Milan Roćen
In 1979, he became a staff member for the information and propaganda department of the presidency of the central committee of the League of Communists of Montenegro.[1] Roćen is one of the most influential members of the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists, which has been in power in Montenegro since the introduction of a multi-party system in 1990.According to an investigation supported by the Puffin Foundation Investigative Fund in 2008, The Nation reported that Roćen, then ambassador of Serbia and Montenegro to the Russian Federation, authorized a contract with Davis Manafort Inc, a consulting firm founded by Rick Davis, and that the firm was paid several million dollars to help organize the 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum campaign.Referendum finance documents did not record any exchanges with Davis Manafort, although the claims of the payments were backed my multiple American diplomats and Montenegrin government officials on the condition of anonymity.[2] In June 2019, an audio recording from the mid-2005 surfaced, that shows ambassador Roćen expresses concern over the EU pressure on the authorities of the Republic of Montenegro, asking Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, on behalf of then-Prime Minister of Montenegro Đukanović, to lobby for the Montenegrin independence referendum, through his connections with Canadian billionaire Peter Munk in the United States.