Gazprom finances anti-Putin opposition?

Gazprom, Menatep, Ilim Pulp and many others finance “Going Without Putin” Movement?

We hereby would like to unveil a little secret that we managed to obtain from rather well-informed sources: recent natural disasters were not incidental. They were supposedly organized by the Kremlin in response to the US-led “orange revolution” in Ukraine. Moscow arranged the disasters to let the US administration know that Russia could adequately respond to both Ukrainian events (recent devastating hurricanes in the USA caused multi-million damage) and attempts to export it to Russia. In order to remind world governments and millions of Internet users of its power, a Kremlin agent visited Portland at the end of last week and pushed the Six Apart red power supply button. The latter was also organized to destroy only one record among thousands of LiveJournal diaries: a subtle boy, who heads the most massive movement in Russia's recent history called “Going Without Putin.”

It has recently transpired that the Russian administration hacked the LiveJournal website because of the diary published by an identified individual, a member of the “Going Without Putin” movement. The rumor about it appeared at 8 a.m. on the air of the Echo of Moscow radio station with reference to the Ukrainian-Israeli website MigNews. The radio station continued reporting the message every hour during the day. Even when the primary source informed about the true reason of LiveJournal's inaccessibility, other news sources of the Russian Internet continued reported about its original version with reference to MigNews. It brings up the idea that there was someone's certain interest involved in the matter.

We had to surf several St.Petersburg-based websites to be able to answer the question. As it turned out, the message about the hacking of the above-mentioned diary appeared on January 14th on the Zaks.ru webpage. The page is sponsored by Cross-Media information group. The group unites a series of publishing projects, incorporating Novaya Gazeta, Lenizdat.ru, the North-Western department of the Federal Investigation Agency. Zaks.ru also mentions Cross-Media's sources of income: such well-known business structures as Gazprom, Ilim Pulp Enterprise, North-Western Telecom, Baltica Brewery, LSR group of companies, Balt-Trade, Temp construction company, Rustrubprom, banks Menatep and BaltOneksimBank, Parnas-M meat-processing factory and many others.

It is not ruled out, of course, that Cross-Media decided to support the website of the movement just because of its passion for democratic principles, although the movement existed for only two weeks. However, it somehow seems that Cross-Media is the main figure of the PR campaign for “Going Without Putin.”

When LiveJournal website was back online, it became possible to get acquainted with the diary of the above-mentioned boy. It is easy to grasp the essence of his intellectual capacity from the following line: “People talk about freedom and have certain convictions. How can it be? Freedom is here and now, freedom is not only meant for Khodorkovsky, it is meant for all people - for you first and foremost. It is about being free of convictions, hopes, attachments, some mythical beliefs.”

There is another interesting point in the boy's diary – his friends. A well-known spin doctor Marat Guelman, who was noticed in Ukraine during the peak of the “orange revolution,” was listed among them. The young man wrote in his diary that as soon as he created the webpage on the free hosting of Yandex.ru, when the Kommersant newspaper (the paper belongs to Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky) informed about it and even presented several opposition-oriented opinions.

The subtle boy's archive page (the person refers to himself this way) is curious too. The most curious feature about it is that the Echo of Moscow radio station's label is seen at the bottom of the page, in the copyright section. One can imagine the boy listening to the radio all day long taping all programs, where spokespeople for so-called rightist forces participate.

Everything is clear with the “movement.” The webpage was created on January 13th. The Kommersant newspaper, Grani.ru website (controlled by Berezovsky), as well as Zaks.ru, Lenizdat.ru, Cross Media, Newsru.com (controlled by media tycoon Vladimir Gusinky) and Echo of Moscow radio (the station belongs to Gazprom) informed about it next day. These companies presented the event as the birth of the “Going Without Putin” movement. On January 15th, the above-mentioned publications reported about the Kremlin's implication in the matter. It was said that the Russian administration disabled the entire LiveJournal portal because of the boy's diary (the boy was portrayed as the movement's ideologist).

One should bear in mind the appearance of such a PR technique.

On the photo: The boy, who chairs the movement “Going Without Putin.”

Pyotr Yermilin