ESPRESO — broadcast
20260920 160000 UTC
529 transcript segments
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[00:00:00] our defenders need such devices, thank you for
[00:00:03] understanding, glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes,
[00:00:18] Russian concert courses and books on display, and behind
[00:00:21] the doors, a spy nest in Kyiv, Russkiy Dom existed for 7
[00:00:24] years after the beginning of the occupation, in Berlin it grew
[00:00:27] into a whole quarter, why didn't Europe touch Russian centers
[00:00:31] and what comes with Russian culture in Africa, if
[00:00:35] Prigozhin is already standing opposite Russkiy Dom, well, and also
[00:00:38] an overview of Kremlin propaganda from Olga Len and the loudest fakes
[00:00:42] of the week from Stopfake. Watch in the new episode of
[00:00:45] Algorithm in Lies with Andriy
[00:00:47] Smoly.
[00:00:54] Hello, this is Algorithms of Lies, I am Andriy Smaliy. September
[00:00:58] 4, downtown Berlin, Friedrichstrasse. In front of Russkiy Dom, supporters and
[00:01:02] opponents of its closure. Stop the Russophobic madness, the
[00:01:05] largest group came with such posters. The Union of
[00:01:09] Sahra Wagenknecht, the Communist Party of Germany and the Society of
[00:01:12] Russian-German Friendship gathered about half a thousand
[00:01:16] people. Neither to read Pushkin, nor to drink
[00:01:19] samovar tea, the
[00:01:20] protesters complain.
[00:01:26] Let there always be a sky. The spy
[00:01:38] nest under lock and key is demanded by the small Russian
[00:01:41] opposition, suitcase, train station, Moscow, hurry up
[00:01:44] and pack your bags, Russian personnel are called upon by Ukrainians with the support of
[00:01:48] German
[00:01:49] Greens.
[00:01:57] The Berlin Russkiy Dom is the largest.
[00:02:00] Russian cultural center in the world. Seven floors,
[00:02:03] 29 square meters, almost a whole
[00:02:06] quarter. This reinforced concrete behemoth was built in the late
[00:02:09] GDR, and it has long caused suspicion among journalists and
[00:02:12] intelligence services. In particular, due to
[00:02:15] anomalous energy consumption, which was associated with the possible operation of
[00:02:19] reconnaissance equipment. The last straw was a series of Russian
[00:02:23] sabotages and an attempt to blow up a Ukrainian plane in
[00:02:26] Leipzig. We must clearly tell Russia.
[00:02:30] If it plans such things, it will have consequences for our
[00:02:34] relations. This applies to diplomatic relations, but
[00:02:37] also to Russkiy Dom, which has long ceased to perform its
[00:02:40] main function: to be a cultural link between Russia and
[00:02:44] Germany. The French Ministry of Internal Affairs formulates
[00:02:47] it more harshly: Russkiy Dom is a cover for Russian
[00:02:51] special services. Paris handed over these data to Berlin during the investigation of
[00:02:54] the spy network of Ksenia Fyodorova, the former head of
[00:02:58] Rasheto Day France. It was them. Moscow planned to put at the head of
[00:03:02] the Berlin Russkiy Dom. After the protests, Russian
[00:03:05] personnel hastily left Germany. The center ceased
[00:03:08] its work. Moscow responded in kind, ordering the closure of
[00:03:11] German Goethe Institutes and the consulate in
[00:03:14] St. Petersburg. Today about the Kremlin's Trojan horses in
[00:03:18] Europe. Why are Russkiy Doma still operating in Europe, although
[00:03:21] Rossotrudnichestvo, which manages them, has been under EU sanctions for four years. Why
[00:03:25] Russkiy Doma, which European
[00:03:28] special services suspect. in working for Russian intelligence,
[00:03:32] remain untouched for years. What
[00:03:35] happens to the Russian network after high-profile closures and
[00:03:39] why Africa is becoming the Kremlin's new bridgehead. All this
[00:03:43] in the algorithms of Lies.
