Leonid Reshetnikov is Russian monarchist, member of Katehon, Double-Headed Eagle Society and Tsargrad TV boards. He is a Soviet and Russian secret service agent, Lieutenant-General of Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), director of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (29 April 2009 – 4 January 2017).
**State service**
Reshetnikov served in foreign intelligence from April 1976 to April 2009. At the end of his service, he held the rank of Lieutenant General and was head of the information and analytical department of the Russian SVR. In April 2009, he was retired due to reaching the age limit for military service.
On April 29, 2009 he was appointed Director of the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution “Russian Institute for Strategic Studies” (RISS) by the decree of the President of the Russian Federation. By presidential decree of 2 November 2016, he was relieved of his duties as director of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies from 4 January 2017. In 2013 Reshetnikov published a book “Back to Russia. The third way, or the dead ends of hopelessness”.
During his term as head of the RISR, Leonid Reshetnikov completely changed the profile of his centre – instead of preparing high-quality analytical material for the country’s leadership, the Institute was busy publishing numerous works glorifying the pre-revolutionary elites, the “[White Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_movement)” and emigration, near-church literature, conspiracy theses, or simply republishing propaganda literature written by emigrants. Reshetnikov gathered a team of odious monarchist historians, such as Peter Multatuli, who claimed that Emperor Nicholas II did not abdicate. They were expelled from RISI when President Putin replaced Reshetnikov.
**The Tsar’s cult**
In November 2016, Reshetnikov initiated the creation of the Society for the Development of Russian Historical Education “Double-headed eagle”, and is now the deputy chairman of the society with the support of Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeev. The open [documents](https://rusorel.info/) of the organisation directly proclaimed the goals that are typical for the organizations seeking power and only outwardly pretending to be loyal to the current government: “to cleanse our history of slander and distortion, primitivism and secularism, and to communicate its unifying and constructive meaning. We are not a political party, and we do not aspire to power. But we will resolutely and uncompromisingly oppose any attempts to destabilize the situation in Russia, to bring about red and liberal revenge, to overthrow the legitimate authorities in our country”.
After his resignation from RISS, Reshetnikov headed the supervisory board of Malofeev’s Tsargrad television channel. Reshetnikov transferred his associates P.Multatuli, D.Volodikhin, A.Muzafarov, M.Smolin and others and made Tsargrad as a main media tribune for ultramonarchists and followers of Tsar cult. The core of the ideology of the so-called “Tsarebozhi” is the idea of the sacral significance of the death of Emperor Nicholas II, whose murder is called a “religious ritual”, and the need for all-Russian repentance for the execution of the royal family and for all subsequent “sins”, including “godless Soviet times” and “pride due to victory in the Great Patriotic War”. This doctrine has an eschatological side and is very popular among anti-Semites, ultra-conservative Russian nationalists and supporters of the restoration of monarchy in Russia.
