Kremlin prepares major overhaul of its instruments of external influence, FISU reports
The Kremlin is preparing a major overhaul of its instruments of external influence.
According to Ukrinform, the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine reported this.
According to open sources, the Kremlin is working on a plan to centralize the management of “soft power” under the direct control of the Russian presidential administration, effectively ending any institutional independence for “Rossotrudnichestvo” (Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation).
Oversight of the reformed structure will most likely be entrusted to First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Sergei Kirienko—an official who already controls four key departments of the administration, including domestic policy and information and communications infrastructure. The current head of the agency, Yevgeny Primakov, is expected to be dismissed and subsequently transferred to the State Duma.
“Rossotrudnichestvo” has long positioned itself as a cultural diplomacy agency. The reform finally strips away this cover. Among the planned changes is a reorientation of the agency from cultural and humanitarian activities toward comprehensive foreign influence, including information campaigns, outreach to target audiences, and coordination with loyal structures abroad. The agency, which was previously viewed as an integral part of the Russian special services, is now being formally institutionalized for this purpose.
Separately, plans are being developed to establish a specialized fund for financing media and humanitarian projects abroad—a structure that the Kremlin describes as an analogue to USAID, but which, in its design, more closely resembles a mechanism for covertly funding influence networks through the non-governmental sector.
The reform's geographical focus is also shifting: Priority has been given to post-Soviet countries, which Moscow views as a zone of strategic competition and a venue for restoring lost influence. The intensification of information presence and “cultural” expansion in the region is a direct signal to states already under pressure from Russian hybrid activity, the SSU emphasized.
The concentration of resources and power in Kirienko’s hands creates conditions for the faster deployment of influence campaigns and their synchronization with the Kremlin’s domestic political objectives, making the reform not an administrative optimization but an element of preparation for a new round of information aggression, the intelligence report noted.
As reported by Ukrinform, the European External Action Service has published its fourth annual report on the threat of foreign information manipulation and interference, according to which Russia and China are identified as the main actors in hybrid activities.
Photo: АА