ESPRESO — broadcast
20260920 200000 UTC
515 transcript segments
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking
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Machine transcription. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a verbatim quotation record.

[00:00:00] retraining, not courses for two months, I completed online courses,
[00:00:04] received a certificate, and am ready to go provide support. There are also
[00:00:07] many such people now, it seems to me that this even worsens
[00:00:11] the situation, because if you do not have the appropriate competence, you
[00:00:14] can only harm a person and make
[00:00:18] their condition worse than it was before the person started communicating with such a quasi
[00:00:22] psychologist. There will be a huge challenge, and it seems to me that
[00:00:25] we will not be, we are already a nation of traumatized people who will
[00:00:29] need... the services of a psychotherapist
[00:00:32] for a very long period of time. This is not only military
[00:00:35] veterans, but also defenders, and
[00:00:38] ordinary civilians who
[00:00:42] are under shelling around the clock. These are also our
[00:00:46] children, children of war, who do not have access to education, who
[00:00:49] grow up in shelters, at school or at home.
[00:00:53] Therefore, yes, you are raising an absolutely relevant,
[00:00:56] correct question that in the future we will
[00:01:00] need to increase, probably, both state
[00:01:02] orders for such a specialty as
[00:01:05] psychologist, psychotherapist, including military
[00:01:08] ones. So there is a lot of work ahead, as they say,
[00:01:11] well, let's hope that in fact, they will understand this at
[00:01:15] the state level, that qualified psychologists will be very
[00:01:19] much needed in the future, and not only in the future, but also now. Ms. Iryna, thank you for this
[00:01:22] conversation. I would like to remind you that we discussed assistance to families
[00:01:25] of those missing and killed with
[00:01:29] the national deputy of Ukraine, head of the Subcommittee on Veteran Rehabilitation of the Verkhovna Rada Committee
[00:01:33] of Ukraine, Iryna
[00:01:36] Nekorak. Thank you for being with us, see you.
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[00:04:26] expert against pain. Hungary vs Ukraine.
[00:04:31] The first test for the Moldovan national team in the new Nations League season.
[00:04:34] Turn on September 25th at
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[00:05:08] My dad is a defender of Ukraine, he is a soldier and... now
[00:05:12] he protects our Ukraine. My dad is
[00:05:15] a combat medic, he saves and
[00:05:18] treats wounded defenders. My dad is
[00:05:21] the best for me. Dad is my hero. I love
[00:05:25] him very much, and I want him to come back soon. I miss him very
[00:05:29] much. Sometimes I can just
[00:05:32] cry when I
[00:05:35] think of him. I love him very
[00:05:38] much and wait for him every day. I love him very much...
[00:05:42] I love him, waiting for him to come home. Thank you, Dad,
[00:05:45] for protecting us. Thank you, Dad,
[00:05:48] thank you, Dad, thank you, Dad.
[00:06:05] Russian concert library courses on the sign, but behind the doors,
[00:06:08] a spy nest in Kyiv. The Russian House existed for seven years after
[00:06:12] the start of the occupation. In Berlin, it grew into an entire quarter. Why did Europe
[00:06:16] not touch Russian centers for years and what comes with
[00:06:20] Russian culture in Africa, if Prigozhin is already standing opposite
[00:06:23] the Russian House. And also a review of Kremlin propaganda by Olga
[00:06:27] Len and the loudest fakes of the week from Stop Fake.
[00:06:31] Watch in the new episode of Algorithms of Lies with Andriy
[00:06:34] Smoliy.
[00:06:41] Hello, this is Algorithms. Lies and I, Andriy Smoliy. On
[00:06:45] September 4, in the center of Berlin, Friedrich Strasse, in front of the Russian House,
[00:06:48] supporters and opponents of its closure. Stop
[00:06:51] Russophobic madness, with such posters came
[00:06:54] the most numerous group. The Union of Sarah Wagenknecht, the Communist Party
[00:06:57] of Germany and the Society for Russian-German Friendship
[00:07:01] gathered about five hundred people. No
[00:07:04] Pushkin to read, no tea from a samovar to drink, the
[00:07:07] protesters grumble. Here there will always
[00:07:11] be sun, let there always
[00:07:13] be sky, let there always
[00:07:17] be mom, let there
[00:07:20] always be me.
