Since February 24, about a billion rubles have been allocated from the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives, created by Vladimir Putin, for propaganda activities in support of the war, including concerts with Z-symbols. According to Sirena, with the help of such events, Putin wants to create the illusion that all Russians support the actions of the authorities.
In the first year of operation, the government allocated 3.5 billion rubles to the fund for grants, it is planned to allocate 8 billion rubles for 2022, and 10 billion for 2023. According to the publication, 172 projects have won the fund’s competition since the beginning of the war, most of which is associated with Z-propaganda.
The publication lists, among other things, the April show of Evgeni Plushenko, for which 50.5 million rubles were allocated from the budget. The figure skater and coach made him part of the show “Za Mir! For Russia! For the future!”, and the letter Z appeared on the invitation cards. In addition, the head of the Tula Regional Duma began the concert with a speech about the unity and strength of Russia.
The patriotic concert “For Russia” also became a landmark, for the performance at which 34 performers received 95.3 million rubles. Among the musicians were "Earring", Sergey Bobunets, Uma2rman, "7B", Oleg and Rodion Gazmanov, "Factory", Anna Semenovich, Denis Maidanov, Mitya Fomin, Nikolai Rastorguev, Dmitry Kharatyan, Dmitry Pevtsov, "Gems".
The main "grantee" was the project of ANO "Expert Institute for Social Research", close to the curator of the fund Sergei Kiriyenko. EISI was created specifically to promote the propaganda ideas of the Kremlin.
The publication notes that there are YouTube bloggers on the list: for example, Dmitry Puchkov (known as Goblin) received 18.7 million rubles from the authorities. He publishes the Evening Radiator propaganda program on VK and on Rutube, since Puchkov's YouTube channel is blocked.
Huge sums are allocated from the Russian budget not only for propaganda within the country. The Washington Post, CNN and Reuters published materials according to which Russia spent millions of dollars on a covert political campaign abroad. At least $300 million has gone into bribing foreign politicians since 2014, senior US presidential administration officials have said, citing US intelligence. Thus, the Russian authorities tried to influence foreign parties and individual politicians from more than 20 countries.
