The development of Russia’s network of agents of influence in Cyprus. 

The Embassy and Ambassadors

Russia’s embassy serves as the centre for its legal intelligence activities in any country. It houses the representative offices of all the special services (the FSB’s 5th Directorate, the SVR, the GRU and Rossotrudnichestvo), which are only formally subordinate to the ambassador. During the Soviet era, between 60 and 80 per cent of the diplomatic staff at embassies were intelligence officers. 
As John Barron wrote, ‘For this reason, that the KGB fills many Soviet embassies with such a large number of its own staff, their personnel is bloated to the point of absurdity and completely out of proportion to the ordinary needs of normal diplomatic activity. For example, in 1971 there were five Mexicans with diplomatic immunity in Moscow, and sixty Soviet representatives with diplomatic immunity in Mexico City. Or 108 Americans in Moscow and 189 Soviet representatives with diplomatic immunity in Washington. In 1971, there were two Lebanese in Moscow and thirty-one Russians in Beirut; four Danes in Moscow and thirty-one Russians in Copenhagen; five Norwegians in Moscow and twenty-five Russians in Oslo; twenty West Germans in Moscow and fifty Russians in Bonn. The total number of diplomats accredited in Moscow from eighty-seven non-communist countries was 809, whilst whilst the number of Soviet diplomats accredited in those same countries stood at 1,769.” 

 

According to Viktor Suvorov, in the 1970s, 40 per cent of staff at Soviet embassies were KGB officers, 20 per cent were GRU officers and 40 per cent were ‘so-called “clean diplomats” ’. At the same time, intelligence officers were permitted to recruit ‘pure’ diplomats as informants without competing with one another. As Alexander Zelenko, a former officer of the USSR KGB’s foreign intelligence service, said in an interview in 2023: ‘A ratio was always maintained in every embassy: between 30 and 60 per cent intelligence officers. There was also a breakdown within that: 30 per cent were from the Main Intelligence Directorate – purely military intelligence, now known as the GRU – whilst 60–70 per cent were from the FSB, formerly the KGB.... I think that if the proportion of intelligence officers in the USSR was 30–60 per cent, it is now at least 50 per cent. And especially given Russia’s challenges on the diplomatic and technological fronts, the number of intelligence officers will increase to 60–70 per cent.” 
At present, the proportion of security service personnel in embassies, is presumably even higher, as official diplomatic activity between Russia and EU countries has virtually ceased following Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Consequently, staff at Russian diplomatic missions are left with nothing but covert activities – intelligence gathering, propaganda, recruiting new agents and attempts to destabilise the political situation in EU countries. 
In fact, the distinction between Russian diplomats and intelligence officers is rather arbitrary. Diplomats are trained at MGIMO, where intelligence officers of various specialisations are also trained; these officers operate under diplomatic, academic or other cover (as financiers, bankers, economists, lawyers). At the same time, the number of diplomatic staff at Russian embassies (as was previously the case with Soviet embassies) far exceeds that of embassies of other countries – precisely because there are not that many intelligence officers in the embassies of other countries.
Furthermore, Russian embassies coordinate the activities of numerous agents who do not enjoy diplomatic immunity. Robert Conquest wrote in the foreword to John Barron’s book *The KGB: The Work of Soviet Secret Agents* (1978): 
‘It is quite evident that KGB agents operating abroad fall into two distinct groups. The first group consists exclusively of highly trained and competent professionals, whose numbers are relatively small. This elite unit is supplemented by a vast number of diplomats, representatives of foreign trade organisations, correspondents for Soviet news agencies and the like, for whom service in the KGB is their main, and often their only, occupation. The work of these people is usually crude and clumsy. They are poorly trained and obtain these posts through family or other similar connections. From time to time, they are caught red-handed and expelled from the country where they were operating. However, one should not assume that their efforts are entirely fruitless. Firstly, their sheer numbers help, to some extent, to paralyse the limited efforts of Western counter-intelligence. Moreover, quite naturally, the involvement of such a large number of people significantly expands the KGB’s sphere of activity in its target country. Some of these people are sometimes quite successful in their operations.’  Over the past half-century, the working methods of the Russian secret services have hardly changed. If anything, they have simply accumulated experience. 
According to data from the Cypriot Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in 2024 the Russian Federation’s embassy comprised 41 diplomatic representatives – the ambassador himself, eight counsellors, 11 first secretaries, seven second secretaries, five third secretaries, eight attachés and one military attaché. 
By way of comparison, the US Embassy in Cyprus has 31 diplomats accredited, the British Embassy 23, the French Embassy 10, the Greek Embassy 10, the German Embassy nine, the Spanish Embassy seven, the Chinese Embassy 14 and the Ukrainian Embassy five.
In 2020, there were slightly more Russian embassy staff accredited as diplomats – 44 – but at that time there was some diplomatic activity. Today, they have virtually nothing to do in a formal sense. In reality, however, their workload has presumably increased – but only in relation to the security services. The lack of political intelligence, which was previously obtained legally, now has to be made up for through covert means.
If one adds to the number of diplomats the security personnel, support staff and technical specialists sent from Moscow, the total number of staff at the Russian embassy in tiny Cyprus can be estimated at around 120. This whole group leads a secret life behind the embassy walls, attracting virtually no attention. 
Following the outbreak of the war with Ukraine, EU countries significantly reduced the staff numbers at Russian embassies and consulates, expelling around 450 intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover; however, the embassy in Cyprus remained untouched. Consequently, Cyprus’s status as Russia’s intelligence hub within the European Union has risen sharply since 2022. 
This may explain why, in September 2022, a new and rather unusual ambassador arrived in Cyprus – FSB Lieutenant-General Murat Zyazikov. His predecessors included individuals from the security services (this is usually clearly evident from their biographies), but they had previously worked abroad, albeit under diplomatic cover. Zyazikov is the first Russian ambassador to Cyprus and the first security service general who has never been a diplomat, even in a formal capacity, has never worked abroad and does not speak any foreign languages.  
