Читаем Putin's Wars полностью

The attacks were distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in which hundreds of thousands of “zombie” computers overwhelm the target network. According to an Estonian spokesperson the attack on Estonia originated in 178 countries. The Kremlin denied being implicated in the cyber attacks. Afterward, however, direct Russian implication was conceded through two incidents. The first involved Duma deputy and Kremlin pundit Sergei Markov, who, on March 3, 2009, in a panel discussion with American experts on information warfare, said: “About the cyber-attacks on Estonia . . . don’t worry, that attack was carried out by my assistant. I won’t tell you his name, because then he might not be able to get visas.” The assistant was thought to have been in “one of the unrecognized republics.” Later it was stated that he was in the Moldovan breakaway province of Transnistria—outside the territory of Russia. (Cf. “Sergei Markov Says He Knows Who Started the Estonia Cyber War,” Intelfusion (March 6, 2009).) http://www.intelfusion.net/wordpress/?p=544.

The name of this assistant was revealed later. It would have been Konstantin Goloskokov, a Nashi commissar. He told the Financial Times “that he and some associates had launched the attack.” (Charles Clover, “Kremlin-backed Group Behind Estonia Cyber Blitz,” The Financial Times (March 11, 2009).) Markov wanted to present the unprecedented massive cyber attacks on the government of a NATO member state as a kind of innocent “naughty boys” prank that, apparently, was organized from outside Russia. One might confidently assume, however, that this was an attempt at active disinformation aimed at hiding the likely real instigators of the attack: the Russian secret services FSB, GRU, and/or the Russian army.

26.

Cf. Evgeny Morozov, “What Do They Teach at the ‘Kremlin’s School of Bloggers’?” Foreign Policy (May 26, 2009).

27.

In 2005 the movement distributed a brochure titled “Program for Combating Fascism” in secondary schools and universities. The “fascists” named in the brochure included Ilya Yashin, the leader of the liberal Yabloko youth organization; Yukos shareholder Leonid Nevzlin; and the democratic opposition leaders Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Ryzhkov. It is telling that Dmitry Rogozin, who at that time was chairman of the nationalist Rodina party and, maybe, the only representative of the extreme right on this list, was later appointed ambassador to NATO by Putin. (Cf. Oleg Kashin and Yuliya Taratuta, “Obyknovennyy antifashizm,” Kommersant (May 12, 2005).)

28.

Shaun Walker, “Pro-Kremlin Youth Group Blamed for Attacking Paper,” The Independent (March 6, 2008). http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/prokremlin-youth-group-blamed-for-attacking-paper-792074.html.

29.

Dmitry Sidorov, “A Mafia-Style Message on Russian Free Speech,” Forbes (April 7, 2009). http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/07/donkey-ears-press-freedom-opinions-contributors-nashi-medvedev.html.

30.

In his article Podrabinek attacked Soviet veterans. “Your fatherland,” he wrote, “is not Russia. Your fatherland is the Soviet Union. You are Soviet veterans, and your country, thank god, has not existed for eighteen years. The Soviet Union is not at all the country that you described in the school books and your liar press. The Soviet Union—it is not only political leaders, Stakhanov workers, communist superproductive workers, and cosmonauts. The Soviet Union—it is also peasant rebellions, victims of the collectivization and the Holodomor, hundreds of thousands of innocent people who are shot in the basements of the Cheka and millions who are tortured to death in the Gulag . . . . The Soviet Union—it is permanent confinement in psychiatric hospitals for dissidents, treacherous murders, and in countless Gulag cemeteries the anonymous graves of my friends, the political prisoners who did not live to see our freedom.” (Alexander Podrabinek, “Kak antisovetchik antisovetchikam ,” Ezhednevnyy Zhurnal (September 21, 2009).)

31.

Cf. Follett, “Russia’s Past Mobilized to Shape the Present.”

32.