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SUNDAY, APRIL 3 , 2022. SECTION G AX FN FS LF PW DC BD PG AA FD HO MN MS SM KMADISON KETCHAM/FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTBY STEVEN ZEITCHIKFew Americans have parsed
Russian propaganda on its
various platforms like Maxim
Pozdorovkin.
The Russian-born, Harvard-
educated filmmaker and thinker
is behind several works on the
subject, most notably “Our New
President” from 2018, an award-
winning documentary
deconstruction of the Russian
media’s portrayal of Donald
Trump’s election that was, as he
puts it, “a movie based entirely on
actual footage without a single
true statement in it.” He also
examined the resistance to such
media messaging in “Pussy Riot:
A Punk Prayer,” a nonfiction film
on the political collective.
Far from just an attempt to
negate discontent over its
Ukraine invasion, Russia’s
current state-media approach is,
in Pozdorovkin’s view, a
continuation of a decade-long
campaign to warp Russian
citizens’ view of the West. He
argues that the country’s
population has been long primed
for this moment — seriously
lowering the odds for any tech
company or foreign outlet hoping
to poke through the veil.
The Washington Post spoke to
Pozdorovkin by phone from his
home in Brooklyn, where he now
lives. The conversation has been
edited for brevity and clarity.
SEE DISINFORMATION ON G4Putin’s p ropaganda
may now be paying o≠
Americans underestimate how decade-long effort
warped Russian views of West, filmmaker saysBY TODD C. FRANKELD
isney employs 38 lobbyists to press its
interests inside Florida’s state Capitol com-
plex in Tallahassee. With its Orlando theme
park empire and roughly 80,000 workers, the
company already wields considerable influence in a
state closely tied to tourism. Disney’s army of
lobbyists are there just to make sure no one forgets.
“Disney — they get everything they want,” said
Anna Eskamani, a Democratic state representative
from Orlando, who can rattle off a list of measures
killed or pushed through with the company’s
weight, such as an exemption designed for Disney
from a 2021 bill that restricted the ability of social
media firms to ban political candidates.
So Eskamani and many other lawmakers were
surprised when Disney — and its lobbyists — kept
quiet as a mouse when state lawmakers started
debating a bill to ban discussions about sexual
orientation or gender identity in primary school
classrooms.
The controversial measure — dubbed the “don’t
say gay” bill by opponents — was signed into law by
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) this past week, spurring a
firestorm of criticism over why Disney didn’t do
more.
While Disney is now promising to work to undo
the measure, a review of lobbying disclosures found
no record of Disney activity on the bill in the House,
where the legislation first emerged in January.
(Similar records are not maintained in the Senate.)And Disney didn’t publicly speak out against the
bill until it was close to final passage.
The ensuing pushback was a stunning blow for
one of Florida’s most powerful companies, which
for years had proved skilled at navigating culture
war issues with behind-the-scene negotiations and
deft signaling of its goals. Now the company faces
protests from its own employees, criticism from
LGBTQ activists and combative statements from
DeSantis, who dismissed concerns from what he
called a “woke” Disney.
Disney’s missteps illustrate just how much the
political landscape has changed for companies in a
country roiled by Black Lives Matter protests and
the Jan. 6 insurrection. Disney discovered that the
old corporate playbook for avoiding such contro-
versy had been shredded by new customer and
employee expectations about how companies
should react, along with a fresh willingness from
previously business-friendly Republicans to buck
corporate wishes.
“It’s pretty rare that Disney in Florida has come
up short,” said Aubrey Jewett, a political science
professor at the University of Central Florida, who
co-authored the book “Politics in Florida.”
But for Disney to lose and for state leaders to
appear to relish Disney’s humiliation, he said,
“That’s never happened.”
Disney declined to comment for this article.
SEE DISNEY ON G2For Disney,
first silence.
Then damage
control.
Critics say it didn’t do enough to stop Fla. bill
restricting LGBTQ discussion in schoolsDOMINIC BUGATTO FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTBY JOSEPH MENN,
ELIZABETH DWOSKIN,
DOUGLAS MACMILLAN
AND CAT ZAKRZEWSKIsan francisco — Five years
ago, an up-and-coming venture
capitalist with an unusual past
was raising money to invest in
hot Silicon Valley start-ups.
“We want to be part of start-
ups’ journeys from the very start,”
Masha Bucher allegedly wrote of
her new firm, Day One Ventures,
in an email to potential investors.
Bucher, a former teen leader of
Russian President Vladmir Pu-
tin’s youth organization, Nashi,
had moved to San Francisco and
remade herself as an expert in
media relations. But what reallyset her apart were her purported
connections to powerful finan-
cial backers abroad.
In fundraising pitches under
her maiden name, Masha Droko-
va, she touted her ties to wealthy
Russians, including billionaires
Alexander Mamut, whom she
listed as an investor in a Day One
fund, and a Russian conglomer-
ate owned by Vladimir Yevtush-
enkov, according to documents
obtained by The Washington
Post.
The U.S. Treasury Department
listed both men as oligarchs in a
2018 response to a law directing
it to name all in that class.
Officials said then that they sim-
ply picked those worth more than
SEE MASHA ON G5Silicon Valley severs ties
with wealthy Russians
The Ukraine invasion has made such connections
toxic as U.S. investigators scrutinize funding deals