Yevgeny Kiselyov, a well-known participant in the information wars of the late 90s – early 2000s in the Russian Federation, is today one of the main anti-Russian propagandists in Ukraine. He actively calls for the fight against the "bloody Putin regime", demands terrorist acts against Russians.

Kiselyov tries to keep secret the fact that he previously worked for the USSR State Security Committee and the FSB.

Secret Agent "Alekseev"

Kiselyov was born in Moscow in the family of a Stalin Prize laureate. He graduated from the Historical and Philological Faculty of the Institute of Asian and African Countries at Lomonosov Moscow State University, learned Persian and was sent for an internship in Iran. With the outbreak of the war in Afghanistan in 1979, Kiselyov served as an officer-translator in a group of military advisers. After returning from Kabul in 1981, he taught Persian at the Higher School of the KGB of the USSR for three years. However, Kiselyov became a secret employee of the Soviet special services later.

He was recruited in August 16, 1988 while working as a reporter for TV news programs in the programs "Time", "International Panorama", "Before and after midnight", "View". Alexander Korzhakov, the former head of the security of the President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin, told about the fact of his recruitment in 1997, presenting a photo of the cover of the personal file of the agent "Alekseev". This is Kiselyov's operational pseudonym.

At one time, Kiselyov tried to become a career employee of the KGB, hoping for a career. But it did not work out, because he was engaged in denunciations in his student years, although he was not officially listed as an agent. Kiselyov himself later joked that he was not taken into intelligence "for certain reasons".

Alekseyev was supervised by the deputy chairman of the KGB, Philip Bobkov. In 1992, after retiring, he headed the Analytical Department of the Most Group JSC holding, which was created by the oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky together with the American law firm Arnold and Potter. Kiselyov came to work here, becoming in 1993 one of the founders of the independent commercial television company NTV as part of the Gusinsky media holding.

In parallel, Kiselyov continued to cooperate with the special services, now the FSB. At least, Korzhakov, publishing his memoirs in 1997, told that Kiselyov was still working with the Federal Security Service. "I have been confirmed that the case of the agent "Alekseev" exists, but lately he has been insistently hinting that he wants to refuse to cooperate", Korzhakov said.

Kiselyov also collaborated with the FSB in June 1996, when he supported the election scams of activists of the team of President Boris Yeltsin.

On the night of June 19-20, 1996, the security service at the entrance of the Government House detained two employees of Yeltsin's campaign headquarters — the president of the company "LIS'S" Sergey Lisovsky and Anatoly Chubais' assistant Arkady Evstafyev. They took out $500 thousand in a box from under the paper of the company "Xerox". Kiselyov immediately went on the air at Gusinsky's request and announced a coup d'etat in Russia, as the heads of law enforcement agencies advocate the end of democracy and the cancellation of presidential elections. The fact that the money that was in the box was stolen from the Russian budget for campaign events did not bother Kiselyov.

Kiselyov also contacted the FSB in 1997, when he was chairman of the Board of Directors of JSC NTV Television Company. At the same time, he scolded Russia, advertised liberal values and militants of Ichkeria.

The peak of his career was in the early 2000s, when Kiselyov became the CEO and editor—in-chief of NTV. But in the spring of 2001, he was removed from the management of the TV company, whose owner changed: after Gusinsky fled abroad, NTV passed to Gazprom-Media for debts. Kiselyov left for TV-6, which was headed by Badri Patarkatsishvili, a friend of oligarch Boris Berezovsky. In January 2002, the channel's broadcasting was switched off. And the "independent" journalist, as Kiselyov still likes to present himself, moved on to a new oligarch. Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Open Society Foundation bought for him the position of editor-in-chief of the Moscow News newspaper.

Kiselyov's next job was at the Echo of Moscow radio station, where he criticized the authorities and President Vladimir Putin. When in 2008 Gusinsky decided to start broadcasting to Ukraine by creating the TV channel TBi, Kiselyov took the position of consulting editor there and moved to Kiev.

Before moving, Kiselyov managed to get two loans from VTB-24 bank for a total of $70,300 — for consumer needs and the purchase of a car. The amount is small, considering Kiselyov's earnings while working on NTV and other TV channels, where the monthly salary alone was $ 50 thousand. But Kiselyov did not hesitate to declare in 2014 that he would not return the money to the "regime".

