Russian-US Citizen Charged by US Authorities for Acting Illegally as Russian Agent
A dual Russian-U.S. citizen was charged on March 8 with allegedly acting as a Russian agent in the
United States.
Elena Branson, 61, from at least 2011 worked with top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, to promote Russian propaganda and influence U.S. policy, according to
court documents filed in the Southern District of New York.
Branson “knowingly would and did act in the United States as an agent of a foreign government and foreign officials, namely, the Russian Federation, the government of Moscow, and officials of those foreign governments” without notifying U.S. authorities, a criminal complaint states.
Foreign agents are required by U.S. law to register with the U.S. government.
Despite not doing so, Branson moved to set up meetings between a Russian official and U.S. politicians, founded an organization headquartered in New York City named the Russian Center of New York (RCNY) that received funding from the Russian government, and lobbied officials in Hawaii to keep the name of a fort located in the state in part by arranging a trip for the officials to Moscow to meet with high-ranking Russian officials, according to the charging documents.
Additionally, Branson worked for years for the Russian Community Council of the USA, which receives funding from Russian government-run entities. In the role, she helped coordinate an “I Love
Russia” campaign in the United States and organized youth forums that were aimed at promoting Russian culture and history to American youth.
And U.S. authorities also said Branson was part of a scheme to obtain fraudulent visas for Russian officials and their associates by giving them information about events RCNY was holding so they could use the details as a pretense to enter the United States.
“Branson engaged in a wide-ranging influence and lobbying scheme with funding and direction from the Russian government—all while deliberately leaving the American people in the dark,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said in a statement, adding that the U.S. Department of Justice “will continue to expose these serious crimes and shine a light on foreign malign influence.”
Michael Driscoll, the FBI’s assistant director-in-charge, said the case “highlights the breadth of Russia’s relentless intelligence and malign influence activities targeting the United States” and vowed the bureau “will continue to be just as aggressive in uncovering and dismantling these Russian government networks who seek to harm our national security.”
It wasn’t clear whether Branson had retained a lawyer. She faces up to 35 years in prison. She is at large.
RCNY didn’t return an inquiry.
Branson spoke to the FBI agents in 2020 and during the interview said she’d never been asked by Russian officials to arrange meetings between U.S. politicians and Russian officials, according to the charging documents. Branson soon left the United States and went to Russia.
Branson said on a Russian government-backed broadcaster the following year that she had left the United States because she would likely be arrested.
US Shale Shortages to Limit Efforts to Replace Banned Russian Oil
U.S.
shale producers are unlikely to replace banned
Russian oil imports due to a shortage of oilfield materials, equipment, and labor and a dwindling backlog of wells waiting to be completed, energy executives and analysts said on Tuesday.
President Joe Biden imposed an immediate
ban on Tuesday on Russian oil imports in retaliation for its invasion of
Ukraine, putting a spotlight on shale producers’ ability to boost output to make up for the loss of about 200,000 barrels per day of Russian crude typically imported by domestic refiners.
Shale has a short-cycle—able to add or reduce production relatively quickly—and in the past, producers have delivered explosive growth when prices allow.
In the Permian Basin, the top U.S. shale field, output jumped by 100,000 bpd nearly every month in 2018, according to U.S. government data.
But unlike 2018, there is a lack of oilfield materials, equipment, and labor, and the fastest way to increase shale production —completing already drilled but not yet completed wells—has declined.
Shale wells waiting to be completed and turned on have fallen sharply to 4,466, the lowest since January 2014 and nearly half of the highs touched mid 2020, data showed.
“Drilled-but-uncompleted (DUC) wells represent latent potential, and that latent potential has shrunk,” said Stacey Morris, research director at Alerian, an energy index provider.
Analysts warned the time needed to drill and complete a new well can take six to eight months.
Even though the U.S. rig count has climbed for a record 19 months in a row, its growth has been slow and oil production is still far from pre-pandemic record levels as many companies focus more on returning money to investors rather than boosting output.
Today’s lack of materials, equipment, and labor is “not adequately recognized as a significant impediment for growth,” Occidental Petroleum Chief Executive Vicki Hollub said.
Oil producers which have not planned for volume growth this year cannot change and abandon commitments to allocate profits to debt reduction and shareholder returns, she said.
“Capital discipline today for oil companies is basically no (production) growth,” Hollub said.
Shale companies have set their production budgets for the year and, like Occidental, cannot revise them without investor approval, said Pablo Prudencio, a senior analyst at energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.
