The WCCRS and its officials

The Second World Congress of Compatriots was held with great fanfare in Moscow in 2006. It was attended by 600 delegates from 78 countries.  At the congress, the establishment of the executive body of the World Co-ordinating Council of Russian Compatriots Living Abroad (WCCRCA) was announced. Over the next couple of years, country-specific co-ordinating councils, forming part of the WCCRCA, were set up around the world 
In Cyprus, the Co-ordinating Council of Russian Compatriots (CCRCS) was established in 2007. Initially, the CCRCS office was located on the premises of the Russian Embassy in Nicosia; it subsequently moved to the offices of *Vestnik Kipra*.  

As in all other countries, the local KSOORS consisted of key agents of influence from Moscow, who generally headed individual civil society organisations. 
From the list of KSORS members published in 2013, it is clear that the organisation consists of two groups – coordinators and agents. The coordinators are current or former Russian diplomats. Agents are everyone else. There are two obvious curators on this list – Alexei Rogalev and Yuri Pyanikh. It is possible that Igor Nosonov could also be included in this category, although he was not a diplomat. 
Alexei Nikolaevich Rogalev is a serving diplomat, a graduate of MGIMO, director of the Russian Centre for Cultural and Information Cooperation, and Rossotrudnichestvo’s representative in Cyprus, holding a diplomatic rank that is unusually high for this post – Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, 2nd class. He is a former Minister-Counsellor (second-in-command at the embassy) in Greece.  He headed the CIS and Baltic States Division of the Moscow City Department of Foreign Economic and International Relations. It is possible that, like Georgy Muradov, who also served in the Moscow City Government, he is not a ‘pure’ diplomat, but rather an undercover intelligence officer. On the 2019 list of KSORS members, Rogaleva was replaced by embassy counsellor Alina Radchenko, who held the same posts as Rogaleva until 2024. 
Yuri Pyanikh is a former diplomat and a very influential figure in Cyprus. 
The foundations for establishing a network of Russian agents of influence in Cyprus were laid in the early 1990s by two men – Yuri Pyanikh and Igor Nosonov. 
According to his official biography, Yuri Dmitrievich Pyanikh was born in 1952 in Kaliningrad. In 1976, he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and subsequently held various posts at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR.  
This alone suggests that Pyanikh was a member of the secret services. As is usually the case in such situations, the details of Pyanikh’s diplomatic career are unknown. All that is known is that from 1987 to 1992 he served as second secretary, first secretary and then economic adviser at the Embassy of the USSR, and later the Russian Federation, in the Republic of Cyprus. According to some sources, Pyanikh was a resident agent of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB in Cyprus. 
According to Sergei Zhirnov, a former KGB officer, graduates of technical universities were recruited by the KGB and the GRU to conduct electronic intelligence and maintain espionage equipment. Those who were to be posted abroad under diplomatic cover were enrolled on the staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or Soviet missions to international organisations. They then underwent training at the KGB Academy (now the FSB) or the GRU (the Ministry of Defence’s military academy) before being sent to their posts abroad. 
In 1992, Pyanikh suddenly left the diplomatic service and became a businessman. In the same year, businessman Igor Makarov registered a branch of his American company, ITERA International Energy L.L.C., in Cyprus. Yuri Pyanikh became one of the founders (holding 0.167 per cent of the shares) and the executive director of the new company.
This appears to be a typical example of the infiltration of KGB officers into the private sector that emerged following the collapse of the USSR. Since 2002, Pyanikh has been a member of the Board of Directors of ITERA Oil and Gas Company LLC, but there are no reports in the press of any business activity on his part as a manager. However, his involvement in public life is evident. In 1995, Pyanikh founded the first Russian civil society organisation in Cyprus following the collapse of the USSR – the Association of Russian Businessmen in Cyprus (ARBC) – and for the next few decades became something of an ‘overseer’ of Russian business in Cyprus. According to a well-informed source, ‘Pyanikh can create insurmountable obstacles to doing business on the island. He acts as the Russian authorities’ representative in Cyprus, alongside the ambassador. In a sense, Pyanikh is more influential than the ambassador, because the latter is bound by diplomatic constraints, whilst Pyanikh is not constrained by anything.’
The Executive Director of the ARBK, Lyudmila Bozhedomova, like Pyanikh, is an employee of ITERA (since 2015 – ARETI) and a member of the Co-ordinating Council of Russian Compatriots in Cyprus.
The official objectives of the ARBK in 2012 were defined as ‘creating favourable conditions for conducting Russian business and registering companies in Cyprus, and providing advisory assistance to compatriots. The Association works in close contact with the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Cyprus, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation and the Moscow City Government’.  There is no pretence here that the Association is anything other than a representative body of the Russian government, carrying out tasks typical of a government organisation. 
In 2016, Pyanikh described the Association’s objectives in an interview with the Cypriot Russian-language magazine *Successful Business* as follows: “One of the Association’s areas of activity is the provision of advisory services. .. . As an example, I can cite the problems that arose in connection with Cyprus’s accession to the EU and the rather aggressive policy of the Government of the Republic of Cyprus at that time. Almost insurmountable obstacles were created for Russian citizens, including businesspeople, to obtain residence permits. However, the work carried out by the Association in conjunction with the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Cyprus helped to resolve this issue.”  
Furthermore, Pyanikh is a leading figure in a host of other international non-governmental organisations linked to the Russian security services: he is an expert on the Intergovernmental Russian-Cypriot Commission on Economic Cooperation, a member of the Presidium and Executive Board of the International Council of Russian Compatriots, and a member of the World Co-ordinating Council of Russian Compatriots. 
In 1997, Pyanikh, together with a colleague from the Soviet embassy in Nicosia—another ‘diplomat in plain clothes’ who had also become a businessman with a Cypriot passport— Valery Gusev, established a fund for the construction of a Russian church in Limassol.  According to a well-informed source, Gusev is a GRU officer and studied alongside Sergey Lavrov at MGIMO. Yuri Pyanikh became the fund’s director, whilst Sergey Naryshkin, who at the time headed the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation and later head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. 

