Hacked emails allege Russian youth group Nashi paying bloggers

Pro-Kremlin organisation reportedly pays hundreds of thousands of pounds to network of internet users to help political cause

 

 

Nashi members attend a rally in Moscow. The group allegedly pays bloggers to further their political cause.

 

The Russian youth group Nashi has paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to a vast network of bloggers, journalists and internet trolls to create flattering coverage of Vladimir Putin and discredit his political rivals, according to a haul of thousands of emails allegedly sent to and from the group that have been released by Russian hackers.

The mass of data appears to show evidence of the sinister tactics used by Nashi, and includes:

• Price lists for pro-Putin bloggers and commenters which indicate that some are paid as much as 600,000 roubles (£12,694) for leaving hundreds of comments on negative stories about Putin.

• Plans to pay more than 10m roubles (£211,557) to buy a series of articles about Nashi's annual Seliger summer camp in two popular Russian tabloids.

• Calls for paid Nashi activists to "dislike" anti-regime videos posted on YouTube.

• Ideas for smear campaigns against what one activist calls the "fascist" Russian opposition leader, Alexey Navalny, such as a cartoon video likening him to Hitler and a suggestion someone dress up like the blogger to beg for alms in front of the US embassy.

The group of Anonymous hackers told online news portal Gazeta.ru in an interview that they carried out the hack, planned since spring of last year, "as a sign of protest against the government's actions in the public internet sphere".

Opposition leaders have accused Nashi of being behind a series of attacks, including repeated scuffles with the liberal youth leader Ilya Yashin and an incident in which ammonia-laced cola was thrown in the face of the former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov. Nashi denied being involved in the latter.

Navalny told the Guardian: "These strategies, what they do on the internet and how they gather protests, are very similar. [Nashi's] main problem is that they don't have real people who are ready to say something in support of them. They don't have one person who supports them for free. So they pay."

The current leader of Nashi, Nikita Borovikov, said: "For several years, I've got used to the fact that our email is periodically hacked. When I heard the rumours that it had been hacked, I wasn't shocked, and have paid no attention to this problem. I'm a law abiding person, and have nothing to fear of hiding, so I pay no attention."