The birth of Putin’s Institute of Democracy and Cooperation
Part 5 of a 5 part series — Chapter 2; the Grand Old Putin Party.
According to a leaked State Department cable in Wikileaks, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the Institute for Democracy (IDC) and Cooperation in late October 2007 in a speech alongside Kremlin-linked lawyer Anatoly Kucharena. It was announced that the IDC would have branches in New York, Paris and Moscow.
The State Department’s cable noted that Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov chose the head of the new Institute, the Russian attorney Anatoly Kucherena.
Kucherena is a member of the FSB intelligence agency oversight board, but he later became famous as Edward Snowden’s Russian lawyer.
Years before Edward Snowden defected to Russia, it was Kucharena who became the head of the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation.
Dr. Lozansky’s close associate Andranik Migranyan became the head of the IDC’s New York branch from the day it began until the day it shut down.
Professor Migranyan is on the staff of MGIMO, the prestigious Russian foreign policy school, and appeared at Dr. Lozansky’s World Russia Forum seven times between 2005 and 2014.
Dr. Lozansky has referred to Migranyan as a childhood friend.
Oddly, the Kremlin’s former public relations firm Ketchum — a subsidiary of NYSE-listed Omincom Group — noted a January 2008 meeting with Migranyan and Lozansky in one of their FARA filings.
Ketchum’s meeting was to facilitate the launch of the IDC on behalf of the Russian Federation.
A story in RT on January 28th, 2008 called the IDC’s role was to “lecture the west on democracy”, which Dr. Lozansky explained to mean that, “the Institute should focus less on democracy and more on co-operation.”
The IDC clung tight to its claim of receiving zero funding from the government of Russia, per Lozansky’s doctrine.
However, it’s unnecessary for a government to directly fund political activities in order for it to be necessary to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The requirement is that decisions about American political activities are directly or indirectly made by a foreign power.
A prime example of this is the recent FARA filing by convicted former GOP super lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose lobbying efforts to get a phone call with Trump and an African strongman during the transition of administrations, led to him filing under the act as an agent of an Italian national who owns a Romanian company.
Abramoff wasn’t paid for his efforts, but he registered under FARA last year.
Convicted former National Security Advisor Gen. Michael Flynn also filed under FARA, for taking money from a Turkish businessman through a Dutch company, to advance the political interests of Turkey.
The Institute of Modern Russia reported in 2013 that Lozansky’s pro-Kremlin operations were limited to supporting the government of Russia, therefore part of the official brigade of Putin apologists.
The New York-based IDC’s mission according to their own statement was:
“A bridge’” between Russia and the US, which means providing a platform for dialogue between public organizations, a place where information can be exchanged and for networking.
According to Nikolay Pakhomov, the New York branch of IDC organizes 10–15 events per year in which policy experts from Russia and the US take part. Some of them take place in Washington DC in partnership with the Center for the National Interest headed by Dmitri Simes.
Foreign directed political activity has registration requirements and penalties.
As a longtime political operative living in Washington, D.C., Dr. Lozansky knew the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) well.
The Department of Justice accepts registrations and enforces FARA violations by either civil or criminal means, but until late rarely enforced the statute.
FARA registrations have skyrocketed since the start of the Mueller probe last May resulted in indictments against Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, and his deputy Rick Gates who has pled guilty and is cooperating with the probe.
A key goal of FARA’s provisions is disclosure of the state-run nature of media operations directed by foreign governments — such as RT and Sputnik which have both registered.
The FBI uses FARA registrations in their foreign counterintelligence operations.
Dr. Lozansky told an interviewer in 2007 for the website WashProfile.com, that he was advancing Russian government interests, and building a Russia lobby.
He even pointed out his book on Russian ethnic lobbying in America, which he wrote and expressed he did not believe then that he should register with the Department of Justice.
“Civil society and the media have a huge role to play in exposing organizations that take Kremlin cash or that espouse Russian propaganda and talking points,” says former Obama National Security Counsel Russia specialist, Dr. Michael Carpenter, when we asked about foreign directed activity being subject to FARA, which he called a poor instrument for regulating Moscow’s front groups.
“Shining a light in these sorts of relationships is often the best antidote to this insidious foreign influence.”
We pointed out an example of political activity in Kommersant by the Coordinating Council of Russian Compatriots in the USA, which says that Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs produced and funded the Council’s activities in America during the 2016 elections.
Carpenter noted in an email exchange one month ago, that the Council’s political activism in the Kommersant story looked like a “foreign directed” act.
The Council’s President Olga Zatsepina “boasted” to Kommersant that she was able to obtain non-profit status in New York state for her group whose primary mission appears to be engaging in political activities conceived of and funded by the Kremlin.
Last week, the Coordinating Council of Russian Compatriots (known by their Cyrillic acronym KSORS) just released a photo of their new Board last week.
Now, Dr. Lozasnky is a member of the Board.
“That doesn’t mean every Russian diaspora group is a Kremlin front, and some diaspora groups are actually quite critical of the Kremlin,” says Carpenter about the dozens of Russian diaspora groups in America, many filled with emigres who came to America for the normal reasons people seek to emigrate.
“Nevertheless, the MFA and Russian intelligence services have made it a priority to co-opt these groups wherever possible.”
Foreign directed political activities are covered by FARA’s registration provisions, which were narrowed in the late 1960's to include only acts that were directed by the foreign powers, principles and corporations subject to the act.
Foreign directed political activity can give rise to criminal charges for failure to register, like jailed former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort.
The DOJ can also pursue an enforcement action under FARA — which includes civil demands to register, or injunctions to cease and desist until registered.
FARA registrations have far more extensive reporting requirements than typical lobbying registration, which only cover non-partisan commercial work and not political activities aimed at influencing US foreign policy.
The Department of Justice doesn’t try to stop these sovereign influence operations, so much as ensure that they’re disclosed and registered, so that Americans are informed if they’re viewing or involved in the propaganda efforts of a foreign power.
However, the saga of Dr. Edward Lozansky and his Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs book on the Russian diaspora lobbying moves far beyond the boundary of mere foreign directed political activity into the de facto operation of a massive Russian espionage, spying and influence operation in the heart of our nation’s capital.
THE END
Supplemental Material
Relationship chart of the main people in Story 2, Chapter 5:
The Grand Old Putin Party is a series of investigative reports co-authored by Grant Stern and Patrick Simpson.
