The Montenegrin political coalition Democratic Front and Milorad Dodik, a member of the the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), received secret sums of money from Russia as part of Moscow’s efforts to gain influence abroad, according to a source from the United States (U.S.) administration, who is familiar with the specific case, writes Glas Amerike (Voice of America).
The source from the administration, however, did not disclose the exact amounts allocated for Dodik and the Democratic Front.
“The intelligence community noted an increase in that activity from 2014 to today. Among the examples that have been presented, in Bosnia, before the 2018 elections, Konstantin Malofejev secretly helped finance the presidential campaign of Milorad Dodik. That example shows that Russia has not fulfilled its promise to invest in the economic development of Republika Srpska (RS), but instead enabled the corruption of the ruling party and created unequal conditions for the opposition parties,” said a source from the administration.
A high-ranking official of the U.S. administration announced at the briefing, where parts of the report of the U.S. intelligence services were published, that Russia, since 2014, has secretly paid more than 300 million dollars and plans to pay hundreds of millions more to foreign political parties, officials and politicians in more than twenty countries around the world across four continents – as part of Moscow’s efforts to gain influence abroad.
It was also announced that the U.S. expects that Russia will increasingly turn to secret political financing in the coming months in order to undermine international sanctions, introduced due to the war in Ukraine, and maintain influence abroad.
Russia’s efforts were an attempt to manipulate democracies from within, and “the Russians are trying to favor certain political parties and undermine democracy in all those countries,” the official said, detailing the first assessment of Russian efforts to influence the politics of other countries by the U.S. intelligence community.
The official also told reporters that classified information is being shared with countries to help them counter Moscow’s influence.
“By pointing out Russian secret political funding and Russian attempts to undermine democratic processes, we are warning these foreign parties and candidates that if they secretly receive Russian money, we can and will expose it,” said a senior official of the Biden‘s administration.
He also emphasized that Washington wants to raise awareness at the global level about the threat of Russian secret political financing and to “make it clear that there are measures” to respond to it.
The countries that were invited to the Democracy Summit and “several additional governments” – a total of more than 110 countries – were informed by the despatch about the results of the intelligence assessment and the steps being taken to counter the threat.
The U.S. intelligence community is also, behind closed doors, briefing certain countries on Russian secret financing that targets “their specific political environments,” it was mentioned at the briefing.
“By sharing this information, we want to enable more than 100 governments to take independent action against this threat that undermines their democracy. We expect the countries we have notified to provide us with their information on Russian covert political funding, which will then increase our understanding of this threat,” concluded the US. official, with the assessment that it is a global phenomenon that requires a coordinated response, Klix.ba writes.
E.Dz.
