‘Manafort and Kilimnik were lobbying for the closure of Manas too. “They went there,” meaning Kyrgyzstan, “to strengthen Russia’s position,” one of Manafort’s Kyiv colleagues told Proyekt. Running the Americans out of Manas was a fetish for Russia’s special services, and their propaganda for years agitated to evict the Pentagon from that Central Asian country. Paul Manafort was one of Moscow’s helpers in that effort (as was Rinat Akhmetshin, the onetime GRU affiliate turned Washington lobbyist, who was present on the Kremlin’s side at the infamous June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting).’