The Russian Federal Agency for Cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo) spent at least 412 million rubles (206 million UAH) on programs for foreign citizens in the first half of 2025, which ist 1,5 times more than the amount spent last year, as evidenced by data on state procurement, and is the largest such sum in the last 14 years, reports Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, citing the Russian news outlet Vazhnye Istorii.
Most of the expenses, as noted, went to Rossotrudnichestvo’s flagship program “New Generation”, which offers foreign students, activists, journalists, bloggers, entrepreneurs, scientists aged 14 to 40 payment for short-term trips to Russia. Participants are taken on guided tours, hikes, invited to meetings with officials and training classes by Kremlin loyalists. According to the organizers, “New Generation” is supposed to expand the circle of active pro-Russian youth abroad.
The program was allocated almost three times less money in 2024: 127.8 million rubles (64 million UAH). Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed to expand “New Generation” and increase its funding by 384 million rubles (192 million UAH) annually. 1,600 program participants are set to visit Russia in 2025.
Last year, 921 participants made trips to Russia, according to the annual report by the Federal Cooperation Agency. Of these, 603 came from post-Soviet countries, while 264 were from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and America.
It is noted that the program offers journalists and bloggers internships in Russian state-affiliated media: RT and Sputnik, which are part of the Rossiya Segodnya holding.
Moreover, writes Vazhnye Istorii, Russia has ramped up spending on the promotion of the Russian language abroad. While 500 million rubles (250 million UAH) were allocated for the state program “Support and Promotion of the Russian Language Abroad” in 2024, the figure rose to 1.8 billion (900 million UAH) in 2025. In addition, about 170 million rubles (85 million UAH) were spent in 2025 to purchase educational material in Russian, which is then distributed to schools and Russian culture centres abroad. This material includes history textbooks edited by Volodymyr Medinsky which contain criticism of the West and Ukraine.
The media outlet remarks that despite the increase in such “soft power” spending, Rossotrudnichestvo’s budget remains small relatively small in terms of absolute figures: about 5.5 billion rubles (2.75 billion UAH) per year.
As reported earlier, Russia increased expenditure on programs for foreign “journalists” through Rosspivrodnitstvo in May 2024.
