Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00retraining, not courses for two months, I completed online courses,
00:00:04received a certificate, and am ready to go provide support. There are also
00:00:07many such people now, it seems to me that this even worsens
00:00:11the situation, because if you do not have the appropriate competence, you
00:00:14can only harm a person and make
00:00:18their condition worse than it was before the person started communicating with such a quasi
00:00:22psychologist. There will be a huge challenge, and it seems to me that
00:00:25we will not be, we are already a nation of traumatized people who will
00:00:29need... the services of a psychotherapist
00:00:32for a very long period of time. This is not only military
00:00:35veterans, but also defenders, and
00:00:38ordinary civilians who
00:00:42are under shelling around the clock. These are also our
00:00:46children, children of war, who do not have access to education, who
00:00:49grow up in shelters, at school or at home.
00:00:53Therefore, yes, you are raising an absolutely relevant,
00:00:56correct question that in the future we will
00:01:00need to increase, probably, both state
00:01:02orders for such a specialty as
00:01:05psychologist, psychotherapist, including military
00:01:08ones. So there is a lot of work ahead, as they say,
00:01:11well, let's hope that in fact, they will understand this at
00:01:15the state level, that qualified psychologists will be very
00:01:19much needed in the future, and not only in the future, but also now. Ms. Iryna, thank you for this
00:01:22conversation. I would like to remind you that we discussed assistance to families
00:01:25of those missing and killed with
00:01:29the national deputy of Ukraine, head of the Subcommittee on Veteran Rehabilitation of the Verkhovna Rada Committee
00:01:33of Ukraine, Iryna
00:01:36Nekorak. Thank you for being with us, see you.
00:02:08New salary, new salary, new
00:02:12salary, new salary. Your new
00:02:15salary awaits you at robota ua, oh, superpower,
00:02:19wow, that sausage is awesome, Kyivstar
00:02:22you. We quietly want to watch to the end, mm-hmm, without
00:02:26evil social networks, let it be Kyivstar for you, even more
00:02:29superpowers. In my Kyivstar app, meet
00:02:32you. Can't
00:02:34straighten up? Your back needs
00:02:38Arget-plaster with lidocaine. Arget - a powerful plaster for
00:02:41back pain. I've already eaten so many calcium products, and I even
00:02:45eggshells. Have you heard about Calcium D3 Nicomed? I've
00:02:48drunk that, Nicomed for sure? What's the difference, calcium is calcium? There
00:02:52is a difference, Calcium D3 Nicomed is a medicinal product with clinically proven
00:02:56action, promotes increased bone density. Nicomed.
00:03:01for the strength of your bones. Gum inflammation can even lead to tooth
00:03:04loss. Lacalut Aktiv+ has a noticeable astringent effect from the first
00:03:08application. Actively strengthens gums and protects them from inflammation. Lacalut
00:03:12Aktiv+. Joint pain appears suddenly and restricts
00:03:15movement. For joint and muscle pain. German ointment with
00:03:18comfrey from Dr. Theiss. Comfrey ointment from
00:03:22Dr. Theiss - relieves pain. Reduces inflammation and swelling.
00:03:25Contains natural ingredients. Save by purchasing comfrey ointment from
00:03:29Dr. Theiss in a large 100g
00:03:32package. When you are tired, stressed,
00:03:36any trifle seems like a huge problem and irritates.
00:03:40Magnikom for preventing irritability and stress.
00:03:43Normoven effectively relieves the symptoms
00:03:46of varicose veins.
00:03:53Remember the new name. The Cristal
00:03:56Vit D3. Your vitamin D3. in the yellow
00:04:00packaging.
00:04:02FOPs, PUMB knows how much your bank gives you.
00:04:06And at PUMB, a loan without a one-time commission and a decision are given in one
00:04:09day. And you don't need to change banks to try real
00:04:13benefits. PUMB business. It's worth
00:04:16a try. Pain has interfered with your plans,
00:04:19Dolgit Cream can help you. It blocks pain and
00:04:22relieves inflammation. Dolgit Cream in yellow packaging. Your
00:04:26expert against pain. Hungary vs Ukraine.