 

Since 2003, Pyanikh has been a member of the presidium of the Russian-Arab Business Council, established by the former head of the SVR, Yevgeny Primakov.  The Russian-Arab Business Council was set up as a division of the SVR and a tool for the Kremlin to exert influence over countries in the Middle East. 
According to numerous eyewitness accounts, Pyanikh at the Russian embassy, where he was a frequent visitor, was feared more than Ambassador Osadchy himself. 
In an interview with the magazine ‘Successful Business’, No. 4 (January–March 2012), Pyanikh revealed quite a lot of interesting details about his hobbies and what he did in his capacity as a Soviet diplomat. The list of his sporting achievements is particularly impressive. Pyanykh holds competitive rankings in athletics (running), boxing, sambo, karate, parachuting, amateur radio, sailing and scuba diving. He was twice USSR champion in VHF radio communications.  Perhaps it is a coincidence, but this range of sporting disciplines bears a striking resemblance to the training of saboteurs – for example, GRU special forces. It is difficult to imagine under what other circumstances a young man, a student at a technical university, could have been involved in all of this simultaneously in the USSR of the 1970s. Furthermore, Pyanikh is fluent in English and French, which is, to say the least, unusual for a graduate of a Soviet technical university during the era of stagnation.  
Among Pyanikh’s achievements as a diplomat, he himself proudly mentioned the conclusion of an agreement between the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Cypriot Ministry of Agriculture on joint work and research into the Mediterranean continental shelf and the island of Cyprus itself. Soviet oceanographers aboard Soviet research spent several years studying the Cypriot continental shelf – in the immediate vicinity of the British naval base. This included the use of underwater explosions. It must be assumed that this work was of interest not only to oceanographers.
Another of the Pyanikh’s achievements was the establishment, on one of the Black Sea Fleet’s ships, of Fedorov’s floating ophthalmological clinic right within the Cypriot offshore zone (the waters off Larnaca harbour) . The aim was purely commercial, but it was also situated some 15 kilometres from the British naval base. For Soviet ophthalmologists, this was, one imagines, a most fascinating project. 
***

Igor Alekseevich Nosonov was born in 1953  and arrived in Cyprus in 1996. Prior to that, he graduated from the Togliatti Polytechnic Institute and worked for 10 years at the Volga Automobile Plant, including as director of a branch of the Ministry of Automotive Industry’s Institute for Advanced Training. In 1992–93, as stated in one publication, Nosonov ‘ organised training in Cyprus for bankers from across the former USSR. And then he tried to put into practice himself everything he had taught others’”. It is difficult to imagine that a person with no connection to the state security services could have run such overseas courses for bankers from all the former Soviet republics at the time of the collapse of the USSR. 
The circumstances under which, and in what capacity, Nosonov arrived in Cyprus in 1996 remain unclear, but by 1997 he had become a co-owner of the first Russian-language newspaper, *Vestnik Kipra*. He remains chairman of the board of directors of this expanded enterprise as of 2024. It is not known exactly where he obtained the funds needed to produce a newspaper that was, at the time, known to be loss-making, but it is quite evident that they came from Moscow. Subsequently, *Vestnik Kipra* continued to be funded from Russian sources, in particular the *Russkiy Mir* Foundation, Pravfond and the Moscow House of Compatriots. 
In 2007, the ‘Horizon’ Association of Russian-speaking Residents of Cyprus was established under the auspices of *Vestnik Kipra*, with Nosonov becoming its president. The association is clearly a sham; there is no information in the press about who else belongs to it, but it gives the impression of being highly active in the community and is mentioned as a participant in numerous propaganda events organised by the Russian House of Science and Culture.  
In 2008, a local branch of the World Co-ordinating Council of Russian Compatriots was established in Cyprus, with Nosonov as its chairman. It was not until 2022 that he was replaced in this post by Dmitry Apraksin. 
Nosonov is listed as a director of six companies registered in Cyprus that are in some way connected to *Vestnik Kipra*.  
It therefore appears that Pyanikh and Nosonov have divided their spheres of influence since the mid-1990s. Pyanikh organised the network of business and political ties between Moscow and Cyprus, whilst Nosonov controlled the Russian press and the social life of Russian migrants. In both spheres, agents of influence and ordinary agents were recruited to infiltrate all circles of local society, but within different social groups. The open-source information and contacts obtained in this way served as the basis for operations carried out by the secret services – the SVR, the GRU and the FSB. Natalya Kardash became a key figure in this process. 
***
Natalia Kardash was born in 1975 in Anapa, graduated from Krasnodar University (Romance and Germanic philology), worked as a teacher and moved to Cyprus in 1999. She initially worked for a Cypriot newspaper published in Arabic, English and Russian, and in 2001 she joined Nasonov at the newspaper *Vestnik Kipra*, immediately becoming a shareholder and managing director. From that moment on, Kardash’s rapid transformation into one of Cyprus’s most influential agents of influence began, whilst *Vestnik Kipra* evolved into a complex and multi-faceted network of influence, far surpassing the Russian Centre for Science and Culture in terms of effectiveness.
At the same time, unlike the RCC’s journalistic and public activities—which are rife with the same frenzied and shameless propaganda for the Putin regime as seen in the Russian domestic press—the publications of *Vestnik Kipra* are free from overt political propaganda. As, indeed, are other pro-Russian publications on the island. However, it is very easy to distinguish them from the independent press. There is nothing in the ‘Cyprus Herald’ that could contradict the European Union’s official policy towards Russia and its war against Ukraine. At the same time, there is nothing in them that could contradict Russia’s policies, propaganda or interests. 
Consequently, there are no references to the current political situation, to Ukraine or the war in Ukraine, nor is there any serious analysis—whether economic or political—which is what distinguishes serious journalism from ‘tabloid’ journalism. Indeed, the absence of any mention of Ukraine and the war makes it easy these days to distinguish any foreign press bought by Russia from the independent press. 
Kardash is linked to Moscow through her membership of numerous front organisations set up by Moscow. She is a member of the Co-ordinating Council of Russian Compatriots in Cyprus, a member of the board of the European Russian Alliance, a member of the Association of Russian Businesspeople in Cyprus, co-founder and deputy chair of the ‘Horizon’ Association of Russian-speaking Residents of Cyprus, a member of the Cyprus-Russia Business Cooperation Association, a corresponding member of the International Academy of Social Sciences... 
