Under Vladimir Putin Presidency, Russia has appointed dozens of honorary consuls. Many have spread pro-Kremlin propaganda around the world.
The case of Montenegro
Boro Djukic, the first honorary consul appointed by Russia to Montenegro, was supposed to use his position to defend the cultural ties and interests of local Russian business owners and tourists – a benevolent bridge between the two countries. Instead, the middle-aged former bureaucrat took an aggressive role in Montenegrin politics, backing a movement aimed at empowering Kremlin allies and working to undermine the fragile government of a country considered a valuable US ally in a troubled region.
While serving as honorary consul from 2014 to 2018, Dzukic helped found a hardline, Kremlin-backed political party that sought to force the country’s withdrawal from NATO. When the party needed a headquarters, he went a step further, offering his family the house in an upscale neighborhood in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro.
A sign near the front door read: “Residence of the Honorary Consul of the Russian Federation.”
Djukic was part of a loyal network of honorary consuls embedded by the Russian government around the world that supported President Vladimir Putin amid his most controversial military and political campaigns, including the February invasion of Ukraine that killed or injured thousands of civilians by ProPublica and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
In Montenegro, Ljubomir Filipovic, a political scientist and former deputy mayor of Budva, said Dzukic had helped spread chaos and dysfunction in a country that has struggled to forge an identity since becoming a sovereign nation in 2006.
“He went above and beyond what a mere honorary consul would do. He even went above and beyond what an official diplomat would do,” said Filipovic, who followed Dzukic’s activities as a consul. “The intention was to damage the social fabric of Montenegro — and it did.”
Honorary consuls and how they are used
Honorary consuls were once developed primarily by smaller countries that could not afford career diplomats in critical foreign outposts. The agreement is now used by most of the world’s governments as a way to promote their interests in areas where embassies are far away or too expensive to maintain.
Under international treaty, honorary consuls receive some of the same privileges and protections afforded to career diplomats, including the ability to move consular bags across borders without inspection and to keep records and correspondence untraceable.
Consuls, however, are widely expected to be discreet supporters, volunteers who focus on cultural and economic ties without proselytizing the political views of the governments they represent. “Apolitical in word and deed,” according to guidelines approved by an international consular association.
Many consuls fulfill this role with honor: they promote industry, the arts and academia on behalf of the countries that appoint them. assistance to stranded or ill travelers; and assistance with visa applications.
The research-investigation by ProPublica and ICIJ
Under Putin, Russia has become an enthusiastic supporter of the largely unregulated system of international diplomacy, which for centuries has enabled private individuals in their home countries to serve as liaisons to foreign nations.
Russia uses honorary consuls as part of a strategy to sway public opinion in favor of the Kremlin and, over time, weaken pro-Western governments, particularly in European countries vulnerable to influence. In a high-profile case, intelligence officials tied up two consuls in North Macedonia in an alleged Russian propaganda campaign to destabilize a part of southeastern Europe.
However, a global investigation led by ProPublica and ICIJ has identified at least 500 current and former honorary consuls who have been accused of crimes or embroiled in controversy, including some who used their status for profit, to promote criminal activities or to avoid law enforcement. The extent of the abuse emerged in a review of thousands of pages of court documents, government reports and media accounts from dozens of countries.
Russia, which for decades did not appoint honorary consuls, is increasingly using the system to serve its political agenda. Inside Russia, several of Putin’s closest associates secured their own honorary consul appointments — with the perks that come with the title — and formed an advocacy group called The League of Honorary Consuls. Outside Russia, the government has appointed honorary consuls on six continents, quadrupling their number to more than 80 in the first decade after Putin took office.
Consuls appointed by the Russian government denounced Western sanctions and criticized NATO. An American who served as Russia’s honorary consul in Denver traveled to Crimea several years after Russia invaded Ukraine and occupied the peninsula. He visited a museum and posed for photos, while the US State Department reported that torture, arbitrary arrests, ethnic violence and corruption were rampant there under Russian rule.
This year, as Russian missiles fell on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, at least two honorary consuls representing Russia spoke out again. “I’m sorry he didn’t do it sooner,” said a consul, Constantine van Vloten in the Netherlands, in support of Putin.
The consul in Spain appeared on Russian state television to denounce the violence he attributed to the “Ukrainian terrorist state.” Before being appointed consul, Pedro Mouriño Uzal traveled to Crimea as an independent observer and argued for the “absolute normality and calm” of the 2014 referendum, widely condemned as illegal, on the region’s incorporation into Russia.
Uzal told ProPublica and ICIJ that criticism of the vote was unfounded and that Ukraine “has joined the ranks of terrorist organizations that attack civilian infrastructure and kill civilians.” Van Vloten said in a statement that he has no personal relationship with Putin and that he wished the military operation had started earlier “so that the civil war would end sooner.”
Several of Russia’s honorary consuls resigned to protest the invasion. But others remained in place even as countries in Europe and Asia expelled Russia’s career diplomats.
Although Russia does not publish lists of its honorary consuls, ProPublica and ICIJ were able to identify Russian-appointed consuls who have served in at least 45 countries.
One is a hotel and nightclub owner in Mexico whose bodyguard is accused by Mexican officials of meeting at consular properties with leaders of an organized crime gang known as The Russians, according to a 2021 military intelligence report.
Another was a businessman in Equatorial Guinea whom Russia named honorary consul in 2011 after he was jailed for selling cruise missiles — capable of carrying nuclear warheads — to Iran and China. He is no longer consul and could not be reached for comment. The consul in Mexico did not respond to requests for comment.
