The Bolshoi Theatre’s management has purchased surveillance software to monitor its staff for ‘interest in the war in Ukraine’

The Bolshoi Theatre’s management has signed an agreement to roll out special software to monitor its employees, Sistema reports. The contract for installing InfoWatch Traffic Monitor provides surveillance of 500 work computers at a cost of 21.6 million rubles ($270,000).

The program will monitor the work and behavior of employees — who are referred to in technical documents as “controlled persons.” — generating individual profiles for each staff member while recording any ‘abnormal actions.’ Criteria for being placed in a “risk group” include the use of profanity in work emails, discussing management, or preparing to change jobs. The software also flags any expressed “interest in the war in Ukraine,” along with unspecified “political views.”

Violations will be detected through artificial intelligence that creates “shadow copies” of all employee activity on social media and messaging platforms (WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram) and web browsers. In addition, the software will log all text typed by users. The collected data will be processed by the security service in real time.

The supplier of the program is Andek JSC, while the developer is InfoWatch Lab — owned by Natalya Kaspersky, a co-founder of Kaspersky Lab in the 1990s. The company also provides its solutions to major Russian banks, Rostec, and the Ministry of Defense. A source at the theatre told Sistema that the monitoring measures are already in place for senior administrators and soloists, with the exception of famed conductor and open Putin loyalist Valery Gergiev.

It was previously reported that Russian authorities have mandated that smartphone and tablet manufacturers pre-install the domestic digital platform Max starting from September 1, 2025. Max, an alternative to Telegram and similar apps, collects detailed information about users — ranging from device specifications to geolocation data and address book contents. Its key distinction from competitors is that it directly transfers collected data to government agencies, a requirement explicitly stated in the user agreement.