Tucked into a piece of prime midtown Manhattan real estate is the mysterious Russian think tank, the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation. If the name sounds like a spoof by Stanley Kubrick, the institute’s director, Andranik Migranyan, an Armenian-born political scientist and former adviser to Boris Yeltsin, has news for you: it’s not. Mostly not, anyhow. As Radio Free Europe explains, the project, which is founded by Moscow lawyer and Public Chamber member Anatoly Kucherena, “is evidence of the Kremlin’s growing interest in ‘soft power’ — using Western media, PR, and think-tank models to advance its own interests in abroad.”

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“Migranyan says the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation is not financed with Kremlin money, and that Kucherena depends on support from private sponsors. Nevertheless, the institute’s views rarely diverge from that of the Kremlin’s. Neither does one of its key stated goals — studying Western democracy and ‘offering recommendations for its improvement.’ Founder Kucherena has argued that no country can monopolize the definition of democracy and human rights.”