Goreslavsky Alexey

General Director of ANO Internet Development Institute (IRI)

Born in 1977 in Moscow. In 1999 he graduated from the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, then – graduate school at the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences. While studying at the university, from 1995 to 1998 he worked as a correspondent for the “Private Life” department of the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper. Later, until 2004, he worked as editor of the politics and economics department of the newspaper “Top Secret. Version", held the posts of editor-in-chief of the magazine "Aloud about..." and managing director of the publishing house "Chas Media" (in addition, according to databases, around the same period one of his places of work was the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, but in this information does not appear in the open sources).
In 2005-2007, he was editor-in-chief of the online newspaper Vzglyad, and in 2007-2010, director of the Internet projects service of the Interfax news agency. From 2011 to 2013, he served as president of the communications agency Agency One. In 2013-2014, Goreslavsky continued to work in online media as deputy general director for external communications of Rambler&Co, and in 2014-2016 he served as editor-in-chief of the Internet portal Lenta.ru, having been appointed after the scandalous dismissal of the former editor-in-chief of Lenta Galin Timchenko. Later, her dismissal was associated with a warning received by Lenta.ru from Roskomnadzor about a violation of three laws in one of the materials: on information, on the media and on countering extremism. Following Timchenko’s dismissal, 39 editorial staff wrote letters of resignation. The journalistic community generally considered the dismissal of Galina Timchenko an act of censorship, and Goreslavsky was called a “man of the Kremlin.”

In 2017, after Sergei Kiriyenko became the curator of domestic policy (and online media) in the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation, Goreslavsky became deputy head of the department for public projects, his functionality included Internet initiatives of the state and its interaction with citizens in Internet space. Among other things, Goreslavsky directly supervised the Internet Development Institute (IRI), which during this period was headed by Anton Klyuchkin - formerly, Goreslavsky’s subordinate at Rambler & Co. Under him, this organization became responsible for distributing funding for “youth Internet content” (several billion rubles were allocated annually from the federal budget for these purposes).
Also at the end of June 2017, Goreslavsky became a member of the “Expert Commission on the recognition of information prohibited for dissemination on the territory of the Russian Federation” created by Roskomnadzor.

In 2020, as the general director, he headed the notorious near-Kremlin structures with the help of which the PA is trying to control social networks, namely the ANO Dialog (created by the Moscow Government in November 2019) and the ANO Dialog Regions. According to information in the media, “Dialog” not only prepares sociology for the authorities and has become “a coordinator for the verification of potential fake news and the fight against their spread,” but also created regional management centers, which “ensure interdepartmental and inter-level interaction between government bodies and organizations." The first test regional management centers, in collaboration with the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation and ANO Digital Economy, were launched in six regions back in April 2020. Under Goreslavsky, the ANO Dialog actively advertised “amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation” and vaccination against COVID.