Since 2002, Kardash has been a member of the World Association of the Russian Press (WARP), which was established in 1999. WARP’s objectives included recruiting journalists and publishers from the Russian press abroad and providing funding for it. In 2016, at the WARP congress in Paris, *Vestnik Kipra* received a certificate from the Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, ‘for its significant contribution to the preservation of the Russian language and culture, as well as to the consolidation of compatriots abroad ’. It is curious that the phrase ‘consolidation of compatriots’ only makes sense as ‘ideological consolidation of compatriots around the Russian authorities’.  In any other sense, the concept is nonsense. 
Another obvious source of funding for Kardash and her newspaper is the Foundation for the Support and Protection of the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad (‘Pravfond’). ‘Pravfond’ was established in 2012 by decree of Vladimir Putin; its founders are the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Federal Agency for Rossotrudnichestvo. In 2023, ‘Pravfond’ and its head, Alexander Udaltsov, were placed under EU sanctions for supporting the war in Ukraine.
“Pravfond” funds 34 advisory centres in 21 countries. As established by the Danish police following a leak of the fund’s internal documents, these centres are being used by Russian foreign intelligence for its own purposes. The newspaper “Vestnik Kipra” is one such centre.
An article entitled ‘The Fund for the Support and Protection of Compatriots’ Rights has awarded further grants and subsidies’ was published on Pravfond’s official website in November 2013. It states: ‘It has been decided to allocate funds to the “RusTolk” Association in Australia, the ‘Vostochnaya Magistral’ Agency in Germany, the ‘Sootechestvennik’ Public Organisation in Norway, and NG Cyprus Advertiser LTD in the Republic of Cyprus to support legal columns in Russian-language publications, special sections on websites, and thematic television programmes.”
According to information from the Cypriot Companies Register, NG Cyprus Advertiser LTD is owned by Natalia Kardash and Igor Nasonov. They were also the directors of this company. This is the legal name of the publishing house ‘Vestnik Kipra’. 
In October 2019, the Pravfond website, in its article ‘Pravfond and the newspaper “Vestnik Kipra” strengthen their cooperation’, reported that: ‘Alexander Udaltsov, Executive Director of the Foundation for the Support and Protection of the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad, met with the Editor-in-Chief of the “Vestnik Kipra” newspaper, Natalia Kardash, Vice-President of ‘Horizon’, the Association of Russian-speaking Residents of Cyprus. The parties discussed joint projects.”
On 28 October 2022, an article on the Pravfond website entitled ‘On the Experience of the Fund for the Support and Protection of the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad’ stated:
“ This year, due to the ‘sanctions’ war unleashed against Russia by the collective West and the bans on financial transfers, centres in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia suspended their operations, and websites in Denmark, Latvia, Norway and Estonia have been shut down. The Fund has had to find unconventional solutions to support our partners in Spain, France and Cyprus… Russian-language print media supported by the Fund, such as the newspapers ‘MK-Germany’, ‘MK-Athens Courier’, ‘Prague Telegraph’ and ‘Cyprus Herald’, as well as the publications ‘Rusiya Segodnya’ (Bulgaria), ‘Novoye Vremya’ (Azerbaijan), ‘Rights of Compatriots in Northern Europe’ (distributed in Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden) and a number of other publications.” 
The phrase “we had to find unconventional solutions to support our partners” suggests, judging by its wording, that the funding of *Vestnik Kipra* and other European beneficiaries of the Rights Fund was provided illegally. 
Since 2014, Natalya Kardash has been organising the annual Best Legal international legal conferences in Limassol under the auspices of her magazine ‘Successful Business’, which are funded by Pravfond. At the third conference in 2016, attended by over a hundred participants from 17 countries, speeches expressed gratitude to the Fund for the Protection of the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad and its director, Igor Panevkin. Igor Panevkin, according to his official biography, is a member of the security services operating under diplomatic cover. The next Best Legal conference in Limassol took place in October 2024. 
On the ‘Russkiy Mir’ Foundation’s website, ‘Cyprus Advertiser Ltd’, owned by Kardash and Nosonova, is listed among the foundation’s partner organisations in Cyprus.  This undoubtedly means that the publishing house was also funded by the ‘Russkiy Mir’ Foundation . 
In 2021, Rossotrudnichestvo presented Natalya Kardash with its departmental award – the Rossotrudnichestvo Badge of Honour ‘For Friendship and Cooperation’. As stated in the official congratulatory message, “The ‘Vestnik Kipra’ Publishing House is a regular media sponsor of the projects of the Russian Centre in Cyprus (RCNC, Nicosia) and contributes to the promotion of Rossotrudnichestvo’s activities.” This implies that Rossotrudnichestvo is also a sponsor of ‘Vestnik Kipra’.
In 2005, Natalya Kardash became one of the co-founders of the ‘European Russian Alliance (ERA)’ – a non-governmental organisation bringing together Russian public figures, journalists and politicians from European Union countries. This was the result of an unsuccessful attempt by Moscow to establish a European Russian party. The party never materialised, but a ‘movement’ did emerge, led by Tatiana Zhdanok, a Member of the European Parliament representing the Latvian Russian Party. In late January 2024, following an exposé by journalists from *The Insider*, the European Parliament launched an investigation into the links between the Latvian MEP Tatiana Zhdanok and the Russian security services. It transpired that Zhdanok had been actively corresponding with FSB officers and, amongst other things, had been sending them reports on her activities. Moreover, Zhdanok had been working under the supervision of FSB handlers since at least 2004. However, as far back as 2005, the Estonian Internal Security Service stated in its public annual report that the European Russian Alliance was nothing more than a front for the activities of FSB agents, the creation of which had been “ prepared in St Petersburg and presented as a triumph in a report directly to the director of the FSB’’. An investigation by The Insider confirmed this conclusion. 
