A prominent member of KSOORS is Olga Petrovna Konstantinou, president of the Paphos Cyprus-Russia Association. She was born in Mariupol and graduated from the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Moscow Pedagogical University. She has lived in Cyprus since 1994 and teaches English and Greek. When Rossotrudnichestvo had a representative office in Paphos for several years, Olga Konstantinou had her office there and served as its representative.
Olga Konstantinou organized numerous meetings and conferences at Paphos City Hall between Russian businesspeople and Cypriot lawyers and politicians. These meetings were attended by Russian Ambassador Osadchiy, Radchenko, and other Russian diplomats. In June 2020, she organized a meeting between Alina Radchenko, director of the “Russian House,” and the mayor of Paphos. Konstantinou is the official organizer of the “Immortal Regiment” marches and other Russian propaganda events in Paphos.
The Cyprus Russian Association of Paphos (CRA) was founded in 2010 and officially registered in 2013. Its first president was Olga Sozu, a mathematics teacher at the “Erudite” school. In 2013, she was succeeded by Olga Konstantinou.
The association’s relationship with the Russian Embassy is clearly evident from a report on how its first annual general meeting was held in 2013: “During the official part of the evening, Association President Olga Sozu presented certificates of Honorary Membership to the Russian Ambassador to Cyprus, Mr. S. V. Osadchy; the director of the Russian Cultural Center, Mr. A. N. Rogalev; and the mayor of Paphos, Mr. Savvas Vergas.”
The main goal of this organization is to expand Russian influence in Paphos, both among Russian residents and among Cypriots. In addition, the CRA aims to monitor Russian residents of Paphos, gather information, and establish contacts with key individuals. Acting on instructions from the embassy and the “Russian House,” the CRA organizes all pro-Kremlin propaganda events in Paphos. It invites Russian artists and hosts conferences with Russian diplomats and businesspeople. It invites Russian priests to religious events. It distributes Russian symbols and military uniforms during Russian holidays and conducts selection processes for children to study in Russia.
The CRA has a board of directors, which includes Svetlana Garshina, Tatyana Aristodemou, and Elena Tarasova. There may be others as well. Since 2022, the association’s activities have come to a standstill, but Olga Konstantinou herself continues to make occasional appearances at events organized by the “Russian House,” often wearing a military T-shirt featuring Soviet and Russian symbols.
Since 2022, the association has shown virtually no signs of life, but Konstantinou herself continues to participate in “Russian House” events in Nicosia.
Another interesting figure among the members of the Cypriot KSOERS is businessman Mikhail Yuryevich Sobolev. It is impossible to find a more or less detailed biography of him in public sources, but according to unofficial reports, it looks like this.
Mikhail Sobolev has lived in Cyprus since 1992. He is a colonel in the Russian Army. Presumably, in 1983, he graduated from the Novosibirsk Higher Military-Political Combined Arms School with a specialization as an “Airborne Forces political officer and instructor of history and social studies.” This academy trained deputy army commanders for political affairs for units of the Ground Forces, the Airborne Forces, and the GRU’s special operations units.
After graduating, Mikhail Sobolev was assigned to the Turkestan Military District—specifically, to the GRU’s 15th Special Operations Brigade. In 1984, he served in Afghanistan as deputy commander of a GRU special-purpose company. From 1985 to 1991, according to unverified reports, he served in Moscow at the USSR Ministry of Defense. After leaving the military, he worked as director of Sibvest LLC.
He has been in business since 1991. He lived in London, where he ran a consulting firm. In 1992, he moved to Cyprus and, together with businessman Dmitry Henkin, founded the investment and consulting company Consulco in 1993, which specializes in financial transactions and tax planning. As the advertisement states: “More than 300 qualified Consulco specialists in 10 countries serve approximately 6,000 companies. Our clients are successful businesspeople from around the world. A significant proportion of them work in the CIS.” In 2010, Sobolev and Henkin established the investment fund Hermes Holdings Estate Limited. Many investors in this fund are FSB officers and Russian government officials.
Sobolev is a frequent guest at the embassy and at “Russian House,” and participates in various official events. Sobolev has a joint business venture with Natalia Kardash. Under the auspices of the newspaper “Vestnik Kipra,” Sobolev and Kardash conduct seminars for Russian businesspeople. Based on a number of indicators, Sobolev has close ties to the Communist Party of Cyprus. He provided financial services to former Cypriot President Christofias and his relatives, and is friends with former Communist Party of Cyprus leader Kyprianou. Sobolev collaborates with the Association of Russian Businessmen in Cyprus and has business ties with Yuri Pyanikh. In the past, he provided services to the company ITERA, which Pyanikh represented in Cyprus. Sobolev also has close ties with Igor Nosonov.