00:04:31The first test for the Moldovan national team in the new Nations League season.
00:04:34Turn on September 25th at
00:04:389:45 PM exclusively on
00:04:41Megogo.
00:04:49Sponsor of the show: Realty
00:04:51realty.
00:05:08My dad is a defender of Ukraine, he is a soldier and... now
00:05:12he protects our Ukraine. My dad is
00:05:15a combat medic, he saves and
00:05:18treats wounded defenders. My dad is
00:05:21the best for me. Dad is my hero. I love
00:05:25him very much, and I want him to come back soon. I miss him very
00:05:29much. Sometimes I can just
00:05:32cry when I
00:05:35think of him. I love him very
00:05:38much and wait for him every day. I love him very much...
00:05:42I love him, waiting for him to come home. Thank you, Dad,
00:05:45for protecting us. Thank you, Dad,
00:05:48thank you, Dad, thank you, Dad.
00:06:05Russian concert library courses on the sign, but behind the doors,
00:06:08a spy nest in Kyiv. The Russian House existed for seven years after
00:06:12the start of the occupation. In Berlin, it grew into an entire quarter. Why did Europe
00:06:16not touch Russian centers for years and what comes with
00:06:20Russian culture in Africa, if Prigozhin is already standing opposite
00:06:23the Russian House. And also a review of Kremlin propaganda by Olga
00:06:27Len and the loudest fakes of the week from Stop Fake.
00:06:31Watch in the new episode of Algorithms of Lies with Andriy
00:06:34Smoliy.
00:06:41Hello, this is Algorithms. Lies and I, Andriy Smoliy. On
00:06:45September 4, in the center of Berlin, Friedrich Strasse, in front of the Russian House,
00:06:48supporters and opponents of its closure. Stop
00:06:51Russophobic madness, with such posters came
00:06:54the most numerous group. The Union of Sarah Wagenknecht, the Communist Party
00:06:57of Germany and the Society for Russian-German Friendship
00:07:01gathered about five hundred people. No
00:07:04Pushkin to read, no tea from a samovar to drink, the
00:07:07protesters grumble. Here there will always
00:07:11be sun, let there always
00:07:13be sky, let there always
00:07:17be mom, let there
00:07:20always be me.
00:07:24Nest of spies, behind lock and key, demands the small Russian
00:07:28opposition, suitcase, train station, Moscow, hurry up and pack
00:07:31your bags, Russian personnel are urged by Ukrainians with the support
00:07:35of German
00:07:35Greens.
00:07:44The Berlin Russian House is the largest Russian cultural
00:07:47center in the world. Seven floors, 29
00:07:51square meters, almost an entire quarter. This reinforced concrete
00:07:54behemoth was built in the late GDR, and suspicions have been
00:07:58raised for a long time by journalists and intelligence services, in particular
00:08:02due to anomalous energy consumption, which was associated
00:08:05with the possible operation of intelligence equipment.
00:08:08The last straw was a series of Russian sabotages and an attempt
00:08:11to blow up a Ukrainian
00:08:13plane in Leipzig. We must clearly make Russia
00:08:16understand. If it plans such things, it will have
00:08:20consequences for our relations. This applies to diplomatic
00:08:23relations, but also to the Russian House, which has long ceased
00:08:27to fulfill its main function of being a cultural link between
00:08:30Russia and Germany. The
00:08:33French Ministry of Internal Affairs formulates it more harshly: the Russian House
00:08:36is a cover for Russian special services. Paris handed over
00:08:40these data to Berlin during the investigation of the spy
00:08:43network of Ksenia Fedorova, former head of RT France. It was her
00:08:46Moscow planned to put at the head of the Berlin Russian
00:08:50House. After the protests, Russian personnel hastily
00:08:53left Germany. The center ceased operations. Moscow
00:08:56responded in kind, ordering the closure of German Goethe Institutes
00:09:00and the consulate in St. Petersburg. Today, about
00:09:03the Trojan horses of the Kremlin in Europe. Why are Russian Houses
00:09:06still operating in Europe, although Rossotrudnichestvo, which manages them, has been
00:09:10under EU sanctions for four years. Why are Russian Houses, which European special
00:09:14services suspect of working for Russian intelligence, remaining
00:09:18untouchable for years. What
00:09:20happens to the Russian network
00:09:24after high-profile closures and why is Africa becoming the Kremlin's
00:09:28new stronghold? All this in the Algorithms of
00:09:30Lies.