In March 2018, a meeting of members of the European Russian Alliance, chaired by Zhdanok, took place in Limassol, Cyprus. Representatives from France, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Latvia, Italy, Poland and Germany took part. Moreover, this entire group of Russian agents of influence and spies was received at the Presidential Palace, the Parliament of the Republic of Cyprus, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of the Interior of Cyprus. This could only have happened thanks to the connections between Kardash and the Russian Embassy with the Cypriot government. An article in *Vestnik Kipra*, signed by Natalia Kardash, a statement adopted at the meeting is quoted: “We call on the authorities of Western countries to abandon confrontation and policies of Russophobia, and to find a way to establish stable relations with Russia based on mutual respect” .  
In 2005, the newspaper *Vestnik Kipra* was reorganised into the *Vestnik Kipra* media group, and Kardash became a member of the presidential press pool. She accompanied the Cypriot presidents Tassos Papadopoulos, Dimitris Christofias and Nicos Anastasiades during their official visits. She was granted Cypriot citizenship in 2013. How Kardash’s handlers at the Russian embassy managed to place a Russian citizen with obvious links to the security services within the inner circle of Cypriot presidents is the subject of a separate investigation. 
Kardash herself said in an interview: “Since 2005, as editor-in-chief of one of the country’s leading newspapers, I have accompanied the presidents of the Republic of Cyprus on their trips abroad. In 2006, I visited the Kremlin for the first time: we journalists were even allowed to photograph the talks – and for the first time in my life I saw the President of Russia from a distance of three or four metres. It was a huge event for me: a provincial teacher from Anapa at presidential talks in the Kremlin… It was hard to take in. Later, I got into the swing of things, got used to it, and wasn’t as surprised as I had been during those first visits. But I always appreciated both the opportunity to travel with the country’s president and the information shared with me, as well as the life experience I gained during such trips.”
To call the Cyprus Herald, with its tiny Russian readership and minuscule circulation (4,000 copies in 2004), one of the country’s leading newspapers is a clear exaggeration. But there is no other explanation for the sudden rise of Kardash’s journalistic career. The key point in her words is: ‘I valued the opportunity to travel with the country’s president, and the information that was shared with me…’ A priceless asset. 
***
The ‘Vestnik Kipra’ publishing house very early on began to be overrun by a multitude of ancillary social and charitable organisations, practically unrelated to the publishing business and requiring funding which the publishing house’s revenues (if there were any) certainly could not provide.
In 2005, an educational centre was opened. 
In 2006, Kardash organised the first Cyprus-Russia Festival, which became an annual event. 
In 2007, the ‘BRAVO!’ Intellectual Centre was opened at the educational centre, and ‘Vestnik Kipra’ held the first IDEALAND International Children’s Festival.
In 2011, the magazine ‘Successful Business’ began publication, and ‘Vestnik Kipra’ held seminars in Russia – in Togliatti and Samara 
2011–2012 – the ‘Photographer of the Year’.
2014 – the ImPRESSion International Photography Festival and the first BEST LEGAL international legal conference
2015 – the largest ‘Health and Beauty’ trade fair in Cyprus’s history (Health and Beauty Expo).
As the editorial team of VK proudly reported, “By the end of 2016, our list of projects included: the newspaper ‘Vestnik Kipra’, the magazine ‘Uspeshny Biznes’, the website www.vkcyprus.com featuring Cypriot news, and the website www.cyprusrussianbusiness.com – the only Russian-language website specialising in business news from Cyprus, and the website www.vkcyprusgroup.com, which provides information in English about the activities of the ‘Vestnik Kipra’ group. In addition, there are five or six event websites, around ten themed pages on social media, the weekly television programme ‘TeleVestnik’, and the YouTube channels for this programme and ‘Vestnik Kipra’. The ‘Vestnik Kipra’ Russian Educational Centre, the ‘BRAVO!’ Children’s Club, and the ‘School of Russia’ project, which offered a full Russian primary school curriculum in collaboration with the school attached to the Russian Embassy. ‘Vestnik Kipra’ also operated a professional translation agency, a licensed travel agency and an events management company. Over the course of the year, we organised around 30 events of various sizes – family, children’s and business events – including the Cyprus-Russia Festival, the BEST LEGAL and BEST INVEST business conferences, the Health& Beauty forum, and the children’s project ‘Galaxy of Talents’. The Association of Russian-speaking Residents of Cyprus ‘Horizon’ continued to provide substantial assistance to our compatriots.
It is clear that only a small proportion of these enterprises can be commercially viable. The rest rely on sponsorship funding. Their activities fit neatly into the concept of ‘soft power’ devised by Rossotrudnichestvo – propaganda and penetration of Western society under the guise of cultural and charitable activities. 
In 2019, a significant diplomatic success was also achieved: ‘President Nicos Anastasiades announced at the official opening ceremony of the 14th Cyprus–Russia Festival the Cypriot Government’s decision to provide annual financial support to the festival. For the first time in 14 years, the Cypriot state has supported this, the largest celebration of friendship with Russia’ . It appears that, prior to this, the festival had been funded exclusively by Russia. 
In the same year, 2019, another important step was taken to gain a foothold in Cypriot high society – ‘On the initiative of the magazine “Successful Business”, the Successful Business Leaders Club was established – a private business club for business owners and top executives of Cypriot local and international companies. Its main objective is to bring together successful people with diverse backgrounds and from different countries to generate new ideas together.’ 
In other words, a club for Cyprus’s wealthy is being set up under the auspices of the Russian Embassy. 
As Kardash herself writes: “At present, I devote quite a lot of time to the work of the Successful Business Leaders’ Club, a private business club for business owners, within which we discuss, in a small circle, common interests and projects for leaders of local and international businesses in Cyprus. The club currently has over 700 members, who interact across three levels of participation: the Cyprus Business Network on LinkedIn, an online club for middle and senior managers, and an offline club for business owners and executives. All club members either live in Cyprus or reside abroad but work with Cyprus or own a Cypriot company. 
Another biography of Kardash states: ‘Natalia Kardash’s business network exceeds six thousand contacts across all levels of business and public life in the Republic of Cyprus’.  The significance of the network of connections and contacts established by Kardash for the Russian security services cannot be overstated. 
