33 174
Ibid.; James Carli, ‘‘Aleksandr Dugin: The Russian Mystic Behind America’s Weird Far- Right
Huffington Post, Sept. 7, 2017. Steven Lee Myers et al., Private Bank Fuels Fortunes of Putin’s Inner Circle
The New York Times, Sept. 27, 2014. Putin Signs Law Granting Sanctions-Hit Russians Tax Breaks
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Apr. 4, 2017. Andrew E. Kramer, In Russia, a Bribery Case Lifts
the Veil on Kremlin Intrigue The New York Times, Oct. 21, 2017. David Filipov, Russia Dismisses Sweeping Corruption Allegations Against Medvedev,’’
The Washington Post, Mar. 5, 2017. Statement of Boris Nemtsov, Co-Chairman, Republican Party of Russia,
A Dangerous Slide Backwards: Russia’s Deteriorating Human Rights Situation, Hearing before the US. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, June 13, 2013. Matthew Pennington, US. Levies Sanctions
Against Myanmar General, Dozen Others
Associated Press, Dec. 21, 2017. brother Boris and nephew Roman Yury Kovalchuk, Vladimir
Yakunin, and Andrei Fursenko of the Ozero cooperative and
Kovalchuk’s nephew Kirill Kovalchuk; Kremlin insiders Vladislav
Surkov and Vyacheslav Volodin; Rosneft chairman and head of the
Kremlin’s ‘’siloviki’’ faction of security officials-turned-politicians Igor Sechin; billionaire businessman Gennady Timchenko;
and even Aleksandr Dugin, whose philosophy of ‘‘Eurasianism’’ pushes for Russia to extend an ultra-nationalist, neo-fascist worldview across the globe.
174
Putin sought to playoff the sanctions as a mere annoyance and soften the blow through directing kickbacks to those impacted, for example by shifting valuable state contracts to Bank Rossiya weeks after it was sanctioned.
175
The Duma also passed a law affording tax privileges to sanctioned individuals.
176
But the combination of sanctions and low oil prices have nevertheless been a dragon the Russian economy in recent years. As
The New York Times noted, this has reduced the country’s most privileged players . . . to fighting over slices of a smaller economic pie, seeking an advantage over rivals through the courts and law enforcement officials who are widely seen as vulnerable to corrup- tion.’’
177
The increasing exposure of Putin’s network has helped to fuel demand for more transparency and questions over the assumed inviolability of Putin’s leadership. A minute video released by
Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation in March 2017 alleging lavish luxury holdings by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has generated millions of views on YouTube and was seen as instrumental in bringing thousands of Russians to the streets in protests during the year.
178
Moreover, the prospect of consequences—whether inside Russia or abroad—for the Putin regime’s graft and abuses is helping to chip away at the culture of impunity that has stymied hopes in Russia fora just, secure society governed by the rule of law. In testimony to the US. Senate Foreign Relations Committee nearly two years prior to his murder, opposition leader Boris
Nemtsov described the Magnitsky Act as the most pro-Russian law in the history of any foreign parliament for its capacity to end impunity against crooks and abusers.’’
179
Indeed, since the Act’s passage in 2012, the US. Congress has subsequently passed a global version of the sanctions that was signed into law in 2016, and by the end of 2017 the US. government had sanctioned one Russian individual, Artem Chayka, under this law for significant cor- ruption.
180
Meanwhile,
parliaments in Estonia, the United Kingdom, and Canada have passed legislation similar to the US.
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34 The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, PL. 114-328, Subtitle F, Title XII, Enacted Dec. 23, 2016 (originally introduced by Senator Benjamin L. Cardin as S, Jan.
28, 2015); The US Global Magnitsky Act
Human Rights Watch, Sept. 13, 2017; Mike
Blanchfield, Canada Passes Magnitsky Human Rights Law, Sparking Russian Threats
The Canadian Press, Oct. 18, 2017.
Vladimir Kara-Murza, Answering the Kremlin’s Challenge
World Affairs Journal (2017).
Magnitsky laws.
181
Vice Chairman of the Open Russia democratic opposition platform Vladimir Kara-Murza has urged more expansive application of US. and European targeted individual sanctions, noting that while the task of building a more just Russia lies with the country’s own citizens, outsiders should not enable Mr. Putin and his kleptocrats by providing safe harbor for their illicit gains.’’
182
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(35) Fletcher Schoen & Christopher Lamb,
Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Commu-nications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major Difference, Institute for National Strategic Studies, at 4, 20, 34 (June 2012).
Vladimir Putin, Interview with Megyn Kelly,
NBC, June 5, 2017, http://en.kremlin.ru/ events/president/news/54688.
185
Alexey Kovalev & Matthew Bodner, The Secrets of Russia’s Propaganda War, Revealed
The Moscow Times, Mar. 1, 2017. Thomas Boghardt, Soviet Bloc Intelligence and Its AIDS Disinformation Campaign
Stud-ies in Intelligence, Vol. 53, No. 4, at 1-2 (Dec. 2009).
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