Russian Security Service Planned AI Tool to Track Media

Russian security agencies had been working on an advanced artificial intelligence tool designed to integrate public media monitoring with classified data sources, according to leaked documents obtained by investigative journalists. The system, known internally as PAUK, short for "Portal for Analytics and Usage of Contents", was intended to assist the Federal Security Service (FSB) in tracking individuals and events of interest. The project, however, appears to have been abandoned following a cybersecurity breach at the Kazan-based tech firm Micord, which was contracted to develop the system. According to the documents, the FSB's Second Service, a division focused on maintaining constitutional order and countering terrorism, was behind the initiative. This unit has previously been linked to the surveillance of opposition figures, activists, and protest movements within Russia. The proposed AI system aimed to automate the process of collecting and analyzing media content, allowing officers to generate daily briefings for senior officials. The system would have relied on a web crawler to extract information from select websites and Telegram channels, which would then be edited, categorized, and stored in a secure database. The internal structure of PAUK would have allowed FSB officers to access both publicly available media and confidential materials, such as scanned documents and internal summaries. A key feature of the system was a chatbot powered by a large language model, capable of providing detailed personal information about individuals, including names, dates of birth, regions, phone numbers, license plates, and vehicle models. According to project documentation, the initial user base was expected to grow from 30 to up to 400 personnel. Micord, the company tasked with building PAUK, reportedly used foreign technologies in its development, including Meta's LLaMA 2 model, the U.S.-developed LlamaIndex framework, and MongoDB. These tools were chosen for their advanced capabilities in processing and organizing vast amounts of textual data. However, the project was halted in the fall of 2025, as indicated by internal task trackers maintained by Micord. One employee reportedly wrote, "Goodbye, project," signaling the end of the endeavor. The leaked documents reveal that Micord received extensive briefings from the FSB between January 2024 and June 2025, which were used to train and test the AI system. Analysis of nearly 5,000 items shows that the FSB collected a wide range of topics, including Islamist activities, opposition movements, political violence, migration trends, international protests, and ethnic tensions in Europe. Independent Russian media played a prominent role in this dataset, with more than 550 reports from outlets such as Activatica appearing in the briefings, accounting for over 10 percent of all collected material during that period. Activatica, a platform focusing on civic activism and state repression, contributed significantly to the data set, with one in every six items in the first half of 2025 coming from the outlet. Specific examples of the content monitored included reports on a utility-rate protest in Ufa, a campaign against a packaging plant in Moscow, and demonstrations concerning the relocation of an ambulance station in the Arkhangelsk region. These instances highlight the scope of the FSB's interests in domestic and international issues affecting Russian citizens. The breach of Micord's infrastructure in December 2025 led to the exposure of these documents, which were subsequently shared with the rights group Idite Lesom and later used by IStories in multiple investigations. Earlier reports by IStories had already uncovered details about Russia's digital military registry and other classified defense systems, indicating a pattern of leaks involving sensitive government projects. The revelation of the PAUK project underscores the growing integration of artificial intelligence in intelligence operations, particularly in countries with strict control over information flows. While the system was never completed, the existence of such plans raises questions about the extent of surveillance and data collection practices employed by Russian security services. As the implications of these findings continue to unfold, further scrutiny of similar initiatives may become necessary to understand their potential impact on civil liberties and privacy rights.