[00:07:24] Nest of spies, behind lock and key, demands the small Russian
[00:07:28] opposition, suitcase, train station, Moscow, hurry up and pack
[00:07:31] your bags, Russian personnel are urged by Ukrainians with the support
[00:07:35] of German
[00:07:35] Greens.
[00:07:44] The Berlin Russian House is the largest Russian cultural
[00:07:47] center in the world. Seven floors, 29
[00:07:51] square meters, almost an entire quarter. This reinforced concrete
[00:07:54] behemoth was built in the late GDR, and suspicions have been
[00:07:58] raised for a long time by journalists and intelligence services, in particular
[00:08:02] due to anomalous energy consumption, which was associated
[00:08:05] with the possible operation of intelligence equipment.
[00:08:08] The last straw was a series of Russian sabotages and an attempt
[00:08:11] to blow up a Ukrainian
[00:08:13] plane in Leipzig. We must clearly make Russia
[00:08:16] understand. If it plans such things, it will have
[00:08:20] consequences for our relations. This applies to diplomatic
[00:08:23] relations, but also to the Russian House, which has long ceased
[00:08:27] to fulfill its main function of being a cultural link between
[00:08:30] Russia and Germany. The
[00:08:33] French Ministry of Internal Affairs formulates it more harshly: the Russian House
[00:08:36] is a cover for Russian special services. Paris handed over
[00:08:40] these data to Berlin during the investigation of the spy
[00:08:43] network of Ksenia Fedorova, former head of RT France. It was her
[00:08:46] Moscow planned to put at the head of the Berlin Russian
[00:08:50] House. After the protests, Russian personnel hastily
[00:08:53] left Germany. The center ceased operations. Moscow
[00:08:56] responded in kind, ordering the closure of German Goethe Institutes
[00:09:00] and the consulate in St. Petersburg. Today, about
[00:09:03] the Trojan horses of the Kremlin in Europe. Why are Russian Houses
[00:09:06] still operating in Europe, although Rossotrudnichestvo, which manages them, has been
[00:09:10] under EU sanctions for four years. Why are Russian Houses, which European special
[00:09:14] services suspect of working for Russian intelligence, remaining
[00:09:18] untouchable for years. What
[00:09:20] happens to the Russian network
[00:09:24] after high-profile closures and why is Africa becoming the Kremlin's
[00:09:28] new stronghold? All this in the Algorithms of
[00:09:30] Lies.
[00:09:33] The first Russian House to be closed was in Ukraine in
[00:09:35] 2021, although the SBU had been warning
[00:09:38] the Cabinet of Ministers, the National Security and Defense Council
[00:09:42] and... the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the destructive activities of the center.
[00:09:45] Zero reaction. Instead, activists regularly visited the Russian House,
[00:09:49] sometimes with tires and Molotov cocktails, sometimes
[00:09:52] bringing what, in their opinion, most accurately symbolized
[00:09:56] the content of the Russian center's work. Why are you in
[00:09:59] shit? Go wash up, you stink of the Russian
[00:10:03] world. The head of the Russian House, Konstantin Vorobyov,
[00:10:07] was indignant and stubbornly repeated one thing. Here
[00:10:10] it's exclusively culture.
[00:10:13] We are exclusively engaged in cultural projects, for example,
[00:10:16] this one. Historian Petro Tolochko, who fled to Russia after the full-scale
[00:10:20] war, in 2016, within the walls
[00:10:23] of the Russian House, talks about... the triune people, about Ukraine
[00:10:27] being part of the Russian world, and also, the historian consistently
[00:10:30] denied the Holodomor as a genocide and condemned the Maidan. So
[00:10:34] what about you, Mr. Tolochko, against Ukraine or against heroes? In this photo, against the backdrop
[00:10:38] of the inscription "Representative Office of Rossotrudnichestvo in Ukraine," under
[00:10:41] number one is Kyiv native Oleksiy Selivanov. In
[00:10:45] 2000, he created the organization "Vernaya Kazachestvo"
[00:10:48] and in camps near Kyiv, he educated schoolchildren in the spirit
[00:10:51] of Russian great-power patriotism. In
[00:10:55] 2013-2014,
[00:10:57] he was an assistant to Defense Minister Lebedev. After
[00:11:01] the war started, he rushed to Donbas, where, along with his protégés,
[00:11:05] he fought against Ukraine and from time to time threatened to exterminate
[00:11:08] Ukrainians if they did not want to become
[00:11:11] Russians. Ukrainianism is a reverse process. I personally
[00:11:15] de-Ukrainized people. The youngest member of the unit in Slovyansk is Andriy
[00:11:18] Savelyev. Author of the book "War at 16 from Cadet to Saboteur."