[00:03:46] The first Russkiy Dom was closed in Ukraine in
[00:03:48] 2021, although the SBU warned the Cabinet of Ministers, the National Security and Defense Council
[00:03:51] and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the destructive 2014.
[00:03:55] activities of the center since
[00:03:58] Reaction - zero. Instead. activists regularly visited
[00:04:02] Russkiy Dom, sometimes with tires and Molotov cocktails, sometimes
[00:04:05] they brought what, in their opinion, most accurately symbolized
[00:04:09] the content of the Russian center's work. Why are you in
[00:04:12] shit? Go wash yourselves, you stink of Russian
[00:04:16] world. The head of Russkiy Dom, Konstantin Vorobyov,
[00:04:20] was indignant and stubbornly repeated one thing: here
[00:04:23] is exclusively culture. We are engaged
[00:04:26] exclusively in cultural projects. For example,
[00:04:29] here... such a historian Petro Tolochko, who fled to Russia after the full-scale
[00:04:33] war, in 2016, within the walls of
[00:04:36] Russkiy Dom, tells about the triple people, about the fact that
[00:04:40] Ukraine is part of the Russian world, and also the historian consistently
[00:04:43] denied the Holodomor as genocide and condemned the Maidan. And what
[00:04:47] about you, Mr. Kolochko, against Ukraine or against heroes? In this photo, against the background of
[00:04:51] the inscription "Representation of Rossotrudnichestvo in Ukraine", under
[00:04:54] number one is a native of Kyiv, Oleksiy Selivanov. In
[00:04:58] 2000, he founded the organization. Cossack
[00:05:00] camps near Kyiv educated schoolchildren in
[00:05:04] the spirit of Russian great-power patriotism. In
[00:05:08] 2013-2014,
[00:05:10] he was an assistant minister. of defense Lebedev. After
[00:05:14] the beginning of the war, he fled to Donbass, where, together with his pupils,
[00:05:18] he fought against Ukraine. And from time to time he threatens to exterminate
[00:05:21] Ukrainians if they do not want to become
[00:05:24] Russians. Ukrainianism is a reverse process. I personally de-
[00:05:28] Ukrainianized people. The youngest member of the unit in Slovyansk is Andriy
[00:05:31] Savelyev. Author of the book "War at 16 from Cadet to Saboteur".
[00:05:35] This is my pupil, a Kyiv native. I gave him the right books, and he stopped being a Ukrainian
[00:05:39] schoolboy and became a Russian soldier. This is such a breeding ground. of agents and
[00:05:43] saboteurs worked in the very center of Kyiv for seven years
[00:05:47] of war from 2014 to
[00:05:49] 2021. After the full-scale
[00:05:53] invasion, other countries also began to see the light.
[00:05:56] Slovenia was the first in the EU. Subsequently, centers in Croatia, Montenegro, North
[00:06:00] Macedonia, Romania,
[00:06:03] Britain and Denmark closed. In Moldova, Russian drones
[00:06:07] put an end to it. On the night of February 13,
[00:06:10] 2025, they violated the country's
[00:06:13] airspace, two fell and exploded. The Russian ambassador
[00:06:16] was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and shown the fragments. On the same
[00:06:20] day, they announced the termination of the agreement under which Russkiy
[00:06:24] Dok operated. This was not a cultural center, it was
[00:06:27] a center with agents of influence. All those who today
[00:06:30] rush to defend the so-called Russian cultural
[00:06:33] center, traveled to Moscow, knelt there and
[00:06:36] received orders to act against the country. And this is
[00:06:40] Russkiy Dom in Warsaw. Behind these doors, in September
[00:06:43] 2025, a few days before the appearance of Russian
[00:06:46] drones in Poland, a film by sanctioned
[00:06:50] Russia Today, "Russophobia - A History of Hatred",
[00:06:54] is shown, in which Ukrainians are Nazis, Poland is infected with
[00:06:57] Russophobia. I am frightened by the stupidity and
[00:07:00] savagery of a huge part of the Slavic world, including our Ukrainian brothers,
[00:07:03] our closest relatives, and
[00:07:07] our once close relatives, Poles, the number of
[00:07:10] neo-Nazi manifestations in this society.
