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Sophia Rigby

Putin’s People Part 2: How the Oligarchs Took Russia’s Wealth and then Silenced the Journalists

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Russian Newspapers by Ruslan Krivobok / Руслан Кривобок is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Most books on modern Russia tend to isolate Russia’s re-emergence as a significant power in Europe from the West. Its rise is often attributed to Putin’s bellicosity in dealing with the West, buffeted by the rising oil prices and Russia’s wealth of natural resources. However, Catherine Belton’s Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and then Took on the West is a deep dive into the corruption of the system behind Putin. It is a self-assured description of how the officers of the KGB implemented a system, beginning in the dying days of the Soviet Union, to ensure that the hold on power is never left to chance. But it is also a damning indictment of the West’s blindness to the risks of accepting what was obviously dirty money and the foolishness in suggesting that were the organisations peddling this cash exposed to Western ways of doing things, then they would see the error of their ways. The Western financial systems were not unwitting victims of disinformation and cleverly concocted schemes; rather, they were complicit actors in the fleecing of the Russian people and the consolidation of Putin’s power.

During Andropov’s premiership, the KGB realised that the Soviet Union was beginning to lag far behind the West in terms of economic prosperity and capacity and that the system in the Soviet Union could not compete with the West for much longer. The inefficiencies of a planned system and compulsory employment could not hope to compete with the efficiencies demanded and the innovation encouraged by the capitalist system in the West. The KGB had always had access to ‘black’ money to finance its operations in the West[1] and to ensure their networks were maintained. They began to funnel ever greater amounts out of the Soviet Union for slush funds and to ensure permanent access to the financial networks of the West.

It is no secret that many of the Russian billionaires who earned their wealth in the 1990s did so through shady, secretive schemes and that many have done so since through their connections with the people at the centre of Putin’s Kremlin. We also know that those who refused to play ball such as Khodorkovsky, Gusinsky, Berezovsky to name just a few, were relieved of their possessions through the shameful use of the courts in barely masked power grabs by the Kremlin and its allies. While it may be hard to feel sorry for people whose own wealth was generated in what many view today as theft on a mass scale, it opens up questions about what other billionaires from Russia do in order to prevent that happening to them.

The research that went into this book is phenomenal. There are countless interviews listed over a number of years as well as reports and articles written by journalists and investigators during the Putin years. What I took most from this book and that I think others will too, is not the names of the Russian billionaires involved or the numerous schemes that the KGB have used to funnel money out of Russia, but the appalling lack of judgement and due diligence on the part of Western financiers who have allowed this flow of illicit finance into the stock markets and property markets.[2] The furore that has been caused by the publication of this book has also once again exposed the complicity of London’s courts in Russian score settling. Author Belton is facing numerous lawsuits from some of the oligarchs listed in the book – Roman Abramovich is not only suing the publishing house Harper Collins but also Belton herself; Mikhail Fridman, owner of Russia’s largest non-state bank, Pyotr Aven, Fridman’s business partner, and Shalva Chigirinsky are also suing. London-based lawyers are representing them. The UK Government continually promises to counter Russia’s disinformation campaigns as well as rid and clean the London markets of their corrupting financial influence. As these court cases show, the UK Government is failing miserably.

Investigative journalists are vital for upholding democracy but too many are being impeded in their work by SLAPPs – Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. Those with money, and therefore power, are using the courts to harass the media and civil society, to silence journalists and activists who are drawing attention to the abuses of power that are happening on a huge scale across the world. Of course, there should be laws to protect innocent people from libel and from illegal intrusions. However, investigations that are in the public interest and which are carefully carried out so as to ensure that information is accurate and corroborated must be given the respect and protection that it deserves. SLAPPs are a cynical use of the legal system to protect the malign interests of the few whose money makes them believe they are untouchable. Our courts are renowned around the world for their long-standing dedication to fair trials for all, regardless of one’s background or finances. This reputation is being sullied and the UK Government are doing little to stop that happening.

In July of last year, the Intelligence and Security Committee of the UK Parliament released their ‘Russia Report’, an investigation into the security threat that Russia poses to the UK and the weaknesses of the UK in resisting this threat. It was noted that Russia views any loss for the West as a win for Russia – foreign policy as a zero-sum game.[3] One of the report’s recommendations was to develop a new statutory framework to tackle espionage, the illicit financial dealings of the Russian elite, and the ‘enablers’ who support this activity. It is there in black and white in a UK Government report. The financial dealings of the Russian elite are considered a threat to the security of the UK - Russian influence in the UK is ‘the new normal’. There are a lot of Russians with very close links to Putin who are well integrated into the UK business and social scene and accepted because of their wealth[4]

It is clear from this book that changes in the markets need to be made. Audits should be demanded for companies operating in the UK, and the company only accepted if they are transparent and show adherence to Western laws. UK courts must be above reproach and should be protected against being used as pawns in a cynical game to protect the wealth and interests of those corrupting our system. Putin believes that he can behave as he likes because the West can be bought. The West must demonstrate that this is wrong; that the West will forego the millions and billions that are stolen from the Russian people and used to prop up the Kremlin’s authoritarian regime. The West must demonstrate that they will stand by the principles of transparency so vital to maintaining our democracies.

