Was Ilim Pulp Enterprise set up with the name of the Russian president?

The controversy in the Russian economy continues. Russia’s Ilim Pulp Enterprise has been accused of getting President Putin involved in the scandal around Kotlas Pulp and Paper Mill. It was in particular stated that Ilim Pulp did that in its own filthy purposes, which blemished the name of the Russian president. This allegation was brought right after Ilim Pulp managed to arrange the parliamentary investigation of the dispute around Kotlas Pulp and Paper Mill.

RBC reported that the timber corporation Ilim Pulp Enterprises published a piece of information on its site. The message said that Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly supported the enterprise in the conflict. RBC said that with reference to a small website. Apparently, it goes about the site of the news agency ArkhYugInform. It is considered that this website belongs to Ilim Pulp, it has only one person employed, Nadezhda Sukhoparova. RBC said that the woman was Ilim’s main PR agent in the Arkhangelsk region.

Pursuant to the information from the news agency, the text of the anonymous message gave an impression that Vladimir Putin was well aware of all the things happening about the issue. It deemed that Putin denounced the court decision, which ruled to impose a fine on the control stock of Kotlas Pulp and Paper Mill. However, the actual information was contained in the commentary to the message. An unknown author of that commentary dared to explain, what Putin actually wanted to say about the whole matter. The news agency stressed out that no serious media outlet used that piece of news of the little-known site. Probably, this testified to the fact that both the commentary and Putin’s words in the message could be false.

We actually think, that none of media outlets saw that little piece of news. This is not a new trick in such kind of controversy, indeed. Someone posts a message on a site for a short period of time. All interested parties copy and paste it for themselves (with pictures, times and dates, and so on). Then this message disappears, and no one can find it. This is a very common trick at the PR department of the company Siberian Aluminium, for example.

Won’t you agree that it is hard to believe that someone could convince Ilim’s management to make such small and homicidal defense and post in on the net. Those people that established a strong timber industry during the time of reforms, can hardly be suspected of such imbecility. Ilim Pulp was feeling ok, until it had to deal with Oleg Deripaska. It is a very serious conflict, and as experience shows, Ilim’s defense is being quite competent. Why would they post such a stupid piece of information on their own site? Only a madman could do it.

The best way to play a dirty trick on a high-ranking official of an oligarch is to go to a professional PR agency. Soon there will be very interesting articles published in country’s most respectable newspapers. President Putin will never know about those articles, but the “target will be destroyed” anyway. An object of such a PR attack will notice considerable changes around him.

There are two very bad factors n Russia nowadays: few people have huge money, the majority don’t. There is nothing more unreliable in the world, than the so-called human factor. All people work for someone in Russia. Someone does it at a factory, someone at Ilim Pulp Enterprise. I do not think that there will be a guy, who will say no to a bribe of his annual wages. A much smaller sum will also work, as well as blackmail. In other words, any computer programmer or a journalist that work for an oligarch, might betray their boss in a blink of an eye. Someone probably did that in Ilim Pulp.

“Such an impudent way of using the president’s name for settling business problems is definitely a new step in dirty PR practice.” The journalists from Russian Far Eastern news agencies that were present at Putin’s conference in Vladivostok, said there was no questions like that asked to the president. No question – no answer. This seems to be the end of the story with Ilim Pulp.

Dmitry Slobodanuk
PRAVDA.Ru