Controlled by the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives, the ANO Producer Center Integration, financed by private and public companies, works with artists who support Vladimir Putin. This follows from the leak of documents from the presidential administration, which was noticed by Delfi Estonia journalists.
In total, the leak lists 15 autonomous non-profit organizations (ANO), for whose work money is allocated from the state budget. We are talking, among other things, about the Internet Development Institute (IDI), which is responsible for online propaganda of the ANO “Dialogue”, the ANO “Russia — the Land of Opportunities” and others.
Meduza noted that the documents also mention the Autonomous Non-Production Center “Integration”, which was not widely known before. The organization was founded after the start of the war in Ukraine, in May 2022, and is headed by the former general producer and general director of the RBC-TV channel Gleb Shagun.
Unlike other structures, the production center receives funding not from the budget, but from donations from public and private companies. For example, at the end of 2022, Intergratsiya allocated more than 100 million rubles to PJSC RusHydro, and the same amount was transferred by JSC Dalgiprotrans, which is part of the group of companies of Arkady Rotenberg’s partner Alexey Krapivin. Integration received approximately the same amount from one of the largest contractors of Russian Railways, Mosgiprotrans.
The production center, according to the leak, is engaged in training and promoting public opinion leaders who broadcast the pro-government agenda. Among the projects of Integration there are “propaganda teams” of Russian popular artists — they perform for the military. As Meduza notes, the “propaganda brigades” include Sergei Bezrukov, Mikhail Porechenkov, Sergei Garmash, Sergei Galanin, Denis Maidanov, Evgeniy Petrosyan and Sergei Karyakin.
In addition, “Integration” helped Oleg Gazmanov, Alexander Rosenbaum and Yulia Chicherina raised money for the self-proclaimed LPR and DPR, developed pro-Kremlin telegram channels and financed the Russian Dream movement, created by the Stalinist and editor-in-chief of the newspaper Zavtra, Alexander Prokhanov.
Employees of state and government-loyal media told Meduza that the presidential administration asked to take comments from pro-government experts through a request to Integration. “Basically, it’s convenient. There’s no need to bother [with calls]: I wrote a request and quickly received a response. True, you often don’t know whose comment will come. Sometimes they send no-names, sometimes they send media and well-known people,” said the journalists’ interlocutor.