One year on: Russia, Ukraine and the UK’s commitment to crackdown on kleptocracy and SLAPPs

February 24, 2023

The Russian invasion into Ukraine provoked a range of responses from the UK Government, including a sudden vigour to clamp down on Russian influence and kleptocracy. These were far from new issues of concern. In its ‘Russia Report’, published in July 2020, the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee damningly concluded that “Successive Governments have welcomed the oligarchs and their money with open arms, providing them with a means of recycling illicit finance through the London ‘laundromat’.”

The following year, journalist Catherine Belton and her publisher HarperCollins faced a ‘legal pile on’ in relation to her book Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took on the West. An eye opening account of how Russian kleptocracy had developed and spread, the legal cases against the book ended up raising the profile of another phenomenon – SLAPPs. ‘Strategic lawsuits against public participation’ are abusive legal actions taken, or threatened, to harass and intimidate those speaking out in the public interest.

By the invasion last February, these cases had been settled, but not before HarperCollins had spent £1.5 million defending them. By March 2022, all the claimants – four Russian oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich, and a state owned Russian oil company – were sanctioned. Stories about them suddenly flooded into the public domain, with Belton later noting that journalists have been “censoring themselves, particularly about the activities of Russian oligarchs, for a very long time.”

In July, the findings of a Ministry of Justice consultation found that SLAPPs “go beyond the parameters of ordinary litigation and pose a threat to freedom of speech and the freedom of the press.” The Government committed to legislative reform, the fruits of which we have yet to see. This delay was put sharply in the spotlight this January, after it was revealed that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch currently waging war in Ukraine as the head of the Wagner Group, had been granted licences by the UK Treasury to evade pre-existing sanctions and sue Eliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat, in London last year.

While the focus has been on Russia, it is the UK financial and legal systems that have been misused. It’s the UK’s inaction over years that has allowed kleptocracy to flourish, emboldening authoritarian regimes that rely on corruption to entrench their power, abuse their own citizens and now those of other nations. SLAPPs delay or suppress the release of information about wrongdoing, both foreign and domestic, preventing redress. The UK needs to take decisive action to break this cycle once and for all.

Susan Coughtrie, co-chairs the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition, an informal working group established in January 2021, which comprises a number of civil society organisations, lawyers, academics and researchers. In November 2022, the Coalition published a model UK Anti-SLAPP Law, developed with support of expert media lawyers, which has been widely endorsed by media and civil society.

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International Relations and Geopolitics

Investigative journalism

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United Kingdom

Former Soviet Union

Russia

Ukraine

One year on: Disinformation and the dismantling of Russian independent media

Article by Lana Estemirova

As we approach the grim one year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we cannot underestimate its crushing impact on independent journalism and human rights inside Russia.

Without a doubt, the systematic demolition of civil society in Russia helped to lay the ground for the invasion, as did the notorious Foreign Agents Law. Incessant Kremlin propaganda that dominates state channels, coupled with the shutdown of independent media, blocks citizens from easy access to truthful information. In a new draconian measure, the Russian parliament passed a law that imposes a 15-year sentence for spreading ‘fake’ information about the invasion. For example, a 20-year-old student, Olesya Krivtsova, who is currently under house arrest, is facing up to ten years in prison for posting anti-war messages on her social media.

Press freedom rapidly deteriorated even further after the invasion. Independent media organisations such as Novaya Gazeta, TV Rain and Echo of Moscow (among many others) were closed by the Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor. Most outlets that were declared Foreign Agents have had to re-establish themselves outside Russia. Despite continuous threats and financial challenges, independent journalists carry on their investigative work. It is crucial for Russian independent media to survive and continue telling the truth about their country’s actions.

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Conflict Resolution and Security

Freedom of Expression

Human Rights

Media and Online Freedom

Ukraine Conflict

Regions

Former Soviet Union

Russia

Ukraine

One year on: The impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine on Moldova

Article by Iulian Groza

Russia’s brutal and unjustified war against Ukraine has damaged European security architecture irremediably. One year later, Ukraine is winning, Russia is losing, while the European Union and The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are much stronger and united.

After Ukraine, Moldova is perhaps the most affected state, facing multiple challenges – amplified security threats, an unprecedented influx of refugees, massive trade disruptions, economic slowdown with an inflation rate exceeding 30 per cent in 2022, and a severe energy crisis. To increase energy security, Moldova has: connected to the EU’s power grid together with Ukraine, sourced natural gas from the market, and stored in Romania and Ukraine, with support from the EU and other international partners.

