Argentina uncovers Russian spy operation fueling Kremlin propaganda

By AFP and Global Watch | 2025-07-03

Argentina said it has detected Russian spies operating in the country to promote Moscow's interests through disinformation campaigns and fake news.

Presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni said intelligence officers identified an organization called "The Company," allegedly linked to Russia's government and Project Lakhta, which the United States says is a Moscow-based operation conducting political interference.

Russian citizen Lev Konstantinovich Andriashvili, based in Argentina, allegedly headed the organization with his wife, Irina Yakovenko, also a Russian. Both were responsible for "receiving financing and promoting links with local collaborators," Adorni said in a statement on June 18.

The group's goal was "to form a group of people loyal to Russia's interests" to carry out disinformation campaigns against the Argentine state, the spokesman added.

The Russian spy network created and disseminated content on social media, influencing local civil organizations and NGOs, developing focus groups with Argentine citizens and obtaining political information for Russia, he added.

Coordinated manipulation

"Argentina will not be subjected to the influence of any other nation," Adorni said. "The safety of Argentines is not a secondary matter."

The US government has been raising the alarm about Moscow's ongoing efforts to fund a sophisticated and ongoing disinformation in Latin America for the past couple of years.

This Kremlin-backed operation is designed to exploit the region's open and diverse media landscape by inserting propaganda that appears to originate from local sources, the US embassy in Chile said in a statement in November 2023.

According to the embassy, the campaign spans multiple countries -- including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay -- and seeks to undermine support for Ukraine while promoting anti-US and anti-NATO narratives.

'Influence for hire'

Three Russia-linked entities -- the Social Design Agency (SDA), the Institute for Internet Development and Structura -- have coordinated to execute this information manipulation effort, the embassy report found.

"These are 'influence-for-hire' firms with deep technical capability, experience in exploiting open information environments, and a history of proliferating disinformation and propaganda to further Russia’s foreign influence objectives," the embassy said.

Their goal is to co-opt local media outlets and influencers to push narratives favorable to Russian strategic interests, often by blending them into legitimate discourse to increase their perceived authenticity, the assessment added.

About year after the embassy report, the US State Department accused Russia of actively working to undermine Argentina's government and sow discord among its neighbors and implicated Russian media outlet RT of being a "de facto arm of Russia's intelligence apparatus" being used against countries around the world.

The Russian government is "engaged in operations meant to destabilize the government of Argentina and escalate tensions between Argentina and its neighbors," it said in a statement last September.

"The Russian Government is also engaged in operations meant to destabilize the government of Argentina and escalate tensions between Argentina and its neighbors," the State Department said in the same statement.