The Weight of Russian Influence in Latin America – PART II

Thousands of miles away, Russia hones in on increasing and strengthening its presence in Latin America. Its goal is “to erode democratic institutions and gain the necessary support to push the region toward military totalitarianism and consolidate a new geopolitical world order,” Douglas Farah, an expert in national security and organized crime, told Diálogo.

The most visible strategy to carry out its mission, Farah says, is disinformation. Through Kremlin-friendly media outlets such as RT News and Sputnik Mundo, and through alliances with regional state channels, influencers and various social media platforms such as X, Facebook, and Instagram, including the use of “bots,” Russia disseminates a massive amount of ongoing false narratives. This invisible army has had a significant impact in Latin America but is absent in public debates where there is little awareness of the objectives of the Russian communication strategy in the region — an analysis that Diálogo presented in the first part of this report.

These disinformation campaigns are just a sample of Russian efforts to influence the region.

Farah, who has been researching Russia’s footsteps in Latin America over the past two decades, asserts that Moscow is engaged in a much broader set of strategic objectives. Russian activities range from distribution of state-of-the-art surveillance and espionage technology to recruitment, to strategic investments, to a permanent military presence. These operations today more than ever represent a threat to democracy and stability in Latin America and deserve urgent review and exposure.

Chile: the NK SESLA Network

For more than two decades a Russian intelligence network has been operating in Chile under the umbrella of the Russian National Committee for the Promotion of Economic Trade with Countries of Latin America, or better known as NK SESLA. This network is run by senior former Soviet intelligence officers, who also serve as the directors of multiple other Russian state cyber warfare entities, providing specialized cryptology and surveillance capabilities throughout the region.

Created in 1998 and established in the Chilean capital, NK SESLA organizes meetings with businessmen, associations and trade offices to promote Russian investments in the region. “They have a busy schedule of events and conferences that they use to recruit people interested in doing business with them. They invite them to Moscow where they show them the markets and sell them business opportunities,” Farah said.

But behind this soft power maneuver lies a darker objective. “Under the pretense of fostering economic partnerships, this network has made available to the countries of the region multiple systems of the most advanced and sophisticated Russian state surveillance technology, today responsible for increasing the repressive capacity of authoritarian regimes such as Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua,” Farah said.

An example of this is the Russian state surveillance tool known as the System for Operational Research Activities (SORM), Farah added. “Through this program, operators can monitor, intercept, and track credit card transactions, email, phone calls, and text messages via WhatsApp, or any other conversation through the use of Wi-Fi networks.” The technology also, “allows for storage of information for several years and the possibility of creating an internet profile of each of the people being monitored,” the expert said.

The advanced platform used by the Kremlin and other former Soviet nations, and in use in some countries of the region, has become a latent threat to the population, Farah said. “Beyond the ability to spy and monitor in an illegal and undemocratic manner, this technology has allowed the imprisonment and disappearance of opposition leaders.”

A clear example of this was the murder of more than 300 student leaders in Nicaragua during the protests of April 2018 that demanded the resignation of Daniel Ortega. A massacre that, the expert says, was made possible with the use of SORM-3, the most advanced version of the Russian surveillance system. “When it was an organic movement of young university students, the Ortega-Murillo regime monitored the WhatsApp conversations of the students and quickly and safely identified who was behind the calls and killed them in two weeks,” Farah said.

A sophisticated, but above all threatening and dangerous Russian technology that has not only reached the hands of authoritarian governments, but also other political groups, Farah says, and even more worrying, those of criminal armed groups. “This explains the alarming capacity of illegal groups to intercept information. Russia is equipping all the enemies of democracy. In terms of surveillance, Moscow today threatens the region more than China,” Farah added.

The face behind NK SESLA

For almost 10 years this Russian network operated in the region under the shadow, until a group of researchers led by Farah exposed it in 2016. “The seniority of its members and documents that we found on its website in Russian authorizing some members of the organization to act on behalf of the intelligence services and the Russian Army, revealed that this organization had little to do with regional trade and that Chile was the base for everything that Russia did that did not conform to the purely diplomatic rules in Latin America,” Farah said.

Among the most important members of the network was its founder and former director, Aleksandr Vladimirovich Starovoitov. Starovoitov was a major general in the KGB and an officer in the Soviet army and was also the first director of the Federal Agency of Government Communications and Information (FAPSI), heir to the Soviet KGB in charge of managing all state electronic intelligence, today part of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s main civilian intelligence service.

Starovoitov moved to Chile in 1998 and founded NK SESLA. “At that time nobody was looking at Chile, so he landed in the Chilean capital as a businessman without arousing suspicion,” Farah said. And so he operated under the radar as Russia’s man in Latin America, from where he was also the director of TsITis (Central Institute of Information and Communication), a subsidiary of FAPSI, and general director of the International Center for Informatics and Electronics (InterEVMS), a para-state consortium of science and technology and information. He passed away in 2021 and his death was announced in all Russian media including Sputnik Mundo. “Important figure in Russia-Latin America relations passes away in Moscow,” the media outlet headlined.

