Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have joined Azerbaijan in hardening their attitudes towards Russian soft power entities.

On April 22, RFE/RL reported that an employee of Russia House in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh had been taken into custody on suspicion of illegally trying to recruit locals to join the Russian army to fight in Ukraine. Russia House in Osh is operated by Rossotrudnichestvo, a state agency that funds a variety of Kremlin soft-power projects. A Kyrgyz court has ordered the Kyrgyz national, identified as Natalia Sekerina, to remain in pre-trial detention until at least mid-June. Sekerina is one of four individuals implicated in the plot.

Meanwhile, another Russian soft-power entity in Central Asia, the Sputnik Kazakhstan media outlet, is under official investigation by Kazakh authorities for broadcasting a provocative report that extolled the virtues of a Kazakh national fighting for Russia in Ukraine.  

“We will issue a warning to the Sputnik agency. I remind you that Sputnik is a foreign media outlet. … The ministry will take the necessary measures from the legal point of view," the lada.kz news service quoted Information Minister Aida Balayeva as saying.

The Sputnik Kazakhstan report that prompted the investigation was published in May of 2024. It only attracted official scrutiny after a prominent Kazakh rights activist complained about it in an April 22 social media post, pointing out that Sputnik violated several Kazakh laws by featuring a Kazakh mercenary. “This media openly promotes aggressive war,” wrote Lukpan Akhmedyarov wrote in his post.

Mass media outlets in Azerbaijan have given prominent play to the Sputnik controversy in Kazakhstan. In February, Azerbaijani officials ordered the effective closure of Russia House in Baku amid a diplomatic row over the accidental shoot-down of an Azerbaijani civilian passenger jet by Russian air defenses. 

In an analysis published in March, the Lansing Institute characterized Rossotrudnichestvo as an entity that “de facto operates in close coordination with the FSB and SVR [Russia’s domestic and foreign security services], executing intelligence, propaganda, and political influence missions on behalf of the Kremlin.”