia's troll factory, had a plan to radicalize Afro-Americans to fight for a black state in the US south. It is many things:
1) frightening
2) improbable
3) indicative
nbcnews.com/news/world/rus…

1) Frightening: Yes, it is scary because it shows that Prigozhin's people are theoretically willing to stoke violence (war) in the United States to advance their commercial goals (Prigozhin is, effectively, a businessman making money off the Russian state budget).

2) Improbable: As @AndreiSoldatov notes in the story, Prigozhin's people pitch plans — even elaborate ones — to the Kremlin, which accepts or rejects them. This plan is so wild, I have trouble believing it was accepted. We shouldn't necessarily take this as Kremlin policy.

3) Indicative: It show's us that, for all their 2016 election interference, Prigozhin's people don't have a great understanding of America. I highly doubt that a significant number of African-Americans would go to Africa for training in a plot to overthrow the US government.

3a) I highly doubt that such a plot would escape the attention of the US security agencies. And, given what happened in Salisbury, I doubt that #Russia's security agencies could pull this off without screwing up and giving themselves away somewhere along the way.

3b) That said, Prigozhin's Wagner Group is at the forefront of advancing Russian political and commercial interests in Africa. bloomberg.com/news/features/…

3c) The fact that they seem to view efforts to radicalize African-Americans as connected with their Africa work is quite interesting and also, I suspect, *very* naive.

3d) With all due respect to the concept of the global African diaspora, I can't imagine any African-Americans having positive (or even strong) feelings for/about the dictators Wagner is propping up.

3e) What's so bizarre about this story is that it shows us both how devious #Russia's Wagner Group is, but also how wrong they can be about how the U.S. works.

It's part of a broader duality of both serious capabilities & incompetence we have seen in Russian actions abroad. /END