Russia’s hybrid aggression against Moldova has intensified using local political proxies, conducting cyberattacks, weaponising Moldova’s energy dependency and promoting disinformation campaigns to destabilise the country. The EU and NATO are helping Moldova to increase its security and defence capabilities. For example, thanks to the EU’s Peace Facility, Moldova’s defence budget has doubled over the last year. Positive historical developments have also emerged, with Moldova and Ukraine being granted EU candidate status in June 2022.

Amidst new security risks, Russia’s plots to destabilise the country have been exposed with threats from the Kremlin implying Moldova could meet the same fate as Ukraine. In the meantime, a mid-term reshuffle by the governing majority took place. The newly-elected Moldovan government appointed on 16th February 2023, has to further increase the domestic institutional resilience to revive the economy. Moreover, Moldova also needs to expedite the implementation of domestic systemic reforms in the justice sector, as well as the EU approximation process aiming to start EU accession negotiations.

Moldova’s resilience in the face of these multiple challenges is growing, but the country must continue to rely on international support to continue to overcome them and continue its path towards becoming part of the EU.

Iulian Groza is an expert in international relations, European affairs and good governance. He is a former Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Moldova in charge for European integration and international law. He was posted to Brussels at the Moldovan Mission to the EU. Currently, Groza leads the Institute for European Policies and Reforms (IPRE) – a Moldovan think-tank that aims at supporting the European integration process of the Republic of Moldova. He also is a Board member of the Institute for Strategic Initiatives (IPIS). Since 2022, Groza is of of the representatives of Moldovan civil society in the Supreme Security Council and the National Committee for European Integration chaired by the President of the Republic of Moldova. He holds a University Degree in Law. He also did postgraduate European Studies at Birmingham University and NATO Security Studies at SNSPA in Bucharest. He is fluent in English, Russian and Romanian (native) languages. Groza is a career diplomat and holds a diplomatic rank of Minister-Counsellor. He is also an FCO Chevening Scholar.

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Conflict Resolution and Security

International Relations and Geopolitics

Ukraine Conflict

Regions

Former Soviet Union

Moldova

Ukraine

One year on: Rethinking Germany’s defence and foreign policy

Article by Dr Ed Turner

For anyone interested in contemporary Germany, the war in Ukraine has had a huge impact.

First and foremost, Germany has had to rethink some fundamental tenets of its post-war foreign policy: a sense that prioritising peace in Europe meant prioritising peace with Russia no longer worked, and the idea that change could be achieved by trading with Russia has also been comprehensively discredited (posing some difficult questions for Germany’s policy towards China, too).

Germany has shown a willingness to send heavy weapons to Ukraine – it has exported arms in the past, but not with the expectation of them being used against Russia. The German-favoured division of labour amongst NATO members, where Germany was more engaged in diplomacy and economic support for nations in conflict rather than tasked with a harder military edge, has come to an end.

There remains debate, however, about the extent to which Germany has really had a rethink: the domestic opposition, and countries to Germany’s east, are sceptical about the extent to which the country has lived up to the expectations raised by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s “watershed moment” (Zeitenwende) speech in the federal parliament after war broke out.

The crisis has also posed other challenges: to Germany’s economic model, arguably dependent upon cheap energy supplies from Russia; and on domestic political cohesion and indeed on keeping the ruling coalition together (with Scholz’s SPD more cautious towards Russia than his partners in the liberals and Greens). Lastly in the sphere of public opinion, the old divide between eastern and western Germany has been exacerbated, with easterners more sceptical about supporting Ukraine than their counterparts in the west.

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Germany

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One year on: The EU and the UK’s role in multilateral spaces

Article by Anna Chernova

Last year’s massive escalation of the Russian invasion into Ukraine has put global and regional organisations to the test. State capacities for foreign defence and development in European Union (EU) member states, as well as among EU’s allies, were already strained by the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, compounded by the multitude of other crises in the wider European neighbourhood.

Military escalation in the EU’s eastern neighbourhood has highlighted both unifying and divisive policy issues. While there has been general consensus towards support for Ukraine, approaches to containing and addressing the Russian threat vary between some member states. Key policy shifts in states like Germany, as well as consensus building challenges with members like Hungary may widen policy gaps as the crisis further protracts.

As the UK plays an important role in supporting Ukraine’s defensive capabilities, aid and recovery efforts – relations with the EU will be critical. Important policy gaps in security cooperation tools and mechanisms left by the FCDO’s Integrated Review, call for the UK to further define what close collaboration with the EU should look like.

Greater British investment in multilateral spaces shared with EU stakeholders, such as the OSCE, Council of Europe, G7 and other multilateral spaces, as well as support to an expanding NATO will be important. The EU and its institutions remain key to promoting human security approaches in responding to conflict. Defining and coordinating a values-based foreign policy, grounded in human security values will be a key regional challenge in wider Europe moving forward.