[00:07:15] And already in December, within the same walls, Poland
[00:07:18] is already called a Nazi state that collaborated with
[00:07:21] Hitler. After a series of scandals in February 2026,
[00:07:25] Russkiy Dom suspended its work. Officially, it
[00:07:29] was never closed. The tricolor still flies here, and Russian
[00:07:32] writers peer from the walls. Most
[00:07:35] of the center's functions were transferred to colleagues in Budapest. There, Russkiy Dom
[00:07:39] remains the most loyal to.
[00:07:42] outpost in the EU. The most paradoxical example is
[00:07:46] Brussels. Russkiy Dom operates 20 minutes
[00:07:49] walk from the European Commission. Journalist
[00:07:51] Liga. Milana Holovan found out that under the guise of
[00:07:55] language courses, culture and educational programs, they work with
[00:07:58] young people here, build a network of Russian influence and even
[00:08:02] send European children to occupied Crimea. According to the
[00:08:06] Foreign Intelligence Service, which the journalist received during
[00:08:09] the investigation, Russkiy Doma are used for... training
[00:08:13] agents and circumventing sanctions, and the Kremlin plans to
[00:08:17] almost double their funding, so
[00:08:20] why does this network still calmly operate in EU
[00:08:23] countries. The European Commission replies: each country
[00:08:27] must decide this itself. National
[00:08:30] representations are institutions that, in this case, represent Russia in
[00:08:33] EU member states. Obviously, these countries must
[00:08:37] consider this issue and assess the advisability of closing
[00:08:40] such institutions. These. representations
[00:08:47] 15 are still active, but even the closure of Russkiy
[00:08:50] Dom does not mean that the network of influence built by the Kremlin
[00:08:54] disappears, Rossotrudnichestvo itself is under
[00:08:57] EU sanctions, but its projects and connections can
[00:09:01] be maintained through embassies, Russian state funds and local
[00:09:05] organizations of compatriots. How
[00:09:08] this system works was investigated by our
[00:09:10] OSINT team. houses are far from just
[00:09:13] libraries, they are part of a much broader infrastructure of Russian
[00:09:17] influence. Rossotrudnichestvo has 87
[00:09:21] foreign representative offices in 71 countries
[00:09:24] of the world, but alongside them Russian
[00:09:27] state funds, embassies and local organizations of
[00:09:30] compatriots also work, so the closure of Russkiy Dom itself does
[00:09:34] not mean that this network disappears. Thus, the functions of the
[00:09:37] closed house in Warsaw were taken over by the center in
[00:09:40] Budapest, and in Moldova - the Russian Embassy. In
[00:09:44] Brussels, we see another important detail. Russkiy Dom
[00:09:48] operates within a broader Russian
[00:09:51] diplomatic infrastructure, where Belgian intelligence has already
[00:09:54] identified employees of
[00:09:56] SVR, GRU and FSB, that is, cultural centers
[00:10:00] do not exist separately. They are embedded in a much
[00:10:04] broader system of Russian presence and influence.
