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Moscow: Reporter's Notebook

Jamie Dettmer

   MOSCOW - Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova is
   clear. There is nothing the Kremlin can do about Russian military
   contractors operating in Africa.

   During one of her weekly press briefings shortly after news broke that
   more than two dozen Russians had been killed in Libya, I pressed her
   about whether the Kremlin endorsed their presence.

   And if it did not, what would be done to prevent Russian veterans
   pursing freelance foreign policies.

   "I have no detailed information about what soldiers you are talking
   about," she said. She added there is nothing the Kremlin can do to stop
   Russian military outfits waging secret wars overseas. It is reminiscent
   of 2014 when the Kremlin presumably could do nothing about the
   so-called "little green men" who miraculously appeared in Crimea but
   paved the way for the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula.

   "We have no laws to stop this," Zakharova said, throwing her arms wide
   open.

   No socializing

   Afterward, I talked with her deputy who, before taking up his role at
   the foreign ministry in Moscow, had been Russia's press attaché in
   Berlin, and someone who I thought therefore might be open to some
   sociable contact with reporters. I sent a follow-up email and suggested
   lunch.

   He has not replied.

   That is par for the course. Russian officials are wary nowadays of
   socializing with foreign journalists, especially from international
   public broadcasters, deemed to be what the Russian government has
   labeled "foreign agents." VOA, BBC, France 24, Radio Free Europe and
   Deutsche Welle are all in the frame.

   On the margins of a press conference the other day a soberly suited man
   who said he was a lawyer but who I assumed was some kind of spook,
   asked me who I worked for and finding out, declared, "Oh, we are
   enemies then." I responded, "No. I am just a reporter."

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