[00:11:22] This is my pupil, a Kyiv native. I gave him the right books.
[00:11:28] This kind of breeding ground for agents and saboteurs operated in the very
[00:11:32] center of Kyiv for seven years of the war, from
[00:11:34] 2014 to
[00:11:36] 2021. After the full-scale
[00:11:40] invasion, other countries also began to see clearly.
[00:11:43] Slovenia was the first in the EU. Later, centers in Croatia,
[00:11:47] Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania,
[00:11:50] Britain, and Denmark closed. In Moldova, the decision was made by
[00:11:54] Russian drones on the night of February 13,
[00:11:57] 2025. They violated the country's
[00:12:00] airspace, two fell and exploded. The Russian ambassador
[00:12:03] was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and shown the debris. The same
[00:12:07] day, the termination of the agreement under which the Russian House operated
[00:12:10] was announced. This was not a cultural center, it was
[00:12:14] a center with agents of influence. All those who today
[00:12:17] rush to defend the so-called Russian cultural
[00:12:20] center traveled to Moscow, knelt
[00:12:23] there, and received.
[00:12:27] And this is the Russian House in Warsaw. Behind these doors, in September
[00:12:30] 2025, a few days before the appearance of Russian
[00:12:33] drones in Poland, they show a film by the sanctioned
[00:12:37] RT, "Russophobia: A History of Hatred."
[00:12:41] Ukrainians in it are Nazis. Poland is infected
[00:12:44] with Russophobia. I am frightened by the dullness and savagery
[00:12:48] of a huge part of the Slavic world, including our
[00:12:51] Ukrainian brothers, our closest relatives, and ours.
[00:13:02] And already in December, within these very walls, Poland is already called
[00:13:06] a Nazi state that collaborated with Hitler. After
[00:13:09] a series of scandals in February 2026,
[00:13:12] the Russian House suspended its work. Officially, it
[00:13:16] was never closed, the tricolor still flies here, and Russian
[00:13:19] writers gaze from the walls. Most
[00:13:22] of the center's functions were transferred to colleagues in... Budapest, where the Russian House
[00:13:26] remains the most loyal to Russia in the EU.
[00:13:29] The most paradoxical example is
[00:13:33] Brussels. The Russian House operates a 20-minute walk
[00:13:36] from the European Commission. Ligant journalist Milana Holovan
[00:13:40] found out that under the guise of language courses, culture, and educational
[00:13:44] programs, they work with youth here, build a network
[00:13:47] of Russian influence, and even send European children to
[00:13:51] occupied Crimea. According to data from the Foreign Intelligence Service,
[00:13:55] which the journalist obtained during the investigation, Russian Houses
[00:13:58] are used for recruiting agents and circumventing
[00:14:02] sanctions, and the Kremlin plans to almost double
[00:14:05] their funding. So why does this network still
[00:14:09] operate peacefully in EU countries? The European Commission
[00:14:12] replies: each country must decide this
[00:14:15] for itself. National representations are institutions that, in
[00:14:19] this case, represent Russia in EU member states.
