The artificial intelligence volcano erupts. Americans, Chinese and Europeans are scrambling to capture the best results from this digital lava. During this global uproar, Vladimir Putin is playing his own part, going against the grain. Far from wanting a piece of the pie, the master of the Kremlin intends to own the entire pastry. Its new law on AI is not aimed at unbridled innovation, but at the methodical locking of each model deemed strategic. Objective: to create 100% Russian artificial intelligence, pure of any Western contamination. An obsession that could well turn out to be a trap.
In brief
- The new Russian law classifies artificial intelligence into three distinct categories: sovereign, national and trusted.
- So-called “sovereign” models must be developed without any use of foreign components or data.
- Despite this speech of independence, Russian developers massively depend on Western open-source such as LLaMA or Mistral.
- At the same time, Russia is using generative AI to produce deepfakes aimed at destabilizing European public opinion.
Putin and AI: the quest for impossible digital purity
When Vladimir Putin talks about artificial intelligence, he is not talking about algorithms or computing power. He talks about civilization. “ For Russia, it is a question of national, technological and values-based sovereignty,” he said at a recent conference in Moscow “. (“For Russia, it is a matter of national, technological and value-based sovereignty.” – Source: Reuters).
In his view of the worldeach Western AI carries foreign cultural software, an ideological Trojan horse that it refuses to accept on Russian soil. The Kremlin therefore brought out the legislative artillery with a bill classifying the models into three hermetic categories. The “sovereign” model must be developed exclusively by Russian citizens, trained solely on data produced in Russia, without any use of foreign components.
The “national” model tolerates the use of open-source solutions from elsewhere, while the “trusted” model comes under the direct supervision of the FSB. Furthermore, a presidential decree established a special commission of which Putin personally holds the reins.
From now on, AI in Russia is becoming a state affair monitored like milk on fire.
The Russian big gap: proclaimed sovereignty, assumed dependence
Declarations of technological independence, however, come up against a very concrete wall of reality. Russian experts in the sector have been sounding the alarm for several months. Developing an entirely Russian artificial intelligence, without any borrowing from the global ecosystem, would cost several hundred billion rubles. A bill that end users would inevitably have to bear.
Added to this are Western sanctions which are literally strangling Russian data centers: without advanced semiconductors, there is no intensive computing, no high-performance models. An official from a major Russian technology company told the Kommersant newspaper that “completely sovereign platforms practically do not exist on the market today.”
Even Sberbank, the public financial giant darling of the Kremlin and spearhead ofPatriotic AIactually adapts foreign open-source models like LLaMA, Mistral or YOLO. The digital fortress dreamed of by Putin therefore rests on imported foundations. The proclaimed sovereignism hides a very real dependence.
The long shadow of Russian AI: when deepfakes wage war on Europe
While the Kremlin locks down its digital borders, its hybrid armies use artificial intelligence to destabilize European neighbors with formidable efficiency. L'example from Professor Alan Readfrom King's College London, is particularly edifying. One day, a doctored video using his face and a synthetic voice imitating his own began to circulate on social networks, uttering insults against Emmanuel Macron.
Almost everything in this video is abhorrent, horrible to listen to, the researcher told the BBC. This seems completely foreign to me.
Alan Read
This deepfake is part of a broader campaign called Matryoshka, named after these Russian dolls that hide other dolls. In Poland, artificially generated videos call for leaving the European Union, with turns of phrase betraying Russian syntax. Second-rate applications, less careful than the American giants when it comes to watermarks, provide these weapons for a few cents.
Disinformation thus becomes a low-cost exportable industry.
Russia's AI strategy in five points
- Legal classification: three distinct categories (sovereign, national, trust) subject to varying degrees of state control;
- Presidential Commission: body directly supervised by Vladimir Putin to coordinate all national initiatives;
- Sberbank on the front line: the only player capable of attempting the “all-Russian” adventure, but still dependent on foreign open-source;
- Binding sanctions: shortage of advanced semiconductors severely limiting available computing power;
- Matryoshka campaign: systematic deepfake operation aimed at destabilizing European public opinion.
Artificial intelligence is undeniably a boon for those who manage to master it. But for those who lose their jobs, it especially embodies an existential threat. Even more worrying, its “artificial” nature could well make it uncontrollable in the long term. A senior security official at Anthropic recently resigned, sounding the alarm over this very risk. Putin continues to lock things up without looking behind him. Maybe a little too quickly.
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