Korybko To The South Asia Times: You’re Batshit Crazy To Imply That I’m A Foreign Agent!

The South Asia Times (SAT) ran a hit piece on me today in response to my analysis about whether Pakistan is assembling death squads to terrorize the Baloch and invade Afghanistan. That work of mine cited Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s reports about Pakistan’s recruitment of former Afghan soldiers and its emergence as a new global opium hub to argue that the aforesaid scenario is plausible. I fear that opium-funded Afghan militias could cross the border a la Turkiye’s Syrian rebel strategy from 2011-2024.

SAT ignored all of that attack me by implying that I’m a foreign agent. Their exact words were, “Why is he constantly promoting the possibility of a confrontation between Russia and Pakistan precisely when both governments are working to strengthen their partnership? On whose instructions is he conducting this campaign, and whose interests does it serve?” They then called on the authorities to investigate me. They also tagged the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian Embassy in Pakistan in their post on X.

It’s batshit crazy to imply that I’m working for a foreign government to meddle in Russian-Pakistani relations and haven’t been detained or deported by now amidst the ongoing nationwide counter-intelligence operation that’s paralleled the large-scale phase of the Ukrainian Conflict for the past half-decade. SAT is insulting the intelligence of their readers with such innuendo. They’re also dead wrong about the nature of my work too since my recent series explicitly aims to improve bilateral relations.

I’ll share it in full at the end of this piece so that folks can see for themselves, but for the convenience of those who don’t have the time to at least scroll through the titles (one of which is a roadmap for their ties), I’ll summarize it now. They’re in an intractable dispute over Taliban-led Afghanistan, which Russia deems a bulwark against ISIS-K’s expansion into Central Asia and is why it’s seriously considering arming the Taliban. Pakistan, by contrast, accuses the Taliban of backing terrorists. That’s why they’re at war.

This dispute could worsen their ties, but only depending on what Pakistan does next, such as arming Ukraine on the false pretext of revenge and/or escalating its proxy war in Afghanistan so that Russia redoubles support for the Taliban to prevent the resultant instability from spilling into the Central Asia. The second scenario could even spark another Russian-Pakistani proxy war there. I want to avert that, hence my series, which is meant in part to inform Pakistani experts and policymakers of Russia’s position.

I’m not an official and have never presented myself as one, but I’m credentialed to articulate and analyze Russia’s policy in this context after writing my PhD dissertation on Russian-Pakistani relations. I received my degree from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, more popularly known by its Russian abbreviation MGIMO, which is run by the Foreign Ministry. I was also honored to give several lectures at Pakistan’s National Defence University from 2017-2019 on this subject too.

Despite my principled disagreement with the political persecution of former multipolar Prime Minister Imran Khan and his supporters after April 2022’s post-modern coup, I still very deeply care about Pakistanis, Pakistan, and Russian-Pakistani relations. In fact, I’ve dedicated over a decade of my life to their ties, which is over one-quarter of my life. I’m very worried that Pakistan might do what I warned about above at the expense of relations with Russia due to misunderstanding its interests in Afghanistan.

SAT alleged that my series is “creat[ing] suspicions about Pakistan-Russia relations”, including through my “claims and warnings that Moscow could arm the Afghan Taliban against Pakistan”, and asserted that “such narratives are particularly irresponsible” amidst their decade-long rapprochement. That’s a grossly dishonest misportrayal of my series and the intent behind it as explicitly declared in several of my analyses. It also ignores the humble role that I personally played in this process from 2017-2022.

About that, I was inspired to dedicate over a decade of my life thus far to specializing in Pakistan and its relations with Russia for two interconnected reasons. The first is Pakistan’s hosting of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is the flagship project of China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI). I believe that BRI is the vehicle through which China is reshaping International Relations. Therefore, since CPEC is its flagship, that gives Pakistan a disproportionately important role in the global systemic transition.

