Putin aide who leads disinformation efforts once was a reformer

The head of a russian propaganda campaign that allegedly aimed to influence the upcoming us elections began as a liberal politician before he became one of president vladimir putin’s closest advisers.

Sergei Kiriyenko, who is the first deputy head in Putin’s administration, oversaw a years-long Kremlin operation to meddle in U.S. elections and use disinformation to promote pro-Russian narratives online, according to a 277-page affidavit that U.S. officials unsealed Wednesday.

Kiriyenko, 62, participated in meetings in which Russian officials discussed ways to promote Donald Trump’s candidacy, undermine support for Ukraine and further Russian interests, according to the court filings. The plans manifested in an effort known as “Doppelganger,” which used domain names that impersonated established media outlets to present fake news as content that came from trusted sources.

In 2022, weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Kiriyenko called for pushing content with a goal of creating “a nuclear psychosis” to bolster support for the Kremlin’s war internationally.

Doppelganger also tapped a Kremlin-controlled organization, ANO Dialog, to create original brands that posed as independent media to disseminate pro-Russian narratives aimed at specific blocs of U.S. voters. The propaganda, for instance, included disparaging cartoons of U.S. President Joe Biden and images of damaged fighter jets purportedly used by Ukraine’s military. Another post that falsely appeared to be from the Washington Post featured the headline “Middle East Coalition of U.S. Allies Crumbles like a House of Cards,” according to the affidavit.

“We firmly deny these accusations,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, calling the allegations absurd. “If the Americans mean that our media is working to present our position to the world, then that’s true. And they’ll continue to do so, despite U.S. sanctions.”

ANO Dialog did not respond to requests for comment from Bloomberg News.

The operation marked the latest evolution in Kiriyenko’s long career in the upper echelons of Russian politics. Yet he hasn’t always been the cynical information warrior portrayed in the U.S. documents.

In the 1990s, he was an ally of deputy premier Boris Nemtsov and a member of the Young Reformers, a group of free market politicians who wanted to overhaul the Russian economy as it emerged from Communism. He went on to become, at 35, Russia’s youngest-ever prime minister in 1998. His unexpected appointment and inexperience earning him the nickname Kinder Surprise, after a popular candy brand that comes with a toy.

Kiriyenko spent just four months as the prime minister and resigned after Russia defaulted on government bonds in August 1998, causing a ruble devaluation and a financial crisis. During his four-month tenure in that post, Putin was appointed director of the Federal Security Service, or FSB.

That job was Putin’s springboard to the presidency in 2000. Kiriyenko has remained a close ally ever since.

While Nemtsov became a prominent Putin critic until he was gunned down near the Kremlin in 2015, Kiriyenko morphed into a valuable technocrat who ran Russia’s state-owned nuclear power champion, Rosatom Corp., from 2005 until 2016.

Nuclear Diplomacy

Under Kiriyenko, Rosatom became a tool of foreign policy, signing deals worth billions of dollars to build power plants from Finland and Hungary to China and India.

Kiriyenko was a regular on Putin’s international trips and his company emerged as a key nuclear supplier to countries in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and Africa, helping build diplomatic and commercial ties in the Global South. His work at Rosatom earned him Russia’s top honor, Kommersant newspaper reported in 2018.

He was brought back to the Kremlin in 2016, in part to oversee Putin’s campaign for a fourth term after his previous election victory was marred by mass protests. Since then, he’s developed a system for training bureaucrats. Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he led efforts to mobilize Russian society to support the war and was made responsible for the territories Russia has occupied.

“Kiriyenko was appointed as one of Nemtsov’s helpers and was known as a person who Nemtsov brought to Moscow to enact liberal reforms,” said Ilya Yashin, a Russian opposition politician who was recently freed in a prisoner swap with the U.S. “He went on to become one of the most odious builders of the dictatorship in our country.”

U.S. Sanctions

The U.S. and European Union in 2021 sanctioned Kiriyenko following the poisoning of late opposition leader Alexey Navalny, with the US citing Kiriyenko’s role as Putin’s “domestic policy curator.”

The propaganda operation ANO Dialog falls under Kiriyenko’s jurisdiction, according to U.S. Justice Department filings. That organization, founded in 2019, uses artificial intelligence technology to boost Russian election-meddling efforts, including creating deepfakes impersonating officials in the U.S. and the European Union, according to the Department of Treasury, which sanctioned ANO Dialog this week.

The organization has promoted the “War on Fakes” media outlet, a Russian disinformation effort that falsely claims to fact-check journalism about Ukraine.

Leaked documents obtained by the investigative news outlet VSquare indicated that Kiriyenko’s team, as of last October, managed 15 nonprofit media organizations with over 4,000 employees and a budget of 59 billion rubles ($656 million).

Kiriyenko’s role in helping maintain Putin’s authority is a far cry from his days as a liberal politician during the Boris Yeltsin era. Following his ouster as premier, Kiriyenko called for constitutional changes to reduce the power of Yeltsin’s successor.

Russia’s next president “shouldn’t be allowed to use extraordinary powers to rule the country as he pleases,” Kiriyenko said at the time.