Putin’s Cultural Ties Directorate: How Moscow Uses Spies and Soft Power

Vladimir Putin’s cul­tur­al ties direc­torate has served as a covert front for Russ­ian espi­onage and soft pow­er pro­jec­tion across for­mer Sovi­et states. On 12 Sep­tem­ber 2025, The Insid­er report­ed that the Kremlin’s Direc­torate for Inter­re­gion­al and Cul­tur­al Rela­tions with For­eign Coun­tries was deeply embed­ded with intel­li­gence oper­a­tives, used pro­pa­gan­da fund­ing to sup­port fringe par­ties, and oper­at­ed with lit­tle account­abil­i­ty until its recent dis­man­tle­ment. The arti­cle begins:

The Kremlin’s depart­ment for desta­bi­liz­ing the Russ­ian near abroad is under­go­ing a makeover. Before the start of the full-scale inva­sion of Ukraine, Moscow’s Direc­torate for Inter­re­gion­al and Cul­tur­al Rela­tions with For­eign Coun­tries spent lav­ish­ly in a range of post-Sovi­et states, usu­al­ly back­ing mar­gin­al par­ties that achieved lack­lus­ter results at the polls. Now, how­ev­er, with Russia’s neigh­bors tak­ing a far more skep­ti­cal approach to Moscow’s entreaties, the old mod­el will be replaced by the next gen­er­a­tion Direc­torate for Strate­gic Part­ner­ship and Cooperation.

Read more: https://theins.ru/en/investigations/267303

Key Points

• Russia’s “cul­tur­al ties” direc­torate oper­at­ed as a front for intel­li­gence activ­i­ty and pro-Krem­lin polit­i­cal influence.
• Offi­cials backed mar­gin­al par­ties and manip­u­lat­ed elec­tions in coun­tries like Geor­gia, Moldo­va, and the Baltics.
• Over $100 mil­lion was fun­neled into projects, many of which served as cov­er for spy recruit­ment and propaganda.
• The direc­torate is being replaced amid scan­dals, but region­al dis­trust of Russ­ian inten­tions remains high.

Russia’s Cultural Influence Ops: Church & Rossotrudnichestvo

Rus­sia has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly con­vert­ed cul­ture into a geopo­lit­i­cal instru­ment, with church struc­tures and aid out­fits oper­at­ing as par­al­lel vec­tors of influ­ence. The Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church anchors this mod­el, with church net­works widen­ing Moscow’s reach abroad while reli­gion is repur­posed as a geopo­lit­i­cal tool to sacral­ize state nar­ra­tives and cul­ti­vate con­ser­v­a­tive allies. In the civil­ian space, Rossotrud­nich­est­vo is posi­tioned as the cul­tur­al-aid arm of this strat­e­gy, with bud­get ambi­tions to sup­plant USAID’s foot­print and an expand­ing net­work of “Rus­sia Houses.”

Pub­lic state­ments by the agency’s chief detail plans for a USAID-style legal frame­work, an annu­al bud­get near 5.5 bil­lion rubles sup­port­ing rough­ly 80 over­seas offices with only a quar­ter avail­able for pro­grams, and a push to accel­er­ate book dis­tri­b­u­tion and her­itage projects—moves that align with aca­d­e­m­ic find­ings that the Krem­lin has deep­ened its reliance on the Church as a lever of soft pow­er and for­mal­ized this part­ner­ship in recent con­sti­tu­tion­al changes.

Exter­nal References:

• .Rus­sia eyes USAID-type devel­op­ment mod­el to expand glob­al influ­ence, offi­cial says
• Reli­gious Soft Pow­er in Russ­ian For­eign Pol­i­cy: Con­sti­tu­tion­al Change and the Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.