[00:10:07] So in Europe, there are formally fewer Russkiy
[00:10:10] Doms. Instead, the Kremlin goes to other regions. The other day
[00:10:14] Rossotrudnichestvo signed agreements to open
[00:10:17] 11 more centers, two in Armenia,
[00:10:20] one in Thailand and as many as eight in
[00:10:23] Africa. Among the countries where they plan to open
[00:10:26] Russkiy Dom is Kenya. There is no such center here yet,
[00:10:30] but questions are already arising about the activities of Russians in Ukraine. On
[00:10:33] February 18, 2026, in
[00:10:37] the Kenyan parliament, the majority leader reads out data from the
[00:10:40] national intelligence service. More than 1000
[00:10:43] Kenyans have already been recruited to fight on Russia's side against
[00:10:47] Ukraine. Targeting former military,
[00:10:50] police and civilians aged approximately 25 to
[00:10:54] 50 years. They are promised about 350,000
[00:10:57] shillings per month, large bonuses and Russian
[00:11:00] citizenship. Most recruited Kenyans reported that
[00:11:04] they were forced to sign contracts. Some were trained
[00:11:07] for only nine days. In fact, they are simply given a machine gun and sent
[00:11:10] to die. And two days later, BBC Africa tells the story of
[00:11:14] a Kenyan who was lured to Russia with the promise of playing in
[00:11:17] a basketball team. Instead of
[00:11:20] a sports contract, he was forced to sign a document
[00:11:23] in Russian, sent to... military training, and then to
[00:11:27] the front against Ukraine. He was hit by a drone,
[00:11:30] was wounded and eventually was able to return home. The man
[00:11:34] hides his name and face. As far as
[00:11:38] I remember, there were people from Nigeria, South Africa,
[00:11:41] Morocco, Uganda, there was a guy from Zambia. I told
[00:11:44] the Russians that I am not here for military service, but for basketball
[00:11:48] training. When you directly got into combat
[00:11:52] actions, because you were subsequently wounded.
[00:11:55] After a week of collecting bodies, we went forward, we were sent
[00:11:59] to shoot at drones. Approximately two days later, almost 10 people from
[00:12:03] my group died out of 25.
[00:12:06] And here is another Russkiy Dom, which never managed to
[00:12:10] open. In Angola, Russians Igor Radchin and Lev
[00:12:13] Lakshtanov were detained on suspicion of espionage and
[00:12:16] attempts to influence the 2027 elections.
[00:12:19] They themselves explained that they came to the country to
[00:12:23] create a Russian cultural
[00:12:25] center. The investigation, however, linked them to the
[00:12:28] Africa Politology network, which grew out of the structures of
[00:12:32] Wagner. In July, a court in Luanda found both guilty of
[00:12:35] espionage and terrorism. Radchin received 11 years,
[00:12:39] Lakshtanov - eight. Moscow did not even
[00:12:43] conceal the connection between Russkiy Dom and Russian military structures in Africa. In January
[00:12:46] 2026, the then
[00:12:49] head of Rossotrudnichestvo Yevgeny Primakov told
[00:12:53] Vedomosti. Russian. and the Central African
[00:12:56] Republic were opened by a well-known African
[00:13:00] PMC. Our OSINT team investigated how deeply
[00:13:04] Wagner's people managed to integrate into the network of
[00:13:06] Russkiy Dom in Africa. The most illustrative example we found
[00:13:10] in the Central African Republic. Russkiy Dom
[00:13:14] in Bangui is headed by Dmitry Syty, a comrade-in-arms of Prigozhin and
[00:13:17] the founder of Lobay Invest, associated with gold mining
[00:13:21] and diamonds. The center has been operating since 2021, and
[00:13:25] in 2024 it became an official partner of
[00:13:28] Rossotrudnichestvo. A monument to Prigozhin and Utkin was even installed near
[00:13:32] Rosskiy Dom. A similar scheme exists in Mali.
[00:13:36] A partner Russkiy Dom operates in Bamako, where the Africa
[00:13:40] Corps, formed from former Wagner mercenaries, is concentrated.
[00:13:43] The main goal of Russkiy Dom is youth, methods,
[00:13:46] teaching, Russian language, promises of work and relocation
[00:13:50] to Russia, and for some Africans, according to
[00:13:53] Ukrainian intelligence. This route ends on the front against
[00:13:57] Ukraine. Africans who are sent to the front are only
[00:14:01] part of this system. Ugur calls Russia's strategy in
[00:14:05] Africa neo-colonialism. The Kremlin
[00:14:07] needs loyal regimes, and announced the UN. Access to
[00:14:11] gold, diamonds, uranium and oil and opportunities to
[00:14:15] circumvent sanctions. And Russian Adamas are becoming one of the tools of
[00:14:19] this expansion.
