🕵️🇷🇺Here's what you should know about the fresh #KremlinLeaks: how the Kremlin is pre-rigging Putin's reelection and directly funding propaganda and internet censorship – or so-called "information war" against its own citizens in Russia and the population in Ukraine's occupied territories. 📌These are secret documents (Excel files, minutes of work meetings, reports, PowerPoint presentations etc) leaked from the Russian presidential administration. The files relate to the budget of the Kremlin's so-called domestic policy bloc. @DelfiEE obtained these documents and shared for joint investigation with international partners. Here's @VSquare_Project's English language investigation: vsquare.org/kremlin-leaks-… 📌This domestic policy bloc is led by former Russian prime minister Sergey Kiriyenko – once nicknamed "Kinder surprise", but nowadays known as the “Viceroy of Donbas”. It was allegedly Kiriyenko who, in the summer of 1998, appointed Putin as director-general of the FSB, paving the way for Putin’s future career. 📌In these documents, the domestic policy bloc’s budget is divided into three chapters: presidential elections, informational-ideological war, and “new regions” – integrating the occupied territories of Ukraine. The total budget for projects related to these three categories reaches nearly 110 billion rubles, or €1,1 billion. The largest share of it, up to €631 million, was allocated for the "information war". 📌What's in the bloc's budget? For example, that Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov was paid €15 million in 2023 and set to receive €30 million this year, but there is also a note to this in the documents: “We are waiting for a meeting between Solovyov and the president.” Or there's Maria Lvova-Belova, the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President, who is wanted by the ICC and sanctioned by the EU for the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. The leak says she will receive €420,000 this year from the Russian budget specifically “for the removal of children from the Special Military Occupation Zone.” 📌15 Kremlin-created non-profit organizations, so-called ANOs, are set to receive nearly €600 million. The largest of these propaganda groups is the Internet Development Institute (IRI) which is creating "creative content for elections”.A leaked IRI presentation states that every Russian film that premieres before the election must evoke certain patriotic sentiments, divided into four categories. Moreover, in the leaked documents, each film, TV series, school competitions, and all other projects are also provided with specific numbers, such as how many viewers or participants they must reach. Another organization, ANO Dialog and its affiliate Dialog Regions, are making sure that the propaganda content reaches the required number of viewers across Russia. 📌The leak also reveals that with Putin’s personal approval – “Согласен” – the presidential administration allocated €3,6 million for conducting exit polls for the presidential elections, and another €5,8 million for covering the costs of sociological research and pollings in occupied Ukraine. These are very likely secret sociological researches, which the Kremlin has been commissioning for decades. 📌The leak reveals a secret presidential decree from February 2023: "Objective: To ensure the coordination of the Ministry of Education and Science with other federal agencies in order to increase the number of voters and the support of the main candidates both in the upcoming presidential and other elections.” First, the ministry creates a list of all employees, then a second list of opinion leaders from within institutions overseen by the ministry. After that, the task is “increasing [their] level of socio-political literacy” and monitoring their political attitudes and voting preferences. 📌Another leaked presentation details how “opinion leaders” are created, trained, and supported – from identifying regional opinion leaders to helping them create and amplify propaganda content in the media, and teaching them how to boost their own image. Examples of seminars conducted for opinion leaders include “immersion in the specifics of Donbas”. The instructors or trainers of these seminars include Kristina Potupchik, a well-known propagandist in Russia; Maria Butina, who was arrested by the FBI in the US due to illegal influence activities; and Aleksandr Malkevich, a propagandist also sanctioned in the West. German documentary maker Wilhelm Domke-Schulz is also mentioned, who produced anti-Ukrainian propaganda movies. 📌The leaked documents also show in detail how the Kremlin plans to integrate occupied territories in Ukraine with Russia, to ensure the loyalty of the local population and, of course, their support for Putin in the upcoming elections. One file from December 2023 indicates the intention to allocate €2.4 million to the Russian ruling party United Russia with the explanation “supporting regional branches”. A “list of instructions” from May 2023 also shows how hard the Kremlin is trying to completely shut down the current information channels of the residents of the occupied territories and replace them with the Kremlin’s information flow: “Task number one: Calculate the actual need to install Russki Mir [satellite dish] sets. Increase the number of installation teams as necessary. Dismantle Ukrainian satellite equipment." 📌A special internet blocking system is being financed both in connection with the presidential elections and the control of the information space in the occupied territories. It’s called ASBI, or the “Automated System of Internet Security” (автоматизированная система безопасности Интернета), which operates under the Main Russian Radio Frequency Center. ASBI was provided with €10 million for the acquisition of equipment and technical improvements to “resist the spread of prohibited information, block prohibited content in new territories, ensure the functioning of the Russian segment of the Internet, and resist external threats and attacks.” ASBI’s total state funding reached €89.6 million. 📌The leaks also refer to several other projects the Putin administration plans to create or develop to detect “forbidden content” on social media. Part of the artificial-intelligence-based system will detect prohibited content in images with the capacity of analyzing at least 200,000 images per day. Funny example of micromanaging: they also set the goal to maintain a level of at least 70 percent of pro-Russian comments in the “ChP Donetsk” Telegram channel. In order to stop information originating from Ukraine, the same document also refers to the purchase of signal-jamming equipment. 📌The documents also detailed plans to allocate €13 million over the next three years to Readovka, a media firm that has grown rapidly in Russia during the war years. Half of this fund will go directly to launch a new media network in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Most of the “journalists” and “editors” will be driven there straight from Moscow, according to the plan. A salary of €1500 is set for the editor-in-chief, a regular journalist’s salary is between €400 and €800, and a war correspondent earns €1200 a month. 📌@MarkGaleotti told us that, in a perverse way, he was even pleased to learn from the #KremlinLeaks documents we showed him how much money the Kremlin is spending on supporting its Soviet-style ideology. “But we really have to remember that the Soviet Union had much greater control of the information space than today’s Russian government, and ultimately it failed,” Galeotti said. “With this money, the Kremlin cannot buy long-term control over people’s thoughts.” 🧑💻You can read the full #KremlinLeaks investigation by our partners in the following languages and outlets: 🇬🇧@VSquare_Project: vsquare.org/kremlin-leaks-… 🇪🇪@DelfiEE: delfi.ee/artikkel/12027… 🇩🇪@paper_trail_m @derspiegel: spiegel.de/ausland/kreml-… 🇩🇪@ZDFfrontal: zdf.de/nachrichten/po… 🇦🇹@derStandardat: derstandard.at/consent/tcf/st… 🇨🇭@Tamedia @tagesanzeiger: tagesanzeiger.ch/geleakte-kreml… 🇵🇱@FRONTSTORY_PL: frontstory.pl/kremlin-leaks-… 🇸🇪@Expressen: expressen.se/nyheter/varlde… 🇷🇺@meduzaproject: meduza.io/feature/2024/0… meduza.io/feature/2024/0… 🇷🇺@istories_media: istories.media/stories/2024/0…
@panyiszabolcs @VSquare_Project @DelfiEE @FRONTSTORY_PL @paper_trail_m @derspiegel @holger_r @f_obermaier @b_obermayer @Expressen @CarlssonMattias One of the best articles I've ever read. Lots of information and even ended on a positive note. Thanks!