Since 1982 (and as honorary president since 2024), Anatoly Karpov has headed yet another organisation which, at first glance, seems rather farcical: the Soviet Peace Fund (SPF). The Fund was established in 1961 as a typical Soviet imitation of a civil society organisation. Its founders were announced as other similarly phantom organisations – the Soviet Committee for the Defence of Peace, the Committee of Youth Organisations of the USSR, the Committee of Soviet Women, and the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. The SFM was one of the products of the Khrushchev Thaw, symbolising the Soviet struggle for peace and aimed at forging new international ties, primarily of a covert nature. The Foundation served as an official cover for subversive activities against Western countries and for the recruitment of agents from among Western ‘peace advocates’. The writer Boris Polevoy served as the first president of the SFM until his death in 1981. In 1982, he was succeeded by Anatoly Karpov. Of course, these were figureheads; the fund was actually run by entirely different people. 
Across the country and at all administrative levels – in the union and autonomous republics, territories, regions, districts, cities, industrial enterprises, institutions and collective farms – commissions were set up to support the Soviet Peace Fund.  
The Fund had at its disposal enormous sums collected from the entire population of the USSR. As Karpov said in an interview with the newspaper Kommersant in 2007, ‘In 1989, the Peace Fund’s board, which I chaired, had resources amounting to 4.5 billion roubles. By the standards of the time, that was an insane amount of money. Roughly speaking, that’s about $7 billion.” 
There is no doubt that, even in Soviet times, the Peace Fund was involved in financing the government’s and the secret services’ overseas operations, which included funding the education of students from Asian and African countries in the USSR and ‘aid to countries where conflicts involving the Soviet Union were taking place: Angola, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon’.   
This is how these activities were described until recently on the Soviet Peace Fund’s website (this text has since been removed): ‘In March 1988, the plenary session of the SFF Board discussed the role and objectives of the Peace Fund in the process of perestroika, and outlined the main areas of work aimed at enhancing the role and participation of the Fund’s activists in all campaigns by Soviet peace supporters, and in promoting the foreign policy of the CPSU and the USSR. The Fund financed the activities of 17 public organisations, as well as academic research into issues of peace and disarmament. It allocated funds to commemorate Soviet citizens who fought against fascism across Europe. In 1987, the SFM allocated 38.3 million roubles for the construction and equipping of hospitals for war and labour veterans, and 120 million roubles for providing material assistance to children left without parental care.” 
In 1992, the organisation ceased to exist and was immediately re-established under the name ‘International Association of Peace Funds’, a peacekeeping charitable non-governmental organisation. Its founders were the peace funds of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan (the Council for Peace and Harmony of the Republic of Kazakhstan), Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, formed from the former republican commissions for the promotion of the SFM. The fund’s sources of funding are unknown, but there is no doubt that they are government-backed. 
The association’s mission is defined on its website as ‘…bringing together: – national peace funds from various countries; – non-governmental organisations that share our goals and objectives and promote peace, equality and good neighbourliness; – all people of good will who direct their knowledge, strength and energy towards making our world more peaceful, secure and prosperous”. 
In other words – the recruitment and utilisation of people and organisations that may be of use to the Russian government. 
Sergey Baburin served as Chairman of the SFM Board until spring 2024. 
In 2019, a split occurred within the SFM, resulting in the formation of the Russian Peace Fund, headed by Leonid Slutsky. 
In 2020, the organisation reverted to its former name – the International Union of Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Public Associations, the Soviet Peace Fund. In April 2024, an internal coup took place within the SFM, and Karpov – who, due to ill health, had not been involved in the foundation’s work since 2022 – was replaced as president of the SFM by Leonid Slutsky, Chair of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs and leader of the LDPR. Karpov remained honorary president. 
In an article by Colonel Nikolai Sobolev,  ‘head of the Soviet Peace Fund’s humanitarian aid programme in the Special Military Operation zone’, which indignantly describes the takeover of the SFM by the leadership of the Russian Peace Fund with the support of the Russian Ministry of Justice, it is stated that ‘delegates from some 16 organisations took part in the charade organised by Slutsky on 22 April, but of the seven founding members (founding members) of the Soviet Peace Fund, whose powers have been confirmed in recent years by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, only two took part: the Belarusian Fund and the ‘Holocaust’ Society… To date, whilst the Belarusian Peace Fund is prepared to merge with the Russian Peace Fund, in the other states this prospect has caused tension and scandal.” 
The same article contains an interesting description of the SFM’s achievements in the struggle for peace under the leadership of Baburin and Karpov: ‘…Notable examples include the magazine *Slavs*, published with the Foundation’s involvement; the organisation of the Orthodox Church-Community and Scientific-Educational Irininsky Forum; and the Foundation’s experience in peacekeeping activities. Furthermore, the International Anti-Nazi Coalition of Countries and Peoples was established and is operating with the SFM’s involvement.
