In 2017, another attempt was made to establish a community of Russian media outlets abroad. In London, during a country-specific conference of compatriots (organised by the local KSOOR – the Co-ordinating Council of Russian-speaking Compatriots in the UK), the creation of the Media Alliance of Russian Communities (MARS) was announced.  The ‘round table of the Russian-language press’ was chaired by Artem Kozhin, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s press centre, and Sergei Petrosov, ‘coordinator of the Media Alliance of Russian Communities’. 
Petrosov, an emigrant from Uzbekistan who has lived in Belgium since 2000, is a distinguished figure: “In 2001, he founded and continues to lead the ‘European Russian Community’ association. From 2006 to 2008, he was a member of the World Co-ordination Council of Russian Compatriots. Since 2009, he has been Executive Secretary of the Belgian Federation of Russian-speaking Organisations; since 2010, he has been Deputy Chair of the Commission for Coordination and Interaction with Compatriots Living Abroad, attached to the Presidium of the General Council of the ‘United Russia’ Party. He is the parish warden of the Parish of St Seraphim of Sarov in the Brussels-Belgian Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church. For his work, he has been awarded the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Medal of Honour ‘For Contribution to the Cause of Friendship’ and an Honorary Diploma from the Government Commission for Compatriots Abroad. 
Furthermore, he is an expert at the Institute for Russian Diaspora Studies, another offshoot of the security services dealing with emigrants. Officially, the Institute for Russians Abroad is “an autonomous non-profit organisation established in March 2005 with the aim of improving the research, information and analytical, expert and organisational work of state and public bodies of the Russian Federation with Russian compatriots abroad”.  
Petrosov’s track record is a typical example of the use of the same agents – in organisations and ‘civil society’ bodies that, at first glance, appear to be different but which, in reality, are subordinate to a single centre in Moscow. 
MARS was registered in 2019 in Brussels, Belgium.  As reported on the ‘Russian World’ website, ‘the alliance plans to launch a news agency whose content will be produced by both professional journalists and active internet users’. In other words, the underlying aim was to create yet another pro-Russian disinformation agency comprising foreign journalists.   
The website of the All-German Co-ordination Council of Russian Compatriots, ‘Russkoe Pole’, reported that ‘… MARC’s strategic objective is to create a new type of news agency, whose staff and contributors will include not only professional journalists but also ordinary internet users, united through new information technologies into a global network with maximum reach and a new level of interaction and influence on the target audience. MARC plans to achieve this objective by engaging and collaborating with account holders on various social media platforms popular with both Russian-speaking and foreign audiences, including bilingual participants from among the younger generation of compatriots living abroad.”  
In other words, this refers to plans for the mass recruitment not only of journalists, but also of internet users, and indeed anyone else they can get their hands on. ‘Bilingual participants from among the younger generation of compatriots living abroad’ are of particular value to the security services. These are second- or third-generation emigrants who feel at home in their host countries. Recruited at a young age, they may later go on to become leaders of local patriotic organisations, journalists, academics or politicians. They make ideal spies. 
Yuri Eremenko (Erfurt), editor-in-chief of the ‘Russkoe Pole’ website, is a board member of the International Association of Independent Internet Journalists and Bloggers ‘Media Alliance of Russian Communities’ and, at the same time, a member of the All-German Co-ordinating Council of Russian Compatriots.
There is little evidence of the alliance’s existence after 2019; its website – marcnews.com – is no longer active. 
The Pravfond website reported that in 2020 the alliance organised an online conference at which it supported the idea of holding the ‘Immortal Regiment’ march virtually in 2020.  This was apparently one of the alliance’s last acts of activity. 
As MARS was not originally a civil society organisation, it could only have disappeared as a result of a change in the leadership’s plans and a lack of funding. The people who were recruited to it have not gone anywhere and continue to take part in other theatre productions.