Friends from Washington DC! We have some interesting information for you and for everyone else. It seems that the Russian government is investing more money into information warfare on American soil than one might think. In a previous post, we presented evidence that a widely-advertised exhibition, titled Material Evidence: Syria, Ukraine, Whos next? is registered under a member of the Russian Parliament, ballerina Svetlana Zaharova, and that otherwise its sources of financing are dubious. on.fb.me/1wWDwiE This time, we found that Putin might not simply be trying to misguide the American public with questionabe Journalistic Truth at an exhibition, but with an entire private, nonprofit research institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is a think tank that focuses on Russian-American foreign policy and politics on post-Soviet space. According to their website, globalinterests.org, they value [their] political and economic independence, and do not accept any direct or indirect U.S. or foreign government funding. Other than this restriction, their website says nothing about their sources of funding. However, a couple of weeks ago, a Russian Internet group, who call themselves Anonymous International or Shaltay-Boltay* (translation: Humpty-Dumpty), have leaked the email correspondence of Arkady Dvorkovich, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia (Boltays post in Russian: bit.ly/1rwXG3v). Among the letters was a plaintive request for money from an email address nzlobin@something (Boltay did not disclose the domain name). A quick search for nzlobin@gmail returns the website registration information for globalinterest (wa-com/globalinterests.org), and indeed, the president of the think tank is Nikolai Zlobin. On Zlobins Twitter, one can find a friendly photo of himself hugging Dvorkovich (bit.ly/10lVOPw). Dvorkovich posted the photo, commenting with Kolya in Washington :) and Zlobin retweeted it, adding strangely sober**. So there is your evidence of at least _indirect_ sponsorship or patronage from the Russian government. So much for political and economic independence. And of course, it doesnt help that they are apparently sponsored by Lukoil, Russias second-largest oil company. While officially Lukoil is not government-owned, the companys owner Vagit Alekperov consults with Putin regularly (onforb.es/1fzOoId) (and needless to say, he is former deputy minister of the Oil and Gas Industry of the USSR). Please share this information and always beware of Putins propaganda. Honest activism can defeat dirty money, even if its the money of the most influential criminals in the World. *Boltay is a group of hackers infamous for numerous leaks of personal information from Russian government officials (here is a review of their activity in English: bit.ly/1lMb6Qq). Their website and Twitter account are now blocked in Russia (bit.ly/1pFko37). In the leak referenced above, only a handful of emails were published, and the rest of Dvorkovichs email correspondence is to be sold to the highest bidder. Special thanks to a post by Moscow-based The Trus (thetrus/archive/2014/9/29/boltai), who first noticed the email from Zlobin to Dvorkovich. **Kolya is a diminuitive-affectionate version of Nikolai in Russian.
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 02:40:28 +0000
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