I explained this at length in my debut analysis on the subject for the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies, which is among the country’s top think tanks and was formed by one of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s decrees, about how “Pakistan Is The ‘Zipper’ Of Pan-Eurasian Integration”. I argued that CPEC places Pakistan at the center of Eurasian integration processes. It could also be expanded to Central Asia via Afghanistan to one day pioneer an overland Russian-Indian trade corridor.

This segues into my second reason for dedicating over one-quarter of my life to Russian-Pakistani relations and it’s to help Russia complete its envisaged Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP). I explained this at length in my MGIMO PhD dissertation that I hyperlinked to earlier in this article, but in brief, GEP refers to Putin’s goal of Russia closely partnering with all the countries on the supercontinent with a view towards facilitating its harmonious co-development for all their people’s benefit.

It was put forth by him in 2015, the same year that CPEC was announced, and influenced my belief that they’re complementary like he himself suggested. When Putin first shared the GEP, Russia had decent ties with Europe, and the only country with which it lacked a meaningful relationship was Pakistan, largely due to a dearth of expertise and some older officials’ sour grapes over their 1980s Afghan proxy war. As someone who sincerely loves Russia, I challenged myself to change that, and I arguably helped.

In the half-decade between my first trip to Pakistan in 2017 and cutting off all ties with its officialdom in 2022 in protest over their government’s political persecution of Imran and his supporters, I traveled to Pakistan five times to brief experts and officials alike on how to most effectively improve ties with Russia. I also published detailed conference papers on the “Applicability of Hybrid Warfare to Pakistan: Challenges and Possible Responses” and “Pakistan in the 21st Century – Perception Management”.

In fact, so close was I to Pakistani officialdom that some of my Russian expert and journalist friends told me in all seriousness back then that some of their superiors said that they suspected that I was operating as their “agent” in Russia, but that’s obviously not true since I was never detained or deported for that. I’m fiercely proud of my five-year-long contributions to improving Russian-Pakistani relations through my work with Pakistani officialdom, their National Defence University, and various think tanks.

I haven’t stopped since 2022 either, instead pivoting towards only briefing Russians about Pakistan and regional affairs in general upon their request, which I’m qualified to do since I wrote my Russian Foreign Ministry-run MGIMO PhD dissertation on their relations like I mentioned earlier in this article. I received my PhD in 2023 and have continued to follow Pakistan very closely to this day. I’m admittedly very critical of its de facto military dictatorship, but I don’t let that influence my analyses of its ties with Russia.

As attested by my series that provoked SAT to viciously defame me and try to thuggishly intimidate me by tagging those two Russian government accounts on X in their hit piece about me, I’m very worried that ties might worsen depending on what Pakistan does next. As a reminder, this is either arming Ukraine on the false pretext of revenge and/or escalating its proxy war in Afghanistan, the second of which could lead to another Russian-Pakistani proxy war there. I truly want to avert that.

Since I cut off all ties with Pakistani officialdom in protest over their government’s political persecution of Imran and his supporters, whose multipolar worldview I share and to whom I therefore have kindred feelings, the only way to convey my articulation of Russian policy to them is through my published work. I’m also not interested in restoring the ties that I cut off after reports over the past half decade, later denied by the Russian Ambassador to Pakistan, that Pakistan allegedly armed Ukraine.

I deem these reports to be credible and suspect that the ambassador denied them in order to keep their rapprochement on track, perhaps believing that Pakistan only did this under duress upon immense pressure from the US to whom it’s a “Major Non-NATO Ally”. Accordingly, even if I wanted to restore my severed ties with Pakistani officialdom, then that could place me under scrutiny by the security services given the nationwide counter-intelligence operation if Pakistan is unofficially deemed to be “unfriendly”.