A.E. Karpov, the SFM’s long-standing president, recalls that he personally met with the leader of the Palestinian resistance, Y. Arafat, on the SFM’s premises on five occasions, for example. Today, the Foundation is one of the main centres of solidarity with the Palestinian people, whilst the Chairman of the SFM Board, S.N. Baburin, also heads the Russian Centre for the Preservation of the Spiritual and Cultural Heritage of the Holy City of Jerusalem and speaks out publicly in defence of Christian holy sites in Palestine. Members and supporters of the SFM have been providing humanitarian aid to the people of Syria for many years, and since 2014 to the residents of Donbas. The SFM’s premises host events organised by the Russian Public Committee for Solidarity with the Peoples of Libya and Syria, which is headed by S.N. Baburin.
It is no coincidence that Baburin himself has been awarded the Honorary Medal ‘For Services to the Donetsk People’s Republic’, as well as Palestine’s high honour, the ‘National Certificate of Honour’. …Over the course of a year and a half, the Foundation sent 18 convoys to the special military operation zone, delivering, alongside other humanitarian aid, four KAMAZ lorries, medicines and many items essential for the fighters, as well as building materials and tools to support operations in combat conditions.”  
In 2024, according to the SFM website, it comprised 18 organisations, of which only seven were foreign – ‘peace foundations’ from Georgia, Armenia, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. The rest were purely Russian, including the “Russian-Lao Friendship Society” and the “Centre for the Support of the Russian Language and Cultural Heritage ‘Russkoe Dostoyanie’” in Kyrgyzstan.
Most likely, these events signify a hostile takeover of the foundation’s property and premises (10/2s1 Prechistenka Street) by Slutsky’s group; however, it cannot be ruled out that, against the backdrop of Russia’s growing isolation on the world stage, the SFM’s role in covert international operations will once again begin to increase. Slutsky is a far more prominent figure in the Russian political hierarchy than Baburin. 
Sergey Baburin is no longer among the fund’s leaders; however, Igor Spivak, president of yet another highly interesting organisation – the Russian Middle East Society Foundation, which will be discussed below – is now on the board.   
It is interesting to note the Russian Peace Fund’s expenditure in 2023 on the programmes ‘People’s Memory’, ‘Care’, ‘Peace and Harmony’, ‘International Cooperation’, ‘Peace and Culture’, ‘Peace and Youth’, ‘Children of Russia’ and others, totalling 304.5 million roubles. Among the many patriotic and cultural events, it is worth noting the following:
‘To promote an objective image of Russia and Orthodox Christianity, the RFM allocated over 15 million 600 thousand roubles… 800 thousand roubles – for holding the Founding Congress of the International ‘Russophiles’ Movement; 8 million 400 thousand roubles have been allocated to the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy for activities in the fields of public awareness, education and science concerning the most pressing issues of foreign and defence policy…
Over 12 million 450 thousand roubles were allocated for the purchase of thermal imaging cameras, quadcopters, UAZ Patriot vehicles, diesel fuel, the manufacture of turrets, the weaving of nets, the production of protective clothing for participants in the Special Military Operation in Ukraine, and support for the family members of those taking part in the SMO. The RFM has allocated over 1 million 790 thousand roubles to pay for legal services for Russian nationals S. Vagin, A. Materikin, E. Pogasiy and R. Pankratov, who are currently imprisoned abroad…
500,000 roubles – for the organisation of the scientific and practical conference ‘Russia in the 21st Century: The Great Patriotic War and Historical Memory’… 
Over 8 million 725 thousand roubles have been allocated to provide assistance to participants in the special military operation and their families, to organise performances by artistic groups in the special military operation zone and in the newly liberated territories, to purchase medicines, food and household kits for residents of the LPR and DPR, and to provide vehicles and clothing for participants in the special military operation… 
600 thousand roubles have been allocated for the participation of the Russian Theatre group in Belgrade at the ‘Arctic Stage’ International Theatre Festival; 600 thousand roubles – for the organisation of the Bulgarian national competition ‘You Cannot Extinguish What Will Not Go Out’; 300,000 roubles for organising the ‘Russian Atlantis’ art exhibition in Minsk; 1,060,000 roubles to the Russian Federation’s Representative Office in Switzerland and Liechtenstein for the implementation of the ‘Cultural Academy’ humanitarian project; and more than 772,000 roubles – to organise a trip for young musicians from the Republic of Moldova to Moscow to take part in the World Youth Symphony Orchestras Festival; over 1,015,000 roubles were allocated for the production of clothing and footwear for Russian folk dance groups based at cultural centres in the Republic of Uruguay; 1 million roubles – for the Russian Film Days in Azerbaijan… The RFM allocated over 1 million 500 thousand roubles for the exhibition of Viktor But’s artwork ‘My Shore: A Fine Line’ at the ‘Mosfilm Gallery’…’  
It must be assumed that the entire list provided represents only that portion of the fund’s expenditure which is intended for public disclosure.