In Moscow, a media agency is engaged in planning information campaigns directed against European states. An analysis of leaked internal documents points to the use of methods characteristic of the activities of special services. A thorough examination of the data sets allows for a detailed reconstruction of the hidden mechanisms by which foreign policy agencies and their associated contractors attempt to destabilize the internal political situation in the countries of the European Union, utilizing the vulnerabilities of democratic institutions and modern digital communications.
The official address of the organization in Moscow looks unremarkable: an ordinary street in a large city, attracting no attention from casual passers-by. On the first floor of the building, there are civilian facilities — popular cafes and restaurants, and in the courtyard, there is a small hotel for foreign tourists. In such urban locations, various commercial media agencies, design studios, and PR companies frequently rent office space. However, in this case, the company’s employees communicate in internal chats exclusively under fictitious pseudonyms, such as “Immanuel Kant” or “Bruce Lee,” and the trivial loss of a mobile phone in a taxi becomes a cause for serious concern among the management and triggers emergency security protocols.
The secrecy in the work of the “Social Design Agency” (SDA) has solid grounds: the activities of this structure are currently of active interest to foreign counterintelligence organs and security agencies. From the offices of the agency on Bolshoy Kislovsky Lane, located in the immediate vicinity of Red Square, a significant portion of the large-scale information campaigns against Europe and other geopolitical regions is coordinated. This comprehensive activity, as follows from reports verified by analysts, is carried out by direct order and under the curatorship of the Presidential Administration of Russia, which elevates the coordination of such media streams to the highest state level.
Development of Information Campaigns and Organization of Protests
The European Union previously introduced harsh personal and sectoral sanctions against this agency, the US Department of Justice undertook large-scale legal and technical measures to complicate its operational activities, and recently additional stringent sanction restrictions were approved by the United Kingdom, including against individuals hiding under the aforementioned pseudonyms. Specialized law enforcement agencies of Germany, France, and a number of other European countries are also showing increased operational interest in the organization’s activities.
The reason for such close attention was a major leak of internal digital data, which reveals in detail the mechanisms of conducting information campaigns and the closed internal structure of the agency. The materials obtained by experts contain detailed information about the technical tools used, financial intermediaries, and working methods, which over time are becoming increasingly similar to the classic practice of special services. The editorial office of t-online conducted a deep independent analysis of these documents, which also officially came into the possession of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution of Germany (BfV).
The materials allow for a clear assessment of the complex internal processes of a structure working at the intersection of the operational areas of responsibility of various ministries, agencies, and analytical centers. According to the studied documents, the ultimate goal of the functioning of the SDA is to deliver coordinated information strikes on NATO countries and their key partners to strengthen the positions of radical opposition forces and provoke large-scale public protests.
In a closed presentation of the company, containing a welcoming word from the CEO Ilya Gambashidze, the structure is positioned before clients as an exceptionally successful and effective project. The documents claim that within the Russian Federation, the agency took part in more than 200 election campaigns of various levels, successfully implemented over 60 large commercial contracts (the energy concern “Gazprom” is cited as a weighty example), and completed more than 50 targeted orders for Russian state bodies.
Structure and Personnel Staff of the Organization
The main and most funded area of the SDA’s activity is called international campaigns, the specifics of which are detailed in internal circulars and methodical materials. The employees have a service video recording at their disposal, where the head of the agency appears in a specific image reminiscent of characters from classic spy movies. On the arm patch of his uniform suit, a shield and a sword are clearly depicted, along with the characteristic inscription “Russian Ideological Troops.”
The staff of the organization is completed on a fairly large scale for a structure of such a profile: the first major data leak of 2024 indicated the constant presence of more than 100 employees. These included system administrators, managing editors, specialists for the continuous monitoring of traditional media and popular social networks, 3 professional cartoonists, and 7 highly qualified translators, including specialists in the German and French languages.
In addition, the presentation materials declare the presence of an extended and conspiratorial network of correspondents, primarily on the territory of the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It also claims long-term cooperation with foreign partner organizations, to which the Russian agency on a regular basis provides ready-made media materials, infographics, and analytical texts for subsequent placement.