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Good Governance and Institutional Reform

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Ukraine

One year on: Is the war creating an existential crisis inside the OSCE?

Article by Prof Stefan Wolff

Russia’s illegal and unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine has fundamentally changed the dynamics of the Euro-Asian and Euro-Atlantic security order. It poses the gravest threat to security in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) region and to the organisation itself. As a consequence, the OSCE is far from able to play an effective role in dealing not only with the challenge of the war in Ukraine but also with a number of other threats to the security of its participating States and their societies. In fact, the war in Ukraine simultaneously paralyses and consumes the organisation in ways that prevent it from fulfilling its mandate as a provider of comprehensive and cooperative security in the Euro-Asian and Euro-Atlantic space.

This is particularly problematic because the war in Ukraine is not the only security challenge for the OSCE and its participating States. Threats that pre-date the beginning of the war continue to exist, including the unresolved protracted conflicts in Moldova and the South Caucasus; ongoing boundary disputes in Central Asia; challenges related to violent extremism and radicalisation leading to terrorism (VERLT); and persistent risks emanating from violations of human and minority rights.

New threats have emerged that directly relate to the war in Ukraine or are exacerbated by it, such as those related to food and energy security, trade, the still uneven post-pandemic recovery, and endemic problems with corruption. Yet other threats have acquired new prominence on the political agenda, such as the climate emergency. In addition, there are new security issues facing participating States and their societies from outside the OSCE region, such as those related to the crisis in Afghanistan.

By not being able to perform its role as a platform for dialogue and joint problem-solving, the narrative of the OSCE as being ‘useless’ in dealing with the very issues it was meant to manage constructively becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the organisation’s participating States are in danger of condemning it to a slow and agonising death.

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Ukraine Conflict

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Europe

Former Soviet Union

Ukraine

One year on: Kyrgyzstan’s balancing act between Russia and the West

Article by Dr Aijan Sharshenova

Since February 2022, the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine has rippled across the foreign policies of many countries.

Central Asian countries have had to quickly adjust their foreign policy narratives and strategies, on various bilateral and multilateral cooperation platforms, to navigate between their long-term strategic partners – Russia and their Western counterparts.

Kyrgyz foreign policy found itself in a particularly uncomfortable situation as it had to take into account the large population of Kyrgyz labour migrants in Russia alongside their reliance on development aid, a large part of which comes from North American and European countries.

Russia’s influence on Kyrgyzstan can hardly be underestimated. It is deeply rooted in the shared past and current economic and political ties. Russia trains a significant number of Kyrgyz security service professionals at the FSB Academy. Meanwhile the majority of Kyrgyz labour migrants find employment in Russia, as it is cheaper and easier to travel there. These, and many more factors, certainly shape public and policy-makers’ opinions.

However, it would be wrong to say that Russia has Kyrgyzstan’s full support in its war against Ukraine. Kyrgyzstan is one of the most free and dynamic countries in Central Asia. As such, the society is diverse and has so far shown different opinions on the war. Some support Russia, others Ukraine, but the majority are likely busy facing the immediate day-to-day struggles against the backdrop of the post-pandemic and war-time global order.

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International Relations and Geopolitics

Ukraine Conflict

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Central Asia

Kyrgyzstan

Ukraine

One year on: Shifting western perceptions of China and India

Article by Dr Chris Ogden

The war in Ukraine has had a revealing impact concerning how the West perceives Asia’s two behemoths, China and India, as well as the evolving strategic expectations that the US, the UK and others now have towards these two returning great powers.

Towards Beijing, Western insecurities have come to the fore. Not only of an emergent Moscow-Beijing axis that could herald the coming of a Second Cold War, but also a concern that if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not effectively counteracted, China will then feel emboldened to attack Taiwan. Taken together, these concerns flow into a larger fear that the existing liberal international order is about to be eclipsed by an authoritarian alternative. As a result, international criticism has risen vis-à-vis any actions by China.

Concerning New Delhi, Western assumptions that India would be naturally aligned with the world’s democracies have been deeply challenged. Moscow’s military action has instead revealed India’s long standing strategic partnership with Russia, as shown by the former’s unwillingness to criticise the latter’s actions in Ukraine. Such a stance has forced Western governments and analysts to reassess their understanding of India’s position in international affairs. And no longer can they strategically take New Delhi for granted.

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Asia

China

India

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Ukraine

One year on: The reverberations of the war in the Middle East

Article by Prof Simon Mabon

A year into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the reverberations of the conflict continue to be felt across the Middle East. The centrality of the Middle East within global supply chains and geopolitical calculations means that such reverberations are hardly surprising, yet the second order consequences for the people of the region remain catastrophic. In the early days of the conflict, Antonio Gutierrez warned that the conflict risked pushing “tens of millions of people” into food insecurity. A year later, there appears little respite.