Ukraine Says 6 Humanitarian Corridors Agreed With Russia, Polish Jet Transfer in Limbo
Ukrainian authorities have announced a temporary ceasefire along six evacuation routes for civilians in besieged or occupied cities, though a cloud of uncertainty hangs over the arrangement as prior efforts at securing the safety of humanitarian corridors have mostly failed, with
Russia and
Ukraine trading blame.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a
video message on Telegram on Wednesday that Russian authorities had confirmed the ceasefire along six evacuation routes, and that word of the arrangement had been conveyed to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The ceasefire is to last from 9 a.m.–9 p.m. local time on March 9, Vereshchuk said. The humanitarian corridors lead out of Sumy in the northeast, Mariupol on the Azov Sea coast, Enerhodar in the south, Volnovakha in the southeast, Izyum in the east, and several towns around the capital Kyiv, she said.
Prior ceasefire efforts around humanitarian corridors have mostly been unsuccessful, with only one evacuation route open out of Sumy. Around 5,000 people were evacuated out of Sumy on Tuesday.
The head of the ICRS said Wednesday he hopes the current thrust to establish humanitarian corridors will be successful after earlier efforts bore little fruit.
Peter Maurer, president of the ICRC, told Germany’s Deutschlandfunk radio on Wednesday that his organization has been working for days to bring the warring parties together and encourage them to hold detailed military-to-military talks on enabling civilians to flee.
Maurer said it’s important that agreements succeed “because the military units stand close to each other and the smallest uncertainty, as we have seen in recent days, leads instantly to exchanges of fire, and that makes the escape routes impossible.”
A series of local ceasefires to let civilians evacuate leave have collapsed since efforts began on Saturday to get them operating safely.
Former NATO Gen. Egon Ramms told
German media outlet ARD that, while he hopes the ceasefires would hold, a prerequisite is for both sides to cease hostilities.
Ramms said that experience with ceasefires shows “that often both sides are not equally informed” and so one side unwittingly continues to fight.
“Then the other side fires back. And then such a humanitarian corridor has failed accordingly, both for aid and for people who want to flee,” he told the outlet.
More than 2 million people have fled Ukraine since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered what he described as a “special military operation” to disarm its neighbor and dislodge leaders it calls “neo-Nazis.”
Kyiv and its Western allies dismiss that as a groundless pretext for an unprovoked war of aggression against a sovereign and democratic nation.
Meanwhile, as hostilities entered their 14th day on Wednesday, the fate of a much-discussed potential transfer of Polish fighter jets to Ukraine remained in limbo.
Poland, which is wary of being seen as engaging in the conflict, has offered to transfer its fleet of MiG-29s to U.S. custody at a U.S./NATO base in Germany for further disposition by the United States. But the Pentagon threw cold water on the proposal, with Department of Defense spokesperson John Kirby describing it as untenable.
“The prospect of fighter jets ‘at the disposal of the Government of the United States of America’ departing from a U.S./NATO base in Germany to fly into airspace that is contested with Russia over Ukraine raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance,” Kirby said in a statement.
“It is simply not clear to us that there is a substantive rationale for it. We will continue to consult with Poland and our other NATO allies about this issue and the difficult logistical challenges it presents, but we do not believe Poland’s proposal is a tenable one,” he added.
Kirby added that the decision whether to transfer the MiGs to Ukraine was up to the Polish government.
Polish authorities, however, want the jet transfer to be done under the auspices of NATO and to have the unanimous backing of all the allies.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday called for a faster resolution of the uncertainty surrounding the transfer of the MiGs.
Zelensky described the hold-up as one of “logistics” and a “technical issue,” while calling for it to be resolved “immediately.”
“We are at war! This is not ping pong! It’s about human lives! We once again ask you to resolve this quickly, send us the aircraft,” he said in a
video message on Wednesday.
Putin Signs Law on Using Rainy-Day Fund to Buy OFZ Bonds, Stocks—RIA
Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin has signed a law on using the country’s rainy-day National Wealth Fund to buy OFZ government
bonds and stocks, the RIA news agency reported on Wednesday.
Putin also signed a series of laws enabling a new “capital amnesty” designed to encourage people to return money or financial instruments to Russia without facing tax or other penalties, RIA reported.
Demand for VPNs Surge in Russia to Bypass Countrywide Internet, News Blockade
Russians are increasingly turning to tools such as VPNs to bypass the internet blockade within the country in the wake of the Kremlin’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine and its crackdown on a number of social media platforms.
VPNs, also known as virtual private networks, allow users to change the location from which they are accessing the internet, meaning they can evade location-based restrictions. It also creates an encrypted tunnel for users’ data, making browsing more private.
