Moscow is preparing a large-scale overhaul of its external influence tools. According to open-source information, the Kremlin is considering a scenario to centralize the management of “soft power” directly under the control of the presidential administration, which effectively marks the end of any institutional independence for Rossotrudnichestvo.
Oversight of the reformed structure will most likely be assigned to Sergei Kirienko, first deputy head of the presidential administration—a bureaucrat who already controls four key departments of the administration, including internal policy and the information-communication infrastructure. The current head of the agency, Yevgeny Primakov, is expected to be dismissed and subsequently transferred to the State Duma.
Rossotrudnichestvo has long positioned itself as a cultural diplomacy institution. The reform completely removes this veneer. Planned changes include reorienting the agency from cultural and humanitarian activities toward comprehensive external influence: information campaigns, work with target audiences, and coordination of loyal structures abroad. The agency, which has long been seen as an integral component of Russian intelligence, is now receiving formal institutional backing for this role.
Separately, a specialized fund is being planned to finance media and humanitarian projects abroad—a structure the Kremlin presents as an analogue to USAID, but which in practice is closer to a mechanism for covertly funding influence networks through the NGO sector.
The geographic focus of the reform is also shifting: priority will be given to post-Soviet countries, which Moscow sees as a zone of strategic competition and a region for regaining lost influence. An intensified information presence and “cultural” expansion in the region sends a direct signal to states already under pressure from Russian hybrid activity.
Concentrating resources and authority in Kirienko’s hands will enable faster deployment of influence campaigns and their synchronization with the Kremlin’s domestic political objectives, making this reform not merely an administrative optimization, but part of preparations for a new phase of information aggression.