Zyazikov has the typical background of a high-ranking KGB-FSB officer who, under Putin, was assigned to domestic politics as a so-called ‘active reserve officer’. 
In 1980, Zyazikov he graduated from the Faculty of History at Chechen-Ingush University and the Faculty of Law at the South Russian Institute of Humanities. In 1984, he attended the KGB Advanced Training Course in Minsk. In the 1990s, he served in the FSB in Ingushetia and the Astrakhan Region. In 2002, under Putin, Zyazikov was promoted from Deputy Head of the FSB Directorate for the Astrakhan Region to Deputy Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of Russia in the Southern Federal District; a further two months later, in an openly rigged election, he was elected President of Ingushetia. From 2008, he served as an adviser to the President, then as Deputy Plenipotentiary Representative of the President in the Central Federal District. Zyazikov’s career is a typical example of the infiltration of state security officers into the structures of political power. 
Zyazikov became Ambassador to Cyprus six months after the start of the war with Ukraine, at a time of catastrophic developments for Russian diplomacy and without the slightest diplomatic experience. It is reasonable to assume that, at precisely this time, his purely professional experience as head of the secret police carried far greater weight. It is hardly possible to regard Zyazikov’s appointment as ambassador to Cyprus as a demotion. In February 2023, he was awarded the first (and highest possible!) diplomatic rank – ‘Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary’ – corresponding to the military rank of General of the Army. Not all of Zyazikov’s predecessors in Cyprus held this rank.
This is two ranks higher than his FSB rank – Lieutenant General. It is quite likely that Zyazikov’s rank corresponds to the tasks assigned to him. As is customary amongst Putin’s bureaucracy, Zyazikov, in addition to being a member of the Russian Writers’ Union, also holds a Doctorate in Philosophy. In 2005, whilst serving as a member of the State Council of the Russian Federation, he defended his thesis entitled ‘Ethnoconcepts of the Culture of the Ingush People’. However, ‘Dissernet’ identified numerous instances of borrowing and plagiarism in it.  
With official diplomatic contacts reduced to an absolute minimum, unofficial contacts – that is, the activities of the security services – take on particular significance. Zyazikov, seemingly without realising it himself, outlined the scope of his diplomatic engagements in Cyprus in an interview with *Vestnik Kipra* in February 2023: ‘I would particularly like to mention the warm and friendly conversations I had with the High Commissioner of India and the ambassadors of Jordan, Serbia, Egypt, Cuba, Brazil and Lebanon.’ Zyazikov and his team are effectively excluded from official communication with the ambassadors of Western democratic countries and EU member states. 
As early as December 2023, Putin awarded Zyazikov the Order of Honour “for his significant contribution to the implementation of the Russian Federation’s foreign policy and his many years of conscientious work”.
The grand opening in November 2023 of the ‘Ayia Napa–Gelendzhik’ scenic park in the resort town of Ayia Napa can be considered an unqualified diplomatic success for Zyazikov and his team. Gelendzhik has been a -has been a twin town of Ayia Napa, and the event itself would not have been particularly remarkable had it not been for the timing. The war had all but severed such contacts. By May 2022, more than 150 cities around the world had already severed their twinning ties with Russian cities. Organising a celebration of Russian -Cypriot friendship involving the city’s mayor and other Cypriot officials—whom it clearly compromised—required considerable diplomatic effort and serious preparatory work to establish ‘friendly ties’, or, in short, recruitment. A number of indications suggest that the embassy’s recruitment activities have now shifted their focus from the highest political elite—which, due to circumstances, has become particularly cautious—to local municipal authorities. 
Zyazikov’s contribution to Putin’s diplomacy during its era of total collapse can be gauged from the events of 2024. The Russian embassy significantly stepped up its activities in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a state recognised by no one except Turkey. the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Moreover, references to Northern Cyprus’s lack of recognition became less frequent in the Russian-language press in Cyprus. 
The European Parliament elections in Cyprus in June 2024 revealed, in a most intriguing way, the scale of the fraud in the Russian presidential elections held in Cyprus in March 2024. It was immediately obvious that the scale of this fraud was monstrous.  
According to official figures, a total of 53,000 people voted at two polling stations in Cyprus. Putin received 44,844 votes, giving him 84 per cent of all ballots cast. This is almost 10 per cent higher than the average across Russia as a whole and slightly lower than in Belarus (87.5 per cent). At the same time, 36,870 people voted early using portable ballot boxes that nobody had seen. In other words, at least 36,000 ballot papers were simply stuffed into the ballot boxes. And that is in addition to other fraudulent tricks. 
Zyazikov received praise for this operation from Nikolai Bulaev, Deputy Chair of the Central Electoral Commission of the Russian Federation. In this respect, Zyazikov is indeed a professional. In 2002, during the Ingushetia presidential election – which Zyazikov won at the time – there were also remarkable instances of electoral fraud. And in an extremely brazen manner, much like in Cyprus.  
After the election, Zyazikov said in an interview with Alexander Gasuk, a correspondent for *Rossiyskaya Gazeta*:
‘As Russia’s diplomatic mission in a country where over 10 per cent of the population (which is no small number – at least 120,000 people) are Russian compatriots, we carried out extensive preparatory work to organise the full cycle of the electoral process abroad... 
I consider it of fundamental importance to emphasise that the exceptionally high voter turnout demonstrated by our compatriots here represents not so much a formal process as a unity – unique for a European Union member state – of true patriots of their homeland in the cause of choosing the best future for it... The record turnout at our polling stations in Nicosia, Limassol, Paphos, Larnaca and Ayia Napa, as well as in other towns, together with the preliminary voting results, have fully demonstrated the solidarity of our fellow citizens living here with the fate of their homeland.”  
He would have been better off not saying that. In June 2024, during the European Parliament elections, under the farcical circumstances described below, Dmitry Apraksin – a protégé of Moscow and the embassy, and chairman of the Co-ordination Council of Russian Compatriots in Cyprus – stood as a candidate for the European Parliament. He received just over a hundred votes, which completely refuted Zyazikov’s claim regarding the solidarity of Russians living in Cyprus with the ‘fate of their homeland’. Apparently, Zyazikov, in authorising this escapade, failed to realise that the elections would be genuine. 