Overall, Mikhail Sobolev’s background resembles that of Yuri Pyanikh. He is a military man—most likely an intelligence officer—who was embedded in the private sector abroad immediately after the collapse of the USSR, as soon as it became physically possible. And this despite having a formal education that, to put it mildly, did not facilitate such a turn of events.
KSORS member Inna Krymskaya-Petussi does not represent any organization. She is simply a Russian language teacher, but her activities serve as a brilliant illustration of the opportunities this path opens up for Russian propaganda.
Inna Vladimirovna Krymskaya-Petussi is a citizen of Ukraine and Cyprus, born in Mariupol. She has lived in Cyprus since the early 2000s. In 2015, she led a volunteer group collecting aid for the Russian-occupied Donbas. She is a regular participant in pro-Russian rallies.
Since 2022, Krymskaya-Petussi has been a member of the KSOORS and an active participant in pro-Russian events in Cyprus. She teaches Russian at one of the adult education centers under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, and Youth of the Republic of Cyprus. She articulated her professional objectives in March 2023 during a teleconference with government officials from Russian-occupied Crimea as follows:
“We, as teachers of Russian to foreigners, find ourselves in one of the ‘hot spots’ of the information war. Our task is not only to teach the Russian language, but also Russian culture and history. When explaining how to construct sentences correctly, we cannot ignore the political aspect of what is happening in the country whose language we are studying.”
In other words, Inna Krymskaya-Petussi views her profession—teaching Russian—as a means of spreading pro-Putin propaganda among her students. It is unlikely that Inna Krymskaya-Petussi developed this concept on her own—it is the task of her supervisors at Rossotrudnichestvo. Moreover, her activities are funded by the government of Cyprus, a member of the European Union, which at the same time is making tremendous efforts precisely to combat Putin’s aggression and deceptive propaganda.
Putin’s intelligence services have been exploiting this paradox—typical of democratic countries—for many decades in various nations. They have become highly skilled at cheaply transforming Russian educational centers and cultural societies abroad, which are traditionally funded by local authorities, into their own influence networks.
Moscow-based coordinators organize international gatherings of these networks under the guise of purely cultural events and conferences. For example, in October 2024, the “East–West International Russian Language Week” was held in Istanbul at Yeditepe University. Two representatives from Cyprus participated: Yulia Elnova, a Russian language instructor at the “Pioneer” Educational and Methodological Center in Nicosia, and Elena Buzadji, an instructor at the Russian Educational Center in Paphos.
In 2022, Dmitry Apraksin succeeded Igor Nosonov as chairman of the KSRC. Dmitry Vladimirovich Apraksin is a programmer who graduated from Moscow State University of Management in the mid-1980s and moved to Cyprus in the early 1990s. Since 1994, he has been teaching at the University of Nicosia. Apraksin is a regular participant in and leader of all patriotic events in Cyprus, but, at first glance, his role seems to be limited to delivering speeches at rallies. In December 2023, on behalf of Cyprus’s 120,000-strong Russian-speaking community, Apraksin presented Zyazikov with an appeal to Putin urging him to run in the 2024 Russian presidential election. Apraksin’s anecdotal attempt to become a Member of the European Parliament in 2024 as a candidate for the Cyprus Hunters’ Party has already been mentioned above. At that time, Apraksin received 109 votes.
However, at the University of Nicosia, he serves as the head of the IT department and, most likely, carries out tasks unrelated to KSOORS. For example, in a 2019 interview, he said: “One of our international projects is the development of two master’s programs in collaboration with Lomonosov Moscow State University. We work closely with the Faculty of Space Research (FSR). We are also working on a dual-degree program in ‘Information Security,’ which we are implementing jointly with ITMO University (St. Petersburg). In addition, our faculty members serve as reviewers and co-advisors for dissertation research by Russian graduate students pursuing the degree of ‘Candidate of Sciences.’”
Space and information security are fields closely associated in Russia with the intelligence services, and the students who study these subjects are, as a rule, not your average students. And Moscow’s interest in Western achievements in this field should not be underestimated. This is especially true in an era of sanctions, when various efforts are being made to persuade Western scientists and students to cooperate.