Among her other titles, Kardash is listed as: founder and chair of the Successful Business Leaders Club; publisher and editor-in-chief of the magazine *Successful Business* and the newspaper *Vestnik Kipra*; member of the expert council of the MBA Faculty at the Cyprus State University; honorary member of the expert council of the Cyprus Institute of Marketing; postgraduate student at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at RUDN University. She is the founder and permanent chair of the organising committee for several business conferences, congresses and forums held in Cyprus. 
Furthermore, Kardash is a member of the Russian-Cypriot Business Council under the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation.  
This list shows that Kardash is well-regarded by both the Russian and Cypriot governments. She has also received awards from both sides. 
In 2015, the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, honoured Natalia Kardash for her contribution to the development of tourism in Cyprus and the active work of the ‘Vestnik Kipra’ group for the benefit of the country.
In 2016, the newspaper ‘Vestnik Kipra’ received a certificate of commendation from President Dmitry Medvedev. 
In 2016, the Cyprus Institute of Marketing (CIM) honoured Natalia Kardash for her many years of successful work in the field of marketing and PR.
In 2017, the Cyprus-Russian Business Association, affiliated with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Republic of Cyprus, awarded Natalia Kardash the title of ‘ Businesswoman of the Year’ for her contribution to the development of Cypriot-Russian business relations and her long-standing efforts to strengthen business ties between the two countries. 

Natalia Kardash seems to exist in two guises at once. To Cypriot society, she is a wealthy businesswoman and socialite, close to the Cypriot political establishment, involved in publishing and charity work, whilst also serving as a source of useful Russian connections. 
For Russia, she is one of their own, deployed as a key figure in numerous covert operations and a member of many front organisations set up by the security services, the existence of which her Cypriot acquaintances are most likely completely unaware of. 
This latter circumstance is extremely useful for Kardash and her handlers. 
On at least three occasions – in 2012, 2013 and 2015 – *Vestnik Kipra* held its corporate events right at the Russian Embassy. And under rather flimsy pretexts. 
In April 2012, a reception was held to mark the anniversary of the publication of the magazine *Uspeshny Biznes*. Among the guests of honour was the President of Cyprus, George Vassiliou. 
In October 2013, a reception was held to mark the 18th anniversary of the ‘Vestnik Kipra’ publishing house. As reported: ‘Former Presidents of the Republic of Cyprus, George Vassiliou and Dimitris Christofias, came to celebrate this event together with the company’s staff and friends, the Russian Ambassador to Cyprus, Stanislav Osadchiy, ministers and representatives of the diplomatic corps, businesspeople and executives from major Cypriot and international companies, prominent figures from the worlds of science and culture, and other distinguished guests.” 
In July 2015, the 20th anniversary of *Vestnik Kipra* was celebrated at the embassy “amongst partners and friends”.  
It is hard to imagine more favourable circumstances for recruitment operations. The embassy provides the food and drink, whilst Kardash leads his high-ranking guests straight into the arms of the secret service officers, who do not need to go out of their way to establish contact with the people they are interested in. Many might not have attended an official embassy reception, but a gathering hosted by Kardash – why not? The fact that it takes place at the embassy is a secondary consideration. After all, it wasn’t the ambassador who invited them. 
There is another, hidden side to Kardash’s activities. In her autobiography, dated no later than 2021, she writes: ‘Over the last few years, I have regularly organised bilateral business meetings such as “Cyprus–India”, “Cyprus–Russia”, “Cyprus–Middle East”, ‘Cyprus–Far East’; I am currently working on establishing contacts in rapidly developing Africa, as well as building business ties between Cyprus and Armenia, Georgia and Serbia’.” 
It is not difficult to see that the themes of these meetings align with Russia’s foreign policy and intelligence interests in the 2020s. They exclude the Western world, which has all but severed relations with Russia. By all accounts, Cyprus is not so much a negotiating party here as a country allowing negotiations necessary for Russia to take place on its territory. And it is clear who is behind them. It is difficult to imagine another EU country where, during the Russian-Ukrainian war, meetings and conferences between Russian intelligence services and their agents – or simply key figures from around the world – could be organised without hindrance. Before the war, this was practised, for example, in Germany, but then it all came to an end.  
The more the West’s sanctions pressure on Russia intensifies, and the worse official diplomatic relations between Russia and EU countries appear, the greater the significance of the network of connections and contacts established by Kardash in Cyprus. 

***

Chronologically, the first Russian (then Soviet) public organisation in Cyprus was the ‘Romashka’ society, established ‘on the basis of a circle of Soviet citizens living in Cyprus’  as far back as the 1970s. This refers to the wives of Cypriots who had studied in the USSR. No other Soviet citizens, apart from embassy officials and their wives, could not have been in Cyprus at that time. However, the latter could not be considered residents of Cyprus. 
Marriages to foreigners were prohibited in the USSR from 1947 to 1953. But even afterwards, it was no simple matter. Those unwilling to cooperate with the KGB could face completely insurmountable obstacles. And those who did cooperate automatically became Soviet agents abroad. Therefore, the group of Soviet wives of former foreign students, gathered in a circle around the Soviet embassy, can quite reasonably be regarded as a network of agents, whose members readily responded to instructions from embassy officials. To this day, nothing has changed in this regard. 
The head of the consular section of the Soviet Embassy in Cyprus ‘was invited’ to the first meeting of ‘Romashka’. ‘Close cooperation with the embassy continued thereafter’.  Branches of the society were subsequently established in Limassol, Larnaca and Paphos. Following the establishment of the KSORS, the society’s chairwoman, Lyubov Parpa, became a member of the organisation. 
The society’s stated official aims were to expand contacts and cultural ties among compatriots, broaden the horizons of its members, and ‘nurture the younger generation in a spirit of love and respect for Russian history’. In other words, patriotic propaganda. 
As stated in a brochure published by KSORS that year on Russian organisations in Cyprus, ‘the establishment of the society and its branches was driven by the desire of Russian people – immigrants from the Soviet Union permanently residing in Cyprus – to maintain a Russian social circle and ties with their homeland’. 
