In the West, he emerged from anonymity from the summer of 2023. The Council of the European Union decided, in July, to add Ilya Gambachidze to the list of Russian nationals targeted by sanctions.
The reason: he is the founder of the Social Design Agency (SDA) and Struktura, two entities that played an important role in the massive Russian disinformation operation Doppelgänger [“lookalike” in German], which has targeted European countries since the spring 2022.
But this is only the beginning.
Ilya Gambachidze, a forty-something with the stern look of a Russian technocrat, reappears in South America in November 2023. The United States then accuses the SDA of having set up a South American version of Doppelgänger.
“The SDA played both the role of coordinator of the different actors involved in these disinformation campaigns but also of operator, by creating false content,” underlines Coline Chavane, intelligence analyst on the cyber threat for Sekoia.io, a French computer security company.
Disinformation in Europe, America and Ukraine
Then, the prolix Russian misinformant, who otherwise remains very discreet about his private life, returns once again to target Europe and France.
In the days following the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, in October 2023, Star of David tags multiplied in the streets of Paris.
The investigation shows that they are linked to Operation Doppelgänger.
More precisely, the SDA is accused by Viginum, the French government agency for defense against foreign digital influence, of wanting to amplify the feeling of growing anti-Semitism in France, by relaying this phenomenon on social networks.
The Kremlin would have even installed Ilya Gambashidze as chief organizer of a new anti-Western propaganda campaign in Ukraine, according to documents detailing this disinformation plan, signed by the hand of the head of the SDA and which leaked to the media Ukrainians.
In these documents, Ilya Gambachidze is also presented as one of the main shadow advisors of “The Other Ukraine”, a new anti-Zelensky movement.
Also read “The Other Ukraine”, the pro-Russian disinformation platform of an exiled oligarch
“This Ilya Gambachidze really appears to be a very central element of Moscow's new device for spreading Russian disinformation around the world,” summarizes Andrew Wilson, Russia specialist at University College London.
Contacted by France 24, the EU Council refused to comment on the importance that Brussels attaches to this Russian propagandist, citing the "confidentiality of the preparatory work" to decide to sanction an individual or a company.
Ilya Gambachidze is not the only Russian involved in Operation Doppelgänger to have been singled out by the EU.
Individuals linked to the GRU – Russian military intelligence – have also been sanctioned.
He is also not the sole conductor of the new disinformation campaign in Ukraine: he is said to have worked with Sophia Zakharova, an employee of the Russian Department of Communications and Information Technologies.
In the footsteps of Yevgeni Prigozhin
The man thus seems to embody the common thread of large-scale Russian disinformation.
And this omnipresence suggests "that Ilya Gambashidze and the SDA are gradually replacing Evgeni Prigozhin [ex-boss of the Wagner mercenary group, Editor's note] and his troll factory", estimates Anton Chekhovtsov, Ukrainian political scientist and director of the Center for democratic integrity, a think tank on authoritarian regimes based in Austria.
But the student is still far from replacing the master.
The Russian Evgeni Prigojine, famous king of mercenaries and trolls, had set up an empire of international disinformation.
Since his death in August 2023, the throne has remained vacant.
“There is a place to be taken and the competition is fierce. Ilya Gambachidze seems well placed for the moment,” summarizes Anton Chekhovtsov.
It is also possible that this inheritance is distributed among several actors.
“We are currently witnessing a structuring of the propaganda ecosystem in Russia. But for all that, there is not necessarily an actor at the heart of the system. It is rather a network which seems to be in place,” believes Coline Chavane.
Previously, with the tutelary figure of Yevgeni Prigojine, "disinformation was organized in a pyramidal manner, while we seem to be moving more towards a structure in the shape of a spider's web with several actors linked in a network, even if the donors of “orders are always the same,” specifies François Deruty, director of intelligence for Sekoia.io.
Another thing that distinguishes the aspiring new king of Russian trolls from Yevgeni Prigozhin: his apparent discretion.
Nothing to do with the patter and the art of media staging of the late boss of the Wagner group.
The Internet is also strangely stingy about Ilya Gambachidze.
His age ?
Nothing on the world wide web.
He would be 46 years old according to Sergei Iejov, a Russian investigative journalist.
It is also not known where he was born, or whether he is married or has children.
We just know that it depends, fiscally, on a tax center in Moscow.
Photos of him are also extremely rare.
One of the most recent shows a man with an austere appearance, with the beginnings of baldness and no other distinctive signs.
In the European list of sanctioned individuals, however, he is described as a former advisor to Pyotr Tolstoy.
This is no small thing: the great-grandson of the monument of Russian literature Leo Tolstoy is vice-president of the Duma and was very active in the Council of Europe until the start of the great Russian military offensive in Ukraine in 2022.
Enough to give the image of a mysterious man who knows how to cultivate high-ranking relationships in the Russian state apparatus.
Could Ilya Gambachidze be a Rasputin of disinformation, a master of manipulation?
“A third-rate political technologist”
But the image can also be misleading.
“If there is so little information on his account, it may simply be that he is not important enough in Russia,” asserts Andreï Pertsev, journalist for the independent Russian media Meduza and a keen connoisseur. arcana of power in Moscow.
The Ilya Gambachidze case illustrates how the same individual can evolve in two very different realities.
