The Kremlin planned to create a new grouping of states to replace the Visegrád Group, which includes Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia. Leaked documents indicate that the Kremlin planned to redraw the political map of Central Europe, in particular planning the emergence of a new bloc and the exclusion of the Czech Republic from the equation, the Czech TV channel NOVA reported.
The documents attributed to the Social Design Agency (SDA), a Moscow-based company already sanctioned by the EU, US, and UK for election interference, describe a "Vienna Agreement" that would replace the current four-state Central European format with an Austria-Hungary-Slovakia bloc.
The Czech Republic would lose one of its key roles in Central European cooperation under the plan described. It would not be part of the main coordination platform, and its influence on shared positions would be significantly weakened.
"Vienna Agreement" project would isolate Czech Republic
Austrian magazine Profil published the same materials on 23 May 2026, a month before the Czech outlet picked them up. According to the documents, Moscow expected "a strong position from Vienna" because "former parts of Austria-Hungary remain under strong cultural and historical influence of Vienna."
The Social Design Agency may have ties to the Russian Presidential Administration, according to NOVA.
SDA already EU/US/UK-sanctioned for Doppelganger operations
The UK government designated the Social Design Agency in October 2024 as "tasked and funded directly by the Russian State," responsible for "interference operations designed to undermine democracy and weaken international support for Ukraine," per the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. The US Treasury and the EU sanctioned the same entity in March 2024.
Western government documentation identifies SDA as the operator behind the "Doppelganger" / "RRN Media" disinformation network, a system of over 60 websites that impersonate mainstream European media outlets, and are used to push pro-Kremlin narratives, the US State Department said when announcing sanctions in March 2024.
The provenance of the leaked materials and the authenticity of the SDA documents have not been independently verified beyond the publications by Profil and NOVA.