00:09:33The first Russian House to be closed was in Ukraine in
00:09:352021, although the SBU had been warning
00:09:38the Cabinet of Ministers, the National Security and Defense Council
00:09:42and... the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the destructive activities of the center.
00:09:45Zero reaction. Instead, activists regularly visited the Russian House,
00:09:49sometimes with tires and Molotov cocktails, sometimes
00:09:52bringing what, in their opinion, most accurately symbolized
00:09:56the content of the Russian center's work. Why are you in
00:09:59shit? Go wash up, you stink of the Russian
00:10:03world. The head of the Russian House, Konstantin Vorobyov,
00:10:07was indignant and stubbornly repeated one thing. Here
00:10:10it's exclusively culture.
00:10:13We are exclusively engaged in cultural projects, for example,
00:10:16this one. Historian Petro Tolochko, who fled to Russia after the full-scale
00:10:20war, in 2016, within the walls
00:10:23of the Russian House, talks about... the triune people, about Ukraine
00:10:27being part of the Russian world, and also, the historian consistently
00:10:30denied the Holodomor as a genocide and condemned the Maidan. So
00:10:34what about you, Mr. Tolochko, against Ukraine or against heroes? In this photo, against the backdrop
00:10:38of the inscription "Representative Office of Rossotrudnichestvo in Ukraine," under
00:10:41number one is Kyiv native Oleksiy Selivanov. In
00:10:452000, he created the organization "Vernaya Kazachestvo"
00:10:48and in camps near Kyiv, he educated schoolchildren in the spirit
00:10:51of Russian great-power patriotism. In
00:10:552013-2014,
00:10:57he was an assistant to Defense Minister Lebedev. After
00:11:01the war started, he rushed to Donbas, where, along with his protégés,
00:11:05he fought against Ukraine and from time to time threatened to exterminate
00:11:08Ukrainians if they did not want to become
00:11:11Russians. Ukrainianism is a reverse process. I personally
00:11:15de-Ukrainized people. The youngest member of the unit in Slovyansk is Andriy
00:11:18Savelyev. Author of the book "War at 16 from Cadet to Saboteur."
00:11:22This is my pupil, a Kyiv native. I gave him the right books.
00:11:28This kind of breeding ground for agents and saboteurs operated in the very
00:11:32center of Kyiv for seven years of the war, from
00:11:342014 to
00:11:362021. After the full-scale
00:11:40invasion, other countries also began to see clearly.
00:11:43Slovenia was the first in the EU. Later, centers in Croatia,
00:11:47Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania,
00:11:50Britain, and Denmark closed. In Moldova, the decision was made by
00:11:54Russian drones on the night of February 13,
00:11:572025. They violated the country's
00:12:00airspace, two fell and exploded. The Russian ambassador
00:12:03was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and shown the debris. The same
00:12:07day, the termination of the agreement under which the Russian House operated
00:12:10was announced. This was not a cultural center, it was
00:12:14a center with agents of influence. All those who today
00:12:17rush to defend the so-called Russian cultural
00:12:20center traveled to Moscow, knelt
00:12:23there, and received.
00:12:27And this is the Russian House in Warsaw. Behind these doors, in September
00:12:302025, a few days before the appearance of Russian
00:12:33drones in Poland, they show a film by the sanctioned
00:12:37RT, "Russophobia: A History of Hatred."
00:12:41Ukrainians in it are Nazis. Poland is infected
00:12:44with Russophobia. I am frightened by the dullness and savagery
00:12:48of a huge part of the Slavic world, including our
00:12:51Ukrainian brothers, our closest relatives, and ours.
