UK retail and commercial bank NatWest let itself be browbeaten by the Russian state into shutting Bill Browder’s account, claims the well-known critic of Kremlin corruption.
“I had an account at NatWest for 25 years, I was considered one of their most profitable customers, and they told me outright they were closing my account because of the Russian press reports,” Browder said.
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NatWest countered that the decision was a commercial one which has been properly reviewed and stuck to.
Once a large investor in Russia, Browder was expelled from the country in 2005 and has actively campaigned against the Kremlin since the murder in prison of a tax lawyer who had worked for him, Sergei Magnitsky.
Since then, Browder has been subject of an intense campaign against him by the Kremlin, which has included the broadcast of at least four films on Russian television falsely accusing him of stealing IMF money and even of killing Magnitsky.
DPR: a Kremlin specialty
Dark public relations (DPR), or negative public relations, also called Black PR, is a process of vilifying a target and destroying their reputation.
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By GlobalDataRussian state and non-state actors routinely use it to discredit critics, business and political rivals.
DPR may rely on IT security, industrial espionage, social engineering and competitive intelligence. Common techniques include using dirty secrets and producing false or misleading information about the target.
Fake media reports are favourite tools of BPR artists.
Some of the Kremlin’s false accusations made against Browder have appeared in newspaper articles and court documents in the UK, according to the authors of a think tank report entitled “Russian ‘Black PR’: Examining the Practice of Ruining Reputations”.
Kremlin’s DPR’s growing influence outside Russia
The report warns the widespread Russian practice of disseminating falsehoods to ruin reputations is beginning to have an effect in the UK.
The author of the report, Andrew Foxhall, former director of research at the Henry Jackson Society thinktank, said: “It would be easy to dismiss the significance of this black PR campaign against Browder if it had remained in Russia. But it has not”.
The report calls for businesses, researchers and the courts to be more sceptical about media reports coming from Russia, for British PR firms to adhere to high ethical procedures and for lobbyists to declare when they are employed by foreign powers.