Amid the Russian government’s crackdown on a number of social media services and news outlets, more and more Russians are turning to VPNs so that they can continue to stay connected with the outside world and get information from sources that don’t just consist of state-owned news outlets.
According to
Top10VPN.com, which live tracks spikes in the demand for VPN around the world, the desire for VPNs surged by 1,092 percent in
Russia on March 5, exactly one day after Russia’s communications agency Roskomnadzor blocked access to Facebook.
A
statement from the agency posted online said Facebook has engaged in “26 cases of discrimination against Russian media and information resources.”
Demand for VPN services also surged 1,033 percent higher than the daily average over the week prior to the invasion, data from Top10VPN.com shows, and such demand was still slightly higher as of March 5, where it peaked at 1,092 percent above the average.
As of March 7, Russians still had a high interest in VPNs, with figures 850 percent higher than the pre-invasion baseline, while VPN providers Surfshark and ExpressVPN have
both said they have experienced an increase in Russian’s purchasing or looking to purchase VPNs.
Top10VPN.com reports that Russia’s government has blocked over 200 news and financial sites, including both foreign and local ones since its military forces invaded Ukraine.
They include Radio Free Europe, BBC News, Deutsche Welle, and Voice of America Russian-language sites, as well as several Russian TV and radio stations, including TV Rain and Echo of Moscow, among others.
Russian officials have accused multiple news outlets and websites of spreading disinformation regarding its invasion of Ukraine, as opposed to sticking with President Vladimir Putin’s so-called narrative that it is actually a “special military operation.”
On Friday, President Vladimir Putin signed a law that will criminalize anyone sharing “
deliberately false information about the actions of Russian military personnel in Ukraine.”
Under the new law, “unofficial” reporting on the invasion is a crime that is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Specifically, it will punish those who knowingly “distort the purpose, role, and tasks of the Russian Armed Forces, as well as other units during special military and other operations,” according to Vasily Piskarev, head of the Duma’s Security and Anti-Corruption Committee in a post that has since been deleted, but that is still available on the
web archive.
Elsewhere, demand for VPNs in Ukraine also climbed 609 percent higher than before the invasion began, Top10VPN.com data shows.
On the weekend of Feb. 26–27, VPN demand skyrocketed and was 544 percent higher than the daily average in the first half of the month on Feb. 28.
Demand continued to rise over the week, and on March 2 peaked at 600 percent higher than before the war started, while continuing to increase.
Ukraine Aid Package Totals $14 billion, McConnell Says
Congress’s aid package for
Ukraine and its Eastern European allies now stands at $14 billion, Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said.
McConnell announced the deal on Tuesday, telling reporters that the figure would include loan guarantees to help NATO allies including Poland purchase U.S. aircraft to replace warplanes transferred to Ukraine.
“Where we have ended up is $14 billion,” McConnell said.
Speaking shortly after McConnell, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), said the bill would include “a little less” than $14 billion and a little more than $12 billion.
The spending will be part of a $1.5 trillion government-wide spending bill that lawmakers hope to vote on this week, that will fund the federal government for the full fiscal year and also provide further aid to Ukraine.
The figure is higher than the sum initially requested by the Biden administration, $6.5 million, and the $10 billion figure in the White House’s formal request to Congress.
“It needs to be passed and it needs to be passed quickly,” McConnell told reporters, criticizing the speed at which the aid package has moved along.
”It’s been like pulling teeth to get out of House Democrats what the Ukrainians obviously need at this particular time,” McConnell said. “We’ve been slow—much too slow. But the package, I gather, will be coming over from the House … I think it’s an important step.
Democrats and Republicans rallied solidly behind Ukraine, with
Russia’s attack devastating parts of the country and prompting Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II.
Republicans however accused President
Joe Biden of moving too slowly to help Ukraine and NATO nations assisting it, and to impose sanctions against Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. Democrats say time was needed to bring along European allies that rely heavily on Russian energy sources.
Biden on Feb. 26 also approved sending
$350 million in weapons to Ukraine—two days after Putin launched a full-scale invasion against the country. The U.S. State Department sent hardware including Javelin anti-tank weapons, anti-aircraft systems, ammunition, and body armor.
House leaders were hoping that the chamber could approve the legislation on Wednesday, sending it to the Senate. Debate there could last days.
Top House Democrats were warning their members they might have to unexpectedly return to Washington on Friday night from the party’s political retreat in Philadelphia to approve the package or pass yet another short-term bill preventing a federal shutdown. Temporary financing for federal agencies expires at the end of the day Friday.
