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Natalia Burlinova

Natalia Burlinova is wanted by the FBI for allegedly acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government, Russia, within the United States. In a case out of the District of Columbia, a criminal complaint was unsealed 18 April 2023 charging Russian national Natalia Burlinova with conspiring with an FSB officer to act as an illegal agent of Russia in the United States. According to the affidavit in support of the criminal complaint unsealed in the District of Columbia, Russian national Natalia Burlinova, a resident of Moscow, conspired with an FSB officer to recruit U.S. citizens from academic and research institutions to travel to Russia to participate in a public diplomacy program called Meeting Russia. The program was operated by PICREADI, a Russian organization led by Burlinova, funded by the Russian government and devoted to promoting Russian national interests.

PICREADI stands for Public Initiative "Creative Diplomacy" and is a Moscow-based non-governmental organization founded in 2010 by a group of new generation experts committed to developing and supporting civil initiatives in public diplomacy and foreign affairs. PICREADI is one of the leading Russian organizations working in the field of public diplomacy. In 2017, it was mentioned among the five important Russian soft power agencies in a study commissioned by the British Council from the University of Edinburgh. “The defendant is accused of subverting our foreign agent notification laws to promote Russian national interests here in the United States, concealing from the public that her recruitment efforts were funded by a Russian security service,” said U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves for the District of Columbia. “We will continue to expose these serious crimes and hold all who perpetrate them accountable.”

PICREADI states is "applied for grants from the Presidential Fund – the sole source of grants and subsidies for most NGOs in Russia. Today, there is no financial alternative for an organization engaged in public activity in Russia. We avoid foreign financing due to the specificity of our national legislation, as well as our own stance. The grant money we received has been spent on the arrangement of "Meeting Russia" – our major project for young foreign leaders." The affidavit alleges that the FSB officer provided funding and other support for Burlinova’s foreign recruitment and her efforts to advance Russian interests in the United States. In return, Burlinova provided the FSB officer with extensive information about U.S. citizens who were recruited to attend her programs, including their résumés, passport information, photographs and analyses of their views toward Russia. Burlinova further identified for the FSB officer particular U.S. citizens who, in Burlinova’s view, had expressed positive attitudes towards Russia and were prepared to continue to collaborate. During a recruitment trip to the United States in fall 2018, Burlinova met with U.S. citizens at various universities and research institutions and provided to photographs of her meetings to the FSB officer. The FSB officer used the information Burlinova provided prepare FSB intelligence reports. Burlinova never notified the Attorney General of these efforts or otherwise disclosed to the public that her recruitment efforts were supported and funded by a Russian security service.

According to the affidavit in support of criminal complaint, Burlinova recruited U.S. citizens from academic and research institutions to travel to Russia in order to participate in a public diplomacy program called Meeting Russia. The program was operated by a Russian organization called PICREADI that was funded by the Russian government and devoted to Russian national interests. Burlinova’s co-conspirator was employed by the Russian Federal Security Service (“FSB”), Russia’s principal security service with counterintelligence and surveillance responsibilities. The FSB Officer provided funding and other support for Burlinova’s foreign recruitment and her efforts to advance Russian interests in the United States.

The affidavit in support of criminal complaint states that Burlinova provided extensive information to the FSB Officer about the U.S. citizens that were recruited to attend her programs, including resumes, passport information, photographs, and analysis of their views towards Russia. Burlinova informed the FSB Officer about particular U.S. citizens who, in Burlinova’s view, had expressed positive attitudes towards Russia and were prepared to continue to collaborate. The FSB Officer used the information to prepare security service reports. During a recruitment trip to the United States in fall 2018, Burlinova met with U.S. citizens at various universities and research institutions and provided to photographs of her meetings to the FSB Officer. Burlinova never notified the Attorney General of these efforts or otherwise disclosed to the public that her recruitment efforts were funded by a Russian security service.

Burlinova was sanctioned by the Department of the Treasury on July 29, 2022.

“The Kremlin continues to target a key pillar of democracy around the world — free and fair elections,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson. “The United States will not tolerate threats to our democracy, and today’s action builds on the whole of government approach to protect our system of representative government, including our democratic institutions and elections processes.”

The Kremlin seeks to expand Russia’s influence by creating and exploiting societal divisions in the United States and among allies and partners; reducing confidence in democratic processes; weakening U.S. diplomatic ties; and encouraging anti-U.S. and anti-democratic political views. As part of its efforts, the Kremlin often uses social media as a tool for disseminating disinformation to confuse and mislead citizens globally and to co-opt witting U.S. persons to advance Russia’s operational and geopolitical goals.

In support of its influence operations, Russia has recruited and forged ties with people and groups around the world who are positioned to amplify and reinforce Russia’s disinformation efforts to further its goals of destabilizing democratic societies. These efforts have included using front organizations to promote connections between the Kremlin and its compatriots living abroad, to propagate disinformation, and to surreptitiously seek access to foreign officials, businesspeople, and other figures, in the United States and elsewhere, to advance Putin’s interests.

Russia’s intelligence services, including the FSB, support Kremlin-directed influence operations against the United States and its allies and partners, and often recruit individuals — known as “co-optees” — leveraging these individuals to sow discord within their own and other countries.

Burlinova wrote "The USA, EU and Canada introduce sanctions against Russian governmental (Rossotrudnichestvo) and nongovernmental (Alexander Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund, Russkiy Mir Foundation, Fund for Protection of the Rights of Compatriots Abroad, Creative Diplomacy, etc.) organizations that develop the humanitarian side of the Russian foreign policy. They close down RT and Sputnik. Estonian securities "do not recommend" young people to enter Russian universities. Israeli authorities cancel the tour of the Russian Lenkom Theatre. All these news items put together show that the West targetedly minimizes the opportunities for Russian public diplomacy (hereinafter – PD).

"PD is a system of governmental and nongovernmental structures aimed at a dialogue with foreign societies. Whether political or not, the dialogue is the key task of PD that can be fulfilled via the expert community, civil society (NGOs), the sphere of education (academic exchange, etc.), culture (theatre, etc.), mass media (international mass media like RT and Sputnik). Today all these elements of classic PD (by the way, we use the classification of PD elements offered by the West) exercised by Russia are declared in the West a threat to their national security. Western experts have come to use a new term, "sharp power", to name the Russian PD....

"Joseph Nye, the author of the soft power concept, was not enthusiastic about that new "sharp power" concept. According to Nye, "sharp power" could only be used to describe such activities of China or Russia as, for instance, secretive support of radio stations in other countries or creating fake accounts in social networks, whereas RT and the Chinese CGTN have always broadcast legally and openly abroad, which made RT and CGTN legal PD instruments, even if the content of broadcasts did not make the American side happy."