How Russia promotes propaganda in Europe through advertising agencies
Russia’s foreign intelligence service is allocating significant resources to building an infrastructure for spreading propaganda in the West and the Global South. Firms posing as advertising agencies are being established to conduct large-scale information campaigns in Russia’s interests. These companies form an infrastructure for spreading propaganda that includes networks of experts, bots, social media pages, and more. These activities are overseen by Sergey Kiriyenko, head of the presidential administration of Russia.
To conceal the “Russian trace,” these companies create shell entities and appoint individuals with no apparent ties to Russia as their managers. Russia employs similar tactics to bypass sanctions.
▫️ One such company was identified by journalists from the Financial Times: the advertising agency AdNow. This Russian influence network has been involved in spreading disinformation about Western vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic and financial fraud. It was also linked to Călin Georgescu, an anti-Western candidate in the Romanian presidential election, which was later annulled. Notably, as part of Georgescu’s campaign, 440 million ads were published on TikTok in just one month.
The company was founded in 2014 by Russian citizen Yulia Serebryanskaya and was headquartered in Moscow. Serebryanskaya is a graduate of Novosibirsk State University and previously worked on the presidential campaigns of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and his ally Dmitry Medvedev. She also served as the communications director for the ruling United Russia party. A substantial portion of AdNow’s employees are Russian nationals.
▫️ Currently, the agency is owned by Georgian citizen Giorgi Abuladze. While he denies any involvement in Russian disinformation campaigns, investigators have reported that the company continued employing Russian nationals in 2024.