This, of course, is a lie. There could be no question of any genuine public organisations in the USSR. The society was officially registered in 1988. In that same year, a similar organisation called the ‘Dialogue’ club was also established in East Berlin. It is likely that such bodies sprang up in other countries as well, attached to Soviet embassies. Gorbachev’s perestroika was underway, the Iron Curtain was crumbling, and, apparently, an order came from Moscow to set up imitation civil society organisations at embassies as the seeds of future networks of influence made up of émigrés. Initially, the chair of the association was Elmira Kusulidu, a Russian language teacher, but in 1995 she was succeeded by Lyubov Parpa, who had arrived in Cyprus in 1976.  . Currently, in addition to Parpa, the committee comprises Tatiana Pitzolis, Vera Kuzali, Yulia Dimitriadis and Dina Dzhaparova. 
‘Romashka’ still exists to this day, but it seems to be little more than a name. From time to time, it is mentioned amongst the participants of various propaganda events organised by the Russian Centre for Science and Culture.

***
 
The President of the Cyprus Women’s Association C.L.C., Karina Petrovna Arakelian, is an enigmatic figure. There is no official information about her, only her name. This is strange, because in the brochures ‘The Russian-speaking Community in Cyprus’, published by KSOOR in 2013 and 2019, basic information about its members is usually provided. Except for Arakelyan. There is no information about her profession, her place of study, or the year she arrived in Cyprus. 
Very few names of the association’s members are known. But among them are two former First Ladies of Cyprus – Andri Anastasiades and Elsie Christofias. Photographs of various women at different receptions and events have been published, but not a single name is given, apart from Arakelyan herself. At the same time, according to eyewitness accounts, she was feared at the Russian embassy. 
It is logically impossible to explain such secrecy. One might assume that the Association itself, which is said to have been operating since 2004, is a fictitious entity, most likely devised to give Arakelian at least some semblance of public status. There are virtually no traces of its activities in the press. The only mention is of the Association’s role in organising the Third International Congress on Endoecological Medicine. Such a congress did indeed take place in Cyprus in October 2007.   At the event, gratitude was expressed to the Cyprus Women’s Association and Patrice Lumumba University ‘for their initiative in introducing scientifically sound technologies of endo-ecological medicine on the island, which is a recognised international health resort’ .  It is impossible to ascertain what else the Cyprus Women’s Association has been involved in during its 20 years of existence. 
In 2009, an anonymous article about Cyprus on the ‘Russkiy Mir’ Foundation’s website stated: ‘ From the perspective of studying the Russian diaspora on the island, the ‘Cyprus Ladies’ Club’ – an organisation of compatriots celebrating its fifth anniversary in 2009 and actively involved in organising various events for the Russian community – is particularly interesting. For instance, last year the ‘ Cyprus Ladies’ Club’, with the support of the Russian Centre for Science and Culture, held several round-table discussions in Limassol on medical topics, aimed at our female compatriots. On 25 March 2009, one of Limassol’s largest hotels hosted the ‘Charity Spring Ball – 2009’, also organised by this society, under the patronage of the First Lady of Cyprus, E. Christofia’.  
Database searches reveal that Karine Arakelyan was born on 4 March 1962 and holds Cypriot citizenship. Two companies were registered in her name in Cyprus. In 2001, – IRENO CO LIMITED  (closed in 2002), and in 2015 – KAROLIN TOURS & SERVICES LTD  (active in 2024). Karina Arakelyan is listed as a director of both companies. The latter company has been subject to Ukrainian sanctions since 8 October 2024.  .

 

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Another member of the 2013 Co-ordinating Council is Viktor Zogiy, a priest and rector of the Russian St Nicholas Parish in Limassol. 
Zogiy was born in 1977; in 1994 he graduated from the Smolensk Theological Seminary and in 1998 was sent by the Department for External Church Relations (DECR) of the Moscow Patriarchate to study at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Athens, from which he graduated in 2003. He subsequently worked at the Department for External Church Relations as a staff member of the Overseas Institutions Sector. In 2005, he married Anna Zapolska, also a member of staff at the DECR. In 2005, he was ordained a deacon, then a priest, and in 2006 was sent to serve at the Russian-speaking parish in Limassol. Since 2010, he has been the parish priest.
It is well known that priests and bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) who serve abroad are, with a high degree of probability, also employees of the secret services. This is a long-standing Soviet tradition. As early as 1992, former KGB officer Alexander Shushpanov stated that ‘right up until the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Department provided official cover for KGB operatives working abroad’. There is no reason to assume that this activity did not continue after the collapse of the USSR. 
Zogiy’s background appears to be that of a security service officer who has been specifically trained to work abroad under a church cover. In such cases, the agent’s wife usually undergoes appropriate training as well. 
As far back as 2006, Zogiy was suspected of working for the SVR due to his contacts with Orthodox communities in Estonia.   By 2016, Zogiy had a well-established reputation within church circles as an SVR officer.   In 2015, Zogiy left Cyprus in a hurry, apparently because the security services of several European countries had identified him as a career SVR officer. 
Since 2018, the position of rector of the community in Limassol and member of the Co-ordinating Council has been held by Pavel Pavlovich Povalyayev, a man with a biography no less remarkable.
Pavel Povalyayev was born in Kharkiv in 1976 into a family of priests. He graduated from medical college, the Kyiv Theological Seminary and the Kyiv Theological Academy. In 2002, he was ordained first as a deacon and then as a priest. From 2002 to 2014, he served in Kyiv, holding the rank of archpriest from 2010. In 2007, he was seconded to Serbia as a military chaplain. In the summer of 2014, he was sent to Norway, where he served in Oslo and Stavanger.  
According to some reports, following the outbreak of the war in Donbas in 2014, Povalyayev was one of the activists involved in establishing the Kharkiv People’s Republic, modelled on the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. When the Security Service of Ukraine opened a case against him, he fled to Moscow and, in 2016, was granted Russian citizenship by decree of Putin.  
In 2015, Russian diplomat Dmitry Lynov, who had been exposed as an intelligence officer, was expelled from Norway.  At the end of 2017, Pavel Povalyayev left Norway, rumoured to have done so after he too was exposed as an intelligence officer. Both ended up in Cyprus in 2018: Lynov as embassy secretary and Povalyayev as head of the community in Limassol, and, as one might assume, they continued to work together. 