Apraksin is not the only one helping
to establish ties between the University of Nicosia and Russian universities. Lawyer Evgenia Kasyan held the position of regional advisor for Russia and the CIS there. Thanks to her efforts, a dual master’s program for students of the University of Nicosia and MGIMO was set to launch in 2019. The plan was for them to ultimately receive degrees from both universities: “…students pursuing a dual degree will spend their first year of study in Nicosia and their second year in Moscow, where they will complete their theses under the guidance of coordinators from both universities.” In this way, Russian students would not only receive a European degree from the University of Nicosia and a degree from MGIMO, but would also gain work experience at leading Cypriot and Russian organizations through internships.”
Considering that MGIMO trains diplomats and intelligence officers, one can imagine exactly who was supposed to come to Nicosia for an internship and exactly what they intended to teach Cypriot students in Moscow. And just how useful is it for MGIMO graduates to also hold a degree from an innocent-seeming Cypriot university, one that does not arouse the same keen interest among informed observers as an MGIMO degree?
In May 2018, a delegation from the University of Nicosia visited MGIMO. The delegation included Rector Filippos Puyutas, Vice Rector Edna Yamasaki-Patricio, and Director of the IT Center Dmitry Apraksin. They discussed a dual-degree program with MGIMO’s leadership.
In September 2018, a guest from Moscow—Vladimir Kozin, an expert at MGIMO’s Center for Military and Political Studies—spoke at the University of Nicosia. His speech was directed against the policies of NATO countries in Syria. As reported, “Vladimir Kozin and Professor Andreas Theofanos, President of the Center for European and International Studies at the University of Nicosia, agreed to deepen expert cooperation between MGIMO’s Center for Military and Political Studies and the Cypriot institution, as well as to facilitate further progress in launching a dual-degree master’s program between MGIMO and the University of Nicosia.”
The MGIMO Center for Military and Political Studies, as stated on its website, “is a division of MGIMO (U) of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, engaged in the study of domestic and international events, trends, and developments in the fields of military policy, armaments and military technology, the defense-industrial complex, military-technical cooperation, and national security.” In other words, it is a center for military and political intelligence. Kozin’s visit to Cyprus was a typical propaganda and intelligence (recruitment) operation. In addition to the University of Nicosia, Kozin also spoke to staff at the Russian Embassy and high school students at the Russian general education school “Morfosis” in Limassol.
The program was derailed, apparently due to the COVID-19 pandemic, then because of the war and the sanctions that followed, but the connections and contacts established have not gone anywhere. In June 2019, during the opening of the 14th Cyprus-Russia Festival, Igor Nosonov, chairman of the Cyprus-Russia Society (KSORS), presented Yury Pyanikh, Alina Radchenko, and Evgenia Kasyan with honorary awards “for their contribution to the development of Russian-Cypriot relations.” It can be assumed that Kasyan was included among the high-ranking recipients precisely because of her role in the operation with MGIMO.
The names of a few other, less prominent members of the Coordinating Council are also known: poet Tatyana Nikolaevna Rodenkova, Mila Sharapova, and an activist with a certain, otherwise invisible movement of compatriots called “The Power of Unity.”
On December 12, 2023, the 30th anniversary of the Russian Constitution was celebrated at the “Russian House” in Nicosia in the presence of Ambassador Murat Zyazikov. The list of speakers adds several more names to the already known agents of Moscow’s influence.
“The following individuals delivered reports and presentations: Artem Yuryevich Baikin, head of the consular section of the Russian Embassy in Cyprus; Natalya Vladimirovna Zykov, director of the Russian Orthodox Center; Yulia Elnova-Epiphaniou, a teacher of Russian and Greek; Marina Naumova, author of children’s books and member of the Russian Compatriots’ Society of Cyprus (KSORS); Evgeny Kryakin, historian, member of KORS, and Chair of the RCSC’s History Club; Polina Kostina, member of the Youth Club of Russian Compatriots; Elena Georgievna Prodan (online), Chair of the Regional National-Cultural Autonomy of Greeks in the Azov Region; Ivan Sopilyuk, representative of the Russian-speaking community of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus; Mikhail Sobolev, member of KSORS, and others... Seven new members, active Russian compatriots residing in Cyprus, have joined KSORS.”
Unfortunately, the list of the updated KSORS has not been published. Judging by the number of new members, a generational shift must have taken place, and the KSORS membership was likely replenished by recently recruited young people.
