‘These wonderful cameras’

Leaked documents reveal the Kremlin’s plan for a secretive government agency to build a nationwide surveillance network

At the end of 2023, the Estonian news agency Delfi Estonia gained access to leaked documents from Putin’s administration. A team of journalists from Meduza, iStories, and numerous other international outlets studied the documents and found evidence of previously unconfirmed Russian government connections and activity. Among other things, the materials revealed that a secretive government tech agency has been tasked with creating a Russia-wide surveillance system using a network of cameras equipped with artificial intelligence. The head of Russia’s Digital Development Ministry mentioned a “platform for processing and storing data from surveillance cameras” back in November, but it was unclear who would be responsible for the project or for how long it had actually been under development. Meduza explains who’s behind this new system, when it could come online, and what it might be capable of.

This article is part of the Kremlin Leaks project. Other stories in the series can be found here, here, here, and here.

A nationwide surveillance system

In November 2023, Kommersant reported that Russia’s Digital Development Ministry had plans to create a nationwide system for storing and processing data from all surveillance cameras in Russian cities. At a conference, the head of the ministry, Maksut Shadaev, estimated the cost for the project’s implementation at 1.5 trillion rubles ($16.3 billion) and for its development at 12 billion rubles ($130 million). The ministry expects the platform to have access to regional video surveillance systems as well as cameras at the entrances of apartment buildings.

Leaked Kremlin documents show the project isn’t limited to the Digital Development Ministry. The Russian Presidential Affairs Department’s Scientific Research Computing Center (GlavNIVTs), a semi-covert agency led by ex-intelligence personnel that focuses on advanced tech projects to meet the authorities’ needs, is also involved.

Two GlavNIVTs projects related to the nationwide surveillance system come up in the documents: a “Video Stream Processing Service” and a “Video Stream Processing Center.” (There’s also mention of a federal artificial intelligence analysis service.) The processing service and processing center are meant to work in tandem to “promptly identify threats” and “destructive and/or disloyal behavior.” The service’s job will be collecting and storing video from all across Russia and using artificial intelligence to do the primary processing, while the center will aggregate this processed data and look for “objects of interest.” The center will also provide the service with analytical support.

Russia's Digital Development Ministry and the telecommunications company Rostelecom are paying for the Video Stream Processing Service; in 2024, the ministry is allocating 989 million rubles ($10.8 million) for its creation, according to the leaked documents. The center will be funded directly through Russia’s Presidential Executive Office.

The documents show that GlavNIVTs was supposed to receive 1.4 billion rubles ($15.3 million) from the 2024 Russian federal budget for the Video Stream Processing Center. Another 2.5 billion ($27.5 million) was allocated for the second stage of a hardware-software complex called “Platform.” Later, expenses for the two projects were combined, and GlavNIVTs was given 3.88 billion ($42.6 million) for both: 21 million rubles ($230,790) less than originally planned.

The technology behind it

Expense plans show that GlavNIVTs intended to carry out major repairs to the center’s premises and purchase server and telecommunications equipment, as well as specialized software and licenses from NtechLab and Gigarama.

NtechLab is a facial recognition company that’s partially owned by the Russian state defense conglomerate Rostec. Moscow’s surveillance system uses technology developed by the company. In 2020, the system was launched in ten more Russian cities. With its help, security forces have arrested suspected criminals and opposition members. In July 2023, the European Union imposed sanctions against the company, in part because its facial recognition system was used to catch Russians evading mobilization and deployment to the war in Ukraine.

Gigarama specializes in creating highly detailed panoramic images. The company’s founder, Marat Saichenko, said the project was conceived in 2017 to capture a panorama of Russia’s annual May 9 “Immortal Regiment” parade, which honors veterans of World War II. “We realized that this technology was perfect for showing such a massive event. When you zoom in, you can see the face of each person in the parade and the portrait of their heroic relative,” Saichenko explained.

The panorama project may be mentioned in two presidential decrees: secret decree 154c, dated March 18, 2021, and confidential decree 113, dated February 21, 2023. The authors of the leaked documents refer to the secret decree in comments on expenses for all GlavNIVTs projects. The unpublished confidential decree, “On the intelligent video stream processing service,” is referenced in an explanatory note to the 2024 federal budget and in a resolution of Crimea's Council of Ministers, adopted in November 2023.

