The Magnitsky Act & Narrative Control

Andrei Nekrasov, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

I had a conversation with Alexander Mercouris and Andrei Nekrasov - a renowned film director who made a documentary about the Magnitsky Act. Nekrasov is known for making documentaries that are very critical of the Kremlin, and he received funding in the West to make a documentary about the death of Sergey Magnitsky. The story about a ruthless Russian government that killed a whistle-blower was a perfect story for a Western audience that is consistently fed stories about international politics as a struggle between good and evil. The narrative of Magnitsky also laid the foundation for the Magnitsky Act in 2012, a set of anti-Russian sanctions that contributed to derailing relations between the West and Russia. However, when making the film, Nekrasov discovered that the story being pushed was full of lies. Nekrasov focused on the facts rather than the narrative, and the documentary was subsequently censored and banned across the West. The Magnitsky Act was a precursor to the Russiagate hoax and demonstrated how narrative control has become a key part of power politics.