What's sauce for the goose

President Putin is boxing clever at the Russia EU summit by threatening to establish an institute in the model of EU funded NGOs in the heart of the European Union.

With the EU and America funding bodies explicitly for the purpose of influencing Russian politics, Putin is simply suggesting that Russia exercises a similar role in the EU.

With the European Union having ignored human rights infringements in the Baltics and other areas of Eastern Europe for geo-political reasons, there is work for such a body to focus on.

"Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected analyst, said one of the institute's priorities should be highlighting discrimination against ethnic Russians living in countries once part of the Soviet Union, like Estonia and Latvia."

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