Violetta Orlova21:22, 02.03.23

The supervisory and punitive agency is compiling long lists of publications that are disloyal to the Putin regime, regardless of their size and popularity.

The editors of  KibOrg News , a project of journalists and IT professionals united to fight the aggressor in the information space, received at their disposal a database of more than 500 gigabytes of the repressive Putin agency Roskomnadzor.

By gaining access to the correspondence of employees of the punitive department that censors the media and the Internet, it became more clear how the Kremlin regime manipulated the Russian population in an attempt to justify the war unleashed against Ukraine. 

In addition to constant monitoring and adjustment of Russia’s information space to the needs of the current leadership, Roskomnadzor is constantly creating a dossier on opposition media, regardless of their size and popularity. When Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, it immediately implemented its own information policy, after which almost all opposition media were blocked in Crimea. The most popular publications such as the Center for Journalistic Investigations, Krym.Realii and the Crimean Tatar ATR were banned. The activities of the Center were marked as anti-Russian and anti-Crimean.

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An example of opposition media from two districts of Russia that are under monitoring (from the archive of Roskomnadzor documents)

In addition to propaganda in the temporarily occupied territories, Roskomnadzor did not forget about the war against dissent in Russia itself. Certificates were also drawn up for the Russian politician Alexei Navalny. Before his presidential campaign in 2018, it was a matter of life and death for the Kremlin to keep the opposition leader out of the elections, marginalize the politician’s electorate and cut off access to his resources. In the end, the “law enforcement” authorities of the Russian Federation nevertheless found a reason to block the blog, as well as block the website of “Smart Voting” – a tool for coordinated voting in any Russian elections for competitors of the ruling United Russia party. At first they tried to poison Navalny himself in 2020, and when that didn’t work, they put him in jail.

It is especially important, notes KibOrg News,  to pay attention to accusations of censorship by foreign social networks. Since the beginning of 2022, Facebook, and along with it Instagram, has been blocked on the territory of the Russian Federation “due to violations of human rights and freedoms.” Or rather, because of the blocking of Russian propaganda mouthpieces. The Meta company was recognized as an extremist organization in the Russian Federation, but the use of the WhatsApp messenger was not banned. 

Who carries out informational repressions in Crimea

The head of the Office of the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Communications in the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol is Dunaeva Victoria Vitalievna. If you pay attention to the leadership of the territorial body of “Roskomnadzor” of the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol in the telephone directory, you can see Krasheninnikov Petr Alekseevich as the deputy head. However, judging by the latest update of the “Reception of Citizens” page on the body’s website, he was replaced by Natalia Aleksandrovna Kuchina, who is also the head of the department for control and supervision of compliance with legislation in the field of personal data.

Among other persons belonging to the Directorate in the occupied peninsula is also Golubev Sergey Mikhailovich, he holds the position of specialist expert. His duties include, inter alia, conducting systematic observations of the media and monitoring “abuses of freedom of the media.” Only the wording about the abuse of freedom tells us about the essence of Roskomnadzor.

However, the other two positions of a leading specialist-expert and a specialist of the 2nd category remain empty. In the section of vacancies on the website of Roskomnadzor for August, 2022 there are two positions: the leading specialist expert of department of control and supervision in the field of communications and the leading specialist expert of department of control and supervision in the field of mass media.

There is also an order on a commission for filling vacant positions dated January 18, 2023. The composition, in addition to the chairman of the commission Dunaeva Victoria, includes:

• Frolov Dmitry Evgenievich – leading specialist-expert of the department of organizational, financial work and personnel, secretary of the commission;
• Bogdanevich Snezhana Gennadievna – head of the department for control and supervision in the field of communications;
• Nabokova Ksenia Andreevna – head of the department for control and supervision in the field of mass communications;
• Minina Elena Vladimirovna – head of the department of organizational, financial work and personnel.

Simchenko Natalya Aleksandrovna, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Head of the Department of Human Resources Management of the Institute of Economics and Management of the Crimean Federal University named after I.I. V. I. Vernadsky, as well as Candidate of Economic Sciences and Associate Professor of the Department of Personnel Management Anna Anatolyevna Yanovskaya.

Some of the documents have already been made publicly available and can be downloaded from the link .

Activities of Roskomnadzor after the start of the war

In February 2023, it became known that the repressive agency was creating a “bot farm” that would accurately mimic human actions. 

Attacks on freedom of speech and sources of media outside the control of the Putin regime continue everywhere. One example of such a war against freedom of the press was the blocking of the UNIAN website in Russia on February 28 last year – it was included in  the register of banned sites inaccessible for viewing from Russia.

Also, the UNIAN telegram channel was removed from the largest catalog of Telegram channels and chats TGStat, which contains more than a million channels and chats classified by countries, languages ​​and topics.

(C)UNIAN 2023