A very prominent figure among these young people is Vladimiro Gorin, a graduate of the University of Nicosia and a member of the Green Party. He is a Greek citizen residing in Cyprus from a mixed Greek-Russian family, with two native languages. Gorin is a member of numerous pro-Russian organizations, in particular, the Youth Club of Russian Compatriots and the coordinator of the “Victory Volunteers” movement in Cyprus. Gorin holds the title of “Ambassador of the Russian Language to the World.” To earn this title, Gorin studied in Moscow at the Pushkin Institute under a special program. In the spring of 2024, Gorin was among the guests at the World Youth Festival in Sochi, where, according to TASS, he applied for Russian citizenship.
In November 2024, Gorin solemnly announced that he had been elected to the European Youth Parliament of Cyprus as a member of the Committee on Education and Culture. As reported by *Vestnik Kypr*, “The Youth Parliament has been operating in Cyprus since 2004. Its work mirrors that of the official parliament: 56 ‘deputies’ from youth organizations are divided into five committees, each of which discusses issues of concern to the younger generation. Following the discussions, the committee submits a report on its work.” In other words, it serves as an incubator for future Cypriot politicians.
In fact, Gorin is pursuing two careers simultaneously: one in the Russian intelligence services and the other in Cypriot politics. This means he is being groomed to become a very rare and extremely valuable type of agent of influence for Moscow.
Among the participants in the event are representatives of several new pseudo-civil society organizations. The Regional National-Cultural Autonomy of the Greeks of the Azov Region was registered in Russian-occupied Donetsk in December 2023. It was undoubtedly created by the intelligence services to conduct espionage and recruitment activities among the Greeks living in Russian-occupied Eastern Ukraine and to simulate their international ties with Greece and Cyprus. It is not the only one. In June 2023, the public organization “Local National-Cultural Autonomy of Greeks of the Melitopol Urban District” was registered. The “Tavrida” Regional National-Cultural Autonomy of Greeks of the Republic of Crimea has existed since 2014. Their representatives will surely not bypass Cyprus either.
The purpose of the RCNK Historical Club is clear from its name. In Russia, historical scholarship—at least with regard to modern history—has been completely falsified since 2014 through the efforts of former Minister of Culture Medinsky and other Putin allies. The historical clubs established at “Russian Houses” in various countries (Cyprus is no exception) are propaganda centers for spreading historical fabrications. They gather schoolchildren around them and train them to become agents of influence. Yevgeny Kryakin was, at the time, a history teacher at the Primakov Educational School attached to the Russian Embassy in Cyprus. In 2020–2021, he worked at the “Russian Educational Center” in Seoul, South Korea.
The “Aios Trifonos” Association of Pontic Greeks is part of the KSORS network. Its chairman is Raul Ivanovich Tsakhidis, a native of the Georgian SSR and a citizen of Greece and Cyprus. Raul Tsakhidis emigrated to Greece in 1993 and moved to Cyprus in 1998. In 2004, he became head of the Association of Pontic Greeks in Paphos. There is reason to believe that he has close ties to the Association of Greek Public Organizations in Russia (AGOO), whose president is Ivan Savvidi, a Kremlin oligarch of Greek descent. In April 2022, exactly one week after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, the “Agios Trifonos” association, led by Tsakhidis, together with the Russian Cultural Center, KSORS, and the Russian Embassy in Cyprus, organized a rally and march in Paphos in support of Russia. Several hundred Paphos residents and pro-Russian activists from other cities took part in this large-scale event.
During the Victory Day celebrations on May 9, 2024, staff members of the Russian Embassy’s consular section and the most prominent “Russian World” activists in Cyprus marched at the forefront of the demonstrators’ column: Mikis Filaniotis, Elena Bakakina (coordinator of the Russian organization “Immortal Regiment”), Dmitry Apraksin (chairman of the Cyprus Russian Cultural and Social Association), Vladimir Gorin, and Raoul Tzachidis. Before taking part in the march in Limassol, Tzachidis organized a gathering of Putin supporters in Paphos’s central square, where—waving Russian flags and chanting “Russia, forward!” and “Victory will be ours!”—they laid wreaths bearing Russian symbols at the monument in front of the city hall.
