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Elf Farm
Elf Farm (also Legion of Elves or "Elven Factory") is a project created by the Strategic Communications Center of the Free Russia Foundation under the leadership of Egor Kuroptev and Anton Mikhalchuk, named by analogy with Yevgeny Prigozhin's pro-Kremlin "Troll Factory". As part of the project, a network of hired commentators, for a fee, spread "anti-Kremlin propaganda" from fake accounts on social networks, the main platform used was the social network VKontakte. The "productivity" of the factory was 160 thousand comments per month. History In October 2022, the publications "Вот Так" (Sota Vision) and "Fontanka.ru" wrote about the "Elven Factory". "Fontanka.ru" reported on the launch in Tbilisi of a "reverse troll factory", where opposition journalists and activists who were forced to leave Russia worked. The existence of the "Elf Bot Farm" received wide publicity after the publication on Mikhail Svetov's channel "SVTV" on November 15, 2023, based on data from one of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL operates 21 local bureaus with over 500 core staff, 1,300 freelancers, and 680 employees. Nicola Careem serves as the editor-in-chief. Founded during the Cold War, RFE began in 1949 targeting Soviet empire, Soviet satellite states, while RL, established in 1951, focused on the Soviet Union. Initially funded covertly by the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA until 1972, the two merged in 1976. RFE/RL was headquartered in Munich from 1949 to 1995, with additional broadcasts from Portugal's Glória do Ribatejo until 1996. Soviet authorities jammed their signals, and Second World, communist regimes often infiltrated their operations. Today, RFE/RL is a private 501(c)(3) corporation supervised by the United States Agency for Global Media, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexey Venediktov
Alexei Alexeyevich Venediktov (; born 18 December 1955) is a Russian journalist, former editor-in-chief, host and co-ownerAlexey Venediktov' at ''Echo of Moscow'', January 1, 2016 (in Russian) of the Echo of Moscow radio station, as well as publisher of ''Diletant'' history magazine. Biography Family and education Alexei Venediktov was born in Moscow, USSR on 18 December 1955. His paternal grandfather Nikolai Andrianovich Venediktov served in NKVD and was awarded an Order of the Red Star for taking part in courts-martial and creating barrier troops during the Great Patriotic War. His father, Alexei Nikolaevich Venediktov, was a navy submarine officer killed in a storm shortly before Alexei's birth. Venediktov's mother, Eleonora Abramovna Dykhovichnaya, was a doctor of Jewish origin; she came from a generation of prominent engineers. In 1983 she along with Alexei's sister emigrated to the United States. One of her cousins was a film director Ivan Dykhovichny. A popular musician A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Information Operations And Warfare
Information is an abstract concept that refers to something which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level, it pertains to the interpretation (perhaps formally) of that which may be sensed, or their abstractions. Any natural process that is not completely random and any observable pattern in any medium can be said to convey some amount of information. Whereas digital signals and other data use discrete signs to convey information, other phenomena and artifacts such as analogue signals, poems, pictures, music or other sounds, and currents convey information in a more continuous form. Information is not knowledge itself, but the meaning that may be derived from a representation through interpretation. The concept of ''information'' is relevant or connected to various concepts, including constraint, communication, control, data, form, education, knowledge, meaning, understanding, mental stimuli, pattern, perception, proposition, representation, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psychological Warfare
Psychological warfare (PSYWAR), or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations (PsyOp), has been known by many other names or terms, including Military Information Support Operations ( MISO), Psy Ops, political warfare, "Hearts and Minds", and propaganda. The term is used "to denote any action which is practiced mainly by psychological methods with the aim of evoking a planned psychological reaction in other people". Various techniques are used, and are aimed at influencing a target audience's value system, belief system, emotions, motives, reasoning, or behavior. It is used to induce confessions or reinforce attitudes and behaviors favorable to the originator's objectives, and are sometimes combined with black operations or false flag tactics. It is also used to destroy the morale of enemies through tactics that aim to depress troops' psychological states. Target audiences can be governments, organizations, groups, and individuals, and is not just limited to s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TV Rain
TV Rain ( rus, Дождь, Dozhd, p=ˈdoʂtʲ, a=Ru-дождь (doʂtʲ).ogg; stylized as ДО///ДЬ) is an independent Russian-language television channel. Launched in Russia in 2010, it has been based in the Netherlands since 2022. It focuses on news, discussions, culture, politics, business reports, and documentaries. TV Rain is owned by journalist Natalya Sindeyeva. Its slogan is "Optimistic Channel." In March 2022, Russian authorities blocked access to TV Rain in response to its coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The channel relaunched from studios in Latvia in July, but after multiple alleged violations had its license cancelled in December. TV Rain continued to broadcast via YouTube and received a Dutch broadcast license in December 2022. History Early years TV Rain was founded in 2010 by Natalya Sindeyeva, media entrepreneur and owner, and Vera Krichevskaya, a TV and documentary film director. It has focused on news, discussions, culture, politics, bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vladimir Milov
