Spies, banquets, and embezzlement: The inner workings of Putin’s “cultural ties” directorate

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Cover for spies

Russia’s Directorate for Interregional and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries was established in 2005, a year after Ukraine's “Orange Revolution.” Greatly alarmed by these events, Putin ordered the creation of a unit within the Presidential Executive Office that could counter the emergence of “color revolutions” in neighboring countries and assist pro-Kremlin political forces.

In addition to Ukraine, the directorate’s operational interests extended to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Moldova, Kazakhstan, the Baltic states, and the self-proclaimed “republics” of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The first head of the directorate, pro-Kremlin political strategist Modest Kolerov, held the post for only two years before being dismissed “for excessive radicalism in relations with neighboring states.” The Kremlin needed more subtle methods of influence and infiltration into its neighbors’ political elites, and Putin, as he is prone to do, turned to candidates with a background in the security services.

The director's post was taken over by foreign intelligence officer Nikolai Tsvetkov, who had previously spied in Japan under the cover of a Komsomolskaya Pravda journalist while also freelancing for Japan’s largest newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun. Two years later, he was replaced by Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Colonel Sergei Vinokurov. In June 2012, following the scandalous presidential elections in South Ossetia and Transnistria, Vinokurov was dismissed from his post, returning to the SVR.

At that point, the task of “fostering cultural ties” with neighboring countries fell to another career spy — Vladimir Chernov, from the clan of close Putin associate Sergei Ivanov. In his numerous speeches as director, Chernov warned Russia’s neighbors of the threat posed by the United States and NATO. In his personal life, he vacationed at European resorts and sent his granddaughter to study in the U.S.

The directorate's planning department was headed by former KGB-FSB officer Valery Maksimov, whose core responsibility was to oversee elections in neighboring countries. Colonel Maksimov supervised pro-Kremlin propagandist Sergei Mikheev, who is now a constant presence on Vladimir Solovyov’s talk shows. The editorial team has access to Mikheev's numerous reports on the situation in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and the Baltic states — including complaints that the Presidential Executive Office issued him torn U.S. dollars, which currency exchange offices refused to accept.

In the former Soviet republics, Mikheev helped organize election campaigns for Moscow-backed candidates, deliberately choosing figures with little chance of winning. In 2020, ahead of the parliamentary elections in Georgia, Chernov and Maksimov convinced the directorate’s supervisor, Dmitry Kozak, to back the Alliance of Patriots of Georgia (APG), which even at its peak garnered no more than 5% of the vote.

From its founding in 2012, the APG pursued a course of rapprochement with Moscow, rejecting cooperation with the U.S. and European countries. The party’s leaders, Irma Inashvili and Davit Tarkhan Mouravi, became frequent visitors to the Russian parliament, where they were introduced as influential opposition figures.

Documents show that over $10 million from the Russian budget was spent on promoting the APG, with Mikheev unofficially orchestrating the campaign from Moscow. In the end, however, the “opposition” garnered only 3.14% of the vote. How much of that amount was pocketed by KGB officer Maksimov, propagandist Mikheev, and the APG party leadership remains a matter of speculation.

The “Baltics” desk was chaired by intelligence colonel Yevgeny Umerenkov, who previously spied in the U.S. and Mexico under the guise of a Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent, and later established an entire network of journalists and bloggers promoting Kremlin interests in the Baltic states. Umerenkov now once again writes for his old outlet, extolling Putin and his wise policies in nearly every issue.

The Moldova desk was overseen by former SVR deputy resident in the Balkans, Colonel Igor Maslov. In 2020, a major scandal erupted in Moldova: then-President Igor Dodon lost his mobile phone, which ended up in the hands of journalists. Colonel Maslov, it turned out, was among the numerous Russian intelligence officers and oligarchs whose contact information was stored in Dodon’s phone. The device showed a rich history of calls between the two.

Azerbaijan was under the purview of Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) officer Valery Chernyshov, who received operational files on prominent officials, military officers, and public figures in the republic. Another GRU officer, Dmitry Avanesov, monitored the situation in Armenia. The Insider has access to reports from a mole within the Armenian government, who informed Avanesov of all the movements of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan (referred to in the reports under the operational pseudonym “Beard”).

Soft power

Within the cultural ties directorate, Dmitry Kozak also received classified reports on the situation in neighboring states — and presented them to Putin. Regarding Azerbaijan, for instance, the Kremlin was deeply concerned about the near-total absence of organizations that could promote Russian interests as a balance against Turkish influence.