[00:14:22] Obviously, it is these countries that must consider
[00:14:25] this issue and assess the expediency of closing
[00:14:29] such institutions. This is entirely within their
[00:14:32] competence. Out of 26 representations, 15 are still active,
[00:14:36] but even the closure of the Russian House does not mean that the network
[00:14:39] of influence built by the Kremlin disappears. Rossotrudnichestvo
[00:14:42] itself is under EU sanctions, but
[00:14:46] its projects and connections can be maintained through
[00:14:49] embassies, Russian state foundations, and local organizations
[00:14:53] of compatriots. I... Our OSINT team investigated how
[00:14:57] this system works. Russian Houses are far from just
[00:15:00] libraries; they are part of a much wider infrastructure
[00:15:04] of Russian influence. Rossotrudnichestvo has
[00:15:07] 87 foreign representations in
[00:15:10] 71 countries around the world, but alongside them,
[00:15:13] Russian state foundations, embassies, and
[00:15:16] local organizations of compatriots also operate.
[00:15:19] Therefore, the closure of the Russian House itself does not mean that this network
[00:15:23] disappears. Thus, the functions of the closed house in Warsaw were taken over
[00:15:27] by the center in Budapest, and in Moldova - by the Russian
[00:15:30] embassy. In Brussels, we see another important
[00:15:33] detail. The Russian House operates within a wider
[00:15:37] Russian diplomatic infrastructure, where Belgian
[00:15:40] intelligence has already identified employees of the
[00:15:43] SVR, GRU, and FSB. That is, cultural centers
[00:15:47] do not exist separately; they are embedded in a much wider
[00:15:51] system of Russian presence and influence. So, in
[00:15:55] Europe, there are formally fewer Russian Houses, but instead,
[00:15:58] the Kremlin is going to other regions. Recently, Rossotrudnichestvo
[00:16:02] signed agreements on the opening of 11 more
[00:16:05] centers, two in Armenia, one in Thailand, and as many as
[00:16:09] eight in Africa.
[00:16:12] Among the countries where they plan to open a Russian House is Kenya.
[00:16:15] There is no such center here yet, but questions are already arising
[00:16:18] about the activities of Russians in the country. On February 18,
[00:16:22] 2026, in the Kenyan parliament, the majority leader reads out
[00:16:26] data from the national intelligence service. More than
[00:16:29] 1,000 Kenyans have already been recruited to fight on the side of
[00:16:33] Russia against Ukraine.
[00:16:35] Targeting former military personnel, police, and civilians aged
[00:16:39] approximately 25 to 50 years old. They are promised
[00:16:43] about 350 thousand shillings per month, large
[00:16:46] bonuses, and Russian citizenship. Most
[00:16:49] of the recruited Kenyans reported that they were forced to sign
[00:16:52] contracts, some were trained for only nine days, in fact, they
[00:16:55] are simply given a machine gun and sent to die. And two days later,
[00:16:59] BBC Africa tells the story of a Kenyan who was lured to
[00:17:02] Russia by a promise to play in a basketball
[00:17:05] team. Instead of a sports
[00:17:07] contract, he was forced to sign a document in Russian, sent
[00:17:11] for military training, and then to the front against
[00:17:15] Ukraine. He was hit by a drone, was wounded, and
[00:17:18] eventually managed to return home. The man hides his
[00:17:22] name and face. As far
[00:17:25] as I remember, there were people from Nigeria, South Africa,
[00:17:28] Morocco, Uganda, there was a guy from Zambia, I told
[00:17:31] the Russians that I am not here for military service, but for basketball
[00:17:35] training. When you directly got into combat
[00:17:39] operations, because later you were wounded.
[00:17:42] After a week of collecting bodies, we went forward, we were sent
[00:17:46] to shoot at drones. Approximately two days later, almost 10 people from my group
[00:17:50] died, out of 25.
[00:17:53] And here is another Russian House that never managed to
[00:17:57] open. In Angola, Russians Igor Radchin and Lev
[00:18:00] Lakshtanov were detained on suspicion of espionage and
[00:18:03] attempts to influence the 2027 elections.
[00:18:06] They themselves explained that they came to the country to
[00:18:10] create a Russian cultural center.