In Yemen, 30-40 per cent of the country’s wheat imports – which account for 95 per cent of the country’s total usage – come from Russia and Ukraine, meaning that shortages and price rises of around 15 per cent from the previous year have had a devastating impact on people; similar experiences can be found in Syria and Lebanon. In Egypt, where the Sisi regime sought to placate rising unrest with bread subsidies, rising prices have pushed the cost of subsidies up $1.5 billion, prompting Cairo to seek a loan from the IMF.

Many of the grievances that led to the mass protests of 2011 known as the Arab Uprisings remain, namely authoritarianism, corruption, inflation, a lack of economic opportunities, and rising food prices. Foreign policy agendas have also been a source of anger for many, such as Iran’s costly support for Hizballah in Lebanon, or the Saudi and Emirati involvement in the Yemen war. A year into the war in Ukraine, the second-order long-term consequences for people and states across the Middle East may be huge.

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Ukraine

Middle East and North Africa

Old enemies make new friends: Caucasus and India-Pakistan rivalry

Article by Ilya Roubanis (PhD)

February 23, 2023

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Old enemies make new friends: Caucasus and India-Pakistan rivalry

Summary:

Ukraine is changing the world. The fact that India and Pakistan are selling arms and military consulting services in the Caucasus is symptomatic of the withering of the Russian military-industrial complex. However, Russia’s loss is not straightforwardly a Western triumph.

Russia’s 16 per cent share of the global military procurement market has an uncertain future as the war in Ukraine depletes its arms inventory. This development has global strategic implications as arms trade has been fundamental to Moscow’s claim to global power status. From Myanmar to Venezuela, the draining of Russian arms supply strips the Kremlin of its claim to global power. Russia’s sphere of influence is in this sense up for grabs, including the Caucasus, a region formerly regarded as ‘the Near Abroad,’ where the Kremlin had exclusive rather than merely privileged strategic oversight. Symptomatic of Russia’s strategic retreat is the advent of India and Pakistan as new arms suppliers.

India is in effect ‘stepping in’ for Russia in Armenia. Pursuing a post-colonial policy of self-reliance, New Delhi has insisted on co-production rights of the arms it buys. For decades, Russia has been India’s military-industrial partner, willing to share its most advanced weapons technology, offering good value for money as well as extending credit. As India’s economy grows, New Delhi accounts for ten per cent of the global military procurement market and Russia has claimed over 80 per cent of this Indian pie. The tables were turned as a result of the war in Ukraine. As Russia can no longer supply arms, Moscow’s clients have looked to India to fill the vacuum. India has obliged and post-Soviet Armenia is New Delhi’s first major customer. As Yerevan is transiting from its own reliance to Russia, Ukraine could turn ‘Made in India’ weapons into a global brand.

A reflection of this process can be seen in Baku. As Russia is losing the role of the preeminent arms supplier of post-Soviet Azerbaijan, Turkey is cementing its position, extending to its strategic partner arms, consulting, and training. Part of Ankara’s service package has been subcontracted to Pakistan, a key Turkish defence partner. Islamabad, in turn, is taking the chance to pitch jet fighters co-produced with China to Baku and, perhaps in time, Ankara. In sum, while we think of Ukraine as a polarising force that consolidates Western resolve, the withering of the Russian military-industrial complex is a crisis with disruptive consequences that cannot be fully contained. India, Turkey, France, Israel, and Pakistan are rushing to fill the Russian vacuum, snatch new lucrative contracts, and create partnerships that do not neatly fit our current diplomatic taxonomy of ‘East’ and ‘West.’ As value chains are disrupted, so is the global security system.

Read the full piece here.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the individual author and do not reflect the views of The Foreign Policy Centre.

Ilya Roubanis (PhD, European University Institute) is a British-born International Relations analyst of Greek heritage. He is a fellow of the Observatory on Contemporary Crisis (Madrid) and the International Relations Institute in Athens (IDIS). For over a decade, he has worked in the South Caucasus as a government affairs consultant, risk analyst, and journalist.

Image by My Past under (CC).

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One year on: Russia, Ukraine and the UK’s commitment to crackdown on kleptocracy and SLAPPs

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One year on: Disinformation and the dismantling of Russian independent media

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One year on: The impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine on Moldova

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One year on: Rethinking Germany’s defence and foreign policy

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One year on: The EU and the UK’s role in multilateral spaces

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One year on: Is the war creating an existential crisis inside the OSCE?

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One year on: Kyrgyzstan’s balancing act between Russia and the West

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One year on: Shifting western perceptions of China and India

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One year on: The reverberations of the war in the Middle East

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Old enemies make new friends: Caucasus and India-Pakistan rivalry

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