In Montenegro, Dzukic remained consul for about four years. In 2018, the government stripped him of the title, reportedly as part of a coordinated response by governments unrelated to Dzukic to the poisoning of a former Russian military intelligence officer turned British spy. Russian agents were blamed for carrying out the attack. Moscow has denied any involvement.
Dzukic, who did not respond to requests for comment, denied acting improperly as consul. “I am not a Russian citizen, but as a person who loves Russia, I represented it in the best possible way,” he told local media after his diplomatic status was terminated by Montenegro. This year, a day after the invasion of Ukraine, Dzukic denounced NATO and praised Putin on social media.
The 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations
Honorary consuls are appointed by foreign governments but serve at the discretion of their countries. There are thousands of consuls, although no one has a more accurate estimate because dozens of governments do not release the names of their appointees.
Under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, consuls are entitled to a coveted set of benefits that may include special identity cards, passports and license plates. They cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed in the course of their official duties and offices, and mail and consular bags are protected from search.
For decades, the then-Soviet Union refused to appoint consuls abroad or approve requests by foreign governments for consuls on Soviet soil. Soviet leaders saw honorary consuls as nothing more than “bourgeois spies,” scholar Geoff Berridge wrote in his widely cited book on diplomatic law and practice.
Soon after Putin’s presidency in 2000, however, Russia fully embraced the honorary consul system. The title offered protection and diplomatic credentials to a new class of well-connected elites.
The Russian Union of Honorary Consuls
In 2002, four of Putin’s associates founded the Union of Honorary Consuls. Little is known publicly about the group, but Russian government documents show the association spends donations on the “defense and support” of the consuls.
The organization is based in Putin’s hometown of St. Petersburg, where he was a top liaison to foreign diplomats during his rise to national power. The list of Russian Honorary Consuls includes power brokers and oligarchs — in mining, steel, gas, oil and banking — who have held honorary consul status.
The founders secured their own honorary consuls: one from Brazil, another from Bangladesh, a third from the Seychelles. Putin himself reportedly recommended that the Thai government appoint the fourth organizer, Yuri Kovalchuk, an oligarch the US government has called a “personal banker” to Putin and other senior government officials, as consul.
In 2019, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made it clear that his government supported the honorary consul system. Meeting the leaders of some of the smaller countries of the Pacific region at the United Nations in New York, Lavrov announced: “We are actively using the institution of honorary consuls. I think we should expand the practice.”
Under Putin, Russia also appointed a cadre of its own consuls around the world. Some were Russian expatriates, others influential local magnates of culture and industry.
Russian regulations on honorary consuls in the late 1990s said volunteer diplomats would promote “friendly relations … the expansion of economic, trade, scientific, cultural and other ties.”
The case of North Macedonia
North Macedonia, another fragile Balkan republic, honorary consul Sergej Samsonenko has become one of the Kremlin’s most visible supporters.
Samsonenko built a four-star hotel in the capital that he called Hotel Russia and helped finance a landmark Russian Orthodox church that, according to local media, an archbishop described as “part of the Russian soul on North Macedonian soil.”
In 2016, Samsonenko was named honorary consul for Russia. He established his consulate in Bitola, an ancient trading hub near the Greek border that had served as a cultural and political hub under the Ottoman Empire, earning it the nickname “City of Consuls”.
In 2017, a North Macedonian intelligence report found that consulate offices in Bitola and the lakeside city of Ohrid represented “intelligence bases” used by Russia as part of alleged propaganda aimed at creating conflict in the Balkans and isolating countries such as North Macedonia from the West.
“The performance of intelligence activities by diplomatic consular missions is a widely used method of the Russian Federation … by which they collect, process, analyze and distribute information,” notes the report, which was first obtained by Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting.
The report also described Samsonenko’s funding of the Russian church, saying “[the Russian Federation’s] religious influence is an important part of Russian strategy.” North Macedonia joined NATO in 2020. Last summer, the government withdrew its approval for Samsonenko’s honorary consul post.
Russian Range in Denver
Nearly 6,000 miles away in Colorado, Russia’s last honorary consul in the United States lost her post in March as Russian forces invaded Ukraine.
“Colorado … is severing diplomatic ties with Russia,” Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, wrote in a letter to the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., requesting the decertification of Honorary Consul Deborah Palmieri. “If at some point the regime changes in Russia to one that honors the world order … Colorado will think again.”
The State Department subsequently withdrew recognition of Palmieri’s consular status, the governor’s office said. The State Department did not respond to questions about Palmieri or the governor’s request.
Russia has appointed a number of American citizens as honorary consuls on American soil. They included the founder of a Russian art museum in Minnesota, the president of a Russian trading company in Puerto Rico and the former president of St. Petersburg College in Florida, who in 2007 wrote a newspaper column titled “Putin and Me.”
In 2016, the State Department revoked the status of all but one of Russia’s appointed consuls in the United States after reports that Russian intelligence officers were harassing American diplomats in Moscow. Only Palmieri remained.
Before being appointed consul in 2007, Palmieri publicly supported Putin, writing in a publication for the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce that he achieved democracy “at his own pace.”
After Russia sent troops to Crimea in 2014, Colorado attorney Olena Ruth, who was born in Kyiv, organized a rally in support of Ukraine and marched with several others at the consulate.
“He was just ignoring the Ukrainian issue,” Ruth said in a recent interview. “Nobody wanted her presence here.”
Three years later, Palmieri was among a group of Americans who toured annexed Crimea, visiting a local university and museum and posing for photos. On her website, Palmieri described the trip as a “fact-finding visit.”
