WASHINGTON – Russia s Vladimir Putin employs corruption, militaryinvasions in Europe and sprawling disinformation campaigns in attempts toundermine democracies, and US President Donald Trump has been “negligent”in countering the threats, a Senate Democratic report warned Wednesday.
A searing assessment released by Ben Cardin, top Democrat on the SenateForeign Relations Committee, documented the extent of the Kremlin s “maligninfluence operations” including President Putin s meddling in the 2016 USelection and western democracies.
Putin has spent some 20 years consolidating power, enriching himself and atight circle of loyalists, and challenging European democracies and thefoundation of the transatlantic US-European alliance, the report noted.
“Mr. Putin s Kremlin employs an asymmetric arsenal that includes militaryinvasions, cyberattacks, disinformation, support for fringe politicalgroups, and the weaponization of energy resources, organized crime, andcorruption,” Cardin wrote in a letter introducing the 200-page report.
“If the United States fails to work with urgency to address this complexand growing threat, the regime in Moscow will become further emboldened,”he added. “It will continue to develop and refine its arsenal to use ondemocracies around the world, including against US elections in 2018 and2020.”
But it also levels fiery criticism at Trump, saying he is not committed toaddressing the crisis.
“Never before in American history has so clear a threat to nationalsecurity been so clearly ignored by a US president,” the report stated.
“President Trump has been negligent in acknowledging and responding to thethreat to US national security posed by Mr. Putin s meddling.”
The report recommends actions Washington should take to neutralize Kremlinaggression, such as creating a high-level “fusion cell” to counter thethreats, funding pro-democracy organizations in eastern Europe, expandingsanctions and freezing Kremlin-linked “dirty money.”
The report was produced by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sDemocratic staff.
The panel s Republican chairman Senator Bob Corker was aware that theminority report was being drafted but was not involved in its creation, hisoffice said.