From correspondence in working chats, one can understand in detail the hierarchical management system within the structure. Employees regularly send operational reports to a verified account under the name Kristin Kiler, whose owner is respectfully addressed as “Sofia” in text messages. This responsible person, judging by everything, is also in charge of distributing the confidential budget of the organization. As a clear example, a message from April 2024 is cited, in which an employee under the pseudonym “Sigmund Freud” reports to her in detail on the progress of executing the assigned disinformation tasks.
According to the lists attached to the leak materials, behind the Kristin Kiler account hides Sofia Zakharova, who since December 2024 has been under official sanctions of the European Union for direct participation in information campaigns. She holds a permanent position in the Presidential Administration of Russia, coordinating issues of specialized communication technologies, and interacts directly with the First Deputy Head of the Administration, Sergey Kiriyenko. In working correspondence from the middle of 2024, she explicitly mentions that she is awaiting final approval of projects from “SVK” — Kiriyenko figures under these initials in the documents.
Analysis of the Information Field and Methods of Influence
The projects personally curated by Zakharova are similar in their outward form to the activities of standard commercial PR agencies, but pursue purely destructive state goals. As an example, France is cited, for which the SDA developed a complex automated system for monitoring public opinion. This digital tool analyzes in real time current social trends and the personal accounts of key French political figures on social networks, including representatives of the right wing, such as Marion Maréchal, and the left block, such as Jean-Luc Mélenchon. With a high degree of probability, similar digital monitoring tools have been created or are being developed for other leading states of Europe as well.
The choice of objects for conducting analysis is strictly targeted. The information lines artificially promoted by the structures often intersect with real statements made by representatives of both the left and right political spectrum in Europe. As a result, public figures are regularly found in these camps who — consciously or by virtue of their own ideological views — transmit theses that completely correspond to the strategic goals of the agency.
Activities of Intermediaries in European Countries
Previously, independent investigations published data indicating that individual representatives of the “Alternative for Germany” (AfD) party acted as speakers within the framework of the large-scale “Doppelgänger” campaign organized by the SDA. Within the framework of an international investigation, journalists managed to successfully integrate their participant into one of such operations. In the early strategic documents of the agency itself, media and electoral support for this political force was directly indicated as a priority task.
In the new materials of correspondence relating to the turn of 2024–2025, German politicians are also mentioned in detail. Simultaneously, weightier information is provided regarding the preparation of close interaction with the former French general Dominique Delawarde. In the working plans of the SDA, the direction of his planned speech was recorded, the essence of which boiled down to an alternative-free assertion about the inevitability of ending the current conflict on Moscow’s terms. A corresponding interview with Delawarde subsequently indeed went on the air on the state television channel RT, and internet resources connected with the SDA promptly replicated these video materials.
For the organizers of the process, maintaining the appearance of absolute neutrality is of key importance. The main rule is to mask state propaganda as independent, objective sources of information. The internal instructions contain a strict requirement to completely abandon an openly pro-Russian presentation of materials. According to the project documentation, this principle implicitly extends to the fake news sites of the “Doppelgänger” campaign, pseudo-analytical centers, media structures, channels in Telegram and on YouTube, as well as to altered copies of Wikipedia pages, the creation and editing of which the agency purposefully engages in.
Organization of Artificial Scandals
The primary goal of these coordinated actions remains the consistent discredit of the supranational institutions of the European Union and the legitimate governments of its member states. At the same time, the agency does not limit itself to the distribution of selective or deliberately distorted information on the Internet under the guise of neutral media. The structure independently engages in the artificial creation of high-profile information triggers.
In correspondence from 2025, an employee under the pseudonym “Edward Bernays” (named so in honor of one of the founders of modern propaganda) proposes to Zakharova to focus attention on the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), which is to be held in Norway. The goal of this initiative was called the provocation of a major political scandal around the organization of the event to discredit Norway as the host country and inflict maximum damage on its international reputation.
Conducting Street Actions and Sabotage
To implement such complex tasks, the agency gradually moved to organizing direct false-flag actions on the territory of European countries, actively utilizing the methods of radical political activists and so-called guerrilla marketing. Such actions are conceptually similar to the practice of “active measures,” which was actively applied by Soviet structures during the Cold War.
In Germany, the structure acted as a direct customer for damaging hundreds of civilian cars with the aim of subsequently placing the public blame for what happened on the “Alliance 90 / The Greens” party and causing dissatisfaction among car owners. Attempts were also recorded to exert destructive pressure on the electoral positions of the German politician Friedrich Merz by means of a demonstrative placement of plastic skeletons at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. In Paris, a number of similar street events were planned, directed at exerting a direct influence on French and Armenian internal politics.