00:13:02And already in December, within these very walls, Poland is already called
00:13:06a Nazi state that collaborated with Hitler. After
00:13:09a series of scandals in February 2026,
00:13:12the Russian House suspended its work. Officially, it
00:13:16was never closed, the tricolor still flies here, and Russian
00:13:19writers gaze from the walls. Most
00:13:22of the center's functions were transferred to colleagues in... Budapest, where the Russian House
00:13:26remains the most loyal to Russia in the EU.
00:13:29The most paradoxical example is
00:13:33Brussels. The Russian House operates a 20-minute walk
00:13:36from the European Commission. Ligant journalist Milana Holovan
00:13:40found out that under the guise of language courses, culture, and educational
00:13:44programs, they work with youth here, build a network
00:13:47of Russian influence, and even send European children to
00:13:51occupied Crimea. According to data from the Foreign Intelligence Service,
00:13:55which the journalist obtained during the investigation, Russian Houses
00:13:58are used for recruiting agents and circumventing
00:14:02sanctions, and the Kremlin plans to almost double
00:14:05their funding. So why does this network still
00:14:09operate peacefully in EU countries? The European Commission
00:14:12replies: each country must decide this
00:14:15for itself. National representations are institutions that, in
00:14:19this case, represent Russia in EU member states.
00:14:22Obviously, it is these countries that must consider
00:14:25this issue and assess the expediency of closing
00:14:29such institutions. This is entirely within their
00:14:32competence. Out of 26 representations, 15 are still active,
00:14:36but even the closure of the Russian House does not mean that the network
00:14:39of influence built by the Kremlin disappears. Rossotrudnichestvo
00:14:42itself is under EU sanctions, but
00:14:46its projects and connections can be maintained through
00:14:49embassies, Russian state foundations, and local organizations
00:14:53of compatriots. I... Our OSINT team investigated how
00:14:57this system works. Russian Houses are far from just
00:15:00libraries; they are part of a much wider infrastructure
00:15:04of Russian influence. Rossotrudnichestvo has
00:15:0787 foreign representations in
00:15:1071 countries around the world, but alongside them,
00:15:13Russian state foundations, embassies, and
00:15:16local organizations of compatriots also operate.
00:15:19Therefore, the closure of the Russian House itself does not mean that this network
00:15:23disappears. Thus, the functions of the closed house in Warsaw were taken over
00:15:27by the center in Budapest, and in Moldova - by the Russian
00:15:30embassy. In Brussels, we see another important
00:15:33detail. The Russian House operates within a wider
00:15:37Russian diplomatic infrastructure, where Belgian
00:15:40intelligence has already identified employees of the
00:15:43SVR, GRU, and FSB. That is, cultural centers
00:15:47do not exist separately; they are embedded in a much wider
00:15:51system of Russian presence and influence. So, in
00:15:55Europe, there are formally fewer Russian Houses, but instead,
00:15:58the Kremlin is going to other regions. Recently, Rossotrudnichestvo
00:16:02signed agreements on the opening of 11 more
00:16:05centers, two in Armenia, one in Thailand, and as many as
00:16:09eight in Africa.
00:16:12Among the countries where they plan to open a Russian House is Kenya.
00:16:15There is no such center here yet, but questions are already arising
00:16:18about the activities of Russians in the country. On February 18,
00:16:222026, in the Kenyan parliament, the majority leader reads out
00:16:26data from the national intelligence service. More than
00:16:291,000 Kenyans have already been recruited to fight on the side of
00:16:33Russia against Ukraine.
00:16:35Targeting former military personnel, police, and civilians aged
00:16:39approximately 25 to 50 years old. They are promised
00:16:43about 350 thousand shillings per month, large
00:16:46bonuses, and Russian citizenship. Most
00:16:49of the recruited Kenyans reported that they were forced to sign
00:16:52contracts, some were trained for only nine days, in fact, they
00:16:55are simply given a machine gun and sent to die. And two days later,
00:16:59BBC Africa tells the story of a Kenyan who was lured to
00:17:02Russia by a promise to play in a basketball
00:17:05team. Instead of a sports
00:17:07contract, he was forced to sign a document in Russian, sent
00:17:11for military training, and then to the front against
00:17:15Ukraine. He was hit by a drone, was wounded, and
00:17:18eventually managed to return home. The man hides his
00:17:22name and face. As far
00:17:25as I remember, there were people from Nigeria, South Africa,
00:17:28Morocco, Uganda, there was a guy from Zambia, I told
00:17:31the Russians that I am not here for military service, but for basketball
00:17:35training. When you directly got into combat
00:17:39operations, because later you were wounded.