What will the system do?

While there’s no mention of the Video Stream Processing Center’s exact tasks, the November resolution passed by Crimea's Council of Ministers describes in detail how regional “intelligent video surveillance systems,” which are meant to directly interact with the federal Video Stream Processing Service, will function.

The regional video surveillance system will have three categories of cameras. They differ both in their uses and in the departments responsible for their installation.

The first type of camera is intended for use in places with crowds. Local administrations, the FSB, and the Internal Affairs Ministry will coordinate their installation. The cameras will be tasked with counting the total number of people present, distinguishing different categories of people from among the crowd (“based on established signs”) and counting their number, recording crossings at certain “control boundaries,” and noting the prolonged presence of objects or their disappearance.

The second category of cameras is meant for roads and railway crossings. Their installation will be handled by a certain “authorized body” and the Internal Affairs Ministry. Such cameras will be used for recognizing license plates and the make and model of vehicles, as well as for recording traffic violations.

The third type of camera is designed to “build biometric templates of people’s faces” and will be installed by the FSB, Internal Affairs Ministry, and an “authorized body.” Documents referring to this type of camera are marked with the words “for official use.” These cameras will be used to identify individuals — officially, for FSB and Internal Affairs Ministry investigations.

How far along is it?

According to a source close to Russia’s Digital Development Ministry and a source in Russia’s big data market, the nationwide video surveillance system being developed by GlavNIVTs is still far from launch.

“They’ll definitely do it, but it’s not going to be fast,” said the source close to the ministry. “Yes, somebody already officially endorsed it, but there isn’t even a reasonable financial and economic justification to present to the Finance Ministry yet. So, everything is only approved at the conceptual level for now, but it will only actually go into operation in 2025-2035.” Indeed, notes in the leaked documents show problems with 2024 financing.

By October 2023, the Russia-wide video surveillance project had been incorporated into the federal “Digital Infrastructure” project, which is part of the broader national “Data Economy” project. “They shoved it in there because they opted for a more comprehensible path that had [Russian Prime Minister Mikhail] Mishustin’s support,” said the source close to the ministry. This was also done, in part, at the initiative of Russia’s Internal Affairs Ministry, which the leaked documents show was already working with the presidential administration on the surveillance project back in 2022. The source elaborated on the ministry’s involvement:

Security forces are also now promoting themselves and urging everyone to “love these wonderful [facial] recognition cameras.” At some point, the Internal Affairs Ministry came to the Digital Development Ministry and said: “This is a great idea here. We think it’ll fit perfectly into this Data Economy project of yours.” So, when the government project’s preliminary list of items was approved, surveillance was included as one of the headliners.

Implementing the nationwide surveillance system could also be complicated by insufficient funding. “They asked for a lot more money,” said the source close to the ministry. “And the finances allocated now on paper are barely enough, in my opinion.”

“If we assume that they’ll have to connect to cameras across all of Russia, then [the allocated funds] won’t be enough,” concurred the source from Russia’s big data market. “The cameras are all different, the connection formats are different, plus you need to establish telecommunications, lay cables… Also, there will be significant payroll costs for all these future contractors across the country.”

Why GlavNIVTs?

There’s no concrete information on why GlavNIVTs was tasked with the video surveillance project rather than security agencies. However, one source remarked that “this center is under the president’s administration — much closer to the core.” Moreover, GlavNIVTs employees are already familiar with this type of project. In 2019, Meduza discovered that GlavNIVTs was developing systems for monitoring and deanonymizing users of social networks.

Moscow’s Information Technologies Department could also feasibly pull off a project like this. In October 2022, Kommersant reported that it planned to upgrade the unified data storage center, which hosts Moscow’s facial recognition system, to centralize video collection from across the country.

Ultimately, however, this didn’t happen. As the source close to Russia’s Digital Development Ministry put it: “Moscow has entered into a tentative truce with the federal government. The government doesn’t interfere with the city’s projects, and the capital doesn’t push these projects to the level it could if it wanted to.”

GlavNIVTs representatives did not respond to Meduza’s request for comment.

Reporting by Denis Dmitriev and Lilia Yapparova