In 2023 and 2024, pro-government TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov was allocated 1.5 billion rubles from the state budget; Initially, this year they planned to allocate him twice as much. This became known from a leak of internal documents of the Russian presidential administration, which was discovered by Delfi Estonia journalists.
As an international group of investigative journalists who studied the documents clarified, the leak comes from the internal political department of the presidential administration — it is headed by Sergei Kiriyenko. In total, the budget is divided into three categories: presidential elections, information and ideological war and “new regions”. In total, expenditures of 110 billion rubles were envisaged for these categories.
According to the files, in 2024 they planned to allocate 3 billion rubles to Solovyov, but in his column there was a clarification: “We are waiting for Solovyov’s meeting with the president.” As a result, funding was left at last year's level. Journalists also found out that this year about 42 million rubles were allocated to the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in Russia, Maria Lvova-Belova. The money should go “to expel children from the special military zone of occupation.”
Another item of expenditure was the Internet Development Institute (IRI), whose general director in 2021 was appointed pro-Kremlin media manager Alexei Goreslavsky. Last year, Iran allocated 22 billion rubles, and this year — 18 billion rubles. Exactly one year before the start of the presidential elections, Goreslavsky, together with the head of the public projects department (POP) of the presidential administration, Sergei Novikov, prepared a presentation “Creative Content for the Elections.”
The list of films that are intended to create an appropriate emotional background for the presidential elections includes “Slave 2”, “Ice 3”, “Musicians of Bremen” and “At the Command of the Pike”. The paintings, the authors of the presentation believe, ensured “the protection of national interests, as well as cultural and social (traditional) values.” The series “The Boy’s Word. Blood on the Asphalt” talks about “qualitative changes in life in Russia as a sustainable trend,” follows from the presentation. The list also contains films that directly tell the story of the war in Ukraine.
Meduza found out that the authors of the projects were not informed about the use of their works as part of the presidential campaign. “Apparently, they [Goreslavsky and Novikov] are just hanging on to successful projects,” suggested one of the journalists’ interlocutors.