[00:14:22] Beyond Europe and Africa, the network of Russkiy Dom covers
[00:14:25] almost the entire world. The largest number of centers are in the countries of the former USSR. Four
[00:14:29] each in Belarus and Kazakhstan, two each in
[00:14:32] Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia. Here
[00:14:35] they plan to open two more. Four centers
[00:14:38] operate in India, two each in Brazil and Egypt.
[00:14:42] Russian centers remain in the USA, China, Iran,
[00:14:45] countries of the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. But
[00:14:49] in Azerbaijan, Russkiy Dom was closed at the beginning of
[00:14:52] 2026 after accusations.
[00:14:55] Rossotrudnichestvo of espionage
[00:14:57] activities. Culture, as a convenient cover, is well
[00:15:01] known to Putin himself. In the 1980s, an officer of
[00:15:03] the KGB of the GDR was formally assigned to the House of
[00:15:07] Soviet-German Friendship in Leipzig. Behind the cultural
[00:15:10] signboard, intelligence work and search for sources. And when
[00:15:14] the Berlin Wall fell and the GDR regime collapsed, in
[00:15:17] the Dresden residency of the KGB, they began to destroy
[00:15:20] agent documents. Putin himself recalled: so much
[00:15:24] paper was burned that the stove burst.
[00:15:28] How such cultural structures really
[00:15:32] work is well known to Ukrainian special services, and
[00:15:36] Ukraine had its own Russian house in Kyiv even after the occupation of Crimea
[00:15:39] and the start of the war in Donbass. Why was it
[00:15:43] not closed then and what did the SBU know about the people around
[00:15:46] the center. We are talking about this with a person who at that time
[00:15:50] was one of the leaders of the Security Service of Ukraine. Viktor Yagun,
[00:15:53] Major General of the SBU Reserve, Deputy Head of the SBU in
[00:15:57] 2014-2015,
[00:15:58] 2014-2015
[00:16:01] joins us. Mr. Viktor, I welcome you. Yes,
[00:16:05] good health. Mr. Viktor.
[00:16:07] You were Deputy Head of the SBU in
[00:16:09] 2014-2015. Russia had already occupied
[00:16:13] Crimea and started the war in Donbass, and Russkiy Dom in Kyiv
[00:16:17] continued to operate. Among its visitors were people who
[00:16:21] subsequently fled to Russia, or went
[00:16:24] to fight against Ukraine. What did the SBU
[00:16:27] know about this environment and why was the center not
[00:16:31] closed then? Russian humanitarian, cultural and compatriot
[00:16:34] structures cannot be considered simply as cultural
[00:16:38] institutions, they created an environment where
[00:16:42] pro-Russian organizations, so-called Cossack structures, carriers
[00:16:45] of the ideology of the Russian
[00:16:48] world, people who maintained constant contacts with
[00:16:51] Russia, were concentrated, and later truly open
[00:16:54] investigations confirmed this, for example, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
[00:16:58] documented the presence in the Kyiv center of the so-called
[00:17:01] Oleksiy Selivanov, who in 2014 went to the occupied
[00:17:04] Donbass and became an activist of the LPR structure, as
[00:17:08] well as Andriy Saviliev, who found himself among the militants who
[00:17:12] seized Sloviansk,
[00:17:15] but the SBU did not have the opportunity
[00:17:18] to simply come and administratively close this center, it
[00:17:22] operated on the basis of an international agreement between Ukraine and
[00:17:25] Russia from February 27, 1998,
[00:17:28] which was ratified by the Verkhovna Rada
[00:17:31] of Ukraine, this agreement provided for mutual
[00:17:34] activities. of the Russian Center of Science and Culture in Kyiv and
[00:17:38] the Cultural Center of Ukraine in Moscow, this is
[00:17:41] approximately the same, approximately the situation that was
[00:17:44] in Germany, where Russkiy Dom operated,
[00:17:47] in Russia, the Goethe
[00:17:50] Institute operated, so the decision had to be not only
[00:17:53] operational, but also political and legal.