In October 2023, Alexander Gasyuk, a correspondent for *Rossiyskaya Gazeta*, was arrested in Cyprus and deported to Russia. He was detained whilst conducting surveillance on the family of a high-ranking Ukrainian official living in Cyprus. Gasyuk was being covered by an embassy staff member, Danil Doinikov, a former FSB border guard officer, who even attempted to wrest him from the Cypriot police and was detained alongside Gasyuk. Gasyuk arrived in Cyprus in the spring of 2022, half a year before Zyazikov. Prior to Cyprus, Gasyuk had worked in the US and Greece; indeed, it was the Americans who passed on information to their Cypriot colleagues regarding Gasyuk’s affiliation with the secret services. Before that, there had been no representatives of *Rossiyskaya Gazeta* or TASS in Cyprus for many years. At the same time as Gasyuk, the head of the TASS bureau, Andrei Surzhansky, also arrived in Cyprus; he too had previously worked in the US and, according to some reports, is an officer of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). Surzhansky has been on Ukraine’s sanctions list since 2015. 
Unlike in other European countries, the number of propaganda events organised by the embassy – primarily military-patriotic ones – is not decreasing in Cyprus but is constantly growing. New, often rather unexpected pretexts are sought for these events. In addition to traditional Soviet-Russian celebrations such as 9 May, there are now, for example, commemorations of the anniversary of Germany’s attack on the USSR on 22 June and the lifting of the Leningrad Blockade on 26 January. The public celebration on 30 September 2023 in front of the Russian House in Nicosia marking the annexation of ‘Novorossiya’ (the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions of Ukraine) to the Russian Federation. In 2024, the celebration was repeated on 28 September. 
A person close to the embassy – Angelina Ter-Oganova, daughter of KGB Colonel Arsen Aramovich Ter-Oganov (Ter-Oganian) .   Angelina Ter-Oganova was born in 1971 and graduated from Moscow State University; according to her, her first degree was in astrophysics.   She arrived in Cyprus in 2013 and began organising tours on the island for Russian artists. In 2015, she began publishing the glossy magazine *Premier*, which enabled her to establish connections within Cyprus’s business and political elite. Ter-Oganova is a regular attendee at all the receptions and events held at the embassy. According to her own account, Ter-Oganova completed a one-year course at the FSB Academy in 1995. In private conversations, she often referred to information she received from the FSB about people of interest to her. 

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Among Zyazikov’s predecessors in Cyprus were several individuals who had clearly built their careers not through the diplomatic service but via the secret services. 
Boris Gennadievich Zenkov was the last Soviet and the first Russian ambassador to Cyprus; he held his post from 1990 to 1996, holding the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, 1st Class (from 1993). This is equivalent to the rank of colonel-general. A graduate of MGIMO, he had previously worked at embassies in Greece, Cyprus and Morocco. The fact that Zenkov was not a ‘pure diplomat’ can be inferred from the fact that in 1997 he became the first president of Incombank, followed by several other major companies, and never returned to diplomacy. By all accounts, Zenkov was brought into business in much the same way as Zyazikov was brought into politics. It was during Zenkov’s tenure that close ties between Russian business and Cyprus were established.
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Zenkov’s successor, Georgy Lvovich Muradov, who served as ambassador from 1996 to 1999, also played and continues to play an important role in Cyprus. 
A 1979 graduate of MGIMO, Muradov served as a diplomat in Greece, Bulgaria and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ central headquarters prior to his appointment to Cyprus. It can be assumed that he owed his post as ambassador to the patronage of his father-in-law, Yuri Gryadunov, an Arabist diplomat, Ambassador of the USSR and Russia to Jordan, and a friend of Yevgeny Primakov. Gryadunov, much like Primakov—the future director of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR)—was most likely an intelligence officer operating under diplomatic cover. 
The diplomatic rank Muradov received upon his appointment as ambassador to Cyprus was that of Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Envoy, 2nd class (equivalent to a lieutenant-general). After Cyprus, the direction of Muradov’s career changed dramatically, suggesting that he was originally a secret service officer. In 2000, he became head of the Department of International Relations, and from 2007 to 2010, he was head of the Department of Foreign Economic and International Relations for the City of Moscow. From 2010 to 2014, Muradov served as deputy head of Rossotrudnichestvo, and following the occupation of Crimea in 2014, he became Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Crimea and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Crimea to the President of the Russian Federation. In other words, since 2000, Muradov has no longer been subordinate to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; now, like Zyazikov before his appointment to Cyprus, he poses as a politician. 
At the same time, Muradov holds numerous public posts (that is, posts in purely token organisations which are regarded as public in Russia, but are not in fact public bodies).  Among other things, he is president of ‘Filia’, the Society for Cultural and Business Cooperation and Friendship with the Peoples of Greece and Cyprus, established in 1991 on the basis of the ‘USSR–Greece’ and ‘USSR–Cyprus’ friendship societies. Since 2019, the director of the ‘Filia’ Society has been his son, Sergei Muradov, a 2010 graduate of the Faculty of International Journalism at MGIMO.  
It is laughable to discuss Muradov’s political views, as it is with anyone from his circle. But his choice of words is telling. Here is what he said in a 2024 interview marking the tenth anniversary of the annexation of Crimea:
‘I’m often asked: what, they say, would have happened if the Crimean Spring hadn’t taken place, if Crimea hadn’t risen up? What can one say? The slogans of the Kyiv junta were absolutely explicit, and today they are being put into practice by the Nazis in the part of Ukraine under their control. And it’s not just a question of that Crimea must not be Russian – that is, that the Russian language and culture must be banned, churches closed, and historical memory erased. I believe that their main aim is to strike at the very core that holds the unity of the Slavic peoples together, or to make the peninsula, as they put it, ‘deserted’. But they would not have succeeded in doing so. The people of Crimea were ready to fight.” 
Since 2014, Muradov has been subject to European Union sanctions, and since 2016 to US sanctions. He is also on the sanctions lists of the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland and Australia. . 