[00:18:13] The investigation, however, linked them to the Africa
[00:18:16] Politology network, which grew out of Wagner's structures. In
[00:18:20] July, a court in Luanda found both guilty of espionage
[00:18:23] and terrorism. Radchin received 11 years, Lakshtanov
[00:18:27] - eight. The connection of Russian Houses with Russian military structures in
[00:18:31] Africa was not even hidden by Moscow. In January
[00:18:34] 2026, then-head of Rossotrudnichestvo
[00:18:38] Yevgeny Primakov told Vedomosti: Russian Houses in
[00:18:41] Mali and the Central African Republic were opened by
[00:18:45] a well-known African PMC. Our OSINT team
[00:18:49] investigated how deeply Wagner's people managed
[00:18:52] to integrate into the network of Russian Houses in Africa.
[00:18:55] The most striking example we found is in the Central African
[00:18:59] Republic. The Russian House in Bangui is headed by Dmitry
[00:19:02] Sity, Prigozhin's associate and founder of Lobay Invest,
[00:19:06] connected with... gold mining and diamonds. The center
[00:19:10] has been operating since 2021, and in
[00:19:12] 2024 it became an official partner
[00:19:15] of Rossotrudnichestvo. A monument to Prigozhin and Utkin was even erected
[00:19:19] near the Russian House. In Mali, a similar scheme.
[00:19:23] A partner Russian House operates in Bamako, where
[00:19:26] Africa Corps is concentrated, formed from former
[00:19:29] Wagnerites. The main goal of the Russian House is youth,
[00:19:33] methods, education, Russian language, promises of work and
[00:19:37] relocation to Russia, but for some Africans, according to
[00:19:40] Ukrainian intelligence, this route ends on the front line against
[00:19:44] Ukraine. Africans who are sent to the front are only
[00:19:48] part of this system. Ugh, they call Russia's strategy in
[00:19:52] Africa neocolonialism. The Kremlin
[00:19:54] needs loyal regimes and votes at the UN. Access to
[00:19:58] gold, diamonds, uranium, and oil, and opportunities to
[00:20:02] circumvent sanctions. And the Russian Houses are becoming one of the tools
[00:20:06] of this expansion.
[00:20:08] Outside of Europe and Africa, the network of Russian Houses covers almost
[00:20:12] the entire world. The largest number of centers are in the countries of the former USSR.
[00:20:16] Four each in Belarus and Kazakhstan, two each in
[00:20:19] Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Armenia. Here
[00:20:22] they plan to open two more. Four centers
[00:20:25] operate in India, two each in Brazil and Egypt.
[00:20:29] Russian centers remain in the USA, China, Iran,
[00:20:32] countries of the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. But
[00:20:36] Azerbaijan. The Russian House was closed at the beginning
[00:20:39] of 2026 after accusations
[00:20:42] of Rossotrudnichestvo of espionage
[00:20:44] activities. Culture, as a convenient cover, is well
[00:20:48] known to Putin himself. In the 1980s,
[00:20:52] a KGB officer in the GDR was formally assigned to the House
[00:20:56] of Soviet-German Friendship in Leipzig. Behind the cultural
[00:20:59] facade, intelligence work and the search for sources. And when
[00:21:02] the Berlin Wall fell and the GDR regime crumbled, in the
[00:21:06] Dresden residency of the KGB, they began to destroy
[00:21:09] agent documents. Putin himself recalled: papers
[00:21:13] were burned so much that the stove burst.
[00:21:17] How such cultural tours really work is well known
[00:21:21] to Ukrainian special services, and Ukraine had its own Russian House in
[00:21:24] Kyiv even after the occupation of Crimea and the start of the war in
[00:21:28] Donbas. Why was it not closed then, and what did the SBU
[00:21:32] know about the people around the center? We talk about this with
[00:21:35] a person who was one of the heads of the Security Service
[00:21:38] of Ukraine at that time. We are joined by Viktor Yagun,
[00:21:42] Major General of the SBU Reserve, Deputy Head of the SBU in
[00:21:45] 2014-2015.
[00:21:49] Years. Mr. Viktor, I greet you, yes,
[00:21:52] good health, Mr. Viktor, you were Deputy
[00:21:55] Head of the SBU in 2014-2015.