As Pavel Povalyayev said in an interview in 2015, his parents had six children. His mother, Tatyana Alekseyevna Povalyayeva, taught at the Kharkiv Theological Seminary, and now (in 2015) teaches at one of the Sunday schools in the USA.  Since 2010, Father Mikhail Pavlovich Povalyayev has been serving in Italy, first in Rome and then in Naples; born on 12 November 1981. He is also from Kharkiv and graduated from the Kharkiv Theological Seminary and the Kyiv Theological Academy.  He is most likely the younger brother of Pavel Povalyayev. It is possible that other members of this family may be found in various countries around the world. 
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KSORS members Natalya and Valery Zykov – a married couple – are the heads of the Russian Orthodox Educational Centre in Larnaca. Both of them have very intriguing official biographies. On the one hand, they are full of details; on the other, they are quite enigmatic. 
Both were born in 1952 and, as Natalya Zykov stated in an interview, come ‘from military families’.  Both served in the army. 
Valery Alexandrovich Zykov graduated from the Ryazan Higher Military School of Signals in 1973. Until 1997, he served first in the Soviet and then in the Russian army. After being demobilised with the rank of colonel, he moved to Cyprus, where his wife was already living. There is no information in the press about where or in which branch of the armed forces he served. 
Natalia Vladimirovna Zykov graduated in 1975 from the Ryazan Pedagogical Institute, Faculty of History and English. She then taught at “a number of educational institutions in Moscow”. From 1980 to 1985, she was in charge of the library at a military unit in Borzya, Chita Oblast, where her husband was serving – “She carried out cultural and educational work amongst military personnel and their families. She was commended on numerous occasions by the command.” At that time, Borzya was home to the headquarters of military unit 05776 – the 36th Combined Arms Army, which formed part of the Eastern Military District. 
There is then a strange gap in Zykov’s biography until 1993, when she graduated from the London School of Linguistics (Language Link). The school’s linguistics centre did not open in Moscow until 1994, so it appears that she studied either in London or in Bratislava, where a branch of the school was established in 1991.  
In one interview, Zykov mentions that she worked as an administrator at Language Link and received a referral and a scholarship from the school to enrol on a postgraduate programme at the State College of New Jersey (Cyprus branch). She has been living in Cyprus since 1995. There, she completed her Master’s thesis on the history of ancient Cyprus and undertook doctoral studies at the University of Bath, working on the topic ‘The Cypriot Orthodox Church and public education during the years of foreign rule’.  She then spent several years ‘teaching general history at the Lebanese College “ Green Hills’ in Lebanon, taught the Catechism at the Sunday school attached to the Church of St Lazarus in Larnaca, and ran her own course, ‘The Basics of Orthodoxy’, at the school attached to the Russian Embassy, as well as teaching ‘Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture’ at Russian schools in Cyprus and at the St John the Merciful Spiritual and Cultural Centre.” 
In 1997, Valery Zykov arrived in Cyprus and the two of them founded the Russian Orthodox Educational Centre in Larnaca.
It all seems rather strange. The wife of a serving senior Soviet signals officer with a mysterious military background (and herself, one must assume, a keeper of military secrets) finds herself studying, and then taking up permanent residence abroad – something that would have been unthinkable in Soviet times. But it would hardly have been possible in the post-Soviet era either, without her husband’s career being ruined. Or without the assistance of the relevant authorities. And yet everything turned out perfectly. Immediately after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Zykov, who was then in her forties, found herself a student at a language school in London, then a member of staff there, before moving to Cyprus, where she continued her studies and worked as a teacher of the Word of God in various places, including the school attached to the embassy. It is impossible to suspect the Zykovs of dissident sentiments or a desire to leave for the democratic West on ideological grounds. 
Her husband, a colonel, arrived in Cyprus after his demobilisation; he, too, turned out to be an Orthodox activist (an extremely rare occurrence amongst Soviet military personnel) and became involved in the work. All of this bears a strong resemblance to a pre-planned, long-term operation aimed at establishing yet another intelligence centre in Cyprus under the guise of the church. 
The Zykovs’ Russian Orthodox Educational Centre (RPOC) run by the Zykovs in Larnaca was established in 1997 and registered as a non-profit organisation in 2005. Prior to this, Natalya Zykov ‘under the spiritual guidance of the monastic communities of the renowned Cypriot monasteries of Kikkos, Maher and Stavrovouni, began studying theology in 2000, and completed the course ‘Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture’ under the Moscow Patriarchate’. 
Natalia Zykov became the centre’s director, whilst Valery became head of the pilgrimage department. As stated on the RPOZ website, ‘The Centre carries out its work with the blessing of the hierarchy of the Cypriot Orthodox Church, with the support of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Cyprus’ .   
The RPOZ’s objectives are formulated as follows: “To strengthen the spiritual unity of the fraternal Russian and Cypriot Orthodox peoples; to unite the Russian community around Orthodox spiritual and moral values; and to preserve and develop living ties with the Motherland and the Mother Russian Orthodox Church” . This is typical of the language used by the Russian security services, with an Orthodox twist. The objectives of all the front organisations they set up abroad are formulated in much the same way – the consolidation of migrants on the basis of patriotism and love for Russia.
The centre’s main areas of work include assisting pilgrims, organising patriotic events, forums and international projects, strengthening Cyprus’s spiritual ties with Russia, spiritual and moral work with the families of compatriots, publishing, and teaching the fundamentals of Orthodox culture in Russian schools in Cyprus.   In other words – patriotic propaganda under the control of the Russian Embassy and under the guise of Orthodoxy. 
Since 2000, the ‘RPOC. Larnaca’ publishing house has been operating under the auspices of the RPOC, mainly publishing books by Natalia Zykov herself.  Valery Zykov is the coordinator of the ‘Olympus’, an ‘educational, public, charitable, non-profit organisation’ established in 2010, which organises cultural evenings with a patriotic theme. ‘Olympus’ has the same objectives: uniting and bringing together the diaspora, preserving the Russian language, strengthening spiritual ties based on Orthodox Christianity, and reinforcing family values...   Since 2006, Zykov has been chairman of the organising committee responsible for preparing and staging the Days of Slavic Literature and Culture – an annual mass event featuring theatrical performances. Each year, this festival is held under a new, distinctive name, such as ‘Love Russia’ (2009), ‘Our Victories’ (2010), ‘The Holy Teachers of the Slavs’ (2011), ‘It Is No Coincidence That All of Russia Remembers’ (2012), ‘Faith and Loyalty’ (2016), ‘My Beloved Capital’ (2017) and so on.  