Sergei, the son of Georgy Muradov, graduated in 2010 from the Faculty of International Journalism at MGIMO, specialising in ‘PR and public relations’.   He owns the concert agencies ‘Eventation Greece’, registered in Greece, and ‘MMI Concert Agency’, registered in the Republic of Cyprus. The official owner of the latter firm is Yevgeny Boyazov, a childhood friend of Sergei Muradov. According to unconfirmed reports, Sergei Muradov is an employee of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). Georgy Muradov’s youngest son, Albert Naryshkin (born 2004), also graduated from MGIMO, specialising in the Turkish language.   Georgy Muradov’s eldest son, Yuri, graduated from MGIMO in 2005; he worked within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2005 to 2010 (in positions that are unknown), then in the Presidential Administration, and since 2017 has served as Deputy Governor of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. It seems highly likely that the Muradovs are a dynasty of security service officers, a tradition common in both the USSR and Russia.  
As is customary in these circles, Georgy Muradov holds an academic title, though it is unclear which one. Some sources state that he is a Doctor of Historical Sciences (for example, on Wikipedia), whilst others indicate that he is a Candidate of Sciences. The title of his Candidate of Sciences thesis, defended in 2006, is known: ‘International Relations of the Regions of the Russian Federation: The Case of Moscow in the 1990s–Early 2000s’. It was precisely at this time that he served as head of the Department of International Relations of the City of Moscow. It is not difficult to guess the academic value of this work. 
Muradov’s academic publications, mentioned on the MGIMO website where he is listed as a professor, are devoted to Russia’s state policy towards ‘compatriots’, that is to say, they fall entirely within the remit of the security services.  
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Muradov’s successor, Vladimir Alexandrovich Pavlinov (1937–2013) served as ambassador to Cyprus from 1999 to 2003. His diplomatic rank was that of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, 2nd class. Prior to his appointment to Cyprus, he held posts at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in organisations involved in nuclear non-proliferation. The post of Ambassador to Cyprus was the last in his career and his first to be based at an embassy. Given that Pavlinov graduated from MGIMO in 1964 but only completed the advanced diplomatic courses at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs 35 years later, in 1999, on the eve of his appointment to Cyprus, it can be assumed that his main activities prior to that had been in the field of intelligence. 
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The next Russian ambassador to Cyprus, Andrei Alekseevich Nesterenko (born 1955), held his post from 2003 to 2008. He is the only one who can, with a reasonable degree of certainty, be described as a ‘pure’ (career) diplomat. His entire career unfolded within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Prior to Cyprus, Nesterenko served in the USA, the UK and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ headquarters; after Cyprus, already in the role of ambassador, he served in Montenegro and Croatia. His diplomatic rank (since 2005) was Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Army General). 
***
Andrei Nesterenko’s successor, Vyacheslav Dmitrievich Shumsky (1950), served as Russia’s ambassador to Cyprus from 2008 to 2013 – that is, for two terms. It is difficult to say with certainty which department he belonged to. He graduated from MGIMO in 1972, but official sources are vague about the first 18 years of his service – ‘He held various diplomatic posts at headquarters and abroad’. Then there is a strange gap: ‘In 1990–1991, he was head of division in the African Countries Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1991–1996, he was counsellor at the Embassy of the USSR, and subsequently of Russia, in the USA. 
From 1996 to 1998, he was Chief Adviser and Deputy Director of the Department for African Affairs at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 
From 11 November 1998 to 20 August 2003, he was Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Namibia. 
From 2003 to 2006, he was Deputy Director of the First Department for CIS Countries at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 
From July 2006 to September 2008, he was Director of the First Department for CIS Countries at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 
From 11 September 2008 to 3 June 2013, he served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Cyprus.  There is no information regarding Shumsky’s subsequent appointments. Since 2010, he has held the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. 
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There is little doubt as to the departmental affiliation of Shumsky’s successor and Ziazikov’s predecessor, Stanislav Viliorovich Osadchy. 
Stanislav Osadchy (born 1951) served as Ambassador to Cyprus for nine years – from June 2013 to September 2022. Osadchiy graduated from MGIMO in 1973 and from the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – which provides a pathway to general’s ranks and senior diplomatic posts – in 1999. Osadchiy attained the highest diplomatic rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in 2004, alongside his appointment as Russia’s Ambassador to Austria, a post he held until 2010. From the very beginning of his career, Osadchiy alternated between diplomatic posts abroad (Cyprus, Greece, the USA, Germany, Turkey and Austria) and administrative roles within the Foreign Ministry – Head of the Foreign Minister’s Secretariat, Head of the Foreign Ministry’s Personnel Department, and Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Security Department. From this last post, Osadchiy was appointed Ambassador to Cyprus. Personnel and security are traditional areas of activity for the KGB, and subsequently the FSB, in any Soviet or Russian government department. 
Osadchiy is a second-generation intelligence officer. His father, Vilior Gavrilovich Osadchiy, was a high-ranking officer in the KGB’s Main Directorate for Foreign Intelligence (PGU), having served at various times as a KGB resident in Kabul (1971–1979) and Israel. According to information from open sources, Vilior Gavrilovich Osadchiy served at the Soviet intelligence station in Israel from 1955 to 1960 and from 1966 to 1968, under the cover of a trade attaché at the Soviet Embassy in Tel Aviv. Stanislav Osadchiy’s grandfather was, in all likelihood, State Security Major Gavriil Ivanovich Osadchiy, who was killed during a punitive operation against the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in 1945.