[00:21:59] Russia had already occupied Crimea and started the war in
[00:22:02] Donbas, and the Russian House in Kyiv continued to operate. Among its
[00:22:06] visitors were people who later fled to Russia
[00:22:10] or went to fight against Ukraine. What did the SBU
[00:22:14] know about this environment and why was the center not
[00:22:18] closed then? Russian humanitarian... cultural and compatriot
[00:22:22] structures cannot be considered simply as cultural
[00:22:25] institutions. They created an environment where
[00:22:29] pro-Russian organizations, so-called Cossack structures, carriers
[00:22:32] of the ideology of the Russian world, people who
[00:22:35] maintained constant contacts with Russia, and
[00:22:38] later indeed, open investigations confirmed this,
[00:22:42] for example, Radio Liberty documented the presence in the Kyiv
[00:22:45] center of the so-called... Oleksiy Selivanov, who in
[00:22:48] 2014 went to occupied Donbas and became an activist
[00:22:51] of the LPR structure, and also Andriy Savelyev, who
[00:22:55] was among the militants who seized
[00:22:59] Sloviansk. But the SBU did not have
[00:23:01] the opportunity to simply come and
[00:23:05] close this center with an administrative decision. It
[00:23:09] operated on the basis of an intergovernmental agreement between Ukraine and Russia
[00:23:12] from February 27, 1998,
[00:23:15] which was ratified by the
[00:23:18] Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. This agreement
[00:23:21] provided for mutual activities of the Russian Center for Science
[00:23:25] and Culture in Kyiv and the Cultural Center of Ukraine in Moscow.
[00:23:29] This is approximately the same situation that
[00:23:33] was in Germany, where the Russian House operated,
[00:23:36] and in Russia, the Goethe Institute operated. Therefore, the decision
[00:23:40] had to be not only operational, but also political
[00:23:43] and legal. Denunciation of the agreement, a decision from the government,
[00:23:47] parliament, and other state bodies. I would
[00:23:50] phrase it this way: the threat could have been
[00:23:53] seen earlier than the state was
[00:23:57] legally and politically ready to liquidate the very
[00:24:01] mechanism of Russian presence, and
[00:24:03] this explanation, of course, is not an excuse,
[00:24:07] but it looked like that
[00:24:11] at the time. In a secret KGB
[00:24:14] handbook from 1968, which was found by
[00:24:18] journalists of WDR and Suddeutsche Zeitung in
[00:24:20] Baltic archives, cultural representations
[00:24:24] are described as platforms for finding contacts,
[00:24:27] recruiting, and agent work. What has
[00:24:31] changed in this model in almost 60 years? And
[00:24:34] what has Russia transferred to modern Russian
[00:24:38] houses? Well, the technology
[00:24:42] has changed, the principle practically hasn't,
[00:24:45] that is, right there in that 68th year handbook.
[00:24:48] He really, I even
[00:24:50] held, not the 68th, but a reprint
[00:24:54] from a little later, but I really held it in my hands, and
[00:24:57] it directly described the use of cultural work for
[00:25:01] identifying promising individuals, establishing contacts with them, further
[00:25:05] rapprochement, I don't know, agent work, control
[00:25:08] of immigration, and conducting active measures.
[00:25:12] It even talked about deploying agents under the guise of cultural structures.
[00:25:15] The tools have changed, the architecture remained... Soviet.
[00:25:19] I talked to a journalist who, in
[00:25:22] Brussels, near such a Russian
[00:25:25] house, met
[00:25:28] employees of the European Parliament,
[00:25:31] and she was surprised, saying, what are you doing here? She said,
[00:25:35] we come here for Russian language courses. That's all, that's
[00:25:39] your answer to such
[00:25:40] questions. After
[00:25:44] 2022, Europe expelled
[00:25:47] hundreds of Russian diplomats, including
[00:25:51] intelligence officers under diplomatic cover, but the network
[00:25:54] of Russian Houses remained. How
[00:25:57] could Russia use these centers after losing part of its
[00:26:01] of their intelligence.
