Important Stories reported that a structure linked to the FSB’s Second Service tried to build a system for monitoring news and social media with elements of artificial intelligence. The project was called PAUK — the “Portal for Analytics and Content Management” — and was assigned to the Kazan-based IT company Mikord, which had previously worked on the military conscription registry for the Defense Ministry.
According to the investigation, the formal customer under the contract was the FSB’s Center for Information Protection and Special Communications, but the likely end user was the Second Service itself. The service was supposed to automate the selection of publications from pre-approved sources, while officers would rate materials, add comments, tags, and names, and then prepare briefs for senior officials.
The system was designed to have two segments: an external one connected to the internet and an internal isolated one. In the internal segment, the report says, an AI assistant was supposed to help search through FSB data sets. The project was expected to use Llama 2 by Meta and the MongoDB database.
That plan, however, was never completed. According to Important Stories, the project was terminated in autumn 2025 after roughly a year and a half of work. Sources in the IT community told the outlet that the developer likely lacked the expertise needed to bring the system to a functional stage.
To select sources for PAUK, the FSB provided the developer with actual briefing reports covering the period from January 2024 to June 2025. Journalists reviewed nearly 5,000 items and concluded that the Second Service tracks not only terrorism, sabotage, and opposition activity, but also pressure on migrants, protests, strikes, and ethnic conflicts in Europe.
According to the outlet’s calculations, more than 10% of the items in those briefs came from independent media. The most frequently cited source was Aktivatika, followed by Govorit NeMoskva and RusNews. In total, the investigation says, the briefs relied on more than 1,000 sources over a year and a half, including media outlets, Telegram and YouTube channels, and VK communities.