The “Russian House” Experts’ Club and Moscow’s Cypriot Friends
The “Russian House” in Cyprus is home to what is known as the Experts’ Club. Officially, it is “an informal organization bringing together distinguished Cypriots who studied at Russian and Soviet universities and are fluent in Russian.” In other words, it is a community of Cypriots who were recruited as Soviet/Russian agents of influence, typically while studying at Soviet or Russian universities. Their functions include influencing the policies of the Cypriot authorities, selecting candidates for potential agents of influence, and participating in propaganda events organized by the Russian Embassy and the “Russian House.”
From this perspective, all members of this club are of undoubted interest. The exact membership of the club is unknown, but press reports allow us to name a few: Vladyka Isaiah, Metropolitan of Tamassos and Orini; Michalis Azovidis, assistant to the president of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Cyprus; Vassos Argyridis, composer; Anastasios Kuzalis, president of the Cyprus Association of Graduates of Russian and Soviet Universities; Yorgos Kontouris, artistic director and conductor of the Cyprus Youth Symphony Orchestra; Andreas Pantzis, theater and film director; Haris Trassou, President of the “Cyprus–Russia” Society for Friendship and Cultural Ties; Andreas Charalambous, artist; Andreas Christou, Mayor of Limassol (2006–2017); Yorgos Moleskis, poet and writer; Georgios Prodromou, Honorary Consul of Russia in Paphos and Limassol; Mikis Filaniotis.
Metropolitan Isaiah (Spiridon Georgakis) was born in Cyprus in 1971. In 1992, while still a monastic novice, he was invited by Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia—who was visiting Cyprus at the time—to study in Moscow. In 1997, he graduated from the Moscow Theological Seminary, and in 2003, he defended his Ph.D. dissertation at the Moscow Theological Academy. Isaiah speaks Russian fluently and is known for his pro-Russian stance. As he said in an interview in 2021: “I love Russia. My heart remains in Russia. I was searching for a source of holiness, and I found it precisely in Russia.” In the same interview, Isaiah identified liberalism and globalization as the main dangers facing both Cyprus and Russia. In 2017, the Orthodox Church of St. Andrew the First-Called and All Saints—the first Russian church in Cyprus—was built on the territory of Isaiah’s metropolitanate with funds from Russian oligarch Zarenkov.
There would be nothing strange about his love for Russia if it were not expressed through overt sympathy for the Putin regime and close ties with members of Russia’s state security services. In 2019, Sergei Stepashin, chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society (IOPS)—a colonel general in the FSB, former director of the Federal Counterintelligence Service, former head of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, and former Prime Minister of Russia—traveled to Cyprus for the church’s grand opening. At the conclusion of the ceremony, Stepashin presented Metropolitan Isaya with the IPPS’s highest award—the “Star of Bethlehem.” Together with Isaya, Stepashin visited Cypriot President Anastasiades, who was also awarded the “Star of Bethlehem” order. It appears that it was Isaya who paved the way for Stepashin to gain direct access to the Cypriot president.
Anastasios Kouzalis and Haris Trassou are graduates of the Patrice Lumumba University of Friendship Among Peoples. In his book *The KGB: The Work of Soviet Secret Agents*, John Barron described the institution as follows: “In 1960, Nikita Khrushchev declared that the establishment of the Lumumba University would serve to educate the ‘intellectual elite’ of the peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The Russian authorities within the Soviet Union itself defined the university’s mission more simply: ‘ To educate students from underdeveloped countries so that, upon returning to their home countries, they would become leaders of pro-Soviet activities.” The university’s first vice president was Pavel Erzhin, a KGB major general. Among the faculty—which is entirely subordinate to the KGB—are other KGB officers and agents. Students are selected primarily based on their potential usefulness to the KGB. (If the Russians truly want to train a foreigner to work in the Soviet aid project, they educate him at first-rate universities or polytechnic institutes. Such a student does not study at Patrice Lumumba University).”
Physicist Anastasios Kouzalis is the chairman of the Cyprus Association of Graduates of Soviet and Russian Universities. The association was founded during the Soviet era, in 1986, and brings together (according to its data) about 2,000 people. It is a branch of the World Association of Graduates of Soviet and Russian Universities, established with the participation of Rossotrudnichestvo.
