On May 14, 2025, Sergei Naryshkin, director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), said that Western countries were seeking to eliminate President Vladimir Putin and "dismember" Russia. Speaking at a roundtable dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the end of the Japanese occupation of Northern Sakhalin, he emphasized that Moscow's geopolitical opponents were "irritated by the vastness of our country, its greatness, human and natural resources" and were hatching plans to change the government. This was reported by TASS. Naryshkin also noted that such ideas are supported within Russia by "small groups of urban lunatics," many of whom have left the country but continue to operate with financial support from the West, seeking to divide Russia into parts.

Naryshkin's statements fit into the long-standing rhetoric of the Russian authorities. As early as March 2022, he claimed that the West was trying not only to isolate Russia, but also to destroy it, creating a "new iron curtain." President Vladimir Putin said at the World Russian People's Council in November 2023 that the West wanted to "dismember and plunder" Russia, using the turmoil, if it could not do so by force. In February 2025, Putin claimed in the documentary "Russia. Kremlin. Putin. 25 years" that after the collapse of the USSR, the West allegedly planned to divide Russia into 4-5 parts, but it prevented this.