Андрей Солдатов: The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia's Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries

On October 26, 2011, in a filing with the US Trade Representative’s (USTR) office, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) outlined how VKontakte and its unlicensed music service is increasingly undermining the growth of the international legitimate music marketplace. According to the RIAA’s filing, the service’s music functionality is “specifically designed to enable members to upload music and video files, hundreds of thousands of which contain unlicensed copyright works.” “RIAA Highlights Russian Service VKontakte, Others in Report to U.S. Government About Markets Rife with Music Theft,” RIAA, www.riaa.com/newsitem.php?contentselector=newsandviews&news_month_filter=10&news_year_filter=2011&id=B966B360–22F9-C11E-B7A3–50777A8122E7. For details, see Delphine d’Amora, “Record Firms Sue Social Network VK for Piracy,” Moscow Times , April 4, 2014, www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/record-firms-sue-social-network-vk-for-piracy/497473.html; Kathryn Dowling, “VKontakte Case Puts Russian Music Piracy into Spotlight,” BBC, August 11, 2014, www.bbc.com/news/business-28739602; and Martech Social, “Russian Social Network VKontakte Sparks Piracy Worries,” January 22, 2015, www.martechsocial.com/russian-social-network-vkontakte-sparks-piracy-worries.

Alexandra Bayazitova, “Pavel Durov May Face a Criminal Case for His Expenses,” Izvestia , March 5, 2014, www.izvestia.ru/news/566840.

“Media Forum of Independent Local and Regional Media,” Transcripts, Kremlin.ru, April 24, 2014, http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/7075.

Ibid.

Leonid Bershidsky, “How Putin Crashed a Russian Internet Stock,” Bloomberg , April 25, 2014, www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014–04–25/how-putin-crashed-a-russian-internet-stock.

Vsevolod Pulya, “Yandex Reacts to Putin Comments About Foreign Influence as Share Price Falls,” the press release of Yandex (in Russian), Russia Beyond the Headlines , April 28, 2014, http://rbth.com/business/2014/04/28/yandex_reacts_to_putin_comments_about_foreign_influence_as_share_pri_36283.html.

Maxim Stulov, “Yandex Seeks Putin’s Ear With German Gref Board Appointment,” Moscow Times , May 27, 2014, www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/yandex-seeks-putins-ear-with-german-gref-board-appointment/500969.html.

“Russian Lawmaker Motions to Probe Internet Giant Yandex,” RAPSI, May 15, 2014, http://rapsinews.com/news/20140515/271323235.html.

Jason Bush and Alissa de Carbonnel, “Russia Launches Fraud Case Against Backers of Putin Critic Navalny,” Reuters, May 23, 2014, www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/23/us-russia-navalny-idUSBREA4M05H20140523.

Kaspersky refused to give an interview with the authors.

“UPDATE 2—Kaspersky to Buy out US Investors, Rules Out IPO,” Reuters, February 3, 2012, www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/03/kaspersky-idUSL2E8D3ETO20120203.

About Kaspersky Lab: “Today Kaspersky Lab is the world’s largest privately held vendor of endpoint protection solutions, with a holding registered in the United Kingdom,” www.kaspersky.com/about.

Kaspersky Lab corporate news, “Laboratoria Kasperskogo prisoedinyaetsa k rabote Ligi Bezopasnogo Interneta” [Kaspersky Lab Joins the Safe Internet League], Kaspersky, February 8, 2011, www.kaspersky.ru/news?id=207733419.

“The Cyberguard,” Safe Internet League, www.ligainternet.ru/en/liga/activity-cyber.php.

The primary backer of the League is businessman Konstantin Malofeev, a prominent Orthodox business and political leader who has enjoyed increasing influence since 2012 as conservative and Orthodox beliefs have grown in popularity. In 2014 Malofeev was put under sanctions by the EU and Canada, as Ukraine’s government accused him of financing the rebels in eastern Ukraine on behalf of the Russian government. Both Alexander Borodai, the former prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, and Igor Strelkov, formerly one of the main commanders of the rebel forces, are ex-Malofeev employees. For details, see Courtney Weaver, “Konstantin Malofeev, Marshall Capital Partners,” Financial Times , September 8, 2013, www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/569e533e-051c-11e3–9e71–00144feab7de.html#axzz3UGtNNZEy, and Joshua Keating, “God’s Oligarch,” Slate , October 20, 2014, www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/10/konstantin_malofeev_one_of_vladimir_putin_s_favorite_businessmen_wants_to.single.html.

Statistics 2013, the Russian Association for Electronic Communications, June 10, 2014, http://raec.ru/times/detail/3472.

At the time, Boris Dobrodeyev was rumored to become the new CEO of VKontakte; he got the position in September 2014. “Son of State Media Chief Appointed CEO of Russia’s VKontakte,” Moscow Times , September 19, 2014, www.themoscowtimes.com/article/son-of-state-media-chief-appointed-ceo-of-russias-vkontakte/507411.html.

“Internet Entrepreneurship in Russia Forum,” transcripts, Kremlin.ru, June 10, 2014, http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/22470.

“Yandex Is Included in the Register of the Organizers of Dissemination of Information,” Rublacklist, September 12, 2014, http://rublacklist.net/8598.

See www.blog.yandex.ru/post/77678.

Andrei Kolesnikov, interview with authors, September 2014.

International Telecommunication Union, Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), World Telecommunication Policy Forum, May 14–16, 2013, www.itu.int/en/wtpf-13/Documents/backgrounder-wtpf-13-ixps-en.pdf.

Ivan Pavlov (Davydova’s lawyer), interview with authors, March 2015.

It was a surprising choice. Russky Reporter was a publication very close to the Kremlin, essentially a government-backed media. The idea of cooperating with WikiLeaks on the State Department cables was brought to Vitaly Leibin, editor-in-chief of Russky Reporter , by Israel Shamir, a controversial journalist who styled himself as a WikiLeaks-accredited journalist in Russia. The Guardian reported that Shamir was not only given access to cables but also invoiced WikiLeaks for £2000, in thanks to “services rendered—journalism.” (See David Leigh and Luke Harding, WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy [New York: Public Affairs, 2011]). Shamir’s son, Johannes Wahlstrom, was a close associate to Assange. In 2016 Shamir wrote extensively for pro-government Russian publications, namely Komsomolskaya Pravda , attacking Hillary Clinton. On July 28 he accused the American establishment of a conspiracy to elect Clinton, referencing the WikiLeaks revelations. He also promised new exposés from the DNC hacks to follow. See Israel Shamir, “Novie Razoblachenia WikiLeaks: Americanskaya elita ustroila zagovor, chtobi protashit v presidenti Klinton” [New revelations of WikiLeaks: the American elite conspires to elect Clinton to the presidency], Komsomolskaya Pravda , July 28, 2016, www.kp.ru/daily/26561/3577385.

Mediastan , documentary film, 2013, produced by Julian Assange, Rebecca O’Brien, and Lauren Dark. In the documentary a group of journalists led by Johannes Wahlstrom test the impact of leaked documents as they travel through Central Asia in search of local media outlets willing to publish Cablegate files. Their journey follows the ancient Silk Road traversing Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and US-occupied Afghanistan.