In November 2021, the appointment of Alexey Goreslavsky as CEO of the Internet Development Institute (IRI), which was created as a platform “to coordinate the interaction of the state, digital industry and civil society,” was announced.
According to media reports, in the summer of 2021, IRI received 7 billion rubles from the Russian state to create “youth and patriotic content on the Internet”; in January 2020, Rosmolodezh issued a subsidy of 9 billion rubles for three years to the institute. Traces of the activities of this organization were found in the promotion of Rutube – the video platform owned by Gazprom Media (since 2021, IRI has obliged its grant recipients to post their video content there), working as bloggers and creating films and serials on Russian Internet platforms . In 2023, the institute received more than 20 billion (of which over 17 was for the creation of “state content” dedicated to “civic identity” and “spiritual and moral values”). Another 26 billion rubles were planned for 2024 and 2025 (for comparison: the state Cinema Fund, which finances all Russian cinema, is going to distribute only 11.6 billion rubles in 2023).
At the same time, IRI gives its own grants on the terms of co-financing with public and private companies - for example, with the educational society “Znanie” (overseen by Sergei Kiriyenko) or the “National Media Group” (affiliated with Putin’s closest friend, billionaire Yuri Kovalchuk).
At the final stage, projects applying for IRI grants, in addition to Goreslavsky, are approved by members of the supervisory board, in particular:
• Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Sergei Kiriyenko;
• Head of the Presidential Administration Directorate for Public Projects Sergei Novikov, long-time associate of Sergei Kiriyenko (they worked together at the Rosatom corporation). According to Meduza’s sources, Novikov oversees the production of Russian films and TV series from the PA;
• editor-in-chief of RT Margarita Simonyan (IRI financed the propaganda programs of Anton Krasovsky and the program “Beautiful Russia boo-boo-boo” that appeared on her channel);
• Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Culture Elena Yampolskaya, known for her pro-war initiatives.
In addition, IRI is the operator of a quota for “free social advertising”. Since 2021, a law has come into force in the Russian Federation, according to which sites displaying advertising are required to allocate 5% of traffic to “social advertising”, and Russian non-profit organizations wishing to publish their advertising for free must submit an application to the institute, and the IRI will determine who will receive traffic.
In 2022, the competitive selection nomination for this quota was supplemented with a new wording: “including support for the families of participants in a special military operation.” The winner was the Association of Volunteer Centers with the project “We Don’t Abandon Our Own”; This advertisement invites you to join the #wearetogether campaign, which helps the families of Russian occupiers.
In 2021, the Internet Development Institute launched the National Internet Content Award. Here are examples of the 2022-2023 finalists:
• “The best viral video” is a video in which a girl from the Kherson region hugs a Russian military man with the words “You are our saviors! I love you!";
• Another finalist in this category is a pro-government video called “Time to move to Russia", encouraging foreigners to come to Russia - "with its cheap gas, traditional values and beautiful women."
• The finalist in the “Music Track” category was the main singer of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Shaman, with the song “Let’s Rise.” The artist was also included in the “Social Internet Trigger” nomination.
• The pro-government blogger Stas “Oh, how simple” - with a film about a trip to the occupied Donbass won the “Debut of the Year” nomination.
• The telegram channel of propagandist Alexander Malkevich with streams from the “territories of Ukraine liberated from the Nazis” also ended up in this category.
• The award also honored “military correspondents”—a new group of Russian propagandists who became popular after the start of the war. It was they who then received the most awards from IRI. In the “Strength in Truth” category in 2022, the winner was the propagandist and author of the telegram channel WarGonzo Semyon Pegov (IRI finances his blog on Rutube; he has 10 thousand subscribers there), and along with him - employees of the pro-Kremlin “Komsomolskaya Pravda” Alexander Kots and Dmitry Steshin, VGTRK correspondents Evgeny Poddubny and Andrey Rudenko, RT journalist Andrey Filatov and “military correspondent” Vladlen Tatarsky (died in an explosion in a St. Petersburg cafe 10 months after the ceremony).
Prizes and money from IRI are received not only by “military correspondents” working in the occupied territories, but also by local collaborators. For example, in May 2022, the application of Donetsk director Vladimir Agranovich won a grant competition (the list of winners includes the individual entrepreneur of his sister, pro-Kremlin blogger Katerina Agranovich; she runs the telegram channel “Katrusya”). Agranovich’s father and uncle fought for the so- called “DPR” back in 2014 under the call signs “Sailor” and “Vodyanoy”. The media called them associates of Arsen Pavlov (“Motorola”). The Internet Development Institute gave Agranovich a grant to film the documentary “Donbass. Recognized" - "about how residents of the Donbass republics return home to Russia."
The Russian pro-government newspaper Argumenty i Fakty also calls for “Helping Donbass,” which published a special project “Volunteer” with an IRI grant. The project’s website has published detailed instructions on how to go to war with Ukraine: you can mobilize, sign a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense, or join a volunteer formation. Teachers are invited to go work in schools “in the liberated territories,” and the rest are invited to “join the ranks of Donbass builders.”
IRI also finances less traditional media that promote the Russian pro-war agenda - in particular, the Telega Online news channel (40 thousand subscribers). An employee of this particular channel, journalist Konstantin Dolgov, according to his own statement, was fired from the project for an extensive interview with Yevgeny Prigozhin, in which he praised the Ukrainian army and scolded the Russian one. The channel administrators, however, claimed that Dolgov left on his own.
Against the background of the ongoing Russian invasion, the number of ultra-patriotic and pro-war projects of IRI is only growing - so, in June 2023, the Institute summed up the results of the next competitive selection for the creation of so-called “national content”, and it was decided to “allocate” 10 billion rubles for 163 projects (in the past year there were about a hundred of them, totaling more than three billion rubles). Here are their names:
• “Ramzan. Akhmat - The Power of Russia";
• “Russian code. Sovereign future";
• “Russian heritage. Returning Home" (the IRI press release states that this is a "documentary series about the fate of the architectural monuments of Donbass");
• “Made for the Front” - “about entrepreneurs from the regions who help military personnel participating in the Northern Military District free of charge”;
• “Women Z”;
• “OWN”;
• a certain project called “Those who left [Russia], how are you there?”
The institute is giving out grants for "the most aesthetically pleasing political show" on YouTube , called "Let It Speak!" (271 thousand subscribers). One of its hosts is the editor- in-chief of the Life tabloid Tatyana Denesyuk, among the guests are propagandist and husband of Margarita Simonyan Tigran Keosayan, actor and former priest Ivan Okhlobystin, deputy and perpetrator of the murder of former intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko Andrei Lugovoy. The program discusses the “decline of the West,” the “rebirth of Russia,” as well as the need for a “holy war” and “spies inside Russia.”
In addition, immediately after the start of the war, in March 2022, Life, which is also part of the media holding, launched the project “Heroes of Operation Z” - video interviews of military personnel, stories of their “exploits” and enthusiastic stories about Russian weapons - and IRI has such a project on the list of winners of the grant competition.
Telegram channel Mash, in turn, released several videos (financed by IRI) on its YouTube channel Mash Paradox (198 thousand subscribers). It was there that two years ago a video was published in which it was claimed that the same “Putin’s palace” on Cape Idokopas was supposedly an “ apart -hotel” of Arkady Rotenberg.
For IRI, Mash released three videos under the general title “Cognitive Warfare,” which talked about the US invasion of Panama, Iraq and Vietnam, the abuse of prisoners in the Iraqi Abu Ghraib prison, as well as a documentary about the Nuremberg trials and a series of videos about Iran — how he adapted to life under sanctions.
According to the media reports, in addition to the line of “even tougher” propaganda, representatives of IRI, after the start of a full-scale war against Ukraine, began to warn grant recipients that after signing contracts they undertake not to hire “foreign agents”, and the project should not contain anti-war calls and the words “no to war”. Standard contracts prohibit any public criticism of the authorities (including on social networks), and for violation of this condition the film crew must pay a penalty comparable to the budget of the series.
Considering the above, it is not surprising that Meduza media sources who are personally familiar with Goreslavsky call him a “professional propagandist .”
Member of the United Russia party .
Married to Maria Goreslavskaya, editor-in-chief of the information magazine about Europe - Euromag, has a daughter.