[00:17:56] Denunciation of the agreement, government decisions, parliament and other state
[00:18:00] bodies. I would formulate it this way, the threat could
[00:18:03] have been, well, we saw
[00:18:06] it earlier than the state was legally and politically
[00:18:10] ready to liquidate the very mechanism of Russian
[00:18:14] presence, and this explanation
[00:18:16] is certainly not an excuse, but
[00:18:19] it, well, then looked the way it was at
[00:18:23] that time. In the secret KGB manual of
[00:18:26] 1968, which was found by
[00:18:30] journalists of WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung in
[00:18:33] the Baltic archives. Cultural representations are described
[00:18:37] as platforms for finding contacts, developing
[00:18:41] and agent work. What
[00:18:44] has changed in this model in almost 60 years, and
[00:18:47] what has Russia transferred to modern Russkiy
[00:18:51] Dom? Well,
[00:18:55] the technology has changed, the principle practically hasn't,
[00:18:58] that is, directly in that 1968 manual,
[00:19:02] it really, I even held it, true 1968.
[00:19:05] but a slightly later
[00:19:08] edition, but I really held it in my hands, and it directly
[00:19:11] described the use of cultural work to identify
[00:19:15] promising individuals, establish contacts with them, further
[00:19:18] rapprochement, I don't know, there
[00:19:21] agent work, control of immigration and conducting
[00:19:25] active measures, it even spoke of bringing agents
[00:19:28] under the guise of cultural structures, the tools have changed, the architecture
[00:19:32] remained Soviet, I spoke with a journalist who
[00:19:36] in Brussels... near such a building
[00:19:40] of Russkiy Dom met
[00:19:43] employees of the European Parliament and she was
[00:19:46] surprised, says, what are you doing here, says: we come here for Russian language
[00:19:50] courses, that's all, that's your answer to such
[00:19:53] questions. After
[00:19:57] 2022, Europe expelled
[00:20:00] hundreds of Russian diplomats, including special service
[00:20:04] officers under diplomatic cover. But the network
[00:20:07] of Russkiy Dom remained, how
[00:20:10] could Russia use these centers after losing part of
[00:20:14] its intelligence network in
[00:20:16] Europe?
[00:20:19] Well, look, precisely after mass expulsions, their
[00:20:23] potential value for
[00:20:25] special services could have increased, because
[00:20:29] a classical residency under diplomatic cover has one
[00:20:32] huge advantage, it is diplomatic
[00:20:36] status, but... it has a disadvantage, the counterintelligence
[00:20:39] of the host country roughly understands who
[00:20:42] is in front of it, controls the diplomatic staff and
[00:20:46] can declare a specific person persona non grata.
[00:20:50] a cultural center, but we are talking about
[00:20:53] a cultural center now, but it is necessary to understand that there is another
[00:20:56] structure that operates in parallel in various
[00:21:00] countries, these are religious centers, and they
[00:21:04] are actually so similar that
[00:21:08] well, one doesn't even want to separate these two things. Russia
[00:21:11] is expanding the network of Russkiy Dom in Africa. Yevgeny
[00:21:14] Primakov admitted that the centers in Mali and CAR were opened by
[00:21:18] a well-known African. PMC, Wagnerites, and
[00:21:21] some of its people then transferred to
[00:21:23] Rossotrudnichestvo. What do Russkiy Dom give
[00:21:27] the Kremlin that Wagner, special services or
[00:21:30] embassies
[00:21:32] cannot?
[00:21:35] You know, recently I read that 25 such
[00:21:39] houses will be opened, and one of
[00:21:42] them will be opened in Armenia, and
[00:21:46] Pashinyan personally gave permission for its opening, I was... truly
[00:21:50] surprised by this, I think that they are just doing it on purpose,
[00:21:53] understanding what, what
[00:21:56] ideas will be propagated in this house,
[00:22:00] and they probably think that it's better to concentrate everything in
[00:22:03] one, in one place, than to look for them all over
[00:22:06] the country later, and they provide legitimacy and
[00:22:09] long-term viability, Wagner can protect the regime, train
[00:22:12] the military, control deposits or I don't know
[00:22:16] physically eliminate an opponent. According to Ukrainian intelligence, almost
[00:22:20] 3,000 citizens of African countries are fighting in
[00:22:23] the Russian army. Why is the Kremlin so actively recruiting
[00:22:27] Africans instead of a new wave of mobilization in Russia? And
[00:22:31] how realistic is the figure of 3. Or
[00:22:34] are these just established cases?
