Meduza found Russia’s unpublished anti-extremism plan on a school website. It calls for identifying ‘Russophobes’ in the military and using AI for propaganda.

Meduza found a publicly accessible copy of the unpublished “Action Plan for Implementing the Russian Federation’s Strategy for Countering Extremism.” Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko approved the plan in March 2025. The document was never officially published, but the authors of related regional and municipal plans cited a draft with the same title and reference number (No. DCh-P44-10219).

Vladimir Putin approved the strategy itself in December 2024. It details what the Kremlin considers the main “extremist” threats and how it intends to combat them. The action plan spells out the authorities’ next steps. But Meduza found that it sometimes goes far beyond the original document.

We found the plan in an unexpected place. The file, marked “for official use only,” appeared six months ago on the website of a school in the village of Leningradskaya, in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai, hosted on the gosuslugi.ru domain. On March 10–11, roughly a dozen other documents were uploaded to the same site. They included both the school’s internal plan for preventing extremism and terrorism and a comprehensive federal plan for countering terrorist ideology in 2024–2028. The latter was drafted by the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and approved by the Russian president. It had been published before, but the school had a version bearing the signatures of Alexander Bortnikov and Vladimir Putin.

The federal plan we examined contains 77 items, each identifying the agencies responsible for that measure. The document does not describe in detail the steps proposed to implement the updated strategy for countering extremism, so the context of some initiatives may not be entirely clear. But the authorities appear to have identified specific phenomena and challenges they intend to tackle first, rather than abstract threats. Here is a look at the dangers the Kremlin sees — and where.

Russophobia was declared a new threat, but officials plan to look for it only in the military and security agencies

20. Taking measures to prevent and suppress Russophobia, xenophobia, radicalism, and extremism among military personnel and civilian staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the National Guard of the Russian Federation, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, and the Interior Ministry of the Russian Federation.

The strategy for countering extremism defined Russophobia as follows:

The strategy also linked Russophobia to the war in Ukraine. Putin accused unfriendly states of using the “Ukraine crisis” to “stoke aggressive Russophobic sentiment around the world.”

But judging by the action plan Meduza examined, one of the following must be true:

• Either Russophobia has been found only within the Defense Ministry, the National Guard, the FSB, and the Interior Ministry
• Or combating other Russophobes is much harder, if not impossible
• Or the federal authorities do not actually consider this fight a priority

Officials plan to look specifically for extremists among conscripts and contract soldiers

21. Taking joint measures, including through military enlistment offices and contract-service recruitment centers, to gather information on whether draft-age citizens and people signing military contracts are involved in the activities of extremist organizations.

The Defense Ministry, the National Guard, the Interior Ministry, and the FSB were assigned this task.

The strategy itself makes no mention of conscripts, contract soldiers, military enlistment offices, or even the Defense Ministry.

And among sports coaches, too

6. Taking legislative measures to prevent adherents of extremist ideology from infiltrating the sports sector, including the coaching and teaching staffs of sports schools and clubs.

The strategy describes a similar problem but focuses on combat sports:

The new wording could formally apply to every kind of sports school, including figure skating and chess schools.

In December 2025, it emerged that the authorities planned to create a single registry of coaches. Putin instructed the government to determine how the Sports Ministry would compile the registry, who would have access to the information, and how that access would work. The government had until April 15, 2026, to complete the task. It is unclear whether the cabinet met the deadline: no documents concerning the system’s launch are publicly available.

We do not know whether this initiative is related to the anti-extremism action plan. But we found no other “legislative measures.”

Ethnic and religious organized crime groups have apparently managed to corrupt parts of the government

13. Identifying and disrupting corrupt ties between organized criminal groups, including those formed along ethnic and religious lines, and state or local government bodies, and preventing these groups from financing extremist activity.

The strategy itself makes no mention of corruption or organized criminal groups — much less groups formed “along ethnic and religious lines.” It is unclear which religions this refers to. The law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations” lists only the following religions as forming “an integral part of the historical heritage of the peoples of Russia”:

• Christianity
• Islam
• Buddhism
• Judaism

Further reading

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The authorities believe residents of Ukraine’s occupied territories lack “traditional” Russian values

61. Taking measures to promote the smooth social and cultural integration into Russian society of residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics and the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, as well as people who have moved permanently from these territories to other regions of Russia, in order to prevent the social and political situation from deteriorating. Involving them in volunteer work and other activities that benefit society to instill in them traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.

The strategy itself already called for integrating residents of the occupied parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. But the action plan indicates that they lack “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values” — values that still have to be instilled in them. A presidential decree issued in November 2022 established the following list of traditional values:

• Life
• Dignity
• Human rights and freedoms
• Patriotism
• Civic-mindedness
• Service to the Fatherland and responsibility for its fate
• High moral ideals
• Strong families
• Productive work
• The primacy of the spiritual over the material
• Humanism
• Compassion
• Justice
• Collectivism
• Mutual assistance and mutual respect
• Historical memory and continuity between generations
• The unity of Russia’s peoples

So what do they have instead of these values? Of course, the authorities did not forget about “neo-Nazism and Ukrainian nationalism”

12. Ensuring cooperation among entities involved in countering extremism in border territories and the territories of the Russian Federation’s new constituent regions in order to prevent members of international extremist and terrorist organizations from entering the Russian Federation. Implementing coordinated measures aimed at preventing and suppressing the spread of extremist ideology in the new constituent regions of the Russian Federation, primarily neo-Nazism and Ukrainian nationalism.

The plan envisioned using AI for anti-extremism propaganda

45. Developing proposals for using artificial intelligence and big-data processing technologies to monitor media outlets and information and telecommunications networks, including the Internet; conduct streaming data analysis; identify anonymous participants in extremist activity; and prepare and distribute informational materials on preventing and suppressing extremist activity, with the aim of making Russian citizens more vigilant and encouraging them to take an interest in countering extremism.

The strategy itself already mentioned plans to use artificial intelligence to identify anonymous “extremists” and monitor publications. The plan retained this wording verbatim but added plans to use AI for propaganda. It is unclear exactly what the Digital Development Ministry, the federal media regulator Roskomnadzor, the Interior Ministry, and the FSB were being asked to do. The first thing that comes to mind is generating AI slop for social media.