Argentine intelligence agents arrested 26-year-old Russian Dmitry Novikov they describe as a senior figure in "La Compañía"—the Kremlin-linked influence network that spent $283,000 in 2024 placing fabricated stories against President Javier Milei in retaliation for his support of Ukraine.
Novikov's arrest is the first physical capture of a senior figure in Russia's Wagner-successor influence apparatus, and the clearest window yet into what Kremlin retaliation against pro-Ukraine governments now looks like: paid articles, fabricated scandals, and mobile operatives circulating through allied territory.
A joint operation by the Federal Police, the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE), and the National Migration Directorate seized Dmitry Novikov on 1 May at a house in Lanús, a southern suburb of Buenos Aires, after monitoring him for roughly two weeks. He had entered the country on 12 April from Istanbul, listed as a tourist. Buenos Aires had publicly exposed the network's local cell in June 2025, naming Russian residents Lev Andriashvili and Irina Yakovenko as its operators, as Euromaidan Press reported at the time. A leaked archive of 76 internal documents published in April 2026 by openDemocracy, Filtraleaks, and partner outlets then showed how the operation worked: La Compañía paid for at least 250 articles across more than 20 Argentine digital outlets between June and October 2024—making Argentina its single largest target across Africa and Latin America during August 2024.
Caught in Lanús
Security Minister Alejandra Monteoliva announced the arrest in a video posted on social media, calling Novikov "a threat to the democratic order" who "came to operate, destabilize, and attack our institutions." Federal Judge Julián Ercolini of Federal Criminal and Correctional Court No. 12 ordered preventive detention pending deportation, citing flight risk and national-security concerns. Migration officials cancelled Novikov's transit residency, ordered his expulsion, and imposed a permanent re-entry ban, finding he had "denatured the reasons that justified his entry."
He had originally booked a return flight to Brazil one week after arrival. He never used it, instead extending his stay in Lanús for nearly three weeks. Argentine intelligence had been tracking him since mid-April, when his presence was linked to the La Compañía structure.
A traveling operative
Novikov was born in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, in Russia's Far East, and received both his Russian passports in the Moscow region—in 2019 and 2022. Over the past two years he has cycled through Chile, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Panama, and Brazil. The Dominican Republic deported him in September 2025, with that country's prosecutor general saying Novikov ran "a cyber-influence network linked to the Lakhta or La Compañía project, based in Russia and dedicated to creating and spreading digital content focused on political disinformation campaigns."
Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, citing the Netherlands' Military Intelligence and Security Service, tied Novikov's network to Russian intelligence services and to the Wagner private military company.
From Africa to Argentina
La Compañía—"The Company"—is the post-Prigozhin successor to Wagner's information arm. It is associated with Lakhta, is the same structure US prosecutors named in the 2018 indictments over interference in the 2016 US election. Argentina's intelligence service detected the local cell in 2024 and referred the case to the judiciary in October 2025.
The leaked April 2026 archive—76 Russian-language documents totaling 1,431 pages, obtained by the African outlet The Continent and analyzed by a consortium that included openDemocracy, iStories, the Dossier Center, Forbidden Stories, and Argentina's Filtraleaks—showed how the campaign ran. Between June and October 2024, La Compañía spent at least $283,100 placing more than 250 articles in 23 Argentine digital outlets, paying between $350 and $3,100 per article. The content blended real grievances about Milei's austerity cuts with fabricated stories. One planted piece claimed Milei had sent a sabotage team to attack a Chilean gas pipeline. Another accused him of buying $64,000 worth of Cartier collars for his cloned dogs in the United States.
Many articles carried no byline. Some appeared under fictitious identities with AI-generated photos. Most editors at the targeted outlets denied receiving any payment; intermediaries told reporters the money came from Argentine businesspeople "worried about national industry."
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Why Argentina, why Milei
The campaign's timing tracks Milei's Ukraine policy. The Argentine president took office in December 2023 with Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his inauguration, joined the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, and called off Argentina's planned BRICS accession—moves Euromaidan Press covered at the time. La Compañía launched its Argentine workstream in April 2024. August 2024 became the operation's biggest spending month anywhere, bigger than any African target.
The leaked materials show La Compañía also analyzed Argentina's military-industrial complex, mapped its Antarctic oil resources, profiled opposition figures, and drew up plans to support opposition candidates in Argentina's 2025 legislative elections. One workstream pushed legislation aimed at blocking Argentina's adhesion to the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.
The campaign appears to have wound down after January 2025, when the second Trump administration distanced Washington from Kyiv and Argentina abstained from a UN resolution demanding Russian withdrawal. The Kremlin's most expensive Latin American operation got what it paid for. None of its local operators have stood trial.
A widening front
Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation framed Novikov's arrest as confirmation that Moscow is extending its information war into every region where governments side with Kyiv, using shadow structures and manipulated public opinion. The detention itself confirms what the leaked documents implied—La Compañía's expansion into Latin America in 2024 was systematic, well-funded, and run by mobile operatives. Novikov passed through at least five Latin American countries in two years before being expelled from one and arrested in the next.
Russia's embassy in Buenos Aires has called the openDemocracy investigation "anti-Russian material" and rejected the disinformation accusations.
The bilateral relationship still allows Russian citizens visa-free entry to Argentina under a 2009 agreement that remains in force. Novikov used it.
