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

On March 8 pro-Kremlin activists launched a new website that pointed a finger at “national traitors.” It was established on the domain predatel.net, where predatel stands for a traitor, and domain extension .net for nyet , or no: no traitors . It sought to gather the public statements of liberals deemed unpatriotic and then threaten them. The first name on the list was Navalny, and it also included the opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, journalist Sergei Parkhomenko, artists and writers, and some civil activists and journalists who took part in Moscow protests in 2011–2012.

A week later a popular Russian news site, Lenta.ru, suddenly faced the traditional methods of intimidation by the authorities. On the morning of March 12 Roskomnadzor issued the website a warning for publishing material of an “extremist nature,” citing an interview with one of the leaders of the far right Ukrainian party, Pravy Sector. The interview was conducted by Ilya Azar, the reporter who had exposed the carousel voting fraud during the Russian parliamentary elections in December 2012. On the same day as the warning the owner of Lenta.ru, Alexander Mamut, called the editor, Galina Timchenko, and demanded Azar be fired. Timchenko refused, so Mamut immediately fired Timchenko. All thirty-nine journalists of Lenta.ru left the publication in protest, along with Timchenko. [5] “Russia Lenta.ru Editor Timchenko Fired in Ukraine Row,” BBC, March 12, 2014, www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26543464 ; Roskomnadzor statement could be found here: http://rkn.gov.ru/news/rsoc/news24418.htm .

On March 16 a hurried referendum in Crimea resulted in a call to join Russia. Two days later Putin summoned both houses of the Russian parliament to the Kremlin for what was to be one of his most memorable and emotional speeches celebrating the taking of Crimea, with its big Russian-speaking population, from Ukraine. To effusive applause Putin spoke emotionally about the destiny of Russia. And then, finally, he turned to the West, noting that Russia’s actions had already drawn threats of sanctions that might cause disruption inside Russia. He paused and then asked ominously, “I would like to know what it is they have in mind exactly: action by the fifth column, this disparate bunch of ‘national traitors,’ or are they hoping to put us in a worsening social and economic situation so as to provoke public discontent?” He promised to “respond accordingly.” [6] Address by president of the Russian Federation, March 18, 2014, Kremlin.ru, http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/6889 .

Earlier, on March 13, Roskomnadzor had blocked three independent opposition news media—Kasparov.ru, Ej.ru, and Grani.ru—along with Navalny’s blog on LiveJournal.com. [7] “Ogranichen dostup k ryadu internet-resursov, rasprostranyavshikh prizyvi k nesanktcionirovannim massovim meropriatyam” [Access Restricted to a Number of Internet Resources, Distributing Calls to Unauthorized Mass Event], Roskomnadzor news, March 13, 2014, http://rkn.gov.ru/news/rsoc/news24447.htm . Maxim Ksenzov from Roskomnadzor was quick to explain that the sites were blocked because of “extremist calls.” He added that Navalny was no longer allowed to use communications and post anything on the Internet: “Wherever the materials appear under his name—there will be blocking.” [8] Nikita Likhachev, “Genprokuratura zablokirovala blog Navalnogo, saiti Echa Mosckvy, Grani.Ru, Kasparov.Ru I Ezh.Ru” [General Prosecutor’s Office Has Blocked Navalny Blog, the Sites Echo of Moscow, Grani.ru, Kasparov.ru, and EZh.ru], Tjournal.ru, March 13, 2014, http://tjournal.ru/paper/kasparov-grani-ej .

The political commentary site Ej.ru represents Ezhednevny Journal , or Daily Journal, and was launched in 2005 in a desperate attempt to save a team of journalists thrown out of Itogi magazine during the annihilation of Gusinsky’s media empire. With a simple design, it published three stories per day along with some short news items. Along with Grani.ru, it was a platform for prominent liberal commentators in the country, from satirist Viktor Shenderovich, to military experts and political analysts expelled from traditional media in the 2000s. The site enjoyed popularity among the liberal-minded intelligentsia.

Since February Ej.ru had come under fierce attack from Putin’s supporters after it had published a column by Shenderovich in which he questioned the whole wave of intense patriotism ignited by the Sochi Olympics. [9] Viktor Shenderovich, “Putin I devochka na konkakh” [Putin and a Girl on Skates], Ej.ru, February 10, 2014, http://ej.ru/?a=note&id=24384 . Despite the attacks, Ej.ru continued functioning, and on this day it had a story that dissected Russian propaganda and the televised euphoria surrounding the annexation of Crimea by Russia. That same day Navalny posted the results of phone polls conducted by his activists about Crimea and Ukraine, revealing that Russians’ attitudes were dramatically contrary to the propaganda. Navalny said his surveys showed that 84.5 percent of those asked viewed Ukraine as a friendly country.

From this day onward all three sites and a blog were blocked on Russian soil.

The night of Putin’s speech, worried journalists of the liberal and independent media arranged an urgent meeting. They chose to meet at the Sakharov Center, the venue of human rights organizations, named after the Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, on Thursday, March 21. The center occupies two buildings—a two-story mansion and a tiny exposition hall on the embankment of the Yauza River. It was given the premises in the early 1990s by the first Russian government, which felt in some debt to Soviet dissidents, and for years the center was used to host talks and debates on human rights issues.

That evening Sergei Lukashevsky, the thirty-nine-year-old director of the center who had brought his children to the demonstration on Bolotnaya Square in 2012, was waiting for the journalists and bloggers to gather on the second floor of the Sakharov Center, in a room filled with chairs set in a circle. All editors of the blocked websites came to the meeting, including Alexander Ryklin of Ej.ru; Vladimir Korsunsky, editor of Grani.ru, and Kirill Samodurov, editor of Kasparov.ru. Galina Timchenko, a former editor of Lenta.ru, was among the first to arrive. Anton Nossik walked in, followed by Grigory Okhotin from OVD-Info. Olga Romanova, from Russia Behind Bars, who had collected money via Yandex Money for the protests in 2011, also appeared. There was also Nikolai Lyaskin, one of Chief Navalny’s lieutenants, and Lena Bereznitskaya-Bruni, the editor of Newsru.com who had helped us withstand FSB pressure in 2002. All in all, dozens of journalists and bloggers came along with some liberal lawyers.

The day they had all feared had finally arrived. Since November 2012 the filtering in Russia expanded to areas way beyond protecting children from harmful content. By March 2014 Russia had four official blacklists of banned websites and pages: the first one to deal with sites deemed extremist; the second to block sites containing child pornography, suicide, and drugs; the third to block sites with copyright problems; and the fourth, the most recent one, created in February 2014, lists the sites blocked—without a court order—because they call for demonstrations that had not been approved by the authorities. There is also an unofficial fifth blacklist aimed not at sites but at hosting companies based abroad that Roskomnadzor considers to be uncooperative and, thus, need to be blocked.

The fourth blacklist, which included Ej.ru, Kasparov.ru, Grani.ru, and the Navalny blog, exists thanks to the efforts of Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB officer best known for his involvement in the poisoning of another former Russian security agent, Alexander Litvinenko, who fled to London in 2000 and was assassinated in 2006. The British authorities accused Lugovoi of conducting the poisoning by radioactive polonium, allegations he vehemently denied. Instead, he accused the British intelligence of carrying out the poisoning and got a seat in the Russian parliament. He was made a member of the Security Committee, in charge of writing legislation for the Russian secret services, of the State Duma. Putin approved Lugovoi’s blacklist in December 30, 2013, and it came into force on February 1, 2014.