But neither reports about this network, nor the death of its founder and director, have been enough to dissolve the organization, which is today under the direction of Tatiana Mashkova, Putin’s spokesperson in Latin America, Farah said. “As long as this network exists, Chile will continue to be the heart of the anti-democratic and repressive efforts of the Russian state in Latin America.”

Watching out for Nicaragua

Although no less disguised, the Russian presence in Nicaragua is more visible. Daniel Ortega, who led the Marxist insurgency and was a staunch ally of the Soviet Union during the 1980s, did not hesitate to openly express his support for Russia. “We want to reiterate that Nicaragua is Russia’s strategic ally in Central America, and we should be considered Russia’s regional platform in all fields, and we will facilitate everything within our capabilities,” Laureano Ortega Murillo, presidential advisor and son of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, said in December 2023 during the Russia-Nicaragua Friendship Day.

Two months later, the Nicaraguan National Assembly approved an agreement between both to set up a Police Instruction Center, supposedly to promote the “retraining and professional improvement of the Nicaraguan police activity.” The agreement did not take long to raise doubts about the real intentions behind this cooperation. “What we are seeing is just another link in Moscow’s efforts to turn Nicaragua into the center of Russian intelligence and espionage in the region,” says Farah.

Espionage links

1. Military presence and support

In October 2023, the Ortega-Murillo regime gave the green light to the entry of aircraft and military personnel from Russia as a measure of “exchange and humanitarian assistance for mutual benefit, in case of emergency.” However, in Farah’s opinion, the “humanitarian assistance” label is nothing more than a disguise to justify the presence of Russian military troops already on Nicaraguan soil. “Through an error in the Sandinista system, we were able to identify that since 2017 there has been a fixed presence of between 300 and 400 Russian military personnel in Nicaragua who are not under observation, nobody knows what they are doing, but they are there,” Farah said.

Although they rotate every six months, the overall number is maintained, Farah contends, adding that there could be a Russian military base in Nicaragua. “Although not with the capacity to launch operations from there. There is a structure in Puerto Sandino to maintain a permanent presence of Russian military, which technically makes it a military base.”

For its part, Moscow has provided financing for the strengthening and modernization of the Nicaraguan Army, which in Farah’s opinion has allowed Ortega to remain in power. “The Ortega-Murillo regime does not fall because of the support it receives from Russia. The tanks they have, the military artillery, are not for a war in Central America, but to surround the palace and protect Ortega.”

2. The Center’s flip side

Another important strategic advance that the Kremlin has achieved in Nicaragua is the Russian Interior Ministry Training Center in Managua. This center, which is under the command of Russian Police Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Surov, was inaugurated in 2014 under the assumption of supporting the fight against drug trafficking, but it did not open its doors until 2017.

According to Farah’s research, by 2019 about 270 officers had received some training, but not on money laundering and drug trafficking as publicly announced, but on espionage techniques. “The only Russian influence to combat drug trafficking in the region is to protect the routes that suit the Putin regime,” he says and adds that “they have used this language to give legitimacy to a center where they train officers on surveillance and repression tactics.”

Among the allegations against this center is its participation in the repression of the 2018 protests. According to Farah, through a course entitled “Modern means and methods to combat extremism and terrorism,” a select group of Nicaraguan police officers received training on digital and electronic surveillance techniques. Techniques which, together with the Russian technology in the hands of the Ortega-Murillo regime, were responsible for the brutal repression, the expert said.

During the ceremony for the Police’s 44th anniversary in September 2023, Ortega presented an award to Russian Lieutenant General Oleg Anatolyevich Plokhoi and said that Nicaragua’s Russian military center supports the regime to repress the citizenry. “They are here to collaborate as they have been doing with a center that is set up here in Nicaragua from where the brothers of the Russian Federation, the military specialized in the matter, carry out courses (…) to better confront the coup perpetrators,” Ortega said.

It should be noted that beyond training members of the Nicaraguan police, this center serves as training venue for the more than 300 Russian military personnel with permanent presence in Nicaragua, Farah said, who also warned about the use of this infrastructure for Russian espionage and surveillance in the region.

Farah, whose investigation indicated that some 150 Nicaraguan policemen have already been trained in Russia, pointed out that part of Surov’s work is the selection of Nicaraguan policemen to be sent to Russia and receive training. “Moscow seeks to recruit agents who are not only familiar with its espionage and surveillance system, but who are also loyal and can operate in Nicaragua and the entire region,” Farah said.

3. GLONASS

The focus is also on the GLONASS ground station, the Russian version of the U.S. GPS for satellite navigation, which Russia set up in 2016 in the Nejapa lagoon area, and a very short distance from the U.S. Embassy in Managua.

“The agreement is that we cede the airspace for the satellites to go through. Five Russian satellites will go through out of 25 that will come behind so that there will never be a minute of Nicaragua without satellite observation, but for social services and natural disasters (…),” said in April 2016, Orlando Castillo, then director of the Nicaraguan Institute of Telecommunications and Post (Telcor), during the inauguration of the GLONASS ground station.