Anastasios Kouzalis was born in 1950. In 1976, he graduated with honors from the Faculty of Physics, Mathematics, and Natural Sciences at Patrice Lumumba University of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with a degree in physics, and in 1978, he defended his Ph.D. dissertation there. In Cyprus, Kuzalis held important positions in the Ministry of Education. In particular, from 2004 to 2010, he served as chairman of the Commission for Educational Services of the Republic of Cyprus. He has headed the alumni association since 2014. It is difficult to say whether this association exists as a real organization; there are few visible signs of its activity, but Kuzalis himself is a regular participant in Russian propaganda events in Cyprus. In November 2024, he was awarded the Rossotrudnichestvo Honorary Badge “For Friendship and Cooperation.”
Anastasios Kuzalis’s son, Alexos Kuzalis, is also a member and activist of the Alumni Association headed by his father. He studied in the graduate program at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.
Harris Trassou, president of the “Cyprus–Russia” Society for Friendship and Cultural Ties, was born in 1943. In 1961, with the assistance of the Soviet Embassy, he traveled to Moscow and enrolled in the engineering department at Lumumba University, from which he graduated in 1967. Trassou went on to have a successful career in Cyprus. From 1976 to 1990, he served on the Board of Directors of the Cyprus Association of Engineers and Architects; from 2003 to 2004, he served as chairman of the Cyprus Town Planning Council; and from 2004 to 2007, he served as Minister of Communications and Public Works. In 2007, Trassou was awarded the Pushkin Medal by order of President Putin “for his significant contribution to the promotion and study of the Russian language and the preservation of cultural heritage, as well as for the rapprochement and mutual enrichment of the cultures of nations and peoples,” along with two other high-ranking Cypriot officials—Dimitrios Christofias, Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Cyprus, and Andreas Christou, Mayor of Limassol. In 2011, Trassou received a letter of appreciation from President Dmitry Medvedev for his “significant contribution to the development of Russian-Cypriot cultural and humanitarian cooperation and the strengthening of friendship between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Cyprus.”
In addition, Haris Trassou is a member of the governing council of the “Cyprus–Russia” business community, which, in addition to several Cypriots, included Russian Ambassador Osadchiy and First Secretary of the Russian Embassy Andrei Kormilitsin.
In June 2024, Haris Trassou was succeeded as president of the “Cyprus–Russia” Society for Friendship and Cultural Ties by Mikas Filaniotis—an even more exotic figure.
Georgios Prodromou, Secretary General of the Cyprus Association of Graduates of Russian (Soviet) Universities, graduated in 1986 from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Riga Institute of Civil Aviation Engineers. In 2014, he assumed the post of Honorary Consul of Russia in Paphos and Limassol. In 2016, “Georgios Prodromou, Doctor of Aviation Sciences and Engineering, Doctor of Law,” was awarded the title of Honorary Professor of the Baltic Academy of Tourism and Entrepreneurship and a diploma as a member of the National Academy of Tourism. The first academy is an educational institution; the second is a “public academy”—one of many charlatan organizations created in the 1990s to mimic scientific activity and hand out self-made titles and orders. Both are located in St. Petersburg.
Prodromou’s law firm (actually two—in Limassol and Paphos) is listed on the recommended list of attorneys published on the website of the Russian Embassy in Nicosia. Prodromou is not only a regular participant in all pro-Russian propaganda events but, according to some reports, is also linked to Russian intelligence—specifically the GRU—and heads a network of its own agents in Paphos.
The artist Andreas Charalambous was born in Nicosia in 1947. His father held leftist views, and, in his own words, so did he—from childhood onward. Charalambous received a scholarship from the Soviet-Cypriot Friendship Society and graduated in 1975 from the Surikov Institute in Moscow, where he later taught for a time before returning to Cyprus with his Russian wife.
His daughter, Elpida Charalambous, also studied in Moscow; she graduated from the Bolshoi Theater’s ballet school. For many years, Elpida Charalambous served as press secretary for the “Russian House” in Cyprus, secretary of the Coordination Council of Russian Compatriots, a close associate of Alina Radchenko, and an active participant in numerous promotional campaigns. Among other things, she headed the editorial team responsible for translating the 15-volume edition of *The Great Victory* into Greek. The translator was Mikas Filaniotis.
Musician Yorgos Kontouris belongs to a new generation of Russian agents of influence—those of the Putin era. He was born in 1980, graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 2006, and later defended his dissertation there. Since 2013, he has served as artistic director and principal conductor of the Cyprus Youth Symphony Orchestra. In 2019, young performers took part in Victory Day concerts alongside the Model Orchestra of the National Guard of the Russian Federation. “In this way, the function of mentorship and the transfer of experience from professional musicians from Russia to young Cypriot cultural figures was realized. According to Yorgos Kontouris, this fruitful cooperation will continue in the future.”
