>>893869 At the “Company”, a group of “34 specialists,” sometimes referred to as “sociologists” or “political technologists,” work under Klyukin’s supervision. Responsible for monitoring and analyzing the political situation in 15 countries, they write briefing notes and conduct telephone surveys with thousands of respondents — 1,133 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in June 2024, another 1,024 in Mali in August, and so on.
Additional teams carry out online manipulation campaigns, in line with the Lakhta Project troll factory, which the “Company” partly initiated. In August 2024, according to internal invoices, someone named Ksenia Valeryevna Soboleva placed an order for fake Facebook accounts under the pseudonym “sobolevaksenia31.” She wrote, “Please create accounts with these names. Profiles of women: Aminata Djerma, Mariam Barka … and men: Oumar Koudou, Ali Barka … And for another man, if possible, (write the name) directly in Arabic.”