[1] Belton, Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and then Took on the West, Harper Collins, 2020. p.15, 64

[2] Belton, Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and then Took on the West, Harper Collins, 2020. p., p.488

[3]Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, Russia, https://isc.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/20200721_HC632_CCS001_CCS1019402408-001_ISC_Russia_Report_Web_Accessible.pdf p.1

[4] Ibid, p.22

Voices from Strife: Protest if you like, but quietly and out of the way

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2020 Black Lives Matters Protest in London. Photo by James Eades on Unsplash

The recent Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021 has caused some deep concern among some human rights groups, activists, and MPs for the impact it may have on the right to peaceful protest. The Bill sets out plans to “strengthen police powers to tackle non-violent protests that have a significant disruptive effect on the public or on access to Parliament”. This has provoked outrage that what is seen as a fundamental democratic right is being threatened. Unfortunately for those not involved, protest involves significant disruption. If it didn’t, it would probably be a discussion or a local meeting between like-minded people. Just as people are inconvenienced by strikes, people are inconvenienced by protests.

When we think about the biggest protest movements, we think of Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion, and then, going further back in our protest history, the right to equal pay for women and the right for women to vote. One of the commonalities that links them is their refusal to remain quiet on issues that are felt to be unjust, unfair, and unequal. Protest isn’t quiet and it shouldn’t be quiet – how else will protestors be heard? Change doesn’t come because those in power think it would be nice and fair to grant others power. Change comes when power is fought for and won; change doesn’t come from staying quiet. Today, equal rights for women in pay and voting rights is considered obvious, but this right had to be fought for and the prevailing attitudes had to be contended. Today’s Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion may well be viewed in the same way in another 100 years’ time, but we have to hear them out now.

While accepting that protest will be disruptive, there are things that protest organisers need to consider when planning their methods in order to lessen harmful impacts of disruption. They do need to work with the police to ensure that emergency service access can be ensured, that protestors are warned that the protest is peaceful and that violence will not be tolerated, and that the risks do not exceed acceptable levels, but those risks should be to the safety of those involved – not political.

A police presence at any large event – protest or otherwise – should be there for the safety and security of all involved. We know that there is always a small minority who look to large events as opportunities to commit crime: to pick pockets or to pick fights, but this is surely true of any other large event such as a festival. These are the cohort that the police should be targeting. The police should not be present to prevent democratic rights from being exercised. The police should uphold the law and protect the legal right to protest peacefully.

Protests that are seen in Russia – with riot police beating protestors and arresting them, merely for their presence – must not be allowed to become the norm in the UK. When protestors are demonised in the political sphere, in the newspapers, it is not long before phrases like “they had it coming” and “well, they shouldn’t have been protesting” might start being bandied about. People with jobs, people with children, people with other responsibilities stop protesting the things they believe in for fear of repercussions; the right to protest is dampened by people’s own self-censorship.

During a recent debate on 22 April in the House of Lords on the topic of Alexei Navalny’s imprisonment, several Lords and Baronesses suggested increasing the number of individuals among President Putin’s allies who are being sanctioned as well as speeding up the process by which recommendations set out in the Russia Report are implemented. The clear implication being that the imprisonment of an opposition leader is unacceptable and that the UK must stand up for the rights of democratic protest. The debate was ended by the Conservative Peer, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, with the line, “It is about time the Russians listened not only to the international community but to their own citizens.” Well, quite. The Conservatives in the Commons could perhaps do with some of the same advice.

The problem with the ideas that seem to be presented by this Bill is that they are not designed with protecting the democratic right to peacefully protest in mind. They are designed to restrict the democratic right to peacefully protest. I personally happen to think that protesting outside Westminster is one of the places where it must always be allowed to protest; inside are our lawmakers and representatives and they have to listen. The UK Government has said time and again since that exiting the European Union means that the UK can stand up for democratic values as Global Britain and that our reputation will support us in doing that. We must not let that reputation for fairness and democracy be undermined for the sake of party-political gain.

Want to tackle disinformation? Stop using the same tactics.

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By Sophia Rigby

General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith presents on how the British Army is adopting to new warfighting domains, including information operations (MOD, 2020)

Disinformation is nothing new. It seems to be a commonly held belief that disinformation is a new style of warfare and interference, put to perfect use in the 2014 Ukrainian Crisis, the 2016 US election, and the 2016 Brexit referendum. But disinformation has been around for centuries to spread malicious rumours and to discredit rivals; what is new is the manner of spreading disinformation and how quickly it can spread.

The advent of social media and technological advances have meant that we have a mass of information at our fingertips and expect to be able to find a concise answer to complex problems in seconds. Or 0.37 seconds, which is how long it took Google to find me results relating to the Internal Market Bill. However, unlike the encyclopaedias of old, few of these results will come with verifiable and reliable evidence attached. Anyone can post on a blog or Wikipedia and almost anyone can doctor a photograph or a video (to varying degrees of success),yet we have very little in the public sphere, especially education, about evaluating sources of information and treating news critically.