[00:22:38] Well, I would clarify
[00:22:42] the wording. The most accurate and publicly confirmed
[00:22:45] figure is at least 2,982
[00:22:48] African
[00:22:52] countries, that's what our intelligence can confirm, they were
[00:22:55] recruited into the Russian army, indeed and
[00:22:59] the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine also reported approximately
[00:23:02] 486 killed and 35
[00:23:06] prisoners of war from 17 African
[00:23:09] states, these are official figures that we currently
[00:23:13] have, these are cases established by
[00:23:16] the Ukrainian side, and well,
[00:23:19] not... a complete census of the Russian army, so the real figure can
[00:23:22] indeed be much higher, an additional resource,
[00:23:26] their political price for the Kremlin is much lower,
[00:23:30] the death of a Russian can raise questions from the family,
[00:23:33] the region, the local authorities, the death of
[00:23:36] a recruited foreigner often does not get into
[00:23:39] Russian public space and statistics at all, who will look for him
[00:23:43] in Russia and demand compensation for
[00:23:46] the loss, moreover, the economic factor really
[00:23:51] works, a person from a poorer country
[00:23:53] offers a salary, education, work, legalization in Russia,
[00:23:57] some, some are recruited consciously, some
[00:24:01] through deception or misrepresented job
[00:24:04] offers, the Main Intelligence Directorate of
[00:24:07] Ukraine, well, the Ministry of Defense and the Coordination
[00:24:10] Staff reported that in 2026, Russia planned
[00:24:14] to recruit about 19,000,
[00:24:17] 18,500, if to be precise, foreigners
[00:24:20] in total, so this is a way to get cheaper
[00:24:24] human resources, reduce the domestic political cost of the war and
[00:24:28] at least partially compensate for losses without
[00:24:31] announcing a new large wave of
[00:24:34] mobilization, cultural organizations instead of Russian state
[00:24:38] representations, it's
[00:24:41] cheaper, less noticeable and politically safer
[00:24:44] by far than dealing with the state, I
[00:24:47] here... I see another such strategic
[00:24:51] moment, Russia is losing part of its influence
[00:24:54] infrastructure in Europe and transferring resources
[00:24:57] to where the battleground for public opinion has not yet
[00:25:00] been definitively formed.
[00:25:03] Africa for Moscow is simultaneously resources,
[00:25:07] political partnership, votes on the international
[00:25:10] stage, arms market, human resources
[00:25:14] and influence on future elites.
[00:25:17] countries, so the Russian House is not a cultural center, in our
[00:25:21] understanding, yes, in the Russian system it is an instrument of long-term
[00:25:25] formation of an environment with which Russia will
[00:25:28] communicate, somewhere it will give a pro-Russian
[00:25:31] journalist, somewhere an official, somewhere a businessman, somewhere
[00:25:35] a military man, and somewhere a person who already
[00:25:38] can, who special services
[00:25:41] can be interested in, that is why the Russian one should
[00:25:45] not be viewed as separately Russian, well,
[00:25:48] separately from Russian
[00:25:51] special services, separately Wagner, separately
[00:25:54] the African corps, uh propaganda and economic
[00:25:58] expansion, this is all like
[00:26:01] one uh... of the chains, one of
[00:26:04] the links of this very Russian system, which it implements. Mr.
[00:26:08] Viktor, thank you for your thoughts and your
[00:26:11] expert position. Viktor Yahun,
[00:26:14] Major General of the Reserve of the SBU, Deputy Head of the SBU
[00:26:18] in 2014-2015,
[00:26:21] was with us on air.
