The Dialogue of Civilizations (DOC) think-tank in Berlin has made a formal complaint to Germany’s press council about two articles that appeared in Der Spiegel claiming the institution is part of Russia’s hybrid war on the West and which it claims are full of mistakes, flagrant bias and is based on “rumours and hearsay”.

DOC was set up partly by Vladimir Yakunin, the former Russian Minister of Railways along with the former Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Walter Schwimmer, as well as the late Peter Schulze.

It is the connections to the Kremlin that inspired Der Spiegel to mount an investigation, but rather than come up with anything solid the articles have fallen into the widespread trap of shoddy journalism in an attempt to prove a pre-conceived narrative, which is surprising given Der Spiegel is Germany’s best magazine.

The most obvious red flag raised over the articles is the journalists' refusal to meet with the CEO of DOC, despite being offered an in-depth interview, thereby not giving the organisation the obligatory, according to journalistic ethics, right to reply against any accusations the authors intend to make.

Der Spiegel ran two exposes on DOC where it attempted to show that DOC is some sort of front for the Kremlin in Europe. The first article was entitled “Kremlin think-tank with excellent connections” by Maik Baumgaertner and the second, “An insidious form of warfare” by Baumgaertner, Roman Höfner and Alexander Sarovic, was published on July 29.

“DOC is a think-tank close to the Kremlin,” the first article states baldly. “According to its own statements, it focuses on three main areas: culture and civilisations, economy as well as leadership, and geopolitics. In fact, critics accuse the DOC of gently carrying Moscow's interests to the West and of being part of a network that is supposed to strengthen Russian influence, especially in NATO countries,” the first article concludes.

The current CEO of DOC, Jean-Christophe Bas, complained bitterly that there was no evidence to substantiate these claims and the evidence presented was false or at best speculative, but presented as fact.

“The reporters refused to speak to me or other representatives of the DOC and its chairman, thereby denying the DOC the opportunity to give them an accurate and up-to-date picture of the organisation and its activities, limiting their engagement in writing to a list of very specific and loaded questions. They also simply ignored my written response to them following publication of the first article, in a further demonstration of their bad faith,” said Bas in an angry letter sent to the German Press centre.

Bas went on to list several problems with the articles where he claims “the third-party experts cited in the articles have had zero engagement with DOC and no first-hand insight, while the views of third-parties who are actually familiar with DOC and spoke favourably of the organisation were simply ignored.”

Diving into more specific problems with the pieces, Bas highlights the claim: “The CEO of DOC previously worked for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

This one is plain wrong. DOC has had two CEOs since it was launched in Berlin in 2016, neither of whom are Russian and neither of whom have worked for any Russian government organisation.

The original CEO was Pooran Pandey, an Indian national, who joined the DOC from the United Nations Global Compact, followed by Bas, a French national, who previously worked as Head of Strategy and Development at the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and was also the Director of Democratic Citizenship and Participation at the Council of Europe.

The journalists seemed to be referring to Yakunin, a Russian national, who is the co-founder of DOC, chairman of the supervisory board but not an executive member of the think-tank. He never worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but was a diplomat representing Russia to the UN in the '90s under then president Boris Yeltsin, before being appointed the Minister for Railways in the noughties under Putin.

The article also claims that Yakunin “is part of the power network around Russian President Vladimir Putin… …the DOC is a component in an international network of foundations and other organisations that are related to Putin-related oligarchs or directly to the state,” the article says.

“Again, this is simply not true, and even a cursory look into the DOC’s actual activities would clearly demonstrate this. Rather than basing its analysis on facts, the journalists have instead seemingly based it on unfounded rumours and speculation,” counters Bas.

Yakunin is a controversial figure. He known to hold a number of ultra-conservative view, which has fuelled criticism and could have contributed to landing him on the US sanctions list. He would have interacted regularly with Russian President Vladimir Putin while he was running the state-owned railways, but to suggest that is sufficient to be part of a "power network around Putin," as Der Spiegel claims, shows a lack of understanding of the political landscape in Russia today. The assumption of many critics of Russia is: it is enough to simply meet Putin to be in his thrall, and anyone who has has then been captured. 

One of the experts cited by Der Spiegel is Monika Richter, who works on “disinformation campaigns” and is head of department at the American company CounterAction, who admits in the citation: “One area of influence that has only been little studied is the Kremlin's use of soft-power institutions such as think-tanks,” but claims they pursue an “insidious form of political warfare” by co-opting “our own political and security institutions.” But apart from this generalisation she gives no concrete evidence of this insidious activity.

This is not the first time that Der Spiegel has received complaints over its investigations. The magazine ran another (well-researched) investigative piece “The Truth behind the US Magnitsky sanctions” in November last year that delved into the campaign US-born activist and former fund manager Bill Browder has run since the death of Russia lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. The piece painted Browder in a less than flattering light. Browder sued the magazine, also claiming he had been misrepresented, but the courts rejected the case as being without merit in the end.

Thanks to its connection to Russia, DOC has been under scrutiny since it set up shop in Berlin and it has been victim of some baseless allegations that are often pointed at any organisation that has perceived Russian connections. While there may be some genuine concerns, Der Spiegel article has failed to come up with any evidence and some of its comments were just silly.

“Internal documents show how the think-tank and its co-founder create networks between politics, science and business,” the article claims without giving details.

“Even without “internal documents”, an organisation that has its primary mission the dialogue of civilisations, is naturally going to seek to bring together many different people from all walks of life. It’s not about creating “networks”, but rather creating platforms for dialogue,” Bas countered, who has himself been cited by a wide range of European media talking about the positive aspects of the European projects, amongst other things.

Maybe the most damning piece of evidence presented is a quote by the now deceased co-founder of the think-tank, Peter Schulze, who said in an interview with Der Spiegel itself four years ago: "Russia is trying to increase its influence – also in the cultural field. That is no secret. And certainly we will be closer to the Kremlin on some questions. Naturally we hope that our opinions, when they are well grounded, will get through to decision-makers in politics, business and the media.”

DOC says that this quote is old and taken out of context. It also points out that trying to influence decision-makers also happens to be the raison d’etre of any think-tank.

“In summary, we believe that the journalists have compromised basic journalistic standards in order to tell the story that they wanted to tell, perhaps with the aim of maximising clicks rather than telling a real story,” Bas concludes his letter.