4 Things Western Democracies Need to

Understand to Stop Hostile Kremlin

Meddling
Governments should use the free press to their
advantage by openly investigating disinformation
campaigns
By Jakub Janda • 05/11/17

In 2015, I started the Kremlin Watch Program at a think-tank in Prague. My team

analyzes Russian influence and disinformation operations, and we have helped the
Czech government tailor a national strategy. We publish papers, propose strategies, and
have been invited to consult in 16 countries—mostly European—so far. These are four
lessons I have learned from my experience.

#1. Putin’s regime wants to call itself a superpower and to be respected as such.

Apart from having nuclear weapons and large territory, Russia has nothing that
makes it anything more than a regional dictatorship with living standards of a
developing country. Freedom of speech in Russia is worse than in
Zimbabwe, political opponents are shot or poisoned, journalists
are assassinated, history is systematically falsified, and most major media outlets
are controlled by the regime. Putin suppresses domestic opposition—from both
political groups and independent media—because he has failed to deliver solid
living standards for ordinary Russians over the course of the 17 years he has ruled.
Russia has a lower GDP than Italy, and its average wages are lower than
Romania’s.
On the international stage, there isn’t much to respect Russia for—apart from its status
of a doping superpower; its occupation of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova; and its
covering up for bloody dictators like Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Western leftists
need to wake up from their naïve dream of Russia being a champion of socialist ideals,
and Western rightists should recognize that Russia is not a champion of conservative
values; it suppresses individual freedoms and has the highest abortion rate in the world.
Putin’s regime kills and bullies to get respected. Democracies need to denounce this
paradigm. It worked at the end of 1980s, and it will work again if we stop buying into
the Soviet dictatorship’s fear game.

White House, Oval Office. Donald Trump between Russian Foreign Minister
Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Kislyak (May 2017).
#2. Moscow is still dangerous. Knowing it is militarily inferior to NATO, Russia uses
cowards’ weapons: disinformation operations and political subversion. There are
countries that had no problem selling parts of their sovereignty to Moscow. For
example, the Kremlin practically owns a majority of the Serbian national energy supply.
Or it openly pays Marine Le Pen for her presidency bid. The fact that she received
major campaign donations from a bloody foreign dictator who occupies territories of
European countries didn’t discredit her in the eyes of the French public.

Then, there are politicians who turned a blind eye to the Kremlin’s activities—and now
they are surprised. Democrats in the United States have long ignored Kremlin influence
operations, until it hit them hard in the fall of 2016—a fate similar to the French left’s.
Conservatives in the U.K. have held hawkish positions on Russia’s aggressive steps in
Eastern Europe, but they basically tolerated harboring Russian dirty money in London.
“Monsieur Poutine, j’ai encore besoin d’argent… ! ». Front National presidential
candidate Marina Le Pen in Moscow (May 2017).

#3. Disinformation operations are a real and urgent threat to democracies

worldwide. Once the political leadership recognizes this, the security apparatus gets the
green light to develop detailed policy measures to protect the country. That’s what’s
happening now in Germany, Czech Republic, Sweden and Finland, but the Baltic states
have known this for decades. Moreover, once the government starts addressing this
threat publicly, the media will make it a national issue. TV shows will elaborate on what
disinformation look like, and major outlets will assign top investigators to research
Kremlin proxy financing of local extremists or disinformation outlets. This auto-
immune response needs to be launched by the government. Otherwise, only several
isolated think tanks and patriotic journalists will dig into the subject, as is currently the
case Slovakia, Hungary and France.
#4. We need to be resolute in defending our own countries. The word “sovereignty”
has been hijacked by the far-right to kick against the EU. We need to take it back. What
else is an assault on your sovereignty then Russia orchestrating an assassination attempt
on a prime minister, as it did in Montenegro? How many thousands of Ukrainians need
to die while defending their own territory from Kremlin-commanded terrorists, before
the U. S. provides them with Javelins to make Ukraine a Russian-tank-free zone? How
long will it take European intelligence agencies to declare hostile disinformation outlets
a national security threat and until their financing and personnel will be investigated and
made public, a proven Estonian counterintelligence practice? How long will it take
Western governments to start taking Kremlin clandestine money in the West as leverage
to make Putin’s regime get out of Ukraine and stop hostile meddling into domestic
affairs of our democracies? How long will it take the top EU security and foreign policy
official, Federica Mogherini, before she starts taking Russian disinformation campaigns
seriously? What else must Russia do before Germans understand that voluntarily
increasing dependence on Kremlin energies by Nord Stream 2 is not a rational thing, no
matter how many former chancellors can Putin buy to work on his behalf? What else is
sovereignty than citizens having the right to decide their leaders in fair elections free of
hostile foreign interference, including hacks of candidates that Moscow doesn’t like?
Jakub Janda is Head of Kremlin Watch Program and Deputy Director at the European
Values Think-Tank based in Prague. He specializes in response of democratic states to
hostile disinformation and influence operations. In 2016, he was tasked by Czech
security and intelligence institutions to consult on “Influence of Foreign
Powers” chapter within Audit of National Security conducted by the Czech
government. Follow him on Twitter @_jakubjanda

http://observer.com/2017/05/russia-vladimir-putin-disinformation-meddling-western-
democracies/