The 2015 National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review[1] failed to recognise disinformation as a significant threat to national security under its cyber section. But the recently published Russia Report[2] in the UK found that Russian disinformation was fomenting political extremism around Brexit and other divisive issues. This puts disinformation purely in the domain of political and national security, an area of life that for many people seem as remote from their daily lives, as the countries in which the threats originate.

However, in the context of the growing anti-vax movement and alternative therapies for Covid-19, we observe how disinformation coupled with public ignorance of the facts are negatively impacting our everyday lives. Anti-vax and anti-lockdown conspiracy theorists have taken to the streets in European capitals (including London on 19 September), to protest against the lockdown measures and the mandatory wearing of face masks, in attempts to discredit any future vaccine[3]. Anti-vax theories are gaining a greater following in the UK, but the impact can be clearly seen in many American cities which are seeing an increase in cases of measles, mumps, and tuberculosis as vaccination levels decrease[4].

Despite accumulated scientific evidence pointing to the reliability of vaccines, not least the eradication of devastating diseases in the UK such as polio, and the discreditation of the scientists who first supported anti-vax theories, people are still inclined to believe some stranger on Facebook. This is made possible by disinformation methods that have become far more sophisticated and appear in articles on websites, in videos on news sites, and rarely find engagement with vigorous debate. The anonymity of social media and the courage (or bravado) this instils in people mean that reasonable voices are drowned out by those spouting vitriolic abuse at any dissenting voices. Mainstream views are pushed out as extreme voices resort to threats and insults to get their point across more firmly.

‘Knowledge is power’ (was first written down in Thomas Hobbes’ political tome Leviathan in 1668) is perhaps not the most powerful argument in favour, but how are we to make sure that the knowledge being distributed and circulated in social media networks is accurate? Firstly, and most importantly, we have to stop using the same tactics. From the politician who purposely manipulates statistics to make a false impression of reality, to the wordsmith who uses language to mask the truth, to the politician who rebrands their party political account to appear as an independent fact checking organisation.

We know statistics can be manipulated and it is done time and time again in debates on poverty statistics. Relative poverty and absolute poverty are two different measures – relative poverty is set at 60% of the average net household income in the year in question and can fluctuate from year to year whereas absolute poverty is set at 60% of the average net household income of 2010/11 and does not fluctuate over time. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies data[5], relative poverty rates have increased for children and everyone overall, for working-age non-parents and pensioners they have stayed fairly level. However, absolute poverty rates have decreased for pensioners and working-age non-parents, stayed fairly level for everyone overall, and increased for children. So, the Government can claim to have reduced poverty and use statistics to back up that fact, the Opposition and charities can claim poverty has increased, and the public are none the wiser to the actual state of affairs.

Politicians will always use the best evidence to support their claims, and the opposition will always pull another piece of evidence that seems to suggest otherwise – that’s just the way politics works. With elections and Government at stake, it seems impossible as well as naïve to assume that for politicians would speak plainly and leave the party-political rhetoric at the door. But journalists have a responsibility, not just to support the politicians whose party their editor or paper supports, but to analyse claims and show their respective strengths and weaknesses. They also need to look at the use of anonymous sources and treat them as factual. Without the opportunity to assess the reliability of sources, we are both failing to look critically at information and encouraging belief in faceless facts.

Ultimately, we need critical thinkers. Schools try to teach critical thinking through History and English Literature, but all subjects have a role to play in teaching us to look at the world more critically and analyse what is being told to us. Maths is important in showing us how statistics can be manipulated, Science can show us the complex systems in place to develop vaccines as well as look at the ethics of experimentation, Drama can teach us to look at the character behind the rhetoric and eloquent speeches. Above all, coursework and project work teaches more than teamwork and presentation skills; it teaches us how to research and balance the various claims, how to look critically at who is writing and explaining, and what their motives are. This? Pedagogy you mean? is as important as the actual content, so that people learn to look past the emotive and sometimes the shocking elements to the trustworthiness of the content.

We’ve seen the pernicious and deadly impact that disinformation can have on people’s lives. From the war in Ukraine to the Covid pandemic, disinformation is a threat to national security. But we are not taking it seriously and we are not taking adequate steps to tackle it. Social media platforms must be made responsible for the content on their sites, politicians must be made accountable for comments they make, “inside sources” must face greater scrutiny from journalists, and we must ensure that tackling disinformation is incorporated into the curriculum. National Service was used to prepare the nation when the threat of conventional war was present; education promoting critical thinking is our preparation for disinformation at present.

 

Sophia Rigby is a Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Defence Studies at King’s College, London. Her research is focusing on realist-constructivist theories of international relations and how it relates to Russian foreign policy in Europe. She holds a BA in Modern Languages and a Masters focusing on Russia and Eastern Europe. Since graduating, she has been working in political strategies and communications.