Protecting the "satellite". Roskomnadzor agrees to block foreign sites with AP, fearing the response of the Russian Russia Today

Roskomnadzor blocks foreign sites only in agreement with the presidential administration. The content of the resource does not matter: without the approval of the Kremlin, the department cannot limit access to either the news of the Turkish State Agency "Anadolu", or to the series "Real Boys" on a torrent tracker. Judging by the official correspondence of the censors, which was transmitted by the Hackers from the Belarusian group of Cyber ​​Partizana, such caution is explained simply: the authorities are afraid of the response of their own propaganda resources.

In mid -May 2022, a letter from the head of Roskomnadzor Andrei Lipov came to the post of employee of the Presidential Administration, Alexander Smirnov. The head of the RKN asked Smirnov to coordinate the blocking of several foreign sites on which the Prosecutor General’s Office discovered “inaccurate socially significant information about the special military operation conducted by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation”.

The letter was about media registered in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey. According to Lipov, some of their publications Russian courts banned the distribution in the Russian Federation - they spoke about attacks on civil infrastructure facilities in Ukraine and numerous victims among civilians. The Chef RKN wrote that his department demanded to remove publications, but foreign sites did not fulfill this requirement. Therefore, the official suggested blocking them “entirely”, but with a strange reservation - “given the fact that [that] in the state of Israel, in the republics of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Belarus, as well as Sputnik (MIA“ Russia today ”) spreads in the Kyrgyz and Turkish republics”.

In the presidential administration, 50-year-old Alexander Smirnov holds the position of head of the Department of Public Relations and Communications. Judging by the references to the Kremlin’s website, Smirnov’s duties, in particular, include communication with the Russians from the regions who have been enrolled in the president to complain about the unemployed water supply or broken roads . Smirnov, on the other hand, monitors the execution of instructions that give governors following the results of such meetings.

The department headed by Smirnov submits to the first deputy head of the presidential administration Alexei Gromov, who is considered the main censor and propagandist of the Kremlin.

There are no direct indications that the agency coordinates the blocking of Russian sites with the AP in the mediazone ”letters and documents of the RKN. However, the approval of the administration is required when foreign resources are included in the list for locking. This additional filter, apparently, is needed so as not to provoke a possible response of the International Competitry International newsletter and the radio of the same name, which broadcast on dozens of countries.

This is evidenced by automatically generated errors in the registers of sites to be blocked, which come to the mail to the RKN employees. In dozens of such reports, the Mediazona found a repeating paragraph: “If there will be the representatives of these countries for our blocking, report before the blocking for reference. It will be necessary to coordinate with the AP lock. So that they do not take a response to blocking the satellite there. ” Such warnings, as Mediazona noted, appear when resources from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Israel, India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyz, Serbia, Turkey or Uzbekistan include resources for blocking.

In addition, from the correspondence between the employees of the subordinate RKN of the main radio frequency center (GRCHC) it follows that they are guided by a certain “list of countries to coordinate access restrictions (by decision of AP)”. The list of documents in the array of documents, which was received by Cyber ​​Partizans, “Mediazone” could not be found, but officials regularly refer to it.

In the official correspondence of October 19, 2022, the entitled “Letter in AP in the prescribed form”, with fat font and emphasizing the reminder: “All news resources from the list of countries are required to be coordinated by letters to the AP, regardless of significance”.

In a corporate chat entitled “Chat of the EAIS” Chat on October 24 of the same year, Maxim Milanov from the GRCHC writes that the censors should take into account the “risks of public resonance in case of access to foreign sites.

This is probably why the correspondence of the RKN with AP often mentions torrent trackers and pirate online cinemas. For example, in October 2022, after the claims of copyright holders, Andrei Lipov clarified by Alexander Smirnov whether it was possible to block the Armenian torrent tracker Torrentut.Do.am , where the series “Real Boys” was posted.

Another site, the restriction of access to which RKN had to be coordinated with the AP - electronic library Knigomir.Do.am . The head of Roskomnadzor asked Smirnov’s approval to block the page with the novel by writer Vadim Panov “All shades of black” by decision of the Moscow City Court. The case concerned copyright, the fiction writer himself turned to the court, the page with the book was eventually deleted.

But nevertheless, the main topic of letters and certificates that the head of the RKN sends to the presidential administration remains a war in Ukraine - more precisely, the publication of foreign media about the situation at the front, which diverge from the official data of the Ministry of Defense.

For example, Lipov asked Smirnov with permission to block the news of the Azerbaijani portal Moderator.az entitled "Losses of the invaders in Ukraine almost 18,000 people, the General Staff." In another letter, Roskomnadzor asked to approve the blocking of the article by the English Daily Mail , which mentioned instructions for the manufacture of Molotov cocktail. The reasons for the correspondence between the RKN and AP were the petition of Lev Ponomarev “Stop the War in Ukraine” at Change.org , which has collected almost 1.3 million signatures today, and a message on the official website of the German diplomatic representation in Russia.

At the same time, the procedure for bureaucratic coordination is often more important for Roskomnadzor than the decisions of Russian courts, follows from correspondence. For example, the RKN has not blocked the site of the Turkish state news agency Anadola, although its texts regularly fall into the register of prohibited information.

So, in the correspondence of April 18, the censors discussed the decision of the Frunze District Court of Vladivostok, who recognized the forbidden information from the Anadola's article on the losses of Russian troops in Ukraine.

“We fix, do not block, coordinate the lock. Confused. What can I do with him in the end?) ” - Valentin Degtev, an employee of the GRCHC, asks his colleagues. "Block Turkish resources only by agreement, pay special attention to them!" - Rustem Hamzin from RKN answers him.

On July 18, Maxim Milanov mentions “Anadol” among the sites in respect of which “work is underway to remove prohibited information”. The official writes that "previously specific links in relation to the resource were entered 13 times to the register, the forbidden information on them has not been deleted", and adds that the site "entered into a stop list"-"AAG 04/13/2022 is not consistent with its blocking."

Editor: Dmitry Tkachev