Money Behind the Message is a project designed to strengthen resilience to political interference by helping key stakeholders identify its financial mechanisms, recognise emerging risks and distinguish malign financial activity from legitimate foreign engagement
Political interference does not run on messages alone. It needs money: to build relationships, sustain proxies, buy access, reward loyalty and exploit economic dependence. Yet the financial infrastructure behind interference remains far less understood than the narratives it helps to spread.
Implemented by Centre for Finance and Security (CFS) at RUSI jointly with Center for Financial Integrity (CFI) and other partners, Money Behind the Message examines how hostile states and state-linked networks finance political interference. In Ukraine, the project explores how Russia has financed political influence before and during the full-scale war, the financial mechanisms and networks it has relied on, and where vulnerabilities may persist as Ukraine moves towards reconstruction.
Alongside the Ukraine research, the Europe workstream will develop a practical playbook on the actors, financial channels and warning signs associated with political interference, tested through workshops with practitioners.
Together, the two workstreams aim to connect financial evidence with the political relationships and behaviour it enables, helping governments, financial institutions and civil society better identify and respond to the financing of political interference.
Supporting partners:
The project examines how political interference is financed, who enables financial flows and where existing responses fall short. Moving beyond the traditional focus on disinformation and election security, it explores mechanisms such as covert payments, opaque investments, favourable contracts, economic dependencies and funding channelled through intermediaries. Drawing on case studies, interviews and workshops, the research will identify common financing methods, warning signs and vulnerabilities, while distinguishing malign interference involving concealment, coercion or corruption from legitimate foreign investment and political engagement.
Ukraine workstream
Europe workstream
Capstone conference
The project aims to help public authorities, financial institutions and civil society better identify the financial mechanisms that enable political interference, improve information sharing and recognise emerging risks before they develop into more significant threats. It will also provide a practical framework for distinguishing potentially malign financial activity from legitimate foreign engagement, investment and political activity.
This is particularly important for Ukraine, where Russia has used a wide range of financial and economic tools to build influence and sustain networks over many years.