The world in Russia's eyes: A new 'soft power' offensive

Jan 29, 2008, 17:22 GMT

Moscow - A Russian non-profit organization has opened offices in New York and Paris to improve Russia's image abroad by hunting for flaws in western democracies.

Russia has grown increasingly hostile of what it considers western organizations' 'meddling' after the 2004 democratic Orange Revolution in neighbouring Ukraine, accusing them of funding opposition groups.

Born out of President Vladimir Putin's speech at a European Union- Russia conference in October, the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation (IDC) is typical of Russia's vocal, relativist response to western nations in recent months.

The organization's founder Anatoly Kucherena said the centre would disseminate Russian political concepts, such as its pursuit of 'sovereign democracy,' highlighting Russia's growing desire to target foreign public opinion through non-military or so-called 'soft power' initiatives.

'No country can monopolize the definition of standards of democracy and human rights,' said Kucherena, a pro-Kremlin lawyer and Public Chamber member.

But analysts were skeptical as to what positive ideology the organization could export and its possible impact.

Rose Gottemoeller, head of the US-based Moscow Carnegie Institute, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the institute had been almost two years in the planning.

As such the IDC - pitched as a cross between a think tank and a rights' watchdog - seems to be the latest in Russia's new soft power offensive.

With Russia's coffers sighing with oil funds, Putin has made it his priority to reclaim Russia's greatness - to this end hiring foreign public relations consultants for summits and launching a generously-funded English-speaking news channel, Russia Today.

'The Russian government has recently been showing a glimmer of recognition that they have been behaving in a way that has lost it allies,' Gottemoeller said.

Kucherena denied the institute was a Kremlin project, emphasizing it would be funded by Russian businessmen. But he refused to identify the donors, raising suspicions that they may be well-disposed businessmen doing the Kremlin's bidding.

Gottemoeller highlighted that it was unclear whether the centre would be independent, saying 'I don't know where they get their money from.

She said it was natural for Russia to want to promote its interest abroad, but 'we have to draw the line between a government-funded and independent institute.'

The real question, Gottemoeller said, was how they receive their working instructions: 'No argument, it is illegitimate, but it has to come with no strings attached.'

Political analyst Andranik Migranian, who is to head the foundation's New York office, was more circumspect, saying the foundation had been conceived in consultation with the Kremlin.

'I understand that [Kucherena] is afraid ... always trying to prove that it is independent and grass-roots - this is true, but our civil society is not separate from state structures,' he told journalists in Moscow on Monday.

Western rights' organizations and vote monitors have become increasingly critical of Putin, even as the Kremlin moved to limit their scope with new restrictive non-governmental laws.

Christopher Walker, director of studies at the democracy watchdog Freedom House, told dpa that the IDC was redundant and would do better to look to home first.

'An extensive number of independent NGOs and news media are already scrutinizing the activities of United States and EU governments. Such scrutiny is no longer the case in Russia where they have been systematically sidelined,' Walker said.

The US-based Freedom House particularly pricked Russia's ire with a report last year that ranked Russia near last out of 195 countries - at the authoritarian end of the scale.

While Russia's state-owned newspaper Rossiskaya Gazeta Tuesday led with the headline 'Freedom House Russian style,' Kucherena was quick to reject the comparison.

At a news conference punctuated with such attacks on Monday, Kucherena said, 'Any report published today, especially by organizations such as Freedom House, are always ideological works.'

The head of Human Rights Watch's Moscow office Alexander Petrov said he wished Russia luck, but 'the competition is fierce, and I am not sure that a new organization will be able to add anything,' Interfax news agency reported.

Analysts said Tuesday that the CDI was most likely a tit-for-tat ideological move by Russia.

In October, tepid reactions from EU diplomats who mistook Putin's overture for joint project were quickly quelled by Russia's top EU negotiator Sergei Yastrazhembsky, who quipped, 'It won't be a joint venture.'

Yastrazhembsky called the project a 'symmetrical response' to the EU's funding of democracy promotion in Russia.

Natalia Narochnitskaya, chosen as the institute's director in Paris, has accused the West of double standards and using human rights issues as a political tool. She cut in to the United States for its purported police abuses and high incarceration rate.

'There are many problems. The sun has spots too,' Narochnitskaya said.