Nightingale Russia Thinks I'm Working for the Kremlin

Nightingale Russia Just Doesn't Get It

            On July 5th an organization called Nightingale Russia did an expose about me called Inforos: Confessions of a Contributor. I’ve written for Inforos since the spring of 2019. That’s a problem for Nightingale Russia. You see, here’s how they describe Inforos, “InfoRos information agency is acting as a front for GRU psychological influence operations.” If one believes Nightingale Russia, I’m some sort of indy writer ‘recruited’ by Inforos’ English language editor Maxim Krasovsky who himself answers to one Denis Tyurin, alleged GRU spy. Nightingale Russia describes me thusly, “The writer in question is William Stroock, a commentator and author of military fiction who is based in the United States. He has written many articles for inforos.ru and infobrics.org, such as ‘Withe [sic] Democrats: Enter Hillary’ in which he expresses his disapproval of Hillary Clinton, and ‘Right Riots and Total Chaos on Capitol Hill’, about the storming of the US Capitol. As these titles suggest, Stroock mainly covers American politics, which we know is an area of great interest to Russia.”

This is absolutely 100% correct. I write newsy articles and op/eds about politics in the United States with occasional forays into foreign policy, Israel and Great Britain. Readers may count me among the ranks of the Likudniks and Brexiteers. Russia is interested in American political happenings? It’s almost as if my interest in British and Israeli politics isn’t unusual. Nightingale Russia claims the Kremlin wants to “fuel political division and undermine American democracy”. Lots of countries have tried to undermine American democracy, and it seems to me that China’s doing a pretty good job of it right now. I’m more concerned about the Chicoms than the Russians. Seriously, in 2020 Russian GDP totaled 1.48 trillion dollars and accounted for 1.31 percent of the World Economy, sad. There’s a reason Kissinger called the USSR Upper Volta with Nukes.

As for whether or not I’m undermining American democracy. Judge for yourself. Here’s an article from February 2020 in which I describe Bernie Sanders to the Ruskis. Here’s an article from March of 2020 in which I report on various coronavirus related political machinations in the United States.  And here’s an article from the summer of 2020 talking about Woke politics and the Washington Redskins. Not the only time I’ve snuck American sports into an Inforos article. Like I said, I write (mostly) about American politics for Inforos. I found a niche and filled it. That’s freelance writing 101. My work has also appeared in Strategy & Tactics, Military Heritage, History, Military History Matters, The National Interest, Like Totally 80’s…I could go on.

Nightingale Russia takes a few paragraphs to breathlessly sleuth out that Maxim Krasovksy is Inforos’ English language editor. This is public knowledge. It seems Nightingale Russia thinks they’re breaking some news describing the editorial process between myself and Maxim.  That process is simple. I’ll email Maxim with an idea, or he’ll email me asking if I have anything in the works.  That’s it. That’s all that happens. There are no secret meetings in Prague or Helsinki. No midnight dead drops of satchels packed with rubles. By the way, that’s how it works with the other numerous American, British and Canadian publications I’ve written for. I’ll email an editor, ‘Hey, want an article on the South Koreans in Vietnam? Five words: Taekwondo fighters on the Mekong.’ To which an editor may reply, ‘Sure, Will. Send it when ready.’ You see, writers are desperate to publish, and editors are desperate for content. It’s a symbiotic relationship. That Nightingale Russia doesn’t seem to understand this is…curious. Don’t these people publish elsewhere?

Nightingale Russia was determined to find some nefarious activity on my part and did a deep dive on my blog, William Stroock’s Books. Those who read the Nightingale Russia piece will see they came up from Stroock’s Books with several quotes in hand. Nightingale Russia Writes, “In our previous InfoRos article, we stated that we could not be certain that the journalists who wrote for InfoRos were aware that they were actually working for the GRU, and this might be the case with Stroock too. However, in posts from January 2021 on his blog williamstroock.blogspot.com, he encourages people to read his ‘regular bit of Russian disinformation at Inforos’ and states ‘We’ll be working on new articles for 1945 and Inforos. We must keep our GRU handler happy lest he release his komprmat [sic]’ and in another post from January he talks about his ‘work on behalf of Moscow’. Whilst it is possible he is being extremely brazen about who his employer is, he may also be joking as in a post from April of this year, he appears not to know that GRU controls InfoRos.” Nightingale Russia goes on to quote me about this AP article from last summer, “Stroock’s response to this news is ‘Is it true? I’ve no idea. And I don’t care. I’ve been spreading a lot of Soviet, er Russian disinformation, that’s for sure.’ Is he being disingenuous or does he really not know who is behind InfoRos? It is hard to say, but he is certainly not troubled by the thought of working for Russian intelligence.”

