Editor’s Note: This feature separates Ukraine’s friends from its enemies. The Order of Yaroslav the Wise has been given since 1995 for distinguished service to the nation. It is named after the Kyivan Rus leader from 1019-1054, when the medieval empire reached its zenith. The Order of Lenin was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union, whose demise Russian President Vladimir Putin mourns. It is named after Vladimir Lenin, whose corpse still rots on the Kremlin’s Red Square, 100 years after the October Revolution he led.
Ukraine’s Friend of the Week: Rebecca Harms
As Ukraine this week marked the five-year anniversary of the beginning of the EuroMaidan Revolution, preparations are already under way for next year’s presidential and parliamentary elections – exercises in democracy that Ukrainians were killed for in the winter of 2013-2014 before ousting President Viktor Yanukovych.
And in the wake of growing evidence that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum on the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, and the 2016 U.S. presidential election, efforts are under way to ensure Ukraine does not fall victim to such meddling next year.
One such effort was a visit on Nov. 17 by a joint pre-election assessment delegation from the National Democratic Institute, or NDI, and the European Parliament. The delegation included Rebecca Harms, a German Greens Party member of the European Parliament and a firm, long-time supporter of Ukraine, and Ukrainians’ determination to set their country on a democratic path.
Although the effectiveness of the methods used by the Kremlin and other actors to manipulate public opinion via social media are yet to be fully assessed, it is clear that the power of Facebook and Twitter have been harnessed in an attempt to affect the outcome of elections in democratic countries.
Companies such as the now defunct Cambridge Analytica, which is thought to have attempted to influence the results of the Brexit vote, scour social media for information about individuals that might indicate their voting intentions. If such an individual is located in a “swing state” or “key marginal” – a voting constituency where only a small change in voting patterns could have a disproportionate effect on the outcome of an election – individuals are micro-targeted with political advertising. The ads are individually tailored to fit in with the individuals’ profile, as assessed by their personal data, in an attempt to influence their vote at a personal level. All indications are that this technique is very effective.
One of the NDI-European Parliament delegation’s key recommendations was thus that Facebook, which carries a huge amount of political advertising, establish an office in Ukraine. Ukrainians have long complained that Facebook has been manipulated by Russian internet “trolls,” who have bombarded the accounts of certain Ukrainians with complaints in order to have them banned from the platform. Ukrainians also complain that Facebook’s Russian-language moderators appear to be biased.
Facebook denied the allegation in March 2015, pointing out that it has no office in Russia and that the Russian-language section is managed from its office in Ireland by Russian speakers. It did not say what nationality the Russian-language speakers were, however.
The NDI-European Parliament delegation said countering Kremlin propaganda should be a top priority for Ukraine in the run-up to next year’s elections, and that social media should support the country in this endeavor.
Harms, Ukraine’s Friend of the Week and a winner of the Order of Yaroslav the Wise, also had some sage words for the country at the NDI-European Parliament delegation’s press conference at the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center on Nov. 17: “My strong conviction is that we will not be able to fight propaganda with propaganda, but by strengthening quality journalism and independent journalism.”
That’s a conviction we at the Kyiv Post share, and we thank Harms and the other members of the NDI-European Parliament delegation for their recommendations and continued support for Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Foe of the Week: Alexander Prokopchuk
In a rare piece of good news in 2018, South Korea’s Kim Jong-yang was on Nov. 21 elected acting president of Interpol, the international organization for cooperation between national police forces.
That’s good news because Alexander Prokopchuk, whom Russia nominated to be the next head of Interpol, and who was also in the running to take the post, is no friend of Ukraine, despite having been born in the country.
In the end, Kim beat Prokopchuk by 101 votes to 61.
It’s no exaggeration to say that this vote was a victory for the civilized world against rising authoritarianism.
During his two year term as the vice chair of the organization in Europe, critics say Prokopchuk was behind numerous abuses of the Interpol system, which saw Russia issue malicious “red notice” arrest warrants for political opponents of the Kremlin – some of whom have sought refuge in Ukraine from the authoritarian regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
One of them, Ilya Ponomarev, a former lawmaker in Russia’s lower house of parliament the Duma who now lives in exile in Kyiv, was sure the abuses would have continued if Russia had gained control of the top spot at Interpol.
“Of course they will use Interpol as a tool against Ukraine… there are lots of Kremlin critics here, considered fugitives, and the Interpol tool will make their life very difficult,” Ponomarev told the Kyiv Post in an interview held a couple of days before the vote.
As if signaling such intentions, Russian prosecutors announced on Nov. 19 they wanted to arrest Bill Browder, a UK financier, economist and outspoken Kremlin critic who was the architect of the Magnitsky Act – a U.S. law that allows U.S. authorities to sanction human rights abusers and freeze the assets of corrupt officials. The law is named after Sergei Magnitsky, Browder’s former accountant, who was murdered in a Russian prison in 2009 after being arrested when he uncovered massive fraud and corruption committed by Russian state officials.
Russian prosecutors made the ludicrous claim that Browder had poisoned Magnitsky, while in fact the initial Russian coroner’s report showed that the accountant had died of a head injury, probably sustained in a severe beating from his Russian prison guards. A follow-up 2011 post mortem found that Magnitsky had been killed by a blunt object, or objects.
The claim that Browder used poison to kill his friend Magnitsky could also be interpreted as an attempt by the Kremlin to “troll” the West, which has accused Russia of poisoning critics abroad and supporting the use of chemical weapons against civilians in Syria by its client dictator, Bashar al-Assad.
Gaining control of Interpol, an important institution of the civilized world that is meant to support the rule of law, would have been a case of the Kremlin trolling the West, but a much larger scale, and with potentially much more serious consequences.
As Browder put it: “If Russia is allowed to take over Interpol, it’s like the mafia taking over global law enforcement.”
Gary Kasparov, the former chess grandmaster and also a firm critic of Putin, was also appalled by the prospect of the Kremlin controlling Interpol.
“The Nazis took over Interpol in 1938 and it was run by SS generals. If its leadership is now handed over to a general from Putin’s criminal dictatorship, civilized nations must again abandon it. Dark days,” Kasparov tweeted on Nov. 18.
“It’s a good example of the failure of engagement. Inviting dictatorships into free world institutions spreads their corruption, not liberalism or justice,” he added.
Luckily, that didn’t happen, and today the world is just a little bit safer for democracy.
Meanwhile, Alexander Prokopchuk is Ukraine’s Foe of the Week and a winner of the Order of Lenin. Let’s hope that the civilized world will continue to prevent him from doing further damage to his homeland, and stop him and his ilk from further undermining Interpol, and the public’s trust in the rule of law.
