In late April 2024, Nikolai Patrushev, the longtime head of Russia’s Security Council, chaired a meeting in St. Petersburg of top security officials from countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. The meeting was about information sovereignty and security—the Kremlin’s way of describing cybertechnologies that are designed to protect against Western surveillance, influence, and interference. But Patrushev also had a more specific message. Flanked by Sergei Naryshkin, the head