Vladimir Stanislavovich Milov (, born 18 June 1972) is a Russian politician, economist and the former chairman of the Russian political party Democratic Choice from May 2012 to December 2015. He served as Deputy Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation from May to October 2002. He was a member of the Federal Political Council of the democratic movement Solidarnost (2008–2010) and one of the founders of the coalition "For Russia without Lawlessness and Corruption". He was also the president of the Institute for Energy Policy, a Moscow-based independent think tank until 2013. Early life and education Vladimir Milov graduated from Moscow State Mining University in 1994. In 1997–2001, he worked for the natural monopoly regulator of Russia, the Federal Energy Commission of Russia, serving in 1999–2001 as the head of its economic analysis department. In 2001 he headed an expert team within the Center for Strategic Research, a government-linked think tank. Career Civil s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ivan Zhdanov
Ivan Yurievich Zhdanov (; born 17 August 1988) is a Russian politician and lawyer. He was the director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) and is a member of the Central Council of the Russia of the Future political party. Biography Ivan Zhdanov was born on 17 August 1988 in Moscow into a military family. In 2005, he entered the Kutafin Moscow State Law University, Moscow State Law University, from which he graduated in 2010, and was also a graduate student there until 2013. After practicing in the Federal Antimonopoly Service and the State Duma apparatus in 2011—2013, he was engaged in his own legal practice, headed the regional branch of the Russia of the Future, People's Alliance political party in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Nenets Autonomous District. In 2014, he began working at the Anti-Corruption Foundation as a lawyer, and later was appointed head of the legal department of FBK. He worked in Rostov-on-Don. During the election campaign in Novosibirsk in 2015, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrei Zakharov
Andrey Vyacheslavovich Zakharov (; born in Saint Petersburg) is a Russian investigative journalist, special correspondent of BBC News Russian, and four-time winner of the Redkollegia journalism award. Biography Zakharov graduated from the Saint Petersburg State University in 2005 with a degree in history of arts. In 2010–2016 he worked as a correspondent at the . While working at Fontanka, Zakharov published an investigation into Yevgeny Prigozhin's troll factory. In 2016, Zakharov moved to Moscow. In 2016–2018, he worked as a special correspondent for the RBK magazine, where he published an investigation on the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. In 2018–2022, Zakharov was a special correspondent for BBC News Russian. While working at Proekt in 2020–2021, Zakharov authored an article revealing Vladimir Putin's alleged affair with Svetlana Krivonogikh. In October 2021, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation included Zakharov into t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novaya Gazeta Europe
''Novaya Gazeta'' (, ) is an independent Russian newspaper. It is known for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs, the Chechen wars, corruption among the ruling elite, and increasing authoritarianism in Russia. It was formerly published in Moscow until shortly after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine began, in regions within Russia, and in some foreign countries. The print edition is published on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; English-language articles on the website are published on a weekly basis in the form of the ''Russia, Explained'' newsletter. As of 2023, the newspaper had a daily print circulation of 108,000, and online visits of 613,000. Seven journalists, including Yuri Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, and Anastasia Baburova, have been murdered since 2000, in connection with their investigations. In October 2021, editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, alongside Maria Ressa, for their safeg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in San Bruno, California, it is the second-most-visited website in the world, after Google Search. In January 2024, YouTube had more than 2.7billion monthly active users, who collectively watched more than one billion hours of videos every day. , videos were being uploaded to the platform at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute, and , there were approximately 14.8billion videos in total. On November 13, 2006, YouTube was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion (equivalent to $ billion in ). Google expanded YouTube's business model of generating revenue from advertisements alone, to offering paid content such as movies and exclusive content produced by and for YouTube. It also offers YouTube Premium, a paid subs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Insider (website)
''The Insider'' is an online publication specializing in investigative journalism, fact-checking, and exposing fake news. It was founded by independent Russian journalist Roman Dobrokhotov. The publication operates websites in both Russian and English, along with a Telegram channel, an Instagram account, two TikTok accounts, and two YouTube channels: one for on-air programs and another for edited video content. ''The Insider'' is published in both Russian and English. Roman Dobrokhotov, Christo Grozev, Sergei Kanev, Sergei Ezhov, Andrey Zayakin, and Dada Lyndell worked for The Insider. History Founded in November 2013 by Roman Dobrokhotov, a member of the Solidarnost movement and a liberal-democratic journalist and political activist, ''The Insider’s'' editorial office is based in Riga, Latvia. Among its most notable successes, ''The Insider'' identified the FSB officers responsible for poisoning Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Kara-Murza, writer D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mikhail Fridman
Mikhail Maratovich Fridman (also transliterated Mikhail Friedman; ; ; born 21 April 1964) is a Ukrainian-born, Russian–Israeli tycoon and Russian oligarchs, oligarch. He is one of the co-founders of Alfa Group, Alfa-Group, a multinational Russian conglomerate. According to ''Forbes'', he was the second-richest Russian as of 2013 ($16.5 billion), moving down to ninth-richest Russian in 2023 ($12.6 billion). In May 2017, he was also ranked as Russia's most important businessman by ''bne IntelliNews''. In February 2024, Fridman had a net worth of $13.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. As per Forbes list of The Richest People In The World, dated 6 February 2025 Mikhail Fridman ranked #150 with a net worth of $13.3 Billion. In 1991, he co-founded Alfa-Bank, one of the largest private banks in Russia. After being CEO of TNK-BP, the 50/50 TNK-BP joint venture, for nine years, in 2013 he sold his stake in the company and co-founded the international investment ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
