Foreign Agents in Russia - Doria

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policies for promoting civil unity of all Russian people has proven to be difficult. Accordingly, from
the centralization of the federal power to Moscow to the oppression of oppositional forces, many of
Putin's administration's policies can be seen with the perspective of pursuing improved national
unity by among others the 'sovereign democracy politics'.
Documentarist Fiona Cambell (2012) argued that the color revolutions of early 2000 in
former socialist countries caused the Kremlin reaction of tightening up control of the Russian civil
society, due to the popular conception that the revolutionary sparks had been supported from
abroad, namely the West. Many see the strong role of agency of Vladimir Putin and his
administration in the Russian politics. News analysist of der Spiegel Benjamin Bidder (2012.) was
one of the many arguing that such repressive politics are characteristical for Putin and his
administration. According to Bidder, the Putin administration believes that America and some of the
European Union countries support a regime change in Russia by financing NGOs critical towards
the government and leading to extension of the color revolutions or the Arab spring, extending from
the popular anti-Putin protests of Moscow in December 2011 and May 2012. Moreover Bidder
claims that the new law on NKOs, along with strengthening of penalties to unauthorized public
demonstrations and for committing treason, is part of Putin's agenda to repress the threatening
opposition. From the 'opponent's' point of view, the author of the new NKO law, Sergey Zheleznyak
(Masyuk 2012.) has stated that the new law supports transparency and protects Russia from external
influence on Russian public opinion and politics. Addingly he notes that the same kind of law is
actually applied in the United States since 1938 in Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Russian politolog Sergey Markov has noted that the management of civil society in concern
of foreign influences threatening the sovereign state politics is a global phenomenon where the
Russian foreign agent politics is only one possible political application (Ria 2013j1). In a related
political event of late 2012 The United States Agency for International Development USAID was
disbanded from Russia because Russian authorities saw the company trying to affect the political
processes in Russia by attempting to manipulate election processes and financing institutions in
Russian civil society. Addingly the Russian authorities argued that since the country is not anymore
in the weak state it was in the 1990s but strong instead, the development activities of the USAID
were not seen any more as redundant but even humiliating. (RT 2012a.) Overall the disband of the
USAID was described as foremost an act to prevent foreign interventions. Noteworthy is also what
was not mentioned in Echo Moskvy, Ria Novosti or Russia Today was that the USAID along with
two other American organizations promoting democratic development; The National Democratic
Institute and the International Republican Institute that shared the USAID faith in Russia (Earle
2012) were suspected to be some of the main agencies involved in the grassroots campaigns of
color revolutions in other post-socialist countries (Traynor 2004).