A senior senator has offered to keep tabs on outspoken Russia critics among foreign politicians and name it after Bill Browder, the outspoken Kremlin critic.
Browder, a former hedge fund manager, has campaigned in the United States and other Western countries to pass legislation punishing Russian officials linked to human rights abuses after the 2009 death of his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. Russian prosecutors have recently revived their efforts to jail Browder for alleged financial crimes.
At a meeting with President Vladimir Putin late Tuesday, senator Konstantin Kosachev offered to compile a list of “odious” foreign figures who “spread the most outrageous lies about our country and our people.”
“The registry — as an idea — could be named the ‘Browder List,’” said Kosachev, the chairman of the Federation Council’s Committee on Foreign Affairs.
He said the commission that had branded several U.S. news outlets “foreign agents” and accused the United States of 120 cases of election-meddling — including efforts to keep Putin from the ballot — could draft the so-called Browder List.
Browder tweeted that the proposal left him “so flattered.” He characterized the list as a tally “of foreign politicians who have been most effective at sharing Russia's malicious intent abroad.”
The idea resembles a Foreign Ministry website that publishes screenshots of news coverage it sees as hostile and inaccurate with a thick red stamp reading “fake” in capital letters.
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