00:17:42After a week of collecting bodies, we went forward, we were sent
00:17:46to shoot at drones. Approximately two days later, almost 10 people from my group
00:17:50died, out of 25.
00:17:53And here is another Russian House that never managed to
00:17:57open. In Angola, Russians Igor Radchin and Lev
00:18:00Lakshtanov were detained on suspicion of espionage and
00:18:03attempts to influence the 2027 elections.
00:18:06They themselves explained that they came to the country to
00:18:10create a Russian cultural center.
00:18:13The investigation, however, linked them to the Africa
00:18:16Politology network, which grew out of Wagner's structures. In
00:18:20July, a court in Luanda found both guilty of espionage
00:18:23and terrorism. Radchin received 11 years, Lakshtanov
00:18:27- eight. The connection of Russian Houses with Russian military structures in
00:18:31Africa was not even hidden by Moscow. In January
00:18:342026, then-head of Rossotrudnichestvo
00:18:38Yevgeny Primakov told Vedomosti: Russian Houses in
00:18:41Mali and the Central African Republic were opened by
00:18:45a well-known African PMC. Our OSINT team
00:18:49investigated how deeply Wagner's people managed
00:18:52to integrate into the network of Russian Houses in Africa.
00:18:55The most striking example we found is in the Central African
00:18:59Republic. The Russian House in Bangui is headed by Dmitry
00:19:02Sity, Prigozhin's associate and founder of Lobay Invest,
00:19:06connected with... gold mining and diamonds. The center
00:19:10has been operating since 2021, and in
00:19:122024 it became an official partner
00:19:15of Rossotrudnichestvo. A monument to Prigozhin and Utkin was even erected
00:19:19near the Russian House. In Mali, a similar scheme.
00:19:23A partner Russian House operates in Bamako, where
00:19:26Africa Corps is concentrated, formed from former
00:19:29Wagnerites. The main goal of the Russian House is youth,
00:19:33methods, education, Russian language, promises of work and
00:19:37relocation to Russia, but for some Africans, according to
00:19:40Ukrainian intelligence, this route ends on the front line against
00:19:44Ukraine. Africans who are sent to the front are only
00:19:48part of this system. Ugh, they call Russia's strategy in
00:19:52Africa neocolonialism. The Kremlin
00:19:54needs loyal regimes and votes at the UN. Access to
00:19:58gold, diamonds, uranium, and oil, and opportunities to
00:20:02circumvent sanctions. And the Russian Houses are becoming one of the tools
00:20:06of this expansion.
00:20:08Outside of Europe and Africa, the network of Russian Houses covers almost
00:20:12the entire world. The largest number of centers are in the countries of the former USSR.
00:20:16Four each in Belarus and Kazakhstan, two each in
00:20:19Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Armenia. Here
00:20:22they plan to open two more. Four centers
00:20:25operate in India, two each in Brazil and Egypt.
00:20:29Russian centers remain in the USA, China, Iran,
00:20:32countries of the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. But
00:20:36Azerbaijan. The Russian House was closed at the beginning
00:20:39of 2026 after accusations
00:20:42of Rossotrudnichestvo of espionage
00:20:44activities. Culture, as a convenient cover, is well
00:20:48known to Putin himself. In the 1980s,
00:20:52a KGB officer in the GDR was formally assigned to the House
00:20:56of Soviet-German Friendship in Leipzig. Behind the cultural
00:20:59facade, intelligence work and the search for sources. And when
00:21:02the Berlin Wall fell and the GDR regime crumbled, in the
00:21:06Dresden residency of the KGB, they began to destroy
00:21:09agent documents. Putin himself recalled: papers
00:21:13were burned so much that the stove burst.
