The first meeting of the Russian State Duma commission on foreign meddling in Russia's domestic affairs will be held on Friday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd August, 2019) The first meeting of the Russian State Duma commission on foreign meddling in Russia's domestic affairs will be held on Friday.According to the UN Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of Their Independence and Sovereignty (1965), "no State has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatsoever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State."
In 2017, the temporary commission of the Russian Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, for the protection of state sovereignty and prevention of interference in Russia's internal affairs released a report outlining methods that could be used by outside forces to interfere in its domestic affairs.
According to the report, interference in Russia's internal affairs are actions carried out by foreign states, legal entities and individuals that are aimed at changing the foundations of the country's constitutional system, territorial integrity, domestic and foreign policies, and composition and structure of state and municipal authorities.
The commission defined ten main tools of foreign interference.
The first one is the creation or support of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and other similar structures that directly or indirectly participate in political activities on behalf of foreign states, and which have an impact on civil society in general.
The second tool is related to working with educational institutions, financing educational programs with the purpose of gaining further control of the area, and its transformation in directions that benefit Russia's political competitors.
The use of media and social networks to discredit the country, government institutions, political leaders and in general to form certain standards of public opinion was listed as the third tool.
The discrediting of the Russian Orthodox Church; cases of stoking religious tensions; the encouragement of protests, particularly among youth; interference in the Russian Federal and regional election process; incitement of ethnic hatred; foreign sanctions; blackening of the country's political, social and economic life; as well as purposeful and crude politicization of sports also made the list.
According to experts, Russia has consistently been subjected to external influences since emerging as a sovereign state. In many cases, it takes the form of direct interference in its internal affairs.
The Munich speech made by Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which it was publicly stated that the unipolar concept was unacceptable for the modern world, is considered the start of Russia's active deterrence as a global challenger to the United States.
It was after this, according to experts, that the increase in foreign attempts to undermine the political system began.
Moreover, the main geopolitical opponents acted either directly, through third countries or by hiring certain non-state entities. The intervention itself, according to experts, was carried out in many different ways: from military attacks, such as an attack on Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia in 2008, to unilateral and unlawful economic measures, which started under the pretext of the Ukrainian political crisis in 2014.
At the time of the events in southeastern Ukraine and after the reunification of Crimea with Russia, the Western countries increased pressure on Russia. According to experts, a number of states have actually declared a diplomatic, information and sanctions war.
The Federation Council speaker, Valentina Matviyenko, said that the West annually sent about 70-90 billion rubles (from $1 billion to $1.3 billion) through NGOs, funds, and grants to finance political activities in Russia.
According to the temporary commission's report, recently, Western intervention programs are used in Russia much more carefully and often secretly.
Experts note that a typical method of outside interference is the use of global media for spreading specially prepared content that may contain not only fake news but also conclusions based on rigged data or assumptions to discredit the Russian foreign and domestic policy on a global scale. At the same time, not only is the US media participating in the informational aggression against Russia, but some sort of coordination in this regard is taking place, in particular, along the lines of NATO member countries.
Experts also named direct and indirect influence on the Russian media, journalists, bloggers, and media people with a view to voluntarily or involuntarily involve them in propaganda campaigns as one of the tools of foreign meddling.
As experts note, foreign subversive programs are often used according to the mosaic principle, in such a way that almost every single element can look like an accidental event. In terms of interference in domestic elections, it is aimed primarily at external motivation or demotivation of legitimate participants in the electoral process by illegal methods.
According to the Federation Council commission, there were numerous signs of foreign interference in Russia's internal affairs during elections to State Duma in 2011 and 2016, presidential elections in 2012 and 2018, as well as during regional elections in 2013 and 2017.
According to senators, before the 2011 State Duma elections, a policy of discrediting these elections and their legitimacy was pursued through the global media and US propaganda bodies, a number of their NATO allies, affiliated non-governmental organizations and agents of influence throughout the post-Soviet space. According to Putin, who was then the Russian prime minister, hundreds of millions of Dollars were sent from abroad for political activities inside Russia.
The commission said that attempts to influence the 2012 Russian presidential election had begun a year before them. In March 2011, the US vice president at the time, Joe Biden, visited Moscow. According to most experts, Biden, among other things, personally wanted to decide who the United States should bet on in 2012.
Experts believe that Washington and its Western partners intervened in the 2012 presidential election through more than just diplomatic channels. In 2012, Russian authorities notified the United States that its Agency for International Development should cease operations on the country's territory, as its work, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, raised questions regarding interference in internal affairs.
According to the commission, during the 2018 presidential election, cash imports from abroad increased. This cash was for nourishing those who are commonly called the non-systemic opposition, including Russian supporters of the "boycott of election" tactics promoted through foreign propaganda tools.
Apart from the direct funding of the opposition from outside the Russian political structures, there were numerous cases in which "promising" Russian political figures studied abroad. This kind of "study" is usually anti-Russian and takes place, in particular, in the Baltic countries and in the United States with the participation of officials from these countries.
According to a Russian Central Election Commission's member, Alexander Klyukin, there were constant external suggestions who should be registered as a candidate.
During the election campaign in 2018, the commission identified a number of foreign media outlets Voice of America, Radio Liberty, ВВС, Deutsche Welle and others that were most actively involved in interfering in Russia's internal affairs.
These media outlets worked almost round-the-clock during this period and published about 1,000 various materials news, interviews, notes, comments, analytical articles, reviews that were directly and indirectly devoted to electoral topics. Moreover, the materials, as experts say, were propagandistic and one-sided.
At the same time, some Western media misrepresented information about the presidential election. After the election, the US-funded Radio Liberty published an article saying that statistics showed that 10 million votes had been falsified for Putin. Deutsche Welle then published an article in its Russian-language editorial that provided recommendations on how to express disagreement with the current state system, including with electoral procedures.
According to the expert community, the politicization of sports has gained particular relevance on the eve of the 2018 election.
In August 2016, the International Paralympic Committee decided to exclude Russian Para athletes from competing in the games in Rio de Janeiro on the basis of the report made by the World Anti-Doping Agency's investigator, Richard McLaren. However, the authors of this document refused to provide concrete evidence of their theory.
In December 2017, the International Olympic Committee decided to suspend the Russian Olympic Committee.
Putin thought that the accusations against Russian athletes were linked to the presidential election.
After the election, the United States continued to intervene in Russia's internal affairs by educating and supporting political activists and financing anti-Russian forces. The annual report of the Federation Council Commission, presented in early June 2019, stated that there was a seminar in Finland's Helsinki in early 2019, which was organized by the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, sponsored by the US Department of State. It was attended by ten residents of St. Petersburg who were planning to participate in the municipal elections in September 2019.
The so-called forum of young political leaders took place in Montenegro in the spring and was attended by young politically active and opposition-minded Russian citizens.
The commission's chairman, Andrei Klimov, noted that the protests that took place in Moscow in July and August 2019 over the refusal to register a number of candidates for the Moscow City Duma, "bear signs of external interference in Russia's sovereign affairs." According to him, a number of foreign media outlets covered the election campaign dishonestly. Moreover, people who had undergone "specific training abroad" and received money from there participated in the protests.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused US and German diplomats and the media of meddling in Russia's internal affairs when reporting on unauthorized rallies in Moscow. For example, according to her, the German television and radio company Deutsche Welle, which "has state funding," covered the protests in Moscow in an "anti-journalistic" way by appealing to people in Moscow to take to the streets.
On August 19, 2019, the State Duma decided to create a special commission in order to counter attempts from abroad to intervene in Russia's internal affairs.
