League of the South allowing it to be used by a foreign power against American interests. UPDATE:

I was reading this interesting article about Putin and Russia at the New York Review of Books in the latest issue. You can read it here:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/dec/18/how-he-and-his-cronies-stole-russia/?insrc=hpma

In place of a genuine media and a real civil society, Putin and his inner circle slowly put into place a system for manufacturing disinformation and mobilizing support on a new and spectacular scale. Once the KGB had retaken the country, in other words, it began once again to act like the KGB—only now it was better funded and more sophisticated. Today’s Russian “political technologists” make use of their state-owned media, including English-language outlets such as the TV news channel Russia Today; armies of paid social media “trolls” who post on newspaper comment pages, as well as on Twitter, Facebook, and other sites; fake “experts” whose quotes can be presented with fake authority; and real experts to whom Putin’s officials have granted special access, or have simply paid. Former Western ambassadors to Moscow, businessmen who have been recruited to Russian company boards, European politicians as high-ranking as Schröder and Silvio Berlusconi—all have been well compensated, directly or indirectly, for offering their support.

Using these different sources, the Kremlin began putting out messages designed not necessarily to make Russia look good, but rather to undermine the Western establishment and Western institutions, including the European Union and NATO. Using both money and information, they seek to empower the Western far right, the anti-establishment left, and the international business community all at the same time. Thus Russia Today supports Occupy Wall Street. A Russian oligarch organizes a meeting in Vienna attended by the French National Front, Hungary’s nationalist political party Jobbik, and Austria’s Freedom Party.3 Whispering campaigns, conducted in the world’s financial capitals—especially Frankfurt and the City of London—hint at the dire things that will happen if sanctions against Russia are not lifted. In an article recently published by The Interpreter, an online publication dedicated to exposing Kremlin disinformation, the journalists Peter Pomerantsev and Michael Weiss argue that:

since at least 2008 Kremlin military and intelligence thinkers have been talking about information not in the familiar terms of “persuasion,” “public diplomacy” or even “propaganda,” but in weaponized terms, as a tool to confuse, blackmail, demoralize, subvert and paralyze.4

In understanding this we can see why Russian media has been interested in giving League of the South President Michael Hill and some others a platform in their media. Recently the League of the South was exultant in the fact that they were on Russian media.

http://leagueofthesouth.com/league-president-interviewed-on-russian-tv/

The Russians may not take the League of the South very seriously but want to assist any group that they feel could harm the United States of America and in the case of giving League of the South media access they are covering all their bets.

It would suit the Russians very well if a real secessionist movement would gain some traction in the United States.

At some point what the League of the South is doing is treason.

UPDATE:

This is another item of the Putin government supporting the neo-Confederate movement in the United States.

http://leagueofthesouth.com/the-league-of-the-south-takes-its-southern-nationalist-message-to-moscow/

League of the South President Michael Hill is pleased to announce that he spoke via Skype at an Anti-Globalist conference in Moscow on the topic “The Right of People for Self-Determination and Constructing a Multipolar World.”

I am trying to find out some information about the conference. This is a YouTube video of it. Doesn't seem like a major affair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=688xDoLgAY4

The same video can be found at:

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/12/14/390167/moscow-hosts-antiglobalization-conference/

I don't know if the Putin government is giving the League of the South any financial resources, but being on Russian TV and being invited to conferences certainly must encourage the neo-Confederates and maintain moral when their agenda doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Also, it has the potential to raise their prestige in the eyes of other extremists and help them recruit members and retain members.

I have not indication so far that the Sons of Confederate Veterans, United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Abbeville Institute are connecting with Russian groups as part of an anti-Western effort.  The people at the Rockford Institute have been in contact with all sorts of reactionary groups in Europe and been sympathetic to reactionaries in Eastern Europe, but I haven't really paid too close attention to this. I think I will need to pay more attention to it in the future.

This article in the Dec. 2014 issue of Chronicles certain shows that they are supportive of Putin and his regime in Russia.

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2014/December/38/12/magazine/article/10826302/

The support for neo-Confederates by the regime in Moscow is a disturbing development and needs to be watched closely.