Eurasia Press & News
In August 2025, Vladimir Putin abolished the president’s office for cultural relations with foreign countries, which promoted “soft power” (and in fact, espionage), and instead created the presidential office for strategic partnership and cooperation (USPS). As The Insider found out, the structure and tasks of the new management are almost no different from the old one, and some employees, closely related to intelligence, and remained in their places. The active work of the UPSP began with Kyrgyzstan, where the fugitive Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor attracted to finance its projects.
Under the guise of friendship with foreign countries, the abolished administration of the president for cultural relations with foreign countries, which told The Insider, was engaged in espionage, recruitment, interfering in elections and collecting dirt on foreign politicians, military and journalists. He was supervised by Dmitry Kozak, and after his resignation in September 2025, the head of the presidential administration, Sergei Kiriyenko, was instructed to head ties with the abroad. He suggested that Putin create a new office of the president for strategic partnership and cooperation (USPS).
According to sources in the AP, Kiriyenko said that he would be betting on civil servants who are not illuminated in espionage scandals.
“Blinchik” from the program “Vremchek” and the TV channel Shora in Kyrgyzstan
The main tasks of the UPSS, as before, remained the promotion of the so-called “soft power” in foreign countries and “collecting, generalizing and analyzing information on the development and implementation of international projects and programs”.
As The Insider found out, most of the departments from the old department, previously working in Central Europe, Transcaucasia and Central Asia, were fully included in the UPSS. Plus, they have enlarged the “Moldovan”, “Baltic” departments and added “African”.
In addition, the UPSS was replenished with personnel from the border cooperation department, which also fell “under the knife” in August last year. Given the previous espionage scandals, a person who was not formally related to intelligence was looking for the head of the department.
Given the previous espionage scandals, a person who was not formally involved in intelligence was looking for the place of the bossInitially, it was expected that the new department will be headed by the deputy head of Rossotrudnichestvo (RS) Igor Chaika. The youngest son of the former attorney general oversees Moldova, Belarus and the Baltic countries in the RS. However, the decree on his appointment hovered in the office of the President.
“Apparently, at the top they thought that Mr. Chaika is still more a businessman and will be engaged in promoting his business abroad. Plus, he was under sanctions and punctured heavily in Moldova when he financed the local opposition. He was already preparing to move to the AP, and then the team came to “replace””, – told The Insider source in RS.
On October 27, Kiriyenko presented to Putin his candidate for the post of head of the UPSS. He was his long-time subordinate for his work at Rosatom Vadim Titov. About Titov and Chaika there were many jokes that, they say, a branch of the show of fat people opened on the Old Square.
In 2004, Titov worked as a presenter of the popular program “Vrechko” on the Irkutsk TV channel “City” (a joint project with the Moscow edition “Vremechko”). He very keenly criticized local officials and thanks to this gained considerable popularity. Because of the beginning of the fullness, the Irkutsk people already affectionately nicknamed the journalist “Blinkik”.
In 2009, the TV presenter was noticed in Moscow and invited to the press service of Rosatom, and in 2015 he moved to the general director of the company “Rosatom – International Network”.
As can be seen from air travel, Titov rarely visited at home and constantly ran between Europe and Southeast Asia, where Rosatom has joint projects.
In November 2025, Titov made his first official visit as head of the UPSP to Kyrgyzstan. The country is increasingly under the Kremlin’s tight control, and local banks and crypto services are helping Russia to circumvent international sanctions.
In Bishkek, Titov participated in the opening of the Eurasian Center for Russian Language and Culture. The Board of Trustees of the Center includes ex-Miss Moldova and State Duma deputy from United Russia Alena Arshinova. The center’s sponsor is a fugitive Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shore wanted for illegal withdrawal from three Chisinau banks of $1 billion. In 2024, for interfering in the elections in the homeland of the pro-Kremlin organization “Short “Eurasia” fell under US and EU sanctions.
In Kyrgyzstan, Titov also took part in the launch of the Nomad TV channel, at which NTV resumed its broadcasting. The editor-in-chief of the TV channel was appointed Natalia Krolevich from the presidential pool. Previously, she worked on the St. Petersburg “Channel 5”, then trained in Russia Today. By the way, most Nomad TV journalists have passed free trainings in the same Eurasia Center, funded by Shoro.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who arrived with Titov in Bishkek, immediately заявилаsaid that the channel should broadcast the “correct angle of view” and “contrast attempts to distort the historical truth.”
“Lenin” from “MK”
The head of the UPSP in Bishkek was accompanied by his deputy Anton Rybakov, who worked in the old department in the Asian direction. In 2004, he graduated from the journalism department of Moscow State University and got a job in the investigation department of the Moscow Komsomolets, and also worked as a freelance in the magazine “Officers”.
