#PolicyProfile: “I was born and raised in Russia and was lucky to be born during a short democratic period. From an early age, I heard how important democratic institutions are, and for me, media was a way of doing public service to my community. When I joined the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) in 2015, it still was quite a small organization, mostly covering Eastern European countries like Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova — countries considered to be highly corrupt. However, our stories about international money laundering often showed that Western countries provided the necessary infrastructure for kleptocrats from countries like mine. In 2016, the OCCRP found huge success in its efforts as part of the Panama Papers, which was one of the biggest revelations showing how it works on a systemic level. I spent seven years doing journalism, and I got frustrated because I didn’t see the fast positive changes I wanted to see. I observed how powerful propaganda might be...