Staunton, June 29 – Andranik Migranyan, who became infamous for his suggestion that Hitler would have been a second Bismarck if the Nazi leader had stopped before invading Poland, is going back to Moscow because his Institute for Democracy and Cooperation in New York, which Vladimir Putin created in 2007, is closing down.
According to Migranyan, the institute is closing and he is leaving because thanks to his efforts, the situation with regard to human rights in the United States has become better. But according to others, this is happening because Moscow has run out of money for such things.
Natalya Narodnichkaya, who heads the Russian office in Paris analogous to the one Migranyan led in New York, admitted as much given that she says she is trying to “optimize” her operation by cutting salaries and other costs in order to continue to function as she has in the French capital.
Despite his defense of Hitler, which appeared in Izvestiya in April 2014, Migranyan often appeared in public and testified before Congress. (The author of these lines spoke at a hearing of the Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee where Migranyan appeared and was praised by that body’s chairman.)
One curious feature of Migranyan’s departure, Ilya Milshteyn of Grani.ru says, is that it coincides with the US Supreme Court’s decision legalizing gay marriages. Given Moscow’s attitudes on homosexuality, he implies, Migranyan once in Moscow may have to defend his statement that the situation in the US has improved.