[00:26:24] Russian houses have sold themselves to the world for decades as centers
[00:26:27] of culture, language, and education. But behind Pushkin
[00:26:31] and talks about friendship, propaganda,
[00:26:34] recruitment, agents of influence, and spies. Europe is slowly
[00:26:38] dismantling this network, sanctions
[00:26:41] against Rossotrudnichestvo have not made it disappear.
[00:26:44] Dozens of centers are still operating, and closed ones simply switch to
[00:26:48] another format. While Europe is gradually closing
[00:26:51] doors to Russian houses, the Kremlin
[00:26:54] is more actively opening them in Africa. This is what
[00:26:58] Russian neo-colonialism looks like: culture as a signboard behind...
[00:27:02] it, recruitment and the struggle for resources, and
[00:27:06] now I hand over the floor to my colleague Olha Len, who has investigated what
[00:27:09] exactly the Kremlin TV has offered its zombified
[00:27:13] viewers this
[00:27:14] time.
[00:27:21] Hello, recently talks have intensified
[00:27:24] about how to agree with Putin on ending
[00:27:28] the war, here is Donald's
[00:27:31] friend. Steve Witkoff and
[00:27:35] Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner went to Moscow, talked about something there,
[00:27:38] then went to Kyiv, met with
[00:27:41] Zelensky, and after that, Jared Kushner
[00:27:45] said that Putin needs to be given
[00:27:48] Donbas, and after that everything
[00:27:52] will literally end, because Putin no longer has ambitions to fight, and he
[00:27:55] wants to agree, well, in short, the usual such a story, well,
[00:27:59] our song is beautiful and new, we start again to talk about... the fact
[00:28:03] that Putin has no intention of any
[00:28:06] other attacks, and this is literally give him something, and he
[00:28:10] will calm down. Well, you know, at this point,
[00:28:13] it clearly shows this
[00:28:15] peacefulness, the reaction of Russian propaganda,
[00:28:19] the words of the Minister of Foreign
[00:28:22] Affairs of Poland, Radosław
[00:28:24] Sikorski, who said, in principle,
[00:28:27] an obvious thing, that the military
[00:28:31] power of the EU is greater than Russian, and this
[00:28:34] sitting and being afraid of Putin is not worth it, but it is probably
[00:28:38] worth just showing this power and making
[00:28:42] Russia understand that it can get hit on the head, well, that's how it
[00:28:45] was,
[00:28:49] if Russia attacks us and we take off our gloves,
[00:28:53] I think we will defeat Russia quite quickly. We
[00:28:56] have an advantage over Russia in air power.
[00:29:00] General, correct me if I'm wrong,
[00:29:02] but this is something like 2,500 aircraft,
[00:29:06] even without the USA, this advantage still remains
[00:29:09] overwhelming. And I haven't checked recently how many
[00:29:12] F-35s, JASM, and all
[00:29:16] other means for deep strikes we have, but if
[00:29:20] Ukrainians disabled half of Russia's oil refining capacity in 6
[00:29:23] months, we could do it in six weeks and destroy the other
[00:29:27] half.
[00:29:30] Well, obviously, if you hit with missiles, then... everything will be much
[00:29:33] faster, well, he said it
[00:29:36] obviously, well, he said in principle an obvious thing, here Russian
[00:29:40] propaganda literally started
[00:29:42] hysteria, well, such a
[00:29:45] well-known State Duma deputy
[00:29:48] Zhuravlev started saying that
[00:29:51] any world war should start with
[00:29:55] Poland.
[00:29:59] A great man Sikorski, who heads the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
[00:30:40] What's the problem with you, you
[00:30:43] were already part of the Russian Empire, well,
[00:30:46] everywhere, you should understand, it's better to be friends with Russia,
[00:30:49] дружити,
[00:30:53] well, the very fact that they were part of the Russian Empire should somehow
[00:30:56] hint to the Poles that it's better to stay away from Russia.