The Kremlin's Trojan Horses

[Grey Lemercier]

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/The_Kremlins_Trojan_Horses_web_1116.pdf

In 2014, Russia seized Crimea through military force. With this act, the Kremlin redrew the political map of Europe
and upended the rules of the acknowledged international order. Despite the threat Russia’s revanchist policies
pose to European stability and established international law, some European politicians, experts, and civic groups
have expressed support for—or sympathy with—the Kremlin’s actions.  These allies represent a diverse network
of political influence reaching deep into Europe’s core.

The Kremlin uses these Trojan horses to destabilize European politics so efficiently, that even Russia’s limited
might could become a decisive factor in matters of European and international security.  President Putin
increasingly sees that which the West seeks—Europe whole, free, and at peace—not as an opportunity for
prosperous coexistence but as a threat to his geopolitical agenda and regime survival.

Moscow views the West’s virtues—pluralism and openness—as vulnerabilities to be exploited. Its tactics are
asymmetrical, subversive, and not easily confronted.  Western governments have ignored the threat from Putin’s
covert allies for too long, but finally, awareness is growing that the transatlantic community must do more to
defend its values and institutions.

To that end, Western governments should encourage and fund investigative civil society groups and media
that will work to shed light on the Kremlin’s dark networks.  European Union member states should consider
establishing counter-influence task forces, whose function would be to examine financial and political links
between the Kremlin and domestic business and political groups. American and European intelligence agencies
should coordinate their investigative efforts through better intelligence sharing.  Financial regulators should be
empowered to investigate the financial networks that allow authoritarian regimes to export corruption to the
West.  Electoral rules should be amended, so that publically funded political groups, primarily political parties,
should at the very least be required to report their sources of funding.

The Kremlin’s blatant attempts to influence and disrupt the US presidential election should serve as an inspiration
for a democratic push back.   




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Why Europe Is Right to Fear Putin’s Useful Idiots

The Kremlin’s support for right-wing parties is no game. It’s trying to subvert the European idea.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/23/why-europe-is-right-to-fear-putins-useful-idiots/

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Prior to 2010, one would be hard-pressed to find public statements in praise of Putin by far-right leaders. Today, they are commonplace. UKIP’s Nigel Farage is a self-proclaimed fan of the Russian president. Jobbik’s head, Gabor Vona, is a frequent invited guest in Moscow. And, of course, Madame Le Pen, whose party was the beneficiary of a 9.4 million euro loan from a Russian-owned bank, is a consistent voice of support for Russian foreign policy in Ukraine and the Middle East. Even Germany, where the far right has failed to gain a foothold, is not immune to Moscow’s narrative. Supporters of PEGIDA, the increasingly popular xenophobic group whose acronym stands for “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West,” often carry Russian flags and anti-government posters begging for Putin’s help.

As European far-right leaders openly voice their support for Moscow, it would be wise to remember that Putin’s Russia is not just another “meddling power” lobbying for its interests.Putin’s Russia is not just another “meddling power” lobbying for its interests. It is a government hostile to the West and the value system — democracy, freedom of expression, political accountability — that it represents. For proof, one must look no further than Russia’s national security strategy, in which the Russian government explicitly names NATO as a threat and accuses the U.S. and its allies of operating “military-biological” labs on Russia’s border.

Calling the West’s response to the love affair between Putin and the far right an overreaction greatly underestimates the extent to which the Kremlin and its state-controlled media use support of European politicians to legitimize Moscow’s explicitly anti-western foreign policy agenda: far-right politicians not only vote for pro-Kremlin policies in the EU parliament, they also take part in election observation missions — most notably the referendum for the annexation of Crimea and the “elections” in Ukraine’s Russian-controlled “people’s republics.” The Russian media uses these events and far-right leaders’ visits to Moscow to tout European support for Putin. Even Le Pen was an unknown in Russia until the Ukraine crisis and her outspoken public support for Putin. Now she is paraded as proof that there is some support for Putin’s policies in Europe.

In addition, Radnitz assumes that mainstream politicians, U.S. officials, and other experts who have pointed out the pro-Russian turn of Europe’s far right aim to discredit such parties through “guilt by association.” But there is no evidence that these parties’ pro-Putin stance is hurting them at the polls or that it has discredited them in the eyes of voters. If anything, their pro-Russian turn has coincided with their rise in the polls.

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The likely winner of this weekend’s French presidential primary will be Russia’s Vladimir Putin

http://qz.com/846200/the-likely-winner-of-this-weekends-french-presidential-primary-will-be-russias-vladimir-putin/

If you’ve paid any attention to France’s presidential race, you’ll know that the Front National’s Marine Le Pen is a serious contender. But the prospect of another far-right nationalist coming to power in a major Western country is not, in fact, the only thing to worry about.

The other worry—and one that should concern not just residents of France, but the entire world—is that whether Le Pen wins or loses, France’s next president is likely to be part of a new, hardline Moscow-Paris-Washington axis: supporting Russia’s Vladimir Putin, appeasing Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, and turning geopolitics away from liberalism and human rights. That’s because this Sunday, Nov. 27, is the primary for the center-right Les Républicains party, and the front-runner is François Fillon, a socially conservative, provincial French Catholic who claims Russia poses “no threat.” All polls point to Le Pen eliminating François Hollande’s unpopular Socialists in the first round of the presidential election next April, leaving a Fillon-Le Pen run-off on May 7—a contest Fillon is tipped to win.

Both Le Pen and Fillon are slavishly Russophile and close friends of Putin. They are both committed to ending sanctions against Moscow over the annexation of Crimea, and happy to prop up the war criminal in Damascus in a murky anti-ISIL alliance.
In Le Monde (link in French) on Nov. 24, Fillon confirmed his geopolitical stance. Parroting Moscow’s arguments against “unrealistic” sanctions, he said France “must know how to speak to all states” and called for a “frank and solid renewal of relations” with Putin—and with Donald Trump, whom Fillon insists we must stop labeling a populist.

Fillon also echoes much of Le Pen’s (and Putin’s) rhetoric against Islam, in a country still under a state of emergency after a series of huge terrorist attacks. Jewish leaders, too, are alarmed by his seeming dog-whistle comments (French) about French Jews’ alleged history of not “living by the rules of the French Republic.”


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