The Fund for the Support and Protection of the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad (Pravfond), a Russian legal foundation, has been the Kremlin’s front for funding propaganda activities in 48 countries, former Russian intelligence officials in their leadership positions have discovered.
According to The Guardian, citing internal documents leaked through Pravfond, the base spent millions of euros to finance pro-Russians in Europe and subsidized the defense prices of arms dealer Viktor Bout and assassin Vadim Krasikov, the latter convicted of the murder of a former Chechen commander in Berlin in 2019.
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The leaked documents show that Pravfond paid 60,000 euros ($65,000) in legal fees to Krasikov’s lawyer for the Berlin murder trial and “significant sums” for Bout’s arms trafficking trial, The Guardian reported.
Founded through the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Federal Agency Rossotrudnichestvo in 2012, Pravfond said its purpose is to “provide Russian compatriots with mandatory legal and other protection in cases of violation of their rights, freedoms and valid interests in accordance with general legislation. “and norms of foreign human rights law.
However, the leaked documents showed the group’s deep ties to the Kremlin’s broader operations, which go beyond legal cover for Russian nationals abroad.
The Guardian said the 40 leaked documents came from a European intelligence source, which were received through Danish public broadcaster DR and shared with news organizations, The Guardian added.
The leaked documents allegedly involve Pravfond leaders and affiliated personnel, including several former Russian intelligence officers, some of whom specialize in mind warfare operations (commonly known as mind operations).
Among those indexed were Vladimir Pozdorovkin, a Russian foreign intelligence service (SVR) according to European intelligence sources, who served as coordinator of the Pravfond’s Nordic and Baltic operations; and Anatoly Sorokin, also an agent of the SVR, who coordinates Pravfond’s operations in the Middle East, Moldova and Transnistria.
Sergey Panteleyev, a Russian intelligence officer sanctioned by Europe who belongs to a Russian mind operations unit, is the head of the Russian Diaspora Institute, one of the masterminds of the Pravfond project.
The Russian Diaspora Institute itself serves as a front for Russian Unit 54777, also known as the 72nd Special Services Center, which functions as a specialized mind operations unit under the Main Directorate of the General Staff of Russia’s Armed Forces (GRU), according to a 2018 Washington Post report; The institute called for a Russian intervention in Ukraine in February 2014, the Euromaidan.
Pravfond is also said to have funded a number of teams and publications in Europe that hold pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian views, though some recipients have denied such links in reaction to requests from the Guardian.
Yuri Andriychenko, deputy editor-in-chief of golos. eu, a Belgium-based Russian online page cited in the leaked documents that criticizes the Ukrainian government, denied any connection to the Kremlin and said it was most likely that someone had tried to solicit investments from Pravfond. the name of the site.
“We are not surprised that in Russia they seek to make money from our name, because it is much less difficult than starting a project of their own,” Andriychenko said.
Euromore, another Belgian online site mentioned in the documents as spreading pro-Russian information, allegedly earned just over two million rubles ($22,400) in 2024 from Pravfond and is secretly run through teams in Moscow, according to an investigation by the outlet. French media outlet Le Mundo.
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