Inside Cyber Warfare - Jeffrey Carr [123]
Net wars have always been an internal peculiarity of the Internet—and were of no interest to anyone in real life. The five-day war showed that the Net is a front just like the traditional media, and a front that is much faster to respond and much larger in scale. August 2008 was the starting point of the virtual reality of conflicts and the moment of recognition of the need to wage war in the information field too.
As of April 27, 2011, Pavlovsky and the Foundation for Effective Politics have fallen out of favor with the Kremlin for political reasons having to do with the upcoming 2012 presidential election. According to RIA Novasti, Vladislav Surkov personally terminated EPF’s contract.[54]
Vladislav Surkov
Vladislav Surkov, known as the “Grey Cardinal” and the “Dark Prince of the Kremlin,” worked for Mikhail Khodorkovsky at Bank Menatep (1991–1996).[55] Surkov became Deputy Chief of Staff of the President of the Russian Federation in 1999—the same year that Boris Yeltsin resigned and Vladimir Putin became acting President (until the 2000 elections made it official). Surkov is considered the Chief Ideologue of the Kremlin and is an ardent proponent of online activism in support of the interests of the Russian Federation and the United Russia party. After Kyrgyzstan’s Tulip Revolution (2005), Surkov founded a youth organization called Nashi (“Us”) whose purpose was to support then-President Putin and the United Russia party against counteropposition groups both physically and in cyberspace. Nashi is funded in part by the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs, which is headed by cofounder Vasily Yakemenko.[56]
On May 21, 2009, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed an edict creating a presidential commission for the modernization and technological development of the Russian economy. Medvedev is chairman, and Vladislav Surkov is one of two deputy chairmen (Sergey Sobyanin, Chief of Government Staff and Deputy Prime Minister is the other). Yuri Milner is the only nongovernmental employee who serves on this commission, which makes his inclusion highly significant.
Yuri Milner
After graduating from the Wharton School of Business, Yuri Milner worked in Washington, DC for the World Bank until spring 1995 when he was recruited by Mikhail Khodorkovsky to run his investment brokerage company, Alliance-Menatep.[57] In February 1997 Milner became Deputy Chairman and Head of Investment Management for Bank Menatep.[58] During the next two years Milner was involved in evaluating investment opportunities for the bank—particularly, Internet properties. While at Menatep, he formed New Trinity Investments. When the bank lost its license in 1999 for financial misconduct (Khodorkovsky is currently serving time in a Russian prison), Milner branched out on his own and in 2000 launched an Internet services company called NetBridge, most likely funded through New Trinity.[59] In February 2001 NetBridge merged with another Internet company (Port.ru) and became Mail.ru, which—10 years later under Milner’s leadership—earned almost US$1 billion in its IPO on the London Stock Exchange.
Mail.ru was originally the press service for a large Russian conglomerate called Neftyanoi Concern, which is a major holding company with investments in the financial (Neftyanoi Bank), energy, real estate, food, and Internet sectors. In 2003 Milner went from CEO/Chairman of Mail.ru to Director General and Chairman of the Board for Neftyanoi Concern. In 2005 Neftyanoi Bank was charged with money laundering, and its CEO, Igor Linshits, eventually fled the country. Milner wasn’t charged with any wrongdoing, but this period of his life was not disclosed in the Goldman Sachs prospectus for the Mail.ru Group IPO, nor was it mentioned on his bio at the former Digital Sky Technologies website.
2005: A Turning Point
The year