WASHINGTON, November 5 (RIA Novosti, Arkady Orlov) - The U.S. House of Representatives approved November 4 a budget bill providing in particular $4 million for the development of political parties in Russia.
Earlier this year, President Vladimir Putin spoke out against foreign funding for political organizations, which, according to him, raised concern about outside political interference.
"We are against the outside financing of political activity in Russia. I am vehemently opposed to it," Putin said in July 2005, addressing the Council for Assisting the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights Institutions. "No self-respecting state tolerates that and neither will we."
In its annual ratings of political rights and civil liberties, Freedom House downgraded Russia in December 2004 from "partly free" to "not free."
