There is nothing new about a Russian government seeking to exert influence in Western countries. For many decades, the Soviet Union supported Western communist parties and ran disinformation campaigns (Operation Infektion, the campaign to convince the world that the United States invented AIDS, was one of the most famous). The KGB slipped money and guns into the hands of terrorists and extremists, the Red Army Faction and the Irish Republican Army among them.
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Anne Applebaum: The critical questions on Russia
Paul Manafort (R), former campaign manager for Donald Trump, is interviewed by journalist John Dickerson (L) on the floor of the Republican National Convention at the Quicken Loans Arena July 17 in Cleveland, Ohio.