The investigative journalist from Rybakov did not work. But on his resume on the website Rjb.ru, which was with The Insider, drew attention to the Old Square: “High knowledge of English, I am engaged in translations from American periodicals. Ready for business trips. There is an international card of a journalist, I know how to talk to the interlocutor. ”
Rybakov successfully passed the FSB check, and in 2017 he was accepted as a referent, and the patronage of a newcomer was taken by FSB Colonel Valery Maksimov, a sponsored by the AP. Chekist Maksimov headed the planning department and oversaw the elections in Georgia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and also lit up in joint feasts with the local pro-Moscow opposition.
After the failed parliamentary elections in Georgia in 2020, in which the Alliance of Patriots of Georgia, funded from Moscow, which received only 3.14% of the vote, Kozak dismissed Maximov, and he got a job in Uralsib. Now, after the departure of Kozak, as sources in the AP say, Kiriyenko can invite Maximov to the new office.
Over time, the referent of Rybakov himself gained ties in the CIS countries and became a key employee in the management. “Anton Lvovich became an important figure and on the situation in Central Asia personally went to reports to Kozak. Of course, all this thanks to the friendship with Colonel Maximov. He also grew his mustache and beard and became like a young Lenin. So we called it among ourselves, ”the interlocutor from the Old Square shared with the editorial office.
Rybakov closely cooperates with the National Research Institute for the Development of Communications (NIIRK), whose supervisory board includes former high-ranking foreign intelligence officers, the 5th service of the FSB and the FSB Counterintelligence Operations Department. NIIKR is headed by an officer of the personnel reserve of the SVR Vladislav Gasumyanov, who previously spied in Europe and managed to make a friendship with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Hacker from the FSB, “ecologist”, GRU-shnik and propagandist
Before the New Year, a closed seminar was held for UPSS employees in Moscow, which discussed the tasks and methods of using “soft power” in the post-Soviet space and in Africa. Traditionally, there were speeches about the “revillation of neo-Nazism” in Ukraine and in the Baltic countries, the “total dictatorship” in Moldova and drifting to the West of Armenia. As a successful example of the impact of “soft power” cited the situation in Kyrgyzstan, where the local leadership is sensitive to the advice of the Kremlin, and Russian companies have tarnished almost half of the country’s economy.
Among the students at the seminar was seen lieutenant colonel of the FSB Alexei Kleshchev, who was transferred to the UPSS from the presidential administration for public projects, where he oversaw Africa. Kleschev began to serve in the specially classified 16th center of the FSB (in / h 7130), which is engaged in interception, decryption and processing of electronic messages. выяснилиAs found out by Finnish journalists, this center includes ten departments, and the number of employees is 566 people.
By the way, three colleagues of Kleshchev from the 16th center of the FSB – Pavel Akulov, Mikhail Gavrilov and Marat Tyukov – are looking for the FBI, they face 20 years in prison. According to the prosecution, all three “in the period from 2012 to 2017 made computer incursions, hacker attacks in the United States” on computer networks of energy and oil and gas companies and nuclear power plants.
In addition, Vladimir Balobayev moved from the old department to the UPSS and headed the Department for Interaction with Civil Society Institutions. Earlier, Balobayev was the founder of Baltic Information and Analytical Center LLC in Kaliningrad, which was engaged in environmental monitoring of the Baltic Sea.
Meanwhile, as The Insider found out, the “ecologist” transferred money to Latvia to the editor of the now-banned pro-Kremlin portal Baltnews Andrey Solopenko (there are copies of translations in Latvia).
The candidacy of Anton Kurevin is being considered for the post of head of the legal department of the UPSS, and the “Baltic” department can be headed by Maxim Grigoriev. In 2002, Kurev graduated from the Military University of the Ministry of Defense and served in the GRU. Then he worked in the PR-company “Mikhailov and partners”, after which he moved to the Volga Group billionaire Gennady Timchenko and became his adviser to circumvent sanctions.
Kurevin’s last job is the U Bureau’s boutique agency that develops ideological strategies for state institutions and large corporations. Among the customers of the bureau are Rosatom, Volga Group, Russian Railways, Sberbank and others.
Another alleged candidate is Maxim Grigoriev, the author of the anti-Maidan propaganda books, the White Helmets: accomplices of terrorists and sources of disinformation, “Crimes of the coalition led by the United States in Syria”, “Lithuania’s History” and “Ukrainian Crimes against Humanity”. In 2023, he was retrained at the Academy of General Staff and went as a volunteer for SVO. Now Grigoriev sits in the Public chamber of the Russian Federation and heads a certain tribunal for war crimes of Ukrainian nationalists and their accomplices.
