Russia has covertly spent more than $300 million since 2014 to try to influence politicians and other officials in more than two dozen countries, the State Department alleges in a newly released cable.
The cable released Tuesday cites a new intelligence assessment of Russia's global covert efforts to support policies and parties sympathetic to Moscow. The cable does not name specific Russian targets but says the U.S. is providing classified information to select individual countries.
Unlike declared efforts by foreign governments to lobby for preferred initiatives, Russia's covert influence involved using front organizations to funnel money to preferred causes or politicians, the cable alleges. That includes think tanks in Europe and state-owned enterprises in Central America, Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.
Putin was spending huge sums"in an attempt to manipulate democracies from the inside," the official said."It is an effort to chip away at the ability of people around the world to choose the governments that they see best fit to represent them, to represent their interests, and to represent their values," he said.The State Department took the unusual step of releasing a diplomatic cable that was sent on Monday to many U.S.
According to the cable, intelligence officials believe Russia planned to transfer"at least hundreds of millions more" dollars in funding to sympathetic parties and officials around the world.
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