00:21:17How such cultural tours really work is well known
00:21:21to Ukrainian special services, and Ukraine had its own Russian House in
00:21:24Kyiv even after the occupation of Crimea and the start of the war in
00:21:28Donbas. Why was it not closed then, and what did the SBU
00:21:32know about the people around the center? We talk about this with
00:21:35a person who was one of the heads of the Security Service
00:21:38of Ukraine at that time. We are joined by Viktor Yagun,
00:21:42Major General of the SBU Reserve, Deputy Head of the SBU in
00:21:452014-2015.
00:21:49Years. Mr. Viktor, I greet you, yes,
00:21:52good health, Mr. Viktor, you were Deputy
00:21:55Head of the SBU in 2014-2015.
00:21:59Russia had already occupied Crimea and started the war in
00:22:02Donbas, and the Russian House in Kyiv continued to operate. Among its
00:22:06visitors were people who later fled to Russia
00:22:10or went to fight against Ukraine. What did the SBU
00:22:14know about this environment and why was the center not
00:22:18closed then? Russian humanitarian... cultural and compatriot
00:22:22structures cannot be considered simply as cultural
00:22:25institutions. They created an environment where
00:22:29pro-Russian organizations, so-called Cossack structures, carriers
00:22:32of the ideology of the Russian world, people who
00:22:35maintained constant contacts with Russia, and
00:22:38later indeed, open investigations confirmed this,
00:22:42for example, Radio Liberty documented the presence in the Kyiv
00:22:45center of the so-called... Oleksiy Selivanov, who in
00:22:482014 went to occupied Donbas and became an activist
00:22:51of the LPR structure, and also Andriy Savelyev, who
00:22:55was among the militants who seized
00:22:59Sloviansk. But the SBU did not have
00:23:01the opportunity to simply come and
00:23:05close this center with an administrative decision. It
00:23:09operated on the basis of an intergovernmental agreement between Ukraine and Russia
00:23:12from February 27, 1998,
00:23:15which was ratified by the
00:23:18Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. This agreement
00:23:21provided for mutual activities of the Russian Center for Science
00:23:25and Culture in Kyiv and the Cultural Center of Ukraine in Moscow.
00:23:29This is approximately the same situation that
00:23:33was in Germany, where the Russian House operated,
00:23:36and in Russia, the Goethe Institute operated. Therefore, the decision
00:23:40had to be not only operational, but also political
00:23:43and legal. Denunciation of the agreement, a decision from the government,
00:23:47parliament, and other state bodies. I would
00:23:50phrase it this way: the threat could have been
00:23:53seen earlier than the state was
00:23:57legally and politically ready to liquidate the very
00:24:01mechanism of Russian presence, and
00:24:03this explanation, of course, is not an excuse,
00:24:07but it looked like that
00:24:11at the time. In a secret KGB
00:24:14handbook from 1968, which was found by
00:24:18journalists of WDR and Suddeutsche Zeitung in
00:24:20Baltic archives, cultural representations
00:24:24are described as platforms for finding contacts,
00:24:27recruiting, and agent work. What has
00:24:31changed in this model in almost 60 years? And
00:24:34what has Russia transferred to modern Russian
00:24:38houses? Well, the technology
00:24:42has changed, the principle practically hasn't,
00:24:45that is, right there in that 68th year handbook.
00:24:48He really, I even
00:24:50held, not the 68th, but a reprint
00:24:54from a little later, but I really held it in my hands, and
00:24:57it directly described the use of cultural work for
00:25:01identifying promising individuals, establishing contacts with them, further
00:25:05rapprochement, I don't know, agent work, control
00:25:08of immigration, and conducting active measures.
00:25:12It even talked about deploying agents under the guise of cultural structures.
00:25:15The tools have changed, the architecture remained... Soviet.
00:25:19I talked to a journalist who, in
00:25:22Brussels, near such a Russian
00:25:25house, met
00:25:28employees of the European Parliament,
00:25:31and she was surprised, saying, what are you doing here? She said,
00:25:35we come here for Russian language courses. That's all, that's
00:25:39your answer to such
00:25:40questions. After
00:25:442022, Europe expelled
00:25:47hundreds of Russian diplomats, including
00:25:51intelligence officers under diplomatic cover, but the network
00:25:54of Russian Houses remained. How
00:25:57could Russia use these centers after losing part of its
00:26:01of their intelligence.
