On 10 March 2020, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office added the European Endowment for Democracy (EED) to the list of “undesirable organizations.” The NGO was asked to cease its activities in Russia or be liable to a prison sentence.

It is the twentieth foreign organization which has been banned from working in Russia.

The European Endowment for Democracy (EED) is the European Union’s replica of the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED), also undesirable in Russia.

This Cold War construct was devised by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, within the framework of the 1941 Atlantic Charter which had been set up to enlist US and British Trotskyists against Soviet Stalinist sympathisers to advance their goal of “world revolution” … under Anglo-Saxon leadership.

The 1983 initiative ushered in the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) whose budget is voted with that of the Department of State and the US Institute of Peace (USIP) whose budget is in turn voted with that of the Department of Defense. President Reagan called on all vital forces in the United States, including those on the left, to rally against the “Empire of Evil” (Kirkpatrick Doctrine). Sister organizations were created in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

This system was maintained beyond the dissolution of the USSR. It proved particularly effective in the staging of coups d’etat branded as “colour revolutions.” In 2006, realizing that they were up against a new form of covert war, several countries banned the activities of the NED and the USIP, including Russia. In 2012, the High Representative of the European Union, British national Catherine Ashton, created the European Endowment for Democracy to fill in for its US counterpart. In particular, it played a prominent role in fostering the 2013 Euromaidan coup in Ukraine.

After a pause for reflection, on 27 March, the European Union issued a declaration rejecting the decision of the Russian authorities.