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| Global, Larry Diamond et al. eds. at 226 (2016). 76 Ibid. at 218. Eva Hartog, A Kremlin Youth Movement Goes Rogue The Moscow Times, Apr. 8, 2016. Mikhail Zygar, All the Kremlin’s Men, PublicAffairs at 98 (2016). 79 Ibid. at 99. Julia Ioffe, ‘‘Russia’s Nationalist Summer Camp The New Yorker, Aug. 16, 2010; Eva Hartog, A Kremlin Youth Movement Goes Rogue The Moscow Times, Apr. 8, 2016. 81 Ilnur Sharafiyev, Making Real Men Out of Schoolchildren Meduza, Oct. 6, 2017. Daniel Schearf, ‘‘Putin’s Youth Army Debuts on Red Square for Victory Day ’’ Voice of America, May 8, 2017. GONGOs in countries on its periphery and beyond where it can eagerly exploit the relatively free operating space for civil society to maximize their impact. 75 He also notes that, similar to Russia, leading authoritarian governments have established a wide constellation of regime-friendly GONGOs, including think tanks and policy institutes, that operate at home and abroad.’’ 76 The Kremlin has also focused on cultivating youth activism to serve its own purposes. In 2005, after youth activists fueled protests in Ukraine that ultimately toppled the government, Surkov sought a buffer against such upheaval in Russia. Seizing on the anxieties of a nascent youth group in St. Petersburg, he helped develop it into the Nashi (Ours) youth organization and recruited participants, particularly from Russia’s poorer regions, who could be readily mobilized as a counter-force to pro-democracy dem- onstrations. 77 The group’s first summit was held at a Kremlin- owned facility outside Moscow and included pro-Kremlin activ- ists. 78 Within months, Nashi held a rally in Moscow in which thousands of activists were bussed into celebrate Russia’s World War II victory over Germany. 79 Nashi and its projects were funded by both the state and pro-Kremlin oligarchs and focused on pro-Putin gatherings and the political training of youth in summer camp- style gatherings, which included posters demeaning Kremlin critics and human rights activists as liars and Nazis. 80 More recently, a ‘‘military-patriotic movement of 11- to 18-year-olds known as Yunarmiya (Youth Army) has been promulgated in schools across Russia, a project of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu endorsed by Putin and enjoying sponsorship from four state-owned banks. 81 Its ranks swelled from 100 members into more than 30,000 a year later, and Yunarmiya was prominently featured in the Kremlin’s annual World War II Victory Day parade in May just weeks after a large number of Russian youth turned out at opposition-organized anti-corruption protests around the coun- try. 82 Finally, the Kremlin has created a climate where physical attacks against civil society activists, as well as political opponents and independent journalists, occur regularly and often with impunity (see Appendix E. While such attacks are not exclusively part of the Russian sovereign democracy toolkit, the impunity with which they have been perpetrated in Russia has provided comforting company to other authoritarian governments who use similar tactics. Political Processes, Parties, and Opposition Russia’s sovereign democracy relies on democratic structures, albeit largely hollow ones, to give a sheen of legitimacy to a regime VerDate Mar 15 2010 04:06 Jan 09, 2018 Jkt PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 S:\FULL COMMITTEE\HEARING FILES\COMMITTEE PRINT 2018\HENRY\JAN. 9 REPORT FOREI-42327 with DISTILLER 21 Statement of Michael McFaul, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Russia: Rebuilding the Iron Curtain, Hearing before the US. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, May 17, 2007. Tom Parfitt, Mikhail Khodorkovsky Sentenced to 14 years in Prison The Guardian, Dec. 30, 2010; David M. Herszenhorn & Steven Lee Myers, Freed Abruptly by Putin, Khodorkovsky Arrives in Germany The New York Times, Dec. 20, 2013. Statement of Michael McFaul, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Russia: Rebuilding the Iron Curtain, Hearing before the US. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, May 17, 2007. 86 Download 0.63 Mb. Share with your friends:
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