According to US intelligence, the funding came in the form of cash, wire transfers, cryptocurrencies, and expensive gifts.
US intelligence has declassified the data Russian authorities has secretly funded politicians from around the world and has spent $ 300 million since 2014.
This was reported to reporters in a number of Western publications by unnamed high-ranking officials of the US presidential administration.
In particular, as he writes CNNUS intelligence has determined that for the past 8 years, in order to strengthen its political influence abroad, the Russian Federation has secretly funded foreign political parties, individual politicians and officials in more than 20 countries.
It is assumed that some money transfers to Russia may go unnoticed. According to the United States, the Russian authorities have planned to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on such funding.
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Therefore, CNN sources say, Russian authorities have sought to support specific political parties, including far-right and nationalist parties, as well as to “manipulate the democracies” of these countries from within. At the same time, the interlocutors of the publications did not indicate the specific names of politicians and the names of parties.
As US intelligence found, front companies, funds, think tanks, accounts of Russian embassies and state-owned enterprises and other ways were used for transfers. Funding came in the form of cash, wire transfers, cryptocurrencies and expensive gifts, and the transactions were vetted by Russian agencies, including the FSB, individuals and business people. According to officials, businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin and deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma Alexander Babakov were involved in the financial plans.
According to journalists’ sources, these funds were sent to Albania, Montenegro, Madagascar, Bosnia and Herzegovina and perhaps even Ecuador. Furthermore, officials spoke of an Asian country, whose name they refused to specify, where they claimed that the Russian ambassador had handed over millions of dollars in cash to the presidential candidate. At the same time, the sources said nothing about possible Russian funding in the United States, which the special services have studied in the course of other investigations.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price called Russia’s covert financial operations “an attack on sovereignty”. “This is an attempt to deprive people around the world of the ability to choose the governments they feel are best suited to represent their interests and values,” said Price.
The State Department has sent intelligence findings to US embassies in more than 100 countries around the world. In addition to information about Russia’s alleged clandestine activities, the document suggests measures the US and allies can take to counter the Kremlin. These include sanctions, travel bans and the deportation of those suspected of espionage and clandestine political finance.
In the coming months, Russia may increasingly rely on its tools of clandestine influence, including funding foreign politicians and parties, in Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia to undermine the effectiveness of sanctions and maintain its influence against the war scenario in Ukraine.
“By shedding light on Russia’s clandestine funding of politicians and its attempts to undermine democratic processes, we draw the attention of these foreign parties and candidates to the fact that if they secretly accept Russian money, we can and will expose it,” said the official in a comment on CNN. .
As previously reported by UNIAN, it became known on 31 August that two senior officials from the German Ministry of Economy, who hold key positions in the field of energy supply, suspected of espionage in favor of Russia.
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