Since 2023, Stanislav Osadchiy, a Candidate of Historical Sciences, has been a professor at MGIMO. It is interesting to note that most of the subjects he teaches are, even at first glance, directly linked to propaganda and the recruitment of émigrés; for example, ‘Current Trends in Information and Public Awareness Work in Foreign Policy’ and ‘ The Work of Russian Overseas Representations with Compatriots Abroad’  
Stanislav Osadchiy served as Russia’s ambassador to Cyprus for an unexpectedly long period – nine years. And these were very significant years. During this time – between the occupation of Crimea and the invasion of eastern Ukraine – the anti-democratic policies and ideology of the Putin regime took their final shape, and there was a sharp increase in the role of state security and intelligence services both at home and abroad. As the civilised world imposed ever-wider sanctions on Russia, Cyprus’s role as the European Union’s weak link, open to financial and political contacts with Russia, also grew. It must be assumed that it was precisely during the Osadchy era, and largely thanks to his efforts, that a secret network of political, financial and intelligence ties took shape in Cyprus, which Zyazikov took over in 2022.
Osadchiy wielded enormous influence over the Cypriot establishment. He would ring Cypriot politicians and government officials directly and instruct them on how to act in various circumstances. As a rule, his instructions were followed. He allowed himself to make hostile remarks about the Cypriot government, and these went unchallenged by the local authorities and were not even criticised in the press.
On one occasion, Osadchiy demanded that the President of Cyprus, Anastasiades, dismiss Makarios Drousiotis, an employee of the presidential administration whom he found objectionable. And he was dismissed. The Cypriot journalist Drousiotis himself writes about this in his book *Putin’s Island*: “ In 2013, I was part of a team of volunteers working on the campaign to elect Nicos Anastasiades, leader of the right-wing Democratic Rally (DISY) party, as President of the Republic of Cyprus. When he won the election, he appointed me as his special adviser. <…> My collaboration with President Anastasiades came to an end in the autumn of 2014, when I was forced to resign because of a book I had published on the role of the great powers in the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. The Soviet Union is not portrayed in a favourable light in my book, because I discovered that the Soviets had in fact encouraged the Turks to invade, undermining the belief they had cultivated that the Soviet Union was the only country that steadfastly supported Cyprus on the international stage. As a result, the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Cyprus put pressure on the President to get rid of me. 
As reported on 14 September 2022 by the Cypriot publication ‘Radio Proto’, ‘ Alexandros Zenon, former Director-General of the Cypriot Ministry of Foreign Affairs, speaking on the ‘Radio Proto’ programme, stated that during a meeting held in his office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Osadchiy ‘demanded that we breach our obligations to the European Union’ in order to serve Russian interests and plans. “He told me quite clearly that we were being monitored. That is to say, our telephones and so on,” added Mr Zenon, and the conversation ended with him “automatically telling him that ‘the discussion was over’ and effectively showing him out of my office”, he said. “During the period when Mr Osadchy was posted in Cyprus, Russia’s interference in Cyprus’s internal political and ecclesiastical affairs was intense and often took place without even observing diplomatic pretences.” 
Under Osadchiy, between 2019 and 2022 (?) Andrei Maevich Panyukhov (b. 1970) served in Cyprus as Minister-Counsellor (the second-in-command at the embassy). His diplomatic rank was Minister Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the second rank. Panyukhov is known to be a former SVR officer whose identity has been revealed.  
In 2016, Andrei Gromov was Minister-Counsellor in Cyprus.  He appears to be a diplomat, but there are strange gaps in his biography. Gromov was born in 1959. As a child, he was a well-known actor, appearing as a young boy in popular films such as *The Adventures of the Yellow Suitcase*, *The Officers* and others. 
In 1981, Gromov graduated from MGIMO (English, Urdu). However, according to his official biography, he only began working within the Foreign Ministry in 1996 – ‘From 2005 to 2012, he served as Senior Adviser at the Permanent Mission of Russia to the UN in New York, USA. From 2014 to 2015, he was Chief Adviser to the Department for Work with Compatriots. From 2015 to 2017, he was Minister-Counsellor at the Russian Embassy in Cyprus. He holds the diplomatic rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, 2nd class, conferred on 10 June 2017.   Since 2018 – Consul General of the Russian Federation in Ruse, Republic of Bulgaria.  
Gromov’s biography makes no mention of what he did during the first 15 years after graduating from MGIMO or during his first nine years at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is strange. It is unlikely that this was work under the guise of journalism, as there would have been publications to show for it. Most likely, he served in military intelligence. Urdu is one of the languages of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. His service in the ‘Department for Work with Compatriots’ at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also points more to the secret services than to diplomacy. Moreover, consular posts are usually held by secret service officers, as they primarily involve extensive interaction with people applying for visas and other consular services.

12. The Russian Centre for Science and Culture in Nicosia
The so-called ‘Russian House’ in Nicosia (the Russian Centre for Science and Culture) serves, as it were, as a branch of the embassy, accessible to the general public – and at the same time as a key centre for the operational work of the secret services. There is no question of science or culture as such there. The Russian authorities have no interest in any cultural activity in its own right – outside the context of political propaganda and the recruitment of its participants and audiences – just as the Soviet authorities had no such interest in the past. This applies to concerts and educational activities, children’s dance and sports clubs, theatre studios, Russian language courses and everything else. 
Russian embassies in every country are under more or less close surveillance by local counter-intelligence services. Every time staff leave the premises and every visitor who enters is recorded. At any rate, they can be recorded. 
No such surveillance is carried out at Russian Houses. Moreover, it is impossible to monitor visitors to the numerous cultural events and concerts. This makes the ‘Russian House’ an ideal venue for making contacts, meeting agents and recruiting people. The more such events there are, the more difficult it is to keep track of their participants.
The Soviet government began building Russian cultural centres in various countries around the world as far back as the 1960s. Following the establishment of Rossotrudnichestvo in 2008, the ‘Russian Houses’ became its representative offices, functioning as independent cultural centres. According to official figures, in 2024 Rossotrudnichestvo is represented in 80 countries worldwide by 97 representative offices, including 73 Russian centres for science and culture in 62 countries.  
In the language of Putin’s security services, the objectives of Rossotrudnichestvo and the Russian Centres for Science and Culture are described as follows: ‘The agency sees its task as further strengthening ties with compatriots permanently residing abroad, and in supporting their efforts to expand cultural, scientific and business cooperation with Russia. Compatriots are essential participants in the events organised by the Russian Centres for Science and Culture. Meetings are organised for them with Russian parliamentarians and figures from the worlds of science and culture, and lectures are held on the socio-economic and legal reforms taking place in Russia, its foreign policy, and cultural life in Russia. Our compatriots have the opportunity to use the RCC’s libraries and video libraries, take part in club and interest group activities, and attend Russian language courses.” 
