Russia signs agreements for 11 additional cultural centres abroad, Meduza reports

Russia’s overseas outreach agency has signed agreements to establish 11 additional Russian Houses, Meduza reported on September 8, citing an announcement by agency head Igor Chaika. Eight would be in Africa. The announcement concerns arrangements for future centres; it does not establish that all the facilities have opened or begun delivering programmes.

Chaika described language teaching, Russian education and cultural, youth, scientific and humanitarian projects as measures by which the centres’ work would be assessed. Meduza also reported planned openings in the Commonwealth of Independent States, without identifying the countries concerned. The available account leaves the individual locations, implementation timetable and financing unspecified.

An outreach network under scrutiny

The expansion matters because the centres operate within a state-directed international outreach network. An EU regulation adopted on July 21, 2022, identified their parent agency, Rossotrudnichestvo, as a Russian federal executive body responsible for public services and state property supporting relations with foreign countries. That institutional role connects apparently local educational and cultural activities to Moscow’s broader foreign-policy presence.

The same regulation placed Rossotrudnichestvo on the EU sanctions list. In its stated reasons, the Council characterised the agency as an instrument of Kremlin influence and accused it of financing propaganda and public-diplomacy projects. It also alleged that the agency organised events promoting acceptance of occupied Ukrainian territory as Russian. These are the EU’s formal grounds for its designation, rather than findings about the activities of the newly announced centres.

The Council’s accompanying July 2022 explanation said designated entities faced asset freezes and restrictions preventing EU citizens and companies from making funds available to them. Those measures provide relevant historical context for the agency’s overseas operations. They neither confirm the September announcement nor establish the legal position of any particular future centre in an unnamed host country.

Expansion alongside a European retreat

Meduza placed the announcement alongside Germany’s decision to close the Russian House in Berlin and Russia’s retaliatory announcement concerning the Goethe-Institut. The contrast suggests that the network’s geographical footprint is changing, although the available figures cannot establish its net worldwide growth. The next substantive evidence to watch is publication of the host-country agreements, opening dates and operating arrangements. Those details would show how much of the announced expansion becomes a functioning educational and cultural presence.