On a second watch, I noticed that I missed the Russian saying, "Our friend is working on it," when asked if the Red Daughter could be controlled. This does make it seem as though there is an outside source, perhaps Lex, that is involved in that situation. If Lex can control the Red Daughter and then use her to attack the US and cause a conflict between Supergirl and Red Daughter that damages the infrastructure of the country or between the US and Russia itself, then that would possibly be the excuse to demand that more humans get superpowers.
So, yeah, he could be "pulling the strings" on all of it.