“ ‘Strengthening ties with compatriots’ is a euphemism for the recruitment and exploitation of emigrants from the former USSR. Everything else is simply a means and method of recruitment. 
Among the leaders of the Russian Houses, it is easy to find people whose backgrounds suggest  possible links to the secret services. In every country (for example, in Germany), all manner of pseudo-civil society organisations of ‘compatriots’ and ‘friends of Russia’ are concentrated around Russian embassies and ‘Russian Houses’.
The Russian House in Nicosia was opened in 1978. 
In 2013, its director was Alexei Nikolaevich Rogalev – a serving diplomat, a graduate of MGIMO, and Rossotrudnichestvo’s representative in Cyprus, holding a diplomatic rank unusually high for this post: Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, 2nd class. Former Minister-Counsellor (the second-in-command at the embassy) in Greece. He headed the Directorate for CIS and Baltic States within the Moscow City Department of Foreign Economic and International Relations. It is possible that, like Georgy Muradov, Rogalev’s former superior in the Moscow government, he is not a ‘pure’ diplomat, but an undercover intelligence officer. 

In 2015, Yuri Alexandrovich Zaitsev was director of the Russian House. Between 2010 and 2013, he served as an adviser at the embassy in Washington and, whilst holding a similar post there, made the pages of the American press. As reported by ‘Voice of America’, ‘the popular American magazine Mother Jones published an article in which the author claimed that the head of the Russian Cultural Centre in Washington, Yuri Zaitsev, was involved in recruiting Americans, and that the US FBI was conducting an investigation into the matter’.  Zaitsev and the Russian Foreign Ministry vehemently denied the allegations. However, a year before the scandal, in September 2012, at a meeting of Rossotrudnichestvo representatives in Moscow, attended by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Yuri Zaitsev said the following: ‘...we have managed to organise trips here, to Moscow and St Petersburg, for 70 young political leaders, businesspeople and journalists who have visited Russia. The impact this has had in the United States of America has been enormous. They have now set up an online portal amongst themselves, they are corresponding with one another and carrying out advocacy work; in other words, they are effectively working to help us. And in some cases, non-governmental organisations known as Russian cultural societies have been set up in certain cities. In particular, deep in the heart of the United States, in Memphis (you know, the birthplace of American jazz), the Russian flag is flying today on Main Street above the Russian Cultural Centre, established by Americans.’  In effect, Yuri Zaitsev confirmed the future accusations that would be levelled against him. And it would have been strange if it were any different. Zaitsev was simply carrying out his official duties. Recruiting agents is the primary task of all Russian Houses around the world. That is why they were set up in the first place.
Zaitsev was expelled from the US  and ended up in Cyprus that same year. In 2016, he was transferred to Vienna, where he held the same post – director of the Russian House – until 2018. 
Another interesting aspect of this story is that it was only in the US that the counter-intelligence service (the FBI) deemed it necessary to take notice of Zaitsev’s work. Neither Cyprus nor Austria posed any obstacle to him. 
Zaitsev has a typical background. As he himself recounted in an interview on the occasion of his appointment to Vienna, he was born in 1954, graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Technology and subsequently pursued a meteoric career in the Komsomol, which by 1986 had led him to the posts of President of the USSR Student Council and First Deputy Chairman of the Committee of Youth Organisations of the USSR. Both bodies were classic Soviet imitations of civil society organisations. Such activities could not fail to have links to the KGB. It is highly likely that Zaitsev became a KGB officer at the start of his Komsomol career, a fact that predetermined its course. Whilst the USSR was still in existence, Zaitsev travelled to Japan on a Foreign Ministry programme to attend a three-month course on macroeconomic management. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Zaitsev became one of the directors of the Moscow Central Stock Exchange. He then, in his own words, ‘was actively involved in entrepreneurial activities in non-state sector companies’, that is to say, he was embedded in the private sector. In 2009, as he himself recounts in an interview, ‘he was once again invited to participate in international projects’ .  This implies intelligence work abroad under the diplomatic cover of Rossotrudnichestvo. 
An interesting detail. The 2016 interview with Zaitsev, upon his appointment to Vienna, was conducted by Irina Muchkina, chair of the Co-ordinating Council of Russian Compatriots in Austria. She noted at the time that she had known Zaitsev for 30 years, back when Muchkina was deputy director-general of the ‘Kosmos’ hotel complex, where the ‘most foreign’ participants of the Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow were staying, whilst Zaitsev was involved in organising the festival.  For those familiar with Soviet realities, this is irrefutable proof that both of them served in the KGB at the time. It is clear from Mutchkina’s account of her life that her husband also served in the security services.  And this is yet another telling indication of the pool from which the leaders and members of Co-ordination Councils for Russian Compatriots around the world are recruited. Cyprus is no exception. 
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Since 2016, Alina Radchenko, an embassy adviser, has held the posts of Rossotrudnichestvo representative in Cyprus and director of the Russian House. Prior to her appointment in Cyprus, she served as an adviser to the Department of Domestic Policy of the President of the Russian Federation, an adviser to the First Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, and Head of the Public Chamber’s Secretariat. Radchenko has been travelling to Cyprus at the Public Chamber’s expense since 2012, for no apparent reason.  
According to unconfirmed reports, Radchenko’s deputy, Ilya Dmitriev (First Secretary of the Embassy), and the head of the Education Department at the Russian Centre for Cultural Cooperation, Igor Melnik, are SVR officers. 
Diana Borisova (Borisova-Kourtellari) held a prominent position amongst the staff of the Russian Centre for Cultural Cooperation.  She is the daughter of an FSB colonel, was born in 1997, and graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at MGIMO in 2019. Whilst studying at MGIMO, she also studied Greek at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2017 –2018) and, from 2021 to 2023, studied at the University of Cyprus in Nicosia. She is a relative of Yuri Borisov, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, who later became head of Roscosmos. Alina Radchenko, Director of the Russian Centre for Cultural and Information Activities, appears to be Borisov’s appointee. 
