Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Russian opposition financed by foreign money - expert

Why not, we do this almost everywhere.

"The Kremlin is involved in horse-trading with the U.S. over the terms of not entering an alliance with China, which the Americans view as their main adversary," the political scientist said. "The opposition is being used as an instrument of pressure on Moscow."

What Alexei Mukhin what complains about is a tried and true behavior of the U.S. well documented on this forum.

I think there is a strong chance we will also see an inundation of propaganda emanating from the West keeping the spotlight on a very real demographic threat from China to Russia’s Far East as another means to sow seeds of dissention between the dragon and the bear.

#msg-5056211

-Am

Russian opposition financed by foreign money - expert
11:45 / 08/ 08/ 2005



MOSCOW, August 8. (RIA Novosti)-The opposition has never been an independent political force in Russia and is financed by foreign money, a leading political scientist told a respected Russian daily Monday.

Alexei Mukhin, the director of the Center for Political Information, said in an interview with Noviye Izvestia that tycoons and political exiles Boris Berezovsky and Leonid Nevzlin, who finance the opposition, were not independent players but "nothing more than advocates of the U.S. State Department's line."

"The Kremlin is involved in horse-trading with the U.S. over the terms of not entering an alliance with China, which the Americans view as their main adversary," the political scientist said. "The opposition is being used as an instrument of pressure on Moscow."

Accordingly, ex-premier Mikhail Kasyanov had no alternative to becoming the opposition's leader, Mukhin said. It was an act of financial self-defense. Kasyanov has more foreign than Russian money, which makes the former prime minister dependent more on the State Department than on the Kremlin.

The latter has launched a powerful attack against the opposition, which needs to keep Kasyanov as the Moscow alternative to the St. Petersburg-dominated presidential election in 2008. The opposition should also promote and coordinate the operation of foreign non-governmental organizations in Russia in a bid to mobilize as many people as possible in time for the election.

The political scientist said the Kremlin was split by the struggle for a re-division of property between the group of Dmitry Medvedev, the head of the Presidential Administration, and a group led by his deputy, Igor Sechin.

Another deputy head of the administration, Vladislav Surkov, is waging an aggressive PR campaign to present himself as the main ideologist of the Kremlin in the 2007-2008 election campaign. Mukhin said a struggle was also under way for this campaign's budget.



http://en.rian.ru/russia/20050808/41111021.html