In 2024 – as stated in an article on the ‘Russkiy Mir’ Foundation’s website – the RPOZ, in accordance with the Russian President’s decree on the celebration of the 225th anniversary of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin’s birth, organised a series of events dedicated to the anniversary – lectures, talks, literary mornings and theatrical performances. Its partners included Russian-language schools in Cyprus: the E. Primakov School at the Russian Embassy, Trinity School, ‘Pythagoras’ Pupils’, the ‘Russian School of Paphos’, the ‘Erudit’ Educational Centre, and the Association of Russian-speaking Residents of Northern Cyprus.  Here is an almost complete list of Russian schools in Cyprus operating under Russian curricula and in line with Russian propaganda. In other words, this is a list of Russian influence networks. The authors of the article in *Russkiy Mir* clearly do not realise how absurd and self-incriminating it looks to claim that a civil society organisation in Cyprus is guided by decrees from the Russian president. 
In 2010, an article by Natalia Zykov was published on ‘Russkiy Vek’, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s portal for compatriots; its title alone is worth mentioning: ‘Compatriots in Cyprus. Russia owes us nothing; we, like children to a mother, owe her everything’.  It reads like a quote from a military oath. 
The Zykovs’ RPOZ is in many ways reminiscent of Natalia Kardash’s organisation – it carries out (according to their own claims) a wide range of public, cultural, educational and religious activities in the interests of Russian propaganda, which generate no income and have no visible sources of funding. That said, there is little doubt as to the sources of funding. They are all Russian. The RPOZ is listed among the partner organisations of the ‘Russian World’ Foundation. 
One can gauge the RPOZ’s other possible sponsors from the list of honours received by the centre’s leaders. They hold orders, medals and certificates awarded by Patriarch Kirill, the Moscow City Government and Rossotrudnichestvo. This is in addition to numerous awards from various church organisations and the Supreme Ataman of the Union of Cossacks of Russia.  
The most interesting and instructive aspect of the history of the Zykov family and the Russian Orthodox Centre in Cyprus is the path of spiritual development followed by Natalya Vladimirovna Zykov. From her cultural and educational work amongst Soviet Army servicemen in the town of Borzya in the Chita Region in the 1980s, for which she was honoured by the command of the 36th Army, to her spiritual and moral work with the families of her compatriots in Cyprus, for which she continues to be honoured by the command, but now in Cyprus.

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Olga Rybkina-Evangelou represents culture on the Co-ordinating Council of Russian Compatriots in Cyprus. She is from Novosibirsk and has lived in Cyprus since 2000. In 2010, she graduated from St Petersburg State University of Culture and Arts with a degree in children’s creative education. 
In 2001, she founded and headed the ‘Angara’ educational and cultural centre, where children are taught a wide range of artistic disciplines. In 2004, a Russian theatre was established at the school under Olga Evangelou’s artistic direction; it was later named ‘Ostrov’ (‘Island’), described by Evangelou herself as ‘semi-professional’. 
In principle, there would be nothing wrong with this sort of artistic activity were it not for the fact that it is entirely subservient to the propaganda interests of the Russian Embassy in Cyprus. No public festive event organised by the Russian Embassy or the Russian House takes place without the participation of children from the ‘Angara’ school and actors from the ‘Ostrov’ theatre, wearing Soviet-style vests with replica assault rifles and red stars, no public festive event organised by the Russian Embassy or the Russian House in Cyprus is complete. 
Olga Rybkina has been a member of the KSOERS since its establishment in 2008. 
In November 2015, Olga Rybkina, as a delegate from Cyprus, took part in the 5th World Congress of Compatriots Living Abroad, which was held in Moscow. There, she gave a presentation on the work that had been carried out.
In 2017, Angara Educational and Cultural Centre Ltd was registered in Limassol, with Olga Evangelou as its director.  In April 2017, in St Petersburg, with the participation of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the ‘World Co-ordinating Council of Russian Compatriots’ and ‘Rossotrudnichestvo’, the Association of Russian Theatre Professionals Abroad (ADRTZ, as mentioned above) was established. The association’s board of trustees includes members of the Russian parliament and high-ranking government officials – former members of the security services. Nikolai Sventitsky, director of the Tbilisi Russian Theatre, has been appointed chairman of the ADRTZ. The Georgian security services have identified him as an agent of the SVR. The association includes theatre figures from Russian-created quasi-states, such as Abkhazia, Transnistria and the so-called DPR and LPR. Olga Rybkina has been a member of this association since 2017.
Membership of such organisations implies, on the one hand, complete control by Moscow and, on the other, a guaranteed source of funding. Both the school and, even more so, the theatre are unprofitable ventures; they require an inflow of funds, the sources of which are unclear, except for one – the ‘Russkiy Mir’. The ‘Angara’ School of Arts is one of its partner organisations.  However, after ‘Russkiy Mir’ came under sanctions in 2022, it became impossible to provide legal funding to its affiliates. Yet this does not appear to have affected the propaganda activities of Olga Evangelou and her theatre. 
For the Victory Day celebrations on 9 May 2024 (in the midst of Russia’s war with Ukraine), around five hundred Putin supporters gathered on the Limassol seafront, where the main part of the ceremony took place, around five hundred Putin supporters converged from various parts of the island. Leading the procession was a man dressed in a Soviet Army uniform from the Second World War, carrying a red military banner and a replica PPSh submachine gun. This was Alexei Smirnov, a member of the KSRs and a leading actor at the Russian theatre ‘Ostrov’ . Alexei Smirnov is a familiar face at numerous Russian propaganda events in Cyprus. Usually, at all such celebrations, he leads the procession in his fancy-dress costume and delivers propaganda speeches.

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