An excerpt from a classified report to Kozak from the Azerbaijan desk reads:

“It is advisable to strengthen the presence of Russian NGOs in Azerbaijan due to a clear lack of genuine public organizations promoting the Russian position. Reviving existing NGOs or creating new ones in Azerbaijan would, in the long term, help establish a ‘soft power’ tool for exerting Russian influence.

In their activities, the NGOs could focus on border regions, youth, student organizations, education, the Russian language, cultural projects, and journalistic forums. NGO initiatives should not be limited to large events but should constantly ‘permeate’ Azerbaijani society from within and maintain a presence in the mass media.

We need to optimize and streamline the engagement of compatriot organizations, and, if necessary, reshuffle their leadership.”

Emissaries from Putin's Executive Office frequented Azerbaijan, organizing numerous workshops, roundtables, conferences, and journalism schools. In Baku, Russia funded a lavish exhibition dedicated to the late father of the current president, Ilham Aliyev. Its title: “Heydar Aliyev: Personality, Mission, Legacy.”

As a former directorate employee told The Insider, “By my calculations, over $100 million was poured into cultivating ties with Azerbaijan, but it all went into a black hole. Much of the work was just for show or in the spirit of balalaika diplomacy. And all the time, they never stopped drinking.”

The “love affair” between Moscow and Baku ended in early 2025. First, the Russian authorities stubbornly concealed the details of the Azerbaijan Airlines flight that Russian air defenses had critically damaged over Grozny. Then the Kremlin lied about the deaths from heart failure of brothers Ziyaddin and Gusein Safarov, who were in fact tortured to death during interrogations in Yekaterinburg.

The response from the Azerbaijani authorities was swift: Baku shut down the Kremlin’s propaganda outlet Sputnik and cut official events involving the Russian side to a bare minimum.

Agents of influence

Classified reports from other desks indicated that no one wants to be friends with Russia for free. “Pro-Russian narratives are promoted mainly by politicians of retirement age, and they are of little interest to the youth. Financial support for young and fresh faces is necessary,” the Armenia desk signaled to Kozak.

“The attendance of our events is often limited to neighbors and acquaintances of Russian diplomats in Bishkek. Neither they nor their children are interested in lectures on Russian history; they just come for the free coffee and snacks. The Presidential Executive Office gets fake photo reports, even though these events are funded from the Russian budget. We need to financially incentivize energetic and creative local youth,” reported Alexei Vlasov, the supervisor of the Central Asia desk.

In the meantime, the directorate spared no effort to engage journalists from neighboring countries, assessing them for potential roles as agents of influence. The lists from the cultural ties directorate (available to The Insider) included 136 media representatives and bloggers. Some of the candidates’ names were accompanied by notes such as: “promising,” “workable,” “ours,” “played dumb,” “turned,” “only after money, workable,” “rowdy, might start a fight at events.”

The Insider contacted some of the journalists listed. A few said they had traveled to Russia by invitation and nothing came of it. Others suspected the callers were Russian intelligence agents. A third group flatly refused to discuss the matter.

Interestingly, the lists featured Anna Shnaider, the wife of independent journalist Alexey Pivovarov. Anna was listed as a correspondent for Moskva-24, with a note beside her name: “Workable. Divorced from host Pivovarov.”

However, as Pivovarov and Shnaider told The Insider, they had never terminated their marriage. According to publicly available sources, Shnaider has not worked for Russia-24 since 2014. The recruiters may have confused Pivovarov’s wife with Latvian journalist Anna Schneider, who worked in Russian-language media.

What came next

In February 2021, General Chernov was dismissed following massive leaks of classified documents from the directorate, and oversight of the C.I.S. countries fell to Moldova desk chief Igor Maslov. As an SVR veteran who requested anonymity fumed:

“General Maslov completely botched the Moldova desk, and yet they put him in charge of the entire directorate. And what has he been doing for the past three years? He spoke at the opening of the House of Russian Books in Armenia, and he made a couple of trips to South Ossetia and Kyrgyzstan. Have you seen the photo gallery he posted online? How did this person even get into intelligence?”

The new Directorate for Strategic Partnership and Cooperation will be established on the basis of the abolished Directorate for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries and will incorporate another dissolved structure, the Directorate for Border Cooperation. Putin has set a three-month timeline for organizational activities, and Sergey Kirienko will oversee the new unit instead of Kozak. Apparently, “compromised” figures like Maslov, Maksimov, Avanesov, and Chernyshev will not be included in the new directorate, and relations with neighboring countries will be managed by younger intelligence officers and pro-Kremlin political strategists.

However, already deep into the fourth year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the situation in the region is not what it used to be. Neighboring countries have little faith in the Kremlin’s claims that it only seeks to foster friendship and business ties. Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have increased their defense spending by 2.6% and are gradually winding down military cooperation with Moscow.