I’m embarrassed that I misspelled ‘kompromat’. But Nightingale Russia should be more embarrassed that they’re not getting the joke. Seriously, they actually quoted this, “‘We have a lot on our plate and weren’t planning on colluding with the Russians this week. But Maxim got into bed next to us, put a gentle hand on our shoulder and asked, ‘Honey, are you awake?’ So it looks like we’ll chronicle more of the internal GOP war. It’s nice to be wanted.’” It is, it really is. Nightingale Russia further remarks, “It certainly appears that Stroock is responding to Maksim’s request to write stories about US political events.” This is exactly right. Congratulations, girls. Pour yourselves a white wine spritzer, or an Asbolut, judging by the origin of the web traffic you’re sending my way.

From there things get a little weird. Nightingale Russia drags in my friend Sarah Abed.  Here’s how they describe things, “Stroock’s comments imply that InfoRos asks writers like Abed, who are already producing content for the agency, to keep an eye out for other journalists who could be recruited to the cause.” I have explained this on my blog before, but I’ll do it again here. Sarah Abed and I met via a mutual friend. We got friendly ourselves because we’re both interested in the Middle East. I’m team Israel, she’s team Syria. We talk about events back in our ancestral homelands. Sarah asks me questions about Israel and Judaism (You’re a Zionist? Yuk.), I ask her questions about Syria and Arabs. It doesn’t matter that we’re on different sides. That’s how grownups act. Heck, Assad has my grudging admiration. He kills a lot of Isis and al Qaida, I’ll say that for the man. Writing that sentence, I have a hunch Nightingale Russia is going to start calling me an ‘Assad Apologist.’ Go with it, guys.  Anyway, I got Sarah to do this profile on me for Inforos. From there I introduced myself to Maxim and here we are 75 articles (and counting) later, with Nightingale Russia accusing me of working for the KGB, or the GRU. Whatever. But, lets get something straight you dumb Ruskis in Swedish exile. Inforos didn’t recruit me, I recruited Inforos. And by the way, there’s no reason to insult me by calling me a journalist.

There is this idea floating around the internet, to quote the above mentioned AP article, that the Ruskis are using Americans to cover their misinformation efforts. “InfoRos is evolving in a shady grey zone, where regular information activities are mixed with more controversial actions that could be quite possibly linked to the Russian state’s information operations.” Here's another article about an American being recruited by a Soviet, sorry, Russian news outlet. Americans, the narrative seems to argue, add a veneer of respectability. Really? The bloke writing that article was an unemployed food industry worker. As for me? I’m a college dropout who went back to school online in 2001, a substitute teacher who taught social studies and English at a second-rate Yeshiva in Passaic, a former professor of history at a community college, a publisher of mine own novels, who runs a blog in which I’m berated by an imaginary Livurpudlian editor who won’t stop calling me ‘knobhead’. Incidentally, I once fired that imaginary Liverpudlian editor over MeToo concerns. ‘We are the weirdos, Will,’ Sarah once admonished. Look, Nightingale Russia, if you think I lend respectability to anything, you’ve got bigger problems than Russian misinformation.

So, what is Inforos? The world through Russian eyes, as the website claims, or Russian disinformation? I’ll say it again. I don’t know, and I don’t care. Even if this Denis Tyurin fellow is… KGB, so what? Would Nightingale Russia like to talk about the legions of spooks who work at CNN and MSNBC? And how do we know Nightingale Russia isn’t a CIA op to discredit Inforos? Seriously, they’re anonymous. How do we know?  As for misinformation, I’ve never written about the Russian Collusion Hoax or any other wacky media conspiracy theory involving President Trump. Pee dossier, seriously? Nope. Everything I write for Inforos is 99 and 44/100 percent true. Oh, by the way, Nightingale Russia, you quoted a post of mine that you claim I later deleted. Here’s the post. I have never deleted a published post from my blog. You’re spreading misinformation.