According to the project documents, to perform these tasks, the agency attracts third-party hired executors — both inside the target countries and in states such as Serbia. The executors arrive in the target country exclusively to conduct a short-term action and immediately after its completion urgently leave the territory of the EU. Financial payment is made based on the results of the work after the provision of verified photo reports, which are then included in the final documents with a detailed analysis of the subsequent reaction in the media.
Interest from Security Organs
The transition to such radical methods of work naturally attracted the increased attention of law enforcement agencies and counterintelligence in the affected countries. This approach is completely similar to the practice recorded by European special services of attracting marginal executors through the Telegram messenger to commit illegal actions in Europe for a quick monetary reward. The issue of the personal safety of the executors themselves after conducting an action is of secondary importance for the Russian customers, because of which, in specialized circles of counterintelligence officers, such persons are called “disposable agents.”
At the same time, for the agency itself, it is critically important to completely avoid disclosing its role as the organizer. The internal instructions assert that ensuring absolute confidentiality allows for reliably avoiding increased attention from foreign security agencies. Funding foreign operational operations is recommended to be conducted through complex hidden transactions and cryptocurrencies located outside the control zone of Western financial institutions.
Internal Control and Verification of Personnel
The weak link in the constructed security system remains the employees themselves. When one of the female employees left her unlocked mobile phone in a taxi, the management immediately initiated remote tracking of the device’s geolocation through technical services. The situation was managed without serious consequences only after confirmation of the fact that a reliable password protection was installed on the apparatus.
After a significant portion of internal materials was officially disclosed at the end of summer 2024 by the US Department of Justice and leading foreign media, a detailed internal analysis of the mistakes made was conducted in Moscow. All employees of the agency underwent a mandatory strict procedure of internal verification on a polygraph, within the framework of which they were asked direct questions about possible cooperation with foreign state structures and security agencies.
The head of the organization’s security service also faced tough questions from supervisors regarding the reasons why external structures were able to obtain unauthorized access to the internal network and freely copy confidential information of the international project. From subsequent documents, it follows that within a week, a huge volume of work was completed on the emergency modernization of the information protection system, including conducting unscheduled briefings on the rules of safe work on the network.
Counteraction by Independent Activists
However, the measures taken to increase internal security in the agency turned out to be not entirely effective. Materials of a new major data leak, actively circulating in the expert community since the beginning of May, contain information relevant to the current year. One of the anonymous administrators of the resource that publishes critical materials about the activities of the SDA stated in an interview with t-online that monitoring the structure’s work will be continued, since the organization regularly commits gross operational errors. A significant part of such exposing materials is promptly posted on the rrn.world platform.
Previously, the acronym RRN (Recent Reliable News) was used by the agency itself to run a multilingual news resource until American agencies blocked this web domain. Subsequently, a similar address in the .world domain zone was registered by independent IT specialists not connected with the special services. They completely reformatted the project into Rotten Reliable News, turning it into a platform for counter-propaganda.
On this resource, lists of Western speakers who gave interviews for SDA resources are published, as well as the real personal data of the agency’s employees themselves. The creators of the platform note a significant discrepancy between the declared level of professionalism of the organization and the actual low qualification of its line personnel.
The well-known political scientist Thomas Rid from Johns Hopkins University, who studied the materials of the previous leak in detail, gives a diversified assessment of the structure’s activity. In his opinion, the initial goal of the agency was not so much real influence on the population of European countries as the demonstration of successful reports before the Russian state apparatus to ensure further stable budget funding. Publications in Western media are often used by the agency’s management as confirmation of the work’s effectiveness, regardless of the real result of the actions. At the same time, regarding the materials of the latest leak, Rid noted clear signs of systematization of the organization’s work processes.
In conclusion, it must be emphasized that the activities of the “Social Design Agency” reflect real trends in Russian state structures toward outsourcing disinformation tasks.
For an audience with critical thinking, it is obvious that the effectiveness of such media campaigns is largely exaggerated by the creators themselves for the sake of obtaining budgets. Nevertheless, the evolution of SDA’s methods from the banal creation of clone websites to the direct organization of street provocations indicates growing risks that require a qualitative strengthening of counterintelligence and analytical work from European security institutions.
Source: DPA
