Adversary Intelligence — 2026-06-03

CEPA: Russia Uses Orthodox Church Networks and SVR Lobbying to Build Influence at Moscow International Security Forum

BLUFMoscow's fusion of intelligence, diplomatic, media, and religious channels into a single forum infrastructure gives it a repeatable template for cultivating security relationships across the Global South outside Western multilateral frameworks.

Russia's Security Council and SVR staged the forum May 26-28 outside Moscow, drawing 4,500 participants from 120 countries including foreign intelligence and law enforcement chiefs 12. Pre-forum outreach combined Naryshkin's Cairo visit with Security Council Deputy Secretary Venediktov's March meetings with MENA ambassadors, Egypt and Lebanon named in official readouts 1. CEPA's Borogan and Soldatov reported Orthodox Church channels active alongside diplomatic outreach: Lebanon's incoming ambassador visited the Moscow Patriarchate's external relations chief before presenting credentials, and the TASS Lebanon bureau chief concurrently serves as the Patriarchate's Beirut compound warden 1. Rossotrudnichestvo co-organized sessions framing Western NGOs as security threats while positioning its cultural network as a traditional-values vehicle for the forum's self-styled "Global Majority" 23.

Analysis
The forum collapses SVR, Security Council, TASS cover officers, and Orthodox Church channels into a unified cultivation surface reaching governments across Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. The Lebanon case illustrates the architecture: the incoming ambassador visited the Moscow Patriarchate's external affairs office before presenting credentials, while the TASS Beirut bureau chief concurrently serves as the Patriarchate's compound warden. Rossotrudnichestvo's traditional-values framing equips partner governments with doctrinal vocabulary to suppress civil society, extending reach beyond intelligence services into domestic governance. The analysis rests on open-source reporting, and the Patriarchate visit may reflect routine Orthodox diplomatic protocol rather than directed SVR orchestration.

4 sources

Russia's Influence Game: Church, State, and Espionage - CEPA
Russia's International Security Forum: time for confrontation - Investigations with Impact (All Eyes on Wagner)
Russia's spiritual sovereignty discussed at the International Security Forum - Pravda France
Key Points From Russian Foreign Intel Head Sergey Naryshkin's Remarks at International Security Forum - Pravda Germany