In one, in the West, he is considered a threat and Europe goes so far as to include this illustrious stranger on the list of sanctioned people.
In the other, in Russia, he is at best "a third-rate political technologist", assures Andreï Pertsev.
Ilya Gambachidze indeed belongs to this collection of fashionable political consultants in Russia, omnipresent in the media, and who control the political game.
“He has the typical career of a political technologist,” says Andrew Wilson, a Russia specialist at University College London.
Read alsoThe “polit-technologist”, this puppeteer of the Russian political system
These are entrepreneurs who offer a wide range of services to help a candidate win or impose a narrative in the public debate.
Internationally, these political technologists are most often associated with Yevgeni Prigozhin, who sent them by the dozen to African countries to help Moscow's protégés win the elections.
But "we must not forget that their main livelihood consists of taking care of the elections in Russia, of working for governors or parties", notes Anton Chekhovtsov.
“That’s where the money is!” says Andrei Pertsev.
The influence of a political technologist is therefore measured above all by the prestige of the election he is supposed to help win.
In this regard, Ilya Gambachidze plays in a very regional division.
He took care of voting in the small republic of Kalmykia (at the gateway to the Russian Caucasus), and in the Tambov oblast, one of the least populated regions of central Russia.
“His [SDA] team often made mistakes and he was called back to Moscow several times to avoid an electoral disappointment,” continues the Russian journalist, who does not understand how such an individual could have found himself in the crosshairs. from Brussels.
On Telegram, anonymous accounts are ironic about the questionable effect of Ilya Gambachidze's advice to Batu Khassikov, the governor of Kalmykia in 2019. He not only failed to restore the image of his foe, but his popularity even fell at this time.
Pig release
And in August 2023, a collaborator of Ilya Gambachidze considered it clever to release a pig tattooed with the emblem of the Communist Party in Khakassia, in Siberia.
The idea?
Discredit the communist governor of this republic, Valentin Konovalov.
But the plan backfired: he was accused by part of the local population of "ridiculing Russian history" and was ordered to pay a fine for violating campaign rules.
The SDA's most prestigious client seems to have been Leonid Sloutski, who took over as leader of the ultranationalist LDPR party in 2022, after the death of the highly publicized and outrageous Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
The new boss of the far right wanted to fill his charisma deficit with a political technologist.
He ended up with Ilya Gambachidze.
But the latter was quickly dismissed "without taking a glove, which means that Ilya Gambashidze is not considered very important in the Kremlin", believes Andreï Pertsev.
But then how could such an individual find himself associated with large-scale disinformation operations on the international scene?
“Sometimes it’s not skill that counts, but loyalty, and in Russia the quality of the network is central for a political technologist,” emphasizes Andrew Wilson.
In the case of Ilya Gambashidze, the man who knows the man who knows Vladimir Putin is Alexander Kharichev, a Kremlin advisor.
“He is above all a traveling companion of Sergei Kirienko [former Russian Prime Minister in 1998, Editor's note] who today deals with electoral issues for the Russian president,” explains Andreï Pertsev.
At the end of December 2023, the Washington Post even made Sergei Kirienko the mastermind of several influence operations, one of which aimed to strengthen ties between Russia and the French far right.
“People come to see Sergei Kirienko for electoral or other questions and the latter delegates to Alexander Kharichev the task of finding the right political technologist(s), explains Andreï Pertsev.
Informational cannon fodder
This is how Ilya Gambachidze finds himself associated with international disinformation operations.
“The main reason is that it would not be expensive,” assures the Russian journalist.
Because for this expert, in the order of the Kremlin's budgetary priorities, winning the right candidate in elections that count internally is more important than launching a disinformation campaign in Europe.
Furthermore, “the best political technologists would probably not be interested,” adds Andreï Pertsev.
The game is not worth the effort: working on the internal market is more lucrative and they do not risk ending up on international sanctions lists.
In this sense, Ilya Gambachidze is informational cannon fodder.
However, the great ideological war that the Kremlin is waging against the West - and disinformation operations form an important part of it - has always been presented as a priority for Vladimir Putin.
It may seem paradoxical to make a political technologist with very limited success a central part of this system.
But it must be remembered that Ilya Gambachidze is not the only master on board.
“As the defense of Russian values has been made a question of national security, Russian spies are necessarily associated with this type of operation,” underlines Yevgeniy Golovchenko, specialist in Russian disinformation at the University of Copenhagen.
Nor is the Kremlin asking for perfectly crafted cyber-propaganda campaigns.
"The most sophisticated aspect is the diversity of supports and means used. For Operation Doppelgänger, the SDA called on local media, journalists, YouTubers to amplify their messages. And they also set up a vast network of fake sites which were sometimes only visible in a specific country", underlines Coline Chavane.
The fake news sites set up were rather crude clones of sites like 20 minutes, Der Spiegel, or even The Guardian.
"The important thing is that these operations are inexpensive. A single one costs less than a missile sent to Ukraine. So even if they are not perfectly executed by Ilya Gambachidze, the bet is that by dint of chaining them over a long period, they will end up working,” summarizes Yevgeniy Golovchenko.
The informational war system thus put in place and of which Ilya Gambachidze is an important cog is thus reminiscent of the military strategy used by Russia in Ukraine: sending troops, wave after wave, in the hope that the opposing defenses give way under the number.
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