There is evidence that Diana Borisova is an SVR officer undergoing training in Cyprus to work in other countries. She married a Cypriot citizen. 
In 2019, Diana Borisova became ‘co-chair’ of the Youth Club of Russian Compatriots in Cyprus, which was established at the same time with the assistance of Rossotrudnichestvo.  It is possible that the club was set up specifically for her. No information could be found about other members of the club, apart from Polina Kostina  and Olesya Chrysantou (Rybkina).  Olesya Chrysantou, a resident of Nicosia born in 1984, is a “co-founder of I.Q. Partnership, Cyprus, a specialist in finance, anti-money laundering and cybersecurity, and the keynote speaker for the project ‘Cybersecurity. The New Reality’.  
The Russian House has an expert club, whose members include: His Eminence 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 Kouzalis, 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, theatre 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. Many members of the expert club studied in the USSR and Russia. In fact, this is a list of local agents of influence, although it is certainly far from complete. They will be discussed in detail below. 
Data on RCSC staff has not been published. More or less complete data is available only for 2020.   
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The Facebook pages of all Russian Houses feature numerous announcements about Russian events, behind which lies an obvious effort to attract and recruit foreigners, primarily young people. Most often, this takes the form of competitions and contests, with preliminary rounds held online. Winners receive prizes such as trips to conferences, congresses and training camps, as well as free tuition at Russian universities. The target group is young people with foreign citizenship or permanent residence permits. Voluntary participation in such events in itself demonstrates a willingness to be recruited. The rest is a matter of technique, selection and indoctrination. 
It has always been this way. In his book *The KGB Today*, John Barron wrote about the largest intelligence operations carried out by the NKVD and the KGB: ‘None of these operations would have succeeded if agents had been recruited only when the need arose.... Identification, recruitment, the gradual infiltration of agents and their advancement through the ranks of the legitimate service — this is the most important of the tasks facing the staff of the First Chief Directorate’. 
For Moscow, training new generations of agents of influence and spies from among foreign youth is a traditional and long-standing programme. Who knows in what positions, in which countries and in which organisations today’s schoolchildren or students will find themselves in ten years’ time. The sooner they are recruited, the better. In the past, tourists and foreign students coming to the country on exchange programmes or simply to study served as a recruitment base for the KGB and FSB. As a rule, they were completely unaware of any wrongdoing. 
But Russia was not isolated in the past. After 2022, the situation changed: tourism has dried up, there are few students, and there are practically none at all from EU countries. Even direct flights to Europe have been cut off. That is why they have to resort to such elaborate schemes to identify the ‘right’ people. 
Here are a few examples.
In September 2024, an announcement appeared on the websites of several Russian Houses (for example, in Nicosia and Dushanbe) regarding an online competition ‘Themis’ for foreign nationals. The Olympiad is organised by the Russian State University of Justice – ‘Winners and prize-winners of the Olympiad are guaranteed admission to the University within the quota set by the Government of the Russian Federation’.
There is a very telling underlying motive to this news. By 2024, Russia will be a state completely devoid of the rule of law. Without justice or many civil liberties, and with savage, anti-democratic laws. Travelling to present-day Russia to study law is about as sensible as going to North Korea or Belarus. And for the same reasons, which have nothing to do with education.
Any sensible foreigner who were to go to Russia today to study (let alone law) would either be a complete ignoramus or an agent already recruited by the Russian secret services.
In fact, mere participation in this Olympiad is a demonstration of one’s willingness to be recruited. It is curious that the registration deadlines for participants vary from country to country. In Cyprus, it runs from 23 September to 5 November; in Tajikistan, from 5 to 26 November, which suggests systematic engagement with specific countries rather than a single, universal programme.
At the same time as the ‘Themis’, the Russian House website has published an announcement extending the deadline for applications for the 3rd International ‘Honest View’ Media Award, for which ‘over 300 applications from 50 countries around the world’ have already been received.  
This is a competition open to everyone, including foreigners, who are prepared to become Moscow’s propagandists, as is made abundantly clear by the list of categories and awards:

‘Applications are accepted in all languages on the award’s official website, honest-view.press, from individual journalists, editorial teams and bloggers. 
Categories for the ‘Honest View’ Award:
Grand Prix – the top prize of the ‘Honest View’ Award; 
Best piece on social and humanitarian issues;
Best piece on international cultural partnership with Russia; 
Best piece in the genre of feature writing and documentary journalism;
Best piece by young journalists on Russia;
Best piece in the RT partnership category. 
We would like to remind you that this year a new category has been introduced for young journalists aged between 18 and 25. The finalists will visit Moscow to take part in a two-day Media School, which will be organised on the eve of the competition’s awards ceremony. Don’t miss your chance to win a cash prize and attend the awards ceremony in the Russian capital.”  
This clearly illustrates the process of selecting and training Putin’s agents of influence. 
Here is another example. On 27 September, the Russian House in Nicosia published an announcement: ‘We invite you to take part in the annual competition for the title of laureate of the “EcoMir-2024” International Environmental Prize. The Prize is established by the non-governmental organisation “Russian Academy of Natural Sciences” . The prize is awarded for outstanding achievements in environmental protection and ensuring ecological safety, as well as in other environmental activities. The selection of competition participants is carried out on the basis of submitted applications and documents confirming the implementation of the projects, programmes and campaigns presented. The deadline for submitting applications for the competition is 1 December 2024.” 
The Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, RAEN (like its German offshoot – the European Academy of Natural Sciences, EAN) – is a pseudo-civil society organisation with close ties to the security services,  founded in 1990 and for many years engaged in the distribution and sale of self-invented, homemade titles and numerous laughable orders.  
