Washington Obkom

The Washington Obkom (Russian: вашингтонский обком), literally the "Washington Province Party Committee", is a pejorative term used in Russian media and speech to imply that many crucial decisions by political elites of Russia and some other post-Soviet states have been and are agreed with and/or taken in the United States.[1][2][3] The term incorporates two incompatible symbols of power: "Washington D.C." as the symbol of the US administration, and "obkom" symbolizing the power of the Communist Party.[4] According to Russian political analyst Oleg Maslov Washington Obkom is one of the key hybrid political symbols in the 21st century Russia.[4] The term is mostly used by various types of Russian nationalists but occasionally is used by the figures of democratic opposition, e.g. by Garry Kasparov.[5] The political term became popular after the 1998 Russian financial crisis that triggered a wave of Anti-Americanism in the post-Soviet Russia and had its peak of Internet usage in January 2006 after the Russia–Ukraine gas dispute of 2005–2006.[5]