Russia’s Foreign Ministry has announced an expansion of its outreach to Russian-speaking communities abroad — and Ukrainian officials say the initiative is not about protecting diaspora rights. It is about building a global hybrid influence infrastructure.
The announcement came from Gennady Ovechko, head of the Russian MFA’s department for work with compatriots abroad, in an interview with state news agency TASS. He said Russian communities abroad should know that Moscow “will not abandon them in difficult times”, framing the expanded outreach as a response to external pressure and attempts “to sow discord” among Russians living overseas. The ministry, he said, was scaling up legal assistance and consolidating diaspora structures worldwide.
The numbers give a sense of the operation’s scale. The fund for the support and protection of compatriots’ rights—co-founded by the Russian Foreign Ministry and Rossotrudnichestvo—financed over 200 applications for legal support from diaspora members in 2025 and 59 in the first four months of 2026 alone. In February, Rossotrudnichestvo held a coordination meeting with diaspora representatives from more than 20 countries, including the United States, Bulgaria, India, Cuba, South Korea, and Argentina.
The Infrastructure Behind the Outreach
The policy of working with “compatriots” — Russian speakers and people with cultural or ancestral ties to Russia living abroad — has been a long-standing strand of Moscow’s foreign policy. Its primary institutional vehicle is Rossotrudnichestvo, the Federal Agency for Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation, which now maintains representative offices in 71 countries.
Formally, Rossotrudnichestvo promotes Russian language and culture, supports diaspora communities, and facilitates academic exchanges. In practice, intelligence services across the EU have raised concerns about its activities. Czech intelligence has publicly advised its government to close the Russian House in Prague, describing it as a vehicle for propaganda and potential intelligence operations. Similar warnings have come from Moldovan and Ukrainian officials, who have accused Russian Houses of conducting subversive activities under cultural cover.
A more recent development is the Electronic Compatriot Card programme, documented by the Institute for the Study of War. The programme, under development since at least 2021, would allow designated “compatriots” abroad to access Russian public services, work in Russia, and eventually apply for Russian citizenship — creating a formal bureaucratic link between Moscow and diaspora members in dozens of countries. Rossotrudnichestvo estimated that Russia has between 20 and 40 million “compatriots” abroad, though the definition of who qualifies remains deliberately broad.
What Ukraine’s Monitors Say
Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, a body under the National Security and Defence Council, offered a markedly different reading of Ovechko’s announcement. In a statement issued the same day, the CCD argued that the Kremlin treats Russian-speaking communities worldwide as “a strategic instrument of influence”, aiming to cultivate a loyal constituency capable of shaping public opinion in host countries and amplifying narratives favourable to Moscow.
The CCD’s concern goes beyond information operations. “Under the guise of cultural consolidation,” it warned, “networks are being created that can be used by the Kremlin for destabilisation, organising protest actions, or even preparing sabotage.” The expansion of compatriot outreach, it concluded, “may be part of Russia’s strategy to increase its hybrid presence in the world”.
The pattern is not limited to diaspora communities. Ukrainian monitors have flagged identical logic at work in other civilian-coded channels. The Russian Orthodox Church expanded its official presence in Africa from 4 to 34 countries in under three years, following the Holy Synod’s December 2021 decision to establish a Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa. The Armenia case, where a priest at the Russian 102nd military base in Gyumri has been documented conducting influence activities through church networks, illustrates how the religious and diaspora channels can operate in parallel.
A Toolkit With Global Reach
What makes the compatriot network distinct from other Russian influence instruments is its combination of official legitimacy, geographic breadth, and deniability. Rossotrudnichestvo operates legally in 71 countries. Its activities are framed as cultural and humanitarian. Its beneficiaries are real communities with genuine ties to Russia. That cover makes it harder to restrict than state media – and several EU member states that have moved to shut down Russian Houses have faced political pushback framed around cultural rights.
The February 2026 Rossotrudnichestvo coordination meeting illustrates the network’s reach: diaspora representatives from more than 20 countries, spanning four continents, gathered to discuss 2026 plans that include new partnerships with organisations such as ANO Eurasia — itself linked to Russian state structures — alongside traditional cultural programming.
Western governments have begun responding. Several EU member states have restricted or shut down Rossotrudnichestvo offices since 2022, and the EU’s new European Democracy Shield, announced by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, is designed in part to address the structural vulnerability that makes diaspora-based influence operations difficult to counter without broader coordination.
The Russian Foreign Ministry’s announcement this week is, in that context, less a new initiative than a public signal: the infrastructure is expanding, the resources are increasing, and Moscow intends to use it.
