Avenues of Influence for Post-Soviet Klepotcracy in the West

Kleptocracies learn from each other how to subvert the West into crony capitalism. Experts warned policy-makers that a spillover effect of Russian corruption is coming to Western democracies since at least 2008-2012. The Kremlin started a creeping non-military war against Western institutions and values years ago but it did not get noticed because it was waged on totally new fronts: disinformation via new channels such as the internet, and in cultural and educational spheres. But most importantly, the war was waged through completely new avenues of business and with unprecedented concentrated capital from petro-dollars that was easily disguised through anonymous offshore accounts and/or seemingly private businesses of oligarchs.
 
Ilya Zaslavskiy, a member of the Advisory Board at the Hudson Institute's Kleptocracy Initiative, argues for a new comprehensive policy of containment of Eurasian kleptocracy that the West badly needs to introduce in legal, financial, academic and cultural spheres. The new strategy should include better enforcement of existing laws, introduction of brand new ones, especially on monetary inflows from offshore zones, ethical codes for non-business organizations, and much wider due diligence and audit processes that would bring in Russian language expertise on oligarchy and organized crime of the post-Soviet space.
 
Ilya Zaslavskiy wrote a report How Non-State Actors Export Kleptocratic Norms to the West. He is also Head of Research at Washington-based non-profit Free Russia Foundation and head of Underminers.info, a research project exposing kleptocrats from Eurasia in the West. Ilya is an Academy Associate at Chatham House where he was a Fellow and also continues as an energy consultant for western companies working in developing countries. In September 2018 Council on Foreign Relations published Ilya's report on Energy Reform in Ukraine.