[00:26:29] has one huge advantage, which is diplomatic status, but it has a disadvantage: the counter-intelligence of the host country roughly understands who controls the diplomatic staff. And
[00:26:33] it can declare a specific person persona
[00:26:34] non grata. a cultural center, but
[00:26:38] we are now talking about a cultural center, but we need to
[00:26:42] understand that there is another structure that
[00:26:45] operates in parallel in various countries, namely religious
[00:26:49] centers, and they are actually
[00:26:52] so similar that
[00:26:56] one doesn't even want to separate these two things. Russia is expanding its network of
[00:26:59] Russian Houses in Africa. Yevgeny Primakov admitted that
[00:27:03] the centers in Mali and the Central African Republic were opened by a well-known
[00:27:06] African PMC, the Wagner Group, and some of its people
[00:27:09] later transferred to Rossotrudnichestvo.
[00:27:12] What do Russian Houses give the Kremlin that Wagner,
[00:27:16] intelligence agencies, or embassies
[00:27:19] cannot?
[00:27:22] You know, recently I read that
[00:27:26] 25 such houses will be opened, and one of them will be
[00:27:30] opened in Armenia. And
[00:27:33] Pashinyan personally gave permission for its opening. I was genuinely
[00:27:37] surprised by this. I think that they are just doing it intentionally,
[00:27:40] understanding what ideas
[00:27:43] will be propagated in this
[00:27:47] house, and they probably think it's better to
[00:27:50] concentrate everything in one place than to have to look for them all
[00:27:54] over the country later. They provide legitimacy and
[00:27:57] long-term presence. Wagner can protect a regime, train
[00:28:01] military personnel, control deposits, or, I don't know,
[00:28:05] physically eliminate an opponent. According to Ukrainian intelligence, almost
[00:28:09] 3,000 citizens of African countries are fighting in the
[00:28:12] Russian army. Why is the Kremlin so actively recruiting specifically
[00:28:16] Africans instead of a new wave of mobilization in Russia, and
[00:28:20] how realistic is the figure of 3,000, or
[00:28:23] are these just established cases?
[00:28:27] Well, I would clarify the wording: the most accurate,
[00:28:31] publicly confirmed figure is at least
[00:28:34] 2, 982 citizens from
[00:28:37] 37 African countries. This is what our
[00:28:40] intelligence can confirm; they were recruited into the Russian
[00:28:43] army. Indeed, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
[00:28:46] Ukraine also reported approximately
[00:28:49] 486 killed and 35
[00:28:53] prisoners of war from 17 African
[00:28:56] states. These are the official figures that we currently
[00:28:59] have. These are precisely cases confirmed by the
[00:29:03] Ukrainian side and,
[00:29:06] well, not a complete census of the Russian army, so the real number could indeed
[00:29:10] be much higher. It's an additional resource, and their political
[00:29:14] price for the Kremlin is much lower.
[00:29:17] The death of a Russian can raise questions from the family,
[00:29:20] region, and local authorities, but the death
[00:29:23] of a recruited foreigner often doesn't even enter
[00:29:26] the Russian public space and statistics. Who will look for him
[00:29:30] in Russia and demand
[00:29:33] compensation for the loss? Moreover, economic asymmetry truly
[00:29:36] works. A person from a poorer country is offered a salary,
[00:29:40] education, work, and legalization in Russia. Some
[00:29:44] are consciously recruited, some through deception or
[00:29:48] under the guise of fake job offers.
[00:29:51] The Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine, the Ministry of
[00:29:54] Defense, and the Coordination Headquarters reported
[00:29:57] that in 2026, Russia planned to
[00:30:01] recruit into the army
[00:30:03] around 19, 18,500, to be precise,
[00:30:06] foreigners in total. Therefore, this is a
[00:30:09] way to get cheaper
[00:30:13] human resources, reduce the internal political cost of the war,
[00:30:17] and at least partially compensate losses without
[00:30:20] announcing a new large wave of
[00:30:23] mobilization. Cultural organizations instead of official state
[00:30:27] representations, it's cheaper,
[00:30:30] less noticeable, and politically much safer than dealing
[00:30:34] with a state. I see here
[00:30:37] another such strategic moment:
[00:30:40] Russia is losing part of its influence infrastructure in
[00:30:44] Europe and bringing resources to where the field
[00:30:47] of the struggle for public opinion is not yet fully formed.
[00:30:50] For Moscow, Africa is simultaneously resources, political
[00:30:54] partnership, and votes on the international
[00:30:57] stage.