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The U.S. Isn’t Prepared for Russian Information Warfare
Zabrisky: The battlefield is the brain
Zarina Zabrisky is a Russian-born writer/journalist who witnessed the fall of the old Soviet Union and the rise of Putin, the oligarchs and the mafia state. She also saw how Russia has used weaponized propaganda to attack America and support Donald Trump. This is my interview with her.
Otiko: What did you do in Russia and how did you come to America?
Zabrisky: I was born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia (Leningrad, USSR, at the time.) I got a degree in English Language and Literature from St. Petersburg State University. Growing up in the collapsing USSR was challenging, but now these experiences inform my research. When I was 16, a KGB officer tried to recruit me as a prostitute/KGB spy to talk to clients in bugged hotel rooms — such was the spying and recruiting practices of Russian security services.
I was in St.Petersburg during the coup of 1991 when Putin, a KGB officer, made his first steps to power: stealing the supply of meat from Germany to Leningrad. In the 1990s, I interpreted in the former USSR at negotiations between high profile officials and executives. I translated at oilfields and timber yards in the Arctic, Siberia and Kazakhstan. I witnessed bribing, blackmailing, and recruiting of the…
