Editor's note: This column updates and extends a broader group of charts published in December connecting Putin's supporters with U.S. politics: How Putin's oligarchs funneled millions into GOP campaigns

It's understandable if Americans are getting lost in the both the details and the politics one year into the Russia investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller. I speak, of course, of the investigation, ongoing, into any possible collusion between President Donald Trump's campaign officials and nefarious Russian characters who wanted to interfere with American elections.

But there is a clear line that Americans, regardless of their political leanings, should want to follow as they interpret events. It is simply this: Vladimir Putin is an egotistical leader who has money, power, and a deep desire to protect his wealth by projecting his power.

That's the short of it. But like in so many news stories, there is an importance in the details. In this case, Putin has been waging a long campaign against the West. We are used to seeing that from Russia in the forms of tanks on parade and tough talk.

With Putin it also comes in the form of finding specific ways to undermine his adversaries. There are more than a few adversaries on his list, but we can start with one who rose to the top ranks of power in America and nearly reached the top seat: Hillary Clinton.

From there we will move on to Trump, who we will put into two categories. The first is that Putin sought to support Trump's bid for the presidency (a fact that will remain true regardless of whether the candidate himself knew or was complicit in such support). The second is that Trump's victory was an unexpected godsend to Putin for a simple reason. Trump is a politician who is prone to make quick decisions and respond positively to flattery. With Trump's victory came an opening for oligarchs connected to Russia -- of which Putin is chief -- to push for ending sanctions that very much impinge on their way of life and long-term prospects of living as if they can do whatever they wish.

Putin's network of financial favors

Russian President Vladimir Putin has built a network of wealthy oligarchs and major corporations designed to project his power and protect his personal wealth. He used this network to attempt to interfere with the U.S. presidential election. Touch graphic to see info.

In a recent interview with Vox.com, Yale University historian and authorTimothy Snyder said, "Throughout the Cold War, Russia was always better than us when it came to penetrating their enemies and breaking them down from within. Rather than smashing things overtly, they would work from behind the scenes to cast doubt on things. They'd insert their people into enemy organizations and slowly create chaos from inside. They've always excelled at turning people against each other."

Now consider the success of Putin's retaliation against Clinton after she bruised his ego. As secretary of state, Clinton criticized Putin publicly in late 2011 for manipulating Russian elections in order to guarantee that his party would win majority control of parliament. This put her in Putin's crosshairs. And that's a dangerous place to be, considering his history of going so far as to enact legislation and approve hostile corporate takeovers to punish those who criticize him.

In the summer of 2016 cyber thieves hacked into the Democratic National Committee servers. Later that year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the director of National Intelligence confirmed that the Russian government had directed the cyberattacks and had disseminated thousands of stolen emails from the DNC through WikiLeaks and Guccifer 2.0, who is affiliated with Russian intelligence.

After Trump was elected, U.S. authorities confirmed that Russian intelligence operatives had also hacked into state voter registration rolls. They had purchased (in Russian rubles) ads on Facebook critical of Clinton and had posed as Americans online to sow discord in the U.S. political system.

Putin further drew on his network of financial favors to more directly support Trump's bid for president. Here's an example of how that financial favor network works. Putin permits Viktor Vekselberg to enjoy a net worth of $15.5 billion and control more than 20 global companies under his Russian-based Renova holding company. In exchange, Vekselberg pledges loyalty to Putin. (Putin's own net worth is estimated to be $200 billion.)

As we've recently read in news reports, Renova U.S.'s Columbus Nova made $500,000 in payments to a company controlled by Michael Cohen, Trump's personal lawyer. Cohen's firm is also the same company that paid hush money to Stephanie Clifford, the adult film star better known as Stormy Daniels, shortly before the 2016 presidential election.

No one has proven any financial wrongdoing. But there are other financial connections that should lead Americans to ask questions. For example, Vekselberg's American business partner Len Blavatnik donated millions of dollars to political PACs associated with Republican leaders in 2016. What was he hoping to accomplish with those donations?

In a different vein, Trump's secretary of commerce, Wilbur Ross, led a private bailout of the Bank of Cyprus in 2014. And Vekselberg is currently the largest shareholder of that bank. Neither of those data points proves anything. But Cyprus is a known hotspot for money laundering, particularly Russian rubles. So, I for one would be interested to know more about Vekselberg's investments in Cyprus.

If all of that sounds like hard to follow complicated financial issues, let's be more direct about the big concession Putin is after: lifting U.S. sanctions. And here we have a lot of data points to show the president is being pressured to ease sanctions and that he has waffled on those sanctions.

The now famous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort was reputedly focused on the policies for adopting children from Russia. On Wednesday the Senate Judiciary Committee released the transcript of Donald J. Trump Jr.'s testimony in which he admitted that the the meeting was actually scheduled after Veselnitskaya, who admitted to being a Russian informant, promised dirt on Clinton. But looking back at Trump Jr.'s original justification for the meeting , the obvious question is this: Why would Russian officials want to talk about adoptions in the middle of a presidential campaign? Is it because Putin curbed adoptions of Russian children by Americans in response to financial sanctions being placed on Russian nationals during the Obama administration?

Last summer Yahoo News reported that the White House considered lifting sanctions against Russia shortly after Trump took office. Dan Fried, a veteran State Department official who was coordinator for sanctions policy until he retired last year, told Yahoo News that he received "panicky" phone calls from government officials shortly after the inauguration who had been directed to develop a sanctions-lifting package. This prompted Fried to urge allies on Capitol Hill to codify sanctions on Russia into law to stop the administration from unilaterally repealing them.

Last month, Trump also contradicted his own ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, after she announced that a new round of Russian sanctions would be coming soon.

The bottom line, confirmed last week by a bipartisan report issued by the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a preponderance of evidence that Russia wanted to influence our elections and pressure the new administration. Many people may be tempted to dismiss all of this believing that no Russian money or internet messaging influenced his or her vote. But this would be playing right into Putin's hands. The issue isn't with people who voted for the president. The issue is that Russia is a bad actor that attempted to affect our electoral process. So what we should do about it?

Given the amount of money that Putin and Russian-connected oligarchs are willing to spend, and the many circuitous pathways for cash to flow into our political process, we need to consider new campaign finance reforms that will, at the very least, put reasonable limits on the amounts that individuals can give to political action committees and 501(c)(4) nonprofits, the latter of which do not have to report donors to the Federal Election Commission. We'll never bring civility back to our political discourse if we don't take steps to pass legislation that would effectively overturn the Supreme Court's decision, Citizens United, and subsequent decisions that enable individuals and corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections.

This leaves the U.S. vulnerable to bad actors, such as Putin. It's our democracy, if we can protect it.

Ruth May is a business professor at the University of Dallas and an expert on the economies of Russia and Ukraine. She wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News. Twitter: @ruthcmay

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