1) Organization of large-scale propaganda of the aggressive war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine;
2) Ensuring the functioning of the state power system under the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin through the leadership of para-state structures for control of social networks and the Internet in general on the territory of the Russian Federation.
Alexey Goreslavsky, as can be seen from his biography, currently heads the Institute for Internet Development, a structure that is engaged in direct and large-scale war propaganda work. In addition, as mentioned above, Goreslavsky managed to work in the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation, being subordinate of Sergei Kiriyenko; in 2017, he became a member of the “Expert Commission on the recognition of information prohibited for dissemination on the territory of the Russian Federation” created by Roskomnadzor (that is, he is an accomplice in repressive activities Putin’s regime in the Internet space), and from 2020 to 2021 he headed the notorious ANO “Dialog”.
Thus, as one of the important functionaries of the regime, Alexey Goreslavsky bears full responsibility for the actions that are committed by his state machine - especially for crimes related to the full-scale aggressive war unleashed by the Kremlin in February 2022.
According to the Ukrainian information portal “War and Sanctions”, Goreslavsky “runs a media company that is used by the Russian authorities for propaganda purposes, and is therefore responsible for organizing and disseminating anti-Ukrainian propaganda, supporting actions or policies that undermine or threaten territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence Ukraine, as well as stability and security in Ukraine ."
In 2022, after Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Goreslavsky was included in the Alexey Navalny’s FBK list of corrupt officials and warmongers, with a proposal to impose international sanctions against him, since he “contributed to the destruction of independent media in Russia .”