Opposition Newspapers Hacked by Enhanced Russian Repression Tactics as Protest Movement Continues

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Russian daily accuses Putin group of cyber attack

Writer: AFP – Russia’s Kommersant business daily said Friday it had asked the police to probe a Kremlin youth group for alleged involvement in repeated hack attacks on its website. Pro-Kremlin youth groups rally in Moscow’s Manezhnaya Square in December. Russia’s Kommersant business daily has asked police to probe a Kremlin youth group for alleged involvement in repeated hack attacks on its website.

The popular broadsheet vanished from the Internet for several days in 2008 after publishing an unflattering article about a group of young supporters that formed around Vladimir Putin shortly after he became president in 2000. The Kremlin has used the Nashi (Ours) movement to stage flashy campaigns in support of causes promoted by Putin — now prime minister but who hopes to regain his old job in March polls — and to attack some of his political foes.

But Kommersant said at the time that the movement was losing the Kremlin’s favour and was about to lose its funding — a claim that was later denied. The paper said in its Friday issue that it had obtain a copy of letters written by a Nashi press secretary in 2008 in which she discussed staging a “psychological and physical” attack on Kommersant.