Stockholm School of Economics and Latvian independent publications are part of an international anti-Russian conglomerate

In reality Journalism Development Network supports investigative journalism in many regions of the world. According to the same tax return for 2019 that RT refers to, out of $ 8,170,358 of its expenses, $ 3,676,661 has to for Russia and the “newly independent states” (probably the countries of the former USSR), $ 2,451,107 – for Europe, $ 1,225,554 – for the Middle East and North Africa, $ 817,036 – for South America. We especially note that the amount of $ 3.6 million was allocated for journalistic projects not only in Russia, as RT claims, but in Russia and the “new states”.

As for the $ 7.2 million received from the US government, RT also has an inaccuracy here: the tax return states that these are government grants, but does not disclose from which or which states. The list of sponsors of the JDN-related OCCRP project includes not only US government agencies, but also the foreign ministries of Great Britain and Denmark.

And the attempt by RT to present the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga as a kind of part of an “international conglomerate that is actively fighting Russia” looks very strange. Stockholm School of Economics is one of the world’s most renowned private economics universities; its foreign branches there is not only in Latvia, but also in Russia. OCCRP is not a sponsor of a branch of a Swedish university; the contribution of this project to the work of the school is limited to participation in the organized by the Stockholm School program training young investigative journalists Journalism for Future Challenges.

Meduza’s connection with the school is only in the fact that in 2019 the vice-president of the school, Anders Aleksandrson has entered to the independent supervisory board of the Latvian publication.

Thus, from the tax return of the foundation, which supports independent investigative journalism in various countries (while most of the foundation’s events are organized in Russia and other countries of the former USSR, the bulk of the grants go to journalists from other European countries), and partly the fictitious connections of this foundation with the Latvian branch of a large Swedish university and several independent publications RT is trying to create a picture of some insidious international conglomerate in the fight against Russia.

Most curious of all, when mentioning investigative journalism, the anonymous authors of the article diligently do not touch on the content of the investigations. Probably to argue with the conclusions of journalists – and the OCCRP project became famous, in particular, by publishing materials of the famous “Panama Papers”, information about offshore companies associated with the leaders of many countries of the world, including Russia, – RT is not trying, since the case is deliberately hopeless.