The first international ‘civil society’ association established during the Putin era was VARP – the World Association of the Russian Press. In March 1999, Putin, then Director of the FSB, was appointed Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, and in June, the First World Congress of the Russian Press was held in Moscow and Sochi, at which the creation of the World Association of the Russian Press was announced. As stated on the WARP website: ‘This forum was the first-ever meeting of editors-in-chief, publishers and leading journalists from Russian-language media outlets across 48 countries. The congress was preceded by painstaking research to gather unique data on Russian media outlets in every corner of the globe.’ It is not difficult to guess which organisations were responsible for gathering data on Russian journalists and publishers.
Officially, WARP is described as ‘an open international non-governmental organisation of print and electronic media, agencies, publishing houses, editorial offices, television and radio programmes, as well as other legal producers and distributors of all types of mass media in the Russian language.’
Vitaly Ignatenko became (and remains to this day) president of VARP Vitaly Ignatenko, then Director-General of ITAR-TASS, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation under Chernomyrdin, who during the Soviet era (from 1972 to 1986) served as Deputy Head of the Department of Foreign Policy Propaganda at the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and until 1991 was Head of the Press Service of Soviet President Gorbachev.
The ITAR-TASS agency, like TASS in Soviet times, has traditionally served as a front for the work of the secret services, so there is no reason to doubt Ignatenko’s involvement with them.
Control over the press has been the Putin government’s primary objective from the very outset, so the tasks set for this ‘non-governmental organisation’ were perfectly clear from the start – buying up Russian publications abroad, bribing and recruiting journalists and publishers, and turning the Russian press abroad into a propaganda tool for the Russian regime.
This is precisely how one should interpret VARP’s official declaration, which sets out its main objectives: ‘to facilitate the organisation of the journalistic community for the free and objective coverage of events in Russia and abroad, and the lives of compatriots and all Russian-speaking people; …to strengthen ties and facilitate the exchange of creative and professional experience amongst journalists working for Russian publications abroad; …to identify talented young people within Russian diasporas abroad and support their education in the field of journalism…; to maintain cultural and humanitarian ties between Russian (Russian-speaking) overseas diasporas and Russia, and to preserve within their communities the finest traditions of the peoples of Russia and other countries that have shared its historical path’.
Since 1999, the World Congresses have been held 21 times in various countries around the world.
In the early years, this venture seemed relatively innocuous, though the lack of substance in the congresses was glaringly obvious. One of the authors of this book observed the 6th VARP Congress in Berlin in 2002:
‘Reading the programme, it is utterly impossible to understand what the organisers were actually concerned about or what the whole thing was intended to achieve. On the first day, welcome speeches by the Congress leadership, as well as by Russian and German officials, were scheduled, along with a tour of the Reichstag, a tour of the SFB television and radio station, and a gala reception in the evening, with lunch and dinner in between. A full hour was set aside for the ‘Congress proceedings’ – from 13.45 to 14.45.
On the second day, two hours were allocated to the plenary sessions – from 10.00 to 12.00, with a break for the opening of the ‘Belarus Today’ exhibition, which took place at 11.00. After lunch, there was a trip to Treptow Park, where wreaths were laid at the Monument to the Liberator Soldier, followed by a rather odd ceremony described in the programme as a ‘toast to the memory of the soldiers’. In the evening – the ‘Ball of 35 Flags in Astoria’. Oh, and the day before the opening, there was a tour of Berlin, a gala banquet and a ‘We’re Looking for Talent’ competition. That’s all.
I tried to find out from acquaintances who’d had the honour of attending the Congress exactly what had taken place during those three hours set aside for work. It turned out that nothing had happened. Absolutely NOTHING was discussed. There were re-elections of the leadership and introductions of individual participants. It turned out that more than two hundred people had travelled to Berlin from all over the world simply to have a bit of a break at the state’s expense. Actually, all sorts of international conferences and congresses give their participants the opportunity to get away from it all and relax. But not to such an extent!”
As Irina Krivova, a congress participant and editor-in-chief of the oldest anti-Soviet newspaper abroad, the Paris-based *Russkaya Mysl*, wrote at the time: “We used to fear that we would be recruited, monitored, told what to do, or forced to promote their pro-Moscow line through our publications circulating outside Russia. It turns out, however, that this is not at all what Moscow needs from Russian publications abroad today. We are, it seems, simply being used as window dressing, whilst under the ‘umbrella’ of the World Association of the Russian Press, money is surely trickling from the Russian budget to someone, whilst others are sending impassioned reports on their work to ministerial offices, and certain overseas publications, jostling for the same readership – such as ‘Russian Germany’ and ‘Europe-Express’ on this occasion – are sorting out their competitive rivalries. To be honest, we couldn’t care less about any of this.”
It is clear that the main work with the congress participants took place behind the scenes. As early as 2003, *Russkaya Mysl* was bought by the Russian oligarch Yevtushenkov and transformed from a bastion of the dissident movement into a Kremlin propaganda rag. In 2006, the priceless archives of *Russkaya Mysl* were moved to Moscow. Today, the Paris-based *Russkaya Mysl* is a partner of Rossotrudnichestvo and the ‘Foundation for the Support and Protection of the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad’.
The 21st Congress took place in 2019 in Turkey, attended by representatives of more than 300 media outlets from 53 countries.
Currently, the number of pro-Putin and anti-democratic Russian-language media outlets outside Russia far exceeds the number of independent and democratic – that is, anti-Putin – ones.
In 2014, the Fund for Cooperation with the Russian-Language Overseas Press was established under the VARP. Sergei Naryshkin, then Chairman of the State Duma and future Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, was appointed head of the fund’s board of trustees.
There are at least two VARP members in Cyprus: Natalya Kardash, head of the ‘Vestnik Kipra’ publishing house, and Andrei Avsitidsky, publisher of the pro-Kremlin weekly ‘Europa-Kipra’, which split from ‘Vestnik Kipra’.