Committee print



Download 0.63 Mb.
View original pdf
Page31/112
Date11.05.2023
Size0.63 Mb.
#61317
1   ...   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   ...   112
FinalRR
Welle, Jul. 1, 2016.
284
Ibid.
ing to current and former US. officials, RISS also reportedly developed a plan to swing the 2016 US. presidential election to Donald Trump and undermine voters faith in the American electoral sys- tem.’’
277
However, more than a few scholars and independent journalists doubt the efficacy of RISS, with one commenting that these guys (average age 70) couldn’t have possibly game-planned making a sandwich, let alone rigging the US. election].’’
278
Such opinions are likely based on some of RISS’s other work, such as a study which reportedly claimed that condoms were one of the factors spreading HIV in Russia.
279
Other think tanks and GONGOs in Europe that promote the
Kremlin’s narrative have opaque funding structures that hide potential sources of support. A 2017 report published by the Swedish Defense Research Agency noted that much of the funding that these GONGOs receive from commercial entities would not happen if there were not a clear understanding that these think tanks are closely connected to the political leadership and contributing to activities that do enjoy the trust and patronage of the political leadership could give both enterprises and individual businessmen advantages . . . . Ina political system where economic and political activity are intrinsically linked, the fact that business finances a think tank does not mean that it is therefore more independent of the political leadership.’’
280
One such example of a privately funded think tank is the Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute, which opened in Berlin in 2016, and was co-founded and financed by Vladimir Yakunin, a longtime Putin associate and former head of Russian Railways (who the United States sanctioned for his role in Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea).
281
The Institute’s goal, according to a report by the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, is to coordinate a worldwide network of Russian think tanks.
282
One German newspaper reportedly described it as an instrument of Moscow’s hybrid warfare whose primary purpose is to create an alternative civilization to the American.’’
283
The Institute denies any connections to the Kremlin, but does not make its funding transparent, and Yakunin is reported to be investing about
$28 million in the Institute over five years, in addition to funding from other Russian businessmen.
284
Such opaque funding is a hallmark of many Kremlin-linked NGOs and think tanks. An Atlantic Council report explains why these financial streams are so difficult to trace
VerDate Mar 15 2010 04:06 Jan 09, 2018
Jkt PO 00000
Frm 00055
Fmt 6601
Sfmt 6601
S:\FULL COMMITTEE\HEARING FILES\COMMITTEE PRINT 2018\HENRY\JAN. 9 REPORT
FOREI-42327 with DISTILLER


50 285
Alina Polyakova et al., The Kremlin’s Trojan Horses, Atlantic Council, at 4 (Nov. 2016). Alison Smale, ‘‘Austria’s Far Right Signs a Cooperation Pact with Putin’s Party Dec. 19,
2016. Marine Turchi, How a Russian Bank Gave France’s Far-Right Front National Party 9mln Euros Mediapart, Nov. 24, 2014; Suzanne Daley & Maia de la Baume, French Far Right Gets Helping Hand With Russian Loan The New York Times, Dec. 1, 2014. Andrew Rettman, Illicit Russian Money Poses Threat to EU Democracy EUobserver, Apr.
21, 2017. Congressional Research Service, Russian Influence on Politics and Elections in Europe June 27, 2017. Peter Pomerantsev & Micahel Weiss, The Menace of Unreality How the Kremlin
Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money, Institute of Modern Russia, at 19 (Nov. 2014). Congressional Research Service, Russia Background and US. Policy, at 29 (Aug. 21, 2017). The [Kremlin’s] web of political networks is hidden and nontransparent by design, making it purposefully difficult to expose. Traceable financial links would inevitably make
Moscow’s enterprise less effective when ostensibly independent political figures call for closer relations with Russia, the removal of sanctions, or criticize the EU and NATO, it legitimizes the Kremlin’s worldview. It is far less effective, from the Kremlin’s point of view, to have such statements come from individuals or organizations known to be on the Kremlin’s payroll.
285
THE KREMLIN

S CULTIVATION OF POLITICAL EXTREMES
The Kremlin has also adopted anew practice in cultivating relationships with some of the more mainstream far-right parties in Europe, by establishing cooperation agreements between the dominant United Russia party and parties in Austria (Freedom Party, Hungary (Jobbik), Italy (Northern League, France (National Front, and Germany (AfD). These cooperation agreements include plans for regular meetings and collaboration where suitable on economic, business and political projects.’’
286
Kremlin- linked banks, funds, and oligarchs even lent nearly $13 million into France’s far-right National Front party to finance its election campaign.
287
And the German newspaper Bild reported that the Russian government clandestinely funded the AfD ahead of
2017 parliamentary elections—perhaps without the AfD’s knowledge by using middlemen to sell it gold at below-market prices.
288
In addition to monetary resources, the Kremlin has reportedly also offered organizational, political, and media expertise and assistance to far-right European parties.
289
Different Kremlin narratives attract different groups from left and right. Scholars Peter Pomerantsev and Michael Weiss describe how European right-nationalists are seduced by the [Kremlin’s] anti-EU message members of the far-left are brought in by tales of fighting US hegemony and US. religious conservatives are convinced by the Kremlin’s stance against homosexuality.’’
290
The Congressional Research Service reports that many of the far-right European parties linked to the Kremlin are ‘‘anti-establishment and anti-EU, and they often share some combination of extreme nationalism a commitment to law and order and traditional family values and anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, or anti-Islamic senti- ments.’’
291
Far-right gatherings are also sponsored by Kremlin- linked oligarchs like Vladimir Yakunin and Konstantin Malofeev who, according to the EUobserver, a Brussels-based online news-
VerDate Mar 15 2010 04:06 Jan 09, 2018
Jkt PO 00000
Frm 00056
Fmt 6601
Sfmt 6601
S:\FULL COMMITTEE\HEARING FILES\COMMITTEE PRINT 2018\HENRY\JAN. 9 REPORT
FOREI-42327 with DISTILLER


51 Andrew Rettman, Illicit Russian Money Poses Threat to EU Democracy EUobserver, Apr.
21, 2017. Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber, Russian, European Far-Right Parties Converge in St. Peters- burg The Moscow Times, Mar. 22, 2015.
294

Download 0.63 Mb.

Share with your friends:
1   ...   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   ...   112




The database is protected by copyright ©ininet.org 2024
send message

    Main page