Epstein Secrets

Observatory delegation gave the referendum an enthusiastic thumbs-up.3 Moscow has paid considerable attention to evolving political developments in Central and Eastern Europe. Despite their relatively recent histories of Soviet subjugation and communist rule, a number of these countries have seen the rise of populist or

and persecution. They are frequent- ly jailed on trumped-up charges of defamation, tax fraud, or drug trafficking, among others. 12 EFTA00804736 Freedom House 2. Marginalizing the opposition: As noted above, authoritarian leaders use their media power to paint critics as knaves or buffoons. Especially t

s he will never tolerate. It would be the final straw in dismantling Russian attempts to extend its influence over the `near abroad'—those parts of Central and Eastern Europe that escaped domination by Russia in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Putin has several times invoked Russia's right to influe

in countries that will hold free and fair elections this year, democracy's global advance has come to a halt, and may even have gone into reverse. Freedom House reckons that 2013 was the eighth consecutive year in which global freedom declined, and that its forward march peaked around the beginning of the c

held them for two months before their release.”' Yet at the same time, the Kremlin was al- legedly fostering anti-fracking demonstrations in parts of Central and Eastern Europe.”? Russia organizes bogus election-monitoring missions that give a stamp of approval to polling in Crimea and other authoritar- ian settings, while e

tions with other regional states. Turkey similarly claimed a policy of “zero problems” with its neighbors in the period before the Syrian civil war. Freedom House's Tyler Roylance has described a “common set of concessions" that 21st-century au- thoritarians made to the prevailing democratic ethos in the wake of