Seizing the Property of Russian Oligarchs: Guilt by Association?
Commentary
The Western world is united in its response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Western countries, including the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom, have imposed a bevy of sanctions expected to hurt the Russian economy.
One such sanction that lately received a great deal of media coverage is the seizure of the assets of Russian oligarchs held in the West. These include luxury villas, yachts, and bank accounts.
In this context, the word “oligarch” is mainly used pejoratively. The word has been in use since the early 1600s and is based on the Greek language but is typically reserved to describe a rich Russian business billionaire.
The seizure of assets of Russian oligarchs is regarded as a justifiable expression of revenge that potentially may shorten the war in Ukraine. However, a closer look at these sanctions suggests that, often, it is grounded in a doubtful moral principle, namely that oligarchs are guilty by association with the
Putin regime.
As is well-known, Russian billionaires have invested heavily in assets in the West, especially after the collapse of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). While most of these assets are in the United States and the European Union, Russian billionaires have also heavily invested in Australia and other countries.
The assets of these billionaires in these jurisdictions are subject to seizure by the local authorities following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
For example, Igor Sechins’s yacht was seized in France, and Alisher Usmanov’s superyacht, Dilbar, reportedly the largest motor yacht in the world, was taken by German authorities.
The Australian government, too, has announced the seizure of valuable property of eight oligarchs who have close ties with Russian banks, Russia’s defence and resources industries, or are deemed to be part of Putin’s inner circle.
How the Australian government identifies these individuals whose property will be seized is a bit of a mystery, but it is fair to assume that their close relationship with the Putin regime makes them an easy target for confiscating their property.
These “oligarchs” are undoubtedly all wealthy businesspeople with ties to Putin’s regime and hence wield considerable political power.
It is, however, an altogether different issue as to whether they should be held personally responsible for the calamitous invasion of Ukraine.
The seizing of property of Russian oligarchs appears to be overwhelmingly approved by most people because nowhere have I read any commentary that questions the appropriateness of this action. Nevertheless, the seizure of property is a very confrontational and controversial strategic act for a variety of reasons.
In selecting the oligarchs whose assets will be seized, governments should ideally establish a close connection between them and the current Russian regime. In addition, in considering this connection, it is necessary to gauge their support for the invasion and their direct, indirect, or even remote involvement in it.
Simply being an acquaintance of Vladimir Putin is neither a satisfactory nor a sufficient reason for depriving them of their property, provided it has been legally acquired. This is because the act of seizure implies that they are guilty by association, even if they have not done anything to facilitate, or to support, the Kremlin’s catastrophic decision to invade Ukraine.
The reality is that there are oligarchs who oppose the invasion and are prepared to use their resources to help the victims of Putin’s war of aggression. In such a case, a seizure of their property would appear to be unwarranted.
For example, Roman Abramovich, the flamboyant owner of the Chelsea Football Club in London, has indicated that he will sell the club and use the net proceeds, rumoured to be around five billion dollars, to alleviate the plight of Ukrainians.
A blanket decision to seize the assets of oligarchs thus involves the application of a discredited strategy that allocates blame simply on the ground of a person’s assumed or perceived association with evil warmongers.
With regards to Ukraine, this strategy means that if a rich billionaire is an acquaintance of Vladimir Putin, then that fact, by itself, will justify the taking of their property.
The elevation of this strategy to a principle of political action is disturbing because it breaks the link between a person’s behaviour and punishment. Thus, even though oligarchs may themselves not in any way have been involved in the planning of the invasion, they are deemed to be guilty by association.
From a moral point of view, it is necessary and appropriate to establish a close link between their support for, or finance of, the invasion and the strategy of seizing their property.
Even if oligarchs did support Putin’s action, the seizure of property may still be a controversial sanction. This is because there are legal rules that protect the right to own property and prevent its confiscation without compensation.
By way of example, the Basic Law of Germany protects the right to property: “Property … shall be guaranteed” and “Expropriation shall only be permissible for the public good.” And the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates that “Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.”
Over time, the strategy of guilt by association is thus disrespectful of the “rule of law.” Yet, as seizures of property of Russian businesspeople are happening with undiminished zeal in the West, the long-term consequences of this practice are not seriously considered.
In addition, the “rule of law” also requires that only the guilty be punished; this means that there must be a clear link between the oligarchs’ support for the invasion and occupation of Ukraine and the seizure of their assets.
The practice of allocating guilt by association should therefore be discontinued. A proper investigation into the personal guilt of the oligarchs should determine whether their property should be seized.
