{"id":5201,"date":"2018-01-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-30T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/europeanvalues.cz\/kremlin-watch-briefing-new-blacklist-of-russian-oligarchs-in-the-us\/"},"modified":"2021-12-16T12:21:31","modified_gmt":"2021-12-16T10:21:31","slug":"kremlin-watch-briefing-new-blacklist-of-russian-oligarchs-in-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/europeanvalues.cz\/cs\/kremlin-watch-briefing-new-blacklist-of-russian-oligarchs-in-the-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Kremlin Watch Briefing: New \u201cblacklist\u201d of Russian oligarchs in the US"},"content":{"rendered":"
Weekly monitor of pro-Kremlin disinformation effort in Europe. We follow best European analysts, best counter-measures and trends.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \n \n The Kremlin Watch Program is looking for an intern!\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>If you would like to contribute to our work, send us your application for a four-month internship by February 11th. You don\u2019t have to come to the Czech Republic to work with us, the internship can take place externally. More information is available on our\u00a0website<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n \n \n \n \n \n The US Treasury department will provide Congress with a\u00a0<\/em>new \u2018blacklist\u2019 of Russian oligarchs and businesses<\/em><\/strong>, which the latter have been scrambling to avoid. The impact is expected to be minimal, given the limited requirements of the legislation. The EU has been encouraged to join the effort to expand the sanctions list as well.<\/em><\/p>\n \n \n \n \n \n The integrity and\u00a0<\/em>objectivity of Euronews,<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0partly funded by the European Commission, has been\u00a0<\/em>questioned after praising the Russian army for teaching Crimean children<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0to dismantle weapons.<\/em><\/p>\n \n \n \n \n \n Milo\u0161 Zeman, the Kremlin\u00b4s Trojan Horse in Central Europe, has won a second presidential term<\/strong><\/em>. Jakub Janda from our Kremlin Watch Program described his journey to the hands of the Russians for the\u00a0Observer<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n An American is visiting the Soviet Union. He\u2019s taking a train from Leningrad to Kiev and listening to his handheld radio when a Soviet man leans over to talk to him. \u201cYou know, we make those better and more efficiently here in the Soviet Union,\u201d he says. \u201cOh?\u201d Says the American. \u201cYes,\u201d the Soviet man responds. \u201cWhat is it?\u201d<\/p>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Euronews praises occupants teaching children how to dismantle weapons<\/strong><\/p>\n A debate about the objectivity of Euronews, a news website that receives \u20ac25 million per year from the European Commission, has developed after the portal published a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0describing lessons given by the Russian Army to Crimean children as young as 12. The project was intended as a recruitment drive, with children learning how to dismantle and diffuse bombs and mines. The original article includes several enthusiastic quotes from participants and fails to mention that Crimea has been illegally annexed by Russia. The following day, the article was updated with the addition of a single sentence about the annexation and attendant sanctions. The update came after the Ukrainian Ambassador to the EU\u00a0expressed<\/a>\u00a0his discontent and even shock in a letter to the European Commission.<\/p>\n \n \n \n \n \n New unit against disinformation to be established in the UK<\/strong><\/p>\n The Guardian<\/a>\u00a0reports that the government of the United Kingdom plans to establish a national security communications unit with the goal to combat disinformation operations. This idea has been a part of a wider review of the UK\u2019s defence capabilities. \u201cWe are living in an era of fake news and competing narratives. The government will respond with more and better use of national security communications to tackle these interconnected, complex challenges<\/em>\u201d, the spokesman of the Prime Minister said.<\/p>\n \n \n \n \n \n The EU should review the list of Russian oligarchs under sanctions<\/strong><\/p>\n The US envoy on the Ukraine conflict, Kurt Volker,\u00a0encouraged<\/a>\u00a0the EU to follow the US plan to review the list of sanctioned Russian oligarchs. According to him, \u201cRussia is not changing its position at all, which is why we need to be adding to the cost that Russia faces<\/em>.\u201d He suspects the blacklist is going to be extended significantly and this process should continue until Russia \u201cgets serious about trying to bring about peace in Ukraine<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n This follows\u00a0reticence<\/a>\u00a0on part of the Trump administration to adhere to the requirements stipulated by Congress last year to penalize Russia for its election meddling. The administration announced new sanctions last week pertaining to Russia\u2019s annexation of Crimea, which\u00a0<\/em>target\u00a021 individuals and nine entities including Russian government officials and companies involved in projects on the Crimean peninsula. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has emphasized that the US refuses to acknowledge Russia\u2019s unlawful occupation of Crimea.<\/em><\/p>\n 2.\u00a0<\/em>President Trump is expected to\u00a0ask for $716 billion<\/a>\u00a0in defense spending for 2019 to ward off Russia and China, according to officials. The request aligns closely with the priorities outlined by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in the new US\u00a0National Defense Strategy<\/a>, which places the threat of conflict with Russia and China at the heart of the agenda. According to the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em><\/a>, the Pentagon claims that the 2019 budget prioritizes preparing for conflict with \u2018major world powers\u2019 and \u2018modernizing the military\u2019s aging weapons systems\u2019.