00:26:29has 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
00:26:33it can declare a specific person persona
00:26:34non grata. a cultural center, but
00:26:38we are now talking about a cultural center, but we need to
00:26:42understand that there is another structure that
00:26:45operates in parallel in various countries, namely religious
00:26:49centers, and they are actually
00:26:52so similar that
00:26:56one doesn't even want to separate these two things. Russia is expanding its network of
00:26:59Russian Houses in Africa. Yevgeny Primakov admitted that
00:27:03the centers in Mali and the Central African Republic were opened by a well-known
00:27:06African PMC, the Wagner Group, and some of its people
00:27:09later transferred to Rossotrudnichestvo.
00:27:12What do Russian Houses give the Kremlin that Wagner,
00:27:16intelligence agencies, or embassies
00:27:19cannot?
00:27:22You know, recently I read that
00:27:2625 such houses will be opened, and one of them will be
00:27:30opened in Armenia. And
00:27:33Pashinyan personally gave permission for its opening. I was genuinely
00:27:37surprised by this. I think that they are just doing it intentionally,
00:27:40understanding what ideas
00:27:43will be propagated in this
00:27:47house, and they probably think it's better to
00:27:50concentrate everything in one place than to have to look for them all
00:27:54over the country later. They provide legitimacy and
00:27:57long-term presence. Wagner can protect a regime, train
00:28:01military personnel, control deposits, or, I don't know,
00:28:05physically eliminate an opponent. According to Ukrainian intelligence, almost
00:28:093,000 citizens of African countries are fighting in the
00:28:12Russian army. Why is the Kremlin so actively recruiting specifically
00:28:16Africans instead of a new wave of mobilization in Russia, and
00:28:20how realistic is the figure of 3,000, or
00:28:23are these just established cases?
00:28:27Well, I would clarify the wording: the most accurate,
00:28:31publicly confirmed figure is at least
00:28:342, 982 citizens from
00:28:3737 African countries. This is what our
00:28:40intelligence can confirm; they were recruited into the Russian
00:28:43army. Indeed, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
00:28:46Ukraine also reported approximately
00:28:49486 killed and 35
00:28:53prisoners of war from 17 African
00:28:56states. These are the official figures that we currently
00:28:59have. These are precisely cases confirmed by the
00:29:03Ukrainian side and,
00:29:06well, not a complete census of the Russian army, so the real number could indeed
00:29:10be much higher. It's an additional resource, and their political
00:29:14price for the Kremlin is much lower.
00:29:17The death of a Russian can raise questions from the family,
00:29:20region, and local authorities, but the death
00:29:23of a recruited foreigner often doesn't even enter
00:29:26the Russian public space and statistics. Who will look for him
00:29:30in Russia and demand
00:29:33compensation for the loss? Moreover, economic asymmetry truly
00:29:36works. A person from a poorer country is offered a salary,
00:29:40education, work, and legalization in Russia. Some
00:29:44are consciously recruited, some through deception or
00:29:48under the guise of fake job offers.
00:29:51The Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine, the Ministry of
00:29:54Defense, and the Coordination Headquarters reported
00:29:57that in 2026, Russia planned to
00:30:01recruit into the army
00:30:03around 19, 18,500, to be precise,
00:30:06foreigners in total. Therefore, this is a
00:30:09way to get cheaper
00:30:13human resources, reduce the internal political cost of the war,
00:30:17and at least partially compensate losses without
00:30:20announcing a new large wave of
00:30:23mobilization. Cultural organizations instead of official state
00:30:27representations, it's cheaper,
00:30:30less noticeable, and politically much safer than dealing
00:30:34with a state. I see here
00:30:37another such strategic moment:
00:30:40Russia is losing part of its influence infrastructure in
00:30:44Europe and bringing resources to where the field
00:30:47of the struggle for public opinion is not yet fully formed.
00:30:50For Moscow, Africa is simultaneously resources, political
00:30:54partnership, and votes on the international
00:30:57stage.