When Russian agents established the front political party “Ego o Politis” in Cyprus in 2017, Kontouris first became its vice president and then its acting president. The story of the party’s creation and collapse deserves a separate account. What is important is that the Russian Embassy viewed Kontouris as a suitable figure to serve as its nominal leader.
Architect Mikis Filaniotis is an extraordinarily active figure when it comes to participating in all sorts of Russian propaganda campaigns—and at the same time, a comical one. The roles he has to play are truly absurd.
Mikis Filaniotis was born in 1955. In 1975, he enrolled in the Odessa Engineering and Construction Institute, from which he graduated in 1983. His wife is a Russian citizen. His two daughters also hold Russian citizenship. Filaniotis is a member of the Association of Graduates of Soviet and Russian Universities, a member of the expert council of the Russian Center for Science and Culture (RCSC), and a member of the Coordinating Council of the International Movement of Russophiles. He frequently visits Russia. In March 2019, he visited occupied Crimea, where he received an award from the Crimean government for participating in a Kremlin propaganda campaign—he was one of three finalists in the online quiz “Crimea in the History of the Russian World.”
In 2022, “Russian House” in Cyprus, while congratulating Filaniotis on his birthday, thanked him “for his loyal friendship, support, and sincere love for Russia, as well as for his work on translating the five-volume edition of *The Great Victory* from Russian into Greek.” “The Great Victory” is a multi-volume work on the history of World War II, published in 2015 by MGIMO under the general editorship of Sergey Naryshkin (then Chairman of the State Duma), who would later become Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, and authored by numerous Putin-aligned academic fabricators. The publication is purely unscientific. Apparently, there was an order to translate it into the language of the host country and distribute it in “Russian Houses” around the world as propaganda literature.
In July 2023, Filaniotis was an active participant in the “March in Defense of Family Values,” organized by the Russian Embassy in Nicosia. The protesters, mostly Russian, were demonstrating against the introduction of sex education in Cypriot schools. They carried Russian flags and signs reading “Hands off our children!” and “We support Russia’s actions.” As Filaniotis stated at the time: “We do not want and will not allow the destruction of innocent children’s souls for the sake of an unacceptable form of education—one that is alien and far removed from Cypriot morality—under the guise of supposedly protecting children from sexual harassment.”
In November 2023, at the height of the war in Ukraine, Filaniotis was in Moscow and participated in the Yalta International Forum and the 15th Assembly of the Russian World. And on November 21, President Putin issued a decree awarding Filaniotis the Pushkin Medal. As the recipient himself put it in an interview with *Vestnik Kipra*: “This medal reflects not only my personal work, but all the feelings and efforts of Cypriots who love Russia. Therefore, this medal is for all of us.”
In July 2024, Filaniotis succeeded Haris Trassa as president of the “Cyprus–Russia” Society for Friendship and Cultural Ties.
Among Filaniotis’s titles is one that is not entirely ordinary: “member of the Coordinating Council of the International Movement of Russophiles.” This organization deserves a separate discussion.
Lawyer Yiannis Sophocles occupies a special place among Cyprus’s “friends of Moscow” and even among Cypriot graduates of the Peoples’ Friendship University. According to his biography, he was (and remains) a very prominent figure in the Soviet—and later Russian—intelligence network in Cyprus. Sophocles was born in 1947. He is one of the few Cypriots to have studied law in the USSR, which is strange in itself. It is unlikely that a Soviet legal education could have greatly contributed to his success in the West. Sophocles himself admitted in an interview that his degree was not recognized in Cyprus until 1985 (he graduated from university in 1972). This did not prevent him from pursuing a career tied not so much to Cyprus as to Moscow. Apparently, he was trained in what Moscow needed.
Sophocles’ father, Yiannis Sophocles (1923–1990), was a communist from 1938 onward, a member of the AKEL Party’s Politburo, and the party boss in Paphos from 1946 to 1983. According to Yiannis Sophocles, his father visited the USSR many times and even studied for half a year in Moscow at the Institute of Social Sciences in 1964. This speaks volumes.
The Institute of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (ISS) was established in 1962 with the aim of training personnel for communist movements (including underground ones) in the West and in Third World countries. The Institute was a closed institution and reported to the International Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU. There were branches of the ION in Moscow dedicated to training members of underground organizations in the practice of armed struggle. Apparently, Yiannis Sophocles’ father was also trained at one of them. In 1955, following the ban on the AKEL party (which remained in effect until 1959), he was arrested by British authorities along with other party officials. In 2024, a square in the center of Paphos was named after him.