<\/p>\n 3. According to Mike Pompeo, head of the CIA, Russian hackers are\u00a0attempting to interfere<\/a>\u00a0in the upcoming US mid-term elections. Regarding Russian cyberattacks, he said, \u201cI haven\u2019t seen a significant decrease in their activity. I have every expectation that they will try and do that [interfere with the elections].\u201d He added, \u201cBut I\u2019m confident that America will be able to have a free and fair election (and) that we will push back in a way that is sufficiently robust that the impact they have on our election won\u2019t be great.\u201d<\/p>\n 4. In new reports revealed this week,\u00a0Dutch intelligence services<\/a>\u00a0were the first to inform the US of Russian cyberattacks against the DNC back in 2014. According to the Dutch program\u00a0Nieuwsuur<\/a>, \u201cIntelligence hackers from Dutch AIVD (General Intelligence and Security Service) had penetrated the Cozy Bear computer servers as well as a security camera at the entrance of their working space, located in a university building adjacent to the Red Square in Moscow.\u201d<\/p>\n 5. Twitter\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0last week that it would notify the 677,775 users in the US who followed, liked, or retweeted accounts associated with the Russian troll-factory (Internet Research Agency) during the 2016 election. Twitter said it suspends 200 of these faux-accounts in September 2017. Read the company\u2019s update on the review of the 2016 election\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n 6. According to the\u00a0Trust Barometer<\/a>, public faith in US institutions experienced the \u201csteepest, most dramatic general population decline [\u2026] ever measured\u201d. Trust has declined 23 points, bringing the US from 6th to last place out of the 28 countries surveyed; this crash is universal across age, gender, and region. Most troublingly of all, a prime consequence in this trust decline has been a loss of confidence in truth, and a rise in references to fake news and disinformation.<\/p>\n 7. And last but not least, Steve Bannon has been\u00a0subpoenaed<\/a>by Special Counsel Mueller\u2019s office to appear before a grand jury. This occurred on the same day that Bannon was subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee \u201cfor refusing to answer a range of questions from investigators during a combative\u00a0closed-door interview<\/a>, frustrating members of both parties who are probing the Trump campaign\u2019s alleged Russia ties\u201d.<\/p>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n The Kremlin\u2019s favourite job<\/strong><\/p>\n We wouldn\u2019t be too surprised to learn if, somewhere one the Kremlin\u2019s premises, there is an office responsible for producing different versions of history and altered narratives. This week it\u2019s for the Romanians about their\u00a0\u201cCarpathian genius\u201d<\/a>. Although there are many Romanians deserving this title, Vzglyad writes about Nicolae Ceausescu. The one who \u201cfell a victim of the first color revolution<\/em>\u201d and the \u201clast stalinist of Europe<\/em>\u201d. The one who told Gorbachev \u201cRather, the Danube will flow backwards than the perestroika will take place in Romania<\/em>\u201d and \u201crescued Romania from the IMG debt slavery<\/em>\u201d. The one who \u201cfell victim to lies and manipulations in 1989<\/em>\u201d and whose glory Vzglyad is now trying to resurrect.<\/p>\n We sometimes wonder, is it national penchant to whitewash dictators, or is it because Russians currently have their own\u2026?<\/p>\n \n \n \n \n \n RT gets nervous over Facebook\u2019s fight with fake news<\/strong><\/p>\n Ever since Facebook announced that it has\u00a0refreshed its NewsFeed algorithm<\/a>\u00a0and decided to add a \u201cdisputed\u201d tag on fake news stories, RT can\u2019t get over the news that it will now become a bit harder to disseminate fake and misleading content.\u00a0\u201cSimply creating an arbitrary list of whose websites can and cannot be viewed on Facebook or considered \u2018news\u2019 is normalizing censorship instead of informing individuals\u201c.\u00a0<\/em>In another RT article that appeared a few days after Zuckerberg broke the news, RT took its frustration further. RT writes about the addictive nature of social media and quotes an American entrepreneur who suggests that social media should be regulated like the tobacco industry.\u00a0\u201cI think you\u2019d do it exactly the same way you regulate the cigarette industry. Here\u2019s a product, cigarettes, they are addictive, they are not good for you. Maybe there is all kinds of different forces trying to get you to do certain things. There are a lot of parallels\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Donbas in Flames: Guide to the Conflict Zone<\/strong><\/p>\n As far as Russian activities are concerned, recent focus has mainly been on the West, which has overshadowed no less concerning issues such as the war in Donbas. For this reason, and due to its long duration, it is easy to lose track of what is going on in the region. For an in-depth understanding of the conflict, we recommend this\u00a0guidebook<\/a>. Written by a group of authors with miscellaneous backgrounds (investigative journalists, political scientists, geographers and historians),\u00a0the short book offers a thorough yet concise summary of the war in Donbas<\/strong>, taking into account various aspects of the conflict.<\/p>\n Before engaging in an analysis of the war itself, the authors provide a detailed geographical, historical and socio-economic assessment of the Donbas region, which illuminates context that average media coverage often lacks. Later, the book contains a timeline of the conflict, beginning in February 2014. Considerable space is also devoted to the lives of civilians living in the war zone and to differences in how the war events have been covered by Ukrainian, Russian and Western mass media, and on the Internet. Finally, you can read about the tactics and equipment used by Russia in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\nTopics of the Week<\/h2>\n
Good Old Soviet Joke<\/h2>\n
Policy & Research News<\/h2>\n
US Developments<\/h2>\n
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The Kremlin\u2019s Current Narrative<\/h2>\n
Kremlin Watch Reading Suggestion<\/h2>\n
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