Many such ‘academies’, having absolutely nothing to do with science, were invented in Russia during the 1990s. It seems very likely that these organisations have been given a new lease of life in recent years. In any case, RAEN vigorously mimics scientific activity. An invitation to take part in a competition for something completely vague, with a multitude of categories – including, for example, ‘Ecological and

Patriotic Activity’ – in reality simply amounts to an invitation to enter into a mutually beneficial relationship with the Moscow authorities. Subsequently, competent specialists will determine which applicants are of interest and which are not.

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The Russian House in Limassol

One of Alina Radchenko’s predecessors as director of the Russian Centre for Cultural Cooperation in Nicosia and representative of Rossotrudnichestvo was Roman Viktorovich Vavilov, a figure so enigmatic that there can be no doubt he was a member of the secret services. 
No record of his biography or career history could be found. He was born in 1946, but there is no trace of him in open sources. The earliest mention of Vavilov online dates back to 1996, when he was listed among the founders of the Moscow-based Interregional Public Organisation ‘Society of Friends of Switzerland’.  This organisation was dissolved by 2001 and no traces of its activities have been found. It appears to have been an attempt at some sort of scam by secret service officers working undercover abroad. Among the other founders mentioned are Alexander Fedorovich Petrichko and Vladimir Antonovich Zolotarev, who were referred to above as the leaders of the MSOD – the ‘International Commonwealth of Public Associations – Societies of Friendship with the Peoples of Foreign Countries’, established in 2011.
In 1999, Vavilov was employed by OAO “Radio-Centre Concern”.
In 2004, Vavilov was listed among the diplomats at the Russian Embassy in Cyprus as First Secretary (for Culture). His place of work was the Roszarubezhcentre under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Since 2007, Vavilov has been the director of the Russian Centre for Culture in Nicosia and a representative of Rossotrudnichestvo.

In 2012, he was mentioned as the executive director of the foundation for the construction of an Orthodox church in
Cyprus.

In 2014, there was a sudden change of direction. Roman Vavilov became director of the Russian House in Limassol, which opened on 5 April that year. As Vavilov himself wrote: “The idea of creating the ‘Russian House’ was supported by the Mayor of Limassol, the Cyprus–Russia Friendship Society, the Cyprus Women’s Organisation and local business circles. This beautiful building was provided to us by the businessman and patron Andreas Neokleous.” Neokleous is a lawyer who served Russian clients
Unlike the Russian Centre for Science and Culture in Nicosia, the Russian House in Limassol is not a Russian organisation, but rather an independent, non-governmental and non-profit organisation. In other words, it appears that by 2014, Vavilov had officially left the diplomatic service, becoming a private individual and public figure with unclear sources of income. There is no information available on the sources of funding for the Russian House or for Vavilov himself. However, in 2015, a limited liability company called RH-RUSSIAN HOUSE IN CYPRUS LIMITED was registered in Cyprus.  The directors are Andreas Neokleous, Roman and Alexander Vavilov, and the secretary is Androulla Papadopoulou. Alexander Vavilov (1972) is Roman’s son. 
In April 2016, Vavilov, as a representative of the Cypriot public, attended a meeting between the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, and participants in the ‘In Unity with Russia’ World Forum.  
In 2018, the Russian House in Limassol was granted the status of a Russian Centre of the ‘Russkiy Mir’ Foundation.  In 2019, the Russian House celebrated its fifth anniversary in style,  only to suddenly disappear. Along with Vavilov. The last post on the Russian House’s Facebook page is dated 19 December 2019. The building’s owner, Andreas Neokleos, died of Covid-19 in 2019, and the building was soon demolished.
In total, Roman Vavilov is mentioned 15 times on the ‘Russian World’ Foundation’s page.  
The most recent mention of the Russian House on the ‘Russian World’ website, authored by Vavilov himself, is dated August 2020. It refers to the continued work of the Russian Centre’s People’s University of Culture in Limassol. The rector of this university, Alexei Golovanov, is also mentioned. 
Apparently, traces of yet another scam can be discerned in the report stating that on 4 April 2019 ‘On 2 April, a meeting was held at the Russian Centre in Limassol between the leadership and representatives of Cyprus’s largest community of compatriots, “Russian in Cyprus”, which brings together more than 1,600 compatriots. At the meeting, the director of the Russian Centre, Roman Vavilov, and the head of the community, Alexei Golovanov, signed a cooperation agreement between the two organisations.”  
‘Russians in Cyprus!’ is a large Facebook group, but no indication could be found that it constitutes a public organisation or is headed by Golovanov. It appears that the plan was to turn it into a proper community, but Vavilov’s secondment from Cyprus put an end to all these plans. 
Alexey Golovanov, who from the very beginning played a very active role in the activities of the Russian House in Limassol, giving lectures there on wine, art and cuisine, and even holding the title of rector of the non-existent People’s University of Culture, is a mysterious figure. In the Russian-language press in Cyprus, he is known as a Russian artist and curator of the Commandaria Museum (dedicated to a local variety of dessert wine) in the village of Siliku. The museum was opened in July 2014 in a building donated to the museum by the President of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, and previously owned by his family.  Anastasiades is a lawyer who previously worked with Russian clients. Thus, the Russian House in Limassol and the Commandaria Museum in Siliku were established simultaneously with the help of high-ranking Cypriot lawyers acting as sponsors. 
As for Golovanov’s biography – despite his popularity in the Russian press in Cyprus – there is no clear information available. It is not known when or where he was born, where he studied, or what he did for a living.  However, there is no confirmation that he is an artist either. All that is known, according to Igor Guberman, who met him, is that Golovanov is ‘a former Muscovite, a former jazz musician, who speaks several languages’.  On 31 March 2016, the Russian House congratulated Golovanov on his birthday,  so it can be assumed that he was born in 1956 (1946?). According to unconfirmed reports, Golovanov is a military translator who graduated from the Military Institute of Foreign Languages and worked in Algeria and the Congo. If this is the case, he is most likely a GRU officer. Eyewitnesses claimed that Vavilov and Golovanov spoke French amongst themselves when they wanted to ensure that those present could not understand them. The only thing that is clear is that Golovanov is actively involved in cultural and propaganda activities centred around the Russian embassy.