Traces of a powerful anti-Lithuanian network lead to special services in Russia and Belarus

DELFI conducted a study and found that there is a network, in fact: the whole farm, information portal trolls and popular experts in Russia with tens of thousands of followers on social media, websites that have been spreading propaganda, misinformation and information false information about Lithuania in a coordinated and active way for several years. , Latvia and Estonia. The study of an unprecedented operation on the influence of the opinion of the Russian-speaking population of the Baltic States leads to Belarus and Russia.

Conspiracy theories, fake news, attempts to rewrite history, propaganda of the achievements of Vladimir Putin, disinformation (the texts of such content are published not only on websites registered in Russia) inforuss.info, smiruss.ru, lentaruss.ru, bestnevvs.info, nevsvstime.com, info-health.info, but also, as it turned out, many popular unified accounts on social networks.

1) Websites inforuss.info, smiruss.ru, lentaruss.ru, bestnevvs.info, nevsvstime.com, info-health.info:

2) Four websites (excluding info-health.info and nevvstime.com) links the same profiles on social media sites:

Email address on Jakov Kedmi’s Facebook account: [email protected]

The same email address appears on Yevgeny Satanovsky’s account.

Jakov Kedmi – Israeli state figure, diplomat, 1992-1999 headed the Nativ service, which transported Jews to Israel by organizing special operations. As a political scientist, Mr. Kedmi regularly participates in Russian television and radio programs, especially in the Russian television presenter Vladimir Solovyov’s program, which is broadcast on “Rossija” television, and his position is clearly anti-Western.

3) The material of the portals smiruss.ru, lentaruss.ru, inforuss.info, bestnevvs.info is distributed by at least three other accounts and a group on Facebook – share the publications of the portals on behalf of J. Kedmi.

Portals lentaruss.ru, inforuss.info is smiruss.ru Articles are actively published by another J. Kedmi account on Twitter (31,600 – followers):

Jakov Kedmi’s most likely personal Facebook account was also found. Articles of smiruss.ru, lentaruss.ru, inforuss.info, bestnevvs.info It is not like this.

4) The publications are also distributed on the unofficial accounts of other well-known Russian political scientists and experts. The greatest activity on social media is shown by the account of Yevgeny Satanovsky (one of the most famous political and economic experts in Israel, as well as in other Middle Eastern countries, founder, president, doctor of economics, professor at the Middle East Institute) .

There is another profile of Yevgeny Satanovsky on Instagram. He hasn’t shown any activity since 2018, but J. Satanovsky’s Twitter account (16,400 followers) is actively shared. lentaruss.ru, inforuss.info is smiruss.ru publications.

The official representative of communication with the administration of this account on Twitter is the portal inforuss.info:

Lentaruss.ru, inforuss.info is smiruss.ru The material is published by:

5) All Facebook accounts are linked by the fact that they are managed from Belarus, although most of the portals are registered in the name of Maria Šipkova, a citizen of the Russian Federation. M. Šipkova’s contact phone number begins with the code +7 (Russian code), so the phone number is in Russian.

Russian Internet Service Providers reg.ru (domain registration company REG.RU), inforuss.info, bestnevvs.info, nevvstime.com and info-health.info (registration address info-health.info – Lenino St. 15, Moscow, registered in the name of M. Šipkova. Portals smiruss.ru, lentaruss.ru to register on behalf of an individual who wishes to remain anonymous. Smiruss.ru, lentaruss.ru, inforuss.info, bestnevvs.info uses the same template for publishing information on its portals.

Inspection reveals another actor, Mikhail Husakou, who is the domain administrator responsible for its maintenance. The contact address of M. Husakou is the same as that of M. Šipkova: Brest, Leningrad str. 37, Ms Husakou uses the same telephone number and email address as Ms Shipkova.

6) Address Leningrado Street. 37 In Brest (data from Yandex.ru), Belarus is like a shopping center, with 30-40 organizations and companies registered in the building. The director of one of them is Mikhail Husakou or Mikhail Gusakov.

7) A search with the Google search engine returns the following results:

With the help of Yandex search engines, the existence of M. Gusakov and the existence of his accounts on Facebook and VKontakte are confirmed.

In his biography, M. Gusakov claims to be a private businessman. It is worth mentioning that in 2018. at the end of Gusakov he shared posts from inforuss.info on his Facebook and VKontakte accounts. We remind you that inforuss.info was registered in 2018. in September.

8) The company ABOGADO, whose director is M. Gusakovas, was registered in 2014. August 1 In Belarus. According to Google search data, ACHTOR is registered at a different address in Brest than ATCHTOR, whose address is Leningrad str. 37, and the website address is atxtop.by (atchtor).

LAWYER, whose registered address is Leningrad str. 37, Brest, website address in the Yandex system – atxtop.ru. After verifying the company with this web address, publicly available sources indicate that it was registered in 2017. June on the territory of the Russian Federation, Smolensk, on Vorobjovo str. 11/9, 5 blocks, 4 cabinets.

Statistical codes indicate that the company is owned by foreign citizens and stateless. The director of the company LAWYER registered in Smolensk is Mikhail Andrejevich Gusakov. The Belarusian phone number listed on the company’s Russian website among the contact phone numbers matches the phone number of the LAWYER in Belarus.

(9) It should be noted that Brest is the Consulate General of the Russian Federation.

10) ATCHTOR-Russia actively shared links to inforuss.info on its Facebook account (which has 18,000 followers).

11) While the portals inforuss.info, smiruss.ru, lentaruss.ru, bestnevvs.info, nevsvstime.com, info-health.info They are practically clones of each other, the analysis carried out by DELFI shows that the owners of the portals aim to cover the widest possible segment of users.

DELFI research results:

• The network of portals in social networks spreads propaganda posts, disinformation, conspiracy theories published on websites registered on the territory of the Russian Federation.

• The vast majority of publications distort the facts or do not present them at all. Analysis of the content of articles published on Internet portals and subsequently distributed on social networks shows that the main objective is to influence and form the opinion of the Russian-speaking population of the Baltic States in favor of the Russian Federation.

• According to Facebook data, all accounts are managed by a group of strangers from Belarus. We do not rule out the possibility that unknown persons involved in this operation are in the territory of another state.

• The frequency of publication of information on portals and social networks, even in an automated process, suggests that a group of five to ten people involved, two or three of whom monitor social networks and distribute publications, write at least two or three articles and one or two are responsible for cyber security.

• The portals are registered on the territory of the Russian Federation, but do not have a media registration number (which, according to RF law, must be indicated by the media on their Internet portals), that is, they are not media Communication.

• It was established that some of the domain names attached to the portals were registered in the name of Maria Šipkova, a citizen of the Russian Federation.

• The administrator of the inforuss.info portal is a Belarusian citizen living in Brest: Mikhail Husakou or Mikhail Gusakov. M. Gusakov is also a private businessman, director of the company LAWYER (Russian: ATXTOP) registered in Russia, one of the activities of this company is the sale of agricultural machinery. The two companies have separate websites, and the account of the Russian company ATCHTOR distributed disinformation-like content on Facebook.