Josh Rudolph Profile picture
Sep 14, 2020 12 tweets 5 min read Read on X
While Russia uses "a range of measures" to interfere in the Nov. 3 election, the Kremlin spends covert foreign money to meddle in two elections a couple days before that on Russia's borders. One will be revealed later this week. In today’s thread: Georgia. codastory.com/disinformation…
The Georgian job is run by the Kremlin dept. for "Inter-Regional Relations and Cultural Contacts with Foreign Countries," headed by SVR Gen. Vladimir Chernov & staffed with FSB, GRU, & SVR officers. Its real aim is to prevent color revolutions near Russia. dossier.center/chernov/
.@dossier_center got a trove of internal Kremlin documents, from Russia's $8 million budget to fund Georgia's pro-Russian political party in the four months before the Oct 31 election to emails showing Kremlin control over the party's political consultants.dossier.center/georgia/
The Kremlin's hand in Georgian politics runs thru cut-out's: the pro-Russian party in Tbilisi gets consulting from a Moscow firm, which works with another consultant, who answers to an FSB colonel & his deputy (a GRU officer), who report to General Chernov.dossier.center/georgia2/
These "consultants" (who report to Russian intel services) bring expertise from "successful turnkey election campaigns in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine." They tell the Georgians what messages and events will help stir up animosities and drive wedges among opponents.
The Moscow-based "consultants" also create video ads to be placed on Georgian television, with ominous music and warnings about how the country will collapse into chaos of crime and unemployment under any leadership other than the pro-Russia party. Image
If these revelations had come to light before we published our report on covert foreign money on August 18, we would have included this case in our study, because the details are extensively and credibly reported with documents, amounts, names, dates, etc. securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/covert-foreign…
The $8 million budget set by the Kremlin for Georgia's election fits squarely within the $3 million to $15 million range we found is necessary to buy influence in a national election. Across our global study, the amounts add up to more than $300 million spanning 115 cases. Image
Many of the loopholes exploited in other democracies are also problematic in Georgia, where foreign donations are technically outlawed but enforcement is weak and there are no regulations around loans, third-party campaigning, or second-round elections. osce.org/files/f/docume… Image
The Georgian campaign finance oversight agency, the State Audit Office, doesn't have sufficient human resources, needs court approvals to launch investigations or impose sanctions, and lacks the authority to compel witness testimonies.
osce.org/files/f/docume… Image
More broadly, like in too many post-Soviet countries, "anti-corruption" work in Georgia involves prosecutors finding evidence of wrongdoing only to be called off by corrupt officials and/or bribed themselves to shut the investigation. That's what we hear is expected of this case.
Russian interference in democracies continues all over the world and it won't stop until people—voters & politicians—understand the central premise of democracy that must be above political interests: Authorities don't work for themselves or for foreign powers. They work for you.

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More from @JoshRudes

Oct 17, 2023
This news out of Kyiv today is just as important as ATACMS but will get far less international attention because it sounds technical and boring.

The parliament just adopted an anti-corruption measure (lifelong PEP status) that meets the last big precondition for EU accession. 🧵
This reform brings Ukraine in compliance with the @FATFNews standard of making banks closely scrutinize the finances of politically exposed persons or PEPs (i.e., former public officials who could benefit from corruption) for the rest of their lives, rather than just three years. Image
As background, see this article in @EuropeanPravda.

PEP reform was "the last main obstacle to the [EU] negotiations" and Zelensky's government was having a hard time getting its proposal through the parliament due to opposition among lawmakers who don't want to be lifelong PEPs. Image
Read 7 tweets
Sep 26, 2023
Even as Ukrainian generals and soldiers fight to expel Russian invaders, a second army of state bureaucrats and civil society experts in Kyiv has been quietly mobilizing to win the peace.

Two new reports from @gmfus, @brdo_ukraine, @IAAUkraine, & @RISE_Ukraine_ map these actors.
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As we've spoken to officials planning for a Marshall Plan for Ukraine, we've realized they often don't have a clear picture of all the new government bodies and civil society coalitions that have sprout up in Kyiv to prepare for reconstruction.

That's why we did this research.
Our first report, led by @brdo_ukraine, focuses on Ukrainian government institutions. ⬇️gmfus.org/news/kyivs-mob…
Read 8 tweets
Sep 26, 2023
Wow! I had heard that this was in the works, but the details are strikingly strong. 💪

Good of the @WhiteHouse for sending the G7 donor coordination platform this list of 25 reforms that Ukraine must implement in order to continue receiving US assistance. news.yahoo.com/white-house-le…



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Two of my favorite aspects of this list are how the priorities are sequenced over the next 18 months and how they've prioritized reforms to give the specialized anti-corruption agencies more resources and authorities, with specific line items for SAPO, NABU, NACP, HACC, and ARMA. Image
If you think that's an alphabet soup of esoteric bureaucracy, Putin disagrees. In his vitriolic speech three days before fully invading, he named these Ukrainian anti-corruption institutions and bemoaned their leadership selection processes and US support. en.kremlin.ru/events/preside…
Read 19 tweets
Jun 20, 2023
NEW REPORT: Ukraine is halfway through a hero’s journey with a dual conflict against Russia and oligarchy.

Ukrainian anti-corruption is vital to the rules-based order. @NormEisen, Cameron Bertron, and I offer 25 ways stakeholders in that order can help. 🧵gmfus.org/news/ukraines-…
We start by setting the record straight on Ukrainian anti-corruption.

Here's what the Kremlin and its useful idiots leave out from their narrative about corruption in Ukraine:

Never in history has a nation built such a sweeping array of anti-corruption institutions in a decade. Image
This success drove Putin to invade. See what he did on the date of Feb 21 – a year apart, in 2021 & 2022.

2/21/2021: Started mobilizing “large-scale exercises” hours after Medvedchuk’s assets seized

2/21/2022: Named Ukraine’s rule-of-law institutions in his vitriolic war speech Image
Read 9 tweets
Sep 15, 2022
Over the past 24 hours, I’ve been asked by journalists all over the world whether my research suggests their country might be among the two dozen countries where Russian money has infiltrated politics. Nowhere is this question coming up more than in Italy. reuters.com/world/europe/r…
The US intel assessment reportedly names countries included in my research, like Montenegro & Madagascar, plus some new ones, like Albania, Ecuador, & an unnamed Asian country (where the Russian ambassador gave millions in cash to a presidential candidate).washingtonpost.com/national-secur…
To see the 33 countries identified in my report on #CovertForeignMoney as having receiving political financing from Kremlin-linked actors, see where the red arrows point to in the map below. One of these target countries is Italy. Image
Read 8 tweets
Sep 13, 2022
Strong move for the USG to disclose this information, showing how the aggressive approach to declassifying Kremlin covert ops—which worked well in the run-up to the war in Ukraine—can be broadly extended to informing voters of assaults on democracy. 👏👏👏washingtonpost.com/politics/us-ru…
The intelligence community is right to point to 2014 as the year when the Kremlin dramatically escalated the scope of its financial interference operations.

Putin authorized campaigns against Europe in 2014, the United States in 2016, and Africa in 2018.
Half of all financial interference in the world involves Russia targeting Europe, but China does it too against Australia, New Zealand, and Czechia. And both regimes bribe African leaders. The most common target of malign finance—hit more than 25 times—is the United States.
Read 6 tweets

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