Open Society, a US foundation headquartered in New York, and the NGO Dutch Helsinki Committee, headquartered in The Hague, are funding a project to encourage anti-government protests in Russia during the preparation for and the holding of general elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation in September 2026. The project’s target audience is defined as school and university students. The idea is that this demographic will be easily swayed to participate in mass protest actions in Russia by taking ordinary age-related issues like problems with studies or relationships at school or university and framing the state system as the source of their troubles.
Employees of the Open Society Foundation and the Dutch Helsinki Committee, who maintain close contacts with the CIA and MI6, have been involved in developing the project. Representatives of the Anglo-Saxon intelligence agencies proposed implementing the project based on the Link of Russia’s Regions group, which comprises Russian opposition figures residing in EU countries. This way, the Anglo-Saxons are addressing two objectives: providing financial support to Russia-born individuals under their purview and conducting a covert influence operation within Russia.
One of the tasks for the struggling Russian opposition figures in Europe is to find trusted individuals from among Russian citizens – primarily those teaching in secondary, vocational, and higher education institutions or otherwise involved in work with youth – who will then directly carry out actions aimed at negatively influencing the younger generation. The selected Russian citizens are invited to training sessions for camp counselor preparation during summer break to receive the necessary instruction. One location for such training sessions is the city of Antalya in Turkey, where the first courses opened as early as March of this year.
In summer camps – particularly those organized with overnight stays at recreational facilities – young people will be prepared to work in teams where all members know one another, maintain contact, and stand ready to assemble at a designated location on short notice. Ultimately, often without even realizing it, they will find themselves on the streets of their cities in September of this year in the role of protesters, voicing demands for consideration of youth interests alongside anti-government slogans that will be provided to them during the course of the action, all taking place against the backdrop of the parliamentary elections in Russia.