Sophocles recalls how young Cypriots were recruited to study at Soviet universities: “After 1960, Cypriots were given the opportunity to study in the Soviet Union. There were always far more applicants than available spots! Each person’s fate was decided based on a competitive review of their Cypriot high school transcripts. We sent the documents to the Soviet Embassy in Nicosia and waited for a response... In 1967, immediately after completing my mandatory military service in the Cyprus National Guard, I applied for a scholarship to study for free in the USSR. And I received a positive response! ...At that time, young Cypriots were studying at many universities in various republics and cities of the Soviet Union, pursuing a variety of specializations. The largest number of Cypriot students were enrolled in all the faculties of the Patrice Lumumba University of Friendship of Peoples.”
It is clear that the selection of candidates at the Soviet embassy was based on a thorough examination of their families, connections, and potential usefulness to the USSR. This was a selection process for future agents. That, in fact, is still how it works today. During his studies, Sophocles served as secretary of the Cypriot student association, addressing the concerns of all Cypriot students.
In 1972, Sophocles received a law degree and a diploma from “evening journalism courses.” In the USSR, the profession of “international journalist” was effectively synonymous with “intelligence agent.” In 1976, Sophocles defended his dissertation on “Constitutional Law” at the same Patrice Lumumba University of Friendship of Peoples . However, he was denied recognition of these degrees in Cyprus. This did not prevent Yiannis Sophocles, as he writes, from working “on behalf of UNESCO” for four years in Guinea-Bissau, which had gained independence from Portugal in 1974. In Guinea-Bissau, which at the time had a pro-Soviet orientation, Sophocles, as an advisor to the Ministry of Justice, participated in drafting the country’s constitution. It is hard to doubt that this was work carried out under the auspices of the KGB. All the more so because, in addition to Russian, Greek, and English, Sofoklis’s list of languages includes Spanish and Portuguese. This points to the nature of his university education.
From 1984, Sophocles served as a permanent correspondent in Moscow for the Cypriot communist newspaper *Haravgi* (“Dawn”), and after 1990, he worked for 11 years as an advisor on press and information at the Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus to the USSR and the Russian Federation. He served as an interpreter at meetings and negotiations between the presidents of Cyprus and Russia—Glafkos Clerides and Boris Yeltsin—in May 1995, and between Nicos Anastasiades and Vladimir Putin in February 2015.
He then returned to his homeland and served in the Press and Information Bureau of the Cypriot Ministry of the Interior. From 2009 to 2011, he worked as an advisor at the Cypriot Embassy in Moscow.
From 2011 through at least 2016, Sophocles served as the head of the Moscow bureau (permanent correspondent in Moscow) for the newspaper *Haravgi*. It is impossible to overstate the importance of such an agent in Cyprus’s diplomatic and government circles for the Soviet and Russian intelligence services.
Unlike many other Russian agents of influence, Sophocles takes almost no part in the propaganda activities of the Russian Embassy in Cyprus. Presumably, this is due to his diplomatic status and the importance of the secret functions he performs. But sometimes he has to make an appearance.
In 2017, Sophocles supported Russia in its confrontation with the European Court of Human Rights. In 2018, Sophocles served as an observer at the illegal Russian presidential election in occupied Crimea, for which he was subject to Ukrainian sanctions. Cyprus was represented at the time by two other individuals: Skevi Koutra-Koukouma, a member of the Cypriot Parliament from the AKEL party, and Elias Demetriou, a member of the AKEL Central Committee.
In May 2025, Sophocles published an article marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the text of which reads as if it were published by the Soviet-era newspaper *Pravda*: “The contemporary geopolitical interests and strategies of NATO and the United States, aimed at control and influence, are attempting to erase the contribution of the USSR, distort concepts, and turn liberators into aggressors. We observe this dangerous trend in European Parliament resolutions, which assign equal responsibility to the USSR and Nazi Germany. However, historical facts leave no room for manipulation: it was the Soviet Union that liberated Europe from fascism; it was primarily the anti-fascist and communist forces that fought for the freedom of the peoples; it was socialist ideas that inspired the resistance. Under these circumstances, the work of communist parties and movements—which continue to speak the truth and defend historical justice—is particularly important.” This is the text of an active agent of influence.