US presents new effort to counter Kremlin influence

An intergovernmental coalition hosted a presentation Thursday about a new U.S. foreign aid initiative intended to help targeted European countries withstand Kremlin interference.

The effort, first announced in July, is aimed at countries such as Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova. An agency official, Assistant Administrator Brock Bierman, presented it to diplomats in Warsaw, delivering the message that Washington remains committed to democracy across a region that shook off Moscow’s control three decades ago. He said the Kremlin interferes in elections, waging information warfare and promoting corruption.

The Kremlin behaves this way because it has nothing to offer. It has nothing to offer in freedom, prosperity or to the security of its neighbors

said Brock Bierman

He said the efforts include supporting independent journalism and fact-checking in Moldova and the Balkans, as well as helping countries diversify their energy supplies so that Russian energy doesn’t remain a tool of political control. He stressed several times that the efforts are not directed against the Russian people, only against the Kremlin.

Wojciech Przybylski, the editor of Visegrad Insight magazine, which focuses on Central Europe, said that it was reassuring to hear of U.S. efforts to support democracy across Europe.

The fact that a U.S. government agency is undertaking efforts to tell the story that Americans are countering the Kremlin — and exactly on the territory the Kremlin would dispute, where Moscow would rather not have anyone else but themselves — it’s a powerful message and the right message

Przybylski told

Bierman spoke at the Warsaw-based Community of Democracies, a global coalition of democratic states.

Source: https://www.apnews.com/22e3239d113a44af9df0b0735289984e