Russia related networks in Estonia Part 3.

We will continue to give an overview of NGOs that are anti- Estonian as well disruptive to our society as brought out in the Security Police yearbooks. We will outline in diagrams and charts the people involved in theses organizations and their interrelationships.

Network 4 „ Propaganda clubs

The network is linked to the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaja Pravda (Komsomol Truth) and its portal to the Russian-speaking inhabitants of the Baltics, Kompravda.eu or Komsomolskaja Pravda v Severnoi Jevrope (Komsomol Truth in Northern Europe)

Network managed Websites

Kompravda.eu, Impressum-club.eu

Organizations

NGO Impressum

Organizes a discussion club, which meets once a month in the European Conference Hall, a Tallinn hotel. Various people from Russia are invited to speak. Most of the lecturers’ views are overlapping with the Kremlin’s official policies and are hostile to Estonia. Some of the speakers have been banned from Estonia. The Õhtuleht (Evening post) released a 2015 report on one of the club’s evening meetings, which focused on events in the Ukraine.

OÜ SKP Media

Igor Teterin is a member of the board of directors of Kompravda.eu and deals with its publishing. The Russian company, Komsomolskaja Pravda Publishing House, was looking for funds to develop the Baltic media project already in 2007. The turnover of SKP Media was 201,000 euros in 2016, 51,000 euros in the first quarter of 2018.

NGO Baltinpress
One of the publishers of Kompravda.eu

NGO Art Dialog
The networks’ youngest member organization, founded in October 2017. Their activity is marked as research and development in social sciences and humanities

Key individuals

Igor Tetrin
Managing director of Network Projects, is responsible for the daily operation of Impressum and Kompravda.eu

Galina Sapozhnikova
Network leader. Former Komsomolskaya Pravda journalist, who organizes similar discussion clubs in other countries as well. She has worked in cooperation with the propaganda portal Sputnik. Declared as an undesirable person in Lithuania due to ant-state activities in 2015. She published a book in which she writes about conspiracy theories on events that led to the re-independence of Lithuania. Read also the Sapožnikova interview published in the newspaper, Kesknädal.

KAPO has written about the activities of members of the network in 2014: „Impressum was established in 2008 by the publisher of Komsomolskaja Pravda v Severnoi Jevrope, Igor Teterin and Komsomolskaja Pravda journalist, Galina Sapozhnikova, in order to hold targeted discussions on vital topics for Russian influence activities. Since the autumn of 2008, regular anti-Estonian propaganda events have been taking place, organized by Impressum. Evidently, this propaganda club created in Estonia was the first of its sorts established in a former Soviet Union occupied territory, which Russia considers to be in its sphere of influence. This same group has expanded its activities in the neighbouring countries of Russia year after year. In July 2009, under the leadership of Galina Sapozhnikova, the club Format-A3 was established in Moldova and the Crimea in Ukraine using the same format and the same individuals as Impressum.  The next enlargement took place in September 2010, when the Skovoroda club began its activities in the capital of Ukraine, Kiev. In April 2011, Format A-3 began having meetings in Latvia and in the autumn of 2012 in Lithuania.

All of the clubs – Impressum, Format A-3 and Skovoroda are the same. Impressum events do not have free debates but are mostly committed to distributing key messages of Russian influence.“

Relations with Russia

The network through the background of key personnel and through the owners are connected to Russia’s largest publishers Komsomolskaja Pravda. The publication is owned via a holding company, Media Partner to the Kremlin associated Russian oil company, ESN Grupp that is led by Grigori Berjozkin, who is also associated with Russian Railways and Gazprom. The KAPO yearbook writes that with the support of Russian funds in 2015 Kompravda.eu section of Pravozaštšita was launched, whose selections of topics and tone follow the usual rhetoric of Russia against the Baltic nations.

Read also the first and second parts of anti- Estonian networks