I’m a proud American-Pole with a seemingly Ukrainian surname due to its distinctive -ko suffix, though it’s actually a Slavicized Lithuanian one as I explained in my autobiographical article about “Why I’m A Proud Volhynia Genocide Activist”, and this is probably the most “politically sensitive” identity combination possible in today’s Russia. I therefore expect that I might be monitored by the security services, and I don’t mind since I understand why they’d profile me and I’m not doing anything wrong.

If I was still meeting with Pakistani diplomats in Moscow whose country might have armed Ukraine to kill Russians in collusion with the US to whom it’s a “Major Non-NATO Ally”, however, then the abovementioned speculative monitoring of me by the security services could turn into an investigation. I don’t want to deal with the stress that could accompany being wrongly suspected of working as the “agent” of a country that might have helped kill Russians as I sincerely believe that Pakistan is guilty of.

Therefore, the only way in which I can convey my articulation of Russian policy on Afghanistan to Pakistani officialdom without the stress that I’d feel if I re-engaged with them in the context that I just described is through my published work, which might have attracted the attention of anti-Russian elements therein. It can’t be ruled out that they tasked SAT with writing their hit piece and tagging those two Russian government accounts on X in a bid to thuggishly intimidate me. I wouldn’t be surprised.

After all, I’ve provably dedicated over one-quarter of my life to the cause of improving Russian-Pakistani relations, which is what my series aims to do by preventing their dispute over Taliban-led Afghanistan from worsening their ties if the right officials come across it. It therefore naturally follows that only anti-Russian elements within the Pakistani Establishment, which is local parlance for the powerful military and intelligence agencies that really run the country, would seek to impugn and pressure me.

Speculation about SAT’s motives aside, no honest observer – whether Pakistani, Russian, or whoever else – would conclude from an objective assessment of my series and my explicit declarations of intent within some of its parts that I’m trying to worsen their relations, only a dishonest one would claim so. The same goes for their innuendo that I’m operating as a foreign government’s “agent” in pursuit of this goal instead of me sincerely believing everything that I’ve ever written on this subject.

I’m neither a Pakistani “agent” or any other country’s, have never been, nor will I ever become one. What I am is an MGIMO-credentialed expert on Russian-Pakistani relations, the cause to which I’ve spent over a decade advancing, including through dozens of analyses over the years (possibly even over 100 by now, but I’m too busy at the moment to collect and count them all). This is especially so for my work from 2015-2022. Only a low-IQ person would dismiss all of that and misportray me as anyone’s “agent”.

SAT likely won’t retract their hit piece on me, and that definitely won’t happen if it was ordered by anti-Russian elements within their country’s Establishment, but it nevertheless prompted me to elaborate on why I became an expert on Pakistan and its ties with Russia. I’ve been meaning to do so for some time since I’m asked about it once in a while, and this was a perfect opportunity to do so. Without further ado, my series can be read in full below, which I truly hope helps avert the worsening of bilateral ties.

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* 3 October: “Is India Financing The Taliban’s Reported Purchase Of Belarusian Drones?”

* 5 October: “Russia & Pakistan Have Polar Opposite Views On Taliban-Led Afghanistan”

* 6 October: “What’s The Future Of Russian-Afghan Military Cooperation?”

* 6 October: “Is Pakistan Waging An Infowar On Russia Over Its Ties With The Taliban?”

* 6 October: “How Might Russia’s Threat Perception Of Pakistan Change If It Arms Ukraine?”

* 7 October: “Clarifying Seven Important Points About Russia’s South Asian Policy”

* 8 October: “Russia Hinted At What An Afghan-Pakistani De-Escalation Agreement Could Look Like”

* 9 October: “The Taliban Isn’t Entirely Wrong About Pakistan”

* 10 October: “Fact Check: Pakistan Didn’t Dissolve The USSR”

* 11 October: “Korybko To Imtiaz Gul: Here’s What Russia Is Really Up To In Afghanistan”

* 12 October: “Korybko To Kamran Yousaf: Pakistan Should Address Russia’s Suspicions About Its Ties With ISIS-K”