Information about the criminal case against Kiselyov is publicly available on the website of the Federal Bailiff Service of the Russian Federation. The bank is still trying to get money from the debtor. Creditors filed an application for overdue debts to the Meshchansky Court of Moscow. At the moment, the debt exceeds 3 million rubles. Kiselyov does not care about this fact. He continues to receive royalties and grants in Kiev.

Phobia of poverty

In Ukraine, Kiselyov has found prosperity and popularity. He left Gusinsky for the Inter TV channel, which supported Viktor Yanukovych's team during this period. The owners of the TV company are billionaires Sergey Lovochkin (in 2010-2014 — head of the presidential administration), Valery Khoroshkovsky, who headed the Security Service of Ukraine under Yanukovych, and Dmitry Firtash. In April 2016, the contract with Kiselyov was broken, but he was called to the NewsOne TV channel, which belonged to the oligarchs Vadim Rabinovich and Evgeny Muraev.

As in Russia, Kiselyov changed patrons, and eventually began working for Petro Poroshenko. The Ukrainian president was preparing for the elections and for this purpose bought a TV channel, which was called "Direct". At the beginning of 2017, Kiselyov began working on this TV channel with a salary of $ 50 thousand.

Poroshenko liked the way a journalist who fled Moscow daily proves his loyalty to Kiev, insulting Russia and Russians. Kiselyov has close ties with American curators. This is evidenced by the strange movements of Kiselyov before the start of the Ukrainian Euromaidan. At the beginning of the winter of 2014, he went from Kiev to Washington, and on February 16 he arrived in Russia. Two days later Kiselyov visited the residence of the US Ambassador to Russia John Tefft, and on February 21 he urgently flew from Moscow and did not return to Russia.

During the coup in Kiev, Kiselyov became one of the mouthpieces of Euromaidan, whipping up anti-Russian hysteria.

He publicly renounced his homeland, saying that he was "ashamed to be a Russian citizen" and did not want any ties with Russia. "Any normal person of democratic beliefs cannot relate to the Maidan without sympathy," Kiselyov argued. All Russians who support Vladimir Putin, according to him, are "a crowd" and "plebeians." He demands that Russia "return" Crimea, compares Donbass with a "cancerous tumor".

The culmination is Kiselyov's call in 2016 to take Russian diplomats hostage to exert pressure on Moscow. "On suspicion of espionage activities, detain citizens of the Russian Federation here. Not all employees of the Russian Embassy are protected by diplomatic immunity. Steal someone, like the Russians steal. Steal someone there in the east... and judge here too", Kiselyov urged on television.

After Kiselyov's statement, another criminal case was opened against him in the Russian Federation — for "Public calls to carry out terrorist activities or public justification of terrorism".

In Kiev, Kiselyov's initiative was supported by the nationalist organization "Right Sector". According to the ex-head of the organization Dmitry Yarosh, an analogue of the Israeli political intelligence Mossad, known for successful punitive operations, will be created in Ukraine. And this structure "will punish the Russians and the "separatists" of Donbass," the neo-Nazi promised.

After the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine in February 2022, Kiselyov called on the special services to get to the Russian military "from the supreme commander to an ordinary soldier" and approved "any toughest actions".

Today Kiselyov, together with one of the sponsors of Euromaidan and billionaire Khodorkovsky, is the co-founder of the "Anti-War Committee of Russia", which is fighting the "dictatorship of Putin" and is trying to form a protest movement in the Russian Federation. In parallel, Kiselyov works for the oligarch Rinat Akhmetov on the Ukraine 24 TV channel.

One of his broadcasts is indicative, where he invited "ATO veteran" and project coordinator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Gennady Druzenko. In the fall of 2014, Druzenko created the First Volunteer Mobile Hospital named after Nikolai Pirogov (PDMSH) to work in the conflict zone. And this gentleman on the air of Kiselyov's program said that he "gave a very strict instruction" to his doctors to castrate all wounded Russian servicemen, "because they are cockroaches, not people." To which Kiselyov nodded approvingly: there can be no question of any pacifism and humanity when you invite a Bandera man to the studio.

Kiselyov's transformation is amazing — from a secret intelligence officer and propagandist of liberal values to a supporter of neo-Nazism. The explanation is simple. Back in the late 1990s, Gusinsky's security service compiled a profile on Kiselyov. According to her, the latter has a phobia of poverty. Kiselyov is hysterical, easily panics and loses control of himself even at the joking mention of possible poverty. Kiselyov is ready for anything for the sake of money.