You're reading: Russia says US aid mission sought to sway elections

MOSCOW - Russia accused the United States on Wednesday of using its aid mission in Moscow to influence Russian elections, a charge likely to push relations between the former Cold War foes to a new low after Vladimir Putin's return to the Kremlin.

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a tough statement
explaining Moscow’s decision, announced by Washington on
Tuesday, to give the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID) until Oct. 1 to cease operations in Russia.

The action appears intended to cut funding to organisations
that Putin sees as a threat following his return as president in
May after four years as prime minister, and extends what the
opposition sees as a crackdown on pro-democracy groups.

“It’s about attempts to influence political processes,
including elections of various types, and institutions of civil
society though the distribution of grants,” the Foreign Ministry
statement said.

It said Russia had also been worried about USAID’s work in
regions including the North Caucasus, where Moscow faces an
Islamist insurgency, but did not elaborate.

Washington has dismissed accusations that its funding of
human rights and pro-democracy organisations is intended to
influence domestic politics in Russia.

USAID has worked for two decades in Russia since the
collapse of the Soviet Union, spending more than $2.6 billion on
programmes intended to combat disease, protect the environment,
strengthen civil society and modernise the economy.

PUTIN SEES RUSSIA AS RESURGENT POWER

In announcing the forced closure of the USAID operation in
Russia, the U.S. State Department suggested the Moscow, which is
earning copious oil revenue, felt it did not need foreign aid.

The Foreign Ministry made clear that was one of its motives,
saying Russia was now a donor nation and “rejects the status of
a recipient of development aid”. It said Russia was open to
cooperating with USAID in third countries that need help.

It also indicated that Moscow was eager to reduce foreign
support for Russian groups which promote democracy and the rule
of law but which are viewed with deep suspicion by the Kremlin.

“Russia’s civil society has become fully mature and does not
need ‘external guidance’,” it said.

Putin won nearly two thirds of the vote in a March election
which international monitors said was skewed in his favour.

The former KGB spy has pushed through new laws to raise
fines for protesters, stiffen punishments for defamation and put
new controls on foreign-funded campaign groups.

The notion of Russian organisations receiving foreign aid
grates with Putin’s prized image of Russia as a resurgent power.

“Add to that tension over the pre- and post-election
protests…plus the deep disagreement over U.S.
democracy-promotion activities in the Middle East, and you can
see why Russia may have taken this decision now,” said Matthew
Rojansky of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

RESET UNDER THREAT?

U.S. President Barack Obama came into office seeking a
“reset” in ties with Russia that bore some fruit, including a
2010 arms-control treaty. But the two nations disagree on issues
from Arab revolts, especially the one in Syria, to Iran’s
nuclear programme and U.S. plans for a missile defence shield.

The State Department said USAID would promote democracy and
civil society even after its Russian office closed. A U.S.
official said 13 U.S. diplomats and 60 local Russian employees
would be affected.

Annual aid to Russian groups totals only about $50 million,
but for them its absence could be damaging.

Russian groups most affected include GOLOS, which monitors
the conduct of elections, and Memorial, a human rights watchdog.
Another group that could be hurt is Transparency International,
which monitors perceptions of corruption.

“For our organisation it will really be a big problem,” said
Liliya Shibanova, the executive director of GOLOS, which she
said receives about 80 percent of its funding from USAID.

Shibanova said it was unclear whether GOLOS would be able to
monitor regional elections on Oct. 14, describing the Kremlin’s
decision as part of “the whole repressive machine that has been
aimed against NGOs since Putin’s return” to the presidency.

“It is part of the policy of control. The entire policy of
those in power is to control all processes that occur in Russia
from above, and NGOs that receive financing from abroad …
hinder this policy – so they must be strangled.”

GOLOS came under pressure before December’s parliamentary
election, which Putin’s party won, but which ignited the biggest
protests of his 12-year-rule over widespread fraud allegations.

In December, Putin accused U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton of encouraging the protests.

Government moves since then include a law requiring any
organisation that receives funding from abroad to register as a
“foreign agent”, a tag that evokes memories of the Cold War.

Republican U.S. Senator John McCain described Moscow’s
closure of the USAID mission as “an insult to the United States
and a finger in the eye of the Obama Administration…

“An increasingly autocratic government in Russia wants to
limit the ability of its own citizens to freely and willingly
work with American partners on the promotion of human rights,
democracy, and the rule of law in Russia,” he said.