A year later, Castillo stated that “the GLONASS system will also contribute to the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime,” reported Guatemalan newspaper Libre Prensa. But since then, there has been no known anti-drug operation in which it has participated and beyond civilian functions there are indications that its purposes are no other than surveillance.

“There has been too much secrecy surrounding it,” says Farah, who considers the level of transparency in the construction and management of the base questionable. “There is no information on the cost of the facilities, all the work was carried out by Russian military, and access to it is totally restricted.”

This situation contrasts with the four GLONASS bases in Brazilian territory, which are managed with transparency and easy access. The one in Nicaragua, on the other hand, remains closed, while Russians enter and leave it as they please. “It is all part of a package of Russian moves under the shadow to turn Nicaragua into a sphere of military espionage,” said Farah.

Within this package of secrecy, there is also the Mechnikov Latin American Institute of Biotechnology, which had a multi-million-dollar investment from Russia. This center was inaugurated in 2017 to produce vaccines; however, none have been produced so far. “We were able to monitor the entry and exit of trucks, none of them with vaccines. Nobody knows what is going on in there. What we do know is that it’s another Russian target,” the expert said.

Worries in Paraguay

Russia’s economic incursions in Latin America, although small, have also been gaining some terrain, especially from a strategic viewpoint. “From hydroelectric power to interests in cryptocurrencies in Uruguay and Venezuela, to oil in Argentina, everything is part of Russia’s game to survive economic sanctions,” Farah said.

Small and larger economies in the region have been falling into a sort of commercial dependence with Moscow, thus creating a certain level of reciprocal incentive to circumvent international sanctions. “Almost 100 percent of Ecuadorian bananas are sold to Russia, and Brazil increasingly needs Russian fertilizers,” Farah said.

A close trade relationship that gives Russia power to apply a coercive policy if it so desired. “By establishing economic dependencies, Russia can exert significant influence on the national policies and decisions of these countries,” Farah said.

An example of this was the blow to Paraguay’s economy following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to the Paraguayan newspaper La Última Hora, Russia, one of the most important markets for Paraguayan meat and grain exports, reduced its purchases because Paraguay made pro-Ukrainian statements. Paraguayan meat exports to Russia dropped from 3,700 tons in 2021 to 1,300 tons in December 2022.

And it is precisely Paraguay where Russia has set its sight for strategic investments. According to information to which Diálogo had access, Russia today controls four of the largest export ports. “They took over an important river zone,” Farah said.

In August 2015, the Russian grain transport giant Sodrugestvo Group acquired 60 percent of the shares of GICAL S.A., owner of the largest chain of river port terminals in Paraguay, which belongs to the Giménez family. With the purchase, the Sodrugestvo Group and GICAL formed a new joint venture in Paraguay called South American River Company S.A. (SARCOM).

Today, headquartered in Asunción, SARCOM operates four river terminals in San Antonio, Hohenau, Concepción, and Rosario, on the Paraná and Paraguay river channels. In March 2019, SARCOM, represented by Alexander Lutensko, CEO of Sodrugestvo and chairman of the SARCOM board, announced the opening of a new storage facility at the Port of San Antonio, capable of storing 70,000 metric tons of soybeans, wheat and corn, as well as wheat and corn flour.

Beyond seeking large grain storage facilities, there are concerns about the strategic intentions behind these Russian maritime developments. “We do not really know what is happening in those ports because we do not have access, it’s forbidden, nobody knows for sure what is going on in there,” Farah said.

Warning to the region

The rise of Russia in Latin America, although not alarming Farah says, is worrying. “Latin America will have to protect itself against the Russian advance because everything it gained during the Cold War is at stake. Moscow’s goal is to break the hemispheric values that for years have been a common denominator in the region and replace them with a toxic mix of anti-democratic values, state corruption, and populism based on authoritarian models and they will not rest until they achieve it,” Farah said.

This “malign influence,” the expert adds, also brings with it risks of military and security threats. “We are already seeing that when the state begins to fail, which is what Russia is looking for, other actors enter, such as transnational criminal networks that are already arriving in the region exacerbating violence in the continent.”

Evidence of this is the escalation of violence in Ecuador. “Ecuador went from having a homicide rate of 6 per 100,000 in 2018 to 42 in 2023, an increase that responds to the entry of criminal groups coming from Russia, Turkey, Albania, Montenenegro,” Farah said.

In the face of this growing threat Farah calls the democracies of the region to strengthen cooperation, recognize, and understand the nature of what the Russian presence in Latin America represents. “We must stop underestimating what Russia means for the stability of the region and strengthen alliances that allow counteracting Russian activities and the risks they pose,” the national security expert says, while ending with a strong warning to the countries of the region.

“Be very careful; we are facing a Russia that feels much more powerful than a few months ago and based on that it is beginning to seek alliances in the region, pushing more and more Latin American countries, right or left, to bring their government policies closer to Russian interests.”

This article is the second part of a two-part investigation. Read Part I here.